The cooler air in the house was a nice change from the hot sun they'd spent most of the afternoon in, though Talcott could still feel a warmth across his shoulders and back and figured he might be a little red from the afternoon in the pool.
But it wasn't too much of a concern, sitting there on the floor against the front of the couch, the stick from his popsicle still between his teeth and Matthew beside him. It wasn't the warmth of where he'd gotten too much sun that proved distracting as he maneuvered Mario on the screen. It was instead - and something he was trying not to get too distracted by - the warmth of Matthew's against his, too much bare skin pressing against his own.
"No, no, no, no, nooooooooooo…" Talcott breathed out between the popsicle stick, popsicle long gone, in his mouth as he tried to keep Mario from going off the edge - even going so far as to tilt his whole body the appropriate direction, invading Matthew's personal space more. He huffed a disappointed noise as the notes chimed and Bowser's face came over the screen.
"Your turn," he offered the controller to Matthew. "May you have better luck than me," was added with a grin as Talcott unfolded his legs and stretched them out in front of him. He could smell the hint of chlorine on their skin and figured they should probably shower and change eventually but he was in no rush.
“Left, left, left, left!” Matthew chanted in time with Talcott, the words coming out garbled from the last of his cherry popsicle still in his mouth. In spite of being born in December, Matthew Lynch was absolutely a summer child. To be fair, he found something positive to say about every time of year, but summer meant sun, longer days, warmth, and lazy days hanging out in a pool on floats. Pressed up against his best friend, it was hard to beat the day.
“Rainbow Road is cursed! If you don’t use a mushroom in the space station, forget it!” Matthew accepted the controller and then pushed himself back up and over, practically contorting himself so he was draped across Talcott. It forced him to twist his neck weirdly, but so be it. Matthew’s personal bubble was, unsurprisingly, nonexistent. He tried to be cognizant of others and what they were comfortable with, and he knew Talcott well enough to not be offended if he pushed Matthew over.
“Also I totally think Funky Kong on a bike is the way to go, you have to drift,” he said, as he selected that very combination before waiting for the green light. “What do you think, pizza soon? Garlic knots? We could go out, but it’s kind of nice now?”
"So cursed," Talcott agreed. "How do none of my actual driving skills translate?" he added, sounding about as offended as he got. He'd driven supply runs while being full out attacked by daemons but yet this rainbow road was what did him in.
There was no move to push Matthew off when the other all but sprawled across him, instead his arms just dropped to rest on Matthew, almost too easily. Having someone push into that personal space wasn't something Talcott had ever really had much before. But it had been easy to let it happen with Matthew. More than that, Talcott liked it.
"The power of ugly cut offs?" he asked with a laugh.
"We could order pizza for delivery? Or see if Ignis would make us something?" he offered. Because leaving did seem like a hassle. When they could just stay here.
“He’s an entrepreneur!” Matthew insisted, a laugh coming out more like a snort the way it tended to do when he tried to be serious but was too into the joke. “A good one, not one that exploits the Kong family because his is the only show in town.” His thumbs were a blur of action against the controllers, while Funky Kong responded on the curves and straightaways of the brightly colored hard streets of Mario Kart.
“Pizza, I think. Not that his food isn’t amazing–it totally is, but if you cook all day maybe sometimes you don’t want to come home and immediately go back to it? And I don’t want to take advantage.” But eventually Matthew did want to ask for help with things like knife skills and why a souffle was so hard to make. Maybe he would never make one for his own, but knowing how to make meals that were more than pizza rolls and mini hot dogs was important, and if he was going to ask anyone it should be the professional chef.
Inevitably, because it was Rainbow Road and Matthew absolutely missed the mushroom and couldn’t use it in the space station, Funky Kong skid off the side and Matthew set aside the controller, groaning. He stretched back and then–sort of realized where he was. Matthew didn’t think much about personal space, he was always the first to wrap an arm around someone or give hugs, or roughhouse around but just then, he did realize how close he was to Talcott. That it was warm, again, even with air conditioning, and everything felt oddly slow. Syrupy. The air was syrupy, thick and Matthew didn’t…know why. Like he was waiting for something, looking over the cliffs at the Quarry before jumping, his breath seemed to be impossibly stuck on an inhale.
He blinked up at Talcott, and swallowed. “Hey.”
"Pizza it is," Talcott agreed and reached a hand behind him to pat blindly at the couch, knowing his phone was somewhere in that vicinity.
"Noooo…" he said as Funky Kong took a deep dive off the track - softly but not without dramatics. "What was that about drifting?" he teased with a smirk, forgoing the haphazard patting of the couch behind him for his phone for focusing on Matthew all but sprawled out over him.
It was only then that Talcott realized how close they'd ended up. Suddenly very aware of every point of contact, the way the air between them seemed to shift. A swoop of anticipation low in his stomach like he'd never quite felt before. Later Talcott would blame getting lost in that exact feeling for the complete lack of filter that led him to blurting out "your eyes are really pretty."
Cue his own eyes going wide as he realized just what he'd blurted out. Talcott laughed, a little nervously, as he pressed his hands to his face trying to hide the flush he could feel. "Wow, I mean.." a pause with another little laugh. "Hey?" he settled on as he dropped his hands and looked back at Matthew a little sheepishly.
“Oh!” Matthew blinked, surprise written clear on his face, like out of everything that could have happened, that wasn’t one of them? He didn’t have much time to process before Talcott seemed either embarrassed or ashamed and that wasn’t what Matthew wanted–to be fair, he never wanted Talcott to feel that way around him, ever, but especially not when the cause was something that caused his heart to beat harder and his throat to tighten.
“No, stop, it’s okay!” He grabbed Talcott’s hands and held them, shifting around so he was no longer awkwardly contorted. The movement to actually do that and not let go of his hands, however, resulted in Matthew twisting and turning and at one point in time, Matthew’s arms were somehow inexplicably crossed.. “Super smooth,” he drawled, laughing at himself even now.
His knees bumped up against Talcott’s in the new position, and he squeezed his hands once. “It’s okay,” he promised, again. Matthew knew he needed to do something,, it became so important at that moment, even though he didn’t know what that might look like. No, more that, he wanted to do something, doing nothing was a choice, or staying paralyzed by indecision. Before he even consciously knew it, Matthew was leaning forward to kiss Talcott.
It was what he wanted to do, he realized, his initial uncertainty replaced by the knowledge of right. It came with the rushing exhilaration of going down the first hill on a roller coaster, yes, but also a warmth that was familiar and grounding. When Matthew pulled back, color was high in his cheeks, his eyes bright.
“Oops?”
Even in what might be viewed as an awkward fumble, Talcott still felt safe. Warm. Like his sudden blurt of honesty was as okay as Matthew assured him it was. Like they'd barely even missed a beat even as Matthew's arms got tangled as they repositioned themselves. It was still just them and Talcott laughed softly at the sight of it, gaze fond.
He was just about to let go of Matthew's hands so they could untangle his arms but then Matthew was leaning forward and kissing him, and it honestly took about five seconds for Talcott's brain to wrap itself around that, even if the rest of him clued in quicker - warmth flooding across his skin, pinpricks running up and down his spine.
Talcott had had exactly one kiss before that. An impulsive thing brought on by a few drinks and that constant nagging that maybe he was missing out on something. And it had done nothing for him.
Not like this.
He laughed a little at the Oops - and really it should feel scarier, right? Kissing your best friend. But all Talcott felt was the urge to lean forward and kiss Matthew again, to chase that feeling like his skin wasn't suddenly enough to contain his body. So he did just that, his hands moving to Matthew's knees, as he pressed forward more into Matthew's space. "Can we - Do you -" he started and stopped before just going for it, closing that last little bit of space and kissing Matthew. Lingering longer as he lifted a hand to curl behind Matthew's neck.
“Yes,” Matthew said, quickly, nodding just as fast. So fast, in fact, that when Talcott crossed the distance between them, Matthew wasn’t quite expecting it (though he realized he had hoped, he hoped) and he ended up nudging Talcott’s nose with his own. Predictably, Matthew snorted a laugh at that, even now. But there was nothing funny about the way this all made him feel. Nor did he feel sparks–because those were temporary, flash in the pan things that died out just as quickly as they came, and what he felt was strong and stayed with him, like the heat that lingered on his shoulders and cheekbones after being out in the sun.
Matthew’s fingers came up to tuck a piece of Talcott’s hair behind his ear. He liked that piece of hair, he liked the way it tended to fall into Talcott’s eyes and he liked the way it felt, and he liked the way his fingers rested on Talcott’s cheekbone. A smile broke out across Matthew’s face, like he didn’t want to be anywhere else, doing anything else, with anyone else. He didn’t, in fact. “What was the question?”
There was a grin on Talcott's lips as Matthew replied to the not even half formed question with yes, without even hearing what the question was. But then Matthew was kissing him and that was more than good enough.
There was a little shiver when Matthew tucked his hair, laughing as little goosebumps ran up his arm, despite the warmth he felt.
"Uhhhh… it was do you want to do that again?" he answered, almost a question himself. Could he really be blamed though if coherent thoughts were just a little out of reach at that moment. "Which I mean, you definitely answered there," he added with a grin, taking a moment to run his fingers lightly down Matthew's bare arm. "But I could have also misunderstood, you might need to answer again," another little grin at that, almost like he was proud of how smooth that was.
Matthew, at least, looked suitably impressed, and pleased. Like maybe he hadn’t screwed something up or messed it up. He always felt comfortable around Talcott, who went along with his ideas or requests no matter how random they were, and took what he had to say seriously even if it sometimes sounded ridiculous even to himself, so he hadn’t worried about what was going to happen in the immediate time. He hadn’t thought about anything, really, had simply done what–what felt right.
Matthew’s first kiss had been at a party, first by Sabrina Cartswell, someone he was friendly with (although it was Matthew, who wasn’t he friendly with?) but she had been drunk–and then 20 minutes later her brother, Carter Cartswell (Aglionby names were weird sometimes) had kissed him in some sort of weird competition with his sister. And then a few weeks later, someone on his soccer team had kissed him and then cried about maybe liking guys while Matthew consoled him. Neither one had felt like it mattered or that it had anything to do with him at all.
That part made something twist in his chest uncomfortably, when he reflected back on it. But Matthew didn’t feel that now, in fact, more like the exact opposite. Something unspooling and settling. And so he found himself kissing Talcott again, smiling in it. “That was a really good line, like, way to go, you, that totally worked!” he said, fistbumping Talcott in congratulations for the line, maybe the kissing, or maybe just because? Probably of the above. “Should we still get pizza?”
Talcott laughed and returned the fistbump. Having "good lines" was never really something he cared about - but he wanted it a little then. To be smooth, whatever that meant, to be able to bring that smile to Matthew's face and amuse him, to pull just a little bit more of Matthew's attention. "Glad to have met your approval," he answered with a grin.
His hand dropped his hand to Matthew's arm, fingers tracing idle little patterns up his skin. "Yeah, we should still get pizza," he started, "but uh - maybe in a little?" he added with a little smile as he leaned back in to kiss Matthew again. Pizza sounded good, but this sounded better right then. Pizza could wait.