Dirt Lifter | Craig of the Creek High School AU

I mean, I'm sick of meaning, I just want to hold you

(Those Are You Got Some Nice Shoulders pt. 1 on AO3)

Craig picked over his appearance in the mirror one more time.

He was wearing a collared shirt, semi-formal like what was written on the poster he saw at school. He landed on a blueish-grey one he had worn to his cousin's wedding, and grey dress pants. He had picked out his hair, because it was a special occasion, and it gave him much-needed coolness and confidence. No tie, but he was debating for the fifth time in his head (and a few mumbled words out loud) whether it would be fancy or too fancy.

He sighed, heavy. He was going to this dance for fun, not to impress anyone, and he needed to stop worrying about something as trivial as his outfit. He wanted to go to without worrying about anything, like he had originally planned, but someone decided to ruin that for him.

Someone. Okay, it was Jason, and he didn't ruin it. He just made it a whole lot harder. Craig couldn't be mad, especially since he was busy freaking out about taking him to the dance, even if he didn't explicitly ask him out. He was planning to say something this week, clarifying that "Hey, maybe I didn't mean to do that, but now I really want to, but I'm not sure which way you originally took it so I'm not sure if I should even say anything so I don't embarrass myself," but that never happened. He could make the excuse that he didn't have the time, but truthfully he was just scared. Every time he worked up the courage to say something, something else would happen and he would lose the words again.

He had arrived at the conclusion that he'd been into Jason for a while now. It still boggled his mind at how he missed that for so long, but now that he had realized, he noticed certain things. Like the way Jason's eyes would light up when he talked about cool facts that Craig also thought were pretty cool. How his hair still falls over his eyes and he never seemed to notice and Craig still wanted to brush it out of his face. How he was willing to go along with whatever Craig's plans were, and building onto them with even greater ideas. Embarrassingly, another thing was height difference, and while he was aware that Jason was about two inches taller than him before, the second realization set off just under two hundred more fantasies in his head.

It didn't help his nerves that it had been half an hour since he got ready, and he had been waiting for an acceptable time to leave and be fashionably late. The dance started at six, so he could leave at 5:30, pick up Jason from his house, turn around and pick up Kelsey and Stacks at Kelsey's house, and after hanging around there for a bit, arrive at school a little past six. He planned to clarify things with Jason between his and Kelsey's house.

His Mom was letting him take the car for the carpool. She trusted him, even though he had driven maybe twice without an adult in the car. He had his license, but he didn't exactly like driving, because he could barely focus on the road whenever he was nervous.

...Like now.

"Are you done yet?" yelled Jessica from behind his bedroom door.

He went to the door and opened it. "Yes, I am."

"Okay, good." She walked straight past him into his room instead of realizing he was already annoyed at her. "You gotta be on time. Punctuality is attractive." She went to his chair, and sat down, legs crossed. "Also Dad won't order pizza until you leave. I want pizza. Hurry up."

Listen. He was panicking, and Kelsey was already sick of him talking about Jason, and he didn't really have anyone else to talk to, so he might have given Jessica some details. Not many, just that there was someone he was trying to impress at the dance.

"Do I look okay?" he asked her.

She inspected the outfit that he put far too much time into. "As good as you're gonna get."