Who: Billy and Tink When: After this set of texts Where: Tink’s place What: She’s drinking, confessed her LIKE like. Rating/Warning: Low/None Status: Complete.
Tink had polished off nearly half a bottle of wine on her own. It was a wonder she was still on her feet. But she was, fiddling with a basket pulley system she had set up over the sofa to hold the remote controls. She was trying to get one of the wires to work its way back into the mesh of the basket, but it snapped free again and sliced her finger.
“Shit!” She exclaimed, then brought the finger to her mouth. It was already bleeding. She cursed again at the damn basket, feeling so nervous, so full of energy, and yet so tipsy all at the same time.
Billy was at the door. He felt weird. Awkward. More awkward than usual. Really, that was saying a lot. He attempted fixing his hair (it was fine), straightening his clothing (also fine, as far as clothing went), considered that maybe he shouldn’t be wearing a button up shirt. Should he just take it off and deal with the t-shirt underneath? Was casual better?
Fuck shit fuck.
Before he just freaked out completely, he knocked on the door.
Crap! Tink was now bleeding, cursing at the basket (why hadn’t she used wicker instead of fucking metal??) while standing up on her sofa. She was teetering, too, as if she was about to fall over, tumble off the edge and crash into the coffee table.
“Come in!” She called through her finger. Her voice was obviously muffled by something, but could be heard through the door.
Billy let himself in -- his already bewildered expression turned more so at the sight of Tink balancing precariously on the couch and doing god knows what with her finger in her mouth.
Had this been a bad idea?
“Uhmmm,” he said, not helpfully.
Tink pulled the finger out of her mouth to inspect it once he was inside. She wasn’t bleeding that badly, just enough that she’d need a bandage. “I cut my finger on this…” She reached up and whacked it with her free hand.
Which was her first… second… third? mistake. The metal bit that she’d been trying to re-thread back into the basket poked her other hand. It didn’t cut, just hurt like a bitch. “Damn it.”
Billy, who had already been frazzled upon walking into the place, couldn’t seem to step away from the doorway. Yep. This was Tink. The girl he’d been harboring a secret crush on for literally months and months.
“Maybe you should - uh. Get down.” Twitch.
“Sorry.” Tink said, climbing carefully down off the sofa. She teetered once she hit the floor. “I think I read something once about how alcohol makes your blood thinner, so when you get cuts and stuff, you bleed out faster and… something something.” She said, giving him a little frown.
This was supposed to be their romantic, ‘aha!’ moment, and she was ruining it. “I’m sorry.”
Probably for the best. She got to it before he’d had a chance was all it really came down to.
“Yeah. That happens. That’s, uh, science.” He stepped in a little closer, totally spotted a bottle of wine that hadn’t been polished off yet and picked it up for a drink. Yeah. Right from the bottle.
And then he edged closer to Tink like possibly she was radioactive or maybe a time bomb waiting to go off. “Do you need --uh. Medical. Things?”
“Band aid.” She was fairly accident prone, considering about half of her contraptions didn’t work exactly the way she wanted them to. So she had some medical supplies stored in several rooms in the house, so she wouldn’t run out or have to go digging with blood dripping from fingertips.
Tink moved over to a cupboard in the living room, under the television mounted to the wall. She pulled out a band-aid and started to fiddle with it, but her fingers were fumbling with drunkenness and pain.
Billy could see the cliche from ten miles away, but couldn’t seem to stop himself stepping up and filling the proper role.
“Here,” he said, discarding the wine bottle for now, in order to step entirely too close to Tink and take the band-aid from her, opening it up. “Let me.”
It may have been cliche, but in that moment, Billy was her hero. She gave a gentle, almost apologetic “thank you” and let him put the band aid on her finger. Then she went up on her toes and tapped a kiss against his cheek--dangerously close to the corner of his mouth. Okay, maybe hitting the corner of his mouth. She was a little drunk and her aim wasn’t great.
Fingers still on Tink’s hands, because no seriously this was cliched, Billy went a bright shade of pink that nearly bled into red. The side of his mouth quirked upward, more of a twitch than a smile, but it didn’t stop him leaning in for another kiss, either.
This was one of those situations where Tink had no idea what she’d gotten herself into, or how to get back out again. She’d kissed a total of like, three people in her whole life. Thor, Blink, and… someone else. But the point was that she really had no idea what she was doing. She was drunk, too, which made things a bit sloppy. But she went for it. Kissing, man. No words, just kissing.
Kissing was totally easier than talking, even though they both clearly did it awkwardly. Unpracticed mouths only offered more bumping of the lips and teeth than they did kissing, and Billy wasn’t even about to figure out what to do with his tongue so he very pointedly kept it in his mouth. But this was -- you know. This was pretty okay.
Tink had to pull back to breathe. How was one supposed to breathe while kissing? She had no idea. She opened her eyes to look up at him, and her heart was thundering so loudly she would have sworn he could hear it. “...thank you.”
Thank you??
"It's a thing." Billy responded immediately.
Which, actually, upon retrospection made no sense. Not even a tiny tidbit of it. He stared at her, eyebrows lifting and expression one of complex horror.
"More wine? I should -- you know. Hi."
“More wine. Yes.” That was exactly what they needed. More wine. Thankfully, there was like, half a bottle left. ...then they’d have to go out for more. Or not. Or simply… not. Whatever that involved.
“It’s… on the table.” She said, moving to point. She used her bandaged finger, ironically, to point. But Billy had picked it up from the table to gulp, and she wasn’t sure where he’d set it down.
Even though Billy had been the one to set it down (literally right next to them, on the cabinet), he looked over to where she was pointing anyway. No. There wasn’t any wine there.
Half a bottle wasn’t going to do them enough good. That was really only like a glass each. But maybe it’d feel like more if they just drank directly from the bottle instead of using glasses? “Oh,” he said lamely, and found it right where he’d put it. “Yeah. Hahaha.” He spoke that laugh out. It was a thing.
Well, Tink was already a few glasses in. That was enough for her to be this loopy--so loopy that she let some crazy, metal wire from a basket pulley system get her. Normally she could have corrected that kind of thing in her sleep.
“So. Um. Kissing.” Right. There’d been kissing. Tink’s brow furrowed, and she brought her (relatively) uninjured hand, in a fist, up to knock against her forehead. She was ruining everything.
Billy only laughed again. Maybe he was drunk by proxy? Was that a thing? Maybe it could be now. There was possibly science on it, or he could write a thesis on it. It wasn’t normally his kind of science, but sometimes you did what you could for a proper breakthrough.
Oh. He was meant to talk, wasn’t he. “Yes.” he responded, and it was just about that helpful. “Yes,” he repeated.
“Maybe we should… talk? About the kissing. Or…” The other things that they needed to talk about? Though, the kissing was related. The kissing was very much related. So she thought.
“Yes.” Billy was on a roll, okay? He paused, as if considering. “Well I wasn’t sure what to do with my--oh. Oh. You mean the. Like like. Like?”
“Like like.” Tink said, then moved back to sit on the sofa. She managed a glare at the stupid, metal basket on the way, then sat down in the middle of the sofa and turned to stare at him. “Like like like.”
“Okay,” Billy said, and took himself and the wine to the couch as well. He sat on the opposite end, like he hadn’t just kissed her and didn’t like like her (but he did), and like he didn’t have future plans to kidnap her and marry her, maybe only without the kidnapping, but who really knew these days? Times were rough.
“Yeah. Well. There’s there. Like like. Like. And it’s, you know. Definitely. How’s it’s working. Over here.” He gestured. You know. To himself. God, they were normally ridiculous but this was pushing it. Special Needs.
Anyways.
Tink gave a little nod, staring at the bottle in his hands. She couldn’t look up at his face, because well… then she might burst into fire. The blushing. Oh, Gods, the blushing. “It’s working over there?” She asked, finally flicking her eyes up from the bottle to his lips--his lips--then back down again.
Maybe unhelpfully, he covered his lips up with the bottle, taking a long drink. And that probably wasn’t how wine was meant to be drank, but it was sweet and something to do with his hands and his mouth so whatever.
“Yeah. I mean. You know. I like you.”
Oh Gods the blushing. And the grinning. She couldn’t stop, as much as she tried, the blushing and the grinning. “I like you, too.” It was a terrible copy of the way he’d said it, but she meant every letter.
“So. There’s that.”
"Yes. That." Billy was glad for the bottle, or else he might have twiddled his thumbs or… wrung his hands. Or something.
"So. We should. Uhm. I mean. Date, or whatever." A pause. “Right?”
As if the situation couldn’t get any more awkward… Tink giggled. She couldn’t help it. The idea that she and Billy were going to Date, or whatever was just… it made her giddy. Happy. And then she realized how ridiculous her giggle sounded, so she tried to stop.
“Yes. Yes, we should. Date. Go on dates.”
“We totally should,” Billy agreed, and tried not to think about how he was twenty eight, and not twelve like he sounded. “Dinner. And. Movies and stuff. Drinks?” Oh, Billy. You mean like what you’ve already been doing for months?
In any case, he liked her giggle.
“Dinner. Movies. Drinks.” Tink repeated, her giggling subsiding. For the most part. “...like we’ve been doing. Only… with more kissing?” She asked, hopefully. Because she liked the kissing. She wanted more of those.
“Definitely. Yes. That. French kissing.” Why had he said that? Billy gave a look that was meant to be a smile but ended up a grimace. Perfect couple.
“Definitely.” She parroted. French Kissing. It needed to be thought, but didn’t need to be said. Her cheeks were boiling now, they were so red. And the grin was starting to hurt her cheeks. “Thank God. I really, really thought you were going to freak out, and hate me or something.”
He was red too, but he flushed so often that it probably seemed even normal. “What? No. That’s -- I mean. I like you. I thought you liked that other -- anyway. No. No way.”
“Well, I’m relieved now,” Tink said, eyes moving to his now, to look at his face, at his eyes. She couldn’t believe this was happening, her heart was hammering in her chest, in her throat. “I just… I had to… Tom said I should tell you. So I did. And I’m glad I did.”
"Tom is awesome." Billy? Did not know Tom. But that wasn't really the point here. He was relieved too, and couldn't help but laugh again, running his hand through his hair until it stuck up every which way.
That’s okay. Tink liked it when his hair stuck up every which way. She grinned over at him, then scooted closer on the sofa to sit… sort of… against him. With her side against his. “He is.” She said. Maybe they should chance using the metal basket thingy to get a remote and put on a movie, or something. Or they could just… sort of… sit. Or whatever.
“Awesome,” Billy said, feeling a bit awkward. Well, more awkward. But Tink was warm and her weight against his was good, so he leaned over a little more until their shoulders were flush. “So. Now what?”
“I… really have no idea.” Tink said, somewhat sheepishly. “...we just… keep doing what we were doing? Hanging out? Drinking?” She asked, as if he knew better. “What do you want to do?”
Yeah, he definitely didn’t know better. But whatever, right? “That works,” he said, because it made sense. They’d just keep on keeping on, and he’d keep buying her those tan M&M’s she liked, and now they could kiss, and when they held hands he wouldn’t have to feel the need to blush.
He still would, but that was hardly the point. He took another drink from the wine bottle.
Keep on keeping on. And now Tink could kiss him whenever she liked. And it would be a little less awkward. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably not. She was still new to all of this. “Does that make you my boyfriend?”
“Yeah.” A pause. “I mean. Unless you don’t want me to be. Or maybe you don’t like that term? I could be that dude you see. Or. That guy whose face you want to smash to yours. Or. You know. I mean. Yes.”
“Okay.” Tink couldn’t stop grinning. Shyly, almost, bashfully. Her cheeks were still pink. But maybe that was from the wine. “...No, I like boyfriend. If you like it. Then you can be my boyfriend, and I can be your girlfriend.”
“That could be a thing.” Lots of things were things, but this was a thing that he really wanted to be a thing. It made total sense, shut up. “Yeah. Definitely.” He grinned, lopsided and twitchy and honestly pretty pleased. Fuck to the yes.
Tink’s grin spread, matching his. “Good. I like this thing.” There were lots of things. This was a good thing. She turned to lean up and in, awkwardly, and kissed his cheek once more. Just because she could.
And he went pink over it, not only because he could, but because he couldn’t not. Even with all that science, he couldn’t stop awkward blood flow. He let out another one of those laughs that was actually talking, and shrugged. “Me too. It’s a good thing.”