#theaddiction

@theaddiction continued from here

“Yeah, we’ve always been pretty good at hiding things from other people, haven’t we?” He didn’t say it with malice, more sadness than anything. Chase entered Indy’s space and the first thing that hit him was how much it smelled like him. He dropped his bag just inside the door and glanced around the room.

“Do you have a bathroom I could use?” He hoped Indy had a private bathroom, he really didn’t want to go back out where he could run into people, he was a mess, literally and figuratively.

Indy let out a soft snort. Hiding things was an understatement. They'd hid plenty from each other for years and from their parents almost just as long. And from the looks of his oldest friend, it seemed like some things had dramatically changed since the last time they saw each other.

Staring at Chase for a few moments, Indy took a good hard look at him. He was an actual, wretched mess and he looked like he hadn't slept at all. His fingers dug into his pant leg in an effort to ground himself. If things had been somewhat normal between them, his first instinct would have been to immediately take care of his friend. However, even though Indy was still too hurt and stubbornly hanging onto it, he wasn't a complete asshole.

He wordlessly moved parallel to the other young man and reached into the side room to flick on a light. Then he turned back around to the closet across from the bathroom and rifled around for a few seconds.

@theaddiction

The last couple months were probably more painful than all of the previous ones combined. At least with the previous semester, Indy had been able to look forward to the times he could see and talk to Chase. He'd honestly thought that by encouraging his best friend to take time, to have some semblance of a life on his own, it would benefit them in the end. To give them some form of independent lives before they came back to each other. What a stupid fucking idea that had been. Now the potential of a life together was destroyed. All because he had to encourage Chase to try to stand up to his parents, and when he didn't, Indy had done it for him. Which led to his best friend, his boyfriend, his soul mate walking away from him because he couldn't find it in himself to fight.

It had broken Indy's heart.

At the time, he had been home for break to visit, but it turned out to be a drastically different stay than expected. There were no arguments with his father, barely any conversation, really. He just existed. Slept and stayed in his room. The elder Jones had actually noticed his son's quietness enough to ask after his well-being, but he was pretty sure the professor didn't really listen to the brushed off answer. In the end, he couldn't stay the entire break. He just couldn't. It was easier to return to school and be miserable there where every little thing didn't remind him of Chase.

After that, he'd pretty much gone through life at a dull, depressed pace. His friends weren't fooled by his attempts at normalcy, and Indy recognized that losing his best friend since he was seven years old weighed heavily on him. But there wasn't much he could do about it. Chase had been such a huge part of his life that it wasn't something he'd get over easily. He was actually surprised he managed to make it through the semester with decent grades, all things considered. Now the only problem was figuring out what to do with himself next. There was no way he could stay home for the entire summer with Chase so close and so far away at the same time. He didn't know what his plans were for the summer, but Indy wasn't going to risk running into him. He just couldn't.

Most of his friends had learned to leave him be during that time. Indy hadn't been in the mood for socializing in a long while, so he certainly hadn't been expecting a knock on his door. Sighing heavily to himself, he dropped the book he was seeing but not actually reading aside and shoved himself off his bed, nudging carelessly dropped piles of clothing and books out of his way. The annoyed demand of what was so important died on his lips as soon as he opened the door, the last person he'd expect to see standing in front of him.

Lost Years

"Sometimes you do find the love of your life at 18, sometimes you find him at 7, and you spend your whole life trying to understand your feelings .”

Lost Sons