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Decades before Luke learns what the term “masking” means, he knows that he and Bobby are different.
Luke, for example, loves people. He loves performing, connecting, sharing his music with the world. He loves to be the center of attention, of course, but even when he’s not, he’s at his most comfortable in social situations, surrounded by people and noise and energy. Whether he’s in a crowded club or in Bobby’s garage with his three best friends, being around others makes Luke feel the most like himself. It’s when he’s alone that he starts to wonder if himself even exists.
Bobby’s alone a lot. Luke hasn’t known him that long, in the grand scheme of things, and Bobby doesn’t like to talk about it, but it’s not exactly a hard concept to grasp—Bobby’s folks are wealthy and important and never home, so any time Bobby doesn’t spend at school or with the band, he spends by himself in a too-big, too-quiet, too-empty house. If Luke were in that situation, he’d hate it. He physically wouldn’t be able to stand it.
For a while, after they first met, Luke figured Bobby didn’t mind. It wasn’t like he ever complained or anything, and considering how often he ribbed Luke, Alex, and Reggie for being clingy, codependent idiots, Luke actually thought Bobby preferred being on his own.
He’s not sure when that changed, but now he knows it’s not the case.
There are two versions of Bobby, is the thing: the real Bobby, that hardly anyone ever sees, that surfaces in the quiet of the studio or the dark of his bedroom, that shines from behind his eyes like a prisoner peering through the bars of his cell whenever Luke plays a song just for him. And then the other Bobby, the public Bobby, the Bobby that everyone but Luke (and sometimes Alex and Reggie) thinks is the only Bobby there is.
They make fun of him for it sometimes, his “public relations face,” his “customer service” voice, the way he turns friendly and polite whenever strangers are around and then drops back into his gruff, sullen self the second they leave.
Oh, sorry, that’s right. There are actually three versions of Bobby. Because the quiet, bitey, sarcastic Bobby who bickers with Alex and rolls his eyes at Reggie and cuffs Luke upside the head is separate from the Bobby who whispers his deepest insecurities when only Luke can hear him and seeks touch like a starving man seeks food, like Luke’s the only person who can give it to him.
Luke doesn’t know why Bobby can’t be that Bobby all the time. He doesn’t know how to ask. All he knows is that the moment Bobby’s uncomfortable or nervous—even if he’d never show it—the real Bobby hides away and someone else takes his place.
It took a long time for Luke to be able to recognize the signs, for Luke to be able to tell one Bobby from another. Even now, seven or eight months into their friendship, he’s not always sure why sometimes the customer service voice comes out at band practice and the antisocialism surfaces around club managers and local reporters. He doesn’t always know when or why a different Bobby comes to light, but he always knows when Bobby’s been put into a situation where the real him needs to hide. Because even at his most convincing, even at his least emotional, when Bobby’s uncomfortable, he bites his nails.
“All right, I’m beat,” Alex announces, laying his drumsticks aside. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I think with one more rehearsal, we’ll have it down!” Reggie unslings his bass from his neck. “Good job, everyone!”
“Don’t be late, okay?” Luke pleads as they both head out. “That new song needs all the practice time it can get.”
“You’re telling us not to be late? Luke, you spent the first twenty minutes of rehearsal making and eating a sandwich.”
“It’s an art form, Alex, it can’t just be rushed!”
“Okay.”
Luke’s laughing, despite himself, as he waves them out the door, but as soon as he turns back to face the studio, the grin drops off his face. Because Bobby’s still sitting perched on the arm of the couch where he’d been during rehearsal, his guitar balanced on his lap, chewing on his thumbnail. His eyes are a little glassy, a little unfocused, trained somewhere in the middle distance. As Luke watches, he moves his hand, and a bead of crimson forms on his thumb before splashing onto the body of his guitar.
“Shit,” Luke says from across the room. “Bobby, you’re bleeding.”
It’s like a shock has gone through him, how quickly Bobby reacts— sits up straight with a muttered curse and moves his guitar aside while he sucks desperately on his bleeding cuticle. “Fuck, thanks, man,” he murmurs around his thumb, glancing quickly up at Luke before avoiding eye contact again. “Didn’t even notice.”
Luke scans him for other signs of distress—Bobby’s jaw is a little tight, but at least he doesn’t look so out of himself anymore. As he stands from the couch and sets his guitar firmly in its stand, he keeps his hands curled into loose fists so that Luke can’t see the state of the rest of his nails. The fact that he’s trying to hide them doesn’t bode well, though.
“I didn’t…” Luke starts to say, and then stops, swallows, and takes a slow step closer. “Are you okay?”
Bobby shoots him an annoyed look. “Dude.”
“Come on,” Luke pleads. “You don’t have to… It’s just me.”
What he means, though he wouldn’t know how to say it out loud, is, It’s just me. You don’t have to be those other versions of yourself. You can just be you. He’d try to express that with just his eyes if he could, but Bobby doesn’t like looking at people straight in the face even at the best of times.
And this is decidedly not the best of times.
“Just feeling weird,” Bobby admits, sinking onto the couch, and he starts to bite at his hurt thumb again before wincing and switching to his pointer finger instead. “Not anyone’s fault.”
Luke continues to approach, taking each moment Bobby doesn’t snap at him as an invitation to come closer. “Was rehearsal too much? I know sometimes we can be… I mean, I know sometimes you…”
“I don’t know, Luke, okay?” His voice is just on the edge of sharp; Luke pauses a few feet from the couch. “You didn’t do anything wrong, I think I was just off today.”
“Your playing was great,” Luke offers, like that means anything right now. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice.”
“Shut up,” Bobby whispers without an ounce of heat. “You staying?”
“Can I?”
Bobby hesitates, chewing at his nails, like he really has to think about it. Despite everything, it brings a smile to Luke’s lips, this stupid fucking song and dance they do.
“Course you can,” he finally says, ducking his head. “Just, uh… Might have to be gentle with me.”
God. A shiver runs down Luke’s spine. He would love nothing more than for Bobby to let him be gentle.
“Okay,” Luke breathes. He’s reached the couch by now, but he hesitates to sit down, even though Bobby’s left him plenty of room to. “What do you need?”
Bobby looks up—towards but not at Luke—and switches fingers again, gnawing at the cracked skin around his right pinky nail. It’s strange, and a little disconcerting, the knowledge that if Luke were anyone else—if Luke didn’t know Bobby as well as he does—he’d have absolutely no idea anything was wrong. Bobby’s expression is perfectly neutral, his body language casual save for the slight tension in his jaw. His only tell is his nails, and the way he winces and sucks in a breath when he bites too close to the quick.
“I have an idea,” Luke says without even giving Bobby a chance to answer his question. Bobby’s eyebrows knit together, but he doesn’t ask Luke to clarify, just nods and sinks back into the couch cushions, finally dropping his hands away from his mouth and into his lap.
Something coiled tight beneath Luke’s skin loosens, and a grin pulls at his lips. Without wasting another second, he bounds across the studio and climbs the ladder leading up to the loft. There’s mostly junk up here—old photo albums Bobby’s folks don’t care to look at, broken or out-of-tune guitars Bobby doesn’t like to play, a dingy mattress that the boys crash on sometimes when someone else has already claimed the couch—but tucked away in the corner is a fully stocked First Aid kit that Bobby denies having at all times except while in the middle of an active medical crisis.
Luke climbs back down the ladder with the kit held under one arm and doesn’t let himself hesitate before flopping onto the couch next to Bobby, close enough that their thighs just touch. Bobby tenses slightly, but he doesn’t cringe or shove Luke away, and his fingernails stay out of his mouth, so Luke takes that as a good sign.
“You don’t have to…” Bobby says belatedly, after Luke has already pulled a box of Band-Aids out of the First Aid kit.
“Shh.” Luke opens the box and bites back a chuckle—clearly, Bobby bought these with Reggie in mind. “R2-D2 or C3P-0?”
Bobby lets out a long-suffering sigh, but Luke can hear the amusement and fondness layered beneath the breath. “Gimme threepio, I guess.”
So Luke peels open Band-Aid after Band-Aid, tenderly takes Bobby’s hand into his, and applies them to each torn cuticle. He hums softly under his breath as he works, plucking a melody out of the ether that makes him feel the way Bobby does—warm and lilting and dizzy and safe. He sees the moment Bobby starts to relax, starts to lower whatever guard he thinks he needs to put up when the boys are around. By the time all five of the fingers on his left hand are wrapped in Star Wars bandages, the tension has drained from Bobby’s jaw and he’s slumped into the corner of the couch, his head lolling against the cushion as he blinks drowsily up at Luke through hooded lashes.
Desperate not to move too fast and break the peace that’s fallen between them, Luke slowly lifts Bobby’s hand and presses his lips to Bobby’s knuckles in a featherlight kiss.
“How’s that for gentle?” he breathes into Bobby’s skin.
Bobby sucks in a trembling breath. Luke lifts his head, and Bobby leans forward, and instead of kissing Bobby’s hand, Luke finds himself kissing Bobby’s lips.
“It’s perfect,” Bobby huffs after a moment, just barely pulling away to speak. “Don’t—Thank you.”
“Any time.”
Luke doesn’t know how to say what he’s thinking—how to ask Bobby why they can’t be like this all the time, why they have to be alone and in some sort of crisis for Bobby to let Luke see this deep, vulnerable side of himself.
What ends up coming out is, “This is my favorite you.”
Bobby starts to lift his other hand—the one Luke’s not holding—but stops himself before he can stick his unbitten thumb into his mouth. “What… what is that supposed to mean?”
Luke shakes his head, pulls Bobby in for another kiss, and murmurs against his lips, “I don’t know.”
And he doesn’t, until a few months later, when Bobby avoids Luke’s eyes even more than usual during the biggest soundcheck of their lives. Luke doesn’t know what he means until Bobby pulls out all the stops, PR face and customer service voice and bad pick-up lines for some pretty girl waiting tables, and jealousy swims just beneath the surface of Luke’s skin until he can’t stand to be in the same room as them anymore.
Luke doesn’t know what he means by “his favorite Bobby” until he gets a first row seat to his least favorite one. And he’s dead before he can figure out how to get the other one back.