It was precisely eight o'clock when Kenny rolled up to Craig's house and the blonde silently congratulated himself on being there in perfect time. He'd panicked last minute and begged Kyle to help him find an outfit and reluctantly, the red head had let him borrow one of his green over-shirts and dark jeans. Kyle was roughly the same size as Kenny, but the blonde had employed the use of a belt because he was just a bit more malnourished than most. He hoped that'd change with his moving in with Kyle.

Craig stepped out of his house and locked the door and, for once, no one leaned out the door or spoke to him from within the house. Or at least, Kenny assumed no one was talking to him because Craig silently made his way to the passenger seat of the car and got in, flashing the tiniest of smiles Kenny almost thought he'd imagined at him in the driver's seat.

"Looking good, Craig. Damn, if I knew you cleaned up so well, I'd have asked you on a date weeks ago." Kenny put on an exaggerated voice and playfully wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at his passenger.

"Shove it, asshat, I look the same as usual." Craig returned, but he smirked and lifted a hand to absently brush at the fringe of dark hair in front of his eyes. If Kenny hadn't known better he'd say that Craig was flattered, but he wasn't about to say that to the boy's face.

"Alright, so I have a question for you." Kenny said, pulling out of the Tucker's driveway and turning the wheels to go left. "How do you feel about Japanese food?"

"I...like it, I guess. I haven't really tried much." Craig shrugged.

"Well you're about to." Kenny smirked and Craig chuckled quietly, leaning back in his seat.

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The restaurant was nearly empty when they arrived, which suited Kenny just fine. They snagged a table near the back, a booth with a subtle light hanging above them. The chopsticks were positioned over a tray for sauces and the color scheme was an impressively done mixture of red, black, and green.

Kenny let Craig sit down first, and after some deliberate indecision to annoy the blonde, Craig finally selected a side and slid into the booth.

"Gotta have the best view, huh?" Kenny said, laughing as the waitress smiled at their antics.

"Of course." Craig nodded and took the menu from their server. "I'll also be honest with you and tell you I don't know what any of this is."

"Really?" Kenny asked.

"If you'd like, I can describe some of the popular dishes." The waitress offered, clasping her hands in front of her and drifting over to Craig's side of the table.

"It's okay, he can do it for me." Craig declined, looking pointedly at Kenny. "Won't you?"

Kenny tried to hide a smile to no avail and rolled his eyes.

"Yes, dear." He said dramatically.

The waitress went off to give them time to decide and Kenny leaned across the table to say, "What do you think sounds good? And then I'll tell you what it is."

"Um...well I know some of these. I mean like, the rolls. Tuna roll and salmon roll are pretty hard to misunderstand."

A good ten minutes was probably spent explaining dishes to the newly discovered picky side of Craig. Kenny had nearly called the waitress back over to explain the rest, but it seemed that his last description had sold Craig on a meal. They ordered and sat back in the booth, both trying to think of something to say.

Still thinking.

Craig shuffled his feet on the floor and used the sound as an excuse to awkwardly look under the table and away from Kenny.

Kenny tapped his fingers on the table, trying to somehow convert his made up tune into a conversation starter.

"So, I don't date much." Craig broke the silence with a confession, slouching over in his side of the booth.

"Me neither." Kenny admitted with a sigh. "I kinda just hang out at clubs. Well, used to."

"I don't do any of that. I just hang out at home." Craig shrugged.

"It's be easier if you were a girl." Kenny said, catching a raised eyebrow from Craig and explaining, "Well, it's easier to have a conversation with a girl, you just say 'You look nice tonight' or 'how was your day?' and they fill up the spaces."

Craig nodded slowly.

"Yeah, you already know how my day was so...kind of leaves nothing." Craig mumbled, fiddling with his fingers.

"We could talk about sports?" Kenny really hoped Craig didn't want to because Kenny himself wasn't really into sports.

"I don't watch them." Good.

"Video games?"

"I'm not really playing any right now. Not seriously." Okay...

"Movies?"

"...We could." Jackpot.

Kenny leaned over the table, chin in his hands and hummed idly.

"Well, I suggested a movie earlier, so what kind are you into? I've checked a few for times, so we've got a selection." Kenny inquired.

Craig shrugged.

"Right now, I'm kind of feeling...generic adventure shit." Craig leaned back in his seat as the waitress arrived with their drinks and returned the question to Kenny. "What do you want to see?"

"Adventure it is." Kenny smiled, pulling out his phone and checking to see if the restaurant had wifi. Almost every place with a coffee maker in it had free wifi and, to his delight, so did this place. He searched up the name of the theater that was close by and checked movie times and titles. There were two adventure type movies, one animated and the other live. He held the phone up for Craig to see.

"What do you think?"

Craig narrowed his eyes, having to squint to see the words on the screen, but eventually tapped the animated one.

"I don't like the lead actor in the other one, he's a dick."

"You don't even know him." Kenny laughed.

"He sounds like he'd be a dick." Craig corrected in an exaggerated tone.

The food came in a decent enough time, Kenny managing to waste time by prompting Craig to discuss favorite movies. Turns out the stoic individual's favorite movie was an animated one about a city of gold. Sounded almost like he'd just picked a movie at random, but Kenny knew the film and when he'd quoted a line, Craig had managed to perfectly play along with the next character's script.

Kenny made a mental note to download this movie and suggest watching it with Craig sometime...maybe he'd get to invite Craig over or get back into Craig's house while doing so...

Kenny had to stop thinking about movies when he spotted Craig doing something odd. His plate had arrived, a dish with noodles and chicken, topped with various veggies, but it appeared that Craig didn't care for the veggies. At all. So much so, that he'd begun awkwardly piling them on the side of his plate. Umm…

"What are you doing?" Kenny asked slowly.

"I don't like a lot of this. Mushrooms...bean sprouts...I don't know what this is." Craig held up a soggy circular green thing and Kenny answered, "Cucumber."

"...Cucumber's not meant to be warm and soggy, gross." Craig made a face and stuck it on the growing pile of food.

"So you don't want to eat that?" Kenny asked, smirking as he was hit with a sudden idea.

"No."

"So you'd be mad if I tipped that over, would you?" Kenny drawled.

"Yes."

Kenny wordlessly reached over with his chopsticks and expertly toppled the pile of veggies back over the noodles on the plate. Craig froze in his work and pursed his lips before sighing and looking up at Kenny, who was trying very hard not to laugh.

"You little shit." Craig said, but he couldn't help but grin just a bit. "Thanks for that."

Kenny just beamed happily and went back to his own food while Craig made a new pile. They ate in mostly silence, both surprisingly hungry now that the food was in front of them. Craig seemed to like the plate he'd ordered, because by the time he was done, the plate around the veggie mountain was clean. He'd even picked the little slightly burnt pieces of noodle off the plate and paired them with left over bits of chicken.

The waitress came over and cleared their plates, looking strangely at the veggies, but not saying a word. It took both of them quite a bit of effort to keep from laughing at her expression and Kenny sent an accusatory look at Craig, who simply blinked innocently and looked around as if trying to pin the blame on a stranger close to him.

It was odd to think that the simple action of pulling out his debit card and paying for the whole meal was actually an ego boost for Kenny, but he couldn't deny he felt fucking awesome being able to show off like that for Craig. Not that the dark haired boy really cared, but it was still nice to be the one in control.

"Now...movie!"

"I want popcorn." Craig stated.

"...Yes, I'll buy you popcorn." Kenny chuckled.

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Kenny hadn't planned it but apparently today was cheap night for the movies. He'd been pleasantly surprised and had even gave a "hurrah!" of celebration, only to have Craig tell him to calm down. He was in such a good mood, in fact, that he'd wrapped his arm around Craig without thinking in the concession line up.

He froze once he realized what he was doing and cast a subtle glance at his companion but was a little stunned to see that Craig hadn't even flinched. Or moved away. Or anything. To test his luck, Kenny gave Craig a squeeze and sure enough, the boy shifted. Though not to pull away. Craig simply lifted his arm above Kenny's, letting the blonde have a hold on his waist instead. He didn't say anything, didn't leave, didn't even look around to see if people had noticed two boys being closer than normal in the line up.

Kenny was pretty sure he'd died somewhere along the dinner and was just imagining this, but he'd roll with it.

"No butter on the popcorn, it makes it taste like dishwater." Craig said to Kenny, making a face at the last word.

"Dishwater?" Kenny questioned. He'd never thought the butter really didn't anything bad to the popcorn. Then again, he didn't usually go to the movies and buy popcorn so he didn't really know anything about it.

"It gets all soggy and gross." Craig explained, stepping up in the line and placing a hand over the one Kenny had at his waist to pull the blonde with him.

Kenny was trying very...very hard not to smile too obviously.

The server certainly noticed what it seemed no one else had and gave them a funny look as they ordered. Especially when Craig put one of his arms around Kenny's waist so he could lean over and grab a small bag of M&M's without pulling out of Kenny's grip. Yep, Kenny was sure he was dead. It was all he could do to remain calm and pay the server and grab his own drink while Craig freed up both his arms again to carry his food.

The theater itself was fairly empty; a few groups had positioned themselves near the back of the room and two younger groups had claimed the good seats in the front and second rows. Kenny was about to ask Craig where he wanted to sit, but the dark haired man had already selected row four and was sliding in to what he deemed to be the middle.

"You go to movies often?" Kenny asked.

"Enough to know where I like to sit." Craig answered, patting the seat next to him and going about setting up his M&M's in the cup holder and his popcorn in his lap.

Kenny sat down and took a sip of his drink before setting it into his own cup holder. The movie was bound to start any minute and Kenny was glad that he'd checked times before he'd come here. About three movies out of the six available cinemas here started around the same time, so he'd taken a chance hoping that Craig would want to see one of the three. Turns out he'd been lucky.

The lights dimmed within five minutes of them sitting down and Craig had already started eating his popcorn. Kenny was content just to steal little bits from the bag, but Craig smacked his hand away and insisted on only giving him pieces he would deem worthy to give up. It would have made Kenny feel childish...but then again, Craig fucking Tucker was feeding him fucking popcorn on a fucking date. Kenny was happier than he had been since Kyle had offered to let him move in. Perhaps even a bit happier.

The blonde would be honest if anyone had asked and confessed that he hadn't been paying attention to the previews. All of his attention was focused on Craig in his peripheral vision and the occasional bites of popcorn he'd catch coming towards him. He decided to push his luck and reached over to rest his hand on Craig's knee.

Craig leg was warm and Kenny could almost feel Craig stiffen at his touch, but the ebony haired male relaxed after a while and Kenny gave a cautious stroke of his thumb along the outside of Craig's thigh.

"Getting a little touchy, are we?" Craig whispered, leaning close to Kenny's ear so he wouldn't disturb the other movie-goers.

"I could touch more, if you'd like." Kenny teased, trailing his hand up Craig's thigh and managing to lightly graze his fingers along the covered zipper of Craig's jeans before the man pushed his hand back down by his knee and hissed, "I don't do public eye, so don't get any ideas, Ken."

"Oh, I have many ideas already." Kenny replied quietly before turning his attention back to the movie, which was starting its intro scene.

Though most of his attention was genuinely on the movie for the majority of the time, Kenny was surprised at just how much popcorn Craig could eat. He'd gotten a medium bag and the thing was gone by what Kenny guessed was approximately halfway through the movie. Perhaps it had come with spending too much time with Kyle when he had gone to the movies, but the red head took forever to eat something. Especially little pieces like popcorn or chips. He always ate them one at a time, which had conjured many jokes about Kyle potentially being afraid to choke on one extra piece of popcorn. Those jokes had stopped once Kyle had punched him to make him shut up.

When Craig lowered his empty bag to the theater floor, Kenny subtly moved his hand upwards a bit. He hadn't really intended on pushing his luck, but he'd been unbelievably full of the lucky stuff today, so why not?

Craig didn't seem to notice, so Kenny moved his hand up again. It was a bit awkward to be at this angle, but he shifted in his own seat and managed to get somewhat comfy while he proceeded to his goal. Craig didn't even realize Kenny's hand had moved until the blonde gripped the front of his jeans gently. The dark haired man jumped in surprise and looked over at Kenny with a stern look, but Kenny pretended to be enjoying the movie while checking on Craig with his peripheral vision only. He continued to gently knead the area his hand was at and was pleased after about a minute when Craig squirmed under his attention. Craig's hand was at Kenny's wrist, trying to push the hand away, but he wasn't being very firm about it. Or at least, if he was, Kenny would have to say Craig was surprisingly weak. And he knew that to be untrue, having been told by the boy himself that he worked out.

Kenny's fingers gently moved over the stiff fabric, teasing Craig cautiously so as not to alert anyone to what he was doing. Kenny bit his lower lip as he heard a small but sharp intake of breath and Craig's leg twitched. It wasn't until Kenny could start to feel a bit of actual response from under the jeans and heard a barely audible sort of groan that Craig decided he'd had enough and removed Kenny's hand from him entirely. He sent a glare Kenny's way and the blonde had the decency to smile apologetically, placing his hand out and gesturing for Craig to hold it.

"You can make sure my hand doesn't go anywhere you don't want it to if you hold it." Kenny whispered quietly to Craig and in the dim light the screen provided right now, Kenny could see Craig roll his eyes and lean in to reply.

"You just want me to hold your hand again."

"So what if I do?" Kenny asked.

Craig paused, as if he'd expected Kenny to try and deny it. Honestly, Kenny was a little stunned by his own honesty, since he'd been panicking earlier over how to go about this date thing without giving away his true feelings and scaring Craig off. It quickly became apparent that Craig didn't scare easily because the boy complied eventually, lacing his fingers in between Kenny's and giving the blonde's hand a squeeze.

Kenny was in fucking heaven. No, he'd been to heaven. This was better.

The movie came to an end without much more interruption by Kenny, save for one sneaky kiss to Craig's cheek he'd succeeded in stealing while Craig's focus was on the movie. As the credits rolled, Kenny looked over at Craig with a bright smile.

"What are you so happy about? You like the movie?" Craig asked.

Kenny had to hold his tongue before the words 'I like you' slipped out, but he corrected himself internally before saying, "Yeah, but I'm more-so happy that you agreed to do this with me."

"It's not a big deal." Craig arched an eyebrow.

"I know it's not to you, but it makes me feel better that after taking care of me when my cheek was busted up and defending me now against my parents, I can finally show you something fun in return." Kenny explained, again surprising himself with his honesty.

"If I'd wanted to be repaid for being a decent human being, I'd have charged up front." Craig said, standing up and releasing Kenny's hand. "Let's get out of here, I think they want to clean."

Kenny stood and led the way out of the aisle, continuing the conversation only when they exited the theater.

"I don't mean to think you actually need me to make you have fun, but it's how I roll so stuff it and be happy, okay?" Kenny smiled and Craig's look of mild disapproval slowly disintegrated into a smile of sorts as well.

"You're such a faggot it's almost funny." Craig said with a chuckle, but Kenny felt a pang of familiarity as he realized Craig's near insult had no real malice to it. Much like Wendy and Eric had been with each other, though Kenny couldn't see the positive implications of him calling Craig a bitch right now, even if he was joking.

"Well, let me drive you home, milady." Kenny made a compromise with himself and used a term that still let him joke but not get punched for being insulting.

"Call me that again, I fucking dare you." Craig warned, but there was a smirk in place across his lips and his scolding finger jabbed Kenny in the chest before they reached Kenny's car and he separated to get into the passenger side again.

Kenny let Craig fiddle with the radio again while he pulled out of the theater parking lot and began the drive back to Craig's. The boy had some wicked obsession with his stereo because even though Kenny hadn't changed it since Craig had last played with it, he deemed it necessary to find a new station.

"So how was that for a date?" Kenny inquired, unable to keep curiosity down while the minutes they had together tonight were draining away.

"It wasn't bad. My date was a bit handsy," Craig sent Kenny a very obvious look. "But other than that...it was fun, I guess."

"You guess?"

"Fine, it was fun." Craig repeated more firmly. "Consider your nonexistent debt paid."

"Excellent!" Kenny cheered playfully and Craig settled back in his seat as the radio played some new hits by artists Kenny had never even heard of. "Also, where do you find these stations?"

"I listen to radio on my computer when I'm reading or bored." Craig shrugged. "You find all kinds of radio stations when you have the almighty Google."

"You need to get out more." Kenny teased.

"Take me out more."

"Is that a dare?"

"Do you accept?"

"Hell yes I do." Kenny raised his voice and Craig stifled a laugh that had slipped out unintentionally.

"So next day off, my place?" Craig suggested, making a clear contradiction that Kenny didn't miss.

"Absolutely, let's stay indoors, the outdoors are scary." Kenny nodded enthusiastically.

"Fucking hell." Craig broke the playful banter by laughing, leaning forward in his seat as he did so and actually laughing.

There wasn't a thing on earth right now that could wipe the smile off of Kenny's face.

"We're here~" He sang as he pulled into the Tucker driveway again and Craig calmed himself down, resting back in his seat and looking over at Kenny with what could almost be taken as fondness. At least love-blind Kenny was seeing it as fondness, he wasn't sure what it was actually, but he sure hoped he wasn't the only one having the fucking time of their lives right now.

"You done good, kid." Craig said, his voice calm. "You done good."

"Aren't I the best?" Kenny grinned.

"Whoa, let's not go that far." Craig held up a hand but unclasped his seat belt to lean over and press his lips against Kenny's jaw. "You're an awesome gaylord, though."

The next words slipped out without Kenny quite realizing it and he stiffened when he noticed Craig pull away a little.

"I try. I like it when you have fun, I get to hear you laugh."

Craig paused a moment before giving Kenny's jaw another kiss and settling back into his seat. He observed Kenny for a second before giving the barest hint of a smirk.

"I'm not as cold hearted as everyone seems to think, Ken. I'm a fucking jackass, I completely own that, but I am capable of fun. I like it when you're surprised by that." Craig replied.

Kenny laughed a little nervously, relieved that Craig hadn't been taken aback at his comment, or at least didn't appear to be.

"Well, I do need to get some sleep. Feel free to text. And...like...I don't know, sleep well when you do?" Craig said, propping open the car door and slipping out. The door closed behind him and he flashed his middle finger through the window, accompanied by another smirk and a wink that made Kenny's heart skip just a little in his chest. The fuck was this boy doing to him? And the fuck had all that meant?

Kenny was too content to over think it, but his heart ached in his chest with the hope that Craig had maybe just accidentally revealed a bit of feeling for him. He had to suggest this date shit more often and, more than that right now, he needed to go home and gush about it to Kyle. He had to talk about it or he thought he might explode. All thoughts of his parents were gone and for once, Kenny was just plain happy. Who'd have believed it was because of Craig Tucker?

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Author's Note:

Posted at roughly 11pm, my time! STILL SUNDAY. I MADE IT.

We're getting a little development here~