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They fall in love like they’re going for a swim.
For Nick, it’s all at once, like running and jumping into the deep end before you can even think about hesitating. It’s calling them at three in the morning to hear their voices; it’s hugging them every time something actually succeeds. It’s bright smiles, elbowing them in the sides, asking their opinions on everything even when he knows he’ll disagree. It’s leaning closer than he strictly needs to, hugging them every time he has an excuse to, laughing until he can hardly breathe. It’s existing until he can’t separate the platonic affection from the romantic affection; it’s one and the same, and it always has been.
He likes to think he has a lot of love in his heart, and he likes to think that this love spills over every time one of them makes eye contact with him. It doesn’t take him long to identify the way his throat seems to close up as love, and it doesn’t scare him -- he thinks maybe it should, maybe he should be terrified, but he’s not. They’re his best friends, and he loves them, and he could spend every day with them without ever feeling uncertain about what he’s doing.
It’s like jumping in and not even having a second to think “I wasn’t prepared for this” before feeling as though you’ve always been in the water.
For Paul, it’s tiptoeing in until you have nothing to do but duck underwater. It’s thinking of them every time he plans his future, but brushing it away; it’s tagging them in affectionate posts that he never realizes are meant to be taken romantically. It’s borrowing their clothes and feigning innocence; it’s people asking if they’re dating because he’s always wearing something that isn’t his. It’s his answering in confusion, because they aren’t in love, they’re something else entirely. It’s the way that all his social media accounts are filled with photos of them, as if it wasn’t even his own space, because he can’t fathom having a space where they aren’t there.
It’s the three of them sharing a couch; it’s him leaning back as they discuss potential dates. It’s him staring at them as they argue, his chest swelling as he realizes that he loves them, and not just because they’re his closest friends. They are, they always would be, but there’s more – there’s so much more, and he can’t believe that there was a time when he didn’t recognize this, when he thought that there was anything other than pure devotion in his heart for them.
It’s like thinking you’ve got it all under control, then having the waves crash over you before you even have a chance to be careful.
For Josh, it’s slow and steady, walking in until you can’t go any deeper; nothing too sudden, because you’re too busy hissing as you adapt to the cool feeling. It’s shaking his head but ducking to hide the grin passing over his face; it’s getting mad at them for writing all over his school supplies but tracing their names without realizing it, until every groove of their handwriting is muscle memory. It’s telling them he’s genderfluid before telling anyone else, his hands tightening and his breath shaky; it’s them nodding and asking what they can do for him, it’s them offering suggestions and buying him makeup that doesn’t even match his skin.
It’s sitting between them in class and staring at them for moments that he doesn’t even realize he’s stealing. It’s sword fighting and arm wrestling, shouting and shoving and thinking about how perfect everything is even as he hits the ground. It’s pretending to be mad when they show up at his house without asking, when they post pictures he didn’t know they were taking, when they pull him along with them.
It’s convincing yourself that it’s just a few more steps, over and over until suddenly the ground falls out from under you and you’re floating in the deepest part of the lake.
It’s them, five years later, somehow stuffed into one armchair because they weren’t about to admit defeat. It’s drinks nearly spilling and arms growing tired, it’s a body heat that leaves them too hot to be comfortable. It’s someone asking when they realized they were in love; it’s hesitation and thoughts and too much time considering the question.
It’s Nick proclaiming that there was never a before and after -- he was always in love with them, well before he came up with the words to describe it; it’s ingrained in his soul, and it’s impossible to date things that have always existed.
It’s Paul naming the exact date, because how could he forget -- they were arguing, like always, but then he decided he needed to hear their arguing every moment of every day, and then he decided that there’s a word for how he feels.
It’s Josh, sighing and struggling to explain that you don’t ever really realize you love someone; it just happens. They tell you they love you, and you don’t even think before responding the same way, because even if you don’t realize it, your mind has already sorted that fact out.
It’s three best friends, hands folded together in the most uncomfortable way possible, treating everything like a competition, finding themselves in everything they could lose.