The Mistletoe Incident

Part 4 - Laurence

     I'd ruined everything, my life was over, Garroth was gonna hate me, he was gonna stop speaking to me, he--

     He was kissing me.

     He'd grabbed my hand, and I had turned, and his hands were on my face and he was kissing me.

     He pulled away for a second, eyes scared.

     "I'm sorry, I thought-"

     I cut him off by grabbing the front of his shirt and kissing him as hard as I could.

     He immediately kissed me back, his hands steady on my shaking ones. I clambered across the console and straddled his lap, never letting his lips leave mine.

     It was everything that had been good about the kiss under the mistletoe with none of the bad. He pressed his hand into the small of my back, and I almost melted. I ran my hands through his hair freely now, enjoying the feeling of being so close to him and sitting with him and sitting ON him and kissing his fantastic, gorgeous face off.

     "Laurence," he said, pulling away.

     "What?" I asked, suddenly being pulled back into the present. All of the happy, warm feelings from before were suddenly fading, quickly replaced with dread.

     "As much as I'd like to go back to kissing you, we need to talk about this," Garroth explained quickly, and I relaxed. Okay, so he wasn't mad at me for eating off his mouth. That was good, I guessed.

     "Do you actually like me, or is this just a really weird way of testing our best-friend status?" Garroth asked tentatively, and I burst out laughing.

     "Irene, no, but that'd be a fucked-up way to go. Of course I like you, Garroth." He noticeably relaxed, and I rested my head on his shoulder. Which I was allowed to do now. Irene, save me.

      "How long?" Garroth said, fiddling with the hem of my shirt. I took a deep breath, counting all of the days I'd spent pining for him and realizing, not for the first time, that the number was dizzyingly high.

     "How much time do you have?" I said, and this time, Garroth was the one that laughed.

     "F-for you? All the time in the world," he replied, and I thanked all six of the Divine Warriors that my face didn't blush. Unfortunately, my heart started racing, the traitor,  and Garroth put his hand on my chest to steady me.

     "I've liked you for a while. Since high school, I guess. At first, we were pretty good friends, and I trusted you a lot. Then Aph came, and everything got pretty screwed up in my brain.

     "I'd see you and Aphmau walking to class together, and I'd get... not jealous, exactly, but like I was missing out on something important, which I'm realizing as I say it out loud sounds an awful lot like being jealous. At first, I thought that I had a crush on Aph, and it stayed that way happily through high school and into college. Until three years ago.

     "Do you remember that fall festival we went to, the one with the fear maze? That was the day. I saw you on top of Aph on the floor, and I felt confused, and upset, and like I'd missed a chance. I didn't know what to think, and I hated myself for not making sense, and all that I knew was that I would have definitely rather traded places with Aphmau than you."

     By now, Garroth was staring at me like I was simultaneously giving him the best news of his life and confirming all of his worst fears. I was getting nervous and tongue-tied, but I knew that I couldn't stop now. I'd been stuffing all of these words and feelings for years, and if I didn't say them at this exact moment, I was afraid that I never would, so I kept going.

     "And so I did what I always do, I flirted and I bluffed, and you called my bluff, and somehow I ended up pinned to the wall by you, and you flirted back. And I liked it, and I hated it, because everything I thought I knew was unraveling, and you were all suave and cool and shit, and I was pinned to the wall, blushing for the first time in my Irene damned life, and you were a fraction of an inch taller than me, and that was the moment I realized that I wanted you, and the moment I realized I couldn't have you."

     I could feel tears prickling my eyes, but I blinked them away. I hated crying, and I'd already done it once today. I recalled one of my foster mothers, how she'd always told me that crying was a sign of weakness. I blinked again, clearing my vision.

     "So I ran away, and you ran after me," I continued, suddenly feeling foolish. "Sorry, I'm saying this like you weren't there. You know what happened next."

     Garroth squeezed my hand. "I told you I was joking, and that I was sorry," he said. "Irene, Laurence, I didn't--"

     "It's okay," I cut him off. "You couldn't have known. Besides, it wasn't like I was being especially helpful."

     I took a deep breath. It was alright. I could say this out loud now. It was okay.

     "From there on out, it was mostly just crushing realizations of past misinterpreted feelings, jumping various mental hurdles, trying not to asphyxiate whenever you walked through the house without a shirt on, little things like that. Alright, it's your turn. Impress me with your tales of repressed feelings for me. Diagrams preferred."

     Author's Note (again): aight y'all i'm sorry to keep doing these but this fic is doing way better than i thought it would?? and i just wanted to say thank you??? alright thats all go back to your daily lives you superb gays