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The sun is peeking through the curtains. Gentle light flutters through the air, highlighting dust motes. The upper half of the shot is warm and clean. In the corner, you see the whiteboard, scribbled on to the point of illegibility, the words all blurred together. Yesterday had been a feverish plan, and so had the day before that, and the day before that, the whiteboard scrubbed at with a sleeve, fragments of words left at the border, overlapping and overlapping, to the point where it looks less like a thought-out plot and more like a manic manifesto.
Matt is on the couch nearest the window, snoring in a way that would be worrisome if anyone were awake to hear it. As if on cue, Jay starts stirring, waking up on the neighboring couch. The lower half of the screen, where the two of them are sleeping, is populated with open take-out containers, controllers pulled so far out that they’re a tug from being disconnected. Jay had kicked his socks off in his sleep. He rubs his soles together.
Matt honks a loud snore. Jay grimaces, runs a hand through his hair. He stares at him, at the way his face is less intense in sleep, his eyebrows less arched, less of a constant question, his mouth shut. He doesn’t talk in his sleep, not the way Jay does. Jay misses the sound of his voice when he’s not speaking — it’s the kind of thing he would never admit. Or, well, maybe he would, now.
Last night, they had finished their Chinese food, their thirteenth round of Mario Kart, and were resolving to head off to bed — upstairs or to the bunkbeds, they weren’t sure yet. It wasn’t a real argument, but it sounded like one. Matt argued that, if one of them were to come up with a plan in the middle of the night, it would be easier to get to the whiteboard to work it out if they slept downstairs. Jay argued that he was so tired that there was no way he would A) have an idea, or B) be willing to entertain Matt if he were to have one himself.
Matt was restless in a way that didn’t really mesh with Jay’s perception of the day. They had run around for most of it, gorged themselves on food, played video games until video games stopped being fun, and still, Matt, with the most energy Jay had seen from him in a while. Jay had turned to reason with him, to tell him that they could reconvene in the morning, it’s not like either of them were going anywhere, obviously they could just connect when they woke up and work on something new, but before he got any of the words out, Matt had gotten up close (closer than Jay had maybe ever seen him; Jay felt his eyes cross) and kissed him.
Jay didn’t kiss him back because he didn’t understand what was happening. Matt slapped him upside the head, like he was trying to clear Jay’s brain out, the way you might hit an electronic when it’s moving slow, trying to speed it up, and Jay pulled back to yell at him, but Matt moved back into his space to keep kissing him.
“Are you on drugs?” Jay had said into the kiss.
Matt shoved his thumb between Jay’s lips and tried to wrench his mouth open. Jay, not knowing a better way to stop this when Matt was so fixated, bit down on it.
“Ow!” Matt exclaimed.
“What the fuck is going on?” Jay said, voice creaky and pre-pubescent.
Matt frowned at him and went to sit on the other couch. He sat with his legs crossed, his arms crossed. Jay stared at him.
“I’m just sick of waiting,” Matt had said.
Jay could not even imagine what Matt was talking about, and made this clear.
Matt continued to go on a tirade about how they’ve been playing gay chicken their entire lives, and maybe it was time that the game came to its predictable conclusion.
Jay was not aware that they were playing a decades-long game of gay chicken, and was doubly puzzled about why it had to come to an end right now. Matt had frowned at this admission and lay down facing the back of the couch, stewing. Jay, despite years of practice, still doesn’t know how to deal with a Matt who is sulking, because he’s so good at it. He’ll sulk for hours, for days, he’ll sulk until Jay has to beg for forgiveness, even if he doesn’t think he did anything wrong. And sometimes the begging doesn’t even work, that’s how good Matt is at sulking.
“Matt,” Jay tried.
Matt turned onto his back to stare at the ceiling. Jay watched him. Jay recognized this as being given an in.
“I’m not… against. Trying again. Like, just because I wasn’t… made aware —” Matt scoffed “—that we were… in this situation. Doesn’t mean that I don’t want to try.”
“You aren’t gay,” Matt said.
“Neither are you!” Jay exclaimed. “How was I supposed to know this was coming? Everything was normal this morning! Everything was normal, like, twenty minutes ago!”
“Normal,” Matt echoed.
“Jesus, Matt, don’t give me that,” Jay groaned. “You know what I mean.”
Matt turned back towards the back of the couch. Jay stared at him. He lay down on his own couch, head at the end that would put his closest to Matt’s, and fell asleep.
Awake and annoyed by the persistence of last night’s memory, Jay squints at the back of Matt’s head. The morning light is abrasive. He curses himself for his need to fuck up every single important thing in his life, and then gets up and shoves Matt into the crease of the couch and lies down behind him.
“Whuh,” Matt says.
“Just be quiet,” Jay mutters. “Go back to sleep.”
“Are you about to rape me? If I give consent, are you still gonna do it?”
Jay winces. “Jesus christ, Matt, just go to sleep. I need like three more hours.”
“How early is it?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m exhausted.”
“You’re always tired.” A beat, and then: “Can I turn over?”
“No,” Jay says.
“Why not?”
“I… I don’t know. I’m not ready for that.”
“You’re not ready to sleep face-to-face? But you’re okay with spooning me?” Matt grinds his ass back against Jay’s crotch. Jay grabs him by the hip.
“Stop it,” Jay groans. “This isn’t sex. We’re not having sex. We’re just sleeping.”
“Why can’t we have sex?”
“Why are you pushing this? I told you I’m not even ready for you to look at me, how do you think that I’m ready to have sex?”
“Awww, virginal little Birdie,” Matt coos.
“You’re pissing me off. I’m gonna go back to the other couch.”
Matt squirms around to face Jay. He gives him an unimpressed look. “And then I’ll just follow you over there.”
“Okay, then I’ll go upstairs to my bedroom and sleep there, instead.”
“And I’ll follow you there — what are you thinking? Going to a different room is gonna stop me?”
“I’ll lock the door,” Jay says. “What happened to consent?”
Matt laughs. His breath smells rank. Jay tells him as much.
“You’re supposed to tell me my breath smells like roses,” Matt replies.
“I’m supposed to lie to you?”
“That’s what lovers do. They lie to each other to make the other feel better.”
“We’re not lovers,” Jay says. “And that’s not what lovers do. They’re supposed to be honest with each other.”
“Okay, fine,” Matt says. “Your breath smells like shit, too. And you have an ingrown hair riiiiight,” Matt pokes at it, “here.”
Jay frowns. “What am I supposed to do with this, Matt?”
“With what?”
“You being in love with me.”
“Is that what I said? When did I say that? Did I say it when I was asleep?”
“No, just. That’s kind of the vibe you’re giving off.”
“Right, because soooo many people have been in love with you before that you know exactly what it feels like.”
Jay shrugs a shoulder. “Kind of.”
“Fuckin’ ladykiller,” Matt grumbles. “I don’t want things to change.”
“You kissed me,” Jay says.
“Well, I guess I want some things to change. Have you noticed that neither of us has gotten laid in over a decade?”
Jay thinks this over. He’s right. He hasn’t gotten laid in over ten years. He hasn’t even jerked off in a while. He so rarely gets horny these days. “And?”
“I don’t know. We’re virile young men. I feel like we should be getting our rocks off on a semi-regular basis.”
“I’m almost 40,” Jay says.
“Shut up,” Matt says. “You’re in your early 30s. Mid 30s, at the worst. And what even is the argument you’re making? Men become eunuchs once they hit 40? That’s, like, patently untrue. Men in their 40s fuck even more.”
“I’m just saying that, like. If you want us to start having sex, maybe we should start by, like, going out and trying to meet girls?”
Matt’s face screws up. “Why would I want to meet a girl?”
Jay takes a deep breath, shaking his head. “Okay, then you could go out and, like, go to a gay club. You could try to meet a gay guy.”
“I don’t want to meet a gay guy. Why would I — I feel like you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.”
“Matt, you’re making this more simple than it needs to be. We don’t have to fuck each other just because we, like, live together. We can go out and meet people. That happens all the time.”
“And then what?” Matt asks.
Jay frowns. “And then what, what?”
“And then we meet girls, and then we get married, and what? We move out of the house? We’re not in the band anymore?”
“I didn’t say anything about getting married,” Jay says. “I thought we were just talking about sex.”
“We are talking about sex,” Matt says. He bites his lower lip. Jay looks at his teeth. “But I know you. And I know that you get all fucking caught up in girls, and sex, and you convince yourself that you’re in love as soon as you get your dick wet—”
“Jesus, Matt,” Jay groans.
“That’s just the way it is. Okay? That’s how it was back then, so that’s how it is now. I — I have no fucking… additional information to go off of, here, Bird. You’re the same guy.”
“I’m not the same guy,” Jay says.
“Okay, you’re not the same guy. But you won’t pick me.”
“Matt, why — You shouldn’t want me to pick you. You should want to go out and meet someone.”
“And fuck up our whole lives! Jay. Bird. Our whole lives are dependent on the fact that there’s no one else around. And you want me to invite a new person in? Fucking. Worse, two people? And then it’s Nirvanna the Band and, what, two hot girls who just fucking hang around?”
“They could do, like. Merch sales.”
They stare at each other.
“This is actually,” Matt says, laughing dryly, “kind of a ridiculous conversation, eh?”
“Matt,” Jay sighs, rolling his eyes.
“Like, we’re just lying here face to face. We don’t fight like this, normally.”
Jay frowns.
“Can you just kiss me back this time?” Matt asks.
Jay doesn’t say anything, but when Matt leans in, he lets himself relax under the press of his lips, lets his mouth move against his. It’s admittedly nice. Jay hasn’t kissed anyone in a long time. Kissing Matt is just like kissing anyone else. Matt wraps an arm around Jay’s waist, and that’s nice, too. Jay lets out a happy sigh.
“See?” Matt says under his breath, voice soft. “You like this. Why won’t you just let yourself like it? Is it because someone told you not to? Who told you not to like this, Jay?”
Jay pushes back in to shut him up, licks open his mouth. The kiss deepens and deepens until it feels like Jay is inside of Matt, until it feels like he’s pushing down his throat.
Matt pulls back with a quick breath. “What else do you like, Bird? I’ll do anything.”
Jay knows he would. Jay knows he could ask Matt for anything, right now, and he’d give it to him. It’s maybe one of the reasons why he was so up in arms about this happening, so hesitant to allow it. Maybe he likes the fight. Maybe he likes the resistance as he pushes in. Matt is like putty. Jay can put his whole fist through him.
“I don’t know,” Jay says, because those words come easiest to him. He doesn’t want to ask for too much, because that would be like spoiling himself, and right now, in this room, it feels wrong to dote on himself, to let himself have what he wants.
Matt nudges him around until he’s under him. He reaches down and grabs one of Jay’s legs and hitches it around his waist. “Are we talking about sex, now?” Matt asks, hair messy and resting over his forehead.
Jay feels like letting Matt fuck him would be like letting a demon possess him. He’s not sure what the consequences might be, but he knows that it’s bad. It’s really bad. But like this, with his ankles hooking behind Matt’s back, it’s all that he wants. And he’s going to have to ask for it.
“Matt,” Jay says.
Like they’re conversing in another language, Matt nods. He pulls Jay’s Henley over his head, leans down, and sets his teeth into his chest. Jay hisses, twining his fingers through Matt’s hair. “Do you want to hear about the last time I did this?”
Jay twitches. His breath catches in his chest. “No, Matt, I really don’t.”
“Okay, okay,” Matt chuckles. “Do you want to hear about the last time I thought about doing it with you?”
Jay laughs, helpless, his heart bouncing around his ribcage. “That doesn’t — doesn’t make sense to me. That you would — that you’ve —”
“Thought about you? Jaybird, how could anyone spend as much time as I do with you and not think about it?”
Jay shivers. Matt tongues his nipple. Jay is scared to hear about whatever fantasy Matt Johnson is able to dream up.
“Okay,” Matt clears his throat. He brings a hand up to rub his thumb along Jay’s chest hair. “Let me set the scene. It was two days ago.”
“Jesus, Matt,” Jay giggles.
“Okay, okay. Calm down. It was two days ago. I was in the upper bunk, as I usually am, and you were down on the lower bunk. I think you were having a bad dream.”
Jay frowns down at him.
“Don’t make that face. Listen. Imagine — okay, imagine this. You’re in bed with a girl. And she starts making all of these noises in her sleep. She’s whimpering and moaning and —”
“I’ve got it,” Jay drawls.
“So, that’s what you were doing. And you were saying my name, too. Do you remember the dream I’m talking about? I’ve been so curious about whatever it was since it happened. Like, if I was doing something bad to you, or if something bad was happening to me, you know? Like if it was a torture dream, or, like, I was about to get run over by a train or something?”
“I don’t remember,” Jay says.
Matt pinches his nipple. “Okay, so, you’re down there, writhing in the sheets and going mm, mm, mm, Maaaaatt, Matt, mmmm,” it goes on for too long. Jay slaps him in the arm. “Okay, okay. And I’m up, wondering what you’re dreaming about, but then I start getting hard. And, listen, Jaybird, I don’t just get hard. I think you get hard a lot, because you’re like — I don’t know, a porn addict.”
“I’m not a porn addict —”
“But that doesn’t matter, because I’m getting hard and I’m like jackpot, you know, because orgasms are so hard to come by these days. But, yeah, you’re whining and moaning and it’s so easy to kind of transpose that onto a pervert’s fantasy, yeah? So instead of you being in danger at the hands of some deranged psycho, you’re in danger at my hands instead.”
“Your fantasy is that you’re gonna torture me?”
“Noooo, no,” Matt shakes his head. “But you are tied up. It’s like some classic old movie shit. You’re tied up to a chair and I’m gonna interrogate you.”
“Matt, what are you even talking about?”
“I’m kidding. I’m kidding, okay? But you are tied up, and you’re on your knees, and I’m gonna fuck your face, because you’re kind of asking for it. Your eyes are all big and wet, and — oh, I forgot to mention, in real life, when you were dreaming, you kept going please, please, Matt, please, like you were asking me for something. And so, I take that and I run with it and I turn that into you begging me for my dick. That’s not crazy, right?”
Jay frowns. “This is the type of thing you fantasize about?”
“I feel like you’re forgetting that I said I so rarely do this, Bird. So, when the opportunity arises…”
“When the opportunity arises, this is the shit you think up?”
“I’m using the material provided to me. It’s like if you were watching porn, and you were looking at some big-titted brunette giving a sloppy blowjob, you’d think about getting a sloppy blowjob. In my case, you were crying —”
“I was having a bad dream, Matt.”
“So I’m not allowed to jerk off to the, frankly, pornographic noises you make because you just so happened to be having a nightmare at the time?”
“Yes!”
“Well, it’s too late. Because, okay, in my fantasy, you’re all trussed up like a turkey, and you’re sucking my dick, and then —”
“Wait, I remember this now.”
“Yeah.”
“I woke up crying.”
“Yeah, and I busted a fuckin’ fat one, Bird.”
“Jesus christ, Matt.”
“You were breathing so hard, and you let out this huge sob, and I just fucking. Nutted. Big time.”
“You’re disgusting,” Jay grimaces.
Matt kisses his chest. “Do you remember what the dream was about?”
“Yeah, you were — I mean, it was kind of. It’s kind of embarrassing. You were, like, a mad scientist, and I was —”
“Oh my god, so it literally was a torture dream. I was torturing you in your dream. That’s fucking wicked, man.”
“It’s not — I don’t like the fact that you were getting off while I was having that dream, Matt.”
“Dream Matt was getting off on it while he was torturing you, too, Jaybird, I hope you know that.” And then he grinds down into Jay, hard. Jay squawks. “I know you want me to fuck you, but I’m about two more of those from ruining these PJ pants.”
“Matt,” Jay sighs.
“Oh, but you know what I can do? Okay, let’s get your pants off. Oh, this is gonna be awesome. Do you know, this is one of those things I’ve never done. Well, I guess, in a matter of speaking, I have kind of done it, but not to a guy.”
Jay kicks his pajama pants down his legs, and then is manhandled out of his briefs. Matt squirms down his body, pushes his legs up, and —
“Jesus fuck, Matt!”
Matt looks up from where he’s just licked Jay’s asshole. “What?”
“I thought you were talking about fucking — fingering me, or something, I didn’t know you were gonna —”
“Okay? Well, you’re welcome? Can I keep going?”
Jay’s knees knock together, blocking Matt from his view as he tries really hard not to scream or burst into tears.
Matt takes his silence as confirmation and leans back down to lick over and into Jay’s hole.
“Oh my god,” Jay whimpers.
Matt moans into him, licks him open until he’s loose enough to have a finger fucked in.
“Matt, Matt, mm, Matt, please,” Jay whines.
Matt starts chuckling against Jay’s taint. It’s not entirely unpleasant, but Jay groans. “Quit it. It’s not funny.”
“No, no, it’s just. This is just like when I was torturing you.”
“You are torturing me,” Jay says. “Can you just — just fuck me, already.”
Matt glances up at him, eyes bright, one of Jay’s pubes on his upper lip. “With my dick?”
Jay rolls his eyes. “Whatever. You can. Do whatever. You’re just gonna do whatever, no matter what I say, so.”
“Oh, you’re making me sound like a bad guy,” Matt says, sitting up and pulling his dick out of his pants. “You’re making me sound like I’m evil. Am I evil, Birdie?” He spits in his hand and slicks himself up before pressing the head to Jay’s asshole. “Am I being bad to you?”
“You’re being stupid,” Jay says, mouth opening on a long moan as Matt fucks into him. “You’re being — shit, shit, shit, Matt.”
“I already said I’d give you whatever you wanted,” Matt says, face and neck red. “Haha. Birdie, I’m about to come inside you.”
Jay feels like his lungs and heart aren’t working. He feels like he’s dying, a little bit. Death By Matt Johnson, the way he always figured he’d eventually go.
Matt reaches down between them to grab at Jay’s dick, and jerks him off furiously. He doesn’t fuck him while he does it, his lower lip held hard between his teeth. “Bird. Birdie, this is crazy. Your dick is literally in my hand.”
Jay can’t stop whimpering. He can’t stop thinking about the torture dream, about Matt jerking off listening to Jay having the torture dream, he can’t hold himself back from pleading. He comes over Matt’s fist.
Matt starts fucking him again, hips slamming against his ass, and then he screws in deep and Jay watches his face go nearly purple.
“Wow,” Jay says, catching his breath.
“Wow,” Matt replies. “That was kind of objectively bad, huh?”
Jay’s face twists. “You thought it was bad?”
“No, I thought it was the best sex I have had and will ever have, obviously,” Matt says. “But you’ve probably — I mean, you’ve had — I’m waiting for you to cut me off and tell me that you really liked having sex with me, Bird.”
Jay snorts. “I liked having sex with you, Matt.”
“Really?”
“...Really. Can you pull out, now?”
“Are you sure I have to?”
“What’s the alternative?”
“We stay fused together for the rest of time. I feel like if I came enough inside you and we just let it solidify—”
“Matt, that’s so fucking disgusting I don’t have words for it.”
“You have words for it. You said, ‘Matt, that’s so fucking disgusting.’” He pulls out anyway. His come probably drips onto the couch, but Jay can’t see it because he’s staring at the ceiling. “So,” Matt says. “I think we should aim for like once a week.”
Jay looks up at him. “Once a week?”
“Yeah. Week. Do you like month better?”
“No, Matt. Obviously, I’m gonna wanna have sex with you more often than once a week.”
“Oh, so day.”
Jay nods.
Matt’s eyes go foggy.
“Oh, you are not about to cry,” Jay groans.
“It just means a lot to me that you want to fuck me that often, Bird,” Matt weeps. “You didn’t even want to fuck me at all like an hour ago.”
“Shut up, Matt, oh my god,” Jay groans.
Matt face plants onto his chest and kisses his skin. “Is it too early for the what are we talk?”
“Matt, I need you to stop talking.”
“Because, like, you’re my best friend, but now you’re also —”
“Matt,” Jay says, pulling him from him by the hair. “Stop talking.” He kisses him.
Matt hums into the kiss. “Because I like boyfriend,” he says against Jay’s mouth. “But it is a little juvenile at our age, eh? This is my boyfriend, Jay.” He puts his tongue behind Jay’s teeth. “Have you met Jay, my boyfriend? Haha. Are we gonna be those two, fucking. Cishet white guys who walk around calling each other partner? That’s kind of funny, actually. Do you want to be my partner, Birdie? Oh, this is my partner Jay McCarrol. My life partner. Huh. Do you like that one, actually—?”