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Jacaerys thought, as he downloaded the app, that if anything went wrong he could always blame Luke.
Strictly speaking, it had been Baela's idea initially, suggested one night when they had gone out to have some drinks and maybe some fun with someone, and found themselves instead bored to death in a half empty club, no signs of either of them getting lucky that evening.
"We as a society are losing the beautiful tradition of buying pretty people a drink. It's been ages since someone invited either one of us to one! Shame on them, I think we should start using Tinder or something, we'd have better luck with it." She had shouted over the bass of the stupid song it was playing at that moment, half drunk and probably joking, but it was enough to plant the little seed of the idea in his mind.
It was a dumb idea nonetheless and at first he had dismissed it just as quickly. He did get laid, damn, he didn't need to download a fucking dating app to meet people. Nevermind that it had been a couple of months since he last hooked up with someone.
It just sounded so lame. Beyond pathetic, actually. Jace was good-looking, he didn't need to be humble about that. Maybe he, unlike Baela, didn't have the exotic white blonde hair and violet eyes most of his maternal side of the family possesed, and he suffered from the first-born curse of being the shortest one out all his siblings, but he could pull guys, if he so desired. All except one, but he digressed.
The point was that it was kinda embarrassing. What if he matched with an acquaintance or something by mistake? It could get real awkward real fast. And besides, weren't those apps just a way people used to get laid? Again, he could do that just fine on his own, thank you very much.
As it happened, it was his brother who changed his mind, in the end. It had been just a few days after his night with Baela when he met Luke for ice cream and a walk. Jace had been complaining about being single for the umpteenth time when his brother seemed to be suddenly done with his bullshit.
Luke interrupted whatever he was saying with, "If you're not gonna grow some balls and fix your whole Cregan situation once and for all, at the very least you could try meeting other people."
The afternoon was weirdly warm for the season, but Jace felt a chill go down his spine nonetheless. Yes, it felt like a blow to his ego to be lectured by his younger brother, but mostly it just raised the question – were his feelings that obvious to everyone else? Did he have a 'Pining Idiot' poster glued to his fucking forehead? "There's no Cregan situation."
"Yeah, sure, let's suspend all disbelief and pretend that I don't know you wanna have his massive, northerner babies. Still, seeing as you don't exactly go out of your way to meet new people, you could try a dating app. You've got nothing to lose."
Jace fought to find his footing again, feeling off-balance. If he knew he was going to be interrogated, he would've prepared himself, would've thought of answers to difficult questions and raised his walls around himself. Oh, how he missed his walls.
"Okay, first of all, if I wanted to have his babies, which I don't, they would be born here so they wouldn't actually be northerner babies. Southron babies, in any case. And second of all, aren't those apps just full of people looking for casual sex?"
Luke shrugged and took a bite out of his ice cream. Freak. They were strolling through a park, in what Jace thought was going to be quality time spent together and not some third degree on his love life, or lack thereof.
Luke had the infinite wisdom of a 22 year old who had been in a relationship for a grand total of six months, and felt like he had to share his insight with the world, and more specifically, his brother. What is happiness, if not joy shared, or whatever. To be fair, he and Rhaena seemed to be navigating their relationship quite well. They were cute, in Jace's opinion.
"I mean, yeah, some people do use those apps for that, don't slut shame, Jace."
"I'm not...!"
"But, but, that's just some of them. The rest are looking for the same thing you are."
He made it, him, sound so... lonely. Of course, the problem being that he was, in fact, lonely. So, after some pondering and thinking it over, and in the solace of his bedroom, he downloaded a dating app.
It wasn't exactly rocket science. He may not have ever used Tinder before, but it didn't take a genius to work it out.
He set out his preferences, '24 to... ugh, 35 I guess? Would I fuck a middle-aged guy? I mean maybe, if he was attractive enough... What's a 40 year old looking for in a guy in his mid-twenties, though? Fucking weird... Mhm he's gotta live near...' and got to work.
It seemed like a fruitless endeavor at first. After a good chunk of an hour, he was contemplating deleting the app and never mentioning it to anyone he knew or even himself ever again. Did he have to lower his standards for this to work? He didn't want to match up with a bald guy.
He had swapped left quite a few times already, no one catching his eye, when he heard the front door opening.
"Jace?" He heard a male voice through his door.
"In my bedroom."
A few moments later, someone knocked on the door. Jace had the impulse to lock his phone screen and put it away face down, even though logically he knew he wasn't doing anything wrong.
"You can come in."
And there he was, his roommate in all his glory, and boy, was it glorious. He rested against the doorframe, all his height and broad shoulders almost completely blocking the exit.
So, to be fair, there was in fact a Cregan situation, actually, not that Jace would admit it in front of Luke.
Cregan Stark was his roommate, best friend, and unrequited crush all in one. They had met during uni through some common acquaintances, Jace a freshman and Cregan a junior, but even with their age gap and different majors they made fast friends. They started hanging out together almost every day, spending so much time together that by the time Cregan graduated, he had decided not to return to Winterfell and to stay in King's Landing, and so when he rented a flat near campus he proposed to Jace the idea of sharing it, just the two of them. The last few years of living together under the same roof were some of the happiest of Jace's life.
The thing was, Jace didn't actually need to share a flat. His family was loaded, and after graduation he got a nice cushy job at his mother's law firm. He could rent an apartment on his own, no problem. One better than the one they currently shared, with its living room-kitchen-hallway all in one situation and shared bathroom. But then, he'd miss moments like this, with Cregan by his door, slightly rumpled suit and his long hair out of its bun, falling past his shoulders.
It was domestic, and Jace could pretend in moments like these that his friend looked so soft and comfortable solely because of him.
The smile he offered as greetings was all for him, at least.
"Hey Cregan, how was work?"
"Tiring, as usual, I can't wait until this deal is finally done. How was Luke?"
"Still a little shit, but fine." Cregan smiled a bit at that.
"Gotta see him some day soon, you should invite him, I've been dying to kick his ass at Smash as revenge for last time." Last time being a vicious play of Mario Kart that lasted all evening and crowned Luke as the winner.
"Sure, I'll tell him."
"Oh, by the way, I'm not having dinner at home today, I'm going out with the boys tonight." Oh. "I'm gonna hit the shower real quick and I'm leaving in like twenty minutes, also I asked the guys and you're more than welcome to come with, if you want."
The boys in question were Cregan's other friends from uni. They were nice. They were also extremely heterosexual, loud as fuck, crude, and every single time Jace had gone out with them they had pushed Cregan to talk to someone at the club and 'get his dick wet', as they had put it.
Jace wasn't particularly inclined to spend his evening watching Cregan make out with someone else in a corner of a club while he nursed an overpriced cocktail and listened to Cregan's friends talk about how big and bouncy their girlfriends' tits were, again.
"Yeah, no, I think I'm going to pass on that today, I spent all afternoon with Luke and I'm a bit tired."
The northerner looked a bit disappointed but offered a smile. "No problem Jace, if anything comes up just call me, okay? And if you change your mind text me and I'll tell you where we are."
Jace smiled at him in return. "Yeah, thanks."
As Cregan gently closed the door behind him, Jace made up his mind. He unlocked his phone and opened the damn app back up.
He needed to get over this damn crush. It was time to lower his standards.
1
It wasn't working.
"So. I had a really good time today..."
The feeling wasn't mutual.
After a few days of matching up with a few guys, he had agreed to meet with one of them. Torrhen was... okay. Not ugly, had a full head of hair, and didn't smell bad, which were his main points of concern before agreeing to this. He seemed like a good neutral starting point to have his first blind date with, in any case.
They had agreed to meet for coffee. Something neutral, in a public space, in broad daylight to calm Jace's nerves in case the guy turned out to be a catfish or a straight up creep, which thankfully wasn't the case. And yeah, he was polite and everything, but... he was so boring.
All he talked about were his line of work – guy was a damn accountant for fuck's sake – and his three pet hamsters, which were his pride and joy. They knew some tricks, which was a total feat for hamsters, apparently.
"Do you want to, maybe, meet up some day soon? Dinner, perhaps?
Jace cringed internally. He didn't have a lot of experience rejecting people, as he usually only looked for casual stuff, but when it did happen it always left him feeling terrible.
"Listen, Torrhen, I don't think this is moving in that direction for me, but I had a good time, we could still stay friends, get to know each other without... expectations..."
Torrhen's face was doing something complicated, the most emotion he had shown all day if Jace was being honest. He seemed almost on the verge of tears one moment, but then he seemed to settle on anger. Great.
"You think of yourself so highly, don't you pretty boy?" He said pretty boy as if he was insulting him. "You'd be lucky to find someone who doesn't want to just fuck you. You're such a bitch."
He turned around and left in long strides without another word.
Okay. So that was that.
He was hoping to get home, shower and be done with the day, but as it happened life had other plans, because when he arrived at the apartment, Cregan was in the living room on his laptop, writing furiously.
"Oh. Hey. Aren't you supposed to be at work?"
"Nice to see you too." That got him an eyeroll from Jace. "We closed the deal with White Harbour yesterday, fucking finally, so I got some days off. I just gotta write some e-mails and organize some stuff for the upcoming weeks but I can do that from the comfort of my own home, if you're okay with that, of course."
"Oh shut up, I was just surprised." He couldn't help but laugh a bit at his friend's sarcastic remark, even with his foul mood.
"What about you, you look too well dressed for coffee with Baela."
So. He hadn't exactly told Cregan about his date. It just hadn't come up! No other reason. It was a moment as good as any to tell him, he guessed. He wasn't nervous, not at all. It wouldn't be the first time either of them were entangled with a stranger, obviously. It just was the first time the entanglement had more of a... romantic purpose, instead of a strictly physical one. But that was fine. Obviously.
"Mhmm yeah. I was on a date." He didn't look Cregan in the eye as he said it, instead choosing that moment to get rid of his outside shoes and putting on his pair of house slippers (they had matching ones – his were red and Cregan's were grey.)
"A date?"
He still wouldn't let himself look at Cregan. "Yeah, I let Luke convince me to download Tinder, can you believe it? It went like, really really bad, though."
"Why, though?"
"Well, he called me a bitch..."
"What!?"
That made him turn, at last. Cregan looked... sweaty. Angry, sure, but like he was containing himself, all red in the face and frowning, almost ready to pounce at a guy that quite obviously wasn't there and that with any luck he would never even cross paths with again. And Jace was man enough to admit to himself that the whole protecting-his-honour thing was doing it for him. And that he wouldn't mind contemplating that determined look from underneath Cregan, maybe.
"It was after being rejected but still..."
"No! No, I mean, fuck that guy for sure, but I meant why do you need Tinder for a hook up? I thought you said that dating apps were for losers." Well, yeah, he still thought so. It was kind of the point.
"Oh... well I kinda was hoping to find something... something more I guess? Deeper? I've been single for so long, it's getting lonely. I can't just live here alone forever."
Jace could see from across the room how Cregan swallowed over nothing and shook his head like a dog. A cute one.
"You aren't alone, we live together. You have me. Your family too, obviously."
"You know what I mean, Cregan. Listen I need to shower and I think I'm gonna take a power nap. I have to do some paperwork for my mother but are we still on for dinner? I'm craving Thai." It was a terrible way to change topics but it seemed to work.
Cregan took a long time to answer. He appeared pensive, almost, and when he looked at him those grey eyes of his seemed as though they could look past him and through his flesh, and into his soul.
"Yeah, sounds good."
2
"Are you going out? Oh, I made dinner, I didn't realize you had plans."
Jace, all suited up and ready for a dinner out, had just gone out of his room and on to the living room, heading for the door, when the smell hit him – basil, onion, garlic... It smelled divine. He could see thanks to their open-concept flat that Cregan was plating a bowl of spaghetti when he had interrupted him with his arrival. The table was set already and... were those candles?
"You cooked?"
"Yeah, some pasta with my mam's secret sauce, I know you like it and I know you had a lot of work this week with the Lannister's case, so I thought it could be a surprise. It's fine though, I should've asked, I'll just put it in the fridge, we can eat it tomorrow."
Jace's heart rate picked up, and he felt his whole face flush with blood to the tip of his ears. Wasn't that a conundrum. On the one had, he had finally matched with a guy after days of nothing but disappointment. His name was Triston, or maybe Tristan, and he had been perfectly nice the couple of days they had been exchanging texts. Bailing on him on the last possible moment was such a dick move, and Jacaerys Targaryen-Strong was not a dick.
One the other hand, though...
"No, don't worry, it wasn't super important, I can stay, let me just..." He took out his phone from his pocket, sending a quick text to Triston with some lame excuse, terrible headache, grandpa's dying, who cared, and put it away just as quickly. He probably needed to block him, but that could wait. "Okay, I'm all yours."
Cregan smiled. "Good."
3
"I invited Luke and Joff to play some videogames, oh did you have anything planned for today? I told them you'd be here but I can just cancel and schedule for some other day, no problem."
Their center table was already prepared, full of snacks and finger foods, and their game consoles plugged in charging. It would be such a waste. Cregan was in the kitchen cutting up some veggies to dip into fucking homemade hummus. It must have taken a while to clean and prepare everything for the arrival of his brothers. And besides, Jace missed them.
"No need, I can stay. It's actually been a while since we all saw each other, it'll be cool, thank you."
4
Cregan wasn't in the living room when he had left the apartment, and at that moment he was wishing he were, just so he could have blamed his roommate for staying home.
It was shaping up to be one the worst dates he had ever been to. His date, Chris-something, was a creep. A leach. He had insisted on going out to dance at a new club he knew the owner of, or whatever, and yeah, a club wouldn't have been his first option of a scenario for a first date, as they couldn't talk, not really, but that would've been fine if not for the fact that he wouldn't. stop. touching. his. ass.
He was leaving. He was. He didn't even make up an excuse, he just took his stuff from the club closet and was waiting for an uber when he got a call.
It was almost midnight, so he was understandably worried when he saw Cregan's name on the phone ID.
"Cregan?"
"Jace, hey, are you home by any chance?" He didn't sound great and Jace's nerves got even worse.
"I will be in like twenty minutes. Why, where are you, are you okay?
"I'm in an uber, I was at Cerwyn's but I started feeling ill, I think I've got a fever."
"Shit, how are you feeling, do you want me to accompany you to the hospital?"
"No, it's fine, nothing a good night's rest and some Advil won't cure. I was just asking in case you could get a cool towel ready for when I get there, but I can do that, don't come home just for me, please."
As if. "No, I was already leaving, don't worry." That wasn't a lie, at least, but he knew he would leave even if his date had been perfectly pleasant. "My uber's here, I'll be there in just a short while."
When he arrived, Cregan had already changed into his pajamas and was curled up in his own bedroom. Jace prepared a cool towel and set it upon his forehead, which was pretty warm to the touch. He sighed when the towel touched his feverish skin.
"You okay? Did you take something, medicine?"
Cregan nodded. "Thank you." Jace felt guilt eating him alive – like this Cregan looked so soft, and it made him feel terrible to cherish this, while knowing Cregan was feeling like shit.
Jace was about to take his leave when he felt a hand wrap around his wrist.
"Could you stay? In case... I get worse."
It wasn't very common for Cregan to ask for things, even of Jace. It was that, and nothing else, that made him agree to it. It wouldn't be the first time they shared a bed, anyway. They were close, it was fine, even if it made his heart ache like an open wound. It would heal, it had to.
"Let me change and I'll be back in a second."
"You can just use some of my stuff."
That made him pause. Putting on Cregan's pajamas was... probably too much. But then, when would he ever get the chance again?
Never.
"Okay, just turn around." Even if it wouldn't be nothing he hadn't see, either. Still, sharing the locker's shower in uni wasn't the same as whatever it was happening right now. It was more vulnerable. Jace was more vulnerable.
"Okay."
He chose Cregan's biggest, softest pajamas. If that was the one chance he was getting, he was making the most out of it.
They smelled like him, too. Pine, musk, cedar. He hoped it could stay with him, stain his skin forever.
Before he crawled into bed with Cregan, he freshened up the towel and put it back against his forehead again. Once inside the covers, he took his side of the bed and prayed that he wouldn't roll over to Cregan in the middle of the night.
"Wake me up if you feel any worse."
"Okay. Thank you, Jace."
"No problem. Good night, Cregan."
Cregan looked already half-asleep, eyes closed, breathing deep and peaceful, when he said, "Good night, Jace. Love you."
Jace closed his eyes, and hid a single tear in the pillow below his head. "Love you, too."
5
He was doing it. Jace was going a second date.
Medrick was surprisingly funny. He happened to be from the North too, and had some friends in common with Cregan, which was even more surprising. It was a wonder they hadn't met earlier, in fact.
It didn't hurt that he was handsome, too. Not as tall as Cregan, but tall nonetheless, hair a dark auburn and pretty hazel eyes.
Their first date was in an ice rink, which was a first for Jace, and everyone there present could tell. Still, it had been a nice first date, and Medrick was a perfect gentleman and helped Jace stay upright all evening.
So, they had arranged a second date, and that was first for Jace as well. It was promising. They were going to the cinema, so it felt casual, low stakes, and calmed some of Jace's nerves. It felt good to be wanted.
He was carefully placing his curls how he wanted them in front of the apartment's shared bathroom when the door opened.
"Hey Cregan, just a minute, I'm almost done."
When he got no response he looked at his friend. He was breathing heavily, shoulders tense.
"Hey mhm... you okay? Need to use the bathroom?"
"Medrick is a douchebag."
"Excuse me?"
Every word was spit out as if ripped from his throat, a growl. "I know Medrick. He's a douchebag, don't go out tonight with him."
Jace could only look open mouthed at him. What was that supposed to mean?
"Medrick and I already went out together once and I think it went pretty well. I'm a grown ass man, Cregan, I can make my own decisions and be my own judge of character."
Cregan honest-to-God snarled. "Jace, please, listen to me. Everyone knows each other up North. Medrick went to the same high school I did, I know him, he's a fuckboy, a serial cheater, and a dick. I can promise you that. You can do better."
It was a problem, the trust Jace had in Cregan, because he knew he wasn't lying, that he wouldn't lie about that to him. But he couldn't just roll over and concede defeat that easily. He hadn't made all this effort for nothing.
"Sorry to tell you this, but people can change, Stark, grow you know, maybe he was like that when he was a teenager, but he was fine last time I met him."
"You are not listening to me, Jace. Oh my fucking god. I know him. We have friends in common, I hear what he does to his... conquests, all the time. He hasn't changed, I can prove it to you if you really don't believe me." But he did, blindly.
Jace made a frustrated sound. It was all so ridiculous. Everything. Everything was ridiculous. He really couldn't escape his fate. Doomed to pine after his best friend for all eternity and never find anyone to mend his pathetic little heart.
He felt like crying, and felt suddenly moisture on in face and his vision got blurry and yeah, he was crying. The final nail to this evening.
Defeat tasted the same as heartache.
"Okay. I'll cancel. Goodnight, Cregan."
He tried to get past him and hole up in his room for the remainder of the night at the very least, hopefully until his death, when he felt a hand on his arm stopping him in his tracks.
"Jace, please, I'm just looking out for you."
He thought the sadness and despair in his heart wouldn't let anything else prosper inside him, but then anger started growing some room, which wasn't just fantastic?
Jace took his arm back from Cregan's hold with a tug. "You've been doing a whole lot of that lately, haven't you."
He ventured looking towards Cregan, and his friend looked positively slapped in the face with the unexpected venom in his voice. He had never talked to him like that, and he instantly felt awful about it, but he couldn't take it back, not at that moment.
"What's that even supposed to mean?"
"It means that every time I've tried meeting new people, getting out of here, you've been there with some excuse or plan so that I stayed."
Cregan frowned, looking deeply upset.
"I told you every time it happened that we could reschedule. I'm sorry I like spending time with you. I thought you liked spending time with me, and you liked sharing this apartment with me."
A cry found it's way out of Jace's throat. Tears gathered in his eyes and fell without shame, unlike Jace, who felt stupid and frustrated with the whole conversation. He would never be free of it, of him, of the pining and the heartache, would he? It didn't matter what he did.
"Of course I like spending time with you, you big oaf! You're my best friend! And I love this apartment, I would love any apartment that we shared because I'd be sharing them with you, and I'd spend all my days here if I could, but I can't, we can't!"
Jace felt himself hyperventilating. He needed to get to him room, lock himself in it, maybe just leave the flat for a while. He had already said too much.
If he was still delusional about this, which he wasn't, Jace would've said that Cregan looked heartbroken. As it were, he looked like his world was turning upside down, and Jace understood that Cregan hated change, he did, but it was all so terribly unfair, so unfair of Cregan to act like he was the one being done wrong, when Jace was the one that felt like his body was decaying from the inside out.
"Jace, I'm not going anywhere. Why are you trying to pull away?"
He looked like a kicked puppy, and Jace felt all fight leave his body. It took every ounce of energy he had left not to collapse into ground in sobs.
"You're not going anywhere now, Cregan, don't you see? Someday soon you'll find someone else, a partner, and you'll move on, move out, and we'll see each other on the weekends, maybe, if we're lucky. So I need to do the same so I'm not left behind. Alone." Every word that left his lips was a stab to his chest, but it wasn't anything he hadn't already thought about a million times before. It was just the first time he had voiced it out loud.
Cregan was going to find love someday, it was inevitable. How could he not? Sometimes Jace wondered how it hadn't happened already, and some of those days Jace felt greedy and glad, and the other days he felt greedy and guilty. Cregan deserved to find happiness, even if Jace knew that the day it happened it would break him in a million little pieces.
It did the trick, at least, as Cregan didn't respond, didn't utter a single word. Didn't look capable of moving, silent as a statue.
Jace took his chance, rounding his friend and once again heading for his bedroom to wallow in his misery. He needed to get over this, he had to. He just needed a single night of crying until he passed out and he'd wake up a new man, it'd be fine. He'd done it before.
He was reaching for the knob when he found himself turned around and pushed against the door, and suddenly there were lips upon his.
Cregan's. They were Cregan's lips. They were slightly chapped but plump, wet and moving feverishly again him, and he could only respond in kind.
Cregan hummed in approval when he felt him reciprocating and he plastered himself against his front, effectively caging him between the door and his body, all that hard-earned muscle and warm skin seeping through their clothes. Jace gasped at that moment and then there was tongue, and yes, yes. A hand of Cregan's wound itself in his hair, slightly tugging, and that tore a moan out of him. He hooked his own hands behind the other's neck, trying to climb him, mold into him, get inside him and live as one being forever. He writhed against Cregan's body and the northman moaned, sneaking the hand not on his hair around his waist and pushing him even harder against himself, impossibly close, not one atom of separation between the two of them.
Unexpectedly Cregan tore their lips apart, and Jace could breathe again for what seemed like hours spent like that. He was about to protest it when Cregan's lips found themselves at home on his neck, kissing and nipping at the delicate skin there, and Jace voiced the loudest moan yet that evening. He felt drunk, Cregan sighing and moaning in his ear, as if his neck was the best meal he had had in ages, his bites which were for sure turning his neck red and purple making his stomach turn warm with lust, his smell coating the air, surrounding every part of him. All of his senses were overfilled with him. Just Cregan, Cregan, Cregan.
He didn't realize he had been chanting his name until he responded in the same way. "Jace... fuck, Jace, baby..."
That, and the lungful of oxygen to his brain he took, sadly made him realize what he was doing, and who he was doing it with.
"Cregan... A-ah... Cregan, no." He pushed lightly against his chest, and he stopped immediately at the carnage he was causing at his neck.
Cregan detached himself from his neck like it physically pained him to do so, but didn't go far, he didn't even take his arm from around his waist away, just put enough distance between them so they could look each other in the eye. He looked wild. His hair in disarray, thanks to Jace, his pupils so big his eyes looked nearly black. His face was flushed with red, his lips plump and raw, invitingly so, but Jace contained himself, against every cell in his body screaming at him to drop the act and continue what they were doing. They couldn't, not like this.
"No?" It was a whisper, just a pained little sound. It broke Jace to think he was responsible for causing Cregan any sort of distress, but they had to talk about this before it went any further, or Jace wouldn't come out of it alive in one single piece.
"No. Cregan, I can't..." He swallowed against the pinpricks of tears he felt building up in his eyes again. "I can't do this, if it's just casual for you, if it's just a way for you to make me feel better, to pacify me or something. I..."
A strong hand cupped his cheek and turned his face towards Cregan's own. His gaze was soft, and there was something there that Jace couldn't name. It wasn't the first time he had seen that look, he thought, but it was the first time he had seen it from up close.
"Jace..." His name was like a caress on his tongue, and he felt a thumb softly following the slope of his nose, his cheek, catching a stray single tear that had escaped against his will. "Have you ever wondered why I stayed in King's Landing? Why I didn't go back home, with my sister and everything I ever knew? Who... who I did it for?"
It couldn't be. It was too much, too fast. He had to be dreaming, right?
"Cregan..." What was he supposed to say?
"I've felt this way for so long, Jace. I thought maybe some day you'd see it, see me... These past few weeks have been torture, seeing you seek something that I've been willing to give you all along. One chance is all I'm asking, baby."
He couldn't not kiss him. Couldn't not, with all his might and tears on his face turning their second kiss way saltier than the first but just as good, taking his face in his hands. He was never letting go.
"I love you, I love you Cregan, please, please..."
"Fuck, love you too, I love so much, I have loved you all this time, Jace."
Time lost all meaning, he didn't know long they were there against his door, rutting like teenagers and giggling and crying like fools, when he felt his stomach rumbling. He separated from Cregan with some regret.
"Shit. Dinner." He had never sent Medrick a text canceling on him, either.
Just as the thought passed through his mind, he felt his pocket vibrating. He took it out, and saw he had quite a few texts from Medrick, spanning a couple hours. Just how long had they been making out like that?
From: Medrick Tinder
7:11 PM
>>everything ok
7:49 PM
>>you couldve warned me you werent coming
8:21 PM
>>your ass is too flat to act like such a priss and dont even answer my texts bitch
8:24 PM
>>lol your such a cocktease fuck u
"I think I lost all my chances with Medrick." He turned his phone towards Cregan and showed him the texts.
He laughed through his nose. "Good riddance. God, what a loser."
Yeah, what a loser.
"Hey, wanna order in something? I'm hungry too and I don't feel like cooking."
"Yeah, cool, me neither." Besides, they could spend the time waiting for the food by making out just a little bit more.
The glint in Cregan's eyes told him he had thought the same thing.
+1
Cregan had repeated time and time again that it was supposed to be a surprise, but Jace was jittery and ready to jump out of the car out of pure nerves all the same.
It had been a few weeks since the whole thing – getting together – happened, and the time since then had been... bliss. Nothing changed, not really, and that made it the whole thing even more perfect. They still shared an unhealthy amount of time together, made little quips and jokes at the expense of the other and were first and foremost best friends. The sex was spectacular too, but that was just a plus.
The problem was that they were also adults with demanding jobs that sometimes took a good chunk out of their time spent together. So, officially, they hadn't had their first date yet.
Thankfully, their schedules had finally aligned and it had allowed them to spend a few days together. Clearly, Cregan had decided it was the perfect moment to have their first date, and kept his plans of it like it was a state secret.
So, Jace found himself in Cregan's car as shotgun, heading god knows where. He had never bitten his nails, but it was a good time to start doing it, probably.
It didn't make sense. They've had been friends for years, they had gone out together just the two of them countless of times. It shouldn't have been that different. But it was, or at least felt like it, because it would be their first time out as a couple, god.
"You've been awfully quiet, what's going on inside that head of yours?"
It had been at least fifteen minutes since he had said more than single word answers to whatever Cregan had been saying. He wrung his hands together as a nervous tic. "I'm just a bit ansty. I'm having my first date with my boyfriend, tall and handsome guy, you know him?"
"Mhm doesn't ring a bell, no. Can he fight, though?"
Jace bit his lower lip to prevent himself from smiling. "Yeah. He's also a super jealous guy so, just be careful."
Cregan had a giant, shit-eating grin the rest of the ride, taking the jealous comment as a compliment like the weirdo he really was, and Jace found himself relaxing a bit, his boyfriend's good mood rubbing off on him.
After a short while, they arrived at their destination. It was a nice little lake surrounded by a small forest, the leaves of the trees red and golden, and the nice crispy air of a cloudless autumn morning.
It was... familiar.
"I've been here before."
"Yeah, I know, I... Well you aren't the only one that was a bit nervous about our first date y'know, so I asked Luke for some council and he told me that you guys used to come here when you were younger with your dad, and I thought it could be nice. It shouldn't be too crowded this time of the year, we can rent a boat and have a picnic later, I brought some food, it's in the truck. I think I'm rambling a bit so... do you like it? Fuck, are you crying?"
He was.
"Oh no, it's awful isn't it. Did I overstep? Fuck baby, I'm so sorry, I..."
Jace took the step that separated them and hugged his boyfriend with all his might, hiding his tears in his chest.
"No, no, it's perfect. It is. Thank you, Cregan."
He felt all of his boyfriend's tension leave his body, a deep sight escaping his mouth. "Oh, thank god, I'm so happy to hear that, Jace."
He borrowed further into Cregan's jacket. "I love you."
"Love you too, baby."
Jace got on the tip of his toes and gave a peck to his boyfriend, a smile threatening to rip his face in half, but it was fine, because Cregan had a matching one just as big. He took his hand and started walking down the path from the small parking lot towards the lake.
"Okay Mr. Boyfriend, I've had enough talking. Take me on this date of yours."
And he did.