Part the Twenty-First

“We need to talk.”

Thom caught Colin's elbow as the other man emerged from the loos. The afterparty was in full swing, loud music pouring from an unseen surround sound, and he knew they would go largely unnoticed; Ed and Phil were distracted with keeping Wesley and Jonny a safe distance apart, Jonny was too busy trying to disappear into the walls, and Wesley was... he was Wesley. He was still wearing that smirk, like he'd done nothing wrong, and on reflection Thom knew that he hadn't unless you could class existing as a misdemeanour.

He'd expected, when Wesley had the gall to show his face after the gig, that Colin would have jumped at the chance to rearrange it for him, but Colin had been strange, almost evasive. He'd passed it off with a weak smile and headed straight for the bar, and that was when Thom knew that something was really wrong. He'd never known Colin to stand down from a confrontation before, especially not when Jonny was involved; and that he would be leaning on the crutch of alcohol to deal with his problems was more worrying still. Of course Colin enjoyed a drink now and then, just like most of them did, but he was not a heavy drinker by any means and the way he was knocking back shots of God-knows-what with the careless abandon of a man who does not care whether he becomes drunk or not was uncharacteristic of him. There was something about Wesley that had deeply rattled his friend in a way he'd known no other individual to do, and he was determined to get to the bottom of the problem.

Colin put up little more than token protest as Thom pulled him to an unoccupied box room where the thumping music of the party was muted enough that they could hear each other. Colin stood uncertainly before him, swaying slightly, until Thom pushed him down on a crate and pinned him with his steeliest gaze.

“Coz – look at me, all right?” Colin was examining his hands, clasped in his lap with intertwining fingers, and only reluctantly raised his eyes to meet Thom's at the sharp admonishment. “OK... right, I know you and Wesley aren't supposed to be any of my business. Yeah?”

He didn't imagine the involuntary twitch of Colin's jaw, he was certain of it, but Colin merely shrugged and schooled his face into a picture of absolute nonchalance. “He can be your business if you want him to be, Thom.” Colin's voice, usually faultlessly precise, was slurred by the alcohol; he himself seemed puzzled by the inaccuracy of his speech, and frowned, as though it had been unexpected. “You're... your own man, after all...”

“Oh, for fuck's sake.” Thom resisted the urge to grasp the other man by the shoulders and shake him hard, settling instead for crouching down in front of Colin, separating his hands and taking each cold, small fist in his own warm ones. “What's going on with you and Wesley? You're acting like... I don't know. A kicked puppy, or something, around him.” His mind was working overtime, trying to catch up to his mouth as pieces of the jigsaw fitted into place. “Like you're afraid of him,” he realised suddenly.

Colin laughed, a sound that hurt Thom's head and heart all at once. “'m not afraid,” he murmured, his fingers attempting to flex within the hot cage of Thom's palms. “Well. Not for me. For... for Jonny.”

“Why don't you say anything about him and Wesley, then?”

Colin's mouth was trying to form around words that it seemed hard for him to voice. He tried once, twice, and on the third attempt: “Because he likes it.”

“That doesn't mean it's good for him.” Thom shifted uncomfortably; staying in this position for too long made his knees hurt. “I just don't understand why Wesley is so special. I mean... to you, why should he be any different to me? You're not afraid of me, are you? You saw what I did to Nat. I could have done that to Jonny, it would have been worse than anything Wesley could do.” Colin flinched violently at that, but Thom held on. “I'm just someone you fucked around with, like you did with Wesley, someone you could manipulate, someone who moved on to Jonny after you were done. Why is Wesley different?”

“Thom -” Colin began.

“You've never been bothered by Jonny being hurt before.”

“Thom -”

“Who do you trust, me or Wesley? Or no one? I don't get it, Wesley's never done anything to him that you wouldn't do yourself -”

And Colin wrenched his hands free of Thom's grasp and stood abruptly, knocking Thom off-balance to sprawl inelegantly on the floor. His thin chest was heaving as though he had run a marathon, huge eyes all of a sudden overbright as he stared down at Thom and trembled like a shaken leaf. “You have no idea what you're talking about,” he proclaimed loudly into the silence that followed, and before Thom could do or say anything else Colin had swept past him and out of the door, letting it bang shut behind him.

He lay there a few moments longer, half-propped on grazed elbows, considering whether to pursue Colin and draw some real answers out of him, but he knew defeat when he saw it and rolled over onto his front, grinding the heels of his hands against his eyes as though it would force clarity into them. Eventually he hauled himself to his feet, dusted off his trousers and stumbled outside to rejoin the party. The decision, frequent as it had become, was easy, a mere formality: it was time to get drunk.

His eyes sought out the familiar faces as he headed for the bar. Phil was absent: he often was, these days, tiring of the circles the others ran round each other and instead retreating to his room to call his wife. Thom sometimes envied him for having something so mundane to go back to when life on the road was too much; it probably explained why Phil was the most emotionally balanced member of the band. Wesley hovered by the nearest exit, well away from Jonny and Colin, keeping one nervous eye on Ed; Ed who was watching Wesley in turn, and also, it seemed, looking out for Colin, who was studiously avoiding everyone. And Jonny... Jonny simply drifted through the room as he always did, neither part of the crowd nor entirely detached from it, followed occasionally by all of them.

He wasn't surprised to see Jonny quietly leaving the party after a couple of hours, or Wesley following him soon after, but he was surprised to find that he didn't actually care. He wasn't sure whether it was a result of too much alcohol or his conversation with Colin, that the thought of what the two of them would inevitably be getting up to left him completely cold. As far as he was concerned, they were welcome to each other, and he would be glad if for the rest of his life his romantic liaisons never strayed into the realm of Greenwood again. He knocked back another drink and wondered whether he had imagined the sudden relief that pervaded Colin's expression once Wesley had left.

There was a strange kind of creeping doubt lurking in the back of his mind. The way Colin had responded to him when he suggested that Wesley was no different to any other one of his conquests had left him with too much to think about. From the dismissive way in which Colin was able to treat his other lovers – if 'lover' could be considered an appropriate term for what they shared – it jarred that he should react so strongly whenever Wesley was mentioned. Colin's control did not slip often, yet the blond disrupted it in ways Thom had never seen before.

The notion seemed laughable as soon as it occurred to Thom, but the longer he considered it the more sense it made. Was it possible – however ridiculous it sounded as he said it inside his head – that Colin was in love with Wesley? That he couldn't admit it because of his brother? As soon as he thought it, he wanted to shrug it off, but it was so coldly logical: Colin's apparent resentment of Jonny and Wesley's relationship, yet his ongoing tolerance of it, perhaps realising that his chances were shot and only wanting them to be content; the way he was skittish around Wesley, barely able to meet the other man's eyes; his relief in Wesley's absence. Wesley had asserted that Colin wasn't interested in an emotional engagement, only in control, and perhaps at one time Thom would have accepted such a simple explanation, until he had seen the many complex layers of deceit and misdirection his best friend had constructed around himself.

In love with Wesley, of all people.

It was almost four in the morning by the time he stumbled through the door of his and Ed's room. Ed was unexpectedly perched on the edge of his bed, folding socks – it didn't really strike Thom what an odd undertaking that was – and he looked up as Thom flopped bonelessly onto his mattress, giving him a brittle smile.

“I'm never drinking again,” Thom proclaimed loudly into the oppressive silence.

Ed nodded and went back to his socks. There was a muscle working in his jaw, Thom could see; he wasn't sure what Ed's problem was. It wasn't as though the man he loved had left him for dead. He tried to concentrate on the ceiling, because it was the only thing around him that wasn't moving.

There was a loud cry from next door.

He sat bolt upright and stared at the partition wall separating them from the adjacent room. The hush that had fallen after the sound almost convinced him that he'd imagined it, and he looked over at Ed, seeking confirmation; but Ed remained resolutely focused on his socks, a sudden flush of colour rising in his cheeks. Thom was fully prepared to dismiss it as a figment of his overactive imagination, but no one could have imagined the following noises: Jonny's voice, distinct in its pleading tone; the protesting squeak of mattress springs; and the low, rhythmic thump of a bedstead against plasterboard.

“You're fucking kidding me.” Thom chanced a glance at Ed again, and the other man returned it with a weak twitch of his lips, what Thom supposed was a watery grin.

“Yes, the walls are that thin,” Ed murmured, putting aside his last pair of socks and starting on his underpants.

“But... shouldn't I... everyone can hear them!”

Ed raised an eyebrow. “And? It's not anything we didn't know already. What are you going to do, go break down the door and demand they stop? Jonny's old enough to make his own choices, you and Colin can't hold his hands for ever.”

Thom wasn't prepared for how right Ed was. He'd done his part, he'd shown all the concern he could for a friend making (in his eyes) a stupid decision, and Jonny still went back to the man who reduced him to a nervous wreck. If he wanted it there was nothing Thom could do. He didn't care, he told himself, it didn't mean a thing to him: after all that time imagining what passed between the two, after seeing it, after trying his very best to help, it didn't move him at all. But even as he thought about it, settling back against the pillows, listening to Wesley's guttural moans and concentrating on not throwing up, he wondered what sort of penance Colin would have planned for his brother when they went home.