Chapter Text
Aerion Targaryen, second son of Maekar Targaryen and the late Dyanna Dayne, greatly valued peace and quiet in his immediate environment, which is why his bedroom walls were painted a deep maroon-ish red, a million posters of his favourite bands and movies hung up on those walls, and the Bowling for Soup’s vocalist singing about 1985 blaring from his JBL speakers; his father bought it for him one birthday and subsequently regretted it when his son elected to get into heavy metal the following summer. He had his pop punk playlist on while studying at his desk by the window, finding it most conducive when solving equations, and he would have been content with spending the rest of his evening this way when one of his brothers burst into his room without knocking, the door left wide open in his wake.
It was his older brother Daeron, with long silver hair just like the rest of the Targaryen household and eyes glinting with mischief, coming in to rob him of his peace. “Oh, I love this song! Can you queue up Whatsername next?” Daeron asked, flopping noisily onto Aerion’s black silk bedsheets with what was undoubtedly his outside clothes.
Aerion squeezed his eyes shut and groaned loudly, swerving his swivel chair to glare at his older brother, who merely grinned at him and let out a fart on his bed, like all older brothers were wont to do. It took every ounce of effort for the younger Targaryen to hold himself back from pouncing on his brother and wrestling him (he’d win). “You’re disgusting, and no, I won’t play it for you because I don’t want you in here.”
Daeron pouted in exaggeration, moving to sit cross-legged on Aerion’s bed. The younger brother thanked the merciful gods that his dad believed in a shoes-off household, opting to wear colour-coded house slippers around the house instead. Daeron’s were hot pink, while Aerion wore black slippers to match the rest of his bedroom. “I will in a bit, I just wanted to ask if you wanted to go to Tanselle Too-Tall’s party tonight.”
“A party on a school night?” Aerion hissed incredulously. “Are you crazy?”
Daeron merely shrugged, clearly unbothered at the concept of showing up to school the next morning with a debilitating hangover.
“I- I can’t go, I have homework.” Aerion pressed on with a blatant lie. The homework due the next day had been finished ages ago, and he had been working on next week’s assignments when his brother barged in; he was an overachiever like that, and he hated the concept of doing things last-minute. He hoped that his older brother would drop the subject, but of course, Daeron saw right through him and scoffed.
“You can’t hide behind Calculus, little bro,” Daeron said, leaning back to grab one of Aerion’s pillows. He gave it a punch before placing it on his lap, looking expectantly at Aerion for his next flimsy excuse as if daring him to come up with something more believable.
“Dad would never let us,” Aerion shot back, only to falter when Daeron inhaled deeply and began to shout.
“DAAAAAAAD!”
A muffled, gruff “WHAAAAAT?” came from somewhere down the hallway, most likely their father’s office, where Maekar Targaryen spent most of his day.
“CAN AERION AND I GO TO A PARTY TONIGHT?”
Silence. Oh gods, their father was actually contemplating it. And then, “TAKE MY CAR, BUT AERION HAS TO DRIVE. I’M STILL PISSED AT YOU FOR SCRATCHING UP THE CAR.”
Aerion let out a prolonged groan as Daeron cackled at their father’s approval, lobbing Aerion’s pillow at him, which was easily deflected by the dismayed brother, and it bounced onto the floor with a meek thud. “See, Dad’s okay with it.”
“I’m not coming,” Aerion grumbled indignantly, picking up the fallen pillow and throwing it back at Daeron, smacking him square in the face.
Daeron tsked at him, tossing his hair back with equal stubbornness. “You have to, you’re the one driving.”
Just then, a pitter-patter of slippered footsteps rushed to the door, their youngest brother Aegon (or Egg, thanks to the one time a few years ago when the older brothers had to give him an involuntary buzzcut when Daeron accidentally stuck chewing gum in his hair) appearing at the doorway, panting slightly from running. He eventually warmed up to having a buzzcut, much to Maekar’s dismay, after watching the television show Avatar: The Last Airbender and relating a little too much to the main character Aang, vehemently refusing to grow his hair out since then.
“Are you guys going to a party? Can I come?” Egg looked up at his elder brothers with sparkling, pleading eyes.
“Look at him,” Daeron turned to look at Aerion pointedly. “Even a ten-year-old is cooler than you.”
Aerion sighed loudly, immediately regretting the words as soon as he spoke them aloud. “Fine, I’ll go.”
Daeron laughed, whooping as he clamoured to stand and jump on Aerion’s bed. Egg was jumping up and down from where he stood too, while Aerion prayed for the floor to open and swallow him whole.
“Wait, does this mean I can come too?” Egg asked, Daeron halting in his tracks to process their little brother’s inquiry.
“No!” The elder brothers yelled in unison.
Aerion hated it the moment he walked in.
Throngs of inebriated, sweaty teenagers pressed up against each other on the dance floor, every seat and dark corner imaginable hogged by couples sticking their tongues down each other’s throats. The music was trashy and loud, and Daeron had disappeared from his side almost immediately after they entered Tanselle Too-Tall’s house, leaving Aerion to stew in his misery all by himself. Aerion wasn’t a prude or a wallflower by any means; he simply wasn’t the partying type. His idea of a good night out gravitated towards live music, some ultra-obscure local band playing to a crowd of 30 equally inebriated and sweaty people, trying their hardest to make a name for themselves in the music scene. Not much of that here, unfortunately.
Aerion’s dark cloud travelled with him as he made his way past the gyrating bodies to the drinks station, unscrewing certain bottles to get a strong whiff of alcohol. He was Daeron’s designated driver, as promised, so he opted for the half-empty 1.5l bottle of Dr Pepper, emptying it out into a plastic cup before his eyes scanned the crowd for his older brother or anyone else he knew.
His gaze fell upon a group of girls crowding around a boy with an acoustic guitar, watching with rapt attention as the boy, Valarr Dondarrion, strummed his guitar and sang the words to Oasis’ Wonderwall. It wasn’t hard to see why he had so many adoring fans; with shaggy brown hair accented by a white streak and unique heterochromia eyes, Valarr Dondarrion was the poster boy of teenage heartthrob. Aerion fell under his spell too, having quietly harboured a crush on him since he moved to the school nearly a year ago, his eyes never moving from Valarr’s slender fingers and the way he swayed as he sang. He was the bassist of the Screaming Dragons, and Aerion often hovered by the door of the soundproof music room where they practised to watch him, the band having been permitted to practice after school on school grounds as a direct result of multiple complaints from the members’ neighbours regarding their music. The Screaming Dragons were pretty popular in their local scene, and Aerion had caught a few of their exceptionally rowdy gigs before, so Aerion assumed that the school took pity on them and allowed them to rehearse after school so as to not tear down the passionate embers of teenage dreams.
“You know, you look like you’re about to kill him,” A somewhat-familiar voice with an Irish lilt to it drew him out of the trance, the silver-haired boy’s head whirling around to look (up) at the unwelcome distraction.
Aerion was met with bright, blue eyes and a crooked smile, soft features that seemed slightly out-of-place on a teenager with a strong build and even stronger muscles. At the height of 6’5 as a growing teenage boy, anyone would take one look at Duncan ‘Dunk’ the Tall and wonder what his family feeds him for him to be so much taller than everyone around him. Aerion, having met Duncan’s curmudgeonly legal guardian, Mr Arlan, knew that the household primarily stocked up on whole milk and whole rotisserie chicken when Aerion used to come over, so it was no wonder that Duncan towered over everyone even before he got into sports.
The Targaryens used to be next-door neighbours with Duncan and Mr Arlan, with the tall boy seamlessly integrating himself into the Targaryen family when Mr Arlan was at work, spending most afternoons and evenings after school with the silver-haired brothers playing with Nerf guns in their backyard, or swimming in their pool until they’d all get matching suntans, or doing homework together indoors when Maekar would catch them being too rowdy. The Targaryen boys loved Duncan very much, arguing over whose turn it was to team up with the tall boy for basketball, and constantly vying to spend time with the easygoing giant. Aerion looked fondly at those years, but they became a rapidly distant memory once Aerion’s mother died and Maekar packed up everything they owned and moved them all out to a different neighbourhood, far from the painful memories of his deceased wife, and therefore far from Duncan.
“I’m not trying to kill him with my mind, Duncan,” Aerion grumbled, glowering at the tall boy. Their friendship never really survived the move and their subsequent personality changes in middle school onwards, but Dunk would sidle up to him over-familiarly sometimes over the years to strike up a conversation, exactly like he was doing in that moment.
“Yeah, you do, you do that- that thing where you stare so hard, your jaw does this clenching thing- There it is!” Dunk pointed at Aerion’s face, grinning as Aerion glared daggers at him. “Also, would it kill you to call me ‘Dunk’? You’re the only one who calls me Duncan, you know.”
“That’s because Dunk is a stupid name-” Aerion’s complaint died in his throat when he caught sight of Valarr walking over to them both, having set aside his acoustic guitar and the adoring gaggle of girls that came with it, the latter smiling brightly as he dapped Duncan up. Aerion wasn’t aware they even knew each other like that, but he wasn’t that surprised; Dunk was friendly with everyone, including the teachers.
“Great party, man,” Valarr said to Duncan, who moved to pour some kind of concoction up for him.
“It’s all Tanselle, I was just in charge of the invites,” Duncan replied modestly, handing the drink to Valarr, who accepted it with a grateful smile. “Oh, do you know Aerion, by the way?” Duncan asked, inexplicably shifting Valarr’s attention to him. Aerion had been sipping on his Dr Pepper to hide his nervousness around his crush, but thanks to Duncan, he choked on his drink, sputtering unattractively into his cup.
“Um, yeah, we have History together,” Valarr offered, smiling somewhat encouragingly as Aerion continued to cough. “Are you okay?”
“Yup!” Aerion spoke up raspily, still feeling the Dr Pepper fizz burning his throat. “How do you do?” How do you do?! Aerion recalled seeing a pool around the back of Tanselle Too-Tall’s house; he contemplated drowning himself in it out of sheer embarrassment.
“Um, okay, I guess…? I gotta go back to my friends, but I’ll see you guys around,” Valarr practically sprinted away from Duncan and Aerion, and Aerion could not blame him after that embarrassing display.
“What the hell was that?” Duncan asked him incredulously, nudging him with his elbow.
“Don’t look at me like that, from the way he ran off, you’d think I told him I wanted to put his eyes in a jar!” Aerion smacked his childhood friend’s arm, wincing at how sturdy he was. Duncan had grown exponentially since their days of hanging out after school, which was expected for a teenage boy, but Aerion was reminded of just how much Duncan had changed since he could comfortably call the taller boy his best friend.
“You might as well have,” Duncan rubbed his arm, feigning hurt over Aerion hitting him. “You do have that effect on people, you know.”
“What?”
Duncan stalled, seemingly scrambling for an inoffensive explanation. “You- You know, you’re dressed like you’re super i-intimidating, a-and you’re so much smarter than everyone here, it’s no wonder people are scared to talk to you.”
“What’s wrong with my outfit?” Aerion glanced down at his clothes, finding no discernible fault in his black leather jacket with spikes along the shoulders. Surely it wasn’t his stomping boots that screamed ‘intimidating’. “You’re not scared of me.” Aerion pointed out.
Duncan shook his head, taking a swig of his drink before answering. “That’s because I know you’ve peed your pants so badly while we were swimming at your old house one time, we had to evacuate the pool and drain the water to clean it. Your old man was pissed,” Duncan chuckled lightly at the memory. “Plus, I was close personal friends with your axolotl, how could anyone be intimidated by that?”
“Asshole! I completely forgot about that,” Aerion grumbled, moving to smack Duncan again but he moved away with a laugh, so the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of Aerion’s lips betrayed his words. “I can’t believe you remembered Maegor.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Duncan asked softly. “I remember everything about you.”
Aerion had no idea how to respond to that. “I… I don’t know-”
“Dunkie!” Aerion smelled his brother before he saw him, mouthing a silent prayer to the merciful gods that their father was asleep by the time they got home and would not catch his eldest son with an unknown amount of pot in his system. Daeron barreled into view with a pungent cloud of weed practically wafting from his pores, crashing into Duncan, which caused Aerion to spill his Dr Pepper onto himself. He cursed under his breath and wiped fruitlessly at the stain. “It’s been a while, you know, I had a dream about you?”
“Oh, was it a-a sexual one?” Duncan asked with genuine intrigue.
“Nah, you’re more Aerion’s type than mine,” Daeron shook his head, then perking up with an afterthought as he recalled the contents of his dream. Aerion scrunched up his nose at Daeron’s broad claim, sending a sideways glance at Duncan, but he received no response as Duncan carefully took a sip of his drink. Curiously, Aerion could have sworn he saw the tips of Duncan’s ears redden. “Your clothes were ripped, and you looked hot fighting zombies, so I guess it was a sexy one, rather than sexual. And then you got mauled by the zombies, so… less sexy, I guess.”
“Thanks…?”
“Anyway!” Daeron grabbed hold of Aerion’s wrist, tugging him away from Duncan. Aerion smiled apologetically at his childhood best friend, who grinned at the antics of the eldest Targaryen brothers. “Dad said he’s gonna sic Uncle Baelor on us if we’re past curfew, so we gotta get a move on. Nice seeing ya, Dunkie, come over sometime, we miss having you around!”
Together, the brothers weaved in and out of the crowd of dancing teenagers and out into the night.
Aerion started the next morning with a prolonged inspection of his wardrobe, tsking at the amount of clothes he had exclusively in shades of red and black. There was nothing wrong with his more alternative fashion style, of course, but Duncan had made a valid point in how Aerion dressed led to him being perceived as intimidating, even if his personality did not match his appearance somewhat. Still, the silver-haired boy grabbed a different leather jacket out of the closet, deep red with regrettably no spikes on it this time, to pair with the rest of his outfit.
He spent the morning at school acutely aware of two things: one was that half of the school looked utterly miserable while nursing brutal hangovers (including Daeron, who nearly threw up into his cereal at breakfast), and the other was that he was definitely unapproachable as a person in comparison to, say, Valarr or even Duncan. He saw Duncan in the morning, a bright, easy-going smile on his face as he greeted everyone in his path as if he wasn’t nursing a hangover just like the rest of them. In contrast, Aerion barely spoke to anyone in the hallway or at his locker, only finding the opportunity to talk when he had to discuss the class material with Steffon Fossoway, one of the students who sat next to him in his Physics class.
In Chemistry, he was prepared to stew in his self-awareness, having no lab partners to pair up with for that day’s experiment, until Duncan sidled up into the empty stool next to him. “Hey,” He whispered, eyeing their teacher, Mr Beesbury, at the front of the class warily. Mr Beesbury was preoccupied with peering at a travel magazine, possibly planning his summer vacation, so it was safe to say that Duncan was free to disturb Aerion’s peace. Not that he minded Duncan’s presence specifically, he just also didn’t want to fuck up the titration experiment he was conducting.
“Hey yourself,” Aerion whispered back, carefully holding the pipette and squeezing a droplet of hydrochloric acid into the beaker. Wait, fuck, was it one or two drops? “What is it?”
“I- I just wanted to apologise for last night,” Duncan explained, his voice still barely above a whisper. “When I said people are scared to talk to you because you’re- you’re intimidating.”
“It’s fine,” Aerion said, turning his attention to the instruction sheet for clarification. “You were right anyway, I mean, no one wanted to partner with me for labs.” Aerion glanced pointedly around him, not missing the way Duncan bit his lip with a frown, most likely feeling bad for Aerion. The shorter boy hated the feeling of being pitied, so he changed the subject. “Shouldn’t you be working too?”
“Nah,” Duncan brightened up, the way he did when he had a funny thing to say, his voice accidentally increasing in volume. “Mr Beesbury personally said to me that I’m not allowed near chemicals anymore since that time I nearly burned down the school.”
“Ah, right.” Aerion nodded in understanding, recalling the incident which led to an overly-panicked Mr Beesbury with a fire blanket, a school-wide evacuation and the involvement of firefighters. Mr Beesbury, having perked up at the mention of his name, scanned the room for miscreants until his gaze fell upon Duncan, his eyebrows furrowing at the tall boy.
“Dunk, get back to your seat.” He spoke sternly, and Duncan obediently slinked away, shooting a sheepish smile at Aerion. “And see me after class, I have something to discuss with you.”
The rest of the hour passed by uneventfully, the bell signalling the end of class and the start of the lunch break. Aerion lagged behind after the rest of the class sprinted out for reprieve from studying, the silver-haired boy taking his time to gather his belongings. He didn’t particularly care for lunch the way everyone else did, having not been blessed by a clique of like-minded friends to hang out with. He always had a spot under one particular shady tree though, where he’d read and eat with his earphones in, and he often looked forward to spending some time alone from the animated chatter and bustle of the other students.
However, he hovered at his seat, accidentally overhearing Mr Beesbury’s discussion with Duncan at the front of the class. By then there was barely anyone else in the class save for Steffon Fossoway who had been taking a nap at the back of the class since the start of the lesson, and Aerion felt that it would be an obvious intrusion for him to walk past the two to exit the classroom, so he was rooted to his spot, unable to do anything but eavesdrop.
“Duncan, you’ve been getting consistent Fs in all the quizzes we’ve been doing; at this rate, you’ll fail the midterms too. And it’s not just my class you’re struggling with.” Mr Beesbury said to Duncan, whose head hung low in dismay. “Your other teachers and I have come to an agreement that if you don’t keep your grades up, we have no choice but to suspend you from the team.”
“What?” Duncan’s head shot up at the mention of suspension. “You- You can’t do that, I have to play this season. If I get kicked out, I- I won’t get the scholarship, and that’s the only way I can go to college. Please, Mr Beesbury.” The desperation was clear in Duncan’s voice, and Aerion felt bad for his childhood best friend, mentally kicking himself for eavesdropping on the conversation too. I should’ve left the classroom faster, Aerion chastised himself.
“I’m sorry, Duncan, the other teachers were pretty clear on it.” Mr Beesbury offered as consolation, but Duncan merely stormed out of the classroom, clearly upset by the news, with Mr Beesbury following suit after a moment.
The rest of the school day passed by in a blur, and somehow, Aerion ended up at his locker again, his earphones plugged in as he closed his locker shut. Daeron had informed him sometime during lunch that he wouldn’t be going home straight after school since he was planning on hanging out with his friends (read: getting high in someone’s basement), so Aerion took his time, making his way down the hallway towards the main entrance of the school with Slipknot blaring in his ears.
On his way out, he passed by Tanselle Too-Tall, an objectively gorgeous girl of olive skin and tight ringlets of dark hair, who was pinning a piece of paper up at the bulletin board. She was the head of the drama club, having spearheaded most productions of their school plays as a director/writer/actor triple-threat, and she also had some sort of situationship with Duncan outside of her rumoured polycule with some of the drama club members. Aerion always considered her one of the coolest people at the school, and he was certain most people felt the same way about her. “Is that the notice for Romeo + Juliet auditions?” Aerion asked the girl, pulling one earphone out of his ear.
Tanselle flinched, startled at Aerion’s presence by her side. “Oh, Aerion! Sorry, you- you startled me, but yes, the auditions are being held this week.”
“Okay, that’s cool,” Aerion said with a nod, unsure of what else to say to her after that.
“Are… Are you thinking of auditioning?” Tanselle asked, the surprise clear on her pretty features. When Aerion didn’t respond immediately, she added, “I-I didn’t think you would, but it’s pretty cool if you are.”
“Daeron’s been thinking of auditioning, he thinks he’d be a great Mercutio,” Aerion answered, having personally borne witness to Daeron’s elated buzz regarding the role when the play was announced, citing that he was born to play Mercutio. Their father had joked that he should aim higher, for the Romeo role instead, but Daeron simply scoffed and said that their father could not see his vision.
“I can see that for him, actually,” Tanselle hummed appreciatively, patting the notice down to ensure that it was securely pinned to the board.
With the conversation somewhat coming to an awkward end, Aerion turned to leave, only to halt and whirl around, a question tumbling out of his lips before he could stop himself. “I’m not thinking of auditioning, but can I ask why you didn’t think I would?”
“Oh, um,” Tanselle bit her bottom lip in thought. “I didn’t think you were the drama type at all, you’ve always seemed so…”
“What?” Aerion pressed on, not out of annoyance, but of genuine curiosity.
“So closed off…?” Tanselle trailed off uncertainly, before hastening to add, “It’s not a bad thing, I swear, but I always felt like you don’t really want people to get to know you.”
Aerion scoffed, mentally kicking Duncan for being proven right once again. “Believe it or not, you’re not the first person to say something like that to me this week.”
Tanselle’s eyes softened at that, giving him a gentle smile. “Well, if you ever feel like changing that, you can hang out with us theatre kids, I promise we don’t bite.”
“Thanks,” Aerion gave her an awkward half-wave, putting his earphones back in and making his way home.
“Aegon,” Aerion hovered by the doorway of his baby brother’s room after dinner, watching as the youngest Targaryen set down the book he was reading. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” His little brother said, sitting up straighter as Aerion entered the bedroom, going from awkwardly hovering by the doorway to awkwardly hovering by the bed. “You can sit if you want to.”
“Thanks,” Aerion murmured gratefully, seating himself at the edge of the bed while Aegon stared expectantly at him. Unfortunately for Aerion, Duncan’s revelation about his aura of intimidation and the subsequent day’s events led him to overthink the way he carried himself in life. He had always been fine with not having a close group of friends, having relied more on his brothers for friendship, but hearing it from Duncan of all people had shone a light on the loneliness he had inexplicably found himself in, and he was beginning to chafe at the feeling. “Who among us is your favourite brother?”
Aegon barely took a moment’s hesitation before responding resolutely, “Daeron, 100%.”
“What?” Aerion’s face scrunched up in disagreement. “Daeron? Not even Aemon?”
“Aemon’s always shut off in his room studying when he’s not at boarding school, so…” Aegon shrugged, tracing circles on his bedsheets.
“Okay, then what about me?”
“You’re almost as bad as Aemon!” Aegon huffed. “At least Daeron lets me play Fortnite.”
“Wow,” Aerion scoffed, rolling his eyes and moving to stand. “I’m gonna tell Dad that you’ve been playing Fortnite. I thought he only lets you play Minecraft and Roblox.”
“You wouldn’t!” Aegon gasped, his eyes doing that sparkly, pleading thing of his again. “Please, Aerion, don’t tell Dad!”
Aerion merely laughed as he left the room, but his mirth concealed something a little more troubling beneath it.
Aerion spent the previous night and the subsequent morning stewing on the notion of him being seemingly unapproachable, the notion troubling him so deeply that he barely watched where he was going as he bumped straight into another boy, causing the other boy to drop the books he was carrying.
“Oh gods, I’m so sorry,” Aerion fell to his knees in a panic, scrambling to gather the boy’s books, taking note of a stack of papers that suspiciously looked like a script, lines highlighted in yellow. The other boy knelt too, a beautiful laugh cascading from him as Aerion handed him the books, the latter gawking shamelessly as he took in Valarr Dondarrion’s twinkly smile. Of all the boys in school, of course he would bump into the hottest one of them all, who happened to be his crush.
“Don’t worry about it, really,” Valarr straightened up with Aerion following suit, his eyes unwavering from the shaggy-haired boy. He was dressed in a turtleneck with the sleeves rolled up, his hair swept up from his eyes. Up close, he could see Valarr’s eyes clearly, a deep blue in one of them, and an even deeper brown in the other. Aerion struggled to hold himself back from telling him he looked nice, lest he inadvertently make a fool of himself like the other night.
“Are you auditioning for the play?” Aerion blurted out instead, his stomach fluttering slightly as Valarr cocked his head to one side with a smile as if he was impressed at Aerion’s attention to detail.
“Yeah, I’m trying out as Romeo,” His eyes sparkled as he said so, and Aerion resisted the urge to pluck the sparkle of his eyes and hang them in the night sky to shine brighter than the other stars. “Are you?”
“Oh, gods no!” Aerion laughed much too loudly, cringing internally at the volume of his own voice. Their conversation ground to an ugly halt, neither boy knowing what to say to move the conversation forward, so the silver-haired boy opted to abruptly turn and walk away, much to Valarr’s puzzlement.
Aerion walked, and walked, and walked, past the cafeteria and out into the track field, past the cheerleaders practising a dance routine to a K-pop song, past some athletes who were doing warm-ups, until he stood directly in front of Duncan, the gentle giant who seemed to be utterly surprised at Aerion’s appearance. Considering how Aerion had actively avoided any kind of team sports at school if he could help it, the silver-haired boy deemed his shock as completely reasonable.
“Aerion, what are you doing here?” Duncan asked, jogging on the spot to loosen his limbs up.
Aerion wasn’t entirely sure either, but he replied, “I need to ask you for a favour.”
“Sure!” Duncan barely took any time to consider it before he agreed, bending down to touch his toes as he asked, “What kind of favour?”
“I need you to help me be more…” Aerion trailed off. “Approachable.”
Duncan straightened up abruptly, his face fell as he studied Aerion’s pleading face, scratching his jaw with something that seemed a lot like guilt. “I-I’m really sorry about what I said, but you really don’t have to change anything about yourself-”
“I know that!” Aerion cut him off quickly, then inhaling deeply to regain his composure before confessing, “I-I need to be more approachable so I can ask my crush out on a date.” There. That wasn’t so bad, right?
Duncan’s expression flickered into something undiscernible for a moment before a crooked smile graced his face. “You- You have a crush on someone at school? Who?”
Aerion steeled himself before answering, “Valarr Dondarrion.”
Duncan’s eyes widened at Aerion’s answer. “The guy with the heterophobia?”
“It’s heterochromia,” Aerion hissed, aware of the slight tinge of red that began to dust his pale cheeks as he spoke of his secret crush aloud for the first time. “And yes, that guy.”
“Deal!” Duncan put his large hand out for a handshake, retracting it after a moment’s thought. “Wait, what’s in it for me?”
“I overheard you and Mr Beesbury yesterday,” Aerion said, watching as Duncan’s shoulders sagged at the reminder. “I figured I could help you study for the midterms? You can come over and hang out with Daeron and Aegon after too, if you want. Aegon’s been bugging me to invite you over to the house since he found out Daeron and I talked to you at the party without him.”
Duncan’s face lit up at the prospect, the relief clearly shown in his face. Aerion could tell that his grades and the looming threat of suspension from the team had been weighing on him. “Deal!” Duncan repeated, sticking his hand out for a handshake once more.
This time, Aerion took it and they shook hands.