Solangelo Oneshots

Flamingos and Jam Tarts

Nico was a dork.

Not in a self deprecating way. More in a matter of fact way.

He had all your stereotypical traits with his braces, his floppy hair, his inept social skills and the fact he was a theatre kid. He wasn't even a proper theatre kid. He was a background theatre kid.

The latest play at school was Alice In Wonderland. He'd auditioned for the Cheshire Cat and didn't get the part. Fair enough, he didn't smile a lot. Then he auditioned for the Mad Hatter. Apparently he was far too sane. The March Hare was out of the question as was the White Rabbit, the King, the Queen of Hearts and Alice herself. So here he sat at the theatre club as the others performed waiting for his once in a lifetime show where he would walk on stage. And what was his debut performance?

A flamingo.

He was one of the flamingos used to play croquet.

Honestly the football team didn't look too bad from over here.

Nico sat on a folding chair in the corner of the room watching the actors recite their lines. It was ages until he needed to waddle onto stage and kick a ball. Right now, he was scrolling through the Internet trying to find the most flattering flamingo costume there was and unsurprisingly was having no results.

"Flamingo, eh?" a voice over his should said. Nico blinked as a boy pulled up a chair beside him and leaned close, peering over his shoulder. Nico put his phone away.

"Um, yeah."

"Could be worse." The boy flashed a charming grin. Nico rolled his eyes.

"Thanks for trying to make me feel better but I'm a fucking flamingo. What could be worse?"

The boy shrugged. Nico paused to take him in. He'd seen him around but never spoken to him. His name was Will, Nico thought. His twin sister, Kayla, was in Nico’s history class. Will didn't look much like Kayla though. They had the same freckles and sun-kissed skin but that's where the similarities ended. Kayla’s hair was dyed whereas Will’s was a natural blond and looked so soft Nico felt the urge to pet it. His eyes were deep blue and his smile was crooked.

"I'm a tart."

Nico was jolted from his thoughts. "I'm sorry?"

Will gestured to the stage. "I'm playing a jam tart."

Nico studied his expression. He was serious.

"A tart and a flamingo?" Nico snorted. "Maybe they just wanted to tell us that we're really gay."

For a second, Nico was afraid he'd scared Will off but Will was laughing his head off.

"Would they be wrong?" He chuckled.

"No," Nico responded with a small smile. Will glanced at him curiously for a moment. It was broken by the drama teacher yelling out them to "get off your lazy asses and act".

-

Nico started hanging out with Will a lot during rehearsal. Neither of them had anything else to do so they talked and messed around and generally made a nuisance of themselves.

"Okay but what would you do if you were an actual flamingo?" Will asked, resting his head on his hands with his elbows on his knees.

Nico shrugged. "Get a flamingo boyfriend and eat shrimp. That's the life."

"What if you were a tart?"

The words wait for you to eat me danced tantalisingly on Nico’s tongue but he held it back.

"I suppose I'd be in a bit of a jam," he joked. It was a terrible joke but it was better than ruining his life. Okay maybe that was a little dramatic but it would certainly ruin his sanity during rehearsals.

Will huffed "That's not a proper answer."

"Well what would you do?"

"Wait for the Knave to whisk me away so we can live happily ever after." Will pretended to swoon and nearly fell off his chair. Nico's hand instinctively grabbed Will’s sleeve to stop him tumbling to the ground.

They froze. Nico sheepishly put his hands back on his lap.

"Good luck with that," he said, trying to ease the awkwardness that had enveloped them.

"Thanks."

"Oi, you two!" the drama teacher hollered. "If I wanted teenage horniness I would have done Romeo and Juliet! Get over here."

Both of them blushed deep red and hurried over. Waiting in the wings for his turn to go on, Nico turned to Will and coughed.

"Er, just if you wanted to, we could meet up after school? To talk about tarts?"

Will grinned. "Sure! Maybe we can do a little Romeo and Juliet too."

The stammering mess that was Nico was called onto stage. It was his best flamingo cosplay yet.