Work Text:
My heart plummets.
[THEY KISS.]
No. No, no. I glance at Deidamia’s reddened cheeks and expectant eyes. This is all Achilles’ fault. Fucking Achilles and his insistence that I join his theatre class so I can open up more! All these sessions have done is amplify my crippling social anxiety. The script in my hands is stained with my sweaty palms.
My stomach churns.
“Are we going to go on?” Deidamia asks tentatively.
Deidamia has red curls that burst out of a plait wrapped across her head. She also has an obnoxious personality that bursts out of her petite frame. To her credit, she’s been patient with me this whole reading, but I could see the way she bites her lips as if holding back a snappy comment every time I stuttered on my lines. I guess the only reason she tries is because she has the wet and sloppiest crush on my best friend.
She is pretty, in a plain way. She has pleasant features, nothing out of place, but no unique shapes that really make her stand out. I shouldn’t be complaining about kissing her. Many guys would gladly take my place. But I am dripping with sweat and heating up like an electric stove.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t had my first kiss yet. I don’t particularly want to use it on her. And I also don’t want to make a fool of myself with my obvious lack of technique. I can’t tell her that though. She’d make fun of me, if not to my face then behind my back to her friends who will giggle and spill.
I’m sixteen and kissless.
Who’s going to let that live down?
Achilles is the only one who doesn’t think that’s an issue. There are no deadlines in life, he says. And I thank him for his support but that doesn’t eradicate the judgment of others.
“Uh… uh…”
I glance at Achilles from across the room. He’s got his chest puffed out and is using his arms to gesture grandiosely like an opera singer. I feel a small relief that everyone’s got different scripts. Something doesn’t quite sit right with me to see him kissing someone else. I guess I’ve been alongside him for so long that it’s a weird thing to see him grow up faster than me. I hope to catch his eye, but he’s fully absorbed in grabbing his partner by the collar and barking commands to the poor chap’s face.
Deidamia’s face is thrust before mine. I can feel her breath on my lips. She smells like strawberry, probably from the gum she always chews. The whirlpool in my gut swirls more rapidly. I feel my gullet wring, the telltale signs of an oncoming emetic explosion.
The bell shrills.
Thank fuck. She pulls away with a huff.
“Next time, I guess.” She turns with mild distaste and scuttles away to gather her stuff.
I stand there frozen. Looking at myself in the wall mirror like an observer laying his eyes upon a famous statue to find it is much smaller and uglier than imagined.
I plaster my hand over my mouth and rush to the bathroom. A little vomit slides into the sink drain and I spend the next few minutes gargling water.
I feel like peeling off all my skin, dry cleaning it and then putting it back on.
When I step out of the bathroom, Achilles is there waiting for me, holding my bag.
“You good, man?” he says, reaching to touch my arm.
I swat him away. “Yeah, yeah. Just badly needed to piss.”
“You’re a little white. I saw you rush out like you needed to vomit.”
I take my bag from him. “I can’t do theatre class anymore. Makes me sick.”
“Aw man, I’m sorry. Just wanted you to–”
“Come out of my shell, I know. But this isn’t the way to do it.” I turn and walk towards the school gate. He follows apologetically.
“Come over to mine then. We’ll play Smash.”
While I boot up the Switch, Achilles grabs his jar of endless dried figs from the kitchen. He loves them so much that his mum always tops up the jar before he can ever run out. My hands are still shaking. I can’t shake off the image of Deidamia’s face so fucking close to mine. I felt violated. Is it normal to feel that way when a girl tries to kiss you?
“We can’t both play Sans this time, okay?” Achilles splashes into the couch by my side, swooping up the controller.
“Yeah, so you main someone else.”
“No, you pick someone else. This is my house, my rules.”
Just to piss him off, I pick Ness and PK Fire him the whole round.
“Fucking stop, you piece of shit!” he cries.
I shrug and toss the joycons down. The sourness still lingers on my tongue and my stomach hasn’t been sitting right the whole afternoon. Like it’s been flipped inside out, the way we did to our eyelids in primary school. Gross.
“Hey, what? I don’t mean stop playing,” Achilles pauses the game and turns to me.
“Do you have a mint or something?”
“Uh, yeah?” He rifles through his schoolbag and pulls out a tin.
I pop it in my mouth, but I don’t pick the controller up.
“Are you seriously okay, dude? You’re mad about theatre, right? Just let it out on me.”
I turn the TV off.
“I have to kiss her for the scene,” I deadpan.
“Oh.”
“I feel sick with nerves thinking about it. You know I’ve never…”
“I know.” He looks thoughtful for a few moments. His blonde hair manages to always capture the sunlight, like a wheat field in golden hour. It’s all curly and mussed up, the back of it almost creeping to his shoulders now. His jade green eyes snag mine. “There is a way around it.”
“How?” It takes a moment for me to catch up with my own voice as my brain is so absorbed in the current optic information being received.
“Stage kissing. I do it all the time. Takes a bit of practice and good angling, and it’ll look realistic for an audience.”
“How do you do it?”
“I’ll show you.”
He shifts closer on the couch until our thighs are pressed together. Out of impulse, I swallow the mint in my mouth and it scrapes a little down in its descent down my throat. Thank god I asked for one though.
My heart is sparking like a malfunctioning machine. It’s in a different way to earlier with Deidamia. This is my best friend whom I’ve known for ten years. It’s a little bit weird to be fake kissing him.
But we’re not actually going to kiss, right? It’ll be fine. He takes my jaw in both hands. It’s too real and my head spins.
“Is this okay?”
I nod weakly, enchanted.
He leans forward, eyes lolling closed. My chest is tight like it’s trapped in a hydraulic press from all angles. In the moment before our mouths contact, he swipes his thumb over my lips and kisses his own finger instead. The tiniest surface area of his lips grazes mine, and in that tiny surface area, my mouth blazes. Worse than the time I had the double spice version of those Korean noodles.
I want to collapse. Drop like a man in a dunk tank.
Achilles is strangely red when he pulls away. The only time you see that colour on his face is after a particularly competitive sprint race.
Once I’ve tasted the morsel of lips on mine, I want more. The want claws from the inside of my skin, creating friction just shy of combusting.
Or maybe. Maybe it’s not just the kiss but the boy giving it.
No no no. This type of teenage revelation only happens in those stupid teen girl books which I totally do not enjoy reading late into the night. But also it’s somehow different. It also feels like a slap to the face. Like a tablecloth violently yanked from beneath all the tableware.
Maybe when I think long and hard about it later, it won’t actually seem like a surprise. But for now, now, I pounce onto the notion like a superhero on the roof of a high-speed train.
Achilles’ eyes are avoiding mine. He’s probably freaked out about the slightest accidental lip touch. Achilles, normally in full control of his body, now fiddles with his jacket zip in the most uncharacteristic way possible. High-speed train. No time to stop to think of possible crash.
“So um,” I say. “Let me try.”
He darts his eyes up. They’ve never seemed so full and brimming. Brimming with speechlessness. It’s totally strange. He should be laughing the whole ordeal off by now and shoving me on the shoulder.
But he’s not. So I recreate the way he grabbed my face, slipping the thumb on at the last moment.
Before he can pull back, I slide the thumb away.
My soul is ripped out of my body. All the energy of the universe is concentrated in the press of our lips. He tastes like those dried figs.
Welp. Now there’s no doubt that I’m really fucking gay.
He’s kissing me back. He’s kissing me back. I push myself into the kiss and fall on top of him on the couch. He laughs against my mouth and the vibrations tickle my skin.
“Patroclus…” he whispers. “You’re a natural at act-kissing.”
I pull back. Does he think–
“Only with you,” I blurt, panic gripping my tone. “Only you.”
“Yeah, ‘cos we’ve been best friends for a decade–”
“No! I mean…” I’m still hovering over him, my hip pressed to his, our legs tangled. “I think I’m gay.”
“Oh.” His face is streaked red and he’s a little cross-eyed looking at me and of course he doesn’t have a double chin even at this angle. And I watch the dawn in his eyes. “OH.”
A pregnant pause where we wait for each other to elaborate.
“I think, me too,” he manages finally, licking his lips.
Hot liquid pleasure flushes through me. But that still leaves the question…
“So um,” he says. “Do you like me or… otherwise this will be kind of awkward…”
“Achilles. I adore you.” And I kiss him again and he lifts his head to press closer to me. “But no more theatre club for me.”