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There's something about Lincoln.
It could be the way he walks, slightly too-long steps that he has to awkwardly shorten to match his friend's pace. It could be the way his eyes get really wide when he's surprised, how his whole body tenses as he tries not to jump. It could be that she can see how he bites the inside of his cheek to keep from retorting when someone makes a 'joke' about his dads.
It might be that one thing he does, that one thing that always sets her heart racing. When he looks down at her and his whole face softens, the way it opens up, shining like Scary's all the stars they love to go and watch together on clear nights. She never used to understand it.
She does now.
There's something about how he stands when they're all together, wide posture, like he's part of the group but he is the group at the same time, listening to everyone all at once. It could be how he looks when he's really listening, how he tilts his head, focused wholly on you even if he's not looking straight at you. It's what he's doing now, smiling softly to himself as Taylor engages them all in a (though Scary will never admit it) really quite funny retelling of some shenanigans he and Hermie got up to at the convention they went to at the weekend.
Scary's mind and eyes have drifted, wondering if anyone would make an anime about what they did, her eyes resting right on where she knows Linc's eldritch blast scar is. He's shown it to her a few times, allowed her to touch it- but she always declines. She thinks of how that scene would depict her, when she did it; insane, disgusting, a bad friend. Unworthy.
She thinks of Hermie, how he seems to be unbothered by everything that happened, unaffected by his own death. She thinks he's probably talked to Normal about this- they have a connection, kind of, that she thinks none of them will ever have. She thinks about Normal, how there's always some way he's with all of them- wearing Taylor's jacket, Scary's earrings that she gave him for Christmas, a custom ring Linc made him. She thinks about Taylor, so desperate to matter that he ostracizes himself to seem 'cool'.
She thinks about lives, past and present, how she compared them to strings once, twisted together, dotted with stars. She thinks about Betelgeuse and constellations, matches up her friends to each one she can think of- Taylor, a blazing Sirius, 'alone' but surrounded with others, Normal and Hermie the ever-entwined Pisces, Lincoln a bright Alpha Centauri, the closest star to our Sun, far flung out but bright enough to see in crowded cities. She always spots him through everyone else. It fits.
There's something about the way he's always in motion, fluid like water, rushing over jagged rocks and smoothing them over. He is always the eternal mediator, when Hermie snaps at Taylor or Normal breaks down at Scary for something she said. It's always him, smoothing boulders into pebbles till it's like they were never there, just part of the riverbed.
Scary loves that about her friends. When something comes along, splashes, harsh into the river, together they erode it away, work at it until it turns to sand. Like it never mattered, like they were never mad, and they go right back to hanging out at Taylor's, eating Swallows' Ice Cream and watching Bend It Like Beckham, Scary's all-time favourite film, with Hermie's commentary running over it. They spend basically every other night at someone's house, staying up late and coming to school in yesterday's clothes, smiling and content and so together, so warm and happy inside.
There's something about the little things that Lincoln does. He braids her hair when it comes loose from it's ponytail. He can find the best soft cheeses in Camden Market, when they go every morning for breakfast. He's always eating fruit- today, a peach. She wonders if she could still taste it if she kissed him.
There's something about Lincoln.