Manipulated Vunerability ~ HSMTMTS AU

Chapter 13

Big Red and Ricky were in the redhead's basement together, playing video games. They were actually enjoying themselves, and romantic relationships were the farthest from their minds (not that Big Red could go very long without his mind somehow drifting to his girlfriend).

"Hey, I'll be right back." Ricky paused their game and stood up.

"Where ya going?"

"Bathroom."

"Mkay," Big Red smiled. He watched his friend walk up the stairs. He sat there, his happiness sinking in. Things with Ricky were fine, so all he had to do was make sure Ricky and Lily didn't last very long. How hard could it be to make him see the red flags?

He got snapped out of his thoughts when he received a call, which he gladly picked up. "Hey," He heard Ashlyn say.

"Hey, whatcha up to?" He asked cheerfully.

"Not much, just bored. How 'bout you?" She asked.

"I'm hanging out with Ricky, but he's in the bathroom."

"Oh, then I'll go in a second." She told him. "Having a good time?"

"Actually, yeah," he smiled. "It just feels right. Which kinda makes me wanna help more."

"You know, I think you're right." She admitted. "Obviously we have to leave it up to him some, but the whole... subtle thing, where we only ignore him if he's talking about Lily, isn't working."

"Are you saying we're just supposed to completely ignore him?" He furrowed his eyebrows. It made no sense to him, and it didn't sound like something she would suggest.

"What? No," she answered, "I think we just have to really talk to him. Keep it calm, because bickering will get us no where, but you know... I really wanna help."

"Me too. But you don't have to, you know. I can do it myself, you aren't that close with him, and if that's weird to you..."

"No, it's all good. I'm fairly close with him, I wanna help him, and I wanna help you. And, honestly, me. If they break up, we won't have the occasional Lily run in... and that would be really nice."

"I love you, Ash." He smiled lightly. "And thank you. Thank you so, so much."

"Of course. I love you." She replied. "Okay, I'll go, I'm sure Ricky will be back soon."

"Bye babe," he hung up. It wasn't long before he heard Ricky's footsteps on the stairs.

"Were you talking to someone?" Ricky asked curiously, sitting beside him once again.

"Yeah, Ashlyn called me." He answered.

"Cool."

"Yeah..." he hesitated. "Ricky, um... do you wanna hang out come over, like... Saturday? Next Saturday, not tomorrow, of course." He specified.

"Yeah, sure?"

"What?"

"It's just usually not planned."

"Well, I was thinking it would be fun. Maybe, uh, we could invite Ashlyn too. And all catch up." Big Red suggested.

"Then I should probably invite Lily, she'd feel left out."

"I'm sure she'll get it. I mean, Ashlyn doesn't care when I hang out with you two."

"Yeah, I guess, but we like doing things together." Ricky shrugged.

"We do too. I just miss seeing you without her. Just want some, uh... bro time."

"With Ashlyn?"

"Well, she misses you too." Big Red explained.

"Really? That's nice, I guess we didn't talk much after we stopped being co-leads."

"Yeah, and I think she'd like that. I mean, I know she would. So maybe just this once don't invite Lily?"

"I'll have to make sure we don't have plans already, I can't ever remember, but sure."

"Great," Big Red smiled to himself. "Sounds great."