Jude wanders into the kitchen dripping wet, a towel slung around his hips. It sits so low his pubes peek out over the top. Ewan isn't sure whether it's an invitation or utter cluelessness. After all, they're mates, aren't they? Comfortable around each other. But there's a difference between comfortable and deliberately sexy.
Flustered, Ewan turns back to the stove and gives the eggs a poke. There's a distinct tenting going on in his pyjama bottoms, and when he turns back and catches Jude's eye, Jude gives him a once-over and smiles slowly.
He thinks maybe he has his answer.
"You seen Andy?"
Looking up from the fridge, Jude sees Ewan standing in the doorway, holding tight to a pair of squirming legs hooked over his shoulder. "Nope."
"Daddy!" Andy squeals. "I'm right here!"
Jude cracks open his beer and cocks his head. "Did you hear something?"
"I think the neighbours have a new cat."
"Papa!"
"So what're we having for dinner?" Ewan says. "I've got this sack of potatoes here..."
"Kinda wriggly."
"I'm not potatoes!"
"But they've got maggots, I was going to say, so we'll have to have something else."
"Chips!" says the maggoty sack of potatoes.
"Chips're made of potatoes," Ewan says. "Oh, here Andy is!" He swings Andy around and turning him right-side up. "Where'd you come from?"
Andy grins up at Jude, dizzy and breathless. "I was always just here."
"Oh yeah?" Laughing, Jude ruffles his hair and says to Ewan, "You want a beer?"
"Nah, I've gotta go and get chips." Ewan tickles Andy. "Chip shop or McDonald's?"
"McDonald's!"
Ewan pulls a face, but Jude just shrugs. "Shouldn't have given him a choice. You know better." Setting his beer down on the counter, Jude pulls out his wallet and hands Ewan a couple of notes. "Get me something at the chip shop while you're out."
Slinging a giggling Andy under one arm, Ewan rolls his eyes. "Yes, Master."
This is why he doesn't do this, Jude remembers when it's too late. He doesn't get this drunk with Ewan because this always happens.
The first time, Ewan had his hand down Jude's pants and his mouth at Jude's ear, saying, "It's okay. We have an open relationship, she doesn't mind," and that's not what Jude wanted at all.
He knows what he wants isn't ever going to happen; he gave up on that ages ago. He knows it'll never happen, so he takes what he can get. He takes it when Ewan's drunk and offering and he's had enough himself that it doesn't seem to matter anymore. He takes it the second the door slams shut in another hastily-hired hotel room, dropping to his knees and sucking Ewan's cock down like he can't get enough. He takes it up the arse and never tells Ewan he'd rather be doing the fucking.
It happens so often he sometimes wonders if he gets pissed like this on purpose, but he doesn't want to think about that. Instead he goes home to his own house and his own family and in the morning pretends he wouldn't rather be waking up with Ewan.
Ewan can't believe he's reduced to working in a fucking cinema, but he needs the money now or he'll be out on his arse if he can't scrape together the rent, and they were the only place willing to hire him right away.
At first he's keen to watch the films, but he soon gets bored with them and starts spending more time watching the lobby for totty. Pretty slim pickings, though, and most of the fit blokes appear to be distressingly straight.
Especially the blond god queueing up for popcorn right now. Ewan wipes his mouth to make sure he's not actually drooling, and just then they lock eyes. And maybe he's not so straight, after all, cause Ewan could swear this bloke's checking him out.
The girl tugs on his sleeve then, and the guy turns away. Ewan watches to see which film they're seeing, hangs around outside the door for Gladiator once it's started, sweeping the same spot over and over.
It's more than halfway over and Ewan's moved on (reluctantly) to sweeping out the toilets when the guy comes in, breaking into a grin as if Ewan's just who he's been looking for.
"I told my sister I needed a piss."
"Yeah?" Ewan says, and wonders briefly if the girl's really his sister or not.
But when he's up against the wall with this guy's tongue in his mouth and his dick in his hand, he decides he really doesn't care.
Every morning Jude wanks in front of the mirror. He watches the way his lids droop and the way his mouth falls open when he gets close. He watches his tongue dart out, wetting his lips, and his Adam's apple bob when he swallows. Sometimes he goes slow, putting on a show, and sometimes he tries looking innocent. He wanks on days when he doesn't wake up hard, and though he hates that thoughts of Ewan get him hard fastest, he doesn't hesitate to use them. It's all practise, after all, and Jude wants to be good at his job.
His name is Law, first initial J, according to the billing records Ewan's not supposed to have seen, and now Mr J. Law is making his way down the corridor to the lift as Ewan hurries to finish tidying the room. Ewan replaces the jack and flips on the sterilisation switch before he closes the door, but he's not fast enough; the lift has come and gone while his back was turned.
Ewan's shoulders slump and he shoves his hands into the pockets of his lab coat and kicks the wall. It leaves a dark smudge against the white paint.
It was a long damn way to fly just to spend a week with someone. Especially when they don't know you're coming. Ewan had spent half the flight telling himself what a bad idea this was. What if Jude wasn't there? What if he was there, and not alone. Oh, fuck. He should've just phoned first. Surprises never work.
But when Jude's snogging him right there in the hotel corridor like they haven't seen each other in forever, when Jude's holding him tight like he thinks Ewan might disappear, Ewan thinks maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
It's Saturday, which means Indian after the pub. It means Ewan flirting shamelessly with the boy at the till. The very pretty boy. Not that Jude is looking at him like that. He's not imagining Ewan and the boy kissing, and he's not imagining himself in the boy's place. He's not, because the images flit past so quickly it's easy to pretend they were never there at all.
On the way home, Ewan eats his free vindaloo and Jude is a few quid poorer and his stomach is twisted up in a way that's made his appetite go away altogether.
"I love you."
The words hang in the air and everything feels frozen except for the blood pounding in Jude's ears. He nearly drops his fag, his hand's shaking so much. The world is already rearranging itself and the shape of it is both frightening and fascinating, yet somehow altogether right.
Jude turns, mouth open to say he's not sure what, when Ewan punches him on the shoulder and says, "April Fool." Ewan's laughter is warping the world into a parody of its former shape, and Jude is left hollow.
"Cunt," he laughs, and hopes Ewan can't hear the difference.
The bed doesn't smell like him anymore. It smells like clean sheets, and that's only natural since they've just been washed, but suddenly Ewan wishes he hadn't. Maybe he could have pretended a little longer.
It's hard to fall asleep; he's still not used to the bed feeling so empty. He curls up on one side, no desire to sprawl out in the middle. This way he can pretend a little bit, too.
Hours later, he's still not asleep and the sun's peeking through the blinds. His jaw is clenched, hands balled up. It's not working. Not working at all.
"Jesus, wha-" Jude starts, but Ewan's tongue down his throat shuts him up pretty fast. His hands fly up automatically, fingers twisting in Ewan's shirt. The door handle presses into his back, but he just inches over, not letting go.
"Is this why," he breaks off, moaning as Ewan worms his hand under his waistband, fingertips brushing the head of his cock, "you asked if anyone else was in the office?"
"You've worked late the last three," Ewan gives up trying to get a good grip on Jude's cock that way, goes to work on his belt and fly instead, "no, four nights. You come home fucking exhausted when I'm already asleep."
Jude laughs, fumbles with the buttons of Ewan's jeans. "I should've suspected something when you said you wanted to take me out to dinner..."
"After," Ewan mutters, wrapping his hand around their cocks, "I'll buy you dinner after."
The door bursts open in a cacophony of voices that soon trails off, replaced by the sound of pissing and the click of stall locks. Jude is tense under his hands, fingers digging into his shoulders, but his cock's still keen enough, hard and hot and leaking onto his clean white pants.
It's not long before the pants are down and Ewan's lapping at the head, glancing up through his lashes to catch the look on Jude's face as he sucks him down. The cold of the tiles seeps through his jeans and someone's shat in the stall next to them, but it's all worth it for the sight of Jude's eyes rolling back, mouth moving silently, for the way he bites his lip trying to keep quiet when he comes, bites it so hard Ewan tastes blood when he kisses him after.
Fuck yeah, he grins, definitely worth it.