by Tsukizubon Saruko (月図凡然る子)

(mirrors http://s2b2.livejournal.com/72672.html)

“‘Unresolved issues’?”

Nicky cackles into his drink, not so much because it’s funny as because he can’t remember the number on the drink, and hell, that makes everything pretty funny. “You sound like my mom’s fucking therapist. ‘Unresolved issues.’ Christ.”

The table in Kyle’s “basement” is littered with glasses, and although the Bailey’s and the whiskey are still holding up okay, they’re running low on Guinness in the fridge. They only have what Kyle’s parents left behind, on their way to England or Wales or whatever fucking thing it is this weekend. They both work for the U.N. and have got approximately more money than God, which they apparently care about way more than whether their kid gets into the liquor cabinet while they’re overseas. Kyle’s “basement” gets quotation marks on account of being a beige-carpeted space the size of an Olympic swimming pool, sporting an air hockey table, a pinball machine, and at least seven game systems hooked up to literally the biggest TV Nicky’s ever seen. He can still remember playing hide-and-seek in here on Kyle’s birthday once when they were both seven, and it actually being sort of a challenge. Nicky’s mom hasn’t got more money than God or even several of the saints, but he’s pretty sure she can smell trouble on him right now from the other side of West Orange. Sometimes, Nicky can actually find the stupid in him to actually be jealous of Kyle.

The carbombs are Trey’s specialty, which Nicky finds hilarious for reasons he can’t really put into words — apart from the fact that Trey hasn’t been drinking them, which has left him at a distinct advantage as this conversation has officially gotten weird. He leans forward on his elbows on the table, grinning his uneven grin. “Look, all I’m saying is, if you were completely comfortable with your own shit, why would the shit that other people do freak you out?”

Trey. Trey moved to their school from someplace in Newark in eighth grade, is the kind of kid who sincerely finds it cool to wear his baseball cap backwards, not only has stubble but has it all the time. When Trey was six years old you could probably already see the potential on his face of where a mustache would belong. Trey started out his first day at school by insulting Kyle all through study hall, grinning like a lunatic, and at the edge of the softball field afterward Nicky held his arms while Kyle beat him up, and yet still at the end of the week, somehow, Trey had become Kyle’s other best friend. Nicky wasn’t exactly surprised this past summer when, slightly stoned on the hood of Nicky’s car, Kyle had admitted to him that he and Trey had been fucking since the previous October, but he’s got to admit, he wasn’t exactly unsurprised, either. Sure, Trey’s gay, Trey doesn’t make any bones about being gay even when you kind of wish he would, but Kyle is… Kyle. You just don’t think about your best friend from kindergarten on getting hummers from some skinny little nutball from Newark, that’s all. Even if you have to play for his sake like the nutball’s your friend, too.

So Nicky blinks at Trey for a long moment, trying to focus his eyes. After a minute, he turns to Kyle, and asks, not at all in undertone, “Is he calling me a fag?”

And Kyle. Kyle is… Kyle. Kyle wears square glasses with lenses so thick Nicky makes jokes about stopping bullets. Kyle’s got shaggy brown hair always in his eyes, a little smile like an OUT TO LUNCH sign, Kyle doesn’t talk when he doesn’t have to and he wants you to know he sure doesn’t have to for your sake. Kyle has long bony hands and has never tucked in a shirt in his entire life and sometimes makes up elaborate, pornographic answers to the essay questions on tests just because he’s bored of getting things right. Kyle held back Nicky’s hair when it was still long the first time he got so drunk and stoned at once he needed to puke just to take the edge off the panic, and when they were ten Nicky put dog shit in the locker of a kid who had asked Kyle how many guys who might be his dad he had. Kyle is Kyle. Kyle’s not a fag, and who Kyle fucks is Kyle’s business, you know?

So why are they even talking about this?

Kyle looks at Trey. “He wants to know if you’re calling him a fag,” he says. He’s got a low, pleasant voice, when he does talk.

Trey throws up his hands, still grinning. “If the shoe fits up your ass, little man!”

Kyle glances back at Nicky. He only moves his eyes, not his head. “I think that’s a yes.”

Nicky rolls his eyes, and gives up and talks to Trey direct. Kyle’s going to be no help, big surprise. “Look, no offense to present company, but I’m just not into that, all right? I don’t know where you’re getting this from.”

“Maybe from how loud you say no,” Trey suggests. His grin really isn’t going anywhere; it’s the kind you start to want to smack off his face after awhile. “Sure you aren’t just scared you’d try it and it’d get you all hard?”

“Trey…” Kyle says, softly. Trey ignores him.

It’s a good thing Nicky’s drunk, because it means he can actually laugh at this, and even sound only a little uncomfortable. Kid’s just fucking around, right? He can take a joke. “No! I mean… yeah, I’m sure, thanks.”

“Prove it,” Trey says. Grinning.

That stops Nicky in the middle of pouring himself a shot of the whiskey — gotta do something with it, right? — and he looks up with his mouth stupidly open. “…What?”

Trey grins wider, if that’s possible. “Prove it,” he repeats. “You and me. Let’s make out. You’re not into it, it shouldn’t be a big deal, right?”

“Trey,” Kyle says again. It’s nearly singsong now, the most token possible protest. He’s smiling. Big surprise.

“Shut up,” Trey says, still grinning. “Let him answer.”

Nicky, at a loss for anything else to do, hooks the shot slowly back to himself and lifts it, looking at first one and then the other expectant gaze. “I, uh…” He drinks the shot, swallows hard (it seems to burn more this time), and then opens his mouth again and repeats, finally, “…What?”

Trey rolls his eyes, sprawling his folded arms out on the table. “Come on! I’m not asking you to fucking go steady.”

“Will you shut up?” Nicky bangs the glass down, glaring at Trey. “No. Okay? I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

Trey’s grin looks like it could cut paper. “Nah, you don’t,” he agrees. “But if you don’t, you kinda lose the argument, don’t you?”

Which is utter bullshit, even worse than the usual Trey Porcelluzzi Brand Farmer’s Choice Bullshit, and Nicky opens his mouth to tell him so — but he is just so fucking drunk right now, drunker than anyone has ever been probably, and if there is one thing he cannot take tonight, it is letting fucking Trey beat him again in front of goddamn Kyle.

So that’s probably what makes him finally sigh, stagger to his feet, and say: “…Sure. What the hell. If that’ll make you happy.”

Neither does he miss Kyle lightly thumping his own forehead with the heel of his palm, and he has time to frowningly reflect that he thinks Kyle’s a lot less drunk than he is too before Trey is on his feet, all cat-smile and five o’clock shadow, kicking his chair back Kyle’s way. “Sure,” he says, almost purrs, and saunters to Nicky. It seems like one hell of a long saunter, but maybe Nicky’s just drunk.

So Trey grabs two handfuls of Nicky’s shiny black pimp-shirt and just hovers for a couple seconds, just inches away, letting Nicky simmer in it, in the awkward and the weird, in the this was such a fucking bad idea. And then finally he’s stretching up, and pulling Nicky down, to just barely brush his own lips on Nicky’s, soft and dry and interlocking. Nicky mostly just tries to stand still for this, and not to sway too obviously on his feet; suddenly he’s feeling a lot drunker than he was a minute ago. He doesn’t touch Trey, but he doesn’t have to, that skinny wiry body keeps pressing closer all on its own. He’s awfully hot. Temperature-wise. No other wise, because Nicky’s not into that. Not even a little. Especially not Trey.

Trey’s lips part Nicky’s after a minute, slipping his tongue in slow and wet between them. Nicky jerks back a little, but Trey doesn’t let him get anywhere; he grabs the back of Nicky’s head and hauls him in tight, tossing the whole slow delicate act and swarming into Nicky’s mouth and over his tongue so hard their teeth clack together. His other arm slips around behind Nicky’s waist in a death-grip, reeling himself in tight. Nicky can feel the scrape of his chin, smell deodorant and whiskey off his stupid wifebeater, and Nicky really is drunk. He tries to make that perfectly clear to himself before this can get difficult. Really drunk. Which makes it okay that he doesn’t know exactly when he started kissing back, or when his hands came up to curl around the small of Trey’s back, resting just at the top of his jeans where his shirt’s pulled up and there’s a little skin. When you’re drunk you lose track of things after a while, like that the person you’re kissing is a guy, and a guy you don’t really like very much at that, although maybe not that you can feel that Kyle is watching you. That actually stays: sitting there at the back of his mind, feeling like it’s burning through his skull. Of all the stuff to stay crystal clear.

All of which might have something to do with the fact that when Trey starts grinding his hips forward against Nicky’s cock, Nicky makes a little “gngh!” noise and doesn’t do a damn thing about it.

Trey doesn’t give him a chance, anyway; he doesn’t even give either of them time to breathe, just keeps driving his tongue into Nicky’s mouth and back out, locking his teeth into Nicky’s lip and pulling, and rubbing up against him harder anytime it seems like Nicky can take a little more. And okay, he is not hard. No way. He’s just… it’s warm in here, and… He just can’t seem to stop kissing, fencing his tongue up against Trey’s, even yanking Trey a little nearer just to make sure that he doesn’t stop wriggling like that, and that’s… normal, right? There are lots of guys who… it could… fuck.

And then Trey’s hand has somehow worked its way down between them, pressing up against him for something way better to rub against, and that almost startles Nicky enough to make him get his foggy head together, almost enough to make him back away… except Trey follows him when he tries, and he ends up not trying very hard, because goddammit somehow he is hard and he can’t stop now and for some reason god only knows because he’s not a fag that feels really fucking good. So, girls. Naked girls with big tits. His girlfriend. Maybe his girlfriend with bigger tits. Kyle. No not Kyle girls. Shit he’s coming he can’t help it anymore…

And Trey’s hand speeds up and grinds, and at the last possible second his mouth splits into a grin that Nicky can feel, and that’s probably to blame for the growl he makes as he comes into his pants and against Trey’s palm, hips thrust forward, head falling back, in the most spectacular lost argument thus far in his short life.

When Trey finally lets him go he staggers, opening his eyes to find they’ll focus even less than before. He hits the wall behind and just leans there for a minute, trying to breathe. What the fuck just happened?

Trey already has his back turned, and is sauntering back to his chair — well, as much as a guy can saunter with a fairly massive boner, at least. Nicky tries not to notice that. It’s just him and his wall, for right now. The wall won’t let him down.

Things are very quiet for a minute.

Then Kyle reaches for the ashtray, grinding out the end of his cigarette. The look he gives Nicky isn’t much unlike sympathy. “I think he wins.”

“The fag always wins,” Trey announces, around a mouthful of potato chips he’s just dug out of the bag also on the table. His eyes wander back to Nicky, and he just chews and smirks.

It takes maybe two seconds of this for Nicky to decide he can’t be here anymore, although he’s not really sure where else to go. He clears his throat, which seems to take a long time. “I, uh.” Why do they both have to keep looking at him? “…I gotta take a leak.”

Kyle nods toward the bathroom off the basement — as if he didn’t know. “Watch the plants.”

The bathroom is small, bright, and blessedly Treyless — and, yes, the defunct bathtub is for some reason full of potted plants. Whatever. Nicky slumps against the locked door and lets himself take a couple big, trembling breaths. Maybe it’ll be okay, you know? Maybe… he’s so drunk he’s hallucinating. Or something.

He stays in there a while: taking the promised leak, washing his hands, throwing cold water on his face, silently yelling WHAT THE FUUUUUUCK DID FUCKING TREY JUST GIVE ME A FUCKING HANDJOB WHAT THE FUCK into the mirror. Basic bathroom stuff. When he finally comes out, he feels almost mostly human again, or at least like Total Pretending This Never Happened is possible. He sees Kyle’s back, lolling in his chair at the table, but not Trey, and he frowns, scratching his hair as he comes around the edge of the table. “Oh… hey. Where’d Treeeeeeeeegh holy crap.”

Because he has just found Trey. On his knees. Under the table. With Kyle’s cock very noticeably in his mouth. As he might, if he were crazy, have expected.

Kyle glances up, and lifts his hand, in a leisurely sort of way. He doesn’t seem very concerned about getting caught like this at all; actually there’s a little smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. Trey, for his part, shows no signs of stopping, just bobbing his head in and back on Kyle’s — Kyle’s — spit-slick hard-on. He opens his eyes after hearing Nicky, just enough that he can give Nicky a brief smoky look. Then they’re closed again, and he’s taking Kyle all the way into his mouth, deep enough that Kyle’s cock must be brushing the back of his throat.

In his head, Nicky turns and looks at something else really fast. In his head, Nicky says something very clever and witty along the lines of Well, I’ll just leave you to that, then, see you later and gets the hell out of here. Nicky does a lot of things in his head, including but not limited to being a rock star, and few of them are things he ever actually does in real life. Like a very old man he makes his way to somehow sitting on the back of the couch facing the TV, without ever tearing his eyes away. And Kyle never stops looking back at him.

These, these are the weirdest however many minutes of Nicky’s life: sitting on the back of the couch, staring at his other best friend sucking off his best friend, his hands digging into the leather. They’re all pretty quiet; the only sound is the occasional wet slurpy noise from Trey, and after a while Nicky has to start to wonder if he’s making those as much as he can, on purpose, just to weird him out. And yeah, it’s weird, but what’s weird is that he just keeps sitting here and watching and not leaving, but there’s no strength in his legs and if he stands up he feels like he’ll just melt into the floor. Kyle’s eyes are pinning him, even as they’re going dark and smoky, half-lidded. He has to cross his legs to hide that somehow he’s hard all over again, and when he swallows his whole head feels dry.

Finally Kyle’s mouth curls. He’s still smoking, and he takes another drag before he speaks, totally calm. “Wish it were you?” he says.

Nicky can’t, he can’t have heard that right. “W-what?”

“Do you wish it were you?” Kyle repeats. He looks patient if anything, and amused.

…Okay, so he did hear that right. For a minute, his stupid, stupid brain refuses to stop poking at the idea: what does that taste like, anyway? His own knees on the carpet, hard and heavy in his mouth, long cigarette-smelling fingers tangling up in his hair. His breath hitches a little. “No!” His voice cracks. “I… no. Fuck no.”

“Just asking,” Kyle says mildly. “He’s pretty good at it, is all.”

Oh. He meant… oh. Nicky tries not to let his mistake show in his face — christ! — but there’s a small muffled sound from Trey Nicky would swear to God is the kid laughing at him. Kyle whaps the side of Trey’s head with his fingertips, but that’s no comfort. Not much, anyway.

And then it’s only a matter of a few breaths before Kyle breaks eye contact, lets his head fall back and tightens his hand in Trey’s hair; he sighs heavily and comes, back arching and hips lifting just slightly, his glasses sliding on his face, and Nicky can’t believe he’s actually watching this, and can’t take his eyes off it.

Trey lets him go slowly and sits back, his lips shiny and swollen. His cock is hugely, juttingly hard, straining against the front of his pants, which Nicky again tries not to notice. And then whatever was fixing Nicky in place is over, and he can breathe again and then move again — although by this point everything seems so impossibly awkward that he’d almost rather hold completely still a while longer, in the hopes that he’ll just sort of fade into the landscape. He lets go of the back of the couch and gradually slithers down and around to sit on its more traditional seat, breathing hard.

He’s exquisitely aware of noises behind him: the zip of Kyle’s pants, the soft grind of his cigarette stubbing out. Kyle’s soft voice, pitched for Trey — “You okay?” — and then Trey laughing low as he clatters back up to his feet.

“I can wait,” Trey says behind him, and before Nicky’s drunk pirouetting brain can even start to process what that’s supposed to mean Trey has sauntered — can Trey go anywhere without sauntering tonight? hell, why should he? — around the edge of the couch to where Nicky is sitting with his head leaned back and eyes closed, trying to get his breathing sorted out. The soft thump that snaps Nicky’s eyes open turns out to be Trey’s knees hitting the floor (again), settling Trey’s warm weight between his legs. And there’s Trey, draped over his lap, smirking up at him with a look of evil pleasure that makes metaphors about cats and canaries come to mind. His hands wrap around Nicky’s hips, and Nicky jerks again, his mouth open but unable to think of anything to say about this. Also, somehow his jeans have gotten unfastened. Oh, that can’t be good.

Well, so to speak. When Trey pulls out his newly-hard cock and curls his tongue around its underside, flicking across the veins there, it isn’t exactly what you’d call bad, either.

Okay. Okay, fuck this. He’s drunk and a blowjob is a blowjob and his poor stupid exhausted brain doesn’t have any more questions left in it. He’s just going to sit very still until Trey’s done with him, and not care: the idea is such an incredible relief he could practically cry. Trey’s tongue is swirling on his glans, swiping up new pre-come so light it almost tickles, and Nicky doesn’t touch him, but he’s not about to stop him, either. And his eyes have ended up squeezed shut, and he’s not listening to anything or letting himself think — so even though both of Trey’s hands are resting on his thighs, it takes him a long time to do all the necessary math to realize that those hands working on the buttons of his shirt can’t be Trey’s.

His eyes snap open when he does, and he stares down, panting, at the hands on his chest. That line of sight just leads him to Trey’s tongue on his cock, though, and that’s not something he wants to look at right now, or at least that’s his story and he’s sticking to it. He closes his eyes again, fast — and then lets out a low involuntary groan as Trey’s tongue does something snake-fast and mind-boggling. God, he is pretty good —

It seems to take Trey forever to actually wrap him, to take him into his mouth and really get to work — and even when he does, all Nicky can seem to feel is those hands on his bare chest. Just trailing up and down there, doing nothing in particular. Those long, bony hands.

Still, his hips buck up, once, in protest, when Trey’s mouth pulls back to just flicking tongue again — not that that helps anything. Fingers tease at his collarbone, and Christ, who knew collarbones had so many nerves? He can’t think, can’t think at all. With just Trey’s breath and the occasional touches of his tongue, he’s so close, he feels like he’d start begging if that’d get it done. Like he’d do anything, be anything, for more of Trey’s mouth on him. For Kyle’s — but he can’t finish that thought, even now.

Trey teases a little longer, rubbing his tongue under the head of Nicky’s cock — and then he lets it go and just sucks him all the way in all at once. His mouth and his throat close tight around Nicky’s erection, which might as well be a statue’s cock for how hard he is and how still he’s holding, and he sucks deep and hard and slams his head all the way down on Nicky, all of a sudden holding nothing back and yanking him toward the edge so hard there’s no way he can resist.

And right then, with no warning at all, Kyle leans over and presses his mouth hard to Nicky’s, his tongue pushing between his lips and hands stroking lines down his throat. Kyle tastes like cigarettes, oh fuck yes, cigarettes and Guinness and smoke and sex and oh God can he kiss.

And finally Nicky’s hands leave the couch; they jump up on Kyle’s shoulders, actually, scrabbling handholds into his shirt, and he kisses Kyle back as eagerly as he has the presence of mind for and his moan that’s so loud it’s almost a scream gets swallowed inside Kyle’s mouth and he’s coming and he’s coming some more on top of that and he’s coming so hard he doesn’t think he’s ever going to be able to stop. Wet heat squeezes and sucks close around him and he empties lines of come into it like everything inside him is just coming out through his cock, like he’s coming apart, like there’s never been anything else in the world outside this.

Things settle slowly. At some point Trey’s mouth pulls away, leaving him cold; at some other point Kyle’s mouth does too, and that leaves him colder. He’s dizzy and exhausted and his breath just won’t come, and Kyle’s hand is touching his hair, as gentle as Kyle ever is.

“Come on,” Kyle says, and his hand pushes Nicky back on the couch. “You should sleep.”

Nicky fumbles his way back toward remembering where he is and what’s going on. Which for one thing leads to his fastening his pants again. It takes a couple tries. “Um…” His voice sounds like he hasn’t used it in about two years. He starts struggling to stand up, can’t quite make it with Trey between his legs, and falls back. Why did he want to stand up anyway? “…M-maybe.” He lets out a small nervous laugh. It only shakes a little.

Trey sits back on his heels and pushes himself up. “You okay?” It’s a strangely kind question, certainly kinder than he usually is or than he has been all night. A thought — did they plan this? — almost manages to form itself in Nicky’s mind, and then dissolves again, into smoke.

So Nicky just laughs a little bit more, feeling stupid and half-dead. His eyes won’t even open. “Yeah. Um. I’m cool.” Kyle’s hand is still stroking his hair, and he leans into it. Christ, he’s tired. And drunk. Still so drunk.

“Go to sleep,” Kyle says, sounding far away, and Nicky doesn’t argue. Kyle probably knows what he needs. Kyle always has. And Trey is leaving, leaving now, heading upstairs, calling back good night, and when he’s gone Kyle will turn out the light and follow him, but for right now Kyle’s here with him. Just with him.

“What am I going to do with you,” Kyle says under his breath, not a question, and he sounds like he’s smiling. He unfolds the blanket at the end of the couch and spreads it over Nicky’s body, tucking it close to his chin. Nicky’s eyes have already slipped mostly closed, but he tries to say something, something that would make everything seem normal again, but before he can come up with anything, he’s already asleep.

Oh well. There’s always tomorrow.