Fic | All Grown Up and Still Don't Know What (2/2)
Part 1
Billy is starting to think Teddy isn’t actually over the whole ‘lightning-ed ass leading to screaming match leading to awkward wrestling match leading to peace’ thing, and is actually engaged in a fiendishly clever and involved revenge plot to kill him by degrees.
See, those brief late night texts apparently opened a floodgate Billy didn’t even know was present. Now he and Teddy are texting each other multiple rounds a day, over inane shit like where would different superheroes go on vacation or whether Playstation’s ice cream cone-thing actually manages to improve on the Wiimote (it doesn’t). Sometimes Teddy texts him in the middle of the day, in class, which makes Billy jump and drop his calculator or scrawl black ink across his textbooks, and once Teddy even texted him in the middle of a terrifying incident where Billy’s mother was brandishing the extra charges on his cell bill and Billy thought the whole thing was going to come spilling out of him.
Mom is really good at making people talk.
And the Great Self-Help Experiment (as Billy has taken to calling it) is actually working, shockingly. But most of those sessions devolve pretty quickly into discussions of comic books and favorite movies and what do do in case of zombie apocalypse. Billy is discovering that they have a truly absurd amount of stuff in common, though it’s still grounds for an instant Halo match to the death if either of them ever tries to assert that either the Scarlet Witch or the Wasp is better than the other. (Billy loses most of these matches, but still believes he wins the moral victory.)
In short, they’re actually becoming real friends. Which, honestly, is pretty awesome and Billy would be content with just that, really, except.
Except for the main reason Billy is sure Teddy is masterminding some plot involving Billy’s slow, tortuous death: the touching.
It's just. Now they’ve passed their crossroads, and that’s great - really - except for how the other side of that street is apparently that Teddy is an incredibly tactile person. Billy can excuse the shoulder gripping, the friendly shoves, even the occasional arm slung around his neck - after all, even Eli and Nathaniel do that, though not as much as Teddy - but that’s far from all of it. Teddy touches him when there’s no excuse for it and when there is, brushing lint off him and fidgeting with him while they wait for Eli to get to the point and sitting way way too close.
Billy can’t figure out what it all means, what he’s supposed to get from it. Maybe it’s just the ordinary friend stuff, the stuff Billy only was just beginning to discover way back when before every touch became suspect. Before whatever friendships he might have carried with him from childhood became afraid that oh no, the gay will come off. Before everything that everyone else got to have just stopped. So maybe it’s normal, this easiness with another person’s space that Billy never quite managed to learn. Maybe that’s all it is.
Except. Except that time right after Kessler had apparently decided it was safe to start hitting Billy in the face again - provided he did it with objects that were not his fist, thrown from quite a large distance away - that time Teddy had stared at him like he’d never seen a facial injury before, then reached out and run his thumb over Billy’s split lip for a little too long before coughing and stepping away.
And that’s just- it’s not normal friend stuff. Is it?
It’s just not something Billy knows how to parse. Like, at all. Hell, he hadn’t had a clue Jimmy Stidham was flirting until Jimmy stuck his tongue down Billy’s throat in Health class during that CPR unit. Generally speaking, Billy’s inclined to err on the side of caution, especially because he can’t quite imagine anyone, let alone Teddy doing it on purpose. And in this, it is most definitely better to be safe than wrong.
::
It is way too early for human contact when Billy’s phone bleeps at him. He manages to grab it without knocking it to the floor and is utterly unsurprised to see a text from Teddy.
Come over
is all it says.
t its to early for selfhelp carp
he manages to type through his pre-coffee fog.
Not that. Just come over
Also, carp?
comes back after a minute.
need coffee
Billy sends, scowling.
I will buy you a coffee billy
Hang on
Billy’s phone goes off unexpectedly in his hand, and he may or may not let out a shocked little yelp.
“Come over, Billy," Teddy says when he gets the phone open, all pleading and cheerful because he is a vile morning person and should not be allowed.
“Coffee," Billy grumbles. “Also, you are evil."
“Please, Billy?" Teddy says, and Billy can practically see the puppy dogs eyes that Teddy is unfairly good at. “I found a place to get my ears pierced, and I want you to come."
Fuck. “A large coffee," Billy says in the most intimidating voice he can muster.
“Anything."
“With extra espresso," he says.
“Obviously," Teddy says with a clear smile in his voice, and hangs up.
Billy doesn’t trust himself to fly over this early in the morning or - god forbid - try to teleport again, not after what happened the last time, so he yells, “Going to Teddy’s, Mom," throws the Transformer he trips over in the general direction of Jake’s room, and heads for the train.
The whole ride he deliberately doesn’t think of when Teddy got this idea in his head, because Teddy has proven himself full of ridiculous ideas, and because those are really not pre-coffee thoughts.
(What happened was: Teddy had looked up from digging through the pictures on Billy’s computer and said, I think I’m going to get my ears pierced.
Billy had raised his eyebrows and said, Um, okay, because really.
I mean, like, a lot of them, Teddy had gone on, tugging at the curve of his ear. It’s something I always really wanted, but I could never quite- before, I-
Billy had nodded, because he got that even if the concept of caring like that was still kind of foreign to him.
Anyway, you should come with me, Teddy had said, and he’d reached over and traced along the cartilage of Billy’s ear. You could get something too.
Billy had fought against the triple coronary his heart was engaged in having to say, Pretty sure my parents would freak.
Teddy had said, Well then, maybe a tattoo, and switched his grip to Billy’s wrist, tracing complicated and nonsensical patterns against the skin of his inner forearm.
And really, what the hell is Billy even supposed to do with that?)
Teddy’s waiting outside of his building when Billy comes off the subway, holding out a large coffee that Billy lunges at before even saying hello.
Teddy laughs and says, “I would have gotten you an IV drip, but I don’t think those are commercially available yet."
Billy is too lost in the sweet sweet bliss of caffeine to even bother replying with a sarcastic remark.
Once they’re up in Teddy’s room and Billy’s internalized about half the cup of coffee (and thoroughly scalded his esophagus in the process) he finally says, “Okay, tell me about this place."
Teddy hands him a square card from an irregular stack on his desk. All the cards and fliers look pretty similar from what Billy can see, so he’s not sure what it is about this one that’s got Teddy decided.
“They’ve got a bunch of good reviews online," Teddy says, shrugging. “And um, I. I like the name." He blushes a little bit and rubs the back on his neck.
Ah. Blank Slate Tattoos. “Hey, I’m in no position to judge you," Billy says. “Well, except for your taste in movies, but that’s just par for the course," he continues, and Teddy hits him with a pillow. Billy topples over dramatically but manages to save the coffee at the last minute with some tricky spell work. Teddy whistles appreciatively.
“So are you coming with?" Teddy says after a minute.
Billy sips on his coffee to collect his thoughts. “Look," he says, “if you want me to come, I’ll come, but... And I don’t mean to be a wet blanket or anything but..."
“But?" Teddy prompts.
Billy tugs his shoulders in a little, holds his coffee in front of him. “It’s not like I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, I mean, obviously," he gestures to his piercing-less face, “but, are you sure you want to get pierced at a shop that would pierce you?" He stops, thinks about the Groucho Marx-esque structure of that sentence, and attempts to rephrase. “What I mean is, any shop that’s going to illegally pierce a sixteen year old probably isn’t the cleanest or safest place to go, you know?"
Teddy looks down and away. “Um, I was actually sort of. Uh. Planning to age myself up a little?"
Billy gapes at him for a minute. “You are ridiculous," he says, flat. “They are still going to check your ID. In fact, I think they’re legally required to. Hand it over."
“Billy, what?"
“Your ID, give it," Billy says again.
Teddy wordlessly digs it out of his wallet and passes it over. Billy turns it over in his hands a few times, then cups it between his palms and focuses. Repeat to yourself what you want, one of those stupid books had said. Make it happen by believing it will happen. So Billy thinks about what he wants, how he wants Teddy’s birth date to change, how the ink will rearrange itself. He feels the magic flicker behind his eyes and feels the pleasurable spark of rebellion in his gut.
When he’s done, the small piece of plastic now assures that world that Theodore Altman is in fact nineteen years of age.
Teddy takes it back from him with his eyebrows drawn in tight and his mouth hard. He doesn’t say a word for a long time, just runs his fingers over the numbers beneath the laminate.
“You didn’t have to do that," he says quietly. “I didn’t mean you to- that’s not why I-"
Billy has steadily been learning more and more about Teddy. By now he’s heard - admittedly in bits and pieces, broken up and grudging over time - most of Teddy’s history with his former “friend" Greg, about Teddy’s powers, about what Teddy used to do. He’s not always sure he totally gets it - isn’t sure he ever will totally get it, because he’s never known how to be anything other than exactly what he is, for better or worse - but at least knowing means he sort of understands what Teddy’s trying to say.
“Relax, dude," he says, trying to play it off. “You didn’t trick me into horrible powers abuse. Sorry, but you are just not that good at manipulation." Which isn’t strictly true, but it’s not like any of it’s deliberate and Teddy isn’t really responsible for Billy’s own neurotic responses anyway.
When Teddy still doesn’t say anything, Billy takes a deep breath, hopes he doesn’t blow it, and reaches over to touch Teddy gently on the knee.
“I wanted to do it, okay?" he says. Teddy looks up at him then, smiling a little, and Billy grins. “Besides, now we’re both complicit, so neither of us can rat the other out to the Feds."
Teddy puts on a mock serious face. “Thus begins our sad descent into the world of supervillainy."
“Fear us," says Billy, and Teddy makes the appropriate spooky fingers.
(They duck into an alley on the way out so Teddy can give himself a few inches and rough shadowing of stubble without his mom seeing, and damn, if that’s really what Teddy’s going to look like when he’s older, then...yeah, okay, Billy was done for a long time ago anyway.)
Blank Slate Tattoos is unassuming. Billy’s pretty sure you’d miss it completely if you weren’t looking for it, and he kind of likes that. It also seems really clean, which he likes even more, because Teddy might have a healing factor but that’s no reason to be plain stupid.
The guy at the counter has his head buried in a book and doesn’t have any tattoos or piercings that Billy can see (which seems a little unusual until it occurs to him that there are plenty of places that could be tattooed and/or pierced that Billy just isn’t privy to. He kind of wants to smack himself in the head). Despite his surly expression, he doesn’t blink twice at Teddy’s cheerful, “I’d like to get my ears pierced, please", just takes his ID (Billy holds his breath) and hands him a form. He sticks the ID on a photocopier then hands it back, and Teddy forks over enough cash for four holes in each ear.
“Reno’ll be out in a sec," he says, and sticks his nose back in his book.
Teddy drifts away from the counter to where Billy is flipping through some of the portfolio books without really looking at them.
“You know," he says, pitching his voice low, “it’s not too late for you to still get something done."
Billy rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t think my parents are any less inclined to freak than they were a week ago, T," he whispers.
“Think about it though," Teddy says and bumps their shoulders together.
“When I’m ready to be murdered, sure," says Billy, and Teddy laughs.
“You Theodore?" comes a voice from behind the counter.
“Teddy," he says, turning.
“Hi, Teddy. I’m Reno, and I’ll be your piercer today," the woman says in an amused sort of voice. She’s kind of impossibly tiny - she looks even younger than them - but she’s got metal poked through various points on her face and tattoos covering both arms and her entire neck and a complicated twist of dreads pinned up behind her head. For the first time in his life, Billy is feeling the overwhelming urge to get tattoos up and down both of his arms, because she’s making it look, simply, awesome. “You ready to come on back?"
“Absolutely," Teddy says with a grin. He goes around behind the counter in the direction she’s pointing, but when Billy moves to follow, the guy at the counter glares at him.
“Oh um," Teddy says, “can my friend not come in with me?"
“No, sorry," Reno says. She flashes Billy a sympathetic smile. “It’s not allowed; he’ll have to wait up here. Shouldn’t take long, though."
“It’s cool, T," Billy says at Teddy’s disappointed face. “I’ll bury my deep and ever-lasting sadness at being left behind in a tattoo magazine. “
“Don’t decide on one without me," Teddy warns.
“I’m not getting one," Billy says.
“Just you wait," Teddy says before heading back to the piercing room. Reno winks at Billy and he responds with an exaggerated shrug of despair before she goes to follow.
He does not not not think about a tattoo on his ribs, and Teddy bending to follow the lines with his tongue.
::
When Nathaniel tells them all he’s actually Kang, everything kind of blows up for a little while. Eli shouts at Nathaniel for a long time, which leads to Billy shouting at Eli, which leads straight into Eli shouting at Billy into Teddy shouting at Eli into Nathaniel shouting at Teddy into Billy shouting at Nathaniel until none of them can shout anymore, and they all stalk off in different directions.
Billy spends a few days morosely texting Teddy and getting equally morose texts back from Teddy and wishing he had gotten that piercing after all. He and Teddy meet up once and spend an afternoon watching appallingly terrible movies on tv, but neither of them is capable of coming up with snarky commentary or an absurd alternate plotline for even Sharktopus.
“I guess he was a future supervillain after all," Billy says as something on tv that should not really be able to explode does.
“Hmmm?" Teddy says from where he’s hugging his knees.
“Nothing," Billy says.
In the end it’s Eli who calls them all back to the mansion. At seeing Nathaniel - who’s returned to original flavor Nathaniel, all tension and holding on by his fingernails - Eli says, “We’re still behind you."
Billy thinks that maybe that’s not exactly it, but at least it’s sort of in the right vicinity. Like, they aren’t going to leave Nathaniel, because he needs them - that’s written all over his face every minute of every day - but. ‘Behind’ ignores the part where they need him too. Billy gets it, and Teddy does too, judging from the hesitant smile on his face. Billy’s pretty sure Eli gets that part of it too, but just doesn’t know how to say it.
Because it’s not behind, they aren’t behind Nathaniel, following his lead and propping him up. It’s beside, alongside, four abreast and all of them keeping each other in line.
From the way Nathaniel grips Eli’s forearm, it looks like he does understand.
It’s just when things are maybe starting to get back to ‘normal’ - whatever the hell that is anyway - when Nathaniel throws them another loop. Billy’s in the middle of carting Eli through the air, frantically trying to dodge the projectiles Teddy is lobbing at them both, when Nathaniel abruptly calls them down, saying that they’re ending practice early today.
Billy drops Eli lightly down and lands without stumbling even a little, which earns him a blinding smile from Teddy. He scoffs and makes a rude gesture in response, what with the alternative being spontaneous combustion. Teddy rolls his eyes and brushes the rubble crumbs off his hands.
“Any particular reason, Nathaniel?" Teddy says and grabs Billy by the arms when he goes to make another gesture.
Billy responds by sticking out his tongue, and Teddy grabs him again, and Eli barks out, “Guys," snapping his fingers.
Nathaniel stands up straight in his thirtieth century posture and clears his throat with twenty first century awkwardness. “I-" he starts. “I thought that maybe we could all go out to dinner."
Eli starts to get into his argument stance - he even pulls his new mask off for maximum glare - and Billy just rolls his eyes because the day they go without this sort of ridiculousness is the day all the villains rise up as one, admit that they’ve all done the world wrong, and announce that they are collectively moving to Pluto in order to find the better person inside themselves.
“Don’t you think we might have better things to do with our time?" Eli is asking pointedly. Nathaniel side-steps and rubs the back of his neck.
“Oh shut up, Eli," Billy says. “You’re screwing up his attempt at ‘team bonding’ or whatever." It comes out as sarcastic as usual, but Billy tries to inject some fondness into it. Everything’s still a little raw.
It’s not until Nathaniel reactivates his full armor and retreats back to his thirtieth century posture that Billy realises, oh shit, that’s exactly what Nathaniel was trying to do. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering with all this magic stuff when clearly his superpower is being the champion foot-in-it-sticker.
Billy catches Teddy’s eyes, and from the look of it, he’s recognized the exact same thing Billy has. Billy tries to send Fix it fix it fix it to him through sheer willpower alone. It kind of seems to work.
“Yeah, Nathaniel, that sounds great," Teddy says, possibly a little too loudly, and lets go of Billy to lay a hand on Eli’s shoulder before he can protest. “I think we could all use a little downtime."
“Definitely," Billy says quickly and stares hard at Eli, willing him to get it.
Eli waits a second then throws his hands up in the air dramatically. “Fine! Just anywhere but Chili’s," he says, and Nathaniel laughs.
It’s later, after they’ve changed back into street clothes, after they’ve settled into a restaurant that is decidedly not Chili’s, Billy starts to think that maybe he gets it the rest of it. Why they're all still here. That maybe Nathaniel had the right thought in the broad strokes but was still wrong at all the details. Somewhere in between Teddy piling much closer than he needs to in the booth (the thrill of him pressed all along Billy’s side mitigated somewhat by the constant elbow whacks in the ribs) and Nathaniel ordering a virgin Daquiri and making a hilarious face at the first sip, and Eli automatically scraping all the onions from his burger onto Billy’s, Billy realises that they don’t need enforced team bonding exercises. They are all already bonded, a thousand tiny stupid threads tying them all together into a unit that Billy can’t quite imagine having ever being without. From Nathaniel always starting the simulator on Swarm because he knows Billy finds him ridiculous, to Teddy being able to let Eli vent when he needs to and shutting him down deftly when he doesn’t, to Eli coming back every time, even though he says every day that their antics are going to make him prematurely grey, it all adds up to something that-
And you know what, fuck that it feels cliche to even think it, because it’s true. Together they are better than the sum of their parts, and no matter what might happen after this, coming together was right. That maybe they’ve already done good.
::
Because this is Billy’s life, everything comes complete with catastrophe.
A freak thunderstorm comes up when they’re still a few blocks away, and by the time they make it to the sanctuary of Billy’s building, both he and Teddy are completely soaked. Billy’s mood is also completely soaked, as it were, because he had tried - had wanted - to do something to keep them both dry, or hell, even just to conjure up an umbrella, and he’d totally failed. Not even the thought of an afternoon of zombie movies perks him up as they squelch their way across the lobby, nor do Teddy’s hesitant, wet smiles.
They drip puddles in the carpet of the elevator on the way up and Billy tells Bubbe-Kaplan-in-his-head to shove her protests.
He sends Teddy into his room once they get into the apartment and makes a beeline for the bathroom to get some towels. He doesn’t pay attention to the quantity of water that he is dripping fucking everywhere, because he really just does not care. Predictably, when he turns to leave, his foot skids on the newly slick tiles and he goes down, cracking his head against the towel rack before he catches himself. Dammit, Kaplan, every time, he curses himself as he sits on the floor, waiting for his vision to clear. At least his pants can’t get any wetter.
When Billy finally gets back to his room, he tosses Teddy a towel with the hand not currently engaged in clutching at the burgeoning headache in his temple. Teddy pauses with the towel halfway to his hair and narrows his eyes.
“Jesus, Billy, what did you do?" he says, dropping his towel and crossing to where Billy is sort of leaning against the closed door.
“Oh you know," Billy says, wincing, “just pondering my apparent lack of ability to walk upright without falling down."
“Did you hit your head?" says Teddy, and Billy just sort of looks at him until Teddy huffs and pulls Billy’s hands away. “Let me see it, dweeb."
He steers Billy over to the bed and Billy half-sits, half-falls onto the edge. Teddy leans over into his space and stares at his forehead, hands just grazing Billy’s edges in the way that would ordinarily make Billy’s whole body lock up. His hair drips into Billy’s face.
“It doesn’t look like you’re bleeding," Teddy says, his voice unusually rough. “You do have one hell of a lump, though."
“Is any brain leaking out?" Billy says.
“Not that I can see," Teddy says. “But wait, there is something..." Teddy’s fingers are suddenly right in Billy’s face, a soft pressure against his cheekbone that startles him into jerking backwards and almost giving Teddy a lump to match the one he’s sporting.
“What," he says eloquently. Knocks to the head and proximity are apparently excellent for his reasoning capabilities.
“Eyelash," Teddy says, pulling back to grin. He moves the tip of his finger back into Billy’s eye line and, sure enough, there’s the dark curl of an eyelash on the pad.
“Wonderful. I might have brain damage and you’re concerning yourself with the various bits I shed," Billy says. Then he wishes for a rewind button because that was kind of an unfortunate way to put that.
Luckily, Teddy seems unfazed. “I think you’re going to live," he says in a voice like he’s rolling his eyes, and kind of waggles his finger under Billy’s nose. “Anyway, go on."
“Go on what?" Billy says. Isn’t he the one with the cracked skull?
“Go on," Teddy says, waggling his finger more as if that will make what he’s saying make any more sense. “You know, blow it and make a wish."
And wow, that actually kind of tops Billy’s own unfortunate phrasing. Especially because, “Really," he deadpans.
Teddy just sort of looks at him expectantly. Also like he has no intention of moving until Billy does what he wants.
“Teddy," Billy finally says, going a little cross-eyed staring at Teddy’s finger, “you do realize that I am basically my own wish granter. Magic?" He makes the appropriate hands for emphasis. “No genies, no birthday candles, no eyelashes necessary."
“No sense of fun necessary either," Teddy says.
“Nope, born without one." Maybe this isn’t really happening, maybe he hit his head harder than he thought, maybe he’s lying passed out on the bathroom floor.
“Just humor me. Dork," Teddy says, and Billy gives in. He’s got nothing left. It’s been a day that’s gone, as per usual, from bad to worse, filling itself with storms and confusion and blows to his equilibrium, and somehow adding eyelashes on top of everything else is the thing that finally exhausts his reserves. He leans forward and blows the eyelash away and doesn’t wish for anything at all because there doesn’t seem to be much point.
Then he pulls back, and Teddy is still just as close, hand still hovering in mid-air. “See, that wasn’t so bad," he says, lips quirking at the side and water from the rain dripping from his hair. There's a little bit of a flush across his nose as he looks down at Billy.
Billy rolls his eyes away from Teddy's expression, because what else is there? That's all there ever is, no matter how many eyelashes there are or how much Teddy blushes or how close he leans. Billy kind of wants to cover his face with his hands but Teddy still hasn't moved away. “Teddy, I don’t-"
Whatever that sentence was supposed to be gets lost because that's when Teddy surges forward and crushes his mouth to Billy’s.
And. And Billy did not see this one coming. There’s a split second where he feels like his heart is going to pound its way out of his chest; he can feel the tremble in Teddy’s body and he doesn’t know what to do about it.
“Oh fuck," he breathes against Teddy’s lips and opens his mouth into it.
Teddy responds eagerly, oh, so eagerly, biting at Billy’s upper lip in his haste and making a small, desperate noise like he can’t believe Billy didn’t shove him off or hit him in the face. Like he never expected it to work. Not that Billy has any idea what that feeling’s like, nope, and he does his best to push it away by sucking on Teddy’s bottom lip.
Teddy’s hand works its way around to grip the back of Billy’s head and he leans into Billy hungrily. Billy is unprepared for it, which, wow understatement, and he has to grasp at the wet sides of Teddy’s t-shirt to pull him into his lap before there’s a second round of blows to the head and they spend the rest of the afternoon unconscious.
Teddy makes a noise that’s probably assent, given how he’s still kissing Billy like he has no need for breath and how his knees tighten on Billy’s hips when Billy licks his way into his mouth. And god, it’s actually happening, it’s not- he has his hands under the back of Teddy’s shirt and he’s pulling him in closer and there’s no way this could be happening because this is just not how things work for him.
Billy pulls back to speak but Teddy follows. He tries to speak anyway. “Is this really-" he mumbles into the space between them, and Teddy’s teeth clack against his as if to say Yes, yes it is really.
It’s unreal and kind of dizzying and his body shakes with it as every single nerve ending fires all at once. He nips at Teddy’s lips, channeling all that frantic energy into pushing at Teddy, pulling, trying to find the place he fits against him, but Teddy nuzzles that away, turns it into Teddy stroking his tongue along Billy’s bottom lip until Billy gives over to it. He lets Teddy in as much as Teddy lets him do the same until neither one is giving any ground and they’re meeting together somewhere new.
Billy’s skin feels on fire with it inside his clammy clothes, so he smooths his hands over Teddy’s belly, his chest, his neck to try and soothe it, but Teddy makes the desperate noise again and all it does is make Billy ache. He tries to ease it by mouthing at Teddy’s neck, feeling Teddy pull at his shoulders as Billy works to mark him.
“Never thought-" Teddy mutters, tries to find Billy’s skin. “I’ve wanted this- Never thought I’d be able to-", breaking off to push Billy back enough to suck his earlobe into his mouth. Billy gasps and re-angles himself, always re-angling, to find Teddy’s collarbone with his tongue.
For once, Billy can’t find any words. He thinks of their first fight, the similar tangle of limbs, the cracks that started there to finally split all the way open now. How Teddy couldn’t start things then and Billy couldn’t not and maybe they’ve both been changing this whole time without even realizing it. How maybe they were always going to end up here.
But that’s much too big of an idea for this moment, not when there are better things to be putting his mind to, better uses for his mouth than talking, and Billy doesn’t mind his lack of words. Instead, he stretches up to fit them together again, kissing Teddy and being kissed by Teddy until his lips are numb and his jaw aches and Teddy is rocking against him.
It takes a long time for Billy to make himself break away from Teddy - every time he tries some new patch of skin or curve of lips exerts a fresh pull over him and he’s right back where he started in the best possible way. When does manage it, he feels what has to be the dopiest grin in three states spread across his face and has no inclination to stop it or cover it with something cutting. Teddy brings their foreheads together, noses brushing, breathing hard. Billy can see every fleck in his eyes, which is kind of unbelievable.
Teddy winds his fingers through Billy’s hair and leans every millimeter closer he’s able to get. So many things rise in Billy’s head to say, from God, Teddy, do you even know how much I- to Why did this take us so long? to If we didn’t need food to stay alive, I’m not sure I’d ever want to stop doing this. In the end though, there’s really just one thing.
“Just to be sure," he says against Teddy’s lips, “you’re not just doing this because I have a head injury, right?"
Billy can feel Teddy smile as he says it, but he also hopes that Teddy knows what he means. He’s close enough to feel how Teddy’s heart picks up a little, even through the muddle of all the other things coursing through him. He runs the bridge of his nose along Teddy’s and tries not to tense, tries not to expect anything.
Teddy squeezes him with his knees, uses the hand in his hair to tug Billy’s head up until they can see each other properly. “It’s what I want," he says simply. “You-"
Billy rolls his eyes exaggeratedly to fight off the blush he can feel threatening. “Oh. Good," he says. “As long as we’ve got that straight then, because I’m not sure the towel rack could survive the punishment if I had to do this every time." He turns into the laugh that rises from Teddy’s chest and kisses him down onto the bed.
This is still Billy’s life, so it’s not long after that that Billy’s parents get home and Charlie comes stomping down the hall, yelling for Billy to come clean up all this water he dripped everywhere. But now his life also contains a blushing Teddy who’s struggling to get his wet shirt back on and giggling against Billy’s shoulder blade as he attempts to do the same. He catches sight of the hickey underneath Teddy’s jaw and his spine goes warm and tingly and he thinks that, if this is his life, maybe it’s not such a bad one after all.
::
So the days go like this:
Billy spends about a week alternating between giddy and nervous and so fucking excited that sometimes he can barely even look at Teddy from across the room without his stomach flip-flopping to the point of queasiness. He doesn’t know how to do this, but keeps stumbling along trying to figure it out. Sometimes Teddy will squeeze his hand like he’s feeling the same thing.
They keep practicing together. Eli and Nate still switch between biting each other’s heads off one minute to being best friends the next. Sometimes Nathaniel goes stiff and worried and sometimes Eli gets mad all over again about the Kang thing. Sometimes Teddy still retreats behind his robotic wall and at times Billy can’t stop the cutting things that rise to his lips. Sometimes Eli laughs or Nathaniel tries to crack a joke or Billy actually listens and Teddy’s support runs, warm and tangible, through them all. Eli runs and Nathaniel shoots and Teddy gets big enough to break things and Billy’s magic gets a little bit better every day (even if he does still have to repeat those stupid self-help maxims at least half the time). Sometimes everything goes okay.
One day Billy’s practicing teleporting, practicing it over and over, from the rocks in the garden to just himself to the remains of the machinery scattered around, and when he finally manages to teleport all four of them across the length of the hall, he slumps, weary, against the wall. Nathaniel is checking the readings from his armor and Eli is trying to stick his nose in the process, so it’s just Billy, and Teddy, leaning a little to close.
“You know, you’re kind of amazing," Teddy says, low, pitched into Billy’s ear with his hand in the small of Billy’s back.
Billy starts at that, because he has no idea how he could ever amaze anyone. He’s just him, awkward Billy Kaplan who wears clothes that don’t fit properly, who weaves sarcasm around himself like a shield and aims it like a weapon, who it sometimes feels like is made of a million elbows. He’s all points, none of them going the way they should.
Teddy’s the one who’s amazing, who takes Billy’s breath away, whose confidence shines now that he can finally let it be real. Teddy was the key, not just to Billy but to all of them. Billy doesn’t know how to say any of that, how to show how much everything’s changed on him, so he pinches Teddy’s side and maybe lets out something of a yelp when Teddy’s hand moves lower to cover his ass.
Nathaniel and Eli look up at the sound. Nathaniel smothers a smile and Eli barks, “Guys!" because he’s always going to be the team mom.
And it goes, because Billy is always going to occasionally blow things up with his mind, and none of them have the slightest clue what they’re doing, and maybe this excitement will never truly go away, and yeah. This is his life.
::fin::
Billy is starting to think Teddy isn’t actually over the whole ‘lightning-ed ass leading to screaming match leading to awkward wrestling match leading to peace’ thing, and is actually engaged in a fiendishly clever and involved revenge plot to kill him by degrees.
See, those brief late night texts apparently opened a floodgate Billy didn’t even know was present. Now he and Teddy are texting each other multiple rounds a day, over inane shit like where would different superheroes go on vacation or whether Playstation’s ice cream cone-thing actually manages to improve on the Wiimote (it doesn’t). Sometimes Teddy texts him in the middle of the day, in class, which makes Billy jump and drop his calculator or scrawl black ink across his textbooks, and once Teddy even texted him in the middle of a terrifying incident where Billy’s mother was brandishing the extra charges on his cell bill and Billy thought the whole thing was going to come spilling out of him.
Mom is really good at making people talk.
And the Great Self-Help Experiment (as Billy has taken to calling it) is actually working, shockingly. But most of those sessions devolve pretty quickly into discussions of comic books and favorite movies and what do do in case of zombie apocalypse. Billy is discovering that they have a truly absurd amount of stuff in common, though it’s still grounds for an instant Halo match to the death if either of them ever tries to assert that either the Scarlet Witch or the Wasp is better than the other. (Billy loses most of these matches, but still believes he wins the moral victory.)
In short, they’re actually becoming real friends. Which, honestly, is pretty awesome and Billy would be content with just that, really, except.
Except for the main reason Billy is sure Teddy is masterminding some plot involving Billy’s slow, tortuous death: the touching.
It's just. Now they’ve passed their crossroads, and that’s great - really - except for how the other side of that street is apparently that Teddy is an incredibly tactile person. Billy can excuse the shoulder gripping, the friendly shoves, even the occasional arm slung around his neck - after all, even Eli and Nathaniel do that, though not as much as Teddy - but that’s far from all of it. Teddy touches him when there’s no excuse for it and when there is, brushing lint off him and fidgeting with him while they wait for Eli to get to the point and sitting way way too close.
Billy can’t figure out what it all means, what he’s supposed to get from it. Maybe it’s just the ordinary friend stuff, the stuff Billy only was just beginning to discover way back when before every touch became suspect. Before whatever friendships he might have carried with him from childhood became afraid that oh no, the gay will come off. Before everything that everyone else got to have just stopped. So maybe it’s normal, this easiness with another person’s space that Billy never quite managed to learn. Maybe that’s all it is.
Except. Except that time right after Kessler had apparently decided it was safe to start hitting Billy in the face again - provided he did it with objects that were not his fist, thrown from quite a large distance away - that time Teddy had stared at him like he’d never seen a facial injury before, then reached out and run his thumb over Billy’s split lip for a little too long before coughing and stepping away.
And that’s just- it’s not normal friend stuff. Is it?
It’s just not something Billy knows how to parse. Like, at all. Hell, he hadn’t had a clue Jimmy Stidham was flirting until Jimmy stuck his tongue down Billy’s throat in Health class during that CPR unit. Generally speaking, Billy’s inclined to err on the side of caution, especially because he can’t quite imagine anyone, let alone Teddy doing it on purpose. And in this, it is most definitely better to be safe than wrong.
::
It is way too early for human contact when Billy’s phone bleeps at him. He manages to grab it without knocking it to the floor and is utterly unsurprised to see a text from Teddy.
Come over
is all it says.
t its to early for selfhelp carp
he manages to type through his pre-coffee fog.
Not that. Just come over
Also, carp?
comes back after a minute.
need coffee
Billy sends, scowling.
I will buy you a coffee billy
Hang on
Billy’s phone goes off unexpectedly in his hand, and he may or may not let out a shocked little yelp.
“Come over, Billy," Teddy says when he gets the phone open, all pleading and cheerful because he is a vile morning person and should not be allowed.
“Coffee," Billy grumbles. “Also, you are evil."
“Please, Billy?" Teddy says, and Billy can practically see the puppy dogs eyes that Teddy is unfairly good at. “I found a place to get my ears pierced, and I want you to come."
Fuck. “A large coffee," Billy says in the most intimidating voice he can muster.
“Anything."
“With extra espresso," he says.
“Obviously," Teddy says with a clear smile in his voice, and hangs up.
Billy doesn’t trust himself to fly over this early in the morning or - god forbid - try to teleport again, not after what happened the last time, so he yells, “Going to Teddy’s, Mom," throws the Transformer he trips over in the general direction of Jake’s room, and heads for the train.
The whole ride he deliberately doesn’t think of when Teddy got this idea in his head, because Teddy has proven himself full of ridiculous ideas, and because those are really not pre-coffee thoughts.
(What happened was: Teddy had looked up from digging through the pictures on Billy’s computer and said, I think I’m going to get my ears pierced.
Billy had raised his eyebrows and said, Um, okay, because really.
I mean, like, a lot of them, Teddy had gone on, tugging at the curve of his ear. It’s something I always really wanted, but I could never quite- before, I-
Billy had nodded, because he got that even if the concept of caring like that was still kind of foreign to him.
Anyway, you should come with me, Teddy had said, and he’d reached over and traced along the cartilage of Billy’s ear. You could get something too.
Billy had fought against the triple coronary his heart was engaged in having to say, Pretty sure my parents would freak.
Teddy had said, Well then, maybe a tattoo, and switched his grip to Billy’s wrist, tracing complicated and nonsensical patterns against the skin of his inner forearm.
And really, what the hell is Billy even supposed to do with that?)
Teddy’s waiting outside of his building when Billy comes off the subway, holding out a large coffee that Billy lunges at before even saying hello.
Teddy laughs and says, “I would have gotten you an IV drip, but I don’t think those are commercially available yet."
Billy is too lost in the sweet sweet bliss of caffeine to even bother replying with a sarcastic remark.
Once they’re up in Teddy’s room and Billy’s internalized about half the cup of coffee (and thoroughly scalded his esophagus in the process) he finally says, “Okay, tell me about this place."
Teddy hands him a square card from an irregular stack on his desk. All the cards and fliers look pretty similar from what Billy can see, so he’s not sure what it is about this one that’s got Teddy decided.
“They’ve got a bunch of good reviews online," Teddy says, shrugging. “And um, I. I like the name." He blushes a little bit and rubs the back on his neck.
Ah. Blank Slate Tattoos. “Hey, I’m in no position to judge you," Billy says. “Well, except for your taste in movies, but that’s just par for the course," he continues, and Teddy hits him with a pillow. Billy topples over dramatically but manages to save the coffee at the last minute with some tricky spell work. Teddy whistles appreciatively.
“So are you coming with?" Teddy says after a minute.
Billy sips on his coffee to collect his thoughts. “Look," he says, “if you want me to come, I’ll come, but... And I don’t mean to be a wet blanket or anything but..."
“But?" Teddy prompts.
Billy tugs his shoulders in a little, holds his coffee in front of him. “It’s not like I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, I mean, obviously," he gestures to his piercing-less face, “but, are you sure you want to get pierced at a shop that would pierce you?" He stops, thinks about the Groucho Marx-esque structure of that sentence, and attempts to rephrase. “What I mean is, any shop that’s going to illegally pierce a sixteen year old probably isn’t the cleanest or safest place to go, you know?"
Teddy looks down and away. “Um, I was actually sort of. Uh. Planning to age myself up a little?"
Billy gapes at him for a minute. “You are ridiculous," he says, flat. “They are still going to check your ID. In fact, I think they’re legally required to. Hand it over."
“Billy, what?"
“Your ID, give it," Billy says again.
Teddy wordlessly digs it out of his wallet and passes it over. Billy turns it over in his hands a few times, then cups it between his palms and focuses. Repeat to yourself what you want, one of those stupid books had said. Make it happen by believing it will happen. So Billy thinks about what he wants, how he wants Teddy’s birth date to change, how the ink will rearrange itself. He feels the magic flicker behind his eyes and feels the pleasurable spark of rebellion in his gut.
When he’s done, the small piece of plastic now assures that world that Theodore Altman is in fact nineteen years of age.
Teddy takes it back from him with his eyebrows drawn in tight and his mouth hard. He doesn’t say a word for a long time, just runs his fingers over the numbers beneath the laminate.
“You didn’t have to do that," he says quietly. “I didn’t mean you to- that’s not why I-"
Billy has steadily been learning more and more about Teddy. By now he’s heard - admittedly in bits and pieces, broken up and grudging over time - most of Teddy’s history with his former “friend" Greg, about Teddy’s powers, about what Teddy used to do. He’s not always sure he totally gets it - isn’t sure he ever will totally get it, because he’s never known how to be anything other than exactly what he is, for better or worse - but at least knowing means he sort of understands what Teddy’s trying to say.
“Relax, dude," he says, trying to play it off. “You didn’t trick me into horrible powers abuse. Sorry, but you are just not that good at manipulation." Which isn’t strictly true, but it’s not like any of it’s deliberate and Teddy isn’t really responsible for Billy’s own neurotic responses anyway.
When Teddy still doesn’t say anything, Billy takes a deep breath, hopes he doesn’t blow it, and reaches over to touch Teddy gently on the knee.
“I wanted to do it, okay?" he says. Teddy looks up at him then, smiling a little, and Billy grins. “Besides, now we’re both complicit, so neither of us can rat the other out to the Feds."
Teddy puts on a mock serious face. “Thus begins our sad descent into the world of supervillainy."
“Fear us," says Billy, and Teddy makes the appropriate spooky fingers.
(They duck into an alley on the way out so Teddy can give himself a few inches and rough shadowing of stubble without his mom seeing, and damn, if that’s really what Teddy’s going to look like when he’s older, then...yeah, okay, Billy was done for a long time ago anyway.)
Blank Slate Tattoos is unassuming. Billy’s pretty sure you’d miss it completely if you weren’t looking for it, and he kind of likes that. It also seems really clean, which he likes even more, because Teddy might have a healing factor but that’s no reason to be plain stupid.
The guy at the counter has his head buried in a book and doesn’t have any tattoos or piercings that Billy can see (which seems a little unusual until it occurs to him that there are plenty of places that could be tattooed and/or pierced that Billy just isn’t privy to. He kind of wants to smack himself in the head). Despite his surly expression, he doesn’t blink twice at Teddy’s cheerful, “I’d like to get my ears pierced, please", just takes his ID (Billy holds his breath) and hands him a form. He sticks the ID on a photocopier then hands it back, and Teddy forks over enough cash for four holes in each ear.
“Reno’ll be out in a sec," he says, and sticks his nose back in his book.
Teddy drifts away from the counter to where Billy is flipping through some of the portfolio books without really looking at them.
“You know," he says, pitching his voice low, “it’s not too late for you to still get something done."
Billy rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t think my parents are any less inclined to freak than they were a week ago, T," he whispers.
“Think about it though," Teddy says and bumps their shoulders together.
“When I’m ready to be murdered, sure," says Billy, and Teddy laughs.
“You Theodore?" comes a voice from behind the counter.
“Teddy," he says, turning.
“Hi, Teddy. I’m Reno, and I’ll be your piercer today," the woman says in an amused sort of voice. She’s kind of impossibly tiny - she looks even younger than them - but she’s got metal poked through various points on her face and tattoos covering both arms and her entire neck and a complicated twist of dreads pinned up behind her head. For the first time in his life, Billy is feeling the overwhelming urge to get tattoos up and down both of his arms, because she’s making it look, simply, awesome. “You ready to come on back?"
“Absolutely," Teddy says with a grin. He goes around behind the counter in the direction she’s pointing, but when Billy moves to follow, the guy at the counter glares at him.
“Oh um," Teddy says, “can my friend not come in with me?"
“No, sorry," Reno says. She flashes Billy a sympathetic smile. “It’s not allowed; he’ll have to wait up here. Shouldn’t take long, though."
“It’s cool, T," Billy says at Teddy’s disappointed face. “I’ll bury my deep and ever-lasting sadness at being left behind in a tattoo magazine. “
“Don’t decide on one without me," Teddy warns.
“I’m not getting one," Billy says.
“Just you wait," Teddy says before heading back to the piercing room. Reno winks at Billy and he responds with an exaggerated shrug of despair before she goes to follow.
He does not not not think about a tattoo on his ribs, and Teddy bending to follow the lines with his tongue.
::
When Nathaniel tells them all he’s actually Kang, everything kind of blows up for a little while. Eli shouts at Nathaniel for a long time, which leads to Billy shouting at Eli, which leads straight into Eli shouting at Billy into Teddy shouting at Eli into Nathaniel shouting at Teddy into Billy shouting at Nathaniel until none of them can shout anymore, and they all stalk off in different directions.
Billy spends a few days morosely texting Teddy and getting equally morose texts back from Teddy and wishing he had gotten that piercing after all. He and Teddy meet up once and spend an afternoon watching appallingly terrible movies on tv, but neither of them is capable of coming up with snarky commentary or an absurd alternate plotline for even Sharktopus.
“I guess he was a future supervillain after all," Billy says as something on tv that should not really be able to explode does.
“Hmmm?" Teddy says from where he’s hugging his knees.
“Nothing," Billy says.
In the end it’s Eli who calls them all back to the mansion. At seeing Nathaniel - who’s returned to original flavor Nathaniel, all tension and holding on by his fingernails - Eli says, “We’re still behind you."
Billy thinks that maybe that’s not exactly it, but at least it’s sort of in the right vicinity. Like, they aren’t going to leave Nathaniel, because he needs them - that’s written all over his face every minute of every day - but. ‘Behind’ ignores the part where they need him too. Billy gets it, and Teddy does too, judging from the hesitant smile on his face. Billy’s pretty sure Eli gets that part of it too, but just doesn’t know how to say it.
Because it’s not behind, they aren’t behind Nathaniel, following his lead and propping him up. It’s beside, alongside, four abreast and all of them keeping each other in line.
From the way Nathaniel grips Eli’s forearm, it looks like he does understand.
It’s just when things are maybe starting to get back to ‘normal’ - whatever the hell that is anyway - when Nathaniel throws them another loop. Billy’s in the middle of carting Eli through the air, frantically trying to dodge the projectiles Teddy is lobbing at them both, when Nathaniel abruptly calls them down, saying that they’re ending practice early today.
Billy drops Eli lightly down and lands without stumbling even a little, which earns him a blinding smile from Teddy. He scoffs and makes a rude gesture in response, what with the alternative being spontaneous combustion. Teddy rolls his eyes and brushes the rubble crumbs off his hands.
“Any particular reason, Nathaniel?" Teddy says and grabs Billy by the arms when he goes to make another gesture.
Billy responds by sticking out his tongue, and Teddy grabs him again, and Eli barks out, “Guys," snapping his fingers.
Nathaniel stands up straight in his thirtieth century posture and clears his throat with twenty first century awkwardness. “I-" he starts. “I thought that maybe we could all go out to dinner."
Eli starts to get into his argument stance - he even pulls his new mask off for maximum glare - and Billy just rolls his eyes because the day they go without this sort of ridiculousness is the day all the villains rise up as one, admit that they’ve all done the world wrong, and announce that they are collectively moving to Pluto in order to find the better person inside themselves.
“Don’t you think we might have better things to do with our time?" Eli is asking pointedly. Nathaniel side-steps and rubs the back of his neck.
“Oh shut up, Eli," Billy says. “You’re screwing up his attempt at ‘team bonding’ or whatever." It comes out as sarcastic as usual, but Billy tries to inject some fondness into it. Everything’s still a little raw.
It’s not until Nathaniel reactivates his full armor and retreats back to his thirtieth century posture that Billy realises, oh shit, that’s exactly what Nathaniel was trying to do. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering with all this magic stuff when clearly his superpower is being the champion foot-in-it-sticker.
Billy catches Teddy’s eyes, and from the look of it, he’s recognized the exact same thing Billy has. Billy tries to send Fix it fix it fix it to him through sheer willpower alone. It kind of seems to work.
“Yeah, Nathaniel, that sounds great," Teddy says, possibly a little too loudly, and lets go of Billy to lay a hand on Eli’s shoulder before he can protest. “I think we could all use a little downtime."
“Definitely," Billy says quickly and stares hard at Eli, willing him to get it.
Eli waits a second then throws his hands up in the air dramatically. “Fine! Just anywhere but Chili’s," he says, and Nathaniel laughs.
It’s later, after they’ve changed back into street clothes, after they’ve settled into a restaurant that is decidedly not Chili’s, Billy starts to think that maybe he gets it the rest of it. Why they're all still here. That maybe Nathaniel had the right thought in the broad strokes but was still wrong at all the details. Somewhere in between Teddy piling much closer than he needs to in the booth (the thrill of him pressed all along Billy’s side mitigated somewhat by the constant elbow whacks in the ribs) and Nathaniel ordering a virgin Daquiri and making a hilarious face at the first sip, and Eli automatically scraping all the onions from his burger onto Billy’s, Billy realises that they don’t need enforced team bonding exercises. They are all already bonded, a thousand tiny stupid threads tying them all together into a unit that Billy can’t quite imagine having ever being without. From Nathaniel always starting the simulator on Swarm because he knows Billy finds him ridiculous, to Teddy being able to let Eli vent when he needs to and shutting him down deftly when he doesn’t, to Eli coming back every time, even though he says every day that their antics are going to make him prematurely grey, it all adds up to something that-
And you know what, fuck that it feels cliche to even think it, because it’s true. Together they are better than the sum of their parts, and no matter what might happen after this, coming together was right. That maybe they’ve already done good.
::
Because this is Billy’s life, everything comes complete with catastrophe.
A freak thunderstorm comes up when they’re still a few blocks away, and by the time they make it to the sanctuary of Billy’s building, both he and Teddy are completely soaked. Billy’s mood is also completely soaked, as it were, because he had tried - had wanted - to do something to keep them both dry, or hell, even just to conjure up an umbrella, and he’d totally failed. Not even the thought of an afternoon of zombie movies perks him up as they squelch their way across the lobby, nor do Teddy’s hesitant, wet smiles.
They drip puddles in the carpet of the elevator on the way up and Billy tells Bubbe-Kaplan-in-his-head to shove her protests.
He sends Teddy into his room once they get into the apartment and makes a beeline for the bathroom to get some towels. He doesn’t pay attention to the quantity of water that he is dripping fucking everywhere, because he really just does not care. Predictably, when he turns to leave, his foot skids on the newly slick tiles and he goes down, cracking his head against the towel rack before he catches himself. Dammit, Kaplan, every time, he curses himself as he sits on the floor, waiting for his vision to clear. At least his pants can’t get any wetter.
When Billy finally gets back to his room, he tosses Teddy a towel with the hand not currently engaged in clutching at the burgeoning headache in his temple. Teddy pauses with the towel halfway to his hair and narrows his eyes.
“Jesus, Billy, what did you do?" he says, dropping his towel and crossing to where Billy is sort of leaning against the closed door.
“Oh you know," Billy says, wincing, “just pondering my apparent lack of ability to walk upright without falling down."
“Did you hit your head?" says Teddy, and Billy just sort of looks at him until Teddy huffs and pulls Billy’s hands away. “Let me see it, dweeb."
He steers Billy over to the bed and Billy half-sits, half-falls onto the edge. Teddy leans over into his space and stares at his forehead, hands just grazing Billy’s edges in the way that would ordinarily make Billy’s whole body lock up. His hair drips into Billy’s face.
“It doesn’t look like you’re bleeding," Teddy says, his voice unusually rough. “You do have one hell of a lump, though."
“Is any brain leaking out?" Billy says.
“Not that I can see," Teddy says. “But wait, there is something..." Teddy’s fingers are suddenly right in Billy’s face, a soft pressure against his cheekbone that startles him into jerking backwards and almost giving Teddy a lump to match the one he’s sporting.
“What," he says eloquently. Knocks to the head and proximity are apparently excellent for his reasoning capabilities.
“Eyelash," Teddy says, pulling back to grin. He moves the tip of his finger back into Billy’s eye line and, sure enough, there’s the dark curl of an eyelash on the pad.
“Wonderful. I might have brain damage and you’re concerning yourself with the various bits I shed," Billy says. Then he wishes for a rewind button because that was kind of an unfortunate way to put that.
Luckily, Teddy seems unfazed. “I think you’re going to live," he says in a voice like he’s rolling his eyes, and kind of waggles his finger under Billy’s nose. “Anyway, go on."
“Go on what?" Billy says. Isn’t he the one with the cracked skull?
“Go on," Teddy says, waggling his finger more as if that will make what he’s saying make any more sense. “You know, blow it and make a wish."
And wow, that actually kind of tops Billy’s own unfortunate phrasing. Especially because, “Really," he deadpans.
Teddy just sort of looks at him expectantly. Also like he has no intention of moving until Billy does what he wants.
“Teddy," Billy finally says, going a little cross-eyed staring at Teddy’s finger, “you do realize that I am basically my own wish granter. Magic?" He makes the appropriate hands for emphasis. “No genies, no birthday candles, no eyelashes necessary."
“No sense of fun necessary either," Teddy says.
“Nope, born without one." Maybe this isn’t really happening, maybe he hit his head harder than he thought, maybe he’s lying passed out on the bathroom floor.
“Just humor me. Dork," Teddy says, and Billy gives in. He’s got nothing left. It’s been a day that’s gone, as per usual, from bad to worse, filling itself with storms and confusion and blows to his equilibrium, and somehow adding eyelashes on top of everything else is the thing that finally exhausts his reserves. He leans forward and blows the eyelash away and doesn’t wish for anything at all because there doesn’t seem to be much point.
Then he pulls back, and Teddy is still just as close, hand still hovering in mid-air. “See, that wasn’t so bad," he says, lips quirking at the side and water from the rain dripping from his hair. There's a little bit of a flush across his nose as he looks down at Billy.
Billy rolls his eyes away from Teddy's expression, because what else is there? That's all there ever is, no matter how many eyelashes there are or how much Teddy blushes or how close he leans. Billy kind of wants to cover his face with his hands but Teddy still hasn't moved away. “Teddy, I don’t-"
Whatever that sentence was supposed to be gets lost because that's when Teddy surges forward and crushes his mouth to Billy’s.
And. And Billy did not see this one coming. There’s a split second where he feels like his heart is going to pound its way out of his chest; he can feel the tremble in Teddy’s body and he doesn’t know what to do about it.
“Oh fuck," he breathes against Teddy’s lips and opens his mouth into it.
Teddy responds eagerly, oh, so eagerly, biting at Billy’s upper lip in his haste and making a small, desperate noise like he can’t believe Billy didn’t shove him off or hit him in the face. Like he never expected it to work. Not that Billy has any idea what that feeling’s like, nope, and he does his best to push it away by sucking on Teddy’s bottom lip.
Teddy’s hand works its way around to grip the back of Billy’s head and he leans into Billy hungrily. Billy is unprepared for it, which, wow understatement, and he has to grasp at the wet sides of Teddy’s t-shirt to pull him into his lap before there’s a second round of blows to the head and they spend the rest of the afternoon unconscious.
Teddy makes a noise that’s probably assent, given how he’s still kissing Billy like he has no need for breath and how his knees tighten on Billy’s hips when Billy licks his way into his mouth. And god, it’s actually happening, it’s not- he has his hands under the back of Teddy’s shirt and he’s pulling him in closer and there’s no way this could be happening because this is just not how things work for him.
Billy pulls back to speak but Teddy follows. He tries to speak anyway. “Is this really-" he mumbles into the space between them, and Teddy’s teeth clack against his as if to say Yes, yes it is really.
It’s unreal and kind of dizzying and his body shakes with it as every single nerve ending fires all at once. He nips at Teddy’s lips, channeling all that frantic energy into pushing at Teddy, pulling, trying to find the place he fits against him, but Teddy nuzzles that away, turns it into Teddy stroking his tongue along Billy’s bottom lip until Billy gives over to it. He lets Teddy in as much as Teddy lets him do the same until neither one is giving any ground and they’re meeting together somewhere new.
Billy’s skin feels on fire with it inside his clammy clothes, so he smooths his hands over Teddy’s belly, his chest, his neck to try and soothe it, but Teddy makes the desperate noise again and all it does is make Billy ache. He tries to ease it by mouthing at Teddy’s neck, feeling Teddy pull at his shoulders as Billy works to mark him.
“Never thought-" Teddy mutters, tries to find Billy’s skin. “I’ve wanted this- Never thought I’d be able to-", breaking off to push Billy back enough to suck his earlobe into his mouth. Billy gasps and re-angles himself, always re-angling, to find Teddy’s collarbone with his tongue.
For once, Billy can’t find any words. He thinks of their first fight, the similar tangle of limbs, the cracks that started there to finally split all the way open now. How Teddy couldn’t start things then and Billy couldn’t not and maybe they’ve both been changing this whole time without even realizing it. How maybe they were always going to end up here.
But that’s much too big of an idea for this moment, not when there are better things to be putting his mind to, better uses for his mouth than talking, and Billy doesn’t mind his lack of words. Instead, he stretches up to fit them together again, kissing Teddy and being kissed by Teddy until his lips are numb and his jaw aches and Teddy is rocking against him.
It takes a long time for Billy to make himself break away from Teddy - every time he tries some new patch of skin or curve of lips exerts a fresh pull over him and he’s right back where he started in the best possible way. When does manage it, he feels what has to be the dopiest grin in three states spread across his face and has no inclination to stop it or cover it with something cutting. Teddy brings their foreheads together, noses brushing, breathing hard. Billy can see every fleck in his eyes, which is kind of unbelievable.
Teddy winds his fingers through Billy’s hair and leans every millimeter closer he’s able to get. So many things rise in Billy’s head to say, from God, Teddy, do you even know how much I- to Why did this take us so long? to If we didn’t need food to stay alive, I’m not sure I’d ever want to stop doing this. In the end though, there’s really just one thing.
“Just to be sure," he says against Teddy’s lips, “you’re not just doing this because I have a head injury, right?"
Billy can feel Teddy smile as he says it, but he also hopes that Teddy knows what he means. He’s close enough to feel how Teddy’s heart picks up a little, even through the muddle of all the other things coursing through him. He runs the bridge of his nose along Teddy’s and tries not to tense, tries not to expect anything.
Teddy squeezes him with his knees, uses the hand in his hair to tug Billy’s head up until they can see each other properly. “It’s what I want," he says simply. “You-"
Billy rolls his eyes exaggeratedly to fight off the blush he can feel threatening. “Oh. Good," he says. “As long as we’ve got that straight then, because I’m not sure the towel rack could survive the punishment if I had to do this every time." He turns into the laugh that rises from Teddy’s chest and kisses him down onto the bed.
This is still Billy’s life, so it’s not long after that that Billy’s parents get home and Charlie comes stomping down the hall, yelling for Billy to come clean up all this water he dripped everywhere. But now his life also contains a blushing Teddy who’s struggling to get his wet shirt back on and giggling against Billy’s shoulder blade as he attempts to do the same. He catches sight of the hickey underneath Teddy’s jaw and his spine goes warm and tingly and he thinks that, if this is his life, maybe it’s not such a bad one after all.
::
So the days go like this:
Billy spends about a week alternating between giddy and nervous and so fucking excited that sometimes he can barely even look at Teddy from across the room without his stomach flip-flopping to the point of queasiness. He doesn’t know how to do this, but keeps stumbling along trying to figure it out. Sometimes Teddy will squeeze his hand like he’s feeling the same thing.
They keep practicing together. Eli and Nate still switch between biting each other’s heads off one minute to being best friends the next. Sometimes Nathaniel goes stiff and worried and sometimes Eli gets mad all over again about the Kang thing. Sometimes Teddy still retreats behind his robotic wall and at times Billy can’t stop the cutting things that rise to his lips. Sometimes Eli laughs or Nathaniel tries to crack a joke or Billy actually listens and Teddy’s support runs, warm and tangible, through them all. Eli runs and Nathaniel shoots and Teddy gets big enough to break things and Billy’s magic gets a little bit better every day (even if he does still have to repeat those stupid self-help maxims at least half the time). Sometimes everything goes okay.
One day Billy’s practicing teleporting, practicing it over and over, from the rocks in the garden to just himself to the remains of the machinery scattered around, and when he finally manages to teleport all four of them across the length of the hall, he slumps, weary, against the wall. Nathaniel is checking the readings from his armor and Eli is trying to stick his nose in the process, so it’s just Billy, and Teddy, leaning a little to close.
“You know, you’re kind of amazing," Teddy says, low, pitched into Billy’s ear with his hand in the small of Billy’s back.
Billy starts at that, because he has no idea how he could ever amaze anyone. He’s just him, awkward Billy Kaplan who wears clothes that don’t fit properly, who weaves sarcasm around himself like a shield and aims it like a weapon, who it sometimes feels like is made of a million elbows. He’s all points, none of them going the way they should.
Teddy’s the one who’s amazing, who takes Billy’s breath away, whose confidence shines now that he can finally let it be real. Teddy was the key, not just to Billy but to all of them. Billy doesn’t know how to say any of that, how to show how much everything’s changed on him, so he pinches Teddy’s side and maybe lets out something of a yelp when Teddy’s hand moves lower to cover his ass.
Nathaniel and Eli look up at the sound. Nathaniel smothers a smile and Eli barks, “Guys!" because he’s always going to be the team mom.
And it goes, because Billy is always going to occasionally blow things up with his mind, and none of them have the slightest clue what they’re doing, and maybe this excitement will never truly go away, and yeah. This is his life.
::fin::