Tarret/Bosco relationship dynamic essay

Tarret

For the first 20ish years of his life, he had no positive long term relationships of any sort. The friendships he had as a young child never lasted, mostly due to only rarely seeing other kids, and not having enough time to bond. As a result, his social skills were limited and gained a reputation for acting kinda weird around other people, acting and talking too formal even for other nobles his age. Up until he met Bosco, the only people he talked to on a semi-regular basis were his parents, but they never talked to him appropriately for his age, and always expected him to be able to immediately do/learn whatever they told him to, meaning he never got any praise no matter how much effort he used, but was punished when he failed.

Bosco scared him at first, but Tarret was able to push past it after seeing how impressed he was that Tarret was able to steal without getting caught. That was the first time he had been praised for doing something, and he didn’t know how to process it other than latching onto Bosco in the hope that he’d do it again. He was never clingy, but for the first few years just being around Bosco was an unhealthy coping method since Bosco didn’t actually like him that much. Tarret knew he didn’t like him, but he was the closest thing to a friend he had ever had, and as his parents spent more and more time away from home, the feeling of loneliness got worse, basically forcing him to improve his relationship with Bosco in order to feel better.

Because of his limited social skills, Tarret never really considered the idea of Bosco actually being a complex person until they started to open up a little to each other. It was at this point that Bosco started respecting him more, giving Tarret more genuinely positive interactions, causing Tarret’s feelings towards him to change from friendship to crush, although he didn’t realise it at the time.
He only started realising it when people started asking if they were dating. Bosco had always been touchy-feely with him even before they were properly friends (putting his arm round his shoulders, messing up his hair, sitting too close) and Tarret had always pushed him away, but it got to a point where he suddenly noticed he didn’t hate it anymore, and caught himself longing for the physical touch when away from him, something no one else had ever offered him.

After he realised how he felt, he did his best to bury the thoughts for a number of reasons:
- He was still sure Bosco would never genuinely like him, since no one else in his life did.
- He was expected to get married and have children with someone of a similar status to his family. His parents knew Bosco, and hated him.
- Even if they started something in secret, chances are Bosco would accidentally let it slip and news of it would spread to Tarrets family.
- He became scared of Holden finding out how much he cared about Bosco and using that against him.

He tried to take a step back and distance himself a little, but the combination of his awful home life and the abuse from Holden ended up driving him closer, desperate for comfort that Bosco offered readily. Even when he didn’t seek out Bosco, convincing himself he was a burden and could cope with it on his own, Bosco usually ended up finding him anyway. At this point, his feelings just got stronger, and he started realising that maybe Bosco did genuinely like and care about him, but still tried to bury his feelings, and just resigned to let Bosco lead the closeness of the relationship so he could continue to receive affection but still maintain plausible deniability.

Throughout the years, Bosco’s physical affection had evolved from simple breaches of personal space to essentially flirtatious/romantic touches (playing with his hair, hands around his waist, carrying/holding him, finding excuses to hold his hand) though he denied any accusations. Tarret found he liked the affection, but wasn’t aware of how abnormal this was for a friendship, due to his lack of social experience. He never reciprocated the touches, aside from occasional hugs, not wanting to encourage his own feelings, but did always end up leaning into it now that he trusted Bosco more than anyone.

Tarret never blamed Bosco for anything that happened to him, despite the fact that if they hadn’t met, he wouldn’t be as traumatised (or at least not in the same way). If anything, he loves Bosco for giving him something real to care about, and would’ve still preferred to go through all that than be compliant in what his family wanted for him.

After he left town, he finally started accepting how he felt about him, and grieved what he had lost. At the start he was tempted to try and contact Bosco, and maybe get him to travel with him, but decided the risks were too great and it would be easier to just keep repressing it, along with the rest of his trauma.
He did consider trying to hook up with people once or twice to try and get over it, but never went through with it, finding himself unable to tolerate or trust anyone else enough for him to be that vulnerable around them.

Despite wanting to eventually forget, he could never bring himself to get rid of the moth pendant Bosco made for him. He found a similar comfort in it as he did with Bosco, and considers it his most valuable possession.

Bosco

Boscos bio family was more affectionate than Tarrets, so that combined with his extroverted personality meant he grew up finding it fairly easy to create and maintain relationships, and was working towards being able to be emotionally vulnerable, until he lost his family.
The sudden loss in such a short time, and the rejection he got when he tried to ask for help, made him clingy towards his new father figure, which wasn’t appreciated, and for the rest of his teen years he was scolded for showing emotional weakness. This made him spiteful and mean, and he started looking for ways to get praise from his dad, which he found in committing petty crimes and targeting the nobles in the area.

When he met Tarret, he wasn’t planning on spending any serious time with him, just see how far he could push him until he got arrested and get a laugh out of it. He noticed Tarret was idolising him, and used that to manipulate him into committing crimes and giving him access to spaces where people of his social class wouldn’t be allowed.
Like Tarret, Bosco didn’t start seeing him as a real person until Tarret opened up about his life. This made him uncomfortable, but he ended up vaguely sharing about his family. The whole conversation made him realise that 1. Tarret wouldn’t judge him for being vulnerable and 2. Tarret didn’t deserve the same harsh treatment as the other nobles. It would still take him years to reveal any more details of his bio family and the trauma from it, but from this point he began to be more comfortable around Tarret, and slowly started to actively want to spend time with him.

As he and Tarret were often forced to work together, he ended up seeing first-hand how skilled Tarret was in combat, even saving Bosco’s life a few times. Bosco’s growing respect for Tarret meant he was never shy about complimenting his skills, but started feeling a little guilty for treating him badly. He tried to make up for it by inviting him out to drink often, but noticed Tarret would almost never drink alcohol, despite always accepting his invitations. This, combined with Tarret getting flustered when Bosco praised him, led him to realising Tarret might have a crush on him.

Bosco’s instinct for dealing with this was to subtly tease him about it by making vague comments and initiating more physical contact, essentially leading him on, until his dad started noticing and mentioned it to him, letting him know his opinions towards Tarret and how bad it would be for both of them if Bosco was serious about his advances.
Bosco denied everything, but the conversation got him thinking about how protective he felt over Tarret in that moment, and he started fantasising about what if he was serious with his flirting. He concluded that he wouldn’t be opposed to starting something serious with him, which made him panic and start redirecting his affections towards random strangers, desperately hoping the feelings would fade.

This somewhat worked for a while, up until Holden’s abuse towards Tarret started getting more serious. Bosco tried reasoning with him, and questioning why it wasn’t happening to him, but never got a satisfactory answer. The only way he could process what was happening was to overcompensate by diverting his attention back to Tarret, desperately trying to help him feel better.
His reasons were mostly selfish at first, but his protectiveness started leaking into more casual situations, in the form of genuine physical affection, and this time didn’t stop himself thinking about how he genuinely cared for Tarret. He felt that everything happening to Tarret was his fault, and being affectionate with him seemed to make him happy, which in turn made Bosco happy, He stopped sleeping around so he could focus on Tarret and do his best to keep him out of more danger.

His dad caught on again, and Bosco was unable to deny it this time, and was briefly made to endure the same kind of torture Tarret had been put through. He told Bosco that if he stayed away from Tarret, he would stop putting Tarret through that abuse. Bosco complied, temporarily reinforcing the idea that Tarret would be better without him, but eventually found out his dad lied.
Then Tarret left, and everything Bosco had bottled up for the last few decades came back to the surface and he broke down. Losing his family, failing Tarret, and now losing the guy he had decided he wanted to devote the rest of his life to destroyed him.
He regretted not being more open with him from the start, not protecting Tarret as well as Tarret protected him, and overall just deeply missed the only person he still felt comfortable being himself around.