Got No Heart to Break

[Pippi]

“Well, I mean…”

Aurelien tried to shrug, and he felt like he’d done the movements mostly correct, even though it felt like he was carrying several heavy lead weights on his shoulders, and his hands didn’t really seem to want to behave. Sure, he could understand why Myles would think that way, but he was a dreadful liar at the best of times, and even worse when he was all loosened up through alcohol. Besides, what did he have to gain from lying? It had been pretty obvious he’d been totally up for Myles’ advances, considering he’d been seconds away from pulling his shirt off.

“Evidet… Evideh… Clearly he’s not, y’know?”

Nailed it.

“But like… things are working out real good, yeah? I’m real happy and he’s real happy and it’s real… real good, and stuff. There’s a lotta shit to talk about cause he’s never uh… never been in a relationship with a dude before but that’s what I’m here for, I’m here to…”

Aurelien paused, searching for the word that had utterly vanished from his mind at the worst possible moment. He stared at the ground, expecting it to give him some sort of answer. There was a stain there. Kinda gross, actually. He’d expected Forrest’s dads to keep better care of their house.

Oh. Wait. That was his own drink spillage. Whoops.

“Talk,” Aurelien finally said, after about six seconds of nothing. “I’m here to talk and shit, make sure Dante’s like… super comfortable and happy and shit, and…”

Aurelien swayed slightly again.

“Did you say you’d seen him here tonight?”

[backslash]

"No," Myles said tartly, "I haven't." And if he did happen to run into Dante after this, Myles was going to give him the evil eye like he wouldn't believe.

He left the conversation there for a long moment, tense silence stretching between them like a taut rubber band as he and Aurelien both looked vaguely-at-but-not-really-at each other, until the band finally snapped.

"This party is stupid!" Myles snatched a pillow up off the bed and hurled it against the wall, where it collided with a soft, unsatisfying thump and slid sadly to the floor. They both looked at it for another few seconds. Myles thought about throwing another.

[Pippi]

“Oh,” Aurelien did not say. Like, he’d wanted to say it and all, and he’d opened his mouth and formed it into the right shape to say the word, but nothing had actually come out. Maybe the words had gotten stuck somewhere, caught in the stick flood of alcohol that was currently filling his body. That was probably for the best, really. Myles might throw something else at him if he said anything more.

Then again, it wasn’t as though that would be too damaging if he did. The pillow had collided with the wall with a very very soft ‘flump’ noise, and hit the floor with an even less impressive sound, and now Aurelien was looking down at it, trying desperately not to laugh. Odds were the laugh would just get stuck in his throat as well, which was definitely for the best. That’d probably push Myles from ‘pillow throwing’ to ‘grabbing the nearest object and beating Aurelien to death with it’.

A large part of Aurelien also wanted to, like… grab something off of the desk and hurl it at the wall instead, show Myles how it was done. But smashing a lamp into millions of pieces and grinning like an idiot would get him the ire of both Myles and Forrest, so he tried his best to surpress the primal urge to do so.

It was real, real tempting…

“I’m just gonna, like…” Aurelien finger-gunned towards the door, taking a shifty step closer to it. “Go back downstairs, now. ‘n stuff.”

[Fenris]

Dante didn't drink. Seriously. Like, he'd had a couple of sips here and there cause people insisted and he was bad at saying no, but that hadn't affected him. He didn't mind the taste as much as a lot of people seemed to, but he wasn't a huge fan, either. Mostly he was too busy worrying about how disappointed his parents would be to drink more. Like, he had plenty of fun at parties without it, so it wasn't like he was missing out, right? He didn't need it or anything.

Somehow, since he'd gotten to Forrest's house, three different people had gotten him to chug three different beers.

So that was how he'd gotten here.

>> Dante Valerio continued from I'M A SHARK, I'M A SHAAARK, SUCK MY DIIIIICK, I'M A SHAAARK

He knew Aurelien was here somewhere when he'd showed up, but he figured he'd run into him eventually. There were plenty of friends here, plenty of people to talk to or dance with, plenty of food (he'd gone out of his way to thank Regina for the snacks, pretty easy to tell her handiwork), and like, he still wasn't really sure if him and Aurelien were a Thing, so maybe it'd be overdoing it to expect him to want to spend the party with him, anyway. He had his own friends. Among other things. Lion liked to tell stories, and Dante found the whole casual hookup thing kinda... weird and unappealing, but hey, whatever made Lion happy was a good thing. They hadn't worked out rules or boundaries or commitment or anything yet and who was he to tell Lion what to do? He wasn't really sure he could deliver on that front, now or maybe ever, so he'd be the dick for keeping Lion away. Right?

He thought that when he was sober, anyway. Every drink he'd had had faded his thoughts a little bit more and at this point Aurelien Valter was officially The Most Important Thing. Like, he had to find him. And... what? Do what? He didn't know. Just had to find him. He was here somewhere, right?

He wasn't sure how drunk he was, for lack of experience. He was walking fine. Words were mostly coming out fine. His brain was just kinda hazy. He lost his balance a little on the stairs, though, so maybe forget the walking fine part. Was three beers a lot? He'd seen guys drink a lot more. Maybe he wasn't even drunk. Whoa, the stairs were steep. He wasn't really sure why he was going upstairs but it was happening now he guessed. Probably cause Aurelien wasn't downstairs. Aurelien! He was here somewhere. Upstairs maybe. Not downstairs.

There were some people in the halls who were not Aurelien and there were a bunch of doors. He probably shouldn't go in those doors. Well, he tried one, cause he wasn't thinking real hard, but it was locked. So probably the other doors were also locked, maybe. There were a lot of doors, huh? This place was really big. He kind of forgot what he was doing and spaced out for a minute.

Then he heard a voice. Coming from behind one of the doors.

He followed his ears to the voice, because it sounded like an Aurelien voice, which was the voice he wanted. He heard it again. That was him, right? He couldn't make out what he was saying through the door but it sounded like him. What was he doing up here? Who was he talking to? Oh shit, was he actually... huh. Maybe Dante shouldn't interrupt, that would be shitty, right?

He opened the door anyway, because his thoughts weren't really keeping up with his body, and there was Aurelien! And there was... huh.

"Uh, hey. Interruptin' anything?"

[Pippi]

For one brief, insanely exciting moment, Aurelien thought that his finger guns had managed to magically open the door. Was this his superhero origin story? Was this how he discovered he had super powers? It was a kinda lame way of finding it all out, and the power to open doors with a gesture wasn’t the greatest super power in the world, but you know who else at George Hunter had a super power at all? Nobody!

So he was a little disappointed to see that, no, it had just been somebody else opening the door from the other side. There went all his dreams of superhero derring-do. He couldn’t be too upset for too long, though, because this whiplash of emotions wasn’t stopping any time soon. He recognised the person standing in the doorway. Dante Valerio. Dante.

…

Oh, shit, it was Dante!

A massive grin flooded onto Aurelien’s face, as he took a couple of tentative, staggering steps towards his sort-of-boyfriend. He knew that he was somewhere at the party! And here he was! Turns out the whole ‘wait in a room for long enough and maybe Dante will come find him’ plan worked wonders!

God, this had taken a serious upswing in the past five seconds. And, man, Dante looked really, really cute right now, all slightly flushed and hair messed up.

Aurelien went into autopilot, as he moved towards Dante, wrapping one arm around his waist, tangling the other into his hair, and, in a carbon copy of Myles’ actions earlier, kissing him on the mouth.

[Fenris]

(credit to kotorikun for the art and gunnerkrigg court for the inspiration!)

[backslash]

Myles, on the other hand, was not.

Unfortunately, he had also not developed superpowers in the past couple of minutes, so his stare did not cause Aurelien and Dante to burst into flames. Instead they just kept standing there. And kissing. Right in front of him. Dante was supposed to be into girls, and Aurelien was supposed to be into Myles, but apparently this was happening now.

"God, whatever!" He burst out, and then he sprang up from the bed, shoved past the two of them, and stormed out into the hall. Nobody followed him out to apologize.

Honestly, nobody in this stupid school had any sort of decency anymore.

((Myles Roux continued in The History of Wrong Guys))

[Pippi]

… Whoops.

So, Myles probably wasn’t gonna be talking to him for the next month or so. Oh well. It was no skin off his nose, really. Now that Dante was here, and now that Aurelien had remembered that, oh yeah, he was lucky enough to be dating this beautiful man, the best thing Myles had going for him was long gone. Now, he was just another one of Ivy’s goons, and that was a group that Aurelien had no interest in hanging out with.

Aurelien let out a little drunken giggle, gently breaking away from Dante and gazing into his eyes. God, but he had gorgeous eyes. They were… They were… Well, Aurelien couldn’t really tell what colour they were! They were kinda shifting between colours in his fuzzyvision, the low lighting of the room turning them from green to grey to blue and back again. But they were pretty. That was what mattered.

“Missed you,” Aurelien said, softly, smiling at Dante. He quickly glanced down at the carpet to his right.

“You wanna go back downstairs with the rest of the party? ‘s kinda gross in here. Someone spilled drink all over the carpet.”

He looked back at Dante, tilting his head slightly, smiling again.

“Or we could stay here by ourselves for a little longer…”

[Fenris]

"Yeah."

Yeah what???

Something. Yeah something. Yeah Aurelien! Aurelien was here. Like, in front of him. Someone else had been here too, right? He recognized him kinda, didn't know his name though. Something with an M? Didn't matter, cause Aurelien didn't start with M, and Aurelien was... here. Like, here! In front of him. Wow, his thoughts weren't doing good. They were all circle-y. But that was okay, because Aurelien was... wait.

He lost his barely coherent train of thought when he met Aurelien's eyes. They were colors. Possibly multiple of those. Colors. He wanted to kiss them kind of but that would be weird. He could just kiss his lips some more instead. They'd done a lot of that already, but he was pretty sure he could keep doing it forever and at no point would he feel compelled to stop.

That was kind of weird, though.

Dante did like kissing, like, in general. He didn't usually go for it himself but if he was on a date and a girl kissed him hey, why not, it was kinda fun and he didn't want to disappoint, anyway. He'd had to push away a few girls who'd tried to go a bit further, because... well, because a bunch of reasons. Because he shouldn't, because he never had, but most because he just didn't want to. Because all he felt when a girl pushed in too close or tried to wiggle her hand into his pants was super, super uncomfortable. Once or twice they'd been kind of offended, too, but he didn't know what to tell them. Because the kissing was nice, but it was just... nice. It was comfortable, and felt kind of good, and that was all it was.

It didn't set him on fire. It didn't make him want to hold on and never let go.

They should probably get back to the party, maybe. Halfway through that thought he'd already pulled Aurelien in, their lips pressed back together, and the rest of the party? Was there a rest of the party? Wasn't this all there was? It was all there needed to be, anyway.

[Pippi]

Aurelien had always enjoyed making out with Myles. Well, obviously. It was what kept on drawing him back in, despite all the negative associations the boy had and despite all of his senses screaming at him not to. It was exciting, more than anything, in the same way he flung himself off of cliffs and out of planes; it got his heart racing, making him feel electric and indestructible and good.

But in the end, that was all it had going for it. It was exciting, an exhilarating prelude to whatever he and Myles got up to next, depending on where they were and how much time they had to spare. It could have been any cute boy with his hand up Aurelien’s shirt, and the situation wouldn’t have changed much.

This, on the other hand, was special. It wasn’t something he could remember feeling with any other guy he’d kissed, wasn’t just an encounter in an out-of-the-way bedroom at a party. It could still, of course, be a prelude to something else, but if it wasn’t, and he just spent the rest of the night, or the week, or his life kissing Dante… he wouldn’t mind that in the slightest.

Right here, right now, was warm, and intimate, and the only place Aurelien wanted to be.

For whatever reason, the realisation that Myles had left the room flashed into his head, and he gently broke away from Dante again, nudging the door closed with his foot, before moving back in and pressing his lips against his with a drunken giggle. There. Now the party was miles away, everything Aurelien had experience until now just a distant memory.

Except for wanting to take his shirt off. That desire was very much still there.

[Fenris]

So, uh...

Now what?

No, like, seriously. Now what?

This sort of thing was pretty much the opposite of Dante's forte. Dante was the master of the walk in the park, the dinner date, the chaste kiss at the door. It was the only reason his reputation was... pretty good, he thought? He was pretty sure? At the very least no one thought he was threatening, and hopefully not creepy, either. That wasn't why he acted the way he did, though it was a side-effect he couldn't be upset about. He acted the way he did because it was how he wanted to act. He wanted to go on dates with pretty girls because they deserved to be treated nicely, and spending that time made him happy, and it seemed to make them happy too, and that was it! There wasn't anything else. And on the rare occasion someone wanted more, it didn't make him feel any kind of way besides embarrassed and confused.

And he was plenty confused now, yeah. Not really embarrassed, though. Should he be? His face felt hot, but not for that reason.

He wasn't totally naive or anything. He was an 18-year-old dude and it would've been hard to exist for this long without having some vague ideas about Sex Stuff even if that stuff seemed forever weird and irrelevant and kinda off-putting to him. Like, he'd heard stories. He had friends that liked to talk at length about this sort of thing. Aurelien wasn't one of them, often. Sometimes, but not often.

Aurelien, who was right here, in front of him. Who he wanted to kiss until he ran out of oxygen. Who was suddenly wearing way too many clothes. That Aurelien.

That! That right there. That was the sort of thing that was popping into his head, and he absolutely did not know how to deal with it. He pulled back, a little bit, but his hands were on Aurelien's shoulders, and maybe his grip was a little too strong, and his breathing was a little too heavy. He didn't know what the hell any part of his body was doing right now, actually. He'd lost control of it a while back.

"I, uh, you... Uh."

He was practically panting, actually. Was that normal?

"I want..."

His mouth was back on Aurelien's. His hand was suddenly under Aurelien's shirt. That was better than words.

[Pippi]

He’d done these steps before, just like with Myles. These actions, so very familiar, as easy as walking and breathing; his mouth pressed against Dante’s, his hand eagerly slipping under the other boy’s shirt, mirroring Dante’s own. There had always been something slightly routine, though, with Myles and with all his other flings and one-night stands; taking the exact same steps, reading through the exact same words, no matter the occasion, no matter the guy.

God, but this was different, so very, exhilaratingly different. He wanted to go off script, hell, to throw the entire script away, and just let his body tell him exactly what to do. The party was far, far away, behind closed doors, out of sight and out of mind, and it might as well not have existed. All he cared about was here and now. All he wanted was Dante.

But a moment of clarity caused Aurelien to break away, hand trailing down Dante’s chest, fingers tracing down his body.

Did Dante feel the same way?

He was, like, 90% sure he did. His actions thus far were telling him yes, and his body, oh, his body was definitely telling him he wanted it, but. But but but. That didn’t mean anything until he got verbal, 100% bona fide confirmation. They’d talked about this general sort of thing before. Dante knew Aurelien was interested in sex. And Aurelien knew that Dante was… really kinda not.

He gazed into his sort-of-boyfriend’s eyes. God, he was fucking hot. There wasn’t anything more he wanted to do than to start kissing him again and let his hands wander all over his body. But he had to be certain, first. He was in love with his boy. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt him by pushing him into something he didn’t wanna do.

“Hey…” Aurelien murmured. His voice was husky and low. “You definitely want this, right?”

[Fenris]

They were kissing, and then they were touching, and then they were not doing either of those things, which was a big ol ????? as far as Dante was concerned. Why were they stopping? Every remotely questioning thought had just gone right out of his head the moment they'd starting kissing again. But Aurelien had pulled back, and when he opened his mouth to speak, Dante understood.

He was such a good guy. Always. Dante couldn't help but smile.

He was pretty sure he knew what he wanted, though, so he pulled off his shirt and tossed it across the room.

And then he paired that with a goofy grin and a thumbs up, just in case he wasn't clear enough.

They'd figure it out from there, right? Yeah, yeah they would. At least for tonight, and tonight was all that mattered.

They could figure out the rest in the morning.

>> Dante Valerio continued elsewhere...

[Pippi]

Yeah.

Yeah that, uh.

Yeah that was a good answer.

Aurelien took a good few seconds to just drink in the sight in front of him, admiring every inch of Dante’s shirtless body, a lopsided grin spread across his face. It was good. God, it was very very good. Aurelien moved closer to him again, running his hands down his body.

Still wasn’t enough.

Aurelien slipped his own shirt off, flinging it across the room, watching it land with a ‘flump’ noise in front of the door. Finally. He’d been meaning to do that all evening, although doing it now felt… right. He smiled, for a brief moment, before he moved in, tangling his hand into Dante’s hair and kissing him again, pressing his body against Dante’s.

There was no lock on the door, as far as he could tell, and far away in his mind, the thought that someone could just stumble into the room uninvited drifted through his head. There was enough people at the party for there to be decent odds of that happening. But he didn’t care. He couldn’t find himself caring in the slightest. Nothing but this little moment of space and time mattered.

He wanted Dante, very badly.