Funny How Love Is (Maylor AU)

Chapter 91

The two laid, joined together, for several minutes before Roger finally squirmed underneath the professor. Brian tenderly pulled out and rolled over to lay next to Roger, similarly as they had before, both men attempting to catch their taken breaths.

"Shit," the blonde finally muttered, a wide grin plastered on his face as he ran a sweaty palm through his hair and let out a shaky yet content sigh.

Brian swallowed the lump that formed in his throat and, while keeping his gaze locked on the ceiling above, forced out a breathless, "That was..."

"Well worth the wait," Roger completed his sentence for him, dropping his hand back down to his side and turning his head towards the professor. The older man instinctively mirrored the younger man's actions, his hazel eyes staring right back at his baby blues. However, they didn't carry the same expression of ecstasy as Roger's did. Instead, they possessed a terror that concerned the music instructor, for it was impossible for him to have known that those four words were the exact ones that Chrissie had used to finish the same sentence uttered by the professor the first time he found himself in a situation like this. "What's wrong?" he asked softly.

Brian's lips parted, but no words came out. He couldn't bring himself to form the answer Roger already knew, and so instead, he sat up and draped his long legs over the side of the bed whose sheets—all but the fitted one—had been kicked to the floor and piled together in one, large heap. He rested his elbows on his knees and hid his face behind his hands, the fear of his reality returning with an unrelenting urgency.

To tell or not to tell Roger about Chrissie, that was the question. It would shatter the world they were trying to build for themselves, the cocoon they wrapped themselves up in with his car that sat outside, collecting the snow that continued to pervade the frigid, dark air. If he were to come clean, that bitter coldness would seep its way into the warm room and into the bed they occupied, which creaked under Roger's weight as he moved to sit by the professor.

Brian's gaze flickered over to the blonde, relieved that the responsibility of being the first to speak was no longer his, but to his dismay, the music instructor leaned down and stuck his hand inside his bag, extracting a box of cigarettes the older of the two didn't remember packing. With a quick swipe of a lighter out of his own jacket, which lied beside the collection of sheets, the blonde sat back and lit the end of the white stick, extending it out to Brian who stared it like he'd never seen one before instead of bringing it to his own lips. When the offer went unaccepted, Roger raised his eyebrows and moved the cigarette even closer to the professor's chest.

"I thought you said smoking won't solve my problems," he grumbled, vividly recalling the first time he tried to bum a smoke from the blonde.

"It won't," Roger replied with a small, reassuring grin, "But it'll calm your nerves, and then you can to tell me what's bothering you."

"I don't need a cigarette to do that," Brian asserted, standing up and snatching his pants up from the ground. The fact that Roger was already aware of his predicament still hadn't made itself known to the professor, and so, as he slipped his legs into his trousers, he tacked on under his breath, "Besides, it's not like a cigarette will make it any easier."

"And running away from your problems will?" the blonde replied rather thoughtlessly, wary of letting yet another perfectly good cigarette going to waste and taking a drag from it himself.

Watching the puff of smoke that escaped through the crack between Roger's lips, Brian bit his lip in hopes of disguising the emotional hit his words inflicted upon him. The blonde noticed, of course, but chose not to react to it, bringing the cigarette back up to his lips and standing up from the bed. "I'm going to go clean myself up," he announced, speaking with the burning white stick protruding from the corner of his mouth and brushing shoulders with the professor as he retreated to the bathroom. However, he didn't get one foot in the small lavatory that appeared as though it hadn't been used in years before Brian blurted out—

"Chrissie!" Although he knew this was coming, the mention of the headmistress's name made Roger's heart drop into his stomach. Brian, torn about his confession, dug his fingers into his messy, sweat-laden hair and elaborated with less fervor, "Chrissie, she...she's pregnant...and...and..."

"And...?" The blonde barely looked over his shoulder, but he didn't need to for Brian to know that he had his full attention.

The professor's head fell with his hands, his lip quivering as he choked out shamefully, "And it's mine."