Chapter Text
The back of his head is damp against his pillow. He can feel it and it’s gross because he knows it’s sweat and he also knows he’s not going to do anything about it anytime soon. He’s not going to wash that pillowcase today or tomorrow and it’s just going to get more saturated with the perspiration that clings to his curls.
It’s gross, but he can’t quite muster up enough energy to say he really gives a fuck. There’s almost something comforting about the fact that it really doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t matter how wet his bed is against his bare skin or that he doesn’t really have any furniture or any food in his fridge. It doesn’t matter because it’s just him. He’s alone.
He doesn’t have the energy to be upset about it right now. He just lies here crossways on his bed in his pants with his legs up against the exposed brick of the wall while the sunlight streams in through the dirty window on the other side of the flat. No one’s going to tell him to get up and get his shit together.
He slides his thumb under the waistband of his pants. The material is moist and itchy against his skin. He should just take them off. Or maybe he could get up and have a shower like a functional adult would do. He could get dressed and go down to the shops and buy a fan. He could strip his sheets and take them downstairs to the laundry.
He does none of this. He hooks both thumbs under the band and pulls til they’re loose around his thighs. He’s too lazy to even bring his legs down from their perch against the wall to remove them fully.
His dick is small and soft but he takes it in his hand and pulls at the wrinkled skin until it starts to swell. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back. He doesn’t even really have anything good to think about anymore when he does this. His laptop is dead and he can’t be arsed to get up and find the charger. He could watch porn on his phone he supposes, but the thought just makes him sad, and that’s exactly what he’s trying to not to feel right now.
That’s exactly why he wanks all throughout the day, until there’s nothing left in his balls and his dick is sore. It’s free and takes no effort and distracts him for as long as he can keep it up. He doesn’t have to work today so there’s really nothing but this, the pull in the pit of stomach as he drags his thumb across the wetness of the tip of the head.
He shuffles over so the little yellow squares of light reflecting through the panes of glass hit his chest. It fucking burns and he can feel new sweat forming on his brow almost instantly but it’s good. It feels good. He can almost pretend it’s the heat of another body on top of him.
The image of her swims behind his eyelids eventually, again, always. In spite of every effort to keep her out, she always appears eventually. It’s going to hurt later but he’s pretty much given up resisting the memories of her body when he’s hard in his hands. He’ll never get over her at this rate.
He’d swear he can still taste her, still feel the softness of her silky folds on his tongue. He pictures her face and squeezes his cock and tries to pretend it’s her walls contracting around him instead. He tries to remember the last time they kissed.
He can’t. He can’t fucking remember.
He tugs mercilessly and comes a few minutes later. It barely even feels good.
He swipes at the come on his belly with his wrist and smears it against the sheets. Maybe that will force him to wash them.
He pulls his pants back up over his sticky softening cock. He doesn’t feel better and he only killed ten minutes. As lazy as he is, as much as he thinks he likes a lie in, he really wishes he had work today.
He wallows for another hour before the dried come and his sweaty skin force him up and into the shower. The cold water honestly feels better than anything has in a good while. He takes his time lathering sweet smelling soap over every inch of his long body, trying not to think of all the showers they’d taken together over the years.
He doesn’t even bother wrapping a towel around himself when he gets out. He stands in front of the bathroom mirror and stares at himself as he drips dry. He looks the same. He wonders how he can still look the same when he no longer has a beating heart inside his chest.
He brushes his teeth, sprays himself with some deodorant, rubs his hand over his jaw and wonders if he should shave. He won’t of course, because he hardly ever needs to, but he still wonders. Still hopes one of these days he’ll start to look like an actual man and not a prepubescent boy.
Now that his skin is cool and not tacky with sweat, he has to admit to himself that he feels a little better. He promises himself he won’t get back into that bed before the sheets are washed. He’s up and he’s clean--that’s half the battle. He rummages through his dresser and finds his last clean pair of pants. That settles it, really. He definitely needs to do his fucking laundry today.
He sits on top of the machine as it goes through the spin cycle. He probably crammed it too full, but he doesn’t want to have to pay for a second wash. He also doesn’t want to wait for a second wash. He’s not even going to wait or pay to put this stuff in the dryer. It’s hot enough in his flat that he can just drape his shit over the few pieces of furniture he has and they’ll dry in a matter of hours.
The hum of the machine kind of feels good on his ass as he sits there and tries to read whatever book his boss had recommended to him. That’s what he does now that he works at a used book store--brings home books he doesn’t care about and forces himself to read them, because at least then he’s not thinking about her.
When his things are washed he stuffs them into his hamper and drags them up the stairs and into the lobby where the mailboxes are. It takes him a minute to even remember the number of his flat. Maybe he should get his mail more often, but it’s almost never anything he cares about. Just bills and discounts for delivery pizza.
Actually, maybe the pizza discounts come in handy sometimes.
There’s more in there than usual. He grabs the handful of paper and drops it on top of his wet laundry and heads for the lift.
It’s so hot up on the eighteenth floor he can feel the sweat starting to form again already as he steps into his flat and closes the door behind him. He really needs to get a fan.
He tosses the mail onto the kitchen counter and dumps his laundry unceremoniously onto the floor. He picks it up piece by piece, draping them over the tiny little table and its rickety little chair, the bookshelf that’d been left by the previous tenants, even his keyboard. He runs out of space quickly and has to resort to using the kitchen counters and even the stove but eventually everything is hung up on something. Maybe he should get a dry rack of some kind too.
It’s not like he can’t afford it. He still has some money left over from the proper job in Manchester he’d run away from like his life depended on it. His money is one of the only things he has left from that life, and he honestly wishes he could get rid of that too.
So he clings to the momentum he’s built up and slams some coffee and heads out before he loses his nerve. He’s lived in this flat long enough that there’s really no excuse for how bare it still is.
He’s a sweaty mess again by the time he returns, but he’s managed to drag home a fan and a dry rack and even a few groceries. The first thing he does is set up the fan and pull off his damp shirt and sit in front of the blowing air until the moisture on his chest has dried.
He puts away his groceries and then his laundry and even makes his bed. He’s almost feeling proud of himself as he goes to the kitchen to eat some of that food he’d bought. He leans against his kitchen counter and thumbs through his mail as he waits for his bread to toast.
Of course it’s all ads and bills. He’s about to toss it all into the bin when his eye catches a name on one of the bills. A name that isn’t his.
Mr. Philip Lester. Apt 1803
So it’s his neighbour’s mail and the delivery guy had slipped it into the wrong box. He’ll eat his toast and then return it like the responsible citizen he is.
It’s a couple days later before he remembers he still has that mail that doesn’t belong to him. He’s got to return it before he forgets again.
He throws on some clothes because it’s probably still frowned upon to walk the halls in nothing but a pair of tight black pants. He puts on the first things he can find--a pair of black shorts and a black t-shirt. His shorts are probably a little too short but it doesn’t matter. He’s going to be pulling them back off in approximately forty five seconds.
He thinks about just slipping the bill under the door. Human interaction is not his forte, and he’d really rather not deal with it today, but he’s strangely paranoid that whoever inhabits this flat will think he’d been up to something shady, so he knocks.
The man who answers is younger than he’d expected--a lot younger. Philip Lester sounds too dusty a name for the attractive face that smiles at him as he holds out the letter.
“This was in my mailbox. Are you Philip?”
“Phil,” says the stranger, accepting it. “Cheers.” His voice is husky. Deep. Not entirely unappealing.
“And you are?”
“Dan.”
Phil holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you, mate.”
Their hands slot together and Dan feels something like static. Phil’s hand is warm and soft and inexplicably right wrapped around his.
“You too.” Dan drops his hand. He’s about to turn around and go back to his apartment.
“Wanna come in?”
That’s weird. That’s not normal, Dan thinks. He’s probably a serial killer or something. Who does that? Who invites a stranger into their flat for no reason?
Dan looks at him a moment. His hair is silly. He still has the same haircut Dan had when he was fifteen and it’s box-dyed jet black, skimming a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.
“Sure,” is what Dan says and he doesn’t know why. Maybe he just has a thing for big blue eyes.
Phil’s flat is a small bachelor just like Dan’s, but at least it actually has furniture. Dan follows him into the kitchen. Phil doesn’t say anything so neither does Dan. It doesn’t look like the home of a murderer but who knows.
Dan just stands there feeling awkward as Phil opens his fridge and pulls out some ribena. He mixes the drinks and hands one to Dan. He leans back against his counter and watches Dan drink, still silent.
Dan drains the cup before either of them have spoken a word. He hands it back to Phil and says, “Thanks.”
“I’ve never seen you before,” Phil muses. “You just move in?”
“Kind of. Few months ago.”
Phil nods. “You busy right now?”
Dan shakes his head. This situation is weird as fuck and by all accounts he should be itching to run away. But he isn’t. He wants to stay.
Phil smiles and waves his hand for Dan to follow him.
They go into Phil’s lounge. Phil puts something in his blu ray player and sits on his sofa, patting the space next to him. Dan sits, leaving a respectable amount of space between them.
Phil erases that space instantly, pressing his thigh against Dan’s. He’s wearing shorts too, and they’re just as short as Dan’s. Maybe even a little bit shorter. His legs are pale and hairier than Dan’s. He’s wearing mismatched socks over long feet.
David Attenborough’s voice fills the flat then, and images of various African wildlife tearing each other to bits dance across the screen.
Dan’s not really watching. He’s focused on the feeling of Phil’s calf pressed up against his.
It’s hot in this flat too. It’s just so bloody hot in London right now.
Phil yawns and stretches his arms up in the air, and when they come back down, one is draped across the back of the sofa. Behind Dan.
Dan knows this is fucking bizarre. He knows it. And yet, he wishes Phil’s arm was resting against his shoulders. His skin feels strange. Like it’s tingling.
What it actually is is sweating. He runs a hand through his hair and it’s definitely damp. His curls are probably a frizzy mess. Somehow Phil’s hair looks smooth and shiny. It’s buzzed short around the ears, just like Dan’s is.
There’s a camera sat atop a tripod in the corner of the room.
Dan feels Phil’s fingers brushing his shoulder. He turns his head and looks at him and he’s already looking at Dan, rubbing slow circles on Dan’s shoulder blade. He raises his eyebrows like he’s asking Dan if it’s ok.
Dan answers by placing his own hand on Phil’s thigh. He has no idea what the fuck he’s doing. He doesn’t even know this guy. He wonders if Phil can tell that his cock is half hard in his shorts.
As if he can literally hear Dan’s thoughts, Phil’s eyes drift downward. He smirks. Dan has the nearly uncontrollable urge to pull his dick out and see if Phil would still be smirking then.
He fights it, but he does give Phil’s thigh a squeeze. Phil drops his arm down so it sits heavy across Dan’s shoulders. Dan fists the soft material of Phil’s shorts in his hand. His fingers ache to slip inside. It’s been a long time since he had another man’s cock in his hand.
Too long, he thinks. He’s been sad and alone for too long. He’s just a fucking cliche now, heart stomped to pieces by a pretty girl. That’s not him, that was never supposed to be him. He was the kind of almost cool, sexually ambiguous nerd after all. He wasn’t supposed to end up like this. He’s too young to be this lonely.
Although, come to think of it, this is the first time she’s even crossed his mind since he knocked on Phil’s door, and even now he’s not pining. Just lamenting how many years it’s been since he felt come on his skin that didn’t belong to him.
Dan’s phone rings and they both jump. It’s his mum. He stands up, whatever spell he’d been under seemingly broken as he remembers just how odd it is that he’d nearly had his hands in a stranger’s shorts.
“I should go,” he mumbles.
Phil stands too. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
Dan really should laugh as the door is only about twenty feet away but he just nods. Phil opens the door for him. Dan turns to say goodbye, his phone still ringing in his pocket.
Phil reaches up and brushes Dan’s hair off his dewy forehead. Dan should be embarrassed that Phil undoubtedly has his sweat on the tips of his fingers now but Phil’s face says he’s not bothered.
“What number is your flat?” Phil’s voice is deep, so deliciously deep.
“1805,” Dan croaks.
“I’ll see you around, yeah?”
Dan nods. He really fucking hopes so.
That night when he lies naked in his bed and touches himself, he definitely has something good to think about.