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They get invited to Hank's fourth of July party and by 'they' Healy means March was invited and he's just getting dragged along. (As per usual.) March's sidekick, his guard dog, the little yo-yo that he has wrapped around his finger. It's not that Healy doesn't want to go—being apart from March feels like getting his ribcage cracked open and his heart chiseled out like a gleaming, dripping ruby—but he has the suspicion that Hank doesn't like him very much and, honestly, the feeling is mutual. He's trying to be good for March's sake, though. (The way a wolf is trying to be good even though there's blood staining its muzzle and its eyes never stop searching for things to devour.)
So they go to the store and buy red, white, and blue cupcakes, and March drops the conatiner in the parking lot and then they look more like fucked-up purple tie-dye cupcakes. He's upset with himself about it, slumped in the passenger seat, sulkily smoking a cigarette. Healy finds it weirdly, unbearably cute. He ruffles March's hair in an attempt to cheer him up and says, "Don't worry about it. People are just gonna chew 'em up and swallow 'em anyways." He expects some snarky response or a billow of smoke in his face, but the line between March's eyebrows smooths out and the pout of his mouth melts into a grin. Sometimes he looks at Healy so sweetly that it momentarily blinds him like staring directly into a solar flare.
They make it to Hank's when the sun is seeping yellow in the sky and everything is glowing in the slanted light. March looks like a fucking angel in the amber-gleam and Healy wants to kiss him desperately, but instead he turns away, pretends to look for something in the car. His sunglasses are glinting on the dash so he grabs them and slides them over the bridge of his nose.
The smell of hamburgers and hotdogs smoking on the grill waft through the air, kids run by laughing, sparklers shimmering like a comet tail past them, people are standing around in the yard, talking, drinking beer. Healy can't remember the last time he went to a shindig like this. Probably when he was married; probably he didn't have a good time. March looks for him over his shoulder and Healy feels his heart swell at his beckoning gaze. Please stay with me, March's eyes say. Always, Healy thinks, forever.
They go into the house and find Hank hanging out with a bunch of the guys in the living room. When they see March they all start ribbing them at once; somebody wolf-whistles.
"Hey, Marchy, where ya been?!"
"C'mere, lemme see how tight those pants are."
"Hey, March, did ya solve that missing dog case yet?"
"Marchy, you couldn't find an uglier shirt to wear?"
March laughs along good naturally; says, "Hernandez, your wife gave me this shirt."
"Oh, ha ha, yeah, what, the last time she came over to your place for a good time?"
"No, literally for Christmas. You were sitting right next to me when I opened it, dumbass."
"Oh."
The shirt in question: eggplant purple with chaotic orange swirls, ugly except that March is wearing it and against his summer-kissed skin and the bitable stretch of his neck, it looks sickeningly lovely. Delicious even, Healy wants to pin March down to the coffee table amongst the chips and dip and veggie sticks and deviled eggs and gobble him up.
"Hernandez, I think your wife might be as colorblind as Marchy is," Hank says in his usual booming voice that sets Healy's teeth on edge.
"Nah, she saw it and thought it was ugly, so it'd be perfect for him."
March gazes at him, eyes shards of sapphires, takes a long drag of his cigarette and lets the smoke unfurl from his mouth when he says, "Yeah, 'cause that stain on your unwashed Lakers shirt is real cute, Hernandez. Maybe your wife buys me nice clothes because she knows they'll be wasted on a slob like you."
The guys all 'oooh' and jostle Hernandez who looks down to see he does, in fact, have a stain on his shirt. He mutters whatever and somebody throws a balled up napkin at his head and it bounces off and lands on the floor. Healy hears one of them snicker, "I love it when Marchy gets all bitchy like that."
"We're just messin' with you, Marchy," Hank says as March shoves the delapetated cupcakes into his hands. He screws up his lip in disgust when he sees them and asks, "What the fuck happened to these?"
"I dropped them in the parking lot."
"Jesus, March, you're such a klutz. These are all fucked up."
"They're just gonna get chewed up and swallowed, Hank. Nobody fuckin' cares." He turns on the heel of his leather pointed shoe and starts walking away, looking quite pleased with himself.
"Where ya goin'?"
"Mingling." March makes his exit with a halo of smoke wisping around his head. He glances over his shoulder to make sure Healy is still with him and smiles when he sees he is.
They go around and chichat and March introduces Healy as his partner and doesn't elaborate and neither does Healy. As always March is too close, burrowing his way into Healy's personal space, breathing Healy's air and radiating his body heat and sometimes even using Healy's shoulder as an arm rest while he's leaning up against him. If Healy was a planet March would be a moon caught up in his orbit. Happily so, he thinks, the way March presses his hot, humid mouth against Healy's ear to whisper something to him, sending shivers wriggling down Healy's spine. Because there's no need to be that close, no need to whisper anything in his ear like that. But Healy's not complaining, fuck no, if he could somehow get March closer he would.
There's more talking and gossiping and laughing. March smokes and drinks beer and eats an obscene amount of watermelon. At some point he says, 'ugh, I think I'm gonna hurl,' but then when Healy turns to look at him he's cramming ANOTHER piece into his mouth. Healy rolls his eyes, but affectionately so.
"Are you having fun? Do you want to leave?" March asks when they're sitting at a table on the back porch, eating homemade potato salad and coleslaw and mac and cheese with plastic forks off flimsy paper plates and drinking beer which is cheap and kind of nasty and making Healy feel sick. Or maybe it's just the summer heat getting to him. Or maybe it's just March getting to him. His knees keep bumping Healy's thigh as he fidgets restlessly beside him like an excited little puppy.
"No, we can stay. I'm having fun," Healy says, picking the onions out of his potato salad one at a time. March watches him do this for a moment like it's the most interesting thing in the world.
"Really? Because you look like this." March furrows his eyebrows and drags his mouth into an exaggerated frown which makes Healy chuckle. He kind of looks like a muppet, but Healy isn't sure which one.
"That's just what my face looks like, March."
"I know. I like your grumpy face. 'S cute." Another knee bump, this time on purpose. March is grinning at him and he looks celestial cast in the jewel-colored glow of sunset and Healy wants to kiss him so bad it hurts. It feels like there's a harpoon impaled between his fifth and sixth rib, rupturing his lung, making it hard to breathe.
Healy pretends to not be so endeared. "You're an idiot."
"Do you wanna stay for the fireworks? Hank's neighbor gets really drunk and then lights them off the roof. Last year he caught the tree by his house on fire and the fire department had to come put it out. It was really funny."
"Sure."
"I'm gonna grab some more beer. Ya want anything?"
"I'm all set."
Healy sits and waits and looks around; he's always enjoyed people-watching. A kid is licking frosting off the cupcakes and then putting them back. Somebody's dog is pissing on the cooler. A girl and a guy are having an argument and she smears her plate against his white t-shirt. He hears familiar laughter and turns his head to catch a glimpse of March through the window. He's in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, washed in fluorescent yellow light. His eyes are squeezed shut and his shoulders are jiggling up and down and it looks like he's trying not to snort beer out of his nose. Hank materializes into Healy's line of sight, laughing too, thumps March on the back like he's trying to save him from choking. And Healy realizes there, in that moment, with a chunk of potato salad stuck in his throat, that they look good together, perfect even. Hank with his dark hair and handsome features and his mountainous shoulders; March with his ugly shirt and his pink cheeks and his pretty face. Healy feels his heart sinking low into the acidic pit of his stomach, churning with shitty beer and an overcooked burger and the lackluster epiphany that he's been embarrassing himself this whole fucking time.
He gets up and dumps his plate of half-eaten onion-infested potato salad in the garbage can and walks away. Twilight is creeping along the horizon in a bruising purple and the yard is filling in shadows. There's nowhere for Healy to go so he sits out by himself and watches the darkness creep into the sky. There is a similar feeling oozing through Healy's ribcage, it makes him want to melt into the almost-night permeating around him and disappear.
"Healy? What're you doing all the way out here? Is this where you want to watch the fireworks from? Everyone else is in the front yard." March's voice and the sound of his footsteps in the grass and then the feeling of the humidity wafting off him, the smell of cigarette smoke and cheap beer and sweet watermelon. Healy has a lump in his throat that he can barely breathe around.
"I just…needed some space."
"Can I sit?"
There are no other chairs so Healy assumes March is going to get one. He shrugs and says, "Yeah, okay."
March takes that as an invitation to sit on Haly's lap. His arm wraps around Healy's shoulders to keep his balance and Healy instinctually grips March's waist to make sure he doesn't fall. His hand accidentally brushes the soft skin of March's hip and it's searing to the touch. Jesus, why does he always feel like he's burning from the inside out? Healy immediately wants to touch more, wants to be greedy and splay his palms all across March's wildfire body, feel where he radiates the hottest. Maybe in the crook of his neck, maybe in the dip of his lower back, maybe between this thighs where his skin is smooth and just begging to be licked apart. But the thoughts are interrupted by the feeling of the chair sinking into the lawn.
"March, I don't think these chairs are meant for two people."
"Do you want me to get up?"
"…no." Healy tucks his thumb into March's beltloop, holds him impossibly closer. His long, lithe legs folded up like origami, one of his pointed leather shoes hooks around Healy's ankle, anchoring him there. "Won't you be missed?"
"That's funny because you were the one being missed," March says, he's looking down at Healy through his lashes, his voice lazy with honey. His fingers find their way into the hair at the back of Healy's head and scratch at his scalp and oh fuuuuuck Healy's thoughts go floaty and hazy and far away.
"Oh, yeah? By who?" Healy's voice is just a rumble in his chest and by the way March is plastered against him he knows he can feel the vibrations of it. That might be why he's trying to squirm even closer, that might be why his pupils just swallowed up the blue of his irises, that might be why he's staring at Healy's throat like a damn vampire. Maybe March doesn't like booming voices, maybe he likes low, gravelly voices that make him shiver involuntarily in the dripping summer heat.
"Hank. Obviously."
The answer surprises a burst of laughter out of Healy that shakes them both like the tremors of an earthquake. Healy holds onto March tighter so he doesn't accidently dump him into the grass. March is giggling too and looking very pleased with himself, preening under Healy's attention. He has both his arms around Healy's shoulders now in a sort of loose embrace and there is heat erupting between them like fallout from a nuclear bomb. It's making Healy feel dizzy, it's making Healy forget all the reasons that he doesn't belong with March, fizzling his brain out to nothing but the purple-hued night sky and the hum of crickets from the treeline and March, March, March (like a heartbeat, like a prayer, like a gasp in the dark). Healy rubs his thumb over the slope of March's hip bone, relishing the feeling of March trembling beneath his touch. He's so sensitive, it's addicting; Healy wants to take him apart piece by piece with his fingers and his teeth and this tongue, watch him come undone in a writhing, whimpering mess.
Suddenly there are fireworks blossoming in the sky above their heads, hissing neon flowers erupting into the gaping night. March is drenched in electric purple and sizzling pink and galactic green and looks breathtaking in every color. Healy stares, captivated, a fly stuck in a kladescopic spiderweb.
"Wow! So pretty!"
"Sure are," Healy murmurs, eyes half-lidded, hypnotized by the technicolor glow of March's silohette. The fireworks behind his head creating a retina-burning halo of splintering, shattering, glittering stars that Healy can still see even when he blinks.
March glances down and realizes Healy isn't even looking at the sky, isn't talking about the damn fireworks at all. He blushes a mouthwatering cherry-red, staining his neck and face and ears the prettiest color Healy's ever seen. He wants to taste it. He wants to suck on all that burning-hot skin.
"Healy?" March breathes a shaky exhale into Healy's face that is sweltering and damp and smells like stale smoke and gluttonous amount of watermelon.
"Yeah?"
"Will you just fucking kiss me already?"
"Fuck yes."
Healy surges forward and melts their mouths together in a slick, molten, all-consuming tangle of lips, teeth, and tongues. It feels like there are fireworks bursting under Healy's skin, ricocheting in his skull, fissuring apart his ribcage. March tastes even better than Healy could ever dream: summer-ripe fruit and nicotine and sunflower seeds and cinnamon tic tacs and gross booze and something that's weirdly tangy that Healy thinks is just March's mouth and, god, he loves it, he wants it tattooed on his tongue forever. March slides their mouths together wetly and messily and obscenely and Healy thinks he's going to self-combust and unravel all across the yard. He never knew someone's mouth could be so hot or so slippery or so cavernous or so wanting. He's quickly and completely getting lost in March: his swarthy heat and his syrupy tongue and his trembling body.
Healy is ravenous for more, more, more and is desperatly trying to pull March closer and kiss him deeper and press him harder against him. He hears the 'snap' before he feels the lurch and suddenly they're landing backwards in the grass—oomph!—and staring up at the night sky and the pop pop pop of golden-studded fireworks. The broken pieces of the chair are under Healy and March is sprawled on top of him. They blink at each other in wide-eyed surprise and then immediately dissolve into laughter.
March, screeching: "Healy! Fuck! We broke the fucking chair!"
Healy, chuckling: "It's probably because you ate the whole damn watermelon today."
"Shut the fuck up. I still feel super sick from that, by the way."
"You didn't have to keep eating it, March. No one said you had to eat that fucking much."
"I knoooow. But it was soooo fucking good."
"I've seen monkeys at the zoo with more self-restraint than you. And they throw their own shit."
"Big talk for a guy who just had his tongue down my throat. Speaking of which…" March shimmies his way up Healy's body so that he's puffing hot air onto Healy's chin and Healy is already salivating with anticipation. "Shall we?"
"We shall," Healy murmurs, unable to drag his eyes away from March's pretty pink mouth. He feels a shiver of excitement go through March, like a bolt of electricity traveling from the top of his head and out through his pinky toe. Healy digs the broken chair pieces out from under him and chucks them somewhere in the yard. He doesn't fucking care, he has more pressing matters to attend to. Like March imporing to be kissed again, his eyebrows pinched together like always when he wants something from Healy and knows he'll cave and give it to him. French fries off his plate or the armrest at the movie theater or the last piece of gum in the pack or Healy's fucking soul. Well, he can't disappoint now.
He grabs March and melds their mouths together in a sloppy, delirious kiss, their tongues swirling in a magmatic, hypnotic heat. Healy's hands meander down March's back, slip under his shirt to caress sweat-dappled skin, his thumb drags over the notches of his spine, the divets of his ribs, the indent of his hipbone, March quivering feverishly under his touch. He keeps wandering lower and lower, going molasses-slow, giving March the chance to wriggle out of his grasp if he wants to, but March is only tugging Healy closer and closer and closer by his hair and his shirt and his belt. Healy obliges, very much so, smooths his palms over the perfect curve of March's ass—he doesn't believe in God, but he feels like he should be praying right now, worshipping even. He immediately wants more, more, more. But right now he's content to trace the tantalizing outline of March's underwear through his pants and squeeze the plush flesh blissfully, achingly, with opalescent lava twitching through his veins. March bucks against him and moans loudly into his mouth and that's when Healy realizes it's actually very quiet and very dark all around them. He reluctantly untangles his tongue from March's and pulls away from his clinging humidity even though it pains him to do so. Says, blearily, "March. Hey, March, the fireworks are over."
"Wha—? Oh. Heh, I forgot about those."
"We should probably head out."
"Awww. I wanted to make out more."
"We can make out in the car."
"Okay!" March beams, eager and tugging on Healy's jacket to haul him to his feet, Healy going easily, feeling helium-light from kissing March and the prospect of kissing him more. He stumbles after March through the night-shrouded yard suddenly a teenager again: out late and drunk and in love. He can't wait to get his hands back on March and sink his teeth into him and feel him on fire and quivering all around him.
They make it around to the front yard; the porch light is on, a pale-yellow glow, and swirling with a tornado of moths. A booming voice makes them both jump: "Hey, where ya been? You missed the fireworks."
It's Hank. Watching them with dark glinting eyes. Sipping a beer. It's hard to tell, but Healy thinks he might be smirking.
March is bright-red and wide-eyed and Healy internally groans—if Hank wasn't suspicious before he definitely would be now. But March above all else, at his very core, is a little shit and he lets instinct take over. Grinning and belligerent, he stabs a finger in Hank's direction, "I know my rights, copper, I don't have to answer any of your questions without my lawyer present."
Hanks mustache twitches with annoyance, with laughter. "Your lawyer actually is present, March. He's in the kitchen getting drunk off box wine and eating all the deviled eggs. Want me to go get him?"
March blinks, caught off guard. His eyes dart back and forth between Hank and Healy; they land on Healy and stick there. A moment of quiet hangs like humidity in the air; then he screams manically into the otherwise peaceful night, "Run, Healy! Get to the car! Save yourself!" Over his shoulder, giggling wildly, "You can't take us alive, fuzz!"
"March, what're you—? Oh fucking nevermind. Not my damn problem anymore." Hank sighs, kicks his heels up onto the banister and goes back to drinking his beer.
In the car after making their 'daring escape' March is exciteable, his smile is glow-in-the-dark, he drums on the dashboard and howls, "Let's Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid this bitch!"
Healy, the most careful get-away-driver of all time, flips on his headlights and his blinker before pulling out onto the road. "Didn't they die?"
"No, Healy, they rode off into the sunset and lived happily ever after." March is scooting across the bench seat towards Healy, the leather squeaking underneath him giving him away. His muggy heat seeping over to Healy, settling over him, drowning him, and yet Healy feels his skin prickling into goosebumps.
"Well, it's dark now." Healy says, dryly, stares resolutely out the windshield. (It would be very un-sexy of him if he crashed the car right now, especially since he hasn't had a chance to bite into March's ass like it's a juicy summer-peach and the night is still young and bursting with fireworks.)
"Metaphorically. I get to be Sundance Kid, by the way."
"Okay."
"Will you be my Butch Cassidy?" March asks, but his voice is snagging in his throat and he sounds hopeful and terrified and deserpate all at the same time. It's laughable to Healy, who is already so horribly and wonderfully and deliriously lost in every crack, crevice, and curve of March. He would walk barefoot over broken glass just for a glimpse of a smile; he would rip out his still-beating heart if that meant he could kiss him again.
"Of course," is all he manages to say. He hopes March knows that those two words mean undying devotion and a red ribbon tangled up messily in his ribcage and the kind of worship that belongs in cathedrals cast in the light of stained glass windows.
March is entirely too close now; they're sharing air and his breath smells like cigarette smoke and sweet watermelon and a delicious descent into madness. March is looking at Healy with carnivorous pupils, like he wants to eat him alive. (Healy would happily let him; he would offer himself up on a silver platter; he would let March devour him entirely and suck on his bones.) "Hey, Healy?" There is something beautifully ravenous in his voice, a shivering want.
"Hm?"
March's scorching mouth is suddenly against his neck, pressing kisses and grazing teeth and sucking a molten bruise into his skin. An inferno churns in Healy's chest, drips magmatic down his spine and pools, swirlingly into the pit of his stomach. March's hand is slithering up Healy's thigh, leaving a trail of fire under his touch, his fingers brush the zipper of Healy's jeans and he shudders and clenches the steering wheel and tries very hard not to drive into a ditch. March licks and bites his way up Healy's neck to his ear, whispers into the dark echoey cavern of Healy's skull: "Let's go find some more fireworks to not watch."
Healy couldn't agree more; he presses his foot down on the gas pedal and searches the night sky for a glimpse of heaven