A Scene, Part S
By ciaan
Boy Meets Boy created and owned by K. Sandra Fuhr.

Skids knew Cyanide liked him. He thought he'd even figured it out before Cy quite figured it out. And he liked Cyanide back. Of course. What was there not to like?

He knew that Cy was still confused and uncertain. As far as Skids could guess, once he realized what he felt, he'd decided not to tell. He didn't seem to notice that Skids felt the same way. Skids understood. If he thought he wouldn't be liked back, why risk the friendship and face rejection? Skids frowned just thinking that. If Cy told him, and he himself didn't like Cy, he'd feel bad for hurting him. That wouldn't be shibby. And Cy probably knew that, and was worried about it. But then he smiled again. Good thing he did like Cy. There wasn't going to be any hurting. All was right with the world again.

Since Cy wasn't going to do anything, Skids knew it was up to him to get the ball rolling. He'd been dropping hints, but so far he'd kept them subtle. He didn't want to go too fast, and scare Cyanide. He figured if he just kept it nice and slow, building the hints a little bigger each time, Cy would get it in the end, right? He thought Cy would actually do something once he felt confident, and so Skids was trying to help make him confident. But... he smiled again, a little differently this time.

It was also kinda fun teasing Cyanide. He knew he was helping him, really, so he didn't feel guilty, and Cy was so cute when he blushed. That's why, at New Years, when he offered to kiss Cyanide, he made sure to comment that he could just pretend that he, Skids, was a hot chick. It was very funny, and adorable, when he got all wide-eyed and confused and flushed. And then he'd dipped him... Yeah, they hadn't actually gotten to kiss, but it was okay. He could tell it frustrated Cy. Cy made it very obvious he was frustrated. Skids wondered if he knew how clear he had been at that moment. But Skids didn't mind. It had moved things along anyway. If all went well, which it would, since he would make it do so, he'd have lots of other chances to kiss Cy.

He still wasn't quite sure about some things, though. Like, was he eventually just gonna tell Cy and bring it all out in the open, or would Cy like it more if he got to make the first move? But he didn't worry about that stuff too much. It would sort itself out eventually. Little details like that didn't really matter, not when you had someone. And Skids knew he had Cy, knew he'd probably always have Cy, hoped he'd always have Cy. He didn't see any reason he'd ever not have Cy.

He stretched, and looked down at the coloring book he was leaning over. Oh right, he'd been in the middle of doing the sky... He decided that the rest of it should be purple, not blue, and switched markers. Then he took a pen and drew little vampire fangs on the princess in the tower, who was waiting for the knight to finish fighting the dragon. He'd done the dragon all yellow, and the knight was wearing red armor. Then he realized that there was a sun in the sky, and quickly colored it purple as well, before it could hurt the vampire princess. He wasn't quite sure what she was going to do to the knight when he came up the tower stairs and rescued her. Hopefully they'd live happily ever after, and she wouldn't just eat him all up.

Then he blinked. Hey, wasn't Cy supposed to be coming over some time, like... he glanced at the clock... like five minutes ago? Well, he'd get here. Skids finished up the last bit of grass, which was actually green, and then turned the green marker on his wrist. He drew a tendril of some kind of vine, with little leaves, wrapping up his arm. It got up to where his shirt was, so he pulled his shirt off and kept wrapping. Then he couldn't wrap it any higher. He sighed. Maybe it should go back down? Or maybe some flowers?

Just then there was a knock at the door. "Come in!" he called, figuring it was probably Cyanide. It was. Skids took the coloring book and dropped it carefully on the floor.

"Hey." Cy said, eyeing him.

Skids held out the marker. "Hey, Cyanide. Can you finish this?"

"I guess. What do you want it to do?"

Skids swept all the markers aside so he could lie down on the bed. "Just do whatever. Surprise me." Cyanide walked over and got on the bed beside him.

"Don't you ever get tired of this?"

"Nuh-uh. It's always fun... And you can do it over and over and over again."

Cy bent over and started to draw. Skids was looking at the spikes on his collar, which glinted as he moved. It was a rather cheap collar, and the spikes weren't quite in a straight line, but sorta wavered around, although only very subtly. He was trying not to see what Cy was drawing, so that he could be surprised. But he could feel it. It twirled around, and ohh, tickled. He had to giggle. He shut his eyes. It's hard to giggle with your eyes open. After a few more moments of intermittent giggling, during which he kept his eyes shut, the drawy feelings stopped, and instead he felt the bed shift as Cy sat back up.

Skids opened his eyes and looked down at his chest. The vine wrapped its way around past his other shoulder, then down to his stomach, where it ended in a big bright flower. He had a flower on his tummy. He giggled again at that. "Your turn now." he said to Cyanide.

"Alright, alright." Cy huffed, pulling his shirt off and lying down as Skids sat up. Cy was basically in the middle of the bed, and Skids wasn't sure where he was going to fit, so he sat on Cy. He saw Cy's throat move slightly as he gulped, and admitted to himself that, okay, maybe practical reasons weren't the only ones he had in mind. But what should he draw now? Well, he'd just been working on a picture with a dragon earlier, and there was a dragon right in front of him on Cy's chest, and he'd been a bit sad doing that other picture that the dragon and the knight were fighting. So maybe he could make something a little more friendly with Cy's dragon.

He smiled and started sketching. "Lessee, the dragon needs someone to ride him..." He knew he was thinking out loud, but he didn't care. The rider was starting to take shape, and he seemed to be staring right at Cyanide's nipple ring, which was a perfectly valid place to stare, seeing as it was interesting and right in front of him. So, he said, because it was true, "And the rider's got a rope... And he wants to catch the shiny thing there..." He felt the rider throw the rope, and quickly made it real with the marker, before he got disappointed at not hitting the target. The force of the throw looped the rope around, and it lassoed the ring, which really was very shiny... It didn't quite seem fair that only the rope got to touch it, and Skids reached out a finger and rubbed it.

"Um, Skids... Could you not do that?" Cy said, with a little catch in his voice. Skids remembered that the ring was actually attached to Cyanide, and realized what it must be doing to him. Well, there was nothing wrong with that. But he stopped, because Cy had asked him to.

"Sure." he said. He tried to decide what else to draw. Okay, so he had a big flower on his tummy... That meant Cyanide got something on his tummy. He began to draw a spiral, but with little frills on it. Cy started to tap his fingers against the bed, in a simple rhythm. Skids hoped that didn't mean he was too bored with this. He knew Cy didn't enjoy marker tats as much as he did. Oh, that made him think of something to say. He didn't think it was going too far.

"Hey, Cy," he asked, without looking up at his face, even though he wanted to, "did you like it when we kissed?"

"Yeah, sure." Cyanide replied, sounding very bored.

Okay, so maybe Cy wasn't interested in the marker tats. "Shibby. Me too." Skids said, continuing to draw, so he had more time to think. He meant it, though. Well, fine, if Cy didn't want to do this anymore, maybe they could do something else, something Cy preferred. He liked this, Cyanide admitting things to him. Besides, he still owed him a kiss from New Years. He tried to express this somehow. "So if we both liked it, how come we don't do it more often? I mean, we both like watching Buffy, and we do that together a lot, and so if we both like kissing, shouldn't we do that too?"

"Well, I guess we could." Cy kinda stammered. "I just didn't think..."

I just didn't think you wanted to, Skids finished for him in his head. "Could we kiss now?" He finally let himself look up at Cyanide's face. He looked so cute and confused.

"Um, okay." Cy stammered again, blushing a little.

Skids leaned down and kissed Cyanide, trying to act as casual as he could. It was hard, but he thought it was necessary. He stopped paying attention to his hands, though, because he was paying so much attention to Cy's mouth, and lips, and tongue, and to trying to keep himself from turning that into his whole world, which it almost was, until he noticed that his hand with the marker was sliding across Cyanide's stomach, leaving a line that was messing up the pretty pattern, which upset him for a moment, until then he realized that he could feel Cyanide shivering slightly under him, and panting right into his mouth, and he thought maybe he was doing the same thing, and so he pulled away.

He took the lid for the marker off the back end where he had put it, stuck it on the end it was supposed to be on, and set the marker down. He didn't really think he was gonna finish that spiral shape now.

"Skids, what does that... mean?" he heard Cyanide ask uncertainly. It means what you want it to mean, he thought. He could tell that Cy was worried about something, probably a lot of somethings, and he decided to take them one at a time, starting with what he thought was the least important.

"You mean, does it mean we're gay? No, that's Harley's job. I'm not gay. You're not gay. It's like... Even if I speak Spanish, that doesn't make me Latino like you, right?" He knew there was much more to it than that, but he figured that would at least help Cyanide stop worrying so much about what he was, when Skids just wanted him to be thinking about him, Skids. Wasn't that more important? Did it really matter what you called yourself? To Skids, that was just one of the details, the ones that you forgot about when you were doing something as important as, well, what? Kissing your best friend? Falling in love? Whatever, it didn't matter.

"Uh, I guess." Cyanide said, and Skids could tell he was relieved.

Skids smiled at him. "Si?" he said, just to check.

He was pleased when Cyanide laughed. "Si." he responded. Then he stuck his hands up above his head, like in a cop movie. "Okay, you got me."

Skids wanted to keep reassuring him. "Don't worry, I got you." he said, catching Cy by the wrists. He had got him, and that made him happy.

"But, I mean, what does it mean about us?" Cyanide asked, very calmly. Skids decided to say it about as plainly as he could, without making it something that put Cy on the spot.

"It means we're friends, silly." he said, smiling. "Friends do nice things with each other. And they like it, cause they're into each other. And they spend time together." He could see little wheels whirring around in Cy's brain, and he hoped he was getting through to him right. It was exactly the case, after all. The kissing was nice, and they both liked it. Because they both liked each other. What else was there to say? Then he thought of one more thing to say. He wanted to see Cyanide blush again. He smiled even more. "It was also shibby when we were roomies. We should do that more often, too." Cyanide stared at him, a slightly glazed look in his eyes. Hey, that's a nice one, Skids thought. It was really, really making him wonder what Cy would look like if he just... Explicit little scenes started swirling through his head. But no, he wouldn't. He wouldn't. He thought it might be best to change the subject, though, just to make sure he wouldn't.

He let go of Cyanide's wrists and hopped off him, and off the bed. He saw Cy come back to himself with a little shake of his head.

"So hey, didn't I lure you over here in the first place with something specific?" he said cheerily. "Like, a Spike-fest?" He jabbed his finger against the spikes on Cy's collar.

"Yeah, I think so." Cyanide answered. Skids couldn't tell if that was relief or regret in his voice. Maybe a little of both. He wasn't sure if Cy could tell either. He went over, popped a video in the VCR, and grabbed the remote. When he turned back, Cy had flipped around, so that he was on his stomach, chin propped in his hands, facing the television. Skids walked over and lay down next to him, in the same position, close enough that their shoulders were touching. He liked that. It felt nice. Comfortable. He hit the power button.

Two episodes of Buffy and a bag of potato chips later, Cy had shifted to sitting up cross-legged. Skids was curled on his side in front of him, his head pillowed on his arms, his back pressed against Cy's knees. He stopped the video. "Think that's enough?"

"Yeah." Cy said. "I should probably be getting home soon, anyway."

Skids rolled over, stretching as he did so. He felt like a kitty-cat when he did that. It was fun. He glanced down at himself. His marker tats were all smudged. Well, that was what happened to them. He didn't mind so much. He liked that they came and went. If he wanted something permanent, he could get it. But he didn't. He should probably wash these ones off, though. He said it out loud. "I should probably wash these off. They're all smudgy." He ran a finger along a line so it was obvious what he was talking about. "I guess I'll take a shower."

"If you're gonna take a shower, then I should leave."

"Hey, you've got marker on you, too." Skids replied. "You could take the shower with me." And Cy did exactly what he expected him to do: he blushed furiously. That was why he'd said it.

"No, I, um... I said I'd be back to watch my sisters... I really do need to go..." Skids had known he'd make some excuse like that. But he didn't mind. He'd be here when Cyanide was really ready, when he figured it all out. He'd be waiting.

Cy stood up to go, putting his t-shirt back on. Skids watched him do it. He walked to the door. "Adios, amigo." he said.

"Bye-bye." Skids answered, and Cyanide left.