by Amiroq
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Disclaimer: Character theft? Me? Never!
Notes: The title was inspired by me listening to Placebo while writing.
One of the lines in 'Teenage Angst' is "one fluent gesture,
like stepping back in time".
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It was strange. Tom had been terrified that admitting his feelings to
Harry would ruin the friendship they already had, but if anything they
were actually closer now. Harry was making an obvious effort to include
him, and on the nights B'Elanna was working they would actually
do things together, rather than sit on the couch talking about How
Great Is B'Elanna. And while they hadn't really spoken about it,
the sexual tension between them was obvious. Even Batehart had
commented on it.
Of course, now that he was happier, B'Elanna wasn't.
He'd seen it as soon as she realised what had happened: glares shot
his way, touching-feeling between her and Harry when he was nearby, things
like that. He didn't know what was up, maybe she felt threatened, and
frankly, he didn't really care.
Things changed two weeks after The Declaration.
He really thought he should have heard about it from the highly efficient
boon- deck grapevine, but it didn't turn out like that. Instead, Harry
came to his quarters one evening, visibly upset. "Need some
company?" he asked.
"No, but you look like you do. What happened I thought you had a date
with B'Elanna tonight." Thought? He knew. He practically had
Harry's schedule memorised.
"We broke up."
Tom could feel his heart bungee-jumping wildly inside his chest, trying to
decide whether to be sad for Harry or happy for himself. Surprisingly, sad
won - must be gravity's influence. He must be getting soft or
something. "How come?"
"Actually, I did it. We had a fight, over… Well, nothing much
really. I told her I didn't want to see her again."
He thought he could guess what the fight had been about, if it was
something Har wouldn't talk about. B'Elanna was jealous,
he'd figured that for a while. He hadn't thought it would come to
this, though. "'S 'too bad," he said, thinking just the
opposite. Okay, so maybe sad hadn't completely won out.
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End
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