Work Text:
October 4th, 2022
The sound of an owl hooting and the wind blowing was the only thing he could hear as he dangled his legs over the edge of the mansion’s roof. He glanced down at the drop below him. He was only on the second floor so it wasn’t that far down. He swung his legs back and forth as he glanced up at the night sky, his shoulder ticcing. He tried counting all the stars he could see, but his racing thoughts kept him distracted.
“Hey,” a voice called from behind him. The voice of the man causing the racing thoughts. The voice was followed by the sound of shoes scraping against the roof tiles.
Jeffery Woods appeared next to him, throwing his legs over the edge of the roof and settling down as close to him as humanly possible.
Jeff glanced over at him, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear. “You okay?”
Toby looked away, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? Cause you seem kinda off,” Jeff chuckled awkwardly. “You’ve been acting weird all day.”
There was a beat of silence between them. Toby’s head ticced to the side at his growing anxiety. He’d been hoping that if this conversation ever happened, Jeff would’ve been the one to initiate it. But Toby’s felt this way for awhile, and according to everyone else Jeff has too, so he was getting kind of tired of waiting.
“Do you,” Toby hesitated, swallowing down the lump of anxiety building up his throat, “like me?”
Jeff chuckled. “I mean, yeah of course I like-”
“No,” Toby cut him off, locking eyes with him, “I mean, do you like me? Like, romantically.”
Jeff hesitated, opening his mouth to say something but no words came out. He closed it, eyes darting to the side. Toby could tell he wanted to lie, but lying was never really Jeff’s thing.
“So you do?” he pushed.
“I mean,” Jeff chuckled softly, “I’m not exactly subtle.”
“No, you are not,” Toby snickered. His smile faded as he psyched himself up to say what he needed to say. He sucked in a breath. “You know, you were my first real friend, my first friend who wasn’t related to me at least. So, I always thought it was normal, that it was just how best friends were. But then I realized, you don’t treat everyone else the way you treat me, and I don’t feel this way about anyone else other than you. And then I did some more thinking and the way I feel about you,” Toby paused, taking a breath, “it’s the same way I felt about Clockwork years ago.”
Jeff nodded, eyes glued on the tiling they were sitting on.
Toby took his silence as a cue to continue. “You’re the reason I even figured out I was bi.”
Jeff laughed bitterly. “Yeah I kind of figured.”
“If you figured, why’d you never say anything?” Toby finally looked up, seeing the blank expression on Jeff’s face. “Why do you not look happy to be having this conversation?”
“It’s not that I’m not happy, it’s just,” Jeff trailed off, eyes drifting up to lock onto Toby’s. “Having a crush on me is a phase, everybody goes through it.” Toby’s face fell. Jeff tore his eyes away. “It’ll pass.”
“I just told you you’re how I know I’m bi,” Toby scoffed, his neck ticcing. “You realize I came out awhile ago right? I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve been attracted to you the entire time I’ve known you.”
Jeff sighed, staring out at the distance. “There’s a difference between being attracted to someone and wanting to date them.”
“Not for me there isn’t,” Toby argued. He scoffed when Jeff didn’t respond. “Jeff, are you seriously rejecting me right now?”
“It’s not that I’m rejecting you, it’s just,” Jeff trailed off, running a hand through his hair. Toby could tell he was struggling to find the right words. His eyes darted to the window they’d both climbed through, as if plotting how to escape from this. “I’m not exactly relationship material.”
“You’ve never been in a relationship.”
Jeff gestured helplessly. “I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
Toby didn’t know. He didn’t even know what he wanted to say. This wasn’t how he thought this would go.
Jeff must’ve taken his silence as an answer because he whispered out an apology and started to climb back towards the window.
In a fit of panic, Toby reached forward, grabbing Jeff’s face in both his hands and pressing their lips together. He felt Jeff freeze against him before he started to kiss back. Toby felt his veins light on fire, as cliche as that sounds. It wasn’t the first time he and Jeff had kissed, the first being years ago when Toby still had a girlfriend and had impulsively kissed him in a fit of bisexual confusion during his sexuality crisis. But their first had only lasted three seconds maybe , before Jeff pushed him off.
This time Jeff had Toby’s lip between his teeth and his hands were cupping his jaw and one of Toby’s hands traveled to his hair and he wasn’t pushing him off.
But Toby had to admit, despite being glad Jeff didn’t cut his face open anymore, he did kind of miss the taste of blood from last time.
He felt Jeff’s hands slide to the nape of his neck before he pulled back and reality came crashing back down on him again. There was no guarantee the kiss had convinced him to change his mind. There was no guarantee there would be more kisses after that. There was no guarantee this conversation didn’t completely fuck up their friendship.
Panic overwhelmed him again and before he could react, tears were escaping his eyes.
Jeff cringed. “Fuck, no, don’t cry.”
Toby let out a sob, shoving his face into Jeff’s chest. Jeff’s hands drifted to the back of his head, pushing his fingers into his hair as he rested his forehead on top of them.
“Please don’t cry, Toby.”
“How can you expect me not to?”
Jeff sighed, raising his head to look up at the stars. “I don’t know,” he said finally.
Toby raised his head up, looking at Jeff through teary eyes. He took in a breath. “I want you, Jeff.
You
, okay? There’s no one else I want.”
“But-”
“Who cares ?” Toby sobbed, his head ticcing to the side. “Who cares if it’ll fade? Who cares if it won’t last? Wouldn’t you rather try with the risk than pine for the rest of who knows how long?”
Jeff didn’t respond, his eyes darting down to the treeline. Toby groaned, his frustration growing.
“Why are you running?” he half yelled through his tears, making Jeff jump. “What are you running from ? You know I could make you happy and you’re still running. Why ? Jeff, why ?”
Jeff let out a breath, pushing his forehead against Toby’s. His hands drifted to cup his cheeks, his thumbs wiping away his tears.
“I know you want me too,” Toby tried again. “I mean, unless you kiss every guy like that.”
Jeff chuckled finally, his eyes drifting closed. “I don’t.”
Toby anxiously bit on the side of his cheek, cringing when he tasted blood. He brought his hands up to Jeff’s, still cupping his cheeks. “Then why are you running from something you want? It can’t just be because you think what I feel is temporary, you’ve never been that selfless.”
Jeff laughed at that. His smile faded as quickly as it came. “I don’t wanna hurt you,” he said softly.
Toby cracked a smile. “See that’s a little more in your level of selflessness.”
Jeff opened his eyes at that, shaking his head. “Ass,” he said under his breath.
Toby’s smile faltered a little, pulling Jeff’s hands away from his face and intertwining their fingers. “I’ve already been hurt. There’s not much worse you can do.”
Jeff smiled slyly. “That sounds like a challenge.”
Toby scoffed, pulling away slightly. He bit his lip, softly enough to not draw blood this time. “You didn’t push me away this time,” he said quietly.
Jeff scoffed. “I wanted you that time too.”
Toby furrowed his brow. “Exactly
how
long have you liked me?”
Jeff cringed. “Way too fucking long.” They made eye contact again and Jeff smiled softly, bringing one pair of their hands up to his lips and pressing a kiss to the back of Toby’s hand. “You know, if we do this and it doesn’t work out, our friendship will not be able to go back to the way it was.”
“If we don’t do this, our friendship still won’t be able to go back to the way it was,” Toby reasoned.
Jeff snickered. “I guess you got a point.” Jeff glanced back up at him with so much love in his eyes it kind of made Toby want to vomit. “So… wanna be mine?”
“Yes,” Toby said breathlessly.
“Okay,” Jeff sighed, smiling softly, “but only if you’ll let me be yours.”
Toby nodded frantically, feeling his shoulder tic a couple times.
Jeff laughed. “Okay, but you gotta calm down, baby, you’re ticcing a lot.”
“I know,” Toby said, melting at the pet name. Jeff tended to use a lot of pet names platonically, even calling his brother “honey” sometimes, so Toby had gotten pretty used to it. “Baby” was new though.
His neck ticced a couple times as he scooted closer to Jeff. He glanced up at him, eyes darting to his lips before looking back to his eyes. He tried his best to use his “puppy dog eyes” as Tim called them. “Distract me?”
Toby felt a sense of pride at how obviously Jeff melted at that. “Yeah,” he said breathlessly.
Jeff leaned in close, softly pressing his lips against Toby’s. This kiss was softer than their previous one, less desperate. Toby’s hand drifted back up to Jeff’s hair. Toby loved the feeling of Jeff’s hair. It was so soft. Of everything on Jeff’s body, his hair was probably the thing he took care of the most.
Jeff brought his hand to the small of Toby’s back, his hand spanning the entire length of it. It was then that the kiss stopped being soft. Toby kissed Jeff like he was starving and Jeff was the first food he’d gotten in days. Jeff kissed Toby like Toby was water and he wanted to drown.
It was when Toby felt Jeff’s tongue prod at his lip that he decided he was not nearly close enough. He attempted to scoot closer as he felt his arm tic. He hadn’t even realized he was sliding until he felt himself be ripped away from Jeff.
He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen until he felt the soft sensation of grass beneath him and he heard Jeff calling his name.
“Fuck!” He heard sneakers scraping against roof tiling before he heard Jeff’s voice again. “Fuck, Toby, stay there. Don’t move. I’m coming down.”