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Wilbur isn’t sure what is happening between him and George. The thing that truly tips him over the edge into wondering whether their relationship is truly platonic or romantic is such an absurd thing: a voice call. But it’s not one of their regular, nightly voice calls. This one is a voice call that ends with George blurting love you, bye!
Before either of them can address it, though, George hangs up. Wilbur sits there at his computer for much longer than necessary, trying to figure out what to type in response. I like talking to you too, bye? No, that's too bland. I love you too! Too much of an acknowledgement of what George said, and that would make it awkward. Hope you have a good night! Doesn’t acknowledge it enough, and just doesn't feel right. All variations of I love you feel strange to send, unwieldy in his fingers, from ily to i love u to i love you so much, and i don't know if you meant to say it that way, but i still love you regardless.
Wilbur doesn’t like any of them.
In the end, because he’s sleep deprived, mentally exhausted from talking to someone for too long, and the back of his neck feels hot enough to fry an egg on, he just sends a simple love u too, goodnight! He hopes that’s enough.
Their flirting then progresses in other ways once the first barrier is broken. George starts sending him questionable messages that could read as romantic— if Wilbur were really looking into it. Maybe he's looking into it too deeply? So he tests the waters. Wilbur will send an intentionally provocative lyric simply to see how George reacts. Sometimes to the outside eye their conversations are entirely normal, but both of them know there’s something lurking beneath the surface. It’s not dangerous, not warning, but something that feels light and fluttery that neither of them are willing to acknowledge.
Either way, they’re flirting. Or maybe they’re not. Maybe this is just how regular friends act and Wilbur has been too distanced from regular platonic relationships to understand how they actually function.
Or maybe he’s wrong, and they’ve been dancing around each other for weeks. At this point, though, Wilbur has no idea. This might as well be the most flirtatious form of torture known to man.
Because Wilbur is a masochist at heart, he invites George over to the studio to film the music video for Taunt. He’s not bold enough to admit that it’s written about the man in particular, because he won’t admit that until hell freezes over, but thankfully George accepts the lie. As far as George believes, all of Wilbur’s songs are written with an ambiguous woman in mind, unnamed and out of sight. It’s what the rest of the world believes too.
George texts him on the way, are you sure you want me to film the mv? i’m not really a good actor
Wilbur sighs, and he types back: You do minecraft roleplay on the regular.
That’s you.
Right, you just sleep through everything.
I just don't know if this is the best idea.
Wilbur chews at his thumb, winces at the stinging feeling he gets when his nail pulls too far. If you don't want to film the mv thats totally fine. I won't be upset honestly.
There’s a moment of silence.
Finally:
No. I will.
It’s settled like that; George shows up, bundled in a black coat to protect himself from the weather, and cheeks and nose pink from the blustering wind. Wilbur grins when he sees him, offers to take his coat in a gesture that he hopes isn’t too gallant or condescending. George smiles, hands it over, politely introduces himself to the rest of Wilbur’s bandmates. It all goes so well. They get along spectacularly, jokes are being cracked, Wilbur plays the completed EP for George and watches the way that George’s eyes go wide at the particular moments he’s interested in. He tucks both his legs up on the sofa that they’ve squished into the back corner of the studio, tilts his head.
“I like Taunt, ” he says eventually. “I think it’s the best.”
“Of course you do,” Wilbur says automatically, “Should we— film the music video for it, then?”
“Alright,” George stretches, arms over his head, and Wilbur’s gaze flashes down to the strip of skin around his navel revealed. His face heats and he hurriedly looks back up at George’s face; George doesn’t notice. Wilbur isn’t sure whether he’s grateful for that or not. “What did you have in mind?”
“Come on,” Wilbur beckons, “Let me show you.”
The music video goes well— for the first few minutes. In theory, it’s a simple concept to execute, and it shouldn’t take much effort at all. The first fifteen minutes of filming are spectacularly easy, because they decide to just play the song in its entirety and have the band screw around individually. George sits stone-faced the entire time, gaze an amalgamation of boredom and the slightest hint of challenge that threatens to send Wilbur reeling. The expression doesn’t budge at all.
At least— it doesn’t until it’s Wilbur’s turn.
Then George does the thing he claims he won’t do.
“You’re smiling,” Wilbur stops partway through, and George sucks in a deep breath.
“Sorry,” he says, “Let me just—” and he schools his face back into careful nonchalance.
It only lasts for another thirty seconds, before Wilbur does this joking, messing-around thing where he lifts George’s coat over his head, and George falters, tucking his head into his hands.
“Again?”
“Sorry!” George bursts, the smile evident in his voice, “I’m— it was just the hood thing, alright? I’m neutral. I’m completely neutral. I’ve never been more neutral, in fact, I’m—”
But he laughs again. And then cracks another smile when Wilbur’s shoulder bumps against him. And ends up grinning when the edge of Wilbur’s guitar comes just barely too close to him— it didn’t even touch you! Wilbur declares, but George is sucking in a deep breath, saying I’ve got this, I’ve got this, I’m neutral, I’m so neutral.
In the end, it takes them an absurd amount of takes to get ones that include both Wilbur and George, and ones that don’t contain a hint of a smile. Wilbur has a sense that the music video will end up choppy and mismatched, because they’ll have to cut everything down to avoid any hint of the grins that George can’t seem to keep off his face.
It doesn’t make any sense. But he can feel George’s stare like two twin beacons, pinning him like a butterfly to a table, on his back. It stays there the entire time as they watch through the footage, eventually declaring it good enough to use.
Wilbur’s bandmates disperse when night falls low and inky over the city. They leave behind Wilbur and George, who are slower in packing up their things. George slings an arm back into his coat and continues talking about whatever it is, only Wilbur has stopped paying attention about ten minutes ago, content to let George ramble on. He likes the way George’s face looks when he talks about something he loves, all bright and intrigued.
Before long, Wilbur starts walking George back to the train station. He really shouldn’t— it feels too chivalrous for Wilbur’s taste, but he doesn’t want to let go of George just yet. Besides, George has just turned to him and is now animatedly talking about the music video they just filmed.
“You should have called this song tease,” George huffs at one point, “Because—”
“Tease?”
“You kept making me laugh!”
“So you’re accusing me of teasing you, then.”
“Oh, you asshole.”
“Not my fault you can’t keep a straight face to save your life.”
“I can!” George protests. “I can keep a straight face now.”
“Can you?”
“Of course,” George says. “I won’t break.”
Wilbur raises a skeptical eyebrow, and George mirrors him, and Wilbur says, “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I can keep a straight face. My family and I play poker, I know how to keep a poker face.”
Wilbur doesn’t say anything, only looks at him, and within a moment George’s face shatters. A small smile curls at his lips until he ducks his head and puts two hands over his face, face flushing.
“You’re cheating,” George says, muffled, “I don’t know how, but you’re cheating.”
They arrive at the point where George is supposed to turn off towards the train station. Wilbur prepares himself for the stiltedness of a goodbye, but it never comes— George only pauses uncertainly, looks down at the brightly lit avenue. When Wilbur glances at him quizzically, he only offers, “It’s just— it’s dark, isn’t it?” .
Wilbur nods.
“And I don’t really want to travel in the dark.”
Wilbur nods again.
“So,” he shifts, “Could I, possibly—”
“Of course,” Wilbur says automatically. It’s barely even a question, but it’s the sort of question where he doesn’t know exactly what he’s saying yes to.
They pile into a cab, ask it to take them to Wilbur’s place. George’s foot brushes against Wilbur’s and his hand is a tremulous inch away from his for the entire ride. Wilbur’s breath is frozen in his throat, his heart hammering dangerously against his ribs. He doesn’t dare loosen until they’re safely inside, coats off, shoes off and lined neatly against one another. Wilbur has to stop himself from looking at those two pairs of shoes and imagining them like that every day, every morning. He pushes the thought away and follows George into the living room, where he dramatically flops down onto Wilbur’s sofa, hair mussed and expression relaxed.
Wilbur follows. He sits on the opposite side, a careful foot away. Hesitantly, because the question is still scratching at his mind, he asks, “Did I ruin today for you?”
“Wait, what?”
“I didn’t mean to make you laugh all the time,” says Wilbur honestly, “If I ruined today for you, or the filming, or any part of it— I’m sorry.”
George shakes his head. “You didn’t ruin it. You made it better, if I’m being honest.”
“Really?”
“It’s awkward, right?” George laughs, a sort of twisted sound that reveals to Wilbur how the tension must have been building inside him the entire day. “I know you four have this artistic vision for what you want the rest of the world to see, and I really don’t want to be the guy who ruins it— and I’m not a good actor, really, so I was worried about ruining it. That’s why I was nervous earlier. But it was about me, not you. Never you.”
“But you didn’t,” Wilbur hastens to say, though the sounds of never you beat inside his eardrums like the song of a siren. “You made it so much better.”
“I keep laughing,” George says.
“It’s cute when you laugh.”
Wilbur hadn’t meant for that to slip out, but it does anyway. Everything stills for a heartbeat. George, too, pauses for only the briefest moment.
“You don’t mean that,” George says eventually, face red, “It’s your fault I was laughing, anyway.”
“How is it my fault?”
George fumbles for a response. “Because… you know. Because you’re so…”
“I’m so?”
His face goes, if possible, even darker red. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Why are you forcing me to say it?”
Now Wilbur’s even more flummoxed. He has this awful sense of vertigo like he’s looking over the edge of a sweeping cliff and wondering, if he steps off it, if he’ll fly or if he’ll fall. George doesn’t give him any answers.
“Forcing you to say what?”
“You know what I mean!” George exclaims, “I don’t know why… oh, Christ, this is embarrassing.”
Finally, Wilbur clues in. The flirting. The awkward, stilted, love you! messages they’ve relayed to each other day in and day out. The way George’s eyes simply couldn’t stop flicking to him every time Wilbur came close to him. The amount of takes stored in the camera file back at the studio, filled with each one of those small glances. The way Wilbur had this awful, awful obvious way of wanting to touch George, all throughout filming. All the simple ways. Teaching him guitar afterwards or a hand underneath his chin or even pulling his hood up. All the ways to get close to him. It might as well be a confession.
Ah, Wilbur realizes.
“Oh,” he says dumbly.
“Yeah,” George says, “Idiot.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s fine.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I thought we were,” George says, and gestures expressively, “On the same page? But—”
“We are on the same page.”
“Are we?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Try me,” Wilbur says.
It all happens so fast. Without warning, George breaches the careful few inches of space preserved between them. He pushes himself towards Wilbur and nearly knocks him over with the rush of excitement, one hand on the back of his head, one hand a steadying weight on his inner thigh, and George kisses him like he’s throwing himself off a cliff into the open air.
For a moment Wilbur is too astonished to react in any way except in immediate, frozen silence.
George draws back after a second. His face is flushed, his chest rising and falling in quick patterns. His hand is still on the inside of Wilbur's thigh, nearly too close for comfort, but at the same time, Wilbur would do anything in the world to keep it there. It’s grounding, it’s warm, it’s the firm reminder that everything Wilbur has dreamt about, and not so subtly hinted at, everything he’s desired for the last few months is right there in front of him.
And George wants it too. He wants it as well. And judging by the look on his face, he’s…
“Sorry,” mumbles George, and he pulls back. His hand slips from Wilbur’s thigh and awkwardly, he shifts himself a tick back. His eyes are still searching across Wilbur’s face for a hint of something, though Wilbur has no idea what he’s looking for. “You said same page. I thought…”
Anxiety swells in him like the crest of a wave, and George shuffles back more, repeating sorry, we can just forget about it again, and that’s the thing that shocks Wilbur’s mind back into motion.
“No,” he says, “No, no, just—” And he leans forward to kiss George again.
George melts into it, one hand bracing himself against the sofa and the other curling into Wilbur’s hair, shifting through the newly cut strands to loop around the longer, curly sections. He eventually winds fingers into it and grips, hard, and Wilbur only kisses him further. Their thighs press together in one long line, hip to ankle, and before they know it George shifts his hands to both sides of Wilbur’s face, pulling him closer, his foot hooking around the back of Wilbur’s ankle, and the change in position startles Wilbur enough that he slips and nearly falls.
“Whoops,” George grins, as Wilbur catches himself atop him. Wilbur can feel George’s smile on him, like a stain. Everything about him is set alight with electricity, like George is a livewire to the touch. He feels something rippling through him like a cresting wave, changing everything he’d ever thought was possible. George’s fingertips press against his face and Wilbur feels like one of those plasma balls he’d had in primary school— like every place that George touches him, he glows from. He might as well be lit aflame from the inside out.
“Sorry,” Wilbur says, “I—”
“Don’t apologize.”
Wilbur presses his mouth shut, but George doesn’t have any of that, because he presses up to capture another kiss. “I was so worried,” he says, in between quick breaths, “I seriously thought that— don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
“I won’t,” mutters Wilbur against his mouth, and George smiles at that, “I won’t, I promise.”
“I thought I had just fucked everything up.”
“You didn’t.”
“But I thought—”
“But you didn’t,” Wilbur says, “The only thing you fucked up is the music video, and we can—”
“I hate you,” George scowls, but he laughs again, the sound ringing out like a bell into the night. “You admit that I ruined it, but it’s not my fault that you’re so—”
Wilbur can’t help himself from interrupting, “So?”
“So arrogant,” George says, “Cocky, irritating, too tall for your own good, awfully good at music, too attractive for your own good—”
“You think I’m attractive?”
“Are you blind?”
Wilbur concedes that point, because George’s gaze now feels positively like it’s setting him on fire, scorching him down to the bone. He can feel the way George’s gaze rakes down him, flicks over his face, eventually lands back at his eyes.
“Well,” Wilbur breathes, summoning the last scraps of his decency, “It’s not like you’re much better.”
“Mhm?”
“In terms of attractiveness,” Wilbur says, “It’s unfair.”
“Really.”
“You know it.”
A flash of a grin. “I think I do.”
Something melts behind Wilbur’s sternum, the last residues of anxiety, built up from the weeks of flirting beforehand and the tangled strands of tension rising in the studio. George looks up at him with those awful, big eyes and abruptly, Wilbur realizes that he’s probably boxing George in. He sits back. Goes back to maintaining that careful inch of space between them, though it’s fruitless. George follows his movement, retreats back.
“So?” Wilbur breathes, after nearly thirty seconds of silence, “What happens now?”
“Now,” George says, “You kiss me again.”
“And after that?”
George reaches out his hand, and without thinking, Wilbur takes it. Their fingers line up, though Wilbur’s hands are large enough to reach over the back of George’s hand. In response, George’s thumb comes to rest on the soft spot of skin right behind his thumb, warm and calm. It’s the first time Wilbur has held hands with someone in… in ages. It feels like it’s been so long.
Nothing exists in that moment except for them, the brief touch of hands and fingers against one another, despite the fact they aren’t even kissing. George’s gaze and the softness of his face and the giddiness of what feels young, overjoyed, new— it’s over in a flash, but it sears into Wilbur’s mind forever. He presses that moment close to his heart.
“We go to sleep,” George says eventually, “If that’s alright with you.”
It is alright with Wilbur. There’s nothing he’d rather want, nothing that would please him more.
They do end up sleeping together that night, tucked into each other like petals of a flower. George fits against him, in ways Wilbur hadn’t even thought possible, and it goes so simply that Wilbur wonders how it had ever taken the two of them this long to figure it out in the first place.
They fit so well that Wilbur doesn’t ever want to let him go.
But he does, because the morning arrives, and they’re forced to separate for the day. But they’ll have more time for everything they want to do.
In truth, they really have all the time in the world.