American Idiot fic: awkward is its own kind of perfect
awkward is its own kind of perfect [American Idiot, Tunny/Will, R, 3,653 words. For eudaimon, and the prompt 'teenagers, testing boundaries'. Beta thanks to the lovely athenejen.]
Tunny is sixteen and foolish and that's okay because at least he knows it. That's gotta count for something.
*
"I need to get out." Tunny's pressed against his bedroom window, like if he could just push hard enough, he'd be able to escape.
He turns around before he does something stupid and tries to jump out the window. "Yeah, me too," Will says idly, without moving. He spends so much time on Tunny's bed that the pillow smells of Will's shampoo. That should probably weird Tunny out, both his pillow smelling of Will and knowing how Will smells, but it doesn't - it's Will, and that always seems to make things right.
"Wanna go hang with Johnny?" Will adds eventually, as though it took him all that time to come up with the idea.
Sometimes, though, Will just doesn't get it. "No," Tunny says patiently. "I need to get out," and this time he spreads his arms wide. "I need to be, fuck, I dunno. I just. I need to be somewhere else. Away from this."
And just like that, Will gets this raw, empty look on his face. Tunny knows he's put it there, but he can't take his words back.
"You're gonna leave me behind," Will says, and he sounds like he looks, like there's nothing he can do about it and he's simply accepted that. "One day you'll be here, and the next day you'll be gone."
"No," Tunny says, too loud, but he thinks he might be lying.
The look in Will's eyes confirms it. Sometimes Will doesn't get it, not as quick as Johnny might, but there are times Will knows Tunny better than Tunny knows himself. And right now, Will's sure that Tunny's lying.
Tunny sits down on the floor. He wants to say he'll come back, but he's not even sure of that. If he leaves, if he finds some place to be that doesn't depress the shit out of him, he doesn't know that he could ever come back to Jingletown.
*
Except, Tunny can't imagine being without Will either.
He's not sure what that means.
*
He and Will, they've always pushed each other, egged each other on to do dumb shit.
Their first day of grade school, Tunny got lost at recess. The school was big, and he was this little kid, seven years off the start of his growth spurt, and he couldn't see past the crowds of other kids, most bigger than him, and none of them looking lost like he was. And he needed to pee, so when he saw the sign that said 'Restrooms', he followed it.
It was the girls' restroom, and there were girls from higher classes and girls from his own class in there, and they all shrieked first and then started laughing. So Tunny ran out, straight into a sturdy boy with dark hair and a raggedy blue t-shirt.
He didn't know it was Will, not then.
"I never thought you'd do it," the boy who turned out to be Will said, really loud, so everyone could hear.
Tunny was trying to hold back tears, because it was bad enough so far, but if he cried it'd be even worse. "Wha-?" he snuffled, because he thought this boy was making fun of him too, but he didn't look like he was making fun. He looked really impressed.
"Wow," the boy said. "I'd never be brave enough to do that dare." And right then, everyone began looking at Tunny differently. The ones who were laughing started to look like Tunny had done something really cool, and the older ones all drifted away like he wasn't worth their taking any notice of, which was fine by Tunny because he didn't want anyone taking notice of him.
"I'm Will," the boy said after that, when everyone who'd stopped to look moved on, and he quietly pointed Tunny in the direction of the boys' bathroom, and Tunny peed without anything else bad happening. Next day he sat next to Tunny in home room, and Tunny lent him his pencil sharpener and they both agreed that Mrs. Sczenski smelled kind of musty but she was okay, and that Michael Jordan was awesome.
Thing is, after that, they started to dare each other for real. So Tunny gave Jill a wedgie (and got detention when she started crying and ran to Mrs. Sczenski - Tunny didn't mind the detention, but he did mind Mrs. Sczenski saying she was disappointed in him), and Will stole his mum's Vaseline and rubbed it all over the white board, and they both stuffed candy in their pockets in the dime store round the corner from Will's. That was their thing.
Still is.
They're just less obvious about it now.
*
Tunny dreams that Will dares him. To take Will apart, piece by piece, until Will's completely broken. To lay him out on the floor like a jigsaw puzzle. "Because you're the only one who can fit me back together," dream-Will tells him. "Just make sure you don't fuck up the middle," he says, and points to his heart.
Tunny's sure he can do it. He lays Will out and finds the corners first, then all the edges, and that's easy. They're all obvious and they fit together without a single wrong move on Tunny's part. But he gets stuck then, because the center's really tricky and Tunny has to get it right because if he makes a mistake then he's lost Will for good, and when he wakes up he's gasping and scared and it takes him a few moments to work out that he hasn't killed Will. That he hasn't fucked up. That he was dreaming about a fucking jigsaw puzzle.
He kicks off his bedclothes, because he's sweltering under the weight of them, and just lies there, letting his breathing slow down.
Figures that Will's fucking daring him, pushing him, even in his dreams.
What's weird is the way it makes Tunny feel. Like being the only one who can fit Will back together is fucking big.
*
He tells Will about it, the next evening, late.
This time, Will's got his head out of Tunny's window. The frame's old and there are so many coats of paint on it that it doesn't open properly, barely enough for Will to stick his head out. It's pointless anyway - blue smoke's blowing past him, into the room. Tunny doesn't care if his mom smells it though - it's fucking hypocritical if she blasts his head off about it.
He tries to tell Will, but he can't talk to his ass, so Tunny jiggles the window. Not enough to bring it down on Will, just enough to get him back inside, swearing and stubbing the cigarette out on the outside window ledge. There's a little pile of old butts there, some still soggy from the flash storm they had last night. Tunny's surprised they haven't blown away, down into an incriminating heap in the backyard for his mom to find.
"My mouth's fucking dry," Will says, like he expects Tunny to get him a drink. Will flops down on the bed, sprawling out the wrong way, feet up on the headboard.
Tunny leans against the wall, one foot bent behind him trying to leave a footprint on the wall, and says his thing. He curls his toes in the blue shag rug and talks about breaking Will into pieces and putting him back together.
He doesn't manage to make it as clear in words as it is in his head. In his head he sees everything he means, but when he tries to translate the image into words, they come out stuttered and jumbled. He doesn't sound like himself at all, and he can see the words fluttering around Will like fall leaves, no pattern to them.
"Did you get high without me, you motherfucker?" Will asks. "Or are you secretly a fucking psycho killer?"
He sounds more annoyed about the possibility of Tunny getting high without him than he does about him being a psycho.
There's a hole in Will's left sock, and the edge of his toe is poking out. The nail's black - Tunny can't tell if it's painted or bruised. Either's equally likely for Will.
"I'm not fucking high," Tunny snaps, annoyed that Will isn't taking him seriously, that he can't somehow miraculously work out what Tunny means from the jumble of words in the air. "I'm trying to tell you something."
He pushes Will over with his foot and sits down on the edge of the bed. He sticks his feet up and puts one under Will's shoulder and pokes the other in Will's face.
Will doesn't even twitch when Tunny strokes his cheek with his big toe.
Tunny's irritation goes as quickly as it came. He leans his head against Will's ankle. It's late, and getting chilly with the window open, cool enough that he's more comfortable where he's touching Will, his face warm on the side that's pressed against Will's leg, his one left foot cozy under the warmth of Will's back.
Everything's always been comfortable between the two of them. They've told each other everything, all their lives. Never judged - mocked, yeah, of course, that's what best friends are for, but never judged. Tunny closes his eyes, and feels along Will's leg, pushing his jeans up just enough that there's skin visible. Will's legs are getting hairy, dark wiry hair. Tunny rests his face against the bare skin, rolling his head just enough to press his lips against Will for a second. It isn't a kiss. It isn't anything really, except maybe Tunny grounding himself or getting up courage, or who the fuck knows?
"What the fuck, man?" Will says, but not like he's angry. More like he feels he has to protest. Tunny gets that. He just fucking kissed (he might as well admit it was a kiss) Will's leg. He'd be asking what the fuck if he'd had been Will.
He shrugs. Not because he doesn't want to answer, just he doesn't have anything off the top of his head, anything that makes sense. There's something going on, something changing between the two of them, and it's not just that they're growing up. It's Tunny dreaming about Will, and Will being the guy Tunny tells everything, except that now he's not sure how to.
Tunny doesn't think he's gay. He doesn't get a hard on in the showers after gym class, doesn't beat off to gay porn, doesn't stare at guys' asses on the football field. But then he doesn't stare at the cheerleaders much either, not even when they did that routine where they bent over and wriggled their asses at the stands, the routine Coach banned. He's not hard now, either, pressed up against Will. But he thinks he could be, if he let himself think about it.
Of course, he's sixteen. He can get hard pretty much anytime. Doesn't mean that much. Just that his junk's working properly.
"D'you think I'm gay?" he asks, and maybe he's high after all, because where the fuck did that question come from? He's meant to be asking himself that, not asking it out loud to Will. Even best friend duties have their limits, he's sure, even if he and Will have never hit them before.
"Uh. I dunno. You don't look gay," Will says, propping himself up on his elbow and staring as though he doesn't know perfectly well what Tunny looks like.
Tunny rolls his eyes. "Guys don't look gay. Okay, some do," he corrects himself, "but not all. They just are. Or aren't. Or are both."
"You liked kissing Jeanna," Will offers. Tunny had, sort of. He'd liked that he'd finally gotten to kiss a girl, anyway. The actual kissing part he could take or leave - she'd had this really slick cherry lip balm on, and it was kind of slippery. He'd only kissed her again because it felt like the right thing to do, not because he'd desperately wanted to.
"Yeah," Tunny says. He thinks about kissing Will. Not some stupid brush of his mouth on Will's leg, but a proper kiss. Open mouths, some tongue, pressing Will down into the mattress, his thigh between Will's legs. One hand under Will's shirt, finding bare skin at the small of his back. Tunny thinks Will's skin would be soft there, smooth and warm, the dip just right for Tunny to fit his hand into.
Fuck. His dick's taking interest. He could ask Will. Hey, so, how about you let me kiss you so I can see if I'm gay? It sounds kind of pathetic, but Will knows Tunny's kind of pathetic at times. They both know the worst of each other, and they're still friends. Tunny could do it.
"So, um," he starts, which isn't promising. His mouth's dry, and he licks his lips which doesn't really help, just makes him look as self-conscious as he feels.
"You're going to say something really fucking dumb now, aren't you?" Will asks gleefully.
"Yeah," Tunny says, because Will laughing at him actually makes it easier. He takes a deep breath, then sits up. "I want to kiss you," he says.
"Where?" Will says. "Because kissing my leg is just fucking weird." So much for Tunny thinking Will might've not exactly noticed what he was doing earlier.
"Your legs are too hairy," Tunny says, not because he thinks it particularly, but because he's not going to make out like Will's gorgeous or anything, like he can't keep his hands of Will's legs.
"So, where?" Will prompts.
"Where do you think, idiot?"
"Dare you to kiss my ass," Will offers, turning slightly and shaking his ass. He makes as if to pull his pants down.
"Fuck, no," Tunny says, and he thinks that's it. They've made it a joke and it's over, the moment that wasn't really a moment after all, and he's not going to find out what it's like to kiss a guy. To kiss Will, because that's what it's about, really, not whether he's gay or straight or bi, because he's pretty sure he knows the answer to that. He just wants to know what it's like to kiss Will. How it would feel. And he got it all wrong, and soon his mom'll shout up that he needs to settle down if he's going to get up for school tomorrow. It'll be an ordinary night again.
And then Will kisses him.
Tunny's so caught up thinking he's missed his chance, he barely reacts at first. Just sits there while Will leans forward, one hand on Tunny's thigh, kissing him. On the lips. Will's lips are a bit cracked, but they're slick where he must have licked them before he moved in, only Tunny didn't notice any of that happening. Will tastes of tobacco, but Tunny's okay with that. He's okay with all of it: Will's mouth against his own, Will's hand moving up so it's resting on the inside of Tunny's thigh, and if Will moves it more he'll feel just how okay Tunny is with this. Tunny puts his own hand on Will's waist, just on top of his shirt, nothing more, and he doesn't push Will back down or move them at all, even though it's awkward like this, Tunny twisted round and Will propped up on his bed. It feels right that it's awkward - if it'd had been perfect, Tunny wouldn't have been sure what was going on. If he were imagining it. But awkward is its own kind of perfect.
He pulls back eventually and looks at Will. Will looks a bit bemused, as though he didn't think he was going to do that, and he looks-he looks like Tunny's been kissing him. Tunny can't say what it is exactly, just that he looks different. He wonders if he looks the same as before, or if they've both been caught by the same subtle change.
"That was okay," Tunny says after a while, because it's very quiet and that doesn't normally matter but right now he needs there to be some sound in the room. He gets up and fixes it by turning the radio on - it's some fucking emo boyband that can't sing for shit, but he doesn't bother changing the station - and then he sits back down on his bed. He sits the same way he was before, feet facing Will's head.
Will nods. "Yeah," he says, and Tunny thinks they both mean more than they've actually said.
"I should brush my teeth," Tunny says, and gets up even though he's only just sat down again. He can hear his dad getting home, slamming the back door because it doesn't close tight enough to lock otherwise. He's always working late these days; meetings with clients, his dad says, but Tunny's sure his mom's scared he's cheating on her.
Tunny leaves his bedroom door open when he heads along the hall to the bathroom, and half a minute later Will's standing at the basin next to him. Tunny guesses that means Will's sleeping over. It always just happens, nothing planned - they play Guitar Hero too late, or fall asleep listening to music, or Will just can't be bothered to leave. He doesn't have a brush here - he just squeezes some paste on his finger, rubs his teeth, and gargles with that. It's like any other night Will's stayed over, socked feet side-by-side on the bathroom rug, elbowing for space at the sink, except for the fact that this time Tunny's got a hard-on. He can't see quite low enough in the mirror over the sink, but he thinks Will's hard too, a little bit at least.
Tunny needs to jerk off.
"I gotta piss," he says, when Will's swished his mouth out and spat, and Will nods and heads back to Tunny's room.
Will doesn't say anything about how long it takes Tunny to get back to his bedroom. Will's jeans are on the floor, and he's wrapped up in the old throw they always use when Will sleeps over, one foot poking out the end because he's about a foot taller than he was when he first started using it. Tunny shucks his own jeans and t-shirt and socks, just leaves his boxers on. It's a warm night. He climbs into bed, barely enough room even though Will's pressed against the wall. Will's taken the pillow end, but he's thrown a pillow to the bottom of the bed for Tunny. Tunny doesn't use it though - he leans on Will's ankles, like he did before, and it feels okay. It feels like a start.
They sleep like that.
*
He wakes up the next morning when the sun slips through a crack in the curtain and shines straight in his eyes. He's tangled in Will. Will's slipped half under the comforter with Tunny, and Tunny's pillow smells of feet. It takes him a moment to remember that Will kissed him last night, that they kissed each other.
Will's still asleep, snoring softly, hair in his eyes. There's a feeling in Tunny's gut that he can't exactly place - it doesn't quite hurt, isn't quite uncomfortable, is just strange. And warm. When he looks at Will, he feels warm, and he's only felt a hint of that before, not this rush of warmth he feels now.
He wants to kiss Will again, but Will's asleep and it doesn't seem right, not without Will knowing. So instead Tunny gets up and showers - and jerks off in the shower, tugging at his dick like he's punishing it, trying not to think of Will, naked, next to him, jerking off with him, the two of them touching at the hip, only the more he tries not to think of Will, the more vividly he sees him, until he's jizzing all over the white tiles - and then he dresses for school like nothing's happened. Nothing much did happen, really. It just feels like it did.
He wakes Will before he goes downstairs, and Will swears sleepily when he opens one eye and sees the time. He's got to get home first, before school - he's gonna be late, even if he runs. He doesn't move, though, just lazily flips a finger at Tunny. Tunny throws one of his sneakers at him, and closes the door on Will's curses.
His mom's sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in one hand. She stares at him a little too long, tapping her fingernails on the polished pine, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat. She stares like she knows something new about him, something she's still working out, but she doesn't ask questions. She's okay that way, really. Dad would pepper him with questions like it's the fucking Spanish Inquisition, but he's gone already, so that's one lucky escape. Probably the only one he'll get all day.
"Tunny," she calls, as he's heading out the door. He's got his hand on the doorframe, and one foot already outside.
"Yeah, Mom?" he says, trying not to sound like he's worried she's going to ask him something after all. He's not sure he pulls it off. Though maybe he just sounds bored or sulky, which is okay. Nothing unusual there.
"Don't forget your duffel," she says, holding out his gym bag.
He had forgotten. "Thanks," he mutters, swinging it over his shoulder.
He hears the soft thump of Will landing on the ground outside. It isn't the first time he's stayed the night, not even the first time he's slept in Tunny's bed. Just the first time he's felt like he had to sneak out.
Tunny guesses Will must feel like something big's happened too.
//
Tunny is sixteen and foolish and that's okay because at least he knows it. That's gotta count for something.
*
"I need to get out." Tunny's pressed against his bedroom window, like if he could just push hard enough, he'd be able to escape.
He turns around before he does something stupid and tries to jump out the window. "Yeah, me too," Will says idly, without moving. He spends so much time on Tunny's bed that the pillow smells of Will's shampoo. That should probably weird Tunny out, both his pillow smelling of Will and knowing how Will smells, but it doesn't - it's Will, and that always seems to make things right.
"Wanna go hang with Johnny?" Will adds eventually, as though it took him all that time to come up with the idea.
Sometimes, though, Will just doesn't get it. "No," Tunny says patiently. "I need to get out," and this time he spreads his arms wide. "I need to be, fuck, I dunno. I just. I need to be somewhere else. Away from this."
And just like that, Will gets this raw, empty look on his face. Tunny knows he's put it there, but he can't take his words back.
"You're gonna leave me behind," Will says, and he sounds like he looks, like there's nothing he can do about it and he's simply accepted that. "One day you'll be here, and the next day you'll be gone."
"No," Tunny says, too loud, but he thinks he might be lying.
The look in Will's eyes confirms it. Sometimes Will doesn't get it, not as quick as Johnny might, but there are times Will knows Tunny better than Tunny knows himself. And right now, Will's sure that Tunny's lying.
Tunny sits down on the floor. He wants to say he'll come back, but he's not even sure of that. If he leaves, if he finds some place to be that doesn't depress the shit out of him, he doesn't know that he could ever come back to Jingletown.
*
Except, Tunny can't imagine being without Will either.
He's not sure what that means.
*
He and Will, they've always pushed each other, egged each other on to do dumb shit.
Their first day of grade school, Tunny got lost at recess. The school was big, and he was this little kid, seven years off the start of his growth spurt, and he couldn't see past the crowds of other kids, most bigger than him, and none of them looking lost like he was. And he needed to pee, so when he saw the sign that said 'Restrooms', he followed it.
It was the girls' restroom, and there were girls from higher classes and girls from his own class in there, and they all shrieked first and then started laughing. So Tunny ran out, straight into a sturdy boy with dark hair and a raggedy blue t-shirt.
He didn't know it was Will, not then.
"I never thought you'd do it," the boy who turned out to be Will said, really loud, so everyone could hear.
Tunny was trying to hold back tears, because it was bad enough so far, but if he cried it'd be even worse. "Wha-?" he snuffled, because he thought this boy was making fun of him too, but he didn't look like he was making fun. He looked really impressed.
"Wow," the boy said. "I'd never be brave enough to do that dare." And right then, everyone began looking at Tunny differently. The ones who were laughing started to look like Tunny had done something really cool, and the older ones all drifted away like he wasn't worth their taking any notice of, which was fine by Tunny because he didn't want anyone taking notice of him.
"I'm Will," the boy said after that, when everyone who'd stopped to look moved on, and he quietly pointed Tunny in the direction of the boys' bathroom, and Tunny peed without anything else bad happening. Next day he sat next to Tunny in home room, and Tunny lent him his pencil sharpener and they both agreed that Mrs. Sczenski smelled kind of musty but she was okay, and that Michael Jordan was awesome.
Thing is, after that, they started to dare each other for real. So Tunny gave Jill a wedgie (and got detention when she started crying and ran to Mrs. Sczenski - Tunny didn't mind the detention, but he did mind Mrs. Sczenski saying she was disappointed in him), and Will stole his mum's Vaseline and rubbed it all over the white board, and they both stuffed candy in their pockets in the dime store round the corner from Will's. That was their thing.
Still is.
They're just less obvious about it now.
*
Tunny dreams that Will dares him. To take Will apart, piece by piece, until Will's completely broken. To lay him out on the floor like a jigsaw puzzle. "Because you're the only one who can fit me back together," dream-Will tells him. "Just make sure you don't fuck up the middle," he says, and points to his heart.
Tunny's sure he can do it. He lays Will out and finds the corners first, then all the edges, and that's easy. They're all obvious and they fit together without a single wrong move on Tunny's part. But he gets stuck then, because the center's really tricky and Tunny has to get it right because if he makes a mistake then he's lost Will for good, and when he wakes up he's gasping and scared and it takes him a few moments to work out that he hasn't killed Will. That he hasn't fucked up. That he was dreaming about a fucking jigsaw puzzle.
He kicks off his bedclothes, because he's sweltering under the weight of them, and just lies there, letting his breathing slow down.
Figures that Will's fucking daring him, pushing him, even in his dreams.
What's weird is the way it makes Tunny feel. Like being the only one who can fit Will back together is fucking big.
*
He tells Will about it, the next evening, late.
This time, Will's got his head out of Tunny's window. The frame's old and there are so many coats of paint on it that it doesn't open properly, barely enough for Will to stick his head out. It's pointless anyway - blue smoke's blowing past him, into the room. Tunny doesn't care if his mom smells it though - it's fucking hypocritical if she blasts his head off about it.
He tries to tell Will, but he can't talk to his ass, so Tunny jiggles the window. Not enough to bring it down on Will, just enough to get him back inside, swearing and stubbing the cigarette out on the outside window ledge. There's a little pile of old butts there, some still soggy from the flash storm they had last night. Tunny's surprised they haven't blown away, down into an incriminating heap in the backyard for his mom to find.
"My mouth's fucking dry," Will says, like he expects Tunny to get him a drink. Will flops down on the bed, sprawling out the wrong way, feet up on the headboard.
Tunny leans against the wall, one foot bent behind him trying to leave a footprint on the wall, and says his thing. He curls his toes in the blue shag rug and talks about breaking Will into pieces and putting him back together.
He doesn't manage to make it as clear in words as it is in his head. In his head he sees everything he means, but when he tries to translate the image into words, they come out stuttered and jumbled. He doesn't sound like himself at all, and he can see the words fluttering around Will like fall leaves, no pattern to them.
"Did you get high without me, you motherfucker?" Will asks. "Or are you secretly a fucking psycho killer?"
He sounds more annoyed about the possibility of Tunny getting high without him than he does about him being a psycho.
There's a hole in Will's left sock, and the edge of his toe is poking out. The nail's black - Tunny can't tell if it's painted or bruised. Either's equally likely for Will.
"I'm not fucking high," Tunny snaps, annoyed that Will isn't taking him seriously, that he can't somehow miraculously work out what Tunny means from the jumble of words in the air. "I'm trying to tell you something."
He pushes Will over with his foot and sits down on the edge of the bed. He sticks his feet up and puts one under Will's shoulder and pokes the other in Will's face.
Will doesn't even twitch when Tunny strokes his cheek with his big toe.
Tunny's irritation goes as quickly as it came. He leans his head against Will's ankle. It's late, and getting chilly with the window open, cool enough that he's more comfortable where he's touching Will, his face warm on the side that's pressed against Will's leg, his one left foot cozy under the warmth of Will's back.
Everything's always been comfortable between the two of them. They've told each other everything, all their lives. Never judged - mocked, yeah, of course, that's what best friends are for, but never judged. Tunny closes his eyes, and feels along Will's leg, pushing his jeans up just enough that there's skin visible. Will's legs are getting hairy, dark wiry hair. Tunny rests his face against the bare skin, rolling his head just enough to press his lips against Will for a second. It isn't a kiss. It isn't anything really, except maybe Tunny grounding himself or getting up courage, or who the fuck knows?
"What the fuck, man?" Will says, but not like he's angry. More like he feels he has to protest. Tunny gets that. He just fucking kissed (he might as well admit it was a kiss) Will's leg. He'd be asking what the fuck if he'd had been Will.
He shrugs. Not because he doesn't want to answer, just he doesn't have anything off the top of his head, anything that makes sense. There's something going on, something changing between the two of them, and it's not just that they're growing up. It's Tunny dreaming about Will, and Will being the guy Tunny tells everything, except that now he's not sure how to.
Tunny doesn't think he's gay. He doesn't get a hard on in the showers after gym class, doesn't beat off to gay porn, doesn't stare at guys' asses on the football field. But then he doesn't stare at the cheerleaders much either, not even when they did that routine where they bent over and wriggled their asses at the stands, the routine Coach banned. He's not hard now, either, pressed up against Will. But he thinks he could be, if he let himself think about it.
Of course, he's sixteen. He can get hard pretty much anytime. Doesn't mean that much. Just that his junk's working properly.
"D'you think I'm gay?" he asks, and maybe he's high after all, because where the fuck did that question come from? He's meant to be asking himself that, not asking it out loud to Will. Even best friend duties have their limits, he's sure, even if he and Will have never hit them before.
"Uh. I dunno. You don't look gay," Will says, propping himself up on his elbow and staring as though he doesn't know perfectly well what Tunny looks like.
Tunny rolls his eyes. "Guys don't look gay. Okay, some do," he corrects himself, "but not all. They just are. Or aren't. Or are both."
"You liked kissing Jeanna," Will offers. Tunny had, sort of. He'd liked that he'd finally gotten to kiss a girl, anyway. The actual kissing part he could take or leave - she'd had this really slick cherry lip balm on, and it was kind of slippery. He'd only kissed her again because it felt like the right thing to do, not because he'd desperately wanted to.
"Yeah," Tunny says. He thinks about kissing Will. Not some stupid brush of his mouth on Will's leg, but a proper kiss. Open mouths, some tongue, pressing Will down into the mattress, his thigh between Will's legs. One hand under Will's shirt, finding bare skin at the small of his back. Tunny thinks Will's skin would be soft there, smooth and warm, the dip just right for Tunny to fit his hand into.
Fuck. His dick's taking interest. He could ask Will. Hey, so, how about you let me kiss you so I can see if I'm gay? It sounds kind of pathetic, but Will knows Tunny's kind of pathetic at times. They both know the worst of each other, and they're still friends. Tunny could do it.
"So, um," he starts, which isn't promising. His mouth's dry, and he licks his lips which doesn't really help, just makes him look as self-conscious as he feels.
"You're going to say something really fucking dumb now, aren't you?" Will asks gleefully.
"Yeah," Tunny says, because Will laughing at him actually makes it easier. He takes a deep breath, then sits up. "I want to kiss you," he says.
"Where?" Will says. "Because kissing my leg is just fucking weird." So much for Tunny thinking Will might've not exactly noticed what he was doing earlier.
"Your legs are too hairy," Tunny says, not because he thinks it particularly, but because he's not going to make out like Will's gorgeous or anything, like he can't keep his hands of Will's legs.
"So, where?" Will prompts.
"Where do you think, idiot?"
"Dare you to kiss my ass," Will offers, turning slightly and shaking his ass. He makes as if to pull his pants down.
"Fuck, no," Tunny says, and he thinks that's it. They've made it a joke and it's over, the moment that wasn't really a moment after all, and he's not going to find out what it's like to kiss a guy. To kiss Will, because that's what it's about, really, not whether he's gay or straight or bi, because he's pretty sure he knows the answer to that. He just wants to know what it's like to kiss Will. How it would feel. And he got it all wrong, and soon his mom'll shout up that he needs to settle down if he's going to get up for school tomorrow. It'll be an ordinary night again.
And then Will kisses him.
Tunny's so caught up thinking he's missed his chance, he barely reacts at first. Just sits there while Will leans forward, one hand on Tunny's thigh, kissing him. On the lips. Will's lips are a bit cracked, but they're slick where he must have licked them before he moved in, only Tunny didn't notice any of that happening. Will tastes of tobacco, but Tunny's okay with that. He's okay with all of it: Will's mouth against his own, Will's hand moving up so it's resting on the inside of Tunny's thigh, and if Will moves it more he'll feel just how okay Tunny is with this. Tunny puts his own hand on Will's waist, just on top of his shirt, nothing more, and he doesn't push Will back down or move them at all, even though it's awkward like this, Tunny twisted round and Will propped up on his bed. It feels right that it's awkward - if it'd had been perfect, Tunny wouldn't have been sure what was going on. If he were imagining it. But awkward is its own kind of perfect.
He pulls back eventually and looks at Will. Will looks a bit bemused, as though he didn't think he was going to do that, and he looks-he looks like Tunny's been kissing him. Tunny can't say what it is exactly, just that he looks different. He wonders if he looks the same as before, or if they've both been caught by the same subtle change.
"That was okay," Tunny says after a while, because it's very quiet and that doesn't normally matter but right now he needs there to be some sound in the room. He gets up and fixes it by turning the radio on - it's some fucking emo boyband that can't sing for shit, but he doesn't bother changing the station - and then he sits back down on his bed. He sits the same way he was before, feet facing Will's head.
Will nods. "Yeah," he says, and Tunny thinks they both mean more than they've actually said.
"I should brush my teeth," Tunny says, and gets up even though he's only just sat down again. He can hear his dad getting home, slamming the back door because it doesn't close tight enough to lock otherwise. He's always working late these days; meetings with clients, his dad says, but Tunny's sure his mom's scared he's cheating on her.
Tunny leaves his bedroom door open when he heads along the hall to the bathroom, and half a minute later Will's standing at the basin next to him. Tunny guesses that means Will's sleeping over. It always just happens, nothing planned - they play Guitar Hero too late, or fall asleep listening to music, or Will just can't be bothered to leave. He doesn't have a brush here - he just squeezes some paste on his finger, rubs his teeth, and gargles with that. It's like any other night Will's stayed over, socked feet side-by-side on the bathroom rug, elbowing for space at the sink, except for the fact that this time Tunny's got a hard-on. He can't see quite low enough in the mirror over the sink, but he thinks Will's hard too, a little bit at least.
Tunny needs to jerk off.
"I gotta piss," he says, when Will's swished his mouth out and spat, and Will nods and heads back to Tunny's room.
Will doesn't say anything about how long it takes Tunny to get back to his bedroom. Will's jeans are on the floor, and he's wrapped up in the old throw they always use when Will sleeps over, one foot poking out the end because he's about a foot taller than he was when he first started using it. Tunny shucks his own jeans and t-shirt and socks, just leaves his boxers on. It's a warm night. He climbs into bed, barely enough room even though Will's pressed against the wall. Will's taken the pillow end, but he's thrown a pillow to the bottom of the bed for Tunny. Tunny doesn't use it though - he leans on Will's ankles, like he did before, and it feels okay. It feels like a start.
They sleep like that.
*
He wakes up the next morning when the sun slips through a crack in the curtain and shines straight in his eyes. He's tangled in Will. Will's slipped half under the comforter with Tunny, and Tunny's pillow smells of feet. It takes him a moment to remember that Will kissed him last night, that they kissed each other.
Will's still asleep, snoring softly, hair in his eyes. There's a feeling in Tunny's gut that he can't exactly place - it doesn't quite hurt, isn't quite uncomfortable, is just strange. And warm. When he looks at Will, he feels warm, and he's only felt a hint of that before, not this rush of warmth he feels now.
He wants to kiss Will again, but Will's asleep and it doesn't seem right, not without Will knowing. So instead Tunny gets up and showers - and jerks off in the shower, tugging at his dick like he's punishing it, trying not to think of Will, naked, next to him, jerking off with him, the two of them touching at the hip, only the more he tries not to think of Will, the more vividly he sees him, until he's jizzing all over the white tiles - and then he dresses for school like nothing's happened. Nothing much did happen, really. It just feels like it did.
He wakes Will before he goes downstairs, and Will swears sleepily when he opens one eye and sees the time. He's got to get home first, before school - he's gonna be late, even if he runs. He doesn't move, though, just lazily flips a finger at Tunny. Tunny throws one of his sneakers at him, and closes the door on Will's curses.
His mom's sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in one hand. She stares at him a little too long, tapping her fingernails on the polished pine, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat. She stares like she knows something new about him, something she's still working out, but she doesn't ask questions. She's okay that way, really. Dad would pepper him with questions like it's the fucking Spanish Inquisition, but he's gone already, so that's one lucky escape. Probably the only one he'll get all day.
"Tunny," she calls, as he's heading out the door. He's got his hand on the doorframe, and one foot already outside.
"Yeah, Mom?" he says, trying not to sound like he's worried she's going to ask him something after all. He's not sure he pulls it off. Though maybe he just sounds bored or sulky, which is okay. Nothing unusual there.
"Don't forget your duffel," she says, holding out his gym bag.
He had forgotten. "Thanks," he mutters, swinging it over his shoulder.
He hears the soft thump of Will landing on the ground outside. It isn't the first time he's stayed the night, not even the first time he's slept in Tunny's bed. Just the first time he's felt like he had to sneak out.
Tunny guesses Will must feel like something big's happened too.
//