Chapter Text
Asher is currently in Lance's well kept room, filled with minifigures, painting supplies and books on every shelf. He is sitting under the duvet and blankets in Lance's bed, very much paralyzed by how fast this relationship is developing. 15 minutes ago, he was standing outside in the snow, panicking as Lance opened the front door in quite the haste. He looked as dashing as Asher had expected, with bedhead galore and a pretty purple button down shirt. However, right now Lance is downstairs talking to his mother about dinner. Asher was told to get comfy in Lance's bed, as it is cold in the house and Lance had planned some gaming as a start to the afternoon together. To Asher, this is already something out of a fever dream. However, it isn't. This is real!
Minutes later of pure silence in the room that smells like chocolate and sweet men's cologne, Lance's footsteps can be heard in the stairs up to his room. Asher's heart was already pounding before this, but now it proceeds to almost explode out of his chest. As stated before, he is in Lance's bed, but soon with Lance beside him, the entire room smelling like him and.. oh gosh, video games! «I'm in heaven.» Asher whispers to himself, making himself blush as he sees the door opening quietly and slowly, revealing a rather timid Lance. «Good, you've gotten comfortable. Dinner wont be ready before six, so we've got time to do whatever.»
Lance moves up to the small to medium sized TV he has on the wall, turning it on and setting up the screen so that they could play any of the Switch games he had. «What do you feel like playing?» Lance asks, handing a Switch controller to Asher, their fingers touching each other's slightly, giving off Asher's warmth to Lance's cold hand. Asher sadly rips his eyes from Lance beautiful figure, to the TV where he takes a look at the games he could choose between. «Oooh, we should totally play Mario Cart! I haven't played that in aaaages.» Asher says, whilst Lance climbs into the bed beside him. It was true that Asher hadn't played Mario Cart in a while, considering he almost never has friends over, and the only other person he then could play the game with would be his younger brother who quickly loses interest. Also, considering that five years earlier, he didn't have any friends to note, it was even harder to find gaming buddies.
Small droplets of tears well up in the corners of Asher's eyes as the memory of middle school hits him. It was a really dark time in his life.
«Hey, are you alright?» Asher feels a hand on his shoulder, and Lance's now worried eyes focused on Asher's face. Quickly Asher dries his eyes and pats Lance's hand reassuringly. «Oh! Don't worry. It's probably just allergies, I once again forgot to take my meds.» However Lance's hand doesn't leave Asher's shoulder for a little while. His thin perfect for piano like hands stay there, repeatingly and lightly gripping onto Asher's shoulder and then letting go just slightly again. Then there's a silence that follows, but not an uncomfortable one. Asher looks over at Lance who is now looking down into his lap. The glimmering blue in his eyes pale and showing a slight anxiety. «If... if you say so.» Lance then lets his hand slip down from Asher's shoulder, the comfort leaving like a puff of wind through the tree branches that can be seen outside the bedroom window. «Let's play some Mario Cart!»
•-.-.-{Time skip, one hour later}-.-.-•
After a tie, three against three, the two competitive souls decide to roll a dice to see who won in spirit. «If even: I win, if odd: you win.» Lance says as he shakes his hand with the six sided dice in it. Asher nods excitedly, his eyes following Lance's hand as it goes from shaking the dice to throwing it out on a book Lance had brought to make the rolling easier to do on the bed. Clacking is then heard as the plastic hits the hard cover of the book and a result is finally revealed to the onlookers. «Yes! I win!» Asher celebrates with a small movement in his shoulders, back and fourth, and a big grin plastered across his face.
«Darn. Fair game then.» Lance pouts. This expression is super cute on Lance, Asher thinks. Hopefully he can make Lance do this face again. Lance then stretches and puts the Switch controller beside him on the bed, leaning back up against the wall. His eyes slide shut and Asher can't help but pay attention to him. He stays like that for a little while, peacefully resting. However before long, he has to open his eyes again. His ocean blue meets the curious green. A smile suddenly jerks on Lance's lips. He feels like Asher is a person who studies people. Who takes great care to learn about another person's behaviour and way of life.
Asher decides to follow suit, laying down against the wall. He turns his head a little just to be surprised as Lance tips his head over, just enough to lean on Asher's shoulder. They stay like this. Resting. Peaceful. Not needing to utter a single word. Asher carefully lays his head on top of Lance's, almost experimenting with what he can get away with before it «becomes weird». They had paused the game, so there was no music, just silence. Asher let his eyes wander to the window where it was already starting to get dark outside. It's still winter, and snow was just starting to fall. A light whisper in the cold breeze.
Out of actual nowhere, this slightly romantic moment is then interrupted by Lance's dad who comes barging in through the door. In surprise Lance hits his head against Asher's and they both exclaim quietly, «Ouch.», before turning their heads towards the intruder. He looks just as surprised as the teenagers, but then his expression turns into one of pure laughter and joy. «Well hello, I thought I would come see if everything and everyone was fine, but I would say better than ever?». The boys blush and look at each other in response. «Alright, alright, I'll leave y'all to it. Just know that there's some snacks in the fridge if you want it.»
The door closes and now there's an embarrasing silence. «Sorry..» Asher mumbles before straightening up in the bed. «It's alright, it was nice.» Lance says, making Asher smile. «Sooo, what do you want to do now?» Asher asks, fidgeting with his fingers. «Do you want to make a D&D character? I can explain the mechanics of the game ... and teach you how to play.» The idea sounds nice, so Asher agrees.
Then they sit there for a while, noses down the books about D&D. Lance introduces the different races to him first, making him choose one he wants to try out. He finds the goblin to be a fun "first character idea", so he picks that one, and progressing onwards so that they can carry on to classes. However, choosing a class was a different story. Asher loves magic and sorcery, obviously caused by his love for the Harry Potter franchise, but couldn't choose between Sorcerer or Wizard. He ends up choosing a completely different one, the Ranger class instead, as Lance explains it might be easier for him to understand it. Either way Asher mostly chose it because he thought having a magical frying pan as a ranged weapon, sounded too hillarious to not be made into a thing.
Hours pass by, and suddenly the light outside was mostly gone. They could smell pizza buns all the way from the kitchen up to Lance's little hobbit hole. The boys decide to run down together and get ready for dinner. Asher takes a detour and goes to the bathroom to tidy up. Standing before the sink and mirror, he looks at himself. This is amazing! He has never been able to connect with anyone as fast as Lance before. Now they even feel comfortable enough to sit together and read in silence. Lance is seemingly seeking friendship, almost desperately craving for it. Based on the information Asher had gotten from Micah earlier today, he felt a little bad for the boy. He hadn't had many friends either, just like Asher. Maybe that's the secret force that is bringing them this quickly together.
Washing his hands and face, he decides to go out and face Lance once again. This time even calmer than the last. Nontheless still with a heart skipping a beat the second he sees him again. Lance is standing next to his mother who is setting the table for the entire family to come eat dinner. She tells him that he and Asher don't have to sit with them at the dinner table if they don't want to, considering Asher doesn't know his family all that well. Asher smiles as he approaches them, when Lance proceeds to thank his mother and grabs some plates to take up to his room. Grabbing a pair of cups, Asher helps him. Then they head upstairs again. The entire house really does smell like pizza heaven, and since pizza is Asher's favourite dish, the aroma makes him eager for dinner to hurry up and finish already.
•-.-.-{Time skip, after dinner and another quick Mario session}-.-.-•
«Hey, I know we just ate dinner like an hour ago, but do you want ice cream?» Lance says, standing up to stretch after finishing another level. «Sure!» Asher eagerly agrees. Lance gestures for Asher to stay covered in his blanket before going off to the freezer. Waiting, Asher takes another look out the window. It is now completely dark outside. The time is around seven, and he is being picked up in an hour or so. «Aaaah I don't wanna leaaaaave...» Asher quietly murmurs. The bed is completely cluttered, with books, snacks and video game controllers. It looks like both of them are having a great time. He decides to commemorate the occation with a picture of the mess and the TV with Mario Galaxy on it. Then he sends it to a private group chat in discord, where he instantly recieves a response from Annie, Kade and Idris. «Hey! It's Lance's room! Great to see you are enjoying yourselves.» Idris' message reads out.
Lance comes in with a tub of ice cream and a small tower of bowls to put it in. «Elp-» He happens to say as he quickly runs over towards the bed, the bowls almost sliding off the top of the tub. A few moments faster than expected, Asher gets hit by the tub, the bowls and Lance. The tub and bowls slide off to the side of Asher when Lance hits his head on Asher's chest, now laying directly on top of him. The two boys stay there looking at each other for a few seconds, Lance now apologising profusely. Asher says nothing, his lips jerking up into a smirk when he decides to be bold. He pecks Lance's forehead as a way to say «apology accepted».
The silence afterwards immediately makes Asher nervous, be that as it may, Lance then gives out a hearty chuckle when he was able to process the situation. «What was that?» he asks, smiling from ear to ear.
«A kiss of: it's fine.»