Work Text:
"Hey." Tommy looked up. He raised an eyebrow. "It's okay," Terence tried. He pulled a chair out from the desk that faced the wall in every room at the hotel the snooker players had been put up in for this bracket. There was a slight squeak as his clown balls hit the seat, and he winced. That stupid sound, always reminding him he was different, he was other. There was a desk just like it in his own room next door. "Well. Okay, no it isn't, it really isn't, I know. It isn't. But. But maybe it could be," he offered quietly, looking down at his lap. He didn't need to look upwards to know that his friend was doing the same. Even though it had been thirty six years since the incident, and Tommy had never met them, Terence knew he still missed his parents tremendously. It must be traumatic, he sympathised, having them die before you could even be born. Eye contact was weird at times like these. Eye contact was weird when you were Tommy Nipple, and you didn't really know how to talk to people, and you didn't really /like/ to talk to people, and there was just this one person that actually you maybe /really/ liked to talk to and to play snooker against and that confused you so much that you could hardly bear to talk to them because you never knew what to say and it was all just- Eye contact was weird when you were Clown Balls Terrence. When you had clown balls and everyone could hear it when you leaned up against the snooker table. And it was weird making eye contact with Tommy, when he was so serious and intelligent and /pretty/ and you... Well /you/ were a silly little man with his stupid honking testes who is just as hurt and just as lonely and just as /longing/ as your friend, but you had no idea how to get through to him because /he didn't know how to let you in./ Tommy was first to break the silence, surprisingly- Terrence had just opened his mouth when the other began to speak. "Thank you." It was so quiet that Terrence could barely hear it. This wasn't helped by the ushanka hat he always wore, fur covering his ears. "Of course," he whispered back. If he said it any quieter it would have been lost, but any louder and the room would've shattered. Terrence liked his hat. It stood for something important, something powerful, something he felt with his entire being. It was his pain and his hurt, it was his fight and his endurance, and despite all the pain that was caused for it to be made, it was the best thing he could make out of the worst thing. He had picked it up from the ground when fleeing the burning building that his late wife was trapped in. Somehow, the synthetic fibres saved him from the flames. But what he didn't say was that there was some of his wife's hair in there too. And his children. And though they were dead, they could still keep him warm. Keep him fighting. He moved tentatively to touch the cold metal chain on his wrist. his little bracelet- it looked gold but it was actually just polished brass. He made it. Yesterday, after he had to watch the chain on Tommy's locket get torn to shreds and slammed into the mud, by homophobic snooker haters. Tommy's locket was like his hat. At least, that was Terrence's closest guess. Something from his sister. Something to keep him going. That was all he knew. Terrence retracted his hand from grazing the metal on his wrist, and moved it awkwardly into the pocket of his white shorts. Well. Once, they were white. His fingers touched the cold metal, and paused. He remembered to breathe. He grasped the metal chain, considerably longer than the one round his wrist, and slowly pulled it from his pocket, nervously setting it down in his lap, his legs crossed on the squeaky desk chair. Tommy wasn't looking. It took him a few moments. Terrence tapped his snooker rival on the shoulder, causing him to look round. Terrence handed him the chain. He didn't say anything else. There wasn't anything proper to say, so he just let the feelings command themselves without verbal instruction. And without command, those emotions became free. They rose and fell in a blue crescendo like the storms that rolled outside. They stabbed and healed and tumbled awkwardly like a drunk who was madly in love. They didn't know where they were going but they went with all they had, and wherever they landed- however unintentional- it felt /right./ Terence didn't know how Tommy had ended up falling into him, a weak tower of bricks finally pushed into a crumbled pile- but he did know that his shoulder was becoming fast drenched, and his heart fast clenched, and he didn't quite see it coming but he too choked up. But that was okay, Terrence decided. Not to smile or laugh or sing all the time when you wanted to break down in tears. Yes, that was okay, Tommy thought. Not to push everything deep, deeper down as it fought its way up faster. It wasn't okay. Nothing was okay. Nothing in the city, in the snooker league, in the /world/ was okay. But here, in their little room, with their bracelets and arms and /warmth/, Some things were okay.