you and i bide our time

"Hey, uh. Angus, right?"

Gregg Lee's voice was familiar, though Angus didn't think they'd ever actually exchanged words before. They'd had classes together on and off since Angus could remember, which was kind of inevitable when both their families were local to Possum Springs. It wasn't that everyone literally knew everyone else, because Angus wouldn't say he exactly knew Gregg, but nearly everyone at school knew nearly everyone else's name, at least. And Gregg was noticeable: Loud, energetic, enthusiastic, cute, and with a definitively bad reputation.

So it was with a bit of hesitation that Angus turned to look at him, and his voice was quieter than he would have liked when he answered. "Right."

"Right, cool." Gregg smiled, a quick flash of an expression that scrunched up his eyes. "So anyway, Mae and Casey and I have been asking around, and I thought I'd ask you if you know anyone who can sing? Or who likes to sing? Good singing optional."

"...What?" Angus didn't know what he'd been expecting, but that wasn't it.

"We're starting a band. I play guitar, Casey's a drummer, and Mae's learning bass, so we're just missing a singer."

Mae Borowski, Angus's brain helpfully reminded him, and Casey Hartley. Their reputations were not exactly better than Gregg's; if anything, Mae's was worse, after the baseball incident two years ago. Angus hadn't actually been there, but he'd heard about it. Probably everyone in Possum Springs had.

"It's cool if you can't think of anyone," Gregg said, after a few moments' pause while Angus was digesting that. There was something unusual and nervous in his face and voice that had Angus speaking up before he could second-guess himself and think better of it.

"I sing sometimes."

"Really?!" Gregg visibly brightened, eyes widening.

Angus's embarrassment was a slow-rising tide, deep and not totally unsourced. Gregg's excitement turned on him was like a bright light in the darkness, dazzling. "Not around people, though."

"Oh, that's okay, I'm not sure we're ever gonna play anywhere anyway." While Angus was puzzling over that proclamation, Gregg forged ahead, "We're doing tryouts tomorrow after school if you're interested. So we can get together and practice this weekend."

"I'm not sure. I never imagined being in a band before." Not even when singing to himself or along with the radio or anything. He hadn't meant to volunteer himself when he'd told Gregg he sang; he wasn't totally sure why he'd even said it, except that Gregg seemed weirdly nervy talking to him in a way that made him want to keep talking. Gregg was practically bouncing on his feet at this point.

"You don't have to, dude," Gregg assured him. "The whole thing's just for fun. But if you like singing, it'd be pretty cool to get to hang out."

They didn't know each other at all, and Angus wasn't sure they even had much in common. (Besides music, apparently?) He wasn't sure why Gregg Lee, of all people, would want to hang out with him. Of all people.

"Okay," he said instead of any of that. "I can try out."

Gregg brightened up again, eyes crinkling in another smile. "Cool," he said, and, "Cool cool cool. Okay, gotta run, I'll see you at tryouts tomorrow!" He turned tail and practically ran in the other direction, arms pumping with how he took off like it was the start of a race, and Angus opened and closed his mouth a bit too late to ask where those tryouts were actually going to be. Or... what kind of music this band was going to play.

The next day, between third and fourth period, Angus opened his locker and a folded up note dropped out.

SORRY almost forgot!
tryouts in Casey's garage
no one cares how loud
we practice!!
426 Cedar

He wasn't sure how to feel about Gregg knowing which locker was his, but the nervous anticipation in his gut coiled tighter. It wasn't a wholly bad feeling.

The band didn't have a name, and when Gregg had said it was 'just for fun', apparently what he'd meant was that they didn't have one particular genre nailed down or anything, or how to actually do a functioning tryout. Casey was laid back about it, and laid back in general, and Mae just seemed enthusiastic about Angus actually showing up to try out. Or about anyone showing up to try out, because it didn't seem like anyone else had come.

"I guess people didn't think we were serious," Mae said, working on tuning up her bass.

"How dare they," Casey said, not even pretending offense.

"Okay so we were thinking like," Gregg said, "sound-wise. Something like indie-slash-prog-rock-slash-pop-punk?"

"Do you know anything by the Ramones?" Casey asked Angus.

"Do we know anything by the Ramones?" Mae asked.

"I can play something that sounds like the Ramones," Gregg said, and glanced over at Angus. "You could try out with anything, though. If you don't know them."

"We couldn't back you up, though," Casey pointed out.

Angus hesitated. "Yeah, no, I know 'Do You Wanna Dance?'," he said. "Beach Boys. They did a cover, right?"

Gregg grinned, expression a little relieved. "They sure did! We can totally handle that."

Angus wasn't sure about that at first, but once they actually started playing, after a few bars, it sounded... recognizably like the Ramones, to Angus, even if he wasn't into them enough to know the lyrics to their songs, this sounded an awful lot like "I Wanna Be Sedated." And the three of them played together pretty well. Angus felt a little out of tempo as he started singing, and a little too quiet, and tried raising his voice up... Maybe a little too loud that time, but he didn't lower it again.

"Wow," Mae said afterward, blinking at him. "You can sing."

"Yeah," Gregg said. "Yeah, dude, you can." He started to grin. "You have like this Mighty Mighty Bosstones thing going on, it's sweet."

Angus felt his face heating up, thankful that it wasn't visible. "Uh. Thanks."

"It's a good-ass sound," Casey said thoughtfully. "I--"

"A good..." Mae interrupted, and Casey dropped what he was saying for a moment so that he and Gregg could join Mae:

"Ass-sound."

"Classic."

"I think it'd work," Casey finished.

"Yeah, I say he's in if he wants to be," Mae agreed.

Did he want to be? The lead singer of an indie/prog rock/pop-punk band? Forty-eight hours ago he hadn't wanted this, forty-eight hours ago he hadn't thought it was a possibility. But there really had been something fun about singing with other people for once. Why not sing in a band, especially if it was all just for fun?

"Okay," he said. "Yes. I want to be."

It was awkward joining a pre-made friends group. That was probably always going to be awkward, any time anyone in the world tried it, Angus was pretty sure. But despite their reputation as major troublemakers, maybe even dangerous, Gregg, Mae, and Casey were welcoming. They were friendly people, and it didn't take long for Angus to like them. And they were happy to reach out to invite him to hang, first for band practices and then visits to the diner. They even invited him on a moped ride once, though Angus had turned them down after Gregg and Mae had started chanting "moped race moped RACE MOPED RACE" at increasing volume.

They were friendly, and Angus thought maybe he was becoming their friend, even if they only really hung out together as a group and he stayed mostly quiet. Still, a few things worried him sometimes. They just casually talked about 'crimes' from time to time, and one time he got to practice a little early and found Gregg with one hand all bandaged up. A lot of bandages.

"Are you okay?" he'd asked.

"Oh, yeah, I'm good. Just got stabbed a little, that's all."

"You're kidding."

"Nope! Don't worry, though, it's totally fine!" Gregg had looked so worried suddenly that Angus couldn't bring himself to pry, and it had kind of, mostly, been answered anyway when Mae arrived, one of her hands similarly bandaged.

"Geez, my hand hurts," she'd complained.

"Yeah, playing today's gonna be fun," Gregg had agreed. He paused. "Too bad your cuts didn't get infected."

"Too bad a tree didn't fall on you and crush you."

"Too bad a rabid possum didn't run out from the hollow tree and bite you and give you rabies."

"Too bad you didn't drive your moped off a cliff and land on your head and break your neck."

"Too bad you weren't on the moped too and it didn't land on you and break your spine and leave you trapped at the bottom of the cliff to starve to death."

Casey had shaken his head, not looking up from where he was spray-painting a skull and crossbones stencil onto the side of his drum set. "You're both nuts."

These things worried Angus, not because he was afraid of getting dragged into dangerous and criminal things -- well, it was a little bit that -- but because these three seemed really careless. He couldn't imagine being so careless, couldn't understand their attitudes.

"Sooo... October," Mae said.

"Spooky season," Gregg agreed.

They were all hanging out at Mae's house, not for any sort of practice, just because they could. Mae's parents weren't home. Angus had only ever met them once or twice, when he was leaving and they were coming home; the band hadn't come over to Mae's anywhere near as many times as they'd gone to Casey's, because as Casey explained, no one cared if they played loud music or blew stuff up or whatever at his place. Mae had air quoted that she lived in a 'respectable neighborhood'. They'd never gone to Gregg's house or brought his place up, and Angus wasn't about to ask when he didn't plan on inviting them over to his place ever, either.

"So are we all gonna go to Harfest?" Casey asked.

"Do you guys do that every year?" Angus asked.

"Yeah. I mean, everyone goes, but we go together."

"Homecoming, too, right?" Mae asked.

"Same as last year," Casey agreed. "Go as a pack and they can't pick us off one by one."

"Awooooooo!" Mae lifted her hands into the air, then glanced over at Gregg. "Uh. Hello?"

"Oh totally yeah AWOOOOOOOOOO!"

"AWOOOOOOOOOOO!" Casey joined in with the howling, then laughed. "Ha ha ha, Mr. Pendleton's going to have a conniption."

Mae smiled, a satisfied expression. "So what else is new?"

"I never bothered going to homecoming," Angus admitted quietly. He didn't know why, exactly. It was a reason to get out of the house, but...

"Really? Man. You should bother," Mae advised him. "It's so much cooler than Prom, I bet. They always have a bunch of free junk food. And a candy bowl!"

"You made yourself sick last year," Casey reminded her, and informed Angus, "Barfed right in the middle of the dance floor."

"Okay, I'm ignoring you," Mae said, giving her best unimpressed, eyes-narrowed look. "Anyway, you don't need to get all dressed up either. Dress code's basically just, like, no jeans. It is seriously just hanging out at a cool party except not as cool and most of the school is there."

Angus noticed that Gregg wasn't saying much at all, and looked over at him. Gregg was already glancing over at him, and froze for a moment when he met his eyes, then grinned. "Yeah, dude. We should totally all go. It'd be super boring alone but we always find a way to make it fun when it's all of us."

And 'all of us' included Angus now. He gave Gregg a little smile back. "I could go for once," he agreed. "It might be fun."

It was fun. Mostly. Sort of.

Angus didn't dance, but the others didn't most of the time either, with the occasional moment where they seemed compelled to 'show off their moves'. They did not have moves. It looked like they were having a lot of fun anyway. He was smiling more than usual; he felt good.

He also felt... claustrophobic? Like he was alone, even if he also felt like he was around people he liked and cared about and who liked him. It was a weird, uncomfortable feeling, a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with asthma. It felt like there was a distance there between him and his friends. Bea hadn't bothered to come this year either, but even Bea didn't really know that much about him or his family.

When Tim Whitley drove his big tractor in through the gym doors, Angus slipped out the side door while everyone was going nuts for this absolutely ridiculous display. He walked, in the direction of the parking lot and home even though he didn't really want to go home, and stopped at a bench and just sat, closing his eyes. He resisted the urge to use his inhaler, knowing that wasn't going to help with this particular knot in his chest.

Footsteps came slowly up to the bench, and someone sat down beside him, not too close, but close enough that he could feel that they were there. Solid, warm. He didn't look up, and he didn't exactly relax when it was Gregg's voice that spoke up after a minute, but it didn't feel any worse to have him there, either.

"Sorry if you felt like you had to come."

"No, I wanted to come."

"But you've had enough homecoming for one night?"

Angus didn't nod or shake his head; he didn't want to leave, but he didn't want to go back inside, either. "I don't want to go home."

Gregg was quiet for a few moments. "Neither do I. So we should do something else."

He wasn't sure how to communicate his frustration or how to swallow it down. "No, I--"

"Home's bad, right?"

Angus looked up, looked over at him in surprise. Gregg was looking back at him, open and serious in a way that Angus had never seen him.

"...Yeah," he whispered. "Home's bad."

Gregg nodded at the confirmation. "Homecoming's okay for me," he explained. "Mae and Casey are real good at either distracting me or going along with my bullshit. But if homecoming's too much, we should do something else until you feel like it's okay for you to go home."

"Like what?"

Angus watched Gregg shrug. "I dunno. Go for a ride. Maybe up to the park. Or we could walk around Towny Centry, look at all the Harvest Festival decorations. Or I could get my crossbow and we could shoot some stuff out in the woods. Cans or trees or... stuff. It might make you feel a little better."

"Uh..." Angus pushed his glasses up and rubbed at his eyes with both palms, then let them drop again. Then adjusted them so they were sitting right again. "That's okay. Walking around looking at decorations sounds nice."

"Yeah," Gregg said. "It does."

He stood up, and Angus shifted to get to his feet as well. Gregg stopped him just with an outstretched hand, a wordless offer to help him get to his feet.

Angus gripped his hand so carefully, and let Gregg pull him up. He gave a light squeeze before letting go, and Gregg's whole face lit up again in a crinkle-eyed smile, like when they'd first talked in the hallway, when he'd wanted to hang out. A light in the dark.

"Cool," Gregg said.

"Yeah." It felt insufficient, but Angus said it anyway. "Cool."

He glanced back towards the gym as they set off, leaves crunching between their shoes and the pavement in the dark, a strangely satisfying sound. "What about Mae and Casey?"

"Oh man, don't even worry about them. They're gonna want to get a turn riding the tractor anyway. Then they'll get to see teachers actually try to kick him out." He wasn't walking close enough that their arms bumped against each other, but the proximity made Angus's arm feel warm, a counterpoint to the chilly October night wind. "There's a lot they can still get out of homecoming. They won't mind if we don't drag them away."

"Oh."

"Besides," Gregg said, "I was thinking maybe we could hang out sometime -- you know, just us."

Angus took deep breaths, feeling his lungs expand. His chest was still a little tight, but his heart pounded. He glanced over at Gregg, at the way the moon shone off his jacket and fur and eyes in the dark, and caught his eye as he noticed Gregg glancing over at him too. He found himself smiling, an expression he couldn't really help at all.

"Well," he said. "Uh. Now's a good time."

When Gregg took his hand, it almost wasn't a surprise. They had to stop to rest a few times -- or rather, Angus did, and Gregg didn't seem to mind -- before making it back to Towny Centry proper, and they wandered around the Harfest-decorated streets for a while. And while eventually Angus felt like he could face going home, he didn't really want to at all. He was so much more comfortable with Gregg's hand in his.

"Sorry for taking you away from the dance early," he said.

"Naw, dude," Gregg said. "Tonight was like, the opposite of a bust. I had way more of a blast just wandering around with you."

"Would you like to do it again?" Angus asked him, with a bravery sourced from somewhere inside himself he hadn't realized he could get to. But there it was, and with Gregg, it felt easy.

Gregg's eyes widened, and then he just beamed. "Of course I'd like to do it again! That'd be amazing! You mean a date, right?"

Angus's face was hot, but he nodded. "I mean a date," he confirmed.

"Aaaaaaagh!" Angus had heard Gregg when he got excited before, and he probably only wasn't flailing because he still had a newly-tight grip on Angus's hand. "God! Yes! One hundred percent."

The sheer overwhelming excitement Gregg obviously felt at the prospect felt good, Angus couldn't lie. "Then maybe after next band practice."

"Sounds great! It's a date!"

"It's a date!" Angus agreed, and Gregg hesitated, then leaned up and pressed their lips together.

It was a little startling, not least because Gregg's mouth met his probably a little harder than he'd meant to, but while Angus jumped slightly and Gregg eased back enough to make the kiss a little softer, neither of them pulled away. It wasn't deep and it didn't even really last all that long, but it was still maybe the most exciting moment of Angus's life to date. More exciting than finding like-minded skeptics on the internet. Definitely more exciting than Scouts. Gregg's breath was warm, and the glow of the Harfest lights made his fur even more orangey than normal. And the way he looked at Angus...

Angus's breath was quick, not with asthma. It was amazing, but the way Gregg looked at him, it was like he saw Angus the way Angus saw him, somehow. Something bright and incredible in a world that wasn't, usually.

"Wow," Gregg said. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

He sounded hopeful. It was Saturday tomorrow, they didn't have school. Did they even have band practice? "Okay," Angus agreed anyway.

"Okay!"

When Gregg let go of his hand, the air that rushed in to fill the absence felt colder from the sudden lack of that warm point of contact. Angus walked home in the dark, and went inside and to bed quietly so as not to wake his mother, and thought about every single thing he could remember about that night after Gregg had joined him on the bench in as much detail as possible. It took him a lot longer to fall to sleep than usual, and he didn't mind at all.