Work Text:
Brian has friends. Sure, they’re not the types of friends he’d go to parties with (if he was ever invited to parties) or friends he’d tell his dirtiest secrets to (if he had dirty secrets), but they’re like-minded acquaintances he feels comfortable putting in the friend category. Sam is an ace chess player, if a bit smug, and Kerry, despite the fact that she always had food stuck in her braces, told the best jokes. Matt and Lucy had been dating since about the fifth grade and did everything together, but they still made time for movie premiers and co-writing Star Trek fan-fiction with Brian.
Yeah, Brian has friends. So Andy and Claire can talk a long walk off a short pier if they think he’s all alone at the lunch table.
“Uh-oh,” Kerry says, glancing up. She drops the rest of her ham sandwich on her lunch tray. “Trouble at your six, Bri.”
Brian rolls his eyes—he’s used to the jocks and the heads flipping lunch trays and giving wedgies, and besides, Andy usually talks them down before they can get too rough. But when he swivels in his seat, he’s greeted by a beige trench coat and an Iron Maiden tee shirt.
“Scoot over,” Bender says, kicking Brian in the hip. “For a pipsqueak, you sure take up a lot of space.”
Brian doesn’t manage much more than a strangled “Um” as he shifts his books to the floor so Bender can sit next to him on the bench seat.
Bender flips back his hair with one hand and cracks open the pop-top of a Coke with the other. He glances at the quieted crowd around the table, then at Brian. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your companions?”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Brian says, shaking away his surprise. “This is Kerry,” he says, nodding to the girl across from him, who is eyeing Bender suspiciously.
“Charmed,” Bender says, saccharine-sweet.
“This is Sam.” Brian gestures to the boy next to Kerry, whose eyes widen each time Bender looks at him. “And the two next to you are Matt and Lucy.”
“Well, isn’t this a cozy crew,” Bender says, swigging from his Coke can. “I’m John, by the way.”
“How do you two know each other?” Sam’s eyes dart between Brian and Bender.
Bender grins. “Brian and I are low-level mafia dons. Weekend thing, you know?”
“He’s kidding,” Brian says quickly as Sam chokes on his Jell-O.
“John Bender,” Matt says, tugging Lucy a little closer to his side. “Didn’t you light the trash can on fire in Mr. Walski’s bio class to get out of dissecting a cow eye?”
Bender pauses in the middle of a drink. “Yeah, that was definitely me.” He sets his can down. “I forget. Did it work?”
Matt gives him a blank look. “They evacuated the school and canceled the dissection. We spent a week watching slideshows.”
“You’re welcome, then,” Bender says, slinging an arm around Brian’s shoulders. Brian doesn’t bother telling Bender that Matt, who’d been accepted into the Biology program at a Pennsylvania college, had been waiting for that experiment for weeks.
Brian wants to bury his face in his hands when he realizes everyone’s eyes are stuck on Bender’s arm around Brian’s shoulders. Brian hardly even noticed it—he’s used to Bender’s not-quite-casual, not-quite-purposeful touches. Bender touches people like he’s laying a claim on them, like he’s telling everyone back the fuck off, this kid’s not to be trifled with. He puts his arm around Claire’s waist when they go to the mall. He claps Andy on the back so hard at the movies that Andy spits Mountain Dew onto the row in front of them. And he has no problem slinging Allison up over his shoulder when they get high in the K-Mart parking lot together after class and spinning around until they both got dizzy with laughter.
But he doesn’t do it during school. They don’t even talk during school. School would always be the one place where they couldn’t possibly be themselves.
“So, are you guys, like…friends?” Kerry arches an eyebrow. Brian knows that no matter how the conversation goes, she’ll be calling him after school.
“I suppose you could say that,” Brian says, looking up at Bender from where he’s tucked in the crook of his arm.
“There are no friends in organized crime,” Bender says solemnly, “but if there were, Brian would, in a way, be my friend.”
Kerry, Sam, Matt, and Lucy all nod slowly, like they’re not convinced.
“I don’t know about you guys,” Brian says, eager to change the subject, “but I’m definitely seeing RoboCop again this weekend.”
“Count me in,” Lucy says cheerfully, and she and Matt launch into an argument on who would win—RoboCop or Schwarzenegger in Terminator.
Bender’s arm stays on Brian’s shoulders until the lunch bell rings.
*
Brian is expecting a call from Kerry, but instead, the phone rings after supper and his mom calls up, “Brian, honey, your friend Claire is on the phone.”
Brian startles, tossing his pencil somewhere in the vicinity of his bed, and ducks out into the hallway to grab the other receiver. He tugs the base until it's snug against the bottom of the closed door, the cord stretched as far as it can go into his room.
“Claire?”
“So you do talk about me to your parents. That’s super cute.”
Brian feels his face redden. “Yes, you’ve been discussed. Same with the others.”
“No sweat,” Claire says. “I’m just teasing. If I talked to my parents, I’d mention you, too.” The thought makes Brian a little sad, but Claire moves on quickly. “So Andy said he saw you and Bender eating lunch together today.”
“Yeah, so?” Brian bites down on his thumbnail.
“So, so, what? Is that a thing now? Because no one told me. I thought we were just sticking with the non-school-hours stuff.”
“That would be easier for you, wouldn’t it?” Once the words leave his mouth, Brian knows he sounds like an ass. “Wait, don’t hang up. Sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“A little,” Claire says icily, “but not untrue.” She’s quiet for a second. Brian waits for her to speak. “Look, I think it’s cool. It’s brave. I give a shit what people think of me, and you guys don’t.”
“We’re just eating lunch, Claire. That’s not really what I would call heroic.”
Claire snorts—an unladylike noise that makes Brian smile. “Please. Andy said Bender’s arm was around your shoulders. You were practically cuddling.”
Brian blinks. “We were absolutely not cuddling. That’s just a buddy thing. A friend thing.” He pauses. “Right?”
“I mean, I don’t touch my friends like that, but this is the 80’s, so who knows what’s normal anymore.”
Brian groans, sinking down on his bed with his head between his knees. The phone base bangs against the door and he loosens his grip on the receiver.
“Brian,” Claire says carefully, “you know John likes guys, right? Like he likes girls?”
Now this is news. Brian knows Bender doesn’t give two shits about social norms. He knows he gets shit about his pierced ear and the pink spray-in dye he wears in his hair sometimes. He knows Bender kisses guys at parties to start fights—he’s been at one of the parties where Bender has started a fight, and that was Brian’s last high school party, thank you very much.
“You know that I do too, right?” Brian doesn’t regret telling Claire the second he says it—he knows, deep down, he trusts her.
“I know that you and Bender have a weird relationship,” Claire says breezily. “Hey, my brother needs to use the phone. I’m hanging out with Allison tonight and we’re definitely going to talk about you, so call me tomorrow, okay?”
Brian just groans again and lets the phone fall under his bed.
*
The next day, Bender ducks into Brian’s homeroom during the A/V Club’s televised morning announcements. Normally, Brian’s a part of them, but Sam and Kerry are behind the desk and a junior is running the camera, so Brian and the others get the morning off.
“Look alive, sucker,” Bender whispers, and tosses Brian something. Brian doesn’t catch it, of course, because why, and Bender just rolls his eyes and grabs the object off the floor. “Got you this.”
Brian looks around, but Mrs. Harding is snoring at her desk, the jocks are snoring even louder, and the two girls in the back are doing each other’s nails. He accepts Bender’s gift—a slightly smashed Hostess cupcake.
Bender sits on Brian’s desk, dangling his legs off the side. “Come to my place tonight.”
Brian raises an eyebrow, taking a bite of the offered snack. “Your place? Are you sure?”
“The old man will be gone,” Bender says, examining his nails like the words don’t cause him blinding relief. “I’m sick of this place. I’m sick of…”
Brian feels his heart thud a little faster in his chest. “Sick of what?”
Bender just shrugs before tossing a crumpled ball of paper at Mrs. Harding’s outdated bouffant. She barely stirs. “Just come over, doofus.”
Brian has a weird feeling throughout the rest of the day. When he tells Allison about it in the hall after Physics, she gives him a weird look and tells him to just go jerk off already.
*
“So, this is new,” Brian says. Or, at least, he tries to say it, but it comes out more like a wheeze since he’s straddling Bender’s lap and Bender has his hands on Brian’s ass, and also, Brian forgot his inhaler at home.
“Indeed, it is,” Bender says, and he sounds a little wheezy, too. His lips are looking a little bruised and red, and Brian knows he looks the same. Apparently, that’s what happens when you make out with someone. Same with the feeling of an erection that is not your own pressing up against the inside of your thigh.
Brian can’t wait to tell Kerry about it. He knows she hasn’t made out with anyone—not from assuming, but because she insists she’s saving herself for Rob Lowe.
“Have you been planning this?” Brian wants an answer, but he also wants to attach his mouth to the spot where Bender’s neck meets his shoulder, so he does, and waits for a reply.
“Maybe,” Bender says. “Shit, Bri, are you giving me a hickey?”
“Maybe,” Brian replies evenly, ducking up for another kiss. Kissing Bender is nice—Bender has obviously done it before, and he’s good at it, all gentle pressure and what Brian assumes is an appropriate amount of tongue. Bender’s hands slide up to rest just above Brian’s waistband, on the strip of skin between jeans and sweatshirt, and Brian almost groans from how fast he gets hard.
“If you keep making noises like that, I’m gonna try to fuck you,” Bender says, voice splintered. “But you have to tell me something first.”
Brian is still reeling from Brian’s words when he looks up, glassy-eyed. “Yeah, sure. Anything.”
Bender grunts in frustration, spilling Brian off onto the couch so Brian’s legs are draped over his lap and their bodies don’t touch anywhere else. “I want to kiss you, and fuck you, and do stupid shit with you like go see horror flicks and walk around the park and smoke up under the stars.”
Brian can think of a few more romantic things than smoking weed while looking up at the Shermer smog, but he goes along with it. “That sounds cool.”
“But I also know high school is garbage, and it’ll continue to be garbage until we say sayonara for good.” He runs his hand through his hair, and he looks older, older than Brian, older than Claire and Andy and Allison. Brian wonders if he feels older, too. “So I don’t want to make shit harder. You know, for you and your nerd friends.”
Brian snorts. “My friends don’t care. We don’t exactly have appearances to keep up.” He thinks about how the girls whisper about Kerry’s teeth behind her back, how the guys make fun of Matt for dating an overweight girl, how Sam can take a punch better than anyone Brian knows. “But I know what you mean.”
“So,” Bender says, leaning down to press his body against Brian’s, “I’m going to kiss you, and fuck you, and date you, and we’ll be super-sneaky, and after graduation, we do whatever the fuck we want.”
Brian twines his arms around Bender’s neck, spreading his legs to make room for Bender’s body. “I’ll be counting the days.”
*
“So, Allison said you and Bender were making out when you picked him up from Saturday detention,” Claire says, going for nonchalant and failing miserably. “What happened to ‘keeping it super-sneaky?’”
“We were being sneaky,” Brian says. “We were in the car. And nobody was around. Wait, why was Allison there?”
“Spying on you idiots, of course. Be careful, Bri. You know how people can get.”
Brian knows, but he can’t help but smile. “Three more weeks until graduation, Claire. We’ll be fine.” As he hangs up, he thinks, and then we can do whatever the fuck we want.