skulls

007, THE SCIENCE BEHIND ATTRACTION!

SKULLS / CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SCIENCE BEHIND ATTRACTION!

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SILAS FINDS HIMSELF somehow miraculously functioning on not a single hour of sleep for the next day. This sudden realisation comes during fifth period Biology, while Peter is stood to his left trying to smash open some weird purple thing.

"What?" is the only word he can seem to force himself to say, and Peter raises an eyebrow while still hacking at the object.

"What what?" He replies. "You've been staring intensely at me for like twenty minutes, and I can't tell if you're drunk or not."

"Nah." Silas grins, sitting back and acting like he's writing the formulas he should be writing, instead of staring dreamily at a hetero boy. "I spent last night avoiding alcohol at the party and staring at the stars. Were you at the party? After you dragged me to it, I noticed a distinct lack of Peter Parker."

Ned stares at him pointedly and Silas copies him, laughing slightly. Maybe he is a little drunk, despite the fact that he didn't dare to consume any amount of alcohol (since he knows from experience that high school party alcohol always, without fail, tastes like paint stripper). Maybe the sheer proximity of such a large volume of liquor made him drunk by association.

"Well, I think it's a... power source?" Peter says, gesturing to Ned. He seems to be strategically ignoring Silas, which is a common theme lately. The boy knows that he's a third wheel in this friendship, but they don't have to make it so painfully obvious.

Ned exhales in awe, and Silas experimentally taps a finger on the quote-unquote 'power source'. He sincerely doesn't believe it'd be possible for Peter to get his hands on something like this. "Yeah, but it's connected to all these microprocessors."

"That's an inductive charging plate. That's what I use to charge my toothbrush." Ned chips in, and Silas nods through the sentence, even though he only understands like a third of the words he's saying.

"Where'd you get this?" Silas asks, more than a little concern seeping into his voice. He can't bear the thought of this poor straight boy getting murdered by something Silas himself is supposed to be protecting him against, simply because he wanted to poke around with something he shouldn't have.

Peter looks instantly flustered at the inquiry, and Silas can see the mental scrabbling for an answer that's going on. "I- uh, I was walking by Delmar's, and I found it."

The other boy's delirious mind accepts this as a solution, and nods. "Makes sense. But, you know, curiosity killed the cat and all that."

"He's not a cat." Ned interjects, ruining the obvious mood Silas had created by autocorrecting 'curiosity' to 'bicuriousity' in his head. Hey, a boy can dream.

Peter exhales and sits down on a broken stool, nearly snapping the plastic in the process. "Whoever's making these weapons is combining alien tech with ours."

Both Ned and Silas laugh at the same time, and Ned looks like he's about to cry with happiness. "That is literally the coolest sentence anyone's ever said to me. I just want to thank you for letting me take this journey with you."

Someone from across the room shouts Ned's name - Silas has no idea who or why - and he dashes away, leaving Peter alone with Silas. He can feel the words in his throat, because he needs to confide in someone, and even though he knows Peter won't get angry, he just can't force himself to say it.

"Hey, uh, you know that Spiderdude?" Instantly, the boy starts to curse himself for saying that: he's going to expose his identity, he's going to expose his identity he's going to completely expose himself and he's screwed and he--

"Yeah, yeah, I know who you mean." He nods, and spins in his seat to stare straight at Silas. It feels as though he can see into the depths of Silas' soul (as emo as that is) and can unpick every secret intertwined in the threads of that. "What about him?"

Silas bites at his cuticle, unable to meet Peter's eyes. "Is it weird if I kinda find him attractive? Like, I don't know... He could be like thirty."

There's an uneasy silence for a few seconds, before Peter shrugs and laughs awkwardly. "No, it's only like celebrity crushes, right? And they're totally normal. Oh, Liz - you know Liz - likes Spiderman too."

Silas grins and giggles quietly, before looking back up at Peter. The whole stupid, baseless crush on the guy who stole his job, no less is ruining him from the inside-out. He likes Peter, he's liked Peter since before Silas knew he was bisexual, and yet this petty attraction to someone he doesn't even know is screwing that up completely.

Silas doesn't even notice the tears in his eyes after this revelation, only continues to stare into the chipped workbench and focus on trying his hardest to just breathe softly and make it through.

word count: 845!
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