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Timmy is not normally the jealous type. Not that he’s had that many relationships, but he’s always trusted his partners — otherwise what would be the point of staying with them?
He definitely trusts Armie, and he trusts in Armie’s love for him, there is absolutely no need for him to worry or be jealous of anyone else getting Armie’s attention for a little while.
But he doesn’t quite know how else to explain the way his stomach drops that day in the park, because it did feel an awful lot like jealousy, and can’t really say he knows what the fuck to do with that.
It had been a perfectly ordinary day. They’d woken up late — having gone to bed way too late the night before — then after they’d snoozed until their stomachs started rumbling, Armie had made breakfast, and because they were adults who could do whatever they wanted; they ate their breakfast in bed.
After breakfast, they’d exchanged some slow, and quite frankly sloppy blowjobs, then spent most of the afternoon just lazing around in bed.
They’d decided to go out on a quick walk to feel a little better about not getting out of bed until way past lunchtime, and that’s where things started going a little sideways. For Timmy at least. Since that’s when he came face to face with the fact that he might very well be the jealous type after all.
Arriving at the park, it only took a couple of minutes before a loud, British, and surprisingly happy, voice called out to them. Or, more accurately, to Armie.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t little Armie Hammer?”
Timmy thinks the voice does sound a little bit familiar, but he can’t quite place it. Armie on the other hand, immediately stops in his tracks, and looks around. When he finally finds who he’s looking for, he lets out a loud whoop, and nearly tackles the guy to the ground as he hugs him.
Which, quite frankly, is where Timmy’s problems begin. He still has no clue who the guy is, because he can’t really see him, but Armie’s reaction has his skin crawling.
Timmy can’t quite remember the last time Armie was that happy to see someone that wasn’t him, or his kids, and naively, he’d thought that was something that made him special. That made them family.
But if he can be this excited over what’s essentially a stranger in a park, Timmy feels a little off balance.
When Armie finally remembers that he’s there — which feels like fucking ages to Timmy, but was probably barely even a minute — and introduces him to the park stranger, Timmy actually feels a little sick.
“Tim, you remember Andrew, right?” When Timmy just stares unblinkingly back at them, Armie frowns and adds, “We were in The Social Network together.”
It’s not like Timmy forgot, he’d just suddenly been transported to another universe where that’s how Armie introduced him to the new and important people in his life. “This is Timothée, we were in a movie together.”
It made him want to throw up.
“Oh, uhm, yeah. Uh, hi?” Timmy somehow manages to stutter out, giving a short wave, and feeling like a total fucking idiot. “Nice to, uhm, meet you?”
Andrew doesn’t seem like the way Timmy is reacting to him is bothering him at all, he just grins widely and waves back. “You too, man.”
Armie on the other hand, shoots him one final frown, eyes slightly squinted, before turning back to Andrew and having what looked like quite a fun conversation.
They were clearly enjoying catching up, and though Armie did try, several times, to include Timmy in it, pretty much all the references went over his head, and he was just left standing there feeling like an idiot.
Again.
There’s a park bench not too far away from where Armie and Andrew are standing, so with a shrug, he goes to sit down, figuring he might as well fuck around on his phone until they’re done.
He still can’t quite put his finger on why this run in with Andrew bother him so much, he’s met plenty of Armie’s old co-stars, but none of them have made bile rise all the way up to his throat quite like this guy.
But then Armie hasn’t treated them with the same enthusiasm, the same happiness, as he did with Andrew. There’d been some quick, barely there, hugs, some polite small talk, and then that was usually it.
With Andrew, however, there was a lot more touching, and hugging, and laughing. Then even more touching, and hugging, and… Timmy hated every second of it.
He hated himself even more for getting upset about it in the first place, because he knew it was beyond stupid, that Armie loved him and not Andrew. But. He couldn’t help but feel like, maybe, just maybe, Armie wasn’t quite that happy with him after all.
When was the last time he made Armie laugh that loud? To be honest, he couldn’t even remember, and if that wasn’t a kick to the gut…
They’d eventually said goodbye to Andrew — or more correctly, Armie had said goodbye to Andrew, Timmy had just kinda stood there — and were back in their apartment, chilling on the couch while trying to decide what to order for dinner.
“Are you okay?” Armie asks, nudging him with his foot, and Timmy sends him a half-smile and nods.
“I’m fine.” He says, which is a total lie, and not even a particularly good one.
“Sure.” Armie snorts in disbelief, before letting out a deep sigh, and wrapping his hands around Timmy’s waist, pulling him closer. “Come on, Tim. Talk to me. You’ve been weird ever since the park, what’s going on?”
“It’s…” Timmy starts, swallowing deeply, and shaking his head. “It’s just stupid, I’ll get over it. Don’t worry about it.”
“If it’s bothering you, then it’s not stupid.” Armie whispers, softly kissing Timmy’s cheek. “You can talk to me, you know?”
Timmy does know that. In fact, he absolutely loves that, and on any other day, with any other issue, he wouldn’t at all hesitate to lay it all out for Armie.
But today…
Well, to be honest, more than anything he just feels stupid, and he knows he’s being childish, that he needs to just get over himself, so he’d rather do that without telling Armie just how much of a jealous mess he apparently is and driving him out the door.
“I know.” He mumbles, looking down at his phone where he’s been aimlessly scrolling through take out menus for the last god knows how long. “It’s just stupid, I’ll get over it, don’t worry.”
Armie lets out a hum of consideration, before gently turning Timmy’s head towards him, and tilting his chin up, making it really hard for Timmy to keep avoiding eye contact.
“Is it Andrew?” Armie asks quietly, his thumb softly stroking Timmy’s chin. “Did you not like him?”
In some ways, he hates how easily Armie can read him, because it makes it impossible to keep any kind of secrets from him, even the good kind. In other ways, like right now, it’s nothing but helpful, because it means that he doesn’t actually have to struggle to explain himself. Armie just kind of already knows, and just wants Timmy to confirm it.
“It’s not him. Not really. It’s…” Timmy sighs, rubbing his eyes, not liking the soft empathy he saw shining back at him in Armie’s gaze. He really didn’t deserve that. “It’s more like, I didn’t like the way he made me feel. But that’s not his fault, not at all, he seems… He seems really nice. I just- I didn’t know, uhm, I didn’t know that I was insecure enough to actually get jealous of him.”
“What?” Armie looks more than a little shocked, and normally Timmy would find that amusing, because his face always does this weird twitchy thing when he’s genuinely surprised, but right now, it’s just kinda sad. “Babe, you don’t have anything to be jealous about, I love you, no one else.
“I know that! That’s part of the problem. I know you love me, that you would never…” Timmy cuts himself off, getting off the couch to pace around on the floor.
He had no idea how he was going to explain this to Armie without sounding like a complete lunatic, but he’d already more than dipped his toe in, so it was too late to back out now.
“The way he made you laugh, I… Armie I hated him, and then I hated myself for hating him, and it’s just... I really didn’t think I was a jealous person, you know? I didn’t think- But apparently I am, jealous, I mean.” Timmy swallows, feeling tears threaten to well up in his eyes, but he’s too wrung out to even try and fight it. “And, I don’t know, I guess… I guess I just feel… Stupid.”
Armie gets off the couch and wraps him up in his arms, kissing the top of his head before whispering. “Babe, listen to me, it’s not stupid, you’re not stupid. You can’t always control how you feel, Timmy, we both know that, probably better than anyone.”
Timmy can’t help but smile a little at that, even if those two situations couldn’t be more different. Falling in love with Armie while he was still married, while it was a good example of not being able to control one's emotions, it was nothing like the ridiculousness of the jealousy he felt against Andrew.
“But.” Armie continues. “You also know that it’s not always about how you feel in the moment, but more about how you choose to act on it, and I’d say you handled yourself expertly.”
When Timmy just frowns up at him, Armie smiles, and goes on explaining. “For one, you didn’t lash out at him, yeah, you were a little weird, but he just thought you were shy.”
Armie huffs out a laugh at that, and Timmy can’t help but feel instantly relieved that Andrew hadn’t actually noticed that anything was wrong. He might never be the guy’s biggest fan, but he also didn’t want to come off as an asshole.
With a quick kiss to Timmy’s cheek, Armie, yet again, continues where he’d left off. “Second, you didn’t try to start a fight with me, or try and accuse either one of us of anything. So all in all, no matter how awful you’re feeling right now, I’d say you handled your jealousy perfectly well.”
In a way, he supposes Armie is right. There are a million different ways he could have reacted to what he was feeling today, and most of them were really quite ugly. So perhaps, even though he feels worse than he has in a long, long time, it could have been worse.
“I don’t know. I guess.” He shrugs. No matter what Armie says, or how much he agrees with it, logically, he can’t help but feel terrible, and he knows that’s not likely to pass anytime soon.
Armie gives him a soft, lingering, kiss, and runs his hand through Timmy’s hair with a smile. “Right, so here’s the deal, I’m gonna let you stew in this for a little longer, but then that’s it. Okay?”
When Timmy once again just frowns back at him, Armie shrugs. “No, listen. While I do think this is something you need to work out for yourself, it’s also not healthy if you focus on it too much, you know? So you can sit there, in your feelings, until the food arrives, and then I want you to try and let it go. At least for now. Do you think you can do that?”
Timmy knows he’s right, but he’s also not sure it’s going to be that easy. So with a shrug, he smiles up at Armie, tilting his head for a kiss, which he gets almost immediately.
“I’ll try.” He whispers against Armie’s lips. “For you, I’ll always try.”
“I know.” Armie smiles, kissing him again. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”