Work Text:
Henry was struggling.
There was absolutely, unequivocally no way he could do it.
He tried to forfeit, but that only brought him back to pitiful square one-- a square that required him to write something all gooey and romantic and yuck.
He fished out a pen and notebook and sighed this long, dragging, bored sigh and started writing things down. Writing random characters and random settings and random themes and random one-liners that sounded nice when strung together.
Another-- frankly dramatic-- sigh was met with the interruption of a quick knock, then an opening, of the door to his room.
"Woah," Liam laughed, "what are you agonizing about?" He threw his duffel bag over into a corner with a fixated but confused expression.
"You could try knocking," Henry rolled his eyes.
"I did," Liam narrowed his eyes. "It isn't my fault that you have the reflexes of a statue, man."
"You're so difficult," he sighed. He was doing a lot of excessive sighing.
"Why the sighing?" Liam picked up on it. He always picked up on it, whatever it was.
"'Cause of this stupid assignment. All gushy and lovey-dovey and crap." He turned to Liam, who uninvitedly plopped down on a beanbag. "It's whatever."
The only thing he'd gotten written down was some brunette prude with freckles meeting this guy at a concert. But when he turned to Liam... an idea sparked.
"Hey, has anyone ever told you that you could like, connect-the-dots with the freckles on your face?" Henry began enthusiastically jotting down ideas. New plot: the band at the concert's singing about a girl's freckles, and when the dude turns to his side, he sees a girl that the song matches perfectly. Brilliant. Now was the whole... describing the freckles.
Liam-- who was caught mid-retrieving something from his pocket-- seemed startled. "What?"
"You know," Henry was still laser-focused on his paper, "like, connecting the dots because there's just so many freckles."
Liam looked to his side and back, never once at Henry directly, in animated, utter confusion. A little white letter was concealed in his sweating hand. "Uh, yeah. I think I've heard that analogy before."
"Good!" Henry smiled, his pen moving faster than his brain. "Oh-- what about, has anyone ever told you it's like a garden?"
"Alright, I'm lost on that one." Liam's eyebrows furrowed in an attempt to hide the hints of red that were tinging his face.
Henry paused, assuming a complex, deep-in-contemplation face. He jotted something down. "Like your face is a flower..." he began, putting careful consideration into each word he was reading off his script. "Littered in little blooming freckles, adorning the winding paths of rosy cheek like gravel would a real garden."
Liam sat in thorough, stunned silence, his letter gripped in his hand. When the hell did Shakespeare possess him?
"No, uh... no one has ever said that before."
Henry shut his eyes, then opened them as if a light had been turned on inside him. "You're right-- scratch that. What if she had this face that was like a sky instead--" he began to scribble over his paper and ink it with new ideas at flying speeds-- "you know. Constellations of freckles, starry eyes... damn dude, I think I've got this!"
"Uhhh... she?" Liam's tinted cheeks started to dim and were replaced with a looming confusion. It was clear the two were hearing... very different conversations.
"Haven't you been paying attention, at all?" Henry bashfully rolled his eyes, "This assignment, it's all gotta be romantic and realistic. I have to know if this freckle stuff sounds natural or not-- that last C on that stupid essay killed my grade, dude..." he trailed off.
Liam hastily looked at the watch he kept handy for this exact type of situation, shoving the letter he held back in his pocket. "Oh-- yeah, sorry, man. My mom wants me home to help with dinner, actually."
"Dinner? It's 4 p.m.," Henry said, "wait-- what did you even need, coming here, anyway?"
"Uh, nothing important, really, boredom," Liam gave a nervous but passably real smile, "and just 'cause you haven't ever cooked anything in your whole life except for microwaving chicken nuggets doesn't mean that it doesn't take time to prep a real dish."
He was excellent at adopting this faux-confident regal air.
"Fine, weirdo," Henry said, his eyes glued to his paper of new-found possibilities. "Oh, thanks, by the way! This thing is pretty much sorted."
Liam was already turning the knob, a pitiful letter deep in his pocket. "No problem," he said, and ushered out before the red return of teasing blood showed on his face.