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It’s all TK’s fault.
TK with his stupid ‘hey-bro, hey-bud, I’m manlier-than-mankind over here, I share emotions and I never fucking stop, I get real close and personal and a little touchy-feely too, I don’t give a shit about all that repressed crap and I’ll for sure remind you twice a day’.
TK has never said any of that, of course, but he might as well. He could keep up a 24 hour livestream of nonsense inside Nolan’s head with how much everything he does broadcasts all of that.
TK, with his entire ruggedly unkempt look, his mop that works as an excuse for hair, all those ridiculous snapbacks and his patchy disaster of a goatee to top it all off.
TK, with his casual ‘babe’ dropped in-between his mile a minute commentary just so it’s completely transparent that the use of the word is both genuine and flippant. His scrappy five-foot something of a personality and his ability to come up with the weirdest chirps that still somehow insult whoever it’s being thrown at.
It’s not that Nolan doesn’t buy it. He buys it completely, unequivocally, one hundred percent. This is TK.
Which is sort of the entire problem here.
They’re wrestling over the Xbox controller, because it’s Nolan’s turn but TK’s decided he just needs one last chance, just one, to prove himself at Mario Cart.
Nolan is having none of it. Seriously, this is how he’s spending his day off? Watching TK play Mario Cart and stomp his feet every time he veers off route?
Anyways, he’s not having any of it. He’s got TK pinned to the floor underneath him in seconds. It’s like Nolan said: five feet.
Nolan could throw TK over his shoulder if the desire ever took a hold of him. Not that it doesn’t, and regularly, but there’s … rules, or whatever.
Of course TK can be pretty resourceful in these situations too, and he knows how to use his size to his advantage. But he’s not fighting dirty tonight. He just wriggles his wrists in Nolan’s grip, shifts his hips underneath Nolan’s knee pressed over them, and looks so — so disgruntled, so utterly unhappy and exasperated that Nolan can’t help the laughter that booms out of him.
It’s not every day that Nolan laughs, and that’s not even on the fact that Nolan has quite literally nothing to laugh about. Not at this current time in his life.
It’s just that he’s not a laughing kind of guy. He’ll show his appreciation with the odd nod, a twitch of lip, but that’s about it. People who are used to illustrating their amusement in that way do it easily, naturally – but for Nolan it would feel more unnatural to force a laugh up and out his mouth than just stay silent and smile.
And people make all this fuss about it, crack all these jokes, but it’s not that Nolan reserves his laughter for something he truly values. It’s not as if he’s holding out for some truly highbrow dope humour, he just doesn’t laugh when he finds something funny. It’s totally normal. He comes from a quiet family, where contemplation and long stretches of silence don’t need to be filled. It’s a habit.
And anyway, he finds plenty of shit funny. He almost snort-swallowed toothpaste when he was watching highlights one morning and saw TK say, “I was born at night, not last night”. Not that it’s even remotely funny, but how the fuck does he even come up with this shit? It’s probably a saying somewhere, but when TK says it, it’s just better. Somehow it’s better.
So yes, laughing isn’t really Nolan’s thing, and it doesn’t mean anything other than that.
It doesn’t mean that when he does laugh, the joke was some god-tier level of funny, or that he likes the particular person who told the joke more than everybody else. None of that.
Sometimes he laughs and sometimes he doesn’t. This time just happens to be a time that he does.
Travis, however, goes completely wide-eyed, opened-mouthed, tensed-everywhere shocked.
“What?” Nolan says, blunt. The smile is wiped clean. He looks down at TK as he waits for an explanation, because going by TK’s reaction he might have done something wrong.
“Woah.” TK’s mouth is still open. “You’re hot, bud.” He states with total conviction. “You got a nice laugh. It really ups the hotness.”
Nolan stares at TK as if he’s grown a second head.
TK swipes the controller from Nolan’s slack grasp, tongue poking out in an impish grin, rolling right out from underneath Nolan and diving back towards the bed.
It takes Nolan a full second. Longer than second.
“What — what?” He manages at last, midriff turned to TK but still on the floor. He’s got two knees planted firm on the rough carpet, but they feel sort of weak and numb while the rest of him feels hyperaware, hyper-focused, as if he’s come alive to the sudden notion of his own heartbeat. It pounds ceaselessly in his chest.
“What’s up?” TK asks.
Nolan boggles at him. “You — you just said I’m hot.”
“You are hot.”
This is infuriating. Nolan makes a wordless noise of frustration.
“Why did you say it, though?”
Which sort of implies that Nolan himself thinks he’s hot, which is not the case whatsoever, because who on Earth thinks they’re hot? That’s a step too far in the wrong direction, but Nolan needs to know – he needs to know why TK said it, why he blurted it out like that, why he didn’t just think it and stash it away like everyone else does when they find a teammate –
Who is Nolan kidding? This is TK.
Of course he wouldn’t do that.
Just as Nolan is coming to this realisation, TK gives a half-hearted shrug as if it’s no big deal, eyes glued to the TV screen and nowhere near Nolan. “Just cause, bro, you’ve got a nice laugh, it makes your face look nice, you’re pretty hot, just thought you ‘otta know, eh.”
Nolan’s whole entire throat feels like one of those metal pipes that’s been crushed by a tire in the middle. He can barely get air through it.
“You coming or what?” TK carries on, and kicks a leg out to gesture to the empty space on the bed.
For real. Gestures to the bed.
Nolan's bed.
Nolan gets up slowly. He’s trying to make a big deal out of this, but he’s probably overcompensating for TK’s total lack of a deal that instead he’s blowing this entire thing way out of proportion. He watches TK the whole time he walks over, hoping TK will catch his I am in shock right now face, hoping TK will notice how stiff and weird Nolan's being, not normal at all, not even close to normal, never close to normal again for the rest of his life.
Because TK thinks he’s hot. And has a nice laugh.
Abruptly, Nolan hears it.
He hears those two pieces of information beside one another in his head, and he realises it means nothing. Of course it means nothing; TK wouldn’t be acting this way if it meant anything other than nothing.
So he thinks Nolan is hot and has a nice laugh, why the fuck does that matter? It’s hardly a declaration of love. It’s hardly anything other than a friendly fucking compliment. Jesus Christ, he really is a loser.
He should get laid. He should do … something about this problem.
“Hey.” TK toes his calf for attention, tactile as always, and holds the controller up. Nolan takes it with unfeeling fingers and doesn’t meet TK’s eye.
“Sorry if I made things weird, bud.” TK starts, his voice that same casual light as always. “Just comes out sometimes, ya’ know? Half the guys have heard all this shit from me. I just like to show my buddies some love. If that’s not your thing, I totally get it.”
Nolan swallows around a boulder lodged somewhere in his trachea. “Not … yeah, no.” Is what makes its way out, which doesn’t even make grammatical sense never mind form a coherent response to TK.
TK just nods and falls quiet, which is never a good thing.
Nolan is being a dick.
He’s fully, completely aware that he’s being a dick.
TK just complimented him and instead of saying thanks, or better yet giving him some kind of compliment back, Nolan just stiffens up like some sea crab and becomes World’s Worst Type of Man: cannot show any level of affection for another man less it be treated as anywhere close to gay-adjacent. Even when the hilarity of the situation is that the cause of Nolan’s silence is for pretty much the opposite reason, but it’s not as if TK knows that.
All he knows is that he gave Nolan a compliment and Nolan completely shut down, and shut him out.
This is the worst. This is fully the worst possible thing to happen.
Nolan is being backed into a corner, where he either carries on and allows TK to develop this opinion of him as low-key homophobic or at the very least deeply unaffectionate, which of course Nolan is, but not in the face of unadulterated affection. He’s never completely shut TK down when TK is looking for reassurance, when TK slaps his back or bumps their helmets.
There’s been plenty times he’s ribbed TK, tugged on his ridiculous snapback or sent him a grin across the room, just for him, and hoped TK would know it was just for him, he had to know it was –
Or Nolan confronts this head-on, says something back and deals with the fallout.
Those are his two options. Do nothing and let TK stew in silence, or do something and fuck the consequences, even if it’s the total collapse of his best friendship.
TK’s stiff, hard silence worms underneath his tongue and forces it to speak. So looks like Option 1 is out.
Nolan sucks in a long breath through his teeth, clenches his jaw and stares at the menu option of Mario Cart.
“I think you are too.”
TK does something awful. He laughs.
Nolan whips his head over, but TK is pink-cheeked and shaking his head fondly, warm eyes set on Nolan’s face.
“Patty, it’s fine, I just forget sometimes that you’re pretty repressed and you need to be introduced to the love of your buddies slowly. You don’t need to say it back or anything.”
“I’m not.” Nolan frowns, because for some reason it hurts that TK thinks Nolan can’t possibly mean it. “I’m not just repeating it, idiot. I always have.”
TK blinks. His laughter dies in the air between them. And this is what happens. Nolan can never just be casual. He knew this would be the outcome if he tried to return TK’s weird form of a compliment, it would come out way too serious and way too severe.
“What?” TK breathes.
Nolan scowls down at the covers. “Yeah.” He jerks a shoulder up and almost bumps his own ear with the action. Even shrugging is impossible to pull off casually.
“What do you mean, always?”
Nolan exhales a groan and drops his head back against the headrest, but TK shuffles up frantically as though he’s worried somehow Nolan will escape, hands held out placatingly.
“I’m just curious man!” TK’s laughs, but there’s a weird, warbling quality to it, too bright and overeager.
Nolan closes his eyes and keeps his head tipped back. “You’re hot too, TK, this isn’t news. All the fans say it as well, you don’t need the ego boost.”
“That’s not what I asked, Pat.” TK states. Now his voice is low and serious, in the span of a whole second.
Nolan’s entire face is doing that flush where it physically stings, but there’s not helping it now. Clearly TK has worked it all out, the fucking asshole. Never clicks anything and then suddenly he’s Detective Holmes when Nolan manages to slip up about his feelings, fucking once.
This is the one and only time it’s happened, and it’s all over it seems. TK’s already clocked it.
“Fine, Jesus, I’ve always thought you were hot.” Nolan bites out. “I guess the guys have told you, they fuckin’ chirp me enough about it, you know I fucking.” He huffs a hard breath through his nose. It’s already too much but for some reason Nolan wants to keep going – he wants to just spill it out while it seems to be happening here and now and over the Xbox, he wants to be free of it, to be done with it, to set it loose and let it go. “I fucking shouldn’t need to say it, TK. You know –”
And then, just as ready as Nolan felt to suddenly spill it all, he realises he’s not ready at all. He never will be.
He swallows forcibly and falls silent. He doesn’t breathe.
“What?” TK is close, way too close. Nolan can smell his soft laundry detergent and clean sweats and body wash, and it’s awful. It’s a drop of water in an empty bottle when Nolan’s just finished a game and he’s dying.
If it meant no longer having to deal with this – but then, just as quickly, a spear goes through Nolan at the thought of not even having this. Sure, the closeness is torture in its own right, but it’s still something.
To have nothing. Nothing of TK.
To see TK forcing this artificial space between them all for Nolan’s sake, just to allow Nolan to deal with the blow and give him time to heal. No more living in one another’s pockets, no more thoughtless touches, random drives and tying his ties, no nothing.
More than that, it would just be embarrassing. It’s all so embarrassing. Nolan can’t really see past the soul-crushing mortification of it all right now in order to realise how it would affect the team, their morale, their whole dynamic, everyone’s relationships with everyone.
All he can see is ten seconds from now when TK opens his mouth and the crashing wave of spine curdling embarrassment washes over him: at how wrongly he read this entire moment (not that Nolan read anything into it at all, but he can imagine TK assumes he has, and is about to kindly explain some stupid bro-code). Worse, how kind and gentle TK will be about it, teasing and casual, and how it’ll only make Nolan want him more. How Nolan will simply have to subject himself to it, because any other course of action (fleeing, denying, arguing) would make it a million times worse and more obvious. TK has the worst ability to see right through him.
Nolan knows that TK knows: he’s being serious and silent enough to indicate it. But Nolan still wants to leave with his head held high. TK admires that more than anything in the world: a person’s ability to take defeat.
Nolan shakes his head and doesn’t speak.
He hears TK take a breath: a speech prepared.
“Don’t.” Nolan states. “Don’t, TK. I get it. We can just move on from it.”
Some survival instinct is alive and kicking, and it can see the looming fist of TK’s blow, and it knows it’ll destroy everything in its wake.
Nolan wishes he hadn’t spoken at all, though, even to ask TK not to say the words. It’s only more incriminating evidence.
“Don’t what?” TK breathes, and Nolan isn’t imagining the breath on his face.
He opens his eyes to find TK’s close, his nose almost touching Nolan’s.
Nolan can’t do anything. He’s frozen. His pulse thuds in the backs of his ears, the soles of his feet, every single extremity down to his fingertips. It’s if he’s only just now aware that he has a body. He does absolutely nothing.
“I lied.” TK blurts, quick and rushed. Nolan’s stomach drops to the floor in one sudden swoop, until TK carries on, “I’ve never told any of the guys they’re hot. I just made that up.”
The roof of Nolan’s whole mouth dries. He stares wild-eyed, an exact copy of TK just a few minutes ago. “Why?” He rasps.
“Cause I’m so fucking obviously into you, Patty, it’s pathetic.” TK laughs, his whole face creasing with the emotion, shining out from within as if he’s a lighthouse. “I blurt out everything when it comes to you, bud. I kinda hoped I could just brush it off like some friendly flirting, but Jesus.” He lifts a hand and smooths it along Nolan’s forearm to cup his elbow, tug him in a little. “You, what? You into me too?”
Nolan feels like his eyes might fall out if he doesn’t blink, but he also thinks he might have forgotten how to. He lifts the arm TK is cupping and slots his hand over TK’s bicep. He looks down at his hand, gives TK’s arm a slow stroke with the pad of his thumb. It’s a completely innocuous gesture without the context of this entire conversation making it feel like Nolan has never touched TK before, as if he’s never been allowed.
TK’s eyes are bright, brilliantly shining onto Nolan’s face, a smile caught at the edges of his mouth as if it wants to burst free but it’s afraid. Nolan can feel his own face begin to respond, his own grin trying to break free from behind his stiff facial muscles.
“Yeah, TK.” Nolan murmurs, his voice a rough husk deep from inside his chest. “Yeah, I’m fucking into you.”
TK doesn’t need told twice. He bridges the small gap and fits his mouth over Nolan’s, gentle and soft and barely even there.
That is, until Nolan yanks on the hold he has of TK’s arm and forces them flush together, chests thighs legs pressed all along each other, tangling up. He runs his hand up from TK’s arm along TK’s back and up to his head, rips the cap off and grips a fistful of his hair while his other arm snakes around TK’s waist. TK makes a noise into his mouth, startled and pleased, so Nolan takes advantage by shoving his tongue inside.
It gets messy pretty fast: their teeth click, TK catches Nolan’s lower lip in a sharp bite, their chins press together awkwardly as they open their mouths wider, both of them trying to crawl inside one another, push close, close, close, as close as physically possible. Yes it’s the best fucking kiss Nolan has ever had because it’s TK, and if wasn’t TK then Nolan wouldn’t care, and he wouldn’t want to kiss them like he’s trying to absorb their fucking skin. TK’s two hands are underneath his sweatshirt, fingers splayed on Nolan’s back, and Nolan can’t really help the puffed air escaping his nostrils as TK explores, touch light and skimming along his sides and his hips, dancing lower –
TK roughly pulls back. “Wait. What are we doing?”
Nolan can’t even string two words together right now.
He stares at TK, mouth wet and puffy and pleasantly throbbing, sweatpants tight and restrictive, heartbeat a roar in his ears.
“I’m serious about this.” TK carries on, his eyes wide and fixed on Nolan, and gestures between them. “Us. This isn’t just cause you’re hot. You are fucking beautiful, bro, but I want more. I need more, Pat, I need to know–”
“Jesus, do you ever stop talking?” Nolan rolls on top of TK and pins him down the way he did earlier, both hands around TK's wrists, fingers wrapped tight. He seriously thought this conversion wouldn’t be necessary, going by the intensity of his own kiss and the way TK kissed back, but clearly he was mistaken. He settles his weight on top of TK, nosing at his throat for an excuse to hide his face. “I want that too.”
“I never even said what I want.” TK replies, but his voice is breathy and low, and his heartbeat is so fast Nolan can literally feel it pulse underneath his mouth.
“I want to be with you.” Nolan states. It comes out crisp and clear, not one word mumbled. There’s no mistaking his intent.
But then finally, blessedly, TK wriggles out of his grasp before his hands resume their exploration along Nolan’s back. TK twists his head on the pillow to find Nolan’s mouth, which is still hiding in the vicinity of TK’s throat. Nolan lets himself be kissed though, tenderly and softly, one of TK’s big hands making its way to his face and resting against Nolan’s cheek, just holding his chin tipped up, a thumb stroking his skin.
“Me too.” TK says against his mouth, as if it even needed said at all. As if Nolan couldn’t have understood that from just his touch alone.
But this is the language of TK: words. Nolan is silent gestures and soundless looks, but TK needs the verbal proof, even with all the physical contact he still forces on people. He’s always needed that.
“What…” Nolan forces out, and plays with the edge of TK’s t-shirt, thumbing the hint of TK’s hipbone there, bony and sharp. He watches his own hand, though, and can’t help but feel a sensation of surrealness settle down over him at the sight. His hands are on TK’s skin. He’s barely even allowed himself to picture it. “What do you want?” His voice keeps going lower despite his best efforts, practically just a rumble at this point, but it could also be because of the nature of the question.
Who the fuck is Nolan kidding? It’s obviously the nature of the question.
“God, everything, bud.” TK laughs, all high and giggly like he gets when he’s drunk, and runs his hands along Nolan’s shoulders, down his waist and over his chest, reverent and still somehow a touch frantic. “I want everything, even all the freaky shit.”
Nolan lifts his head to give TK a curious look, eyebrows raised. “Freaky shit?”
He thinks maybe TK is going to say – actually, he has no idea what TK is going to say.
But he doesn’t expect what he actually does say.
“For sure, babe.” TK breathes, and Nolan tries not to let it show how that word affects him. He knows his face is past hiding, though, a giant red beacon that could be seen from space, probably. “I never – I’ve never wanted anyone like this, I mean I wanna do everything bro, I don’t even care what you prefer cause I’m down for it all, like, when I say everything I mean like, I’ll suck you off, rim you, fuck you, you can fuck me, fuck my face, I wanna try both–”
Nolan is pretty sure he starts radiating steam, burning all over in an instantaneous, full-bodied flush that rises right to the very tips of his ears, spills down his throat, along his chest and fucking everywhere. He can feel it in his belly, lit up from the inside and quivering his abdomen muscles in a fluttering heat, but all he can do is gape down at TK as he runs his mouth.
“ – we can do all the positions and shit, we can do whatever you want, you can hold me down or I’ll hold you down, maybe we can try like spanking or whatever, I don’t know how you feel about choking, you can choke me, we can do safe-words and everything, I mean I read an article –”
“TK.” Nolan manages to rasp out, throaty and rough and barely audible.
“ – about that BDSM stuff, and it sounds pretty fun, I mean it sounds kinda fuckin’ insane but it just made me think about you and how you’d look tied up and all that, but we can go slow as well, we don’t have to –”
“Teeks.” Nolan forces out, harder this time.
“Rush.” TK finishes, and then blinks up wide, owlish eyes at Nolan, as if just noticing Nolan’s reaction. “What? Too much? Sorry.” Colour steadily creeps across both his cheeks, but TK barely ever allows anything to make him blush, even when he’s being hounded by ten guys with insults from every side, so Nolan knows this is pretty much maxed-out embarrassment he’s seeing.
“No.” Nolan whispers, and leans both his elbows at either side of TK’s head, bracketing him in. He lifts his thumbs to stroke along TK’s eyebrows, a body part now revealed to him without those ridiculous hats obscuring half his face. “Don’t be sorry.” He feels himself smile, feels it unfurl across his mouth almost involuntarily. “I. Yeah, it sounds good. I like it. And I wanna … do all that stuff too.” Jesus, he can barely get the words out and all he’s doing is agreeing – how the fuck does TK do this? “I just meant – what do you want right now?”
TK stares up at him, something soft and wondrous in his eyes. “I … anything, Patty. Honestly.”
Nolan doesn’t answer and instead he kisses TK again; he doesn’t need to say anything when that’s answer enough. He gets his hands underneath TK’s t-shirt, the material threadbare and worn, and skims his fingertips along TK’s sides, his skin smooth and warm with the hint of muscle in some places, the suggestion of softness in others.
He can feel TK doing the same after a second, feel his hands begin exploring, tentative and shy despite all the filth that just spilled out of TK’s mouth. But then that’s TK, loud and brash, because every single thought that transpires needs broadcasted no matter how briefly the thought came and went.
His actions are usually always more reserved, no matter how confident he pretends to be.
But Nolan can feel a familiar restlessness growing, a pool of warmth begin to liquefy in his gut and beg for pressure of some kind. He squirms on top of TK, more out of the agitation than anything else. But he’s lying on top of TK, a fact that he hadn’t so much forgotten as lost momentary awareness of, because suddenly he shifts on top of TK and the pressure he’s unconsciously seeking is found when his hips slot up against TK’s thigh. He huffs out a noise, not a particularly elegant one, but TK’s touch along his waist grows firmer, surer, and then he’s sliding both hands down to cup Nolan’s ass and squeeze–
Nolan rips off TK’s mouth to gasp, and shoves his face back into TK’s shoulder in order to hide it. His head might boil over and fall off, but at this point Nolan can’t really care because somehow, his thigh has also fallen in-between TK’s legs and the hot hardness he finds there is unmissable. TK groans low and rough, a vibration along the column of his throat that Nolan’s face is pressed into, so it seems only logical for Nolan to open his mouth and suck the skin of TK’s neck into his mouth.
“Pats –” TK gasps, his hips shifting up to find contact, and Nolan is all too happy to oblige, shoving his leg down harder and grinding into the space of TK’s hip that divots, riding the dull pleasure that mounts the longer the seconds pass, and then TK stops him again.
“Wait, wait –”
Nolan groans again, this time is exasperation, because if TK seriously wants to pause to discuss their feelings again he really will –
TK grabs the waistband of his sweats and shoves them down unceremoniously, pulling his boxers along with them until Nolan is pretty much bare to the fucking world.
He yelps because alright, it was going that way, but this soon? Then TK yanks his own sweats down, baring himself just above thigh level because clearly he’s too lazy to pull his or Nolan’s pants off all the way, not that Nolan really finds it in himself to care when TK’s cock is exposed, long and curved right up into his belly, flushed red all over and kicking up a little with anticipation. Nolan just stares, feels the welcome his own cock gives with a distinct pulse like it has its own heartbeat.
And then TK spits into his hand and takes both Nolan and him in a loose, wet grasp.
Nolan really stops caring at all at that point. He falls forward and almost collapses on top of TK with a punched-out moan, but he manages to throw a hand out to stop his fall, holding himself over TK as TK strokes them quick and sloppy.
Nolan can’t help the short, sharp bursts of movement from his hips, intercepting TK’s own attempts to stroke them, but neither can TK it seems, because after an aborted attempt TK gives up, removes his hand and grabs Nolan’s ass again, pushing their hips together that way, their cocks sliding across their stomach and against one another.
It’s so dry, so frictionless, and Nolan has half a mind to stop and make this better – for the fucking both of them – but the other half of his brain doesn’t want to stop ever, wants to keep this frantic pace with TK’s fingers digging into the skin of his ass and TK’s mouth messily sliding from Nolan’s throat to his cheeks to his lips, never settling.
Nolan shoves his forehead to TK’s and keeps his hips snapping up, barely caring that it means this will last for one full nanosecond because he’s too wanting to draw it out, too stretched tight over months and months of agony to make this moment count. It builds low in his belly and he’s given no warning, no nothing other than the sharp release of a band snapping free and Nolan gasps, shocked, as he comes. It’s sudden and immediate and Nolan can’t even rate it, it happens so quickly, can only ride the wave of it as it crests over him.
TK follows, tumbling towards orgasm in a chaos of noise and movement, sinking his teeth into Nolan’s shoulder as if it’ll quieten his moans.
They catch their breath for a moment, chests moving hard against one another, and Nolan looks down at his shoulder when TK dislodges his teeth.
TK, at the very least, looks guilty. “Sorry.” He murmurs, but there’s a glint in his eye as he examines it before he lifts a finger to trace the teeth-marks.
Nolan shivers, and then he kisses TK again, hard and desperate to show that he’s not exactly opposed until TK gentles it with hands on his face, stroking through his hair, lips soft and even.
Nolan isn’t really paying attention to their situation until TK goes to move and their sealed-together skin peels away from one another, making them both grimace.
“Two seconds.” TK holds up a finger and then darts away, his pants still at his hips until he kicks them off and lets them fall somewhere to the floor. He comes back with a washcloth, wearing nothing but socks and a t-shirt, and Nolan laughs at the ridiculous sight.
“Two in one day, bud?” TK says as he crawls his way to Nolan, dropping the warm cloth on his stomach. “You better give a guy a warning.”
“What?” Nolan says around a grin.
TK points to his face as he wipes Nolan down. “That. That laugh. Could be deadly.”
Nolan huffs, rolls his eyes. “Stop flirting, you got me into bed.”
“True.” TK murmurs and throws the cloth away again, just littering Nolan’s entire room at this point. But then he crawls on top of Nolan and brushes the hair from his eyes, so Nolan will let it slide. “But I also wanna keep you in bed.”
Nolan spreads both his arms out in the universal you got me gesture. TK kisses him again soundly, rolls over onto his side so they’re facing one another. Nolan is finding his grin pretty hard to wipe off, and weirdly enough the urge to laugh bubbles up in his chest too, builds from absolutely nothing other than the tender look on TK’s face, which barely makes sense.
Why should TK looking at him be funny? It’s not, nothing about this situation is funny and Nolan doesn’t want to spoil it by laughing, but the urge to laugh is there regardless, that light, euphoric feeling that comes before laughter squirming underneath Nolan’s skin. TK seems to be in a similar situation, eyes all wrinkled up and mouth stretched so wide it bunches the skin of his cheeks.
Maybe Nolan got it wrong. Maybe he does laugh only for specific people, but not for the usual reasons. Or maybe he’s just got to be really, really, really, one hundred percent happy and nothing else before so much as a chuckle can escape. One or the other. It’s not really important, anyway. He presses his smile to TK’s, a gentle huff of amusement escaping when TK’s arms instantly wrap around him.