Big Book Of Smornby One Shots

Tension (S)

TW: One-Sided, angstish

One could never call Ross the most observant man in the universe, nor the most self-aware. He wasn't unintelligent, not by any means– he'd graduated from uni with firsts, for fuck's sake– but he didn't understand things until it was already too late for him, most of the time.

This was one of those cases.

He'd met Smith maybe about halfway through uni, if he remembered correctly– which was never a guarantee, he preferred to live in the present, if only because it was a little easier on everyone that way. A friend of a friend. Those sorts of relationships are also never a guarantee, but this one seemed to work out for everyone involved. Sure, he was a little coarse at times, but so was Trott, and so was he, if he really wanted to be honest; besides, if Trott liked him, it was a good bet he'd like Smith, too.

Maybe that was why he didn't really notice when things changed, at first. It could've been any number of reasons, honestly, from uni to the YouTube thing, but maybe it was just because they got on so well. Of course he'd be happy when Smith decided to hang out, of course he didn't mind when the largest of the three decided to flop down on top of his friends instead of take a different chair, of course he loved to see Smith show off his clear talents.

Friends always were like that.

A year or two in, however, he finally started to gather the pieces. Did a friend want to do everything in his power to avoid going back home when the Apocaweekend was over? Did he make an effort to stand in the middle, even though it ruined the symmetry, which would normally make him so uncomfortable? Was a friend touchy-feely to the point of randomly touching his other friends' face and taking whatever excuse he could to do so? Would he focus the camera on him at all times, even when he wasn't speaking?

The answer to those questions was... possibly not, but he couldn't and wouldn't rule out the possibility that a friend did do all those things. Who knew?

The real kicker was the butterflies in his belly that started showing up. He'd thought he got the gastroenteritis Smith had come down with, from how his stomach was twisting and turning in his middle, but it wasn't constant. It only came when Smith looked at him, smiled, walked– fuck, did just about anything within a good 20 feet or so of him.

Friends didn't get that.

It took him another few months to notice what Smith, himself, was doing.

Watching him. Sitting close. Never once giving him the same shit he gave to Trott. Somehow making a point to wear burgundy more and more often after Ross had mentioned– successfully managing to sound joking and keeping his fluttering stomach and pink face at bay– that it wasn't a bad color on him.

Getting an apartment right where both he and Trott had (which was entirely random happenstance and not actually any ploy from any of the three, but by god his crush-addled brain was going to take it and sprint to America with it).

Maybe he wasn't usually very observant, but his smitten, head-over-heels self– as he'd realized he was late one night after some internet browsing and right in the middle of a pre-sleep bathroom break– sure as fuck noticed things. This, for lack of a better term at the moment, was a thing. A big, huge, important, probably the most urgent thing in his life at this very second thing.

Smith had to be feeling it, too.

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That wasn't to say this was going to be easy for him.