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“It’s just so frustrating!” Drew exclaimed, holding his head in his hands from where he sat on the edge of his bed. “What does that even mean?”
Liam shrugged. “I dunno, maybe that he does like you back?” He asked, even though he knew Drew wasn’t really looking for an answer. “That’s the most obvious explanation, right?”
Drew was, once again, rambling to Liam about how annoying Henry was. But over the last month or two, Drew’s joking detestation of him had slowly morphed into what Liam could only describe as a hate-crush. Because even though Drew said he hated Henry’s annoying antics, the more he witnessed them the worse his crush got, and those feelings only made him hate Henry more. Except when Drew said ‘hate’, he really just meant feelings of affection he couldn’t handle.
Liam had witnessed this change first-hand, since he was always the one Drew vented to about…Well, pretty much everything. Liam wasn’t sure how he’d become the therapist friend, but here he was. He doubted his advice was all that great, but then again, these sessions were characterized more by him silently listening and nodding than any actual advice-giving. And listening was one thing he was decent at, at least.
“Well, yeah, to me.” Drew answered, returning Liam’s mind to the conversation. “But that’s probably just wishful thinking. I’m just lucky he’s an idiot and hasn’t noticed I like him yet.”
“Or, that could be the truth. You’ll never know if you never try. I mean, it’s Henry, the worst that’ll happen if you confess and he doesn’t like you is that he’ll tease you about it for a few years.” Liam shrugged, adjusting his position on the floor to sit criss-cross.
Drew sighed. “I guess, but there’s absolutely—“
“—No way he likes me back!” Henry exclaimed, collapsing onto his bed in despair. “Just look at him, he’s so cool! I mean, so am I, but I’m a way different kind of cool that he probably doesn’t get.” Henry sighed loudly, placing the back of his hand to his forehead.
“You don’t know that for sure.” Liam reassured him, moving a pile of clothes so he could sit on the floor next to him.
“I know it for almost sure, though! It hasn’t even been that long since he and Zoey broke up, it’s probably weird for me to ask him out right now anyway.” Henry sat up again, placing his chin in his hands as he looked down at the floor with a slightly frustrated expression.
“It’s been 3 months, that’s pretty long.” Liam responded, tilting his head to the side. “And now I know you’re just making excuses not to tell him, because if there’s one thing you’re not, it’s patient.” He finished with a smile, slightly teasing. “It’s okay if you’re nervous—“
“I’m not!” Henry cut him off, before huffing and crossing his arms. “I just…Don’t want to mess anything up.”
Aaaaand here they go again. Liam could’ve sworn they had this same conversation yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. Whether it be in person, on the phone, through text, what have you, Henry and Drew were always rambling about each other to him. It was really funny at first, until their constant pining and oblivion proved itself to a very long-term thing. Now, instead of laughing every time one of them acted clueless, Liam started scheming ways to get them to finally realize. Being the middleman could only be entertaining for so long.
Unfortunately, that task proved to be a lot harder than it sounded, because no matter how obvious he tried to make it that the other person had feelings for them, neither seemed to catch on. And of course 2-months-ago Liam had the bright idea to promise them he wouldn’t tell the other person, since it was soooo hilarious. So now he was stuck performing futile attempt after futile attempt of trying to make them finally get wise and make out already.
And it wasn’t like Liam had anyone to complain about it to, since both of his friends were the problem. He supposed that was the price of being the therapist friend or whatever. All he could hope now was that they eventually realized on their own, which was looking more hopeless by the day.
It was going to be a very long week.
As it turned out, the week wasn’t going to be as long as he thought. The next day, him and Henry had been waiting for Drew to get to their lockers, and as usual, Henry was whisper-shouting about his crush. It was honestly a miracle Drew hadn’t heard about it by now. “And then, you want to know what happened?! He patted me on the shoulder! He never does that!!!” Henry rambled, telling him some story about how Drew greeted him in science class. Liam was there and saw the whole thing, but he let Henry tell him a dramatized version of it anyway.
“Well damn, why don’t you get this excited when I pat your shoulder? I see how it is.” Liam responded with fake hurt, and Henry snickered.
“Aww, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you later.” Henry apologized, hands on his heart and obviously trying to look fake-sorry but failing miserably, his smile not at all hidden.
Liam sighed. “You better. All this back-and-forth is exhausting.” He said, remembering immediately after he said it that he was definitely not supposed to say that. He looked away, hoping Henry wouldn’t notice how weird his wording was there.
But, because it was Henry, of course he noticed Liam’s strange reaction to his own words. Shit. He raised an eyebrow, staring at Liam with clear suspicion. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked.
Liam internally cursed himself. “W-well, you know…” He’d usually rely on Henry to help him out with his terrible lying skills, but he was in the rare scenario of Henry being the one he was lying to, so it was looking like he was on his own. Which was very, very bad. “...Our usual back-and-forth, like…Banter.” He tried, hoping that was at least a little convincing.
Henry glared at him. “Dude, you are literally the worst liar ever.” Well fuck, it wasn’t all that convincing, then. “C’monnnn, just tell me.” He poked Liam in the arm repeatedly.
Liam sighed deeply. “I can’t, I said I wouldn’t.”
He could practically see the cogs turning in Henry’s mind as he turned that statement over in his brain for a few seconds. Literally the only person who Liam would actually keep a secret from him for was Drew, and if Henry figured that out…
Henry gasped so loud a few people in the hallway turned to look at them. “Has Drew been talking to you about–?!?” He started, then turned around to pace in the direction opposite Liam. “But then–!” He said, turning back around to face him. “So…” Henry turned away from him again, only standing still for a split second before running off. “I gotta go!” He exclaimed, running in the direction where Drew was probably coming from.
Liam stood there for a moment, in shock. Damn, who knew his terrible lying skills would actually be useful for once? He collected his things from his locker before walking in the direction Henry had sprinted off to, letting out a relieved sigh when he saw Henry talking a mile a minute at Drew down the hall. Drew’s face was slowly turning more and more pink, so Liam could guess what the subject matter was pretty accurately. Henry finally finished, and Drew probably only had time to say about three words before Henry stood on tiptoe to kiss him. Liam looked around the now empty hallway, as if to ask if anyone else was seeing this shit, but it seemed that they’d been granted privacy by sheer luck. That was good, because Drew would probably want to die if he realized anyone had seen his face that flustered.
Figuring he should probably turn around and leave them to their romance, Liam headed out towards the school entrance, wondering if he should bother waiting for them or if he should just head home now. They would probably be a while. He adjusted his jacket and remembered to close Henry’s locker for him on his way out, before finding a nearby bench to sit at.
The sky was a picturesque sunset, what you’d expect for a cliche love story like the one he’d just witnessed. He let out what was supposed to be another sigh of relief, but felt a strange bittersweet feeling in his chest instead. He looked down at himself in confusion, as though that would somehow help. He was supposed to be happy for them now. He finally didn’t have to deal with their constant pining, and those two deserved each other, both in the good way because they were his friends, and also the bad way because of how much their pining had inconvenienced him.
And that was all it was, wasn’t it? The only reason it bothered him was because they were taking too long. Sure, he’d made jokes about how they’d never say the stuff they said about each other about him, but those were all, like he said, jokes. He’d never actually cared. Being a support character to their love-related shenanigans was fine with him. Sure, it’d be nice to have a role that wasn’t just being something to talk at while they obsessed over each other, but it was fine.
They were together now, and that was the goal. His job was done. Was he worried they wouldn’t be as good friends after this or something? No, because with Henry he had never worried about that before, even when he was obsessed with Lia for all those years. And when Drew had dated Zoey, they had still been great friends. He knew Henry wouldn’t forget about him, and neither would Drew.
So did that mean he felt this way because he wanted something more than–
No, no, that was stupid. And even if he wasn’t wrong, Henry and Drew would never feel the same.
…Right?
Drew and Henry had been together for about a month now, and things were going great. Well, except for one thing. A very tall, very vampire-like, and unfortunately very handsome thing.
You see, it hadn’t been too long into Henry and Drew’s relationship when, during a random movie night together, Henry had blurted out that he was pretty sure he was polyamorous. After learning what that was and thinking it over, Drew had come to the same conclusion about himself.
At first, they figured that didn’t really mean anything for them immediately, since neither of them liked anyone else at that moment anyway. They were just starting to get used to dating each other. And that’s how it was for a few weeks, until a random Wednesday afternoon.
Drew, embarrassingly enough, couldn’t even really remember what they were doing when it happened. They could’ve been eating lunch, or maybe they’d been sitting somewhere after school. All he knew was that Henry had made a joke that wasn’t even that funny, but as usual Liam laughed anyway. And he’d seen Liam’s stupid smile with those stupidly sharp k-9s and that stupid snicker, and something in him shifted. And no matter how hard he tried, it wouldn’t shove itself back into place.
He ignored it for a while, making up an excuse about final exams coming up and how he really couldn’t deal with this–’this’ meaning Liam somehow being more infuriating than usual–right now. But now that final exams were over, he really couldn’t think of any reason not to just admit it already. Apparently, one dumbass wasn’t enough for his stupid heart, or something.
So one day, when Liam got up from their table at the coffee shop to go wash his hands or something, Drew hadn’t really been listening to the specifics, he decided that he needed to tell Henry. Liam had barely even done anything today, but Drew had already caught himself staring at him twice, and he supposed that meant his feelings had gotten too bad for him not to confront them (And he despised that with all his heart, for the record). Henry would notice anyway if he didn’t tell him, and the teasing that would come from that would honestly be way worse than anything that would happen if he just told Henry what was going on.
“Hey.” Drew leaned towards him from across the table, hoping the chatter of nearby people would prevent anyone besides Henry from hearing. “I have something I need to tell you.”
Henry abruptly sat up straighter when he said that. “Really? I was just going to say I have something to tell you, too.” He said, leaning towards Drew as well.
Drew opened his mouth to tell Henry, and found for a moment that the words were too humiliating to say out loud. With a sigh, he collected himself before looking Henry dead in the eyes and saying, “I think I might like Liam.”
Henry blinked, then sat back slightly and laughed. Drew glared, and Henry attempted to stifle it. “Sorry, but you said that so seriously, like you were about to announce you were gonna die or something. I mean, I guess for you it would feel like that, huh?” He asked. Drew just scoffed, even though Henry was right. “But it’s also funny for another reason.” Henry continued. Drew raised an eyebrow as Henry’s expression turned a little more thoughtful, but still playful. “My something was the exact same thing. I thought about it, and…” He looked in the direction Liam had left in slight frustration, “...Ugh, it’s not my fault his face is like that.”
Drew couldn’t help but be a little amused by his wording. “...Like what?”
Henry gestured with his hands nondescriptly. “Like–Like that! All…” Henry crossed his arms grumpily. “All charming and stuff.”
Drew could understand that. “Honestly? Tell me about it. And does he have to fake-flirt all the time?” He asked, feeling his face flush against his will as he thought about all those stupid pick-up lines Liam insisted on ‘testing’ on him. He claimed that if they even got Drew, a ‘taken man’, flustered, they must be good, so Drew was his quality control. Drew was pretty sure Liam just liked messing with him.
“Yeah!” Henry agreed. Liam had also decided randomly throwing pick-up lines at him was funny, for whatever reason. He claimed Henry’s expressions were priceless. Henry clearly disagreed. “Or, that thing he does where you could be talking about the stupidest shit, but he’ll still listen and look at you like you’re the most important thing ever.”
“Exactly! How am I supposed to not feel anything when he’s staring at me like–” Drew began.
“Hey.” Liam said suddenly, sitting back down in his seat. Henry and Drew both flinched before glaring at him. Add that to the list of annoying things about Liam, he could appear out of nowhere just as well as that Sadie girl. “What are we talking about?” Liam asked, glancing between their expressions that clearly implied they’d been caught doing something. Or at least Henry’s did, Drew liked to think his expression wasn’t nearly that easy to read.
“Nothing.” Drew and Henry claimed at the same time.
Liam raised an eyebrow, but shrugged, stirring up his drink with his straw and seemingly letting it go. Drew and Henry shared a small glance, silently agreeing to talk about it later.
During the aforementioned later, Drew was pacing while Henry sat criss-cross on his bed. “Okaaaaay, so if we both like him, what do we do? Just ask him out or something?” Henry asked, fidgeting with a loose string on his jacket.
“I…Have no fucking clue.” Drew sighed, stopping in his tracks for a moment before continuing to pace, returning to trying to think of a solution.
“If only we had a second Liam to ask for advice…” Henry trailed off, before grimacing. “Oh, now I feel kind of bad for making him do all that and only thinking about him after.” After thinking about this for a moment, he smiled. “But I guess I said I’d make it up to him, whenever I rambled about you for a long time. And kissing him all over his stupid face seems like a good way to do that.”
Drew let out a huff of laughter. “At least that would knock that smirk off his face for once. You know he’d be flustered as hell if we actually tried anything.”
Henry snickered and was about to respond before suddenly shooting up from where he was sitting. “Wait! Maybe that’s it!” He exclaimed, an excited look on his face.
“What is?” Drew asked, sufficiently confused.
Henry let out a small cackle, rubbing his hands together mischievously. “Liam’s terrible with compliments. I say we just actually reciprocate all his dumb flirty stuff, and then try to tell him about how we wanna date him after that. We gotta knock off that cool guy persona if we want the best chances of him saying yes.”
It was at that moment Drew remembered Henry was the guy who was convinced that through various methods he could somehow make it more likely for a girl to like him even after she said no to dating him multiple times. Drew doubted the approach really mattered too much, Liam either liked them or he didn’t, but Henry’s suggestion did sound like the most fun way to go about things. And if Drew was going to humiliate himself by asking yet another one of these dumbasses out, he may as well have fun doing it (It occurred to him at that moment that his own pride might’ve also been one of the reasons Henry suggested this, because he knew it would be easier for Drew to admit his feelings if he felt he had a sense of control over the situation. Maybe he wasn’t dating that big of a dumbass after all).
“Fine. That actually does sound pretty fun.” Drew agreed. Henry did a little celebration dance, and it seemed like they had a plan.
A few days later, they were meeting Liam at the park. Liam had initially joked about not wanting to intrude on whatever romantic picnic they had planned, but they managed to convince him to come along with relative ease. Henry wanted to think that was because Liam secretly liked them or something, but it was probably just because they had promised their picnic would have chocolate, and Liam was almost as obsessed with chocolate as Henry was with lettuce, even if he would never admit it.
Liam had actually ended up getting there before them, which wasn’t really all that surprising, but sort of ruined Henry and Drew’s plan to already have it be all romantic by the time he showed up. Still, they persevered and just set it up with him there.
The weather conditions could’ve been a little better, it was sunny but the wind was surprisingly strong. He could tell it bothered Liam a bit from the way he kept trying to fix his hair, clearly thinking the wind had messed it up. Deciding to begin the first phase of his and Drew’s plan, Henry called him out on it. “Jeez, are you seriously going to do that the whole time we’re here?”
Liam huffed, patting down his hair one last time. “Oh shush, it’s not my fault it’s windy. Or that you don’t understand because you only brush your hair, like, once a week.”
Henry gave an offended squawk at that. Okay, yeah, he definitely wasn’t going easy on him after that. “I do not! And besides, we all know it’s gonna look good no matter how windy it is anyways.” He’d start off small, with something Liam could brush off. Then he’d start ramping it up.
Liam’s face showed a flicker of surprise before he looked off to the side. To anyone else, his expression wouldn’t seem too out of the ordinary, but Henry had known him long enough that he easily noticed that barely-visible change of color in his cheeks as he said, “Yeah, I know.”
To Henry, that sold him on the idea that this could actually work. Liam wasn’t good with compliments, sure, but so bad that he started blushing when Henry had barely even done anything yet? That was a little more unusual, unless Liam had started having some feelings he hadn’t told Henry about. Encouraged by that new realization, Henry could barely contain his excitement for whenever Liam would get cocky and tease one of them again, (which knowing Liam, would be very soon).
Henry was, unsurprisingly, right, and not a minute later Liam was back to unknowingly digging his own grave. “So, is it good?” Drew asked, clearly referring to the sandwich in Liam’s hands.
Liam took notice of what he meant before looking Drew up and down and answering, “Hm, I would say an eight…But anything’s a ten when you’re wearing it.”
Drew sent him a withering glare, which did not phase Liam in the slightest. “I was obviously talking about the–Oh, nevermind.” Drew glanced over at Henry, and Henry attempted to discreetly nod at him to do the plan. Drew looked back at Liam. “What, am I supposed to rate you now?” Without giving Liam the chance to come up with a witty response, he looked him up and down and said, “Twelve.” He did not elaborate further, taking another bite of his sandwich.
Liam’s reaction was a, in Henry’s opinion, very fun mix of confused, flattered, and flustered all at the same time. A shaky smile still on his face as he attempted to process that comment, Liam let out a small, disbelieving laugh before turning his attention to the sandwich in front of him. He clearly would rather move on from this topic of conversation. Unfortunately for him, Henry had far different goals in mind, and had now decided that it was time to, as Drew would say, ‘knock that stupid smirk off his face’.
“Hmm…I dunno, I think it should be closer to a thirteen. At least a twelve point five.” Henry said with fake seriousness, hand on his chin in thought.
“Oh, haha, very funny.” Liam responded, refusing to look at either of them. That didn’t stop Henry from noticing that his blush was growing more noticeable by the second.
Smiling at his success, Henry continued. “No, I’m totally serious. It should be thirteen, right Drew?” Henry turned his head to the other boy.
Drew looked up from his sandwich and shook his head, all business. “No, now I’m thinking a little higher. The sun’s making his eyes look different now.”
Henry gasped, he actually hadn’t noticed yet. “Oh, you’re right, it’s making them do that thing where the brown looks all red and pretty and stuff.” One could not overstate how hard it was for Henry not to smile or make fun of how pink Liam’s face was getting from all the attention. It was fair to say their mission to wipe that smirk off his face was an amazing success. “So then we’re at fifteen?” Henry asked Drew, not looking away from Liam.
“Sounds about right. Unless we’re counting his expression right now, that’s cute enough for a few bonus points.” Henry could’ve watched Liam’s expression shift the way it did then a million times, and the way his eyes widened and complexion somehow turned even redder than before still would’ve never gotten boring. Liam opened his mouth slightly, maybe to ask them why the fuck they were torturing him like this or just to attempt to get back at them, but either way no sound came out and he was stuck sitting there silently. Henry could practically see the error message above his head, trying to tell them that Liam’sBrain.exe had stopped functioning.
So then, it was the perfect time to make it even worse by dropping the whole innocent act and admit they were doing this on purpose. Henry finally allowed himself to grin devilishly at Liam, leaning in closer to him. “What’s wrong? Your face is getting all pink.”
Despite that being the understandment of the century, Liam denied this, finally seeming to realize how his expression must come across and turning his head away as much as possible. “No, it’s not, I just…” He managed to say, eyebrows knitting together in slight frustration, before he trailed off again.
Henry snickered, but Drew ended up saying something first. “It definetly is.” He was somehow more smug about this than Henry, and Liam attempted to glare at him. Liam’s death glares were usually terrifying, but they weren’t nearly as effective when he was blushing this hard. So Drew didn’t even flinch, just putting his hands up in surrender with a smug smile saying, “Hey, just being honest.”
Henry shook his head. “I always knew that you’d be a total tsundere.”
Liam’s very uneffective glare turned to him. “I’m not a tsundere!” He exclaimed. His blush wasn’t getting any worse at this point, but Henry got the feeling that was only because it couldn’t get much worse.
Henry looked him up and down in faux deep thought, before saying, “Nah, you totally are. I complimented you, like, twice, and now you’re blushing and look like you want to punch me in the face. That’s tsundere behavior.”
Luckily, before Liam could deny this and the two’s argument could devolve into a never-ending battle of nuh-uh and yuh-huh-ing each other, Drew intervened. “Okay, fine, if you aren’t, admit it. Do you like us?”
Liam opened his mouth and, for a moment, said nothing. Henry was willing to bet that that question was worth at least three error messages. Eventually, Liam stared down at the ground and answered with a weak, “N-no...”
Henry gasped loudly. “He stuttered! He never stutters, that means the answer must actually be yes!” He exclaimed, practically bouncing up and down with excitement.
“No, I just–” Liam began to embarrassedly deny, before processing Henry’s reaction and stopping in his tracks. “Wait, you…You want me to say yes?” Henry had a very deep desire to tease him for not noticing that earlier, but the innocent hopefulness on his face stopped him from doing so (For now, maybe later).
“You think we would’ve gone through the trouble of asking if we wanted you to say no?” Drew questioned, raising an eyebrow and seeming amused.
“Well, I–I don’t know. Does that mean…?” Liam trailed off, head tilting to the side.
Deciding to help him out, Henry sat up and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Yep, we wanna date you.”
Another error message. Then, “Oh. Oh fuck, uh–Yeah! Yeah, okay!” Liam smiled brightly.
“Does that mean yes?” Drew asked, and Henry was impressed by how well he was handling this. Sure, he’d planned to tell Liam this way in the hopes Drew wouldn’t be as much of a mess as he was when Henry had told him he liked him, but apparently framing this whole thing as a sort of competition where Drew was winning had helped out even more than he’d thought it would.
Liam nodded eagerly in response to Drew’s question, and Drew sat up straighter, satisfied. “Good. In that case, you can be our boyfriend.” Wow, okay, now he was really confident. It appeared that the Drew who believed he could get any girl he wanted had come back full-force.
Deciding that he shouldn’t let him get too cocky, Henry leaned a bit closer to Liam and stage-whispered, “Don’t let him fool you, he was totally panicking the entire drive over here about how we were gonna ask you.”
Smugness leaving him, Drew glared at Henry. “I was not panicking.”
“You totally were, you kept asking me what we were gonna say, and making me triple-check we packed everything, and your hands were all white against the steering wheel–”
“Well you weren’t exactly calm, either, you kept bringing up hypotheticals of what we would do if he didn’t show up, or if he got there before us–”
“That was useful to know! And he did get here before us, so it was good I asked!”
“Just admit it, you were just as nervous as me.”
“So you admit you were nervous!”
Liam finally chimed in, after presumably watching them bicker and eating some of the chocolate they’d packed. “I mean, I don’t blame you guys, I am pretty awesome. I wouldn’t want to fuck up asking me out, either.”
Henry slowly turned his head to look at him. Without saying a word, he pecked Liam on the cheek. This, predictably, shut him up for the time being and allowed Henry to continue his bickering with Drew without interference. After Liam had gotten his face to return to its normal color, however, the argument soon got off-track and they were eventually forced to pack up as the wind got worse.
Once they had all gotten into the car, (Liam had said he could walk only for Drew to insist he drive him home, and Liam ended up calling shotgun and making Henry sit in the back (he would pay for that later, Henry had plenty of Liam’s secrets to tell to Drew)), they drove home in what was anything but a peaceful silence. And as Liam messed with the radio, and Drew threatened to never let him sit up there again if he changed the channel one more time (Liam changed it twice as both a loophole and to piss Drew off), Henry knew one thing.
This was going to be fun.