Chapter Text
It’s been a few weeks since Chris kissed his brother. Or since his brother kissed him, however you wanna look at it. He thinks about it sometimes, as he imagines most people would, and frequently in the most inconvenient of moments. Such as tonight, while the three of them are trying to play Clue in Matt’s room.
Trying because admittedly, Chris isn’t being a ton of fun to be around, with his monosyllabic answers and half assed attempts to solve the murder. He repeats questions, writes down the wrong answers, and almost gets kicked out of the game twice. As much as he tries to snap out of it, it’s useless: his mind is hell bent on replaying that afternoon.
Daring Matt to kiss him, mostly to see if he would, just to find out how much he wouldn’t mind it if he did. The moment he realized Matt was actually considering it, that streak of anticipation curling up his spine, sparking every nerve.
And after, the stabbing fear of pleasedontfreakout and pleaselookatme. By the time he thought of laughing off the whole thing, it would’ve been too late to be believable. But it was fine, in the end. Matt dodged the panic attack he seemed on the verge of, and yeah, they didn’t spend much time alone for the next few days, but even that went back to normal.
So, kissing his brother wasn’t a problem. The problem is that unlike most people, he wants it to happen again. And the most important part: he doesn’t think he’s alone in that. Because in a way, it’s almost like it never happened. Almost. There’s a sort of… residue, over them. If you pay attention.
Like the time he reached out to fix Matt’s hair and had to, just couldn’t fucking resist, brushing the back of his neck with his fingertips. Matt went very still then, searched his face for a moment before he had to look away. Chris tracked the movement of his throat as he swallowed.
Or the way Matt’s gaze lingers on the strangest of places. His neck, his hands. His lips. Every time, Chris has to bite his tongue to stop himself from commenting on it. The comeback would be too obvious: he does all that too. Though it’s possible Matt hasn’t noticed that. It happens sometimes, when he gets so critical of himself he overlooks the blatant flaws in Chris. A phenomenon he has taken advantage of many times, truth be told.
Those are the things that keep Chris up at night, that make him think the chances of Matt feeling the same way are… maybe not high, but definitely non-zero. It’s his willingness to act on it that stumps him more often.
This is the train of thought he keeps driving in circles, when Nick decides to call the game night off and retreat to his room. Matt and Chris can’t even manage a token attempt to convince him otherwise. Matt’s already laying drowsily on his bed, though he doesn’t move to kick Chris out or get ready to sleep. Chris can only see him out of the corner of his eye, sitting with his back against the mattress as he is.
“Well. Can’t play Clue with just two people,” he says, and flings his pen to the other side of the room. He turns to look at his brother.
Matt hums in agreement, before going back to tracing the seams on his covers. Chris watches, as if hypnotized, the flutter of his eyelashes, the flow and swirl of his fingers on the fabric.
The words pop into his brain, fully formed, and spill out of his mouth of their own accord.
“You know what’s crazy?” he doesn’t wait for an answer. “We made out once. D’you ever think about that?”
***
Fuck him. Fuck Chris and his nonchalant tone, and the way he looks at Matt over his shoulder, eyes so expectant. Just when he thought they were probably gonna go the rest of their lives without acknowledging it, just when the lingering anxiety he felt when they were alone was fading away, just when the last fucking muffin in the freezer was eaten. Not by Matt, of course, who found out very quickly that the smell of blueberries alone is enough to hurl him back to the day where he kissed his brother like his life depended on it.
Just then, Chris decides to do this. Matt turns to lie on his back, reducing Chris to a blur in his peripheral vision. It takes a titanic effort to maintain his poker face. He ponders the likelihood of the world bursting into flames before he can answer.
“Sometimes,” he rasps, once it’s clear that no meteor is coming to his aid. He tries not to cringe at his voice.
“Really?” bizarrely, Chris sounds more enthusiastic than he has all night.
His bad days tend to put a gray tint over everyone’s eyes. Matt, especially, feels awful when he fails to get a smile out of him; there’s very little he wouldn’t try. But this is what he picks to cheer himself up?
“Wouldn’t anyone? You said it yourself, it is pretty crazy.”
“Right, so… what do you think about it?”
Matt tightens his jaw. He can’t, for the life of him, figure out where the fuck they’re going with this. Most importantly, why. Is it boredom? Would Chris really do that to him, to them, just because he might as well?
“I think it’s four A.M. and you’re selfish.”
He immediately wants to take it back. Not because it isn’t true, but because it’s way too harsh, too hurt, for how he’s supposed to feel about the whole thing. Though then again, how is he supposed to feel about it? What is Chris looking for or hoping to hear?
His eyes are boring holes through Matt, but he refuses to meet them. Guilt churns in his stomach. They might get into petty fights all the time, but the nasty ones, where they lay into the other’s personality flaws, always echo a little longer. And this was completely unprovoked, too. He braces for retaliation.
“You mean… now or that time in particular?”
The fact that he doesn’t dispute it just makes the guilt more bitter on his tongue.
“It was more of a general statement, I guess.”
A beat of silence. Chris drums his fingers on the bed.
“Are you mad at me about it?”
The short answer is yes. A little bit. But the reasoning behind it is so convoluted he can’t even explain it to himself, let alone Chris.
“Why would I be mad?”
“I don’t know, maybe you felt like I… forced you. Or something.”
“What?” Matt’s mask slides off for a moment. He shakes his head vehemently, as if he can erase the fact that his first instinct was to blame it on Chris. “No. I could’ve, like, pushed you away.”
Chris’ fingers freeze.
“Why didn’t you, then?”
Oh, because he was too busy doing quite the opposite. Matt’s face burns. Chris has to be toying with him. There’s no other explanation. He’s seen through him, as he always does, and is now getting a kick out of prying out every secret, every terrible feeling he hides where even he can’t see them. And for what? Some kind of fucked-up ego boost? The sheer satisfaction of holding it over his head?
He turns on his side, emboldened by rage, to look him dead in the eye. “I don’t know Chris, why didn’t you? Why are you bringing this up?”
Amazingly, his attempt to intimidate him seems to work, because now it’s Chris who looks away, his back straight against the bed.
“Because I think about it too,” Chris stares at the wall, his fists flexing and relaxing. “And I didn’t push you away,” he says, voice careful and low, “because I didn’t want to.”
Matt opens his mouth. Closes it. He scrutinizes Chris’ face, tries to find any indication, any tell that will give away the performance he’s putting on. But there’s nothing. Only the rise and fall of his chest with each deep breath.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I liked it,” their eyes meet again and Matt’s heart stutters. Whatever Chris sees fills him with enough confidence to go on. “And I think you liked it too.”
Matt’s brain feels like static. Incapable of thought, only amplifying the booming of his heartbeat in his ears. Chris’ gaze burns him, so he looks down and pretends to study the pattern of the covers.
He wants to deny it so badly. To laugh it off as the crazy notion that it is. To be around his brother and not drown in the awareness of how much he liked it.
But he can’t bring himself to lie when Chris has confessed to it first. He can’t poison their relationship like that, no matter how fucked up it already is. That doesn’t mean he has to say it out loud, though. Ever. Nobody can torture it out of him.
“So what?” is what he settles on, defeated and quiet enough that Chris might not hear him at all.
No such luck. He sucks in a breath. “So… do you wanna do it again?”
Matt’s stomach flips at the idea. In a good way, unfortunately. He looks up, thinking maybe now he’s kidding, but there’s not a hint of humor in Chris’ face.
“It doesn’t matter if I do, because it’s insane,” he rubs his eyes violently, like he’s trying to force the words through them and into his brain. “Besides, it could’ve been a fluke.”
It’s not the first time he’s tried to convince himself of that, with little to no success. It doesn’t seem to work on Chris either, because he perks up, eyes gleaming.
“Okay. Let’s test your theory, then.”
Matt shakes his head but can’t hold back a smile. It’s so natural, the way they slip into the roles they’ve played their whole lives, and so comfortable that it can disguise the lunacy of the topic. Chris around Matt and Matt around Chris, simple as ever, don’t have to think about it twice. The uneasiness of the last month becomes so obvious, now that it’s sloughing off completely.
“Seriously,” Chris says. “If you’re so sure you’re right, prove it. What’s the worst that could happen?” his lips twitch upwards. “It gets a little weird?”
They stare at each other, then dissolve into a fit of hysterical giggles.
“Like, ‘in hindsight, the second time was pushing it,’” Matt tacks on.
“‘Too much of a good thing, you know.’”
They lose it again. Maybe it really will be okay. Maybe there isn’t a way for him to lose Chris, regardless of how the next few minutes play out, what they do or don’t do. Who else could even get through this conversation with their sibling, let alone laugh about it?
It takes them a while to calm down. When they do, Chris tugs at his sleeve with his brightest, most genuine smile, the one that could make Matt agree to anything.
“Yeah?” Chris says.
Matt rolls his eyes, as if his breath hasn’t caught in his throat. “Okay.”
He leans up on his elbows and Chris cups his face to bring him closer, and yeah. It’s laughable to call this a fluke. Or to think that any repeats are ever gonna right this wrong. Knowing they can do this again and have it be just as good… This isn’t just gonna set him back in the process of getting over it, it’s gonna add on months. If only he could wipe his memory like a whiteboard. Or get a hold of a damn time machine.
He can only thank the awkwardness of their position for breaking them apart after a while, because otherwise there’s no telling when they would’ve stopped. Chris rolls his neck, stiff from having to twist it.
“Fluke, my ass,” he laughs.
Matt covers his eyes with a groan. “I don’t know what you’re so smug about. This makes you a freak.”
“But not the only freak in this room,” Chris says, holding up a finger, like it makes a world of difference. It might.
“I guess,” Matt sighs. He stares into the void, shakes his head with increasing emphasis. This isn’t good at all. “Chris, what the fuck are we gonna do about this?”
“I was hoping you might have a plan,” he runs a hand through his hair, finally looking more sober.
Matt barely needs a second to think. “Here’s what I’ve got: the right way to handle it would be to go the fuck to sleep and never think about it again.”
“Mhm,” Chris fakes a thoughtful frown. “And how’s that worked out for you so far?”
“I’m just saying what I think would be appropriate to do, not that it would work.”
“Is it my turn now?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“I say,” Chris straightens up, like it’s serious business, “we keep going on as normal… except we can make out with each other whenever we feel like it.”
Matt cringes. Doing it doesn’t feel nearly as weird as hearing it said out loud.
“I’m sure Nick would love to see that.”
Chris makes a grimace. “Yeah, that would be bad. Not ‘whenever’, but you get what I mean. I vote for my solution,” he raises his hand.
“You can’t call it a solution if it only makes the problem worse. Which it really sounds like it would.”
“First of all,” Chris counts on his fingers, “I don’t know how it could get worse—”
(Matt can definitely think of a few ways, but he’ll take that to his grave.)
“—and second of all, maybe it doesn’t need to be fixed at all.”
Matt stares at him.
“Are you on something?”
Chris hits his arm, offended. “I’m not fucking delusional, okay, I don’t think we’re gonna get married and have babies or some shit.” Matt’s skin crawls, a reminder of how deeply fucked this situation is. “We’ll get over it at some point. But in the meantime, it’s not like we’re hurting anyone, is it?”
Ourselves, if we get caught, Matt wants to say. Maybe even if we don’t.
“There’s a reason people don’t do this.”
“Yeah, and I can tell you what it is right now: they don’t want to. That right there disqualifies us from being those people.”
The most terrifying part is, Chris is making some level of sense. Assuming this is some bizarre phase—and what else could it be—wouldn’t it make sense for them to through it together, like everything else in their lives? Why is it anyone else’s business how they choose to deal with it? Yeah, it sounds fucking disgusting, but so do a lot of things until you’re in the position to consider them.
Matt’s realizes he’s biting his nails. He tucks them into a fist. Chris’ eyes get shifty at his lack of an answer, like they’re trying to shake off the uncertainty.
“Do you… wanna sleep on it?”
“No,” because he knows himself. If he has any more time to think about this, he’ll see the glaring leaps in logic and change his mind. And if he can be honest with himself, just for a second: he wants this. He’d prefer it if he didn’t, but that ship has sailed. “I’m in. But we have to be really fucking careful about it. Nobody finds out.”
“Obviously,” Chris rolls his eyes and holds out a hand. “Deal?”
Matt eyes him warily. It feels like there are definitely some more terms and conditions they should set for this. To minimize its potentially disastrous consequences.
“And,” Matt adds, “we need to, like, compartmentalize it. I don’t want you trying to kiss me when we’re wrestling or something.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. Anything else?”
Something pops into Matt’s brain that makes his face grow hot. He shakes his head.
Chris shoots him a skeptical look. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Dude, I feel like for this to work, we gotta be a thousand percent honest with each other.”
Infuriatingly enough, he has a point. Matt grinds his teeth. The words come out like they’re being ripped out of him. “We can’t, I mean, we have to-” he racks his brains for a way to phrase it that doesn’t make him want to jump out the window, “…keep it PG-13.”
Chris’ face morphs like he doesn’t know what to do with it. Matt forces himself to maintain eye contact, fucking daring him to act like he’s crazy for suggesting it.
“Whatever,” is what Chris ends up saying. “Should we be writing this down?”
Matt’s eyes almost pop out. “Fuck no.”
“I was kidding!” he offers his hand once again. This time Matt shakes it. Chris winks. “You got yourself a deal, honey.”
“Ugh. Say that again and deal’s off.”
Chris stands up, picks up his empty glass and heads for the door.
“See you tomorrow, sugar lips,” he calls back, halfway out the room.
“That is terrifying.”
Chris cackles all the down the hallway. Matt takes a deep breath, a little horrified, a little thrilled, but knowing that no matter what happens with all that, he gets to keep his brother anyway.