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Clyde swallows hard as he grasps the handle of the closet door, swinging it closed almost in slow motion as his heart pounds away wildly in his chest. The last thing he sees before the rest of the party disappears from his view is Craig, leaning back on Token's huge leather couch with Tweek nestled cozily in his lap. They make eye contact for a split-second, the noirette quirking one eyebrow with a smirk, and Clyde thinks he might actually vomit out of sheer nervousness.
He finally pushes the door all the way shut, the latch catching with a soft schlick, but the brunette remains standing in the same place. He feels somehow both freezing cold and suffocatingly hot all at once, and he has no idea what he's supposed to do now. No, that's not right; he knows what he's supposed to do, he just doesn't know if he can. It's not the first time he's been to a party that's devolved into one big excuse for everyone to make out; honestly, he's usually the one throwing the parties. And it's not like he's never participated in any of the shamefully obvious games at one time or another – Spin the Bottle, 7 Minutes in Heaven, Truth or Dare, even the occasional game of Strip Mario Kart, because nothing is sacred in a room full of sexually charged high school seniors.
But this is different. This is the first time that Clyde has ended up in this particular position. Because usually, he's very careful with the games he chooses to play – and with whom he chooses to play them. He's never once let himself be pulled into any of the aforementioned games if a certain someone is also playing; not because he doesn't like this person, but because he does. He likes him a whole fucking lot.
"Sh– aughhhh, shit!"
Clyde jumps at the sudden outburst from beside him, losing his balance and tumbling backwards into the pile of old clothing-filled trash bags behind him. At least he'd landed on something soft, he thinks to himself as he immediately scrambles to get to his feet; but it's like there's all of a sudden an invisible rope tied around both his legs because every time he tries to stand up he just falls right back down again. Goddammit, this is so embarrassing. He's so glad there's such little light in here, because he knows his face must be bright red.
"Oh, shit, sorry!" the same voice from earlier gasps, and then Clyde feels a hand scrabble around against his arm for a moment before grabbing onto his wrist. "Here, let me–" But instead of pulling Clyde back up to his feet, the owner of the voice lets out a yelp and crashes down next to the brunette on the pile of bags.
Clyde's heart nearly stops when he realizes that the reason for his closet companion's fall had been because their legs had gotten tangled together – and that that is still the case. "Um," he says, his voice sounding faint and terrified to his own ears, "are, uh, are you okay, T– Thomas?" He practically whispers the name, afraid that if he says it too loudly, Thomas is going to hear everything in it that Clyde's been spending the last forever trying to keep from him.
Contrary to what everyone else in school seems to think, Clyde's confidence level is way below average when it comes to this kind of stuff. Sure, he'll throw on a cheerleading uniform and perform a dance routine to old 90s pop songs during halftime at all the football games, and he's the first one to volunteer to let one of the girls use him as a hair model for Cosmetology class. He'll come to all these parties and kiss everyone from Kyle Broflovski to Scott Malkinson during Spin the Bottle, get halfway to third base with Kenny McCormick before their time runs out playing 7 Minutes in Heaven, crank call Stan's idiot dad pretending to be a government agent on the way to shut down his farm, and lose every single article of clothing to Rainbow Road and have to spend the rest of the night in a blanket toga.
But only if Thomas isn't there. Because the truth is, being around Thomas turns Clyde into an awkward puddle of hopeless self-consciousness, like… Well, like Craig used to be around Tweek. Clyde had used to find it hilarious that 'Badass' Craig Tucker couldn't go two steps without falling flat on his face whenever Tweek would walk by, but then Thomas had walked into his biology classroom two years ago and Clyde had completely forgotten how to function.
Maybe it's karma, then, that Craig had been the one to call Clyde over to play 7 Minutes in Heaven tonight. Really, Clyde should have been more suspicious, because normally it was the other way around, with Craig refusing to play anything until he could no longer take Clyde's incessant pleading for him to stop being such a "wuss-puss". But he'd just been so excited that his best friend had finally seemed to getting into the spirit of things and having a good time that he'd completely forgotten to check who else was playing until it was too late.
And now here he is, in Token's basement coat closet with the guy he's been daydreaming about for the last two years. Clyde props himself up on one elbow and takes a deep breath. It's okay. It's okay. They don't have to do anything, not everyone actually goes through with stuff in this game. They can just run out the clock and everything will be fine.
"Yeah, I think so," Thomas says from Clyde's right. His voice is incredibly close now and Clyde's heart races even faster when he realizes that he's only an inch or two away... "Cocknugget!" Thomas blurts out making Clyde jump again. "Ugh," the blonde groans, "sorry, I didn't mean to–"
"No, it's okay!" Clyde accidentally interrupts, cringing immediately. "Oh, sorry, I just meant– I mean, it's all good, dude, I don't mind." Tentatively, he reaches out a hand, intending to give Thomas a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Somehow, though, he misses entirely in the darkness and he ends up smacking the top of Thomas's head instead. "Oh, fuck! You okay?"
Thomas laughs. "I'm fine. It's hard to see anything in here, hold on." There's a bit of shuffling around and then the space between them lights up with the glow of Thomas's cell phone.
Clyde glances down at the source of the light, partly because he wants to avoid looking at Thomas's face lest he light up like a Christmas tree again, but also because he's pretty much part-moth and he instinctively is drawn to light. Almost as soon as his eyes land on the screen, Thomas jerks his hand up, taking the phone out of Clyde's line of sight, but he's not fast enough.
"Um, is–" Clyde's voice catches in his throat and he clears it loudly before trying again. "Is your background, um…me?"
"Oh." Thomas's voice comes out in a squeak. "Uh, yes. Cock! But!" he adds hurriedly, "I can change it if you want me to! I just thought it was – sh–ughhh – a good picture." Sheepishly, he turns his hand around so Clyde can get a better look.
He has to admit, it is a good picture of him. One of his favorites, actually, if he's being a little bit vain. It's from last month's big football game against North Park, where Clyde and the rest of the cheerleaders had done a halftime routine to a medley of Backstreet Boys songs. Clyde had readily volunteered to dress up as a stereotypical boyband heartthrob and, as it had turned out, weird 90s clothing combinations actually worked for him surprisingly well, if he did say so himself.
Apparently Thomas thought so too. Enough to take the photo of him that had been published in the school's newspaper and turn it into his phone's wallpaper. Something flutters inside Clyde's chest, sending a wave of strange, but not unpleasant, tingles all the way down every single one of his limbs. "Uh," he starts, reaching a hand up to nervously rub the back of his neck, "what, um, are you keeping track of the time?"
"Co- aghh." Thomas clamps his lips together to keep the outburst from slipping out of his mouth as he checks the time. "We have four minutes," he informs the brunette.
"Okay." Clyde keeps talking before he loses his nerve, because if he doesn't do this now, he knows he never will. "Should we, um, do you want to– You don't have to!" he's quick to say, afraid that Thomas is going to think he's some kind of weirdo for even suggesting that they do the very thing the whole game is based on in the first place. "I just, um…"
"No, we– we should," Thomas says after a moment. "Because – shit! – the, um, the game, right?"
Clyde feels like his heart is going to actually burst out of his chest. That's exactly what he had been thinking! Granted, it's totally a lie and he wants to kiss Thomas for way more than game reasons, but that's not the point! The point is that they're on the same wavelength! "Okay," he says again, slowly sliding his body down on the trash bags of clothing until he and Thomas are on the same height level. He licks his lips, already feeling stupid. "So, um, how do you want to–"
He doesn't get a chance to finish the sentence, because Thomas has already taken all the initiative and gone for it in a way that Clyde doesn't think he ever could. He presses his lips against the brunette's, softly at first, like he's worried Clyde's going to immediately push him away, but that's the furthest thing from Clyde's mind. As soon as he gets a taste of Thomas, he wants more; he slides his arms up the blonde's shoulders, pulling him closer until Thomas is practically all the way on top of him.
This is nothing like any of the other party game kisses Clyde has experienced. He's never felt so connected to someone else before, not the way he feels with Thomas right now. He didn't even know it was possible to feel anything close to this. In the back of his mind, insecurity rears its ugly head and whispers to him, but what if Thomas doesn't feel the same way?
Clyde does his best to push that tiny voice away, because, he tells himself, it's okay if Thomas doesn't share his feelings. This is all just for another stupid game at another stupid party and he would be stupid to think that anything is ever going to come out of this encounter for real. But as he curls his fingers into Thomas's hair and lets the blonde explore every part of his mouth with his tongue, Clyde knows it's going to kill him if that's true, so all he can do is cling to this moment, right here, with everything he has and never let it go.