#miles.writing

Three o’clock Tuesday afternoon crawled up on him without him really realizing it until he was sat in the coffee shop with Adam, waiting for the others to show up. Lawrence was first, naturally, eyes shining knowingly at him as he took a seat and struck up a conversation with Adam, then Spoole wandered in after, smiling a bit at Matt and sitting next to him. Joel was last, and probably, gave Matt more of a reason to panic when he saw him; he didn’t know how Joel would take the news. He followed Cabra as a company more closely than any of them, and looked up to Bruce for more reasons than Matt would care to list off. Adam would take it like he took most other things; raised eyebrows and a soft “oh”. He didn’t know how Joel would react. It made him feel sick.

“Hello, boys,” Joel chimed as he sat at the table between Spoole and Lawrence, setting his order down and smiling at them. Adam and Lawrence managed polite hellos, and Spoole squeaked out a hi around his straw, before Joel looked straight at him. Matt broke out in a cold sweat. “So, Matthew, why are we here today?”

Matt felt everyone’s eyes on him at once; Spoole and Lawrence looked worried and intense, respectively, while Adam looked confused and Joel looked patient, and oh, God, why did he agree to this? Why did he agree to invite Lawrence and Spoole, too? He took a sip of his tea, avoiding everyone’s gazes, before he cleared his throat quietly. “I’m… Well… He- I mean,” he stuttered, sighing and running a hand down his face. There was no easy way to say this, was there? Other than just putting it out there, at least. So much for letting them down sort of gently, and making himself panic a little less. “Bruce Greene is my sugar daddy.”

The silence that surrounded him was unbearable. He braved a glance at Adam, saw him, predictably, with his eyebrows raised high on his forehead and his mouth slightly open, before his lips moved into a shape of an “oh”, saying it silently to himself. Something akin to realization flashed across his face, and no doubt the gears in his brain were starting to turn, piecing everything together. But when Matt turned to look at Joel-

“He’s your what!”

Joel’s voice was sudden and harsh, his hands slamming down on the table, making their drink orders shake. The loud outburst had people at the tables next to them turn, annoyance or concern on their faces, and even the baristas behind the counter looked over. Spoole waved his hands at them while Lawrence spoke across to Joel to get him to quiet down, but Joel’s eyes were like fire on Matt. Matt swallowed down the fear in his throat. “You’re what,” Joel said, his tone whispered and sharp.

“M-My sugar daddy,” Matt repeated, just as quietly, less to match Joel’s voice, and more to keep the people around them from turning their attention on them again. “He, you know, gives me money, buys me th-”

“I know what a sugar daddy is, Matt,” Joel interrupted. His hands move off the table top and disappear under, before they come back. Matt can see the tension in his shoulders fade, a little. Hopefully that was the worst of it. “How did- How?”

Matt fidgeted. Spoole glanced at him. “I got drunk at a bar like a month ago-” Had it really been a month? “-and I just rambled about my problems to him. You know, getting fired, dropping out. But I didn’t know it was him, and apparently I gave him my number, so he texted me and offered it to me, and we met up for coffee and now,” he said, motioning to the table. “We’re here.”

A silence settled over them again, before Joel dropped his head, running a hand over his hair. “I can’t believe my best friend is fucking Bruce Greene-”

“I’m not-” he started to say, loudly, before groaning quietly and dropping his voice. “Joel, I’m not- He didn’t want sex. He almost panicked when I brought it up.”

“A sugar daddy that doesn’t want sex,” Joel mumbled. “Well. Thank god I don’t have to wring your neck about it.”

Matt narrowed his eyes, before Adam spoke up, finally. “So… The new clothes, and the nice car that picked you up, and the money Saturday… That’s where you got all that? From Bruce?” he asked. Matt nodded, not sure what else to say, and saw Adam visibly deflate, putting his hands over his face. “Oh thank god…”

He was going to open his mouth to comment, before Joel jumped back in. “Is that why you’ve been so interested in Cabra recently?” he asked, taking a sip of his drink with an eye roll when Matt nodded. “It’s like you’re his worried boyfriend.” The face he made must have been something worth backtracking, because he saw the way Joel’s eyes shifted and he lowered his drink, frowning. “I’m sorry Matt-”

“Don’t be,” he said quickly. Now Spoole and Lawrence were looking at him, waiting for an answer, or an explanation; did they see whatever expression he made, too? “He’s not my boyfriend. And I’m not his. He’s got a girlfriend.”

“A girlfriend?” Spoole squeaked, right as Joel quickly said, “Matt, you know those gossip sites are bullshit, right?”

“There’s no denying the pictures, Joel. Besides, it’s his business, not mine,” Matt mumbled, taking a drink of his tea, and avoiding their eyes only to land on Lawrence’s.

Lawrence gave him a quick once over, before sitting back and sipping his coffee. “Someone sounds jealous.”

The words caused a quick jolt of fire in his stomach, that made his cheeks feel hot and he opened his mouth to argue, before Adam spoke. “He’s right- I mean. You wouldn’t care if you didn’t, you know?” he asked, looking at Matt. “Do… You care about Bruce?”

Matt thought about it, hard, in a way he hadn’t before. He thought about the way touches made his skin tingle, the way his smiles lit up the room, how kind he was, how his heart pounded, how he almost craved his presence in anyway he could get it. Thinking about it properly made his brain felt muddled and fuzzy though, just keeping him from making a realization. It was like there was some kind of film over his thoughts, preventing him from really seeing the situation clearly and- Oh. It finally all clicked together in his head and he tightened his hand on his tea, mouth falling open. Oh no. Oh no.

“Oh fuck.”

> Lawrence: Hey. Since you left early, Spoole and I gave Adam and Joel the rundown about not telling anyone.

> Lawrence: Their lips are sealed.

> Lawrence: Also, Joel’s not mad at you. And neither is Adam.

> Lawrence: Thanks for telling them. Sincerely.

Matt spent the entirety of Wednesday in bed. His brain felt like a trainwreck and his chest didn’t fare much better, and as far as he was concerned, the less he had to get up and move around, the better. He was grateful Joel and Adam took it as well as they did (although Joel’s reaction was up in the air), but now he had a totally new set of worries to worry about. It was like taking care of one thing just freed up the space for a totally new thing to come along and fuck him over. Adam’s words were still floating around in his head - “Do you care about Bruce?” - and he knew how to answer the question, really, he did. It was the reasoning behind it, the realization he made at the coffee shop, that he didn’t know how to put into something more coherent than a mumbled “oh fuck”. Did he even want to put a name to this? That’d make it real, and tangible, and then Matt would have to choke it down every time he saw Bruce, because Bruce had a girlfriend, and Matt was twenty-one and a goddamn mess.

Matt was halfway through a new round of thoughts fit to make him internally scream for months when his phone buzzed on the bed. He rolled over, fishing it out from the covers, already prepared to text whoever it was back and tell them to leave him to his self-deprecation, when his entire being froze at the name on the screen.

Bruce.

He almost scrambled to open the text, heart pounding in his ears as he did.

> I Don’t Want To Talk To You: Hey. I know you were planning on telling your friends about the situation yesterday. How’d it go?

Matt gripped his phone. He couldn’t find it in him to ignore him now, of all times. But he didn’t want to talk to Bruce, didn’t want to fuel the beast in his chest, and God, he really needed to stop thinking about how Bruce remembered that he was telling his friends. Bruce remembered and was checking up on him now. He swallowed, thickly, painfully, around the lump of stubborn pride in his throat, before he quickly changed Bruce’s name and typed out a response.

[I Don’t Want To Talk To You] changed to [???]

>> Matt: It went fine.

Fuck, fuck, what if that was too cool? Matt groaned and rubbed his face, before his phone buzzed in his hand and he looked at the screen.

> ???: That’s good. Is everything alright?

>> Matt: I don’t know. Honestly.

That sounded so dramatic, but, really, he didn’t. Everything felt super confusing again, and now that he was talking to Bruce again, he didn’t want to stop. He wanted his attention, wanted his jokes and kind words, and- God, dammit, Matt, he had a girlfriend. Matt was about to just lock his phone, roll over and ignore the texts, but he stopped himself when he got another one, and, yeah, it solidified how fucking weak he was.

> ???: Can I come pick you up? Or would you rather be with friends.

>> Matt: [unsent] You are a friend.

>> Matt: [unsent] I want to see you, please.

>> Matt: No, you can. I’ll be ready in ten.

Matt pulled himself from his bed for the first time all day, wandering out to the bathroom and splashing water on his face to wake himself up a bit. He did his best to tame his hair, sorta, then threw on a hoodie, before gathering his wallet, keys and phone. Adam was in the living room when he made his way out there, looking up from his laptop. “Going out?” he asked, eying him up and down.

“Yeah, with Bruce,” Matt mumbled, and wow, that felt weird to say. He almost wanted to backtrack, but Adam just hummed and looked back to whatever he was doing, fingers typing away at the keys as Matt’s phone vibrated in his hand.

> ???: Here.

Oh. Good. Here he went.

He said his goodbyes to Adam and headed out, locking the door up behind him and restraining himself the best he could from rushing down to Bruce’s car. It was quiet outside, sun already set, few cars on the streets, crickets chirping in the grass. He tightened his hands in his hoodie’s sleeves and held his ground, metaphorically, when he finally saw Bruce. The scuff wasn’t on the front bumper anymore, he noticed - it had been covered up by a new coat of glossy black paint. Guess Bruce finally got around to that. He bit his lip and tried to put on the best brave face he could internally, going over and getting in, making himself as comfortable as he could in the expensive leather. Bruce was the first one to speak, softly, probably too quietly considering the small space. “Hey.”

Matt stole a glance at him. The bruise on his cheek wasn’t as intense as it was Saturday, but he looked about the same. Although now there was an exhaustion in his eyes that wasn’t present before, and it made Matt’s chest lurch. “Hey,” he said back, smiling a bit at him.

“I… Didn’t really have a good idea of where to go. So, we can just drive?” Bruce suggested, and Matt nodded, quietly. Other people not being near him would definitely be helpful. But then he would be in a tiny car interior with Bruce for the entire duration of the conversation he needed to have and- “So. What’s bothering you?”

The car moved away from the curb of his apartment and Matt shifted a bit. “A lot,” he said, quietly, honestly. “A lot is bothering me.”

“Did things not go well with your friends?”

“No, they did, it’s just-” He stopped himself and let out a heavy sigh. He saw Bruce give him a look out of the corner of his eyes. Outside, the city passed by in a blur. “You have a girlfriend?”

There’s a squeak of hands on the steering wheel. “What?” Bruce asked, sounding… confused? Why would he sound confused? “A girlfriend where did you get that idea?”

Matt felt something rush over him. “Pepper? That celebrity news site-”

Bruce groaned, moving a hand to run over his hair. “Oh God, Matt, don’t tell me you believed it,” he said. Matt went silent, stunned almost. “Pepper has been on my ass for years. Mine and Melanie’s. We’re not dating. We dated for a month two years ago and broke up, and now everyone grasps at straws.”

“You’re not dating anyone?”

“No, I’m not,” Bruce said, and it sounded so matter-of-fact that Matt felt so stupid getting so worked up about this in the first place. He took his information from a gossip site without any other fact checking why did he get so irrational so quick? “I’m not… really interested in anyone right now.” That sounded forced, but Matt wasn’t going to press it because… Bruce was single. A spark ignited in his chest. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. Dating would… really make things complicated.”

Matt nodded, wordlessly, relaxing back against the leather seat. He felt his heart pick up, threatening to break through his chest, stomach flipping in that way that made him feel sick. “Okay,” he said quietly.

“You were worried about this?” Bruce asked him, turning to look at him briefly; it was a red light, Matt noticed. “About Melanie and I?”

He felt his face go hot. Oh no. “I-I just. I saw it and-” he stuttered, sitting up straight again. There was the deafening pounding in his ears again, fingers shaking around the handfuls of sleeves he had. Bruce was still looking at him, eyes gentle and face neutral, and Matt wanted to scream he was in so fucking deep. “I was just curious, you know you, obviously, don’t owe me any explanations I mean-”

“Matt.”

Bruce’s voice was soft, and he was looking right at him, now, and Matt felt his heart give one, two, three, good thumps before it skipped a beat and warmth pooled in his gut. They were so close. So close, and Matt was so aware of it, and if he wanted to play with the risks and consequences, he could just lean over- “You can be curious,” Bruce said, still so gently, so gentle is made Matt’s arms break out in goosebumps under the sleeves of his hoodie, made him wonder what it’d be like to hear that all the time. “I don’t mind. I ask about you. You can ask about me.”

“But-” Matt started to argue, and found his voice was more caught than he thought it’d be. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and sighed. “But I’m just… Me. I’m not-”

There was a honk behind them, and Bruce jumped, turning back to the road and driving again, hands tight on the steering wheel. Matt tried to calm the way his heart felt like it was going to break his ribs, and how he could feel the heat on the tips of his ears. He shifted in his seat, watching out the window as Bruce drove. Matt couldn’t ignore it if it was this bad. He was so fucked. The car passed by building after building, before they were back at his apartment, and Bruce pulled up, parking. “Before you go, Matt.”

Matt turned to face Bruce again, ignoring the way his pulse picked up again, watching him. “Yeah?”

“The reason why… I wouldn’t mind if you asked questions is because…” Bruce trailed off and Matt felt himself involuntarily grip the door handle. “You don’t want to be around me because I’m famous. You didn’t know about any of this when you met me. It’s kind of hard to find people like that, you know?” He laughed, softly, leaning back in his chair a bit. He sounded soft and vulnerable. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t mind the prying questions because you’re sincere, Matt. And you’re genuinely a nice person to be around.”

Matt couldn’t stop the thump-thump-thump so loud in his ears it made Bruce sound far away and the way his world blew past him as he made an even bigger realization than he did at the coffee shop yesterday. His heart jumped into his throat and he tightened his hands around the handle again. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Bruce said, smiling at him. “I won’t keep you longer. I’ll see you around, okay?”

Matt nodded, stiffly, then got out, waving robotically at Bruce, before he headed up to his apartment, let himself into the quiet interior, closing and locking behind him. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket as he leaned back against the front door and hung his head, hiding his face with his hands, his heart racing and hands still shaking, knees weak and brain swirling with every possible fantasy he could come up with and then some and, oh, God.

Lawrence was the one person he was trying to avoid the most, though. Spoole had gone silent on his end, still trying to process the information Matt had laid at his feet over french fries and shitty burgers, but Lawrence wanted blood. He wanted blood a week ago, when Adam went to stay at his place, probably more upset than was hinted at, and he sure as hell wanted blood now. Matt understood the rage bubbling in his veins under his skin; Adam was his best friend, too, and Matt was acting less than stellar while Adam took the hard edge of it in return. But the idea of Lawrence talking to him about his situation made him remember that Lawrence didn’t beat around the bush; Spoole would take weeks trying to approach him about telling Adam and Joel. Lawrence wanted results now.

His fingers shake a little over the keys, before he types something back quickly and goes to rinse his bowl out.

>> Matt: I know. I can tell time.

The situation only got worse when he factored in the fact he hadn’t heard from Bruce since last Saturday, too. He had tried to subtly ask Joel if there was anything going on with Cabra lately, but all he had managed to dig up in the recent news was a few stories about the other two owners donating a sum of money with way too many zeroes to a charity, and some gossip websites that offered nothing in terms of actual substance. Matt didn’t want to tack a real label onto his feelings about not speaking to Bruce in a week, but he ended up doing it anyway by Wednesday; it felt kind of off. It wasn’t like his world revolved around Bruce or anything, but they did spend a respectable amount of time trading some kind of pleasant conversation over texts. Having Bruce be busy with whatever he was busy with, on top of Adam ignoring him, felt like something was seriously wrong with his life. That something was missing.

His phone buzzed on the counter as he shut off the water, and he mentally prepared himself for whatever text was waiting for him.

> Lawrence: Don’t get smart assed with me, Peake. We’re talking about this today. I’m not giving you an out.

> Lawrence: Starbucks in 15. Or else.

Matt was afraid Lawrence would try something like this; corner him and push him to take action. Granted, he needed that, because there was no way in hell his anxiety was going to let him do anything on his own. Lawrence wasn’t going to be delicate with this, either. He was going to get a new one ripped the moment he stepped in the door. He took a shaky breath and replied, with only a drop of regret in his chest after he hit send.

>> Matt: Okay. Starbucks in 15.

Lawrence was not fucking around.

Matt showed up to Starbucks in an anxious state worse than the one he left at, and it didn’t get any better as he entered the coffee shop and saw Lawrence sitting at a table alone. He had one cup of coffee in front of himself that he was slowly sipping on, and another cup across from him with Matt’s name on it. Now he couldn’t delay the inevitable by using the “I need a drink” excuse. He regretted ever letting anyone know his typical order at Starbucks, before he walked over, sitting at the only other chair next to Lawrence, and pointedly avoiding his cold stare. “Does it-”

“Two packets of sugar, no milk. Matt, you’re not getting out of this any longer than you have,” Lawrence said, his voice snapping Matt in the chest, and he raised his eyes a little at him. Oh, God, he looked legitimately upset at him. “You’re going to come to a conclusion right here, today, about this entire situation.”

Matt took a sip of his tea and shifted, nervously. “What kind of conclusion.”

“If Bruce Greene is really worth being a royal asshat to your best friends.”

The statement - because it’s worded like one, not like a question - made Matt freeze. He had considered it, in passing, if seeing his friends look so concerned and conflicted over his behavior was really worth it. Bruce was a good man, Matt had no doubt about it, and his enthusiasm (could he call it that?) over helping Matt out for seemingly nothing in return showed a lot of character, alone. Matt could go so far to say that he liked seeing Bruce, liked spending time to him and talking to him; he was pleasant for conversation and funny. But Bruce wasn’t Adam, who had been stuck to his side since they were freshmen, Spoole and Joel who were the best emotional crutches a guy could ask for, and Lawrence, who, despite appearing somewhat detached and analytical, was dependable and caring. They were his best friends, and Bruce wasn’t and… It wasn’t fair that he was treating them this way. He ran his thumbs over the seam on the cup and swallowed. “I… I don’t think so.”

“Think?”

“I know,” he said, sharply, looking at Lawrence. His face was unreadable and neutral, and Matt stared for a moment, before looking down. “He’s a great guy, he really is. But he isn’t you, or Spoole, or Joel, or Adam.” Lawrence hummed in acknowledgement. “I know I’m in a tough spot right now, and Bruce has… sorta helped with that, but I shouldn’t prioritize him over you guys…”

Lawrence sat forward, and Matt’s attention was drawn back to him. He set his coffee down and sighed. “So what are you going to do then?”

“I don’t know,” Matt admitted softly. He couldn’t choose Bruce over them, he knew. But he didn’t want to drop whatever it was that he had with Bruce, either. He didn’t know why he didn’t, but he didn’t.

Lawrence’s face shifted from stony and unreadable, to a soft concern, before it was back to what it was before. Matt swallowed his tea, hard. “I’ll give you an ultimatum,” he told him. “Either you choose between us and Bruce, or you tell Adam and Joel. You’re not going to keep doing this Matt.”

Matt nodded; it was reasonable, and he knew all along it would come to this. Anxiety rose in his throat anyway, though, and he barely registered choking out the words before they were being said. “How?”

“Be upfront and honest with them, Matt. They’re your best friends. Spoole and I didn’t take it badly did we?”

“Well,” he mumbled. “Spoole’s kind of questionable, but… no.”

Lawrence smiled at him, in that way that helped him feel a little less overwhelmed. “Then neither will they.”

He had to believe him, for his own mental well being, and for future him, who he knew was going to want to throw up just at the thought of being even vaguely confrontational. But telling his last two closest friends meant he needed to be upfront with Bruce, that more than just the two of them knew about this arrangement; which meant he needed to pay a visit to Bruce, too. He gulped down the last of his tea into his churning stomach, before he nodded. “Then… I’ll tell them.”

If only he thought it’d be that easy.

It wasn’t hard to corner Adam at home, really. Matt had crept back in silently when he came back and sat in the living room until Adam had reappeared from his bedroom. He felt that familiar knot in his throat the moment he saw him, though, and didn’t know what to say. He rolled words over in his head, again and again, before it was Adam’s voice that broke the silence. “You’re staring at me like you want to say something. What’s up,” he said, but not with the typical Adam Kovic brand of deadpan; he sounded exhausted. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and turned to stare at Matt, raising an eyebrow. “Well?”

“I’m sorry- I mean,” Matt choked out, standing from the couch and shaking his head. “Wait, no wait, uh. Well. I am sorry-”

“Matt, stop.” He shut his mouth and Adam sighed. “Take deep breaths. You’re panicking.”

Matt didn’t even realize. He nodded wordlessly and took a few shaky breaths, trying to will the racing heart in his chest to calm down. He didn’t even know he was so worked up like that. “Okay, I wanted to apologize,” he said, gently. Adam leaned back against the counter, watching him. “For snapping at you, and for being weird and distant and… not all here. Shit’s been… weird, to say the least, and I guess I’ve been so wrapped up in my own little thing that I just-” He trailed off, sighing and rubbing his neck. “I’m just sorry. For treating you like that. You deserve better than that, Adam.”

Adam didn’t say a thing for a moment, and tried to shrug off how he felt from it, before he was speaking. “It’s okay,” he told him, and God, it sounded sincere. He didn’t know he missed Adam this much. “I know things have been hard for you, and I’m sorry I tried to push you-”

“You didn’t,” Matt said quickly, shaking his head. “You didn’t, I promise Adam it’s just… The reason why I’ve been all weird isn’t what you think.”

“Then what is it?” Adam asked. Matt’s throat closed up. There it was; the anxiety of telling him. He wished Adam figured it out like Lawrence, or that he was so anxiety and panicked that he didn’t have time to stop himself like with Spoole. Adam was looking at him, expecting an answer, but Matt couldn’t say a word. He had to do this twice. Maybe-

“I can’t tell you yet. I need to tell Joel, too,” he told him, quickly. Adam’s eyes widened a tad. “I’ll tell you both, I promise. Are you busy Tuesday?”

Adam shook his head. “No, I’m free Tuesday.”

“Coffee shop at… three?”

“Sure,” Adam agreed.

Matt shifted, sighing softly. “Are we good now?”

Adam smiled at him, warmly, before chuckling and nodding. “Yeah, Matt, we’re good.”

He returned his smile, unable to keep it from his face, and nodded.

> I’m So Fucked: Sorry for being AWOL for the past week; stuff got busy at work.

>> Matt: No problem. But hey, are you busy at the moment?

>> Matt: There’s something I kinda need to talk to you about.

> I’m So Fucked: No, I’m just at home.

>> Matt: Cool. I’ll just swing by in a bit?

> I’m So Fucked: Yeah. Sounds good? Is everything okay?

>> Matt: [unsent] Everything is so confusing. And I think you’re to blame?

>> Matt: Yeah. Everything’s okay.

Matt tried not to speed on his way to Bruce’s. His anxiety had kicked into hyperdrive the moment he got into the car, and he could feel his pulse through his hands with how tight he was gripping the steering wheel. Realistically, he knew this wouldn’t go as south as he thought it would. Hell, patching things up with Adam went smoother than he’d ever expect, but trying to be rational to himself while he was so clearly being irrational was nearly impossible. Bruce’s house came into view as he rounded the corner to it, and it didn’t do jack shit to help the storm in his chest and head, even as he parked and sat, in silence, going over the list of things he needed to talk about.

First; telling him he needed to spend less time with him sometimes because he couldn’t keep choosing him over his friends.

Second; telling him about telling Adam and Joel, and how he already told Lawrence and Spoole, and that they weren’t going to run around blabbing about it. Easy as pie.

Third; establishing some kind of label for their not-relationship. He didn’t want to keep introducing Bruce as his sugar daddy. And after Saturday, his brain had become a confusing, muddled mess anyway. A label would be nice.

Matt sucked in a shaky breath, before opening his door and getting out, taking his phone out to text Bruce a quick here, before he saw his front door open. His thumb hovered over the send key, staring at Bruce’s smiling face. “Oh,” he said quietly, before clearing his throat and tucking his phone back into his pocket.

“Oh to you, too,” Bruce joked, letting him into the house and chuckling. “It’s been a week. How are you?”

Matt almost stopped at the question (Bruce asked how he was?), before coughing quietly. “I’m good,” he lied, probably not convincingly, considering how Bruce turned to look at him. “Okay, it’s been… kind of a thing, but that’s why I’m here to-” He went silent, staring at Bruce and frowning. “What the hell happened to your cheek?”

Bruce reached up, gingerly rubbing his fingers over the bruise smeared on his cheek, before grinning, toothily. Part of Matt didn’t buy how casual he looked, but he didn’t know where to start with arguing. “Oh, I had an accident while I was doing some stuff for work.”

“What, did someone sucker punch you in the face?” he asked, stepping closer to look at it.

“Something like that.”

The extra, unknown voice made Matt jumped. Bruce’s face shifted from something soft to recognition, before Matt spun on his heel to face where the voice had come from. The man standing before them was grinning lopsided, hands on his hips and his eyes focused on Matt, solely, and holy God, were they blue. Matt’s heart leapt into his throat, panic rising in his chest, because, oh fuck, were they caught? Every scenario about this blowing up in the news passed in his head all at once, and oh fuck. He went to turn back to Bruce, before the grin faded off the man’s face. “Whoa, okay, you look legitimately scared. I’m sorry,” he said quickly, taking a step forward that Matt, unsurprisingly, mirrored backwards, feeling his shoulders hit Bruce’s chest, and Bruce’s hands reach up to steady him on his arms. James raised his hands in defense. “Okay, okay, I won’t get closer. I’m James. James Willems. I work with Bruce. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“He’s uh-” He felt Bruce’s voice more than he heard it. “Kind of nervous…”

“James Willems?” Matt spoke quietly, the name finally clicking in his head. James Willems. From Cabra. Oh. “Oh, you own Cabra. With Bruce, I mean,” he said, before stepping away from Bruce, blushing and muttering a soft apology. “Sorry, I… I just thought maybe-”

James waved him off, smiling. “Don’t worry about it. You’re on edge because of the situation with Bruce, right? Don’t worry about me, because I’m awesome at minding my own business. I won’t tell a soul,” he said. Matt narrowed his eyes just a little, but the anxiety in his chest did fade a little; James knew about this? “But, hey, it’s nice to finally meet you. Bruce talks about you-”

“James-”

Matt felt his brain short circuit. Bruce talked about him? Bruce talked about him. He had friends, obviously, and here was one of them in front of him, and Bruce talked about him to James? He heard James’ laughter, and Bruce move out from behind him, before he stopped staring blankly at the wall behind James, stuttering. “I’m-” he started, getting their attention. “Matt. Hi.”

James smiled at him, laughing softly and offering him his hand. “Nice to meet you Matt.” Matt returned his smile, shaking his hand and nodding a little. “Well. Sorry for scaring you, and Bruce, I’ll see you tomorrow, alright? I’ll let myself out. You kids have fun!”

Bruce rolled his eyes as James left, the front door closing behind him as he walked out of the house, before he turned his attention back on Matt. “Sorry. So, that was James.”

“He’s… Nice,” Matt mumbled, looking back at Bruce, smiling a bit and eying the bruise again. “So you got sucker punched?”

“We are not talking about my injury,” Bruce said, smiling and leaning against the back of the couch, crossing his arms over his chest, and Matt tried to keep himself from staring. “You needed to talk about something right? What’s on your mind?”

All the preparation Matt had done on the way over flew out the window. Oh God where did he begin? He stood there quietly for a moment, trying to find words, before he clenched his fists into the end of his hoodie sleeves. “I-I’ve been kinda. Being a dick.” The words make Bruce’s eyes go wide, and he decided he was really tired of people doing that to him. Maybe if he stopped keeping secrets they wouldn’t. “Not to you. To my friends. I… I maybe have been picking you over them more often than I should… And I just wanted to tell you that maybe if I can’t-”

“Whoa, whoa,” Bruce stopped him, moving off the couch a bit and waving his hands. “Hang on, Matt, wait. Are you about to apologize for not being able to see me much after this?”

“Maybe,” Matt choked, picking at his hoodie. Bruce gave him a look that made heat flare up in his gut and a chill go down his spine. “Yeah. Yeah I was.”

Bruce sighed. “You don’t have to apologize for that, you know. You’re allowed to have a social life outside of me. I won’t keep you from that,” he told him, resuming his position leaning against the couch from before. Matt just watched him as his brows furrowed. “Was that what you needed to talk about?”

He shook his head, quickly, before shuffling his feet a bit, still conscious of how expensive everything was in this house. “No, no that’s not it. Well. That’s not all.” He sighed, fidgeting a bit. “I… Well. Lawrence and Spoole, a couple of my friends know,” he told him. There was no immediately reaction. Bruce didn’t look upset though, so he continued. “Lawrence kinda… figured I was hiding something and cornered me. And I cornered myself and told Spoole.”

“Okay,” Bruce said, too neutral for Matt’s liking.

“They won’t tell anyone,” he said quickly. “They won’t even tell our other two friends. Which is why I’m here. Sorta. I need to tell them. Joel and Adam, my roommate. It’s kind of shitty that I’m hiding this from them. Especially Adam. He’s my best friend. But, I wanted to tell you, too, because… I don’t know, it’s not just me in this, I guess. I kinda have a plan to tell them Tuesday.”

Matt didn’t know what he expected, but Bruce’s soft smile was not it. “That’s fine, Matt. I don’t think you’re the type to be a bad judge of character, and these are your best friends, right?” Matt nodded, silently. “Then I won’t stop you from telling them.”

“You’re being… way too easy about this,” Matt mumbled, and Bruce laughed. “No, really, you are.”

Bruce shook his head. “No, I’m being honest. It doesn’t bother me if you tell people,” he said, smiling. “It really doesn’t.”

Matt wondered, briefly, if there was a reason for that; most people in the public eye wouldn’t want anyone to know about this. Hell, people who weren’t in the public eye wouldn’t want others to know about stuff like this. But Bruce was so relaxed. Why? Matt filed that away as something to ponder at a later date, before taking a breath. Time for the hardest part. “Okay. Okay, good to know. I have… one more thing to ask.”

“Shoot,” he said cheerily.

“What-” are we? was on the tip of his tongue, but he rerouted his sentence and landed on “-label do I use. For us. Calling you my sugar daddy is kind of creepy.”

The smile fell off Bruce’s face, and something that has Matt’s chest in flutters passed in his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said softly, the tone edging on longing. It made Matt’s head scream. “What do you want to label us as?”

Something, was what jumped to his head at first, but he brushed it back, not sure entirely where it came from, and shook his head. “I don’t know either,” he said. The air around them is stiff, and uncomfortable, and the way Bruce is looking at him makes him feel so small, but so important, and he doesn’t know what’s going on but-

Bruce stood up again, and Matt scrambled back half a step to give him room, hands balling the edges of his hoodie sleeves between his fingers, heart pounding hard against his ribs. What was happening. “Well, you can use whatever label, then,” he told him, voice soft and gentle and Matt felt like he was melting. “I won’t try to tell you what to use, Matt.” He looked over at him, and they spent a moment just staring at each other, before Bruce looked away, cheeks dusted pink. What. “Anyway, um, while you’re here…” he walked past him to the entryway, and Matt turned, following him with his eyes and trying to calm himself down from the near heart attack he was experiencing. Bruce picked up an envelope from the table in the hallway, before walking back, handing it to him. “I thought it’d be kind of like prying to ask how much… so… for whatever you need it for.”

Matt took the envelope, immediately noting how heavy it felt, and went to open it. He thought better of it and nodded instead, looking at Bruce. “Okay,” he said softly. “Um. Thank you.”

“No need for thanks,” Bruce said, his hands finding his pockets.

Matt went to say something, anything, about how fucking weird he was feeling at the moment, but his phone went off in his pocket and he took it out. From Adam. “Um. That’s my roommate. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

Matt nodded and headed out the front door, trying to ignore the way his pulse picked up when he felt Bruce follow him, all but running out to his car, stuffing the envelope into his hoodie pocket as he walked. He got in and started it, seeing Bruce’s front door close as he did, before he let out a shuddering breath and rested a hand over his chest.

Oh he was so fucked.

>> Matt: Joel. Are you busy Tuesday?

> Joel: Nope! Want to do the coffee date then?

>> Matt: Yeah. At 3PM. Plus Adam, Lawrence and Spoole.

> Joel: … Are we having an intervention or something?

>> Matt: No I just. It’s hard to explain over text. I can do it then.

>> Matt: Promise.

> Joel: Alright, then. Coffee shop at 3PM. Plus three.

>> Matt: [unsent] I just hope you don’t kill me.

Matt got home and felt like everything was falling back into place, but royally fucked up again. His brain was still a cloud from all the different emotions it had shifted through in front of Bruce, but he couldn’t help but feel like everything was slowly becoming okay again when Adam waved at him from the couch where his face was buried in his laptop. He had a school project opened on the screen, glasses on his face. Must be serious. Matt hummed a hello and slipped out of his shoes, before taking the envelope out of his hoodie pocket and opening it, finally.

Inside were a stack of crisp hundred dollar bills. He couldn’t even tell how many. Matt almost choked on the quick, sharp inhale he did, before pulling out the little note Bruce left inside. ‘Here, for bills! Keep the change and do something nice for yourself! - Bruce!’ Matt’s hands shook a little, thumbing through the bills, feeling his heart rate pick up. Holy fuck, how much was this? He tightened his hold on the envelope a little, hearing Adam shift on the couch and- oh God, for the first time in a while he could pay for his half of the bills. “God, this project is kicking my ass,” Adam mumbled, pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes.

“Sounds like it,” Matt said, sorta strained. He quickly stuffed the money back into his hoodie pocket, keeping his hands in there counting the bills the best he could. Adam hummed in response. “Hey. Uh. How much would my half of the bills be this month?”

Adam looked back at him and made a face. “I don’t know… Fifteen hundred or so? Why?”

Matt had just gotten to fifteen and it felt like half of what was there. Oh God, how much did Bruce give him? He subtly pulled the bills from the envelope, then stepped forward, handing Adam the money and watching his eyes go wide. “I…”

“Holy fucking shit Matt,” he said, moving his laptop off his lap and onto the coffee table, flipping through the bills. “Where did you-”

“Tuesday,” Matt choked out. “It’s… One of those things I’ll explain Tuesday.”

Adam looked at him, eyes searching his face for any sign of there maybe being trouble, before he nodded, a little stiffly. “Okay. Just… This wasn’t through something illegal right?”

“No. I promise.”

He seemed to relax. He nodded, again, before folding the money up and slipping it into his pocket. “Alright. Um… Thanks, then.”

Matt smiled a bit in return, watching Adam go back to his project, feeling his phone vibrate in his back pocket. Probably Bruce, checking to see if he got home okay. He started back toward his room, taking his phone out and unlocking it to check his text, stopping in the middle of the hallway.

> Joel: You’ve been asking about Cabra a lot this week, thought you’d might want to hear about this.

> Joel: http://pepper.com/2016-09-01-bruce-greene-new-girlfriend

Oh God.

He hurriedly made his way to his room, shutting his door behind him and immediately going to his bed, grabbing his laptop and opening it. He typed the URL into his browser address bar, trying to fight the urge to start chewing on his nails as it loaded. It was some gaudy pink website that almost padded the nerves he was feeling, before the picture popped up and- oh, Matt’s heart bottomed. It was Bruce with some pretty redhead wearing a dress that didn’t leave much to the imagination, Bruce’s arm around her while she leaned into his side. Bruce looked good, too, smiling at her, his cheek unbruised. He felt every ounce of warmth he felt earlier fade as he scrolled down to the actual article.

“Looks like Bruce Greene is no longer the West Coast’s most eligible bachelor anymore! Spotted Wednesday night leaving Trois Mec, the 34 year old businessman had the 30 year old actress Melanie Vasquez at his hip. The two had a brief fling back in 2014, but looks like they might be back on it- and each other! You might remember seeing Melanie’s name a while back in another story-”

Matt closed the window. He sat there, unmoving, silent and rolling the words over in his head. Bruce had a girlfriend. He very clearly had a girlfriend and he saw her in the past week. He saw her after Matt had been at Bruce’s and Bruce had leaned down like he wanted- And Bruce had been so nice, and the way he looked at him was like he mattered but, yeah, he was the twenty-one year old that stammered and stuttered through every sentence in front of him and was thirteen years younger, why did he ever get his hopes up? He felt his anxiety starting to pick up, so he shut his laptop and tried to not throw it back onto his desk. He laid down in bed and pulled the blankets up over himself tight, ignoring how his chest felt like it was breaking in two.

It wasn’t the same kind of comfort he got from his bed, under all his covers, of course. Wasn’t the silent, supportive comfort he got around Adam, or around Joel or Spoole or Lawrence. It wasn’t the kind of comfort he got being home and eating his mom’s home cooked food. But it was a comfort, something that settled in his chest and his gut, and made him feel… How did he feel? He picked up a bag of sugar, putting it into the little hand basket he was holding, trying to ignore how he wanted to answer that question. It wasn’t a word, or an overly complicated analogy that he’d get lost in halfway through, but there was something, something noteworthy, something he couldn’t ignore, not for long. He didn’t know when he’d have to face that question, give himself a solid, real answer, but he knew it wasn’t now.

> I’m So Fucked: Busy today?

Matt paused, briefly, halfway between the aisle and the self checkout lines, phone open in his hand, debating with himself on how to answer. He needed to stop acting aloof and distant to his best friends, because as much as he was trying not to, he was. Adam was still giving him the cold shoulder from Monday, and while Lawrence was constantly hassling him, Spoole and Joel were still acting concerned, worried he was in over his head with something. His fingers hovered over the keys, sighing and adjusting the handbasket on his elbow, typing out a quick reply. Matt would probably regret this later.

>> Matt: Grocery shopping. One second.

He scurried ahead when a line opened, quickly paying for everything they needed and heading out of the store with a bag of what he needed and his receipt. He wrestled his keys out of his pocket and unlocked his car, setting everything into the backseat and getting in on the driver’s side, when his phone buzzed in his hand again.

> I’m So Fucked: Do you need a ride or anything?

Matt froze for a moment; did Bruce not know he could drive? He went over their conversations in his head, and he came to the cold, stunning realization that Bruce… didn't. It wasn’t like Matt drove often, so that’s probably why. Gas was expensive, he rarely needed to go somewhere that wasn’t within walking distance, and his car was an absolute piece of garbage anyway, so the less he had to be behind the wheel of this rusted pile of metal on wheels, the safer and happier he was. He typed a quick reply, sighing as he put his keys into the ignition.

>> Matt: I can drive? I think I’m okay.

He was fiddling with the radio when his phone went off again, but instead of the quick burst of vibration for a text, it was long, drawn out, and a picture of Bruce came up on screen, prompting him to swipe to answer. Matt hesitated, before picking it up and answering. “Uh. Hi?”

“You can drive?” Bruce asked. “Don’t tell me you were texting and driving.”

“What, no!” Matt said quickly, shaking his head, even if Bruce couldn’t see it. “I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot. I don’t text and drive.”

Bruce was quiet, for a moment, before he sighed. “I didn’t know you drove.”

There was something about the way he said it that Matt had to actively avoid how it made his chest feel (tight? Warm? Conflicted and confused?). “I don’t drive often. My car sucks and everything is usually within walking distance.”

He hummed. “I get it, yeah.”

Matt went quiet, not sure what to say, still unsure of how conversation with Bruce should go. Did they even have anything in common? Matt certainly didn’t know a damn thing about Bruce’s business, and Bruce was older than him and probably didn’t know much about video games. He picked at a stray string on his steering wheel. “I can drive myself to uh. Wherever you want to meet up today,” he told him.

“Oh,” Bruce’s reply was almost like a breath, before he cleared his throat. “Right, uh. I was thinking my place?” Matt’s stomach lurched, anxiety kicking up in his chest again. His house. “I’ve got some shit I gotta finish up, but-”

“I… I have to go see my friend Spoole. Sean. Uh,” he stuttered, running his hand through his hair. “I’ll see you after though. Is that okay? I won’t be real late.”

“Yeah, of course, of course, that’s fine,” Bruce told him. “Yeah. Just-”

“I’ll text you, yeah,” Matt finished for him, the line going quiet. “I’ll just, see you then?”

There was a rustling, before Bruce chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, see you then.”

Matt almost dropped his phone after goodbyes, hanging up and letting his head fall onto his steering wheel. So much for being anxiety free.

His house.

>> Matt: SOS

> Spoole: Matt? What’s wrong are you hurt?

>> Matt: I need to meet up with you right now are you busy?

> Spoole: No! No I’m not but what’s wrong?

>> Matt: I need to explain in person. McDonald’s? I’ll come pick you up.

> Spoole: You’re worrying me, but okay. I’ll be ready.

>> Matt: I’m actually losing control of my life. Be by in a few.

> Spoole: :(

Spoole was staring at him, eyebrows down and eyes worried, and Matt picked at his french fries, ignoring his gaze and feeling the coil of anxiety tightening around his stomach, before he felt like he was going to vomit. He deserved to know. He needed to know. Spoole was the closest person he had to him other than Adam, and someone needed to know he was about to go to an older man’s house, alone, who wasn’t Lawrence. Bruce was nice, and Matt was warming up to him with texts, but what if he was going to kill him? He finally set a fry he had thoroughly coated in ketchup down, meeting Spoole’s eyes for the first time since he picked him up, and sighing. “I’m sorta seeing Bruce Greene.”

He froze with his mouth hanging open, fries falling from his fingers and back onto the tray in front of him as he just stared, gaped, at Matt. “B-Bruce Greene?” he squeaked. “L-Like-”

“The Bruce Greene who owns Cabra,” he said quietly. “Cabra, as in that company Joel is nearly obsessed with. And I’m… kinda seeing him. He’s-” He trailed off, biting his lip and looking back down at his food. “-my sugar daddy…”

“O-Oh my God!” Spoole gasped, before looking around quickly, making sure no one was listening to them, before he leaned in over their food, eyebrows low in concern. “Oh God, Matt, is money really worth having s-”

Matt shook his head, sitting back and waving his hands wildly. Of course that’s immediately where Spoole would jump to. “No, no, no, Sean, it’s not like that-”

“But that’s usually how it goes, right?” he asked, fidgeting in his chair. Matt couldn’t tell if he was anxious for him, or anxious at the idea, but he could personally feel the panic spread up in his chest. “Matt, what were you thinking? I know things have been bad but…”

“It’s…” Matt trailed off, running a hand through his hair. “It’s a long story. Ask Lawrence-”

Spoole made a noise in the back of his throat, and oh God, Matt wished he didn’t have to have this conversation. “Lawrence? You told Lawrence first?”

“He figured it out, and I couldn’t lie-”

“And Joel and Adam?” Matt froze, and Spoole frowned, properly frowned, disappointment in his eyes. “You haven’t told them?”

“Joel would want to strangle me-”

“Adam wants to strangle himself, he thinks he’s been overbearing or something lately-”

“I know, I just-” Matt stopped, sighing and dropping his face to the table, resting his forehead on the cold, fake wood. “I needed to let someone know that I’m going to his house later, and I don’t feel like dealing with Lawrence’s assumptions. I know you’d believe me if I said nothing is going to happen.”

Spoole went quiet. He heard his straw squeak against the plastic lid, heard ice shift in his cup, then the crumbling of a hamburger wrapper. “You need to tell them,” he told him, and Matt felt the panic rise in his throat, making the back of his tongue burn at the idea. He didn’t want to do it, but he knew he needed to. Adam and Joel deserved better than a bestfriend that was sneaking around behind their back like this, and keeping huge secrets from them.

“I know.”

>> Matt: Hey what’s your address?

> I’m So Fucked: Oh, wow, right, you don’t have that.

> I’m So Fucked: [I’m So Fucked sent an attachment for Maps]

>> Matt: Thanks. I’ll be there in a bit?

> I’m So Fucked: Alright!

>> Matt: [unsent] And I’ll only be a mildly anxious mess.

Matt almost thought this couldn’t be where Bruce lived, at first.

The house was large, expensive, modern. It was grand, definitely worth more than anywhere Matt had ever stayed in his life, and almost looked more like a work of art than a place someone actually lived in. It made him feel small, in size and existence, because he knew he’d never have the money to buy a place like this, like he was too poor to even look at it. He wringed his hands on his steering wheel, looking up at it and biting his lip, before swallowing away the anxiety rising in his throat and grabbing his phone, sending a quick text.

>> Matt: I’m here.

He saw the front door open at the front, Bruce’s figure poking out from behind the door and doorframe, and Matt let out a shaky sigh, before he got out of his car. Gravel crunched under his shoes as he walked up the walkway, eying the building in front of him. God, it really was impressive, price tag aside. He almost slowed to a stop, staring up at the walls and windows, hearing Bruce laugh. “I’ve never seen you look so starry eyed,” he said. Matt’s face went red, hoping Bruce didn’t poke fun at him for it, before glancing at him. “Do you want to come in?”

Matt nodded, nervously, scurrying past Bruce and hearing the door click shut behind them, and- God.

The inside felt even more overwhelming than the outside, tall ceilings and modern art on the walls. There were stairs going up to the upper level, everything was so white and clean and expensive, that Matt had trouble swallowing around a lump in his throat, much less speaking. “It’s-” he started, choking over his words, eyes wide and looking at everything around him. Would Spoole even believe he stepped foot in a house like this? And he thought Adam’s apartment was nice. If he was a cartoon character, he was sure he’d have stars in his eyes. “Wow…” His gaze fell back on Bruce, and his heart jumped into his throat at the almost endeared look on his face, before it was gone, replaced by a neutral expression. Matt tried to calm the racing in his chest, before he looked away. “So, um. Why did you invite me?”

“Oh, I…” Bruce seemed to snap out of whatever sort of spaced out state he had been in, looking away to the living room and motioning toward it. “Thought we could… I don’t know. Hang out or something? I wasn’t really in a mood to be out around people today, but I really wanted to-” He stopped himself, color draining from his face for a moment. The words go unspoken as their eyes meet again, and Matt felt his stomach churn, before Bruce coughed. “I have video games. Do you play?”

Matt relaxed a moment, nodding and smiling a bit. Okay. So they did have something in common. “Yeah. Yeah I play.”

Bruce smiled, one that wasn’t unlike a smile he gave him in the coffee shop, that made the world around him brighter and made Matt’s insides melt in that tell-tale way. Oh no. “Sweet. Overwatch? Halo?” he asked, and Matt nodded, silently, brain a storm again as he followed Bruce and sat on his too-plush couch, and slid off his shoes, bringing his feet up onto the cushion with him. Bruce busied himself with changing the games out in his Xbox, and Matt didn’t even pretend to not be staring at his ass. ‘God Matthew, really?’ “I don’t play often. I’m usually too busy with work. James, uh that’s my friend? He usually plays with me, though.”

Matt hummed as Bruce turned to him, handing him a controller and sitting next to him. He was looking at him, expectedly, like Matt was going to say something, like he started to and stopped, so Matt blurted out the first thing to come to mind. “I’m going to kick your ass.”

They went quiet, before Bruce was laughing, and Matt felt himself sink into the couch cushions. “We’ll see about that.”

It was hours before Matt was finally able to pull himself out of the game long enough to focus on anything else. Hours of him and Bruce yelling at each other, pushing each other on the couch and laughing when the other died. He couldn’t remember last time he had this much fun playing video games, much less playing for this long; he had always been so caught up with work and school to make time for much else. Bruce set his controller down and got up with a cheery “be right back” as Matt looked at the time on his phone, less surprised than he thought he’d be when he saw 11:09PM in blocky numbers on the lock screen, along with two missed texts from Lawrence. He didn’t realize it had gotten so late, and hadn’t even noticed his phone going off. Bruce came back, carrying two bottles of soda, and Matt looked up. “Oh, fuck, hey, it’s kinda late, I think I’m gonna get going?” he asked, standing and slipping his shoes back on.

“Oh, okay,” Bruce said, setting one bottle down on the glass coffee table. His hands wrung the other one nervously. “Do you just want to crash here? Since it is late, I mean-”

“Oh, no, I…” Matt stuttered. “Uh. My roommate, you know, I don’t want him to worry so.” Bruce nodded, handing him the bottle with a smile, anyway. Matt caught sight of the label - Dr. Pepper - and he took it with a little nod. “I’ll… let you know when I get home, or something? And thanks, it was fun.”

“Yeah, please so I know nothing happened to you,” Bruce told him, smiling. “And it was fun. We should… I don’t know. Do this again sometime?” Matt nodded at the request, returning the smile, because if anything, Bruce’s was contagious, and it felt right to agree to that. He wanted to see Bruce more. Maybe. “Alright. Um. I’ll walk you to the door.” They walked together to the front, a comfortable silence settling over them, one that felt so different than all the awkward dropped conversations and places where neither of them knew what to say. Matt’s felt chest warm at the thought, before he turned to Bruce as he opened the door.

There was something in Bruce’s eyes that Matt couldn’t name, but it made his stomach flip as the older man took half a step toward him and leaned over just slightly into his space, before he stopped, pulling back. His heart hammered in his chest as he stumbled back a full step, watching emotions shift on Bruce’s face, before he swallowed down the lump in his throat. “G-Good night, Bruce. I’ll see you later,” he told him, palms sweating on his soda and on the door handle.

Bruce nodded, half smiling at him. “Night Matt. See you around.”

Matt headed out to his car, keys jingling as he pulled them from his pocket and unlocked the door, sliding into the front seat quickly. He sat there, chest threatening to burst and mind racing, before he let his head fall back on his seat with a soft “fuck”.

> Lawrence: Adam’s staying at my place tonight. He’s convinced you’re mad at him for prying and thinks you need time to yourself. I don’t want to get in the middle of this, because this is your business, and not mine, but I do have something I need to tell you.

> Lawrence: I won’t sit by and watch one of my best friends beat himself up over a problem that he didn’t cause. You need to tell him. And you need to tell him soon.

Matt got home after midnight; the apartment was already dark, and quiet. He had read Lawrence’s texts before he left Bruce’s, so he knew he’d be coming home to no one, but the way the darkness and silence settled around him made him feel uneasy. The apartment was hardly ever empty like this. He set down his keys and moved to the fridge, stopping when he saw a neon yellow sticky note on the front. He opened the door and unceremoniously dropped his bottle of soda inside on a shelf, before closing it and plucking the note off. It was Adam’s messy handwriting, and it made a stone sink into his stomach.

“Matt; went to Lawrence’s for the night. Leftover pizza in the fridge. See you tomorrow. Adam.”

He stood, unsure, in the kitchen for a moment, thumbing at the adhesive, before turning to carry it to his room, that familiar feeling of regret coiling in his chest. He set it down on his desk, next to the shoes that Bruce bought him, still in their box, and turned the ringer on his phone on, dropping it onto his bed. All he wanted to do now was shower and crawl into bed, then possibly sleep off Adam being upset at him, and him being a nervous mess (again) about Bruce. Matt slipped out of his shoes and headed to the bathroom, starting the water and stripping out of his clothes, taking a moment to glance in the mirror above the sink. He looked… well, he wasn’t prepared to look decent, especially after his anxiety had been at an all time high for weeks, but he really didn’t look bad. There were some bags under his eyes, sure, and he could see where his lack of sleep had been working against him in his cheeks, but other than that, he really did look okay. He sighed and pushed away from the sink, going to step under the warm spray, letting out a soft sigh and working out the tension in his shoulders. There was a chime from his bedroom, and he knew it was his phone. Lawrence, probably, maybe even Bruce.

He quickly finished his shower, getting out and drying off, before heading back into his room to get dressed, laying down in bed and grabbing his phone. He looked at the lock screen, seeing a text and feeling himself go cold all over. Matt quickly unlocked it, reading the contents and feeling his stomach churn sickly, before he locked it. He rolled over and faced away from his phone, ignoring it, and the person who sent it, before he fell into a fitful sleep.

At five, you held your first gun. It wasn’t anything special; just a hunting rifle your family had for hunting season. You were an only child, your father never had any sons, so it was you that got to feel the cold weight of a weapon in your small hands, got to look down the sights and take potshots at birdhouses and bottles. It made your shoulders and your back ache for days after, from the recoil, but the way your blood rushed in your ears and the adrenaline made your limbs shake was almost addictive. Afterward your dad had given you a large smile and told you that you did well, and, even at five, you could feel how unorthodox this situation was for 1943, and how the words had a weight to them. It was a weight you’d never forget for your entire life.

Your dad, however society like to present the male gender of the day, was not typical for the stereotypes and roles men normally fit. He was always supportive, always caring, never put you in a gendered box like your mother wanted to. He was your world at that age, was all you wanted to be, even after he left shortly after your sixth birthday for the draft. Your mom fit it all to a T, wanting to stay home and cook and clean and take care of you, while your dad worked a job and waited for the arrival of the inevitable letter about his stationing. She was kind, you didn’t want to get anything wrong, but she was more restrictive about your less than ladylike behaviors. She turned her nose up when your dad took you out with him that early morning at five to shoot, scowled when you wanted pants instead of skirts, yelled when you played with mud instead of toys. If she had known, maybe she would have listened to your dad. It… didn’t matter in the end.

At seven, on the edge of the end of World War II, you and your mom get a visit from two men in sharp uniforms with medals and badges hanging on the lapels. Your mom grips your hand as the man closest takes off his stiff military hat and rests it over his chest. She doesn’t make it through his first few words before she breaks into hysterical sobs, while you stand there, silently, the reality of death settling around you like a cold, cold blanket that you feel for the rest of your life.

In the background, the Ink Spots record your mom had put on spins and plays “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall”.

You don’t talk about your dad after that.

Whatever part of you that still clung to the identity of Mary Ann died with the news of your father, and was buried with him in the cemetery closest to your house. You watched his coffin be lowered, watched soldiers send him off with one last salute, hear your mom and aunts and uncles cry around you, but you were empty. You didn’t shed a single tear in front of him, didn’t blink when a soldier handed you a folded American flag, didn’t even feel a lip quiver as they started layering dirt on top of him. You were so empty. If you had to pick a moment where you wished, for once, your emotions had gotten the better of you, it was then. You were seven, you should have cried.

It’s decades before you cry for your father’s death.

At thirteen your mom remarries.

You were expecting it the moment the funeral services ended, expected it the moment all your out of town relatives packed up and moved on. It was six years in the making, six bitter years in the making, but you knew it’d happen. She remarries to a man named Joseph, who looks, talks and walks nothing like your father. He lacks his kindness, his softness, and the only comparison you can make is the military service he has under his belt. Outside of that small, small similarity, Joseph is nothing like your father, and you let him know from the moment he steps foot in the house with a gold band around his finger. You don’t like him from the get go; you don’t think he likes you much, either.

He doesn’t come alone, unfortunately for you; you gain a step father and a stepsister in one swoop of a door. Shirley is four years your senior, older and taller and pretty, and she plays nice in front of your mother, but you can see the contempt in her eyes. It’s all you can find that you two have in common; contempt for your step parents. She wears the dresses and petticoats that make her bust look big and her waist look small, she primps and preens in front of the mirror for hours, has a new boyfriend every other week (Ricky, Eric, Charlie, Eddie; they all blur together). She’s everything you aren’t, and you can see the way your mother attaches to her, despite Shirley’s obvious dislike, and you shrink into the background, for once.

In the six years between the event you don’t speak about and your mother bringing home this replacement man, you dropped the dresses and ribbons and the bows. You swipe trousers and button ups shirts from the local department store, wear those in place of skirts and ignore the way people stare at you like you’re committing murder. When no one looks, you eye the hunting rifle you held at five and imagine holding it in your hands again, but you don’t. You never do.

It’s when you're fourteen, on a rare moment where Shirley actually invites you out with her friends and boyfriend, that you realize your feelings on your gender aren’t the first place things start to get muddled in your head. Shirley’s friend, Donna, is your age, and she catches your eyes more than the boys that had been with you do; she’s got soft brown hair and pretty brown eyes, with a smile that makes your heart catch in your throat and a laugh that has your stomach knotting from all the butterflies. She eyes you over dinner at the local diner, and after an awkwardly stuttered conversation starter, you find out she’s in the same few classes as you at school. You don’t know how you missed someone that looks like her, someone so ethereal. All the lights seem to shine off her and make her glow, and you have such a hard time tearing your eyes away from her for more than a few moments; you had never been such a people person, but you find yourself in her orbit so easily. And she lets you in her orbit.

She’s the only person from back then that you miss.

The thing about finding out you’re into girls, while very visibly presenting as some sort of feminine, in 1952, is that you’re finding out you’re into girls while being some sort of feminine in 1952. Intolerance was a bitch then. Shirley never catches on, Joseph never catches on, your mother never catches on. But when people aren’t looking you trade kisses with Donna between study breaks and under the bleachers at school. No one bats an eye when she walks closer to you in the hallways, the way her touch lingers on your shoulder and arm, how her eyes fill with love when she’s near you. She’s the only one you let call you M other than your dad, because Donna meant something to you, something deeper than you had felt for anyone since your father’s death.

It makes all that happens later feel just that bit worse, you think

The same year you and Donna begin your secret fling under the noses of everyone in town and your own parents, you find out another big thing about yourself that shapes who you are for years and years and years.

Sex was a thing. They didn’t teach sex ed well back then, although you’d argue now isn’t much better, but Marilyn Monroe was well in the spotlight of Hollywood by the time you were creeping up on your fifteenth birthday, and she might has well been a sex icon then, too. She wasn’t afraid to flaunt what she had on camera for photos and film, and the world ate it up. While she was being herself, the rest of the female population kept to their high buttoned dresses and below the knee skirts and waxed poetic about having that much courage like Marilyn did.

You never understood it; you never understood sex, on an emotional level. Physically, logistically, you guess, you got it, thanks to science and health classes, but the idea of wanting sex seemed foreign, almost… fake to you. Shirley had plenty, you knew. You pretended to turn blind eyes to the bottles of lube and boxes of condoms that sat in her dresser under all her Sunday school clothes. There were times you and Donna used the excuse of going out with friends to hold hands in the backseat while the boys and girls around you paired off and spent hours groping, kissing, touching, moaning. It never bothered you; made you slightly uncomfortable, sure, but you chalked that up to how physical they were being in public, and nothing more. The uneasiness you had about sex was not just because of that, though.

It was a rare moment in which no one else was home. The details fuzz after decades, and you don’t remember the chain of events that lead your step dad, your mother and Shirley to all be out of the house at the same time for an extended period of time, that left you and Donna alone. Whatever it was, you didn’t put up much of an argument, of course. Swapping intimate touches and kisses without the fear of someone barging in and catching you made your fingertips feel like electricity. Feeling Donna’s hand down your back and down your side and on your face made whatever you two had feel real, feel cement, like even if the world was going to be against you two, you could do it.

The feeling faded the moment she reached for your underwear, hand hovering on the elastic, and it sent your body into a panic. You don’t know why, but it felt wrong. So wrong. You pulled back before she could do more and pressed down your skirt, one of the rare moments you were actually wearing one, and pushed yourself as far as you could from her, from Donna, who sat with her shirt off and bra straps falling off her shoulders and the most hurt and confused face you had ever seen anyone give you. The words that leave your mouth are shaky, they’re unsure, backed by little sobs, but she doesn’t pressure you. She presses a kiss to your tear soaked cheeks and helps you put yourself back together; buttons your blouse, straightens your hair, wipes away the wetness under your eyes. You thought her a saint in those moments, with her patience and her smiles, and her understanding. You don’t know if she ever truly understood what you felt, and you never would know.

A week later, Donna moved away.

Years down the road, years you never thought you’d live to see, you find words to these feelings you grew up feeling, and it feels like puzzle pieces being stuck in gaps of a picture. You find the word for your gender, genderfluid, and you find a word for your romantic attraction to women and men and everything else, panromantic. Most importantly, you think, you find there’s a word for what you felt with Donna that night in 1952, when your body was cold fear and your eyes were full of tears at the thought of having sex, and it’s the last piece of you that gets filled after decades of thinking you were something broken.

Asexual; a person who has no sexual feelings, or desires.

You feel the remainder of your teenagers year pass without any real incident. After Donna had moved, you felt a hole in your chest similar to the one that you felt after your father had died. Your mother brushes it off as missing your best friend, Joseph tells you to find another one, but Shirley stares extra long at you anytime you mention her. It’s a cold chill that goes up your spine that you feel more than once throughout your life, but you ignore, the first few times it happens, because you didn’t know any better.

You turn eighteen shortly before you leave high school. You graduate with moderately good grades, with a ceremony that isn’t anything real special. Joseph gives you the first kind word you’ve heard from him in five years, and your mother bakes your favorite kind of cake to celebrate. You spend the night after graduation with your parents, finally feeling at home in the house you called such for years, sipping champagne with your mom and trading quips with Joseph.

Shirley speaks words that still haven’t left your memory. You don’t know where she found out, when she found out, when she saw, but she tells them about Donna. She tells them about the secret kisses, the touches, the hand holding during movies. You feel color drain from your face as her words spill out, before you stand, slamming your hands on the table. Your family just stares; the way your mother stares at you makes you feel cold, and Joseph stands with you, his presence intimidating, his stance defensive. Shirley says nothing more from next to you.

You're kicked out without much fanfare, and you don’t try to argue. You count yourself lucky they didn’t drag you off to an institution, in hindsight, but your shoulder shake with sobs as you pack all you own in suitcases, carefully pressing a photo of you and Donna on top of your clothes, before you shut the lid.

Your mother isn’t at the door when you leave; Joseph crowds you to get you out faster, and Shirley watches you with a smirk on her face as you walk out.

At the time, you couldn’t have had possibly known that getting kicked out was the best thing to happen to you. When it happened, it felt like your world was getting torn out from under you, and you didn’t know what to do. You spent hours that felt like years at bus stops and train stations, trying to find a way out of the city, out of state. You had money, some, that relatives sent to you for graduating, and you held onto it like a lifeline as long as you could. It was in a public restroom in a diner that you pull out the pocket knife you stole from Joseph and choppily slice your hair clean off, giving yourself something that resembles a cut men would have, and you buy a hat as soon as you can. You toss your skirts and hang onto your blouses to wrap and wrap and wrap and compress your chest the best you can.

You leave the name Mary Ann in that diner. You leave the bathroom without a name.

You go through a lot of names in three years; Michael, Jeffery, Mark, Robin. None of them stick long, though. You keep M close to your heart and find a home for yourself within the underground crime going on in the city, but your identity stays yours and yours alone. Not many people mind you, though, and no one seems to care who you really are when you wield a knife the way you do. You help carry drugs and weapons and all sorts of illegal things around, and somewhere along the way, you learn your skills in with a needle and thread to wounds, and with bandages to stop bleeding are a valuable asset.

You get properly picked up by a crew whose name you don’t remember, but you sure do remember their leader; Kenneth. He was a couple of years older than you, taller, and meaner, but he seemed to have a soft spot for you. Where he was biting words and hurtful jabs at everyone else you two ran with, he wasn’t like that to you. You don’t know if the feeling in your chest was something akin to what you felt with Donna, or if it was just relief that you weren’t going to get pushed around by him, but whatever it was, it kept you floating and happy.

And Kenneth kept your head above the water while you floated; he showed you how to fire guns, how to wield a knife, how to jump fences and run from cops. You stared off with his crew at twenty as M, and by twenty one, you had a hang of what they were doing; drug deals, theft, a few counts of arson. Everyone else in your crew had been in handcuffs once or twice in the two years you knew them, but never you, and never Kenneth. You didn’t know if you could handle being behind bars. You didn’t know if you could have kept your secret up behind bars. In the end, it’s not a cop that spills the beans for you.

You get hurt jumping a fence and your shirt tears, right over the breast pocket, and reveals the hastily wrapped blouses around your chest and ribs, and the world caves in on you with the silence. No one says a thing. But Kenneth steps forward, offers a hand, and helps you up. You think, maybe, it won’t end as badly as you think. Kenneth doesn’t look angry, and he tells the others to back off and leave you be. You believe him, you trust in his authority. You’re naive, you’re idealistic, you put these men up on pedestals for the food they put in your stomach and the pillow they gave you to rest your head on, and you didn’t know a damn thing better.

You don’t remember all the sensations. There was so much to take in. The slide of liquid, the cold rush of the ground, the way everything was fuzzy and vivid all at once. You felt hot, and you felt frozen, and you felt everything in between. There was pain, there was a feeling of relief, a feeling of finally, finally being done.

You’re getting ahead of yourself.

That night, as Kenneth slept, you walk the alley behind the hideout, unable to sleep from reoccurring nightmares about Donna, about your father, about the way Shirley smirked at you as she ruined your barely beginning life. You remember these parts the best, they way anxiety wrapped itself around your thoughts; you’ll never be able to keep it from your memory. You’ve tried. Oh how you’ve tried.

A piece of fabric wraps around your mouth before you have a chance to scream. Kicks to the back of your knees take out your legs enough that you can’t balance yourself well enough to fight back. An arm comes around your torso and holds your arms to your sides as you try and try and try to thrash but you can’t. Whoever has you is stronger and larger than you and you think it’s going to be worse than it turns out to be, that you’ll have unspeakable things done to you, only feet from the man who looked out for you like no one else had in so long. In your panic you don’t hear for voices around you; you wish you had.

Instead of being dropped to the ground, instead of clothes being shed and you trying to block out your memories, you remember the rest in such detail that it scares you sometimes.

A blade, a knife, presses against your throat and slices across your skin. It feels warm, almost hot to how chilly your neck is. The gag in your mouth falls as your captors let you go and your hands find the gash immediately. Blood slides between your fingers as you try to grab it, to stop it, to stop the bleeding, to apply pressure to do something. You fall to the ground, and the snowy, icy ground rushes to meet you. It’s pain and fuzz and your vision is dark at the edges, but so vivid and crystal clear and you feel like crying but part of you feels relief, feels free from all you’ve gone through, and you wonder what happens after death, if this is your death, before your eyes slipped closed and shudder out a shaky breath.

You vaguely remember your body being rocked. You remember Kenneth crying. You think you hear a gunshot. You don’t remember much, to be honest.

You remember the date. November 21st.

You come to, and it’s cold. It’s cold that it seeps into your clothes and your skin and your bones and makes you shiver so violently you think you’re going to break something. You feel wetness on your face, so you assume it’s snowing, but when you open your eyes, your head pounds in protest. Everything aches, from the cold, from the position you’re laying in, from whatever else. You neck and throat hurt the worse and you try to rotate to get the kinks out and take a bearing on your surroundings, when what had happened comes back to you in shocking detail it leaves you breathless.

Kenneth saw the bindings. His crew saw the bindings. They grabbed you. They slit your throat. Your hands frantically feel for a cut, a wound, on your neck but you feel nothing. You bled out on the cold ground in the alleyway, though, and now you were-

Now you were in the graveyard. A cemetery. You recognize it well; it was the one your father was buried at. You scramble away from what you had been leaning against and stare long at hard at the headstone in front of you. It was your father’s. His name is etched deep in the grey stone, with his date of birth and his date of death, and you reach out, running your fingers in the words, panic rising in your throat.

Was it all a bad dream? The crew turning on you? You can’t figure out how you went from being at the hideout to being at your father’s grave miles away, but you figure there’s an explanation to be found somewhere, right? You stand on shaky legs that don’t want to work, pull a scarf you had tucked into your coat pocket and wrap it around your neck, freezing when you catch sight of the blood all down the front of yourself. Dark red. Old blood. You stand, unmoving, for a moment, before it clicks.

It wasn’t a dream.

Your legs carry you quicker than your brain can keep up. There’s a diner nearby, the same one where you cut all your hair off at three years ago, and you button your coat up quickly as you run. You try to slow your pace, and your breathing, as you slip inside with a quick nod and head toward the bathrooms, sliding into one and locking the door shut behind you. It’s a two stall bathroom, but you don’t want to take chances.

You step in front of the mirror and get a good hard look at yourself; dark brown hair, green eyes (like your dad’s), dark bags, glasses dirty and perched on your nose. Your cheeks are freckled and pale, and there isn’t much color to your face, even with the cold and your running. You take a step back from the sink and unbutton your coat, getting a good hard look at the deep crimson stain all down the front; even the blouse you used for binding under is stained. You didn’t want to know then whose blood it was, and you wonder if you had never found out, would you have been happier?

Your hands shake as you unravel your scarf from your neck. You’re not sure what you were expecting to see under, you can’t remember that well. What you face in the mirror is a long, thin scar that goes from one edge of your throat to the other. You drop the scarf in your hands just in time to slap them over your mouth and muffle the scream in your mouth.

December 14th, 1959 is a date that haunts you for the rest of your life. You might have “died” on November 21st, but December 14th was the day you felt like you fell over the deep end; you didn’t know what was happening. You know now, but back then, you thought you were crazy. You thought it was a miracle. You thought maybe the crying Kenneth had did was him patching you up. But when you find him that same day, he goes pale and throws up at the sight of you, and you don’t stick around for long after that. You tried so hard to rationalize what had happened instead of facing the stranger than fiction truth, that it lasted for decades.

You’ve been twenty-one years old since 1959.

You leave Texas behind without much thought and travel west after that. You leave behind whatever names you had tried to get to stick on you for years and just go with an obvious, easy answer. Your name is Tex, now, and it settles like familiarity, even when you’re far from what was essentially your home. There was no clear directive when you left, though, so you spend what feels like years jumping around from place to place, not staying long, because you start to realize that the time keeps piling up, but you… you aren’t changing. Your hair gets longer, and your skin goes from pasty winter pale to a slightly less pasty summer white, but you’re age never changes. Almost ten years pass, and everything shifts around you. You watch the Cold War kick up, and you watch the Civil Rights movement, and you watch men be sent to the moon, and Kennedy assassinated and phones become mobile and computers be built, and you… you continue to look in your early twenties. So much is difference; society, the government, even you. You’re not the same person but you don’t change on the outside. You’re close to forty now, but you haven’t been keeping track real well. It’s hard to keep track of the years when ever year you never change, you think. Your head hurts if you think to hard about it, though.

It's sometime in 1986 when you get tired of wandering and traveling and hitchhiking and just want to lay low for a bit. A reputation follows you where you go; Tex has made a name for themselves back this way, with your skills with a knife and your accuracy with a rifle, and there’s a good lump of money in your backpack that you use to get yourself around, or to feed yourself. You don’t need much else, though. You know you had enough to splurge on a nice hotel, someplace with a comfortable bed and stable hot water, but you don’t. You get a cheap motel on a bad side of a no name town in the middle of nowhere and call it your home for the night, although you wonder if you could call it home for a few days. You unpack what little you own and get to maintaining your rifles, and, for the first time in over twenty years, you think about the people you left behind.

You wonder where you mother is, if she’s still married to Joseph, if Shirley ever swallowed down guilt for what she did to you. You wonder if your parents ever felt in the wrong for kicking you out, if they regretted what they did after they did it. You think about Donna, where she went, if she’s okay, if she settled down somewhere and had kids. You haven’t thought much about him, but you think about Kenneth, briefly, if your death affected him and made him bolt from the illegal scene. It’s been so long since you’ve seen any of them. It hasn’t felt like that long, but the shitty desk calendar sitting on the dresser reads July 1986. It’s been decades.

Then, all at once, you think about your father. You think about his smiles, about his kind words. You think about how he helped you hold a rifle for the first time at five, the way he congratulated you and held your achievement up like it was important. You feel tears in your eyes at the day you watched him leave the house in his military fatigues, how he ruffled your hair and kissed your forehead and said he’d be back soon. You start sobbing remembering the day the soldiers came and gave you and your mother the news, and feel forty-one years of pent up emotions and grief and mourning over your father’s death pour out so quickly it leaves you gasping for air on floor.

What happens that night. You don’t talk about it.

At forty eight, you look back on yourself at seven and wish you had mourned then, so you didn’t long for death so you could see your father again, after so long. You knew at fourteen he would have accepted you and Donna, and you wouldn’t have had to hide. And at eighteen, you would have never gotten kicked out. He would have watched you walk across the stage and take your diploma and would have celebrated your graduation that night with you. You think your life would have been differently had your father not died. And a forty eight, you figured if he couldn’t be with you, you would go be with him. But you can’t die. You realize this in a shitty motel in the middle of nowhere.

You restart your journey at your father’s grave in Texas, for a second time.

You don’t know what lead you to Los Santos, but something does. You assume it was a billboard advertising something in the city that caught your eye and put the name in your head, but you’ll never know for sure. All that matters at the turn of the millennium, you wander into San Andreas for the first time, and something clicks. It was the same kind of click that you felt holding a rifle, or when you kissed Donna for the first time; when pieces fell into place and your life was going on the right track. You assumed something was in Los Santos that would make things feel like they were going smoothly again. You were right, but you were also wrong.

Los Santos is a big city, and you get swept away under all the radars at first; you’re short, you’re unassuming. Your hair is short again and your wear a baseball cap over it, and you look like everyone else there. You like the anonymity; no one knows who you are. No one can put a name, Tex, to a face, and the name Tex is all but dead now, anyway. You carry a shitty little mobile phone that’s half a burner, half someway for you to order pizza, and an old Walkman that plays cassettes. You miss records, in a way, but you couldn’t carry records around with you, so you don’t do too much complaining.

You like the climate of the city, you like the hustle and bustle, and you love the way it feels like you could get away with almost anything here (and years later, you will). But you love how detached it seems from who you were. Mary Ann is a name you don’t think about anymore, one you haven’t thought about in years, and Tex is a mercenary’s name who’s long dead, as far as anyone’s concerned. May 2000, on the verge of your sixty-second birthday, you adopt the name that sticks with you, properly; Miles.

Miles, as far as anyone is concerned, likes uppity late nineties boyband pop. Miles was born and raised in Los Santos, and their forged ID shows it. They’re only twenty one, but they have a way with a rifle if given one and can patch someone up faster than it takes to get to a hospital. They dodge too personal questions, and act more like a soldier than a mercenary looking to score a quick buck. Miles owns an apartment that’s not too bad, but not too nice, and lives comfortably between their illegal businesses. Miles paves a street of gold for themselves in Los Santos all on their own. You think you could used to being Miles.

It’s halfway through a Backstreet Boy’s song that’s been stuck in your head for days when your life crosses paths with his; Nate.

If Donna was the first girl you ever looked at and felt like you could die happy on the spot, Nate was that way with men. He was tall, and blonde, with steely eyes and a sweet smile. He was charismatic and friendly, and made you feel at home in his crew, in his life. Donna charmed you by being herself, but Nate seemed to charm you by playing on everything he knew you wanted to hear. If you had known better, you would have left long before you had a chance.

You wouldn’t have let it escalate.

There’s scars still healing on your wrists when you join Nate’s crew. They don’t ask about your neck, comfortable in the knowledge that, at least, their boss knows the answers to the mystery. And maybe you told too much to Nate too fast, but he had told you he was the same way you were. However, he seemed to spin you around exactly how he wanted you and used all the things you told him as advantage over you. You didn’t realize that's what he was doing, not at the time. You told yourself it was love. You were such a fool.

Nate’s crew was trying to make a name for themselves in Los Santos, using any means necessary. Excessive violence became somewhat of a norm for them, and for you, and it almost didn’t matter who got shot down as long as the bullet hit something. The sight of blood was one that you didn’t quite warm back up to after your incident in 1959, but you didn’t let it affect you as much as you wanted it to; you knew the moment you looked weak, you’d be thrown out. There was an unsure coolness you kept between yourself and the crew for that reason. None of them seemed to bat an eye at your gender presentation, none of them seemed to care, but you watched their faces for any signs of trying to turn on you. You wouldn’t be taken of advantage of this time.

Drugs are Nate’s specialties, you find out quick. For all the fun his men have blowing up police cars and shooting up gas stations, they find even more fun in drugs. You don’t touch them when Nate offers to let the wares be tested, just deliver them to and from where they need to go without incident. You get a cut of the profits, and sit pretty on your pedestal in the gang, hoping it was high enough to not let you be pulled off unexpectedly. You hoped so much.

Dealing in drugs meant dealing in drug deals, the shady practices of passing off packages for cash, and hoping the other person didn’t draw a weapon to take back their cash, and make off with both. Given that you were usually on the money receiving side, you carried a pistol to every deal, and didn’t turn your back on the other person. You were careful, you were safe. You couldn’t say the same about Nate.

Nate was reckless, emotional, and manipulative. You would tell him you weren’t going to do something and within fifteen minutes, he had your answer turned around on you. You never knew it’s what he was doing at the time, but had you realized it, things would have never gone the way they did. He never went with you to deals, part because you prefered to do them on your own, to keep tensions low, and part because he was a loudmouth asshole. But he ends up worming his way into coming along one night, to a deal down by the docks, tossing the brick around like it was a football while you grit your teeth and try to do your business.

It ends as bad as you assumed it would; Nate mouths off. Customer mouths off. Nate pulls a gun and customer pulls a gun. You try to defuse the situation between them, and somewhere in the process of pushing Nate away with a rushed attempt to get him to just go home, you get shot. Being shot felt nothing like having your throat slit. It burns like fire, and it leaves a numbing pain all down your arm and your shoulder, when the bullet lodges itself. The customer runs off, their money still in hand, and you choke out a plea that lands on deaf ears as Nate books it, too. You slide down a shipping container and hold your shoulder and try to will away the tears and the pain.

It takes days. It gets infected. You die of blood poisoning curled up in the corner of unused docks.

“Emotional abuse” is a term that isn’t on your radar for years and years and years. It pops up before you find words for your identity, but you’re less sure about using it as something to describe what you’ve been through. You think back to Joseph, and all the remarks he made to you, and wonder if that’s what it was. You think about Nate, and how he played with your emotions to get what he wanted, and think that’s what it was. You’ve died three times now, and gone through the worst era for social acceptance, and you get caught up on thinking that two men in your life were emotionally abusive.

You wonder if you’ve survived more than you give yourself credit for.

You don’t know what happened to Nate that night on the dock. You woke up cold and alone with the sea air in your face and a scar already fading in your shoulder, but there was a burning bitter vengeance that rose in your throat and tasted like fire, that made your hands long to wrap around his throat and watch the color drain from his face. You know it’d be pointless, if he couldn’t die like you, but you know you wouldn’t want to kill him. You think death would be merciful comparatively.

The next decade feels like nothing. Your age is pushing into the seventies, and you’ve walled yourself off so well that no one is close. You reinvent yourself every few years; you change your hair, get new glasses, change your wardrobe, find a new last name. Nothing stays for long, except Miles. It’s the only constant in your life anymore.

In 2010, you pick up the label panromantic. In 2013, you pick up genderfluid. In 2015, finally, you slap asexual on your chest. It feels good.

People don’t know you anymore, though. You spend a lot of time flying by without getting close, and taking odd jobs here and there to pay rent at your ever changing apartments. They know you by your work name, Tex, that you recycled after the 80s, but they don’t know Miles. People are a waste of time, if you’re honest, and you’re not sure you could get close to anyone else, not after what happened with Shirley, or Kenneth’s crew, or Nate. People just fuck you over, and you have a city to take down off the hands of Fake AH, Fakehaus and Fake Ace. You don’t need the distractions.

Despite that, you find it weird you end up with them. They don't introduce themselves past a quickly said name that you don’t catch in a busy Starbucks. People bustle around you as you wait for your drink, and you’re almost annoyed by it. You half listen to them and half to your music, so it’s no wonder you don’t hear them say a damn thing, though. Your drink arrives so you take it and pull your headphones out and that’s when you hear them, again, properly.

“You’re Tex, right?”

You don’t know what to say to that. You’re holding a frappucino that makes your fingers numb from the cold, and they’re looking at you, waiting for an answer you’re not sure you can give. The kindness in their eyes remind you of Donna, and you feel your chest lurch, and before you can stop yourself, you’re talking. “I’m Tex. Who are you?”

They smile, and in a way that makes you feel less like cornered prey, and more like you’re among friends, but you don’t hang onto that feeling for long. “My name is Cotter. I’m with Fake Ace. I have a business proposition for you.”

Fake Ace Crew is third in line of the throne for Los Santos. Charlie and Cotter run the show, you’ve known this for a while. They’re just behind Geoff Ramsey and Adam Kovic, in terms of taking over control, but from what you can tell, it seems they’re more set on friendly competition between each other, rather than a full scale rivalry. It perplexes you. Their base is a warehouse-turned-real house on the harbor, and the number of people they have under their belt is a number you don’t even know. You can name everyone in Fake AH and Fakehaus off the top of your head, but you don’t know a damn thing about Fake Ace. But they’re powerful, and their influential, and you think, maybe, you don’t need to get close to them to reap the benefits.

You willingly go into Fake Ace with your guard up.

There was something incredibly unnerving about the idea of Bruce spending actual money on Matt, that didn’t occur to him until Saturday morning as he was getting ready to go out shopping. Matt didn’t know how he avoided thinking about it for so long, but as he was making an excuse to Adam about where he was going as he made breakfast, and dodging the looks Lawrence was giving him over his coffee, he had nothing to think about but that. Bruce was rich, that’s why he was doing this, right? He had plenty of money obviously, otherwise he wouldn’t have offered to take on the financial responsibility of a college drop out twenty-one year old. Cash was something he must have had in spades, but the idea of him using a cent of that on Matt made his stomach churn so bad he had heartburn for an hour after he had nibbled at half a waffle and took a few sips of coffee. Just the thought of being pampered, being bought things he needed, or maybe he didn’t, was something he was going to have to get used to, even if the price tags were going to make him anxious.

Hell, forget the price tags. Bruce’s car was making him nervous.

It was a brand Matt didn’t recognize, despite his knowledge of them being somewhat respectable, and looked like it was expensive enough to pay off his tuition a few times over. There was hardly a speck of dust or dirt anywhere on it, sunlight shining off it perfectly, if not obnoxiously for how early it was, but as Matt passed across the front to the passenger’s side, he could see a scrape in the paint where the front bumper must have hit something. He hummed, eying it for a moment, before he nervously opened the door and slide into the seat, shifting on the squeaky leather as Bruce gave him a polite smile from over the console. “Uh, nice car,” he told Bruce quietly, chewing on his lower lip. He felt out of place; the interior was sleek and dark, and he assumed a scuff on the glove box would cost more to repair than his family home did, which didn’t help calm his nerves in the slightest.

“Oh, thanks,” Bruce responded cheerfully. There was an edge to his voice, though, but Matt couldn’t place it. He glanced at him as they pulled away from the curb, and he wasn’t surprised to find Bruce looking at home against the expensive leather, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear shift between them. Matt pried his eyes away from staring at the muscles of Bruce’s arms, and moved his gaze to his right and out the window, trying to distract himself by counting out of state license plates and watching the clouds, before Bruce’s voice pulled him back in. “So, um. You were in school. What were you studying? I uh… Don’t think you told me that at the bar.”

Matt was grateful for the awkward conversation; at least they won’t have to sit in awkward silence. He wished Bruce didn’t bring up the bar, though. As weird and uncomfortable as this situation was, he didn’t want to be continuously reminded about how this weird and uncomfortable situation came to be. “Post production,” he said, wishing the car was a little louder so his voice would fade into the background. “I… I wanted to do video editing and… stuff like that.”

“That’s kind of broad,” was the reply he got in turn, and God he hoped it wasn’t going to be like that conversation he had with his dad before he graduated high school. “Did you have any places you wanted to work in mind or…”

“Not… Really,” Matt answered nervously, shifting and picking at the strings at the bottom of his hoodie. He didn’t want to think about how unprepared he was for all that, how it brought on too many flare ups in his anxiety to be considered healthy. “I was sorta winging it. I figured I’d find somewhere, you know?”

Bruce hummed in soft agreement. “I get that,” he told him. “Did you like it? Post production, I mean.”

Maybe… not? Matt swallowed a bit and nodded, even though Bruce couldn’t see. “Yeah. I mean. I liked it. It was definitely something I was good at,” he said. “I knew a lot of people who weren’t really passionate about their majors, so I feel like maybe I got lucky, or…. Something.”

“Maybe you did. Being in a major you like is pretty important.”

“What did, um, you major in?”

Bruce fell into silence, the kind of palpable, tense silence that made Matt want to back pedal his question and take it back as quick as he had said it, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t let him say a thing. The car slowed and Bruce pulled into a mall’s parking lot, going for the nearest spot. “I um, didn’t major in anything,” he said, and the tone of his voice- edging on sadness, maybe with a ton of regret- made Matt not want to push it any farther. He didn’t have to know anything about Bruce; that wasn’t really the deal. “Uh. Okay. We’re here. Let’s um. Get you something that isn’t falling apart?”

The anxiety he felt a moment ago from possibly saying something stupid faded away, only to be replaced by the fiery anxiety of having money be spent on him, and he felt his chest burn again. “Oh. Right, yeah. Okay.”

He slid out of the car, careful not to drag his feet along the baseboards, or to close the door more forcibly than needed, and even felt his heart in his throat at the fingerprints he left on the door handle. Bruce glanced at him over the top of the car, and Matt avoided his looks, glancing at the damage on the bumper. “Oh, uh. What happened?”

Bruce hummed, casting a quick look, before realization popped in his eyes. “Oh. Yeah, that. Hit a light pole in a parking lot. Haven’t had the time to go get it fixed,” he said, easily, and Matt hummed, before stumbling behind him a bit to follow along. “I hoped it wasn’t so noticeable…”

Matt bit back his sarcastic reply, nodding. “Mmm. It kind of is.”

“I’ll go get it fixed sometime this week,” he muttered, absently, before clicking his tongue as they headed into the building, hands sliding into his short’s pockets, and Matt took a moment to give him a confused look at the shorts, before he was speaking again. “Alright, where to first?” he asked him, eyes on him suddenly, and Matt’s throat went dry, turning back to face the mall.

He didn’t know the last time he went shopping, properly, for clothes. Probably before the year started, when he went home for a month over the summer and his mom to him to the nearest Target to pick up a pair of thirty dollar jeans and a ten dollar hoodie among the groceries they needed. The jeans were holding up well, a few holes here and there, and the bottom hems were starting to fray a little, nothing that warranted replacement. But he had lost the hoodie in the library his first week back, and his backup was the one Bruce had oh-so-uncomfortably sized up at the coffee shop Wednesday. The only thing he could really think of getting was a new hoodie, since it was all he really wanted, but from the way Bruce was eying the holes in the knees of his jeans, he didn’t think he was going to walk away so empty handed. “Somewhere cheap,” he blurted out before properly thinking about it, and felt his face flush. What kind of answer was that?

Bruce’s eyebrows perked up a tad, before he hummed. “Alright uh,” he mumbled to himself. “Well there’s-”

“There’s an Old Navy, or something, right?” Matt asked, and he ignored the look he was given, if to do nothing but help with his anxiety. People pass by them, carrying bags and bags of things, chattering and barely paying them any attention. “I shop there. Let’s just-”

He had barely registered that he was starting to walk off, the start of a long winded, nervous ramble in his throat, before Bruce’s hand (his strong, large hand) fell on his shoulder, pulling him back gently. “Whoa, whoa, okay, alright, hang on,” he said, and Matt snapped his mouth shut. “Old Navy? Okay… You’re obviously not used to the money thing, I get it. So… How much are jeans from Old Navy? Roughly?”

Matt blinked, opening and closing his mouth a few times, before stuttering a reply. “T-Twenty? Thirty?” he said, wording it more like a question. “T-They’re cheap, I know that much.”

Gears were turning in Bruce’s head, he could see it, but he had no idea where he was going with this. “Okay. Let’s be generous, and they’re thirty. How long do they last you? Six months?”

“Four to six?”

“Okay. So you have buy jeans two, maybe three times a year?” Bruce asked. Matt nodded dumbly. A couple of girls walked by, casting Bruce looks, hearts in their eyes, and Matt felt like he was just a human shaped wall between them. It didn’t help the anxiety in his gut. “Alright. So what if you just… Spent all that at once and bought a few pairs of jeans that would last longer than a third of a year?”

Oh. Oh that’s where he was going with this. The thought of spending more made acid rise in his throat, but then it clicked into his brain, and… made him less nervous? Bruce was making real sense, rational sense that made his irrational brain not have a fit about what he was doing. He nodded, robotically, and glanced away from his face. “Y-Yeah, okay, okay I can do that.”

Bruce’s grin was wide and splitting. Matt’s heart skipped a beat. “I know just the place.”

It seemed like a never ending, torturous ordeal by the end of it, when Bruce finally decided he had enough emotional (and borderline physical) torment. Matt held two bags in his hands, one with three pairs of jeans from the Levi’s shop (he stared at the price tags with a pale face for minutes before Bruce finally pulled him away), and the other from Aeropostale with a few stripped hoodies that lacked the gaudy logo all over it (Bruce didn’t let him look at a single price tag this time, and made him step outside of the shop when he checked out). He could feel a year’s worth of guilt and regret settle on his shoulders as he stared at the bags, trying to calculate in his brain how much money that was, how much Bruce just spent on him, before he glanced up at the man when he heard him mumble a curse. He was holding his phone, a frown on his face. “Hang on, I’ve got to take this call”, he told him. “Wait here? I’ll be right back.”

Matt nodded absently as Bruce answered the call and disappeared around the corner, talking quickly. He slowed his walking pace to a stop, giving the window display to his left a glance, before his eyes went wide. He scanned over the items in the storefront, hands unconsciously gripping the plastic of the bags, before Bruce came back. “Sorry, it was a work thing…” he started, trailing off when he saw Matt. He quickly snapped his gaze away from the shop, and back to Bruce, hoping his look wasn’t too longing. Bruce’s eyes moved between him and the window display, before he hummed. “Well. Let’s call it a day? I need to get back soon. Something came up.”

“Of course, yeah,” Matt mumbled, watching Bruce turn his back, before giving the items in the window one last look, before jogging to catch up to him.

> What Are You To Me??: Hey, I know you were too nervous to try anything on today, so don’t remove tags until you know everything fits. If something doesn’t, we can return it.

>> Matt: Yeah, I tried everything on earlier. Fit fine. No returns needed.

> What Are You To Me??: You aren’t just saying that to say it, right?

>> Matt: I’m sure.

>> Matt: [unsent] Do you need photographic evidence to prove it.

>> Matt: I promise.

> What Are You To Me??: If you say so. I’ll let you know time I’m free and we can get coffee or something?

>> Matt: Sounds good. And hey. Thanks for today. And the clothes. Just. Thanks.

> What Are You To Me??: You’re welcome, Matt. ❤️

[What Are You To Me??] changed to [I’m So Fucked]

“So. What are you hiding Matt?”

Matt held his mug a little harder than needed, swallowing a particularly painful gulp of coffee and setting his phone down- text to Bruce unfinished on the screen- before coughing quietly into the sleeve of his hoodie. His new hoodie. The new hoodie that Bruce bought him. Lawrence watched him, unimpressed, from across the small kitchen table, crossing his arms over his chest. The action made his skin crawl uncomfortably. Matt glared at him, before taking an easier sip to make his throat feel less like sandpaper, before he gave Lawrence a half-hearted reply that sounded better in his head. “What are you talking about?”

He should have seen this coming; Lawrence was perceptive, and he wasn’t scared of cutting right to the chase. Adam and Spoole and Joel would be content to forever dance around something if Matt didn’t feel like talking about it, giving him space and air to decide how to approach situations himself. Lawrence didn’t do that song and dance, had figured out quick in their friendship that asking now and getting answers later sometimes just didn’t cut it. Matt figured he was too intelligent for his own good, and was too good at reading people, and specifically seeing through Matt Peake’s Signature Brand of Bullshit™, if nothing else. And the way Lawrence was looking at him now, across toast that had long gone cold, and coffee that was still comfortably warm, Matt figured he was as good as a cornered animal. Time to show the claws, he guessed.

The apartment was empty beside the two of them and Adam, who was taking a shower back in his bathroom, getting ready for the movie him and Lawrence were going to go see for half price on a Sunday matinee. Which meant Matt was stuck here for at least another fifteen minutes. “I’m not hiding anything, Sonntag,” he added, for emphasis, but realized the emphasis fell short by at least half a minute.

Lawrence’s eyes narrowed, moving to prop his elbow up on the table, truly studying Matt now, judging his every flinch and breath and nervous swallow. He twitched, slightly, under his gaze, and tried not to immediately avert his gaze when his phone vibrated, once. A text. Bruce. Lawrence’s eyes did drop, though, looking at the flash of his screen. Matt didn’t move, but felt his hands sweat around the ceramic of his mug. “Are you going to answer that…?”

Matt tried not to see over eager in picking it up off the cheap wood, opening the text.

> I’m So Fucked: I’m swamped all next week. Might have Saturday off. Plans then sound good?

“It’s not important,” Matt lied, locking the screen and setting it down again. “It can wait.”

Lawrence returned to his blank, judging, calculating look, before the corner of his mouth tilted downward. “You haven’t told Adam, Spoole or Joel, whatever it is. Have you?” he asked. Matt didn’t bother with an answer, habitually going to pick at the strings on his hoodie, but there were none to pick at. God dammit. “Spill, Peake.”

God he was cornered. He was so fucking cornered, and he was a declawed kitten instead of the rabid dog he hoped he would look like. “You can’t tell them,” he said, quickly, quietly, like Adam could hear them over the spray of the shower. Lawrence’s eyebrows perked up. “Or anyone. You can’t. Promise me you won’t.”

“My lips are zipped, Matt. Unless you killed someone,” he joked, but backpedaled at the icy glare he was given. “Really. I promise. I won’t tell a soul.”

Matt hesitated, fingers fidgeting on his mug, listening for Adam’s shower. Still running. He took a deep breath and willed away the pounding in his chest and the nerves that made his hands shake. “You know Bruce Green. Co-founder of Cabra? The fashion company?” he asked quickly.

Lawrence nodded, slowly, eyes narrowing. He thought Matt changed the subject, he could see it. “Joel never shuts up about him, what does this have to do with-”

“I drunkenly confessed my life problems to him on accident last Saturday and gave him my number and he offered to buy me things and help me out financially? Well, things I need, I mean, like clothes since all mine are falling apart, and maybe bills and-”

He shut his mouth and silence his anxiety-fueled spill the moment Lawrence waved his hands and started shaking his head. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Peake,” he said, using the tone they all use when Matt’s nerves are getting the better of him; calm down, slow down, breathe. “Are you saying Bruce Greene is your sugar daddy?”

Matt winced at the term. He really didn’t want to keep referring to Bruce as that. The term still conjured up images of sleazy old men in tacky suits with gaudy golden watches. Bruce was absolutely not a sleazy old man in a tacky suit and gaudy gold watch. “When you say it, it sounds creepy,” he mumbled, taking a sip of his coffee.

Lawrence seemed to disregard what he said. “That’s what he is, though,” he said, unphased, without missing a beat. “I really never expected something like this from you, Matt. Joel, probably. You? Not a chance. Isn’t he like. Forty?”

“Thirty-four,” Matt corrected. “And thanks for the vote of confidence. It’s not like I was trying on some dating site made for it. Drunk me made a mistake, and sober me is paying the price.” He sat back on that, taking a sip of his coffee as he did.

“What did drunk you do?”

The voice made Matt spit his coffee out on the table at shock, coughing and setting his mug down before he could drop it, sending Lawrence glares as he started laughing. “Whoa, alright, sorry I’m asked,” Adam mumbled, passing them and going to the kitchen. Matt regained his composure, wiping his phone off on his jeans.

“Drunk me fucked up, like normal,” he mumbled half heartedly. Lawrence gave another chuckle, before Matt kicked him under the table, listening to him and Adam strike up a conversation. He tuned out, letting their chatter become background noise as he opened up the text from Bruce and replied, finally.

>> Matt: Saturday sounds good.

------

“Hey, Matt, did you order anything?”

Adam held a box in his hands, standing in the doorway of Matt’s bedroom, glancing between him and the package, more confused than Matt had ever seen him. It was Monday night, the week finally kicking off with an uneventful day, and brief snippets of texting with Bruce, mostly about the weekend. Matt glanced up from his phone, half finished text to Joel written out, and furrowed his brow, shaking his head. “No, I… I didn’t,” he said, setting his phone down and getting out of his bed, walking over to Adam and taking the box. It was heavy, with his name neatly written on the label in the front, the return address listed for a place he couldn’t pinpoint off the top of his head, for one Goose Breene. His heart leapt into his throat immediately because there was no way that wasn’t Bruce. He glanced at Adam, who was waiting patient for some kind of ending to the package mystery, and Matt panicked. “Oh, uh…”

“Are you gonna open it?” Adam asked.

He couldn’t make him leave; Adam was curious, and Matt didn’t want to look suspicious. “Right, okay,” he said, moving to set the box down on the end of his bed, grabbing scissors off his desk to cut the packing tape. He didn’t know what was inside; maybe he left something with Bruce and this was the easiest way to get it back? Or maybe something Matt picked out to buy, Bruce had to order online and send to him? Or what if it’s just something completely inappropriate and not only had Matt read Bruce wrong, but Bruce flat out lied in the coffee shop about this being a things-in-return-for-sex situation. Matt couldn’t get his anxiety to lower from his throat as he pulled the box open, reaching in and pulling out-

Another box. A shoe box. A shoe box with the sneakers Matt had been ogling on Saturday. Matt stared blankly, catching a glimpse of a folded up card in the bottom of the packing box, before pushing the back, out of Adam’s sight, to set down the shoe box. “You ordered shoes?” Adam asked from next to him, crossing his arms as Matt slid the top off and looked down at the shoes. “When did you do that?”

“I… I uh, the other day,” he lied, brain still trying to process this, still trying to process the clothes, still trying to process Bruce. He bought him those shoes?

“Where’d you get the money for these? They look nice,” Adam said, looking over his shoulder, and a cold chill crept up Matt’s back and he closed the lid to the box quickly.

“A place,” Matt said, grabbing the card from inside the packing box and setting it on his desk, before pushing the box flat.

Adam made a noise behind him. “Are you… doing something illegal?”

Matt’s head snapped up, and Adam looked… concerned. He looked worried, brows furrowed and arms crossed over his desk, and he was tall, and intimidating, and Matt had always been just a tad intimidated of him, but his stance isn’t aggressive, or demanding. He’s passive, watching Matt and studying him, waiting patiently for an answer. “Because… I noticed your new clothes, and there was that really nice car out in the parking lot Saturday-”

“I’m not,” he said quickly. “I’m not doing anything illegal, Adam why- Why would you-”

“Because it… It’s like you spent a bunch of money out of nowhere,” he said, his demeanor seeping into his voice. “And I know it’s not my business but you’re my roommate and my best friend and I just want to know if you’re-”

“I can take care of myself Adam,” he said, and it comes out like a snap, cracks metaphorically like a whip and makes Adam flinch and take a small step back, giving Matt his space. Matt felt regret wash over him instantly, and he shook his head. “I-I’m fine, Adam, I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me, I’m okay.”

Adam nodded, once, solemnly and silently, before he sighed. “Okay. Well. I guess I’ll… Leave you alone now,” he said, before leaving the room and shutting the door behind him carefully. Matt stood there, a moment, before picking up the card off his desk, opening it up to see Bruce’s neat handwriting.

“Matt- I saw you staring at these at the mall, and well. Oops? I didn’t know your size, so I guessed. Try them on and let me know if they fit? If not well. Returns, and all that. Hope you like them! - Bruce.”

He thumbed at the crease in the cardstock, before sitting it down in the draw of his desk, shutting it and moving to but the shoe box in his closet, flopping down in bed and staring blankly at the ceiling. He tried to feel excited, about the shoes, about how Bruce noticed something so small about him, but all he could see is Lawrence’s heavy stare across the kitchen table, how Joel’s eyes had lingered on him at the coffee shop, Spoole’s worried texts, and Adam’s concern and how he moved back like he had been hurt at Matt’s tone. Pushing your friends away wasn’t worth this, was it? He sighed and turned onto his side in bed, curling up under his blankets and trying to will himself to sleep. For the first time in over a week, it wasn’t anxiety that was nagging at his chest, and causing his brain to overclock.

lawrence wrestles (and loses, badly) to jack from fahc one night while theyre drunk and gets sent through a glass table at ramsey’s apartment.. bruce sets a new personal record for bar fights in one night after ten too many shots. adam is just a tad bit too close to an explosion that has his left ear ringing for days. james breaks his arm and dislocates his other shoulder three seperate times (and holds back tears every time). spoole barely makes it out of a dark alley after fucking over some drug dealers and has to assure peake most of the blood isnt his. even omar and joel get in on it; joel loses by a long shot and omar breaks bruce’s bar fight record in two hours.

it goes on for a solid fucking week, and by the end of it, matt is getting sick and tired of replacing all his medic gear three times DAILY (because did i mention somehow michael, jeremy, ray and mica get roped into this madness and end up coming back to matt for patching up instead of facing the wrath of Mama Jack?)(because they do)(they still face her wrath later though). 

its when hes packing everything back up one sunday morning that bruce cheerfully asks “so who won?? weve been competing to see who could put up with the most pain and impress you. who do you think won?” over weekly Crew Breakfast TM.

and matt just. stares at them with the most “are you fucking kidding me” look he can manage, before he points his thumb over his shoulder at elyse, whos still nursing her cup of coffee and munching on toast at the kitchen bar, and says “her. she wins. because while you assholes were going out and putting yourselves through unnecessary pain, i was watching her get up and go about her life while dealing with cramps and she didnt complain once. so. elyse wins”

It was different than the way Joel had grown up, amongst illegal trading and a drug business that he inherited because his last name was Rubin, and he was the only child his parents had. Crime ran in his blood, he didn’t choose it. Elyse chose her destiny, chose the beers at fifteen, the early mornings sneaking out with her father’s rifles in heavy plaids and boots at seventeen, the zero-to-eighty speed of her street bike when she was twenty-two. She chose the wind in her hair, the weight of a gun in her hands, the taste the illegal on her tongue, and the slicing cut of a switchblade over the safety of her mansion and her revolving door of fake friends. She chose Adam Kovic’s merry band of misfits over all she had known in her life, by showing up at their door with a rifle slung across her back, a butterfly knife twirling in her fingers, and a smirk on her lips.

She wasn’t bad at what she knew, not by a long shot. Bruce had commended her skill with a blade the moment she was given a chance to show she knew more than showy flip tricks. Matt, their resident sniper, had nodded in approval when she got behind her scope on Mount Chilliad. Even Adam, pack leader and a tough nut to crack, had pride gleaming in his eyes the first time he took her out for real gun training, to give her targets to shoot at that weren’t empty beer bottles and birds. Elyse had proved her worth, time and time again to them. She could tell they accepted her, with their smiles and jokes, the way they taunted and teased her, how hard they pushed and pressed her during trainings and their “fake heists”. It was just jokes, just words with no stab or bite or malice behind them.

“So, Elyse, think you’re up to running with us?” Bruce had asked her with a smug grin on his face, his tone cocky and self-assured as he took a drink from his beer. They were sitting around Adam’s living room, resting back on plush couches and drinking the alcohol Lawrence had stocked up in the apartment.

“Of course,” Elyse fired back, snorting and rolling her eyes. “I can handle it.”

James and Adam chuckle from next to her. “Oh, really?” James asked, leaning in and having her swat him away.

“Spoole said that when he joined,” Joel said with a smirk, taking a sip of his wine, and Spoole gave him a dirty look. “Then he ate shit the first time we were out on a heist.”

“I didn’t know there was a curb there!” Spoole fired back.

The others dissolved into laughter while Elyse rubbed Spoole’s back, before the focus back on her. Even Matt looked amused. “Well?” Bruce asked, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees and watching her. “Think you really can?”

Elyse let the room go silent for a moment, before she smiled. “Of course I can, Greene.”

“Guess we’ll find out.”

“Still think you can handle this, Elyse?” Bruce had asked her over the comm, voice rough under all the static. “You can still back out, you know.”

He was taunting, again, voice cocky and smug, like she couldn’t handle being a sniper for a heist, a practice heist, nonetheless, were everyone was paid off and no cops would be notified. Matt was below, with the others, while she took his normal perch on top of a building, knees pressed awkwardly into gravel and hands tight on her rifle. She smirked. “Of course I can, Bruce. I’ve got this. How many times do I have to tell you?”

There had been no more words exchanged, just a quick hum as everyone got into position. Elyse double checked, then triple checked her clip, her scope, her trigger, making sure everything was right, before taking a deep breath. Fake heist or not, she wanted to leave nothing but good impressions on the guys. She wanted to be part of their group, officially, more than she had ever wanted anything else in her life, and she was up to doing anything it took.

They’re half way through getting money out of the vault when Elyse hears sirens roaring from down the street, and Lawrence comes over her comm, suddenly, his voice not as steady as usual. “Someone called the police?” he asked.

“Fuck,” Adam cursed, panic in his tone. She heard a rustle, then the sound of the vault door shutting, Bruce yelling in the background. “We need to get out of here, but-” He hesitated. Elyse imagined him standing in the lobby of the bank, eyes wide and nervous watching outside the windows, and she tightened her grip on the rifle.

“I’ll cover you,” Elyse said quickly, keeping the tremble from her words and her shoulders set straight, like Matt showed her. She looked over from the back, then down below her own perch, smiling. “There’s an alley around the side that doesn’t look like it has any other way in. You should be able to sneak around back there away from the cops. I’ll make sure none of them follow you in.”

Radio silence for a moment. “Okay,” Adam said, then he was shouting orders to the others, and she watched them, ant sized and frantic, following one after the other around the side to the escape route she told them. She took in a deep breath as the cop cars started pulling up, tires screeching against pavement and uniformed officers stumbling out with pistols tight in their hands, raised to aim at them. She lined up one in her scope, before pulling the trigger, watching his body fall to the pavement. Elyse tried to focused on taking them out, before they realized where she was, listening to the boys chatter in her ear about getaways, about cars, making a list of the voices she heard. It was all of them, thank God.

“Elyse?” Bruce asked as she heard the roar of Matt’s jeep. “Are you still-”

“I’ll get back to you guys,” she told him, voice still and steady as she continued to line the cops up and pull the trigger. Bruce didn’t say anything else. She heard the jeep on his end rumble, before the comm cut as they all got out of range. Alone. It was just her now. She pulled herself away from the edge quickly, pushing back and praying they didn’t see her, before making her way across the roof carefully and jumping down onto the fire escape. The metal rattled and groaned under her weight as she descended the steps, her rifle slung across her back. Her feet make contact with the top of a dumpster bin, before she slid off onto the ground.

It was a long and lonely walk back to Eclipse Towers. Elyse had stuck to alleys and back roads, not wanting to draw attention with her rifle on her back, having to stop to get her bearings with a landmark or street sign. Spoole could have done this better than her, make it back to the apartment from some random building, but she didn’t let herself linger on that. She nearly sighed in relief when she made it back, aching and tired, shoulders sore from recoil and from carrying her gun, pressing the button for the elevator and leaning back against the walls as it rose to the penthouse at the top. Elyse allowed herself a moment to slip her eyes closed as she listened to the soft music coming from the speaker above, hoping she did something right today, before there was a ding and the doors opened.

There was a lot to take in the moment she stepped out. Seven voices called out at once to her, hands pulling her into the apartment and fussing over cuts and scrapes on her shoulders and knees and elbows. “Are you okay?-” “Where have you been?-” “You were all alone for that long!-” “You’ve got more guts than, Bruce!-”

“Guys,” Elyse said, finally, the chaos around her calming down and settling. Voices went silent, the boys stepping back once. “I’m okay. I made my way back after I got down. I didn’t get hurt, nothing bad happened. I’m fine.”

“How did you make it back?” Joel asked quickly, his voice frantic.

“Yeah, Matt had a hard time driving back, we got lost,” Adam followed up, crossing his arms defensively, but his eyes looked worried.

Elyse gave a little shrug. “I kept to back roads and alleys,” she told them. Spoole’s eyes went wide. “Sometimes I saw a building or street I recognized, and I went from there.”

“Elyse, that’s-” James started, and she cut in immediately.

“I know, it wasn’t smart, telling you guys to go on without me, and putting myself in a position where I was all alone, with my rifle, to make it back. Especially since I’m new. But you guys were trapped, and I didn’t want anyone of you to get hurt and-”

“Impressive.”

Bruce’s voice makes her words stutter. There’s a weight of pride in his tone, and it’s given more meaning by the way he smiles at her. Elyse’s shoulders fall a bit. “Elyse, that was… really impressive, what you did.”

“I couldn’t have even done that,” Matt followed up, and she felt a bit brighter at the praise.

“O-Oh,” she stuttered, laughing nervously, before she was pulled into a hug by Bruce, smiling into his shoulder and wrapping her arms around him. “T-Thank you…” They pulled back, before James was offering her a dog keychain with a single orange key attached. She took it, gingerly. “Wh-”

It had been a late night of movies, beer and pizza for them, the last of the credits rolling on the screen, and Bruce had been stuck on the couch for a few hours. Matt was sleeping on top of him, face pressed against his chest and breathing slow and even, and Bruce didn’t mind that. He actually thought it was kind of adorable, in that “Matthew never gets enough rest because he’s always fucking working” way. To see Matt so peaceful and relaxed, when normally he looked so tense and stressed, was nice.

Bruce didn’t like this couch though. Apparently Matt didn’t have a taste for comfy couches. Probably never spent too much time on it, anyway.

He patted Matt’s shoulder gently. “Hey, buddy. You need to wake up,” he mumbled. Matt stirred, rubbing his face and sighing.

“Sorry…” he mumbled sleepily, pushing himself up and sitting on the other side of the couch, yawning quietly.

“It’s okay,” Bruce said softly. “I need to get going, alright?”

He stood from the couch to grab his things, feeling Matt tug on his hoodie’s sleeve. “Wait… Hang on, Bruce?” he asked softly. “D-Don’t go. Please, don’t leave…” he mumbled. “Stay here tonight?”