Chapter Text
*
*
Excruciating, if he thought about it too long. Fine, if he just sucked it up and went with it. If he didn't spend hours and hours and hours of his time stuck inside of his own head, it was fine.
Your pace.
He was going to have to go with your pace.
If Joe was going to win this... contest he was having, mainly with himself, he was going to have to stick to your pace. Like he had done before. And yea, it was slow. Maybe even stagnant most days. But he had always let you take the lead and had always let you find new normals between the two of you.
It had worked like that when you lived together, and it was going to have to work like that now that you no longer did.
Was it awful?
Yes.
Because in which direction were you even moving? Joe had no diea. You might as well have been doing backwards, there was no way for him to tell, and it was eating Joe alive. But he was just going to have to deal with it.
Your lead. Your time. Your pace.
With your new flatmate, your inside-the-flat behaviour had drastically changed. What was once the exact location of all the intimacy was slowly turning into a place that resembled outside. Where strangers were (Josh). Where people could perceive you (Josh).
The safety was gone, a little.
When you stirred awake after falling asleep on your sofa, and Joe was still sat by your feet, casually holding onto an ankle still, the first few seconds of seeing him there made you smile. He was watching TV, which was showing something you hadn’t put on, and the changing lights that illuminated him gave you a good look at his profile. At the curve of his nose. At his slightly parted lips. His tongue working along his teeth. Along the inside of his cheek.
God, he looked fucking perfect.
Even with his hair too short and unstyled.
Even with his tongue pushing his face into weird expressions.
You got to wake up slow, felt like you’d been out for over an hour, easily, and loved the little fragment you got of how things used to be. Just the two of you on the sofa. TV on. Soft touches. No one else there to make it weird. To ask questions. To give looks.
Just closeness and gentle affection, a touch of protectiveness as you were being held by the ankle as you’d napped.
But then you heard a kitchen drawer close behind you, and you immediately balled up in a knee-jerk response. You pulled your feet right from Joe’s lap as you tucked in your knees. Ripped your ankle right from his grasp.
And it was silly.
It was just your feet.
Josh likely would’ve seen them on Joe’s lap already.
He would have had to have let Joe in too. You remembered the key you had meant to slip back into his coat pocket but had forgotten about.
All Josh really knew about Joe was that he used to live in the flat, and that you still remained good mates. Close friends. Sort of flatmates still, but not, because, location.
You had gone through every which way of describing you and Joe whilst trying to remain an air of casualness.
Yea, Joe would still come over a lot, since you were friends, you know? Normal stuff.
But then your friend had gone, “Ha. Yea, all right. Good mates. That’s one way of describing it.” Like she’d known anything – she didn’t.
She had no idea.
Not a clue.
She couldn’t have, because you and Joe weren’t like you and Joe were around others.
You didn’t blame her, but you’d quickly changed the subject anyway. Swiftly moved onto a different topic. Asked Josh if he liked pizza, because you had pizza a lot in this flat. Josh did like pizza. But, only without any cheese on. “I’m vegan.” You didn’t think that technically even counted as pizza. But, sure.
It was just your feet.
And it was just Josh in the kitchen, likely not even paying attention to where your feet were.
You realised it a second too late though. Your knees had already been tucked in, and Joe’s face had already fallen. You could see how his eyes darted from you to your new flatmate over the back of the sofa a few times.
In a bid to save yourself, to save the situation, you straightened your legs again and pushed both feet into Joe’s thigh. Masked it as a tired post-nap stretch and smiled through a yawn, doing your best to move on as quickly as you could.
Unbeknownst to you, there had been some quiet conversation going between Joe and Josh. Soft spoken words, no louder than the TV, but not quite whispers either. Voices hushed and kept low because, she’s asleep. And she’d come home and looked like her Friday had lasted a whole month, Josh had chuckled as he picked up the empty pizza box, tidying up.
Joe had scrunched up his eyebrows and couldn’t help his little pout as he’d cast his eyes down to look at you.
“Yea, the pizza sort of gave it away.” He’d said, and for a moment, Josh’s mind swam as it tried to make sense of what Joe’d just said.
And Joe saw, but he didn’t really want to explain it. Didn’t want to tell him that, pizza sort of meant a lot. It was just food, and not even your or his favourite, but there was comfort and routine and pizza sort of belonged to the two of you.
Pizza was yours.
Josh didn’t need to know that.
“Oh, no, this was mine – I had this.”
And, oh, my God, Joe could really fucking kick himself for thinking the worst.
In casual chat, Joe puzzled it together. You’d gotten home. Seemed annoyed. Tired. Overall just in a terrible mood. And Josh had offered you a bite of his pizza – the one he was already eating when you’d walked in. And you’d looked at it for a second and then had gone, “Not hungry. Thank you though.”
Joe was the worst.
He watched you sleep and you looked so peaceful. So soft. He was the actual worst person ever. Drawing conclusions where there wasn’t even anything to be drawn in the first place.
Joe watched you as Josh quietly cleaned the kitchen. Listened as he complained about not being able to open the window in his ensuite, how it would get stuck all the time, and asked if Joe knew anything about that. Joe didn’t tear his eyes away from you as he said, “Yea, she was meant to get that fixed, but ended up just opening the bedroom window to air the room out.”
Your cheeks were slightly blushed, and you sounded a little congested. Joe could hear your breath rumble a bit, like it was getting stuck in your chest. Start of a cold, maybe, he thought, and he knew that it was probably one more thing that had added to all the bad today. All the bad that had made you text him to come over.
To fix it.
And he fucking loved fixing it.
Joe wanted to make you tea and feed you soup and stick you into one of his hoodies. Stuff your hot water bottle into the pocket for good measure. Hold you close to his chest where, sometimes, if he held you there for long enough, you’d suddenly cry. You would sob without explanation, bury your face into his neck, and it was weird but Joe would fucking glow on the inside from the knowledge that you deemed Joe safe enough to get your tears out.
God, he was so fucking gone for you.
Loved you.
Loved you loved you.
Did he not want you to have a nice flatmate? Did he want you to have one that didn’t offer you pizza after a long, rough day? Was he really that terrible of a human being?
No.
He did want you to live with a nice person. One that did offer you pizza after a long, rough day.
It just upset him that it wasn’t him.
He wanted to be the nice flatmate.
Like he had been.
Well.
Fucked that up all by himself, didn’t he?
Joe had to remind himself of all the reasons why he made those personal choices. And the plan had been working. It truly had been. But then you’d just pulled your feet from his lap because Josh was there and… were you embarrassed of him? Was that what this boiled down to?
You pushed your feet into Joe’s leg as you stretched and yawned, and Joe waited for Josh to walk out of the room to tap you just above the knee. To squeeze you there.
You looked up and around, just to make sure you were alone, before you held out your hand that Joe then grabbed hold off. He pulled until you sat up and then, in a rogue move that he didn’t see coming, you leant in to kiss him.
Josh was just down the hall, door wide open.
And you kissed him.
Surprise.
Not moving backwards, then.
It was only short. Just a quick small little thing, but it was lips against lips, and it startled Joe so much, he couldn’t even think to be quiet about it. To not let his lips smack the way they naturally would when giving someone a kiss.
If that bothered you, you didn’t show it, mind too sluggish to catch up to what was happening maybe, and Joe grinned as he softly said, “Hi.” after you broke apart.
“I’m sorry.” was the first thing out of your mouth. You meant for texting him to come over and then promptly falling asleep on the sofa before he had even made his way over. You hadn’t meant to do that.
Joe heard your apology and took it to mean, sorry for the hard flinch away from him, which seemed silly now. You had just gone and kissed him. There was hardly anything left to be sorry for now, was there?
Joe had taken a step forward by being casually intimate with you in front of a stranger - held your feet in front of Josh - and, at first, you had shied away, only to then meet him there on your own terms a second later - be casually intimate with Joe with Josh just in the other room.
A new normal.
Your pace.
It went like that for a while then.
Joe would take your whole hand without asking, only for you to snatch it back and then give him a finger.
Which was fine.
Made Joe secretly smile every time it happened. He started being able to predict it a little too. Knew that if he’d overshoot, he’d end up with what he wanted in the first place too. Which, if you zoomed in on that a lot, could be classified as manipulation.
But you were happy.
So it was fine.
You were trying and so was Joe.
You were trying when, a couple of days later, you found yourself in a pub with Joe and a couple of his friends and he’d convinced you to just get a quick drink, just the one, and yea, that was okay. You could have a drink with Joe’s friends. They were kind, fun people.
You ended up meeting everyone outside, and after a round of greeting, you offered to go get drinks inside. When you came back to join the group, Joe had sat down on a barstool and you went to stand beside him. Handed him his drink. Cheersed him before you went for a sip. And then you felt his hand curl around your hip.
You tried the whole time.
Blushed the whole time too.
You couldn’t hold his hand as you walked home from the pub after that one drink.
But you could accept his scarf getting draped around your neck when he noticed you were cold.
And you were also trying when the two of you were on the tube together, and Joe had spotted someone subtly point their phone at him. Instead of acting like he was alone, like he was just out and about on his own for a second, he sat forward a little and moved his arm to touch your opposite outer thigh. It was meant to be protective, and it did shield you from having your picture taken, but it took a lot for you to not move his arm away and get up to stand near the doors where you could pretend you didn’t even know who he was.
You couldn’t turn around on the escalator to look at him after.
But you could accept the hand on your lower back as Joe guided you towards the exit of the busy station.
You were trying. Actively trying. And it felt like agony if you thought about it for too long. But it was fine if you just sucked it up and went with it.
Joe tried too.
Joe tried his best to be normal about you going out with Josh and some of his friends. Just told you to have a good time. To call him when you got home.
Joe tried his best to be normal when you told him Josh really wanted a dog, and maybe that would actually be so fun, wouldn’t it? You would go to pick out one with Josh, because if it was going to live at the flat, you would have to get along with it too, and wasn’t that smart thinking? Joe had to remind himself that you weren’t getting a dog together, but, that was sort of exactly what was happening, wasn’t it?
And Joe tried his bestest best to be normal when after being buzzed up into your flat, he found your front door left open for him to make his way in by himself, because you were too busy in the living room where Josh was playing guitar and making you laugh by singing about what you were doing and trying to make things rhyme. And then Joe had to try even harder when the song quickly turned into rhymes that made fun of him, which only made you laugh louder.
Yea.
Josh was a nice guy.
But, fuck Josh.
After hearing the giggles Josh was able to pull out of you, Joe became determined to let Josh hear what other noises Joe was able pull out of you.
And for a little while, you relished the attention. Joe had learnt a thing or two about what you liked in bed by now, and he knew how to drag it out for maximum pleasure too.
Joe had laid you down on your own bed, spread you out and undressed you real slow. When you’d gone to grab the hem of his T-shirt, he’d taken hold of your hand and brought it up to his mouth to kiss it.
Just you, then.
All about you.
Which was… you weren’t going to lie, this was fucking fantastic.
But it became a little weird how Joe kept turning his head to look at your closed bedroom door every time you let a moan slip out.
It became a little weird how he kept softly instructing you to be louder for him.
“Come on, let me hear you.”
It didn’t feel wildly out of place, but… something felt a little off about it.
You didn’t mention it until afterwards, when you were sat with your backs against the headboard, and you could see how it lingered on his face; something was off.
“Hey…”
Joe was quick to turn his head to look at you, and he immediately smiled to hide whatever you knew was brewing underneath the surface.
“Hey.”
“Are you okay?” you tried to hide your worry with warmth, which was silly, because Joe’d already seen it.
Joe lifted his arm to throw around your shoulder and pulled you into his side, warm sticky skin to warm sticky skin, and he kissed you on your hairline before casually answering, “Yea, of course.”
And you knew he was lying, but you kept quiet. Silently played with the folds of your duvet over your lap and waited until, finally, you heard Joe sigh.
“Promise not to make fun of me,” Joe started, to which you didn’t respond with words, but instead found the hand that wasn’t curled around your shoulder and intertwined your fingers with his.
Joe took a moment to find the right words.
“But…”
The silence gave your brain time to panic. A million things went through your mind. Every single little thing you’d done that could’ve maybe upset him.
Something was wrong, and you were the problem, because you had definitely fucked up, hadn’t you?
What had you done?
The key.
Fuck.
You kept forgetting about his key. It was there on your dresser. You could get out of bed and give it to him right now if that was–
“I don’t like that there’s a guy in your bedroom.”
And…
Oh.
Was he… was he being serious?
You moved away from him a little to get a proper good look at his face, and followed his gaze to see he was looking at your bedroom door again.
And… oh, God.
You didn’t like that.
That left a weird taste in your mouth.
Made you frown at him. Made you grimace a little.
You understood what he meant. But Jesus fucking Christ.
“Joe…” you started, moving even further from him, sitting up properly now.
“No, I know… I know,” he sighed, lifting both hands that he then dropped into his lap as he made a stupid face. “It’s stupid.”
Which was exactly right.
Joe was being stupid.
Joe had moved out and had forced you to get a new flatmate and now he was being a real child about it. Was calling your former bedroom your bedroom still, which it wasn’t. Was calling your flatmate ‘a guy’, like he was some random dude, which he wasn’t.
“Josh is my flatmate,” you said, trying to make the point that it was normal for him to be in the flat with you.
And then Joe felt it.
Joe felt whatever was inside of his chest, that stupid dark little monster that had been bouncing around in there all night, he felt it crawl up into his throat. Into his voice box.
It was too quick, the reaction too fast.
Joe knew the words were unfair and undeserved and ridiculously accusatory without any real legs to stand on.
Joe heard himself say it. Heard himself snap the words, and they were out of his mouth before he could even begin to try to stop them from even being formed at all.
“Yea exactly.”
That green fucking monster.
Joe saw how your face dropped. Saw the disbelief and the confusion. The did-he-really-just wheels turning behind your eyes that slowly clicked into their yea-he-did slots.
You knew what Joe meant, but desperately tried to find the humour in Joe’s face, because surely, he must have been joking.
It wasn’t a funny joke.
And then, you realised it wasn’t a joke at all.
Joe didn’t smile or laugh. Just looked at you, expression slightly stern but otherwise blank, and holy fucking shit.
No.
You remained calm.
Wanted to fucking scream at him, yell, “What do you think you’re accusing me of exactly?!” and, “Please say that again, but slower, will you?!” but, you didn’t.
Instead you turned around and slowly got out of bed, taking one of your pillows with you.
“No, baby, wait,”
Baby.
“I’m sorry, that’s not what I– I didn’t mean it like that. That came out wrong,” Joe rambled, but you slowly stalked towards the door.
“I’m just,” Joe rubbed an anxious hand across his forehead. “God, I… I don’t know.”
Jealous.
He couldn’t even say it.
But that was okay. You heard him loud and clear, anyway.
“Please come back to bed.”
You reached for the door handle and had already decided you weren’t going to come back to bed. You’d sleep on the sofa and Joe was going to have to think about what he’d just said.
Just before you stepped out, you turned your head over your shoulder and looked at him.
Joe.
Sat in your bed in his old bedroom, chest bared, leaning forward into his own lap like he’d been reaching out for you as you’d taken the four steps it took to get to your door.
And it was the cruelest thing in the whole fucking world to realise right then and there that you… shit.
You fucking loved him.
What he said had hurt, but what he hadn’t said hurt worse. The silent, I know what you are like as a flatmate because I have lived it and now you have another one, rung loud in your ears, and you understood right then that the only reason it felt like your heart was bleeding was because you loved him.
Fuck.
You opened the door without looking, but then heard the soft sounds of an acoustic guitar being played in the living room, and looked towards where it came from.
“Baby,” Joe tried one last time, and one of your hands shot up in warning. He had to stop calling you baby. Had to stop talking all together.
“I’m sorry.” Joe apologised again, voice much softer, much more sincere this time, and you only thought of how Joe wasn’t allowed to be the cause of your pain. Had he not learnt from the past? Had he not listened to you then?
You looked back towards Joe, who was about to open his mouth again to say more apologetic words, you were sure, but you stopped him before he could.
“Joe,” you warned again, but stepped into the hallway anyway, reaching for the door handle on the other side to close it.
Just before you did, you made direct eye-contact with a man who knew he had said the wrong thing at the wrong time, but you just needed him to know extra well.
So you dropped your shoulders and said, “You’re the guy in my bedroom.” before you shut the door.
Joe didn’t move.
Just stared at the wooden panels of the door.
And shit…
You were right.
He was the guy in your bedroom, and why the fuck was he even thinking about anything else?
What else was more important?
Joe had to really force himself to not go after you. You left because you wanted space from him and he didn’t really have any other choice but to take your lead on this one, did he?
Your lead.
Your time.
Your pace.
Fuck.
*
*
There was something living inside of your chest.
It was only small, but definitely there. Soft. Vulnerable. Silently shrinking. It had gotten hurt and was wearing its bruises on the outside. When it got poked, you could feel the shooting pains as it curled in on itself more. It would find the safest spots to hide into and squeeze its eyes shut and you'd mentally tell it, it's okay. You're okay.
It wasn't okay.
Maybe therapy wasn't an insane suggestion, anymore, at this point. You felt like you were protecting a child to the point where you couldn't let it see the light of day. Couldn't let it go outside and play. Couldn't let it have friends - let it meet Joe. Couldn't let it experience anything joful, because if you did, it'd probably experience more hurt too.
But it was hurting anyway.
And now it was only pain it got to feel. Never joy. Just bruises and cuts. Scrapes that slowly formed thick drops of blood that hardened into scabs which pulled at your skin and eventually turned into scars.
You wished you'd known that before you locked it up inside.
There was something living inside of your chest, and it carefully wished it could speak up and be heard.
When you’d walked out of your bedroom and into the living room, a surprised Josh raised his eyebrows at you. He was leaning back into the sofa and had an acoustic guitar in his lap that he was absentmindedly playing whilst he was watching TV on a low volume. The guitar-playing stopped when he saw you and didn’t pick back up as he watched you walk over, pillow in hand, facial expression drained.
“Hey, what’s up?” the guitar got moved onto the floor.
You didn’t answer when you put your pillow down on the opposite end of the sofa and took the blanket you’d slept under before. You curled up, ignored Josh who tried to ask if you were okay a couple of times as you stared at the TV. He asked if you wanted to talk about it. Said you probably should talk about it if you didn’t want Josh to think about this all night.
“It’s going to keep me up if I don’t know if you’re okay.”
You ignored it all, didn’t give a shit if Josh was going to get a good night’s sleep, and eventually turned over and faced the back of the sofa. It sent the message it needed to. It took just another moment before Josh turned off the TV, and then the lights as he left you alone.
This was stupid.
But you were stubborn.
You were stubborn and were going to go to sleep on your sofa, even though you were the one that lived here, and maybe Joe should be the one to sleep on the sofa.
Or actually, he could go home. To his own flat. Where all things were his, and the only things that felt like they were yours were the plants you’d brought in and the toothbrush you’d left by his sink.
Yea.
Joe could just leave.
You didn’t care that he was still paying rent.
But you didn’t actually get up to go and tell him that. Of course not. You just wallowed in thought. In all the would-dos and would-says. Shivered because this new stupid blanket Josh got wasn’t thick enough to keep you warm throughout the night.
You made yourself cry inside of that soup of goopy misery. Felt what lived inside of your chest as it drowned and mentally apologised to it when, after three hours of not being able to actually go to sleep, after three hours of anger that turned into fragile neediness, you decided to get up and make your way back.
Find Joe.
Because, and fuck him for this, Joe always knew how to fucking fix it.
And there was something so silly about walking down the hallway of your flat with tears staining your cheeks to sneak into Joe’s old bedroom. To find Joe inside of the bed there, the lay-out of the room still the same. Joe’s side of the bed still the same.
The click of the door closing made Joe lift his head up in an attempt to see into the dark.
He hadn’t expected you at all, so for a second, he thought that maybe you’d just walked in to get something. Your phone. Or your charger. But then you walked around to your side of the bed and got under the covers. It was too dark to see your face, but you found Joe’s warm body and snuggled up. Pressed your forehead to his jaw and hummed through a sigh and Joe didn’t need to see your face to hug you closer. Didn’t need to see if you’d been crying to wrap arms around, and to tangle legs, and to press a small kiss into your hair.
You wiggled as you settled and sighed as you sunk deeper into the mattress. You could deal with the disappointment within yourself in the morning.
“I’m sorry.” Joe whispered into the dark, and you decided you could also deal with your disappointment in Joe in the morning, so you softly whined and said, “Pause.”
“Pause?”
“Mhm.”
Everything could just be paused. Postponed. Just for a few hours. You just needed to get some sleep.
Joe wasn’t in a position to not accept that. His heart felt full with the nostalgia he unexpectedly found with you sneaking into this room in order to get some sleep. It used to be like this. He was in the same location. In the exact same spot. Just, everything was yours now.
Me too, Joe thought.
Everything was yours now, including Joe. Whether you wanted him or not.
He squeezed you tighter and saw that you got to sleep. Traced finger tips across skin that warmed under the covers, and tickled into your hair by the nape of your neck, and he could feel how you were drifting off and, fuck off, he was yours.
He’d tell you in the morning.
Joe was going to tell you in the morning.
He would.
When Joe woke up, you were gone.
Fucking figures, Joe thought.
The private moment of waking up together that would’ve granted him the security and comfortability to say whatever needed saying was gone now.
Joe rubbed both hands over his face and scolded himself for not waking up as you had gotten out.
But it was fine.
There’d be another moment for it, he’d make sure.
Venturing out of your bedroom, you weren’t in the bathroom. Nor in the living area. He did, however, find Josh in the kitchen.
After awkward but polite good mornings shared, there was some uncomfortable shuffling around. Joe had made breakfast thousands of times in this kitchen, and he was already reaching to open the fridge when he realised that, actually, that was a weird thing to do. He no longer lived there. He couldn’t just go into cupboards and find the food that he knew was there – he knew exactly where the oatmeal went. He knew exactly where to find the cinnamon to sprinkle on top. How the coffee machine worked. Which cupboard to open to find the mugs.
Joe opted to busy himself making a coffee first. The machine was right there on the counter – less weird to reach for it and prepare himself a morning brew.
And Josh was cool about it. Opened a cupboard for him to fetch him a mug. It was a bit of an awkward dance, but a friendly one, tight smiles shared as Josh prepared his own breakfast.
It wasn’t until the loud noise of coffee beans being ground up that Joe decided to just… ask.
Might as well act like last night actually happened.
“Sorry about last night, mate,”
“Oh yea, no worries, I didn’t…” Josh frowned and shook his head as he scraped some butter onto his toast. He didn’t finish his sentence. Didn’t need to. Took a bite before buttering the second piece.
“Have you seen her?” Joe tried sounding as casual as he could, but failed miserably.
It was as honest and vulnerable of a question he was ever going to ask Josh. It revealed he had no idea where the fuck you’d gone, which in and of itself revealed that there was probably a reason you hadn’t told him.
But Josh was relaxed about it.
“Yea. Morning run. You just missed her, I think.”
And it took all within Joe to pretend that didn’t surprise him as much as it did. He just nodded. Pretended like that was a normal thing to hear about. Morning run. Sure. Miss be-useful-first-thing, what the fuck? When had you picked up that habit?
The coffee machine stopped whirring, and Joe took his coffee. Went for a sip immediately and instantly burnt his tongue. Rookie move.
“Is um… is everything okay? I don’t want to pry, but,” Josh asked as Joe moved around the island to sit down.
“Ah, well… you know,”
No, actually, Josh didn’t know.
Which was good.
Joe didn’t really want him to know.
Joe didn’t really want to explain.
Couldn’t really explain.
Where the fuck would he even begin?
“Hmm, yea,” Josh accepted the non-answer easily. “She seemed upset, but wouldn’t really say anything.”
Joe had to suppress a smile.
Of course you hadn’t fucking said anything.
“I asked like fifty times if she was okay, but she… I don’t know, she fully ignored me I guess. Kind of went catatonic on me a little.”
Joe drank his coffee and nodded.
“To be fair though,” Josh made big eyes at himself, “I was being really fucking annoying. I would’ve rolled over and ignored me too, I think.”
Both men let huffs of air escape them in silent laughter.
Then a moment of silence followed where Joe drank his coffee and Josh ate his toast. Joe realised he didn’t like how Josh knew things about you that he didn’t, but the upside was that it was incredibly useful, actually.
Josh talked where you… well, you did not.
“Did she cry?”
He wanted to know.
“No, she just… watched TV for a bit. I don’t know, she seemed tired so I went to bed shortly after to make sure she could get some sleep.”
That meant that, if you’d cried, you had waited for Josh to leave the room. Joe didn’t know if that was a comforting thought or not.
It didn’t take much longer for Josh to finish his toast and to casually suggest for Joe to make his own breakfast. Mentioned that everything on the bottom shelves of the fridge was yours before he walked out, and this morning was just full of surprises.
You split the fridge?!
What kind of sensible flatmate behaviour was this?!
When it was you and Joe, your stuff would just be thrown in wherever. None of it sorted. Joe would end up having your oatmilk in his coffee and you’d end up using his cheese in your omelettes.
Actually, he remembered how this had been the source of bickering for more than once. More than a couple of times. You would fall out over Joe having your food all the time, if he really thought about it. But it was always playful. Always something fun about it. A reason to swear at him until you made yourself laugh, and a reason for him to shut you up with poking fingers in your sides. The back and forth had never prompted you to split the fridge.
Had you and Joe ever been normal flatmates?
Probably not, he guessed.
Joe decided against breakfast in the end and just finished his coffee. Waited until you got back from your morning run, which he still had a hard time wrapping his head around, and when he eventually heard the front door open, he got up to make you a drink.
You knew Joe was still there by his coat that was hung up by the front door.
Fine.
Fine.
It was fine.
You were sweaty and sticky and hot and you could feel your heartbeat in your face, but it was fine.
Walking into the kitchen, you were welcomed by Joe in jeans and a T-shirt, bare feet, hair stupid, already holding out a glass of juice for you.
You took it and refrained from talking as you had a sip. Looked at him over the glass though, and you hoped that what Joe would see was determination. Strength. That he saw someone who wasn’t going to take bullshit, because you weren’t.
You’d just gone for your very first morning run for fuck’s sake.
For a moment Joe just looked right back at you. Watched you have the drink he poured for you. You had bits of hair stuck to your flushed neck and had to breathe through flared nostrils. It was wildly attractive, if you asked him.
“Morning run?”
You caught a small smirk from Joe that you turned away from. Couldn’t look at him be cute when you were supposed to be mad at him still.
Then, in a rogue move, Joe opened the freezer and took a single look inside to find a frozen pizza he took out and tossed onto the counter.
That was meant to mean something.
You gave it a blank stare as Joe looked at you and you sighed.
“Hey,” Joe tried getting your attention back on him, but instead, you put the glass down and turned around. Walked out. Went to your bedroom.
Joe followed.
“Hey,” Joe tried again, stood in your doorway, watching you collect an outfit. “Talk to me.”
It went ignored.
This was the worst part of not having an ensuite; having to take just enough clothes into the bathroom to change in there. You and Josh weren’t exactly on a just-a-towel level yet. Bathrobe felt scandalous too, somehow, even for the five steps it took to get from your bedroom into the bathroom.
Josh could see you in clothes or not see you at all.
Joe easily moved aside when you walked past him, out of your room, and you looked at him as you did.
“Come on. Tell me what you’re thinking.” Joe tried again.
It didn’t feel like you were fully ignoring him, but you weren’t answering him either.
You were thinking Joe was being an idiot.
You were trying, had been trying really hard to meet him where he wanted to be met, and then he just went and let you know he didn’t trust… you? Your flatmate? The situation he’d created with his own two hands?
Felt unfair.
You didn’t say any of that though. Just walked into the bathroom, and then left the door open.
Joe would get the hint, you thought.
He did, but only when you started peeling off your sweat-soaked top with the door wide open, still.
Joe moved quick. Sort of scrambled to get into the bathroom, to lock the door behind him, and then to help you get your top over your head as you struggled with the damp fabric around your shoulders.
You undressed, and Joe helped, and you made eye-contact the whole time.
You could see how he was searching. Trying to find whatever you weren’t saying in your eyes, his chin tucked in, his eyes pleading, all soft and rounded.
Joe tried.
He really tried.
You were getting naked right in front of him, body flushed and glistening with sweat and he got a good look as you stretched your body over the bath to turn the shower on and then you kept staring right at him as you removed more clothes and you were doing something with your eyes and Jesus fucking Christ, Joe was trying.
Trying to not grab you by the shoulders and give you a good shake.
Trying not to let his eyes skirt downward because you’d just removed your sports bra and, oof, man, that was a lot of skin on show.
Joe was trying not to hold you by the face and trying not to get real close and trying not to whisper words into your mouth in hopes of coaxing out some of your own. Which… he failed. Because he did get your face into both his hands just after you’d reached up to untie your hair. He did get real close. And he did ask you once more to just talk to him, please.
You handled the close eye-contact fine.
Handled the cupping of your face fine.
And Joe couldn’t stop searching your face.
Was there truly no budging?
Was this… was this it?
Had he just gone and fucked it all up for himself? Had the big plan behind his move imploded because he couldn’t deal with the fact that you were now… no longer in his flat with him? Joe’s mind tried to make sense of it, but all he could really come up with, was that you probably didn’t even consider the two of you to be together.
You’d never talked about that.
Had never mentioned it.
Hadn’t labeled it.
You were just close flatmates that weren’t actually flatmates anymore, and… and now what?
He just wanted you to talk.
You were just in your underwear now, stood in a small bathroom and Joe ticked off all boxes in his mind: you were alone, check. You were close, check. You were in your safe space, check.
The shower was hot now, slowly filling the room with warm steam and, fuck, if you would just fucking talk.
Joe was about to repeat himself. Was about to say it again. But then he saw it.
Something changed.
Your eyes softened and your mouth tightened as you tried to keep your lips wobbling. As you tried to not let what was living inside of your chest get out. When you started blinking more rapidly as your eyes stung with tears, you also began avoiding eye-contact and, good. This was good. Joe let you go then, and watched as you got out of your last piece of clothing before you stepped into the shower.
You left the shower curtain open, and Joe thought he’d never undressed quite so fast.
You’d never shared a shower before.
Something about it felt really momentous, but you didn’t have the opportunity to think about it for too long. The thought vanished just as quickly as it had crossed your mind, because when Joe stepped into the bath behind you and held you by the shoulders before curling his arms around to hold you close, you decided that, actually, you were going to talk.
“You left,” you started, voice far thinner than you wanted it to be.
“I know.”
“You left and you’re making me feel bad about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not fair. It’s not my fault you moved out,” you reached up to hold onto Joe’s arm across your front and you felt how your eyebrows knitted together when you softly followed with, “Is it?”
And, fuck.
Something snapped into Joe’s chest.
Something swelled and popped.
He didn’t know what that was, all he knew was that it hurt.
“No!” Joe tightened his arms before he let you go enough to turn around. “No, baby, of course not, is that– do you think I left because of you?”
You looked at each other, and for a moment, Joe didn’t know if he was looking at shower water or tears that were running down your face.
You gave a small shrug before Joe lifted his hands to your face to wipe at your cheeks. If they were tears, they had no business being there, so he needed them gone.
“I didn’t leave this place because of you. Hey,” you avoided eye-contact, so he grabbed hold of you by the face again where both your of your hands found his wrists. “Look at me. Look– I did not move out because of you, all right?”
Well, he did… but, it was nuanced. He moved out for the both of you. He had to be careful. He couldn’t say the wrong thing and ruin what already felt ruined enough.
You gave a tiny nod that he could feel more than he could see, and you looked so fucking sad, Joe couldn’t help but move in to try and kiss some of it from your face.
He hoped you believed him.
You were naked in a shower together, of which Joe was getting none of the stream, and you were trembling because of things Joe had said and done and all he could think to do was hold you.
So he did.
It was a terrible waste of water, but it felt so incredibly necessary for him to not pull back until you did. Let you take the lead. Curl an arm around your head, the other around your waist, and follow your pace.
Joe felt how you were trying to control your breathing, and, you were right. He wasn’t allowed to be the cause.
He was the reason why you were feeling the way you were feeling and he realised he had been, for a while, probably.
Joe pushed you.
Joe had been pushing you.
He shouldn’t have.
He shouldn’t have left and he shouldn’t have tried with all his might to keep you as close to him as you had been before and he shouldn’t have taken his jealousy out on you and he shouldn’t have repeatedly asked you to talk to him because look! Look what all of it had lead to?
Your lead.
Your time.
Your pace.
No more making you meet him halfway.
Joe was going to wait for you.
He would.
It didn’t fucking matter how long it was going to take you, or if you’d even get there at all. He was going to wait. If that meant actually befriending Josh like a normal person, then he was just going to have to befriend Josh like a normal person.
Joe held you close until your finger tips stopped digging into his skin so much, and then he softly said, “I’ll wait.”
That made you look up at him.
“I’ll wait for you. I can be patient.”
And, you frowned. Because what the fuck was Joe talking about.
“But…” you started, and you felt it then. You could feel whatever was inside of your chest collect every little speck of bravery it could find within your body. It pulled it from the muscles in your legs and from the bones in your arms. Found some hidden inside the beating of your heart and then some more in the humid shower air inside your lungs. And then, it said it.
“I’m right here.”
Joe blinked at you. Didn’t get it.
“I’m right– Joe, what do you mean, you’ll wait. Have we not been– is this not what we’ve been…” you furrowed your brow at how words seemed to escape you. All bravery gone.
Joe saw.
Heard what you were saying and, before you even fucking knew what was happening, Joe had both his arms around your waist and lifted you up, effectively pressing his face right into your tits as he scared the living daylights out of you because you were in the bath.
“Joe–” you shrieked, but were quickly shut up by his mouth that pressed to yours before your feet had even properly touched down again.
“I love you.” Joe squeezed it from his own mouth right into yours. Barely got the words out normal as he didn’t want to stop kissing. Didn’t want to break contact, lips and hands doing the most.
“Joe,” you laughed, giving his shoulders a light push before you felt something against your hip, and– oh.
“No, I’m sorry. Ignore that. I love you. Did you hear me? I love you. I said I love–”
“I love you too.”
Joe froze before he groaned with both eyes squeezed shut, and you looked down to see how hard that had made him.
“I love you too,” you repeated yourself and saw it jump, leaking already, and Jesus, that was quick. This was a fun game actually. Talking suddenly didn’t seem so bad.
“Hey, I love you. Did you hear me? I said I lovemmpf–” Joe got a hand over your mouth just for the sheer agony of what it was doing to him.
You took your shot and bit right into his fingers.
“Stop it, you’ve got to– you can’t–”
And, yea, you could actually. You shut Joe up with kisses of your own this time.
You were sharing your first shower together, and it felt sort of momentous.
It felt momentous because you’d shared words that had been stuck in the back of your throat for a while now.
It felt momentous because Joe just told you that he loved you.
It felt momentous because you said it right back and everything about it felt right.
It felt momentous because you were going to have loud shower sex and Josh was likely going to hear you and you actually didn’t care about it. You cared more about the pizza that was slowly defrosting on the kitchen counter which actually sounded like the perfect breakfast food, if you were being honest.
You and Joe were just flatmates, but not.
Were just close, but more.
Were in love. Had said the words now, for the other to hear with their ears, and wasn’t that a shocking turn of events after last night?
Joe couldn’t explain it if he tried.
Didn’t really want to either.
As long as you knew. As long as you understood.
And you did. The proof was in the pudding.
Something felt alive in Joe’s chest. And in yours too.
Maybe someday, they could meet.
Have a chat.
Talk things through.
Or not.
They could also just look at each other. Sit on the sofa. Curl into each other and eat pizza. Watch the first ten minutes of films before they’d doze off together. Make fun of plants that got overwatered in a desperate attempt to keep them alive because they were buddies with yours and Joe could never be responsible for the death of plants that had friends, were you joking?
They’d call you idiots.
And, yea you were.
But it was fine.
You were just close. In love. Together. And that didn’t need explaining. As long as you knew and understood, that was all that mattered.
You were all that mattered.
Your lead.
Your time.
Your pace.
Your love.
the end