Queer Big Bang: Experience

[intheheart]

Title: Experience
Author: bookblather
Artist: subluxate
Fandom: Original
Word Count: 10,009
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Felipe Claro, Lydia, Christian, Paul, Tamsin, Greg, Summer Kendall, Zachary Claro. Not that this means anything to anyone.
Warnings: Sexual content, lots of heartbreak, homophobia and homophobic slurs, adultery, relationship drama. Basically this is the story with All the Breakups.
Summary: Felipe Claro has had a lot of relationships, with men and women, with multiple partners. Consequently, he's had a lot of breakups. Here are five, plus a first date. Or, five endings and one beginning. Or, how good decisions come from experience which comes from bad experience. Or, most succinctly, five relationships that crashed and burned, and the one that never did.



It felt like the entire cafeteria went silent, after he said it.

Which... well, okay, why wouldn't they? This was high school-- a particularly gossipy high school, from what Felipe's siblings told him-- and who was dating who was a big deal around these parts. Especially, apparently, who he was dating. He'd expected the stares, the sudden bursts of whispers.

He hadn't expected the shock on everyone's faces, including Paul's.

"What did you say?" Paul asked, slowly.

"I asked if you wanted to go out sometime," Felipe said, leaning one hip against the long wooden table as casually as he could manage, under the circumstances. "Dinner or something. Maybe coffee."

Paul exchanged glances with his friend across the table-- some bland-looking guy whose name Felipe couldn't remember; Mark? Martin?-- then looked back up at Felipe. "Is this a joke?"

Felipe, hurt, shook his head. Behind him, the cafeteria noise rose slowly to a dull roar again. "No, of course not. That'd be a pretty shitty joke, don't you think?"

"Hence the question," muttered Mark or Martin or maybe Marvin.

Felipe looked sharply at him, and he looked away. "Seriously? Is that what you guys think of me? You could just say no, you know."

"No, I..." Paul shook his head, and looked down at his hands for a long moment. They were really attractive hands, too-- Paul was a pianist and it showed, in long, graceful fingers calloused at the knuckles. It was his hands, actually, delicate on a pencil or describing a parabola in graceful arcs, that had arrested Felipe in the first place.

They were so arresting that Felipe had to jerk his attention back to the conversation when Paul spoke again. "I really thought-- aren't you straight?"

He was asking a guy out, so... obviously not so much. Felipe didn't say that, though. "Bi, I think," he said, as lightly as he could. No big deal, right? "I mean, don't get me wrong, I definitely like the ladies, but I like guys too. You, specifically. So... almost certainly not straight."

"That is the definition," Paul said, looking up with a slight smile. At last, humor. "What'd you have in mind?"

"Paul!" hissed Mark or Martin or... no, Marcus, that was it. "Seriously?"

Felipe might have said something, but Marcus winced and subsided. Probably Paul had kicked him under the table. It seemed like enough, so he focused on Paul instead. "I don't know, whatever you want to do. Dinner and a movie's pretty traditional, right?"

Paul smiled, flash of white teeth against his dark skin, and damn but he was fucking hot when he smiled like that. "Yeah? How about that new superhero movie?"

"The one where Chris Helmsworth's shirtless most of the time?" Felipe smiled back. "I dunno, you might have to twist my arm to get me to go."

"Oh, I see how it is." Paul leaned forward, grinning up at him. "You've got a thing for blonds."

Felipe pretended to examine his fingernails, thoughtfully. "Eh, blonds are nice if it's all you can get. This weekend work for you?"

Marcus, who was blond, coughed pointedly. Both of them ignored him.

"This weekend works great. Here," Paul said, and dug around in the canvas backpack lying at his feet until he produced a notebook and a pencil. He wrote a number down, tore the page out, and handed it to Felipe. "Call me sometime and we'll work out the details, okay?"

Felipe accepted the paper with his best dazzling smile, which was probably not as dazzling as Paul's. "Consider it done, mon cher." He made a point of tucking the paper into his front pocket, shot Paul another hopefully dazzling smile, and ambled back to the tableful of friends he'd left when he spotted Paul setting his tray down.

Except by the time he got back, half of them had moved elsewhere.

"Where'd everybody go?" he asked one of the girls remaining, an ex-girlfriend and current friend named Georgia. "Some kind of committee meeting or something?"

She refused to meet his eyes, picking gingerly at her lunch. Which Felipe could not blame her for, since she'd selected the rubbery yellow concoction that their lunchroom staff had the gall to call mac and cheese. "Dunno," she said, carefully. "They had something to do, I guess."

Okay, whatever. Felipe shrugged, and settled down in front of his abandoned tray to pick at his own rubbery hamburger and possibly fake fries. "You okay, Georgie? You're not having one of those 'it's weird that we're friends since we broke up' moments again, are you?"

She met his eyes this time, with the sardonic twist to her lips that he'd always loved. "No, Felipe, I am not having one of those... whatever the hell you called it. We're still friends and it's not weird."

Must've been something private, then. "Cool," he said, and set himself to lunch.

The day only got weirder from there. People he'd known for ages avoided him in the hallway. One of his friends from the soccer team actually got up and switched seats in math when Paul turned around and smiled at him. It was really odd, and by the time soccer practice rolled around, Felipe couldn't handle it anymore.

"What the fuck's going on?" he demanded, cornering Daniel by the lockers. Daniel had been his friend since fourth grade, and could be relied upon to tell Felipe the hard truths even Georgie wouldn't come right out and say. "Did I forget to shower this morning, or something?"

Daniel glanced at him with a cool, flat expression, then turned back towards his locker and pulled his jersey over his head. "I don't know, you tell me."

Which was no kind of fucking answer at all, and Felipe said so. "Just spill, man, you know I can handle it. Did I hit on somebody's sister? Run over somebody's pet dog? Explain, so I can fix it already."
Daniel snorted. "You can't fix this," he said, without turning around.

"I definitely can't if no one will tell me anything," Felipe said, crossing his arms over his chest. "For Christ's sake, just tell me."

"Jesus, don't you get it?" Daniel snapped. He still hadn't turned to face Felipe. "They don't want to hang out with a fag, okay? And neither do I. Is that fucking clear enough for you?" He slammed his locker door shut and stalked away.

Felipe could only stare after him, and wonder what the hell had happened to the guy he used to know.



Georgie stuck by him, in the end. Georgie, and Paul, of course, and Brian from English. He made new friends, too. Marcus the prickly, who warmed up to him eventually and wound up staying his friend even after Paul dumped him for being too public with physical affection. Pretty and terrifying Virginia, who ran the gay-straight alliance with military efficency. Energetic and permanently caffinated Robyn, who he couldn't even remember meeting; she'd just appeared in his life one day like a Starbucks-addicted fairy. If he was totally honest with himself, they were better friends than the ones he'd lost. They knew him, all of him, and didn't judge him. They took him as the person he actually was, instead of the guy they wanted him to be.

It still hurt, watching Daniel sneer at him in the hallway, overhearing someone ask his later girlfriends what it was like to be his beard. He wound up quitting the soccer team, just because no one would talk to him.

Felipe couldn't change who he was, and he wouldn't want to, not for them. Haters were gonna hate, his real friends were the ones who stuck by him, other people had it so much worse than just getting the silent treatment from ex-friends, all of that was true, yeah, but...

He'd be lying if he said it didn't hurt anyway.

--

Alyssa struck without warning, at their usual Friday morning coffee, to talk over their week. "So how was your date last night?" she asked, every word dripping with poison.

Okay, then. All was not well in his girlfriend's life. Felipe put down his mug of coffee very slowly, to buy himself time to think.

"It went well enough, I guess," he said, slowly, maintaining eye contact, choosing every word carefully. Her expression was perfectly calm and controlled, her temper betrayed only by the tension in the line of her neck and shoulder as she set her own coffee down. "We went to dinner and a movie. That Vietnamese place you hate; I wanted an excuse to go."

"Oh, I see." She picked up her coffee again, and sipped delicately. "And how was... what was her name?"

"His name," Felipe corrected, his danger signals blaring at full volume. "His name is Vincent."

"Oh!" Alyssa suddenly became much more perky, tension draining from her shoulders. "Well, that's all right then. He's kind of girly-looking though, isn't he? With the hair?"

That would be because Vincent was genderqueer, male pronouns notwithstanding, and preferred an androgynous look, but Felipe was not about to bring that up just at the moment. "He likes his hair long," he said, instead. "You were upset because... no, scratch that, you were following me because you thought I was out with a girl?"

“Please, I didn’t follow you,” Alyssa said, and rolled her eyes. “Overdramatic much? Becky saw you at the restaurant and called me.”

“Nosy,” Felipe muttered. Small town and smaller campus—he should’ve known.

He said it under his breath, but from the look she gave him, she heard it anyway. “She’s not nosy, she’s my best friend and she’s looking out for me.”

“Whatever she was doing,” he said, “and whatever you want to call it. You were upset?"

Alyssa rolled her eyes. "Well, of course I was," she said. "I do not take kindly to my boyfriends cheating on me. You want a refill?" She nodded at his half-empty coffee mug.

"No," Felipe said, a sick feeling welling up in his stomach. This was not the first time this had happened-- "Alyssa, why would you consider that cheating?"

And she was back to the narrow-eyed fury. That was fast. "How can you even ask that question?"

God, what an odd place to be having this fight. The sunny little living room in her off-campus apartment, flowers on the windowsill, the big plush couch that they'd made use of more than once. She sitting on the floor, across her old-wood coffee table from him, warm aromas rising from her heavy, old-school mugs. It was all very pretty and sweet and domestic, the kind of living room he'd always wanted. The kind of room where Mother and Father played with the babies.

Not this time.

Always state the obvious, because it might not be obvious to her. "We... we talked about this. I thought we agreed to have an open relationship. Obviously if I thought anything was going to go past one date I'd tell you first, but just the one date to try things out, I thought we were okay with that."

"Not with girls," she said, as if it were obvious. "I don't give a fuck about those guys you pick up, that's just sex, but girls I mind very fucking much."

Well, shit. Evidently they hadn't talked about this enough. "You know I'm bisexual," he said, carefully. Or pansexual, whichever he settled on in the end, but again, that was a conversation that he was definitely not having right now.

Alyssa looked at him flatly, annoyance filtering into her expression. "Duh," she said. "We just talked about you fucking guys."

"Right," he said, and reminded himself to stay calm. "You know I'm polyamorous."

"Yeah," she said, slowly, and bing, there was the annoyed tone to match the expression. "Redundancy much?"

Oh, man, they hadn't talked about this nearly enough. His stomach sank. "No, it isn't. Polyamory means I can fall in romantic love with more than one person. I thought you knew that."

"Oh, yeah, I knew that." She flipped a hand at him. "Whatever, I don't care, just don't fuck other girls, okay? I'm not comfortable with that."

"Okay," Felipe said, "but..."

"I'll get you a refill," Alyssa said, reached over, and fairly snatched his coffee mug away from him, then got up and walked towards her kitchen, effectively ending the conversation.

Oh, boy.

Felipe silently consigned this relationship to the dust.

--

It was Christian who finally said what they’d both been thinking, but then he’d always been the braver of them, the more realistic.

“This isn’t working,” he said flatly over breakfast, and for a split second Felipe hated that realism.

But he was right, damn him. Felipe sighed, resigned, and put down his fork. "I know. I wish... I know."

Christian's mouth quirked up at one corner in a wry little half-smile that meant he wasn't especially pleased. "Well. Points for that, I guess."

"Points?" Felipe asked, raising an eyebrow. "You want to elaborate on that?"

"Not especially," Christian said, picking up his fork and poking dubiously at his omelet. "It doesn't really matter, anyway. Are we both agreed that we're over?"

Felipe sighed again. He didn't want to say it, but... "Yeah," he said, reluctantly. "I think we are. Romantically, anyway."

"Heh," Christian said. "So, what, do we just go back to being friends?"

Good question.

On the surface, one with an easy answer. Of course they just went back to being friends. They'd tried out a relationship, it hadn't worked, so they'd go back to what did; hanging out at bars, pointing out hot guys, swapping beers and stories about how their days had gone. What had they lost? Sex? They were both attractive, funny, nice guys. They could get it anywhere. They didn't need to fuck each other for that.

But.

The fact remained: they had fucked. He knew every inch of Christian's body, the muscles in his arms and stomach, the soft dusting of hair across his chest. He knew the moves he liked and the noise he made when he came, a sort of soft grunting moan that always thrilled along Felipe's nerves. He knew the feel of Christian's fingers on his nipples, the grip of his fingers at his cock. He knew how they felt, how they fit together.

More than that, he knew what Christian looked like when he woke up, all sleepy-eyed and smiling, his mouth bruised from last night's kisses, love bites on his neck and shoulders. He knew what kind of breakfast foods Christian liked, bought them specially for him, made his coffee exactly the way he liked it.

He'd miss waking up with Christian.

Were they going to be friends again?

"I don't know," he said, finally. "I guess it depends on why this ended."

Ominous silence reigned across the table. Felipe looked up to see Christian looking at him, both eyebrows raised and his face otherwise perfectly expressionless. Hello, danger signals.

Christian waited a few more moments, probably to be sure he had Felipe's attention, before he said, very slowly and biting off the words, "You don't know?"

"Oh, here we go," he muttered under his breath, evidently not quietly enough, because Christian's eyebrows went just a notch higher before diving down into a steep vee of disapproval. "No, I don't know, because you don't tell me anything."

"I tell you things," Christian said, his voice dangerously low. "You just don't listen. I have been telling you for weeks that I would like a little more attention, but obviously that was a lost cause."

Felipe pressed the side of his nose before responding. "I haven't heard it."

"That much was obvious," Christian muttered. Felipe counted to ten.

"Look," he said. "I told you, I have a lot on my mind lately."

"I know," Christian said, and for a wonder he didn't sound annoyed, just neutral. "Your job and all. How's that going, anyway?"

Blindsided, Felipe blinked. "Uh... well. Well enough, I guess. I'm pretty sure I passed the exam, and... but that's not the point, I was studying for it. I didn't exactly have a lot of spare time."

"Yes, but..." Christian pinched the bridge of his own nose. "Felipe, that's my point. You would have made time for a lover."

"Evidently not, you're..." Felipe started, but Christian held up a hand to interrupt him.

"No, just... please listen. I think you would have made time for a lover, and I think you don't really think of me as a lover. I think... I feel like I'm still your best friend, who you're just having sex with occasionally, because... why not, we're both hot. And that's not doing it for me. I love you, and not like a friend. I don't want you to treat me like a friend."

Felipe did Christian the courtesy of thinking that over long and hard before he answered, and weighing every word before he spoke. "I don't know how I feel about that," he said, at last. "I don't... feel like I was treating you like a friend, but if that's how you felt, I'm not going to deny it."

Christian nodded, cautiously accepting that. Emboldened, Felipe went on. "I do love you, but..."

He couldn't think what he'd meant to say after that, but Christian was already shaking his head, already smiling sadly. "I know. I love you, but."

Felipe wiped his hands over his face, and smiled at him, ruefully. "So I guess we're not going back to being friends."

Christian shrugged. "No. I don't think so. Not immediately, anyway. I need to... well, you know."

He didn't, but Christian obviously did, and that was all that really mattered here. "Yeah. Hey... uh, call me when you think... when we can be friends again."

"I will," Christian said, and got up, leaving the last few bites of his omelet. "For what it's worth, Felipe, we had fun." He smiled again, a little less sadly, blew Felipe a kiss, and took his key to Felipe's apartment off his keyring. It clinked sadly, finally, when he laid it down on the table. "Here."

Felipe picked it up, and sat looking at it for a long time, even after Christian left.

--

Lydia swore to him that her husband knew all about them.

He should have known better; he never saw or met her husband, and Lydia took great pains to keep him out of her daily life. She'd said, giggling, that she liked to save him for special occasions, but he should have known anyway that there was something fishy about the whole setup.

It wasn't like he hadn't dated married people before. He met them the same way he'd met Lydia, hanging out at a bar or coffee shop. Lydia had been utterly confident about approaching him and not at all self-conscious about the ring; when she saw him looking at it, she just shrugged and said "We have an open marriage," and they'd carried on from there. That had seemed perfectly normal and aboveboard, at least inasmuch as that kind of relationship ever was.

His other married partners (all three of them) had introduced him to their spouse by the third date. Those were always awkward meetings-- he invariably got the evil eye and the "are you good enough for my spouse" interrogation-- but they were fairly reliable indicators of where the relationship was going, and two of the spouses had liked him. Hell, he still had occasional coffee with Emily, and he'd broken up with her husband almost a year before.

This was where Lydia started to send up red flags.

For one thing, she never talked about her husband. The others had at least mentioned their spouses. Jordan hadn't ever shut up about Emily, which was one of the reasons Felipe ended it. Lydia never mentioned her husband-- no, it was more than that, she actively avoided talking about him, starting stories and stopping halfway through, avoiding topics that might reasonably bring up the question of her marriage. At some point during their relationship, she even stopped wearing her ring. Felipe hadn't been paying attention, so he couldn't pinpoint the exact date, but he was willing to bet it was right after he'd asked to meet her husband. He thought she'd stopped wearing it to remove the reminder.

He let it go longer than he should have. She was bright and funny, kind and beautiful, with a full mouth and a way of smiling that was simultaneously adorable and sexy. She made him catch his breath and bite his lip and laugh until he cried, and she was so warm and soft beside him in bed, like a dream. So he let it go, until he couldn't let it go anymore.

Four months, twelve dates, five nights at a motel and a fair way to falling in love with her later, Felipe decided to push the issue.

"I want to meet your husband," he said, over dinner one night.

Lydia immediately dropped her eyes, and fiddled with her fork. "I'm afraid that's not possible now," she said, a false air of brightness in her voice. "He's out of town, you see, and he won't be back for a week."

Felipe smiled at her, reached out and put his hand over hers. "Well, I didn't mean right now. But I do want to meet him. I mean, if this is going to be a long-term thing."

"Why?" Lydia asked, her tone suddenly sharpening. She pulled her hand out from under his and folded her hands in front of her on the table. "What does he have to do with us?"

He blinked. "Well... he's your husband. If we're going to go anywhere... I'd want to meet the guy dating my wife. Isn't he curious?"

She waved a hand, an airy gesture belied by the tension of her arm. "No, not really. He asks after you every so often but I really don't think he's interested."

"That's... strange," he said, his mouth pulling downward into a frown, almost without his will. "I mean, this isn't my first time in a relationship like this. The spouses usually wanted to meet me before I was ready." Like Emily, Jesus, she'd been pushing for it from day one.

Lydia shrugged. "I don't know. Jason's just not that interested in what I do, I guess."

Felipe closed his eyes, wiped his hands over his face, then pressed his hands together and set them on the table. "Lydia," he said, very gently, "Jason doesn't know about me at all, does he."

Lydia didn't answer, but her expression was answer enough.

He closed his eyes again, and felt his heart break, just a little bit. "Lyddie, we... I can't do this, Lyddie, not if he doesn't know."

"Oh, what does that matter?" She sounded unusually vicious, so much so that he opened his eyes in startlement and looked at her. Anger mixed with frustration and fear on her face. "I haven't been subtle about it, and he hasn't noticed! He just doesn't care!"

"Then tell him," Felipe said, as gently as he could. "If he really doesn't care, nothing will change. Or leave him. You could do that too."

Her hands tightened on the table, whitening her knuckles and bare fingers, and she stared down at them as if they held all the answers. "I..." She shook her head, without looking up. "I... no. No, that's not possible."

He shouldn't ask. It didn't matter anymore. He had her answer, and nothing would change that, but... "Are there children?"

She shook her head, still without looking up. "Please don't, Felipe, I... I just can't."

And that was that, unshakeable, unchangeable. Felipe sighed, and put up a hand for the waitress. "Check please," he told her.

She smiled at both of them, the bright plastic smile of customer service that never went any deeper than the skin. "Would you like me to box up your leftovers to take home?"

"No," Felipe said, because he really didn't want any reminders of this evening. Lydia obviously felt the same, because she only shook her head again, her eyes still on her hands. They sat in silence while the disconcerted waitress picked up their half-eaten dinners and walked away.

Lydia broke the silence briefly, her voice sounding sore and tight. "Do you... do you think that we could..."

He was shaking his head before she'd finished speaking. "I don't cheat. Ever."

"But you wouldn’t be cheating, it would only be me." Tears filled her voice now, though her face was expressionless.

"It would be me, too," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Yes, well," she said, and finally looked up. Her eyes were dry, and empty. "So am I."

He paid for dinner, helped her into her coat, kissed her cheek, and said goodbye, but she never said another word.

--

Zack called him first, over the moon, talking six to the dozen about how amazing Summer was and what a lucky man he was. Felipe nodded and smiled until his cheeks hurt and murmured agreement, and watched with detached interest as he dug his pencil into the pad of paper before him until the tip snapped. Summer called next, and her quiet happiness was easier to take, or he thought so until he hung up and realized he'd clenched his free hand so hard his nails left bloody crescents into his palm.

He called out sick, dug out his best shirt and a pair of nice jeans, and hit the clubs less than an hour later.

It wasn't hard. He knew what clubs the poly crowd frequented, knew all the signals to send-- how to smile and wink just right, how to pick the open couples out of the crowd, how to approach them without seeming threatening. But tonight none of them seemed attractive-- too tall, too thin, too dark, too light. It took a couple hours of clubhopping before he found them.

They wound up approaching him instead of the other way around-- a blond, well-built man and his slim redheaded wife, both of them prominently displaying wedding rings, both of them smiling lasciviously. "Well, hey there," the wife said, slinking up to the bar next to him, and leaning on it. She made sure he was looking before she popped the first button on her shirt to bare an expanse of creamy white cleavage, sprinkled with freckles.

Felipe smiled back, the familiar hot rush climbing up his spine for the first time that night. "Hi," he said back, letting his eyes dip down to her breasts. Well, she'd gone to quite an effort to draw his attention to them. It would be rude not to look. And they were very nice.

"Hello," echoed a low baritone behind him, and he turned around to see the husband, blond, blue-eyed, smiling at him with equal promise in his eyes. He copied his wife's maneuver, in his case exposing a well-muscled chest lightly dusted with blond hairs. The man smiled at him, said further, "You looked lonely."

"We've been watching you," the woman cooed, suddenly close enough against his back that he could feel the heat from her body through his thin shirt. "We don't like it, that you look lonely."

"Yeah?" He leaned back just a bit, not enough to harass her but just enough to feel the softness of her breasts against his back, and was gratified when she responding by wrapping her arms around his waist. "Well, I gotta say, I've had better days."

"Poor baby," the man said, reaching out to cup his cheek. "I think we should take him home, honey, make him feel better."

"That's a great idea," the woman said, slipping her hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "You want to feel better?"

Her hand skimmed over his dick, and Felipe had to bite his lip to keep from jumping. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I want to feel better."



Their names were Tamsin and Greg, and they did make him feel better, for a little while at least, their bodies warm and soft and hard against his. There was something to be said for sex, for Tamsin riding him with her head thrown back and her magnificent breasts bouncing, for Greg's mouth around his dick with just the faintest hint of teeth. There was even something in watching them fuck, after he came, Tamsin curling her fingers at the nape of Greg's neck, Greg bowing his head to press against her forehead.

They let him stay the night afterwards, a kind gesture toward a random hookup, but he sort of wished he hadn't taken them up on it. Sex, however good it was, could only distract him for so long, and watching them giggle together as the three of them changed the sheets and remade the bed, watching the absent, sweet caresses they exchanged-- it was not helping, not in the slightest. He lay awake in the middle of the night, listening to them breathe entwined beside him, and wondered if this was going to be it.

It sort of had to be, didn't it? He'd never loved anyone like he loved Zack and Summer. They were happy and he was happy for them, but that didn't erase the aching loneliness, the vast gulf that had opened up inside of him the moment he picked up the phone and heard Zack yelp, "She said yes!" Too late now. Whatever hopes he'd cherished, they died in that moment.

Maybe that was a good thing. He thought of Christian and sighed. Friendship, however close, couldn't always sustain a romantic relationship. They'd loved each other, but not in the right way, and in the end it tore them apart. He might not have tried for them anyway, knowing that: even if he hadn't known that Zack was straight and Summer uninterested and the both of them monogamous anyway, he might have left well enough alone. Not that he'd ever know, now.

So it would be this, forever. Watching Zack and Summer laugh and smile and exchange little caresses, watching them buy a house and have children and grow old together, and all the while smile and smile and lie, tell them he was nothing but happy, tell them he was satisfied to be their friend.

Friend. He'd never hated that fucking word more.

He said goodbye to Tamsin and Greg the next morning, thanked them sincerely for a lovely night and all their help. Greg missed it but Tamsin's smile turned slightly quizzical at that, and Felipe fled before she could ask, because he rather thought she would ask and oh, this was not something he wanted to talk to anyone about, not even a pair of almost total strangers. Not yet.

He had to go. He couldn't stick around here anymore. He knew himself well enough to know that being around Zack and Summer would wreck him and hurt them, and if he could maybe stand the former, the latter was not acceptable. Besides, his sister Luzia had been bugging him to come and visit. Said the kids missed their uncle.

Yeah. He'd do that, go visit Luzia and her brood, play with his nieces and nephews until his spirits lifted a little. They were always good for him, always bright and pleasant and so happy to see him. Time with them would ease his heart a little. Then he could come back and see if he could manage being the steadfast friend.

If he couldn't...

Well, there was time to deal with that later.

--

He was such a fucking idiot.

Felipe rapped his pen on his Formica desk and tried not to watch the clock too obviously. Twenty-four hours, Zack had said, give me twenty-four hours, and like the fucking idiot he clearly was, Felipe had given it to him. Love made such a fool out of him-- God alone knew his romantic history bore that out-- and hopeless love, it seemed, made him even stupider than usual, because what, exactly, was Zack going to do?

He could not be the devoted friend. He couldn't. He'd tried that, pretending for three months that he was nothing but happy for them, and all he had to show for it was a broken heart and the conviction that he had to get away, to preserve his own sanity if nothing else. Love could drive you mad-- look at Lydia, caught in an affectionate trap of her own making, searching desperately for someone who could bring back the first heady days of her marriage. She hadn't found it with him, but for all he knew she was still looking, still begging the universe for mercy.

He could not be the devoted friend, and he would not be Lydia.

A murmuring rolled across the bullpen, and he looked up, hopeful, but no, not five o'clock yet, just Hienbacher leaving five minutes early. He ducked down beneath his cubicle walls again, stared at the report he was supposed to be filling out as if he could see through it to the letter of resignation that lay on his desk.

He'd made up his mind to go, to get a transfer, or, when that didn't work, quit outright and find work elsewhere. Police departments were always hiring, and he was a damn good cop-- after that mess with Summer and the serial killers she'd stumbled on, there were no praises high enough that his boss would not sing them. Good references, a strong resume, and a talent and desire for the job, yeah, he could find work somewhere else. Somewhere far, far away. He'd thought maybe Las Vegas. Plenty of work and opportunities to forget out there.

Then Zack had offered to pay for drinks and, like an idiot, he couldn't resist one more night, a few more hours with the man he loved. Like an idiot, he'd gotten tipsy. Like an idiot, he'd actually answered when Zack asked him what was wrong.

Like an idiot, he'd said he'd wait.

Not that it mattered. Twenty-one hours had passed and not a word from Zack, so whatever his old friend had been trying, it hadn't worked. Assuming he'd been trying anything. Assuming Felipe hadn't just been drunk and wistful. Assuming last night was not a product of the alcohol and wishful thinking.

Enough of this. Felipe stood up from his desk. Three more hours wasn't going to change anything, and he'd had enough of this slow torture. The captain might still be in. He could catch her before she left.

And yet...

Zack did have three more hours.

He picked up the letter and flicked it between his fingers for a moment, thinking, then tucked it into his pocket. Time enough to turn it in tomorrow.

He'd promised, after all.

The floating snow had turned to sleet by the time he got down the stairs. Appropriate, he thought, disgruntled, if thoroughly unwelcome. At least it didn't fucking snow in Salt Lake City.

Or did it? He'd have to do some research. Felipe shrugged on his winter coat and looped the ends of his scarf around his neck, glaring out the double-glass doors of the station as he descended the stairs. Fucking weather, indulging him in his depression.

"Felipe! Hey!"

Fucking Zack, not indulging his depression. Felipe clamped down on the happy little leap of hope his heart made, and said only, "Hey."

"Come home with me," Zack said, as Felipe's foot hit the floor of the lobby. He looked like nothing so much as an eager, hopeful puppy-- a golden retriever, with his blond hair. "Summer and I have to talk to you."

Felipe looked away, fidgeting with his scarf. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He'd hoped... but hadn't actually thought Zack had meant it. Not really. "I..." he began, paused to search for the right words, then said, "Look, Zack, I was drunk last night. If I said anything that... that made you uncomfortable..."

Zack rolled his eyes, and cut him off, which was so like Zack it was painfully funny. "Don't be an idiot," he said. "And do come home with me. We need to talk, the three of us."

Felipe went quiet for a moment, wondering what the hell this talk would involve. He could probably count on Summer to be nice, no matter what they had to say to him, but Zack was unfamiliar with tact, and he knew how badly he could be hurt by a few careless words. "I'm packing," he said, at last. "I don't know if I have time."

"It'll take an hour," Zack said, coaxingly, taking a short step towards him, reaching out for his sleeve. "Two, tops. And you said you'd give me twenty-four hours. That's not over yet."

Felipe flushed, heat rising to his cheeks. Zack was telling the truth, damn him; he still had two hours and fifty minutes. "I guess it's not."

"So come home with me," Zack said, in his most persuasive tones, which were not very persuasive at all, though he clearly thought that they were. Felipe managed not to groan through long habit. "C'mon, I got your favorite kind of coffee, just for you."

His eyebrow went up, almost of its own accord, though he still couldn't look Zack in the eye. "I thought you said it tasted like shit."

"I think it does,' Zack said, and shrugged. "And Summer only drinks tea, so you at least should come and get the bag. No one else is going to drink it."

Well, if he'd bought coffee. "All right," Felipe said, sneaking a look at Zack. His friend's expression was so relieved that he couldn't help a little half-smile. "I'll come."

"Good," Zack said, and handed him a twenty.

Felipe stared at it, both eyebrows arching, then looked at Zack. "The hell is this for?"

"Cab fare," Zack said. "Just in case."

"In case what?" Felipe muttered, but Zack didn't answer.

He sort of thought he knew, anyway.



The cab ride back to the townhouse, though predictably longer than it should be given the damned sleet and the ice on the roads, wasn't awkward. In fact, the pair of them managed to talk to each other almost like old times, Felipe ranting on about his current case and Zack bitching about the press. It was breathlessly easy, the way they talked together; always had been.

He was going to miss it so much, when he left.

The cab pulled up in front of the townhouse and Felipe went silent, looking up at the lighted living room window. Summer was in there, sweet pretty Summer with her quicksilver mind and heart-catching smile, Summer who was engaged to handsome, blue-eyed Zack with his blunt tongue and enormous heart. They were so right together it almost hurt-- no, did hurt, standing outside, looking up at the window haloed by light reflecting off the sleet and thinking about what he'd never have.

Maybe he should just turn around and go, promise or no promise.
Zack shoved him irritably in the small of the back, a gesture so familiar it was weirdly calming. "Move it," he said, and even his voice was normal, like they did this every day. "I don't want to spend any more time in this crap than I have to."

Felipe moved obediently, and then just stood in the sleet, cold water trickling down his hairline, his breath frosting out in little puffs. Two feet then five steps into the townhouse and it seemed like an impassable distance.

Zack grabbed his arm, and said, levelly, "I will drag you if I have to."

"You can't drag me," Felipe replied absently, still staring up at the window. "You're way too much of a wimp."

"Fuck you, I can totally do it," Zack said, and actually managed to haul Felipe forward a couple of steps.

Felipe focused on him, mildly surprised. "You've been working out."

"Told you I could," Zack said, triumph in his tone. "Now move it."

The door opened, flooding them both in light. He looked up and caught his breath at the sight of Summer, hugging her favorite green cardigan around her, looking at the both of them as if they were idiots. "What are you doing?" she asked. "It's freezing out there!"

"Um," Felipe said.

"He's being an idiot," Zack said, then turned to face Felipe and hiked his thumb over his shoulder in Summer's general direction. "Look what you did, Felipe, you got poor Summer out in the sleet. She'll catch a cold and die because of you."

Summer gave him an evil look; Zack grinned unrepentantly, even though he couldn't see it. Had to be feeling it, though. It wasn't even directed at Felipe and he felt it boring a hole in his chest. "I am not that fragile," she informed Zack, and then turned a pleading tone on Felipe. "Come in, please? I've made you coffee."

His stomach twisted, at her sweet face and hopeful smile and pleading eyes. He could never say no to her, and she knew it. This wasn't any kind of fair tactics...

"What about me?" Zack asked, twisting back to face her and, judging from his tone, pouting.

She didn't look at him. "You know where the coffeepot is."

"She loves you more than me," Zack told Felipe, so casually that Felipe's heart skipped a beat, and for a moment he could only stand and stare. Too long a moment, evidently, because the next thing he said was, "Whatever, stand out here and freeze, I'm going inside."

Summer came a couple of steps outside, reaching out for Felipe with both hands. She winced when the driving sleet slapped her in the face, stinging a red flush into her cheeks. "Come in, Felipe, please. I promise... I promise this is nothing bad."

Summer meant that-- she almost never said anything she didn't mean, and doubly not when it was this important. Felipe took both her hands in his, the pads of his fingers tingling where they touched her skin.

"All right," he said. "For you."

She smiled at him, beautiful and beneficent, then pulled him into the house. Zack was already taking off his suit jacket, ruffling his hands through his hair, shaking droplets of sleet and half-snow all over the floor. "God, it's awful out tonight," he said. "And it started out so pretty."

Summer padded past him into the living room, and came back with a blanket, which she wrapped around Felipe's shoulders after taking his jacket off for him. The sleet was already soaking into her cardigan, making darker emerald spots on the grassy green of her sweater. "I wish it would go on snowing. It always looks so pretty."

"Until you remember you have to walk to work in the morning," Zack muttered.

It was all so comfortable and domestic. They must have had this conversation, or something very like it, every night for the months they'd lived together; Zack hanging up his jacket, Summer padding over to him for a kiss. It was sweet, restful, and completely between them, the two of them, with no room for him.

He almost turned around and left. But Summer had taken his hand again, and now she drew him into a hug, winding one arm around his shoulder, her body soft and warm against his. He bent his head into the crook of her neck, just for a moment, and smiled quickly when she touched her mouth to his cheek before releasing him. Then it was Zack's turn, this time a deliberate, shoulder-pounding squeeze full of manly clichés and muscle against his chest.

"If you're trying to make me feel comfortable," Felipe said, muffled against his shoulder, "beating me up is not going to help."

Summer giggled, and Zack grinned, letting Felipe go. "That's not what I hear from your exes."

"My exes," Felipe said, "are filthy liars. Except when they talk about my sexual prowess. That's all true."

It came out on pure autopilot, and given the circumstances he could've kicked himself, but Zack only broke into a fit of laughter poorly disguised as coughing, and Summer merely looked speculative for a moment before she asked, "Was that a joke?"

"Yes," Zack said. "Mostly. We'll talk about the other ten percent later."

The speculative look returned, stronger than ever, and Felipe bit back a sudden surge of arousal. That faint thoughtful look in her eyes, her lip caught in her teeth-- she must look like that in bed, just after she came, all sweet and soft and freckled white skin.

"--I promised you?" Zack asked, and Felipe blinked, zoned back in.

"Sorry?"

At least Zack only looked amused, so he either didn't know what Felipe had been thinking or he didn't mind it, and frankly, Felipe wasn't sure which one he believed. "Do you want that cup of coffee I promised you?"

"It's on the counter," Summer piped up. "The white mug with Santa Claus on it."

If that was supposed to be a message, Felipe had no idea what it was intended to convey. He just nodded, and let Summer lead him into the living room and sit him on the couch still wrapped in his blanket, the chilly spots where the sleet had melted into his shirt slowly warming. Zack brought him the white mug with Santa Claus on it, and handed a green holly-bedecked mug to Summer before disappearing back into the kitchen, presumably to make his own coffee.

Summer sipped her tea thoughtfully for a moment, then pulled a coaster over, set the mug down, and sat down beside Felipe, hip to hip.

He stared down into his mug for a moment, just breathing in the coffee. Such a small piece of comfort, that Zack had actually thought to get his coffee. Whatever happened tonight, at least he had that comfort.

Zack came back in, saw them sitting on the couch together, and-- was that a smile? Whatever it was, it was gone fast, and he sat down across the coffee table, leaning back in the ugly red armchair he'd had since before Felipe had known him. He put his feet up on the coffee table, totally ignored the glare Summer shot him, and heaved a sigh. "This is more like it," he said. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Felipe blinked at him.

"I don't follow," he said, at last.

Zack exchanged looks with Summer, and she was the one who spoke, carefully. "We don't think you should leave, Felipe. We... we really wish you wouldn't."

Oh.

Disappointment rose like a flood in his throat; he swallowed it hard, and took a sip of coffee to help it down. "You told her what I..." he started, looking at Zack, and couldn't finish it.

Zack took his feet down from the coffee table and leaned forward, expression serious. "I did. All of it."

"We talked," Summer said, simply. "I understand why you want to go. We both do. And... and we don't want you to go."

"Do you mean..." Another sip of coffee, to moisten his suddenly dry mouth, and he continued, "Do you mean you want me?" He couldn't be any more specific than that.

Summer put her arm around his shoulders, and almost inadvertently he leaned into her side, but it was Zack who spoke, blue eyes serious but a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. "Yes," he said. "That's what we mean."

Felipe set the coffee down, very carefully and on a coaster because he knew how Summer was about her coffee table, and removed Summer's arm from his shoulder, as gently as he could because he also knew how she was about boundaries. Then he shrugged the blanket off, stood up, and said, as calmly as he could manage, "If this is a joke, I'm going to leave right the fuck now, and I will never speak to either of you again."

Zack jumped up, but it was Summer who spoke, distress written all over her. "Oh, no, it's not a joke! We would never, Felipe, please!"

Summer didn't lie.

He sat back down on the couch, slowly, perching on the very edge just in case. "Okay," he said, "but... this is an awfully sudden turnaround, Zack." Not to mention that the last time he'd checked, Zack had been straight.

"Fair point," Zack said, "except it's not really true."

Which made no sense, but that was Zack for you. Felipe, used to it, merely said, "Explain."

"We love you." That was Summer, her voice so soft he could barely hear her. "The thought of you going away... I can't bear it. I love you."

"As a friend," Felipe said, and was proud of himself when he kept from spitting the word. "And that's okay, guys, I just... I can't do it, I'm sorry. I love you too, just..."

"We love you," Zack interrupted, "as a friend. And as more than a friend. I mean, my friends are great and all, and it'd cut me up to lose them, but..."

"Not like this," Summer said. Her arm stole into his, curling around his elbow. "I don't have many friends, you know that, but if you were just a friend, I wouldn't feel like this."

"So there's more there," Zack added. "We don't know what, exactly, but we'd like the chance to find out."

Felipe looked at him for a long, silent moment, just took him in. They were a beautiful couple, Zack and Summer, blond hair and red together when they bent over a project. As she was beautiful, so he was handsome, in a slightly different way-- Felipe didn't think anyone could look at his oddly triangular jaw and find it classically handsome, but just the same he didn't think the hypothetical observer could find him hard on the eyes either. Mobile features, bright and slightly goofy when smiling or darkly serious when contemplative or frowning, and his eyes, the same bright living blue as Summer's. Blue eyes, he'd always been a sucker for blue eyes and blondes, and how was Zack any different?

And Summer, sweet Summer, so fragile and so strong, like a stained glass window, or a hummingbird, jewel-toned in the air. She was so easy to break. He'd seen it happen over and over again, seen her crying, seen her fair skin reddened and streaked, her button nose swollen. He could do that to her, if he wasn't careful. If he made the wrong choice tonight, he'd do that to her.

Was it worth trying? Was it worth losing this?

"I don't want to be a chance," he said, at last, looking back and forth between two sets of hopeful blue eyes, meeting neither. "I don't want... if this is going to happen, I don't want it to be on probation."

Zack straightened up at that, looking as if he didn't know quite what to say, but Summer had words for it. "It's not probation that we mean," she said. "It's... it's a relationship, like any other relationship. Isn't it always a chance?"

"Yeah, that," Zack said. "Chance was a bad choice of words, sorry. I meant... look, Felipe, we want to date you, man. Does it have to be this hard?"

Felipe looked at Zack as if he were an idiot, and saw from the corner of his eye Summer doing the same. "Of course it's this damned hard, you idiot," he snapped. "You're my two best friends in the world and the two people who can break my heart without even trying. In what universe is something like this easy?"

Zack looked rather hurt at that. "I only meant... we love you. Why can't we give this a go?"

Summer laid a hand on Felipe's bicep, and though she didn't need to do it to hold him back, he didn't dissuade her, enjoying as he was the pressure of her fingers. "Besides, it's different at a very basic level," she said. "It isn't as if we're only one person."

"Yeah," Felipe said, "and I've dated married couples before." Or, well, once-- the rest of the time it had been just sex, but whatever. "It's really hard to... to manage that without feeling left out."

"Oh, we aren't getting married," Summer said.

"What?" Felipe said.

"What?" Zack yelped.

"Well, we can't," she explained, turning to face Zack and crossing one leg over the other. She looked so prim and professional with her hands now folded over her knee, every inch Dr. Kendall. "Not if we're going to date Felipe. It wouldn't be fair."

Zack looked really upset now, his face crumpling. "You don't want to marry me?"

"I do want to marry you," Summer said, exasperation creeping into her tone. "It's just that we can't. If we want to commit to Felipe, too, then we can't get married because it wouldn't be fair to him."

The perturbation was fading from Zack's face, but he still looked confused. "I'm still not following."

"I mean..." She made an exasperated little huff, ran both hands through her hair. "I mean..."

"Imagine," Felipe said, suddenly, "that Summer and I were getting married, and we asked you to join in."

Zack's mobile features went through several different expressions before settling, finally, into enlightenment. "Oh, I see, it would be... you'd never feel like you'd fit."

"Exactly," Summer and Felipe said in unison, then she turned, and smiled at him, Dr. Kendall melting away to leave only sweet, lovely Summer.

"Ganging up on me already," Zack muttered. "Oh, sure, pick on the blond guy..."

He wasn't contributing to the conversation at all, so Felipe tuned him out and focused on Summer. "You have Zack," he said, quietly. "And I remember... when we were first friends, when I was hitting on you, you told me you only wanted to be friends."

"That was months ago," she replied, her tone just as quiet as his. In the background, Zack's muttering grew pointedly louder. "Things change, Felipe, you know that. People change. And I..." She hesitated. "I cannot do without you. Any more than I can do without Zack."

Touched, he picked up one of her hands and dropped a kiss on the back of it. "I don't think I can do without you either," he said, honestly. "Either of you. I just... I couldn't stand watching you..."

"I know," she said, and then, raising her voice, "Zack, stop muttering and join the conversation."

"Excuse you," he said, "I am busy feeling ill-used over here. You two just go on flirting."

Felipe raised an eyebrow at him. "Please, mon cher, this isn't flirting. You want me to flirt with her?"

"Do you want me to vomit?" Zack asked. "Don't flirt with her, flirt with me, dammit."

"You’d better do it," Summer said, sotto voce. "Or he'll just go on pouting."

"Woman, I do not pout!" Zack thundered, faking great offense obviously enough that Summer caught on, and merely gave him a flat look.

Felipe shrugged. "Sorry, my friend, you do in fact pout. Very attractively, but it's definitely pouting."

Zack sobered immediately, all the laughter gone from his face. "So that's it, then? Your answer's no?"

What the hell? Felipe flipped back over what he'd said, and... oh, he'd called him 'my friend.' "I haven't decided yet," he replied, cautiously. "I mean, if you really aren't getting married..."

"Oh, bring that up," Zack muttered, and then said, "If Summer says so, I guess we aren't, but I want to register my disapproval."

"When they make polyandrous marriage legal, we'll discuss it again," she said, primly. "Until such time, we'll behave as is fair."

"Listen to the lady, Zachary," Felipe said.

Zack snorted. "Same to you," he retorted. "The lady wants you to stay. Are you going to?"

Felipe looked back and forth between them again, so beautiful, so dear. Did he dare?

Well, what did he fear?

Losing them, to begin with. But wasn't he going to lose them anyway? If he said no tonight and walked away from them, he'd be losing them as surely and as permanently as if he said yes and this relationship crashed and burned like all the others. Even if they still wanted to talk to him, he didn’t think he could handle it, not knowing that he could have tried and had not. So that was a moot point.

But if it did crash and burn, he'd hurt them. He'd hurt them so much.

As much as leaving would hurt them? That, he did not know. But he thought the lost opportunity would haunt them as much as it would him. Maybe it would even come between them in the end, though God, he hoped not. No two people in the world deserved happiness as much as Zack and Summer.

He might hurt them if he stayed; he would hurt them if he left. Likewise, he might lose them if he stayed, and would lose them if he left. So why not stay?

Because it might end up like Christian. He might end up watching them walk away, knowing what it felt like to be in that charmed circle, and knowing too that he would never be there again. He'd gotten over Christian, eventually, grown to see that his were not the only mistakes in that relationship and to assess the ones that he had made, and he knew he would not hurt Zack and Summer in the same way that he had hurt Christian. They wouldn't leave him for the same reasons, but they might still leave for different ones, and then... would that pain be worth having them? Even for a little while?

"Felipe?" Summer's voice, soft as rain, Zack's concerned gaze on him.

"I want a promise first," he said, and was surprised when his voice came out raw.

They exchanged glances again. "Anything," Zack said.

Felipe had to swallow before he could speak again. "This won't be easy," he said. "People will... they're going to say things, nasty things. They won't understand. They won't try to. And I... am not always good at relationships." Christian, Paul, Alyssa, Lyddie... "I fuck up. I hurt people. If... if you're upset, if you think it's not working, promise me you'll talk to me first? You'll tell me... so I can try to change. Before." He swallowed again. "Before you leave me."

Another exchanged glance, then Summer put both arms around his waist and hugged him tight, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. "I will always tell you what I'm feeling," she said. "You do it for me. I will do it for you."

"Me too," Zack added. "I mean... I'm not always good at that, Felipe, hell, you know that, but I will try. I promise you that."

"And you promise," Summer said, her voice slightly muffled against his shoulder, "that you will tell us if you're unhappy. We don't want that. We never want that."

He put a hand to hers and clasped it tight, then turned his head, lifted her chin, and kissed her.

Summer's mouth opened beneath his, her lips warm and softer than he'd ever dreamed, her hands drifting up to settle on his biceps. She whimpered a little when he drew back, her eyes still closed and her cheeks flushed, her mouth parted and so tempting...

Felipe drew back, shuddering, because if he kissed her again he wouldn't stop, and looked instead to Zack, to find him staring at the both of them, his lips parted, his cheeks flushed.

Well, how was he supposed to resist that face?

He left Summer sitting on the couch, went to Zack, and kissed him, hot and hard. Zack's lips were chapped a little, a little harder than Summer's mouth, but still alive and warm and everything he'd never dared to dream he might have.

"Yes," he said, when he pulled back. "I'll stay."