Adore // Oneshots

Valentine (Joshler)

CATEGORY: Fluff, holidays
FEATURING: loner!Tyler and spaceboy!Josh
TRIGGER WARNINGS: None, pure fluff
PROMPT: Tyler's mom makes him give valentines to everyone in his class.
WORDS: Approximately 2,860

I know I'll probably get some hate for this, but I'm not a huge fan of holidays.

I mean, the holiday itself is okay, but getting together with big groups of family or friends? Forget it. I've always been a bit of a loner. I do have one good friend at school, Brendon, and sometimes when we hang out he brings along whoever he's dating. But big groups of people are a no. I always feel like an outsider, like I don't belong.

My least favorite holiday, of all of them, is Valentine's Day. I always see everybody with their sweethearts, and it kind of hurts to see, because I've never had a girlfriend or boyfriend before. It's not that I'm opposed to dating or anything. I'm just confused.

I'm wasn't sure about the proper term for my sexuality those days, but I do know that I like boys more than I like girls. I was pretty sure my family wasn't homophobic, but I hadn't told them about it because I wasn't sure about myself. I wanted to go with them definitive information? I wanted to go to tehm and say "this is what I am", not "I think I might be this but I'm not sure". 

So that's why, at age fifteen, I'd still never kissed anybody, much less been on a date.

The day before Valentine's Day, my mom knocked on my door. I had finished my homework and was watching some various people on YouTube do covers of my favorite songs.

"Come in," I said, pausing my video.

My mom came in the room. She had a paper bag in her arms. "Have you finished your homework yet?"

I nodded. I was a pretty good student; I got mostly A's on my report card, like my siblings Zack, Jay, and Madison. My parents were proud of all of us, and liked checking in now and then to make sure we weren't having any trouble with our work.

"Are you busy?" she asked. As watching the playlist I'd assembled wasn't extremely important, I shook my head.

Mom beamed. "Good. Come on out into the kitchen with me, we're doing a family project."

My mom was a lover of family projects. They usually involved me and my siblings, led by mom, doing some sort of 'community project'. She tried to get our dad into it when he wasn't working, but he was usually able to come up with some sort of reasonable excuse. 

Mom liked to say that the projects helped us to "bond as a family" and "make our community better". Sometimes the projects were fun, like the time we sold lemonade to raise money for a local charity. Sometimes, they were less fun, like the time she made us perform a very not funny comedy skit at an old folk's home. I still have flashbacks.

"What are we doing?" I asked Mom as she led me downstairs to join my siblings, who were already gathered at the kitchen table.

Mom set the paper bag on the table and clasped her hands together as I took a seat next to Zack. "You guys are all going to make valentines for your homeroom classes!"

Zack, Jay and I all groaned. Madison cheered, seemingly the only one who was actually excited.

"Come on," Mom chided, "it's not that bad. When I was a kid, we couldn't afford to do stuff like this. You're lucky. You'll get to meet all the people in your class, and you might make some friends."

I had the feeling that this was directed to me. We'd just moved to Columbus a few weeks ago for my dad's job, and I, for one, was still not properly oriented. I did have Brendon, but he was more of a hanging-out-on-the-weekends friend than a best friend. Zack and Jay, I think, had friends on the basketball team, but I had been reluctant to join the team after the move, missing my team back home and still feeling a strong loyalty to them. I didn't know if Maddie had any friends or not yet, but she was really outgoing, so it was likely that she had at least one good friend.