Chapter Text
Jack was up and out of the room, clothes in hand and the bedroom door slamming shut after him, before Brock had the chance to reach out and grab him. A couple of seconds later, he heard the bathroom door slam shut too. He sighed, and scrubbed his hands over his face.
It was fair to say that this particular outcome had certainly not featured in any of his fantasies of how tonight would play out.
Brock pulled his clothes back on, remade the bed, blew out the candles Jack had scattered around the place, and went out to the bathroom. It had been close to five minutes - long enough.
He knocked on the door gently. “Hey, Jack?”
No response. He tried the handle and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. “C'mon. Come out of there.”
There was a sound of someone shuffling around and then, “Fuck off, Brock.”
Brock rolled his eyes at the note of peevishness in Jack’s voice. “You’re really overreacting,” he told the door, striving to keep his tone calm and reassuring. “It happens to tons of men. You’re making this into a way bigger deal than it needs to be.”
“Right,” came the sneered reply. “So it’s happened to you then, has it?”
“No, but—“
Jack cut him off sharply, “Then you can fuck off again.”
Sometimes it was hard for Brock to remember that he was an entire decade older than Jack; this was not one of those times. “You’re being unbelievably immature,” he growled back. There was a mumbled response from behind the door which to Brock sounded awfully like 'Don't care' and then his patience snapped.
“Alright, Rollins. I’m done asking nicely,” Brock called out loudly, running his hand lightly over the door – completely bog-standard 35mm thick softwood. He’d helped Jack hang it when they were doing up this place. “Either you open this fucking door by the time I count to three, or I kick it down. One. Two-” he took a couple of steps back “-Thr—“
There was a click as the lock disengaged and then the door swung outwards, Jack shoving past him to march down the stairs and into the kitchen. Brock followed, watching from the doorway as he poured a glass of water at the sink and drained it in one gulp.
“So?" Brock prompted when it became clear that Jack had no intention of speaking first. “What's this all about?””
Jack sighed and turned around slowly. “Because it was your first time,” he said eventually, eyes fixed somewhere over Brock’s left shoulder.
“Jack, you’re about twenty-five years too late for that.”
Jack slumped down into one of the kitchen chairs and dropped his head into his hands. “With a guy,” he said, so quietly that Brock almost missed it. He looked up again, eyes shining with something that Brock couldn’t quite decipher. “It was your first time with a guy. With me.”
Ah.
Brock picked his next words carefully. “So what?” he asked. “No-one’s first time is perfect, and if they say it was then they’re fucking lying. My first time with a girl… Well let’s just say that I had some, uh, navigational issues and leave it at that.”
“You were a teenager,” Jack pointed out. He had gone back to staring at the table, but Brock thought he could see the start of a small smile tugging at his lips. “This is completely different.”
“Only according to you.” Brock made his way over to the table and pulled Jack towards him until his head was resting against Brock’s stomach and his arms wrapped around his waist. “Are you seriously worried I’m going to lose interest in you because of something stupid like this?” he asked gently, and Jack grunted softly in reply. “Wow, you’re a whole lot dumber than I thought you were.”
Jack pulled back to give him a dirty look and Brock winked to take the sting out of his words. He brushed Jack’s hair carefully back from his face with both hands. “Come on, it wasn’t that bad,” he told him, and then couldn’t help himself from adding, “the whole entire minute or two it lasted, anyway.”
Jack buried his face against Brock again with a loud groan and a heartfelt, if muffled, “Fuck you.”
“Now, now,” Brock admonished, stroking the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. “Let’s not make any promises we might not be able to keep, eh?”