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The music was loud and it made it easier, somehow, to pull on his courage.
Sal took a deep breath, watching Larry drawing something in his sketchbook. His hands moved quickly over the page, occasionally tossing his pencil down to pick up his eraser, humming as he wiped away a mistake. His hands were pretty, Sal would have said if the other boy would be okay with it. They were best friends but he didn’t know how Larry would react to being called ‘pretty’.
But Larry was pretty.
He wasn’t handsome, not the way that girls at school would talk about. His ears were a little bit bigger than they should be and his nose was long and the girls at school whispered about him being a weirdo who liked heavy metal music. Their parents would watch Larry and Sal walk from the doors of the school together and whisper behind their hands, the two freaks were walking home together, wasn’t it odd?
But Larry was pretty.
He was nice and he was a good artist and he didn’t mind waking up to Sal nervously using the walkie talkie at three in the morning when he’d had a bad dream again. He drew and he painted and sometimes he wrote poetry that he’d keep hidden in the back of his binders and notebooks, showing Sal when they hung out on the weekends, away from prying eyes. Larry was his best friend and probably one of the few people who understood him in any sort of way. His mom had immediately accepted Sal in her life, as her son’s best friend, and had set herself to making sure that Sal was alright.
There were pictures of him on the living room wall, tucked neatly in between the two Johnsons. His face was under the prosthetic, but he remembered having a smile on when the photo was taken.
His stomach twisted when he was around Larry sometimes. It was the sort of feeling he thought might have inspired love songs, as weird as they were. It was waking up to think about Larry, falling asleep with the vague thought of something the other boy might like. Wanting to show him the secrets he kept and the bad dreams that woke him up and the things that made him feel too little again. The things he was afraid of, the ones that sent him back to the shivering, scared child he’d been once.
He wanted Larry to know these things.
Larry wouldn’t do anything with them, would probably even just try his best to help Sal with them. He’d already shown that a couple of times, talking Sal through the aftermath of his nightmares.
God, Larry was pretty.
“Hey Sally Face,” Larry spoke without looking up from his drawing, etching a line carefully. “What’s in your head right now?”
“Nothing, Larry Face,” Sal responded automatically, sticking his fingers into the hole at the knee of his jeans. “Just…Thinking. What’re you drawing?”
Larry shrugged, glancing up for a moment. “Nothing,” he shrugged again and Sal knew he was nervous. “Your head is like…A million miles away right now though. Want to talk about it?” he folded his sketchbook shut, setting it to the side. He set his pencils and eraser carefully on top of it, a gentle reminder not to go looking through it. Any art set out was free for Sal to look at but his sketchbook was still a secret.
“It’s just…”
“Yeah?” Larry tugged at the hem of his shirt, making the Sanity’s Fall logo ripple with the movement of the fabric, stretching his legs out across the floor and pointing his feet with the force of the stretch.
Sal sat up a little straighter, swallowing nervously. “Have you thought about…Kissing?”
“Kissing?” Larry’s eyebrow rose as he thought about it, running a hand back through his hair. He frowned, his eyes unfocused for a moment. “I mean, a little? Not really anyone at school I’d want to. Well, there’s someone, but-“
“I mean,” Sal curled in on himself, his knees against his chest. “Me.”
Larry stopped cold, his hand in his hair and his eyes wide. Both of his eyebrows were raised now, his cheeks a ruddy sort of red that stained across his nose and back towards his ears. “Kissing you?” he put the words together in a full phrase. “I mean-“ he licked at his lips, glancing nervously at his feet, the floor, his sketchbook, anything he could look at while his face got redder and redder. “A little?” his voice was so quiet that Sal almost didn’t hear it. “Does…Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“…Can I kiss you?” Sal could feel the words trying to stick in his throat, his palms sweating and his cheeks felt like they were burning. “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, it’s…”
“Oh,” Larry hunched down in the beanbag, nodding slowly. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Sal let out the breath he’d been holding, standing up from his seat and walking over to drop to his knees next to Larry. “I can?”
“Yeah,” Larry looked at him, meeting his eyes. He was smiling a little and it made his eyes curl, the mole under the right eye following the crescent-moon-curve. He wasn’t handsome like the girls at school wanted but Sal thought he was pretty. “You can.”
With one hand on the chin of his prosthetic, Sal hesitated, making a noise in his throat. “Can I cover your eyes while I- I just…”
“Here,” Larry closed his eyes, taking one of Sal’s hands in his own and putting it over his eyes. “No peeking, I swear. Deep breath, dude. You still want to?”
“Yeah,” Sal pushed his prosthetic up and off, the straps falling loose once he got them off past his pigtails. He knew what he looked like without it, didn’t want that to be something Larry had to deal with. His lips were mostly okay, however, and he swallowed his nervousness as he leaned in. Larry leaned back in the beanbag a bit, letting Sal follow him so that neither of them was trying to hold themselves up in mid-air.
The kiss was awkward, Sal’s heart racing as he pressed in close. Larry smelled like the soap his mother bought for him to use and a little bit like sweat. The angle wasn’t great, their teeth clacked for a moment before Larry turned his head and then it was soft.
Kissing was strange.
Sal decided that he liked it. After a moment, he set down his prosthetic on the edge of the beanbag, curling himself along it and halfway into Larry’s lap. They had sat closer than this to watch movies before, sharing heat and a blanket and snacks. This time, Sal was distinctly aware of the warmth coming off of Larry, the line of his side against Sal’s.
He pulled back to breathe, slowly and carefully.
“That was nice,” Larry said quietly, his chest rising slowly. He put his hands on Sal’s shoulders, dragging them down his arms.
“Do you really mean that or are you being sarcastic?”
“Dude, I wouldn’t, not about this.” Larry laughed a little, one hand going to Sal’s knee and rubbing in gentle circles over the hole in his jeans. “Not about this.”
Sal still had a hand over his eyes, Larry still had his eyes shut.
“It wasn’t weird?”
“Oh, I mean, it definitely was, but I think any kissing is going to be weird, y’know? But kissing you is…Good.” Larry laughed again. “That probably took a lot of courage, huh? I’m…Kind of glad you were the one to bring it up.”
“Do I still have time for courage?” Sal asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Larry nodded slowly, pulling him in closer. “I think you have time for courage still.”
They kissed again, Larry’s hands warm as they slid up to Sal’s back and stayed there.