thank u, bex

8 days 4 hours and 14 minutes.

That’s how long TJ Kippen has been avoiding everyone he knows.

That’s a lie.

It’s been 17 minutes.

But it feels like a hell of a lot longer.

 There’s got to be a better way to quantify the amount of time that’s passed since TJ left reality and entered his own personal circle of hell.

46 missed called from Buffy Driscoll.

That’s certainly a better unit of measure.

 And, through all of that, he’s been sitting in the boy’s locker room, trying to stop himself from sobbing hysterically, and trying not to be seen.

 “Hi, TJ? You in here?” A boy’s voice reverberates in the empty locker room. It’s an unfamiliar voice. He’s heard it before, he knows, but he can’t place it to a face. Not that it matters, because it only takes a second before a brunette with a pair of soft green eyes finds him where he crouches in the corner of the tiled floor: Jonah Beck.

“Uh, Buffy asked me to come in here and check on you. She wanted to make sure you were OK after, um… what happened.”

Fuck. Everyone knows by now, don’t they? After spending all this time trying to hide it, his entire life can com crashing down with one stupid sentence.

He hasn’t said a word to Jonah. He can’t say much of anything through his ugly, hiccupping, sobbing. His face long gone red and ruddy, and his hands soaked slick from trying to dry his face,

Jonah Beck has never been good at hiding his emotions: he’s very uncomfortable, and it shows. Bright green eyes search the room desperately for a sign of what he should say or do, before he chooses to crouch down beside the sandy-haired boy and lay a hesitant hand on his shoulder.

“Hey TJ? I’m, uh, not sure what to say in situations like this. But, I’m here if you want to talk.”

TJ tried his best to scoff at the words, but with a sob still stuck in his throat, it came out warbly at best.

“What am I supposed to say?”

Jonah’s nervous gaze softened slightly. And a small smile found its way to his lips.

“Trust me TJ, I know how it feels to think your world is ending suddenly. It’s dizzying… like you’re losing control of your own body. You were there when it happened to me, remember?”

Their eyes meet for the first time during this conversation, and even through tears TJ can see the sincerity pouring out of the boy in front of him.

“It’s OK if you don’t have anything to say right now… or at all, really.” Jonah paused for a second, trying to gather his thoughts, searching his memory for something helpful. A bright smile spread across his face when he mentally found what he was looking for.

“Maybe we can just focus on breathing?”

--

TJ let the boy guide him through some simple breathing exercises. In. Hold. Out. And, he felt his mind clear ever so slightly as his frantic crying settled down.

In.

Whatever you said, you’ve already said. You can’t take it back. This is your life now.

Hold.

All you can do is move forward.

Out.

At least you aren’t totally alone. Jonah’s here. And, Buffy sent him to look for you. She hates you and she still cared enough to make sure you were OK.

In. Hold. Out.

Maybe you will be OK.

--

 They walked in silence down the hallway, TJ finally coaxed out of the locker room by a gentle Jonah Beck’s polite insistence that he can’t spend forever the dirty floor. One of the more recent of the 9 voicemails Buffy had left him told him that she’d be waiting for him in the gym after practice, if he wanted to talk, and he figured he needed to say something to her before his pity points wore off.

As TJ turned to face the gym doors, he felt he needed to say something. To thank Jonah in words he wouldn’t even begin to know how to articulate. Saying stuff the right way was never really his strong suit.

“Hey, Jonah. I’m… I’m really sorry about all of this.”

Jonah Beck smiled at this. His famous, dazzling, ever-so-slightly-confused type of smile.

“What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I dunno. Wasting your time? Or maybe, just being a dick in general.”

Jonah just shrugged, and quipped, “Well, apology accepted, I guess?” and, TJ wondered how the boy could vacillate between saintly wisdom to entirely careless with such ease.

 --

When TJ walked into the gym, Buffy was preoccupying herself by shooting seemingly endless free throws. Foul throws are what you do when you get injured. They’re made to right some type of wrong done earlier in the game. Buffy explained this concept to Cyrus when she first started training to be on the boys’ basketball team. And, maybe she took the concept to heart, because whenever she felt bad about herself, she found herself shooting basket after basket, trying to even score for whatever mistake had been made.

She just couldn’t shake what happened from her mind. Andi hates her, TJ is in love with Cyrus, and she’s never felt so wrong about everything in her entire life: maybe TJ isn’t the only fuck up here.

 Her dribbling thoughts skidded to a halt when a tear-stained TJ Kippen pushed his way through the gym doors. She just looked at him, maybe for some kind of answer to the dozens of questions she’s been trying to solve since they’d last crossed paths.

 Instead, TJ said one word: “Horse?” A white flag of surrender, maybe. But, Buffy took it readily, and passed him the ball.

--

One game of horse turned into two, then three (Buffy beating TJ, 2-1), before they started to so much as speak words about anything other than basketball. After missing a three-point shot Buffy had sunk, TJ abruptly blurted.

“I’m sorry I have a crush on your best friend. I- I, uh didn’t mean to.”

Buffy let out a surprising laugh.

“What? TJ, no. Trust me, I’m not mad about that. Like, at all.”

A pause, then.

“You have great taste in boys, Kippen. Cyrus is the best there is.”

“He really is, isn’t he?” TJ said, smiling brightly at the mere mention of the boy. The way his eyes crinkled at the mention of him was just enough to let Buffy let her guard down, just for a second, enough to ask the question sitting uneasy with her for a week now.

“…Why did you have a gun TJ?”

There it was. And now, TJ had to own up to what happened.

“I didn’t know they would have a gun. Reed just knew I wanted to impress Cyrus, and I guess

Buffy arced her eyebrows.

“I’m still calling bullshit TJ. This isn’t the first time Reed snuck his dad’s gun, is it?”

TJ shifted uncomfortably, weighing the ball in his hands, trying to think of a way out of the question.

“It wasn’t.”

“Then why did you guys have the gun, TJ?”

“I don’t know Driscoll, OK? I Just-”

In. Hold. Out… Don’t panic; just breath.

He felt his shoulders soften, and his voice lose the cut as he tried to speak again. If there’s one thing he’s learned in the past week, it’s that being honest with his emotions has been better for everyone involved that lashing out.

“I really don’t know, Buffy. I just- sometimes I make bad decisions. Like, really bad ones. But, I swear to god that I’m trying to be better.” He managed to rasp out.

Buffy studied him, and TJ felt like he was standing at the gates of heaven awaiting judgement under the glare of dark brown eyes. She closed them for a second, and then started speaking.

“TJ, I’m not mad at you or anything. I’m just… I’m scared for Cyrus. I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“I know that. Neither do I.”

“I know.... Now pass me the ball.”

--

It was nearly a half-hour later before either said another non-basketball word. They’d exhausted their games of Horse, and were ambling in slightly uncomfortable silence on the bleachers, both waiting for the other to say something first.

“Hey TJ, what you said… About me ruining my friendships? That was out of line.”

“I know, I’m sorr-”

“Wait. I’m not done.” She interjected. Sharply cutting his apology short.

“It was out of line coming from you… But, I think I needed to hear it from someone.” Her voice wavered at the words, just slightly, “I know I tend to lash out when I’m let down by people. And, hell, when I was moving out of town I didn’t even say goodbye to my best friends! I… I know have a lot to work on when it comes to the ‘whole friendship thing.’”

If TJ could tell that Buffy was watching a flashback in her mind of every single time that she let her friends down, and every single time they’d forgiven her without question… he definitely didn’t show it. In fact, TJ just stared at the curly-haired girl before him, the one who was claiming to be Buffy Driscoll, but certainly didn’t sound like her. He blinked in stunned confusion, before realizing it was his turn to talk.

“So, uh, are you saying that… you forgive me?” He replied lamely.

Buffy huffed a bittersweet chuckled at that, like he had just made a joke at the expense of both of them.

“I don’t know if I can. Honestly, I don’t.” She shrugged her shoulders, almost apologetically.

“But… I do know that you’re trying to be better. And, I know that that’s hard as fuck. So, I’ll try too. At forgiveness.”

There was a weird moment between them, in the silence after her words, when Buffy offered a soft smile and TJ gave one back. Something that someone observing this situation from a distance would almost call a ‘tender moment;’ but, upon realizing that it was being shared between Buffy Discroll and TJ Kippen would most certainly not believe their eyes. Because certainly TJ and Buffy couldn’t possibly be pleasant in each other’s company for longer than a second, right?

That observer would be correct in their skepticism, because just a heartbeat after, a smirk flashed across TJ’s face.

“I bet I can be better better than you can.”

A stunned expression flashed across Buffy’s face, before a matching smirk mirrored his own. “Well, I bet I can beat you again at a one-on-one.”

And with a cocked eyebrow, and sneaky steal of the basketball in his hands, the pair was back to the court.

“And maybe I won’t ever be able to get you out of my mind, because maybe that’s where you belong. Maybe when you pulled me out of the starless sky and into that shimmering nightclub, you decided that you would take residence in me - lounge in my fingertips; dine in my heart; sleep in my brain. 

I awake with a hangover and a vision of a thousand different constellations that all bear your name. When I think back, though I know it to be untrue, I still remember stars in the sky that night.”