Work Text:
Art is fourteen when he receives his first kiss on the lips.
At the other end of the kiss is Elaine, a girl from his class, whose parents get along well with Art’s, so as a matter of fact, Elaine’s presence in Art’s life is not limited to the classroom walls. Elaine has been on a few playdates with Art ever since they were toddlers, and anytime the two adult couples got together, the kids played together as well. Elaine gets along with Art’s brothers too, but because she is the same age as Art, and shares a homeroom teacher with him, Art is the one with whom she has the greatest interaction of all the Garfunkel siblings.
Art generally enjoys her presence. She’s cute, with long, auburn hair cascading down her back. She has big brown eyes, full lips, a thin nose and a roundish, freckled face. Because she’s known Art for a while, she’s not as giddy around him as other girls are, attempting to gain his attention in every way imaginable, but then hastily moving away when he does look over, concealing their giggling mouths behind their hands. Art has definitely noticed girls always seem to move in groups, never alone, as if they were a school of fish. Art has been pondering this, but figures it can’t only be a self-confidence issue, because Elaine certainly isn’t the most assertive person he has ever met. She’s nothing like his friend Paul, for instance. But still, she doesn’t necessarily need to be accompanied by a friend when she chats to him.
Art will admit he is rather shy, oblivious and perhaps a tad naive when it comes to interacting with other females he is not familiar with. But when Elaine grabs his hand one day in his bedroom when they’d both been sitting on his bed, Art reading a magazine and Elaine sketching in her notebook, while their parents are enjoying coffee and cake downstairs, and kisses him on the mouth, it does come as a little bit of a shock.
“I just wanted to try that one time,” she says after her lips leave Art’s, looking very nonplussed about the whole event, while Art’s heart hammers in his chest and his brain is making somersaults trying to figure out how he should react. “My friend kissed a guy and claimed it was...nice. So I wanted to see if…this was nice too.”
Art thinks he might be a bit too floored at the suddenness of the whole thing to adopt the same matter-of-fact approach to his first kiss as Elaine does. In fact, he’s a bit freaking out inside, repeating ‘this is my first kiss, the first kiss, my first kiss’ in his head, like a mantra. When Elaine keeps looking at him questioningly, he eventually does come out of his trance, and leans forward again, pressing his lips back to hers.
They stay like that for a minute or so, though it feels longer. Just mouth pressed to mouth, breathing through their noses, while blood rushes in Art’s ears. The scent of Elaine’s hair is sweet, maybe smelling like green apples or some other fruit, and when her hand comes up to his face to tangle in his hair, he reflexively does the same, and cups her head, feeling the silky strands of her hair sliding under his fingertips.
“Was it nice?” he dares to ask, after they’ve broken apart.
He can’t decipher Elaine’s gaze on him very well, but there’s a slight blush on her cheeks and she doesn’t run from him, screaming in horror, so Art takes that as a good sign.
“Yeah,” she offers, eventually. “Nice.”
Art thinks it was nice too, though he can’t define the sentiment very well.
Art tells Paul about his first kiss on the way back home from school the next day. Paul has also kissed a girl or two before, and has been jokingly bugging Art about getting it out of the way as well, so Paul could talk to him about it.
“Are you serious?” Paul yells. The difference in volume between Art’s quick and embarrassed whisper and Paul’s overexcited roar is quite noticeable.
“Shhhhh,” Art hushes him, looking around to see if anybody is watching them. “And yeah, we kissed.”
The wild glint in Paul’s eyes is followed by a smirk. “So, Elaine, huh,...” he says, lifting his eyebrows as if he’s just told Art the secret to the universe.
Art nods.
“So how did you go about that? Was it romantic? Did you confess to her? In fact, I didn’t even know you had feelings for her?” Paul concludes, while only one raised eyebrow remains, the other lowered into an s-shaped scowl low above his eye.
“She kissed me. I kind of wasn’t expecting it,” Art confesses grudgingly. Art knows how this is going to turn out. Paul’s never going to stop making fun of the fact that Art’s first kiss was initiated by the girl. And as if on cueー
ーPaul laughs, but at least it’s a touch less mocking than anticipated. “Haha, wow, Elaine,” Paul remarks, while Art even thinks he detects a hint of admiration in his tone of voice. “I didn’t peg her as someone taking matters in her own hands like that. But anyway,” Paul continues, skipping a few steps on the sidewalk trying to keep up with Art’s larger strides alongside him, “how was it? Hot? Wet? Spill the beans, man. What did you do? How far did you go?”
Art’s face falls at Paul’s use of adjectives that he wouldn’t have associated with the kiss in a million years. It wasn’t hot or wet. Art shrugs. It was simplyー
“Nice, I suppose? Yeah, it was nice,” he adds, racking his brain for other ways to describe his first kiss, but fails to come up with anything else. “Nice.”
Paul comes to a complete halt, and Art has to do the same so as not to look stupid walking on while his friend stays behind. He looks back at Paul, who is staring at him, dumbfounded, as if Art had informed him that Brussels sprouts are now his favorite food, while Paul knows very well that Art despises them to the core.
“What?” Art asks, equally thunderstruck at his friend’s sudden silence.
“What exactly do you mean, nice?” Paul asks.
Now it’s Art’s turn to frown deeply. “Is that not a good thing? Is it not supposed to be nice?”
Paul’s face lights up, much to Art’s relief. Then he starts walking again, and Art follows when Paul has caught up with him.
“Sure, of course it’s nice. But things didn’t get a tiny bit heated when you used tongue? Like, when I had my first kiss, Iー”
Paul stops talking again as he takes in the crestfallen expression on Art’s face. His shoulders slump slightly when he tells Art, almost as a statement rather than a question, “I’m guessing there wasn’t any tongue involved, huh?”
Art shakes his head, trying hard not to show the tears burning behind his eyelids and welling up in the corners of his eyes. No wonder Elaine thought it was only nice. How else could she have described kissing the worst kisser in the world without hurting his feelings?
“Didn’t Jules teach you how to do it?”
“Jules?” Art repeats, wondering about why he’d need his brother’s guidance, of all people, for something as personal as this.
“I don’t know, Jules has a girlfriend, doesn’t he?” Paul shrugs. “And I figure I’d go to an older brother for advice myself, if I had one.”
“So how did you know what to do?” Art asks, curiosity now getting the better of him, his disappointment in himself slowly ebbing away as he silently vows to do better next time. Perhaps Paul could pass on the knowledge and teach Art a few tricks.
“My cousin told me. Not Eddie, of course. I’d be dead if Eddie had kissed someone before me.”
Paul and Eddie are like peas in a pod, but Art recognizes some healthy sibling rivalry, much like him and his own brothers.
“Do you think…I mean, could you tell me?” Art ventures, slightly emboldened by the fact that Paul doesn’t seem to be bowled over with laughing about Art’s ineptitude.
“Sure, Artie,” Paul answers cheerfully, as they approach his doorstep. “Come by after dinner?”
When Art goes home, he almost - almost - feels thrilled about trying a second kiss with Elaine with his soon-to-be-acquired knowledge about kissing.
“So, are you telling me you have to actually put your tongue inside the other person’s mouth?” Art repeats, the bridge of his nose furrowed into unmistakable disgust.
“Yeah,” Paul answers, sitting cross-legged on his bed, facing Art. “I know it sounds gross, but it’s really not that bad. It’s a bit wet but it’ll also make you feel uh...excited, if you know what I mean. And if you combine it with feeling the girl up a bit, um...it’s good. And it should feel good for her, too.”
Paul has spent the past half an hour patiently explaining the things his cousin told him about kissing a girl, and describing how Art should try his next kiss. A close-lipped kiss, like Art’s with Elaine is a nice start, but things need to be spiced up a bit after that. Lips should be moved and tongue should be involved. Except Art cannot for the life of him fathom how having someone else’s tongue stuck inside his mouth could be good. Not to mention the fact that the prospect of touching a girl’s boobs gives him goosebumps as well, and Art isn’t entirely sure they’re the good kind of shivers running down his back. He already imagines himself screwing that up too, like accidentally pinching the girl, and then Elaine definitely would go running from him, screaming. And what if she told someone, and Art would never be able to kiss a girl again because they’d all know he’s super bad at it?
“You think too much,” Paul says, poking his index finger in Art’s forehead. “Don’t. It’s something that should happen naturally. You’ll figure out what to do. Just go with your gut.”
“But…” Art begins, so overwhelmed he has to search for words.
“This isn’t like a mathematical equation,” Paul patiently explains. “There’s not just one right solution here. This is something science won’t help you with.”
Art must look horribly depressed to Paul, because Paul sighs dramatically and scoots a bit closer, his voice lowered to a soft rumble.
“Listen, this obviously stays between us,” he says. “But if you’re that nervous about it...do you want to practice it once? So you’ll be less nervous when the time comes?”
“Practice?” Art echoes, bewildered, as if he’s suddenly forgotten parts of the English vocabulary.
“It was just a thought.” Paul shrugs. “Forget it.”
“How should I practice on Elaine if I need to get it right the next time? She’s going toー”
Paul bursts out laughing, clapping a palm on Art’s knee. “Oh, Artie,” he hiccups between bouts of laughter. “Not with Elaine .”
“Then who…?” Art begins, fairly piqued about Paul laughing at him after all, but as he begins the sentence, it suddenly dawns on him what exactly it is that Paul is offering here. “Paul, no, that’s…no.”
“It’s okay,” Paul says, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes moist from laughing too hard. “It is a pretty stupid thought indeed.”
With anyone else, Art would have just let it go and never have brought this up again, but Paul is Paul, and Paul knows practically everything about Art, and vice versa. Paul is Art’s best friend, and if anything, Art feels safe and comfortable with Paul. They may joke and laugh at one another, but in the end, if things were serious, Paul would stick up for Art as if his life depended on it. If he didn’t feel like his friendship with Paul was that solid, Art wouldn’t have confided in Paul about his first kiss at all. So that’s why Art can’t let it go after all, and he mulls the suggestion over in his mind. Paul means well; he only means to help, and maybe it’s not the most idiotic idea after all.
“I mean, wouldn’t that be weird though?” he asks, watching Paul’s countenance shift from amusement to seriousness.
“It doesn’t have to be. It’d just be to help you out. Nothing more. It wouldn’t mean anything. You’ve seen my mouth up close before, how would this be any different?”
It sounds logical. It sounds reasonable. It sounds like an excellent opportunity. If practicing with Paul means Art would have Elaine tell him it’s better than ‘nice’ the next time, shouldn’t he take it? Before he has a chance to think things through, his mouth answers the questions for him: “Okay!”
“Yeah?” Paul says, the ‘are you sure?’ left unspoken.
“Yeah,” Art confirms with a nod.
“Okay, so, I’m going to put my lips on yours and then move them a little bit. Try to remember what I did so you can do the same to Elaine next time,” Paul instructs, matter-of-factly.
Art tries not to think about the absurdity of the situation. But then again, Paul is only doing this to help him, and Art knows that afterwards they’ll never bring this up again if that’s what he wants. As much as they love to tease each other, Paul knows when to back off, and vice versa. It’s been an unspoken understanding from day one of becoming friends with Paul about three years ago. Art taught Paul how to sing, and now Paul is teaching him how to kiss. No biggie. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
So Art is not worried when Paul inches closer on his bed, and with a slight smile playing around his lips, finally closes the gap between them.
The first few seconds feel completely similar to what occured with Elaine the previous day. Nothing more than a mere touch of each other’s lips on each other’s. It’s not unlike kissing someone on the cheek, Art remembers thinking. But the very next moment, the world is flipped upside down, nothing makes sense, and Art remembers nothing.
Paul moves, softly sucking on Art’s lower lip in order to pry Art’s mouth open and, with meticulous, almost sluggish finesse, manages to fit the tip of his tongue inside.
Art dies. Art is dead. He must be, because the plethora of conflicting feelings raging inside of him, is unlike anything he has ever felt in his life. He's hot and he's cold, he's both shivering and sweating. He thinks, 'no, no, it's just Paul', and the face pressed against his is incredibly familiar, but at the same time, it's exhilarating, like a very first ride on a roller coaster blindfolded, with no notion of when to expect a full bouquet of butterflies erupting in your stomach.
Warmth is spreading beneath Art’s chest bone, and the skin in his neck and on his scalp tingles, as if the blood flowing beneath it boils and the air bubbles shatter at the surface.
Art now knows that nice as a word really, honestly, doesn't even begin to convey a description of how a kiss should be. Of how this kiss is. What Paul and he are doing right now, it isn't nice. Art wonders whether he's the only person on earth who is hypersensitive to a kiss like that, because if that's what it's like for every person who's in love with someone else, how can anyone even stand it? How come people don’t just drop dead everywhere on the planet from sensory overload?
Wait, is Art's next thought in the few seconds that follow Paul slotting their mouths together. In love?
The thing is, while Art’s brain short-circuits, his body takes over. He seems to instinctively know what to do. Before he can even process that there are such things as cells, and neurons, and nerve endings, and sophisticated messages being fired back and forth between his muscles and his brain, his hand moves, cupping Paul’s head and drawing it closer to his face. His lips move as well, perfectly stacked on Paul's, entirely in sync with them, as if the hours of practicing singing together somehow also caused synchronisation to appear in all other areas of their lives. As though they are one entity, yet with two separate brains. When Art’s tongue tentatively meets Paul's, and then chases it when Paul teasingly retracts it, the initial, quick notion of what the fuck is very rapidly replaced with something else. Something coiling dangerously low in his gut. It hasn't even been five whole seconds, but Art is already addicted to the rush that sweeps over his entire existence.
Art's other hand grabs Paul's waist, pulling, frantically and urgently, searching for something, though he doesn’t exactly know what it is. Paul willingly allows himself to be led where Art wants him, flush against Art's chest, never breaking the kiss in the process.
Art is dead and yet he has never felt more alive. The combination of the adrenaline surge and the absolute, unconditional trust in the person in front of him, makes Art become bold. Incredibly, unbelievably, dangerously bold. Without thinking, he slips his hand, which is clutching Paul's waist as if he were an anchor, beneath the hem of Paul's sweater and then moves it to Paul's belly, dragging it slowly across Paul's navel towards his chest, the skin of Paul’s stomach burning hotly beneath his fingertips. While Art's palm feels the alternating dents and protrusions of Paul’s ribs, a fleeting thought of wanting to imprint his fingerprints on Paul’s flesh to mark him as his enters his mind, but much like a dream unremembered in the morning, the thought fades when he reaches Paul's breast and softly kneads it, feeling the little nub hardening and the skin around it pulling taut beneath his fingers.
Art isn’t sure what he expected, but the combination of being kissed like that, their tongues sliding wetly against each other, and him touching Paul in places that he's seen a thousand times before but never in a million years would have considered as something he'd want to get his hands on, elicits a reaction in the both of them that makes everything infinitely worse.
"Nggghhh," Paul says, and while Art is slightly preoccupied with what exactly the hardening in his underpants signifies, he can't for the life of him tell whether that was Paul signaling for him to stop or encouraging him to proceed. Except Art thinks he can't quit now, even if he wanted to.
And then Art loses all his marbles as Paul unmistakably moans into his mouth, not a trace of aversion to be found, the vibrations causing all the hair on Art's arms to raise and all his remaining inhibitions to fly straight out the window. Art tightens his grip on the back of Paul's head, simultaneously tearing his mouth away from Paul’s only to move back in, angling his head differently, whispering a heated "Paul…" and taking a much needed breath before reclaiming Paul’s lips.
Except the mention of his name seems to have restored Paul’s sanity which he had temporarily lost during their fiery kiss from just now, and he suddenly pushes Art off, scrambling back alarmingly fast on his bed until his back hits the wall, his breath ragged and a blush high on his cheeks, his lips red and still glistening with Art’s saliva on them, leaving Art on the other end of the bed rooted to the spot, panting, dazed and equally confused about what the hell just happened.
"I thought...I thought you didn't know how to kiss," Paul says, the accusing tone irreconcilable with the earlier sound coming out of his mouth, leaving Art even more disoriented than he already is, even though Art still has some presence of mind to fold his hands down in his lap to cover the forming boner.
"I didn't," he replies defensively, but he can't explain his actions either, nor does he want to. Didn't Paul tell him to feel the girl up? So what if he apparently took things too literally and felt the need to practice that part ahead of time as well? Paul had only seemed like a willing participant.
Paul stares at him, eyes infinitely large. The silence goes on, stretching out for seconds in which Art is debating with himself whether to start panicking, but then Paul breaks it, his voice, much like the color on his face, as good as returned to its normal state.
"Okay, well, if you ask me, I don't think you need any more practice. You're good to go. Elaine should be thrilled."
Art should be pleased with himself, yet there is something off in the way Paul says it. But Art, in his current predicament, can’t dwell on it for long, can’t analyse it with the same care and precision he exercises in reading Paul’s mood swings. He’ll have to worry about it later.
Art is still fourteen when he realizes he doesn’t enjoy kissing Elaine as much as he thought he would, especially after Paul’s ‘lesson’. Which is definitely weird, given that he does everything in the same order, taking care to put his hands in the right places, opening the girl’s lips with a soft but insistent pressure of his lips on hers, even slowly bringing his hand up to her right breast on top of her clothes, waiting for cues from Elaine to see if he’s doing it right. Her breath hitches a little, but she doesn’t tell him to back off, and so he squeezes the soft lump beneath his palm, flicking a finger over the spot where he thinks her nipple should be.
Everything Art does is the same as it was with Paul, and yet, nothing is the same. It doesn’t feel like his body automatically knows what to do, his vision isn’t half blacking out, there’s no sensory overload, there’s definitely no dying and ascending to a different astral plane involved. There’s not the slightest bit of stirring down there, either. Funny, he thinks, as he feels the kiss dying down, the both of them pulling back at the same time. It’s not that it’s necessarily bad, kissing Elaine. But it’s just bland. It’s…nice. That’s exactly what it is. Nice, but nothing more.
“Where did that come from?” Elaine asks, touching her thumb to the corner of her mouth reverently, wiping away any evidence of what just occurred. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, but...the other day…, and now…” Her eyes are as large as Paul’s when she looks at him, a little out of breath.
“Was it not nice?” Art asks, and he can’t help but betray a sliver of annoyance when he speaks. He’s just not sure why he’s that irritated at her question. Is he still not doing it right? What does the girl even want from him, for god’s sake?
When Art takes in her flushed cheeks and her red-kissed lips, all he can see is the image of Paul in front of him, looking equally flustered and downright fevered, which is something he hadn’t counted on being on the receiving end of. Something that he caused, even. Then it hits him. Art is subconsciously angry because Elaine isn’t Paul. Art may kiss her all he wants, and she’ll never be Paul, and kissing her would never be anything other than nice. Which is...yeah, he’s going to need a minute to process this rather sudden development.
“So, how was it?”
Paul sounds unsure, a bit subdued even. Without the usual gusto of teasing his friend.
“How was what?”
“Elaine…did she like it?”
Paul looks equal parts relieved that he at least got the question out of his mouth and unhappy that he asked it in the first place. In other circumstances, he’d be giggling right about now and clapping Art on the back for getting a girlfriend, but now the answer seems of utmost importance, and he looks at Art attentively, with narrowed eyes.
“Hmmm,” Art hums. “It was nice, I guess.”
“What do you mean, it was nice?” Paul sounds agitated, and Art is not entirely unhappy with that development. Art may be only fourteen but he’s not stupid. Whatever transpired behind the door of Paul’s bedroom, he wasn’t the only one in this predicament. Paul felt it too.
“Exactly what I said. It was nice.”
“But...I mean, did you do anything different than the first time?”
“I did everything exactly as I...as we practiced.” Art looks over at Paul, unblinking, as if he’s willing Paul to read his thoughts.
“Oh, okay,” Paul says, his voice infinitely softer than what Art is used to. “And she didn’t like it?” Paul continues, while casting his eyes down, as if he really doesn’t want to hear the answer.
“She did like it.”
“I see. That’s great. Amazing. Yeah.” Paul doesn’t sound like he’s overjoyed, which gives Art enough courage to continue, despite the fact that his heart beats in his throat as he looks at his best friend in front of him.
“I think I need some more practice, though.”
Only then does Paul glance up, and the tiniest glimmer of hope in his eyes tells Art all he needs to know. He heaves a big sigh of relief, despite his heart picking up even more speed, the sound of his blood rushing through his ears like a thunderous avalanche drowning out everything else, including the tiny voice in his head telling him this is the scariest thing he’ll ever do and he should think twice about it.
“So…the next time you’re with Elaine, you can practice some more? Right?” It’s a brittle, defenceless thing, the expression on Paul’s face, unlike anything that Art has seen before. Art realizes that in this moment, he has the power to make or break Paul’s heart.
“It’s not her I want to practice with, actually.” Art wills his gaze to be fixated on Paul’s features, on which a multitude of emotions flash by, like the pages of an animated flip book.
“O- Oh. Does...does Elaine know?”
“Elaine knows I won’t be kissing her anymore, yes,” Art confirms with a nod of his head.
“I guess we’ll indeed have to work on your um, kissing skills a little bit, huh? For the next girl you intend to kiss in the future?” Paul ventures, a blush spreading across his cheeks.
“Exactly. The next girl.” Art smirks, and slowly, a matching smile unfurls on Paul’s face.
Art is thirty-two days shy of fifteen when he knows for an absolute fact he doesn’t want to kiss anybody but Paul. In the next practice session, Paul, thankfully, agrees.