[RPS] Smoke In Your Disguise (JGL/Tom, NC-17-ish) ~3,300 words
Title: Smoke In Your Disguise
Summary: For the inception_kink prompt: "I woke up in a bed with a dude and a gun, naked. And a cat. I don't remember the cat. Or the dude."
QUOTE: "All I could recall was Gordon. Didn’t realize it was the first part of a double-barreled name, eh? Only upper middle-class Brits used hyphens in their bloody names like the poncey-arsed bastards we are."
The first time Joe saw Tom, it was during the first ever production meeting in the summer of 2009. His first thought was: Wow, this guy’s fucking huge. His second: He looks really really familiar.
They had shaken hands, introductions all around, and after the production meeting that had lasted longer than the moon was up that evening, Joe was planning on asking Tom, just to clarify things of course, if they’d ever met.
“Tom?” Joe approached the Brit when the other started filing out and the only ones left in the room were Christopher Nolan--Chris, guys, come on--who was still in his seat, talking very animatedly with a tired Jack Dawson--Leo, guys, come on.
(Look, if you’re working with someone like Christopher Nolan, and supporting the lead who’s someone like Leonardo di Caprio, you’re bound to estimate your value in life. In the grand scheme of things. And you realize that that haunting grip in your chest is not death but humility and Joe had a lot of humility. He was currently feeling very drowned by it.)
Tom turned around, as he was in the process of patting down his pockets. Probably to check if everything was there, Joe assumed. But he stopped, almost immediately, as soon as his eyes landed on Joe.
He frowned, but he wasn’t going to be distracted. Not by the fact that Tom’s lips, up close, were fuller than they had first seemed. And that was saying something. Tom had the fullest lips on anyone that he had ever met-barring Cillian. Alright fine, it’s a tie.
“I was wondering if-“ Joe started.
Someone’s mobile rang. It was Tom’s. Tom held up a finger to excuse himself and went outside to answer his call. He didn’t come back inside, even though Joe did wait for a good half an hour.
They met again three days later at the airport. They were on their way to Paris, to film the first scene of the movie.
Joe was already inside the waiting area when he saw Tom from the corner of his eye. He was going through security, and from the apparent exchange between Tom and an unamused security personnel, Joe figured they thought Tom was a suspicious character.
Which he was, come to think of it.
He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and on his arms were some very dangerous-looking tattoos that Joe hadn’t realized were there.
Eventually, Tom did get through. And it was all with an annoyed look on his face and an equally annoyed huff of his breath.
Joe smiled at him when he approached. “Everything okay?”
Tom nodded distractedly. He was still trying to juggle his passport, his keys, his watch, and not to mention pushing his baggage along with just the one hand. “Yeah, yeah, I’m alright.”
“Need help?” Joe offered.
“What?” Tom answered, still not quite present when he wheeled his cart to a stop. “Oh,” then smiled almost sheepishly, shaking his head. “I’m fine, mate.”
“Are you sure?” No, Joe’s really not letting up. Because he knew a bothered and slightly swamped person when he saw one.
Tom nodded more forcefully, throwing him a very pointed and very Yes, I’m fine, don’t bother, I’m sure, I’m still sure, and I’ll be sure five minutes after you leave kind of look.
“Yeah, okay,” Joe relented. Okay. Here goes. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
Tom didn’t look up right away. Though he did seem to tuck his passport the back pocket of his pants more slowly needed. And took an even longer time putting on his leather jacket.
“Cause you look really familiar, man,” Joe went on. “Like I’ve seen you from somewhere.”
“Are you a Star Trek fan?” Tom answered suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere.
Joe, thrown off a little, shook his head. “Yeah but-I know stuff but not all of it, the whole thing, I mean. It’s big business, Star Trek.”
“Then no, you probably haven’t seen me from elsewhere,” Tom replied with a chuckle. It didn’t sound ironic, Joe didn’t think so. So he believed him and let the matter drop.
Later, though, while on his laptop in his hotel room, he searched Tom Hardy on IMDB. He’d never seen Bronson. Oh, Star Trek: Yes, he’d seen Nemesis but no, that’s not it. He didn’t think Tom’s bald head was familiar, Shinzon was a different kind of familiar face. It was the I’ve seen this actor before familiar face, not the I’ve seen this face up close before but I don’t remember where but I feel like I really shouldn’t forget familiar face.
And Joe just couldn’t let it rest until he found out how familiar Tom’s familiar face was.
*******
He didn’t find out until two weeks later, when production had moved on to New York to film the first-level dream.
Joe was in his chair, with his earphones on. He was nodding his head to the latest of The Bravery-apparently a New York band, something he learned from Zooey when they were still filming 500 Days--with his chair kicked back a little, balanced precariously on its two hind feet.
Suddenly, Ellen was there, her face hovering above him, with her hands on the back of his chair. And she pulled down.
Joe felt that familiar falling feeling-since he’d done way too many takes of himself falling off the damn chair for that damn This is a kick scene-and struggled to right himself before he hit the floor.
Ellen was laughing, and after Joe regained his breath, he started laughing too.
“The hell are you doing in here?” Ellen asked him, still smiling.
Joe shrugged, “Hanging out.” He looked around, no one else was in their chairs. Their trailers were outside the building and it didn’t seem likely that they’d all wandered down there to let all of fifteen minutes pass. “Where’s everyone?”
Then Joe saw Tom-really really Tom, now that he’d dressed down to the pinstriped shirtsleeves, with his jacket slung over one shoulder and suspenders hanging by his waist, without Eames’ smug face, with a more thoughtful and hooded quality to his eyes as he looked around-enter the room, with something that looked suspiciously like a gun in his hand.
Ellen followed his eyes. “-see?”
“What?” Joe asked, he was still looking at Tom. And the gun.
Tom caught his eye and smiled a little.
Something clicked.
“Oh my God,” Joe choked out, words stumbling out as if escaping some monster. Falling on their feet and just laying there, on the floor as if in surrender.
Both Ellen and Tom looked at him curiously. Tom with raised eyebrows.
“What?” Ellen asked, confused.
Tom’s curiosity turned to confusion as well but he didn’t stop walking. Towards them.
Joe bolted to his feet and his iPod fell to the floor and he must’ve been still staring at Tom because he stopped too.
“It’s fake, mate,” Tom clarified, holding up the gun with the barrel pointed to the ceiling. He was bracing it by the index finger as the digit curled around the trigger.
Joe cleared his throat and laughed, a bit shakily. “Oh, yeah,” he shook his head then stooped slightly to get his iPod from the floor. “Sorry about that.”
Ellen clicked her tongue. “See, I totally had this image of you being all manly in my head, you know?” She was joking, he could tell, but he still played along and rolled his eyes up at her.
Ellen threw a kiss down at him before she went to leave, saying something about doughnuts and how there were a lot of them downstairs.
Joe fell back on his seat, fingers distracting his head as he continued to make sense of the tangled wires of his earphones.
“I’m sorry, mate,” Tom said from somewhere across from him.
“Sorry for what?”
Tom shrugged. Looking up, Joe saw that Tom had his legs crossed, with his suit jacket on his lap and the gun on top. Tom’s fingers were busy with the pieces, assembling them then disassembling them like it’s some kind of therapeutic routine he could do in his sleep (and he really, probably, could, Joe thought) but his grey eyes were on Joe’s.
Joe suddenly felt trapped, like he’d cornered himself somehow and Tom, who was watching from a distance, was pushing him into that corner even more.
“I don’t have an issue with guns, if that’s what you mean.” Joe said, almost convincingly.
Tom smiled slightly, then waved his hand-which held the empty magazine loosely between his thumb and his palm and Joe noted in passing that Tom had very slender, graceful-looking fingers for a guy with such a big build-almost dismissively. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Joe frowned. Wait, what? “What did you think I meant?” Because Tom couldn’t possibly read his mind, could he? Couldn’t possibly pick up on the vague image of a mattress that looked very lived in. A mattress he was lying in with his head on a pillow he shared with another man who, from that angle, Joe could definitely see was very very naked, one slender hand gripping the handle of a gun even in his sleep. That was a million-to-one thing. Right?
Tom’s smile dropped and he turned thoughtful, with bright eyes that had been hooded were now a little piercing. Okay, not a little.
A lot piercing.
Joe bristled at the intensity of that gaze.
“Alright, Mr Levitt, Mr Hardy. We’re ready for you,” someone said from the door and Joe let out a breath as he was saved from having to answer Tom. And having to endure that gaze for longer than he was comfortable with.
Although it didn’t help that Tom let Eames glance his way more times than was necessary throughout the first few takes. Chris hadn’t picked up on it but Joe did and when Joe did, Chris picked up on his awkwardness and gave him a bit of an earful Where’s your head? Get it back on Earth. You’re in a dream, shooting people. Go.
Joe avoided Tom like the plague after that. There were brief snippets of conversation here and there, until Ellen went and got a crash course at MMA-fighting from Tom and Joe, egged by Ellen, and definitely feeling pumped up with adrenaline and too much Redbull that morning, joined in.
The air seemed to have cleared between them since then.
And before he knew it, Joe was in a bar somewhere in New York with Tom seated across the table. The mood was light and they were both having a good time. Joe couldn’t quite remember how he and Tom ended up with just the two of them there when he could’ve sworn both Marion and Ellen had come with but he was also already a little buzzed-alright, a lot buzzed-and he couldn’t care less. Not when Tom’s strong leg was touching his under the table and his beer was making a very cold trail down his throat.
“-that gun,” Tom’s voice said, suddenly, somehow making it through the fog in Joe’s head.
Joe leaned forward, until Tom’s lips were just there, near his ear. “What’s that?”
“About that gun,” Tom repeated, his voice a little louder now, but not quite loud enough to drown out the sudden stuttering thud of Joe’s heart.
Oh, God.
But he couldn’t quite panic, not really. Not when his limbs were sluggish and the beer was upping his confidence. Instead, Joe grinned, lazily, in a lazy way that he himself could’ve slapped from his face if his sober self had seen it in the mirror.
“What about it?” Joe asked, before taking a swig off his beer. His eyes held Tom’s as he did so and he could’ve sworn Tom’s eyes trailing from his gaze down to his lips, when some of the beer had pooled at his bottom lip.
He didn’t lick it off because Tom’s finger was suddenly there, too, beating him to. It was a soft touch, barely even a glance of Tom’s skin, but it was soft nonetheless and Joe could feel it even more than his backside felt the hard wood of the chair, or his palm felt the cold beer bottle.
Then Tom was there, leaning forward, and Joe’s first thought was, Wow, he’s really bendy before-
Oh.
Tom’s soft lips were kissing him, a lingering thing of a kiss that Joe had almost missed until he blinked back his surprise and realized that his nose was almost touching Tom’s and it was a fucking electrifying feeling, noses that close to each other and not really touching. It was as if someone was pressing against his face, but no not really. That couldn’t be right.
Because the next thing he knew, Tom was sitting back in his chair with that same thoughtful look on his face.
They were stumbling out of a bar and into a cab soon after that. Joe couldn’t even remember if he had taken out his wallet and paid for his half of the bill or if Tom had taken the check. He didn’t really care, too, because Tom had a very strong arm around his waist and Joe, really really buzzed now that he had stood up and sat back down again.
Then they were kissing. Just kissing. Tom felt like he was exploring, rather than conquering like he should-like Joe had assumed he would, as brazenly and as recklessly as his tattoos had made him assume Tom would.
They were still kissing when the cab pulled up at the hotel they were all staying in, still kissing in the elevator, still kissing in the hallway, still kissing until Tom had fished the card-key from his back pocket and both shouldered the door open and made their way inside Tom’s hotel room.
“Wait, wait,” Joe said, with his hands held up in front of him. He was hovering just near the now-closed door. And Joe had no idea how it closed, but no time for that now. “Wait.”
Tom stopped, but he was still pressing really incredibly close to Joe and continued to press closer until all that Joe could feel and smell were Tom. Tom’s aftershave (which he always smelled like, Joe realized belatedly), Tom’s very hard chest.
He hadn’t even realized that he couldn’t see, not really, because Tom hadn’t had the chance to put the card-key in the slot near the door yet, the one that did a magic trick to open all the lights that blinded him, sort of, when he himself did it in his room-
“What? Anything wrong?” Tom’s husky voice-and it was really very deep (Joe realized this too)-brought him back. Joe shook his head and stepped back until he was pressed against the door. Door, and Tom. Rock and a hard place.
Joe giggled. Almost giggled. Tom was definitely the hard place.
Tom laughed, then pressed even closer until Joe felt himself pressed and pressed and pressed. So, fucking, pressed that all he could feel now was Tom’s thigh in between his legs and his forearms grazing both sides of his face.
“Why are we doing this again?” Joe wondered out loud, even as Tom’s lips were already against the corner of his jaw and they really were as soft as they looked. Teasing and whispering kisses on his skin.
“Because it feels really good, dunnit, Joe?” Tom murmured in his ear. Fucking crooned in his ear, more like.
Joe grinned, then, and nodded blearily. “It really does but wait, wait,” he said, turning his head slightly.
Tom did. Again. Shit, Tom’s really patient, isn’t he? So patient, putting up with me like this.
“Yeah?” Tom asked, pulling back slightly until he was looking down his nose at Joe and even though Joe couldn’t see it, he fucking felt eyes on him. In the way that he felt Tom’s nose against his when they weren’t even touching. It felt heavy, and there, like Tom always seemed to be. Always there
“I have a confession to make.”
Joe heard, rather than saw, Tom’s slow grin spread on his lips. “Yeah?”
“I really really don’t have issues with guns.” There, he said it. Joe almost felt relieved when he did and he didn’t, at that moment, really know why it had taken him so long to say it in the first place. It wasn’t quite a hard thing to say, was it?
“Really?” Tom asked, he almost sounded amused but somewhere there, also a little bit hesitant now.
“Yep,” Joe answered.
And that was that.
Joe leaned in just as Tom did and the kiss they shared now that the door was closed and there was no one else around and Joe had said it, finally said it, and it was a big fucking elephant right there between them-
--the kiss seared, with Tom’s really soft tongue meeting Joe’s, wet and pliant, but strong and suggestive of the passionate man that could only be the most logical reason how Tom could look at him like that. Like he could read the fucking innards of his fucking soul. Like a two-level seer or whatever.
Then Joe wasn’t thinking anymore and he wasn’t pressed against the door but pressed against the very soft and very big bed. Not a mattress this time, not anymore. This time, it was silk sheets, and the cool blast of the A/C that he didn’t even feel. Not with Tom right on top of him, fucking draped all over him, hands on either side of his head, legs intertwining with his. And just-
--Oh, God, there.
Joe groaned, loudly, as Tom bucked his hips just right. Joe arched up against him, leg rising from the bed until the whole length of it, folded at the knee pressed against Tom’s side.
Then Joe realized, several times throughout the night, long after the beer had left his system, that he really did not have issues with guns after all.
*******
“A Glock,” Tom replied around a mouthful of salad. Damn, the man can put it away but he never seemed to eat the amount of food his build needed.
Joe raised his eyebrows, his own chicken sandwich just hovering near his lips. “A Glock? That was a Glock?” He paused. “Was it loaded?”
Tom snorted, and swallowed his barely-chewed food in an attempt to keep it in before it all ended up on the table when he laughed. “I really think it was loaded back then, mate.”
Joe scratched his eyebrow with the back of his thumb as he put down his sandwich. “And we had breakfast afterwards. I drove.”
“Yeah, that I remember.”
“Did I tell you my name?” Joe asked.
Tom shook his head, “All I could recall was Gordon. Didn’t realize it was the first part of a double-barreled name, eh? Only upper middle-class Brits used hyphens in their bloody names like the poncey-arsed bastards that we are.”
Joe tried to look insulted but he wasn’t, not really. That was way back, when he was really young and feeling very adventurous. Also, really very drunk, and an equally drunk-and, apparently, really high guy with a fucking awesome accent had sat beside him and the rest was blank. Until, the morning after. He didn’t even remember Tom having a gun on him at the time.
At the silence, Tom looked up, some kind of lettuce trying to make its way past his lips. Fucking lips, Joe thought distractedly.
Joe shook his head. “What the fuck was the cat about, though?”
Tom snorted and all bits and pieces of lettuce and five-star-hotel salad spewed on the table.
“I really don’t fucking know, mate,” Tom replied in between guffaws and gasps of breath. “But I’m so relieved I still had taste even in my inebriated state.”
Then Joe grinned, a secretive kind of grin, and winked at Tom.
Tom blew him a kiss and they shared their breakfast-their second breakfast, come to think of it. But all right and proper this time.
No forgotten names, no guns, and no motherfucking cats.
Summary: For the inception_kink prompt: "I woke up in a bed with a dude and a gun, naked. And a cat. I don't remember the cat. Or the dude."
QUOTE: "All I could recall was Gordon. Didn’t realize it was the first part of a double-barreled name, eh? Only upper middle-class Brits used hyphens in their bloody names like the poncey-arsed bastards we are."
The first time Joe saw Tom, it was during the first ever production meeting in the summer of 2009. His first thought was: Wow, this guy’s fucking huge. His second: He looks really really familiar.
They had shaken hands, introductions all around, and after the production meeting that had lasted longer than the moon was up that evening, Joe was planning on asking Tom, just to clarify things of course, if they’d ever met.
“Tom?” Joe approached the Brit when the other started filing out and the only ones left in the room were Christopher Nolan--Chris, guys, come on--who was still in his seat, talking very animatedly with a tired Jack Dawson--Leo, guys, come on.
(Look, if you’re working with someone like Christopher Nolan, and supporting the lead who’s someone like Leonardo di Caprio, you’re bound to estimate your value in life. In the grand scheme of things. And you realize that that haunting grip in your chest is not death but humility and Joe had a lot of humility. He was currently feeling very drowned by it.)
Tom turned around, as he was in the process of patting down his pockets. Probably to check if everything was there, Joe assumed. But he stopped, almost immediately, as soon as his eyes landed on Joe.
He frowned, but he wasn’t going to be distracted. Not by the fact that Tom’s lips, up close, were fuller than they had first seemed. And that was saying something. Tom had the fullest lips on anyone that he had ever met-barring Cillian. Alright fine, it’s a tie.
“I was wondering if-“ Joe started.
Someone’s mobile rang. It was Tom’s. Tom held up a finger to excuse himself and went outside to answer his call. He didn’t come back inside, even though Joe did wait for a good half an hour.
They met again three days later at the airport. They were on their way to Paris, to film the first scene of the movie.
Joe was already inside the waiting area when he saw Tom from the corner of his eye. He was going through security, and from the apparent exchange between Tom and an unamused security personnel, Joe figured they thought Tom was a suspicious character.
Which he was, come to think of it.
He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and on his arms were some very dangerous-looking tattoos that Joe hadn’t realized were there.
Eventually, Tom did get through. And it was all with an annoyed look on his face and an equally annoyed huff of his breath.
Joe smiled at him when he approached. “Everything okay?”
Tom nodded distractedly. He was still trying to juggle his passport, his keys, his watch, and not to mention pushing his baggage along with just the one hand. “Yeah, yeah, I’m alright.”
“Need help?” Joe offered.
“What?” Tom answered, still not quite present when he wheeled his cart to a stop. “Oh,” then smiled almost sheepishly, shaking his head. “I’m fine, mate.”
“Are you sure?” No, Joe’s really not letting up. Because he knew a bothered and slightly swamped person when he saw one.
Tom nodded more forcefully, throwing him a very pointed and very Yes, I’m fine, don’t bother, I’m sure, I’m still sure, and I’ll be sure five minutes after you leave kind of look.
“Yeah, okay,” Joe relented. Okay. Here goes. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
Tom didn’t look up right away. Though he did seem to tuck his passport the back pocket of his pants more slowly needed. And took an even longer time putting on his leather jacket.
“Cause you look really familiar, man,” Joe went on. “Like I’ve seen you from somewhere.”
“Are you a Star Trek fan?” Tom answered suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere.
Joe, thrown off a little, shook his head. “Yeah but-I know stuff but not all of it, the whole thing, I mean. It’s big business, Star Trek.”
“Then no, you probably haven’t seen me from elsewhere,” Tom replied with a chuckle. It didn’t sound ironic, Joe didn’t think so. So he believed him and let the matter drop.
Later, though, while on his laptop in his hotel room, he searched Tom Hardy on IMDB. He’d never seen Bronson. Oh, Star Trek: Yes, he’d seen Nemesis but no, that’s not it. He didn’t think Tom’s bald head was familiar, Shinzon was a different kind of familiar face. It was the I’ve seen this actor before familiar face, not the I’ve seen this face up close before but I don’t remember where but I feel like I really shouldn’t forget familiar face.
And Joe just couldn’t let it rest until he found out how familiar Tom’s familiar face was.
*******
He didn’t find out until two weeks later, when production had moved on to New York to film the first-level dream.
Joe was in his chair, with his earphones on. He was nodding his head to the latest of The Bravery-apparently a New York band, something he learned from Zooey when they were still filming 500 Days--with his chair kicked back a little, balanced precariously on its two hind feet.
Suddenly, Ellen was there, her face hovering above him, with her hands on the back of his chair. And she pulled down.
Joe felt that familiar falling feeling-since he’d done way too many takes of himself falling off the damn chair for that damn This is a kick scene-and struggled to right himself before he hit the floor.
Ellen was laughing, and after Joe regained his breath, he started laughing too.
“The hell are you doing in here?” Ellen asked him, still smiling.
Joe shrugged, “Hanging out.” He looked around, no one else was in their chairs. Their trailers were outside the building and it didn’t seem likely that they’d all wandered down there to let all of fifteen minutes pass. “Where’s everyone?”
Then Joe saw Tom-really really Tom, now that he’d dressed down to the pinstriped shirtsleeves, with his jacket slung over one shoulder and suspenders hanging by his waist, without Eames’ smug face, with a more thoughtful and hooded quality to his eyes as he looked around-enter the room, with something that looked suspiciously like a gun in his hand.
Ellen followed his eyes. “-see?”
“What?” Joe asked, he was still looking at Tom. And the gun.
Tom caught his eye and smiled a little.
Something clicked.
“Oh my God,” Joe choked out, words stumbling out as if escaping some monster. Falling on their feet and just laying there, on the floor as if in surrender.
Both Ellen and Tom looked at him curiously. Tom with raised eyebrows.
“What?” Ellen asked, confused.
Tom’s curiosity turned to confusion as well but he didn’t stop walking. Towards them.
Joe bolted to his feet and his iPod fell to the floor and he must’ve been still staring at Tom because he stopped too.
“It’s fake, mate,” Tom clarified, holding up the gun with the barrel pointed to the ceiling. He was bracing it by the index finger as the digit curled around the trigger.
Joe cleared his throat and laughed, a bit shakily. “Oh, yeah,” he shook his head then stooped slightly to get his iPod from the floor. “Sorry about that.”
Ellen clicked her tongue. “See, I totally had this image of you being all manly in my head, you know?” She was joking, he could tell, but he still played along and rolled his eyes up at her.
Ellen threw a kiss down at him before she went to leave, saying something about doughnuts and how there were a lot of them downstairs.
Joe fell back on his seat, fingers distracting his head as he continued to make sense of the tangled wires of his earphones.
“I’m sorry, mate,” Tom said from somewhere across from him.
“Sorry for what?”
Tom shrugged. Looking up, Joe saw that Tom had his legs crossed, with his suit jacket on his lap and the gun on top. Tom’s fingers were busy with the pieces, assembling them then disassembling them like it’s some kind of therapeutic routine he could do in his sleep (and he really, probably, could, Joe thought) but his grey eyes were on Joe’s.
Joe suddenly felt trapped, like he’d cornered himself somehow and Tom, who was watching from a distance, was pushing him into that corner even more.
“I don’t have an issue with guns, if that’s what you mean.” Joe said, almost convincingly.
Tom smiled slightly, then waved his hand-which held the empty magazine loosely between his thumb and his palm and Joe noted in passing that Tom had very slender, graceful-looking fingers for a guy with such a big build-almost dismissively. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Joe frowned. Wait, what? “What did you think I meant?” Because Tom couldn’t possibly read his mind, could he? Couldn’t possibly pick up on the vague image of a mattress that looked very lived in. A mattress he was lying in with his head on a pillow he shared with another man who, from that angle, Joe could definitely see was very very naked, one slender hand gripping the handle of a gun even in his sleep. That was a million-to-one thing. Right?
Tom’s smile dropped and he turned thoughtful, with bright eyes that had been hooded were now a little piercing. Okay, not a little.
A lot piercing.
Joe bristled at the intensity of that gaze.
“Alright, Mr Levitt, Mr Hardy. We’re ready for you,” someone said from the door and Joe let out a breath as he was saved from having to answer Tom. And having to endure that gaze for longer than he was comfortable with.
Although it didn’t help that Tom let Eames glance his way more times than was necessary throughout the first few takes. Chris hadn’t picked up on it but Joe did and when Joe did, Chris picked up on his awkwardness and gave him a bit of an earful Where’s your head? Get it back on Earth. You’re in a dream, shooting people. Go.
Joe avoided Tom like the plague after that. There were brief snippets of conversation here and there, until Ellen went and got a crash course at MMA-fighting from Tom and Joe, egged by Ellen, and definitely feeling pumped up with adrenaline and too much Redbull that morning, joined in.
The air seemed to have cleared between them since then.
And before he knew it, Joe was in a bar somewhere in New York with Tom seated across the table. The mood was light and they were both having a good time. Joe couldn’t quite remember how he and Tom ended up with just the two of them there when he could’ve sworn both Marion and Ellen had come with but he was also already a little buzzed-alright, a lot buzzed-and he couldn’t care less. Not when Tom’s strong leg was touching his under the table and his beer was making a very cold trail down his throat.
“-that gun,” Tom’s voice said, suddenly, somehow making it through the fog in Joe’s head.
Joe leaned forward, until Tom’s lips were just there, near his ear. “What’s that?”
“About that gun,” Tom repeated, his voice a little louder now, but not quite loud enough to drown out the sudden stuttering thud of Joe’s heart.
Oh, God.
But he couldn’t quite panic, not really. Not when his limbs were sluggish and the beer was upping his confidence. Instead, Joe grinned, lazily, in a lazy way that he himself could’ve slapped from his face if his sober self had seen it in the mirror.
“What about it?” Joe asked, before taking a swig off his beer. His eyes held Tom’s as he did so and he could’ve sworn Tom’s eyes trailing from his gaze down to his lips, when some of the beer had pooled at his bottom lip.
He didn’t lick it off because Tom’s finger was suddenly there, too, beating him to. It was a soft touch, barely even a glance of Tom’s skin, but it was soft nonetheless and Joe could feel it even more than his backside felt the hard wood of the chair, or his palm felt the cold beer bottle.
Then Tom was there, leaning forward, and Joe’s first thought was, Wow, he’s really bendy before-
Oh.
Tom’s soft lips were kissing him, a lingering thing of a kiss that Joe had almost missed until he blinked back his surprise and realized that his nose was almost touching Tom’s and it was a fucking electrifying feeling, noses that close to each other and not really touching. It was as if someone was pressing against his face, but no not really. That couldn’t be right.
Because the next thing he knew, Tom was sitting back in his chair with that same thoughtful look on his face.
They were stumbling out of a bar and into a cab soon after that. Joe couldn’t even remember if he had taken out his wallet and paid for his half of the bill or if Tom had taken the check. He didn’t really care, too, because Tom had a very strong arm around his waist and Joe, really really buzzed now that he had stood up and sat back down again.
Then they were kissing. Just kissing. Tom felt like he was exploring, rather than conquering like he should-like Joe had assumed he would, as brazenly and as recklessly as his tattoos had made him assume Tom would.
They were still kissing when the cab pulled up at the hotel they were all staying in, still kissing in the elevator, still kissing in the hallway, still kissing until Tom had fished the card-key from his back pocket and both shouldered the door open and made their way inside Tom’s hotel room.
“Wait, wait,” Joe said, with his hands held up in front of him. He was hovering just near the now-closed door. And Joe had no idea how it closed, but no time for that now. “Wait.”
Tom stopped, but he was still pressing really incredibly close to Joe and continued to press closer until all that Joe could feel and smell were Tom. Tom’s aftershave (which he always smelled like, Joe realized belatedly), Tom’s very hard chest.
He hadn’t even realized that he couldn’t see, not really, because Tom hadn’t had the chance to put the card-key in the slot near the door yet, the one that did a magic trick to open all the lights that blinded him, sort of, when he himself did it in his room-
“What? Anything wrong?” Tom’s husky voice-and it was really very deep (Joe realized this too)-brought him back. Joe shook his head and stepped back until he was pressed against the door. Door, and Tom. Rock and a hard place.
Joe giggled. Almost giggled. Tom was definitely the hard place.
Tom laughed, then pressed even closer until Joe felt himself pressed and pressed and pressed. So, fucking, pressed that all he could feel now was Tom’s thigh in between his legs and his forearms grazing both sides of his face.
“Why are we doing this again?” Joe wondered out loud, even as Tom’s lips were already against the corner of his jaw and they really were as soft as they looked. Teasing and whispering kisses on his skin.
“Because it feels really good, dunnit, Joe?” Tom murmured in his ear. Fucking crooned in his ear, more like.
Joe grinned, then, and nodded blearily. “It really does but wait, wait,” he said, turning his head slightly.
Tom did. Again. Shit, Tom’s really patient, isn’t he? So patient, putting up with me like this.
“Yeah?” Tom asked, pulling back slightly until he was looking down his nose at Joe and even though Joe couldn’t see it, he fucking felt eyes on him. In the way that he felt Tom’s nose against his when they weren’t even touching. It felt heavy, and there, like Tom always seemed to be. Always there
“I have a confession to make.”
Joe heard, rather than saw, Tom’s slow grin spread on his lips. “Yeah?”
“I really really don’t have issues with guns.” There, he said it. Joe almost felt relieved when he did and he didn’t, at that moment, really know why it had taken him so long to say it in the first place. It wasn’t quite a hard thing to say, was it?
“Really?” Tom asked, he almost sounded amused but somewhere there, also a little bit hesitant now.
“Yep,” Joe answered.
And that was that.
Joe leaned in just as Tom did and the kiss they shared now that the door was closed and there was no one else around and Joe had said it, finally said it, and it was a big fucking elephant right there between them-
--the kiss seared, with Tom’s really soft tongue meeting Joe’s, wet and pliant, but strong and suggestive of the passionate man that could only be the most logical reason how Tom could look at him like that. Like he could read the fucking innards of his fucking soul. Like a two-level seer or whatever.
Then Joe wasn’t thinking anymore and he wasn’t pressed against the door but pressed against the very soft and very big bed. Not a mattress this time, not anymore. This time, it was silk sheets, and the cool blast of the A/C that he didn’t even feel. Not with Tom right on top of him, fucking draped all over him, hands on either side of his head, legs intertwining with his. And just-
--Oh, God, there.
Joe groaned, loudly, as Tom bucked his hips just right. Joe arched up against him, leg rising from the bed until the whole length of it, folded at the knee pressed against Tom’s side.
Then Joe realized, several times throughout the night, long after the beer had left his system, that he really did not have issues with guns after all.
*******
“A Glock,” Tom replied around a mouthful of salad. Damn, the man can put it away but he never seemed to eat the amount of food his build needed.
Joe raised his eyebrows, his own chicken sandwich just hovering near his lips. “A Glock? That was a Glock?” He paused. “Was it loaded?”
Tom snorted, and swallowed his barely-chewed food in an attempt to keep it in before it all ended up on the table when he laughed. “I really think it was loaded back then, mate.”
Joe scratched his eyebrow with the back of his thumb as he put down his sandwich. “And we had breakfast afterwards. I drove.”
“Yeah, that I remember.”
“Did I tell you my name?” Joe asked.
Tom shook his head, “All I could recall was Gordon. Didn’t realize it was the first part of a double-barreled name, eh? Only upper middle-class Brits used hyphens in their bloody names like the poncey-arsed bastards that we are.”
Joe tried to look insulted but he wasn’t, not really. That was way back, when he was really young and feeling very adventurous. Also, really very drunk, and an equally drunk-and, apparently, really high guy with a fucking awesome accent had sat beside him and the rest was blank. Until, the morning after. He didn’t even remember Tom having a gun on him at the time.
At the silence, Tom looked up, some kind of lettuce trying to make its way past his lips. Fucking lips, Joe thought distractedly.
Joe shook his head. “What the fuck was the cat about, though?”
Tom snorted and all bits and pieces of lettuce and five-star-hotel salad spewed on the table.
“I really don’t fucking know, mate,” Tom replied in between guffaws and gasps of breath. “But I’m so relieved I still had taste even in my inebriated state.”
Then Joe grinned, a secretive kind of grin, and winked at Tom.
Tom blew him a kiss and they shared their breakfast-their second breakfast, come to think of it. But all right and proper this time.
No forgotten names, no guns, and no motherfucking cats.