Asher (Completed)

Snowman

Alistair's POV

I couldn’t respond, I honestly couldn’t do anything, my entire body felt frozen and my eyes were blinking up and down at him truly like a deer caught in the headlights. 

Even in my comatose-like state I still observed how the left corner of his lips seemed to quirk up at my awkward frozen behaviour which I knew seemed unusual for me, before he moved to place his tray on the nightstand, shifted closer to me, then repeated his question “Alistair are you in love with me?”

I sighed, sitting up and mimicking his cross-legged placement before replying “Ash, are you sure this is what you want to talk about now? Today? Right now? What about the book? Even Ian? I don’t even understand what brought this up”

He released a deep huff before taking my hands in his, running his thumbs over the skin of my palms and replying “I already made my decision concerning everything, I have to finish the book because I do not want anyone making continuous assumptions about Raine’s life, about who she was. Right now, that is all they’re doing. I need people to know how much having both you and her in my life meant, and I don’t want any other person to be the one to break the story”.

I couldn’t help but flush at the feel of his thumbs on my palms and his sincere claim of how much I meant to him, this entire conversation’s effect on me was also greatly influenced by our closeness. 

I still did not understand what brought this on and though I surely wasn’t complaining, I was still on guard because I expected the rug to be pulled out from under me at any moment. 

Ash seemed to notice the worry from my features and stiff posturing and so he went on, “Al, I’m asking because I honestly didn’t understand what I feel for you, from earlier today, the way I reacted to you, the way I have been reacting to you ever since I came here. I didn’t understand a lot about it, because you have just always been my best friend but I began to understand that I may be falling in love with you. I began to understand that maybe I’ve always felt something stronger than friendship between us, but I just couldn’t see it back then because I was utterly in love with Raine”.

I felt the ground shift , he’s falling in love with me?

Ash paused and then moved so he was staring directly at me as he went on “I was in love with Raine and you were my best friend, but you were also always Al, the Al that held me while I cried, the Al that listened to me pour out my frustrations about watching my mum grow colder as my relationship with Raine grew, the Al that loved the girl I was in love with like a sister, who got her a camera and told her to fit as much memories as she could into it, the Al who helped me throw the first party she ever danced at, the Al who would let Raine put makeup and glitter on him and the Al who I couldn’t help but think was gorgeous with it. 

The Al who always made me laugh, who strived harder to be himself the harder his mother pushed against it, the Al who didn’t care that I didn’t put a label on my sexuality, who kept growing into the strongest and bravest person I would ever know but still fought hard everyday then to accept his own sexuality.

You were the Al who fell deeply in love with music and then gave me his first ever guitar with our initials on it and taught me to play.

The Al who played the piano to put me to sleep and then recorded a new song for me to listen to every night because he just cared that much, the Al that pushed me to start really living again, to open my heart to someone new even though he might be in love with me too”.

He was crying now, his shoulder shaking with the tear drops that rolled down his cheeks and I wanted nothing more than to pull him into my arms, so I did. 

I wrapped my arms tight around him and ran my left hand down his back while my right hand gently combed through his honey blond hair as I let him finish “I think I’ve always been in love with you, but I could never see it where it was, right under my nose, growing everyday within me, I think I was never ready to really see it. I do see it now, it's become glaring for me and truth is I’m not in the right space for a full relationship right now but I still need to know I am not imagining what you feel for me too”

I pulled away, just enough so I could look directly into his beautiful blue eyes and gently wipe away the tears hanging onto his cheeks before I replied “I am in love with you, I think I have been in love with you since the day you stood up to John and Jesse for me, I fell in love with the way you take care of others, how you always put the people you love first;