Work Text:
Alfred was always a little surprised when people waited for him.
He’d stayed so late that even the late buses weren’t coming anytime soon. His physics teacher had been okay with it– The guy enjoyed looking at Alfred’s work, and they both enjoyed commiserating over complex equations and theoretical space stuff neither could convince anyone else to listen to. The teacher would often bemoan Alfred’s status as his “best friend,” but always in a joking manner. Alfred would care a lot more about the sketchiness if it wasn’t for the fact that, before last year, the teacher had been his only friend.
Until this year, when some weirdo called Ivan Braginski had decided to be weird about Alfred in another way. The asshole had constantly pulled his theoretical pigtails, and now? Now, he was doing all sorts of stuff.
Like waiting. Everywhere he went, Ivan would wait for him to follow. The guy was tall- six foot something, in freedom units, towering over Alfred’s barely-five-five stature. Ivan could use his long ass legs, too, as the guy had been on a number of sports teams before… well, the accident.
Whatever. The point was, Ivan had been doing a lot of waiting around for Alfred lately, and it was equal parts pissing him off and charming him. To him, it was a sign of love– and Ivan seemed to be full of those, lately. All for him, too, none of his other friends got the same treatment.
If Alfred didn’t know better he’d assume the guy was actually, like, in love with him. Or something. But that was impossible, because Alfred was a short nerd and chubby and altogether completely undateable. No way Mr Popular Russian Transfer Student would fall for him– That was just ridiculous.
The way Ivan was leaning on the wall outside of his classroom didn’t make his feelings any clearer. Ivan’s back, flush against the wall of lockers, made him appear rather relaxed- so did his face, which had been buried into his scarf (which was a gift from his sister and an object of comfort for him). If Alfred didn’t know him, he’d have asked if Ivan was nodding off.
Alfred did know him. Ivan’s always-tense shoulders and other subtle notes in his posture denoted that Ivan was awake, and very aware. So Alfred just… walked over to the still figure of his maybe-friend. It worked fine enough; Ivan cracked an eye open as soon as Alfred’s footsteps stopped, looking down at him. A soft smile spread across his face, and Alfred admired it.
People (mostly Alfred’s other friends) always said Ivan looked creepy when he smiled. Alfred couldn’t comprehend it– Sure, Ivan had that intimidating grin, but that wasn’t a smile. Not really. That was more like a dog baring its teeth when threatened. This, however- this slow petal-opening joy on Ivan’s face, just for Alfred, that only Alfred got to see- It blew that fake grin away. It was a private affair, and it always made Alfred’s insides go fuzzy and warm.
A consequence of Alfred’s insides going fuzzy and warm was that he’d smile, too, and then someone else would inevitably go, “What’re you two smiling about?” Today, nobody was around to do that. Today, Alfred and Ivan walked back to Alfred’s shitty little apartment together, grinning and enjoying the comfortable silence between them.
Today, Alfred tried to contend with the idea of maybe, just a little, being in love with Ivan Braginski.