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Joe is not drunk enough to be doing this.
He’s plenty drunk, he’s actually a little dizzy, but there is no amount of drunk that is drunk enough to be plastered to the wall of a nightclub bathroom, close enough to the tile to see every disgusting bit of dirt in the grout. It’s good he’s still wearing his shirt, he thinks hazily, or he would need to bathe in disinfectant after this.
Maybe he still should, looking down to where Nicolò di Genova’s head is bobbing on his cock, moaning like he’s getting paid for it.
He should certainly burn these clothes, he can feel Nicky’s hand burning through the fabric of his jeans where he’s gripping Joe’s hip so hard it would probably hurt if Joe were a little less drunk.
It’s lucky he’s not, actually, or he would have come down Nicky’s throat pretty much instantly, and that would have just been embarrassing.
Actually, it’s already embarrassing, that he’s here, that he’s letting Nicky do this—letting is maybe a strong word, he thinks, as Nicky’s tongue traces quick circles on the underside of the head of his cock, as Nicky’s saliva drips down the line of his cock, he’s whining for it, banging his fist back into the wall so he doesn’t pull Nicky’s hair—because he swore he would never speak to Nicky again yesterday.
To be fair, he isn’t speaking, he’s moaning and crying out and trying not to beg.
Nicky leans in further, swallows even more of Joe’s cock, and Joe has to close his eyes.
He’s so fucking close.
But he’s not going to make this easy for Nicky.
He thinks of yesterday to stave it off, when he met Nicky for the first time at a dinner party Quỳnh talked Andy into throwing, and Nicky told him about the mission trips he’d gone on in his gap year between high school and university, and how meaningful it had been to him to go to Haiti with his church after the earthquake.
Joe ended the conversation as soon as possible and resolved to never speak to him again.
It’s unfortunate that Nicky was at the same nightclub as him tonight, that Joe spotted him across the room throwing back shots, that Joe was unable to look away from the long line of his throat. It’s even more unfortunate that Nicky caught his eye and smiled so fucking widely before coming over to greet him; there was no polite way to escape the interaction, and all Joe could do was match Nicky shot for shot.
Nicky’s hand was clumsy on his arm, Nicky’s breath was mostly vodka ghosting over his face, when he leaned close and asked Joe if maybe he’d like to get out of there.
Joe was drunk as fuck and unable to say anything besides, “Sorry, I don’t fuck Christian missionaries.”
Nicky’s whole face went red and before Joe knew what was happening, they were arguing over the merits of proselytizing under the guise of charitable aid, except that Joe was so drunk he couldn’t articulate anything other than that he thinks it’s bad, and Nicky was so drunk he kept lapsing into Italian. Adding to the pounding base and Flo Rida’s mythical four-legged woman getting “lo, lo, lo, lo, lo,” Joe’s pretty doubtful that anything either of them said was understood by anyone.
How that got them here is still a big fat question mark in Joe’s mind, but he’d be lying if he claimed he weren’t into how rough Nicky’s hands were, pushing him up against the wall. He’s always liked it kind of sloppy, and Nicky’s a sloppy kisser—or maybe that, too, is the alcohol. Nicky also apparently doesn’t give a shit about what’s on the floor of this bathroom, or he’s just aware that he’s wearing the least sexy pants in existence and doesn’t mind them becoming a biohazard. Either way, he’d sunk to his knees almost instantly and he’s been worshiping Joe’s dick ever since.
The music outside fades as one unrecognizable song ends and another begins, and Joe can just make out the sound of Nicky’s throat clicking as he takes Joe all the way down.
That’s it, that’s all she wrote, he gasps and comes immediately, profusely, spilling down Nicky’s throat. Nicky chokes on it a little, pulling back to catch it on his tongue and fuck, fuck there’s come trickling out the side of his mouth and Joe doubles over as another bolt of pleasure turns his balls inside out.
Finally, he’s done, and Nicky pulls back.
Joe doesn’t like Nicky, but he’s not a dick, so he pulls Nicky up, intent on at least jerking him off in return.
Only, Nicky’s crotch rubs against Joe’s thigh as Joe pulls him into standing, and Nicky makes an animal noise, jerks down against Joe’s leg, and comes in his pants.
It’s really unfortunately sexy that sucking Joe off got Nicky this turned on.
It’s really, really unfortunately sexy that he nuzzles into Joe’s neck as he comes, that he looks so entirely blissed-out.
After, there’s a moment of awkwardness, when Joe realizes that yes, actually, he’s still really drunk, and now the high of illicit public sex is gone, it doesn’t feel great and he wants it to stop, and also Nicky is still there and Joe doesn’t know what to do with him.
Nicky solves that problem by flushing red all over again and just leaving without saying anything.
Good riddance, Joe thinks. Bastard got come on Joe’s best clubbing pants.
He checks his phone. It’s almost three in the morning, and Nile texted to say she’s going home with Dizzy, which is a really bad idea Joe will have to call her about in the morning (as if he has any legs to stand on after whatever this was). He stumbles outside, then back inside when he realizes it’s fucking freezing and he forgot his coat at the coat check, and then back out again. He doesn’t trust himself to behave like a normal human in an Uber, so he walks home.
It was a fluke, he tells himself, partly sobered up from the cold and very queasy with it. He’ll never see Nicky again anyway. He certainly won’t fuck him again.
Of course both of these predictions turn out to be wrong in very short order.
He goes out for drinks with Quỳnh at an unbearably pretentious bar near Potsdamer Platz on the Thursday following the ill-advised club hook-up, and drinks with Quỳnh turn into drinks with Andy, Booker and Quỳnh, and then Joe calls Nile and Andy calls Nicky and before Joe knows what’s happening, he’s beyond drunk and veering into sloppy. Nile and Quỳnh are at the bar trying to talk the bartender into becoming a chef for the night because they want fries; Andy is watching in some sort of gruesome fascination as Booker downs whatever shot she puts in front of him—and that’s great, just great, because drunk Booker vomits indiscriminately in every container in the bathroom that has a drain and doesn’t clean it up—and somehow, Joe is left alone with Nicky.
“Are you even allowed to drink?” Nicky asks.
Joe hates all of his friends.
“Seriously, why does Andy like you?” he snaps.
“It was an innocent question,” Nicky says, eyes wide.
“Alright,” Joe snaps, pushing out of his seat and turning towards Nicky. “An innocent question. You’re wearing a cotton-polyester blend, if I remember correctly, Leviticus has some strong words about those.”
Nicky’s mouth drops open. Distantly, Joe realizes he’s standing as well, right up in Joe’s personal space.
“Also,” Joe says snidely, eyes still on the curve of Nicky’s lips, “given how hard you got off on sucking my dick, I’m guessing your precious mission trips won’t even let you join anymore.”
“They don’t,” Nicky snarls back. He grabs Joe by the lapels of his jacket and pulls him away from the table they were sharing, out the door of the bar and up against a streetlight before kissing him senseless.
Joe’s not entirely sure if he’s more or less drunk than last time, but his head is clearer and Nicky’s kiss is sharper in his mind. He remembers it being messy, sloppy, upsetting in how good it was despite that. Tonight, it’s rougher. Nicky’s practically manhandling him, putting him where he needs to be for Nicky to take what he wants from Joe’s mouth and oh. Oh, it’s so unfortunate that he’s pushing at Joe’s hip, angling his head to the side with a heavy hand at the back of Joe’s neck, angry and possessive.
Joe’s the one who’s angry, Joe’s the one who has reason to be angry, but Joe’s also fucking weak for the way Nicky’s pressing up against him like he wants to lick his way into Joe’s soul.
Nicky bites down on the side of Joe’s neck and Joe throws his head back.
“Fuck, fine,” he bites out, before he can embarrass himself more in public. “I’m not doing this in public again.”
“Fine,” Nicky growls, and Joe is absolutely blaming the alcohol for the way heat shoots down his spine. “Yours?”
“Yours,” Joe demands, because again, Booker and vomiting.
“Fine,” Nicky huffs again, and drags Joe along by the hand.
The subway ride to Nicky’s apartment would be unbearable if they had to talk to each other, so Joe grips Nicky’s horrendously ugly, off-white polo shirt in his fist and drags him in until Nicky’s pressing him up against the window of the subway car and they’re making out furiously in public transit like they’re both ten years younger.
You’re drunk, Joe, it’s fine, Joe thinks to himself.
Nicky tastes like beer, and Joe noticed he was drinking the same brand as Joe himself and it pissed him off two hours ago already, for no other reason than that he hates to think of Nicky having taste in anything, even alcohol.
Unfortunately, Joe’s nowhere near drunk enough to stop himself getting turned on when Nicky grips his hair to pull his head back and lick at his neck. He fucking hates when hookups play with his hair, he puts real effort into looking as good as he does, it is not easy to style his hair, and he doubts Nicky in his ten-year-old polo and ill-fitting chinos even noticed. And yet, it’s a direct line between Nicky’s fingers pulling at his hair, Nicky’s mouth sucking marks into the thin skin of his neck, and Joe’s cock plumping up in his jeans.
Stumbling down the stairs in the Rathaus Steglitz subway stop, drunk and half-hard at one-thirty in the morning, Joe wonders how bad of an idea this will turn out to be. From here, he can either take a bus home now or wait until five in the morning for the next one.
“Come on,” Nicky groans, pulling Joe by the hand out of the tunnel and past the late-night kebab shops towards where he, presumably, lives.
He smells really good, Joe thinks dumbly. Some kind of cologne. Sweat. There’s a factoid ringing around in his head that scent is a big part of attraction, that people you find attractive will smell better to you, and goddamn Nicky’s hands are so big, his nose is so striking, Joe wants him so much.
Getting through Nicky’s apartment is a blur. By the time Joe’s back hits the bed, he’s down to his left sock and all Nicky’s got on is that fucking horrific polo shirt. He’s pretty sure his neck is covered in marks by now and his hair is a mess where Nicky’s been pulling it. Joe’s going to be really pissed off about it as soon as any of his blood redirects back to his brain.
Right now, all of it is settled in his cock, straining up against Nicky’s ass.
Nicky’s still just kissing him, soft, drugging, over and over again, and Joe’s a little worried he’s going to rub up against Nicky one too many times and embarrass himself.
“That all you’ve got, choirboy?” Joe taunts.
“I’m going to blow your mind,” Nicky says matter-of-factly, which has to be misplaced confidence. It has to be.
Joe smirks. “Based on last time, you’re more of a one-minute-wonder.”
“Shut up,” Nicky growls.
“Make me.”
Nicky leans down the scant inches between them and kisses Joe again. He’s got Joe’s wrists captured in his hands, pinned over his head, and Joe’s head is swimming. He shouldn’t be antagonizing Nicky, he barely even knows Nicky, all he knows is that Nicky has definitely made a number of decisions Joe doesn’t want anything to do with, and that Nicky gives fucking amazing head.
And here Nicky is, holding his wrists down against his soft, plush mattress, grinding his hips down, sitting astride Joe, and Joe is achingly hard already.
“Please,” he whimpers.
Nicky pulls away. “You like that, don’t you?” he asks. His voice has gone so deep.
Joe shuts his mouth.
“You don’t like that?” Nicky asks, pulling away.
Joe squirms.
Nicky sits back on his haunches, forehead furrowed. “Joe, I need you to tell me. Do you want me to hold you down?” He sounds serious and–oh, fuck, he should sound serious. He’s asking for consent.
“Yeah,” Joe says. “I want you to hold me down.”
“And you want to have sex with me.”
Joe wants to roll his eyes, anything to hide how uncomfortably vulnerable this makes him feel, but he doesn’t, because he really appreciates Nicky asking. He’s had enough drunk hookups where neither his partner nor he thought to check in, and while he’s never felt taken advantage of, he has sometimes felt regret the morning after. “Yes,” he says roughly. “I want to have sex with you.”
Nicky’s smile is sweet.
“I still don’t like you,” Joe warns.
“I know,” Nicky says. He kisses Joe again and his hands clamp down tight on Joe’s wrists.
Joe bucks his hips up against Nicky, just to be contrary.
Nicky nips at his lips. “Naughty,” he says.
Joe stretches his head back. Nicky has a little stubble, this late at night, and it feels so good scraping across the line of Joe’s neck.
“Keep your hands where they are,” Nicky says, and leans over to fumble with the night stand.
“Or what?” Joe asks, snaking one hand down to grope Nicky’s ass.
Nicky gives him a look. “Or I won’t fuck your thighs till you’re so sensitive you’re begging me to come,” he says. He straightens over Joe again, lube clutched in his big hand.
“I’m not going to beg,” Joe says haughtily.
Nicky rolls his hips, grinding his ass against Joe’s cock.
Joe bites his lip so as not to make a liar of himself immediately.
He can handle Nicky, straddling his crotch and rubbing up against him. He can handle Nicky’s soft sighs as he opens himself up. He can handle keeping his hands still where Nicky told him to.
He can’t handle Nicky leaning down to lick at his nipples.
He doesn’t even have sensitive nipples, what the fuck is wrong with him? He cries out, arching up, and he hears himself beg: “Please, Nicky, please, please,” and that’s–that’s going to be pretty humiliating tomorrow morning, but right now it’s incredibly sexy because Nicky’s staring down at him like he’s the hottest thing Nicky’s ever seen.
When Nicky draws away, he whines in displeasure.
“On your side,” Nicky says. “Legs together.”
Joe obeys thoughtlessly. He’s doing all of this thoughtlessly. He had thoughts before this, but they’re all gone, all of them except the part of him that wants to beg Nicky to fuck him.
“Keep your hands on the pillow,” Nicky commands.
“Why?” Joe asks petulantly. He still puts both hands on the pillow, wrists level with his eyes.
“You want to make it good for me, don’t you?” Nicky asks in his ear, low and wicked.
Joe shivers all over. He doesn’t answer.
There’s the squelch of lube out of the pump bottle, the slick sound of Nicky’s hand on his own cock, and fuck, Joe wants to see it, Joe wants to know what it looks like, if it’s as big as it felt, pressing against him, but Nicky told him to lie on his side, so he’s lying on his side.
He can’t stop himself moaning when Nicky sidles in closer, his mouth at the back of Joe’s neck, whispering in his ear.
“You’re doing so well,” he says, and Joe’s cock jerks. “Don’t move.”
Nicky’s hand is gentle as he lifts Joe’s leg and slide his cock between Joe’s thighs. It’s good he’s going so softly, because Joe’s trembling a little.
He still can’t see Nicky’s cock, slotted between his thighs, but it feels big. It feels good, rubbing over sensitive skin, pushing against Joe’s balls. Nicky’s arm wraps around him, and that’s almost better, he’s held close and fast. The whole of Nicky’s chest presses into his back, skin to skin, that fucking shirt must finally be gone, and Nicky’s cock is a brand between his legs and Nicky’s hand–Nicky’s hand is big and solid and wrapping around Joe’s cock.
It takes everything in Joe to not move. He wants to buck forward into that grip, but then he’d lose Nicky between his thighs, and Nicky told him not to move, and Joe wants so badly to be good. If he’s good, Nicky will keep fucking his thick cock between Joe’s legs, if he’s good Nicky will keep stroking him.
He lets his head fall back. Nicky’s lips graze his cheek.
It’s unbearably intimate.
“So good for me,” Nicky pants into his skin. “Let me take care of you.”
Joe whimpers, suddenly unbearably close, if only Nicky would stroke him a little faster. He hadn’t known he was that near the edge, but he barely has time to register the clenching in his balls before he’s begging.
“Please, Nicky,” he says, not for the first time tonight, “please, faster, more—“
Nicky’s hips speed up and Joe cries out. Nicky’s cock is pushing right up against the most sensitive parts of his skin, and his hand is clenching down tighter around Joe’s cock. With a pitiful noise, Joe comes, pulsing hotly in Nicky’s hand.
If Nicky makes any noise when he follows after, it’s muffled into Joe’s neck.
He pulls away immediately when he’s done, collapsing onto his back on his side of the bed.
The absence of his touch makes goosebumps pebble all over Joe’s skin.
He shifts onto his back, because it’s that or rolling over into Nicky’s touch.
“Give me your shirt,” he demands.
“Why?” Nicky asks.
Joe gives him a look. “Because I’m covered in come and I don’t want to get up.”
Nicky hands over the shirt reluctantly. “I like that shirt,” he says.
“I’d like it if it were on fire,” Joe says, mopping up the mess between his legs. He tries to appear as if his entire body isn’t one live nerve. He throws the shirt in the vicinity of the hamper on the other side of the room and collapses back into the bed. It’s really comfortable. “I’ll get the next bus,” he mutters, already falling asleep. It’s fine, he just needs a catnap, then he can get the fuck out of here.
Nicky mutters something into his pillow that definitely can’t be “stay” even if it sounds like it.
At around five thirty in the morning, Joe wakes with a start. The first tendrils of sunrise are creeping into Nicky’s bedroom through the open curtains. Joe has the worst cottonmouth of his life, he needs to piss urgently, and he has no idea where he is. Blinking dazedly, he looks around and recognizes Nicky, curled into a tight ball just out of his reach. Wincing as all his bad decisions settle into a pounding headache at the base of his skull, Joe slides out of bed as silently as he can. He finds his shirt on the floor and his underwear on the door handle before discovering the door to the bathroom and finally, blessedly, getting to pee.
Nicky’s apartment is stupidly nice, Joe notices, squirming back into his jeans. There’s a sparkling clean kitchen he kind of wishes he could get his hands on set in an open plan living and dining space. No roommate, either, since “di Genova” is the only name on the bell outside the door. Of course Nicky’s rich; only entitlement makes a man that unaware of his own privilege.
It’s a shame, Joe thinks, that he’s so good in bed.
He gets back to the apartment he shares with Booker at six in the morning to find Nile asleep on the couch, probably to watch out for Booker. Mercifully, she must have flushed the toilet for Booker, because there’s no vomit anywhere when Joe stumbles into the bathroom to drink water out of the tap.
“Morning,” she grumbles into the sofa cushions. “Where’d you go last night?”
“Met a guy,” Joe sort-of lies, because he doesn’t want to have to admit he slept with Nicky of all people.
“Mm,” she grumbles, turns over and goes back to sleep.
He has a text from Andy, he sees when he plugs his phone in to charge. Have you seen Nicky, sent at one AM this morning. Quickly followed by, where are you anyway?
No, he texts back, went home with someone.
After brief deliberation, he adds, Nicky sucks btw why are you friends with him.
He feels kind of like a dick, lying to his friends, but the alternative is admitting he just had hate sex with a guy he never wants to see again whom they, inexplicably, are friends with. Really, it’s Andy’s fault he’s even in this position, because she introduced this guy into their group and hasn’t seemed to notice all the weird Christian shit about him. He’s still grumbling about it when he falls asleep.
His bed isn’t as comfortable as Nicky’s, and he hates everything.
The next weekend, he deliberately hangs out with Lykon in Potsdam instead of everyone else in Berlin, because Lykon is cool and they don’t see enough of each other since he moved away even though it’s barely a half-hour train ride. Not seeing Nicky is an intended side effect.
“It’s not like it’s just ignorance,” he complains over tapas. “The man was a missionary. Who does that, these days?”
Lykon laughs and pops another date wrapped in bacon in his mouth.
“I’m serious,” Joe says indignantly.
“I know you are,” Lykon says, moving on to the meatballs. “I don’t get why you keep talking to him if he’s such a dick.”
Joe narrows his eyes. “You just come here with me so you can eat all the pork, don’t you.”
“Guilty,” Lykon grins around his last bite.
Inevitably, unfortunately, the next weekend, Joe’s over at Andy and Quỳnh’s again, making the same mistakes all over.
He did tell Andy about all the shit Nicky’s said to him, in his defense. Her response was, “Yikes.”
Nicky is still there, in her kitchen, when Joe gets in with a bottle of Berliner Luft and an intense need to drink the last week off his chest. “You will not believe what my boss is having me do this week,” he groans, unscrewing the top and heading straight for the shot glasses.
“That bad?” Nicky asks sympathetically.
Joe bristles, but with Andy and Quỳnh right there, there’s only so much he can do, so he tells them all about why putting the post-graduates in charge of event management as well as wrangling all the first semester courses as well as putting them under pressure to complete their own projects should be illegal.
Andy makes a sympathetic noise and pats him on the shoulder, which is nice of her. Quỳnh pours him a fourth shot of Luft, which is nicer.
Nicky says, “Academia is at risk of destroying itself through exploitation of its future employees.”
Joe hates him, in this moment most especially because it’s uncomfortably close to Joe’s own feelings on the subject.
“Joe’s only in it till his art takes off,” Andy says proudly, and proceeds to tell Nicky all about the gallery Joe’s going to be showing a month from now, which is really, deeply upsetting, because now Nicky knows, he could be there, which is the last thing Joe needs. Nicky doesn’t threaten to show up, though, he just smiles his weird little smile and congratulates Joe.
The whole night is, in fact, upsettingly devoid of conflict between them. It lulls Joe into a false sense of security, to the point where he agrees to split an Uber with Nicky.
In the Uber, Nicky’s silent almost the whole way to Steglitz, before asking, just as they pull up in front of his apartment, “Joe, could you tell me what’s wrong with mission trips?”
Joe straightens from where he was slumped against the corner of the car, dizzy from the alcohol and exhausted from work. “What’s wrong with them?” he asks, aghast. “What isn’t? Do you know how many cultures and, and things they erased by coming in and demanding everyone convert?” Fuck, he needs to stop having these conversations drunk.
“But that’s historical,” Nicky says impatiently. “No one does that now.”
“Oh really?” Joe asks. “You think it’s totally fine to offer humanitarian aid, but only to convince more people to believe in Jesus? You think it’s morally acceptable to use natural disasters and political crises, half of which are a direct result of the fucking ‘first world’ intervening in the first place, as an excuse to travel somewhere and build more churches, imposing your religion on people who are in too much need to have the luxury of protesting?”
“But if people get the help they need—“
“If missionaries gave a shit about giving people the help they needed,” Joe says, now really heated up, “it wouldn’t be tied to any strings. You’re claiming to be such good people, such kind people, and you’re fundamentally changing the infrastructure of the countries you’re claiming to help, trying to get more supporters for whatever niche church you happen to support.”
“The Catholic church is not niche,” Nicky protests heatedly, and, well, the next thing Joe knows he’s followed Nicky out of the Uber and into his apartment, still yelling at him. Of course, that turns into him being up close in Nicky’s space, and that turns into his eyes fixated on the swell of Nicky’s lower lip even as Nicky says the stupidest shit Joe’s ever heard, and that turns into Joe kissing him to make him shut the fuck up.
He ends up sucking Nicky off on his stupidly comfortable couch, helplessly turned on by the grip Nicky has in his hair and the endless string of praise out of his mouth.
After, Nicky jerks him off in his shower. There’s a rainforest showerhead, and side jets, and Joe hates him so much, but he comes so hard he nearly cries because Nicky has him pressed into the wall, biting at his sensitive neck, telling him how good he feels, how hot he is.
Immediately after, all the energy saps from Joe’s limbs. He drank about half that bottle of sugary, peppermint alcohol all by himself, and he slept maybe five hours a night all week, and it’s only with Nicky’s arm around his waist he makes it to the bed at all.
He sleeps for ten hours and wakes up to a steaming, perfect cup of coffee.
Joe downs it, puts his clothes on, and leaves with a grunted goodbye to Nicky.
Four days later, Nicky brings a stack of pamphlets for different missionary projects, demanding to know what’s wrong with each of them, to what was supposed to be a casual social gathering at an open-air concert, and Joe happens to have a red pen on him from grading shitty essays all afternoon. Before he knows it they’ve lost the rest of the group somewhere in the makeshift mosh pit, the concert is over and they’re caught up in a crowd up people headed towards the subway and they’re both so riled up it’s no surprise that Joe ends the night straddling Nicky on his stupidly nice couch and kissing him sloppy-wet and hot for so long they’re both frenzied and aching by the time they finally get their pants undone.
The weekend after that, Nicky asks him a series of personal and invasive questions about his own religious practices. For a variety of reasons Joe gets so angry he thinks he might be the first case of spontaneous human combustion, and apparently that does it for Nicky, because he blows Joe in the bathroom of an Irish pub on Oranienstraße and won’t let Joe touch him for long minutes after because sucking Joe off got him so close he doesn’t trust himself not to come immediately, and that’s just so ridiculously hot Joe ends up coming again five minutes later, pressed up against the door of the stall, grinding against Nicky. They have to sneak out the back, they’re both too drunk to clean up properly and Joe’s legs don’t work.
After that, there’s no point in counting.
“Have you considered that maybe you’re a little sensitive about religion in general?” Booker asks one morning, after an evening during which Joe and Nicky had a blow-up argument in the middle of an otherwise harmless game of Settlers of Catan that ended with Joe storming out and wandering around the park by Andy and Quỳnh’s apartment aimlessly, until Nicky, having left twenty minutes later, found him, took him home, tied his wrists to the headboard and rimmed him till he cried.
Booker doesn’t know about that last part, of course.
“I’m not sensitive,” Joe scoffs, not looking up from his book.
The ensuing silence is very judgmental.
“Okay, fine, I have some feelings,” Joe admits. “A lot of my feelings are about how it’s not my job to educate a dumb white man about how I choose not to practice Islam.”
“You educated me,” Booker points out.
“You asked politely,” Joe says. “You didn’t tell me that people in Haiti were so thankful for Christian proselytizing, so several centuries of direct and structural violence are just fine then.”
Booker winces. “I’ll admit Nicky says a lot of dumb shit,” he says. “But his family—“
Joe holds a hand up. “Nope,” he says. “Not my responsibility.”
“Joe—“
“Are you really going to tell me that ‘his family’ justifies him defending Christian mission groups?”
Booker sighs. “No,” he says. “I’m not. But I do think he keeps pushing at you because he’s actually interested in what you have to say, and I think you keep reacting like you do because your own relationship with religion is not as easy as you want him to think.”
Joe looks back down at his book. “You’re a lot less astute when you’re drunk,” he mutters. “I like that better.”
He can’t help noticing, afterwards, that a lot of Nicky’s pointed questions are things he could only know because he actually researched Islam, and because he wants to know about Joe’s opinions and practices. It’s not actually Nicky’s fault that Joe’s grandparents immigrated to the Netherlands sixty years ago and he’s only ever been to mosques for holidays; it’s not Nicky’s fault that Joe’s parents sent him to a fancy international school and he then spent half his school years being the designated expert for Islam in every classroom he set foot in, meaning he was constantly researching practices he didn’t actually live by because he didn’t want people thinking he was somehow bad at being Tunisian even though he was born in Groningen. It’s definitely not Nicky’s fault that despite all that education, all that assimilation, Joe’s still scared to get on public transportation sometimes because of the way Germans look at him. It's possibly the opposite of Nicky's fault that not eating pork is the last vestige of Joe's guilty conscience for not being more engaged with his own heritage.
Frustratingly, simultaneously, his interactions with Nicky shift from outright fights into drawn-out discussions, either because Joe’s tempered his knee-jerk reaction from anger to irritation or because Nicky is becoming less of an asshole.
“I didn’t grow up believing in anything,” he admits to Nicky eventually, “and I don’t know if I do now, okay?”
Nicky blinks at him, paused with his mouth open. They’re in a grocery store, because it’s Nile’s birthday today, so both he and Nicky went to the café she works at to congratulate her and ended up arguing until she kicked them out to go pick up supplies for her party tonight. He’s in charge of snacks and Nicky’s in charge of cake.
“And it makes me feel pretty uncomfortable when you assume I’m some sort of model Muslim,” Joe continues, picking up a bag of the crunchy chickpea chips with sour cream and onion flavoring. “Because I’m not.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that,” Nicky says. “I’m just trying to understand—“
“Well, you’re not going to understand everything from me,” Joe tells him, frustrated. “I’m just one guy, and I don’t actually practice, and I feel bad enough about that sometimes already—“
“I’m sorry,” Nicky says. “I never meant to make you feel like the way you choose to practice or not practice is a point of criticism. I just want to know what you believe.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Joe says. “Except that mission trips are bad.”
“Yes,” Nicky smiles. “I’ve noticed that.”
That evening, Nile comments to Joe, “I’m glad you got it out of your system earlier, I know you don’t like him, but it’s nice you’re getting along tonight.”
Joe smiles weakly. “Anything for the birthday girl,” he says.
Only an hour later, Dizzy shows up unannounced, begging Nile to take her back. There’s an I told you so Joe never gave her; hooking up with an ex whilst drunk always has consequences, and here they are. Then again, Joe thinks, looking over at Nicky, he’s one to talk.
In the ensuing chaos, Joe’s reminded of how uncomfortable it is to be the person witnessing a shouting match at a party. He should probably feel guilty for how he and Nicky behave sometimes. There is a difference, though, between a fight based on legitimate political, moral issues and the kind of fight Nile has that night, and before too long, Joe stops thinking about his own behavior because he’s too busy helping Andy manage the situation.
“Me and Book will take Dizzy home,” she says in an undertone. “You stop Nile from calling her back.”
Joe swallows.
He turns off the Spotify playlist Nile had running and scoops up a plate of Nicky’s cake—damn him, it looks delicious—and heads to Nile’s bedroom.
She’s sitting up on her bed, knees tight against her chest. Someone—either Quỳnh or Jordan—has turned on all the fairy lights in the room, and it looks cozy, except for how miserable Nile is. “Should I call her?” Nile asks. “I should call her.”
“She broke up with you,” Jordan reminds Nile gently. “Because she wanted to sleep with other people.”
“But maybe it was a mistake,” Nile says.
“Of course it was a mistake,” Quỳnh says disdainfully, stroking Nile’s back gently. “Hers.”
“I should—“ Nile starts.
“You should eat some cake,” Joe says. He pushes it at her; at the very least, with her hands full, she can’t call Dizzy.
“She’s one of my best friends,” Nile says through a mouthful of frosting. “I told her we’d stay friends.”
“You have so many friends,” Nicky says kindly, coming through the door with a tray of steaming mugs. “And perhaps it’s not forever. Just until you can be friends without hurting each other.” He sets the cocoa down by the bed, and Joe feels a surge of—something. Nicky said just the right thing, at just the right time, and he made cocoa.
It’s probably a fluke.
“Ugh, Nicky,” Nile says, looking absolutely wretched.
Nicky hugs her close. It looks very comforting.
“Feelings are terrible,” Nile says thickly, taking a cup of cocoa from him.
“They are,” Nicky agrees. There’s a depth and earnestness to the words that shocks Joe a little. He wonders, not for the first time, what Booker was going to tell him about Nicky’s family. He wonders if it’s even about that, or if Nicky has some heartbreak hiding behind his sad eyes. He must be fucking something out of his system with Joe.
They leave Nile in Jordan and Quỳnh’s competent hands not long after, though not before Nile promises she’ll attend Joe’s gallery opening the following day no matter what.
“You don’t need to,” he assures her. “I get it.”
“No, I’ll be there,” she says. “I want to see your art.”
He kisses the top of her head and makes sure to load all the used plates and glasses littered around the living room into the dishwasher before he leaves for good. Nicky helps, putting all the dips in the fridge and screwing the lids back on all the open wine bottles.
He smiles at Joe as he does it, and Joe finds himself saying, “We could always take one of those bottles with us.”
Nicky blinks, surprised. “We…we could,” he agrees.
It’s the first time he’s gone over to Nicky’s almost entirely sober. The wine bottle comes with them, but it stays closed in the subway, and by the time they get to the familiar Steglitz train station, they’re deep in conversation about Nile and Dizzy.
“I don’t think Nile should even try to stay friends with her,” Joe says. “She was devastated after the breakup.”
Nicky smiles.
“What’s funny about that?” Joe asks defensively.
“Nothing,” Nicky says quickly. “You just care about Nile so much. It’s sweet.”
“But you think they could still be friends,” Joe prods, trying to ignore the heat in the pit of his belly at Nicky calling him sweet. “Even after tonight.”
Nicky sighs heavily. “I suppose I like to think there are second chances for us all. Even when we hurt others.”
“Hm,” Joe says, leaning against the wall as Nicky unlocks the door to his apartment. “And do you give second chances, when you’ve been hurt?”
Nicky’s eyes slant over towards him. “No one who’s hurt me has ever wanted one,” he says.
That’s…unexpectedly heartbreaking, Joe thinks, and also more than a little awkward, because he’s clearly here for a hookup.
“What about you?” Nicky asks, holding the door open for Joe. “Do you give second chances?”
Joe rolls his eyes and loops his arms around Nicky’s neck. “Clearly,” he says, hot against Nicky’s lips. “Since you’re on about your twentieth.”
Nicky’s lips twitch in a smile, but Joe barely sees it before they’re kissing.
Kissing Nicky mostly-sober is a nice change. It’s a little less sloppy than Joe remembers, but sober, he’s more aware of the firm grip Nicky has on his hips, the casual way he pushes Joe towards the bedroom with his whole body.
Joe knows the layout of Nicky’s apartment well enough by now that he doesn’t trip over anything, not even the pile of Nicky’s university-trademarked polos next to the laundry basket, because apparently he wears the awful things as part of an unofficial uniform for research librarians.
He also knows the feel of Nicky’s arms around him well enough to feel when Nicky’s arms tense, gripping around them, and he’s ready for Nicky to lift him up and drop him on the bed.
“Take your pants off,” Nicky says with easy authority.
“Just that?” Joe asks, raising his left eyebrow teasingly.
Nicky shrugs. “You can take off your shirt, too, I don’t mind.”
He knows, the dick, what it does to Joe when he exudes that kind of easy authority.
To be contrary, Joe takes off just his shirt and not his pants.
Nicky, fully naked, his big cock mostly hard against his thigh, looks incredibly unimpressed. “You’re angling for a punishment,” he says.
Joe swallows dryly. That’s new. “Am I,” he says. “I mean. I am. Yeah.”
With a fingertip under his chin, Nicky lifts Joe’s head up so they can look at each other. “Yes?”
Joe nods jerkily. It’s good that Nicky keeps checking in, it really is, but it hasn’t stopped feeling like he’s exposing himself, telling Nicky how much he wants Nicky to keep doing these things to him.
“You’ll tell me to stop if it’s too much,” Nicky commands, and that’s easier, that’s an order, Joe can accept that.
“On your hands and knees,” Nicky orders.
When Joe obeys—he may be interested in this punishment thing, but he still wants Nicky to tell him he’s being good—Nicky immediately grabs his pants and boxers by the waist and pulls them down until they’re trapped around his thighs.
“Lucky I wasn’t wearing a belt,” Joe says.
With no warning, Nicky slaps his bare ass.
Joe inhales sharply with the shock, flinching away.
“Okay?” Nicky asks.
“Mm-hm,” Joe agrees, high-pitched.
Nicky’s hand slaps down against his other ass cheek.
It doesn’t feel good, Joe thinks. It doesn’t feel terrible; he’s seen Nicky’s hands and arms and he could probably really hurt Joe if he wanted to but this, this light, stinging slapping feeling, this is just for fun.
“You’re taking it so well,” Nicky says, and the next slap makes Joe moan.
“Fuck me,” he says after the slap after that, and he wasn’t expecting himself to say that, but now he has, it’s the best idea he’s ever heard. “Fuck me,” he repeats, and adds, “please, please, Nicky, need you—“
The flat of Nicky’s hand comes down twice more, harder, on each cheek of his ass and Joe groans into the pillows, and oh, it turns out he’s sunk down onto his elbows, he can’t even hold himself up.
“You’re sure,” Nicky says. His voice has gone too deep for it to register fully as a question to Joe, but Joe nods into the pillows anyway.
“Alright,” Nicky says. “Alright. Just a second.”
There’s the sound of the drawer in the nightstand opening up, and Joe struggles out of his pants and boxers and kicks them to the side to the sound of the squelch of lube on Nicky’s fingers.
Fuck, Nicky’s fingers. They’re so thick, and blunt-tipped, Joe is panting into the pillows as the first one sinks into him. Fuck, he knew Nicky would be good at this, he was almost disappointed when Nicky rimmed him last time because he wanted so badly to get fucked, except that only an insane person would be disappointed by Nicky rimming them.
It still didn’t prepare him for this.
Nicky’s left hand rests on the outside of Joe’s thigh while he fingers Joe. It’s a comfort, it keeps Joe steady. He wouldn’t be able to stay on his knees through it all otherwise, not with Nicky fingering him open so slowly.
“You’re sensitive, aren’t you?” Nicky asks, massaging gently at Joe’s prostate.
“Yes,” Joe tries to say. It comes out more like a moan.
“God, that’s hot,” Nicky says. He repeats the move with a second finger.
Joe’s thighs tremble.
“Please fuck me,” Joe begs.
In the brief pause in which Nicky gets the condom on, Joe has enough clarity to reflect that he’s glad they didn’t fight today, because he wouldn’t be able to beg for Nicky’s cock like this if he was still angry about all of Nicky’s bad opinions.
Nicky’s cock is thicker than his fingers, of course it is, Joe knew this, Joe’s had that cock in his hands and his mouth and between his thighs, but it’s not the same.
He’s keening, he realizes, there’s a steady stream of noise coming from his mouth as Nicky sinks in deeper and deeper. It doesn’t hurt, he’s too turned on, he's too desperate for it to hurt, but it steals the breath entirely from his lungs, reduces him to the sensation of being split wide around Nicky’s cock.
With his hips flush to Joe’s ass, Nicky pauses and waits while Joe tries to get air back into his lungs.
He clenches once. Nicky groans.
“Please,” he begs. “Move.”
Finally, Nicky does.
He doesn’t take it easy. He keeps his thrusts deep and hard, and either he’s big enough or he’s experienced enough, but he keeps hitting Joe’s prostate just right. It feels so good, Joe’s dripping onto his own thighs, onto the sheets, he’s pushing back into Nicky’s thrusts, begging for more.
“You’re taking me so well,” Nicky says, breathless because he’s pounding into Joe so hard. “Baby, you’re so good.”
Joe mewls, his whole body clenching down, feet lifting and thumping into the mattress. It’s like Nicky knows exactly what will get him off—and fuck, he does, by now, he knows his firm grip on Joe’s hips and his gentle praise in contrast to how hard he’s fucking Joe will drive Joe right to the edge.
He must know how easy it will be to get Joe off right now, but instead, he pulls out all the way.
“No,” Joe cries out. “No, please, Nicky—“
“Shh,” Nicky says, not entirely kindly. “I want to see your face. Turn over.”
It’s not graceful. Joe’s legs are shaking, his arms are weak, he’s almost dizzy with how turned on he is. Nicky makes it worth his while, pushes Joe’s legs wide and slides into place. He grabs Joe’s hands, pins his wrists over his head. Joe arches up into him helplessly.
“I’ve got you,” Nicky breathes hotly. “I’ll take care of you. You’re mine to take care of, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Joe hisses, and oh fuck, at this angle his cock rubs up against Nicky’s belly and Nicky’s cock is fucking him open just right and he can’t even think. He doesn’t need to think. Nicky’s got him.
He lets go of the need for conscious thought, gives himself over to feeling. His pulse is pounding in his throat, his cock is throbbing, wet at the tip, his balls are pulling up tight, and everything is Nicky. He gives up on using words, he lets himself moan and whine and whimper as he draws ever closer to the edge.
“You can come for me,” Nicky says.
Joe groans. It’s almost instant, how his body reacts to Nicky’s words. It’s for Nicky, it’s Nicky’s orgasm, Joe’s having it for him, because he wants it, and it goes on and on with each twitch of Joe’s hips, each grind of Nicky’s cock.
Nicky fucks him right through it, Nicky groans and cries out and comes right on Joe’s heels, like the pleasure fills Joe so full it slops over into Nicky.
For a long moment after, Joe can barely parse sights and sounds and feelings, just trying to recover.
Nicky lets go of his wrists and Joe whimpers.
Just after, Nicky says something, and then the bed is shifting and he’s gone, he’s leaving, and Joe’s eyes blink open too late to even see his retreating back.
Joe feels—Joe feels—he doesn’t even know what he feels, he’s unmoored and shaky and he feels like he’s floating four feet over his own body, and he wants to be held and loved and cherished.
He sits up.
On Nicky’s nightstand, there’s a book titled “Cultural Conversions: Unexpected Consequences of Christian Missionary Encounters in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.” It’s full of post-it notes and there’s a pen sticking out, marking Nicky’s place.
Joe swallows heavily.
He can’t stay here, or he’s going to develop feelings for a man who is doing actual research to prove Joe wrong about the negative impact his religion has had on the world just because he can’t bear to part with his own positive memories of shoving Christianity down people’s throats.
He wipes the come off his stomach, already tacky and matted in his body hair, with Nicky’s boxer shorts. Gingerly, he swipes at his ass as well, just so that he’ll drip less lube into his own. Nicky really gave it to him hard. Fuck, and he begged for it, and he still wants to beg for Nicky’s hands in his hair, Nicky holding him close, and he does not need to develop feelings for an asshole. He’s done that before and it always ends in tears.
He gets dressed quickly, patting down his pockets to make sure his keys, his wallet, his phone are all still there.
On his way out, he runs into Nicky, arranging something in the kitchen. Joe keeps his head down, mutters something about the gallery opening, and heads home.
He hears Nicky call after him, but he doesn’t answer.
He turns off his phone in the bus. It was a mistake, anyway, to give Nicky his number. He can’t let this keep going on. He draws his jacket tighter around himself. Fuck, why is it so cold? Why is he so cold? Normally he runs pretty hot, but right now, he just wishes he were safe and warm in Nicky’s bed.
Letting his head thunk against the window of the bus, Joe closes his eyes.
He’s such an idiot.
He knows exactly what he gets like, with sex like that. He gets clingy and needy and he’s had more than one ex tell him it’s too much to handle. Being that vulnerable around Nicky of all people is a terrible idea, and no matter how nice Nicky has been today it doesn’t change the fact that he clearly doesn’t respect Joe very much as a person.
Exhaustion weighs on him heavily. It’s barely midnight when he gets home, but with the gallery opening tomorrow night, with work, with what happened with Nile, with what happened with Nicky, Joe wants to lie down and sleep for a thousand years.
Only, his bed isn’t as soft as Nicky’s. His pillows aren’t the shape of Nicky’s body. His blankets aren’t warm enough. He can’t turn on his phone to watch dumb YouTube videos until he falls asleep because then he might text Nicky and he doesn’t want to do that; he can’t read a book because then he’ll think of that book on Nicky’s nightstand.
Paralyzed by it all, he tosses and turns, and at six in the morning, he gives up. He goes for a run. His knees shake and he has trouble getting enough air and it takes him a full half hour to run five kilometers.
The gallery opening is at eight PM.
He has no idea what to do with himself till then.
The day passes in a haze. He grades first-year exams, but he can barely remember what the last one said by the time he gets to the next one, he’ll have to go over everything again when his stomach isn’t tying itself into knots.
He calls the caterer for the gallery on the landline, triple-checks that everything will be fine.
He plays twenty rounds of solitaire on his laptop, he tries to watch TV, but he can’t concentrate on anything. He’s hungry by noon but everything in the fridge makes him nauseous to think of. After three bites of yesterday’s leftovers, he nearly throws up, so he tosses them in the trash and eats dry toast instead.
Some how or another, time passes.
It’s bad, Joe understands passively. He doesn’t usually feel like this. He’d push it on nerves about the gallery opening, but everyone important has seen the paintings already, and he’s been looking forward to this for months, maybe even years now. He should be vibrating with excitement. He’s been hoping, secretly, probably wrongly, that this will be the night his work gets spotted by some important critic, some agent, that this will be his ticket out of academia. It probably won’t pan out like that, but he’s looking forward to sharing his art with the world either way, maybe even selling a piece or two. It means a lot to him.
And here he is, with only hours to go before then, wrapped up in the blanket Nile sleeps under when she crashes on their couch, shaky and anxious and not at all sure what’s going on with him.
All he knows is that it’s Nicky’s fault. He’s never been this bad, this needy before. Not even when he was in love with the guy. Nicky’s done something to him, Joe thinks hysterically.
Okay.
Okay, he just needs to get some focus back.
He takes a hot shower and forces himself to breathe slowly and carefully through it.
He puts on his snazzy suit, the dark blue one, with a crisp white shirt. He does his hair carefully. He can do this.
He’s not going to let his confusing feelings about Nicky get in the way of it.
That’s something to deal with later.
Maybe he should just tell Andy the full truth, everything about his fights with Nicky she hasn’t wanted to listen to before, everything about how stupid he’s been to keep hooking up with Nicky, how the intimacy of it is really messing with his head. Maybe she can help. Maybe she can stop hanging out with Nicky, so Joe will stop running into him.
The idea of not seeing Nicky again sends a wave of panic throughout Joe’s whole body. He has to control his breathing. He’s sweating by the time he gets on the subway to the gallery.
He can do this.
Setting up food and drinks, doing a last walk-through to make sure everything’s displayed as it should be, is a good distraction. Some of Joe’s work is pretty hard to exhibit in smaller spaces. It was why he was so thrilled to be accepted here, in a more open space, where there’s really room for his work. He’d wanted to make a larger piece for a long time, using a tile mosaic to recreate a modern cityscape covered in graffiti. It’s heavy, and it’s huge, and Joe’s incredibly proud of it. He sent his mom a picture, and she called him. They had a long talk about what it meant to be straddled between different heritages and how hard and alienating it could be, but also how beautiful. It means a lot to Joe that he gets to exhibit it. His parents are coming to visit in a few weeks, just to see his art displayed.
He’s just going to think about that, for now, and ignore the rest.
For an hour of set-up, he thinks about tiles in his hands, he thinks about cleaning paint from his brushes, he thinks about the physical process of art, and it works, almost. Celeste, who runs the gallery, asks him why he’s so quiet, but he puts it off as nerves.
It’s fine. He can do this.
The only hard part tonight is that he has to give a little welcome speech, after that, it’s just milling around, socializing, and then Joe can leave and get some sleep and get his head on straight.
Fuck, he was supposed to be enjoying this.
At eight on the dot, Nile arrives. She’s smiling cheerily, most likely to cover how much last night messed with her. Booker’s by her side, so at least she wasn’t alone today.
“I wondered where you were today,” Joe says to Booker as he hugs them both. It’s not true, he didn’t even stop to consider why his fucking roommate wasn’t home all day, he was that out of it.
Andy and Quỳnh are the next to arrive, and with them Lykon, which warms Joe’s heart. It’s nice of him to show up in support. Before he even knows what’s happening, the room is full of well-dressed people, full of German chatter and the sound of glasses clinking.
It’s his moment.
He bangs his fork on his glass, a little too hard. For a moment, he’s afraid the delicate champagne flute will shatter, but it doesn’t, it’s fine. He can do this. Usually, he likes to wing this kind of thing, so he’s glad Celeste demanded he prepare something to show her a week ago. All he has to do is say the words he wrote: How excited he is to share his art, which are his favorite pieces and what they mean to him, how thankful he is to Celeste and the whole gallery team, which of the canapés are vegan and where the bathrooms are. He even manages to grin when he gets to the few jokes he worked in.
There’s applause when he’s done, and then someone raises there hand to ask a question, and Joe’s knees nearly give out. He was not expecting this. He looks blindly towards the raised hand, towards the exit behind it, and wonders if he can just leave now.
The door opens, and Nicky steps in.
He’s wearing the most non-descript suit known to man (it’s brown, the kind of formal wear people might call “sensible”) paired with a light blue shirt that at least does something for his eyes, and it looks like he made an effort of some sort with his hair that just didn’t quite pan out how he thought it would.
Joe feels twenty pounds lighter and hates himself for it.
He turns to the person with their hand raised, smiles, and asks them what they want to know.
The rest of the evening passes in a whirl.
Joe even manages to have fun. He drinks a few mimosas, he eats a few canapés, but he barely has time because he’s always in motion, answering questions, talking, talking, talking. By ten, his tie is loosened and his sleeves are rolled up because he’s finally warm and he’s gesturing so much.
Every now and again, the leaden weight of whatever was wrong with him before threatens to overwhelm him.
Each time, he catches sight of Nicky. Nicky, nibbling at a shrimp on a cocktail stick. Nicky, talking to Andy. Nicky, giving Nile a hug as she leaves for the evening. Nicky’s broad shoulders as he stands in front of the mural Joe loves so much when the crowd has thinned, head tipped back so he can see all of it.
He doesn’t go talk to Nicky. He’s not sure he can. He sure as fuck doesn’t know what to say. Still, as he makes the rounds, he makes sure to stop by his friends as often as he can, and there Nicky is among them, smiling warmly, offering congratulations. Once, towards the start, he tilts his head as if to ask, should I leave?
Joe’s shake of the head is so slight as to be imperceptible, but Nicky seems to have perceived it, because he stays.
The event ends at two in the morning, and Joe helps the gallery team clean up the mess for a long while after. Seamlessly, Nicky falls into place beside him, picking up trash and empty glasses.
Joe licks suddenly dry lips. “Thanks for helping,” he says.
“Of course,” Nicky says.
Joe clears his throat. “Thanks for coming,” he says.
Nicky reaches out as if to touch his arm, as if to offer comfort, but he stops himself. Joe’e heart is beating wildly, it’s good Nicky stopped, he thinks, but he’s not sure that’s true. “Joe,” Nicky begins.
“Not here,” Joe says blindly, and he gets his jacket and his still-turned-off-phone and says goodnight to Celeste.
Outside, in the night air, Joe’s breathing eases. “So,” he says.
“Yes,” Nicky says.
“I, uh,” Joe starts, then stops. “You wanted to say something?” he asks desperately.
“I wasn’t sure I should come tonight,” Nicky says. “But last night—when you left—I was very worried.”
“Why?” Joe blurts. “You got out of bed right after.”
“To get you food, and drinks,” Nicky says. “It was…it was very intense, I thought, and you seemed—well, I wanted to take care of you.”
Nicky had been puttering in the kitchen when he left, Joe remembers. Nicky had wanted to take care of him.
He takes a deep breath. “I think I’ve been having a panic attack all day,” he says. “I don’t know. I don’t like feeling like this. Ever since I left.”
“Joe, may I hold you?” Nicky asks.
Joe nods wordlessly. Nicky gives good hugs, he knows this, he’s seen Andy and Nile on the receiving end, how tight Nicky holds them, how he’s in no hurry to let go. It still doesn’t prepare him for how good he feels, wrapped up in Nicky’s arms. Nicky smells good, safe, familiar, and Joe lets himself slump into Nicky’s hold.
“I’ve got you,” Nicky says softly, and he said that yesterday already, and it was true then and it must be true now, because he doesn’t even let go when Joe starts crying into his shoulder.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Joe says into Nicky’s jacket, “I’m sorry.”
“Shh,” Nicky hushes him. “It’s just fine. I might start too.”
“Really?” Joe asks, pulling back.
“I was—so scared I hurt you, or did something wrong,” Nicky says. “After that—I wanted to be close to you so badly, and you weren’t answering your phone, and I just thought…I don’t know. I’ve heard you’re supposed to…stay close, after that kind of sex.”
“That kind?” Joe asks.
“You know,” Nicky says, flushing a little. “When you let me…be in control.”
“We have a lot of sex like that,” Joe says, confused.
“You don’t always let go like that,” Nicky says. “Or let me spank you. It was…more. I was humbled that you would trust me like that.”
“Oh,” Joe says, swallowing roughly.
“Can I ask why you left?” Nicky asks.
“I always leave,” Joe says blankly. “We don’t like each other.”
Nicky looks away.
“And I saw that book, and it just…”
Frowning, Nicky looks back up. “The one about the missionaries?” he asks.
“Yeah, Nicky,” Joe says, exasperated. “The one about the missionaries. I thought, yesterday, maybe you finally understood and respected why that’s an issue for me, but I can’t keep doing this with someone who doesn’t listen—“
“I got that book because I was listening,” Nicky says, frowning. “You made me realize that I’ve been looking at the whole concept from a very selfish perspective, and I would like to learn.”
Joe opens his mouth to respond, but a clap of thunder above them startles him. They look at each other.
“Come home with me?” Nicky asks. “Please?”
“Yeah,” Joe says. “Alright.”
In the cool, dry subway, he asks, “Selfish?”
Nicky picks at a loose thread around his cuffs. “I was thinking about what it meant to me, to be helping others, that I felt like giving aid made me a good person. I was thinking about mission work in the sense that it was the only part of my life before coming here that felt like it was worthwhile. But I was thinking about me and my own feelings, and not about what impact I left.”
Slowly, Joe nods. “That’s…a lot. I don’t want to deny that giving aid is a noble impulse, you know. I just don’t like the strings it comes attached to.”
Nicky’s smile is shy. “I’ve started volunteering at the Berliner Tafel,” he says. “It seems like a better use of my time.”
His hand is resting on his thigh, right there, right next to Joe’s own hand, and it’s little work to rest his own on top of it. The touch is nice. Soothing.
“Was there so little?” he asks. “Before you came here?”
Nicky shrugs loosely. “Ah, you know. I was raised very religious. A lot of what I learned about other people, other religions, was very wrong, and I wasted a lot of time thinking I was wrong, for being gay.”
Joe traces his thumb across the back of Nicky’s knuckles. “That sounds rough,” he says.
Nicky flips his hand face-up, tangles their fingers. “Yes,” he says. “It was, and that ignorance cost me a lot of time I could have been happier and smarter and kinder. I would hate if it cost me a chance with you, as well.”
“It didn’t,” Joe blurts. “I mean, I thought it might, if I’m being honest, but despite myself I think I really like you.”
“What a compliment,” Nicky says drily, but he’s smiling.
It’s not their first kiss, and the subway isn’t exactly the place Joe pictured this happening, but it is the first kiss in which Joe lets himself feel the full inevitability of what he feels for Nicky. When it’s over, he rests his head on Nicky’s shoulder and lets himself be comforted.
It’s the first night he doesn’t go to Nicky’s for sex, and it’s the first night he doesn’t leave, either on the one-thirty or the five AM bus. Instead, they brush their teeth, side by side, a little awkward. They curl up in bed together, and Nicky’s bed has always been more comfortable than Joe’s, but it’s even better when Joe gets to cling to Nicky, gets to fall asleep to the feel of Nicky’s broad hands stroking up and down his back.
He wakes once, briefly, at dawn. This is when he would normally sneak out, gather his things and run for the bus. There’s grey, early sunlight peeking through the curtains.
He nuzzles closer into Nicky’s neck, wraps his arms more tightly around Nicky’s middle, and falls back asleep.
Dating Nicky is different than any dating Joe’s done before. Probably that’s because he’s never dated anyone he had a month-long fuckbuddy relationship based on animosity with. He already knows the worst of Nicky before they start going to restaurants and movies together. He has no compunctions about telling Nicky when he thinks a movie was bad, he doesn’t care at all about garlic breath, and he definitely doesn’t give a shit how many dates it is before he lets Nicky fuck him over the gleaming, gorgeous kitchen counters of his apartment.
Perversely, because of all the animosity, it’s easier to tell Nicky some things, easier to trust that whatever Nicky says or does, it can’t be worse than that first month. More than some people he’s dated for much longer, more even than Andy and Quỳnh, Nicky knows about Joe’s complicated feelings about religion, nationality, belonging. Just having someone know all that about him, Joe realizes, makes him feel that he belongs.
In turn, he’s learned to be more careful of Nicky’s sensitive spots, the family he barely mentions except for the uncle who died and left Nicky his fancy apartment, enabling his move to Berlin, a fact Nicky tells him over a late lunch Joe cooks in Nicky’s kitchen.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to afford this place on a librarian’s salary,” Joe says when Nicky tells him, two months into dating Nicky, a little too pleased that he was right. He waits until after he’s asked about the loss, and whether they were close, and why it is this uncle left his apartment to Nicky when the rest of the family barely speaks to him; he’s not that much of an ass. The answer, it turns out, is spite towards the rest of the family, not any lingering affection for his nephew.
“You could have just asked,” Nicky points out, which is too sensible.
“But I was trying not to know you so we could keep hating each other. Aren’t you glad you don’t hate me anymore?” he jokes.
For a moment, Joe can’t tell if the flush is from the spices or embarrassment.
“I never hated you,” Nicky says.
Joe blinks, setting his spoon down.
“I was just not very good at liking you,” Nicky says to his plate.
“Baby,” Joe says, delighted. “You liked me so much you blew me in a public bathroom even though I hated you?”
“Shut up,” Nicky grumbles, and goes back to his food.
Joe doesn’t stop teasing him, of course, and Nicky takes it out on his ass, which is half of why Joe did it in the first place. They’ve done some very enlightening research into aftercare and subspace since Joe’s gallery opening, and now, when Nicky makes Joe come on his fingers and then again on his cock, he pets and pampers Joe to his heart’s content afterwards.
“Aren’t you glad you’re not always running away from me anymore?” Nicky teases him back, just a little, but he’s petting Joe’s head as he says it, holding him as close as either of them can stand.
“I am,” Joe says, and kisses Nicky’s wrist.
They have to shower and dress not long after, but the hollowed-out contentment of sex with Nicky and being held and cared for in the aftermath keeps Joe loose-limbed and happy all evening, even when all their friends arrive.
“Holy shit, Nicky,” Nile enthuses, running her her hands over the polished surfaces of the kitchen. “Why don’t we always hang out here?”
“Can I borrow your shower?” Quỳnh asks. “And by borrow I mean live in.”
Joe rolls his eyes at their antics and shepherds them towards the living room.
He tries not to feel Nicky’s eyes on the back of his neck, heavy and possessive, like Joe being at home in his space is enough to drive him wild.
“Nice to see you two not at each other’s throats,” Andy remarks.
Nicky frowns, taking a seat on the sofa.
“Yeah,” Booker agrees. “It was getting pretty annoying.”
“You should have told me off,” Nicky says.
Joe pauses in setting out the snacks.
Andy raises an eyebrow.
“You should have told me I was being insensitive and ignorant much earlier instead of letting me figure it out on my own time,” Nicky continues. “You weren’t exactly supportive of Joe, he was your friend first.”
Booker blinks. He looks to Joe. “Sorry?”
Nile elbows Andy. “I told you,” she says.
Andy sighs. “I’m sorry, Joe. Nicky was just going through so much shit, when I first met him, and it’s such a learning process, to deprogram yourself like that. I didn’t want to push him away.”
Joe swallows.
It wasn’t something he was ever going to say himself, but it did bother him, that their response was invariably to leave him and Nicky alone to argue instead of helping him out.
Still.
“I get that,” he tells Andy. “I’d have appreciated some support all the same, or at least you telling me that. It kind of felt like you were on his side.”
There’s an awkward silence.
“I could have taken it,” Nicky says. “I would much rather be informed of my own idiocy than left to it.”
Joe bursts out laughing. “That,” he says. “That’s why no one told you. You’re just so earnest. Anyway,” he points out, “they weren’t always there, we managed to fight pretty well without witnesses.”
Nicky gives him the ghost of a smile. “I’d have preferred not to.”
Joe sighs, sitting down beside him. “Well, if they’d stopped hanging out with you over it, we wouldn’t have gotten here,” he points out.
Nicky lifts Joe’s hand to his lips and kisses it, heart in his eyes.
“We would have,” he says.
Over the outraged, surprised cries of their friends, Joe pulls Nicky close and kisses his cheek. Maybe they would have. Either way, they’re here now.