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Firstly, neither Pedro nor Balthazar watched Doctor Who. Balthazar had watched a few episodes with Beatrice, more to humour her than anything, but that was all. Also, Pedro had hurt his knee that morning when he’d tried to hurdle a wall to get out of the car park. (“You don’t have to jump over stuff to impress us, Pedro!” had been Benedick’s response. And by ‘us’ he’d meant ‘Balthazar’.) Also, the tickets were like £16.
Basically, Pedro and Balthazar wanted to have some alone time. So they skipped the Doctor Who Experience and had pizza instead.
“Do you think they’ve noticed?” Pedro asked when they were sat down in Pizza Express and had given their orders.
Balthazar tried not to laugh. “Um, yeah, they have definitely noticed.” He had no idea why Pedro looked so genuinely shocked.
“What? Really? What makes you say that?”
“Well, um, every time Hero looks at me she’s got that knowing smile and it’s kind of like she’s almost going to cry or something out of happiness.”
“What? Yeah, but you’re so great!” Pedro said with such gusto that it made Balthazar unable to meet his eye. “She’s probably just thinking ‘how is this amazing person my friend? It makes me want to cry.’”
“And Benedick keeps on making those comments,” Balthazar pointed out. He picked up his fork and began to unconsciously run his fingers across the tines.
“Benedick is always making comments about everything! His whole purpose in life is to make innuendos about his friends!”
“Bea winks at me every time you say something. Like anything. There’s no reason for her to wink.”
Pedro narrowed his eyes and then shrugged in acquiescence. “Alright, they probably know.”
“Does that, um, do you mind about that?” Balthazar was suddenly focusing very hard on the fork.
“No!” Pedro said it hurriedly and maybe a little too loudly for a public place. He lowered his voice to say, “I just thought they would say something. I didn’t think I’d have to, you know, declare myself or something.”
Balthazar shouldn’t have felt quite so relieved but he did. “Yeah, well, you know they probably want to make sure that you're comfortable to tell them yourself.”
“Hm, I bet that wasn’t Ben’s idea.”
“Probably not.”
“Oh my god.” Pedro leant forwards excitedly and grabbed Balthazar’s hand across the table. “You know what we should do? We should be way more obvious and just see how much Ben will be able to take before he admits he knows.”
Balthazar liked Pedro’s enthusiasm much more than the idea itself.
“That would be hilarious. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t know… Isn’t it sort of taking advantage of their trying to be considerate?”
Pedro acknowledged this and then grinned at Balthazar. “You’re too good for me.”
“Ah, well,” Balthazar muttered, “I could be bad if you want me to.” And then he blushed because he hadn’t meant it like that.
“Blimey!” Pedro laughed. “Here?”
“Shut up.”
In the foyer to the Doctor Who Experience, Benedick was starting to get twitchy. He had felt fairly overwhelmed from the moment they had stepped inside and the theme tune was playing and he had gotten chills down his spine. And Beatrice had that wild excited look in her eyes that made him feel all kinds of things.
But as they queued, Benedick couldn’t ignore that there was something not right. It was fluttering around just out of his eyesight.
When Hero nipped off to the toilet, Beatrice rounded on him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Something is clearly wrong. I’ve never understood the phrase that someone has ants in their pants but now I do.”
“I just… don’t know if I should be spending money on this.”
Beatrice did look sympathetic, she really did, but then she said, “It’s only £16. That’s like $30 or something, right?”
“$32.17.”
Beatrice sighed. “Benedick, you can’t keep torturing yourself over this. You can’t miss the Doctor Who Experience. We all know that this is the only reason you organised this trip, an excuse to come here. I know you’re worried about things at home but really, I don’t think this is going to make a difference. You’ve got to enjoy it.”
“Can you just enjoy it for me and tell me about it afterwards?” Benedick suggested.
“No!” Beatrice cried. “Right, I’ll pay for you. It can be an early birthday present. And I’m buying you a t-shirt.”
“Bea, don’t be absurd.”
“You’re being absurd.”
“You never buy me birthday presents.”
“I’m starting now.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
Beatrice grabbed him by the shoulders. “I just want you to have a good time!”
And that was the moment when they both realised that what they were saying was so completely out of their usual rhythm. The moment when Benedick was looking Beatrice firmly in the eyes with a begrudging and loving grin on his face and Beatrice was smiling too and suddenly everything was very strange and uncomfortable.
Beatrice let her arms drop to her sides again. “You just have to get me something awesome when it comes to my birthday,” she muttered. “Not some shit Harry Potter collage like that time…”
“Hey! That was a fantastic collage!” Benedick declared. “I firmly stand beside my fourteen year-old self’s decision to make that.”
“I literally burnt it.”
“WHAT?”
“What?” Hero asked, joining the line again. “What did I miss?”
“Beatrice burnt my collage!” Benedick whined.
“The Harry Potter one?”
And after that Benedick did have a good time. It didn’t take long for Peter Capaldi to persuade him to forget all of his every day concerns and to take the controls of the TARDIS. He especially enjoyed Beatrice’s arm around his shoulders when Hero took a photo of them and her nervous refusal to stand next to a model of a Silent.
When they left the museum, Hero pointed to where Pedro and Balthazar were sitting on a nearby bench. Pedro had his arm around the backrest and they were either about to kiss or had just been kissing.
“Oi! Losers!” Benedick yelled at them.
Both of their heads snapped around.
Hero said something like, “They’re just too cute. I can’t cope.”
Pedro and Balthazar made their way over. “How was it?” Pedro asked. “Geeky enough for you?”
“Not nearly!” Benedick yelled. He was genuinely buzzing. “How was your pizza, Pedro? Balthazar?”
Balthazar smirked to himself. “Oh, you know. Pretty… pretty good.”
Pedro looked at Balthazar then looked at Benedick and then back at Balthazar. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “By the way, I’m bisexual,” then grimaced. “That was too many ‘bi’s in one sentence, wasn’t it.”
“That’s really by the by,” Benedick said.
Pedro slipped his hand into Balthazar’s. Balthazar squeezed it slightly and gave him an encouraging smile.
“And Balthy and I are sort of going out now.”
“Hooray!” Beatrice cried, causing a few passersby’s to turn their heads. Hero gave a small round of applause.
Benedick smiled. “We totally had no idea.”