#// because aro stories deserve to be multifaceted and not just about our identities

[fear-before-valor]

Romeo, Question Mark // Aromantic!Jim fic because I wanted aro content and if I can’t find some, I’ll [thanos voice] do it myself // Words: 1810 // Warnings: slight internalized aphobia; nothing that bad, just the amount that might come from an insecure teenager still learning about himself-- that said, take care of yourself, and remember that you are valid! <3 --

“Hey Tobes?” A voice sounds, in the dead of night.

“Yeah, Jim?” There is a rustling of a sleeping bag, because Toby would never, ever sleep in the bed if Jim was sleeping on the floor. He’d much sooner sleep on the floor with him, and Jim is too nice to steal half of Toby’s bed, even if it would have been alright by Toby. And it would have been. But again… Jim’s too polite. Toby knows this. Toby knows Jim.

For example, Toby knows that right this moment, Jim’s long stretch of silence is not from his being sleepy. He can practically feel the nervousness rolling off of his best friend, but he isn’t sure what the next move either of them will make is— or what it perhaps should be— so he remains quiet as well, and simply waits for Jim to respond back. He waits a long, long moment, and he’s almost afraid that Jim is going to bail on whatever he wanted to bring up—

—But then—

“What does a crush feel like?”

There is a long beat.

…Oh. Huh.

Toby realizes immediately that Jim can likely feel his brief, shocked silence, so he rushes to make it clear that he doesn’t think the question is weird, even if it caught him a little out of left field. Quick, Toby, he thinks to himself, Make Jim laugh. It’ll relax him.

“Well, you’re the Trollhunter; don’t you know how it feels to crush something?”

It is a stupid, stupid joke, Toby thinks, but it works on Jim’s midnight brain, as a soft, fond laugh sounds from Jim’s side of the room, which Toby has yet to look toward, for fear of breaking whatever is going on. He wants Jim to feel comfortable enough to talk to him, so he refuses to look at the other boy yet, knowing that his gaze might make his best friend hide whatever is happening inside his head. Toby wishes Jim wouldn’t do that so often. He likes when he’s allowed in Jim’s head. The guy dwells up there a little too much, in Toby’s opinion. He overthinks things like crazy these days, with all the pressures on him. Which, as supportive as Toby is, for all of Jim’s endeavors— be it Romeo, or the successor to an ancient line of warriors dating back centuries— Toby can’t help but worry sometimes, about how much his best friend has taken on. He knows he isn’t supposed to like Strickler and all, but Toby can’t really deny that the man has a point with his nickname for Jim. He really does shoulder the world.

Jim’s voice slices into Toby’s worries, his amused tone calming some of them, “Not what I meant, Tobes. You know what I meant.”

“Hey, maybe I don’t. You don’t know that.”

Jim’s voice, like his laugh moments ago, is, again, fond. “Yes I do.”

Toby’s chest flips in a weird way. A way he can’t quite identify. “Okay, fine… I do know what you meant…” He admits, but he isn’t sure where to go after that.

The room is dead silent for a second, the kind of quiet where both parties can hear the other think, until Jim interrupts it and asks, “So… do you know? Y’know… what a crush feels like?”

Toby frowns, thinking about it more seriously. He isn’t sure he’ll do the best job describing it, but he tries. “Well… Uh, you know how I like Darcy?” He asks, and at Jim’s assent, he continues. “It’s like… when she smiles, my knees go all weak, and my chest feels really light. And… I want to be the reason she smiles. I want to hold her hand, and take her on dates, and slow dance with her at Spring Fling over and over again, like we did that… one night…” Toby hesitates to bring up their most recent Spring Fling, remembering belatedly what else had happened then.

He moves on quickly, “It’s like… I dunno. I want to make her happy, like she makes me happy. I won’t say I wanna live my whole life with her ‘cause we’re only 16, but… I guess…. sometimes, it feels like that. Even if I know it’s unlikely.” He shrugs, a little saddened at the thought, but not fully. He knows that high school relationships rarely survive graduation, and he’s made peace with that. And, moreso in his case, he knows that there’s an unfortunate possibility that he won’t even survive to graduation, but that one, he tries not to make peace with. It’s bad for the mind.

“…Huh.” Jim retorts, seemingly unable to say anything but that.

After Toby waits for Jim to speak again… and becomes aware after a while that Jim isn’t going to, he chances it, rolls the dice, says, “Can I ask why you’re asking?”

Jim evades the real question, and instead answers what Toby verbalized, rather than what Toby left unsaid. “You can ask.”

“…Will you answer?” Toby responds, resisting with all of his might, the urge to look at Jim. He stares at a glowing green plastic star on his ceiling instead.

Jim’s hesitation is palpable. Toby can feel it in the hairs on his arm, by the way the very air seems to tense with Jim’s shoulders, which Toby can hear against the noisy fabric of his sleeping bag.

“I-” Jim’s voice catches in his throat. “Maybe…?”

“Not that you have to,” Toby says, uncertain, “But you can… you can share… y’know. If you want to.”

His best friend’s response is immediate. “Promise you won’t judge?”

Jim has been wishing to talk about this, Toby realizes, and his words come as fast as Jim’s did, “Of course I won’t.”

The silence this time, is Jim psyching himself up. Toby can tell. He can hear it in the way that he takes a few deep breaths, the way that he shifts restlessly.

“I don’t think I actually have a crush on Claire.” Jim blurts.

…Oh. Again.

No offense to Jim, Toby restrains relieved laughter, but that’s it? He thinks to himself. He doesn’t say that, though, because he knows that that won’t help reassure his friend in the slightest.

“Oh,” he repeats, aloud this time. “Well, that’s fine. Crushes come and go—”

“No.” Jim says, sounding upset. Toby freezes, listening. “I don’t mean—“ Jim huffs softly, “I mean… Ugh, sorry Tobes.” Toby practically hears the other boy collecting his thoughts, “I just mean… I don’t think I ever had a- a real crush on her.”

Did Jim’s voice just break? Toby feels like he’s had the wind knocked from his lungs. Whether Jim’s voice had or not, Toby’s heart certainly had. Is Jim so afraid of Toby judging him for misreading his feelings?

Toby shakes his head, even if he isn’t sure whether or not Jim sees it, “That’s okay, too, buddy. I’m not gonna judge you for that. Crushes are weird. They aren’t always easy to figure out.”

“…Right.” Jim sounds like something else is on his mind, but Toby doesn’t think pushing him seems quite right.

He takes a more subtle approach. “Thanks for telling me, though, Jimbo. I’m glad you feel like you can tell me something like that. Because, of course you can. I’m here for you.”

It isn’t so subtle that Toby fools himself to think that Jim hasn’t noticed, but it isn’t an outright probe, either.

He can tell that Jim appreciates it, however, by the sound of his voice. “Thanks, Tobes. I guess… I’ve just been scared of what’s been going on in my head, y’know? Do you… ever get that way?”

Toby thinks about his words before answering, but he gives a vocalized ‘hm’ to make sure that Jim knows that he isn’t just ignoring the question. “I mean… I’m no savior of the world and all, but, yeah, I get that. There’s a lot happening right now, troll stuff aside. We’re teenagers; things are kinda expected to be weird and complicated these days, right?” He gives a soft smile in the darkness, letting it bleed into his words.

Jim’s nod is audible against nylon once again, as he says, “Right. Understatement of the year, huh?”

Toby grins. “For sure. But that’s okay. Because we can get through it together, y’know? There’s nothing you could do to make me leave you, Jim, you know that, right?”

Jim’s silence is from shock, he knows. Toby allows him a moment to process.

“…Even if I’m… not really… normal…?”

Toby can’t hold back his snicker this time, “Jim, is anything about our reality ‘normal’ right now?”

Jim’s smile colors his words, to Toby’s relief. “Right. Of course it isn’t.” He pauses for a second, as if making up his mind, and Toby waits for him to do that, “Can I tell you something?”

Toby answers as quickly as a heartbeat responds to itself, “Of course.”  

“I-” Jim hesitates one more time, but evidently decides to push through, as he says, so quietly that Toby nearly misses it; lucky he is holding his breath, so that he doesn’t miss Jim’s words in his own exhale, “I think I’m… aromantic, Toby.”

Toby takes a single beat to breathe in and out, to allow this to add to his bank of knowledge about Jim, to his understanding of his best friend, and then says, “That’s cool. Was it the play that gave it away?”

There is a brief, alarmed pause, before Jim laughs, hard, at that. It starts slow, but rapidly grows lighter and more frequent, until it is closer to a giggle or a wheeze. “How do you know me so well?” He gets out between laughs.

Toby’s grin could light up the whole room. “‘Cause I’m your best friend, dude. It’s like… my whole job description.”

When Jim finally gets a handle on his chuckles, he responds, “Right. How could I forget?”

“You’d never. You just have a lot happening right now.” Toby reminds him.

“…Yeah.”

“But not tonight.” Toby soothes Jim’s beginning-to-wind-up mind, catching it before it can get too far.

Jim gives one last, singular laugh, soft, and fond, “Yeah.” He says again. “Not tonight.”

By the tone of his voice, Toby can tell that Jim finally feels like everything is okay. And he’s glad. Because it is. Just for that night, everything is okay.

The two boys fall asleep in minutes, closer in both heart and in body. Neither of them can remember when it happened, or who initiated, but when they wake the next morning, they find themselves hand in hand, and it isn’t even embarrassing. Because they are, as they always have been, best friends in every way. They will always reassure each other, and they will always be there for each other, and they will, evidently, always do it hand in hand.