Chapter Text
Beatrice was the first to admit that Hero was perfection personified, but occasionally, very occasionally, she could be a bit of a pill. Just a little bit. Like today. She had the nerve, the nerve, to suggest that the reason Bea preferred being single was that she’d had such a bad experience crushing on Benedick when she was 14 that she just didn’t want to get hurt again. Apparently getting the brush off years ago was enough to put Bea off guys for life.
“As if!” she yelled at Hero.
“I’m not saying you HAVE to date somebody, just that maybe you’re ignoring other guys because… you don’t want to get hurt again?” If it was anybody other than Hero, Bea would have thrown something at their head. “I mean, Pedro obviously has a huge crush on you and you haven’t even considered him.”
Bea scoffed loudly. “Pedro most definitely does not have a crush on me! We’re friends!”
“Friends who flirt!”
“Friends who act friendly!”
Hero rolled her eyes – an action that looked a little wrong in her angelic face. “Rewatch the videos he’s in, and pay attention to his face. Like, look at him and just consider that maybe, just maybe, there’s more going on there than you think,” she said.
Beatrice sighed dramatically and flopped down onto Hero’s bed. “Ugggghh,” she moaned as she covered her face with her hands. “I don’t wanna,” she said, peering at Hero from behind her fingers.
“Bea…. If I’m right… Isn’t it a little mean to ignore it?” Hero asked. “I mean, he’s your friend and you could really hurt him.”
Beatrice glared at Hero. Hero raised her eyebrows back at her.
“Urgh, fine!” Beatrice said as she reached for the laptop.
Watching through the videos, Bea still wasn’t sure if Hero was right. I mean, he spent a little more time looking at Bea than she would expect, but not like, an extraordinary amount of time. Bea didn’t remember him flirting with her any more than she thought she flirted with him. Except when Leo thought Pedro liked Hero he asked Bea if it was alright. And there was a memory fluttering at the edges of her mind, when they had finished filming his announcement about student leader, where he leaned in a little. Hero had walked in before anything had happened, and really, Bea didn’t know if something would have happened, but what if it had?
Would it be the worst if it had happened? She considered Pedro – cute, funny, sweet Pedro. The All Round Great Guy. He’d probably make a great boyfriend. Did anybody else think like Hero? That the reason she was single was because she wasn’t over Benedick? Not that she was ever really under him, it was just a thing, but still. She really really didn’t like the idea that anybody thought she had any feelings for Benedick other than annoyance and disgust. She definitely wasn’t going to start dating somebody just because people might think she likes Benedick, but maybe she just shouldn’t rule it out. Maybe she shouldn’t rule Pedro out.
She was getting ahead of herself (again). He might not like her and it could all be in Hero’s - and now Beatrice’s - head. (Like 14 year old Beatrice got ahead of herself with a boy who shall remain nameless who, it turned out, definitely did not like Beatrice like that.)
Beatrice really wished Hero had never brought this up. Pedro was coming around to film an explanation of the whole costume party mess this afternoon and now Beatrice was all turned around.
Later, when Pedro arrived just as the sickening beast known as Claudio-and-Hero were simpering their way out the door, Beatrice noticed that he said hello to Hero with a wave and Claudio with a high five, but Bea with a hug. A reasonably long hug, all things considered. Which really, could mean anything; people have different amounts of physical closeness with different people. Same as how he sat kinda close to her when they sat down to film the video. It’s just how long they’ve known each other. It wasn’t anything that meant anything.
“I could be your prince charming.”
Pedro drops that bombshell while Beatrice lies on her back faux-whining about being single. Her first reaction is to laugh, but Hero’s earlier words stop her. About how she could hurt her friend. Her morning considering Pedro’s possible (more-than-possible) feelings for her stop the laugh before it leaves her lips. She sits up and looks at him. “What?”
Pedro breathes deeply and doesn’t meet her eye. “I just meant… We could be something… Fun? Maybe? I’ve always thought you were… Amazing?” He takes another big breath and looks her in the eye. When he speaks again, all hesitance is gone from his voice. “I think you’re amazing, and beautiful, and smart, and funny, and I think we’d be a good couple and I was wondering what you think about that.”
Beatrice just looks at him and blinks. And then blinks again. Pedro’s heart, which had been thumping wildly, starts to feel heavy. She opens her mouth, “I… Uhhh….”
“It’s ok if you don’t feel the same, I just thought I should put it out there, for the sake of honesty and all that.”
Beatrice blinks again and takes a deep breath. She still hasn’t said anything. What he initially thought was the most awkward situation he could ever be in becomes even more awkward. The world fails to open up and swallow him whole, unfortunately.
And then she leans towards him slightly. Stops. And then moves again and presses her lips against his. The touch of her lips is so gentle against his and he’s almost afraid to move, like she’s some sort of bird that he’s going to scare away.
Gently he raises his arm and puts his hand to her face and presses a little closer, moving his lips gently against hers. She opens her lips and the kiss deepens and all he can think is ‘finally’. He’s dreamt about this and he really really doesn’t want to screw it up but he also really really likes her and God this feels good. There’s lips and tongue and it’s just really good.
Her hand threads in his hair and everything feels amazing and they’re leaning back onto the bed and he really hadn’t even considered telling her any of this when he came around but he’s so glad he did because he’s full on making out with Beatrice Duke and it’s fucking glorious. She’s lying on the bed now and he’s basically lying on her and she moves her hand that’s not in his hair to his waist and he moves the hand from her face trailing his fingers down her arm and rests it on her waist and then she freezes.
He opens his eyes and she’s looking a little stricken and Pedro can’t believe it took him less than ten minutes to fuck this up. “Are you ok?” he asks.
“No. I mean, I’m good with this. This is fine. This is good. It’s uhhh…”
He wonders if she can hear his heart beating because he really wants this to work out.
“We’re on Hero’s bed and the camera is still on,” she finishes.
He lets out a breath because that doesn’t sound altogether like she’s dumping him before they’ve even gone out. She’s not wrong, making out on her cousin’s bed while a camera records it is probably a little seedy. “We could move to your room,” he says with a grin.
She smiles back (this is a good sign, right?). “Tempting,” she says, “really tempting. But, maybe that’s a little quick?”
He’s still smiling like an idiot because none of the words she’s saying resemble anything like ‘this is gross and should never have happened and will never happen again’. He sits up, saying “I get ya, you don’t let a guy into your room until at least the second day of a relationship?”
She sits up and smiles again, albeit a little hesitantly, “relationship, is that what this is?”
He steals a quick kiss. “I hope so, it could be,” he says against her lips.
She nods slowly and his mouth starts hurting from all the grinning.
He kisses her briefly again and says, “maybe tomorrow you want to come around and hang out at my house? Where there’s no cameras allowed?”
She nods again and he’s pretty sure he’s flying. Best day ever.
She looks at the camera, “I’m going to have to find a way to finish this video without the PDA, I think.”
He laughs, “I dunno, I think it’d be pretty hot.”
“Nope, not gonna be one of those couples,” she says while rolling her eyes.
“Ok, but you’re sending me that footage right?”
She laughs and pushes him over and he thinks that this might be a perfect afternoon.
He’s still laughing as she shoos him out the door – it turns out he has a problem keeping his hands to himself when it turns out she’s not opposed to his arm around her, or his hand on her knee, or gently stroking her face, or pushing her hair behind her ear. It also turns out these little touches interferes with the recording process.
Bea’s not sure how she went from Pedro just being a friend to being in a relationship so quickly but he really is an All Round Good Guy. The perfect boyfriend, right? And the kissing was good – he’s a good kisser, which isn’t all that surprising because she’s pretty sure he’s had a lot of practice. Not that she has a problem with that, she’s not exactly fresh faced and innocent herself. She’s always enjoyed kissing and he’s good at it and it feels good and honestly, why not Pedro? And Hero was going on about how she wasn’t dating anybody because of that dick and Bea really didn’t want anybody thinking that he had anything to do with her relationship status. But anyway, Pedro’s a good kisser – not too much tongue but not too little and his weight on her felt really fucking tops and why not?
She is a little worried about how to tell Hero and her friends. And the internet. She’s been so confident in not needing a boyfriend and there’s nothing Beatrice hates more than being wrong (not that it happens often). She’s still not actually wrong, she doesn’t need a boyfriend, but maybe it’ll be nice to have somebody to make out with. And other things.
Fortunately, Hero doesn’t make it back till pretty late and there’s not really a moment to share this new information. Beatrice doesn’t really think too carefully about why that’s a good thing.
The next day she arrives at Pedro’s and he manages to open the door about a second after she rings the bell.
He’s got that stupid grin on his face and he kisses her twice before he even says hello.
Beatrice thinks about how it’s sort of fun to be… well, not worshipped, but to have a guy clearly crazy about her. She’s sure Pedro had to be more subtle previously because she would have noticed somebody this obvious. It does seem like an awfully big jump though.
“So what do you want to do?” she asks as he leads her inside.
He shrugs, “whatever you wanna do, I’m easy.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she says with a smile.
“Only for you babe,” he laughs. The word babe rubs her wrongly a little but she’s not sure how to say it to him.
He grabs her by the hand and pulls her closer and kisses her fully. Her hands go around his neck and when she threads her hands into his hair he makes this noise that makes her feel a little smug. His arms go to her waist and when she raised her arms it left a little space between her jeans and her t-shirt and his hands find bare skin and it feels really good. She could get used to this, maybe.
They hear a noise behind them and Pedro’s weird brother is standing there, all in black with a contemptuous expression on his face.
“You guys know this is the living area, right? Where people live?”
Beatrice is pretty sure her face is bright red but Pedro just laughs and reaches over to ruffle John’s hair. John’s glare feels less than friendly.
“It’s alright bro, we’re just gonna go up to my room, enjoy the space.”
She follows Pedro up to his room without complaint because what else are they going to do?
Claudio may be busy in Heroland, but Benedick would be damned if he let the rest of his friends off the hook when it came to his vlog. He had his camera, he had Balthazar, he was ready to storm Pedro’s house, and make something awesome for his channel.
John answered the door when he knocked, which was slightly unusual, and, without pausing to say hello, said “Pedro’s in his room, go on through,” with a small smile that looked odd on his usually gloomy face.
Ben shrugged, ignoring any weirdness, and went through the house, Balthazar trailing behind him. He couldn’t hear much over the sound of music, but he was pretty sure there was no answer to his knock. Walking in, he really wished he’d waited or knocked again, because there was Pedro, on top of Beatrice Duke. His face on her face and her legs almost all the way around his waist and his hand on her back, but under her shirt. His friend, Pedro, was definitely, most seriously, making out with Beatrice Duke.
They obviously hadn’t heard the knocking over the sound of the music playing but the change in light from the open door got Beatrice’s attention. She turned her head to the door, which Pedro took as his cue to move on to sucking on her exposed neck. Ben made an involuntary noise that seemed to come from the back of his throat and Pedro finally looked up.
“Uhhh, hey guys,” he said.
Benedick couldn’t think of a response and remained silent.
Balthazar, standing to his side, was silent.
Beatrice stared straight at him and looked stricken, but was also silent.
The moment stretched out longer until Pedro finally spoke again. “So… You guys remember Beatrice, right?” he said with a laugh.
Beatrice rolled her eyes at him and Balthazar gave a humourless laugh. When Ben finally looked over at Balthazar, his face was blank, and all Ben could think about was how he’d always been pretty sure Balthazar had had a pretty massive crush on Pedro for years and man, this had to smart.
Ben held up the video camera, “we were going to make a video but I guess you’re otherwise occupied.” With Beatrice. In bed. “This is something of a new development.” Why did he feel like he was going to vomit?
“Yeah, she couldn’t resist my charms,” Pedro smiled at them.
Beatrice still hadn’t said anything. Neither had Balthazar. The ball in Ben’s stomach seemed to be getting worse. He attributed it to the fact that now two of his best mates were apparently coupled up. That had to be why this made him feel so ill compared to how Claudio and Hero made him feel, which was really only moderately ill.
Beatrice finally spoke up, “maybe I should get going.”
Pedro turned back to her and immediately started giving her goo-goo eyes. “You don’t have to go,” he said, as he raised his hand to her cheek.
Beatrice looked to the other two boys in the room and then back to Pedro. “I think maybe I should. I’ll, uhhh, call you later.” And with that, she extricated herself from Pedro’s arms and bolted from the room.
“So I guess I’m free to shoot a video with you guys afterall,” Pedro said with a shrug and a grin.
Balthazar finally seemed to break out of his stance, “I uhhh, I forgot I have a thing to do for my Mum. I’ll see you guys later.” And with that he bolted from the room after Beatrice.
Pedro shrugged again and gestured at the camera, “did you still want to make a video?”
Benedick fought the urge to follow Beatrice and Balthazar. This was going to be the most awkward video ever.