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Much to Matt’s surprise, things are going a lot better than he thought they would. He wouldn’t ever admit it to Ryan, but since he first even suggested the idea of moving cities, there’s been this lurking pull in his gut that hasn’t seemed to want to go away. His apparent confidence in his spontaneous plan was feigned, but feigned well enough to fool Ryan. Or maybe Ryan knows how worried he’s been this whole time, but just hasn’t mentioned it. Matt isn’t sure if he should be thankful for that or not.
Regardless of how unsure of himself he was in the beginning though, Matt’s more than happy to realize that now, his stomach doesn’t feel so tied up and twisted with doubt anymore. It’s been just around a month since he and Ryan officially left, and the uncertainty has been gradually melting away since. Matt’s just learning to allow himself to be uncomfortable, but not scared of the feeling. Ryan being around definitely seems to help.
“Where did all my socks go?” Matt asks, walking into the living room of their apartment, though he’s sure Ryan could have heard him from the other room. It’s a small place. Matt still isn’t entirely used to this downsized way of living quite yet, but he can feel himself coming around. The more time he spends in their cramped one-bedroom, the more it feels closer to a home, no matter how small. And it also doesn’t hurt that he’s finally come around to sleeping in the same bed as Ryan, though it still makes his heart race just a little too much with the unfamiliarity of it. The couch was getting just a little too squished, and he does like being close to Ryan. It’s just another instance of learning to embrace something new rather than being put off by the foreignness of it.
Ryan looks up from where he’s fidgeting with his vape on the kitchen counter, refilling it or… something. Matt tries not to roll his eyes at the sight. As much as he really doesn’t like the thing, and Ryan’s obnoxious habit of using it even more, it was Ryan’s offer of a compromise to stop smoking so much. Matt isn’t sure if it’s working, and can’t really stand the smell of all the flavored vapor. But he appreciates, at the very least, that Ryan is making an effort, and just for Matt, too. He can let it slide for that reason alone.
“What do you mean?” Ryan asks in this tone that seems to convey he knows exactly what Matt means.
“There aren’t any in the dresser drawer.”
“Are you sure you’re looking in the right drawer? There’s still some stuff in boxes... or maybe they got put in the wrong place.”
Matt shakes his head, and takes to cocking his hip out to the side while he crosses his arms over his chest. Ryan never gives him any reason to not be suspicious of him.
“Are you sure you don’t know where they went?” Matt counters, and when Ryan begins to grin a little mischievously, he tries his best not to grin back. Sometimes when dealing with Ryan, it helps to be a little more stern instead of such a pushover all the time. But it’s hard to be so serious when he kind of just wants Ryan to kiss him so that they can stop all this pretend-arguing.
Ryan shrugs, but sets his vape down solidly, then places his hands so that they’re still and flat on the counter. “Okay, if I’m honest, I’ve been wearing your socks since last week.”
“Last week? What happened to your own socks?”
“I can’t find them! I don’t remember if I unpacked any or not, but they’re not anywhere that I checked.”
“That’s probably because you just threw all of your stuff in some boxes and only labelled like half of them.”
“What’s the point anyway if it’s all going to the same place?”
Matt rolls his eyes as his mouth falls open in a bit of disbelief, mildly frustrated that Ryan can’t see the irony in what he’s saying. He can’t find the energy to actually be mad, though, not really. If a shortage of socks is the worst problem they’ve run into since moving thus far, then Matt doesn’t think he can complain.
“I still don’t get where they’re going, though,” Matt digresses, “What do you do, throw them away when you’re done?”
Ryan ducks his head as he grins a little, apparently enjoying their banter a little more than Matt is. It must be because Ryan isn’t the one that has to spend what little money they have to go buy scratchy socks from the dollar store.
Ryan will often cover his face with his hands when he laughs, or lean away so that Matt can’t fully see his expression. Now, though, Ryan’s still smiling when he looks back up, and his features soften as he tucks a longer lock of hair behind his ear that had fallen in his face. Matt didn’t even get a definitive answer to his question or solve their stupid sock mystery at all, but he suddenly and completely feels the concern of it at all just fall right off of him.
There’s this feeling he gets in his chest, then, one that seems to feel like his heart is swelling with this happy, almost tangible feeling that just jolts through his limbs. It doesn’t happen often, and it’s only a few seconds of this strange little adrenaline rush of emotion. Every time Matt feels it, though, it’s when he’s looking at Ryan. He wonders if, even after being close with each other for this long now, he’ll ever feel brave enough to tell Ryan about it. For now, he keeps his mouth shut, because he’s afraid Ryan may think he’s stupid for loving the way Ryan smiles when they’re talking about socks.
“Look, if it’s really that big of a deal, I’ll get some on the way back from work tomorrow. Will that fuckin’ satisfy you, princess?” Ryan mocks, narrowing his eyes in a jeering way. Matt feels more endeared by the words than offended, if anything.
Matt rolls his eyes, and doesn’t respond, as if just to make it seem more like he actually still cares about this pointless argument. To make it seem like he was really listening to Ryan talk, instead of just fawning over the sight of him. It’s not all the time that Matt feels this clingy and full of a need to just be near Ryan, to soak in his laughter and his voice and him. But if it’s a sign that things really are going well for them right now, in this still shitty apartment with noisy AC and thin walls, then he doesn’t mind. He’ll take feeling embarrassed about his own emotions if it means that they’re managing to get by, just by being together.
--
Finding a job was one of the toughest parts about starting out in a new place. Matt had once briefly tried his hand at a secretary position for his father’s church back in Glendale when he was fresh out of college. He stupidly decided against it after just a couple weeks, though, realizing that the job wasn’t getting him quite as close to his father or to God as he wanted to be. He could scoff endlessly at the memory now. It’s bad enough that he actually valued the religion that was crippling him, and the father that was manipulating him. It’s worse now that after spending almost an entire month job-searching, Matt knows how naive he was to just throw a source of income away due to discomfort. He wishes he had that same option now.
With no experience and nothing close to an actual resume, Matt didn’t have a lot of luck finding work in the beginning. Ryan wasn’t ever exactly a top-performing employee at the tobacco shop, but he at least had a past employer for reference. He, almost too easily, picked up work at yet another tobacco store, the kind that sells pipes and bongs and too many things that Matt doesn’t like to think about. Matt absolutely blames Ryan’s co-workers there for getting him invested in the vape.
For one of the first real times in his life, Matt had to settle. When a job actually called him back and offered a position after weeks of looking, Matt didn’t hesitate to accept. He likes being able to bring something to the table that doesn’t come directly out of his trust fund. He likes not feeling useless and pathetic alone in the apartment while Ryan is off at work. He likes having a job. It just so happens that he can’t stand the actual job itself, and the way people tend to treat him.
Being a waiter at Olive Garden definitely wasn’t his first choice, but he can’t say he isn’t grateful for the opportunity at least. Ryan tells him that he’d never thought of Matt as the “waiter type,” but Matt isn’t sure how he’s supposed to take the comment.
Regardless of how he or Ryan feels about it though, Matt just can’t help thinking that after struggling just to get paid somewhere and anywhere, there isn’t room for complaint. He knows he’d immediately feel like such a child if he opened up to Ryan about it, too- if he admitted to being unhappy with his first actual job and cried to someone about it. Matt has decided that he shouldn’t be struggling with something like this. He’s not allowed to struggle with it, no matter how rude some of the customers can be sometimes, and how awful it is when they don’t even throw him a few pennies as a tip. When Ryan will ask how work has been, Matt just tells him everything is okay. Because once he gets into the swing of things, he’s sure that it’ll feel that way eventually.
Maybe the awful parts of his job wouldn’t stick out so much if it weren’t so obvious that Ryan is enjoying his own new place of work so much more than Matt. And even more so than the job itself, Ryan seems to be invested in his new coworkers, too. No matter how much Matt tries to avoid dwelling on any of it, it seems that he continues to encounter even more lessons on how it’s impossible to control where his thoughts wander. How he keeps letting that slip his mind is beyond him.
Matt is watching reruns of a game show he’s never seen before when Ryan comes home late in the evening. He tries his hardest to just continue to be mildly invested in the TV when Ryan walks through the door, to keep his eyes slightly strained and directed forward while Ryan drops his keys on the counter. Matt really makes the best effort he can to not care about what time Ryan is coming home at. Matt doesn’t want to be the kind of person that shoots down everyone else’s fun. And he, even more desperately so, doesn’t want to be the kind of boyfriend that has a problem with who Ryan spends his time with. He can’t stop thinking about Chris. He can’t and won’t be that person.
And yet, despite his efforts to remain unbothered, the question slips before he can help it. Matt feels like he kind of hates himself for it.
“Hey, where have you been?”
He hopes that his tone sounds more casual than confrontational, because the last thing he wants right now is one of his infamous arguments with Ryan. Fortunately, however, and Matt isn’t sure if he should be grateful for it or not, Ryan seems too drunk to really care about the way Matt asks a question.
“Jus’ out with Danny and them from work. I have off tomorrow so I decided to go with them to the bar.”
Matt nods, and suddenly feels more tired than he was before. His eyes are burning a little from sitting in front of the TV in the dark for so long, but the sensation is one of the last things on his mind right now.
It shouldn’t be a big deal at all for Ryan to have friends, to have a social life and to have things to do beyond watching old game shows with Matt late at night. And it isn’t a big deal, it’s not- but Matt still can’t stop repeating Ryan’s words endlessly in his head.
“That’s cool,” Matt responds, except his voice is quiet and the TV is still on and maybe he didn’t really want Ryan to hear him, anyway.
Maybe it’s not the act of staying out late itself that’s bothering Matt, but the friends that Ryan is choosing to spend his time with. Matt’s never met them, but he knows that they like to smoke and drink and do all the things that make Matt worry about Ryan. Ryan is independent and as “adult” as he’s probably going to get; Matt knows he can make his own decisions and take care of himself. So he’s not sure what he’s worried about, really. It could just be that it’s so late, and Matt would rather Ryan have friends that didn’t keep him up past midnight. It could also be that these are the same friends that got Ryan hooked on a vape, and Matt has just recently decided that he’s not past holding grudges.
“You coming to bed?” Ryan asks, and even though Matt will always sort of hate when Ryan is drunk, he doesn’t seem too incapacitated tonight. That question makes Matt’s stomach stir, too, at the idea of Ryan wanting to fall asleep next to him. Ryan spent his night out with other people, but he came home to Matt. The word “home” never fails to make Matt’s heart race, either.
“Yeah,” He mumbles, and turns off the TV with a lazy point of the remote at the screen. Matt stands from the couch, stretches, and suddenly feels just a bit stupid for being worried in the first place. He knows he trusts Ryan, or they wouldn’t be living together at all. Matt just has to remind himself of that fact more often than not.
After Matt’s clothes are changed, the lights are off, and Ryan is beside him, he expects the strange feeling he’s harboring to go away. It’s switched from this skulking, late-night weight in his gut to a floaty, unplaceable feeling in his head. His thoughts are all swimming around endlessly so that he’s kept up by his desire to try and sort out his thoughts, unable to close his eyes even with his head on the pillowcase. He’s tense. He doesn’t know why. He can’t help it.
“Hey,” Ryan mutters into the quiet, his voice bouncing just a little in the bedroom that’s still mostly empty since moving in. He shifts a little closer to Matt, too, and though Newell’s fall weather hasn’t exactly been all that cold thus far, Matt’s still drawn to the heat like a lost and neglected moth.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even drink that much, I swear.” Ryan says, apparently sensing that Matt’s upset. Although his words are more of a deepened murmur than clear, resounding phrases, Matt knows that it’s not due to the alcohol. He sometimes gets like this, talking with his voice all quiet and soft when he thinks he’s done something wrong. It’s, as far as Matt can tell, involuntary, and luckily for him, pretty cute, too. It almost always works in winning Matt back over, whether Ryan is ever really trying or not.
This time, though, Ryan isn’t even the problem.
The idea of Ryan wanting to be sure Matt isn’t upset with him is nice, and it makes Matt’s chest flutter sweetly, if only for a moment. He likes this. He likes being able to be close and comfortable with each other. He likes the feeling of things being okay between them. So Matt doesn’t want to mention that anything is bothering him, because even if he did, he wouldn’t be sure how to respond if Ryan asked what it was. It’s such a fleeting moment of strange and mildly confusing worry that Matt knows that it wasn’t that big of a deal. He’s tired, he just wanted Ryan home. He’s certain that it’s nothing serious.
“It’s okay,” Matt tells Ryan, and that must be all the reassurance his slightly intoxicated brain must need before he can successfully pass out. Ryan runs a warm hand down up and down Matt’s side a couple times, as though he’s just letting Matt know that he’s there. Within a few minutes, he’s fallen asleep. Matt tries his best to turn off his brain and do the same.
--
The next couple of days are better. Matt’s not struck with these distant bouts of overthinking anymore, but only because he’s so distracted by work that he forgets he was feeling strange at all. He doesn’t get much time to himself to think any about Ryan’s time spent at bars or the asshole-ish type guys he’s probably going with. Matt doesn’t have time to be jealous, or angry, or whatever this is. Any distraction is a good distraction, he figures, so he doesn’t even feel the need to complain about his job, either. It’s about time he sucked it up and stopped pretending he was the only one in the world with a problem.
Matt’s feet and ankles are aching with an incessant throb once he finally crashes on the couch back on the apartment at close to one in the morning. He hadn’t even realized how sore he was until he was given a chance to sit down for once since the early morning. The whole waiter thing is really starting to wear him down, especially when they have him pulling these double shifts. All Matt wants right now is to finally let his body relax, sink into the couch, and maybe stay up long enough to watch the first twenty minutes of some bad movie on TV with Ryan before falling asleep.
Except, he realizes once he’s a little less focused on his physical state, that Ryan isn’t anywhere to be found.
Matt expects to feel upset, or something- but he sort of just feels a little numb, a little helpless and dull as a realization just layers over him in waves. This is how it’s going to be, he thinks drearily, staring blankly with glassy eyes at a chip in the living room wall. This is how things are for them, now. Matt’s going to continue to feel worn out coming home after these 14 hour days. Ryan’s going to continue going out with people late at night to leave Matt with an empty and cold apartment. They’ll both keep up their routines that they’re developing in this new town, these habits that have them seeing each other less and feeling tired even more.
And with his feet still aching and his head still spinning, with Ryan gone, Matt feels like he’s the only one in this scenario that even cares about what’s happening to them.
As if on cue, Matt’s hears Ryan unlocking the front door behind him. It’s almost as though Ryan knew Matt was thinking about him, and heard all of his thoughts. He’s glad that isn’t the case, though.This way, Ryan doesn’t have to know how much he’s fretting, and Matt can appear to be held together without worrying Ryan at all.
“Hey baby,” Ryan says in a sort of sing song, voice jolting Matt out of his staring contest with the wall. Before he even makes a move to look at Ryan, Matt knows that something is off. It’s not as though he’s never said it before, and Matt doesn’t entirely hate the pet name, either. But Ryan only calls Matt baby when he’s excessively drunk, so Matt’s grown to have a sort of distaste for hearing it.
Matt turns his head to look at Ryan, but quickly soon after, he moves to stand from the couch entirely. His aching feet are now a distant thought that he can’t be bothered to focus on, a meaningless worry among an array of others. His throat feels all closed up and stuck with worry, and his heart is beginning to race. The last time Matt saw Ryan bleeding, he’d sort of hoped that it would be his last. Unfortunately, though, things just don’t always go the way he wants them to.
“Oh my god Ryan, what happened?” Matt asks, his voice panicked and shaking and shrill. He may be speaking a little too loudly for the hour it is at the complex, but he’s so stricken with this immediate concern that it definitely doesn’t cross his mind.
There’s a smeared blood trail from Ryan’s nose that looks as though it was haphazardly wiped away and dried maybe an hour ago. The split on his lip is still fresh, though, as if Ryan keeps forgetting it’s even there and reopening it again and again. Matt hates to think about it, but when Chris was around as a problem for them, he left Ryan looking worse. That thought doesn’t really register right now, though, because Ryan is bruised and wobbling in their tiny kitchen and Matt’s heart is sinking. It doesn’t matter the magnitude of it. Even if it were just a scratch, Matt still wouldn’t feel any less sick at the idea of Ryan getting hurt. He wouldn’t feel any less helpless, or scared.
Ryan seems to take a second to even hear Matt talking to him, or to realize that he’s supposed to react at all. And when he does slowly start processing Matt’s question, he just starts to smile, this awkward and crooked grin from one corner of his mouth. Matt wishes he could be angry at him for not taking this seriously. Matt wishes anger could replace this sick feeling in his stomach.
“You don’t even-,” Matt starts to say, but a spot of blood falls from Ryan’s still cracked lip and drips onto his shirt, so he stops himself. He realizes how drunk Ryan is, and knows that lecturing him or even trying to gain any information is pointless right now. His heart is still pounding but he tries at least focusing on the fact that Ryan is safe with him in the apartment now, not wandering the streets looking like this. Matt needs to hone in on the little victories before he can even think about reaching for any larger ones.
Ryan is still smiling at nothing as Matt takes him by the wrist and pulls him towards their bathroom to get him cleaned up. Once he plants Ryan in front of the sink, he doubles back to move around the apartment as quickly as he can, finding a washcloth packed away in a box and a cup of water for Ryan to sip from. He doesn’t bother talking once he’s back in the bathroom, or when he’s blotting the wet washcloth across Ryan’s skin, or when he’s coaxing him into drinking the water. Matt has this twisting and tense feeling in his gut, like his whole core is shrinking in on itself. The more he focuses on it though, and the more Matt thinks about how awful Ryan looks when he’s so impassive and dazed like he is, the worse he feels. So he just works on doing rather than exploring how he’s feeling, because it’s keeping him grounded for at least the time being.
It’s not as though Matt has encountered too many other instances of Ryan being intoxicated, so maybe his judgement is a little skewed. No matter how little he’s been exposed to drunk Ryan or any drunk people at all, though, he still knows that this is bad. This isn’t just a few drinks after work. It’s probably losing count at the bar with people who pushed him to keep going. Matt thinks and thinks, and a blink of a thought a little achingly stands out among a rush of others. He wonders if Ryan was drinking for a reason.
“It wasn’t even...” Ryan begins voicing a thought, but trails off as though he forgot what he was talking about. Matt doesn’t bother asking him to finish, because he’s almost sure he doesn’t really want to know. He keeps a hand on Ryan’s shoulder to keep him steadied, and keeps his eyes on the flush on Ryan’s cheeks as he sips at the water, as if hoping the color will soon give way to a less worrying shade.
Ryan keeps touching at the split in his lip, and Matt is trying his best to keep himself calm and not let his frustration get the better of him. If this turns into another one of their fights, he knows it’ll only make things worse.
With his fingertips still on his mouth, Ryan mumbles like a child, trying to explain himself with a story that Matt doesn’t even want to hear.
“It was these guys,” Ryan manages to say, then glances at the blood on his fingers during the pause. Matt decides then that the rest of his face is as clean as it’ll get, or more so settles on the fact that further fussing just isn’t worth the trouble. He tosses the washcloth into the sink, defeated. It’s a little stained, but there’s nothing he can do about it now.
With a sudden yet sluggish movement, Ryan goes for a fumbled grip on the bathroom countertop, his fingers making dubious purchase as he seemingly catches himself from toppling. Matt glances at him with a mix of worry, confusion, and question that overall just makes him feel heavy and tired. Ryan, however, hardly reacts as though his sense of balance was ever in question at all, and just continues on with his slurred recounting of the night.
“They were looking at me, I know they were. And I hate when people look at me like that.”
“Like what?” Matt can’t help but indulge him, albeit incredulously.
“I dunno, they just were- Dan said they had that look .” Ryan narrows his eyes, but Matt’s unsure if that’s an example of the expression in question or if he’s still just that drunk. It’s really hard to tell, but either way, Ryan did an awful job of elaborating and Matt doesn’t really care to pry any further.
He’s gathered that Ryan picked a fight with a stranger or two, and only decided they were worth the trouble because one of his new smoke shop friends goaded him into it.
He’s heard enough.
“Fine.” Matt says, because he doesn’t have the energy to say much else. After an exhausting day at work, he just wants this conversation and this night to be over with.
He all but pushes Ryan towards the bathroom door then, guiding him along like an overgrown child that can’t be bothered to pay attention. It’s a painfully long journey, the ten feet to the bedroom, but Ryan manages to make it without face-planting at all, so Matt is counting it as a very small success for the trainwreck of a night.
Ryan collapses onto their bed, just barely bothering with a sheet half-strewn over his waist. And then he mutters something that sounds like he’s calling Matt “baby” again. There’s something about that pet name that pushes Matt in the opposite direction of the bed for the time being. But it’s so much more than just a drunken mumble of a word Ryan may not remember saying.
Matt trudges back to the sofa, the place that’s growing to become his practiced place of self-pity. If he had to label it, though, he’d call it something else- so no one would worry. So that he could seem at least a little bit less pathetic. Matt is hardly one to be too proud to admit defeat; it’s more along the lines of being afraid that he’ll be called out for being upset, and shamed or talked down to because of it. He knows he left his father in another town, but the habit is still there. He continues to hold himself and his emotions back for fear of disappointing others.
For a moment, Matt reaches for the remote, but he steadies his hand in a hesitant hover above it before eventually just dropping it back down on the cushion beside him. His mind is already numb enough, he doesn’t need another awful TV show to dull it down even further. The decision leaves him in a quiet and still state, sat placed on a second-hand couch picked out from a garage sale, staring and stuck with himself.
He’s been trying to ignore it since Ryan stepped into the apartment tonight, but it’s hard to combat when he’s isolated with his thoughts like this. Matt feels almost sick with the dread that just digs into him and clutches to his whole body, this worry that won’t let him go. He knew that moving somewhere new would come with problems, but this feels like more than he bargained for.
Matt’s thinks about Ryan’s temper, how it’s already landed him in a fight not even a month into this new setting. He doesn’t think Ryan’s new friends are good for him, either, he’s decided. Matt’s still never met any of them, but he’s been listening to what Ryan says, and watching what he does. After this, he doesn’t feel like there’s any more chance for giving them the benefit of the doubt. Matt doesn’t want them to cause problems when all they tried to do by coming here was escape that kind of conflict. The very last thing they need is for Ryan’s temper to garner them another enemy that’s persistent in making their lives harder. Matt barely retains a shudder to think also about Ryan landing on the bad side of the Newell police as well.
But this isn’t doing any good. The more Matt slumps and just sits on these same thoughts that seem to rather be sitting on him, weighing him down, the worse he feels. He can at least, if anything, save his sulking and slight panic for the morning after he’s rested.
Matt convinces his body to stand again, his dragging feet taking him back towards the bedroom just a little ways away. When he nudges open the door, though, the sight he sees makes the bed seem so much further away than it actually is. It’s as if the world is doing all in its power to just keep Matt distanced, to keep his mind muddled, to keep him on edge so that he won’t feel any better.
Ryan is sprawled out over half of the bed, his shirt ridden up and his mouth parted in sleep. Matt has learned that Ryan is a relatively heavy sleeper on most nights, and he bets that his drunkenness won’t have helped much in that regard. He just doesn’t have the energy to try waking him, or to try half-heartedly shoving him over to one side.
There’s a sick feeling still in his gut, sticking to his insides, and it’s welling this pathetic urge to cry in his throat, as well. Matt just lets the feeling convince him that it’d be better if he just slept on the couch tonight.
Back in this emotional hole of a couch, Matt keeps his eyes open for longer than he should, given how tired he feels. He’s glued to the pilling cushions, staring with half-lidded eyes at a shape of yellow street light on the wall that’s sneaking in through the apartment window. He does end up having a few tears spill. They crawl over the tip of his nose and down his neck, as he lays there bunched and angled and all too sleepless.
He thinks about how this feels similar to when he’d sleep on the couch during their first few weeks of living together. He felt embarrassed to feel comfortable around Ryan, a backwards way of thinking. But this feels more backwards than ever. Matt knows how stupid it is, but it almost seems as though this one incident is somehow distancing him from Ryan. They’re losing progress, and it’ll only get worse from here.
It’s this passing thought that he doesn’t want to dwell on, the thought that he and Ryan are going to end up hating each other and splitting, and this whole thing will have been for nothing. The idea of having to trudge back home to his father, idiotic and helpless and defeated, makes the sick feeling in him seem to spread.
Matt so desperately just tells himself to go to sleep, this inward mantra in an attempt to shut off his brain for a single minute for some relief. He’ll talk it over with Ryan in the morning.
It’s not that big of a deal.
--
When the morning comes, and Matt awakes with a stiff neck from sleeping cramped on the couch, he doesn’t feel so brave anymore. Ryan is one of his first thoughts, just seconds after opening his eyes, and he feels even more like an idiot than he did the night before. His problems, or all the problems he thought he had, were just amplified by the pull of sleep and the heavy night. Nothing is really wrong, and he knows for sure that if he brings anything up to Ryan about how he thought he was feeling, he’ll just create something out of nothing. Matt really doesn’t want that. He just wants everything to go as smoothly as he’d hoped it would before they moved.
The first word that Matt hears out of Ryan the next morning is a simple and disgruntled, “Fuck.” Matt hasn’t ever experienced a proper hangover before, but he knows that after just a few drinks of his own, he didn’t exactly feel energized the day after. He can only imagine how awful Ryan is feeling. Although, part of him doesn’t feel all that sympathetic this time around. If Ryan doesn’t want the side effects of drinking, then he just should just drop the habit completely. It’s his fault that he’s feeling this way, after all. He of course, though, doesn’t voice his thoughts to Ryan. Matt doesn’t need to be the lecturer.
Matt offers a sort of half smile from their dining table to Ryan who’s emerging from the bedroom. He doesn’t know what else to say. There’s this discomfort swimming in his gut, and he feels like he’s dangling above a pit of spikes. If he lets go of his opinions on Ryan’s drinking, or absolutely any of the circling, ridiculous thoughts he’d had the night before, then he knows what he’s in for. Matt has realized, especially after now living with him and being able to call him his boyfriend, that the best way to avoid an argument with Ryan is to just keep his mouth shut in the first place. He’s doing them both a favor, really.
Ryan moves towards a cabinet, and after groggily reaching for a cereal box, he asks with a hand in his hair, “So how bad was I last night?”
Matt feels instantly frustrated at the question, thinking that Ryan should already have somewhat of an idea by now. But he doesn’t want to fight, so he offers an answer to remain compliant.
“I could barely understand what you were saying half the time.” Matt says stonily. He has this hope that his clear disinterest in the subject and his disappointment in Ryan will make Ryan realize what he did wrong. Matt’s hope doesn’t get him very far, though, as Ryan goes as far as to crack a grin at Matt’s response.
“Really? That’s pretty bad.”
“It’s not funny.” Matt shoots back, unable to stop the coldness that seeps into his voice. “I was really worried about you. Especially since you came home bleeding and barely able to walk.”
“I’m sorry,” Ryan says, and stops what he’s doing to turn and look at Matt with these slightly bleary eyes that would, on a typical day, usually make Matt forgive him in an instant. Because it’s apparent that his apology is sincere, and that he’s a little too hungover for an impending argument of this caliber right now. Matt doesn’t feel like dropping it, though. He doesn’t want to just say that it’s fine and move on. He stares at the split that’s scabbed over on Ryan’s lip, and he still doesn’t want to fight. It’s as though he can’t stop his thoughts from getting out, though. There’s no way to avoid this.
“I really don’t want things to be like they were in Glendale.” Matt says, and turns to place his head in his hands. Looking at Ryan is just frustrating him more.
“I don’t… What do you mean?” Ryan asks, and Matt winces a little at the hurt that’s creeping into Ryan’s voice.
Matt shakes his head, and keeps his eyes trained on the dining table, looking over the secondhand scrapes carved all in it, and the cheap wood finishing that’s fading away.
“I don’t want you to get into trouble.” Matt says, and realizes a second later how much he sounds like one of his parents. “I just mean with the fights and the drinking. I don’t want you to be involved with the police again.”
There’s silence, and Matt doesn’t bother looking up while Ryan still stands leaned over the counter. He does look up, however, when Ryan finally responds with a muttered statement of, “It was just one night.”
“Really, Ryan?”
“What? What do you want me to say? It’s not like I broke into someone’s house or actually committed a crime. I was fucked up, but it wasn’t that bad.”
“It wasn’t that bad this time, but what if it gets worse? What if you keep going out with your horrible friends and doing stupid things until you get the cops called on you?”
Matt’s beginning to seethe, but even through his aggravation, he can taste the bitterness of a withheld truth that he doesn’t want to acknowledge in all of this. He thinks Ryan could find better friends that don’t encourage his reckless behaviors. He thinks Ryan could spend a little more time with people that are a better influence on him. But it might all be stemming from a place in the back of Matt’s mind where he just wishes, above all else, that Ryan was spending a little more time with him.
He’d never really considered himself to be the jealous type, but Matt isn’t sure what else would be fitting to call this. Matt thinks that he trusts Ryan enough to not cheat on him, especially with his history with Chris. But, when he thinks about it - and he finds that he really tries not to - in comparison to these new friends of Ryan, Matt doesn’t stand a chance. Matt doesn’t smoke or go out to bars or even really drink. These guys have so much more in common with Ryan, and it’s clear that lately, Ryan prefers spending time with them because of it. Compared to them, Matt may as well just be a stranger that Ryan isn’t worth knowing.
Matt really doesn’t want Ryan to leave him behind for people that are clearly better than him, but if he really wants Ryan to be happy, he thinks sometimes that it’d be the best option for him.
“‘Horrible friends?’ You don’t even know them, Matt. You’ve never fucking met them.” Ryan says defensively, and it stings how quickly his tone jumps from remorseful to clearly irritated.
“I don’t think I want to meet them at this point. You spend more time around them than with me, anyway, so we can just keep it that way. If you come home hurt again, though, I’m not going to help you anymore.”
That’s a lie, and Matt’s stomach feels like it’s caving in on itself with the insincerity of it. Ryan must know it’s a lie, too, but he doesn’t look any less pissed off.
“You’re jealous? Really? That’s what this is about? You’re never going to stop being so childish, are you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Matt asks, eyes narrowed and heart thudding in his chest. His voice trembles with anger and fear.
Ryan brings his hands to his face to scrub at his eyes, and he laughs even though nothing is funny. He laughs like he can’t believe he has to put up with Matt’s bullshit, and Matt hates it. He hates the look on Ryan’s face, but hates even more that he knows he’s the cause of it.
“You know what it means, Matt. I’m not going to spell it out for you. I didn’t know that you were really still so judgemental, and that you still always just expect things to go the way you want them to.”
Gravity suddenly feels stronger, and it’s keeping Matt tied down to this dining room chair he’s sitting stiff in. He kind of wants to move, kind of wants to get up and kiss Ryan or hold his hand and explain himself, so that this stupid discussion will be over. But the gravity holds him in, and his stomach is filled with a heaviness that’s similar to the lead he feels in his legs. He’s sinking deeper into the trouble that he made for himself, and drowning in it.
Ryan stares at Matt a little longer, and he looks as though he’s trying to decide if he should say anything else or not. Matt would love to tell him that he doesn’t need any more convincing that he’s made a mistake by saying anything at all, but he keeps his mouth shut. Fortunately, Ryan does the same as well.
“There’s a new pack of socks in the dresser.” Ryan says with a shake of his head. He then reaches for his keys on the counter and turns to head toward the door. Before Matt can get the words to tell Ryan to wait up unstuck from his throat, Ryan is gone with a slam of the door. And he really doesn’t like this sinking realization that things only seem to keep getting worse and worse.
--
It’s snuck up on him slowly. Matt knows that he isn’t one for confrontation. When he first realized the ache of fear, that something that was so nearly tangible, that prickled under his skin and settled in his blood, he didn’t want to feel it. So he pretended that he didn’t. But the more he’s tried ignoring it, it seems, and avoiding acknowledging that something is wrong, the more it’s been allowed to simmer and fester and grow. Now, Matt feels just like a fish out of water, suffocating himself. He’s inviting misery in for company as he pushes Ryan away, and feeling so claustrophobic in an apartment that’s still mostly barren.
Matt worries all day at work after the fight, unable to keep his head straight. He makes mistake after mistake, dropping food, miscounting change, forgetting orders. Most days, he’d really let the awful work day affect him and ruin his mood. Today, though, after an argument with Ryan that wasn’t even that bad, but was stinging enough and so past due, Matt can hardly focus on his job. Instead, his mind is mixed up in other things. Everything.
The doubt is what really drags him down the most. He wonders if he’s made the right decision in coming out here to live on his own with someone that he can’t help but fight with. He doesn’t like his job, he’s jealous of his boyfriend’s friends, and Ryan’s coming home from bar fights. It all makes him feel sick. On top of it, Matt doesn’t know his way around this town, and can’t seem to get comfortable with the fact that this is all so new to him. There’s a sense of homesickness that keeps inching into his thoughts and creeping up on him, but Matt would hate to ever realize it as a valid emotion. Knowing that he’s actually missing the place where he felt so trapped would only push him over the edge of having some sort of break down. It’d feel like losing. It’d feel like his parents were right, and it’d feel like just another one of the countless times that Matt didn’t know what he was doing, and let someone, including himself, down.
Somehow, distantly, Matt feels like he should try praying to make things better.
Matt’s mother always told him that hate was too strong of a word, and that he should substitute the phrase “strongly dislike” instead. Matt dislikes how different things are. Matt doesn’t like the loneliness that seems to wrap around him as soon as he enters the apartment. Matt really doesn’t like how little he sees the one person he kind of needs to stay sane during this kind of change. It’s been almost a month of things only seeming to continuously go downhill. At this point, Matt thinks that it’s safe to say that he just really hates this place. But maybe he’s frustrated with himself most of all for ever bringing himself and Ryan here.
Between running food and trying his hardest to keep a clear head, Matt can’t help but let himself wonder if there really is a future here for Ryan and himself at all. Did he really screw up this badly? Did he throw away familiarity and stability just for some boy?
Nothing is as good as he was expecting it to be. Nothing is as good as he was continuously telling himself it was. Matt’s unsure at this point if he just let himself believe the lie that everything was okay for as long as they’ve lived here, or if this awfulness is a new occurrence that he just hasn’t bothered to focus on enough yet. At this point, Matt doesn’t think he can tell the illusion from the biting reality anymore. The harmless fantasy he’d tried placing himself in is where everything goes right, but it seems as though that everything in the life that he’s living right now just keeps going wrong.
He doesn’t want to be wrong. He switches back and forth between reassuring himself and chastising himself for being so naive. Are things really working out to be this bad, or is it just him? Are Ryan’s friends really so terrible, or is it just him? Is this waiting job so hard, or is it just him?
Was this move ever destined to be a good idea, or was it just him, and his beyond idiotic ideas?
Matt really tries not to cry at work, but he has a few close calls at work. He used up all of the napkins in his apron by only halfway through his shift, and he had to make a hasty break for the dry storage closet multiple times. Crying won’t help anything, he knows it. It’ll just give him bloodshot eyes and a whole load of self pity that will only make him feel even more incapable.
But by the end of the day, after being unable to shake this feeling that he’s really ruining everything, it seems like it’s unable to avoid. Matt has tears in his eyes again before he can even make it up the steps of the apartment complex, so he just decides to sit there and wait out his embarrassing emotions. He feels like if he walked through the door already crying, Ryan, who Matt suspects is already laying around on the couch drunk in the early evening, that it would just make things worse. Ryan would be frustrated with him before they even said any words to each other.
Matt told himself he’d do less of this crying thing once they moved, but it doesn’t seem like that’s how it’s working out. He hasn’t been upset like this since that day he admitted everything to Ryan, and even then, those tears could almost be considered courageous. Matt stood in front of his dad and told him things he never thought he’d say. Matt confronted Ryan, and admitted to him that he felt things he never thought he would feel. He was bold, and he felt, for one of the few times in his life, like he was doing something worthwhile, something that made him stronger.
While sitting alone and feeling sorry for himself, Matt knows that these tears aren’t due to courage or strength or anything he ever pretended he had. Right now, Matt just feels like a lonely loser who can’t seem to get anything right.
The stars blink into the darkening sky one by one, and before Matt knows it, his watch tells him he’s been outside for nearly an hour. He bets that by now, Ryan has passed out somewhere around the apartment, and they won’t have to deal with anything they said until at least the next morning. He thinks he should go back inside now, since his tailbone is numb and his tears have long since stopped. But for the past forty-five minutes, Matt has grown to somewhat like this spot on the concrete stairs. He likes being able to pretend for right now that he’s able to shut everything that’s bothering him away.
“What are you doing out here?” Matt hears a voice ask, that smooth tone that can make him melt and smile and have his heart fluttering all at the same time. Right now, though, it’s just making him feel sick to his stomach.
Matt looks behind him, craning his neck to peer over his shoulder at Ryan, who’s just standing at the top of the stairs and looking down at Matt’s pathetic stance. He doesn’t sound drunk, not at all. Some part of him, a small, insignificant part that Matt can easily push away, almost wishes that Ryan was drunk. Then he wouldn’t have to properly face him.
Ryan begins descending the steps before Matt ever offers a shrug as a response, shaking his head like he wishes he knew the answer himself. And then Ryan’s sitting beside him, and Matt’s felt that it was a little chilly out, but it feels so much colder when he can feel the heat of Ryan finally next to him after thinking only of him for an entire agonizing day.
“I was kind of worried that you didn’t come home around your usual time.” Ryan admits. Matt feels his chest start to swell and his blood start to rush at the word “home.” Their home- it’s theirs together.
“I thought you’d be asleep by now.” Matt says, as if that’s a fair excuse for causing Ryan any worry.
“Asleep at 6:30?”
“I don’t know, like maybe you’d been drinking and just passed out."
Ryan shakes his head. “I didn’t want to drink at all, not tonight. The guys from work asked me out, too, but I figured we should talk before I did anymore stupid shit. I know I do that a lot.”
Matt tries not to react to that statement, because even if it does seem like Ryan makes a fair amount of mistakes, Matt knows Ryan could easily say the same, or worse, about him.
“Plus, I definitely can’t sleep when I know you’re mad at me.”
What Matt wants to say is, no, I’m not mad, I couldn’t be as upset with you as I’m upset with myself for feeling like this. He wants to tell Ryan that through all this, Ryan hardly did anything wrong, save for a few knee-jerk reactions that were only due to Matt’s own complaints. Matt doesn’t want Ryan to feel like he’s in trouble, or like he’s not allowed to live his own life just because Matt doesn’t always know how to take care of himself or use his words until it’s too late.
None of that seems to come out, though. In fact, Matt can hardly even pick apart any of the thoughts well enough to piece together a cohesive sentence he could say. All that comes out is this pitiful choke of something that sounds like a mix of a laugh and a sob. It’s as though Matt’s laughing at himself for being so ridiculous and for feeling this way. And then he’s crying in front of Ryan again, the way he always seems to end up. And he hates it.
The warm touch of Ryan’s hand that gently comes to grip Matt’s own feels like the softest and simplest of reassurances. It’s all that Matt has been longing for all day, this closeness that he felt he was single-handedly distancing himself from by his own stupidity. Matt looks up with his eyes watery, and the moon is low and huge and yellow in the sky. There’s a jingle of a collared cat rummaging in the bushes nearby, and the murmur of voices sounding from the neighboring apartments. As Ryan’s just there holding his hand, and Matt’s allowing himself the time to settle down and feel alright again, he feels like he’s really hearing the world again. It’s less hectic and loud, less like all his thoughts are tugging on different parts of him and warning him of how he messed up. It’s easy and sweet, and Matt is reminded of the summer.
Matt thinks about how, even when things weren’t too great overall, any time he spent with Ryan in Glendale felt right. He thinks about what made him come to this place at all.
With a look over at Ryan, who’s smiling softly as an opposition to his usual “tough guy” act, Matt doesn’t feel so doubtful anymore. He knows he never really forgot why he came here, he just lost sight of it. It’s not this cheap apartment, or the confusing town, or the taxing job, or any of that stuff that gave Matt the idea to leave. It’s Ryan that’s the place for him to be.
“I’m sorry for making things harder on you. That’s not why I-,” Matt tries to get out between resigned sniffles, but he stops himself. There’s a squeeze of Ryan’s hand in his own that lets him know he can take his time.
“I don’t hate your friends. Because you’re right, I don’t know them. I guess I just got worried that you’d get mixed up into things or with people that you shouldn’t, and things would just get bad again. And I was afraid that you’d realize, after being around them so much, that I’m not like them. And you’d start to see how unalike we are, and want to be around them more.”
“Dude,” Ryan says, and Matt manages a glance away from the sky for a minute when Ryan’s free hand comes to rest on Matt’s knee, “The reason I like you so much is because you aren’t like me.”
Matt looks down at his shoes, as if he’ll feel a little less confused by Ryan’s words that way. “What do you mean?” He asks, trying not to sound as hurt as it seems he should feel by that statement. This whole time, Matt was frustrated with himself for not being interesting enough for Ryan, for not being similar enough to him, for being too boring. He doesn’t get how Ryan could like him for that; it just doesn’t make sense.
“Chris was too much like me, and that obviously didn’t work out. You’re… you care about things. You think about what you’re going to say before you say it. You worry about how other people are feeling. I like how sweet you are and the way that you think about things.”
“The way I… think about things?” Matt says questioningly, unable to fully grasp what Ryan means.
“I don’t know, you… you don’t just always think about yourself. Danny and Ross from work, they do. At the end of the day, if I don’t want to go out with them, they tell me I’m ruining their night because I want to go home to you instead.” Ryan rolls his eyes for emphasis, and Matt’s really starting to feel even more like an idiot for ever wanting to be like them.
“But you don’t do that, you care about people. Even when your dad was at his worst and trying to keep us apart, you didn’t totally defy him because you didn’t want to hurt him or split up your family. I know you might think that’s nothing special, but you’re… I don’t know. You’re the kind of person that I wish everyone could be. I’m just glad that you like me back.”
Matt can’t find anything useful to respond with, just because he can’t sift through all the different thoughts he has. He feels compelled to apologize again, and to try and explain his side of the story, why he was acting so hostile. Matt also feels the unfortunately familiar urge to cry creeping into his throat, but he tries not to be so frustrated with himself just for feeling for once. Instead, Matt rather holds onto one of the emotions that’s running through him instead of pushing it all away the way he’s recently grown accustomed to. He doesn’t like trying to be someone different around Ryan, especially if that’s not who Ryan wants him to be, either.
It’s not often that Matt will initiate most shows of affection or even contact between he and Ryan, if only for the fact that he’s still so inexperienced in a world dictated by his own heart. But when he does make an effort to show Ryan how he feels, he makes sure that it’s special. Matt wants to always let Ryan know that he means it.
Trying his best to ignore the thundering of his heart that still doesn’t manage to slow around Ryan in times like these, Matt leans in towards his boyfriend. He doesn’t let himself focus on any thoughts of wondering if he’s going too slow or if he’s doing it all wrong, because regardless, Ryan likes him for him. If the inexperienced and slightly embarrassing church boy is what he fell for, then that’s what he’s going to get. Ryan seems to let him take his time, too, leaving the otherwise overzealous side of himself behind for a little bit as he allows Matt the control he needs.
If he’s honest, Matt’s never been too impressed by the act of kissing itself. The feeling is still kind of weird and he’s always been kind of afraid that he might accidentally bite Ryan’s lip off. The intimacy of it is what reels him in, though. It’s what keeps him close when Ryan has a hand on his cheek and a smile that Matt can feel through the kiss. Matt loves being able to be close to him, and loves for it to feel so right. He doesn’t know how he ever questioned if the move to Newell was the right decision when it brings him feelings like this.
Matt kisses Ryan slowly and gently, and allows himself to linger there for longer than he might usually. He’s pushing all the doubt and unease out and letting it just drain away. Ryan never fails to make Matt feel like he belongs.
“Thank you for listening to me.” Matt says to Ryan after they part, quiet and sincere. He’s acutely aware of his need to let Ryan know how much just a simple conversation like this means to him.
“I’ll always listen to you.” Ryan responds, and the words are so quick to come out, so genuine and sweet despite their simplicity.
It’s still a little chilly outside in the night’s air, but Matt can feel his own cheeks and the bridge of his nose burning up beyond belief. And despite the slight embarrassment, Matt feels like he could kiss Ryan on the concrete of their complex’s stairwell until the sun comes up.