Chapter Text
Asher Garcia always knew attending Adams would change his life.
He didn’t see how it couldn’t, after all. As one of the most prestigious preparatory academies for the arts in the continental U.S., let alone Manhattan, being admitted as part of the freshman class signals bright success in the future for those who take full advantage of their time enrolled. Asher feels sort of predestined stepping through the marble columns and into the airy atrium that first day, having lived only a couple blocks away from the building his entire life and feeling as though he’s walked miles in its shadow.
Even from the first day, he can tell it’s going to be an intense four years. It’s going to be a lot of hard work, a lot of sweat—and given how dramatic the performing focus students are, a lot of tears—but he knew that going in as well. Never did he convince himself that being one of fifty admitted students to this class at Adams was going to be a walk in the park.
No, Asher prepared himself for the grind. He prepared himself for the challenge. He always knew it was going to take everything he had in him to survive it.
What Asher Garcia didn’t prepare for—didn’t see coming, didn’t know would change everything—was Dylan Orlando.
Before he knew of Dylan’s existence, Asher had been pretty pleased with himself. He made it through the entire first day without passing out or wanting to vomit, and considering the amount of odd characters he’d already met in the span of seven hours that was a greater feat than it seemed. From the spastic Jewish diva who loudly introduced himself as “Farkle,” whatever that means, to the grungy, scruffy thirty-something who slouched into the auditorium that morning during orientation and told them all he would be their technical teacher for the next four years, Asher feels like he’s seen the entire spectrum of personality possible.
Staring at their sloppy technical teacher who clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing or how to use a razor for four straight years already feels like an insurmountable challenge. He doesn’t know how he’s going to get through even a year without wanting to nitpick him into some form of presentable or else suffocate himself holding it in. But all things considered, he thought that was as bad as it was going to get. Everything else, he could handle no problem.
Then Dylan Orlando walks through the auditorium doors before their last period of the day, and Asher feels like the world stops spinning entirely. He’s not going to make it to the end of four years. He’s not going to make it another four minutes with the way his heart has stopped beating.
It’s a sensation he’s never felt before, looking at him from so many feet away. Sure, he’d been surveying the slim pickings offered to him so far by the freshman class—the openly bisexual kid Zay is inspirational if nothing else, but didn’t really do anything for him personally. The well-groomed dancer Charlie is cute enough, but so very obviously dedicated to his stay in the closet the doors may as well be iron-clad shut.
But the way he feels when he spots Dylan is incomparable. He’s never spared much of a thought on fate or destiny, but the adrenaline that shoots through his shoulder blades and the way the world seems to instantly brighten as if someone has upped the contrast level is as close to experiencing divine intervention as he thinks his gay adolescence is ever going to get.
He hates the tropism of it all, but he suddenly feels like he’s starring in every Broadway musical he’s been absorbing like oxygen since he was little. He’s Cinderella moments before the prince spots her and asks her to dance; he’s Christine before she goes tumbling into the dark underworld of the phantom; he’s Tony in the hours before meeting the tragic love of his life on the dance floor, captivated by the distinct sensation that something major is coming. That this moment, this feeling he’s experiencing looking at this stranger from all the way across the room, has to mean something monumental.
Then Mr. Hunter is ushering all of them off the stage and to the front and center section, forcing the new performers and technical students into the same playing field to get the low down on what their schedule for the next four years is going to look like.
He realizes he doesn’t even know whether this new gamechanger in his life is a performer or not—at that moment, he doesn’t even know his name. So he avoids looking in his direction as he scurries towards the back, joining Lucas from his math class and another technical student Jeff for a sense of familiarity before Mr. Hunter and Miss Moore throw them into the deep end.
He’s hardly paying attention to anything they say. While Jeff chews on the end of his pen in lieu of taking notes and Lucas scratches a not-so-pleasant message into the back of the seat in front of him with patient persistence, Asher stares at the back of the dazzling stranger’s head and tries to work up the courage to introduce himself. Or even the courage to imagine doing such a thing, as that alone is the first step.
But when the bell rings to dismiss them for the day, he does neither. He gathers his things and dashes from the auditorium as fast as he can manage, trying not to give himself another accidental heart attack before he even makes it through his first day.
Although Asher spends a majority of the rest of the first week thinking about him, he doesn’t get any closer to actually meeting his “something.” The sheer notion gives him enough anxiety to send him into paralysis, so he settles for gathering facts from afar like a squirrel collecting nuts for the winter and watching from a safe distance during theater lab.
He learns on the second day that his name is Dylan. He learns this at the same time he learns he is also a technical student, as Mister Shawn brings the core of them in the freshman A class together at the start of theater lab that day to do group introductions. Given that they’ll be spending the next four years with one another, he wants them to start familiarizing themselves with one another now. That way, he tells them, he won’t have to “deal with the drama later.”
So he supposes, technically, he has introduced himself. He’s said his name and three fun facts about himself in typical icebreaker fashion before completely avoiding eye contact and immediately darting to the prop loft as soon as he could escape, but that still counts. And with that, he doesn’t really need to do much else.
What he does need to do is clean up this hellish prop loft. It’s a disaster area, and Asher is already beginning a game plan for a year-long overhaul when he heads down for lunch on that second day of class.
He learns from Dave that Dylan was technically admitted into the school for his prowess in guitar performance, but evidently his strength does not lie in performing. His other new friend, Nate, tells him at lunch offhandedly that Dylan lives near Greenwich, because he lives in SoHo and they’re planning to go skating sometime.
Isadora informs him of the most important fact he learns all week, which is that Dylan is a confirmed gay.
Asher finds it hard to believe that she found out so easily. “How do you know?”
“Because he told me,” she states flatly. He doesn’t take her tone personally—he’s learning quickly enough that Isadora doesn’t operate in many other modes other than blunt and to the point. “We were working on our first lighting assignment and before I know it, he’s relaying his whole sexual orientation journey as if we’re best friends having a sleepover and have just downed a carton of Ben and Jerry’s.”
Admittedly, Asher finds this level of openness downright impressive. Isadora, on the other hand, seems mostly agitated.
“He’s certainly… vocal,” she decides, slipping her goggles on over her face and gearing up to use to the power saw on a two by four.
Once Asher gains that piece of knowledge, it becomes even harder to look away from him. He certainly had his assumptions, of course—anyone being straight at a school for the arts is a tough sell—but knowing that they are in fact playing for the same team makes his interest in him that much more consuming. That strange sense of serendipity that continues to hang over him only exacerbates the effect.
Thankfully, he’s not at all bad to look at. Asher would easily rank him in the top five most attractive boys of their class, somewhere below Lucas and around the same tier as Zay, but well above everybody else. His eyes are sparkling hazel but look almost gold under the stage lights. He inarguably has the best hair in their class, rich brown and swooping off his forehead as if he’s never heard of a comb before. Sometimes Asher thinks about how nice it might be to comb it into something manageable with his fingers, then he inevitably gets embarrassed as if the entire freshman class can read his mind and escapes to the prop loft again so he can burn alive on his own.
More than anything, Asher can’t get over his smile. It feels like the boy is always smiling, grinning like an idiot while talking to friends at lunch or in the middle of a deathly boring history lecture or while figuring out how to move set pieces with Nate and Dave without accidentally running one of them over.
It’s infectious, and gazing at it seems to breathe fresh life into Asher even when he’s feeling his most neurotic. Another miracle, another sign that something about this new entity in his life is not like the others.
Still, Asher can’t bring himself to break the ice. He settles for daydreaming and journaling instead, putting the tactics he learned in therapy from elementary school to good use. Nearly each night before he goes to bed, he jots down all of the good things about the day. Then he rips out a spare page and jots down all of the things he’s obsessing over but doesn’t want to hold onto, filling the page front to back before tossing it in the waste basket as if he’s letting the anxious thoughts go.
It’s humiliating, how much of those crumbled up scraps of paper are dedicated to musings over a boy who he won’t even talk to. Being a student at AAA is challenging, but being a perfectionist, internally dramatic gay freshman with crippling anxiety is its own level of hell.
Asher doesn’t even consider the notion of their paths ever crossing until it’s forced upon him, thanks to an accidental lapse in judgment with the most unpredictable character to enter his life since stepping into the halls of Adams two weeks earlier.
He’s zoning out during group study in algebra, torn between trying to remember if he locked the door when he left for school that morning and stuck on Dylan’s distractingly stupid smile again. It’s mostly the latter consuming his brain when Lucas turns around in his seat to address him, holding his worksheet and propping his elbow on the front of his desk.
“Hey,” he says around his gum. “What’d you get for number seven?”
“What’s Dylan like?”
Lucas glances down at his paper, blowing a bubble and letting it pop. “Well, I got forty-two, so one of us is wrong.”
“I’m serious,” Asher says, ignoring the way Lucas rolls his eyes and hoping he’s not blushing given how his cheeks are warm. “It’s a legitimate question.”
“Yeah, one that you could very well know the answer to yourself. You have class with him every day just like I do.”
A valid point. But Asher isn’t looking to be logical at the moment. “That’s not the point. You would know better than I would at this point. You’re friends with him.”
“I don’t know if I would call it that,” Lucas says vaguely, maintaining his stance on being consistently hard to read. Sometimes, it feels like he’s confusing and misleading just for the fun of it. Just because it gives him something to do.
“You hang out in class and talk. You make each other laugh. You guys talk as much as we do, and we’re friends, aren’t we?”
Lucas makes a face, tilting his head back and forth as if he has to contemplate it. From the light smirk on his face Asher wants to believe he’s kidding around, but it’s impossible to tell for certain.
All things considered, it’s a bit surprising that he considers Lucas his friend. Traditionally, Lucas is the complete opposite of the kind of friends he tends to accumulate. He’s unpredictable, prone to mood swings, and has absolutely zero respect for authority. He scratches stupid things into school property and wears his snapback inside even though hats are against dress code except for religious observance. He doesn’t seem to know exactly what persona he wants to put out there himself, starting off a somewhat eager participant in the first few days of school before totally making a one-eighty turn and descending into the sarcastic, uneven whirlwind Asher has sat behind in most classes for the last couple weeks.
On the other hand, there are a lot of things about him that he really likes. He’s without a doubt the most attractive guy in their class but doesn’t even seem to notice or care, which only makes him more appealing as a result. He likes the way he shakes things up, making Asher feel like an accomplice to his shenanigans even if he’s not at all involved just by sharing the excitement of it with him and allowing him to be in on the joke. Aside from the moments like this one where he pokes holes in the fabric of their friendship for the hell of it, Lucas appears to genuinely enjoy his company and doesn’t look down on him for the fact that he’s shyer, more apprehensive, and so often busy second-guessing himself that he forgets to be present.
He also smells amazing, like clean laundry and pine needles and citrus gum. That’s the kind of thing you pick up on after sitting behind someone for two weeks.
Ultimately, Lucas chose to befriend him, and that fact alone sort of feels like being chosen by the gods. It makes him feel special in a way that he’s certain Lucas doesn’t realize, and he doesn’t want to let that go for anything when he already feels ten times cooler and one hundred times less rigid the more time he spends with him.
He just can’t help but wonder, in that anxious core of his mind, how long he’s going to be wondering if their dynamic is genuine. How many hours he’s destined to spend questioning their friendship, or worrying over how far Lucas’s troublemaking instinct can push his own need for order and control. Asher wants to be his friend more than anything, but he doesn’t want to compromise who he is to accomplish it.
“Whatever, meatball,” Asher says, crinkling his nose and yanking Lucas’s paper from his hands. He begins checking their answers against one another to avoid meeting his eyes, but he glances up briefly just long enough to catch the satisfied expression cross his features. That’s approval in the most concrete form he figures he’s going to get from Lucas James Friar, so he’ll take it. “I was just wondering. You didn’t have to be such a cretin about it.”
“Ooh, cretin. Now I’m really in trouble.”
They settle into silence for a minute or so while Asher finishes comparing their work, the ambient noise of their classmates chatting only competing with Lucas tapping his pencil absentmindedly on the desk in front of him.
Despite his outwardly flippant demeanor, his rebellious friend isn’t short of brain power. Assuming his own answers are correct—which considering how many times he checked his math, he’s fairly sure they are—then Lucas is every bit his intellectual equal even if he probably wouldn’t claim such a title aloud.
Asher makes one correction on his paper, simply writing down the right solution rather than bothering to walk him through it. One mistake out of twenty indicates lack of attention rather than lack of understanding.
He lifts his head, locking eyes with him and sliding the paper back to him. “You miscalculated on number eleven. I fixed it. You’re welcome for your perfect score.”
“Oh, that was only me testing you,” Lucas says loftily, smirk widening to a grin as he scans his paper once more and admires his supposedly perfect page. He leans further over the desk and elbows him in the forearm. “Have to make sure you’re doing your due diligence in checking our work. If you had missed that intentional error, then we would’ve had to reevaluate.”
Gosh, if his eyes aren’t infuriatingly pretty. It’s unfair, Asher thinks, how much power he holds in his reckless, tanned hands.
Still, he hasn’t neglected to notice how different he feels about Lucas as opposed to Dylan. The way his stomach flips when Lucas deems to pay him attention and how dizzyingly good-looking he is feels ordinary, the way a schoolyard crush is supposed to feel. Besides, factoring in the mood swings makes him far less appealing as an actual serious romantic partner and considering he can actually hold a conversation with him and think of him as a friend, Asher figures that ship has long since sailed.
Dylan, on the other hand, still retains that ethereal cosmic weight. The mystery that surrounds him since Asher can’t even bring himself to say hi to him at the start of theater lab is only making things massively worse.
“Why do you care anyway?” Lucas asks, focus back on his earlier comment now that the academia is out of the way. He’s finished with this stick of gum, making a point of sticking it underneath the desk with what Asher is sure is malicious intent. “It doesn’t matter if you like him or not, since we’re all stuck together for the next four years whether we want to be or not.”
“Yep. Four more years with Broadway Barbie, and heir to insurmountable wealth Farkle Minkus.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Lucas grumbles, digging the gum even more securely into the underside of the desktop.
“Anyway, I genuinely was just wondering. I was just thinking about him, that’s all.” Asher hesitates, realizing that might come across more obsessed than he intends. “I was thinking about all of our fellow techies. Not just him.”
“Sure.”
He can’t tell if Lucas believes him or not, but he needs him not to jump to conclusions. “I was thinking about Jade too. And Nate. And Jeff.”
“Okay.”
“Also, Isadora. And Dave—,”
Lucas smacks his hand down on the desktop to disrupt Asher’s tangent, making an indiscriminate noise in the back of his throat that he can only describe as a hiss. “Please, name every single member of our freshman class. Waste more oxygen beating around the bush.”
Asher frowns, slapping his hand on the desk back in response. Lucas’s reflexives are quicker than he anticipated, pulling his hand away the moment Asher’s even moves in his direction. He scowls and opens his mouth to say something, but Asher is spared by the math teacher clearing his throat and giving both of them a warning look.
Possible beratement avoided, but Asher makes a mental note not to test physical boundaries around Lucas. Clearly, that’s a no-go for him.
“Anyway,” he murmurs, dropping his voice down to just above a whisper out of respect for their teacher. “I was just thinking about how it’s been a couple weeks and I haven’t exactly gotten to know everybody yet. I feel like the techies have a reputation for being this super tight-knit thing, and I’m really only friends with you and Nate. So far, at least. I don’t know.”
Lucas hums to himself, raising his eyebrows. When he speaks again, he doesn’t match Asher’s level of respect of authority, speaking at the same volume he was before. “You want to get to know Dylan better, huh?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Asher wants to talk to Dylan,” Lucas states, although who he’s saying it for Asher has no clue. Then he realizes he’s doing that thing again, being obnoxious just for the sake of it. It’s the mischievous smirk ghosting over his lips that gives it away. “How interesting.”
“I didn’t say that.” Lucas quirks an eyebrow at him, making him feel even more uneasy when he spins back around in his seat without another word. “Lucas. Lucas, whatever you’re thinking, stop thinking it. Don’t. Don’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“It. Whatever you’re thinking.” Asher already finds himself regretting their friendship. “Stop thinking.”
Their teacher gets back to his feet before Lucas can respond either way, leaving him even more uncertain than before. Asher growls and slaps the back of his snapback, causing Lucas to snort before turning it into a cough into his elbow.
Every day, Asher becomes more and more certain he’s not going to survive four years.
After a couple of days of existing in a constant state of dread, Asher begins to relax when Lucas’s vague playful threat doesn’t seem to hold any water. Sure, he feels like the title character in a slasher flick and that any time he turns the corner his friend is going to be standing there with a knife in the form of forced interaction, but that moment never comes and eventually Asher has to conclude that Lucas was only teasing him.
On the contrary, he continues to live his life blissfully existing only in the periphery of Dylan’s seemingly ecstatic reality, watching from the sidelines as he jokes around with Dave and Nate during technical seminar and theater lab.
In fact, sometimes Asher has to wonder if Lucas’s greatest weapon isn’t reverse psychology. By convincing himself that he was going to inevitably make him and Dylan cross paths, Asher finds that he’s more impatient about hanging around out of sight and admiring him from afar. He spends more time thinking he should just go over and join the tomfoolery rather than observe from a distance, consistently his own worst enemy as he battles the pros and cons in his head.
He’s getting closer to action, but still nowhere near enough. Instead he placates himself by getting lost in Dylan’s laugh, an increasingly common sound in the auditorium during technical seminars when it’s not being drowned out by the wailing of their performing counterparts. It’s striking how uninhibited it is, how freely and happily he shares his joy with others. Asher wonders where on Earth he learned how to be that way, or perhaps unlearned the restraint that the rest of them have so branded into their psyches. It’s scary in the most beautiful kind of way, a carefree whimsy that Asher both envies and admires.
Still, even the allure of all that laughter isn’t strong enough to prepare him for their eventual collision.
Lucas is smarter than Asher thinks people give him credit for, and that’s not just because of his perfect math worksheets. He strategically waited for Asher to lull into a sense of security that the possibility of him meddling had long since passed, giving it a couple of days before he makes a pointed effort to bring the two of them together.
“You busy?”
Asher lifts his head from his sketchbook where he’s laying out a potential set design for their fall production of Our Town, only to find Lucas far closer than he was prepared for. He’s inches from his face, crouched down behind him and peering over his shoulder to get a look at his progress.
It’s a little unjust, he thinks, that Lucas somehow seems to have control over all the rules around here. While he gets the sense that his volatile friend isn’t the kind of person who likes people to get too close, he’s more than fine with it when it’s his choice to invade his personal space. Lucas definitely doesn’t mind approaching uncomfortable boundaries—as long as, Asher is learning, the situation is in his control.
Asher can’t wait until his infatuation with him fades, so he can simply find his antics platonically annoying rather than give them the power to cause butterflies to erupt in his stomach. He squints at him. “What does it look like?”
“Mm, I think it looks like you need an art class,” he teases, narrowing his eyes at the page. Asher elbows him, ignoring his laughter as he hastily flips his sketchbook closed. Both of them push back to their feet. “I’m just kidding. You know I think you’re the best production designer in this class.”
“I’m the only production designer in this class.”
Lucas holds out his arms. “My point still stands.” Asher rolls his eyes. “But that’s actually exactly what I need you for. We could use a little bit of help with the design assignment.”
Asher frowns, crossing his arms and hugging his sketchbook to his chest. “What do you mean? You’re fine with production design. You told me this assignment was a joke.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, that’s true, I’m fine on my own. Naturally.” Another eye roll. Asher wonders if he might set a record thanks to Lucas. “I guess I don’t mean ‘we’ so much as Dyl—,”
It’s as if the floor drops out from under him. He wants to speak, but his mouth is suddenly so dry nothing comes out but dust. Lucas’s smile feels more dangerous than a carton of gasoline in a forest fire.
Asher shakes his head frantically, already backing away. “No—,”
“Oh, come on. You’re not going to help a fellow techie in need?”
He hates Lucas James Friar. He hates him. He hates him and his stupid snapback and Cheshire grin and damningly pretty face.
“Hold on, I’ll go get him so he can tell you himself—,”
Asher doesn’t wait for Lucas to finish the taunt. He makes a break for it, spinning on his heel and darting deeper into the wings. He ignores his jeering calls after him, weaving behind the curtains and stumbling into the set construction area. He swivels around, looking for exits or places to hide.
Just as he suspected, he accidentally befriended the devil and now he’s facing the ending chase scene in a terrible horror movie. Of course, his own short adolescent existence would end in the bury your gays trope.
He can’t hide in the prop loft—that’s his known safe-haven even after just two weeks, and it’s too obvious. Lucas would find him there in a heartbeat. He doesn’t want to risk getting in trouble by ditching the auditorium, as even the threat of premature death isn’t powerful enough to break his fear of upsetting a teacher. Death by humiliation is bad, but a disappointed authority figure is an insta-kill.
Instead he darts for the maze of half-built rolling set pieces, ducking behind one and trying to catch his breath. He glances around the side of the wood and scans the stage for either one of his supposed slashers, wondering if Lucas is going to get him first via sheer fear or if Dylan will make the surprise move by gutting him with a simple hello.
Asher spots them both at the opposite end of the stage, Lucas interrupting a conversation with Nate to grab Dylan’s attention. He chats up the two of them for a minute or so, and Asher attempts to calm himself down with the notion that maybe he really was just picking on him. Cruel as it may be, he’s already seen Lucas use similar tactics on the obnoxious performers in their class. Why he would do that to him when they’re friends he doesn’t know, but it would at least prevent the occurrence of something far worse.
Then he sees Lucas nods in his direction, and in the next moment Dylan is glancing over his shoulder and looking right at him. Locking eyes with him and paralyzing him even from so far away, catching him peering out from behind a set piece like an absolute dunce.
Another breath, and suddenly that sunshine smile is beaming right at him. Yes, Dylan Orlando is smiling at him, showing teeth and everything. Like he’s posing for a school portrait only he’s just innately like that, like the photographer doesn’t practically have to taser him to get a genuine grin out of him.
It’s captivating, but it’s not quite enough to combat the utter panic consuming Asher from the inside out. He darts back behind the set piece and curses to himself, silently questioning why on Earth the universe had to curse him with such piss poor social skills and also the constant sensation that he’s going to suffocate.
He needs allies. He needs other co-stars to survive the thriller, provided his own inability to function properly doesn’t kill him first. He scans the backstage area of the auditorium with the limited time he has, looking for formidable friends he could recruit in an effort to thwart Lucas’s plot to murder him.
Charlie Gardner is holding court with Haley Fisher and Clarissa Cruz, but given that Asher hasn’t spared a conversation with any of them yet he doesn’t see that plea for help going over very well. He doesn’t even bother considering Maya Hart as she argues animatedly with Smackle about some production aspect—he’s pretty sure that if he went up to either of them and asked for their assistance, their “then perish” would be delivered in almost perfect unison.
His potential salvation takes the form of two of his techie classmates, the mild-mannered Jade Beamon and sasquatch of a ninth grader Dave Williams attempting to build another rolling set piece together across the stage.
Asher peers around the wood again to find Lucas and Dylan long gone. Which means they’re on the move, and he can’t afford to be stagnant. Inhaling deeply, he sprints out from behind the flat and barrels his way over to sanctuary with Jade and Dave.
They react in surprise when he comes sliding into their space, ducking down behind their platform and attempting to catch his breath. Considering he almost knocked Jade over in the process, he’s not shocked that she has a somewhat irritated expression on her face.
“What on Earth are you doing—,”
“Hey, Ashlie,” Dave says cheerfully, holding a hammer in his grip in such a casual way it doesn’t make Asher feel much safer than moments ago. “What’s up?”
“I’m being targeted.”
Both of their expressions shift simultaneously—Jade’s to confusion, Dave’s to concern.
“What?”
“Oh my God, is it the Illuminati?” Dave reaches out and grips his shoulder, eyes wide. If he’s learned anything about his giant goof of a classmate in the last couple of weeks, it’s that it is downright impossible to tell if he means most of the shit he says or if he’s just upholding a very elaborate ruse. More and more, Asher is becoming convinced of the former. “I knew this was going to happen. I knew there had to be roots in this school.”
Jade tosses a look in his direction, raising an eyebrow. “At a performing arts school?”
“I don’t know how to help.” Dave clasps his hand to his forehead, running his hand through his hair. “I knew I should’ve paid more attention during National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets!”
“Asher,” Jade states, redirecting the conversation back to a more stable plane of reality. “What are you talking about?”
He feels itchy standing in one place for so long. He shakes his head, exhaling a heavy breath. “I can’t stay here much longer. I have to make my escape. If anybody asks, I went home sick. I… I projectile vomited and had to go home.”
“Wait, seriously?” Dave steps a couple of paces back, holding up his hammer defensively.
“Why would we tell anybody that?”
“It’s mostly Lucas.” Asher glances over his shoulder. “If you see Lucas, tell him I went home. If he questions you any more, go for the vomit.”
Jade shakes her head lightly, obviously lost. “Asher, he saw you like two minutes ago. You expect him to believe—,”
“I can’t explain further,” Asher states breathlessly, already backing towards the other side of the set piece. He can see the doors to the dressing room plain as day and within reach, he just has to get to them alive. “But I thank you for your service. Now if you’ll excuse me—,”
“Uh, Ash—,”
He gives both of them a salute, making it less than two steps backwards before he feels himself ram into someone. He knows what he’s going to see before he even wills himself to look, letting out something between a whimper and a squawk before whipping around to find his most and least favorite snapback smirking down at him.
Lucas props his arm up against the set piece, effectively making the point that there’s nowhere to run with absolutely no words. It’s a confusing sensation, being so terrified and yet a little turned on at the same time.
“Hey, spaghetti,” he mocks, raising his eyebrows at him.
Asher doesn’t even have the emotional bandwidth to decide if he appreciates that silly comeback to his own insult, or if it’s so stupid it makes him want to kick him. There are a lot of elements to the situation that provoke the desire to kick him, however, so he supposes it doesn’t matter all that much.
He doesn’t get the chance to comment either way. Dylan steps out from behind Lucas’s broad shoulders and joins the conversation, coming to stand in front of him with that adorable ever-present grin on his face and completely stealing all the words out of his brain.
Given how much effort he’d put into maintaining a distance between them, it’s disarming to see him so up close and personal. Asher gets stuck on so many details about him all at once that it’s hard to process—how a couple of his teeth are slightly crooked, the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, the way his cheeks are flushed. He wonders if they hurt from all the smiling.
“Dylan was telling me about how he’s having some trouble with the production design assignment,” Lucas says loudly, presenting exactly zero subtlety. Asher knows it’s intentional, which is even worse. “And I thought to myself, well, hey, who better to help than the best production designer in our class?”
It’s a relief that Dylan doesn’t seem to be paying him any attention. He’s totally focused on Asher, still with the stupid grin and looking him over with fascinated delight. Taking his time to get a good look at him, as if it’s nobody’s business but their own.
In the midst of insistently begging in the back of his mind that Dylan likes what he sees, Asher finds the power to speak again. “I’m the only production designer in our class.”
“Perfect match, then,” Lucas says with a shrug. He lightly knocks Dylan on the arm, gesturing between the two of them. “Dylan, this is—,”
“Asher,” Dylan states, and Asher swears he doesn’t think his name has ever sounded better. It’s flawless coming off of his lips, chipper and friendly and already colored with some sort of fondness that he doesn’t understand. “Of course I remember.”
In the next moment, Dylan holds out his hand for Asher to take. He blinks at it for a couple of seconds, honestly forgetting that shaking hands is something normal people do in greeting and probably holds no deeper meeting than just a deep-seated societal habit. Even though they’ve already met, and Lucas’s expression sort of makes him think maybe the gesture isn’t so commonplace.
Asher links his hand with his, and he’s impressed by how intentional his grip is. It’s unapologetic, just like his constant smiles and loud laughter. But his skin is also warm to the touch, and it’s somewhat of a relief to realize his palm is just as sweaty as his is. Somehow that makes the interaction feel more grounded, like this is something that could actually be happening and not the twisted ending to his horror movie nightmare where Dave clocks him from behind with the hammer.
“Lego legend!” Dylan declares, pulling him out of obsessing over their clasped hands.
Asher blinks. He wonders if he misheard him, or maybe he’s having a stroke. “Huh?”
“One of your facts,” he says helpfully. “You said you had a collection of over five hundred Legos when you were growing up. That shit is so cool, man. I used to love Legos, but I ended up collecting those dumb Happy Meal toys. You know, so there’s no common theme to them or anything. And by collecting, it was more like I got my brother to help me pester my dad into going to McDonalds basically every time we got in the car for more than twenty minutes at a time.”
Asher doesn’t know where to start. His heart is palpitating over the fact that he bothered to remember his embarrassing fact he blurted out on the first day because he panicked and couldn’t think of anything else. His brain is short-circuiting because boy can he talk, and he’s talking fast, in this way where the words sort of tumble over each other and he has to take deep inhales in between sentences to keep the motor going. It’s a lot, and his brain is really only processing about every fifth or sixth word. Lego. Brother. McDonalds.
But he knows he could listen to him talk forever. He doesn’t care about what—his voice is pleasant and engaging and cracks occasionally in the most charming way. The way he speaks to him so effortlessly, as if they’re already best friends, makes his limbs tingle and a certain kind of warmth spread across his shoulder blades and soothe away the anxiety prickling at him.
All that, and they’re still holding hands. They lost the rigidness of the hand shake somewhere in the midst of Dylan’s monologue and now their joined hands are just hanging between them, swinging lightly as he continues to talk. Asher thinks it would be smart to let go, but the same instinctual part of him that felt like the world froze the moment he first spotted him on that first day keeps him from moving.
Lucas glances back and forth between them, somewhere between bemused and amused. He crosses his arms, slowly backing off. “Well. I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“So,” Asher starts, clearing his throat and forcing his mouth to work correctly. He waits until Lucas is a safer distance away, joining Jade and Dave behind him. “You need help with the assignment?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s just that I’m totally useless when it comes to like… spatial stuff.” Dylan disconnects their hands for the sole purpose of gesturing to accent his words, holding them out in front of him to try and visualize spatial reasoning. “Like don’t get me wrong, I’m like stupid about most things. I don’t have any brain cells at the ripe age of fourteen. But this is like my weakest point.”
Asher feels pretty stupid standing with him, too. But in the best way—in a way that feels freeing, like someone shut off his brain being in constant overdrive all the time and suddenly he can breathe. If that’s what having zero brain cells feels like, then he’ll throw all of his out the window easy.
He manages a smile, placing his hands on his hips and rocking on the balls of his feet. “Well, I’ll try my best to help. It’s not that difficult, once you figure out what you want.”
“I think I’m already figuring it out,” Dylan states, taking another long look at him. Then his smile brightens again, and Asher is already memorizing other little nuances to it—the way his freckles crinkle on the bridge of his nose, the way his eyes sparkle, the subconscious way he flicks his head to toss the hair out of his eyes. “If being a dumbass got me here to experience the assistance of the Asher Garcia, Lego legend, then I guess it’s worth it.”
Okay, so maybe he doesn’t hate Lucas James Friar. Maybe he could learn a thing or two from him—mainly that the most amazing things might be right in front of him, he just needs to be brave enough to reach out and grab them. Maybe he’s grateful that he thinks they’re going to be really good friends.
What he’s certain of, on the other hand, is that he is totally, completely, undoubtedly into Dylan. Whether it’s by coincidence or some strange power of the universe, he doesn’t know, but given how he can’t stop staring at that infectious smile and how many butterflies have taken residency in his stomach, there’s no doubt about it.
Dylan Orlando is going to change his life, and Asher Garcia is absolutely helpless.