Chapter Text
“Ted Richards and Henry Hidgens.”
Wait no. Oh god no.
Why do teachers always insist on choosing project pairings? Henry doesn‘t need to be forced to come out of his shell, he‘s completely fine alone. And it‘s not like he doesn‘t have any friends.
He hesitantly turns around to Ted now, who winks at him, as soon as their eyes meet, causing Henry to quickly turn back. He starts to fiddle with his pen to at least do something. It’s a nervous quirk, something he does, whenever he feels uncomfortable in social situations. He can feel his cheeks go all warm and he knows he’s blushing and he really hopes no one’s looking at him, because good God, that’s embarrassing.
He doesn’t like Ted. And Henry is generally not the kind of person to just hate people. He really tries to be open and decent to everyone, but Ted is the most chaotic person, Henry has ever known. He is stupidly handsome, but at the same time he’s so mouthy and he’s always saying the wrong things and he seems really lazy. It‘s not like he actually has good grades and he doesn‘t even seem to try and improve. And Henry can tolerate him in class, but he really does not want to do a damn project with him, because he can already see himself doing it all alone. He’d rather do it with somebody else. Anybody, really.
He’d even prefer Chad and they did make out in the janitors broom closet once. That was when Henry still had a crush on him, before Chad started ignoring him, because he’s not gay like Henry.
Alright, maybe not Chad.
The bell chimes in and Henry quickly shoves his stuff into his backpack in order to be able to stop Ted, before he can disappear.
Ted’s already leaving the room and Henry has to run to catch up.
“Ted!”
Ted stops and turns around to him.
“Hey Hidgens.”
He looks at him, all smug and amused. At this point, Henry’s pretty sure he always looks at anyone and anything like that.
“Hello Ted”, Henry answers.
“Let me guess. The project?”
“I think it’s important that we start early enough..-“ Henry stops talking when he sees Ted roll his eyes.
“God, you’re such a nerd.”
He opens his mouth to say something, preferably something clever to hit back, but he can’t think of anything. He’d love to just give up and go home and watch a musical to calm his nerves, but he can’t deny that he desperately wants a good grade.
Ted tilts his head, still staring at Henry. It does make Henry nervous, but he tries to look tough and not scared at all.
“Alright, I’m not an asshole. Are you free now?”, Ted then says.
“Yes! Sure.” Henry’s voice went at least an octave up, even though he tried to contain his relieve.
“Okay, library?”
“Yes.”
—
They sit down and Henry reads through the task again, mostly to calm himself down. He’s not good at being social and Ted is basically a stranger. They have to read a book and present and interpret it. Easy, actually, except Ted is totally not gonna read any of the books that are written down there.
“What do you want to read?”, Henry asks and slides the list over to Ted.
He sighs. “I don’t know.” He lets his finger wander over the list, stopping at Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. “Not this one, that’s so gay”, he mumbles, before he continues reading.
“It’s actually really good”, Henry notes, “But alright, we’ll take another one if your masculinity is so fragile.” He’s mostly hitting back, because it annoys him when people use gay as an insult.
“What? No! My masculinity is not fragile.” He looks so offended now and Henry can’t help but smile a little, because this is exactly what he expected. Ted takes a pen from Henry and circles Pride and Prejudice. “We’re gonna read Jane Austen”, he says.
“Are you sure you’re not too straight for that?”, Henry asks, not exactly sure where that courage came from, but he genuinely enjoys seeing Ted blush.
“Jesus Henry, just let it go.”
“Okay, sorry.”
“We’ll have to read it first, right?”
“I guess. I mean I actually already did.”
“Of course you did.”
“Are you going to read it?”
“Yeah?! ..Or I’ll watch the movie at least.”
“Well thank you for that commitment.”
“That’s just how great of a person I am.”
Henry rolls his eyes and Ted smiles. This might actually work. He’s not that bad right?
—
“Henry is it you?”
His mother calls for him as soon as he stepped through the door. He goes for the living room, where he suspects her voice came from, carefully making a big step over Frank-N-Furter, his cat who for some reason, chose to lay down in the middle of the floor.
“It is me, indeed”, he says.
She‘s sitting on the couch and looks up after he entered the living room.
“Where have you been?”
“Working on a project.” He sits down next to her and takes a look at the cover of the book she’d been reading before he came. It’s another David Nicholls.
“And here I sat, thinking you might have a date.”
“You’re funny, mother”, he says in a mocking voice.
“I know son.”
He chuckles and opens his arms for Frank, who apparently followed him and now jumps into his lab.
“What kind of project?”
“Book-Project.”
“With whom? Or is it alone?”
“A guy in my class.”
“Oh.” She raises an eyebrow.
He never actually told her about being gay, he told neither of his parents. She just kind of always knew, always suspected it. Therefore, she’s always doing that little “Oh”, no matter what the gender. He’s not sure why, maybe to show him that she doesn’t mind. Maybe this is her way of showing him it’s okay. Her way of making sure, he doesn’t find himself forced into some kind of heteronormative role, sucked up with toxic masculinity. And he kind of appreciates it, because she isn’t pushing him in any direction, she’s simply making sure that he knows, she’s not trying to block out any kind of possibility.
She cares about absolutely everybody’s well-being, always wants to make sure that everybody feels comfortable all the time.
“And.. is he cute?”
“Good god mom.”
“Sorry.” She quickly opens her book again and starts reading. Or at least she pretends to.
“He has the biggest mouth, he’s so full of himself. And he’s most likely not going to read alright? I’m not exactly keen on working with him.”
“I just feel like you need to resort your priorities sometimes. All you do is think about school and good grades.”
“That’s a weird thing for you to say, considering you want me succeed in life.”
“You know what? Do your thing, you’re doing great. I shouldn’t put any pressure on you.”
“I guess.”
“And Henry, if you‘re not interested in a relationship or.. sex, that‘s alright too. There‘s nothing wrong with you and-..“ She stops when she sees the look on his face.
“Okay, thanks.. thank you“, he mumbles, unsure about what else he‘s supposed to say.
“If you want to talk about anything, you can always come to me.”
“Thank you, but I don’t. ..but I will.”
“Good.. good.”
Henry pulls Frank-N-Furter up into his arms now.
“We’ll go upstairs.”
“Alright, see you for dinner.”
“Yes.”
Then he leaves, carrying Frank, who’s weirdly hanging in his arms.
—
“Who do you have?”, Emma asks, when they walk to school the next morning. They’re neighbours, so they more or less grew up together. She’s basically Henrys only close friend. Bill and Charlotte, their other friends, are actually Emma’s friends, who kind of started tolerating Henry in their group
“Ted Richards”, Henry says.
She winces. “Ugh.”
“You?”
“That Paul.”
“Matthews?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s cute.”
“You think so?” She avoids his gaze, smiling now.
“Yes and so do you.”
“Kind of, yeah. He’s nice. I don’t know.”
They walk in silence for a while, with Emma seemingly deep in thought.
“Isn’t he friends with Ted though?”, Emma then asks.
“I don’t know. I barely see them together. I don’t know if Ted has that many friends.”
“He’s pretty annoying.”
“He’s alright. He’s not as bad as I thought he would be.”
“What are you guys reading? I bet he won’t read a single word.”
“Pride and Prejudice. He said he’ll at least watch the movie adaption and it’s actually quite good, so I guess it’ll work.”
“Pride and Prejudice?”
“Yes. He made a joke about it being gay, so I accused him of having a fragile masculinity and he got really defensive real quick.”
She laughs.
“Well it’s a good one. We couldn’t make up our minds yet.”
They arrive at school and for some reason, Paul and Ted are standing in front of it, talking, but apparently waiting too, because Paul waves at them, as soon as he spots Emma.
“Hey!”, they both say, before Paul starts raving to Emma about some idea he had and they wander off.
Henry and Ted end up standing there completely alone and Henry prays for Ted to say something, because he’s really not good at this. To his relief, he does.
“I watched it.”
“What?”
“The movie. I watched it, alright?”
“That was quick.”
“What happens now? Are we meeting up or something?”
“Yes, sure, we can. When are you free?”
“I don‘t know. Always? It‘s not like I have any hobbies.”
“That‘s a weird thing to say with so much confidence“, Henry notes.
“I guess.”
“How about today?”, Henry gets himself to ask. The quicker they get this over, the better.
“Yeah that’s fine. Yours or mine?”
“Why not the library?”
“I kind of really can’t stand it there.”
“Okay. Your place then.”
“Cool, see you after school.” He nudges him into the shoulder and leaves.
Henry simply stands there for a while, still feeling the push of Teds hand on his shoulder. He feels weird, suddenly, unsure about what he’s supposed to think. And he feels way too nervous about meeting Ted after school.
What the hell is wrong with him?