Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: I think Bruno and Boots are quite possibly my favorite fiction duo of all time. If you haven't read Gordon Korman's early stuff, you are seriously missing out.
Word Count: 809
Bruno is stretched out on his bed, fingers linked behind his head, gaze trained on the ceiling. He has his plotting-face on—though Boots cannot think of a time when he has not had it on—and Boots expects to see him jump to his feet excitedly and start rallying the troops any minute now.
Boots swallows hard, hands clenching and unclenching in nervousness—if he's ever going to do this, it should be now, because this is Bruno, this is who he is, insane scheming and crazy ideas, and Boots is probably the only person in the world who doesn't just humor that, who loves that.
He leans down suddenly and captures Bruno's mouth, hands coming up to hold his head steady, and it's so right he almost forgets to breathe.
Of course, it doesn't begin like this. There's a lot of angsting beforehand, a lot of furtive, side-glances. A lot of days where Boots seriously contemplates surprise-kissing Bruno, then changing his name and moving to Norway.
Really, it starts when Boots realizes that the weird swooping his stomach does in Bruno's vicinity is not actually due to indigestion, and that when he examines his view of the future, there is Bruno, only Bruno, always Bruno.
He's never really thought of himself as oblivious, though this is apparently contested by the other boys in Dorm Three.
Mark stares at him. "Uh, yeah, Boots. You—you seriously just figured it out?"
"Figured what out?" Sidney asks, coming up behind them and tripping over something invisible. Mark shoots his arm out without looking, saving Sidney from face-planting into the table.
Boots looks at them kind of miserably, and Sidney's eyes widen. "Oh. Oh."
"Yeah," Mark says with satisfaction, sticking a spoon into his mouth and looking at Boots pointedly.
"Does everybody else know?" Boots moans, trying to decide if he wants to drown himself in the pool or just kill himself with his fork.
"Um...I don't think Wilbur knows," Sidney offers, looking thoughtful.
"No, he got into the betting pool last month," Mark says offhandedly, and then freezes. "Oops."
Forget the pool and the fork; Boots is borrowing Ms. Scrimmage's shotgun.
Boots spends the next week twitching spasmodically every time Bruno touches him, or speaks to him, or looks at him.
"Boots, can you—"
"Here!" Boots all but squeaks, tossing the pen in Bruno's general direction and then hurrying off to take deep breaths (he refuses to admit he's really kind of hyperventilating).
"I just wanted to see his homework," he hears Bruno say behind him, sounding confused.
One morning Boots wakes up and finds a thermometer in his mouth, and Bruno hovering over him looking furtive and a little guilty.
It's because of the Bruno part that he doesn't find the thermometer part so strange.
"What are you doing?" he asks wearily, though around the thermometer it sounds more like "wa ah oo ooin."
"Um." Bruno slaps a hand over Boots' forehead while searching for an answer, and then he pulls the thermometer out of Boot's mouth. "Well, I guess you don't have a fever."
"You thought I had a fever?"
Bruno frowns. "Well, yeah. I mean, it's not like you usually go around twitching like a rabbit every time someone says something to you. I thought you were sick, or something."
Boots looks between the thermometer in Bruno's hand and Bruno's earnest, worried expression, and he feels his heart flutter and his stomach plummet.
He's so in love.
He's so screwed.
For some time, he really thinks he might do this forever; love Bruno and keep it to himself, stealing and hoarding glances and touches and warm smiles when he can.
But this is Bruno. Bruno, who can make him do things no one else can. Bruno who doesn't listen to anyone, except when he listens to Boots. Bruno who knows Boots, like Boots knows him, and Boots knows that he will tell Bruno; and maybe he will feel the same, and maybe this will end happily, after all.
Bruno doesn't even pause. He opens his mouth to Boots, offering himself, offering everything, like he always has. Boots can feel him smiling against his lips, like he figured this out ages and ages ago and was just waiting for Boots to catch up, waiting for them to be on the same page.
"I'm on the same page now," Boots whispers, lips tingling, and he pulls back slowly, hands sliding down to tangle in Bruno's t-shirt.
Bruno is smiling at him, looking like he has just come up with the best plan in the world; no, looking like he has just come up with and then fulfilled the best plan in the world, like he wants nothing more at the moment than to be kissing Boots again.
"I know," Bruno whispers back, and does just that.