Chapter Text
I’m not really sure how they talked me into this.
Dev and I had planned to spend the weekend doing absolutely nothing. It had been settled for weeks. We’d survive on the candy and junk food we’d accumulated in our room, we’d cuddle and watch rom-coms. We’d ignore everyone and everything, even Basil – Merlin, especially Basil. We’d forget life in the outside world existed. That weekend, it was Dev and I and nobody else.
It’s Valentine’s. We had every fucking right.
Then I don’t know exactly how it happened, but we’re in a cafe with Keris and Trixie and I just want to die.
Call me dramatic as much as you’d like. My best friend is Basil Grimm-Pitch. Once you know them well enough, your most exaggerated drama seems like a minor comment, a simple small annoyance.
I guess some of the events that I like to call “Torture Niall Day” (instead of Valentine’s as I originally would) could be explained by my boyfriend’s terrible lack of awareness, as usual. Sometimes Dev makes it so hard to love him, I swear.
When Keris approached us on Friday afternoon during the break between our last classes, she barely said hi before asking if we had any plans for this weekend. For Valentine’s Day. To anyone else, it might have seemed like she was trying to ask one of us out, see if she could score a date before the official non-official “desperation day”, February 13th. I mean, in theory, we were all single teenagers who would very much like to score a date, maybe be able to snog someone for a day or get gifts and free food.
I might be gay, but I’m not blind. Keris is beautiful. If I thought I was straight and going anywhere with her on Valentine’s, I’d be certain there would be second intentions behind that.
Fortunately, I know pretty well that I am anything but straight, thank you very much. To me and Dev, it was pretty clear she was either trying to make casual conversation because she needed something else, or to ask both of us to join her and her girlfriend at whatever they had planned for the day so it wouldn’t seem so gay if you stopped to think about it.
That’s the thing about queer people. We know who’s like us, we can understand and identify each other in ways that straight cis allo people couldn’t ever do. They think they’re so smart by applying a stereotype or another onto some random person who doesn’t fit in their cisalloheteronotmative gender-conforming standards, but the real work is done by actual LGBTQ+ people, especially the closeted cases like the four of us.
(That when you’re not self-centered, I suppose. Basil probably still thinks they’re the only queer person on campus, even though they have literally seen me and Dev making out in our room every other day.)
We were sure Keris and Trixie knew, because we knew about them. Trixie is out as a sapphic at school, not at home, and no one but her girlfriend and Bunce – and I’m guessing Simon Snow by extension – knew she was a lesbian. And Keris, even though it’s been years since she came out as trans to everyone at school and before that at home, is still in the closet as sapphic to anyone but her roommate and Bunce (because she’s Trixie’s roommate and obviously has seen or at least knows about them snogging).
Also, apparently, she and Dev came out to each other, for some reason. They had to do a project together (the professor chose the duos) (I got stuck with Rhys) (could’ve been worse but I still hated it) and ended up bonding. I’m not sure how or why, but Dev told her about being nonbinary, and she ended up sharing about being sapphic. The only thing I know is that they connected a lot and Dev asked me if he could tell her about us without revealing anything specific (no names, no dates, no clues). I figured I didn’t have an actual reason to say no – she had already shared so much about her own feelings with Dev, seemed like we didn’t really have anything to lose.
I guess after that it was easy for both us and them to confirm what we’d been suspecting. Not that I’d expected otherwise, anyway. So now, my closeted arse depends on the secrecy of a pixie and her girlfriend. And Dev’s closeted arse does, too.
It first came to me that it might have been a bad idea when, for some reason, Keris thought it would be productive to make plans with us for Valentine’s. And even though we had two uninterrupted days of cuddling and snogging and movies ahead of us, my stupid boyfriend decided to say that no, not at all, we didn’t have any plans. We were totally free this weekend!
It all went to hell after that.
“You should come with me and Trixie.” she’d said. “It’s a free weekend, so we’re going to this cute cafè in a small town that’s just some minutes away. I’ll drive, we can all get ice cream and coffee together.”
How do you politely say to someone who basically owns your ass that “I know you want queer people near you because this season is tough as a closeted couple but I’m definitely not in the mood of going on a date and not kissing my boyfriend”?
Turns out you don’t. Instead, you – and by “you”, I mean Dev – say “That sounds nice. Thanks for inviting us.”
And now, I have to make small talk with Trixie the pixie and Keris instead of, as I’d planned, pretending I’m paying attention to our illegal laptop playing a random romantic comedy while I snog my boyfriend senseless.
Great Valentine’s. At least I can have some nice sweets. Dev’s paying for both of us, of course. The bare minimum he could do to start repaying me for this nightmare.
I try not to pay attention to anything else but the menu, but it gets harder by the minute. All the pies I like have nuts in them, so I can’t get any. And I’m pretty sure a waitress just called Trixie and me a couple. I knew that was probably the idea – to look like two straight couples going out – but seriously? I gave away my snogging movie Sunday afternoon for this?
If I die from repressed queer rage at 17 in a double date with a pixie, I’m haunting Dev forever.
Crowley, I sound like Basil. As if I needed any more proof that I could use a break. Or a nice snog.
What flavour ice cream helps with teen queer agony? They should put this on the menu. Then again, I probably shouldn’t get the “queer agony” ice cream if I want to be perceived as straight.
Fuck me. I’ll just get a coffee.