gay one shots | ✔️

shot sixteen: drunk words are sober thoughts; part one

The bell rang, dismissing students from class, and Leo sighed, getting up and packing up his stuff. He walked out of the classroom and looked down at his shoes. He'd only walked five feet when he bumped into the senior. The senior—Tommy—that Leo'd been crushing on for since he'd joined this school in freshman year. Tommy had light brown eyes, fair skin, and fabulous curls that danced on his head when he walked.

And he was sweet—pleasant to be around. Leo had been in classes with him, but he'd always been too shy to approach him, and what's more?--Tommy was out to the world. But Leo was only out to his best friend, Lydia, who had known he was gay way before he'd come out. So when he bumped into Tommy, he was too surprised, and frankly nervous to say anything.

"I'm sorry!" The junior squeaked and felt his face turn red. Tommy looked at him and grinned.

"It's fine, cutie," he smirked and kept walking.

Leo felt a pang in his stomach and smiled to himself, his cheeks still as red as a tomato. Tommy had called him "cutie." He bit his lip as walked to English, even shyer than before. At least it was the last class of the day, and Leo was staying after school with Lydia to set up the photo gallery.

...

When the bell rang, dismissing everyone at the end of the day, Leo walked to his locker, trying not to remember his previous encounter. But it wasn't working, and it had only made him shyer, only made him more likely to bump into people in the hallway. And he did.

But thankfully, this time it wasn't Tommy. It was Lydia.

"'Ey, watch it, kid," she chuckled as she walked with him to his locker. He half smiled at her.

It took him five tries at his code to get into his locker. Lydia raised an eyebrow. It never took him more than twice to get in--there was something troubling him. She didn't say anything, just left the silence to hang heavily around them. They walked to her locker, but on the way, they were moving slowly. Leo had his head down, looking like he was trying to avoid someone.

When he bumped into Tommy (the senior), he looked up, apologised, blushed like mad, and bit his lip as he kept walking. But Tommy had grinned and ruffled Leo's hair. Lydia didn't know what was going on, but she thought she knew.

It took her one try to get into her locker. She put some books back, grabbed some, and then closed the locker. Leo was leaning on the next one, looking down at his shoes. She grinned.

"Ooohhhh, someone's in looovee!"

He looked up. "N-no!"

She shrugged and pulled on his shoulder to get him to walk with her to the photo gallery. They each got one Bluetooth earbud as they listened to music and hung up photos. Lydia noticed that Leo wasn't quite there as they were hanging the photos up. He was usually more present and listened better than this. He didn't even jump when she changed the music from Lorde to Metallica. She changed it back, and they continued putting up the photos; their silence a bittersweet heaviness.

She hung up one of Leo's photos. It was beautiful, of a lit up streetlamp. But it was blurred out, and the focus was on something in the background. It was a sign for a gay bar. An old abandoned one, but still a gay bar. The sign was tiny compared to the street lamp, but it was crisp and in vision. Was this his version of coming out? She put his name next to it on the wall.

She sat down for a minute and looked out of the glass walls of the gallery. Tommy was sitting on one of the couches in the lobby right outside the gallery, curled up, reading Orwell. He was positioned out of the way of sight, but he was still gorgeous. He really was. But she didn't feel any butterflies and sighed in happiness. She didn't need to. One, she had a boyfriend, and two, she was now hardcore shipping Tommy and Leo.

She noticed a lack of noise from where Leo was and looked over to see him gazing out of the gallery wall as well. His gaze was averted, as though he'd been looking at Tommy, but now he was looking at the floor around his feet. Tommy didn't seem to be aware. That was good. Now Lydia knew that Leo wasn't good at hiding that he had a crush on people.

Eventually, she heard him get back to work and she went back to work too, after waving and smiling at Tommy.

...

It was long after Tommy had left when the two juniors locked up the gallery in which all of the photos were all up.

They had already planned to go to Lydia's house for a sleepover, and then go to a movie tomorrow, so she drove them to her house. When they got there, Lydia's mum had made pasta for them. Since it was already seven thirty, they sat down to eat and they talked about the photo gallery. Lydia had made a bed on the floor from a futon, but they stayed up way later than they thought they would; Lydia had questions.

"So," she started. "This is about to get real."

Leo laughed and looked at her. "What's up, Lyds?"

"So, you like Tommy..."

"What? No," he countered, but the colouration of his cheeks was giving him away. He looked at Lydia.

She smiled and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, right. Cut to one year later, and you're in his bed."

Leo's cheeks darkened. "It... It isn't like that."

"Wait, really? Dude, you've totally been acting like you like him."

"I--I... I guess I like him... a little."

Lydia raised her eyebrow again.

"Okay, like a lot, but I know you're friends with him, and I just--don't tell him alright? Promise you won't tell him." His face was desperate, and he looked like a sad little kitten, but he was right. She was also friends with him. Old friends. They'd grown up together, playing with each other when they were small as they were neighbours. But when he moved away when she was in fifth grade, they never really saw each other again, and they'd only just reconnected when he moved to this school two years ago when she was in freshman year, and he was a sophomore.

"I don't make promises."