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Shockingly enough, Tim never had a problem chatting with the people behind the store counters, be they a theater worker, a cashier, or a bank teller. Anxiety would spike if a problem came up-- his items weren’t ringing up right, he accidentally told them to enjoy their movie too…
Regardless, the heat in his face never lasts long, and these were one-off incidents, so Tim could brush the issue off of his shoulder. He moved on, ate his food, watched his film, enjoyed having a fuller wallet, so on.
Must have been too long since he’s last had an issue while standing at the register, though-- seems today is his lucky day.
He hunches over, squinting at the neon blue numbers in the black screen that’s attached to the rickety register, probably been in use since the early nineties, maybe late eighties. In his hand is a crisp twenty, what he thought would be enough for dinner to share between him and Jay.
Somehow, this is the first time he’s ever not had enough money to cover his purchases. Tim has managed to avoid making that mistake for over twenty years, and here he is, pissing off the droopy eyed cashier by frowning and swearing to himself and holding up the line of, oh, all two late night customers.
These sandwiches are junky convenience store food; he doubts the cheese on Jay’s is real. Still, it’s hot food, and he’s not going to give them up when it’s been a week since he’s tasted cooked meat. The chips could go, it’s not like they don’t have plenty of unfinished bags in the back of the car. They could combine the crumbs at the bottom of the bags into one and it would almost be like they bought a single huge pack of… salt and crunchy bits. Better than nothing.
“Could you take off the Pringles?” Tim asks the cashier, hoping the apology in his voice will chase the contempt from the old man’s eyes. It’s not, clearly, going by the exhausted roll of his dark eyes, but he voids off the chips anyway, tucking the tube behind the counter.
Tim looks to the balance. Still too much. He glances down at the bill in his hand, stares like more money may appear from thin air if he waits long enough. Cogs chug away in his brain, a million useless thoughts coming to him at once. Steal? Maybe, stealing isn’t something he particularly enjoys, but he isn’t a stranger to it. He could pocket something on his way out, this geezer will be too busy looking after the next customers, who are currently huffing and puffing their frustrations. Assholes, all of them, they have /no/ idea how hard this is--
“Look, bud, how’s about I take off the cigarettes too? Heard ya coughin’ when ya came in, not like ya need ‘em,” the cashier says suddenly, and before Tim can protest, he swipes his carton across the scanner and Tim’s eyes are back on the total.
A twenty to pay for sandwiches alone is almost overkill.
He knew cigarettes were expensive, but it never felt concrete before, not until now. The tiny red box sitting out of reach looks doubly appealing now with the knowledge that he couldn’t have them. Swallowing the dry ball in his throat, he glances down at his and Jay’s dinner, pondering if he could get away with buying both the cigarettes and only Jay’s sandwich, he could survive another night without a proper meal…
The mental slap he gives himself is more painful than the prospect of missing out on his fix of nicotine. Really? Is he considering skipping food for the sake of puffing on something that’s not doing him any fucking good? Jay has paid for his cigarettes before, he never complained, but Tim could see the nerves in his eyes, like he wanted to say something but refused to out of some sense of ‘I dragged you into this mess, I might as well make it a comfortable one as well’.
It’s with a heavy heart that Tim finally gives in and hands his money to the cashier, who looks as though he deflated with relief and let loose about ten pounds of air. He practically throws Tim’s change at him before turning his attention to the shivering woman behind him, who sighs at the prospect of finally being served.
Packing up the sandwiches and making a beeline for the jingling store doors, Tim has to pretend he isn’t acutely aware of the rattling in his last pack, kept right against his heart in his breast pocket. The two cigarettes there aren’t enough to make it past tomorrow, not unless he skips tonight’s pre-bedtime smoke, and he’ll probably wake up around three AM craving the taste…
He drops into his car seat once he reaches it, and promptly faceplants against the wheel. His car horn blares into the night, screaming and sending any tiny furry critters scurrying away.
This is ridiculous. How hasn’t he thought of it before? How hasn’t he dropped the habit already, if only for the sake of his and Jay’s wallets? He /quit/ his job, there isn’t going to be any extra cash coming his way for luxuries. They are both on a budget and it’s not right to be taking chunks out of it for something this expensive and unhelpful to either of their causes.
Still. He remembers his mother while she was quitting cigarettes. He remembers the snappish words and the hundreds upon hundreds of failed attempts at replacing the habit. She fed birds, took walks, tried to learn cursive writing-- he never understood that one-- she even cleaned the house of her own fucking volition in the hopes of not thinking about her goddamned cigarettes.
Tim imagines trying to distract himself by wiping down whatever rundown hotel room Jay has chosen for them to bunk out in tonight. Any such attempt may lead to him contracting the latest big disease that’s being plastered all over the newspapers in bold red lettering.
He takes out his phone and turns it on, the screen automatically pulling up Jay’s name. It’s the only number he texts these days. Every other number is obsolete, disconnected, or sends him straight to voice message should he attempt to call it.
‘Got us dinner. Need to talk once we get together,’ he taps out with his thumbs. ‘Find a place for us to stay yet?’
Jay’s reply is near immediate; he must have been sitting and waiting for Tim to message him.
‘Yes. I’ll pay for this one. Am I in trouble?’
Assuming he’s fucked up and that’s what they need to talk about-- how very Jay. Too Jay for him to handle right now. His head pulses, the threat of a headache hovering above him.
‘No. It’s something stupid. Don’t worry about it. I’d rather go into detail once we’re in the hotel.’
Ding. Fastest reply the world has ever seen.
‘Are you sure?’
That headache Tim was hoping would stay away from him creeps into his skull and scrapes around his brain.
‘Just give me the damn address, Jay, I promise I’m not mad at you.’
Jay complies, revealing that the hotel of the night is one that they’ve already stayed in once before. Refusing to give Jay the chance to interrogate him further, Tim switches off his phone and tosses it into the passenger’s seat. Turning his attention to the road, he peels out of the convenience store’s parking lot and rumbles onto the road, damp gravel crunching underneath the tires.
The roads are deserted due to the late hour, save for a flock of young men ducking beneath the garishly red awning of a shutdown ice cream shop. They are no doubt too young to be smoking but they’re huddled around one another nonetheless, sharing a single lighter.
Tim presses his foot to the gas, averting his eyes and willing the car to chug faster.
--
“…so you’re done forever?”
Tim glances back at Jay, peering over his shoulder. A grey cloud streams from his lips, slowly creeping its way outside but not before leaving a tickle behind in Jay’s chest. He winces and pretends he isn’t about to choke on the cough trying to break out of his body.
“I dunno. Maybe,” Tim says, tipping ashes out the window and sticking his head out after them. He exhales the rest of the cloud he’d been holding onto, lets it roll away into the night. “This is more of a /now/ thing. I could go back, I might not.”
Bitter laughter bubbles in Jay’s stomach, but he passes the noise off as clearing his throat. Tim talking like there’s an ‘after’ to all of this, it’s weird to him, because Jay can’t imagine what an after would be like. This is what he knows and to leave it behind… it’s something to hope for, but unfathomable.
Still, it’s admirable that Tim can see beyond these nights spent huddling together, desperate for clues and safety. There was an after to the hospital, maybe he’s better at foreseeing a future for himself thanks to that.
Jay turns the emptied cigarette pack over in his hands, squinting at the health warning written at the bottom of the box. If he was being honest, he’s wanted Tim to quit since the first time he saw him clutching a cigarette between his fingers. This little warning, here, is exactly why. Tim has a number of factors counting against him, all of which threaten his life, and to have this one unnecessary factor sitting on his shoulders, one he brought upon himself, it worried Jay.
So to know they’re not going to be around anymore, sucking cash from their wallets, Jay is more relieved than he could ever say-- politely, anyway.
“Do I uh, tell you I’m proud of you now?” Jay asks, eyebrows quirked. He sits up, placing aside the box. The cigarette Tim’s currently puffing on is stubbed out on the desk beside the window, creating a black mark in the wood that nobody will bother to complain about. He flicks it outside and turns to Jay, tapping a thoughtful finger to his lip.
“If you want, I mean, I can’t control how you feel about this and I’m not expecting any particular reaction or hoping for one,” he says, shrugging his broad shoulders. “I just wanted to know if you’re gonna help me out since this isn’t a one-step process.”
“Of course,” Jay replies without an ounce of hesitance. He bolts up to stand, looking to the other man in a manner that he hopes doesn’t come across too eager. “You need me to distract you, right? When you want to smoke?”
“Yeah,” Tim nods while he waves away the remainder of the smog. He shuts the window, locking away the nippy autumn air. His brown eyes remain fixed on the outside, on the shroud of nothing that the night has brought. “I just dunno what’ll be enough to keep my mind off of it. It’s been my go-to for dealing with bullshit.”
Jay looks away from Tim, toward the garishly patterned floors, red on bright green polka dots. No need to tell him twice about that. Tim can do what he likes with his body, Jay isn’t going to tell him what’s what, but there were times where it got… excessive. Risking being kicked out of hotels, where they have the best maintained illusion of safety, it’s just not worth it.
An immediate lack of ideas leads Jay to glance around their room. Lamp with the busted and torn shade, the too small beds (Jay tears his eyes away before he thinks too hard into what could be done there). The bathroom door stands ajar, providing a lovely view of the half-hanging shower curtain and the chipped white paint on the walls.
“How about a shower?” Jay suggests as the thought pops to mind. Tim’s puzzled face sends red flooding to his face, and he raises his hands; ‘hear me out’. “You go and basically take a cold shower every time you think about smoking. That’s all.”
The other man seems to mull it over, arms crossed upon his broad chest.
“That’s a possibility. But,” he shakes his head. “Won’t always have access to a shower. I’m not about to run into someone’s yard and spray myself with a hose.”
The image of Tim frantically jumping from his car and attacking the nearest hose or fire hydrant is an amusing one, but Jay knows better than to laugh. He stifles his vague chuckling as a hum of agreement and looks around more, letting his eyes fall to the sleeping laptop resting upon his bed.
“You could help me edit the next entries,” Jay tries before he proceeds to mentally kick himself. What a stupid idea, and he can see it in Tim’s face, the ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ that he’s too taken aback to actually say aloud. “Never mind.”
Tim turns his back on Jay after that, presumably to hide the hearty roll of his eyes Jay could see coming from a mile away. He shrinks, backing up and onto his bed where he holds his knees and finds a nice spot in space to stare off into.
So much for helping Tim. He can’t even do /this/ right; what’s wrong with him?
When he regains the courage to meet Tim’s gaze again, he sees he’s running his fingers back and forth upon his lips, not with intention but it’s not entirely unconscious either.
“…Maybe I need to find something to do with my mouth. Like gum.”
For fuck’s sake, did he have to put it like that? Jay ignores the twelve year old boy laughing in the back of his head, choosing to go rummaging through his pockets instead for the gum he swore he bought yesterday but apparently lost between then and now.
And as he searches, he can’t ignore the memory that’s buzzing angrily in his brain, demanding attention. Mouths, huh, and needing to always have access to the distraction? He’s always around, isn’t he, and there’s something they can both do with their mouths that they’ve done before.
It was a strange evening, spent discussing the somethings and nothings of life, a desperate grasp for socialization in a situation where they’re starving for it. One of those somethings happened to be the so called rite of passage known as a first kiss, one that Jay hated growing up because he knew he’d be the very last in his group of acquaintances to have his.
“I felt the same way,” Tim admitted to him, his voice scratchy and bitter. “I never even really wanted to kiss anyone, I just wanted to know what it was like.”
And, unbelievably, he confessed that he had yet to find out what kissing was like. He laughed it off before Jay had the chance to laugh first, not that he was going to but Jay could tell it wasn’t in any way genuine.
What got Jay was how Tim, a man easy enough on the eyes with impressive dark hair that complimented his jaw and a rare but valuable smile, hadn’t had his first kiss yet. And Jay, a skinny rat who couldn’t remember what he ate for breakfast yesterday, had felt the lips of another human being upon his own.
It wasn’t fair. So, he did what came to mind first and offered himself up.
“I know I’m not exactly the best person to have be your first, but if it bothers you and you want to just get it out of the way--”
If Tim hesitated, it was for only a few seconds. He lunged across the bedspread and Jay winced at the dull ache created by the harsh pressure of Tim’s mouth upon his. Taking a handful of his (wonderfully soft, bit long but beautiful and shining) hair, he gently tugged until Tim let up on him somewhat, their lips barely brushing then.
By all means, it wasn’t the best first kiss. He clearly thought a good kiss meant practically smashing one’s face against another’s.
But of course, the only way to get better at something is to practice.
And there was a great deal of practicing that evening.
So it’s familiar to them, not something they do often but it’s something they’ve done, and maybe that’s all Tim needs. Familiarity and something easy, something that could make him feel good. Jay /knows/ it would make him feel good; he recalls that little half-grin he glimpsed at the end of that evening, a perfect complement to the red flush painted across the man’s cheeks.
(Feelings or no feelings, Jay has to admit that it must have meant something to him if he’s still thinking about that evening.)
(He wonders if Tim thinks about it as much as he does.)
“I have an idea,” Jay says eventually, bringing himself to stand. He unconsciously folds himself into a smaller, less attackable Jay, tucking his hands in his pockets and squaring his shoulders. “You just gotta hear me out, though.”
“You know that makes me much less inclined to hear you out,” Tim points out bluntly. He looks to the other man, brow furrowed in suspicion. When Jay takes another step toward him, he takes one back, though he doesn’t have far to go.
His back is against the wall when Jay comes to a pause before him, the bit of height difference between them suddenly obvious. The nerves in Tim’s face tugs at a string in Jay’s chest, pushing him to close the distance between their faces and show, not tell, what his idea is.
Being the one in control, Jay gets to make this a gentle kiss, no overexcited slamming of faces and no overuse of tongue. Tim remains still while Jay draws his lower lip in between his own, more of a caress than anything else.
When they part, Jay peers into Tim’s eyes to approximate just how he felt about that solution.
He sees contentment in his lowered eyelids, and a smile of understanding that might have a hint of laughter to it. Seeing his grin, Jay catches himself following suit, because, well, it is a little silly, isn’t it? Most people would use a patch or a pill. Here they are. Kissing.
Regardless of what he thinks he sees, Jay has to ask. He leans his forehead against Tim’s, holding his gaze as he speaks: “This alright?”
Tim’s answer is just as short and sweet, punctuated by the gentle stroking of his hand up and down Jay’s back: “…yeah.”
He keeps petting him, prompting tiny shivers from Jay’s spine as he sinks into him, pretending this isn’t something that he needs just as badly as Tim does.
“Yeah. More than alright.”
(And thank god for that.)
--
Tim takes full advantage of Jay’s offer.
Which is to say he kisses him at every given opportunity.
Sitting in their dusty, creaky, disgusting hotel rooms. Ignoring his own bed entirely, Tim jumps over into Jay’s, catches his chin in his hand, and pulls him in for it. The laptop and the editing program Jay has open on it is forgotten for the rest of the evening.
Driving along on the roads, total silence between them, nothing to prompt it. He leans over, takes the back of Jay’s head in his palm, and leans close for a quick peck at the stoplight.
Out in the woods they traverse together, sticking too close for safety and something else they refuse to speak of aloud. Tim’s hand brushes up on Jay’s ribcage, and when Jay turns to him, brow raised with a question he’ll never get to ask, he steers his back to the nearest tree trunk. His mouth is suddenly occupied, forcing down his words and moment-ruining nerves.
Jay’s tapes are surely full of images depicting the two of them together. It’s a week solid of kissing and sudden intimacy, and Tim does notice that he has to spend more time editing now. Some people might be saddened to have such displays taken out, thinking it was based on a sense of shame.
Tim, he knows better, even with the little voice trying to tell him that yes, Jay really is ashamed to have this with him, this… arrangement. No, he sees the blissed out smiles the blue-eyed man hides into his pillows, the pink that decorates his delicate boney cheeks.
It’s for the best, for this to be something of theirs, a something he doesn’t give out to the thousands of eyes that follow their every move. Too much explanation, too much fuss, confusion, it’s a plate of trouble that neither of them have the energy to put up with.
Not to mention, for once, Jay isn’t giving away a secret of his without his permission. He can definitely appreciate that.
And now, Tim has to admit to himself, while he’s crawling into Jay’s lap as he’s in the halfway crossway between sleep and reality, he’s not doing this for the sake of quitting.
Jay having him against that wall and treating him delicately, lavishing his lips with sweet short kisses, he felt a high that cigarettes could never give him. It started in his toes and rushed through his veins, lighting them up. For all he knew, he started glowing because Jay kissed him.
This is a new addiction. He almost wishes he had thought of it a while ago. Though, he has a feeling Jay wouldn’t have been keen on the kissing thing so soon after that nice punch to the face.
(Maybe Tim should’ve given Jay the full truth, that night when they first kissed, clumsily clonking their teeth together and then, suddenly, smooth, just… so smooth and careful and listening to every stuttered request to maybe stop for a moment.)
(He made it sound like the other people at the hospital never held any interest. And, well.)
(“You’ll never love anyone, Tim, you’re too fucking crazy. You can’t even get the balls to kiss a girl. What’s wrong with you? Aren’t all boys supposed to wanna kiss girls?”)
(Apparently there is such a thing as ‘too crazy’ even when you’re locked up with all the other ‘crazies’.)
To know he’s kissable (lovable), it’s a high that could never be recreated, unless he somehow proved to his mother simultaneously that he /will/ in fact amount to something but he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon.
Looking at Jay now, for all the reasons he has to hate him, these kisses might make up for it.
(Is this what puppy love is, a crush--)
Blue eyes blink awake as Tim brushes his fingertips down his front, bright even in this dimly lit bedroom. Awareness fills the man’s face eventually, and Jay puts on a weak grin-- a grin nonetheless.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to pass out,” he mumbles, shoulders shifting against the propped up caseless pillows. He sighs, warm breath brushing over Tim’s lips, sending tingles over his skin. “Late night before-bed craving?”
“Yeah, let’s go with that,” Tim says, voice low. He runs his hands up and down the man’s chest, pawing at him, urging him closer.
And as Jay’s eyes catch his, he feels the words escape his lips, before he can swallow them, “Do you--”
(He can’t.)
(His brain is a traitorous thing, always has been, and it might have twisted this whole thing to be something that isn’t real.)
(But he isn’t going to give up the one good thing he’s got going for him here.)
(So that means keeping his mouth shut.)
(And he knows exactly how to keep it shut.)
Jay’s eyebrows are raised, waiting for him to speak, but he never does. He closes the not-quite there statement with a shake of his head, and comes in, initiating the kiss.
Jay doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night. He gets close, drifts, but Tim runs his hands through his soft hair and pets him into consciousness, tasting him and nipping gently at his mouth.
He tries, and he loves him as best as he can.