A/N: It's fucking time! The moment everyone's been waiting for! I've finally shaved! Oh and there's a huge turning point or whatever in the story. Enjoy!

Chapter 7

What Is Love?

Roy didn't sit with his friends at lunch the next day. Greg was also missing from the table. It seemed as if some of the life had been sucked out of the group as the world bustled around them.

"So... Anyone gotten into any shenanigans?" Barron sparked the conversation.

"I got a B on my Algebra 2 quiz." Pete replied.

"I found a couple of rocks on a desk in my English class arranged in a weird way." Fred added.

"Was it a Loss reference?" Reggie asked.

"I think so now that I look back on it."

The table got quiet as they ate. Usually, Greg or Roy would carry the conversation with a crazy scheme or story that usually ended with everyone out of the loop shooting milk out their noses or laughing so hard they wasted more air than they were taking in. They soon noticed they had nothing to really talk about. Feelings of regret began to overtake them all.

"You think we might have caused this?" Barron broke the silence that had seized their table, motioning to the place where Greg and Roy usually sat.

"You mean the absence of our two friends? I would say so." Reggie replied.

"Yeah, Greg seemed seriously uncomfortable when we started hassling him about him and Roy." Fred chimed in. "And Roy wasn't exactly bursting with joy after we told him what happened."

"And how we found Greg too. You think he was trying to... Y'know?" Reggie paled. "Are we terrible friends?"

"Ditch the food. We gotta find him." Pete said as the four left their half eaten lunches behind and went in search for Roy and Greg.

Greg sat on the edge of the roof, igniting a small flame in his palm, then extinguishing it. To no one's surprise, the only thing on his mind was Roy.

He wasn't angry at his best friend anymore, but the big lug wouldn't leave his head. Chow's words from the night before hit him harder than any kick he could've thrown.

"A happy ending worth fighting for..." He let the flame get a little bigger. "How do I know when to fight?"

He fell back on his shell and looked up at the sky. Nothing felt right to him. Everything that once felt concrete was now as muddled as his thoughts. Was Roy really worth all this mental anguish? Weren't there other fish in the sea? Couldn't he move on to one of those?

"You know this mopy shit isn't the type of thing the guy I like would do. He's more of a 'Let's go destroy a junkyard' kind of guy. Although I assume that's our plan for after school."

Greg looked back to see Roy walk up behind him and sit next to him on the edge of the roof. He sat up as he noticed the shades wearing koopa had slipped them off and held them in his hands. He looked down at them with his eyes closed.

"Roy?"

"I'm sorry about yesterday... I was still trying to figure things out. I think I have though."

"You? Thinking? Should we get you to the nurse before you pass out?" Greg tilted his head to the side, a small smile creeping on his lips.

"I'm serious!" Roy playfully shoved his best friend. "Y'know... I used to think my feelings were something I could just suppress until I could channel that built up energy into other things like football. But then I met you."

"Umm... Roy?"

"Let me finish." He stopped the grey shelled koopa. "I thought I could suppress it all, but I don't think that's gonna help either of us. You are the best friend I could ever have in the entire universe, but lately that's changed. I want more from you... A lot more."

"Roy can I just-"

"What I'm trying to say is-"

Greg gripped Roy by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close, crashing their lips together.

Time seemed to slow down as Roy's eyes shot open, then slowly closed again. He wrapped his arms around Greg's torso the best he could and began to participate more in the kiss. They both tipped over and lied on the gravely roof, not caring that the rocks were scratching at their scales.

Their kiss might've lasted three hours or three minutes. They didn't have any grasp on the concept of time anymore as their tongues slipped into each other's mouths.

As their game of tonsil tennis came to the boiling point, Greg was the one to break the kiss.

"You fucking talk too much, you know that, Shades?" Greg shot him a smirk. He'd only seen his friend's eyes once before and he couldn't stop staring into his beautiful cerulean pupils.

"Eat my ass, Buzz." Roy shot back, slipping his shades back on.

"That can be arranged."

"Oh, you pervert!" Roy playfully pushed him away. "Can you not?!"

"You know you love it." Greg let out a light chuckle.

"I love you..." Roy replied in a hushed whisper.

Greg froze. "Y-you do?"

Roy traced a claw along Greg's cheek. "Yeah... I do. No joke."

"Roy..." Greg let the blood rush to his cheeks. He had only dreamed that his best friend would say those words one day. This didn't seem like much of a fight in his eyes but he wasn't complaining. "I love you too."

They lingered in a comfortable silence for a few seconds before it turned awkward.

"Ok, I dunno where to go from here." Roy rubbed the back of his head and shot Greg and innocent grin.

"Do you want to go out with me?" Greg held his hand out. "Y'know, be boyfriends, cuddle under trees, make out and all that shit? Fair warning though, I'm not gonna start acting all girly just because you know I'm gay now."

"Same here," Roy replied, inwardly letting out a sigh of relief his best friend wasn't about to pull a complete 180. "But are you sure that's a good idea?"

"We don't have to tell anyone. It can be our little secret."

Roy tapped the side of his head with his claw. Secrets like this were hard to keep. But for Greg... "Ok. Deal." He grabbed Greg's hand and was swiftly pulled into another kiss. He was ready for this one though.

On the other side of the roof, Darla and Hannah silently squeaked to themselves.

"They're so damn cute together!" Darla said in a hushed whisper.

"I wonder who's the top." Hannah smirked.

"10 bucks says it's Roy."

"You're on."

As lunchtime winded down, the four friends' search for Greg and Roy had turned up no results. They'd decided to head to their lockers early instead to grab their books for the following period.

"You think they took their lunch off campus?" Reggie asked, his eyes slightly glazed over.

"It's possible." Barron replied, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

"They must be really mad at us if they avoided us that well." Pete chimed in.

"Doubt that was their plan." Fred said.

"What makes you say that?" Pete looked over at his twin.

"They're at their lockers." He pointed to their two targets laughing and pacing in front of the lockers as they chatted. The rest of the hallway was almost barren of people except for a couple kissing farther down the hall.

It wasn't uncommon for the two koopas to just stand around their lockers and talk on their off time. If anything, this was the first place to search if they were supposed to be somewhere and they were late or didn't show. The thing that threw the group off was that they'd checked there about 6 times during their search.

"You did not!" Greg walked in a semi circle around Roy, his overflowing joy from hearing the story keeping him moving. "Tell me it's lies."

"Real talk. You were dripping wet and I was like 'Boi-yoi-yoi-yoing!' which caused me to stutter and throw the clothes at you so quickly. If you'd have asked me to smash right there I wouldn't have hesitated to say yes."

"You were looking a lot wetter and cuter tho I had to look down which didn't help much. I was caught off guard by the skull tee and shorts hitting me in the face." Greg leaned against the lockers.

"Oh, you are such a dork." Roy punched his arm.

"No, you." Greg punched back.

"Friends!" Reggie greeted the two as the group approached them.

Greg dug into his locker and pulled out a container of mashed potatoes and smushed Reggie's face in it.

"Wush that nushusurry?" He mumbled through the food.

"Reggie has been mashed for your sins. Any complaints?"

The rest of the group seemed to not mind in the slightest.

"Good." Greg retracted the container and threw it behind him. "Let's go."

"You kind of just littered." Fred pointed at the sloppy mess of processed starch foods on the floor.

"You gonna clean it up?" Roy raised an eyebrow.

"Fuck no."

"Then don't worry about it." Greg turned towards class as the bell rang.

They picked up conversation as they made their way towards their next class. Sadly, it wouldn't last.

"There you are! I've been looking all over for you sweetie!" A pair of arms that felt nothing like Roy's wrapped around his bicep and shattered Greg's fantasy.

"Heather..." Greg turned to her, then looked over at Roy. He did not look happy. "Can we talk over here?"

"Sure." She replied. Greg dragged her away from the group and around the corner.

"We gotta break this off like yesterday. If you do it, Wendy can't keep me trapped in this."

"What?! But... Henry hasn't asked for me back yet! And what about homecoming?!" She looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"You need to realize you're better off without him. And I really don't think this is good for either of us. Especially me."

"Please just give me until the homecoming dance is over!" She seemed to be grasping at straws. Beads of sweat collected on her brow. "Then we can have a huge break up and if Henry doesn't want me by then I'll move on."

"Promise?"

"Promise." Heather held up her pinky. Greg sighed and wrapped his pinky around hers.

Greg and Roy sat on top of a couch that was nestled on top of a mound of trash. They were surrounded by similar mounds of trash that were much bigger than the one they nested on.

"I'm gonna kill my sister." Roy gripped his Bullet Bill Blaster, took aim and turned a pile of trash into rubble.

"Chill, babe. It'll all be over after homecoming. 2 more weeks." Greg drew a circle of fire around another pile and watched it melt into a puddle of smelly goop as the flames overtook it.

"But she knew you didn't like girls, yet set you up with all her skanks." He let off another shot, destroying another pile.

"It helped keep me low key so I can't say it was all her."

"But I would've still been your friend even if I knew you were gay. You're too good a friend to lose from something so stupid." He aimed once more and evaporated another garbage pile.

"It wasn't something I wanted to risk." The grey shelled koopa looked around. "You think they appreciate us clearing this place out?"

"It means they make more money since there's more space to dump shit. I'm sure they don't mind."

Greg put his hand on the blaster. "You make me happy."

Roy put the cannon shaped weapon down and held Greg's sides. "What'd I say about that mushy shit?" He let his lips curl upwards.

Greg mirrored the look on his boyfriend's face. "That if I want a kiss, don't use sweet talk to get it?"

"You know me so well."

They moved in close and connected their lips in a chaste yet loving kiss.

"Don't we have homework we should be doing?" Greg let the thought slip from his mouth.

"Have you ever done homework that wasn't a project worth a percentage of your grade?" Roy asked.

"Not since elementary." Greg shrugged.

"Then shut up and kiss me."

He didn't need to be told twice as he was pushed back on the sofa and caught in yet another kiss.

Greg thought that Chow must've been joking when he said what he said, yet somewhere in his head he kept the words on standby. Something was coming, but he wasn't sure what.

Roy saw the flash of concern in his boyfriend's eyes and kissed along his neck. "Something wrong?"

Greg felt the lips brush across his neck and snapped back to reality, back to Roy. "No, babe. Everything's fine... Everything's fine."