Work Text:
“You are literally ruining me,” Stewy declared. Kendall’s mischievous smile sent his guts snaking around his heart, a tightened, tremulous fist. “Oh my God. Stop making that face.”
“King of the world,” Kendall said. He grabbed Stewy’s thighs, kneaded saccharine-scented sunblock into Stewy’s skin until he caught light and glimmered. Everything smelled of salt and sea foam, of their wasted cigarette, of live things scumbled from depths to surface. Kendall’s stupid sunglasses. His unrepentantly brown swim shorts. “Fierce dragon overload to a stash of tantalizing riches and PTO.”
Stewy was pure liquid, head resting on his shoulder. Kendall’s fingers inched towards his calf, probing the steep curve of muscle, sneaking languidly towards knee-bend and ankle-bone and then foot, thumbs digging deep into the arch. “Feels good, Ken.”
“Uh, that’s the idea.” Kendall’s impish grin, on his knees, touching Stewy inanely, chin on the edge of the cabana bed they’ve settled into. Smart hands. Kendall was always good with his hands, with video games, with physics experiments and piano keys. When Stewy thought about them too much, he chubbed up. Fucking mortal. “Want more sun? Shade? Wanna, like, zip up the tent and go to motherfucking town?”
“You’re too smug down there,” Stewy said, a second late. “My brain is off the clock.”
Kendall pressed his smile into Stewy’s knee. Stretched with a mewl. Sat back, hands on the sand-littered patchwork stones, half-silhouetted by brutal sun dancing off the infinity pool straight onto the steel-still Mediterranean. “Good.”
Stewy sighed, sunk into a mountain of down pillows, and rested a hand on the swell of his stomach. He had tan lines from his smartwatch. He had scruff ivy-climbing up his cheeks, past its typical severe edge.
“You need to learn how to relax, dude,” Kendall said.
“Me!” said Stewy. “Oh, hoho, that is so rich.”
“I can relax,” Kendall said. “I can chill.”
Stewy laid back flat. A slight breeze dimpled the tent overhead; nearby, seabirds croaked. “You can leave Waystar, but Waystar can’t leave you.”
“That’s a fucking swear word. That’s a no-no word. Here, there is no such thing as—that. As business. As… fuckin’, the time-space continuum. There’s a cabana with a luxury bar and air conditioning. There’s a pool. There’s a private beach. There’s you.” Kendall flicked a finger along the arch of Stewy’s foot, quick and sneaky, to make him jerk. “There’s me.”
Stewy hiked onto an elbow. Prodded Kendall with a toe. “Just get up here,” he said.
Kendall laid beside him, even breaths, a faded hint of cologne. Shut eyes. Chest twitching with life. They were the surf, the sand, the sky.
***
“Who taught you to swim?” Stewy asked. “I want to have words.”
Kendall remained floating on his back, bobbing with the sea’s turquoise unrest. “Uh, Connor, I think.” He spoke loudly; his ears were underwater. “In the Hamptons.”
“The Summer fucking Palace,” Stewy said, reminiscing. He swept his palms through the water, splashing idly. “Do you remember that time we went crabbing with your dad? And he got absurdly pissed when we didn’t find anything. And he threw an empty crab shell at your head.”
“It exploded,” Kendall said.
“Fucking, wet sand and goop. Seaweed all stuck to it.”
“He liked to rough it.”
“Oh, yeah, we were roughing it. In four-figure crabbing boots.”
“The ocean was choppy. Huge… swells.” Kendall’s hand cut the shape of one through the faded satin sky. “Waves were breaking, even at the pier.”
“And we snuck out every night. We wanted beer and ice cream and weed.”
“Summer trifecta.”
Stewy triangulated his thumbs and forefingers, then peered at Kendall through them. “We had it down from day one.”
They would order plebeian soft-serve with sprinkles, swirled flavors, then sit in the dunes and fool around. Stewy could still taste oranges and cream, when he thought about it.
“Did you love me then?” Kendall asked.
Stewy grabbed his ankle and tugged him underwater. He opened his eyes through the bubbles and sting of salt and found Kendall smiling peacefully. They surfaced together, chest to chest, palms skimming each other’s backs.
“Yes,” Stewy said. “Prick.”
Kendall wiped water off Stewy’s eyelashes. “Me, too,” he said.
***
“I feel like we should do something,” Kendall said.
Stewy tossed their roach onto the fire pit they’d had set up for them, waiting invitingly after an endless dinner, course after course of squid and clams, impossibly thin pasta, cheese so fresh it broke grassy on their tongues. Heirloom tomatoes in a dozen shades, golden and crimson, pokeberry-purple, minute seeds and astringent juice. Liquor to cleanse the palate. Lemon tarts. Honey-soaked pastries. Taut grapes. Saline oil to rake bread crusts through. The night had dulled the heat; the smoke and flames warded mosquitoes. Stewy felt full and heavy, half-asleep.
“Like?” he said.
Kendall tipped his head; his skull rested in the bend of Stewy’s elbow, laid across the back of the bleak blue loveseat they shared. “Ride bikes. Go tide-pooling. Call the driver and hit every gelateria we can find.”
“The adult version of a bar crawl,” Stewy mused.
Kendall ran a knuckle along Stewy’s jaw. “I want to do something asinine.”
“Low stakes,” Stewy said, studying Kendall’s eyes, red-rimmed and deep. Smoked-up eyes, but not unhappy. “Do you think they have Diet Coke here?”
“No.” Kendall smiled. “We can look, though.”
“Maybe there’s music somewhere.”
“There’s music everywhere.”
Stewy leaned closer to Kendall. Their noses touched; their eyes crossed to keep each other in sight. Sforzando of the senses. Stewy wrapped his arm around Kendall without thinking, to hold him close. He was all freckles, colored half-pink as flames licked higher. “Stop saying dumb fucking… optimistic, gauche, romantic shit. You’re so weird.”
“I can’t help it,” Kendall said. He grabbed one of Stewy’s tits. “I ruined you? You fucking… you obliterate me. I can’t even think.”
“Why are you squeezing my boob. Hands off or, fucking, do something, bozo.”
“Honk.”
“Oh my God,” Stewy said, repulsed at himself for being sort of into it. Kendall: the throughline of everything Stewy is sort of into. “You’re a child.”
“My inner adolescent,” Kendall said, “I am ushering it out. Indulging it. Or something.”
“Your inner child needs to figure out where to put his hands,” Stewy said seriously. “Your inner child has weird fixations.”
To spite him, Kendall pinched his nipple. When Stewy hissed through his teeth, Kendall rolled his piercing between his fingers.
“Keep touching and there’s no shot I’ll be able to ride a bike tonight,” Stewy warned.
“Easy.”
“I literally am not easy.”
“For me,” Kendall said, “you’ve always been pretty damn easy.”
Stewy couldn’t refute that. “Don’t gloat, little prince. Oh my God, get your hand off my teats. To think I considered you an ass man all this time.”
Kendall mulled over this, shadows clambering and receding along his shallow cheeks. “Why pit two unbelievable, glorious feats of nature against each other? In other words, why not both?”
“Take your pants off already,” Stewy said, “you philosophizing, gormless, weirdo fuck.”
***
They biked. With every bump, the cobbled streets, the jolt of teeth, the twinge of his ass, Stewy swore, and Kendall laughed, triumphant.
They wound between streetlamps, raced down steep side-streets, coasted, no-hands, cut each other off, spurned each other on. Stewy caught their reflections as they roared past shop-fronts, dodging kids with soccer balls, kids that chased them cheering, stray kids, shoeless kids in English-emblazoned shorts, and felt a dozen summers come dawnrising in his chest. Night thrashed around them, different than the city, different than anywhere; it beat, its navy heart singing with a vibrato that swirled skyward, crystal silverhymns and the crush of terracotta, all of it love, all of it a fervent embrace. They swerved past square cars, stalls serving fries with mayonnaise, buskers, paramours, fishermen. A thriving party. A church cried midnight with bell voices. Dialect cracked around them. Wheels, whirling, wind and Kendall’s open, flapping shirt.
They walked the bikes down crooked stairs, leaned them against bubbling fountains, sidestepped pigeons. Scoured the downtown asking after gelaterie, Kendall letting Stewy talk, but Stewy’s Italian was scuffed and this place was old-style, all but a different language, built for bouzoukia, they laughed and got lost and ate themselves sick, a half-dozen shared stracciatelle, pistacchi. Cold cream on their lips, one spoon, a rapturous kiss in the dark.
***
Neither of them were much for tourist shit. Neither of them were much for sitting on their asses, either. Sadness curled Kendall’s pretty face in waves, that singular way it tended to, hangdog and supplicant. They drove six hours to a vineyard with a spectacular view, Stewy behind the wheel, Kendall watching him, the top thrown down, dusty wind sharp like rain. They drank until they got the spins, snuck into the fields, rolled in the dirt. Got lost on the way back to their rental. Sniped. Picked up cigarettes. Gave each other handies in a gas station bathroom, then got back on the road, steadier, Stewy shaking his head and laughing, needing his glasses to see the lightless street.
When they came into the foyer, Stewy smelled something sweet—raspberries, maybe. They found a crostata waiting on the counter with a note from the owner of the house, wishing them well on their honeymoon. Kendall laughed so hard he had to sit down. Stewy put his hands on his hips, looked at the ceiling, considered deities, considered fate, and imagined a starburst, the smile-lines around Kendall’s eyes.
***
“You look so good,” Kendall said, deadly serious.
Stewy leaned closer to the mirror. They’d been here long enough that his greys spread from their contained streak.
“I’m into it,” Kendall said. “You look illustrious.” Stewy glared at him. “Fucking, eminent.” Sobering, “You look real. You look like you.”
“What does that mean.”
Kendall, grinning toothily, said, “Old.”
Stewy swore at him. Whirled away from the mirror, captured Kendall in his arms, nipped roughly at his ear.
“You look good,” Kendall said, gripping Stewy’s frizzed curls. “You get so tan, I forgot you get this tan. You look relaxed. You’re, like, glowing.”
“I want to eat you,” Stewy said. “There is nothing in my head but Kendall thoughts running Kendall circles through my Kendall brains.”
A tender, heartbreath moment. “Wow,” Kendall said. “I don’t even know how to answer.” He started to cry.
“Oh, fuck,” Stewy said, “oh, shit. I didn’t mean to—aw, Ken, come on. I’ll start being meaner. I’ll stop saying—”
“Don’t you dare fucking stop,” said Kendall, muffled as he shoved his face into Stewy’s shoulder. “I never even let myself imagine, I didn’t want to make myself miserable. I didn’t want battered hopes. You’re such a gross boyfriend.”
“I never was,” Stewy said mildly. “I don’t know why. I like people. I like dating people. I like taking care of people.”
“You love me.”
Stewy pressed his mouth to Kendall’s cheek, considered kissing it, then rolled his eyes and blew a loud raspberry. He said, “Something like that.”