hate is a strong word (bxb)

27

Olivia had been the first person to wake up the following morning. It made sense, since she had been the first person to fall asleep. She cleaned up any mess that they had made last night and then was fairly quick to wake up Scar, who had fallen asleep on the living room couch. Scar had already been half awake when she woke him, anyways.

The two had eventually made their way to the kitchen, where they found Braxton and Benjamin asleep on the floor. They looked completely exhausted.

"Do you think that we should wake them up?" Olivia questioned, looking down upon the two boys who slept rather peacefully on the couch.

"Maybe," Scar answered, "but uh, before we wake them up... about last night..."

"Yeah?"

"I think we'll save them some embarrassment if we just act like we didn't even see Ben like that," Scar answered, "and, you know, Braxton is going to remember everything from last night. Yeah, he was drunk, but not drunk enough to forget."

"Yeah?"

"Ben won't, though. And Braxton isn't going to want to remind him of what happened. He's going to try to act like nothing ever happened, and I think it's best if we go along with that. You know? For the sake of Ben's dignity, I think it's best that we both act like we were too drunk to remember anything."

"Come on, you really think that Braxton won't want to make fun of Ben for everything that happened last night? It's Braxton we're talking about here."

Scar had already carefully thought this over. It was in Braxton's nature to not let things go. He overplayed jokes and was one of the most redundant and annoying people that Scar could recall ever meeting. However, Scar knew that someway, somehow, this situation would be different for Braxton. At first, Scar had considered the fact that Braxton loved to joke about things like this. He also considered the fact that Braxton truly didn't have anything to lose in this situation. Unlike Benjamin, he was already out of the closet and he was loud and proud. A scenario like this only seemed like a dream for someone like Braxton.

There was something different about this situation, though. There was something about it that told Scar that Braxton wouldn't dare to joke about it. From his years of friendship with Ben, Scar learned that Ben loved to keep things a secret. As a result of this, Scar had become pretty good at figuring Ben out without spoken words. He could look at Ben and just know what was going on, and last night, he was sure that he saw something in Ben when Ben and Braxton finally came back inside.

[Last Night]

The door creaked open quietly, but the two boys were far less quiet as they stepped back into Olivia's house after their little talk. Ben, in particular, was the loud one.

"We're back!" he announced, his arms flying happily in the air.

"Shh," Braxton (quite ironically) shushed him.

Braxton had seen how the energy in the house had gone quite stale in the thirty minutes that they were gone. Olivia seemed to be asleep on the couch and Braxton was surprised by this, seeing as how quickly the alcohol had tired her. He looked carefully around the room, his eyes landing immediately on Scar who was sat in the kitchen. Scar had a dumb grin on his face. It must've been from the alcohol, though.

"Y'guys have fun?" Scar mused in a mumble.

"God, you're drunk too now?" Braxton scoffed, almost annoyed at the fact that he was the only one in the room who hadn't been affected by the alcohol.

"Pretty much," Scar laughed quietly, most likely trying to avoid waking Olivia up, "how was your talk?" he repeated once more as Braxton sat down at the kitchen table beside him and Benjamin continued to wobble around that same general area.