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flash felt a little bit more of his dignity disappear every time he stuck a note in peter parker’s locker. it wasn’t as if he regretted it exactly, he meant everything he wrote, it was the fear involved. if there was anything in the world he didn’t want to do, it was explain to someone why he was slipping paper into peter parker’s locker. it was knowing that he was too much of a coward to say any of this to peter’s face.
but how could he? how was he supposed to look peter parker in the face and tell him how adorable he was? he couldn’t.
flash couldn’t just look into those hazel eyes and say how beautiful they were, or how soft his hair looked. he couldn’t just
say
that peter was the funniest person he’d ever met and that he didn’t know anybody else who could make biology sound so fascinating. he couldn’t just say that peter made him feel queasy and warm and happy in a way nobody ever had before.
for one, it had taken him weeks to even admit any of this to himself. laying in bed after (unsuccessfully) trying to get off to girl on girl porn he knew was supposed to get him hard, staring up at the dark ceiling, and whispering “i’m gay” was one of the less euphoric epiphanies he’s had. the following self-discoveries came more unclear than that. the small realizations that peter parker had a cute laugh and that somehow even his hands were attractive and his science pun shirts were so annoying he just wanted to rip them right off and–
and peter parker absolutely hated flash. how could he not? flash had only bullied him for the first two years of high school and basically ignored him for all of this one.
(the whole ignoring thing hadn’t been conscious. calling him penis wasn’t very fun anymore ajd on some level, flash guessed he must’ve known for a while what he really felt. after a while the bullying and then even shutting peter out hadn’t been an act of malice, but of self preservation. but no one can hide from themselves for long.)
so now, flash had turned into this. some disney short film character who was too nervous to tell a cute boy how he felt about him. pathetic.
todays note wasn’t too wordy or clever, just a very simple compliment.
“you make me want to smile.”
he slipped the note through the locker vent before briskly walking away and into the bathroom. it was where he told the teacher he was going after all. making sure he left the notes at different times everyday was important; if it became too scheduled, peter might try to catch him. and peter was smart enough to try and probably succeed.
that was another thing flash hated about his shitty plan. what was the endgame here? was peter supposed to guess it was flash and decide not to hate him? would he keep slipping the notes into his locker until winter break, summer break, graduation? you can’t exactly ask someone to prom anonymously.
(off limits thought: going with peter to events, including but not limited to dances, holidays, and flash’s track meets.)
flash walked back into class quietly but of course a few looked up anyway, the eyes of teenagers hungry for anything besides their schoolwork. peter glanced up for a second, his eyes looking up at flash through his unnecessarily long eyelashes, and his mouth quirked like he was going to smile but he didn’t.
they sat relatively close to each other, peter just in front and to the left of flash. he thought about maybe whispering out to him for help on the assignment he didn’t need help on, any excuse just to talk to him, but he didn’t.
instead he just thought about what he might write for peter tomorrow.