Chapter Text
Balthazar had always tried to fight jealousy – it was an ugly emotion. His father was a jealous man and it could be pretty horrible. He’d been fighting against the emotion ever since Beatrice moved to town for the school year – the pretty, outgoing, loud girl who had Pedro’s eye. Beatrice was always nice to him, she was always fair (to everybody except Ben), and she was never nasty (to anybody except Ben). He had no reason to dislike her and stewing in his jealousy would have bred ill feelings towards her.
But just this once, he let himself really feel it. To sit around and let the foul emotion overtake his thoughts. He wasn’t really jealous of how she could feel comfortable in any room, or in front of a camera for the entire internet to see and he wasn’t really jealous of how she always seemed to know what to say or never felt awkward talking to new people, although these were traits he often wished he had. He was jealous of how Pedro saw her and thought about her. This was the feeling Balthazar had been fighting since he met her, and after seeing Pedro on top of her, his lips on hers, he wanted to embrace the feeling, just for a little bit.
He’d never even thought that Beatrice returned Pedro’s crush. When Pedro had told him excitedly that his friend Bea was going to be living here for the next year, he’d babbled on about how amazing she was; how funny, how smart, how gorgeous, how exciting. Balthazar had fought back the jealousy – it was obvious how Pedro felt but Balthy was just happy to have him in his life. It hadn’t hurt that Beatrice hadn’t really seemed that into him. Balthazar had always thought her over the top animosity towards Ben was a cover for her feelings for the boy, especially when watching back over her videos and hearing her talk about him. But he’d been wrong. If the scene he’d walked in on today had been any indication, she very much returned Pedro’s feelings.
Seeing them together hurt more than any of Pedro’s previous girlfriends - in part because he’d never walked in on them together in Pedro’s room, but also because Pedro liked Bea more than any other girl. Thus the jealousy. Maybe if he stewed in it now, he’d be able to act normal around them. Because if Pedro had anything to do with it, they were a them now. A couple. Who would hold hands and kiss and sit together and all that nonsense that Balthy had dreamed of doing with Pedro but knew wouldn’t ever happen. Why did he have to fall for a straight guy? Why couldn’t he fall for somebody he didn’t have to spend so much time with so he wouldn’t have to witness this?
His phone lit up and he saw a text from Pedro. ‘Hey bro, u ran out so fast – u ok?’
Balthazar was tempted to leave it for a bit, see how Pedro reacted, but he didn’t want to be that guy who played games. It’s not Pedro’s fault he was straight. It’s not Beatrice’s fault that Pedro liked her. He spent a few minutes typing and re-wording his reply. ‘Sorry, I realised Mum had made me promise to be home this afternoon because there was a guy coming to fix the fridge.’ There, that lie seemed somewhat believable. He stared at it for a few seconds before adding, ‘So, you and Beatrice, huh?’ He pressed send before he could chicken out. He had to tear off the bandaid and get over this.
Pedro’s reply came only seconds after. ‘Yeah man – happened yesterday, sorry I didn’t tell u, wasn’t sure if Bea wanted me to – I’m pretty stoked tho.’
Before Balthazar could respond, Pedro sent another message, ‘She ran out of here almost as fast as u did – don’t suppose u have any advice? Wanna hang and help a bro out?’
As much as Balthazar didn’t want to listen to Pedro talk about how great Beatrice was, he figured there was no better way to get his brain to accept this, than to spend an afternoon listening to Pedro talk about it. Maybe then he could move on. This was going to suck though.
‘Sure thing, I’ll come around in an hour or so?’ he sent back.
‘You’re the best! I knew I could count on u!’ was Pedro’s immediate reply.
This was going to suck hard.