It was true that Charlie had never given Eddie a reason to think what happened was a mistake. But to be honest Charlie didn’t know it until it happened. Now his brain was, slowly, starting to put the pieces together: the looks his father gave him, his mother saying they needed to share their feelings, Lucy and the Ken dolls; and then his jealousy. It was all starting to make sense now. But as of right now, Charlie didn’t want to screw things up again by doing or saying something that could possibly ruin their friendship. The jealousy thing was enough for a while. So he’d continue to figure things out while he enjoyed the cuddles of his best friend. That seemed like a good plan. “Next time we’re all together we can figure it all out,” he suggested.
“Good idea,” he agreed as he swallowed the last piece of the green chocolate and grabbed another bar of actual chocolate. He wasn’t sure when it started, he never really did to be honest, but soon Charlie’s fingers were starting to play with Eddie’s hair. He was Eddie’s hair biggest fan. If it had a facebook fan page, he’d click it. Hell, he would probably be the one who made it. He noticed Eddie looking up at him, and the first time he did it he looked down at him and smiled. It felt good. He felt good. Everything felt good now. Without taking the smile off his face, he turned his attention back to the movie, his hand still playing with Eddie’s hair.
He wasn’t ready for what happened next, though. At first his mind was like ’No, he hasn’t just done that’, but then another voice told him he did. Eddie had kissed him on the cheek. And Charlie felt like he had just got like five extra lives just because. His cheeks felt on fire and he was sure his heart was about to explode, but outside he was just smiling like fool and shifted his arm a little so he could pull Eddie closer. “Eddie,” he said, trying to get the other boy to look up again.
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As soon as his fingers were running through Eddie’s hair, the boy smiled and felt his body relax. This was how it was supposed to be. No complications. No awkward spaces. Just him and Charlie. Him enjoying the way it felt to be pet and Charlie admiring his hair. This was his happy place. It was that full return to normalcy that had sparked his courage to kiss his friend, even if he was not entirely sure how he would react. The moment he did though, it felt like he had to wait forever for a response, which was not fair. Even though it hadn’t been a second since he did it, a wave of dread hit Eddie like a wall and he wondered if that was a bad idea. Until he felt Charlie’s arm tighten around him.
The boy started smiling himself, watching the movie. Yes, this is what the bad images meant. Maybe not so literal- or this literal knowing Cai, but to kiss and make up. They had done just that. The weird part was that this was far from the first time he had done that to someone, Hell, he had probably done that to charlie before for all he knew. He did know he licked him once- he still had no idea why it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. This felt different and more exciting than those. When Charlie said his name, he looked up as an automatic reaction, wondering what kind of expression he would find. The smiles simply made him more sure of what he had done.