The Family We Make

by Dan Wingreen

  Spencer shook his head and made a small, frustrated noise.

  “Ugh, whatever. I’ve been bitching at you all week, and I’m kind of just done for right now.” He took a deep breath and then finally turned to Tim. And blinked. “Uh, are you wearing argyle? And zombie makeup?”

  Tim could hear Connor shifting impatiently behind him. Part of him wanted to hurry away so he could be a good friend and give Connor at least a few hours of fun, but a much bigger part was painfully aware this was the first time he’d seen Spencer since he’d brought Connor home after being attacked, and he’d missed his other older friend more than he’d like to think about.

  “Yeah,” he said somewhat sheepishly. This was probably the least flattering outfit he’d ever worn, and he was suddenly a little embarrassed Spencer was seeing him in it. “Pleated pants too.”

  He stretched out one of his legs and gave it a little shake. Spencer’s eyes darted down and then almost immediately snapped back up. A small flush spread across his face, which Tim realized must have been freshly shaven because he’d never seen him so smooth before.

  Tim had the sudden inexplicable urge to run his fingers along Spencer’s jaw.

  “Ah.” Spencer cleared his throat. “And after all the shit you give me about my grandpa sweaters.”

  “I like your grandpa sweaters though,” Tim admitted. “They’re cute.”

  Spencer’s eyes widened as his flush quickly spread down his neck.

  Why the hell did I say that?

  “Sorry.”

  “’S fine!” Spencer’s voice cracked, slightly. He cleared his throat again. “Uh, is…costume? Is that your costume?”

  “Um, yeah,” Tim said slowly. He felt like he was missing something. “I’m Uncle Ben.”

  Spencer blinked, then snorted so hard his eyes started to water. “Shit.” He quickly wiped them. “Zombie Uncle Ben taking Spider-Man trick-or-treating. That is wrong and awesome, and I love it.”

  “Better than Superboy?” Tim asked, only slightly teasing. One of the things he’d learned while taking Connor shopping was Spencer had dressed him up as nineties Superboy every Halloween until he was twelve, which was adorable, and Spencer had texted him dozens of pictures to prove it. He’d never really gotten over Connor refusing to put the spandex and leather jacket back on.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Spencer said automatically. He chewed his lip for a moment and then said, “Okay, maybe I would.”

  Tim laughed.

  “Can we go now?” Connor called. A quick glance showed he still had his back turned, but his arms were still crossed, and his hip was cocked, and he was actually tapping his foot.

  That’s so cute…

  “Sickening, isn’t it?” Spencer asked with a knowing gleam in his eyes. “Like looking at four sleepy puppies kind of adorable. I have no idea how he doesn’t have an army of senior girls all fighting over who gets to make him their honorary Little Brother.”

  “Well—”

  “Tim!” Connor snapped.

  “Aaand that would be why. You should…probably get going,” Spencer said. He shifted in place and chewed his lip again—the son has nothing on the father—and nodded. “Yeah. Um. Back by ten, okay? And don’t take him too far past—well. You know what to do. I texted you like fifty times…but if he gets sick or hurt, call me. And if you think he might be about to apologize, call me, and put me on speaker. And don’t let him eat any candy before you get back. He has weird reactions to some of it, and you don’t want to be stuck without a bathroom, especially since he won’t mention how bad he’s feeling until grossness starts spewing out one end or the other—”

  “Spencer.” Tim smiled, placing his hand on his friend’s shoulder in what he hoped came off as a comforting gesture. “We’ll be fine.”

  For some reason, Spencer flushed again, and this time Tim had to tighten his grip to keep from seeing if those cheeks felt as warm as they appeared.

  This is not good.

  “I-I know.” Spencer nodded and then cleared his throat again and took a step back right as Tim let him go. “Thanks again for doing this.”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” Tim said, his voice strangely soft. “I wanted to.”

  Spencer swallowed visibly and glanced away. “Cool. Have fun!” he called down to Connor.

  Connor gave him the finger.

  “Right.” Spencer gave Tim a tight-lipped smile. “You better get going before he starts consuming the souls of the innocent.”

  And with that, he stepped fully inside and closed the door.

  Tim stared at it for a long moment before shaking his head and making his way down to Connor.

  “Okay,” he said, giving Connor his best carefree smile. “Ready?”

  Connor nodded stiffly before taking off down the sidewalk.

  “Okay,” Tim muttered to himself and then followed.

  *

  It took twenty minutes or so, the bright sun of Halloween fun breaking through the storm clouds surrounding Connor in the form of jittery excitement and hard-won laughter, but eventually the tension between them evaporated, and they fell into a pretty good rhythm. Tim had always liked planning his trick-or-treating out in advance so he could hit the maximum number of houses as quickly as possible, and he was pleasantly surprised to see Connor shared his philosophy. Even better, he actually knew the area: which houses gave out the most candy, which ones were stingy to anyone over the age of six, and which houses were well meaning but awful and gave out fruit or toothpaste.

  As Connor’s dad might say, they cleaned the fuck up.

  Tim had almost forgotten how awesome Halloween could be. Aside from his freshman year, he’d always been too busy in college to bother dressing up or following his roommate around to parties. Even when he’d been with Rudy and kind of inherited his group of friends by default, they’d never really been big into Halloween. Somehow, over the years, the simple joys of wearing a costume and gorging himself on candy had been lost, and it didn’t take long before his enthusiasm stopped being solely about Connor having fun and started being about Tim having fun too.

  Maybe too much fun because it took him a lot longer than it should have to notice Connor had gotten sullen again.

  “I haven’t seen this much Pez since I was in high school,” Tim said, staring down into the bag he’d somehow ended up holding—probably because the thing was so full it was about a tenth of Connor’s body weight—in exchange for a small share of their haul. “I changed my mind; I want the grape ones, not the Snickers.”

  Connor grunted.

  “Grape Pez is the best,” Tim went on. “If I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life, right now I’d pick grape Pez. I’d completely regret it within two days, but I’d still pick it.”

  “Hm.”

  The back of Tim’s tongue began to get that bitter-sour feeling he got whenever he really wanted some candy, and he started to reach into the bag only to pause before his fingers could even graze the sugary goodness. He’d tried this about seven other times since they’d been out, and every time Connor had smacked his hand away and yelled at him for being a candy thief. Tim had a brief irrational spike of panic thinking he’d lost Connor at some point and hadn’t noticed, but a quick glance showed Connor still right beside him, staring at the ground and hugging himself around the waist, exactly like he had the night Tim brought him home.

  “Hey, you wanna take a break before we hit the rest of the houses?” Tim asked as casually as he could.

  “No.”

  “Well, I do.” He smiled to take the edge off his words, but Connor was too focused on the sidewalk to notice. “Come on, there’s a bench over there. Let’s sit down for a bit.”

  Connor didn’t say anything, but when Tim took a seat and placed the bag on the ground between his legs, he sat right next to him on the cold metal. Tim noted the thin material of his Spider-Man costume and grimaced, but if Connor was feeling the cold at all, he wasn’t showing it. He just sat ba
ck so his legs were dangling off the bench and stared at his knees.

  “Pretty good haul this year, huh?” Tim asked. Connor didn’t say anything, but Tim hadn’t really expected him to. “Do you guys usually get this much?”

  A small flinch when he’d said “you guys.” So, this is definitely about Spencer, then. Not like I expected any different but still good to know.

  At least, maybe Tim would get the chance to talk to one of them about this whole stupid cold war they had going on. He’d just have to be very careful about how he brought the subject up. If he said the wrong thing, he was sure Connor would just clam up and maybe even demand to be taken home. Tim would need to use every conversation skill he had to subtly coax Connor into—

  “What did Dad want?”

  Or not.

  “Back at the house.” Even with the mask on Tim could tell he was glaring. “You were talking to him forever. What did he want?”

  “He—”

  “Did he tell you to ‘talk sense’ into me or something? Is that why you’re doing this?”

  Tim blinked. “If you mean why am I taking you trick-or-treating, it’s because I want to. I wanted to before you and your dad started fighting.”

  “Yeah, and he’s been keeping me locked in the house since then.”

  “I know.”

  “And he wouldn’t let me out just to go trick-or-treating. There’s no way he trusts you enough to ‘look after me’ or whatever.” Tim’s heart sank. “So, he wouldn’t let me out unless he thought you were going to make me forgive him.”

  It took a lot of effort, but Tim pushed aside his own feelings—he’s wrong anyway. Of course, Spencer trusts me. Even if he hasn’t actually said the words, he wouldn’t let me spend so much time with Connor if he didn’t. Right?—and focused on what Connor was saying. All his instincts were telling him to say whatever he needed to get Connor to calm down, but those instincts were honed over years of dealing with emotionally troubled preteens. Connor was older, and smart to boot, and maybe this time a judicious bit of truth telling would be for the best. It seemed to work well enough for them this far anyway.

  “You really wanna know why he let you come out tonight?”

  Connor nodded, and Tim had to hold back a smile. No matter what Connor thought about how much Spencer trusted Tim, he obviously trusted Tim enough not to ask if he was going to tell the truth.

  “Then take that mask off. Please?” he added when Connor seemed like he might be about to protest.

  After a short hesitation, Connor pulled off the Spider-Man mask. His hair stuck up in every direction like he’d been struck by lightning, but he didn’t even bother trying to straighten it out.

  “So?”

  Tim took a breath. “Okay, honestly? He wanted you out of the house so you could both have a break from each other. All he told me was to make sure you had fun.”

  “What?”

  “He—”

  “A break from each other? We could have had a million breaks from each other if he’d stop following me around like I’m on suicide watch!”

  “That’s not exactly what he’s doing—”

  “I know! I was being—”

  “But I completely agree.”

  Whatever Connor had been about to say died on his lips. His jaw dropped, and he stared at Tim like he’d never seen him before. “What did you say?”

  Connor’s words were guarded like Tim’s words were a treasured toy that might be snatched out of his hands by a cruel babysitter at any moment.

  “Your dad’s being a bit unreasonable,” Tim said, shrugging. “Keeping you locked up together twenty-four seven isn’t doing either of you any good.”

  Connor stared at Tim like he was the Second Coming.

  “That’s exactly what I said! Dad said I had no idea what I was talking about, and that he’d rather sew us together than see me get punched in the face again. Then he started talking about the best way to sew us together, and it’s impossible to have a rational conversation with him when he refuses to take anything seriously. It’s so childish.”

  Tim quickly covered up his amusement. “Well, as your center-approved Big Brother, I’m not really supposed to offer my opinion here.” Please God, don’t let this backfire on me at some point. “But…as your friend? Yeah, he’s definitely being childish.”

  “Thank you!” Connor threw his hands in the air and sagged back onto the bench, which made this the only time Tim had ever seen someone calm down by getting worked up. It was kind of fascinating to watch. “No one ever agrees with me.”

  “Ever?” Tim couldn’t help asking.

  Thankfully, Connor either didn’t hear the irony in his voice or chose to ignore it.

  “Yes! Grandma and Grandpa keep saying I should listen to Dad. Dad keeps saying I should listen to Dad, and…I don’t have anyone else. Except you. And you agree with me,” he said, glancing up at Tim through his eyelashes with eyes that seemed to sparkle under the nearby streetlights.

  Tim’s heart ached. He knew exactly how Connor felt. He’d been there before. Maybe not this young, but he knew what it was like to feel lost and alone and locked in a battle with the people who’d always had his back. For Tim, it had been his parents he’d been fighting with. They’d both wanted him to stay in New York for college, but Tim had wanted to be on his own. He’d wanted to get away from his mom’s stifling expectations. And in Tim’s house, going up against his mom almost always meant being at odds with his dad too.

  By the time the allure of college and casual dating had worn off, he’d felt just as alone as Connor did now. The only difference was Tim hadn’t had anyone like himself to turn to. Instead, he’d floundered through short-lived relationships until he’d latched onto a mentor who abused his trust and a boyfriend whose idea of love was twisted and selfish. Tim thought he’d been getting better over the last few weeks. He’d thought the long days and longer nights of reliving the worst months of his life were behind him. But even now, when his life was objectively better in every way and Connor was counting on him to be present and supportive, Tim couldn’t help slipping into the past. For just a moment, Connor, the bench, the street, and the buildings all faded away, and he was back in his old dorm with Rudy smiling softly and telling him it wouldn’t be so bad to take Professor Carmichael up on his offer.

  “Come on, it’s not like it’s something you hate doing. You’re good at it. It’s not cheating if I give you permission. Go blow his mind, baby.”

  “You withdrew your application? What the hell, Tim? What are we gonna do now? Am I supposed to sit around while you get some white-trash minimum-wage job? Did you even think about me? Or is a little bit of selflessness too much to ask?”

  “No, honey, fuck you. I can’t believe I wasted almost a year of my life on a fucking baker.”

  Tim shook his head, and the present snapped back into focus. He glanced down at Connor, who hadn’t seemed to notice his slip, and swallowed heavily.

  Stop it. Rudy is gone and you’re never going to see him again. Your present is Connor and Spencer. It’s Dick and Sarah and your customers at the bakery. It’s Mom and Dad who you’re finally on good terms with again, even if Mom hasn’t gotten any easier to handle. And despite all the shit Rudy put you through, in the end you left him. Remember the look on his face when he realized you were breaking up with him. Focus on that if you have to think about him. Nothing else.

  Tim cleared his throat and summoned his best smile for Connor. “Yeah. Well, this time I do, anyway.”

  “Dude, you agree with me now. I thought…” Connor wrung his hands together and glanced down toward the bench.

  Tim let his smile slip. It didn’t matter how much of himself he could see in Connor. All that mattered was Connor finding someone better to hold on to when he was vulnerable than Tim had.

  His Rudy issues could wait. Right now, it was time to put those four years of college-psychology courses to good use.

  “You thought I’d side with your da
d because you’re not used to anyone but him being in your corner, right?”

  “That sounds really stupid,” Connor said as he started picking at the chipped paint on the bench.

  “But it’s not wrong.”

  Connor shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “But now you know that I’m in your corner too,” Tim said very deliberately, not phrasing it as a question. Still, he wasn’t very surprised when he got one in return.

  “Are you?”

  Connor’s question was serious, for all that he refused to make eye contact, so Tim made sure his response was equally serious.

  “Always.”

  To his surprise, Connor snorted. “Stupid Harry Potter,” he muttered.

  “Harry Potter?”

  Connor shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.” He chewed his lip for a moment. “What if you’re not though? Dad…”

  He trailed off, but Tim didn’t need to hear the words to know what he was going to say.

  “Just because you guys are fighting right now doesn’t mean he’s not on your side.” Connor shot him probably the most incredulous look he’d ever received. Tim bit back a smile. “I know you won’t want to hear this, but this whole thing is happening because he’s trying to be on your side. You two are just disagreeing on what ‘your side’ is.”

  Connor made a face. “That sounds fake. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  Tim held back a sigh. “If I’m ever not, then your dad will be. And if he’s not, then your grandparents will be.”

  “And when they’re not? Because that’s kind of all I have.”

  “Then you’ll have a shitty few days,” Tim said bluntly. “You’ll fight with all of us, and it’ll suck, but it won’t last forever.”

  “That’s such condescending crap.” Connor scowled. “‘It’ll suck, but it won’t last forever.’ You’re completely invalidating my feelings.”