LANCASTER AND MAXWELL ( ✔ )

chapter fifteen.

Sullivan scoffs. "I guess I have been avoiding you. So what? I don't get why it matters to you, anyways." 

"What are you talking about? Of course it matters to me, you're my best friend!" 

Sullivan blurts out, "Stop calling me that!" At this point, he's angry  — no, angry is a word he'd use to describe how he felt when Sadie would sell yet another one of his grams of weed to one of her classmates for twice the price and not share profits. With Artie yelling at him, he's reached a point much higher than anger. Right now, Sully is livid. When he gets out of his ways like this, he gets reckless with his words. 

"You wanna know why I'm questioning our 'friendship?' Let me tell you why," He barks back, and Arthur opens his mouth to say something but it snaps shut when Sully says, "No, shut the hell up and listen to me for once!" 

Watching as Arthur clamps his jaw shut and gives him the floor, he sighs, raking his fingers through his hair and looking around at everything but the male in front of him. "You see, best friends tell each other about each other's girlfriends, abundance or lack thereof. Best friends don't try to force prom dates on the other and say that they're just trying to help! A best friend doesn't get angry at that, and isn't supposed to feel the way that I feel about you, or get mad whenever they see their best friend with their girlfriend!" 

By the time all these words have escaped his lips, Artie's anger has been replaced with a fusion of confusion and shock. Sullivan knows that he's not even walking on thin ice anymore; the whole damn surface has broken and he's now swimming in frozen waters, but he doesn't care. The feeling has been crawling at his chest, building up inside of him, and he's tired of letting his demon swallow him whole. Damned if he did, and damned if he didn't. He didn't know where this sense of bravado has come from, but he will ride this high for as long as he can. If he drowns in the water, it'll be nobody's fault but his.

"And I know that you probably think that it's a crock-load of shit, and it is, I agree with you! But it's how I feel-it's how I've felt for a really fucking long time! I-I dunno if it's jealousy, or the fact that I just missed you, but that day at the pool, we were going to kiss — at least, I thought we were going to kiss, and ... I wanted to so goddamn bad," he admits, his voice no longer holding the fierce venom that it once did. He's not as angry as he once was, just tired, but he still talks.

"It's ... fucked up, I know. I know that you have a girlfriend and you probably love her like she's your moon, stars, and sky, but I just couldn't last another fuckin' day without saying somethi—"

Arthur grabs Sullivan's face and presses his lips against his  — hard. As if he's kissed his best friend in a different life, he doesn't have to think twice before kissing him back, and with just as much fervor. 

Suddenly it's like the world around them has melted away until nothing else but Artie and Sully exists. The force the blonde has on him is so damn powerful that it's snaked up his spine, seeped into his brain and taken it over  — the only thing he can or will think about is Arthur Brooks Lancaster.

Sully's brows furrow as he squeezes his eyes shut even tighter than before, throwing his arms around his best friend's neck and through his hair as he chases his mouth back. Arthur groans and kisses him almost indecently, blindly reaching out and shoving the brunette against the cabinet behind him. Products crash down around them and toiletries litter the ground, but neither of them give a shit. Grabbing underneath the buckles of his knees, Arthur picks him and Sullivan immediately wraps his legs around his waist, desperate to have him as close as possible.

The brunette knows that time has passed; he just doesn't know how much. At the moment, he has no concept of time and it could be minutes or even hours that pass that he cannot hold accountable. He feels as if he's never known much, but right now the only thing he has to know is that this is everything that he's wanted — Arthur is everything that he's ever wanted — and the moment their lips are apart from each other is a moment too fucking soon. Although, when Artie grabs his hair and yanks his head back so he can kiss down the arch of his throat and give it a rough bite, Sully moans and wonders if maybe the blonde has been waiting for this moment too.