What's happened to us... | A The Music Freaks Backstory AU

The Final Part (PLOT)

During november, all teams start working on their exposition projects together.

The norm is to meet up at each others houses to slowly work on different parts of the project, so:

- Nick decides to invite the boys from the team, including Zander, over to his house to work on the proyect.

And let me just say- Nicholas is kind of a rich boy (Zander realizes this quick, and cannot imagine how embarassing it would be to have to bring people to his tiny and ugly apartment, especially after seeing Nick's house), he lives in what is basically a mansion, and though its really big, it appears to be empty.

As soon as they arrive, Nicholas begins to brag and boast about how expensive everything is, and strictly tells them not to touch or break anything.

Nick seems extremely confident and Zander makes a small theory in his head that maybe he's nervous to be having people, and compensating by absolutely over-doing his Theater Talk.  

Being able to see through Nick's mask makes him feel special and happy to be his friend.

- So, the boys work for a while in Nick's gigantic living room, easily getting distracted by the tv or random items. My idea is that they would have Zander (the established "nerd") do all the work while they do whatever.

- Eventually some of them get bored, and Nick suggests that they grab a football or go to the backyard. So, naturally, they all get exited and they go out to the mansion's back yard to play some football soccer.

Now, this backyard is huge- almost the size of the house itself in square feet. It's surrounded by brick walls, and the grass is all cut evenly, with white chalk markings on it to resemble a soccer field. Apart from the markings, there are two metal goals at the sides, and thats all. The rest of it is just grass and it empty.

The boys starts playing on the field, covered in sunshine and fresh fall air.

- The boys (and i guess Nick too) make Zander play with them, even though he sucks at the game, really. 

- During this match, they at some point get slightly more agressive. One of the boys pulls Zander by the arm so that he doesnt get in the way. This is what beggins to trigger Zander. Nick sees this, and takes note of it.

- Nick throws the ball at him, which causes him to fall to the ground, and feeling light headed, he starts to hyperventilate. 

- The rest keep playing, but Nick de cides to check on him, acting like its a drag, but once he's with Zander, he actually shows compassion. For the first time, Zander shows vulnerablility in front of him, and crying, he explains that he doesn't know why, but being grabbed and pushed scares him and makes him feel attacked. Nick sits around with him, and they eventually go  back inside the house. Nick offers him a glass of water and sits next to him, resting his head  on the table until Zander calms down.

Eventually, Zander calls his mother, probably using a phone from Nick's house, and the day ends.

This oficially marks the point where Zander becomes waaay more attached to Nicholas, beginning to have lunch with him and his friends, giving him his lunch almost every day.

Now, I think its  time to state the inevitable:

Zander soon realizes that he has a crush on Nick. And this only leads to a lot more problems:

As I already mentioned, he begins giving out his lunch to Nicholas and to his friends, this being a combination of the anxiety and the lovesickness taking away his appetite for long periods of time.

He begins to prioritize appealing to Nick over a lot of his values, simply becoming a the popular kid's pet to avoid getting ignored and buillied by them.

The point is that this doesn't work. Nicholas isnt even nice to him half the time, he continues to humilliate him in front of others and call him names like Stalker or Piano Man, people in general continue to treat him like a gay nerd nobody likes, so much so, that he starts to feel like one. 

He begins believing these things, that he is less worthy of love, he feels genuilnely disgusted for liking a boy (I guess he uses the fact that everyone else was calling him gay even before his crush on Nick, as proof that everything that is said about how horrible he is is true(?)).

This combined with the recent memories and panic attacks he's been getting regarding his father slowly destroys his emotional state as November turns into December.

Wahoo!