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If Andrew is honest with himself, he knew from the very start that Steven Lim would break his heart.
It was too much, too fast and he was in love before he could convince himself not to be, before his more rational self could purport that Steven had a girlfriend, that he was probably totally straight, that he wouldn’t want to deal with Andrew’s mood swings and his sarcastic exterior.
But Steven’s hand is warm and grounding where it rests on Andrew’s shoulder between restaurants and his voice becomes the soundtrack to their 2 am editing sessions. The bright sound of Steven’s laughter bleeds over into his dreams and so what if Andrew has a personal mission to be the cause of his stupid sunshine smile at least once a day? That’s a perfectly friendly goal to have.
(Andrew’s always had a bit of a penchant for self-destruction.)
-
The problem is that Steven flirts with him.
Andrew doesn’t like to sound narcissistic, but he’s no stranger to being flirted with. Buzzfeed is a breeding ground for inter-office relationships and hookups, but he has a notorious track record of not indulging any of the people who perch themselves on the edge of his desk and inquire about his weekend plans.
Steven is the exception to a lot of his rules.
Steven swings his legs and inevitably leaves scuff marks along the bottom drawer of Andrew’s desk. Steals all of his good blue pens and brings iced mochas with the perfect amount of milk and says I like that shirt, you look nice in purple. Talks and talks and talks and digs his foot gently into Andrew’s side when he looks away for too long, when he pretends to not be paying attention.
(It’s just that looking up at Steven is like staring into the sun, that’s all.)
He drives Steven to the airport. It’s the very last thing he wants to be doing, but Steven had asked him
(in a text, it feels like they only ever talk over text these days)
and so he’d gotten into his car just as the sun was rising. They sit in traffic on the 405 and he can’t stop himself from looking right, from staring at Steven’s profile until someone starts blaring their horn at him to move.
-
Before he can start a speech that he’s yet to compose, Steven is in his arms. It’s sudden and overwheming and they’ve hugged hundreds of times by now, and Andrew can’t decide if it feels more like the first or the last. He presses up on his tiptoes, lets Steven hold them steady, lets the whole thing go on far longer than it should. He’s so tired of denying himself the things he wants.
“Don’t go.” The words tear themselves out of his heart so quietly that he doubts Steven even heard him.
“You can’t say that now. It’s not fair.”
Thousands of travelers bend around them, obliviously to the sound of Andrew’s heart breaking. A storm created by his own cowardice - he deserves to weather it alone.
“I know. I know.” He hates the way his voices cracks, hates that he knows Steven is crying too. Hates that he put those tears there because he didn’t know how to be brave.
Steven falls asleep on his shoulder on a plane somewhere over the Pacific, and that's really the beginning of the end for Andrew.
He’s lost track of how many hours they’ve been in the air. It’s a grueling, 14-hour haul that he’s guaranteed to not sleep a lick of, if previous experience is anything to go by. Steven, on the other hand, drops off pretty much the moment the seatbelt sign goes dark, leaving Andrew to channel surf and dwell alone on this wild turn their lives have taken.
He’s half-watching an old episode of The Office and half-thinking about whether or not he packed enough socks for this trip when there’s a sudden, warm weight against his shoulder.
Steven’s head is tilted at an angle that can’t possibly be comfortable for him, except that he’s still relaxed and breathing deeply in sleep. On pure instinct, Andrew glances around the plane in search of any cameras that might be trained on them. It’s a newfound reflex to the particular corner of internet fame they’ve been slotted into over the last few months, one where people sometimes recognize him in public and always seem to have their phones open to the camera app when they do.
But of course there’s none of that here, they’re catapulting in a tin can through the formless Pacific night and so Andrew shimmies down in his seat until Steven’s neck looks anatomically correct again. Steven stirs at the movement but just nuzzles his face into the soft material of Andrew’s travel hoodie before settling down again.
The plane emerges from a dense patch of cloud, revealing the sky just barely beginning to lighten where it touches the curve of the earth. The sitcom laugh track bursts bright and tinny and suddenly too loud through the one earbud he has in. Steven’s deep exhales warm the skin of his neck, too close and too comfortable and they’re on their way to the other side of the fucking planet to eat food on the company’s dime and so Andrew really doesn’t have time to have a crisis right now.
He presses random buttons on the little airplane remote until the laugh track is mercifully replaced by some elevator music and the screen shows the world map, their little plane blinking in and out of existence over the ocean. Nine hours and twelve minutes to go.
Okay, maybe he has some time.
He flexes the fingers of his left hand, trying to get some blood flowing back into his already deadened limb. He doesn't have feelings for Steven. He doesn't. It's just that he can't eat oranges anymore because the smell reminds him of Steven's shampoo, of the way he always catches a whiff of it when he bumps their shoulders together. It's just that he tends to glance to his left when someone cracks a joke in a meeting so that he doesn't miss Steven's stupid sunshine smile.
It's just that in New York a few weeks ago, he'd woken up in the same hotel room as Steven for the first time. Had seen him in his glasses and a stretched-out sleep shirt with his hair sticking up in every direction and had thought, oh.
Hence the crisis.
He just has to make it through Korea. Then there'll be a break from filming and he can quarantine himself away at his desk to edit and get his feelings under control. He's suddenly very grateful that they never got around to relocating their desks to the same block in the office.
Outside the tiny plane window, the sun finally rises up to meet them. In a matter of minutes, the sky is transformed from near-darkness to an array of pastels, pink and orange and blue. It's exactly the sort of sky that Steven would stop in the middle of the sidewalk to stare up at. He’d take out his phone to snap a hundred photos, a tourist in the middle of his own city.
Andrew has a fleeting idea to take the picture for him, to lean back and hold the phone close to his own body in order to capture Steven's sleeping profile as well as the view. Encapsulate this memory in the particular brand of aesthetic bullshit that Steven is just dying to fill his Instagram with.
Andrew doesn't think about how he could just save the photo for himself instead. He doesn't.
"Hey. Wake up," he says to the delicate spikes of Steven's hair instead. He’s so close that it results an assault of orange, but then again he's always been a bit of a masochist. He wraps the fingers of his free hand around Steven's wrist, squeezing gently.
Steven stirs at the touch, letting out some sort of sleepy murmur that is absolutely not at all cute. "Are we there yet?" He mumbles, still not removing his face from the fabric of Andrew's hoodie.
"No." Andrew nudges his knee into Steven's thigh, pressing it towards the window. "But look."
Steven finally blinks open his eyes and sits up a bit. Andrew lets go of his wrist as quickly as though he'd been burned.
Steven sighs deeply, mindlessly pushing at his hair where it's been matted down by his sleeping position. He leans back in his seat, letting out a soft hum. "'S pretty. Bright, though," he says, turning his head to face Andrew again, still looking soft and sleepy and smiling his stupid sunshine smile, because Steven's the only person in the universe who wouldn't get angry about being woken up just to see the sunrise.
As casually as if it had always been this way between them, Steven drops his head back down onto Andrew's shoulder. "You're a very bony pillow," he says, even as he proceeds to make himself more comfortable there.
It makes Andrew's heart do something complicated, to have Steven make a home against his body so easily.
"Maybe you've just got a bony head." It's a weak and incredibly delayed retort, but it's about the best he can do with his heart beating in his throat.
"Mmmmm. Can you wake me up when they bring breakfast around?"
Andrew reaches past him, pulls the shade down against the brightness. Rest is important.
"Sure."
-
Steven is in his element in Korea. Even between playing host to David and Evan, his natural energy shines in a way that Andrew knows will play well on camera. Andrew backs off and lets Steven do most of the talking at the first BBQ place, nodding along at the right moments and purposefully keeping space between their bodies on the long bench.
By the time they're in the car to the second location, Andrew feels like he can finally breathe a little. He'd been too jet-lagged this morning to continue his crisis despite waking up to Steven waving a cup of coffee under his nose, glasses and wayward silver spikes and all. They film the BBQ fact and the intro for the moderately-priced location and everything is fine, of course it is, why wouldn't it be? He had a momentary lapse in judgement on the plane, that's all.
They're nearly finished with the meal. Andrew's busy minding his own business and slurping up a bowl of cold noodles, thinking that most of this postlude won't make it into the episode anyway, when Steven's hand comes down on his shoulder, startling him. It's gone as quickly as it came, lost to whatever Steven's saying to David about the noodles, but his skin burns where Steven's thumb had caught under the collar of his shirt.
It's fine.
At the final place, they drink a deep Cabernet and David's not there anymore to serve as a distraction and Steven's always been a bit of a lightweight. He leans fully into Andrew's side and drapes an arm across his shoulders, leaves it there for far too long. Andrew’s grateful that he's never been the type of guy to wear his emotions plainly on his face.
So he's back to having a crisis.
-
The problems really start with Australia. With the stupid plane and stupid Steven asleep on his shoulder again and stupid shared hotel rooms in an attempt to stay under the stupid budget.
It's a long trip, they’re planning on filming three full episodes in what feels like a hundred different locations and the whole thing still feels like some sort of weird fever dream to Andrew. He says as much to Steven near the beginning of the trip, drunk on shellfish and the smell of sea, sprawled out upside-down and diagonally across one of the beds in their hotel room.
“Do you ever feel like we’re living in some sort of weird fever dream?”
Steven is sorting through all of his jackets that he’s hung up in the closet, probably trying to decide which one will look best on camera with the single plain navy blue one Andrew had brought to Australia.
“Hm? Yeah, I mean, sure. I guess it is kind of wild that we got this whole season approved, huh? With all the travel. And then Japan, too? That’s gonna be crazy, what’s the weather like this time of year, have you looked yet?” He’s already turned back to his jackets.
Andrew has no idea what the weather is like in Japan at any time of the year, let alone next month when they’ll be there. Thinking about going to Japan with Steven at all makes his head spin.
“Earth to Andrew, hello? I asked you a question, man.” Steven is hovering above him, upside-down with his hair flopping into his eyes and about seven chins from this angle and Andrew still has to close his eyes against the sight. Too much.
“Sorry, what?”
“Are you okay? I asked what shirt you were planning on wearing tomorrow, I don’t know which jacket I should wear for the shoot.”
-
They’re in New York again. It’s fitting, that it should all end in the same place that it began.
In another life, Andrew falls asleep quickly under the stiff hotel duvet. In another life, the sirens and the jet lag and his endless looping thoughts don’t keep him awake. He doesn’t lie there, listening to Steven tossing and turning and knowing that Steven’s doing the same to him.
In this life, he sees Steven’s shadow reach for the bedside table, where both their phones lay charging. The blue glow illuminates the room a moment later, and Andrew closes his eyes so that he doesn’t have to look at Steven’s face. He hears the buzz of his own phone against the wooden table.
i have to tell you something
andrew
i know you’re awake
Andrew sighs, loudly enough that Steven jumps and locks his phone. “I’m right here, Steven. What do you need to tell me?”
please. it’s easier like this
Fine. What is it?
i know you’re mad at me
I’m not mad.
you are. i waited so long to tell you because i didn’t want to make it worse
Tell me what? You’re freaking me out.
The three little dots appear and disappear about ten times in quick succession before finally staying on the screen. Andrew sighs again and locks his phone, dropping it down onto his chest. He loses count of how many sirens go by their window while Steven is typing, grows more frustrated with each flash of red and blue.
“C’mon Steven, are you writing me a text or a bedtime story over there?” Andrew says, throwing off the duvet and sitting up to face Steven.
Steven glances over at him in the semi-darkness before tapping his screen one final time. Andrew’s phone buzzes in his lap.
i got offered a promotion. here, in nyc. a move into business and production management, like i always talked about. idk what to do, drew. i’ve been stalling for weeks. they want me to come into the office before we go back to la tomorrow and make a final decision. i know i should’ve told you sooner, bc it involves you. in so many ways. i’m sorry.
“What?” Andrew says into the darkness, phone still grasped loosely in his hands. His voice sounds too loud to his own ears. The whole universe feels like it’s tilting underneath him. “You’re moving to New York?”
Steven sits up and turns on the bedside lamp, far too bright but Andrew kind of likes the way it burns his eyes right now. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know yet. I don’t know anything right now.” Before Andrew can react, Steven closes the carpeted gap between them and crowds into his space, straddling his lap. Andrew’s hands move of their own accord to Steven’s waist, grounding them both there.
Steven brings a hand to cup Andrew’s cheek, looking wild and a little desperate and Andrew will definitely hate himself later for the way he flinches away from the touch. Steven recoils immediately as well, leaning back so far that he’d probably topple of the bed if it wasn’t for Andew’s hands steadying him.
He feels like he’s been part of some fucked-up long con, one where he’s been forced to walk along a rocky cliff face for months only to have Steven push him off the edge the moment solid ground is in sight.
“Andrew. Please look at me.”
He can’t.
“Get off me, Steven.” He practically dumps Steven out of his lap, none-too-gently pushing at his body until there’s no more points of contact between them. The emptiness he normally feels when that’s the case seems like the only positive thing in his life right now. He gets to his feet and rips his phone out of the charger.
It’s just after midnight. Andrew had stayed late at the office to wrap the edit on the season 4 premiere. He feels good about it. He feels good about all the stuff him and Steven and Adam and Rie and Annie and the whole rest of the Tasty crew make together. It’s good. It’s smooth sailing for the first time in months, in his career and in his heart. He and Steven are friends, best friends, still - Steven had said so himself. Nothing more. He’s learning to live with that.
He’s just plugging his phone in to charge for the night when it rings in his hand, Steven’s contact photo appearing on the screen. Andrew frowns. It’s rare that they talk over the phone anymore instead of texting, when it’s not about work.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Andrew?” A male voice that’s decidedly not-Steven says. Andrew pulls the phone away from his ear, checking that Steven’s number is still the one on the screen. It is. He can feel his pulse racing all of sudden, his brain having jumped to all the absolute worst-case scenarios that could cause an unknown voice to occupy the space where Steven’s should be. Steven in the hospital. Steven in jail. Steven being kidnapped and tortured and this is probably the hostage-taker calling to request the ransom money, or -
Andrew swallows agaisnt the bile rising in his throat. “Yes. Who is this?” He forces out.
“This is, uh, Mark? Mark Daoust? You guys filmed an episode of your show at my bar a few months ago. I’m sorry to call so late, it’s just that - Steven’s here? He’s pretty drunk. Came in a few hours ago, seemed all out-of-sorts about something. I was gonna call a cab to take him home, but he insisted that I call you instead.”
Andrew’s exhale comes out in a big whoosh of relief. Steven’s fine. Probably majorly tilted, if Mark’s polite concern is anything to go by, but that’s better than dead in a ditch somewhere. Drunk Steven he can deal with. That’s what friends do.
“Andrew?”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m here. Tell him I’ll come and get him, okay? Force some water on him, if you can.”
“Way ahead of you, man. Thanks, see you soon.”
“Yeah. Thank you, Mark.” Andrew ends the call and drops his phone to the duvet, putting his head in his hands for a moment before tugging on his jeans and a random long-sleeve from his closet. Once in his car, he turns up the radio in an attempt to drown out Mark’s voice on loop in his head, saying he insisted that I call you.
-
“Andrewwwwww! Drew, Drew-Dreww, Andrew, you’re here!” Steven’s sing-song voice rings out across the bar, earning them more than a few pointed looks from the other patrons.
“Yeah. I’m here,” Andrew says flatly as he approaches the row of barstools. Steven slings an arm out as soon as Andrew’s within striking distance, connecting with his shoulder and dragging him in towards his body. Andrew wraps one arm around his waist to keep him from tilting off the chair. There’s a half-empty glass of water on the bartop in front of them, along with Steven’s credit card. Andrew pockets the card and looks across the counter at Mark, who is pretending to be busy drying some whiskey glasses in an effort to hover around Steven. Andrew makes a mental note to send him a thank-you gift later this week.
Steven leverages Andrew's body weight to pull himself to his feet, wrapping both arms around Andrew’s shoulders so that they're pressed chest-to-chest. He smells like rum and pineapple and yesterday's cologne, the same one that had lingered at Andrew's desk after their impromptu meeting earlier in the day. "Can we - " Stephen starts, "can we go somewhere? I wanna go somewhere with you, Drew."
Andrew fixes him with a stern gaze, inching backwards in an attempt to put some space between their bodies. "We're going home, Steven," he says.
"Oooooo," Steven intones, his voice lilting up and down on the syllable. He turns around in Andrew's arms to face Mark. "Did you hear that? Andrew said he's taking me home!" Steven breaks out into a fit of giggles, leaning back heavily into Andrew's chest.
It's dimly lit in the bar, but Andrew certainly doesn't miss the way Mark is looking at them, something between curiosity and amusement, leaving Andrew to wonder exactly what Steven's said to him over too many piña coladas.
But Mark doesn't make any actual comments, just nods at them and says, "I'm sure you're in good hands here. It was nice to see you again, Steven. Hope everything works out."
Andrew is sure that those cryptic words will haunt his brain for the next month at least, but he's not about to ask for clarification right now. Instead, he thanks Mark once again for calling him and turns towards the exit, Steven clinging to his side and starting up a monologue about the history of pineapples that's probably at least 80% false.
By the time they've made it into Andrew's car and halfway home, Steven's quieted, head turned towards the window to stare out at the city lights blurring by. Andrew drums his fingers on the gearshift, forcing himself to focus only the road. He knows this version of Drunk-Steven - first, boisterous and loud and unable to shut up about anything, then more subdued, introspective. Usually wants to talk about stuff that always seems to delicate to touch when they're sober. Which brings him back to the original question - why would Steven go out and get plastered by himself on a weeknight anyway?
They make it back to Andrew's apartment complex with no more words spoken between them. Andrew pulls into his parking spot and cuts the engine, but neither of them make a move to get out of the car. Steven is still looking out the window, now at the dull gray of the parking garage.
"Hey," Andrew begins. He's not sure where else to start.
Steven finally turns to look at him, head lolling slow and lethargic against the headrest. He smiles, muted and gentle. It's not quite sunshine, but it's better than nothing. "Hey," Steven says. "Thanks for coming to get me."
Andrew nods, chewing on the inside of his lip. He insisted that I call you.
"'Course. Anytime. Let's go inside, okay?"
Steven's smile takes on just a hint of golden warmth. It's enough. "Okay."
Steven trails close behind him as Andrew jiggles his front door key in the old, sticky lock. If there's a slight pressure on the back of his shoulder in the shape of Steven's forehead, surely it's just a ghost.
Once inside the apartment, Andrew detours to the kitchen to fill a glass of water for Steven. And maybe he needs a minute to himself to collect his emotions, but that's beside the point. He hears Steven puttering around in the living room, humming something off-key. It's fine. Steven's been here a hundred times before, times where they've been up against a work deadline and couldn’t stand to be in the office anymore.
-
"Can I ask you something?" Steven says as Andrew sets the glass of water on the bedside table. Steven's still wearing his shoes, so Andrew moves to undo the laces, tugs the right one off his foot and sets it by the end of the bed.
"How did you know you wanted to kiss boys?"
Andrew chokes on air as Steven's left shoe thunks down onto the hardwood. Of all the conversations they should be having right now, after everything, this is the one Steven's choosing?
Andrew takes a deep breath, tries to steady his racing pulse for the second time that night. He’s still knelt on the hard floor of his bedroom, one hand around Steven's socked ankle. It hurts to look up, hurts to see Steven looking down at him with curiosity and insecurity and trust. Because that's what this is, they're best friends, Steven trusts him. How could he even think about ruining that?
He flexes his fingers against Steven's ankle. "I kissed one, and then I knew."