Work Text:
Mr. Fischoeder starts up a new teen club on the peer, and it’s probably a front for a drug ring or something, but he lets Gene DJ on the weekends so it’s all okay. He doesn’t make any money out of it, but sometimes he charms the bored parent chaperones into tipping him because he’ll sneak some WHAM or Dexy’s Midnight Runners into the mix to remind them of their youth and get their creaky old person bones moving. It’s a pretty sweet gig.
He’s playing a mashup of “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha and a German children’s choir singing “Hickory Dickory Dock” when he spots Jimmy Pesto Jr. in the crowd. He’s dancing his heart out in the middle of the floor, completely alone, because teens mostly come to the club to make out in dark corners and sneak in booze. Not that Jimmy Jr. is a teen.
Well, technically he’s nineteen, Gene thinks, but everybody knows that nineteen is just the creepy older cousin to your teenager, the one who drinks straight Schnapps and doesn’t understand personal space.
Gene’s not the best dancer, but he leaves the songs to shuffle and heads down to the floor anyway, doing a vague moonwalk until he’s standing in front of Jimmy Jr. He acknowledges Gene with a nod but doesn’t stop dancing, head thrown back so the weird strobe lights make his pale neck glow.
“I like your dance moves,” Gene says, because he does, but that’s not why he came down here. “Hey, did you know that you’re too old to be here? I mean, not technically, but based on social norms?”
“I can’t get into the real clubs because I can’t get a fake ID because everybody recognizes me from that commercial we did for Dad’s restaurant,” Jimmy Jr. says, then grunts as he does some complicated spin move. Gene remembers that commercial fondly. It looked like it was made in 1992 and used cheesy PowerPoint transitions. A true piece of Americana, that commercial. Plus, it only aired at 2 AM during reruns of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, so it brought a truly inspirational bunch of weirdos to their street.
“Why don’t you come dance near the speakers, so the parents will stop looking at you like you’re going to impregnate all their daughters?” Gene suggests, doing a vague hip thrusting motion.
“Not much chance of that,” Jimmy Jr. snorts, and something kind of clicks in Gene’s brain. Right. Not much chance of that. Apparently his fantastically swaying hips don’t sway towards the fairer sex, if Gene knows anything about offhand comments—and he does.
Jimmy Jr. follows him back, though, dancing through the rest of Gene’s set then staying to talk to him and help him gather his things.
That night, Jimmy Jr. kisses him outside the club before everyone has even cleared out, fingers fisted in the collar of Gene’s t-shirt. It’s out of nowhere; they sort of talked in their corresponding years in high school, mostly because of Tina, but there were no romantic overtures. But yeah. Yeah, this makes sense, the clicking in his head, Jimmy Jr.’s number in Gene’s phone and an overwhelming rightness in Gene’s chest.
Okay, it’s not world-shattering or anything. It’s not like he thought that he was straight before this point, but he just hadn’t had any proof.
They meet for coffee the following week, and Jimmy Jr. tells him about the classes that he’s taking at the community college and shows him the dance routine he’s been working on for the latest Daft Punk song. Gene tells him that they could make amazing music videos together, and they spend the rest of the time planning one on napkins. Jimmy Jr. keeps kicking Gene’s foot under the table, which seems like it should be aggressive but is actually just really nice.
They kiss again outside and walk home together, kissing good night before they get in sight of either of their parents’ restaurants.
*
When Louise wanders into his room that night, Gene is playing that Katy Perry song about being a faux lesbian on the stand-up Casio keyboard that he got for his fourteenth birthday. Louise sits on his bed and doesn’t say anything for a few minutes before she says, “You finally kissed a boy, didn’t you?”
“Holy gay panic, Batman,” Gene says, wheeling around to gape at her. “Your powers of perception are amazing.”
“I know,” Louise says. “I know they are. So who’s the lucky gent?”
“I don’t want to say,” Gene says, “because of reasons.”
Louise squints at him, moving forward to stare into his eyes.
“. . .it’s not Zeke, is it?” she asks, scrunching her face up.
“You’re warm,” Gene says.
“Oh my god,” Louise says, backing away in shock. “OH MY GOD. PESTO.”
Tina and Jimmy Pesto, Jr. never actually dated, and Tina’s maybe having sexual relations with more than one member of the Anime Club at her college, but that doesn’t stop Louise from screeching, “YOU’RE THE OTHER WOMAN,” and throwing a shoe at his head. They have a brief skirmish and then Louise breaks out into a peal of laughter, only mildly evil, sprawled out on her back on his carpet.
“Please let me be the one to tell Tina,” Louise says, breathlessly. “Please let me have this.”
“I think maybe I should write it on a cake or something,” Gene says, ignoring her. “’Dear Tina, I locked lips with your adolescent crush and will probably do it again. We cool?’”
“It’ll take a big cake,” Louise muses.
“I’ll find the sheet cake pans! We can put two side by side!” Gene says. “Do you think we have sprinkles?”
*
They burn the cake, mostly because Louise starts Facebook stalking Jimmy Jr. and reading off a series of not very funny statuses that make Gene temporarily regret everything until he remembers the whole kissing thing. These are not the first kisses Gene has received, but they are definitely his first kisses with intent. The first degree murder of kisses.
He ices the cakes anyway, blue icing with rainbow sprinkles, sitting them next to each other to form one lopsided mecha-cake. In the end, it says in bright pink: TINA, I KISSED JIMMY JR. AND MIGHT KEEP KISSING HIM. PLEASE DON’T HATE ME. <3 <3 GENE
They leave it out on the counter to let the icing set.
*
The next morning, Gene wakes up to a knock on his door.
“Uhm, Gene?” Bob asks, through the door.
“Dad,” Gene says. “We’ve talked about waking me up earlier than 10:00 AM on Saturdays.”
“Well, we haven’t talked about leaving dramatic confession cakes out on the counter,” Bob says, slowly. “So probably we should do that.”
Oh, crap. They forgot the cake.
Gene gets up to open the door and find both of his parents standing outside, looking serious. He smiles wide at them.
“Guess what!” he says.
“Are you dating Jimmy Pesto’s son, Gene?” Bob asks.
“You guessed correctly!” Gene says. “Well, I don’t know about dating, but there are things happening involving tongues which I imagine is the first step towards dating.”
“Ohhhhh,” Linda says, reaching out to wrap her arms around Gene’s shoulders, “My little gayby. I’m so happy for you.”
Did it have to be a Pesto, though?” Bob asks. “You know, Teddy has a bisexual nephew who’s. . .alright looking.”
“I’m okay with not touching anyone related to Teddy,” Gene says, agreeably.
“He’s nice to you?” Bob asks. “He’s not the spawn of Satan? I mean, he is the spawn of Satan, but he doesn’t act like it?”
“Like Satan?” Gene asks gamely. “No, he’s a perfect gentleman. In the streets, at least. Now, in the sheets. . .”
“Oh, god, I have to go buy you condoms,” Bob says, looking faint.
“Aww, no,” Linda says, petting Gene’s hair. “There’s plenty under the bathroom sink, take whatever you need."
“Uh, take a normal amount,” Bob says.
“Take ‘em all,” Linda croons.
“Oh my god,” Bob says. “Oh, also, we threw that cake out. It was gross, and you shouldn’t break important news with baked goods. Just talk to your sister.”
He reaches out to awkwardly pat Gene’s shoulder.
“I can’t believe you threw my coming out cake away,” Gene says. “I’m going to tell Tumblr about this and they will be outraged.”
“Okay, Gene,” Bob says, and then there’s a weird shuffle and a weirder group hug and then his parents leave him alone to make up a new game plan for how he’s going to talk to Tina when she comes home next weekend, since apparently baking his feelings is just out of the question now.
*
Next Friday afternoon, Tina is doing her statistics homework in the kitchen, sitting cross-legged on one of the non-slip floormats surrounded by notes and books and vague looking scribbles. Gene is sitting on the counter outside and watching her intently, but she still hasn’t noticed.
“Just do it,” Louise says. “Just effin’ do it.”
“Do you think we can make her a series of cookies that spell it out?” Gene asks.
“UGH,” Louise says. “TINA, GENE HAS SOMETHING HE NEEDS TO TELL YOU.”
Tina looks up from her notes, pencil in her teeth, and Gene has no recourse but to step into the kitchen and blurt out, “I’ve been kissing Jimmy Jr. on the regular for like two weeks and it’s really nice and I hope that’s okay.”
“Oh,” Tina says.
“Yes,” Gene agrees.
There’s a long moment where Tina just sort of stares over his shoulder, and Gene thinks maybe he’s going to have to slap her or splash a cup of water in her face, like in the movies. He’s willing to do either of these things, should it come to that.
Possibly sensing this, Tina says, faintly, “You landed my white whale.”
“If it helps you feel better,” Gene says, “your white whale prefers the company of other whales.”
Tina considers this.
“It does help,” she says. “Our love could never truly be. Besides, it’s not like I could, like. . .help him discover that he’s actually bi with the force of my feminine sexuality.”
Gene blinks at her.
“Not that I am thinking about doing that,” Tina continues. “Or planning on writing any stories about it.”
Once she went away for her freshman year of college, Tina embraced herself entirely and started a blog for her erotic fiction. She has 10,000 followers on Tumblr, at least part of whom probably follow her ironically. Gene reblogs every single one of them even though he only reads the grossest ones. Aloud. Generally to a reluctant Louise while she covers her head with a pillow and screams but also sometimes to help him fall asleep at night.
“You could change his name to Jason Marinara II, heir to the Marinara fortune,” Gene offers, and Tina nods, grabbing her pencil to write something down in the corner of her statistics notes. Gene can vaguely make out the words hot breadsticks and his zesty tomato sauce, which. . . yeah.
“Are you happy?” Tina asks, without looking up, and Gene stops to think about it.
“I am,” he says. “Gay as in happy. And also as in gay.”
Tina looks up at him and smiles, says, “That’s all that matters.
“Geez,” Gene says, smiling back.
“This story is going to get 50,000 notes, though,” she adds.
“Then we should talk about your options for erotic salami allusions,” he replies, moving to sit next to her and steal a piece of paper so he can write down salty meat stick and throbbing Italian sausage. These are phrases that might come in handy somewhere down the line, after all.