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You’re sitting on the couch watching reruns of Jeopardy when Tim comes in, hair damp from a shower, wearing sweatpants and an old t-shirt. Upon further examination, you realize it’s one of your old shirts, displaying a band you haven’t thought about since high school. It was always baggy on you, and it’s big on Tim, too. It suits him, you think, and you smile.
He settles on the floor in front of you, back against the couch, and you reach down to rest your hands on his shoulders. They’re tense, and you can’t help but dig your thumbs into the muscles, trying to force them to relax. Tim hisses out a sound of pain, and you draw back apologetically.
“Sorry,” you murmur. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s alright. Kind of felt nice.” You return your hands to his shoulders, working your fingers into the sore spots again. “Wouldn’t mind it if you wanted to rub my shoulders, honestly.”
“Do you want to talk, or just watch the show?” you ask, working on a knot at the place where his neck becomes his left shoulder.
“Just the show. Too tired to talk.” You hum out a noise of vague agreement, continuing to work at the tense muscles of his neck and shoulders. Alex Trebek says something funny, and you laugh. Tim’s shoulders shake with his own laughter, and things are good. Normal . Until they’re not.
Your thumb digs into a particularly sore spot, and Tim makes a sound halfway between a whimper and a moan. His mouth snaps shut, and you feel your own face burn. You ignore it, and so does he, and everything seems fine.
Except he keeps making these little sounds. They’re soft and breathy, and they’d be so easy to miss if you weren’t listening for them. Except you are, and you know what they sound like, and some small part of you wants to know what he’d sound like if he really let himself make noise. And then you shake your head, telling yourself he’s your roommate. Your best friend. You don’t need to think about what he’d sound like when he cums.
Except you just know he’d sound so pretty and his cheeks would get pink and his eyes would be shiny and dark and his pupils would get so big and he’d bite his lips and he’d be perfect .
But he’s your roommate, and he’s not doing it on purpose, and so you ignore it. You continue working on the knot in his neck, refocusing your attention on the show, both of you guessing at the answers. When Tim gets a question wrong, you nudge his ribs with your heel, and he catches your ankle and holds it. His fingers are warm, strong against your skin. He doesn’t say anything, just holds your foot in place. You nudge him again, thinking he’ll let go, but he doesn’t.
You simply continue your work, pressing harder every so often in the hopes that he’ll make a sound again. Each time, you’re rewarded with what you’re looking for, and it becomes dangerously addictive. He either hasn’t noticed or has the decency to ignore it, although you know it would be more than reasonable for him to tell you to stop. Eventually, mouth dry from listening to the small noises, you stand to get a drink.
“You want something to drink?” you ask over your shoulder as you walk to the kitchen.
“No, I’m fine.” Tim’s voice is tight, but you brush it off as tiredness. You get yourself a glass of water and return to the living room, setting the cup on the small table next to the couch. You settle back into your seat, patting the spot next to you.
“Come sit with me, I’m cold,” you say. “You’re always warm.”
Tim doesn’t move for a moment, and a pang of worry strikes through your stomach. Did you make him uncomfortable? But he eventually nods slowly, grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch and sitting down next to you, curled up under it. He doesn’t get as close to you as he normally does, and so you shuffle over a little bit, leaning your head on his shoulder. He tenses and his breath catches slightly, but he relaxes against you.
“Are you okay?” you ask softly. “You seem really jumpy and distant tonight.”
“M’fine,” he mumbles. “Just…personal stuff. You know how it is.”
“Mmhmm,” you hum. “Well…is it anything I can help with?” You see his face slowly but surely turn bright red, and he quickly shakes his head.
“No, no, not at all.”
“You sure? I’d hate for you to be suffering.”
“I’m sure. I’m fine, just…uncomfortable,” he says, eyes darting around the room. He’s being cagey about it, which isn’t unlike him, but something seems different this time. He seems almost embarrassed.
“If you say so.” You hold his arm, hands looping around him and holding it close to you. You reach for the blanket, wanting to share it, and Tim nearly jumps out of his skin, lurching away from you. Your eyes go wide and you raise your hands apologetically.
“Just wanted to share the blanket. Sorry. I’ll ask next time.”
“No, I, uh…I’m sorry. I overreacted.” He leans close again, moving some of the blanket over to you. His face is still burning, and his eyes are pointedly not on you. You pause for a moment, looking at him before sighing and muting the show.
“Tim. Look at me.” He hesitates before doing as you ask, dragging his gaze over to you slowly. “What’s going on? You’re being weird tonight.”
“I…it’s nothing, okay? I’m just a little out of sorts,” he says awkwardly.
“What does that mean? Are you sick? Are you upset? Are you tired? You won’t explain what’s going on, you won’t let me help you.”
“I’m fine, okay?” he says, a little impatiently. “I said I’m fine, so I’m fine.”
“Are you sure it’s not something I could help with?” you ask. “You know I’d do anything for you.” His cheeks color darkly, and his breathing stutters.
“It’s not…you could…I’d never ask you to help me with this,” he manages to get out.
“If you’re sure,” you mumble, leaning your head against his shoulder again. Jeopardy plays on in the background, Tim’s shoulders eventually lower and loosen, and your breathing evens out into something deep and steady. Before long, you’re asleep, Tim close behind you.
You drift in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of Tim’s body next to you. He’s warm and soft and familiar, and he’s shifting ever so slightly, just enough to keep you awake. You stretch and yawn, forcing your eyes open and glancing over Tim’s slight frame. His hair is rumpled and cheeks pink with sleep, and it’s achingly endearing. He whines, high in the back of his throat, and you examine his face for any signs of distress or nightmares, concerned. When you find only peaceful sleep on his features, you shrug it off and settle next to him again.
He repeats the sound only moments later, and shifts his hips slightly. You lift your head again, looking over him, and this time your eyes catch on his sweatpants. Oh.
You swallow thickly, tongue suddenly feeling heavy in your mouth. You try to drag your eyes up and away, but you find yourself staring. The whole room feels hot, and it’s as though all the thoughts in your mind have been replaced with something secret and heated. Your cheeks burn with shame, and you finally force yourself to look away. Tim keens again, and you nudge his shoulder, hoping it’ll wake him, or at least shut him up. He twitches, and his eyes crack open slowly.
“What.” It’s not a question, barely a statement. It sounds more like an accusation, and you stammer out some excuse about him sounding like he was having a nightmare. He looks at you for a long moment, brain stalling, before he closes his eyes again and promptly falls back asleep.
You sigh and worm your way off the couch, going to the kitchen for a drink of cold water. Something uncomfortably close to desire is twisting itself through your guts, and you hate it. It’s Tim . Your best friend since eleven. Your roommate. His family is practically your family at this point.
And yet.
The desire is there, and real, and making itself very known in the pit of your stomach and the space between your thighs, in the dryness of your mouth and the heat in your face. You press the cool glass in your hand against your cheeks, hoping to at least calm the warmth, if nothing else. Instead, you end up with cheeks dripping with condensation and an expression dripping with shame. You slink back to the living room, where Tim has sat up, now fully awake, blanket draped over his lap carefully..
“Hey,” he says, pale cheeks flaming. “Uh…thanks for waking me up.”
“No worries,” you croak out. “Sounded like a bad dream.”
“Something like that,” he mumbles under his breath.
“What was it about?” you ask, wondering how much longer you can play innocent, but wanting to get every detail possible.
“Uh…you,” Tim answers, sounding surprisingly genuine. You feel a rush of heat in your cheeks and a swooping in your lower stomach, and you glance away.
“Oh. Um…I know sometimes your dreams get gorey, was it…like that?”
“It was certainly graphic,” he mutters. You feel the ache of desire and telltale sticking of cotton between your legs, and you hum a shaky noise of acknowledgement, afraid that opening your mouth would mean confessing everything. “You woke me up before I saw how it ended.”
“Good thing I did, huh?” you laugh nervously. “Wouldn’t want you to be haunted by a nightmare all day tomorrow. I hate when a dream sticks around for a while, y’know?”
“I’m sure I’ll be thinking about this dream for a while.”
“Was it, like, realistic? Something that could really happen? Or was it one of those nightmares that don’t make any sense?”
“I mean…it could happen, I guess. Yeah. It’s feasible. But it won’t.”
The flat-out denial of it happening dampens your spirits a little, but you can’t blame Tim for that. If he says it’ll never happen, the dream was probably awkward and upsetting to wake up to. The kind of dream that doesn’t make sense once you wake up, where your body seems to want something that your mind is repulsed by. Oh. Does he find you repulsive? No, he couldn’t. He kissed you, he can’t be repulsed by you. You shake yourself out of your thoughts, knowing you’ve thought yourself into a corner and come to conclusions that have no basis in what Tim said.
“Ah. Well, nothing to worry about then, I guess,” you say, forcibly cheerful. “I’m going to go to bed now. It’s late, and I have a class in the morning. I’ll see you tomorrow night, I guess?”
“Yeah,” Tim sighs. “Tomorrow night.”
Your days for the next week consist of going to classes, coming home, showering, and making dinner that you leave in the fridge for Tim, and then locking yourself in your room under the guise of ‘needing space to work on homework.’ In reality, you’re alternating between staring into space thinking about Tim having a wet dream about you, and resolutely ignoring the growing urge to get off, because every time you try, Tim’s face appears behind your eyelids, and the shame crawls up your throat and kills any desire you feel. But Tim doesn’t need to know that, and the slight guilt you feel at lying to him is heavily outweighed by your inability to come to terms with what’s happened.
Finally, Tim gets sick of your avoidance and knocks harshly on your door, demanding that you open it and talk to him.
“I’m sick of this weird disappearing act. I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry. Please just come back?”
You unlock the door but don’t open it, instead returning to sit on your bed. Tim hears the small click of the lock and waits for a moment before opening it. He sees you bundled on your bed, peering at him from within your blankets, and he visibly softens. He sits down on the floor next to your bed, and your heart aches. Usually, he’d have no problem forcing himself into the blankets with you, stealing your pillow. You scoot over, making room next to you, and he moves to settle next to you.
“You gonna tell me what’s been going on?” he says softly. You shake your head ‘no.’ “Did I do something? Are you mad at me?”
You shake your head again, chewing on your bottom lip anxiously. You don’t want to admit what’s going on, but you also feel horrible that he’s been worrying about this. You sigh, deciding to just suck it up. You can deal with things being awkward for a few days if it means everything going back to normal.
“I…I’ve been thinking,” you start slowly. “About that dream you had last week.” Tim freezes, swallowing thickly.
“Oh?”
“And I know you said it was a nightmare. Or…I said it was a nightmare and you didn’t correct me. But we’re both mature enough to have a real conversation about this, right? You were dreaming about me. And we both know damn well that it wasn’t a nightmare.”
“Uh…yeah,” Tim admits quietly. “It wasn’t. It was a weird one-off thing, I promise. I just think…when you did my makeup, that messed with my brain or something. I’m not, like, into you or anything. I mean, you’re my best friend. We’ve been friends since we were little kids. Of course I don’t think of you like that.”
“Right,” you say, fighting back the bitterness in your voice. “Of course you don’t. That would be stupid.”
“Right. That would be stupid,” he repeats. “So…can we just pretend it didn’t happen and go back to being friends? Please?”
“Yeah,” you say softly. “Yeah. We’ll forget about it.”
But you know that some part of you will always remember those little sounds, the way he fills out his sweatpants, the way his cheeks get pink and pretty. And a little bit of you dies inside.