Chapter Text
It's only 7:52 on a freezing winter morning, and Johnny feels done with school already. In the span of fifteen minutes since he dragged his ass from his mom's car to the windowsill he’s currently perched on in the hallway, three of his classmates tried to have a conversation with him. Why? Why would anyone actively want to communicate while it's still dark enough outside that the streetlights are on? He can’t get it. It's not hard to sympathize with the Spanish teacher, who trudges towards his first class of the day as if he had been reanimated by a deranged necromancer overnight and is now going on zombie-automation alone. It’s just a shitty time of the day, period.
The only person whose company Johnny tolerates this early on a school day is Buck Cleven's, because he’s always calm and quiet. Johnny isn’t very close to Buck, because that boy would rather choke on a toothpick than say anything about himself, but sometimes, like today, he and Johnny lean against the same windowsill in silence and watch their schoolmates arrive. And, well. One could say that Johnny has heard a lot about him.
For example, he knows that Buck has “really cold hands with little icicle fingers”. He knows that he “eats effervescent tablets instead of dissolving them in water like a normal person”, that his chin-length hair is “super soft” and that he’s “a good kisser, like, so good, he can go for hours.” Johnny can still hear Bucky's voice crack in excitement when he told Johnny about that last one a few days ago. When Johnny pointed out that the story of their clumsy first kiss - which he had to listen to at least three times - directly contradicted the notion that either of them was a natural at kissing, Bucky gave him a noogie. God, how Johnny hates being a late boomer, so much smaller than everyone else.
He doesn’t even like anyone at school. Like like, he means. Perhaps there's something wrong with him, or he’s just not there yet, but he can’t relate to the numbing jitters Bucky described to him when Johnny asked him what a crush felt like. He can’t imagine wanting to have someone's tongue in his mouth at all, let alone for hours. But, clearly, he’s alone with those feelings of apathy, because it seems that five months of high school has been enough for at least half of his classmates to couple up or to have a crush visible from the fucking moon. At this point, he can’t even decide which one is the most awkward to watch. Whatever that fumbling between Crosby and Bubbles is, or -
Right on cue, a cheerful voice echoes between the walls of the hallway like much unnecessary fanfare. “DeMarco!”
Five minutes to first period, Bucky has entered the premises with all the energy of someone who had two caffeine shots and a Red Bull for breakfast. He has been like that ever since he made good on his new year's resolution and asked Buck out. Given Bucky’s track record in middle school, Johnny knew he’d continue in the exact same way when they went to high school together, but it did catch him by surprise when the first person who caught Bucky's eye was a boy. It’s even more surprising that his crush is still going strong even after almost half a year of pining. Granted, they started dating only a few weeks ago, so Johnny still regards them with the same skepticism his mom had on her face when his oldest sister announced that she would marry her first boyfriend. Johnny's mom was right, his sister wasn't.
So, Johnny just rolls his eyes and goes back to scrolling on his phone as Bucky makes a beeline for them, grinning, and Buck uncrosses his sneaker-clad feet beside him. He remembers a chat conversation he had with Bucky back in October, around Halloween.
Bucky: think he's gay?
Johnny: no
Bucky: he called me cute
Johnny: gay
Bucky: but it was kind of sarcastic
Johnny: are you gay?
Bucky: no
Bucky: he’s cute tho
Johnny: gay
That was how it started, and Bucky hasn't stopped talking about Buck ever since. Johnny still doesn’t know Buck's sexuality and he would bet his ass that Bucky doesn’t even know his own, but what's clear as day is that the shit they're doing right now is gayer than the drag queens Johnny follows on his burner Insta for their excellent fashion choices. When he glances up, he catches the smitten, airheaded grin Bucky has on his face as he comes to stand in front of them. When Buck bumps the toes of their shoes together, that smile widens until Bucky's eyes are glittering half-moons on a flushed face. The bell rings, but none of them pay attention to it, despite the rapidly emptying hallway. Their teacher is late as usual, and Johnny is glad for the extra minutes it gives him in his favourite window nook. He refuses to leave it a single second sooner than necessary. He’d rather third-wheel than bear the presence of that chatty girl, Sandra, who shares a desk with him in Biology.
“Missed me?” Bucky asks Buck, bouncing from foot to foot, his hands in his hoodie pockets. Over that, he's wearing the oversized sheepskin jacket his dad left behind when he ditched his family.
“Like a stone in my shoe.” Buck replies, teasing. His voice trembles a little, higher pitched than usual, but it's still deep enough that envy sparks in Johnny's chest. If he's stuck being 5’3 with round cheeks and hands like some kid in sixth grade, why can’t he have at least that? At least one manly trait, for fuck's sake. If he still looks like this on his sixteenth birthday, he’s gonna cry.
Bucky laughs. He kicks Buck back. “Hi.”
Buck shifts in place. His fingers drum on the windowsill as though he wants to reach out but he’s too nervous to do it. He and Bucky are both breathless for no damn reason at all and smiling at each other dumbly. “Hi John.”
Without real-life experience, Johnny can’t judge whether this is a good way to flirt, but it's a pain to listen to it, so he puffs out his cheeks in a huge sigh. It catches Bucky's attention at last.
“Brady! My man.” He exclaims. As if Johnny hasn't been sitting there the whole goddamn time. He extends a hand for Brady to fistbump.
“Hi Bucky.” Johnny says and knocks their knuckles together. “You coming to practice today?”
Bucky isn't looking at him anymore. His eyes are focused on Buck again, the corners crinkling as he offers his fist to him too. Buck bumps it, but neither of them pulls their hand back after. They keep pushing their fists together as though they were trying to come up with a new, elaborate greeting, something out of the NBA. They don’t seem too concerned that someone who doesn’t know about their relationship could step into the hallway anytime.
“Practice?” Reluctantly, Bucky tears his eyes away. They're blank with confusion for a moment as he glances at Johnny, but the lightbulb lights up in his gaze after a second. “Oh, yeah, ‘course I'm coming. You kidding? Gotta beat Curt today, we've got a double or nothing bet going.”
While he’s talking, his fingers uncurl, then close around Buck's fist, squeezing and shaking it absent-mindedly until Buck opens his hold. Their fingers intertwine, slide into the gaps between each other's knuckles seamlessly.
“Just asking.” Johnny shrugs. “Because I don’t see your kit.”
Bucky looks himself over, as if this is the first moment of the day when he's fully conscious of what he's wearing and of the fact that no drawstring bag hangs off his shoulders, only his backpack.
“Oh, fuck.”
Buck starts laughing.
“Hey.” Bucky pushes at Buck's palm, flexing his fingers. “Not funny.”
He raises his other hand and Buck meets that one too, until they're wrestling each other palm to palm, then kick their shoes together again. If this is what dating is, Johnny figures it makes sense that he doesn’t feel a need to get into it - with four siblings, he has plenty of opportunities to do this shit and he doesn’t even have to hold back.
After a moment, Bucky turns blue puppy eyes at Johnny. “Brady.” He draws Johnny's name out. “We're friends, aren't we?”
Johnny shoots him an unimpressed look. “I'm not giving you my kit, Bucky.”
“But I gotta win that bet! And mom's gonna kill me if I get stains on my jeans again.”
“Not my problem.” Johnny singsongs, holding up his palms. His clothes wouldn’t fit Bucky's lanky ass anyway.
When Bucky whines and makes a face of melodramatic suffering, Buck unlaces their fingers and lowers their hands between them, swinging them side to side there.
“I'll give you my kit.”
Bucky's distressed noises stop, and his eyes snap to Buck's. His lips curl. “Really?”
“I'm not on the soccer team anyway.” Buck shrugs. “And I can skip P.E. today.”
A blinding grin takes over Bucky's expression. “You gonna fake a headache for me, Buck?”
With his face on fire, Buck tries to school his features into a nonchalant look, despite the smile still playing around the corners of his lips. His entire body seems to strain against his control, wishing to step closer to Bucky. Somehow, he manages to hold himself back. “We can’t let Curt's head get any bigger, can we?”
“Nope.” Bucky chuckles. He lets Buck's hands go, only to curl an arm around Buck's neck and pull him into an embrace. He hugs him like that for a long moment, then turns to wedge himself between him and Johnny to sit in the middle of the nook. He elbows Johnny's side. “I can’t believe you would've let me lose.”
Johnny raises an eyebrow at him. Dry as the desert, he replies, “I bet against you too.”
Bucky gasps loudly. His lips open, about to fake that he’s scandalized, when a door opens a few steps down the hallway and the Spanish teacher, now not only tired but irritated too, steps out to give them all a glare.
“Gentlemen, don't you have a class to attend?”
They push themselves away from the wall in unison, mumbling half-assed apologies. As they make their way towards their own classroom, Johnny hears Bucky whisper to Buck.
“I owe you one.” When Buck hums, Bucky continues. “Wanna get some ice cream from my winnings?”
“It’s February.” Buck says. “And you might lose.”
“I never lose.”
“Didn't Curt win the first round?”
“It was part of my master plan.”
“Oh, your master plan.”
Johnny sighs. As he steps into the classroom, he sees Crosby and Bubbles hunched over a rubik's cube, Hambone, Douglass and Murph laughing loudly at something on Murph's phone just to get the girls’ attention, and DeMarco swiping through his pics of Meatball for Marge. From the seat next to Johnny’s, Sandra gives him a smile in greeting.
Does being fifteen feel this awkward for everyone? Johnny wonders as he approaches his desk, cringing on the inside. Or is it only him?