Things I'd never say?

"Oh, sure, Lucas, you were right all along. Silly me."

Haha… that's a good one, actually. He gets so angry with me sometimes. I guess it's because I never let him have his own way. Not even when he's right. Especially not when he's right; he gets this stupid smug look on his face and it's reeaaaaally annoying.

But then again… it's still kind of cute.

Forget things I'd never say: things I'd never admit to.

1) I like Lucas.

2) He's my best friend.

3) I want him to be a lot more than that.


"Barry… are you sure this is the right way?"

Shut up and follow me, idiot. "Yes," I replied, and then ground my teeth. What the hell was I supposed to say? Honestly, I didn't know where I was going, but I couldn't tell him that.

"It's just that we've been wandering around for hours. I'll look at the map if you want."

I turned around. It pisses me off when he's like this.

"You don't need to look at the stupid map, because I know the way. Okay?" I snapped at him. He stared back at me with that look in his eyes: he knew that I didn't know the way, but he was willing to prolong this until I admitted that I was wrong so that then he could rub it in my face.

"You're a dick," I said.

We were about halfway up Mt. Coronet, ankle-deep in snow, and the cold somehow got between me and my clothes so that I could hardly stand for shivering. Now wasn't the time to get into an argument with the only person here who knew how to get back down, but I'm just so good at pissing him off, apparently.

He didn't say anything and instead stormed straight past me. He didn't even look at me.

"FINE! IF YOU'RE GONNA BE LIKE THAT, I DON'T CARE," I bellowed after him.

He came running back and nearly bowled me over, but instead hung onto my shoulders and stared me hard in the eye.

"If you yell up here, you're gonna cause an avalanche. As in, we'll die. So shut up, you idiot," he barked at me. I couldn't help it… it was just too funny, so I snorted.

"It's NOT FUNNY."

"You just said don't yell."

"You are insufferable, Barry."

"Yeah, well, you're a dick."

He let go of me. I don't know if it was just me but he looked kind of hurt, and he wouldn't look at me anymore… like the snow on the ground is just so much more interesting.

"Hey, I didn't mean that honestly, I - where are you going? Oh, come on," I said after him as he turned around, hands in his pockets, and headed back up the mountain path. So I followed him. What was I supposed to do?

"Lucas, don't." I overtook him and stood infront of him; he was kind of halfway through stepping so we ended up reaaaal close. I didn't mind. Didn't seem like he did either.

"Sorry. I'm just tired," he said to me, and smiled a little.

"You can look at the map... I just wanna get off this stupid mountain."

"Well, we should rest for a while," he said, and as usual, he was right. I was more inclined to do as he said considering as I would be completely and utterly screwed without him, so I followed him as he ducked down into a little cave in the mountainside.

It was snug, so we were sat practically on top of eachother. Not a problem.

"Are you cold?"

"Are you kidding me, I'm freezing," I said, and then leaned my head against his shoulder. There wasn't much space in the little cave so honestly, even if I hadn't wanted to, I would've had to touch him anyway. At least, that would've been my excuse, if he'd actually complained about it. But he didn't. Lucas actually DIDN'T complain about something that I did, for once in his whole entire life.

Actually he put his arm around my waist and pulled me closer, which was weird. Weird in a good way. So I held onto his shoulder that I wasn't using as a pillow and he really held me close, like you would hold a girl.

"How long we gotta stay here?" I said.

"A while."

I swear to God nobody will ever understand how infuriating he is. Never answers a straight question, never lets you do shit because "Barry, you always do it wrong", and never lets anything go. He'll still make fun of me for stuff I did five years ago.

But you feel different about people when you both just shut up and… be together. He pisses me off, you don't even know, but I'm not gonna lie: I love him.

"Lucas."

"Yeah?"

Oh shit. What do I say now? Why the hell did I even speak?

"I like you. As in, you're my best friend."

Woah. Two of the three things I swore I couldn't say to him in one fell swoop.

"Oh. Well, you're my best friend too. Why are you telling me now?"

No reason, I just wanted you to know. Also, I love you!

No… not gonna work.

"I just don't want you to be mad at me… even though you should be… all the time," I said, smiling at my own idiocy. Thankfully he couldn't see that my face was BRIGHT RED. That might've been embarrassing.

"It's okay. I'm not mad at you. Actually, I don't ever really get mad at you. You make it difficult."

What.

"How?"

"Well, you're just so… I don't know. Stupid's not the right word, even though it kind of is."

"Shut up!" I didn't want to move too much so I just pinched his shoulder a little, not even enough to hurt. He laughed. At me. As usual.

Oh, fuck it, I just had to tell him. What else was I gonna do about it?

So I let it go quiet for a bit, just listened to him breathing, and tried to relax. I leaned into him a little further. He held me closer. I think it was already pretty obvious that we weren't just 'best friends', because best guy friends don't cuddle eachother, okay, it's just not what you do.

"Lucas, I gotta tell you something."

"Go on," he mumbled, he kind of sounded like he was gonna fall asleep on me. Not cool.

"I don't really know how to say it."

"Then don't say it."

Sounds like a plan. So I just lifted my head up and kissed him.

On the chin.

"Fuck it, I missed your mouth."

I looked him in the eye. He stared at me. Neither of us said anything. My face was burning.

"D'you want to try again?" he asked me eventually.

"If it's okay."

"It is okay."

Well, I kind of already figured that. So I pulled back a little, tilted my head to the side, acknowledged that I had no fucking clue what I was doing, and pressed my lips against his.

Five seconds in, our teeth bumped. We ignored it. I touched his soft lip with my tongue and then slipped it into his mouth; his teeth grazed against it and I hoped to God he wouldn't bite it - but he's a gentler person than I am. I was holding onto him like somebody was trying to tear him away from me, and he was cradling me like a child.

When I finally pulled away from him, we looked at eachother. He didn't look shocked - honestly he probably saw this coming for a while - but he was looking at me with a different kind of affection. Not even irritation. Maybe he wasn't about to criticise my pathetic kissing skills.

"Why didn't you tell me that sooner?"

"I thought you would be creeped out. Wait, are you?"

He grinned at me.

"No… I'm happy."

"Oh. Cool! I'm happy too, then."

It went quiet for a second. Then I said, "I wanted us to be more than friends for a long time, Lucas."

"So did I. I wondered if you didn't notice, or if you just didn't feel the same way… I figured you were oblivious."

"Uh, I was. Kind of until just now. Oh well, doesn't matter anyways. Now we know."

I leaned back into him and he kissed the top of my forehead, and then stayed nestled in my hair. I could've stayed there with him forever. As soon as we got back on the road again, he'd be bitching at me - some things just don't ever change - but maybe then we could hold hands or something.

Geez, I'm such a girl.

Outside it kept on snowing, all through into the night when it got really dark and I clung onto Lucas a little closer for some comfort. It was cold out, but we were warm… probably the only warm bodies for miles. And eventually, I fell asleep, and for once I didn't dream about desperately wanting to touch him. Because he was right there.