Chapter Text
If you had told Link a year ago that he would be completely relaxed at the idea of lounging around naked with his best friend, he never would have believed it. If you had told him a year ago that his roommate would become his best friend, he would have struggled to believe that one as well. He’d never had a best friend before. And he’d begun to accept that maybe it was too late in life for him to have a friendship like that. That maybe the best friendship ship had sailed. It wasn’t a sad thought in Link’s mind. The wide world was full of potential new experiences that may or may not be one day fulfilled: space travel, skydiving, train conducting, motorcycle sidecar riding, uneven sidewalk navigating, best friendshipdom. The world was utterly suffocating with possibilities.
But that was before Link had met Rhett.
Now having a best friend felt as natural and essential as breathing. He couldn’t imagine life without Rhett. Rhett made this suffocating world easier to breath in. It was as if all of their essences had been pooled together before they’d been born, and divided out into two separate corporeal forms - and they had both been incomplete beings until they finally met. Now, all was right with the world. He supposed that was just what best friendship did for a person.
They were still very different people at their cores. But they encouraged one another to step outside of their respective comfort zones. There was a time when Link would have received that encouragement as an attack. But he had grown to receive that encouragement as… something else. Rhett was completing him.
Rhett had started enjoying Link’s paint-drying shows with him some nights. At first it was just an excuse for them to spend more time together, being best friends. Rhett would make them popcorn each night to enjoy while they watched. Link didn’t particularly like popcorn, but having to floss the kernels out of his teeth afterward was worth it for Rhett to have something to enjoy as they enjoyed the show that Link enjoyed... together. Each night Rhett would make himself a different flavor profile of popcorn, and he would also make Link a separate batch of plain popcorn - unseasoned, unbuttered. It really was a best friendly gesture.
So, the naked thing.
Rhett had watched some documentaries, and listened to a few audiobooks and podcast episodes about ‘man in his natural state’; and the way that civilization had burdened man with shame and discomfort. Link could certainly relate to that; he never had been comfortable with his own nudity. But Rhett had made Link somewhat comfortable with discomfort, and changed Link’s relationship to situations that used to elicit feelings of shame in him.
Link thought back to the moment when his relationship to shame and nudity first changed. It was when he and Rhett had gone to that strange spa, and he unexpectedly had to be completely naked. He also ultimately wound up having to rescue Rhett from a twisted view farm, completely naked. The point was, Link learned that trust and bravery were stronger elements within himself than shame and fear. Rhett had shown him that, and Link made active efforts to remember it whenever a situation presented itself where he had a choice between shame and trust.
So he and Rhett had started off small, no longer wearing their robes over their pajamas when they watched the paint-drying programming and ate popcorn together. Then they lost the socks. Then shirts. Soon they were relaxing in their underwear. And recently they’d gone completely nude.
Rhett had Link convinced that it truly was a rather poetic way to end the day - in the state in which they’d arrived into the world. It should have been weird. Everything with Rhett was a little weird! But Rhett had a way of making weirdness feel like home.
He didn’t look at Link’s body in an aggressive or judgemental way, and he didn’t look away as if it was something obscene or to be censored. He was objective and curious. Rhett would comment on birthmarks that he newly noticed, and inquire about little scars - asking for the stories behind them. One night when the paint on the night’s episode was taking a very dramatic length of time to dry, Link had tried to count each of the freckles on the expanse of Rhett’s pink canvas of skin.
Link had grown beyond comfortable with this new form of intimacy between them. It was like a meditative practice that took him to a new level of consciousness. Just appreciating the feel of Rhett existing next to him, in as vulnerable and natural a state as he had opened himself up to being in.
The night that everything changed, Rhett had prepared Link’s usual batch of plain popcorn. Unbuttered, unsalted. He had prepared for himself a new recipe of novelty popcorn: peanut butter drizzle. Link found his mouth watering with interest. Buttery, sugary, peanutty goodness painted across the corn puffs in glistening wet stripes. Link licked his lips and wondered what it might taste like if he were to… just try a little. Was it too much? Would the flavors overwhelm? What if the experience rendered him unable to enjoy plain popcorn anymore, and he was doomed to a life chasing one fancy popcorn high after the other? Then he remembered that he wasn’t even that big a fan of plain popcorn, so it wasn’t much of a risk if he did ruin that for himself.
Ultimately, he gave in to temptation and tried the peanut butter drizzle.
“Do you like it?” Rhett asked with thinly veiled optimism.
“It’s…. intense.”
“Oh,” Rhett replied, clearly disappointed by that response.
“It might be the best popcorn I’ve ever tried. Not that I’ve tried that many varieties of popcorn. But I suspect that even if I had, this popcorn would still be the best.”
Rhett lit up like Christmas morning at the compliment.
“The best, huh?”
Rhett’s cheeks brightened and swelled as a proud smile spread over his face, filling Link with a curious warmth.
There’s that best friend feeling again , Link thought. Eventually, the paint on the show dried, and Link grew squirmy with sleepiness. He also felt a compulsion to floss his teeth; his tongue was fatigued from toying with the slivers of kernels that had wedged themselves between his teeth and into his gum line.
“I’m gonna turn in,” Link announced.
Rhett casually nodded. “See you in the morning.”
Link retired to the bedroom and odd as it was, only once he was alone did he put some clothes on. Once he had his striped cotton pajama set on, he made his way to the bathroom to begin his dental hygiene routine
He had just begun flossing when a piece of popcorn was freed from between his teeth. Thankfully, the sharp edges of the kernel had spared his gums. There was still some peanut buttery sweetness, and a little salt to it. Such a small bite with so much flavor. It was flirting with being overwhelming, but it coasted into a gentle landing on the side of just right. His mouth involuntarily watered and he noticed that his reflection in the bathroom mirror was smiling.
That joy lasted with Link as he finished flossing, brushing, and swishing. He climbed up into his top bunk and was still grinning as he let his eyes slide shut, enjoying the cool breeze of the ceiling fan. The taste of the popcorn had been washed away and replaced by minty freshness, but the memory was as vivid as anything. And he clung to that memory as he began to drift off to sleep.
Link was fading in and out of waking consciousness when it occurred to him that maybe he hadn’t thanked Rhett enough for curating such a balanced snack experience for him. He knew that Rhett was always proud of his popcorn creations, and it wasn’t often that Link’s mild tastes could keep up with Rhett’s bold and adventurous flavor propensities. Given that he was still thinking about the taste, hours later, the least he could do for his best friend was throw another compliment at him before he gave himself over to sleep.
Link lifted his phone, his tired eyes squinting against the darkness, and without the aid of his glasses. He whispered to himself as his thumbs brushed over the letters to convey I really do love your popcorn recipe.
Link’s chest seized up as the autocorrect feature cut his “your” down to “you”, and his lazy thumb had prematurely hovered too close to the send button, cutting his thought off right there.
He didn’t need his glasses to know what he had just accidentally conveyed.
His brain scrambled for some way to unsend the message, but he could already see the little checkmark icon indicating that the message had been seen.
Three little dots appeared.
Oh goodness, Link thought in a panic. Rhett was responding.
The three little dots disappeared.
They reappeared.
They vanished.
Link hadn’t felt so humiliated since he’d called his teacher “Momma” in the third grade. Or maybe a few months ago, when he’d cheerily told the cashier “You too!” after she’d let him know his receipt was in the bag.
Maybe he could just pretend he was asleep, and avoid explaining his slip. Perhaps for the rest of their lives.