Jim had no idea what convinced him to do this.
"Jim, if you fancy Mister Nunez, I submit that 'talking to' will be much more effective than 'staring at'."
Oh. Yeah. That.
Jim was dumb enough to actually try and talk to Clair out in public with all of his girl-friends there. God, what was I thinking he asked himself.
"Do you like Shakespeare?"
"What?"
"Do you like Shakespeare?"
"Shakespeare?"
"The school play. We're having trouble getting boys to audition."
Jim did not know anything about Shakespeare any more than Toby did, and it is unlikely that Hamlet was about a pig with a crown like some cheap 2D platformer from the 90's. At least, that's what Toby told him.
"Come on, Jimbo. Take that plunge. You are always talking about how you want your life to be more exciting. What can be more exciting than asking someone out on-stage?"
"You come on, Tobes. I don't think Romeo and Juliet is exactly the answer. Besides, I don't think he's into, you know... boys?"
"Jim, he's in the drama club and hangs out with Darci and Mary all the time. Don't gay guys hang out with girls all the time?"
"Then what does that make you?"
"Oh ha ha. Look, all I'm saying is that you're never going to find out if you don't ask him. You got this."
Jim did not "got" this. In-fact, it's so "un-got" that it's got him.
... the point is is that Jim had no idea what he was doing.
Turns out that when Clair said that they had a shortage of boys for their upcoming play, it was not due to having no other boys present. It was because it was going to be an all-boy's play.
"In the Elizabethan Era of drama, the theater was considered a low-brow art. An under-appreciated avenue for the starving masses to express their creative energies born from innovations made not by design, but from limitation," said Mz. Janeth, flailing her arms like the drama queen that she was. "This year, we are going to be doing it the old-fashioned way. In Shakespeare's time, all of the roles were played by men. The women characters too, so we are going to do the same."
"How did the school let her get away with that?" Jim asked out loud, dumb-founded.
"She consulted the school board," said Clair, who Jim only noticed was standing right next to him that very moment. "They agreed to let her do this if she were to host an all-girl's play next semester. Impressive audition by the way. Loved the costume."
Jim coughed up a few half-words in what might have been Spanish, an idiosyncrasy that has become more frequent these days.
"I-I, uh, thanks."
"And that speech? Very inspiring."
"U-um, I heard it from somewhere."
If he told him that he heard it from a walking, talking Easter Island statue, or that his armor was retractable from some glowing amulet of destiny, he would call him crazy.
"Mz. Janeth said that she might put me in the leading role. I doubt it would be Romeo. With my luck, she'll make me Juliet. She probably has a dressed picked out and everything."
"I think you would look great in a dress." Jim deliberately bit his lip the moment he said it.
Clair's expression was unreadable.
"U-Uh, what I meant was that I think you would look great in anything."
Foot, meet mouth.
"What I meant is that I'm just going to continue talking over there," as Jim did a 180 and starting walking the opposite direction, blocking his face with his monster of a script to hide his red face from anyone who might be watching.
Clair just smirked, more amused than anything.
"'Deny and refuse.' But he can't deny it. But Romeo can't not be a Montague, which means that Juliet..."
"'And I'll no longer be a Capulet," Clair said, finishing Mz. Janeth's lecture.
Turns out that Clair was right. He was cast into the role of the leading lady and he took it like a champ. Jim did not know how he was able to shift his voice so subtly that the lines sounded natural to him, but Jim believed him when he claimed to be Juliet.
He's so great, Jim's brain conjured up.
"Jim?"
"Huh?"
"'Or, if thou wilt not, be sworn my love...'"
"Right. No, I-I got it. 'Love, deny, refuse.' I'm on it."
"Okay, then." Mz. Janeth continued, not impressed with Jim's head in the clouds. "Let's take it from 'Wherefore art...'"
"You okay?" Asked Clair.
No. No I'm not okay.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Totally fine."
Stop talking, Jim.
"You're going to need to be a bit more convincing if you're going to play Romeo."
That's right. I'm playing the love interest. Your love interest. And that's aside from the hulking stone monsters out to get me.
"I've just got some stuff going on."
"I know we don't know each other all that well, but we're going to be spending a lot of time together, so-"
"All right, all right! Act two, scene two, line 33."
Mz. Janeth. The kind of timing one hates about math teachers.
A part of Jim was terrified. Another relieved. And a little confused.
What was just another gym class where Steve was pushing his buttons, one thing led to another and Clair was on the ground, nursing a fat lip from a dodge ball that Jim threw. It was an accident of course. He was aiming at Steve and Clair was unlucky enough to walk in at that exact moment. He had to be escorted to the nurse's office.
Not only that but Mz. Janeth had demoted him to understudy. Not just any understudy, but Steve's understudy. Whatever possessed Steve to join the drama club to play the leading role in an all-boy's production of a tragic romance was beyond Jim, but given that demented look Steve has been giving him ever since he decked him in the jaw, it was very likely done out of some unprovoked form of revenge.
Now he was at Clair's house, deciding to do some extra-curricular practice for the play and study session.
"...honestly, I'd rather be on stage with you, even if you are a total flake."
Take THAT Steve! Jim's possessive side prodded. Clair likes ME more!
Clair's baby brother Enrique was bouncing in his little bouncer-thing, having already taken a liking to the teenaged stranger waving a glowing amulet in his face, the shiny trinket clearly entertaining to the little boy.
Clair walked in with a massive bowl of guacamole.
"Aw. He likes you." He set the bowl of chips and dip onto the table before he picked Enrique up. "Come on hermanito. Time to give hermano a study sesh."
With practiced ease, Clair was able to lul the baby to sleep, the sleeping baby visible in the safety of his crib upstairs through a small screen on his laptop.
Jim and Clair rehearsed their lines. Repeating sentence after, sentence. Scene after scene. They were already more than halfway through, making veiled confessions of love through outdated syntax before they decided that they needed a break.
"You might be unpolished, but at least I can take you seriously without that obnoxious whistle Steve's got in-between his teeth."
"Oh, yeah?" Jim laughed. That punch felt so good, and it still did.
"Yeah, and honestly, I don't think it has occurred to him yet that he's in a romance. He acts like a gorilla."
"He looks like a gorilla," Jim quipped. It just made Clair laugh harder.
"A shaved gorilla," Clair retorted.
"Hey, thanks again for this. I-I feel... I feel really bad about what's happening with the play. I know it means a lot to you."
"You know, I was super mad at you, but then I realized that you've got a lot more going on than people think."
"Yeah, I do." Wait. "I do?"
Clair put the script onto the table.
"Come on, Jim. You didn't think I invited you here just for more rehearsals, did you?" Clair pulled out an envelope from his backpack. "You can't just write something like this and not expect a conversation."
Oh crap, Jim shouted in his head. A cold sweat formed on the back of his neck.
Jim had wrote that letter as something of a confession of affection when he thought that Draal was going to kill him. He wrote ones for Toby and his mom too, but this one was special. He wasted the most paper trying to put into words what he wanted to say to him. He all but said plane as day "I'm in love with you" in pen at the end of it. He kissed the damn envelope before he put it away.
"You have to 'battle monsters'? 'Saving he world in which we know'? 'So many things left unsaid'?"
"Uh..."
"What monsters are you battling? I mean, we all have stuff we've got to go through. Are you some kind of trouble?"
...wait, he thinks I was being metaphorical. ...oh! I got it!
"I was... in an exploring stage. Not successful."
Sounded a lot better in my head. Dammit.
Clair's hand grabbed Jim's.
ALERT! ALERT! BRAIN FAILING! EMERGENCY!
"Your words are beautiful, Jim. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I don't know. There's some sentimental stuff at the end that I thought was... kinda sweet."
As Clair averted his gaze, Jim could swear that he was blushing a little.
GOING CRITICAL! GOING CRITICAL! SAY SOMETHING, DAMMIT!
"...really?"
DAMMIT LAKE, YOU'RE SUCH A LOSER!
"If you ever need someone to talk to about 'the monsters,' you can talk to me."
A part of me likes to think that while Jim's outer personality is rather plane and soft-spoken, his inner monologue is much more cynical. Kind of like how you act all polite at your job or around relatives, but in your head you're making sarcastic jokes at their expense.
Anyway, I've been meaning to make some male!Clair/gay!Jim fics because there is a serious lack of them. I would have thought that more would exist, but only one exists on DeviantArt and Wattpad, and it's really short. Jim and Claire as they are are still my favorite couple of the series, but I gots my needs, man! I was thinking of writing more of these (even a few smutty ones if you know what I mean). If you have any good ideas for what these two could do together, let me know. M'kay?