(no subject)

[allthelifethereis]

He's got no idea why he feels slightly nervous. He'd messaged Jade, asking if he wanted to meet up for a drink and, honestly, it doesn't have to be more than that, does it? They're friends -- at least, Bill thinks of Jade as a friend -- and friends can meet up for a beer. Doesn't matter that Jade's made it clear that he'd be interested in other things, and that Bill can't remember the last time he got laid. That's just details that don't mean anything? Right?

The place he'd chosen is casual, quiet enough to have a conversation, with interesting things behind the bar without being miserably pretentious. He's come straight from his office at Barton, bag slung across his chest and glasses still on. He leans his elbows on the bar, surveying what they have on draft, chooses something with a ridiculous name and picks a booth. He's been rereading Don Quixote before his class starts up again, so he makes himself comfortable, thumbing through worn pages, and he waits.

Comments

[whenwego]

“Okay, I get it, you’re smart, too,” Jade says about the book as he slides into the booth across from Bill. He sprawls, really, delighted to be here, delighted by the choice of the bar, the drinks, even Bill’s pretentious book choice.

“Or wait, is this book club?” he asks, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “Am I behind already? Am I a very bad student, professor?”

[allthelifethereis]

"Do you, though?" says Bill, using a scrap of receipt to mark his place and closing the book, leaving it on the table. He's used to the fact that conversations with Jade almost always start as though they were already happening. It barely phases him anymore.

"And I'm not going to roleplay with you until I've had at least three of these --" He lifts his beer and takes a swallow. "So you can park that for an hour."

[whenwego]

“Don’t make me set a timer,” Jade threatens, delighted by this too, as the waitress brings over the drink he’d ordered on his way past the bar.

“Thank you,” he says as she sets his mixed cocktail down on the table, a little umbrella sticking out of the top of the glass. He flashes her a winning smile and she grins back, though at the moment Jade is just here for Bill. Another time, maybe.

“You don’t want one of these?” he asks Bill before he takes a sip of his drink. “You’ll only need one, not three.”

[allthelifethereis]

"If I'd known you just wanted to get me drunk, I'd have hit up a liquor store on my way over here," says Bill, taking another sip of his beer and then sitting it down. He watches the exchange between Jade and the waitress and rolls his eyes though, somehow, he still manages to look fond. Christ.

"I'm not really a cocktail type of guy," he says, doubtfully, but then he holds out his hand. "Let me try it."

[whenwego]

“I am an any type of alcohol that’s handy sort of guy,” he answers and then hands his drink over to Bill to taste. “For awhile I was drinking potato booze, just the worst kind of shitty swill you’ve ever had in your life, but being drunk was better than being sober.”

Because of the shitty world, but he likes not thinking about it, unless he’s still working to solve it.

[allthelifethereis]

Bill's definitely had times in his life when that was true of him, too, but he's got a feeling that their situations at those moments were nothing at all alike. Mostly, when he'd been drinking, Bill had been trying to block out something that he had never quite been able to put his finger on, something like a stain at the back of his mind.

He takes a sip of the drink and makes a face, wrinkling his nose. "Too sweet for me," he says. "But I guess I can see the appeal."

[whenwego]

“That’s why you drink it and eat the pretzels,” Jade answers, but he’s grinning as he takes his drink back. “Salty and sweet.”

He leans back in the booth and knocks Bill’s foot under the table with his own.

“So what are we doing here?” he asks. “Seriously. Book club? No one told me, I didn’t read it recently and I don’t remember all the details.”

[allthelifethereis]

"Bullshit. I don't believe you don't remember every fucking detail."

He sips his beer, nudging his foot back against Jade's. "You've made it pretty clear that you're interested." He sets down his beer. "How interested are you? Give me metrics." He takes another sip of his beer and then sets it down. "You can call it a date if you want."

He doesn't feel like Jade is the dating type but it makes his intentions pretty clear.

[whenwego]

That’s a lot more straightforward than he would have expected from Bill, especially after their conversation at Pride. He’d figured there would be a hell of lot more beating around the bush. Then again, Jade isn’t much of a date person either, so he’s surprised by that, too.

Last person he dated, he had ghosted by accident, getting too wrapped up in a project he was working on at the time.

“What kind of metrics does one use to judge interested?” he asks. “A scale of one to ten? Uh, how hard my dick is when I think about you? Something like that?”

[allthelifethereis]

Honestly, Bill is a little bit taken aback by that, though he probably shouldn't be. Since their conversation at Pride, he's thought about it a lot, always half wishing that he'd had the balls or the abandon to just have crawled into Jade's lap. He'd been half convinced that Jade was just flirting with him because of proximity but then they'd worked on his script, and, maybe, he'd started to think about it in a different light.

"Something like that," he says, sipping his beer because his mouth suddenly feels dry. "Does it?"

[whenwego]

“Level eight,” Jade decides, even though that isn’t what Bill asked. That’s why he says it, flashes a grin and then takes a sip of his drink again.

“And does my dick get hard when I think about what you look like naked?” he asks. “Is this a real question? Are you not using your private time properly?”

[allthelifethereis]

Some combination of that makes Bill laugh, warm and genuine, and he shakes his head, taking a sip of his beer. There's not much left, and he swirls it around in the bottom of the glass.

"Apparently, I'm using my private time just fine," he says. "If that's our metric."

Because, yeah, he's absolutely spent time considering what Jade looks like naked. Among other things.

[whenwego]

“Good, I was about to get really worried for you here,” Jade says as he flops back into the booth again and finishes his very sweet, very tropical drink. It makes him feel like maybe he’s back in his old life, where he had access to anything he wanted and where he would be able to fly to fucking Tahiti at a moment’s notice, if that was what he wanted to do.

As places to be stuck go, this one is better than the last, but he still misses his money.

“So we’re not here for book club,” he says. “We’re here to flirt and then maybe fuck.”

[allthelifethereis]

"Yeah, yeah," says Bill, rolling his eyes. "You can stand down." He knocks back the last swallow of his beer and gestures to Jade's empty glass. "You want another one of those? To facilitate the flirting, and maybe fucking?" It's no good fighting it -- he might as well match energy. "I'll get us another drink, and we can compare notes on what we have in mind."

[whenwego]

“I would absolutely love another drink,” Jade answers with a grin and a shitty little flutter of his lashes. At this point, he’s just being kind of a dick for the sake of it.

But apparently Bill likes him anyway. That’s rare, most people are happy to give him a good piece of their mind when he pisses them off and he pisses off a lot.

[allthelifethereis]

Bill rolls his eyes at the eyelash flutter, but he's also grinning as he shakes his head on his way back to the bar with their empty glasses. He orders himself another beer and, thankfully, the bar is quiet enough that the bartender remembers which concotion Jade had ordered, previously. Jade might be the only person Bill knows who comes close to being as irritating as Richie Tozier is capable of being. Maybe that's why Bill likes him.

"There," he says, setting the drink down in front of Jade and, this time, sliding into the same side of the booth. He takes a sip of his own beer and sets it down. "Is this where I admit to thinking about fucking you since you asked me to crawl into your lap at Pride?"

[whenwego]

“Shit, finally,” Jade announces, loud enough that a few people actually glance over, though he doesn’t even notice them. Jade doesn’t notice most things that don’t immediately interest him and the other people in the bar — besides Bill and the cute waitress - hold very little interest for him.

“So what’s been holding you back?” he asks. “Internalized homophobia? That’s pretty normal, especially if Neil was your first boyfriend and oh, shit. I should probably tell you I fucked him, right? Before we do this. Totally casual, it’s not even a thing.”

[allthelifethereis]

"I'd figured that part out before either of you mentioned it but thank you for the reassurance. I appreciate it." He takes a sip of his beer, giving the question a moment's thought. "Honestly? I don't know. Maybe a little of that? Neil wasn't the first guy I've been with, but he was the first one I've had a relationship with so...Yeah. Maybe?"

It probably had more to do with the fact that, in a very real way, Neil broke his heart and he's been giving it time. Sex hasn't really felt important. Hadn't.

There's no way on God's green fucking earth that he's going to admit that part to Jade, though.

[whenwego]

“I can work with that,” Jade says, flashing a grin as he drops his palm to Bill’s knee under the table. He’s glad Bill knows what happened between him and Neil. Jade isn’t always a good guy, he’s actually a pretty huge dick a lot of the time, but when you’re stuck in a place with no foreseeable way out, even he knows it’s better to not alienate everyone.

“We can take this slow as you need,” he continues. He sips his drink, his thumb brushing across denim, before he gestures around with the glass. “We’re not exactly going anywhere, right?”

[allthelifethereis]

"Not willingly, anyway," says Bill, and he means Darrow in general, sure, but he also means right then, because Jade's hand feels really good on his leg, the slight scrape of his nail against denim. Bill shifts slightly on the bench seat, dropping his own hand to brush against Jade's, tracing the bones of Jade's hand with the tip of one his fingers.

"I don't need to take it that slow. For the record." He's made it this far, at least.

[whenwego]

“Then we’ll take it at whatever speed you want,” Jade replies. “Short of premature ejaculation, my friend, we’re way too old for that.”

But he’s grinning as he says it, his hand creeping higher up Bill’s thigh, his fingertips gliding along the inner seam of his jeans. Making a man come in his pants is actually pretty fun, though maybe not in a bar. Maybe not when they’re sitting on the same side and then they’d have to walk out, making it obvious what was going on over there.

Jade doesn’t mind being banned from places, but for all he knows, this is Bill’s favourite joint.

[allthelifethereis]

He's intensely, painfully aware of the movement of Jade's hand as it slides higher on his thigh. Suddenly, his jeans don't feel that comfortable. He breathes in through his nose and then lifts his glass, taking a swallow of his beer.

"You're making me feel like some kind of blushing virgin," he says, his smile crooked. "I'm too old for that, too."

[whenwego]

“You are,” Jade agrees, grinning. “But damned if that isn’t quite the compliment.”

He squeezes Bill’s thigh once, then returns his hand to his drink above the table, just to keep everyone on the up and up so to speak. Jade’s pretty far from a prude, but spending the night in jail for public indecency would probably kill the mood, if not the whole thing that might be going on between them.

“Almost done your drink?” he asks.

[allthelifethereis]

Bill would be lying if he said he wasn't disappointed when Jade takes his hand away. Still, with any luck, there'll be more where that came from, hopefully somewhere more private. In response to Jade's question, he lifts his glass, looking critically at the amount of beer left in it.

"I definitely could be," he says, before lifting the glass and knocking back most of what's left in a few long swallows in a way that he hasn't managed since college.

[whenwego]

“Then I think we might be ready to get outta here,” Jade says after he finishes his own drink. “Unless you’re looking for the rest of your book club.”

He flashes a grin as he nudges against Bill, pushing him to get him up and out of the booth. He’s being a bit of a dick, but he’s been this way since he and Bill met and if Bill is looking for something else out of him, he’s going to be sorely disappointed. That doesn’t mean Jade doesn’t like him, he’s just not good at pretending to be anything he’s not.

[allthelifethereis]

Bill rolls his eyes as Jade pushes him but he also stands up, slinging his bag across his chest. He takes the last swallow of his beer and then sets the glass down. He'd be lying if he said there wasn't a flutter of nerves but they're very much fading into the background.

"I know you're smarter than me," says Bill, amused. "But if you think I can't discuss Don Quixote while also flirting and probably fucking then you're severely underestimating my abilities, man."

He pushes the door of the car open and holds it so that Jade can step past him into the night air.

[whenwego]

“Hey, I did not once make such a claim,” Jade protests, laughing. “Do you have a car, man? I decidedly do not have a car and I don’t know if you’re interested in riding double on my bike.”

He hadn’t actually brought his bike either, but that’s not the point. The point is finding out if he needs to order them a ride share, which he’s on the precipice of doing, his phone already out of his pocket.

[allthelifethereis]

"I do, and I'm not," says Bill, turning towards Jade and noticing the phone in his hand. "I'm also too into..." He makes a vague gesture that takes in the two of them, "Whatever this is to get pulled over and breathalysed, so I guess you'd better call a car." It strikes him then that they haven't even kissed and he huffs out a laugh. "Your place or mine?"

[whenwego]

“Does yours have a kid?” Jade asks as he pulls up the rideshare app he likes best — they usually have water bottles and snacks — then looks at Bill for an answer. “My place is fine and doesn’t have a kid.”

And he would very much like to avoid getting caught with his pants down, literally, by a child. Or a pre-teen, whatever is it Bill has at his place. That’s pretty low on his list of things he wants to deal with.

[allthelifethereis]

"Yeah, it does," he says, and Jade's got a point -- he doesn't need Hilde to be in any way aware of his sex life, such as it is. Not when Jade's got a perfect good place. "Your place it is, I guess." He can't deny the slight shiver of anticipation that goes through his gut at the thought of it. If feels like they've been edging around this for a while...some of them -- one of them -- more obviously than the other.

[whenwego]

“Mine,” he agrees, firm in this, no room for protest. Jade likes kids, he’s not one of those people who feels weird around them or doesn’t know how to behave; he just treats them like he would anyone else, which parents hate and kids always seem to prefer.

He just also doesn’t want one poke their nose into his sex life.

He’s already typed his address into the app and a car pulls up before too long and he grins and shoves Bill lightly in the direction of the door.

[allthelifethereis]

Jade shoves him and Bill rolls his eyes, but he ducks into the car, sliding across the seat to make room for Jade to follow him. He's about to say that he can count the random hook-ups that he's had on one hand -- he's really always been a relationship guy, in his head and his heart -- but then he realises that, hookup though this might be, random it isn't. Jade's a friend. That makes it different.

"Are you always this pushy?" he asks. He's thinking about a very particular context, but he doesn't go so far as to say that. Jade's the smartest person he knows. He'll figure it out.

[whenwego]

“I can be,” he replies, grinning, as the car glides off into the night toward his place. He also doesn’t mind being pushed around either, but generally he likes that when he’s with a woman rather than with a man. There’s something about the small hands and the small frame just shoving him down that he’s always been a big fan of.

“If you want,” he adds, teasing, wiggling his eyebrows at Bill. “You just let me know.”

[allthelifethereis]

Bill lets out a soft huff of breath, almost a laugh and rolls his eyes, looking out of the window as the city spills by. He realises that he doesn't actually know where Jade lives.

"I...wouldn't be adverse," he says, without looking. "I could definitely be into that."