The guy’s name was Tom. He wasn’t the first one to inquire about the ad, but he was the only one with a coffee maker, and he seemed like an all right guy at first with his bike helmet and his beat-up leather satchel; he wore ankle socks with his floppy rubber sandals that went schlip schlip whenever he walked and Chris thought, man, he could do better but whatever, he was strapped for cash.
Tom stayed for coffee for about an hour after Chris showed him the rest of the flat and gave the dryer a solid kick that would miraculously, though Chris would realize this much later on maybe three months down the road, get it working again. He wasn’t what Chris expected in a flatmate, but he paid twice the initial deposit and didn’t mind that the room he’d be renting had a direct view of the neighbor’s swimming pool.
Tom said he’d just moved in from London. A friend of his offered him a sweet gig at this little drama school that he owned in Brisbane and Tom took it and had been sleeping in friends’ couches ever since. He said he had just graduated university six months ago and originally wanted to go traveling, saving marine mammals on top of doing volunteer work for the VSO, but the lure of the outback was strong, and Australia was the farthest he could go without learning a new language on top of the four he already knew.
There were others things too that Chris should not have turned a blind eye on that first time they met, like how Tom casually mentioned he was a student of life, and how he sometimes went method if you knew what he meant, but Chris had chalked it up to some sort of internal quirk of his, like how sometimes some people had verbal tics or made their own clothes to wear or left the peanuts in m&ms alone.
Chris shook Tom’s hand by the door and said, “You can move in this weekend,” and pocketed his money and thought: what could possibly go wrong.
Tom moved in the Saturday Luke came over for lunch. They were arguing over whether or not to have Thai or just order out when the doorbell rang, cutting Luke off mid-rant.
“You suck!” he said and hit the back of Chris’ head with a throw pillow. Jesus, Chris thought. He honestly had no idea how they were even related.
Chris answered the door. Tom stood there in his floppy sandals with five boxes of stuff at his feet, waving goodbye at a pickup truck that was driving off. “See you later, Pablo!” he said, smiling.
“Hey,” Chris said. “You’re here.”
“You did say next weekend,” said Tom, ruffling the top of his hair. He had these curls that bobbed along with him whenever he moved and Chris, who thought that was funny, found himself smiling a little.
“Need a help with those--”
“Oh, yes, definitely. That would be lovely, thanks,” said Tom, and Chris picked up a box which was heavier than an elephant and shouted at Luke to come to the door.
“What,” hissed Luke, rolling his eyes. He was such a teenager sometimes. He glanced at Tom.
“Oh, right. You must be the flatmate. I’m Luke; Chris’ brother. I hope he doesn’t scare you off like he did the last two guys. Did he ever mention he hates sharing food?”
Chris thumped him in the stomach to shut him up. “Help me carry these,” he said, and Luke did, but not without some muttering first. When it was all done, Luke left them alone, clomping his feet down the hall and calling for pizza. He asked if Tom was one of those vegan types and Tom laughed and said no but his sister was.
“Great!” Luke said, yelling from the kitchen. “Cause I’m getting the monster meat combo.”
“Sorry about my brother,” said Chris, embarrassed, kicking the door shut behind him to cut Luke out of the conversation. The room was tiny, a daybed in the corner next to the window and a rickety closet that would hardly fit anything but a few pair of jeans.
“So, welcome,” Chris said and smiled awkwardly, hands on his hips. He turned to leave but Tom sprang forward and caught his arm.
“Wait!” he said. Tom went digging through one of the boxes and pulled out a potted a plant. He brushed dust off it first and handed it over to Chris who looked at it speculatively and blinked. Twice.
“For me?”
Tom nodded vigorously. “Yeah. I mean, I thought I’d buy you a little present, seeing as we’ll be living together for awhile. A gesture of goodwill.”
“Thanks,” Chris said, rubbing his neck. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I didn’t get you anything though.”
Tom waved his hand. “It’s no problem at all.”
“Yeah,” said Chris. “Um, thanks again.”
Tom grinned.
“I better check on my brother,” Chris said, and left him to unpack. He put the potted plant on the nightstand next to his lamp and alarm clock, on top of a stack of Rolling Stones Greatest Hits CDs, where he would forget to water it for the next two, maybe three weeks.
---
Tom wasn’t a terrible flatmate, not in the first two weeks at least. He may have hung up a lot of movie posters on his wall and played a lot of Bob Dylan at night but he left Chris alone and touched none of his stuff, and he was courteous and polite and didn’t bother Chris unless he absolutely had to.
He wasn’t part of a cult like Jimmy, Chris’ last roommate, and he didn’t bring strippers home like Brian, who’d been Chris’ roommate for the better part of the year. He made breakfast sometimes for the both of them before he left for work at eight in the morning, hoisting his satchel over his shoulder and mounting his bike, giving Chris a two-fingered salute before heading off.
Tom often came home with helmet hair, his overzealous curls an untamable puff around his head like wire brush. Chris thought it was kind of cute, but in the way people thought a baby bird was cute; you had to make certain allowances.
Still, Tom was the best flatmate Chris has ever had in a long time. He almost seemed too good to be true.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened for about a month, which was a good thing, but then slowly, over time, things started going incredibly pearshaped.
Two things happened in April that year that had Chris reevaluating his life choices: first, he starred as a lion in a play for children, and second, he sprained his ankle at a pool party.
The lion thing happened as a result of Tom’s weirdness.
“Chris, I need your help!” he said on the phone, the day Chris was getting his driver’s permit.
Chris contemplated hanging up on him but then remembered it was Tom’s turn to cook dinner that night. He was making chicken tikka masala, he said, and because the universe was an unfair place, Tom was, on top of being a licensed scuba diver, also a good cook.
If Chris were honest with himself though, Tom was good at everything: knowing what type of wine to pair with a meal, for example, or charming the pants off the grumpiest of neighbors, even, of all things, dancing he excelled at. He was very easy to hate and yet. Chris didn’t know. He liked Tom.
Chris had caught him once, dancing in the laundry room with his head phones on, his shirt hiked up to his belly, his boxers dragged down low around his hips.
If his moves were anything to go by, he was listening to some techno, or at the very least trying to mimic the movements of a very panicked chicken. Chris had watched him for awhile, like some weird pervert, through the crack in the door, before sneaking off guiltily before he was caught or started touching himself.
“Chris,” Tom said. “Are you there?”
“Yeah,” said Chris, shaking himself out of his thoughts. He took out the cereal box from the cupboard.
“I need you to do something for me.”
Chris didn’t like the sound of that. He’d been there before. No more, he thought. But who was he kidding? He sighed; then after a long moment said, “What is it?”
Tom exhaled a trembling breath. Chris could practically see him: smiling in relief and running his fingers through his springy curls. Chris remembered he wore his famous blue shirt that morning, the one with a picture of a turtle drinking coffee that Chris thought was hilarious.
“We’re doing this play for the kids at the community hospital,” said Tom, voice high and squeaky with stress, “And my friend called in sick and I need someone to fill in for him. Can you do that?”
“I can’t act in a play,” Chris said.
“I know, I know,” Tom sighed. “But I couldn’t think of anyone else. We need someone big, sort of menacing--”
“You think I’m menacing?”
“--And I thought, who better to play a lion than my good friend Chris.”
“What?” said Chris. “A lion?”
“We’re doing this Bible story because it’s almost Easter. Daniel and the Lion, have you heard of that? We just need you in a lion costume that’s all. You have three lines. Three, Chris. Please?”
Chris stared at his phone.
“It’s for the children,” Tom said. “Think of the children, Chris.”
Chris shook his head at himself. This was going to bite him in the ass, he was sure.
“Are you there?” said Tom. “Hello?”
“Three lines,” Chris said. “You swear.”
---
His three lines were cut out because Chris couldn’t say them while keeping a straight face; instead they had him roaring at the top of his lungs which was even more embarrassing than shouting: I will tear you apart with my teeth little boy to a tunic-clad Tom who knelt down in front of him and lifted his hands periodically to pray to the heavens.
You could see nipple in that tunic, Chris thought. How was that appropriate?
That wasn’t the worst part though. The worst part was Chris had to wear a lion costume that hugged him in all the wrong places and smelled like stale body odor. It kept him sneezing for the remainder of the night and by the time the play had finished its second run, he was crabby and unapologetic.
Tom handed him a tissue on his way out the back door. “The children loved you,” he said, hiking up his satchel and jogging a little to catch up to Chris. His curls bounced in the breeze.
Chris sniffed before dunking the wad of tissue into a nearby bin. “Sure,” he said, noncommittal. He didn’t want to lose his temper, not in front of Tom who kept squeezing his arm backstage and grinning at him, telling him what a great lion he would be. The play had been a modest success; the kids gasped at all the appropriate moments and a few even asked to have their pictures taken with Chris.
Tom laughed, patting Chris on the bicep.
“Thanks,” Tom said quietly after a moment, ducking his head a little, looking, for the first time since Chris had met him, shy. “For doing this. For me,” he said meaningfully.
Chris shrugged, swallowing a strange lump in his throat. He felt his neck prickle.
“It’s nothing,” he said and sneezed.
“It’s not nothing,” Tom said. “This was like... a test of friendship and you passed!”
“I wasn’t aware there had to be tests,” said Chris, making a face.
Tom just smiled widely at him before laughing again. “I was joking, Chris. Come on.” He curled an arm around Chris’ shoulder, squeezing him gently. “I’ll make you that chicken tikka masala that you’re so fond of and we’ll drink some beers.”
“Beers,” Chris repeated, huffing out a laugh. “Oh this will be good.”
---
There weren’t enough ingredients in the kitchen for chicken tikka masala, it turned out, so they ordered pizza instead and knocked back a few beers.
Chris’s mood improved somewhat and he showered, made coffee for himself and read the sports section of this morning’s paper, then was about to head back to his room when he saw Tom was still there, sprawled out on the couch watching television, one long lean leg thrown over the side of the couch.
He looked up when he saw Chris. “Hey,” he said, smiling a little. He set the TV on mute.
“Can’t sleep?” said Chris, watching Tom’s fingers touch the frayed hem of his drama school t-shirt. Tom tugged idly on a piece of thread that was sticking out.
“Why are you drinking coffee at...” Tom twisted sideways and grabbed his phone from the coffee table. “One in the morning?”
“Decaf,” replied Chris, shrugging.
“Mm,” Tom said, blinking dreamily. He scratched his stomach, the movement lifting his shirt a little. Chris thought the skin there looked smooth and wondered if the rest of Tom’s body was the same.
“You know what helps me sleep?” Tom said after a second, sitting up and folding his legs together. He held up a finger.
“What?” said Chris even though he didn’t feel like knowing. Most probably Tom would say something like dolphin noises or French opera music. Chris didn’t want to sit through half an hour of that again; the stuff made him irritable.
“Wait here,” Tom said and disappeared into his room with thudding footsteps. Chris continued to sip his coffee and Tom emerged a minute later with a ziploc bag full of what appeared to be hand rolled cigarettes. He jiggled the bag a few times, practically shaking with excitement. Even his hair bounced along as if his body couldn’t take all this enthusiasm he was harboring and had to burst through somewhere.
“I don’t smoke,” Chris told him after a second.
The corners of Tom’s lips twitched. “These aren’t cigarettes, Chris.”
It was a bad idea, Chris knew. He didn’t like being uninhibited. Okay, that part was a lie, he liked getting high as much as the next person but only around people he trusted. Tom was someone new in his life, a flatmate he thought about from time to time right before he went to sleep.
No filthy thoughts though, just the usual boring stuff like: why does he have to do yoga in the living room every morning or will he ever stop drinking my milk? Once Chris even thought: that was a funny joke he said today and he wore really nice pants. But he wasn’t someone to be trusted. He was wily, that Tom. Wily and touchy. Who knew what they’d end up doing if they got high together?
And sure, Tom was cute and everything and had good taste in movies, but that didn’t mean Chris was going to sleep with him when the first opportunity presented itself.
There were some things you just didn’t do like run over children or look at naked photos of people you knew in grade school. It was a breach of some sort of moral code. Chris was just not going to sleep with him.
No matter how tight Tom’s pants were or how close they sat together on the couch, the sides of their bare legs rubbing. No matter how many times Chris would accidentally walk in on him peeing in the bathroom in the morning or dancing when he thought no one was looking. Chris was going to put his foot down on this one. He didn’t want to fuck up a good thing.
Tom handed him the ziploc bag, jiggling its contents. “Have another one,” he said. “Your whole outlook on life could improve.”
The way Tom held his joint -- his hand curved like a pro, whistling smoke through his teeth -- made it look like an art form. Chris sat there staring, his eyes going watery from the smoke.
“Okay,” he said, and blinked. He took a deep puff and instantly felt weightless and loose-limbed.
“You’re funny,” Tom said. “I like you, Chris.”
“I like you too,” Chris said. “You’re really really really really really hot.”
The corners of Tom’s eyes crinkled as he laughed. “No, you’re hot,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m told,” Chris said. “I get that a lot.”
“That’s because you are,” said Tom.
“What?”
Tom said nothing. Then he was lying down on the carpet, crossing his legs and uncrossing them, his raggedy shorts bunching down and around his thighs. They were really pale thighs, Chris thought, and they were covered in a thin layer of fine blond hair. Chris wanted to touch them; mostly he wanted to lick them to see what Tom’s skin tasted like.
Instead, Chris cupped Tom’s knee and Tom bounced his knee off Chris’ palm. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he said.
Chris shrugged. He put his joint away and leaned over Tom. Now Tom was smiling. It wasn’t a smile Chris was used to; soft around the edges but smug. Like he’d been waiting for this for a long time.
Chris eased himself on top of him, bracing his arms on either side of Tom’s face. Tom lifted a hand -- the one with the joint -- and twined his fingers through Chris’ hair. He was the first one to kiss, leaning up on his elbows and pressing his wet mouth to Chris’. Then he exhaled sharply and lay back down, watching Chris’ face shift before kissing him again. He slid his tongue inside Chris’ mouth and made a pleased noise in his throat when Chris began kissing back, maneuvering himself between Tom’s knees and cupping his jaw.
“Wait,” said Tom, pulling away abruptly. “Let me--” He took a deep puff of his joint, stubbed it on a nearby ashtray and took Chris by the neck, yanking his ears. When he exhaled, Chris breathed it in, pulling it deep in his lungs before kissing Tom again. The hair on his neck stood on end when Tom pressed his nose to the side of his face.
Chris kept his free hand splayed across Tom’s stomach, feeling every rough intake of breath fill his palm. He dipped his hand into Tom’s shorts, rubbing him through his underwear, curving his hand over Tom’s cock, and the way Tom’s body responded, his little gasps and moans of pleasure, his breathy oh made Chris feel like he was a god.
Tom thrust against his hand. “That feels good,” he panted. “Chris.”
“Yeah?”
“Chris,” said Tom again, bucking his hips. His shirt was riding up again, exposing the smooth path of his ribs.
Tom’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment and then he grabbed Chris’ wrist and then he was arching his back and coming with a noisy gasp, his mouth open, his body shuddering until he came down from his high.
Chris rolled off him afterward, lying flat on his back on the floor. Tom curled up against him like a little kid, pushing his face into Chris’ shoulder and squeezing his middle. “Do you want me to--” he said.
“Yes,” Chris said before he could stop himself, and Tom slid down and Chris thought: this is the point of no return.
At least Tom gave pretty good head.
Just sit back and enjoy it Hemsworth. Just sit back and
Ugh, your writing is so good you're going to inspire me to write my own rpf about these two, when, just a week ago, I had absolutely no interest in even reading rpf featuring these two. You are ruining my life (please don't stop).
Oh my god. DO IT. DO IT. DO IT. DO IT. ALL THE AU RPF FOR THIS PAIRING. AHAHA. Also just a week ago I had no desire to ship them. I thought they looked nice together on screen, next to each other, etc, but then I met this crazy girl who I sort of adore completely and we started making elaborate AUs based on gifs. Please link me if you ever write RPF!
P & I are working on SPY/HITMAN AU AND something that's like a cross between this and this. :">
Nothing really changed after that, and they didn’t suddenly become boyfriends overnight, but in the days that followed there was a lot of kissing, accompanied by a handjob or a blowjob and once, even a lengthy discussion of whether they should move things to the bedroom or remain seated in the living room.
Sometimes, if Chris were lucky, Tom even took his shirt off and hooked a leg around his hip or smiled at him when he got home late and rubbed his back; and let Chris squeeze him into the couch and hug him tightly until Chris fell asleep on him, snoring, and Tom got overheated and squirmed and shoved him off. Sometimes.
But they remained strictly friends.
Chris didn’t question it, the way you just didn’t ask your parents why you looked nothing like them or why people waged war in the name of religion; nothing good would come out of it, only grief. It became imperative, somehow, not to feed the elephant in the room, to let it starve until it left them alone and bothered someone else. Give it a peanut, Chris thought, and something was bound to change. So he said nothing. He liked what they had.
He liked Tom coming up behind him, squeezing his shoulder, peering over to check on the status of Chris’ beef stew. He liked waking up midday to find Tom vacuuming the carpet while shouting the lines of the next play he was in. And he really really liked that shirt with the turtle drinking coffee, especially when it hit the floor.
---
But then Chris was invited to a pool party.
“It will be fun,” Tom insisted as he sat cross-legged on the floor and tried twisting himself into a pretzel. “There will be… a pool,” he finished after a second, curving his arm over his head to strike an acrobatic pose.
“I gathered,” Chris said dryly. He rubbed his cheek. He really needed to get to work, he thought, but all of his shirts were in the laundry and watching Tom do yoga seemed far more interesting than getting paid less than minimum wage. He watched for awhile and then remembered himself and grabbed his keys from the counter.
“Think about it!” Tom called after him. “Some of my friends actually want to meet you.”
“Only some?” laughed Chris and then it him like a ton of bricks. Tom’s friends wanted to meet him.
Chris thought and came to the conclusion that it probably wouldn’t hurt to make an appearance at Tom’s friend’s pool party. He hadn’t been to one of those in ages, and besides, it might present him with the golden opportunity to meet new people. Girls, maybe. He didn’t know what to expect so he dressed casually, did his hair in a messy tuft that looked indifferent enough to seem cool and wore a clean shirt that hugged all the right grooves.
Tom came bounding out of his room in a shirt with Al Pacino’s face on it and wearing a fishing hat askew on his head. He grinned and patted Chris on the arm. “Ready?” he said.
“Sure,” said Chris, touching the fishing hat gingerly.
Tom swatted his hand. “Don’t tell me; I look cool.”
“Cool is not a word I’d use.”
Tom laughed and swooped in and kissed him without preamble. He tasted sweet like the scones he just had for breakfast and he felt snug against Chris’ chest and warm, the smooth line of his stomach touching Chris’. Chris cupped the back of his neck and slipped him some tongue but then Tom was pulling away and shucking the hat off, tipping himself over to the side to prop the hat on the TV as Chris held onto his waist.
“Maybe we should skip the pool party,” Chris said, smoothing down the back of Tom’s shirt.
“And deny my friends the pleasure of meeting you? Ha!” Tom stepped back, shaking his head. “Not a chance.” He tapped Chris on the nose.
“Come on,” he said, waving Chris to the door.
Chris watched him disappear through it and felt himself smile. Then he stopped smiling abruptly and a feeling of prescient doom loomed over him. There was a knot in his throat that could not be unknot. He knew perfectly well why. He knew but didn’t want to admit it.
---
Tom’s friends were cool. Chris had met some of them before a few weeks ago when he was in a lion costume one size too small, but out of it, in his element, and clinking a few beers with them and laughing, he realized they were good people.
There was Alicia who’d known Tom for a year through mutual friends and almost dated him until she realized he batted for the other team; then David who actually lived in Chris’ neighborhood just a few blocks before the corner store. There was Angie and Christine, a couple on their way to adopt a baby, who’d been together since high school. There was Hank, Sam, Hank’s wife, Portia, their three kids, and Sam’s girlfriend Natalie, then Carlton, the guy who offered Tom a job that allowed him to move here.
And then there was Sven.
Chris didn’t like Sven; he was tall, taller than Chris even, and blond and spoke in accented English. He didn’t seem like the theater type; he looked more like an underwear model, and it made Chris feel on edge a little, and if he were honest with himself, insecure. He tried avoiding talking to Sven at all costs, ducking back in the living room, asking to be excused, pretending to pick up a call on his cellphone.
There was just something about him that didn’t sit right with Chris.
But Sven, because he was Sven, managed to corner Chris by the barbecue grill, sipping his beer and casually smiling down at him. Chris stiffened at first, forced himself to relax, and distracted himself by watching Tom flail his arms as he and a few others played charades by the pool. Tom was shimmying; Chris laughed without meaning to.
Next to him, Sven nodded his head. “Are you and Tom <i>ah</i> --”
Chris blinked and turned to him. “What? No.” He forced out a laugh. “No! We’re just flatmates; we’re just friends. He’s a really good guy.”
“You think he is so?” said Sven, sipping his beer, looking at Tom. “I think he is so too.”
“In what way?” asked Chris, not keeping his eyes off Tom who was crowing with laughter now, throwing back his head.
Tom turned just then and met Chris’ eye and Chris felt that familiar rush overcome him as Tom smiled and then glanced away. It was like a kick in the stomach, but a really good kick in the stomach, the kind that made you feel good to be alive.
“In what way?” Chris asked again distractedly before fixing a look at Sven. Sven continued to sip his beer and watch Tom in a way that made Chris feel instantly suspicious and annoyed.
“Oh, you know,” said Sven, winking. “I think he has a nice smile.”
Then he left.
Chris finished his beer in one long unsatisfying gulp.
---
It was Sven’s idea to start using the pool. He started taking his shirt off and everyone followed, including Tom who flung his t-shirt on the grass and bellyflopped into the water.
There was a loud splash when he dove in and Tom surfaced, curls plastered to the side of his face, gesturing for Chris to come join him, skin sleek and pale.
“Water’s good,” he said, grinning, wading towards where Chris sat on the edge, leaning his chin on his arms. “Come on, Chris.”
“Yeah, come on,” said Sven, clapping Tom on the back. He hovered too close for comfort.
Chris frowned. “I think I’ll pass,” he said, and gawked as Sven pulled Tom further into the water, challenging him to a swimming contest. That hand looked like it was dipping from Tom’s back to his ass.
Tom laughed, tipping his head and squeezing Sven’s shoulder.
Chris whipped out his phone and called Luke.
---
“This better be good,” grumbled Luke. “I’m about to beat someone on Legends of Wrestlemania. What is this time? Say it in five words or less or I’m hangin’ up.”
“No, the new one. The one who gave me the potted plant,” said Chris.
Luke made a noise of understanding. “<i>Oh</i>, the one with the bike and the weird hair. Yeah, what about him? Did you fuck him or something?”
“What? No.” Chris laughed, then rolled his eyes. “Okay, <i>yes, I did.</i> A few times. But that’s not important.”
“Dude,” said Luke. “<i>Dude</i>!”
Chris sighed. Luke would never understand, even if Chris tried to explain it to him and used flash cards, he would only continue making weird disapproving noises.
From his vantage point in the kitchen, Chris saw Tom climbing up from the pool, followed closely by a wet-chested Sven. They were heading towards him, laughing and jostling each other playfully. Sven’s naked arm was thrown casually over Tom’s naked shoulder.
Chris set his mouth in a grim line. Not cool, he thought. “Later,” he told Luke.
Tom sobered up from laughing and smiled at Chris when he found him standing there by the sink, his phone in his right hand, his arms loosely crossed. Tom pulled the fridge door open, poking his head in and reaching around the back for some beers.
“Hello, Chris,” greeted Sven, and Chris caught the way Sven stared at Tom’s ass appreciatively because he too was staring. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like Sven. Sven wasn’t good.
Finally, Tom poked his head out and handed both Sven and Chris a bottle each. He slid up to Chris’ side, skin wet and cool, glistening with a slight sheen, and shivered when Chris pressed close to him just because he could.
Sven raised an eyebrow but said nothing, tipping back his beer and leaning against the counter.
“You should come out with us,” Tom said, bumping into Chris’ side, grinning. “Swim.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“I just might,” Chris said, swallowing a mouthful of beer and shooting Sven a challenging look.
Sven scoffed as if to say: let the games begin.
<i>This guy is going down</i>, thought Chris.
---
Chris sprained his ankle. It just sort of happened while he was walking back from the pool, shorts dripping wet, about to grab more beers from the fridge and fuming a little because Sven and Tom had little inside jokes that set them off laughing and that Chris was not let in on.
He felt like a third wheel, and then realized with a start that he was the third wheel. Tom’s friends weren’t his people; he wasn’t part of their little well-read theater crowd who knew all the words to Sunset Boulevard and could recite Pablo Neruda in Spanish. He was just Tom’s roommate that he slept with on occasion and taught yoga to on Tuesday mornings and bought soggy takeout food for when he got home. He was just the guy Tom went to when he needed help unclogging the sink.
Chris’ foot inverted on his way to the kitchen; he put too much pressure on it and jolts of pain shot up his leg and he nearly careened into the sink.
Tom found him on the floor five minutes later, clutching his swollen ankle. It didn’t look good.
“Are you all right?” said Tom, kneeling next to him, still with no shirt on.
Chris tried to dredge up any remaining self-worth he still had and nodded valiantly. “Yeah, I just twisted it a little, I think.”
“Oh, Chris,” Tom said, sighing deeply and making faces at him. “Oh, Chris, you’ve sprained it.” He said it as if Chris were a little kid and Chris drew a picture of a telephone instead of turning in his homework.
Tom took a frozen pack of peas from the freezer and held it to Chris’ ankle, cupping Chris’ foot in his lap like a dying animal.
“I think I’ll just head home,” said Chris after a second, shifting a little.
Tom laughed, shaking his head. “How?” he asked quietly, rubbing Chris’ knee absentmindedly. “You’ve sprained your ankle. I mean, you’ve literally sprained your ankle. Doing nothing! It’s a feat. I’m very impressed.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he sniffed. “Shut up.”
Tom just smiled. “You’re silly, Chris. A Silly Billy.”
“That didn’t make sense,” snorted Chris.
“I know, I made it up just now.”
Chris snorted again. “I don’t like Sven,” he said after a moment, watching Tom rub the underside of his foot with the pad of his thumb.
“Why not? He’s great!” Tom glanced up at him, looking thoughtful. “I think he likes you.”
“He likes you,” said Chris.
“Yeah, I know.”
“What,” said Chris.
“What?”
“You know he likes you?” Chris blinked at him.
“Yeah, well, I’m not stupid. Or frigid. His hands have the tendency to wander.” Tom shrugged. “But he’s a good guy.”
Chris frowned. “Good guy or not, I don’t like him.”
“You don’t have to like him; he’s my friend.” Tom was laughing at him again.
Chris thumped the back of his head against the edge of the sink; he grit his teeth. He felt stupid and juvenile and about as eloquent as a teenager. Tom probably thought he was an idiot.
“I like you, Tom,” he said after a long pause. He kept his eyes shut so he didn’t have to see Tom’s face when he said it, but then Tom pinched him because he thought Chris was falling asleep and Chris yelped and moved his ankle and hit his head on sloped edge of the counter.
“Okay,” Tom said slowly after Chris had calmed down, rubbing his head. “I like you too. What’s the problem?”
“No,” Chris sighed, aggravated. “You don’t get it. I like you-like you.”
“Oh.” Tom raised both his eyebrows; his eyes widened a few seconds later. “Ohh.”
Chris nodded. It was like explaining geometry to a gazelle.
“I still don’t see what the problem is,” said Tom, blinking. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Chris threw his arms up in exasperation. “Everything! We’re supposed to be flatmates, Tom, nothing more. It wasn’t a sex ad I posted in the paper. It was an ad for a flatmate. A flatmate. We shouldn’t be having sex!”
“So you don’t want to be having sex,” said Tom, nodding slowly.
“No, I do, I love it. I want to have sex.”
“But with other people?” Tom asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No, just with you,” Chris said, exasperated. And then he shut up. Tom was grinning at him, eyes crinkled in the corners, that clever little mouth of his twisting up.
“I’m not going to sleep with Sven,” Tom said, reaching over carefully to flick him in the chin. “If that’s what you’re worried about anyway; I won’t be sleeping with anyone unless, I dunno. And also, Sven is like seven feet tall, can you imagine how big the cock on that man would be, I mean, probably ponderously massive like a --”
He laughed at Chris’ face.
“Not funny,” said Chris, but accepted the kiss Tom pressed to his upturned palm. “I hate you sometimes.”
“I know,” said Tom, checking Chris’ swollen ankle. He made contemplative noises as he patted Chris on the shin.
“You think you can get up now so we can move you to the living room?”
Chris shrugged.
“On three,” said Tom, hooking an arm around his back. “One, two, three.”
---
Tom bought Chris a potted cactus the next month. He placed it on the kitchen table where Chris would see it and remember to care for it. It didn’t need a lot of watering, but it needed a bit of sunlight so every now and then Chris would see the cactus move from the window to the living room to the bathroom to the sink, wherever there was a spot of sunshine.
The month after that Tom started sleeping in Chris’ tiny double bed where he would wake Chris up whenever he had a weird dream by standing over him for a long time, clutching a glass of water, waiting for Chris to notice his presence. Method acting, he said. It was for a role.
The month after that Tom grew a mustache because he was in a play that required him to look rugged. He was doing Henry IV. Or V, Chris kept mixing them up. All he knew was that Tom got to ride a fake horse and wield a sword.
“You look like a pedophile,” Chris told Tom, cupping his jaw, fingering the scratchy fuzz of hair.
“I’m an actor,” said Tom as if that explained everything. He clambered up Chris’ lap and the bed squeaked under their combined weight. He really needed to invest in a new bed, Chris thought, one that could withstand the near-constant back-breaking abuse.
Tom pressed his lips to Chris’ cheek. His beard tickled a little, made Chris feel like sneezing sometimes, and though he was kind of getting used to it, he wouldn’t exactly lament its loss. He kissed Tom back, curled out his tongue for him and Tom hummed, leaning all the way down, their stomachs rubbing together as Tom smiled.
Chris hiked up the back of Tom’s shirt and pressed a hand down the dip of his hip.
Tom purred. “Can I practice my lines with you?”
“Now?” said Chris, sitting up. “You want to do that now?”
Neither of them had any pants on. Tom shrugged. Then, shoving Chris down, straddled his thigh and pushed up his hips.
“All right, all right,” Tom acquiesced as he mounted Chris with a grunt, body moulding to Chris’ shape. His body stiffened, then shuddered, then clutched tight at Chris’ cock and made his blood surge in the back of his eyes.
“Maybe later,” he said and started a gentle rocking motion that made Chris grab his hips tightly and want to flip them over.
Tom laughed and, taking pity on him, began riding him in earnest, gasping and panting like a fiend.
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FLATMATES AU
The guy’s name was Tom. He wasn’t the first one to inquire about the ad, but he was the only one with a coffee maker, and he seemed like an all right guy at first with his bike helmet and his beat-up leather satchel; he wore ankle socks with his floppy rubber sandals that went schlip schlip whenever he walked and Chris thought, man, he could do better but whatever, he was strapped for cash.
Tom stayed for coffee for about an hour after Chris showed him the rest of the flat and gave the dryer a solid kick that would miraculously, though Chris would realize this much later on maybe three months down the road, get it working again. He wasn’t what Chris expected in a flatmate, but he paid twice the initial deposit and didn’t mind that the room he’d be renting had a direct view of the neighbor’s swimming pool.
Tom said he’d just moved in from London. A friend of his offered him a sweet gig at this little drama school that he owned in Brisbane and Tom took it and had been sleeping in friends’ couches ever since. He said he had just graduated university six months ago and originally wanted to go traveling, saving marine mammals on top of doing volunteer work for the VSO, but the lure of the outback was strong, and Australia was the farthest he could go without learning a new language on top of the four he already knew.
There were others things too that Chris should not have turned a blind eye on that first time they met, like how Tom casually mentioned he was a student of life, and how he sometimes went method if you knew what he meant, but Chris had chalked it up to some sort of internal quirk of his, like how sometimes some people had verbal tics or made their own clothes to wear or left the peanuts in m&ms alone.
Chris shook Tom’s hand by the door and said, “You can move in this weekend,” and pocketed his money and thought: what could possibly go wrong.
He learned the answer to that soon enough.
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“You suck!” he said and hit the back of Chris’ head with a throw pillow. Jesus, Chris thought. He honestly had no idea how they were even related.
Chris answered the door. Tom stood there in his floppy sandals with five boxes of stuff at his feet, waving goodbye at a pickup truck that was driving off. “See you later, Pablo!” he said, smiling.
“Hey,” Chris said. “You’re here.”
“You did say next weekend,” said Tom, ruffling the top of his hair. He had these curls that bobbed along with him whenever he moved and Chris, who thought that was funny, found himself smiling a little.
“Need a help with those--”
“Oh, yes, definitely. That would be lovely, thanks,” said Tom, and Chris picked up a box which was heavier than an elephant and shouted at Luke to come to the door.
“What,” hissed Luke, rolling his eyes. He was such a teenager sometimes. He glanced at Tom.
“Oh, right. You must be the flatmate. I’m Luke; Chris’ brother. I hope he doesn’t scare you off like he did the last two guys. Did he ever mention he hates sharing food?”
Chris thumped him in the stomach to shut him up. “Help me carry these,” he said, and Luke did, but not without some muttering first. When it was all done, Luke left them alone, clomping his feet down the hall and calling for pizza. He asked if Tom was one of those vegan types and Tom laughed and said no but his sister was.
“Great!” Luke said, yelling from the kitchen. “Cause I’m getting the monster meat combo.”
“Sorry about my brother,” said Chris, embarrassed, kicking the door shut behind him to cut Luke out of the conversation. The room was tiny, a daybed in the corner next to the window and a rickety closet that would hardly fit anything but a few pair of jeans.
“So, welcome,” Chris said and smiled awkwardly, hands on his hips. He turned to leave but Tom sprang forward and caught his arm.
“Wait!” he said. Tom went digging through one of the boxes and pulled out a potted a plant. He brushed dust off it first and handed it over to Chris who looked at it speculatively and blinked. Twice.
“For me?”
Tom nodded vigorously. “Yeah. I mean, I thought I’d buy you a little present, seeing as we’ll be living together for awhile. A gesture of goodwill.”
“Thanks,” Chris said, rubbing his neck. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I didn’t get you anything though.”
Tom waved his hand. “It’s no problem at all.”
“Yeah,” said Chris. “Um, thanks again.”
Tom grinned.
“I better check on my brother,” Chris said, and left him to unpack. He put the potted plant on the nightstand next to his lamp and alarm clock, on top of a stack of Rolling Stones Greatest Hits CDs, where he would forget to water it for the next two, maybe three weeks.
---
Tom wasn’t a terrible flatmate, not in the first two weeks at least. He may have hung up a lot of movie posters on his wall and played a lot of Bob Dylan at night but he left Chris alone and touched none of his stuff, and he was courteous and polite and didn’t bother Chris unless he absolutely had to.
He wasn’t part of a cult like Jimmy, Chris’ last roommate, and he didn’t bring strippers home like Brian, who’d been Chris’ roommate for the better part of the year. He made breakfast sometimes for the both of them before he left for work at eight in the morning, hoisting his satchel over his shoulder and mounting his bike, giving Chris a two-fingered salute before heading off.
Tom often came home with helmet hair, his overzealous curls an untamable puff around his head like wire brush. Chris thought it was kind of cute, but in the way people thought a baby bird was cute; you had to make certain allowances.
Still, Tom was the best flatmate Chris has ever had in a long time. He almost seemed too good to be true.
---
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Two things happened in April that year that had Chris reevaluating his life choices: first, he starred as a lion in a play for children, and second, he sprained his ankle at a pool party.
The lion thing happened as a result of Tom’s weirdness.
“Chris, I need your help!” he said on the phone, the day Chris was getting his driver’s permit.
Chris contemplated hanging up on him but then remembered it was Tom’s turn to cook dinner that night. He was making chicken tikka masala, he said, and because the universe was an unfair place, Tom was, on top of being a licensed scuba diver, also a good cook.
If Chris were honest with himself though, Tom was good at everything: knowing what type of wine to pair with a meal, for example, or charming the pants off the grumpiest of neighbors, even, of all things, dancing he excelled at. He was very easy to hate and yet. Chris didn’t know. He liked Tom.
Chris had caught him once, dancing in the laundry room with his head phones on, his shirt hiked up to his belly, his boxers dragged down low around his hips.
If his moves were anything to go by, he was listening to some techno, or at the very least trying to mimic the movements of a very panicked chicken. Chris had watched him for awhile, like some weird pervert, through the crack in the door, before sneaking off guiltily before he was caught or started touching himself.
“Chris,” Tom said. “Are you there?”
“Yeah,” said Chris, shaking himself out of his thoughts. He took out the cereal box from the cupboard.
“I need you to do something for me.”
Chris didn’t like the sound of that. He’d been there before. No more, he thought. But who was he kidding? He sighed; then after a long moment said, “What is it?”
Tom exhaled a trembling breath. Chris could practically see him: smiling in relief and running his fingers through his springy curls. Chris remembered he wore his famous blue shirt that morning, the one with a picture of a turtle drinking coffee that Chris thought was hilarious.
“We’re doing this play for the kids at the community hospital,” said Tom, voice high and squeaky with stress, “And my friend called in sick and I need someone to fill in for him. Can you do that?”
“I can’t act in a play,” Chris said.
“I know, I know,” Tom sighed. “But I couldn’t think of anyone else. We need someone big, sort of menacing--”
“You think I’m menacing?”
“--And I thought, who better to play a lion than my good friend Chris.”
“What?” said Chris. “A lion?”
“We’re doing this Bible story because it’s almost Easter. Daniel and the Lion, have you heard of that? We just need you in a lion costume that’s all. You have three lines. Three, Chris. Please?”
Chris stared at his phone.
“It’s for the children,” Tom said. “Think of the children, Chris.”
Chris shook his head at himself. This was going to bite him in the ass, he was sure.
“Are you there?” said Tom. “Hello?”
“Three lines,” Chris said. “You swear.”
---
His three lines were cut out because Chris couldn’t say them while keeping a straight face; instead they had him roaring at the top of his lungs which was even more embarrassing than shouting: I will tear you apart with my teeth little boy to a tunic-clad Tom who knelt down in front of him and lifted his hands periodically to pray to the heavens.
You could see nipple in that tunic, Chris thought. How was that appropriate?
That wasn’t the worst part though. The worst part was Chris had to wear a lion costume that hugged him in all the wrong places and smelled like stale body odor. It kept him sneezing for the remainder of the night and by the time the play had finished its second run, he was crabby and unapologetic.
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Chris sniffed before dunking the wad of tissue into a nearby bin. “Sure,” he said, noncommittal. He didn’t want to lose his temper, not in front of Tom who kept squeezing his arm backstage and grinning at him, telling him what a great lion he would be. The play had been a modest success; the kids gasped at all the appropriate moments and a few even asked to have their pictures taken with Chris.
Tom laughed, patting Chris on the bicep.
“Thanks,” Tom said quietly after a moment, ducking his head a little, looking, for the first time since Chris had met him, shy. “For doing this. For me,” he said meaningfully.
Chris shrugged, swallowing a strange lump in his throat. He felt his neck prickle.
“It’s nothing,” he said and sneezed.
“It’s not nothing,” Tom said. “This was like... a test of friendship and you passed!”
“I wasn’t aware there had to be tests,” said Chris, making a face.
Tom just smiled widely at him before laughing again. “I was joking, Chris. Come on.” He curled an arm around Chris’ shoulder, squeezing him gently. “I’ll make you that chicken tikka masala that you’re so fond of and we’ll drink some beers.”
“Beers,” Chris repeated, huffing out a laugh. “Oh this will be good.”
---
There weren’t enough ingredients in the kitchen for chicken tikka masala, it turned out, so they ordered pizza instead and knocked back a few beers.
Chris’s mood improved somewhat and he showered, made coffee for himself and read the sports section of this morning’s paper, then was about to head back to his room when he saw Tom was still there, sprawled out on the couch watching television, one long lean leg thrown over the side of the couch.
He looked up when he saw Chris. “Hey,” he said, smiling a little. He set the TV on mute.
“Can’t sleep?” said Chris, watching Tom’s fingers touch the frayed hem of his drama school t-shirt. Tom tugged idly on a piece of thread that was sticking out.
“Why are you drinking coffee at...” Tom twisted sideways and grabbed his phone from the coffee table. “One in the morning?”
“Decaf,” replied Chris, shrugging.
“Mm,” Tom said, blinking dreamily. He scratched his stomach, the movement lifting his shirt a little. Chris thought the skin there looked smooth and wondered if the rest of Tom’s body was the same.
“You know what helps me sleep?” Tom said after a second, sitting up and folding his legs together. He held up a finger.
“What?” said Chris even though he didn’t feel like knowing. Most probably Tom would say something like dolphin noises or French opera music. Chris didn’t want to sit through half an hour of that again; the stuff made him irritable.
“Wait here,” Tom said and disappeared into his room with thudding footsteps. Chris continued to sip his coffee and Tom emerged a minute later with a ziploc bag full of what appeared to be hand rolled cigarettes. He jiggled the bag a few times, practically shaking with excitement. Even his hair bounced along as if his body couldn’t take all this enthusiasm he was harboring and had to burst through somewhere.
“I don’t smoke,” Chris told him after a second.
The corners of Tom’s lips twitched. “These aren’t cigarettes, Chris.”
“Oh,” said Chris when it hit him. “Those are--”
“Yeap,” grinned Tom. “Do you have a lighter?”
“Yeah,” Chris said and went to fetch it.
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No filthy thoughts though, just the usual boring stuff like: why does he have to do yoga in the living room every morning or will he ever stop drinking my milk? Once Chris even thought: that was a funny joke he said today and he wore really nice pants. But he wasn’t someone to be trusted. He was wily, that Tom. Wily and touchy. Who knew what they’d end up doing if they got high together?
And sure, Tom was cute and everything and had good taste in movies, but that didn’t mean Chris was going to sleep with him when the first opportunity presented itself.
There were some things you just didn’t do like run over children or look at naked photos of people you knew in grade school. It was a breach of some sort of moral code. Chris was just not going to sleep with him.
No matter how tight Tom’s pants were or how close they sat together on the couch, the sides of their bare legs rubbing. No matter how many times Chris would accidentally walk in on him peeing in the bathroom in the morning or dancing when he thought no one was looking. Chris was going to put his foot down on this one. He didn’t want to fuck up a good thing.
Tom handed him the ziploc bag, jiggling its contents. “Have another one,” he said. “Your whole outlook on life could improve.”
The way Tom held his joint -- his hand curved like a pro, whistling smoke through his teeth -- made it look like an art form. Chris sat there staring, his eyes going watery from the smoke.
“Okay,” he said, and blinked. He took a deep puff and instantly felt weightless and loose-limbed.
“You’re funny,” Tom said. “I like you, Chris.”
“I like you too,” Chris said. “You’re really really really really really hot.”
The corners of Tom’s eyes crinkled as he laughed. “No, you’re hot,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m told,” Chris said. “I get that a lot.”
“That’s because you are,” said Tom.
“What?”
Tom said nothing. Then he was lying down on the carpet, crossing his legs and uncrossing them, his raggedy shorts bunching down and around his thighs. They were really pale thighs, Chris thought, and they were covered in a thin layer of fine blond hair. Chris wanted to touch them; mostly he wanted to lick them to see what Tom’s skin tasted like.
Instead, Chris cupped Tom’s knee and Tom bounced his knee off Chris’ palm. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he said.
Chris shrugged. He put his joint away and leaned over Tom. Now Tom was smiling. It wasn’t a smile Chris was used to; soft around the edges but smug. Like he’d been waiting for this for a long time.
Chris eased himself on top of him, bracing his arms on either side of Tom’s face. Tom lifted a hand -- the one with the joint -- and twined his fingers through Chris’ hair. He was the first one to kiss, leaning up on his elbows and pressing his wet mouth to Chris’. Then he exhaled sharply and lay back down, watching Chris’ face shift before kissing him again. He slid his tongue inside Chris’ mouth and made a pleased noise in his throat when Chris began kissing back, maneuvering himself between Tom’s knees and cupping his jaw.
“Wait,” said Tom, pulling away abruptly. “Let me--” He took a deep puff of his joint, stubbed it on a nearby ashtray and took Chris by the neck, yanking his ears. When he exhaled, Chris breathed it in, pulling it deep in his lungs before kissing Tom again. The hair on his neck stood on end when Tom pressed his nose to the side of his face.
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Tom thrust against his hand. “That feels good,” he panted. “Chris.”
“Yeah?”
“Chris,” said Tom again, bucking his hips. His shirt was riding up again, exposing the smooth path of his ribs.
Tom’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment and then he grabbed Chris’ wrist and then he was arching his back and coming with a noisy gasp, his mouth open, his body shuddering until he came down from his high.
Chris rolled off him afterward, lying flat on his back on the floor. Tom curled up against him like a little kid, pushing his face into Chris’ shoulder and squeezing his middle. “Do you want me to--” he said.
“Yes,” Chris said before he could stop himself, and Tom slid down and Chris thought: this is the point of no return.
At least Tom gave pretty good head.
Just sit back and enjoy it Hemsworth. Just sit back and
“Fuck,” Chris said and came.
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P & I are working on SPY/HITMAN AU AND something that's like a cross between this and this. :">
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Oh yes, he is. And I think, Chris, you are in deep trouble, but somehow I can't feel really sorry for you.
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Sometimes, if Chris were lucky, Tom even took his shirt off and hooked a leg around his hip or smiled at him when he got home late and rubbed his back; and let Chris squeeze him into the couch and hug him tightly until Chris fell asleep on him, snoring, and Tom got overheated and squirmed and shoved him off. Sometimes.
But they remained strictly friends.
Chris didn’t question it, the way you just didn’t ask your parents why you looked nothing like them or why people waged war in the name of religion; nothing good would come out of it, only grief. It became imperative, somehow, not to feed the elephant in the room, to let it starve until it left them alone and bothered someone else. Give it a peanut, Chris thought, and something was bound to change. So he said nothing. He liked what they had.
He liked Tom coming up behind him, squeezing his shoulder, peering over to check on the status of Chris’ beef stew. He liked waking up midday to find Tom vacuuming the carpet while shouting the lines of the next play he was in. And he really really liked that shirt with the turtle drinking coffee, especially when it hit the floor.
---
But then Chris was invited to a pool party.
“It will be fun,” Tom insisted as he sat cross-legged on the floor and tried twisting himself into a pretzel. “There will be… a pool,” he finished after a second, curving his arm over his head to strike an acrobatic pose.
“I gathered,” Chris said dryly. He rubbed his cheek. He really needed to get to work, he thought, but all of his shirts were in the laundry and watching Tom do yoga seemed far more interesting than getting paid less than minimum wage. He watched for awhile and then remembered himself and grabbed his keys from the counter.
“Think about it!” Tom called after him. “Some of my friends actually want to meet you.”
“Only some?” laughed Chris and then it him like a ton of bricks. Tom’s friends wanted to meet him.
What did that even mean?
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Tom came bounding out of his room in a shirt with Al Pacino’s face on it and wearing a fishing hat askew on his head. He grinned and patted Chris on the arm. “Ready?” he said.
“Sure,” said Chris, touching the fishing hat gingerly.
Tom swatted his hand. “Don’t tell me; I look cool.”
“Cool is not a word I’d use.”
Tom laughed and swooped in and kissed him without preamble. He tasted sweet like the scones he just had for breakfast and he felt snug against Chris’ chest and warm, the smooth line of his stomach touching Chris’. Chris cupped the back of his neck and slipped him some tongue but then Tom was pulling away and shucking the hat off, tipping himself over to the side to prop the hat on the TV as Chris held onto his waist.
“Maybe we should skip the pool party,” Chris said, smoothing down the back of Tom’s shirt.
“And deny my friends the pleasure of meeting you? Ha!” Tom stepped back, shaking his head. “Not a chance.” He tapped Chris on the nose.
“Come on,” he said, waving Chris to the door.
Chris watched him disappear through it and felt himself smile. Then he stopped smiling abruptly and a feeling of prescient doom loomed over him. There was a knot in his throat that could not be unknot. He knew perfectly well why. He knew but didn’t want to admit it.
---
Tom’s friends were cool. Chris had met some of them before a few weeks ago when he was in a lion costume one size too small, but out of it, in his element, and clinking a few beers with them and laughing, he realized they were good people.
There was Alicia who’d known Tom for a year through mutual friends and almost dated him until she realized he batted for the other team; then David who actually lived in Chris’ neighborhood just a few blocks before the corner store. There was Angie and Christine, a couple on their way to adopt a baby, who’d been together since high school. There was Hank, Sam, Hank’s wife, Portia, their three kids, and Sam’s girlfriend Natalie, then Carlton, the guy who offered Tom a job that allowed him to move here.
And then there was Sven.
Chris didn’t like Sven; he was tall, taller than Chris even, and blond and spoke in accented English. He didn’t seem like the theater type; he looked more like an underwear model, and it made Chris feel on edge a little, and if he were honest with himself, insecure. He tried avoiding talking to Sven at all costs, ducking back in the living room, asking to be excused, pretending to pick up a call on his cellphone.
There was just something about him that didn’t sit right with Chris.
But Sven, because he was Sven, managed to corner Chris by the barbecue grill, sipping his beer and casually smiling down at him. Chris stiffened at first, forced himself to relax, and distracted himself by watching Tom flail his arms as he and a few others played charades by the pool. Tom was shimmying; Chris laughed without meaning to.
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Chris blinked and turned to him. “What? No.” He forced out a laugh. “No! We’re just flatmates; we’re just friends. He’s a really good guy.”
“You think he is so?” said Sven, sipping his beer, looking at Tom. “I think he is so too.”
“In what way?” asked Chris, not keeping his eyes off Tom who was crowing with laughter now, throwing back his head.
Tom turned just then and met Chris’ eye and Chris felt that familiar rush overcome him as Tom smiled and then glanced away. It was like a kick in the stomach, but a really good kick in the stomach, the kind that made you feel good to be alive.
“In what way?” Chris asked again distractedly before fixing a look at Sven. Sven continued to sip his beer and watch Tom in a way that made Chris feel instantly suspicious and annoyed.
“Oh, you know,” said Sven, winking. “I think he has a nice smile.”
Then he left.
Chris finished his beer in one long unsatisfying gulp.
---
It was Sven’s idea to start using the pool. He started taking his shirt off and everyone followed, including Tom who flung his t-shirt on the grass and bellyflopped into the water.
There was a loud splash when he dove in and Tom surfaced, curls plastered to the side of his face, gesturing for Chris to come join him, skin sleek and pale.
“Water’s good,” he said, grinning, wading towards where Chris sat on the edge, leaning his chin on his arms. “Come on, Chris.”
“Yeah, come on,” said Sven, clapping Tom on the back. He hovered too close for comfort.
Chris frowned. “I think I’ll pass,” he said, and gawked as Sven pulled Tom further into the water, challenging him to a swimming contest. That hand looked like it was dipping from Tom’s back to his ass.
Tom laughed, tipping his head and squeezing Sven’s shoulder.
Chris whipped out his phone and called Luke.
---
“This better be good,” grumbled Luke. “I’m about to beat someone on Legends of Wrestlemania. What is this time? Say it in five words or less or I’m hangin’ up.”
“Luke,” hissed Chris. “Remember Tom, my flatmate?”
“The one in the cult?”
“No, the new one. The one who gave me the potted plant,” said Chris.
Luke made a noise of understanding. “<i>Oh</i>, the one with the bike and the weird hair. Yeah, what about him? Did you fuck him or something?”
“What? No.” Chris laughed, then rolled his eyes. “Okay, <i>yes, I did.</i> A few times. But that’s not important.”
“Dude,” said Luke. “<i>Dude</i>!”
Chris sighed. Luke would never understand, even if Chris tried to explain it to him and used flash cards, he would only continue making weird disapproving noises.
From his vantage point in the kitchen, Chris saw Tom climbing up from the pool, followed closely by a wet-chested Sven. They were heading towards him, laughing and jostling each other playfully. Sven’s naked arm was thrown casually over Tom’s naked shoulder.
Chris set his mouth in a grim line. Not cool, he thought. “Later,” he told Luke.
“What,” Luke said before he was cut off.
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“Hello, Chris,” greeted Sven, and Chris caught the way Sven stared at Tom’s ass appreciatively because he too was staring. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like Sven. Sven wasn’t good.
Finally, Tom poked his head out and handed both Sven and Chris a bottle each. He slid up to Chris’ side, skin wet and cool, glistening with a slight sheen, and shivered when Chris pressed close to him just because he could.
Sven raised an eyebrow but said nothing, tipping back his beer and leaning against the counter.
“You should come out with us,” Tom said, bumping into Chris’ side, grinning. “Swim.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“I just might,” Chris said, swallowing a mouthful of beer and shooting Sven a challenging look.
Sven scoffed as if to say: let the games begin.
<i>This guy is going down</i>, thought Chris.
---
Chris sprained his ankle. It just sort of happened while he was walking back from the pool, shorts dripping wet, about to grab more beers from the fridge and fuming a little because Sven and Tom had little inside jokes that set them off laughing and that Chris was not let in on.
He felt like a third wheel, and then realized with a start that he was the third wheel. Tom’s friends weren’t his people; he wasn’t part of their little well-read theater crowd who knew all the words to Sunset Boulevard and could recite Pablo Neruda in Spanish. He was just Tom’s roommate that he slept with on occasion and taught yoga to on Tuesday mornings and bought soggy takeout food for when he got home. He was just the guy Tom went to when he needed help unclogging the sink.
Chris’ foot inverted on his way to the kitchen; he put too much pressure on it and jolts of pain shot up his leg and he nearly careened into the sink.
Tom found him on the floor five minutes later, clutching his swollen ankle. It didn’t look good.
“Are you all right?” said Tom, kneeling next to him, still with no shirt on.
Chris tried to dredge up any remaining self-worth he still had and nodded valiantly. “Yeah, I just twisted it a little, I think.”
“Oh, Chris,” Tom said, sighing deeply and making faces at him. “Oh, Chris, you’ve sprained it.” He said it as if Chris were a little kid and Chris drew a picture of a telephone instead of turning in his homework.
Tom took a frozen pack of peas from the freezer and held it to Chris’ ankle, cupping Chris’ foot in his lap like a dying animal.
“I think I’ll just head home,” said Chris after a second, shifting a little.
Tom laughed, shaking his head. “How?” he asked quietly, rubbing Chris’ knee absentmindedly. “You’ve sprained your ankle. I mean, you’ve literally sprained your ankle. Doing nothing! It’s a feat. I’m very impressed.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he sniffed. “Shut up.”
Tom just smiled. “You’re silly, Chris. A Silly Billy.”
“That didn’t make sense,” snorted Chris.
“I know, I made it up just now.”
Chris snorted again. “I don’t like Sven,” he said after a moment, watching Tom rub the underside of his foot with the pad of his thumb.
“Why not? He’s great!” Tom glanced up at him, looking thoughtful. “I think he likes you.”
“He likes you,” said Chris.
“Yeah, I know.”
“What,” said Chris.
“What?”
“You know he likes you?” Chris blinked at him.
“Yeah, well, I’m not stupid. Or frigid. His hands have the tendency to wander.” Tom shrugged. “But he’s a good guy.”
Chris frowned. “Good guy or not, I don’t like him.”
“You don’t have to like him; he’s my friend.” Tom was laughing at him again.
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“I like you, Tom,” he said after a long pause. He kept his eyes shut so he didn’t have to see Tom’s face when he said it, but then Tom pinched him because he thought Chris was falling asleep and Chris yelped and moved his ankle and hit his head on sloped edge of the counter.
“Okay,” Tom said slowly after Chris had calmed down, rubbing his head. “I like you too. What’s the problem?”
“No,” Chris sighed, aggravated. “You don’t get it. I like you-like you.”
“Oh.” Tom raised both his eyebrows; his eyes widened a few seconds later. “Ohh.”
Chris nodded. It was like explaining geometry to a gazelle.
“I still don’t see what the problem is,” said Tom, blinking. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Chris threw his arms up in exasperation. “Everything! We’re supposed to be flatmates, Tom, nothing more. It wasn’t a sex ad I posted in the paper. It was an ad for a flatmate. A flatmate. We shouldn’t be having sex!”
“So you don’t want to be having sex,” said Tom, nodding slowly.
“No, I do, I love it. I want to have sex.”
“But with other people?” Tom asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No, just with you,” Chris said, exasperated. And then he shut up. Tom was grinning at him, eyes crinkled in the corners, that clever little mouth of his twisting up.
“I’m not going to sleep with Sven,” Tom said, reaching over carefully to flick him in the chin. “If that’s what you’re worried about anyway; I won’t be sleeping with anyone unless, I dunno. And also, Sven is like seven feet tall, can you imagine how big the cock on that man would be, I mean, probably ponderously massive like a --”
He laughed at Chris’ face.
“Not funny,” said Chris, but accepted the kiss Tom pressed to his upturned palm. “I hate you sometimes.”
“I know,” said Tom, checking Chris’ swollen ankle. He made contemplative noises as he patted Chris on the shin.
“You think you can get up now so we can move you to the living room?”
Chris shrugged.
“On three,” said Tom, hooking an arm around his back. “One, two, three.”
---
Tom bought Chris a potted cactus the next month. He placed it on the kitchen table where Chris would see it and remember to care for it. It didn’t need a lot of watering, but it needed a bit of sunlight so every now and then Chris would see the cactus move from the window to the living room to the bathroom to the sink, wherever there was a spot of sunshine.
The month after that Tom started sleeping in Chris’ tiny double bed where he would wake Chris up whenever he had a weird dream by standing over him for a long time, clutching a glass of water, waiting for Chris to notice his presence. Method acting, he said. It was for a role.
The month after that Tom grew a mustache because he was in a play that required him to look rugged. He was doing Henry IV. Or V, Chris kept mixing them up. All he knew was that Tom got to ride a fake horse and wield a sword.
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“I’m an actor,” said Tom as if that explained everything. He clambered up Chris’ lap and the bed squeaked under their combined weight. He really needed to invest in a new bed, Chris thought, one that could withstand the near-constant back-breaking abuse.
Tom pressed his lips to Chris’ cheek. His beard tickled a little, made Chris feel like sneezing sometimes, and though he was kind of getting used to it, he wouldn’t exactly lament its loss. He kissed Tom back, curled out his tongue for him and Tom hummed, leaning all the way down, their stomachs rubbing together as Tom smiled.
Chris hiked up the back of Tom’s shirt and pressed a hand down the dip of his hip.
Tom purred. “Can I practice my lines with you?”
“Now?” said Chris, sitting up. “You want to do that now?”
Neither of them had any pants on. Tom shrugged. Then, shoving Chris down, straddled his thigh and pushed up his hips.
“All right, all right,” Tom acquiesced as he mounted Chris with a grunt, body moulding to Chris’ shape. His body stiffened, then shuddered, then clutched tight at Chris’ cock and made his blood surge in the back of his eyes.
“Maybe later,” he said and started a gentle rocking motion that made Chris grab his hips tightly and want to flip them over.
Tom laughed and, taking pity on him, began riding him in earnest, gasping and panting like a fiend.
The bed creaked in protest.
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