Slap Slap Kiss [Clyde/Luke, PG-13]
Since meeting Sarah Jane, things around Clyde Langer never really stopped being weird, but the weirdness level decided to slip into overdrive one morning when, quite out of the blue, Luke slapped him.
Then he kissed him.
It was a pretty good kiss, all things considered, even if their teeth did knock together a bit at the start of it. But that didn't detract from the weirdness of the moment. Here he was, Clyde Langer, self-proclaimed coolest of the cool, being kissed in the art supply cupboard by none other than Luke Smith, boy genius. And enjoying it.
Well, except for the slap. That was definitely weird. But everything else was nice.
... did this mean Luke was gay? Did this mean that Clyde was gay?
Oh bloody hell.
***
Gay, Clyde knew, was the opposite of cool. Well, unless you were a billionaire rock star and even then you had to be white. (Originally white, not like Michael Jackson. Clyde still had a hard time believing that Michael Jackson had ever been black even after seeing his mum's old album covers, but then again he wasn't quite sure that Michael Jackson was even human. Not until Mr Smith ran a few tests on him and maybe not even then.)
Well, then. Luke probably was at least a little gay, because even though Clyde had made great strides with him, there would always been a certain essential core of anti-cool contained within Luke Smith. But Clyde himself? Nope, nothing, nada. He was a gay-free cool kitty.
Clyde decided to exercise his lack of gay by imagining that he was back in the art cupboard, this time snogging Rani Chandra. Her soft mouth and warm hands and the sound of her dad pounding on the cupboard door, yelling that if they didn't come out this very moment he'd call the police on Clyde. Digging his fingers into Rani's close-cropped brown hair...wait a minute...
Oh hell. Clyde really was gay.
He'd never be cool again.
***
It happened again two days later while they were hiding in the school's equipment shed, waiting for the mole men to wrap up their mysterious and nefarious gathering on the football pitch. Mere moments ago they'd been listening to unintelligible, gutteral chanting, punctuated by the occasional cry of “MINDY!” Then Clyde's eyes met with Luke's.
At least this time Clyde had known to anticipate the slap.
Unfortunately, their snogging session was cut short by the appearance of a squad of funky looking lava monsters and Luke ended up having to phone his mum in order to broker a peace treaty between mole men and lava men. It was really too bad. He'd almost got Luke's shirt off before the door melted.
***
It happened yet again while they were hiding from Slitheen gangsta rappers behind the desk of the third-richest record producer in Britain. And when Mr Cunningham asked them to get one of the television carts from the (luckily vacant) audiovisual room. It even happened in the top secret chamber underneath the Lincoln Memorial, scant hours after they'd saved the new American president from being assassinated by Kaagh the Bloody Relentless during his inauguration speech. (Luckily, everyone else was busy escorting the Sontaran into the welcoming arms of the CIA.)
They'd had to sneak back down again a few hours later. Clyde had accidentally left his newly autographed Presidential Seal baseball cap underneath a file cabinet.
It would have been nice, though, if Luke ever bothered to slap his other cheek.
***
“Thanks for putting us up,” Clyde said awkwardly.
“No problem,” said Maria with a shrug. “You wouldn't be here in the first place if it weren't for us calling you about the UFO sightings.”
“True,” said Clyde. “You don't mind sharing with Rani, though?”
Maria shook her head. “She's pretty cool. We're watching Twilight on DVD and throwing popcorn at the telly during the really barmy bits. So what's with you and Luke? Rani thinks you're snogging.”
Clyde turned his head sharply toward the stairs, expecting to catch Sarah Jane or Alan listening in on them. But the stairs were empty.
Maria was grinning like the cat who ate the canary. “You are, aren't you?”
“Keep your voice down,” Clyde hissed. “We don't want Sarah Jane to find out.”
“Fine,” Maria whispered. “But you're going to have to tell me what it's like.”
“Snogging Luke?”
Maria nodded.
“It's nice,” Clyde whispered back. “Actually, it's bloody brilliant. But weird. He keeps slapping me.”
Maria frowned. “Maybe that's how he thinks it's supposed to go?” she ventured after a moment.
Clyde blinked. “You think so?”
“Probably,” said Maria diplomatically. “I mean, this is Luke. Remember how he used to think Cadbury had genetically engineered rabbits to lay their crème eggs?”
“Good point,” said Clyde.
***
“You know, Luke,” Clyde said very casually later that night, “you don't actually have to slap me before you snog me.”
The Jacksons' guest bedroom was pitch dark, so Clyde couldn't actually see Luke blink owlishly at this new and foreign concept. But he'd known Luke long enough to imagine the expression pretty well.
“I don't?”
“'S purely optional.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, I suppose people are always slapping their blokes in old movies before kissing them, but that's because everyone in old movies was really, really weird, mostly because they're made by Yanks.”
“Oh.”
“And they were probably taking lot of drugs too. At least, that's what my dad always used to-mmmf.”
On the other hand, maybe he and Luke could have a talk in the morning about giving a bloke fair warning.