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Damn Implications

(Because sometimes people tell us that we can't.)

(They're wrong.)

Sexuality.

Cameron can't tear his eyes away from the word. The others burst into conversation around him, cheering and joking. Distantly, Hannah's words come to him:

"I'm like a koala bear. I can't be sexy!"

Someone touches his arm and Cameron turns, forcing a smile onto his face.

Damian is looking at him with big concerned eyes. He nods his head toward their homework assignment. Toward that word.

"You al' right?"

Cameron's smile slips a couple notches, nothing that most people would notice. Damian does, pausing to squeeze his arm reassuringly. Both of them are hyper-aware of the cameras circling them.

Like sharks.

They smell weakness.

Damian lets his hand slip slowly from Cameron's shoulder, maybe a little slower than necessary. But it helps. A blue to brown glance and they agree silently to talk later.

Unbidden, Cameron's eyes are drawn back to the word.

And all it's damn implications.

The ceiling has a tiny crack.

It's barley noticeable; Cameron's been staring open-eyed for almost an hour, strumming aimlessly, before he noticed it.

And now he can't un-notice it.

It's not fair, that he doesn't have a choice.

That some things can't be taken back when he never wanted to deal with them in the first place. That even when he closes his eyes and tries to go back to smooth, unblemished perfection all he can think about are the damn cracks.

Lindsay and Damian.

There's something about the thought of the two that doesn't feel right. Like walking across coals, the heat melting his sneakers. The more time passes, the more he tries to forget about it, the harder it gets.

Cameron sighs, stepping out of the shower.

It's the one place he feels he has real privacy. Like he can stop pretending.

He sighs, unwilling to let thoughts of Lindsay—the golden girl, the Broadway voice, the next Lea Mitchell, so pretty and so damn interesting—ruin the moment but it's too late. He clears a window in the steamed up mirror.

It's an ugly feeling; resentment.

She is living the life that Cameron watches Glee so desperately to experience. Not even for the music, but the people. For people like him, like Tina, shy little background Tina he's thinking of.

He loves Tina.

But mostly, he watches for people that aren't like his parents. Aren't like his brother and his girlfriend and his priest and his Church choir and everybody else in his little Texan town, everybody he knows.

So, yeah, Lindsay with her Broadway experience and her two gay dads and self-acceptance and confidence so bright in every one of her white smiles, well.

Maybe he's a little bit jealous, justifiably.

What if she kisses Damian?

The idea makes him feel sick.

What if he kisses her back?

He feels worse. He avoids his reflection's eyes, dressing himself quickly.

And if he's jealous for the wrong reasons, the ones that make no sense then, who needs to know? Jealous is jealous is whatever, because all it ever does is swirl in the pit of his stomach and make him dizzy anyway.

What he needs to do is call his family. Call his girlfriend and remind himself who he's supposed to be. What direction is up and which is wrong, no matter the good intentions.

It's just… sometimes, when she's not around. When none of them are around, he forgets.

"Cameron?"

A soft whisper, voice husky with sleep.

A shiver runs up Cameron's skin. His fingers hover over his chest where his cross usually hangs. Lately, he's been taking it off to go to sleep.

Cameron turns his head, meeting blue eyes.

"Damian."

It comes out rougher then he intends. A breath catches, not his. Cameron's licks his dry lips, suddenly nervous, and he has a sudden urge to put his cross back on.

He feels off-balance, too light.

"Promise me you won't go home?"

A wavering pause.

Cameron tries not to stare but can't help it, room washed in midnight and making the edges less harsh, making the rules more breakable. The alarm clock light illuminates the outline of Damian's face. The smooth skin. The blue eyes.

Half formed thoughts drift through his exhausted mind.

If he reached out and touched his cross would the metal burn him? If he reached out and trailed a finger along the swell of Damian's lips would that burn him too?

"Cameron?"

Again, but more breathless. A little more desperate.

Cameron shivers again and doesn't think about it. He's good at that. God knows he's had enough practice.

He wets his lips again and asks, "Do you like Lindsay?"

If Cameron were a better person he'd say that he didn't mean the question to slip out like that. Like his promise depends on the answer. Like there is a right answer.

Tension like a rubber band. Another half thought:

What will happen when it snaps? When, not if.

"No."

"I promise."

Damian's lips curve into a smile. Again, there is an urge to reach out and touch. If Cameron were a better person he'd say that it was only curiosity.

A final half thought before he slips over the edge of his exhaustion:

He should really call his girlfriend back.

"Hey."

Cameron looks up from his coffee, and can't stop a laugh.

"Hey, Damian."

The other boy is still in his pajamas, a worn top and sweats, lounging against the kitchen counter. Damian's eyes are gritty with sleep and his lopsided smile is several degrees more crooked than usual.

His hair is a mess, sticking up on one side and flat on the other.

Unable to resist, Cameron reaches out and tries to smooth down the worst of it.

That's what best friends do for each other, right?

And sometimes it's perfectly normal to have trouble swallowing or breathing because of the distracting way said best friend's blue eyes flutter shut, mouth parting slightly with a soft intake of air.

It's perfectly normal to linger until a door slams and startles you into stepping away, realizing suddenly that you're somehow, unintentionally, brushing bare feet together again.

It's perfectly normal.

"So," Damian asks, his tone strange, looking away, "Uh, yeah."

There's a moment of discomfort; they meet each others eyes and both look away, too quickly. Cameron takes a sip of coffee, just to do something and burns his tongue. He suppresses a wince.

"You nervous, Cam?"

Damian tugs at the bottom of his shirt, pulling it down to reveal the shadowed arch of a collarbone.

Cameron's tongue is numb in his mouth, fumbling to form words, "Uh, I- yeah it's…"

He stops, looks away and focuses.

"No," he says with a confident smile. But then, because it's Damian: "Terrified."

"Is that lip-gloss?"

Ouch. Blue eyes meet brown eyes.

Cameron looks away before Damian can. Lindsay looks sideways at Damian through her lashes, flirtatious.

Bitch.

He surprises himself at the viciousness. But not as much as he should.

Sometimes he feels like they're flipsides of a coin, him and Lindsay. Except he's landed face down this time and yeah, okay, it hurts.

Body turned away, hunched inward against gravity and all the other laws of physics, of attraction, Cameron glances over his shoulder, unable to stop himself. Damian tries to meet his eyes, slanted away from Lindsay as she talks to him about something.

She compliments him.

Touches his arm. His cheek. Wipes the lip-gloss from his mouth much slower then necessary. Much slower.

Cameron touches his cross and wonders about jealous equaling jealous and whatever.

It's honestly not that important.

It's because of Lindsay. Because he doesn't like her, because she has everything he wants and Damian, well, he's all someone could ask for in a best friend. Loyal and kind and blue-eyed in a way that, well.

In the way that best friends are sometimes.

Hannah jumps up and pulls him along, nervous words tripping over each other. Cameron's stomach squirms uncomfortably at the thought of putting his hands on her, of pulling her close.

At the door he sends a last backward glance to Damian. Wrong move.

Huge blue eyes filled with guilt and hurt, feeling like a punch to the gut. Damian shouldn't ever look so lost, so unsure. And if he were a better person maybe he could honesty say that he wished the guilt wasn't there either.

It's Lindsay's fault, okay? Okay.

"How do you feel about kissing her?"

Cameron coughs, choking on a surprised laugh. Because Hannah is a great person, really, when she's not gazing after Damian with that glassy far-away look.

It's just a reaction now, the jealously, because of Lindsay.

He runs through the options in his head, trying to smile through the deer-in-headlights reaction. He wonders about the probability of him getting kicked out if he says no. Because, it's phrased like a suggestion.

But it's not.

Unwanted, last night comes back to him. His name on Damian's lips, the curve of them. The small, relieved smile.

Do you like Lindsay?

And even more unwanted: Damian's smile smeared with lip-gloss.

Cameron thinks spitefully, two can play the game, and says aloud:

"No."

Bottom three.

He realizes with the split-second stinging certainty of a paper cut that he's doesn't want to leave. There are people depending on him, his mother bright and laughing, hugging him tightly outside the airport.

He feels guilt bitter on his tongue.

He's being selfish, petty. Running away, letting his family down and for what?

"Cameron."

He shivers.

Cameron's eyes are closed, his back to the door. His face is slick with tears but he's too drained to pretend. He feels terribly overwhelmed, all filled up with guilt and fear and failure.

His mother, yeah, he knows the look she'll give him when he loses. It wasn't just his dream, you know?

How dare he mess that up? He swore he would be better this time, about the selfishness.

A hand pressed against his shaking back, heat seeping through his clothes.

Cameron doesn't know whether to tense or relax. He sighs and turns around, eyes still closed. The hands are now pressed against his chest, curling.

Damian fists his shirt; too tightly, the nails digging in.

Cameron is pushed back and hits the wall, not hard enough to hurt but enough that he opens his eyes, mostly from instinct. Sometimes he can duck the coming punch, you know?

He closes them again; what he sees is more dangerous then any angry fist or leering grin.

Damian is too close.

Much too close to be resistible right now, with his emotions scraped raw and open for everyone to see, regrets bubbling under the surface, hot and sticky. He wants to run his hand through messy brown hair, excuseless, reckless, at least this once.

Damian, whose blue eyes are framed in eyelashes and red-rimmed.

"You promised me, Cameron."

He's not allowed to sound so broken. So betrayed.

"So did you."

Cameron opens his eyes again, needing Damian to understand. Because he thought that the other boy understood but maybe it's all in his head, maybe he's being selfish again and imagining promises where there is nothing more then kindness.

The thought burns as he swallows it.

There are hurt, angry words at the tip of Damian's pink tongue, the one that Cameron can't keep his eyes off of when Damian licks his lips.

Words like I didn't break mine and she surprised me and most of all why are you leaving?

"I," Cameron says, not breathing, " I can't."

There are hands, burning hands, twisted into his shirt and Damian licks his lips again, eyes determined and scared and leaning in.

And Damian, god—

"Damian."

Faces that are inches apart. Seconds apart.

Somewhere, distantly, in another universe maybe where Cameron has left his girlfriend and rules and his lies, a door opens.

"Cameron?"

And the two worlds collide.

Or rather, Cameron's fantasy breaks apart on the cold hard floor that is reality.

Back to earth.

Damian steps away from Cameron, eyes downward, movements awkward. Cameron has the desperate impulse to touch his face, make Damian look at him with those blue eyes, the ones that always give him the answers, so trusting.

He has the desperate need to know if they're filled with disappointment or guilt.

Or regret.

Someone clears his throat and Cameron remembers that they are no longer the only people in the world. He drags his gaze from Damian reluctantly, to the intruder.

His stomach drops, twists.

Ryan Murphy is watching them with sharp, intuitive eyes. If Cameron were completely honest, something a good Christian should always be, he would admit that Ryan scares him. Sees right through him, thin lips pressed together into a smirk.

Damian's voice is quiet, but doesn't waver.

"Excuse me, sir, but Cameron has changed his mind. He's not ready to leave yet."

There's a beat where they both turn toward him, waiting for him to answer.

"Well," Ryan asks, hungery and sharp, "Do you want to stay?"

Cameron tries to find his voice, tries to keep his hands to himself and his thoughts even closer. What his family doesn't know can't hurt him, can't disgust them, can't end badly like it's going to, like it has to.

He thinks he might have swallowed his tongue.

Under the heat of Damian's stare and the cold contemplation of Ryan's, Cameron manages a weak nod.

"Yeah," Cameron manages, "Yes, sir."

Not called back: Alex