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Look, maybe Alex used to overthink touching the boys, when he was younger, when he was still trying to figure out what him being gay meant for that friendship - but Luke didn’t let those nerves last long, cuddled Alex every single damn day after he came out, like he was proving a point, stubborn and bull-headed as ever, until Reggie and Bobby followed his lead.
And when Alex’s anxiety skyrockets, his first red flag is that his skin feels wrong because he doesn’t want his boys to touch him.
But usually, when things are good, it’s so natural, for Alex, maybe the only thing he doesn’t overthink. To touch the boys, to have them touch him, is easy as breathing, flows like water.
So he doesn’t think, usually. He just reaches out, and they meet him in the middle - an arm around a waist, a hand against a shoulder, fingers running through each other’s hair or linking together or brushing a cheek. Reggie always flushes a little pinker, Luke grins a little wider, Bobby used to duck his head and grumble but push back against Alex, betraying himself.
Willie’s not that different. Like, obviously, he’s different, Alex feels little sparks along his arms every time he touches Willie, and a warmth that settles in his non-existent ghost-sensation bones that’s all totally different. It’s just that when Willie’s around more, after Caleb’s gone, Alex can’t help treating him like he treats the other people he lo--cares about. It’s almost absent-minded, almost muscle memory, the way he reaches out to push Willie’s hair out of his face, or link their pinkies when they’re walking, or to generally want Willie closer to him when they all crash Julie and Flynn’s after-school diner date (much to Julie’s irritation and Flynn’s amusement).
He feels like an idiot, when he links his ankle with Willie’s, and Willie’s eyes widen, he tenses, where he’s sitting pressed into the corner of the booth, Flynn on his other side. Alex feels his stomach drop. Quickly pulls his foot back.
Willie’s expression goes through a range of things, and he looks away, chews his lip. Alex has seen that expression before. Embarrassment. No - shame.
Luke is trying to bite through a chip. He can pick it up, but every time he tries to split it in half with his teeth, he just phases through. Flynn is muffling her laughter into her hand, Reggie’s laughing outright, and Julie’s trying to half-shield Luke with her body so passers-by don’t see a floating chip. And Willie won’t look at Alex.
It’s cool, Alex tells himself. He gets it. It was too much in front of their friends, or too much in general, he’s been totally desensitised by the boys (especially Luke, man, this is all Luke’s fault), and he somehow hadn’t noticed Willie reacting, and maybe Willie hates being touched but had done it because Alex obviously, blatantly needed it, or because -
Willie kicks him, very gently, with the toe of his shoe. When Alex looks up, Willie shoots him a grin, somewhere between rueful and affectionate and amused. Stop thinking so hard, he mouths.
Alex takes a breath. Willie doesn’t look mad. Or like he thinks Alex is desperate and pathetic, or whatever other mean words his anxiety had conjured out of the ether in the five seconds he left it unsupervised. Willie mimics the breath, and then takes a deeper one, and Alex follows along. Tries to put it out of his head for the rest of their time in the diner, tries to focus on the boys being idiots and Julie and Flynn chatting about kids from school. Willie pitches in terrible advice, seems for all intents and purposes to be his usual self, so Alex focuses on his breathing until the cold dread is sorta gone from his stomach again.
--
“What was that about earlier?” he asks Willie, finally, later that night when he can catch him alone. They’re outside the studio - the others have already filed inside, and Alex can’t tell if Julie hurried the others to give them some space, but he has his suspicions. “If something I’m doing has been bothering you, why wouldn’t you tell me?”
Willie’s face screws up, like he really doesn’t want to have this conversation, but Alex knows how that’s played out for them in the past. “It’s not that I don’t like it,” he says, and adds defensively, “really!” when Alex raises an eyebrow at him. Willie’s arms cross over his torso and he takes a step back from Alex, which hurts Alex way, way worse than Alex would like it to. “I just... I’m not used to it, okay? It’s not bad, it’s just so new for me.”
Well. Now Alex feels like an enormous idiot. “Oh. Yeah. Okay.” Swallows, tries to think. “I can back off?” he adds, in a much higher-pitched voice than he meant to.
“No, no,” Willie says, and moves forward again. Alex almost reaches for his arm, and then stops himself. Then does it anyway, because Willie just told him not to back off. Willie shudders a little when Alex runs a hand up his arm. “See? It just makes me act weird, and I thought the others might see-”
“They wouldn’t care,” Alex promises, and he doesn’t have to overthink that, either. “I know they wouldn’t. Especially not Luke and Reg. They’re like me.”
Not Luke, who is ready to bolt the moment someone’s mad at him and needs to be touched every five minutes or he starts to panic that no one loves him, or Reggie, who cowers at any loud noise and needs to be touched to even feel like he exists. Not Julie, even, who had barely been able to take her hands off them for a moment when they finally became tangible, like she was scared the second she let go they would disappear.
Least of all Alex, who hid things until he was choking on them. Can’t hide how much he loves touch, when he’s feeling safe and calm.
“It just feels like so much,” Willie manages. “It’s not bad. It’s just so much. Maybe I just need more exposure.”
Alex looks at him for a long moment, takes in the uncertainty plain on his face, the way he’s still got his arms crossed tight, his thumb digging into his inner elbow, the way he had flinched at the restaurant. Tries to remember how it felt to hold himself away from the boys for the few months before he came out. How it felt when Luke was all over him, right after, the jittery oversensitivity coupled with waterfalls of relief. How it only got better with time, and touch, and love, and the boys’ patience.
He can give those things to Willie, he thinks.
“Can I hug you?” he asks, and his voice has a raw edge. Willie nods, lips pressed tight together like he’s scared of what will come out if he opens them. So Alex gives him the tightest hug he can muster. Willie shudders, a full-body release, and then holds him back.
For a moment they just stand like that, warm in each other’s arms. Alex rests his chin on the top of Willie’s head and runs one hand down his back, and up again.
“Exposure?” he checks, after who knows how long. “Is it working?”
“I don’t know,” Willie answers. He sounds a little better. “Think I’ll need a little longer to be sure. Maybe the next 48 business hours.” Yeah, much better.
“That can be arranged,” Alex agrees, even though it absolutely can’t, and is rewarded by Willie’s giggle, still a little wet, but so much more like himself. “Let’s at least arrange it on the couch, okay?”
Willie glances inside the studio, and Alex feels him hesitate. “They don’t care,” he promises Willie again. “They get it.”
This time Willie nods. Alex takes his hand, and they go inside together.