Work Text:
Dorian Jones doesn't like girls.
He doesn't mind women, of course, like his mom, who can be quite nice to him and buy him dinosaur books online on special occasions or even just on a whim, when she feels like it.
And it's not like he doesn't respect girls.
He respects everyone, even people who are different from him.
But girls freak him out.
He can never figure them out.
They are moody, fussy, and scared of everything.
They are silly, stupid, and squirmy, like worms.
Girly worms.
They look over his shoulder and try to peek at his schoolwork.
They squeal and talk his ear off with such nonsense about Brendan Fraser.
They don't even get his name right.
They confuse him and spin him right round their glittery pink polished little fingers.
But boys are easy to figure out.
It's easy to learn how they work.
They are messy and squiggly.
Dorian Jones is more eager to learn how boys think of him.
Because he hates to say it, but he likes boys.
He likes boys a heck of a lot more than girls.
Some boys can be complicated too, of course.
But most of the time they are simple.
They are simple to work out, like algebra problems when you have the formula written out on the board right in front of you or your maths textbook sitting on top of your desk.
Aaron Chandler is one such boy.
He had been in the dark for a bit about liking Sophy Timms, but Dorian could work him out easily if he just looked a little harder, thought a little longer, worked it out in his head.
He had started noticing Aaron's increasing disappearances from their regular excavations.
He had it all figured out by the time Aaron tried to come clean to him.
But Dorian just sighed and shook his head and took him back in.
Because he can't lose Aaron.
It's not that Dorian Jones is nothing without Aaron Chandler.
It's just that Aaron is one of the only two people allowed to dig with Dorian and Dorian can't lose a person like him in his life.
It doesn't have to so anything with Dorian liking Aaron romantically, of course.
Dorian Jones doesn't see Aaron Chandler that way.
He doesn't think of him that way.
He doesn't like him that way.
Dorian Jones is pretty sure he doesn't like anyone, especially not a boy, and especially not Aaron Chandler.
And denial is a river in Egypt.