…A friend in need is a friend indeed…A friend who'll tease is better…

(Placebo, Pure Morning)

IRV: It is said that a friend in need is a friend indeed. But like an awful lot of other things taken as granted, its meaning is way more cryptic than it seems. How should a friend behave in this so called "need"?
Let ourselves handle with our problems and find the solutions on our own, or giving the much desired helping hand? It seems so obvious that the second choice would be the best, doesn't it?
On the other hand, if the people who loves us keep us constantly under their wing, taking relentlessly the responsibility of our actions, protecting us as if we were children because they want to shelter us from any harm or just to prevent us from growing up and maintain the bound to them…How are we supposed to learn to stand on our own legs?

Along Forest Lane, a fifteen miles long road (so long that Doctor Brown wondered why they didn't call turnpike), was located what could be defined as Everwood's "slum neighbourhood". It wasn't because the buildings were somewhat unliveable. On the contrary, the most prevalent opinion amongst the citizen – and we know how much they like to criticize everything - was that those structures were quite a nice place to live. For someone who contents himself just with a roof upon his head like a student, they were perfect. Their only flaw was that shattered appearance, which like a punch in the eye compared to the refined elegance of the rest of the town.
By the way, it's not a good-looking house that people are looking for when they walk up and down that Avenue. It's something you can buy without be indebting yourself for the next five generations; something a little wider than efficiency apartment or a studio. Because it was hard enough to leave your cocoon, braver than you might think for someone who has lived in quite a luxurious way as Brighton Abbott, but to confront this adventure alone…It was way better to share your daily-routing with someone else…With a woman, if it was possible.
Now, don't think badly of Bright. Behind this opinion that a woman would be a better roommate than a man, there was an articulated reasoning: he didn't want to share his modest living space with somebody who can steel his spotlights (though he didn't believe a man like this really existed), nor he was longing to find someone who could compete with his best friend in "Advanced Self-pity" (also called: "let's whine over ourselves to unleash the inner mother instincts of older women").
And then a woman was made to tide the rooms, to make up beds, to do the washing up and all the other stuff you can expect from a housewife. After the word says it: it's "house-wife" not "house-husband". How would another male handle all those difficult tasks? Could he cook anything edible?

Yet, his quest for the perfect fellow tenant had been a complete failure. He couldn't help but flirt whenever a chick was nearby, and that wasn't supposed to happen on daily basis if you're dating another girl.

He wouldn't put himself willingly in an awkward situation with the only girl that seemed to be interested more in his personality than his mere muscular frame and "alabaster skin". A girl that didn't consider him as her personal God, a flawless boy who has blessed her with his attention… Just to speak behind his back with her female friends. If she had any problems with him, she would tell him. Perhaps with a little effort, babbling non sense or stuttering and definitely blushing but she would say what was wrong with him. He loved her for that. And he hoped that love wouldn't make her brain evaporate like it did with his own one…He needed her to remain the same.
Back on the roommate issue…Even when he pretended he didn't care about women's attention, they shamelessly tried to get their hands on him… Sometimes it was just so hard to be really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking.
So, he might reconsider Reid's offer to share the flat with him. That dude wasn't bad after all, though he didn't like the idea of him going out with Amy; he was a college student and could introduce him in the Tempe of Lusty Perdition that was the life in confraternities. It was just that he wasn't the kind of man that admitted to have made a mistake so easily. Especially when he trusted in his theory for months.
His mind was working so hard on so many matters that for a moment he had almost forgotten he wasn't alone in the living room. He was with a friend he was supposed to help, and he should concentrate on that instead of letting his thoughts wander aimlessly.

"I'm honoured you choose me as your mentor, Ephram." He forced himself to laugh, while he made a little a little parade in front of the bathroom's mirror. To regain a little of his self-confidence, you know? "But you're joking, ain't you?"
He turned around, to face his friend. The look on Ephram was far beyond serious. Deadly serious. It was that kind of 'Abbott, you're the one and only who can save the world.' look that he had seen so many times in his basketball mates faces; and he absolutely adored the feeling of being indispensable for someone.

Dammit! How could that dorky geek know him so well already? Or was he predictable as a stereotyped character of those Japanese comics his friend liked so much?
Nahhhh…Impossible!
"Give me sometime to work out a strategy. I'll call you back, later. " Ephram raised a sceptical eyebrow, letting his eyes linger on the surroundings around him. It wasn't long before he noticed a pair of boxers on the kitchen's sink…clothes discarded on the floor, even dirty socks clumsily hidden under the sofa…next to Gino Chang's take-away food package…Food that had to be very greasy, judging from the stains on the parquet and the way the soles of your shoes remained glued to it. It was pretty obvious that he made it presentable just when he knew a potential girl roommate was coming, or at least he gave his best in hiding everything from her view. The younger boy could imagine Bright's surprise at discovering that his talent to conceal pornographic magazines from his mother could be useful in so many ways.
He highly doubted that a man who couldn't organise the cleaning of his own flat was indeed able to work out a strategy. Nevertheless he was the one who came and ask the blond for help, he couldn't hurt Bright's ego demonstrating so little faith in his tactical abilities.
Therefore, before unhappy and embarrassing phrases about his friend's lifestyle could be uttered by his mouth, he made a quick escape refusing even the coffee Bright offered him. And by the way…Offering him a coffee? What was he thinking? That they were a couple of old friends in their late forties?
Come on! They weren't even twenty and they had already started acting as they were almost fifty…Oh my.

Sighing heavily, Ephram headed to the high-school he had left not so many months before. He had to admit that the headmaster had been really kind to let him and his pupil use the school's facilities also on week-end.
It was so weird to come back there as a teacher, though his subject was an extra-scholastic one, where he still felt a great dissatisfaction. That place, those wall and lockers, and doors and everything had seen his friendship with Colin and his relationship with Amy naissance and death…It was like they anchored him helplessly to Everwood. To his adolescence.
He sat on a leather armchair, by now old and broken, of the music classroom. Everything there was at least twenty years old: carpets, shutters of the door and of the little window on the left side…He should considerate it as a miracle, the fact they didn't use egg packages to deafen the room. And he really didn't dare to determine how many years old that rickety piano was. Keeping a reasonable distance from it, he waited for Kyle to arrive, while he imagined with increasing horror the many strategies the demented Bright's mind could conjure up.
Maybe he was getting in bigger troubles that the ones he had already…
Great.

He couldn't know that his friend was completely at loss of ideas, and that he would have passed the morning trying to find one that wouldn't deceive Ephram's expectations instead of looking out for that fucking roommate…Oh God, this issue was getting pretty annoying. He needed another being, no matter if a man, a woman or a giant black bear to share the rent and the various bills of that damned house.
Matching the two problems, Ephram and the 'quest for the perfect roommate', a light suddenly switched on in his brain. The former piano genius in fact had left the building shocked but not really disgusted by the untidiness and dirtiness of the living room. Bright was now sure that a girl, instead, would have run away as fast as she could. He felt like he had always known that his cohabiting with a member of the other sex was clearly a silly reverie. As soon as possible he should drop a line to Reid, or call him on his mobile to say that he evaluated the possibility of having him as a cohabitant and finally decided for an affirmative response.

So he could ultimately get this shit out of his head. However, three would be better than two. Being two in a flat could make people believe they were gay and he definitely wasn't. Yet he didn't knew about Reid…One could think that he was straight as a rule since he was dating Amy or at least hanging out with her, but you can never now…Perhaps it was a showing off of his Latin charm, just to cover up a latent homosexuality.
He regretted, now, that Ephram didn't come begging for hospitality. Although he could always retort their unspoken agreement against the boy from NY, and impose Eph to be the third man in the house as a reward for his help.

If just he knew what to do.

He made it sound so easy, damned Ephram. It was pretty clear that he always get everything he wanted from life, from the way he sell out his instrumentation…Even the piano! Such a fucking spoiled child he was!
Immediately Bright realised it was bullshit with a capital B; not only because good look had undoubtedly turn its back to Ephram in the past three years but because it wasn't fair to compare the disgraces happened in their lives. Undeniably useless. An ignoble thought if he really was a friend to him.
First of all, he should find someone else who cared about Ephram and who could help him to find the weak points of his forthcoming plan. Not Amy, she always loved the boy for the ominous aura around him, and the paranoid view of the world had always been one of the few things they've always agreed on. Even if Reid had never appeared in her life there was no way she would collaborate to distort the antics of Ephram she loved the most: she wouldn't allow his brother to change him in a Bright the Second.
Amy would rather leave him to deal with his troubles on his own. Though Bright couldn't blame her sister, she passed over a year taking care of him, according her desires to be together with him and received very little back. She would have been selfish, but she had all the rights to be.
Delia was way too little, and he doubted that she knew what was going on in her brother's life. Naturally she was a clever kiddo and she got the hint that something had happened, but then her brother hurt her feeling with his "unjustified" departure from the town. Asking for her help would mean to expose that wound and compromise a relation that was, even if both of them refused to admit it, quite frail at the moment.
Mh, Ephram had surely infected him with the frightening virus of the complex-and-articulated-that-in-the-end-leads-to-nothing way of thinking…There was no other explanation to such detailed reflections...other than the "Dawson's Creek" marathon with Hannah last night…
Hannah! How come that he didn't call her straight away?
Feeling ashamed for having not thought about her from the beginning, he took the phone and dialled her number although he was brushing his teeth. There was no time to waste.

"…lo…nah…" He mumbled, taking a little time to spit the white liquid in the basin. "You'll forgive me if I was missing you so much that I had to call you so early on a Sunday morning, don't you?" His voice was so husky and sexy that he believed that Hannah would be taken aback by this sudden swing in sappy romantic mood of her boyfriend and wouldn't be able to reply for a couple of seconds, so he put the toothbrush back in his mouth.
He had never been so wrong. "Please Bright, don't make me this quarterback to cheerleader speeches at this time in the morning and tell me what I can do for you." She sighed, resigned but also amused somehow by his attempts not to make it sound as if he was asking for help. In the blind conviction of defending their pride, sometimes men could be so awkwardly funny…
"…ed…emp…" He blurted out, as the toothbrush fell inexorably from his mouth.
"I'm really sorry Bright but I didn't get a word you said." She said kindly. She was supposed to be mad at him for waking her up at 9 am on a Sunday morning to moan senseless words in the phone but instead she was somewhat pleased to hear that muffled voice. Well, to say "pleased" it's an understatement…She was smiling broadly and passing the phone from one to another, blushing at the though Bright was in the bathroom. She wondered if he could actually feel that smile.
"I said I need help." Bright's reply came after some alarming instants of silence. "It's about Ephram."
The mere mention of that name made the smile disappear from Hannah's features. She didn't forget what Amy had been through when the two broke up. She didn't want to betray her best friend, yet she remembered that he had been very kind and warm and gentle when she first came in Everwood…And then Bright seemed to count on herself so much…
"Okay! Soldier Hannah at yours orders…" She tried to be ironic but miserably failed; nevertheless she managed to provoke some strong reaction from Bright.
"I just wanted a simple 'yeah, you can count on me…' Don't start talking like my grandma, or I won't be responsible of my action anymore…" he muttered, in a fake threatening to Hannah's life.
"Ohh, I'm soooo frightened…" She giggled, hearing Nina's voice calling her from downstairs. She promised she would help her for the morning. "Mama Joy's at lunch? But how can we talk about him if he would be with us?"
"I could lay you down and make out with you on the table, so that he feels he doesn't really fit in…Though I believe it would raise the same reactions in all the customers…"
"And add that I would bury myself in shame for the next fifty years…" She was indeed blushing, red like a tomato, and could swear Bright was having the time of his life at his receiver.
"HANNAH!" Nina was more and more insisting.
"Come on; don't tell me you wouldn't like it…" He went on teasing her.
"I wouldn't tell you such a lie. But don't even dare to picture in your head us doing it for real! Okay?" Her voice was trebling but the tone was very resolute. Quite an oxymoron, but Hannah was a personified oxymoron so Bright didn't really apperceive it.
She didn't want to cut out their chat like that, but neither had she wanted to make Nina more nervous than she already was.
"Okay, okay…" Bright replied, with a bored yawn. "We'll find another way to keep that workaholic while we work out our cunning strategies…"

"Promise me you won't?" The dark haired girl whispered in the cordless phone as she walked down the stairs.
"I've grown enough not to make promises if I'm not sure I can keep it." He pointed out with pride. "See you later, Hannah."
He closed the call before she had the time to reply. She wished it had been longer, she was already missing Bright and besides that it wasn't so bad to procrastinate her entrance in the kitchen, where a delicious breakfast was waiting for her. Usually her stomach started growling from the moment she woke up and she was delighted to find all she dreamed of on that very table. She would have sat lazily on the stool until she had to run to school, just in the nick of time. Not today. Not even the day before…It had been a few weeks that the air around them was heavy, at the beginning not so much but it increasingly became more and more tense…Not as tense at the one in Minneapolis, yet not as relaxing as the day she first stepped into the house.
She asked over and over what was wrong, but casually it was time to cook Sam's breakfast or to take him home from school or to control that he was really having a bath…there was always something that hindered to touch the subject...And maybe there wasn't the need to. It was plain and simple: Jake plasticized smile vanished whenever the famous neurological surgeon from New York was mentioned. Even though he had never considered Andy and Nina being neighbours as a danger to his love story with the blond lady; since the wedding his attitude to their "friendship" had totally changed. And the fact that now Jake and Nina were under the same roof made everything more complicated.
Hannah ate very little, knowing that she had to or she would faint in the middle of Mama Joy's, and hurried to the porch taking the first jacket she set her hand on.
But even in her stormy mood, Nina was affectionate and caring as always and while they were walking to the car she passed her a parka, woollen scarf and gloves.
"The Fall Thaw is passed as you could notice from the cold…I wouldn't advise you to catch a cold just at the beginning of the fall…" Thinking about the rivalry amongst the three doctors in town she added "…They would fight to decide who's going to heal you and the end…You would cure yourself on your own."

Mama Joy's was the typical American Diner you see in the movies. With those big windows that overlook on the road, covered by feeble blind shutters. In such a cold place as Everwood it would have been a wiser choice to buy canvass but how can you kill like that the pleasure of spying the people on the sidewalk?
But it was mainly for that furniture so retro, which she saved from Jake's innovating fury, that you had the feeling to be back in time…In the 60s…Or was in the 70s? Hannah wasn't much acculturated on design stuff.
Yet there were some modernizations such as the newest sprinkler system and the most efficient electrical one and the most resourceful hydraulic system you could ever think of, and then a fire escape for people on wheelchair…And also, thinking about them an automated sliding door, which was wider the double compared to the old entrance. Nina had to give some satisfactions to the man that faced the renewal with her, that made it possible.
Apart from those little things, Everwood's inhabitants opposed themselves vehemently to any other alteration of the environment that was bound to many of their sweetest or bitterest memories. They allowed just to add a little jukebox inside.
Those tables were their meeting point…the setting of the happiest or most tragic moments of their lives…

And maybe that was the place were they would have solved their "little" problems.

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Author's notes: Oh my…This has become what I wish it wouldn't :( !
A fic translated from Italian çç! If you can speak/understand it, I suggest you to look for the original on EFP archive.
If you have noticed big grammar or spelling mistakes, please tell me.