Chapter Text
When your eyes hurt before they’re even open, you’d think things couldn’t get worse.
Timmy opens his eyes. Things get worse.
There’s an empty bottle of bourbon on the nightstand and a warm body in the bed next to him. if the bottle was only half empty there’s a chance he’d know their name.
Half empty’s too optimistic for Timmy, though. Always has been.
He pokes the first part of the body next to him that he can reach. A shoulder, apparently. A shoulder attached to a lot of muscles, curly dark hair, olive skin. A cock that’s either interested in him or recently awakened. Or both.
So it was a dude this time. Timmy’s sex life is a constant surprise even to himself. Especially to himself.
Morning Wood rolls all the way over, runs a hand affectionately over Timmy’s hip in a sweetly misguided attempt to get something started.
“You’ve gotta go,” Timmy sighs, tossing the only shirt in the room he can’t immediately identify onto his guest’s bare torso. “I work soon.”
“Work? You told me you were an emergency room doctor who works nights.”
Yeah, sounds about right.
“Well, I’m not. I’m six figures in debt from an MFA and I run the coffee shop downstairs, which opens in an hour. It was nice meeting you…” Timmy trails off with an unfamiliar twinge of guilt that he’ll never even know this seemingly nice young man’s name.
“Yeah, have a nice day then, dude ,” the guy tosses over his shoulder as he bangs out of the apartment, one hand still zipping up his jeans.
Timmy stumbles downstairs in clothes he finds on the floor, only realizing when he hits daylight that his sweater and corduroys are both the same shade of brown. Perfect. Now I can look as shitty as I feel.
The door to the cafe is blocked by two boxes of milk, coffee, and frozen pastries. Most of the perishables are wilting in the sun and it looks like a neighborhood kid punched a hole in a box and stole a couple of scones.
Delivery’s not till Wednesday and it’s...he thumbs at his phone. Wednesday.
Not only did he lose most of last night to that whiskey bottle. Somewhere this week he’d apparently misplaced Tuesday altogether.
And that means--
His phone dings. Pauline.
Don’t forget the dinner tonight. We’re meeting the priest, remember?
Well, clearly he didn’t. Truth be told, half his drinking these days was done to forget his mother’s upcoming wedding. Of course, half his drinking before that had been done to forget his parents’ divorce, so from the outside it all looked the same.
He shoots back a text. I’ll be there . Then he sets to the task of salvaging the week’s supplies.
*****
The dinner is in some restaurant with so much dark wood everywhere Timmy feels like if he just stands still in his all-brown outfit he could disappear altogether. For a good long minute he considers it. The place smells like mothballs. Most of the patrons are half-embalmed as it is and their martinis are just helping pick up the pace.
“Timmy!” All the brightness in Nicole’s smile has been siphoned from her eyes, which are now feral and calculating in a way they never were when Timmy was younger, when Marc was still around.
“Mom,” he murmurs, kissing her cheek and sliding into a chair across the table, beside Pauline. The chair is so plush it almost fails as support, and he sinks into it so quickly he topples a little and has to regain his balance. The nip of whiskey he’d sucked down outside starts to make itself known. “S-Sorry,” he stammers. “‘m not--not used to soft,” he trails off.
Pauline catches his eye, cocks an eyebrow. She’s no dummy, and besides that he probably still smells like last night. She pinches his thigh under the table as a warning.
There’s a flurry in Timmy’s peripheral vision that for once can’t be blamed on ethanol.
“Sorry I’m late,” says a voice so clearly godlike that when Timmy sees the collar it’s almost redundant. “The traffic was unbelievable and it turns out even a swearing priest can’t make a Lyft go faster.” A sunbeam settles into the chair across from Timmy and continues speaking. “Nicole, I can’t tell you how honored I am that you asked me to be part of your special day. And these must be the children. I’m Armie Hammer.” He extends a hand across the table and Timmy gets the crazy feeling that if he touches it he’ll end up on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
“Pauline,” comes a voice from beside him as his sister firmly shakes Armie’s hand, buys him some time.
“And you are?” Armie turns his gaze to Timmy. Oh great. His eyes are better than his hair. This is certainly going to end well. The emergency nip in Timmy’s pocket grinds against his thigh and Timmy’s definitely not going to think about the shift between his legs that made that happen.
“Tim-Timothée,” Timmy croaks. “But my friends call me Timmy.”
“Nice to meet you, Timothée.” The automatic tenderness Armie extends by not assuming Timmy’s friendship is more kind than anything he can remember. If he doesn’t get to that whiskey in his pocket soon he may cry.
“Nice to meet you too,” he gasps. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”
“Of course…” Armie trails off as his eyes follow Timmy away from the table. Oh for fuck’s sake not concern too, if he’s already concerned for me not only will I cry but I may never stop.
The tiny unisex bathroom is the ideal spot for Timmy to knock back his whiskey in peace, splash some water on his face, and convince himself that’s the only reason his face is wet. There’s a knock a moment later, three short knocks and a pause and two more, his code with Pauline since they were children. He slips the lock and lets her in without a word.
“Oh, baby brother,” Pauline says to the familiar sag of Timmy’s shoulders. She’s seen him get like this over some pretty unattainable people but even for him this takes the cake. “You are totally fucked.”
Timmy whines in agreement.
I bet you think this is gonna be a love story.