Troy had been in Los Angeles for three days now, and he still hadn't told Abed. The first thing he'd done as soon as he and LeVar finished their trip was chart a course straight for LA, but now that he was finally here, he didn't know what to do.
Well, okay, he obviously knew what he had to do: call Abed and tell him he was back, give a big romantic speech worthy of any big budget rom-com, and then get down on one knee, or hold up a bunch of signs, or some other big gesture depending on which movie seemed best suited for the homage.
Simple enough on paper, but it turned out that writing the perfect, heartfelt reunion scene was harder than it looked, and Abed deserved nothing but the best.
So on the third day of failed brainstorming, Troy decided to take a break and hope that a change of scenery would provide a spark of inspiration.
As he walked to the nearest bar he looked around, taking in the nearby buildings. The only place he'd really visited so far was a nearby In-N-Out, which he'd heard was a rite of passage for anyone visiting Los Angeles. His phone indicated that the hotel was also close to a vegan bakery, a spa, two different yoga studios, and the headquarters for a video game that he was only vaguely familiar with. None of those sounded too exciting, except maybe the bakery, so he headed straight for the bar, making a mental note to look up the bakery's menu later.
The bar was actually nicer than he'd expected, with a large list of cocktails that made his head spin. He stared at the menu for about two very confused minutes, before giving up and ordering a seven and seven. The bartender raised her eyebrow at him but didn't say anything, so he figured he wasn't being judged too much.
He was halfway through his second drink when his attention was caught by someone at a nearby table standing. With nothing better to do—he could admit to himself that sitting alone at a bar probably wasn't the best place to get the creative juices flowing—he watched with half-hearted interest.
"To team building exercises!" announced the standing guy: a white man with a truly unfortunate mustache. Despite his enthusiasm, he received a lackluster response from the people assembled around him, most of whom ignored him or rolled their eyes.
"Hey David, that was pretty good but do you think you could do it again and try to make this sound even more lame?" asked a woman with glasses and an Australian accent.
He frowned, dejected. "Come on guys. This is supposed to be fun; could you at least pretend to be enjoying yourselves?"
"Oh, I'm enjoying myself," the brunette guy across from him said, raising his glass. "To drinking on company time and making David pay for it!"
The people around him laughed and the Australian woman clinked her glass against his. "All right, I'll drink to that!"
As the other people around the table joined in, the brunette tossed back his shot and, though his back was to Troy, his body language radiated smug satisfaction.
He turned to flag over the bartender for another drink, and that's when Troy saw his face. He stared. It wasn't until he felt an uncomfortable pressure in his chest that he realized he'd stopped breathing. He had to blink a few times to make sure that he wasn't imagining things, but no, he would recognize that face anywhere.
Abed looked older than Troy would have expected, but maybe he was just so used to looking at the pictures of him he had on his phone that he'd underestimated the effect the passage of time would have. His hair was curlier too, longer than Troy had ever seen it before.
God, how much had he missed out on?
He felt himself stepping forward before he'd even consciously decided to do so. Abed's name came unbidden from his lips, not that he would've stopped himself if he could have.
At the sound of his name, Abed twitched and turned around to face him, frowning quizzically. His body language was all off; he had an arm slung over the back of his chair casually, loose in a way that Abed never was unless he was playing a character. Troy couldn't see a reason for the act—unless it was to fit in, but that was ridiculous. Abed was amazing and perfect exactly as he was, and if these people couldn't see that then Troy would... okay, he wouldn't fight them, but he would yell at them and probably start crying.
"What's up?" Abed asked, and his tone was off too, but Troy couldn't quite pin down how.
Troy blinked in surprise. Wasn't it obvious? Had Abed not known that the very first thing Troy would do would be to come back to him?
"I'm back," he said. It should have been self-explanatory, and he wasn't liking that he had to explain it. "I finally finished the trip."
Something unreadable flashed in his eyes for a brief moment, but then the confusion on Abed's face cleared, most of the character melted away, and Troy was looking at Abed—real Abed—for the first time since he'd left him alone on the steps of the school.
"Troy." Abed greeted, tone back to its characteristic flatness—but the subtle warmth in it that was always there when talking to Troy was absent. He tilted his head slightly to the side, the way he did when he was confused by someone's behavior. Troy hadn't realized how endearing he found that until right now, hadn't realized he'd missed it. "What are you doing here?"
Behind him, his friends had all turned to look at them and were whispering to each other, confused. Abed didn't spare them a glance, and neither did Troy, who was too busy figuring out what had gone wrong if Abed still hadn't realized that there was nothing in the world that could have stopped Troy from coming back to him as soon as possible.
Troy frowned. "I told you; I finished the trip. So now I'm back."
"But you left." Abed was frowning now, too, and Troy didn't know what was happening. "You didn't even ask me, Troy, and you knew that I was lying when I said it was okay and you didn't even care." The hurt lurking beneath his voice was obvious, probably noticeable even for someone who didn't know him as well as Troy did.
"You were the only one who cared about me, who understood me at all. I thought that mattered to you."
Troy gaped, dumbfounded. "Of course that mattered! Abed, nothing matters to me more than you!"
Abed shook his head. "We both know that's not true, or you wouldn't have left. You knew exactly what that was doing to me, Troy, and you just walked away. Did you really think that a cheap trick with a piece of cardboard could fix anything?"
"But you—I thought that—you said that it had worked!"
Troy had never tried to imagine what condescension would look like on Abed's face, but even if he had, he never would've been able to predict how small it made him feel. "Yeah," he said simply. "And I lied."
"But... We decided that friends don't lie to each other," Troy said in a voice that sounded weak, even to him.
"You're right," Abed agreed. "They don't."
Troy felt like he'd been punched in the chest, but before he could say anything, Abed continued, eyes narrowing. "Do you know what it was like for me after you left? Once the only person who understood me was gone? I was alone, at best a quirky side character whose delusions they indulge when they're feeling nice about it."
He didn't want to ask, but he knew he had to. "And at worst?"
Abed shrugged, the casual gesture betrayed by the tenseness in his shoulders. "You've seen how often Jeff calls me a robot. And nobody cares what happens to robots, do they?"
Troy wanted Abed to stop talking, wanted him to smile and tell Troy that he was joking, that the study group had actually filled the gap that Troy had left by leaving—but Abed wouldn't lie about something like this.
(Before today, he'd thought that Abed would never lie about anything.)
He'd thought their friends had appreciated Abed as much as he had, valued him for the amazing person that he was and counted themselves lucky to have his friendship. He made a vow that as soon as he could, he would track down everyone else and yell at them until they realized how badly they'd fucked up.
"God, Abed, I'm so sorry. I thought it would be better this way."
Abed stared at Troy like he was the biggest fool in the world. "How could you leaving ever make things better?"
"This way—this way we'd never have to worry about making rent, and we could have a bigger apartment, and—and you would be able to open up your own film studio if you wanted!" he cried, desperate for Abed to understand.
"You think I care about money?" Abed demanded. Behind him, one of his friends started choking, and another clapped his hand over her mouth and whispered at her to shut up. "We were fine the way we were. I never needed money; I needed you!" He was almost yelling, insofar as Abed ever yelled. Then he sighed, and deflated. "And you left me."
"But I came back," Troy offered weakly. He'd thought that would be enough. Why had he thought that would be enough? He could feel his cheeks growing hot and, to his horror, his eyes started pricking with the beginnings of tears. He forced them down. Abed never minded when he cried, but then, he'd never hurt Abed like this before.
"Yeah," Abed said coolly. "Maybe you shouldn't have."
Troy could feel that his attempts at blinking back tears had been futile, and they were fully streaming down his cheeks now. "But I—" his voice broke and he choked down a sob. "I love you."
Abed looked at him with something that wasn't quite pity but cut sharper than sorrow. "I know," he said, and something deep inside Troy burned. Abed shook his head. "Goodbye, Troy."
Troy could feel himself shaking as he stared at Abed. He wanted to run, he wanted to scream, and to hide away and never talk to anyone ever again, but he couldn't even get his feet to move. He wanted to get down on his knees and beg Abed to take him back, but he'd never seen Abed this angry before. He didn't want to risk finding out just how badly he'd screwed up, didn't know what he'd do if Abed refused. He broke Abed's gaze to stare at the ground, unable to bear the look on his face.
Right as he finally willed his body into motion and began turning away, Abed spoke again.
"So, what do you think?" he asked, in a tone so different that Troy briefly felt emotional whiplash.
He looked back up, startled, to see that Abed's posture had completely changed, now straight-backed and confident, a mocking smile on his lips.
Troy blinked. Was he doing a character? Now?
"Not bad, right?" Abed continued, oblivious to—or uncaring of—Troy's confusion. "Abed's the better actor, and I haven't spoken to him in person in years, but judging by your reaction I think I did a pretty good job."
All of the little things that had been niggling at Troy throughout the conversation snapped into place. The way he'd been acting with his friends, how he looked confused at first, the way he'd belittled their cloning, the collared shirts that Abed would never wear because they irritated his skin—and Troy knew he'd looked too old!
"You're not Abed," he realized aloud with a dawning sense of horror. It seemed ridiculous on the surface, but it was hard to argue with the obvious. He'd always found the secret sibling trope a little unrealistic, but it seemed like today was intent on proving him wrong about a lot of things.
"And you're not very quick on the uptake," Not-Abed responded bluntly.
Behind him, one of the people who had been watching the whole scene unfold with rapt attention—the Australian woman—spoke up. "Holy shit, Brad, did you just pretend to be this guy's boyfriend?"
"And broke up with him? That's cold, even for you," added a girl with short hair and highlights.
Most of the group appeared to be of a similar mind—shocked and slightly appalled—except for a blonde woman who grinned a wolfish smile and nodded, impressed. "Brutal. I like it."
Not-Abed—Brad?—nodded in her direction. "Thank you, Jo."
"Oh, so you're not gay?" the guy with the horrible mustache asked. He breathed a sigh of relief. "You really had me going there, Brad; I was ready to reevaluate every conversation I've ever had with you."
The Australian woman punched him in the arm. "David, what the fuck?"
He paled and shook his head frantically. "Not—not that there's anything wrong with being gay! It's fine—it's great, actually! It's just that it would have been weird to find out that you'd secretly been gay this whole time."
The woman with highlights raised her eyebrows at him. "So you're saying that being gay is weird?"
"No, of course not! But Brad's straight so it doesn't matter!" he said. "Not that it would matter if he were gay, of course," he hastened to add, eyes widening. "But he's not."
Brad stared at him as he trailed off awkwardly. "I am."
"You're what?" David asked, brow furrowed in confusion.
"I'm gay," Brad replied casually.
"You're what?" David shrieked. "But you—you never—why didn't you ever say anything?"
Brad shrugged. "I was waiting for the right moment. And I just found it." He grinned. "Honestly, this was even better than I had hoped for."
He turned away from David—whose mouth was silently opening and closing like a fish gasping for air—and the rest of his friends, whose reactions bordered on gleeful (the blonde woman) to surprised (the guy with the beard) to exasperated (everyone else).
"David's latent homophobia aside," he continued, ignoring David's ineffectual protests that he was actually the furthest thing from homophobic, "that's not the point."
He took a step closer to Troy and leveled him with an icy stare. "You see, I am not a nice man, Troy. I don't comfort people or offer reassurance, and people don't ask me to. So imagine my surprise when my brother comes to me rather than a member of your insipid little study group and tells me how you abandoned him." He laughed wryly. "You know, when he first told me about you, I warned him not to put his faith in you. I said that soon enough, you would let him down. But the longer that this went on, the closer he came to convincing me that I was wrong. Now, I hate being wrong. That's why I make sure I never am," he added with casual arrogance.
He leaned a little closer, with the air of someone imparting a secret. "But between you and me, Troy? Just this once, I found myself hoping that I was." He stepped back and spread his hands, gesturing around them. "But here we are." The and I was right that he didn't say hung loud in the air between them.
The only thing Troy can think to say is, "Abed never told me he had a brother."
Brad scoffs. "Because he tells you everything, right?" Troy felt his shoulders hunch in at the derision in his voice, because the truth was that yeah, he'd kind of assumed that Abed would share everything with him. Apparently he'd made several severe misassumptions about their relationship.
"You're not wrong, though, Troy. Abed trusted you. Maybe more than he's ever trusted anyone."
Privately, Troy wasn't so sure that was true. For all that Brad said he hated helping people, the fact remained that he had been Abed's first call, and Abed had told him about things that Troy hadn't thought he would ever share with anybody else.
"But trust just means that it hurts harder when people betray you." The matter-of-fact certainty in his voice left Troy wondering who he'd trusted in the past. And what had happened to them.
"Did you know he called me every day for a week?" Brad asked nonchalantly, like it didn't kill Troy to hear.
"When he came crying to me after you broke his heart, I wanted to crush you like the bug you are, but he made me promise not to. You see, that's the thing, Troy. My brother is kind and compassionate and forgiving." He stepped closer again, and Troy had to stop himself from backing away. "I am none of those things. Consider this a warning, a taste of what I will do to you if you hurt him again. Because if you do, then I guarantee that you cannot imagine the lengths to which I will go to destroy you." The look he leveled at Troy promised fire and deadly retribution. Before today, Troy would've said that it was impossible for him to be scared of someone who looked so similar to Abed.
After a tense moment that lasted just long enough for Troy to wonder if it were possible to take out life insurance on oneself, Brad smiled and clapped his hand on Troy's shoulder. "Good talk! It was great to finally meet you, Troy." All traces of the threatening and vengeful brother were gone, replaced by an affable demeanor. The sudden whiplash left Troy reeling.
"Well, I won't keep you; I'm sure you've been looking forward to talking to Abed. I bet he's been dying to hear from you too."
Troy blanched. He'd not yet considered the fact that Brad was definitely still in contact with Abed, let alone the fact that Brad might let him know that Troy was in town right now, before he was ready. He wasn't sure how he wanted his reunion with Abed to go, but he was positive that 'Abed's brother who hates Troy's guts calls Abed and tells him about how much of a coward he is' was just about the worst possible scenario.
"Oh, don't worry; I won't tell him you came here yet," Brad promised, either seeing the fear on Troy's face or simply knowing the effect his subtle threat would have on him. Probably both. His smile held just a hint of cruelty. "Wouldn't want him to get his hopes up."
Absent any good response to that, Troy nodded jerkily and started walking away as quickly as he could without actually breaking into a run. He could settle his tab tomorrow, anyway.
Just before he finally reached the door, Brad spoke up again. "Oh, and Troy?"
And he'd almost been home free. Troy slowly turned around, dread settling on his shoulders like the weighted blankets Abed loved so much.
Brad flashed him a chilling smirk. "Next time, I won't be so nice."
Troy gulped and nodded nervously.
The last thing he heard before the bar door mercifully closed behind him was a confused voice asking—
"...Wait, Brad, you have a brother?"