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SUMMER BEFORE SOPHOMORE YEAR
If someone was watching the two of them together, they would immediately see how the corners of the pair’s eyes were perpetually crinkled in a permanent state of amusement.
Wherever the two of them went it was with easy smiles and gentle nudges and arms laid over each other’s waist or shoulders, with eyes that sparked a secretive grin or a laugh from the other. That summer was a good one, hot and sticky like every summer before it but special in the way Virgil could find Richie easily, so easily, whenever he needed to, just reach out a hand and grasp until brown eyes met sparking brown.
The color of Richie’s eyes fascinated Virgil, who had never taken the time before to really well and truly see his friend. The color of the pupil was brown, like Virgil’s, but it wasn’t the dull, dark-abyss brown that stared back at the dreadlocked teen in the mirror that Virgil disliked so much. It was a brown that was the center of Richie’s warmth, because the blonde was warm, so warm, all the time, and it didn’t make any sense because the paleness of his skin and hair was cool, icy. And yet Virgil could always find warm comfort in the dry, ice-pale hand in his own. It was a brown that danced, that challenged, brown eyes that Virgil could lose himself in and come back to himself with a sappy grin on his face and a hand loosely gripping Richie’s bicep or wrist in a position that would be mortifying, had it been anyone else.
And maybe Virgil did spend a lot of time staring into Richie’s eyes, but Richie sat there and let him, so it wasn’t all to be blamed on V.
Richie had always been aware of Virgil’s eyes; the feel of them on the back of his neck could make him blush, or grin, or chuckle; the weight of them helped anchor Richie when his dad knocked him out of harbor; and the depth of them could drag Richie under into a daze that settled over his entire body and made him lazy and hazed. And Virgil never seemed to be really aware of what his eyes could do to Richie. He would turn them on to the blonde and fail to see how the feel of his gaze lit up Richie’s ears a bright, happy, ridiculous pink. Would fail to see how Richie paused in writing, or in making, or in gripping, or in breathing, fail to see how Richie froze like a deer in headlights and couldn’t do a thing but stare back until Virgil broke the intensity with a smile or a clap to the shoulder.
(And maybe they had done a lot of dancing around each other back then, yeah.)
Like the summer before, ninety nine percent of it was spent at the pool. Richie and Virgil were bigger now, growing into colt-long arms and legs, a little wider in the chest, narrower in the hip, bulkier in the arm and leg. And it was with a comfort borne only out of companionship that Richie and Virgil could roughhouse in the pool and on the pool deck, because they had the chance and means to actually hurt each other now and steadfastly held back, quick to check with gentling hands and worry hidden under a grinned, “You okay there, man?”
Virgil particularly liked to wrestle with Richie when the sun was high in the air in the afternoon, both of them wet and slippery from the pool as they climbed out and Virgil shook out his dreads with a voracity that made Richie laugh and playfully shove at him, chuckling, “Watch it, V.”
And because that was how the script went, Virgil would push his dreads back and out of his face, and let his eyes go narrow and challenging, smirking, “What, you got a problem, Foley?”
The back of Richie’s neck, Virgil knew, would be a bright red-pink that looked freshly scrubbed, because that was how Richie’s agitation and adrenaline showed. The blonde would tense his shoulders, consider Virgil carefully, and say something—it didn’t really matter what, anymore, not when Richie’s eyes would be warm and inviting and saying come and—that would make Virgil openly throw out the challenge, because Richie wouldn’t ever be the first, not ever. He didn’t want to do anything Virgil didn’t.
The beginning tackle would always be a little different; sometimes Richie went down easy just pin up Virgil in some ungodly wrestling move, and sometimes Richie slipped and went down hard, too hard, and Virgil would lean back and ask, “OK?” before they went back to it. Virgil loved this because he could put his hands wherever he wanted, gripping Richie’s shoulders and his hair, tangled up in the long stretch of Richie’s pale legs, or spread out along his collarbone and pushing down into Richie’s skin. It was perfect and right in a way Virgil didn’t want to think about, and he could never admit to anyone, not even Rich. Instead, Virgil used his heavier build in advantage against Richie (who was slippery and twisty and flash-fast like a fish, dammit) and whenever he could, he pinned Rich down onto the sun-warmed stone of the pool deck, leaning over him and putting the blonde’s face in shadow, a forearm braced against the front line of Richie’s chest and collarbone.
“You tap yet, Osgood?”
And that was Richie’s cue to smile back up at him and kick him off, but his eyes caught on the edge of Virgil’s and he couldn’t unstick himself. A hard swallow displaced some of the water dripping off of him, making it run down in uneven lines down his Adam’s apple and the column of his throat, and his gaze wasn’t stuck, not anymore, but Virgil’s gaze was fixed on the trailing water on Richie’s skin. He could barely resist the urge to shiver, feeling Virgil’s heat-warm skin pressed against his own, conscious of the skin of V’s arm, yes, but his traitorous mind reminding him of the way the cut of V’s hip lined up to Richie’s, and the way their stomachs pressed together, the brush of Virgil’s chest against his whenever either one of them breathed, and it was too much but Virgil had him snared up in the trap of his eyes again and Richie could only breath shallowly, knowing he was close to hyperventilating but feeling somewhat justified.
The darker teen felt his breath puff out and, oddly, took notice of Richie’s breath in puffs against his dark face, but the lack of space, it wasn’t a bother. It wasn’t anything bigger than anything else was, the two of them together in each other’s pockets and lives and hands (and hearts, maybe) so, Virgil pressed a little closer and let himself fall that extra inch or mile of space into Richie’s eyes.
In.
Out.
Blond eyelashes fanned out against pale cheeks, flashing.
The dark of the inner pupil swelling.
Their noses bumped and just like that Virgil and Richie were scrambling to get out of each other’s space, breathing heavy. Flopped on his back, Virgil closed his eyes and tried to decide, a bit desperately, if he wanted to keep the memory of Richie all tucked up against him and in his personal space or if he wanted to forget about it and never remember it. As his heart thumped almost painfully in chest, though, he could tell it was already branded with the sight of Richie’s eyes opened wide and pupil-blackened and—
Richie curled up to tuck his knees to his forehead and wrapped his arms around the bulk of it, trembling minutely. Whatever the hell had almost happened had nearly happened because Virgil’s damn eyes were like staring into the sun except for so much worse because Richie knew if he ever stood still and stared for too long what had almost happened was going to happen, one day, in a big way. And it would hurt.
When one of them ventured to speak, they did it without meeting the other’s eyes.
“Rich? You…okay?”
Richie chuffed out a laugh that cooled uncomfortably against his slightly damp skin.
“’M fine, V. You good?”
A beat that went by a second too long set Richie’s heart off by one, but slowly Virgil answered, “I’m straight, man, yeah. All good.”
After that, Virgil sat up and scooted over until he could shake Richie’s shoulder, hand gripping the pale skin of it just enough, not too firm (not too familiar) and not too gentle (not too uncomfortable). When the blonde refused to pull out of his curl, Virgil huffed a sigh that blew stray dreads from his face and poked Rich a good one in the side, startling a yelp from him and then a glare before Richie quickly looked away, unsure whether to meet his friend’s eye.
He hesitated in a half a moment it took his hand to shake but Virgil manned the hell up and did it anyway, brushing against Richie’s jaw in an easy sorta way until they locked eyes again. Slowly, deliberately, Virgil smiled wide and full, body and shoulders relaxed, trying to get the message across to Richie.
“C’mon. We need some soda, Rich.”
And just like that Richie was nodding, cheeks with spots of red high up on them like twins stars that Virgil steadfastly ignored himself noticing on his friend, and he was locking a hand around Richie’s wrist and pulling him up and forwards, so that they were moving in syncopated one again instead of on separate beats.