Chapter Text
PART THREE: NOSEBLEED AND RECYCLED GIN
“What are you thinking about?” Jay says, sliding his hands down to the collar of his jacket. He’s asking like he knows the answer and leans in to kiss him again.
Matt turns his head and Jay presses a chaste kiss to his cheek, his stubble rough on his face, and chuckles.
“That’s not — !” Matt practically shouts, before taking a stuttered breath and modulating. “We need to - we should just rest up and regroup for a new plan, tomorrow.”
He takes two steps back from Jay, who drops his arms and leans back against the brick wall. He looks confused.
“What?” He sees the flash of irritation on his face. His pupils are still huge but he’s gotten quieter. He can’t tell if he’s truly coming down or if Matt is shutting him up. This is good, it’s the right thing to do, Matt thinks, despite feeling like he’s been mutilated by a sawn off shotgun.
“This whole thing fell through pretty quickly. A lot of variables.” He pushes both hands through his soaking wet hair, his hood falling down. He’s not playing it cool. It’s the conversational equivalent of running to the emergency exit while screaming.
“Matt, come on…”
“You know how close I was? Derek seemed like he was into me - wild, right?”
“You found him?”
“Oh yeah, almost had it in the bag, but then I saw you out there - just like, tongue fucking some civil engineer, or whatever. And had to pump the brakes.”
Jay scoffs and shakes his head, disbelieving. There’s a look of bitter amusement in his eyes. Matt briefly wonders how often Jay sees right through him but doesn’t show it.
“You ruined the plan to save me. But you almost had it.” Jay nods.
“Exactly. We should head to the stop. We’ve got like, five minutes.”
“That’s very noble, Matt. You must have hated every moment of your rescue mission.”
Matt clenches his jaw. “It takes four minutes to walk there. So let’s just go?”
“I mean, god forbid you left me alone for another second so the plan could work, or-“
Jay needs to stop talking. They need to go home.
“The plan, the actual plan didn’t include you turning gay like — instantly!” Matt shouts. “Seriously, what the fuck — this is a great time to circle back to — I mean, I’m proud of you and all. But since when are you into guys?”
There’s a flicker of real anger, and an edge of humiliation going across Jay’s face, the first time he’s truly dropped all night. It was a low blow. Likely the one thing Matt shouldn’t have said if he wanted to keep this door open. But his own anger is boiling up inside his stomach and he still can’t help but feel like Jay was just fucking with him all night, maybe trying to make Matt do something get would justify him leaving for good, or just to watch him squirm for the sake of it and Matt wants to punish him.
“I mean, maybe not, you’re so gullible,” Matt continues. “You’ll get attention from anyone, and you’re going to wake up tomorrow and think —“
“Why are you playing dumb, Matt?” Jay’s arms are crossed, he won’t look at him.
“I’m not playing dumb, you’re acting dumb! You’re taking random pills from gay middle managers and fucking with my head, as if you won’t cry to me about it in the morning, about how you ruined the plan, and drove me insane all night.”
“Sure.”
“Sure?” Matt says.
“You saw right through my big, gay joke. Can’t get anything past you.” There’s a pinched sadness in his voice, and it almost reaches Matt.
“How the hell are you mad at me right now? Even if I — if I was, like —“
“Like what?” Jay straightens his posture, as if trying not to betray his interest in getting Matt to admit something.
“Why would I — tonight, when you’ve never tried anything? When you’re not acting like you? Why would I take advantage of that?”
“Oh my god-” Jay starts laughing, low in his chest, dropping his head down. The same mocking laughter Matt hasn’t heard in earned for years, until tonight.
“Jay…”
“You’re not going to take advantage of me?” He says, looking up at him. “Since when?”
“You actually think I’d — ”
“Why not? Give me one reason.”
“Because that’s — that’s sick? It’s evil. I respect your like, body, or whatever.”
Jay squints at him, the delicate gears in his head whirring away, he cocks his head.
“Matt, I was wondering if you did this until five minutes ago.”
“What the fuck? Jay, you — you’re serious?”
Matt feels scalding hot and freezing cold at the same time. His heart rockets up in between his ears, while outrage, nausea and something like hot embers churn below. He’d promised that he’d learned his lesson about this when Jay went to the hospital. They’d laughed it off, because Jay forgave him instantly, without question, and the relief was intense but something still crept in the back of his mind, that his promise might have meant nothing to him. He knew he didn’t feel as guilty as he should have. There was a freedom in that but it felt sick, in a way that was curled up and dormant in the bottom of his spine.
“And you were just…going along with it?” Matt continues.
“I didn’t know what to think! I only wondered, and I felt good, but now I know it’s not true. An hour and a half ago we were kissing, and dancing, you were trying to take me home.” Jay says, Matt can tell he’s biting the inside of his lip. “And now you’re a… a gentleman. When I want something, you’re a gentleman. You’re scared. Because you didn’t do this. It’s not your plan.”
“Scared — of you?” Matt knows he’s been caught dead to rights on that one. Anger bleeds into fury. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I’m not, like, into you? If I wanted to construct some insane, drug-and-fuck-my-best-friend scenario, don’t you think I would have done it by now? I could have like — fucked you, whenever I wanted. You’re so, you’re so egotistical! You take one party drug and think I’m in love with you or something. You’re an idiot.”
Matt wanted it to hurt. It’s unbearable pain for him, and he can sense a twelve foot tall neon sign in his mental peripheral that flashes STOP DIGGING, but he just lets it’s light guide his shovel. Jay doesn’t react at all for about ten seconds.
They just stare at each other. This should be the moment where one of them breaks, and the tension diffuses into the cold, early spring air. It doesn’t.
Jay leans up from the brick wall and starts walking past him, towards the bus stop. His expression is icy but more amused than Matt would like.
“Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking.” Jay says, “Because I know your dick doesn’t work anyway.”
“Fuck you.”
Matt pushes his shoulder, harder than he meant. Jay stumbles backward but stays upright.
“You couldn’t even if you wanted to.” He shoves him back. He’s smiling.
Threat Level: Whatever the equivalent of an archeologist is in the species that succeeds human life, one mealy handful of human remains will be dubbed “The most fucked a guy ever was,” and it will be credited as the epicenter of the human extinction event.
Matt slams him back against the wall and Jay kicks at his legs so they both lose their balance. Matt’s post-thought, post-feeling, he’s not wishing for the tension to break anymore. The wind is knocked out of him as he lands on the sidewalk, with Jay halfway on top of him, he can’t catch his breath but he still reaches out to grab at Jay’s face and pull him sideways by his hair. Jay presses his knee into Matt’s stomach while trying to cover his mouth and nose and suffocate him. It’s all so familiar and horrific and very, very close to exactly what he wants. Jay could just kill him right here and be done with it. No one has to think about fucking each other even though Matt’s dick is half hard and he knows he’s grinning.
Matt pitches upward and his forehead collides with Jay’s nose, who recoils back and covers his hands with his face.
“Fuck!” Jay says, panting, looking briefly dazed from the pain. Another frigid thrill pierces through Matt as blood drips down his chin.
“Shit, shit, Jay.” He touches Jay’s elbows and is roughly shaken off. This has to be the end of it, Matt thinks. He ignores the muted thud of disappointment in his chest.
Jay looks at Matt, right down the barrel of his eyeline, and pushes him back down. He sees Jay’s glassy eyes and bloody chin through the wrong end of a telescope before he leans down and spits blood onto Matt’s face.
Nothing else has ever happened to Matt besides this, it turns out. Weird. He could have sworn he had a bunch of other stuff going on. His whole life has been reduced to this copper tasting pinprick.
The adrenaline overload hits and summons the gin & tonic up from inside of his stomach. He uses his full strength to push Jay off of him and Matt vomits onto the sidewalk. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jay flat on back, head turned to watch him, like he’s never seen anything else either.
INTERLUDE: CANADIAN CLASSICS ORIGINAL
The blinking lights of a plane crawl across the sky as Jay breathes through his mouth. He wonders where it’s coming and going from. Matt is still retching on all fours and Jay is trying to be regretful, or at least disgusted, but can’t locate either impulse. He’s never been sure where his emotions are supposed to live in his body. They usually just happen to him, or very often they don’t. But tonight they just keep happening and happening and they all seem to be the wrong ones at the wrong time.
Matt doesn’t want to keep fighting. He’s sitting on his haunches now and leaning over, his eyes closed and probably fighting another round of sickness. He feels a laugh try to claw its way out of him and stifles it. He wants to go again. He wants another pill. But Matt never plays a game he didn’t start for very long. Jay feels like a tetherball colliding with Matt clockwise and counterclockwise. No matter what direction he goes, it’s back into his hands.
Matt was never fun to drink with even though he seemed the type. One or two beers just turns the dial up on his personality, that’s fun, and intense, but any hard liquor turns on him fast. Four shots in and he’ll sink in slow motion like the Titanic, but Jay knows he’s not that far gone tonight. If Jay is honest, which seems to be the case tonight, kneeing him in the stomach and spitting blood on his face probably didn’t help. And the kissing, and dancing, and trying to sleep with him.
The first and only time Matt ever blacked out was in their early twenties and it put the fear of God in Matt like Jay had never seen before, he was so upset the next morning that he couldn’t even bring himself to make up some outrageous thing he’d done just to fuck with him. Matt accused him of lying anyway, when Jay said all he’d done was ask him over and over again if Jay was going to still be his best friend ten, twenty, thirty years from now. It was the first time Matt said he loved him and the only time he ever said it directly. “But not like that. You know I don’t mean it like that. It’s better than that.”
Jay sits up and the pain radiates through his head. He doesn’t think his nose is broken, thankfully.
As soon as he offers a hand to help Matt stand up and is wordlessly rejected, some vital part of him goes down into the burrow and he doesn’t feel a single thing. This is a known protocol, Matt calls it his “stoat mode” and he usually lures him out of it with varying levels of success. He’s not getting that tonight. Sometimes it lasts fifteen minutes, but his record is three days during the summer he got grounded. Jay wonders if “permanent” is the best case scenario as he looks down at Matt. The last three hours of his life feel like they happened to someone else, in a different country, last year. A story about the inside of a kaleidoscope. He’s not quite out yet but the colors are muting.
When they were fourteen years old Matt told Jay that the members of the Donner party started seeing each other as food after they’d “broken the seal” on eating human meat, how the body would do anything to survive when it knew it was starving to death. This freaked him out, but three days later when Matt was begging him to practice kissing because neither of them had girlfriends yet, he refused, not fully knowing why. They’d spent hours doing pick up lines on each other and the sun was rising through the window-well of Matt’s finished basement. Anytime Matt looked at him too long with his open face and beady, frantic eyes Jay figured he was only going stir crazy, he needed to find a girl, and this would stop. Otherwise they’d eat each other alive. There had to be one single thing of Jay’s that Matt didn’t have. He forgot about the Donner party eventually, and he stopped turning away when Matt looked at him, and stopped itemizing all together.
It’s too late to get the bus and they’ll have to wait for the next but neither of them can stand still, so Matt picks a direction, saying nothing. This is a new and empty planet. It would be so much easier if Matt had done all of this. That he knew all along what Jay didn’t know he wanted and created the perfect conditions to get it out of him. But it turned out to be a double-blind mess. If Matt isn’t flying the plane, and Jay isn’t flying the plane, blah blah blah.
He spots a corner store and wanders in. Jay never really liked smoking in his twenties, barely dodged a full on habit through pure laziness, and it only got him laid maybe three or four times but it just makes sense right now. He’s having a fucked up night and maybe he’ll look kind of cool. Jay will take anything he can get. Matt slides down near the entrance and puts his head between his knees. Jay rolls his eyes and it hurts. Matt acts like a cartoon character and then wonders how Jay figured him out.
The cashier unenthusiastically tries to refuse Jay’s entry once he sees the blood on his face, but he keeps walking towards the bathroom and curses when he realizes he needs a key. He buys a pack of Canadian Classics, a lighter and a travel-sized mouthwash.
Matt was right on one thing, when he was freaking out before they started wailing on each other. Since when was he into guys? He’d always had a discerning taste in men he figured was jealousy, or good taste, nothing that could be acted on. Tonight it just seemed like fun. He didn’t really think ahead…and it was fun. There should be a crisis here, one that started the first time he ever watched porn and had his attention split fifty-fifty between the guy and the girl, but he can’t find it. He remembers that Matt didn’t even look at the TV and just stared right at him, like a scientist at a subject. He should have told him to stop staring and swatted at him but his gaze felt like a heat lamp, warmer than the glass of the CRT they sat mere inches from so they could turn it off at any sound from upstairs. Jay never stood a chance.
The haze breaks when he sees his fucked up face, the air rushing out of his lungs like a popped tire. He’d give anything not to know the man staring back at him in an oversized open button up and a white tank top speckled with blood. He washes his face with the hospital smelling soap four times, washes up his arms, feels his skin turning raw and pink. What the fuck is going on?
He knows he’s still a little high, even if the returns are diminishing, otherwise he’d be crawling back to Matt begging to be carried home. And Matt would do it, rising from his depressive state like an honorable knight to bring his maiden in distress through the threshold. But Jay still feels the thrill of dragging them both further down into the pit they’d dug for each other and pretended to forget the depth of. They furnished the upper tiers and Matt dangles them off the edge, ending up in the hospital, getting chased around the streets, lost in winding tunnels just to make a valiant return to the place right below where the sunlight would touch. But when Jay had him pinned on the sidewalk he’d gotten a lucid, intoxicating look towards the very bottom and knew in his heart he still wanted to know how far Matt would be willing to carry them back up. That bargain had cost him his entire life, his nebulous “potential” that everyone but Matt wanted him to to be solely responsible for. He doesn’t feel bitter about the trade, for now, because he loves this game, and loves Matt unlike anyone has ever loved someone before, whatever that might mean.
All he wants right now is to be selfish and get what Matt is scared to give him. Everything he’s ever felt about is twice as big in this grimey bathroom. It’s not unlike the descent down his old apartment’s staircase, holding a canister of gasoline, or knocking one of Matt’s teeth out in a paddle boat on Lake Ontario.
He runs the water as cold as it can go and splashes his face, it doesn’t go away. Isn’t he the nice one now? It’s so much easier. He hates thinking. He’s doing a lot of it right now and it’s all twisted up. He keeps asking: Why didn’t Matt just lie and say he did it? That fight would have been so much simpler than this one, maybe, he has no clue how he’ll feel in the morning. He never does.
He grabs a handful of paper towels, runs a few under the sink and leaves the store. Jay still wants to kiss Matt over and over and over again, forever, he wants to grab onto his hair and shake his head. He wants to get eaten alive. He’s sick to death of memory lane and new contexts and what the two of them mean, he wants Matt now, every single atom of him. But Matt respects his body, apparently. What a fucking joke.
“C’mon, let’s go home. We’ve got five minutes to get to the other stop.” Jay says, tapping Matt’s head with the bottle of mouthwash.
“Yeah. Alright.” Matt shakily stands up, eyes still on the concrete. Jay hands him the paper towels to clean up with.
“Is this supposed to make up for it?” Matt asks, then takes a swig of mouthwash.
“No. I don’t know if I’m sorry yet.” Jay says, turning to walk away and opening the pack of cigarettes. “I know you’re not.”
Matt spits onto the street. “Fantastic.”
“You want a smoke?”
“I’m good, man.” Matt sighs, and rubs the blood and spit off of his face. He still looks like shit. They both do.
PART FOUR: A FINE MELANGE
They get to the stop right on time and the bus is almost empty. One person near the front is slumped over, probably missed their stop ten minutes ago, or they’re just riding the line to get out of the cold. Another two seem like commuters, tucked into their phones with earbuds in. Matt and Jay sit near the back on seats facing the opposite window.
Matt’s at a level of desolation he always knew was possible, but was unsure he would ever reach. It’s freeing somehow. He wants to stop thinking about anything other than the taste of Jay’s blood in his mouth. Or how it felt when they both hit the ground breathless, and the pain set in with a resonant heat.
Matt looks to his side, Jay stares at the darkness of the street passing by with no discernible expression. Maybe the come down has finally reached them both and it’s a race to the bottom.
Is this something they can sleep off? He has a vivid image of waking up alone in their house tomorrow and his hands start itching. He wonders if he can get Jay to talk to him. If not, he’s taking the charcoal grill into the house and removing the batteries from the carbon monoxide detectors. No, he won’t, but it felt good to think about.
“How fucked are we — scale of one to ten?” Matt asks, unable to bear the silence any longer.
“Fucked.” Jay nods. The bridge of his nose is starting to swell, he’ll probably have two black eyes tomorrow.
“That’s not a number.”
“What’s a ten?” Jay says, with a sigh. It feels like a small, flickering light in the pitch black that he’s entertaining him. It always does.
“One of us is dead - and we’re hanging out with the taxidermied one.”
“What?“
“It's in our wills.”
“You wrote my will?” Jay closes his eyes, as if fighting against himself to ask for clarification.
“I mean we have all the same stuff. They both go like: the other one gets all the stuff, and the dead one is taxidermied. Easy. God, you’d take such bad care of me though…probably just chuck me in the basement. Or use me as a coatrack, if I'm lucky.”
“I didn't think you can taxidermy someone like that…”
“So - you're telling me you wouldn't even try? I’d take like, immaculate care of you.”
They're silent for a long moment. The corner of Jay’s mouth twitches, Matt can’t tell if it’s disgust or affection. There’s still some glitter on his face.
“Probably a seven. Out of taxidermied.”
“Pretty grim.”
“Yeah.” He smiles, just barely but more than enough for Matt.
A commuter pulls the wire for the next stop. When the bus slows to the curb, the night air rushes in and Matt understands that his life isn’t going to be the same anymore. The sun can rise and set again, he can make a call about the window and a new plan will be made, but Matt could have all the mouthwash in the world but it wouldn’t get the taste of him out. It’s not going to be OK, he could make it something else.
Jay sniffs and tips his head back against the glass. His long legs are crossed at the ankles, stretched into the aisle. Matt is possessed by the sudden vision of getting to his knees and putting his head in Jay’s lap and begging for absolution. He doesn’t, but the feeling is writhing into his brain like a parasite.
“I'm sorry I didn't take advantage of you sexually while you were on drugs.”
Jay sighs, biting the inside of his cheek. “But you’d taxidermy me?”
“You - you want me to promise to rub up on your corpse a little bit? Would that make the situation more appealing?”
“Matt, this is disgusting, stop-”
“You can do the same to me.”
Jay turns to stare at him. His dark eyes catalogue Matt in some way he can’t quantify. He looks serious, and tired, and crazy.
“But not while we're both alive…” Jay says, a quiet, sad smile crossing his face.
Fuck. They’re both alive. They’ve been alive and together this entire time. He’s in love with him and it feels like hell on earth but it didn’t that long ago. What’s he doing all of this for? Matt sees them suddenly as microscopic specks careening through an empty plane at a million miles an hour. Most of space is space, and the distance between atoms means nothing ever really touches. But he and Jay are as close as two living things can get with an eternity of nothing behind and in front of them. Matt’s his mirror, Jay is his mirror, there’s no one else. He’s an idiot.
Matt clings to the still damp front of Jay’s undershirt and pulls him into a kiss. It’s not a very nice one, Jay inhales sharply and pushes his hands up Matt’s arms, gripping onto his shoulders. He tastes like cigarettes and they both desperately need to shower. Their teeth click together and Matt drags his fingernails on Jay’s scalp, gets his tongue bitten in response. Matt could never understand couples who act up in public, but this is an emergency. Planet earth will explode if this doesn’t play out how it should. The announcement for their stop rings out and Matt clambors around the window until he finds the cord and pulls it, not separating from him for a second.
They walk to their house like they left the oven on, neither daring to speak and break the spell. Jay doesn’t even pretend to look for his keys that Matt knows he left on the coffee table, like he usually does, and Matt pulls him inside, shuts the door and pushes Jay against it.
Matt wants to make him pay for it. Matt wants to pay for it. They’re caught in stalemate at the entryway of their house, trying to crawl into each others skin, pushing each other around, knocking a pile of mail onto the floor and almost slipping on it.
Matt puts both hands on Jay’s forehead to pry him off and sinks his fingers into his hair. Jay looks insane, angry and ecstatic all at once.
“You really wanted to fuck around on me?” Matt says, pulling his head back further. Jay’s fingers are digging into Matt’s sides enough to hurt.
Jay smiles.
“Did you like showing off?”
“Yep.” He presses against Matt’s leg and can feel his erection. His head swims.
“You would have let them do anything to you, I bet.” Matt moves his hands to the sides of his head and pats one side of his face with a bit of force. Not too much.
Jay’s eyes start to get glossy and he shakes his head in refusal. Matt pushes his thigh up onto Jay experimentally, he sucks in a sharp breath and keens into him. Matt feels a pang of desire like he’s never felt before at the base of his spine, ringing outward.
“Really? You seemed pretty desperate.” Matt pulls his leg back and Jay tries to close the gap but Matt clutches onto his hip to keep him in place.
“You really think my dick doesn’t work?” Matt asks.
“Does it?” Jay says, and bites the heel of Matt’s hand.
Matt pushes him off entirely and drags him by the arm to their couch. Jay playfully tries to pull him back just to not do what he wants, without success. Unfortunately, Matt said all that despite knowing he’s going to last about three seconds, so the answer may end up being “sort of.” That’s fine. His entire body is one raw nerve with Jay on him like this, taking him apart in pieces, with every second of it some brand new thing he never thought he’d see or feel. The friction of his pants around his dick is driving him to madness.
Matt crawls on top of Jay and tells himself he’s done something he doesn’t know how to do at least a thousand times by now. This is the most beautiful man he’ll ever see in his entire life, Jay’s dark hair is a mess, his eyelashes fluttering, his chest rising and falling. Matt could spend an entire night just watching how his collarbones move. Jay tries to pull off Matt’s shirt even though it’s too tight for that, Matt sits up and let’s him unbutton it. His agile hands on his bare chest make his vision blur as he shrugs the shirt off and Jay moves down his waistband. Matt shifts away and pulls him up a little to take off his button up but has him keep the blood stained tank top on.
Jay grins at this and licks at his mouth, it’s filthy, he starts sucking on Matt’s tongue and he remembers the guy in the club and scrambles to unbutton Jay’s pants. He cants his hips up and there’s a brief struggle for balance and they realize they forgot to take off their shoes. Matt’s happy this is kind of ridiculous. Sex always seemed so dire from the outside but he’s untying Jay’s shoes on the couch with his jeans around his ankles and he’s in love with him. He’s not going to cry about it just yet.
He leans down to kiss Jay’s neck and sucks a bruise into his collarbone, he can taste the salt of his sweat and wants to get his mouth on every single part of him. Jay whines low in his chest and grinds against Matt’s leg. Matt, as if he just invented the concept, realizes he could suck Jay’s dick. His own erection twitches as if telling him this is the best option, he’s never consciously listened to it in his entire life but maybe this is a good time to start. He wonders if that’s too advanced, or if it’ll ruin the power dynamic they’ve started here. He has no fucking clue what he’s doing.
First thought, best thought, he tells himself, not really believing it but he’s already pulling Jay up to sit on the edge of the couch and kneeling down. Jay’s eyebrows raise in surprise and he pushes his hands through Matt’s hair. There’s shiny spot of precome in the front of Jay’s boxer briefs. Matt reaches out and palms at him, Jay tips his head back.
“Matt…” He whines softly, his fingers tightening in his hair.
This is the one part of Jay that Matt has never seen, so he keeps going, slowly, watching him rock into the touch and hearing the hitched breaths escape him. He starts to get frustrated which Matt luxuriates in.
“Please, come on…” Jay chuckles, pulling on Matt’s hair in earnest.
“Watch it.” Matt says and bites down on Jay’s leg.
Jay hisses and tries to yank him off, shuddering slightly and Matt feels him trying to control his breathing. That almost sent Jay over the edge. He makes a note of that.
Matt looks up at Jay as he pulls his cock out. He can tell he wants to break eye contact but Matt doesn’t let up. It feels burning hot in his hand, Jay finally closes his eyes once he starts stroking him in earnest.
Now or never, Matt thinks, and runs his tongue along Jay’s length from base to tip.
“Oh my god.” Jay says shakily, pressing his fingers into Matt’s scalp.
The hours and hours of sweat and adrenaline have Matt intoxicated by the scent of him, he tastes like salt and skin and something that’s only Jay. He keeps his hand at the base and takes a moment to push his hand further into the slit of his boxers and feel the coarse hair leading up to his stomach, and takes the tip of his dick into his mouth, circling his tongue experimentally. This seems to be the right move as his name is said again. He takes him in further, careful of his teeth and still working his tongue. Jay’s legs tense up as though he’s trying not to thrust into his mouth, the thought makes him even more lightheaded. His own erection strains against the front of his pants but he knows if he touches it he’ll come so hard he might have a brain aneurysm. He starts jerking him off with his hand and hollows out his cheeks.
Matt pushes too far and his throat seizes against his cock as a warning. Jay whines loudly and thrusts upwards and it happens again. Tears prickle at the edges of his eyes and he feels saliva drip down his chin, his nose starts running. He doesn’t stop. Some part of his logic mind has shut off, he wants to keep Jay like this forever, unraveling him into a mess that can only cry for more and more from Matt. This is all his now.
Jay’s grip on his hair becomes more erratic and Matt has to push on his hip to stop him from trying to fuck his throat. Maybe someday. Jay seems more than content with what he’s doing now.
“Shit, Matt - wait.” He chokes out between whimpers that Matt will be replaying to himself for the rest of his life.
Matt doesn’t wait. He knows what Jay means and wants it all for himself. He takes him as far as he dares over and over again, jerking fast and Jay comes in his mouth with a sob, pushing Matt’s head down and choking him. Matt gets one swallow in before he has to pull back and cough, the convulsion in his diaphragm almost giving his dick enough friction to finish him off.
Trying to catch his breath, he looks up and sees Jay’s hand covering his face, blood smeared on his hand, his eyes are completely lost and he’s panting like he just ran a mile. He looks completely fucked up and spent. A spear of white hot pleasure impales him and Matt comes in his pants, still coughing, a strangled animal sound escaping his mouth.
A long few seconds pass where they both try to get their bearings, but Matt’s bearings are fucked. Jay wipes a new swatch of blood into his tank top and tries to pull him up onto the couch and has to settle for getting Matt to scoot back and drops to the floor in front of him.
Jay grabs his face and kisses him. It’s a horrible, unbelievable melange of blood, sweat, come and spit, but Matt takes it all in because it belongs to him now. Tears are running down his face and the kiss becomes a lost cause because a sob is ricocheting its way through him. He presses his forehead against Jay’s and through the blur sees that he’s crying too, but more stoically because he’s always been a pretty crier. He’s pretty at everything, to Matt, and it rips him up in every direction.
They hold each other for a long moment, Matt running his hands over Jay’s back, trying to get his pathetic hiccups under control. Eventually he sits back and holds onto Jay’s hands. There’s a lot he could say to him, something really meaningful. A poignant statement about love and passion and forgiveness that will really tie this whole thing together.
Instead he finds himself saying:
“How asleep are both of your legs right now?”
“Yeah... I’ve been wondering how I’m going to stand for a minute.”
They both laugh giddily, their neurons ragged and sick of what they’ve been put through.
“Do we have to call 911? Hey, two guys in their mid-thirties sat down wrong?”
Jay presses his forehead against Matt’s temple, breathless and overtaken by his own laughter.
“Bird, you try first, you have the couch for leverage.” He says in between gasps. “Put your fucking dick away first!”
It’s a bit of a vaudeville routine but they manage it. They take a shower together and realize it kind of sucks as a joint activity, if only because Jay refuses to get out from under the water because it’s too cold and Matt just shivers in the corner like a ghost. But Jay washes his hair and he almost falls asleep standing up.
They don’t have the energy to make it downstairs to their bunk beds, so they curl up together in Jay’s bed across the hall in just their underwear. If Matt could have stayed conscious for three more seconds he would attempt to catalog every tiny movement of the muscles in Jay’s bony shoulder blades against his chest.
EPILOGUE: ONE CREPE, ADD EVERY FRUIT ON THE MENU
Jay was positive that he’s had a headache before but this one is proving him wrong. There’s a knot of barbed wire bouncing around in his skull. He tries to bury his face in the pillow, but as soon as his nose makes contact he suppresses a yelp in pain. He opens his eyes cautiously — huge mistake, the early morning sun coming in from the window is bright like a flashbulb. But Matt’s there, asleep right next to him.
Seeing Matt really, truly unconscious is a rare sight. He’s a light sleeper and will rise into a full state of awareness almost instantly, like he was only a video game character on pause. Jay weathers the one trillion lumens of his bedroom to stare at him breathing softly, his face mushed into the pillow. Jay can feel all the chemistry in his body fighting against him, he’s sick and sad and embarrassed and will not leave this bed under any circumstances. But Matt’s going to take care of him. That’s nice. He falls back asleep.
This isn’t a headache someone can sleep off. He awakes to Matt dropping something on his floor, lingering at the side of his bed.
“Fuck, sorry.” He whispers. Matt’s still only in his underwear, Jay is once again valiant and opens his eyes a single millimeter to look at him. He needs serotonin more than he needs water, and he really needs water right now. He spots a glass on his side table.
“Matt close the curtain please…” He whines. “And get me the water.”
“Bossy, bossy.” He leans over and shuts them.
Jay sits up, much to his regret, his entire body hurts like hell, and is handed the glass. Matt just idles there while he drinks.
“How’re you feeling?” He says. and Jay realizes just how hoarse Matt sounds. All that shouting last night, and sucking dick. Insane.
“Like I was sent down a garbage chute.” Jay says, he doesn’t sound much better. He closes his eyes. “You sound crazy right now.” He chuckles.
“I mean - that was one way to try and shut me up. I guess.” He laughs. “Can I uh, is it ok if I get back in bed?”
“What’s stopping you?” He cracks one eye open. Matt’s looking shy again.
“I mean. I just didn’t know if, like, how things would go. In the morning.”
“How long have you been awake worrying about this?” Jay pulls the covers back and reaches his arm out. Matt sighs and crawls in.
“Dunno.” Matt says, knowing but not wanting to say. “I got up to piss, and find my phone, and then I played my DS, which you said you didn’t have, by the way, for a while on the floor.”
Jay laughs and gently pushes Matt onto his back so he can lay his head on his chest. They were actually beating the shit out of each last night, Jay thinks. They can do whatever they want. It’s fun. He’s incredibly warm, the heat doesn’t work too well upstairs so he hums appreciatively. He splits his time between the top bunk and his room upstairs, depending on how late he’s awake and how cold it gets up here. Jay has resolved to make Matt his hot water bottle for the rest of his life. The skin to skin contact with Matt is a lot to handle, there’s so much of him, but Jay’s surprised how easy it feels despite being so new. His big pillow with an overheating brain.
“Oh…” Matt says, his heart is going crazy. His arms hesitantly circle Jay, before starting to hold him almost too tight. But Jay likes it. They stay there for a while and he listens to his heartbeat settle, hears him breathe.
“We never bought any food.” Jay says, nearly asleep until a hunger pang rouses him.
“What?” Matt says, he sounds totally blissed out.
“Are you hungry?” Jay says, pinching him on the side. Matt scoffs.
“Can I enjoy this for one second? You’re just saying that you’re hungry, but asking me instead.” He ruffles Jay’s hair.
“I don’t feel good…” He says, pitifully.
Matt sighs, heavy and belabored. Jay likes feeling it so close. Matt reaches over for his phone.
“Alright - my poor, ailing Birdie. What’s gonna heal you?” He says.
Jay closes his eyes, watching Matt’s phone with a cracked screen that he keeps on full brightness at all times for no reason, is like daggers in his eyes.
“I don’t kn-“
“It was a rhetorical question, actually. You want to see if the crepe place calls me again because they think I added every single fruit topping by mistake.”
“Yeah.” He smiles, it hurts his nose but he doesn’t care. Matt’s quiet for a second, then kisses Jay on the top of his head. He hears his heart flutter a little, or maybe it’s his own, or both.
“This would make a normal person so sick.” He says.
“It’s fruit, Matt, it’s good for you…”