This party was like a reverse party in that it ended instead of started when the sun went down. I was cool with that. As much as it hadn’t been a complete disaster, I was ready to go home. Or at least back to Jethro’s house.

Honestly, Jethro looked pretty tired too. On the way home, with his mum driving the car, Jethro shut his eyes and rested his head against my shoulder. Fuck, I wanted to just… hold him. To cuddle up together and be sleepy but okay.

But I didn’t know where the line was or what exactly we had going on here. Some touch was obviously okay, but would it freak him out if I got too sentimental about this shit?

When we got back to his place, I wasn’t sure what to do. Text my dad to pick me up, I supposed, but I didn’t really want to. If I did that, whatever magic had happened today would end and who knew what the mood would be by the next time I saw Jethro. 

Suddenly, Jethro turned around from where he’d been taking off his eyeliner at his desk. “Do you want to stay over?”

“Huh?” I said, not because I didn’t understand the question but because I needed a few seconds delay to process it.

“Stay the night here. We could watch some movies and stuff.”

I hadn’t wanted this to end but now the actual reality of it not ending was in my face, my mind was full of nothing but doubts and questions. Were Jethro’s parents okay with this? What would I wear to sleep in? Where would I sleep? Did Jethro have a spare toothbrush? What would we have for dinner?

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Jethro said after I’d been silent much, much too long. He turned back to the mirror above his desk.

“No, I do,” I said quickly. “I’m just thinking… logistics. And psyching myself out, I guess.”

“You can ask me stuff if you’re worried.”

“Nah. It’s always just dumb stuff that doesn’t matter.”

Jethro spun his chair back around again. “If it matters to you, it matters to me. Come on. Tell me what’s worrying you.”

I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t really talk about this stuff more than I had to. Not with my parents and not with my psychiatrist. Not with anyone. It just felt dumb. “I don’t know. I guess I just have to think up every angle and make sure everything is covered. Like, do you have a spare toothbrush? I know it doesn’t really matter, but I can’t just let it go.”

“I do have a spare toothbrush you can use. What else?”

I let out a sigh. This felt way more intimate than the hand holding. “Will your parents be okay with me staying over?”

“Yup. Will yours?”

“I guess so?” It wasn’t like it had ever come up before. “Yeah, they won’t mind.”

“Anything else?”

“So many things.”

So we went through them one by one, and he answered every question and didn’t make fun of me for how silly they were. We could order pizza for dinner. We could share his bed. He’d lend me some pyjamas to sleep in. There was no problem he didn’t have a simple solution to.

I texted my mum to let her know I’d be staying the night at Jethro’s.

Two minutes later, my phone rang. I let out a long sigh and glared at it. It persisted in ringing. My mum was calling me.

Eventually, I answered. “Is this necessary?”

“I just wanted to make sure everything is okay,” my mum said.

“I feel my response to things not being okay has pretty consistently been the opposite of choosing not to go home when given the opportunity.”

“Okay, okay, just making sure. You have fun, all right?”

“Yeah, you too. Cook something that I’d hate because it makes the house smell weird. Keep the TV turned up past my bedtime. Go wild.”

“Okay, I see you’re fine. Goodnight, Cas.”

“Yeah, bye.”

Jethro looked up from where he was sitting on his bed with his laptop. “Your mum was worried?”

“Well, you know. Voluntarily spending time with another human. Suspiciously out of character stuff.”

“Well, I’m proud to have elicited such unusual behaviour from you that it concerned your mother.” Jethro turned his laptop towards me. “Here, pick out a pizza while I find something for you to change into.”

I sat down on Jethro’s bed and chose my food. The internet was a wonderful thing. There was once a time when you had to make a phone call if you wanted food delivered to your house, but now you just had to press a few buttons. As much of a pessimist as I was, I actually thought the world was getting better. Primarily in pizza related fields, but still.

“What are your feelings on bunnies?” Jethro asked.

“Uh?”

He held up a pyjama shirt with a light blue bunny face on the front. The pyjama pants that went with it were covered in little blue hearts.

“Did you buy that in the girls’ section?”

“The ebay listing said unisex, and I wore them and I was fine so I’m inclined to agree.”

“Mm. Okay.”

“Really? I mean I think you’ll look cute as heck, but I didn’t expect you to actually agree.”

“Look, most of my fashion choices are comfort based and they look snuggly as fuck. My distant second concern is social acceptability, and who’s going to judge me? You? You’re the one who tracked down bunny pyjamas on ebay.”

Jethro tossed me the pyjamas. “Social acceptability can blow me, frankly. I don’t feel like I really know someone until I see how they react when I step outside of their comfort zone.”

“Ah, finally I understand our friendship. Everything is outside of my comfort zone,” I said. “I’m gonna go take a shower and get changed before the pizza gets here.”

I did jerk off in his shower this time. I wasn’t proud, but come on. We were going to be sharing a bed together. It was in both of our best interests that my dick behave itself. If he decided to cuddle up to me I did not want to ruin the moment by popping a boner.

I changed into the bunny pyjamas and damn, I was right, they were snuggly as fuck. I wondered how my parents would feel if I started wearing shit like this. They were fine with me being gay, but I had to admit that my dad was kind of weird about Jethro sometimes.

Like, he didn’t dislike him and he was happy I was friends with him, but he clearly struggled a bit with Jethro’s whole thing. I guess that was what Jethro had been saying. You know people better after you see that reaction.

Jethro smiled at me as I stepped back into his bedroom. He’d changed into pyjamas too, though his were just a plain grey top and blue tartan pants. I liked it, though. It was comforting to see him dressed casually for once.

“Cute,” Jethro said. “You should keep them. They’re a bit too big on me anyway.”

“I’ll keep them here in case I stay over again.”

“Yeah, okay. That sounds good.”

I had a weird moment of thinking hey, it sounds like he’s kind of into me, before remembering that yeah, he probably was. Because he’d asked me out on a date. I was still having a hard time making that one compute.

Jethro ran downstairs to get the pizza when it arrived and brought it back up so we could sit and eat on his bed. I was grateful to avoid having to awkwardly interact with his parents. I’d had more than enough uncomfortable social situations for one day.

“I’m going to audition for the school play,” Jethro told me as he opened his pizza box.

“Yeah? What play is it?”

“Peter Pan. I want to audition for the role of, well… Peter Pan.”

“That does not surprise me.”

Jethro laughed. “Well, yeah. I gotta be the star. Also, I’m down with any excuse I can find to wear tights at school.”

“Tights, huh?” was what ended up coming out of my mouth as my brain wrestled with the realisation that saying things that implied I was attracted to him was actually okay now.

He laughed again. “I’ll send you a picture if I get the role. I don’t actually own any tights of my own, which does seem like an oversight on my part.”

“Easily corrected.”

“You’re right. I mustn’t let my dreams be dreams.”

“Gotta live your best life.”

“Too right.” Jethro reached for his laptop. “Okay, what do you want to watch?”

We settled on some superhero movie. It didn’t matter which because I was definitely not going to be focussing on the plot. 

Jethro turned the main lights off and the fairy lights on his bed frame on while I rearranged his pillows into a comfortable nest for us, and then we snuggled down together with his laptop across our laps.

I’d been right. My eyes were on the screen, but I was paying zero attention to what was going on. All my attention was on Jethro and how he kinda slowly seemed to be getting closer.

Touching him was something I’d been uncertain about, even though I obviously wanted to. I had zero dating experience and I doubted erotic fanfic mapped very well to reality. But then the side of his face touched my shoulder and I realised I had to do something, because not doing anything was going to seem like a rejection.

In my head, wrapping my arm around him had been a smooth move. In reality, he was confused about what I was doing and then it involved much more rearrangement of our bodies to get comfortable than I’d expected. But then there we were, and he was tucked under my arm, and yeah, this was pretty good. I was glad I’d jerked off in his shower.

Though, these weren’t even so much boner feelings that were happening in my heart. He was just a sleepy cuddly boy. I’d always understood the appeal of dick touching, but I guess now I understood romance, too.

He’d looked tired since he’d turned the lights out, but about halfway through the movie Jethro finally fell asleep. I closed his laptop and set it aside, but when I tried to rearrange us into positions more conductive to sleep he stirred awake.

“Sorry,” Jethro said around a yawn. “I guess this wasn’t the fun movie night I hyped it up to be.”

I sorted the pillows out around him so that he wouldn’t have to move. “There was a movie. I had fun. Fun movie night achieved.”

He let out a quiet, tired laugh and rubbed at his eyes. “The next date will be better.”

“Am I supposed to arrange the next one? Is that how this works?” I asked. “Cause man, if so, I hope you have super low expectations.”

“I only want what you are.” Jethro paused, and I could tell he was thinking about something. “And a kiss. Would a goodnight kiss be okay?”

Fairy lights weren’t bright enough to reveal how red my face had gone, right? Probably. “Okay. Like… on your mouth?”

Fucking hell. I was so bad at this.

Somehow, he managed not to laugh at me. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

And then I kissed him. It was just a gentle press of lips against lips, just a couple of seconds of contact, but man. Man.

Man, was I glad I’d jerked off in his shower.