Hell's Book of Random One-shots

Dragged Into It - Male Crush - Request

You stared at the letter in your hands, reading and re-reading the words over and over to make sure that you were taking everything in correctly.

Not that you needed to, there wasn't much on the page in general, just an invitation to a combined vacation between your family and your near lifelong neighbours from across the street.

Neighbours who had quickly become a second family as you were growing up, two units becoming one without the need of a marriage between two established members.

The parents of each unit had met by pure chance on the street as you were moving in and got talking about their adult business, you and your sister watched as two strange kids ran around their front garden, screaming, laughing and playing as a boy was chased by an older girl.

This family became the closest friends yours would ever have.

Both units had seen many highs and lows together, from the birth of new siblings to deaths within the families, there was barely an event that went unshared between the two.

There had also been many day trips or weekends away, but the last time that you had gone on a combined vacation that lasted more than a few days was when you were seven.

That trip had always been a fond memory for you and have become a real bonding experience between the two families, which made it all the more surprising that you and their second eldest child barely exchanged a couple of conversations over the years that you had known one another.

There was only two years between you both in age, but those two years were enough to have you running in separate crowds despite the closeness of your families.

When you were just kids who couldn't go beyond the ends of the street, you would play in a group with him and other kids who lived in the same area but that soon dwindled as you all grew older and made friends from further afield.

Eventually you all mostly drifted apart unless a neighbourhood event was going on where all families were invited to a barbeque or garden party.

It was purely the nature of life.

The most time you had spent with one another was during that vacation, a week's worth of memories of tree climbing and bug hunting in the holiday forest your families had decided to go camping in.

It had seemed so much wilder back then, that almost made it feel like a betrayal when you learned that it was in fact an area specified for safe camping, but that didn't detract from your overall enjoyment of your time away, spending it with the boy who made your heart flutter.

Alas, it wasn't a friendship that was going to blossom much further than that trip.

You both moved in different crowds and kept different company, went to different schools and, even at combined family events, you would be off speaking to other friends or relatives while giving each other minimal passing attention.

That didn't stop you from developing a crush from afar.

As you grew up and started paying more attention to those around you in a new, physical kind of way, you accepted the fact that he had caught your eye and had quickly become the cutest kid on the street.

Then hormones went wild and you both changed in ways your kids selves could never have imagined, but you never got any closer than passing greetings and light conversations.

There had been repeated moments over the years when your parents would comment about it being a shame that you never really befriended one another, being so close in age would have apparently been an ideal solution to everything in their eyes.

As if everything could be fixed by a random friendship just because your families were close.

You understood when you were older that they were worried about you being lonely, but you were happy to simply watch from a distance while going about your own life with your own out of the neighbourhood friends.

You had happily settled on just giving him heart eyes as he went about his life without you being a key factor.

Not that it overly bothered you, you both had lives to lead and a mild, lingering crush on a neighbourhood kid wasn't enough to derail your plans for the future and eventually you graduated school then went your own way, heading off to do your own thing.

He did the same and from there you lost contact, only seeing one another during holidays if you were both visiting home.

There had been a few times when you'd both missed a dinner or holiday due to other plans, yours mostly due to coursework and then eventually shift patterns at a new job and him apparently off with his current partner's family.

Life was continuing on and the past was getting further away, the dwindling relationship you'd shared with him and his sister was fading further, though your own sister stayed in contact with his and they both still enjoyed teasing you about your crush on him.

Sure, your heart had lurched a little upon hearing the news that he had found someone during college, your years long crush having lingered at least a little despite how much you had believed that you'd have gotten over it at that point, but you still tried to stay happy for him and congratulated him the next time you saw him at a combined family meal.

He'd thanked you and you'd had a brief catch-up conversation on what you were both up to, but the conversation died as quickly as it had started and you separated to speak to other people.

Your life continued on as it always had, without him in it beyond the occasional update from his sister or a fleeting memory of careless childhood years during the downtime you had between shifts.

Then the invitation came through the door.

That garish pastel red and yellow envelope sat on your floor, staring up at you as you entered the apartment after a long shift.

You had only wanted to get your weekend off started, you'd already planned what you were going to have for dinner and what you would watch while eating it, but all of that had been derailed by the one sheet of paper.

That one, little envelope that unfolded to reveal two familiar family names in bold letters.

Beneath that was a simple sentence that only a corporation could think was catchy:

Soak up the sun for a week of fun at the Sapphire Ascent Resort!