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Dom could tell that Matt was tired. He remembered him during those cold nights in Toronto when they had to shoot long past midnight. Matt’s eyes turned darker and more dreamy than usual, his eyebrows furrowed, even his hard New York accent became heavier. Back then, Dom would touch his shoulder, ruffle his hair, tell a stupid joke just to see him smile. Now he was just sitting in the kitchen of the flat, the Netflix company had rented for him in New York. Instead of touching and joking, he was burning his hands against a hot cup and keeping his mouth shut.
“What’s that?” Matt was sitting at the other end of the table, as far as possible, his black leather jacket hanging off the chair.
“Tea,“ Dom answered already knowing that it would provoke someone’s smart mouth.
Matt chuckled, his eyebrow raised ironically, “How British of you.”
“Oh, shut up, Matthew,” Dom hissed and winced as he took a sip - still too hot to drink. “Want some?”
Matt shook his head and fumbled with his phone without looking at it. Dom took another sip of tea - it felt even hotter but he didn’t care. Here they were again, trying to be friends for almost seven months now. They had been doing well this time - they both had great projects to work on, Dom had a new girlfriend, Matt had his little family. They talked and sometimes managed to catch each other in the same city for a casual coffee. Everything was fine. Except for those nights when Dom stayed awake thinking, remembering, trying to calm the beating of his hungry heart. Sometimes biting his lips until he tasted blood. He never asked if Matt had ever felt the same. Whatever was the answer, it would crash him. “No” would only mean that Dom was stupid enough to lose sleep over a man who didn’t really care. And “yes”… “Yes” would eventually destroy both of them.
“I’m sorry,” Matt had always been good at reading him and some things never changed.
Dom felt his mouth tightened into a thin line, a wave of anger rushing through him. Sorry for all the pain and restlessness and break-downs. But also for the kisses in the freezing wind, for frantic whispers in the dark, for everything they had been for each other. For everything they could have been.
“I’m not,” he said stubbornly, his voice suddenly too loud in the silent room. “I’ll never be.”
“You just have to make it difficult,” Matt whispered desperately, his fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Dom glared at him with his arms folded, “I would make it unbearable but it was a long day.”
Matt didn’t answer, he just looked up and stared back at Dom, suddenly lost and helpless. The phone on the table buzzed, lighting up his face but Matt kept their eye contact as if he didn’t hear anything. The phone went quiet. And then Dom saw it. The shadow of the same sleepless nights in the long dark eyelashes, the reflection of his own dull pain in those hazel eyes. The same hungry heart aching for something that had been torn away. Slowly, Dom got up from the chair, took three steps between them and landed onto the table next to Matt. He noticed his broad shoulders tense immediately but he didn’t move.
“You have to put everything in those little boxes inside your head, don’t you?” Dom asked quietly trying to ignore the painful feeling inside his chest.
Matt frowned and made an attempt to look away but Dom caught his chin holding him still with a steady hand. His other hand touched Matt’s forehead, fingertips brushing gently just above his eyebrows, “Where am I in that beautiful mind of yours?”
Matt let his eyes close for a moment, mostly on a pure instinct, but just for a moment. A blink of an eye later, the spell was broken and he gently removed Dom’s hands from his face.
“It was getting too complicated, remember?” he said softly as if talking to a wounded animal, their fingers still brushing against each other. “And we decided to be friends.”
“Yeah, and how many times have we decided that? Five or six?” Dom sighed and turned away. He was still leaning against the table but now he was standing with his back towards Matt. It was easier to breathe that way.
“Six. Last time it was totally your fault, by the way,” Matt had always been the one to know all the fun facts including the precise amount of times they had tried to keep their relationship within the standard bounds and failed.
“I don’t remember you complaining,” Dom snapped back without looking at him.
It was the Paris convention, the airport had messed up his luggage and his voice of reason had been sent to a wrong country along with his suitcase.
The phone buzzed again. This time Matt looked at the screen and sighed heavily.
“I have to go,” he got up and put the phone into his pocket.
“Okay,” Dom said as he took his forgotten cup and drank the rest of the tea in one gulp. Too cold but he had to do something with his hands.
Matt took his jacket and put it on making his way to the door, “Uber’s waiting.”
Dom put the empty cup back on the table and followed him just because he couldn’t stand still anymore, “Yeah.”
“See you sometime?” Matt opened the door and turned to him trying to untangle his scarf.
“Sure,” Dom shrugged absently. All he wanted right now was to dig a hole in the ground and stay there until he went back to his normal self - do his job, take selfies with his girlfriend and occasionally fall apart if the night was too long.
“Oh, fuck it,” Matt hissed angrily as he slammed the door shut and crossed the distance between them tearing off his jacket. Dom could barely grasp what had happened when Matt swept him away, with the force that felt more like an American football tackle. He managed to stay on his feet only because the side of the table hit his lower back. The sharp pain shot up his spine but Dom couldn’t care less. He clutched Matt’s shoulders, digging his nails deep into his sweater, then into his skin, meaning to hurt. There was so much pain between the two of them, unspoken and unseen, so it had to be that way. More biting than kissing, more scratching than caressing.
“That’ll be seven,” Dom muttered between the kisses.
“Shut up,” Matt almost growled into his lips.
Somewhere in the background the cup fell on the floor and crashed into pieces. But nobody could hear it because the hungry hearts were the ones that beat too loud, too fast, too hard. The hungry hearts never had enough. It had always been crash and burn or nothing.
Suddenly, Matt pulled away and whispered, “Everywhere.”
Dom blinked distractedly, the haze in his head making him unable to think clearly.
“In my mind,” Matt added, barely breathing. “You’re everywhere.”