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Wilbur coughed, water spilling from his mouth, dripping down into the sink and seeping into his hair, trickling down his collarbone and underneath his sweater, running down his skin. Wiping his mouth off with his sleeve, he gripped the sides of the sink tightly, his knuckles turning white.
His breathing was irregular, vision blurred, hot tears streaming down his face. His muscles ached, and he yearned for the pounding feeling in his head to stop.
How did he end up here?
Memories of him stumbling down the campus halls, fumbling with the bathroom door and practically throwing himself inside the room blurred together, and another broken sob pushed past his throat.
It was nearing the end of the school day, where he could have been spending his last hour reviewing his work and possibly napping.
Yet here he was, crying his heart out over a school bathroom sink.
One glance at the mirror told him he didn’t look his best. His hair was messy, half wet from splashing water on his face repeatedly to try and calm the tears down, and his eyes were red to match his face.
He looked miserable, and it was accurate to how he felt at the current moment.
It wasn’t like Wilbur wasn’t used to this. On the contrary, actually, he had grown accustomed to hurting. Many people had introduced themselves into his life, becoming a routine, an active part of his world, only to walk out as if he had never meant a single thing.
So he had began leaving people before they could leave him. He thought, maybe, if he left before they had a chance to, it would hurt less.
He was wrong.
More tears fell from his cheeks into the sink, melting with the cold water dripping from the faucet.
Her name wasn’t important. Neither was her appearance, or the way she walked, or her laugh, or the way she made Wilbur feel like he mattered somewhere in this bitch of an earth. It didn’t matter where she came from, or where she was now, only that she was gone. Left, just like all the others.
His chest throbbed, and he let out another pathetic cry, sobs ripping through his vocal chords and bouncing off the tiled walls.
He was tired. Sick. He wanted to leave, break the cycle, but he knew no matter how hard he tried or what he did, this was his life. Endlessly hoping for change, and getting heartache in return.
Wilbur could feel his legs grow weak from leaning over the sink, in the same position he had been for what felt like ages, words of rejection pulsing and replaying through his brain on loop.
It was his fault. For getting attached, for thinking it would be any different, for trying in the first place.
Why was he still trying?
He knew what the end result would be. Several attempts at trial and error told him that the conclusion would only hurt him, and yet he still forced himself through, blinded by a hope that was slowly burning out, like a flame that was relentlessly put through storms of rain and wind, hanging on by a thread, refusing to be put out on the off chance that maybe this time would be different.
He knew better now than to wish like that.
“Wilbur?”
Wilbur jumped, swiftly spinning around and turning his back to the sink, eyes wide as his gaze fell on another student.
He blinked through tears, bringing his arm up to wipe his face free from tears again.
While his vision wasn’t the best at the moment, he recognized that voice anywhere. This was possibly the person he wanted to see him like this the least, and he knew a lot of people he didn’t want seeing him at his worst.
“Not now, Schlatt..” He mumbled, drying his face off with his sleeve, peering at the floor in an adamant way of avoiding eye contact.
“Jesus Christ, man, what happened?”
“I said not now,” He repeated, irritation seeping into his voice.
Schlatt. The one person who had stayed consistent in his life, the one person that refused to leave no matter how rough things got. And here he was, witnessing him weeping over a bathroom sink. “Please...”
He heard footsteps come closer, and a startled yelp tore past his lips as he felt a hand come up to brush tears away from his cheeks.
“Relax, man,” The other boy scoffed. “You need to pull yourself together. Don’t tell me this is about some girl again. What would that be, the sixth time this semester?”
“Fuck off,” Wilbur hissed, shoving the hand away from his face. “I don’t need your half-assed pity right now, and I most certainly don’t want your backhanded insults.”
Schlatt laughed dryly, pulling his arm back to his side. “Quit being a little bitch, Wil. I’m trying to help.”
“Yeah, well I don’t want it.”
Wilbur turned back to face the mirror, letting his head fall. He was well aware of the fact he was being immature. He always was. Rejecting help just for the sake of covering up his fragile ego was a game he played best.
Maybe he should have taken the smarter course of action and lock himself in one of the stalls. Maybe then he wouldn’t have found himself in this situation.
“I don’t give a shit what you want. Tell me what happened, come on,” Schlatt sighed, closing the door behind him and leaning against it. “We got half an hour.”
“I’m asking you nicely to please leave me alone,” Wilbur hissed, not so nicely.
“And I’m telling you right now I’m not leaving until you fess up. You can’t keep skipping class to bitch and moan and wallow in pity like a middle schooler, Soot.”
Wilbur shook his head, staying in stubborn silence.
He knew Schlatt for long enough to know that wouldn’t go well, but he wasn’t in the right headspace to make rational decisions right now.
“Wil. Come on, don’t be a bitch.”
Still refusing to speak, Wilbur simply shifted his weight from one foot to another. He took the time to realize how lightheaded he was, and how cold it was in this room.
“Wilbur. Don’t make me make you start talking. We’ve done this before, I’m not afraid to do this again.”
“I know you’re not,” Wilbur said quickly. He didn’t need reminding of the ways Schlatt had of making him talk. “I just don’t want to talk about it, okay? So drop it.”
Schlatt clicked his tongue in disappointment, shaking his head. “Tsk. Remember in freshman year, you were over at my house and you started crying over a nightmare?”
“Stop.”
“You woke me up from all your bitching. What was it you asked me to do again?”
“Schlatt.”
“You wouldn’t stop begging me to cuddle you until you fell back asleep—“
“It was one fucking time you dick! You just don’t know when to let things go,” Wilbur snapped. “I said I don’t want to talk about it! Okay? Case closed! She just didn’t like me. I was too needy, too clingy, too much and not fucking enough.”
He felt his hands tremble as they held onto the sides of the sink, vision hazing again and he knew more tears were threatening to spill.
“It’s always the same shit. Again, and again, I’m never going to be the person people want me to be. Someone’s always going to be better than me, and I’m always going to be one step behind everyone else.” His voice wavered, and his ears rang in his head. “I’m never enough.”
He exhaled shakily, screwing his eyes closed to shut out the noise in his head.
It hurt.
He heard Schlatt sigh from behind him, the disappointment in his tone making Wilbur flinch.
“Clearly somebody wanted to talk about it.”
“I hate when you talk like that,” Wilbur muttered, keeping his head down. “Like you know everything. You don’t get it.”
“Don’t I?”
“No, you don’t!” Wilbur turned around, finally meeting Schlatt’s gaze. If Wilbur didn’t know any better, he would say Schlatt looked surprised at the emotion he held in his eyes.
“You don’t get it, actually! You have never once had this issue!” He yelled, stepping forward and away from the sink. “You don’t give a damn about your grades; you slack off and nap the whole class period, because you don’t give a fuck about what happens to you!”
He took another step forward, moving towards the other male in the room.
“Meanwhile, I work my ass off to study the material I’m given, slaving over textbooks every break I get while you do what? Drool your ass off? And no one ever gives you shit for it! No one expects anything out of you, so no one gets let down!”
Wilbur closed the small space between them, staring down at Schlatt. Their chests were mere inches away, and if it weren’t for the small height difference between them, their faces would be too.
“But me? I miss one assignment, I get one B- on a test, I skip class one fucking time and the whole world goes to shit, right?! Everybody expects so much shit from me, I can’t ever get a break! I can’t do anything right no matter what I do!”
He didn’t even notice the burning tears cascading down his face, spilling onto the ground beneath them. His body was shaking, and he felt the anger he had bottled up for so long gradually dissolving through the cracks of the walls he had built himself. The barriers he had worked so hard to keep closed, crumbling under his resolve, as was his patience.
“And you don’t even care! You never have! You only keep me around for pity, for some sick, sadistic game you like to play! Stringing me along like some lost, stray abandoned puppy for your own fucking pleasure!” He spat, sincere frustration lacing his voice. “You’ve never cared about me. I’m sick of you acting like you give a damn! Keeping me around when everyone knows deep down you’re sick of me!”
His breaths were coming out in short breaks, his shoulders trembling with his words. His head was pulsing, and his eyes burned from crying. “You’ve never once known what it’s like to love someone, to think you mean something to someone, to be given false hope by somebody only for it to be ripped away from your hands, smashed onto the floor and kicked into oblivion! You don’t know what it’s like to feel so fucking alone!”
Wilbur’s chest heaved, finally taking acknowledgement of the water falling from his eyes, but not caring enough to do anything about it. His knees felt like they were going to give out from beneath him, and he felt so weak.
Schlatt only stared back, expressionless. Wilbur felt himself grow concerned at the lack of a response, beginning to doubt himself. “I-“
“You don’t speak for me.”
Wilbur blinked, looking down at him. He opened his mouth to form a reply, before getting promptly cut off.
“I don’t know what it’s like to know somebody, right?” The other said, voice void of any emotion. “Because I thought I knew you, and here you are, acting like you know how I feel about you.”
Wilbur felt a pang in his chest, swallowing a lump down his throat. He was quickly starting to regret his previous outburst, anger turning to anxiety as he watched Schlatt take the final step forward, effectively closing the space between their bodies. Wilbur hastily took a nervous step back, panicking at the contact. “I didn’t mean-“
“We’ve been friends since fucking grade school, Wilbur. I’ve stood up for you countless amounts of times, I’ve sat through your endless rambling, and I’ve endured hours worth of your crying over girls that probably don’t give one shit about you.”
The brunet winced, thick tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t have the reserve in him to form a cohesive sentence, let alone reply accordingly to the accusation.
“But that’s because I don’t care about you, right? I’ve comforted you every damn time you were on your knees at your worst because I don’t care, right, Wil?” Schlatt hummed, stepping forward again. Wilbur stumbled back, only for Schlatt to close the gap again.
“Wilbur, I have witnessed so many people come into your life. They have all made you laugh, they’ve made you feel happy. They made you feel worth something, they made you feel like you mattered,” He spoke slowly, taking a forward step each time Wilbur backed up, watching bemused as Wilbur backed himself into the wall, staring back down at him with a fearful expression that he so much as blinked at.
“You know what else they did? They made you cry. They tore you apart from the inside out, and they walked right out your life without a single regret.”
“Please stop,” Wilbur whispered, tearing his gaze away from the shorter man. Shame was welling up in his gut, and he couldn’t help but notice how small the school’s bathrooms really were.
Ignoring the other’s protests, Schlatt continued in a steady tone. “And you know what I’ve thought every time I watched that happen?”
Wilbur whined, closing his eyes. He didn’t dare answer, tilting his head away from the other, regretting every decision he made made that lead him up to this point.
“You don’t deserve that.”
Wilbur paused, slowly fluttering his eyes back open, hesitantly meeting Schlatt’s gaze again. He still couldn’t make out any readable emotion on him, but the feeling in his voice was enough to send a shiver down his back. “What?”
“Wilbur, those people, those girls you’ve given your heart to...” Schlatt sighed. “They’re not worth your time. They don’t know you. They don’t understand,” He added, flushing their bodies together, much to the confusion of the taller, who couldn’t offer anything but a quiet sniffle. “They don’t get you.”
Wilbur stared back dumbly, his limbs feeling numb under his skin.
Schlatt exhaled. “You don’t deserve any of this.”
“Then why do they leave?”
Both boys stilled, the atmosphere around them growing heavy. Their eyes were locked on each other’s, never faltering.
Wilbur felt so vulnerable, so weak in comparison to his friend. Schlatt was always so confident, so purposeful in everything he did. Regret filled Wilbur’s conscience, anxiety evident in the way his legs trembled.
“You need a rebound,” Schlatt finally said after a long period of silence.
Wilbur blinked, breaking their stare to hastily bring his sleeve up to his eyes, finally wiping the tears that had been piling up in his vision since their conversation had began. “What?” He managed after a while, sniffling.
Schlatt didn’t reply, instead opting to convey his message as he pressed his knee in between Wilbur’s thighs.
Wilbur let out a strangled yelp, his face flushing immediately as a hand flung up to slap over his mouth, muffling the noise. His breath hitched, getting caught in his throat as he processed the movement that had just unfolded before him.
“Schlatt, what the hell?!” He cried out, his eyes glossing over with more tears. Not from the recent melancholy, but out of humiliation. “What is wrong with you?!”
“Do you want me to stop?” Schlatt simply hummed, keeping his knee in between Wilbur’s legs, keeping it still in place.
Wilbur drew a ragged breath in, pinning himself further back against the wall. Sweat was running down his neck and his mind was flooding with thoughts he couldn’t control. The feeling of Schlatt’s knee dug into his lap was impairing his ability to think straight (in more ways than one).
“I’m not moving until I get an answer. All you have to do is say no, and I’ll back off, Wil,” Schlatt muttered.
“I don’t understand,” Wilbur whimpered, heat rushing to his ears. “I thought you were mad at me, I- what are you... I don’t-“ He inhaled, biting his lip nervously. “I don’t get it.”
Schlatt remained quiet, and for a moment, Wilbur believed he wasn’t ever going to answer, until he felt a grip cup his face, forcing him to look down at his friend. He didn’t know how to feel. Everything he currently felt was foreign to him.
“This doesn’t have to mean anything,” Schlatt finally said. “You’re my friend, Wilbur. I can’t stand seeing you broken like this over some goddamn girl.” He ran his thumb over the brunet’s lip gently, caressing it with a tender care Wilbur hadn’t known he was capable of. “It won’t mean anything.”
Wilbur swallowed, unable to bring himself to look away. “What won’t?” He breathed out, and he swore he saw Schlatt’s eyes flick to his lips before meeting his gaze again.
“This,” Schlatt said simply, leaning in and pressing his lips firmly against his.
Wilbur tensed, the world around him coming to a harsh stop. He had kissed many people before, but this was the first time he had felt safe because of one. He let out a broken sob, tension melting from his shoulders as he kissed the other boy back, too drunk in the moment to doubt himself.
Schlatt didn’t hesitate to deepen the action, grabbing the other’s face as he let all the passion he had pent up flow from his mouth, grazing his tongue over the taller boy’s lip, taking it in between his teeth as he bit gently, earning an indignant whine.
Schlatt brought his hands up to the back of Wilbur’s head, grabbing fistfuls of his rich brown curls into his hands, roughly tugging on them as he drank in every bit of his mouth. Wilbur fell lax in his grip, keening at the pulls on his hair as he reciprocated the amount of intensity Schlatt put forward into the kiss.
He gasped when Schlatt rolled his knee into his crotch, the latter taking the opportunity to shove his tongue down Wilbur’s throat.
It was messy, but Wilbur loved every second of it. He grabbed onto the collar of Schlatt’s hoodie, pulling him closer. His face was on fire, and his skin felt covered in a warm blanket of flames.
Schlatt slid his hands down Wilbur’s neck, coming down to his waist as he kneaded his knee between his thighs, luxuriating in the needy noises that leaked past the brunet’s lips. He brought his hands up the sweater the other adorned, running them up the pale skin of Wilbur’s sides, urgently sweeping his tongue inside his mouth as he tasted every inch of him.
Wilbur’s skin felt engulfed in flames, sensitive to every way Schlatt ghosted his fingers up his sides and down his stomach, which was doing flips at every touch.
“Please,” Wilbur whispered against Schlatt’s lips, his auburn eyes meeting the other’s hazel irises. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I know,” Schlatt mumbled, pulling Wilbur in by the waist, digging his fingers into his hips, giving another teasing nudge to his crotch with his own leg, chest swelling in pride at the plaintive moan that came from the brunet. “Just let me do all the work.”
Wilbur whimpered in embarrassment at the noises that would involuntarily push through his throat, taking the offer in consideration.
“It’s just.. what about you?” He took in a breath. “This feels wrong.”
Schlatt traced patterns into the dips of Wilbur’s hips, sighing. “You really are one dense motherfucker, aren’t you?” He laughed humorlessly, dragging his hands back underneath the cotton sweater, watching them disappear beneath the fabric.
“Still worrying about others when you’re being handed pleasure on a silver platter,” He said, preventing Wilbur from protesting as he brought one hand to his face, cupping his cheek and tilting his head, placing a haste kiss on his neck.
“Did you even take in a single thing I said earlier?” He drew a breath out, brushing his lips against the taller’s shoulder. “Typical fucking Virgo.”
“Schlatt-“ Wilbur choked on a moan as the man in question suddenly bit down on his shoulder, putting a hand over his mouth again and slamming his eyes shut. “Fuck—“
“You’re the one who doesn’t get it, Wil,” Schlatt spoke slowly, trailing kisses along the brunet’s collarbone. “This is what I want. This is what I’ve wanted since the fucking start.”
He dug his knee into Wilbur’s inner thighs again, drinking in the pretty sobs that came out from his mouth at the action. “You’re so fucking stupid. You keep letting people walk all over you, and you think everyone’s against you. You genuinely believe everyone has left you.”
Schlatt raised his head to look at Wilbur, who was once again tearing at the brim, out of shame or pleasure, he didn’t know. “I have never left you.”
Wilbur’s lip quivered as he looked back at Schlatt, hair disheveled and tangled from the way it was tugged and pulled at, face flushed from adrenaline and thrill. Tears broke through the dam, sliding down his cheeks, dusted red. “Why?”
Schlatt looked on, not missing a beat before responding.
“I can’t leave the one thing I care about.”
Wilbur let out a broken sob, covering his face with his arm as tears flowing from his face like the sink he had left running. “You can’t just say that.”
Schlatt grabbed hold of Wilbur’s arm, pulling it away carefully, wiping the heavy tears away gently. “I can, because I mean it.”
“I thought you said this doesn’t mean anything,” Wilbur coughed back. “You said we- this wouldn’t mean anything.”
“I said this doesn’t have to mean anything,” The younger male whispered, rolling his knee into Wilbur’s lap again.
Wilbur gasped, subconsciously moving his hips against Schlatt’s leg to gain more friction. “What..” He paused. “What does this mean to you?”
Schlatt shrugged. “It can mean whatever you want it to mean, Wil...” He brushed strands of loose amber hair from the brunet’s face. “It can mean nothing, or everything. It’s up to you.”
Wilbur whimpered. There was little to no space between their bodies, pressed against each other, and he could still hear the dripping faucet from the sink, droplets echoing throughout the bathroom walls. His head was buzzing with static, unable to concentrate on anything but the sensation of Schlatt’s knee rubbing against his growing erection he had been avidly refusing to acknowledge.
“I just never thought.. I’d be doing this here with you,” He admitted. “Making out with your best friend of several years in a public school bathroom isn’t something that happens every day.”
He smiled as Schlatt laughed, the first genuine sign of enjoyment he had gotten from him. “I don’t know, this is pretty normal for me,” The other hummed.
“Seriously, though, Wil,” He took a breath. “This doesn’t have to mean a single thing. But, if you want? This,” He kissed Wilbur’s forehead. “This can be us from now on.”
Wilbur blushed, feeling his stomach upturn on its head. He knew what he wanted. He knew what he felt, in this moment. “Is this right, though?” He bit his lip. “I mean, what if we don’t last? What if we don’t work out like this? What if I fuck it up, and what if you leave me like-“
Schlatt cut his rambling off with a haste kiss against his lips, stealing the breath away from the brunet, parting after a few blissful moments. “I’m not going to leave you. I haven’t for years, Wil, and I won’t for years to come. I’m a man of my word. But if you want to wait, then... hell, for you, I’d wait an eternity.”
Wilbur giggled, bringing a hand up to cup the other boy’s face. “I didn’t know you could be this sentimental, Schlatt.”
“I didn’t know you could be such a little bitch either, yet here we are.”
“Mm,” Wilbur grinned. “Class is almost over. Let’s say we wait the rest of the day here, and then, maybe...” He slid his hands down Schlatt’s neck. “We can continue where we left off..?”
Schlatt hummed, as if taking the offer into consideration. “Whatever you want, loverboy.”
Wilbur dragged out a sigh, going pliant against the other’s body. “I’d like that.”
Schlatt smiled. “I’d like that too.”
And, almost as if on cue, the final bell rang.