 successful week of NYU and having turned 21 a few weeks prior, although it had turned at an amazing speed into a celebration more of that most treasured of all college holidays, Random Drunkenness Day. It had been a good first week, though, actually; better than River had somehow managed to expect, in spite of all efforts by himself and others to the contrary. There were times in his first classes when he had felt like things were so much the same that there couldn’t have been any point in his transferring at all, and times when it was like he had moved into a completely different universe, and both, somehow, had been good feelings. The sense of being lost with the keys to the city — the what now? feeling — was dimming, and he guessed it would continue to do so. …And he found a part of him didn’t want to see it go, but hadn’t he sort of expected that? It was hard to reconsider things; crazy hard to jerk your head around and look from a whole different angle, especially after a lifetime of practice the other way. But maybe worth it? Who could say.
Austin yawned, having rolled on his back at some point, and then belched loud enough to nearly make the glassware in the cabinets rattle. “Beer,” he said, appreciatively. River rolled his eyes.
River scruffed Austin’s head again on his way up, and sauntered vaguely into the kitchen. He wasn’t thinking much while he filled the glasses, which was always one of his most cherished upsides of being drunk, but he was aware in a distant way of being sort of horny and that Austin was probably not going to go to bed and let him have any time to himself anytime soon. At least he was drunk enough that it wasn’t too hugely pressing a concern — just a needling restlessness at the back of his mind. It seemed like a problem he’d been having a lot this summer, more so even than when he’d lived in a dorm room, and sort of harder just to solve in the bathroom. But never mind that.
At which point River really had no choice but to grab one of the pillows and attempt to smother Austin with it. It was a matter of honor. Austin, however, only gave him the satisfaction of struggling feebly for a few seconds before going limp, at which point River lifted the pillow back up with a sigh.
“You did not even try,” he rebuked Austin, who was all wide-eyed innocence.
“I’m dead,” he replied. River raised an eyebrow.
… It was just Austin. He knew that. But just Austin seemed… not very simple at all, lately. Or maybe always, he wasn’t even sure. Was that really possible? It seemed to him both not just possible but plausible, and like it would be like he’d been living with a grizzly bear in his bathroom without noticing. Oh, says River when you finally ask him about it, I guess there is. I always just pushed past him to brush my teeth. Figured it was a really big brown towel.
He wasn’t gay, was the thing. He really wasn’t. A number of highly detailed guilty fantasies about Sara and the grainy newspaper photo he still had of her all still voted no. He was deeply and sincerely in favor of breasts, and he’d only loitered around the LGBTQ booth at the Student Groups Fair in faux-casual terrified fascination until a sweet-faced girl with a cowrie shell necklace had asked if he needed anything and he’d had to run for it. But Austin was very… Austin. It was occasionally sort of a problem, how Austin he was. And a part of River couldn’t help taking into account those extra letters on the sign, too. It was possible — alarmingly possible — that the answer didn’t have to be unequivocally yes, either.
But god, he didn’t even know what the hell anymore, and he was so too drunk or possibly not drunk enough for this, and they were still messing around and Austin was going to notice him hesitating, and was he actually leaning in toward Austin’s mouth? No. No. So much no. So incorrect.
So he did the only natural thing and smothered Austin with the pillow again. Just now it felt pretty therapeutic.
Austin rolled his eyes. “Just a beer zombie. I’ll be un-zombified by morning.” River snorted.
“Uh-huh. That’s what they all say.” He shoved at Austin’s head, in a reasonably affectionate manner. “You going to bed?” Oh, what a blessed miracle it would be if Austin were going to bed. Angels would sing and deeply confused college students would jerk off. Etc. etc.
“Night,” Austin mushed. His accent got worse when he was drunk, and the word seemed to have about five extra syllables floating around inside it. River tried not to smile, and shut off the light on his way out.
Then he went into the bathroom and closed the door.
Then, some untraceable span of drunktime later, he came back out again, and turned off the light in there, too. And took a couple steps toward his room.

The twitch and tiny grunting noise under him seemed to suggest Austin had really been asleep, but he was definitely awake now. His mouth sort of answered the kiss after a few seconds, actually, very dazedly but with a confidence River didn’t think he’d ever have in kissing as long as he lived. Apparently it was Austin’s personal philosophy to kiss first and ask questions later, which just figured. And at least he wasn’t throwing River across the room yet. Life felt giddy and lunatic, like River was suspended a long way over earth, hovering way high above himself, a pendulum on a very long rope.
  Unsure when that had happened.
Austin was also way too good a kisser to be fair at all, which he made a vague mental note to take some sort of retribution for sometime later, when he wasn’t quite so preoccupied with the unthinkable fact that Austin was kissing back.
After a second Austin’s weight shifted around a little under him, and in the process his knee lifted, pushing against River’s hard-on. Hard to say if it was intentional or just a happy accident, but he’d damn well take it either way; he pushed into him, down onto him, letting his weight really settle and his mouth slip around wet on Austin’s. Austin tasted like beer and those godawful beer nut things and the huge hamburger loaded with everything except, like, baby seal that he’d had before the beer, and it was really just disgusting, and River was going to have to drag him to the bathroom and make him brush his teeth or something just as soon as he could stop kissing him. Which should be… in another eight years or so, barring complications, give or take. He barely noticed that he’d been gripping fistfuls of the front of Austin’s shirt in his hands, as though they were having a drunken brawl instead of a drunken — what? makeout session? were they making out yet, was Austin even awake? — and River were about to give Austin a piece of his mind. A piece of something else, maybe.
This went on for a good long while. Hard to be certain how long exactly, but at least about two and a half minutes, which was at least a full two minutes and twenty-eight seconds longer than River might have expected it to go on without Austin doing something. Like, say, pulling away from the kiss, or drawing his head back and away, like he did next. Caught off guard, River hovered above him, not sure where or how to move and for now just trying to breathe.
Austin was silent for a few more very awkward seconds — and then laughed, in full voice, startlingly loud in this dark quiet room. River could feel him relaxing underneath him, settling back on the bed, and his eyelids fluttered when that pressed Austin’s hip briefly into his groin.   “You? Are a job of work. You know that, right?” River didn’t answer and fortunately he didn’t elaborate, just settled his hands more comfortably at River’s hips. Which also made him squirm a little bit, helplessly. God, it just figured, he was so hard he thought he was seriously about to die and Austin wanted to have a conversation about it.
“So how long’s this been going on?” Austin asked, in a slightly lower voice. River’s eyes had adjusted enough to the dark that he could just see Austin’s expression: smiling, but gentle, his eyes catching the most of the light.
Austin’s grin was as bad as ever in the dark: what little light there was flashed off teeth. “Yes, sir,” he said, in a doofy almost-purr, and then lifted his leg against River’s crotch again, which really wasn’t fair and not least because he then used his advantage to flip them both over. River landed flat on his back on the bed with Austin on top of him, huge and heavy and hot and his knee pushed in between River’s thighs and god dammit, and breath squeezed out of his own chest this time in a beery strangled whimper. 
It wasn’t long of this before Austin’s big hand started yanking at the hem of River’s shirt, which… crap, he had not been counting on, but okay.