Chris meets him at a bar, not one of those hole-in-the-wall bars that served watered down beer for two dollars a pop, but a nice one, with ambient lighting and everything, a grand piano sitting in a corner of the room and a three thousand dollar chandelier sparkling down from the ceiling.
The clientele is mostly businessmen trickling in late at night from work: these middle aged guys wearing hangdog faces, nursing a pint or two before they head home to their wives. Chris is there because he’s friends with the bartender, a guy named Mike who borrows money from him periodically and who sometimes serves Chris free drinks out of a weird sense of fealty.
Chris likes the false comfort the place affords him even though it sometimes makes him feel sorely out of place. He likes to think he looks cool in his beat up leather jacket and worn down jeans, indifferent enough to be left alone and not openly stared at, but sometimes it just feels like he’s trying to too hard to make a point. He’s not like them, never will be, doesn’t give a damn, end of story.
Still, that doesn’t stop him from showing up, like clockwork, every Friday night, easing himself onto the barstool to order a malt, scooping out the few crumpled bills he has in his back pocket and laying them out on the counter.
Mike just sighs at him and gives him a look, shaking his head and saying, “Honey, don’t fool yourself,” before pouring him a drink on the house.
If Chris were honest with himself, he goes there whenever he needs a pick-me-up. There’s something freeing about being the only remotely sane person in a roomful of miserable pencil pushers.
It all changes though, the night he sees Tom at the end of the bar, fingering a gin and tonic and staring into space. He’s wearing a crisp grey suit that complements the long lean lines of his body and his hair is gently coiffed and neat, but altogether too stiff, for someone around -- Chris guesses -- his age. He can’t be that much older, not with a face like that. Though the set of his shoulders -- too tense -- begs to differ.
Chris slides into the empty seat next to him and Tom looks up almost immediately, the brief flash of surprise in his eyes fading into something resembling amusement. Chris doesn’t miss the way Tom’s eyes travel down the length of him -- it’s the jeans, Chris thinks, he’s the only one in the room in fucking jeans -- before settling, finally, on his face. No, Chris’ eyes.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Chris asks, and of course he doesn’t mean it, fooling around and wanting to talk to someone in this bar who isn’t looking at him, for once, with the faintest hint of contempt.
But then Tom tilts his head to the side, like he’s considering the offer and then he’s finishing his drink and putting it down all too quickly, and he says, “You most certainly can,” with an air of devastating elegance that blows Chris away. And that’s when it all changes; that’s when it starts.
Chris’ life is never the same again after he buys him that drink.
You are such a tease! Dangling something like this in someone's face and then prancing off (with, I imagine, maniacal laughter). I don't know how you do it, but you've got a real talent for hooking your reader with the first paragraph. It's amazing, and I'm totally jealous, because it's such an awesome skill.
Anyway, just going to leave that here. I love your fic, don't ever stop writing, k? Thx.
Thank you so much! No one's ever told me that before so um, this is quite new. poziomeczka and I are developing an elaborate au based on this gif set. So track this post if you want or check back for updates. We're both working on new stuff! :">
a new part is up! :D and thank you for reading (honestly wasn't expecting anyone but poziomeczka to read this as these aus are written by me for her ~pleasure~ but thank you really!
Chris decides he likes Tom after the first fifteen minutes of small talk. He isn’t expecting much, just empty conversation to pass the time until either one of them gets bored and calls it a night, but then they pass the requisite half hour and it turns out that Tom is actually a pretty cool guy.
He comes from old money, went to Cambridge which Chris guesses explains the accent, then to Harvard where he studied business, and is now, at thirty, running his father’s fortune 500 company. Chris doesn’t learn all of this right away but pieces it all together from the few stories Tom lets slip throughout the night. But it’s all good. Tom is cool.
Chris shares a few stories of his own when it’s his turn, but just the safe ones, the ones he doesn’t mind people he’ll never see again knowing, like how he’s been friends with Mike the bartender for over two years and how he moved to LA wanting to become an actor.
When Tom asks him if he’s seen anything Chris has been in, Chris just laughs and ducks his head and says most of his projects are a wait-and-see, which actually isn’t that far from the truth. He’s waiting and seeing and just doesn’t know how long he should be doing either.
The night crawls on.
And then some time before midnight Tom slides off his stool, pushing Mike a generous tip across the counter before smoothing out the ripples from his expensive suit. The way he does it, the careful way his hands move down the front of his silk jacket has Chris almost speechless with awe. There’s something almost exquisitely refined about the movement, that casual effortless grace.
Then Tom says in the most offhand way possible, “You can walk me to my car, Chris. If you’d like,” and for a brief second Chris contemplates passing up on the idea, making up an excuse -- he’s a terrific liar when he needed to be -- but then Tom is already halfway across the room and Chris has no other choice but to follow. It would be rude not to, he thinks, tipping back his drink before self-consciously ambling after Tom, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, pretending to play it cool.
Tom heads for the car park where his Bentley is parked, silver and gleaming and tucked among the BMWs and shiny red corvettes. No shortage of luxury cars here, Chris thinks wryly, patting the hoods of the cars they walk past.
Tom ducks into the driver side, reaching across the passenger seat to open the door. He beckons Chris in with a tilt of the head but Chris just swallows and stands there, going over the thousand and one possible scenarios in his head.
“Aren’t you coming?” Tom asks expectantly and Chris waits a beat before answering because he’s not quite sure where this is going. He likes Tom but doesn’t know what exactly Tom is asking of him.
“Tom, look,” Chris says, hesitating. But he doesn’t have the heart to continue, not when Tom is looking at him like that, his mouth set in a tense line, his eyes waiting to be disappointed. It’s like he knows even though Chris is still leading up to it, that Chris really isn’t all that interested in coming home with him. Not for the reasons Tom thinks, though at this point Chris isn’t sure what his own reasons are; he’s just not too sure if the whole thing is a good idea.
“Sure,” Chris finds himself saying anyway. “Sure, whatever.”
He tries to smile he straps on his seat belt but his hands are shaky and slick with nervous sweat, and Chris finds he can’t really dredge up the glee.
Chris has a bad feeling that this isn’t going to end well even though he genuinely likes Tom and thinks he may just want to see him again.
But maybe if Chris plays his cards right, it doesn’t have to blow up in his face.
“Make yourself at home,” Tom says, tossing his keys into a glass bowl by the coffee table.
His place is huge, about ten times the size Chris’ apartment, with sleek black and white furniture that looks almost too new to touch. Chris stands there awkwardly for a minute before Tom reappears again from the mini bar, clutching a glass in one hand and an ice scooper in the other.
“Sit,” he says, gesturing with the ice scooper.
Chris sits. The leather couch sinks underneath his weight and he contemplates leaning back for the full experience but he doesn’t want to seem too at home so he leans forward on his knees instead.
There are a handful of magazines spread out on the coffee table: two backdated issues of NEWSWEEK, MEN’S HEALTH and this month’s TIME. Chris leafs through MEN’s HEALTH for a lack of a better thing to do and looks up just as Tom emerges from the mini bar again, sans his suit jacket.
He looks almost smaller without it, younger. Tom hands him a scotch. Their fingers brush.
“Thanks,” Chris says even though he isn’t a scotch man. He takes a perfunctory sip just to be polite. He really has to get going, he thinks, eyeing the ornate clock in the corner that says it’s 1:15. He tries to think of a good excuse -- an ailing relative, prior engagements, an early start the next day -- but nothing that seems believable enough spring to mind.
And Tom doesn’t deserve a half-assed reason for why Chris can’t stay; he’s a smart guy, he’ll see through the lie.
Chris can’t explain exactly why being alone with Tom is making him nervous as shit, or why the sudden need to flee. He chalks it up to the stiff atmosphere of Tom’s apartment, the sharp unfriendly lines of his tables and chairs. It doesn’t feel like he’s welcome here. And Tom is a nice guy but, coming up to his apartment suddenly puts everything into perspective.
Chris puts his drink down on table just as Tom unfastens his tie, loosening the knot so that it dribbles down the sides of his neck.
Tom isn’t looking at him, staring into space again, and Chris has to clear his throat a few times just to get Tom’s attention.
“It’s late,” Chris says, climbing to his feet, giving him his best apologetic smile. “I think I should go.”
Tom stands too at the same time Chris does and looks almost embarrassed. But Tom is a sport, if nothing else, and nods along, not even asking why Chris has to leave.
Finishing his drink in one long pull, Tom shows him out the door, undoing his cufflinks and pushing his sleeves up to his elbows. Chris tries not to watch him do it, but he does -- Tom has delicate wrists, fine-boned fingers -- then checks himself and heads straight for the door.
Chris wants to say that he had a really good time, but then realizes how inappropriate that might come off considering all they did was talk during the earlier part of the night. That isn’t something people tell each other unless they’re flirting or planning to get lucky, and Chris hasn’t been flirting and or planning to get lucky at least on conscious level so that’s pretty much out of the question.
So he settles for clapping Tom on the arm twice and then standing there for a good five seconds, doing nothing, saying nothing. He breathes in and out, and his hand tightens on Tom’s shoulder as Tom exhales and doesn’t blink.
Then a wave of kinetic energy sets Chris off and he thinks, fuck it, before surging forward and grabbing Tom by the stem of his neck, kissing him hard there by the door, rough and wet and coaxing his lips open with his tongue. He clutches at Tom’s hair as Tom leans in toward him, curving his body.
“Okay,” says Tom in a long gasping breath, smiling a little into the kiss. His eyelashes touch Chris’ cheek and Chris sweeps in to kiss him again. He feels Tom gasp against his lips, open-mouthed, like a fish, and then his hands come up Chris’ waist and then climb up Chris’ back, sweeping up the width of Chris’ shoulders, his kiss messy and full of tongue.
Then Tom clambers one leg up Chris’ hip and thrusts. The angle is awkward but Chris rocks against him almost painfully, jeans rough and unrelenting against the cotton of his underwear. He yanks the back of Tom’s shirt free from his pants to palm the skin there dampened by his sweat. He feels Tom shudder against him, feels the bump of Tom’s spine fill his palm, feels Tom’s cock hard and hot against his thigh and immediately his blood jumps.
“Let me fuck you,” Chris whispers, tracing the shell of Tom’s ear with his tongue.
Tom just laughs and angles his hips sweetly, tipping back his head. His Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. The curve of his mouth is beautiful and soft, like a girl’s and Chris thinks, fleetingly, of taking him right there, up against the wall, bracing Tom up with his legs wrapped tight around Chris’ waist, Chris fucking into him thoroughly, breaching him until he’s buried to the root and out again, then in.
He thinks about Tom coming apart, the face he might make when he orgasms, the little gasps of pleasure, the breathy please. He thinks about his come sliding down Tom’s thighs, slick from the many times Chris has already fucked him, and how raw and open and stretched he must feel, how sated and fucked out. He thinks about kissing Tom’s hungry little mouth over and over again. He thinks about what a crazy thing this is, making out with someone he’s only just met.
Then Tom pulls away abruptly, his face flushed, a curl of his hair fallen out of its neat little coif. He says, voice feverish, “Bedroom, now,” and he lets Chris go, just like that, leading him down the hall without ever looking back to see if he’s there. And Chris, he goes willingly.
---
Tom looks good, Chris thinks. He’s standing there in the middle of the room, his sleeves folded up to his elbows, his hair a rumpled mess, the last two buttons of his dress shirt missing.
Chris sits at the edge of the bed with his knees spread a little, leaning back on his palms, watching, waiting for Tom’s next move.
He doesn’t want to start thinking now because it’ll only make him nervous. Just go with the flow, Chris tells himself, as Tom slides onto his lap and hooks his arms around Chris’ shoulders. Tom tugs gently at Chris’ pony tail, and Chris’ hair tumbles free, an electric tangle in front of his eyes. He hates that, but he lets it go this time, blinking in surprise when Tom suddenly tucks a few strands behind his ear, thumbing the side of his neck.
Tom leans away slightly and begins unbuttoning his shirt. He makes good time of it too, like he’s playing a game, exhaling sharply when Chris dips his head to curl his tongue around a soft nipple that pebbles under his mouth.
Tom arches his back as Chris licks his way down Tom’s chest. Chris feels Tom’s body shudder underneath him when he brings his tongue up to Tom’s neck, a slender curve, salty with sweat. He pushes his nose up to the back of Tom’s ear, breathing him in and god, he smells so fucking good, Chris thinks, twining his fingers up the edge of Tom’s hairline and kissing down his collarbone.
Tom hisses when Chris bites down gently on his shoulder. Chris moves up again to suck at the base of Tom’s throat but Tom puts his hand on Chris’ chest and shoves him off forcibly.
“Let’s just keep it under the collar, all right,” he says, lips twitching, and Chris feels like he’s offended him or something and is afraid, for a second, that this is going to be the end of it, that Tom will kick him out now. But then Tom is leaning over him again, straddling his hips, unbuckling Chris’ belt and reaching inside his pants. And his hand curves really gently and Chris nearly yelps in surprise.
“Fuck.” Chris grunts and shifts his hips.
Tom smiles. “Now you’re getting the idea,” he says, pumping his fist. He stops abruptly right before he can build a rhythm.
“Why’d you stop?” Chris asks, blinking blearily.
Tom shrugs a shoulder, delighting in his confused face. He doesn’t explain why and just eases back into Chris’ lap again, grinding his ass down Chris’ cock.
“Well?” says Tom after a moment.
“Well what?” Chris asks, hands tight around Tom’s hips, panting like a dog.
Tom looks annoyed and stops moving altogether, face red although that could’ve very well been caused by exertion. “Are we going to fuck or what?”
He tugs impatiently at Chris’ pants and Chris laughs without meaning to but nods his head. “Yeah, just.” He shimmies out of his pants awkwardly, tugging them off his ankles and kicking them aside. He still has his shirt on, his jacket. Tom still has his pants on too and his shirt.
“C’mere,” Chris says, patting the empty space next to him. Tom smirks and slides down alongside him, grinning when Chris rolls on top of him and makes himself comfortable between his knees.
Tom pushes Chris’ jacket off his shoulders. “Keep your shirt on,” he says, and Chris raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. He rubs his cock against Tom’s clothed thigh and Tom moans, arching up, gasping, and then Chris unbuttons his pants and closes his hand around Tom’s cock and Tom sighs deep in his chest, a heavy exhale.
Tom’s shirt comes off next as he lifts his arms obediently when Chris gives his sleeves a sharppull. Tom points to where the condoms and lube are kept and Chris hurries to them like an overexcited teenager, slathering too much lube on his hands and wanting to kick himself for it.
Tom leans up on his elbows, legs spread, palming himself a few times as Chris works him open with a slippery finger.
“It’s not your first time is it,” Chris asks, and Tom laughs with a tremulous noise.
“Oh, Chris,” he says in what Chris assumes is meant to be a condescending tone; but it only sounds oddly fond. By the time Chris has finished preparing him, Tom’s open thighs are slippery with lube. Tom hoists a leg over Chris’ shoulder, pushing himself down against the three fingers Chris works in and out of him.
“Now,” Tom pants greedily. “Now, fuck me now. Come on. Before I come..”
Chris doesn’t miss Tom’s irritated huff and almost laughs again, but he doesn’t want to risk pissing him off so he withdraws his fingers.
The first push has Tom stiffening, ankles locking instinctively around Chris’ back as he wills his muscles to relax. Chris eases him into it with slow strokes, kissing his hairline and then sliding in fully with a deep grunt. He doesn’t move for awhile, no matter how desperately he wants to, not until Tom clutches his arm tightly and shifts his hips.
“You okay?” Chris asks, wiping sweat off Tom’s brow with the back of his hand. A part of him worries he’s being overly familiar but a part of him, the traitorous stupid part, wants to make sure he isn’t hurting Tom.
Tom grits his teeth, nods. “Move,” he says, and shifts some more. “Move, damnit.”
Chris rocks into him in steady thrusts, watching Tom’s mouth open and close with every breathy noise that escapes him. His eyes clench shut when Chris buries himself to the root, his body opening underneath Chris, tight and slick and trembling. God, he’s beautiful, Chris thinks, resisting the urge to kiss him. It seems like a betrayal of trust somehow, to kiss Tom when he’s vulnerable and open like this, and Chris, who has only known him for five, maybe six hours, doesn’t think he’s earned the right.
“You look like you’re enjoying yourself,” Chris says instead, lifting Tom’s leg to properly breach him.
Tom grins lazily, pupils blown, working his cock in time with Chris’ thrusts. “I am,” he says, the color rising to his chest now, spreading through his neck. “I like getting fucked by fat fucking cocks.”
Chris loses it pretty much from that point on and starts fucking Tom in earnest, driving himself as deep as he can go. He comes hard, hips pulsing, and it takes him a second before he rolls off Tom to properly catch his breath. He ties one end of the condom loosely and drops it somewhere on the floor before turning back to Tom who hasn’t come yet though he looks like he’s just getting there.
Chris leans over him and licks the inside of his thigh, dragging his tongue up the root of Tom’s cock. He coats his middle finger with spit and eases it inside Tom smoothly, rubbing up and down a little, and Tom makes a noise, a soft little mewl at the back of his throat, and he comes just from it, gasping, streaking his belly, body shuddering and clamping down against Chris’ finger.
Chris watches him come down from the high, shoulders loosening as he opens his eyes.
“Hi,” Chris says, wiping his hand against the mattress.
Tom doesn’t smile. “Hi,” he says.
The awkwardness finally sets in after Chris just sits there and says nothing. He makes a grab for his pants on the floor, tugging it up his waist and is fastening his belt when Tom says, suddenly, “You should stay.”
When Chris turns to look at him, Tom is leaning against the headboard, watching his face for any telltale signs of him wanting to say no. Tom reaches for something on the nightstand. A tin of black and gold cigarettes, Chris sees, and lights one up, holding it gingerly between his long fingers.
Chris sits back down again at the edge of the bed, against his better judgment, and it must’ve been the right thing to do, or the wrong thing to do, because Tom smiles softly and tips his head back, extending his cigarette to him.
“I don’t smoke,” Chris tells him.
Tom shrugs. “Suit yourself.” He stubs it against the nightstand after a few more puffs then crosses his arms like he isn’t just sitting there naked, like Chris hasn’t just fucked him five minutes ago and had his tongue in Tom’s mouth for the better part of the evening.
It’s almost jarring to see how guarded he is all of a sudden.
“Will you stay?” Tom asks, and Chris, with his heart in his throat, thinks no, I don’t think that’s a good idea. He doesn’t even know what time it is, or how to get home from Tom’s apartment, and there’s a million other reasons he should just leave, he knows, but instead he says, “Yeah,” and slides back into the bed, crawling over Tom’s legs and kissing him until his lips part underneath Chris’.
“Good,” Tom says, squeezing his forearms and smiling. “Good.”
They don’t fuck anymore after that and Chris nods off a few times in the next three hours. The first time he catches himself falling asleep, he jerks back up again and sits up and Tom is next to him having acquired a laptop somehow and a pair of reading glasses. He doesn’t remember how it happens and Chris just watches him for awhile and listens to the patter of his typing until he snaps out of his half-sleep again and looks up and sees Tom freshly showered, smoking and sipping his coffee, leaning over a file in his lap.
Then the third or fourth time he comes to, Chris glances around, forgetting where he is for a second until he hears Tom’s light snoring. His back is turned to Chris and his mouth is slightly parted and Chris stares at him for a moment before taking off his reading glasses and folding them on the nightstand on top of Tom’s tin of cigarettes.
Then he turns off the lamp. The room is dark after, the bluish light of dawn seeping in between heavy blinds.
He should really go, Chris thinks but he shuts his eyes; he sleeps.
---
The next morning, Chris wakes up hungover. He also wakes up alone, something that does not surprise him. He puts his clothes back on slowly and wanders into the kitchen, shoes tucked under one arm, clutching his aching head in the other. Tom is there at the breakfast table, reading the morning paper, and he smiles briefly at Chris before lifting a cup of coffee to his lips.
“Sit down,” Tom says.
“What time is it?”
“Seven fifteen,” Tom says. “Do you have somewhere else to be?” He doesn’t look up from the paper. Chris sits across him, feeling less awkward than last night because now at least they’re fully clothed. Breakfast looks good: toast, bacon and eggs, pancakes and orange juice. He just wishes his head didn’t feel like shit.
“Did you make all of these?”
“Housekeeper,” says Tom, folding his morning paper in two. “Would you like something for that headache?”
Chris makes a face. “Yeah, ugh, that would be great actually, thanks.” Tom leads him back to the bedroom where he disappears into and roots through his walk-in closet for something. A few seconds later he produces a couple of aspirin which Chris washes down with iced water in the kitchen.
Chris doesn’t eat breakfast but just waits until Tom finishes his so he could be properly kicked out. He has this weird desire to leave Tom his number though, maybe on the nightstand next to his cigarettes so he’d see right away, but he doesn’t want to seem too eager and he still also just met the guy so who knows if Tom likes him at all. Maybe he’s just being polite, Chris thinks. It could be the upbringing.
When Tom puts his plate away in the sink, Chris stands behind him and taps his shoulder. Tom doesn’t jerk away in surprise, just turns slowly and raises an eyebrow at him. I have to go, is on Chris’ lips but the words never take shape.
Chris doesn’t know how it happens. One minute Tom is just standing there, looking at him, the next they’re kissing again, but it’s nothing like last night’s kissing: this kiss is slow and lazy and Chris tastes the coffee on Tom’s tongue, the lingering bittersweetness of it and the wetness of his mouth. His head still hurts a little so when they fuck, half of their clothes still on -- in the living room, not the kitchen -- Tom’s leg is hitched up and Chris makes him work for it, squirming and rocking against him as Chris tilts his hips.
Then it’s over too soon and Chris slumps on top of him on the couch, and Tom makes a rough noise and shoves at his shoulder, legs sliding off Chris’ waist.
Tom sits up, and then he says, “Thanks.”
And Chris grins at him and leans down to kiss him, but Tom is pushing a wad of cash his way all of a sudden so he sits back upright.
“What is this?”
“For last night,” Tom says,
“What do you mean for last night?”
Tom frowns, looking confused and Chris can see it again: the stiffness of his shoulders, the lines of discontent on his face. “Five hundred dollars. Is that enough? You never told me your rate.”
Fuck, Chris thinks. “You think I’m a --”
Tom’s cellphone vibrates on the coffee table, skittering a few inches. The two of them stare at it for a second, and then share a glance.
Chris wants to punch something. Tom thought he was a fucking hooker, he thinks. His stomach turns.
“I need to pick this up,” Tom says, unfolding himself from the arm of the couch. He puts the money on the table and clicks his phone on and whoever’s on the other line must be French or something because he’s started speaking the language, laughing and tipping his head back and disappearing down the hall.
Chris doesn’t take the money and stomps out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him before giving it a vicious kick.
Oh my GOD! I seriously started laughing my balls off at the ending! This is fucking hilarious! I think it's the break in the tension, you know? Tom's all giving off that sexy, serial killer vibe, and all of Chris' flags are going up, and in the end it's something as simple as Tom's really just kind of an asshole and Chris is an idiot.
If you ended it here I'd be sad. But I think this would also be a really good ending, the breaking of that tension and the high, happy feeling that's left. This is just perfect all around, and I'm still super impressed by you!
WAY TO LAY ON THE PRESSURE. I feel the need to impress you now. But no seriously, poziomeczka and I will be expanding this universe. We've got plenty ideas for this premise and she and I are writing stuff for the gif set simultaneously. I'm glad that bit made you laugh!
Oh, wow, you and your endings!! So now you've given me a taste for rpf au's for these two but I know I'll just be disappointed if I try to read anyone else's so thanks for all the future heartache.
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Chris meets him at a bar, not one of those hole-in-the-wall bars that served watered down beer for two dollars a pop, but a nice one, with ambient lighting and everything, a grand piano sitting in a corner of the room and a three thousand dollar chandelier sparkling down from the ceiling.
The clientele is mostly businessmen trickling in late at night from work: these middle aged guys wearing hangdog faces, nursing a pint or two before they head home to their wives. Chris is there because he’s friends with the bartender, a guy named Mike who borrows money from him periodically and who sometimes serves Chris free drinks out of a weird sense of fealty.
Chris likes the false comfort the place affords him even though it sometimes makes him feel sorely out of place. He likes to think he looks cool in his beat up leather jacket and worn down jeans, indifferent enough to be left alone and not openly stared at, but sometimes it just feels like he’s trying to too hard to make a point. He’s not like them, never will be, doesn’t give a damn, end of story.
Still, that doesn’t stop him from showing up, like clockwork, every Friday night, easing himself onto the barstool to order a malt, scooping out the few crumpled bills he has in his back pocket and laying them out on the counter.
Mike just sighs at him and gives him a look, shaking his head and saying, “Honey, don’t fool yourself,” before pouring him a drink on the house.
If Chris were honest with himself, he goes there whenever he needs a pick-me-up. There’s something freeing about being the only remotely sane person in a roomful of miserable pencil pushers.
It all changes though, the night he sees Tom at the end of the bar, fingering a gin and tonic and staring into space. He’s wearing a crisp grey suit that complements the long lean lines of his body and his hair is gently coiffed and neat, but altogether too stiff, for someone around -- Chris guesses -- his age. He can’t be that much older, not with a face like that. Though the set of his shoulders -- too tense -- begs to differ.
Chris slides into the empty seat next to him and Tom looks up almost immediately, the brief flash of surprise in his eyes fading into something resembling amusement. Chris doesn’t miss the way Tom’s eyes travel down the length of him -- it’s the jeans, Chris thinks, he’s the only one in the room in fucking jeans -- before settling, finally, on his face. No, Chris’ eyes.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Chris asks, and of course he doesn’t mean it, fooling around and wanting to talk to someone in this bar who isn’t looking at him, for once, with the faintest hint of contempt.
But then Tom tilts his head to the side, like he’s considering the offer and then he’s finishing his drink and putting it down all too quickly, and he says, “You most certainly can,” with an air of devastating elegance that blows Chris away. And that’s when it all changes; that’s when it starts.
Chris’ life is never the same again after he buys him that drink.
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Anyway, just going to leave that here. I love your fic, don't ever stop writing, k? Thx.
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He comes from old money, went to Cambridge which Chris guesses explains the accent, then to Harvard where he studied business, and is now, at thirty, running his father’s fortune 500 company. Chris doesn’t learn all of this right away but pieces it all together from the few stories Tom lets slip throughout the night. But it’s all good. Tom is cool.
Chris shares a few stories of his own when it’s his turn, but just the safe ones, the ones he doesn’t mind people he’ll never see again knowing, like how he’s been friends with Mike the bartender for over two years and how he moved to LA wanting to become an actor.
When Tom asks him if he’s seen anything Chris has been in, Chris just laughs and ducks his head and says most of his projects are a wait-and-see, which actually isn’t that far from the truth. He’s waiting and seeing and just doesn’t know how long he should be doing either.
The night crawls on.
And then some time before midnight Tom slides off his stool, pushing Mike a generous tip across the counter before smoothing out the ripples from his expensive suit. The way he does it, the careful way his hands move down the front of his silk jacket has Chris almost speechless with awe. There’s something almost exquisitely refined about the movement, that casual effortless grace.
Then Tom says in the most offhand way possible, “You can walk me to my car, Chris. If you’d like,” and for a brief second Chris contemplates passing up on the idea, making up an excuse -- he’s a terrific liar when he needed to be -- but then Tom is already halfway across the room and Chris has no other choice but to follow. It would be rude not to, he thinks, tipping back his drink before self-consciously ambling after Tom, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, pretending to play it cool.
Tom heads for the car park where his Bentley is parked, silver and gleaming and tucked among the BMWs and shiny red corvettes. No shortage of luxury cars here, Chris thinks wryly, patting the hoods of the cars they walk past.
Tom ducks into the driver side, reaching across the passenger seat to open the door. He beckons Chris in with a tilt of the head but Chris just swallows and stands there, going over the thousand and one possible scenarios in his head.
“Aren’t you coming?” Tom asks expectantly and Chris waits a beat before answering because he’s not quite sure where this is going. He likes Tom but doesn’t know what exactly Tom is asking of him.
“Tom, look,” Chris says, hesitating. But he doesn’t have the heart to continue, not when Tom is looking at him like that, his mouth set in a tense line, his eyes waiting to be disappointed. It’s like he knows even though Chris is still leading up to it, that Chris really isn’t all that interested in coming home with him. Not for the reasons Tom thinks, though at this point Chris isn’t sure what his own reasons are; he’s just not too sure if the whole thing is a good idea.
“Sure,” Chris finds himself saying anyway. “Sure, whatever.”
He tries to smile he straps on his seat belt but his hands are shaky and slick with nervous sweat, and Chris finds he can’t really dredge up the glee.
Chris has a bad feeling that this isn’t going to end well even though he genuinely likes Tom and thinks he may just want to see him again.
But maybe if Chris plays his cards right, it doesn’t have to blow up in his face.
Maybe, Chris thinks.
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His place is huge, about ten times the size Chris’ apartment, with sleek black and white furniture that looks almost too new to touch. Chris stands there awkwardly for a minute before Tom reappears again from the mini bar, clutching a glass in one hand and an ice scooper in the other.
“Sit,” he says, gesturing with the ice scooper.
Chris sits. The leather couch sinks underneath his weight and he contemplates leaning back for the full experience but he doesn’t want to seem too at home so he leans forward on his knees instead.
There are a handful of magazines spread out on the coffee table: two backdated issues of NEWSWEEK, MEN’S HEALTH and this month’s TIME. Chris leafs through MEN’s HEALTH for a lack of a better thing to do and looks up just as Tom emerges from the mini bar again, sans his suit jacket.
He looks almost smaller without it, younger. Tom hands him a scotch. Their fingers brush.
“Thanks,” Chris says even though he isn’t a scotch man. He takes a perfunctory sip just to be polite. He really has to get going, he thinks, eyeing the ornate clock in the corner that says it’s 1:15. He tries to think of a good excuse -- an ailing relative, prior engagements, an early start the next day -- but nothing that seems believable enough spring to mind.
And Tom doesn’t deserve a half-assed reason for why Chris can’t stay; he’s a smart guy, he’ll see through the lie.
Chris can’t explain exactly why being alone with Tom is making him nervous as shit, or why the sudden need to flee. He chalks it up to the stiff atmosphere of Tom’s apartment, the sharp unfriendly lines of his tables and chairs.
It doesn’t feel like he’s welcome here. And Tom is a nice guy but, coming up to his apartment suddenly puts everything into perspective.
Chris puts his drink down on table just as Tom unfastens his tie, loosening the knot so that it dribbles down the sides of his neck.
Tom isn’t looking at him, staring into space again, and Chris has to clear his throat a few times just to get Tom’s attention.
“It’s late,” Chris says, climbing to his feet, giving him his best apologetic smile. “I think I should go.”
Tom stands too at the same time Chris does and looks almost embarrassed. But Tom is a sport, if nothing else, and nods along, not even asking why Chris has to leave.
Finishing his drink in one long pull, Tom shows him out the door, undoing his cufflinks and pushing his sleeves up to his elbows. Chris tries not to watch him do it, but he does -- Tom has delicate wrists, fine-boned fingers -- then checks himself and heads straight for the door.
Chris wants to say that he had a really good time, but then realizes how inappropriate that might come off considering all they did was talk during the earlier part of the night. That isn’t something people tell each other unless they’re flirting or planning to get lucky, and Chris hasn’t been flirting and or planning to get lucky at least on conscious level so that’s pretty much out of the question.
So he settles for clapping Tom on the arm twice and then standing there for a good five seconds, doing nothing, saying nothing. He breathes in and out, and his hand tightens on Tom’s shoulder as Tom exhales and doesn’t blink.
“I’ll see you around,” Chris says.
“Of course,” Tom says.
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“Okay,” says Tom in a long gasping breath, smiling a little into the kiss. His eyelashes touch Chris’ cheek and Chris sweeps in to kiss him again. He feels Tom gasp against his lips, open-mouthed, like a fish, and then his hands come up Chris’ waist and then climb up Chris’ back, sweeping up the width of Chris’ shoulders, his kiss messy and full of tongue.
Then Tom clambers one leg up Chris’ hip and thrusts. The angle is awkward but Chris rocks against him almost painfully, jeans rough and unrelenting against the cotton of his underwear. He yanks the back of Tom’s shirt free from his pants to palm the skin there dampened by his sweat. He feels Tom shudder against him, feels the bump of Tom’s spine fill his palm, feels Tom’s cock hard and hot against his thigh and immediately his blood jumps.
“Let me fuck you,” Chris whispers, tracing the shell of Tom’s ear with his tongue.
Tom just laughs and angles his hips sweetly, tipping back his head. His Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. The curve of his mouth is beautiful and soft, like a girl’s and Chris thinks, fleetingly, of taking him right there, up against the wall, bracing Tom up with his legs wrapped tight around Chris’ waist, Chris fucking into him thoroughly, breaching him until he’s buried to the root and out again, then in.
He thinks about Tom coming apart, the face he might make when he orgasms, the little gasps of pleasure, the breathy please. He thinks about his come sliding down Tom’s thighs, slick from the many times Chris has already fucked him, and how raw and open and stretched he must feel, how sated and fucked out. He thinks about kissing Tom’s hungry little mouth over and over again. He thinks about what a crazy thing this is, making out with someone he’s only just met.
Then Tom pulls away abruptly, his face flushed, a curl of his hair fallen out of its neat little coif. He says, voice feverish, “Bedroom, now,” and he lets Chris go, just like that, leading him down the hall without ever looking back to see if he’s there. And Chris, he goes willingly.
---
Tom looks good, Chris thinks. He’s standing there in the middle of the room, his sleeves folded up to his elbows, his hair a rumpled mess, the last two buttons of his dress shirt missing.
Chris sits at the edge of the bed with his knees spread a little, leaning back on his palms, watching, waiting for Tom’s next move.
He doesn’t want to start thinking now because it’ll only make him nervous. Just go with the flow, Chris tells himself, as Tom slides onto his lap and hooks his arms around Chris’ shoulders. Tom tugs gently at Chris’ pony tail, and Chris’ hair tumbles free, an electric tangle in front of his eyes. He hates that, but he lets it go this time, blinking in surprise when Tom suddenly tucks a few strands behind his ear, thumbing the side of his neck.
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Tom arches his back as Chris licks his way down Tom’s chest. Chris feels Tom’s body shudder underneath him when he brings his tongue up to Tom’s neck, a slender curve, salty with sweat. He pushes his nose up to the back of Tom’s ear, breathing him in and god, he smells so fucking good, Chris thinks, twining his fingers up the edge of Tom’s hairline and kissing down his collarbone.
Tom hisses when Chris bites down gently on his shoulder. Chris moves up again to suck at the base of Tom’s throat but Tom puts his hand on Chris’ chest and shoves him off forcibly.
“Let’s just keep it under the collar, all right,” he says, lips twitching, and Chris feels like he’s offended him or something and is afraid, for a second, that this is going to be the end of it, that Tom will kick him out now. But then Tom is leaning over him again, straddling his hips, unbuckling Chris’ belt and reaching inside his pants. And his hand curves really gently and Chris nearly yelps in surprise.
“Fuck.” Chris grunts and shifts his hips.
Tom smiles. “Now you’re getting the idea,” he says, pumping his fist. He stops abruptly right before he can build a rhythm.
“Why’d you stop?” Chris asks, blinking blearily.
Tom shrugs a shoulder, delighting in his confused face. He doesn’t explain why and just eases back into Chris’ lap again, grinding his ass down Chris’ cock.
“Well?” says Tom after a moment.
“Well what?” Chris asks, hands tight around Tom’s hips, panting like a dog.
Tom looks annoyed and stops moving altogether, face red although that could’ve very well been caused by exertion. “Are we going to fuck or what?”
He tugs impatiently at Chris’ pants and Chris laughs without meaning to but nods his head. “Yeah, just.” He shimmies out of his pants awkwardly, tugging them off his ankles and kicking them aside. He still has his shirt on, his jacket. Tom still has his pants on too and his shirt.
“C’mere,” Chris says, patting the empty space next to him. Tom smirks and slides down alongside him, grinning when Chris rolls on top of him and makes himself comfortable between his knees.
Tom pushes Chris’ jacket off his shoulders. “Keep your shirt on,” he says, and Chris raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. He rubs his cock against Tom’s clothed thigh and Tom moans, arching up, gasping, and then Chris unbuttons his pants and closes his hand around Tom’s cock and Tom sighs deep in his chest, a heavy exhale.
Tom’s shirt comes off next as he lifts his arms obediently when Chris gives his sleeves a sharppull. Tom points to where the condoms and lube are kept and Chris hurries to them like an overexcited teenager, slathering too much lube on his hands and wanting to kick himself for it.
Tom leans up on his elbows, legs spread, palming himself a few times as Chris works him open with a slippery finger.
“It’s not your first time is it,” Chris asks, and Tom laughs with a tremulous noise.
“Oh, Chris,” he says in what Chris assumes is meant to be a condescending tone; but it only sounds oddly fond. By the time Chris has finished preparing him, Tom’s open thighs are slippery with lube. Tom hoists a leg over Chris’ shoulder, pushing himself down against the three fingers Chris works in and out of him.
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Chris doesn’t miss Tom’s irritated huff and almost laughs again, but he doesn’t want to risk pissing him off so he withdraws his fingers.
The first push has Tom stiffening, ankles locking instinctively around Chris’ back as he wills his muscles to relax. Chris eases him into it with slow strokes, kissing his hairline and then sliding in fully with a deep grunt. He doesn’t move for awhile, no matter how desperately he wants to, not until Tom clutches his arm tightly and shifts his hips.
“You okay?” Chris asks, wiping sweat off Tom’s brow with the back of his hand. A part of him worries he’s being overly familiar but a part of him, the traitorous stupid part, wants to make sure he isn’t hurting Tom.
Tom grits his teeth, nods. “Move,” he says, and shifts some more. “Move, damnit.”
Chris rocks into him in steady thrusts, watching Tom’s mouth open and close with every breathy noise that escapes him. His eyes clench shut when Chris buries himself to the root, his body opening underneath Chris, tight and slick and trembling. God, he’s beautiful, Chris thinks, resisting the urge to kiss him. It seems like a betrayal of trust somehow, to kiss Tom when he’s vulnerable and open like this, and Chris, who has only known him for five, maybe six hours, doesn’t think he’s earned the right.
“You look like you’re enjoying yourself,” Chris says instead, lifting Tom’s leg to properly breach him.
Tom grins lazily, pupils blown, working his cock in time with Chris’ thrusts. “I am,” he says, the color rising to his chest now, spreading through his neck. “I like getting fucked by fat fucking cocks.”
Chris loses it pretty much from that point on and starts fucking Tom in earnest, driving himself as deep as he can go. He comes hard, hips pulsing, and it takes him a second before he rolls off Tom to properly catch his breath. He ties one end of the condom loosely and drops it somewhere on the floor before turning back to Tom who hasn’t come yet though he looks like he’s just getting there.
Chris leans over him and licks the inside of his thigh, dragging his tongue up the root of Tom’s cock. He coats his middle finger with spit and eases it inside Tom smoothly, rubbing up and down a little, and Tom makes a noise, a soft little mewl at the back of his throat, and he comes just from it, gasping, streaking his belly, body shuddering and clamping down against Chris’ finger.
Chris watches him come down from the high, shoulders loosening as he opens his eyes.
“Hi,” Chris says, wiping his hand against the mattress.
Tom doesn’t smile. “Hi,” he says.
The awkwardness finally sets in after Chris just sits there and says nothing. He makes a grab for his pants on the floor, tugging it up his waist and is fastening his belt when Tom says, suddenly, “You should stay.”
When Chris turns to look at him, Tom is leaning against the headboard, watching his face for any telltale signs of him wanting to say no. Tom reaches for something on the nightstand. A tin of black and gold cigarettes, Chris sees, and lights one up, holding it gingerly between his long fingers.
Chris sits back down again at the edge of the bed, against his better judgment, and it must’ve been the right thing to do, or the wrong thing to do, because Tom smiles softly and tips his head back, extending his cigarette to him.
“I don’t smoke,” Chris tells him.
Tom shrugs. “Suit yourself.” He stubs it against the nightstand after a few more puffs then crosses his arms like he isn’t just sitting there naked, like Chris hasn’t just fucked him five minutes ago and had his tongue in Tom’s mouth for the better part of the evening.
It’s almost jarring to see how guarded he is all of a sudden.
“Will you stay?” Tom asks, and Chris, with his heart in his throat, thinks no, I don’t think that’s a good idea. He doesn’t even know what time it is, or how to get home from Tom’s apartment, and there’s a million other reasons he should just leave, he knows, but instead he says, “Yeah,” and slides back into the bed, crawling over Tom’s legs and kissing him until his lips part underneath Chris’.
“Good,” Tom says, squeezing his forearms and smiling. “Good.”
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They don’t fuck anymore after that and Chris nods off a few times in the next three hours. The first time he catches himself falling asleep, he jerks back up again and sits up and Tom is next to him having acquired a laptop somehow and a pair of reading glasses. He doesn’t remember how it happens and Chris just watches him for awhile and listens to the patter of his typing until he snaps out of his half-sleep again and looks up and sees Tom freshly showered, smoking and sipping his coffee, leaning over a file in his lap.
Then the third or fourth time he comes to, Chris glances around, forgetting where he is for a second until he hears Tom’s light snoring. His back is turned to Chris and his mouth is slightly parted and Chris stares at him for a moment before taking off his reading glasses and folding them on the nightstand on top of Tom’s tin of cigarettes.
Then he turns off the lamp. The room is dark after, the bluish light of dawn seeping in between heavy blinds.
He should really go, Chris thinks but he shuts his eyes; he sleeps.
---
The next morning, Chris wakes up hungover. He also wakes up alone, something that does not surprise him. He puts his clothes back on slowly and wanders into the kitchen, shoes tucked under one arm, clutching his aching head in the other. Tom is there at the breakfast table, reading the morning paper, and he smiles briefly at Chris before lifting a cup of coffee to his lips.
“Sit down,” Tom says.
“What time is it?”
“Seven fifteen,” Tom says. “Do you have somewhere else to be?” He doesn’t look up from the paper. Chris sits across him, feeling less awkward than last night because now at least they’re fully clothed. Breakfast looks good: toast, bacon and eggs, pancakes and orange juice. He just wishes his head didn’t feel like shit.
“Did you make all of these?”
“Housekeeper,” says Tom, folding his morning paper in two. “Would you like something for that headache?”
Chris makes a face. “Yeah, ugh, that would be great actually, thanks.” Tom leads him back to the bedroom where he disappears into and roots through his walk-in closet for something. A few seconds later he produces a couple of aspirin which Chris washes down with iced water in the kitchen.
Chris doesn’t eat breakfast but just waits until Tom finishes his so he could be properly kicked out. He has this weird desire to leave Tom his number though, maybe on the nightstand next to his cigarettes so he’d see right away, but he doesn’t want to seem too eager and he still also just met the guy so who knows if Tom likes him at all. Maybe he’s just being polite, Chris thinks. It could be the upbringing.
When Tom puts his plate away in the sink, Chris stands behind him and taps his shoulder. Tom doesn’t jerk away in surprise, just turns slowly and raises an eyebrow at him. I have to go, is on Chris’ lips but the words never take shape.
Chris doesn’t know how it happens. One minute Tom is just standing there, looking at him, the next they’re kissing again, but it’s nothing like last night’s kissing: this kiss is slow and lazy and Chris tastes the coffee on Tom’s tongue, the lingering bittersweetness of it and the wetness of his mouth. His head still hurts a little so when they fuck, half of their clothes still on -- in the living room, not the kitchen -- Tom’s leg is hitched up and Chris makes him work for it, squirming and rocking against him as Chris tilts his hips.
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Tom sits up, and then he says, “Thanks.”
And Chris grins at him and leans down to kiss him, but Tom is pushing a wad of cash his way all of a sudden so he sits back upright.
“What is this?”
“For last night,” Tom says,
“What do you mean for last night?”
Tom frowns, looking confused and Chris can see it again: the stiffness of his shoulders, the lines of discontent on his face. “Five hundred dollars. Is that enough? You never told me your rate.”
Fuck, Chris thinks. “You think I’m a --”
Tom’s cellphone vibrates on the coffee table, skittering a few inches. The two of them stare at it for a second, and then share a glance.
Chris wants to punch something. Tom thought he was a fucking hooker, he thinks. His stomach turns.
“I need to pick this up,” Tom says, unfolding himself from the arm of the couch. He puts the money on the table and clicks his phone on and whoever’s on the other line must be French or something because he’s started speaking the language, laughing and tipping his head back and disappearing down the hall.
Chris doesn’t take the money and stomps out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him before giving it a vicious kick.
Fuck Tom, he thinks. The guy’s an asshole.
Chris is in a shitty mood all week.
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If you ended it here I'd be sad. But I think this would also be a really good ending, the breaking of that tension and the high, happy feeling that's left. This is just perfect all around, and I'm still super impressed by you!
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