Fic: It Starts With A Kiss

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: It Starts With A Kiss
Chapters: 1/1
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Romance
Ratings: M
Word Count: 2079
Pairings/Characters: Cooper Frederickson/Josh Miller.
Synopsis: It starts with a kiss. Actually, that’s not true. Where it really starts is with entirely too many drinks at the Lucky Peach one snowy night at the end of finals week.
Comments: Haven't written for Dead Man On Campus in a long damn time, haven't seen the movie in an even longer time, but thought I'd try it again as a challenge response. Characters not mine. Comments and kudos are awesome.

It starts with a kiss. Actually, that's not true. Where it really starts is with entirely too many drinks at the Lucky Peach one snowy night at the end of finals week.

Josh and Cooper are on the way back to the dorms after perhaps a bit too much celebrating. It's late and they wander along the nearly vacant streets in the general direction of the dorms. They're laughing at nothing in particular, the punch line to some joke Jerry told an hour ago or Cooper's drunken impression of Zeke's drunken impression of his least favorite professor, something that wouldn't still be funny if not for the alcohol. Cooper has an arm slung casually around Josh's shoulders, which is likely doing just as much to impair their balance as improve it, but they're making progress.

"We probably shouldn't have done that last round of shots," Josh slurs, when he has to catch himself to keep from falling over when Cooper staggers sharply into his side.

"Might not have been the best idea," Cooper concedes, but it's too late for that now. After another few steps, though, and Cooper staggers again - his world is spinning off its axis and he needs to stop for a minute before gravity stops for him. He shoves Josh toward the mouth of an alley as they pass, but the other boy trips over nothing, ends up pinning Cooper back against the cold bricks.

Cooper's gaze settles in on Josh's lips and, while they are both very much inebriated, this close up he is most definitely not drunk enough to miss the way Josh's tongue darts out to wet his lips, the way his hazel eyes blow wide, the way Josh's fingers curl in just a little bit tighter where they've settled against Cooper's hips. Without really thinking about it, Cooper does what's been a long time coming and closes the minimal distance left between them. It starts with a kiss.

And the kiss is sloppy, noses mashed together awkwardly until someone finally adjusts their angle, but neither of them is sober enough to be disappointed by this lackluster attempt at a long overdue first kiss. Wandering, curious hands slide under the edge of Josh's sweater, cold hands raking over warm skin, raising gooseflesh wherever they touch. His best friend hauls him in even closer, as their first kiss rapidly escalates, drawing in tongue and teeth, sloppy and drunken giving way to needy and rough and they lose themselves in it.

It starts with a kiss, and too many drinks, no matter how many people think it started long ago. Most people think they were already together before the Bridge Incident in their first semester, and, if they don't think that, then they think it happened then. It doesn't start then (or before then) because, quite frankly, they're both blind and dumb and idiots who missed a hell of a lot of signs – a lot of very obvious, clearly marked, flashing neon sort of signs.

It starts with a kiss, but it does not end there.

"Let's get back to the dorm," Josh suggests, and reluctantly pulls back just enough to end the kiss before this can spiral any further out of their control. "Pickle should be gone already; we'll have the room to ourselves."

Cooper seems less ready to continue the trek back, ducking forward to press his lips to Josh's once again, his hands still keeping him pulled in close. "Wait, wait wait wait wait wait," he implores, the words punctuated by kisses that move along Josh's jawline and down to his neck. "Just," another kiss, "a few," and another, "more minutes."

Josh doesn't argue, just melts into it, the same way he inevitably seems to yield to all of Cooper's plans (no matter how questionable they are), and fuck – is this what they've been missing all this time? They fit together perfectly, Cooper realizes, when he presses forward. In doing so, he accidentally presses one thigh against the front of Josh's jeans, where there is clear evidence of just how much this is affecting him. Then, not so accidentally, he does it again. And again.

"Damn it, Coop," Josh groans, a low and guttural sound that Cooper has never heard him make before. He wants to hear it again.

Then, because it seems like a fantastic idea and whatever part of Cooper's mind might have suggested otherwise is currently out of service, he slips a hand between them, palming at Josh through his jeans, curious to see how the other boy reacts.

With a sharp intake of breath, Josh pulls back from him abruptly, his gaze darting between Cooper's eyes and Cooper's hand. His gaze shifts to the mouth of the alley for a second, which is still just as vacant as it's been this whole time, with the campus nearly abandoned already, before he steadies himself – he seems to have come to a decision.

It turns out Cooper is very on board with this decision, as surprised as he is when Josh counters his bold move with a bolder move of his own.

Josh fumbles a bit with Cooper's belt, and then with the button of Cooper's jeans, the zipper, before he licks a strip up his palm and snakes his way into Cooper's pants. "Oh, fuck," Cooper manages, dropping his head back against the cold brick. He closes his eyes just for a second, reveling in the feeling of Josh's hand on him, warm and slick with spit, in sharp contrast to the cold wintry air, moving as much as possible while still trapped within the confines of his boxers. Josh bites lightly at his neck, teeth raking over the skin just outside of the collar of his coat. "C'mere," Cooper mumbles, pulling Josh in for another kiss.

He's only just gotten his hand into Josh's pants when a bright light, the beam of a flashlight, falls over them. They're both quick to separate, to try to look something like debatably presentable, even if it's still hardly a mystery what they were up to.

"Hey!" Comes a terse voice from beyond the light, "Take it someplace else you two," the exasperated man from campus security warns them before he drops the light. "Damn kids," he mutters as he walks away.

They choose not to press their luck.

The dorms aren't far, really, but it seems like it takes an eternity before they're safely in the building, in their room, where they do indeed have the place to themselves.

Cooper makes sure the door closes behind them, already shrugging out of his coat, kicking off his boots. Josh is doing the same, pulling off his sweater and the shirt beneath it all at once. Cooper watches him, longs to reach out and touch again with all this new skin on display. And maybe he's too drunk to think about the consequences of what they're doing, to worry about all the things that could go wrong, friendship-ruining sorts of things. Why would it? How much could it change when everyone already thought they were together, when they fit together so well?

"Pick up where we left off?" Josh offers, when Cooper finally gets out of his own layers of shirts.

Cooper does not need to be asked twice. He moves forward, catching Josh in another long, slow kiss as they back toward the nearest bed. When they hit it, he lets Josh push him down, lets Josh settle over him. He hooks his fingers into the belt loops of Josh's pants and pulls their hips together, and it earns him that same guttural noise again.

They rock together a few times before Josh works at undoing his jeans again. Every little bit of contact sending electricity through Cooper's body in a way he hasn't experienced with anyone else. He helps Josh shove them down his hips along with his boxers and once again finds himself surprised by Josh's confidence. He's come a long way from the awkward virgin he was at the start of their freshman year, because Josh shifts down the bed, his warm breath on Cooper's very interested dick. "Can I?" He asks, "I've never done it before, but-"

"I- I am absolutely not going to stop you," he answers, ignores how his voice cracks on the words. He reaches out, one hand loosely threading into Josh's hair as the other boy tentatively sets to work. He teases at first, leaving suction bruises along Cooper's inner thighs or on his hips, pressing sloppy open mouth kisses not quite where Cooper wants them. Finally, there's a tongue on him, lips on him, and then there's just the perfect, wet heat of Josh's mouth.

And altogether, it's not the most coordinated attempt Cooper's ever experienced, but what Josh lacks in skill he's very much making up for in enthusiasm. Josh keeps catching his eye, gauging reactions and adjusting accordingly when Cooper seems to like something he's done, the roll of his tongue or the barest scraping of teeth. He uses a hand to deal with whatever isn't in his mouth. And when Cooper realizes that Josh's other hand is otherwise occupied, that… well, that helps, too – the sight of Josh with a hand shoved down his own pants, jerking himself off while he works on Cooper.

Before too long, Cooper's struggling to hold on. But Josh ruins him when he makes that noise again, from somewhere in the back of his throat. "Fuck," he breathes, the words ripped from him when the vibrations hit. He's not going to last much longer. He gives a light pull to Josh's hair, "close," he warns and Josh pulls off.

Josh climbs back up the bed, seals their mouths together in another kiss while Cooper moves to finish himself off. It doesn't take long, just a few more strokes of his hand, and he fights through the come down because there's still Josh who deserves one hell of a reward for that. "Let me-" he starts to say, but Josh is already there, stuttering out something like Cooper's name when he comes.

It doesn't take long for the post-coital exhaustion to kick in, aided along by the alcohol, but Cooper gathers enough energy to grab something off the floor to clean them up with, and Josh manages to get the covers out from under them without too much of an issue. They both struggle the rest of the way out of their jeans.

And then, wrapped up in each other's arms, they sleep.

---

Cooper wakes with one hell of a hangover and someone else's arm thrown over his chest. Waking up naked in unfamiliar beds is something he's done a fair amount in his time at Daleman, but waking up naked in one that appears to actually be his room, just from the wrong angle, is new. He spends a brief moment wondering why the hell his bed is suddenly on the other side of the room, why he's being blinded by the too bright light streaming through the window when his is always closed. The arm around him tightens a little, tries to stop him from shifting away and it's only then that he realizes just whose bed he's in, who he's in bed with.

Josh.

He sits up quickly, staring down at the other boy – slightly blurry because his glasses are on the nightstand – who's beginning to stir as well. He panics a little, then, all the things he would've thought last night if he hadn't been drunk – not about regretting it, because maybe the idea has been there as long as Zeke and Hank and Jerry have thought it was true, but just the doubts. This could implode the best friendship he's ever had if Josh isn't as on board with it now as he was last night.

"Cooper?" Josh blinks up at him, and Cooper sees the moment the realization hits him, too. He braces for Josh's reaction, dreading the worst, hoping for the best.

"Josh?"

"We probably should've done that sooner," he says, reaches out to pull him back down, the two of them crammed together in the small bed.

Cooper laughs, relieved, and pulls the blind over the window closed, blocking out the bright sunlight, and settles back down, one hand wandering over the bare skin of Josh's chest, slowly tracing its way lower. "We can do it again," Cooper offers.

It starts with a kiss.

It won't end there.