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“Mikey, I can’t ask anybody else.”Mike gets that. What Mike doesn’t get is why he’s being asked to pretend to be Tom’s boyfriend in the first place. He scrubs a hand over his face roughly and tries again. “Why do you need anyone to do it?”“Well, it’s just, you remember how my mom got so excited when my brother got engaged last summer.”“Yes…” “She was talking to me about it, all excited and gushing and shit, and then she said ‘it’s too bad you don’t have anybody’, and - I don’t know, it felt like she was disappointed in me for being single so I said, ‘well, not yet’, and five minutes later I was telling her about this guy I was sort of seeing, it was new, didn’t want to tell her yet, blah blah blah. Bro, she was so excited.” Tom shrugs. “I figured that would be enough, and whenever she remembered to ask, I could say it hadn’t worked out and drag it out a little more.”“But that obviously didn’t work…” “She called me, like a week later, crying about how happy she was for us, and I had no idea what she was talking about. When I could finally get a coherent answer from her, she’d been stalking my Instagram and decided the guy I was seeing was you, and she was so excited that we’d finally gotten together.”“Finally?” “That’s what I said! I was so surprised I didn’t really argue with her, and she hadn’t brought it up again until this morning when we were talking about their visit. I wasn’t even thinking of that until she said ‘we’d really like to meet Michael if he’ll be available.’ Then she had to go, and she hung up before I could figure out what to say.”Mike rubs his forehead, scrunching his eyes closed. “So you decided it would be easier for us to pretend to be dating for the two weeks your parents will be here than to tell her the truth.”“Well……. yeah.”Mike sighs and turns to look out the window to his left. This little cafe is their favorite place to have lunch on Saturdays, the only day both of them are likely to be both free and awake at lunch time. In the warmer months, they like to sit at one of the tables on the sidewalk, but it’s March in D.C., so today they’re inside, right in front of the plate glass. He stares blankly out the window at the passing pedestrians, ignoring Tom tapping his fingers against the table top. Here are the facts.1 - In six days, Tom’s parents are arriving in D.C. for the first time, even though Tom’s lived here for almost four years. They picked the end of March because of Tom’s birthday, and they’re staying for two weeks.2 - Tom has been Mike’s roommate for a little over a year. They had a mutual friend, Brooks, who pointed out they were both in need of a roommate and introduced them. Tom had seemed pretty cool, so Mike had added him to the lease and moved all the junk out of the extra bedroom in his place. That’s been both the best and worst decision Mike’s ever made (so far).3 - It took about thirty seconds for Mike to notice Tom was… attractive. Good looking. Stupidly hot. Whatever . It took about three days for him to decide that they were going to be good friends. Two months later, he came in from a long, stupid day at the office to find freshly delivered Indian food, his favorite beer, last night’s DVR’d episode of The Bachelor ready to play, and a smugly pleased-with-himself Tom -- and Mike promptly decided he was screwed.4 - Being in love with your best friend kind of sucks, especially when they live with you and sleep across the hall and share a bathroom and have general boundary issues.5 - Tom Wilson has the world’s worst puppy dog eyes, and Mike has yet to figure out how to say no to them.6 - This is a Terrible Idea© “Fine,” he starts, turning back towards Tom and talking over his “yes!”, “but you owe me so, so much. I can’t even decide what yet, but it is going to be so big and incredibly epic.”“Done, whatever it is, you can have it.”Mike wishes he wouldn’t say stuff like that. “What will I need to do?”“Uh…”“When did you talk to your mom?”“About ten minutes before you got up.”Mike plants his face in his hand, propped up on the table with an elbow. He talks into his hand. “Are your parents staying with us?”“I don’t know.”Sigh. “Do either of us need to pick them up from the airport, train station?”“I don’t know.”“Tommy?” “Yeah?”“Call your mom.” ****** Tom goes outside to call his mom while Mike takes care of the check - they take turns, which Mike has heard from the staff is “adorable”. He steps outside just in time to hear Tom say “well Mike pointed out I don’t know a lot of things about your visit I probably need to know.”Mike can actually hear Mrs. Wilson’s “awww” from two feet away.Tom nods a lot as they walk the four blocks back to their apartment building. They don’t live in the most historic part of town, so their building is a pretty bland, nondescript high-rise. It’s nice enough, just not particularly interesting. This isn’t the part of town the tourists come to, but Mike likes it. Inside, Mike gets the mail while Tom calls the elevator and wraps up his call with his mom. Mike’s flipping through the envelopes - junk, junk, possibly useful coupon, junk - as Tom hangs up, just as the elevator arrives.“If you’re sure it’s okay, my parents would be grateful if they could stay here. They’re flying in, and they’re going to rent a car so they can go around sightseeing and stuff without inconveniencing either of us. My mom insisted that they’d chip in for groceries since she wants to cook for us while she’s here.”Mike is not going to argue with that. He and Tom haven’t ruined anything too dramatically, but they aren’t exactly talented in the kitchen.“Was there anything else I needed to ask?”“Can’t think of anything else, no.” The elevator dings open on their floor, and Mike follows Tom down the hallway to their apartment. Inside, they kick their shoes off and hang up jackets - Mike in the closet, Tom over the arm of the couch (until Mike picks it up and puts it in the closet) - and sprawl across the couch. It’s a huge sectional, too big for their living room really, but it is incredibly comfortable. Mike ends up in the middle of one section, feet up on the coffee table, while Tom pulls his feet up on the other side, clearly making himself comfortable for a nap.Mike’s clicking through their Netflix list when Tom smacks him in the thigh. “What?”“Thanks Mikey,” he mumbles, practically asleep. He smiles up at Mike, all soft and droopy-eyed, and Mike is so, so fucked. ****** Tom bartends at a place a few miles away, and Saturday night is one of his regular shifts. While he gets ready for work, Mike orders a pizza and prepares to veg out on the couch. He lasts twenty minutes after Tom leaves before he breaks down and pulls out his phone. He needs to talk to someone about this, but who. He and Tom don’t really have separate friends anymore, and Mike’s avoided telling anyone about his inconvenient feelings. If he tells anyone what’s going on, he’s going to have to tell them why he’s freaking out about it so much - he knows he wouldn’t be this panicked about doing this for someone else. Though he can’t imagine who else he’d do this for, but that’s beside the point. So who does he want to confide in?There’s Brooks - he introduced them to each other, so this is kind of his fault. He works with Mike, just on a different floor, and met Tom at the bar. He doesn’t think Brooks would make too much fun of him, but he’d want to tell his girlfriend and she’d want to help...so maybe not Brooks.There’s Nicky - Mike’s boss. Nicky sort of adopted him when he first got to D.C., living alone for the first time and not doing a great job at it. Nicky is practical and patient and gives very excellent advice - but telling Nicky also means telling his boyfriend, Alex, who will probably want to interrogate Tom about his intentions like the last guy Mike dated...so maybe not Nicky.There’s Joel - one of the bartenders that works with Tom. Joel is usually on the same shifts as Tom, so he’s definitely busy. And he’d probably tell Tom all about it anyway...so maybe not JoelThere’s one of his brothers - the laughing he’ll have to wait through to get to the advice probably won’t be worth it...so definitely neither of them.There’s only one other person he trusts enough to talk to about this.He carries the remains of his pizza to the elevator and up two floors to knock on André’s door. André’s some connection of Nicky’s - Mike wasn’t really paying attention when it was explained to him - and he started working with them last fall. He’d stayed with Nicky for a bit, but when an apartment had opened up here, André had jumped on the opportunity to move out. (Mike doesn’t blame him - he’s not sure he’d want to live some place that Alex Ovechkin had a key to either.)He’s not even sure if André’s home, but this is actually faster than calling first. André has a bad habit of forgetting to turn the volume up on his phone. He knocks a few times and waits patiently. A moment later, he can hear someone moving around inside, and then the door bursts open.“Hey Mike,” André grins at him, “what’s up?”“I need to talk to you about something - I brought pizza if you need a bribe.”André rolls his eyes but takes the pizza box anyway. He leaves the door open for Mike and is halfway through a slice by the time Mike makes it to his couch.“So…” he says a minute later, when Mike still hasn’t said anything. “You wanted to talk to me?” Mike sighs. “I have a problem, and I don’t really have anybody to talk to about it.”“You can’t talk to Tom?” André frowns.“Tom is part of, I mean, he kind of is the problem.”They sit in relative silence while André works through another slice of pizza and Mike works through how to explain this without sounding stupid.“For reasons that aren’t relevant right now, Tom’s mom thinks we’re dating.”“You mean ‘we’ like you and Tom?”“Yeah.”“Oookkaayy,” André looks confused for a couple of beats then -- “you aren’t dating Tom?”Mike just stares at him, waiting for the ‘ha ha just kidding’ that has to be coming… except it doesn’t. André continues to look confused, and he can’t fake expressions for that long; Mike’s seen him try.“Why would you think we were?”“You live together, but it’s not just roommates. You go everywhere together, you do everything together. You have all the same friends.”“Okay but--”“I know, this could just be friends. But I see you at home too, you know. You get the mail, he gets the elevator; he throws his coat on a chair, you hang it up. You do all the laundry, you even fold his clothes for him. He does all the cooking, but he only ever makes things you like. You have a stupid big couch, but you’re always sitting within arm’s reach. You have a standing lunch date on Saturday that neither of you is ever too busy for, even though you eat dinner together at least three times a week, so it’s not like you never see each other. Tom is always touching you. I mean, you don’t touch him very much, but I figure is just you like to be more private, like Nicky and Alex.” André shrugs and reaches for the last piece of pizza.Mike just gapes at him. He knows all these things, none of this is news, but he never considered how it looked to other people.André kicks him lightly to get his attention and hands him his phone. He’s pulled up Tom’s Instagram, a picture from last summer. They’d gone to the Jersey Shore with some guys Mike knew from college. In the picture, the group of them is clustered around the only impressive fish they’d managed to catch between the six of them. They’d all posted some version of it with stupid captions; Mike can’t remember his off the top of his head. He doesn’t have to remember Tom’s, though. It’s printed right here under the picture: “Catch of the day, and I’m not talking about Mike.”Jesus fucking Christ, no wonder Tom’s mom thought they were together.“It’s not --”André shakes his head. “Just imagine you are me, for a minute. I meet you at work, and between talking about work stuff, everything else you talk about has to do with Tom. A few weeks later, I get to meet Tom - you remember that company picnic thing? - and you guys, well, you act like all the other couples. You stay near each other all the time, you ask each other if you need things before you go back to the buffet, there’s touching, private conversations. No one says anything, I just assume, you know? And then --” he waves off Mike’s attempt to interrupt “-- then I come here, see you at home, and I don’t think any different. If you don’t come up here and say it is different tonight, I would never have guessed.”All this time, this is what Mike has wanted, and apparently people think he has it already. André continues. “So why don’t you tell Tom’s mom this is not true?” “Tom thinks it will be easier to pretend.”“Easier for you both, or just easier for him?”For all that he can be very scatterbrained, André has moments where he is wise beyond his years.“Easier for him,” Mike says quietly, eyes on the floor.They sit in silence. Mike can feel André’s eyes on him, but he can’t quite bear to look at him.“You love him.”“Oh, sure,” Mike tries to answer flippantly, but his shaking voice ruins it.“Mike,” André scolds. “You know what I mean.”“Yeah,” Mike sighs. “I know.”“So, instead of telling his mom the truth, Tom wants you to pretend to be his boyfriend. And you said yes to pretending, even though you want to be boyfriends for real.”“When you say it out loud, it sounds stupid.”“It is stupid.”Mike can’t really argue with that.“So, what are you going to do?”He sighs and looks back at André. “I think we both know what I’m going to do.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sundays are a slow day, usually. There’s a routine here, too, that Mike is halfway through before he thinks about it. The bar closes at 3 AM, and Tom is rarely home before 3:30. On the nights that Mike stays in, he’s awake before Tom. He always goes out to pick up brunch from the bakery around the corner - pastries, whatever quiche is the special - and coffee from the coffee shop across the street - house drip with cream and sugar for him, whatever dark blend they’re serving in a caramel latte with extra whip cream for Tom. He’s waiting for the elevator when his phone beeps in his pocket. Balancing the to-go tray of coffee carefully, he pulls his phone out to read a text from Tom.
Breakfast?

On its way
[heart-eyes] Ur the best Mike’s startled from staring at his phone by the ding as the elevator doors open. He shoves his phone into his pocket, along with his traitorous feelings, and spends the trip upstairs reminding himself that Tom would have sent exactly the same message to anyone bringing him food.Inside the apartment, Tom is curled into a ball in the corner of the couch under a fuzzy red Kitchener Rangers blanket that Mike is sure was on his bed when he left. He sets the tray of coffee and the take out bag of food on the coffee table and goes looking for plates and clean silverware. When he returns from the kitchen, Tom’s coffee has disappeared, and he can hear what he hopes are the sounds of sipping from underneath the blanket.“Sit up before you spill that. We don’t know how to get coffee out of upholstery.”Tom grumbles under his breath but complies. Mike immediately wishes he’d kept his mouth shut.It’s not that cold in their apartment, for all that it’s near freezing outside. They’re not so broke that they can’t keep the temperature at a reasonable 22° C. However, it might be a little chilly if you’re wandering around without a shirt.Mike closes his eyes and counts to ten. He does his best not to look directly at Tom as he rounds the coffee table to sit. He ignores his natural inclination to plate the food and hand it to Tom first; he leaves the extra plate and fork next to the bag and dishes up his own food.Three bites into his asparagus and bacon quiche, he can’t ignore Tom staring at him anymore. “What?”Tom’s eyebrows are wrinkled in confusion. “Are you mad at me?”“No?”“You aren’t sure?”“I am sure. Why would you think I’m mad at you?”“You always dish up the food, and you didn’t. You won’t even look at me. And you’re sitting all the way over there!”Fucking hell. He was just trying to introduce a little space into their actual relationship after André’s revelations last night. Honestly, he figured Tom wouldn’t even notice if he was subtle about it. Apparently, he was wrong. Or not very subtle.“I’m not mad at you. I promise.”Tom does not look convinced. Mike gives up. Setting his plate to one side, he puts the other slice of quiche and the chocolate croissant on the other plate and hands it to Tom.Tom smiles a little. “And?”Oh for fuck’s sake. Mike slides over on the couch until there’s less than a cushion of space left between them. Tom beams and relaxes back into the corner.This is so fucked up. ****** As he brushes his teeth that night, Mike has an epiphany. Tom’s parents are going to need somewhere to sleep. He’s not necessarily the most functional adult, but he knows that you don’t put your parents (or your roommate’s parents) on the sofa. So one of them is going to have to give up their room. They’re Tom’s parents, so that’ll be Tom. But Tom’s mother thinks they’ve been dating since last summer.Mike spits his toothpaste into the sink and shouts “Tommy!” out into the hall.A few seconds later, Tom squeezes into their not-spacious bathroom, already in just a pair of flannel sleep pants. Mike blinks into the mirror a few times before he remembers why Tom is there.“If you sleep on the couch while your parents are here, are they going to think that’s normal or that something’s wrong?”Tom’s shifty expression is all the answer Mike needs. “Fine, okay. It’s just a couple of weeks; we can handle that.”Tom visibly relaxes. “Okay, cool.”Mike finishes brushing his teeth, trying to ignore Tom leaning against the wall in his peripheral vision. He drops his toothbrush into the holder and turns. “All yours, man.”Tom grins and slides past him towards the sink. “Night, Mikey.”Mike shifts just enough to avoid brushing up against him on the way out the door. “Night, Tommy.” ****** “So let me get this straight,” Brooks says with his permanently bemused expression. “At some point on Friday, Tom’s parents are going to arrive at your apartment, and they’re going to expect you to walk in the door that evening going ‘honey, I’m home’ and kiss him hello.”Mike frowns at his sad deli salad and its wilting lettuce. “I don’t know about the kissing.”“The first time you meet them, you can maybe get away with not kissing their son. But at some point, you’re going to have to. Are you prepared for that?”Mike can feel the flush spreading across his face. Brooks’ eyebrows rise nearly off his forehead.“Okay, spill.”Pushing a piece of lettuce around his plate, Mike gives his best effort to pretending ignorance. “Spill what?”“Don’t even try that shit, ‘spill what’ my ass. Nick, make him tell me.”Goddammit, he hadn’t heard Nicky come in. Nicky pulls out the chair next to him and sets his perfectly packed lunch on the table. “What aren’t you telling Brooks, Michael?”Mike pushes his salad away and folds his arms on the table, hiding his face while Brooks explains his current mess.“Michael,” Nicky says, very seriously.Voice dripping with sarcasm, Mike replies “Yes, Dad?” Nicky ignores him. “Does Tom know how you feel about him?”Across the table, Brooks chokes on something. Mike covers his head with his arms. “No.”He doesn’t even begin to wonder how Nicky knows. So far as he can tell, Nicky is psychic. Nothing Mike has ever told him has surprised him, and he routinely knows things he has no business knowing.“Do you think he would ask you to do this if he knew?”“He’d probably move out if he knew.”Both Nicky and Brooks make disagreeing noises, and on a rational day, Mike knows that’s an exaggeration. (Today is not a rational day.) “I think we all know that’s not true.”Mike likes this talking-into-the-table thing. It’s easier than Nicky’s judgmental glare. “How do you figure?” “Anyone with eyes can tell you are very special to Tom. You might be surprised by what you’d find out if you told him the truth.”“Yeah, and I might win the lottery tomorrow, lots of things ‘might’ happen.” Mike pushes away from the table, sending his co-workers scrambling to stabilize wobbling beverages. “Thanks for not being at all helpful, guys.” He stalks away from the break room, berating himself. This is why he hadn’t called either of them Saturday. He knew they’d want him to talk to Tom, and he gets that they mean well, but they just don’t understand.Across the open office space, he can see André peeking at him over his monitors. He waves halfheartedly and mostly ignores André’s skeptical smile. He slumps over his desk, resting his elbows on the surface and his face in his hands. Such a goddamn mess. His phone buzzes on his desk, flashing a text alert on the screen. From Tom, because who else would it be. Y is ur workday so long??????? 
It’s the same length as everyone else’s
2 LONG. [crying face] Bored here without u.Mike very carefully places his phone upside down on the desk. He sort of wants to cry; doesn’t need to, necessarily, but it might make him feel better. It certainly couldn’t make him feel worse.The phone buzzes again. He’s going to ignore it, but a hand reaches over his shoulder and flips it over. “Ignoring your boyfriend already?” André asks. Mike swipes across the screen. Might as well read it.Dinner tonight: [taco] or [pizza] ??“Awww,” André says with a giggle.  Don’t care  
So u won’t be mad if I make guac
Tom makes the best guacamole; it’s the only thing he’s picked up from the bar that is useful at home. Mike can - and has - eaten only that guac for days.
I’ll be mad if you don’t

[blushing face x 5]
“Oh my god.” André finally wanders away making gagging noises, and Mike is left wondering why Tom’s so happy about guacamole. ****** The smell of cooking onions and green peppers meets Mike in the hallway, well before he reaches his actual door. Those might technically be fajita toppings, but they’re one of Mike’s favorite parts of Mexican-adjacent food, and they always make an appearance when Tom’s making tacos. The inside of their apartment smells amazing, which Mike would share except Tom wouldn’t be able to hear him over whatever’s blaring through his earbuds.Mike leans his backpack up against the wall and his shoulder against the doorframe, unbuttoning his suit jacket to allow for the shift in position. Tom has his back to the hall, busy with something on the stovetop and swaying in place to the rhythm of whatever he’s listening to.Mike shouldn’t be staring. He knows this. But he doesn’t get a lot of opportunities to watch Tom unobtrusively, and this is, well, it’s downright adorable. It’s nearly five minutes before Tom turns abruptly towards the perpendicular counter and finally notices him.“Dammit, Mike,” he scolds, pulling his earbuds out and draping them around his neck. “How long have you been standing there?”“Not long,” Mike grins at him. “Didn’t want to interrupt.”Tom’s gaze drifts over him, more slowly than Mike would expect. Flushing a bit, he spins towards the fridge. His voice drifts over the half door towards Mike, “hurry and change, you don’t want to eat this in your work clothes.”He’s got a point. Tacos + white shirt = trip to the dry cleaner he’ll put off until he eventually throws the shirt away. Mike laughs and goes to change.They don’t have the space for a dining table, thanks to the huge couch, so they plate up their tacos in the kitchen and eat in the living room. Tom’s already set a bag of chips and the bowl of guac on the coffee table, and the NHLN pre-game show is running, muted, on the TV.They’re through their tacos and into the guac, waiting for puck drop when Mike decides now is a good time for a serious conversation.“So your parents get here Friday?”“Yeth,” Tom replies through a mouthful of chips. Mike glares at him. “Sorry. Yes, they get here Friday morning. Their flight lands at 10.”“Are you working Friday night?”“No; I swapped shifts with Teresa, so I’m working tomorrow and Wednesday instead of Friday and Saturday this week.”“Okay.”The sounds of the game and the crunching of chips are the only noise until the next commercial break.“So how far are we going to have to take this in front of your parents?”“What?”“I mean, you’re sleeping in my room, so are you going to move all your stuff in there so it looks like you live in there all the time? What kind of physical contact are they going to expect? Am I going to look like an asshole if I don’t kiss you hello on Friday?”“Jesus, Mike, I don’t know.”Mike turns to him with a sigh. “I think you better figure it out. There’s no point bothering to pretend if we’re going to blow it five minutes after I get home. I’ll do whatever you need me to do, but I need you to tell me what that is. We need a plan, and they’re your parents. I don’t know what will convince them of anything.”Tom blinks at him for several heartbeats, eyes growing distant and hazy as he thinks. A particularly loud whistle from the TV brings him back from his thoughts. “Okay, I’ll figure something out before they get here.”Mike feels less than confident about that. ****** With Tom’s shifted schedule, Mike doesn’t see him at all for over forty-eight hours. He’s gone before Tom gets up Tuesday, and Tom’s left for work well before Mike gets home.Tom’s right; it’s boring there without him.Wednesday morning, there’s a note tucked under Mike’s travel thermos, which has been washed and set next to the coffeemaker.
I'm moving some stuff into your room today, don't freak out.

There's some leftover wings in the fridge if you want some lunch
There’s a styrofoam takeout box with MIKE ♥♥♥  written on the lid. Mike sets the box on the counter and loses a couple minutes wondering what he’d rather deal with: the guys at work if they see this box, or Tom when he sees the empty box in the trash. Then he thinks about trying to carry it through the crowded morning rush on the Metro and goes to dig out something sturdier from the cabinet.He leaves his own note: Thanks for the food buddy ♥He shares the wings with André and dodges Nicky’s attempts to get him alone.At home that night, he finds his bedroom has been significantly rearranged. His furniture has always been a bit of a hodge-podge of things he’s been given and things he’s acquired from thrift shops or Target. His room wasn’t crowded before, but it is now. Tom’s dragged his own dresser in there and shifted things around to make the bed the focus of the room (they’ve got to stop watching HGTV). He also brought in his own nightstand thing, so they each have a designated ‘side’ of the bed. Mike notices how his stuff is on his preferred side and resolves not to think anymore about it.Tom’s room, visible through the open door, looks a million times neater than it usually does. He texted Mike mid-day to ask if he’d do laundry, so Mike starts a load while he’s waiting for his Jimmy Johns to arrive. He can’t help but think back to this being one of André’s signs they were together, but it’s just practical. To get the most efficient use out of their washer, they need to run a full load whenever possible. It just saves water to combine their stuff, and Mike refuses to feel weird about being environmentally responsible. Then he slaps himself mentally for being a pretentious douche and goes to eat his sandwich. ****** Thursday yields no morning note, which is only odd because Mike was actually expecting one when Tom almost never does that. Generally he texts Mike things like leftovers available for lunch, so Mike shouldn’t feel disappointed that his thermos is still in the sink waiting to be washed.His work day is weirdly boring. Some days are like that, but he can usually drag Tom into a Snapchat argument or a text message gif war to keep him entertained. But today, Tom doesn’t respond to any of his messagesHis commute is hellish, and he sort of wants to punch something by the time he makes it through the front door. He stops abruptly inside because something is not right. It takes him a minute to realize that their apartment has been not only cleaned to within an inch of its life but also very slightly redecorated. He drops his backpack by the kitchen doorway and leaves his thermos in the sink. He can hear music coming from down the hall, but he’s frozen by the photos on the wall.They put a bunch of mismatched frames up in October, when Mike’s brother and sister-in-law were in town for real Thanksgiving. They used pictures they each had: their families, school friends, sports teams. The frames are still there, in the same places. The photos, on the other hand…  A few of them are the same - the group family shots are still there. But instead of Mike’s college friends, there’s a picture of him and Tom at the beach from their Jersey Shore trip last summer. Instead of Tom’s championship-winning high school hockey team, there’s a picture of them - also from Jersey - that was just a stupid selfie they took in the hotel room sprawled across a bed, but framed like this looks totally different than how he remembers it.His Kitchener blanket is draped over the back of one side of the couch (not where he left it this morning). There are new frames on the TV cabinet. One holds a picture of Tom and his mom that Mike’s never seen before. The other is a picture of him and Tom, again, with Tom’s boss Mr. Chimera’s kids at the bar’s Christmas party. He’s never seen that one before either.“I hope this was okay,” Tom says quietly from the hall.“Yeah, it’s cool,” Mike tries to smile. “Where’d you get all the pictures?”“Around,” Tom answers.Okay then. “I’m just gonna,” Mike gestures towards the bedrooms.“Yeah, yeah. I ordered pizza, okay?”“Sure, fine.” Mike gets the door closed before he has to sit down, right on the floor. He breathes deeply, in and out slowly, for a minute or two as he pulls himself together. Those pictures, they look like a life that he wishes he was living. They aren’t true; the still images don’t tell the whole story about any of those moments. But fuck if it doesn’t look believable.He hears a distant knock, hears Tom yell about the pizza, but he ignores him for a little longer. He needs a minute, needs to find some kind of barrier he can use to keep the next two weeks from crushing him with ‘what ifs’. When he doesn’t feel like a linebacker is sitting on his chest anymore, he changes out of his suit and goes to eat pizza with his head buried firmly in the metaphorical sand. ****** He almost gets away with it, this last night of “normal” before god knows what starts tomorrow. He’s cleaned up, set the coffeemaker up for the morning, and brushed his teeth. He’s in the process of shutting the door to his room, when Tom stops it with a hand.“Uh, hey, um, so,” he stutters out, looking firmly at the floor.“Spit it out, bud, need to get some sleep.”“So I thought about it for the last two days, and I think my parents are going to expect to see some, uh, stuff, like usual couple-y stuff. And I don’t think we need to practice like sitting together or holding hands or something because I think we can wing that but -- Ithinkyoushouldkissmerightnowsoitwon’tbeawkwardifwedoitinfrontofthem.”Mike blinks a few times. Counts to ten.“You what?”Tom takes a gargantuan breath. “I think you should kiss me. We shouldn’t have our first kiss in front of my parents.”Mike is hallucinating. He must have slipped in the bathroom and given himself a doozy of a concussion.But then Tom steps a little closer, and his t-shirt brushes against Mike’s arm. “I think if we wait until they’re watching, it’ll look awkward. So maybe we could just try now so it won’t feel as weird when it does happen.” Four inches isn’t a lot. It’s only a smidgen bigger than a standard crayon; barely more than a credit card. But with Tom standing so close, the four inch difference between them feels like a lot more.The longer he stands there, not responding, the more unsure Tom starts to look.“I mean, you don’t have to--”“No, it’s, uh, cool, you just surprised me.”The clock in the living room ticks loudly. A police siren passes somewhere nearby.“So are you gonna--” “Yeah, just. Wait, why do I have to do it? Why don’t you kiss me ?”The corner of Tom’s mouth twitches up. If he’s going to start laughing and call this a joke, Mike may actually punch him in the nose.He doesn’t have to punch him. Instead, Tom steps even closer, puts one big hand against Mike’s neck, and uses his thumb to tip Mike’s chin just a little further up. He stops, so close that it’s hard for Mike to focus his eyes. He waits, and he waits, and just as Mike’s going to snap, finally leans in to kiss him. Mike still has a hand on the door, which is maybe the only reason he’s still totally upright. There’s nothing particularly shocking going on; Tom’s barely touching him, just his lips and the hand on his neck. It’s a perfectly polite, chaste, it-happened-and-then-it-was-over kiss. But it’s Tom. Mike opens his eyes - he doesn’t remember closing them - and Tom is still very, very close. They stare at each other for a handful of breaths before Tom whispers, “maybe one more?” “Okay,” Mike whispers back.This time it’s not as brief, it’s not as chaste, it’s not as polite. It’s not the filthiest kiss Mike’s ever had, not by a long shot, but it’s more than just a quick press of lips. It lasts for several seconds - which is a lot longer than it sounds - and there’s the faintest brush of what might be Tom’s tongue against his bottom lip before Tom pulls away this time. Tom’s fingertips drag along his neck as they part. When Mike opens his eyes, he’s standing further away, faintly flushed and breathing fast, looking at the floor with the slightest of smiles.“Was that okay?” Mike asks quietly.“Yeah,” Tom answers, clearing his throat before looking up at him with a wide grin. “That was good.”Mike just nods. ‘Good’ isn’t the word he’d use, but it works.“Night, Mike.” The door to Tom’s room closes before he can answer, and there’s an odd thunk just afterwards. Tom must be tripping over his new furniture arrangement.He closes his door carefully and climbs into bed. He turns the lamp out and lays there, flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. Somehow, he thought he’d feel different if he ever got to kiss Tom, but he doesn’t, not really. He keeps replaying the last several minutes in his mind; it doesn’t quite feel real yet, like a very vivid daydream. It has to have been real though, because in his daydreams, Tom doesn’t end up in another room behind a closed door.It takes him a very long time to go to sleep.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

On Friday morning, Mike is very distracted. He almost forgets to take his coffee after he gets lost daydreaming about kissing Tom in the kitchen, now that he knows what that might actually be like. He does get off the train at the wrong stop but fortunately notices before the train departs again. It’s not his most productive morning of work, he’ll own that. Before ten, he’s either reliving the kisses in all their technicolor glory or analyzing what he could have done differently. After ten, he’s worried about Tom’s parents arriving and what Tom is saying to them and what they think of the apartment.

His distraction is clearly evident to his co-workers. He catches André watching him with a concerned expression a couple of times, and Brooks drags him out to lunch after finding him putting ranch dressing in his coffee instead of the french vanilla creamer (they sit right next to each other in the fridge okay, it’s a wonder more people don’t do it).

“Sooooo, what’s up with you?” Brooks asks overly-nonchalantly in line at the deli.

Mike debates saying ‘nothing’, but let’s be real, something is up with him and everyone knows it. He’d just be prolonging the inevitable. So instead of their usual bickering-until-Mike-gives-in routine, he just says it. “Tom’s parents flew in this morning, and he kissed me last night.”

“How was their fl-- hold on, what?!”

“I don’t know how their flight was; I don’t even know if they’ve made it because I haven’t heard from Tom all morning, and I’m kind of low-key freaking out about that. And you remember Monday, you asked if I was prepared to deal with having to kiss Tom in front of his parents? So I mentioned it to him Monday night, and he decided we needed to practice or some shit before his parents were watching, and he kissed me in the hallway, and I am one hundred percent freaking out about

that

. That’s what’s up with me today.”

“That,” Brooks says slowly, “is a lot.”

“Yep.”

They stand in silence until they get to the counter to order, taking their sandwiches to a table in the far back corner to eat.

Two bites. That’s the limit of Brooks’s patience. “Soooo, how was it?”

“This sandwich? It is delicious, thank you for asking.”

Brooks just rolls his eyes at the sarcasm. “Never mind the freaking out about it part, was kissing Tom all you’d hoped for and more?”

Mike sets his sandwich down and sighs. “It was the tamest kiss I think I’ve had since middle school, and it was completely amazing.”

Brooks grins. “Of course it was.” He sets his own sandwich down and leans in towards Mike. “Want to hear about my first kiss with Julianne? I think it’ll make you feel better.”

“Sure,” Mike says skeptically.

‘It was on the way home from our first date - you remember I took her to that concert thing in the park? We were walking back to her place from the Metro, and she thanked me for a nice afternoon and kissed me on the cheek.” He grins off into the distance, eyes hazy with memory.

Mike can’t help but smile. He remembers when Brooks and Julianne first started dating; Brooks was obnoxious for weeks, smiling for no apparent reason and always in an even better mood than usual. “That was it, kiss on the cheek?”

“That was it,” Brooks looks back at him. “It was the highlight of the date for me - that’s how I knew she was a keeper.”

Mike’s phone buzzes in his pocket.

Just got home. Flight = late. Traffic = shit.

@ lunch with Brooks

HI BROOKS

Shut up, dick

“Is that Tom?” Brooks asks with a snicker.

“Yeah, why?”

“Mike, bud, you should see your face.”

Mom’s making dinner. Home @ usual time?

Should be

.

[blushing face x5]

Mike has no idea what to say to that, so he decides to say nothing.
 
******
 
The afternoon passes a little more smoothly than the morning. Maybe it’s because Mike let out some of his stress; maybe it’s because he finally knows where Tom is. For whatever reason, he manages to make a cup of coffee without adding any random condiments. He considers that a win.

The commute home is pretty standard, which is good. A train delay would not improve his first meeting with Tom’s parents.

The majority of the time, he and André travel sort of together; they don’t wait for each other necessarily, but living in the same building and being due in the office at the same time results in them being on the same train. André’s got something else going on tonight, though, so Mike’s walking the few blocks from the station alone. Without distraction, he has time to get well and truly nervous.

He’s not actually meeting his boyfriend’s parents for the first time; technically, he’s meeting the parents of the guy he’d like to be his boyfriend. Either way, it’s important that they like him. What if they don’t? What if they think he’s not good enough for Tom? What if they hate him so much they convince Tom to move out?

He’s well into a panic spiral, standing just outside the doors of their building, when he hears his text beep.

ETA?

Oh god. He can’t do this. He’s going to go up there and make a fool of himself and it’s going to be terrible and Tom will hate him and he’ll leave and -- He’s trying to breathe in, and it’s not, it’s not working, oh god.

“Mikey? What are you doing out here, it’s cold. Mike!” Tom appears front of him, grasping at his upper arms. “Mike, I need you to breathe with me, okay, in….and out. Eyes on me buddy, and in….and out….”

It takes a couple minutes, but he manages to get his breathing under control.

“You alright, babe?” Tom’s forehead wrinkles.

“I, uh, I don’t know.”

Tom squeezes his biceps before letting go. “Panic attack. Keisha, at work, gets them sometimes. I think you’re gonna be alright, let’s just get you upstairs where it’s warmer.”

He reaches down and takes Mike by the hand, towing him along behind him. Mike wants to ask about the panic attack thing, but he’s really distracted by the hand holding thing. Tom’s hand is so much bigger than his, warm and solid. It’s surprisingly calming right now.

Tom keeps up some mindless chatter about the trip to the airport while they’re in the elevator, and by the time they’re on the right floor, Mike feels more or less like himself. Just -- he tugs Tom to a stop, just down the hall from their door.

“Do I look okay? I don’t want to, like, embarrass you in front of your parents or something.”

“Mike,” Tom smiles, “you aren’t going to embarrass me. If I thought that, I wouldn’t have asked you to do this. You’re gonna be spectacular.”

Mike feels his face heat up, and Tom laughs a bit before pulling him towards the door.

Inside, the apartment is warm and cozy and smells like an Italian restaurant. There’s a low murmuring of sound from the TV in the living room and a faint rattling of dishes from the kitchen. Tom takes his bag and sets it on the floor in the closet while Mike unwinds his scarf. He’s pulling his hat off when he feels a tug on the front of his coat - Tom’s undoing the buttons.

“What are you doing?” he hisses. “I can take my own coat off.”

“Mikey,” Tom whispers, “shut up and let me help you.”

Mike’s still feeling a little shaky from whatever it was that happened outside, and this is not helping. He can smell Tom’s shower gel over whatever the food is, and it’s making him feel a bit lightheaded.

“Tommy, is that you?”

Mike looks up from where Tom’s reached the last button on his coat, roughly at waist level, to make eye contact over Tom’s shoulder with the woman stepping out of the kitchen.

Tom’s mother - he hopes it’s his mother - is a lovely woman, taller than he would have guessed and with a sweet smile that grows wider as she gets a good look at them.

“Hey Ma,” Tom says over his shoulder as he reaches up to slide Mike’s coat off his shoulders. He steps around Mike to hang the coat in the closet, which is just as surprising an action as anything else that’s happened in the last ten minutes.

When he turns back to them, he steps up beside Mike and lays an arm over his shoulders, pulling Mike in close. “Mike, this is my mom, Neville. Mom, this is Mike.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Wilson.”

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Michael.” She walks right up and hugs him, flat out pushing Tom out of the way. When she steps back, she’s just beaming at them, so happy at the picture they’re presenting that Mike feels more than a little guilty. “I hope you like lasagna.”

“Oh yeah, that sounds great. I’m just gonna go -“ he waves down the hallway towards the bedrooms.

“Oh, of course. You’ve got time, I’m just making a salad.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Wilson.”

She grins and goes back into the kitchen.

“Hey, before you change, come meet my dad, ok?” Tom grabs hold of his hand and pulls him along into the living room.

That should feel weirder than it does.

Tom’s dad is on their couch, watching the Golf Channel, which Mike didn’t even know they had. Tom clearly takes after his dad, and Mike has a brief thought of “at least he’s going to age well” which almost makes him laugh out loud.

“Hey, Dad, this is Mike. Mike, my dad, Keven.”

Mike takes the initiative this time, stepping up to shake his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wilson.”

“It’s Keven, please. So nice to meet you after all this time. Tom talks about you constantly.”

Surprised, Mike shoots a quick glance at Tom, who’s rolling his eyes and blushing.

“Good things, I hope,” Mike finally remembers to answer.

“Always,” Keven replies with a laugh.

Mike needs to be somewhere else about five minutes ago, to be honest, so he tries to smile and makes his excuses. He thinks he’s getting away with it until Tom pushes through the closing door into his bedroom.

“Hey, how are you feeling?”

“I’m good.”

“You’re sure? Because I can handle them if you’re not up to it. Panic attacks can be kind of exhausting, I hear.”

“I mean, I’ve been better. But I think I can handle a few hours. Speaking of, where did you even come from? You texted to ask where I was and, like, a minute later you were out on the street with me.”

Tom frowns. “It wasn’t a minute later, Mike, it was like five. You should have been off the train by the time I texted you, so when you didn’t answer me….” he looks away into the corner, rubbing awkwardly at his chin, “I might have pulled up your Where’s My iPhone.”

“Dude, that was for emergencies.”

“Yeah, well, I was nervous and getting worried that you changed your mind and weren’t coming, so sue me. It said you were here, so I kept expecting to bump into you. I only checked the street because I know sometimes you answer the phone and forget to keep walking.”

Mike hangs his suit jacket up in the closet and toes off his shoes. He turns back towards Tom as he’s untying his tie, walking closer to keep his voice down. “Thanks for coming to look for me, I guess.”

Tom’s eyes go wide and dark as his cheeks flush pink. He shakes his head abruptly before replying. “Yeah, anytime buddy.”

Mike drops the tie on the end of the bed, unbuttons his cuffs, and starts on his shirt buttons. “Anything I need to know before we go back out there?”

“Um, what?” Tom’s eyes are stuck somewhere below his chin, and he looks a little like someone just slapped him.

“Hey man, eyes up here,” Mike laughs, gesturing at his face. He pulls his shirt tails loose from his waistband to get the last couple buttons.

Tom jerks likes he’s been shocked and turns abruptly towards the door.

“Tommy, hold up!”

“What?” Tom asks, still facing the door.

“Have you told your parents anything I should know about, or are we just gonna wing it?”

“They already know how we met and stuff. They haven’t asked about anything else yet. So, uh, let’s just wing it.

Mike sighs a little. That hardly sounds foolproof. “Yeah okay, cool. I’ll be right out.”

“Great,” Tom says - and basically runs out the door, slamming it behind him.

Mike looks at the door skeptically, since Tom’s not there to side-eye. He’s being super weird, and Mike is legit too tired for this, panic attack notwithstanding. He’ll get through dinner, give it a bit, and then call it an early night. Maybe he can be asleep before Tom comes in to join him.

Jesus

. He can’t even think about that right now. He pulls on a pair of jeans and grabs the shirt on top of the pile of laundry stacked on the bed. He doesn’t remember having a shirt this color, but it fits so it’ll have to do.

Time to go be the world’s greatest boyfriend.
 
******
 
When he reaches the living room, Mike finds all the Wilsons gathered around the coffee table, food already plated and waiting for him. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are seated on the couch; Tom is across from them, sitting on the floor, empty space next to him making it clear where Mike is expected to sit.

“This looks great, Mrs. Wilson,” Mike says as he lowers himself to the floor.

“Michael, please, it’s Neville. Or Mom, whichever.”

Mike’s pretty sure that even if he

had

been dating Tom for months, he wouldn’t be ready to call her “Mom”.

Next to him, Tom looks mildly horrified and ready to argue with his mother, so Mike steps in to save him. He smiles at Mr. Wilson - no, Keven - and asks about their flight. When Neville jumps in to answer, chattering about the horrendous security line at Pearson, he elbows Tom and takes a bite of lasagna.

A mother’s home cooking is almost worth the ‘Mom’ thing; maybe not the whole panic attack thing, but they’ve still got two weeks ahead of them.

“So, Michael,” Neville asks as everyone is finishing up, “what do you have planned for Tommy’s birthday?”

Fuck

.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“I, uh, hadn’t really planned anything yet,” he replies, scrambling for a reasonable excuse.

Oh!

“I wasn’t sure what you’d want to do, so I thought we could come up with something together?”

He can practically see the “aww” on her face; even Keven looks pleased at that answer. He glances sideways at Tom, who looks downright smug. He decides to push his luck and try something he’s never had the courage to do before - he reaches over and takes Tom’s hand, linking their fingers together. Tom flushes and somehow manages to look even more smug.

He helps Neville clear the table and clean up what’s left of the kitchen. They discuss Tom’s favorite restaurants and if they should make reservations somewhere. She asks for gift ideas; he doesn’t really have any. Last year for Tom’s birthday, they’d only known each other a couple of months. He thinks he might have bought him a six-pack of something.

“Oh, no! I just remembered. I took him to lunch, at this cafe near here. That must have been the first time we went there.”

“Is that the place you go most Saturdays?”

“Uh, yeah, it is. You know about that?”

She laughs quietly as she stacks the plates in the dishwasher. “Of course; I have to schedule my phone calls with Tom around it. I think it’s nice that you two make such an effort to have special time together. That’s so important in a strong relationship.”

Mike has no idea how to respond to that. He knew he made an effort to keep his Saturdays free for lunch; he hadn’t realized that Tom was doing the same thing. He wonders if his own mom knows why he never calls her until after three on Saturdays.

They finish cleaning up without any further revelations and join the other Wilsons, who have put on the Leafs game. Keven has commandeered the corner cushion of the sectional, and Neville makes herself comfy on the cushions to his right. That leaves the other half, three whole cushions, for Tom and Mike.  That should be more than enough, but somehow it looks very crowded. Tom’s taken the seat in the middle, which gives Mike two options - wedged between the two male Wilsons or wedged between Tom and the arm of the couch. That seems less awkward than invading the personal space of a near stranger, so arm it is.

He’s barely had time to kick his feet up onto the edge of the coffee table before Tom more or less collapses against him, slouched so he can prop his feet up and lean his head against Mike’s shoulder. Tom wiggles a little and finally moves Mike’s arm so it’s over his shoulders, giving him more space to, well, the only word for it is snuggle.

It’s possible Mike had a massive stroke after eating that lasagna and has either died or gone into some sort of coma.

Over on the other side of the sofa, Neville looks like she wants to coo at them but is barely restraining herself. Mike pretends to be very engrossed in the game so he doesn’t have to acknowledge her.

Part of his brain is trying to shout about how miserable this is going to make him later, but a larger part (that may not actually be his brain, to be fair) shouts louder about how much he’s enjoying this so he should take advantage while he can. So as the period progress, he lets himself do what he would do if this were real. He starts out rubbing a thumb over the cap of Tom’s shoulder, occasionally tapping his fingers against his upper arm in the rhythm of whatever music is playing on the TV. By the time the period ends, he’s moved to playing with Tom’s hair and thoroughly enjoying the little shivers he can feel whenever he tugs a little too hard.

However, the long day at work, the mental and emotional stress, and the panic attack catch up to him eventually. They’re not even all the way through first intermission when he gives up. This cuddling thing is fun, sure, but it’s just for the parents. He’ll feel better if he can go to sleep before Tom is in bed with him, very much

not

cuddling.

“Okay, I hate to call it a night so early, but it was kind of a long day, so I’m going to head for bed.” He hates detaching Tom with a red-hot passion, but it’s necessary for his own sanity.

“We won’t keep you up, if we finish the game?” Keven asks.

“As long as you’re not throwing furniture around and screaming like banshees, I’ll have no problems.”

Everyone laughs, as they were supposed to, and Keven and Neville wish him a good night’s sleep.

Unfortunately for his plan, Tom follows him to the bedroom.

“I thought you said you were fine,” he says accusingly.

“I was fine. I told you I’d be okay for a few hours, and I was okay for a few hours. I just need some sleep, okay?”

Tom sort of wilts, starting to pout. “Fine, okay.” Then his eyes sharpen, landing on something behind Mike. He steps around him and snatches Mike’s Kitchener blanket from the end of the bed. “Since you’re taking my heater away, I’m taking your blanket back out there with me.”

“Your heater?” Mike wrinkles his nose in confusion.

“You, you idiot,” Tom laughs as he turns towards the door. “Also, you can keep that shirt. It definitely looks better on you.” He pulls the door shut behind him, leaving Mike standing in the middle of the room with his mouth hanging open.

Now that he mentions it, this shirt does feel a little bit looser than he would normally buy. He wonders if Tom’s parents could tell.

It doesn’t matter. He’s got to hurry his routine so he can be asleep as soon as possible. He takes one look at the bed - and goes to brush his teeth.

Normally, he doesn’t sleep in much; he does put out a lot of heat while he sleeps, so even in the winter he only layers up when it’s exceptionally cold. For the next two weeks, however, he might need to rethink that. He does have a pair of flannel sleep pants somewhere in his dresser. It takes him a minute and three drawers to find them. They’re thick and softer than he remembered. Along with a faded Blue Jays shirt, they ought to be enough to protect him from accidental space invasions.

It’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine.

He plugs in his phone - ignoring the eight “HOW’S IT GOING” texts from Brooks - shuts off the light, and climbs under the covers. He gets back out of bed to turn on the fan in the corner to drown out the murmurings of sound from the living room. The fan muffles everything enough that he should have no problems sleeping.

Two hours later, he could not be any more awake when he hears voices coming down the hall. Over the fan, he hears Tom wish his parents good night. A couple of doors close; he assumes Tom is in the bathroom. He can’t be awake when Tom comes in; he’ll never hear the end of it.

The bathroom door opens. In a sudden panic, Mike flips over onto his stomach and pulls his pillow most of the way over his head, leaving just enough space to breathe. This way, his eyes are covered at least. He tries desperately to even out his breathing before the door opens, spilling in light from the hallway and silhouetting Tom in the doorway.

Tom pauses in the doorway but eventually comes all the way in and closes the door. In the dimness, lit only by the light around the curtains and the glow from the bedside clock, he manages to get around the bed without tripping. Mike’s facing the door, so he can’t see him, even peeking from under the pillow. He can hear the rustling, though, of Tom undressing. Not being able to see is the newest way Mike’s torturing himself.

The mattress dips as Tom climbs in. He seems to be moving gingerly.

Doesn’t want to wake you up, you big fat liar

.

Mike’s brain should shut the hell up.

It’s hard to tell time in the dark; time just seems to move differently. It could be two minutes later; it could be two hours later when Tom whispers, “Mike, you asleep?”

Mike doesn’t move, although his breathing’s probably given him away.

“Okay, well, even if you are. I just wanted to say thank you. My parents are so impressed. My mom wouldn’t shut up about you after you came in here. She saw you for three hours, and you’re already the best significant other I’ve ever had.”

There’s the lightest brush of something across Mike’s shoulder. Could be a bug; could be a draft; could be Tom’s fingertips. It’s too light and too fleeting to tell for certain.

But when Tom whispers next it’s from much closer - “Told ya you’d be spectacular.”

Breathe in, one two three. Out, one two three. Oh god. Breathe.

And from even closer - that’s definitely Tom’s breath he’s feeling on his shoulder - “My mom’s right, though.” A yawn sort of ruins that last word, and the following sentence starts to slur as Tom falls asleep: “You’re gonna ruin me for other people.”

At least they’ll both know what that’s like then.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Saturday morning, Mike wakes up when something heavy falls to the floor in the hallway. He’s on his stomach, facing the door, which is not a way he normally wakes up. His eyelids feel heavy and a little sticky; he definitely didn’t sleep enough or well or-- He can’t feel his left arm. He wiggles the fingers on his right hand, toes on both feet - he still has feeling everywhere else, so what is going on with his left arm?

Since he can’t push himself up with that arm, he just twists his head to the other side and promptly gets a mouthful of Tom’s hair.

Tom’s using his shoulder as a pillow. From what Mike can see, he’s not even lying normally on the bed. Instead of being mostly parallel to Mike, he’s in some weird diagonal position with his feet hanging off the side of the bed.

He’d forgotten Tom can be an active sleeper. He moves around a lot in his sleep; when they were in Jersey last summer, Tom once woke up completely the wrong way around with his feet on the pillows. Neither of them had any idea when that happened.

He could lie here and contemplate the kind of universe in which he wakes up every day wondering what kind of weird position he’s going to find Tom in. Or, he could not torture himself (again) and get up instead. He gets up - slowly, because he doesn’t actually want to wake Tom. He grabs a sweatshirt out of the dresser and goes to see if anyone else is awake.

In the kitchen, he finds both the older Wilsons. Neville is mixing something in a bowl he didn’t know they had (things Mike doesn’t know about is becoming a theme of this weekend already), and Keven is sipping coffee out of Tom’s favorite Leafs mug and reading something off his phone.

“Good morning.”

Neville turns away from the counter to smile at him. “Good morning, Michael! I hope we didn’t wake you?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m usually awake around this time anyway.” Thank god, there’s coffee left.

Keven sets his phone down. “Honey, I think everything is going to be busy today, it is a Saturday. So let’s just pick a museum and deal with the crush.”

“We’re going sightseeing today?” Mike assumes they all made plans after he went to bed.

“Oh no, sweetie.” Neville starts pouring batter into the pan on the stovetop. “We don’t want to ruin your lunch routine, so we’re going to check out some museums and let you boys have your special time together.”

Shit. “Oh.”

Neville’s making enough pancakes for an army. After a few minutes, she has Keven start on some scrambled eggs and bacon. Mike leans against the counter, drinking his coffee and watching them interact seamlessly. He’s a little bit jealous, but it’s sweet.

Breakfast is pretty much ready by the time Tom stumbles into the kitchen. He slouches heavily against Mike, face buried in his neck and short circuiting his brain

“Miiiiiiiike, it’s so early,” he whines.

Mike takes a deep breath and tries to remember how to count to ten in French. “Tommy, it’s almost 9. It’s hardly early.”

Tom makes a crabby sound but doesn’t move.

“You can’t have breakfast like this, you know. And your mom’s making pancakes…”

“Fine,” Tom grumbles, then steals Mike’s coffee and disappears into the living room.

Mike watches him go, mildly amused at Tom’s normal morning disgruntledness. When he looks back into the kitchen, Tom’s parents are both grinning widely.

“Nice to see he’s still not a morning person,” Keven says with a laugh.

“No, not at all. I’m going to, uh, make some more coffee.” Mike needs something to do that isn’t follow Tom into the living room and figure out how to make him smile.
 
******
 
After breakfast, Keven and Neville leave for their first batch of museums. Mike hides in the kitchen doing the cleaning he refused to let Neville do before they left. Normally, he’d be half asleep on his part of the couch mocking Tom’s TV choices until they both get hungry enough for lunch, but today the idea just makes him feel twitchy.

When he finds himself wondering how long it would take to clean the refrigerator and if defrosting the freezer is something he needs to worry about, he mans up and goes out into the living room.

“What time did you want to get lunch?”

Tom looks away from the TV, forehead wrinkling. “We’re scheduling lunch now?”

“I, uh, thought I might go to the gym for a bit this morning, just wondered what time I should be back.”

“The gym? On a Saturday morning?” Tom looks completely bewildered.

“Well, I’m up. So…” Mike shrugs. “Felt like I should be doing something productive.”

“Okay.” Tom doesn’t sound convinced. “I guess we could go at like one?”

“Sounds good.” Mike doesn’t run out of the room, exactly; he just doesn’t linger. He puts on clothes he’s willing to wear in public, grabs his gym bag, and leaves with a hasty “see you later” hollered in Tom’s general direction. When the elevator opens for him, André’s inside.

“Hey man, I’m going to the gym, wanna keep me company?”

André snorts and shakes his head. “Sorry, Mike. Tom asked first.”

“Tom asked? Asked what?”

“He wants to talk to me. Have fun at the gym!” He walks off with a wave

So much for going to the gym so he won’t worry about anything Tom-related.
 
******
 
He’s back from the gym shortly after noon. The apartment is eerily quiet. He finds a note from Tom taped to his bedroom door.

Ran out with Burkie for a bit

Meet you there @ 1

Fine. Plenty of time to get ready, no need to rush. Except somehow he takes too long in the shower - doing what, even he doesn’t know - and can’t find the pants he wants to wear until he figures out

someone

hung them in the closet instead of folding them. It’s a little less than ten minutes walk to the cafe, and he’s running out the door of their building at five minutes to one. He can’t run all the way there. For one thing, there are too many people on the sidewalk. And for another thing, he’ll totally cancel out the shower he just had.

He texts Tom instead.

Running late, on my way

The reply is a Snap of Tom’s unimpressed face with the message “I’m ordering for you it’s busy”.

Mike sends him a random bit of street with a middle finger emoji and keeps walking.

Inside the cafe, Tom’s sitting at their usual table fiddling with the carrot sticks that come with the hummus. When he spots Mike just inside the door… Mike always thought the phrase “his face lit up” was some kind of weird, dramatic, excessive description, but he’s not sure what else he would say about what Tom’s face just did. He’s also pretty sure that was the clearest demonstration of elevator eyes he’s ever seen.

“How do you get into those pants?”

He’s not even sitting down yet, jesus christ. “The same way I get into all of my pants?”

Tom laughs. “No, seriously, those things are the dictionary definition of ‘painted on’. I didn’t know they made khakis that tight.”

“They’re stretchy, okay, shut up. They’re comfortable.” He can feel the blush on his face.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t wear them.” Tom sort of leers, leaning out of his chair to get a better angle.

Mike sits down abruptly. “Alright, alright, enough about my pants. What am I eating for lunch?”

“Since you had the soup and salad thing last week, I figured it was time for the roast beef sandwich. Tomatoes, lettuce, red onion, provolone, extra special sauce on the side.”

That is exactly what Mike spent his whole walk over here day dreaming about. He loves the roast beef, but he only lets himself order it once a month.

“Is that okay? You only get that one every few weeks, and I thought it had been long enough. You seem to really like that, so I just thought…” Tom trails off mid-sentence, shifting a bit awkwardly.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s great, Tommy. Exactly what I would have ordered today.”

Mike has often thought Tom’s smile could power not just whole rooms but entire buildings. This one in particular could probably handle this whole block.

“So, what were you and Burkie up to this morning?”

“Eh, you know how that kid likes to shop.” Tom rolls his eyes. “How was the gym?”

Yeah, that wasn’t an answer, but fine, if that’s how he wants to be. “It was the gym, you know how it is.”

They demolish the hummus while Mike talks about some of the weird behavior he saw at the gym that morning. When their lunch arrives, the conversation drifts into the mess that Tom dealt with picking his parents up and how ridiculous he felt following his mom through Whole Foods.

It’s Tom’s turn to pay. Since the sun is finally out, Mike waits for him outside the restaurant, trying to soak up some vitamin D before it disappears again. They walk back to the apartment, bumping shoulders occasionally, and Mike tries not to think about how easy it would be make this walk holding Tom’s hand instead. He keeps his hands in his pockets, just to be safe.

Back in the apartment, coats removed (and hung up by Mike as per usual) and shoes kicked off, Mike is left with an unknown amount of time left alone with Tom. Which is one of the stupider things he’s ever thought, because this is exactly what Saturday afternoons are usually like: they eat lunch; they hang out; Tom goes to work.

He’s alone with Tom all the fucking time. The prospect of sitting on the couch watching bad reality TV on Netflix all afternoon with him should not be this daunting.

“I think I might catch a nap,” Mike yells from the kitchen.

“Cool, let me find something quiet to watch,” Tom yells back.

Mike leans around the dividing wall from the hallway. “Nah, I’m going back to our bedroom. The bedroom.

My

bedroom.”

Jesus, that was awkward

.

Tom’s mouth turns down into a pout. “You aren’t going to just nap here, with me?”

“You know I don’t nap well on the couch. I think you can entertain yourself for a while.”

Tom turns his pout towards the TV. “Fine.”

Mike shouldn’t encourage this kind of behavior. It’s like basic pet training or child rearing - if you give in to the whine/pout, it only makes it happen more often. Boundaries and rules and stick to -

oh fuck it anyway

. “Do you want to come nap with me?”

His tone isn’t particularly inviting, but Tom doesn’t seem to care. “Yeah, okay.” He’s way too pleased about it.

Mike doesn’t wait for him. He ducks into the bathroom briefly and finds Tom already in bed when he comes through the door. Now he has a new problem. He can’t sleep in the sweater and khakis he’s wearing; that would be uncomfortably warm.

“Stop stressing about your clothes and get in already,” Tom demands.

Rolling his eyes, Mike pulls off his sweater and sits on the end of the bed to wiggle out of his pants. Tom starts giggling as the pants get stuck around his thighs.

“Need help with that, big guy?”

“Shut up, Thomas.”

Pants finally off, he climbs under the covers and settles onto his left side, facing the door, back to Tom. There’s only the sound of their breathing for a few minutes, but it’s actually too quiet for Mike to fall asleep.

Shit, the fan

. He’s is trying to work up the motivation to get out of bed when he’s jostled by Tom getting up.

“Where’re you going?”

Instead of answering, Tom switches on the fan. “You can’t sleep without this thing on, how can you forget it?” He tugs at the blankets as he gets back into the bed.

“I dunno.” Mike half-shrugs.

“You need a remote controlled fan.” Tom slides across the mattress and throws an arm over Mike.

Mike freezes.

What the hell?

“My, uh, my birthday’s in May.”

Tom’s laugh tickles the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know. You really want a fan for your birthday, though? I can do better than that.”

“Yeah?” Mike wonders if his voice sounds as normal to Tom as it does to him. He’s not sure how that’s happening, actually.

“Yep. Speaking of birthday gifts, what are you getting me?”

Mike snorts. “Subtle. Who said I’m getting you anything?”

“Please, with my parents here watching? There’s no way you aren’t getting me something. You’d look like a terrible boyfriend, and you aren’t a terrible boyfriend.”

“If you say so,” Mike says skeptically.

“I do.” Tom’s being all smug, and Mike can’t even see him. “Mikey?”

“Yeah?”

“Go to sleep.”

Mike doubts that’s going to happen, but he is tired. His mattress is comfy, and it’s kind of nice to be the little spoon for a change. He’ll just lay here and try not to freak out too loudly.

The next noise he hears is a door closing. He blinks awake to a much dimmer room, trying to place the noise when it comes again, much more closely.

Oh right, the bathroom. Must be Tom

. He’s drifting back to sleep when a hand on his stomach moves, dragging his t-shirt up.

No, wait, that’s Tom. Who the -- his parents, it’s fine, it’s just Tom’s parents.

“Miiiiikey,” Tom whines, hiding his face between Mike’s shoulder blades. “Sssshhhhh.”

“They’re your parents,” Mike mumbles.

“Ugh.”

“Okay, c’mon. Let me up.”

“Don’t wanna.”

Mike doesn’t really want to either, but they can’t stay in here all night. For one thing, they’re going to get hungry. He stretches an arm out to grab his phone off the bedside table. “We’ve been asleep for like three hours, we definitely need to get up.”

Tom rolls away onto his back, taking all the blankets with him. “Fine, fine.”

Mike sits up and stretches once, enjoying the feeling of joints popping. Something brushes along his lower back. It feels too heavy to be just his T-shirt. He’s not going to look. He’s not. It’s bad enough he has to share a bed with Tom right now; he doesn’t need the mental image of Tom, half awake and sprawled across his bed, possibly touching him.

He gets all the way to the door before he gives in. It’s better and worse than he’d imagined. Tom’s not looking at him, thank god; he’s got his eyes closed again, and he’ll probably be asleep again before Mike makes it down the hall.

Somehow, he’s managed to forget that doors closing in the hallway mean Tom’s parents are probably *in* the hallway. When he leaves the bedroom, he nearly collides with Neville. Once they’re done dodging and weaving and everyone is back on two feet again, she gets a good look at him and starts giggling.

“See, Keven, I told you we needed to make that last stop. We didn’t come back too early, did we Michael?”

Oh god.

“No, no, uh, it’s fine.”

“Good, good.” She pats him on the arm and leaves him standing there in shock.

The door cracks open behind him just as she turns into the living room. Mike spins and pushes Tom back into the room, kicking the door closed behind him.

“Oh my fucking god, your parents think we spent all afternoon fucking.”

“What?!” If he weren’t having his own meltdown, he’d make fun of Tom’s voice cracking; he’ll have to save that for later.

“They stayed out of the apartment on purpose so we’d have plenty of time.”

Tom starts to respond, but pauses. “Actually, it’s kind of thoughtful of them to do that.”

Mike chokes on the reply he had waiting for a sentence Tom didn’t say. “Seriously?”

“Well yeah.” Tom shrugs. “It’s not their fault we were only napping.”

“Not their...only...you know what, never mind. Everything’s fine, let’s pretend we never had this conversation. Where are my pants?”

Tom snickers. “Over there, on the floor.”

Mike snatches his pants from the floor. “You don’t have to wait for me, you know.”

“Oh, but I do,” Tom says with an obnoxious grin. “I need to see you put those pants on.”

“Aren’t you getting that backwards?” Mike snarks back. “You’re supposed to get people to take their pants off.”

“I already got you to take your pants off, remember?” Tom smirks. “Now, I want to see what weird contortions you have to do to get them back on.”

Well, he’s got a point. He didn’t even ask earlier, just said ‘stop stressing and get in bed’, and Mike was pulling clothes off like he was covered in ants.

“Fine,” Mike snaps. He puts his feet through and pulls the pants up as far as his thighs. This is where he encounters issues. Getting these pants up the rest of the way involves some hopping and wiggling, all of which amuses Tom. He’s leaning against the door giggling almost hysterically by the time Mike finishes closing the zipper. “Happy?”

Tom takes a couple of deep breaths, trying to fight through his laughter. “Oh, so happy. You should wear those more often.”

Mike rolls his eyes. “You just wait till the next time you wear skinny jeans - I’ll get my revenge.”

“Promise?” Tom winks at him and then disappears out the door before Mike can formulate a response.

Bastard

.
 
******
 
They spend their Saturday night hanging on the couch with Tom’s parents. They order pizza - Mike’s usual Saturday night routine - and ignore the basketball game that Tom turns on. Instead, Mike gets to hear all about Tom as a kid, which is hilarious.

Tom’s parents have claimed Tom’s usual half of the couch, so Mike resigns himself to sharing his side with Tom. Instead of sitting on the couch with him though, Tom’s chosen to sit on the floor in front of him. By the time the pizza is gone and nostalgic storytelling is in full swing, he’s more often than not leaning his head against Mike’s leg. Mike, sitting cross legged on the couch to give him space, finds this very distracting.

Honestly, he needs to just admit that he finds Tom distracting 100% of the time and learn to cope. There should be support groups for this kind of thing; he could really benefit from someone else’s techniques. His clearly aren’t working.

Just about the time he’s starting to wonder why Tom’s parents haven’t asked them any questions about their ‘relationship’.... he totally jinxes it.

“So Michael,” Neville starts with that tone all moms use when they want you to tell them something, “who initiated this” - she gestures at them - “development in your relationship.”

Next to him, Tom tenses up so rapidly it must have hurt. Serves him right for “we’ll just wing it”. What a load of bullshit. But hey, he said whoever got asked got to make everything up, so this could be fun.

He puts on his best “fuck, I’m so happy” smile and runs his fingers through Tom’s hair, just because he can. “Tommy did.”

Tom hides his face in Mike’s thigh, whether because he’s actually embarrassed or just trying to cover up freaking out is anyone’s guess.

“Was it after that trip to the shore? Or maybe during? I couldn’t help but guess. There was such a difference to the way Tom talked about you that I wondered if something might be going on, but when he didn’t say anything, I got digging around in his Instagram.”

“Snooping, more like.” Keven interjects.

“Hush, you. He posts it publicly; it’s not snooping.”

Mike laughs. “It’s true, it’s not snooping if he put it up there for people to look at.” He grabs his soda off the coffee table to give himself time to think. “It was after the trip to the beach.”

No one says anything, but both Neville and Keven are looking at him expectantly, so he carries on making shit up. Well, making some shit up. He heard somewhere that it’s easier to remember your lies when most of your story is the truth, so he’s just going to change a few of the details and hope they can remember that.

“I told the guys I was bringing my friend Tom with me. Somehow they all assumed I didn't want to just say he was my boyfriend. I have no idea why, since I'd introduced them all to boyfriends before. The second day we were there, one of them made a comment about 'your boyfriend’, clearly talking about Tom, and the whole thing came out. I guess I sounded sad enough about it not being true that they decided someone needed to butt in and yell at Tom to get it together.”

“Fish or cut bait,” Tom says quietly from the floor.

Mike makes a mental note to ask about that. It sounded like he was quoting someone, but who?

“I didn't really notice much difference the rest of the trip, but he got all shifty and weird after we got home. Took him a while to get up the nerve to say something, but he's braver than I am. If we were waiting on me, we'd still not be together,” Mike concludes, eyes on the couch.

He can just see Tom frowning at him from the corner of his eye.

“But anyway, yeah, one night when he wasn’t working he did this whole romantic dinner thing - ordered my favorite food, bought my favorite beer, lit a stupid amount of candles - it was really sweet. And because I’m slow, he had to be very direct and spell it out for me.”

Tom smiles up at him from the floor. “

Hey Mike, since everyone thinks I’m your boyfriend, I was wondering if I could be your boyfriend for real.”

Tom again sounds a little like he’s quoting someone. It can’t be himself; Tom’s definitely never said that to him before.

“That’s so adorable,” Neville giggles.

“It really was,” Mike smiles back at Tom, but he can’t hold the eye contact. It’s too weird. Time for a change of subject. “How did the two of you meet?”
 
******
 
Going to bed Saturday night already feels like a routine. Mike’s the last one out of the bathroom, so he gets the dubious joy of walking into his room to find Tom in his bed with half the blankets flipped up, just waiting for him. He stumbles a little over the invisible bump in the floor his feelings cause. He remembers the fan this time, and he gets all the lights off before he takes his spot in the bed. Tom immediately slides up behind him and throws an arm across him, taking hold of the blanket in front of Mike like someone’s going to try to take it away.

Mike’s not really sure where to put his own hands. If he puts them where they naturally fall, he’ll be essentially holding hands with Tom again; he’s not sure he’s prepared to deal with that. “Are you always this cuddly?”

“Yes,” Tom mumbles into the back of his neck. “Shhh, go to sleep.”

People who fall asleep the second their head hits the pillow are very annoying, Mike decides 45 minutes later. Tom hasn’t so much as twitched; if he wasn’t breathing so loudly, Mike wouldn’t be sure he was alive. He’d really like to roll over, but Tom’s death grip on the blankets means he doesn’t have a lot of space.

Maybe just onto your back, you can manage that

.

He sort of does, but instead of staying mostly where he was, Tom sort of falls into the space created by his shoulder moving. Now, not only does he have an arm across Mike, he’s also got about a third of his body effectively pinning Mike to the bed. And if that wasn’t bad enough, whatever space existed between Tom’s face and Mike’s skin is now gone, and the sensitive side of his neck is right where Tom is breathing. And licking his lips, god-fucking-dammit.

Can you have a mental breakdown without making any noise? Ongoing research by Michael Latta, with conclusions to be presented in the morning or after death, whichever happens first.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Mike sleeps like shit. Every time he finally dozes off, Tom moves. He can’t just roll over quickly like a normal person, no, that would be too simple. It barely even qualifies as a roll; it’s more like a body check - he’s just throwing himself in different directions. Mike gets elbowed in the shoulder twice and kicked in the leg several times.

Just after seven, he gives up and gets out of bed. He’s had one of Tom’s knees in his back for the last forty-five minutes.

He lets the water warm up before climbing into the shower. Since there’s no one else up yet, he doesn’t rush his usual routine, soaping and shampooing. He lets his mind wander and finds himself, unsurprisingly, recalling Tom falling asleep draped all over him. For a few seconds, he considers ignoring his natural response to that, but it’s not like he has a lot of other options. It’s been an inspiring couple of days, and well, the Wilsons have three sons. It’s not like they don’t know the kind of things that might happen in this shower. Besides, with the material he’s been given over the last forty-eight hours, this isn’t going to take long.

He lathers up a little more soap and lets himself sink back into his memory. But instead of falling asleep, imaginary Tom is very awake, pressing up against him to get a good view and using his lips against Mike’s neck on purpose just to drive him crazy. “

C’mon Mikey, let me see

…”

Jesus christ.

Mike nearly loses his balance when he comes. He’s usually got enough warning to brace himself, but that, that was something else.

The water’s still running hot when he shuts it off and gets out. He gets dressed and takes his phone out to the living room. He’s been ignoring a multitude of texts from Brooks, and it looks like Nicky is in on it now. He sends a group message -

things are fine stop bothering me

- and hopes they’ll leave him alone until tomorrow.

At eight, Mike leaves a note on the counter that he’s gone to pick up breakfast and sends Tom a text saying the same thing. He’s pulling his coat on when Keven appears at the other end of the hall, stepping out of Tom’s room.

“Good morning, Mike. Where’re you headed?”

“I, uh, usually pick up breakfast and coffee Sunday mornings. This place nearby makes really great quiche.”

“That sounds great! Mind if I join you?”

“No? I mean, no,” Mike laughs. “Sorry, I’m not used to talking to anyone this early on a Sunday.”

Keven laughs with him as he puts on his own coat and shoes then gestures at Mike to lead the way.

They make their way outside in silence. After half a block, Keven asks about Mike’s job, and that small talk lasts them the rest of the way to the bakery. The employee behind the register asks Mike if he’d like “his regular”.

“Regular?” Keven asks.

“Two slices of whatever our quiche of the day is, one cheese Danish for him, and a chocolate croissant for his boyfriend.”

Mike is

pretty certain

he’s never once said that the chocolate croissant was for his boyfriend. He’s almost as certain he’s never even said he was picking it up for his male roommate -- no, wait, about a month ago, he was on the phone with Tom when he got to the front of the line. Tom wanted to know when he’d be back because he was starving to death, and Mike had said “aww, poor baby, do you need an extra croissant?” - all obnoxiously sweet just to be a jackass - before saying “okay, Tommy, gotta order. I’ll be home soon.” He can’t fault the bakery staff for making assumptions. He would have, too.

And, hey, free confirmation for Tom’s dad that other people think they’re in a relationship.

“Let’s make it two of his regular orders then, that sounds delicious.”

Breakfast packed up, they head back towards the apartment. “Umm,” Mike starts, “normally, I stop for coffee too, but we don’t have to. It’s just I never remember to start the coffee before I leave, and I don’t want to wait for it to brew when I get back. And Tom likes this ridiculous concoction that we can’t make at home.”

Keven smiles. “I’m just tagging along, so you stop wherever you need to.” He waits a few more steps before continuing. “I don’t want this to sound threatening or something, but I’d like to take this opportunity to share something with you.”

“Okay?” This doesn’t sound good.

“We were really pleased that Tom found someone decent to live with; finding a roommate in a city where you don’t know anyone can be hit or miss. And the more he’s talked about you, the better you sound.” He stops walking, and Michael slows to a stop just ahead of him. Keven waits until he’s stopped and is making eye contact to finish. “You are very important to my son, and his mother and I would like to thank you for making him so happy.”

Mike swallows hard and has to look away for a moment. He didn’t account for this.

“You’re welcome,” he eventually replies. “I hope that continues to be true.” He starts walking again, hoping Keven will follow.

“After watching you two together, I have no concerns about that at all.” Keven claps him on the shoulder, and they fall silent for the last few steps to the coffee shop.
 
******
 
“Oh good, you’re back!” Neville smiles widely at them from the couch as they deposit the takeout boxes and paper cups on the coffee table. “I haven’t even heard Tommy move yet. You might want to go check on him, Michael.”

No, no, Michael does not want to go check on him. It’s bad enough that he has to be in bed with him; at least he doesn’t have to

see

him.

“Sure, yeah, I’ll be right back.”

The curtains in Mike’s bedroom do a great job blocking out the sunlight, so it’s still fairly dim. He  shuts the door behind him and leans against it until his eyes adjust. Tom’s sprawled across the whole bed at a diagonal, with his face buried in Mike’s pillow and his left foot hanging off the edge. As he watches, Tom sort of flops onto his left side, pulling Mike’s pillow in like a child clutching a teddy bear.

Jesus

.

“Hey Tom? Tommy?”

Not even a twitch.

He steps closer to the bed, pausing halfway between there and the door. “Tommy, breakfast is here.”

Tom sort of snuffles into the pillow.

Mike shuffles forward until his knees bump the edge of the mattress. “Tom, food’s here. There’s coffee.”

Tom makes an unintelligible noise and rolls abruptly onto his back, dislodging most of the blankets in a move Mike couldn’t describe if he was paid to, mostly because he wasn’t watching the blankets as more and more bare skin was exposed. If he’d had any idea Tom was sleeping in just his boxers last night…. He would have moved to the couch. But that thought doesn’t last terribly long. It can’t, because pretty much all of Mike’s higher brain function has ceased abruptly.

Those boxers leave just about nothing to the imagination, and there is... there is a lot to be imagined right now.

If enough oxygen was getting to his brain to allow him to think, a responsible side of Mike would remember that he maybe shouldn’t be standing here staring at Tom while he’s sleeping because it’s creepy. But breathing is one of those things he stopped doing several

inches

minutes ago, so he doesn’t move.

“Mikey,” comes a mumble from somewhere.

“Mike?” Oh, right, that’s Tom. And he has a face that Mike should be looking at.

“Uh, hey, so uh.” It’s not Mike’s most articulate moment.

“Is breakfast here?”

Mike is self-aware enough to already know that half-awake-Tom is one of his favorite versions. Half-awake-Tom is just softer and quieter and more snuggly. ‘Snuggly’ isn’t exactly the word Mike would use to describe Tom right now, but he also can’t remember the word he would use, so…

“Uh, yeah.”

“Okay,” Tom smiles lazily. “I’m comin’.”

Mike, well, Mike flees the room. He’s not too proud to admit it. The bathroom door slams closed behind him. He doesn’t bother turning on the light, just sinks to the floor and tries to remember how normal breathing works.

He didn’t account for, for, for

this

when he agreed to this plan. He didn’t agree to have everything he’s ever wanted laid out in front of him, like the world’s best buffet, only to be told he can’t actually have any of it. This is unfair, this is awful, this is

torture

, this --

A knock on the door interrupts his pity party.

“Mike? Can I get in there?”

Shit.

“Yeah, uh, hold on.” He scrambles to his feet, but Tom’s not waiting for further permission; the doorknob begins to turn before he finishes vocalizing his “yeah”.

“Dude, what are you doing in here in the dark?” The light snaps on abruptly, revealing Tom already well inside both the bathroom and Mike’s personal space. He hasn’t bothered to put on any additional clothes. Fuck this day already. “Are you okay? You look kinda off.”

“I’m fine, yeah, I just need to-” Mike can’t get to the door, seeing as how there’s an entire Tom in his way, which takes up pretty much all the space in the bathroom not currently occupied by Mike himself. “I’m trying -- Can you- Jesus, Tom, can you let me out the door?!”

Tom flinches a little but plasters himself to the far wall. “Okay, okay, sorry.”

Well great. Now Mike has to feel bad for snapping even though it’s totally Tom’s fault thanks to his, well, everything. Existing. “It’s fine, sorry I yelled. I’m gonna, um, go.”

He edges past Tom carefully, doing his best not to make any contact, and ignores Tom watching him like he could explode at any moment.
 
******
 
Mike ignores his breakfast but more or less chugs his coffee. Tom’s still in the shower, so he takes the opportunity to duck into the bedroom and grab his gym stuff and escape from the apartment with absolutely no thought to explaining himself to Tom’s parents. He takes the elevator up to André’s and pounds on the door.

Before he can knock a second time, the door swings open to reveal a tall blonde guy Mike’s never seen before. They blink at each other in surprise.

“Nicke,

vem är det

?” André leans into view from his kitchen. “Oh, hey Mike.”

“Oh, this is Mike?” Blonde Guy smiles. “Hi, I’m Nick. Come in, please.”

Mike follows him into the kitchen where André, wearing a pair of pajama pants covered in moose, is pulling a box of cereal from the cabinet. “Hey, I was going to ask if you wanted to come to the gym with me. Didn’t know you had company, sorry.”

“Nicke’s not company,” André laughs. Behind him, Nick looks quietly pleased as he pours orange juice into a glass. “I can go to the gym. He’ll be fine by himself.”

Mike watches Nick’s face fall, though he covers it with a bland neutral before André turns to look at him.

“Let me change, and we can go.”

Mike and Nick stand in awkward silence as he leaves the room.

“So, uh,” Mike says uncomfortably, “how do you know André?”

Nick looks up from the counter. “He’s been my best friend since we were children.”

Another few moments of awkward silence pass.

“What brings you to DC?”

“Vacation, right now. But I’m looking for a job, maybe, or school, something to do. ‘Dre likes it here, so I thought it might be an okay place.” Nick fiddles with his glass, just a tad too nonchalantly.

Uh-huh. Mike wonders if André knows his best friend is in love with him.

“So you’re the one with the fake boyfriend?”

Wow, so they’re done with the small talk. “Uh, yeah, that’s me.”

“How’s that going?”

“Well and terrible, if that makes any sense.”

Nick finally makes actual eye contact with him and nods jerkily. “Yeah, it does.”

Mike nods back, and they don’t say anything else until André comes back.
 
******
 
Half a block from their building, Mike texts Tom that he’s gone to the gym with André. He sees that Tom’s typing and shuts off his phone before the message can come through. He just can’t right now.

“So…. Nick seems nice.”

“Nicke is the best,” André says matter-of-factly.

“How come we’ve never heard about him before?”

André’s nose wrinkles with his confusion. “You have, I just don’t say names when I tell you those stories. I wasn’t expecting you to ever meet any of my Swedish friends.”

“Okay, how many of your ‘this friend of mine’ stories are about Nick then?”

“At least eighty percent. Probably more.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Of course,” André frowns. “All the time. But we text, we Snapchat, we even FaceTime at least once a week. It works.”

Maybe for you

Mike doesn’t say out loud. “Why didn’t you mention he was coming? And how long is he here for?”

“I didn’t know he was coming; it was a surprise! He texted me on Friday that he was in New York, waiting for a connecting flight, and would I come pick him up at the airport.” André giggles. “I don’t really remember if he told me when he’s leaving.”

“Maybe he’s not leaving.”

“Why would he stay?”

“Really?” Mike stops walking and stares incredulously at André. “You have no idea why he might have come four thousand and some miles to see you and not want to leave? Really?”

“I mean, it’s nice here, but--”

“You know what, never mind,” Mike talks over the top of him. “So how’s your weekend been?”

“Mike, do you want to just tell me why we’re making an emergency trip to the gym, or would you rather we pretend I don’t know you’re upset about something?”

“I’d kind of like to pretend that I’m not upset about something. I don’t really care if you pretend not to notice.”

André sighs, shakes his head, and turns back towards the gym. “Weekend going alright?”

“Ah, no. I wouldn’t describe it as ‘alright’.” He’s not going to say anything else, because he doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

That lasts eight steps.

“Tom is really cuddly, like I know you think you know that already, but have you ever tried to sleep with him?” André tries to answer, but Mike talks over top of him. “He’s like a goddamn octopus, hands everywhere. He fucking

licked

my neck last night, Burkie. I mean, he was asleep when he did it, but I wasn’t! And I keep thinking about-- everything, and it’s so much more than I thought it was going to be, and maybeIcan’tactuallydothis.”

He feels a little lightheaded after all that -- oh right, breathing is a thing he should be doing. He gulps in air while André stands there considering him carefully.

“I think you have two options,” André eventually says. “One, you can go home and rat Tom out to his parents.”

“Fuck no, I can’t do that - Tom would be so pissed.”

“True. Your other option is to suck it up and deal. You made the choice to do this, and you need to deal with consequences.”

“That’s it? Those two shitty options are my only choices?”

“Well, can

you

think of anything else?” André snaps.

“I don’t know, just -- this fucking blows, Burkie.” Mike sighs, shoulders sagging with the weight of decisions he didn’t think through.

“Or doesn’t, which is maybe half your problem,” André giggles.

Mike makes a mental note to do something rotten to Nicky’s boyfriend for teaching André about double entendres. He rolls his eyes. “Let’s just go in, okay? You can lecture me about my life choices later.”
 
******
 
Thirty-seven minutes later, Mike is sitting on one of the bench presses, wiping sweat from his face, when a commotion over by the door catches his attention.

Tom’s here.

Shit.

Tom’s trying to get around André, who is doing a pretty good job of being a wall for someone so skinny.  He isn’t yelling at André yet, but he’s not far from it.

A quick review reminds Mike that, aside from the emergency fire door in the back, there’s only one entrance to this place. And a very angry Tom is in front of it, so there’s really no hope for an early escape. They need to diffuse this before they get kicked out of the only decent gym in their neighborhood.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?” He drops an arm across André’s shoulders with feigned innocence.

André swears under his breath in Swedish.

“Get your shit and let’s go,” Tom bites out with the iciest tone Mike’s ever heard him use. “My mom wants us all sightseeing this afternoon, and you need the time to figure out what lame-ass excuse you’re going to give her for bailing this morning.”

Okay, so Tom is

super

pissed.

Mike pats André on the back; poor kid looks worried. “Sure, okay, Tommy. Meet you outside?”

Tom glares for a beat, then two. “Fine. Two minutes, or I’m coming in after you.” He wheels around abruptly and pushes through the door to the street.

“Oh man, you are in SO MUCH trouble,” André sing-songs.

“Shut up, Burkie.”
 
******
 
Out on the sidewalk, Tom is tapping one foot in impatience and spitting words into his phone. “--I don’t even know what the fucking problem IS, Brooks, so how the fuck am I supposed to fix it?”

“Uhh--”

Tom looks over his shoulder sharply. “I gotta go.” He shoves his phone into his pocket and stalks off towards home. 
Mike almost has to run to catch up with him.

“So my dad said you seemed fine this morning, even after he said something totally embarrassing. So what the fuck happened?”

Since Mike can’t say “I walked into my bedroom and found you half-naked and hard in my bed”.... he really needs to think of something else to say. “It was-- I just.” He can’t figure out how to put a sentence together to save his life.

“Just what, Mike?” Tom snaps.

Mike snaps back defensively. “You know I don’t like to lie to people, Tommy, and it just got to be a lot this morning, okay?”

Tom’s silent for half a block, and he sounds resigned when he talks again. “Do you want to stop?”

Mike takes a few seconds to imagine how awkward that would be, how disappointed the Wilsons would be with both of them - Tom especially. Would they even stay for the rest of their vacation? How long would it take before Tom resented him enough that he would leave?

“No!” It’s too sharp, this panicked tone to his voice. Tom’s looking at him like he’s crazy again. “No,” he says more calmly. “It’s fine, now. I just got a little overwhelmed this morning. It’s gonna be fine. I can do this for you, Tommy. We’re gonna be fine.”

“Uh-huh,” Tom says skeptically, still side-eyeing him.

“What did you tell your parents?”

Tom snorts. “Absolutely fucking nothing. I got out of the shower, and my parents were in the living room all kinds of concerned that something happened because you bolted out of there like you were running from the police.” He stops walking and catches hold of Mike’s sleeve. “You’ve been weird this weekend, dude, and I don’t think it’s just about the lying. Is there something else going on? You can tell me, you know? Please.”

He’s so determined, clutching at Mike’s sleeve like Mike’s going to run away from him again, big blue eyes so full of concern that Mike wants to choke on all the things he can’t say. “There’s nothing else going on, buddy. Nothing to tell you.”

“You’re sure? Absolutely nothing? Problems at work, fight with a friend, somebody on Tinder didn’t swipe right for you? Nothing at all?”

Mike’s not sure if what he’s feeling right now is heartburn from his chugged coffee this morning or the taste of guilt as he looks Tom right in the eye and lies through his fucking teeth: “Nothing at all, Tommy. Nothing at all.”
 
******
 
“Lame-ass excuse” is pretty much exactly what Mike comes up with in the few blocks between the gym and the apartment. Tom clearly doesn’t believe him that nothing is wrong. There’s a noticeable gap between them, and Mike’s more distracted by that extra few inches than he wants to admit.

So once inside the apartment, he makes a pathetic apology about forgetting he had plans with André (and reminds himself to warn André just in case). He’s not even sure if Tom’s parents believe him, but they’re convincing when they tell him everything’s fine.

Since it’s as decent a day as one can hope for in DC in March, Neville wants to see some of the outdoor sites. So after a hasty leftover lunch, everyone bundles into their layers and heads downstairs to the rental car. Tom volunteers to navigate for Keven and takes the passenger seat; Mike slides into the back seat behind Keven and hopes they won’t spend too much time lost. Tom drives more than Mike does, but only in their general neighborhood; it’s not like he’s an expert on the actual District.

The Wilsons in the front seat spend most of the drive in arguing with the sports radio guys, with only the slightest indication that they know the radio doesn’t work two ways. Neville is either enjoying her view out the window or making another change to the list of things she wants to see today. With no one paying much attention to him, Mike takes the rare opportunity to watch Tom uninterrupted.

He doesn’t get to do this often. If it’s just the two of them in the apartment, Tom is usually quick to notice the staring and ask if something’s on his face. Then Mike has to chirp him with something stupid that he doesn’t mean and find something else to look at. He can’t do it with other people around either, because then someone else wants to know why he’s staring because none of their friends would know subtle if it punched them in the face. He had been trying to keep his feelings a secret from their friends. It’s not like it was working, but he

was

trying. Here though, if Neville notices she’ll probably think it’s cute, so he’s going to milk that for all it’s worth.

From this angle, he’s getting Tom mostly in profile, which, really. The jawline on this kid, goddamn. Tom hasn’t shaved in a couple of days; he’s hit “scruffy” rather than full-on beard at this point, but that’s enough to derail Mike’s train of thought for a few minutes. He’s had a lot of thoughts about that scruff in the past; after the last forty-eight hours, he’s starting to get an idea of how it would actually feel, and he needs to stop thinking about

that

while he’s sitting next to Tom’s mom.

At this angle, he’s not getting the full force of Tom’s eyes, but he can fill in enough from his memory. With all the laughing Tom’s doing, they’re sparkling like the ocean on a sunny day. He can just see the slight dimple in his left cheek flirting with visibility as Tom laughs at something his dad says.

He might not have much, but he’s got the most beautiful fake boyfriend in D.C. That’s something, right?
 
(It’s really not.)
 
******
 
By the time they get into the District, Neville’s narrowed her focus for the afternoon to the National Mall. It’s a busy Sunday - the sun’s out, so everyone wants to be outside, and the roads are predictably crowded.

Mike’s purposefully not paying attention. The traffic in this city stresses him out; there’s a reason he takes the Metro everywhere. It’s not necessarily less crowded, but at least he’s not responsible for a piece of heavy machinery while he wants to run someone over. Instead, he’s reading the texts he’s been ignoring from Brooks. Saturday there was a lot of “Mike? MIKE? ARE YOU DEAD?” Eventually Nicky, André, even TJ from Marketing jumped in to speculate on what he might be doing instead of answering them. Some of their suggestions are… very creative. Mike’s not sure what a couple of Nicky’s suggestions even mean. He’d google them now, but that seems like asking for trouble with Neville right there.

They park in a garage a few blocks south of the mall, since they aren’t going to get any closer. In the elevator down to ground level, Mike edges in closer to Tom. Tom takes one step away. Mike frowns at the floor.

Out on the street, Tom points them in the right direction and takes off with his dad towards the Mall. Mike trails behind, feeling blatantly chastised. He apologized; what more does Tom want?

“Have you and Tom ever had a real fight, Mike?” Neville asks quietly.

“Um, not really? We had some disagreements about things when he first moved in, but usually that was me yelling at him about doing something in a way I wasn’t used to and him hiding in his room until I apologized. I don’t think he’s ever been the one really angry.”

“Well, let me give you a brief lesson in ‘really angry Tom’. Some of that hiding in his room was him being angry. He’d rather run away or hide than stay and yell. It’s best if you just let him be for now. He’ll come around when he’s calmed down.”

Mike nods, but he’s not really focusing. He’s watching Tom walk away from him without a single glance back to make sure he’s following. Leave Tom alone? He’s never been able to do that; that’s why he was always the one apologizing. Anything to get Tom back into the same room, to get him smiling in Mike’s presence, if it wasn’t in his direction.

In hindsight, he’s always been pretty stupid about Tom Wilson.

Neville doesn’t say anything else as they walk. They follow Tom and Keven all the way to the wide, grassy expanse in front of Smithsonian Castle before Tom bothers to acknowledge Mike and, by extension, his mom.

The rest of the afternoon progresses in the same fashion. Tom ignores Mike (and whichever parent is feeling sorry for him at the time). Mike tries to get closer, tries to force Tom to pay attention to him. It doesn’t work. The cycle repeats. By the time they’ve walked as far as the Reflecting Pool, Mike can’t take it any more. While Neville is trying to figure out how to frame a good shot of the Washington Monument, Mike slips up next to Tom. He waits a second, two seconds; Tom doesn’t move. That’s an improvement. Maybe he’s thawing out.

A wise man would take that and patiently wait for more; Mike is not, and never has been, a wise man.

Instead, he inches marginally closer and takes hold of Tom’s hand.

For a split second, he gets away with it. He more than gets away with it. Out of some kind of instinct, Tom actually links their fingers together before he remembers that he’s angry at Mike.

He jerks away from Mike with a glare, taking several steps away and crossing his arms over his chest. Mike accidentally makes eye contact with some tourists a few feet away. The pity on both their faces almost makes him nauseous.

That’s the last time he tries that.

They take a lot of pictures for Neville, though most of them have one or both of the parents included. As the afternoon wears on, Mike finds himself waiting for the point where she asks for him to stay out of one, and then two, and then the rest. No reason to ruin all their photos of this trip with an ex-boyfriend, right?

But she doesn’t do that. The later it gets, the more pictures she wants of just him and Tom. Mike tries to smile for her; she deserves pictures that don’t have to be explained with “they were fighting all afternoon, it was horrid”. He’s not sure what Tom’s doing. He can’t bear to look.

It’s not quite sunset as they head back to the car, but the sun is definitely headed towards the horizon. They’re all quiet. It’s been a long day; they’ve walked a decent distance, and this level of awkward is very tiring. In the elevator, Mike takes the opposite corner from Tom and keeps his eyes trained on his shoes.

He can’t believe he couldn’t even do this for three whole days.

The car ride home is much quieter than the ride over had been. Tom adjusts the radio to one of his favorite stations but leaves the volume low. Mike closes his eyes and leans his head against the window. Would it be totally pathetic to cry? Possibly.
 
******
 
The awkwardness doesn’t go away when they get home.

Instead of taking his usual seat on the sofa, next to Mike, Tom makes sure one of his parents is always between them.

Instead of calling out for delivery, Tom volunteers to go pick up dinner. Mike can’t remember the last time that happened. He can’t remember if that’s
ever
happened.

He stands in the hallway and stares at the door in disbelief.

“Oh honey,” Neville says sadly from the archway to the living room. She walks over and hugs him before he can respond. She steps back a moment later to look him in the face, keeping hold of his shoulders. “It’ll be okay, honey. Whatever he’s upset about, it can’t be that bad.”

Mike tries to smile, but he knows it isn’t very convincing. Neville just hugs him again.
 
******
 
Dinner could be cardboard for all that Mike knows. Usually Chinese is one of his favorites, but eating is kind of a chore tonight. He wants to be comforted by the fact that Tom brought back his usual order - plus extra duck sauce for the egg rolls - but he’s too busy trying to control his panic.

Eventually, the long weekend of emotional whiplash and not enough sleep catches up with him. The Wilsons are looking a little droopy as well, so no one seems surprised that he’s tapping out already. He fully expects some excuse from Tom to avoid coming to bed at the same time, but when the parents decide they’re going to bed as well, Tom starts clearing up and shutting down the apartment for the night.

Mike gets through his routine before Tom’s finished; he’s already in bed when Tom comes in. The difference from Friday is the light’s still on and Mike is making no pretense at being asleep. Instead, he’s sitting up, knees pulled in beneath his chin, patiently(ish) waiting.

Tom pauses a little when he comes through the door. He shakes it off quickly though, and begins pulling a pile of sweats out of his dresser, still ignoring Mike.

“Tom.”

No response, not even a twitch. Tom swaps his jeans for a thick pair of sweatpants and shoves the discards back in the drawer.

“Tom,” Mike repeats, louder and more sharply.

Tom replaces his henley with a faded Maple Leafs t-shirt and leans down to dig through a drawer Mike can’t see into from his spot on the bed.

“Tommy, please talk to me.” He’s begging; he’ll probably be embarrassed about that later.

“What,” Tom says flatly. He pulls a hooded sweatshirt on and pushes the drawer shut with his foot.

“I don’t understand why you’re so mad. I can’t stop doing whatever I did if you don’t tell me what it is.”

Tom slides under the blankets on his side of the bed and finally looks at him.

“Don’t worry about it, Mike,” he says with a sigh. He turns onto his side, back to Mike. “I’ll get over it. Shut the light off, will ya?”

Mike has to get up to turn his fan on first, but he shuts off the lamp as he gets back into bed. He turns onto his right side, looking at the silhouette of Tom between him and the window.

He tries one last time. “Tom?”

“Good night, Mike.”

He rolls away to face the door, tears stinging at his eyes and one sliding down his nose. He thought this is what he wanted: Tom safely on one side of the bed, not giving Mike any ideas about what it’s like to cuddle with him.

It’s not what he wants. He wants Tom in his space, messing with his head and giving him memories he’s going to live on whenever this comes to the crashing halt that it certainly will. How can Tom be just as distracting when he’s

not

touching him as when he is?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Mike’s alarm jars him awake the next morning.

Tom groans and buries his face in the back of Mike’s neck. His eyelashes kind of tickle, and the scruff Mike was fantasizing about yesterday is just as pleasantly scratchy as he suspected.

“Turn that off,” Tom whines.

Mike taps the snooze button on his phone and fights the urge to giggle. At some point while they were sleeping, Tom rolled into what is rapidly becoming his usual sleeping position - pressed up against Mike’s back, arm across his chest, fingers tangled in his shirt. Mike’s got ten minutes to enjoy this.

“Your alarm is so loud,” Tom mumbles, lips catching at the skin of Mike’s neck.

“That’s kinda the point,” Mike says quietly, rubbing Tom’s arm. “Otherwise I don’t hear it.”

“How do I not hear that in the spare room?”

Spare room?

“I don’t know, buddy.”

Tom doesn’t reply. He may have drifted back to sleep, and that’s more than fine with Mike. He’s happy to just lay there and enjoy. He rubs a hand over Tom’s arm again, and - wait, Tom had more layers on when he went to sleep.

“Tommy,” he whispers.

“Hmmm?”  Mike feels the response, vibrating through his back, as much as he hears it.

“What happened to your sweatshirt?”

“Too hot.”

“Why’d you put it on in the first place?”

“You got all weird after I slept in just my boxers. Thought more layers would help.”

Mike would smack himself in the face, but that would jostle Tom.

“Tommy?”

“Hmmm?”

“Sleep in whatever you want, okay?”

“Mmmmm.”

Mike’s alarm startles both of them the next time. He grudgingly swipes it to dismiss and moves to get up. Tom tightens his grip.

“Tommy, I gotta get up.” Tom’s disapproving noise makes him laugh. “No, really, Tom, I have to get up.”

“Ugggghhhhh,” Tom groans, but loosens his grip enough for Mike to slip out of bed.

“Are you working tonight?” Mike starts grabbing clothes to take with him to the bathroom. He doesn’t want to disturb Tom’s sleep any more than necessary.

“Yeah. Keep my parents entertained?”

“Of course.”

“What are you doing?”

“Taking my stuff into the bathroom so you can go back to sleep?”

Tom snorts. “Don’t be stupid, just come back after you shower. I can sleep later.”

“Ummm, okay.”

Mike sets a record for showering and just barely remembers to brush his teeth. This is the same towel he uses regularly -- he’s walked around post-shower in it before -- but it feels a lot smaller today than normal. It’s still mostly dark in the hall, with both bedroom doors closed, but there’s a glimmer of light coming from under the door to his room.

Tom’s turned on the bedside lamp. How he can sleep with a light on is beyond Mike, but the soft light does wonderful things to his face. Mike could get used to getting ready like this. Admittedly, he’d probably be late a lot more often, but he thinks Nicky might understand.

He sets the gray suit he’d selected on the end of the bed and goes back to dresser for underwear and socks. He throws his towel in the hamper and bends over to pull on his boxer briefs - red ones that were on top of the pile. There’s a faint noise from behind him, but when he glances over his shoulder, Tom still looks like he’s asleep.

He grabs his socks and walks back towards the bed. Black socks first, then the green button down picked out by Brooks’ girlfriend last time they dragged him out shopping. He’s buttoning one of the cuffs when he hears that noise again.

He’s never known Tom to have bad dreams or to talk in his sleep, but there’s a first time for everything. He shakes Tom’s foot a little before he starts buttoning his shirt.

“Hey buddy, you okay?”

“Yeah,” Tom husks out before clearing his throat. “‘M good.”

“I’ll be out of your way in just a second, so you can go back to sleep.”

“Right, sure,” Tom says, faintly and in kind of a weird tone.

Pants on and belt fastened, Mike grabs his suit jacket and shoes and walks around the bed to shut off the light. Tom reaches out and pats him on the thigh when he gets close enough.

“Have a good day, Mikey.”

“Thanks Tom.” Mike smiles and ruffles his hair before switching off the lamp. He leaves the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
 
******
 
André’s in the elevator when it stops to let Mike on. “Good morning, Michael.”

“Why are you so chipper?”

André just grins. “Why shouldn’t I be chipper? Someone made me breakfast this morning.”

Mike stares at him for at least a floor, then shakes his head. He’s not arguing with André about this before he’s finished his first cup of coffee.

They don’t talk much on the walk to the train station. The sun’s barely up, so even with the traffic there is, the streets are quiet. The crowds pick up as they get closer to the station, and it’s fairly crowded already down on the platform. They’re mostly trying not to spill coffee on anyone (or have anyone’s coffee spilled on them) for their train ride.

Coming up to street level, Mike listens to André’s phone “ding” several times. “Nicke,” is all he says as he scrolls through the messages with a fond smile.

That must be nice.

A block from the station, Mike’s phone vibrates in his pocket.

I hate your alarm

“Tom is up already?” André asks, actual surprise in his voice.

“Uh, yeah, my alarm and me getting ready kind of woke him up.”

“From the living room?”

“From next to me in bed?” Mike raises an eyebrow at André. “Did you really think one of us was sleeping on the couch?”

“After yesterday? Yes, actually.”
Mike sticks his tongue out at him.

Me too. Sorry.

Mike’s on his second cup of coffee, settling into his desk and sorting out his responsibilities for the week when he gets another message.

I’m sorry about yesterday

He blinks at his phone for almost a minute.

Why are you sorry I was the asshole

Well yeah

but I might have overreacted

I was kind of a jackass all afternoon

Okay then we’re both sorry

Okay

Mike sets his phone down, tries and fails to read an email twice. One last question before he focuses for a while.

Are we okay

Yeah Mikey [purple heart emoji]

Whatever that means. But at least he can breathe again. Time to get some actual work done before Nicky starts looking disappointed in him (again).

He mostly succeeds until early afternoon. Just after 1 PM, Brooks starts pinging him on the interoffice IM about lunch. After a dozen messages in just a few minutes, he gives in just to make the icon stop blinking.

He was not anticipating there would be a crowd. Fucking hell.

Brooks, André, Nicky, even TJ from Marketing are clustered around the elevator waiting for him.

“What the hell, Brooks.” Mike glares at everyone indiscriminately. No one looks even the slightest bit ashamed.

“We need updates, Mike,” Brooks says, pushing the button for the elevator. “André won’t tell us anything, but he said there have been

developments

.”

Mike sighs but gets in the elevator anyway.

He makes them take him to his favorite burger place as a condition. Once everyone is settled with their food, he clears his throat to get their attention and begins his factual report.

“Tom’s parents arrived Friday. We had dinner with them at home. Saturday, they went out sightseeing without us. We all went sightseeing around the Mall yesterday. Tonight’s my first time solo with the parents, so I’m a little bit nervous.” He picks up his burger and takes a ridiculously large bite.

“Mike.” André looks at him the same way his mom does when she knows he’s lying.

Mike just chews exaggeratedly.

That backfires.

“Fine then, I’ll add the color commentary.” Oh shit. “Friday night, Mike had a panic attack on the sidewalk and scared the shit out of Tom. Saturday, the parents let them have their usual lunch date and then they took like a four hour nap together. Sunday, Mike sort of lost his shit because Tom’s too cuddly, Tom got super pissed and actually dragged him home from the gym.” He turns to Mike with a cocky eyebrow raised. “Did I miss anything?”

“This is better than the Bachelor,” TJ whispers to Nicky. Nicky rolls his eyes.

“Well--” Mike starts.

“Oh, I forgot! Even after all the shit yesterday, Tom didn’t make him sleep on the couch, because you said your alarm woke him up too.”

“Wait, you’re sleeping together?” TJ laughs incredulously.

“They’d have to,” Nicky says. “It blows their whole cover if one of them sleeps in the living room.”

“Fair point,” TJ responds, “but Mike, babe, is he sleeping on the floor in your room or are you like

actually

sleeping together?”

“It’s definitely together,” Brooks jumps in. “André said Mike was freaking out about Tom being cuddly.”

Mike knows his face is at least seven ugly shades of red. Across the table from him, TJ, Nicky, and Brooks looks like they’ve just won the lottery (a very small lottery, but still). André, sitting beside him, just shakes his head and shoves some sweet potato fries into his mouth.

“For the record, I want to say that I still think this is a terrible idea.” Nicky pauses to take a fastidious bite of his salad. “However, it might be very entertaining to watch.”

“How do you feel about hidden cameras? Ouch!” TJ glares over at André. “Okay, fine, no cameras.”

Brooks throws a curly fry at him to get his attention. “When’s Tom’s birthday?”

“Sunday.”

"What are you getting him? It has to be better than the beer you got him last year.”

“I’m still working on that,” Mike admits. “I’m open to suggestions.”

Since everyone has at least met Tom, the rest of lunch dissolves into an increasingly ridiculous list of gift ideas ranging from sex toys to a barium enema (Mike’s not letting André watch any more

Friends

). None of their ideas are even worth considering, but it’s kind of nice to laugh about the mess his life has become in the last week.

And it’s a great distraction from knowing that he’s facing Tom’s parents alone tonight.
 
******
 
“Hello, Michael!” Neville calls from the kitchen as he shuts the front door behind himself.

“Hey,” he calls back, a little less enthusiastically. When he trudges into the kitchen to leave his thermos by the sink, she’s smiling broadly and dishing up roasted veggies alongside-- “Is that pot roast?”

“Yes, it is. We had a very relaxing day here, so I decided to do something a little special. Is that okay?”

“Uh, yeah. I can’t remember the last time I had that. I’m a pretty terrible cook, and Tom doesn’t make a lot of things that get left in the oven. He, uh, gets distracted.”

“That’s a tactful way of describing it,” Neville chuckles. “You go ahead and get comfy, I’ll bring this in when it’s ready.”

Mike changes quickly, trying not to be distracted by memories of the last time he was in his room. He throws some sweats onto the foot of the bed before pulling off his suit. There’s something not quite right about the bed, but it’s not until he’s losing his balance pulling off his socks that he figures out what it is. Where is his Rangers blanket? It was folded(ish) over the foot of the bed this morning when he left. He checks under the bed - sometimes it falls off - but no luck.

He finds it out in the living room, folded over one arm of the sofa. He’s rubbing at it with a frown when Keven comes in carrying a couple of plates.

“Tom dragged that out here this morning, spent all day in it. You’d think he could just put on another layer if he’s that cold, but I guess not.”

That’s like the fourth time this week. Wait… he might be having an idea.

Dinner is delicious, and the Wilsons are delightful company. Mike can’t believe he was nervous about this.

“So Michael, what are we doing for Tommy’s birthday?”

“That is a good question.” Mike grins at Neville. “Did you have any ideas?”

“Well,” she replies with a wave of her iPad, “I happened to notice that the first Spring Training home game for the Nationals is Sunday. We could get some tickets?”

“Uh, yeah, that would be great, actually.”

“Excellent! I’ll see what I can find.”

While she searches for tickets, Mike pulls out his phone and does some searching of his own. He spends several minutes sifting through results looking for just the right thing. He pays the frankly ridiculous cost for express shipping so it’ll be delivered before Sunday, and he even thinks ahead and puts the office address so Tom won’t accidentally open it early.

He gets a confirmation email just before a text comes in from Tom.

How’s it goin

Fine. Dinner was great.

OFC my mom’s an awesome cook

How’s the bar

Kinda slow. Wish I was there.

Mike’s not touching that with a ten-foot pole.

Closing tonight?

Nah out at midnight

See you when you get here

******
 
Mike is surprised to be woken up when Tom slips into bed beside him. He hadn’t thought he’d fall asleep in the hour or so between going to bed and Tom coming home.

“Hey,” he says, voice scratchy with sleep. He’s been laying on his right arm, facing Tom’s side of the bed, and his fingers are all tingly.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay. How was work?”

Tom slides closer, squeezing an arm under Mike’s pillow and a leg between Mike’s. “It was work, nothing special. Go back to sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” Mike slurs. He leans his forehead against Tom’s collarbone and drifts away.
 
******
 
Tuesday morning goes about the same as Monday. Tom clings and whines when the alarm goes off, but this time he is dead to the world when Mike gets back from the shower, even with the light on. Mike dresses quickly and quietly, pushing away the impulse to wake Tom up to say goodbye.

He’s expecting a pretty normal day at work, but he walks into a department already fighting a crisis. Apparently the project they needed to have finished by Friday actually needs to be finished tonight, and everyone but Nicky is running around in a panic. Mike goes to refill his coffee while Nicky sorts everyone out; he has a feeling he won’t have another free second until this project is done.

Five hours later, Mike’s eyes are blurring at a spreadsheet when his phone starts buzzing with an incoming call from Tom. Mike ignores it; he’s really got to get this report finished and sent to Nicky, like, five minutes ago yesterday, and Tom usually doesn’t mind leaving a message. The majority of his phone calls are requests for Mike to pick things up on his way home, made via Siri when Tom’s busy playing video games and doesn’t have a hand free.

The second call - immediately after the first with no time for a voice mail to have been left - that he doesn’t ignore. That’s their signal for “I need you to talk to you ASAP it’s important/urgent”.

Most of the other occupants of the office are using their headphones to block out the rest of the world, so Mike just accepts the call, taps the speakerphone icon, and goes back to typing.

Before he can even say hello, Tom starts talking. “Do you think I’d fit into your underwear?“

Behind Mike, someone clears their throat - which is a pretty clear signal that it’s Nicky and not Brooks or André, who would have jumped right into the conversation.

“Hey Tom. You’re on speakerphone, what’s up. ‘Not much, Mike, just have a question for you, Can you take me off speaker?’ Sure Tom, no problem.” Mike deadpans as he turns to confirm it is Nicky. “Hey Nicky, sorry about Tom.”

Tom, who has no shame and an inappropriate sense of humor, starts laughing.

“How’s that report looking?” Nicky asks, giving a judgmental side-eye to Mike’s phone.

“Good, just about finished.”

“Come see me after you send it to me.”

“Okay,” Mike replies to his back as he stalks off. “Thanks Tom, really appreciate that.”

“Sorry man, but we haven’t done laundry this week, and I’m running low.”

“You’re at home. Is there a reason you can’t do some laundry?”

Tom snorts into the phone. “You know the washer hates me. Still doesn’t answer my question though.”

Mike stops typing long enough to bury his face in his hands. “Tom, don’t wear my underwear, okay. Just ask your mom for help with the washer. Please.”

“Miiiiike,” Tom whines.

“Fine, fine. No, I don’t think you’ll fit in my underwear. Now go ask your mom to help you do laundry and stay out of my dresser.”

Through giggles, Tom gets out, “Okay Mikey” before Mike hangs up on him.

André pops up on his IM a moment later -

Please don’t have personal conversations in the office, that was uncomfortable for everyone

Mike gives him the finger over his screens and goes back to his report.
 
******
 
It’s a few hours later than it should be by the time Mike trudges up to his building. It was a long, unpleasant afternoon, but everyone managed to get their parts of the project done. Nicky was submitting it as Mike was leaving, so hopefully that means tomorrow will be a little less of a  trash fire. Maybe.

He’s barely got his front door closed when Tom comes tripping into the hallway. “Hey, wow, when you said late…” He trails off as he takes Mike’s backpack from him.

Mike starts on his coat buttons before Tom gets any ideas. “Yeah, I’m just glad we got out when we did. I was not looking forward to Uber-ing all the way out here.”

“Dude.” Tom glares at him. “If you can’t get a train and I’m not at work, you call me. I will come get you.”

Mike shuts the closet door and glares back. “That’s just stupid, why should you waste all that time and gas just because I got stuck at work.”

“Because friends do shit like that for each other, Michael. Because I want to. Because it would be nice if you’d let me help you occasionally.”

That got real serious real fast. “Okay, Tommy, if you want. Next time I’m stuck at work till an ungodly hour, I’ll let you come get me.”

“Thank you.” Tom grins at him. “There’s leftovers if you’re hungry?”

“Oh god yes.”

In the kitchen, Mike leans against the counter while Tom pulls storage containers out of the fridge. Part of him really wants to point out that he’s capable of dishing up his own food… but maybe he should just let Tom do it. He really is tired.

He focuses back on the room as Tom crowds into his space, the hum of the microwave signalling that Mike missed several seconds of real time while thinking. Just past Tom, he can see Neville peeking around the corner from the living room.

“So my mom cornered me this afternoon to tell me that we can stop being ‘so discreet’ and that it’s not going to bother them if we’re kissing.”

“Uh okay? That’s nice?”

Tom plants his hands on the counter to either side of Mike, leaning in so he can whisper. “I’m pretty sure if I don’t kiss you right now two things are going to happen.”

“Oh?” That was an embarrassing vocal crack.

“Yeah. First, my parents are going to think we’re still fighting and will get really weird about it.” He whispers right into Mike’s ear, breathing down his neck.

“You, uh, said there were, uh, two things?”

“Yep. The other thing is my mom is going to fall off the couch. You wouldn’t want to embarrass my mom, right?”

“N-no. Definitely not.”

“Good.” This time when Tom puts his mouth on Mike’s neck, it’s on purpose.

Mike’s not even gonna lie - he makes (what will be later) a really embarrassing noise.

“Shhhh.” Tom laughs almost silently against his skin.

That’s not going to help with the shushing.

With the next whimper, Tom murmurs “Are you always going to be this loud? Jesus, Mikey.”

“Sorry.”

“That wasn’t a complaint.”

Oh.

OH.

Well if that’s the case, he’s gonna stop trying to be quiet.

In one sense, that works terribly because Tom moves. In another sense, that works beautifully because it gets Tom to kiss him.

Which is really amazing for like thirty seconds until the microwave beeps and startles both of them.

“I think I was right,” Tom whispers.

“Mmm?” Mike can’t deal with words quite yet.

“That was a lot less awkward than the first time.” He smirks at Mike, pats him on the hip, and turns to the microwave. “Dinner’s ready, babe!”

If Mike thought he could get away with it, he’d kick him in the knee. Instead, he takes a scalding hot plate into the living room and sits down on the floor next to the coffee table to eat.

Neville could not possibly look more smug than Tom does; Mike’s tempted to dead-arm him just out of principle.
 
******
 
It's becoming almost normal to have Tom climb into bed with him. Tom's chattering on about how easy the washer actually is to use as he slides over and pulls Mike in close. They're almost nose to nose, and Mike really isn't paying attention any more.

Until Tom pinches his side. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut the light off?”

Mike frowns. “Why didn’t you shut the light off? You were the last one up.”

Tom just stares at him, face coloring slightly, before he blinks and looks away shiftily. “Guess I forgot.”

“Fine.” Mike rolls his eyes and then himself so he can reach the lamp on the beside table.

Mike flips the switch and plunges the room into darkness. Tom doesn’t give him an opportunity to roll back over; he slides into the space created as Mike moves and snuggles in as is becoming usual.

At one point, he was worried he wouldn’t be able to sleep in the same bed as Tom. Now, he’s starting to be worried he won’t be able to sleep in a bed without him.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Wednesday and Thursday go pretty much the same. Mike has no trouble entertaining the parents on Wednesday. He puts the Capitals game on, and he and Keven yell at the refs while Neville laughs at them and throws popcorn when they get too carried away. He only sort of wakes up when Tom crawls into bed after his Wednesday shift, mostly because Tom shoves his cold hands up under his shirt.Tom’s awake enough the next morning to catch hold of Mike’s pants as he turns out the lamp and says goodbye. He’s irrationally happy about that, and André gives him a couple of weird looks on the train. Fair enough; he’s not used to Mike being this cheerful in the morning. But Mike dares anyone to start their morning with a sleepy, grinning Tom Wilson telling them “have a good day” and “I’ll see you later” and not be in a better-than-average mood.That mood carries him through the slowest, most boring day of work he’s had in ages, and the only thing that makes the day at all interesting is Tom’s birthday present being delivered after lunch. André perches on the edge of his desk as he opens the box to pull a big, blue, Toronto Maple Leafs fleece blanket out.“ That ,” André says, with a dramatic pause, “is what you got Tom for his birthday?”“What? He’s always stealing mine, so he likes the type of blanket. Mine’s for my hometown team, so I got him one for his, too.”André just stares at him for several seconds before shouting “Nicky!”Mike finds himself in the smaller conference room five minutes later, seated in one of the chairs while Nicky, Brooks, André, and TJ stand around him like he’s being interrogated.“So your ‘first birthday together’ gift for Tom is a blanket,” Brooks is patiently explaining. “A blanket, because you want him to stop stealing yours.”“Yes?”“Oh, honey.” TJ shakes his head.“I- Mike-” Brooks pinches the bridge of his nose and frowns. “Nick, you handle this.” He shoves TJ and André towards the door and follows behind them, leaving Mike alone in a room with a very disappointed Nicklas Backstrom.“Michael,” he starts then pauses like he’s considering his words. “Are you sure about this?”“The blanket?”“That, and the rest of this whole situation.”“The situation is fine.” Mike shrugs. “And Tom said he was getting me a fan with a remote control for my birthday. I don’t see how a blanket is going to be any different.”“Have you considered there might be a reason why he steals yours all the time?”“It’s really soft? And he doesn’t have anything like this. I’m sure he doesn’t want to drag the huge blankets from his bed all over the apartment.”Nicky’s eyebrows have nearly disappeared into his hairline by the time Mike is finished, which seems like a little bit of an overreaction. He shakes his head a little, sighs, and says, “We’re pretty slow today. Why don’t you head home a little early, okay? Try to think about what other reasons Tom might have for stealing your blanket. And what else you could get him instead.”Mike is fairly suspicious about that, but he’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He packs the blanket back into the box, wedges it into one of his desk drawers, and leaves. ****** Leaving the elevator in the lobby, he nearly trips over André’s Nick.“Hey man, what’re you doing here?”“Uh, ‘Dre said I should come by some time, and he texted that it’s slow today, so.” He shrugs a little, looking kind of awkward.“Yeah, it’s pretty dead up there. How’s your, uh, visit going?”Nick shrugs again, clearly uncomfortable in the ill-fitting suit he’s put on for this. “It’s fine. How’s your, uh, fake relationship going?”This guy’s direct. Mike likes that in a person. “Could be worse,” Mike smiles at him. “18th floor, André’s pretty easy to find. See you around?”“Sure,” Nike actually smiles this time. “See you.” He steps into the elevator and waves a little before the doors close.Speaking of fake relationships - Mike steps out of the way of the elevators and pulls his phone out. Wonder where the Wilsons are this afternoon.
Yo where you at

Why?

Nicky told me to go home
[panda emoji] [lion emoji] [koala emoji] [tiger emoji] [elephant emoji] [snake emoji] Okay, so the Wilsons are at the zoo.
On my way
By the time he gets off the train at the Metro stop nearest to the zoo, his phone is buzzing every couple of minutes with badly framed Snapchats from Tom, tracking his progress from exhibit to exhibit. At this rate, he won’t even have to ask where they are.He finds them outside the panda exhibit. Keven and Neville are looking at something on her phone; Tom is frowning at his while he types. He shoves his phone into his pocket and joins his parents. Mike feels his phone vibrate a few seconds later.
What’s taking so long [watch emoji] [crying face]
“Nothing’s taking so long, it’s like a ten minute walk from the station.”Tom jumps.“Michael!” Neville leans in to hug him. “Tom didn’t tell us you were coming!”“It was a little last minute,” Mike smiles at her, glancing from the corner of his eye at Tom who is scuffing a shoe against the sidewalk and smiling at nothing that Mike can see.Neville’s got a map of the zoo and a “plan”, so they head back into the depths of the zoo with her leading the way and the rest of them just trying to keep up. After a handful of steps, Tom reaches over and takes his hand, linking their fingers together so smoothly you’d think they’d practiced it. Mike hopes everyone takes his flushed face for exertion plus March chill and resolves to enjoy this while it lasts.He smiles when directed as Tom snapchats selfies to André and doesn’t complain about being handed the phone occasionally when Tom wants pictures of himself doing something silly. (Those things are for *actual* children, Tom .) He trips up a little on the ‘enjoying it’ front when Tom kisses his forehead before leaving him outside the Reptile Discovery Center (he’ll do a lot of things for Tom Wilson, but he draws a line at snakes). He’s still technically enjoying it, but as is becoming usual, it’s tarnished a bit by the knowledge that that’s never going to happen again. ****** When they get back to the car, Mike is expecting a similar seating arrangement as the last time, but Tom climbs into the backseat with no complaints about leg room and pulls Mike in after him. He lets Mike fasten his own seat belt but otherwise keeps hold of Mike’s hand, while his parents argue good-naturedly about directions.Mike’s not really paying attention to the conversation until he hears Neville say his name.“I’m sorry, I kind of zoned out. What were you saying?”“It’s fine, Michael. I was just saying the zoo is more fun with children, don’t you think?”“I’ve never been to the zoo with a kid, I mean, not since I was one. But it makes sense. Kids are fun.”Tom covers his face with his free hand and groans quietly. “Oh, Mike, noooo .”“So you like children, Michael?”“Uh, yeah? I guess?”“That’s wonderful. How many do you want?”Mike looks at Tom in confusion.“Mom, we, uh, we haven’t talked about that yet, ok? It’s a little soon to be picking out names for your grandkids. Maybe bug Pete and his fiance first?”“Well, you can’t blame a mother for trying, Tommy.” She peers around the headrest at Mike, winking so dramatically that Mike has to laugh.Tom slumps over awkwardly to bury his face in Mike’s neck. “I’m so sorry about my mom, babe.”Mikes fights off a shiver and kisses the top of his head. “Wait till you meet my mom, sweetheart.”Tom shifts just enough to look up at him through his eyelashes. “Sweetheart?” he whispers.Mike shrugs, trying to ignore his own blushing. Tom just smiles, puts his head back down, and leaves it there the rest of the ride home. ****** Friday is less fun for Mike, since Tom’s solidly asleep when he leaves for work, and there’s little time for any entertaining texting throughout the day.He rolls his eyes at André’s passive aggressive digs at his gift-choosing abilities for the first couple of hours. By the time lunch rolls around, he’s about had it. If one more person bitches about his gift…“Hey, here’s our perpetually-single gift-giver. Thinking about throwing a six-pack into the bag too?”He doesn’t really mean to throw his stapler at Brooks; it just sort of happens.Fortunately for both him and Brooks, that means he didn’t aim it very well, so it just bounces loudly off a filing cabinet.“Jesus, fine, we’ll leave you alone. You don’t have to throw shit,” Brooks snaps. Mike just waves his totally useless tape dispenser threateningly until he walks away. They’ll see. This is a great gift, he’s totally nailed it; he can’t wait to rub it in all their faces on Monday. ****** Commuting on a Friday continues to be the worst thing since root canals, but Mike’s sure as hell not staying in the office any later than necessary. The box with Tom’s blanket won’t fit in his backpack, so he’s stuck carrying the damn thing which simply adds to the annoyance. It’s not heavy, just awkward, and both he and the box feel a little battered around the edges by the time he gets home. It’s weird to think that a week ago he was standing on this sidewalk out of his mind with panic that he wasn’t going to be able to convince Tom’s parents that he loved him. In hindsight, it was a little ridiculous - all he had to do was let his actual feelings float to the surface for a change.He does have to dodge Neville’s attempts to see into the box, once he gets inside, but a plea about wanting it to be a surprise actually works. So he stashes the box in the bottom drawer of his dresser and hopes Tom doesn’t suddenly decide to be nosy in the next 48 hours.Later that evening though, watching Neville wrap gifts in paper that looks like it was meant for a six-year old, it occurs to Mike that he has no idea how to wrap his own contribution. He’s been a big fan of the gift bag on the very few occasions he has had to give a wrapped gift, but it seems silly to go out and buy one when his gift is already in a box.“Uh, Neville?”“Yes dear?”He fidgets a little; this seems like a silly thing to ask, but… “Could you show me how to do that?”“Sure, honey. Go grab your gift.”He gets the box from his room and takes a seat next to her on the floor.“Do you want to wrap it in that?”“Yes.”“Okay, first you need to measure out enough paper to go around the box.” She spreads some paper out across the floor, showing him how to see if it’s enough. “Now you cut here. Try to keep it straight; it makes it easier later.”He tries, but it doesn’t really work all that well. Compared to the pieces Neville has cut, his looks like a four-year old with safety scissors hacked through it.“That’s great, Michael, excellent job.”Behind them on the couch, Keven tries to stifle a chuckle.“Your next step is fold the sides in, here and here, and then tape them together.” Mike copies her motions and applies the pieces of tape she hands him. “And now for the tricky part. Watch me do this one.”To be frankly honest, Mike is pretty sure her next move is origami. The paper is bent, creased, folded, and taped together in a smooth flow that he is never going to be able to replicate.Keven bursts into contagious laughter behind them as Neville looks up from taping the end of the package together. “Honey, maybe show him a little slower?”“Yes, slower, so much slower. I have no idea what you even did.”“Sorry, sweetie, it’s almost muscle memory after all these years. I’ll go slower on this end.”This time through, she stops after each step so he can repeat it. His folds aren’t as straight, and his creases aren’t as sharp, but when he’s finished, it looks more like Neville’s than he expected. She talks him through the other side, and suddenly he has a completely wrapped gift sitting in front of him. It might be Batman paper, but it’s wrapped. He can’t quite bring himself to put a bow on it, but it’s already miles ahead of his usual gifts.“Thanks, Neville. This looks awesome.”“You’re welcome, Michael,” she says with a slightly teary grin. “It was my pleasure.”His own grin wobbles a bit at the edges, so he heads back to his room to stash the gift before any more of his feelings leak out.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He doesn’t notice Tom climbing into bed with him, but it’s hard to miss him the first time Mike wakes up. It’s very dim, so it’s still too early to be up, and Tom has him pretty well pinned. Clearly, the universe wants him to go back to sleep.The second time he wakes up, it’s because something is touching his face. He blinks a couple times before he can get his eyes to focus. It’s a little bit brighter, but not bright enough to be awake. Too close in front of him, Tom is smiling, almost like he’s laughing. “Go back to sleep,” he whispers.Mike can’t be bothered to talk - it’d be so much work right now. He has no idea what’s going on, but his eyelids are too heavy to keep open, so he just hums in agreement and lets them close. Something touches his forehead before he drifts completely away - just enough to notice, not enough to wake back up for. He thinks about asking Tom later, and then he’s asleep.The third time, he wakes up alone. It’s a very weird feeling; he can probably count the number of hours he’s slept alone in the last week without having to use his toes. He stretches out across the bed, expecting to be delighted at all the freedom and space. Instead, the sheets just feel cold, and the bed feels a lot bigger than it ever has before.He gets up before that feeling completely overwhelms him.There’s someone in the shower, and people moving around in the kitchen. He follows the smell of coffee to the kitchen, meeting Tom’s parents in the hall as they leave the room.“Good morning, Mike, there’s coffee,” Keven gestures with an elbow, since his own hands are full.“Bless you,” he says fervently.He joins them in the living room once he’s doctored his coffee appropriately. He gets three peaceful sips. Just three.“Michael, we were wondering if you would mind us joining you two on your lunch date today.”Mike’s not-sufficiently-caffeinated brain gets stuck on “date” for a couple of seconds before he figures out the rest of that sentence. “Okay, sounds good.”“What time do you boys want to leave?”“I, uh, well normally we,” he pauses for more coffee. “Why don’t I check with Tom?”Neville smiles at him over her own mug. “That’s probably a good idea.”It takes another minute before he realizes both Neville and Keven are watching him. “Oh, you meant right now. Sorry, sorry. I’ll just… go do that.”He doesn’t make a habit of going into the bathroom while Tom’s in the shower. It doesn’t bother Tom, but it’s an unnecessary test of his own willpower. This apparently can’t wait.“Your mom wants to come to lunch with us today.”“What?” Tom yells over the shower spray. There’s a couple of thuds. “Ow, shit.”Mike takes one step closer to the shower then takes a death grip on the towel rack as a reminder to stay the hell away from the shower curtain. “You okay in there?”“Yeah, just knocked someone’s shampoo onto my foot. What did you say?”“Your mom wants to come to lunch with us today.”“Okay, where are we going?”“Our usual. She wants to see it.” Mike shifts awkwardly (even if no one can see him) before blurting out, “Why haven’t you taken her already? You love that place.”“I dunno--” he can practically hear Tom shrugging “-- I do love it, I just only go there with you. We’re there once a week; it’s not like I have lunch there by myself on a Tuesday or something.”“Oh. Uh, okay.”There’s a rustle from the shower and a screech as one of the rings starts to drag across the shower curtain rod. No, no, oh hell no . He’s done a lot of evil things to himself lately, but standing in their tiny bathroom with a fresh-out-of-the-shower Tom is too much. He scrambles for the door, sliding through the gap before it’s even open far enough and slamming it behind him just as the shower curtain hits the wall.He hears Tom’s “Mike?” through the door, but whatever it is can wait until Tom has some clothes on.This day’s going to be exhausting enough. ****** Midway through lunch, Mike’s starting to wonder if they were surgically attached at the hand while he wasn’t looking. Tom grabbed his hand in the elevator and hasn’t let go since. At least he grabbed the left one; Mike has no idea how he’d eat without his dominant hand. Tom’s managing okay, which is actually a surprise, but he’s not trying to use a fork.Across the cafe, the girls behind the counter keep looking over and giggling, occasionally whispering to each other. Mike’s like 89% sure he saw money change hands earlier.And as if that's not bad enough, Neville decides they need dessert. She’s discovered Tom’s favorite frozen yogurt place at some point this week, so that’s where they head after lunch. Mike thinks he’s going to get a break from the constant touching, but instead of grabbing his hand, Tom puts his arm around him and slides his hand into Mike’s back pocket. In a former life, Mike must have been a terrible person if this is the kind of karma he deserves.Tom insists they split their dessert, which would be fine except he keeps trying to feed Mike. He’s not sure how Tom thinks that’s cute. Mike is 26 years old; he can usually feed himself without disaster. Dessert becomes a competition of Tom trying to sneak bites into Mike’s mouth while he’s talking, while Mike tries to dodge and block without punching Tom in the face.“Oh my god, Tom, knock it off!”French vanilla yogurt drips onto the table from the spoon in Tom’s hand. Neville and Keven chuckle on the other side of the table as Tom pouts.“But Mike --”“Tom, I have a spoon, I have working hands. I will split this with you, but stop trying to feed me like I’m an infant.”“Fine.”Neville pats him on the arm in consolation as Keven and Mike resume their conversation. Mike tries to ignore his downcast face, but that was a battle he lost before it even started. Instead, he puts his hand on Tom’s knee and pretends the smile that breaks out across Tom’s face doesn’t make something in his chest flip over. ****** Mike knows his mouth is hanging open, but that was a parental whirlwind like he’s never seen before. They’ve been back from lunch less than ten minutes; he’s still holding a half-empty glass of water he’d filled up as soon as they walked in the door. One second he’s making polite conversation with Keven about the wide variety of businesses in their neighborhood, the next he’s watching Neville disappear out the door (dragging Keven behind her) saying something about more birthday shopping and a few hours and “we’ll bring back dinner, Michael, don’t worry about that.” There’s a sudden ringing silence in the apartment after the door slams closed behind them.Tom, across the hall in the archway to the living room, looks less bewildered and a lot more embarrassed.“What the hell was that?”“Parents are so weird,” Tom says with a shrug. “Want to come nap with me?”Oh. OH. “Did your parents just manufacture an excuse to leave us alone again.”“Yep.”It is actually kind of thoughtful of them. Under the circumstances, if this were a real relationship, he’d probably have been dying for this opportunity for days, wouldn’t be wasting this time thinking when he could be pinning Tom to something and -- okay, focus . Since that isn’t going to happen, he might as well get a nap in.“Yeah, alright, let’s go.” ****** “This isn’t working.” Mike rolls over to face Tom, catching him mid-yawn.“What’s not?”“I’m not tired enough to sleep. I think I’m gonna get up.”“No, no, you promised you’d nap with me,” Tom pouts.“Did not,” Mike retorts, pushing the blankets off so he can get up. “I said I’d nap with you, no promises were made.”“The intent was there,” Tom replies, and then lunges across the gap between them to pin Mike to the mattress. “So you’re staying right where you are.”Yeah, that is not going to happen.Mike relaxes a little, enough to lull Tom into thinking he’s giving in. Tom relaxes his grip, and Mike shifts his weight as he pushes back. There’s a bit of a struggle, complicated by pillows and blankets and Tom’s inability to stop laughing, but when they come to a stop, Mike’s the one doing the pinning. He’s got Tom’s arms pinned up above his head, weight resting across Tom’s thighs. Tom might be taller, but there’s really not much of a weight difference. He can out-wrestle Tom any day of the week, and Tom knows that, so why he’d even bother…“I win,” he smirks into Tom’s face.Tom just grins. “Now that you’ve caught me, what are you going to do with me?”That is not a question Mike is prepared for. He is also not prepared for the eyelash fluttering, the showy lip licking, or the pointedly ineffective squirming. These are not things Tom usually does once he’s been pinned. Well, at least not with Mike.“Uhhh.”Tom chuckles and tugs one arm loose of Mike’s suddenly slack grip. “Can I make a suggestion?”Mike thinks he nods. He means to, anyway. Tom seems to get the point, because he reaches up and pulls Mike down into a kiss.That’s a damn good suggestion. It’s sort of a weird suggestion, since there’s no one here to convince, but maybe Tom just thinks they need the practice? It doesn’t matter. It’s not like Mike’s gonna argue.It’s different than the two times before. The first time was all nerves, like being fourteen all over again. The second time was great, but it was still hard to forget that it was a show for Neville’s benefit. This time is so much better. No one’s watching; they aren’t being judged on this.After a handful of seconds, Tom pulls his other arm free and wraps it around Mike’s back, pulling him closer until he’s mostly lying on top of him. That’s much better - less strain on his back. And instead of having to hold himself up with his arms, he has hands free. Tom’s touching him, so he hopes it’s okay for him to touch back. Just as a test, he runs his right hand slowly down from Tom’s shoulder to his hip. A couple of his fingers stop in the gap where Tom’s shirt has ridden up, thanks to all his wiggling around. He’s going to take Tom’s full-body shiver as a thumbs up for the touching thing.He pulls back, just a little, just enough to breathe, needs to see Tom for just a second. Tom’s hand tightens on the back of his neck, like he’s gonna fight it if Mike tries to move any further away.“Jesus, Mike,” he breathes and then does something that happens so fast Mike can’t follow. All he knows is he’s suddenly under Tom, trapped between him and the mattress. There’s a bunch of blanket wedged uncomfortably under his shoulder. He can’t reach to move it - Tom is kind of in the way - so he resorts to some wiggling of his own, trying to move either himself or the blanket just a couple of inches.“Mike, Mike, fuck .” Tom presses his shoulder into the mattress. “You have got to fucking hold still.” He’s breathing heavy, and every time Mike tries to wiggle his shoulders Tom’s eyes flutter closed and a little bit more of that beautiful blue disappears.“It’s just this goddamn blanket, it’s stuck.”Tom giggles but pushes up onto his knees. He tugs a familiar red blanket out from underneath them and throws it dramatically to the floor. Mike’s mid-eye roll when Tom pulls his shirt off and tosses it in the same direction. There’s less eye rolling and more choking after that.He draws a finger gently over Tom’s stomach, catching in the dips of muscle. “Wow.”Tom colors faintly, with an almost shy smile. “Thanks.” He tugs at Mike’s shirt. “Lose this? Please?”“Yeah, okay.”In direct contrast to the way that he’d ripped his own shirt off, Tom moves like a glacier with Mike’s. Snails have crossed four-lane highways faster. Mike’s not a patient person, but every time he opens his mouth to complain, he gets distracted by Tom’s out of proportion reactions to the skin he’s revealing. He knows he doesn’t look terrible, but Tom’s acting like a previously blind person seeing Niagara Falls for the first time.He has to push himself up almost to sitting in order for Tom to get his shirt over his head, and Tom follows him back down, his tongue in Mike’s mouth before they even hit the mattress. He’s completely covered like this, and it’s the best kind of weird. It’s not every day that he gets to feel smaller than anybody. It’s probably just in his head, but he likes the way this feels, like he’s surrounded by Tom, protected from everything else.Things start to blur together a bit. His memory is only catching snapshots, brief flashes of moments - Tom’s teeth against his collarbone, Tom’s fingernails digging into his arm, Tom’s moan when he slides his hand under the waistband of his sweats, the first unconscious roll of the hips that takes both of their breath away. Tom’s whispering constantly between kisses; Mike can’t make out most of it, spoken into his collarbone, his neck, his shoulder as it is, but he catches his own name most often. He can’t breathe deeply enough to say anything himself which is probably good - who knows what he’d let slip right now.He wishes he could slow time down. This is going by so fast; if he’s never going to get this again, he wants to remember in excruciating detail, and he knows he won’t. He’s trying, dammit, but every time Tom’s teeth find somewhere new that drives him crazy, a little bit more of his brain stops working.The only thing he’s sure he will remember is the noise Tom makes when he comes. He has a front row seat, after all - Tom’s face is pressed against his neck, and the way he licks Mike’s neck as he catches his breath is the last thing Mike remembers before he comes too.It’s very hazy after that, like being mostly asleep. There’s some giggling - which could be either of them - and he grumbles about maybe they should have taken their pants off first. They’re maybe not as cleaned up as they could be when Tom pushes him into the right position in the bed and pulls the blanket back up onto the bed and over them, but whatever; he’ll do laundry later. Tom plasters himself up against his back, mumbling something about presents and tangling them together in their usual sleeping position before whispering “go to sleep already”; Mike’s asleep before he’s finished. ****** “Hey, Mikey.”He has to force his eyes open; he's so tired, and he is having the best dream.“I've got to leave for work okay? I just didn't want you to wake up alone.” Tom smiles and brushes a hand over Mike's hair.“Thanks.” This is a nice addition to his dream. Usually he wakes up before the “after” part starts. Thank you subconscious. “Never a problem, babe. See you later.” He kisses Mike on the forehead, then briefly on the lips.Mike smiles and closes his eyes again.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He wakes up an hour later to an empty apartment. That’s a good thing - there’s no one around to see him freaking out. He can’t believe they actually did

that

. He is covered in bite marks, some faint, some already starting to bruise. Part of him is happy there’s evidence that really happened; otherwise, he’d be tempted to think it was just an incredibly realistic dream. To be honest, he isn’t sure if he dreamed Tom waking him up before he left or not. It seems too good to be true, so it probably is.

He tries to be normal when Neville and Keven come back. He nods at all their shopping choices, thanks them for picking up dinner. In the back of his mind, he’s stuck on

why why why why why

, and it’s driving him a little nuts.

He thinks he finally understands why Tom would think sex was a good idea when he sees Neville giggling to herself as he moves his sheets to the dryer. Of fucking course. Tom didn’t really want to sleep with

him

; it was just one more thing to convince his parents. It’s a lot more subtle of a move than he would normally give Tom credit for, but maybe it was someone else’s idea.

He and Keven let Neville choose a movie to watch after dinner. It’s some kind of angsty romance, and he’s trying desperately not to find parallels between himself and the pathetic guy pining after this girl that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about him. He only sort of succeeds at not crying at the end.

He goes to bed alone and tosses and turns for what feels like weeks. He’s not completely asleep when the bedroom door opens and Tom tiptoes through. The clock on the bedside table says 3:46. It’s so tempting to sit up and make Tom explain himself, but Neville wants them up in time to go out for brunch before the baseball game (that Tom still doesn’t know about). He should let Tom get some sleep. No need to ruin his whole birthday. He’ll ask him when they wake up.
 
******
 
“Seriously? This is so awesome!” Tom jumps up from the table to hug his parents. “These are amazing seats too, wow.”

Mike saves his orange juice from tipping over as Tom bumps the table in his excitement. He wishes he’d ordered a mimosa.

Neville smiles and pats him on the cheek. “You’ll get the rest of your gifts after dinner, but this just sounded like so much fun. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

Tom drops back into his seat and leans over to kiss Mike’s cheek. “This is such a good day already, and it’s only going to get better.”

It is a beautiful day - Mike can’t argue with that. The sun is shining brightly, and the clouds are big and fluffy, no hint of rain. The temperature is cool, but it is March 29th. And Tom is right; the seats Neville picked out are pretty great.

The only problem so far is he hasn’t had five seconds to talk to Tom all day, and sue him, he thinks actual sex might cross a line from the ‘just faking it’ they were doing before. Waking up alone put a damper on his plan to question Tom first thing, and there hasn’t been an opportunity to ask unless he wanted to chase Tom into the shower again. He wants an answer, but that seemed like an awkward place to bring up “why exactly did you have sex with me?”

Tom’s not helping clear anything up; in fact, his behavior is just making things more confusing. He can’t get within arm’s reach without Tom’s hands all over him somehow. He kissed him in the kitchen before he’d handed Mike his coffee; he’d had a hand on some part of Mike all through brunch. It’s getting to be a little much.

“You okay, babe?” Tom whispers, breath tickling his ear. He rubs at Mike’s shoulder with his thumb, fingers tapping against his back.

Mike nods and takes another drink of his orange juice.

Do they make double mimosas?

“Sure about that? You’re awfully quiet this morning.”

“Yeah, just -- I think we need to talk, later.” He keeps his voice low; he doesn’t want to worry Tom’s parents.

Tom grins at the table. “Yeah, I suppose we do.” He glances back up at Mike, eyes twinkling.

“Are you boys ready to go?”

Mike really likes Neville, but she has extremely unfortunate timing.

“Yes, Mom. C’mon, Mike.” Tom pulls him away from the table, stopping at the door to make sure Mike’s zipped up his jacket. The hostess “awws” at them, and Mike kind of wants to fall through a hole in the floor.
 
******
 
Neville picked two pairs of two seats instead of four seats in the same row, and she insists that Tom and Mike take the closer seats. She and Keven wait until the first few pitches have been thrown before wandering off looking for snacks. Instead of taking advantage of their absence to take a break from the handsy-boyfriend routine, Tom does the opposite.

“Sooooo,” he says, head pillowed on Mike’s shoulder, “what else do you and my mom have planned for me today.”

“Your mom had me invite André and Nick for dinner.”

“And?”

“I suspect there might be cake.”

“Mmmmmm.” His hum makes Mike shiver. “I like cake.”

“I might have heard something like that.”

Tom’s fingers run from his knee up his inseam, and that needs to stop

immediately.

“Are there going to be presents?”

“Mmhmm,” Mike sort of squeaks and puts his hand over Tom’s, moving them to the armrest and saving his sanity.

“Good. I’m looking forward to it. I know my boyfriend gives great presents.”

Boyfriend?

“Don’t you mean fake boyfriend?”

“What?”

“Boys, I hope you’re hungry!”

“YES!” Tom shouts right in his ear.

In the dispersing of snacks, the opportunity to clarify gets lost again. He can’t ask with Keven and Neville sitting right behind them. But, it’s fine, right? Tom can’t have meant ‘boyfriend’ for real, that’s just-- there’s no way that’s possible. They’ll sort it out later.
 
******
 
The baseball game is a terrific success. Mike thinks the Nats won, but to be quite honest, he was pretty distracted through the whole thing trying to keep Tom’s hands out of his pants. In the interest of not being banned from the stadium, he kind of has to hold Tom’s hand through most of the game. There’s like 40,000 people in this stadium, for fuck’s sake, and Tom’s parents are right behind them.

Mike is on kitchen duty once they get home, helping Neville assemble both the lasagna Tom requested and the birthday cake - the funfetti kind with the sprinkles because Tom is honestly just a really tall child.

“Now, pour some of the sauce over this layer while I get the next bunch of noodles.”

“Mom, why are you teaching Mike how to make lasagna?” Tom is all kinds of in the way. Technically, their kitchen will hold three people comfortably, but not when one keeps trying to sneak bites of things and put his hands all over one of the other people.

“Someone in this household should know how. And keep your hands out of the cheese.”

Mike pushes him back with an elbow, trying not to drip sauce on the floor. “Go text André and find out when they’re coming down. Make him bring beer or something.”

“Yes, dear,” Tom says sarcastically. He kisses Mike before he goes, slowly and with a lot more tongue than Mike would have used in front of his own mother.

Most of a ladleful of sauce ends up all over Mike’s feet.

Neville takes over the sauce while Mike peels his now disgusting socks off and bins them while she’s not looking. It’s just easier that way. She starts on the next layer while he’s wiping sauce off the floor.

“Once this is in the oven, we can start on the cake and the frosting.”

“Start on the frosting? What are we doing to the frosting?”

“Making it?”

Mike blinks at her. “You know how to do that?”

Tom comes back into the kitchen while she’s laughing at him. “Mom, what are you doing to my boyfriend?”

“Teaching him how to make frosting, apparently.”

“Oooo, yes! Can you make it red?”

She sets some small differently colored plastic bottles on the counter next to the other items she’s assembling. “Sure you want it to be red, not blue?”

Tom flushes lightly and laughs. “Yes, I want it to be red. People are allowed to like new things, Mother.”

“If you say so, son. Now go away. I want Michael to be able to pay attention to this, and you’re doing nothing but distracting him.”

Mike rolls his eyes, but the blushing is probably not helping his case any.

“Kicked out of my own kitchen on my birthday by the two people in the world who are supposed to love me most, I see how it is. Can I borrow Mike for a minute before you start?”

“Sure, sweetie. Bring him back in one piece.”

If Mike blushes any harder, his face will spontaneously combust.

Tom pulls him into the relative privacy of the hallway, backs him into the wall, and just looks at him for long enough that he starts to feel twitchy.

“What are you looking at?” he whispers.

“You,” Tom whispers back with a cheeky grin. “You have the prettiest eyes, have I mentioned that recently?”

He’s mentioned that precisely never, so… “Um, no. And that’s definitely you.” He didn’t mean to say that part out loud,

shit

.

“Nah, definitely not.” Tom shakes his head. “My eyes are just blue. Your’s are so much more interesting.”

“Whatever.” Mike rolls said eyes again. “We still need to talk about yesterday.”

Tom’s grin takes on a distinctly filthy edge. “We will. Later,” he whispers right against Mike’s lips, and by the time he comes up for air, Mike’s forgotten the argument he was going to make about that.

He’s just remembering that there’s something he wants to ask Tom when they’re both startled by a loud knock at the door.

Tom giggles and kisses him quickly, then again on the tip of his nose, before he goes to answer it. André comes bouncing in, arms full of a haphazard collection of bottles. “I didn’t want to go out for something, so I just brought whatever was left in my kitchen.”

Nick follows him through the door holding a gift bag in one hand and clutching a couple bags of chips to his chest with the other arm. “I tried to tell him your text didn’t mean come down now, but he’s very excited.”

“It’s okay,” Tom laughs, taking the chips from him. “Mike’s helping my mom with dinner, so you guys can keep my dad and me company.”

André’s already in the kitchen, chattering away at Neville and loading his motley collection of alcohol into the fridge. He barely pauses in his conversation when he follows Tom into the living room, pulling Nick along behind him like Nick was ever going to go anywhere else.

Neville turns to Mike with a grin. “Alright, honey, let’s teach you how to make a cake.”
 
******
 
At one point during dinner, Mike catches Tom watching Nick watch André with a sad sort of smile on his face. When Tom looks back at him, he tips his head in the direction of the kitchen and heads there without waiting to see if Tom will follow - because he will.

“So is it just me or is Nick like head over heels for Burkie, who has zero clue.”

Tom snorts. “Apparently he can detect feelings in everyone but Nick. And poor Nick, right? Come all this way hoping for something and finding out the other person isn’t even considering that, that’s gotta suck.”

“Yeah,” Mike sighs. “Poor guy. So while we have a second--”

“MIKE! We’re ready for cake now!” André shouts from the living room.

FUCKING HELL.

“Yes, cake! Hope you saved some frosting for later.” Tom kisses him quickly and winks on his way back to the living room.

André passes him in the hall and beams at Mike. “I’m here to help you carry stuff.”

“You have the worst fucking timing in the history of ever, Burkie, I swear to fucking christ,” Mike hisses at him.

André’s nose wrinkles up in confusion as he steps away from Mike’s tone. “What the hell did I do?”

“I am trying to have a fucking conversation with Tom, but everyone on the goddamn fucking planet keeps interrupting.”

André takes the handful of forks from Mike with a frown. “What’s so important?”

“Uh, um, well.” Mike scratches the back of his neck and then decides it’s easier to show than to explain. He peels up the hem of his shirt to reveal the almost matching bite marks on his hipbones.

André drops all the forks.

“You okay in there?” Tom shouts from the living room.

“Yes, fine!” Mike shouts back.

“What the hell did you do?!” André whisper yells at him.

“Me?!” Mike whisper yells back. “It wasn’t just me, okay?”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you were this stupid!”

“Look, he started it, okay?”

“And you just went along with it? What are you, twelve?”

“What was I supposed to do, say no? When have I EVER been able to say no to him?”

André starts to respond but changes his mind. His face slides from irritated to sad. “So,” he says, kneeling to pick up the scattered silverware, “what are you going to do?”

Mike crouches down to help him. “Well I keep trying to talk to him about it, but we keep getting interrupted. I think we, uh, crossed a line or two, you know?”

“Uh, yeah, just a little.”

“Are you guys baking another fucking cake in there?”

“Thomas, language.”

“Sorry, mom.”

André takes the couple forks Mike has picked up and dumps all of them in the sink. While he pulls more forks from the drawer, Mike grabs the cake and carries it into the living room.

“Alright, alright, here’s your cake, you big baby.”

Tom steps behind him and wraps his arms around Mike’s chest. “Aww, Mikey, you know you’re my only baby,” he mumbles, kissing Mike’s shoulder.

Neville is eating it up, but behind her, Nick looks like he’s going to choke and André is in real danger of losing his eyebrows in his hairline.

“Get off me,” Mike mutters, lightly elbowing Tom. He sets the cake on the coffee table and steps out of the way so Neville can cut it. She makes them all sing (always Mike’s least favorite part of birthdays). André insists on singing the Swedish song too, as off key as possible. Tom tries to smear frosting on Mike’s face twice before he threatens to move.

And then it’s time for presents.

Tom gets a lot of clothes from his parents, because that’s what parents do, and a stack of movies and video games from André (and probably Nick). Suddenly everyone is looking expectantly at Mike.

He nudges his neatly wrapped box at Tom. “I, uh, hope you like it. I know you like mine, so I thought maybe you’d like one of your own.”

Tom grins at him and rips into the box, pieces of paper drifting around them. His smile falters and then disappears as he pulls the bright blue fuzzy blanket out of the box. He blinks at it several times. “Umm.”

Mike bumps him with his shoulder. “Now you can stop stealing mine.”

Tom sort of smiles; his mouth moves right, but the rest of his face doesn’t really follow. “Yeah, uh, thanks.” He drops the blanket back into the box. “So, is there cake left?”

Mike looks across the room at André and Nick. Both of them look disappointed but unsurprised. Neville and Keven look as confused as Mike feels. This was a good gift - way better than some of the shit the guys had suggested. So why does it feel like he couldn’t have gotten that more wrong?
 
******
 
The “party” breaks up pretty quickly after that. It’s not particularly late, but clearly no one wants to sit in a room with this much awkward tension. Mike can’t really blame them.

By the time they’ve cleaned everything up, it’s not even 10 PM. Mike doesn’t really believe Keven and Neville want to sleep this early, but he appreciates the lie. It affords him a level of dignity that “figure out how you fucked up” wouldn’t. He trails after Tom into their bedroom.

Only once the door closes does Tom drop his “everything’s fine” facade that hasn’t been fooling anyone. “What the hell, Mike.”

“That’s a damn good question, Tom. What did I do? I thought you liked the Leafs?”

Tom digs the heels of his hands into his eyes with a force that has to hurt. “I do, Mike, that’s not--” He makes a frustrated noise. “So, when you were thinking about birthday presents, the best thing you could come up with is something to get me to stop touching your stuff.”

“I thought you might like one of your own so we don’t have to worry about sharing?”

“So you don’t want to share stuff with me.”

“No, that’s not what I meant, dammit. I just thought, when you go back to your own room, you’ll have one of your own, so you won’t have to wait until I’m gone and steal mine.”

“When I go back to my room,” Tom says, devoid of tone or expression.

“After your parents leave?”

“Right.” Tom drops unceremoniously to sit on the end of the bed, one hand tangled in the hair at the back of his neck. “My parents.”

Mike wants to go over and sit next to him, feels this bizarre urge to make Tom feel better even though he still doesn’t understand why he’s upset. But he still has one more thing that he needs to say, and he thinks it’ll be easier with space. So he stays across the room, leaning up against the door, arms crossed in a useless attempt to protect himself from what he knows is coming next.

“So, uh, this morning, I said we needed to talk.”

“Yeah,” Tom agrees, sounding sad.

“I think… I think yesterday was a mistake.” He wonders if he sounds as calm as he’s trying to sound. In his head, he sounds as shaky and fragile as he feels.

Tom flinches as if he’s been slapped. “A mistake.” He sounds like he’s been gargling with gravel, and he could really contribute something else to the conversation besides repeating everything Mike is saying.

“Look, I know you were just thinking it would be convincing for your parents - and it was - but I think maybe that’s a step too far. You know I can’t do casual like you do, and I don’t want to mess this up, Tom. I’d like to still be friends when your parents go home, you know?”

“You think I -- do you really --” Tom can’t seem to finish a thought, gaping at Mike like he just suggested they murder a homeless person. He stands abruptly, shaking his head. “You know what, I think I need to go for a walk or something before I -- don’t wait up for me.” He’s so careful reaching around Mike for the doorknob, careful like he hasn’t ever been, and that’s not right. And when Mike reaches out to stop him, he jerks away, just like he did last week, and that’s even worse.

“Okay, okay,” Mike says, voice starting to crack a little. “Tommy, I’m sorry.”

He stops, most of the way out the door, just long enough to say, “Me too, Mike,” before he closes the door behind him much more loudly than Mike is expecting.

Mike’s fucked something up, that’s for damn sure. He wishes he knew what it was.
 
******
 
When his alarm goes off the next morning, he’s both awake and still alone. Tom said not to wait up, but he just wanted to know he’d come back. He wasn’t really expecting Tom to come in and sleep next to him, but repeated checks of the living room had confirmed Tom wasn’t there either.

He sends Tom

where are you I’m worried

and hopes he’ll get an answer before he has to leave for work. He’s not sure if he’ll be able to go without one.

Instead of a text, he gets Tom coming through the front door just as he’s coming out of the bathroom after his shower. Tom freezes, but it’s too dark at that end of the hall to see his expression. Mike, on the other hand, knows he’s surrounded by the light from the bathroom behind him and from their open bedroom door to his right. He feels uncomfortably vulnerable.

“Thank god, I was starting to get worried.”

“Were you?” He doesn’t sound as upset as last night, just very tired. He does follow Mike into their bedroom, but Mike can’t get too excited about that - it is where all his clothes are, after all.

“Of course I was worried. I get that you’re upset with me, but that doesn’t mean I want you dead in a ditch or kidnapped or something.” He looks up from his sock drawer to see Tom, sitting on the end of the bed again, eyes seemingly stuck on Mike’s stomach. He glances down reflexively; shit, he’d forgotten he looks like something tried to eat him. He drops his socks back into the drawer and fumbles into his shirt, trying to ignore the burning heat in his face.

“So what’s your, uh, schedule for this week?” He can’t bring himself to look back at Tom yet.

“Tonight, tomorrow, Thursday, Saturday.”

“What time do your parents leave?”

There’s an awkwardly long pause before Tom answers. “They need to be at the airport around 9 Thursday morning.”

He finally works up the nerve to look at him; Tom’s got his eyes closed and looks like he’s going to tip over at any moment.

“Hey, lay down before you fall off the bed, okay?”

“You sure it’s okay if I sleep in here?” Tom mumbles.

“Where else are you supposed to sleep, moron? C’mon, let me help you.” He pulls Tom up by the arm, keeping a hand on him as he sways alarmingly. “Take your shoes off.”

Tom trips a little kicking his shoes off. Mike hasn’t seen him like this since Joel’s birthday when Tom got dared to try every type of beer on tap at the bar. Better not to bother with anything besides his jacket. He peels that off and leaves it on the floor before pushing Tom towards the bed.

“I’m sorry I ruined everything, Mikey,” Tom mumbles as Mike pulls the blankets up.

“You didn’t ruin anything, Tom. Go to sleep.”

Grabbing his phone from the side table, he shuts off the light and lingers for just a moment. He wants so badly to do something like kiss him goodbye or just brush his hair out of his face, but that’s another terrible idea.

Tom’s not the one who ruined everything; he is.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sometimes, Mike takes his friends for granted. He is reminded of this when André is nice enough to say nothing besides “good morning” all the way to the office. He changes his mind when he goes to refill his coffee mid-morning and finds himself herded into the smaller conference room (AGAIN). No one looks concerned this time. They all look totally pissed - even Nicky, who usually just looks really disappointed in you and all your life choices.

Brooks must have drawn the short straw, because he gets to start the lecture. “Mike, I got a very interesting phone call late last night from Tom. I didn’t understand a lot of it, since he was pretty upset and he might have been drinking, but the gist I got is you did something incredibly stupid this weekend.”

If any of these assholes think he’s going to volunteer information after that, they have another thing coming.

“Mike,” André says quietly from the background.

He glares at Brooks a little more before responding. “Fine, you were all fucking right, okay? Tom hated his gift. We had kind of a fight, I guess, and he just took off. He was god-fucking-knows-where all night, so for all I know he was drinking when he called you.”

“Did you talk about--” André starts before he sees Mike’s gesture to shut up.

“Talk about what?” Nicky asks, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Mike keeps his eyes on the floor.

“Michael, you know I’ll ask André if you don’t answer, and he’ll give up your little secret without any fight whatsoever. So, let me ask you again - talk about what?”

Mike briefly considers holding out, but -- André will definitely squeal. He’s more scared of Nicky than Mike. “About why he thought it would be a good idea to have sex Saturday,” he mumbles.

Nobody says anything in immediate response to that. The clock across the room ticks twenty-three times before TJ pipes up. “Was it good?”

“Jesus, TJ,” Brooks mutters.

“What? We were all wondering, admit it.”

“It was fucking fantastic, okay! That’s not really relevant right now, though, is it?”

“Right, focus, children.” Nicky glares at TJ and Brooks. “Did you actually talk about it, Mike?”

“Sort of. I mean, I told him I thought it was a mistake and that we’d gone too far, and he didn’t disagree.”

“What exactly did he say?” Nicky asks quietly.

“Umm.. not much of anything really. He didn’t, like, finish a sentence besides ‘I need to go for a walk’. And he kept repeating what I was saying.” He glances up just in time to everyone in the room share a look that he definitely doesn’t understand.

“TJ, could you and André give us a couple minutes, please?” Nicky asks though it’s clear that there’s no choice involved. They file out of the room with a couple of sympathetic looks.

Brooks is the first to break the ensuing silence. “When do his parents leave?”

“Thursday morning.”

“So just a few more days.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Brooks nods. “Did he tell you what was wrong with the blanket? I mean, why exactly he didn’t like it?”

“Not really? He asked me why I bought it, and he made it sound like I bought it because I didn’t want him touching my stuff. I kept trying to explain that wasn’t it at all, but I don’t think he got it.”

“Clearly,” Nicky says.

The pause in conversation is just becoming awkward when Brooks speaks up again. “Mike, I know you didn’t want to before, and I get why, I really do, but-- do you think maybe it’s time to tell Tom the truth?”

Mike physically recoils from that idea, so much so that he almost falls out of the chair.

“Okay, maybe not,” Brooks says, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

“I just don’t see how that’s going to help. How is telling him I’m stupidly in love with him going to make up for me being awful at giving gifts?”

“Oh for --” Brooks sighs and gestures at Nicky, very “you deal with this.”

“Do you really think that’s all that he’s upset about?”

“Have we had this conversation before?”

Nicky glares in response.

“I don’t fucking know what he’s upset about because he won’t fucking talk to me.”

“Oddly enough,” Brooks jumps in, “he said the same thing to me about you a few hours ago. Maybe if you started, he would too, and then you could get the whole mess sorted out.”

“Look, Mike,” Nicky steps closer and drops into a crouch, putting himself on eye level like he’s talking to a child. “We can’t make you do this. But as two people with a little more experience in this area, we are

strongly suggesting

that you at least try to tell him the truth about how you feel. Tell him how difficult this has been for you. At least then you’ll know what’s going to happen, and you can stop worrying about that.”

He has to close his eyes to answer. “And when he says he doesn’t feel like that about me, and he’s sorry he even suggested this, and that maybe it would be better if he left, then what am I supposed to do?”

Nicky pats him on the head as he stands up. “Let’s worry about that if it happens.”
 
******
 
Mike gets precisely one text from Tom all day:
My parents are going out. They’ll see you when they get home.

Full words and correct punctuation. Tom’s still pissed at him.

The apartment is dark and empty when he gets home. It’s not like he’s never spent a Monday night alone, but it feels like it’s been a while. He makes a sandwich for dinner; it’s edible but still makes him kind of sad that he’s not a more functional adult.

His day goes the rest of the way down the drain when he decides to do laundry while he’s alone. He was in the bedroom earlier to change, but barely long enough to pull on some track pants and a t-shirt; he hadn’t even turned the light on, just navigated via the hall light.

Turning on the light reveals an unpleasant surprise - a piece of paper laid neatly in the perfect center of a perfectly made bed. It’s actually kind of creepy.

Gonna be a late night so I'm gonna stay with Joel

He has the presence of mind to text a picture of it to André with the word “help” before he gives in to the overwhelming urge to collapse. He’s still on the floor between the bed and the wall, arms around his knees, trying desperately to remember how to breathe when André lets himself into the apartment.

“I’m so sorry, Mike,” is really the only thing André says that he understands when he sits down next to him and pulls him into a hug. He hopes the rest of it is in Swedish; he can’t lose his ability to understand English along with Tom.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

One advantage to not really sleeping all night is he doesn’t have any dreams to remember when his alarm goes off.

It had been too quiet in his room for him to fall asleep. He’d forgotten about the fan, and André didn’t know about it to begin with. Since he couldn’t be bothered to get up, he’d been stuck with all the noises of the building and the neighborhood: water rushing through the pipes, the rattle of the furnace kicking on, car doors slamming out on the street. He has no idea what excuse André gave Neville and Keven when they came back, but they hadn’t made noise for very long.

He spent most of the night staring at the empty space where Tom was supposed to be. The bed had been remade with his spare sheets, like Tom was trying to remove any trace of ever being in it.

He texts André

I’m up

, like he promised last night, and wonders how he’s going to get through the day after another night without sleep.

He gets through the day with an unhealthy application of coffee, Red Bull, and a lunchtime nap under one of the conference tables. André must have updated everyone last night; they’re all so careful with him all day. TJ brings him lunch. Most of the Red Bull shows up on his desk after his nap - it’s all sugar-free, so he assumes that means Brooks and/or Nicky were responsible.

He doesn’t talk much all day; he assumes that’s why André jumps so much when he starts talking on the platform waiting for their train.

“Do you think I should text Tom? Or call him or something?”

“And say what?”

“I don’t know, tell him I’m sorry again?”

“He knows you’re sorry, Mike.”

“How do you know?” A terrible idea strikes him. He smacks André’s arm with the back of his hand. “Have you been talking to Tom today?!”

André rubs his arm and frowns. “Yes, I have. Me and him aren’t fighting.”

“What is he saying? Let me have your phone.”

“Fuck no,

horunge

. Get away from my phone!”

André wields a mean elbow, and he will throat punch a person if pushed, so Mike reluctantly lets it go.

“Ugh, whatever.”

“Mike, he said it’s going to be fine, so don’t push him, okay? He’ll come home. I promise.”
 
******
 
A braver, stronger, less confused, less-of-a-liar Mike would probably suck it up and deal with Tom’s parents when he gets home. However, that Mike lives in an alternate reality, so what he would or wouldn’t do is irrelevant. In this reality, Mike lets Neville hug him, tries and fails to eat whatever was put on his plate, and then pleads a headache and goes to bed. Two days in a row with little to no sleep is catching up with him.

He remembers the fan tonight, so that’s something. He still tosses and turns for longer than he’d like… and then he gives in and piles Tom’s pillow and his Rangers blanket up in the middle of the bed. It’s not a very convincing substitute for Tom, but it’s as good as it’s going to get right now. He eventually falls asleep that way.

When a closing door wakes him, it feels like it’s only been five minutes that he’s been asleep. It takes a moment before he gets his eyes open long enough to process what he’s seeing - Tom, pulling off a sweater and tossing it in the general direction of the hamper.

Tom moves out of his field of vision, but what he can hear - rustling clothes, drawers opening and closing - fills in what he can’t see. There’s an unexpected pause when the blankets move - and then he remembers what he had to do to get to sleep. At least he can die of embarrassment in peace, since Tom hasn’t noticed he’s awake.

“Oh, Mike,” Tom whisper-sighs. “Why do you have to be like this, babe?” That sounds like a rhetorical question (which is good since Mike doesn’t know the answer anyway). He moves the pillow and blanket away slowly and moves just as slowly to put himself in their place.

It’s probably a really terrible idea to sink back into it as obviously as Mike does, but Mike is the King of Terrible Ideas lately. Also, he doesn’t do it on purpose, in the same way he doesn’t mean to breathe but it still happens. One second he’s laying in bed as a distinct individual, and the next he’s melted back into this hybrid creature that doesn’t quite know where the boundaries are between the two parts.

“Just one more day, Mikey, just one more. Then everything can go back to the way it was, just like you want.”

It’s the whispering that makes Tom sound as sad about that as Mike feels. It’s got to be.
 
******
 
Tom must have forgotten how horrid he finds Mike’s alarm. When it goes off Wednesday morning, he flails around trying to shut if off and only manages to smack Mike in the face and nearly knee him in the balls. Mike, who has succeeded in shutting off the alarm, feels it necessary to roll on top of Tom and hold him down, just in self-defence. He doesn’t remember that’s another Terrible Idea until he’s already done it.

He freezes; so does Tom. Mike’s not even sure either of them is breathing.

“Uhhhh, Mike?” How Tom’s voice is cracking when he’s whispering is beyond Mike at this hour of the morning.

“Um...could you let me get out of bed without punching me, please?”

“Sure,” Tom says, sounding a little strangled.

If Mike decides to, uh, linger in the shower this morning, that’s no one’s business but his.

When he comes back into the bedroom, Tom is buried under blankets with a pillow over his head. Fine then, Mike can take a hint.
 
******
 
André looks smug in the elevator.

“You knew he was coming home last night, didn’t you.”

“Well, not ‘knew’. More like ‘hoped’. And I told him he should.”

The fifteenth and fourteenth floors pass.

“Thanks,” Mike says mostly to the floor.

André bumps him with a shoulder; nothing else really needs to be said.
 
******
 
Just before 11, Mike’s phone vibrates on the desk, startling him out of his third attempt to understand an email before he breaks down and asks Nicky for help.

Have time for a lunch break today?

Mom wants to come in there

Yeah I can do lunch - 1ish?

He sees that Tom has read the message just before a horrible thought occurs to him. All his friends here

know

.

And in the running for the Terrible Idea Trifecta, Michael Latta, everyone.

Okay.

This time, Mike calls the emergency meeting, so he gets to stand up for a change.

“Tom is bringing his parents by so we can have lunch, and I need you all not to be a bunch of fucking weirdos while they’re here, okay? We are

this close

to getting through this, and if one of you ruins it, there will be hell to pay. Am I clear?”

Everyone nods, but they look more amused than Mike would like. He wants them quaking in fear. But considering every one of them saw him sleeping under a table earlier this week because of this mess….he’s probably not as scary as he wants to be.

He follows Nicky back to his office, ignoring TJ and Brooks who are probably making plans to horribly embarrass him.

“Um, Nicky? I need one more favor.”

Nicky peers over his monitors when he doesn’t continue. “Yes, Michael?”

“I know it’s super last minute, but can I, uh, can I take Friday off?”

Nicky just blinks at him.

“I know I’ve got the time available, but I don’t know if there’s something going on I need to be here for.”

“May I ask why?”

Mike shuffles his feet around, tries to look everywhere but at Nicky, but eventually just breaks down and answers. “I thought maybe just a normal day at home without all the acting might be a good way to get things back to, well, normal.”

“And normal is where you want them to be?”

“Well, yeah. Look how fucked up everything has gotten this week! Everything was fine before, I just want it to be like that again.”

Nicky just looks at him.

“I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t give like a kidney or something for all of this to be real, but Tom doesn’t want that. If I have to choose between less than I want or nothing at all, then there’s no fucking choice. I want things, like, in addition to what I had already, not instead of, you know?”

If Nicky was a more demonstrative person, he’d probably be hugging Mike right now. Mike’s very thankful he isn’t because everything is too close to the surface right now.

“Put in your time off request. I’ll approve it as soon as it comes through.”

“Thanks, Nick.”

Nicky smiles almost sadly at him. “I hope it works.”

“Yeah,” Mike shrugs. “Me too.”
 
******
 
In the building - two minute warning

Mike does a panicked once-over of the section of office he can see. André’s at his desk, on the phone, so he’s certainly not going to be a problem. However, he can’t see the elevator bank. That is a problem.

He finds Brooks and TJ hanging around the elevators, looking a little too innocent.

“You assholes don’t even work on this floor!”

“We’re just waiting for the next available elevator, Mike, what are you trying to say?”

“Bullshit, Brooks.”

The middle elevator’s signal light starts to blink.

“I swear to god, if either of you embarrass me…”

“Calm down bro,” TJ laughs, shoving Mike lightly. “It’s gonna be fine.”

“You know, everyone keeps saying that, and it has yet to be fine--” Mike cuts off mid-rant as the elevators *dings* to announce its arrival.

The doors slide open to allow a handful of passengers off, including the Wilsons. Brooks jumps in to say hello first, catching Tom in a somehow unexpected hug (Tom never expects it, even though Brooks always hugs him) before introducing himself to Keven and Neville. TJ snags Tom before Mike can, throwing an arm around his shoulders and pulling him into the office, whispering the whole time.

Mike’s conflicted. He doesn’t trust either of them further than he can throw them. So does he babysit Brooks to make sure he doesn’t let anything slip to the parents, or TJ to make sure he doesn’t let anything slip to Tom? It’s a struggle.

Brooks wins out because anything TJ says can be dealt with later. Hopefully.

Mike trails after all of them into the main office space, watching out of one eye as TJ pulls Tom down the hall towards Nicky’s office. That is highly suspicious.

“And here’s Mike’s little corner of the world,” Brooks announces far more grandly than Mike’s half-cubicle of nondescript office furniture warrants.

There’s not much to Mike’s desk; he doesn’t keep a lot of stuff around like some people. Aside from the bare minimum supplies he needs, there are only a handful of personal items on his desk - a joke calendar from André, a ‘World’s Greatest Middle Child’ mug from his brothers, a tiny, neon green stuffed dog - and two photos thumb-tacked to the cubicle wall over his phone - a six-year old photo of his family, and one of him and Tom at the company Christmas party last year.

He sees Neville’s gaze linger on that one. He doesn’t look at it intentionally all that often, but it’s a good picture of both of them, dressed up and laughing at the camera. In hindsight, André can’t be blamed for thinking they were dating.

“What’s this?” Neville nudges the dog.

“Oh, Tom won that from one of those claw machines at this arcade at the beach last summer.” Mike shrugs. “He said it was the only kind of dog we were ready for.”

“I can’t believe you kept that,” Tom says, from directly behind him. Mike jumps while Brooks tries to hide a snicker.

“It ended up in my backpack, so I decided it could brighten up my cubicle.”

“Masterly use of the passive voice,” Brooks whispers, barely covering up a laugh.

“Shut up, Brooks.”

“Are we ready to go?” Tom asks, sounding very bored with the whole thing.

They aren’t ready to go. Neville needs to meet Nicky, apparently, though Mike can’t figure out a reason why. Fortunately, Nicky is his most responsible friend/co-worker, so he’s nothing but polite, making none of the loaded comments that Mike’s been nervous about.

A good couple dozen minutes later than he thinks it should be, they’re finally ready to go to lunch. Mike turns in the direction of the steakhouse nearby with the mashed potatoes that Tom really likes without a thought. It isn’t until he’s holding the door open for everyone and making awkward eye contact with Tom that it occurs to him they could have gone somewhere else.

They’re seated right up against one of the windows, and Mike takes full advantage of the view to make mostly one-sided conversation about the points of interest in the neighborhood. He’s really reaching, but he doesn’t know what else is safe to talk about today.

Then his mouth develops a mind of its own and goes rogue.

“Do you remember the night you met me in here for that concert, and Julianne dragged us to that Ethiopian place that used to be up the block?”

Tom twitches a little, like he wasn’t expecting Mike to talk directly to him, then nods and shoves a ridiculous forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth instead of answering.

Mike turns back to Neville and Keven across the table. “He hadn’t had Ethiopian before, but he didn’t want to tell Julianne that, so he agreed with everything she was saying, even though he had no idea what she was talking about. He ended up with the spiciest thing on the menu.” He glances over at Tom, who is studiously ignoring all of their giggles with a faint blush high on his cheeks. “He tried to push through the pain, but he only made it halfway through before his eyes were watering so much he couldn’t see his plate.”

“I didn’t see you doing any better,” Tom interjects.

“Hell no,” Mike laughs. “But that’s because I’m not a crazy person.” He chooses to ignore Tom’s very-not-subtle side-eye.”Eventually Julianne felt sorry for him and asked a waiter for some milk.”

“I made it through the concert though, even though my tongue was either numb or on fire the whole time.”

“Yeah, you did.” Mike pats him on the thigh. “I was very impressed.”

Their waiter interrupts just then to ask about dessert. While his parents are distracted, Tom very carefully moves Mike’s hand back to his own side of the table.
 
******
 
“So, the in-laws are nice,” TJ says as he passes Mike’s cubicle later that afternoon.

“Fuck off,” Mike snaps.

TJ just raises an eyebrow and looks behind Mike with a shrug.

“Sorry, Nicky,” Mike mutters.
 
******
 
Wednesday evening is slightly less awkward than he expected, after all that. Neville and Keven spend most of the evening collecting their things and packing, since they’re leaving so early the next morning.

Eventually, Mike notices that he and Keven have been sitting here watching this police procedural rerun (he can’t tell which one, they all blur together) for a while, since Tom and Neville have disappeared. He assumes Tom wants a little extra one-on-one time with his mom and doesn’t think anymore about it until he’s on his way to the bathroom after the episode ends.

He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop. He didn’t realize there was a conversation going on in the guest room until he got right up to the door. Normally, he’d have kept going, but he heard his name; it was a natural response to stop, to see if Tom was talking to him.

He’s not.

“I really thought he knew what I wanted for my birthday, Mom, I’d been hinting about it all week, and Saturday--”

There’s a pause as Tom’s voice catches. Mike can just barely hear the sniff that follows.

Is he, is he

crying

about this?!

“I thought I was really fucking clear on Saturday, but he totally missed it.”

Mike has no memory of Tom talking about anything he wanted for his birthday on Saturday. Aside from their conversation more than a week ago about how Tom was sure he’d pick out something great and one comment at the ball game, he doesn’t think Tom’s mentioned presents at all.

“Honey, waiting until Saturday might have been a little late. He’d already bought this gift; he brought it home with him Friday. And did you tell him specifically or just hint really hard?”

“I mean, I didn’t spell it out.”

“Well there you go then. Didn’t he tell us just the other day that he needs stuff spelled out for him, you had to be really direct with him when you wanted to change your relationship?”

“Yeah,” Tom says, just loud enough for Mike to hear from the hall.

“So maybe he didn’t understand what you were trying to hint at. I bet if you told him more clearly, you’d get want you want. I really think that boy would bring you the moon if he thought that’s what you wanted, Tommy.”

Well, she’s not wrong.

“I know you’re still upset, honey, but just think about it.”

“Okay, Mom.” He doesn’t sound particularly convinced, but Mike doesn’t blame him. He makes a mental note to make Tom talk about this on Friday, when they’re alone. There’s a rustle from the bedroom, so Mike slips down the hall to hide in the bathroom and think.
 
******
 
It seems to be a universal rule that if you want very badly to fall asleep, that’s the night you lay awake for no apparent reason.

Mike would like to be asleep. If he was asleep, Tom might actually be touching him instead of laying on the farthest edge of the bed, back to Mike, like he’s hoping he’ll fall out onto his face.

This is the last time he gets to have this, and he’s wasting it by being awake.

He flips his pillow to the cool side for the dozenth time since they went to bed. He’s trying not to fidget too badly; Tom deserves to sleep. He rolls, slowly, onto his right side and tries to measure the space on the mattress between him and Tom. Maybe this time, since it’s the last time, maybe he should be the one to cross that space.

Maybe he could just --

Tom sort of flail-rolls onto his other side, nearly elbowing Mike in the face. When he opens his eyes post-flinch, Tom is much closer. Mike inches towards him with a degree of patience he exhibits nowhere else.

It turns out all he has to do is get close enough to bump Tom with his shoulder. There’s no change in his breathing, but he clings on immediately, wrapping limbs around Mike like he really is part octopus.

Mike’s eyelids feel heavier already.

“I don’t really want you to go back to your own room,” he whispers into Tom’s hair.

Tom mumbles something incomprehensible into his shoulder, and Mike slips into sleep.
 
******
 
Mike’s alarm Thursday morning is the signal for everyone to get up apparently. Tom buries his head under his pillow as the alarm goes off, but when Mike climbs out of bed, he sits up and leans over to switch the lamp on. Mike rushes through his shower so Keven and Neville will have time, and he even remembers to make extra coffee so there’s enough for everyone.

He’s filling his thermos, almost ready to walk out the door, when Neville appears in the kitchen. He can’t help but feel a little cornered.

“Michael, we just wanted to thank you so much for letting us stay here. It was so lovely getting to spend time with you both and see the life you’re building together.” She wraps him up in a perfect mom-hug.

“You’re welcome,” he says hoarsely. “I’m glad I finally got to meet you.”

“Us too, Michael.” She leans back to look him in the face, and he knows before she starts talking that he’s not going to like what she says. “Thank you for taking care of my son. Thank you for treating him the way he deserves. Thank you for making him the happiest I have ever seen him. If he does something too stupid, you call me, okay? I’ll yell at him; we’d like to keep you around.”

There aren’t words to answer that, and even if there were, Mike couldn’t say them right now without sobbing all over her. He hugs her instead and hopes that’s good enough.
 
******
 
Nicky takes one look at him and sticks him in an empty meeting room with a two-foot tall stack of paperwork that needs to be sorted and hole-punched for binder storage. He leaves Mike with a large cup of coffee and a box of tissues and takes Mike’s phone with him when he leaves.

At lunch, Brooks and TJ take him with on their ever-lasting quest for the best Chinese food in D.C. He’s not sure what the criteria are or how they keep track, but he answers their questions about his opinion with slightly more life than he’s done anything all day. They stick to shallow conversation, which is about all he could follow today, to be quite honest.

As he passes Nicky’s office afterwards, he’s stopped by his name and a perfectly-timed wad of paper bouncing off his head.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Tom’s parents have landed in Toronto; they’re on their way home now.”

“Oh. Ok. Can I have my phone back now?”

“No.” Nicky turns back to his screen in clear dismissal, and Mike doesn’t have the energy to fight about it.

“Have I had any other messages?”

“Your mother wants you to call her.”

Yeah, he should maybe do that. Just, probably not today.
 
******
 
Thursday evening, Mike expects to walk into an apartment that looks like two fairly normal guys live in it - dishes left in the sink, stuff piled on the counter, random bits of clothing abandoned on the couch. It’s amazing the kind of mess Tom can make in the amount of time he’s been unsupervised today.

Instead, everything looks just about like it did when Mike left for work that morning. At least until he opens his bedroom door.

His bedroom looks like he’s somehow traveled back in time to two weeks ago. Tom’s furniture is gone; his furniture has been rearranged to how it was before. He throws his suit jacket across the end of the bed - actually made with his Rangers blanket folded across the bottom - and goes to check Tom’s room. It’s not as neat as Mike’s room, but everything looks about how he remembers from the last time he was in here, a month or two ago.

That sends him back out into the hall to confirm one last thing - all the pictures are gone. They’ve been replaced with the former residents of the respective frames, sports teams and college friends. Mike’s beautiful fake life is just... gone, like it never even happened. He sinks onto the couch with a shaky exhale that wants to be the precursor of tears.

He only realizes it’s gone completely dark when a text notification lights up the phone he’s clutching too hard. The light is blinding in its suddenness, and his fingers ache when he loosens his grip enough to see that it’s a message from Neville, thanking him again for sharing his home with them. She follows it up with a picture that he knows in his gut he shouldn’t look at...but he does anyway.

He really, really shouldn’t have looked at this picture.

It’s perfectly framed, for all that it must have been taken in a hurry to avoid being spotted. Dead center of the frame, Tom is kissing his forehead before leaving him outside the reptile center at the zoo, left hand curled around the back of his neck. Tom’s right hand is barely visible over a shrubbery, but Mike remembers how one of his fingers had caught at a belt loop, pulling him closer. His own face is almost fully visible, and jesus fucking christ, if he’d known that he looked like that, he would have died of embarrassment before everyone came back from the reptiles. He’s blushing terribly, eyes closed, and his smile is small but absolutely delighted.

There are wedding photographers that would kill for a photo like this.

He sends back

you’re welcome

and then shuts his phone off and drops it to the floor; he can’t even be concerned about cracking the screen at this point. He tips over to curl up into a ball and is suddenly very, very grateful he’s got the next day off.
 
******
 
He’s not completely asleep when Tom comes in some hours later. He never did turn a light on anywhere, but Tom’s used to navigating the hall in the dark. He holds very still, listening to Tom leaving his shoes by the closet before heading down the hall. He doesn’t want Tom to notice him here on the couch, still in his work clothes, doesn’t want Tom to ask him what he’s doing out here instead of sleeping in their bed, no, no it’s just his bed now, again.

He can’t go back in there yet, can’t climb into the huge expanse of his queen-size mattress that used to be a perfectly acceptable size but now looks the size of Australia. He can’t fall asleep between sheets that smell too strongly of fabric softener and not strongly enough of whatever body wash Tom found on sale last time. It’s too cold, it’s too quiet, it’s too empty.

He wonders if Tom will notice him sleeping on the couch for the next forever.
 
******
 
“Mike? Mike!”

“What?” He struggles to sit up, one arm asleep from being pinned underneath him.

“What are you doing sleeping out here? Did you miss your alarm? It’s like, it’s 10:30, bro, you’re hella late!”

He shakes himself a little more awake. “No, no, it’s okay, I’m taking the day off. Nicky said I could.”

“Oh.” Tom shifts back and forth, like he’s uncomfortable or nervous or something. “Uh, why?”

He was going to save this until after they’d both had some coffee… or lunch or something, but whatever. Might as well get it out of the way. “I thought maybe it would be nice to hang out, just us, without all the --” hopefully Tom understands his vague hand gesture to mean

all the weird pretending you’re in love with me shit

“-- you know, like we used to.” All of two weeks ago when the world was a very different place.

Tom just blinks a few times and then disappears into the kitchen. The coffee maker kicks on a minute later, so Mike will forgive him.
 
******
 
Coffee is brewed, toast is made, and Mike is starting to think this is working. He’s munching on the last of his toast and finishing the last of Neville’s grapefruit juice. Tom turned the TV on, but he hasn’t really landed on anything, bouncing between all their sports networks and the endless ‘talk’ shows that are on every other channel mid-morning. He’s abandoned his toast and most of his coffee, and the living room is already starting to look like it’s supposed to - like two people who are kind of sloppy live there. The mindlessness of it is sort of relaxing.

Right up until Mike opens his mouth and fucks it up.

“So how’d you sleep, all by yourself for a change?”

Tom turns slowly away from the TV. “What?”

“Was it nice, having all the space to yourself again? Not having to worry about me hogging the blankets or something?”

Tom turns back to the TV. “You don’t hog the blankets.”

“But still, it must have been nice to get back to your own bed, like being on vacation where you never sleep as well, right?”

“Yeah.” Tom stands up, kind of abruptly, and trips over the coffee table. “Sure.”

Mike follows him into the kitchen. “Tom, is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong.” Except he’s washing silverware that Mike knows Neville washed yesterday. And Tom hates washing dishes.

“Bullshit, nothing’s wrong.”

“Look, Mike, it’s not your problem, okay? You can’t help me with this, you can’t fix it, so you don’t need to worry about it. It’s nothing.” Tom turns away to dig through the fridge.

Mike slams his cup onto the counter. The thin plastic doesn’t make a very satisfying noise. Tom flinches, but he doesn’t look back.

“Tommy, please. You can tell me, whatever it is. Maybe I can’t help, but maybe it would make you feel better?”

Tom sort of laughs, but it’s kind of….almost wet-sounding. And not funny. “No, Mike, it really won’t make me feel better. Just let it go.”

The cup finally cracks as it bounces off the wall. “Fine, Tom, just fucking fine.” He grabs his coat from the closet, dodging the closet door as it bounces off the wall, and shoves his feet into what he hopes are his sneakers. “If you don’t want to talk to me, Tom, then you don’t fucking have to.”

“Mike, wait--”

The neighbors across the hall are going to complain about all the door slamming, but they can go to hell, as far as Mike’s concerned. He’s too angry to wait for the elevator, too much pent up adrenaline, but 17 flights of stairs is no joke. He’s panting by the time he reaches the lobby.

He doesn’t really acknowledge that he’s hoping Tom will be waiting in the lobby until he comes around the corner and finds out he isn’t.

Maybe a few rounds of punching things at the gym will make him feel better.
 
******
 
It doesn’t, not really. He’s just too tired to be as upset as he was earlier. He sort of stumbles home in a fog of exhaustion, both physical and mental. He’s tired from the stairs, from the walking, from the ridiculous amount of stuff he just did at the gym. But he’s also tired of the lying, of the pretending, of the arguing. He wishes he’d never agreed to any of this shit. It’s just, it’s ruined everything.

It’s quiet in the apartment when he gets back. Tom’s probably hiding in his room, like usual after most of their disagreements. He should apologize for yelling, probably for throwing shit, too, but maybe he should shower first.

Post-shower, he knocks on Tom’s bedroom door. “Tom? Can I come in?”

No answer.

“Please? I want to apologize.”

Nothing. Not a single sound. Usually, he can hear Tom moving around, even when he’s getting the silent treatment.

He can’t take this anymore; he’s just going to have to add ‘invading your privacy’ to the list of things he’s apologizing for. He turns the knob.

But there’s no one in the room. In fact, it doesn’t look like anyone’s been in here for a while. The bed has been more or less made, which is weird enough. And there’s stuff missing, from the side table and the dresser top. He takes a quick look in the bathroom - Tom’s toothbrush is missing.

He finds the note on the fridge.

I think it'll be better for both of us if I'm not here for a while

I'm sorry

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Mike ducks into his own room long enough to pull his Rangers blanket from the end of the bed and his phone charger from the wall. If Tom’s not going to be here, well then there’s no one to see him moving to the couch on a more permanent basis.

His phone rings just as he’s settling into the couch with his ‘wallowing in misery’ kit - a package of ‘Double Stuf’ Oreos he keeps hidden from Tom and the bottle of whipped cream vodka Tom insists he keeps in the freezer for girls but that he knows Tom hides whenever they have company.

André doesn’t normally call, so something might be wrong.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“At home. Why?”

“You should come hang out with us!” Mike gets a spike of adrenaline at that - is André with Tom?!

“Nicke and I are going to order some pizza and find something on TV to make fun of.” Oh. “You can tell me how your day went!”

Or not. “I’m kinda settled in here, buddy, but thanks for the offer. I’ll--”

“We’ll come down there and hang out with you then!”

“No!” There’s only silence in his ear. “Dammit.” He’s not getting up to let André in. If he wants to bother him that badly, he’d better remember his fucking key.

He’s sifting through the Netflix results under “Sad Movie” when André bursts through the front door with more energy than a nuclear power plant.

“How did it go, was it amazing, is everything…” His chipper voice trails off as he rounds the corner into the living room. Clearly, something about Mike sitting in the near-dark bundled under a blanket and drinking vodka straight from the bottle is confusing him. “Mike?”

“Yes, André?”

“What happened?”

Mike points towards the kitchen. He hasn’t touched the note, doesn’t want to. Maybe he can get André to burn it for him.

André steps around Nick to go look.

“C’mon in,” Mike waves Nick towards the couch. “Might as well get comfy; he’s not going to leave now.”

Nick sits, but he looks uncomfortable. It’s like he already knows what André’s about to find out.

“

Jävla idiot

!” André rustles around in the kitchen for a bit, then returns with beer for he and Nick. “That’s not how your day off was supposed to go, Mike. You said you were going to fix things.”

Mike stares at him for a beat or two. “I don’t remember talking to you about that.”

“No, you didn’t. But do you think no one noticed you didn’t come to work today? We were concerned!”

“You never asked me where I was!”

“I didn’t have to! Nicky wasn’t worried, so he knew, so we all ganged up on him until he told us what you were up to.”

Great. So everyone is talking about him. His day is even better.

“So, you said you were going to fix things, but you don’t look like you and Tom are happy together now.”

“I told Nicky I was going to fix things the way they were before this whole fiasco.” Mike glares at him. “Back when we didn’t have such a problem living in the same apartment.”

André tips sideways to bury his face in Nick’s shoulder. “Nicke, why are we friends with such stupid people?”

Nick’s smile makes Mike’s heart hurt. “I don’t know.”

“Argh,” André groans. “Fine, since you are stupid, we will stay here and comfort you. What are we watching?”

“I haven’t picked yet.”

“Ooo!

Titanic

, very sad, put that on. I am ordering pizza. Are you sharing your vodka?”

“Not this bottle. There’s more in the freezer.”

Nick stands up, dislodging André as gently as possible. “Would you like a glass too, Mike?”

“Nope, I’m good.”

“Yeah, okay,” André says, skeptically.
 
******
 
Mike wakes up Saturday with his face buried in the back of the sofa. He’s tangled in his blanket, and one pant leg is stuck up near his knee. It’s far too bright, and he swears the clock is ticking at 100 times the normal volume. He doesn’t really want to move, but his mouth feels like he was eating dead moss last night - or what he imagines that would be like, anyway.

He tries to roll carefully over, but he still ends up on the floor. He lays there for a bit, working up the energy to pull whatever he landed on out from underneath him. Oh, that’s what happened to the vodka. It was about three quarters full when he started last night; there’s barely an inch left in the bottle. No wonder he feels like shit.

There’s half a pizza - still in the box - left on the coffee table along with an empty package of Oreos, a mostly empty bag of pretzels, two empty glasses - both on their sides, and an empty bottle of green apple vodka.

It’s not the worst way he’s found the living room, to be honest.

André and Nick are nowhere to be seen. He’s going to assume they went home unless he trips over them.

He has some fuzzy memories of Nick trying to smother André for quoting lines too loudly and then Nick throwing a box of tissues at him one-handed while André sobbed into his shoulder at the end of the movie. Serves the interfering bastard right.

After brushing his teeth three times and putting on clothes that aren’t covered in Oreo crumbs, he digs his phone out from between the couch cushions. It’s 1:28 PM.

It’s Saturday.

Shit.

He’s scrambling for a pair of shoes when he gets his phone unlocked. The open text thread on his screen stops him in his tracks.

Waht tim e is lunch tmrw

We’re not having lunch tmrw

Why nto

I just can’t ok

Go to sleep

Dont wanna too lonely

Thank god Tom stopped answering him. Who knows what else Drunk-Mike would have said if left to ramble.

He drops the one shoe in his hand and turns back to the couch. Sleeping again sounds like a good idea. He pulls his blanket over his head and tries very hard not to think.

It sort of works. He may not sleep exactly, but drifting in that fuzzy space where thoughts don’t linger or make sense is an acceptable substitute.

Until one does.

So he couldn’t have lunch with Tom today, so what. That happens occasionally. But he does know where Tom will be between the hours of 5 PM and 3 AM.
 
******
 
The door to

Chimmer’s

is heavy and solid, always more of a weight than Mike is expecting considering he walks through it several times a month. It’s dim inside, as most bars are, brighter points of light over the pool tables, around the dart boards, and at key areas around the actual bar. For a Saturday, it’s fairly early, in bar time, but the place is already pretty crowded. That’s going to make it harder to get Tom away for any length of time.

Through the crowd, he can just see flashes of Tom moving around behind the bar. No time like the present.

A hand reaches out of the crowd, grabbing at his arm as he squeezes through. “Mike!”

“Oh hey, Lindsey.” Mike lets her pull him to a stop. “How’s it going?”

“I’m great, Mike, but I really don’t think you should be here right now.”

“What?” He thought Lindsey liked him? She and her girlfriend Kate have been at every party Tom’s thrown since he moved in, and they’ve never been anything but nice to him.

“Mike, he’s trying to work, okay? I know you’re having some issues right now, but this is really not the time or the place.”

“Linds, I can’t talk to him at home - he won’t come home. So I had to come here.”

Lindsey gives him the most unimpressed look he’s seen since he talked to Nicky last. “Mike, I’m pretty sure he’s been gone for all of 24 hours. You really can’t give him any more time?”

He makes his most pathetic ‘sad’ face. “No.”

She sighs and rolls her eyes at him. This is becoming a trend with people around him lately; he would be concerned, but - priorities. “Okay, go sit over there -” she points towards the booths in the far corner “- and I will go ask Tom if he’ll talk to you. You will stay the hell away from the bar unless I or any of the other staff come to get you. Understood?”

He nods, a little too excitedly. “Yes, yes, I promise.”

“Alright. You go; I’ll be back in a minute.” She disappears into the crowd with the ease of excessive practice.

Mike fights his way to the corner, snagging the last of the booths. It’s only open because it's the one next to the arcade games - it’s impossible to hear over all the sound effects - but Mike doesn’t care.

He sits patiently at first. He can’t see the part of the bar Tom is working from where he’s sitting, so he occupies himself fidgeting with everything on the table. One of the waitresses - Shari, he thinks - drops a beer on his table with a wink. At least someone here still likes him.

The beer is mostly gone before Lindsey comes back. Mike knows what she’s going to say as soon as she sits down across from him.

“He said no, didn’t he.”

“He said you should go. He needs more time.” She smiles sadly and stands back up.

Mike nods, eyes firmly on the table now.

But.

He can’t go home. It’s too quiet and too empty. Just the knowledge that Tom’s not coming back makes the apartment colder.

Sure, he has other friends he could go bother… but it’s Saturday night. Everyone either has plans that they are already in the middle of, or he’ll be stuck third-wheeling it through the Netflix part of someone’s ‘Netflix and chill’. He’s not

that

desperate.

“No.” He swallows the last of his beer. “No, I’m not leaving here until he talks to me himself. We don’t have to fix everything, but he can come over here and tell me that to my face.” He takes a deep breath and makes eye contact with Lindsey. “I think I deserve that much.”

She stares at him for a several seconds, then shakes her head. “I’ll tell him, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.” She grabs his empty bottle and walks away, shouting over her shoulder, “I’ll send you over another beer.”
 
******
 
Two more empty bottles later, the charge on his phone is down to 16%, and Tom has yet to make an appearance. A different waitress has brought each of the bottles along with a message.

The first was delivered about 15 minutes after Lindsey left him, via Mi Na - “Michael, go home.”

He thanked her and sent back a reply: “No.”

Keisha brought the second over about an hour after that to pass along, “Don’t make me call the bouncer in here, Michael, I am fucking serious.”

She’s laughing while delivering the message, doing her best impersonation of Tom and missing by a mile. Mike smiles back and replies with, “I only want 5 minutes. Please.”

No one’s been back since, and it’s nearing another hour since Keisha was here.

He’s running out of patience.

5 minutes tick by, according his phone, before he decides that if Tom won’t come to him, then he’ll go to Tom.

He’s halfway to the bar, squeezing through a crush of people who probably think they’re dancing, when he sees a very tiny, very pretty woman lean over the bar and put her hand on Tom’s arm. He leans in closer, smiling broadly with dimples visible, and there are very loud sirens going off in Mike’s brain.

Mere feet from clearing the crowd, Mike collides with an entire tray of beverages. He is soaked, instantly, and at least two of the heavier pint glasses bounce off his toes before rolling across the floor. “Oh my god,” Lindsey says, “Mike, I’m so sorry.”

The clatter does at least get Tom’s attention; he looks directly into Mike’s eyes and frowns. Mike takes one last step towards him, kicking empty glasses out of the way, before Tom shakes his head and points towards the door.

His view is blocked suddenly, and he has to blink a couple times to focus in on Joel, who looks far more stern than Mike’s ever seen him. “You heard him, buddy. Time to go.”

“No, but Wardo, I need--”

“Not about what you need, Latts. Maybe spend some time thinking about that instead?” Joel nudges him none-too-gently in the direction of the door.

“What the fuck, Joel?! I have made myself fucking miserable for the last two weeks because Tom needed something, and now I don’t even get to ask him what the goddamn hell is so wrong that he had to fucking leave?” There’s more rant in his brain, but it’s getting stuck somewhere; he feels like he’s choking on it.

“No, you don’t - not here, anyway. Give the man some space, Latts, okay? He’ll come home.”

“Promise?” He hates the wobbly way the question comes out.

Joel opens the door for him. “Absolutely, bud. Now, go home, get some sleep. I’ll take care of your boy.”

Mike’s phone buzzes weakly, low battery notice flashing at him.
 
Called you an Uber red Corolla driver’s name is Josh

He’s gonna take you home

Please let him
 
Mike sniffles.

Joel smiles and points out a red car pulling up to the curb. “Night, Latts.”

Mike waves halfheartedly and heads for the car.

Okay

I miss you

Please come home

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sunday, he wakes up on the couch far more hungover than the three beers he had last night should account for. He hates crying. He’s heard people say it makes them feel better, but it makes him feel like shit. He just ends up sad with a bonus headache and runny nose. How that is supposed to make anything better, he’s yet to figure out.He forces himself to the kitchen for water, but that’s about all the effort he can manage right now. Curled back up on the couch, he puts on the Golf Channel - not because he likes it but because it’s quiet and vaguely soothing. Plus it’s green, wherever this is happening. He misses green things. And blue things. Like Tom’s eyes.
No, no, stop that.
But it’s too late. He’s already running over and over the last couple of weeks, wondering what he could have done differently in the various situations that would have led to a different result than him moping on the couch at 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning. It doesn’t seem to matter what he changes; not even a different birthday gift would have done it, because he still can’t figure out what it is that Tom told him he wanted.He’s rehashing the “getting together” story he’d told Neville and Keven, when he remembers something extra.
“Fish or cut bait,” Tom says quietly from the floor.
He’d meant to ask Tom about that, because it followed his story about his friends meddling a little too smoothly. He hadn’t really had time that night because Tom had fallen asleep too fast, and then the next morning was just a disaster; after that, it totally slipped his mind.Tom’s not here to ask, but he knows one other place he can start.“Hey Latta, how’s it going?” Roman always sounds happy to hear from whoever is on his phone. It’s nice to talk to someone who isn’t disappointed in him for a change.“Not so good, Josi,” Mike says. “I did something really stupid.”There’s a pause, some rustling like Roman is moving around, then the sound of a door closing. “Okay, Mike, start from the beginning.”“Well, you remember Tom?”“Your roommate that you’re in love with?”Mike sighs. “Yeah, that Tom. So what happened was…” ****** When he finally stops explaining the last couple of weeks, it’s so quiet he checks to see if the call has dropped.“Mike,” Roman eventually says, “you’re an idiot.”“Thanks, Roman, but that’s not really what I called you for.”Roman laughs. “Fair enough. What did you need from me?”“Tom’s mom is really hung up on that trip to the beach we took with you guys last summer. Since she was so certain that we got together after that, I went with that when we told her the fake story about how we got together. And Tom said something that made me curious. I forgot to ask him, and he’s not really talking to me right now, but I think you might know the answer too.” He pauses; there’s got to be a less awkward way to ask this, but he can’t come up with it. “Did any of you guys talk to Tom about me after I cleared up your misunderstanding that we were dating?”Roman coughs a little, clears his throat. “Mike, I don’t, uh. Well.”“Josi. What the hell did you guys do.”“We were just trying to help, Mike. You looked so sad when you talked to us. Calle pointed out that it was kind of shitty for him to be stringing you along like that if he wasn’t really into you, so we decided we should say something.”Mike doesn’t have any idea what to say to that. How is it possible he “made something up” that actually happened?“We did kind of corner him in the hotel restaurant, which was also a little shitty, I admit. He looked like he thought we were there to beat him up, though how anyone could think that about Elias, I don’t know. But we just told him that he needed to either get it together and make an honest man of you or back the hell off.”“Did someone happen to say ‘fish or cut bait’, by any chance?” Mike asks quietly.“Yeah, the nosy old lady at the table next to us. How did you know that?”“Not important. What did Tom say to all that?”“He laughed at us at first, said we were crazy because you didn’t feel like that about him. By the time he got done telling us how wrong we were, he was kind of upset and took off.”“Yeah,” Mike sighs again. “He does that.”“Look, Latts, I know you hate it when people try to tell you what to do, but I am as certain as I can be about anything that he is just as crazy about you as you are about him. Maybe he really believed that you weren’t interested in him. Do you think the last couple of weeks might have been enough to change his mind?”A rapid slideshow of moments passes almost in front of his eyes - how Tom had smiled after their first kiss, how flustered he’d been watching him change clothes that first night, how pleased with himself he’d looked every time Mike touched him, how it had never felt like they were pretending when they kissed.“Shit,” Mike chokes out. “I think I fucked up, Roman. I think I fucked up real bad.”“Hey, hey, you can still fix this. You said someone told you he wasn’t staying away forever, right? He needs some space for a little while, but he’s coming back?”“Maybe. I guess.” Mike sniffs.“Okay, well when that happens… tell him the goddamn truth, Michael.”“But what--”“If he’s an asshole about it, me and the boys will come over there and kick his ass. I promise. Even Elias.”“Thanks, Roman.”“Anytime, mein Freund. ”He wants to call, text, something to talk to Tom, but maybe Joel had a point last night. Maybe Tom needs to not be around him to figure out how to deal with this mess. But he can’t just ignore him, not after that.He texts Joel instead.
How is he
 
Miserable.

You?
 
Same.

Are you sure he’s going to come back
 
Do you want him to?
 There’s a 99% chance that Tom is going to see whatever he sends back, either because he sneaks a peek or because Joel just outright shows him. If he’s going to be brave and tell Tom how he feels, he has to start somewhere. 
YES

That’s a stupid question

I always want him
 ****** Anyone who has ever worked a job knows that the first day back after a weekend or holiday or whatever-you-have generally sucks. When you’ve spent that weekend mostly hungover, crying, and sad, the day gets even more unpleasant.A day that starts with “Michael, can I see you in my office?” has already gone way downhill.It is also never a good sign when Nicky closes his door.“So André tells me that your plan to ‘fix everything’ Friday did not go as expected.”“André needs to keep his fucking mouth shut,” Mike mutters at the floor. He peeks at Nicky; judgmental eyebrow is only at Level 1. “Not particularly, no. Tom disappeared, and he won’t talk to me.”Nicky looks at him for a minute, tapping a pen against his desk with one hand. “Did you consider that maybe Tom doesn’t want things to go back to the way they were before?”No, actually, he hadn’t. He has now, but last week - totally different story. He shakes his head at Nicky and keeps his eyes on his shoes.“Do you honestly want things to go back to the way they were before?”He shakes his head again.“So what are your options then?”This is starting to feel like a word problem in math class. “I’m gonna leave him alone until he’s ready to talk to me, and then I’m gonna tell him the truth and hope for the best.”The last time Nicky looked this proud of him was the first time he’d made scrambled eggs without setting off the smoke detector. They weren’t really edible, but they weren’t on fire either, which seemed to be the key thing he was learning that day. This feels surprisingly similar.“That’s very good, Michael. I have a feeling that will go much better.”“Thanks for the pep talk, Dad. Can I get some coffee now?”Nicky waves him out the door with what is almost a giggle. ****** André should maybe look into a position with public relations, since he’s so good at keeping people up-to-date on all the information they need to know. No one else asks him about his weekend, but Brooks brings him a cupcake. It’s probably gluten-free, vegan, or made of quinoa, but there’s chocolate frosting, so he doesn’t ask any questions.Back at home, he finds one of Tom’s sweatshirts thrown over the arm of the couch. The blanket he’s been sleeping with has disappeared from the couch, and all the debris of his weekend spent moping is gone from the coffee table. In the bathroom, most of Tom’s stuff is missing, but he can’t really remember if it was missing before or not.Tom has definitely been back but not to stay.He finds the blanket folded neatly on the end of his bed, like a hint that this is where Mike is supposed to be sleeping. Which is a fact he knows but will continue to ignore until his one pillow doesn’t look abandoned all by itself.He drags it back out to the couch with him. And if he’s too lazy to get up later and get his own sweatshirt when he gets cold, no one’s there to tell him he’s being ridiculous. ****** The most interesting thing about Tuesday is that it eventually turns into Wednesday, which Mike really appreciates. He’s trying to be patient, but that’s not one of his natural skills.Wednesday, he comes home to find his blanket missing from the couch again. The dishes he left in the sink have all been washed.This is just getting weird. Tom doesn’t clean up this much when he lives here 24/7.Once again, the blanket is folded at the end of the bed. Tom’s sweatshirt is sitting on top… along with the gray shirt Mike wore to meet his parents.He knows he’s supposed to be leaving Tom alone, but he hasn’t seen this shirt since that night. Tom must have left it here where he would find it for a reason. It’s only polite to let Tom know he found it…So he pulls the shirt on along with his sweats and snaps a picture.  There’s just enough of his face to tell he’s smiling, just to reinforce that he’s actually wearing it.
You’re right. It does look better on me.
He sends it to Tom, and then flips the camera to get the blanket in frame.
Nice try.
He doesn’t get a reply, but Snapchat is nice enough to tell him that Tom’s opened both.Just before he attempts another night’s sleep on the couch, he checks Snapchat one last time. The only thing new is a story from Tom - a lonely looking picture of Joel’s couch. ****** Thursday morning, he hits his snooze too many times and misses his usual train. He texts André and Nicky Not dead just late to ward off any potential panics.In his absence, his friends must have decided to have an update session, as he finds them all in the break room when he goes looking for caffeine. Lucky for him, he sees them before any of them see him, so he can duck back into the hallway and eavesdrop.“Nicke said he saw Tom in the elevator again yesterday afternoon.”“Jesus, what did he forget this time?” TJ snorts.“Nothing,” André laughs. “He told Nicke he was checking on Mike.”“That’s so cute I kind of want to throw up,” Brooks says. (Mike kind of agrees.) “When is he going to come home?”“Soon, I think. I’m working on it. It would help if I could get something concrete to prove he’s not, like, jumping off a cliff without a fucking parachute. He can’t just trust me that Mike feels the same way, even though I said so over and over, the whole time.”Little traitor; Mike knew he was a double agent. But at least now he has something like a plan - figure out what he can do that will convince Tom, without also making him look like an idiot. He’d like to have some dignity left when this is over. ****** Later that night, he makes himself comfortable with a bowl of popcorn and Tom’s copy of Castaway in the blu-ray player. He keeps his phone and the remote handy because this is probably going to take a couple of tries to get right.When he gets to the right spot, he grabs his phone to take some video. He has to pause and rewind a couple times until he gets a section of video he likes. He loads it onto Instagram, adjusting the start and stop times until the focus of the video is Tom Hanks shouting “Wilson! I’m sorry!” while also trying not to drown. He captions it “Me if @tom_wilso ever tries to move out” and posts it before he can chicken out.He buries the phone under his blanket and a pillow a good foot away from himself and decides not to look at it again until the movie is over.He holds out for 7 minutes.In that time, André and Brooks have both commented on the post, and most recently, Tom has both liked and commented. @andreburakovsky wow@brookslaich Just when I thought you couldn’t get more co-dependent@tom_wilso [Five heart-eyes emojis] A couple minutes later, a text from André comes through.
You’re welcome, eavesdropper
 ****** Friday passes in a blur of stupid questions and wondering about how soon is “soon”. André refuses to tell him anything useful.“He talked about your stupid video for over a fucking hour, Mike, it was awful. I don’t think he breathed.”Mike grins. “Yeah?”“Yeah. He wouldn’t get off the phone, and Nicke and I were kind of busy.”“Busy?” Mike asks, leaning heavy on the innuendo.“Yes, we were marathoning Say Yes to the Dress , and we can’t watch while I’m on the phone or people notice I’m not paying attention.”“André, I love you kid, but you’re so oblivious.”“What?”“Never mind that now,” Nicky interrupts. “Only one of you is allowed to have a romantic crisis at a time. I need André for a project. Get back to work, Michael.” ****** He turns the key in the front door lock, already three steps ahead to ordering take out for one again, so it takes him a minute to realize that that’s not the light he left on this morning and is there music playing?In the kitchen, something clatters against one of the counters.“Hello?”“Shit.” Tom peeks around the corner into the hall. “You’re home early. I’m not ready.”Mike inhales sharply, his spike of joy at seeing Tom back in their home plummeting quickly. He blinks away his hurt. “I can leave again, just tell me when I’m allowed back.” He turns back towards the door.“No! No, no, no, that’s not-- I don’t want you to leave .”“You don’t?”“Jesus, Mike, no, I was just going to surprise you, and it’s not quite ready yet because you’re earlier than I was expecting.”“Oh.” In the following silence, Mike hears the refrigerator cycle off. “So, should I go away until you’re ready, or…”A knock on the door behind him startles both of them more than it probably should."Shit, shit, that’s the-- can you just--”“I can go hide in my room?”“NO! No, sorry, not there, the uh, the bathroom, that should be safe. Can you get down there with your eyes closed?”He’s kind of making Mike nervous, right now. “You’re being super fucking weird, you know that right?”“Yeah, you can bitch about it later. Bathroom, eyes closed, or you’re gonna ruin the surprise.”He takes a good look at the hallway to make sure there’s nothing to trip over, but still uses the wall as a guide - walking into a wall will just make this night weirder. He shuts the bathroom door and flips the light on. There’s a ziploc bag in the sink full of things that have been missing from the bathroom for a while - Tom’s shampoo, soap, toothbrush. Please let this mean he’s staying. Pressed up against the bathroom door, he can only sort of hear Tom’s side of the conversation. It’s not informative. A couple “yeah”s, a “thank you” before the front door closes. He counts to 25 before cracking the door a couple inches and yelling “Can I come out now?”“No!” Tom yells back. “I’ll come get you when I’m ready, babe, chill.”Since he clearly has a few minutes to wait, he can either stand here and stare at the wall or he can try to distract himself. He piles his coat and his suit jacket on the closed toilet seat, untucks his shirt, and rolls his sleeves up. He brushes his teeth. Since Tom still hasn’t come to get him, he actually digs the floss out of the back of the drawer and flosses - sort of - for the first time since he can’t remember when. He’s considering reorganizing the medicine cabinet - or, to be honest, organizing it for the first time - when Tom finally knocks on the bathroom door.Tom’s bouncing a little on his toes when Mike opens the door, a nervous habit he hasn’t seen in awhile. His gaze bounces around Mike, catching on his bare forearms, the open buttons at his collar. He smiles faintly before he catches Mike’s eye. “I need you to close your eyes again.”“Okay…”Tom takes a step closer and reaches a hand out. “Trust me?”That’s a loaded question, but deep down inside, in his gut or his heart or whatever is making snap decisions for him, the answer is and always has been an unequivocal “yes”. He puts his hand in Tom’s and closes his eyes.He hears Tom inhale, just a little shaky, and he squeezes his hand in the best “dude, same” he can come up with without ruining the moment.He’d normally expect Tom to drag him along like he always does, forgetting his legs are longer than Mike’s, but he’s so careful. The smell of his favorite Indian food hits him halfway down the hall. Tom pulls him along into the living room, pushing and pulling at him until Mike’s safely past the coffee table and sitting on the couch. Through his eyelids, the room doesn’t seem as bright as it should be, which is a little weird, but Tom asked him to trust him, so he waits with his eyes closed.A few things clink and rustle on the coffee table before Tom says, “Okay, you can open your eyes now.”Their living room is covered in candles. Now that he knows this, he can smell the smoke faintly under the much stronger smell of the tikka masala and rogan josh. Tom broke out the real dishes, rather than eating out of the styrofoam containers. And at the center of the table, two bottles of his favorite beer, an amber ale from a local microbrewery, that he knows the bar ran out of just after Christmas.“I was gonna save it for your birthday, but then you said that thing, so I thought maybe I could steal a couple bottles for this instead.”He looks up at Tom, who’s fidgeting a little nervously on the other side of the coffee table, eyes on the food. This doesn’t make any sense. “Said that thing”....what did he--Oh my god. 
One night when he wasn’t working, he did this whole romantic dinner thing - ordered my favorite food, bought my favorite beer, lit a stupid amount of candles - it was really sweet. And because I’m slow, he had to be very direct and spell it out for me.
 Tom clears his throat once, twice, takes a couple uneven breaths, then looks up. His eyes are dark and serious when he starts talking. “Hey Mike, since my parents already think I’m your boyfriend, I was wondering if I could be your boyfriend for real.”He knows his mouth is hanging open. He can’t seem to do anything about that, because reality has taken a sharp left turn on him. He hoped for something like this, of course he did, but in the distant sort of way you hope for world peace - without any real expectation that it will happen. “I, uh -- are you serious?!”Tom frowns. “Of course I’m fucking serious, you think I would joke about this? What the fuck, Mike.”“No, no, just. I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right.” He rubs at his eyes, trying to force his brain to spit out coherent thoughts. “I wasn’t expecting this. You totally surprised me.”“Good surprise?” Tom asks from much closer than he was a minute ago.Jesus, he’s fucking this up already. He doesn’t bother trying to blink away the tears leaking out when he looks up at Tom, standing just far away enough to not be touching him. “Yeah, a really fucking good surprise.”Tom brushes one stray tear off his cheek. “So about that thing I just asked you…”“Yes, yes, jesus.” He grabs at Tom’s shirt, tugging firmly. “Now come down here and kiss me.”“Oh thank god.” Tom more or less collapses onto him, giggling with what sounds like relief. He’s still giggling when he kisses him, but since Mike can’t stop grinning, it balances out.Eventually though, the grinning and the giggling fade away, and Mike discovers that kissing Tom when they both think they’re pretending and kissing Tom when they both know they aren’t pretending are actually two very different things. It’s not so much that Tom’s doing anything different than he had been, but Mike is.In all the times they’ve kissed over the last couple of weeks, Mike has kept his hands to himself. Well, aside from one particularly memorable time, but anyway. This time, not so much.Tom makes the same kind of noises he remembers though, still shivers and twitches when Mike gets his hands up under his shirt. He squirms around a lot, which is kind of awesome.And then he accidentally kicks the coffee table and remembers dinner. “The food,” he manages to mumble, with just enough space between their mouths to get the words out.“Fuck the food,” Tom mumbles back before ducking down to bite at a spot on Mike’s neck that almost makes him forget what he was talking about in the first place.“At least put the beer away, I would actually like to drink that at some point.”“Jesus, fine, grab the beer, I'll get the food.” Tom slides off his lap with a huff, snatching styrofoam containers off the coffee table like they’ve personally offended him.Mike watches him go, appreciating both the view and the break. Last time happened so fast. This time is going to be different.“Are you coming?” Tom shouts from the kitchen.He shouldn’t, he won’t, it’s too cheesy… “Hopefully, yes.”“Oh my god.” Tom takes the beer from him and shoves it into the fridge, nearly slamming the door. “You are such a nerd, come here.”This time, he gets to push Tom up against the counter, pressing in until there’s no space left between them; Tom shivers and twitches and makes what less generous people might call a squeak. Mike is both a very generous person and a person who needs to know if he can make that happen again.He can.Tom is fucking loud, which isn’t really a surprise after the way he talked through the last time. But there is a little bit of a difference between mumbling a lot and moaning loudly enough that Mike’s worried about the neighbors.Also the biting thing goes both ways.The talking hasn’t completely disappeared, though it is mostly Mike’s name. Mike sort of tunes it out after he tugs Tom’s shirt off and throws it...somewhere. He tunes back in when Tom starts pulling his hair; that’s not the nice kind of pulling.“What?”“Can we...take this...somewhere...else?” Tom sounds like he’s just done a marathon or two. Mike tries not to look smug, but probably fails based on the annoyed look he gets.“Do you have a suggestion?”Tom nudges him away and then drags him along behind him. “Well I happen to know the bed in our room is available, so--”Mike digs his heels in and pulls them to a stop. “Wait a - our room?”“Um, okay, so there was one more surprise? Cause I was kinda hoping that you were going to say yes, and this last week has been miserable trying to sleep without you, and--”Mike shoves past him, flipping the overhead light on before he’s even through the door. It’s all back. The whole room’s been rearranged to accommodate Tom’s dresser and bedside table, moving the bed back where it was during the two best/worst weeks of Mike’s recent life. There are two pillows on the bed.“Oh my god.”“If it’s too soon, I get it, I can go back to the other room, I was just really hoping - mmpf.” Tom bounces a little when he hits the mattress; not far though, since Mike lands right on top of him.“How are you so-- why are you wearing-- what are you laughing at?”“Which question do you want me to answer first?” Tom asks breathlessly between bursts of giggles.“Never mind, do something about your pants, stupid fucking button fly.”“I thought you liked these pants? You know, you’re going to have to move if you want me to take these off.”He’s got a point - they’re too tight to just slide off - so Mike climbs off the bed altogether. “When did I ever say that?”“Don’t just stand there, take yours off too, jesus. Who said anything about you saying it out loud?” Tom finally gets both legs free and chucks his jeans towards the hamper.Mike ducks out of the way just in time to avoid a button to the eye and throws his own pants after them. He reaches up to start on the buttons on his shirt and gets hit square in face with a pillow.“Um, ow?! What the fuck?”“Sorry, sorry. Stop doing that and come back over here. I kinda want to do that.”“My buttons?”“I’ve been thinking about this for like, forever, it’s been driving me crazy. Every time you came home from work, you have no idea how hard it was not to just tackle you in the hallway.”Mike climbs back into his lap. “Since when?”“Months and months, but it got so much worse the night you met my parents.” He reaches up, slowly and carefully slipping buttons free. “You stood right here, like a foot in front of me, stripping out of your work clothes, just like half of my daydreams start. I had to practically run out of here, for my own sanity.” Final buttons freed, he slides the panels of the shirt apart with a shaky breath and wide eyes.“Can I take this off now?”Tom just nods.The rolled-up sleeves catch on his elbows; it’s not as smooth as he might have planned it in his head, but then again, he’d never imagined it quite like this in his head. Maybe that’s a good thing. In his imagination, Tom was a lot bossier, definitely less chatty, pushing and pulling until he had Mike right where he wanted him.(Not that he doesn’t have Mike right where he wants him, it’s just not where Mike thought he would be.)His shirt falls to the floor behind him as Tom pulls him closer, pressing kisses to his collarbone and then up his throat. He can’t quite fight off the shudder as Tom catches sensitive spots.“Like that, do you?”“Yeah,” he breathes back and then he has to tug Tom away when he starts to suck a little too hard for thought. “You know that morning I kind of freaked out and disappeared?”“Umhmm,” Tom hums against his skin.“You licked me, like, in your sleep or whatever, and then I had to come in here and wake you up, and you, well, you know. It was more than I could take in one day.”“Wanna know something?”“Fucking hell -- probably not, but tell me anyway.”“Was dreamin’ about you.”“Goddammit.” Speaking of as much as Mike can take, that’s the official limit for this day.He pushes at Tom’s shoulders until he falls back onto the mattress, pulling Mike right along with him since they’re kind of attached at the mouth. This works for a minute, but he has a feeling they’re gonna need more space.Tom’s not happy to let him go, based on the actual whine he lets out as Mike sits up again.“Slide up some, I don’t want to fall off the bed.”“Fine, jesus, so fucking demanding.”“Thomas?”“Yes, Michael?”“Shut up and move.”Tom rolls his eyes but scooches up so his head is resting on the remaining pillow. He makes grabby hands at Mike until he follows, tugging at Mike until he’s sprawled across him, pinning him down.“Like that, do you?”“Just a little,” Tom smirks at him.Mike wiggles a bit. “More than a little, I think.” He lets Tom giggle for a few seconds, but that’s all the longer he can wait to kiss him again. And again, and again, and…Eventually Tom’s squirming becomes distracting enough to remember that there was a reason they came in here.“How do you want to do this?”“I, I want, like this,” Tom says. “I need to see you, I need to know it's really you this time.” This time? The room shifts a little bit on its axis; when it settles, this has gone from light-hearted with a side of finally to overwhelming with a double helping of desperate.“Yes, okay, but I can do a lot of things to you while you can see me, Tommy, so you’re going to need to be more specific.”Tom actually growls at him, but he reaches under the pillow and digs out half a dozen condom packets and a mostly full bottle of lube.“Wow, ambitious much?”“Oh my god, Michael, could you focus and fuck me please?”Yeah, okay, he can do that.He wants to do that quite badly, now that he’s thinking about it. He’d really expected Tom to want to do this the other way round, so he’s never really imagined Tom in this position - spread out underneath him, flushed a patchy pink and panting. It’s a damn good picture now that he’s seen it.He’s both excited and anxious, hands shaking and spilling lube all over the sheets. Tom’s clutching at him and moaning, keeps insisting that Mike speed this up, but he’s not going to rush this. They only get to do this for the first time once. Tom went to a lot of trouble to make the rest of this night special; this part is now Mike’s responsibility. He’s slow and deliberate and, admittedly, a little evil; he waits until the only thing Tom’s mumbling is “please” before he reaches for the condoms. It takes three tries to get one open, thanks to the shaking and the lube still clinging to his fingers. By the time it’s open, he’s barely got room to put it on. Tom’s wrapped one leg over his hip and around his back, like he’s still sort of worried Mike’s going to leave. He at least lets Mike finish before pulling him down, kissing him almost frantically.It’s not that Mike doesn’t want to do that, it’s just he can’t do that and actually focus like Tom wants at the same time. But he doesn’t move too far away. Just enough to whisper he doesn’t even know what, too distracted by the clinging heat of Tom’s body as he slides carefully inside.“Holy fucking hell, Tommy, oh my god.”  He can’t even think. This is better than anything, better than everything, possibly better than breathing. Which is good, because he’s not doing that right anymore anyway.“Mike, shit, babe, please, please, please...”Tom continues to talk, beg, plead, and make just about every other noise known to mankind. It’s an instant feedback loop; Mike knows exactly when he’s gotten something right. Not much of Tom’s constant soundtrack is coherent; his longest string of words seems to be “Mike please”. Mike’s never once heard him without words before; it’s intensely gratifying to be the cause of that.Tom digs the fingers of his left hand into Mike’s arm when he comes, nails scratching deeply enough that Mike idly wonders if he’s bleeding before he follows suit, biting into Tom’s shoulder to muffle his own shout. One person screaming is probably enough for their neighbors.The silence as Tom gets his breath back is shockingly loud. All he can hear now is their breathing. He could quite happily loop this moment for the rest of eternity.“Mike?”“Yeah?”“That was awesome.”“Mmmm.”...“Mike?”“Mhmm?”“I’m staying here, right?”“Yeah, Tommy. You aren’t going anywhere.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The restaurant is pretty packed at lunchtime on Saturday. They’re lucky one of the tables next to the window was open. It’s a small one, barely room for both of them to get their knees under it at the same time, but it’s not like that matters. This is the farthest apart they’ve been since last night.

Tom’s already halfway thru the hummus by the time Mike makes it back from the bathroom; he’s hopefully gone ahead and ordered for both of them.

“Remind me not to skip two meals in a row again, okay? Like, I love you, but I need food too.”

Mike just stares at him.

Tom finally looks up. “What?” he asks through a mouthful of carrot.

“After all the effort you went to last night, you pick

now

to tell me you love me for the first time?”

Tom just grins. “Oops.”

Mike rolls his eyes and steals a carrot from him.

“Dude,” says the waitress holding their lunches. “You’re not going to say it back?”

“Yeah, Mike, say it back.” Tom says, fighting back a smile.

The waitress giggles and sets their plates down on the table. She walks off, whispering at a couple of the other wait staff as she goes back to the kitchen.

Across the table, Tom’s smile is starting to fade as he unwraps his silverware. Jesus. He didn’t necessarily want to do this in public, but he also can’t let Tom look like that ever, ever again.

He leans over the table, fingers catching at Tom’s chin until he relents and makes eye contact again. “In case I haven’t made it abundantly clear over the last couple of weeks, I love you. A lot. I’m probably not going to say it out loud as much as you will, but I do.”

Tom beams at him - light up all of D.C. kind of beaming - and leans over his half of the table to kiss him.

The entire wait staff breaks into applause, cheering and whistling, like someone’s just won the fucking Super Bowl in here.

Mike looks over just in time to see the waitress set the check on the edge of the table and disappear with a grin.