Funny How Love Is (Maylor AU)

Chapter 47

An uneasy pause formed in the conversation, which didn't appear to be making any headway, so Brian cleared his throat and announced, "The school's been wondering where you've been. You were absent three days last week with no explanation."

The blonde kept quiet, twiddling his thumbs in his lap as a single tear fell from his black eye, rolling down his cheek and falling onto his clasped hands. He brought a hand up and swiped at his wet cheek, murmuring, "I got caught up in something."

Brian hung his head and bit his lip, the shroud of vagueness accompanying all of Roger's answers making it very difficult for the professor to discuss what he really came down there to talk about. He was prepared for the door to be closed and locked again, grateful he had another day—or perhaps another week—to figure out exactly what he was going to say to the blonde, but he felt compelled to go down there and at least see if he was in. One can imagine how surprised he was to find that the door was unlocked, and even more so that the music instructor was there. Granted, he wasn't expecting him to be lying on the floor or looking the way he did, but he was there.

"I was worried about you," the professor confessed, drawing circles on the floor with the toe of his dress shoe and looking up at the blonde who doubled over and buried his face behind his hands.

"How thoughtful," Roger groaned, his words muffled by his palms.

Brian took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, tacking on to his previous statement, "And I couldn't stop thinking about you either." Roger dropped his hands and met the curly-haired man's remorseful gaze through his tinted lenses, saying nothing but letting the man across the room know he'd heard him.

The professor cleared his throat and continued, "I thought a lot about what went on between us that night." He peeled himself away from the spot he'd restricted himself to when he first entered the room and moved over to the desk, pulling out the chair and dragging it over to the piano, where he placed it in front of the bench, right in front of Roger. He took a seat and tried to look into those blue eyes his mind couldn't escape all weekend, but the shades prevented him from doing so. He frowned and shifted his gaze down to his lap, swallowing the lump in his throat and going on to say, "I was angry. No, I was pissed, but...not at you. I wasn't mad at you."

"Brian—"

"Hear me out, Roger, please," he begged, glancing up into the pleading eyes that rolled in annoyance behind the shades covering them, "I want to make things right."

"Well, you can't, Brian," the blonde snapped, silencing the professor almost instantly. He let out a heavy sigh and tilted his head down, elaborating on his remark, "You didn't do anything wrong."

"But I did," the professor argued, "I-I freaked out on you and that wasn't very fair of me. You were just...I just..." He struggled to finish his sentence, grasping at straws to find an explanation for his reaction. Although the answer seemed obvious—that he'd totally and unquestionably fallen for his coworker—he had trouble saying it. He thought his conversation with Chrissie and the subsequent talk with Freddie, albeit upsetting and vaguely remembered, gave him the confidence to finally confess his feelings to the blonde, but sitting across from him, faced with the situation he'd hypothesized all weekend, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, he didn't have to.

"You were just being a good friend," Roger mumbled, finishing Brian's sentence for him, even though that wasn't what he was trying to go for. The professor's jaw dropped, wanting to correct him, when he continued dismally, "You know, I...I've been sending you mixed signals, Brian, and I'm sorry." He ripped the glasses off his face and began to play with them in his hands, exposing the black eye he was trying to hide. "I'm just...It's just how I am. It doesn't mean anything."

The blonde stole a quick glance at the professor, curious as to what his response was going to be. He wanted Brian to be mad, furious, enraged. He wanted him to lash out at him, let him know that he deserved what he got over the weekend and that they could never be together in the way he wanted them to be. He needed that.

However, all Brian gave him was a confused look.

"What are you talking about?"

The blonde kept his head down, his focus directed towards his sunglasses as he murmured, "I'm talking about how I'm a fucking prostitute, Brian. It's my job to make people think that I like them..."

The words that were coming out of his mouth, he didn't mean them. He didn't mean them at all, but he didn't have the energy to keep pursuing Brian like he wanted to. It was draining in every way possible—emotionally, physically, mentally.

"...and I'm sorry if you got the wrong idea. You totally have the right to be angry with me. I get it," Roger finished softly, bringing a hand to the back of his bruised neck and finally meeting the professor's irresistible hazel gaze. It wasn't filled with hurt or sorrow like he had expected, rather, it was amused. "Well, aren't you going to yell at me?" the blonde asked, slightly offended by Brian's reaction, or lack thereof.

He chuckled. "W-Why would I yell at you?"

"Because I led you on," he explained, shaking his head in disbelief, "I don't get it. Why aren't you pissed at me? I-I lied to you, and you can't stand being lied to. So, aren't you going to scream at me? Hit me? Beat the shit out of me?"

Brian's face fell, and in the most serious tone he could muster, answered, "I'm not going to do any of those things to you, Roger."

"And why the hell not?" the blonde shouted, standing up from the piano bench with a sense of urgency that threw Brian out of his chair, the taller of the two men staring at the other while his heart pounded against his chest. He fixated on the brownish circles speckling the blonde's exposed skin, revealed when the scarf flew off Roger's neck, the one end caught underneath his foot. The music instructor nervously swallowed the lump in his throat and quickly knelt down to retrieve the accessory, frantic in trying to disguise his injuries.

"Roger, no!" Brian cried, diving in and trying to stop him from retreating back into hiding. In doing so, however, glimpses of the past weekend flashed before the music instructor.

In that moment, he again felt every fist that had been thrown his way, every set of knuckles that grazed his cheek, and every hand that slid across his body and touched places he didn't want to be touched. So, instinctively, he pushed the professor away from him and flung himself back into the piano, his body slamming up against its leg. The taller man rose to his feet, pitifully looking down at the trembling blonde.

"D-Don't touch me," Roger stuttered, holding the scarf tightly to his chest as his cheeks grew a deep shade of red and his glistening eyes traveled up to Brian's worried ones.