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They’re fifteen, considerably inebriated, and Gansey is adamantly comparing himself to a children’s toy from the 1970s for the sake of a poor metaphor.
“I’m a weeble, Ronan. I’ll wobble, but I won’t fall down!" Gansey exclaims, standing up spectacularly from the sunk-in leather couch of the Lynch family den, splaying his arms wide with the proclamation, “I’m king of the world.”
Ronan sinks further into the cushions, grinning from ear to monstrous ear, his dark curls pronouncing them against the sides of his head, “I’ll knock you flat on your ass, just give me a sec.” Gansey watches with ceaseless amusement as Ronan attempts to do just that, arms struggling for purchase against the back of the couch, the well-worn material more akin to quicksand than any sort of handhold.
“Up to some dethroning, Lynch?” Gansey goads, giddy and brilliantly flushed with the liquor singing in his veins. He feels bigger than himself, like he could tear out of his own skin, or jump a skyscraper, or maybe even pull Ronan close and—
Gansey stumbles back a step, his ankle knocking against the coiled leg of the coffee table, upending his balance and toppling him gracelessly upon the hard surface. Ronan has since managed to stand, pacing over to him with an easy gait, wearing his inebriation like a casual day suit.
“Looks like you’ve dethroned yourself.” Ronan comments, kicking at the offending table leg before offering a hand for Gansey to take. Gansey accepts it, hauling himself up more to the assistance of Ronan’s biceps than any sort of operating motor-function on his part.
It’s momentum mostly, Gansey tells himself. It’s momentum that finds him sprawled against Ronan’s chest, hands occupied with Ronan’s hands or his arms or maybe his waist, he hardly knows. It’s his face and its dangerously close proximity to the other, taller boy’s that consumes any and all of the good sense that hasn’t already drowned itself in Jack Daniel’s.
Perhaps he’s already torn out of his skin, become whatever’s beneath. He doesn’t feel so much like Richard Campbell Gansey III, but the raw concept of him. The compilation of himself untangled from inhibition and doubt and sensibility. The magnification of his spontaneity and daring and nerve twisted into something hot and pulsing and wanting.
He doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t think. Doesn’t consider, or any of the other things he’s come to think of as characteristic to himself.
He does none of those things in favor of kissing Ronan Lynch.
Gansey closes his eyes because keeping them open makes him dizzy; too close, too hot, too much. In retrospect, he should have closed them after he’d made contact, as his first attempt misses its mark and lands just off Ronan’s chin. The kissing equivalent to tripping up stairs.
“Jesus.” Gansey exasperates, noticing finally that his hands have fisted themselves in the front of Ronan’s t-shirt, holding on to all but his dignity, “Jesus, I missed.”
He isn’t quite sure what he’d been expecting, but Ronan’s loud, barking laugh hadn’t been it. The other boy drops his forehead to Gansey’s shoulder, shaking with the full-force of his laughter. It leaves Gansey in the curious predicament of suffering embarrassment with little means to extricate himself from the source, frozen and furrow-browed as Ronan’s shoulders quiver in silent mirth.
“Holy shit.” Ronan gasps, high-pitched and breathy as he attempts to return air to his heaving lungs, “I thought you said you’ve kissed before.”
“I have!” Gansey exclaims, reddening further when he hears the incriminatingly defensive tone to his voice, “Sober.” Perhaps if he had been sober, he would have stopped there. Instead, he ploughs on with all the tact of the flustered and intoxicated, “And anyway, they haven’t been you.”
“So what if it’s me?” Ronan asks, nudging Gansey’s thigh with his knee, the cutting humor to his voice watering down to curiosity, hues of apprehension coloring the forced casualness of his tone.
“So you’re my best friend!” Gansey replies indignantly, the alcohol needlessly raising his voice, “You’re my best friend and I, God. You’re my best friend and I kissed you.”
A small silence follows, broken apart only by the creak of the wooden floors above them, caused by what Gansey assumes is Matthew parading obliviously about in a gait similar to that of a baby elephant. It lasts only long enough for Ronan’s shit-eating grin to break its mould.
“I’d hardly count that as a kiss.” Ronan admits finally, laughing when Gansey manages to look offended.
“I didn’t exactly get the chance to set myself up for it, as you were busy hurling me into your arms.” Gansey counters, pouting. It’s as Ronan’s grin fades to something more thoughtful, eyebrows furrowing, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth, that Gansey feels his pulse quicken again, kickstarted to familiar action.
“Try again, then.” Ronan says after an elongated pause, something thrilling and electric coursing to the base of Gansey's spine when he does so.
“You want me to kiss you again?” Gansey clarifies, frank in his dumbfounded state. He feels Ronan’s fingers tentatively grip his waist, a slight, nervous tremor betraying his unwavering teasing.
“As a tip, people usually aim for the lips.”
“Shut up.” Gansey says, barely an exasperated breath before he’s steadying himself with fists still gripped at Ronan’s chest, leaning on his toes to align himself with the taller boy, eyes open and heart stopped until he presses his lips firm to Ronan’s.
For all his talk and tormenting, Ronan has virtually zero knowledge of how kissing is supposed to operate outside of the movies he's watched with his mother and the porn he’s watched by himself on Declan’s laptop. It’s simultaneously a more complex and innately simpler process than what he’d observed in either. He opens his mouth a moment before Gansey, knocking their teeth together awkwardly and startling a laugh from the other.
“Hey, don’t think.” Gansey says, affirming as he pulls back half a breath, eyes flickering over Ronan’s face briefly before catching his eyes and holding, “Just follow my lead, okay?”
This time, Ronan remembers to breathe when Gansey leans in, remembers his hands on the dip of Gansey's waist. Gansey slowly parts his lips first, guiding Ronan’s to follow suit. Gansey kisses his top lip, and Ronan mimics the motion in avid apprenticeship. Gansey’s fingers lift to tilt Ronan’s chin, thumb brushing against where his previous attempt had fallen.With an easy fluidity Ronan’s only known of Gansey’s inebriated state, Gansey glides his tongue against the back of Ronan’s teeth, and Ronan counters with a flick of his own along the roof of Gansey’s mouth.
Heart pounding, headless with the momentum of the kiss, Ronan wonders if kisses are always this wet. However, he forgets this query entirely as Gansey makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, the reverberations of it humming a melodic rhythm to the slide of their lips.
When Gansey pulls away, Ronan chases his lips, Gansey allowing them to be caught in soft, lingering contact.
“Was that satisfactory?” Gansey asks after he’s caught his breath, voice emphasized in its playfulness. Ronan rolls his eyes, finding minor difficulty in holding a conversation with all the other parts of Gansey’s face that aren’t his lips.
“Was that satisfactory?” Ronan mimics in a dramatic rendition of Gansey’s old-money drawl. He shifts from foot to foot, seemingly unable to decide on meeting Gansey’s expectant gaze or avoiding it entirely, “It was…fine.”
“Fine?!” Gansey demands, clearly affronted, and Ronan has to force down the grin that threatens his lips, “That was a damn good kiss, thank you very much!”
“Maybe another would…” Ronan pauses, clearing his throat after a moment before trudging on before his self-conciousness has the chance to catch up with him, “Confirm.” he finishes simply, ears an incriminating pink. Gansey catches on after a single, slow blink.
“Oh.” Gansey deadpans, raising an eyebrow, “Oh.” He repeats, tilting his head, looking a bit sly and more kissable than Ronan can hardly stand, “Are you going to pay attention this time?”
Ronan swallows, nodding in the subtle eagerness of someone trying too hard to appear the opposite, “Remember. On the lips, Dick.”
“Would you shut up?”
“You could always make me.”
“Gladly.”