Archive of Our Own

"I'm gonna get you! I'll—that's it, you're getting this kiss!" 

The swiftness with which Matt has recovered—both physically and psychologically—from his vomiting-in-front-of-thousands-of-strangers incident is, frankly, alarming. If Jay threw up in front of that many people he would probably never leave the house again. Once, in his early twenties, he'd had a few too many drinks on an empty stomach and ended up puking on the floor at a bar a few blocks down from his and Matt's apartment, and he still refused to go back. Just walking down that street was enough to make his face burn hot and his stomach twist with shame. 

(Part of that feeling probably had to do with the fact that he and Matt had been in a fight at the time—it was a really bad fight, which was also a really stupid fight because all their bad fights were stupid—but most of it had to do with the puking thing. The fight had been about a girl, he thought, how Matt didn't want her around, and Jay had threatened to move out, and Matt had screamed and shouted and thrown things. A lot of their fights were like that those days. He could barely remember the details of that one. 

He does remember, though, that the bartender had called Matt from Jay's phone. Matt had worn a shit-eating, self-satisfied grin, but still he came to Jay's rescue, still dragged him off the pavement where he was slumped outside the bar. He'd wrapped one hand around Jay's shoulder and splayed the other hand flat against his stomach to hold him upright. Jay remembers resting his head against Matt's shoulder as he lifted him off the ground.)

But of course Matt doesn't care what any of those people thought of him. He's probably thinking of ways to use it to get a Rivoli show at this very moment, even as he chases Jay: Oh, I look familiar? Yeah, I'm the guy who puked on the ACC kiss cam the other day, and if you don't give us a show tonight I'll puke all over your club too. Bleeehhh!!!

"I don't want a kiss! I don't want a kiss!" Jay shouts, laughing breathlessly as he runs.  Matt's laughing too. The whole situation is a lot funnier and a whole lot less scary now that he isn't faced with having to kiss Matt so, so publicly. Jay sprints across the street, and Matt very narrowly misses being hit by a car when he runs after Jay without looking in either direction. The car screeches to a stop, honking insistently. Neither of them pay it any mind.

"You're getting it!" Matt yells after Jay. He actually can't tell if Matt's letting him slip away on purpose or if he's actually trying to catch up to him.

"No, Matt! Come on, let me be!" he giggles, ducking around the corner onto Queen Street. They're only a few minutes from home now. Jay's leftover adrenaline from kind-of-almost kissing Matt had brought him to an energy level close to Matt's baseline, and they'd basically run the whole way home instead of taking the streetcar. Also, Jay really thinks that if they stopped, Matt would plant one on him. 

Honestly, he doesn't know what's going to happen when they get home. Would Matt kiss him as soon as they got into the house? As soon as they reached the doorstep? Would Jay have to run upstairs, hide in his room all night? He figures Matt will probably drop the kiss thing tomorrow in lieu of a new plan, but Jay's full of energy now, and he's not ready to be done hanging out yet—it's still so early in the night. It had been a weird day, but it's pretty good now. He doesn't want to have to hide from Matt. 

Jay stops dead in his tracks and whirls around. Matt immediately runs directly into him, of course, because that's what happens when you're right behind someone and they stop without warning. Jay puts out his hands to stop a full-body collision, but he ends up tucked in close to Matt, his hands kind of pressed against Matt's chest, grabbing at Matt's shirt to keep them both from falling as Matt flails for a moment in confusion. "Woah, hey, Bird, what the fuck?"

Okay. Fine. Whatever. He's going to get it over with. Jay's going to kiss him. He's going to kiss Matt. Honestly, it'll probably be really normal. Or like, just kind of gross, because Matt is kind of gross. They did everything together. He had only been nervous earlier because it was going to be so public. His heart was only hammering because he'd just been running for like fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is a long time for someone to run continuously. He can feel his ears starting to burn, his stomach swooping. In this position, his face is really close to Matt's. He just has to lean forward a little—

Jay had intended the kiss to be chaste. Just a quick peck, really. But Matt had kind of been in the middle of asking Jay why he'd turned around so suddenly, so his mouth was already open, and Jay was still panting from all the stupid running Matt had forced him into doing, so his mouth was open too, and he ended up falling forward into a very open-mouthed kiss. With his best friend. Who was a guy. Not that Jay is homophobic. He doesn't have a problem with gay guys. Or gay … anyones. Actually, he thinks Jared might be gay, and Jared's probably his second-best friend, even though he's pretty sure the guy kind of hates him (speaking of, where was the little sneak now?). But Jay's definitely an ally. 

Also, he's still kissing Matt, who's warm and a little sweaty, and his lips are surprisingly soft, and he had sort of squeaked in a very funny way when Jay's lips had hit his, and Matt's kissing him back, which is crazy, and Jay can tell he isn't very experienced (not that Jay didn't already know that), but he can feel Matt smiling against him, and he hears Matt laugh an elated little laugh somewhere in the back of his throat, and—

Jay pulls back abruptly and turns away, spitting on the ground. "Eugh! Oh, God. Oh my God." He coughs, trying not to gag. He feels eyes on him and looks quickly up to Matt, who's staring at Jay with his eyebrows furrowed, his lips parted just a little. He's making a face like someone had not only turned off a light somewhere in his psyche, but like they'd also unscrewed the bulb and crushed it into dust. Jay had a horrible, sinking feeling that he had been that someone.

"Come on, Bird, I wasn't—"

"Matt, MJ, man. You taste like burger vomit." He speaks quickly, with the sense that he's trying to reassure Matt… of… something? He had probably just made Matt think he was a bad kisser (which he kind of was, a little). Or maybe Jay had gone too far. But with Matt, there was no such thing as too far. Jay spits again. "Oh my God, that's disgusting. That's worse than that time I accidentally drank that coke with all those ants in it." 

He's a little worried that he's somehow offending Matt, but mostly he wants to get the taste of several regurgitated Wahlburgers out of his mouth. And honestly, if Matt's offended that Jay doesn't want to be basically one-and-a-half degrees away from baby-birding his puke, there's something way more wrong with the guy than Jay had previously thought.

Matt, thank God, brightens a bit. "Holy shit, dude. I forgot about the ants. I can't believe you drank all those ants! Aha, gross." He huffs out a laugh, sounding breathless, maybe a bit uncomfortable.

"Don't make fun of me! It was your fault! You were all, oh, Jay, I brought you a coke, I'll just leave it here by your bed so you can have it when you wake up, yum, here's your delicious beverage, Bird, and I'm going to leave the cap off so a thousand ants can get into the bottle and die in it. Totally your fault, and also you just puked up seven burgers, so you can't make fun of me." Jay frowns. Ant drinking day had not been a good day.

"I was trying to be nice! I didn't want you to hurt your delicate little piano player hands opening a coke bottle while you were half asleep, I can't put the band at risk like that. Plus—yeah, okay, and—and you just kissed me while I—while I had burger breath, you freak!" Matt jabs an accusatory finger toward Jay.

Jay stands motionless for a moment, feeling somehow defeated. He was still winded, trying to swallow the burgeoning sensation that this had somehow been some kind of a fight. Matt had wanted them to kiss, had practically begged him to go for it. And the stupid chase, like kids on a playground, Matt pulling pigtails. But nothing had been thrown (only thrown up), nothing had been shouted—they were having fun, goofing off. Friend stuff. What was he supposed to do now?

He sighs and passes a hand over his face. He's suddenly feeling very tired. "Can we get home, please, Matt? I need to brush my teeth. You need to brush your teeth."

–

Once they reached home, Jay brushed his teeth and tongue extra vigorously. He also made Matt brush his teeth twice, as well as take a shower (so the house won't smell like vomit, Matt, come on), insofar as he can make Matt do anything. Matt complied, though, acting a bit like a depressed Charlie Brown on his way to the bathroom. Jay thought he was probably embarrassed that he ruined his own plan.

Despite his clean mouth, some part of Jay had felt strangely dirty. No, well—not dirty, really. More like he had to sneeze, kind of, but emotionally. Or like he'd just opened a bag of Skittles and the flavor ratios were way off, a whole bag of purple with, like, two orange ones thrown in. Jay liked it when he could sort the flavors into identical piles, all the same size. This part of him, the weird scary part that's been shaken loose, did not feel like identical Skittles piles. 

The following weeks were full of purple skittles. Everything was off-kilter, dutch-angled. Jay likes to think he's a little more self-aware than most people think he is—that is, more than Matt thinks he is. He knows he isn't the sharpest knife in the… whatever those knife-holding things are called, but he's a little stupid by design. There are always fuzzy bits of knowing clawing at the corners of his mind that he chooses to ignore, because it's easier that way. Because if he knows, he has to deal with it. Jay doesn't like when things are complicated. His entire life revolves around his relationship with Matt, and while other people are confused by their best-friendship, Jay understands it well enough—or he did, anyway, before he let the knowing work its way in and twist everything into horrible little knots.

The obvious and unavoidable truth was that the bad part of kissing Matt had not been that it was Matt.

Jay decided pretty quickly that he wasn't going to have some big gay crisis about this. Probably half the men in Toronto are some sort of something-sexual these days. Even if he were going to freak out about it, he could do it later. Bigger fish, or whatever—but, ugh, no, the problem now is that he keeps looking at Matt and thinking. Noticing. Remembering. All the little fuzzy things he didn't want to know that he already knew had come into a state of being known. 

Flashbangs of memory kept appearing unbidden into his mind—more than once when they had to pivot mid-plan: Matt's lips almost brushing Jay's ear, his hair tickling Jay's cheek, whispering new instructions into Jay's ear. Or when the plan really couldn't be fixed with a quick shift, the two of them running together, Matt pulling him away from countless disastrous scenes, grabbing him by the arm or the lapel of his blazer. How Matt used to parade around with his shirt unbuttoned, chest and stomach peeking out. He didn't tend to do that anymore, but he had no qualms about changing his clothes in front of Jay, who now could not stop thinking of his soft stomach, his soft thighs—even the stupid holes in his jeans where his knees poked out felt unnervingly sensual. 

And every time Matt let Jay have a video game day just because he didn't feel like doing anything, how he sometimes gave in when Jay played coy or was unsure about a plan. How he usually didn't, how he poked and prodded and got his way. All their old fights—how rarely now they reach the extremes they once did. When they do, at least to Jay, it feels almost sweet, almost sentimental. 

Jay, for some reason, keeps thinking about when he was nineteen and had come home from college with his nose pierced, a teeny tiny silver stud that was certainly more an act of rebellion against his mother than it was out of any desire to have a piercing (actually, he had cried a little when his roommate's friend's girlfriend had stuck him with the needle. At the time he couldn't help but hope desperately that Matt would never know that). His mom, busy as she was with planning her wedding, had barely noticed Jay over that holiday break, but Matt had really freaked out at him about it, had threatened to rip it out while Jay slept: Jesus Christ, Bird, take that stupid fag jewelry out of your face, you've never looked stupider, no girl's gonna want to fuck anyone who looks as gay as you do right now. 

Jay did end up taking it out, but part of him wanted to know what it would be like to wake up with Matt hovering over him, eyes glinting, violent and volatile. He had pretended to fight back about it, acting like he really cared about having that tiny hunk of metal poked through his skin. This hadn't even been close to one of their worst fights, but it stuck in his memory more than most; secretly, horribly, Jay had gotten what he'd wanted: for someone to notice, to scream at him, to insist that they knew what was best for him. He preened privately under the attention, exhilarated in the understanding that Matt cared enough about him to keep him under his thumb.

He keeps remembering that drunken night, too—Matt's steady arms wrapped around his body. His heavy head on Matt's warm shoulder. Matt had used it against Jay in later fights, had brought it up more than once in front of girls to humiliate him, but through the haze of his shaky memory, he's pretty sure Matt had been genuinely concerned. He remembers hearing someone shout at the bartender for over-serving him, and a glass of water practically forced down his throat, and then, as he was lifted off the ground, the quiet murmured ramble of I got you, Bird, it's okay, I got you in his ear.

Jay feels like he's been split clean down the middle. One half is calm, almost meditative, and the other half feels like he's a shaken soda bottle, like he could blow up or spin out or shatter into a million pieces at any moment. 

On one hand, why not Matt? Jay's already spent over half his life tethered to him. Every time Jay's tried to leave in the past, he ends up turned right back around, sure that he was right where he belonged. He tries to remember how long it's been since he last had sex, let alone since he actually tried to talk to a girl. He's barely even thought about his life outside of Nirvanna lately—everything revolves around trying to get a show at the Rivoli, which means everything revolves around Matt; Jay's had very little else going on for… years, to be honest. He thinks maybe the last social event he went to, if it even counts, had been Matt's grandma's funeral. A year ago. All signs point to Matt, all roads lead to Matt. His life has become kind of like that part of In the Mouth of Madness where Sam Neill's trying to run away, but he somehow keeps teleporting back into that creepy town. Except life with Matt isn't exactly like trying to escape the clutches of an evil horror author. Though maybe it is, a little. 

On the other hand, Jay can't remember the last time he was as horny as he's been since he kissed Matt's stupid vomity mouth. He actually cannot stop jerking off thinking about Matt smiling against his lips. The worst part, too, is that he's not just horny about Matt's body, or whatever, he keeps getting turned on by his personality. Last week Matt hand gone out to get Chinese takeout from a place twenty minutes out of the way, and when Jay asked Matt why he didn't go to the one down the street, Matt just shrugged and said that he knew Jay liked their noodles better. Jay had to fake a stomachache and leave halfway through dinner to rub one out in the bathroom. Like a fucking pubescent teenager. Just because Matt had done something nice. It's horrifying.

(He also realizes that for the last who-knows-how-long, he's been jerking off thinking of absolutely nothing, unknowingly avoiding all those little fuzzy thoughts that have been piling up in favor of a hundred unsatisfying orgasms. The first time he let himself really think about Matt, he came so hard his stomach hurt for a solid 24 hours after.)

The thing is, besides the all-consuming desire to… God, Jay barely even knows what he wants. Well, besides the desire to latch onto Matt's bicep with his teeth like an attack dog or something, Jay's struck largely by the sensation that all he feels, all the knowing that he knows now—it isn't actually any different than what he felt before. He just has a name for it now.

On the… third hand? He's pretty fucking sure Matt knows, which makes him feel like he might shit himself. Jay had thought, that night, that Matt was… into it? He cringes a little just thinking it, feeling juvenile. Because of course Jared had been lurking somewhere behind the camera, it was all part of the schtick, really one of the only parts of the whole Matt Thing that Jay doesn't quite understand, that constant delight Matt found in almost everything like the world was his playground, and Matt doesn't do anything by halves, and of course, obviously, he was just leaning into the joke. Jay was the joke. He had been stupid—childish, honestly—to even briefly think otherwise.

It's been three and a half weeks since The Kiss. 

Matt is not avoiding Jay. He isn't throwing things at him or or laughing in his face or calling him a disgusting pervert. Actually, as far as Jay can tell, Matt is not doing anything different at all. They've tried three or four Plans over the last few weeks (none of the plans worked, nor have they been anywhere close to being Matt's best ideas). They rehearse, they play video games; Jay sits infinitesimally further away from Matt on the couch during movie nights and really, really hopes Matt won't notice. He's trying his best to act normal, and feels always and overwhelmingly as though he's doing some sort of clownish over-the-top performance of Normal Jay.

It's Saturday, mid-late afternoon. Jay had slept in until past noon, and somehow Matt had stayed hidden until even later, though Jay doubted he had been sleeping. When he finally forced himself out of bed and down the stairs (he's been avoiding the bunk beds lately, opting mostly to sleep in his own room, making some excuse to Matt about it being warmer upstairs), Matt had come bounding out of nowhere, yelling to Jay to play something Californian. Jay launched into a beachy, surfy sort of tune, but Matt quickly shut him down.

"Nonono, something more sinister," Matt's saying. "Like, the seedy side of California. Creeps lurking around every corner waiting to snatch you up and sell you for parts. Corrupt cops, Hollywood, the cost of living."

Jay starts in on Howard Shore's score from The Game—definitely Creepy California—and looks to Matt for approval. He's grinning. Perfect, Bird.

Matt has a Plan, and Jay misses about half of what it entails or how it's even supposed to get them a Rivoli show (he's not sure if Matt knows this of him, but that's usually the case. It scares him a little sometimes, his blind faith in Matt). Jared's not around today, anyway, supposedly stuck at home with food poisoning, which means Matt would most likely not propose a plan he considered reliable enough to commit to film.

What it boils down to is this: The Revue is hosting a screening of Mulholland Drive tonight—

"—and Bird, we have to pretend we're gay if we go, because otherwise they'll just think we're pervs who want to see Naomi Watts' boobs." Matt looks into the middle distance for a second, his lips pursed in thought. "Oh yeah, plus that part where she's flicking her bean. Definitely pervy if we're not gay." He looks back to Jay, eyebrows up, waiting on a response.

Jay blinks at him a few times, confused. "But how is this… aren't you—I mean, like… wouldn't you be?"

"Wouldn't I be what?"

"...A perv who wants to see Naomi Watts' boobs."

"But they won't know that if they think we're gay."

Setting aside a thousand other questions—"A lot of people like David Lynch, Matt." Truth be told, Jay is not one of those people. Matt knows this.

"Yeah—cool, young people who hang out at the Rivoli." Matt looks frustrated. Jay's not following the script Matt had expected him to.

Jay raises an eyebrow. It kind of sounds like Matt just wants to see Mulholland Drive. "Matt, it kind of sounds like you just want to see Mulholland Drive," he says. 

Matt looks for a moment like he wants to argue, but after a moment he grins. "Ahhh… Bird, you got me. You know me too well! Okay, here's my new proposal: Will you, Jay… Michael?... McCarrol—" (here he looks to Jay as if to see whether he had gotten Jay's middle name right. He had not.) "—will you please do me the honor of accompanying me to the Revue tonight for an eight pm screening of Mulholland Drive, and will you also pretend to be gay with me so the employees and patrons don't think I'm a pervert, so if we happen to come across the kind of young hip moviegoers who hang out at the Rivoli, then maybe we can befriend them and they can help us get a show."

"Matt, come on," Jay whines, punctuating with an exaggerated eyeroll, trying very hard not to let on how fluttery he feels about this whole proposal thing. It's not romantic at all, but he's turned into some kind of bizarro-Jay and he keeps thinking the weirdo shit Matt does is kind of sweet, albeit humiliating. "You have never once cared about looking like a pervert." 

… And what does Matt even mean by pretend to be gay? Does he want Jay fag it up, lisp a little more than usual? Limp his wrist, wear tighter jeans? Does he want them to look like a fucking couple, hold hands or something?

"Yeah, but—" Matt gestures wildly toward a group of people who are not there—"the young moviegoers!"

Then it hits him: this is his punishment. Matt knows. He knows Matt knows. Matt knows he knows Matt knows. And Matt, conniving, cruel, snake in the grass, has been waiting for Jay to settle down a little before striking.

"No." Jay doesn't put his foot down like this often. He really doesn't. He might whine and drag his feet and act all contrarian, but they both know most of it is for show. Not this time. He's not going to let Matt fuck with him like this. He can tell immediately from the way Matt's face blanks out briefly before putting itself back together that this isn't going to go down easy, but he pushes on anyway. "No, Matt, I'm not going to pretend to be gay at Mulholland Drive for you."

Jay steels himself, straightens his back and looks up into Matt's face—and yes, there it was, the flicker in his eye. Matt's mad. Really mad. It's the stupidest thing; Jay knows Matt's not even angry about what Jay won't do, it's that he won't do what Matt's asking. It's that he's being disobedient. Matt's looking at Jay now like he's a dog who pissed on the carpet.

Sure, maybe there's a precedent. He's shown Matt plenty of times that he's happy enough to defer to him, to trot along by his side as long as he gets the occasional scritch behind the ears. Matt hasn't even said anything yet, but Jay feels himself flaring, his fuse lit. He grits his teeth.

"Why not, Bird?" When Matt speaks, his voice is constricted, strained. "Why the fuck not?"

Jay feels nauseous, dizzy. He isn't sure, suddenly, that he's not having some kind of nightmare. In the last few weeks, he's played out a thousand scenarios, trying to determine the best case scenario in the If Matt Finds Out file in his head. And the worst. 

The best, besides the impossible, was that they continued on exactly as they were now. 

The worst was… well, there were a lot of worsts. He'd run through them all. Matt could kick him out of the band, could even kick him out of their home (it made Jay feel a sinking, sickening longing to think of it as their home, but what else could he call it?). He might never speak to Jay again, so repulsed by Jay's desire for him, and Jay would be gone, gone, like a kid's lost balloon floating slowly into the blue. 

This, what was happening now—sure, it could be worse. But it felt pretty fucking bad.

At some point, Jay had turned and stood from the piano bench without even noticing. His fists are clenched. He isn't sure if it's out of anger or to keep himself from trembling. He's horrified to realize that he feels like he might cry. 

Matt's about to lay into him, push all his buttons, he's sure of it. He can hear the echo of a hundred failures playing on a loop. Do you even want to play the Rivoli, Bird, or are you fucking this up on purpose? Do you want out of the band? You think you can do better than me?

"Fuck you, Matt." It's all he can think to say. Truthfully, it's as many words as he can risk saying without breaking down entirely.

Before Matt can reply, Jay's out the door and down the street.

–

It's November, and it's fucking cold out, and Jay hadn't even bothered to grab his scarf. It looks like it's going to rain, too, the sky terribly muddied and mottled, a kind of sick, grey twilight. Jay's been walking for at least half an hour before he really realizes this, the chill setting in as his panic and adrenaline finally wear off a little. He can still feel his heart pounding in his ears, though, as they start to ache with cold. 

He's so fucked. This definitely falls into the top three times he's been convinced his entire life was about to shatter into a billion pieces.

The first was when he had been so magnificently depressed at Berklee that at the first inkling of freedom, really after just one call from Matt (the new place is great, Bird, if you hate it there so much, just come live with me, we can rehearse all the time that way), he had dropped out and moved in with Matt halfway through his second year. His mom had been furious. She didn't speak to him for nearly a year, and it was only after his sister begged her for months to let him come home for Christmas that she finally let the ice thaw a little. 

It had been worth it, Jay thought—despite it all, the last dozen years with Matt beat hanging himself in a mildewy dorm room. So maybe today moves up to that first slot. Fuck.

Jay stops walking and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes hard enough to see kaleidoscoping lights, resisting the urge to scream. After a moment he stands and looks around. He actually isn't quite sure where he is—buildings across the square to his right, a semi-wooded park of some kind to his left. Those few people who are around are scurrying past, trying to get out of the cold. The first heavy drops of rain are starting to fall.

He drops down onto a bench. His chest hurts, his fingers are cold, he's hungry. Checking his pockets, Jay realizes he left both his phone and wallet sitting on the piano. It's not like he's lost, but he's also not going to go running back home because he's a little uncomfortable. Matt's probably throwing all of Jay's shit out right now, anyway, leaving it all out on the porch for him to gather up later. He has this sad little image in his head of himself standing outside the house in the pouring rain, stooped over, trying to gather up all his clothes into his arms. 

Maybe Matt's changing the locks at this very moment. Jay'll miss his piano. The rain is really coming down now. He sits for a few minutes, sulking. If he's lucky, he'll get pneumonia, then Matt will come visit him in the hospital and cry at his bedside, and then he'll die, and Matt will feel really bad. And he'll visit Jay's grave every day, or maybe keep his ashes on the piano and never let anyone sit on the piano bench ever again because that was Jay's spot. Maybe Jay will come back to haunt him, put his ghost fist through Matt's stupid face.

He doesn't know if Matt's testing him to see if he'll really leave this time or if he's trying to drive Jay away for good. There's a gnawing pit in his stomach that has little to do with the lack of food in it—he knows now that if it's the former, he'll still stick around as long as Matt lets him, stuck at his side forever, begging for table scraps. It's pathetic. Desperate. Where else is he supposed to go?

Strangely, the rain is starting to sound like a voice shouting his name in the distance. He must really be losing it. He huffs, frowning down at his knees.

"Jay! Bird!"

Jay's head whips up. There's a figure, far off in the grey haze of rain—a distinctly stupid-hat-and-torn-up-jeans-wearing shaped figure. He stares, somewhat disbelieving, as the Matt-shape gets closer. Matt's running, and he's swinging his head around wildly—he hasn't seen Jay yet. Jay doesn't move. 

"Jay—Jay!" And there, Matt finally spots him, in all his wretched rain-soaked misery. "Bird, what—" Matt stops and bends over, hands on his knees, coughing and gasping—"oh wow. I need to get more exercise. What the fuck are you doing? Dude, are you crying?"

Forget Jay's ghost fist, he wants to punch Matt solidly in the nose with his real, living, human fist. He also wants, still and in equal part, to kiss him. A real Spider-Man moment, here in the pouring rain. Maybe he should try hanging upside-down from one of those trees in the park behind him. There's a sick little echo in the back of his head—he found you, he found you. He came back for you.

"I'm not crying, Matt, it's raining." Jay actually might have been crying a little, he's not totally sure. He wipes at his face anyway, embarrassed. "Just—leave me alone." He hears his own voice as if from a great distance, weak and whiny. Matt's standing right in front of him now. Jay can't bring himself to look up, to meet his eyes.

"Jay, I'm sorry."

Jay thinks his heart might crawl up his throat and climb right out of his mouth, a strange, pulsing animal acting of its own accord. He wants very badly to turn on his side, to just lay down on this bench and go to sleep for a while. 

"Bullshit," he says, just to say something.

"Birdie, please, I didn't mean to—"

"I don't get it, Matt."

"You don't g—seriously, Bird, we can just forget about it, no big deal, it's totally fine. Have they invented, those, like—the neuralyzers from Men in Black, are those real yet? Maybe we can get our hands on one of those, or something, and we'll go back to normal—" Matt's rambling; he sounds totally freaked out, which is kind of freaking Jay out. 

Something curdles in him. Matt's being unfair, irrational, he always is, Jay knows this. Why now, though? Why this? He had hoped, fruitlessly, that of all the things Matt refused to take seriously (let alone all the stupid things he took way too seriously), he would take proper note of the gravity of the situation. How stupid of Jay.

He stands to face Matt, wishing the few inches of height he had on Matt were actually enough to be intimidating. "Why do you have to fuck with me like this? Why do you have to play these games? Pretend to be gay, Bird, it'll be funny, I can't wait to see you acting like a total homo and laugh in your face about it!" He's shouting now. A woman walking nearby turns to see who's yelling, then hurries across the street, obviously scared of him. "I'm sorry, okay? I wish I weren't—I wish we could go back to normal! But you can't help yourself, can you? You just have to twist the fucking knife!"

As if some unseen entity is puppeting his body, as if he truly cannot help it, Jay's arm flies out and he shoves Matt in the shoulder. Hard. Matt, who was clearly not anticipating any kind of physical altercation, stumbles back a good three or four feet, slipping a little on the muddy sidewalk. He looks, too, entirely bewildered, like Jay's suddenly speaking a different language. Like he doesn't understand him at all.

"Bird," Matt's speaking cautiously, timidly. "What are you talking about?"

"Stop it, Matt. I'm serious."

"So am I! I'm not—hold on, okay?" Matt laughs nervously. He's holding his arms in front of him, palms out, trying simultaneously to protect himself from another hit and signify surrender. It's a rare image. Matt wouldn't usually back down from a fight, let alone cower from one. "Just hold on a minute."

Jay's breathing hard, shaking with anger and shivering from the cold. Neither of them speak for a minute, then two. Matt straightens up a bit, stares Jay down. 

"Just tell me what you mean, Jay." Matt says it conversationally, with half a shrug, like he really wants to know. He says it the way he asks strangers on the street what their plans for the day are.

"Fuck you," Jay spits out, echoing his not-even-an-hour-ago self. Not even thinking. Not even really meaning it. His vitriol comes out unconvincing. His anger keeps coming in waves and receding just as fast; it's so hard to keep up with. He's tired again, confused. Matt knew everything. Jay had been so sure of it. But if he doesn't, if he's just as confused as Jay is… "I don't want to say it."

It's not even true. He does want to say it. For some stupid reason, I love you. Might as well get it over with, suffer the consequences. Then he can take a nap.

"Bird."

"Don't make me say it, Matt." His voice comes out so quietly. He can barely hear himself over the rain, but it feels nauseatingly honest. He looks pleadingly at Matt. There it is: the truth in the absence of truth; a confession not in a bang but in a whimper. 

And Matt isn't stupid, at least not the way Jay's stupid. He's staring fish-faced at Jay, eyes wide, his mouth open just a little. He looks for a moment as if he's trying to form words that won't come, then pushes his lips together into a little frown, eyebrows pinched together.

Say something, Matt, please, please. Jay's practically praying to Matt, begging him silently to answer. This is the worst ten seconds of Jay's life up to this point.

Almost imperceptibly, Matt shakes his head, shifting back into a neutral Matt Expression. He nods his head, just a little.

"Okay."

"...Okay?" 

"Okay, Bird."

Jay's wary. Of course he is. But really, now, among all possible worst case scenarios, why should Jay question a good thing? Also, he's beginning to think the while "dying of pneumonia" thing might be more grounded in reality than he had thought. 

Matt looks cold too. His hat is completely soaked through, and he's started bouncing on his toes a bit, jumping around to keep warm, his arms crossed over his chest. "Um, so… I'm going home so I don't fucking drown out here." He raises his eyebrows at Jay. "Are you coming?"

Jay tucks his chin, nodding shyly. He feels like a little kid, embarrassed just to exist. Jay spent much of his early childhood hiding behind his mother, tucked away where no one could see him. Where could he hide now?

As it turns out, they're only a few minutes away from home. At some point, Jay had taken a few right turns and ended up looping back around to where he started, magnet-drawn to Matt. It occurs to Jay that he should probably be concerned that his life has grown so small, so insulated, that he can barely identify a park five blocks away from his front door. At the moment, he can't really bring himself to care.

It takes Matt a minute to unlock the door. His fingers are red with cold; he's shivering.

There is no drastic shift in energy as Jay steps through the doorway, no obvious and immediate change he can sense in the air. Still, he stands motionless in the entrance, unsure of what to do with himself. Surely there must have been some great alteration to the fabric of the universe. But everything's okay, apparently. Matt leans down to pull off his shoes, then glances up at Jay.

"Go change your clothes, man, you're actually going to get pneumonia and keel over," he says, as if he's read Jay's mind. "You're too skinny, your immune system can't handle it."

"I'm not that skinny," Jay mutters, but he trudges upstairs to peel off his wet clothes anyway, trailing a frankly cartoonish amount of rainwater in his wake. He grabs a towel from the bathroom to scrub at his hair with. He doesn't really mean to catch his reflection in the mirror, but when he does, it unnerves him—how old he looks, how weary. Some part of him still expects to see an early-20s baby face when he sees himself, sleepy eyes, almost always a little drunk or stoned. Now he's tired just by virtue of being alive—or by virtue of life with Matt, not that Jay would know the difference. 

He's startled, too, to realize that when he changed into dry clothes, he'd grabbed one of Matt's old t-shirts—he'd just picked one up off a pile of laundry he was pretty sure was clean. He hadn't even thought about it. It's very couple-y. Jay's teeth click together; his heart does some weird roller-coaster move that would send Canada's Wonderland packing. 

He changes his shirt into one that's definitely his own before he shuffles back downstairs. He's already at the last step before he remembers that he probably could have gotten away with staying upstairs and moping for the rest of the day. The rain's as good an excuse as any to stay in bed, but Jay's surprised to realize he doesn't actually want to avoid Matt right now—whether it's out of a true desire to be near him or out of a kind of morbid curiosity, some kind of subconscious masochistic tendency, he isn't actually sure. In fairness, he reasons, that's true of most of his relationship with Matt.

"Jay!" Matt's noticed him at the foot of the stairs. He's missing his hat, which always reminds Jay weirdly of seeing a dog without its collar. Jay spots it drying on the radiator, crumpled from being wrung out. Matt's hair is completely dry and poodle-fluffy (he must have used Jay's blow dryer), and he'd taken off his soaked jacket and changed into a dry pair of jeans, though the holes in the knees are, of course, no less prominent. He looks genuinely delighted to see Jay. "You all good? You wanna rehearse?"

"Umm. Yeah! Yeah, sure." Jay's having a hard time finding the line between casual and overenthusiastic. He's also still not confident the other other shoe isn't about to drop (there's a joke about a third leg in there somewhere that Matt would be disgusted with him for making)—surely Matt still has one hand on the rug, ready to pull it out from under him. He feels like there are a billion ants crawling under his skin. His stomach flips, and Jay realizes suddenly he still hasn't eaten yet today. "Actually, Matt, I haven't eaten yet t—"

"Okay, sit down, start playing!" Matt claps his hands together and hops up to balance on the couch. "I actually have—well, it's not a plan, really, more of a… an idea? What would you call—like, maybe a notion?"

Jay's seated at the bench before Matt finishes talking, tapping out a little melody, his body moving of its own accord—really, of Matt's accord. He's not really paying attention to what his hands are doing; he thinks it might be from Oklahoma!. "Wait, Matt, I thought we were rehearsing. I don't want to do another plan today." Jay frowns as he hears Matt uncap the whiteboard marker. He starts playing something from one of the Ocean's movies.

"I literally just said it's not a plan, Bird, stop playing heist music! Are you even listening to me?"

"Fine, fine." Jay sighs, shifting into playing something he hopes Matt thinks is more… notion-y.

"Just keep playing for a minute, okay? Don't turn around."

For the millionth time in his life, Jay obeys. It's hard to hear what's going on behind him over the sound of his own playing, but he doesn't think Matt writes very much on the board. Actually, Jay gets the sense he's being watched, just a prickling on the back of his neck, but he keeps going, playing whatever comes to mind, moving from piece to piece without any real thought or meaning behind it, dozens of snippets of songs and soundtracks and scores—ten bars of Bob Dylan, a good thirty seconds of Coconut Mall, a couple beats of "That's Amore" before he catches himself and eventually slips into playing something original, soft and gentle, kind of Titanic-y. Finally, after several minutes, Matt speaks. His tone is careful, uncharacteristically so. It's unsettling.

"Bird, you've been—keep going, this is great—" (Jay's heart flutters at the praise, he throws in a little flourish) "—okay, honestly, you've been acting kind of insane for the last few weeks, like super jumpy, and you've been avoiding me, and I thought…" 

Matt pauses, and despite still facing the piano, Jay can see Matt's thinking expression so clearly in his mind's eye, just like when they were kids and Matt would call him the moment Jay got home from his house, rambling about the million things he had thought of to tell Jay in the fraction of time they hadn't been right at each other's sides. Jay could always picture him so clearly, how frenzied and excited he always was, probably getting tangled in the phone cord with how much he would flail and bounce around.

Matt continues, a little edge creeping into his voice, "well, anyway, I had a plan, and I thought you'd think it was funny and then you'd get over it and stop acting like a freak, but, um, I think I maybe… misunderstood some things."

"Matt—"

Jay hears footsteps coming up behind him, and before he can think to flinch, expecting to be hit or something, payback for shoving Matt earlier, Matt's by his side, sliding in to sit beside him on the piano bench. The tune he's playing picks up in tandem with his heart rate. Despite the proximity they so often share, Jay can probably count on both hands the number of times Matt's sat on this bench, and on one hand the times they've sat on it together. It's frighteningly intimate. He keeps playing, eyes on the keys, on his hands. Matt picks up his rambling, less deliberate now.

"Don't talk, Birdie, just play. So I honestly thought I fucked it. Like, everything. The band. I mean, today, yeah because the whole Mulholland Drive thing was pretty stupid, I didn't really think that one through very well, but since—" he laughs, a breathless, nervous thing. "well, you know. Since—"

Jay feels Matt's touch on his arm, feather-light. He stops playing and turns toward Matt, lightning quick. Before Jay even knows it, before Matt's hand can fully come to rest, Jay has a fistful of Matt's hair, and he's not holding him tight, but Matt pulls his hand back like he's been shocked and makes a shrill little noise in lieu of the sentence he was trying to finish. He looks genuinely frightened; his eyes are wide, his cheeks flushed. He's stupidly beautiful. Jay's chest tightens. His hand that isn't in Matt's hair clenches at his side. 

Even at the best of times, It's hard for Jay to come up with a coherent string of words. There's a reason Matt's on vox, why he takes the lead when someone catches the two of them doing some bullshit for a plan and asks them what they think they're doing. Jay's not good at excuses, he isn't a good liar, he's not even good at small talk. He can riff off of Matt pretty well, sure, but original thought? No way. There are a thousand things he wants to say. He doesn't know how to say any of them.

Instead, he kisses Matt. 

After a terrible fraction of a second, wherein Jay had been convinced he'd really, really, fucked up, for real this time—thank God, thank God, Matt is kissing him back, really, earnestly, desperately. He tastes like Froot Loops and toothpaste. Jay catches a sharp tooth on Matt's bottom lip, and Matt whines a little, quietly, in the back of his throat. Holy shit. Jay hears music. Not just the piano, either, but full orchestration. Jay McCarrol Symphony No. 1 in D, Op. Whatever, Movement II: Kissing Matt, Again.

Matt's hands move up to Jay's shoulders, clutching at his shirt, pulling him closer. He's all tongue and teeth, and it should be kind of disgusting, but it's so like him, so all-encompassingly Matt, and Jay's obsessed. He could do this forever, could kiss Matt until they're the last two people on earth, living only off each others' breath, everything rotting and crumbling around them. Jay's hand is still in Matt's hair, and, well, overthinking's gotten him nowhere these past few weeks—he tugs, just a little, and Matt gasps, makes the quietest little sound, like he's trying to hold back despite the urgency with which he's been kissing Jay. 

Jay pulls back, looks Matt in the eye. He looks rapturously at Jay, his lips red and spit-slick, his pupils huge. It's the most incredible thing Jay's ever seen. "Matt, you're the most incredible thing I've ever seen," he says, a bit hoarse.

He ducks down to Matt's neck, biting and licking at his soft skin, and finally, Matt moans, echoing Jay's own thoughts: "holy shit, Bird," and it's like some kind of spell's been broken. Jay grins against him, scraping his teeth against Matt's skin, and Matt's laughing, sweetly, breathlessly, and Jay wants to keep going, but suddenly he's cracking up so hard he can barely sit upright. He drops his hand from Matt's hair and rests his forehead on Matt's shoulder, angled awkwardly, the two of them pressed into each other, trying to catch his breath.

"So, Bird, as you can see, um—yeah, I misunderstood, you know, why you were freaking out—" Matt giggles, sounding kind of high. Jay feels high. 

"I thought you hated me," Jay sighs, lifting his head up.

"You fucking wish you could get rid of me, Jaybird." Matt's still grinning, but he looks suspiciously misty-eyed. "Can we—"

"Yeah, yes, do you want—oh, okay," —this bit Jay says into Matt's mouth, just a brief kiss before—"Matt!" Jay exclaims as Matt stands, then grabs both of his wrists and pulls him up from the piano bench. Jay stumbles, nearly falls over, but Matt holds him upright, steady and stronger than he looks. He thinks again of Matt's arms around his younger, drunken self, Matt's quiet I got you, Bird, I got you in his ear. He swallows down the sudden lump in his throat, and again, kisses Matt, who's pushing him slowly but insistently across the room toward the couch. 

Matt's also talking breathlessly between kisses. "I've—God, Birdie—I've wanted—I know, how embarrassing—for so long—sorry if that's, like, weird to admit—" Jay's not sure he even knows he's doing it. It's unbearably charming.

And then Jay's on the couch, Matt's straddled over him, and he's trying and failing to unbutton Jay's shirt. Jay pushes his hands away, just tugs the shirt over his head and tosses it to the side, then moves to help Matt with his shirt, desperate now to get Matt in any state of undress. He's already hard just from kissing Matt—truth be told, despite his best efforts, he was half-hard at the piano under Matt's eye, his command to keep playing sending little thrills up Jay's spine. He's made a snap decision to not be embarrassed about it, though, since Matt's very evidently in the same state, and Jay's starting to get dizzy.

"Um…" Matt stills, looking unsure. A thought pokes through the haze of horniness that's settled over Jay, something about Matt not hanging out shirtless around Jay the way he used to, something about Matt being weird about all the things Matt's weird about.

"MJ, if you don't want to—" he says, not quite in his being-gentle-with-Matt voice but close to it, placing a hand on Matt's hip, hoping he's properly toeing the line between I want you to be comfortable and I really, really want you to take your shirt off. He runs his other hand over Matt's face, Matt leaning into his touch, before hooking a finger under the collar of Matt's shirt.

Matt closes his eyes for a moment, leans forward and presses his forehead to Jay's. Jay hopes the proximity will push his thoughts straight into Matt's brain. I want this I hope you want this I hope it's all okay I want everything I want all of you. Softly, softly, Jay kisses him, just the barest whisper of his lips to Matt's.

"Okay," Matt sighs out, and then, a reassurance, "okay, yeah, please."

Jay makes quick work of Matt's shirt, wanting, for some reason, for Matt to believe he knows what he's doing. Sure, he's never fucked a guy before (is that what he's doing now? God above.), but at the very least, he used to know what girls like. With the same attention he'd paid to Matt's neck, he presses kisses into Matt's chest, little bites here and there, stopping at his nipple to flatten his tongue against it and lick, kittenish.

"Oh, fuck, Birdie, please—oh my God—" Matt's whimpering, breathing hard, one hand clutched to Jay's shoulder, the other white-knuckling the back of the couch to keep himself upright. No regrets about the shirt thing, apparently. "You need to—I need—"

Taking the slightest moment to scratch his nails lightly over Matt's stomach, Jay finally, God, finally, gets his hands down to Matt's jeans. He ghosts his fingertips over Matt's bulge, which earns him a whiny little ah!, before getting Matt's zipper undone and tugging down his briefs to free his cock. Matt's leaking, like, a lot, and he's thick, and such a pretty reddish-pink, and Jay stares in awe for a moment, his jaw slackening. He wants—everything, really, but Matt grabs his wrist suddenly before Jay can get a hand around him.

"Bird, waitwaitwait, I won't…" Matt's blushing bright pink, embarrassed. He doesn't get embarrassed often. Jay wishes he would, though, if he'd look like this all the time. "I mean, if you—touch me. I won't last."

Jay swallows. He's trying not to stare at Matt's cock, though he desperately wants to. And he's kind of in the same boat, honestly, his own erection straining painfully against his zipper.

"So?" he finally says, a little shaky, and sure, now's as good a time as any, he pushes his own stupid pants out of the way enough to get his cock out. He pumps it a few times, needy, then glances up at Matt, who looks like he's in a state of shock. "C'mon, Matt, come here."

Matt shuffles forward, and Jay takes them both in hand, fireworks flashing behind his eyes, stroking slowly, using Matt's pre-come to slick them up. Matt throws his head back, practically pornographic, moaning. It's too good to be true. Matt's cock pressed against his is like a hundred video game days, a thousand Rivoli shows all at once. Jay picks up the pace a little, rocking up into his own fist.

Matt leans forward to rest his cheek against Jay's temple, his breath hot on Jay's ear. He's rambling again, gasping out little whines between words to punctuate Jay's strokes. "Jesus, Bird, I always knew those hands were good for something other than playing piano—fuck—"

"Yeah? Always?" Jay's breathless. Disbelieving. Awestruck. 

"Wanted you since I—since I could even think about thinking with my dick, Birdie—you have no idea, seriously—" Matt pants out. He sounds choked up, his words coming out thick, sort of garbled together. "Oh, oh, fuck, Birdie, I'm close, please, please—" 

As if on instinct, Jay reaches up with his free hand, working his fingers again through Matt's hair. He pulls hard—maybe harder than he meant to—and Matt's spilling over his fist in an instant, coming with a high-pitched sob. Jay works him through it, watching mesmerized before looking up to where he's still holding Matt's head in place.

Two shiny tracks of tears are streaking a path down Matt's face. He's panting hard, ears pink, lips pinker. Jay lets go of him instantly, moving his hand from Matt's hair to his cheek, wiping at Matt's tears with his thumb. Jay feels like his ribs might all contract and crack, pushing inward to pierce his heart. At the same time, an little electric impulse of a thought—I did this, I did this—zaps its way into his head, down his spine, into the pit of his stomach.

"Matt…"

"It's good, I'm good," Matt sniffles a little. "Can we just—like, this is normal?"

Jay thinks Matt probably didn't mean for it to come out as a question. He's also not totally sure which part of this Matt means—whether he meant the sex or the crying. "Okay, man." Jay nods, hoping he sounds reassuring instead of worried, and also kind of devastatingly turned on. "If you're good, I'm good."

"Well, you're—I mean, you haven't—" Matt swipes his hand across his cheek and then sort of gestures vaguely to Jay's abandoned cock, still hard against his stomach. Jay wonders briefly if he should feel some sense of shame, but half a second later, Matt's hand is wrapped around him, clumsy and fervent, no hesitation. Matt leans down and presses a kiss to the corner of Jay's mouth, wet, messy, shockingly tender. Bells toll. Cannons crack. Jay's vision fully whites out as he comes, gasping, jerking helplessly into Matt's hand.

He stays motionless for a minute, content to be sticky and disgusting for a moment longer, eyes closed, head resting against the back of the couch, the heavy weight of Matt on his lap lulling him into some kind of quasi-dream state.

In his dream, he's conducting his opus, his Symphony for Matt. The performance is at the Rivoli, of course, the stage set up to accommodate a full orchestra. He's playing every part, and, there, slipping seamlessly between all the Jays—some older, some younger, strange versions of himself he never knew or has yet to meet, a bizarre flock of Birds—there's Matt with his microphone, jumping around, dancing like an idiot, and grinning at Jay, the real Jay, seated in the corner at the piano.

Jay feels Matt slide off of him, landing to his right on the couch. He opens his eyes and turns his head a bit to be able to read the board above him, which says simply: GAY FOR REAL PLAN?

Real Matt is grinning just like Dream Matt, lit up from the inside like he swallowed a thousand Christmas lights. He wipes his hand on Jay's pant leg.

"Matt, what the fuck, that's disgusting!"

"Ah, you need to do laundry anyway." Matt shrugs, making a who cares face.

"That's so hypocritical, honestly, when was the last time you washed those jeans?"

"These jeans are cleaaan, Birdie, and my other pair just got rained on, if you'll recall, so they've basically been through the wash."

"I think we need to have a conversation about what doing laundry actually entails."

"Hey, Laundry Plan! Oh, we could—Bird, is there a laundromat near the Rivoli?"

"Hmm. Not sure. We can check later." There is, actually, but right now Jay's too tired and hungry for Plans. He also thinks he might be happier than he's ever been.

"Sooo…. what now?"

"What now what?"

"Well, what time is it?" Matt checks his wrist. He's not wearing a watch. "Because, you know, I did actually want to see Mulholland Drive—" 

Jay grabs the pillow next to him and hits Matt in the stomach with it.

"Ow, hey! Ew, I think you just got jizz on that pillow." 

"Don't say jizz, Matt, gross, are you fourteen years old or something?"

He stares Matt down, eyebrow raised, trying to arrange his face into some expression of faux disgust and disappointment; he can see the corner of Matt's lip twitching, and suddenly Jay's laughing again, he doesn't even know what's so funny, still, he can't stop, and Matt's laughing too, honestly howling with laughter, and Jay feels like he's twenty-three again, or maybe, maybe, he feels like he's exactly as old as he is right now, here, in this room, in this exact moment.