Aromanticism

Rating: G

Fandom: FFTL

Ships: Somily

Sonny liked aliens, because sometimes, he felt like one. He felt like he was an outsider looking in, watching the humans perform their bonding rituals from afar with dispassionate curiosity.

He watched his parents kiss under the mistletoe, watched the princes and princesses of Disney movies kiss under the stars, watched his band's guitarist French kiss a girl backstage without caring who watched the disgusting affair. He didn't really get it. How someone could want another person's mouth on theirs just wasn't clicking. It seemed gross.

Once, Sonny tried to fit in, though, tried to participate in this cultural custom that he was a stranger to. His first girlfriend's name was Emily. She was cute, he supposed. He liked looking at her. He liked the way her body felt against his. He wasn't sure he ever really liked going on dates, or kissing, or calling her "sweetheart" and "darling" and "babe" and the other stuff that guys in movies said to their girlfriends. Actually, he came to realize pretty soon that when he said they should watch a movie together, Emily always thought that meant pretend to watch a movie and make out instead, and he kind of wanted to just watch the movie.

The sex was good, but the easiest part of being with Emily was that he was always away from her on tour. He messaged her every day about how badly he missed her, wanted to hold her hand, all that sappy shit. Wrote a song about it. He liked being around her, liked talking to her, but most of that stuff was a lie, because at least when he was on tour they could chat online where she couldn't try to snog him. And if he told the girls he slept around with on tour that he had a girlfriend, they'd know better than to expect more than a one night stand.

It came to an end when he realized that he wasn't all that into the "i-love-you"s and "no-you-hang-up"s at the end of late night phone calls, or the way she loved to hang off his arm and rest her head on his shoulder when they were together. He felt like he'd taken advantage of her, somehow, felt bad for leading her on. 

He only confessed to the cheating, though. It was less painful than explaining he didn't love her in the first place. 

After the breakup, Derek took Sonny out to an ice cream parlor in a town they were passing through, and it was probably better than any date he'd ever had with Emily, because Derek didn't try to shove his tongue down Sonny's throat. 

"You know," Derek said over a sundae, "I thought you'd be a lot more torn up. I mean, you and Emily were together forever."

Sonny just shrugged. "It was a long time coming."