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It happens so fast –– one moment Jude’s still half-hoping that Lucas will show, and the next Zero has stepped into his personal space and is kissing him. Distantly, Jude knows that kissing Zero in front of cameras that are broadcasting live is probably not a good idea, but he’s not exactly thinking at the moment.
It’s muscle memory that has him bringing a hand up to cup Zero’s jaw, and everyone else fades into the background easily enough. He’s not sure how long they stand there with their lips locked, but he thinks it might’ve been somewhere between too short and an eternity.
Zero breaks the kiss first, but doesn’t pull away. Awareness of their surroundings is starting to come back to Jude, but his heart is pounding so loudly in his ears that he barely hears the reporters yelling for their attention. Yet somehow he manages to hear Zero loud and clear.
“I’d love for kissing you after a game to become a thing,” Zero says, “I promise I won’t freak out.” And Jude laughs because Zero remembers.
“Let’s get out of here,” he suggests when the reporters start crowding into their space. Zero nods, and Jude lets his hands slide from Zero’s shoulders to the small of his back, urging him towards the exit.
They’re quickly swarmed by reporters, but neither of them say a thing. It’s bad enough that they decide to forgo the locker room entirely, just wanting to get away from the crowd as soon as possible. They make their escape while Lionel holds down the fort, and after a little bit of sneaking, they peel out of the parking lot without being followed.
“There’ll probably be tons of press at your place,” Jude says, and he grimaces a little at how hopeful he manages to sound while stating a fact.
Jude catches Zero shrug from the corner of his eye. “I didn’t want to go back to my place anyway,” he says.
It’s only when they’re at a red light does Jude turn to properly look at the man sitting in his passenger seat. Zero smiles at him, and the expression is so open, so unguarded, that Jude can’t help but lean over to kiss him.
When he settles back into his own seat, he feels the distance between them like a physical ache. And maybe Zero feels it too, because when Jude starts driving again he feels Zero’s hand settle on his leg, where it stays for the rest of the drive home.
They’re kissing again as soon as they’re through the door, their path to the bedroom marked by various articles of clothing discarded on the floor along the way. Zero fucks him slowly that night, and even as Jude’s thinking fasterfasterfaster and moremoremore, he decides he likes fucking like they’ve got all the time in the world.
And it feels like they do, because Zero doesn’t leave as soon as it’s over. He crawls right back into bed as soon as they’re done cleaning up, and opens his arms for Jude, who gladly settles against him.
Jude falls asleep sometime after round three, and even though he’s decidedly sore the morning after, he thinks he won’t mind being perpetually sore if he gets to wake up in Zero’s arms everyday.
Jude’s woken by the sound of the phone ringing, and he’s not quite sure whose phone it is that’s going off, but Zero only buries his face deeper into the pillow so Jude half-heartedly attempts to find the phone. Surprisingly, he manages to find it before the caller hangs up, and he swipes to answer without looking at the caller ID.
“Hello?” he greets, and then remembers belatedly to try and rid the sleep in his voice.
“Jude?” The voice responds, sounding just this side of surprised.
“Lucas?” Jude pulls the phone away to look at the screen, groaning slightly when he sees the familiar name. “Why’re you calling me?”
“I’m calling Zero,” Lucas corrects, and that’s when Jude realises that his own phone is still on the bedside table where he’d left it.
“Right,” he says, nudging his boyfriend – and oh how Jude loves the little burst of affection he feels every time he thinks of Zero as such – in a futile attempt to wake him. “Hold on, he’s still asleep. I’ll wake him.”
“No!” The sudden yelp makes Jude jump, but by the time he’s gotten over it, Lucas is speaking again. “No, don’t wake him. It’s not anything urgent.”
He’s just about to say goodbye and hang up, because he isn’t exactly keen on talking to Lucas any longer than he has to, but Lucas keeps going. “When you were talking about your mystery guy I never would have guessed that it’d be Zero.”
Jude knows he probably shouldn’t get into this, that if he had any modicum of common sense he would end the call right now. But something about the way Lucas had said that makes anger flare in him, the urge to defend Zero winning over common sense. “What do you mean by that?” he asks, although it comes out more like an angry demand.
“You made him sound like this really amazing guy. And Zero... well, he’s probably amazing in bed, but he’s a manipulative asshole, Jude. He uses people.” Lucas’s tone is casual, as if his words aren’t hurting Jude like a knife to his gut. “He’s probably using you and you’re too naive to see it.”
He’s spared from having to reply to that by the phone being snatched out of his hand. He’d almost forgotten that Zero’s still in bed with him, and when he turns to the other man, Zero has the phone to his own ear.
“Listen, buddy,” Zero spits, and Jude is almost ashamed to admit that he’s a little turned on by how Zero manages to make a perfectly friendly term sound so spiteful. “You can talk shit about me all you like, I don’t care. But if you ever talk to Jude again, I’m firing you.”
Zero hangs up and tosses the phone onto the bedside table, and Jude reaches over to draw him into a kiss. “You do realise that he’s your agent, and I’m your boss, which means talking to me is kind of in his job description, right?”
Jude may be mistaken, but he thinks he hears a low whine coming from his shoulder, where Zero has firmly pressed his face against. “I don’t care, he’s not saying a word to you ever again,” he lifts his head to speak, but still the words are slightly muffled.
Zero’s arms snake around his middle, pulling until Jude’s practically on his lap, and even though Zero doesn’t say anything else, there’s something protective about the way he’s holding him that makes the hurt from Lucas’s words earlier dissolve. Jude sinks into the embrace easily, and they breathe each other in.
“I love you,” Zero whispers.
Jude’s heart is full when he whispers back. I love you too.
Zero reaches for his pocket, fingers fumbling to find something, and for one long, crazy moment, Jude thinks Derek and Ahsha might not be the only ones getting engaged. He’s not exactly disappointed when Zero pulls out a key, but it takes some effort to swallow the yes that had been on the tip of his tongue.
“It’s the house I grew up in,” Zero says, “Still has the sledgehammer I put in the wall.”
Jude’s not sure where exactly Zero’s going with this, but Zero rarely opens up without being prompted and Jude’s a good listener so he stays quiet.
It doesn’t take too long for Zero to start making sense anyway. “I bought it,” he continues, “I put it under both our names –– I figured we could renovate it, make that neighbourhood the new place to be.”
Zero barely gives him any time to respond, adding, “If you want.”
And Jude knows Zero – knows Gideon – well enough to know that the last bit isn’t entirely for his benefit. Sure, it’s an out if he needs one, but Jude’s been anything but subtle about how much he loves Zero. No, the almost flippant if you want is Zero’s way of pretending like what he’s offering isn’t a big deal, as if he wouldn’t be bothered if Jude decides he doesn’t want this with Zero after all.
He doesn’t call him out on it though. “Of course I want, stupid,” he says, leaning in and brushing their lips together. The kiss is decidedly chaste, but somehow Jude manages to say I love you and I know how much this means to you and I want a life with you too in the two seconds it lasted.
He snatches the key from Zero’s fingers, and goes easily when Zero pulls him to his side. Jude’s pretty sure he has the stupidest grin on his face right now, but he doesn’t care, not when Zero presses a kiss into his hair and Jude can feel his smile as well.
It’s not a marriage proposal, but Jude thinks maybe this means more than a silly little ring ever could. That house is filled with nothing but bad memories – the wrecked living room is definite proof of that – and Jude would have understood if Zero never wanted to go back there again. It’s a testament to how much Zero’s grown, of how far they’ve come, he thinks, that Zero’s peeling off his masks and facing his past and trusting Jude to be there with him every step of the way.
Jude doesn’t say all that though. Instead, he tilts his head to brush his lips across Zero’s jaw, the feeling of stubble scratching his skin not exactly pleasant but intimately familiar. Zero turns too, planting a soft kiss firmly on the corner of his mouth, and Jude smiles wider because it’s all the confirmation he needs that Zero knows how proud he is of him.
“Chinese or Indian tonight?” Jude asks when the moment passes, standing up and pulling Zero up with him.
“Pizza,” Zero responds, and even though Jude rolls his eyes, forty minutes later there’s a pizza delivery guy at the door.
Jude’s trying not to make an occasion of this, but he busts out the cheap wine anyway, and when they clink mugs it feels like a toast to their future.
They have had plenty of petty arguments throughout the course of their home renovation –– it’s not easy, trying to find middle ground between two men with very different tastes in interior design. (They’d even had a heated disagreement over curtains just the week before.) But Jude doesn’t remember any of their previous fights being quite this bad.
The bathroom in the hallway is quite small, fitted with only a toilet, sink, and shower. Their designer had suggested expanding it by moving the wall between the bathroom and the room next to it, which Jude thinks is a good idea, but Zero is having none of it.
He’s not sure when they’d started yelling at each other, but when they’ve calmed down, they’re standing on opposite ends of the rooms, both with their arms crossed and staring at each other.
“I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn about this,” Jude sighs, and even though his shoulders are slumped, the stubborn set to his jaw lingers. “We agreed that this is going to be my office, and I honestly don’t need this much space. We can afford to make the bathroom bigger, really.”
Zero says nothing to that, but Jude watches him carefully anyway. He doesn’t seem keen on explaining his reasons for being quite so hard-headed, but he’s not backing down either. It strikes Jude then how tense the atmosphere between them is, and he finds himself suddenly aching for closeness. Zero’s only a few steps away, but he feels further than that, and Jude doesn’t want to lose him over something as stupid as a disagreement on home design.
He sighs again, this time willing his frustrations to leave, and then he’s crossing the room to stand in front of Zero. He reaches for Zero, who lets him uncross his arms without a fight. And when Jude steps into his personal space and wraps his arms around Zero, he pulls him closer.
Jude turns his head, presses a kiss against Zero’s temple, and lets his lips linger by his ear. “We’ll leave the bathroom as it is,” he concedes, “At least we won’t have to worry about guests fucking in the bathroom if we ever throw any parties.”
That manages to draw laughter from Zero, and Jude sinks further into him when Zero squeezes his sides lightly. “They’ll still fuck in there if they’re determined enough.”
Jude pulls a face, but doesn’t refute the point. He pulls back a little, but not enough to make Zero drop his arms, and he reaches to cup Zero’s face, leaning in to press their mouths together softly. That’s the end of that debate, and they go about the rest of the day without bringing it up again.
“There were at least a dozen of us at a time here,” Zero says later when they’re in bed, and Jude puts down the report he’d been looking through. “And we all stayed in the living room.”
When Jude looks over, Zero’s not looking at him. He’s frowning slightly, staring at a spot somewhere near the foot of their bed. Jude places the report on his bedside table before reaching over to take Zero’s hand, brushing a thumb over his knuckles in a show of silent support.
“It was too crowded, and I always felt so... claustrophobic. That’s why I kept sneaking off to sleep at the courts –– plenty of space there.” Zero pauses, finally turns to Jude and catches his eye. “Kids shouldn’t feel like they’ve got no space.”
Zero doesn’t say it, but Jude hears him anyway: our kids shouldn’t feel like they have no space. Suddenly Zero’s insistence on keeping the office its current size makes sense; he doesn’t think it’ll be Jude’s office permanently. They’ve never talked about having kids, and Jude’s never really let himself think about it, but knowing that Zero sees children in their future makes Jude realise that he wants that for them someday –– their own family.
“We’ve only got three bedrooms,” Jude points out, “So if you want more than two, we might have to start thinking about finding a bigger place.”
Zero smiles, and Jude swears he falls in love all over again. When Zero lies down and pulls Jude down with him, he doesn’t resist. “I think two’s enough for me.”
Jude’s working hours are longer than Zero’s to begin with, and he has a tendency to stay in the office later than he has to, so more often than not, Zero is home before him. Jude likes coming home to Zero, likes finding his boyfriend on the couch and sprawling on him after a long day, likes the way Zero mumbles welcome home into his skin.
It’s awfully domestic, which people like to tease them about, but Jude doesn’t think much of it. Coming home to Zero is an occurrence that dates all the way back to even before they starting dating, so he supposes after years of that being the norm, he doesn’t quite understand why others make such a big deal of it.
“I’m home,” Jude calls when he gets home, frowning slightly when he doesn’t immediately get a response.
He ventures further in, finding Zero on his usual spot on the couch, seemingly deep in thought. He startles a little when he notices Jude, and the smile and welcome he offers is half-hearted at best. Puzzled, Jude makes his way over, stripping off his jacket and tie along the way and dumping them onto the armchair.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks as he settles into the couch, pressing a kiss against Zero’s shoulder.
Zero watches him for a while, and then–– “Why aren’t we married?"
To say that he’s caught off guard by the question would be an understatement; he’s not quite sure what he had been expecting, but he sure as hell hadn’t even considered Zero being pensive over their marital status.
“Where is this coming from?” He realises that they’re conversing solely with questions at the moment, but Jude’s still too shocked to formulate a proper reply.
“Laura got engaged today, and she met the guy after we’d already gotten together,” Zero replies, “It made me wonder if you don’t want to marry me or something.”
“Of course I want to marry you, stupid,” Jude says, and even though he rolls his eyes, his words are fond.
Zero’s not having it though. He leans back against the couch, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at Jude. “Then how come you haven’t asked me to marry you?”
He seems completely serious, so it’s only by iron will does Jude manage to keep himself from laughing at the complete absurdity of this conversation. “Honestly? I think it’s because we act like we’re married so often that I forget that we’re not actually legally wed,” Jude says, “Besides, why must I be the one who asks?”
“Fair enough,” Zero says, nodding. “Will you marry me then?”
Zero’s tone is so casual –– in fact, it’s the exact same tone Zero uses when he’s suggesting what kind of takeout they should get –– that it takes a few moments for Jude to realise that he’s being proposed to. “Yes...?” he says, and then with more surety. “Yes.”
“Okay, great!” Zero grins, and distantly, Jude wonders if he should be let down by how much of a non-event his engagement is. But then Zero’s kissing him and pulling him to the kitchen and offering to reheat the quinoa salad he made earlier if Jude’s hungry and it only reaffirms the fact that they’re probably already married.
He doesn’t need a fancy proposal or a ring –– he just needs Zero. And he already has Zero, so Jude has no complaints at all.
(He’s marrying Zero though, the same person who threw a big coming out party when they went public with their relationship. The proposal might have been a non-event, but the wedding is definitely the biggest event of the century.)