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Amos forgot him, again. It’s fine, Aeron’s been well accustomed to being forgotten since his parents died, the sting of loneliness slowly fading away, but he’s gotta get home from school somehow. He’s tried calling Amos and a slew of cousins, but no one’s felt like picking up, all far too busy with whatever else they’re doing, so the bus it is.
“Hey, Bracken,” the voice that Aeron least wants to hear as he’s sitting on the gravel kicking at loose rocks calls out. “What’re you doing here? Your limo running late?” Davos Blackwood in all his smarmy glory sits himself right next to Aeron, shoulders and thighs touching and Aeron has to pretend that he doesn’t feel anything.
“Yeah, it's got a flat tire,” Aeron says plainly. “Stuck taking the bus.”
“And ours is the last one, isn’t that lucky,” Davos says, because of course they were on the same bus route. Life was unfair like that.
“Do you have to sit here?” Aeron asks. “The cafeteria is right behind you, plenty of seats in there.” Even if Davos wasn’t a Blackwood, his family’s mortal enemies for generations, Aeron thinks he would still hate him. He was insufferable, more annoying than anyone Aeron had ever met, always trying to pull attention towards himself. He didn’t know someone could make that many jokes that didn’t land.
“What if I wanted to sit here, huh?” Davos asks. “You’re not as awful as the rest of your family, you know. You’re actually kind of tolerable.”
Well huh . That was a new revelation. Aeron thought their rivalry was mutual, Davos finding Aeron a pompous brat as much as Aeron found Davos an annoying asshole. Maybe Aeron was more judgemental than he had originally thought himself to be. Interesting.
“D’ya want a smoke?” Davos asks, fishing a pack out of his many jacket pockets, lighter already in hand.
“Put those away,” Aeron says, shoving Davos’s outstretched hand away from him. “You’ll get suspended for having those on school grounds.”
“Nah,” Davos shrugs. “Look.” He points to over by one of the trashcans where a teacher and another student are smoking together, eyes pointedly focused on the ground and not on the person standing next to them. “The bus lines are a lawless place, Bracken.”
“My hair’s going to smell like smoke,” Aeron complains as Davos sticks a cigarette in his mouth, hand cupped over the lighter. Aeron lets himself look while Davos is distracted,taking in floppy dark hair and a crooked nose, light eyes and an easy smile. If Aeron was allowed to be the kind of boy that notices other boys, he would think Davos was kind of pretty, in a rough around the edges kind of way.
Davos sighs. “Well we can’t have that, can we?” he says, removing the cigarette and placing it and the lighter back in his pocket. “I bet you spray perfume in your hair each morning, don’t you?”
Aeron feels the heat rising on his cheeks and silently curses himself for it. He tugs a piece of chin length hair across his face, hoping to hide the redness from Davos, but of course he can’t.
Davos pokes him in the side, shit eating grin on his face. “I knew it!” he says.
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You didn’t have to,” Davos says. He throws an arm around Aeron’s shoulders, bringing them closer together, if that was even possible, the two of them looking like regular co-conspirators instead of the blood feud enemies they were supposed to be. He turns his face and suddenly it’s buried in Aeron’s hair. The breath catches in Aeron’s throat. If anyone looked at them, they might think Davos was pressing kisses to his neck, to the spot just below his ear that always gave Aeron shivers when he ran his fingers over it. He tries to pull his thoughts away from that particular idea. “You smell like a field of flowers, Bracken,” Davos says. “It’s nice.”
“Sure,” Aeron says, because he doesn’t trust himself to say anything else. He looks around for anything that could change the subject before zeroing in on Davos’s hands. “Your nails look nice.”
Davos blinks before looking down at his chipped black nail polish. It didn’t look exactly nice but Aeron wished he could be brave enough to paint his nails. Amos had thoughts about him growing his hair out already, painted nails might send him completely over the edge.
“A compliment,” Davos says with a grin. He’s still got his arm wrapped around Aeron, and he squeezes him ever so slightly as he speaks. “I didn’t know you knew how to give those.”
“Whatever,” Aeron says, rolling his eyes. He hates to admit it, but he thinks he feels the tug of a smile trying to force its way onto his lips. “I think that’s our bus.”
“And is the great Aeron Bracken feeling gracious enough to sit by me?” Davos asks, hauling himself up and holding a hand out for Aeron. “I’ll let you pick out the music.”
“You drive a hard bargain Blackwood,” Aeron answers, ignoring how he can almost swear he feels an electrical current running through their briefly connected hands.
Aeron chooses “Drive” by The Cars and feels such an intense but unexplainable emotion while listening to it, sharing earbuds with Davos, heads tilted close together, that he almost sobs. A stray tear manages to fall and he wipes away as quick as he can, but Davos notices anyway, because of course he does.
“You alright?’ he asks, much softer than Davos Blackwood has any right to sound.
“Yeah, fine,” Aeron says, skipping the song to something more upbeat.
Davos hums in agreement, but the rest of the way home, his hand stays next to Aeron’s on the sliver of seat between them, their pinkies intertwined. Aeron tries his best not to stare at them.