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--- But Awesome Takes Practice ---
He isn't sure when it changes. Mainly because it isn't remotely like a light switch. It isn't the peculiar nature of an ending to a rivalry either - done in within the matter of minutes. Of having been orchestrated into a fight by Johnny - outcome, death or another.
No. It's much more nuanced than that. Slow-like. An evolution of something that was likely there from the start.
It's why - when it happens - Robby must physically re-sign himself, the cool waters of the pond rooting him back into play. The wheel gradual in it's tipping as Miguel had then tumbled across from him.
"You could have warned me," the laugh erupts. Cognitive high still there - success wafting off of him in droves as the others had surrounded them in broken applause.
Because yes - they had, in fact - done the unthinkable. Keeping to perfect balance as their Sensei's had directed them, completing the wheel dance in perfect synchronization. Quicker than he and Sam had ever done.
"Sorry," Robby mumbles, the words - unlike the grin before him - said with a fair amount of a pout.
He surveys the dark water then - with a perplexed and scorning brash of red, a strangled tremor that goes unnoticed as Miguel had towered over him, offering him a hand up.
"Finally," the grin continues, "we did it, man - we-"
"Yeah," Robby nods. "Awesome."
And it is, but Robby has to physically keep himself at bay - else he'd openly explore the droplets of water pooling across Miguel's neck and chest.
--- ... ---
They don't talk about it thereafter. At least, Miguel seems as equally pleased to celebrate their success through his own, and strictly solo, approach. Never once giving in to knowing that Robby was feeling any other type of way about it. About him.
Which, for the record, is dumb - abhorrently stupid even. But - well, it was as if the dance had done something to him. Had flipped the non-existent dial - because again it hadn't been like that - completing the rotation that had likely been turning since first Robby had laid eyes on him.
"Diaz," he recalls, repeating the string of venom that Sam had orchestrated following their fight at the beach, and - "Miguel." Such a stupid name for such an equally stupid face. And - oh, how the turns have tabled.
For it's in that very same face - that damn smile that enriches the many - that Robby now finds solace in. A never dwindling fortitude that gives way only to that of his unyielding devotion. Earnest aptitude, one could call it - and admirable, it is - Miguel's failing inability to reign back should he have ever found himself flying too close to the sun.
It's no wonder that Sam had always gone back to him. How else could Robby have ever explained why he himself was so drawn to him? How-?
Hatred, Robby had thusly concluded around the call of his own name.
He had hated those very attributes none too long ago - or perhaps, in truth, a simple ploy of not permitting himself to openly admire them.
"So you finally understand it - don't you?"
"What?" Robby had asked, turning to the likes of Tory. Her braid hanging loose from the inner confines of her black beanie.
She, like he, had been ignoring the pompous row of the others at the Burger Shack. Taking to a shared, albeit, very choice moment of separation - a momentary breath before idly falling back and into the grooves of a collective group. Of Miyagi-Fang and it's endless horde of students.
"Diaz," the girl says, shucking with a noncommittal gesture of her head, "if you're looking to bite, I won't stop you."
And - "we aren't exclusive," - which, yes - they've never really spoken openly about ever being such. Neither not, though. And yet - "I get it - believe me," she chucks, her arms disentangling to reach over to his plate of fries. "Might be the only one who does."
Robby nods, not as a means to conclude really. But truly to simply do so. And it's strange, for his chest pulls tight - just beneath the curvature of his ribs. And before he can rationalize it, he's striking his lips just north of her brow. A stunted moan pursing forth from her own breath as he does.
"Princess won't though."
And damn isn't that the truth. And damn wouldn't that be quite the conversation to have. To go begging to Sam - hoping she'd understand how desperately he had wanted to have a taste of her boyfriend.
He, her very own ex - and the third to the once triangle. Now, a fourth - a quarter...
"Miguel," he swallows, shifting to whisper into that very same patch of flesh just above her lash line, "wouldn't get it either."
Though - "I don't know," Tory genuinely smiles, puckering back with a swipe to his nose. "He's - ...full of surprises, babe. Not as vanilla as he pretends to be."
Which - damn does that raise several fucking questions. And where the hell was this Tory when Miguel had gone and kissed Sam?
As if reading his thoughts aloud, Tory had laughed - the echo harsh, and discernibly true.
"Hey," she says, "Miguel and I were exclusive," and, "I also hated that bitch."
--- ... ---
"Is everything alright?"
"Yeah," the lie had thoroughly persisted. The tone of such sounding rather unceremonious considering the lack of actual tact from the other.
Which - "can you back up?" Robby had asked, lingering back with a curve to his spine. His skateboard propped to the side, wheels at the ready.
Miguel, all the while, had openly ignored him - crowding him in further with a check to the left. The adjacent light of the apartment hall dwindling down and into a harsh shadow.
"You've been ignoring me," the words wash over then. The - "did I do something wrong?" - asked over with a prolonged frown.
Which - "no," Robby had sighed, "I - ..." He looked to the opposite side of them then - counting the number of cars just outside of the apartment building, wishing in toll that Johnny would make the choice to arrive home early. Because Miguel - well, Miguel wouldn't have ever dared to crowd him like this should there have been an actual audience to bare witness it. And if they had been anywhere else, Robby might have flipped him onto his back before disappearing into the night. Never to be seen again.
"You're being paranoid," Robby laments.
"And you're being an asshole," Miguel shakes - leveraging his head back but offering little else in the field of space, "I thought... - aren't we cool?"
"Yeah."
"Then-?"
Robby flickers back to the other, hiding within the very folds of that same shadow. The loose tendrils of his hair swept over and onto a singular eye.
"Miguel-"
Instead of words - or an outstretched altercation - said other had simply pooled their heads together, aligning the base end of their skulls. It was, in truth, oddly fulfilling and terribly sweet. And Robby couldn't have hoped to contain himself even if Jesus had leveraged a gun to his head.
"I want us to be cool. To stay cool," Miguel continued - his only known adjective at the very helm of his thoughts. "We've been - ...cool - haven't we?"
Robby doesn't have it within himself to muster the courage to properly enact a response - instead fishing for his own hand and doing the last thing that he should have had ever considered.
"Uh-" Miguel had immediately flushed bright, unlinking their skulls as Robby had squarely palmed him through his jeans. "Rob-?"
He doesn't say a thing. Not a single damn fucking word - though he does balk enough to at least be perceived as bashful, dipping his head into the other's jugular - his fingers merrily rehearsed and somehow more certain than he feels.
It's astonishing, actually - how quickly he makes to work against denim fabric - how Miguel doesn't stop him, nor flinch from his touch - how he's deftly allowing this to transpire. Likely too enamored by the feeling to realize the cohesion of it all.
Robby undoes his jeans with next little ease then, taking mere seconds to slip inside the waistband of Miguel's Calvin Klein's, marveling at the peculiar nature of the boy before him - the usual kempt and tamed energy given to a rough and veneering fire. An inferno of shame and lust that suddenly rocks the taller into a bobbing cork. His dick springing hard, and full.
"Robby-"
He expects a 'stop', or a rough shove - anything that might ignite a fight and force some sense back into him, but - "don't," the cry had thoroughly proclaimed instead - and, "fuck - keep going," Miguel had let slip. His hips buckling with a cognitive moan that Robby had immediately felt immense pride for.
He quickly swipes his tongue to the live pulse of the neck before him then, tasting a rich and musky sort of cinnamon. An earthy sort of taste that he wants to explore - to know whether or not it'd satisfy his craving, taming that very same inferno into a pit of vacant coals.
Miguel doesn't last long. In fact, it's in record time of being petted that the other creams his pants. Painting the back end of Robby's knuckles in an opal-white stripe. With, "Robby-" being brushed in with a broken sob, fastened only by a crumpling weight of satisfaction that only a teenage boy could properly drown himself in.
Hot, the first thought of many settles - stalling in it's vocabulary - with Robby's hand still within Miguel's pants, testing the weight of his cum with a delectable sort of fascination.
Miguel, in lieu, had lulled into a quaint rocking, the balls of his feet in motion as Robby had held on, staring with a perplexed sort of unabashed concentration as he had watched the intricate dance upon the other boy's face.
"Shit," Miguel had then whispered, softening to the touch, "that's-"
"Sorry," Robby finishes for him, finally releasing his hold - and dragging his hand free, "shit-" indeed.
"No," Miguel shakes, "no-" he repeats, then - "mess," he says, complying to his freedom with a lazy half-peck to the corner of Robby's brow. "I should - go. Change."
Right.
"Don't go anywhere," the taller flutters, tucking his modesty away. The dodgy turn to look about their surroundings an amusing charade considering what they had just done. "Be right back."
"...okay."
--- ... ---
Robby isn't sure what to expect. Mainly because its Miguel... - mainly because he's himself, and Miguel is Miguel, and they've only ever been rivals before becoming whatever it was that they currently were.
Friends? Frenemies? Friends with benefits?
Whatever the case, Robby had simply waited - obediently so, he might add. Because Miguel fucking Diaz had asked him to.
After some time, he had shucked his hand clean into the inner lining of his jacket flannel - grimacing only a tad before then feeling around for the joint in his back pocket.
It's light, he thinks - and tiny, nothing at all like the weight of the dick that he had just been holding.
And it won't satisfy him. No, in order to do that - Miguel Diaz would have had to have forced him onto his knees, careening down with that boyish smile of his as he had coached him on.
"You could have told me," the voice had decidedly startled in - Miguel nodding with a fresh smile, his attire now consisting of sweats and a light tee, "I wouldn't... Well," he laughs - his cheeks splotching out into various degrees of crimson, "I guess you know that I'm not opposed to it."
The taller reaches for the joint then, smiling when Robby lights it between his own teeth - inhaling once before handing it to him in stride.
"Sorry," Robby shrugs. Because 'sorry' is all that he knows how to say. And, 'sorry' is every bit easier than saying how terrified he actually is. How the simple knowing of his attraction to Miguel Diaz is but a mere match away from blowing up in his face.
Which - "probably shouldn't have done that," Miguel surmises for them both - the needless nodding to the negative a detrimental display, though - "out here," he adds before the apologies could flourish once more. And - "I guess I can't really complain. It... - was awesome. Really awesome."
"You're awesome," the idiot continues. And it's every bit the novelty of a stone taken to a plane of glass - because, "I like you, Robby," Miguel breaks, "I know - it's - well, dumb. It's scary too - but after the wheel... I just - wanted you to kiss me?" He asks. "Among - other things," - and, "I'm probably talking way too much now."
"Miguel?"
"Yeah-?"
"It's cool," Robby smiles. Though truly - at the heart of it - it's not.
It's every bit as fucked as everything else that's come before it. But if Robby Keene starts freakin' out then Miguel Diaz will start freakin' out - and what good could come of two idiots losing their shit?
And - well... Why couldn't the mere reassurance of a mutual case of delusion just be enough?
Couldn't Robby, for once, just be allowed to have his cake and eat it too?
"Okay," Miguel nods. Which - "cool," he repeats. And, "awesome."
"Yeah." Awesome is cool, Robby agrees, eying the other with a coy smile. The abundance of intrusive thoughts parading past, and making him squirm. But, awesome - he resides - well, awesome was enough.
Certainly, with a bit of practice, awesome could be good too.
"So can I jerk you off now?"
"What?"
"You know," Miguel shakes - his hand taking to a light scratch against the outer shell of his ear, "uh - just... Um - actually. Have you ever had a dick in your mouth?" He asks. Though, "I mean - does that feel good? To have one? To give one? To-?"
"Stop," Robby says, the chuckle dark and cautious. And very much the telltale of him wanting to flee once more. "You're being-"
"Forward?"
"An idiot."