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It’s entirely possible that they let you move in with them because they feel sorry for you at this point, and that’s irksome, but you can’t afford to be picky. Hell, you can barely afford to get anything off the value menu at McDonald’s, so maybe this situation isn’t ideal, but it’s something.
You try to remind yourself of this when you can hear them going at it at two in the morning.
Billy will be in a better mood in the morning, you think, and splitting the rent three ways means it’s bearable.
Their headboard will inevitably slam against the wall their bedroom shares with yours and you–you’ll just turn up the volume on your laptop. Things could be worse.
.
You make the mistake of getting up at a normal time one morning and see them being lovey dovey before Billy heads to class. They’re all stupid and murmuring and smiling at one another like they have some big secret. It’s almost enough to make you barf all over the kitchen, but that would just make more work for yourself so you hold it in, somehow.
The agreement is that as long as you keep the place clean and find a job you don’t have to pay rent for the first six months. The first stipulation's basically a godsend, considering that while you loathe cleaning anything, it doesn’t even take you five minutes to do.
The second part is harder. You’ve applied all over the city, literally all over because it’s not like you have to worry about travel distance in any capacity, but nowhere is hiring. Either that or they aren’t into roguishly handsome guys with a mysterious past who never graduated from high school. You choose to believe nowhere is hiring, it just makes more sense.
Teddy’s the one who notices the pizza place down the street is looking for a delivery guy.
You have to wear a stupid hat and pretend you understand Italian, and you can’t even run fast (you try it once, the pizza is a casualty, may it rest in peace), but it’s decent pay plus tips.
Billy might have a boyfriend, but he doesn’t have a job, and he definitely doesn’t have one where he gets free dinner. It might not be a win, but at the very least it means you’re a contender.
.
By the time you wake up most days Teddy’s usually leaving for his internship at that what’s-it-called.
“Car dealership,” Teddy sighs, sounding all affably perturbed or whatever. You’re pretty sure that’s not even possible, so it’s probably what he is.
“Right,” you say, blinking heavily, “where you...”
There’s a long pause.
“Fix cars,” he finally says, eyebrows raised.
“Makes sense.”
He’ll be gone for the afternoon and half the evening, and Billy has only about three billion classes so he’s usually gone for most of the day too. He calls it ‘studying, Tommy, studying,’ you call it sitting in the library alone and avoiding social interaction.
Teddy probably sees Billy’s penchant for being a hermit as a cute personality quirk. Sometimes you think you’re the only one who realizes that while it might lead him to being brilliant and becoming a world-renowned something, it will come at the cost of ever experiencing things like parties or that feeling where you get really drunk and puke on someone and just don’t care.
Whatever, you do it enough for the both of you.
Teddy heads out with a wave and you grin at him as he leaves.
It fades when the door closes and you’re reminded, as always, how quiet it is–being alone.
.
You don’t do it on purpose, it just sort of happens, leaning over Teddy’s shoulder with your chest flush to his back, annoying him with how much faster you can read any given newspaper article than he can. You don’t even really realize you’re doing it until he elbows you in the stomach for laughing too hard at his misfortune.
You keep on doing it, knock his hands out of the way and trace underneath lines of print that don’t matter, enjoying the feeling of someone so close.
It doesn’t feel as bad as it should.
.
Some movie’s on, you’re not really paying attention. Somebody died but it wasn’t all blood and guts, just drama and tears and a lot of yellow filters. It’s so boring.
Billy’s enraptured because he’s got a hard on for this sort of stuff, probably trying to find a message in the whole thing, bless him for trying. He keeps making little noises of discontent, like he thinks every scene is something that actually happened. It’s kind of gross, but he didn’t kill you when he found out you ate all the pizza rolls, so you’ll give him a pass.
Teddy, meanwhile, is doing the whole thing where he’s politely pretending to be interested but is definitely somewhere else entirely, probably thinking about finances or how he has no family or what his next step is in his plan to achieve world peace.
It’s nice, you guess, how they have different interests and do their own things, but in the end put up with shit like movies where nothing blows up for each other. You’re not a romantic, but you figure that’s probably true love.
The credits roll and Teddy’s asleep, head tipped over the back of the couch and mouth breathing. Billy’s looking at him like he can’t believe it, but also like whole thing is sort of endearing, and that’s when it hits you that you’ve been looking at the both of them in the same way for the past month or so.
You smile at Billy as lecherously as you can so he rolls his eyes and sticks his tongue out at you like a kid in middle school might. It makes you feel a little better.
You leave the room as quietly as you can, not watching the way Billy goes to wake up Teddy with a kiss.
.
There’s a spot on your bed where the sunlight streaming through the window hits perfectly during the afternoon, and sometimes when you lay in it you feel the absence of another person a little less keenly.
.
It’s not like you don’t have other friends or other interests. It’s just–
They usually forget to text you back, because they have better things to do. Plans with them fall through, because they have better people to hang out with. You pick up more shifts at work, because you ostensibly need the money and you don’t have any more lies to tell yourself about how you’ll fill up the free time.
You grin and bear it, it’s cool.
It’s cool, guys, you’ll just stay at home.
You could be seeing the world, the possibilities are endless, but you’ll just stay at home.
.
Kate comes over and she’s all whirlwind and jetsetter, sunglasses on top of glossy hair and at least ten bags on her arms, pushing them at you and whistling as she looks around the apartment.
“It’s pretty nice,” she says, running two fingers along the breakfast bar. “Did you just dust or something?”
“I dust every day,” you inform her. She looks at you in disbelief, and you shrug. “They promised me free rent for half a year if I cleaned and found a job. It doesn’t take me long, even if it’s not the funnest thing in the world. I don’t mind it as much as I thought I would.”
“Tommy Shepherd, housewife,” she proclaims. You make a gagging motion and she laughs. God, you missed her. You want to hug her, but you just peer into one of the bags instead. “It’s just some stuff from France. I thought you guys might need some housewarming things, even if it is a little late. I know it’s not really your thing, but they call them necessities for a reason.”
“Yeah,” you say, sitting in one of the stools by the breakfast bar, “couture salt and pepper shakers are definitely important. I’m not sure how we’ve made it this long without them.”
She scrunches up her nose at you as she sits next to you.
“I got Eli some stuff too, I’m going to fly out to see him in a few days.” She pushes around some junk mail, not looking at you. “I feel like I just got home, but I’m barely going to spend any time here before I leave again.”
You bite at one of your nails, go, “Yeah.” If it was anyone else but Kate you’d lash out, but you’ve known her so long that you know she has her own problems, and they go well beyond what a lot of people probably think. You don’t doubt that she’s exhausted.
“What about you, though?” She raises her eyebrows and leans forward. “Wasn’t there that girl Lisa, or am I making up stuff again?”
“Christ, I haven’t talked to Lisa in, like, two years,” you say, not looking her in the eye. This is so stupid. You want to go back to talking about salt and pepper shakers.
“Well excuse me for not knowing everything about Mr. Mysterious.” She kicks at your leg. “Look, I know you hate this shit, and I was gonna ask Billy, but I have tickets to some musical tomorrow night. Wanna be my date?”
Eugh. Musicals.
“We can go out drinking after and make fun of what people are wearing,” she adds.
You smirk.
“I’m in.”
.
You get home at three in the morning, drunk and laughing with tears in your eyes.
“Have fun?” Teddy asks, and he’s in the kitchen half-dressed and standing in front of the fridge. God, he’s so...Teddy. You think he’s smiling, but it’s hard to tell in the dark.
“Yeah, I did, actually.” Maybe it’s not the dark, because you can’t tell if you’re smiling or not either. You aren’t sure, actually, why your face feels so hot.
“Are you okay, Tommy?” He sounds concerned now, and it’s a lot darker now, so you think that maybe he let the fridge door close. You feel warm and safe all of a sudden, and that’s Teddy hugging you, holding you close and not saying anything and you can’t breathe.
You think you might be crying.
It takes a few minutes before you’re able to say, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he asks.
You can’t think of an answer.
.
As far as you can tell Teddy doesn’t tell Billy anything. He seems to worry about you, but you shrug his hand off your shoulder whenever he puts it there and smile whenever you can. It probably doesn’t fool him, and you definitely aren’t fooling yourself, but you’ve been pretending things are okay for a while now and you’ve gotten pretty good at it.
.
It takes a full month for you to start feeling better. A whole month spent mostly holed up in your room or at work, letting your sleep schedule become almost fully nocturnal. A month of feeling listless and aimless, going through motions rather than working towards anything concrete.
Truth be told, it’s a pretty awful month, one you’d rather forget because it reminds you and everyone else that you aren’t quite as indestructible as you want to seem.
But whatever, it’s over, you’re remembering that you could run to Romania if you want to, and that you always have an open invitation to kick some ass downtown if you’re feeling up to wearing spandex.
These are good thoughts, you decide as you venture out of your room before three in the afternoon for the first time in weeks. You stretch your arms over your head and think that maybe you will go out tonight. You have the day off and it’s been a while. You can’t remember if Kate’s in town, but working with her is always nice, and you don’t think she’d say no.
A new day is dawning, you might make plans with another human being, there’s mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer, and–and Billy’s leaning over the breakfast bar looking like he wants to ask you something.
You take the top off the carton of ice cream and stick a spoon in it. He makes a face.
“What?” you ask, starting to stuff your face.
“I’m having second thoughts,” he says, squinting at you.
“Uhuh, sure, I’m just going to take this in my room then.”
“No, wait, ugh.” He reaches all the way across the breakfast bar to grab the sleeve of your sweatshirt. Billy exerting that kind of energy to make you stay means that he probably has something he wants to say.
“I’m going to eat five spoonfuls of this and then I’m taking it to my room,” you tell him, digging in once more.
“You’re impossible,” he groans. You smile at him around a mouthful of ice cream. “Fine, whatever, but this isn’t easy. I told Teddy he should ask.” He makes a huffing sort of noise and pushes his hair out of his face.
“Jus’ get on with it,” you say, feeling some ice cream drip out of the side of your mouth.
He sort of looks like he wants to punch you.
“Look, Teddy and I were thinking that maybe if you weren’t busy you might want to join us later,” he says, slowly, his eyes on the ice cream carton. You go to ask him what he means, but notice the way he’s chewing at the inside of his mouth. That means he has more to say. “Like...have sex with us.”
Your next spoonful of ice cream is halfway to your mouth. One of the chocolate chips falls onto the counter.
You say, “Oh.”
“I mean,” he says, his cheeks pale pink, “if you want. We talked about it a lot. I mean, a lot. And it would be–not just a one time thing. It would be...more than that.”
“Are you, like,” you pause, trying to absorb this as ice cream melts onto your hand, “asking me out?”
“I don’t know.” Billy sounds more than a little distressed. “I guess we both are? And Teddy, he said, you know, we could all talk about it first if you want to, but this is the first night in a while where you haven’t had to work. So we just thought, maybe–”
“I’d want to fuck both of you?” you ask. The stupid chocolate chip has already melted.
“Or,” he says, looking over your shoulder deliberately, “get fucked by both of us.”
You choke on the ice cream in your mouth and about half of it spews out of your mouth onto the counter.
“I’m still having second thoughts,” Billy says, flatly, but you can tell he’s trying not to smile.
“Is there, like, a dress code, or something?” You watch the ice cream in the carton melt, intensely.
“If you show up in a tux the deal’s off, Tommy.” He says this like it’s something you might actually do, and to be fair it doesn’t sound that far off. “Teddy’s napping for another hour or so, he figured you’d want time to think it over. He’s completely wrong, because I know you'll have a gut reaction either way, but you should still think it over.”
He leaves the kitchen and you stare down at your soupy spoonful of ice cream. You can’t even remember how much you ate.
.
An hour later you find Billy straddling Teddy who’s still very much asleep and you stand in the doorway, unsure. The whole thing is surreal. You’re used to ignoring this aspect of their relationship, and now here you are deciding, after fifty five minutes of staring at the ceiling and five minutes of actual thinking, that you wouldn’t mind joining them.
It’s enough to make you feel sick to your stomach and, conversely, strangely, excited.
“You can come in,” Billy says, just loud enough for you to hear.
You breathe in and, well, if you’re going to do this you might as well do it.
It takes you half a second to be kneeling on the bed next to him, and you feel a little dizzy because it’s the first time you’ve moved that fast in a while, but you’re still able to smile as you lean towards him.
The whole thing is a little weird, kissing him and all. You like the way he leans into it, and how your hand on the back of his head feels, fingers threading through hair that feels like your own. You like how he licks into your mouth without hesitation, tongue against teeth.
In the back your mind he’s your brother and more than that he has a boyfriend, one who’s waking up below the two of you at this very moment.
That instantly makes you feel awkward and you lean back, panting and with a line of spit still tentatively connecting you to Billy who whispers, “Fuck.”
“Way to,” you gasp out between breaths, “read my mind.”
Teddy’s gripping onto Billy’s hips now and pulling him down into a kiss and you don’t know what to do, you’re just watching. Which isn’t inherently bad, but also isn’t exactly what you came here for. Still they’re...nice together. You’ve never really paid that much attention, but you like the way Billy relaxes into Teddy’s touch and leans over him, how they hold each other.
You like the way they kiss, like if they could they’d never stop.
Billy grabs the sleeve of your sweatshirt, second time today, and pulls you towards them as he separates from Teddy.
“Kiss him,” he says.
And Teddy replies, “Okay.”
You are, you realize as Teddy puts his hand at the base of your skull, bringing your lips to his, a little out of your element. They’re so connected it’s almost unsettling. You guess that comes with having been together for so long, but it still freaks you out.
Teddy kisses differently than Billy, more languid and less urgent. The urgency before might’ve been your fault, though, you’re not sure. All you know is Teddy’s biting at your bottom lip and it hurts in a way that makes you writhe a little.
“This is so weird,” Billy’s saying from where he’s moving obscenely on top of Teddy. Seriously, you kind of want to ask him to stop, you shouldn’t be allowed to see this.
“Yeah, well, you’re–” you start, but Billy is pushing you on your back and crawling over you before you can finish.
“You should probably give him a blow job,” Teddy says, sounding far too calm. You don’t turn to look at him because you’re too busy trying to figure out if it’s okay that this suggestion doesn’t bother you. Billy seems to be wrestling with the same decision. “Or I can do it, I’m not that picky.”
“No,” Billy snaps.
“Hey, wait, if Teddy’s better at sucking dick I want him to do it!” you cry, pouting.
“No,” Billy repeats, fumbling with the top of your boxers. “You stupid...dumb idiot, I’m going to do it and you’re going to like it.”
You glance over at Teddy who shrugs, like he’s not really sure you can argue with that. You go to smile back, but gasp instead as Billy lifts up your hips easily and pulls down your boxers roughly. He throws them off the side of the bed and before you can tell him to go fuck himself he’s got your dick in hand and then, God this asshole, he’s licking at the tip.
“It’s not a fucking lollipop, I swear to fuck,” you grit out, and Teddy snorts over to the side.
Billy glares at you and you glare back and then, Christ, he’s got you in his mouth and it’s so much better than it should be. You want to hate it and maybe say something snarky just to be a piece of shit, but you can’t because his tongue moving up the underside of your dick is so good that you can barely think of words to put together into a sentence.
“Hey,” and that’s Teddy to the side, saying, “kiss me again, okay?”
And you do, and it’s almost too much, Billy taking you further into his mouth and Teddy’s tongue against yours, nothing happening at the same pace, but it’s better for it.
You have to stop kissing him when you feel yourself about to come, though, if only so you can go, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and bury your head in the crook of his neck where you can feel him laugh softly.
“Thank god it’s bullshit that you can tell what someone ate from their come,” Billy’s saying, his hands still on your inner thighs. “If I was tasting mint chocolate chip ice cream right now I’d be so pissed.”
“It’s the best,” you mutter into Teddy’s chest. “The best kind of ice cream.”
“My turn,” says Teddy in a voice that’s way too cheery for your taste.
All you manage to do is mumble, “What?”
Teddy’s getting off the bed for some reason that you can’t understand and Billy’s leaning over you again, kissing you. His mouth tastes different now, bitter, and you know why even if you aren’t quite coherent at the moment, and it just makes it better. Arms around his neck, you kiss him like maybe you’re scared you won’t get to do this again.
Someone’s at your back and you almost jump before you remember it’s Teddy. Billy parts from you for a minute to murmur something that you don’t catch, and you whine at the loss of contact. You wish he wouldn’t smile the way he does at that, like he’s got you where he wants you.
For a few minutes you’re just kissing Billy again, and somehow that’s normal, but then you can feel Teddy with his hands on your ass and now you’re nervous. It’s not like you didn’t know this was going to happen, but shit. Just, like, shit.
Billy has his hands on your hair, kissing on your jawline now and Teddy’s like, “You have to relax, okay? The first time isn’t the best already, and it’s not going to help if you’re nervous.”
“Oh, yeah, Teddy,” Billy says against your neck, “telling him it’s not good is totally gonna help him relax.”
You laugh a little, even though your heart’s going about a million beats per minute.
“Shut up.” Teddy reaches over your shoulder with his hand and, oh, fuck. His fingers moving in and out of Billy’s mouth, and twisting around, and that’s probably how Billy looked when he was sucking your dick and you didn’t even watch? Fuck. Fuck.
“Isn’t spit like the worst lube ever?” you ask, your voice cracking on the last word. Your mouth is the fucking Sahara at the moment.
“Yeah, but he still looks nice when he does this,” replies Teddy. Good lord, he’s the nicest asshole in the entire world. “Don’t worry, Tommy, I have the real stuff and a condom, too. All special for you.”
His fingers leave Billy’s mouth with a horribly wonderful pop and then they’re back on your ass again and you’re still nervous as hell, but at least you can breathe now.
“You’ll be fine,” Billy’s saying, voice hoarse. “Our first time, um, we didn’t even know what we were doing. This–this is different. We’ve had, uh.” He laughs, lightly. “A little experience.”
“Mhm,” Teddy hums against your back, and you aren’t even thinking about it anymore so of course that’s when his finger’s suddenly in you, slick and wet and you’re grabbing at Billy, biting at his shoulder. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s so weird, you don’t know if you’re going to be able to do this–and now there are two fingers, shit.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you whisper.
“If I had any doubt that was your favorite word before...” Billy trails off, sounding oddly fond of your bursts of profanity.
You don’t even know what to call whatever the hell it is Billy’s doing now, moving his fingers around inside you. Three now, you think, but you’re not sure. It doesn’t feel awful, though, and you cling to Billy a little less, breathing deeper now.
“Do you even think he’s going to be able to handle it?” Billy’s asking, and he sounds grossly concerned. If you were in any state to you’d kick him off the bed. “And don’t just say yes because you want to fuck him, it’s not like we aren’t going to do this again.”
“Agreed,” you breathe out.
Billy actually pets your hair at that.
“I think he’ll be okay,” Teddy replies, and he definitely sounds less than calm now, almost nearing slightly worked up. “If he’s not, we’ll stop, you know that.”
You feel Billy nod and then Teddy’s fingers are gone and you feel empty, hollow like you haven’t eaten all day, and Billy’s going, “Shh, shh, shh,” and you’re wondering why.
Then you understand, because it fucking hurts. For what feels like at least a full minute you’re in pain, and the only thing that makes it okay is the fact that Billy’s holding you tighter than before and you know that it’s Teddy behind you.
“Are you okay?” Billy’s asking, lips right by your ear.
“Yeah, I’m, yeah,” you breathe out, because it’s not as bad now, Teddy’s hands on your hips, holding tight but gently.
He pushes into you a bit more and it still doesn’t feel great or anything, but you guess you can see how it might feel that way eventually. You’re not sure that’s something you should voice right now. ‘This will probably feel awesome after about five to ten more tries,’ isn’t exactly something you whisper huskily into someone’s ear.
“If you’re not,” Teddy says, from behind, breathing hard like maybe he jogged to the kitchen and back, “we can always stop.”
“If you guys don’t stop acting like I’m, fuck,” your breath hitches, “fucking fourteen years old or something I’m gonna–I’m...I’ll beat both of you up.”
“He’s fine,” Billy says, and then his hand’s on your dick and Teddy’s moving in you again and it still hurts, but you think that it might not be as bad as all that.
“Aren’t you s’posed to be, like,” you say, licking at your lips, “ah, telling me how tight I am or whatever?”
Teddy laughs, his breath feeling cool on your neck (fuck, when did you get so hot), his hands squeezing at your hips.
“You’re tight, it’s nice, don’t let it get to your head.”
You try to snort indignantly but it comes out as a breathy moan which sort of makes you feel like a romance novel heroine. You can’t really help it, though, because while Teddy’s pulling out of you at an achingly slow pace Billy’s giving you an equally slow handjob, and the whole thing is almost enough to drive a guy crazy.
(When you realize that this is the happiest you’ve been in months, if not longer, you have to close your eyes, tight.)
You come way too fast, before Billy’s even done anything more than jack you off in a glorified manner, and with Teddy’s dick in your ass still feeling more than a little uncomfortable.
Billy holds his hand up to his mouth and you watch him lick your come off his hand blearily, something you’d never even thought of before now that would probably make you hard again if you weren’t so spent.
“Fuck,” you mutter, “I should, like, return the favor.”
But he just smiles at you, kisses you again, at the same time that Teddy presses a kiss to your back, which makes you shiver a little.
“Another time,” Billy says, and you feel Teddy pull out of you, which leaves you empty again. “Another time, okay? That’s not important right now.” You smile at him, stupidly, your eyes feel watery and you aren’t sure why.
“Jesus, Tommy,” Teddy breathes, pushing your bangs off your forehead. “When was the last time you slept for a whole night?”
You have to laugh at that, you, “Have no idea.”
“You should probably try and do that now,” he says, thumb on your temple. You nod, or try to anyway.
As you close your eyes you think you see them go to kiss. You like the way they kiss.
.
When you wake up you’re alone, and disorienting in a warm sort of way, the loss of people who you know aren’t really gone.
Sitting up makes you feel light-headed, but you can’t really blame the jump in your stomach on anything else but nerves. You aren’t going to waste time trying to pretend like last night didn’t happen, but the fact that it did means a lot of things have changed.
Your boxers are underneath the bed and you pretty much have to go for the gold to get them, and it fucking hurts. Holy god this better be a thing you’ll get used to. It has to, you never see Billy wince when he has to lean over. Or maybe you’ve just never paid that much attention to things before.
Whatever, you’ve got your boxers on. That’s always been enough clothes to walk around the apartment in before. And it’s possible that you could just zip into the kitchen, grab some food and head back to your room and hope no one notices.
...okay, maybe you aren’t doing so well when it comes to the whole denial thing.
You open the door to their bedroom as slowly as is humanly possible. It creaks like you’re in a haunted mansion from a Scooby Doo episode. Great.
Teddy’s in the kitchen, all stupidly serene and humming to himself.
You’re not sure if you want to vomit on him or kiss him or maybe both.
You slink into the kitchen like a cat which is about the dumbest comparison ever. Analogy? You never knew the word for that. Still, it’s dumb, but true. You feel sort of skittish like maybe you should’ve went back to your room last night. Maybe Teddy’s going to pour his coffee over your head. Maybe–
“Good morning, Tommy,” Teddy says, not even looking at you.
“Hi,” you blurt. He sort of looks at you sideways. “I mean, good morning. Hello. Good morning.”
He does that thing where he smiles but you can tell he’s wondering if it’s not too late to check you into an institution.
“Billy had class,” he says, glancing at his watch. “And I have work, but he’ll be back in a few hours and I’ll be back before we get dinner, as usual.” He turns towards you, pauses like he’s waiting for something. You have no idea what. This guy fucked you in the ass last night, you aren’t really sure what the follow-up protocol for that is.
“Um.” You touch his shoulder. A pat, yes. A pat works...possibly?
He rolls his eyes and goes, “You’re allowed to kiss me, in case you didn’t really get the message last night.”
“Oh, yeah, right. I got the message. It was kind of hard to miss the message, coming at me from both sides like it was. Multiple times, too, just the same message over and over again and–”
He kisses you, which is good because you aren’t sure you had it in you to initiate anything. You latch onto him though, lean up into it, and let your eyes close with his hand at the nape of your neck. It’s just a fleeting moment, him biting at your bottom lip. Nothing compared to last night, nothing at all, really.
It leaves you a little breathless, like running across a continent never could.
Your eyes feel cloudy and you fall back against the cabinets roughly. He laughs, but it’s not mean. A little patronizing, maybe, but not mean.
“So that was a text message, maybe,” you say, steady as you can, “and last night was like an in-depth, uh, letter. A notarized letter, more like.”
“Sounds about right.” He smiles, and it washes over you. The sides of your mouth twitch up, you can’t help it. “I’ll be back around five, you and Billy can get dinner.”
“Pizza,” you call after him.
“No, Tommy,” he yells back as the door clicks behind him.
“Definitely pizza,” you murmur.
.
Billy gets home and glares at you.
“Don’t sit on the counter,” he says, by way of greeting.
“So class was bad?” you ask, pushing the box of pizza you’ve already started on towards him, licking sauce off your thumb.
“Awful,” he breathes out, making a face at the pizza. He’s so weird. “Someone signed up for what I wanted to write my thesis on, and our professor is adamant that everyone have a different subject.” He’s picking pepperoni off the pizza and eating it. You’re sort of disgusted. “So now I’m writing about something I don’t know as much about, and I feel like I’m going to do worse.”
He eats the pepperoni. Ew.
“Yeah that’s the worst,” you say when he looks at you, eyebrow raised. He’s...taking another pepperoni? Maybe you guys need to talk about pizza etiquette.
“It is,” he sighs. Ugh, he’s pouting, so it’s probably best to just let Teddy–or, wait.
You aren’t fluent in body language, it’s more like when people can’t read a language but they can pick up on words and phrases in conversation. So, it takes you a minute and you aren’t sure, but it’s a distinct possibility that Billy wants you to do something.
Shit, you are not used to this whole guessing game.
You put your hand on his shoulder, and that’s an okay start, right? Lots of things start with hands on shoulders. He has really dumb big brown eyes that you don’t get lost in at all because that’d be really lame. You do kind of stare into them for half a minute, though, and it’s not as awkward as it could be, though he does mumble your name in a disgruntled, old man sort of way that makes you laugh quietly.
Since all that doesn’t go horribly you decide maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to kiss him. So you do.
“Are you kissing my forehead?” he asks after a moment.
“Maybe,” you reply, leaning back a little to look at him. “Do you have a problem with that?”
He thinks for a minute, then says, “No.”
“Alright, then shut up.”
.
Teddy comes home at five to five and finds the two of you sprawled out on the couch watching a Lifetime movie.
“I didn’t want to get the remote,” Billy says, “and he wouldn’t get it for me.”
“It’s all the way on the coffee table,” you add, quietly, wincing when the girl on the TV screen smashes her bathroom mirror with her fist.
“I feel like I’m supposed to say I’m sorry I asked, but I didn’t ask,” Teddy sighs, and you don’t have to look at him to know he’s smiling. “I am wondering why it looks like we got pizza when I said no pizza, and why it looks like both of you ate the entire pizza before I got home.”
“Tommy ate all of it,” Billy corrects him.
“He ruined like three slices,” you assure Teddy, who’s looking at you accusingly. “I couldn’t eat them and I wasn’t going to make you eat them. Three whole slices with big gaping holes where pepperoni used to be, it wasn’t decent.” There’s a short moment of silence while the girl in the movie is sobbing. “I did eat the rest, though.”
Teddy looks as close to exasperated as you’ve ever seen him, which means he looks vaguely frustrated.
“It’s fine,” he says, turning and heading towards the kitchen. “We do need to talk, though. All of us.”
You kind of want to vomit. That’s never a good thing, is it? Talking is always a bad thing, you’re pretty sure. You go to get up and maybe run to, like...the Pacific Ocean, which sounds like a nicer experience than talking. Billy grabs your wrist and pulls you back onto the couch, not even taking his eyes off the movie.
He’s such a stupid brat, and you absolutely hate the way he holds his thumb to your pulse, making little circular movements.
By the time Teddy comes back out to sit with the two of you the movie is almost over, and he’s got reheated Chinese food in hand. It smells good and you have to stop yourself from asking for some. You just ate a whole pizza two hours ago, you should be fine for at least twenty more minutes.
Billy turns off the TV as soon as the credits start rolling. Oh. Sure. Now he isn’t too lazy to get the remote.
They make eyes at each other for a few minutes, and you honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve figured out some way to communicate telepathically by now. It’s just the sort of dumb thing Billy would use his powers for.
“So, I mean,” Billy says, finally, as Teddy settles back in his chair, “we’ve talked about this a lot. And obviously there’s a lot we’d have to get used to. Jealousy wise and, I guess, sharing certain things.”
“Like blow jobs,” Teddy chimes in, smiling a little too brightly.
“Notice how he skips right past the romantic aspect of this and jumps on the sexual part,” Billy mock whispers to you. You’re slightly grossed out by how you find this cute. “Point is, we know it’s not going to easy, but we’ve both thought about it for a while and we’ve come to the conclusion that neither of us would mind this being a permanent thing.”
“What he means,” Teddy tells you, “is that we would like for this to be a permanent thing.” He glances over at Billy again, narrowing his eyes. “Not that we wouldn’t mind it. Jesus, Billy, you’re not talking about what to make for dinner.”
“He knows what I mean,” Billy says, his voice starting to sound whiny. “He knows we’re not doing this because we feel like we have–”
“Wait,” you interrupt, a little in awe, “so are we all just gonna do it? Together? All the time?”
Billy sighs so heavily you’re surprised he doesn’t float a little.
“Yes, Tommy, we’re all just going to do it together all the time,” Teddy replies, flatly.
“Whoa, that’s cool then, sure.” You stand up and they both stare at you. “I’m going to make pizza bagels, do you guys want any?”
“Have you really thought this through?” Teddy asks at the same time that Billy goes, “Ew, no, you just ate pizza.”
“I’ve wanted this for a couple months now, I just didn’t know it was an option,” you admit, with a shrug. “And shut up, Billy, I’m a growing boy and if I want to eat only pizza flavored food then I will.”
“For a couple months now?” Billy repeats, blankly. “And you didn’t say anything?”
“Well, what was I going to do?” you ask, crossing your arms over your chest and leaning towards him. “Come in one night and be all, ‘Hey, maybe I could touch one of your dicks while you guys are fucking and see where things go’? I’m sure that would’ve gone over like a...a thing that goes over well.”
“He has a point,” Teddy says, mouth full of food. “Although, I think my point that you haven’t thought this through, Tommy, still stands.”
You turn around to face him, gesturing around, trying to figure out what you want to say.
“Is this charades?” he asks.
“Four words,” Billy calls out.
“God, you’re both so stupid,” you finally say, sticking out your tongue. “Look, it’s like. I get it, okay. I’m going to go make pizza bagels, and neither of you want pizza bagels, so I’m just going to eat pizza bagels by myself. And maybe Billy will share some of your Chinese, I don’t care. Share Chinese with him all night, I’m not going to get mad. If I ask for some too, and I want some, then you better give me some, but right now I’m fine with just having pizza bagels by myself.”
“I don’t like Chinese,” Billy murmurs.
“Shh, you, shhhh,” you hiss. “Like, maybe there will be some nights where we all want Chinese and I kind of hope that’s most nights, not gonna lie, but I’m not stupid enough to think we’ll always be in the same mood for the same thing. And if it’s just me and Teddy eating together some nights, or whatever, that’s fine. Just as long as we can all have our choice of Chinese or pizza bagels if we want to. And we tell each other about what we ate. Um.”
“No, go on, this is good,” Billy nods, chin in the palm of his hand. “Continue, really. Like what if we disagree on how many egg rolls to get?”
“You’re–I have to work, I’m going to make dinner, and I hate you, just for the record.”
“But do you really?” he says, as you leave the room, Teddy laughing softly in the background.
Whatever. They’re stupid. You don’t even feel like pizza bagels anymore. You wonder if there’s any more leftover Chinese.
.
You get home from work at four in the morning and kick off your shoes by the front door, exhausted.
Rubbing sleep out of your eyes you try to make it to your room without tripping over anything. It’s pretty much a success, you only knock over a stool and nearly fall over one of the side tables by the couch. Certainly not the worst you’ve done. You’ll probably have a bruise on your shin, but you already have, like, seven of those as it is.
It’s taking too long to find the button on your jeans so you just push them off your hips and kick them away before making your way to your bed.
Billy’s already latched onto Teddy, which is totally rude and inconsiderate so you just push between them and smile to yourself as they both mutter your name angrily. You end up with your back to Billy, his arms around your waist and your head under Teddy’s chin, legs tangled with them both.
None of you are breathing in and out at the same time, it sounds like a bad middle school band concert. You laugh a little to yourself at the thought and Billy pinches the skin right above your hip. It hurts. He’s stupid, you have to remember to tell him that in the morning.
You fall asleep thinking about plans for the weekend.
There’s so much you want to do.