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Ever since the first couple of times they met up, Isaac and Nick have been close. Well, they were close before, only over the internet or not, but when they meet up they’re physically close. There aren’t any boundaries. They share beds, walk in on each other in the shower just to talk, smack each other on the ass, grab each other’s thighs and chests and chins. It’s half a joke, half something else.
Funny thing is, no one else seems to find it weird either. Hardly anyone questions it when Isaac sends pictures of Nick in the shower to “show off his new neck tattoo” when most of the picture is just his bare ass, no one asks about video calls wrapped around each other in the same bed with Nick’s LEDs set to red and doing stupid bits about calling each other daddy, no one even bats an eyelid when they do passenger princess bits where they grab thighs closer and closer to full dick grabs every time. Nick supposes it makes sense for their friends, Tanner and Larry are arguably worse for the gay shit and even Yumi sometimes caves and flirts with them without too much complaining. It’s different with him and Isaac, though, for some reason. It makes Nick’s chest hurt.
Nick remembers one of the first times Isaac came down to New Jersey, remembers the way he purposefully hadn’t really sorted out anywhere for the guy to sleep, remembers the way Isaac had smiled when he’d shrugged and patted the bed beside him, the way he’d felt waking up with Isaac whining about how cold Nick’s room was into his neck. It wasn’t even anything weird, that’s the thing. It was just that Nick had never been able to touch him and now he was everywhere, warm all over with his boney knees digging into Nick’s shins.
That morning when they’d been in the kitchen Isaac had stood behind him with his hands on Nick’s stomach and his chin hooked over his shoulder, his feet getting in the way and tangling with his, swaying obnoxiously as he sung to the music and spoke and backseat-drove the whole cooking aspect of breakfast. He’d almost asked, then, “What are you doing?” or “Isn’t this a bit weird?” but he didn’t, because he was too afraid Isaac would stop.
He’d only asked once. They were in the shower together at Isaac’s place because they were drunk and scared that one of them would fall or something, or that was the excuse anyway. He’d asked because he couldn’t stop looking at the dripping, dark curls of hair and his pale shoulders beaded with water and his slim waist and his hands grabbing Nick’s every three seconds because the room was spinning. “What are we doing, dude? Why are we in the shower together?”
Isaac had blinked at him and said, “What? We always do this.” And then he’d lathered up his hands with shower gel and rubbed it on Nick’s chest. The room had been hazy enough with drink and steam and Isaac’s hands so nice and good that Nick didn’t question further.
The night before Nick left that week at Isaac’s, Isaac had whispered in the dark of his bed, them curled towards each other with the blankets over their heads, hardly able to breathe like kids at a sleepover, “Are you okay with all the… the touching uh, the touching shit?”
He often forgets that Isaac is younger than him but it’s always such a stark reminder when Isaac is unsure like that, tripping over his words and not meeting Nick’s gaze. He thought about the shower, then, and Isaac’s hands and stupid pictures of his naked ass and fingers inching slowly up the inside of his thigh in the car. “Yeah, dude. I’m okay with it.”
Isaac had sighed. “Okay, cool. I just wasn’t sure. Because of what you said… yeah. Anyway, yeah that’s cool. I’m cool with it too, just FYI.”
“Right,” he had said, laughing, “cool, bro.”
Even here in the new house, the whole bottom floor to themselves and a bathroom each, they end up in each other’s space more than normal friends, probably. Isaac’s always pushing in when he’s in the shower (not that Nick ever locks the door) and sitting on the closed toilet lid while he shampoos his hair, talking about random shit like GFuel sales and the latest cancelled YouTuber and what Larry and Tanner have broken in the kitchen and whether or not it was Yumi’s fault that the garage door was stuck halfway open. Stupid shit like that. Nick always wanders in to Isaac’s room when he’s getting changed and lies on his bed scrolling Twitter and pretending that he’s not paying attention. It’s probably a little deranged and maybe more than co-dependency.
“You think we need therapy?” he asks, twitching aside the shower curtain.
Isaac looks up from his phone. “Huh?” Only just loud enough to be heard over the water.
“I don’t know, do we have problems with separation anxiety or whatever?”
He raises his eyebrows. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Nick sighs, rolling his eyes. “Dude, you are deadass sitting on the toilet while I have a shower for the fourth time this week. It’s like having a cat that thinks I’m going to drown in the bath, or whatever, like those TikToks.”
“Do you want me to leave?” Isaac’s expression is serious, his long fingers tapping on his bare knees.
“No,” he says, twitching back the curtain to hide his blush. He rinses the shampoo and climbs out. Isaac hands him his towel. “No, I don’t want you to stop. I was just saying… it’s weird, right? We’re kinda weird.”
“So goofy and quirky of us.”
He kicks Isaac’s ankle, rubbing the towel over his hair. “Shut up, dude. You know what I’m saying.”
“Yeah.” He puts his phone in his shorts’ pocket, frowning. “But like… I don’t know, it works for us, right? So who the fuck cares.”
He ties the towel around his waist, staring at Isaac who looks away. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does work for us.”
“So we good?”
“Yeah, dude. We good.”
Isaac follows him out of the bathroom, already moving on to some weird conspiracy shit he saw about the fucking submarine (old news, Isaac, come on).
“Dude, can I at least get a good shower podcast? Rather than your conspiracy shit, I can’t concentrate on conspiracies and I always end up believing them and looking like an idiot, I’d rather —” He stops, blinking at Yumi and Larry and Tanner who are standing by the front door with big bags of Taco Bell. “Hi, guys.”
Yumi narrows his eyes, looking between them. “I don’t even want to know.”
“We always do this shit,” says Nick, which is probably like the worst thing he could say, but also the truth. “How did you think he was getting all those pictures of me in the shower?”
“This is why I keep saying we need to do a hot tub stream,” says Tanner, “or like a podcast from a swimming pool. These guys get it, they’re training up for it.”
“Absolutely not,” says Nick.
“You guys go eat,” says Isaac, “I need to help Nick get dressed.”
“Why does he need help?” says Larry, through giggles.
“None of your business,” he says, grabbing Nick by the waist and dragging him across the corridor to his room, “goodbye.”
“Absolute freaks,” says Yumi before Nick’s door closes.
“Is there any way we could have looked weirder just then?” Nick muses, watching Isaac go over to his closet and start flicking through his shirts.
“Maybe if we started hardcore, sloppytoppy, sweaty hog fucking on the floor…”
“Dude, Jesus.”
“I would not be leaving room for him, and that’s on God.”
Nick shakes his head, laughing, and starts drying himself off with the towel. “Weirdo.” He thinks about all those first times, first touches, first moments. He never wants to be apart long enough for it to feel like the first time ever again. “Even if we do need therapy for separation anxiety and co-dependency, I wouldn’t go to any of the sessions,” he tells Isaac, because it’s true. “I never want to get cured of you, baby.”
Isaac groans. “Bro, ew , that was disgusting.” The look he shoots Nick, though, is that kind of fond you can’t really put into words or touches or anything tangible. It just is.