@bistanders. mateo & eddie. continued.
eddie was always friendly, and sweet, and warm. he didn't even like to take ever a confrontational tone, not even in his job, to a point that it could be seen as a fault. yet, he never found himself surrounded by friends. a lonely kid to a lonely teen to a lonely grown-up. not no one, he knew a few people he could count on, close friends, but certainly no one he could hold closer.
and he'd grown accustomed to it. it became his comfort zone, solitude. intimacy was better left on fiction, he figured, like a thrilling hand touch between mr. darcy and elizabeth bennett. that was enough romance for him, for a long time.
and then a mutual friend introduced him to mateo, and fucked up his life. he started having dreams of all kinds regarding the man. nocturnal dreams where they went on picture-perfect dates, daydreams where he imagined the other sitting on his class and coming to talk to him later... wet dreams where they shared a bed, a couch, a kitchen counter, his classroom's desk.
but the man, funny and confident, he couldn't possibly be interested. sure, he was single, and gay, but eddie certainly wasn't his type. and he was such good company, eddie found it was better to left it to fantasy, than to risk ruining what was becoming one of his favorite relationships he'd ever nurtured. his imagination, and sometimes a hand, that'd be good enough for him. that'd have to be good enough for him.
but then, in one night of tipsy one-on-one poker, cheeks blushed between his glasses and salt-and-pepper beard, mateo brings up strip poker. and, well, seeing the toned muscles that have haunted him night and day, that sounded like a great plan — but... taking off his dear ol' sweater, not so much. oh, showing off his belly to someone who fist-fights fire for a living.
“ oh, i don't know... ” he couldn't tell you how many drinks he had already; it was enough to slur his speech, but not enough to lower his inhibitions. “ i just know that you'll take off your shirt and you'll have a six-pack, and that is not gonna be great to my self-image... ” but the refusal is clearly only half-hearted; he's chuckling his way through the sentence, he's already dealing the cards, and of course he wouldn't pass up the opportunity to see the other in as little clothing as possible, even if it meant a little bit of undressing on his own part.
baratheonpilled
janainaart
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
