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i-am-church-the-cat · 9 months ago

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you can always go home again (or for the first time)

This is my fic for the Andi Mack gift exchange! This is for @paracosmicat, I'm so sorry that it's late, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Summary: She ruffles his hair as she leads the way back through the apartment. It’s small and crowded with trinkets, books and shoes, basketballs and art projects, and something that must have exploded from the kitchen. Three more people are waiting for them in the living room, less than T.J. expected from the level of noise he’d heard. “Hey guys, this is T.J., the dude I was telling you about,” Jonah introduces him to the group at large and he offers a small wave. “T.J., this is Andi, Cyrus, and Marty.” WC: 2674 Pairing: Gen mostly, but with pre-relationship Tyrus and minor Amris Tags: College AU, First Meetings, T.J. POV, Amber and T.J. are siblings Rating: Teen

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He knew it was saving him money, but sometimes living with his sister and her girlfriend could be really annoying. T.J. had been trapped in his room for ages, Amber and Iris having fought and made up over the past several hours, both things he would rather not be witness to. At this rate, he was going to be locked in here until graduation.

Jonah

Hey man, you looking to hang tonight?

Something like relief passes through T.J. when he gets the message. He and Jonah aren’t the closest of friends, yet. They hadn’t gotten along when Jonah was dating his sister - between the compulsory heterosexuality and Jonah’s constant avoidance of anything even hinting at romantic in nature, it had been hell from start to finish - but since they were both studying kinesiology, they’d tried to be friendly. Today, that work had finally paid off.

T.J.

Yeah man, what were you thinking?

Jonah

Some of my friends are holding a get together at their apartment, just a small thing. You wanna come?

Another noise came from the living room. T.J. didn’t want to know if it was a yell or a moan.

T.J.

Send me the address, im omw

Since the path to the front door was locked, T.J. used the fire escape by his window. It dropped him right next to the motorcycle he probably shouldn’t be parking in the back alley. But hey, it hadn’t been stolen yet, and it made for a very quick getaway. T.J. set his phone to give him voice directions to the address Jonah texts him and then he’s off.

The apartment building is nice, an artist-y co-op on the west side of town. T.J. heads up to the third floor after texting Jonah again for the apartment number - Beck wasn’t always the most aware person. Both the bike ride and the jog up the steps do a lot for getting T.J. in a better headspace than he was in earlier.

He hears the apartment before he sees it. Jonah said it was just a small get together, but from the noise coming through the door, T.J. has some serious doubts. He considers bailing before remembering what’s going on at his own apartment and knocking on the door.

Surprisingly, it’s not Jonah who answers. It’s a girl with tight braids and wearing a Utah Jazz jersey. She looks like someone he should know, but it slips his mind. She looks him over and must find him wanting because her expression is thoroughly unimpressed.

“Can I help you?”

“Um, hi,” T.J. says, trying for a smile and probably failing short. “I’m looking for-”

“Oh, Buffy is that T.J.?” A thankfully familiar voice comes from inside the apartment. Jonah Beck pops his head around the girl - Buffy’s - shoulder and flashes his big signature smile. “Teej, glad you could make it! Come in, come in.”

“Just inviting people into my home now, Beck?” Buffy asks, clearly not amused, but she steps aside with a nod to T.J. He nods back, figuring it’s the best course of action, and he’s rewarded with Buffy’s expression going a little less intense and a little more accepting.

“Oh, yeah, sorry Buffy.” Jonah’s apologetic grin is too cute for anyone, even Buffy, to hold a grudge against. She ruffles his hair as she leads the way back through the apartment. It’s small and crowded with trinkets, books and shoes, basketballs and art projects, and something that must have exploded from the kitchen. Three more people are waiting for them in the living room, less than T.J. expected from the level of noise he’d heard.

“Hey guys, this is T.J., the dude I was telling you about,” Jonah introduces him to the group at large and he offers a small wave. “T.J., this is Andi, Cyrus, and Marty.”

T.J. opens his mouth to greet the group but the guy he’d thought looked familiar beats him to it. Marty hops up, big grin on his face as he offers up his hand for T.J. to slap.

“Hey, Kippen right? Aren’t you the new freshman starter for the basketball team?”

T.J. grins but can’t help the flush that takes his face. He’s proud of himself, yeah, but he finds it’s not always the best to introduce himself with his sporting career. It hasn’t always worked out the best in the past, which was mainly his fault to be fair. He hadn’t been a nice person on the court when he was younger.

“Yeah, I remember you from tryouts. You’ve got a great three-pointer, man.”

“Oh god, Jonah don’t tell me you brought another jock,” whines the other girl in the apartment, an Asian girl with short hair and paint on her t-shirt. “Now Cyrus and I are outnumbered 2-to-1.”

“I also invited Walker and Libby, but they both had things,” Jonah tries to defend himself, flopping down on the floor and grabbing a handful of popcorn from that half-empty bowl on teh coffee table. “It’s not my fault T.J.’s the only one free enough to join us.”

“I’m not totally sure if that’s an insult or not,” T.J. admits, looking around for space to sit. Andi and Buffy are sitting on the couch, Marty going back to sit in the third seat. Jonah’s on the floor. The only seat left is the loveseat, next to the only person here who’s voice T.J. hasn’t heard yet.

“Hi,” he greets, moving towards the other boy. “I’m T.J. Can I sit?”

The brown-haired boy has big eyes that seem to suck all the air out of the room. Either someone just started hitting a bass drum, or T.J. could hear his heartbeat in his ears. Soft freckles dusted the boy’s nose and his pink lips had teeth indentations in them, as if he’d been biting them only seconds before. Those same lips lift into a smile, crinkly his Bambi eyes at the edges.

“Sure,” the angel fairy boy said. “I’m Cyrus.”

“T.J.,” he mumbles, sitting down on the cushion. The other boy’s eyes fill with mirth.

“You said that already.”

“Right.” T.J. blinks, wondering it this is what deer felt when they get stuck in headlights. “Sorry.”

Cyrus is clearly laughing at him but he has the decency not to show it. Instead, he leans forward and grabs something off of the pile of snacks on the coffee table.

“Muffin? It’s chocolate chocolate chip.”

“Oh.” T.J. looks down at the muffin in surprise. It’s big and rich and somehow exactly what T.J. needs. His stomach growls in appreciation as he takes the treat in gentle hands. “Thank you, these are actually my favorite.”

Cyrus’s eyes twinkle. “Mine, too,” he says, grabbing another one and holding it out to cheers against T.J.’s own. T.J.’s grin is huge at the simple gesture.

“So, T.J.” The voice draws the two out of the little bubble they had gotten sucked in so quickly. T.J. turns to Buffy while his fingers tear off a bit of muffin and pop it in his mouth. “What do the T and the J stand for?”

He snorts, used to this line of questioning. T.J. leans back in his seat, one arm going across the back of the couch. He doesn’t the notice the way Cyrus looks at the arm in surprise, face going slightly red.

“Sorry, but that’s highly privileged information. Only four people on Earth know it.”

Marty leans forward with eager eyes. “Is it really that bad?”

T.J.’s face and voice are deadpan when he says, “Worse.”

“Amber told me it changes every month,” Jonah says from his spot on the floor.

“Oh wait, are you Amber’s brother?” Andi says, eyes going wide in recognition. Shoot. If she knows his sister this could either be really bad or… nah, just really bad. His sister’s kind of a dick.

“Yeah, younger, by two years.”

“How come we never met you when she and Jonah were dating?” Buffy asks. The way she’s looking at him is different now but T.J. can’t tell if it’s better or worse. “We met Iris.”

“And she was so nice, though obviously in love with Amber,” Cyrus says. This gets sounds of affirmation from all except Jonah who shrugs.

“I never saw it.”

“You never see it,” Andi, Buffy, and Cyrus all chorus back at him, different levels of fondness or exasperation. T.J. wonders what the story is there. Though, if it’s anything like the one he heard from Amber, he can probably guess.

“They’re actually dating now,” T.J. says, hoping to steer the conversation away from his and Amber’s relationship. He loves his sister, and even likes her these days, but that wasn’t always the truth. “They were roommates and finally admitted their feelings. When Iris moved out of her room, they had an extra, so I moved into their place when I went to college.”

Andi is nodding. “That’s smart. Cyrus, Buffy, and I all the split the rent here and we’re still eating mostly junk food we get on sale.”

“The stipend they give us on sports scholarship is not enough,” Buffy sighs and T.J. can commiserate with that. He holds up his half-eaten muffin in a toast.

“Hey, at least you and Cyrus are on scholarship,” Andi pouts. “Liberal arts college is the worst financial decision I’ve ever made.”

“But it’ll all even out when you’re a world famous artist and we can fly out to France to see your new art gallery in the Louvre,” Cyrus encourages in a way that feels more sincere than most.

“Yeah, and you can represent Jonah when he gets sued for what he’s done to his apartment,” Marty snickers.

Jonah kicks up a fuss and the others fall into bickering over something T.J. clearly does not have enough information on. Instead, he turns his attention back to Cyrus, where it had been threatening to float all evening.

“You’re going to college to be a lawyer?” He asks, taking a bite of his muffin. Cyrus turns to him as if surprised to be T.J.’s focus once again.

“Yeah! A civil rights lawyer, though, not a defense attorney.”

“That’s really cool.” He hoped he sounded as sincere as Cyrus had earlier, cause it’s true. T.J. wished he had a career path that was at least half as good for the world as Cyrus’s. He was only studying kinesiology because it’s what a bunch of student athletes did and his parents wanted him to have something to fall back on. He wasn’t going to be changing the world anytime soon.

Cyrus shrugs and blushes, ducking his head. He’s clearly not used to taking compliments which is a shame because they’re filling T.J.’s head like helium in a balloon. One poke and they’ll all come spilling out.

“Yeah, well, it was either that or become a psychologist. All four of my parents are psychologists.”

“Four?”

“Mom, dad, step-mom, and step-dad,” Cyrus says with a shrug. This topic of conversation he’s far too used to. “You know how it goes.”

“Nah, actually,” T.J. glances away for a second before back to Cyrus. “My parents are the kind that should’ve split up but never did. It kind of left a bad mark on Amber and I’s relationship with them, and each other.”

Cyrus looks up at him curiously. He’s curled towards him, leaning against the back of the loveseat and subsequently propping his head up on T.J.’s arm. The weight is nice, grounding.

“Is that why we’ve never met you before?”

“Yeah,” T.J. admits. It feels safer to tell Cyrus here, where they’re practically alone, instead of to the whole group. “I left to live with my grandparents in high school. The distance helped Amber and I a lot.”

“I’m glad.” Cyrus smiles up at him. “I don’t have any siblings but Buffy and Andi are basically like my sisters. We’ve been best friends for as long as I can remember.”

T.J. smiles, feelings bittersweet. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone like that.”

Cyrus considers him quietly. His face is serious and strangely more confident than it had been when their conversation began. “You should.”

They fall into silence then, just observing each other, gathering their thoughts and basking in the feeling their bubble had created. T.J. was still impressed by how quickly Cyrus had sucked him in. There was just something about the young man that felt authentic and calming, like everything was going to be okay. It’s a feeling T.J. has rarely ever felt in his life.

“You know, you’re weirdly easy to talk to.”

Cyrus smiles, teasing. “It’s the four therapists as parents. You get used to listening.”

Cyrus and T.J. don’t have an opportunity to be quiet together for the rest of the night. Once the other’s finished bickering, they drew the two into a game of Trivial Pursuit, and then Truth or Dare, and then Charades, which T.J. and Buffy weirdly dominated at, to Marty and Jonah’s chagrin. By the end of the night, T.J. was exhausted but happy. He’d left the house to escape the private going ons of his sister and her girlfriend and ended up meeting people he’d never believe he felt so at home with. The way they opened up and welcomed him in felt amazing, like nothing he’d ever experienced.

“It’s a great feeling, right?” Marty had said, halfway through the night, when they’d both stepped into the kitchen to grab a drink. “Andi, Buffy, and Cyrus have always been this trio. It should feel like an impenetrable wall to cross but they always open up and offer space to anyone who needs it. Jonah and I in middle school, Walker and Libby in high school, and now you.”

T.J. had blinked in surprise, looking back out to the living room. The three roommates were doing weird poses, trying to convince the others they were real formations used in yoga, or just trying to make the other two laugh. He watches with a warm feeling in his stomach as Cyrus laughs so much he topples out of the position he was in, sprawling across the carpeted floor.

“Can it really be that easy?”

Marty had shrugged and given him a welcoming smile. A beckoning smile. “Only if you let it be.”

And T.J. was going to let it be. He wasn’t going to question the new familiarity between himself and these people. He was just going to accept it and holds on as long as he could. By the time he left, he had four new numbers in his phone. When he got home, there was a text from one of them.

Buffy the Basketball Slayer

You better ask Cyrus out soon

He’s not known for making the first move and I can not handle three months of pining

Hop on it Kippen

T.J. grinned. He sent back a thumbs up emoji before pulling down the fire escape. He stumbles through his window and onto his bed, feeling dazed from both the climb and the night he had.

“Hvae fun?” Amber asks from the open doorway. That had definitely been closed when he left, but T.J.’s proud of the fact he didn’t startle at her sudden appearance.

“Yeah.” He knows he’s grinning like a madman but he just can’t help it.

“Good,” his sister says. She ruffles his hair, blonde matching her own. “Good night, little bro.”

“Night,” he calls as she exits the room. He sits up a little to make his next words heard. “Good night to you, too, Iris!”

There’s a pause, then, “Good night, T.J.! Sweet dreams!”

And well. There’s no doubt that they will be.

#andi mack #tyrus #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #buffy driscoll #marty from the party #jonah beck #amber #iris #my fic #my writing #andi mack gift exchange 2024

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