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The longer Jay stands there in the middle of the bar, the more his wrists start to hurt from the cold pint glasses in his hands. He's not a very good Canadian in that regard; a poor tolerance for cooler temperatures, always layered in thermals and wool socks once October starts to creep around. It's something he half-blames on his family's yearly Christmas trips to Florida. (Why suffer in the unforgiving bleakness of a northern winter when you could just fly south like a bird? Hah.)
But Matt, with his brawny Nordic genes, has never let Jay live it down.
When they'd lived together all those years ago, Matt had burned like a furnace. Still does. But back in their tiny home on Queen and Spadina, he'd leave couch cushions warm and inviting, blankets pre-heated, discarded flannels radiating with residual coziness. Naturally, Jay gravitated toward these with his cold, bony limbs, desperate to bring color back to his hands and toes that would start going white if he wasn't careful.
But warmth was never given freely back then. Matt had to let Jay know how much of a pussy he was for always complaining about the cold and stealing Matt's warmth like a clingy girlfriend. Jay found it hard to care though while wrapped in a toasty red flannel and two blankets as it edged toward -20C outside. Besides, they'd said much worse to each other over the years. Matt's words were pretty much a fond greeting at that point.
But that was long ago and Jay has his own layers now.
Tonight, as adults in their forties, they are tucked away in a bar in Copenhagen (a one-night pit-stop on an arduous European tour, the rest of the Zap crew reviewing footage back at the hotel), and Jay had pulled his shirt jacket — a shacket, a younger friend told him — tighter around himself when they walked in. He was vaguely intimidated by the smartly-dressed Europeans that crowded The Bird & Churchkey, a gin bar recommended by a friend of a friend of an ex-girlfriend, while Matt had swaggered in with his usual uniform: thin white t-shirt stretched taut over his chest and rolled up grey sweatpants.
One would think he'd be easy to spot, but now he's nowhere to be seen.
The bodies are numerous and the bar is dark in the way that trendy places are, and it forces Jay to stand up to his full height. A rare occurrence — the Scandinavians really give him a run for his money.
Jay looks around with mild frustration, lips twisted to the side. He feels vaguely out of place and hopes nobody mistakes him for a bumbling American tourist.
Lots of blond heads of hair. But still no sight of Matt.
Jay forges ahead, channeling whatever remains of his bolder, stupider younger self to navigate the tightly packed crowd. It's only recently that he's come to accept that his party boy days are behind him. Rather, he feels he's earned the grey in his hair and beard, finding himself preferring a nice Pinot Grigio and a snacking board filled with things like cornichons and almonds and hummus while Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits plays in the background.
As he continues looking for Matt, Jay catches snippets of whatever Europop is playing over the speakers (light, airy, electronic), bobbing his head to the beat but unable to discern any actual lyrics. A thought occurs to him: maybe they could lean full European getaway and go out dancing later. It's no Talented Mr. Ripley by the Italian seaside, Jay muses, but Copenhagen might offer adjacent hedonistic delights. Though, Matt would probably rather peel off his own fingernails than agree to that. (And Jay's lower back might have a few protests of its own.)
A beautiful woman brushes past him with a beautiful man in tow, and the crowd parts just enough for Jay to spot Matt; tuft of wild hair, arms folded (and flexed) across his chest, eyes darting around nervously behind his round glasses. He's doing that thing where he stabs the tip of his tongue into the pocket of his cheek.
Telegraphed by body language alone and only to Jay: Matt's uncomfortable.
He's been cornered by a gaggle of handsome young Danes of varying model quality. Fans maybe? Slim, but feasible. Jay squints and shoulders through the crowd, finding more resistance the closer he gets. The pint glasses are frigid in his hands.
The men smile at Matt and someone laughs and Jay envies that effortless European skill for banter, seemingly always knowing what to say and the exact cadence in which to say it. Hitting every note of a conversation perfectly on the first try.
(He is reminded, distantly, of the time he'd joined a Zoom conference late. Instead of just saying he'd gotten the time wrong, he'd fumbled through clunky syntax just to say, "I’m, uh, for some reason, an hour shifted in my, uh, accuracy of time today.")
And then one of the men reaches out and touches Matt's chest in a way that is less "Fan of Independent Canadian Comedy" and more "Fan of Muscular Blond Foreigners."
A chill runs through Jay — starting from his wrists, of course. It travels through his body like a pinball jettisoning up the shooter lane, lights going wild as it arcs up and then down, gravity knocking it around the bumpers in his chest.
It is abrupt and abnormal in its intensity, and all at once, he is spirited away from his body, out of Copenhagen, out of Europe. On the other side of the pond, as they say, back in his house in Roncy, sitting on his couch in front of the TV. He’s holding the remote about to watch the rough cut of Nirvanna the Band the Show’s latest season.
S04 E03: The Basshunter
Matt and Jay try to get a show at the Rivoli…
They find themselves in Denmark because of the Niche European Fandom Plan, formulated after they passed by the Rivoli one day and found that a Dutch artist had been booked for the night. They saw him smoking in an alleyway not so far from his tour bus. In his tight-fitting tank top, billowing denim pants, and arms decked out in tattoos, he was the epitome of European Swag, so Matt and Jay had decided that they needed to tap into this. Britain already had Adele, Sweden already had ABBA, Finland already had their metal bands, so here they were.
Toronto's next big stars.
The plan is going a bit too well, since Matt is now being swarmed by handsome young Danes who ogle at his bulging biceps. One even steals a squeeze.
Jay worries that it’ll go the same way it did when Matt sneaked a film into Sundance. He needs to get there fast so his friend doesn’t get all of the attention.
He steps into the scene, placing the pints down. One for him and one for Matt in two short thunks following closely from each other.
"Heyyy, what’s cracking?" Jay says.
The eager chatter among the handsome Danes screeches to a halt.
Jay points to himself. "I’m also called Bird!" Nobody laughs. "You know, like the bar?" There is truly nothing funnier than explaining the joke you've just made.
Matt squints at him.
"A friend of yours?" one of the Danes, blond with a princely haircut, asks.
"Uh—"
Jay answers for him, "Yeah! We're in a band together. It's called Nirvanna the Band."
Another Dane laughs, but then realizes that Jay is saying this with complete (rehearsed) sincerity, and coughs to hide it. Jay watches the light bulb go off in Matt's head in real time. And just as quickly, Matt schools his expression back into mock confusion.
"Bird, what are you doing?" he hisses.
As the designated dunce, Jay's attempts at manipulation should come off as obvious and pathetic. Therefore, he knits his brows and says, "I'm following our plan, remember? You aren't gonna run off to become famous by yourself again, are you?"
"Hah! You're one to talk—" Wait, Fictional Matt doesn't know that he died in their movie's alternate timeline, so Real Matt course corrects at the drop of a hat, "—after the whole hullaballoo with your jingle-writing part-time job."
"At least one of us got a job," Jay snipes back, arms folded in a perfect mimicry of an annoyed sitcom wife. He glances around the captive audience like they're all in on a joke together.
The Danes are visibly uncomfortable. At this point, their European banter instincts start to kick in to try and salvage the situation.
"So, you have a band, yes? What songs do you have?" The blond already has his phone ready to open Spotify.
"Well, uh. We don't have songs," Matt answers. "We're an improvisational band. Bird here plays the piano, when he's not being a little bitch like right now, while I am the Improvisor."
The brunet behind the princely blond seems to perk up at that. Damn Europeans and their artsy and esoteric tastes. That won't do, so Matt goes, "I ask him to play something that sounds like there's a humongous kaiju attacking the city, and he'll play exactly that. And then I'll come in and go 'Don't fear, everyone! I'm going to save you in my big-as-fuck mech suit!'" He stomps to evoke the imagery of a big-as-fuck robot for good measure.
The lameness curve ball has its intended effect. The handsome Danes subtly send unsure glances at each other.
Fictional Jay takes this as a sign that they're totally captivated. Channeling as much naivety as possible, he adds, "We're here because we're trying to get a show at the Rivoli!"
"The Rivoli?"
"You're not supposed to say that we want to play the Rivoli!" Matt says, smacking Jay's chest with the back of his hand. If he was wearing a lav, the audio would've peaked. "What the fuck, man, we're supposed to come off as nonchalant and— and low key!"
"What's a low key? Like an A0?" Jay frowns.
"It doesn't matter, you're going to mess up our plan!"
"I'm not! How will we get a show at the Rivoli if they don't know about it?"
"Because we're gonna look desperate, man!" He bats at Jay's face, like he's trying to knock some sense into him. "Nobody likes desperate! It makes you look like a loser!"
A few routes flip through Jay's mind:
-
He could lean into their web series days, meet Matt with the same level of aggression. A tussle is always fun, though he's not too keen on starting a squabble of that scale in a foreign country. He just paid for their overpriced pints, after all.
-
Another option is that he could continue to play the ego-driven dunce, evoking the spirit of their Viceland series and movie. Fire back at Matt with a childish insult that borders on offensive. A very respectable and tried-and-true route.
-
Or, he could do this new thing they've been kinda playing with, the only glimpses of it buried in off-the-beaten-path interviews where they decide, unspoken, to engage the reporters in character. They become the old, married couple who go on dates at pottery studios with all their baggage in tow, ruining the atmosphere for the young lovebirds with half-painted ceramic mugs in front of them.
The invisible camera is rolling. Time is money. Jay pulls the trigger on the last one.
He pouts. "You think I'm a loser?"
"What? No, Jay—" Matt attempts to put his hand on Jay's shoulder, but he's shrugged off.
"That hurts, you know that?" Jay says. He's bringing his best performance tonight, he can feel it. The saddest, wettest eyes he's ever pulled at Matt.
"C'mon, don't do this, Birdie. You're like, at least top five coolest guys I know."
"Um… Excuse me," the princely blond interrupts.
Matt and Jay whip their heads in his direction. Here it is. Cue the drum roll. Jay has to stop the glee from showing on his face.
"It was nice talking, but me and my friends are going to… another bar now," the blond explains. The rest of his pack nod in agreement.
"Okay, have a good night!" Matt says with a bit too much enthusiasm.
The moment the handsome Danes leave the door, Matt and Jay both let out a sigh of relief.
"Wanna get out of here?" Matt grins. The vestiges of his fictional self are still present, and Jay happily meets him in that space.
"I just brought over beer!" Jay laughs.
Sitting on the bus, one overpriced beer each in their stomachs, Jay remembers accepting the award for Best Original Score for Blackberry in the Canadian Screen Awards. Everyone else had speeches thanking their friends and family, how they wouldn’t be able to do it without them. Meanwhile, he had hopped on stage in the gaudiest suit known to mankind, said something about how he and Matt always blurred the line between fiction and reality, before switching the trophy with a plastic Grammy and pretending to walk up the stage again.
He didn’t mind being deprived of a “heartfelt” speech then and he doesn’t mind it now — no words would’ve sufficed anyway — but after what happened in the bar, he wonders: Has my character consumed me?
Matt is silent beside him, but warmth continues to radiate off his body against the AC blasting over their heads. Jay seeks it; moves closer until their hips are touching. That, he knows, is him before his fictional self ever existed, at least.
"You ruined the plan, Bird."
"Hm?"
"You saw how those guys were all over me? We almost got the European fans who would’ve gotten us a show at the Rivoli!"
Jay smiles before putting on his characteristic whine, "But Matt, I was trying to save you! They were about to sell you into sex trafficking!"
Matt snorts. "Oh my god—" He smacks Jay’s shoulder as if to say, Dude that is not making the cut, do another one.
He bumps their shoulders in retaliation. Of course, Matt won't go down easy. He pushes harder against Jay until they're shoving at each other and giggling.
Their laughter naturally dies down and Jay finds himself looking into Matt's eyes. Really looking in a way he's been doing with increasing frequency over the years for reasons he hasn't really named out loud yet. A stolen glance at Matt's profile during a movie night, a fond and lingering gaze as he hijacks another interview.
But now Matt seems to be looking back with an unreadable expression on his own face. Lip drawn between his teeth, it dawns on Jay that something is going to happen tonight.
That fizzy, roiling energy follows them even when they step off the bus and walk the rest of the way to their hotel; a shaken soda can threatening to explode. Is it gonna be a good thing or a bad thing? It persists even in the lobby, in the hallway, as Matt repeatedly jabs the up button on the elevator.
The doors open for them, beckoning.
Jay gets a sense of deja vu when they step into the elevator; a Beatles biopic — no, it didn't count as a biopic because it admitted to being fictional right at the beginning — that Matt made him watch as inspiration for Tony, not because it was particularly good or anything. Actually, he can't recall exactly why they watched it, maybe because of its sheer audacity? It was legal fanfiction, and somehow Paul McCartney liked it. Would you believe that Paul actually liked this? Matt said before he shoved a chip and his two fingers along with it, into his mouth. Slurping and smacking.
In that movie, John Lennon and Paul McCartney kiss in the elevator.
Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol do not kiss in theirs.
When the bell dings to indicate they've reached their floor, they sweep out into the hallway — Matt walking with a briskness that reads almost as if he's trying to escape. Unfortunately for him, they're sharing a hotel room.
He's fumbling with his wallet when Jay whips out his keycard and holds it up to the electronic lock. It beeps and he opens the door with a practiced panache. An embellished "After you, monsieur" is on the tip of his tongue, but Matt walks past his outstretched hand, ignores the light switch, and the words die a tragic death.
"Cut it with the shtick, man. I'm tired."
Jay trails in behind with his hands up. "I'm not doing any shtick!" He's admittedly a bit put out at being caught.
"Bullshit, I can smell it a mile away on you. You were about to jump back into character. And what was up with the shit at the bar? That came out of nowhere." Matt's ruffling through his suitcase, and as more things pile up on the duvet, Jay realizes what he's looking for.
"I already put your toothbrush in the bathroom," he points out. "You left it on the dresser earlier when we checked in."
"Oh."
Instead of moving to grab it, Matt just stands there, deflated now that he doesn't have a task to focus on.
The walls press in on them ever so slightly.
Jay flips on his bedside lamp to push the shadows over toward Matt's side of the room. They cast him in a daunting, sulking backdrop. It's very befitting of Matt and his mercurial moods.
"You were so jealous at the bar," Matt hedges. Half a joke, half a jab. "Couldn't stand me getting all that attention."
Jay's too old to take such lukewarm bait. And Matt isn't that far off, even if his parameters are inverted of where the jealousy was targeted.
He can do better than that, so Jay pushes him to.
With a breezy nonchalance, he replies, "Oh, like you'd even know what to do with all those men throwing themselves at you. You were a skinny little virgin until you were 22." He pretends to busy himself with his own suitcase now. Fiddling with zippers and taking out a t-shirt. Not meeting Matt's eye.
"I bet I could go back out there, right now, and pull some hot piece of Danish ass," Matt scoffs, stepping closer, stepping out from the shadows and toward Jay. He's all bluster. They both know he never would, but Jay leans into it.
"Yeah and then they'd run away after they see how fucking crazy you are," Jay laughs meanly. "You've never even kissed a guy. You'd be so weird about it probably, call him a fag to his face or something."
Jay sets the bait.
"Oh, and you have? There something I should know?" There's a frantic note in Matt's voice, as if he's realizing in real time there may be things about Jay he's not privy to. And then the shadows warp him momentarily, a trick of the light no doubt, and Jay's blinking at a Matt that existed circa 2010. "That's kinda faggy of you, Bird."
Hook, line, sinker.
"And what if I have? Is that a problem?"
Matt's eyes go wide as saucers and then narrow in on Jay. He's moving again, faster now, closing the distance between them and grabbing the collar of Jay's shirt until they're nose to nose. Jay's slammed against the wall. Matt's breath is hot on his face.
"You know full well that it fucking isn't."
Blood rushes in Jay's ears. Almost there. No more boring soda can metaphors. They're standing on the edge of the CN tower and all they need is one little push to send them careening to the ground 500 meters away. The cords have been cut and they'll be indistinguishable red splats together.
So he pushes with two words that he knows will truly piss Matt off due to their sheer banality.
"Prov—"
Kissing Matt is the slap to the face that Jay's always wanted to feel the sting of. Because Jay doesn't know how to exist without the pretense of conflict, which he's pretty sure is Matt's fault. Partners and short-lived therapists have told Jay it's because he doesn't know how to be vulnerable without a wall in the way. But they just don't understand.
The violence is the vulnerability. The bickering is the devotion. Letting someone crack open your skull is the highest form of intimacy.
A clumsy tongue shoves its way into Jay's mouth and he welcomes the intrusion, meets it with his own, feeling for all the world like a teenager again. Not because there's any lack of skill, not because of the way he's already disgustingly hard in his jeans. But because, like always, it's just him and Matt — like they've been snipped out of a 35mm film reel and taped to a wall where only they can witness themselves.
The frames flicker through Jay's head: hands find Matt's hips and Jay digs his fingers in; rigid bodies spill into one another and soften with doughy pliancy; teeth tug at bottom lips; a thumb brushes against the grey at Jay's temples; a knee slots itself between Matt's legs; a little bit of friction goes a long way.
And then Matt pulls back and Jay chases him, eyes closed, with a grumble. Any fears of Matt running though are soothed by his arms still wrapped firmly around Jay's waist.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Bird? Me? Really?" He's flushed in the same way he is after a workout at the gym.
"Why not?"
"Your standards have really eroded."
Jay blinks, finds his eyes trailing down the contours of Matt's face.
“Don’t you realize that you have the nose of a Greek statue?” he hums.
“Shut up. Shut the fuck up.”
Jay laughs. “But it’s true! Like, the uh… Hermes. On top of Grand Central Station. When we did the Q&A in New York. I saw the statue up there and — honest to god — did a double take because he looked like you in the face."
Matt studies him for a moment before admitting, "Means a lot coming from someone who's giving a bit of a 'Cary Grant' thing these days."
Jay's flattered laughter is swallowed up by Matt's mouth, and they dive in slower this time, savoring the taste of the years behind them. He grips onto the front of Matt's shirt and wants to pull him inside his body, his actual physical self being the last and only thing that hasn't infiltrated Jay in some way. They've already been submerged in each other's lives for decades now. This is all that's left, no?
Jay surfaces to breathe out, "I do mean it. You're the hottest person I've ever seen."
A strangled noise from Matt. A rare occurrence of speechlessness. So Jay keeps talking. Couldn't stop even if he wanted to right now, like when he starts a sentence during an interview and has no fucking clue where it's going to land.
"Even before…" Jay noses along Matt's cheek, kissing his way along worry lines and up to his ear, continuing, "way before, way way way before all of the muscles, the whatever. Always thought you were so…" Perfect. Fucked up. Weird. Smart. Beautiful. All of them are too thin to describe the depth of what Jay's feeling. The silence stretches on a beat too long. He loses his momentum. "Uh… hot."
"Wow, great. A real Shakespeare here." Matt whiffs out the first foothold he can find and latches onto it. A thrill runs through Jay.
"It's hard to think when I have someone as good looking as you in front of me," he coos in a low voice.
Jay can't help but preen when Matt shuts up immediately and turns his head away. Turns out Bird's still got some game even in his older age.
"You're so fucking stubborn," Jay adds with a laugh. "You can't accept a compliment to save your life. It's like you'd rather shoot yourself in the face than let someone tell you how attractive you are."
"I'm not—"
"Shut uppp." Jay knocks his head into Matt's. "You've always been like this, just impossible. Those men were drooling over themselves just to talk with you at the bar. You could've taken any of them behind the bar and gotten them on their knees—"
Matt whips his head back and stares him down with a look Jay knows too well. A look that would intimidate most with its intensity, but it just pumps dumbfounded affection straight into Jay's heart.
"Why're you saying all of this?"
"Well," Jay licks his lips and flicks his eyes down then back up, "we were just making out, and I—"
Matt cuts him off because he always does.
"No, I mean why now? Why not, like, a week ago? Or a month ago, years ago? Why now?"
"It just…"
Never came up? That would be an absolute bummer thing to say. But it's a fair question from Matt. And quite honestly, Jay doesn't have a neat, succinct answer. He can't pinpoint when these feelings started coming into focus. In a way, they had always just been there, in some way, shape or form.
He could blame the foreign travel; how going abroad creates the illusion that you don't have to play by the old rules of your old life anymore. You can act out your impulses, knowing that if shit hits the fan, you can always step back into the safety of your persona back home.
(A vacation hookup with a girl on a cruise ship off the coast of Florida. She tries to get your phone number but you give her the one for the pizza place that Matt always insists you order from when he comes over.)
But Jay realizes he doesn't want to leave this abroad. He wants to secure it next to him in seat G23, luggage sharing a bin overhead, compare bites of their shitty little airplane dinners with the same intensity as a Roger Ebert film review. He wants to take it off the plane then, both of them groggy and jet lagged, and into the Uber waiting outside Pearson, and then through his front door and up the stairs, grumbling about aching backs underneath a reading lamp until, after some fumbling around, they fall asleep wrapped up in one another.
"It's just—" Jay tries again, but fails. He never was meant for heartfelt speeches. He gives up, gently pulls off Matt's glasses, and says:
"Let me love you."
Matt sucks in a breath.
"Fine," he answers, exhaling.
It's a rocky start, neither quite sure where to put hands, how many clothes should be taken off. Jay trips over his own shoes at one point with a curse and Matt steadies him. Hand on elbow, hand on waist. Both of them half-naked and half-hard. The whole thing is so ridiculous that it breaks whatever remaining tension there is because, right, this is Matt for god's sake. He's seen this man's dick more times than he's gone to jury duty. This is just a new iteration of whatever bullshit they've been doing their whole lives.
Through laughter they find their footing again, just like when they're filming a scene that starts to get out of hand. The perfect scene partner that drives Jay excruciatingly insane. Just Matt and Jay and whatever convoluted plan they're executing.
"Get— get on the bed, move over," Jay says, grinning as Matt throws a sock at his head. Matt's already got a decent bulge in the front of his boxer briefs and an ocean of smooth, freckled skin is spread out before Jay. His fingers itch to touch all of it, like a new instrument he gets to experiment with, exploring how to best make it sing.
(A memory surfaces from their youth, back in that tiny apartment, when Matt was just as twiggy as him. How, over time, Matt started to hit the gym to put on muscle because "dude, if I don't, I think I might die.")
It's terrible, but Jay, selfishly, delights in the large chest and soft meat underneath him. He'd always known Matt was accumulating muscle, but Jay hadn't ever really noticed until it all became too much to ignore; Matt's thickening thighs, the way his shoulders filled out, pecs swelling with strength, arms bursting out of his old t-shirts that he still insisted on wearing.
Jay must be transparent in his perversion because Matt smacks him in the face.
"My eyes are up here!" His tone is forcibly light while his cheeks are endearingly pink. The tips of Matt's ears are flushed too, and Jay takes the opportunity to lean down and bite at the lobe of one. He drags his teeth over the sensitive skin then closes his lips around it, sucking hard, before releasing it with a pop.
"Jay…" Matt groans.
Like an archivist, Jay continues dutifully onward. He noses along the curve of Matt's neck, smelling the sweat there, going dizzy with desire, before moving his lips to the corner of Matt's mouth. And then his cheek. Jawline. Up around the temples and back down around the ear, neck, throat, collar bones, shoulders. Jay moves with a ruthlessness dedicated to worshiping every inch of Matt until he's squirming.
"Jesus, Bird," Matt pants, "is this what you're like with women? Coming on kind of strong, eh?"
Jay doesn't look up from where he's sucking at a mole on Matt's stomach. "You like it."
Matt's leg hooks itself over Jay's back.
"Yeah. I do."
"I think I've wanted this longer than I realized," Jay says against Matt's hip, and the words are so naked in their truth that he almost regrets them. Almost. Because Matt can never seem to accept praise unless it's wrapped in a million layers of irony or barbed wire. And it pisses Jay off, how someone like Matt with all his talents and ambition can be so inflexible when it comes to his self-esteem.
He continues kissing along, struck suddenly with a thought that is distinctly Johnsonian in its intensity: Abstractly, in the same vein as skull-crushing, he wants to cut Matt up and catalogue every piece of him. Like a butcher weighing each cut of meat before placing it in paper to be wrapped and then tied with twine.
Jay's not the type to usually think these things. As a partner, he's learned to be a Classic Romantic; movies and dinner, a nice bottle of wine — that's what everybody expects from a guy like him. And he does like those things. But without fail, he eventually begins pushing his partner's buttons just to see if they push back. Because that's the fun of a relationship, right? The bickering, being continually at odds over something. It creates tension— and everybody knows narrative tension is necessary for a good story.
That's what Matt taught him, at least.
"Wh— Jay, hold— hah," Matt giggles, "tickles." His hands are on Jay's shoulders, neither pushing him away nor pulling him closer, but they grip him. Hard.
Jay pauses and hums against the crook between Matt's pelvis and thigh. "Too bad." He can taste his pulse.
Matt's hands soften and slide up to rest in Jay's hair. A shy acceptance that Jay doesn't take for granted.
He wanders along into the thicket of coarse, blond hair and huffs it like a real pervert, gets high on the sweat and musk, and he thinks back to those sticky, summer days of their youth. How warm Jay felt. How it's the same warmth he feels flowing through him now as he brushes his stubbled cheek against Matt's dick. Deliriously, Jay can't recall a single time he's ever felt cold. Not when he's burning up underneath all this heat right now.
Their eyes meet. It's unfamiliar territory, but so is everything he and Matt tackle together.
Jay takes a breath through his nose — the same way he does when his fingers are poised to press down on the piano. Then, he swallows Matt down.
For a brief moment, Jay is outside himself once again. Watching a scandalous lost cut of Nirvanna the Band the Show where Jay McCarrol gives Matt Johnson head. They're on that old, ratty sofa of theirs that's covered in soda stains and popcorn crumbs. Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade is playing in the background on the television. The marker board above them has some insane plan scribbled on it. Everything is how it's always been, but Matt and Jay have now crossed the threshold from perpetual adolescence into something new.
And then Jay is back, here, present. Matt tugs desperately at his hair.
"Jay," Matt pants, voice thick like honey, "…need you. Always needed you."
The pinball in Jay's chest makes itself known again, rattling around his heart, going for the high score.
His technique is rote, transposing whatever he can from blowjobs he's been on the receiving end of, but he paces himself, easing more of Matt further back, getting accustomed to the tang and weight of his dick on his tongue. Saliva mixes with pre-cum and it's thick in Jay's mouth, dribbling down his jaw, down Matt's dick, slicking him up more with every bob of Jay's head.
It's a sloppy affair and Jay chokes a few times, but he's delighted (though not surprised) by how easily Matt opens underneath him. Their radios have always been tuned to each other's frequencies; on and ready to catch any signals floating through the ether.
In fact, during an interview once, Jay had even admitted that living together with Matt was the closest thing to telepathy he's ever experienced. Don't get him wrong, some sixth sense is still there, but they've never quite been able to recreate that high.
"Birdie," Matt cries.
He wonders if they can tonight.
The boombox is loud. Jay is dancing on the rooftop, doing the jump and twirl that Matt will rib him for when they review the footage.
Matt is standing near the edge. His arms are spread out as the sun shines down on him, reflecting off his pale skin and blond curls, and Jay almost stops on his tracks. Holy shit, he looks like he's glowing. Like some sort of sun god. He catches himself, thinking, Wait, what the fuck? and wonders where that came from.
Back in their apartment, when the sun had gone down and he's lying on the warm leather couch, he tells himself that perhaps he simply got too wrapped up in the scene again. The unadulterated joy of his other self seeped through him and made him think of some truly gay shit. He burrows further into the cushions anyway. He falls asleep without realizing.
Matt's glasses are adorably askew as he goes, "I can't believe that just happened."
Jay's first instinct is to reply, What the fuck do you mean you can't believe it? His second instinct is, You should believe it. But I'm also glad you chose me instead of them. He reels it in and rolls over onto his stomach to look down directly at Matt.
"You're very handsome."
"Stop it."
"You really are."
"Bird."
"'Why's Matt so yoked?!'" Jay takes on the energized voice of a concerned Instagram commenter. He's seen dozens of comments like this littered all over their press tour social media. He remembers each one. Usually because they make him laugh, but maybe because he also asks himself the same thing sometimes.
"Jay."
He flops onto his back again and continues, "'When did Matt get so buff?!'" His hands go up in the air like he's asking god himself.
At that, Matt wrangles him into a headlock and Jay laughs, fingers flying up to dig into the muscle of Matt's forearm. They tussle like they always have, finding comfort in the familiar embrace, and Matt burns against his skin, radiant.
They break after a moment but remain stuck together as they lay back down.
Matt licks his lips — the way he does before an incoming ramble — and then goes, "Have you actually kissed a guy before? Because it's fine if you have, like, obviously." He gestures between their bodies underneath the covers. "I just wonder when and— was it a recent thing? Younger? College? Did you always know or… or was it more of a…" His train of thought veers down a new path. "I just feel a bit shitty if you felt like you couldn't tell me," he says. "Like, have I ever come off that I wouldn't still love you just the same?"
Jay raises an eyebrow at Matt's choice of words, but declines commenting on it for tonight. He'd said something similar not more than an hour ago and maybe that's just how it's going to be between them. No grand declarations, no "talk" about what they are now. Just their usual rhythm but with exclusive sucking and fucking rights.
For now, he sends a lazy grin in Matt's direction, kicking his shin playfully.
"Oh, I was just messing with you."
Matt jolts upright at that.
"No, man, what?!"
"Mhm."
"So this was—" Matt's eyes go up toward the ceiling and then back down. "This was— you're fucking crazy. This whole time — tonight — I thought you were out here whoring it up with guys and I was just in the corner, oblivious, all these years."
Now it's Jay's turn to sit up in shock. "You thought that my blowjob technique was still that sloppy after years of whoring around with dudes?"
"Well, I was caught up in the fact that there was maybe a whole part of you that you hid from me!"
Something clicks into place for Jay.
He tunes his radio to Matt's frequency and presses his ear close to the speaker, volume turned up to the highest setting. Through the crackle of noise, he hears it: Matt's insecurity at the mere thought of Jay leaving him in the dark about something. But what Matt doesn't seem to understand is that he shines too brightly for that to ever be a possibility. With Matt, Jay is exposed fully and honestly in a way he has no control over and has learned to not only embrace, but seek out. There's no room for shadows — never has been — only that relentless, beautiful warmth.
Somewhere in the ether, one or both of them, all the various Matts and Jays, through their radios:
I love you.
Jay's never been one for heartfelt speeches, so he sends his message back the only way he knows how to right now. He surges forward, closing the gap, and kisses Matt.
I've always loved you.