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Matt’s got his hand in Adam’s hair, and Adam looks back at him with a small smile pulling at his lips, a flush coloring his cheeks.
Chris takes a big swig of his beer, the taste of it acrid and bitter as it goes down. His eyes are glued to Adam, how he reacts to Matt, the way he basks under Matt’s attention. Rachel is talking to him, but he can’t parse out what she is saying, the soft din of her voice just barely reaching his ears over the blood rushing through them. There is something building under his ribs, growing bigger and bigger, making him feel queasy and uncomfortable. His skin constricts around him, and he can’t fucking breathe.
It all comes to a point when Rachel places a soft hand on his forearm just as Matt leans in and catches Adam’s lips in a kiss, Adam melting into it. Chris jerks away from Rachel’s touch and stalks off, multiple voices calling after him, a cacophony of his name meshing together, but Adam’s voice seems to find him, the sound of his name falling from those lips reaching him clear and easily discernible even mixed with everyone else’s.
He keeps walking, trying and failing to shake off the clamoring energy that has settled over him. Everything has been off lately and he doesn’t know why. Or at least, he pretends not to know why. The image of Matt and Adam flashing through his mind, unbidden. It only serves to frustrate him further. He kicks at a trashcan as he passes it and storms into the Ortus’ home. As soon as he is inside and outside of view from prying eyes, he starts pacing, hands rubbing harshly against his face.
“Fuuuck!”
He vaguely registers the door opening and closing, but he doesn’t stop in his stride.
“Chris.” Adam’s cautious voice sounds out, and Chris’ gaze is drawn to him, halting momentarily in his tracks before he forcibly turns away and resumes his path.
It’s quiet for a long beat, the only sounds Chris’ rhythmic footfalls and his harsh breathing. He can feel Adam’s heavy gaze on him, following him from one side of the room to the other.
“Did you guys have a fight?” Adam asks, drawing his own conclusions.
“No.” Chris’ reply is curt and terse.
Adam allows them to simmer in the tense silence for a few moments then abruptly steps in front of Chris, blocking his path. “Okay, so what’s wrong? What happened to make you-” he gestures to the outside. “-storm off like that?”
Chris breathes harshly as his eyes rake over Adam, jaw clenched uncomfortably. It doesn’t help that Adam’s hair is still messy from where Matt’s hands had been playing with it, or that, if he looks carefully, Chris can spot the edges of a hickey at Adam’s collarbone, peaking out from the cut of his dress shirt.
Which he had been wearing a lot more ever since Matt, gone were the soft tees, tank-tops and the worn sweaters. Despite how well dress shirts suit Adam, Chris hates the sight of them. A reminder. A mark left on Adam, just like the hickey.
Chris watches it happen in slow-motion when Adam reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder, every increment it gets closer seeming to last a lifetime. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to stand Adam touching him right now. It’s too much. When Adam’s hand finally lands, squeezing reassuringly, the tension in Chris seeps out of him, and he deflates around a rough exhale.
The full weight of Adam’s attention is on him, and in a way it’s all he wants, but it settles over him wrong.
“What’s going on?” Adam tries again.
Chris drops his head, shaking it. “I don’t know, man,” he replies around a sigh. He closes his eyes and takes a fortifying breath. Nerves calmed infinitesimally, he meets Adam’s eyes. “It’s nothing.”
Adam doesn’t say anything, but he clearly is skeptical of Chris’ words, looking him over for any overt evidence of him lying.
Chris reaches out and puts his own hand on Adam’s opposite shoulder. “I just needed a moment.”
He squeezes his shoulder then steps away, cutting off any physical touch between them. He squares his shoulders and starts heading outside again when Adam speaks.
“Why?”
Chris doesn’t turn to him, thinks about it for a second then replies, “must just be one of those days.”
Adam follows him out at a slower pace. Chris can feel his eyes on him the whole way. Feels them on him for the rest of the night, but Chris adamantly ignores the prickling sensation of being carefully watched without ignoring Adam. It’s a fine line, but he toes it well enough. As he does with many things these days.
Chris slowly approaches Rachel with apologetic eyes and a hesitant shrug of his mouth. He’s not certain whether it is entirely genuine, or if it’s put-upon. Rachel whole demeanor is guarded, clearly unhappy with him, but she doesn’t cause a scene, doesn’t bring it up, and they spend the evening skirting around each other, keeping up pretenses for those around them, but maintain a cold distance.
When they call it an evening and get into his car, it’s tense and uncomfortable. The expression on Rachel’s face is miserable and full of frustration, and Chris feels bad. He feels like the world’s biggest asshole of his treatment of her since the day they met.
“What the fuck was that?” Rachel’s voice is cold and composed, and it’s terrifying. Chris had expected her to erupt with an angry outburst, to yell at him. Instead it’s eerie calm and repressed anger, and it’s much worse.
He swallows and tightens his grip around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry,” he says. It’s all he really can say. He doesn’t know– he can’t explain to her what had happened, can barely face it himself in the privacy of his own mind. It’s not new. It’s been happening for weeks now, but tonight had been too much.
Ever since he’d kissed Adam at the fourth of July party, his mind would flash back to it intermittently, bring with it the tingling of his lips, a tight knot in his chest. In the moment, it had been easy to pretend to be unaffected. It hadn’t registered to him, then. It had been more about shutting Adam up than anything else. But the feelings had lingered, and his reaction to it hadn’t materialized until he’d been back in his own bed. Saying he’d freaked out would be an understatement. He had put all his energy into ignoring it, wishing it would go away if he didn’t acknowledge it. This is the part where he is an asshole, because he’d doubled his efforts in pursuing Rachel. He’d thought she was so great when they’d first met, and he had tried with all his might to get back to that.
It’s a losing game. His mind fixated on Adam. The ugly, swirling storm that had roared within him when Adam had told them all that Matt had asked him out had only further cemented that truth.
“I’m not stupid, you know,” Rachel says, venom dripping from her words.
His stomach tightens at the prospect of her knowing all of it. He doesn’t look at her, stares steadfastly at the road ahead as he maneuvers through traffic.
Once again, it’s quiet. None of them speak until Chris pulls up to the curb of her home. There’s a suffocating weight on his chest. It’s over between them. He knows, can feel it in the rigid cold between them, in the way she looks at him.
She visibly composes herself, some of the anger on her face softening with understanding that he doesn’t deserve. “I get that it can be hard to realize things about yourself, but that doesn’t mean you get to use other people as props to not face it.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but he can’t even defend himself. That’s what he’s been doing, he won’t insult her further by continuing to lie about it.
“I am sorry,” he tells her, earnestly. He can’t look her in the eyes. Shame and cowardice overpowering him in the moment.
“I know.” A hand touches his face, caressing it with a warmth and tenderness he doesn’t deserve. His eyes fall closed and he leans into her touch. “It doesn’t change anything and I beyond pissed, but I understand.”
He doesn’t open his eyes as she presses a soft kiss against his cheek, or as the sound of the passenger door opening reaches his ears. He doesn’t open his eyes for a long while after that either. When he eventually does compose himself, he doesn’t look to her front door, knows she won’t be there. He sits in the dark for long, drawn-out minutes and just breathes.
Adam may still be with Matt, may still be in his arms – and isn’t that a thought he doesn’t want to have – but at least the guilt of his mistreatment of Rachel won’t continue growing.
He pulls out into the road. Slowly, the weight on his chest eases, and he feels just the slightest bit better.
֎֎֎
“You look...better?” There’s a frown on Adam’s face, his brows knitted together in hesitant confusion. Chris may look at him for a beat longer than appropriate, committing the look to his memory.
“I feel better.” He shrugs, pushing past Adam and into his home.
“That’s good...I guess.”
Chris laughs at his tone. He moves through Adam’s house and throws himself on the couch. Adam joins him not a moment later, sitting on his right.
Realization strikes Chris then.
They haven’t been alone on Adam’s couch since that night. His eyes land on Adam and he can’t help but wonder how different things would have been if Adam had actually kissed him that night. Would Chris have melted into it, protected by the excuse of his inebriated state? Would more have happened? Chris swallows at the thought, his throat suddenly dry.
Besides him, Adam seems to be remembering that night, too, and he keeps a measured distance between them on the couch. Chris looks at the space between their thighs for a second then spreads out, arm landing on the back of the couch behind Adam, his thigh moving to press against Adam’s.
Adam’s lips twitch at the corners, a smile fighting to be seen. Chris hadn’t realized that Adam had been tense until then. It’s hard to avoid noticing how drastically Adam sags in relief. Chris shoulder-checks him, and Adam lets out an airy chuckle.
“Definitely in a better mood than the other night.” Adam settles on the couch, his weight coming to rest on Chris’ arm. Neither of them move. “Did you make up with Rachel?”
Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but Chris could have sworn there’s something unhappy swirling around in Adam’s eyes as he asks.
Chris shakes his head. “No. We...erh...We broke up.”
“Oh.”
An array of emotions cross Adam’s face, but it settles on one of sympathy.
“I’m sorry. Or–”
He squints at Chris. “Or based on everything about you right now: congratulations?”
“No, it’s good. It’s for the better.”
“I thought you liked her.”
“I did. I do. She’s great, but it wasn’t right.”
Adam nods slowly, his eyes flickering between Chris’ and thin air. He licks his lips, contemplation on his face. Eventually, it smooths out and he asks, “why wasn’t it right?”
Chris shrugs, looking steadily at Adam’s, even as Adam fidgets under his gaze. “Just wasn’t what I’m looking for, I guess.”
A part of him wants so badly for Adam to ask. The other part of him is scared shitless that he actually will.
Adam swallows, his throat moving with it. There’s a helpless look on his face. His chest rises and falls around his labored breathing.
In the end, he doesn’t ask.
Instead, he turns to the TV, fingers pulling at non-existent strings on his pants.
Then he snorts.
“Does this mean you’re going back to Jessica?”
“Fuck no!” Chris answers emphatically and back-hands Adam’s leg.
Adam laughs. It starts out full and hearty, but it sobers quickly, fading slowly until it dies with one last, ugly sputter of sound. “You always have in the past.”
There’s a blankness on Adam’s face that makes Chris’ stomach lurch. His eyes rove over Adam, the way he is holding himself, not moving a muscle. He doesn’t look back at Chris, even as the seconds tick by.
“Not this time.” It’s a declaration. A promise. One he intends to keep. Partly because Jessica is truly horrible, but mostly, and it’s still hard to acknowledge the depth of his feelings, it’s because of Adam.
Grabbing the remote from the coffee table, Chris turn on the TV. There is a tension between them. It’s not heavy, but it’s there, present and unavoidable. As Chris flicks through the channel, his mind preoccupied elsewhere, Adam buries deeper into the couch, the crown of his head pillowing against Chris’ bicep. Chris tries to remain unaffected, but his heart beats harder in his chest and his breathing is not as even as it had been before. There are too many feelings in his gut, push and pulling at him. He wishes he could give into those urges, that he shift towards Adam and kiss him.
His gaze swings to Adam and gets caught on the turned-over back cushion where Adam is resting his arm next to him. The idea materializes in his mind, and it’s stupid. It is so dumb. And more importantly, it definitely won’t work.
...but what if it did.
Even if the chances are slim to none, that’s still enough to hope, and that’s all the compulsion in him needs to decide.
Here goes nothing.
He lands on a random channel, a rerun of an old football game. It doesn’t really matter.
Heart in his throat and all the while keeping his gaze firmly locked on the TV, he throws the remote onto the cushion on the other side of Adam.
Adam looks up at then at the remote and back at him again. Chris feels the heat of his gaze like a physical touch on his cheek. He draws in a shaky breath. It does nothing to compose him.
“This is a shit game,” he says, voice cracking on the first word before he manages to regain control of it. It’s a lie. Or it isn’t. He really doesn’t know. Couldn’t care less at the moment.
Adam’s eyes have not moved away from him once.
Feeling like he might throw up if he does and die if he doesn’t, he shifts his upper body towards Adam, making sure not to jostle him off his bicep, and reaches across him to grab the remote with his left hand.
The movement bring them closer together, and Adam’s breath hitches when Chris invades his space. He looks up at him with big, unguarded eyes, his mouth falling open around a rough exhale.
Chris’ own mouth parts, mirroring Adam’s, and then they are sharing air. The warm breath leaving Adam dancing lightly over Chris face, makes his lips tingle and his ears ring. Liquid heat slides down his spine and he can’t suppress the shiver that runs through him. His eyes travel Adam’s face, takes in the dips and valleys of it, the red flush spreading across his cheek, the slow, entranced blinking.
His heart is trying to break out of his chest. The importance of the moment has excited and scared adrenaline coursing through him. It’s a long minute of them staring at each other, breathing the same warm and humid air. It’s right there, within reach. Building, building–
Nothing happens. Chris realizes he had been depending on Adam to make the final move, to close the distance between them. Chris wants to do it, but he can’t. He can’t make himself surge down and kiss Adam.
Eventually, Adam goes tense under him. His whole face falls and closes off. He swallows audibly.
Chris is still hovering over him, frozen in fear as waits for Adam’s reaction.
“What are you doing?” Adam asks, voice rough and dry. He clears his throat.
“I-” Chris shakes his head, breathing deeply, unable to put it into voice. Incapable of saying it out loud.
“No, what the fuck are you doing?” Adam’s voice increases in pitch, anger and disbelief coloring it. Despite his reaction, he does nothing to push Chris out of his space, doesn’t move away from him, either.
Mortification and fear rush through Chris, bring with them a wave of nausea. He shakes his head and plops down onto the seat next to Adam.
“Are you mocking me?” Adam demands, anger still billowing off him.
“No!” Chris rushes out, voice too loud in the small room. “No. I wouldn’t– I…”
“Because it feels like you are with all the–” he gestures around them, ending with a pointed gesture towards the cushion.
Chris shakes his emphatically. “I’m not. I swear. I wouldn’t do that to you. I was–” Chris closes his eyes and takes a second to steel himself. “I was trying to get you to kiss me again.”
Adam opens him mouth only to shut it again audibly, his teeth clacking together. “What.” The word is monotonous, a reaction rather than a question.
Chris turns to the TV and stares blankly at it. His world coming down around him, piece by piece. He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, man. I’m just...messed up.”
“You want me to kiss you because you’re fucked up over Rachel? Are you serious right now?” Adam is indignant and disgusted, but he’s all wrong. “What, so you can shut me down? Would that make you feel better?”
This time Adam does move to get off the couch, but Chris swings out an arm around his middle and forces him to stay put. “No! No. How can you even think that? I don’t wanna kiss you because Rachel and I broke up; we broke up because–” Chris cuts himself off. He can’t. He’s a fucking coward, and he can’t make himself say it. He hadn’t really understood it when Adam had first come out, how it could be so difficult to just say the words.
He gets it now.
Dejection sits heavily on his shoulders and he meets Adam’s eyes, helplessly. Adam watches him, silently, studying him. Chris thinks he might know. That it is written all over his face. His arm is still around Adam, and Chris’ fingers flex in the loose fabric of his shirt. The urge to run away, to hide from it all, and not deal with any of it is threatening to choke him.
He had known it was a bad idea. Fucking shit. Of course, it wouldn’t work.
The air around them shifts, becoming somber and subdued, a sadness creeping into Chris’ gut. He’s ruined everything. There is nothing he can do. Adam has Matt, and Chris will just have to deal. If Adam doesn’t hate him, that is.
“I can’t kiss you,” Adam admits quietly, his voice soft and low pulling Chris from his thoughts.
Chris nods, disappointed. “Because of Matt.” With great effort, he releases his grip on Adam’s shirt and pulls back.
“No,” Adam says then seems to catch himself. “Yes, obviously, also because of Matt.”
“Why else?” Chris prompts when Adam falls silent.
There is nothing for a long time, seconds ticking by as Chris waits with bated breath, trying to not get his hopes up, but unable to restrain himself from doing so.
“The last time I tried to kiss you, you freaked out and didn’t speak to me for weeks.”
They keep toeing around this thing, never quite admitting the full truth while revealing parts of it. The push and pull, and the uncertainty inherent to it, had frayed his nerves and he is exhausted.
Something has to give.
“I’m not freaking out now.”
His voice is firm and steady, despite how shaky he feels. Adam’s big eyes find him once more. He stares at him for a long time, doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. Then so fast that it startles Chris, Adam is moving, closing the space between and them and smashes their mouths together.
A surprised sound leaves Chris, a surprised, high-pitch noise that transforms into soft hum as he melts into the kiss.
The kiss they’d shared at the fourth of July party had been replaying in Chris’ mind since that night, but it was nothing – nothing – compared to the impact of Adam actively kissing him back. Adam’s hands are framing Chris’ face, tugging him closer.
It’s urgent and rushed, but it’s perfect.
When Adam pulls back, his eyes are dilated and he’s flushed, out of breath. Chris can’t take his eyes off him.
A mischievous smirk appears on Adam’s face, and Chris narrows his eyes in suspicion.
“I told you,” Adam says, shrugging nonchalantly. “Like kissing my brother.”
Chris rolls his eyes and shoves Adam. “Shut up.”
The laughter bubbling out of Adam is intoxicating and Chris wants to taste it. He claims Adam’s mouth in another kiss, psyched that he can.