underneath the lights || hsmtmts

can you hold me | big red x ricky

{Author's Note: this was for an ao3 request, though it veered strongly off prompt so i may at some point write them a new one based on the prompt. also full disclosure while this is NOT a friendship piece, like it's focused on big red's romantic feelings and there is a romantic relationship, they do wind up as friends in the end and not as romantic partners. it isn't a sad ending for the characters, but i do want to disclaim it.

i also thought i should note there is background rini bc this follows them from childhood through the years and big red ruminates on it quite a lot. okay cool hope you enjoy!}

—

there was just something about having a best friend that was more special than anything else in the world. and with that being true, it was quite obviously the case that being best friends with ricky bowen was the best thing that could have possibly happened to one big red redonovich.

they met as kids, in the second grade when they'd tripped over each other in a game of what was supposed to be freeze tag and wound up both stuck in the nurse's office for a while in the afternoon.

big red distinctly remembers a little girl named nini salazar-roberts on the playground, deciding she would kiss them both better on their scraped knees. her two little pigtails swaying in the wind had clearly caught ricky's eye even as she skipped away with that dizzying smile of hers, but big red's gaze was stuck between the two, unable to stop looking at his best friend even as they watch nini hurry back to her friends.

ricky bowen would be the other kid in his classes who liked to skateboard. the other kid who played musical instruments that big red wound up owning but never truly learned to play. (he gave up the drums after a few lessons drove his parents up a wall, though so many years later they still sit in his basement bedroom). they would go to the skate park together, they'd sit in the corner of his family pizza shop coloring on old menus and drinking too much soda together, they did just about everything together.

from the age of the tire swing gone wrong to that of playing video games ricky's dad probably should've read the content warning on, they were attached at the hip. alway had been and always would be.

—

big red distinctly remembers the weekend a good few years ago that ricky's parents had gone out of town and left him to stay at nini's house. when the bowen parents got back and big red hung out with his best friend again, he learned about something he didn't think was quite a possibility before.

ricky had come home from nini's house after attending slc pride with the salazar-roberts' and he was telling big red about how he had decided he was bisexual.

now big red grew up in a fairly liberal family, but it wasn't like salt lake was the most open place overall. it was still utah... sure, he knew women could love women and men could love men. it made sense to him. but he hadn't ever quite realized that you could in fact like both. he simply wasn't aware that was an option.

he could be bewildered by nini's pigtails and also want to spend his hours pushing ricky's curls out of his eyes.

so when ricky tells him that this was something that he could be, that it was how he felt, big red's eyes had widened substantially as he made the realization. several at once in fact as he looks back on the memory.

"i think i'm bisexual too." he had said, and ricky had given him a high five, said something about how they were like twins. they were only 10 or so, but that moment definitely stuck with big red for a while.

—

ricky bowen had his first kiss when he was 13 years old. he and nini had been spending a lot of time together, so when big red heard the news, he couldn't be too shocked by the big reveal the next day. ricky's eyes had shone as he talked all about the way she tasted like watermelon starbursts. sure, big red laughed at his friend when he recounted the way their braces had gotten stuck, but he finds himself a bit put off by the whole story.