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Buttercup tugged at Westley’s hand as they ran through the forested part of the park. “Come onnnn Westley!” He grinned back at her “As you wish.” She laughed as they came to a hill of fire ants. Westly pointed at it. “That’s a fire spurt! Be careful!” As they continued playing a patch of sand became quicksand and the rats, squirrels and mice they saw on occasion became huge carnivorous rodents. This was how the two best friends passed their early years, unaware that Inigo Montoya enviously watched their play. Fezzik was a giant of a child who, although perhaps a little slow sometimes, was one of the sweetest kids in school. Inigo and Fezzik had been complete outcasts for the first month of school, until Vizzini made them into his cronies. Although neither was particularly happy, they were both glad to have friends and they at least had each other.
It was a Friday afternoon as Westley and Buttercup walked to the park from school. They dropped their backpacks in the small ditch beside the forested area of the park and sat down. They were older now, and just running through the forest was only entertaining for so long. Twelve year olds had to be more sophisticated in their play. “What if we make a proper story?” Buttercup lay back on the grass, staring up at the clouds. Westley looked down at her from where he was sitting. “As you wish.” She sat up. “Oh come on, what do you think?” He grinned back. “I think I got kidnapped by pirates and you…” He thought for a moment. “You got kidnapped by them.” He pointed over to where Fezzik, Vizzini, and Inigo were walking across the field. Now that they were in middle school the three were well known bullies. “How are you going to save me if you’ve been kidnapped by pirates?” Buttercup looked slightly worried. Westley just grinned back. “I guess you’ll have to find out.” Shrugging, Buttercup stood and walked across the field to the three boys. Vizzini’s eyes widened as she approached. “Look boys! She’s left her boyfriend. What luck!” Buttercup glared at him. “He’s not my boyfriend.” Still, she was nervous and glanced around, but Westly was nowhere to be seen. “Scared?” Vizzini taunted her. “Maybe we should try and be nicer Vizzini..” Fezzik’s voice was uncertain. “Since when do you care what we do, big boy?” Vizzini rounded on him. Fezzik shrunk back a little. “I just thought-” Before he could finish the sentence Vizzini interrupted him. “That’s the problem, Fezzik! You don’t think! Why do you think you’re passing your classes? Oh right, you don’t think!” Buttercup stood there uncomfortably, watching this exchange. Before Fezzik had a chance to respond, Westley charged up behind them, wearing a bandana over his mouth and shouted. “Inigo Montoya! I challenge you to a duel!” He pulled a previously unseen stick from where it had been stuck in his belt loop. Inigo grabbed a stick from the ground and held it in front of him like a sword. “On guard!” he yelled, swinging the stick and Westley’s head. Buttercup noticed that Westley held his stick in his left hand, and Inigo hadn’t bothered to put his stick in his right after grabbing it. She knew Westley was right handed, but she wondered about Inigo. “You have fine technique.” Westley said, smiling at the slightly shorter boy. “Be a shame to kill you.” “So do you.” Inigo replied. “I’ll be sorry to die.”
Buttercup, Fezzik, and Vizzini watched the two boys duel, sticks making thudding noises against each other. Westley blocked a strike aimed at his head “If I beat all three of you, I get her back!” Fezzik started to speak, but then cowared back a little at a look from Vizzini. “You’ll never beat all of us! But it’s a deal!” Westley barely spared a glance for Vizzini as he continued blocking Inigo’s strikes. Inigo glanced down at his hands for a moment then grinned. Westley raised an eyebrow at him. “I am not left handed!” Inigo switched his stick from his left to his right hand. Westley started having a good bit more trouble defending against him and ended up with his back pressed firmly against a tree. He shoved Inigo back, grinning, and switched his own stick from his left to his right hand. “I ought to tell you that I’m not left handed either!” Buttercup smiled as Westley continued to parry Inigo’s strikes and got closer and closer to making contact. Inigo swung for the head, Westley ducked and jabbed at Inigo’s chest, and Inigo jumped back out of the way, losing his balance. Buttercup held her breath, waiting for her best friend to make the “killing” blow, but he didn’t. Instead he let Inigo find his balance before attacking again. This made Buttercup pause for a moment. Westly had only occasionally given her a chance to recover when they were play-fighting, so it seemed strange that he would give the bully a chance. “Yes!” Westley yelled and Buttercup’s eyes suddenly refocused. Inigo was kneeling on the ground, Westley’s stick to his neck. “A good fight.” Inigo proclaimed as he took the hand that Westly offered him.
Westley pulled Inigo to his feet, noticing how his hair fell in ringlets and that there was a smudge of dirt on his face. Inigo’s hand took a moment too long to leave Westley’s after both of them were on their feet. Westley felt a flash of sadness as Inigo’s fingers slipped from his grasp, but he ignored it. That was a problem for another time. “Who’s next?” “I’ll go.” Fezzik stepped forward. “No sticks. Just us.” Westley tossed his stick aside and held his hands up in a fighting position. Fezzik just stood there. Westley ran at him and bounced off a couple of times before looking up at the larger boy. Fezzik leaned down, reaching for Westley, but he rolled between Fezzik’s legs and jumped, catching hold of Fezzik’s shoulders and pulling himself into a proper piggyback ride. It wasn’t good form or “fair”, but Fezzik was far out of his weight class and too tall to put into a choke any other way. Westley wrapped his arms around Fezzik’s neck in such a way that he cut off blood flow but didn’t do any actual damage to his victim. “Tap on your leg or on me to let me know when you’ve had enough.” Westley warned Fezzik, who only grunted in response. A few seconds later Fezzik tapped frantically on Westley’s leg. The boy let go instantly and dropped to the ground. “Vizzini?”
Buttercup watched in shock as Vizzini pulled a full chess board from his backpack. “A battle of wits?” Westley seemed excited, and Buttercup remembered the countless times he’d tried to teach her to play. Well, play well anyway. She understood how the pieces moved, but the strategy was beyond her. Westley moved a pawn one space forward and looked expectantly at Vizzini. Buttercup tried to understand the words that began pouring out of Vizzini’s mouth. Something about openings, plays, counterplays, piece movement.. She lost track. This happened every time Westley moved a piece, and by the time Westley had eventually won the game it was getting dark. After helping Vizzini put the chess pieces away Westly stood and looked over the rest of the seventh graders. “Well, I’d say that was a fun game. Well played.” Inigo and Fezzik smiled back, while Vizzini just scowled. “Coming Buttercup?” She followed him out of the park, noticing that he glanced back a couple times as they walked. After the first time she glanced back as well, following his gaze. He stopped looking once the trio was out of sight.
Over the next three and a half years Buttercup noticed that they were spending more and more time with or near Vizzini and his friends. She could trace it back to that one time when Westley had suggested she get kidnapped by them. Vizzini had calmed down now, and it seemed that he was trying to be a better person. Really, that was the only reason she didn’t drag Westley away from them so they could be alone. Fezzik was as sweet as ever and seemed to be doing slightly better in school. Or at least passing his classes without as much help from Vizzini. And Inigo.. Well, Inigo was as charming as ever, constantly making jokes and teasing. A little like Westley, now that she thought about it. She took a bite of her sandwich, watching the two of them lean over a diagram of a sword, talking quietly about its design. They were in the same history class, but Westley had said they were studying the birth of the United States. She was fairly sure that it did not involve swords. “Buttercup?” Fezzik poked her gently and she looked over at him, remembering that she was helping him understand his math homework. “Sorry, I was thinking.” She picked her pencil up from the table and used it as a pointer as she explained the basic principles of the problem. Vizzini was reading a book. He was pretty much always reading a book these days, or doing homework at the table as the others talked or did their own homework.
As they walked home together, Buttercup noticed that Westly seemed worried about something. Both of them were fifteen now that it was most of the way through sophomore year and they’d been friends since they were five. Ten years of friendship was nothing to be trifled with, and they could never keep secrets from each other for very long. Buttercup was a very fiery person at heart, but she’d learned when to speak and when to keep her mouth shut with Westly. Now seemed like a time to keep her mouth shut. However, she did not have to wait long to find out what was on his mind. “Buttercup?” She looked over at him, raising her eyebrows instead of speaking since her mouth was full of an energy bar. “What do you think of the fact that everyone thinks we’re together?” It wasn’t what he was going to say. He’d said it too fast with a pause after “what” and he was looking at the ground. He always looked at the ground when he lied, so she assumed this was a lie of omission of sorts. She swallowed her mouthful, grateful that it had given her an excuse to think through her answer. “It doesn’t particularly bother me.” She said after a minute. “I like that no one asks me out because..” maybe telling him something would help get him to talk, and she’d been meaning to tell him anyway. “Because I think I’m aromantic. I don’t want to deal with romance, at least involving me, and this way I don’t have to.” She looked at him, waiting to see his reaction. Despite ten years of friendship, coming out, especially for the first time, was nerve wracking. “I think I Like boys.” This answer surprised her, but after thinking for a moment it shouldn’t have. Infact, everything made perfect sense. The time that Westley and Inigo had been spending together, the question about people thinking they were together, and how he’d started making an effort to dress up a little bit for school. “You like him don’t you?” “Inigo?” Oh he definitely liked him. Buttercup could tell from the way he said the other boy’s name. Softly, almost like a caress. She nodded. Westley stared at the ground for a long time, watching their feet move in sync with each other. Finally he looked up into her eyes. “Yes.” “Well this is complicated. I don’t particularly know what to tell you, considering I don’t experience romantic attraction.” Westley looked at her for a long moment. “I don’t know either.” Buttercup took another bite of her energy bar before speaking again. “What do you think of the fact that everyone thinks we’re together?” The question wasn’t about Inigo. That conversation had happened a while ago, and thinking about it, she realized that Inigo had probably liked Westley for a while too.
The end of freshman year. The group of them were walking to the library after their last class to do some studying when Fezzik asked “Why are you holding hands?” Inigo shot Fezzik a glare and said “I think he wants to know if you’re together.” Westley looked uncomfortably between them. “We’ve done this since we were little. We’re friends.” Buttercup vaguely noticed that Westley seemed tense for the next few days, but put it down to finals. Inigo, on the other hand, seems fairly pleased with himself. Again, this wasn’t unusual. Inigo usually seemed pleased with himself about something.
Westley was still thinking about the question, so Buttercup continued trying to understand his and Inigo’s relationship and how it might affect her. From ages 5 to 12 it had been just her and Westley. At first she’d been a little unsure of inviting Inigo, Fezzik, and Vizzini into their little group, but the boys had turned out to be good editions, and Westley had always seemed so happy around them. Although.. going back through her memories of them it was mostly around Inigo. Inigo could make Westley smile, the Buttercup made him smile. The two boys had developed the same sort of casual physical touch she’d always had with Westley. Now that she thought about it, the same types of things that always made people think they were together. “I think I don’t mind.” Westley’s voice broke into Buttercup’s thoughts and it took her a minute to remember what she’d asked him. It was the rush of relief that Buttercup felt that told her what her real reason for asking the question was. It wasn’t what he thought of other people’s opinions of them, it was asking if their relationship had to change now that he liked someone. She slipped her hand into his. “So this doesn’t have to change?” He squeezed it. “As you wish.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t think that’s a grammatically correct way of responding to that question.” He laughed and they continued joking with each other until they reached home.
Westley collapsed into his desk chair and pulled out his phone, staring at the lock screen. “4:25”. The picture was of him and Buttercup when they were 8. He remembered when it had been taken. The two of them, sitting in a tree, laughing about pirates. He’d always been fascinated by them. Imagine sailing away on a ship, just a bunch of boys with swords, having adventures. He’d always felt a little bad about that fantasy, because it involved leaving Buttercup. He understood better now, though. It wasn’t about abandoning his best friend, it was about a journey and a chance to explore himself. He’s always felt a little strange about having a girl for a best friend. Well, not always. Since he was 13. That was the one thing they’d never talked about because it would hurt her. He’d pretty quickly figured out it was because of society’s perception of gender and relationships, and figured it was his to figure out. He was now realizing that maybe it also had something to do with how people assumed he was straight because they assumed they were together. Well, Inigo knows we’re not together, and that’s all that really matters for now. Westley wondered what his next step was. He knew he liked Inigo. A lot. If he’d been able to recognize attraction at 12, he would have known he liked Inigo during that stick sword fight. He looked down at his phone to see that it had turned off. He unlocked it and went to his text history with Inigo. Their last conversation had been about how medieval swords were made and had ended around 1am with “Goodnight nerd” “You too, even bigger nerd”. Westley smiled at the messages before typing “What do you think about pirates?” He paused, then searched through the emojis options for a little while before he noticed a telescope. Tapping on it, he realized that it looked a lot like a toy he’d had as a child. Westley sent the message and tossed his phone onto the bed, grinning as it landed squarely on the pillow. He still had his aim. He glanced around his room, wondering where the toy might have gone. Just as his eyes settled on the closet where most of his old toys were kept, his phone buzzed. Westley’s heart jumped with excitement as he reached over to retrieve his phone from the bed. The phone vibrated again as he unlocked it. When he opened the messages he saw that both were from Inigo. The first one read “I always wanted to be a pirate” and the second was a photo of the exact toy Westley had been about to look for. Grinning to himself, Westley typed a quick response and dropped his phone back on the bed and opened his closet door. It had been ages since he’d looked in here, but he quickly found the bin shoved to the back. Pulling it out, he found his old Ren Faire clothes from elementary and middle school, several “swords” (sticks that Buttercup and him had sharpened) and, at the very bottom, the telescope. He grabbed his phone from his bed and sent Inigo a picture of the telescope. It was incredibly battered, but so was Inigo’s.
Two hours later Westley was lying on his bed, grinning at his dark phone screen. He’d meant to do homework, but instead he’d talked to Inigo about pirates for a few hours. Inigo was going to do his homework now though, so Westley supposed he should as well. Sighing, he put his phone down next to his computer and opened the larger device, wondering what torture awaited him this time. The next half hour was spent completing math problems and he was almost done when his phone rang. He hoped it was Inigo, but smiled anyway when he saw Buttercup's name on the screen. Just because he had a crush didn’t mean he never wanted to talk to his best friend. He answered it. “What’s up Buttercup?”
“Oh shut up.” She didn’t sound mad though.
“What’s going on?” They didn’t usually call randomly. It was either an emergency or someone just wanted to chat. Nothing in between, so Westley always picked up the phone if he was at all able to. He glanced over the next problem until Buttercup responded.
“I just wanted to.. Make sure we’re still friends. I know you’ve been spending a lot more time with Inigo and-” She was about to talk herself into thinking he hated her. It happened occasionally, either this way or with the positions reversed. Even over a decade of friendship couldn’t always overcome anxiety.
“Buttercup. We’re still friends. You’re my best friend and you always will be, I promise.” She stopped, uncertain. “I’m serious Buttercup. Besides, someone has to tease Inigo and I once we get together officially,” he laughed.
“Only when you’re official?” There was laughter in her voice. Crisis averted. Westley really did love Inigo, but he wasn’t sure what he would do if he had to choose between his crush and his best friend.
“Can’t have anyone finding out until we want them to.” They continued chatting about Inigo and other things. Eventually conversation moved to homework and Westley helped Buttercup with the math he’d already done. After that was done Buttercup helped him edit an essay he’d written for history. He was good at the actual content, but Buttercup had a much better grasp of grammar than he did. Once both of them had their homework done they said goodnight and Westley got into bed, content to have talked to the two most important people in his world. Just as he was falling asleep his phone buzzed. What? I thought I had do not disturb on? He fumbled around until he found it. “Can I come over?” it was from Inigo. Westley felt his heart start beating far far too fast. “Sure, my parents are gone”. He hesitated before sending it, but he’d made up his mind. He was going to tell Inigo he liked him, unless Inigo said something first. Asking to come over at midnight wasn’t exactly normal friend behavior unless something was really wrong, and the chances that something had gone really wrong in the past two hours was slim. Not impossible, but slim. He sent the text. “be there in 15”. The lower case letters concerned Westley. Inigo usually had impeccable grammar and punctuation, except periods at the ends of sentences. Maybe something was wrong. The next fifteen minutes had to be the longest of Westley’s life. Eventually his phone buzzed again. “let me in?” again with the lower case. This was getting very strange. Westley liked the message as he got out of bed and headed toward the door.
Inigo waited outside Westley’s door, trying to calm his nerves. Once he was (mostly) calm he pulled his phone out and typed “let me in?” with trembling fingers. This was it. He was going to tell Westley how he felt, once and for all. What happened after that was up to Westley. “Cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used”. The line from The Lucky One by Taylor Swift played through his mind. Westley had never used him, not once. But other people had. Kids had pretended to be his friend just so he’d help them with homework. He thought people only pretended to be friends with popular kids, so it had been a shock when they ditched him. Trusting was so hard now, but he trusted Westley. His phone buzzed and he saw that Westley had liked his message, two minutes ago. He must have been seriously lost in thought to have not noticed the first notification. The door opened and there was Westley, wearing his pjs. It wasn’t like Inigo hadn’t seen him in his pjs before, they’d had group sleepovers (study nights, according to their parents), but it felt different now that it was just the two of them. “Coming in?” Westley’s voice was soft. Almost like a warm hug.
Inigo nodded, not trusting himself to speak. This was terrifying. They walked up to Westley’s room in silence, both sitting down on his bed. Facing each other, sitting cross legged on that bed was familiar. The differences between this time and every other time seemed to slap Inigo in the face. It was dark. There were no textbooks or computers between them. Westley was in his pjs. That had only happened once before and they’d been studying. Or rather, Westley had been trying to catch up on work since he had mostly recovered from the flu and Inigo had been helping him. Now they sat there in the dark, Inigo in jeans and a gray hoodie with a skull and crossbones on it, Westley wearing those really soft flannel pants and a shirt with a spyglass. They both realized they’d just been staring at each other for far too long. Inigo didn’t trust himself to speak without betraying how nervous he was so he said nothing. Luckily for him Westley broke the silence. “Are you okay? I mean, people don’t usually ask to come over in the middle of the night for no reason.”
“I..” Here was his chance. He had to say it now otherwise he never would. “I really like you, Westley. Will you be my boyfriend?” The first sentence was said hesitatingly, the second said too fast. Westley reached over and took Inigo’s hands in his own.
“I was going to ask you if you didn’t ask me first.” He stared into his boyfriend's eyes. His boyfriend. He had a boyfriend!
“My parents are still on that trip.. Can I stay here tonight?” Westley felt himself grinning. Spending the first night of their relationship with his boyfriend? Obviously.
“Of course. You can borrow some of my pjs.” Westley slid off the bed and dug around in a drawer for a second before pulling out a set of pirate themed pjs. He tossed them to Inigo. “Here babe.”
Inigo felt his face flush at being called “babe”. “Thanks babe.” Westley went out into the hall while Inigo changed and scrolled through instagram until his boyfriend texted him that he was done changing. Westley slipped back into the room and the two of them crawled into bed, curling up together. Westley’s last thought as he fell asleep was that he couldn’t wait to tell Buttercup she was allowed to tease them now.