After the movie, Sören and Jayde head back to Sören's place. They stop at Chipotle on the way there to get food to bring back; Sören texts Anthony to see if he wants anything and Anthony doesn't respond, which makes Sören assume he went to bed already.
To keep from disturbing Anthony if he's gone to bed, Sören leads Jayde back to his room. His heart beats faster as he steels himself to finally confess the crush he's had on Jayde for months.
Jayde isn't his usual type - Sören usually goes for tall, dark guys - but Sören enjoys Jayde's company, appreciates his intellect and sense of humor. Sören feels a spark between them, and hopes it's returned.
But first he has a gift for Jayde. If they had gone to Jayde's place tonight it would have waited a few days until after they - hopefully - got together, but presenting it now is a good lead-in to talk about his feelings. When they're finished eating, Sören opens up his closet and pulls out a large flat rectangle wrapped simply in blue plaid paper.
"Oh, what's this?" Jayde asks. "Another painting?"
Sören nods vehemently. Since they became friends a few months ago, Sören has given him a few of his original paintings as gifts. Sören feels a little stung that none of them are hanging up in Jayde's apartment - Sören's paintings are all over Anthony's bedroom walls, not just in the living room. While Sören works as a curator at an art gallery, painting is his real passion, and his gallery job helps him to occasionally show his work and even more occasionally, sell it. Sören's speciality is surrealistic landscapes - the wild beauty of Iceland, with sprites and trolls in the trees and rocks if you take a closer look.
Jayde unwraps the painting and then he says, "Hm."
"Hm?" Sören feels the pit of his stomach rising, then his stomach turns flip-flops. Oh no. "Do you... do you like it?" Sören smiles nervously.
"It looks a lot like the last one you gave me." Jayde gives his upside down smile-frown. "I can't really tell them apart."
Sören bristles at that. He knows what the last painting was, it was one of his favorites, he can still see it clearly in his mind's eye. "Jæja, this one is different. Different landscape. The previous one was the beach at Reynisfjara under an aurora, and this is the Goðafoss waterfall, near Akureyri where I grew up."
"...With an aurora. The aurora takes up like half the picture and they're both green -"
"Auroras tend to be green," Sören says, feeling peevish. "Sometimes they have other colors, but the green is because of the oxygen. Or something. I'm an artist, not a scientist."
"OK." Jayde nods. Then he seems to realize Sören is disconcerted, and adds, "It's, um. It's nice..."
But that "um" says it all. Sören knows he doesn't like it, and probably didn't like the last one either - doesn't like any of them, which explains why none of them are hanging up at his place. People pay hundreds of dollars when they buy his paintings, and he squirms at having thrown money away giving free gifts to someone who doesn't appreciate it. People are allowed to dislike things, Sören tells himself. It's OK that he doesn't like your art. It still hurts, though.
Sören runs a nervous hand through his curls. "Well, that made a mess of things."
"What did? I don't understand."
Sören sighs. He takes the painting out of Jayde's hands, puts it off to the side, and looks Jayde in the eye. "I wanted to give you that because it... it expresses how I feel about you better than words can."
"Oh."
Sören swallows hard. "I've had a crush on you for months and I feel all... giddy and bright and... singy... like the way the aurora glows in the sky..."
"Oh."
Sören looks down, cheeks burning. "I was going to ask if you, ah. If you wanted to be boyfriends."
Jayde laughs, and then he scoots back a little. Sören knows that's a "no" even before the words come out. But then Jayde says, "I want to be boyfriends with a real boy. You're not -" Then his voice trails off and his jaw drops, as if he realizes what he just said out loud.
Sören sits up, his head spinning. "What did you just call me?" For Jayde to say something like that, when they're both trans...
"I mean. Um." Jayde laughs again, more nervously this time. "What I mean is that you're, like... look, don't take this the wrong way, but -"
"But you think I'm a girl. You think that even with all the time and trouble I went to with hormones and getting top surgery and changing my name and leaving my fucking country because my transphobic uncle was bothering me, I'm not actually a real man?"
"Well, um." Jayde squirms. "I mean, I like penises -"
"So you think a cock is what defines someone as a man? Are you going to say that to a trans woman's face, then? You don't have a dick, are you telling me you're not a man?"
"What I meant was... you're, like, too feminine. You changed your body, yeah, but you never go to the gym to keep reshaping it and you have long hair and, like, flowers and stuffed animals in your room..." Jayde gestures around. "You like art and theater and cooking."
"Is this the fucking 1950s, cooking is still for girls?" Sören's eyes sting with tears, but his wounded pride stings even more. He can't believe he's hearing this from another trans man.
"I. Um."
"You had better get the fuck out of here," comes Anthony's London-accented baritone voice.
Anthony is standing in Sören's bedroom door, wearing a white T-shirt and black sweatpants. His short, just-starting-to-show-grey black hair is mussed, and his green eyes look bleary and angry. His boyishly handsome face is stern. Sören has a feeling they woke him up, so his grumpiness is adding to his ire.
He looks sexy as hell, scowling like that. It's Anthony that Sören really wants, and has wanted for years, but has been afraid of saying anything about it, lest it make things too awkward for them to keep being best friends and roommates. Sören likes Jayde, but he loves Anthony. Jayde has been yet another attempt at trying to get over Anthony and settle for someone else. Except the one he's settling for doesn't even want him, so now Anthony gets to see his humiliation.
And yet, Anthony's only judgment seems to be towards Jayde himself. "Well, you heard me," Anthony says, clenching his fists.
Jayde gets up. Even though Anthony has six inches and at least fifty pounds on him, all lean muscle from running and yoga, Jayde still marches up to him, bold and defiant. "Make me," Jayde says.
Anthony punches him in the stomach. Jayde doubles over and then topples to the ground.
Sören hears himself scream - just like a girl, his mind taunts him, then Sören shoves that thought right away telling himself SHUT UP. He wasn't expecting that.
But instead of the violent gesture making him afraid of Anthony, it makes him lust for Anthony even more. My hero. A frisson goes down Sören's spine. He doesn't want to find it sexy that Anthony just decked a guy, but...
Jayde picks himself up, breathing harder, eyes wild. His hand shakes as he points his finger. "I could have you arrested -"
"You could, but you don't want to open that can of worms. I know where you work." Anthony narrows his eyes. "I know who you are. I know all the skeletons you've been hiding, Jayden Theodore Roberts-Hortler -"
Jayde runs out, slamming the door behind him; Sören hears the loud footfall loping down the steps, and then a minute later he hears Jayde's car tearing off.
Sören breaks down with equal parts relief, sadness and anger. He knows this is probably the last time he'll see Jayde; this was the opposite of how he thought things would go. At worst, Sören thought if he'd been rejected, they could still stay friends and just take a break for a couple of months for Sören to get over the rejection before they resumed hanging out once in awhile. But this was far worse than Sören had anticipated. "He thinks I'm a girl," Sören says, hearing his voice shake.
Then he breaks down. It's been harder for him to cry on T, but not impossible - he's always been sensitive, and now his heart bleeds out, heaving in anguished sobs. Which makes him even more embarrassed. "Oh god, no wonder -"
"Now, cut that 'boys don't cry' shit out."
Sören nods. One of the things he appreciated about Anthony being his mentor was that Anthony has no patience for the toxic masculine, feelings-denying, "stiff upper lip" nonsense in the unwritten rules of behavior expected of trans men to be taken seriously as male. Anthony is gentleness and strength, and he demonstrates that now as he puts an arm around Sören and leads him out to the couch.
Anthony makes tea, and when it's ready, he sits next to Sören. "I have something to show you. Wait here."
Sören hears the printer in Anthony's room as he sips the tea, wondering what Anthony's printing off - maybe a silly comic or something to make him laugh. Anthony comes back about ten minutes later with a manila folder and hands it to Sören, scowling harder; he sits in the armchair.
Sören opens the folder. He sees public records - that Jayden Theodore Roberts-Hortler was born and raised in Florida, not Texas. Screenshots of his Facebook account, where he mentions - with photos - being stationed at different places than he'd mentioned to Sören.
"He was an E-3, not a master sergeant. He was never in Afghanistan." Anthony snorts with disdain.
"Why..." Sören feels himself scrunching his face. "Why would he even lie about something like that?"
"For the same reason he told you he was married twice and he has no marriage records."
Sören throws the folder down on the coffee table and leans back on the couch, feeling like a ton of bricks just crashed on him. He knew that it seemed kind of weird when Jayde kept talking about Afghanistan, but he figured as an Icelander he didn't know enough about the US military to call that into question. Now... "Oh god, I'm an idiot."
"You're not an idiot. He, however, is a goddamn liar."
"I don't understand." Sören starts sobbing again. "I told him very personal things, like the way my uncle Einar used to rape me. And he told me about how his husbands both supposedly abused him, and... that was a lie? I poured out my fucking heart and soul to him and he just... he just... lied to me? About everything?"
"Well, not everything, maybe. At least he didn't lie and tell you he was cis."
Now it's Sören's turn to snort. "Jæja. Like it's one thing to be stealth, it's another thing to lie to another trans person, a really good friend, and hide it like you're ashamed of being trans. That would be even shittier."
Anthony nods. He rubs his face like an annoyed wet cat. "I'm not going to try to analyze why he was lying to you about so much. But you're better off. Hearing what he said to you - that backwards, sexist bullshit - was gross enough. Him lying like this, though, he's got a few fucking screws loose."
"Just a few," Sören says sarcastically. He still feels shaken up about that amount of lying, the deep betrayal of trust. He cries again, and now Anthony comes over and sits on the other side of the couch. Anthony pulls Sören close and holds him tight, and Sören cries on him, shaking, wailing.
"Let it out," Anthony says softly, rubbing his back, rocking him. "I'm here."
"I'm sorry I woke you up and you have to clean up this mess -"
"Shhhhh. At least it's a Friday night and we don't have to go into work tomorrow. Besides, even if it was a weeknight, you're my best friend. And he treated you like shit." Anthony takes Sören's chin in his hand and looks Sören in the eye. "Don't let his bullshit get to you, OK? Fuck him and his... He Man Macho garbage. Especially coming from a tiny little twerp like him, he has some nerve lecturing you about not going to the gym when he looks like that..."
Sören laughs through his tears, though it's a bitter laugh. "He's not my usual type." That would be you. Sören wants to trace the veins in Anthony's forearms, run his fingers through the thick growth of hair on them, caress the hairy chest he's seen many times before. The proximity of Anthony's body - a taunting reminder of what he can't have - isn't helping, even as he finds Anthony's touch soothing.
"I wasn't going to judge if you like twinks, but he's in no position to be shooting his mouth off with that Men Are Manly crap." Anthony sneers, then he holds Sören close again, gives him a squeeze, and rocks him harder. "I'm so sorry things didn't work out."
"Me too. I guess I, ah... what do they say here? Dodged a bullet? God knows why he was lying to me like that." Sören sighs and tries to pull himself together - while he knows "men don't cry" is bullshit, he also feels like Jayde doesn't deserve his tears. But that makes him feel even more pathetic and he lets out a few more blubbering sobs. He knows he looks like a wreck right now, but Anthony probably doesn't even notice me anyway.
"I have to admit, my mind ran wild with his interest in true crime and thinking maybe he wanted to... hurt you... but then he rejected you."
"Jæja, not even a serial killer wants me as his victim." Sören realizes then that the gallows humor doesn't land right and he winces at his own joke.
"I'd say don't sell yourself short, but..." Anthony frowns and tousles Sören's hair. "The more likely, plausible explanation is that he was inventing some sort of persona to sound cool, more interesting than he actually is. Which is a sign of immaturity. Like he's sixteen, not twenty-six."
"It's why I usually go for older guys, not guys my own age. Of course, finding older queer guys who are open to dating trans men is like going on a quest for a unicorn." Sören looks away, face on fire - Anthony is forty-two, will be forty-three in February, almost sixteen years his senior.
Anthony doesn't respond to that. "Do you want more tea?"
"No. I should try to get ready for bed." Sören wants to just shut down and sleep. Then he glances at the manila folder on the coffee table. "When did you find all that out?" He hopes Anthony hasn't been keeping it secret for months.
"Tonight. A lot of what he's said in front of me has sounded off for awhile, but tonight him going on about getting shot at in Afghanistan made me contact a private investigator. I was going to tell you this weekend, but then an opportunity presented itself."
Sören nods. "I should have realized -"
"Well, that's part of how he got away with it, innit. He knows you're not from the States, so he could make up big brags about his time in the service. As if we have any business being over there, drone bombing kids -"
Sören puts up a hand, knowing Anthony can get on his soapbox for hours and it probably took massive amounts of restraint for him to not rip into Jayde the times he was over visiting and sharing his fake anecdotes about the Navy. "Thank you for... trying to look out for me."
"You're worth it, kiddo."
Sören usually secretly loves it when Anthony calls him that - in his hottest, most forbidden fantasies he's calling Anthony "Daddy" - but tonight it just seems to pour salt in the wound, Sören thinking that Anthony just sees him as a big dumb kid who still needs his mentor's help to navigate the world.
Sören takes a long, hot shower, feeling like he needs to slough off his skin from Jayde's bad vibes. He cries some more in the shower, but the steam and the hot water pelting down on him relaxes him enough that after a little while he stops crying and just feels drained, slumped over, mind zoning out.
After he's in his blue fuzzy pajamas, he walks down to his room. Anthony comes out of his bedroom. "You want me to tuck you in?" Anthony asks.
Sören nods, even though the fatherly gesture makes him ache for Anthony even more.
Anthony tucks him under the blankets and Seamus, their grey tabby, says "Prrp?" and hops up on the bed. He gives Sören a few aggressive headbutts and rubs noses with him, then curls up on him, front paws on his heart, kneading, purring loudly. Sören smiles fondly at the cat and skritches him.
"Awwww, what a good boy," Anthony says, also skritching Seamus, who nuzzles his fingers before nuzzling Sören's face some more, purring harder. Then Anthony skritches Sören as well. "You're a good boy, too."
Sören's cunt twinges - he's this close to asking Anthony to fuck him, but his pride can't take another rejection tonight. Instead, he looks up at Anthony. "Will you... hold me?" As ashamed as he still is, feeling so vulnerable, he also doesn't want to be alone.
Anthony quietly crawls in and spoons him. The feel of Anthony's arms around his waist and Anthony's breath tickling his neck makes Sören's cunt twinge again, and Sören realizes this was probably a bad idea and now he's going to be too horny to sleep. Even so, the shield wall of Anthony against him, holding him safe, is too soothing to turn away.
Sören closes his eyes and tries to think about something that isn't Jayde lying to him - wondering if Jayde was laughing at his confessions of trauma, or getting off on it - and his mind keeps taking him to a cottage in a coastal forest, living with Anthony as lovers, a house full of cats as their "children". His happy place.
The heart wants what it wants, and that longing hurts more than it ever did. Sören feels like damaged goods, even though he keeps trying to tell himself Jayde is terrible and he deserves better. He shared enough with Jayde that the little punk knew exactly where to strike, how to make it hurt, challenging his very masculinity. Jayde might not be a serial killer, but that still feels downright sociopathic. And yet, it doesn't make it better, doesn't keep Sören from fearing that Anthony somehow sees him as not male enough either and is too polite to say so.
Even though this is the guy who's told you for six years all that 'guys can't like flowers' shit is nonsense. Come on. Sören's nostrils flare, annoyed with himself.
"Frrf," Seamus says, as if he senses Sören's agitation, and starts headbutting him again, rubbing his wet nose on Sören's nose and eyebrow. He kneads harder, using his claws.
"Shhhhh," Anthony says, arms tightening around him. "You're safe, kiddo. I've got you."
I wish you had me, Sören thinks to himself, but doesn't say it aloud. He kisses Seamus's forehead and one of his whisker pads, then rests his left hand on top of Anthony's left hand. Anthony takes his hand and lightning shoots through Sören's veins, even as he tries to keep his feelings contained, not wanting to fall even deeper, crash even harder.
"Get some rest," Anthony says softly, his voice sleep-husky. "Tomorrow's a new day."
Sören closes his eyes, but there is no rest for the weary. He lays there awake, feeling alone in the arms of the one he loves.
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