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Kyle calls just as Alex is about to take a painkiller and hopefully sleep for the next eight hours straight. He briefly considers letting it go to voicemail—a year ago, he definitely would’ve—but friendly conversations and alien crises are things they do, more frequently now that they’re both fresh off their respective break-ups and Max’s evil twin has come out of hibernation. So, Alex prays there’s no emergency and slides to answer.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Remember when we used to go camping with our dads on Labor Day Weekend?” Kyle asks without preamble.
He does remember; those camping trips are most of the handful of happy childhood memories that contain his dad, absent as he was during them. “At Heron Lake, sure.”
“Well, Labor Day is coming up, and you’ve been bragging in the group chat about having a long weekend with no PT.”
Alex rolls his eyes, “Not bragging, but yes.”
Kyle ignores him, “I just got my rotation schedule for September and my shift ends that Saturday afternoon.”
Alex considers the unspoken offer, “I don’t know, Kyle, sleeping on the ground isn’t really in the cards for me anymore.”
“If we take the van, we can load it up with all my dad’s old sleeping pads and top those with the five-inch memory foam topper from my guest room.” Alex is still hesitant. “Please? It’ll be like old times.”
The warm affection and hope in Kyle’s voice hooks inside his chest and tugs just enough, “Alright, yeah, sounds like fun.”
~
Admittedly, the day is good. Alex is having a great pain management day and celebrates that by alternating his time between lazing in the water on an inflatable donut borrowed from Isobel and casually strumming his guitar from a shaded spot on the beach. Kyle splits his own time between harassing Alex into playing Selena songs and strutting around in his mid-thigh swim trunks and the world’s most awful Hawaiian shirt.
Hours later by their campfire, only because he’s comfortably warm and multiple, very strong cups of the Valenti Family’s Super Secret Sangria deep will Alex admit, “I’m glad we did this.”
Kyle smiles warmly at him and leans in slightly to bump their shoulders together; Alex doesn’t bother trying not to reciprocate. He’s too tipsy and happy and Kyle’s shoulder is so warm where it presses into his own that hiding a well-earned smile seems like a waste.
Kyle sees it and jostles him smugly, “Told you so.”
Alex rolls his eyes but smiles nonetheless, “Well if there’s one thing our dads can be proud of, it’s that we also used this trip as a shameless excuse to day drink.”
“Oh, salud!”
Kyle raises his plastic cup, and Alex murmurs “Ahóá!” before tapping it with his own cup and both men drain the rest of their drinks.
“Now all we need is two ten-year olds to ignore and vaguely hope don’t drown.”
“Well, no ten-year olds, but-” Kyle drunkenly flings his torso and arms in the direction of a tote that he just manages to snag a finger on before Alex helps hoist him back upright, “I brought s’mores!”
Inebriated Alex can’t help himself and an emphatic, “God, yes” tumbles out of his mouth before he can stop it.
In response to the praise, Kyle’s eyes nearly close with the force of his grin.
~
Half a bag of marshmallows later, Alex’s teeth feel absolutely coated with sugar and the skin around his lips and cheeks pull in a way that suggests there’s a decent amount of it smeared there as well.
Kyle laughs freely and warmly in a way that curls around Alex and makes him respond in kind.
“God, you still leave half the s’more on your face.”
Alex is still laughing as he fruitlessly tries scrub whatever leftover chocolate and marshmallow remains.
“You’re totally missing it. Here.” Kyle reaches out and tilts Alex’s still smiling face towards him.
And, well. The thing is, when they were young kids, Kyle had been his most physically affectionate friend. In the last year, he’s discovered that that tendency of Kyle’s has never really left him; he’s very free with casual touches and is borderline clingy when he’s as buzzed as he is now. For the past couple of hours, they’ve been pressed shoulders to hips to thighs, and would probably be calves to ankles too if Alex had his leg on. In his own state of inebriation, Alex hadn’t really minded and had welcomed the warmth as the night chill from the lake had crept in around them. So, the thing is, Alex isn’t stupid, but he could’ve been given a hundred years to guess what would happen on this camping trip and Kyle Valenti kissing him would’ve never crossed his mind. And yet.
And yet, Kyle Valenti is kissing him.
Incredibly, Alex’s first reaction is not to push his friend away and ask him ‘what the fuck’ but that’s likely because every single one of his brain cells has shut down. With his brain offline, his body responds to his natural instinct of being kissed by an attractive man which is, of course, to kiss him back.
A few seconds later, when Alex’s brain has finished rebooting, his first thought is, again, not ‘what the fuck’, but that it’s a really good kiss. Like, really good. Granted, there’s no wave of romantic yearning behind it like there had been with Forrest or like there was, is, and will always be with Michael, but Kyle is objectively a good kisser and he’s comfortable and familiar.
Finally, after he processes all of this, Alex remembers just how bizarre this whole situation is and lets out a startled huff of laughter as Kyle’s tongue slides against his own.
They both pull back and stare for a tense second before they’re leaning against each other again to prevent themselves from tipping over with laughter.
Eventually, Alex gets out, “Holy shit, Kyle.”
The man in question scrubs his hands down his face, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I just did that.”
“Why did you do that?” The words are direct and the laughter has mostly subsided, but there are still echoes of it curling around and softening the question.
Kyle shrugs and smiles wistfully, “I didn’t plan it or anything; I really did mean to help you get the s’mores off your face.” Alex lifts an eyebrow at him. “Without my tongue, I mean.”
The airman only hums in amusement.
“I don’t know, man! I just turned to help and you were, like, smiling and looking really hot by firelight-”
Alex cuts him off with a fresh laugh, “I’m glad my perfectly built campfire could help you through your sexual awakening.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Kyle exclaims, “you are not the first man I’ve thought about kissing!”
At the confession, Alex abruptly stops laughing and focuses all of his attention on his friend who, by the look on his face, had not meant to say that.
“Uh,” He sees Kyle debate whether he wants to say more and watches as he quickly decides that he’s come this far, so he might as well keep going. “You know how all the aliens smell like rain?” At the slight downturn of Alex’s mouth, Kyle hastens to add, “It’s definitely not Guerin; angry cowboy is not my type.”
“But tall, angsty nerds are?”
Kyle groans, “I don’t know! We were drunk and hiding in a closet,” Alex snorts, “and he just smelled so good and I kept thinking about how the last time I got caught in a closet with someone—Alex, shut up,” he admonishes in response to a second snort, “we kissed as a cover and then I realized I was kind of into the idea of kissing Max, but I thought, y’know, it would pass when I sobered up and maybe stopped hanging around Planet 7 so much…” Kyle trails off.
“But it didn’t.”
“I didn’t really think about it much when Steph and I were together, but since we broke up.” He gestures vaguely to get his point across.
“Ok,” Alex says slowly; it’s a lot of information to process at one time. “For what it’s worth, Isobel and Michael are trying to get Max to test if bisexuality is an alien thing or just a them thing.”
Kyle huffs and bumps their shoulders again, “Thanks for the hot tip, Al.”
“What are friends for?” He clears his throat, “speaking of.”
Kyle angles his face towards him and gives him a lopsided grin. “You can relax, man, I’m not into you like that. Although,” He pauses with a considering face that shifts into a borderline leer as he looks Alex up and down, “I wouldn’t mind doing that again.”
It’s a jarring shift in tone, but Alex is definitely not opposed to it. He answers lowly, like it’s a secret, “Put out the campfire and we can go talk about this some more in the tent.”
A slow grin stretches its way across Kyle’s face as he drops his own voice, “Meet you in there, Manes.”