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Maybe he always knew he loved Tom.
He believes this because he can’t point to a time in his life with the boys, when he didn’t look at the older man with amazement deep in his eyes.
A distant memory rolls back in his mind, a second when he definitely felt something for Tom. He couldn’t ever name the feeling, no matter how much digging he did in different thesauruses. (Maybe some feelings weren’t meant to be described. He can just… Feel.)
After a few rounds of confession, they started practicing pillars. Tom and Luke were up on stage, while AJ and Sam acted how members of the audience would, though maybe a little less anxious.
(Though that was only true for Sam.)
To be fair, AJ wasn’t that anxious of a person.
There was just something about the fact that Tom has to touch him every once in a while, because… Well, that’s the game.
Tom wasn’t that touchy normally. (Or not as much as AJ wanted him to be) And for no reason, the thought of Tom even just patting his shoulder made his stomach feel like someone is consistently trying to press it into a bag that is already full.
They were watching some kind of weird artsy film chosen by AJ. Sam was asleep by the main title, Luke not so much later. (He later bragged about staying awake for longer than Sam. That resulted in a quick argument between the two. Tom and AJ looked at each other at the same time. Tom shook his head and rested it on AJ's shoulder.) Tom’s interest was piqued as a result of some miracle brought to AJ by the gods.
AJ made the mistake of looking at Tom. (It was a hell of a mistake. He still doesn’t admit to not watching the movie with the interest he spectated Tom’s reactions. He watched it later again. Both the movie, and Tom.) The older man’s face looked as it does while someone else is on the stage: concentrated, interested, analyzing and reacting. (He might have gotten a bit lost in trying to decipher every single twitch his face makes.) Suddenly Tom’s lovely eyes were looking at his. (And maybe he was wrong, but he saw the feeling he lives with every day Tom’s around him.) Tom carefully turned AJ’s head back to the TV, holding his chin with his thumb and pointer finger.
“The screen’s right there, love.”
AJ knew that Tom uses “love” as another word for ‘bastard’, but something about the way he said it made his soul yell. (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, LET ME STAY HERE LIKE THIS FOREVER)
“Is it the ominous red lighting in this movie that has been going on for the last hour or did you just blush, AJ?” Tom said, laughing.
AJ scoffs, “No?” He had blushed, in fact.
“But, who wouldn’t blush for Tom Mayo?” He acted so full of himself.
AJ had an idea.
“It really isn’t a shame, you can just admit you are ga-”
He is cut off by the fact that AJ turned back quick. Before Tom could have realised what AJ had wanted to do, the younger man was already pinning his wrists to the couch, using them to balance himself on top of the older, his face inches away from Tom’s. He blocked most of the light the TV would give, he couldn’t see the man’s reactions exactly, but he saw Tom’s eyes staring directly at his lips for a good ten seconds.
“My eyes are up here, darling.” he said. (He wishes to kiss him. To hold him. To be with him. To stay with him and never ever leave the comfort of Tom’s kind heart. That is probably what the ache in his whole head and the rush of his heart means. He won’t. He will keep all this to himself if it means that Tom will at least half-like him.)
Tom wasn’t the one who yelled all those subpar words on stage. Not the one who, when other’s tried to move the plot along, just sorta did it his own way (or at least most of the time it wasn’t him). Not the one who kissed the boys every time, even when it wasn’t necessary. Not the… You get it.
That wasn't a stage self: he was like that in real life too.
Later he would regret not saying the words out loud.
“Hey!” AJ waved at him. Turns out they live a quite similar distance away from the venue. Hey, he thinks. He waved at him and smiled.
Suddenly they’ve been walking for five minutes and AJ was talking about his upcoming movie. I love to listen to you, Tom thought. He didn’t say it out loud, though.
“And she is so so good in that scene, I was like, what? Like, I knew she was a great actor, just like, the way she moved, it gave me shivers.”
“Do you like her?” The question slipped out and it was too late to take it back.
Not like Tom was jealous or anything. He just wanted to know. He was curious.
“Like, like like?”
“Can’t believe you only used ‘like’ in the sentence, and it still makes sense.”
“Boggles your English degree?”
Tom laughed.
“To answer your question, I don’t think so? I mean, I would imagine having a crush is more,I don’t know, dramatic than this.”
“Do you feel dramatic about anyone?” Tom said, mocking AJ’s inability to express himself in English.
“Maybe.” AJ looked at him. His face was serious, but his eyes had something else in them.
Tom felt awkward. He was happy that AJ found someone (but he didn’t want to hear it)
“Do you?”
I’m so in love with you it hurts to be apart. I only sleep so I can see you again tomorrow. He didn’t say it out loud, he couldn’t, because if he fucked everything up, he loses AJ. Without AJ, he was not sure if the feeling that creeps into his everydays, fucking up his life will go away at any moment.
He shook his head.
AJ looked almost… Disappointed?
“So, what were you saying about the lighting?”
“Oh, yeah. Basically, at the start, everything is kind of cold, blue, right? Now, when…”
Tom usually chose the movies they watched. Mostly because Luke never actually paid attention, Sam only liked slashers, and AJ always had weird, hard-to-decipher movies on his list, which sometimes not even he understood.
But he has been talking about a movie which, according to him, has the best symbolic camera angle and movement choices ever.
Not like much was visible, because the whole movie had a red overlay on it, mushing together the silhouettes, as in the first scene, the main character’s friend got shot, and apparently the blood spilled directly on the protagonist’s eye. Or something like that. He didn’t understand much, the movie didn’t have subtitles, and Tom had bad hearing comprehension, especially after a five guessing games at rehearsal.
And now AJ was on top of him and Tom had been staring at his lips for years.
Can I kiss you? He didn’t say anything. But he didn’t want to look back on this moment and think why didn’t I say it out loud?
“Can… Can I kiss you?” He gulped.
AJ looked at him in such a way it made Tom’s heart melt from the inside.
The younger man looked down and nodded. He looked up again, maybe he had tears in his eyes or maybe the finally clear, white-ish light just reflected off his eyes in such way it looked so.
Tom sat up carefully.
He slowly, slowly closed the distance between them.
AJ couldn’t describe what he was feeling. He felt as if Tom had stolen his words from his lips.
Only after a while did he realise that Luke and Sam were still sleeping next to them, curled up, tangled in each other like a dog and a cat.
He pulled himself away from Tom, no matter how much it physically hurt him.
“Should we finish the movie?”
Tom laughed quietly.
“I don’t think I could concentrate.”
AJ stood up and pulled him too.
“Let’s not wake them.”
They kissed again.
The bedroom door shut behind them.
Sam immediately noticed a change in the air. The way Tom’s hair looked even more messy than on a usual morning, and AJ wore a turtleneck he hasn't worn since college. It looked like they had intentionally brushed fingertips whenever possible.
“You guys look tired.” Luke drank from his coffee.
“Well, unlike some people, we actually finished the movie.”
“You definitely finished something, but it wasn’t the movie,” said Sam, without losing his composure. Luke nearly spat his coffee on the table, his only luck was that he was still holding the cup, so the liquid fell back to where it came from.
Tom just looked at the floor, stirring his tea. AJ was quiet.
“I thought Tom was having a wank or something when I went to the bathroom, but then this is the solution.”
“Okay, question, why do you know how Tom sounds in bed?”
Sam shrugged his shoulders.
“Well-”
“Drunk nights in uni.” Tom murmured just loud enough so they could hear him, looking away, like he found something interesting on the kitchen cabinet.
“You guys had ONE NIGHT STANDS in uni? In PLURAL?” Luke tried and failed to hide the jealousy in his voice.
“Oh come on, not like you didn’t have a crush on him. He acted out some kind of officer and grabbed my shirt’s collar in such way, I actually couldn’t speak for a few minutes afterwards.”
“Hm, he didn’t seem so dominant to me last night. Maybe it is the ADHD meds.” said AJ and nonchalantly took a sip of coffee.
“Can we please not discuss my role in my very limited sexual relationships, thank you? Luke, you had a crush on me?” Tom was too tired to find out shit like this. And definitely too sober.
“Who wouldn’t? It wasn’t even really a crush, just like, when you turned on the ‘hot confident tall handsome man’ mode in one of the scenes, you also kinda turned on my gay mode I didn’t exactly know existed. You made me realise that I enjoy kissing Sam because I have a crush on him.”
“You have a crush on me?”
“Darling, yesterday I told you ‘I love you so much I forgot what sadness means’. What the hell did you think that means?”
“I don’t know?!” Sam was silent for a second. “So, um, do you want to… like, date?”
“I thought we were dating like a month ago?”
“What does that mean?”
“YES I WANT TO DATE YOU, you bastard.”
“Okay then.” Sam kissed Luke.
Tom cleared his throat.
They pulled away from each other, a bit red.
“So, as a little summary, Tom was the gay realisation for both me and Luke…”
“Mine too, it just didn’t come up.” Sam raised his hand.
Tom was blushing. He hid his face in his mug.
“...in that case, for all three of us, Sam and Luke started having a ‘casual relationship’ months ago and started dating, and we kissed yesterday, and started dating.”
“In summary.” Sam glanced over to Tom. “What, Mayo, you pulled too many hot men?”
The tall man shook his head.
“Nah, I’m used to it, plus I already chose.” He looked at AJ, smiling. ”I’m just thinking about who was my gay awakening, but I’m not sure. I don’t know, maybe I just never cared about gender that much.”
“Yeah, best strategy. Low needs, high sex.”
“I fucking wish.”
They laugh.
“Well, now that this is done, who watched the most of this movie.”
AJ points at Tom, makeshift guilt on his face.
“Yeah, probably me. AJ started staring at me very chalantly somewhere between the main character finding a ghost and befriending a serial killer.”
“There were ghosts in this movie?!”
“Yeah there were, but we can’t blame you, Luke, since you fell asleep first.” Sam bickered.
“No, no, Sam, not this time. I can clearly remember seeing you fall asleep on my chest.”
Tom shook his head, and sat down. He watched the two arguing like kindergarteners resting his head on AJ’ shoulders.