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“I’m gonna do it,” Polly hisses.
“Merlin!” Albus reels back and itches his ear, “That tickled!”
“Sorry, love,” Polly dismisses with an apologetic shoulder rub. She’s too busy looking over to where Yann and Karl are kicking around a football. Craig stands near them, half-heartedly calling things like I’m open! and pass it here! whilst tapping away on his phone.
“What are you gonna do?”
“What?” she says, turning glazed eyes back to him, “Oh! Oh, right. I’m going to tell him how I feel.”
“I thought we established that he already knows?” Albus asks, watching with amusement as Karl actually does pass to a completely unaware Craig, causing him to drop his phone with a startled shriek. “You’re in love with him, he’s in love with you, neither of you are doing anything about it, so on and so forth…”
Polly shoves him. Albus goes flying, a little pathetically, because he’s sitting on a swing. He and Polly are alone together on the playground at the park across from his house. The house that he and the gang have somewhat invaded and taken over while his parents are away for the weekend.
“Yes, but if you recall that lovely chat of ours, Yann said he’s only doing nothing because he thinks I’m not ready and well, I’m ready now.”
Albus loves Polly’s voice, soft and melodic, but he loves it even more when she’s full of love and hope like this. It’s the way she’s always meant to sound.
He drags his feet along the sand to come to a stop and turns to her, chains creaking.
“You’re sure?” he asks, but he knows the answer. He’s surprised it’s taken this long.
“Entirely,” Polly answers, gaze both determined and soft where it lays on Yann, “feels silly to waste any more time when we could just be happy, you know?”
Albus picks at his fingernails. “Yeah,” he mutters, “I do.”
“I know,” Polly turns her loving gaze onto him, “seeing you and Scorpius earlier sort of made me realise that, sorry.”
Scorpius. Lovely Scorpius. Lovely Scorpius who has hardly spoken to him in days.
Albus lets out a groan towards the sky as he tips his head back. Polly gives a soft laugh, brushes the hair off his forehead and then places a kiss there.
“You’ll get there, babe,” she promises, stroking his hair, “it’s obvious that you care about each other, and Merlin knows you flirt enough for the lot of us.”
“But flirting’s easy,” Albus whines, he knows he’s whining and he hates it but he does it all the same, “there’s no consequences,”
“I think there are consequences,” Polly corrects him, “this whole situation for example,”
“Well, no commitment then,” he instantly regrets his wording when Polly badly hides her laughter.
“Aw,” she teases him, “have you got commitment issues, my love?”
“Shut up,” Albus grumbles, “it was a bad choice of words,” but Polly’s laughter is infectious and he can’t help joining her. She wraps her arms around him from behind, linking them together across his chest to hug him, and sways them together as he sits in the swing, loving her.
“I love you.” He tells her, closing his eyes and leaning into her embrace.
“I love you too,” she answers, resting her chin on his head, “and for the record, I think you should tell him. You deserve to be happy.”
“We’ll see how you go first, I think, before I make any rash decisions.” Albus teases, trying to hide how nervous the idea actually makes him.
“Albus, you and I both know you’ve been debating this for years. Anything you’ve thought about for that long is not rash.” She tells him with brutal honesty, she’s being kind, but in her ‘no-nonsense’ way. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you dodging him the past few days. You’ve been miserable and he’s been walking around like a kicked crup. Now, I don’t know what’s happened but I look at the two of you moping around and I just think ‘how stupid is that when they could be together and happy?’ Which is how I realised I’ve doing the exact same thing. So, I’m gonna tell him, and I think you should too.”
Albus purses his lips, mind racing as he tries to process whether or not he should feel offended or scolded by that. Before he can decide Polly makes to leave so he grabs ahold of her hand. “Wait, you don’t mean now, right?” he asks.
“Uh, yeah,” Polly says, frowning at him, bemused, “I do.”
“You’re serious?”
“Serious as anything,” she answers, a nervous smile tugging at her lips, “I think we’ve waited long enough.”
“You’re not waiting for the right moment or?”
“I think when you know you know,” she says after a moment’s thought, rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb, “and I know.”
The confidence shines out of her like a sunbeam. She practically glows in front of him, face soft and open.
“Off you go then,” Albus deigns, making a show of dropping her hand and gesturing forward. “Go get him.”
“Thank you,” Polly says, blowing him a kiss and holding up both hands with her fingers crossed. Albus mirrors the gesture even though he knows she doesn’t need it. He’s known that her and Yann would end up together since the day he met them.
Polly strides over to the boys, her skirt blowing in the wind, and manages to intercept a pass between them. She kicks the ball gently over to Yann, who greets and thanks her with a kiss on the forehead. Albus screws up his face at the softness of it all. Who Yann and Polly think they’re kidding acting like that but claiming to be just friends is beyond him. Though, he supposes, that’s about to change. She whispers something to him and confidently takes his hand. Yann drops everything, same as he always has, to follow her back to the house. His house. Merlin, Albus thinks as he watches them walk together, as if the end to their six years of pining is going to take place at his house.
“Albus,” Scorpius hisses. Albus nearly jumps out of his skin.
“Fucking shit, Scor, why is everyone hissing in my ear-” he wants to ask more questions. Namely where did you come from? and how did you get here without me noticing? and how long have you been here? but Scorpius cuts him off.
“Were you just looking at Yann’s arse!?”
“Course not,” he bluffs, pretending he can’t feel that his face has gone furiously red. Maybe his eyes had drifted down, but it’s hardly a crime. Scorpius gives a disapproving hum. “Okay fine,” Albus admits, “but it’s only because he’s so fit.”
Scorpius hums. “Not my type,” he says, giving Albus a long and meaningful look.
It’s so easy to fall back into old habits, especially with Scorpius. When he flirts so brazenly like that it’s easy to forget that they’ve hardly spoken in days, using the others as buffers and only making occasional, fleeting eye contact and sharing half-hearted smiles before putting the shield back up again. If Albus knew exactly what had happened to cause it then maybe he’d understand, be able to stand his ground more, but as it is the road between them is so rocky he can hardly find his footing.
“Bullshit,” he calls, beat too late. His heart’s hammering from being so close to him again, so close and alone. He fiddles with his fingers to try and hide how anxious he suddenly feels, “Yann is everyone’s type.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Scorpius relents with an exaggeratedly moony sigh, “he’s unbelievably good looking.” He gives Albus a smile then, so soft and warm, like it’s just for him, a secret between the two of them, that Albus can’t breathe. “Still though, I think there’s someone I like more.”
Albus wonders again if they’re ever going to end this façade and actually make good on all their talk, as fun as it is, he’s been getting a bit tired, frankly, of not being able to reach for Scorpius when he says things like this and kiss the everlasting daylights out of him.
“Think you’re a bit of a smooth-talker, don’t you?” Albus manages, a little wobbly, but a decent delivery nonetheless.
“Oh, I know I am,” Scorpius smirks, leaning in closer and resting a deliciously warm hand on Albus’s arm. It lingers. He wants to melt into the touch, he always does. “I’m very talented.”
Scorpius seems to be in a better mood, a lot closer to his normal self, like the past two days happened only to Albus. Maybe he could do it then. He could kiss him now and have it finally, finally, over and done with. Maybe now Scorpius would let him.
He considers it seriously for all of two seconds until his sense returns to him. He remembers the tight smiles, awkward silences, pulling back from accidental touches like they’d been burned, all without explanation. If Albus has to choose between friendship and that, he’ll choose friendship every time. It’s not like being Scorpius’s friend is a concession either, he’s still won the lottery. It might not be the lottery he was hoping for, but it’s the lottery nonetheless. He refuses to be greedy.
“You are looking for trouble.” Albus jokes weakly, leaning back.
He might as well have spat in Scorpius’s face the way that he retreats. Scorpius takes a step back, face going blank, and Albus’s arm feels cool in the wind with the heat of his hand gone. He gives a bitter laugh, it’s an ugly sound. Not something that should’ve come from Scorpius.
“I’ve been trying to,” Scorpius answers, refusing to play along like he has been suddenly, he doesn’t laugh or flirt or draw closer, just looks at him, “it seems to have been avoiding me though.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you-”
“Yes, you have, Albus,” Scorpius interrupts, “ever since the others arrived you’ve hardly spoken to me. Why?”
It’s this constant back and forth that’s giving Albus whiplash. One minute they’re flirting and it’s all one big joke and then the next Scorpius is looking at him like he’s done something wrong and Albus can’t for the life of him keep up. He doesn’t know what he’s done. As far as he could tell, it was Scorpius who first started acting strange. Albus just reacted in kind, caught off guard, lost, and embarrassingly, feeling quite vulnerable. He doesn’t know what Scorpius wants, which is the frustrating thing, because Albus has been putting aside what he wants to try and keep up with whatever version of them this is that Scorpius has in his head.
For the better part of a year they’ve been acting like this: teasing, suggestive comments, lingering looks and touches, swaying towards each other as if pulled by a magnet, but neither of them has made any move to take it further. Albus thought this was the way Scorpius wanted it. It’s like they get to experience all the fun of dating without any actual risk to their friendship. There’s no reward, in the traditional relationship sense either, he supposes, but having Scorpius in his life has always felt like enough of one that Albus hadn’t even considered putting that on the line for fear of being selfish.
Albus ducks his head. Looks at his shoes in the sand. “You know why.”
“Oi!” bellows Karl across the park. Both Albus and Scorpius snap their heads to look at him. He’s standing with Craig, holding the football under his arm. “Ceebs and I are going to grab some ice-creams from the shop, you guys want anything? My treat!”
“Uh, I’m okay, thank you!” Albus calls, glancing awkwardly sideways at Scorpius.
“Yeah, I’m alright, thanks Karl!” Scorpius answers throwing them a thumbs-up. He turns back to Albus. “What do you mean I know why?”
“You’ve been-“
“Do you need us to grab anything for dinner then?” Karl shouts again.
Albus and Scorpius turn to face them a second time.
“We should be fine, thanks!” Albus says, face heating up from the embarrassment of being interrupted twice during what feels like a very important moment.
“Are you sure?” Craig calls this time. “I think you’re out of pasta!”
“Um, alright then, yes please!”
“Is spaghetti fine or do you want the fancy shit?” Karl asks.
Albus doesn’t have a fucking clue what the fancy shit is but he is feeling increasingly like he’d like to be swallowed by the earth.
“Just spaghetti, thanks!”
He takes a deep breath and turns back to Scorpius.
“Do you think Yann and Polly will want ice cream!?”
Albus shuts his eyes tight. Balls his hands into fists. He loves Karl so deeply, has especially always loved Karl’s unrestrained love for his friends. He’s always related to his ‘all-or-nothing’ personality whereby he cares with every single tiny little fibre of his being or simply not at all, but right now he wishes Karl would be just a little less thoughtful.
“I think they’ll be fine, please don’t worry about it!”
“Are you sure? Because I’d hate for-“
“We’ll be back soon, sorry guys!” Craig cuts in, hooking his arm through Karl’s and tugging him away. He’s a bit far away but Albus is sure he’s giving them a knowing look. He always knows everything.
As they retreat to the path towards the little corner shop down the road, Albus finally breathes a sigh of relief.
“Sorry, what were you saying?” he asks Scorpius, who looks like he’s trying very hard to stay moody and not laugh like he so clearly wants to.
“I wasn’t saying anything,” he says, “you were saying something.”
“Oh, I, uh, I don’t really remember what I-“
“I asked why you’ve been avoiding me and you said that I know why. I don’t.”
This is hell. Like, actual hell. There are several things that Albus considers himself good at but talking about his feelings is absolutely not one of them. He absent-mindedly brings a hand to his mouth to bite at the nail of his ring finger. It’s still sore from where he’d bitten at it earlier and he’s very quickly hit with the metallic taste of blood.
“Albus.” Scorpius tries again, a bit kinder this time. Albus hopes desperately that Polly is having a better time of it. “You’re my best friend and my favourite person, please can you just tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he confesses, “I thought you were being weird because I’d done something so I was just keeping clear so as to not upset you anymore.”
Scorpius frowns. “I’d like to think that I’d tell you if you’d done something to upset me.”
“Okay,” Albus says, heart beating harder as the feeling that he’s entirely messing this up runs through him as if in his veins, “I mean obviously we’d all like to think a lot of things but that doesn’t necessarily make them true.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Scorpius sounds more confused than angry, but it’s a near thing.
“I mean like, I’d like to think that too but it really feels like you’re fed up with me and you don’t get fed up with people for no reason so I must’ve done something, right?” Albus reasons, hesitantly meeting his eye.
“Well,” Scorpius says slowly, like he’s sounding out the word, “I guess that’s a good point. I guess I was just being weird because I thought I’d upset you and you weren’t saying anything about it.”
“What could you have possibly done to upset me?”
Scorpius goes red and ducks his head down.
“We’ve been flirting a lot, right?” he asks suddenly. “It’s not just me who thinks that?”
Albus’s heart gives an almighty thump.
“Er, yes,” he admits, blood rushing in his ears and making him sound distant, “I would agree with that.”
“And have you been serious about it or was it just a joke?”
“Serious.” Albus swallows hard.
“Okay, cool,” Scorpius says, nodding but still not looking back up, “I thought so, I mean, me too, but I just wanted to make sure.”
“Cool,” Albus repeats.
“Cool!” Scorpius agrees. “So like, we’ve been, flirting, or whatever, and you always seemed really receptive and, you know, into it,” he’s gesticulating with his hands, seemingly more so for his own benefit than Albus’s, “but then when the others arrived I felt like you shut me down a bit, in terms of that. I mean, I tried to hold your hand at dinner on the first night and you literally moved seats.”
Albus wants to punch himself in the face.
“So, I guess I was feeling a bit stupid and led on,” Scorpius continues, kicking and trailing his nice white shoes in the sand, “but then I thought maybe I’d misread things and was actually making you really uncomfortable so I tried to pull back and let you lead it but then you just stopped talking to me. I mean, I thought I’d really upset you.”
Albus wants to reach out and touch Scorpius to comfort him, to apologise, but halfway there he decides it’s a bad idea and so his hand hangs there, awkwardly, misplaced in the space between them.
“I’m sorry,” he says, bringing the hand to his mouth instead to bite at his bloody nail again and winces, “I didn’t know I did that. I didn’t mean to make you feel like that.”
Scorpius shrugs, still tracing his shoes through the sand.
“I get really overwhelmed when everyone’s here, I still get a bit nervous around the others sometimes.” Albus tries to explain. “I think I was just freaking out about making sure everyone was having a good time and I was fully just not there mentally, I was feeling a bit all over the place that first night to be honest with you.”
“Okay,” Scorpius says, “but then the not talking to me thing?”
“You were giving off very ‘don’t talk to me’ energy is really all I can say. I could feel that you were angry or upset and I didn’t know why and I’ve just been too anxious to ask you about it.”
“I was only doing that because I thought I’d crossed a line and made you uncomfortable.”
“I didn’t know that, did I?” Albus says, “Listen, if I had realised you were trying to hold my hand I absolutely would’ve let you.”
“Would you have let me or would you have wanted me to?
“Scorpius, I don’t think there’s any universe where I’m not always wanting to hold your hand.”
“So like, right now, for example?” he asks.
“I’m wanting to hold your hand, yes.”
Scorpius looks up at him finally. And smiles. It’s like watching the sun roll out from behind the clouds. He takes a couple of steps closer to Albus until he’s standing between his legs and looking down at him on the swing. Looking up at Scorpius like this is almost exactly like gazing at the sun, it’s bright and warm and wonderful.
Scorpius holds out his hand and Albus takes it. He relishes in the soft curve of Scorpius’s palm and interlocks their fingers, holding their conjoined hands in his other hand and running his thumb across their interlaced knuckles.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, marvelling at their hands, trying to capture the image in his mind so that he never forgets that for even just this brief moment, he got to hold him. He doesn’t even care how his bitten, bloody nails look compared to the pristine condition of Scorpius’s hand. It’s perfect. “I’m sorry I made you think I didn’t want this.”
“That’s alright,” Scorpius says, equally soft, “I should’ve known how anxious you were, I’m sorry I missed that. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”
“I think that maybe we should just talk about these things in the future, maybe not leave everything unsaid and assume we’re both on the same page.”
“You sound exactly like Yann,” Scorpius comments lightly, “I think you’re right though, this was a really bad way to go about it.” He rests his forehead against Albus’. “I’m really happy you’re not mad at me,” he confides, smiling with his eyes.
“I’m really happy you’re not mad at me.” Albus answers, revelling in their proximity. He doesn’t remember the last time they were this close, and it was certainly never in this context. “You’re the most important person in my life and I couldn’t stand it.”
“I feel the same,” Scorpius says, pulling back slightly to look at him properly. “I really like you, Albus.”
“I really like you too.” Albus wishes he weren’t struggling to find his own words, feeling dumb that he seems incapable of anything other than repeating Scorpius’s back to him, but it feels like his brains gone so far into overdrive that it’s simply crashed. “I really want to kiss you,” he whispers, both thrilled and terrified by the confession.
“Can I?” Scorpius asks, holding onto the chain of the swing with his free hand and leaning in close.
“Yes,” Albus answers immediately, thinks for a moment and adds, “please,”
Scorpius untangles their hands and moves to cup Albus’s face with the hand that he was holding. It’s all happening so fast that his head is spinning. Albus stands up, a move unexpected even to himself. They shuffle and rearrange but it’s awkward and bumpy trying to stand so suddenly in the sand. He’s overwhelmed and felt stupid still sitting in the swing when Scorpius would have had to lean down so far to try and kiss him, but now he’s standing and he still feels stupid. He wonders, hopes, that orchestrating your first kiss is supposed to be this complicated and weird. Part of him wishes he had waited for Polly to confront Yann first, maybe he’d have a better idea if he had.
“What’s wrong?” Scorpius asks, concern shining in his eyes.
“I just thought I should stand up,” Albus explains, avoiding his eye and tugging his clothes back into place, “I’m, you know, the height difference.”
“Right,” he hears Scorpius say.
Albus looks at their shoes facing each other in the sand pit. It feels so silly and juvenile. His hands are sweating. He wipes them along the bottom of his shirt.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m a bit nervous.” Albus manages, quietly. Scorpius kicks one of Albus’s shoes softly with his own. It’s a comforting gesture, which is just so Scorpius.
“In a bad way?” he asks gently.
“No,” Albus assures him, “I think it’s more like I’m so excited that I’m nervous.”
“So then why don’t you just kiss me?” Scorpius reaches for his hand again.
“Because I’m nervous!” he squeaks, wiping his hands again before taking ahold of Scorpius’s. “I don’t know what I’m doing! Why don’t you kiss me?”
“Why don’t we kiss each other?” Scorpius offers, like Albus hadn’t already considered this amongst the innumerable thoughts swirling in his head.
“Because what if we miss? Or bump into each other?”
“Miss?” Scorpius laughs. “Albus I really think you’re overthinking this.”
“I don’t think so, I’ve been thinking about this for years. If it’s bad and it’s my fault I’ll never get over it.”
“Well, what if it’s my fault?”
“It could never be your fault, Scorpius, it’s you.” He rushes to explain, looking frantically between Scorpius’s eyes trying to communicate just how much he- oh.
Scorpius kisses him. While Albus is busy overthinking and panicking he brushes the hair so tenderly out of Albus’s face and he kisses him.
It’s nice. It’s really nice. Scorpius’s mouth is warm and soft and inviting. It’s also wet, which, for all his imagining, Albus hadn’t been expecting for some reason. It’s nice though, he likes it. He’s in the midst of figuring out how to kiss him back when Scorpius pulls away.
“Hi,” he says, grinning.
“Hello,” Albus answers, wearing a matching smile, his eyes flicker between Scorpius’s happy gaze and his lips.
“How was that?” Scorpius asks. He hardly gets the question out before Albus is leaning in and capturing his mouth again. It’s hard because neither of them can stop grinning. They quickly resort to just pressing their smiling lips together.
“Stop smiling,” Albus mutters against his mouth.
“I’m trying,” Scorpius answers, but has to pull back to laugh. “I’m sorry,” he manages between little giggles, “I think I’m just really happy.”
Albus laughs too then, on his tip toes, reaches his arms up to wrap them around Scorpius’s neck and pull him back in. In his enthusiasm, he thinks, he must pull too hard because Scorpius topples forward until Albus loses his footing. He manages to catch himself, blessedly, in the swing, but only just. Scorpius keeps falling forward and catches himself too, grabbing onto Albus’s thighs to stabilize himself.
“Sorry!” Albus cries, gasping through laughter and catching his breath, “Sorry, sorry!”
Scorpius laughs too, sounding beautifully carefree and joyful as he regains his footing and moves immediately to stand between Albus’s legs, places a hand on his jaw and encourages his face up so that he can kiss him again.
It’s an awkward angle and they’re both still giggling away into it, but it’s a better and happier kiss than Albus ever thought possible. In all the ways he’s imagined kissing Scorpius, he doesn’t know why it never occurred to him that they’d be laughing through it. It seems so obvious now. So right. He clutches onto Scorpius’s shirt around his waist and manoeuvres himself closer, which is a remarkably easy task while situated on a swing. He still doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, but it’s Scorpius so it’s amazing.
“It’s really good.” Albus presses into his mouth. He tries to deepen the kiss but it’s an awkward angle (he was right, the height difference is atrocious) so he pulls back. He looks at Scorpius’s dazed face, grin spreading like slow-running honey, as he pushes himself back to his feet and tugs him by the hand over to one of the legs of the swing set. Scorpius follows him easily and is all too eager to be pressed against the pole and kissed again. Albus cradles the back of his head so that it’s not uncomfortable against the metal and places the other on his hip. He enjoys the feeling of being close to him in a new way, exploring this new type of intimacy between them. He’s touched Scorpius’s hair before, but he’s never run his finger through it while licking carefully into his mouth.
“Could we have been doing this the whole time?” Scorpius wonders, breathless, while Albus tentatively experiments with pressing kisses along his jaw and neck. “Oh! Why haven’t we been doing this the whole time?”
“I can’t believe I ever thought…” Albus trails off, speaking mostly to himself, and presses a few more kisses onto Scorpius’s lips. “You’re perfect.”
Scorpius’s face split open into a grin again then, he cups the back of Albus’s neck and pulls away to press a chaste kiss to his nose. The frantic energy fades as they look at one another, flushed and smiling and happy. Albus kisses him a few more times. It feels stupid to stop now that he knows he can.
“I like you so much,” Scorpius confesses.
“I would hope so,” Albus teases, leaning back to let Scorpius move away from the pole and feeling freer than he has in months. “I like you too.”
“You’re an idiot,” he mutters, but he still hasn’t stopped grinning and he pulls Albus into a hug.
Albus hugs him tight, sways them back and forth as his heart feels like it’s about to burst. Grinning cheeks pressed to Scorpius’s chest.
“Are we dating now?” Scorpius murmurs into the embrace, “Please, can we be dating now?”
“Yes, I would say so,” Albus agrees. “As long as you want me, you have me.”
“Dangerous,” Scorpius says, “you’re never getting rid of me now you’ve said that.”
“Good.” Albus hums. “That’s exactly what I want.”
“Soft,” he teases, pressing a kiss on Albus’s head.
Albus hums again, closing his eyes and breathing him in.
“Hey, I’m really happy.” Scorpius tells him, letting go of their embrace to face him and take his hands.
“I’m really happy too,” Albus answers. He feels like he’s been turned to mush, all soft and warm and gooey on the inside. It’s disgusting. He has never loved a feeling more.
There’s movement in the corner of his eye and sure enough:
“What’s all this then?” calls the voice of Yann as he and Polly cross the road towards them, hand in hand.
“What do you think?” answers Albus, joy reignited all over again to see his two best friends looking so happy. He and Scorpius walk over to meet them. “Could ask you the same question!”
“Hands up if you’ve got a boyfriend!” Polly cries, uncharacteristically giggly and unrestrained, as she flings her and Yann’s joined hands into the air.
Albus and Scorpius immediately answer in kind, their hands swinging up too. Yann uses it as an opportunity to twirl Polly around like a ballerina and kisses her on the cheek.
Albus nudges Scorpius frantically. “Do that to me!” he urges, and proceeds to perform a truly pitiful re-enactment.
“Well done,” Polly teases, her and Yann offering sarcastic slow claps.
“I thought we were brilliant,” Scorpius says, pressing his own kiss onto Albus’s cheek.
“What’s going on here?” Craig asks, coming back up the road with Karl whose arms are overflowing with ice creams.
“We’re dating now,” Polly and Albus offer at the same time. They catch eyes and then offer each other a sneaky high five.
“What!?” Karl cries, jogging to join them. “When did this happen? Just now? While we were buying ice creams and pasta!? Did we miss it?” he sounds genuinely distraught.
“Ah,” Albus winces, “yeah mate, sorry.”
“We didn’t plan it though!” Scorpius rushes to reassure him.
“Well…” Polly hums. Scorpius turns to look at her and then Albus.
“Did you?” he asks, eyes wide.
“No!” Albus says at the same time as Polly says “Yes.”
Scorpius quirks a brow. Yann and Ceeby look between them all amused, though Karl is clearly still devastated.
“A little,” Albus concedes.
“Wow,” Scorpius marvels, “and here I was thinking we were being so spontaneous and romantic.”
“Hey,” Yann chides, “don’t diss a planned confession,” he hip checks Polly playfully, face going soft when he looks at her, “I happen to think they’re very romantic.”
Albus and Craig mime vomiting, which Yann and Polly completely ignore, too busy grinning at each other.
“Well!” Karl cries, puffing up his chest and stepping forward with grandeur. “Craig and I have an announcement too!”
“No, we don’t-“
“We are also dating!”
“We are not.” Craig deadpans.
“We are not.” Karl agrees. “But if we were we wouldn’t do it behind your backs!”
“This isn’t behind your backs,” Polly points out, “we are standing right in front of you.”
“You did do it behind our backs,” Yann adds, “like all of fifth year.”
“That,” Karl sniffs, “was hooking up.”
“So, we could hook up behind your backs then?” Scorpius tests carefully.
“No!” Karl splutters.
“But you just said-“
“I know what I said!” he shrieks, throwing the ice creams onto the grass. “I was trying to make a point and you are all missing it!”
“What’s your point?” Yann asks him gently.
“That I would’ve liked to be there to congratulate you.” He mumbles.
“You’re here now,” Albus tells him, reaching out to rub his arm. Karl flinches away melodramatically.
“No! Don’t touch me! You’re all traitors!”
They all look at him for a tense moment while he heaves.
“Fuck it!” he cries suddenly, rushing forward and pulling them all into a hug. “I am so happy for you! This is the best! I brought you all ice creams anyway, even though Albus said you wouldn’t want any, I bought heaps just in case which is just as well because now we can celebrate!”
They all chorus their thanks, and apologies for leaving him out of the loop (even though it only just happened and they all told him immediately), and start digging through the different flavours on the grass.
“I’m happy for you guys too, for the record.” Craig says, when he’s deemed Karl’s processing period over. “I mean, obviously I knew it all along, but I’m glad you’ve all finally come to your senses.”
Yann pokes his cheek. “Thanks, babe.”
Polly catches Albus’s gaze.
“Well done,” he mouths. She beams at him, cheeks rosy red and brimming with love.
“You too,” she mouths back, and Albus loves her.
“This is such good news!” Karl keeps repeating between licks of his triple choc Magnum where they all sit, “Seriously, best day ever.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Polly tells him quietly, rubbing his knee and pressing a kiss to his cheek. She’s got a strawberry ice cream that she’s eating while she leans against Yann’s side, his arm around her waist.
Albus gets to eat ice cream, sit with his best friends, and hold hands with the most beautiful, loving boy in the world. Scorpius squeezes his hand to get his attention and then presses a chocolate flavoured kiss to his mouth.
“Yeah,” Albus whispers, looking at Scorpius, “best day ever.”