fic: TSN RPF; there is a place in my heart (2/2)

[mooging]

(continued from here)

//

"Did you just ask me how I would feel if you licked my neck again?"

Lucy meets Andrew's eyes in the make-up trailer mirror, one eyebrow perfectly, incredulously, raised.

"Yes," says Andrew, despondently, and then, quickly, " But not you specifically. I'm practicing."

"For what?" she asks.

"Failure," Andrew tells her, and she clucks all over him while she dabs concealer under his eyes.

//

"My hair doesn't smell like apples," Justin tells him, as Andrew makes a mental note to look around him before he starts talking aloud on his way to his trailer when he thinks he's alone.

"I know," says Andrew, dragging his feet.

"I didn't think you went around smelling my hair," Justin says, following. "This is new."

"I don't sniff your hair."

Justin grabs his arm. "Oh my god, Jesse's hair smells like apples?"

"Please, please, shut up."

"Oh my god, it's like Snow White."

"How is - "

"No," says Justin, still holding Andrew's elbow with alarming strength, "better. It's like he's an orchard and you're the apple maid. You just want to pluck him and feel him in your hands."

Andrew makes this strangled, inarticulate sound, distressed beyond all measure. "Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh god, please never say anything like that ever again.""

"YOU WANT TO TASTE HIS INNER JUICES," Justin shouts, and Andrew wrenches his arm away and runs.

//

"Inner juices," Andrew moans, hands over his face in the make-up trailer again, the next day. "Feel him in your hands."

Lucy is getting more sympathetic as the days go on, possibly because Andrew is looking more and more like a crazy person or because he's started bringing her coffee in the mornings as a sort of preemptive apology.

"There, there," she says. She pats him on the shoulder. Andrew sort of shudders. "What?" she asks.

"Juices," he whispers, still horrified, and Lucy laughs, and drinks her coffee.

//

He calls Emma again.

"I can't do it," he says, as soon as she picks up. "I tried but it was horrible and Justin keeps talking about orchards and everything is horrible."

She hangs up on him.

//

hey snow white bitten anything sweet yet??? beeps through to Andrew's phone one afternoon, and Andrew resolves to find someone who isn't Justin or being bribed with coffee to talk to about this.

//

"I'm not actually a Disney princess, right?"

Armie just looks really confused.

"Never mind."

//

It's been a week of Justin saying horrifying things every time they cross paths, and Andrew slowly spiraling into actual, quantifiable lunacy, and he's standing and staring into the kitchen cupboards one evening, trying to decide which of the things in there would combine into an edible meal, when he decides that this is enough.

"Jesse," he says, walking through to find Jesse reading on the sofa. "Look, um." Well, this isn't any easier than it was the first time. "About that night last week."

Jesse puts his book down, looking like this is as uncomfortable for him as it is for Andrew, but Andrew sincerely doubts that.

"I kissed you," he says, and then, when Jesse doesn't say anything, "When I was drunk. I kissed you."

"You did," Jesse says, slowly, like he's trying to see where this is going. This is one of those times when Andrew wishes Jesse were just the smallest bit easier to read, because, although Andrew can tell when he's upset, or when he's happy, or when he needs Andrew to shut up just for a second but he's too polite to actually ask, he can never tell what Jesse's thinking. This has something to do with how Jesse works like no-one else Andrew's ever met, and is a large part of why Andrew's stomach feels like a rogue lepidopterist has left their live collection in it when he makes Jesse smile, but it is also infuriatingly unhelpful.

"So, um," says Andrew, because he is the world's greatest wordsmith. "Should we talk about that?"

Jesse drops his gaze, running his fingers over the cover of his book. "If you want, I guess," he says, and Andrew is trying really hard to look like a normal person having a normal conversation and not a crazy person reminding himself why he can't just jump his friend right now but Jesse is making it difficult. "I mean," Jesse continues, "you were drunk."

"I was," Andrew confirms. "Very drunk."

Jesse looks up and shrugs. "So we don't have to talk about it."

Andrew stares at him. He absolutely cannot in any way say what he wants to say right now, which is we don't have to talk about it, like, no big deal, you were drunk, good joke, bro, let's move on - or, like, we don't have to talk about it because I want you to blow me right now and then we can adopt kittens and get married? He might have a regrettably poor brain-to-mouth filter, but he's fairly sure that one shouldn't get through.

Instead, he says, "We don't?" which doesn't exactly get the same point across, but is at least less likely to make Jesse move out.

Jesse is still toying with the pages of his book. Andrew wants to be the book. Jesse says, again, "You were drunk," like that answers everything, and there's a tone in his voice that Andrew doesn't understand.

"I was," he repeats. "But, um." He takes an unnecessarily deep breath, because nut up or shut up, Garfield and because Jesse is biting his lip and Andrew wants to kiss him, because he wants to kiss him all the damn time. "Um. Do you - "

Jesse interrupts. "It's all right," he says, in this pinched sort of voice. "No big deal, I get it." He looks back down at the book in his lap, and Andrew is ridiculously grateful he doesn't see Andrew's face fall the expressional equivalent of a skyscraper amount of storeys. Of course Jesse doesn't feel the same way. He probably just wants Andrew to shut up right now so they can go back to being bros, or at least their version of bros, which involves post-it notes on the fridge and Andrew actually knowing what Jesse's shampoo smells like and being aware of Jesse's presence in a room even when he can't see him, like a haunting, like they're magnets, drawn together. Andrew clamps down hard on that line of thought and looks at Jesse looking determinedly at his book like he's trying to zap himself into fiction and out of this situation, and clears his throat.

"Okay," says Andrew, and if it comes out flatly then at least it's better than going adopt a kitten with me, I love you in a broken sort of way like he can hear in his head, melodramatically. "Great. Glad we've, er, got that sorted out."

"Mmm," Jesse agrees, not looking up, and Andrew stops to look at him reading for a moment longer, at the way he holds the book so that the tips of his fingers touch on the careworn spine, the way he frowns absent-mindedly down at the pages, the way he's pulled his feet up onto the sofa, and, just for that moment, lets himself ache with wanting.

And then he says, "Okay," again, and walks out to the bathroom to lean against the door and squeeze his eyes closed and tamp it all back down again.

//

Of course Jesse doesn't feel the same way. Jesse is an actual person with actual interests who actually looks confused when people talk about sport like it's a thing that exists, who fosters cats, who reads real books and acts but doesn't own a television. Andrew rides a Vespa and owns hair products and doesn't agree about how to organise the kitchen cupboards and really wants to be cast as Spiderman. There's just no way Jesse would turn round one day and be all "Andrew, take me now, I can no longer disguise my lust for you and your perfect hair". Jesse might have therapists, and he might be anxious a lot of the time, and he might not like leaving the apartment some days, but he's the most real person Andrew knows. Everyone else feels pretend in comparison, like the difference between a black and white film and a full colour movie, like they've only got shades of grey and Jesse has a rainbow.

Oh, god, what. A fucking rainbow? This is what has become of Andrew: he is comparing Jesse to a rainbow. Next up he'll be writing Mr Andrew Eisenberg all over his script in pink glitter gel pen.

He steps into the shower, turns it on hot enough that he almost flinches away from the water, and hopes the searing, searing heat will shut his brain up for a little while.

Of course, when he gets out of the shower and pads down the hall to his room, wrapped in a towel from the waist down, he bumps into Jesse coming round the corner from the kitchen, because apparently today hasn't been awkward enough. Jesse steps back at once, like half-naked Andrew is the worst thing he could possibly have run into when he was just taking a bowl of cereal to his room, but then he seems to actually look at Andrew, and he looks confused.

"You're bright red," he says.

"Shower's broken," lies Andrew, and hurries away.

He spends an hour or so hiding in his room - he tidies, which is basically a sign of the impending apocalypse - before he is driven out to the kitchen by hunger. Jesse is watching something on tv in the dark in the living room, and Andrew watches the blue light flicker down the corridor while he pokes eggs around a pan and waits for his toast to pop up, and tries to ignore the actual pang in his chest. He's spooning the eggs out onto a plate when he hears Jesse laugh, all late night quiet, and he clatters the pan into the sink with more force than is really necessary.

If Jesse doesn't feel the same, there's not a lot Andrew can do about it. He'll just wait until they can look at each other without turning the colour of overripe tomatoes and then everything will go back to normal, and he can work on not feeling giddy and ridiculous every time he hears Jesse laugh at something on tv. This is a plan. This is a great plan.

Who is he kidding, Andrew's pretty sure even his toast knows this is a stupid, doomed plan, but it's the only one he's got and he's determined to make it work.

//

And, so, naturally, everything goes completely to crap pretty much the second they clap eyes on each other the next day.

It's like - it's like it's one thing for them just to be awkward around each other for a week, but now that Andrew's pretty sure that Jesse's spent the last week prepped to fend off anything untoward Andrew might do, they're just quiet. Before, before that night, they were really good at the whole companionable silence thing, but this isn't that, this is quiet, like there's something missing. It doesn't help that they've hit a run of scenes from the second half of the film, and they don't talk much on set either, apart from when they're filming, and everyone else sort of leaves them to it, because these scenes have really got to work or the film will feel soulless. So that's stressful too. Andrew could really do with some singing birds or big-eyed kittens or something right about now, because if Justin is going to call him Disney in all his texts - which Andrew doesn't hesitate to say sounds even more ridiculous coming from Mr Mickey Mouse Club - then he might as well get something cheerful out of it, right?

They're filming the deposition scene where Mark's lawyers bring up the whole chicken thing, and it doesn't take much for Andrew to dredge up frustration, to let his voice shake. Eduardo is wide open, emotionally, and it's good for Andrew to sink into feeling like someone else, even if that someone else is as churned up over someone with Jesse's face as Andrew is.

Across the table from him, Jesse shrugs as Mark, blank-faced. "Oops," he says, and Andrew feels Eduardo want to shake him and both of them want to kiss him.

//

Even with the television on, or Arcade Fire or something from Broadway curling out from the speakers depending on whose iPod is in the dock, it still feels too quiet in their apartment. It feels like they're avoiding each other, and maybe Andrew is avoiding Jesse, just a little bit, because he can't do anything about the way he wants to lean against him when they're both on the sofa, or put a hand on Jesse's hip when Jesse's at the sink and Andrew needs to get to the fridge and has to squeeze past, or to kiss him in the morning when his hair is even more ridiculous than Andrew's and he still looks half-asleep while he's holding a piece of toast in one hand and a box of cereal in the other like he can't choose between the two. He can't do anything about that, but nor can he help wanting to be close to Jesse, to sit and listen to whatever's playing in their living room while Jesse reads on the sofa next to him, to do any one of the little things you do without thinking when you're living with someone and Andrew hasn't been letting himself do for going on two weeks. He wants to brush Jesse's hair out of his eyes when he falls asleep in the corner of the sofa.

He doesn't know whether Jesse is avoiding him too, but he wouldn't be surprised. He probably thinks Andrew's going to jump him or something, or he's just too embarrassed by it all to talk to him. Andrew doesn't blame him.

Which is why it's a surprise when Jesse coughs from the doorway of the kitchen when Andrew is poking through the takeaway menu drawer one evening, and holds up his battered copy of the script when Andrew turns to look.

"Want to run lines?" he asks, and yeah, yes, Andrew wants that.

It's not until they're in the living room, both of them cross-legged on the floor, that Andrew realises this was maybe not the brightest of ideas. They do the scene where Mark confronts Eduardo about freezing the account, and Jesse is on, getting his lines out rapid-fire and brittle, and Andrew feels more than a little blown away. He grits his teeth and gives back, letting himself hide back in Eduardo, hurting, and they run it a few times like they will on the day, Fincher shooting take after take.

"I need my CFO," says Jesse on their fourth run through the scene, and his voice is so rough Andrew hears it catch.

Andrew's chest is tight and Jesse is looking at him with such an unreadable expression that it actually hurts. Andrew ducks his head to write something unintelligible in the margins of his script, and tries to get it together enough to say the next line.

In the background, the track changes and the opening notes of the song Jesse's been humming for the last few days start playing. Jesse looks surprised, and twists around to look at the dock on the coffee table, and it's still Andrew's iPod there, of course, and Andrew freezes up like he's done something wrong, like he's a big stalking stalker who googled the lyrics he'd been unable to shake after half a day of overhearing Jesse singing them softly under his breath and then downloaded the whole stupid musical theatre greatest hits album he'd found the track on and listened to it on repeat into the early hours of the morning. Which of course, he is, and he did, and Jesse looks at him like he knows.

"Sorry," Andrew says, because he feels like he should apologise for essentially being creepy and ridiculous and making Jesse's eyes go that wide, and he makes some excuse about a headache and goes to make a cup of tea. He can feel Jesse watching him as he leaves the room, and while he leans against the kitchen counter and waits for the kettle to boil, he hears the track playing in the living room stop mid-harmony, and Editors comes on instead, and Andrew drinks his tea with his hands white-knuckled around the mug, listening to Tom Smith sing low and sure, you are home, you are home.

//

They shoot Andrew's side of that scene the next day, and Jesse stands off camera and feeds his lines out for Andrew, and Andrew hears his voice catch every time on the same line, the same word.

Mark needs his CFO. Andrew wishes he knew what Jesse needed from him.

//

They're both shattered that evening, and they end up on the sofa letting infomercials wash inconsequentially over them while they let themselves unwind, let the characters go. It's harder every night now they're not talking as much, Andrew is finding, to ease away from openhearted, broken-hearted Eduardo and back into himself.

Yes, okay, he's a walking cliché. What the fuck ever. It's just, it's more difficult than it should be to sit here with Jesse and not touch him, just like he's been not touching him since he tried to bring up the kiss and Jesse backed away from it. Andrew thinks maybe Jesse misses it too, because sometimes he looks over like he's expecting Andrew to throw an arm over his shoulder when they're walking to their trailers, or to nudge him with his foot between takes to make him look up so Andrew can tell him a joke, but Andrew's not sure of anything Jesse feels anymore, so he doesn't do any of those things.

Andrew also thinks, stop thinking, and he uncurls his legs and kicks them out over Jesse's lap. Jesse turns to him, and Andrew thinks for one horrible moment that he's going to shrug him off, that everything really has gone this wrong between them, but instead Jesse smiles, tentatively, and says, "If your feet smell, I cannot be responsible for my actions."

"I'm scared," teases Andrew. "What are you going to do, tickle me?"

The minute the words have left his mouth he knows it's a stupid thing to say, but Jesse just grins wider, and drags a fingertip up the sole of Andrew's sockless, defenseless, left foot. Andrew shrieks like a girl and bucks up instinctively, and Jesse is laughing, and he does it again, and Andrew is laughing and struggling and telling him not to be so heartless.

And just then, all ridiculous tickle-defense assuming angles on the sofa, looking over at Jesse grinning at him, it's so much like things were between them before Andrew had the brilliant idea of getting exceptionally drunk to try to erase Jesse's stupid face from his brain, and then the even better idea of kissing him, and then the stupendous idea of bringing it up again in a way that somehow made Jesse look like Andrew had told him all his cats had died, that it makes something actually ache in Andrew's chest. He can't go on like this. He bolts up from the sofa in a tangle of limbs.

"I, er, have to make a phone call," he says, smooth as ever. Jesse's face drops, a little.

"Yeah," he says. "I should probably, um, do the dishes. Before all the food gets congealed."

Congealed food, how have they been reduced to this?

"Great," says Andrew. "Okay, so, I'll be right back."

And then he flees like an idiot to his room. He grabs his phone from the bedside table with shaking hands and manages to hit Emma's number on his third attempt. He listens to it ring, chanting pick up pick up pick up under his breath. Everything seems to be going too fast and too slow at the same time, and that's impossible, but Andrew's heart is pounding and he misses Jesse in a way that's just stupid considering they still spend, like, 90% of their waking hours together, excluding, like, showering and things, and all he wants is to get this fixed right now. It feels as urgent as breathing, and he's somehow reached Austen heroine levels of tortured romance somewhere in the last few days, and why isn't Emma picking up.

Finally: "Hello?"

"This has to stop!" Andrew yelps, and then tries to get his voice back down to an acceptable conversational pitch.

Emma is as distantly amused as ever. Andrew thinks he might be failing to express the urgency of the situation. "Hi, Garfield. How's it going?"

"It's going terribly, actually," he says. "I am never taking your advice again."

"About talking to Jesse about it?"

"Yes, that was an awful idea."

Emma laughs at him. It echoes down the phone. "Okay," she says, in what Andrew still thinks is too casual a voice for the situation at hand, "so, if you're never going to take my advice again, why are you calling me?"

Andrew is just not allowed to talk to people again. "I need your help," he mutters.

"Which would be in the form of advice, right?"

"Yes! Fine!" Andrew shoots a look at his bedroom door like it's got some sort of volume monitor in that'll let him know if he's being loud enough that Jesse could overhear. "Just - help."

"You sound like the hunter's coming, Bambi," Emma says. "Calm down."

"You calm down," Andrew retorts, childishly but he leans his forehead against the wall, and takes a breath. "I just," he says, and his voice is suddenly flat. "I just, I want things to go back to how they were."

He expects some sort of recognition for this, maybe Emma's voice softening, but what actually happens is that she says, "Hang on, there's someone on the other line. Don't go anywhere."

"No, wait," Andrew starts, desperately, but it's no use. He stares at the phone in his hand, and then, because his other option is hanging up and going back out to be awkward around Jesse some more, he sits on the edge of his bed and waits.

And waits.

In the sudden silence, he can hear Jesse's voice in the living room, muffled by the distance and Andrew's closed door. He listens without really meaning to. He can't pick out any words, but he just likes the way Jesse's voice sounds, a constant.

And because this is what has happened to Andrew, because he has become this person, he opens his bedroom door and sits there very quietly, and listens.

"- don't know," Jesse is saying, sounding like he's trying not to be overheard, and Andrew scooches a few inches out into the corridor to be able to hear better.

Scruples: fading. Dignity: gone. Life: all the points; Andrew: none.

"If I knew, I wouldn't be on the phone with you, would I?" Jesse says, frustrated. There's a pause. "Okay, maybe I would because I am a ridiculous human with too many cats and he owns hair product for reasons other than having stupid curls, but the point is I don't know."

Silence. Andrew's brain helpfully reminds him that he owns hair product, but he tries to ignore it.

"I was tickling him," says Jesse, sounding helpless. "I don't - maybe I shouldn't have - but he put his feet up on me and - "

Andrew's brain has stopped reminding him of anything helpful and has started just going oh my god oh my god he's talking about me like a teenage girl.

"I am not a frightened little rabbit," Jesse says, slightly offended, and then, "except I completely am, that is what I am, I am a rabbit. He makes me go all - all twitchy."

Is - is Jesse talking to Emma? If he is, does this mean - does he - Andrew can't even let himself think it. It's like when you don't realise you've burned your hand until you look down and see it, a defense mechanism, only Andrew really, really wants to look down and see if he's burned his hand.

He tunes back in to what Jesse is saying in time to hear him yelp, "No, don't - wait - " and feels his own phone buzz in his hand. He dives for his bedroom and gets the door shut before it rings.

"Are you talking to Jesse on the other line right now?" he blurts, before Emma can say anything.

"I might be," Emma says.

"Oh my god," says Andrew. It feels like that is literally the only thought in his brain right now, except the one he's skirting around, stove hot.

Emma sighs down the phone. "Are you going to go out there and talk to him?"

"I don't know," says Andrew. He can't think. He's all keyed up with nervous energy, like the adrenaline rush before going on stage except that this has nowhere to go. He drums his fingers against his thigh. He says, again, "Oh my god.

"Ugh, god, you two," Emma says, and Andrew can hear her rolling her eyes. "Okay, hang on, you're not panicking as much, I'll be back."

Andrew makes this stupid little sound - Jesse's panicking? - and then Emma's gone again. Andrew actually gives himself carpet burn skidding back into place in the corridor.

"Hello," he hears Jesse say, from the living room. "Slow down, I - what?" He sounds slightly further away, like he's walked to the other end of the room.

Andrew would kill for one of those extendable ears from Harry Potter right now. He can't get any closer without being visible from the living room door and he doesn't want to miss anything. He cranes his neck, in case it helps.

"You're an angry person," Jesse says. He listens, and then, "I don't know, okay? I don't - "

There's a silence that is apparently being filled by something vehement on Emma's end of the phone. Andrew takes a second to sympathise.

"Yes," Jesse is saying, agitated. "Haven't we had this conversation before? I feel like we've had this conversation before. I don't know how he feels, that's the problem."

Andrew digs his fingers into the carpet like that'll keep him tethered, like pinching yourself in a dream. Then he actually pinches himself, because how is this happening? It's been weeks of treading on batten-down-your-stupid-feelings eggshells and now this, handed to him on a plate while he lurks in the corridor? Andrew can't fucking even.

Jesse's continuing. "When - " Andrew hears his voice waver, and goes hot all over, guilty, finally, for eavesdropping. Not that it stops him, just. He feels guilty. Jesse says, "When he kissed me, when he was drunk - I thought he knew, um, that - "

Emma must interject something, because Jesse just says, "Yes, exactly," in tones of some relief, and it takes genuine effort for Andrew not to just shout "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" down the corridor, because he's actually not sure how much more of this he can stand. He taps his fingers against the floor, fast, and stays silent.

Jesse says, all in a rush, "I thought maybe he just was kidding around. I didn't know whether - whether he was serious."

There's a pause. This is literally the most nervous Andrew has ever felt about anything, and that includes the time he spent checking his phone six times a minute after the table read for Social Network, sort of sure but still not certain whether he'd been cast.

"Of course I liked it," Jesse says, and his voice has reached a weird, sincere, high pitch. "Have you been listening? I'd kiss him every time I saw him if I thought - if he wanted - " he stops short, like Emma's started yelling, but Andrew wouldn't be able to hear any more even if he tried, on account of the actual ringing in his ears, like he's got sudden emotionally-induced tinnitus.

He remembers Emma saying if you think this is the first I'm hearing about you, you're even more ridiculous than your hair implies, and thinks about why he called Emma in the first place, Jesse telling little anecdotes about her on set with his little fond smile, the texts Jesse shows him sometimes, all bawdy humour and terrible text speak and ridiculously clever quips.

He thinks about Jesse lying next to him with the orange light from the corridor playing over him, about Jesse freezing up when Andrew first tried to bring the kiss up again, about Jesse saying it was no big deal in that odd little voice, and I'd kiss him every time I saw him, oh, god, and, slowly, Andrew lets himself hope.

"I just," he hears Jesse say, quietly, like an admission, "I want - " - and Andrew is so fully on tenterhooks that he's holding his breath - "I want him."

Andrew's breath comes rushing out of him like he's been punched. He feels dizzy with it, and he can't quite believe what he's hearing, like he really doesn't deserve it and he's going to wake up any second to the sound of Edith Piaf and be in a Chris Nolan movie, but he can't stop hearing it over and over in his head. I want him.

Jesse wants him.

This is so overwhelming that something in Andrew's brain just gives up and dies, and he abandons subtlety and his few remaining shreds of dignity altogether.

"I like you, Jesse Eisenberg!" he cries, scrambling to his feet and pelting down the corridor to the living room. He bursts through the door like there's an emergency, which, well, there is.

"What?" says Jesse, startled, and Andrew says, "I like you." He has a horrible suspicion he might be blushing but, whatever, Jesse wants him, why should he be worried about a trivial thing like blushing when it's like he's on a precipice and wants nothing more than to let himself tip into it. Almost, he thinks, almost there.

Jesse is staring at him like he's turned into an actual gazelle right there in front of him. He's still holding the phone to his ear. Andrew can hear Emma on the other end, going, "Jesse? Jesse? Jesse Eisenberg, you answer me right now."

Andrew clears his throat, trying to sound as casual as a guy who's just sprinted down a hallway can. "Tell her you'll call her back."

Jesse just closes the phone, still staring at him.

"The thing is," Andrew starts, "I hate you."

Jesse's face starts to get this closed up look, and Andrew reaches out and grabs him by the wrist, panicking. Everything's feeling like he's seeing it from a distance. Jesse wants him.

"No, wait, that didn't come out right," he says. "Hang on."

"You're hanging on," Jesse says, looking down at Andrew's hand, "to my wrist."

"Shut up," says Andrew, "only, um, nicely?"

Jesse starts to look less defensively closed up and more completely confused.

"I'm not doing this very well," Andrew explains.

"Doing what?" This, Andrew thinks, is a fair question.

"Hang on," Andrew repeats. "Just - listen for a minute, okay?"

"All right," Jesse says. He presses his lips together like he can't decide whether to be amused or hurt. Andrew wishes he could fast forward through this whole conversation and just get to the bit where they've talked everything through and he can pull Jesse down by his t-shirt onto the sofa, and make out for hours and watch crappy late night tv in the dark with only the flickering light of the screen washing over Jesse's face, dim in comparison to when he smiles. Whatever he says next has to kick start all this, to be the first step on the rainbow road to sickening happiness, whilst at the same time making sure that Jesse definitely wants late night make-outs too, though Andrew is 99.9% sure he does. I want him. Basically, Andrew has to come up with something that's practically fucking Shakespeare levels of eloquent right now and make this happen.

He draws on his inner Bard.

"Um," he says. He can feel Shakespeare's disapproval across the centuries.

Jesse takes Andrew's inability to speak as an opportunity to say, "Can I have my wrist back?"

"No," says Andrew, and then, immediately, "I mean, yes, obviously, I'm not going to cut it off or anything, but um. Holding on to you helps me think." This is going so much worse than Andrew had pictured this bit going, and even when he was being optimistic he hadn't pictured it going all that well.

Jesse says, in an odd, pleased sort of voice, "Holding on to me helps you think?"

"Shush," says Andrew, "I'm thinking."

"I can't feel my fingers."

"You were talking to Emma," Andrew blurts, smoothly.

"I was talking to Emma?"

"Just now. On the phone. You were talking to Emma about me." Andrew can feel his eyes starting to gleam, and he hopes it comes off as excited and happy rather than crazed serial killer, although judging by the look on Jesse's face he might as well have a knife in his hand.

"What does that have to do with why you're holding my wrist?"

Andrew takes a breath, and this is it, and - "You want me," he says, softly, and it's like he's letting it out, like it's been rattling, trapped, around his head since he heard Jesse say it and it was just a matter of minutes before it spilled out again.

Jesse fidgets and looks away. Andrew is resisting the urge just to kiss him and be done with this whole thing.

"Jess?" he says. His heart is beating hummingbird fast. Jesse isn't saying anything. Andrew drops his wrist, just in case. If he's wrong - if somehow he's got this wrong - he doesn't know what he'll do.

Jesse speaks to the carpet rather than to Andrew. Andrew knows how he feels. "Yeah," he says, and he's biting his lip, and Andrew takes an unnecessarily deep breath. Jesse says, "I do."

Anything hummingbird-y going on in Andrew's chest has stopped so suddenly he wonders if it might be a heart attack. Like, a hummingbird-meets-tennis-racket, mid-air stop, sort of heart attack. His voice comes out all strangled. "What?"

Jesse is still determinedly not looking up from the carpet, and, okay, Andrew gets that this is, like, walking on nails levels of torturous, but he really needs Jesse to look at him for this. Fine, so that really makes him sound like a Disney princess, but he does. He clears his throat. "You do?"

Jesse nods. "I do."

He looks up, and he looks so completely certain and so completely terrified, which is so precisely what Andrew is feeling right now that he just can't, he just can't, so he takes a hasty step forward and grabs Jesse's face in his hands, stopping just short of his mouth.

"I'm going to kiss you now, okay?"

Jesse nods again. Andrew can feel him shaking. Maybe they're both shaking.

"Okay," Andrew says, and closes the gap. He kisses him as gently as he can, checking, but Jesse makes this little noise in the back of his throat like he's wanted this for as long as Andrew has, like he's letting go of something too, and gets a grip on the front of Andrew's shirt and pushes him down onto the sofa. Andrew bounces, surprised, pleased.

"You have no idea how long I've - " he starts, breathless and delighted, but before he can say anything else, Jesse straddles him and kisses him again. Andrew laughs up into it, spluttering unattractively against Jesse's lips and Jesse tells him softly to shut up, and he's sliding a hand up under Andrew's shirt, and Andrew shuts up.



/fin/

Comments

[moogle62.livejournal.com]

YOUR ICON IT IS AMAZING

And thank you so much for your lovely comment! Apparently when I decided to write this from Andrew's POV I was just like "well I could try to do this in a serious way..." and then just went "NOPE, COMMENCE LUDICROSITY AND SHAMPOO SMELLING AT ONCE".

I'm super glad you enjoyed <3333