Time Warp: I'm Moving On

[Levi Xu]

((Concluded in: It Feels Like Being Alone))

April 13th, 2017

"Hey, Levi. Sorry I missed your call but it's been a rough week. We need to talk. In person, not on the phone. Do you mind if I come up this weekend? I might not get there until late because I have to do some stuff after class first. Let me know. Love you, bye."

Levi was sprawled across the bottom bunk of a somewhat-rickety set of bunkbeds, with his pillow on his face. If he closed his eyed and pretended really hard, he could smell traces of Evan's aftershave and shampoo on it. Of course, he knew he was imagining it, because it had been something like two months since he'd last seen his boyfriend. It had been almost a week since they had spoken directly on the phone, and he still hadn't responded to the message Evan had left on his voicemail earlier that day.

When Mark came in, almost an hour later, he found his roommate lying exactly where he had left him. He rolled his eyes and knocked the pillow off of Levi's face. "You suffocated?"

"No." Levi blinked a few times. It was darker under the pillow. "Evan's coming up this weekend."

"And you want me to go somewhere else, because he hates me." The blond young man rolled his eyes again and sat at his desk, turning on his computer.

Levi finally sat up, because even when he was worried, he wasn't going to let Mark insult Evan. "He doesn't hate you. You just kind of remind him of some people he does hate." Because there was really all that much of a difference. "He's coming to break up with me."

That made Mark turn around, surprised. "Really?" He wasn't a big fan of Evan himself, but he'd always thought the two complimented each other well. Evan was a tight-ass, and Levi was an airhead. "What'd you do?"

"I don't know! He's been really distant lately."

"Are you sure that's not just...him?"

"No, more than usual. It's like every time I'm talking to him he's thinking about something else." And Evan knew when his classes were. If he actually wanted to talk, he'd call some other time, right?

"Do you want me to zap him?" Mark grinned and wiggled his intoxicating fingers in front of his roommate's face. "Make him forget why he came?"

"No..." Levi groaned and returned the pillow to its previous perch on his face.

"Do you want a zap so you can chill out?"

"No, I need to think. Ask me later."

[Evan Brackett]

Evan was already on the road when he left the message on his boyfriend's phone. He was actually ditching class entirely for this, because he had a lot of errands to run and people to talk to before he met with Levi. It was clear from the beginning that he wasn't going to be done preparing himself for this until late into the evening, hence the line about being late.

God, was he nervous as hell. Six years ago they had met, complete strangers in a strange place, but that day had changed Evan's life forever. No matter what happened, that incident would be engraved in his memory. He had thought about it so many times.

But everything was about to change. With Levi going to school in Vermont, and he going to school in Massachusetts, they hadn't been able to spend time together. Evan feared that they had been slipping for a while now. They always had trouble living so far away from each other--it was a shock after spending years in the same room--but their calls were becoming more frequent. Not just conversational calls, but checking up calls. They worried about what the other one was up to on a daily basis.

The phaser could hardly stand waiting any longer.

He was jittery the entire drive to Pilot Ridge (his parents would have killed him if he didn't stop there first), but it seemed so much worse once he was heading directly to VTU. Van kept eyeing exits on the highway, considering giving up on his plan of doing this in person and running back to MIT. That wouldn't be right, though. It wouldn't be fair.

No, Evan was going to look Levi in the eye when he did this. There wasn't any other way.

He pulled into the familiar parking lot in front of Levi's dorm building, a visitors pass already hanging on his rear-view mirror. All the delays were out of the way, and the grad student had no other excuses to put this off. He stepped out of the car slowly and took a deep breath. He could do this.

Once he arrived at Levi's dorm, however, he waited ten long minutes before knocking. It took him that long to build up his courage again, which had been lost somewhere within the stairwell. "Levi, I'm here," he called, his voice obviously shaking.

Crap, he was going to give himself away. At least he was ready for it.

[Levi Xu]

Sometime before, Mark had taken the opportunity to book it. Levi had tried to convince him to stay, but it was half-hearted. He knew Van wouldn't want him around for this, and frankly, neither did he. (He did, however, get Mark to promise that he would not paintball Evan's car, no matter what happened that night.)

When the knock finally came--the dorm security knew Evan already and just let him sign in without making Levi come down--Levi had been listening to all of the messages that were saved on his phone. They were all from Evan, and they were all from the past few days. The younger boy called a lot too, but looking him at the logs, it seemed almost...obsessive. They probably weren't doing themselves any favors. "Come in!" he yelled back, but he noticed that his boyfriend's words were shaky too.

Evan was a good guy. He'd come all the way out here and wasn't doing this by phone. Levi was going to make it as easy as possible for him.

Levi stood and gave the grad student a half-hearted hug. This was going to be awful, no matter what. It might as well be fast. "Evan? Um, can we talk about something? It's been kinda bothering me for a while."

[Evan Brackett]

Van immediately breathed a sigh of relief when he entered the room and Mark was no where to be found. He wasn't entirely fond of the intoxicator--the boy reminded him far too much of Fifi and Sam for him to be comfortable around the guy--and this was going to be a lot easier if he and Levi were already alone. Knowing himself, he was going to do something embarrassing like break down and cry. Mark should never be allowed to see that.

He returned the hug, although his was slightly more enthusiastic. Levi seemed to be depressed, and Evan chalked it up to missing his phone call. It was a little strange for him to visit without any prior discussion. He wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, though, before he could allow himself to chicken out. Things seemed to be moving right along.

But before he could even say hello, Levi was hitting him with uncertainty. He supposed that was normal, considering the ambiguity of his message, so he just smiled down at his boyfriend. "Oh, yeah. Sure. That's why I'm here," he said with a nervous laugh. The younger boy's initiative had thrown him off, but he guessed he could wait to hear him out before launching into his plan. He wanted this to go smoothly.

[Levi Xu]

That's why he was here.

Biting on the inside of his lip, Levi turned and walked back over to his bunk to sit down. He'd been thinking about this all day, but now that it was actually time to say it, he didn't know where to begin. He realized he was still fiddling with his phone. Might as well start there.

"We call each other. A lot." He scrolled through the call records and then held it out, as evidence. As if Evan didn't know about all of them. It was multiple times a day, just asking questions, checking in. "Does it seem like it's a bit much? I mean, too much? It's kind of obsessive..." And once he'd started, the insecurities started pouring out. He felt like such a jerk for this, he has to get it out of the way. "It's like we don't trust each other, and I know that I do it too but...that can't be right, right? And it's not right either that Mark had to leave because you were coming. It's his room too and aside from that one time he's never used his power on you. He's a nice guy and you don't trust me when I say that."

Levi couldn't even look him in the eye, this was horrible. "But it's not just that. I know that I'm kind of immature sometimes, particularly when I get wrapped up with something from my power and I know it's grating...." And Evan spent every day with his genius friends at MIT, why would he want to deal with all the bullshit Levi put him through? He already had a degree, he didn't need any more college crap. "So I guess...We've been together since we were teenagers, and we're not anymore and neither of us have ever done anything with anyone else so maybe we don't know if this isn't working?" The last part was all said in a rush, to get it out.

Evan came to break up with him, and Levi was trying to be supportive. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

[Evan Brackett]

Evan followed the smaller student over to his bed, although he chose to stand. It would make this easier. "Yeah," he affirmed, fully aware of the situation but looking at the phone record anyway. "I worry about you, about losing you." And he was pretty sure Levi felt the same way.

"Obsessive? Well, I suppose you could look at it like that," he said weakly. It seemed more like one of those things you had to squint at and try really hard to see, or purposely dement to fit your argument. He thought being worried was normal. It happened to everybody.

As he wasn't able to throw in his own two cents as Levi rushed through the remainder of his speech, Van could do nothing more than listen. And he listened intently, having not realized Levi felt that way. When he did finally have the chance to say something, he was going to dispute their trust issues, but the rare urge to defend himself got in the way of what mattered more. "First off, I didn't ask Mark to leave," he retorted, albeit a bit perversely. He had asked the roommate to leave in the past, and he definitely would have today if he wasn't already gone. "And you think a lot of people are nice guys when they aren't. Conversely, there are a lot of nice guys that you said were terrorists." Okay, maybe Levi had only ever called Kenny a terrorist, but that wasn't the point. The other student had been muddling up people's intentions for years.

This wasn't good. Both of them were just getting upset, and that was the last thing Evan wanted to happen. He really wanted this night to end well. But his breath caught as Levi finished off his ramble, and he looked away as he replied. "I see what you mean," the phaser said dejectedly, thinking back over the boy's points. "I guess neither of us are really sure." Tears were starting to well up in his eyes. The more he thought about it, the more Levi seemed to be right. God, he didn't want that to be true.

[Levi Xu]

Levi shook his head, trying to force the lump in his throat down. Evan was agreeing with him, and that was all there was to it.

When they started dating, they had never really discussed their relationship. It had grown out of their friendship, which had never been exactly normal. Levi had clung to the older boy in desperation, and Evan had clung right back. Six years later, Levi was still clinging, and that couldn't be good.

"Maybe.... I don't know, Van. You look like you're just as freaked out and worried as I am...and that can't be good for us. This can't be healthy." He bit the inside of his lip again, because he had to finish this before either of them started to cry. "So maybe we should, I don't know, take a break? See other people and get some prospective?"

There, he'd said it. He'd given Evan a way out.

[Evan Brackett]

Evan couldn't believe what he was hearing. He didn't want to believe it. "Freaked out?" he repeated with a crack. "Of course I'm freaked out! I wish you told me this sooner." He don't know what to do, how to save this. He desperately wanted to save it, and make everything alright again.

But if that was the way Levi felt about it, he didn't think it could be saved. Van took a deep breath and swallowed his tears, refusing to let the other boy see him cry. "Fine, if that's what you want," he said quietly with a slight edge to his voice. "You can consider us through." He shoved his hand in his jacket pocket as he turned to leave, his fingers cramming into a small object.

Evan paused, grasping the artifact with an iron grip. In all his turmoil, he had forgotten about why he had come back to Vermont in the first place. Heaving a great sigh, he pursed his lips and faced his now ex-boyfriend. The phaser looked him in the eye, his dagger-like glare sharpened by a lack of fresh tears. Anger overshadowed heartbreak. "Oh yeah, I got this for you." He pulled the ring box out of his pocket, and held it out for a moment before turning his palm over and letting it fall to the ground. "Keep it." His final words were stiff, consumed by contempt for the wasted engagement ring, and as he turned and walked away, he didn't look back.

[Levi Xu]

Evan was gone before Levi could get downstairs. After two weeks, David called him and threatened bodily harm and/or calling the police if he didn't stop calling his brother.