YOU’RE PUSHING ON, I’M PUSHING PLAY

He can still detect the pungent smell of the hay underneath Alex’s soapy perfume. It sticks to his body, and to his own, it’s almost impossible to wash it away. He can still feel the warmth of the summer on his barely sun-kissed skin, still so pale despite the long hours spent outside, and then the mellow, sweet smell of Alex’s suntan cream – he never walks out of the house without putting it on first. Timmy closes his eyes and smells and kisses and tastes all that, and remembers Alex’s small figure in the morning, before they even opened the window, as he sat in front of his dressing table, looking at himself in the mirror, smearing his face in moisturizer and whining for all the little imperfections he had started to notice. “I’m spotted everywhere, Timmy,” he complained, “It’s because you keep me out too long.” And Timmy used to answer to that by standing up from the bed and approaching him from behind, kneeling and pressing kisses up along Alex’s spine until he stopped complaining and started moaning.

He touches Alex’s skin, and it’s soft under his fingertips, warm and tender, makes him want to take a bite, and he does. He leans in and bites the full curve of his pale shoulder, and Alex throws his head back and lets out one of his peculiar breathless sounds, the ones he likes to whisper on Timmy’s skin, the ones with which he tells him he’s ready. They still haven’t gone past heavy petting, but Alex never fails to breathe that way, to make sure Timmy knows they could try, if they wanted to.

They want to, and sometimes they try. It never works, though, ‘cause Alex is so damn tiny and so damn tight, and Timmy is so damn young and so damn stupid he never knows how to do things right. Alex always tended to trust him more than he deserved, just because he’s a few years older and has already been with girls – well, one, at least – he seems to think Timmy should hold the key to all the secrets, like some sort of know-how sacred manual had descended on him the very moment he lost his virginity.

It’s not like that, of course, but Timmy doesn’t like to admit it because he loves the way Alex looks at him when he gets something right, that special gaze and that special smile meaning “see? I knew I could trust you, I knew you could do it”. Timmy cherishes that more than everything else, he doesn’t wanna spoil it by forcibly stripping that childish, sweet faith from Alex’s big blue eyes.

They’re not even trying this time, though, they’re both too horny to stand the long and torturous process of trying to fuck like proper adults and having to stop because it’s too painful or doesn’t feel right. They just want to enjoy themselves, now. That, they definitely know how to do.

Timmy pulls himself up on his hands and knees, towering over Alex. Where are they? Timmy can’t see it. The surroundings blur and fade away at the edges of his eyesight. Only Alex seems on focus, like a perfect picture. His skin is red and covered in marks and wet traces wherever Timmy kissed him, and he’s breathing heavily, his tummy going up and down with every shaky breath. His lips are parted, glossy and red as cherries, make Timmy wanna take a bite, and he does. Then he moves down Alex’s body, descending on him with his lips in a long trail of kisses that make Alex arch his back and moan louder. There are no other sounds except the ones Alex is making, Timmy can’t even hear himself. It’s like he doesn’t even exist except for the parts of his body that come in contact with Alex’s, that pleasure him. And it feels good, ‘cause if Timmy could he’d happily spend his whole life stuck on Alex’s body, glued on him, covering him like a second skin.

Alex’s hands dive into Timmy’s blonde hair, too long – somewhere inside his head he hears both his fathers’ voices, “what have you done with your hair, Timothy, don’t they have salons in Italy?” – and messed up by the fact that he stubbornly refuses to comb them, except for when they walk out of the country and into the city. Timmy feels his fingertips on his scalp, his nails barely scraping his skin, and he wants more. He wants to feel those nails dive into his shoulders, he wants to see Alex lose control, he wants to hear him scream and beg and he wants to see him move wildly under him, as if he was possessed, so he closes his hands tightly around his hips and takes him in his mouth, sucking hard at his hard-on, moving his tongue in swirls over its head.

Alex breathes heavily, lets out an half-yell and then moans something that Timmy doesn’t get. “What…?” he asks, parting from him, his breath heavy too and his hands somehow inexplicably losing their hold on Alex’s milky skin.

“You have to wake up, Timothy,” Alex’s peachy lips say, parting in an apologetic smile.

“I’m awake,” Timmy answers, weirded out at Alex’s using of his first name in full.

“Yeah,” Alex says, this time – disconcertingly enough – in Leo’s voice, “In your dreams, maybe.”

Timmy opens his eyes wide on the ceiling of his room. Leo’s standing next to the bed, his hands on his hips and the most annoyed expression ever twisting his childish features into a very stern daddy-ish mask. “Finally,” he says, “I’ve been calling you for the last ten minutes.”

“What…?” Timmy whispers, turning his head to cast a confused look around. He’s in his room, it’s cold, the clock says it’s almost half past seven but you could never tell by just looking out the window, ‘cause the sky is dark, covered in big, angry clouds, and it’s raining, that heavy, icy, muddy rain that will inevitably turn into snow during the day. It’s winter in Lima, Ohio, basically as far as he could possibly be from Alex and summer.

“You’re late,” Leo snorts, grabbing the sheets and taking them off him to force him to wake up, “And your father’s already waiting in his car. You better move your ass, or you’ll have to walk.”

Timmy curls on his side, both because it’s cold and he doesn’t want Leo to spot the luckily already softening hard-on that his underpants only barely manage to hide. Winter sucks. Lima sucks. School sucks too. Once he graduates, he’ll move to Italy and go live in Alex’s parents farm. He’ll help them out, saving money to buy his own, and once he can afford it he’ll start his own business, and it’ll be glorious.

“Timmy!” Leo scolds him, “Come on!”

“Okay! Okay!” he groans, getting off the bed and running out of his room and to the bathroom, “I’m going!”

When he comes back to put some clothes on, Leo’s luckily gone and his phone’s screen’s going all Christmas lights on him to let him know he’s got a new text.

The day instantly changes mood when he sees it’s from Alex. “Hey,” it says, “I was wondering, you free in the afternoon? Think we could chat a bit? Let me know!”

He answers quickly, his fingers almost shaking in excitement. “Sure!” he says, and then adds: “How come you’re writing so early? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Alex answers just a few moments later. It’s not only a text, there’s a picture of himself attached to it. He’s all buried in a fluffy purple wool hat and a coordinated scarf. Timmy can only see his huge baby blue eyes, and blood rushes south as always. “Yes, but it’s snowing,” says the text, “They’re sending us home early. So? What time?”

Timmy licks his lips and then bites the bottom one. If he had the time, he’d jerk himself off right now, just looking at that picture. The dream left him all hot and bothered, and Alex isn’t helping. “I’ll be home by three,” he says.

“That’ll be nine for me,” Alex answers, “Talk to you later, then!”

Timmy smiles and puts down the phone. He turns around to grab a shirt but at the last moment he picks the phone up once again and texts him. “You look fucking amazing,” he says.

Alex answers almost instantly. “I know,” he says, adding a winking smiley.

Timmy’s about to reply with something too when Leo calls for him again, anticipating of just a couple of seconds the sound of his father honking for him in his car, and he lets go. “I said I’m coming!” he yells, annoyed. But suddenly winter doesn’t seem so awful anymore.

*
It’s snowing when he leaves the school. The bus is twenty minutes late, and Timmy spends the entirety of that time fidgeting while Alex teases him over the phone. “You’re not here yet,” he texts him, and Timmy growls.

“I’ll be there soon.”

“But you’re not here now,” Alex insists. Timmy can see him so clearly. Flashes of last summer crowd his head, flashes of him coming back late in the room he shared with Alex, finding him lying down on the bed wearing only a pair of shorts, a loose tank top and a mischievous smile. He was such a jailbait. He still is. One never figures teens to be like this. Alex is, with his bare legs, his narrow hips, that scandalous piercing on his navel. Teasing is Alex’s favorite pastime.

“Just wait for me,” he answers, texting as quickly as he possibly can.

“Don’t know…” Alex writes, “I’m starting to get pretty sleepy and I have to wake up early tomorrow. Maybe I should go to sleep.”

Timmy’s heart sinks into his stomach, and as if called from his desperation the bus finally appears behind the corner at the end of the street. “Don’t,” he rushes to text, “I’m coming.”

The drive home takes half an hour, and when he arrives he throws himself in and then up the stairs, slamming the front door behind himself. Startled by the noise, his parents drop the cutlery, that falls on the plate with a tinkling sound. “Timmy?” Leo asks, his head popping out of the kitchen door, quickly followed by Blaine’s. But Timmy’s already gone and disappeared up the stairs. “Is that you?”

“Yes!” he answers from the corridor, as he runs to his room, “Busy! Later!”

“But don’t you want to have lunch, first?” Blaine asks, puzzled.

“Not hungry!” Timmy answers, moments before locking himself into his room. He turns around, leaning against the door with his shoulders for a moment to catch his breath before throwing his backpack on the floor and launching himself to sit in front of his desk. He turns his computer on and fidgets nervously as Windows starts. “God, why are you so damn slow?” he asks, lightly hitting the side of the monitor – as if that could ever make it work any faster.

Once everything seems to work as it should, he starts Skype, and waits for Alex’s name to appear on it in green. “Hey,” he says, starting the conversation, “Glad I found you.”

“You really thought I’d go to sleep and leave you hanging after asking to talk this morning?” Alex answers with a laughing smiley, “You’re so stupid.”

“Am not,” Timmy says, disappointed.

“A little,” Alex says, “But I like that. You’re so blonde.”

“Why do I think there’s an insult in that?”

“But there isn’t!” Alex laughs again, “So? How was your day?”

Timmy relaxes against the back of his chair, breathing out. He can’t hide it from himself: he’s disappointed. He’s been thinking about the moment when he’d finally be back home and chatting with Alex all day, and though he doesn’t really know what exactly he was expecting to happen, this definitely isn’t it.

“Boring,” he says, “Went to school, had classes, came back home. The usual.”

“That all?” Alex says with a smile, “Man, you could talk for hours about growing perfectly shaped and colored tomatoes, and all you say about your school day is ‘boring’?”

“You know I’m not interested in school,” Timmy answers, frowning.

“Not even mine, huh?” Alex asks.

Timmy frowns again. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t asked about my day,” Alex answers, and laughs again. Timmy feels mocked, and he doesn’t really like it. And Alex keeps talking about things he has no interest whatsoever in. But he grunts, sighs and sucks it up.

“’Kay,” he says then, “How was your day?”

“Mmmh,” Alex answers, “Busy. Clara was completely out of her mind, today. You remember Clara, don’t you? The blonde one with countless OCDs, I told you about her. Well, she brought in this dress for the assignment due today – you remember the one I told you about? The main outfit for an hypothetical ‘50s icons inspired fashion show? Anyway, I swear, the thing was in pieces. She told us she couldn’t sew anything because once she put the pieces on her bed to look at the ensemble she understood it was ugly and a mess, and she had a nervous breakdown. So we had to basically sit the whole break in first to convince her the outfit was pretty good and she needn’t worry, and then to help her out sewing everything together. Then Mrs. Torti walks in, asks us to show our creations… and of course Clara got the best mark in the whole class. So disappointing. I’m never gonna help anybody, ever again. I only got an A, she got an A++. A++, can you believe it?”

The only thing I can’t believe is that it’s almost four, I gave up a lunch and I’m postponing my math homework to listen to this, Timmy thinks. He doesn’t say it, though.

“Disappointing,” he says. He adds nothing else, and after waiting a couple of minutes Alex writes some more.

“Really, Timmy, you couldn’t carry out a conversation for your life,” he says. The animated smiley in the end of the text sighs dramatically.

“Apparently,” ha answers. He leans back against the chair and sighs too, though not as dramatically as the smiley does. He passes both his hands over his face, disappointed in himself. What is he even doing? Why is he being such a jerk? Alex and him don’t get to talk often, shouldn’t he be enjoying these rare and precious moments, shouldn’t he cherish them?

This whole talking through Skype thing is new, they aren’t used to it yet. It’s just that it seemed a little silly not to talk at all for the rest of the year after spending the whole summer basically glued together.

It’s not as if Timmy was only interested in Alex for what his body can offer. It’s not as if he doesn’t wanna hear him talk about everything else, about all the things he’s interested in and so on. It’s just that it doesn’t seem as natural, online. He used to lie down and listen to him talk for hours at night, back in Italy, but doing the same over Skype doesn’t sound as good. Maybe ‘cause he can’t actually hear his voice at all.

“Is something off?” Alex asks. He’s concerned, it’s easy to guess it by the fact that he’s not using smileys.

“No,” Timmy answers instantly, “It’s nothing.” He wishes he wasn’t a complete idiot, so he could manage to tell Alex he’s not really angry at him or anything, he’s just maybe a little disappointed and feeling awkward because, weirdly enough, this thing that’s supposed to bring closer people who live far away only manages to make the distance between them heavier.

“Mmh,” Alex says, “Listen, I’ve got something for you.”

“What is it?”

“Well, you seemed to like the picture I sent you earlier, so when I met with Neri to go home I asked him to take another one with his phone, it does better pictures. Here.”

A small picture appears on the chat window and Skype asks him “should I save this?”. Timmy says yes, and a few seconds later the same picture appears on his monitor, just five times bigger. In it, Alex is making a cute childish face, half buried between the same purple wool scarf and hat he was wearing that morning. His cheeks are all puffed up and his baby blue giant eyes are staring right into the camera.

Silently, Timmy swallows.

“You like it?” Alex asks. No smiley whatsoever. Timmy can almost hear his voice. A little deeper, a little lower. He thinks back to Italy, the perfect darkness and perfect silence of the countryside. Alex’s body all pressed against him in the bed, his small hand moving slowly down his body, wrapping around his hard-on. ‘You like it?’ whispered softly against his ear in the shadow of that corner of the room.

He shakes his head lightly, clearing his throat. He’s hard again. And he just had to look at a bigger picture of his damn face.

“You’re beautiful,” he answers.

“Thanks,” Alex says, adding a small blushing smiley. Timmy’s starting to hate those fake faces. They can’t compare with Alex’s real one. Nothing compares, obviously, but those small rounded yellow bouncing things can’t even begin to compensate for not having him there, for not being able to see him. “Listen, I’ve gotta go,” Alex adds after a little while, “It’s late and I really have to wake up early tomorrow. Maybe we can talk again in a few days? Try and get used to this. Or something.”

Timmy can’t help a small smile to curl his lips upwards. “Sure,” he answers, “’Night.”

“’Night,” Alex says with a small smile. He’s off the moment after. The picture is still open on Timmy’s monitor, and he stares at it, perfectly motionless, for more than a minute. Then he swallows, he sits back and he slowly lets his right hand slip past the waistband of his pants to touch himself.

Alex’s blue eyes stare at him for the whole time.

*It’s past midnight when the phone rings. Timmy’s been sleeping for a couple of hours already, and the ringing wakes him up. Still half buried under the blanket, he reaches out for the damn thing and brings it closer to his face. Narrowing his eyes, stinging painfully because of the light coming from the screen, he opens the text alert popping out on the screen and sees it’s from Alex.

At first, he thinks he’s dreaming.

“I’m touching myself,” says the text.

Timmy swallows hard. He doesn’t even know how to answer that, so he decides not to. The text client shows Alex he read it, and that’ll have to be answer enough.

It proves to be when Alex writes again. “Sorry to wake you up so late. But I dreamt about you. I had to tell you.”

Timmy lifts himself up on his elbows and holds the phone with both his hands, typing with his thumbs. “What did I do?”

“In the dream?” Alex asks back, “You came out of the shadows in my room. At first I couldn’t see you, but I could feel you. I could smell you. Almost taste you.”

“What did I taste of?”

Alex writes something, then erases it before sending the text. Takes him a couple of moments to come up with the right word. “Sex,” he says. Timmy shivers badly.

“Did I touch you?”

“You did more than that,” Alex answers instantly, “You bent over me and kissed me, and you touched me all over, and then you climbed on top of me. It was so dark, but I still could see you so well. Your eyes, your mouth… and then I felt your fingers wrapping up around my cock, and I woke up, and I was moaning. And I had to touch myself.”

“And are you still doing it now?” Timmy asks, feeling his stomach tie up in a knot.

It takes Alex a couple of moments more to answer. “…yes,” he says. Timmy’s hips react to that as if following an unconscious command. They jerk forward and upwards, and as he rubs himself against the mattress Timmy realizes he’s hard, and almost painfully so.

“I’m gonna touch myself too…” he answers, turning on his back and holding the phone with one hand as he lets the other slide down his own body and underneath his clothes.

“Are you hard?” Alex asks.

“Yeah,” Timmy answers, moaning as he types, as his fingertips rub teasingly all over his length, “I want you so much.”

“I could feel it in the dream too,” Alex says, following the trail of his own thoughts, “You were so hard, and I thought I wanted you inside.”

A moan escapes Timmy’s lips and he instantly bites at his bottom lip to try and muffle it, hoping he’ll be able to contain the next as he starts jerking himself off. The thought of being inside Alex, feeling the warmth of his body, feeling him as he tightens the hold of his muscles around his cock, the mere thought of finally be able to fuck him properly, fuck him hard, fuck him deep and fast and long enough to make them both sore, is almost enough, on its own, to push him over the edge. His teeth sink into his lip and draw blood from it, as he struggles to keep his focus on the phone to text back.

“I wanna be inside you,” he says, “I wanna fuck you so much.”

“Please, do it,” Alex answers, “Please, next time you see me, don’t wait. Push me against the wall and lift me up and then fuck me, come inside me, I wanna feel you.”

Timmy closes his eyes and can’t help another moan to slip out of his mouth as he comes between his fingers. His body tenses for a moment, and then relaxes after the orgasm’s over, and he falls back on the mattress, breathing heavily. “I just came…” he texts Alex, almost embarrassedly.

“Me too,” Alex texts back, and then adds: “Thanks.”

“What for?” Timmy asks.

“Being here,” Alex answers, “Despite the distance. You felt close. For once. It felt good.”

His words have a weight, and an heavy one too. Timmy swallows, feeling that weight fall on him and covering him up like a thick blanket. Then Alex adds a little smile in the next text, and Timmy breathes out, relieved.

He doesn’t want to overcomplicate this. Isn’t it already complicated enough?

“Felt good to me too,” he answers. Now he’d like to talk a while. Now he’s ready to read Alex’s ramblings about his classmates and his hypothetical fashion shows until dawn, if Alex wants.

But “Go back to sleep, now,” Alex says, and Timmy sighs.

“Can we talk again tomorrow?” he asks.

“Not very likely,” Alex answers with a little sad face, “I’ll do my best, though.”

Timmy decides to cling to that and hope it works.

*It serves him little in the next few days. Alex seems to disappear completely from his radar. He answers to his texts, every now and then, but he’s always busy and they can’t chat long. He’s not sure if Alex is teasing or if he honestly can’t find any time for him, but he has no choice but to try and forget how awesome it felt what happened between them that night, focusing on other things. School, sports, the usual. He tries not to think about Tana. Surprisingly enough, most of the time he manages.

He’s surfing randomly through 9GAG when Alex contacts him again. The Skype window chat pops up by surprise on his desktop and Timmy instantly frowns because he wasn’t expecting it. He checks on Skype to see if Alex is online but the small rounded icon next to his name is grey and covered with a huge white cross. Yet, he’s there.

“Hey,” says the text, “You there?”

It’s seven o’ clock, so it must be at least 1 AM there. “Hey,” he anwers, “Can’t sleep?”

“Mh,” Alex answers. The little smiley he adds to the text nods quickly.

“How come?” he asks, smiling a little. He can picture him so perfectly, lying down on his bed with his laptop open on his chest, the white light coming from the screen making his skin look even paler, his eyes big and a little tired.

“Dunno…” he writes, “I was thinking.”

“What about?”

“You.”

This makes his heart beat faster, and it’s both embarrassing and sweet. Most of all, though, it’s scary.

“I’m not that great of a topic, am I?”

“You are,” Alex says with a little smile.

“Didn’t you tell me last time that I couldn’t carry out a conversation for my life?”

“Yeah,” Alex answers with a laughter, “…wasn’t exactly thinking about your intellectual abilities, tho.”

“Hey!” he can’t help but laugh, “That’s offensive.”

“Sorry,” Alex says. Timmy answers with a little smile and they stop talking for a couple of minutes. Then, Alex speaks again. “I wanna see you…” he says. Timmy imagines the tone he’d use to say it out loud if he was there, and he shivers badly.

“You’re starting to get a little needy, aren’t you?” he answers. He’s already touching himself through his pants.

“It’s your fault,” Alex answers, “You made me so. Don’t you wanna see me?”

Right now, he mostly wants to hear him. Sure, he wants to see him too, but reading his words without being able to hear his voice is proving to be worse than hell.

“I do…” he says then, “I wanna come there soon. During spring break, maybe…”

“You could see me now, tho,” Alex writes quickly, “The webcam…”

…the webcam. Timmy opens his eyes wide, staring at the lens of the small, rounded camera on top of his monitor. How could he not think earlier about this?

“Yes,” he hastens to say, “Yes, I’m calling you now.”

“Don’t make it a phone call, I can’t talk now,” Alex says, “It’s too late.”

“Yes, yes, don’t worry,” he says.

In a few seconds, the small window of the video call opens up, and Alex appears in it. He really is lying down on the bed, Timmy can see his pillow behind his head. His hair are ruffled, his eyes a little watery, he looks incredibly sleepy and yet it doesn’t surprise Timmy he can’t sleep. If Alex is frustrated half of how frustrated he himself is, it makes perfect sense.

“Hey,” he writes, smiling at the camera.

“You look good,” Alex says, “Better than I remembered.”

“Don’t flatter me…”

“Why not?”

“’Cause it’s embarrassing,” he cuts out, but he’s smiling, and Alex smiles at him from the screen. He stretches out, and the sheets slide off his body a little, showing some of it. He’s wearing a loose white t-shirt with a neck so wide it leaves one of his shoulders bare. He looks so beautiful. Timmy stopped long ago demanding rationality to himself when Alex is concerned. He confuses him, whenever Timmy sees him he just can’t understand anything anymore.

“Hey…” he starts, “Listen, I know it may sound weird, but… do you wanna do something?”

Alex’s eyes lighten up, a sudden spark of malice making them brighter. “Something like?”

“I don’t know…” he says, but after he sends the text he rests his shoulders against the back of the chair and palms himself through his pants.

Alex bites at his bottom lip, looking at him. “Seems like you do…” he says.

“Yeah…” Timmy types with his other hand, as he swallows. “So?”

Alex doesn’t type anything in response, but he balances his laptop on his knees and gets rid of the blankets covering him. Then he sits up, crosses his arms over his chest and grabs the hem of his t-shirt. Timmy watches him as he takes it off, and he holds his breath. The navel piercing sparkles lightly at the white light coming from the screen.

“Fuck…” he types, swallowing heavily.

Alex’s lips curl in a little smile. “You like it?” he asks.

“Like doesn’t even begin to cover it…” he answers.

“Do it too,” Alex demands, sitting more comfortably against the pillow.

Timmy nods at the camera and swiftly takes off his hoodie, and the long-sleeved tee he’s wearing underneath. He sees Alex bite at his lips at the sight, and he suddenly looks so distressed that Timmy finds himself worrying. “What?” he hurries to ask.

“I wanna lick you,” Alex answers, typing quickly, “I wanna lick you all over. I wanna suck you.”

“God…” Timmy whispers, and then hastens to write, “I’m gonna fuck your mouth so hard,” he says, “I’m gonna choke you.”

“Yes,” Alex writes, “Yes, please, shove it down my throat.”

Timmy can’t shove anything down Alex’s throat right now, but he can damn well shove his own hand inside his pants and jerk himself off, and he does it. And the moment Alex sees him doing it, he’s quick to do the same. Timmy watches his hand move inside his pajama trousers and he finds that sight almost hotter than the one of Alex’s bare chest. He tries to keep his voice low as he touches himself, but it’s hard to keep it down while looking at him. Alex sinks into the bed, arching his back as he rides the wave of his orgasm, and Timmy follows him, focusing on every detail because if there’s one thing this screen can do is give him the chance to look at him from a little less up close than he’s able to do while they mess around together. He can see him bite down hard at his lips, then flick his tongue out and lick his already puffed up and red lips. He can see the quick movements of Alex’s wrists, the erratic way his hips jerk forward. He can see his shoulders shake and his neck bend as his climax quickly approaches, and when Alex comes he can’t hear the little moan that helplessly escapes his lips, but he can feel it, and it’s so pleasant he can’t help but coming too, squeezing his eyes and almost jumping on his chair, before falling back down on it, exhausted.

He opens his eyes and tries to focus on Alex again. It takes him an effort, but he manages. Alex is lying down, now, visibly more relaxed than he was before, and there’s a wide, serene smile curling the corners of his mouth upwards. He looks adorable.

“Everything alright?” Timmy asks.

Alex must hear the bleeping sound of the new message notification, because he barely opens his eyes and manages to look at the screen. Instead of writing an answer, he nods. Timmy smiles.

“You wanna sleep, now?” he types, and Alex nods again. “’Night,” he says.

Alex mimics a kiss, curling up his lips, and then interrupts the video call. He’s offline right after.

Timmy relaxes against the back of the chair, closes his eyes and breathes out. He keeps smiling for the rest of the day.

*In his dreams, in the next few days, it keeps happening again and again, and every time some details change, making it more intimate, hotter, more pleasant every time. Timmy goes to sleep thinking about Alex’s expression as he came – his closed eyes, his parted lips, the sight of his tongue piercing barely flicking into view – and Alex comes visiting while he sleeps. He’s always there, he’s never gone.

Ten days pass, and when Timmy realizes how long it’s been since they chatted last he’s surprised, because it felt way less. He can still remember every detail so perfectly he could swear the whole thing has happened not more than a few hours ago.

But it has been ten days anyway, and so he’s not surprised when Alex texts him a picture of himself pouting, that afternoon. He laughs and answers. “What’s up?”

“You tell me,” Alex answers, “You haven’t texted me in days.”

“Did I have to?” he asks, knowing perfectly this will make Alex mad.

“…no, of course you didn’t have to,” he obviously answers a few minutes later, “Why should you, after all, we just jerked off together, that totally doesn’t count as sex and that totally didn’t deserve a call the next day even if just to ask me if I was okay. Fuck you, Timmy.”

He laughs out loud, shaking his head as he answers. “I knew you’d say that,” he says, “You’re cute when you’re angry.”

“…really, fuck you.”

“Oh, come on,” he answers with a little smile, “I was just teasing. I’m sorry I didn’t call, but honestly, I didn’t even realize how many days have passed. I’ve thought about it so much and so often it literally feels like yesterday we last spoke.”

“…yeah,” Alex answers, and Timmy can picture him sigh in resignation, “It’s flattering you thought a lot about it. And it’s nice, ‘cause I thought a lot about it too. But that’s still not enough to make me forgive you for all those days of silence.”

Timmy chuckles, lifts his t-shirt up and takes a picture of his bare tummy. The picture shows his abs, his navel, one of his hipbones and the incredibly light trail of thin, blond hair that leads the eyes on their path to his crotch, a path that stops abruptly when it reaches the waistband of his trousers, but that it’s still there, like a promise of good things to come.

He sends it to Alex, and he receives no answer for five minutes. Then his cellphone vibrates, and notifies him of a new text. “You’re a dickhead and I hate you,” it says.

Timmy laughs. “I’m happy you liked it.”

“You’re such a tease!”

“I won’t accept it from you, you’re queen regent of Teasingland.”

“Shut up…” the next text says, “When can I see you again?”

Timmy casts a look at the clock – it’s a quarter to five – and at his homework – knowing he won’t touch them again this afternoon – and then texts back. “You busy now?”

“No,” Alex answers. Then another text comes, quickly following the first. “And my dads aren’t home…”

Timmy’s teeth close automatically around his bottom lip, as his hands shake a little. “Coming online now,” he answers, as he logs in. He’s not sure if Leo and Blaine are home, but if they are, at this hour, they’re probably busy watching some Disney movie with the twins. He’ll keep his voice down, anyway, just to be sure. What’s important is that Alex can scream, and it’s important ‘cause Timmy wants to hear him do it.

Alex’s face appears on his desktop a few seconds after. He’s moving the cam to fit all in the frame, and when he’s done he sits down and puts on his headphones and sets his mic against his lips.

“Can you hear me?” Timmy asks.

Alex smiles and whispers “Yes,” and Timmy feels his heart swell to the sound of his voice.

“Hey,” Timmy smiles too, “How are you? Everything okay?”

“Mmhn,” Alex nods, leaning back against the chair, “Good to see you. And hear you,” he chuckles, “Finally.”

“I know, I know,” Timmy chuckles, embarrassedly, “I’ve been a jerk. You wanna punish me?”

Alex seems to take a couple of seconds to seriously consider the possibility, and then his lips open up in another pretty smile. “Nah,” he says, shaking his head, “I’m just happy to see you. I missed you.”

“You know, our conversations are starting to look dangerously like boyfriends conversations,” Timmy chuckles again, passing a hand through his hair, “Should I worry?”

“I don’t know, it depends,” Alex answers with a feline smirk, “Would you worry if we became boyfriends?”

Timmy blushes a little and looks away, biting at his bottom lip. “It’s… complicated,” he says, “You know that.”

Alex sighs, a different smile curling up his lips now, a sweeter but also sadder one. “Yeah, I know,” he says, “Let’s not talk about this. You have nothing to worry about. If you need to define this relationship to feel better, let’s say we’re friends with benefits. It’s what we are, in the end, isn’t it? We’re friends,” he grins, lifting the hem of the tank top he’s wearing and showing a little piece of his tummy and the glint of his piercing, “And we benefit.”

Timmy laughs out loud, shaking his head. “You’re a minx.”

“Shut up!” Alex laughs too, “And stop calling me girl names. You know I’m not a girl.”

“I’ve seen it first-hand, yeah, that much is true,” Timmy answers with a short chuckle, and then his smile widens a little. “But maybe I need reminder.”

Alex can’t help but blush a little, but he doesn’t lose his smile and doesn’t make a fuss. “Oh, yeah?” he says, leaning back and keeping his tank top lifted up, “You wanna see it, big boy?”

The sound of his voice, the way he’s speaking now, that ridiculous nickname, all resonates with Timmy in a way that his body recognizes automatically, and he feels his cock harden and get bigger without even needing to be touched. “Yes,” he says, moistening his lips and unconsciously straightening his back on the chair, his muscles all tense and ready to move as if he could jump into the screen and on him on the other side, “Show me.”

As always when they decide to try something, even when they don’t discuss it first but they just find themselves ready when the right moment comes, Alex shows no embarrassment whatsoever in complying to Timmy’s requests. He’s comfortable in his own skin, they both are, and that always made things very easy between them. They never had problem undressing in front of one another or touching each other, since they were nothing but kids. Well, they still are. Alex, at least, still is. And Timmy still feels like one too.

Alex stands up and starts taking off his tank top first. It’s too loose and long and it keeps falling over, but when Timmy realizes what the sight will be if he keeps it on he stops him. “Wait,” he says, “Don’t take it off yet. Your pants first.”

Alex seems puzzled by the request, at first, but then his lips curl into a mischievous smile and he nods. He unbuttons his pants and pushes them down his legs, and Timmy can see he’s pushing down his underpants together with them. This means he’s naked, now, under the top that covers him down almost to half his thighs.

The whole thing looks so sexy Timmy bites down at his own lips hard, almost hurting himself. If he was there, he’d drop on his knees right in front of him and he’d slip both his hands underneath that tank top as if it was a skirt, grabbing Alex’s hips and then squeezing his buttocks. And then he’d dive underneath it with his head, taking him in his mouth and sucking him dry.

He’s not there, though, so all he can do is asks Alex exactly what he wants, and hope it’ll be okay for him.

“Lift it up,” he says, “Slowly…”

Alex nods and holds the hem of the top between his thumbs and his index fingers, lifting it up. Inch after inch, he uncovers the white, soft skin of his thighs, then his cock, already getting hard too, then his flat stomach and his piercing, and then he stops. “Like this?” he asks. His voice sounds dirty and alluring, and Timmy starts feeling arousal pool in his belly.

“Yes,” he says, swallowing hard.

“You like it?” Alex asks.

“Yes,” Timmy answers again, his voice almost whiny.

“What d’you wanna do to it?” Alex asks, and the question is enough to make Timmy’s hand run to his crotch, to stroke himself through his pants and try to get at least friction enough not to go crazy over the whole thing.

“I wanna suck it,” he answers, palming himself strongly, “I wanna take it into my mouth and lick it all from base to top.”

“Yes…” Alex whispers, touching himself loosely, almost teasingly, “Go on…”

“I wanna swallow it whole and suck hard at it,” Timmy answers, mesmerized by the movement of his hand, “I wanna pass my tongue all over it. I wanna do that thing you love so much, when I pass my tongue on top of it and I lick the little hole on the head and you shiver so much.”

“Yes!” Alex raises his voice, wrapping his fingers tightly around himself, “Yes, I want you to do that.”

“Then I wanna make you turn around, and I wanna lick your ass too,” Timmy says, quickly getting rid of his own pants and pushing them down his thighs, to jerk himself off more freely, “I wanna lick it until I make you come, like I did that day, when your parents weren’t home, d’you remember it?”

“Yes…” Alex whines, closing his eyes, “You said you were hungry…”

“Yes,” Timmy grins, stroking himself faster, “I said I was hungry and I wanted to eat you. Then I made you bend over and I kneeled behind you, I held your hips in my hands and I licked you, and you remember what I did?”

“Your tongue…” Alex says breathlessly, forcing himself to at least open one eye to be able to look at Timmy as he jerks off, “You put it in me…”

“Yes…”

“You wanna do that?” Alex asks, moaning loudly, “You wanna do that to me again?”

“Yeah,” Timmy nods, getting closer to the screen, “Yes, baby, turn around, let me see your little hole.”

“Timmy…” Alex moans again, moistening his lips, “That’s so fucking hot.”

“Please, let me see it, babe,” Timmy insists.

“I like it when you call me that…” Alex says in a soft breath, turning around – his hand still firmly wrapped around his cock – and using the chair to balance himself as he parts his legs to show Timmy what he wants to see, “Do it again.”

“God, babe, you look so good,” Timmy says, desperately tightening his grip around his hard, twitching cock, his arousal growing even more at the sight of Alex’s tight, pink opening, “I wanna finger you so badly.”

“I can do it for you,” Alex whispers, turning around to look at the camera and at the screen, “Do you want me to do it? Do you wanna watch me? I always do that thinking about you anyway.”

“You do that, sweets?” Timmy almost hisses, already feeling his climax approaching but trying to hold it back as much as he can, “You finger yourself all alone in your bed, thinking about me? Thinking about my cock?”

“Yes!” Alex yells, the fingers of his free hand finding their way between his buttocks, rubbing against his opening, “Yes, I do it all the time. I wanna see you better, come closer.”

Timmy stands up from the chair too, moving the cam so it shows his cock better. “You see how hard it is?”

“Yes…”

“You want it inside, sweets?”

“Yes!” Alex yells again, and when Timmy looks at the screen he sees he’s fingering himself with his middle finger already, “Yes, please, fuck me!”

“Yes, baby,” Timmy moans, jerking himself off faster, his thumb passing over the red, hot head of his cock, “Yes, you’re so fucking tight, you feel so good…”

“You’re so big,” Alex moans louder, Timmy looks down and sees his using two fingers, now, “Ah, you’re so fucking big, you’re tearing me apart!”

“Yes, baby, do you feel me?” Timmy asks, speaking hardly, now, unsteady on his shaky legs, “Do you feel me deep?”

“Yes,” Alex whines, his legs are shaking too, “I’m coming.”

“Me too, sweets,” Timmy nods, and as he keeps jerking himself off he hears Alex’s voice break into a loud gasp and an almost childish hiccup, and he knows he came, and he’s surprised at how quickly his own body follows Alex’s pace. Surprised, but not really. Because in that perfect moment when, despite the distance, they share the same labored breath and the same warm, fuzzy feeling making their limbs tremble and their eyes unfocused, everything’s good, and everything makes sense.

Timmy falls back on his chair, exhausted. Alex is breathing heavily right into his mic, and hearing him through the headphones makes it seem as if he was right there beside him, sharing the bed after they had sex. Timmy keep his eyes closed for as long as he possibly can without seeming unconscious or asleep, because he wants to cling to the feeling. It’s pleasant.

“You still alive?” Alex asks with a little chuckle.

Timmy opens his eyes and smiles drowsily. “I’m devastated,” he says in a weary laughter.

“And you only jerked off,” Alex laughs too, “You’re gonna die the moment I get my hands on you.”

“Probably,” Timmy nods, and stretches out. “It was good, tho. I wanna do it again.”

“What, right now?” Alex laughs, amused.

“No, that’d kill me,” Timmy laughs too, “But soon,” he nods.

Alex nods too, pulling up his pants and sitting back on his chair. “Now I’ve gotta go,” he says, “My dads are gonna be home soon, I wanna be in bed by then.” He stands up and moves closer to the screen, pressing a kiss on the camera. “Talk to you soon?”

Timmy nods, passing his fingers over the screen where Alex’s lips just were. “Soon.”

Alex disappears and logs off right after, and Timmy’s left watching the screen with a stupid smile on his face. When he realizes how dumb he must look, he chuckles, shaking his head, and stands up. He pulls up his pants and stretches out, moaning in pleasure.

The warm, fuzzy feeling of his orgasm is still lingering. The one Alex’s smile gave him is still there too. Christmas is coming soon, and the end of the year will follow right after.

If December is to be of any indication, the next is gonna be a pretty good year.