Chapter Text
As a boy, Alastor loved learning and asking questions. He loved watching his mother cook her jambalaya, he loved listening to the men at the barbershop talk of their lives, he loved each subject in school. He soaked up information like a sponge, and he quickly understood things that other children struggled with.
Except for one thing.
He didn’t understand crushes.
They came up a few years into elementary school. One kid would admit they had a crush on another, and it would be quite the news to everyone else. Alastor wasn’t sure what the big deal was. Did they actually crush the other? Was someone being injured?
His mama smiled when he asked what a crush was.
“It’s when you like someone as more than a friend, but it’s nothing you should be paying mind to, son. You should focus on your numbers and letters.”
Alastor took this answer and went to go, as instructed, work on his schoolwork, but it didn’t actually make sense to him. What was more than a friend? Alastor asked that question a few days later.
“Well, more than a friend is romantic. Like a married couple, or parents.” Mama shied around the ‘parents’ part, he noticed. She usually did; while he knew who his father was, she didn’t like talking about him much.
“But what’s romantic feel like?”
She laughed. “Like butterflies in your belly, or a warmth in your chest and face. You get nervous to see them, but you still feel the need to be with them despite that.” She stood and started on the dishes. “Now, there’s a few more steps after that, but we can discuss that when you’re older.”
Alastor thanked her and ran outside to walk in the wild behind the house. He’d never felt butterflies or warmth when he interacted with others. He tried to be a cautious kid, but he never felt he was particularly nervous around anyone, much less still wanting to be around that person.
As the day grew to night and the cicadas started their song, he kept thinking on this. It seems like everyone knew what this stuff was like. So why didn’t he?