Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Ash please,” Sal said, dropping his usually monotone voice in an attempt to sway her. “It’s been two months.” 

Larry brought his lunch tray over to the two of them, taking his usual seat beside Sal. “What’re you trying to do, convince her to hand over a kidney?”

“No,” Sal said, “I’m just trying to convince her to take me shopping after school. But apparently she’s too busy for her friends these days.”

Ash laughed and flicked a pea at Sal with her spoon. “Fine I’ll take you but you gotta give me a quarter so I can call Ryan and tell him not to pick me up.”

Sal handed over the quarter and stole several tater tots from Larry’s plate, pushing Larry’s face away when he tried to hunch over the tray to protect his precious tots.

“You can come, if you want,” Sal offered, gesturing at Ash on the payphone outside.

“Maybe I will,” Larry said, relaxing a little. Sal immediately took the opportunity to steal another two tater tots.

“Asshole,” Larry said fondly, taking several from Sal’s plate.

As they walked out of the school gates at the end of the day Sal stepped on the end of Larry’s shoelace. It was the easiest way to get Larry to bend down so he could whisper in his ear.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I just didn’t want you to feel like I was ditching you to hang out with Ash.” Sal murmured. 

“Are you ditching me to hang out with Ash?” Larry whispered back.

“Well, yeah, but you hate going shopping with us.”

“You take hours.” Larry somehow managed to make his whisper sound like a whine.

Sal laughed, “Go home Larry, just remember, you’re not my consolation prize.”

Larry kissed the cheek of Sal’s prosthetic as he stood up, using his long curtain of hair to make sure nobody saw. 

Sal walked over to join Ash, grateful that his prosthetic hid any blush that might have been spreading across his cheeks. They walked down to the strip mall together, musing about whether or not their new math teacher was sadistic enough to spring a pop quiz on them so close to the end of senior year when Ash abruptly changed the topic.

“Hey, is Larry OK?” She asked, stopping them both on the sidewalk so Sal could look her in the eyes. 

“What do you mean?” Sal said his voice deliberately even.

“He’s been acting super weird for, like, the last two weeks? Have you seriously not noticed?” Ash asked, incredulous.

“Sorry, no,” Sal said, after all, if he’d somehow managed to be oblivious to Larry’s feelings for him, it should be pretty believable that he wouldn’t notice if Larry was being weird. Of course, Sal knew Ash was right, but he and Larry hadn’t really talked about telling anyone and he wasn’t about to start blabbing it from the rooftops. 1994 was very much not a good time to be whatever it was they were.

Ash looked at Sal properly, like she was trying to see through his prosthetic through sheer force of will. “You’d tell me if something was up, right?”

Sal choked slightly but managed to reply, “Yeah, ‘course I would.”

“OK,” she said, her tone still suspicious. Sal walked a little faster after that, keen to make it to the old record store at the end of the strip. Ash was always plenty distracted when they were there so hopefully the sooner they got there the less she’d interrogate him.

An off-key chime above the door frame denoted their arrival. The girl behind the counter, who had been painting her nails, looked up.

“Sal! Ash! Haven’t seen you for a while!” She said, her customer service face falling away to one of genuine excitement.

“Hi Dawn,” Ash said, “Sorry we’ve been busy.”

“You have, anyway.” Sal said, elbowing Ash playfully.

“Shut it Sally Face.” A blush crept up Ash’s neck and Sal did his best not to laugh at her. Her eyes kept darting across to Dawn to see what she thought, but Dawn was busy re-arranging a shelf display.

“Got any new stuff in?” Sal asked Dawn.

“Music-wise? Just this,” Dawn gestured to the cassette display of The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails, “It’s not exactly new anymore.”

“How about clothes-wise?” Sal asked, it was, after all the real reason he was there.

“Sally Face, I’m afraid Target is across the street,” Dawn teased.

“Gosh darn it,” Sal teased back, affecting the most ridiculous version of his Jersey accent he could muster, “That’s just too far for me to go, so whatever you have will have to do.”

“I am never going to get used to that,” Ash quipped. She had already walked over to the door marked ‘Staff Only’ and while she hadn’t walked through it, she was looking at the boxes, trying to make out the labels in the dark. 

Dawn brushed past her into the room, switching the light on as she did. Sal looked over the shelves laden with band tees, merchandise, and anything else Dawn thought was interesting enough to stock. Ash immediately started asking for things to try on, pointing to various boxes for Dawn to rifle through.

Sal just let himself breathe it all in. Dawn was one of the few, truly wonderful people, who was happy to sell Sal skirts and tights without asking any questions. Of course, she had been in that position once herself, but it was good to know that he could shop here and not have to worry about people being arseholes to him or his friends. He looked across at the back shelf and saw a pair of knee-high platform boots covered in buckles. Yeah, he needed those.

“Hey Dawn,” he asked, “how much for the boots?”

Dawn followed his finger and appraised them. “For you? $90.”

Sal checked his wallet and grinned, “Sold. Do you have ‘em in a 5?”

“I have them in women’s 7, so yeah.” Dawn checked the box before throwing it unceremoniously at Sal. It took several minutes of both his and Ash’s time to realise that they had zippers and they didn’t actually have to undo all the buckles, but once they were on Sal, they fit perfectly.

“If you don’t buy those I am going to be forced to kill you,” Ash told him, “It would be an act of mercy, saving you from such a terrible existence.”

Sal laughed and threw one of the 12 shirts she’d tried on at her, “I’m getting them.”

He looked into the storage room one more time, just to see if there was anything he’d missed and there was. An red XL Sanity’s Fall T-shirt was somewhere in the mess around Dawn’s feet.

“Can I have that shirt too?” He asked.

“Dude, there is no way this is gonna fit you,” Dawn said, picking the shirt up.

“It’s not for me,” Sal told her.

“Larry has like seven of them all ready,” Ash pointed out, following the train of the conversation.

“But not in red,” Sal said, “besides, it means he’ll definitely like it.”

“Ten bucks.” Dawn offered.

“Sold.” Sal handed her two fifties, still wearing the shoes. He laughed at Ash as she tried to fit her pile of clothes into the tiny plastic bags that had been designed with cassettes and records in mind.

As they walked back from the store Ash asked Sal, “Did you buy Larry the shirt because he’s been acting weird? Did something upset him?”

“No, I bought it because I knew he’d like it, you’ve really got to stop over-analysing everything we do.” Sal said. He hadn’t meant for his words to sound angry but that was how they came out, 

Ash furrowed her brow. “Jeez dude, all you had to say was butt-out.” 

“That never works on you,” Sal pointed out, still feeling a little defensive.

“True. But I just worry. Larry’s like my oldest friend, I want him to be OK.”

“He is.” Sal promised. “Really.”

“OK OK, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ash said, waving goodbye as they reached Addison apartments. “But if Larry isn’t OK and you’re keeping it from me you’ll have more than ghosts to worry about.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sal said back, wryly. 

He went straight to the basement. He was pretty sure Henry was working, and if he wasn’t, there was every chance he was drinking. Sal didn’t particularly want to be around to see his dad fall off the wagon for the upteenth timenso he went directly to the basement.

Sal let himself into Larry’s room, throwing the Sanity’s Fall shirt so it hit Larry square in the face.

“Dude!” Larry said.

Sal smiled broadly enough that Larry could hear it in his voice, “I got you something.”

“Yeah, I can see that!” Larry smiled but he froze as his eyes raked over Sal. He swallowed noticeably.

Sal wanted to jump out from under the scrutiny, but he held fast, he wasn’t going to be scared of Larry. “I, uh, got some boots too.” 

“Yeah,” Larry said thickly. He gave Sal one last, long look before walking over to the doorway and locking his bedroom door, grabbing Sal’s forearm and pulling him into the room as he did so.

“So, you like them?” Sal asked, certain now that Larry did, he’d become maddeningly familiar with the dark look, filled with promise, that Larry was giving him. 

“Yeah,” Larry said, “They make you the right height for me to do this.” He shot Sal a mischievous grin before dropping artlessly to his knees.

Sal made a noise that was somewhere in between a groan and words not yet recorded as human speech patterns. Larry ran his hands down Sal’s sides, ghosting his fingertips over his hips so little goosebumps appeared where Sal’s shirt had ridden up.

“You sure you wanna-” Sal fought to say.

“I’m down here, aren’t I?” Larry pointed out, taking a moment to undo Sal’s fly. He could feel Sal’s cock growing hard under the fabric, even more obviously when he leant his mouth forward and mouthed at it through Sal’s underwear. He heard Sal’s breath hitch and pulled on the waistband of both the pants and boxers so they fell to the top of the boots that had started this. 

He looked up at Sal with heavy-lidded eyes and the sight stopped Sal’s heart momentarily. If he was half the artist Larry was, he would paint the scene laid out in front of him just to hold onto it forever: Larry kneeling, staring at him with such a hungry look in his eyes there was no questioning what was about to happen. Even now, Sal was making every effort to lock the scene before him in his memory, the slow, purposeful rise and fall of Larry’s chest, his hands finding holds in Sal’s hips, thumbs digging in hard enough that Sal could hope for bruises.

Sal had no idea how long he watched Larry, almost shaking in anticipation, before Larry licked a lazy stripe up the side of his cock and took the head into his mouth. Sal moaned as he was enveloped by the wet heat. He looked down again, more of that delicious heat licking up his spine at the sight of Larry taking as much of Sal’s cock as he could into his mouth, a light trail of saliva running down the corner of his mouth. And wasn’t that a sight, Larry drooling over his dick, running his tongue along the shaft in a ‘come hither’ motion that made Sal’s knees buckle.

And that was before Larry started to move, humming gently around Sal’s cock, drawing desperate breaths from Sal as he did. Larry’ hands in his hips were the only things keeping Sal up against the wall as Larry slurped obscenely on his dick, sucking and hollowing his cheeks in a way that made Sal feel completely surrounded. He could feel intensity pooling in his groin, this wasn’t going to last much longer, no matter how happy he would have been to stay there forever. He tapped the side of Larry’s head in warning.

“Lar- I’m gunna-” 

Larry pushed his head into Sal’s hand and redoubled his efforts. Sal saw stars, every fiber of his being was focused on the heady, electric feeling of Larry’s mouth, the feeling building and building until all Sal could do was let out a strangled groan as he spilled down Larry’s throat.

Sal crumpled down the wall as Larry released his hips. “Shit Larry,” he breathed.

Larry wiped the spit and cum of his face with the back of his hand. “Didn’t taste as bad as I expected,” he said conversationally, but his voice still held that undercurrent of arousal, arousal that was made more obvious by the tent in his pants.

“Um,” Sal began, because there was no easy way for him to say this, “I’m not 100% sure I can do that.”

“Huh?” Larry looked up at him confused.

Sal sighed and unclipped his mask, it was gross with sweat and a relief to remove. Sal gestured at his ruined face, particularly the missing cheek and chunks of lip.

“I don’t give a shit about that Sal, you can use your hand, or hell, I can take care of it myself.” Larry caught on.

“No!” Sal said quickly, “I, uh, wanna try. Just, like, manage your expectations.”

“OK,” Larry agreed readily, “how d’you want me?”

And wasn’t that a question. Sal’s mind filled with ideas, several of which were just plain unrealistic. He zeroed in on one and took a deep breath, bringing back whatever confidence he’d lost in the realisation that he may not be able to do this. Was some of it a fake? Absolutely, but it was going to have to do.

“Sit on the bed?” Larry followed the request instantly. That did a lot for Sal’s confidence. Sal stood between Larry’s legs, kissing him hard, tasting himself on the other’s tongue. He could do this. He ran his hands under Larry’s shirt, breaking their kiss momentarily to remove it. He tried to undo Larry’s jeans but without being able to see what he was doing it felt like a herculean task, so he pulled away and threw the offending pants across the room as soon as he was done with them.

He knelt between Larry’s legs, looking up, he saw Larry breathing heavily, licking his lips at the sight. 

Sal smirked up at him, “See something you like?”

“Saaal,” Larry said, his whine belittling the implicit order.

Sal took a moment to think about the practicality of what he was doing before opening his mouth, being extra careful of his teeth since he didn’t have enough lip to cover half of them. He mouthed at Larry’s tip, enjoying the way Larry’s stomach seemed to tense with every caress. He steeled himself and moved his head forward. He wiggled his jaw slowly, trying to unlock the muscles that threatened to ruin this. OK, he’d gotten as much into his mouth as he was going to. He wrapped his right hand around the rather significant length still outside and began to stroke in time with bobbing his head. Larry’s stomach continued to flutter at the top of Sal’s eyeline, but he wasn’t making the noises that Sal so desperately wanted to hear. He couldn’t make a vacuum with his cheeks like Larry had but he could hum.

He started soft, gradually growing louder and lower in pitch as Larry gave out a sigh that quickly turned into a moan. Sal continued, picking up the pace with his hand and tongue.

“Aw fuck, Sal!” Larry cried out, burying a hand in Sal’s hair, his hips lifting off the bed as he tried to get more purchase. Sal quickly pinched the thumb of his left hand between his index and middle fingers, stifling his gag reflex (surgeons spending hours trying to fix his face was bound to teach him a few tricks). He let Larry fuck the back of his throat, humming into it as Larry’s breaths grew faster.

“Shit, Sal!” Was all the warning he got before Larry came. Larry had been right, it really didn't taste as bad as people expected it to, vaguely salty but not awful by any stretch of the imagination. 

Larry fell back against the bed and Sal rested his head on Larry’s thigh. They stayed like that while they collected themselves. Larry was the first to speak.

“So, nice boots.”

Sal laughed, his voice sounding raw. “I should buy stuff more often.”

“Nah, save your money, I’ll jump your bones regardless,” Larry chuckled.

“You know, for the whole shopping trip Ash was grilling me for information about you,” Sal said, trying to ignore how utterly wrecked his voice sounded. “I think she’s onto us.”

“Did you tell her?” Larry didn’t sound worried, but there was something tense in his voice.

“No, I didn’t want to before we talked about it.”

“Not because you like her?” Larry teased.

“Oh I’m sorry, was I sucking her dick just now? Didn’t think so. I like you both, it was just easier to admit it for her because it’s straight. Ish.” Sal said, voicing the thought that had been floating around in his mind ever since he and Larry had first hooked up.

“So you’d date me if we didn’t live in a tiny religious town?” Larry teased.

“I would,” Sal replied seriously, “Hell I’d do it now if I could guarantee your safety.”

“Don’t be a fucking hero,” Larry said.

“Oh I wear skirts sometimes and don’t get mad when people mistake me for a girl, I’m already doomed,” Sal said lazily. People were going to stare at him no matter what he did, might as well give him something to look at. At least, that was what he told himself, ignoring how good it sometimes felt to be mistaken for a girl.

“Do you want people to know about us?” Larry asked, his tone switching to serious.

“Do you?” Sal asked back.

“I don’t really care. Well, maybe not my mom, I don’t know if I have another parental rejection in me.” Larry said soberly.

“Me either, and somehow I suspect your mom would take it fine, but she’d tell my dad so no thank you.” Sal shuddered at the idea of his dad looking at him with disgust in his eyes, Henry could hide his reaction to Sal’s face most of the time but this could just be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Ash and Todd?” Larry suggested.

“Yeah, we can tell them, it’ll get Ash off my back anyway.”

“Yeah and Todd can’t exactly judge us,” Larry added.

“We should get it over with, so we can’t psych ourselves out of it,” Sal said, already psyching himself out of it.

“Tomorrow after school?”

“Tomorrow after school.”

Sal could have learned any number of things that day had he not been so preoccupied. The teachers could have been confessing to all the cult activity that had made Sal’s life so difficult for the last few years and he would only have been able to say ‘huh?’ in response.

He was on autopilot all day, automatically heading straight for 402 without even stopping to check when the others were supposed to join them. It was as if he was simultaneously trying to pretend that nothing was going to happen and not being able to think about anything else. He wasn’t even sure how long he sat in his room for until he heard Larry over the walkie talkie.

“Yo, Sal are you gonna come down here or what?”

“Shit. Right. Yeah, be right there.” Sal ignored the thumping of his heart which had chosen this exact moment to turn the volume to 11. This was gonna be fine. He was gonna be fine. He wasn’t scared. And he totally didn’t hide behind Larry the second he’d entered the basement. That would be pathetic. He just happened to end up standing in such a way that Larry was in front of him, between him and the rest of their friends.

He pushed Larry forward gently. 

“Don’t look at me, man I don’t know what to tell them,” Larry said, looking over his shoulder at Sal.

“Screw you,” said Sal, rolling his eye.

“Uh, yeah, I should hope so,” Larry shot back. Sal wanted to melt into the floor like Megan. Really? That was how they were coming out to their friends.
“So . . .” Sal began, hoping to sound nonchalant despite the fact he was still using Larry as a human shield, “We’re sort of dating. Larry and I.”

“Have we actually been on a date?” Larry asked. Sal opened his mouth. “Video games in my room does not count.” Sal closed his mouth.

Todd was nodding along, a thoughtful look in his eyes. Ash was looking at both of them. “I thought you liked girls,” she said.

“I do,” Larry and Sal said at once.

“Have any of you ever heard of the Kinsey scale?” Todd asked. At the blank expressions that surrounded him, Todd continued. “The Kinsey Scale is an imperfect but still useful tool designed by Alfred Kinsey for explaining how a person experiences attraction. It ranges from zero to six with zero being completely heterosexual and six being completely homosexual. Kinsey found that a significant percentage of both male and female populations - Sorry Sal - fell between one and 5 and were therefore ‘bisexual’.”

“Huh.” Larry was the first to respond. “That makes a lot of sense. But Sal isn’t exactly 100% a dude.”

“Being 100% anything sounds boring as hell,” Sal shot back quickly, the words out of his mouth before he’d even registered them. “I guess that applies to being straight or gay as well,” he added after a moment’s thought.

“Anyway,” Todd said, ignoring the tension in the room, “I think its time we talked about safe sex.”

“Uh thanks but no thanks Todd. I’m not about to get this lecture from a literal child.” Larry said quickly.

“I will be eighteen in exactly 140 days,” Todd said, “and even so, I’m willing to bet that this ‘child’ knows a lot more than you do.”

What followed was at least as strange as the time Sal had found Chug sacrificing a hot dog to the empty vending machine. There was something really bizarre about being lectured of the mechanics of sex by someone who was younger than you. It didn’t help that their health class had not prepared them for this in the slightest: The class had basically been ‘don’t have sex, if you have to, use condoms, and if you’re gay you’ll porbably get HIV’. Yeah, Sal hadn’t felt remotely guilty about spending that whole class passing notes. 

Todd’s lecture involved him using Larry’s paints to draw a diagram that they were definitely going to have to burn after this was over and more detail about Todd and Neil’s sex life than Sal had ever signed up to hear. But there was no denying it was informative.

After waving goodbye to their friends from the front door Larry turned to Sal.

“You know, that was actually less mortifying than ‘the talk’ my mom tried to give me,” Larry said.

“I wouldn’t know,” Sal said, “Dad’s never given me one.”

“Dude, are you serious?” Larry looked way angrier about that than Sal had ever felt.

“I can’t exactly blame him. I mean it sounds super awkward,” Sal said, hoping Larry would calm down.

“OK but like, he should give you ‘the talk’ it’s, like, a rite of passage.” Larry still sounded mad, the same kind of mad he got when Sal said something stupid about his face. Oh.

“You think my dad hasn’t given me ‘the talk’ because he thinks no one will ever want to fuck me?” Sal asked.

“Look man, I’m living proof that’s not true but . . . yeah, I think that’s why he hasn’t said anything.” Larry took a deep breath and grinned malevolently. “I think you should show him how wrong he is.”

“Um no thanks, telling Ash and Todd was weird enough for one day.”

“I’m not saying it has to be today but this is, like, a social justice issue or whatever. And you don’t have to say it’s about me.” He opened his bedroom door and ushered Sal in. “C’mon, we have plans to make.”

Operation ‘the Talk’ was not Sal’s favourite plan Larry had ever come up with. It wasn’t even in the top 10, beaten out by Operation: Battle Cat (don’t ask, Gizmo was still traumatised). But it was more do-able than others, at least in theory. In practice Sal’s dad spent most of his Friday and Saturday evenings at AA meetings, which he was driven to by Lisa. And on Sunday evening, just as Sal was about to say something he got a call from work about something that had to be done by the end of the week (which was in less than five hours). It wasn’t until Monday dinner that Sal was actually able to talk to his dad. It was still a distinct improvement, two years ago he would have told Larry not to bother because he never spoke to Henry anyway.

“Hey dad,” Sal said, picking at the fish fingers on his plate. “Something happened at school today.”

“Was it that Phelps kid again? I’ve heard plenty about him from Lisa and-”

“No it's not about Travis. A, um, girl - a junior - asked me on a date today.” Sal and Larry had agreed not to name this poor girl they’d invented, just in case Henry decided to look into it.

“Really? I, uh, mean, OK,” Henry said, and Sal decided to ignore his initial disbelief, even if it meant Larry’s theory might be correct.

“I said no, I barely know her,” Sal added, he didn’t want to have to explain to his dad why this ‘date’ he’d been asked on never happened. “But it was pretty weird.”

“OK, that was probably the right decision if you didn’t know her,” Henry said, suddenly very focused on his fish fingers.

There was a drawn out silence, the only sound forks scraping aimlessly at plates before Henry spoke again.

“Sal I should probably talk to you about some stuff.”

“That was awful,” Sal complained into his walkie talkie, “why did you make me go through that? I thought you cared about me.”

“Well it should have happened years ago, now you have gone through the universal adolescent experience,” Larry laughed, “Aren’t you always going on about how nice it would be to be normal?”

“Get fucked.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep Sally Face- Oh I think my mom’s on the phone with your dad, wanna eavesdrop?”

“You have to ask?” Sal scoffed.

“That was awful,” Henry complained into the phone.

“Well it's over now, and about time! Sal’s grown into a lovely young man.” Sal winced at this. “It was only a matter of time before someone noticed.”

“Yeah, I guess I just thought I was protecting him. And Diane promised she’d be the one to deal with all the awkward teenage stuff-” Henry choked.

“I’m sure she would be proud of how you handled it.” Lisa said kidly. “You should’ve seen my ‘Talk’ with Larry. I’m sure we both wanted to bolt from the room.”

“You got that right,” Larry muttered into his walkie talkie.

“Speaking of: I’ll ask Larry if he knows anything about this girl,” Lisa said.

Larry groaned, “Great now I’m gonna get grilled for information.”

“Serves you right for daring me to do this.” Sal said, letting Larry make whiny noises at him. “But for real dude, thanks, I guess, for making sure people treat me like a person.”

“Anytime Sal, anytime.”