Title: So I Can Breathe You In
Author: Korbjaeger
Summary: First time challenge - a first kiss, in all its overanalyzed glory.
Pairing: pre-slash, Greg/Archie
A/N: Thought I'd use my fave slash pairing for my "first" Flash challenge...as well as part of my favorite love song, ever...This was a quickie, mind you, un-beta'ed so please forgive any typos...

***

A late afternoon in May, 2003...

"You're awfully quiet..."

Greg kept gazing vacantly out the passenger window. "Sorry. It's the meds."

"No, I wasn't..." Archie glanced over only briefly, more concerned with negotiating the rush hour traffic of off-strip Las Vegas. "I just meant, you're usually more talkative." He swallowed, worried that he'd come across as critical. "Sorry."

"Nah, you're right." Greg gave him a reassuring half-smile. "Like I say, it's the vicodin talking...or not talking."

"It's okay."

Greg relaxed in his seat, letting his mind wander as the angle of the late-day sunlight helped lull him into a state where he could do that, let his thoughts go where they would, and right now they were going to a stretch of the beach around Santa Monica Pier and a time long ago, when he was small and no one thought his brash enthusiasm or quirkiness unusual at all. A girl of his own age...what, eight? Nine? Brown-haired, green-eyed and full of life and vigor as he was. Unrehearsed, un-forethought and guileless, a brief and demure kiss as they stood between the pier pilings, smelling the salt air and careful not to scratch themselves on the barnacles. A wide-eyed squeal of shocked delight, followed by laughter, and another thirty minutes watching hermit crabs burrow into the fresh-soaked sand as they watched for the rare treasures of sand dollars to wash up for their collection.

Greg's father had laughed at his son's innocent audacity; his mother had blushed and worried. Papa Olaf? He'd laughed in that full-bodied, whole-spirited way of his, then, after Greg's new friend had left with her bemused parents, he'd knelt and told his little grandson, "Kissing the girls...it's a nice thing. But you must have a faithful heart. Always remember that."

And Greg had remembered it, remembered it deeply enough that he never truly could excise the love from sex as many of his college buddies later could. Deeply enough that he kept his virginity until well after most of his classmates had lost theirs, in some fumbling encounter in the back seat of a car or a darkened dorm room. Other than, perhaps, the aspect of knowledge and experience, however, he had no regrets about his choice. He was really in love that first time. And that he wouldn't have traded for anything.

"You need to stop by the store for anything before we get to your place?"

"Nah," Greg replied. "I think I've got plenty of stuff."

"Milk less than a month old?"

Greg rolled his eyes. "We can pick some up later. I just wanna get home."

"Sure. Sorry."

Archie sure apologized a lot, to everyone. Bad, bad habit. He didn't need to apologize for anything. Jacqui Franco swore she was going to put him over her checkered apron for a paddling next time he apologized for nothing. He was just trying too hard to keep everyone happy.

Man, if you only knew.

Archie looked nothing at all like the first boy Greg had ever kissed. Ricky LeVasseur was tall - six-five if he was an inch - a reserve guard on the Stanford basketball team. They'd started there the same fall. Ricky was naturally blond, slim but really "cut", and had brilliant blue eyes that everyone noticed, and that meant everyone - guys and girls. Their dorm rooms were across the hall from one another. Greg knew Ricky was hiding something, and he took it upon himself to be the faithful heart, to listen to his woes, and Ricky came to trust him. They became fast friends. Ricky wasn't just some "dumb jock", as many student athletes had been labelled - he was actually very bright, a political science major. But he felt disenfranchised, even in liberal Northern California. As close as San Francisco, barely an hour's drive up the peninsula from their digs in "Shallow Alto", he would have had nothing to feel so alone about. But here, on the south end of the Bay, as an up-and-coming athlete who'd attracted the attention of more than one NBA scout, he had a role to play - the confident, aggressive heterosexual, brazen off the court as well as on. It just wasn't Ricky. And the night they'd shared a gentle, unselfconscious kiss in Greg's dorm room, that was Ricky. And they both knew it. As for Greg, by that point he'd worked out for himself that love was love, whoever it came from, and whether it was real or not mattered more than how many orifices and appendages they had.

Ricky didn't return to Stanford for his junior year. Greg never knew why; there had been no communication, either from Ricky or his family, after the end of their sophomore year, and he'd been unable to contact him. There'd been talk of an "incident" that was never really clarified and that Greg didn't take seriously - didn't want to. But Ricky vanished like the wind, and took a part of Greg Sanders with him.

The aging Toyota pulled up into one of the guest parking spaces in the lot at Greg's apartment building.

"This okay?"

"Fine..."

Archie shut off the engine and pulled out the key. He turned toward Greg.

"Something's wrong isn't it?"

"No...listen...Arch...could you please come upstairs with me?"

"Sure!" Assuming it was because Greg was still unsteady on his feet, Archie never questioned it. Never thought twice about helping Greg out of the car, supporting him by one arm as they climbed the stairs to his unit.

Once inside, Greg felt himself shaking again. It had happened a few times since the explosion. Just nerves.

Archie gripped his shoulders. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Greg insisted. "I just wanted...a little privacy."

Not fully "getting" it, Archie nodded. "Cool."

Greg took a deep breath. "Um...Archie, there's really no way to preface this..."

"What? Come on, we're friends, you can tell me anything."

Still trembling slightly, Greg stepped closer and curled his hands over Archie's shoulders. There really was no way to preface this. He was just going to have to...

...pull Archie closer, press his lips to a pair from which a very masculine, resonant voice had just emanated, brush his fingers over a jaw that had just been shaven, risk his heart and his reputation and, Greg swore, his very life, pouring himself through that contact into another human being - another man - in the name of love, of honesty, of everything he held sacred.

And he felt the slender arms coil around his waist, as Archie, unquestioning, leaned into the kiss, lengthening it, holding it fast, sending a tingle of energy through Greg that summed up every hope he'd ever had for any of his previous "firsts". He swore he saw stars. A love song echoed in his mind...

Breathe out, so I can breathe you in,
Hold you in...

And they held each other in for what might have seemed a long kiss to some, but for Greg, was all too short. Their lips parted, their eyes opened, and Greg saw, in Archie's eyes, absolutely no regret, no fear or uncertainty.

In fact, Archie merely smiled and quipped, "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

Man, if you only knew...

They embraced again, and Greg finally felt that this one was special, every bit as much as...if not more than...the spirited little girl on the beach or the anguished bisexual athlete or any other first experience. It was his first time with him. That was it. No tongues - that would happen before long. Even the pleasant tingle between his thighs that was too timid to even express itself as an erection, that too would be answered and satisfied eventually. It would all come in time, and Greg knew it would. He was faithful to his own heart, and knew the rest would follow. It had to. Papa Olaf was never wrong.

If everything could only be this good forever
If anything could ever feel this good again
The only thing I ever ask of you
You've got to promise not to stop when I say "when"...


--Lyrics to "Everlong" by D. Grohl

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