Work Text:
There comes a time in every man's life when he must face some harsh truths about himself.
For me this time came some time after my fifteenth birthday. To be truthful, it had probably been coming for a while before that, but I'd been particularly talented in putting it off. However, the further one pushes such revelations, the harder they're going to strike when they snap back.
When I first came upon this particular realisation, I almost wanted to crawl under the covers and not come out for a week. Or quite possibly just crawl under the bed instead, in case the covers weren't good enough a shield from the shock. However, as that was somewhat more appropriate for a five-year-old than someone who has reached fifteen, I had to take the truth head on.
My feelings for my best friend were possibly not entirely platonic.
Granted, I should have realised it earlier. After all, I'd spent most of my time since we became friends thinking of how cool and strong and charming Red was. Probably my ill-fated crush on May had coloured my perception of the whole thing, so even as my hormones woke up I never thought I was actually interested in him. If I was going to fall for Red, I wouldn't have been so crazy about May when we first got closer, right?
Wrong. At least, that's what quite a few of my recent dreams told me. Not the interesting ones where I join forces with chocolate cookies in a desperate war against grey squirrels, but the kind where I wake up with sticky sheets and can't quite bring myself to look Red in the eye for a day or two or until he gave me a weird look and asked if I was sick or something.
I couldn't tell Red. Well, obviously not about the dreams, that'd have been the last thing to ever pass my dying lips, but also not about the rest of it. Not about how I suddenly felt almost nervous about meeting him even though that happened every day, how nothing made me happier than spending the afternoon with him just doing nothing whatsoever, how I was starting to get jealous of all the girls who flocked to him like he'd been made of chocolate and iPhones.
The girls were what really got me. I probably could have explained even the dreams somehow, I'm really good at rationalising stuff after all, but I really couldn't just wish away the waves of jealousy that rushed through me whenever I saw some girls making eyes at Red. And that happened far too often for my liking.
I couldn't really blame them, of course. Red was tall and fit and had tons of freckles on his face. He was just enough of a Sharkey to have that elusive bad boy attitude without actually being a dangerous criminal. He even had hidden depths, being much smarter and kinder and more considerate than he looked like at first glance, and I was terrified that one day some girl who had thus far been happy to watch him from a distance would actually dare to come close enough to discover all those things. Because if one of them ever discovered how wonderful Red was, they would grab on and never, ever let go. And that would put significant stress on me, because I was not willing to share my Red with anyone.
Of course, I was being ridiculous and I knew it. There was no way I could keep the girls away from him forever, definitely not if I wanted to keep my own feelings a secret. And since letting Red know was simply not an option, I just had to grit my teeth and watch them getting closer and closer each day, like vultures circling around a roadkill. Not that Red was in any way comparable to a roadkill, of course. For one thing, he was far less smelly and rotten and insides-out-like. For another, unlike a roadkill, I definitely wanted to get my hands on Red. Possibly my mouth, too. And there I went off again on a trail of thought I really shouldn't have been following under any circumstances.
Even though I had thusly more or less resigned myself to the fact of my eventual loss of Red, I was still not entirely prepared for the shock of one day seeing a girl actually walking closer to Red after school. Melissa Walker was the one who took that crucial step, after the last class as everyone was rushing out of the school gates where he stood waiting for me to show up. I thought she was going to pass him by but instead she came to a halt, standing right there far too close to him. Close enough that if she had reached out her hand, she could have just run her fingers down his arm, from his shoulder over the hard bicep and then the lean forearm and then she would trace her fingertips along the back of his hand and tangle their fingers together and my life would be over in a flash of despair.
Of course, all she wanted to do was talk, which was almost as bad.
I hang around just close enough to catch a word or two but not to be obviously listening in, doing my best to appear nonchalant. Of course, it's awfully hard to appear nonchalant when someone's just put your heart in a vice and is taking an unholy glee in breaking it, but then it wasn't like anyone was paying any attention to me anyway. Melissa said something about movies, and from the smile on her face and the way she tilted her head in a gesture she probably thought was coy it was clear enough what was going on.
I strained my ears and waited to hear it, that one word from Red that would sting like a nail straight through my heart, so cold and cruel and painful yet so unavoidable, and then he said —
"No."
I'm not sure which one of us was more shocked, Melissa Walker or I. For a moment we both stared at Red, unable to quite process what was going on.
"What did you say?" Melissa's voice rose in both pitch and volume enough that I had absolutely no difficulty hearing every word. There was an affronted look on her face. I couldn't really fault her for her shock; she was without a question the most sought-after girl in our entire year, and here she was shot down by someone.
"I said no." Red seemed entirely unaffected by her stare, turning away from her, face brightening as he spotted me. "Fletcher! About time you showed up."
"Ah, right. I didn't want to interrupt." Why did I feel almost like blushing even though I hadn't done absolutely anything worth getting embarrassed?
"Oh, you're not interrupting anything. Now come on, I want to get home. Genie's supposed to cook which means we'll end up ordering pizza for everyone." Melissa Walker's glare boring into my back as Red dragged me away made it very clear that she quite disagreed about interruption, but then it wasn't like I could do anything about Red.
"So what was that about?" I finally dared to ask once we were a safe distance away. "With her, I mean."
"Hm? Oh, nothing. She just asked me to go see a movie with her."
Just as I had suspected. "And you said no?"
"Was that not clear enough?" Red gave me a weird look.
"No, I just mean… why? She's Melissa Walker! Half the school would bend over backwards to have any chance at her!"
"So evidently I belong to the other half." Red shrugged, as though turning down the leading lady of the year was no big deal. "She's just not my type."
"Oh? So what is your type, then?" The question slipped out before I could stop it. I justified it to myself as being the natural curiosity of any good detective, narrowly saving myself from a very awkward blush.
"Oh, I don't know. Someone smart, I guess."
"But Melissa is smart. She's got second best grades in her entire class."
"Yeah, well, I happen to like actual smartness, not some Math genius. It's annoying enough to do homework with you."
"Hey, nobody's forcing you to do that." I actually felt a little offended.
"I guess not, yet I continue doing it. So obviously I'm not a genius."
"Or you just take every opportunity to copy off me." I knew that wasn't true, of course. Red perhaps wasn't the perfect student, but he was really working hard at school to break the Sharkey curse. "So smart, huh? What else?"
"Hm. Well, I guess I'd like someone short enough to hold to my chest, like in the movies." He grinned, as though it was some big joke.
"You're a giant, stupid. You can do that to almost anyone."
"Not quite anyone, but I suppose close enough." His grin got even wider. "Now what else… hm, I suppose I like people with dark hair."
"Dark hair?" I repeated incredulously. "Smart and short and dark hair? That's it? No things like 'laughs at my jokes' or 'awesome boobs' or 'has a thing for connecting freckles with the tip of her tongue'?"
"My, Fletcher. You've got a dirty mind, don't you?" The grin didn't change one bit. "You really should use it for some more wholesome pursuits sometimes."
"Oi, I'm not dirty! It was a totally reasonable question." After all, those were the things that most boys our age seemed to be interested in. Not just smart short people with dark hair.
Wait. I was short, I had dark hair, and I did dare call myself smart.
I fought back another blush, trying to think rationally. There was no way Red would have meant me, so I had to stop with the wishful thinking. He'd just listed features that appealed to him in girls, that's all, never even stopping to think that they also applied to me. Of course he wouldn't think about that; I was his friend. His male friend. Not potential dating material.
Nevertheless, the grin that was still playing on his face kept bothering me.
I'm not sure what came over me in the end, just as we were about to get to Chez Sharkey, as I had apparently been invited over for pizza dinner without even fully realising it. It must have been some strange demon, worming its way into my head and planting strange thoughts there, making my tongue and lips move and forming words I could have never imagined saying before I heard them in my own voice.
"Hey, Red?" As he turned to look at me, eyebrows raised in question, I added, "Wanna go see a movie some time?"
For a moment he stared at me with this really intense look on his face, until I got scared that he was going to either punch me or simply set me to fire with the sheer force of his gaze. Then, though, he gave me an even brighter grin than before, the kind that lit up his whole face and made my stomach feel all fuzzy and weird. "On one condition."
"And what's that?" I swallowed, my mouth suddenly feeling very dry.
"We watch something scary so I get to hold your hand when you get too frightened."
I tried to punch him in the arm but he caught my fist easily. I should have known better than attempt physical violence upon a Sharkey, anyway.
Of course, as he then lowered my hand and uncurled my fist and tangled his fingers with mine with no particular protest on my part, I actually let him do so without even stopping to think what his family would say as we walked in, hand in hand.
(It turned out to be various forms of "about time", but frankly I was far too happy to care.)