A Little Bit Okay [H-C Bingo]

Alice had been wanting to talk to Herry for a few days now—so of course the day she decided that yes, today was the day that she was going to talk to him about it was the day they both got slammed with homework. A better person might have tried to put a more positive spin on it—mass homework meant they would be tackling it all at the public library, per an agreement as old as their friendship, and thus away from the ears of people who weren’t supposed to hear all this yet—but frankly, Alice was not a better person. She didn't even consider herself an especially great person, which was why she spent the night before this staring at the ceiling trying to decide how to best approach the situation.

As long and hard as she'd thought about this, she supposed she should have been a lot calmer, but as she dropped her backpack on the library table, she could feel her stomach turning at the prospect of saying anything, great relationship with Herry or no. Whatever Herry was talking about, Alice didn't hear a word of it before whatever she might have started with died on her tongue and words came tumbling out of her mouth. "Herry, I have something to tell you, and it's important." …Shit.

Herry looked up at her, a little surprised by the suddenness of her announcement, but shrugged. "Okay, shoot," he replied, settling into the chair opposite her.

Alice sat, as well, crossing her legs at the ankle. The metal of her ankle brace was cold, and it grounded her. "I'm gonna start—" She folded her hands, unfolded them, folded them again—"you're one of my best friends, and I'm really glad to have you in my life, and I hope this doesn't change our friendship." Damnit, why did she sound like a crappy therapist?

Herry stopped clicking his pen and carefully considered Alice—it was that expression that he always wore when he was thinking something over particularly hard, like he was reading her mind and Alice really wished he would stop looking at her like that. "Did you kill someone?" he finally asked.

"No." Her mouth tugged up at the corners, but the expression was brief—it was entirely too late to blow it off now, and he was still looking at her expectantly as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Uhm… I'm a lesbian."

More than usual, the library was quiet, and Alice was acutely aware of her heartbeat echoing in her ears, louder and louder, until Herry finally shrugged and turned back to his textbook. "Okay."

Several replies came to mind, and a few of the more callous ones were right on the tip of her tongue—"Herry, I just came out to you," she stressed, leaning over slightly to stay in his line of vision.

Herry looked back at her as if he was surprised. "I know," he confirmed. "Thank you for telling me, and I'm really glad that you trust me enough to tell me that.

"That's all—" Alice's voice starting to rise in volume, and she forced herself to stop and speak again, this time in a sharp whisper. "That's all you have to say about it?"

Herry's brow furrowed, and when he spoke, his tone was sharp. "What do you want me to do, Alice?" he asked. "Shank you in the neck with a pen? Throw something at you? Stop being your friend?

Hearing it come from him, Alice was struck with how stupid her fears sounded. "Shit, Herry, that all came out way wrong." She scrubbed her fingers through her hair—she didn't blush normally, but sounding like an idiot on top of the anxiety of saying what she had (oh god had she really said that out loud?) made her feel like she could. "I'm sorry."

"You were expecting me to be mad, weren’t you?" The words made it clear it was a question, but the way Herry said it made it sound like a statement of fact. For a horrifying moment, Alice wondered if Theresa wasn't the only one with psychic abilities, if the reason he could read her like a book was because he was reading her mind—

Alice forced herself to stop thinking those things. They'd all been straightforward about their talents and abilities, and Herry insisted that all he had going for him was his strength—if he had a second sight, it'd come as a surprise to both of them at this point. More than all that, though, he was clearly waiting on an answer. "Every time I thought about telling anyone," she started, picking at her fingernails and having trouble meeting his eye, "I couldn't imagine any other kind of reaction."

In the silence that followed this admission, Alice could once again hear her own heartbeat. Finally—"Why?"

She looked up, and was surprised to find that Herry looked confused and a little hurt. "You know us, Alice—we're the most open-minded people you know."

"It's complicated," she lied.

"I've got time," he replied easily.

There were so many things leading up to this, a thousand little moments that would take months to explain them all in their entirety. Herry probably didn't have the time to hear them all. After a moment of tracing the woodgrain on the tabletop, Alice started, "Before I threw in with you guys, my old man…" Hopefully he appreciated how intimate this conversation was going to become—she didn't just name-drop her old man for anyone, after all. "My whole life, I'd hear him talk a lot of shit about gay people and when I started to grow up and realized that I was gay, all I could think was, 'If he finds out, he's gonna bea…'"

The thought was there, and she could feel her bones ache at the thought of what would have happened. Still, that was a different topic, one that would derail the discussion at hand—and certainly nothing Alice wanted to divulge just yet. "'Be really pissed,'" she finished. "Stuff like that… stays with you, y'know?"  

Herry was doodling little circles on the cover of his notebook, and Alice knew that he was thinking. "How long have you been sitting on this?" he asked.

She shrugged one shoulder. "Since I was ten, maybe?"

"Sorry—" He looked up and met her eye. "How long have you wanted to tell us?"

Oh. That. "…A few weeks," she answered.

"And I'm the first person you've told?" Herry had all the pieces, and now he was verbally piecing them together.

"I figured if I'm going to tell my biggest secrets," Alice started, finally succeeding in ripping off a fragment of her thumbnail, "I'd tell someone I really trusted." She flicked the nail into the wastebin and looked at Herry, her hands folded on the table between them. "I wasn't lying when I said that you're one of my best friends—I really am glad to have you in my life."  

"And you weren’t lying when you said you were worried this would change our friendship," he added.

"You got it," she confirmed, running her hand through her hair.

Once again the library was quiet as the pair seemed to think over everything that had been said. Finally, Herry shook his head slightly. "Alice, I love you but you're an idiot."

"Wow, thanks for the support, Herry," Alice grumbled, crossing her arms defensively.

"No, hear me out," he replied. "You're my best friend, and the only thing that'll change that is if you go dark side and join Cronus—and even then it'd be hard to take out you." He leaned forward and indicated for Alice to do the same. When she begrudgingly complied, he went on, "I'm sorry you lived with bad experiences when you were younger—I really am—and if you need someone to support you or go to bat for you, you know that the guys and I are all on it for you." There was a pause as he considered something. "…Has anybody said anything to you?"  

"No," she answered softly.

"Okay, good—because the first person who calls you a dyke, I might have to beat their face in." Herry leaned back in his seat and considered her seriously. "Feeling okay?"  

Honestly, Alice was having trouble putting a name to her emotions at present. Nothing she had envisioned came close to what she'd experienced, and the ease with which Herry was typical of him, but at the same time—"A little overwhelmed," she admitted, feeling herself truly smile for the first time all day, "but… it's the good kind of overwhelmed."  

"Better than how you felt when you started, right?" he asked, sliding the box of generic tissues that sat in the middle of the table toward her.  

At first, Alice didn't understand the action, until she reached up to rub her now tired eyes and realized that she'd started crying from being so relieved. "Much," she confirmed, pulling out two tissues and drying her eyes. At least he didn't seem to be judging her for that, either.

"Do you need anything?" he offered.  

Alice bit her lip, twisted the tissue in her hands. Now, instead of feeling nervous or relieved, she felt almost… shy, and when she spoke, her voice was very, very soft. "…May I have a hug?"

Herry didn't reply with words, but stood and met Alice on the opposite side of the table; when he wrapped his arms around her, he encased her smaller frame with his own, and as she hid her face in his chest and allowed herself to quietly weep tears of relief, she could feel his support lifting away the worries she'd felt, and like everything, their crazy lineages and destinies put aside, was going to be even a little bit okay.