Work Text:
It was an afternoon like this one.
You were taller than him at the time, some kids grow faster, his mother had explained. You'd been away one summer and returned older, more mature, and he'd been sure then. Simon's only use as a thirteen year old was being pushed around, getting into scraps that left him bruised and beaten in alleyways. He'd jump into a burning building for you, the you who needed him as much as he needed you.
But you'd grown faster than he could keep up. In what world would you let a scrawny, weak boy like him stick around you when you could protect yourself now? When you'd steeled your heart and soul over the course of a few months?
You were always good at that: outgrowing others.
He supposes, in a way, he'd been waiting for you to outgrow him, too.
Simon trailed after you that evening, and the one after that, all the way up to the first day of school. If you were going to leave him behind then he'd soak up as much of you as he could.
He'd been pressed up against your side that evening, the citrus orange of a setting sun drowning your bedroom as you flipped the pages of a comic book. Superheroes, drawn in flashing neon and memorable primaries. His attention flickered from the page to your fingers, grasping the edge of the thin paper, bleeding heat into the corners and leaving indents so proudly you.
You'd been humming a song they'd played on the radio that morning. He doesn't remember the lyrics anymore, not really. But the way your lips curled around every vowel, voice wrapping around a foreign language as you muttered your favorite verse, that stuck with him.
Your voice is imprinted in his mind, and that day had merely confirmed what he already knew.
Then you'd turned to him, eyes glittering and knowing.
"Hey, Si." You'd begun. "Let's make a promise."
"A promise?" His prepubescent voice responded in like. This was the moment, he thought. The moment you'd cut him off, keep him away from you forever, force him back into the underbelly of Manchester that he'd come from.
The moment his only peace would escape him.
"Yeah." You nodded, blissfully ignorant of the way he watched your throat bobbed when you swallowed, of the way his heart skipped with fear and an unnamed emotion that'd been swelling as of the late.
Simon wanted to get up and run, avoid you so you'd never be able to officially remove him from your life. That way, he could delude himself into thinking that you were still best friends, permanently invested in each other's wills and wants. That way, he could convince himself that the only reason you'd never speak again was poor timing, that you'd catch up some other day, that the pair of you would forever be close — inseparable.
But he didn't.
Instead, he wrapped his pinky around yours and thought about how much he'd miss the warmth of your hands.
"Promise me that—" you whispered— "We'll never outgrow each other."
He's glad you'd closed your eyes then.
Because you'd missed the grin that spread across his face, the glint in his eyes. "I promise."
You beamed, oblivious. "I promise too."
"Hey, helloooo?" You ducked your head into his vision, grimacing at the scent of cigarettes clinging to his body. "Eugh. Earth to Simon!"
He blinked at you and pushed off the wall, reaching for your bag and slinging it across his shoulder. You only glare at him in return, knowing that fighting him over this whole bag-carrying thing would be useless, especially now that he's taller than you.
"Was wonderin' when you'd show up." He said, making no effort to hide the amusement in his tone when you jab your finger at his chest.
"I thought you swore off smoking last week."
"Aye." He affirmed, this time leaning down to meet your height, his voice dipping lower. "But old habits die hard, love. Think you can fix me?"
He graciously ignores the fluster in your face as you curse him and march off. You've learned to stop resorting to playful shoves and smacks — he's bigger now, not just in height, and you have a feeling that it hurts you more than it does him at this point.
"You know 've got your stuff, so where are you stormin' off to?" He chuckles, catching up to you.
"Aren't you walking me home?" You mumble, the words tumbling from you before you really process them. Simon always — and you mean always — walks you home. On normal days, he'll spout something about safety; on other days he'll slip in a flirt. You regret making him read all those romance novels with you back then.
"Can't let your majesty take yourself home, can I?" He taps his knuckles to the side of your head, more so to get your attention than annoy you. "What if an assassin attacks while your loyal knight's away?"
His chest swells when you laugh, full and content. He'd bottle the sound up if he could, keep it in a jar, put it on a record and listen to it when he's alone. When he's far away, overseas.
"You? A knight?" You grin to calm the giggles, a charming tendency of yours, he admits. "You'd never be a knight, come on. You can't stand being told what to do!"
"Think I'd be a better king then?"
You, still smiling, shake your head. "No way. But you'd be a great general, maybe. That way you can order people around and stuff, do things your way."
You know him too well.
And he doesn't know how to tell you that this is the last autumn you'll spend together like this.
He keeps quiet when you fall asleep on his shoulder at the library, even though you insisted that you'd study for the upcoming quiz with him. Flips through your notebooks on his own, reads the little notes you leave for yourself in the assigned reading novel.
He brushes his thumb over the pen, pressed into the pages and leading back to an underlined sentence. ("What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?")
'Reminds me of Simon'. The note says.
He doesn't know how to tell you, no matter how much the confession scratches at his throat. He thinks it's because of how he feels towards you. He thinks it's because he knows how wrong it is to do this to you. He thinks you already know, in your own ways.
He knows you don't know about the signed papers he's been hiding in his bag.
And he knows you're going to cry. Simon has never been good with your tears. You're so strong, a figure larger than life to him.
When you inevitably ask him what he wants to do after high school, he'll tell you.
He thinks he's finally the one outgrowing you.
How strange that thought is, when he's spent so many years staring at your back, praying you'll never realize how little you need him compared to how much he needs you. Silently begging to any and every higher being that you'll keep your promise.
Yet, somehow, some way.
Simon gets the feeling that he'll still be the one chasing you regardless.
You've always grown faster than him, after all.
And he's never been all that good at keeping up.