Archive of Our Own

Water polo is officially Nathan's favorite sport. He doesn't understand the rules, sure, and it's hard to keep track of what counts as a good move as opposed to a bad one with all the splashing and shouting going on but — it's his favorite.

Chester does something that has the ball ending up in the net and Nathan's out of his seat before the referee guy has even whistled, clapping and shouting his praise. Riley's distracted with her phone, but she rises to join him once the goal registers with the rest of the crowd, their cheering coming as an echo to Nathan's own.

"He's so talented," Nathan says, dropping back down onto the bleachers. "Do you think he'll get a scholarship?"

Riley's answer is a vague grunt, her eyes returned to whatever conversation she's having, finger between her lips as she gnaws at the skin. Nathan frowns. "This isn't me, like, being in love with him or anything."

"Uh-huh." Riley swipes out of Messages and pulls up Instagram, aggressively tapping the screen.

"I thought we agreed to be more present when spending time with one another," Nathan puts a particular sort of emphasis on present, since it'd been Riley who made the suggestion, after about fifteen minutes worth of ranting about how she felt disconnected from her life and how it was starting to freak her out, which freaked Nathan out, and then they'd all but done a blood pact over it.

That'd been last night, and yet here she was, already failing to hold up her end of the bargain.

"Fuck!" She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, shoving her phone down the front of her shirt. “You're right, I'm sorry.” She sucks in a deep breath and then opens them, leveling Nathan with the sort of smile that would make his mother proud in its tepidness. "Are we absolutely sure you're not in love with Chester?"

Nathan feels like he could go either way most days. "I'm not right now," he says, and it feels true.

"That's great." It doesn't sound like she fully believes him. Nathan bites back the defensive remark he wants to spit out, because who knows, maybe by the end of today he will be again.

It's a work in progress, and not something worth getting into a fight over when Riley’s being all weird.

He's learning to pick his battles. It's, like, character growth, or some shit.

The final whistle goes and Nathan has to double-check the scoreboard to confirm that their team actually won. He fishes his phone out of his pocket and pulls open the notes app, writing a reminder to himself to lurk Youtube until he finally understands just how in the the fuck this game works, like, for real this time.

They file down and Nathan is pleased to find that he doesn’t have any sort of urge to make sure that he's the first person Chester sees when he climbs out of the pool.

"You were amazing!" Riley's reaching out to Chester, lacing their fingers together and rocking their hands as Chester drips on the cement surrounding the pool. She's smiling, and she seems present, and Nathan is so focused on her that he doesn't even notice that Chester's turned his attention to him, advancing slowly like he's a cartoon villain about to tie his victim to the railroad tracks.

"Stop," Nathan warns, laughing. "No!" But he also doesn't actually put up much of a fight as Chester wraps him in a bear hug, Nathan's clothes instantly becoming damp from Chester's skin.

"There's my good luck towel," Chester sing-songs. Despite just having come from the pool he's so fucking warm, muscles hard beneath his skin, flexing as he lifts Nathan off the ground to give him a shake.

"You suck so fucking much."

Chester drops Nathan back onto his feet with a wink, bending over to grab his towel. "Wouldn't you like to know."

And that's — not actually a bad idea.

"So you're saying sex with me won’t be amazing?"

"Yes," Nathan says, and he's actually really pleased that Chester and he are on the same page about this. Or — not, apparently? Because Chester actually looks kind of pissed off, so maybe Nathan's proposal wasn't as clear as he thought. "Well, like, not in a bad way? Shit, I'm fucking this up."

They're in Chester's car, parked behind what used to be a Vons when he was a kid, now the resident Spirit Halloween store come autumn and officially a vacant black hole for the rest of the year, which is why he'd asked Chester to pull over and park so they could talk.

"What I mean is: I think I've just built it all up in my head, right? Like, there's no way it'll be end-all, be-all amazing. It'll most definitely be top three of my life forever, because you're," he gestures wildly at Chester's, well, everything. "But reality is never the same of fantasy, that’s just, like, a fact of the universe. I swear I'm, like, 99% over you as a romantic anything, but I think it's the whole what-if thing that's stopping me from hitting that last 1%. So, um," he loses a bit of steam, and has to squeeze his eyes shut to get to the actual finish line. "You'd really be doing me a favor if we could finally just hook up so I can just put my crazy, pathetic, grand fantasies to rest once and for all."

He peeks out of one eye, just to see what Chester's face is doing. He looks contemplative, which is probably a good sign. "Please say something," Nathan begs.

"Well," Chester drags it out. "It's not the worst idea." He grabs hold of Nathan's head and turns it so that they're looking at one another, and Nathan's really proud of himself that he doesn't, like, sprout a boner right there or something, or get lost in Chester's eyes.

A couple of months ago both would have happened, and now here he is, mortified and abstractedly turned on, but still maintaining his overall brain function.

It's progress.

It has to happen at Nathan's house.

Chester says it's because he doesn't want to disrespect his grandma, which is totally fair. Nathan's really into the idea of disrespecting his mother, and his whole family is out anyway, Natalia hosting a girl's night at her house and his dad using it as an opportunity to hang out with his friends for the first time in forever. The whole place is Nathan's, and even if his dad does end up coming home early, Nathan knows that he won't freak out like his mom would. It's perfect.

Except it isn't, because that's the whole point.

Nathan kind of thought that he built up kissing Chester into something better than it was. He’s still got Chester’s feedback in his mind, the pointers he gave, but as far as Nathan is concerned there’s nothing for Chester himself to improve on. They're laid out on Nathan’s bed, on top of the covers, and Chester's mouth is minty from the gum he'd been chewing and his lips are like, everything, and Nathan has a brief moment of panic that maybe sex with Chester will be perfect, and he'll be fucked.

But then reality sets in. Their noses bump awkwardly and Nathan laughs. He half-rolls off the bed in his haste to get his sweats off while remaining horizontal, saved only thanks to Chester's jock reflexes. He squeezes way too much lube out so that when he finally gets his hands around both their cocks — and has to use both hands, because apparently his and Chester's dicks are the same size, and when Chester breathes out shit in a thready sort of voice, Nathan realizes that means that his dick is actually pretty big too, which is a wild concept: him, Nathan, with a big dick that makes boys like Chester start breathing harder, fuck — it’s so slippery that he can't actually manage any sort of real friction.

He doesn't know how much full-on experience Chester has, but he's confident where Nathan isn’t and seems to take all of the first-time weirdness in stride. He uses a couple tissues to mop up some of the lube, and he's smiling wide, eyes bright, and won’t stop surging up to kiss Nathan. Nathan wraps his arms around Chester’s neck and keeps kissing him back, dragging his nails down Chester’s sides. His skin feels like he’s on drugs, hyper-sensitive from Chester’s body hair.

And then Chester’s pulling back and manipulating Nathan's legs until they’re pressed up, kind of like a frog, and all of Chester's attention is focused on his asshole, which is very strange but also pretty fucking hot. Chester's just sort of, like, rubbing the head of his dick over Nathan's hole over and over again, and he's breathing hard and looking intense like he does when he's in the water, or about to read someone to fifth. Nathan made sure to buy the thin condoms, and he knows it won't make much of a difference to him on this end, but he hopes that they feel good for Chester. That Chester's enjoying this.

Having a dick inside of him is — it doesn't hurt, which Nathan attributes to his own masturbation preferences and Chester's skills, and it's pretty intense, but not in the soul-shattering, all-consuming way he imagined. Chester's big, big enough that he pretty much stays pressing on Nathan's prostate, which is amazing and a lot, but he's still able to kind of focus on the expression on Chester's face, and he feels proud at how fucked Chester looks, mouth slack and eyes squeezed shut.

Nathan reaches between their bellies to grab his dick, stroking himself, and it feels like a real victory that he's able to have Chester's dick real and inside of him, to stare at his stupidly hot face, and feel himself getting off to it all on an aesthetic level, his stupid heart having nothing to do with. It's sex, and it feels so good, and Nathan can see himself having it with a hundred other men and women.

He's so lucky that this is his first time, that it's with Chester, who he was definitely in love with in an idealized way, but also that this won't be his last time, and maybe, just maybe, one day he'll get fucked by someone who he loves and who loves him back, for real.

Riley and Greta are maybe-sorta-definitely dating, and Nathan is really proud of himself for listening to Riley give him a play-by-play for, like, a solid hour without talking about himself at all. He's really excited for her, and helpfully doesn't mention that he thought they were already a thing, because Riley hasn't seemed this excited in weeks and he's so, so happy that she's actually engaged with her life again.

"Sorry,” she says, grinning down at the blanket. "So what's up with you, anyway?"

"Oh." He shrugs, because compared to her actually finding love it doesn't seem to even really rate. "Chester and I hooked up?"

"What the fuck!" She reaches out and grabs his shoulders. "How did you not tell me? How did he not tell me?" She narrows her eyes, looking him up and down. "When you say ‘hooked up’?" she asks, actually making air quotes, the bitch.

"He fucked me, and then we made out for the, like, ten minutes it took for me to be able to get hard again, and then I fucked him."

"Oh my god," she says it a few times, shaking her head. "How are you? How was it? I can't believe you didn't, like, do a Live so I and everybody else would know about it as it was fucking happening."

Nathan laughs. "It was great? Like," he opens his eyes as wide as they can go, lips rolling into his mouth. He lets out a breath and shrugs. "Like, is it all that I've masturbated about since? Obviously. Do I now know that I'm firmly on the dick-preference leaning side of bi? Definitely. But am I still scrolling through his Instagram, imagining us holding hands as we walk to class? No."

"Wow." Her lips press out, and she gives him a look of respect. "Progress?"

"Definitely progress." He licks his lips, wondering if he should tempt fate, but at the end of the day if he can't tell Riley, just who in the fuck can he tell? "Honestly, and, like, knock wood, but I actually think it worked? I feel pretty over it. Or, like, him? Whatever."

"Shit," she says, which pretty much sums up Nathan's feeling as well.

He knows the Einstein quote about insanity wasn't actually said by Einstein at all, but somehow he feels like he beat the odds, because this time around his stupid heart seems to have gotten the memo and not made a mountain out of a molehill for the first time in Nathan's miserable life.

Maybe this is what growing up is actually like.

His phone vibrates where it's laying face-down on Riley's desk, and his eyes jerk to it automatically. "Do you mind?" he asks, because he's still taking this mindfulness thing seriously, even though Riley doesn't always hold up her end.

"Go for it," she says, and uses it as an excuse to grab her own phone from the bedside table, probably to check for nudes from Greta, or whatever it is lesbians send one another once they've figured out their shit.

He's expecting a text from his mom asking when the hell he plans to come home, or Naomi pulling rank to demand he restock her tampon supply on his way back. He blinks. "It's Chester," he says, as if Riley had actually asked.

"And that's weird?"

"Kinda?"

Nathan's still staring at his phone and misses that she's gotten up from the bed, the gentle touch of her hand to his elbow a bit of a shock as she tries to get a look at the screen. "What did he say?"

"He asked what I'm up to." He and Chester have never really been the casual texting sort of friends. It's probably his fault, their whole relationship spawning from his crush on Chester, but he honestly can't really remember a time where he's gotten a text like this from him.

"He must be bored," she says, and Nathan knows that she would be the expert, since she's the one Chester typically goes to for that sort of thing. Maybe he's also been trying to give her space. Maybe he's actually beginning to see Nathan as a friend too, not just as someone who lusts after him and will read too much into everything, and thus shouldn't be encouraged. "Invite him over."

Nathan types as much into his phone. "Cool."

There's something off about Chester when he shows up. He's wearing a mesh sweater, the gaps between the webbing wide enough that Nathan can see his chest hair and the overall definition of his muscles — which Nathan has licked and rubbed his dick against, which is a bit distracting — and is probably why it takes Nathan a minute to come to the conclusion that Chester being awkward.

He keeps glancing at Nathan every few minutes, but once Riley shares the news of her and Greta finally sorting out their shit, Chester becomes more like himself, giving her a hard time while grinning so hard that his smile practically lights up the entire room.

Nathan’s mom texts about an hour later, reminding him about his curfew. He groans as he reads it, interrupting something that Chester had been saying to Riley. "I gotta go home," he explains.

"I'll drive you!" Chester pops up from the bed. "I should probably get going too." His eyes turn to Riley as a totally shit-eating smirk comes onto his face. "So that Riley," he says, pausing every few words, "can finger her pussy —"

"Shut the fuck up," she groans. She's never really been the type to blush, but Chester's always been the only one Nathan's seen to ever get her close to it. "I hate men."

"Yeah we know," Nathan adds. “That's why you're gone full lezbo. What happened to bi-solidarity, Riley, damn?"

She makes a face at him. "You're seriously not about to lecture me after you literally just said that fucking Chester confirmed you're," her hands come up to make obnoxious air quotes, her voice deepening in an imitation of his own, "dick-leaning bi."

"You told her?" Chester's head whips to look at Nation, and he actually sounds upset, which —

"Was I not supposed to?" Nathan asks, genuinely confused. "I'm sorry?" He doesn't mean for it to come out like a question, but it does anyway. "I'm not going to tell anyone else, I promise. This was a, like, yay, can you believe that Chester and I are actually friends now without any weirdness thing, rather than me bragging or, I dunno, a creepy, celebratory, hope-lives-eternal type thing, I swear."

It's really hard for Nathan to read Chester's face, which is sort of terrifying. He seems upset but also like he's mad at himself for feeling that way, which Nathan understands in a general sort of sense — that’s basically Nathan’s whole vibe — but not at all why Chester would be feeling that way right now, about this.

Maybe he really should have asked about how Chester felt before kissing and telling, even though it was to Riley, who is pretty much both their best friend. And maybe that's it. Maybe he wanted to tell Riley first, and feels robbed that he didn't get the chance. Nathan makes eyes at her, trying to convey this.

"Uh," Riley says, looking between both of them. "Seriously, he didn't give any details or, like, gloat. I'm really happy that you guys are on the same page now and Nathan isn't, like, tragically in love with you, or whatever."

Chester closes his eyes and brings a finger to stroke his eyebrow. "But," he says, one eye opening to squint at Nathan, even though it's clear that he's still speaking to Riley. "He did say that my dick was like a religious experience, right?"

Riley laughs, the sound rasping throughout the room. "Totally," she promises. "He can't stop jerking off about it."

"Okay!" Nathan's voice cracks, loud and squeaky like it'd done when puberty first hit. "First: Chester, you can't be mad about that because it's clearly my business and doesn't really expose anything about you!" he says, in a rush. "Secondly: damn, what the fuck, bitch?" He's blushing, but laughing too, because it's not that big of a deal, really, even if Riley really sucks.

Nathan's phone vibrates again; he glances at the screen and sees that it’s his mother yet again, asking why his location in the FindMy app hasn't changed. His eyes return to Chester, and he puts on his best pathetic look. "You're still gonna give me a ride home, right?"

Chester sighs, pulling Riley into a quick hug, her face disappearing under his chin. He steps away and tips the sunglasses that have been resting on top of his head down onto the bridge of his nose, his eyes disappearing behind the green lenses. "C'mon, Miss Daisy."

They're saved from any more weird conversations thanks to Chester's driving playlist, the music filling up the strange sort of tension that settles between them the moment they close the doors of Chester's car.

Nathan doesn't know what to do about it — about this weird vibe that, for once, isn't coming from Nathan and his uncontrollable desire for Chester to love him. He's actually happy when they reach his block, hand hovering over the buckle, ready to press the damn thing the moment the car stops moving.

"Hey," Chester says, and Nathan kind of, well, freezes, because he isn't expecting it. Everything goes blurry all of a sudden, and it takes Nathan a minute for his mind to work out what's happened, overcome by an influx of sensation.

Sensations like Chester having moved across the front seat, their faces super close together because Chester is kissing him, somehow, for some reason, one of his big hands resting on Nathan's thigh, squeezing it through his jeans. There’s an ache in Nathan's jaw, because his mouth apparently knows how to kiss Chester purely on reflex now, without Nathan having to think about it, and this kiss is, like, startlingly deep. The hand on his leg is distracting, moving higher and higher until Chester’s managed to find Nathan’s dick.

The metal of the door digs into his back because Nathan sort of jerked away at how quickly Chester just bum-rushed him with this, and now he's trapped between it and the hard press of Chester's strong, athletic body.

"Uh," Nathan says, his hands coming up to press against Chester’s chest, fingertips slipping through the holes in the mesh and touching the warm hair dusted across his skin. "What?"

"So!" Chester pulls back and runs a hand across his face. His sunglasses got lost somewhere during the kissing, and he bends to reach down into the footwell to fish for them. "I'm kind of in a dry spell right now, obvs," he tacks on, like that's something Nathan would know about. "But, like, I'm also really fucking stressed about grades and college and," he sits up straight, drawing lines in the air between them with his glasses, some great bit knot of a shape. "Anyway, you know how I totally came through, like, really fucking clutch when you wanted to fake date to piss off your mom?"

Nathan nods, dazed.

"Well, since you're like, completely over me and we're totally just, platonic bros who have compatible dicks," Chester makes a sarcastic sort of expression as he says the words. "What would you say to, like, some sort of friends-with-benefits thing while I try to not, like, go insane because of school and life shit?"

"Uh." Nathan just kind of sits with himself, for a second, and finds that the idea sounds — nice. Not, like, the potential for more, or something that will make him want to die once it eventually comes to an end.

Just nice. And he supposes that's pretty much his answer. "Alright."

Chester blinks, head jerking back. "Alright," he repeats. His eyes dart to the house. "Are your parents home?"

Nathan licks his lips and shakes his head, his heartbeat starting to race, and it doesn't feel like a delayed response to the fact that he and Chester just made out, more like his body connecting the dots as to what the question implies. "No," he says, rambling. "That's the reason I had to come home. It's a purple dot day and I'm sure my mom can't, like — ugh, god — orgasm, or something, knowing that I'm roaming the streets. You know how much of a control freak she is."

"I have no idea what a purple dot day means and I'm sure I don't want to," Chester says, "but I'm gonna assume that means it's okay for me to come inside, right?"

It inexplicably sort of becomes a part of Nathan's life.

Chester will come over after school, and they'll make out and jerk off. Nathan's gotten really good at learning how to sort of, fondle, or whatever, two sets of balls while his hand rubs against the heads of their cocks, something that he realized during their first time that he and Chester both enjoy. Nathan still can’t believe that he’s had a first time, that he now has multiple times, and that it’s with Chester of all people. That he’s gotten to know what Chester likes, and is able to utilize it to his advantage.

When Chester's close to coming, Nathan will use their precome to get a finger slick enough that he can push it into Chester's ass, sending him over the edge. Chester is, like, ridiculously gorgeous, that's just a given, but his face when he actually has his orgasm is like some true Greek God shit, and it gets Nathan to his own end most of the time.

Sometimes he'll get a text from Chester in the middle of class, summoning him to the bathroom, and one of them will blow the other right there, hands between their knees because they know that they're tempting fate and there's no way they'll ever actually manage to get away with reciprocating. He's sure that it's some kind of subservient desire within him that he'll need to unpack eventually, but Nathan really likes to be the one on his knees, Chester's cock making his jaw ache, his lips swollen and obvious in a way that makes Naomi squint her eyes whenever she catches sight of him after, though she never actually says anything.

On the weekends they drive out to abandoned parking lots and sort of, kinda, make out until they're both so keyed up that they have to climb into the backseat and rut together. It takes a long time, and it’s always, like, the best part of his whole fucking week.

Chester never actually shares whatever it is that’s going on with him, and Nathan knows better than to push. It’s nice, being here for him, being useful in this way, even if the consequence is that Nathan has never done so much laundry in his life, not even when he first learned what his dick was for and was basically masturbating, like, all the time.

It's great.

They're at school, all of them weirdly together for once, Cooper having staked out a table that they all ended up wandering over to. Chester's got an arm thrown over Nathan's shoulder, his fingers playing with the hair at Nathan's nape, twisting it over and over as he talks to Greta about something. It's a vaguely nice sensation, like when a cat kneads you with its claws while you're watching TV or something, and it registers in the back of his mind while he fights with Cooper over which Spider-Man is the best.

"But, like," and Nathan cannot stress this enough, "have you seen Andrew Garfield's butt in the costume?"

Cooper squints, like he's trying to remember Andrew's butt. "I didn't really pay attention to it, dude."

Nathan doesn't bother to hide his disgust. "If you aren't factoring in fuckability, how can you even seriously debate this?"

"Shit." Cooper pushes his hair back behind his ears and looks like he's seriously reconsidering his entire life. "Maybe you're right."

"Hey." Chester's suddenly right in Nathan’s personal space, and the whispered greeting sends a shiver racing down Nathan's spine, making him sit upright on the bench.

He turns to look at Chester, and Chester's nose ends up brushing his cheek from how close he is. His hand has dropped from Nathan's hair, instead dropping down to the table to play with Nathan's fingers. He's taken off his rings and is putting them on Nathan, playing around with the sizing to see which finger they should go on. "Yeah?"

"How'd you like to come over to my house tonight?"

"Sure," Nathan says, basically instantly, because he has nothing going on tonight and he's kind of developed a pavlovian response to being alone with Chester, his mind linking that time with orgasms, which he will never turn down — so it takes a second for him to really register what Chester's asked, and what that means.

"Wait, like, your-house, your-house?"

Chester gives him a smile like he thinks Nathan is the stupidest creature on the planet, which probably isn't all that undeserved. "As opposed to the summer chalet I keep in Bel Air?"

Nathan laughs, a gentle huff that kind of startles from his chest. "Yeah, alright, point. I just mean, like, will your grandma be out, or?"

"Nope," Chester answers, mouth poping at the end of it, and then he's turning to call out something ridiculously offensive that Arianna's said.

And Nathan — Nathan just sort of sits there, Chester's rings heavy on his fingers.

Nathan's grandma was awful. All his memories of her are shrouded in this general feeling of oppressive — just, oppression, really, and he dreaded spending any time with her when he was a kid. Her death came as a palpable relief in his life, one that he knows his mom shared, and that they both felt guilty about, recognizing that awful feeling in one another.

Sometimes he wishes she were the type of mom he could talk to about that stuff, about why she felt that way about her mom, and how, despite how much Nathan cannot fucking stand his mother, he would be really sad to feel that way about her when she eventually dies, and a part of him is actually really fucking terrified that is exactly what’s going to end up happening if she doesn’t at least try to love him for who he is.

Chester's grandma, however, is amazing. Nathan knows this just from the way Chester will talk about her sometimes when his guard is down, before he seems to remember himself.

There's no doubt in Nathan’s mind that Chester and his grandma have those types of conversations. Not that Chester has, like, an once of ill-will towards his grandma, obviously. But, just, like, he's sure they talk about everything: boys, breakups, college, death, and what Chester's life will be like when she dies.

Chester drops him off on the couch to make his introductions to her on his own, disappearing back into his bedroom.

"Oh you're Nathan," she says, like that actually means something to her. She’s looking at him a little funny, a smile on her face that’s creepily knowing and something he has only ever seen on girls, and is mildly terrified to now know they don’t lose the ability to pull off even when they are no longer his sister’s age. "Chester —"

"Nonna," Chester's calling, voice weirdly sharp. "Nathan's mom is this like, insane Evangelical white lady — capital White — who says the worst possible thing in every situation. It's, like, a demonic gift." His hands are warm on Nathan's shoulders where he's leaning over the couch, pressing into them. "We have to adopt him."

His grandma coos. "You're welcome any time you like," she says it definitively, like she's going to make him a key that very night, and Nathan is completely charmed.

"Alright, Nonna, bye!" Chester's pulling at his arm and Nathan awkwardly walks around the couch, waving at Chester's grandma and following him back through the hallway that leads to his room.

Nathan's always been sort of nosey, but even if he wasn't, he would be now. Chester never really talks about himself, so being in his room sort of feels like being let inside Chester's brain, or having access to his diary. Nathan's not going to waste the opportunity. There are photos of him with his teammates from the water polo team hung up against the wall with clothespins, some more recent ones of him and Riley, and some with other members of their group, most weirdly of Chester and Cooper, which Nathan can’t even imagine the sort of context that would have led to that being a thing that exists.

There's one of him and a woman who has to be his mom, and even though Nathan wants to ask so, so badly, he keeps his mouth fucking shut and commits her to memory instead, wondering if one day they'll be close enough that he can ask without the surety of Chester probably punching him in the fucking face for it.

"Hey," he calls. "When are we going to take some actual photos together? I feel, like, weirdly neglected here. You have a photo with Cooper and not me?! Like, what the actual fuck?"

"Nathan."

He turns and finds Chester sitting on the bed, hands folded across his lap and looking weirdly annoyed. His fingers look naked, and it occurs to Nathan that he's still got Chester's rings on, has gotten used to them over the course of the day since Chester put them on him at lunch. "Chester," he says at last, copying Chester's tone, and it’s only a little awkward for the delay.

"We're alone in my room and you're checking out my photo collection." He doesn't bother hiding the incredulousness from his tone.

"Sorry," Nathan says, feeling a bit sheepish. "You're just, like, weirdly secretive, dude, even to your friends. Who knows when I'll have another chance to come over!"

"Never," Chester answers, completely deadpan, "if you keep ignoring me, dude."

Nathan rolls his eyes but wanders over, stepping onto the bed with his knees on either side of Chester's hips and kissing him right away, just to stop whatever dumb argument might be brewing based on Chester's tone.

Chester's hands settle on his waist, anchoring Nathan on the unstable mattress, which leaves Nathan free to move his hands from where they were helping to stabilize him against Chester's shoulders. He resettles them on Chester's face so that his fingers can play with Chester's earrings; he grins into the kiss when Chester moans and kisses him harder, really throwing himself into it. Chester’s hands are big enough, fingers long enough, to dig into the meat of Nathan’s ass, and the sensation has Nathan echoing his moan, trying not to be so loud that Chester’s grandma hears from the other side of the apartment.

He wonders if something happened today, and that's what made Chester invite Nathan over, since he's never really allowed any of the group to meet his grandma.

"Hey," Nathan asks, because kissing Chester is great, but an idea's just struck him that might even be better. "Was your grandma gonna say that you talk about me all the time?"

The skin beneath Nathan's fingers warms up, and it takes Nathan a solid couple seconds to realize that Chester's blushing. "Fuck you," he says, like that's a proportionate reaction, though there isn't much heat to it. "I mean, we hang out a lot, and you're super cringe. It's hard not to share that material when my nonna asks about my day."

Which is totally fair, really, but also — "Are you babbling?" he asks, and actually feels himself getting delighted by it. "Like, is this genuinely embarrassing for you? I didn't even know you get embarrassed."

Chester shoves him off and buries his face into his hands. His nails are painted a light shade of blue that looks really nice paired against Chester's skin. "Of course I get embarrassed," Chester groans. "You really fucking suck, Nathan, I hope you know that."

The sun's setting and Chester hadn't turned on any lights, so Nathan notices the glow-in-the-dark stars that Chester has pressed to the ceiling above his bed, probably something from when he was a kid that he never took down.

Everything about this seems really fucking intimate, all of a sudden, and Nathan feels really uncomfortable. "Um," he says, casting about for something to say so that Chester doesn't realize that Nathan’s dumb brain has made this weird. "I still have your rings." He pulls his hands from Chester’s face and holds them between their bodies so Chester can see them, as if to prove it.

Chester sighs and then flops down to lay on the bed, leaving Nathan sort of sitting in his lap. He reaches up and twists the metal around Nathan's fingers, both of them starting at their hands.

"Which one's your favorite?" Chester asks.

Nathan wonders if this is some kind of test. Chester has a weird little jelly ring that has fits pretty perfectly on the finger next to Nathan's right pinky. "Hm," he hums. "Probably this one," he says, wiggling it.

"You know that's like, the engagement ring finger," Chester says, and his voice is a little thready.

Getting married feels like an impossible thing for Nathan.

Impossible that anyone would love him that much, or want to be with him forever. Impossible because he's headstrong enough that ending up with a girl would probably piss him off, no matter how much he loved her, because he knows it's what his mom is literally praying for, but marrying a guy seems equally improbable.

"Do you think," he asks, "like, it'll be that kind of thing where the moment people think I'm taken, suddenly they'll be into me?" Nobody knows that they’re, like, fucking or whatever, Nathan knowing better after how Chester took the Riley-knowing news. He isn’t sure why they’re keeping it a secret, why Chester wants it that way.

Chester goes quiet, probably thinking about it seriously like he does sometimes, even when Nathan was really just, like, talking shit.

Except Nathan does kind of mean it, and Chester's usually the only one who takes his shit seriously. Or, more honestly, calls Nathan out when he tries to pretend like he wasn’t actually being, like, deadly serious and painfully earnest. "Is that what you want?" Chester asks, because it apparently is one of those times, and he's never let Nathan off the hook before, so why would he start now?

So Nathan answers with the first thing that comes to mind, which is, "Not really." And it's true.

He's so much better than he was at the start of the school year, and it's entirely thanks to Chester, even though Chester is the main reason he was so fucked up for much of it, and maybe he doesn't think that anybody else would actually put up with him, if he’s being honest. Or should put up with him, really. But he's glad that Chester does. And Nathan remembers how weird it was when Chester was dating Bo, even though Nathan really had been hoping the two of them would make it work, kinda, even with all his own bullshit going on, and he doesn't want to have to pull away from Chester like that to date somebody else.

Not that Chester would have any of the same bullshit over Nathan dating someone. Obviously. iIt’s kind of fucked up, but Nathan doesn’t think they actually started being, like, actually healthy friends until they started hooking up.

Nathan sort of wonders why he's here, all of a sudden. "Are we gonna have sex?"

Chester laughs, and he rolls onto one side, his head propped up on his hand. It dislodges Nathan, sending him down to the mattress too. "No," he says, and he’s smiling. "Is that a problem?"

Nathan shakes his head, rocking back and forth on the mattress to get comfortable. Chester's right hand is still tangled with Nathan's left, and he squeezes their fingers together. "Nah."

Naomi is on the couch, head dangling down at the floor as she kicks her legs in the air, phone held about three inches from her face. She scrambles upright the moment she realizes that he's home. "So you're dating Chester," she shrieks, "and you didn't even fucking tell me?!"

"What?" Nathan's knee-jerk instinct is to deny, deny, deny, which he pushes down and doesn't let himself think about too long over it because it isn’t actually true at all. "No," he insists, "we're just friends."

"Bullshit." Naomi stands up and walks over to him in the hallway, poking his chest. "I can tell you're twitchy virgin ass is getting some, and you and him have been spending, like, all of your gay ass time together. No way is he covering for some secret hookup of yours," she says it like its literally insane to propose that, which Nathan did not actually say at all, and actually ticks each item off on her fingers, like this is actually something she's thought a lot about and, like, put research into. "Er-fucking-go, it has to be him."

And it's like — Chester never actually said he had a problem with people knowing, is the thing, even if he was briefly weird about it when he thought Nathan dragged his sexual prowess, or whatever. And Nathan isn't at all ashamed to have lost his virginity to Chester, and he's not even doing anything wrong, like, they're safe and kind to one another, so he just comes out and says, "— with benefits. We're friends with benefits."

The suspicion on Naomi's face cranks up to eleven, her eyes narrowed so thin they're practically slits. "You guys hang out all the time."

"That's what the friends part means!" Nathan's starting to feel a little hysterical, Naomi's mood rubbing off on him. He's also more than a little pissed off at having to, like, defend this. "If all we did was hook up then we'd just be fuckbuddies, or whatever."

"Is he hooking up with anyone else?"

Nathan shoves his hands into the front of the hoodie he's got on. The jelly ring that Chester let him keep catches a little awkwardly on the fabric, pinching his skin. "I don't know." They spend so much time together these days that Nathan probably would, but Chester's such a fucking cryptid that if he wanted to keep that kind of thing a secret, Nathan's sure there's no way he'd ever actually find out. "I don't think so."

"Did you guys have sex today?"

"What the fuck is this?" Nathan pulls his hands back out and runs his fingers through his hair. "No," he says. "I met his grandma and we made out in his room for a bit before listening to music, and then I came home. Are you happy, mom?"

"Oh my god," she hisses out the words. "You are so fucking phenomenally stupid! You're dating! He is your boyfriend! You met his grandma!"

It's impossible, and the weird, indescribable feeling that runs through Nathan at the thought is proof enough of that. "You're pushing, like, weird heteronormative shit on me right now, and I don't appreciate it. I'm sorry, Naomi, that you're, like, a little straight girl and don't get actual real-world shit, but people can just be friends who fuck and it isn't a big fucking deal."

It really is as simple as that. Or it should be, because it was, Nathan knows that it was, but now Naomi’s gone and been a bitch and he can literally feel the idea worming into his head. He storms out of the room and slams his bedroom door behind him once he’s gotten upstairs, throwing himself on the bed and begging his stupid, traitorous brain to do him a fucking solid for once and not obsess over this. To not undo all the hard work that went into Nathan getting into probably the best shape he’s been in his like, mentally and emotionally.

He stays in bed, wishing that he had something to look at in the dark, like Chester and his stars, and doesn’t sleep.

At five he picks up his phone and texts Riley, asking if he can go over to hers. After sneaking out and Ubering over, she's still in bed when he lets himself into her room. He sits on top of the covers and shoves his feet underneath the blankets to leech a bit of her warmth, waiting for the words to come to him, and just enjoying being around her, rather than the nine agonizing hours he’s just wasted, running circles through his own thoughts all alone.

There isn't any real sort of way to be subtle about this, and he hates, hates, hates that he's even doing it, but he asks, "You and Chester are, like, close, right?"

"Yeah?" She sounds uncertain, probably still half-asleep.

Nathan licks his lips and asks, "Has he, like, I don't know — mentioned me, or — "

"Oh, fucking Christ." She rolls over and stuffs her head under her pillow, voice muffled when she adds, "It's too goddamn early for this."

"Ugh," Nathan groans and falls onto the mattress. "I swear to fucking god, I don't want to have this conversation. It's not my fault? I'm not, like, obsessing! Or doing that thing again where I think there's, like, even the slimmest chance of me and him being a thing and I wasn't even thinking about this shit anymore, you know? Like, seriously. I was, like, perfectly happy just being friends after we hooked up! And then he," Nathan stresses this, because he's tired of always being the one who is angling for more, or setting himself up to fail, or whatever it is he's fucking sure Naomi assumes and likely has already spread to all their fucking friends in whatever group chat Nathan definitely isn't on, "wanted to keep having sex. And, like, since I genuinely wasn't all caught up in my feelings, I was like sure! Because, like, who the fuck wouldn't want Chester's dick on tap? Like, it would have been weirder to say no. Who else is going to actually want to have regular sex with me until, like, college or whatever, right?"

He rolls over onto his back and grabs his hair, shaking his head. "But then tonight Naomi — who is just like, the most spiteful, petty, mindfucky bitch on this planet — had to go out of her way to insist that we're dating, which like, a) impossible, right? Just full-on, shut-down impossible. And b) I would absolutely know if we were, you know? That was literally all I lived and breathed about, for like, six months, so I would definitely know."

Riley pokes her head out from under her pillow. "You guys suck so much," she says each word heavily. "Talk to him if you're this fucked up over it."

Nathan's laugh comes out squeaky and award as he forces it out of his chest. "Yeah, fuck that." He shakes his head. "The last thing I need is him thinking this has all been the latest chapter in my lusting after him. I'm fine with us how we are! I am not going to mess it up and make shit weird between us yet a-fucking-gin just because my gross homophobic sister can't see that men, like, don't operate that way, and that dating isn't the, like, ultimate final destination for all relationships between people."

"Then why not just talk to him about it?"

"Because you can't just, bring shit like this up." He thought Riley would know better, what with her shit with Greta and how long that took to clear up. "Even if I literally do not care, it will definitely mean something if we actually talk about it. That’s like, a rule of the universe."

Riley lets out a long, agonized groan and then tosses off her blankets, casting Nathan into darkness as he's smothered beneath them. "I'm taking a shower."

It's completely stupid and, like, literally insane and also just plain weird but, like — after a week, the ring thing works?

It doesn’t even make sense, since Naomi — who may have actually been abducted by aliens and replaced by a fucking pod person, for all Nathan knows and suspects — doesn't seem to have actually spilled to anyone that Nathan and Chester are friends with benefits, but maybe just putting the thought out there into the universe was enough anyway.

There's this kid named Gene who Nathan kind of knows in an abstract way through Cooper, who is kind of a skater, but is also on the debate team. Nathan had P.E. with him freshman year, and the main and lasting impression of him that Nathan can pull up is that even back then, Gene had strong, hairy legs that made Nathan try really hard not to get a boner over, with varying results which helped set Nathan down the long and winding road of acknowledging and indulging his bisexuality.

Gene, who apparently took the time to go through Nathan's Instagram this morning and liked every single fucking post.

"Do you think he wants to, like, murder me?" Nathan's grinning down at his phone, eyebrows raised into his hairline. His right thumb is worrying the ring, rolling it up and down the skin of his finger. "Like, this is pure psycho behavior right?"

"What are we talking about?" Chester drops down next to him, sunglasses balanced low on his nose.

"Nothing," Nathan says, and hits the button on the side of his phone, the screen blacking out.

"Wow." Chester calmly takes his glasses off and hooks them on the low-v of his sweater. "That wasn't sketchy as fuck or anything."

"It's stupid." Nathan smiles at him, still a little bit thrown from Naomi's complete and fucking uncalled-for ambush on him last week, and desperately trying to keep it from showing whenever Chester is around. "I'm being stupid."

And he is. He taps his phone again, face unlocking the screen and opening right up to his activity page. "I think this kid is into me? This morning he liked, like, literally every photo I have ever taken, even the shit back when we were all doing the dumb try-hard white borders."

"Must be love," Riley chimes in from Nathan's other side.

"Wow," Chester says, voice flat in a way that Nathan is sure means he's rolling his eyes at Nathan checking the stats of his socials and noticing this pattern to begin with. "Mr. Popular."

"Shut up," Nathan says, but he's smiling. He taps Gene's username and stalks his photos, something he's done a good three times already this morning.

Gene's cute in a like, kinda dorky way, but also like, really fucking hot with his blond hair that touches down to his chin and long, long legs, dusted with all that near-translucent hair that still makes something in Nathan's lizard brain sit up and take notice.

He leans towards Chester, still looking down at the screen, angling it so Chester can see, and asks, "He's like cute, right? In a like, corn-fed, definitely gives sloppy head and loves every second of it way, right?"

"I can see where your priorities are," Riley says, laughing.

Nathan's eyes dart up, shifting between her ironic smile and Chester's unimpressed everything, and he flashes them a quick smile, because he knows he's being rediculous. "Shut up." He looks back down at his phone again, chewing on his lip. "Should I DM him? Liking a billion posts has to be a cry for attention, right? This is basically, absolutely, like, high school cruising, right?"

"Couldn't hurt?" Greta offers.

"I gotta check in with some of the guys from the polo team before first period," Chester says, standing up. "I'll see you guys later."

A chorus of laters follow him, Nathan's coming a little bit delayed. He's tapped the message button and has realized that he has absolutely no idea what to say.

"Nathan."

He types out 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 before deciding that it's a bit too vague, and erases all of it. Maybe he should just like all of Gene's photos back, so that the ball is in his court again. 𝘴𝘰 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘳 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨? 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘦 is a little bit better, but he still can't tell if it's too much. Maybe he should, like, wait, just so that it doesn't come across like he actually is the sort of loser to notice when someone likes all of his shit.

He wishes that Chester was still here to be his tiebreaker. Maybe he should run it by Cooper, since they’re basically the same guy, except Gene is blond and apparently likes dick.

"Nathan."

He blinks, turning to look at Greta. "Sorry, what?"

"You wanna hang out?"

Nathan has been obsessing over this stupid Instagram shit all day, so he absolutely does. "Fucking bless you," he says, and means it. "What do you wanna do? I'm up for literally anything."

And the thing is — Nathan's, like, pretty fucking keyed-up? He's spent all day staring at way too many fucking photos of Gene shirtless and skateboarding, or surfing, because that's apparently something he does too, and just — the dude never fucking wears pants, okay, and Nathan didn't know he was such a fucking deviant freak to find knees sexy, but that's apparently something he has to live with knowing about himself now.

There's also the weird allure to the pure fucking concept that someone out there actually, like, likes him or whatever.

The thought of going home and spending the rest of the day continuing to obsess over this sounds like the worst thing he could possibly do. He's horny, and giving his body over to Chester is exactly what the doctor would fucking prescribe, if his doctor wasn't also a member of his mom's church and insanely uptight about pre-marital sex and shit.

Chester hums. "You wanna, like," he asks, "get something to eat and then see a movie?"

Nathan laughs. "That sounds like a date."

And then, because today couldn't get any fucking weirder, Nathan watches as Chester sort of, like, shuts down? Right in front of him, the easy and open look on his face gone. "Would it be so bad if it was?"

"Uh." Nathan really doesn't know what to say to that. "What's going on here? I'm, like,” he forces out a quick laugh, “super fucking confused?"

"You know what?" Chester shakes his head and heads towards the parking lot. "Nevermind, forget it."

"Chester!" Nathan chases after him, tripping over his feet a bit. "Wait, c'mon." Chester's got a longer stride than him, and he's in the car before Nathan's actually caught up, so Nathan's only real option is to lay across the hood of his car.

"Oh my god," Chester groans out each word, but he doesn't, like, start the engine or try to run Nathan over or anything either. "You are so annoying!"

They park where Border's used to be, the mall that it anchored long since having dried up. The movie theatre is just about the only thing still in business, even though all it ever plays are the last-call screenings of movies that have been out forever.

Chester turns off the engine and the silence is actual fucking agony. Like, military-grade levels of torture that Nathan cracks under pretty much immediately.

"Naomi thinks we're dating," he confesses, and then makes a face because why in the hell would he even bring that up, but he's said it now, so he may as well just get it all out. "Which is so fucking insane. I don't get why the straights, like, always have to assume that kind of stuff? It's completely fucking cringe."

His wonders hang between them for a second.

"So us dating is a joke."

The flat tone is back in Chester's voice and Nathan hates when he does this, when Nathan has no idea what in the hell the correct answer is. It’s like Chester is setting him up to fail some fucking test Nathan didn’t even know he was meant to study for.

"No," he says, letting some of his anger leak into his tone. "I didn't say that."

"I'm good enough to fuck," and the word has never sounded so gross and bad as how Chester's saying it right now, not even when his mom goes on one of her rants, "but not —"

"Oh my god, what? No, stop, like — shut up." Nathan turns on the bench until he's staring at Chester. "The whole fucking world knows that I would be so lucky to date you! But we had a whole conversation where you," he points at Chester, and actually gets the nerve up to poke him in the chest. "You said that we were never gonna happen, and I'm like, actually, genuinely, not even lying when I say I am completely fine with that."

Nathan pushes his bangs out of his eyes and shakes his head, unable to look at Chester anymore, staring at the empty parking lot surrounding them. "And you're, like, so far out of my league it's crazy, and I know that it's weird that we're even fucking friends, because I am painfully aware that I am just, really fucking awkward, and cringe, and like, damaged from my fucking parents and their bullshit. So the whole benefits part? Amazing! But, like," he looks down to the footwell, flexing his feet in his shoes. "The sex is good, right? But it's just, like, good. So why would you want to date me, I guess, is the fucking point it has taken me twenty years to arrive at, Jesus."

And then there's silence, which sounds so much louder than it had before now that Nathan's just shown his whole ass to fill it. He feels hysterical and a little bit like he might cry. He blinks hard a few times.

"You have to say something now," he begs. "Like, seriously."

Chester's hands are balled up into little fists at his lap, and he's staring out the window. "The sex is good," he says, eventually, and it's a totally normal thing to say in reply, sure, but there's this way that he's said good like he means, well —

An awkward laugh bubbles out of Nathan's throat, because even the thought is kind of wild. "Is it that good?"

"I'm not a fucking slut, okay," Chester says, like that's any sort of answer at all, or even close to what Nathan was asking. "But like — yes? It's amazing? Are we existing in two completely fucking different realities?"

Nathan isn't quite sure what to do with the idea, with the fucking concept: that he and amazing sex can exist within the same sentence. "And," Nathan’s struggling to get the words out, "it's — because of me?"

"Are you, like, fishing for compliments right now?" Chester demands. "Seriously?"

"No!" he says, instinctually, but then, "Wait, yes? Are you kidding me? Sex with me is so good that you what?" And he doesn't even want to say it, because it's so completely fucking ridiculous. "Caught fee—"

"This is why I didn’t want to say anything!" Chester runs his nails over the short grain of his hair, shaking his head. "I don't fucking know! I don't like that you're talking to that Instagram fuckboy. I'm not into, like, poly - for myself, obviously. No shade to those who love that way, but no, I'm not thrilled that you may end up with a boyfriend, which is so stupid because I'm not your boyfriend."

He snorts with, like, actual disgust.

"And I know what I said, but, like, that was before — I didn’t think we had like," Chester makes a frustrated noise and finally looks at Nathan, looks him dead in the eyes and Nathan's heart jumps right to his throat because Chester is blushing and he's pissed off and he's amazing and beautiful and he's saying, "romantic chemistry," like it's the dumbest thing in the world. "Or whatever, but now I know we sure as fuck do, and you just think it's good. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that, Nathan?”

"I wouldn't get together with him if it bothered you," Nathan says, earnestly, because that's just about the only part of this that he can comment on without, like, his brain melting. "Our friendship means way too much to me to lose over some dick"

"Okay, but me wanting exclusive access to your dick, and your being willing to promise me that? It isn't anything that looks like a friendship."

"…so are we dating?" It doesn't seem fucking possible, not least because it means that Naomi — he can't even fucking think it.

"You haven’t asked me yet."

And despite it all, despite that Nathan was fine with him and Chester never being a thing just ten fucking minutes ago, the request is on Nathan's tongue before Chester's even finished speaking.

But there's moving on and there's moving on, and if Nathan is being honest, there isn’t a version of him that would ever turn Chester down, and that's really fucking scary to think, because what if it doesn't work out?

What if they've already found the best form their relationship can take, and the minute that Chester has him, he doesn’t want Nathan anymore?

Nathan sits up straighter and licks his lips. He's staring right into Chester's eyes when he says, "I think, technically, you're supposed to ask me."

Chester boggles at him, actual full-on, mouth-open befuddlement for a solid ten seconds before a smile takes over the shocked gape of his mouth. "Now?" he demands, voice echoing through the parking lot. "Now you wanna grow a backbone?"

Nathan shrugs, and feels a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

"No." Chester's confidence comes racing back and he tips his head up, using the height he has on Nathan even when they're both sitting down to stare at Nathan down his nose. "I'm so gonna make you ask me first."

Nathan smiles outright. "If you say so."