Chapter Text
Jimmy’s memories were a little hazy about how he’d gotten from “playing stupid nearly-deadly games”, which was very on brand for the Bad Boys, to the utterly unexpected “naked except for underwear, clutching a pile of clothing to his crotch”. All he knew was that it must be Grian’s fault, based on both long experience and the infuriating smile on his face. Infuriating both because of its Grian-ness and also its effect on the situation Jimmy was desperately (and perhaps fruitlessly) trying to conceal beneath his clothes.
They were all in various states of undress, sitting in approximately a circle, or at least a triangle, on a set of salvaged mismatched mansion chairs (and for some reason just a stool for Jimmy). Grian had the most clothes on of the three of them, wearing just a white tank top and half of his usual black pants. (Jimmy wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Grian without his usual red sweater, and it was as weird as it was sexy.) Joel was slightly more undressed than Grian, vest and shirt folded on an empty chair, his bare (and surprisingly buff) chest causing Jimmy nearly constant distraction, the smug look on his face almost as infuriating as Grian’s. They both looked completely comfortable with their current attire.
Jimmy did not look at all comfortable in his current attire. He was, of course, down to just his white briefs, his lost clothing now clasped to his lap in a messy pile. All of them were flushed from their many drinks, blushes spanning from cheek to chest on all three, though Jimmy assumed his must be the worst, based on his luck at literally everything else that night. All he wanted was to make it through the rest of the night without losing any more of the few shreds of dignity he had left. Given how things had gone so far, he wasn’t hopeful.
---
As he had done during all their first day together, Jimmy spent his evening happily saying yes to every dumb idea or game Grian or Joel proposed, as they did with his own. “Bad Boys never turn down a challenge!” had been fun for the first few hours, but Jimmy had underestimated how far the other Bad Boys would go for amusement. If he said “no” to something as silly as a game, then surely he wouldn’t be a Bad Boy anymore. Jimmy wasn’t going to let that happen, no matter what. He had the best possible team, better than he could ever have dreamed of, and he wasn’t going to let anyone or anything come between them, for however long they had together.
As far as Jimmy could remember, the first game that caused real problems was “Never Have I Ever”, which Jimmy had heard of but never played. It had sounded fun, not “uncomfortably personal” and “absurdly embarrassing”. One person would name something they’d done, which with Joel and Grian always risky or sexy, and anyone who hadn’t also done it had to drink. Jimmy hazily remembered protesting that those weren’t the rules he’d heard, but he must have given in – he always did with these two, no matter how much he pretended to protest. He had never regretted it before.
It wasn’t clear to Jimmy if this game had specifically been chosen to make him the drunkest Bad Boy, or if Grian and Joel simply hadn’t known how inexperienced he was compared to them. Regardless, since they kept bringing up more and more things they suspected Jimmy hadn’t done, they had wanted him drunk by the end. Unfortunately, his clearest memories of the game were the most outrageous things the others, particularly Grian, claimed to have done, and the most mundane sexy things Jimmy was embarrassed to have not done. (Yet, he hoped.) He didn’t think they’d ever outright laughed at him for his inexperience, but he’d been pestered with follow up questions he absolutely did not want to explain to anyone, even his Bad Boys.
As for Grian and Joel’s alleged sexual exploits, Jimmy was both impressed and envious. He’d never even imagined some of things they’d claimed to have done–and some of them sounded very interesting and were added to his long “hopefully someday” list. Some sounded fairly complicated to pull off, but as he heard more stories, Jimmy realized he was actually game to try pretty much anything, if he could only get a chance.
Once Jimmy was quite drunk, his teammates took pity on him and changed games–-or at least it seemed like pity at the time. Looking back, sitting exposed in his underwear, he thought that given the way strip poker had gone, perhaps it had been more “a new way to mess with Jimmy” rather than pity. Grian and Joel had both claimed to be “okay” at poker, but either they were lying or Jimmy was 10x worse at poker than he thought–though they were also more sober than him, which must have helped.
Jimmy was also suspicious that they’d been colluding during the game. The way they kept looking at each other as if they knew something Jimmy didn’t, the way their strip poker goals seemed to be more complicated than “win as much as you can”, the knowing way they looked at Jimmy each time he felt confident – it was very suspicious. Jimmy didn’t win even a single hand. Each item of clothing Grian or Joel took off, they lost to each other, their losses accepted far more calmly than Jimmy would have expected from them. As Jimmy sobered up, it didn’t make any more sense, which was very frustrating.
Their goals definitely did involve “get Jimmy as naked as possible”. Grian and Joel both revealed unexpected clothing items like undershirts, and weirdly they both had extra belts, but Grian’s was the most egregious. He secretly had a zipper just under the knee that allowed his pants to be shortened. (Jimmy was sure he had never once in his life seen Grian in shorts.) When Grian attempted to use that as his forfeit in a round he just barely lost to Joel, Jimmy argued that Grian should have to take off his pants entirely, but he was outvoted. It seemed unfair that Grian should have a vote in the matter, but he let it go.
Though “Never Have I Ever” was over, Joel and Grian kept swapping stories of sex, their own and, for some reason, other people’s. They both kept looking at Jimmy in ways that made him uncomfortable and confused… but also unexpectedly excited. When it came time for Jimmy to finally lose his pants, he shimmied them off under the table, desperate for others to not see what their stories and looks were doing to him. He’d just have to stay seated until he calmed down… which might be after the others left. Surely they’d eventually stop talking about sex and he could stop unwillingly imagining doing all those things with them.
If their intent with all the sex talk was to distract Jimmy from winning at poker, they certainly succeeded. Jimmy was confident he would win what turned out to be his final hand. It went on far too long, and Grian said so many distracting things, but Jimmy kept his focus. When Grian threw down a ridiculously good hand, Jimmy was sure he was cheating (what were the odds of four aces?). He grumpily dropped his cards face down on the table and pondered his options. All he had left was his underwear; his shirt, jacket, pants and socks were piled on a chair next to him. He may be a Bad Boy, but he wasn’t about to get naked in front of his teammates, no matter how much they might be wearing. Standing up, in just his underwear, in his current condition, would be nearly as bad as being naked. Perhaps worse than just being naked when he was in an uncomfortable situation. He wasn’t ashamed of his body, he thought it was pretty good all things considered, but admitting how much they had succeeded, what all their sexy talk had done to him, that would be humiliating.
In the end, he only found two options that would hide how annoyingly turned on he was. His previous plan of “wait till he wasn't hard anymore or they left” seemed doomed. They just kept looking at him in ways that both thrilled and annoyed him, and he knew how hard it was to get Bad Boys to lose a game of chicken –- and he was pretty sure that’s what they were doing, though the rules were unspoken.
The other option was incredibly awkward, and basically admitted the truth, but he couldn’t think of a third. He reached over, bundled up his clothing, and held the pile in front of his crotch as he escaped from a “mostly destroyed” part of the mansion to the nearest “fully open air” area, telling the others that he needed to get some air. As he hurried away Grian called out to tell him he couldn’t put any clothes back on.
Wonderful.
“Getting some air” sounded like a weak excuse, but it was the truth. He knew people would be able to see him, standing alone under the moonlight, naked except for his (apparently far too thin) briefs, but he couldn’t care. Let the world see him… but not Grian or Joel. He dropped his forbidden clothes and paced.
The cold air helped some. Grian and Joel had left him literally hot and flustered, and he desperately wanted to be away from his teammates –- thanks to the specific ways he very much wanted to be with them. The thought of being so near them right now, with so much enticing skin distracting him, without being able to touch them, was simply too much to handle.
He was determined to come up with a plan, because he knew he couldn’t stay outside forever, and it was too early to escape to bed. He had no idea what his Bad Boys could tell about his current state (probably more than he’d like), but he didn’t want to give them even more evidence.
After a fair bit of thinking, and some needed sobering up, Jimmy was fairly pleased with his new plan, even though it was hard to remember the order of some of the steps. Coming out to ten steps felt good, like a proper plan that someone clever would come up with.
- Stop Drinking
- Don’t look at Joel’s surprisingly ripped arms
- Don’t look at Joel’s chest, or abs, or anything bare
- But also don’t look at his pants
- Just don’t look at Joel
- Don’t look directly at Grian if he’s making those faces at him
- Which is actually pretty much all of the time, so don’t look at Grian’s face. Or arms. Or anything. Just don’t look at Grian.
- Don’t look at anybody
- Act Normal
- Leave as soon as it’s not too weird to leave
After he made it to step ten, he’d escape and try to fall asleep. Ideally without touching himself while thinking about his Bad Boys and all they’d said that night. That night as Jimmy reviewed his plan, he thought maybe instead he should just set up a bed far away from the others and try to get all his distractions out of his system and move on. Surely this was just excitement about their first day together, about being on such a fun team with his favorite people, who he liked so very much. Perhaps too much, if this problem was going to continue.
When Grian finally called out to Jimmy to come back, he was incredibly frustrated that despite all of his effort, the cold air, and lack of Grian or Joel in view, he was still hard, though he thought, hoped, no longer enough to be noticeable. It was incredibly unfair, he was an adult and this was ridiculous. When Jimmy finally forced himself to go back inside, Grian and Joel turned to look at him in unison. The smiles on their faces made him want to run back out again and jump off the roof, water bucket or no.
Jimmy took a deep breath and told himself that Bad Boys definitely aren’t afraid of their teammates smiling, no matter how scary and sexy it was. That would be ridiculous.
Just act normal.
Earlier in the night they had taken turns tossing out ideas to debate before settling on a game. This time Grian and Joel simply, and firmly, informed Jimmy that they’d be playing Truth or Dare. He desperately tried to negotiate a different game, any game, but the only one they’d offer as an alternative was Spin the Bottle. If he had to kiss one of them it would likely be the end of him. There were worse ways to go, but he’d rather put it off if he could.
It was settled as soon as Grian announced “Bad Boys aren’t afraid of Truth Or Dare”. Since Jimmy was going to be a Bad Boy forever, that was that. He quickly made a plan to always take dares, not truths. He’d gladly suffer a few deaths to avoid more horrific questions and keep whatever little dignity he had left intact.
Jimmy’s plan to only take dares was quickly abandoned, as the expected physically dangerous dares were instead mortifying ones like “fake an orgasm” that he was sure Joel and Grian couldn’t actually expect Jimmy to accept. Jimmy was genuinely shocked they could even say those things with straight faces, but he’d been shocked by a lot of things that night.
He’d assumed the truth options wouldn’t be worse than what he remembered of Never Have I Ever, which had ended on "never have I ever been in an orgy". He was mortifyingly wrong. Grian and Joel showed a baffling interest in the boring specifics of Jimmy's frankly uneventful sex life, which had rarely even involved anyone else.
Joel and Grian asked each other deeply intimate questions for their “truths” as well, but each of them somehow always found a topic the other was happy to brag about. Expressing his displeasure in the level of detail usually involved Jimmy shouting, which never helped with those two. Annoyingly, he wasn’t even sure he actually wanted them to stop–-and he again found himself needing to clutch his clothes to his lap.
Grian "shared" some intimate facts about Scar that Jimmy absolutely never wanted to know. (Unless he did? He was so confused.) Of course his attempts to get Grian to stop talking about getting “spit roasted” just encouraged him. (He really should have known better than to ask what it meant.) After Grian escalated to the topic of breath play, and more specifically things Grian had done while being choked, Jimmy begged to be asked another truth, “anything you want!” Surely talking about himself would be less sexy than listening to Joel answer Grian’s many questions about ropes and the (implausible sounding) ways he claimed to have used them in the past.
Bad Boys weren’t supposed to be afraid of the truth, but after Joel asked Jimmy for his favorite fantasy for getting off, he decided a blindfolded water bucket jump into TNT while on fire would be better than sharing the honest truth, which was far too relevant to the people interrogating him. (He could lie, but they would know, and the idea of lying to Grian and Joel made his mouth go dry and his throat feel strange.)
“Actually, can I just jump off the roof blindfolded or something basically like that?” Jimmy knew he sounded miserable, but he no longer cared. It was all too much, Bad Boy or not.
Jimmy had failed at every point on his ten point plan besides “#1: Stop Drinking”, which he now actually regretted–surely he could have handled all this nonsense better with something to dull the misery. He’d been putting in what he thought was a valiant effort at “#9: Act Normal” but he was out of energy to try. He knew enough time must have passed to move on to “#10 Leave as soon as it’s not too weird to leave” but he couldn’t get himself to actually do it. This was only their first night, he knew they’d have more, but he felt like he’d be losing something important if he chickened out now and left. He was a Bad Boy, and Bad Boys aren’t cowards.
After Jimmy let his misery show the mood changed instantly, and from Jimmy’s perspective, probably not for the better. Grian looked at Jimmy with what he was sure was a literal twinkle in his eye. That was one of the (many) things he secretly loved about Grian, but he much preferred when he was plotting against someone else.
"Well Tim, if you're that desperate, why don't we take truth off the table?”
Grian looked towards Joel, who inclined his head towards Grian and smiled slightly, though Jimmy was too tired (and, he thought, probably too dumb) to interpret his smile. Jimmy didn’t care what it meant, and he couldn’t deal with why it was so sexy, he just wanted to move on to some new misery from his sex-obsessed friends.
“Well then, Timothy, what do you think about taking our previous game to its natural conclusion?"
Jimmy was tired of being asked questions he did understand and had no patience for questions he didn’t. "Bro, it’s literally been such a long day and I'm so tired, what are you actually talking about?"
Joel jumped in, his voice tinged with familiar mild irritation, but he was clearly holding back, his voice slower and softer than usual. Maybe they were finally taking real pity on him, though he didn’t think it likely.
“For goodness sake, Jimmy, come on, you’re not a total blooming idiot. What was the last game we played before this?”
The pleasure at being called “not a total blooming idiot” made Jimmy actually focus.
“Poker?” He spoke hesitantly, even though the answer was obvious.
Grian smiled at him as if he’d done something truly impressive, answered some question far more challenging than remembering what they’d done half an hour ago. “Yes, very good Timmy, very impressive. And what kind of poker?”
Oh.
Right.
As they waited for him to answer, Grian and Joel smiled broadly, with altogether too many teeth. Jimmy suddenly felt a sense of danger, though he didn’t know from what exactly. It was because of Grian and Joel, for sure, but he had no idea what the risk was - besides winding up naked and deeply embarrassed. He was annoyed, and he was frustrated, but he didn’t actually feel scared. Normally, sensing this amount of danger would make him afraid. It would make him want to run. But… it was Grian and Joel. They were his best friends, and there was no one he could imagine trusting more. They always made him feel safe. He knew he could always run to them if he was in trouble, even if they teased him for it. (To be fair to them, it was usually justified.)
No matter what they might be planning, Jimmy couldn’t be really afraid of them. Jimmy felt like he really should know why they were grinning at him like that. He was sure they were waiting for him to figure something out, but it really had been a very long day.
Jimmy stayed silent. He knew that they were trying to get him naked and they knew that he knew. But he wasn’t going to admit it. He wasn’t going to give them the pleasure. Bad Boys don’t give in, even to their best friends.
Grian continued after not too long, acting like Jimmy might possibly agree to his absurd proposal. “Are you gonna finish? Your last hand is right there on the table.”
“No.” Jimmy knew he sounded harsh, more harsh than he’d ever been with Grian or Joel, but he was done playing around, actually on the verge of storming off to bed, Bad Boy or no.
“Alright Tim, no truths, back to dares. Joel, what do you think I should ask? Something fun?” Jimmy knew that particular glee in Grian’s voice, and groaned softly. Nothing good ever came from this Grian, unless you pointed him squarely away from yourself.
“Hmmm, well, Grian, there’s one thing I’m definitely curious about.” Joel wasn’t looking at Jimmy anymore. Despite how confusing and borderline menacing he was being, Jimmy instantly missed having Joel’s eyes on him.
“And what’s that, Joel?”
Jimmy felt like the two of them were reading a script they both had memorized. Jimmy didn’t even know what genre of story they were in, and they didn’t seem likely to share anytime soon. He knew he should just end it all and leave, but he didn’t.
“Why in the world our dear Tim here has been clutching his clothes quite so tightly to his lap. What do you think, Grian?” Joel’s voice had a sing-song tone that made Jimmy want to choke him.
“Hmm… now that you mention it, I think we let something slide when we shouldn’t have. If you have to lose your clothes, you shouldn’t get to hold onto them after, don’t you think? After all, it is the consequence.” Jimmy had seen too many different Grian Grins in the last few hours, but somehow this one was the worst.
Jimmy was sure there were worse fates than losing his pathetic attempt at privacy, but at the moment he couldn’t imagine any. It wasn’t just that they wanted him naked. Joel and Grian obviously knew he was turned on, and were delighted by it. They must know that Jimmy knew that they knew, and now they wanted him to have to prove it. To show them, and it felt like the whole world, that somehow, despite everything, Jimmy was embarrassingly turned on. To let them see proof that what they’d been doing got him hard, or that he was so pathetic that any attention from Joel and Grian would get him hard, or whatever the hell they'd think–-it didn’t matter.
This was humiliating, this was embarrassing, this was absolutely the worst night of his life. He could awkwardly stand up and pathetically shuffle away (which was very much not Bad Boy behavior), but yet he stayed. Even worse, in the greatest betrayal yet from Jimmy’s body, now that everyone was focusing on it, Jimmy's problem was only getting… bigger. And they were trying to make him show them what they’d done to him.
His face felt hot, and he kept swallowing, trying to dismiss the fuzzy feeling in his mouth. If he couldn’t see his hands he’d be certain they were shaking, like a tremble in his bones. He’d been doing his best to avoid the question, to not even let him think it, but he was so baffled as to why this bullying was so hot.
For the first time in a while, Jimmy jumped in without being directly addressed.
“Bro, no, you didn’t take my clothes away then and you actually can’t do it now.”
Grian clapped his hands as he turned his head to look straight at Jimmy, a far too innocent smile making alarm bells go off in the back of Jimmy's mind. "Alright Tim, I dare you to throw your clothes at Joel."
"Wait, what? Are you serious--No!" Jimmy didn’t know where this was headed, but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
“Back to truth then?” Jimmy tried to tell himself that Grian’s fucking grin didn’t mean anything to him.
“Fine.” Jimmy gritted his teeth and dug his fingers into his palms.
Again Grian and Joel looked at each other, lips turned up just at the corners, eyes focused on each other like they could have an entire conversation, apparently about Jimmy, without speaking. That way they were locking eyes with each other, somehow looking at each other about Jimmy, was both driving him mad and also not making him any less turned on. (He really did have some uncomfortable thinking to do later.)
Joel swiveled and looked Jimmy dead in the eyes, and he couldn’t have looked away even if he’d wanted to. Joel’s voice was slow and unnervingly flat, and everything else in the world faded away when Jimmy heard Joel say his name.
“Jimmy." Joel paused, as if to check if Jimmy was paying attention, as if he could possibly do otherwise. "Are you hiding something down there that you’re embarrassed for us to see?”
Jimmy dramatically wrenched his eyes away from Joel’s gaze and stared at his feet, cold from so long spent barefoot. If he was going to answer, he couldn’t stand to watch Joel’s reaction, even if he’d have to hear the laughter.
“Fine! Yes! I actually am, okay? There, are you happy now?”
Grian cheerfully chirped “Yup!” and Joel wordlessly turned from Jimmy back to Grian as if nothing had happened.
Grian looked at Joel who was smiling in the way he only did when his prank was going well, and said to him, “Joel, truth or dare?” It sounded practiced, and excited? As always, Grian seemed to know more than Jimmy.
Joel paused, though Jimmy thought it was probably only for show, and motioned Grian to come over. It was the first anyone had moved from their seats since Jimmy came back inside.
When Joel leaned in to whisper into Grian’s ear, Jimmy bit his bottom lip to try not to gasp. This, this he can easily understand why it’s sexy, and he couldn’t help wondering what it would take to get Joel to whisper in his ear.
Grian literally giggled and bounced over to Jimmy, stopping close enough that Jimmy could have leaned forward and dragged him in. Jimmy was bigger and stronger, it would be easy.
Jimmy dug his fingers into his thighs, willing his hands to stay put, and leaned as far away from Grian as he could, on the edge of falling off his stool.
Grian slowly circled around, eyes always on Jimmy, who felt he was being evaluated like… prey. Maybe this was the danger he’d been feeling. Jimmy didn’t know where this was going, what Joel had dared Grian to do. All his senses were on edge, looking for danger. He was focusing all the concentration he could manage on what Grian was doing, but, of course, Grian still managed to startle him. Grian had been circling Jimmy at a steady even pace. He suddenly stopped behind Jimmy and leaned in to whisper in his ear. It was even sexier than Jimmy could have imagined. This was genuine torment, and Jimmy’s thighs were going to have marks for days from his nails.
“Are you having fun?”
“No.”
“Really?” Grian didn’t even bother making a real effort to fake surprise, his voice almost playful when he continued. “Is there anything I can do to make things more… exciting?”
“No.”
“Come now, Timothy, don’t be so stubborn. There’s no reason we can’t all be having fun.”
Jimmy stopped responding and Grian escalated. He taunted him, saying inappropriate things, fucking blowing on his ear, all things Jimmy wished Grian, or Joel, or Grian and Joel, would do to him in earnest. Jimmy thought they were friends, teammates, that they were close and had each other’s backs. He had trusted, no, somehow he still did trust them, more than anyone else. He should leave, he should leave the pathetic remains of the Bad Boy Manor, he should go beg Scott or Pearl or someone to take him in, or just live on his own. He knew he would never actually leave. This was his home, they were his home, and he'd get through this weird hazing night or whatever it was and prove himself. A real Bad Boy doesn’t give in.
During his whole performances, or whatever it was, Grian never touched Jimmy. In true "I'm technically following the rules!" Grian fashion, he went as close to touching Jimmy as possible without actually touching him. Close enough to feel his breath, close enough to imagine he could feel his heart beat. Close enough to smell him, close enough to imagine he could taste him.
Close enough to just take him.
It would be so simple, so easy. Jimmy could grab Grian so quickly, he could drag him into his lap, he could yank his hair and drag him in for a messy kiss, he could stand up and throw Grian over his shoulder and take him to bed, or throw him up against a wall and pin his wrists. It hurt to sit still, to pretend to ignore what might be the sexiest interaction of his whole stupid life. Perhaps the best he’d ever get, given his history.
Jimmy tried closing his eyes, so he couldn't see Grian, hoping that not seeing that stupid, sexy gremlin would calm down his racing thoughts. He took deep and slow breaths and was very aware that he could no longer reliably tell where Grian was.
When he felt Grian’s breath on his lips, his eyes shot open. Grian was looking directly into Jimmy's eyes, his own full of fake innocence. He was so close Jimmy couldn’t see anything else.
“Hello, Tim.” There was nothing to call Grian’s voices besides seductive.
Jimmy stopped breathing.
“Tell me… do you want to kiss me?”
Fuck it. Jimmy thought no more than those two words and leaned forward–and instantly Grian was gone, bounding back to his chair, giggling again. Giggling.
Jimmy exploded, almost shouting. “What the fuck was that? What the hell was that dare?”
Joel looked at him, pretending to be serious. “Calm down, Timmy, no need to go on like that. I asked Grian to find out if you would kiss him. I think he did a rather good job, don’t you?”
Jimmy buried his face in his hands. “Why? Why?”
Grian answered, still perky. “I was curious what would happen.”
So everything was a game all along.They just wanted to see how turned on they could get him, how far they could go, what he would do for them. Of course they didn't, could never, actually want Jimmy. They just wanted to know how desperate he was for them. Jimmy didn't know how they got this insane idea, or why they decided to do this to him–or why it had worked so well.
Jimmy didn't know if he would ever be able to look at them the same way after this. He’d been through real cruelty before, but never from them, never this far. It had made him foolishly think, genuinely believe, that Joel and Grian were different. He'd thought he knew them, that he could trust them to stop before they crossed the line. Apparently they weren’t in agreement about where the line was.
And yet, he still wasn't going to leave. He could deal with the humiliation of leaving the Bad Boys, the hardship, the rumors from others–-but he couldn’t deal with leaving Joel and Grian, with being apart from them for however long he had. He knew it was pathetic, but if the other Bad Boys wanted him out, they were going to have to say it.
He could survive this. Tomorrow would be better, he assured himself, face still buried in his hands, lips pressed shut so no more words could escape him and make things worse.
After that, they stopped asking Jimmy questions or posing dares to him. They announced it was Jimmy’s turn. Jimmy did not want to take a turn. They kept making suggestions about lewd things Jimmy could ask Grian or Joel to do to him, or each other. It was all absurd. They were taunting him. Jimmy went silent again, trying to think about literally anything else.
---
“Hmm, dare.”
Joel pretended to consider the question, but he was clearly ready to escalate.
Grian and Joel had finally given up on trying to get Jimmy to offer a dare and moved on to each other –- Jimmy hoped that’s where they’d stay, and leave him alone.
The last several “rounds” had just been Joel and Grian asking each other sexual questions that Jimmy was annoyingly interested in (how could one man need that many sex toys?). In the end, all this would do was make the fantasies he tried to avoid more complicated and detailed. Was that last dare all there was? Were they done with him? Was he supposed to say or do something? Just sit there?
Grian instantly responded to Joel. He and Joel seemed to be on the same page - were they secretly communicating? Had they somehow planned this out, in this much detail? Was it some kind of psychic connection specifically for tormenting their teammate?
“Come sit next to me. Right there.” Grian pointed inches away from his own chair.
Joel picked up his chair and complied without saying anything. As he settled back in, Grian said “Give me a good dare.”
At first they went slowly–-a hand on a knee, and arm around a shoulder. Nothing explicitly sexual, but Jimmy was surely that must be coming. Everything else kept escalating, why not this? Jimmy tried to keep his eyes down, away from them, but he kept finding himself looking up at each new dare. Now that he was irrelevant to them, maybe it didn’t matter.
“Joel… take my shirt off.”
Joel complied, grining, but did so far more slowly than Jimmy thought was actually needed. Slowly and… he supposed the word was “sensually”, maybe actually “sexually”. Jimmy had plenty of time to evaluate the question because he had given up and was openly staring. Grian and Joel might not even know, given that for all Jimmy could tell, they seemed to have forgotten he was in the room. If they were giving him a free show, why not watch? Didn’t he deserve something enjoyable after his miserable night?
After Grian’s shirt was lying on the floor, Joel ran his hands lightly up the sides of Grian’s chest, which was both the best and worst thing Jimmy had ever witnessed. From there the dares became increasingly brazen until they stopped saying anything at all, just making out. No one had climbed onto the other’s lap, and no hands had gone quite below the waist, but it seemed like either of those could change at any moment.
Jimmy had no idea what he was supposed to do. Were they going to fuck? In front of him? Was he meant to watch, when they knew how turned on he was? Surely they didn’t intend for him to really let himself… enjoy the performance? Was that somehow their true, still incomprehensible, goal? Was he supposed to leave quietly? Surely “sneak out because your friends are fucking” couldn’t be the Bad Boy thing to do. Right?
So Jimmy watched them almost fuck, his bottom lip caught between his teeth in a desperate attempt to stay quiet. He stayed still on his stupid stool (there were so many chairs!) because no one had told him to do otherwise and his brain was too overwhelmed to make decisions. He felt like he might be going insane from lust, which he’d never heard of but must be a thing. It took all of his self control to not abandon his useless futile privacy shield and get himself off, which surely wouldn’t take long, especially if things escalated any further. Surely that was actually a Bad Boy thing to do?
Things escalated further. Joel lightly ran three fingers over the quite noticeable bulge in Grian’s pants. Jimmy gasped in time with Grian, and the Increasingly Bad Boys finally turned to look at their teammate. Without a word between them, they both sat up in their chairs, dropping all physical contact, and once again acted like nothing had happened. Was this that gaslighting thing? He hadn’t thought it was supposed to be sexy. Jimmy started to genuinely worry that maybe he had gone insane from lust, that he was having (very sexy) hallucinations.
Maybe it wasn’t the worst way to go.
“Ah, sorry about that Tim, it must be your turn to ask now.” Grian locked eyes with Jimmy, which at this point felt commonplace to Jimmy… but apparently commonplace things could still be sexy. “Do you want me, or Joel?”
Was this really what was happening? Was Jimmy supposed to keep playing this baffling game? He was too horny and distracted to think, so he just stared at Grian, and let himself imagine how nice it would be to kiss him, or run his hands up his chest, or–-
“Why don’t we ask Joel, then?”
Jimmy nodded his head, dumbly. He looked at Joel, and then looked away because he very much wanted to throw Joel on a bed and find out if he’d been lying about some of the more interesting things he bragged about in Never Have I Ever.
As he leaned forward towards Jimmy, Grian’s voice dropped to nearly a whisper, soft and gentle and encouraging in a way that was very unfamiliar and unexpectedly comfortable to Jimmy. Grian was over in his own chair, but it felt like he was whispering in Jimmy’s ear all over again.
“Timmy, I’ve got an idea. How about you ask Joel to kiss you?”
Oh.
Jimmy froze in place, breath caught in his lungs.
Maybe those “suggestions” before, those jokes about dares he should make…
Jimmy considered, not for the first time, that he might be very, very dumb. Maybe the explanation for his teammates’ behavior was simple and, to anyone else, extremely obvious.
Before Jimmy could ask Joel to kiss him, which he wanted more than anything, he started feeling paranoid. Maybe this was still a game, the previous suggestions had been jokes and they were looping back around again.
Maybe they wanted him to foolishly think Joel would ever kiss him. Maybe this was some very elaborate prank that had just gone on longer than they’d expected, because they thought Jimmy would catch on, would be anything more than a total bloomin idiot.
What if he asked Joel to kiss him, even dared him to kiss him, and it was just like it was with Grian, Joel pulling away at the last moment. Or they’d just laugh at him, laugh at the idea that they could ever see Jimmy that way. Then maybe they’d fuck in front of him, just to prove how little they thought of him. (And maybe he would stay, and watch them back up some claims from Never Have I Ever.)
Jimmy knew it all sounded like a conspiracy theory, that it would be totally out of character for them. They were friends! All day they’d been having fun together, the teasing felt normal and comfortable, nothing like a threat. People loved to prank Jimmy, and play on his cluelessness, but there had never been anything this emotionally manipulative, this personal targeted–-and certainly never this sexual. Other people, people he wasn’t so close to, might do something like this, but Jimmy cared for Joel and Grian so deeply, and he thought it was mutual. This couldn’t all be to hurt him, could it?
Maybe he was being crazy. Maybe they did actually want to kiss him! Maybe they were waiting for him to ask for something, trying to get him to ask, and he’d never done it. Maybe they wanted more, maybe they’d been turning him on because they wanted him. Didn’t that make more sense?
Still, he was terrified. He hadn’t known what was going on for hours and hours and didn’t trust his own judgment. His mind was racing faster and faster -- was it worth it to try, to ask? What would be worse - having to live knowing that his best friends would hurt him this way, or missing his chance to kiss either of them?
He didn’t know. He didn’t know what to do.
Grian, however, knew exactly what to do. (He always did.)
“Hey Joel, I dare you to kiss Timmy.”
“Alright.” Joel responded like Grian had asked him to get him a glass of water, as casually as if he kissed Jimmy every day.
Joel popped up out of his chair and confidently walked the few steps to Jimmy. He dropped to his knees to the side of the stool and propped his chin on his hand, practically touching Jimmy’s thigh. Jimmy looked at Joel as if he’d never seen him before.
He was smarmy, he was sly, he was Joel. Joel who Jimmy adored, who would always go along with stupid ideas, dangerous ideas. Joel who wasn’t afraid to go big, to go all the way. Joel, whose eyes felt so delightfully dangerous when he smiled. Joel, who Jimmy still really believed would stand by him when it counted. His Joel, his teammate, his Bad Boy, as silly as that might sound. He was looking Jimmy in the eyes again, face so close Jimmy thought he could feel his breath, (Jimmy was vaguely aware he must have leaned down at some point). Joel had told Grian he’d take the dare, that he was going to kiss Jimmy. Bad Boys keep their word, right?
If Joel was going to try to pull a Grian and disappear before Jimmy could kiss him, he’d need to be quick.
Without warning, Jimmy seized the back of Joel’s head and pulled him in quickly. It was the first he’d touched either of them in hours. The moment he touched Joel’s head he felt the stress fall away beneath his hands. For a second he feared Joel wouldn’t do anything, that it would be like trying to kiss a stone wall. But as soon as their lips met, Joel was kissing him back fiercely, his tongue in Jimmy’s mouth, his hands gripping Jimmy’s shoulders, fingers digging in. Jimmy didn’t have time to fully appreciate the kiss, as Joel used his hold on Jimmy to pull himself off the ground and onto Jimmy's lap, somehow without breaking the kiss. After a moment straddling Jimmy, Joel did break the kiss and awkwardly sat back on Jimmy’s knees. Jimmy was briefly terrified that this was all he was ever going to get–-but the movement was just so Joel could curse and yank Jimmy's pile of clothes from his lap and onto the floor.
So much had happened that night, and Jimmy had apparently wildly misunderstood all of it. He didn’t know what had happened or what would happen, but the satisfied mmmm Joel made when he settled onto Jimmy’s lap, more specifically directly onto Jimmy’s no longer poorly hidden erection, made all the confusion and irritation of the night worth it –- it was absolutely the best night of his life. When Joel started carefully rocking back and forth on his lap, kissing Jimmy harder and better than he’d ever been kissed, Jimmy decided he’d accept that much annoyance on any night he got Joel in his lap.