Re: Billy K/Jamie M: the Mayers apartment
So like, Jamie wasn't a fashion gay. His stuff was picked out because it was either a color he liked, or a texture he liked and maybe it was both but it wasn't like, high couture. He had buried stuff at the back of the closet since dialling back on the like, night trips to the Capital that was texture and mesh and serious signals worn unbuttoned to the waist and his nails hadn't been painted anything at all in months, pale pink and clean-scrubbed into the cuticles. He was wearing jeans that had been bought someplace in a city, but like, the cut or whatever wasn't a big deal. They sat low now, on hipbones that were sharpened knives and relaxed through the knee and ankle. Like pjs, the denim worn and warm.
"I mean, there's downsides to skinny jeans," Jamie offered, half-heartedly with his fingers in his own hair, ruffling it back from his temples. It was like, reaching the point of too long and in the studio that was a bigger deal than at home, "Especially if you're going commando." He laughed, filmy as cigarette smoke and the window was still open like, a crack from smoking lying on a bed still creased from where he'd tossed the clothes back in the morning. He watched Billy's face, Billy whose gaze flicked from surface to surface, as if he was taking like, photos to remember by, flitting as quickly as wings from one place to the next. And yeah, okay it felt like, unusual? To bring a guy home, Billy sat back against crumpled navy like it was nbd.
"Did it work?" He was teasing, mostly. Therapy sounded like, way heavy-duty. Maybe it was necessary, like if they'd had that growing up it wouldn't have felt so much like roots tangled and strained branches. Maybe Si wouldn't be where he was, or Mars. "I've never read Lord of the Rings," which didn't feel so much like a confession until Jamie's gaze snagged on Billy's smile, and his own broadened, candid. "I'm not a big reader. Yeah, comics. But I don't know, I don't have the attention span for books."
He stepped forward into the like, spread of the guy's knees and sat beside him on the bed. Like, it was a choice, and Jamie sat back, his good knee turned into the other guy's, until Billy's thigh was warm abutted against his own. "I mean, it's not like, interior design or whatever. Your place looks pretty much like you had an idea start to finish. Me and Mars, we muddle shit through. And maybe I just like, shoved stuff under the bed or in the closet. So you didn't figure how messy I was." Jamie's smile ticked double-time into his cheek. "You're like, going to be eighty and that's still going to be freaking cute." The dimple, which he slid thumb-pad over. "So what's New Zealand actually LIKE?"