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In retrospect, it might have been inevitable.Not that Robert particularly planned for it or anything, and he’s 99.9% sure Tom didn’t either, but it was still kind of inevitable.He was a waste after Susan died. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat, he barely even took time to talk to Indio, and all his interactions with Exton were stilted, automated, as if he couldn’t remember what it was to smile at his baby anymore. He thought he could get through it alone at first, maybe even thought he needed to, but in the end, he couldn’t, and it was Tom who inadvertently saved him.He remembers the night as if it were yesterday, sitting in the kitchen after setting Exton back to bed, and the feel of his wallet burning a hole in his suit pocket, until he’d remembered Tom had moved in town for a year or two because he’d found a role in a HBO series and needed to be close to the studio while it lasted. Robert remembers digging for the younger man’s card and dialing the number at least three times before he actually let it ring; and Tom answering with a sleep-slurred: “Robert?”“Hey, Hiddles,” Robert said then, still warring at his wallet and trying not to wonder how much booze he could buy with the bills stacked inside.“Hi,” Tom yawned, ever polite, “Look, it’s not that I don’t like a good chat but… You do realize it’s two am, right?”“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” Robert remembers saying, hand rubbing at his temple, “Say, would mind coming over for a while? I don’t… I’m not sure i should stay alone right now.”“What?” Tom said, then there was a sharp intake of air as he put pieces together and promised: “Give me a minute to get dressed, I’ll be right over. Don’t go out.” It’s amazing, Robert thinks, the effect friends can have on an addict’s brain. Of course, Tom’s promise didn’t make anything disappear that night, but knowing he was driving to his house was what helped Robert ignore his need for alcohol long enough to be distracted from it. He thinks someone once told him it’s easier to keep a steady speed when you can see the finish line, but he’s not quite sure.He didn’t keep many memories from that night, mostly just the feel of moisture against his palms and ghosts in his lungs as his pain crashed down on Tom’s shoulders with alarming ease.If he’d only thought he’d end up putting the moves on him, Robert would have hesitated to call Tom, but as things stand he didn’t, and he’s more than a little happy about it.There were other meet ups after that, in coffee shops for breakfast, in the street for a run, at work for a cameo in Tom’s show… They got along fine before, but after Tom came in the middle of the night to help him stay sober, Robert found himself regarding him as a close friend rather than just an acquaintance. “You could have called me,” Johnny told him when Robert confessed to his near stumble and explained what Tom did for him -Johnny had remarked Tom’s name came back in the conversation more and more, and so Robert had felt compelled to explain.“You were in California with your kids,” Robert remembers saying, “I didn’t want to intrude on your family time, and besides I needed someone who could be physically there. The cats wouldn’t have made the trick, I’m afraid.” Robert chuckles when he remembers Johnny’s face at that, the Depp-Paradis family being well aware of his love story with his cats. As far as addictions go, cats are better than drugs or alcohol.Beside him on the couch, Tom arches an eyebrow toward him and shakes his leg where their knees are touching -have been for nearly a quarter hour now. “What’s so funny?” He asks softly, Baggeerah absolutely oblivious to the movement of his head.“Your hat,” Robert retorts.The kitten is supposed to be his, as Tom picked him up as a gift, but Robert can barely get near the little devil. Apparently, Tom got him from the set, where his mom and sibling were driven out of their hiding place with fumes, and to hear Tom say it, Baggeerah has one hell of a survival instinct.“I’m not really worried about it at present,” Tom says as he scratches the little paw petting his left ear, claws marks glistening in the dim glow of the kitchen’s lights, “But the position might become difficult to maintain in a few months time. If I’m even still here,” the Brit adds after a pause.“I personally think he’d be better off with you, I’d never dare to put him in his bath and then” -Robert makes a kissing noise in the air- “Goodbye weekly meetings with the blow-drier.” Tom laughs, the tip of his tongue flashing, and Robert nudges him with his knee before resuming a proper sitting position in front of The Amazing Spider-Man, just a tiny bit closer than before.A few days after the night he flew to Robert’s help, Tom called him around eleven at night and asked for a favor. “I kind of told Chris I couldn’t meet with him next Friday night because you and I were going to have a Jurassic Park marathon, and now he’s saying we should both go see Elsa and him so we can do that together. Would you terribly mind pretending we really did have plans? Please?”It took Robert a few seconds to make sense of Tom’s request, at which point he said -and he remembers that very clearly:“But I don’t even really like the latest movies, and I’m tired and -hang on, we’re talking about Hemsworth? Why would you try to avoid him?” Robert can’t even claim he’d sensed anything between them -I mean come on, have you seen the shit he pulled with Jude Law? Compared to Chris and Tom they were exhibitionists! Still, there wasn’t much else he could associate with the sudden silence on Tom’s end of the line, and he hasn’t forgotten the pang of possessiveness he felt in his chest then. “I… May or may not like him; more than I should.” A beat and then: “Look, I know he’s married and happy, I have no intention to ruin that and I’m trying to get over him, except it’s easier to do if I can spend some time away from him. I’m sorry I used you as an excuse, but….”“Yeah, okay, I’ll do it.” And so it was that Robert found himself spending the night with Tom and the Hemsworths, watching movies that aren’t even his favorites just because Tom asked nicely -and he is way too nice, that’s what he is.Still, at the time, it was so natural to say yes. He remembers thinking of Tom and his stupid smile and the way he played with Exton whenever they met and… Well. It would have felt wrong not to help him.He wonders, now, if it wasn’t the start of everything. “I know I have long fingers but I’ve never seen someone so taken with them before,” Tom says, jolting Robert out of his reveries. He looks down at his hands and discovers he’s been absently playing with Tom’s fingers the whole time, flexing them back and forth as is they were a loos thread on his T-Shirt. Exton is down for his nap and the weather is sunny outside but not too hot yet, a pleasant -if slightly sluggish- warmth pervading the apartment and causing the cats to lounge about in the shadows like the big carpets they really are.Robert watches Tom, who watches him in turn and smiles, shrugging as he turns back to the movie: “I don’t really mind. Just thought you should know what you were doing.” It’s not the first time they’ve had a moment, Robert realizes. It’s been nearly two years since Susan’s death, two years of slowly receding pain and obvious nostalgia -and a few fights, too, when Tom moved in after his contract was renewed when he’d already cancelled his lease.There were squabbling with Tom, obviously (“I’m not Susan, Robert, you can’t ask me to do everything as she did!” “Well you can’t ask me to forget her either!”) but with Indio, too. (“It hasn’t even been a year!” “Look Tom’s a good friend and he helped me a lot, I’m just returning the favor! We can’t just keep Susan’s stuff here like she’s going to pick it up tomorrow! It’s storage. Not forgetting.”) and all in all, it hasn’t been a walk in the park but… There were moments.There were times when Robert would wake up in the middle of the night for Exton’s bottle and find Tom already in the kitchen, others when he reached the fridge and found a picture of him and the boys only Tom could have taken. There were pauses, looks, little domestic gestures he made without even thinking about it, and always a smile at the end of it, always a soft shrug and a twinkle in clear eyes surrounded by copper curls, the patient understanding of someone Robert didn’t even realized he liked that much. “Did you see the new picture on the fridge?” He asks without taking his eyes off Tom. Indio took this one. It’s him and Tom laughing together at something Exton did, and it looks… Family-like. Tom, judging by the sudden flush in his neck, thinks so too. “I did.” He turns back toward Robert, and although he stays silent his face asks if there’s something else to say, something deeper behind that question… For the first time, Robert realizes Tom has always been the one dispelling their ‘moments’. He’s always been the one shrugging them away without really acknowledging them, even if they’ve become more frequent, more numerous as time passes.He remembers Johnny telling him he talked about Tom an awful lot now, and Indio shaking his head with a sigh but less and less of a frown every time, and he almost snorts. Yeah, he thinks as he kisses Tom on the mouth, it’s high time he moved on.