Chapter Text
Greg and Tom stand next to each other in the middle of a small field, or a big yard, under the setting sun. Drifting further from a dying star couldn’t be more beautiful. More uncharacteristic of New York.
This used to be Tom’s secret spot. He comes here to breathe, he tells Greg, when the view from his office is too overwhelming with all the traffic and skyscrapers and dominion.
Greg came into Tom’s office on a particularly bad day for traffic, adjusting his hair as he usually does before he sees Tom. The latter saw him in the reflection of the glass this time and smirked to himself. He had let Greg speak for a while, listening to nothing, then dragged him behind the building and down some pathway to this patch of grass decorated by mushrooms and an oak tree.
It was a little foolish to share this with Greg. He deserved to see the way the bees danced along the hedges like they’d forgotten they were stuck in New York, but it took away his personal homely comfort in exchange for an awkward moment with the man he’d been sucking off at work.
“It’s beautiful,” Greg breathes, taking in the serenity of it all. The grass is long enough to sway at his feet.
“Sometimes a squirrel shows up. They hop around like they’re animated. It’s cute.”
Orange slowly diffuses into the sky around them.
“I can sense the better air quality.” Greg jokes, though his lungs do feel at ease here. His brain isn’t afforded the same luxury as his lungs; he can’t help but feel out of place. Invading nature’s little clump of persistent life with his corporate carbon dioxide, capitalistic derby shoes, and the blunt tucked into his pocket square pocket that he knows he’ll eventually smoke out here.
He’s a black box among earth-toned blurs: he doesn’t blend in at all. He can’t. If he could verbalise that he’d know how to apologise to Tom for ruining his escape from the business world.
“So what was it you came to talk to me about before I brought you out here?”
“I, uh, I need you to sign some forms regarding the…” he gestures vaguely, “y’know. anyways, it really is lovely out here.”
“You stayed behind for 2 hours just to get a signature you could’ve forged?”
“Well, that and I wanted to use the bathroom.” Tom chuckles at this. “But I don’t think I need to go anymore.”
Greg didn't intend for it to sound like he’d pissed and/or shat himself.
“I mean I don’t want to—in regards to our… situation… I don’t—”
A truck passes nearby.
They don’t belong here. They don’t fit. Their home is somewhere in the darkness of the conglomerate; two businessmen in a sea of them; yet their faces burn the same pink as the baby’s-breaths at their feet.
Tom kicks a few mushrooms around. “You don’t have to let me blow you if you don’t want to. It’s not a fireable offense.”
“That’s not—thank you—but I meant that I wanted to tell you that I—”
“Don’t you love the way the setting sun hits the grass?”
“Tom!” Greg exasperates.
Tom waits a moment for Greg to finish his sentence. He doesn’t wait long. Tom wouldn’t share this with anyone else because no one else would get it—not being born into chaos like a supernova but ushered towards it like a fawn near a highway. He’d found his way back to fresh pasture and guided Greg with him, across the highway, albeit, and he felt Greg’s head turn back to the chaos. To a different pasture. Away from him.
“Don’t… don’t fucking make me redundant, Greg. Even though it sucks raw ass literally being at your feet all the time… it’s refreshing; degrading myself so I know how the 99% feel being subservient. And I know I said I wouldn’t fire you but I thought I could bring you with me when I rose to the top of the company and I may—”
“Tom—”
“—I may reconsider that,”
“I just wanted to ask if we could— stop getting defensive —” Greg holds Tom’s arms down, “—if we could be more. I know I can’t be your mistress or whatever but you mean more to me than just a quick blowie—”
“—Don’t call it that—”
“And I—I wanted to show you that in a way—in a way that isn’t just blowing you back, y’know?” He holds Tom and Tom somehow hears the declaration for what it is instead of a string of words. He avoids Greg’s piercing eyes. They’re too strong; too hopeful.
But they’re magnetic. And Tom finds himself looking at them like a fool, their light blue discs playing old CDs full of love songs, old love songs that his parents would dance to in the attic of their old home. Tom can feel the warmth of matching dusty sweaters and fireplace logs and he almost falls for Greg.
Because he clearly hasn’t already.
He almost falls into a kiss he’s been waiting for for too long now. He keeps his back straight, his posture perfect, he holds his breath in hopes of dying before admitting his true feelings, and he replies curtly: “You don’t like me like you think you do.”
“Yes I do—”
“You don’t, and you’ll realise that when you try to change things that don’t need to be changed.”
“Just let me show you,”
“What do you have to show?”
“That I love you?” His expressions are so sincere.
Tom inhales sharply. “No you don’t, you fucking idiot. You don’t know what love feels like so you just search for it feverishly and you scatter the bones of your love-feasts all over the floor until you find real love. This isn’t real love, Greg, this is a feast. Just enjoy the meal. And thank the fucking chef more often, okay?”
His eyes dart around the floor. He looks at all the daisies beneath their polished shoes and sympathises with their slow and crushing demise.
Greg holds Tom’s reluctant fist between his hands and soothes the tension in Tom’s fingers. He holds the fist up between them and works the fingers loose, slotting his own between them to connect the corporate black boxes they had become. Greg relayed the thoughts that he’d processed in his brain and Tom denied them repeatedly, with the words being outside of his parameters. He repeatedly misinterpreted it because he couldn’t handle a truth with a purely positive outcome. it hadn’t happened before and it wouldn’t happen now.
“Tom—”
“You don’t.”
“I love you.”
“No.”
Greg huffs and pouts indignantly before pulling him into a kiss. He grips onto the sides of Tom’s suit for dear life and kisses him for death, their lips stuck like two jigsaw pieces in the wrong place. Though this is certainly in his top 5 worst kisses ever Greg pulls him closer and sighs deeply into Tom, his form slacking but his mind racing in anticipation of a greater response than just Tom’s lips sucking on his. He’s blushing too; eyes still open in shock of his own impulses; and if Tom could see him now he’d never live it down.
Tom, the man only just realising this is real, pushes Greg against the tree behind them, letting Greg sink a little so he stands over him for once. Greg’s still standing but his legs are fighting for balance and parts of Tom’s suit are still balled in his fists.
Tom cups his face, caresses his cheek and kisses the side of his face so softly that Greg would swear a flower petal did it.
His face soon nuzzled in Greg’s neck, lips grazing his jaw, Tom loosens Greg’s tie.
Two black boxes smudged against brown.
He tilts Greg’s head to the side so he can see those eyes again.
“Tom… Please don’t stop kissing me.”
Tom straightens up.
Greg’s fists, still clinging to Tom’s suit, weigh him down. Tom tries to push them off but finds himself holding them, brushing over the knuckles and cursing himself for being so dumb and in love.
“Let go.” He whispers.
“I don’t want to,” he insists, “don’t you—is your love so small that you can fit it all in your heart? Th—It’s not… leaking out of your veins? I can’t fit it—all of my love—in my heart, dude. My hearts, like, bleeding for you. And I don’t get how you can just walk around like everything’s fine while my heart’s all ruptured and roaring and spluttering ‘cause holding all this in is killing me!”
And Tom watches the tears form in Greg’s eyes. The latter slumps to the ground and lets the bark corrugate the back of his jacket, moping amongst the long grass.
Tom pulls a lighter from his pocket and takes the blunt out of Greg’s, lighting it and watching it slowly wither for a while.
Greg holds out his hand. “Why won’t you let me love you?”
Tom pulls the blunt out of Greg’s reach and holds it up under the dying sun to get a better view of it burning. “Because you don’t.”