Work Text:
Ted dreamed he was standing out in traffic, feet planted solidly on the tar. He was hemmed in by buildings - dull gray skyscrapers pointing up at nothing - and all he could see of the sky was drab blue and starless. He turned away and looked down the road, and he knew he was somewhere in New York but the streets didn't seem to belong there; they rolled and twisted as though mountains were buried underneath them.
He was thinking somewhere, This can't be safe, I should get out, but instead of moving out of the street and back onto the pavement, he kept staring down the road, and when he saw the car come creeping up over one of the hills, he didn't think anything in particular about it.
The car was huge, yellow and black, and absolutely silent. He was watching it come at him, its headlights like great staring eyes, and thinking, It's going to hit me.
He thought, I can walk out, this doesn't have to happen. The car seemed to be going slowly, except then he thought that was a mistake, his eyes were playing tricks on him. This doesn't have to happen.
He watched it roll towards him, all bright headlights and black and yellow, slow and unstoppable, hundreds of pounds of metal aimed right at him, and he couldn't even get out of the way.
Ted woke up just before the car smacked into his side. He stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling for a second, trying to figure out what the story was. He felt like he'd been knocked back onto the mattress, unable to get his breath, as if the car had really hit him. He tried to move, to push the weight of the dream away, but all he managed to do was turn his head.
He was in a bed he didn't know, wearing flannelly pajama pants that were too big for him and draped over the tops of his toes, and he didn't really remember putting those on, but he was too groggy and hungover to really be freaked out about it. There was a thin painful needle just above his right eye. He wondered where his glasses were.
There was a blurry figure sprawled out next to him, a dark head lolling on an outstretched shoulder. It took a minute to register.
Thom's apartment. Thom's bed. Huh.
Asleep, Thom's face looked pliant and smooth, hair falling in his eyes and white teeth showing through parted lips. There was something oddly self-contained about his sprawl, as though there was a wall between the two of them. The sheets were puddled around Thom's ankles; he was twitching in his sleep.
Ted was awake enough now to try to connect his neural impulses together; he leaned over to try to pull the sheets back up. His wrist brushed against Thom's stomach. Thom made a wordless, murmury sound and rolled over, wrapping himself around Ted like an octopus and sighing into Ted's chest.
"Mmmph," Ted said. He wasn't sure what he should do now. He tried to remember if he'd ever been in a comparable situation, but oddly enough, he couldn't think of any. He wondered if he should try to wiggle out of Thom's grasp and save him some embarrassment when he woke up, but he wasn't really together enough to do that right now. He rested his hand on Thom's head and wondered where he'd put his glasses.
He woke up without even knowing he'd gone back to sleep. Thom's face was scratchy; it was rubbing against his collarbone. "Uh."
"Hi," Thom mumbled. He squinted up at Ted. "What time's it?"
"I don't have my glasses," Ted said, as if that explained everything.
"Oh," Thom said. "I was waiting for my alarm to go off...I was going to put you in the guestroom last night, but then you kind of keeled over in here and I just didn't have the heart. You don't mind, right?"
"Don't mind," Ted said. He wondered if Thom was going to bring up the fact that he was currently lying on Ted's chest, or if that particular ball was in Ted's court, or if he should do anything at all.
It was way too damned early for this.
Because Thom didn't seem to be about to say anything, he figured he wouldn't either. He leaned back against Thom's pillows.
"My head's killin' me," Thom said.
"I can sympathize," Ted said.
He knew this couldn't last, that in a minute or two Thom was going to get up and go do whatever it was he did in the mornings, and it was probably going to be weird and awkward between them for the rest of the day, if not the week, or, hell, go for broke, the whole month. He took a long breath. Wasn't like he could do anything about it now.
Thom's hair was in his face. He brushed it away with his free hand and looked down at Thom. He looked as if he might have fallen back to sleep; he seemed soft and almost innocent, all curled up. Ted tried to brush Thom's hair back into place. His hair was too thick and there was too much of it to really fix with one hand; silky strands were sticking to Ted's palm.
"Mmm," Thom said against him. "Don't bother, Ted, it's a mess."
"You're telling me," Ted said. He stopped even trying to stop Thom's curls from spilling out onto his hand and rubbed the top of Thom's head instead, his hand slipping down to the nape of Thom's neck, rolling whisps of hair between his fingertips.
"Do that again," Thom said.
"Hmm," Ted said. He felt Thom breathing, warm exhalations creeping down his belly. He pressed his palm down gently, massaging tender skin, easing the tension out. Thom's groan sounded strangely content.
"That's okay," Thom mumbled. He turned his face to the side, scratchy face abrading Ted's skin. "That's nice. You're my friend, Ted."
"Yeah," Ted said softly.
Thom's hand was resting in between his abdomen and the top of his thigh. Sort of resting. Thom was never really still. His fingers kneaded obliviously at the fabric of the pajama pants that were too big for Ted, too long and loose. The cotton was bunching up under Thom's fingers, fluffy soft and rubbing against him, just not really soft enough.
Ted's breath caught, just a little - not, please God, enough to be noticeable. He kept his hand on Thom's head, stroking his hair like he was lulling him back to sleep, saying nothing. He wasn't sure what he should say.
Thom stopped kneading at the fabric. He smoothed out the wrinkles with one hand, his fingers brushing over where Ted's cock was pushing against the cotton, again and again. It was becoming rhythmic, almost - he wasn't even touching him, not really, just moving the cotton, but the friction of the soft threads against the swelling head of his cock was making it difficult for Ted to keep his breathing even. Thom spread his fingers, like a cat flexing its claws; Ted could almost fit into the L-shape between his index and thumb, rubbing against the underside of his cock.
"You're my friend," Thom said again, softly. Ted pressed his cheek against the top of his head, humming; Thom's hair smelled sharp and musky, with some sort of fading herbal scent from either shampoo or product.
Thom rocked against him gently, eyes still closed. Ted felt the nudge of Thom's cock against him, blind and dumb, seeking out the grooves in Ted's hip. Ted took a shaky breath and exhaled into Thom's hair. Thom didn't seem to notice. He splayed his fingers wider, as if he were trying to push the material aside. All Ted could feel was the imprint of touch against him, muffled behind taut, impenetrable cotton.
Ted arched his back as he came, his voice gone small and hurt in his throat. He rested his head against the pillows and let his hand slide down to the back of Thom's neck, letting small, soft curls brush against his knuckles.
It only took a few more minutes for Thom to fall against him, tensed and shuddering. He sighed and opened his eyes.
"What am I gonna do with you, Ted?" he said softly.
That was something Ted didn't have the answer to, so he just shifted his weight and let Thom nuzzle out a place against his collarbone, heavy head becoming heavier, lost in sleep.
The alarm went off an hour or two later; Ted's eyes felt sandy and his mouth tasted metallic. Thom was slapping around the bedside table, cursing under his breath whenever he hit something that wasn't a clock. Finally, he whapped something and the siren stopped.
"Thank God," Thom croaked. "Hi."
"Hi," Ted said. He tried to remember if they were filming today, but it was one of those days off that didn't really count as a day off, where the whole time was spent on the phone to executive producers and assistants and possible locations. Great.
He felt greasy and sticky and...gross, essentially. And he couldn't see.
"Thom -"
"Here, Ted," Thom said, holding out his glasses. "They were just hanging out here."
"On your jam-packed table," Ted said, and put his glasses back on. Thom's face jumped back into focus, face unshaven and his hair sticking up. Thom met his eyes; a quick nervous smile, and then looking away, fidgeting with his clock. Ted looked at the painting across the room, the slashes of blue and black.
If Thom wasn't going to say anything, he sure as hell wasn't going to.
"Want some coffee?" Thom said softly. "I should feed the dog, too."
"I think I probably do. I-I'm -"
"Want to take a shower or anything?"
"Yeah."
He borrowed a robe from Thom, an oversized dark blue thing that lay heavily across his shoulders. He hung it up in Thom's massive bathroom and stood in the shower, water drumming on the top of his head. The come had dried hard and sticky on the inside of his thigh. He scrubbed at it with his fingers.
After two years of wondering if this was going to happen, if he should make the first move, if it was even really workable, something had happened and it seemed completely detached from him.
It was probably because he'd spent the other half of the past two years saying, "It'll never happen. Quit kidding yourself, Allen."
The funny thing was that it really didn't bother him that nothing seemed real.
Ted turned the water off. He could follow time-honored tradition and not deal with it unless he really, really had to, or he could take a chance and - but how the hell was it going to solve anything, wandering back into the bedroom, wearing Thom's robe, and saying, "So, is this your first time fucking your coworker, too? Wanna make out a little? Please?"
Self-indulgent nonsense. He stepped out of the shower, rubbing his chin - getting kind of scraggly; he needed a trim, but it could wait until he was back at home with his own razor - and fumbled for his glasses and Thom's robe and wandered back out into unreality.
Thom was sitting on the bed with his back turned, flipping through his itinerary. He looked up when Ted shut the door.
"About time. I thought you'd drowned. Hey, I put your clothes in the wash for you, they were looking kind of raggedy."
Ted looked around the bedroom. The chances of finding anything he could possibly fit into looked fairly slight. Thom was grinning proudly.
"Uh, Thom?" Ted said.
Thom blinked. The smile slid off his face. "Oh. Ohhh."
"I mean -" Ted said.
"No, it's all right," Thom said. "We're not filming today, right? You can hang out here until they get dry. You can walk around like Hugh Hefner. It'll be great."
"House-sit for you?" Ted said. He wasn't sure if he should be annoyed or not; Thom was so scatterbrained sometimes, he never thought things through. But it wasn't like it was important.
"Yeah, house-sit." Thom frowned. "I need to get to the office. I think I'm already late. So hang out, watch TV, make long distance phone calls, whatever. I'm just -" He paused with his hand on the bathroom door, considering. "Ted -"
"Yeah?" Ted said distantly. He curled his toes on Thom's carpet, digging his heels into the wool, like that would work to anchor him.
Thom ran his thumb over the doorknob. "There's coffee in the kitchen," he said finally, and then stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. The water came on.
Ted's cell phone, along with his wallet and keys, was on the counter next to the washing machine, which was humming quietly as it swished his clothes around. The coffee was in a French press, dark and steaming. Thom's dog strode into the kitchen as Ted was dialing his assistant Jeanie's number and eyed him up and down, as though he were deciding whether or not to bark. Ted eyed him back as the phone rang.
Jeanie picked up sounding alarmingly chipper for seven in the morning. "Hi! I was wondering when you were going to check in!"
"Kind of a late night," Ted said. The dog finally decided not to start barking and wandered away. "I wanted to talk to you about what to do for Eric. I'm kind of wracking my brain over what to do about the whole vegan allergic to wheat situation."
Thom, freshly shaven and changed, hair wrestled back into order, was heading out. The dog was trotting happily beside him, leash caught in his mouth. Ted glanced up, cell phone in one hand, coffee cup in the other.
"See ya, Ted," Thom called, halfway out the door. Ted waved the cup at him.
"What was that?" Jeanie said. The door clicked closed.
"Hmm?" Ted said. "I said, I was thinking maybe we could do something with either rice flour or cornmeal, something. I've been looking for some funky grocery stores..."
The coffee wasn't cutting it. He began rifling through Thom's kitchen in hopes of finding some yogurt or a banana or an orange, but all he could find was an assortment of pasta sauces in various degrees of depletion, a few leaves of arugula, and a mushroom cap. It wasn't surprising. Thom probably went from week to week being wined and dined by clients. He wasn't the supermarket type.
Jeanie hung up after giving him his phone messages and promising she'd get the contact numbers of some organic groceries. Ted dialed the number of the manager of Ready to Eat, to see about getting Justin's graduation party catered, and wondered how exactly Thom got through the day without any breakfast.
Out in the living room, he sifted through the magazines beside the couch without finding anything he particularly wanted to look at. There was a dark jacket thrown over one of the chairs, a chewed-up tennis ball on the floor, a leash with the price tag still on it. The manager of Ready to Eat still wasn't in, which meant that Ted would have to spend the rest of the day playing phone tag with her in addition to everything else. A Japanese phrasebook on the coffee table. Kung fu DVDs and a CD without a name or a jewel case.
He wasn't sure if he was even looking for distraction anymore, or if he was just playing at being the Hardy Boys and searching for clues. Although it was anyone's guess as to what the clues were supposed to be.
One thing was for certain: for someone who centered his life around creating order out of people's homes, Thom was really a slob.
The washing machine clicked off in the kitchen. Ted went to stick his clothes in the dryer and dialed Doug the location manager to grumble about how he'd been chasing Ready to Eat around for the past three days with no result.
Idly, he wondered if Thom had any pictures of himself hanging around the apartment.
He supposed that was unlikely. Thom only let them get so far with him, only let all of them into his life just so much and no more. He wasn't the type to have baby pictures lying around in plain view, or high school diplomas or pictures of friends or anything like that. Thom was scrupulous like that.
Ted wound up sitting on the couch, stomach roiling from too much coffee, irritably dialing numbers into his phone while the dryer hummed and took its own sweet time to get finished. He flipped through one of Thom's architectural magazines in between phone calls.
By the time he got back to his own apartment, it was half past noon. There were fifteen messages on his answering machine. He tossed the mail down on the table (it could wait for a couple of minutes) and began sorting through them. He got through seven before he realized he hadn't been listening. He blinked at the answering machine light, as if that would help.
He'd been up for six hours, and he hadn't gotten one damned thing accomplished.
Numbly, he turned his attention to the mail. He'd deal with everything else in a minute.
At five, he couldn't even remember what he was supposed to be getting done. Hopefully it could wait for another day. He went into the kitchen and grabbed an orange from the fridge. He stabbed his thumb through the rind and started to nudge the door closed with his foot.
Before the refrigerator door shut, he stared into its depths, at the milk and eggs and wine and fruit, the leftover pot roast and grapefruit juice, and tried to decide if he felt comforted by the spread or not. At least it was a normal person's refrigerator, not like -
Ted took two steps back, the orange gone cold and heavy in his hand, and he only just managed to stop himself from wrenching it off and throwing it away from him, because there was no reason for that, none at all. He suddenly felt like he'd lost his breath.
He had been going to say, if only to himself, "Not like Thom's." Why that should leave him feeling completely dismantled was fairly unfathomable.
Or maybe it wasn't. He didn't really know.
This wasn't really 'dealing with it' so much as it was, "Oh God, what the fuck have I done?" It was a hell of a way to realize he'd been kidding himself when he thought it didn't have anything to do with him.
Still, it was Thom. Thom was a coworker. Thom was a friend. Thom was something else entirely.
This probably qualified as something that needed to be dealt with.
He reached for the phone and dialed Thom's phone number, staring across the apartment as the phone rang. The answering machine picked up.
"Hi," Ted said. "It's me. Call me back when you can. Number is -"
Thom picked up, sounding breathless. "Hi."
"Hi," Ted said.
"What's on your mind, Ted?"
"I figured we needed to say something," Ted said. "About the...You know."
There was a long, long pause on Thom's end of the line. "Yeah, yeah," he said finally. "Right. We should...Have you had dinner? I'll get you some dinner."
Ted wondered how to respond. It didn't exactly seem like the appropriate time to say, "Actually, Thom, given the state of your refrigerator, we might be better off hunting and gathering."
"I'll order in," Thom said, saving Ted the trouble.
"Good plan."
"Got any preferences?"
It doesn't matter, Ted wanted to say, but Thom sounded so tentatively hopeful that he lost his nerve. "...Moroccan," he said finally.
"Moroccan," Thom said. "Okay. See ya." He hung up. Ted dropped his orange in the trash and grabbed his jacket.
It was when he'd gotten into the elevator in Thom's apartment building and starting rushing to the top that Ted realized he'd had enough, he was sick of dancing around the issue, he was sick of not having a definition of Thom and him together, and he was sick of not wanting to say that he'd wanted this, that he'd wished that this morning would've happened earlier.
He was gearing himself up to lose his temper, and he was fully aware that it was an absurd reaction to have, but he couldn't really think of anything else to do right now.
He banged on Thom's door. The dog started barking; Ted stared at the cream-colored paint and licked his lips, rolling his shoulders to try to work the tension out.
"I just wanted to simplify things," Ted said when Thom opened the door. "Because I know the worst thing you can get into is something where you're kind of overanalyzing everything a little bit and it was making everything so complicated, Thom, you know? So I was thinking, maybe I could get away from that, and not be concerned with that, but it really wasn't working, and I think it's because I wanted there to be at least some kind of definition, about, you know, about you and me, and it was really driving me crazy because - because -" He was beginning to stutter. Thom was staring at him. The dog stopped barking and sniffed at Ted's sneakers. "Hi, Thom," Ted mumbled.
"Hi," Thom said. "I got lamb tagine."
"Tagine," Ted said.
"Ted."
"What?"
Thom put an arm around his shoulders. "You're such a pain in the ass."
"Oh..." Ted squirmed under Thom's arm, thinking that he still had stuff to say, and this was an unnecessary distraction, but he wasn't doing it well enough. Thom rubbed his shoulder.
"I got nothing done today," Ted said finally.
"Awww," Thom said, and hugged him. He rested his chin on top of Ted's head.
"You're complicating things, Thom," Ted told the front of Thom's shirt.
"No offense, Ted, but I really don't think that's possible."
Ted considered his options. Finally he punched Thom's hip lamely and put his arms around Thom's waist.
"I don't know what you really expected," Thom said softly. "Like, did you want to get up this morning and have everything just be the same? I thought you didn't want that, Ted."
"It's not what I wanted," Ted said.
"What, then?"
Ted shut his eyes. His glasses were askew; when Thom let him go he was going to have to remember to fix them. "I just wanted to know what it meant, that's all."
"Ted," Thom said softly. He kissed Ted's forehead. "Come on. Dinner's getting cold."
"It can wait," Ted snapped. "I'd rather not get myself into something pointless, Thom. I've got too much stuff to do as it is."
Thom let him go. "It doesn't matter, Ted." He almost sounded pleading. At that moment, he looked impossibly young. Ted adjusted his glasses, trying not to soften.
"I'm not all that good at going with the flow, Thom."
"Yeah," Thom said.
"Look," Ted said. He wasn't sure if this had accomplished anything either, but he felt a little less out of control now that he'd said it. "I'm sorry. You got dinner. Let's just have dinner."
"Right. Dinner, right," Thom said numbly.
In the kitchen, the dog paced around the table, looking yearningly up at the plates. Ted watched Thom push raisins around without eating them and felt like an idiot. He really hated feeling like an idiot.
"Like some cheap novel," Ted said.
Thom looked up. "What?"
"I was thinking I felt like I was in a cheap novel," Ted said. "Really cheap. Where I'd sit around getting the vapors every five minutes and sighing. Wearing a corset."
Thom glanced down, his mouth twitching to hide a smile. "You had me up until the corset, Ted. Then it just got scary."
"As it should."
Thom looked at the dog, then back at Ted. "Y'know, people keep calling me at work to do interviews. Not just about the show, or even about the company, about, like, everything. I never know how to talk to them."
"It's not like talking," Ted said quietly. He remembered doing interviews way back when, about picking and choosing the best quotes and editing out all the unnecessary stuff. "No one expects you to be real in interviews, Thom."
"That's kind of a relief," Thom said. "I'd rather just make jokes, anyway." He picked up his plate and went to scrape it into the garbage disposal before sticking it into the dishwasher. He stood with his hands splayed on the counter, his back to Ted.
"I'd better...I should go," Ted said. "Thanks for dinner."
Thom turned around. "Ted, come on," he said as Ted started to rise. "Don't do that."
"Why not?" Ted said dully. He pushed the chair in.
"I mean - we haven't even finished this yet."
"The way things've been going, Thom, that's not likely to change."
"Sweetie -" Thom said, and it froze Ted in his tracks.
"What?"
Thom came to meet him, tilting his chin up with the pads of his fingers. "Don't," Ted said, but there was no force behind the words and he knew that Thom knew it.
Thom dropped his forehead to Ted's, closing his eyes. His fingers were warm and callused on Ted's face.
"Thom," he whispered in defeat.
He could lose himself in Thom's mouth, melt around the grooves of Thom's fingers. He let Thom press him back towards the bedroom, his belt making a soft cracking sound as Thom jerked it from its loops. The buckle clanked when it hit the floor.
He dug his fingers into Thom's shoulders and kicked his sneakers off, tripping over his own feet. Thom grabbed him around the waist to stop him from falling and then didn't let go, holding on so tightly that it hurt, and for a minute Ted was satisfied with shutting his eyes and resting against Thom's shoulder.
It didn't take long, once they were on the bed, for Ted to slide out of his jeans like a snakeskin, fumbling with his glasses while Thom, always impatient, pressed against his back, nuzzling the back of his head. It didn't take long for Thom to slide lube-slippery fingers into him, almost too quickly, and the lube was too cold at first and left Ted gasping. Thom whispered something, but Ted wasn't all that sure what it was.
He lay on Thom's bed and pressed his cheek into the sheets and wondered how to define this, what this would make him into.
"Don't," Thom said hoarsely, though Ted hadn't said anything. "Please."
He reached behind him and groped for Thom's free hand, curling his fingers around Thom's wrist. Thom sighed against the back of his neck, a soft warm breath.
Ted dug his fingers into Thom's wrist as Thom pushed into him, biting back a groan. "Shhh," Thom said, not even flinching though Ted could feel the indentations under his nails. "Shhh."
When Ted let him go, murmuring apologies, Thom slid his hand down, fisting Ted's cock; his thumb running over the slit, circling around the head.
Ted shut his eyes and bit his lip, coasting forward, shivering as he came.
Thom slid out of him, hand braced on his back. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Ted said without looking up. "I'm all right."
Thom shifted behind him, rolling onto his back. After a minute, he said softly, "You know, Ted, I've never really...been intimate with a friend before."
Ted rolled over and rubbed his shoulder. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I know."
Thom curled against him, shutting his eyes. Ted stroked his hair and kept talking, quietly, still thinking, somehow, that he'd get an answer.