Chapter Text
“Tom? Is this—did you mean to call me?”
“What, Greg?”
“Is this a butt-dial?”
As Greg finishes the question in his mouth he winces, already knowing the answer. Like muscle memory, his brain tunes out the responding voice on the other line, no doubt unraveling a long ribbon of peculiarly worded insults. Heading towards the door of the venue, the beat of the party inside fades as Tom’s voice lands on him, heavy yet faint.
“You wanna go out?”
“Uh...I am out—you were just here, did you leave?”
“Yeah, Shiv had a headache so she’s home now and I’m asking you if you want to go out.”
“What like… you want to come back to the party?” Greg watches as several couples exit the building followed by a slender woman on her cellphone and carrying a sweater. She hurriedly returns it to one of the gentlemen ahead of her. Comfry. He steps backwards, turning towards the wall. “I don’t want to...you know, be rude or anything but it’s kind of already over, like it’s winding down—I think Kendall—he left? Early?”
“Why are you whispering?”
“Nothing, no reason.”
“Fuck the party, I’m picking you up. Be there in 12.”
“12?”
“Minutes, Greg. Be outside.”
When Greg turns back around Comfry is gone. ‘More to talk about on our first date,’ he thinks to himself before checking his watch. ‘Just a couple of young lovebirds with weird bosses’. With a frustrated sigh he turns back on his phone to see the time.
It makes absolutely no sense that in a parade of big black expensive cars he can recognize Tom’s. It’s not like he memorized the license plate, he can’t even remember his own phone number, which is why he has it in his notes app. Still, when he sees it pull up he walks towards it instinctively, just hearing the text message ding in his pocket as his hand touches the doorknob.
“Hey!” Greg grins and folds his body into the backseat.
Tom only moves his eyes, his jaw tight with a mixture of exhaustion and adrenaline.
“Hey.”
“How’re yo—you having a pretty good night?”
“Night that will never end,” Tom pushes the words through his teeth as the driver pulls away from the sculptural structure.
“Yeah, cool, cool. Where we going? I’m getting kinda... sleepy? But I can do maybe like an hour, hour and a half.”
“Use your words Greg, if you want coke just say so.”
“No, no, I’m not... well, maybe! Actually, I mean, it depends what you have in store for us tonight?”
A shrug and a silkscreen projected smile is all that Tom can offer. Cocaine sits in a glass vial in the cup holder in front of them, and with allowance, Greg takes it. How very like Tom to use something as simple as coke and try to dress it up as elegant with this… receptacle. Greg unscrews the lid, tapping out a bump on the back of his hand. He holds the vial out to Tom, who shakes his head. Greg raises his hand to his nose, other hand gripping the vial and holding one nostril closed. Tom’s eyes follow the motion, narrowing as Greg tips the vial carelessly with his active fingers, spilling a decent amount across the back of the other hand.
“Greg.”
“Oh! Shit. Shit!! Tom--” Greg hurriedly caps the vial, the spilled powder on his hand falling on the car seat.
“Jesus Greg. How gauche. Come on, my fucking seats? ”
“I’m sorry!” Greg expels his apology like he’s the one being affronted by fumbling the free coke he’s been offered. “Dude this thing is like, really ungainly--”
Greg’s breath catches on his verbosity as Tom takes Greg’s hand in his, pulling it up to his face with gentle assertion, pausing as he covers the skin with his eyes in strategy. An exhaled breath spreads warmth across it before he lowers his own nose, snorting what was spilt. Tom then sticks his finger on his tongue and uses it to pick up any leftover residue across the back of Greg’s hand. Once he is satisfied with his clean-up, Tom rubs his finger across his top gums, pulling it out of his mouth with a faint pop and licking his lips. Finally, after an eternity of silence, Tom lets go of Greg’s hand.
“Sorry,” Greg breathes, the only thing he can think to say. Should he say ‘thank you’?
“We’re here Mr. Wambsgans,” the driver says as they come to a buttery smooth stop. Tom nods to Greg, who opens the door and slides out, Tom following after. The driver peeks forward through the passenger window. “Goodnight, sir.”
“Goodnight,” Tom echoes, checking over his jacket for spots of white. The car pulls away from the nondescript brick building.
“Is he not...he’s not driving us home? After?”
“Shiv doesn’t like when I keep him out of her reach too long, just in case. You know. It’s fine,” Tom says plainly. The way his nose scrunches is the only giveaway that it is not, in fact, fine. “You’re not above getting a cab, are you Greg? Our little prince can’t rest his tailored tuchus on anything less than heated leather? ”
“Me? Hell no, I’m—just… going with the flow!”
He was expecting a sterile club, floor to ceiling white and gold fixtures like a gaudy exam room. A private room where the party isn’t, a flex of the solitude of success where enjoyment is secondary to status. What he never could have envisioned was a warm, dense, and darkened theater full of inebriated eclectics proving their personality through ever more imaginative costumes masquerading as nightwear. They look like a pair of pencils in a flower arrangement, walking their beers from the bar to a table with legs that won’t bend at the knees. Greg keeps a practiced loose smile plastered as Tom sits, scanning the crowd with a metered drip of disdain.
“So this… wow, this place is pretty--pretty cool.” Greg gazes to his right and is captivated by an aerialist in a hoop. Tom follows his eyes quickly before returning to Greg’s face.
“You know, I don’t think she should worry, really. We have more than one driver she could call if she really needs it,” Tom announces over the music.
“What?”
“Nevermind. Are you happy, Greg?”
“Am I what? Am I happy?”
“Yeah. About—you know about not going?”
“Oh, what to prison? Yeah!”
“Yeah? And… And about me?”
“Yeah, dude!”
“Uh huh.” Tom’s eyes glaze over Greg’s face and calculate. A mirthless laugh. “Because you might be the only one.”
“What?”
“I said you’re the only one, Greg.”
“Tom?”
Greg sees it, even though he can’t hear the last five things Tom has said over the din of the drum and bass, he sees Tom’s eyes turn glassy as they look directly into his own, as if Tom isn’t aware of just how transparent he is. There was never anything about Tom that he couldn’t see through, and often he wonders if he’s a window to everyone else or just a one-way mirror.
“Tom I’m—I can’t hear you actually here. Do you wanna—maybe get--”
“Do you have weed?” Tom shouts. Okay, Greg hears him.
“Weed? Yeah—not—not on me? Like at home?”
“Let’s go.”
“What?”
But Tom’s already walking towards the exit, beer bottle left on the table.
It’s gotten colder, not cold-cold, but cold enough that the two of them hold themselves tight around their middles. Greg checks his phone sporadically and repeats the license plate of their Uber, forgetting it after only a couple repetitions and starting the cycle over and over again. A van pulls up, several more safety stickers than the usual cars Greg calls, but the license matches and they quickly clamber inside.
“Hello,” the driver, a middle aged woman, cheerfully chimes.
“Hello,” Greg responds politely, smiling widely as he buckles his seat belt. Tom nods.
The van slides back into traffic, the driver handling considerably less smooth and clean than Tom’s. He makes a mental note to compliment his driver next time when suddenly he and Greg lurch forward, the car coming to a sudden halt as a high pitched alarm sounds.
“What was that?” Tom asks, a wave of carsickness rapidly hitting him.
“Sorry, they just stopped in front of me, you guys okay back there?”
“I’m okay,” Greg offers. A car passes them on the right, pulling into the gap ahead of them as the alarm sounds again.
“That, what was that?!” Tom shouts over it.
“Oh that. Because this car is for transport for the elderly and disabled we have sensors on--”
“Elderly and disabled? What the fuck??”
The woman stops explaining with a small gasp.
“Gregory did you get us a ‘special car’?”
“No! I didn’t...I didn’t mean to--”
“You didn’t do anything,” the driver clarifies, less jovial than before. “I just picked up your ride, I work nights with the same car. Nothing you did. Sorry about the noise.”
As if on cue, a bike passes the car on the right and triggers the alarm. Tom groans.
“Wow, that must be pretty annoying for you! Seems like everything triggers it,” Greg helps with a genuine smile. He seems unphased by the acidic beeping screeching in their ears every eight seconds, trying to drown out Tom’s noises of disapproval with friendliness.
“Yeah, it just goes off whenever someone gets too close. You get used to it, you know. ”
“Yeah, haha, I bet! Right? You gotta.” Greg looks over at Tom to find his eyes were already on him, a soft side eye. The alarm beeps and Tom showily rolls his eyes, groaning again, then blankets his hand over Greg’s on the seat.
What is there to do but freeze?
Just stay still and whatever this moment is will pass like all the rest of them. No reason to believe it won’t. Why just this morning--
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
“Ugh, I’m sorry, how miserable,” Tom allows. His hand remains over Greg’s.
“Yeah.” Greg tries to look at Tom without moving his head, without moving anything if possible. Tom’s hand is… when was the last time someone held his hand? Could you call this holding hands? No, Tom just put his hand down and as a display of dominance he didn’t move it even though Greg’s was underneath. It’s a power move.
Tom’s thumb rubs softly back and forth between two of Greg’s knuckles.
An elaborate power move.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
“They need to come up with a better idea than that alarm. In New York? It's ridiculous,” Tom comments, his voice far less harsh than before, almost playful. “Greg, that’s something for you to do, come up with a better system.”
When Tom says his name he gives Greg’s hand a gentle squeeze, not removing it from his grasp even still. Greg finally moves his head to look out the window, away from Tom and the driver, who is now explaining that it’s really not that bad because blah blah his hand is getting sweaty. He is getting sweaty. If Tom notices, that’s going to be another gibe in the books to knock Greg down a peg:
“Jeez Greg, you ok? You’re dripping wet like a housewife’s panties after watching a Sting music video.” Or something equally bizarre.
It’s all become white noise to him as he faces the window, the reflection only catching Tom’s knees and saving him from whatever smug look Tom might have on his face right now. Greg can imagine it clearly, those shining sea-blue eyes glittering beneath long feathery eyelashes dipped low with self-approval. His lips partially pursed, pulled back into a thin line, cheeks full and rosy—and his hand still hasn’t moved. Greg feels something in him call out, like the voice in your guts that tells you to take a penny from the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny for no reason. An innate need arises and if almost without him agreeing to let his body act, the need accesses Greg’s thumb, which breaks its paralysis to trail along the base of Tom’s palm, running back and forth as Tom’s thumb does to his hand from above.
“Here ok?” asks the driver, slowing down to a stop.
“Here’s fine,” Tom responds curtly, removing his hand from Greg’s and leaving a palpable coldness. He gets out of the van, coming around to the other side and knocking on the window. Greg snaps out of his daze and opens the door.
“Sorry about the—thanks! Have a good night,” Greg mumbles as he waves goodbye, turning to follow Tom to his own apartment.
“Hey, wait up.”