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They haven’t talked in two weeks and, honestly, Red is sick of it. He walks to school and passes by Ricky’s house every day, but he never has the courage to actually go and knock on the damn door. He misses Ricky. A lot. But he said some heavy stuff to his best friend and he can’t just take them back now. Maybe I could just go and say hi...
Ashlyn snaps him out of his thoughts. “Babe, hi! I love you. Also, you look like shit”, she says, as she sits down next to him in the cafeteria. Red sighs and puts his head down on the table. “Hi Ash”, he whispers.
“Ricky again?” “I told him. Everything.” Ashlyn’s eyes almost pop out of her head. “Everything everything?” “Well, not that.” Red blushes. “But it wasn’t pretty.”
The things is, now that Ricky and Nini have broken up, he is basically becoming a real life Troy Bolton: every girl is suddenly interested in him.
And Ricky makes sure to remind Red. Every. Single. Day.
Ricky enters Red’s room with a big smile on his face. “Red! Four girls gave me their numbers today! You should have seen EJ’s face. I was just standing there, really, but-“ He starts rambling, like he always does.
...To be fair, Red was really struggling that day; his robotics team was having some problems with their latest invention and Mr. Mazzara was clearly eager to get some trophies.
Ricky, though, didn’t know about any of it. Obviously.
“Can you shut the hell up for a second?” Ricky suddenly stops talking and turns his face to Red. “What?”
“We’re always talking about you! And girls! It’s always Nini, or Gina, or Chrissy or Lily, whatever! You don’t even know why I invited you, because you just stepped in here and started talking about yourself! And that’s fine. But I don’t want your life to be the focus of our friendship. You’re being a shitty friend. Do you know anything about me? Do you even like me?” Red hates the way Ricky’s looking at him in disbelief and he immediately feels guilty. (You can do this. He should apologize. Breathe.) He remembers Ashlyn’s words from their many talks about Ricky and the whole standing-up-for-yourself thing. God, he didn’t mean to snap like that. Not today, not like this. He finally looks up to Ricky and he wants to scream because Ricky’s crying. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” Red feels like his heart his running out of his chest. He wants Ricky to say that he’s wrong; that he knows Red’s hobbies, Red’s favorite movies. That he knows Red’s in love with him. But Ricky is oblivious.
“And you’re not gonna do anything about it? You’re just gonna tell me that I’m right?”.
Ricky looks at him. He opens his mouth several times, but then he probably settles on the easiest answer: “I should go.” Red doesn’t want him to. He doesn’t say anything, though.
He watches Ricky as he leaves and he knows that he should be relieved, but honestly? He is just exhausted.
“Just like that? He didn’t say anything else?” “Nope.” Ashlyn rests her head on her hand and looks at her friend. “I’m sorry, Red. You did the right thing, though”. She shakes her head and pats his shoulder. “Speaking of the devil, the Ricky Bowen protection squad is coming over here.”
Red lifts his head and sees Nini, Gina and Carlos as they sit down at their table.
“You made Ricky cry like a freaking baby” “Carlos!” “You’re gonna look at me and tell me that I’m wrong?” Nini hits softly Carlos’ arm and looks back at Ashlyn and Red. “Carlos was more direct than I would’ve liked him to be, but he’s right. Ricky’s miserable. What happened between you two?”
Red doesn’t really want to talk about it, but Ashlyn answers for him: “Red snapped and talked some sense into Ricky. Nothing to see here.” She tries to change the subject, but Gina is not having it. “Red, can I talk to you for a second?” Nini looks at her girlfriend and silently asks her what’s going on? “It’ll only take a sec, babe”. Gina kisses Nini’s cheek and leaves the cafeteria with Red.
After making sure that no one’s around, she asks: “What did he tell you?” Red looks at her questioningly, “What do you mean?”
“It’s just-” Gina bites her lips, crossing her arms. “Ricky told me that he’s been meaning to talk to you...”
Red scoffs, “Yeah. About girls. I know, he does that a lot.” Gina lowers her gaze and blushes. “It’s not really my place to say it, Red. But you should give him a second chance.” Red can’t believe this. It’s not like we broke up. We were never together to begin with. It’s just a fight, right? Friends can fight, things are awkward now, but nothing’s ever unfixable.
Red might just throw up, though, because when they go back to their friends, Ricky is at the table with them. He’s not taking part in the conversation, barely touching his food. He looks up and catches Red’s eye. He smiles softly and Red is going to reach a whole new level of gay panic, because he is seriously on the verge of tears and his smile is so adorable.
Red knows that if he goes to Ricky now, things would just go back to the way they were. Red doesn’t want that. He misses Ricky, but he can’t just be his sidekick.
I can’t do this right now. He mutters some excuse to Gina and storms out of the cafeteria.
He doesn’t know how, but he ends up getting to the theater. He goes up to the stage and sees the piano. And maybe it’s the sadness, but it’s like it’s begging him to play some angsty song.
Red plays the first notes and nobody is listening, so he might as well sing, too.
“All we see is sky for forever, we let the world pass by for forever. Feels like we could go on for forever this way, two friends on a perfect day.”
He loves singing. He never does that in public, he didn’t even try to sing with Ricky when he was trying to memorize the songs for the musical.
When you’re on your own, you can pretend to be a good singer, you can scream from the top of your lungs whatever song you want, but something about other people listening to you and being able to judge you for it, made Red go insane. It’s not safe.
“There’s nothing that we can’t discuss, like girls we wish would notice us, but never do.”
Great song you chose, Red. You’re all about the girls. He laughs bitterly to himself. This is stupid. Red closes the piano, but then -
“He looks around and says to me, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be and I say, me too.”
He’s not the one singing. You’ve got to be kidding me. “Ricky?”
His best friend is looking at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. “Dear Evan Hansen, huh?” He says quietly, in a voice barely over a whisper, “You’ve never told me you could sing, dude. You’re amazing.” “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
Ricky lowers his head apologetically, “I figured.” He tilts his head, “Anyways, uhm- I went looking for you, because I wanted to apologize. Again. And also I wanted to do this”.
He rushes towards his friend and cups Red’s face. He can’t see his own reflection in Ricky’s eyes, but he knows he must be looking terrified. Get ahold of yourself, idiot.
“You’re Big Red, you’re my best friend. You watched Glee unironically and you liked it. Your favorite movie is Big Fish because it always makes you cry. You love tap dancing and your mom showed me some videos from your first lessons - I want to let you know that they could totally be blackmail material.” Red laughs and Ricky’s face lights up. “You love video games, you always ask me to watch Shrek with you when you realize I’m feeling down and you’re the greatest person I know. I love you, man.”
The whole I-love-you thing. Red knows it’s platonic, but it’s also sort of a big deal. Ricky is not the best at expressing his feelings and maybe his speech could have gone differently, but Red can’t help but hug him. “Thank you”, he says. “You know I love you, too.”
Ricky sniffs his nose into Red’s shirt and Red smiles to himself. “Are you getting emotional? I can’t believe Mr. Troy Bolton still has a soft spot for me.” “Shut up”, he says, but he’s smiling.
They walk together on their way home. They don’t talk, hands almost touching (which is totally not making Red go crazy) and just when Ricky’s about to reach his house, Red calls him from the other side of the road. “Wait!” He goes up to Ricky, who’s staring at him with a confused look on his face. “Gina said that you had something to tell me the other night.”
Ricky hums pensively, “Right, I’m bisexual! See ya tomorrow, Red.” He smiles and enters his house, closing the door behind him.
What?
———
It’s been a month and things are good. They’re pretty much the same, actually, but now Ricky pays more attention to Red. Another thing that has changed, though, is that Ricky talks about boys, too. Apparently he thinks that Seb’s cute and he hates to admit it, but he can see why girls like EJ.
Red’s loving it, though. Now that Ricky’s out too, Red feels more comfortable. It’s easier to talk to him, they even discuss their respective crushes on Marvel actors during their usual sleepovers. It feels almost too perfect.
It’s Friday night when Ricky comes to Red’s bedroom with his guitar and Red has lived this scene too many times, he knows what’s going on. Ricky has a crush.
“I have a song - Well, it’s not mine, but I want you to listen to it. I don’t know how to play piano, but I hope it sounds good anyway. Uhm..” Is he nervous? “I think it’d sound better if you sang with me.”
He starts singing and Red almost gasps out loud.
“We don't have to hide our love away and both of us are gonna make mistakes, 'cause leaning on somebody's never easy, but look at me and tell me you don't see that this is not a temporary love.”
Ricky is so focused on the music and Red doesn’t want to do anything but listen to him. He whispers the words, mesmerized.
“No, this is not a temporary love. Now your heart is in my hands, I won't give it up. This is not a temporary love.”
Suddenly, Ricky locks his eyes on him and sings the last words, “Now my heart is in your hands, please don’t give it up.”
Red’s eyes fill up with tears and he doesn’t want to, but he is completely heartbroken.
“That was beautiful, Ricky. Who- who is this for?”
Ricky looks at him wide-eyed and says: “God, you’re so dense sometimes”.
He pulls him closer and he kisses him. Ricky is kissing him. And he is kissing back.
They finally make eye contact and just smile at each other. Red swears he is about to combust with happiness. He cups Ricky’s face and the other boy just leans towards him, making their foreheads touch. His heart is pounding, but he can live with that, if it means having Ricky so close to him every day.
“Red?”
“Yeah?
“I signed you up for the school musical.”
“I hate you.”
Ricky laughs and kisses him again. “I know you don’t. Simp.” Yeah, Red can’t argue with that.