Chapter Text
Team walks into the community building with heavy footsteps. His hair is in his eyes again, getting far too long, but he doesn’t care enough to get it cut. In fact he doesn’t have the energy or the drive to get a bus to a haircutter’s and then have to sit while they trim it, it not turning out as well as he would have wanted. It taking a few weeks to get it grown out to how he likes it exactly. All that trouble, it doesn’t seem worth it, and he’s always so tired after working five days of the week on his knees and hands, cleaning and scrubbing until the building shines, it doesn’t seem worth it.
“Hey, Team, how was your weekend?” Nev asks it with a grin, but Team doesn’t return that same grin, can’t really.
He only nods and says, “Good.” He spent it lying in bed playing games on his phone and eating far too many chips, but they make him happy. Happiness is far reached for him, so he holds onto it tightly when he finds it, those small bits of comfort and good feelings in a whirlwind of disaster and sorrow, and guilt.
He walks slowly, eyes tired with the nightmares that haunt him, and his attempts to stay awake as long as possible to avoid them. Nev used to ask about it, but after a while of noncommutative answers and brush offs, he’s stopped. They always stop trying after a while. It gets too difficult, it’s not worth it, and he’s not worth it. More time to spend on themselves and their friends, no need for one sad soul among the rest. He goes to work and he does his job. He picks up a bag of chips from the vending machine when he’s done and he walks home in the cold of the night to his small apartment where he eats them. He has a meal at lunch and some fruit for breakfast, but chips are all he can afford for dinner. He doesn’t mind, he likes chips, and he thinks just maybe he lost his ability to feel hungry.
“Ready for another day at the grind?”
He has no choice really, but to nod, his existence may be minimal, his impact mostly non-existent, but he’s still breathing. He’s still living, or something. He has to work. He has to. He nods.
He’s ready.
-
It’s been almost eight months since he’s last done anything outside of his paradigm of work, sleeping, video games, chips, and that occasional melancholy that overcomes him. More so than usual where he sits on the old armchair by his large window and stares out into the city, lost in the flow of the air, traffic, and lights. His mind blank and fuzzy, and at ease in it all. His body tired from the work, making his brain turn to white noise and not be able to think about much else. It’s been eight months of this, and he’s getting restless. It seems he’s more human than he knew.
He paces on a Friday night up and down his room as he decides what to do. He knows what he wants to do. He wants to be around people, to feel connected somehow, and that’s a very bad idea because it always ends badly. His mind wonders to… But he won’t let it. He pulls out nicer jeans and a shirt that’s a button up but colourful blue, splashed with other blues. It fits on him easily as he reaches for the leather jacket in his closet. A memento that should leave him shattered, or filled with such dread he can’t move, but it doesn’t. It’s the one thing that gives him comfort in all the noise and noiselessness. He slips it on and smells the familiar scent. He’s ready.
He grabs his keys and wallet and heads to the bus stop two blocks down. He goes to a bar that’s nowhere near the one’s he used to go to in university, or any of them that are near the university. He goes to one far off in the city. One that has a floor to dance because he needs to dance, to move, and to feel the music. There’s lots of people and it’s getting more suffocating to be inside, the music moving in his veins, moving the blood until it dances too. He’s always been a lightweight though, so when he has one drink he’s warm, and light, and he can breathe again.
He forgets himself in the music, and loses himself in the moment. His adrenaline pumping, and there is no smile, but he feels at ease. Every bad thing he’s feeling goes out the window and he’s good. So good. He feels a body under his hands and the flash of blood hair as eyes dark and daring meet his. He looks and the man whispers, “Want to get out of here?”
He’s never been with anyone before, never felt the need to. He’s always been awkward and unsure of who he exactly is, but he feels okay, and he wants to feel amazing. He’s already hard, and he’s following the man out, vaguely aware that he shouldn’t be. The cold air sobers him but the warmth of an arm around his shoulders and words that come from a voice that he’s drawn to, stop him from pulling away. They’re in a Taxi and he’s looking out the window, arm still around him as fingers dance along his thigh.
When they get into the building, the man smirks at him, hands tightly wrapped in the fabric of his jacket. Digging into the material so familiarly that Team needs it to stop. He pushes the man against the brick of the wall and pushes his lips to his. Inexperienced and sloppy he’s afraid all is lost, but the man takes control. He moans into it as hands tug at his hair, as he’s flush against another body, and he feels.
He’s not alone in this moment. He’s not alone.
“Upstairs.” The man whispers hungrily. Team nods in compliance and they head upstairs. His apartment door opens and it’s big. He has money, but Team doesn’t care about that. He just wants to feel him against himself. Warmth and comfort, and lust tugging on everything. He wants and wants, and wants. He grips and pulls. He pushes. They dance together in this tug and trick as they head to the bed. Lips are heated and messy, and there’s a hand going lower, but Team has to do something first. He pushes the man away a little harshly. The man looks confused and a little worried, like maybe Team didn’t want this after all.
Team can’t find words, they choke in his throat, but he takes off the jacket, eyes still locked onto the man’s who is eyeing his every movement. He folds the leather jacket like it’s precious because it is, and puts it on a nearby chair. Then, with alcohol and adrenaline, and pure horniness, Team sits on the bed and pulls himself back, legs spread as he looks up to eye the man. “What are you waiting for?” He asks, voice low. He remembers this from a porn video he watched, real life isn’t too different, right?
It works either way though, the man’s eyes become predatory as he practically runs over, but he doesn’t get on top of him or the bed, he kneels below him and gets to work on unzipping his jeans. Team’s a little surprised, he wasn’t expecting this, but the man only smirks, and begins his work.
“I’m Win by the way.” He says as he pulls back slightly. Team can’t help but tug on his blonde locks to go back down.
“I- I’m T- Team, P’.” He manages to choke out.
He smirks around him and leaving a kiss, more intimate then Team was expecting on his thigh, but he’s not really thinking about it right now, and says, “Call me hia.”
“H- Hia.” He says, and then the bastard known as Win pulls completely away.
Team is sure he’s glaring because Win looks amused but then he’s asking as he leans into his ear, biting, breath tickling, and asking, “Want me in you, Team?”
He’s not alone, and he wants. He takes. He bites back, causing a surprised noise to leap out of Win’s lips that leaves Team feeling oddly proud and arrogant about it himself, but there’s no time for that when his dick so hard it almost hurts. “Y- Yes.”
His lips are back on his and finally, finally, Win pulls his shirt off. “I’ve got you, Team.”
-
When he wakes up, there’s sun shining on his face and he feels content in a way he hasn’t in a long time. He looks over to the body beside him, a warm cheek pressed into his shoulder, and bleached blonde hair tickling his cheek. The man- Win looks so peaceful. So relaxed and soft, far less cocky and confident as he did the night before. He looks so human, so good, and inviting as he’s still waring no shirt. Team’s sure there’s nothing else on down below like him, but the blanket covers them both, saving their dignity, but Team is red. As soon as the memories of the night before resurface he becomes embarrassed at how needy he was, how loud, but it was good. It was more than good.
He sits up and he’s sore, but he knows it could have been worse. Win was gentle and slow where it counted, hard and fast when Team told him to be.
He looks for his clothes, scattered along the carpeted floor. The apartment is in the East side, the richer side of the city, and he shouldn’t have come here. He doesn’t belong here. He needs to go. He puts his clothing on and tries not to look in the mirror upon the wall of the bathroom as he takes a quick piss. He tries not look at the marks and he tries not remember the sweet words that left his heart warmer than any other part of himself. He tries not think. He tries to make his mind blank again. Noiseless.
“You take me so well, baby, so perfect.”
Win doesn’t wake up. He looks back at him, his peaceful closed eyes and Team aches to go back to bed. To wake him up with lips on his as he’s now finally learned how to kiss properly, to put his mouth to Win like he did to him. To touch until his head spins. To feel that high and that warmth all over again. To feel not alone, but this was one night in a million. The million others will be at the bottom of this unimaginable height.
Still, Team stares at Win a little longer and wishes and hopes, and yearns, but it’s all for nothing, because he still opens that door and walks out.
-
When he walks into the room and looks around, everything is as he left it. It’s all the same, the old creaky bed, the old brown armchair by the window, and the stove that needs a fire lighted to get it going. A closet and dresser that’s brown and creped. It’s all as it was, and yet Team has the distinct feeling that something has changed. That something isn’t as it was, and it’s only after he has a shower, back laid down on his bed that he figures it out. It’s not the room, it’s him. He’s changed.
He’ll let himself have this, for a day, for the weekend even. He’ll let himself until Monday when he gets up and goes back to his job as a janitor. The endless cleaning and strain on his body from the bleach and mold, and not the kissing and touching. The coming home to himself only, not a warm body and blonde haired man who smirks way too often. The lays chips as dinner instead of the offered leftover food from a man who likes to cuddle after sex. The video games he’ll play instead of the soft hum of another. He’ll let himself have this just for now. One last happiness, one last light in the darkness of the bottom of the pool he was left in.
He buries his head in the pillow, hair wet around his face, and he finally let’s himself smile again, but only just this once.