Archive of Our Own

“I don’t think I’m a very good kisser.”

Jimmy was leaned back against the wall where his bed laid in the corner of his bedroom. Tommy was stretched out longwise, with his head at the foot of the bed and his legs tangled with Jimmy’s.

This wasn’t an unusual weekday evening. When they were without their friends, who communicated more in teasing jokes than anything else, Jimmy and Tommy bounced insecurities off of each other. To see what stuck, what was absorbed, what lingered around the posters on Jimmy’s ceiling. 

“What makes you even think that?” 

Tommy propped himself up on his elbows as Jimmy shrugged.

“I don’t know…Don’t you get better with experience? I don’t really…”

“I mean, I’ve kissed people who claim to have plenty of experience and they still sucked, so I don’t think that really has anything to do with it.”

Tommy was good at this—reassuring him. They usually fell into a balance: whenever Jimmy was most unsure, Tommy was confident, and whenever Tommy’s brain was turning over and over inside of itself, Jimmy held his shoulders, squeezed him, repeated a mantra of rational thought Tommy wasn’t able to produce himself, sometimes. 

Of course in matters of romance, Tommy would always have to be the consoler. 

“Did you ever tell someone that they were bad?”

“Not in words, no. Just tried taking the lead more so they’d get the hint, but truthfully it never lasted long with any of the worst kissers anyway. They were mostly when I was in high school—drunken party make outs and stuff.”

“You didn’t pursue things with them because they were bad kissers or…”

Sitting up properly, Tommy scooted closer and crossed his knees so they touched Jimmy’s leg. “Hey, you really are worried about this, aren’t you? Did something happen?”

“The guys were just joking around, and—“

“Fuck them.” Tommy rolled his eyes. “They’re all just talk anyway. Do you know the last time Mark got laid? You were probably in elementary school.” 

That got Jimmy laughing. He rustled down on the bed, resting his head in Tommy’s lap. Tommy ran his hand through his hair, and Jimmy exhaled, long and slow. 

“For the record,” Tommy continued. “If I kissed you and you were mediocre, I would be happy that I got to kiss you more often to give you more practice.” 

Jimmy looked up even though he mostly saw the underside of Tommy’s chin. The spot he always missed when he shaved. 

“That’s only because you know me now. What about when we first met and you wouldn’t even look at me for more than five seconds?” Jimmy poked his cheek where he knew Tommy’s dimple showed through if he smiled. “Let’s say we got dared at a domundi party to kiss back then and I sucked. What would you have done?” 

“Kiss back comically worse so the whole group made fun of me and not you.” 

The poke turned to a pinch. “Shut UP, you’re technically the nicest person I know, but I don’t believe even you could be that much of a saint, come on. It took you an entire month to talk to me alone without Zee next to you. You wouldn’t have saved my ass back then.”

“Why are we even running hypotheticals, what does it matter, Jimmy? Come here.” 

He pushed his legs so Jimmy sat up and then rearranged Jimmy’s long limbs so they were facing each other. 

Motioning with his hands, Tommy said, “Kiss me,” and Jimmy imagined his eyes popping out of his head like he was a cartoon character. 

“What?” 

“I’ll be as objective as possible. Just kiss me.” 

Focused on how not-comically-terrified Tommy’s eyes looked despite the ludicrous words he was saying, Jimmy didn’t register the hands coming up to hold his neck, to pull him closer. Skilled thumbs resting on his cheeks to angle his head. 

“Kiss me,” he whispered one more time before following his own command. 

For how tightly he held onto Jimmy’s neck, Tommy’s lips were soft, hesitant, just a lingering press before pulling back. 

“Did you not move because I surprised you or is that actually how you kiss, I can’t tell—what are you doing? Ah, your hand is cold!”

“I was checking to make sure you don’t have a fever. What the fuck was that?” 

“I don’t want you to worry!” Tommy let go of Jimmy’s neck to continue talking with his hands. “You can practice with me to get your confidence up and then the next time someone starts talking shit, you won’t have to think twice about whether they’re fucking with you or not.”

“P’, that means I’ll be thinking about having kissed you.”

“So?”

“Doesn’t feel weird to you?” 

He shrugged. “Not really, I don’t know. Kissing is fun, I like having fun with you.” 

“I would like the record to show that you’ve lost your mind.” Jimmy leaned forward to rest his forehead on Tommy’s chest. 

“But when you put it like that,” he mumbled into his shirt. 

“Try again? You can lead this time.”

“No, I liked it.”

“Liked what?”

Jimmy peeked up. “You initiating it, I want to just respond to what you do.”

“Okay, okay, I can do that. Come back here.”

It should have been strange to watch his best friend lean into his mouth, but anticipation flooded Jimmy more than anything else. 

He didn’t know what to expect; he had no frame of reference. Were everyone’s lips this warm and soft? Like lips, but fascinating. 

Jimmy just sort of assumed that staying connected as long as possible was the most important part to kissing well, but it was Tommy pulling back, watching Jimmy’s eyes want him, going back in for just a tiny bit longer than before, that had Jimmy squirming in the middle of his bed. 

He had to do something to increase the pace before he exploded, so he wrapped his arms around Tommy’s waist and pressed a hand into his lower back. Stay here and Please don’t stop he wanted to say.  

Some semblance of control gave Jimmy the idea he could reach his tongue out first. 

But maybe that was a bad idea. 

“Okay, wait wait wait.” Tommy gently separated them. 

“What?” 

“The goal isn’t to…how do I explain this? Um, instead of trying to flick your tongue all around, think of it more like a slide. Like this—“

Tommy demonstrated the difference by licking against Jimmy’s tongue in what was accurately more of a slide than a flick, and Jimmy’s stomach swooped violently.

This was good, he thought, as he fought a tingling sensation rippling out across his skin. He’d probably look stupid for being this worked up with someone he was hooking up with or dating, so Tommy was right. Practicing with him will make this easier. 

“Better?” he asked when they parted again.

Tommy nodded. “Much better.”

He went in for another peck, almost smiling more than kissing, and Jimmy washed away any doubt that he was inconveniencing his best friend. Not when Tommy looked this happy, just to be making sure Jimmy was happy. 

“Thanks, P’,” and he meant it. 

“Anytime.”

And Tommy meant that, too. 

*

Traveling with Tommy was Jimmy’s favorite part of being in domundi, especially when he’d watched him, in the first year they knew each other, unravel out of the ball he seemed locked into when they had meetings in Bangkok. 

Away from home, Tommy still curled in on himself but only if it was to laugh with their friends in the middle of a market at night; he still preferred the periphery of the inevitable noise of the group, but from there, he quietly looked out for the entire team.  

No matter where they went or how off-schedule their plans ended up, Tommy played the guitar softly and he sang softer, like a twinkling drama soundtrack that inched viewers to feel what the characters felt. 

Jimmy didn’t even realize he was wanting to be closer to him with each additional day they filmed their first trip together until he was sitting by his side, asking about his favorite artists and how long he’d been playing. 

It was easy after that, even when they were back in Bangkok waiting for the next trip. Honestly, Jimmy didn’t really know why Tommy let a kid like him cling beside him like this. 

But he was grateful. 

More so tonight than most nights, maybe.

“You can sleep with me,” Tommy whispered while everyone else shuffled to clean up the remnants of the game they’d just filmed themselves playing. 

As if they were a group of Kpop idols filming a reality show, they’d divided up the rooms by way of drunken gambling. Jimmy came in last place—he should have been sleeping on the Chiang Mai condo’s couch. 

“You can go lay out in the living room when we start filming again in the morning. No one will care,” he continued.

Jimmy grinned, and Tommy smiled back widely. If the cameras were still rolling, they’d probably look like they were pulling off the heist of a lifetime. Jimmy imagined the goofy editing—a zoom-in on their faces, hand-drawn scribbles overlaid on top. 

“Whoa, you were lucky as hell to come in first, this bed is huge,” Jimmy noted, mostly into the blankets, after they were finished tidying up. Despite his height and despite being sprawled out diagonally across a soft comforter, neither his fingers nor his toes were hanging off of the bed. 

“I would have been lonely without you.” 

Tommy plopped down next to him and started to scroll through Twitter on his phone.

“You say that, but I’m here right now and you’re not even paying attention to me.” 

Moving onto his side and scooting closer, Jimmy rested his head next to Tommy’s phone.

“We’ve been in here for like thirty seconds.” 

“Thirty seconds too long,” Jimmy replied, pouting. And playing, mostly, and Tommy surely knew that, but he put down his phone anyway.

The lift of his eyebrows said, You have my attention, now what? . 

Jimmy glanced down to his mouth unconsciously as he waited for Tommy to actually say something aloud.

“Fuck,” he whispered right before their lips met—in realization that this could now be a possibility of what Tommy thought he wanted, and in realization that Tommy was right.

Kissing while laying down was different. 

Hearing Tommy sigh as Jimmy rolled him on top of his hips was altogether different.

“For the record,” Tommy said in between kisses, “I wouldn’t usually let someone manhandle me like that, but because you’re you…”

He moved to mouth at Jimmy’s neck, and Jimmy’s hands tightened where they rested on his hips. Jimmy hyper-focused on the feeling of teeth scraping down toward his throat, but his mouth, now unoccupied, worked independently of his brain. 

“What else would you let me do?” he asked in no better meaning of pure curiosity. 

Tommy pulled back to support his weight with palms on either side of Jimmy’s head. He looked down at Jimmy, two parts adoration and one part heat. 

“What are you most unsure of now? What do you want to try?”

“I’m not really thinking about…” Jimmy’s eyes darted around the room. “I just meant generally, like if we weren’t practicing and we were hooking up for real, what would you let me do?”

“Hmmm…” Tommy kissed his chin while he thought of an answer. “I’d let you touch me however you wanted. Yeah—“ another kiss, “—I’d want you to touch me.”

“Here?” 

Jimmy slipped his hands under Tommy’s t-shirt, ran his fingers along his sides, watched as his eyelids fluttered closed. Mesmerizing. There was no choice, no alternative but to continue roaming across Tommy’s skin just to see how he’d react next. 

At thumbs reaching the tops of his sides, he smiled, probably because it tickled. 

At nails dragging up his back, he arched and he winced, not in an unpleasant way that Jimmy could tell, but he kept moving just in case. 

At fingertips dipping below the hem of his shorts, first close to his knees and then up, up higher until Jimmy’s thumb caught the seam of his boxers, he groaned, and his legs tensed around Jimmy’s hips.

“Here, too?” 

Instead of answering, Tommy grabbed a fistful of Jimmy’s hair and ran his tongue across the seam of Jimmy’s lips, but this was answer enough, really, when Jimmy felt Tommy grinding down into him almost in perfect rhythm to the increasingly-fervorous licks into his mouth. 

“You’re flicking more than sliding, P’Tom,” Jimmy teased, hands also teasing, up at the edges of where he knew Tommy’s thighs met his dick, and down on the backs of his thighs, just below his ass, where he seemed particularly sensitive. 

“Shut the fuck up.” Tommy bit down on Jimmy’s neck, not teasing at all, and Jimmy yelped.

“You ass—“

“I’d like to see you coordinate everything going on up here while not embarrassingly coming in your pants even though your dick hasn’t even been touched.”

Jimmy took that as a challenge. 

“Okay, let me try.” 

He pushed Tommy off of him, and Tommy laid there on his back, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before either of them moved again.

“You alright—“

“That’s just not what I thought you were going to say,” Tommy replied. 

Maybe from anyone else in any other circumstance, Jimmy would feel insecure that he’d done something wrong, but Tommy smiled over at him, still a bit dazed, and tugged at the bottom of his sweater so Jimmy would mirror their previous position by straddling his hips. 

“This feels like I’m suffocating you,” Jimmy laughed out once he’d settled his much larger body over Tommy’s. “Should I abort mission?” 

Tommy’s hands were already resting comfortably on his hips, thumbs dancing at the top of his waistband. 

“Maybe I have a trampling thing.” 

He shrugged and lifted up to kiss Jimmy before Jimmy could make a decision on whether that was meant to be a joke or not. 

It didn’t matter when Jimmy quickly had to split his attention between the feeling of Tommy’s hands moving down to cup his ass, the pace that his mouth moved, and the sound of footsteps outside the door—

Wait—

“I know you’re not asleep yet, why aren’t either of you answering your phones?”

Poppy’s banging on the door sent Jimmy scrambling. No sense of spacial awareness came to him, so by the time the doorknob was turning, Jimmy was on the floor, wrapped in the comforter, looking undoubtedly stupid. 

And yet Tommy found the sense to turn the tv on.

“We were watching a movie.” 

Jimmy turned around to see Tommy lying casually back against the headboard: ankles crossed, face calm. 

“Jimmy, you don’t have to follow the rules, no one cares if you sleep in here with him.” Poppy walked over to haul him up by his elbow. “Get in the bed, there’s no cameras in here, you goof.”

“I tried to tell him that,” Tommy shook his head in false disappointment while Jimmy hid his smile in the comforter, “but he insisted on watching from the floor.” 

“What were you texting us about?” Jimmy contributed in hopes he could pull off the same act for which Tommy was currently deserving of an Oscar. 

“Oh, Toy forgot he brought snacks, so I was just asking if you wanted the pick of anything before we devoured what was left.”

“Thanks for thinking of us,” Jimmy replied sincerely and a little bit guiltily. But only just a tiny bit. “I’m good. P’Tommy?”

“I think I’m just ready for bed. We ate a shit ton for dinner, how is anyone still hungry?” 

“Nat is a growing boy, you know how it is.” Poppy looked off into the distance like he’d raised a million sons. “I’ll make sure everyone gets to bed, okay? You guys get some sleep.” 

“Thank, P’,” they replied simultaneously, and Poppy smiled before heading back out into the living room. 

The sound of Jimmy’s weight dead-falling onto the mattress was louder than the click of the door latching shut. 

“Holy shit, that was close. Why didn’t you lock the door? I assumed you locked it.”

After turning the tv back off, Tommy rolled onto his side. 

His face now betrayed the fright his voice had hid so well. “Well, I didn’t exactly think all of that was going to happen, did you?” 

“A guy can hope.”

That made Tommy laugh, and some of the terror that strangled Jimmy’s chest loosened. 

“We should probably wash up, we didn’t even change into our pajamas yet.” 

Tommy nodded, followed Jimmy into the bathroom, where he bumped their shoulders together while they brushed their teeth. 

This wasn’t unlike any other night where Tommy stayed over at his condo, but for the first time, before he fell asleep, Jimmy kissed Tommy goodnight. 

Long—with legs entangled. 

And lingering—with tongues brushing against lips. 

And lovely—with Jimmy feeling loved. 

*

“So you like the mountains, but you’re afraid of heights?” Toy asked the next morning, clearly confused. 

“Yeah, it’s like...how do I say it, like I want to be staying in a cabin on a flat part of the mountain where I’m surrounded by nature and fresh air, but not on the top of the mountain where I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack,” Tommy explained.

Which was unfortunate, because they were all currently at the end of an exhausting hike, at the very top of a mountain. 

The lookout was beautiful, and while the trail was long, it was well-maintained, but Tommy wasn’t able to hide just how uncomfortable he was, even if he was usually pretty good at that when the cameras were rolling. 

Showing weakness in a group of guys like this was just asking for relentless teasing. 

“Why don’t we all sit and take a break for a little while?” Jimmy suggested. 

Before anyone else could agree, he was grabbing Tommy’s elbow and dragging him away from the cliff ledge. 

“What—“

“Let’s go rest in the shade.” 

Sitting with their thighs pressed together at the tree line, they could see only the sky and none of the depths down to the valley; over the breeze rustling the leaves above them and the chatter of the other tourists exploring the rocky expanse, Jimmy could hear Tommy take a calming breath.

He reached over to grab Tommy’s hand and to rest their interlaced fingers atop his leg. 

A long exhale.

“Even though I hate everything about this,” Tommy said. “I kind of see the appeal.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Imagine if it was just the two of us and I wasn’t afraid of falling to my death.”

“Wouldn’t it be like what it is right now?” 

They were fairly secluded from the rest of the guys, who were taking pictures in groups of two or three close to the cliff’s edge. Tommy had his body angled away from them, turned into Jimmy instead. 

Tommy rolled his eyes and pursed his lips. “ No . It’d be romantic, like, putting my head on your shoulder while we watch the sun go down together kind of thing.” 

“You like stuff like this?”

Incredulous, he replied, “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know, we’ve never really talked about it. Wait—let me interview you like you’re a celebrity.”

Grinning, Tommy agreed.

“Mr. Tommy Sittichok,” Jimmy said seriously into an imaginary microphone he held up to his mouth. “The world is dying to know. What’s your ideal type?” 

Tommy thought about his answer for only a moment. He counted off on his fingers, “Understanding, compassionate, and kind.”

“You don’t have a physical type?”Jimmy elbowed Tommy’s stomach. “Come on, P’Tom, you’re supposed to make your fans deeply insecure by letting them know they’ll never meet your standards.”

“You wouldn’t be insecure, trust me.”

“Bold of you to assume I’m your fan.”

“Oho, you think you’re real funny. My turn.” Tommy mimed stealing the microphone from him. “Jimmy, what’s your ideal type?”

“Easy. Small, cute, and caring.”

“How small are we talking?” 

Jimmy shrugged. “Just shorter than me, really.” 

“That could be 90% of the population.”

“I never said I was picky .”

“Okay, fine, ideal first date. Go.”

“I was supposed to be asking you that first, ugh. Fine. Something fun. I wouldn’t want to just sit around and talk for hours. Oh, go to an arcade! Can’t be boring, isn’t that expensive, you leave with prizes even if there’s no chemistry. Win, win, win.”

Tommy shifted the imaginary microphone back to himself. “Do you pretend to be bad at games or do you crush your date in everything you play?”

“Depends how she’s reacting. If she’s getting actually frustrated, I’d probably let her win. Wait—what are you doing?”

Tommy didn’t answer, but he was obviously getting up.

“I think I heard Max calling for us, we should get back to the others.”

“I didn’t get to finish interviewing you though,” Jimmy whined.

Tommy turned to scratch playfully under his chin.

“Later. Come on.”

After enduring the constant company of Toy on the hike up, Jimmy didn’t really want to rejoin the rest of the group so soon, but when Tommy grabbed his hand to drag him away from the tree line, he obediently followed. 

Thank goodness Tommy was afraid of heights; if he’d asked Jimmy to jump off a bridge by leading him there like this, Jimmy would jump.

Of course he would. 

*

Later ended up being much, much later—three days later, on the flight back to Bangkok, when everyone else was asleep and Tommy was white-knuckling his arm rest.

“Okay, your turn,” Jimmy said once the plane had leveled out past its take off. 

“My turn to throw up?” 

The old man in the row next to them turned sharply, as if Tommy was projectile vomiting at that exact moment. Jimmy gave him an apologetic smile before refocusing his attention on Tommy. 

“You’re not going to get sick, you’re going to be fine, I promise. Let’s just talk about something else.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll try to calm down.”

Jimmy helped in the only way that seemed to work on the mountain. He took Tommy’s hand into his lap and squeezed. 

This time, Tommy was angled away from him, away from the window. Jimmy turned sideways in his seat so his body blocked the view, and when Tommy peeked over at the ideal date question they’d left off on last time, the relief at only seeing Jimmy’s face and none of the clouds was evident. 

“Anything is okay with me,” he replied, still a bit strained with stress. 

Jimmy tried lightening the mood. “Boooooring.”

“It’s the truth, honestly. You want me to lie for your entertainment?” 

“I want you to lie so you can actually have fun. It’s hard to know if you’re into someone if the atmosphere isn’t right.”

“I would like to remind you that you’ve never dated someone you didn’t meet in seventh grade homeroom.” 

“Hey! I’ve been on a couple of dates here and there, they’ve just never amounted to anything because I chose the right date spot and could tell right away. Like that girl Park tried to set me up with when I first joined domundi. I invited her to go see a band play at this underground bar and she got totally wasted in the first thirty minutes before the music even started.”

“I remember you telling me about that.” 

Tommy grinned at the memory of Jimmy’s misfortune. Rude. 

“I don’t think I’d even agree to go on a date unless I knew we were both into each other and that it’d definitely amount to something.”

“Really?”

“I don’t want to be more nervous than I already would be that I’m not good enough or something. I just want to be happy to be with someone who I know likes me as much as I like them.” 

Jimmy let that drape over him. He felt warm the longer it sat.

“Man, you are a romantic, aren’t you, P’?”

“I think we all just want to feel taken care of,” Tommy replied, shifting in his seat, voice soft and eyes slipping shut. “Thank you for taking care of me,” he added sleepily. 

With his hand in Jimmy’s lap and his head on his shoulder, Tommy didn’t wake for the rest of the flight. 

*

Being in domundi had its advantages. Jimmy made enough money to pay his rent and all he really had to do was have fun with his friends; Poppy had scored an acting gig; Zee was introduced to his longtime celebrity crush, the lucky bastard. 

Tommy had been uploading covers onto their YouTube channel for a while, and they’d gotten enough traction for their manager to suggest he release a single—an original song that he wrote, with a music video and everything. 

For the past few months, Tommy’d been sending Jimmy snippets of his lyrics and his melody; on nights when they were both free, Tommy would come over so Jimmy could play the guitar while he practiced the highest notes. 

Jimmy was content being a one-man groupie as he assuaged Tommy’s worries by day and made out with him until he forgot all of his insecurities by night, so when Tommy called him one day, excited, to ask if he’d agree to star in his music video, Jimmy uncharacteristically went silent. 

Tommy sensed his hesitation. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” 

“No, no, I want to,” Jimmy confirmed. “I just don’t want my shitty acting to distract from how good your song is.”

“Shut up, you’re going to be amazing, and I want you there with me.”

Jimmy couldn’t say no to that. 

So he met with the staff working on the music video, who explained there was a love story between Jimmy and an actress. The specifics weren’t totally nailed down yet—disadvantages to being in domundi were clear in how slow moving decisions were made and how little communication there often was—but they told him to prepare for a possible kiss scene and general lovey dovey scenes. 

The single was a love song—Jimmy knew that—he’d help Tommy write the lyrics. Why, then, had he assumed he’d be acting together with Tommy instead of with someone else? 

“Well, at least all of our practice will pay off,” Tommy said with an awkward laugh that night while they sat in what had become a familiar position: Tommy sitting in his computer chair holding a guitar; Jimmy on the bed with a notebook open on his lap, ready to jot down anything that sparked inspiration. 

“Honestly, what kind of foresight.” Jimmy tapped his pen against the spiral coil of the notebook in quick succession. “I would’ve been screwed if I had to kiss on camera six months ago or whatever.”

“No, because you would have come to me worried today just like you did then, and I would have offered to kiss you now just like I did then, and we would have practiced now just like we did then.” 

Tommy was talking down at his strings; Jimmy watched him uninterrupted just because he could. 

“So are you saying that at any point in our friendship, you would offer to kiss me for a self-esteem boost?” 

He still hadn’t looked up, but he shrugged, nodded. 

“What if you were dating someone?”

“Again with the hypotheticals…” Before Jimmy could defend himself against his sometimes overactive what-if brain to someone who had an all the time overactive what-if brain, Tommy was putting down his guitar and climbing onto the bed. He didn’t stop at the edge. Swinging his leg over Jimmy, knocking the notebook to the side as he straddled him, he finished, “If they don’t understand the dedication I have to being Jimmy Karn’s best friend, they don’t deserve me.” 

With his arms securely around Tommy’s waist, Jimmy scooted Tommy as close to him as possible. 

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Normally I’d argue.” Tommy tilted Jimmy’s chin forward so he could easily kiss him—only a peck at first, but Jimmy was breathless by the time Tommy went to finish his thought. “But considering all it’d take is a green light and I’d be five seconds away from sucking your dick, I’m inclined to agree.”

Ever since that night in Chiang Mai, where Poppy barging in must have cast a curse of chastity over them, there’d been an unspoken agreement to keep hands over clothes. Mouths still roamed—one night Jimmy had kissed down Tommy’s bare chest until he dipped his tongue right at the waistband of his boxers, and he panted in such a way that Jimmy was five seconds away from learning to give head that night. He couldn’t even remember what stopped them, but then again he probably wouldn’t have been able to remember his own last name now that Tommy was pushing him to lay down on his back. 

“Is this a thank you for doing the mv or another practice session, or both?” Jimmy asked. 

“This is a because-I-want-to.” 

Tommy pushed Jimmy’s shirt up so it bunched at his chest. He licked more than he kissed down to where Jimmy’s jeans were being unbuttoned, and Jimmy tried his best to keep his eyes open despite each brush of skin against skin feeling like fire—burned at a single point but radiating warmth everywhere.

He was overheated, overly worked up.

Tommy unzipped his jeans.

“This is a because-I-want-you.”

“Fuck—“

Jimmy pulled Tommy up so they could kiss again. He needed a second to breathe—and nothing felt quite as easy like breathing than having Tommy’s tongue sliding across his—but Tommy was apparently good at multitasking.

With his jeans unzipped, there was room for Tommy’s hand. He scraped his nails down Jimmy’s chest, swirled light touches against the softest part of his stomach, and only ghosted his fingertips over the bulge in his boxers. It was not enough and too much at once and Tommy was still kissing him, almost as slowly as his hands moved. 

Teasing, Jimmy had come to learn, was his least favorite form of torture. 

To end his own suffering, he reached down to pull at the elastic of his waistband. 

Tommy made a small hmph as Jimmy grabbed his wrist and guided his hand into his boxers. 

And then Tommy froze.

“Touch me,” Jimmy whispered. “Please.” 

And so he did. 

“Oh my god—“

As Tommy shifted to kiss down Jimmy’s neck, Jimmy was able to focus on the warmth of his hand, the delicious twist of his wrist that, at this angle, Jimmy’d never in his life felt before. 

“Feel good?” Tommy asked close to Jimmy’s ear, and he couldn’t stop the goose bumps breaking out over his skin. 

“Too good,” Jimmy confessed, smiling. 

“Mmmmm. No such thing,” Tommy replied, though he did let up his pace, moved down to cup Jimmy’s balls instead. Jimmy hissed—a touch that simple shouldn’t have felt that good. “I want you to come in my mouth.”

Jimmy’s eyes shot open to see Tommy looking more turned on than he’d ever seen him. His eyes were beautifully dark; his hair stuck to his forehead. 

“I—yeah, okay, yeah.” Jimmy nodded too enthusiastically, like the fucking virgin he was, but Tommy kissed the tip of his nose and whispered sweetly, don’t hold back, okay?

And Jimmy couldn’t have if he wanted to. Just the sight of Tommy sinking down over his cock had his toes curling, his fingers fisting the sheets.

He closed his eyes, thinking the sensation without the visual would help him last longer, but then Tommy was flicking with his tongue—not fucking sliding—at the underside and it felt like every nerve ending in his body was lit up in that spot.

“Like that, please,” Jimmy unabashedly begged, and with Tommy kindly obliging, he was clenching his fingers into Tommy’s hair as he came. 

“That was—you are—jesus christ .”

Tommy laughed at his blathering, not unkindly, as he crawled back up, settling with his thighs straddled over Jimmy’s stomach instead of his hips. 

He ran his thumb over Jimmy’s cheek. The touch was sweet, loving. 

“Was that okay?”

“Fucking, yes, I’m offended you even asked me that, you’re perfect.”

Tommy had the audacity to blush.

“Come here.”

He pulled Tommy down for a kiss that he hoped made him believe that it was true, and he let his hands roam where he hadn’t before, wanting Tommy to know that all of him was perfect.

And the sound Tommy made when Jimmy wrapped his hand around his dick was perfection .

Jimmy now understood the appeal. To feel the how the rhythm of Tommy’s tongue changed with how fast or slow he was stroking him, to hear every noise that Jimmy was pulling out of him, to correlate what made him feel good to how good he sounded when he felt this much bliss. 

Jimmy wanted to memorize every second. He wanted to be able to play it back, on repeat, at will. He wanted the feeling of Tommy’s cock—heavy on his tongue once he’d flipped them over and licked kisses up and down Tommy’s thighs, teasing him how he liked to be teased, the opposite to what Jimmy liked—to be all that he ever tasted. 

Making Tommy come was like discovering satiation.

“You’re beautiful,” Jimmy confessed with a final kiss to Tommy’s thigh before he helped him get back into his jeans. He laid down beside him, held his hand like grounding proof that feeling this good could be real. 

“Was that okay?” Jimmy whispered, unable to stop himself. 

Tommy turned to look at him, eyes sleepy. “You’re allowed to ask but I couldn’t?”

“Well, I’ve never done that before, I was mostly just trying to do whatever you did to me, so...”

“That was my first time, too,” Tommy confessed. 

“What?” Jimmy searched Tommy’s face as he tried to understand. “I thought you were teaching me.”

“I told you I did that because I wanted to,” Tommy replied slowly, like he was considering every word before he said it.

“I know, but this whole time, I thought you were just helping me to get more experience. I thought you had experience?” 

“I was with the kissing, at first, but everything else...”

“Was what?”

“I just figured I could get more comfortable with stuff, too.”

If Jimmy didn’t know Tommy like the back of his hand, he might have believed that. 

“P’Tom,” Jimmy turned onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “Talk to me, please.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Jimmy. Now you know what kissing is like, now you know what head feels like. When you start dating your next girlfriend, you’ll be fine.”

“Do you actually think I was thinking about a girlfriend this whole time?”

“Why wouldn’t you be? 

Jimmy felt panic replace pleasure so quickly that he felt nauseous. 

“You’re the smartest person I know, but you are such an idiot.”

Now Tommy was sitting up.

“In all your hypotheticals, it’s always women, Jimmy.” His voice remained calm, like he was resigned to each word, like he’d rolled them around in his brain eight hundred times too many. “You can fool around with me because we’re so close, but I’m not your end game, and I know that.”

“You don’t know anything—“

“W—“

“—It’s easy to imagine that imaginary future with a no-name girl because that’s the only end game we’ve ever been taught. Isn’t that an easy shield to hide behind? P’, how am I supposed to imagine me going on a date with you when you don’t even know I like guys? My mind doesn’t even let me go there, especially with you. It’s self preservation not to imagine that it’s you and me.”

“What?” 

That was real. Tommy was surprised. 

“You’re bi?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, for the first time out loud. It didn’t feel nearly as terrifying as he’d imagined, but that was probably because it was Tommy he was coming out to. “I honestly thought you saw right through me, even before we were hooking up. P’Tommy, how could you think I was this intimate with you for this long and I was straight?”

“Didn’t you assume the same about me?”

“No...I suspected you were bi for a while, I just didn’t want to pressure you to talk about it.”

“Fuck, Jimmy, I basically just forced you to talk about it. I’m an asshole, I didn’t mean to—“

“You were protecting yourself,” Jimmy told him. “I don’t blame you. I’m relieved, honestly.”

“You should blame me.” Tommy buried his face in his hands. “Please blame me.”

“Too late. You’re stuck with me being blinded by how much I like you.” Jimmy gathered Tommy into his lap, as he so often liked to do. “You can’t do anything wrong now.”

“Don’t say that,” Tommy complained, but he looked relieved. “The likelihood I’ll fuck this up is over ninety percent.”

Jimmy smoothed Tommy’s hair away from his face. 

“Do you care about me?” 

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that I care about you?”

“You might have to keep reminding me,” Tommy answered honestly.

Jimmy tried to do so in the same way he had these past six months, by kissing him. 

“I was only ever practicing to be your boyfriend, Tommy Sittichok.”

“That’s cheesy,” Tommy complained.

“How much I like you is cheesy. It’s stupid, it’s ridiculous, it’s embarrassing that I would let you win every game at the arcade. I want to get you off again right now because I like you too much.”

Tommy fell into laughter against Jimmy’s chest. “You’re all over the place.”

“I just want to be all over you.”

“That was also cheesy, but I’m going to let it slide because you’re you.”

“And who am I?”

“My best friend who I’m a little bit in love with.” Tommy kissed his forehead softly. “My boyfriend who I hope will love me back.”

And he did.

And he told him.

And it was as easy and true as that.

***