#just a spur of the moment bit of gay fluff idk why I wrote this but it exists now

[silverslipstream]

Flash Fiction Friday!

So yeah, I decided to enter @flashfictionfridayofficial this week! I decided to write something completely off the top of my head - I've been reading David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy recently and was inspired to write a little smidge of queer romance. It ended up being a lot longer than I envisaged, but it's still under 1,000 words, so... Result!

Without further ado, here's the story of two best friends ringing in the New Year together in an unexpected way. Enjoy! (Note: Owen and Elliott are named after the poets Wilfred Owen and T.S Eliot. Just an interesting little detail!)

Prompt: Can We Kiss?

Lighthouse

Owen isn’t quite sure when he started feeling like he’d been cast adrift from his own body, but surely this house party is responsible. Shawn Mendes’s new hit is blaring from some nebulous middle-distance: he can’t tell whether it’s inside this house or inside his head. He takes another sip from the glass of cranberry vodka in his hand. The alcohol is sharp and sour: it rolls like a fist down his throat, and it’s all he can do not to gag.

Suddenly, like a lighthouse after weeks at sea, Elliott appears at the end of the hall. Owen lurches forward toward his best friend, ignoring the chorus of indignant complaints from the partygoers around him. Elliott sees him and snorts.

“You’re drunk.” It’s not a question. Owen can’t remember ever thinking about it, but suddenly drunk seems like the perfect word.

“As a glass of water,” he answers confidently, and a ripple of laughter shudders outward like a shockwave across the room.

Elliott shakes his head and claps him on the shoulder.

“C’mon, O. You stumble around all night, you’re gonna miss the countdown, and it’s not long now. In fact,” he says, checking his watch, “we’ve got thirteen minutes. You can’t come to a New Year’s Eve party and not celebrate the countdown. What would be the point?”

“Wait—since when was it New Year’s?”

Elliott side-eyes him with a lopsided grin, as if holding in a laugh, and Owen can’t tear his eyes away from those lips. For some reason, he doesn’t care if Elliott notices. He doesn’t care if everyone notices.

“Fucking hell, you’re properly wasted, aren’t you?”

Sometime later, Owen’s sitting on an armchair in the living room. How long has it been? He can’t remember exactly how he got here, but it can’t have happened too long ago, because nobody’s counting down yet. Countdown. That’s important!

The living room is traditional suburban British fare: family photos on the mantelpiece, a hideous red and white patterned rug, a flat screen TV nestled between two DVD shelves. It’s much too small for the amount of people in here. Try as he might, he can’t remember whose house this is supposed to be.

As if by magic, Elliott appears next to him, perching on the arm of the chair. His thick black hair is mussed at the back, and he’s wearing an oddly exposed expression. Something that got caught between satisfaction and confusion and doesn’t know which one to hide behind.

“Gemma Atkins decided she couldn’t wait for the stroke of midnight,” he says wryly, an embarrassed flush colouring his cheeks.

“You gonna go find her again for a second round? Y’know, at the countdown?”

“Nah. She’s probably saving the countdown kiss for Josh.”

Owen snorts derisively. “Yeah, her and every other girl within five miles.”

All the weight in Owen’s skull seems to have moved to the back of his head. Suddenly, he’s looking at the pockmarked pattern on the roof, watching the strobe lights play over the bumps and ridges, leaning back into the comfiest headrest he’s ever known. The fingers of his left hand find someone’s knuckles, and without thinking, he slips his thumb under the other hand’s palm, tracing little circles into the warm and slightly sweaty flesh.

Elliott looks at their joined hands with a quirked eyebrow, like it’s a toddler asking a particularly foolish question.

“Well, that’s a bit gay, isn’t it?”

It’s probably meant to sound sarcastic, maybe even mocking, but Owen can’t detect any malice in Elliott’s tone. Instead, it sounds drily observational, like an affirmation.

“Yeah.”

His head feels like it’s full of pins-and needles; there’s a strange sensation of being pushed into the armchair. Elliott’s hand is still warm in his, and for some reason, his best friend isn’t pulling away. Some joker starts counting down from thirty, and gradually people join in.

“Aren’t you gonna… y’know, find someone to ring in the New Year with, Elliott? I’m good here. This chair’s super comfy.”

Elliott looks at him and chuckles. It’s a light, soft sound, like windchimes, and Owen feels like he could dance to it, pirouette through a ballroom forever if only Elliott would keep laughing.

“No.”

The countdown reaches fifteen: now every kid in the room is chanting. Owen leans in.

“Well, if you’re not gonna go find some girl to kiss, can we? Kiss, I mean?”

“Well… yeah, go on then,” Elliott says. “Only because you’re drunk, and because you couldn’t kiss a girl if your A-levels depended on it.”

“Wow, do you tell that to all the boys you kiss?”

“Only you, O.”  

“C’mere, then.”

He slides one hand around the back of Elliott’s neck, and the other snakes around the small of his back, turning Elliott to face him. His best friend leans in, and Owen can’t help but catch a whiff of cologne. This is the closest they’ve ever been. He wonders briefly if Elliott can hear the blood thumping in his ears.

“FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE…” screams the room.

And suddenly Elliott’s closed the gap between them, and the kiss is simultaneously gentle and electrifying, and Owen feels like he’s floating through the roof. Elliott tastes of Kopparberg and rum, and for some stupid, intoxicating reason, it’s the best kiss he’s ever had.

It’s over before it’s really begun; Elliott breaks the kiss and almost headbutts him by whipping his head around. Owen lays a hand on Elliott’s. The other boy stares back, questions flaring in his eyes.

“It’s all right, mate. Nobody’s watching,” he says, and relief washes over Elliott’s face.

“Yeah, well… don’t get used to it, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. We both know you’ve been dying to snog me all night.”

They laugh again, and Owen could swear they’re sitting in another dimension now. Someplace he can’t name.

“Whatever, O. Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year, Elliott.”