@starslung said: "you know i’m in love with you, right?"
matt will make a massive ass of himself in about three seconds.
he blinks stupidly. a choked syllable of semantically useless noise tumbles clumsily from his mouth, thoroughly complimenting his "stunned idiot" expression. mentally, matt is speedreading the list of plausible reasons finn would fuck with him, ruling out alcohol, weed, a dare, blackmail, baiting for favours, right up until the only entry left is just because, all in the span of the one-second silence where his jaw hangs partially agape. matt and finn have light-heartedly thrown the word love around before, usually when under the influence of something matt kept hidden in a sock to avoid confiscation, experimenting with substances and vocabulary (and sometimes a little more) when sprawled on one couch or the other. but there had always been an unspoken footnote of 'you know, like a friend,' that matt had always clung to in spite of the fluttering in his stomach that rises briefly when the word comes out.
(two.)
this is a joke. finn must be joking. the fact that they are both stone cold sober tells him he isn't, but matt isn't ready to interface with that yet.
denial it is.
(one.)
"ha! c'mon, finn," the inflection is off. matt's trying a little too hard to sound dismissive of the idea. his eyes see that there isn't a trace of duplicity on finn, shoulders unusually tense, eyes atypically pulled to the side, but his dumb boy brain doesn't let him see it. "if you're gonna fake-confess to me, you can at least include flowers or something. spoil a guy, y’know?"
