Archive of Our Own ^beta

Soundtrack: Things I Like to Do – Scorpio Loon

The Way I Choose

David did not like to be out of his depth, but hell, was he out of it. He liked the concrete. He liked facts. This whole situation stank of uncertainty and he hated that, but he still – God, he was curious enough about Tommy, née Noodles Guy, that he wanted to see what would happen. Facts and concrete aside, what was an experiment if not to solve for an unknown variable?

The facts:

1. Noodles Guy was named Tommy

2. Tommy at one point referred to David as ‘Hot Puzzle Guy’

3. Therefore, on some level, Tommy was attracted to David

4. Tommy did not text David despite having his number

5. But Tommy did come to the Puzzle Factory to talk to him

6. Therefore, Tommy wanted to see what happened here

Whether that meant Tommy cared or Tommy was curious or Tommy was nervous or any number of other emotions, David couldn’t say. He didn’t know what Tommy wanted, but he knew what he wanted. At heart, all logic and neatly categorized boxes in his head aside, David was – tragically – a romantic. He wanted another person to share in his highs and lows, somebody he could laugh with and kiss. Something real.

“Do you ever, like, stop thinking?” asked Tommy, as they slid inside David’s house. All was quiet, although if they weren’t careful, Kim would wake up and would be more than happy to turn David in for having someone over at near three in the morning. After David came out to them, his parents gave everyone that came over the eye.

“Not really, no,” David admitted.

“I can see your brain going a mile a minute, man,” Tommy told him. “Stop being so serious. It’s just Mario Kart.”

As was the case with much of David’s life, he preferred his bedroom to be neat. He made his bed when he woke up, organized his books in alphabetical order, and kept his gaming space meticulously clean.

“This is literally the nerdiest game setup I have seen in my whole ass life, dude,” said Tommy.

Television, Xbox, Switch – all packed in between shelves of games, like David’s books, organized in alphabetical order.

“This whole place is so – put away,” Tommy went on. “Me and Billy’s room is a fucking mess. His gaming stuff is covered in like at least four years of Dorito crumbs. Color me impressed, puzzles.” His face split wide open in an easy grin, so unlike the vibrating uneasiness during their conversation in front of the fountain at the mall. He slid into David’s space as though he belonged there, as though he’d always been in it.

Weird, but okay, David could go with that. He offered Tommy a seat in front of the television, where David and Eli always sat every Friday, turning their brains to mush and venting for hours about the tragic realities of working in a mall. Customer service could be such a bust, but at least they had each other.

Tommy flicked his eyes from the gaming chair to David and back again. Part of David wondered if he’d finally cracked under the combined weight of work, school, and sleep deprivation. He’d been quietly fascinated by Noodles Guy for the better part of an entire year. To see Tommy in his space – well. He floundered.

“You know what?” drawled Tommy, and he drew up close, only inches from David in the dark of his bedroom, green eyes flashing. “I think I changed my mind. I’m gonna try something out. Stay still.”

David did, and Tommy swayed into him. He smelled like sweat, like he may have been running for a while before he decided to stroll up to David’s front porch. He kissed more softly than David expected him too, but far more deeply than they had at the fountain. The fountain kiss was David’s invitation to Tommy. A green light.

Tommy had clearly kissed many people before David, and David was reaping the rewards. David framed Tommy’s face with his hands, and Tommy made a soft, surprised noise. He flattened his palms on David’s chest and pushed, herding David back to his precisely made bed.

Oh, this was going in a direction that David had not expected for his evening. He expected insomnia, reading alone on his porch, and going to bed irritated. He expected sitting awake under the covers because he’d be overthinking everything he said to Tommy in front of the fountain, wondering if he’d made the right choice.

Clearly David did something right, because Tommy pushed and pushed and knocked him back onto the mattress.

“Scoot up,” Tommy said. “Lie down.”

Then he paused and frowned.

“If that’s okay,” he added. “I wanna keep kissing you. But tell me to stop, y’know, if you’re not all good.”

The edge of David’s lips pulled up in a half-smile. He replied, “I can hold my own. I promise.”

“Good. Cool. Then do what I said.”

David pulled his body back and rested on his elbows. He had admittedly envisioned scenarios like this before, but he never put himself in stained sweatpants, and nor did he see Tommy in a t-shirt from a half-marathon that stretched over his shoulders in a way that made David want to hold onto them.

Standing beside the bed, Tommy stared at him, all his earlier bravado winding back down to that same jittery energy from hours ago in the mall. His hands twitched at his sides, and his gaze darted back toward the door, as though he might jump out at any moment.

David sat up further. “Are you okay?” he asked.

A nervous laugh bubbled up from Tommy’s chest. He pushed bleached hair back from his forehead and nodded. “I’m – yeah. You are a goddamned gentleman, you know that?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever been called that before, no,” David answered, amused.

Tommy kicked his sneakers off, then, and crawled up onto the bed. He hesitated, then swung one leg up over David’s prone form and straddled his lap. He sucked his lower lip in between his teeth and said, “I’ve never really done stuff with dudes before.”

“Stuff?”

“You know what I mean."

“So, this is an experiment?” David’s heart swooped low as he uttered those words. 

Tommy shook his head. “Not – really? I don’t think. I’m not sure. You’re definitely, um. I’m into your whole – thing.” He waved a hand over David.

This was a terrible idea. David had invested too much emotional stock in this already, and if he didn’t turn back now, he’d have another reason for his insomnia, and he’d never make it through work and school alive.

But he also wanted to know. David wanted to know what would happen if he rolled with this situation, and he never could resist the desire to find out what might happen if he tried something he never had before. So, he leaned back a little more, sent up what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and said, “I haven’t done a whole lot either, to be honest. Seems like we’re both going in blind.” That wasn’t strictly true, of course. There’d been Nori. But he hadn’t ever found himself being straddled by an attractive man before, no.

Something flitted over Tommy’s face, and his jaw set. He pulled the t-shirt up over his head without ceremony, revealing a wiry but muscled frame. A runner’s frame. He pressed his palms into the mattress on either side of David’s head and kissed him again. This time, he kissed with intent. He inhaled David, consumed him, and David gripped Tommy’s upper arms to hang on against the rush of heat and feeling.

Knotted scar tissue met his fingertips, and David pulled back, just a little. Tommy tensed as David’s touch roamed over a cluster of similar scars.

“Are these cigarette burns?” he blurted.

“Yup,” Tommy answered. “Bummer. Are we doing this, or what?”

Anything to get the panicked look off of Tommy’s face: David sat up just enough to wriggle out of his shirt. He aimed for his laundry basket but missed, and Tommy zeroed in on David’s chest as he knew he would, pulling attention away from whatever horrible piece of Tommy’s past manifested in cigarette burns up to his shoulder to David’s surgical scar, long and imposing over his heart.

“Whoa,” Tommy said. His hand hovered over the scar, and he asked, “Can I touch?”

“Go ahead.”

A surprisingly ginger touch came when Tommy’s hand drifted down, tracing David’s scar with his fingertip with a dent between his brows. “Did you have, like, heart surgery?”

“Yup,” David answered, and echoing Tommy’s sentiment, added, “Bummer.”

Tommy snorted. His head dropped to the space between David’s neck and shoulder, and the tension shifted to something else. Something headier. David’s breath caught when Tommy’s lips skated across the skin of his throat, exploring. He kissed the space under David’s jaw, and then pushed their mouths together again.

When Tommy’s tongue slid against David’s, David let out a helpless noise.

David’s sweatpants did nothing to obscure his erection, and when Tommy dropped his weight down, rolling their bodies together, he could feel Tommy was hard too.

“Holy shit,” Tommy whispered, voicing David’s exact line of thought, because he’d never felt another erection rub up against his, but he was more than ready to make it happen again. “That feels – really fucking good.”

“Then keep doing it,” David urged.

At this, Tommy smiled – a strange, almost shy thing, and pressed down again. They moved like that in tandem, Tommy’s arms boxing David in, David clinging to Tommy’s biceps like he might drown if he let go. The push and pull of their bodies built a delicious, hot pressure in him. David tried to fold this all down into the physical, but when his gaze met Tommy’s, he knew he was doomed feeling harder than he could think. The expression of concentration, of pleasure somehow open and tentative all at once on Tommy’s angular face, hit David with the force of a runaway train.

“M’gonna, fuck, hang on,” Tommy said, and his weight disappeared. David made a noise of disapproval, and Tommy waved him off, explaining, “I really don’t wanna come in my shorts, man. I still have run home after this.”

And then he was naked.

Tommy’s narrow frame flared out to muscled thighs and toned calves, and in between his legs, his erection hung red and heavy. He wanted to taste it.

“Can I,” David started, and stopped.

Tommy lifted a brow.

“I’ve, ah,” David tried again. He let his head fall back against the mattress and sighed. He lowered his voice to say, “I’ve never given a blow job before, but can I –”

“Is that even a real question?” Tommy interjected. He flopped onto his back, smacked a wet kiss to David’s cheek, and extended a hand down to the cock curving up from a nest of dark pubic hair. “Hell yeah. Go to town.”

David laughed, breathless. He turned his head into Tommy’s, kissed him, and slid up onto his knees.

How was this his life? David did not know how any of this worked beyond what he’d found on the internet, and reading and watching could only get him so far. The only way he could figure this out was to try it for himself.

So he did. He inched awkwardly down the bed, painfully hard under his sweats, and wet his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“Okay so like,” Tommy said, “Not to criticize, but also, I’m feeling a little, y’know, naked. Here.”

“You talk a lot,” David told him, and ducked in without further overthinking, pressing the flat of his tongue to the head of Tommy’s cock. Tommy sucked in a breath as the taste of salt and musk extended over David’s palate. He tried licking again, and Tommy’s leg twitched up, hitching over to rest against David’s back.

He knew he was not an oral sex savant. David couldn’t swallow the entire length of Tommy down, but he did what he could, uncoordinated but certain. He liked to think that what he lacked in skill he made up for in enthusiasm, and given some time and practice he might be able to –

“OhfuckohfuckDavid,” Tommy chanted.

David wrapped his fist around the base of Tommy’s erection, the part he couldn’t reach with his mouth, and moved his hand against the suction of his mouth. His heart slapped against his ribcage, and Tommy’s heel dug into the space between David’s shoulder blades as he arched up off of the mattress and came with a choked-off sound, muffling the noise with his face turned into David’s bedspread.

The hot tang of Tommy in his mouth and throat wasn’t the greatest thing he’d ever tasted, but knowing made David so much happier. He knew what Tommy tasted like. He knew what the weight of him felt like in his mouth. There would be no more theories and imaginings, because he’d done it.

In one, strong motion, Tommy used his legs to flip David onto his back. “Ha! That worked out so much better than I thought it was going to,” he said, mere instants before he leaned down and David surged up and their heads knocked together.

“Aw, shit,” Tommy groaned, clutching his head, and David laughed, punch-drunk on the ridiculousness of it all and the fact that he didn’t have to wonder about this anymore. He knew!

“Yeah, laugh it up,” said Tommy, but he was smiling too. “So. Anyway. I’ve never fucked around with anyone with a dick before? So. That’s a thing. I also don’t know what I’m doing – not that that’s news, actually – but can I try blowing you? Y’know, also. Like you did. Just then.”

David nodded his assent and Tommy curled his fingers under the worn-out elastic waistband of David’s sweatpants. He whisked them off, business-like, and unlike David, did not linger before he put his mouth on David’s cock. He hummed, contemplative, and David crushed his bedspread in his fists, hyper-conscious of the fact that his parents and little sister were just down the hall. He wanted swear at the top of his lungs as Tommy moved his head and mouth and hand, experimenting like David had with finding an angle and establishing rhythm.

He’d already been at the knife’s edge just rubbing up against Tommy in their clothes. As Tommy’s tongue moved against David’s erection, as his hand worked the rest, David’s balls drew up tight and David whispered an urgent, “I’m gonna come.”

Tommy sputtered when it happened. David’s come was on his face and Tommy pawed at his chin to wipe it clean.

“Damn it,” he muttered. “That was supposed to be so much smoother. Did not stick the landing. That definitely does not taste like pussy.”

“Is that bad?” David dared to ask.

Tommy heaved a sigh and flung himself to lie alongside David. “Nah, just different,” he determined. “You have dick breath.”

David felt his brows lift. “And whose fault might that be?”

Tommy’s eyes glittered in the dim glow of moonlight that spilled out from David’s window. He smiled again, loose and easy, and deigned to kiss David again. They both tasted like sex and smelled like sweat and it was a little bit gross, but also a lot nice, and David leaned into it with all the ardor his dopamine-addled brain was swimming in.

Which was why when Tommy pulled back everything went all the more cold.

Tommy scrunched up his nose, huffed out what might have been an amused noise, and said, “Shit, I gotta go. It’s like, what? Three in the morning?” David’s side went chilly as Tommy scrambled up and away from him, yanking clothes on faster than he knew possible, shoving his feet into green and orange running shoes. “That was super fucking fun, man. Let’s do it again sometime.”

And before David could get a word in edgewise, Tommy ducked out of the room. The quiet sound of the front door being opened and closed again sounded.

And footsteps echoed, running, down the street.

** 

“I think I got used,” David said on Friday, before Eli was even all the way in his room.

Eli paused, made a face, and closed the door behind him.

“That was not what I expected to hear,” Eli said. “Maybe a ‘hi, Eli, how are you? Thank you for asking, David. I had to deal with that one annoying kid that works in the Best Buy because I ruined my headphones. Aw, Eli, that sucks. Tell me more about –’”

“I slept with Noodles Guy. Tommy,” David interrupted.

“What.”

David shrugged a shoulder. “He lives a couple streets down, I think. We kinda talked out some things, and then he showed up on my porch and things, ah, escalated.”

“Escalated? That’s one word for it,” Eli said. He collapsed in the chair beside David’s and booted up the Xbox, business as always. Somehow, that was comforting. David was adrift and uncertain in so many things right now, but Eli was not and would never be one of those. He eyed David and suggested, “Minecraft?”

“Yeah,” David agreed. “I don’t want to think right now.”

“That’s new for you.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“Anyway,” David went on, “he hasn’t spoken to me since. And I’m starting to wonder if I was some kind of ‘I want to see what it would be like to give someone with a penis oral sex’ experiment.”

“Wow. That was...way too much information. Thank you,” said Eli. “Please. By all means. Do not continue.”

David ignored him. “What should I do? Do I do anything? I have no idea where I go from here.”

“Honestly?” Eli said. “It seems like the ball is in his court. Do you even have his number yet? Last time I checked, he had yours and that was that.”

David shook his head.

“Yeah, see? Now stop talking and get going. Let’s build something stupid.”

David’s phone buzzed against his thigh. He reached for it despite Eli’s eyeroll, and made a ‘huh’ noise at the notification. TommyGotUBeat wanted to add him on Snapchat.

“Now I’m even more confused,” David announced. “He just added me on Snapchat.”

“Okay? So maybe he’s not using you and you’re just awkward. Can we be done with this conversation already? I came here to game, not to listen to whatever this shit is.”

David thumbed through Snapchat. He hesitated for a second before he pushed through and accepted Tommy’s request. He must have found David by syncing his contacts – and now, of course, he had David’s full name. Maybe he didn’t actually mind that, David decided, and set his phone back down on his leg. He took up the Xbox controller –

Except, then, he got another notification. Eli gave an exaggerated sigh beside him when David picked up his phone. It was, unsurprisingly, a snap from Tommy. 

“Oh,” David said, when he opened it.

Something in his tone drew Eli’s attention.

“Man, what the fuck!” Eli exclaimed. “Did I just see what I think I just saw? Did Tommy send you a dirty snap?”

David blinked. “I suppose he did.”

David took a picture of his television screen and sent back, I am playing Minecraft with Eli rn.

A beat later, on a picture of Tommy’s face with the dog filter layered over it: lmaooo oops he see the d??

David took a picture of Eli holding his head in his hands and sent it without comment.

** 

Something changed.

David didn’t know what, but when he took his half hour lunch and ordered noodles from Tommy’s coworker, Teddy settled in beside David at his table.

“Hey David,” he said easily.

“Um,” David managed. “Hello?”

And then Billy, who was looking dour in too much eyeliner and – plaid overalls? Okay. That was certainly a choice.

“Hey, babe,” Teddy said easily, and Billy landed a kiss on his lips. They made a bizarre but charming couple, to say the least. “I didn’t think you were working today.”

“I’m not,” Billy said, “and neither is Tommy, but here –”

“Ohmygod you can’t fucking ambush him you jackass!”

Tommy careened into his brother and shoved him aside.

“Ignore him,” Tommy instructed, and stepped in front of David. He held his hands awkwardly behind his back, and when David didn’t make a move to do anything but gape, because what, pray tell, the fuck, Tommy slapped a wobbling slab of metal onto the table in front of David’s plastic tray.

It was a street sign, one that originally read ALLEN WAY, but somebody got creative with an orange paint marker and now it read ALLE^YN_E WAY, with the additions in sloping graffiti-style letters.

“I made you a thing,” Tommy announced, then scrunched up his face. “Well, actually. I stole you a thing and then I made it better.”

David shifted his attention from Tommy to Teddy to Billy and back again. Teddy looked just as surprised as David. Billy looked like he might murder David in his sleep given the opportunity. Tommy looked torn between running and some other unnameable thing.

David touched the edge of the street sign.

He should not condone stealing street signs.

Except.

This was a particularly thoughtful stolen street sign.

David had a feeling if he made this into A Thing that Tommy would be equally as liable to take off were he to ignore it altogether.

So, he smiled.

“You learn how to spell all by yourself?” David asked.

Startled, Tommy laughed. “Hey, fuck you,” he said.

Tommy sat down across from David, no longer poised to turn tail and run.