Work Text:
It takes Sapnap almost a quarter of an hour to find him. Prom is in full swing; the asphalt of the parking lot is stained in rainbow hues from the multicoloured lights visible through the auditorium windows, and the bass of whatever pop song being blasted over the speakers is still faintly audible as Sapnap peers out onto the rooftop.
“There you are,” he says, and George twists to look over his shoulder at him; he’s sitting on his suit jacket, and the cuffs of his white dress shirt are unbuttoned. “Dude, you’re going to get in trouble, we’re not meant to be up here.”
“What’re they gonna do, give me detention?” George asks, grinning, and Sapnap snorts, heading across the roof towards him despite his worries. The pavement stretches on below them, and above them, black sky; the bright lights of the parking lot and wispy clouds obscure whatever stars might have been visible. The mid-June air is heavy, so Sapnap shrugs his suit jacket off too as he approaches the ledge.
“You’re not gonna be allowed to graduate,” Sapnap jokes as he sits down, setting his jacket off to the side. George laughs, a little too loud, and Sapnap finally notices the clear plastic cup he has in his left hand, red-pink liquid rippling. George must catch his look, because he swirls the drink around before holding it up.
“Fruit punch,” he says cheerfully. “Someone spiked it.” Sapnap rolls his eyes.
“Figures,” he mutters. “Are you drunk? How much did you have?”
“What are you, my mom? I can hold my alcohol,” George retorts, lips pursing in a moue of indignation. Then, “I am drunk, though.”
It’s just like every other highschool party, then- just with suits and dresses worth hundreds of dollars. Sapnap snickers and nudges his shoulder, and George yelps as he almost drops his drink. “Don’t die getting down from here,” he says, adding, “your suit jacket is gonna be so wrinkled, by the way.” He makes to stand, ready to leave George to his brooding or whatever it had been that he’d been doing before Sapnap interrupted. George frowns, though, and catches Sapnap's sleeve before he can get up.
"You're leaving?"
Sapnap pauses. "You don't want me to?"
"Of course not," George grumbles. "Stay up here, the music was giving me a headache."
Unable to disobey, Sapnap settles back down, even though the grit on the roof will ruin his dress pants; Simp, a voice that sounds suspiciously like just about every single one of his friends combined whispers in his head. George sips his drink, staring up into the clouds, and Sapnap contents himself with tracing constellations in the faint freckles on his cheek.
Below them, the song fades out and another starts- a song for slow dancing, Sapnap can immediately tell. George's entire face lights up and he downs the rest of his drink at a concerning speed before he clambers gracelessly to his feet. Slightly bewildered, Sapnap watches as George straightens his vest and holds out his hand.
"What?" he asks, uncomprehending; George rolls his eyes and wiggles his fingers.
"I want to dance," he says imperiously. Sapnap lets out an overdramatic sigh but allows George to pull him to his feet. For a horrible second, he has no idea what to do with his hands— but then George sets his arms around Sapnap's shoulders and starts swaying them back and forth, and Sapnap just follows his lead. This close, the sound of George's breathing almost drowns out the music entirely. They rock back and forth to the faint music, marking a wobbly circle; it's a pretty terrible slow dance, all things considering.
Sapnap doesn't think he's been happier all year.
George is the one to break their quiet: he huffs out a quiet sigh before he speaks. "Why didn't you ask me to prom?"
The question is so out of the blue that Sapnap lets out a strangled laugh. "What?" he asks around his nervous chuckles, "I didn't- I wasn't going to ask you."
It's a lie, of course, and George frowns up at him because he knows Sapnap's full of shit.
"You were," he says. "You had a whole plan, didn't you?"
Sapnap did. It wasn't a grand gesture, like the guy that brought out a huge banner to ask his boyfriend at the end of one of their football games, but it was sweet- a box full of George's favourite things, snacks and flowers and a dozen sticky notes about what Sapnap loves about him. On a paper glued to the bottom were the words: be my prom date?
He'd scrapped it a week in.
Faking bravado, Sapnap comes to a stop and pulls back enough to look at George. "Why didn't you ask me?" he returns defiantly.
George's eyes are made inky in the dim light on the roof. "I thought you wouldn't say yes," he admits. "Because you were going to ask me, and you didn't, so..."
Drowning in the black night of George’s eyes, Sapnap drops his gaze to his tie, traces the embroidered red and white flowers that George had insisted on, even though they sort of clash with the blue of his suit. Belatedly, Sapnap realizes- it's because they match his.
“For someone so smart, you’re pretty damn stupid,” he says quietly, and tugs at the end of George’s tie. “We could be actually matching suits right now.”
George's breath hitches, and then unravels into a laugh. "You're pretty stupid too," he says. "I asked you to dance, didn't I?"
"Yeah," Sapnap admits, and gently starts rocking them side-to-side again. He swallows. "George?"
"Sap?"
"Will you be my prom date?"
The smile that spreads over George's face is like moonlight. "I suppose," he says, "since we already sort of match." And Sapnap laughs too, because the flowers on his own tie are blue. Later, they’ll hold hands on the way down from the rooftop; now, though, they dance under the starless night sky.