WIP: Young Avengers, Switch AU, PG-13
SEND HELP.
---
Teddy hangs out with Billy most afternoons after that. He likes Billy. Billy's funny, and they like doing a lot of the same stuff, and Billy gets what he's going through with his powers without either of them having to talk about it a lot.
Also, and Teddy tries not to think about this too hard, but also, because Greg might have been close to the mark about Teddy not having a lot of friends at the moment. Most of the people who used to be his friends took Greg's side after they fell out, even though Teddy's sure that none of them know that the falling out was over how Teddy likes to stick his hand down other guys' pants and how Greg likes other guys to stick their hands down his pants as long as they never mention it ever.
So Teddy doesn't have to feel guilty about blowing anyone off to hang out with Billy and though Billy never actually says so specifically, Teddy gets the feeling that the situation is kind of the same for him too.
The fact that he ends up talking about Billy all the time, when Billy's not around, is less easy to explain. It's not like he's oblivious to it. It's just there's no stopping it. Every time he and his mom sit down for dinner, he finds sentences popping out of his mouth that all start with "Billy said..." or "Billy did..." His mom's smile keeps growing increasingly amused until one night Teddy just puts his head in his hands and tries to disappear.
"I'm not doing it on purpose," he groans.
"I know, darling," she says, reaching over to rub his back. "Eat your chard."
By Teddy's count, he has had twenty-two crushes in his life. His first was on Robin Hood in the Disney movie where they're all cartoon foxes. This, he thinks, has sort of set the tone for the rest of his life.
He freely admits that Billy is the most recent. He only wishes there was a way he could freely admit it that was a little less obvious to other people. A nice, safe round of pining sounds good to him after his last disastrous excursion into romance, but it's hard to pine and be obvious at the same time. Usually one cancels the other out.
Teddy gets used to always arriving at the coffee shop after Billy. Collegiate lets out at 2:30, not 3:00, and is closer anyway so until Teddy learns to teleport – not likely – it's just the way things are going to be.
Except then one afternoon, he arrives, and Billy's nowhere to be seen. Kate's closed off in her office, talking to someone in a low murmur. Teddy stands, perplexed, in the hallway until Kate's voice gets loud enough that he hears the words "really fucking irritating police investigation" and decides to hide in the den where he doesn't have to feel morally conflicted.
He watches TV for a while and thinks about whether or not he should text Billy to see if he fell down a well. It's not like they have a set meeting time, though, so it feels like a clingy thing to do. Teddy figures he'll give it another fifteen minutes.
Just as a Power Rangers rerun is beginning, Kate comes in and sits down on the other end of the couch. Teddy smiles at her to be friendly and then stares at his fingernails because she actually intimidates the shit out of him.
"Are they in space?" she asks, gesturing at the screen.
Teddy hasn't been paying attention, but a quick glance confirms that they are probably not in space, so he says, "No."
"Thank god," says Kate and then continues right on, barely taking a breath. "So here's the deal with me and Billy."
Teddy looks at her and tries not to seem suddenly over-interested.
"There is no deal with me and Billy," she says. "We're just friends. I dated his brother for a while, so I won't deny that I think his genetics are cute, but I'm surprisingly terrible at relationships, and I like him too much to inflict that on him."
"Also," she says, "I think he's pretty gay."
Teddy, who had been starting to nod in a mixture of relief and gratitude at having this question finally answered, freezes. Kate's eyes are suddenly off the TV and pinned on him, watching his reaction closely. He thinks about how she's used to having her attention split up in a million different directions, having hundreds of thousands of bytes of information flowing through her brain. Her attention, singularly focused, is a blinding thing.
"I'm not telling you this because I'm matchmaking or condoning your interest in him or anything like that," she tells him. "I just wanted to say two things. One, Billy's one of my best friends, and I love him, so you better not hurt him. Two, you seem like a really sweet guy, and Billy's... not always. Before you get in too deep, take some time and look for his flaws." Her mouth twists into a self-deprecating downward curve. "Trust me, I've been there. It's worth it."
Even though holding his breath is starting to deprive oxygen to his brain, Teddy can tell that it's good advice and kindly meant, if not actually any less intimidating as a result.
He pinches his own thigh to make himself breathe again and then says, "I'm not. I mean. I'll think about it?"
Kate reaches over and tousles his hair approvingly, which Teddy grunts at but allows.
"You still terrify me," he says.
"You and half of Wall Street," she replies and then grins at him with tooth.
By the time Billy does finally get there, Kate's taken over three-quarters of the couch and has her cheek pressed into Teddy's shoulder while they debate over who has the best classic Zord. Kate says yellow, which doesn't even make any sense.
"What do you think, Billy?" Kate asks when he's been standing in the doorway for a solid minute, staring at them suspiciously.
"Green," says Billy automatically. "It's a dinosaur."
Teddy spreads his hands triumphantly because that's what he's been saying this whole time.
"Why am I not surprised?" Kate mutters and pushes herself up to sitting and then up to standing. She pats Billy on the shoulder as she passes him by and then once she's safely beyond him, she catches Teddy's eyes, points to her eyes meaningfully, points to him, and then disappears around the corner.
Billy moves awkwardly toward the couch, still giving Teddy a strange look. Before his conversation with Kate, Teddy would've assumed that finding them smooshed together on the couch might make Billy jealous, like Teddy is competition for Kate's affections or something ridiculous. He guesses that might still be true since Billy might still be interested, even if Kate isn't.
Or. Or.
But Teddy doesn't let himself finish that thought because that way leads to not pining, and all he really wants is to sit around and enjoy Billy's company and laugh at his jokes and admire the way his hair curls at the back of his neck. And he will straight up ignore anyone who says there's anything wrong with that.
"Everything okay?" he asks.
"Yeah, you know," Billy says. "Accidentally turned blue at the end of third period and had to hide in the bathroom until most people cleared out, so I could sneak to my locker. The usual."
"The usual," Teddy agrees, pressing his lips together to keep from smiling. Billy looks at him and sees through it anyway, and his expression finally clears, his eyes lighting up.
"I think I can do it again," he says. "Want to see?"
So Billy spends a half hour turning his skin every colour imaginable, and Teddy spends a half hour trying not to think about how touchable Billy's clavicles look when they're purple and by the end, whatever weirdness was there when Billy first entered the room has gone away again. They watch a few hours of an Ice Road Truckers marathon and make giant hot chocolates with the mix Kate says is too old to sell to customers.
"It probably won't make you go blind, though," she says.
"We love you too, Kate," says Billy.
Teddy goes home just before 5:00 so that he can help his mom make dinner. He does his homework after and showers and cleans spam out of his inbox. He has to get up again later because it starts to pour rain and his mom needs help shutting all the windows. His phone is blinking with a text from Billy when he gets back.
Rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens, it says.
Teddy makes a face. ugh earwormed you suck, he types back.
No reply comes for long enough that Teddy goes back to watching Youtube videos aimlessly until he's ready to go to sleep. He's just shutting down his computer when his phone rumbles noisily against his desk.
Just doing my patriotic duty. :).
your AUSTRIAN patriotic duty? Teddy replies and then shuts off his phone so that he doesn't stay up all night talking to Billy, crawls into bed, and turns off the light.
He dreams. In his dream, he's back in the coffee shop living room, sitting on the couch, with his lap full of Billy and his hands full of Billy's hips. Billy's wearing the awful Super Mario shirt he was wearing the first day they met, the one that's so old it's fraying around the collar in a way that makes Teddy want to bite his shoulder. He thinks, given where Billy is sitting, that biting might even be allowed.
"Kate says she thinks you're pretty gay," Teddy tells Billy, and Billy smiles smugly at him.
"Very gay," he says and then wiggles backwards, out of Teddy's grasping hands, and slips down to the floor. He pushes Teddy's knees open with an impatient shove and then does the same thing with Teddy's shirt, hitching it up until his stomach is exposed and Billy can press his mouth, hot and open, just to the left of Teddy's bellybutton. Teddy sucks in a lungful of air like it's the last he's going to get for a while.
Billy's hand stays braced on the inside of Teddy's thigh, as though he doesn't trust Teddy not to pulls his knees together again. This is pointless given how helplessly wide Teddy's legs fall the moment Billy's tongue brushes his skin, but Billy's hand doesn't budge. Slowly, though, Billy's fingers do uncurl and pet their way up to the crease of Teddy's hip where they wander up and down and split Teddy's attention between the desire to arch against Billy's mouth or buck his hips toward Billy's knuckles.
Then Billy scrapes his teeth over the skin just above Teddy's hipbone, and Teddy tries to do both at once, his head flopping to one side, biting down hard on his lip to keep from moaning, eyes squeezing shut.
When he manages to open his eyes again, he finds Kate sitting there, looking at him.
"If you hurt him," she tells Teddy, "I will cut you."
Teddy jolts awake, conflicted and confused and horny but mostly conflicted. He looks down at where he's still half-hard under the covers and then pulls his pillow over his face and tries to suffocate himself because that seems like the most preferable option, honestly.
---
They've never spent time together on a weekend before, but they do that Saturday, browsing through the comics down at Midtown and then buying way too many really cheap dumplings in Chinatown. Billy tries to start a competition to see who can fit the most dumplings into their mouth at the same time, but Teddy just prods him in the ribs.
"You're a shapeshifter," Teddy says in a low, secretive voice.
"So?" asks Billy, popping another dumpling in his mouth.
"You can't think of a reason I don't want to compete with someone who can make his mouth bigger?"
"Are you implying that I'd cheat?"
Billy looks pleased, not offended, so Teddy says very firmly, "Yes."
"Probably," agrees Billy. "That sounds like something I'd do."
Teddy chooses not to point out that Billy has hoisin sauce on his chin.
They go to a movie in the afternoon and share a bag of popcorn, which Billy mostly eats, claiming that his metabolism's been ridiculous ever since his powers showed up. Teddy's fine with this because it's not like it's a giant hardship to have a reason to reach over into Billy's personal space now and then.
The movie is okay. There are explosions and guys kicking other guys in the head and other things that Teddy generally likes out of his movies. But he spends most of the run time watching Billy's fingers, shiny with fake butter topping in the dark, because it seems like the better use of his time.
He tries to think about Billy's flaws, like Kate suggested, but it's hard. Teddy doesn't imagine Billy to be some sort of strange, flawless unicorn boy, but the flaws he's been able to pick out so far – impatience, general irritability, stubbornness – are all things that Teddy doesn't mind so much. This, he suspects, was not the point of the exercise.
It's early evening when they get out, the time of day when Teddy's either got to call his mom to beg out of dinner or head home so he isn't late. He stands near the curb and tries to decide which he's going to do, since which he wants to do is obvious. Billy stands beside him and frowns.
Suddenly, Billy's eyes are darting to the right, looking at something far past Teddy's head. He's pointing and saying, "What the hell is that?" And when Teddy turns to look, Billy shoves his hand into Teddy's pocket and steals his cellphone.
"I can't believe I fell for that," Teddy tells him, looking back.
"I can't believe you fell for that either," says Billy and presses Teddy's phone to his ear.
"Hi, Ms. Altman?" he says after a moment. "This is Billy. Yes, it's nice to sort of meet you too. I wanted to know if it was all right if Teddy came over to my place for dinner tonight?" Billy pauses and then laughs, eyeing Teddy with a look that means he's plotting something. "Yeah, I'll make sure he invites me over some night too. Okay, I'll tell him. Okay, thanks, bye."
He holds out the phone to Teddy, raises his eyebrows, and says, "She says don't stay out too late and call if you need to get picked up and invite me over for pasta night so that she can meet me."
Teddy pockets his phone again. "Are we actually going to your place for dinner?"
"Do you want to actually go to my place for dinner?" Billy asks, looking genuinely surprised, and Teddy shrugs because he's curious about Billy's family but also pretty easy where Billy's concerned, ultimately.
"Well," Billy says, slowly, still uncertain, "not this time, but I can get you invited over some other time, if you really want."
"Sure," says Teddy with another shrug.
Billy just looks at him, like he's trying to figure something out, but he lets it go with an "Okay," and they fall into step with each other, heading in the vague direction of the coffee shop. As they walk, Teddy shows Billy the one trick he's picked up with any success, making blue sparks jump from his fingertips and shielding the sight from other pedestrians with his chest and free hand.
"Cool," Billy whispers appreciatively.
"And pointless," Teddy says, dropping his hand back to his side.
Billy tilts his chin up. "People can overlook a lot of pointless for something cool," he declares.
Teddy snorts because, yes, life has definitely taught him that much.
They're only a few blocks from Kate's when Billy's phone starts ringing. They both startle at the noise, and Billy goes scrabbling at his pants pocket to get it out in time only to pause and frown at the call display name before answering.
"What?" he says when he finally does answer. He makes a deeply put-upon face at Teddy at the same time, and Teddy smiles back supportively. Billy starts to mouth something – it looks like Oh my god – but then his attention shifts back to the phone, and his frown gets frownier. "Are you serious? It's only six. Are you serious?"
He waits, and Teddy does too and from the look on Billy's face, it seems that whoever it is is serious. Eventually Billy sighs and rubs his hand over his forehead. "Okay, just stay where you are. Stay, okay? All right."
Billy hangs up. He looks down at his shoes and can't seem to make himself look up at first. When he does finally, he has an expression on his face that is part annoyed and part embarrassed and part rueful. His eye colour is all over the place.
"My brother's drunk, and I need to go get him," he says on a big exhale.
Teddy doesn't think about it for very long before asking, "Need some help?"
"He's kind of annoying drunk," Billy says, looking at his shoes again. "He's kind of annoying sober too, but whatever. You could wait, and I'll come back when I'm done."
Teddy looks at Billy pointedly even though Billy isn't look at him. If he stares long enough, Teddy assumes, Billy will have to look up. He's right.
"Need some help?" he asks again.
"Yes, please," says Billy.
They grab a taxi and head back downtown and then out through warehouses and office buildings until the neighbourhood stops looking trendily dishevelled and starts looking kind of rundown. A block or so before they reach their destination, Billy shouts at the driver to stop, shoves a bunch of money at him, and climbs out.
"Do you think you could wait for a second?" Teddy asks quietly. The driver makes an affirmative noise and starts counting out his bills, so Teddy climbs out of the cab after Billy.
"Are you serious?" Billy is shouting again at some guy slumped on the front steps of an apartment building. The guy is wearing dark jeans and sunglasses but otherwise he looks a lot like Billy, except that Billy's bone structure is fluid even on good days and the guy's hair is shockingly white.
"If I wanted someone to yell at me, I would've called mom," the guy snips back, though it comes out petulant, whiny.
"Would you like me to call mom, Tommy?" Billy asks. "I have no problem calling mom."
"No, no, shit," mumbles Tommy, slumping further. "Don't do that. I'm just coming down with, you know."
"Alcohol poisoning?"
"I forget what a pain in the ass you are when I'm drunk," says Tommy.
"You should work on that," Billy suggests tartly.
Teddy doesn't really want to get involved or intrude, so he stands awkwardly off to one side and waits while Billy huffs and glares at his brother. Eventually Billy does look Teddy's way and makes a weary, beckoning hand gesture.
"Come on," he says, "let's get him in the cab."
In the cab, Teddy ends up sitting in the middle because it seems like the best, and perhaps only, option for keeping the peace. Tommy spends the first five minutes with his head between his knees, blinking blearily at the rug in the footwell, and Billy spends it staunchly pretending his brother doesn't exist. Teddy spends it trading commiserating looks with the driver in the rearview mirror.
When Tommy sits up again, he blinks at Teddy and says, "So you're Billy's new guy, huh?"
"I'm Teddy," Teddy tells Tommy.
"I wish people would stop making it sound like I've had old guys," Billy tells the window.
Tommy leans forward enough to look around Teddy's shoulder at Billy. "Could you protest too much more over there, bro?" he asks.
"Yes," says Billy.
"I think I'm going to barf," says Tommy.
He doesn't barf until they're out of the taxi, at least, and then it's mostly just spitting a bit into a storm drain while Teddy braces his shoulder and Billy watches them both with an odd expression. They take Tommy into Kate's through the back shipping doors, and Kate meets them at the bottom of the stairs, arms folded over her chest.
She takes one look at Tommy, who is leaning on both Billy and Teddy to keep his walking straight and also to not fall down, and says, "Why did I ever find you attractive?"
"Try not to make out with me in front of the kids," Tommy says, wiggling his eyebrows without much coordination.
"Try not to make out with him at all, actually," suggests Teddy. "He just threw up outside."
Kate points down the hall, at one of the rooms Teddy's never been in before, and says, "Bedroom." Between them, Teddy and Billy manage to manoeuvre Tommy into the room with the bed and the table lamp and the green plaid bedspread. They throw him down on the bed, and he curls up on his side and is dead to the world before long.
They go back to the living room, and Billy sits at one end of the couch and tucks his knees into his chest and seems generally on edge, like he's balancing on the tip of something, waiting for his mood to tip one way and be okay again or go the other and tumble off into something blacker. Teddy waits it out, chewing on his lip and wondering if he should turn the TV on.
Sooner rather than later, Billy exhales and tugs both his hands through his hair. "Whatever," he says and smiles weakly at Teddy. "Sorry. This isn't how I expected the night to go."
"It's fine," says Teddy, meaning it and not just being polite.
"It isn't," Billy says. His smile gets bigger and a little crooked. "But thanks."
"So, is Tommy..." Teddy asks, trailing off and wiggling his finger to suggest superpowers, as Billy unfolds and goes to get the remote.
Billy flops down again, spreads out, taking up more than his actual fair share of room. "Nah," he says. "He's just Tommy."
And then they settle in to watch Survivorman until Billy's metabolism reminds him that he hasn't eaten dinner.
---
Teddy hangs out with Billy most afternoons after that. He likes Billy. Billy's funny, and they like doing a lot of the same stuff, and Billy gets what he's going through with his powers without either of them having to talk about it a lot.
Also, and Teddy tries not to think about this too hard, but also, because Greg might have been close to the mark about Teddy not having a lot of friends at the moment. Most of the people who used to be his friends took Greg's side after they fell out, even though Teddy's sure that none of them know that the falling out was over how Teddy likes to stick his hand down other guys' pants and how Greg likes other guys to stick their hands down his pants as long as they never mention it ever.
So Teddy doesn't have to feel guilty about blowing anyone off to hang out with Billy and though Billy never actually says so specifically, Teddy gets the feeling that the situation is kind of the same for him too.
The fact that he ends up talking about Billy all the time, when Billy's not around, is less easy to explain. It's not like he's oblivious to it. It's just there's no stopping it. Every time he and his mom sit down for dinner, he finds sentences popping out of his mouth that all start with "Billy said..." or "Billy did..." His mom's smile keeps growing increasingly amused until one night Teddy just puts his head in his hands and tries to disappear.
"I'm not doing it on purpose," he groans.
"I know, darling," she says, reaching over to rub his back. "Eat your chard."
By Teddy's count, he has had twenty-two crushes in his life. His first was on Robin Hood in the Disney movie where they're all cartoon foxes. This, he thinks, has sort of set the tone for the rest of his life.
He freely admits that Billy is the most recent. He only wishes there was a way he could freely admit it that was a little less obvious to other people. A nice, safe round of pining sounds good to him after his last disastrous excursion into romance, but it's hard to pine and be obvious at the same time. Usually one cancels the other out.
Teddy gets used to always arriving at the coffee shop after Billy. Collegiate lets out at 2:30, not 3:00, and is closer anyway so until Teddy learns to teleport – not likely – it's just the way things are going to be.
Except then one afternoon, he arrives, and Billy's nowhere to be seen. Kate's closed off in her office, talking to someone in a low murmur. Teddy stands, perplexed, in the hallway until Kate's voice gets loud enough that he hears the words "really fucking irritating police investigation" and decides to hide in the den where he doesn't have to feel morally conflicted.
He watches TV for a while and thinks about whether or not he should text Billy to see if he fell down a well. It's not like they have a set meeting time, though, so it feels like a clingy thing to do. Teddy figures he'll give it another fifteen minutes.
Just as a Power Rangers rerun is beginning, Kate comes in and sits down on the other end of the couch. Teddy smiles at her to be friendly and then stares at his fingernails because she actually intimidates the shit out of him.
"Are they in space?" she asks, gesturing at the screen.
Teddy hasn't been paying attention, but a quick glance confirms that they are probably not in space, so he says, "No."
"Thank god," says Kate and then continues right on, barely taking a breath. "So here's the deal with me and Billy."
Teddy looks at her and tries not to seem suddenly over-interested.
"There is no deal with me and Billy," she says. "We're just friends. I dated his brother for a while, so I won't deny that I think his genetics are cute, but I'm surprisingly terrible at relationships, and I like him too much to inflict that on him."
"Also," she says, "I think he's pretty gay."
Teddy, who had been starting to nod in a mixture of relief and gratitude at having this question finally answered, freezes. Kate's eyes are suddenly off the TV and pinned on him, watching his reaction closely. He thinks about how she's used to having her attention split up in a million different directions, having hundreds of thousands of bytes of information flowing through her brain. Her attention, singularly focused, is a blinding thing.
"I'm not telling you this because I'm matchmaking or condoning your interest in him or anything like that," she tells him. "I just wanted to say two things. One, Billy's one of my best friends, and I love him, so you better not hurt him. Two, you seem like a really sweet guy, and Billy's... not always. Before you get in too deep, take some time and look for his flaws." Her mouth twists into a self-deprecating downward curve. "Trust me, I've been there. It's worth it."
Even though holding his breath is starting to deprive oxygen to his brain, Teddy can tell that it's good advice and kindly meant, if not actually any less intimidating as a result.
He pinches his own thigh to make himself breathe again and then says, "I'm not. I mean. I'll think about it?"
Kate reaches over and tousles his hair approvingly, which Teddy grunts at but allows.
"You still terrify me," he says.
"You and half of Wall Street," she replies and then grins at him with tooth.
By the time Billy does finally get there, Kate's taken over three-quarters of the couch and has her cheek pressed into Teddy's shoulder while they debate over who has the best classic Zord. Kate says yellow, which doesn't even make any sense.
"What do you think, Billy?" Kate asks when he's been standing in the doorway for a solid minute, staring at them suspiciously.
"Green," says Billy automatically. "It's a dinosaur."
Teddy spreads his hands triumphantly because that's what he's been saying this whole time.
"Why am I not surprised?" Kate mutters and pushes herself up to sitting and then up to standing. She pats Billy on the shoulder as she passes him by and then once she's safely beyond him, she catches Teddy's eyes, points to her eyes meaningfully, points to him, and then disappears around the corner.
Billy moves awkwardly toward the couch, still giving Teddy a strange look. Before his conversation with Kate, Teddy would've assumed that finding them smooshed together on the couch might make Billy jealous, like Teddy is competition for Kate's affections or something ridiculous. He guesses that might still be true since Billy might still be interested, even if Kate isn't.
Or. Or.
But Teddy doesn't let himself finish that thought because that way leads to not pining, and all he really wants is to sit around and enjoy Billy's company and laugh at his jokes and admire the way his hair curls at the back of his neck. And he will straight up ignore anyone who says there's anything wrong with that.
"Everything okay?" he asks.
"Yeah, you know," Billy says. "Accidentally turned blue at the end of third period and had to hide in the bathroom until most people cleared out, so I could sneak to my locker. The usual."
"The usual," Teddy agrees, pressing his lips together to keep from smiling. Billy looks at him and sees through it anyway, and his expression finally clears, his eyes lighting up.
"I think I can do it again," he says. "Want to see?"
So Billy spends a half hour turning his skin every colour imaginable, and Teddy spends a half hour trying not to think about how touchable Billy's clavicles look when they're purple and by the end, whatever weirdness was there when Billy first entered the room has gone away again. They watch a few hours of an Ice Road Truckers marathon and make giant hot chocolates with the mix Kate says is too old to sell to customers.
"It probably won't make you go blind, though," she says.
"We love you too, Kate," says Billy.
Teddy goes home just before 5:00 so that he can help his mom make dinner. He does his homework after and showers and cleans spam out of his inbox. He has to get up again later because it starts to pour rain and his mom needs help shutting all the windows. His phone is blinking with a text from Billy when he gets back.
Rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens, it says.
Teddy makes a face. ugh earwormed you suck, he types back.
No reply comes for long enough that Teddy goes back to watching Youtube videos aimlessly until he's ready to go to sleep. He's just shutting down his computer when his phone rumbles noisily against his desk.
Just doing my patriotic duty. :).
your AUSTRIAN patriotic duty? Teddy replies and then shuts off his phone so that he doesn't stay up all night talking to Billy, crawls into bed, and turns off the light.
He dreams. In his dream, he's back in the coffee shop living room, sitting on the couch, with his lap full of Billy and his hands full of Billy's hips. Billy's wearing the awful Super Mario shirt he was wearing the first day they met, the one that's so old it's fraying around the collar in a way that makes Teddy want to bite his shoulder. He thinks, given where Billy is sitting, that biting might even be allowed.
"Kate says she thinks you're pretty gay," Teddy tells Billy, and Billy smiles smugly at him.
"Very gay," he says and then wiggles backwards, out of Teddy's grasping hands, and slips down to the floor. He pushes Teddy's knees open with an impatient shove and then does the same thing with Teddy's shirt, hitching it up until his stomach is exposed and Billy can press his mouth, hot and open, just to the left of Teddy's bellybutton. Teddy sucks in a lungful of air like it's the last he's going to get for a while.
Billy's hand stays braced on the inside of Teddy's thigh, as though he doesn't trust Teddy not to pulls his knees together again. This is pointless given how helplessly wide Teddy's legs fall the moment Billy's tongue brushes his skin, but Billy's hand doesn't budge. Slowly, though, Billy's fingers do uncurl and pet their way up to the crease of Teddy's hip where they wander up and down and split Teddy's attention between the desire to arch against Billy's mouth or buck his hips toward Billy's knuckles.
Then Billy scrapes his teeth over the skin just above Teddy's hipbone, and Teddy tries to do both at once, his head flopping to one side, biting down hard on his lip to keep from moaning, eyes squeezing shut.
When he manages to open his eyes again, he finds Kate sitting there, looking at him.
"If you hurt him," she tells Teddy, "I will cut you."
Teddy jolts awake, conflicted and confused and horny but mostly conflicted. He looks down at where he's still half-hard under the covers and then pulls his pillow over his face and tries to suffocate himself because that seems like the most preferable option, honestly.
---
They've never spent time together on a weekend before, but they do that Saturday, browsing through the comics down at Midtown and then buying way too many really cheap dumplings in Chinatown. Billy tries to start a competition to see who can fit the most dumplings into their mouth at the same time, but Teddy just prods him in the ribs.
"You're a shapeshifter," Teddy says in a low, secretive voice.
"So?" asks Billy, popping another dumpling in his mouth.
"You can't think of a reason I don't want to compete with someone who can make his mouth bigger?"
"Are you implying that I'd cheat?"
Billy looks pleased, not offended, so Teddy says very firmly, "Yes."
"Probably," agrees Billy. "That sounds like something I'd do."
Teddy chooses not to point out that Billy has hoisin sauce on his chin.
They go to a movie in the afternoon and share a bag of popcorn, which Billy mostly eats, claiming that his metabolism's been ridiculous ever since his powers showed up. Teddy's fine with this because it's not like it's a giant hardship to have a reason to reach over into Billy's personal space now and then.
The movie is okay. There are explosions and guys kicking other guys in the head and other things that Teddy generally likes out of his movies. But he spends most of the run time watching Billy's fingers, shiny with fake butter topping in the dark, because it seems like the better use of his time.
He tries to think about Billy's flaws, like Kate suggested, but it's hard. Teddy doesn't imagine Billy to be some sort of strange, flawless unicorn boy, but the flaws he's been able to pick out so far – impatience, general irritability, stubbornness – are all things that Teddy doesn't mind so much. This, he suspects, was not the point of the exercise.
It's early evening when they get out, the time of day when Teddy's either got to call his mom to beg out of dinner or head home so he isn't late. He stands near the curb and tries to decide which he's going to do, since which he wants to do is obvious. Billy stands beside him and frowns.
Suddenly, Billy's eyes are darting to the right, looking at something far past Teddy's head. He's pointing and saying, "What the hell is that?" And when Teddy turns to look, Billy shoves his hand into Teddy's pocket and steals his cellphone.
"I can't believe I fell for that," Teddy tells him, looking back.
"I can't believe you fell for that either," says Billy and presses Teddy's phone to his ear.
"Hi, Ms. Altman?" he says after a moment. "This is Billy. Yes, it's nice to sort of meet you too. I wanted to know if it was all right if Teddy came over to my place for dinner tonight?" Billy pauses and then laughs, eyeing Teddy with a look that means he's plotting something. "Yeah, I'll make sure he invites me over some night too. Okay, I'll tell him. Okay, thanks, bye."
He holds out the phone to Teddy, raises his eyebrows, and says, "She says don't stay out too late and call if you need to get picked up and invite me over for pasta night so that she can meet me."
Teddy pockets his phone again. "Are we actually going to your place for dinner?"
"Do you want to actually go to my place for dinner?" Billy asks, looking genuinely surprised, and Teddy shrugs because he's curious about Billy's family but also pretty easy where Billy's concerned, ultimately.
"Well," Billy says, slowly, still uncertain, "not this time, but I can get you invited over some other time, if you really want."
"Sure," says Teddy with another shrug.
Billy just looks at him, like he's trying to figure something out, but he lets it go with an "Okay," and they fall into step with each other, heading in the vague direction of the coffee shop. As they walk, Teddy shows Billy the one trick he's picked up with any success, making blue sparks jump from his fingertips and shielding the sight from other pedestrians with his chest and free hand.
"Cool," Billy whispers appreciatively.
"And pointless," Teddy says, dropping his hand back to his side.
Billy tilts his chin up. "People can overlook a lot of pointless for something cool," he declares.
Teddy snorts because, yes, life has definitely taught him that much.
They're only a few blocks from Kate's when Billy's phone starts ringing. They both startle at the noise, and Billy goes scrabbling at his pants pocket to get it out in time only to pause and frown at the call display name before answering.
"What?" he says when he finally does answer. He makes a deeply put-upon face at Teddy at the same time, and Teddy smiles back supportively. Billy starts to mouth something – it looks like Oh my god – but then his attention shifts back to the phone, and his frown gets frownier. "Are you serious? It's only six. Are you serious?"
He waits, and Teddy does too and from the look on Billy's face, it seems that whoever it is is serious. Eventually Billy sighs and rubs his hand over his forehead. "Okay, just stay where you are. Stay, okay? All right."
Billy hangs up. He looks down at his shoes and can't seem to make himself look up at first. When he does finally, he has an expression on his face that is part annoyed and part embarrassed and part rueful. His eye colour is all over the place.
"My brother's drunk, and I need to go get him," he says on a big exhale.
Teddy doesn't think about it for very long before asking, "Need some help?"
"He's kind of annoying drunk," Billy says, looking at his shoes again. "He's kind of annoying sober too, but whatever. You could wait, and I'll come back when I'm done."
Teddy looks at Billy pointedly even though Billy isn't look at him. If he stares long enough, Teddy assumes, Billy will have to look up. He's right.
"Need some help?" he asks again.
"Yes, please," says Billy.
They grab a taxi and head back downtown and then out through warehouses and office buildings until the neighbourhood stops looking trendily dishevelled and starts looking kind of rundown. A block or so before they reach their destination, Billy shouts at the driver to stop, shoves a bunch of money at him, and climbs out.
"Do you think you could wait for a second?" Teddy asks quietly. The driver makes an affirmative noise and starts counting out his bills, so Teddy climbs out of the cab after Billy.
"Are you serious?" Billy is shouting again at some guy slumped on the front steps of an apartment building. The guy is wearing dark jeans and sunglasses but otherwise he looks a lot like Billy, except that Billy's bone structure is fluid even on good days and the guy's hair is shockingly white.
"If I wanted someone to yell at me, I would've called mom," the guy snips back, though it comes out petulant, whiny.
"Would you like me to call mom, Tommy?" Billy asks. "I have no problem calling mom."
"No, no, shit," mumbles Tommy, slumping further. "Don't do that. I'm just coming down with, you know."
"Alcohol poisoning?"
"I forget what a pain in the ass you are when I'm drunk," says Tommy.
"You should work on that," Billy suggests tartly.
Teddy doesn't really want to get involved or intrude, so he stands awkwardly off to one side and waits while Billy huffs and glares at his brother. Eventually Billy does look Teddy's way and makes a weary, beckoning hand gesture.
"Come on," he says, "let's get him in the cab."
In the cab, Teddy ends up sitting in the middle because it seems like the best, and perhaps only, option for keeping the peace. Tommy spends the first five minutes with his head between his knees, blinking blearily at the rug in the footwell, and Billy spends it staunchly pretending his brother doesn't exist. Teddy spends it trading commiserating looks with the driver in the rearview mirror.
When Tommy sits up again, he blinks at Teddy and says, "So you're Billy's new guy, huh?"
"I'm Teddy," Teddy tells Tommy.
"I wish people would stop making it sound like I've had old guys," Billy tells the window.
Tommy leans forward enough to look around Teddy's shoulder at Billy. "Could you protest too much more over there, bro?" he asks.
"Yes," says Billy.
"I think I'm going to barf," says Tommy.
He doesn't barf until they're out of the taxi, at least, and then it's mostly just spitting a bit into a storm drain while Teddy braces his shoulder and Billy watches them both with an odd expression. They take Tommy into Kate's through the back shipping doors, and Kate meets them at the bottom of the stairs, arms folded over her chest.
She takes one look at Tommy, who is leaning on both Billy and Teddy to keep his walking straight and also to not fall down, and says, "Why did I ever find you attractive?"
"Try not to make out with me in front of the kids," Tommy says, wiggling his eyebrows without much coordination.
"Try not to make out with him at all, actually," suggests Teddy. "He just threw up outside."
Kate points down the hall, at one of the rooms Teddy's never been in before, and says, "Bedroom." Between them, Teddy and Billy manage to manoeuvre Tommy into the room with the bed and the table lamp and the green plaid bedspread. They throw him down on the bed, and he curls up on his side and is dead to the world before long.
They go back to the living room, and Billy sits at one end of the couch and tucks his knees into his chest and seems generally on edge, like he's balancing on the tip of something, waiting for his mood to tip one way and be okay again or go the other and tumble off into something blacker. Teddy waits it out, chewing on his lip and wondering if he should turn the TV on.
Sooner rather than later, Billy exhales and tugs both his hands through his hair. "Whatever," he says and smiles weakly at Teddy. "Sorry. This isn't how I expected the night to go."
"It's fine," says Teddy, meaning it and not just being polite.
"It isn't," Billy says. His smile gets bigger and a little crooked. "But thanks."
"So, is Tommy..." Teddy asks, trailing off and wiggling his finger to suggest superpowers, as Billy unfolds and goes to get the remote.
Billy flops down again, spreads out, taking up more than his actual fair share of room. "Nah," he says. "He's just Tommy."
And then they settle in to watch Survivorman until Billy's metabolism reminds him that he hasn't eaten dinner.