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“Would you still love me if I was turned into a worm?” Phoebe had asked him that stupid question on the way home from U12 football training a few days ago, looking at him with those big eyes of hers, all serious and hopeful.
By now, Roy knew that he had fucked up the answer. He had gotten bogged down in the details.
“How would I know you’re the worm?” and “You know worms don’t live very long?” had not been the right things to say in that moment, and Phoebe had gotten increasingly disappointed as they neared his sister’s place, impatiently arguing with him to just ignore the logic of the situation (or lack thereof) and to just engage in the thought experiment properly.
“Are you mad at me?” Roy had asked her as she had gotten out of his car without hugging him goodbye like she usually did, huffing at him in that new teenage way of hers.
“Not mad, no … just disappointed,” she had told him with all the gravitas her little voice could muster before slamming the car door shut.
“Fuck.” Roy had waited until she was inside, the way he always did, before driving off. He had assured himself that it was just a stupid question and that it didn’t matter, that she’d just get over it and forgive him, or at least that she’d forget about it by the next time he saw her.
He was right about Phoebe forgiving him, she was fine again when he drove her to school that morning. She even hugged him again, so he knew they were fine.
Roy had been wrong about the significance of the question though. Now that it was planted in his mind, he couldn’t shake it for the life of him.
Would anyone fucking care about him if he was turned into a worm? Stupid as the scenario was, it kind of hurt to think that maybe no one would.
It stuck with him in a weird way. He thought about it at work, and he thought about it at yoga, and he still thought about it later that night when he got home, slightly tipsy and overtipping the Uber driver for not making a fuss about him despite clearly recognising Roy.
“Hey!” Jamie paused his video game when Roy walked in, putting the controller down and kneeling up on the couch so he could lean over the back of it to pull Roy into a kiss when he got within reach. Roy went easily, wrapping his arms around Jamie and pulling him in as closely as he could with the upholstery in the way.
Jamie was so easy to be with, so fucking grab-able, so sturdy and strong, Roy never had to worry with him. It was like he could do no wrong when it came to Jamie, like every ounce of Roy’s attention was enough to make his day. Roy smiled into the kiss when Jamie got a good hold of him, because he knew exactly what would happen.
Jamie lifted him up and pulled him over the back of the sofa like he weighed nothing, pinning Roy into the seat cushions and spreading himself out on top of Roy to deepen the kiss.
Roy knew he probably still tasted like wine and gossip, but Jamie didn’t seem to mind. He settled happily, one leg pressing in between Roy’s, pushing his hips up against Roy for some friction.
“You all bendy and loose?” Jamie asked in that low voice that had Roy’s cock twitching with interest. His leg that wasn’t pinned by Jamie's weight moved to make more space for Jamie.
“Or did you just watch Naked and Afraid with the gals?” Jamie teased between kisses, making Roy groan and pull him in closer.
“You’ll have to work for ‘loose’, but I can bend,” he teased, earning himself a happy moan as Jamie moved to kissing his neck. His head was pleasantly fuzzy from the booze and attention, and Roy settled in to enjoy himself, his hand slipping into Jamie’s hair to massage at his scalp.
He fucking loved the way Jamie touched him, he’d miss this if he were a worm.
Fuck, now he was thinking about the worms again.
Jamie slipped a hand into his shirt, stroking up his side and-
“Would you still care about me if I was turned into a worm?” Roy asked, cursing himself the second the words left his mouth. What the fuck kind of timing was that?
Jamie was barely deterred though. “What?” He asked, nuzzling into the front of Roy’s shirt and pushing the hem of it further up Roy’s abs so he could get at Roy's skin.
“Forget it!” Roy assured him quickly, but it came out too short, too clipped and the tone made Jamie look up. The look on his face really made Roy wish he’d just kept quiet.
“Sorry, I was like … really distracted,” Jamie smiled that fucking charming smile of his that made Roy weaker in his already weak knees. “A worm?”
“No, forget it, go back to what you were doing,” Roy waved him off, trying to use his hand to push Jamie back to where he’d been cuddling in so fucking sweetly it had made Roy’s chest ache in all the good ways. There was no budging Jamie when he didn't want to be moved though.
“No, hold on, what was the question?”
Fuck, he wasn’t going to drop it. Jamie was attentive like that, the little prick, always sussing out weird shit that mattered to Roy even when it shouldn’t, like how he always saved a seat for Roy at lunch and on the bus, as if he was trying to make up for the years of Roy sitting alone as a schoolboy single-handedly.
“Fine.” Roy sighed. “Just imagine,” he couldn’t believe he was doing this, he could be getting laid by now “if I got turned into a worm, and you saw it happen, so you know I’m that worm and there’s nothing to be done about it, there’s no turning me back. What would you do?”
“Oh fuck,” Jamie shifted a little to get more comfortable and so he could look at Roy properly, that thoughtful expression that he got when something really mattered to him crept its way onto his face.
“Well I’d pick you up and hold you real careful, cos you’d probably be freaking out about being a worm, right? Make sure nothing can happen to you!” He mused and, yeah, he would probably be freaking out. Roy hadn’t even thought about what he’d be feeling, just about whether someone would give a fuck.
“I guess so,” Roy agreed, but Jamie was looking off into the middle distance now, and after a moment, he shifted off of Roy just to straddle him properly a moment later, digging his heels in under Roy’s leg so he had enough leverage to reach for his phone on the coffee table without falling off of Roy. He sat back, sitting his glorious ass down on Roy’s thighs.
“What are you-?”
“Okay, so there’s like millions of worm species,” Jamie informed him. “So I’d call an Uber and see if they can take us to like a worm expert? Like maybe a vet? No, they don’t do worms, probably. Maybe a university! Yeah, I’d figure out some worm professor to go to.” He typed something into his phone before carefully sounding out what he found. “An En-to-mo-lo-gist! We’ll take you to an entomologist, and they’ll know how to best take care of you.”
“What you’d leave me with some random worm person?” Roy asked, feeling slightly offended.
“What? No, fuck no!” Jamie put his phone onto the back of the couch where it promptly slid down behind the cushions, but Jamie didn’t seem to care right then. He was too busy leaning down to kiss Roy, pulling back and cupping his face like he was trying to commit it to memory before he inevitably lost him to his worm-existence.
“I’ll get all the care instructions, right? And then we’ll go off to a pet shop, and I’ll buy you one of those big, like, terrariums? But filled with the most tasty worm earth that they’ve got.”
Roy wasn’t sure when Jamie had switched from talking about a hypothetical to treating it like this was an imminent plan he would have to execute at a moment’s notice soon, but it was fucking charming in a way he couldn't quite explain to himself.
“And I don’t know if you’re in there, right? But I’d figure out a way to ask, like, you know? Make you tiny little ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ signs and ask if you can point to one of them, and then check if you’re scared or in pain, or something.” He nodded to himself as if to assure himself that that was the way to go.
“And then we can set up a bunch of those terrariums all around the house so we can spend time together, right? Like one right here, so you can watch TV with me, and then one upstairs in the bedroom. Oh! And one in the kitchen, so we can still cook together. And like maybe the stuff I make can have something worm-safe, so you don’t have to eat earth all the time? Do worms eat earth, or just stuff that’s in it?” He tried to retrieve his phone to check, and found it gone from where he had put it. Undeterred, he waved the thought away. “Don't matter, the entomologist is gonna tell me!” He assured Roy.
It was all so earnest, Jamie looked like he had been given the single most important assignment of his life, and he took it seriously in a way Roy couldn't have even begun to hope for.
“You’d fucking live with a worm?”
“Well, yeah, if the worm is you.” Roy shook his head in incredulity, Jamie's eyes were so wide and sincere, he could barely stand it.
“What if I’ve got worm brain, like, nothing going on in there, no idea who I am or who you are?” Roy couldn’t help it, he had to ask.
“Well, then you’ll just be my wormy little roommate," Jamie reasoned.
“As opposed to what?”
“Well, if you’re you, then you’re still my boyfriend, right? Just happen to be a worm right then. We'll manage somehow. It'll be like long-distance, but weirder, and no actual distance.”
Oh! Fuck, Jamie really loved him. It wasn't news, exactly, but fuck, Roy really felt it in that moment.
He couldn’t help it, he pulled Jamie down into a kiss so fierce it almost hurt.
Whatever he had hoped to hear in response, this had been better.
“I fucking love you, do you know that?” Roy asked when they pulled apart for air. He pushed Jamie’s hair out of his eyes for him, looking at that gorgeous face of his. The way he was looking at Roy like he’d fucking won the lottery did something to him every time.
Jamie beamed down at him, pressing a softer kiss to his lips before getting up off the sofa and hauling Roy up with him, pulling him in tight against his body as soon as he got Roy onto his feet.
“Come on, lad, let’s get you to bed and figure out if we’d still manage to fuck somehow when you’re a worm.” He grinned.