Smiles
He doesn’t smile, you know.
All right, he does. But not usually. Normally, he’s got this dark, mysterious air around him, like he’s angsting, or emo, or just... contemplating the lyrics to his latest rock song. Or that he’s a broody dark hero, caught up in culture and class, but withdrawn from a world ruled by them. Or maybe the tall dark stranger from all those stupid romance novels that my mother reads and I do not have a few copies of stuffed under my mattress.
But he doesn’t smile. Not really.
It all started with the yearbook. We get one every year, your school probably does the same thing - every year you get a book chock full of people you barely know and some odd ones of yourself and your friends, looking like idiots, to be laughed at by you in a few years time, and sighed over like a wistful mooncalf when you’re old, wishing you were young again.
I got our yearbook, end of junior year, and started flipping through it. I was in it. A lot. I mean that. I’m the son of the two most famous heros, like, ever. Of course I was in it a lot. It’s almost painful, and it really is embarrassing, to see myself every two pages, sometimes with my friends, sometimes with random people I’ve never really met, besides that picture.
But I wasn’t the only one who was featured on a regular basis.
Warren Peace was everywhere.
Most times, he wasn’t looking at the camera. Once or twice he would be, glaring at the photographer like they were trying to steal his soul through its lens. But in every one, there was no smile. There was an adorable furrow of his dark brows, eyes dark and intense, mouth a thin firm line, sometimes turned down a little at the corners, frowning. His hair seemed to be always in front of his face, half obscuring his eyes, and he always looked intense and thoughtful.
And sad.
He just didn’t smile.
I’d been best friends with Warren for three years now by this point, and despite our differences and despite the fact that he has never, to my remembrance, called me by my first name, I think he’s really kind of cool. He does remind me of the hero in those romances that I do not, under any circumstances, read.
But I think I could count the amount of times I’ve seen him smile on one hand.
It made me kind of listless, kind of sad. I mean, my friend should be happier. He should smile more often. Thor knows he deserves to smile more often.
With that in mind, Operation Make Warren Smile began.
It started with food. That didn’t work well. I mean, fortune cookies and chocolate covered strawberries always make me happy, but I’d forgotten that Warren quite frankly doesn’t eat. The last time I saw him eat, it was Chow Mein, and that’s because he adores Chinese. And that was... a year ago?
Next I tried books. Books are a good thing with Warren, because not only does he love to read, he devours any reading material he can get his hands on, from novels to biographies to comics to the classics. Especially the classics. He seemed to appreciate the books, and read them all, but he never smiled as a result.
I tried taking him to movies, then a carnival, once I even dragged him along to a Renaissance Faire with me, declaring that I was going to win him that stupid stuffed dragon.
Did I ever mention that even though my strength is good, my aim really sucks?
I managed to smash that heavy marble ball through the back of the wooden booth, but the milk jug I was supposed to be breaking stayed firmly in one piece.
Warren just shook his head, and grabbed the ball from me, winding up.
While I suck, Warren has the aim of a major league pitcher. I think it’s all the throwing of flames he does. So in three very quick successive throws, three broken bottles sat on the shelf, and Warren handed me a dorky stuffed dragon.
“Thanks,” I grinned, looking up at him.
And Warren smiled.
And in that moment, I can pinpoint it. That was the exact moment that I fell in love with Warren Peace.
He’s gorgeous when he’s angsty, when he’s depressed, when he’s brooding. When he’s angry, his eyes spark in a way that make my knees melt.
But when he smiles, I’m reminded all over again why I love that man.
Return to Sky High.