fic: yeah, you come to mind (andrew/jesse, rpf, r, 8000 words)
I don't understand why writing TSN fic causes me so much physical discomfort (ie arm/wrist pain, sobbing) but I do it anyway because I love this fandom. Written in response to a prompt on the tsn_kinkmeme. Fiction with some random facts thrown in! Title from a French Kicks' song called "The Trial of the Century". Listen to the song after/before/while reading this. Not for atmosphere, it's really just good song, lmao. All mistakes are mine as usual. WITH APPEARANCES BY JUSTIN BARTHA, NOT TIMBERLAKE!
summary: "...filming the rest of The Amazing Spider-Man has officially moved to New York until mid-May, and we all know who lives in New York...anything to do with their proximity: Jesse visiting Andrew on-set, inviting Andrew to stay in his apartment, being turned on by the sight of Andrew in the spidey-suit, making out and hurried sex in Andrew's trailer, etc."
Andrew called one day to say that he was coming over. Which was weird at first, Jesse thought, because he distinctly remembered Andrew was in LA, filming Spiderman. It was his dream or something, to prance around in a skintight suit pretending he was a superhero, a white knight that saved people in burning buildings.
Jesse sat there in his living room with a bowl of soggy cereal in his lap, listening to Andrew’s excited breathing on the phone. The last time they saw each other was a month and a half ago at the Oscars. If he were honest with himself, he’d admit he missed the company, missed Andrew, and that month in Boston that they spent doing all sorts of crazy stuff, but mostly he just missed Andrew and the comforting, friendly weight of his arm curled around Jesse’s shoulder.
“Tell me where you live,” Andrew said again.
Jesse stared down his cat, Dylan, an overweight tabby cat with round grey eyes and a bad temper. He rolled his head around the back of the couch and pictured Andrew in his living room, sitting in the stuffed armchair facing him with his feet up the coffee table.
“Fine,” he said, sighing, shooing Dylan off the coffee table. “You better write this down quickly because I’m not saying it again even if you beg me to.”
=
The problem with living in New York was that most apartments were tiny and cramped and expensive. There was always no parking space, was what Jesse learned in his first year there. Sometimes he missed living in New Jersey where, although nothing particularly stellar happened most of the time, he had fond memories of growing up.
Jesse’s whole high school experience made him hate life and people in general but he’d recall how his mom used to weed the flowerbeds when he was a lot younger. She’d let him watch sometimes and he would sit with his back facing the screen door, sipping on soda. He used to wear oversized t-shirts and cargo shorts and shoes that lit up when you walked in them, and those clunky calculator wristwatches that were all the rage back in the day.
Jesse kind of missed it, sometimes, middle class suburbia and the luxury of a backyard that didn’t peer right into your neighbor’s window. He liked his apartment well enough but he had all these cats and they took up so much space, and he loved all of them, he really did, but sometimes taking care of all eight of them felt like such a chore. And with Andrew coming over in a few days, Jesse just couldn’t bring himself to clean. His apartment was a strange mixture of cheap furniture and random things he’d picked up while traveling. His sister told him, once, after she’d helped him move in three years ago, that he had no sense of taste. None of his furniture matched.
Andrew probably wasn’t the type of person who minded that kind of thing but Jesse worried anyway.
=
Andrew showed up on a Tuesday, around lunchtime, with a potted cactus and a beanie. He wore the beanie with a hideous plaid shirt. He had a collection of them, it seemed. In Boston he wore them in various styles and colors, buttoned up, buttoned down, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the sleeved rolled down, sometimes he even wore suspenders with them. He was a stylish guy. Whereas Jesse threw whatever was available and smelled clean and worried about public appearances later.
“Hi,” Andrew said. “I know I said I’d come tomorrow, but I had the afternoon off, so. Hi.” He was grinning. Andrew had such a nice hi, like he was really glad to see you after a long day at work.
“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Hey.”
He let him inside and took the potted plant to the kitchen because he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. Jesse had nothing edible in the fridge but crackers and powdered orange juice that couldn’t even be stretched with fizzy water.
“Do you want to go out and grab something to eat?” Jesse asked, turning around from the fridge. Andrew had followed him from the living room and was standing behind the counter, leaning forward on his arms. He seemed genuinely happy to be there, which was really strange, Jesse thought, because he’d be the first one.
“No, I’m good. Unless you’re hungry and you want to? I mean, we could. But. It’s fine.”
“I don’t even have soda or anything,” Jesse said. “All I have is catnip.”
“Thanks,” Andrew laughed. “But I’m fine.”
They stood there for a minute, staring at each other. Jesse poured himself a glass of water and chewed on the inside of his cheek. He didn’t remember there being any long silences with Andrew before. This anxiety felt new and was probably bad for his mental health.
“Hey,” Jesse gestured to the cactus in the corner. “Thanks for the potted cactus.”
Andrew flushed to his nose, finally looking away. “Yeah, I wasn’t sure what was polite to bring over.” He stared at his hands.
“You could’ve brought over food,” Jesse said. He could’ve. That was what Jesse would’ve done. If not food, he’d have brought over a DVD, something with loud explosions and a predictable plot that he could complain about and talk over while it played.
“Next time,” Andrew promised, shrugging. He was smiling.
“All right,” Jesse said, not sure why he suddenly felt excited.
=
Andrew showed up again a few days later. He didn’t wear that beanie anymore so his hair was all scraggly and wild and fell in cloudy tufts around his head. Jesse was folding the laundry when Andrew walked in, a lollipop dangling from the corner of his mouth. Andrew’s lips were wet and pink. He wore a normal shirt that had a random assortment of swear words printed in Helvetica.
“I took the subway today,” Andrew told him, sounding immensely pleased with himself.
Jesse didn’t look up from his pile of laundry. There were clothes everywhere and sheets that needed folding made a mountain on the floor. His jeans were in a separate pile altogether arranged by shade of blue. The entire room smelled like fabric softener and replicated spring sunshine. He kind of loved it a little and not just because it hid the smell of cat.
“Hey,” Jesse said, blinking up at Andrew after he’d finished smoothing out the wrinkles from a pair of shorts. “How’d you get in here?”
Andrew shrugged. “The door was open.” He sat next to Jesse on the floor and tossed his bag aside. It made a dull little thump on the carpet and one of Jesse’s napping cats yowled and darted away.
“I need to remember to lock that,” Jesse said, making a face. “Otherwise random people could just walk in and steal my things.”
“There’s nothing of value to steal here, though,” Andrew said. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, twisting the stick of his lollipop around his mouth. Then he glanced down his shoulder, at Jesse, blinked twice and grinned. “Except, I guess, for you.”
“Right,” Jesse said. He tossed a shirt at Andrew who caught it right before it hit him in the face.
Andrew laughed. His hand came up around Jesse, ruffling the top of his curls.
“Hey,” he said, “Tell me a story.”
“What are you, seven years old?”
Andrew shrugged one shoulder. “For the most part, yes.” He was on the floor next to the mound of freshly laundered bath towels. His shirt was rucked up to his ribs and Jesse saw a smooth plane of stomach, slightly paler than his arms, and his mind blanked out for a second.
“Jess,” Andrew said.
Jesse reached for a t-shirt and began folding.
=
They did a lot of storytelling in Boston. Well, at least Jesse did. On the days they had nothing better to do or were bored and didn’t feel like leaving the apartment, they’d sprawl on the living room floor and order pizza and talk about their childhoods. Andrew always acted like he found Jesse very interesting, which was cool for awhile, until Andrew started expressing just how much he adored him. It took some getting used to - Andrew winding an arm around his shoulder, or his waist, and pulling him flush against his side, his grip vice-like and difficult to disentangle from, but warm and casual and sincere.
The hugs were nice, but that was all they were, hugs. They didn’t mean anything. And sometimes they confused Jesse like that time Andrew got drunk and squeezed him to his chest and told him he was his favourite person in the world, counting famous revolutionaries and members of his immediate family.
There was a lot of touching going on, basically.
“So,” Andrew said. He was standing in the hallway, rubbing blearily at his eyes.
Jesse spent the entire afternoon folding his laundry and arranging all his clothes in neat little piles by color. Andrew slept throughout most of it, surrounded by Jesse’s cats who thought it best to sit on him until he woke up. He flailed when one of them, Dylan again, scratched him in the cheek, just a tiny scratch that would heal in a few days, maybe, but was definitely visible up close. It was at least half an inch in length and Jesse couldn’t stop apologizing even though Andrew said it was fine.
“Sorry, about the uh, the thing,” Jesse said and gestured to Andrew’s face.
“Yeah, um,” Andrew said, shuffling his feet.
“I just disfigured Spiderman,” Jesse said, and Andrew laughed and bit his lip, nodding his head.
“We should do something next time,” Andrew said. He lingered in the doorway in his nice t-shirt that was wrinkled in places and smelled like Jesse’s cats, most probably.
“Sure,” Jesse said. “Call me.”
“I will,” Andrew said. Then he stepped even closer and hugged Jesse and Jesse found out he didn’t smell like cat after all. In fact, he smelled like laundry detergent and it was nice, faintly sweet, and Jesse wished for a moment that Andrew would never stop hugging him like this, even though he knew Andrew would have to let go eventually. But it was a nice thought, Andrew hugging him forever, his warmth, his smell, all around Jesse, forever.
=
Andrew called him on a Wednesday. Jesse was in the shower when his cell phone started ringing, the opening theme song to Wheel of Fortune, and he leapt out of the bathroom and bolted for his bedroom, cradling his phone in wet soapy hands and dripping water all over the floor.
“Hey,” Andrew said. “Did I call at a bad time?” It wasn’t like Jesse was waiting for him to call or anything but Jesse thought it was nice to hear from him again after three days. The man stayed true to his promise, Jesse thought. He was beginning to think Andrew was one of those people who said they’d call but wouldn’t and then you’d run into them at a party or on the street or at a restaurant, and the whole cycle would start all over again, the promising to call but never actually doing it.
“No,” Jesse said. “Not a bad time.” He towel-dried his hair.
“Let’s have lunch,” Andrew said suddenly.
“Okay,” Jesse said.
“Great! I’m at your doorstep.”
=
Andrew was at Jesse’s doorstep. He stood there, grinning, holding his cell phone up to his ear.
“You’re beginning to scare me,” Jesse said, standing out of the way to let him inside. Andrew flopped down on the couch, long limbs and puffy hair doused with half a bottle of product. He stared at Jesse from the feet up and then laughed, pointing at him.
“Why are you all wet?”
“I was in the shower,” Jesse said. He looked down at himself and realized he still only had a towel on. He tugged it high over his hips and shrugged one shoulder, pretending Andrew wasn’t still looking at him, his stare making Jesse’s skin feel tight.
“Well,” Jesse said.
“Well,” Andrew said. His face was red. “Get dressed, then. And wear something nice.”
“Nice?” Jesse repeated. “All right, I’ll try to find my tux.”
Andrew laughed and slapped him on the ass when Jesse passed him by on the sofa.
=
They went to a Chinese restaurant because Andrew had a sudden craving for noodles. They took a cab and split the bill and located a nice little table at the very back where the murmur of conversation couldn’t reach them and where the lighting was strangely intimate. Intimate. Jesse had trouble wrapping his mind around the word in relation to Andrew.
Some point later while Andrew was wrestling with his last dumpling and Jesse was chewing on the end of his straw, their bill came.
“Let me take care of it,” Andrew said, cheeks bulging with food, one hand on Jesse’s arm, warm and casual. Andrew squeezed him. The point of contact startled Jesse but he didn’t pull away. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to, not because he couldn’t, or because Andrew was smiling at him in a way that made his throat close up and fill with thirst.
The moment ended when Andrew took out his credit card and flagged down a waiter. He paid for the cab fare later on and even walked Jesse up to his door, leaning over him with one arm braced against the wall. He seemed tired even though he was smiling, this huge smile that lit up his entire face that Jesse only saw on him, once, and after he’d learned he got the part for Eduardo.
“Thanks for the food,” Jesse said, moving his face away before Andrew could smell lunch on his breath.
“Thanks for taking me,” Andrew said. He stepped away then started laughing softly, sobering up before Jesse could ask him what he thought was so funny. He made a gesture with his hands, forming a tiny rectangle with his fingers, and then making a clicking noise, like he was taking a picture. Jesse stood at the doorstep, feeling like he just missed something big.
“Got it,” Andrew said.
Jesse blinked.
“I was taking a picture,” Andrew explained.
Jesse wasn’t sure whether to laugh or shut the door in his face.“You are so weird,” he said, finally, and thumped Andrew on the shoulder, shoving him a little before he got too close again. “Go home, Garfield. You still have work tomorrow.”
Andrew smiled at him and waved, hopping back a few steps. “I’ll call you!” he promised.
“I know,” Jesse said. He watched him disappear down the hall, this bundle of dark clothing and wild hair, tall and elegantly lean, that walked a little funny. Jesse stood out there for a long time, wondering why it was that he felt oddly disappointed.
=
Andrew was going to be the next Spiderman. It didn’t really matter to Jesse, or register, until he saw Andrew with the suit on on set. It was a tight fit and enveloped his entire body like a glove. His muscles rippled underneath each time he so much as breathed and Jesse felt a kind of secondhand embarrassment when Andrew hunkered down next to him during one of his twenty minute breaks, cradling a cup of coffee and blowing steam in Jesse’s face.
“You look like you worked out,” Jesse said, trying his best to keep his eye-level well above Andrew’s chest. “Did you work out?”
Andrew groaned, like he was recalling a particularly terrible memory. “It was torture,” he said, elbowing Jesse in the ribs. “I thought my bones were going to break. I had a regimen.” He made a disgusted face at the word.
“You look good though,” Jesse told him, sipping on his iced coffee. He’d showed up today at Andrew’s insistence and felt every bit like a voyeur, keeping his eyes trained on Andrew, on camera and off. When did Andrew’s shoulders get so broad? And more importantly, when did Jesse start noticing these things?
“Thanks,” Andrew said, nudging Jesse’s knee with his. “You can touch it if you want,” he said later.
“Touch what?” Jesse asked, looking up from where their thighs were still pressed together. Andrew was staring at him with a bemused expression on his face.
“The suit. It’s designed to make it look as if I have more muscles.” Andrew extended an arm toward him. “Feel,” he said, and when Jesse just gave him a long, unblinking stare, he giggled and elbowed him in the chest. “Oh, come on, Jesse. Don’t be shy now. Feel.”
Jesse touched his bicep gingerly. He wasn’t shy but he was flushing for some reason, running a finger up Andrew’s forearm and keeping his head ducked low. Andrew didn’t shiver but he made a soft strangled noise in the back of his throat. The suit was rough and scaly, almost reptilian in texture, but Jesse imagined how Andrew’s skin must feel like in contrast, underneath, smooth probably and warm with body heat.
“It feels authentic,” Jesse said when he pulled away a minute later.
Andrew looked at him for a long minute and let out a shaky laugh.
=
Andrew invited him to a party a week later. It was someone’s birthday, apparently, and that someone lived somewhere in lower Manhattan. Jesse usually didn’t go to parties unless there were going to be people there he knew he wouldn’t mind getting drunk around, but Andrew assured him it was going to be fine, and he needed a plus one anyway, not a girl he could hang off his arm, but a friend, a wingman.
“That makes me feel so sleazy, thank you,” Jesse said, and Andrew laughed his amused little laugh and slapped him on the back.
Andrew was doing that now, too, the back-slapping, like a normal, regular guy. Jesse didn’t know where he picked it up because he certainly remembered Andrew exhibiting no such behavior last year. He wasn’t sure he liked it, or liked what it meant.
At the party, Jesse stood to one side and surveyed the crowd, feeling like the world’s most invisible wallflower. A few girls walked up to him to chat, clinking their glasses, but he wasn’t interested, and they weren’t his type. He never really had a type to begin with.
Jesse stood on his toes and scanned the crowd. The party had already progressed to the ‘hooking-up’ stage. He’d lost Andrew half an hour ago to a redhead in a pink frock whose grip on Andrew could only be described as predatory.
Andrew was nowhere to be found, still, so Jesse left after putting down his drink. It only felt right.
=
Andrew showed up two hours later, staggering on his feet. He was gloriously drunk and looked a little crazy, bright-eyed and crazy-haired, his shirt missing a few buttons.
Jesse wasn’t expecting him.
The party blew, was full of Manhattanites he didn’t like, and he texted Andrew on the subway, telling him to have a good time, so when Andrew showed up like this, with his hair mussed and his face pink, Jesse felt mean, like an asshole.
“Why are you here?” he said, pulling him inside before he slid down to the floor.
“Because you left,” Andrew said. He said it like it broke his heart and Jesse felt triumphant for a split second. And then he felt like crap again for making Andrew feel bad so to compensate he gave him a glass of water.
“You okay?” Jesse asked, rubbing Andrew’s shoulder uncertainly as he drank. Usually it was Andrew that did all the touching so Jesse wasn’t sure what the bare minimum was or if he’d filled up his quota for the day and Andrew thought he was just being a creep. He stopped patting him on the back and Andrew moaned, turning his head, squeezing his eyes shut like he was in pain.
“Jess,” he whined. “Why on earth did you stop?”
“Okay,” Jesse said. He scooted farther up the couch when Andrew shoved at him to make room, resting his head in his lap and folding in on himself. His hair smelled like cigarette smoke and women’s perfume. Jesse tried not to think about the implications of that last one and placed his hand on Andrew’s shoulder. The skin underneath was warm and it seeped into his palm. Jesse touched Andrew’s hair gently and twirled the sweaty strands around his fingers.
Andrew stirred below him. “I might fall asleep now,” he said, eyes slipping closed. He rubbed his cheek against Jesse’s knee, the same way a child would, before yawning, huge and loud.
“You’re drunk,” Jesse told him, somehow unable to laugh. “And you’re an idiot. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I shouldn’t,” Andrew agreed, nodding. “But I’m here now and there’s nothing you can do about it, is there?” He poked Jesse in the ribs, grinning up at him through slitted eyes.
Jesse watched his eyelashes flutter down his cheeks for a moment, long and soft like bird feathers. He said, quiet, and mostly to himself, “I guess not,” and slumped against the cushions where he fell asleep, waiting for Andrew’s breathing to settle.
=
Andrew left in the morning after apologizing profusely. He didn’t stay for breakfast although he would’ve wanted to, he said, because he had to be on set in an hour. He was in the shower for twenty minutes where he left his dirty laundry sans his underwear. Jesse lent him some clothes which didn’t fit him at all, the shirt too taut around the shoulders, the pants hiking up Andrew’s skinny ankles. But Andrew walked around in them anyway, running his hands across his borrowed clothes and stretching his arms above his head.
“I feel like you now, like I’m in your skin,” he said, and Jesse rolled his eyes at him, not completely believing it.
“Go,” he said. “Or you’ll be late. You don’t know what traffic’s like during rushhour.”
Andrew laughed and then gave him an exaggerated salute. His shoulders looked broader under Jesse’s shirt, his back wide with just a hint of muscle. Andrew used to be long and lean and now he was a comic book Superhero with great brown eyes and strong shoulders. Jesse wasn’t sure which one he liked more. He missed the old Andrew though, that much he knew. The one who’d lean against him and murmur in his ear and smell like cold, wet leaves.
“I’ll see you around,” Andrew said by the door, leaning forward and smiling. He smelled like Jesse’s bathsoap, sweet but not cloying, and underneath all that, a hint of warm skin.
“Let’s hope so,” Jesse said, closing the door on him. He waited five minutes before opening it again and sure enough, Andrew had already left.
=
Once in a while, Justin visited him. He didn’t invite Jesse to strange parties where people rubbed up against each other to bad music and then got into drunken fights. He just showed up, much like Andrew did, without preamble, but less frequently and always with food. Each time he had a new story too, a funny one, never boring. One time, he bought veggie pizza over and told Jesse about how, once, when he was still going to NYU, he made friends with this homeless musician at the back of a Domino’s. They played music for money for an entire night and Justin was high so he couldn’t remember what the guy’s name was, but he had a great time, he said, and it was almost euphoric, like a good four-hour orgasm or a rush of blood to the head, nothing like he’d ever experienced before.
Justin came over with Pad Thai and beer that tasted fresh and cool when Jesse poured it into a plastic mug. He didn’t like drinking from the bottle for obvious sanitary reasons, but he liked beer when he was in the mood to get a little buzzed, the frothy earthy taste of it sliding down his throat.
“Whose pants are those in the shower?” Justin asked, walking back from the bathroom, eyebrows up in his hairline.
Jesse turned to him from the TV, chewing the inside of his cheek. “A friend’s,” he said, after half a minute of contemplation. Jesse couldn’t lie to him because Justin knew the only pants Jesse owned were in varying shades of blue. Never plaid. Who wears plaid pants anyway? Only Andrew, Jesse thought fondly and then shook his head clear of him. The last thing he needed was his thoughts to wander into dangerous territory.
“Mm,” Justin said, nodding slowly. He was making a weird face, one Jesse wasn’t sure he liked.
“What?” Jesse asked. “Don’t ‘mm’ me.”
“I was just thinking,” Justin said, quirking his lips.
“That can never be good,” Jesse told him.
Justin laughed and slouched down next to him, staring into his face. It looked like he was looking for something, answers maybe, or blackmail material. Whatever it was, Jesse hoped he didn’t find it.
“You’re an idiot,” Justin told him and then shook his head before looking away, taking a long swig of his beer.
“I know,” Jesse sighed, feeling sheepish. He laughed in spite of himself and wished for one second that he didn’t feel like such a schoolgirl with the ferocity of his ... crush? Feelings? He’d rather not think about it.
=
It was kind of disappointing when your best quality was pretending to be someone else.
Jesse was looking at a few scripts he was interested in at the moment but none of them were based on good material so he was, essentially, jobless for the time being until something better fell in his lap.
Andrew invited him over to his apartment a few days after Jesse was sent his fifth script in a month. Andrew lived in a part of town Jesse had a lot of scorn for, but he showed up anyway, just to be fair, wearing something nice and smelling like stale cologne and New York subway.
Andrew’s place was... interesting. It came fully furnished and was a lot fancier than Jesse would expect of him. Everything matched. The furniture was minimalist. Jesse supposed that was what happened when people got richer, their tastes developed over time or else changed completely.
“Well, you’re here early,” Andrew said, grinning. He looked down, eyeing Jesse’s shoes and then his shirt, and then his face, where his gaze lingered for the most part. “Hey,” he said, leaning against the doorway. “You look nice.”
Jesse knew he didn’t look nice but accepted the compliment anyway. “Thanks,” he said, and felt oddly embarrassed that he didn’t bring anything over, not even a DVD. All he had to offer was himself which was kind of a letdown. Andrew let him in and pointed him to the sofa which was made of smooth black leather and looked entirely uncomfortable. Classy but uncomfortable. It took Jesse a full minute to settle in and he had to cross and recross his legs four times.
“I made something for tonight,” Andrew said, drying his hair on the end of a bath towel. His hair stood up in wet spikes as he rubbed the top of his head. He smelled freshly showered.
“Mushroom risotto,” Andrew said, and chucked the towel aside.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” Jesse told him, genuinely surprised.
“Neither did I,” Andrew laughed.
=
The kitchen was spotless. Something that was cooking smelled good and made Jesse’s mouth water. The table was done up, with folded napkins and gleaming silverware, embellished glass plates. Jesse looked up and Andrew was grinning, sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck and peering up at him through his eyelashes.
“You’re a serial killer,” Jesse said, even though he was very impressed. Andrew stood behind him to push his chair back. Jesse bumped an elbow into his stomach trying to maneuver around him and unfurl the table napkin at the same time.
“Sorry,” he said as he sat down.
“No worries,” Andrew said, biting his lip.
The risotto was half-burnt and Andrew spent a good fifteen minutes scrubbing the bottom of the pot with a spatula before calling it a day. Jesse appreciated the gesture though, and the cooking, which was not half-bad except for the mushrooms which tasted watery. He stood watching Andrew do the dishes - Andrew insisted on taking care of them because Jesse was a guest, he said, and therefore granted immunity from chores - and took careful sips of his white wine. Wine always made him feel sophisticated, if only for a little while. He liked the way a glass of wine looked in his hand, refined and very elegant, the same way reading poetry made him feel immediately profound.
“It's not very good, your best,” Jesse said, his tone light. “But dinner was nice.”
Andrew turned, eyebrows raised. “Oh? You think so?” He smiled when Jesse nodded. “Stay awhile. I’ve got um, I’ve got an Xbox.”
“Oh. Oh goody,” Jesse said. He blinked and Andrew grinned at him, snorting before laughing at the confused expression on his face.
=
They spent the remainder of the evening parked in front of Andrew’s plasma TV, playing an assortment of games that Jesse was not particularly good at but Andrew had him win. He thought about there being some sort of code that said you had to let guests or friends you invited over to your house win any game you played against them but he knew no such thing existed and wondered if Andrew was just being nice or his usual polite self by flinging his ninja off a cliff right before Jesse could battle it.
“That was fun,” Andrew said, turning the TV off two hours later. He stretched, and his shirt lifted, and Jesse’s mind bent like a spoon.
“Um,” Jesse said, not sure what just happened.
“I have ice cream,” Andrew told him. Jesse wanted to ask him if he thought he was five years old or mentally retarded but Andrew already left to get the spoons and the huge tub of caramel corn ice cream that was about the size of both their heads combined.
“Wow,” Jesse said when Andrew appeared by the doorway. “Wow, okay. Ice cream. Great.”
=
After that, they sat in fold-up chairs on Andrew’s balcony, drinking beer and looking down at all of New York. The lights blinked up at them from up there, twinkling and blurring together against the cool dark swathe of the night. Jesse felt weightless and strangely content, slouched in his seat with Andrew next to him, breathing the same smoggy air.
Andrew turned to him, head cocked to the side, his eyelids lowered lazily. He stared at the side of Jesse’s face for a long time until Jesse, somewhat self-consciously, stared right back at him.
“I have the most fun with you, you know,” Andrew said softly, keeping his eyes fixed to Jesse’s chin, or his collarbone, or at least some point around that area.
Jesse wanted to laugh but couldn’t manage it with Andrew looking at him so earnest and sincere, his face cloudy with a strange softness he’d never seen before. “You've always had a very deluded sense of how interesting I am,” Jesse told him. He drank his beer before realizing there was so little of it left.
“Yeah, well,” Andrew shrugged. “I like you, you know. I do.”
“I know,” Jesse said. It wasn’t like it was such a big secret. Jesse sniffed out a laugh, squeezing his eyes shut before opening them again, blinking rapidly. “I have no idea what I'm doing here, to be honest.”
“Why did you come here?” Andrew asked.
Jesse thought of a clever answer. Nothing came to mind but the truth. “I don’t know,” he said, sighing, “I guess I was expecting something interesting to happen.”
=
Andrew took out pack of cigarettes. He only smoked when he was tired, Jesse knew, or if he was cold, which Jesse also knew, but Jesse didn’t hold it against him like some people did and not just because he thought Andrew looked good doing it, his fingers curved around a cigarette, his lips pinched in the corners as he bobbed it before doing the final blow. But tonight, Jesse felt different. Maybe it was the beer or the wine or the way the New York night wrapped around them like a veil. Any other day and Jesse wouldn’t be running his mouth, or thinking the things he thought or reaching over to snatch the lighter from Andrew’s hands and looking him right in the eye for the first time since Boston ended.
“Hey,” Jesse said. “Don’t do that. Not tonight.”
“Why not?” Andrew asked. He didn’t blink.
“Because,” Jesse said, shrugging one shoulder. He looked away, up at the stars which were hardly visible through the thick blanket of smog and the glare of city lights. “I'm thinking about kissing you,” he said. He let the pause last for a whole minute before pushing back his chair so that it made a rough scraping noise.
“Oh,” he heard Andrew say, and this time, when Jesse glanced back at him, he saw that Andrew had blinked and flushed red to his ears. Andrew nodded his head slowly and let out a shuddery breath that made his shoulders shake.
“Good to know,” he said, in somewhat of a laugh. He threw his head back. “Good to know.”
=
Their first kiss happened in the living room. Andrew was putting away the beer and then came up behind Jesse and Jesse turned, and there he was, standing close, his breath hot, his smile huge, his hands coming up around Jesse’s face, warm and curved. Jesse tipped his head forward and did the honor of kissing him, his lips slightly parted so that their tongues brushed fleetingly. When he pulled back, he felt his head buzz. Jesse tasted beer and ice cream which was a funny combination at any given time, but underneath all that, Andrew tasted sweet and wet and beautiful, so he kissed him again and slid his hands in Andrew’s soft messy hair, moaning in his throat when Andrew backed him up against the wall.
=
There was more kissing after that. Jesse found out later on, a full week later, that Andrew liked to kiss standing up, in the kitchen, or wherever was convenient, which got tiring after awhile, so they moved it to the bed, often, where they could lie on their sides facing each other. Sometimes, when Jesse was feeling bold, he would hook a leg around Andrew’s thigh and slither against him until his hips found a comfortable rhythm and Andrew groaned against his mouth, his face pinched in an unreadable expression, his hands shoved up under Jesse’s shirt.
Andrew liked that too, Jesse learned, running his hands down Jesse’s spine or the back of his thighs. He liked to squeeze and he bit, not too softly, but not too painfully either, just enough to leave a mark that wouldn’t fade away for days. Jesse liked that about Andrew though, he seemed to know what he was doing, which was more than Jesse could say for most people (himself) who, more often than not, ran self-deprecating commentaries in their heads. Andrew kissed him whenever they were alone, sprawled together in bed, with his hands pressed flat and warm against Jesse’s chest, in his trailer in the morning right before he was wanted on set, half-dressed in his costume, quick and tasting of coffee, and sometimes, in the stairwell of Jesse’s apartment building, crowding him against the wall and smiling as he kissed him.
Before long, they moved to kissing without their shirts on, which was a step in the right direction, Jesse knew, because neither of them had ever been with another guy before. Then the pants came off soon after, and then the underwear, finally, flung in haste and hitting the wall. Jesse slid up against Andrew, curling around him like a noose and Andrew bucked his hips, once, twice, and licked a line down Jesse’s collar, stroking the slope of his spine.
=
Justin was the first person to find out. They were in the shower, together, not even having sex or anything, just kissing, having a grand old time, Andrew’s knee rubbing between Jesse’s legs and his arms braced on either side of Jesse’s head, when the doorbell buzzed in rapid succession. Jesse answered the door while Andrew waited for him in the shower, and it was Justin who brought over pizza, a movie, and some dubious-looking brownies.
“Did you get my text or what?” he said, moving around Jesse to dump everything on the coffee table. Andrew walked in a second later, wearing nothing but a towel, blinking down at Justin who sat hunched on the ottoman, slackjawed in surprise.
“Hey,” Andrew said, visibly uncomfortable, “I’m Andrew.”
“Justin,” Justin said, and held out a hand. He gave Jesse a sideways glance which meant there was a long talk to be had later.
Jesse giggled nervously in spite of himself.
=
Eventually, he had to do promotional work for Rio. He left the care of his cats to his mom who gave him a stern look before hugging him fiercely to her chest.
“Be good,” she said, ruffling his curls and squeezing him. “And take care of yourself. Don’t drink anything but bottled water.”
“Mom,” Jesse said, rolling his eyes. He felt embarrassed.
“Come home in one piece,” she said to him. “No prostitutes.”
“Jesus,” Jesse said. “This is me we’re talking about here.”
Andrew called him on his first night away. Jesse’s room had a nice view of the street. Cars zipped by fifty stories down, their taillights lighting the road like fireflies. It was a lot warmer out there, the sun high and the air always smelling like the sea. He missed Andrew a little, and Andrew’s bed, and his smell in the morning which was a kind of sleepy warm skin smell that Jesse found he maybe kind of loved waking up to. It was hard to leave, especially with this thing between them that was still fresh and new and vulnerable, whatever it was, but work was work and Jesse was contractually obligated to do interviews until the hubbub died down and he was miserable and incapable of true human happiness.
“Jesse,” Andrew said in his ear. “I saw it. The bird movie.” He sounded awed and excited, and Jesse could just picture him in his bedroom, in his boxers and socks and a shirt that fell open, unbuttoned and hanging by his sides. And his hair, formless and sticking up every which way. Jesse wondered why, in his thoughts, Andrew always seemed to appear half-naked and smiling.
“It’s not a bird movie,” Jesse told him. “Well it is, but stop calling it that.”
“Sorry,” Andrew laughed. “Um,” he said. “You were great in it. I saw it with Emma. We had to do it very quickly though before they’d noticed we’d left the set.But anyway, I wanted you to know that. That I thought you did a great job.”
“Thanks,” Jesse said, fighting the flush that crept up the back of his neck. He walked over to the window, sliding the curtains apart. His reflection stared back at him in the glass, puffy-eyed and lacking sleep and wearing a complementary hotel bathrobe.
“I wanted to keep you in my pocket and take you home, you know,” Andrew said, laugh softer now. “You were so precious and so cute and your eyes were so huge and I wanted to just, just pet your tiny little head and tell you it was all going to be okay, that I was going to make it better for you, and that I’d take care of you, forever, so you needn’t worry. And, just. Gah. I felt a lot of things,” he finished sheepishly.
“Andrew,” Jesse said. “Andrew.”
“What?”
“Are you drunk?”
Andrew laughed again. There was a rustle from his end, and Jesse wondered what time it was back in New York and if Andrew was just about to sleep like he was. He remembered how they used to keep such odd sleeping hours last year in Boston. Sometimes, Andrew would get these fits of insomnia and persuade Jesse to go walking with him at night. They’d drink coffee in well-lit diners, bundled up to the chin in jackets and scarves, talking until it was morning again or closing time, whichever came first. Sometimes, they’d sit in park benches and listen to the stream of conversation around them, catching bits of gossip and fragments of personal stories, cradling their coffee and their rapidly cooling sandwiches.
Andrew started yawning so Jesse decided to let him go. “I’ll see you soon,” he said. He wanted to tell Andrew he missed him but didn’t want to sound too needy over the phone.
“Come back quickly, all right?” Andrew said sleepily, voice slurring with exhaustion.
Jesse smiled and his reflection in the window did the same. “All right,” he promised him.
=
The first few nights were unbearable. Jesse felt not only homesick for something he couldn’t name, but unhappy and moody half the time. When he wasn’t doing interviews, he lay in his bed and watched the news, which was something to do for awhile until he fell asleep or got bored and decided to wander down to the lobby. He wanted to call Andrew, but didn’t want to be the first one to cave. He waited, willed Andrew to call by staring at his phone and giving it a good vicious shake.
Finally, on the fifth day, Andrew called and said he missed him, terribly. Jesse’s mind was prone to wander so he tried not to picture Andrew saying it with a beautiful girl hanging off his arm while he sipped on a cocktail and sunbathed wearing dark sunglasses and a straw hat. He brought the phone with him in bed which was still warm from where he’d slept on it, the sheets pushed aside, clothes everywhere in piles.
Jesse sighed and said, clenching his teeth, “I miss you too,” and Andrew made a sound, a quiet surprised little sound, and said, soft, “Oh, Jess.”
“What?”
“That voice,” Andrew laughed. “Don’t use it on me. It does things to me. You know what sort of things.”
=
Jesse missed the solid weight of Andrew rolling on top of him in the morning. He missed the morning sex too, which was drowsy and slow and lazy movement and bed springs creaking, and Jesse’s hands flat against Andrew’s back, feeling every ripple of muscle. But mostly he missed the company and the bad jokes, and Andrew’s penchant for wearing socks with sandals, with everything including slippers, and his idea of breakfast - banana pancakes drizzled with honey and milk and toast - and his smile, which was a little crooked, but genuine and warm, and his feet, which he said always hurt for some reason because of stuntwork, that he would prop in Jesse’s lap and wiggle.
Jesse took to Googling pictures of him for an entire week, purely for the hell of it, until he realized he didn’t even have a personal photo of Andrew that the internet didn’t already have a copy of. It was kind of depressing so Jesse tried not to think about it, but he brought it up casually the next time he and Andrew got to talk over the phone.
“I didn’t even realize,” Andrew said. “We should take pictures then. Um, together.” An hour later, right before Jesse had to leave for a TV appearance, he found Andrew had sent him a picture he took with his phone. Andrew was in his trailer, looking stupidly gorgeous. The angle was terrible, the lighting even more so, but the picture had a good view of Andrew’s Spiderman costume, and his hair, which puffed up wildly as always.
Jesse set it as his wallpaper then felt ridiculous for doing so and changed it back to a picture of his cats. He sent Andrew a picture later that night, of half of his face, from the eyes up and with a view of his hotel window behind him.
=
Jesse came back sixteen days later to an empty apartment and a note slid under the door. Press tours always left him feeling cranky and overexposed, his limbs leaden, his brain numb, so as soon as he slunk through the front door, he staggered straight to his bedroom, kicking off his shoes and throwing himself on his bed. He left the note tucked under his glasses on the bedside table and slept until noon the next day. He woke up to thirty messages on his cellphone, some from his mom and sister, a few from Andrew inquiring about his flight.
The note, when Jesse read it after unpacking, was dated two days ago and had a badly drawn caricature of Spiderman. It said, dropped by to say hello then remembered you wouldn't be back for another couple of days so I thought I'd leave you this note. Jesse taped it to the fridge next to a postcard of Christ the Redeemer that he forgot to send while he was in Brazil.
Andrew came by for dinner an hour later, armed with french fries and veggie burgers, his hair an incredulous mess, his grin soft and warm. Jesse bolted towards him then stopped abruptly by the door, trying to reign in his glee.
“Hey,” Andrew said, smiling. He didn’t kiss Jesse, which was what Jesse would’ve wanted him to do, but he hugged him and cupped his face and rubbed his thumb across Jesse’s cheek. His hands cradled the stem of Jesse’s neck. His touch was warm.
“Welcome back,” he said, and squeezed Jesse’s shoulders gently. He pressed their lips together briefly and then pulled back with a shuddering breath. Jesse kissed him again, pushing the bag of food away and walking him backwards to the bedroom until they wound up on the bed, Andrew on his back, Jesse scooched up on top of him.
“Thanks,” Jesse said when he pulled back minutes later. He glanced down and Andrew was laughing at him, but not unkindly. Jesse smiled, feeling sheepish, and rolled onto his back.
He was home.