Manipulated Vunerability ~ HSMTMTS AU

Chapter 3

Big Red had to share his room with Ricky, but he didn't even want to sit in his presence for very long currently. He knew he had to, and he tried his hardest to not completely ghost Ricky. It was sure to be a misunderstanding that they would recover from. The only probably was, Big Red didn't know when. If he had to apologize to get Ricky to apologize, he knew it wouldn't be heartfelt. And neither would Big red's, as he didn't think he did anything wrong. He knew he had to look at it from both sides, though.

It took him awhile to work up the courage to leave Ashlyn's house. He felt so comfortable with her (and Sunny, who tended to fall asleep on his lap, and that night was not an exception), unlike the discomfort he currently felt in his friendship with Ricky. How would he even fix it?

"Hey." Big Red said, getting into his bed. Ricky was already down in the basement, lying on a mattress he had hauled downstairs from the guest room (neither boys wanted to tell their parents about their fight just yet, otherwise Ricky probably would have settled where the bed originally was).

"Hey." Ricky simply replied.

"Sounds like you had a good night." He said, trying to break the tension with small talk. It couldn't hurt, right?

"Yeah..."

Okay, it did hurt. "Are you two a thing?"

"Yeah." Ricky nodded.

"Okay."

"Look, I'm sorry you don't like Lily. Girls don't mess up our relationship, right?"

"They shouldn't." Big Red nodded.

"Good."

"But they are, Ricky. I wouldn't care if you were dating her if she was annoying, that's your choice. But I told you how she's acted, I don't understand and I can't be happy for you."

"You don't have to be happy for her, but why not me? We're friends."

"I'd like to roughly quote Ashlyn real quick: treat me like it. Do you think I would date someone who insulted you and Nini?" Big Red asked.

"You already have a girlfriend."

"But if I didn't—"

"I don't have one, I want one, and Lily's only been nice to me. If she gets rude, then I'll dump her. It's easy."

"It's not that easy—"

"You're jealous." Ricky accused.

"Lily's a really bad influence on you." The redhead scoffed. "I'm jealous of some things in life, yeah. I'm definitely not jealous of dating a girl who insulted—"

"You keep saying that, she's changed. She insulted you guys months ago."

"I'm still not jealous! I have a girlfriend! We're happy together, and I don't want anything new, so why would I even be jealous?"

"Then why do you care so much?"

"Why do I care?" He scoffed. "I don't want my best friend getting hurt! I don't want him hurting anyone indirectly because of his stupid girlfriend."

"Would you like it if I called your girlfriend stupid?"

"You like my girlfriend, Ricky." He rolled his eyes.

"What if you were dating someone I thought was stupid?"

"Maybe I'd hear you out if she had flat out insulted you!" He managed to pull himself together. "I'm going to sleep."

"Fine."

"Good." Big Red laid down, turning of his lamp (the only source of light left), and tried to fall asleep. Around 30 minutes la, he sighed. He grabbed his phone and hid under his blanket.

Sleep came eventually.