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Jacob had been in the middle of a very delightful dream when his phone went off, buzzing loud enough to damn near wake the dead. He groaned and his hand flung out, nearly knocking over his lamp in the process.
Jacob winces at the light that emanated from his phone, and eventually, his eyes focused in enough to see that it was an image attached in a message from Arno Dorian with one word: See?
“The fuck does Frenchie want-?”
Oh. Oh . Then he saw It. A fucking lot of It.
It was definitely Arno, he knew that much. The Frenchman had a distinctly messy room as a backdrop, with a Les Miserables poster on the wall that he said he only kept ironically -- though Jacob knew he had seen it in theaters, in no small part to Hugh Jackman -- and an ugly rug that they had once spilled a bottle of Crown Apple on and had never been able to get the stain out of. In the room, there was a full-length mirror that he was taking the picture in with the front-facing camera on, and the main subject of the picture was, well…
Arno himself. All of him. Bare as the day he was born. His face was mostly hidden by the phone and the flash of the camera, but Jacob made out the curves of his chest, tan skin with the faintest outline of muscle definition teasing Jacob. Jacob was still tired and not coherent enough to fully understand all that was happening, but he felt himself shifting under the sheets, eyes scanning everything as his mouth went dry.
His gaze dropped to the main attraction and his phone almost went down as well, thinking of what prompted something like this. He had been careful to hide anything… untoward, any attraction towards the other man. They were friends, no matter how much Jacob’s heart wanted things to change. And to think that Arno had maybe caught wind of this, that Jacob hadn’t been so sneaky, that maybe, just… just maybe, he felt the same…
Jacob quickly sat up and typed out a response.
i do see
Then, right after,
i like what i see ;)
Jacob sent both messages, alternating between eagerly waiting for a response and scrolling up to drink in Arno himself. But nothing came of it, unfortunately; the longer he waited, the more nothing came out of it. The messages were read almost instantly, he knew that. But there was nothing else to come of it. A quiet sense of unease began to overtake the man, but he quickly shrugged it off as the other being tired and going to sleep.
He would be able to take care of this tomorrow.
The last thing Arno wanted was to be on the doorstep of the younger Frye’s apartment, especially after what had happened the night before. Fuck, he knew he had had too much to drink, but… The last thing he wanted was for something like that to be sent.
No doubt he had been invited over to be teased mercilessly, to be prodded in a way that couldn’t be done over the phone or over text. It wasn’t fucking fair, he wanted to whine and groan, but Ezio had only laughed when he told him about it and simply said to go face the music.
Arno pulled his red scarf up to his nose to hide any sort of angry red blush and knocked on the door, getting the clear to come in. He entered and stopped short as he closed the door behind him, coming into the small living room. It had been rearranged, the electric light dimmed but the area itself lit up by… candles? Yeah, no, they were definitely fucking candles, placed “artfully” on the tables and countertops and some on the floor, which freaked him out. The couch had been moved so it was facing the door, with the coffee table in front of it. And right there sat in the middle of Jacob Frye himself, wearing a loose white shirt, tight black pants, and the grin he always wore when he wanted to get the cutest girl in the pub to buy him a drink and take him back to her place.
Fuck, if Arno wasn’t about to die then, he was now.
“Fancy seeing you here, Dorian.” Jacob joked, voice dropped just a bit from its normal tone, and Arno tried to keep himself together. “You cold?”
It took him a while to realize he meant the scarf. “Just a bit. It wasn’t too bad.”
“You wanna come here? We can warm each other up.” Jacob moved over on the couch and patted the seat invitingly, and Arno was proud of himself that he didn’t give into jello legs right then and there. But he decided the best thing to do was get it over with, so he stiffened himself up and went over, sitting next to the man and barely allowing himself to get comfortable as he noted the contents of the table in front of them.
“Special occasion for all this, I take it.” He started out evenly, and Jacob leaned forward to grab the bottle and glasses.
“You know why I invited you over, Frenchie?” Jacob’s voice got downright husky, sending an involuntary shudder down Arno’s spine, and he cleared his throat, opting to rip the bandage clean off rather than beat around the bush for any longer than was necessary.
“Because I accidentally sent you a nude?”
Jacob stopped then and there, only one wine glass poured. “Accidentally?”
Arno almost lost it then and there, but one look told him all he needed to know; Jacob was slowly starting to get confused, then straight up embarrassed, quickly corking the wine as best as possible.
“Wait, Jacob-”
“The fuck do you mean ‘accidentally’? You meant to send me a cute cat video instead or something?” The man turned to him, red starting to heat up his cheeks as his tone turned a bit more defensive.
“No! I- I was drunk, it was stupid-”
“You could’ve bloody well told me before I went and made a fool of myself like this. I even texted you, I know you read them!” His voice rose as he stood, starting to clean up and waving out candles as best as possible. Arno tried to turn and follow his movements, but he was quick and Arno was forced to get up and follow him around the apartment.
“I read them, I just- quite frankly, I didn’t think they were your business to get involved with. You should’ve just- Just deleted it! They obviously weren’t for you.”
“And who were they for, then? Alexios? Altair? Oh, Elise, wasn’t it?” Jacob looked regretful as soon as he said it, but Arno couldn’t help the wince at the mention of his… well, his ex, and for as much as he said he had been over her, there had been a part of him deeply wounded by her coming in and out of his life. And Jacob had known that, he’d had sat up with Arno many times about it. At least, Arno thought he’d known that.
“Dor- Arno, I’m sorry. I just… I got angry. I, uh… Shouldn’t have…”
“Been an asshole,” Arno mumbled.
“You could say that. Look… y’wanna sit down? I can actually get you a drink for fucking real and we can ignore this happened. I’ll even spare you my attempts at the Austin Powers look.” He tried to lighten the mood, gesturing to his open shirt, and Arno snorted, an ugly little thing.
“Drinking is what got me into that mess, last night, mon ami.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand like a little kid would, before speaking. “It- It was about Elise. But… it wasn’t. She… Ezio and I had been texting last night. And as fucking sad as it sounds,” he chuckled, a little sad, “we were talking about ‘my inability to hold down anyone’. I’m such a nice guy, Ezio! So kind, nice hair! ” He mimicked the slurs of someone completely smashed, and Jacob had to stop himself from laughing by disguising it as a cough. “I don’t think he was completely sober either, but then he brought up that maybe I wasn’t ‘satisfying’ anyone. So I did what any sane, normal person did, and I, uh…”
“You whipped your John out and showed it to everyone.”
“Don’t put it like that, okay? Please don’t, I’m begging you. But… that’s what happened. And then…” Then I freaked out because it was you , and the last thing I wanted was you thinking me a…
“Thinking you a what?”
Fuck.
“Thinking me… Well… When you responded, I didn’t want you… I thought you were teasing me.”
“What?” The shock seemed genuine, but Arno continued.
“Teasing me! Making fun of me, pretending to be interested, with your damned ‘winky emoji’. The last thing I wanted to do was come over here, because- because I was afraid that you’d be… You’d be ready to laugh at me. And then you had the wine, and- Now I don’t know if-”
“Arno, Arno, hey, stay with me.” Jacob was quick to get in front of him, getting them eye-level and putting his hands on Arno’s upper arms to squeeze a bit and keep him grounded. Arno skidded to a stop in the spiral he was going down and looked into bright brown eyes. When Jacob spoke again, it was slow and measured, but… genuine.
“I meant each one of those little letters I sent in the messages. Especially that 'winky emoji'.” He barely gave Arno a second before he continued. “I- When you sent me the picture, I’ll be honest, I went a wee bit crazy about it. I mean, can you blame me? Look at you.”
Arno couldn’t help the eye roll at that, but a fond smile graced his lips as Jacob kept going, taking a deep breath before putting it out there.
“I’ve been crushing on you for forever, Frenchie. Everything about you. And this past year… you’ve been making my heart ache with how you’ve been hurting. I love you, Arno Dorian. And I’m sorry it took me misreading a pretty nice picture to get me to admit anything, but… I mean it.”
Arno studied him for a long while, taking in everything about him; the softness and serious demeanor rarely found on his face, the sincerity in his eyes. Everything about his radiated honesty; this was a man who wore every emotion he had on his sleeve, despite anything he’d ever tell you. And this… This time it was…
“I love you too, Jacob Frye.” He admitted quietly, leaning in and gently pressing a kiss to his lips. Time didn’t stand still but he felt Jacob freeze all the same; he was unexpectedly gentle, even as he kissed back, but they just enjoyed it for a while; when they pulled away after a while, both of them were sporting matching grins. It was silent for a while, until Arno broke the silence, slowly but teasingly.
“You know… you got to see me, but I don’t think I’ve gotten to see you in all your glory yet.”
Jacob couldn’t help the actual laugh that escaped then, wrapping his arms around Arno’s waist. “Who’d have known that Monsieur Dorian was such a freak? We haven’t even had a first date yet.”
“Fine. Wine… And then it’ll be my turn to get a pic or two for my collection. If mon cher is agreeable to that.”
“Whatever you say, Frenchie.”