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The party throbbed like a dull ache—loud, obnoxious, a migraine with bass. His peers’ voices rose in a chant—‘Pass it here, you’re hogging it!’ The words grated like nails on a chalkboard, far from the camaraderie they pretended to be.
Tord’s social battery was shot. Maybe it was the last rip of a bong, or the dawning realisation that despite the crowded room and tipsy girls asking to hear what swear words sounded like in Norwegian, it felt lonely. Every smell of spilt booze, bump of another body or couple kissing in Tord’s way drove him dangerously close to puking or punting something.
Actually, punching someone sounded like a fantastic idea. Where the hell was Tom?
“What?!” Matt shrieked right into Tord’s ear, the resulting ring in the Norski’s ear enough to deafen whatever pop song was playing. Tord doesn’t remember finding Matt and leaning his whole bodyweight onto the ginger. Nor does he remember what he asked, but somehow with some strung thoughts. Edd was in sight, a red solo cup of fizzing cola in his hand, bangs over his eyes and on a couch of nobody Tord cared to name.
“Where’s Jehova?” Tord slurred, his spare hand stealing Matt’s solo cup from his hand where his arm draped over his shoulder. Matt barely frowned, his tipsy and already lagging brain chugging past each letter. Tord pinched between his eyes, “Tom, where’s Thomas?”
“Oh!” Matt barked back, still far too loud given that the two were almost cheek-to-cheek, “I think he’s outside.” Tord stepped back just in time to save his eardrums from bursting.
Outside. That tracked. Outside on a dimly lit porch, strumming that bass guitar he hauled here in Edd’s crappy, cramped car, thinking he looks so mysterious and misunderstood. He’s probably humming one of those sappy emo songs with his leg kicking off the porch in time with the beat, his crappy self-pierced lobes glinting back fairylights, those pitch-black voids half-lidded from whatever cheap Smirnoff had turned his anxious, pursed expression into a relaxed frown. That was totally something Tom would do. What a pretentious asshole.
“Cheers, ginger,” Tord offered before sauntering—or rather, stumbling—away and swigging down the disgusting concoction Matt had brewed in the cup. Awful.
What he hadn’t predicted? The two giggling girls perched on the porch railing, their laughter sticky-sweet as they tucked hair behind their ears and leaned in too close. Tom’s usual boundaries were MIA. Probably because they were too drunk to notice.
Tord’s foot caught the ledge. What kind of asshole has a porch with a single step?
The strumming stopped. Tord didn’t need to look up to feel their eyes on him. Didn’t need superhuman hearing to catch Tom’s grumble—low, irritated, the kind of sound that deserved a fist to the face. Especially when the girls on his arm giggled like that.
But lunging to show Tom what’s-what right away in front of two innocent lady witnesses would make Tord seem like a deranged prick. “So mysterious,” Tord drawled, straightening up to close the distance. “Did you know Jehovah here still sleeps with a teddy bear?” Bingo. Not a single stutter. The girls’ eyebrows shot up. “Yeah. He named it after himself. Right, Tommee?” Better than the girl's glances and chortled laughter was the red plume taking over Tom’s cheeks to the tips of his ears.
Tom scoffed, as if Tord’s jab hadn’t landed. “You smell like shit.” His strumming resumed—sharp, anxious, fingers twitching like he was plucking the strings of Tord’s nerves. “What do you want, Tord?”
“Edd told me to check on you–” Lie, and the crooked smirk on his face said as much, “ –had to make sure you hadn’t sobbed yourself a river with whatever emo ballad you’ve been working on.” Tord’s hands twitched at his sides before shoving them into his pockets, fingers closing around his lighter, fiddling with a delightedly energy.
Tom didn’t even bother with a scowl. Just a flat, uninterested stare, like Tord was a gnat he could swat away. Unfortunately, Tord’s grin perked higher and uglier. Feeling that soft sensitive energy fade out of the air around Tom. The girls exchanged a glance—one Tord didn’t need to interpret to know they were plotting their escape.
“So anyway,” one of them said, her dark braid swaying as she turned to the other, “we’re getting drinks.”
No offer to share. No ‘You want anything?’ Just an excuse to bolt.
The other girl—glitter smudged under her eyes, gaze flickering like a moth to Tom’s strumming fingers—shrugged. “Guess so.”
Then she pulled a thin tube from her faux-fur coat’s inner pocket and held it out to Tom like it was nothing. “Here. Thanks for letting me use it, Tommee-bear.”
Tom’s cheeks darkened. The tube was eyeliner. His eyeliner.
The bile in the back of Tord’s throat burned. Disgusting.
“Uh yeah. Anytime.” Tom’s voice cracked, grounding in its awkward timing. The two boys watched them go—Tom’s pitch-black eyes wide with something like wonder, Tord’s narrowed with a hazy, simmering suspicion.
As soon as the girls were gone, Tord’s gaze locked onto the eyeliner like a missile. As if that insolent applicator was everything wrong with the world. And maybe it was. Because who the hell was Tom to start coming out of his shell? With a steady hand. With women’s makeup. How dare he apply it, dress like some goth girl plucked from Tord’s own unsightly manga collection—like something that needed to be locked in a dark drawer, away from the sun.
Awful. Disgusting.
“I’m gonna puke if you keep looking at that door like that, Thomas.”
Tord feigned a gag, two fingers jammed into his mouth. Then in a split-second change of tune, he mimed shooting himself through the roof of his mouth, then dropped onto the wood flooring like a broken marionette— far enough from Tom to keep his legs sprawled. Tom curled in on himself, fingers plucking at the same cord of his bass like that low sound.
“Puke somewhere else. I came out here to get away from the barf and the BO.”
Tom’s snarl was automatic, the same one he used every time Tord started in on him. Those checkered braces—always checked with him. Tonight? A full-on assault: checkered belt, armbands, socks, sneakers doodled on by him and Edd like some kind of deranged inside joke.
A thought slithered through Tord’s mind: Tom was wearing his dark blue earrings tonight.
Black or dark blue. With Tom, it was always those. Rounded studs, almost identical. The black ones were flatter, though. God, he must be high if Tom’s earrings were that interesting.
The silence settled between them, thick and suffocating. Their shoulders eased—Tom’s first, then, begrudgingly, Tord’s. That wouldn’t do.
“Tommee bear,” Tord rolled off his tongue again, leaning forward over the porch railing’s bottom slat. “Don’t tell me you were actually… Charmed by that?” His accent furled over his words, a hand flailed awkwardly in the air. Charmed. Was that even the right word for whatever the hell that was?
“I’m not answering that.” Tom huffed, his fingers thrumming the bass strings absently, like he was trying to drown him out.
“Why? Because you were?” Tord’s expression was halfway between a scowl of disgust and a grin of cruel amusement.
Tom’s scoffed, his whole head rolling with his eyes, “Better than being called hentai-guy—or whatever nickname they’d pin on you.” The jab landed right; Tord practically jumped out of his skin at how he proclaimed Tord’s shameful secret. Tord swivelled his head around each shoulder, verifying no one had heard that before, frowning hard at Tom, who’d broken a smirk at rattling Tord back.
Tord’s best response? A half-hearted kick at Tom—just enough to annoy, not to hurt. Tom slapped Tord’s boot away, his smirk dissolving into an irritated grimace. “Don’t.” That’s all Tord needed. He didn’t want to see that smirk.
Tord rolled onto his back, lounging on wood panels to watch the fairy lights flicker in and out. “You’re such an asshole; just relax. It’s a party.” He couldn’t help snickering to himself—but he couldn’t help looking at Tom’s incredulous face, either. Tord telling him to relax while actively riling him up? That was a contradiction in terms.
Tom scoffed, loud and sharp. “I was relaxed until you showed up.” His nose scrunched, petty and endearing in a way that made Tord’s stomach lurch. “As if I’d need to hear that from you. Look at you.” He jerked his chin at Tord, like the answer was obvious. “You fell out here looking like a pissy mess.”
Tord’s eyes flicked between Tom’s distracted expression and the chipped black paint on his nails—Tom’s signature, like the eyeliner. Tord grumbled, hating to admit that he preferred the warm, lonely acoustics of Tom playing over the blaring pop playlist inside.
“The music was getting on my nerves,” Tord muttered, his eyebrows drawing together at a water stain on the porch ceiling. “Shitty pop was too loud and… Poppy.”
There was no sarcastic retort. No jab. Just a quiet hum of understanding, low and rough, like it was dragged out of him. Like it was something they did normally… Agree on anything. The sound settled in Tord’s chest, warm and heavy. His throat tightened. He wanted to run. Or laugh. Or—God, he didn’t know. He did none of those things. Instead, he nudged Tom’s bass with his boot.
“Oi.” His voice was rough. “Play something.”
The bark that startled out of Tom was satisfyingly hilarious. “What?!” He looked at Tord like he’d just declared them legally wed. Pathetic.
Tord’s grin was all edge. “I said play something; your single-note picking is annoying.” He flopped his arms beside his head, lifting it just enough to meet Tom’s gaze—despite how heavy it felt. “I don’t care what it is. Just not that godawful pop crap inside.” His glare was steel. “And not the song you’re thinking of. I know where you sleep, Jehovah.” And by the look Tom already had by that point, he was already thinking about strumming one particular Leslie Gore tune just to piss him off.
“Fine,” Tom muttered, his voice rough. “But it’s weird without other instruments or vocals.”
Tord scoffed, his head thunking back against his intertwined fingers. “Then sing, dumbass.”
Tom’s face burned. “Like hell you’ll just make fun of me!” His voice cracked, just a little, and Tord’s chest tightened. “I’ll hum at best. If you complain, I’ll kick your ass. Got it?”
Tord’s grin was a promise. “Sounds like a plan.” An ass-kicking was exactly what he deserved for entertaining this—choosing to be here—in the first place.
Tom nodded, then kept nodding to a non-existent beat, his eyebrows furrowed at his strings, lost in whatever imaginary band practice was happening in his head. His fingers stilled. He felt Tord’s gaze on him, heavy and stagnant, and met it with something raw and serious. “Be useful and do this.” He thumped his hand against the porch wood, a steady, unyielding rhythm. Take it or leave it.
Tord’s eyes rolled, “Bossy.” But still, he stomped his boot to the beat Tom was asking for.
“Steady.” Tom’s voice was low, too sober for a party, his body pivoting upright as he counted the thumps, matching them with his own against the guitar’s middle. There was a faint mumble of lyrics—something, maybe—but Tord couldn’t make it out. Didn’t matter. He could feel the shape of it, like a ghost of a tune just out of reach.
Just as Tord was about to open his stupid mouth to ask what the hell they were doing, Tom strummed a single chord—once, twice, three times, the sound sharp and deliberate. Then, on the fourth strum, the chord shifted, and it clicked.
Fleetwood Mac.
Tord’s boot took on a purposeful thump, falling into step with Tom’s rhythm—like this was second nature and not some anomaly brought on by bongs and booze.
Tom’s attention swivelled only slightly, his head still nodding to the beat, his fingers hovering over the strings, ready. He glanced at Tord’s boot first – wordlessly acknowledging the adjustment – then dragged his gaze up—slow, deliberate—until it locked onto Tord’s face.
Tord didn’t catch it. Couldn’t. His eyes had snapped back to the ceiling, his neck arching back against his hands like he was trying to escape the weight of that look, trying too hard to look natural and like he hadn’t been staring at Tom’s stupid furrowed expression and careful hands over the first rift. His cheeks burned, fire under his skin, and he prayed—God, he prayed—Tom wouldn’t notice.
Then, like a knife twist:
“Listen to the wind blow—” Tom’s voice was barely above a mumble, and Tord had to tense himself not to choke, “—down comes the night.”
The prick said he wouldn’t sing! Why was he singing?
Tord kept the beat, the only thing keeping him stable as he forced his stoned brain to cling to Fleetwood Mac’s timing. It came easily, thanks to Tom’s insistent rhythm and focus. Awful. It was all so pathetic.
Once Tord was sure Tom had refocused on his strumming, he looked over.
Tom’s eyes were focused on nothing, looking into the dark bushes just beyond the porch’s edge. His mumble of lyrics was as if he were hypnotised. Tom’s hanging foot thumped in time with Tord’s own boot against the wooden beam.
Eyes half lidded, piercings glinting and frowning softly around each lyric.
Tord’s gaze trailed over the way Tom relaxed, his fingers flicking over the strings with precision, holding each note just where it needed to be. He really practised. Probably played this exact song late into the night, over and over, until it hummed just right. Now he was sharing it with Tord of all people.
The swell in the back of Tord’s throat was starting to feel less like bile and more like something he couldn’t name. Wouldn’t name. Would rather die than acknowledge.
Still, as the final rift drew close, Tord ceased his thumping—just like he knew it did in the song.
Tord listened, looking at Tom’s eyes close tight and furrow as he braced for that final iconic rift that ends the song. Tord wouldn’t admit he waited with bated breath, but he wouldn’t dare look away from such intensity that was so unlike the one Tom had for him in their many fights.
His eyes snagged on something at Tom’s waistline, tied around his belt loop. A woven rope chain, blue and purple and pink, the colours frayed at the edges. Tord knew that charm. Recognized it. It was from a lunch break when Edd had been possessed by the idea of making them religiously, like some kind of macramé cultist. But this one—the one looped around Tom’s jeans—was from the day after Tom had nearly thrown up on himself coming out as bisexual.
As if any of them would care, as if it changed anything at all in how the close-knit group of friends saw Tom.
It did.
But only in Tord.
And it was something dangerous and sour
Why was Tom even wearing that stupid thing tonight? Was he trying to say something? Show off? Tell the whole damn world? Shit, was he trying to get a boyfriend?
The sick pit in Tord’s stomach swelled, twisting like a snake coiling around rodent prey. Suddenly, lying flat felt dangerous. But moving meant possibly distracting Tom while he was bobbing his head through the final rift, utterly in the zone. One could almost forget that Tom was some emo dweeb with braces who named his bass after his middle school crush. He’s a loser. A dork. And unfortunately—un-fucking-fortunately—the person Tord might puke over.
The guy he’s been trying not to puke over since he first wore that dumb eyeliner and showed off his collection of British punk CDs like that made him cool. If Tom never came into his stupid life with his stupid sarcasm, or never applied that dumb eyeliner, or kept his pointless bisexuality a secret and didn’t grin like that when he got one up over on him, then all of this would have been fine. Tord wouldn’t be out here playing imaginary drums with him under the stars, and if he did it wouldn’t feel so fucking intimate. It could have been fine.
But if Thomas were a girl, it could have been perfect.
That thought. That’s the thought that keeps Tord up at night. Nights where dreams of dates with women reer in a black-eyed betrayal at the last moment. Nights where the bedroom wall farthest from his parents takes a beating that bruises his hands for weeks, reminding him of their existence under fingerless gloves.
Tom’s bass finally hummed off, the song drifting away. Tom let out a breath, as if he’d been holding it the whole time.
Nothing mattered. The air was chilled, the party far away, and for a moment, the world stilled. Tord’s thoughts had left with the rift. Thank god.
“Sounds like shit.” Tord rolled to sit up, hair mussed and sick-looking. The remnants of his high helped cover that nicely, though.
Tom scoffed; he knew how Tord lied. Tord would never give a compliment. “Shut the fuck up.” His chipped nails scoured the strings, “You make a shit metronome.” Tord just rolled his eyes and made a huffed sound. Prick. This was better. This was normal.
A few random plucks of the strings barely registered with Tord – just useless strumming again until – “Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows–” Tord grabbed for the guitar with one hand, pushing at Tom’s face with the other. Tom yelped, “Hands off my shit, commie!” Tom already had a leg out from under the wood slat of the porch’s edge to shove into Tord’s middle, trying to force him back.
“Go to hell, Jeho – you chose this for yourself!” Tord’s own legs joined the fray, pushing him back just the same while grabbing his hoodie and trying to reach for the guitar.
Tom’s expression cracked into that grin that promised a fight as the bass guitar was pulled from Tord’s reach and placed safely an arm's length away. As soon as Tom’s head was turned to place the instrument, Tord lunged properly.
This is what Tord was out here for. To kick Tom’s ass. The grin spreading across his face didn’t falter when Tom swore at him and shoved at his jaw. Only when they fell from the porch did Tord’s grin leave, and they both squaked an unflattering sound. The ground was hardly two feet down, but when they hit the bushes, there was a startling sound of something breaking.
“Shit, my arm!” Tord hissed loudly, gripping his left arm and curling in on himself
Tom bounced back, eyes wide, “Shit, I didn’t –”
That grimace of pain broke into a wild grin as Tord pulled a broken stick out from under where he landed, “Dumbass, Jeho!” He threw half the stick at Tom’s lagging but growingly incredulous expression, “Careful, you almost sounded like you cared for a second there.” Tord barked, not giving Tom a second before jumping on him, elbow to the chest.
The wind was knocked out of Thomas as he hit the lawn, eyes wide and body stiff with shock. As the moment caught up to him, he grinned with teeth – all his checkered braces on display, “Like hell–” He grabbed Tord by the collar, as if to flip them, but Tord caught his wrist, “– I just don’t want to pay for your hospital bills!”
Tom arched up, smacking his forehead hard into Tord’s, sending the boy reeling back with a string of norsk curses. Tom’s grin was evil by the time he locked his arm over Tord’s collarbone, keeping him to the ground, “That was a cheap shot, commie.”
The world closed in too close. Tom was above him with a proud grin that bordered on hysterical – huffing in the same adrenaline that thumps through Tord when he wins. The stars around that spiky hair, and his once-clean outfit covered in dirt and grass, whilst the party’s lights shrouded half of his face in a purple glow.
It burned in Tord’s chest, like the first smoke of a cigarette before an addiction. Vile. All of it. That grin was the worst thing he’d ever seen. That grin was killing him, but somehow the thought crossed his mind that he might die without it.
Tord’s not sure how he flipped their dynamic, but the way Tom never threw a punch or kick fueled him to roll them over with whatever his tired, stoned body could muster. Tom was wide-eyed again, expecting some shitty quip like always, as Tord gripped Tom’s collar in one hand and raised a fist with the other.
But the punch never came, and a quip failed to form; the tension in his arm fell, dropping limp beside him. The huffs of a fight slowed, and Tom’s expression only furrowed as Tord keeled in on himself, face too close to being smothered into the fabric of Tom’s hoodie that he had bunched into his fist.
“I hate you so much.”
There was a shaky sound, as if what came next had been pried out of somewhere pathetic in him. Too broken to be a laugh, and too much of a wheeze to be a cry, “I wish you were a girl...” the tears in his eyes didn’t come—Tord wouldn’t dare blink to let them out, no matter how hot they beckoned in his eyeline, clouding whatever expression Tom had in response. Not that Tord would look up to see, not after his own words dawned on him.
Then, as if on automatic, Tord raised his fist again, slow and pulled like a marionette on a string. Nothing mattered, not the bile threatening to erupt in his gut, not the way his fingers felt numb or how he felt ice cold but burned all over. Nothing mattered until there was the sharp, jarring pain and force of a fist to his cheek, sending him off of Tom and thudding into the dirt with little resistance.
Instead of kicking him while he was down like he deserved, or lunging to pin Tord as they would in a normal fight, Tom stood up so fast it made Tord nauseous.
“What the fuck, commie?!”
There was a violent crack in Tom’s voice, but even that couldn’t anchor Tord as he barely lifted himself onto his elbows. The bile finally spilled out onto the lawn with a retched sound.
“–Jesus Christ, Tord.”
With the vomit came tears and snot, blending together like any other horrible night with too many drinks and rolling around. Tord didn't turn around. Not while Tom’s presence loomed behind him, watching and waiting. No, Tord would rather stare at the grass where his own stomach contents lay.
There was a sigh. Tom’s hand dragged down his face as he turned away, “I’ll get Edd.” Exasperated. Final.
The night was over. Tord had called it.
Tom stepped away, returning to the glow of the party with a walk that wasn’t rushed. Tord listened for each step, his whole body tensing in place as he heard the distinct rustle of Tom’s hoodie when he looked back. Tord wouldn’t untense until he heard Tom pick up his bass and shut the door behind himself.
Only then did Tord tremble, a wheeze and a retch with nothing to spill. Tears fell on their own now, heavy and humiliating. “Forbanna deg, din jævla idiot!” A hiccup, pitched and pathetic, “Kronidiot!” Tord fisted at the grass, holding it to keep himself from raising his fist against the earth or something else.
Tord wouldn’t take the carpool home that Edd planned.
No. He slipped through the gap in the fence as soon as time caught up with him. The walk on the cold UK streets was unfamiliar and dark, each corner identical and empty.
Still, somehow he made it home.
He had ignored six calls from Edd. Three from Mat. Declined Tom’s after one ring.
Tord crawled through his bedroom window, greeted by the busted drywall hidden under pinup posters of girls with guns—one had slipped, its tape too weak for the fractured plaster.
It was too late to punch a wall now. The sun was rising.
Tord just crawled into his unmade bed, the sour taste of vomit and bile lingering in his unwashed mouth.
Disgusting, vile and awful.