Author's Note/Disclaimer:
They ain't mine. I simply borrow them and use them as puppets for an hour or two then go off and weep over them. This is my life, crying over tap dancing newsboys.
This story is dedicated to my dear friend KnightNight7203, who deserves most certainly all my love, and probably all of everybody's love in the world. We're keeping this show alive, remember, hon? Y'all go check out her stuff - she is a master of words in all fandoms and I worship the keyboards she types on. Review, too (both mine and hers) cause I love it when that happens!
All My Life
A Specs/Romeo Fanfic
Romeo.
?
Romeo.
Romeo?
ROMEO!
Come on, answer me.
You never don't answer, is something the matter?
ROMEO! I've called twice.
Alright, I'm coming over. Something's wrong or you lost your phone.
But you never lose your phone so something's wrong.
# # #
He was on Romeo's doorstep in under half an hour, his old car sputtering and ticking the whole way there as he pushed it as fast as he dared. Something had to be wrong. Romeo did not just simply not answer a text. Romeo did not just simply not pick up the phone. That was like the sun turning blue, or a warm day in a Canadian winter. It didn't happen. The world would end.
His parents weren't home, Specs knew that. They were on a trip to Italy with the two younger siblings, a trip that Romeo was denied as an attempt to give him the "punishment he needed to boost his grades back up." As far as Specs knew, it hadn't worked too well - had, in fact, had quite the opposite effect.
He knocked on the door softly (the doorbell had been broken for at least two years). No answer. Knock again. The spare key was duct-taped to the bottom of the unused wooden swing out front.
"Romeo! I know you're here!" He didn't, actually, but it's not as though there were a ton of other places Romeo went on Sunday afternoons. He was usually trying to finish up the homework he'd procrastinated on all weekend.
"Romeo!" Specs called again, checking the living room, the dining room, the sibling's room, den, finally heading upstairs. Past the master bedroom, the upstairs bathroom, the office, and finally Romeo's own bedroom at the very end of the hall.
That's where he was: curled in a tiny ball in the middle of the floor, face buried into the carpet while his back and shoulders shook and heaved with fast breaths and quiet sobs. He didn't look up when Specs entered.
"Romeo! What's the matter?"
He still didn't move.
Specs knelt next to him, rolled him over enough so that he had to sit up. He was stiff, wouldn't take his hands from around his knees or stop hugging his legs tightly to his chest. His face was tear-streaked, red and puffy around his eyes.
Specs' expression screwed up in confusion. This didn't happen to Romeo. Panic attacks? It was such a far fetched idea that it made him not answering his phone sound something normal.
But it didn't matter how crazy it sounded because it was happening, and it wasn't going to just go away on its own. Specs sighed (partly annoyed and partly confused and partly distressed about Romeo's current state) and put an arm under his knees and around his back as best he could. Thanks to his years of dance and Romeo's small form, Specs picked him up with ease carried him to his unmade bed.
He set him down and leaned him against the wall, prying his arms off his legs and trying to get him to relax a little, make it easier to calm down. It took several minutes, but it eventually worked. Romeo moved for the first time throughout the whole ordeal: he threw his arms around Specs's waist and pulled him, with surprising force, right next to him and practically threw himself into his lap. Specs was incredibly surprised to have Romeo's knees against his rib cage and Romeo's bare feet pushing into his thigh in the most uncomfortable way possible and Romeo's face in his chest and the top of his head right under his chin, but that's how it was and it was very clear he wouldn't be moving anytime soon.
So he lay one arm gently around Romeo's legs and let his other hand run up and down his back through his shirt while the smaller boy hyperventilated and shook and shuddered against him.
It was an hour or more, Specs didn't know, before Romeo relaxed, his breathing slowed down enough that he might as well have been asleep. He stopped shaking, the muscles in his legs stopped jumping every few seconds, his grip on Specs lessened and Specs, in turn, stopped rubbing his back.
"You better?" He whispered softly, not wanting to scare him. He had read somewhere that that was the best thing to do for somebody having a panic attack, not to scare them, to expect that they won't answer a question, to reassure them without words by showing them that somebody's right there who's not going to get frustrated or angry at them.
He thought he was doing a pretty good job.
"I..."
He sounded so broken Specs didn't think he wanted to even hear what he had to say.
"It's okay, Romeo. You don't have to tell me, alright? Just try to calm down, okay?"
He only realized it was the wrong thing to say after it had left his mouth - why would you think it was okay to tell a person having a panic attack to 'just calm down'? It didn't work that way. He didn't have an option. He couldn't just stop.
But Romeo apparently doesn't notice and continued to try and rasp out an explanation to Specs regardless.
"I told them... My parents... I'm gay." It didn't come as news to Specs. Not much regarding Romeo did, considering their deep understanding of each other within their relatively short-time friendship. Since freshman year, that is, so that makes it three years' time they'd had to get to know each other so, so well, in the way that boys do that takes them what seems like forever and no time at all. "And they, they were fine. I don't... Don't know what's wrong with me. They left and I... I couldn't. I don't know."
"You just don't feel right, huh? Okay. Well, is something else the matter?"
He didn't say anything for a while, and Specs assumed he was simply thinking about it, turning the question over in his head. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't, but Specs didn't find out because the moment he opened his mouth to repeat the question was the same time that Romeo said:
"Go."
Specs scoffed a little. He must have misheard. "What?"
"Please go. I can't have you here. I'll be okay now. Just... Please go."
He sat in stunned silence for just a moment, trying desperately to understand what could possibly be so bad that Romeo wanted him to leave. He doesn't want me here. He doesn't want me here. He doesn't need me. I can't help him. He doesn't need me anymore. Just go.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Leaving. Right. 'Cause you don't need me."
"Specs, no -"
But he was already roughly throwing Romeo off him, leaving him to collapse in a boneless heap on his own bed atop the messy covers, in the warm spot where his best friend had just sat and comforted him for too long to remember how long it was. Specs was down the stairs and out the door before either of them could say anything else. But he still took time to lock the door behind him, to put the key back in its place under the duct tape beneath the swing. Specs knew Romeo didn't see. He couldn't care less, Specs thought. Everything I've done for him, ever, and he couldn't care less about anything. Why do I bother?
# # #
Romeo wasn't at school, but Specs don't notice until Tuesday and didn't ask about it until Wednesday.
"Guys, you seen Romeo?"
They all looked at each other, around the lunch table when he came to sit down next to Davey on the end.
Crutchie answered, as he always answered any question somebody asked to the group - usually to keep Jack from being a smartass and getting everybody detention.
"Nah, I haven't heard from him. Which is weird, now that I think about it."
"Race?" Specs asked, looking at him next to Spot, because Race always knew everything about everybody.
He shook his head. "Uh-uh. He's supposed to come to my party on Saturday but he hasn't been answering my texts. Which is weird, ya know, but I figured he was probably just busy keeping up with everything on his own, with his parents and the sibs gone, ya know?"
Right, party on Saturday. Not that Specs was going, anyway, he had studying to do. As always.
"You should probably check on him, Specs," Crutchie told him.
Specs nodded in agreement, mind screaming at him to ask somebody else to do it, make up an excuse; his guilt and worry telling him that he really should do it himself. So he continued to nod. He always was such a sop with a big heart, as so many people were fond of telling him.
"Yeah, I will. After rehearsal, though, then I'll go over. If you hear from him, be sure to tell me, right?"
Davey laughed. "Why would he talk to one of us before you?"
He doesn't need me. He doesn't want me there, he doesn't need my help, I'm not good enough for him.
Specs shrugged. "Just tell me, alright?"
And they all looked at each other a little concerned-like, because Specs didn't snap often, but they brushed it off as nerves and stress and too much to think about, then continued to eat their lunch while Race told stupid stories that somehow had everybody rolling around the dirty cafeteria floor laughing anyways.
# # #
Specs once again had to use the spare key, and he thought, not for the first time, that he really should just take it to the hardware store up the street and have a copy made for himself.
At first, he was glad to see that Romeo had at least gotten up enough will power to move from his bed to the couch. But then he saw the pizza boxes, the empty cans of Diet Coke, the crumbs spilled all over the kitchen and the blankets that cocooned his body. His hair was mussed up just about as bad as it could get, pretty greasy-looking, too. From the mouth of the living room he could smell the stench of sweat and morning breath, days old.
Romeo had been living on pizza and coke and hadn't showered or brushed his teeth or done much of anything but get up to go to the bathroom for three days.
Specs sighed again, vaguely wondering if that's how it was going to be every time he saw Romeo, and for how long that would last.
He was a wreck, only Specs knew but he didn't know why. And from their Sunday night conversation, it seemed that Romeo didn't quite know why either.
Specs went and crouched next to him, right in front of his face, used his fingernail to push away a few strands of hair from where they stuck to his sweaty forehead. It was hot, his skin on fire.
Romeo's eyes opened groggily, and he had to blink a few times before he could make out the figure in front of him.
"Specs? Told you to leave," he mumbled, and Specs shook his head.
"Yeah, we'll I came back. Good thing I did, too." Romeo didn't say or do anything but close his eyes again. "Nope. Get up. You stink. Shower, now. Come on."
He ripped the blankets off his friend, not surprised to find that his sweat-drenched clothes were the same ones from Sunday. Specs pulled Romeo up by his arm, slung it around his shoulders and had to half-drag, half-carry him upstairs to his parent's bedroom.
It became clear when he sat him down on the toilet seat that Romeo wasn't about to help with any of this at all. Specs sighed once again and set about turning the shower to just the right temperature, a little cooler than necessary to cool Romeo off and maybe help snap him back to reality a bit more, then took a breath as he stripped himself and (with much difficulty) Romeo down to just their boxers.
He quickly wiped Romeo's arms and torso and his neck and, gently, his face with a washcloth and a little bit of soap, washed his hair three times with so much more shampoo than he should have, slapped a bit of conditioner on it and stood him under the water until there was not a soap sud left on his body. Only then did he turn the water off, lead Romeo back to the toilet seat.
Specs dried and dressed himself first, glancing at Romeo every now and again, finding every time that Romeo's eyes were closed and his head was hanging, but it was clear he wasn't asleep. It was impossible to tell if he was alert or not.
"Here," he said as he pushed a change of clothes against his chest. He let go and they fell to Romeo's lap, who looked down at them helplessly. "Change."
Specs closed the door behind him, went downstairs and began a long process of making enough camomile tea to make a true Englishman faint. Fifteen minutes and he made his way back upstairs, knocked once before peeking inside just a crack, opened the door all the way when he saw Romeo had not moved an inch and was still staring at the clothes in his lap as though they were alien objects.
"Romeo, you can't possibly expect me to dress you, can you?"
The withering, pitiful look Romeo gave him begged to differ.
And so that's exactly what happened. Romeo was hardly awake or aware enough to really notice that anything was going on, and so Specs reassured himself the whole time that he would be the only one alive who would possibly be able to tease himself about showering and drying and dressing Romeo. He would simply never speak of it again, any of it. The world would never know.
(And despite this knowledge, despite his major, secret crush on his best friend, he would not allow his gaze to stray. Not once.)
They made it back downstairs to the living room in such a time that the tea was lukewarm, almost cold. But Specs decided to leave it as it was - he was worried about Romeo burning his mouth if he heated it up again. So he gave him a mug of cold, unsweetened tea that was a bigger water-to-tea ratio than should be socially acceptable, then seated him in the one chair in the room that wasn't covered in something nasty.
He sighed a lot more as he took all the pizza boxes out to the trash bin, vacuumed the couch, threw every one of the blankets into one big load in the wash, rinsed and recycled the empty cans and wiped the surface of the coffee table off with a damp rag. The living room, by the time he finished, was so much cleaner than he was sure it had been in years.
He was please to see when he put everything away that Romeo had drunk one and a half cups of tea and was still working on the second half of the second cup.
"There you go. Feel better now?"
He shook his head, eyes closed, then opened them and looked pointedly at the stairs. Specs followed his gaze, then back at his already much brighter and better looking friend.
"Alright. But you've got to walk yourself up the stairs, okay?"
And despite saying this and Romeo agreeing that he will with a nod, Specs still walked beside him and carried the mug of tea and kept a steady hand on his arm the whole way up to the end of the hall and to his room. They sat on the bed, still unmade but much less gross than the couch had been. And even if Romeo didn't need him or want him there, Specs tucked the covers up to his chin and placed three pillows under his head.
He made to leave then, to finish cleaning up the mess that Romeo had unconsciously made and maybe do a little mopping up of water from the bathroom floor, but Romeo's voice stopped him.
"Stay."
Specs scoffed a little. He must have misheard. "What?"
"Please stay. I want you to stay here."
He stood in stunned silence for just a moment, trying desperaly to understand what could possibly have made Romeo have a sudden change of heart. He wants me here. He doesn't want me to go. He needs me. I can help him. He still wants me to be here. Just stay.
"Okay," he said quietly. "I'll stay."
He went back to the bed and climbed beneath the covers and sat against the headboard with Romeo's back right up against his front and his arms around Romeo's torso and Romeo made no argument against the position and yeah, Specs finally allowed himself to think, maybe he wants this just as much as I do.
"What's the matter with me?" Romeo said after a while.
Specs forced himself to breathe a bit easier, a bit more relaxedly, assured now that Romeo was at least doing okay enough to talk.
"There's nothing the matter with you. You just had a meltdown, that's all."
"But that doesn't happen to me. I don't have meltdowns."
"Apparently you do."
They were silent for a while more, then:
"Specs, I love you."
Those easy, relaxed breaths caught in his throat. But he didn't need to ask 'what' or 'huh' or make any other caveman-like sounds of bewilderment because there was absolutely no way he could have misunderstood that and yet there's absolutely no way that Romeo had actually said it.
"I love you, too, Romeo."
It kind of just came out of his mouth, pretty impulsively, probably the most impulsive thing he'd ever said or done. But even if he could take it back he wouldn't want to. Because he realized, then, that they both meant it. So he didn't have any reason to take it back.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I love you, too."
"Promise?" Romeo asked in a barely-there whisper of a voice.
"Promise," Specs answered, just as quiet.
They had to shift a bit to kiss, but they managed. It was short, sweet, soft and gentle, just everything that both of them needed. Specs inched them further down the bed until they were fully lying down, Romeo on his side and practically on top of Specs, but he didn't mind. They kept their lips together, just held there, only moving occasionally to prove to each other that they weren't going to run away and disappear forever. In just that moment, it seemed they shared all the promises that could never be done justice with words, and that was all the incentive that Romeo needed to come alive again.
fin