Some Day One Day (Maylor AU)

Chapter 69

"What do you mean Liz isn't yours?" Roger snapped, shrugging the older man off his back and turning around to face him.

Brian immediately hung his head, shame bringing his gaze to the floor and his hands over his bare front. The confidence he entered the stall with had quickly dissolved into humiliation, the professor feeling like an absolute fool. "It's just that...Chrissie said something the other night that made me think that...that..." His voice tapered off into silence—the truth too painful and embarrassing to repeat.

"...that she slept with someone else?" the blonde attempted to finish the professor's fumbling sentence.

Brian's head snapped up. "You really think so?" he croaked, not having dawned on that aspect of the situation before. However, when he looked back on the hypothetical Chrissie gave him—about them not being a family—it made perfect sense.

Thinking about Liz not being his but someone else's twisted Brian's stomach in knots, not only because he devoted so much of himself to raise her and support her mother, but because he pushed away the one person who made him feel good about himself to take care of the both of them. If she was someone else's daughter, and Chrissie had done to him what she had done to Timothée, then everything he'd done would've been for nothing.

Roger scoffed at the professor's naiveté and bent down to snatch his trousers up from the ground, sliding them back up his legs and answering, "Well she had to get knocked up somehow, Brian, and if it wasn't with you—" he yanked his pants up over his waist and pulled the zipper up, "—it was with someone else."

The professor pressed his lips together in deep thought, trying to figure out who else she could've been seeing at the time she conceived. He kept drawing a blank, though, unable to see past the headmistress's explanation that it happened when they sneaked into the janitor's office that one day. After all, they hadn't used protection, and at the time, he was the one she was seeing in secret.

"I don't think so, Roger," Brian finally muttered, the blonde parting the curtain and peering out into the shop to make sure no one had come in while they were busy in the dressing room. "I used to be the other guy." Roger returned his attention to the professor, the look in his baby blue eyes making him doubt himself and harbor a new concern. "You don't think there was another guy, do you?"

The blonde heaved a sigh and pushed past him, replying as he gathered Brian's clothes and handed them back to him, "I don't know. 'Could be. Once a cheater, always a cheater—right?"

Red flushed the professor's cheeks as he grabbed his clothes and slipped back into them, following the blonde out of the dressing room and back over to the counter. Roger took his place back on the stool, throwing the guitar in his lap and plucking a few strings before shifting his focus to the magazine that was still open to the page he'd left off on. He couldn't ignore Brian, though, as he leaned against the counter and buried his head in his folded arms.

"I don't know what to do, Rog," he groaned, standing back up and meeting the blonde's indifferent gaze. "Liz is my entire life. I can't just...she has to be...I-I gave up everything for her."

Roger's lip twitched upward as he closed the magazine and crossed his arms over his chest. "Since when am I everything?"

Brian's blush grew deeper, a smile overcoming his lips as he tilted his head down once more. "You know what I mean," he murmured bashfully.

"No, I don't think I do," the blonde teased, sitting forward with a glint of mischief in his eyes. "I think I'm going to need you to tell me...in detail...because a lot happened in New York, and what happened between us kind of got lost in the mix of things."

"Oh, piss off," the professor muttered, playfully punching Roger in the shoulder and turning away from the counter. He took in a deep breath and wove his fingers into his curly hair, pacing back and forth while the mocking grin on Roger's face faded, the reality of the situation finally sinking in for him.

It wasn't only Brian who Liz's paternity affected; it affected Roger too, because had she not been the professor's, he wouldn't have felt responsible to stay behind and take care of her. They could've run away that night, and everything that happened while they were apart wouldn't have happened. He wouldn't have moved to another country; he wouldn't have taken on two demeaning jobs; and he wouldn't have stayed with Tim. The path that Roger took was forced upon him, and if he'd known that Chrissie was lying about who the father of her child was—something he honestly wouldn't put past her—he could've had a real chance at being happy.

"That bitch," Roger growled to himself, pounding his fist into the counter and stopping Brian dead in his tracks. His cheeks grew warm at the sudden attention he attracted, the blonde lowering his hand down into his lap and mumbling, "It's just not fair that she lied to you."

The professor chuckled under his breath, taking a seat on the opposite side of the stall and resting his head in his hand. "You're telling me. My entire marriage is based on lies." His eyes widened as he realized it wasn't only Chrissie at fault. "Oh no." His gaze flickered over to the blonde.

"What?"

"I'm just as much of a liar as she is," he confessed, the seriousness in his voice eliciting an insuppressible laugh from the blonde. "This isn't funny, Roger," the professor conveyed, pushing himself out from the chair he'd fallen into and weaving his way through the racks of mismatched clothes. "Chrissie's not the only one who lied in our relationship. I did too. I lied to her about you and me."

"Brian, you not telling her about us isn't lying," the blonde sniggered. "You'd have to actually say something—"

"I did," Brian cut him short, maintaining the blonde's blank stare for a short while before shamefully dropping his elbows to the counter and hiding his face in the palms of his hands, explaining, "I told her I loved you, Roger. She knows about us."