interruptions, craig/eric & drake/josh, pg-13
Title: interruptions
Author: likecharity
Pairing: Craig/Eric (with background Drake/Josh)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Craig liked girls. Or he thought he did, anyway. Craig discovers he has a crush on his best friend, but has no clue what to do about it.
A/N: Fiiiinally, it's finished. There needs to be more Craig/Eric slash in the world, by the way. IT CANNOT BE DENIED HOW GAY AND IN LOVE THEY ARE.
Craig liked girls. Or he thought he did, anyway. He liked looking at them. Not any one girl in particular, just females in general. He liked hanging out at the Premiere and watching them pass by. Because that was what they always did-pass by. Not once had one of them ever stopped to talk to him. (Except for that time when he was waiting for Eric to turn up, and the gorgeous brunette with the really long legs had stopped to let him know he had ketchup on his nose. But somehow he thought that didn't really count.)
But so what if they never paid him any attention? Mom always said they would, eventually, he just had to give it time. She said he had to wait for them to learn that all the guys they fawned over, the ones who could play guitar or had great cars, were always just going to hurt them in the end. They had to learn to start looking for a nice guy with a good personality. And when they did, he'd be the one they'd come to.
Apparently, anyway. Craig wasn't so sure. But it was nice to admire them from afar anyway. He liked doing that. Especially with Eric. And he liked talking about them with Eric, too. Especially at sleepovers, when it got really dark and late and Eric's voice would be just a nervous little murmur as he told Craig what he'd like to do to them. He'd talk quickly, skimming past the words that made Craig blush furiously. And sometimes he'd shift closer, and his voice would start getting breathy and Craig would start getting hard, and that was always when Eric stopped. Abruptly, usually. And he'd say, in a different voice altogether (sort of high-pitched and forced), "I'm tired, maybe we should get to sleep."
And then Craig would nod in the dark and mutter agreement before rolling over. And then, eventually, he'd drift off to sleep, uncomfortable and unsatisfied and with a strange, achy feeling in his chest like there was something wrong that he just couldn't pinpoint. He didn't know what that meant. But at least he was pretty sure he liked girls. He just liked hearing Eric talk about them a little bit more.
The sound of Eric's triumphant laughter, along with some high-octane electronic music, brought him out of his thoughts. He stared dumbly at the game controller in his hands, then at the TV screen, which was currently telling him that the score of whatever game they'd been playing was now largely in Eric's favour.
"What's up with you tonight?" Eric asked. "That's like the sixth time in a row that you've lost."
I was thinking about girls, Craig considered replying, but it sounded ridiculous.
"I've got stuff on my mind," he went with instead.
I was thinking about girls and you.
* * *
A kid at school had called him a fag. That was what had gotten him thinking, trying to work things out in his head. That and the way Eric had flipped out when it'd happened. Wiggling his fists ridiculously at the guy, asking if he wanted to 'take this outside'. Eric's loyalty could sometimes be questionable, but when he decided to show it, he really showed it, and it made Craig's heart ache.
Maybe he'd just been called a fag because he'd never actually been on a date with a girl. Guys who dated girls a lot never got called fags. But maybe it was much more complicated than he thought. He'd always assumed that guys who dated lots of girls just couldn't be gay, but Eric had another theory.
"Overcompensation," he'd said earlier that day, wisely, as he sipped on his soda at the Premiere. They'd just seen Drake disappear into a theatre with a girl on each arm.
"What?"
"He's making sure he's always seen with girls so that nobody knows he's gay," Eric explained.
"He's gay?" Craig asked in astonishment. Drake Parker, gay? He'd never have suspected it. Josh, maybe, if he had to pick one of the two. But never Drake.
"Well," Eric said, frowning slightly. "I don't know, for sure. But trust me. I have really good gaydar."
"Gaydar?"
"You know, when you can tell if people are gay or straight," Eric said matter-of-factly, draining the rest of his soda and pushing it aside. He leaned in and added confidentially, "And I'm almost always right."
Craig's heart had started beating faster at this. He could almost feel it thudding against his ribcage. He still got sort of nervous and sweaty now, when he thought about it, replaying the words in his head. And it didn't make any sense. He wasn't gay, so what did he have to worry about? He looked at girls all the time. He noticed if a girl in one of his classes wore her hair differently, or got a new shirt. If a girl's underwear was showing, he looked.
Reluctantly, he had to admit to himself that these things applied to Eric as well. Less, but that was probably only because Eric only changed his hair once in a blue moon, and he barely ever bought new shirts. He always tucked his shirts into his pants, too, so he didn't reveal his underwear as much as Nicola Lowe, the girl who sat in front of Craig in Math.
But that was beside the point. He only noticed these things about Eric because Eric was his best friend. Right?
"Are you asleep?" Eric's voice asked, suddenly louder and clear in his ear than it had been.
"What?" Craig mumbled. "No, no, I'm...I'm still listening."
Eric had been talking about his new next-door neighbour, a girl called Anne who had moved in about a week ago. All Craig had heard was something about Eric seeing her undressing through his bedroom window, and then he'd drifted off into his own thoughts. For some reason, he wasn't in the mood for hearing Eric talk about girls.
"Doesn't matter, I'm just going to go to sleep," Eric muttered. He sounded cross. "'S never going to happen between us anyway."
Craig's heart leapt. "W-what?"
"Anne," Eric said. "She's like twenty-three. And even if she was our age, she'd never give me a second look."
Oh. Anne. Who had he thought Eric had been talking about? Of course he meant Anne, the girl he'd been talking about all day. But why was he so disappointed to hear her mentioned again? Why had some part of him hoped that 'us' meant Eric and himself, as it usually did?
"Don't be stupid," Craig whispered. He gulped and said in a shaky voice, "She'd be lucky to have a guy like you." He gulped again and added, even more quietly, "You're amazing."
There was a horrible silence. "Eric?"
The sound of light snoring was his only response. He gazed at Eric's peaceful sleeping form next to him, and then, exhaling unsteadily, he rolled over to try and get to sleep.
* * *
It was beginning to worry him, a little, how much he'd been thinking about Eric lately. And his sexuality in general. He'd never worried about it before, but in the past few weeks it seemed like everything had changed.
"It's weird," Eric said suddenly. They were having lunch at the Premiere for the second day in a row. They'd been hanging out there a lot because Josh was working so much, it was the only way they'd been able to see him lately. "Most people think that nerds don't even have a sexuality at all."
"What?" Craig had blurted out, nearly choking on his fries. This was an overreaction to a simple statement, and he knew it, but there was something about hearing Eric say the word 'sexuality' that got his heart racing.
"But really," Eric went on as though Craig's reaction had been totally normal, "we probably have twice the sex drive as everybody else."
"We do?" Craig squeaked.
"Because we never get any," Eric said, grinning as he bit into his hot dog. Craig really did start to choke on his fries at that moment, and Eric had to leap up and perform an improvised Heimlich maneuver to save him.
While he was coughing up chunks of food, he noticed Drake sauntering in and leaning against the counter, chatting to Josh. He suddenly had an idea. It was most likely a bad one, but he'd have to put it into action to find out for sure.
"Er," he croaked. "Er, listen. I've got to go talk to Drake about something."
"What?" asked Eric, disentangling himself from Craig's body and sliding back into his seat.
"I have to go talk to Drake."
"I heard you, I mean, what do you have to talk to him about?"
I wanted to ask him if it's true that he likes boys and tell him that I might possibly like boys as well as girls and ask him whether I should do anything about it if the boy I might like is you. His brain was spinning.
"Er," he said weakly. "It's a surprise."
He left before Eric had the chance to say anything else, and hurried over to Drake, his heart in his throat. Josh was distracted just as he approached, by an old man in a top hat who was demanding to know why some of his popcorn remained 'unpopped'. Craig dragged Drake off into the most private corner of the movie theatre he could find.
"Dude, what is it?" Drake asked. "I haven't seen you this freaked out since Craig was dangling off my roof from a rope during that storm-"
"I am Craig," Craig sighed. "Listen, Drake, I want to know if you can help me out with someth-"
"Ooh, I dunno," Drake said, sighing. "'Help nerds' isn't exactly on my list of things to do today."
"Please, Drake," Craig begged. "I just-I need to know-listen, you like girls, right?"
Drake's face suddenly lit up. "Yeah, why? You got one with you?"
Craig leaned against the wall and rubbed his temples. "No," he said in a small voice. "I just-I wanted to know-have you-do you-"
"Jeez, Eric, spit it out."
And he was just about to (he wasn't even going to stop to correct Drake about his name) when Eric suddenly appeared, tapping him on the shoulder.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt," Eric said. "I just remembered, the store that sells the model planes shuts early on Sundays, and-"
"Model planes?" Drake interrupted.
"Yeah!" said Eric excitedly. "We're going to build one and paint it, and-"
"Yeah, I don't care," Drake shrugged. He turned to Craig. "Dude, if you ever work out how to get that sentence out of your mouth in one piece, let me know, okay?"
And with that, he wandered off. Craig watched him go, sighing.
"What's wrong?" asked Eric. He looked concerned. "Do you not want to get the plane? Because we've had that money in our joint account for ages and we've finally saved up enough, and I thought-"
"That's not it," Craig said. Eric looked relieved. "I want to get the plane."
"Great! Okay. Can we just go to the bathroom before we leave?"
Craig nodded and followed. His whole body felt heavy. He wanted to give up. He'd finally worked up the courage to actually admit his feelings to himself, and he was going to go and admit them to somebody else as well (granted, that 'someone' was Drake Parker and it was bound to have been a disaster, but it was something) and now he'd lost his chance. He was just going to have to go on in silence. Silently tortured by his own desires. Silently wishing he could be more than Eric's 'friend'. Silently-
"Oh my!" Eric hissed suddenly, spinning around in the entrance to the mens' room. He grabbed Craig by the shoulders and pushed him back the way they'd come.
"Wha-" Craig stammered. "Why-?"
"Er," was Eric's only reply.
Craig raised his eyebrows and took a step forward. He peered round the corner to see what it was that had shocked Eric so much-
-and was pretty damn shocked himself.
Eric may have already made him wonder about Drake's sexual orientation, but nothing would have prepared him for the sight of Drake pressing Josh up against the bathroom wall as the two of them made out frantically. Josh's hands roamed over Drake's back, his fingers threaded through his hair, He let out a high-pitched squeak and Eric yanked him backwards around the corner again just as Drake turned his head.
If it had been possible for his vocal chords to simply emit a long stream of exclamation marks, that is what they would have done. Instead, he found himself gabbling nonsensically and waving his arms around so much that Eric had to pin them to his sides. Eric was in just as much shock, at least if his current expression was anything to go by.
They were still standing there in utter astonishment when they heard murmured conversation coming from around the corner.
"I've got to get back to work." That was Josh's voice.
"Oh come on," Drake's voice pleaded, "you can afford to take a break. A Drake break."
There was a pause, then Josh's reply. "Well, I do enjoy the Drake breaks..." he said, but added, softly, "I've really got to, though. Helen'll kill me if-"
"One more kiss?" Drake asked, and Craig had to assume that Josh had given in to this, judging by the silence that followed.
And then they heard footsteps-Drake and Josh were heading their way. They leapt a few feet to the left, and watched as Josh exited the bathroom first, tugging anxiously at his uniform and looking around. He didn't notice them, though. Drake followed, patting his hair. He hurried off towards the entrance to the cinema, glancing around nervously. Craig was amazed to see him reappear a few seconds later and slide into a chair next to a pretty redhaired girl, murmuring, "Sorry I'm late, baby."
"Drake," Craig stammered helplessly. "and Josh..."
"Uh-huh," Eric nodded, his voice faint.
"So. Er."
"Shall we go?"
"Don't you need the bathroom?"
"Let's just go."
On their way past, Drake said, "Hey guys. Have fun with your model boat." Neither of them corrected him. Craig couldn't even look him in the eye.
* * *
Okay.
So he had a crush on Eric.
That much was clear by this point.
But what was he supposed to do about it? Dad was always saying that maybe the reason he never got any dates was because he wasn't brave enough to make the first move and ask them out. But that wasn't true, he'd done that before. The responses ranged from hysterical laughter to slaps in the face, though, and after a little while of that he had decided to just stop trying his luck.
Would Eric laugh? Slap him? He had no idea. He wished he knew how Drake and Josh had ended up the way they were. It was strangely nice to know that they had been in a similar situation to the one he was in, now. It had secured something in his brain, made him able to admit his feelings. He couldn't imagine it'd been easy for them to admit their feelings, being stepbrothers and all. He wondered who had made the first move. He wondered if Eric was right, that Drake really was gay. It didn't really add up-he seemed just as passionate about the girls he made out with as he did about Josh.
He wondered why Eric hadn't been able to tell that Josh liked guys as well. He hoped maybe Eric's gaydar was flawed after all.
"Craig?" Eric's voice softly brought him out of his thoughts. "Craig, you keep smudging the paint. Your hands are shaking like crazy."
He took the thin paintbrush out of Craig's hand and placed it next to the half-completed model plane. Then he took Craig's hands in his, holding them still. When he let go again, Craig straightened them out, but they were still trembling.
Eric laughed. "What is it?"
Craig took a deep breath. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and said, all in one breath, "I think I maybe kind of have a crush on you."
He wondered if he should shield his face just in case Eric did decide to go for the slapping response, but he didn't have a chance. Suddenly Eric's glasses were bumping against his nose and then there were chapped lips against his and a shaky arm around his waist pulling him closer. It was over before either of them had gotten the hang of it, because Eric had something to say.
"Really?" was all it was, said in a very small voice.
Craig finally opened his eyes. "Yes."
"My gaydar must not be as good as I thought, then," was all Eric said.
"Mine must be nonexistant," Craig sighed. "I had no idea that you-well, that you-"
"I've been incredibly good at covering it up," Eric laughed. "I wish you'd told me sooner."
Craig wished that, too, and he would have started berating himself for not carrying on with that time machine he and Eric had attempted to make last summer, if Eric had not interrupted his thoughts yet again. He decided he didn't mind Eric's interruptions so much, though, when they came in the form of kisses.
Author: likecharity
Pairing: Craig/Eric (with background Drake/Josh)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Craig liked girls. Or he thought he did, anyway. Craig discovers he has a crush on his best friend, but has no clue what to do about it.
A/N: Fiiiinally, it's finished. There needs to be more Craig/Eric slash in the world, by the way. IT CANNOT BE DENIED HOW GAY AND IN LOVE THEY ARE.
Craig liked girls. Or he thought he did, anyway. He liked looking at them. Not any one girl in particular, just females in general. He liked hanging out at the Premiere and watching them pass by. Because that was what they always did-pass by. Not once had one of them ever stopped to talk to him. (Except for that time when he was waiting for Eric to turn up, and the gorgeous brunette with the really long legs had stopped to let him know he had ketchup on his nose. But somehow he thought that didn't really count.)
But so what if they never paid him any attention? Mom always said they would, eventually, he just had to give it time. She said he had to wait for them to learn that all the guys they fawned over, the ones who could play guitar or had great cars, were always just going to hurt them in the end. They had to learn to start looking for a nice guy with a good personality. And when they did, he'd be the one they'd come to.
Apparently, anyway. Craig wasn't so sure. But it was nice to admire them from afar anyway. He liked doing that. Especially with Eric. And he liked talking about them with Eric, too. Especially at sleepovers, when it got really dark and late and Eric's voice would be just a nervous little murmur as he told Craig what he'd like to do to them. He'd talk quickly, skimming past the words that made Craig blush furiously. And sometimes he'd shift closer, and his voice would start getting breathy and Craig would start getting hard, and that was always when Eric stopped. Abruptly, usually. And he'd say, in a different voice altogether (sort of high-pitched and forced), "I'm tired, maybe we should get to sleep."
And then Craig would nod in the dark and mutter agreement before rolling over. And then, eventually, he'd drift off to sleep, uncomfortable and unsatisfied and with a strange, achy feeling in his chest like there was something wrong that he just couldn't pinpoint. He didn't know what that meant. But at least he was pretty sure he liked girls. He just liked hearing Eric talk about them a little bit more.
The sound of Eric's triumphant laughter, along with some high-octane electronic music, brought him out of his thoughts. He stared dumbly at the game controller in his hands, then at the TV screen, which was currently telling him that the score of whatever game they'd been playing was now largely in Eric's favour.
"What's up with you tonight?" Eric asked. "That's like the sixth time in a row that you've lost."
I was thinking about girls, Craig considered replying, but it sounded ridiculous.
"I've got stuff on my mind," he went with instead.
I was thinking about girls and you.
* * *
A kid at school had called him a fag. That was what had gotten him thinking, trying to work things out in his head. That and the way Eric had flipped out when it'd happened. Wiggling his fists ridiculously at the guy, asking if he wanted to 'take this outside'. Eric's loyalty could sometimes be questionable, but when he decided to show it, he really showed it, and it made Craig's heart ache.
Maybe he'd just been called a fag because he'd never actually been on a date with a girl. Guys who dated girls a lot never got called fags. But maybe it was much more complicated than he thought. He'd always assumed that guys who dated lots of girls just couldn't be gay, but Eric had another theory.
"Overcompensation," he'd said earlier that day, wisely, as he sipped on his soda at the Premiere. They'd just seen Drake disappear into a theatre with a girl on each arm.
"What?"
"He's making sure he's always seen with girls so that nobody knows he's gay," Eric explained.
"He's gay?" Craig asked in astonishment. Drake Parker, gay? He'd never have suspected it. Josh, maybe, if he had to pick one of the two. But never Drake.
"Well," Eric said, frowning slightly. "I don't know, for sure. But trust me. I have really good gaydar."
"Gaydar?"
"You know, when you can tell if people are gay or straight," Eric said matter-of-factly, draining the rest of his soda and pushing it aside. He leaned in and added confidentially, "And I'm almost always right."
Craig's heart had started beating faster at this. He could almost feel it thudding against his ribcage. He still got sort of nervous and sweaty now, when he thought about it, replaying the words in his head. And it didn't make any sense. He wasn't gay, so what did he have to worry about? He looked at girls all the time. He noticed if a girl in one of his classes wore her hair differently, or got a new shirt. If a girl's underwear was showing, he looked.
Reluctantly, he had to admit to himself that these things applied to Eric as well. Less, but that was probably only because Eric only changed his hair once in a blue moon, and he barely ever bought new shirts. He always tucked his shirts into his pants, too, so he didn't reveal his underwear as much as Nicola Lowe, the girl who sat in front of Craig in Math.
But that was beside the point. He only noticed these things about Eric because Eric was his best friend. Right?
"Are you asleep?" Eric's voice asked, suddenly louder and clear in his ear than it had been.
"What?" Craig mumbled. "No, no, I'm...I'm still listening."
Eric had been talking about his new next-door neighbour, a girl called Anne who had moved in about a week ago. All Craig had heard was something about Eric seeing her undressing through his bedroom window, and then he'd drifted off into his own thoughts. For some reason, he wasn't in the mood for hearing Eric talk about girls.
"Doesn't matter, I'm just going to go to sleep," Eric muttered. He sounded cross. "'S never going to happen between us anyway."
Craig's heart leapt. "W-what?"
"Anne," Eric said. "She's like twenty-three. And even if she was our age, she'd never give me a second look."
Oh. Anne. Who had he thought Eric had been talking about? Of course he meant Anne, the girl he'd been talking about all day. But why was he so disappointed to hear her mentioned again? Why had some part of him hoped that 'us' meant Eric and himself, as it usually did?
"Don't be stupid," Craig whispered. He gulped and said in a shaky voice, "She'd be lucky to have a guy like you." He gulped again and added, even more quietly, "You're amazing."
There was a horrible silence. "Eric?"
The sound of light snoring was his only response. He gazed at Eric's peaceful sleeping form next to him, and then, exhaling unsteadily, he rolled over to try and get to sleep.
* * *
It was beginning to worry him, a little, how much he'd been thinking about Eric lately. And his sexuality in general. He'd never worried about it before, but in the past few weeks it seemed like everything had changed.
"It's weird," Eric said suddenly. They were having lunch at the Premiere for the second day in a row. They'd been hanging out there a lot because Josh was working so much, it was the only way they'd been able to see him lately. "Most people think that nerds don't even have a sexuality at all."
"What?" Craig had blurted out, nearly choking on his fries. This was an overreaction to a simple statement, and he knew it, but there was something about hearing Eric say the word 'sexuality' that got his heart racing.
"But really," Eric went on as though Craig's reaction had been totally normal, "we probably have twice the sex drive as everybody else."
"We do?" Craig squeaked.
"Because we never get any," Eric said, grinning as he bit into his hot dog. Craig really did start to choke on his fries at that moment, and Eric had to leap up and perform an improvised Heimlich maneuver to save him.
While he was coughing up chunks of food, he noticed Drake sauntering in and leaning against the counter, chatting to Josh. He suddenly had an idea. It was most likely a bad one, but he'd have to put it into action to find out for sure.
"Er," he croaked. "Er, listen. I've got to go talk to Drake about something."
"What?" asked Eric, disentangling himself from Craig's body and sliding back into his seat.
"I have to go talk to Drake."
"I heard you, I mean, what do you have to talk to him about?"
I wanted to ask him if it's true that he likes boys and tell him that I might possibly like boys as well as girls and ask him whether I should do anything about it if the boy I might like is you. His brain was spinning.
"Er," he said weakly. "It's a surprise."
He left before Eric had the chance to say anything else, and hurried over to Drake, his heart in his throat. Josh was distracted just as he approached, by an old man in a top hat who was demanding to know why some of his popcorn remained 'unpopped'. Craig dragged Drake off into the most private corner of the movie theatre he could find.
"Dude, what is it?" Drake asked. "I haven't seen you this freaked out since Craig was dangling off my roof from a rope during that storm-"
"I am Craig," Craig sighed. "Listen, Drake, I want to know if you can help me out with someth-"
"Ooh, I dunno," Drake said, sighing. "'Help nerds' isn't exactly on my list of things to do today."
"Please, Drake," Craig begged. "I just-I need to know-listen, you like girls, right?"
Drake's face suddenly lit up. "Yeah, why? You got one with you?"
Craig leaned against the wall and rubbed his temples. "No," he said in a small voice. "I just-I wanted to know-have you-do you-"
"Jeez, Eric, spit it out."
And he was just about to (he wasn't even going to stop to correct Drake about his name) when Eric suddenly appeared, tapping him on the shoulder.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt," Eric said. "I just remembered, the store that sells the model planes shuts early on Sundays, and-"
"Model planes?" Drake interrupted.
"Yeah!" said Eric excitedly. "We're going to build one and paint it, and-"
"Yeah, I don't care," Drake shrugged. He turned to Craig. "Dude, if you ever work out how to get that sentence out of your mouth in one piece, let me know, okay?"
And with that, he wandered off. Craig watched him go, sighing.
"What's wrong?" asked Eric. He looked concerned. "Do you not want to get the plane? Because we've had that money in our joint account for ages and we've finally saved up enough, and I thought-"
"That's not it," Craig said. Eric looked relieved. "I want to get the plane."
"Great! Okay. Can we just go to the bathroom before we leave?"
Craig nodded and followed. His whole body felt heavy. He wanted to give up. He'd finally worked up the courage to actually admit his feelings to himself, and he was going to go and admit them to somebody else as well (granted, that 'someone' was Drake Parker and it was bound to have been a disaster, but it was something) and now he'd lost his chance. He was just going to have to go on in silence. Silently tortured by his own desires. Silently wishing he could be more than Eric's 'friend'. Silently-
"Oh my!" Eric hissed suddenly, spinning around in the entrance to the mens' room. He grabbed Craig by the shoulders and pushed him back the way they'd come.
"Wha-" Craig stammered. "Why-?"
"Er," was Eric's only reply.
Craig raised his eyebrows and took a step forward. He peered round the corner to see what it was that had shocked Eric so much-
-and was pretty damn shocked himself.
Eric may have already made him wonder about Drake's sexual orientation, but nothing would have prepared him for the sight of Drake pressing Josh up against the bathroom wall as the two of them made out frantically. Josh's hands roamed over Drake's back, his fingers threaded through his hair, He let out a high-pitched squeak and Eric yanked him backwards around the corner again just as Drake turned his head.
If it had been possible for his vocal chords to simply emit a long stream of exclamation marks, that is what they would have done. Instead, he found himself gabbling nonsensically and waving his arms around so much that Eric had to pin them to his sides. Eric was in just as much shock, at least if his current expression was anything to go by.
They were still standing there in utter astonishment when they heard murmured conversation coming from around the corner.
"I've got to get back to work." That was Josh's voice.
"Oh come on," Drake's voice pleaded, "you can afford to take a break. A Drake break."
There was a pause, then Josh's reply. "Well, I do enjoy the Drake breaks..." he said, but added, softly, "I've really got to, though. Helen'll kill me if-"
"One more kiss?" Drake asked, and Craig had to assume that Josh had given in to this, judging by the silence that followed.
And then they heard footsteps-Drake and Josh were heading their way. They leapt a few feet to the left, and watched as Josh exited the bathroom first, tugging anxiously at his uniform and looking around. He didn't notice them, though. Drake followed, patting his hair. He hurried off towards the entrance to the cinema, glancing around nervously. Craig was amazed to see him reappear a few seconds later and slide into a chair next to a pretty redhaired girl, murmuring, "Sorry I'm late, baby."
"Drake," Craig stammered helplessly. "and Josh..."
"Uh-huh," Eric nodded, his voice faint.
"So. Er."
"Shall we go?"
"Don't you need the bathroom?"
"Let's just go."
On their way past, Drake said, "Hey guys. Have fun with your model boat." Neither of them corrected him. Craig couldn't even look him in the eye.
* * *
Okay.
So he had a crush on Eric.
That much was clear by this point.
But what was he supposed to do about it? Dad was always saying that maybe the reason he never got any dates was because he wasn't brave enough to make the first move and ask them out. But that wasn't true, he'd done that before. The responses ranged from hysterical laughter to slaps in the face, though, and after a little while of that he had decided to just stop trying his luck.
Would Eric laugh? Slap him? He had no idea. He wished he knew how Drake and Josh had ended up the way they were. It was strangely nice to know that they had been in a similar situation to the one he was in, now. It had secured something in his brain, made him able to admit his feelings. He couldn't imagine it'd been easy for them to admit their feelings, being stepbrothers and all. He wondered who had made the first move. He wondered if Eric was right, that Drake really was gay. It didn't really add up-he seemed just as passionate about the girls he made out with as he did about Josh.
He wondered why Eric hadn't been able to tell that Josh liked guys as well. He hoped maybe Eric's gaydar was flawed after all.
"Craig?" Eric's voice softly brought him out of his thoughts. "Craig, you keep smudging the paint. Your hands are shaking like crazy."
He took the thin paintbrush out of Craig's hand and placed it next to the half-completed model plane. Then he took Craig's hands in his, holding them still. When he let go again, Craig straightened them out, but they were still trembling.
Eric laughed. "What is it?"
Craig took a deep breath. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and said, all in one breath, "I think I maybe kind of have a crush on you."
He wondered if he should shield his face just in case Eric did decide to go for the slapping response, but he didn't have a chance. Suddenly Eric's glasses were bumping against his nose and then there were chapped lips against his and a shaky arm around his waist pulling him closer. It was over before either of them had gotten the hang of it, because Eric had something to say.
"Really?" was all it was, said in a very small voice.
Craig finally opened his eyes. "Yes."
"My gaydar must not be as good as I thought, then," was all Eric said.
"Mine must be nonexistant," Craig sighed. "I had no idea that you-well, that you-"
"I've been incredibly good at covering it up," Eric laughed. "I wish you'd told me sooner."
Craig wished that, too, and he would have started berating himself for not carrying on with that time machine he and Eric had attempted to make last summer, if Eric had not interrupted his thoughts yet again. He decided he didn't mind Eric's interruptions so much, though, when they came in the form of kisses.