Where Do I Sign? - anephemeralmind (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Timmy doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the day Luca had called to tell him that Armie Hammer had just accepted his offer to star alongside Timmy in Call Me By Your Name. He’d been aware of Luca being in talks with him, but he never expected him to actually say yes, for a couple of reasons. The first one being that Timmy figured Armie was at a point in his career where a small production such as theirs didn’t seem very attractive, and the other thing being – well – Armie was just very, straight, is the thing.

It’s not like Timmy thought he was hom*ophobic or anything, not at all, he’d kept track of him well enough through the years since his breakthrough with The Social Network to know he was anything but.

No, it was mainly because he was Armie Hammer, the same guy who seemed to be dating a new actress, model or singer every three or four months. It felt like every single time Timmy was out doing his grocery shopping, he saw him on the front pages of the gossip magazines with a new long legged beauty all over him.

He was called everything from a heartthrob to a homewrecker, and he’d apparently influenced at least three Taylor Swift songs. The media absolutely loved to speculate about his love life, every time he was spotted with a new person, it was time to play “Who is the mystery [insert hair color here] spotted out with Hollywood hunk Armie Hammer?” Honestly, the only way he could’ve been straighter than he already was, would be if he was married with two kids.

Armie’s latest girlfriend seemed to be some kind of Instagram model, influencer person. Timmy had been curious and followed her from his secret account, but had to unfollow her three days later because she kept flooding his feed. There were more than a few pictures with Armie in them, she posted a lot of those when they were together, a couple of pictures to the feed and the rest to the stories. But what ultimately got Timmy to unfollow her, were all the sponsored posts. If he had to see her holding a gummy bear and pouting up at it in an attempt to make it look sexy one more time… How the f*ck gummy bears were supposed to help make your hair sexy, Timmy had no f*cking clue, and he didn’t really want to stick around to find out either.

Armie’s account had just as many pictures of the two of them together as hers did, but at least there were no gummy bears to be found, thank god.

He didn’t really mind people making money off of their social media profiles, but he didn’t like when companies catered the promotion of their products to young teenagers by essentially telling them “You’re not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not good enough. But HERE, look at this well known person whose name you definitely recognize, they used to be just like you, but now they’re pretty, because they use our product! Please spend all your money to try to look like this photoshopped image, and maybe you’ll be loved one day.” It pissed him off, more than a little bit, and he made himself a promise, that if he ever got enough followers on any of his social media where companies started reaching out to him, he’d only do the ones he felt he could actually endorse. There’d be no flat tummy tea or hair ‘vitamins’ shaped like gummy bears anywhere on his profiles, that’s for goddamn sure.

It’s not like he really needed that second, secret, Instagram profile at this point in his career. He only had a couple of thousand followers, and they were mainly people he knew in real life, either through school or auditions. But there were also a few fans, who’d likely seen him in either Homeland or Interstellar and decided he was worth their follow, which was flattering.

No, he mainly used that second account to snoop on people, and to follow accounts he didn’t really want the public to know about. The public being his parents and his friends. Not that they didn’t already know he was gay, still didn’t mean he wanted them all to know when he liked photos of hot, half naked men. Or when he followed accounts full of artistic nude photos, or all the male celebrities he thought were hot. Funnily enough Armie had actually been in his follow list for quite some time already.

Either way, as surprised as he was at Luca’s news, he was really happy about it too, because he definitely agreed with Luca when he said that Armie would make the perfect Oliver to his Elio. The physical differences between them would look absolutely stunning on camera, Luca had said when he facetimed Timmy earlier, a wild grin spreading across his face, clearly ecstatic.

Timmy on his side, just hoped Armie took Oliver, Elio and their love story as seriously as he himself did. It would absolutely break Timmy’s heart if Armie wasn’t able to help him give the love between the two characters the justice it deserved.

The day Armie arrives in Crema, he barges right in on Timmy’s piano lesson, pissing his teacher off, but Timmy couldn’t help but find the whole thing hopelessly endearing.

“Hey! You’re Timmy, right? I’m Armie. Sorry to interrupt, I was just really excited to meet you. I’ll see myself out now. Sorry again.” He grins sheepishly over at the teacher, who stares back at him with her eyebrow raised and arms crossed, seemingly unfazed at his apology.

“Wait! I should be done in like, 30 minutes. If you want I could show you around? Maybe we could take the bikes?” Timmy bites his bottom lip, looking over at Armie, who’s grinning back at him.

“Sounds awesome, I’ll definitely wait for you.” Armie gives him a quick thumbs up before closing the door behind him carefully.

And sure enough, when Timmy finishes his lesson, he finds Armie waiting for him pretty much right outside the door. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, tapping away at his phone. He smiles up at Timmy when he spots him, getting up to greet him properly with a hug.

“There you are! You’re really good at that, by the way. The piano I mean, I’m impressed.”

“Oh, uhm, thank you? I made a lot of really stupid mistakes though, I should be better at this point.” Timmy frowns down at his hands as if they’re the only ones at fault. “Even my teacher thought so.”

“Seriously? She said that?” Armie asks incredulously. At Timmy’s nod he glares over at the door. “Well, f*ck her then! What does she know, huh? I thought it sounded perfect.”

“That’s really nice of you. But she’s an award winning pianist, Armie. It’s literally her job to know.” Timmy says with a self-deprecating chuckle.

“Just because she’s got awards doesn’t mean her opinion is the be all end all, Timmy. You’re really good for someone with no formal training. The fact that you chose to actually learn to play just for this movie, it’s impressive as f*ck. You could’ve easily chosen to just have them add the piano music in post-production. The fact that you didn’t? Well like I said, I respect the hell out of you for that. So f*ck her, her opinion doesn’t matter.”

Timmy can’t help but blush at Armie complimenting him, and he feels more than a little bit ridiculous, they literally only just met, so why did Armie’s praise feel so damn good?

“Anyway! Biking. Are you ready?” Timmy clears his throat and claps his hands together in front of him, looking up at Armie where he towers above him.

Armie grins and nods in confirmation, following closely behind Timmy out of the building. He decided to wait outside on the street while Timmy quickly dropped his homework off at his apartment. Timmy had invited him inside of course, but since the elevator didn’t work, Armie had claimed he was getting too old to run up and down all the stairs. Lighting up a cigarette as Timmy shrugged and went inside. When he got back, not even five minutes later, Armie was leaning against the wall, once again doing something on his phone, cigarette barely hanging onto his lips.

He looked so effortlessly handsome where he stood, the sun making his hair look like spun gold, that it stopped Timmy in his tracks. f*ck, he looks hot. Oh this was bad, this was so bad, they only just f*cking met and Timmy was already more than ready to drop to his knees right there. Get a f*cking grip, Chalamet! Dude is straight as an arrow and he has a girlfriend. You need to get over yourself. Right now.

Timmy clears his throat to get Armie’s attention, and tries not to melt at the sight of the smile that spreads across Armie’s face when he spots him. He leads Armie over to the bike rack, and points out which of the bikes are theirs.

“You don’t lock them or anything?” Armie asks, clearly surprised when Timmy just pulls his own bike out of the rack, and straddles it, not fumbling for any keys to any locks.

“No? They were originally bought for us to use during filming. But then Luca said they didn’t look the way he’d imagined, and he bought new ones for that, making these redundant. So I just figured we could use them on our downtime instead. Besides since the movie is set in the 80’s, well, they’re not exactly top of the line are they? It’s fine. No one wants them anyway.” Timmy laughed.

They bike around the city, Timmy pointing out all the places he’d discovered, and telling Armie which ones were his favorite. They work up quite a sweat biking around in the sunshine, so they decide to stop and buy some gelato, eating it under the shade of a couple of trees in a nearby park.

After a while, Timmy’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he manages to eventually stutter out his question, asking Armie why he chose to accept Luca’s offer of doing this movie.

“Honestly? At first I was really scared at the thought of doing a role like this, and not for the reasons you might think, it had nothing to do with it being a ‘gay love story’ but everything to do with the intensity of the love between these two people. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it justice, I’m still not quite sure about that to be honest, but after talking to Luca, well, he promised he’d push me way past my usual comfort zones to create a movie worthy of the book. So that’s why I said yes.”

“That’s – Yeah. For what it’s worth, I’m really happy you said yes.” Timmy looks over at Armie in wonder. Turns out he never should have worried in the first place, because there he’d been, concerned that Armie wouldn’t take the role seriously enough, when he actually took it so seriously he almost turned it down.

“You are?”

“Definitely, just by looking at you, I can already tell you’ll be more than perfect as Oliver. And with what you just said, coupled with Luca’s help? You’ll be a force to be reckoned with. I just hope I’ll be able to match you, even a little bit.”

Armie smiles softly over at Timmy, putting the palm of his right hand over his heart. “Thank you, I hope you’re right.” Armie takes the hand off his chest and uses it to ruffle Timmy’s hair, laughing at the disgruntled look on his face as he tries to tame his curls back into submission.

“And you have nothing to worry about. Luca wouldn’t have given you the lead in his movie if he didn’t think you would absolutely kill it, Timothée. And you will, I know it. If anything, from what I’ve heard about you through Luca, I’m the one that should be worried about matching you.”

Timmy can’t help but blink in surprise at his full name coming out of Armie’s mouth, perfectly pronounced and everything, and then the rest of his words sink in, making him blush and smile down at his feet.

“I hope you’re right.” He whispers. “Not about you worrying to match me!” He hurries to clarify. “Just, you know, the other stuff.” Timmy smiles sheepishly over at Armie.

“I do have another question though, how did you know how to pronounce my name? No one ever knows how to pronounce my name.”

“Well that’s easy.” Armie smiles conspiratorially, leaning towards him as to whisper something in his ear, but Timmy is too busy looking into Armie’s eyes to remember to turn his head to the side. And instead it brings their faces so close together that Timmy could feel the puffs of Armie’s breath on his lips, and he can’t help but let his eyes drop down to focus on Armie’s mouth.

“I googled you.” Armie says, pulling back with a laugh. “There was this really cute interview, where you teach the interviewer how to pronounce your name, I think I watched it like six or seven times to make sure I got it right.”

“Oh no.” Timmy hides his face in his hands, instantly knowing which interview Armie was referring to, and it was anything but cute.

“I also watched your rap videos.” Armie lets out a loud laugh at Timmy’s answering groan of humiliation. “Aw, what is it Lil Timmy Tim, gotta poop?”

“No one was ever supposed to see those.” Timmy whines into his hands, before pulling them away, revealing his face, more than a little red with embarrassment.

“That’s one thing you should learn right now, Timmy. The internet? Never forgets.”

Armie’s phone beeps with a message, and he pulls it out of his pocket to read it. Frowning down at the screen for a long time.

“Is everything alright?”

“Hm? Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine. It was just my – uh – well, my ex, now, apparently.”

“Wait, what? Did you just get dumped? Through a text message?” Timmy stares at Armie, in shock.

“Sort of.” Armie nods, then shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s – as cliché as it sounds – it’s complicated.”

“She sent you a text to end your relationship, doesn’t sound very complicated to me.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot more to the story than just that, Timmy. It really is complicated. Thanks for being so ready to defend my honor, though. It’s sweet of you.” Armie smiles over at Timmy, eyes quickly zeroing in on his mouth. Timmy can’t help but feel his heart start to speed up, and his breathing get slightly more labored, as he focuses his own stare back on Armie’s mouth in return.

Armie, eyes still locked on Timmy’s mouth, reaches his hand out and uses his thumb to gently wipe away something from the corner of his mouth, Timmy’s tongue meeting him there, resting against the side of his finger. “Ice cream.” Armie whispers, moving his thumb to rub across Timmy’s bottom lip a couple of times. “I mean – you had – there was, uhm.” Armie quickly shakes his head, as if to clear it, and quickly removes his hand. “Sorry about that, you just -”

“Had ice cream in the corner of my mouth?” Timmy breathes out with a smile, looking up into Armie’s eyes from under his eyelashes.

“Yeah.” Armie whispers, his eyes slip down to Timmy’s mouth again for about half a second before he catches himself and quickly catches Timmy’s gaze again. As much as Timmy would love to lean forward and close the distance between them, he gets to his feet instead, drying his now sweaty palms on his shorts.

“We should probably bike back, it’s almost dinner time, and trust me, you do not want to miss your first proper Italian dinner.” Timmy smiles, reaching his hand out for Armie to take, and helps pull him to his feet.

As promised, dinner is a lavish affair, and Timmy eats so much he’s pretty sure he’ll never be able to move again. Luca is in the middle of telling some story, that Timmy is pretty sure he’s heard about five times already, when his phone beeps in his pocket, and then Armie’s beeps just a couple of seconds later. They catch each others eyes with a smile as they both pull their phones out at the same time.

When Timmy sees who sent the message, he frowns, what could his manager possibly want to discuss with him right now? He opens it, and frowns even deeper when he sees what it says. He looks up at Armie, and sees him frowning down at his phone as well.

“Timothée, I will be flying to Italy tonight with Armie Hammer’s manager to discuss some important business with you. Please be available to meet when I text you tomorrow morning.”

Timmy watches as a flash of realization makes its way onto Armie’s face, he then lets out a loud groan and rests his forehead on the table in front of him. Making Timmy even more confused about what’s going on.

When Armie lifts his head again, his eyes immediately seek out Timmy’s, sending him a sheepish smile. Tilting his head to the side to indicate he wants to talk, Timmy nods and gets up to follow Armie somewhere a little more private.

They end up in Luca’s back garden, next to the pond where he keeps his fish. Armie sits down at the edge of the pond, staring down at the fish swimming around in there. Timmy keeps his feet firmly planted on the grass, the last thing he’d need right now would be to slip and fall face first into the pond somehow.

“What’s going on Armie? Do you know why they’re flying out?” Timmy asks, and watches as Armie scrubs his hands over his face.

“I think so.” He whispers. “And, god, Timmy. If it is what I think it is, I’m so sorry.” Armie looks up at the sky and heaves a great big sigh.

“Well, what do you think it is then?”

Armie looks back down at him, a pained smile on his face. “I can’t tell you.”

“What do you mean you can’t tell me? Just say it! It’s not that f*cking hard?” Timmy frowns.

“It’s not that simple, Timmy. I want to tell you, I do, but I can’t. I am drowning in NDA’s here, and until I’m released from those, I literally cannot tell you sh*t, no matter how much I really want to. And f*ck do I want to, because this is so not fair.” Frustration more than evident on his face, Armie runs his hands through his hair a couple of times, before grabbing a hold of two fistfuls of hair at the top of his head. He pulls at it so hard that it looks genuinely painful, and Timmy walks over and carefully starts pulling Armie’s fingers free to get him to stop hurting himself.

“It’s okay, Armie. I understand.” Timmy says softly, smiling down at him when Armie finally lets go. Timmy gently cards his fingers through Armie’s hair, trying to smooth it back down. Stumbling backwards slightly when Armie suddenly stands up, grabbing Timmy’s shoulders to steady them both.

“Promise me something.” Armie says urgently.

“Anything.”

“If it is what I think it is, promise me you’re not just gonna say yes because you think you have no other choice. You always have a choice, Timmy. You’re allowed to say no. Do you understand?”

“I think so, yeah.” In truth Timmy has no idea what the f*ck Armie is talking about, but in that particular moment it seemed more important to calm him down than anything else.

“Good.” Armie breathes out in relief. “Good.” He says again, with a wide smile.

Sleep doesn’t come easy for Timmy that night, he tosses and turns for a couple of hours before giving up, reaching for his phone where it’s charging on the nightstand.

He’s really curious about what’s going to happen at the meeting tomorrow, unsure of why their managers would fly all the way to Italy to speak to them when Skype is a thing that exists. And if Armie’s reaction was anything to go by, it probably wasn’t good news they were bringing with them.

Timmy pulls up google on his phone, and types in Armie’s name, just to see if maybe the latest news stories could give him any insights as to what the f*ck is going on. But what he sees there just confuses him further. Every headline is a variation of “Instagram model whatshername and Armie Hammer splits up” and all the articles seem to indicate that Armie was the one that dumped her, a ‘source close to the couple’ claiming he said he wanted to be free for the summer. Most of the articles then went on to insinuate that Armie probably just wanted to be single in case some Italian beauties caught his eye while he was over here filming.

All of them pretty much boiling down to the same thing. Womanizer Armie Hammer strikes again.

The frown on Timmy’s face just grows the more he reads, because from what Armie said earlier in the park, he could have sworn Armie was the one that got dumped, not the other way around. Sure he said it was complicated, but this doesn’t seem complicated, it’s just a flat out lie.

And sure, he knows PR is a thing, and the media isn’t exactly a beacon of honesty. But he just can’t work out why Armie’s people would let his name get dragged through the mud like this when he was the innocent party. Every article has a statement from his reps, but instead of telling them they had it wrong, they only seem to confirm the story, saying “We can confirm they’re no longer a couple, but apart from that we have no further comment.”

The comments under the articles were pretty brutal, more than a few of them making Timmy cringe. You had Armie’s fans coming to his defense claiming the girl was an obvious gold digger, and good f*cking riddance. While the girls fans shot back that she was an independent woman, and didn’t need Armie, or his money.

Twitter was even worse. Armie’s name was trending, and it was only because people were either celebrating the end of his relationship, calling him a cheater, or crying because their otp had broken up.

When Timmy goes onto Instagram, he sees that all the pictures of Armie with his ex has been deleted from his profile. He wonders when Armie found the time to do that, seeing as he’d been with Timmy from the moment he got dumped until he went to bed. Of course, he could’ve done it before he fell asleep, so that was probably it.

Timmy sincerely hoped Armie wasn’t too hurt by everything, he’d never had to support anyone through heartbreak before, let alone someone he just met that same day. But if Armie needed him, he’d be there for him. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, but Armie was definitely special, Timmy felt instantly comfortable with him. And he just really hoped Armie felt the same way about him.

Timmy must have dozed off at some point, because he wakes up to his phone blaring out the godawful sound of his alarm, right into his ear, where it’s lying next to him on the pillow. He fumbles for it bleary eyed, hits the snooze button, and faceplants back onto his pillow, falling back asleep instantly.

He repeats this process, three more times, until he manages to eventually tear himself away from the bed and into the shower. The water helps wake him up more than his alarm ever did, and when he sits down to eat his bowl of corn flakes, he’s finally awake enough to remember why it took him so long to fall asleep last night in the first place.

He hurries back into the bedroom to retrieve his phone, luckily there are no texts from his manager yet, but Armie sent him one just five minutes ago, wondering if he was awake yet. He texts back an affirmative, and since Armie’s apartment is just across the hall, it only takes a few seconds before there’s a knock on his door.

He hits his shin on the corner of the coffee table in the living room when he hurries to open the door, it hurts like a motherf*cker, and he lets out a loud curse as he’s forced to hop one legged the rest of the way. Lifting his leg and rubbing over the point of impact as he opens the door, to find Armie on the other side, staring down at him in bemusem*nt.

“For a second there I thought you’d died. What the f*ck happened?” Armie laughs at his disgruntled face.

“f*cking coffee table is what happened! Always in the f*cking way.” Timmy spits out, rubbing his shin one last time before putting his foot back down on the ground. Wincing slightly when he puts his weight back on it.

Armie looks down at his leg in concern and gets down on his knees, lifting Timmy’s leg and placing it carefully on his thigh, cupping his calf as he gets a closer look. Timmy grabs the doorway for support, resolutely not thinking about how close Armie’s face suddenly is to his dick, the f*cking very last thing he’d need right now would be to get hard and have to explain that to Armie.

‘No, I don’t think I have a pain kink. But what I definitely have, is a you on your knees kink.’ Yeah, no thanks. He’d literally rather die.

“It’s definitely gonna bruise, there’s no doubt about that.” Armie says, carefully rubbing his thumb across the red imprint the coffee table left on Timmy’s leg, and Timmy has to literally bite his tongue to not let out a moan at the sensation, maybe he genuinely does have a pain kink, who knew?

“But you didn’t break the skin, and I don’t think you’ve broken anything. We’ll keep an eye on it though, just in case it swells up or something.” Armie looks up at him, smiling softly as he places Timmy’s foot back down on the ground, and stands up.

“I actually came over because I wanted to know if you wanted to grab something to eat before the meeting?” Armie says with a hopeful smile. Timmy looks back to the kitchen, and his now soggy bowl of corn flakes.

“Definitely. Let me just grab a couple of things and I’ll be right out.” He leaves the door open as he hurries back into the kitchen to empty his bowl of cereal into the sink, turning the water on and washing away the last of the corn flakes. Grabbing his wallet, phone and keys before heading back to the living room where Armie is waiting for him.

“I’m ready. Let’s head out.”

“Excellent. I don’t know how, considering how much I ate at yesterdays dinner, but man, I’m starving.” Armie chuckles.

Timmy takes him to his favorite café, just down the road from their apartments. They both get a cup of coffee and a plate full of pastries to share. He’s in the middle of telling Armie this funny story about something that happened a couple of days before Armie arrived when their phones beep. Their conversation dies out instantly, both of them quickly taking their phones out of their pockets, and sure enough. There it is, the message he’d been waiting for all morning.

“Timothée, please make sure to be at the Ponte Di Rialto in an hour. We have much to discuss, so make sure your schedule is as cleared as possible. Thank you.”

He looks over at Armie, who’s still looking down at his phone, gaze unfocused, like he’s staring right through it. Timmy clears his throat to get his attention, and when Armie looks up at him, Timmy sends him a soft smile, watching as the tension in Armie’s shoulders releases almost immediately.

“We should probably tell Luca that it looks like we’ll be quite busy this morning, huh?” Timmy says, taking a bite of his pastry.

“Yeah, I can call him right now if you want?”

“That’d be good, yeah.” Timmy agrees, taking another bite of pastry as Armie puts his phone to his ear.

“Hey, Luca. Listen, something came up, and Timmy and I need the morning off. I don’t know for how long.” Whatever Luca is saying on the other end, it’s making Armie blush. “What?! No! Nothing like that. No. I promise. It’s business stuff, that’s all.” Armie nods a couple of times. “Yes, of course, I will. Yeah. Thank you. See you later.”

“What did he say?” Timmy asks around his last bite of pastry, spitting crumbs halfway across the table. “Sorry.” He says sheepishly after swallowing, brushing the crumbs down to the floor. Armie just smiles and shakes his head at him.

“He wasn’t very happy to lose half a day of preparations, but he said he understood, just made us promise to work even harder when we got back.”

Timmy nods, draining the rest of his coffee from his cup, pushing the last pastry over to Armie, who shakes his head and pushes it back towards Timmy, who just shrugs and eats it in two bites. What? It was a good pastry.

Timmy gets up and buys them each another coffee, and they sip at it slowly while talking about everything and nothing, conversation and laughter flowing between them effortlessly. After a while Armie looks up at the clock above the door and winces. “It’s time to go.”

They bike over to the hotel, and Timmy can’t help but grin at the look the doorman gives their bikes, to say he’s not impressed would be an understatement. They wait in the lobby while Armie calls his manager to let him know they’ve both arrived. A couple of minutes later a man Timmy has never seen before steps out of the elevator, eyes roaming the room until he spots them, and hurries over.

He’s wearing a suit so perfectly tailored Timmy is sure it costs more than his entire apartment, his hair is slicked back with so much gel it’s making the dark blond color appear almost black in certain lighting.

“Armie, so good to see you again.” He says, greeting Armie with a stiff hug, essentially just lightly patting him on the back, before turning towards Timmy. “Timothy, so nice to meet you.” He smiles, extending his hand for Timmy to shake.

“Actually, Peter, his name is Timothée.” Armie corrects him, before Timmy has the chance to say anything at all.

“Oh, sorry. Timothée.” Peter looks like he couldn’t give less of a f*ck about the correct way to pronounce his name, and Timmy hurries to shake his hand to get it over with.

“Yeah, nice to meet you too.”

They walk over to the elevator, and when it arrives Peter hits the button for the top floor, the doors close but the elevator doesn’t move. Peter scans his room key and enters a 4 digit code onto the little touch pad, which sat next to the screen with the number that indicates which floor you’re currently on, and the elevator started moving immediately.

The elevator doors open directly into the penthouse apartment, and Timmy spots Marcus wearing an, obviously new, tailored suit of his own. His hair was free of product as always, but he must’ve recently gotten it cut into a more professional, short cut, because he’d still been rocking a ponytail when Timmy last saw him. He’s sitting on the couch lazily sipping a glass of red wine.

“Timmy! You made it, wonderful.” Marcus grins as he spots him, placing his wine glass carefully back down on the table. Walking over to the elevator to give Timmy a hug, similar to the one Peter gave Armie down in the lobby.

“You must be Armie.” He smiles over at Armie, who nods stiffly back at him. Armie then puts his arm around Timmy’s waist and guides him over to the couch where Marcus was sitting when they arrived, pushing his wine glass over to the other side of the table. Keeping his arm around Timmy as they sit down, but moving it from his wait to his shoulders.

Marcus just grins down at them and sits down in one of the available chairs, Peter shakes his head before taking his own seat in the chair next to Marcus’ directly across from them. Peter then pulls up a briefcase from the floor, cracking it open on the table, pulling out a couple of manila folders and spreading them out in front of himself.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why we’re here.” Marcus starts, but gets interrupted by Armie snorting loudly, startling Timmy slightly.

“Please, spare me the niceties, just get to the f*cking point.” Armie spits out, and rolls his eyes.

“Very well.” Peter says, looking over at Timmy. “There’s just one thing, Timothy here will need to sign an NDA forbidding him from speaking to outsiders about the information we’re about to disclose and discuss.”

“Seriously, Peter? Is that really necessary?” Armie shakes his head over at his manager, who just nods.

“Absolutely, it’s necessary. We’re about to share information that’s protected by several NDA’s of its own, of course he has to sign one.”

Armie closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs in frustration. “Fine, whatever.”

Peter slides an NDA form over to Timmy, along with a ballpoint pen. “You sign at the bottom, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

Timmy had signed a fair few NDA’s in his career already, but those had usually just been about forbidding him from talking too freely on social media about what happened in the projects he was involved with, and usually ended as soon as the movies came out or the TV show aired. Reading through this one though, it didn’t seem to have a set end date as far as Timmy could see with his rather limited legal knowledge.

“Uhm, just a quick question. When does this – I mean – How long is this valid for?” Timmy looks up at Marcus, who gives him a tight lipped smile in return.

“It’s valid until we release you from it, Timothy.” Is Peter’s curt reply. “Now sign it, please. So we could get started already.”

“Don’t.” Armie says sharply. “Don’t push him, Peter.” Armie gives Timmy a supporting squeeze with the arm he still has wrapped around his shoulders. “Remember what I said yesterday. You don’t have to sign anything if you don’t want to, Timmy.” Armie whispers into his ear.

Timmy nods. “I know. I want to though.” And jots his name down on the line at the bottom of the document, sliding it and the pen back to Peter, who grins wolfishly back at him.

“Excellent. Now, lets get down to business.” Peter puts Timmy’s signed NDA into its own manila folder, and places it back into the briefcase, closing it and putting it back down on the floor.

“As I told Marcus on the phone the other day, when I called to first offer you this opportunity, we have decided to allow Armie to come out of the closet, and this movie provides us with a unique opportunity to do so.”

Timmy feels his eyes widen in surprise. Armie is gay?! Timmy can’t help but stare at him, face no doubt broadcasting just how shocked he actually is.

“You – What?” He blinks over at Armie, unable to form thoughts, let alone full sentences. Armie retracts his arm from Timmy’s shoulder, using both hands to scrub across his face.

“Yeah.” Armie croaks out as he nods into the palms of his hands, before letting out a loud sigh. Timmy doesn’t like seeing him this defeated, and places a comforting hand on his back, stroking it up and down a couple of times until he feels Armie relax and lean into him slightly. Timmy smiles softly over at him as Armie finally removes the hands from his face, catching his eyes for the first time since Peter outed him, and Armie sends him a grateful smile in return.

Peter and Marcus sit, watching their interaction in silence, with matching grins.

“Anyway.” Peter interrupts shortly after. “As I was saying. We’ve decided we’re gonna let him come out, but because of the image we created for him as part of his closet, we need to rebrand him a little first. The promiscuous gay man trope is just way too cliché at this point, so we don’t want his current image to stick around, only with men instead of women.” Timmy nods back at him, what he’s saying definitely makes sense, he just doesn’t really understand what any of that has got to do with him.

“We’ve decided that the best way to do this, would be to give him a serious, long-term relationship. We can use the filming of this movie as the key point in him starting to question his sexuality, that way nobody feels directly lied to. We’ll tell them he really only just realized he was gay when he fell in love with a guy, and that’s why none of his previous relationships seemed to work out. But he’s in love now, and he doesn’t want to hide that. And that’s where you come in, Timothy.”

“I don’t understand.” Timmy frowns over at Marcus and Peter, before turning his gaze to Armie, who only gives him a pained smile in return.

“It’s actually very simple, Timothy.” Peter rolls his eyes at him. “We want you to be Armie’s long-term boyfriend. We want to sell the story of you falling in love during the filming of this movie. People love that sh*t, co-stars falling for each other, they eat it up like bread and butter. We’ll hint about it for a while at first, making sure you’re papped together a few times, Armie coming to visit you in New York, you going to LA to visit him. That type of thing. Post some pictures of the two of you together on social media, just enough to get the rumors going, but nothing more than that.” Peter nods over at Marcus, indicating it’s his turn to take over the sales pitch.

“Then we’re gonna have you confirm your relationship at the first screening of the movie, we’re hearing Luca is intending to send it over to the 2017 Sundance festival, which would be absolutely perfect. Not only will it promote your movie, but Timmy, this will definitely help with getting your name out there. And in this business, name recognition is everything.” Marcus says, obviously trying to sound sincere, but only managing to come across as desperate.

“You will be compensated of course, think of it as a side job, because it essentially is. You will receive a monthly fee, but we’ll also get you some clothing sponsorship's and we will pay for all of your travel. Meaning first class tickets for all the vacations we need you to take together, as well as all of your accommodations. Then we’ll rent you a new apartment when we eventually have you move to Los Angeles. Your move will be temporary of course, but if we want to create the illusion of the relationship between you two being serious, we can’t have you live on opposite sides of the country for long. Besides living in LA will be excellent for your career options, Timothy.”

“The most important thing here, of course, lest we forget. Is Armie finally being allowed to be himself.” Marcus says, smiling sweetly over at Armie, who just stares back, stone faced.

“Exactly.” Peter nods. “You would be doing him a huge favor. This would be the absolute best way of doing this, and not to put any pressure on you, but if you don’t say yes, we’re going to have to push the coming out back until the promotion of the movie is done. Simply because people wouldn’t ever believe Armie could have a serious boyfriend who would be fine with him realizing he’s gay because of a movie he made with you, and then promoting it with you afterwards. Just imagine, everyone watching you two talk about how in love your characters were? I can already see the cheating rumors, and it would definitely not help with the cleaning up of Armie’s playboy image.”

“And whose f*cking fault is it that I have that image in the first place, huh?” Armie snaps at Peter. Lips curling in distaste, eyes full of fire.

“Now, Armie, settle down. We all know we did you a favor by not letting you come out when you first asked for it. It would have killed your career before it even began. Gay just didn’t sell. Things are a little different now, diversity is all the rage, so it’ll be easier to market you as a gay man. But, I admit, we might have gone a bit overboard with certain things, and it’s definitely coming back to bite us now. At the time it really did seem necessary though. But I do apologize.” Peter says all of this so sincerely it takes Timmy about three seconds longer than it should to realize he’s just talking out of his ass, and he doesn’t regret a single thing.

Marcus clears his throat, taking another sip of his wine, before smiling over at Timmy.

“Seeing as they want this to be a long-term thing, they’re first offering a two year contract, with the option to extend if the situation calls for it, of course.”

“Two years?” Armie exclaims. “You can’t be serious. Peter! You can’t expect him to sign away his entire life for two whole years just to do me a favor! That’s not fair.”

“It’s not really your decision though, is it Armie? Besides, as previously mentioned, it’s not like Timothy here doesn’t get anything in return. He’s going to be more than handsomely compensated for this, both in name recognition and cold hard cash.”

“You know, when you first told me I was gonna be allowed to come out, I thought things would be different. That it would somehow mean we left all the lies behind.” Armie sighs with disappointment and shakes his head.

“Don’t be naive, Armie. You know that’s not how this works.” Peter scoffs.

“Yeah, how f*cking naive of me, to assume there was anything human left in you at all.”

“It has nothing to do with humanity, and you know it. You could cut me loose, go to another manager, they’d still think this would be the best way to handle your coming out. Just look at Marcus, he has no skin in this game yet, and he agrees with me. Don’t you, Marcus?” Peter doesn’t even bother looking over to check if Marcus is nodding, which of course he is. “See, what did I tell you? If you want to come out, this is how we’re going to do it.”

“By forcing Timmy to pretend to be in love with me, for two f*cking years, and maybe even longer?” Armie stands up in frustration, walking over to the window, staring out at the view.

Timmy stays on the couch, looking over at Armie for a while before he gets up and stands next to him. Timmy wraps his arm around Armie’s waist for comfort, much like Armie did for him earlier, and gives him a sideways hug. Only pulling back when he can feel Armie relax, and he takes a step back, looking up at Armie’s face.

“Don’t worry so much about me. From the sound of things, you’re allowed to be selfish for once.” Timmy smiles softly, getting up on his tiptoes and gives Armie’s cheek a quick kiss before turning back around, facing Peter and Marcus.

“I only have one question.”

“Ask away, Timothy.” Peter sends him a wide, and obviously fake, smile.

“Where do I sign?”

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

“You shouldn’t have done that, Timmy.” Armie tells him when they’re in the elevator, heading back down to the lobby.

“Why not? Do you not want to come out after all?” Timmy frowns.

“Of course I do! But do you have any idea of what you just signed? You didn’t even read through the contract, Timmy!” Armie sighs with frustration. “Just the NDA, the language in that? They have you by the balls now.”

“It wasn’t that bad. It’s just a standard NDA. I’ve signed a fair share of those already.”

“It’s not though. They’re never gonna release you from it. You know that right?”

“What’s so bad about that? Honestly. So people will always think that we were an actual couple, I’m sorry, but isn’t that the entire point of doing this?”

Before Armie has the chance to reply, the elevator doors open, revealing the lobby.

“We’ll talk more when we get back home?” Armie asks, sending him a pleading look.

“Of course.” Timmy nods.

They go outside and head towards where they parked their bikes earlier, Armie lights up a cigarette before he grabs his out of the bike rack, riding one handed until he’s finished it. The ride back to the apartment passed by in complete silence, it was neither a comfortable silence or an uncomfortable one, it just was.

“My place or yours?” Armie asks when they’ve parked their bikes outside of their apartment building.

“Does it really matter?”

“Mine then, I have beer.” Armie sends him a quick grin before heading inside. Timmy follows him up the stairs, chuckling to himself as he watches Armie frantically pat himself down in search of his keys. He pulls them out of his back pocket with a victorious “Aha!” and unlocks the door, revealing an apartment pretty much identical to Timmy’s.

“Did you want a beer?” Armie asks, as he heads towards the kitchen.

“Sure.”

Armie comes walking back out holding two opened beer bottles between his fingers in one hand and a bowl of peanuts in the other. He places everything on the table, but as he goes to hand a beer bottle over to Timmy, he stops, squinting over at him, a grin spreading across his face.

“Now, wait a minute. You’re not actually old enough to drink yet, are you?”

“If we were still in America, you’d be right. Luckily for me, this is Europe.” Timmy grins back, plucking the beer bottle out of Armie hand and taking a large gulp of it. “Mmm, refreshing!” He winks over at Armie after swallowing it down. Armie just smiles and shakes his head at him, reaching for his own bottle and taking a sip of beer before placing it back on the table.

Timmy grabs a handful of peanuts and settles into the couch, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Armie does the same thing. Both of them eating their peanuts in silence, wiping the salt and fat off their hands on their shorts when they’re done.

“I know Peter said you’d asked to come out earlier.” Timmy says after a while, deciding it’s best to just jump straight into things. “When was that?”

“Pretty much right away, to be honest. I never wanted this, this whole stereotypical Hollywood manwhor* image.” Armie rolls his eyes. “I told them that I just wanted to be myself, and they, well, they just laughed in my face.”

Timmy stares over at him, completely incredulous. He can’t even imagine how much that must’ve hurt Armie when it happened, hell, just hearing about it now, years after the fact, is enough to break his heart.

“You gotta realize, Timmy. Things might have changed quite a bit out in the world, but Hollywood has been more or less at a complete standstill. I mean, they’ve barely realized that black people exist, you still can’t have more than two people of color in your movie, or they say it’s too much, suddenly you’re being too politically correct. Accurately reflecting the diversity of our society? They don’t know what that even means.”

Armie scrubs both hands across his face before continuing. “I mean, gay marriage only got legalized last year, and even though pretty much half of Hollywoodis gay, you can still basically count all the outactors on one hand. Like Peter so charmingly put it, gay doesn’t sell. Doesn’t mean people don’t want it, or need it, just means they have no f*cking idea how to market it, and things they don’t understand how to make money off of? Can’t have that.”

“They’re letting you come out now though, so something must have changed?”

“Yeah, the people’s demand for diversity just keeps getting louder. Social media is filled to the brim with people criticizing Hollywood for being so white, and straight. They just want to get out ahead of things, claim to be more open minded than they actually are. It’s all just bullsh*t. They don’t care about anything but the money, and since the money seems to be in diversity now, that’s where they’re going.”

Armie’s cynicism takes Timmy a little by surprise, but it made sense too, he was after all just starting out, Armie had been living with this for years. That’s not to say he didn’t know that show business was corrupt, and sh*tty things happened to good people every day, it was just more the fact that they’d been abstract concepts up until now, because he’d never actually experienced any of it first hand before. And listening to Armie talk about it, made Timmy realize just how surprisingly easy it had been for him to distance himself from it. He’d much rather have his eyes completely opened to the truth now though, than to figure it out the hard way later, when it was already too late.

“You know, it’s funny. Peter actually advised me to not take this role when Luca first made the offer, said it would be too damaging. Everything they’d done to make me appear straight, he said, it would all be for nothing if I did this, because people can’t watch an actor play gay in a movie and not assume they’re gay in real life too.” Armie rolls his eyes. “And now he’s talking like it’s the best idea he’s ever had.”

“Well, given the severe lack of representation for gay people in the media, it’s not that weird that when an actor first takes on a gay role, and plays it convincingly, that they’d look for the same representation in them as real life people, as they found in their characters.” Timmy frowns, he knows he’s been guilty of doing the same thing himself once or twice, equally disappointed every time it turned out to not be accurate. “They’re just looking to belong somewhere, after all. If anything straight actors should take it as a compliment, they did their job well and were so believable, that the line between reality and fiction just got a little blurred for some people.”

“Yeah.” Armie nods, sending him a grateful smile. “They don’t understand that though, Timmy. Unless it’s followed by a dollar sign? They don’t give a f*ck. And that, truly, is the only reason why I’m being allowed to come out now. Because suddenly my real sexuality is marketable, and they can profit more off of me if they let me do this.”

“At least they’re letting you do it, though. Even if it is just about the money for them, it’s still an important step in the right direction for you.” Timmy sends him a supporting smile, frowning a little when it doesn’t seem to do anything to cheer Armie up.

“Yeah. Nothing is actually changing though, Timmy, is the thing. I’m still stuck faking a relationship. I’m really just trading one lie for another. And now I’m dragging you into this mess too.” Armie groans, hiding his face in his hands.

Timmy reaches his hand out, stroking across Armie’s back, trying to comfort him as much as he can in their current position, side by side on the couch.

“You’re not forcing me to do anything though, Armie. I’m more than happy to do this for you.”

“That’s only because you have no f*cking idea what you just agreed to.” Armie says sharply, removing his hands from his face, glaring over at Timmy.

“I’m not a f*cking child, Armie. So don’t patronize me, please.”

“In this situation you might as well be, I don’t mean to patronize you, but you have no experience with these things, Timmy!”

“Well, then, oh wise one, f*cking enlighten me, will you?” Timmy spits out, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“That contract you so willingly signed? I said it earlier, but, you didn’t even read it, Timothée! If there’s one thing you should always f*cking do? It’s to read your f*cking contracts before you sign them. You just signed your entire life away, for two f*cking years, and you don’t even realize.” Armie says, with an incredulous laugh.

“You literally have no f*cking idea what you just agreed to. They own you now, Timmy. Every single thing they want you to do? Well, you already agreed, didn’t you? They want you to go on TV and tell the world that we f*cked in Luca’s bed the first day we met? Then that’s what you’re going to have to do. You can’t even tell your own mother that the relationship between us is a fake, because you signed a non disclosure so f*cking air tight it’s valid anywhere in the goddamn universe. You understand that?! You could f*cking go to the moon, and they’d still be able to sue the sh*t out of you if they found out you talked to anyone up there. It’s not just about doing me a favor, this is your whole f*cking life we’re talking about, Timmy!”

“Well it’s your f*cking life too, Armie! Why the f*ck should mine be worth more than yours, huh? You deserve this, and if me going on TV to tell the world that we, what was it you said, f*cked in Luca’s bed? If that’s what it takes for you to come out? Well f*ck it, I’ll do it. I don’t care about any of that. What I do care about is you.” Timmy punctuates that with a finger to Armie’s chest.

“Besides, you’re acting like I don’t get anything in return at all for this. And before you roll your eyes at me, I am not talking about the f*cking name recognition, or the money, or any of that stuff Peter seemed to be so f*cking fond of mentioning. No. Did it ever f*cking occur to you, that you might be doing me a favor too? That I might be gay too? And by doing this with you, it ensures that they can never f*cking stuff me back into the closet ever again?” Timmy looks over at Armie’s shocked face and snorts. “Yeah, that’s what I f*cking thought.”

Timmy reaches for his beer bottle, taking another large gulp from it, placing it back on the table and drying the condensation left on his hand by the bottle off on his t-shirt. Looking back at Armie, who appears to still be speechless.

“Really? The fact that my decision wasn’t 100% selfless and all about you, was so surprising to you, that you’re actually speechless?” Timmy rolls his eyes.

“No, it’s – Timmy – It’s not that! It’s just, I severely underestimated you, is all.”

“Pfft, I could have told you that.” Timmy grins. “People usually do. I mean, look at Peter and Marcus, they were so f*cking caught up in selling me on all the ways I’d be able to help you, all the f*cking perks I’d get by being Armie Hammer’s boyfriend, that they completely overlooked the fact that this is helpful for me in other ways too. I can’t really deny that sometimes, straight being the default, can actually come in handy.” Timmy shrugs, turning in his seat so he’s now sitting sideways and cross-legged on the couch, Armie copying him seconds later.

“True, but most of the time it’s f*cking annoying as all hell though.”

“You’re telling me, like you didn’t just assume I was straight up until literally three minutes ago.”

“Yeah, unlike you, with your amazing gaydar, who found out I was gay as early as a couple of hours ago. Taylor Swift, Timmy. They made me date Taylor Swift. How much more obvious can you get?”

“Oh, shut up.” Timmy laughs, and shoves Armie playfully, apparently catching him by surprise because he almost topples backwards out of the couch, only saving himself by grabbing onto Timmy’s outstretched arms. “sh*t! Are you okay?” Timmy smiles sheepishly up at him.

“Trying to kill me already? That doesn’t bode well for our future.” Armie laughs. “Or was it your jealous rage at Swift coming through?” Armie winks.

“No, actually, I was a massive Taymie fan, yeah. I was absolutely heartbroken when you broke up.” Timmy says as sincerely as he possibly can, and if the surprised look on Armie’s face was any indication, it worked like a charm.

“Seriously?!”

“No. Even I could tell that one was nothing more than a stunt. I just thought, I don’t know, that it was more about publicity than, well, bearding.” Timmy shrugs.

“Mm, yeah. So did she.” Armie nods. “I’ll give her that, she’s professional as f*ck that girl. And the contracts her people had drawn up? I swear, they were like 100 pages long. All about what the expectations of you were during the stunt period, she even had a whole section written in about making sure you pulled your weight and did everything you could to help her accurately sell your relationship. It was f*cking nuts. She told me later that they had to put that language in there after she had to cut one stunt short a few years prior, because the guy she was stunting with wasn’t interested in stunting in the first place, and would instead do everything he could to get out of their scheduled dates. And she wanted to make sure that never happened again.”

“Yikes. At least you didn’t have to wear that I heart T. S. tank though. So, you know, could’ve been worse.” Timmy says with a laugh.

“Yeah, thank f*ck for small favors.” Armie chuckles, grabbing his beer, taking a quick swig of it.

Armie’s phone beeps, and he puts his beer back on the table, reaching for his phone where it’s lying next to the bowl of peanuts. Timmy has no idea who just texted him, but whatever it is, it makes him frown. “Who is it?” Timmy asks, curious.

“It’s uh- Peter and Marcus. Apparently they’re already on a plane back to the States. Peter wanted me to say thank you for being so easy to work with, and willing to help out.” Armie says, rolling his eyes. “And he also said that since we’ve now signed their contracts, they needed to get back asap, to start laying down the groundwork for, well, the next couple of years.”

“Really? Already? Didn’t they say that they weren’t gonna have us do anything until after the filming was done?” Timmy frowns.

“They did, yeah. But they still need to plan everything, like, literally everything. And that’s gonna take quite a while, seeing as they’re gonna have to build a convincing love story from the ground up. Then when they’ve done that, they need to start informing the people that need to be informed in order to successfully pull it off.” Armie shakes his head and starts listing things out on his hands.

“First they need to hire some people to manage our social media profiles. Then comes the shopping around part, to see which tabloid is willing to pay the most money for our coming out exclusive. Then they need to trade in whatever favors they can to stop the various other outlets that already knew I was gay from revealing that, now that my sexuality is gonna be public knowledge. And then they need to hire some paparazzi’s to take our photos as we land back in America when the filming is done. They might even hire a specific agency for all of our future outings, and if they do that, they have to make them sign whatever they have to sign to not reveal just how staged everything actually is.”

“In comparison, our side of the job is much easier for once. We just have to go where they tell us to go, smile, kiss, hold hands and let people think we’re in love. They’re the ones that has to do everything to actually convince people.”

“Yeah, when you put it like that, I’m glad I’m not in PR.” Timmy chuckles. “But what did you mean, hire someone to manage our social media? I mean, it’s just Twitter and Instagram, what’s there to manage?”

“Well, if you had bothered to read the contract.” Armie starts, a grin spreading across his face when Timmy levels him with an unimpressed glare. “Nah, but seriously. In the contract, you agreed to give up control of your social media accounts for the duration of this. Someone else will take over your accounts, and post to them as if they’re you. You’ll still have access, but everything you want to post, will go through them first.”

“Wait. What?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty much standard practice at this point. I don’t think I’ve had full access to my own public profile on anything since, well, ever.” Armie shrugs. “So much of our lives is spent on social media now, and people take it surprisingly seriously. Like, it doesn’t matter what you actually do in private, if your social media doesn’t accurately reflect people’s expectations of you? Well, people get angry, like really angry. And it’s stupid, but, if you have a best friend, and you don’t follow him on your accounts? In their eyes, he’s not actually your best friend. Don’t tweet your mom happy birthday? Doesn’t matter that you called her that morning, you’re a bad son, how dare you not wish your own mother a happy birthday?”

“And it’s the same with relationships. If you don’t follow them, and like basically all of their photos? How can you claim you love them? That bit actually works in our favor though, with what we’re about to do. Since basically all it takes to convince people you’re dating is to follow their profile and like their photos.”

“Seriously? It can’t be that easy.” Timmy scrunches his nose, confused.

“Sure it is. You bought the fact that I was dating Candice, didn’t you?”

“Yeah? But, that wasn’t just because you followed her on Instagram though. I mean, sure there were a lot of pictures of the two of you together, both on social media and in the tabloids, but unlike with Taylor Swift, it didn’t come off as staged, and you looked happy together. Not to mention your vacation together in Bali, you were there all alone together for a whole week.”

“Mm, see, but the thing is, were we truly happy together? Or did we just pretend for the few seconds it takes to take a photo? I barely know the girl, Timmy. We'd meet up occasionally to smile lovingly at each other for some Instagram photos, but that hardly ever took more than 20 minutes out of my day. Then we went out for dinner once, and she spent the entire meal facetiming her actual boyfriend, which was awesome. Third wheeling on a date where the other guy isn’t actually even present? 10 out of 10, would recommend. And then the last time I saw her was when we walked out of the airport together after our romantic vacation, that we never went on. She went to Bali, yes, but I went surfing in Australia. Amazing what they can do with pictures of people on two separate beaches, huh? And then she'd send pictures of herself in a bikini tanning, taken by her actual boyfriend, to be posted on my stories and I'd send photos of me eating an ice cream or whatever to be posted onto hers. Creating the illusion that we were there together when we weren't. Literally our entire relationship? Only kept alive because some guy got paid by the hour to sit and update our Instagram accounts.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah! Why do you think I never missed a single one of her photos? Always a like and a comment from me minutes after she posted something, no matter which timezone we were in at the time. It’s not even the slightest bit realistic, but people love it, so they don’t care about the realism aspect. They just want to feel like they’re being included, and so what happens behind closed doors where they can’t see? It’s like it doesn’t even exist.”

“No, that doesn’t sound right.” Timmy shakes his head. “People are curious as all hell about celebrities and their secrets.”

“Sure, but they’re also stupid. And more importantly, they want to believe what they’re told, even if what they’re seeing directly contradicts that. It’s why this always works, over and over and over again. To quote Men In Black, a person is smart, people are dumb.”

“Huh. That’s from Men In Black?”

“Yup, a true intellectual classic.” Armie says with a laugh.

“I suppose you’re right though, I just never thought about it like that before.”

“Yeah, most people don’t. Like I said, it’s why it works. Give the fans some pictures to post to their update accounts, some comments to aww at, and you’re golden. And then if you want to shoot for intimacy? Like, you know, the illusion of privacy or whatever, you do the whole, clothing exchange thing. Give the girl something recognizably yours to wear in some Instagram photo, and watch the #goals comments roll in. It’s even better if you get something of hers in return, like a piece of jewelry or something, to wear when you’re papped. I swear to god, the tabloids can write mile long articles about how in love you are based on just about anything these days.”

Before Timmy can truly digest everything Armie just told him, Armie’s phone beeps again, but this time he smiles as he reads it. “It’s Luca, he wants to know if we’re finished with our business thing, and if we’re available to rehearse now.”

“I’m good to go if you are?” Timmy smiles over at Armie. “We can always revisit this conversation later if you feel we need to.”

“Yeah, sounds good. I just wanna shower before we go. The stairs kind of did a number on me.” Armie says with a laugh, lifting his arms to reveal a couple of quite impressive sweat stains.

Timmy gives his own armpit a sniff, pulling away with a grimace. “Oh, yeah, good idea.”

“Meet you outside by the bikes in 15?”

“It’s a date.” Timmy winks.

Timmy tries his best to not think about Armie all wet and soapy in his own shower just across the hall. He didn’t have enough time to get hard, let alone the time to be able to take care of it in a satisfying way, and there’s no way he could go downstairs to meet Armie with a boner.

Naturally his thoughts get away from him, and he can feel his dick twitching, preparing to harden. He quickly turns the water on as cold as it could go, effectively taking care of the problem before it even arrived, because now all he could think was ‘f*ck, this sh*t is freezing!’

He makes it down to the bikes with a couple of minutes to spare, not that it matters, because Armie only shows up a full 10 minutes later, a spring in his step that wasn’t there earlier. Clearly someone didn’t bother with the cold shower trick.

“Had some pipes that needed cleaning, did you?” Timmy raises his eyebrow, smirking as Armie’s cheeks darkens with a blush.

“Shut up.”

“No, no. By all means, keep me waiting while you’re jerking it in the shower. Not like you set the time we were meeting at or anything. Oh wait...” Timmy rolls his eyes with fake exasperation.

“Yeah yeah, I’m an inconsiderate ass, I know. I’m sorry, okay? Time just kinda got away from me.”

“You don’t say.” Timmy deadpans, before bursting into laughter. “No, honestly, it’s fine, I’m just messing with you. It was a good shower though?” He winks.

“You could say that.” Armie grins, and Timmy watches as he gives him an obvious once over. Eyes lingering for a couple of seconds longer down by his crotch. Timmy can feel his dick twitching again, clearly not having learned its lesson in the shower.

Once again Armie lights up a cigarette before getting on his bike, riding it one handed all the way over to Luca’s. He’d offered Timmy one too, but Timmy knows himself well enough to know that he definitely does not possess the coordination needed to be able to steer and smoke at the same time, so he turns him down. Keeping both hands firmly planted on the handlebars.

Luca meets them outside,lookingat them in turn, smirk on his face.

“Good. You’re here. You managed to take care of business, yes?”

And Timmy suddenly realizes why Armie was blushing when he talked to him on the phone that morning. Luca obviously thought the business they had to take care of were, well, each other. Armie looks like he’s about to protest, so Timmy quickly leans over to whisper in his ear.

“Don’t protest too much, after all, we’re gonna need him to believe we’re falling in love during the filming at some point.” Armie looks down at him and nods, eyes cutting back to Luca’s smirking face seconds later.

“I told you, it’s not like that.” Armie says seriously, but at the same time looking like he’s unable to completely hide a smirk of his own. Oh, he’s good, Timmy thinks. Now Luca will definitely think they spent most of the morning in bed together, but at the same time, they still have plausible deniability on their side.

“Of course not.” Luca grins. He grins even wider when Armie puts his hand on Timmy’s waist to guide him into the house.

“I was thinking, backyard, excellent place to rehearse, no? Very private.” Luca nods, walking straight through the living room and out through the balcony doors leading to his massive garden.

Armie just shrugs and follows him, Timmy hurrying to catch up with them both. They walk past the pond where Timmy and Armie had their conversation after dinner yesterday, and all the way to the very end of the property. Luca sitting down on a conveniently placed rock, which was about the size of a small car.

Luca pulls out a copy of the script from his pocket, unfolds it and starts flipping through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for. Staring up at them with a wicked grin.

“Today, this page.” He says, handing Timmy the script, Armie reading it over his shoulder. It’s the scene with Elio and Oliver’s first kiss, because of course it is, f*cking evil genius of a man.

“Okay.” Timmy shrugs. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.” Luca nods. “You can lie down there.” He points to a patch of slightly longer grass just a couple of feet to their left, the rock Luca is sitting on still more than close enough to be able to see and hear everything.

Timmy shrugs again, and goes to lie down. Armie following right behind him.

“We’ll take it from ‘I love this, Oliver’” Luca instructs. And Timmy can feel himself slip into Elio’s skin quite easily, so happy to be lying next to Oliver in his secret spot, away from everything and everyone.

“I love this, Oliver.” Elio says, staring up at the sky, which is completely clear of clouds.

“What? This? Us, you mean?” Comes Oliver’s slightly confused reply.

“That too.” Elio nods. And he watches as Oliver’s face comes into his field of vision. He smiles up at him as Oliver intently studies his face, as if committing it to memory, hopefully saving it as a happy one, a memory he’d always find joy in revisiting.

He smiles wider when Oliver’s gaze seems to come to a halt on his mouth, at the first touch of Oliver’s finger to his lips his smile dies out though, too focused on the feeling of Oliver gently stroking across his lips to do anything but lie there and enjoy it. Oliver smiles down at him, still stroking his lip, and Elio could suddenly feel it in his bones that something was about to happen. Something that would no doubt change things between them forever.

And sure enough, not even a second later, Oliver leans down, touching his lips to Elio’s in a chaste kiss. But Elio wants more, and he surges up, grabbing Oliver by the back of the neck, deepening it immediately.

At the first touch of their tongues, Armie lets out a quiet moan and Timmy feels Elio leave him immediately. He buries his fingers in Armie’s hair, pulling at it lightly, reveling in the moan that once again leaves Armie’s mouth, much louder this time. Timmy follows Armie’s tongue back into Armie’s mouth, fully taking control of the kiss. When they pull back to breathe, they look into each others eyes for no more than a second before instantly going back in.

Timmy sits up, and Armie follows, their lips still attached, until he pulls away with a bite to Armie’s bottom lip. He sends him a wink and quickly straddles Armie’s lap. Cupping Armie’s cheeks with both hands and closing the gap between them again. Every time Armie’s tongue comes into contact with his own, a surge of electricity shoots through his body, traveling straight down into his co*ck. Which is now completely hard and straining against the front of his shorts. Precome no doubt leaking through his underwear, the wet patch quickly growing in size, and soon it would transfer onto the shorts, leaving evidence of his arousal there too.

After a while, he can’t help but grind his hips down, gasping into the kiss as he feels his own hard dick come into contact with an answering hardness in Armie’s shorts.

Before he has a chance to grind down again, Timmy feels Armie grabbing his hips with both hands, letting out a loud groan of his own as Armie uses the hold on him to pull him down, roughly grinding their dicks together. Timmy gets with the program quickly, leaning his weight forwards so that Armie lies back down in the grass, he grins into the kiss as he rolls his hips against Armie experimentally, trying to find the most pleasurable angle for both of them. Letting out a gasp at a particularly good move.

“sh*t, Timmy.” Armie moans into his open mouth.

Armie grabs the back of his neck, holding him in place as he licks his way back into Timmy’s mouth while at the same time grinding his hips up in search of Timmy’s, who more than happily meets him in the middle. The friction of Armie’s hard co*ck against his own through the thin, and now quite wet, material of their shorts and underwear feels absolutely heavenly. But the angle could still be better, so Timmy pulls back, and Armie lets out a whine, chasing after him.

“Shh, I’m just gonna -” Timmy gives him a quick kiss as he lifts himself off Armie, only to straddle his thigh, placing his own thigh between Armie’s legs for him to rub up against. Closing the distance between both their mouths, and their hips, once again.

The change in position provides much a better friction, and Armie must agree, if the way he’s gone back to grabbing Timmy’s hips and roughly guiding him against himself is any indication. Timmy can feel his org*sm getting closer and closer with every movement of his hips, his dick rubbing deliciously against Armie’s muscled thigh. He honestly didn’t know dry humping could feel this f*cking good.

Armie wraps both arms around his waist and pulls him all the way down, not a single inch of space left between their bodies, as Armie pushes his hips up roughly a few times. Panting into Timmy’s mouth, until he lets out a loud drawn out groan, arching his neck backwards. Timmy attaches his mouth to it immediately, sucking a light mark into the skin right next to Armie’s Adam’s apple. And seconds later he can feel warmth spreading across his thigh, leaving it slightly sticky and making him moan against Armie’s neck. Because he knows what that means, Armie just came. He just made Armie come. With that thought, he quickly captures Armie’s lips with his own again, rubbing against his thigh desperately until his own release sneaks up on him, and he comes in his pants with a muffled grunt.

He rolls off Armie and they lie in the grass, side by side, panting up at the sky. Until Timmy suddenly remembers something.

“sh*t! Luca!”

They sit up so fast it’s almost comical, and whips their heads towards the rock Luca had been sitting on earlier. But there’s no one there.

“When do you think he left?” Armie whispers.

“I don’t know. But I sure as f*ck hope it was sooner rather than later.”

“You’re telling me? I can’t believe I forgot he was there.” Armie rubs his hands across his face.

“Well, you’re not the only one.” Timmy grins, sheepishly.

“f*ck!” Armie groans out, and promptly falls back down on his back in the grass. Timmy shrugging and following him down.

They lie there, staring up at the sky, until their breathing levels out and their heartbeats go back to normal. Come drying uncomfortably in their shorts.

“I, uh-” Armie starts, Timmy cutting him off immediately.

“Don’t even bother with the ‘I’m sorry’ there’s no point, what’s done is done. Besides, it’s not like I wasn’t a more than willing participant, so save it. Please.” Timmy rolls onto his side, staring over at Armie.

“That’s – I wasn’t – All I was gonna say was, I think it’s time to get up and face the music. But, uh, good to know.” Armie turns his head to smile at him. Timmy blushing a little, and feeling more than a little ridiculous. They just rubbed against each other until they came in their pants, but a smile is what gets to him. He’s well and truly screwed already. In more ways than one.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Luckily for them, Luca was nowhere to be seen when they got back to the house, but there was a note taped to the front door, written in Luca’s sleek cursive. “See you both back here tomorrow morning, have a good night.” Timmy reads out loud, blushing a little at the implication of the last two words. Even though he was very much there, Timmy still doesn’t understand how they could just forget that Luca was present during the rehearsal, it really shouldn’t have been possible. But it was like, as soon as Armie’s lips touched his, everything else faded into the background, and absolutely nothing else mattered. Which didn’t exactly bode well for the filming of the movie.

“Well, sh*t.” Armie grins sheepishly over at him, nervously running his hands through his hair. “There’s no doubt he saw way too much.” Timmy nods, wincing in embarrassment and he lets out a strangled groan, bending forwards at the waist, hiding his face in his hands. “I can’t believe...” He startles slightly and straightens up automatically as he feels Armie’s hand coming to rest on his shoulder, but when he realizes what’s going on, he leans into the touch, trying to soak up as much comfort from the gesture as he possibly could. His mind was still stuck on Luca watching them lose control of themselves, but the absolute worst part was that none of them actually knew when he left, or how much he’d seen.

“We should, uhm… Let’s head back home, shower, order something to eat and then talk about this.” Armie says, stroking his shoulder comfortingly. Timmy nods, face still hidden behind his hands, until Armie takes both his wrist in one hand, pulling his hands down, revealing his no doubt beet red face. “It’s okay, Timmy, we’ll face this together, yeah? It’ll be fine.” Armie smiles down at him, before wrapping him up in his arms for a hug. Timmy relaxes into it, tension leaving his body pretty much instantly, and he rests his head on Armie’s chest, wrapping his own arms around Armie’s waist.

Armie rocks them from side to side while stroking his back, and soon enough Timmy feels himself smiling against Armie’s chest, and Armie must feel it too, probably figuring it meant Timmy had been comforted enough for them to head on home, because he pulls away with a kiss to the top of his head. After he’d taken a couple of steps back, Timmy watches in amusem*nt as Armie does some weird twitchy move, arching his back while moving his hips with a wince, and he can’t help but huff out a laugh at the look of uncomfortable disgust on Armie’s face. “You okay there, man?” He grins, knowing perfectly well what the problem was. He was similarly affected, after all.

“f*ck, yeah, just… I really need a shower, Tim. The way everything dried? It’s pulling on my pubes man, it’s awful.” Armie whines, wincing again.

“That’s your own fault for having pubes then.” Timmy teases, and Armie’s eyes widen, dropping down to his crotch, and Timmy swears he could feel the heat of his stare on his dick. But that might just be his imagination, not to mention the fact that his dick has already taken quite the interest in Armie, or possibly even a mix of both.

“You? Shave?” Armie whispers, eyes still firmly planted on Timmy’s crotch, and Timmy can feel his dick twitch against his thigh in an effort to get hard again, despite everything that just happened in Luca’s backyard.

“Uhm. No? It was just a joke, man.”

“Oh.” Armie says, sounding strangely disappointed.

Armie’s disappointment give Timmy the courage to toe the line a little more, just to see how far he could actually push things. “You liked the thought of that, huh?” He smirks, delighted at the blush that takes over Armie’s face as he pulls his eyes up and catches Timmy’s.

“I… Plead the fifth?” Armie smiles sheepishly as he shrugs. Making Timmy grin widely, oh yeah, he could definitely have some fun with this. He lets his tongue peek out, wetting his bottom lip, looking up at Armie through his eyelashes, feeling strangely victorious when he sees Armie’s eyes drop down to his mouth. He licks his top lip slowly, feeling arousal warm his stomach when Armie traces the movement with his eyes.

Armie suddenly inhales sharply and takes a quick step backward while putting his hands up, and Timmy feels the arousal turn to ice cold anxiety. He’d pushed too far, already. His eyes meet Armie’s, and what he sees there takes his breath away, maybe he hadn’t pushed far enough? Armie’s eyes are dark with arousal, pupils dilated, and he’s chewing on his bottom lip before blowing out a deep breath. “I… Timmy – you – we-we should talk first.” Armie nods quickly, as if trying to convince himself at the same time.

Timmy knows he’s right, they definitely need to talk things over, especially considering they’d just this morning signed contracts that legally bound them to each other for the next couple of years. They couldn’t afford to not be careful. But as with most things, it was much easier said than done. His head wanted them to sit down and talk through everything properly, his heart was freaking out over how quickly Armie had wormed his way into it, it had literally only been two days and already Timmy couldn’t picture his life without Armie in it, and his body? Well, that one was easy. His body wanted to f*ck Armie, again and again and again. And then one more time. Or three.

He decides to be smart about this, for a change, and try to listen purely to his head. “Yeah, you’re right, sorry.” He smiles sheepishly up at Armie, feeling relieved when Armie just smiles softly back at him, and then he has to laugh out loud when Armie once again does a weird body wave while wincing. He laughs even harder when Armie just says “f*ck it!” and shoves his entire hand down the front of his shorts to scratch his balls.

“Feel better?” Timmy chuckles at Armie’s sigh of relief. “You have no f*cking idea how good that felt, dude.” Armie laughs, pulling his hand back out and wrinkling his nose at the dried come now stuck underneath his fingernails.

Timmy fake gags at the sight of it, making Armie laugh and nod in agreement. “We should definitely get around to taking those showers, because that sh*t is gross as all hell, man.” Timmy says with a cringe. “Not looking forward to biking home with come covered shorts though, even if it has all dried by now.”

Armie chuckles and nods again, looking more than a little amused. “I feel you dude, too bad biking naked is illegal.” Just the thought of biking naked with Armie is enough to have his dick perk up again, and Timmy has to remind it of just how f*cking uncomfortable biking naked would actually be, to calm it back down.

This time when Armie offers him a cigarette before getting on the bikes, he accepts, a little late for a post coital cigarette, but it does the trick. He was right about not being able to smoke and steer at the same time though, and unlike Armie, who once again is riding his bike one handed, Timmy only lets his hand leave the handlebar for a few seconds when he takes a new drag.

They agree to talk in Timmy’s apartment this time, since apparently they drank the last of Armie’s beer earlier, and according to Armie, his TV didn’t work properly, and if they wanted to watch a movie or something later, a working TV would probably be a must.

Timmy turns the shower on as hot as he can take it without feeling like his skin was burning off, the walls of the shower steaming up almost immediately, he washed his hair in the shower he took before going to Luca’s, so he doesn’t bother doing it again. Instead he squirts a generous amount of lavender scented shower gel into his palm and rubs his hands together to get it to start foaming, and then rubs it into his skin in large sweeping motions before rinsing off. He pays extra attention to his pubes, making sure there’s no dried come left anywhere, and while he’s at it he makes sure to clean thoroughly between his ass cheeks as well, pushing the tip of his index finger inside himself with a groan, to make sure everything gets clean, just in case. He sincerely doubts anything would be happening tonight, but it never hurts to be prepared.

Of course his dick took the little bit of penetration to mean that things were definitely happening, right now, and he finds himself standing under the spray of the shower, co*ck fully hard. And he knows from experience that there’s no way in hell this would go down just by turning the water over to cold, and decides to just go for it. It would probably actually help with keeping him focused on the conversation later anyway.

He wraps his hand around the base of his co*ck, stroking lightly up his shaft with only the tips of his fingers, teasing himself more than anything else. He knows he technically doesn’t have time for it, but he always comes so much harder when he does, and seeing as Armie kept him waiting for the exact same reason earlier, he figures he has it coming. Pun not intended.

He teases himself for a couple of more strokes, before gripping his length more tightly and giving it a good proper stroke, twisting his hand on the upstroke, which is something he’d always loved doing, ever since he first realized what masturbation was. He lets out a loud moan at the feeling, mind automatically going back to what happened at Luca’s earlier. Every noise Armie made, how his dick felt against his own through their clothing, and he extrapolates from that when imagining Armie naked, he was definitely well hung, there was no doubt about that.

In his mind Timmy is on his knees, mouth around Armie’s thick co*ck, Armie’s hands in his hair as he’s roughly f*cking Timmy’s mouth, in his fantasy Timmy doesn’t have a gag reflex so Armie could be just as rough as he wanted with him, something he definitely took advantage of. Timmy moans around Armie’s dick, loving the heavy weight of him on his tongue as he’s swallowing him down, reveling in the moans of pleasure he can draw out of Armie. And he definitely loves how Armie keeps telling him how good he’s being, how amazing his mouth feels on his co*ck, stroking through his hair and pulling on it in alternate measures as he guides Timmy’s mouth up and down his co*ck. It doesn’t take long before Timmy feels his org*sm start building up in his stomach.

Armie grabs Timmy by the throat and pulls him to his feet, his dick slapping against wetly his stomach as it falls from Timmy’s mouth, and Timmy groans as Armie roughly shoves his tongue into his mouth, licking the roof of his mouth before sucking on his tongue, desperate to taste himself on Timmy. As Armie wraps his hand around both their co*cks, Timmy can’t help but let out a loud groan, leaning forward and biting Armie’s shoulder, which makes Armie moan and grip them tighter, and that’s all it takes, Timmy topples over the edge, his org*sm taking him by surprise even though he was aware it was on its way. He comes so hard it hits the wall opposite him, and he stares with heaving breaths as the come washes down the drain, the shower ever so helpfully cleaning up all the evidence of what just happened.

Timmy’s thoughts are still stuck on Armie, and he really doesn’t know how the f*ck he’s going to survive the next two years with his sanity intact. He washes his hands off under the spray next, hissing a little as he moves on to washing his dick, already feeling oversensitive.

Not counting the org*sm he had with the real Armie earlier, this one was one of the better ones he’s had in a long while, and of course Armie was still technically involved, one way or another, which is establishing a problematic pattern. Timmy knows himself well enough to know that he could easily fall for Armie in the long run, which he really should have considered before signing the contract this morning. Not that he regrets it, because he doesn’t, he’s had unrequited crushes before and it’s been fine, he got over it eventually and they’re still friends today. Granted he never had to pretend to be dating any of those people, which could throw a wrench into the works, but it will be fine. Probably.

There’s a knock on his door pretty much as soon as he’s out of the shower, and Timmy doesn’t even think when he just hastily wraps a towel around his waist and hurries to open it, leaving trails of water on the floor behind him. He opens the door just as Armie is about to knock again, obviously catching him off guard with his hand raised, and when he sees Timmy’s state of undress his eyes widen and he takes a small step back, making Timmy frown, until he sees the blush appearing on Armie’s cheeks.

“I just got out of the shower.” He explains, needlessly, as though it wasn’t perfectly obvious already. “If you just wait in the living room, I’ll go get dressed.” Armie is just staring blankly at him, eyes seemingly focused on his neck, Timmy grins and tries again. “I said, you can come in.” Still no reaction from Armie, other than his gaze traveling further down Timmy’s body and his mouth dropping open. Timmy shakes his head and chuckles, waving a hand in front of Armie’s eyes. “Hello! Anyone home?” And he grins even wider when Armie abruptly meets his eyes, seemingly startled. “Welcome back.” He says with a laugh.

“sh*t.” Armie mumbles, before shooting Timmy a sheepish grin. “Sorry, I just, you -” Armie’s eyes drop down to his bare chest again, and Timmy shakes his head with a smile as he reaches out catching Armie’s chin between his thumb and index finger. He gently tilts Armie’s head back up, catching his eyes again, and grinning widely as the blush on Armie’s face only intensifies. “I’m gonna get dressed, now.” Timmy whispers, expecting Armie to nod or something and go get settled in the living room, but instead Armie quickly grabs his upper arms with both hands, keeping him in place.

Timmy stares wide eyed up at him, not having expected this reaction at all, and thank god he just finished jerking off in the shower, or things would get mighty awkward right about now. “Uhm, Armie? What’re you doing?” At Timmy’s words Armie instantly lets him go and takes a giant step back, leaving him standing in the middle of the hallway. “I’m sorry, I – sh*t. Timmy.” Armie looks down at Timmy’s arms with a small wince. “I didn’t hurt you did I?” He asks, voice tinged with worry, and Timmy looks down at his own arms, eyebrows raising at the clear red imprints Armie’s hands left behind. Oh yeah, definitely a good thing he jerked off in the shower, who knew being marked up was a thing?

“It’s-” Timmy croaks out, clearing his throat and trying again.“It’s fine, Armie, seriously.” He meets Armie’s eyes with a small smile, hoping it would help calm him down. “Honestly, it doesn’t hurt or anything, I just have sensitive skin, you know? I bruise easily.” He shrugs, going wide eyed again when Armie just groans and hides his face in his hands. “Timmy, you can’t just- God!” Armie scrubs his hands roughly across his face and meets Timmy’s eyes again, rolling his eyes before smiling.

“You have no idea, do you?” Armie chuckles. “Just what the f*ck you’re doing to me right now?” Timmy frowns, confused, what was he doing now? He was literally just standing there, Armie was the one acting all weird. “I’m not doing anything?” He says, raising his eyebrow at Armie suddenly bursting into laughter, which was sounding more than a little hysterical.

“Oh man, I am so f*cked!” Armie laughs, shaking his head before shouldering his way past Timmy and walking into the apartment, leaving Timmy standing in the doorway staring after him, more than a little confused. He doesn’t fully understand what just happened, obviously Armie was attracted to him, but he thought they’d already established that, back at Luca’s, that was what this whole conversation was going to be about, was it not? Their mutual physical attraction to one another, and how to deal with that without f*cking everything up for themselves in the process. But apparently Timmy has missed something, and now he’s going to have to f*cking ask what it is, which is going to suck ass.

He follows Armie into the living room a short while later, and finds him sitting with his feet up on the table and his face hidden in the crook of his elbow as his arm is slung across his face. He decides to just leave him there and go and get dressed, he quickly dries off and throws on some underwear and pajama bottoms. Just as he’s standing with his arms up, face hidden inside the t-shirt he’s about to pull over his head, Armie walks into his bedroom. “Timmy, I just wanted to say – Oh god. Nope.” By the time Timmy has finally gotten the t-shirt down over his head, Armie is gone.

Timmy walks back out to the living room, and this time Armie is laying face down on the couch, muttering something to himself. Timmy can’t help but smile at the sight of him, as tall as he is, Armie’s legs are basically hanging off the couch. “Comfortable?” Timmy jokes, and grins when Armie startles, craning his neck and looking at Timmy over his shoulder. He watches as a look of something flashes across Armie’s face, but it’s there and gone again so fast he can’t work out what it was, but the next thing he knows, Armie has gotten off the couch and is walking up to him. Just as Timmy opens his mouth to say something, Armie cups his face with both hands, and crashes their mouths together, Timmy lets out a surprised moan before closing his eyes and kissing him back.

Once again it’s like everything else fades into the background, and the only thing that matters is Armie’s mouth on his, Armie’s tongue in his mouth, Armie’s hands on him. Just Armie. And absolutely nothing else. He sucks Armie’s bottom lip into his mouth, biting it gently, and it makes Armie moan into his mouth, he can feel the vibration of it all the way down his spine. He entangles his fingers in Armie’s hair, pulling at it, not gently this time, and is rewarded with another moan and Armie sucking on his tongue. Armie’s hands leave his face and make their way down his body, slowly stroking their way down his back, and coming to rest on his lower back, where he pulls Timmy closer, until there’s barely an inch of space between them, and Timmy lets out a gasp at the feel of Armie’s hard co*ck pressed up against his own.

All of a sudden Armie takes a step back, leaving Timmy standing alone in the middle of his living room, breath coming out in pants, lips red and swollen from the kissing, his brain more than a little fuzzy and the front of his body feeling strangely cold from the lack of Armie’s body heat. He opens his eyes slowly, seeing Armie leaning against the back of the couch, face hidden in his hands again. “God, Timmy. You- I- f*ck.” Armie’s voice sounds beyond frustrated, and Timmy can’t help but get a little angry, just what the f*ck is he playing at? He was the one that kissed him, not the other way around, so why is he acting like Timmy is the problem?

“What, Armie? What did I do now that’s so f*cking awful?” Timmy throws his hands up in frustration before crossing them in front of him, glaring over at Armie. The way Armie looks at him when he lifts his head from his hands feels almost like a punch to the stomach, he looks completely devastated, and Timmy feels more lost than ever. “I’m sorry, Timmy, I am, I just- You don’t understand.” Armie whispers, and Timmy feels a little bit of his anger return. “Well then explain it to me, Armie! For f*cks sake!” He shouts, and Armie stares back at him open mouthed and wide eyed, clearly not having expected that reaction.

A little over a minute passes, and Armie still hasn’t said a word, he's just staring dumbly over at Timmy. “Seriously? You’re really just gonna stand there and not say anything?” Timmy shrugs, feeling more than a little agitated. “Fine! I’ll talk then. You’re being a f*cking idiot. Whatever it is you’re angsting about just say it. I can’t help you with it if you don’t talk to me!”

“That’s just it, Timmy! You can’t help me, because you’re the problem!” Armie snaps, regret instantly flashing across his face, no doubt because of the hurt gasp that left Timmy’s mouth and the tears welling up in his eyes. The anger leaves his body instantly, replaced by hurt and sadness. He never realized how painful it would be to actually hear those words said out loud, he was the problem. Armie saw him as a problem. Armie already meant so much to him, and he’d hoped Armie felt it too, but it turns out… He was just a problem. He looks up at Armie, and he can’t help the tears that run down his face when he blinks, he swallows slowly, before whispering. “If I’m such a problem, maybe you should just leave.”

Armie takes two long strides towards him, leaving them almost as close as when they were making out, but when he reaches out for Timmy, he takes a quick step back, dodging his touch and Armie looks like he’s been kicked in the balls. “f*ck- Timmy. Please, don’t – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Timmy scoffs, wiping his tears away, and glaring over at Armie. “Yeah, because there’s so many different meanings behind those words, don’t lie to me, Armie. That’s not fair.”

“I’m not lying! You’re not the problem, the problem is me!” Armie says desperately, reaching out for Timmy again, but he just shakes his head, and Armie lets his arms fall down to his sides.

“It’s not you it’s me, that’s original.” Timmy spits out, looking up at the ceiling in a desperate attempt at stopping more tears from escaping. It’s not even the first time he’s heard those words, that's the worst part, but somehow, despite actually having dated the last person for nearly a year, it actually hurts more coming from Armie.

He hears a loud sigh coming from Armie, and he looks over at him, but he’s not there. Timmy looks around confused, did he just leave? Somehow that’s even worse, and he’s just about to start crying for real when he suddenly hears Armie speaking. “That’s not what I’m saying at all, Timmy.” He follows the sound of his voice and sees Armie sitting on the floor, leaning against the back of the couch, legs stretched out in front of him as he looks up at Timmy, defeated.

Despite doing everything in his power to stop it from happening, more tears run down his face, and Timmy desperately swallows down a sob. “Sure sounds like it.” He croaks out, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. Wiping away every single escaping tear as quickly as he can, why does Armie keep lying? That just makes everything so much worse.

Armie sighs again, looking up at Timmy tearfully, reaching out for him again. “I didn’t mean it like that, please.” When Armie’s voice cracks on the last word, Timmy takes his hand, and lets himself get pulled down to the floor, sitting down cross-legged in between Armie’s outstretched legs. Armie sends him a small grateful smile, before swallowing slowly, clearing his throat. “I only meant, you overwhelm me, Timmy. I can’t think when you’re around, let alone when you answer the door half naked, and casually talk about how easily I could leave marks on you. That’s the problem.” He rolls his eyes and shakes his head, and Timmy suddenly feels a thousand pounds lighter. He wasn’t the problem. Or, well, he was, just not in the way he’d been thinking. He puts his hand down on Armie’s knee, giving it a light squeeze. Smiling over at Armie.

At the sight of Timmy’s smile, Armie looks so relieved he actually closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before continuing “I just – I really don’t want to ruin what could possibly turn out to be the most important friendship of my life, just because I’m unable to keep my dick in my pants, you know?” Timmy is surprisingly happy he’s not the only one affected by all this, that their instant connection wasn't a one sided figment of his imagination after all, and he can’t help but poke a little fun at Armie’s last statement.

“To be fair, your dick never actually left your pants.” He says with a laugh, laughing even harder at the incredulous look on Armie’s face.

“Dude, seriously?”

“The facts are the facts, dude.” Timmy says with a shrug, still chuckling lightly, before getting serious again. “I hear you though, I just think you’re going about it all wrong.” He gets where Armie’s coming from he really does, the sexual tension between them is so f*cking thick you could practically cut it with a knife, and that’s only from spending two days together, it’s unlikely it’s just going to go away on its own anytime soon. And with the contracts they signed this morning, well, something had to give, or they’d run the risk of really f*cking sh*t up for themselves. And in Timmy’s mind, there was really only one solution to this.

“Yeah? And how’s that?” He could tell, basically as soon as they left his mouth, that his words confused Armie a little, he’d clearly not had the same idea Timmy just got, which fair enough, Timmy had thought it was a fairly obvious conclusion, but apparently not.

He squeezes Armie’s knee again, smiling at the way it makes Armie shudder. “Well, we’re obviously sexually attracted to each other, we can agree on that, yeah?” He smiles softly over at Armie, and when he nods Timmy continues. “We’re going to be stuck with each other for the next few years, and literally everyone will think we’re dating, so we can’t exactly sleep with other people on the down low without the risk of it leaking out and blowing up in our faces. And if that happened? It would probably end with Peter and Marcus murdering us in our sleep, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t exactly say I’m all that keen on that happening. So why don’t we just... f*ck each other?” He says the last part as casually as he possibly could, not wanting to push Armie into anything he doesn’t actually want.

The look on Armie’s face would be hilarious in any other circ*mstance, the way his jaw is slack with surprise, mouth hanging wide open and his eyes practically bugging out of his head. He almost looks like a cartoon character, in fact, he reminds Timmy a whole hell of a lot of the squirrel from Ice Age, and he has to literally bite his tongue in order to not laugh in Armie’s face. It definitely was not the time for that.

“F-Friends with benefits? That’s – you-you’re actually suggesting that we’ll b-be f*ck buddies?!” Armie stutters out, blinking furiously up at Timmy. And well, while that’s not exactly the reaction Timmy was expecting, it’s not a no, so really, it could have been worse.

“Yeah! Why not? It doesn’t have to mean anything, if that’s what you’re worried about? It’s just sex. And again, we’re not gonna be able to get it anywhere else, for two years, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly looking forward to being forced into celibacy.” Timmy can see Armie opening his mouth to cut him off, so he cuts him off first. “Yes, I know, I should have thought about that before signing the contract, shut up.” He laughs, shaking his head at Armie’s wide grin, obviously pleased that Timmy instantly understood what he was going to say.

“But seriously though, why not take advantage of the situation, and our mutual attraction? I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” Apart from Timmy falling in love and ending up heartbroken, of course, but that was pretty much already a given at this point, so he might as well get two years of happiness and good sex out of it before everything is brutally ripped out of his hands forever.

Timmy can actually see Armie considering it, which is strangely endearing, and when a smile spreads across his face, Timmy’s stomach lights up with happiness. He’s actually going to say yes?

“No, yeah, you’re right. When you put it like that, it does make sense. No feelings, just sex.” And just like that, Timmy lands back on earth. No feelings. He knows that’s basically exactly what he said, and his entire selling point, but it still stings. He plasters on a wide grin of his own, squeezing Armie’s knee again to ground himself a little.

“Exactly. No feelings, just sex.”

God, he hopes he didn’t just talk them into making a massive mistake.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Timmy doesn’t know how long they sit on the floor, just looking at each other, after making their friends with benefits deal. But it must be a while, because to be honest, his ass is starting to fall asleep on him. He still can’t believe Armie actually said yes, he thought he’d have to sell it a lot harder, he definitely didn’t think he’d be able to convince him on the first argument alone. He has no idea where the f*ck they go from here though, one thing is agreeing to be friends with benefits, it’s something completely different to actually put it into practice. Are they supposed to start now? Or do they wait? And if so, how long for? Until filming is done?

...Oh god, he’s going to have to f*cking ask, isn’t he?

“Uhm.” Timmy bites his bottom lip, looking over at Armie with a nervous smile. “So, what happens now?” Armie doesn’t look like he has any more ideas than Timmy, shrugging his shoulders with a sheepish smile, and Timmy can’t help but laugh. So far this is going great! Armie starts chuckling too, but then he must have thought of something, because he suddenly frowns.

“I think, as much as we can anyway, with everything that’s already happened, take things a bit slow. Like, yeah, sure, it’s just friends with benefits, but we should still probably take some precautions. Especially considering we’re looking to keep this going for as long as we are. You know?” Armie looks questioningly over at Timmy, who nods, Armie is definitely right, they can’t just throw themselves headfirst into this, no matter how much they both might want to, that was just begging for disaster.

He smiles at Armie, watching as his face softens almost immediately. “You’re right, yeah, we should probably discuss this a little more.”

“Yeah, can we do that on the couch though?” Armie says with a laugh. “Because I’m pretty sure I can no longer feel my ass.” Timmy can’t help but laugh as well, his own ass had gone well and truly numb by now too, hardwood flooring not exactly proving to be ass friendly. Actually, come to to think of it, he adds a mental note to remember to put down a pillow if he ever were to give Armie a blowj*b in the living room. Luca probably wouldn’t be too happy with Elio suddenly showing up with bruised knees.

Timmy stands up slowly, shaking out the stiffness in his legs and lightly massaging his ass cheeks as the blood flow is returned and it makes things tingle a little. He watches with a smirk as Armie’s eyes seems to be stuck on the movement of his hands from where he’s still sitting on the floor, and Timmy slowly brings his hands to a halt, ending up essentially cupping his own ass.

“My eyes are up here, you know.” He teases, chuckling a little as Armie looks up at him, guilt at being caught written all over his face, making Timmy laugh properly and shake his head at him.

“I’m sorry, you’re just… Distracting.” Armie clears his throat and gets up from the floor, wiping his hands on his jeans. Timmy looks up at him and pokes him in the chest with his index finger.

“You’re one to talk.” He smiles, smiling wider when his words actually makes Armie blush.

Just then Timmy’s stomach rumbles, and he realizes they really haven’t eaten much today, in fact the only thing he remembers eating, were the corn flakes and pastries from this morning. Armie seems to have come to the same realization, because he frowns, and asks if Timmy wants to order some pizza. And Timmy, who is always down for pizza, quickly agrees.

Since the pizzeria is literally right next to their apartment building, they decide to just go down and order from there, instead of calling them and wait for the delivery. When they get there, they both realize that they’re a lot more hungry than they thought, so instead of just getting one pizza to share, they decide to order one each, and save the leftovers for breakfast in the morning. When it’s their turn, Armie wrinkles his nose at Timmy when he relays his order of one plain cheese pizza, “Why mess with perfection?” Timmy grins, and Armie just shrugs, ordering one with everything.

And 20 minutes later they’re on their way back up the stairs to Timmy’s apartment, both carrying one pizza box each.

As Armie goes to settle down on the couch, Timmy goes to the kitchen to get them something to drink, he might not have any beers – he’s never really been one for drinking by himself – but he does have some cans of co*ke, which is better than nothing. He takes the cans out of the fridge and hurries back out into the living room, in part because he doesn’t want to keep Armie waiting, but also because the cans are freakishly cold and his hands are already freezing. He puts the cans of co*ke down on the coffee table in front of them and sits down next to Armie, rubbing his hands together in hopes of warming them up a little, before opening his pizza box and turning to face Armie with a smile.

They devour their pizza’s in record time, only leaving behind two or threeslices each, and Timmy swears he’s never had a pizza this good in his life. And being from New York, he thought he knew good pizza. Since food always made him strangely thirsty, Timmy had to go back to the kitchen and get them a couple more cans of co*ke, because the ones he’d gotten earlier were already empty.

When their food break was well and truly over, it was time to go back to the topic at hand. Being friends with benefits, and what that actually meant.

“So, do you wanna go first, or should I?” Timmy asks, hoping against hope that Armie will take the lead on this, despite the whole thing being his idea, mostly because he has no f*cking idea what to even say. He’s never been friends with benefits with anyone before, but Armie’s been around longer than he has, and with the whole closeting thing, maybe he’s had some experience they could draw on.

But Armie just shrugs. “I’ve never done this before, so, maybe you should go first?”

Well, sh*t.

Timmy can’t help but frown as he tries to think of something to say, but absolutely nothing comes to mind, and he can tell that his prolonged silence is making Armie nervous. He puts his hand on Armie’s ankle and rubs his thumb in soothing circles over the bone there, apparently Armie hadn’t bothered putting on socks after his shower, Timmy hadn’t noticed he was barefoot earlier.

Timmy takes his hand back off Armie's ankle, and scratches his nose, drawing in a deep breath before releasing it quickly. He sends Armie a smile as he opens his mouth to start his sentence, but changes his mind at the last second, and closes it again with a frown. This shouldn’t be this f*cking difficult, they haven’t even done anything yet, well, if you disregard the thing back at Luca’s of course, since that happened before the whole f*ck buddy thing was agreed upon.

“I honestly have no f*cking idea where to even begin.” Timmy says with a shrug. “I guess we should, I don’t know, talk about our expectations? Is that a thing people do in these situations?” He looks over at Armie who just shrugs back, before nodding.

“Sure, that sounds, reasonable?”

“Great! I’ve always wanted to be reasonable.” Timmy laughs.

“Right, uh, my expectations...” What even were his f*cking expectations? Heh, f*cking expectations. Well, that was one he supposed, he expects them to have sex, and quite a lot of it, and he expects it to be good. But other than that…

“I don’t know man, I just – literally the only thing I’m expecting is sex. And a lot of it. Other than that, I don’t know. Do you have anything?” He looks over at Armie and sees him smiling, it’s honestly a little disconcerting just how quickly warmth spreads in his stomach at the sight of it, and it’s not even anything to do with arousal, it’s just – it’s Armie, there’s no other way to explain it.

Armie leans over to the table and opens his co*ke can, sending Timmy a look asking if he should open his as well, so he nods. Armie hands him his can as he leans back, and Timmy takes a large gulp, not having realized just how thirsty he actually was. The liquid is so cold it almost feels like it’s burning his throat and he lets out a small burp without even meaning to, instantly putting his hand over his mouth, staring wide eyed over at Armie who just laughs.

Timmy puts his co*ke can back on the table and starts nervously picking at the skin next to his nail on his thumb while he waits for Armie to gather his thoughts and give him a rundown of his expectations. What if Armie expected something Timmy wouldn’t be able to give him? Or worse, what if he had no expectations at all and instead realized this was all just one giant mistake, leaving Timmy with permanent blue balls for the next two years. He honestly didn’t know which scenario was worse. Okay, yes he does, the blue balls would definitely be worse.

He watches as Armie takes another sip of his soda, draining the can, and placing it back on the table. “I – Uhm – I mean, I don’t- Hmm.” Armie cuts himself off and starts chewing on his bottom lip, looking deep in thought, and Timmy takes the chance to just stare at him a little. He still can’t quite believe he’s going to get to have sex with Armie, regularly, for two years. Let alone get paid to be his boyfriend.

Wait.

Does this mean he’s technicallygetting paid for sex?

Huh. That’s…

Well, to be fair, Armie wasn’t the one paying him, and it’s not like the sex part was in the contract itself, so while he’s not actually getting paid for the sex, he is getting paid for something, while they're having sex. Before he has a chance to chase that thought any further, Armie interrupts him, seemingly having come up with some expectations.

“My expectations, Timmy, I guess would be, that we have fun, we both – uh – enjoy ourselves, and I don’t know, maybe we can use this experience to experiment a little? Test out some things we’ve always wanted to try, but never seemed to find the right time for, or the right partner to do it with.” Armie smiles over at him, looking nervous, probably worried he crossed some boundaries or something with his experimentation comment, but Timmy is really glad he said it, because he hadn’t even thought of that aspect of things.

“Yeah! That’s – Yeah. Experimentation, I’m down for that, definitely.” Timmy grins, just the thought of possibly being Armie’s first something, hell, first anything, making him giddy. Armie sends him a relieved smile and reaches out and takes Timmy’s hand in his, his thumb stroking the inside of Timmy’s wrist, making shivers go down his spine.

“Did you – I mean, since you mentioned experimenting, do you have something in mind already?” Timmy asks, looking at Armie from under his eyelashes, biting his bottom lip nervously, hoping it wouldn’t be anything too out there, he’d really hate if he had to turn down the very first thing Armie suggested.

Armie grins sheepishly, so he did have something. “I… I like bondage, I’ve always liked bondage, but I never had a regular partner to do it with. None of my previous boyfriends were into it, and apart from some light restraints, it’s not exactly something you can bring out on a one night stand. So, I haven’t really had the chance to, well, indulge.” Armie’s words practically sets his stomach on fire, his arousal literally burning in his veins, needless to say, yes, he was very much into that idea. Just imagining Armie tying him up, having his way with him, and using him for his own pleasure has Timmy’s co*ck hardening in his pajamas, despite his recent jerk off session in the shower.

He also pictures them doing it the other way around, and he actually has to press the heel of his hand against his dick to alleviate things a little, because the image of Armie on his knees with his arms tied behind his back as Timmy f*cks his mouth? Up until now he had no idea that was even a thing he wanted, but f*ck if it didn’t turn him on.

“Yeah, bondage, yes. I’m – Yes. Definitely.” Timmy nods frantically, and it’s Armie’s turn to smirk. Timmy can feel himself blush, he’s pretty sure everything he’s feeling in this moment is written all over his face, and that’s not even mentioning the tent in his pajama pants. “Liked the thought of that, did you?” Armie grins wickedly, eyes dropping to Timmy’s lap, grinning wider at the obvious sign of Timmy’s arousal.

“That’s like the fourth time today, isn’t it?” Armie teases.

Timmy huffs out a laugh, shrugging his shoulders, not even a little bit embarrassed at the effect Armie has on him, because he knows he has the exact same effect on him, which is the whole reason they’re sitting here talking about this in the first place. “Can you blame me? The mental images that suggestion brings with it?” He watches Armie nod in agreement, and decides to get him back for the last comment, just because he can. “Besides, I’m literally a teenager, Armie, so many hormones. What’s your excuse?” Timmy grins at the look on Armie’s face, a mix of surprise and approval, before he starts laughing and shaking his head.

“You got me there.”

“So, what about you? What’s something you’ve always wanted to try?” Armie looks genuinely interested, and Timmy is… Drawing a complete blank. What is something he’s always wanted to try? His last boyfriend barely let him suck his dick, so at the time, that was what he was craving the most, but it hardly counts as something worthy of experimentation.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I guess I haven’t actually had that much sex yet.” At Armie’s raised eyebrow, he hurries to explain. “Like, obviously, there have been a few people, I’m not a virgin or anything! Not that that would be a bad thing! I’m just not. Anyway. For me it was always just, like, you know. In and out.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he wishes he could take them back. In and out? Really, Timmy? That’s what you go with? He looks wide eyed over at Armie, who is looking like he’s really struggling not to laugh, and Timmy lets out a loud groan and hides his face in his hands.

“…Oh god, that sounded terrible.” He whines, scrubbing his hands across his face before looking up at Armie, who’s now smiling softly at him. “What I meant was, I haven’t ever had a relationship that lasted long enough for us to start to explore things further than, well, the usual things.”

At his explanation, Armie nods. “Yeah, same here, really. Like, yeah, I’ve had a few of boyfriends up through the years, but, they usually never lasted longer than a few months.” Armie smiles sadly down at his hands, and Timmy reaches over and puts his hand on Armie’s ankle again, hoping it would bring him at least a little comfort.

“The constant stunting, the revolving door of girls I was supposedly f*cking, the tabloids always posting rumors of me cheating on whoever it was I was supposed to be dating that day, and eventually... It just – It always got to be too much for them. Even though they knew I wasn’t actually f*cking any of those girls, the fact that everyone thought I was, it… It’s just hard, you know? Sharing your partner with someone else, even if it is just for pretend. Especially when you can’t actually lay any claim to them yourself.”

Timmy can’t even imagine that, having a boyfriend, someone who he loves, pretend to be in love with someone else for the whole world to see. Acting in love for the movies is one thing, that he could handle, because everyone knew that was just, well, acting. But having them pretend on their downtime too? Having to see them kiss someone else, talk about being in love with someone else to the media, see the posts about them on their social media… Yeah, he could definitely understand why that eventually just got to be too much, he wouldn’t have been able to deal with that either.

Timmy takes his hand off of Armie’s ankle, and reaches for his hand instead, entwining their fingers and giving Armie’s hand a light squeeze, making Armie look up at him with a small smile. “I’m sorry, Armie, that- I can’t even imagine how much that must have hurt. Both you, and your boyfriends.” Timmy says with a sad smile, lifting his and Armie’s entwined hands up to his mouth, kissing the back of Armie’s hand. He looks up when he hear Amie gasp, and it’s only then he realizes that maybe this isn’t exactly the normal f*ck buddy behavior. But then again, what even is normal between them anymore?

Timmy has literally never met someone who he’s felt this instantly connected to, and it’s not even just about attraction, it’s almost as if… As if their souls recognized each other. He has no other way of describing it, but it fits, because while they only met yesterday, Timmy feels like he’s known Armie forever. He’s never been this comfortable around a stranger, ever, in fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever been this comfortable around people he’s known for years either, except his immediate family.

When he meets Armie’s gaze, he can’t help but blush at the intensity of his stare, and he knows Armie is probably mentally undressing him right now, and it gives him a small head rush. Knowing Armie is attracted to him is a surprisingly powerful feeling, and he going to have to work really hard to not take advantage of it every time the opportunity presents itself. Like now.

He wants nothing more than to straddle Armie’s lap, kiss him until they’re both breathless and not to mention, ride his dick until they both come, but, they haven’t finished their conversation yet, so he stays where he is. Armie on the other hand, seems to have no problems breaking the rules, as he untangles their fingers and uses both hands to cup Timmy’s cheeks, stroking both his thumbs over Timmy’s cheekbones, and then leaning forwards, capturing his mouth in a chaste, but sweet, kiss. Armie smiles as he pulls back, and Timmy feels a couple of butterflies come to life in his stomach as he smiles back.

“Thank you.” Armie whispers, and for a second Timmy thinks he’s thanking him for the kiss, but then he remembers, oh yeah, they were actually having a conversation.

“At least that’s something you can leave in the past, and your next boyfriend, he won’t have to share you with anyone.” Timmy tries to sound happy on Armie’s behalf, but he’s pretty sure it comes out sounding more strained than anything else, just the thought of Armie leaving him behind for someone else… No, he can’t go down that road, he can’t, it’s way too soon.

Armie sends him a small pained smile. “Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t – I… I can’t think about that right now, Timmy. It’s – I mean – It’s too far away still.” Timmy nods, knowing he’s right, but that’s something he’s always excelled at. Getting ahead of himself.

“Anyway.” Armie clears his throat. “We weren’t finished with our conversation.” He says with a smirk, clearly more than ready to get back to the topic of sex. And Timmy feels almost an overwhelming sense of relief at the change of topic, talking about sex was safe, feelings were not.

“Yeah, so, experimentation!” Timmy claps his hands together with a wide smile. “I still have no idea what the f*ck we should experiment with. Should we google it?” Timmy asks with a laugh, laughing even harder when Armie just shrugs. “You know what? Why the f*ck not?”

Timmy watches with amusem*nt as Armie digs his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, and starts googling, whatever it is he finds, it’s obvious it wasn’t quite what he’d imagined, because the look on his face is more that of wide eyed surprise than satisfaction.

“Did you find anything?” Timmy asks after a while, and Armie looks over at him, with both of his eyebrows raised. “I – Yes? But also, I don’t know, this – I – There’s a list, but it’s, a lot.” He blinks rapidly down at this phone, before handing it over to Timmy, so he can see for himself. As Timmy begins to scroll, he definitely understands why Armie was so overwhelmed, because yeah, this is, like he said, a lot.

The list contained everything from regular bondage, which they’d already agreed to try, to things like blood play and watersports, which… Yeah, no thank you. “If you send me the link, I can print the list out, and we can go over it together, maybe?” Timmy looks over at Armie, and sees him nod.

“Sure, yeah, that’s a good idea. But maybe we should both get a copy? That way we can check off the ones we 100% definitely want to try, the maybe’s and the definite no’s, and then compare afterwards? It’s, you know, it’s easier being honest that way.”

Timmy hadn’t even thought of that, the possibility of finding something on the list he really wanted, but would be too embarrassed by, to say out loud. There would probably be at least a couple of things like that, and Armie was right, it would definitely be easier to just put a check mark down on a piece of paper, instead of actually saying ‘Yes, I want this’ out loud.

“Yeah.” Timmy nods. “That – Yeah. Good idea.” He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, and pulls it out, opening Armie’s text and clicking the link. He gets up from the couch and goes over to his desk, which stands in the opposite corner of the room, and he checks that the printer has paper before turning it on, and enabling the Bluetooth function. Three seconds later, he has the kink lists in his hands. He grabs a couple of ballpoint pens from his desk, and hands one to Armie, along with the list, and sits down next to him on the couch, to start filling it out.

It’s a pretty extensive list, and reading through it again, he sees a few things he knows he’s going to have to end up googling, like knismolagnia, whatever that is. One google search later, he puts it down as a no, he really doesn’t think tickling will ever be arousing for him, partially because he’s not ticklish himself, and the idea of Armie getting hard from being tickled? Well, he’s always down for Armie getting hard, but, tickling? Nah.

Something else that instantly goes on his no list, is scat play, that’s, no. He’d watched 2 girls 1 cup one time when he was like, 12, and had nightmares for a week. On the yes side though, he’s checking off a lot more things than he thought he would. Edging? Yes, please. Marking? Both actual physical marking, and come marking, are a definite yes. Fisting? Eh… A maybe. Daddy kink? Oh sh*t. Just the thought of calling Armie Daddy has his co*ck start fattening back up in his pants, so that’s also a yes, and he crosses his fingers that Armie checks that one off as well, or talk about wasted opportunities.

He’s so caught up in his list, that when Armie speaks, he actually jumps a little in his seat, and as his heart is busy trying to race out of his chest, he looks over at Armie, to get him to repeat himself, because he really wasn’t listening.

“Sorry, I wasn’t really paying attention there, what’d you say?” Timmy sends him a sheepish smile.

“I said, have you ever heard of figging?” Armie repeats, looking more than a little confused. “I mean, the f*ck is that? Since when are figs used in sex?” Timmy watches as a look of horrified realization dawns on Armie’s face. “Oh god, please don’t – Is it like the peach thing? Do people stick their dicks in figs?” Timmy can’t help but burst out laughing, because Armie looks so f*cking done with humanity, it’s hysterical.

Just as Armie is about to reach for his phone, probably to google figging, Timmy pokes him in the side, still chuckling lightly. “It’s, uh – a skinned ginger root, carved into the shape of a butt plug, and, well, it goes up your partner's asshole.” Timmy can’t help but burst back into laughter at the wide eyed look of horror on Armie’s face, clearly this sounded no better to him.

“But… Why?” Timmy just shrugs. “I don’t know, why do people do anything.” It’s actually on his yes list, but given Armie’s reaction, it will probably end up a no on his, which fair enough, it really wasn’t for everyone.

“Do you – I mean – How’d you? Do you – Like – Want to?” Armie stutters out, and Timmy shrugs again, there’s no point in lying, Armie will see his list later anyway.

“Yeah, kinda? I don’t know. I have a friend who is in a BDSM relationship with his girlfriend, and had it done to him, like as a punishment. And he said, that while it was definitely one of the most painful things he’d ever had done to him, the pleasure the pain brought with it was unlike anything he’d ever felt before, so, yeah, I kinda want to try it, just you know… To see if I can experience that same pleasure for myself.”

Timmy bites his bottom lip, looking nervously over at Armie, who stares back at him, squinting with consideration. It’s like time slows down, because it feels like forever before anything else happens, but then Armie nods.

“Yeah, okay. As long as I don’t have to be the one with the ginger butt plug, I’m game. I mean, I don’t like the thought of actually hurting you, but, hurting you a little, in the right way? I’m not gonna lie, that, I – yeah.” Armie licks his lips, and Timmy feels his eyes zero in on it immediately, tracing the quick, wet, movement of Armie’s tongue, until it disappears from view again, and Timmy brings his eyes back up to meet Armie’s, who smirks at him, and he rolls his eyes in return.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m attracted to you, we already know that, so shut up.” Timmy laughs.

“It’s always nice to be reminded.” Armie winks, before looking down at the piece of paper on the table. “Alright, back to the list then, are you – I mean, I guess I’ll find out soon enough, but, are you checking off a lot?” Timmy wonders if he’s asking because he himself has checked off more than he thought, or because he hasn’t checked off enough, so he just shrugs.

“I mean, yeah? Sure there are quite a few no’s, but, yeah, there’s a lot of yes and maybe’s. What about you?”

Armie lets out a small sigh of relief, and Timmy has to fight against himself in order to not laugh at him, god why was everything he did so f*cking adorable? “Yeah, same.” Armie says with a nod, going back to his list, so Timmy does the same.

He’s almost made it all the way through, when one thing catches his eye. “Praise kink.” If that is what he thinks it is… He picks his phone up from where it was lying next to him on the couch cushion, does a quick google search, and sucks in a quick breath. That, right there, if Armie didn’t have that down as a yes, he might actually cry, he didn’t realize it was possible to want something that badly, and that was just from reading the words on a piece of paper, actually doing it might just end up being the death of him.

He finishes the list with one last ‘No’ in regards to eyeball licking, which, he didn’t even know people did that. He can’t even touch his own eyeball without wincing, so having someone lick it? No, thank you. Timmy looks over at Armie, just as he finishes with his list as well, and Armie catches his eye with a smile.

“I couldn’t help but notice, that there isn’t really a preference definition anywhere. You know, like, do you want to be the one doing this to your partner or having it done to you by your partner. So I checked off quite a few maybe’s, with things I’d like to do to you, that I’m not necessarily in a rush to ever have done to me, if that makes sense.” Armie says with a sheepish smile, and Timmy nods, it definitely does make perfect sense, he didn’t really have anything like that, everything he’d checked off on, he was willing to do both ways. Except the daddy kink, he couldn’t exactly picture Armie calling him Daddy.

“Yeah, that does make sense. And speaking of preferences, I guess we should get the whole, you know, top bottom thing out of the way.” Timmy says with a smile, knowing some people were very hung up on who did what, while others, like himself were more relaxed towards the whole thing. “I – It doesn’t really matter to me, personally, I like both. So for me it just depends on what I want in that particular moment, you know? What about you?” He chews on his bottom lip while waiting for Armie’s answer, hoping he’d say he was versatile as well, not that he didn’t like bottoming, because he really did, but if, in the two years they were doing this, he never actually got to f*ck Armie? Well that would f*cking suck.

Armie smiles widely over at him. “Yeah, me too. Like, I do prefer to top, but, I’m not against doing it the other way. In fact, some of the best sex I’ve ever had has been with me bottoming, so that’s definitely not an issue.” Hearing that, Timmy feels both relieved and incredibly turned on, because of course the only thing he’s able to picture now, is Armie underneath him, with his legs on Timmy’s shoulders as he f*cks him as hard as he possibly could.

He reaches for his can of co*ke and drains what’s left of it, thanking every deity out there for that fact that Armie can’t actually read his mind, despite being seemingly way too adept at reading his face considering the short period of time they’ve known each other. Timmy still can’t believe it’s only been two days. Two days. It’s actually more than a little insane.

“So.” Armie lightly pokes Timmy’s thigh. “Is it reveal time?” Timmy nods and they exchange lists with a smile.

Well, would you look at that. Turns out they’d mostly checked off the same things, which was promising. But there were a couple of differences as well, notably the fact that Armie had put a maybe next to watersports, which meant Timmy couldn’t help but think, Armie wants to pee on me, and laugh inwardly at how weird that sentence sounded. But it didn’t really matter, he’d put that down as a no, so it wasn’t happening, besides, he’d checked off plenty of ‘weird’ things himself.

But also, who knows, maybe curiosity would eventually get the best of him with the whole watersports thing, after all, they didn’t exactly state that there were no take backs, and god only knows what things they'd end up discovering about themselves after doing this for a while. When he gets to the daddy kink part, Armie has that down as a maybe as well, making Timmy’s eyes widen, did that mean… No? It couldn’t, could it? Please god, don’t say that Armie actually wanted to call him daddy. But, he had said he marked down the things he wanted to do to Timmy as maybe’s, and this was a maybe, and sh*t...

Once again, he was just going to have to suck it up, and f*cking ask.

“Uhm. You put a maybe on daddy kink, and, well, earlier you said you put maybe’s on the things you wanted to do to me. But – Uh – You don’t want to call me daddy. ...Do you?” Unfortunately for Timmy, his voice came out sounding pretty much as horrified as he was feeling, and Armie looked up from where he was studying Timmy’s list, making eye contactand promptly burst into laughter. No doubt because of the totally freaked out look on Timmy’s face. He couldn’t help it, okay! The thought of Armie calling him daddy, it was just, no.

“No, god, Timmy. Oh man, the look on your face.” Armie breaks off, laughing even harder. When he’s finally managed to calm down, Timmy watches as he wipes a tear away from under his eye, and he can’t help but roll his eyes, it wasn’t that funny. But Armie clearly disagrees, because he’s still smiling a lot wider than normal. “That one was genuinely just a maybe. I’ve never had anyone call me that before, but, the thought of you saying it? I… Yeah.” The utter relief Timmy felt hearing those words were almost borderline ridiculous, but thank f*cking god. They seem to be quite compatible in bed so far, going by their lists anyway.

When Timmy gets to the barebacking bit, he smirks, seeing Armie has that down as a yes too. He knows they can’t exactly rush into that though, it requires some planning. “So, the barebacking thing.” Timmy starts, smiling as Armie just raises an eyebrow.

“We should, I mean, I’m like 99% sure I’m clean, but we should probably still get tested. Just to be safe, yeah? Because, yeah, I always do make sure condoms are being worn during sex, but, you know, I don’t… I don’t suck dick with condoms on. So. Yeah. If we want to do that, we should definitely get tested first, so maybe we’ll wait with that one until we’re back in the States?”

While Timmy could literally feel himself rambling, he was helpless to put a stop to it, his brain just kept spewing things out of his mouth without his control. Luckily Armie seemed to agree with him though, because he’d been nodding practically the whole time.

“Yeah, definitely. I don’t like the taste of latex either, but I already get tested regularly, so that’s not an issue for me at all. In fact, I’m scheduled for a check up about a week after we get back.” At the look of surprise on Timmy’s face, Armie smiles and adds. “Better safe than sorry, man. You should really think about getting tested regularly too. Like yeah, the next couple of years will no doubt be safe for you, but – uh – you know, after. You should think about it. After all, it only takes one time...”

Timmy knows he’s right, he’s been a bit too trusting of his partners so far, really. He makes a mental note to take Armie’s advice when they get back home, and make regular appointments with his doctor.

All in all, Armie’s list matches his pretty well, there were a few differences, but not a whole lot, and Timmy was very pleased to see that Armie also had praise kink down as a yes. It was pretty safe to say that their sex life was going to be pretty interesting over the next couple of years, and he could hardly wait.

They decide to wait with the real in depth kink negotiations – for the things that definitely required further negotiation, which turned out to be a lot more than they’d expected going in – until the time came to actually try them out. They had, however, already settled on using the traffic light system as their safe word, just in case one of them needed to use it even when things weren’t necessarily intense. Armie had, once again, made the argument of better safe than sorry, and Timmy definitely agreed with that. And even though he did trust Armie to actually stop if he said stop during ‘regular’ sex, it still felt nice to have a formal safe word, made things a little more official, if nothing else.

By the time they look at the clock, it’s already past midnight, and Timmy has no idea where these last few hours even went, they’d passed in a blur of pizza, emotions and talking about sex.

“Oh, I just remembered!” Armie says out of the blue, turning so he’s sitting sideways and cross-legged on the couch. “How’s your leg? We were gonna keep an eye on it, but, well, you know. We got distracted.” Distracted, yeah, that’s one way of putting it, Timmy had actually completely forgotten he even hurt his leg earlier, but as he pulls his pajama pants up until they’re bunched under his knee, he lets out an audible breath at the sight of a very impressive, but still quite red, bruise on the front of his shin.

Timmy startles a little when he feels Armie reach for his leg, but he quickly understands what it is he’s going for, and turns sideways on the couch as well, lifting his leg up as best he can, sighing a little in relief as Armie places it on his shoulder. It’s still a bit of a stretch, but at least this way he doesn’t have to actively hold it up himself, which does help quite a bit.

He winces a little as Armie uses his thumb to gently rub across the bruise, not because it actually hurts, but more because he worried that it might. Armie seems to take it as a confirmation of pain though, because he whispers out a “Sorry” and turns his head to kiss Timmy’s ankle in apology.

“It’s probably a good thing filming hasn’t started yet, because it will definitely take at least a couple of weeks to heal.” Armie says quietly, still stroking Timmy’s leg with his thumb, just carefully bypassing the bruise.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t wanna piss off the make up department on the very first day.”

“So, no visible marks then, is what you’re saying?” Armie smirks at him, kissing his ankle again, but more firmly this time, a teasing maneuver as opposed to the comforting one from before.

Timmy sucks in a breath, but before things have the chance to escalate, he removes his leg from Armie’s shoulder and sits back up properly on the couch. He sends Armie a small smile, not wanting him to feel panicked or thinking he’d done something wrong, because he hadn’t.

“We should call it a day, I think.” Timmy says, standing up and collecting the two pizza boxes and their empty cans of co*ke from the table, getting ready to bring everything with him into the kitchen.

He looks down at Armie and sees him frowning, so he adds. “Today has been more than eventful enough already, we still have to face Luca tomorrow and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be sleep deprived for that. Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed? But that man? He is freakishly perceptive.”

At Armie’s nod, Timmy walks into the kitchen, putting Armie’s two slices of leftover pizza into the same box as his own and putting it into the fridge before throwing the empty co*ke cans in the trash. When he turns to make his way back to the living room, Armie is suddenly standing right behind him, blocking his path. Timmy, who hadn’t even heard that Armie followed him, startles, putting a hand to his suddenly racing heart.

“Dude! What the fu-”

The rest of his words are swallowed by Armie as he clutches Timmy’s face and captures his lips in a bruising kiss, pushing him up against the kitchen counter. Timmy moans with surprise and Armie takes the chance to slip his tongue into his mouth, at the first touch of Armie’s tongue against his, Timmy’s knees buckle a little, and Timmy feels Armie push him even harder into the counter to help support his weight. The kiss gets messy fast, both of them clearly more than a little worked up after going through their lists.

After a while, Timmy gets an idea and grins into the kiss before planting his palms on the counter, lifting himself up, and sitting down on the counter, wrapping his legs around Armie’s waist and locking his feet together behind his back. He lets his hands wander up Armie’s chest, ending up clutching onto his t-shirt as Armie bites Timmy’s bottom lip, causing him to let out a loud moan.

“sh*t.” Armie breathes out as he pulls back and Timmy lets his legs fall back down from Armie’s lower back. He subtly brings a hand down to his lap, adjusting himself in his underwear, not fully hard yet, but more than well on his way.

“Yeah.”

Armie’s eyes drop down to Timmy’s mouth and he lets out another curse before leaning forward to kiss him again, Timmy happily meets him halfway, burying his hand in the hair at the back of Armie’s head, and it’s Armie’s turn to moan into the kiss as Timmy pulls on his hair. Before Armie has the chance to deepen the kiss again, Timmy pulls back and instead attaches his mouth to Armie’s neck. He bites gently at the faint mark he’d left there earlierduring their thing in Luca's backyard, sucking at it lightlyto darken it a little, and the vibrations from the moan that slips out through Armie’s lips makes Timmy’s own lips tingle and his co*ck throb.

But before he has the chance to lift his hips in search of any form of friction, Armie takes a step back, and Timmy is left clutching air.

“No, come back.” He pouts, but Armie just shakes his head.

“You said you didn’t want to be sleep deprived tomorrow morning.” Armie reminds him.

“That was past!Timmy, he’s an idiot, don’t listen to him.”

Armie chuckles and reaches out to cup Timmy’s cheek, gently rubbing his thumb across Timmy’s kiss swollen lip. “I think past!Timmy had a point. After all, we have plenty of time for, this, there’s no need to rush.”

Timmy breathes out a sigh, hating how right Armie is, there definitely is no rush, but try telling that to his overexcited dick. “Yeah, you’re right, yeah. But - Uhm. Do you want to stay over?” Timmy asks, chewing on his bottom lip while waiting for Armie’s response.

“I – I mean, I live right across the hall, Timmy?” Armie frowns with confusion, and Timmy can’t help but smile at how adorable he looks.

“Yeah, I know, I just, I don’t know, today has been a lot, and… I don’t want to sleep alone, that’s all.” Timmy shrugs, looking down at his lap and rubbing his palms across his thighs. He startles a little at the feel of Armie’s fingers under his chin, tilting his head back to make eye contact.

“Then yes, of course. If you need me, I’m here for you, always. I promise.” Armie smiles softly down at him and leans in to kiss his cheek. “I just need to pop over to my place and get my toothbrush and a t-shirt to sleep in, and then I’ll be right back.”

Timmy stays sitting on the kitchen counter until he hears the front door open and close again as Armie leaves, and then he jumps down and goes to brush his teeth in the bathroom. He’s barely managed to coat the bristles of the brush with toothpaste by the time Armie comes back, standing next to him at the sink and wetting his own toothbrush and borrowing his toothpaste.

They brush their teeth, side by side, in silence, but their eyes keep meeting in the mirror making them both grin widely, and when some frothy toothpaste filled spit runs out the side of Armie’s mouth, Timmy has to quickly spit his out in the sink in order not to spray down the whole mirror when he laughs.

As they’re getting undressed for bed, both of them choosing to sleep in their underwear with a t-shirt on, Timmy can’t help but focus his gaze on the mark he’d left on Armie’s neck, and he reaches out and presses his thumb against it, smirking when Armie draws in a sharp breath.

“Did you actually… Mark me?” Armie breathes out, and Timmy just nods, still smirking.

“Oh just you wait.” Armie grins. “Payback’s a bitch.”

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Despite not wanting to be sleep deprived when going to see Luca in the morning, Timmy has a difficult time falling asleep. This time it’s not because he has too many thoughts swirling around in his head, but more because Armie is spooned up behind him, with an arm around his waist holding him in place, and Timmy really isn’t used to sharing his bed with anyone. Which is something he definitely should have considered before inviting Armie to spend the night, but the thought of sleeping alone was a lot worse. While he can’t deny that he feels both safe and cared for in Armie’s arms, his t-shirt is also uncomfortably damp with sweat and sticking to his back, no doubt thanks to Armie’s body temperature operating at sauna levels and the Italian summer air seeping in through the windows doesn’t help matters either. Armie must be feeling the heat too, because he’s already taken his t-shirt off, and Timmy is seriously considering doing the same thing.

The heat of having Armie spooned behind him isn’t the only thing that gets on his nerves, it’s also the fact that every single breath Armie releases tickles the back of his neck, the light snoring he can deal with, because that only serves to remind him he’s not alone. Eventually Timmy can’t take it anymore so he rolls over to face Armie and gently pushes him onto his back, luckily Armie doesn’t wake up, but he does frown and reach out for Timmy in his sleep, muttering something incomprehensible, which makes Timmy’s heart skip a beat. So instead of laying down on his side again, like he had planned, he chooses to lay his head down on Armie’s bare chest and once he’s gotten comfortable, snuggled up to Armie’s side, he smiles as Armie’s arm once again comes to rest around his waist, keeping him in place. And Timmy eventually falls asleep while listening to the steady, and strangely comforting, beat of Armie’s heart.

When Timmy’s alarm goes off the next morning, he’s surprised to find that he’s suddenly the one spooned up behind Armie. His face is rather uncomfortably squished up between Armie’s shoulder blades, and he’s got both his arms wrapped around Armie’s waist, clinging to him like a limpet. And his dick? Well, it’s rock hard, leaking, and resting comfortably against the swell of Armie’s ass. He can’t help but push his hips forward, grinding against Armie, and the delicious friction the action provides has him moaning low in his throat and doing it again. This time Armie pushes back against him and Timmy nearly blacks out from how f*cking good it feels, the next thing he knows, Armie lets out a loud curse and suddenly he’s flat on his back, blinking up at Armie who is hovering over him.

“Did you just bite me?” Timmy squints at Armie in confusion, did he? He genuinely can’t remember, but it does sound like something he would do, so he shrugs. Armie shakes his head with a smile, and Timmy lifts his hand to lightly poke his finger into the barely visible dimple in Armie’s cheek with a grin. He hadn’t noticed that yesterday, but it was strangely endearing, and he vowed to do everything he could to make that dimple show up as frequently as possible. While he’s busy getting lost in thought, Armie playfully pretends to bite Timmy’s finger, teeth barely grazing him, but when Timmy’s mouth drops open in a silent gasp, the look on Armie’s face changes from playful to turned on, and he wraps his lips around the digit instead, sucking it into his mouth.

Timmy lets out a quiet moan, the wet heat of Armie’s mouth feeling more than a little incredible and when Armie starts using his tongue to trace the length of his finger, Timmy really can’t help but think about how f*cking good this would feel on his dick, which was no doubt Armie’s intention. And with that thought he pulls his finger from Armie’s mouth and surges up, catching Armie’s lips with his own. Timmy slips his tongue into Armie’s mouth right away, licking the roof of his mouth and moaning into the kiss when Armie sucks on his tongue in return. Oh yeah, he definitely needs to get his dick into Armie’s mouth before the day is over, that’s for goddamn sure.

Before the kiss has the chance to escalate further, Timmy’s alarm goes off again, startling them both into separating. Timmy groans in annoyance, that stupid f*cking phone with the worst f*cking timing in the world, things were just getting good. He reaches for his phonethat's lying next to his pillow, turning the alarm off, quickly letting it drop back down to the bed,and turns back around to face Armie, more than ready to pick up where they left off. But when he makes eye contact with Armie again, he can’t help but blush at the intensity of Armie’s stare.

“f*ck, Timmy, you…” Is all Armie says before bending down and reconnecting their lips, and when Timmy opens his mouth to Armie’s tongue, Armie grins into the kiss and straddles Timmy’s hips. Armie sits down in his lap, wiggling his hips a little, and Timmy bites his lip at the surge of electricity that shoots through his entire body when Armie’s ass makes direct contact with his dick. Timmy’s hands quickly come to rest on Armie’s hips, just lightly holding him in place, and if he gently guides Armie’s hips back and forth a couple of more times, just to tease himself a little, well, who can really blame him?

Armie grins again, leaning forward and sucks Timmy’s bottom lip into his mouth, and Timmy can’t help but grab Armie’s hips tighter, grinding his hips up and moaning loudly at the feel of Armie’s hard dick rubbing against his stomach. Armie moans at the feeling as well, running his hands through Timmy’s hair and moving his hips quickly back and forth a couple of times. Timmy lets his head drop back to breathe, and Armie moves on to sucking gentle kisses down the side of Timmy’s neck instead, and when he gets to Timmy’s collarbone he stops. When Timmy lifts his head to see what’s going on, Armie looks up at him from under his eyelashes before grinning wickedly and biting down, hard, while grinding his hips against Timmy’s at the same time. The combined pleasure and pain has Timmy screaming out Armie’s name and using both hands to scratch down Armie’s back.

Armie sits up, smiling down at Timmy and leaning forward to kiss him softly, but quickly, on the lips. He pulls back with a smirk. “Told you payback was going to be a bitch.” Armie breathes out, lightly rubbing over the bite mark he’d left on Timmy’s collarbone, looking mighty proud of himself and Timmy just shakes his head at him.

“That’s what this was about?”

Armie just nods, still smirking and Timmy grabs him by the back of the neck, bringing him back down for another kiss. “f*cking finish what you started.” Timmy whispers against Armie’s lips, lifting his hips for emphasis. Armie lets out a low moan and nods again, putting his hands on Timmy’s chest and lightly pinches his nipples, making Timmy groan. But when Armie, instead of grinding his hips against him again, chooses to get off Timmy's lap to sit next to him on the bed, Timmy can't help but whine. Armie just smiles and leans down to kiss him softly before pulling all the way back and Timmy’s breath hitches when he sees him sit down on his knees between Timmy’s outstretched legs.

He watches with bated breath as Armie hooks his thumbs into the waistband of Timmy’s boxers and starts pulling them off, he lifts his hipsup fromthe bed to help, when Armie has finally gotten Timmy’s underwear all the way off, only struggling a little with the position of his legs, he throws it off to the side. The look on Armie’s face when he lays his eyes on Timmy has him blushing again, and his dick twitches with excitement against his t-shirt covered stomach.

“Are you actually gonna do something, or are you just gonna sit there and look at it?” Timmy says with a strained laugh when Armie doesn’t move. On one hand, it’s definitely flattering, that he’s able to make Armie lose his mind like this, on the other hand, if Armie doesn’t touch him soon, he might actually die.

Timmy smiles as Armie startles and catches his eye, he groans when Armie wraps his fingers around his dick and gives it a light tug, closing his eyes at how good it feels. He whines loudly when instead of gripping him tighter, Armie removes his hand again pretty much right away. Opening one eye, Timmy sees Armie smiling softly down at him before he spits into his palm, and this time when he grips Timmy’s dick, the touch is a lot firmer, not to mention wetter, making Armie’s hand slide over it a lot easier. Armie moves his hand experimentally up and down a few times, testing his grip, and when he tries out twisting his hand on the upstroke and fondles his balls at the same time, Timmy nearly loses his mind. Literally the only thing that could have made it better, would be if Armie got a quicker pace going.

“f*ck, Armie.” Timmy moans, helplessly pushing his hips up against Armie’s hand, but instead of getting him to speed up, the action makes Armie slow down even further. He removes his hand from Timmy’s balls and holds his hips down while his other hand is moving up and down Timmy’s dick at a snails pace, Timmy writhes on the bed and lets out a frustrated wail.

“You f*cking asshole!”

Apparently Armie is really into being the biggest tease of the century because he leans down and slowly licks away the precome on Timmy’s dick with the tip of his tongue, before sitting back up and licking his lips with a smirk. Timmy’s only response is to groan and throw his arm across his face, once again trying to chase after Armie’s touch with his hips, but Armie’s grip on his hips stops him in his tracks.

“Armie, please!”

It’s like he’d been waiting for Timmy to break and start to beg, because as soon as the words leave his mouth, Armie’s hand tightens and speeds up. Every stroke feeling so f*cking good it’s making his toes curl. Timmy is insanely grateful for the fact that Armie is his nearest neighbor, because not only is he not even trying to be quiet, but the wet slapping sound of Armie’s hand on his dick isn’t exactly subtle either.

Armie pushes Timmy’s t-shirt up under his arms, exposing his stomach and leaving wet kisses all over it, he even dips his tongue into Timmy’s belly button, making him choke on a moan, the sensation weirdly erotic. When he continues kissing his way down past Timmy’s co*ck, and sucks one of his balls into his mouth, Timmy’s voice cracks, and he feels Armie hum, the vibration of it setting his entire body on fire. It doesn’t take Timmy very long to come, being as worked up as he was from all of Armie’s teasing, he doesn’t even have the chance to warn Armie before he tips over the edge. With a loud moan his co*ck shoots out strands of pearly white come, that just barely avoid hitting Armie right in the face, instead coating his stomach, Armie coaxing every last drop out of him with his hand.

At the sight of Timmy coming all over himself, Armie lets out a low growl and quickly takes his dick out of his underwear, before straddling Timmy’s hips again, jerking himself off at a furious pace. Timmy watches him with hooded eyes, he’d miscalculated the size of his dick, he thinks stupidly, it’s a lot bigger than he imagined, and he already thought it was plenty big, but this? Yeah, this was going to feel f*cking fantastic inside of him, no doubt about that.

Timmy can tell Armie is getting close, by the way his rhythm seems to falter, and he wants nothing more than for Armie to add to the mess already cooling on his stomach, so he decides to lend him a hand, so to speak. He starts rubbing his own come into his skin, and he lets out a low moan before catching Armie’s eye and speaking with a soft voice.

“Please. I want you to come on me, Armie. Make me all filthy.”

And that’s all it takes, Armie lets out a strangled groan, and Timmy closes his eyes in satisfaction as he feels Armie’s hot come hitting his skin in spurts. He only opens his eyes again when he feels Armie drop down onto the bed next to him, Timmy turns his head and studies Armie’s half naked body, finding it strangely arousing that Armie was in such a rush to get off after watching him come that he didn’t even have the time to get naked. He grins when he sees that Armie hadn’t bothered putting his dick back in his boxers, and it’s currently just chilling against his stomach, half hard and still wet with come.

Timmy doesn’t even think as he reaches out, tracing his index finger over the head of Armie’s co*ck, collecting the little glob of come left there, bringing his finger back up to his mouth for a taste, moaning when the salty bitterness of Armie’s come hits his tongue. It’s only when Armie lets out a strangled moan that he comes back to himself and realizes what it is he’d just done. He smiles sheepishly over at Armie, who looks back at him like he’d just taken his breath away.

“I couldn’t help myself, I just – I really wanted to know how you tasted.” Timmy whispers, and suddenly there’s a wicked glint in Armie’s eyes as he rolls onto his side, lifting himself up on his elbow.

“You want a taste? I can help with that.” Armie smirks down at him as he runs his fingers through the mess on Timmy’s stomach, his fingertips glistening with their combined come as he holds them in front of Timmy’s mouth. “Open up for me, baby.” And Timmy opens his mouth with a throaty groan, moaning even louder when the taste of them both coats his tongue, and he sucks Armie’s fingers completely clean before Armie pulls them out.

“More, please.” Timmy breathes out, and Armie spits out a curse, crashing their lips together and collecting more come on his fingers from Timmy’s stomach at the same time, still kissing Timmy when he pushes his fingers into his mouth. Timmy feels completely overwhelmed, and his dick makes a valiant effort do get hard again, twitching against his stomach and fattening up a little. Armie must have a sixth sense, because he pulls back, looking down at Timmy’s now semi hard co*ck with a wicked grin.

“I guess it pays off being a hormonal teenager, huh?” Armie says, tracing Timmy’s dick with the tip of his index finger, applying a little more pressure in the sensitive spot underneath the head of his co*ck, making Timmy hiss due to still being slightly oversensitive from his first org*sm, but the slight pain quickly shifts into pleasure, and he can’t help but let out a breathy moan. No one has ever managed to make him come twice in succession before, not even himself, always stopping at that first hint of pain.

Armie winks up at him and settles himself on his stomach between Timmy’s legs. “I’m gonna suck you off now.” He says casually, like he was just commenting on the weather, Timmy’s only response was to moan again and grab onto Armie’s hair as he wraps his lips around his dick.

It’s a heady feeling, growing fully hard in someone’s mouth and Timmy can’t help but pull at Armie’s hair a little, the vibrations of Armie’s moan feeling absolutely incredible on his still slightly sensitive co*ck and he moans loudly at the sensation. When his dick hits the back of Armie’s throat, and he feels him swallow around him, he reaches up to pull at his own hair, turning his head and biting at his upper arm. The sharpness of the pain as his teeth pierce his skin only adds to his pleasure, and he lets out a muffled grunt against his arm.

He’s careful to keep control of his hips, not wanting things to get cut short for any reason, and there’s no f*cking doubt Armie has sucked plenty of co*ck in the past, because this is easily the best blowj*b Timmy has ever gotten. Despite coming just minutes before, Timmy feels his org*sm start building in his stomach, and he taps Armie’s cheek to warn him, but instead of pulling off like he expected him to, Armie just takes him further into his throat, sucking even harder.

“sh*t, Armie! I’m co- oh f*ck!” Armie pulls back to just sucking on the head of his co*ck as Timmy feels himself coming again, breathing out Armie’s name. He’s a little out of it after this second org*sm, so it takes him a while to realize what’s happening when Armie is hovering over him again, stroking his cheek, Timmy only gets it when Armie slips his thumb into his mouth, pulling on his bottom lip to make his intentions clear. He breathes out a moan as Armie captures his lips again, immediately opening his mouth and pushing Timmy’s own come into his mouth with his tongue. They moan into each other’s mouths as Timmy uses his own tongue to push a bit of come back to Armie.

They continue this messy back and forth until there’s no more come left, and Timmy sucks hard on Armie’s tongue, desperately trying to soak up the last taste of himself. They kiss each other desperately, until Timmy eventually has to pull back to breathe, their mouths separating with a loud wet sound. Timmy doesn’t remember having closed his eyes, but when he opens them again, looking up at Armie, who’s still holding himself up above him, he can’t help but smile at how wrecked he looks. His hair is damp with sweat, curling slightly at the temples, and his lips are red and swollen, both from kissing, and sucking Timmy’s dick.

“Good morning to you too.” Timmy says with a grin, making Armie laugh and lean down to kiss him again. Yeah, he could definitely get used to sharing his bed if it meant waking up like this.

“We should probably shower.” Armie says, smirking down at Timmy’s still come covered stomach.

“Unless you want to show up at Luca’s smelling like sex, of course.”

Timmy smirks back at him. “You’d like that wouldn’t you, everyone being able to smell you on me?” From the way Armie’s eyes darken and his breath hitches, Timmy would say that yes, that’s definitely a thing he would like. “Maybe later.” He winks, and Armie just groans and kisses him again.

“You’re going to be the death of me.” Armie breathes out when he pulls back, and Timmy can’t help but laugh.

“Dude, same.”

“Oh god, you really are a teenager aren’t you.” Armie deadpans, shaking his head, making Timmy laugh even harder.

They manage to get out of bed eventually, only getting lost in kissing each other a couple of more times, until Armie’s alarm goes off. He’d clearly not factored in snooze time like Timmy always did, more often than not, setting his alarm 45 minutes early, like today. Armie decided it would probably be easier for him to go to his own apartment and shower, since he had all his clothes and toiletries – except his toothbrush – over there, and Timmy actually had to remind him to tuck his dick back into his underwear before he walked out the door. They’d agreed to meet back up outside to go eat breakfast at the same café from yesterday, both being in agreement on those pastries being an exceptionally tasty breakfast.

Timmy almost doesn’t want to wash the come off, if it hadn’t been for the fact that dried come was incredibly itchy on his sensitive skin, and the fact that they were going to go over to Luca’s, he might have just left it there the rest of the day, no matter how gross that made him. The feeling of being marked by Armie trumped pretty much everything else, but he also knew this wouldn’t be the last time, not even close, so he turned the water on and got into the shower.

Once he was squeaky clean and smelling like lavender instead of come and sweat, he turned the water off and stepped out of the shower, shivering a little at the cold air that met him. He dried off quickly and efficiently, and since he hadn’t bothered bringing any clothes with him into the bathroom, he walked naked to his bedroom to get dressed.

He picked out some simple jean shorts and a plain black t-shirt that once upon a time had belonged to his sister, but she’d gotten it two sizes too big by accident, and she wasn’t very fond of oversized t-shirts, so she’d given it to Timmy instead. Being a women’s t-shirt it was a bit tighter than the t-shirts he normally wore, but it was also incredibly soft and fit him perfectly, hugging his body in all the right places, so he still wore it whenever the opportunity presented itself.

This time Armie was waiting for him when he made his way out of the building and towards the bike rack, and like the first day, Armie was leaning up against the wall, smoking a cigarette while tapping away at his phone. But unlike that day, Timmy really took his time to study him this time, letting the attraction he felt for Armie fill his entire body. He really was drop dead gorgeous, Timmy would never understand how he got lucky enough that Armie found him attractive in return, stuff like that usually only ever happened in the movies. Granted it was purely physical from Armie’s side, and while Timmy knew he could easily fall for Armie, it hadn’t happened yet. But give him a couple of weeks, if not months, and he’d be done for, he was sure of it.

“There you are.” Armie says with a smile, interrupting Timmy’s thoughts. Timmy just nods, uselessly, brain still stuck on the fact that less than 30 minutes ago they were, almost, naked in bed together, and he vowed to actually get Armie fully undressed next time. Preferably later tonight. If they were even able to wait that long, their track record with self restraint wasn’t exactly the best though.

In what quickly had become an established routine, Armie offered Timmy a cigarette before they got on their bikes, since it had gone sort of okay last time, and he’d only lost control of the steering once, he accepted. Still not trusting himself to ride one handed like Armie did though, there wasn’t really any point in directly tempting fate.

The ride to the café is ridiculously short, so they finish their cigarettes outside by the bikes before going inside and ordering two coffees and a plate of pastries to share, just like last time. But unlike last time, this time they’re playing footsie under the table while eating, both of them grinning stupidly over at each other, until eventually the temptation must get to big for Armie, because he chuckles lightly and raises an eyebrow at Timmy, handing him a napkin. “In case of nosebleeds.” He says with a wink, and Timmy just shakes his head, balling the napkin up and throwing it at Armie’s head, laughing loudly at the incredulous look on his face when it hits him right in the forehead.

“You’re going to pay for that.” Armie promises darkly, and Timmy just smirks. “I’m counting on it.”

This time they share the last pastry, Armie taking great pleasure in feeding it to Timmy in small pieces, and when their coffee cups are empty, they place them along with the empty plate in the designated cleaning shelves and make their way back outside. Collecting their bikes and start heading in the direction of Luca’s house.

When they park their bikes outside of Luca’s, Timmy’s nerves hit him like a ton of bricks, and his hands get ridiculously clammy. Luca doesn’t meet them outside this time, and since Timmy is busy staring wide eyed at the front door in silent panic, Armie is the one that leans over, ringing the doorbell. He places a comforting hand on the small of Timmy’s back just seconds before Luca opens the door with a sly grin.

“Ah, my lovebirds are here.”

Timmy can’t help but blush at that, staring sheepishly down at his feet and he feels Armie’s hand stroke up and down his back a couple of times, he relaxes into it automatically, and the tension drains from his body almost immediately.

When he looks back up, he sees Luca looking between them with an amused smirk.

“I have chosen a less distracting scene for your rehearsal today. Maybe, this time, we can finish, yes?”

Timmy’s cheeks practically burn with embarrassment, and if not for Armie’s hand, still resting comfortably on his lower back, he might have just turned around and ran away. Damn the consequences.

“Yeah, about that.” Armie says, looking sheepishly over at Luca. “How much did you actually, uhm, see?”

Luca just snorts. “Enough.” He shrugs. “But I left before your, what’s the word? Oh yes, I left before your modesty would need protecting.”

Timmy breathes out a sigh of relief at that, and he hears Armie do the same thing next to him, Luca just shakes his head at them, muttering something in Italian.

“Tell me, what is this?” Luca asks, gesturing between them, and Timmy looks up at Armie who just shrugs. “Ah, yes, very informative, thank you.” Luca says, sarcasm practically dripping from every word, making Timmy chuckle. He had no idea what to actually tell him, he knew they needed him to believe they fell in love during filming at some point, but already? That was a bit rushed wasn’t it? So he decides to just go with the truth instead, seeing as, for once, that actually works in their favor.

“Well, I guess there’s no point in lying.” Timmy shrugs and he can’t help but smile a little at the wide eyed look of panic on Armie’s face. “We’re attracted to each other, that’s fairly obvious, I guess. And yes, we’re having sex. But, no, it doesn’t really mean anything, I mean, Luca, come on, we barely even know each other yet.” Armie lets out another breath of relief, and Luca just looks at them like they’re being f*cking morons, which, fair enough, it wasn’t like he was exactly wrong about that.

“If the story of Elio and Oliver teaches you anything, it’s that true love finds you when you least expect it.” Luca says quietly, his lips turning up into a small smile, even though his eyes remain completely serious. “Promise me something?” and he doesn’t continue speaking until both of them have nodded their heads. “Don’t be so quick to close off your hearts, let whatever happens, happen. Don’t, what you say, overthink it. Feel it. You never know, maybe Elio and Oliver will get their happy ending after all.” Timmy sees Armie smile softly over at Luca and nod, so he does the same, despite knowing that his heart had never really been closed in the first place.

Luca leads them into his living room, sitting down in one of the chairs, and Timmy sits down opposite him on the couch, smiling to himself when Armie sits down next to him. Luca is gesturing animatedly with his hands while talking about how they’d found the absolute perfect location for the Monet’s berm scene, and that he wanted to take them there sometime in the next couple of days, so they could see it for themselves before filming began, to soak up the location’s energy, or so he said. He also mentions with a smirk that they’d managed to find a local farmer that grew peaches, and they’d made a deal with him to buy a few of his biggest, most ripe, peaches for the, well, peach scene. Luca had promised him, back when he first got offered the role, that when the time came to shoot that particular scene, only the absolute necessary personnel would be allowed on set, which at the time had been a huge relief, but now? Well, he wouldn’t have minded if Armie was there.

Armie knocks his shoulder against Timmy’s and asks in a teasing tone, “Have you tried it yet? The peach thing?” Obviously hoping to catch Timmy off guard, and have him blush again, but Timmy just grins wickedly back at him, licking his lips slowly. “Yeah, actually, I have. It was… Wet, and not to mention sticky, but to be honest, it didn’t feel half bad.” Armie had clearly not expected that answer, because his jaw slackens with surprise and his eyebrows climb basically all the way up his forehead.

“You… What?!”

“Mm, yeah. It was Luca’s idea, I didn’t really want to, but then he did it first, and well, since his dick didn’t fall off, I figured, why not? At least that way I have some kind of experience to draw on when we film it later.” Timmy says with a shrug, he still remembers how f*cking embarrassed he’d been going out to buy those peaches from the closest grocery store. And despite the fact that the people in the store had no way of knowing what he was planning on doing when he got back to his apartment, he still felt weirdly paranoid, thinking they’d be able to read it on his face or something.

Like he’d told Armie, it had mostly been wet and sticky, but not totally terrible, he’d actually had quite a nice org*sm. He’d left the bag of peaches out in room temperature for about a day, just to make sure they wouldn’t be uncomfortably cold around his dick. He’d decided to buy five of them, figuring that was a nice normal, inconspicuous, amount of peaches to buy. He’d felt pretty stupid when he stuck his thumb into the first peach, pushing the pit out, he also hadn’t been hard at all, but putting on some p*rn had quickly taken care of that problem. Despite Elio not wearing a condom when he did it, Timmy didn’t want to take any chances, and put one on, just in case.

When he first put the peach onto his dick, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from laughing, feeling pretty f*cking ridiculous, lying in his bed, p*rn playing on his laptop, about to f*ck a peach. What even had his life come to?

But when he’d pushed the peach further down onto his co*ck, all he’d been able to focus on was how soft it felt, the flesh of the fruit easily giving away to his dick, and he was sure that if he’d gone in bare, the wetness of the peach juice would have felt amazing as well. He’d tightened his grip slightly, making the fruit squish a little in between his fingers, but it made everything feel ten times better. And despite how skeptical he’d been of doing it in the first place, it didn’t take him all that long to come. The p*rn obviously helped a bit with that as well, he never really lasted long when he watched p*rn while jerking off, but the peach definitely took its fair share of the credit.

When he’d eaten the last four peaches over the next few days, he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself before biting into each and every one, no one ever told him getting into acting meant doing stuff like that. And he was also thinking about the moment when he’d have to fake it for the cameras, at least he understood Elio a little better now, if nothing else.

“You didn’t?” Armie whispers, licking his lips and staring at Timmy with an intensity Timmy had come to recognize as Armie being more than a little turned on. Despite that, it takes Timmy a moment to realize what he’s actually talking about, his mind still stuck in the past.

“Hm? Oh, no, I did, yeah.” He nods, and Armie can’t seem to help himself from moaning low in his throat and grabbing the back of Timmy’s neck, capturing his lips in a desperate kiss, clearly forgetting all about Luca, again. But before Timmy has the chance to pull back and remind him, not that he was trying all too hard really, Luca clears his throat. Loudly. Armie pulls back slowly, using his thumb to softly rub across Timmy’s bottom lip before turning and smiling sheepishly over at Luca while running a hand through his hair.

“Sorry, I -”

“Forgot about me, again, yes, I saw.” Luca snorts.

“Uhm, so, which – I mean, what scene had you picked out for our rehearsal today?” Timmy asks, hoping to change the topic as smoothly as possible, back to what they were actually here for in the first place. Luca chuckles lightly, clearly onto him.

“I was thinking, the piano scene. I want to see if you are comfortable off script yet.” Luca smiles and turns his gaze onto Timmy. “And I want to see if your piano lessons have paid off. Your teacher isn’t very happy with your progress, says you were too distracted in the last lesson, blamed the tall American, which, well...” Luca shrugs, and Armie lays his arm around Timmy’s shoulder, giving it a light squeeze.

“That teacher is full of sh*t, Luca, seriously.” Armie says defensively. “Granted I only heard the last 30 minutes of his previous lesson, but he didn’t have any obvious f*ck ups, and he only started learning a few weeks ago! He’s doing amazing, honestly. You’ll see.”

Timmy can’t help but blush at the way Armie was so fiercely defending him against criticism, which he did deserve, he knew that, but the fact that Armie was offended enough on his behalf to even tell Luca about it? Yeah, he’s not gonna lie, that felt more than a little great.

Luca only raises an eyebrow in response, gesturing for Timmy to take his place at the piano. Armie gets up too, walking over to the doorway and sending Timmy a reassuring smile when he looks over at him over his shoulder before placing his fingers down on the piano keys. Timmy closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting the music flow through his body and out through his fingertips. He loses himself so completely in playing the piano that when Armie delivers his first line, it startles him so badly he almost falls off the piano bench, grabbing the piano for support, making it play a horrible, and extremely loud, mish mash of notes, making everyone in the room wince.

Luca tells him to do it again, “but to try not to forget to actually play Elio as well as the piano.” He adds with a smile. The rehearsal goes incredibly well, they’re both completely off script, and he only messes up one note during the entire scene, which is a lot better than he’d managed to do so far in his lessons. He hoped he’d be able to do it just as well in the lesson he had later today, so that maybe his teacher could chill a little.

It’s endlessly fascinating, watching Armie turn into Oliver, every choice he makes in the scene brings out something new in Elio that Timmy hadn’t thought about before, and he knows, right then and there, that this movie? It was going to be a once in a lifetime thing. He could feel it in his bones, he and Armie would create magic together this summer, and judging by the look on Luca’s face, he could feel it too.

They run through the scene again, this time it’s even better than the last and Timmy honestly can’t wait for filming to begin for real, excited to see what else Armie’s Oliver would be able to bring out in the Elio he thought he knew so well. Luca gets a phone call and waves them off, telling them dinner would be at his house again later in the evening. “So don’t eat too much lunch, grazi mille.”

Armie wraps his arm around Timmy’s waist and guides him out to the bikes, “Wanna go get some gelato? Maybe we could eat it at that park again?” Armie asks with a smile, and Timmy can only nod his head in agreement. Even if he hadn’t wanted gelato, which he did, just Armie asking him while looking at him like that would have him saying yes in a heartbeat.

For once, Armie doesn’t light up a cigarette before getting on the bike, but that doesn’t stop him from showing off and riding with both hands off the handlebars for a good long stretch. Timmy had always been jealous of people who had enough balance to pull sh*t like that off, he knows that if he’d tried, he’d be face first on the asphalt in less than three seconds, and then Luca would probably skin him alive. So he kept both his hands safely on the handlebars, keeping an eye on Armie the entire time, just in case he suddenly fell and Timmy would have to brake as hard as all f*ck to not run him over, because that would literally be the icing on the cake.

The guy at the gelato shop gives them a lovers discount, because Armie insisted on paying for both, and apparently he’d taken that to mean they were boyfriends, which made Armie grin and ruffle Timmy’s hair. “I got lucky with this one, yeah? Isn’t he just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?” Armie asks the gelato guy, who just keeps smiling, probably not having understood a word of what Armie just said, but Timmy definitely understood it, and he looks down at his shoes, awkwardly scratching his neck, a pleased smile spreading on his face.

They walk their bikes over to the park, and Armie sits down cross-legged patting the grass next to him for Timmy to sit, so he just shrugs and sits down next to him, just like Armie had wanted. Timmy has to bite his tongue to not let out a moan when he sees Armie licking his fingers where some gelato had melted and run down, his mind instantly traveling back to the blowj*b this morning. Armie clearly makes sure to catch his eye as he licks up the last of it, winking at him as his tongue goes back into his mouth, touching his top lip teasingly. Timmy has to really fight the urge to just drop his gelato and straddle Armie’s lap right there in the park, even though they were surrounded by people.

Armie, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to give a sh*t, and after Timmy had coated his tongue with gelato, Armie leaned over and captured Timmy’s lips with his own, licking his way into Timmy’s mouth and sucking on his tongue. Timmy moans in surprise but kisses back quickly, making sure he doesn’t actually drop his gelato, because goddamn, it was good. Just as quickly as he leaned in, Armie pulls back, going back to eating his gelato like nothing had even happened, but the wide smile on his face is a dead giveaway that he’s feeling mighty proud of the stunt he just pulled. Timmy just shakes his head in amusem*nt and also goes back to finishing his gelato, before it melts completely.

“You have no idea how much I wanted to do that when we were here the other day.” Armie says quietly a little later, and Timmy must look a little confused, because he adds. “Kiss you, I mean. But we’d only known each other like, an hour, and I… Well, I was supposed to be straight, and not to mention recently dumped, and you – you were supposedly straight too, so I just, didn’t. But I still couldn’t completely stop myself from touching you, there wasn’t – you didn’t actually have any ice cream at the corner of your mouth that day. I just lost control for a second, and I used that as an excuse.”

Armie’s words makes the butterflies in Timmy’s stomach multiply and go absolutely crazy, so he really can’t help himself when he surges forward and kisses Armie. Not that Armie minds, because he responds with a moan and wraps his arms around Timmy’s waist, pulling him into his lap.

Despite being in a public park, and still very much surrounded by people, Armie deepens the kiss as soon as the chance presents itself, once again licking his way into Timmy’s mouth. They make out lazily for a while, mostly just lips and tongues, but when Timmy feels Armie getting hard beneath him, and his own co*ck starts perking up in response, he pulls back slightly.“I don’t want to get arrested for indecent exposure.” He breathes out against Armie’s lips, smiling as he feels Armie’s entire body shake with laughter.

“Good point, I almost forgot where we are.” Armie chuckles as Timmy climbs off him, both of them trying to be as subtle as possible while adjusting themselves in their shorts, but they crack up as soon as they make eye contact.

Timmy would have loved to be able to stay in the park with Armie all day, doing nothing but laze around in the grass and make out from time to time, but, unfortunately, he has a piano lesson. When he tells Armie that, he frowns. “Can I come with you? And before you say anything, I know it’s stupid, but – I don’t know, I just... I don’t want you to be all alone with that woman? I don’t like her.”

Timmy actually laughs out loud at that, he thought it was endlessly adorable that Armie wanted to protect him from his piano teacher’s criticism, but he had been on his own with her for a couple of weeks already, when he tells Armie that though, he just shrugs.

“I know, I said it was stupid, but, Timmy, just – please? If nothing else, It’ll help make me feel better about the whole thing, or I’m just gonna be sitting back in the apartment working myself up into having an anxiety attack thinking she’s torturing you or something.”

Hearing that, Timmy, who is no stranger to anxiety himself, smiles softly over at Armie and nods.

“Yeah, of course, if that’s what you need, then yeah, you can sit in on my lesson. But, it won’t be any fun for you? It’s literally just going to be me playing the same piano pieces over and over and over for two whole hours. And she is going to nitpick, because that is her job, so please, just try to not bite her head off when she critiques me for something you didn’t even notice?”

“Trust me, Timmy, I won’t be bored, watching you playing the piano earlier at Luca’s was definitely something else.” Armie says with a playful smirk, before growing serious again. “As for the rest, I’ll try my best, I promise. But if she gets too unreasonable? Well...” Armie shrugs.

Timmy really couldn’t ask for more than that, still secretly pleased that Armie cared so much about him already that he was prepared to go to war with his piano teacher just based on some, in his mind, unjust criticism.

Sooner than he’d like, the alarm he’d set for his piano lesson goes off, and they’re forced to end their park outing. Timmy has to stop by his apartment to pick up his sheet music and homework, which he hadn’t done, too busy being distracted by Armie and not to mention everything that had happened yesterday.

The look on his piano teacher’s face when Armie followed him into the room was nothing short of murderous, but surprisingly enough, she didn’t say anything or kick him out. Which Timmy took to mean that Luca must have spoken to her, he did after all seem like the type that liked to meddle. The piano lesson in itself was pretty standard, and not to mention quite boring. He’d already grasped the basics, like how to read sheet music and where the keys were placed, so the lessons now were basically just about making sure he knew the music pieces by heart. Which meant repetition, and a lot of it.

The teacher found something to critique pretty much every single time, but Armie stayed true to his promise, and didn’t say anything. But Timmy could see him sending the teacher death glares every once in a while when she had her back turned towards him.

By the time his lesson ends, there’s only about an hour until dinner starts at Luca’s, and they go back to their apartments to shower and get dressed in more dinner appropriate clothing. When they arrive at Luca’s place together, Luca smirks at them, whispering something into the ear of the guy sitting next to him, making him smirk up at them too.

Even though none of the rest of the cast have arrived yet, there are plenty of people around the dinner table, most of them local friends of Luca’s, and there’s rapid Italian spoken everywhere, hands flying in every direction, and Timmy has never been happier to have Armie here. He can’t deny that it’d been quite lonely, being the only American in the group. Sure most of them could speak English if they wanted to, problem was, they mostly never wanted to, feeling much more comfortable communicating in their own language. And it’s not like Timmy could blame them for that.

Timmy has to take a quick visit to the bathroom, and when he gets back he sees that Armie had already filled his plate for him. He can’t help but feel strangely taken care of, with Armie looking out for him and making decisions for him like that, and he definitely doesn’t hate it, in fact, he’s really surprised at just how much he liked it. Something to revisit later, in a different setting for sure, along with their already mile long list of other things to try.

“I hope you don’t mind, I just wanted to make sure you actually got something.” Armie smiles, gesturing towards Timmy’s plate.

“No, I – I – Yeah. T-Thank you.”

Armie smiles even wider when he hears Timmy stutter out his reply, and Timmy can’t help but feel like a complete idiot, there Armie was just being nice, and he went ahead and thought with his dick. Again.

The food tastes amazing, as always, and the wine flows freely, as always, but unlike all the other dinners Luca had hosted, apart from the last one, Timmy finally had someone to talk to. It seemed that with every glass of wine he drank, Armie got closer and closer, until eventually he was practically sitting on top of Timmy, slinging his arm around his shoulder. Timmy had only had one glass of wine so far, too busy eating the food to think about drinking anything, but Armie must have been on his third, or possibly even fourth, going by the flushed look on his face.

“You!” Armie giggles, and Timmy just raises his eyebrow at him, yeah, it was probably more like four or maybe even five glasses, because there was no doubt about it, Armie was drunk. “I am so glad it’s you, did I say that?” When Timmy just raises a questioning eyebrow, Armie adds with a whisper – or what passed as a whisper to his drunk mind – it was actually more like a hoarse shout “My fake boyfriend.”

“Oh. No, you didn’t say, but that’s nice?” That’s nice. Yeah, real smooth, Timmy. You did good. He groans inwardly and shakes his head at himself.

“Yeah! You’re nice! So nice. And so pretty. And your hair! I just wanna touch you, like all the time. All the time.” Armie drunkenly reaches out to ruffle his hair, before running his hand down to the back of Timmy’s neck and pulling him towards him for a kiss. Or what was supposed to be a kiss, if Armie hadn’t missed his lips and kissed him sloppily on the chin instead, making Timmy laugh out loud and drawing the attention of Luca.

“Everything okay over there?” He asks with a raised eyebrow, and Timmy just nods, running his hands through Armie’s hair while he rests his head on Timmy’s shoulder.

“You should switch over to water, I think.” Timmy whispers to Armie, feeling him nod before he starts leaving soft gentle kisses down the side of Timmy’s neck, making shivers run down his spine.

“sh*t, Armie, don’t. Not here.” Timmy whispers a little more forcefully while leaning away from Armie’s reach. Making him, ridiculously enough, pout back at him, looking like Timmy just kicked his puppy or something.

Timmy stands up and reaches for the water pitcher and fills a glass for Armie, standing there and watching as he drank it all before he fills another one and sitting down. Luca surprises them both by coming over with a cup of steaming espresso for Armie, adding with a wink that it did wonders for accidental drunkenness, and Timmy took great pleasure in watching the embarrassed blush spread across Armie’s face, adding to the flush of alcohol that was already present. He looked strangely adorable like that, all red faced.

The espresso definitely helps, but the water Armie keeps downing must be doing it’s job too, because by the time dessert finally hits the table, Armie seems to be quite clear headed again. Obviously still not exactly sober, but definitely not as drunk as he had been either.

On the other end of the table, Luca is talking loudly in Italian about something that must be incredibly hilarious, because literally everyone burst out laughing at the same time, making Timmy and Armie turn towards each other and shrug at the same time, making them burst out laughing as well.

When they say goodbye to Luca later, when the dinner party is slowly coming to an end, he leans in and whispers in Timmy’s ear “I can trust you to take care of it, right?” and Timmy squints in confusion. “Take care of what?” He asks quietly, and Luca smiles softly up at him, eyes cutting over to Armie standing behind Timmy, a couple of feet to his left. “His heart, mio figlio.” Luca smiles as Timmy just stares wide eyed back at him. His what?!

“He seems tough, unbreakable, yes, but his heart? Very fragile, I can tell. So just promise me. Whatever the two of you are, or aren’t, it doesn’t matter, just, be careful with him.”

Timmy just nods dumbly back at him, not really understanding why Luca thought he held the power to break Armie’s heart after only two days, but it’s not like he ever wanted to hurt Armie, so realistically, Armie’s heart would be kept safe and sound for the next two years. Timmy’s heart on the other hand, probably wouldn’t be as lucky, but he’d known that going in, so whatever ends up happening, it would be fine. Ish.

They walk their bikes back to their apartments, much to Armie’s annoyance. “I’m sober enough to ride a goddamn bike, Timmy come on!” But Timmy refused to budge, staring Armie down, hands on his hips, and eventually he’d given up, releasing a loud breath and walking next to Timmy in silence.

Armie follows Timmy into his apartment, and as soon as he’s closed the door behind him, Armie is on him, cupping his cheeks with both hands and kissing him forcefully while pushing him up against the door, just narrowly avoiding the doorknob. Timmy moans loudly when Armie pushes a leg between Timmy’s thighs, giving him something to rub up against while Armie ground his hips against him.

“I want to f*ck you, will you let me?” Armie whispers huskily into Timmy’s ear, gently nibbling on his earlobe, and if not for Armie pushing him up against the door, Timmy’s knees might honestly have given out right then and there.

“Yes, yes, yes please. Yes.”

Armie grins wickedly and captures Timmy’s lips again, kissing him with a fierce passion that Timmy felt all the way down to his dick, which was already straining against the front of his shorts. When he feels Armie reach down and grab at his dick through the thin material he groans low in his throat, pushing his hips up into Armie’s touch, whining when instead of slipping his hand into Timmy’s shorts, Armie takes his hand away. Why did he always do that?

“Bedroom, now, come on.” Armie mumbles while placing wet kisses down Timmy’s jawline.

They stumble into the bedroom, attached at the mouth, both of them giggling into the kiss and trying to undress each other at the same time. By the time they’re down to their underwear, Timmy’s white boxers briefs are so wet with precome that they’re practically see-through, and when Armie notices, his eyes darken and it seems he can’t help but reach out and touch, because he lightly traces the head of Timmy’s dick with his index finger, Timmy closes his eyes and moans, the teasing touch making his entire body tingle.

Armie is standing right at the edge of the bed, so Timmy pushes him onto it, grinning when Armie lets out a surprised yelp as he falls down onto his back. Timmy quickly follows and straddles Armie’s lap once he’d settled himself with his head on the pillow.

“Where do you keep your lube?” Armie asks, and Timmy’s heart instantly falls out of his ass.

sh*t.

“I… Don’t have any?” He grins sheepishly down at Armie while rubbing his neck.

“You don’t have any.” Armie says flatly, “what about condoms?” and Timmy shakes his head, feeling more and more embarrassed at his lack of foresight.

“No. Did you bring any?” He asks, hoping Armie had packed smarter than he had done.

“No. When I packed to come here, I was a closeted gay man with a hired beard, I wasn’t exactly expecting this.”

“Well. sh*t.” Timmy sighs, getting off Armie’s lap and lying down on his back next to him, staring up at the ceiling.

Timmy’s dick clearly hadn’t gotten the message that sex was off the table, because it’s still throbbing in his underwear, and he can’t help but reach down and give himself a squeeze, his breath hitching at the pleasure from the touch coursing through his body.

“I can still suck your dick.” Armie says, propped up on his side, gaze locked on where Timmy is touching himself.

“No.”

“No?” Hurt flashes across Armie’s face, and Timmy copies Armie’s position, propping himself up on his elbow. He reaches out for Armie, cupping his cheek and smiling softly over at him.

“Yeah. No. Because it’s my turn to suck your dick, you had your turn this morning, remember?”

“Oh.” Armie breathes out in relief.

“Does that mean you’ll let me?” Timmy asks sweetly, already knowing the answer, but wanting to hear it none the less. Armie however, has never been one for following rules, and just nods.

“I want you to say it.” Timmy watches as Armie’s eyes widen and he opens his mouth, sucking in a deep breath.

“Yes, please.”

“Yes please, what?” Timmy teases, making Armie look more than a little confused.

“Yes, please, uh, sir?”

Timmy actually has to close his eyes at the intense pleasure shooting through his dick hearing that word coming out of Armie’s mouth, it hadn’t been what he’d been going for, at all, but f*ck. He quickly straddles Armie’s lap again and licks his way into Armie’s mouth as Armie moans in surprise, the vibration traveling down Timmy’s spine and making him arch his back, bringing his hips into contact with Armie’s, starting them grinding up against each other.

“sh*t, Armie.” Timmy breathes against Armie’s lips, before pulling back completely, sitting up and looking down at Armie’s flushed face.

“That – I – All I really wanted to hear was you telling me to suck your dick.” Timmy pants out, still grinding slowly against Armie.

“Oh.” Armie bites his lip and grins sheepishly up at Timmy. “I can still do that, if you, you know, still want to?”

“I definitely still want to.” Timmy nods frantically, making Armie smile widely.

“Then, suck my dick, Timmy, please.”

Timmy leans down and kisses Armie’s mouth one last time before moving his way down, placing kisses randomly down Armie’s chest and stomach as he goes, making Armie shiver and moan quietly.

He helps Armie get his underwear all the way off, and settles on his stomach in between his legs, licking his lips at the sight of Armie’s dick so close to his face. He gently wraps his hand around the base of Armie’s co*ck, moaning low in his throat when his fingers barely overlap, he truly couldn’t wait to get it inside of him soon, they just needed to find the time to actually go buy the damn condoms and lube first.

He strokes his hand up and down Armie’s co*ck a couple of times, loving how responsive Armie was to his touch, the moans slipping through his lips sounding like a symphony to Timmy’s ears. He leans forward and licks up the glob of precome that came bubbling to the surface, and at the first touch of Timmy’s tongue to his dick, Armie’s hips shoot off the bed, and Timmy can’t help but laugh at the fact that Armie’s dick nearly poked him in the eye, thankfully he hadn’t taken him into his mouth just yet, or he’d have choked on it for sure.

“Sorry, sorry!” Armie pants out, grabbing the sheets with both hands. “I’ll be better, I promise. f*ck.”

Timmy just smirks, making sure to keep eye contact as he wraps his lips around the head of Armie’s co*ck and gives it a light suck. Armie stays true to his word, and his hips never leave the bed, but his eyes roll into the back of his head and he lets out the loudest moan Timmy has heard him make yet. When Timmy pulls off and instead starts licking up the underside of Armie’s dick, one of Armie’s hands come to rest at the back of his head. He’s not pushing him or anything, not even grabbing his hair, but Timmy feels strangely grounded by the touch, and when he takes the head of Armie’s dick back into his mouth he can’t help but moan when he feels Armie’s hand drop down to the back of his neck.

The vibrations of Timmy’s moan must feel pretty damn good, because once again Armie’s hips move to shoot off the bed, but he manages to control himself at the last second, and Timmy kisses the tip of his co*ck as a thank you when he pulls back off to breathe. He teases Armie a little by rubbing the head of his co*ck against his lips a couple of times, coating them in precome, and making Armie choke on a whine when he looks down at him.

Armie is definitely way too big for him to deep throat entirely on the first try, but that doesn’t mean Timmy isn’t going to, try that is. He lets a large drop of spit fall onto Armie’s dick, and he spreads it out with his hand, coating his dick with it completely, before wrapping his mouth around him again. He takes him down as far as he can, opening his throat and breathing through his nose, using his hands to cover whatever didn’t fit into his mouth and when Timmy swallows around him, Armie lets out a shout, burying his hand in Timmy’s hair.

“sh*t, Timmy! Baby, f*ckf*ck, I’m – I can’t – I...”

Armie cuts himself off with a loud moan, using the hand at the back of Timmy’s head to start pulling him off his dick, but Timmy isn’t having it, and fights him, growling hoarsely “I want you to come in my mouth.” as he takes Armie back down, not all the way down into his throat this time, but almost, at least far enough that drool leaks out the corner of his mouth.

Timmy knows Armie is close when he’s moaning on every breath and his hips are unable to stay completely still, so he pulls back to just sucking on the head of his co*ck, making sure his tongue pays extra attention to the sensitive spot on the underside while he’s jerking him off quickly.

“I’m, f*ck, Timmy!” Is all Armie says before Timmy’s mouth fills up with warm and bitter come. He looks up at Armie, who’s staring back at him, breathless and wide eyed, making sure to keep eye contact as he swallows noticeably. Which makes Armie groan and his dick twitches halfheartedly in Timmy’s hands.

Just as Timmy is about to wrap his hand around his own dick to finish himself off, Armie beats him to it, sitting up and pulling Timmy towards him by the waistband of his underwear, until he’s straddling Armie’s hips once again.

“It’s my turn now.” Armie grins wickedly up at him as he takes Timmy’s dick out of his boxers, and licks across his palm, wrapping hand around him and jerking him off at a furious pace right from the start. Timmy has to grab onto Armie’s shoulders for support, because his hands just feel too f*cking good on him.

“Armie, f*ck, just, a little tighter, please.” Timmy groans out, breath hitching when Armie immediately follows his demand. The org*sm builds in his stomach and spreads out through his body quicker than he expected, and just like that morning, he doesn’t have time to warn Armie before he’s coming. Dick pulsing in Armie’s hand, shooting spurts of come onto Armie’s chest, much to Armie’s delight, if the smile that’s spreading across his face is any indication.

“God.” Timmy breathes out, as he slumps forward. Armie just laughs and catches him, wrapping his arms around Timmy’s waist and leaning backwards so they’re both lying down, Timmy still on top of him until his brain comes online long enough for him to roll off and onto his back.

They’re both pretty disgusting, covered in sweat and Timmy’s come, but Timmy can’t be bothered to get up to get something to wash off with, and by the looks of things, neither is Armie. So Timmy just cuddles up to Armie’s side, slinging an arm across his chest and resting his head on Armie’s chest, just like last night. Only difference is, Armie is breathing much more heavily now, and his heartbeat is nowhere near calm.

As Armie kisses the top of his head and whispers “Being friends with benefits with you might just be the best f*cking thing that’s ever happened to me.” Timmy’s heart sinks. Right, that’s all this was. Friends with benefits. Sex. No feelings. He knew that. Really, he did. He also knew that you were at your most emotional after sex, all those hormones surging through your body, so that was probably why he felt so f*cking vulnerable right now, and not because he had fallen for Armie already. Because that would be ridiculous, they literally just met, there’s no way he could have feelings for him already.

Right?

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Timmy wakes up before his alarm has the chance to go off the next morning. And he quickly reaches under his pillow for his phone to turn the alarm off, knowing Armie still had his set for later. He looks over at Armie, face relaxed with sleep, and he feels his heart skip a beat. There is absolutely no denying that Armie is beautiful,or that Timmy is very much attracted to him, but that’s really all that it is. Attraction.

He likes Armie, that’s true, but he doesn’t know him yet. And despite how much it hurt hearing that Armie only saw him as a f*ckbuddy – even though that’s exactly what they are – Timmy also knows that you can’t be in love with someone you don’t actually know.

You can have crushes on them, sure, be attracted to them, yes, but you cannot be in love with them. Because to Timmy, being in love with someone means knowing every dirty secret that they keep, every disgusting habit that they have, and still having your heart burst with affection every time they look your way. And they definitely weren’t there yet, so Timmy couldn’t be in love with Armie, it just wasn’t possible.

He wouldn’t let it be possible.
He couldn’t. It was too f*cking soon.

The worst part was that he had no one to talk to about this, at all. Luca was definitely out of the question, because he’d likely just laugh and tell him to say f*ck it to everything and just follow his heart, regardless of the consequences. And he definitely couldn’t tell Armie, that was just begging for trouble. Like Armie had so eloquently said the other day–when they made their friends with benefits deal–he didn’t want to ruin what could turn out to be the most important friendship of his life, just because he had to go and spill feelings all over it.

Besides, Armie had already told him that he was only after sex, not feelings, so he would just have to get over himself. Not that there was anything to get over, because he didn’t have feelings, yet. But later, when he did get to know Armie better, if feelings emerged then, it would make sense. But he still knew nothing could ever come of it, Armie had made that pretty clear.

He couldn’t even call his mom, or his sister, to talk about it with them, because the NDA he’d signed forbid him from talking about anything that had to do with their agreement, and he didn’t really know how he could tell either of them about what had happened between him and Armie so far without mentioning that at all. Besides, he needed them both to believe the lie – that he and Armie were falling in love during the filming and that Timmy meant so much to Armie that he decided to tell the entire world about how much he loves him – and he knows that if he called either of them now, he wouldn’t be able to lie, and he really didn’t want to get sued. He barely had enough money to cover his rent, much less a million dollar lawsuit.

So, no. Talking about his feelings was definitely off the table.

But it would be fine, really. Sure he hadn’t expected any of this to happen, but he had been aware of the fact that he found Armie attractive long before he even met him, so it’s not like the fact that he wanted to f*ck his brains out came as a massive surprise or anything. The only actual surprise was that Armie wanted to f*ck his brains out in return.

And again, sex often brought feelings with it, just purely based on brain chemistry, so really, some form of feelings were to be expected.

Besides, in just a few short weeks they were going to pretend to fall in love for the cameras as Elio and Oliver, and then after that, they were going to pretend to fall in love for the cameras again, only as themselves this time. And they’d be foolish to not expect some form of character bleed, it was only natural.

Honestly, they were having sex, and pretending to be in love, who could blame his brain, or his heart, for getting a bit confused?

Pleased with his conclusion, Timmy goes back to studying Armie’s sleeping face, reaching out and softly running his hand throughArmie'shair, careful not to wake him. Whatever he's dreaming about, it must be wonderful, because he keeps smiling and making pleased little sounds.

After watching Armie for what feels like an eternity, but in reality it was probably only 10 minutes, Timmy leans over and lightly kisses Armie’s cheek before getting out of bed, deciding to get a head start on his day.

He’s barely had the chance to start scrubbing the dried come off his body when the door to the bathroom opens, and seconds later Armie comes staggering into the shower, naked, but obviously still not completely awake. Timmy smiles and watches as Armie tips his head back and lets the warm water directly hit his face. When he pulls back he looks more aware of his surroundings.

“I woke up and you were gone.” He pouts at Timmy, rubbing water out of his eyes.

“Sorry, I just wanted to let you sleep a while longer.”

Armie mumbles something incomprehensible, and picks up Timmy’s loofah, wetting it and pouring some of the lavender shower gel onto it, making it all frothy. And then he starts running it over Timmy’s body, slowly and meticulously, not one spot on his body isn’t covered in suds by the time Armie is done–he’d even gotten down on his knees to wash between Timmy’s toes.

When Timmy stands under the shower, letting all of Armie’s hard work wash off, his dick can’t help but twitch at the look Armie sends him. So to distract himself, he picks up the loofah from where Armie had put it down, and froths it back up with some more shower gel, and starts coveringArmie’s body in suds. Figuring it’s only polite to return the favor, the fact that he gets to touchArmie's naked body all over, is just a nice perk, and totally not the driving force behind Timmy’s decision at all.

As Timmy starts moving the loofah in circular motions at the bottom of Armie’s spine, he can’t help himself from letting his index finger slip between Armie’s ass cheeks, and he visibly shudders, grabbing onto Timmy’s shoulders. “f*ck, Timmy, what’re you – God.”

“Yes, I am God, nice of you to realize.” Timmy chuckles, and Armie rolls his eyes.

“Oh, shut up.” Is all Armie says before he leans down and kisses Timmy, catching him by surprise and making him drop the loofah, grabbing onto Armie’s face with both hands instead. Kissing him back with a fierce desperation.

Armie’s wet hands glide down Timmy’s back easily, coming to a stop at his lower back, and he feels Armie smirk into the kiss as he steals a page out of Timmy’s book and lets his index finger slip between his ass cheek, rubbing over his opening. Making Timmy moan low in his throat at how f*cking good it feels, having Armie touch him there.

His dick definitely agrees, going from half hard but interested, to ready to f*cking go in less than three seconds flat. Looking down between them he can see that Armie is right there with him, his co*ck also painfully hard, and a small amount of precome leaks out, coating the head of his co*ck while Timmy watches. But just as quickly as it appears, the shower washes it away, much to Timmy’s chagrin.

Armie uses the time while Timmy is distracted by watching his dick to leave wet kisses down the side of his neck, while still slowly rubbing across Timmy’s entrance. And he stops to suck a mark next to the bite mark on Timmy’s collarbone from yesterday, making Timmy groan and guide Armie’s head back up so he can kiss him again.

Timmy pulls back with a gentle bite to Armie’s bottom lip. “Please.” He whispers, knowing full well they can’t really do anything until they’ve gone out and bought lube and condoms, but f*ck if his body can remember that right now. He captures Armie’s lips again, licking his way into his mouth as he pushes his ass against Armie’s hand with a whine, making Armie groan into the kiss and rub his finger against Timmy even harder, almost breaching the muscle, but not quite.

“Please.” He whispers against Armie’s lips again, a little louder this time, more of his desperation shining through. Armie pulls back with a curse, grabbing the bottle of conditioner off the shelf and coating his fingers with it and roughly turning Timmy around so he’s facing the shower wall, and his ass is facing Armie.

At the first touch of Armie’s, now slick, fingers to his entrance, Timmy moans loudly and pushes back against him eagerly, when the tip of Armie’s finger – finally – breaches him, he lets out a guttural sound he’s never heard himself make before. It had been way too f*cking long since he’d fingered himself properly, or had anything at all inside him, so even the slightest touch feels so f*cking good he could cry.

“f*ck, yes, Armie, I...” Timmy cuts himself off with another moan as he feels Armie’s finger slide all the way inside him and he clenches around the digit experimentally, grinning at the surprised moan that slips out of Armie’s mouth.

He can’t help but whine at the loss when Armie pulls his finger back out, but he quickly chokes on a moan as Armie pushes the finger back in, along with his middle finger. The added stretch of the second finger burns deliciously, just the right hint of pain to make Timmy’s co*ck throb, and he pushes back against Armie’s hand even harder.

Luckily Armie takes the hint and starts quickly moving his fingers in and out of Timmy, making him groan. Armie’s fingers feel so good in him, he almost wants to just say ‘f*ck it’ and beg Armie to f*ck him despite the fact that they don’t have any condoms. But he knows they’d both regret it afterwards, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Armie slows down after a little while, and just as Timmy is about to complain, he feels Armie crook his finger, and then suddenly his entire body explodes with pleasure, and his knees promptly give out from under him. Luckily Armie had been anticipating a reaction like that, because he wraps his arm around Timmy’s waist, holding him up.

“Fuuuck!”

Armie crooks his fingers one more time, once again rubbing across Timmy’s prostate, and Timmy comes with a shout. Covering the shower wall with come for a few seconds before it washes back down the drain. Timmy’s legs still feel like they’re made out of jell-o, but Armie just turns him around in his arms, and holds him close until he regains his balance.

“God, Armie, f*ck… That was, oh my god.” Timmy pants out into Armie chest, and he feels, more than hears, Armie chuckle in response. When his brain finally gets back online, he remembers that Armie still hasn’t come, so he reaches down between them to wrap his fingers around Armie’s co*ck, making him spit out a low curse.

“What do you want?” Timmy asks, looking up at Armie with hooded eyes while slowly stroking his dick.

“Can I – f*ck – Can I f*ck your thighs?” Armie breathes out, co*ck twitching in Timmy’s hands.

“My thighs?” Timmy asks, looking back at Armie with confusion, how did that even work?

“Yeah, if you turn around?” Timmy shrugs and does what he’s told, startling a little when he feels Armie reach between his legs and coating his inner thighs with the conditioner. But he moans out loud when he realizes what that means, and he finally understands how Armie is planning on f*cking his thighs. He groans when he feels Armie’s dick slide between his thighs, and he pushes his legs together the best he can, to provide Armie with the best possible friction.

Armie grabs onto Timmy’s hips and starts grinding his hips against him, his dick sliding between Timmy’s thighs faster and faster as Armie picks up speed, chasing his org*sm. Timmy never even knew this was a thing people did, but f*ck if it wasn’t a heady feeling, letting Armie use his body for his own pleasure like this.

When Timmy feels the rhythm of Armie’s hips falter, he knows that means that Armie is just on the brink of coming, so he flexes the muscles in his thighs and looks over his shoulder at Armie, making eye contact, and whispering, “f*ck me hard, Armie, come on.”

And that’s all it takes. Armie’s hips push forwards one last time, much harder than the others, and he stills, wrapping his arms around Timmy’s waist and holding him close while he lets out a loud guttural moan. Sinking his teeth into Timmy’s shoulder and coating his inner thighs with come.

Timmy feels strangely powerful, having been able to make Armie come like that, and he quickly turns around, clutching Armie’s face with both hands and capturing his lips in a messy kiss.

They both yell out at the same time when the water switches from pleasantly hot to freezing cold. Apparently they’d been in there long enough to use up all the hot water, and Timmy is forced to wash off Armie’s come from between his legs, and the remnants of the conditioner still coating his asshole, in ice cold water.

At least it’s hot as all hell outside, so a cold shower is more refreshing than anything else. Armie clearly doesn’t agree, because he gets out of the shower as fast as he can, muttering something to himself that sounds suspiciously like “Goddamn cold water ruining my afterglow.” Making Timmy chuckle where he’s still standing under the ice cold spray of water.

Once they’re dried and clothed, they remember that they still had leftover pizza in the fridge from the other day, and decide to have that for breakfast before they had to throw it out. The pizza tastes just as good cold as it did warm, and Timmy knows he’s going to order from there several times over the next few weeks.

They eat the pizza on the couch in the living room with the TV on some random Italian channel, and since there are no subtitles, they have a lot of fun making up their own dialog. While they started off sitting pretty much on opposite sides of the couch, they can’t seem to help but gravitate towards each other, and soon enough they’re cuddled together in one corner. Timmy sitting between Armie’s legs, resting his back against Armie’s chest, and Armie wraps an arm around Timmy’s waist, using the other to stroke through his hair.

Timmy has never been more comfortable in his life, and he knows that if he’d been a cat, he’d been purring right now.

Sadly, they have agreed to meet up with Luca in the town square around noon, cutting their cuddle time a lot shorter than Timmy would have liked. But then he reminds himself that he is here to work, not on a vacation with his boy- uh, friend. His friend.

He’s not here on a vacation with a friend.

Luca is waiting for them when they arrive on their bikes, Timmy having declined Armie’s offer of a cigarette this time, not really being all too fond of the taste of tobacco right after brushing his teeth, sometimes it was fine, but most of the time, no.

Luca is in the middle of a conversation with some random person Timmy has never seen before when they arrive, and when he sees them walking towards him, he gestures towards them with a grin, saying something to the guy he’s talking to that makes him smile and nod before walking off.

“You’re here! Excellent! There is much to show you.” Luca smiles excitedly, and Timmy can’t help but let Luca’s mood infect his own, smiling widely up at Armie as Luca starts walking down the street talking about how Elio and Oliver would have experienced it.

Luca talks a lot about how the atmosphere in Crema will help influence the movie, using a lot of big director words that Timmy is only able to grasp about half of, but Armie seems to be following along perfectly, or at least he nods in all the right places. When Luca starts talking about their clothes, he actually genuinely giggles when he tells Armie about the length of the shorts Oliver would be wearing.

“They’re shorts. In every sense of the word.” And Armie just raises an eyebrow, gesturing to the middle of his thigh, but Luca just laughs harder and shakes his head, gesturing to his own thigh instead, much higher up than what Armie had done, and both of Armie’s eyebrows shoot up.

“No? That short? Are you serious?!”

“Yes, very much so.” Luca chuckles, and Timmy can’t help but laugh along with him, but he knows that if anyone would be able to pull of those shorts, it would be Armie, his legs were nothing short of fantastic.

Luca and Armie keep talking about Elio, Oliver and Crema, and Timmy tries to soak up as much information from both of them as he possibly could, finding their discussion about various things endlessly fascinating. He can’t deny that he loves the way Armie keeps trying to include him in the conversation, by asking his opinion on everything, not that he has much to add.

Timmy’s phone suddenly vibrates in his pocket, startling him a little, because he wasn’t expecting any text messages or anything. His family knew he’d text them first when he was available, and his friends knew not to bother him while he was working.

He frowns when he sees who sent the message, Peter, Armie’s manager. They’d exchanged numbers back at the hotel the other day, but Timmy had thought that was just a formality, he never expected to actually get any texts or phone calls from him. Unless he f*cked up in his job as Armie’s boyfriend. But he couldn’t have done that already, because they hadn’t actually started faking things yet.

“Timothy, I forgot to ask for your social media passwords. As I’m sure you’re aware, we are hiring a social media manager to keep up with your social media during the contract period. So please get back to me with that information as soon as possible, and please turn off the two factor authentication for now. Thank you. Peter McCormick.”

Timmy can’t help but snort at the fact that Peter still didn’t bother getting his name right, despite Armie correcting him several times, and the contract he signed spelling his name out in it’s entirety. But oh well, what else could he really expect from someone like him. He sighs and goes to change his Instagram and Twitter passwords into something more generic, and not the standard password he uses for everything.

Sure, everyone says to use different passwords on different sites, but, who actually did that? Timmy struggled enough to remember the one password he actually used, there’s no way in hell he’d ever be able to remember 10 different ones.

Once the passwords are changed, and the two factor authentication is turned off, Timmy texts the new passwords to Peter. Getting a quick “Excellent, thank you.” back about five minutes later.

He tries to block the whole thing out of his mind, focusing back on Armie and Luca’s discussion about Italy in the 80’s and the general view on hom*osexuality at the time, and how the AIDS crisis influenced peoples views. Needless to say, it wasn’t a very cheerful conversation. And even though Timmy had read a lot of books detailing what had happened in America at the time, it was something else to hear Luca talk about his own experiences, and at one point both he and Armie have to wipe away a couple of tears.

They walk to the gelato shop Armie and Timmy had grown so fond of, and when the guy behind the register sees them, he smiles and says happily, with accented English “The boyfriends!” making Luca snort out loud, and Timmy feels the heat of the blush that’s no doubt coloring his cheeks.

Armie pays for Timmy’s gelato, once again getting the lovers discount by the guy behind the register, much to Luca’s amusem*nt. They walk over to the park and sit down to eat their gelato, and Luca keeps the conversation going, talking about how he was looking forward to the rest of the cast coming in, and how incredible it was going to be getting to finally see this story being brought to life.

Once again Timmy feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, and he frowns, now what? When he digs it out, he frowns even more, seeing it’s a notification from Instagram. He hadn’t properly been on there in weeks. When he opens it, he thinks it must be a mistake. “Armiefan97 replied to your comment on lucaguadagnino’s post: omg I love this!” He didn’t even know Luca had an Instagram, and he definitely hadn’t followed or commented on any of his posts.

And then his stomach sinks, the social media manager. Had they started it already?! He clicks the notification and is brought to Luca’s post, which he’d already liked despite never seeing it before, so that answers that question, they’d definitely already started.

He can’t help but smile when he sees that the post in question is a picture of him and Armie from dinner last night, when Armie was drunkenly resting his head on Timmy’s shoulder while he talked him into getting some water. They’re both softly smiling at each other, and if Timmy hadn’t known what was actually going on, he’d definitely be fooled by their casual intimacy. They do look a lot more comfortable with each other than two people who only met a few days prior should be.

Luca had captioned the photo “Italian summer nights” and he sees that Armie, or at least Armie’s account, had left a comment, saying “We’re so f*cking adorable.” And Timmy sees that his own account had both liked and commented on Armie’s comment. His own comment only consisting of three emojis "”

It'sweird, that’s the only way he can describe it, really really weird, seeing his own account showing signs of activity that he isn’t responsible for. He knows Armie said that it was standard practice these days, so it would have probably happened sooner or later, but it’s still just, really weird.

When Luca gets a phone call and excuses himself, leaving Timmy and Armie alone in the park, Timmy clears his throat to get Armie’s attention, biting his lip and fidgeting with his phone as he tries to think of the best way to broach this subject with Armie. He knows the whole publicity stunting thing is a sore spot for him, and he’d probably rather just try and forget about it while they’re here, but Timmy, who has never done anything like this before, can’t help but be curious. Because he truly does not have one single frame of reference for any of this.

“Uhm. Have you been on Instagram at all today?” Timmy asks quietly, and his suspicions about the comment and like left behind by Armie’s account being the work of the social media manager is confirmed when Armie just frowns and shakes his head.

“No? Why, is there something I should see?” Timmy hesitates, not wanting to upset him, but he knows Armie would just go onto the app from his own phone and see it anyway if Timmy tried to play it off.

“Yeah, uhm, Luca posted a picture of us from yesterday? And, uh… Peter texted me earlier, asking for my social media passwords -” Armie grabs at Timmy’s phone as soon as he’s unlocked it and his face closes offimmediately when he sees the post.

“They said they weren’t going to start this sh*t yet.” He says darkly, picking up his own phone and calling someone, probably Peter, going by the angry look still on his face.

The call clearly doesn’t go through on the first try, because Armie curses under his breath as he’s forced to hit the button to redial. Timmy is incredibly glad that he’s not Peter right now, because he really wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of Armie’s anger.

“You son of a bitch!” Are the first words out of Armie’s mouth as Peter presumably picks up the phone. “You promised you weren’t going to start sh*t until after the filming, what the f*ck happened?”

Whatever it is Peter is saying, it does nothing to cheer Armie up, if anything he just looks angrier.

“No, that wasn’t the deal.” Armie shakes his head, and he reaches down and starts unearthing tufts of grass in pure frustration. “I said, no!” Timmy startles at the sharpness in Armie’s voice, even back at the hotel, he’d never gotten this angry.

“f*ck the contracts, Peter! You guys f*cking promised we wouldn’t have to do anything until we got back to America.”

Even just hearing one side of the conversation, it wasn’t hard for Timmy to understand what Peter was saying. Clearly they’d changed their minds about the timeline, and they wanted to start laying down the groundwork for their eventual relationship now. No doubthoping they could start making people curious about the nature of their relationship as soon as possible, so there’d be more room for speculation as they landed back in America after filming. Timmy could already see the headlines

“Armie Hammer lands back in America with a mystery boy after filming movie about a gay romance in Italy.”

Which would no doubt lead to exactly the type of speculation Peter wanted.

Timmy had no idea how they planned on sticking to the original timeline of not confirming anything until the first premiere of the movie, if they’d already moved the first phase of their plan up by two whole months. But then he didn’t work in PR, so it wasn’t really his job to know, they probably had everything mapped out perfectly in some fancy office somewhere.

“I can’t f*cking believe you!” Is the last thing Armie says before he hangs up the phone. Or, well, he doesn’t exactly say it, as much as shout it, and Timmy places a comforting hand on Armie’s thigh, giving it a light squeeze.

“So, I take it that it wasn’t good news?” Timmy asks quietly, watching as Armie rubs his hands across his face.

“Not particularly, no.” Armie sighs, looking around to make sure there’s no one close enough to overhear them, Luca still nowhere in sight, before taking Timmy’s hand in his own, entwining their fingers and stroking his thumb against Timmy’s wrist.

“They want us to take more pictures, so that they can post them to our profiles, and Peter said, that they want the pictures to be able to tell the story of how we fell in love, without us actually having to say anything.”

Timmy frowns in confusion, “How the hell do we do that?” and Armie just shrugs, clearly not having any good answers either.

“I don’t know man, I guess we’ll just have to start documenting sh*t, and then they’ll pick out the ones that work.”

“Yeah, that should work. I just – I don’t know how we’re gonna convince anyone we’re falling in love just by taking pictures of us eating pizza and stuff like that though.” Timmy says, looking down at their entangled hands laying in Armie’s lap.

“That’s the thing, Timmy. People will see what they want to see, as soon as the article comes out, telling the world we’re dating, no matter how normal and boring the photos we’ve taken might be, they’ll love it and claim it’s the cutest thing ever. I’m sure Buzzfeed will have an article up full of embedded Instagram photos and gifs about five minutes after the announcement, claiming we’re couple goals, just because we took those photos.”

Once again, the obvious cynicism in Armie’s words take Timmy a bit by surprise, they really shouldn’t, given everything, but he still somehow hadn’t quite understood just how fabricated everything truly was when it came to the publication of someone’s relationship. He knew people occasionally called the paparazzi on themselves, to keep their name and face out there, but before he’d really started acting, he’d naively thought the paparazzi just followed people around and took photos of them without their consent.

Which, granted, still did happen on occasion, but the first time he heard someone talk about how they’d made sure to dress up before going grocery shopping that day, because they’d called the paparazzi, his worldview had shifted slightly. And hearing everything Armie had had to say the other day, had definitely shifted it again, but apparently he’d been holding on to his old truths harder than he thought. And he suddenly understands exactly what Armie meant when he said that people didn’t want to believe the truth, even when it was right in front of them, because it was easier to believe an excuse and keep living in ignorance,and in situations like this, ignorance was definitely bliss.

“Yeah. I guess so. But hey, it’s not like it’s gonna be a hardship for me to take tons of pictures of you.” Timmy grins up at Armie, hoping to lighten the mood, and while it does make Armie smile, the tension in his shoulders doesn’t release.

“True, that’s about the only good thing about it, I can take as many pictures of you as I want to, with the excuse of it being ‘for the gram’” Armie actually makes quotation marks around the words, making Timmy laugh.

“You might only be 29, but f*ck if you didn’t just sound like my pépé.”

"Your what?” Armie frowns. “Your dad?” Timmy can’t help but laugh harder at the look on Armie’s face, a mixture of confused, annoyed at not being able to understand and worried about having to be offended.

“No, my grandpa.” Timmy chuckles, watching Armie’s face slide smoothly over to just being flat out annoyed.

“Ha ha, very funny.” He deadpans, making Timmy laugh again, and apparently the only way Armie sees to shut him up, is to lean over and kiss him. Of course Luca chooses that exact moment to return from his phone call, and Timmy hears him clear his throat loudly right before Armie pulls back.

“I leave you for 10 minutes and already you’re all over each other.” Luca scoffs, before shaking his head with a smile. “You’re worse than a couple of teenagers.”

Armie just grins and uses their still entwined hands to point over at Timmy. “He actually still is a teenager.” And Luca just shakes his head again. Timmy finds the whole thing hilarious, sure it was a bit embarrassing, Luca catching them kissing again, but on the other hand, he’d definitely seen worse, so Timmy couldn’t be bothered to stress about it.

Luca tells them that he has some business to attend to at the location of the Perlman house, and that he’ll be busy there for the rest of the day and probably the evening too, so they’d probably best feed themselves today. And Timmy knows exactly what that means. Pizza.

At least until a little while after Luca leaves, when Armie suggests they go grocery shopping, saying that he’d like to cook for them tonight. And then he adds with a smirk that a trip to the grocery store provides them with an excellent opportunity to buy some condoms and lube as well. Timmy is definitely on board with that plan, and he can’t deny that he feels more than a little pleased by the fact that Armie actually wants to cook for him, not just order in.

Neither of them know where the f*ck the grocery store is located, Luca had done most of Timmy’s shopping for him up until now, and he’d also been the one to stock up Armie’s fridge before he arrived, so they’re forced to google it. Or more accurately, Armie asks Siri where the closest store is, and she provides the information in a few seconds.

“Do you think they sell lube at the grocery stores in Italy?” Timmy asks as they’re following the directions on Armie’s phone.

“I don’t know? Why shouldn’t they?” Armie frowns, looking up from his phone to check their surroundings to make sure they matched what the directions were saying.

“In France they don’t, you have to go to the pharmacy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, at least none of the grocery stores I’ve ever been to in France sells it. Condoms, sure, but not lube.” Timmy still can’t quite believe that he’s walking around the streets in Italy, talking to Armie Hammer about where to buy lube, it’s all a little surreal, despite everything that’s already happened.

“Huh. Well, if they don’t have it in the store we’re going to, I guess we’ll just have to hit up a pharmacy then.” Armie shrugs, looking up from his phone and smiling softly at Timmy before his eyes get a wicked glint in them. “After this morning, I definitely do not want to wait any longer to be inside you.”

Armie’s words practically sucker punched him in the stomach, and his dick twitches in his underwear, goddamn him. Timmy truly doesn’t think he’s ever met someone who he’s been this attracted to, not even his last boyfriend got him going like this, and at the time he thought he loved him.

Sure, they only dated about a year, or more accurately a school year, but he’d still naively thought they were in love. At leastup until the moment his boyfriend cheated on him with a girl and told him that he wasn’t gay after all.

“It’s been nice and all, you’re a good guy Timmy, you’ll find someone else, someone who can love you the way you deserve to be loved. I’m sorry, that guy just isn’t me. But please know, that you didn’t do anything wrong, this was all my fault. It’s not you, it’s me.”

And yeah, Timmy had only been 17 at the time, so their relationship hadn’t exactly been the most serious, but he can’t deny that he had spent an awful lot of time thinking about what he had done wrong and how he could miss the signs that he was actually dating a straight guy.

Or, well, as straight as you can be after having a year long relationship with anotherguy. But it wasn’t Timmy’s place to judge, if Greg wanted to believe he was straight, despite everything, then fine, that’s his right.

He’d eventually come to the conclusion that he really should have seen it coming, from the way Greg had only ever wanted to top, to the fact that he didn’t want Timmy to suck him off. Or how he definitely never wanted to suck Timmy off. In fact, he’d barely wanted to touch Timmy’s dick at all, always being much more fond of ass play, which at the time, Timmy didn’t really mind. He could always jerk himself off while being fingered, and that worked more than well enough for him.

But, looking back, that was definitely a huge red flag signaling that something definitely wasn’t right. The other huge thing was that he didn’t want to tell anyone about them. Not that Timmy would ever force any of his partners to come out for him, he’d more than happily wait for them to become ready, however long that took. But the way he’d flat out refused to even discuss the possibility, even in private? Yeah, looking back, that definitely should have been a sign.

Sure, at the time he had been heartbroken, but despite thinking he was in love, he quickly came to the realization that he wasn’t, really. Because just two weeks later, it had stopped hurting, and if it had been love, it would have taken way longer than that to completely get over it. So instead, Timmy had come to the conclusion that itcouldn't be love.

Infatuation, yes. Love? No.

Before they know it, they’ve reached the store, the GPS on Armie’s phone accurately letting them know that they’ve arrived at their location. Timmy grabs a basket, thinking that would be more than enough for their needs, but Armie just shakes his head and plucks the basket out of his hands, going to find a shopping cart instead.

“I said I was going to cook, didn’t I? I’m gonna need some ingredients for that, babe. I also want to refill our fridge.” Timmy’s heart threatens to beat out of his chest at the pet name that Armie, oh so casually uses, not to mention the fact that he’d referred to the fridge as theirs, together, as one unit, and not, yours and mine, separately. Timmy is sure Armie didn’t even notice, but Timmy definitely had, and he has to really fight with himself to not let his pleased smile completely overtake his face.

“What are you gonna make for us then?” Timmy asks with a smile, and Armie picks up a bottle of white wine, studying the label before shrugging and putting it in the cart.

“I was thinking, unless you’re allergic to shellfish, to make shrimp puttanesca?”

“More pasta? How original of you.” Timmy laughs as Armie rolls his eyes. “Sounds good though! And as far as I know, I’m not allergic to anything food related.”

Armie nods and starts typing something on his phone. “Right, so we’ll need… Shrimp, obviously, linguine, a lemon, one red chili, cherry tomatoes, anchovies, green olives, fresh parsley and Parmesan. Do we have any of that at home?”

Timmy closes his eyes and tries to picture the content of his kitchen cabinets and the fridge. “Uhm… I’m pretty sure I have Parmesan and olives, but that’s about it.” Armie nods again.

Armie is in charge of operating the shopping cart, and reading out what ingredient is next on the list while Timmy pick it up from the shelf and puts it in the cart. Timmy has always been an impulsive shopper, so he puts a lot of things that’s not necessarily on their list into the cart as well, much to Armie’s amusem*nt.

“Really, Tim. Five bags of pistachios?”

“What? They’re on sale!”

When they get to the hygiene and personal products aisle, Timmy can’t help but blush a little as Armie casually picks out two packages of different sized condoms, looking down at Timmy’s crotch and nodding to himself, putting them into the cart, and then grabbing two more. “Just in case.” He winks.

Just like Timmy had said, there’s no lube to be found anywhere, and Armie quietly asks Siri where the nearest pharmacy is located, thankfully it turns out to be just across the street. That information has Timmy and Armie both let out a sigh of relief, both of them cracking up when they make eye contact.

When they reach the register, queuing up, Timmy tries to get Armie to let him pay for his own items, but Armie just shakes his head, saying in a tone that brokers no arguments. “It’s fine, Timmy, honestly.” So Timmy gives up, instead vowing to be the one to pay for the groceries next time.

Hilariously enough, Armie is asked to show his ID when the woman behind the register scans the bottle of wine, Armie just blinks at her in confusion, and Timmy is the one that has to pluck his driver’s license from his wallet and hand it over to her. She studies it intently before nodding, handing it back, letting the wine pass through.

Thanks to Timmy’s lack of impulse control, they have two full bags of groceries, but Armie easily carries them as though they weigh absolutely nothing. Which is not a thing that turns Timmy on, at all. It totally does not make him imagine just how easily Armie could carry him. Nope. Not even a little bit.

The pharmacy carries a few different kinds of lube, which surprises him a little. Timmy had always naively assumed lube was lube, but apparently even with lube there’s different versions based on your intended use. Armie picks up a couple of bottles of the silicone based stuff, and one of the water based one, leaning closer to Timmy and whispering “I have some toys I want to use on you.” as an explanation. Timmy just nods frantically, definitely onboard with the idea of toys. They’d both checked that off as a yes on their lists, but Timmy didn’t know that Armie had brought anything with him to Italy, and quite frankly, just the thought of that, was enough to have Timmy’s co*ck start to slightly fatten up in his underwear.

Armie brings the lube to the register, smiling at the guy behind the counter. “I want these, please.” The guy takes one look at their three bottles of lube, looks between them, and asks in accented English “Condoms?” Armie just smiles and shakes his head.

“No, thank you, we’ve already got those.”

Timmy can’t help but feel slightly useless, walking next to Armie and his two full grocery bags, just carrying the small bag with the lube in it, especially considering most of the things in Armie’s bags were his to begin with. When he mentions that to Armie, he just shakes his head, knocking his shoulder against Timmy’s.

“Just let me take care of you, please?”

Warmth spreads through Timmy’s body, his throat suddenly feels way too dry, and since he can’t get his voice to work, he just nods.

When they get back to the apartment, Timmy makes himself busy with unpacking the grocery bags while Armie starts prepping their dinner, peeling and deveining the shrimp. Once Timmy finishes, he lifts himself up on the kitchen counter, watching Armie cook. While it might not be the fanciest of meals, basically just pasta and shrimp, just the fact that Armie wanted to cook for him in the first place? Timmy feels so incredibly lucky, he doesn’t understand how he deserves any of this.

Timmy tries to help with setting the table, but Armie just playfully shoves him out of the kitchen, telling him to go put on something nice. “Pretend we’re at a fancy restaurant!” Timmy stands in front of his closet at least five minutes too long, before settling on some black skinny jeans and a pale blue button down shirt that he’d only brought because his mom told him that you never knew when you needed to be fancy. And dammit, she was right, as always.

Just as Timmy is about to open the door to his bedroom and rejoin Armie in the kitchen, he gets a text message. “I’m going to get changed real quick, don’t you DARE leave your bedroom until I’m back.” So he sits down on the bed, opening Instagram instead. He’d turned the notifications off as soon as he realized his account was going to be pretty active going forwards, so it takes him a bit by surprise when he sees that there’s not only one new photo posted to his account, but two. Both of them just your standard tourist photos, one of the gelato shop he and Armie liked to frequent, and one of the sunrise.

Timmy knows that neither him or Armie have uploaded any pictures to the Dropbox link Peter supplied them with yet, so he suspects these pictures where taken by Peter himself, or possibly even Marcus, when they were here the other day. And Timmy knows that no matter what Peter told Armie on the phone earlier, about plans changing, he’d been planning to do it exactly like this from the get-go.

Suddenly there’s a knock on the bedroom door, startling him, and he hears Armie’s voice seeping through the wood. “Okay, you can come out now.”

He opens the door and sees that Armie had dressed up too, putting on some nice black slacks, and a beautiful, tan colored, thin sweater.

“Wow, you look -” They both start speaking at the same time, saying the exact same thing, making them laugh.

Armie reaches out and cups Timmy’s cheek, gently stroking across his cheekbone with his thumb, Timmy can’t help but close his eyes and lean into his touch. He moans low in his throat as Armie’s lips softly touch his own. “You’re so beautiful, Timmy, you don’t even know...” Armie whispers against his lips, pulling away with a sigh, and Timmy’s eyes flutters open, seeing Armie smiling down at him.

“We should go eat before the food gets cold.” Armie says, taking Timmy’s hand in his own as he starts walking towards the kitchen. When Timmy walks through the door, he stops in his tracks, and if he had been a Disney princess he probably would have swooned. Because Armie didn’t just cook, he’d also set the table, somehow having managed to find a vase and some flowers as well as a candle while Timmy was waiting in the bedroom.

“You… Armie.” Timmy gestures towards the table, speechless, and a pleased smile spreads on Armie’s face.

“You like it?”

“Like it? Armie, are you kidding? I love it, thank you.”

Timmy feels completely overwhelmed as Armie pulls his chair out for him before going to sit down opposite him, this feels so much like a date Timmy has to pinch himself to make sure it’s actually happening and not just some f*cked up dream.

The food is absolutely delicious, and when he tells Armie that, Armie actually blushes and stutters out a thank you, making Timmy smile. The fact that Armie actually went to the trouble of making him a candlelit dinner... Timmy’s heart threatens to beat out of his chest just at the thought, and when Armie runs his foot up Timmy’s leg, his heart beats even faster.

Dinner is over far too quickly, both of them a lot more hungry than they’d thought, but they stay sitting at the kitchen table for a good long while, talking about pretty much everything that pops into their heads.

“This movie is actually going to be a lot of firsts for me.” Armie says chuckling, “not only is it going to be the first, and probably only movie, I’ll ever get to shoot in chronological order, you’ll also have the honor of taking my sex scene virginity.”

“Wait, really? You’ve never done one?” Technically Timmy already knew that, since he had watched basically all of Armie’s movies. A lot of them before he found out Armie was going to play Oliver, but there’d been a good chunk he’d watched after, for research purposes of course, and when he thinks back now, he couldn’t remember any sex scenes. And he definitely would have, if there had been any, that much he’s sure of.

“No.” Armie shakes his head with a smile, “you’re gonna be my first.”

Timmy grins, fluttering his eyelashes, “Well, Mr. Hammer, I promise to take good care of you.”

Timmy insists on doing the dishes, but Armie just shakes his head. “You have a perfectly good dishwasher for that, Timmy.” he says, kissing Timmy’s cheek, but at least he lets Timmy load the dishwasher without protesting.

Armie carries their wine glasses and the bottle of wine into the living room while Timmy finishes up in the kitchen. He decides to open one of the bags of pistachios he bought – or, well, that Armie bought for him – earlier at the store, and pours them into a bowl, bringing a separate smaller bowl to put the shells into. Armie is sitting on the couch sipping his wine while he zaps through the channels on the TV, settling on an old re-run of Storage Wars. Timmy didn’t even know they aired that in Italy, and luckily it’s subtitled and not dubbed, so they can actually understand what’s being said for a change.

Even though he knows the show is rigged, he still finds it interesting watching all the weird things people just leave behind in storage units, mainly because he’s never had enough things to ever need storage.

“There’s no way that guitar is worth anything, this idiot keeps saying it has to be a vintage Stratocaster, but they don’t look like that.” Armie says, while rolling his eyes at the guy on screen. Then later when he goes to get the guitar appraised, and he’s told that the guitar isn’t worth anything, Armie lets out a loud HAH! before turning to Timmy and grinning “Told you!”

He looks so goddamn pleased with himself that Timmy can’t help but lean over and kiss him, Armie startles a little, but quickly gets with the program and kisses him back. Timmy pulls back when he feels Armie start trying to deepen it, making Armie frown.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just – Uhm…” Timmy rubs his thumb across his bottom lip. “Are we…” He cuts himself off again, scratching his nose, and Armie reaches over taking Timmy’s hand in his own. Timmy feels so incredibly stupid, all he wanted to ask was if they were going to have sex tonight, now that they’d gone and bought the lube and condoms, but for some reason, the words just didn’t want to leave his mouth.

“You don’t have to be nervous, Timmy. Whatever it is, just ask.” Armie smiles, stroking his thumb over the inside of Timmy’s wrist to calm him down. Timmy had noticed Armie seemed to be fond of doing that, not that Timmy minded, in fact, he found it very grounding.

“I’m not nervous, it’s – I mean, it’s just awkward, that’s all.” Timmy bites his bottom lip and sucks in a deep breath before closing his eyes and decides to just go for it, after all, the worst thing that could happen would be that Armie said no, and even then, he knew it’s wasn’t a permanent no. So, really, it would be fine.

“Are we going to have sex tonight?” He asks quietly with his eyes still closed. Timmy feels Armie lift his hand and touch his lips to Timmy’s wrist in the same spot his thumb had been stroking across just seconds earlier.

“If that’s what you want, then yeah.” Timmy opens his eyes and sees Armie smiling softly at him.

“Only if you want it, too.” Timmy frowns, Armie’s smile grows wider and he kisses the inside of Timmy’s wrist again.

“I always want you, Tim.”

Armie’s words take Timmy’s breath away, and all he can do is blink dumbly back at him. “Oh.”

Luckily, despite Timmy’s brain going offline, Armie just smiles at him. “I don’t know why you’re surprised, I mean, have you seen you? You’re stunning, Timmy, anyone would be lucky to have you. And the fact that you’ve chosen to share this side of you with me? I’ll never understand how I got to be so lucky.”

Timmy is sure that Armie meant that to be reassuring, but if anything, that just makes everything so much worse, and to his own horror, he feels his eyes well up with tears.

“Hey, no, don’t cry! Baby, what’s wrong?” Armie reaches out and cups Timmy’s cheek, carefully wiping away the tear that spills down his cheek. Timmy doesn’t even know where to begin, because technically, absolutely nothing is wrong, but at the same time, everything is wrong. Hearing Armie talking about him like that, how lucky he felt to have him, just made Timmy realize how badly he wanted it to be true.

But he didn’t just want Armie to feel lucky because he got to sleep with him, he wanted Armie to feel lucky because he got all of him. Basically, what he really wanted, and probably had wanted right from the start despite trying his very best not to, was for Armie to love him. And he hates himself a little for even thinking it, like Armie’s friendship wasn’t enough somehow, Timmy just had to go and be greedy.

“Nothing is wrong, Armie, I promise. I just – No one has ever said anything like that to me before. I don’t really know how to… I’m not good with compliments.” Which is true, every time anyone has ever said anything nice about him, he got all fidgety and just wanted to disappear. Normally he loved attention, but not in those moments. His reaction to Armie’s words has absolutely nothing to do with that, but it’s easier if he thinks that’s the reason, not wanting him to get freaked out by the truth.

“Well, we’re going to have to fix that, won’t we? Because if anyone deserves to be drowning in compliments, it’s you. You’re so -”

Timmy, who can’t take listening to another word Armie says, cuts him off with a kiss. He brings both hands up to cup Armie’s cheeks, pouring everything he feels in the moment into the kiss, and Armie moans, opening his mouth and letting Timmy’s tongue in, while one of his hands bury themselves in the hair at the back of Timmy’s head. Timmy moans into the kiss too, the first touch of Armie’s tongue to his own, sending sparks of electricity down his spine, making him shudder.

“f*ck, Armie, let’s go to bed, please.” Timmy whines against Armie’s lips, and Armie nods, quickly getting up from the couch and he starts unbuttoning his pants as he walks into Timmy’s bedroom. Timmy spares a glance at the half full bottle of wine on the table, as well as the practically empty bowl of pistachios – the bowl for the shells however, was basically overflowing – and thinks f*ck it, he’d clean it up tomorrow, and follows Armie into the bedroom.

When he walks through the door and spots Armie on the bed, he comes to a complete halt, because Armie is already naked, lying on his back in the middle of the bed, slowly jerking himself off.

“You son of a bitch.” Timmy breathes out, making Armie chuckle, but the hand on his co*ck doesn’t stop moving.

“You’re wearing too many clothes.” Armie points out, and Timmy curses the fact that he chose to put on a f*cking button up–all those goddamn buttons he has to undo before he’s able to take it off–it’s almost so he decides to just rip it open, and he probably would have if it weren’t for the fact that it was one of his favorite shirts.

Once he pushes his underwear down and off, and he’s finally naked, he crawls onto the bed, knocking Armie’s hand away from his co*ck, replacing it with his own. He moves his hand just as slowly as Armie had done, but Armie sucks in a breath and winces a little, so he stops.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just, it’s a little dry, is all.” Armie smiles sheepishly, and Timmy just shrugs, collecting a large amount of spit in his mouth before leaning over Armie’s dick and letting the spit slip through his lips, landing at the tip of Armie’s co*ck, mixing with the small amount of precome already present. Timmy uses his hand to coat Armie’s dick with the wetness as best he can, jerking him off at a much quicker pace. And from the way Armie can’t seem to help but push his hips up into the touch, Timmy would guess that it definitely feels a lot better now.

“f*ck, Timmy, stop.” Armie pants out after a little while, and Timmy releases him so fast you’d think he just burnt his hand.

“Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt you?” Timmy asks worriedly, looking between Armie’s face and his dick with a frown. But Armie just shakes his head, closing his eyes with a smile, breathing heavily.

“Not at all, in fact, it started to feel too damn good, and if I didn’t stop you, I would have come.”

“Oh.” Relief fills Timmy’s body, and he bites his lower lip as a pleased smile takes over his face. He’d quickly come to realize, that being able to please Armie in bed, was one of his absolute favorite things. The fact that he could make Armie feel good? Yeah, he definitely liked that.

Armie sits up and reaches for Timmy’s hand, pulling him closer, and kissing him softly on the lips.

“Are you ready to get started?” He asks quietly, and Timmy kisses him again, pulling away with a nod.

At Armie’s request, he lies down on his stomach, and since he, sadly, doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head, he startles a little when Armie spreads his legs and gently strokes a finger over his opening.

“So beautiful.” Armie whispers, distractedly, most likely not even meant for Timmy to overhear. But he did hear it, and he can’t help the blush that darkens his cheeks, thanking his lucky stars that Armie wouldn’t be able to see it.

They hadn’t bothered putting the lube and condoms into the nightstand when they got back from the store, most likely because they knew they were going to be using them pretty quickly, so when Timmy feels Armie leave the bed and he hears the rustling of a plastic bag opening, he knows exactly what’s going on. He can’t help but hold his breath in anticipation when Armie gets back, placing a hand at the bottom of Timmy’s spine.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Armie asks, one last time, and Timmy releases the breath he was holding. Buthe doesn't trust his voice not to break, so he nods instead. When he hears the quiet snick of the lube being opened, he can’t stop himself from lifting his ass up to meet Armie’s touch, groaning into the pillow as Armie’s finger rubs across him again, wet with lube this time. Armie must have warmed it up between his fingers first, becauseit didn't feel uncomfortably cold to the touch, as lube often times did.

Timmy bites his lip in order not to scream when the tip of Armie’s finger enters him, the width of his finger feeling absolutely incredible inside him.

“Don’t silence yourself, baby. I want to hear everything.” Armie says as he leans down and leaves a wet kiss on Timmy’s right ass cheek, at the same time he lets his finger push all the way inside him, and Timmy pushes back against him almost immediately, a whine getting stuck in his throat.

Armie moves his finger in and out of Timmy fast and quite roughly, once he figured out that was what Timmy liked, and Timmy’s hips chase after him the second his finger leaves him and moans in satisfaction as soon as it comes back. Soon it’s not enough with just one finger, Timmy knows it’s way too soon, however, for Armie to push his dick into him, but he still kind of want to ask for it. Buthe settles for begging for another finger instead.

“Please, Armie, give me more. Another finger, please.”

He hears Armie groan and pull his finger out, even though Timmy knows it’s coming back, hopefully joined by another, he can’t help but whine and wiggle his hips. When Armie pushes his fingers back in, freshly coated in lube, Timmy groans loudly, the added stretch of Armie’s middle finger burning in the best possible way. Just like that morning, in the shower, Armie crooks his finger in search of Timmy’s prostate, and luckily for Timmy, his finger is long enough to bump into it on the first try, and he pushes against Armie’s hand with a surprised shout.

“f*ck, yes, Armie, right there, god.”

Armie rubs over his prostate a couple of more times before he goes back to roughly shoving his fingers in and out of him, still occasionally bumping into his prostate with a finger, but not actively searching it out. Timmy doesn’t know how he’s still breathing, completely overwhelmed with pleasure as he is.

“Are you ready for more?” Armie asks with a strained voice, cupping Timmy’s hip with the hand not otherwise occupied. Timmy, who can’t get his voice to work, other than moaning, just nods frantically in reply.

This time when Armie’s fingers return, the stretch is almost too much for Timmy to handle, and he winces, letting out a pained noise, stopping Armie in his tracks instantly. “Are you okay? Do you want me to stop?”

Timmy shakes his head, “I can take it, I promise, just… f*ck. Slow.” He feels Armie following his lead, slowly pushing his fingers in while Timmy focuses on relaxing his muscles, and tries to keep his breathing steady.

“God, you’re so tight, Timmy. I can’t wait to be inside you.” Armie leaves wet kisses all the way down his spine while keeping his fingers completely still inside Timmy, letting him adjust to being so full. He only starts moving his hand again when Timmy once again starts pushing his hips back against him.

Every time Armie pushes his fingers in, Timmy’s dick rubs against the bed sheets, and the dual pleasure is almost enough to have him lose his mind completely, the fact that he hasn’t come yet is nothing short of a goddamn miracle.

“Ngh, Armie, I want you, I – Please.” Timmy is absolutely desperate by now, Armie’s fingers feel amazing, but they’re just, not enough. He needs more.

Armie pulls his fingers out while leaving one last kiss to the bottom of Timmy’s spine and helps push him over onto his back. Blinking his eyes up at Armie, he can’t help but smile at the way Armie looks just as wrecked as Timmy feels, and he must’ve been running his hand through his hair at some point. Because it’s all tousled and one part stands, adorably, up from the rest.

“Hey, you.” Armie smiles softly down at him, leaning down to kiss him again, on the lips this time.

“Hi, yourself.” Timmy smiles as Armie pulls back, rubbing his thumb across Timmy’s cheek.

When Armie busies himself reaching for the condoms and trying to figure out which of the 4 packs they bought were in his size, Timmy reaches for a pillow and places it under his hips, knowing from experience just how important that slight change in angles could be.

He watches as Armie rips open the condom wrapper with his teeth, his fingers no doubt way too slippery with lube to get a good hold. He smiles at the way Armie sucks in a breath when he rolls the condom down on himself, and the way he squeezes the base of his co*ck when he covers it with lube.

Timmy spreads his legs as best he can to make room for Armie, and if he wasn’t as turned on as he is, he would have laughed at the way Armie shuffled closer to him on his knees, holding his condom covered dick in his hand. At the first touch of Armie’s dick to his hole, Timmy’s breath catches in his throat, and he spreads his legs even wider.

Armie teases him by rubbing the head of his co*ck against him a few times before pushing in, Timmy was just about to yell at him and tell him to get a f*cking move on, when he feels him push his hips forward, and the tip of his co*ck breaches Timmy. Despite the thickness of Armie’s fingers, and taking three of them, Armie’s dick is still too big, the stretch of it painful enough that Timmy clenches up instinctively, and pushes him back out.

“sh*t.” Armie groans. “Are you okay?” Timmy nods, it hadn’t actually hurt, it’d just been uncomfortable enough for his body to say ‘nope, not doing this, bye’ despite the fact that Timmy wanted it so badly he was practically gagging for it.

“Yeah, yeah, just, try again.” Armie nods and spreads some more lube directly onto Timmy’s entrance before pushing inside of him with two fingers, scissoring them quickly to test the resistance and pulling them back out. This time the head of his co*ck slips in a lot easier, but when he gets a little further in, Timmy clenches up again, and he can actually feel Armie’s co*ck soften slightly as Armie lets out a pained hiss and pulls back out.

“f*ck, Timmy, this isn’t working.” No matter how ridiculous it makes him look, Timmy pouts up at Armie, making him smile and touch the pad of his thumb to Timmy’s protruding bottom lip. “I need to prep you some more before we try again.” Armie says and reaches for the lube, covering his fingers in the slick substance again.

All three of Armie’s fingers slide inside him with no problem, but it starts to smart a little when he slips his little finger in with the rest, but Timmy knows it’s necessary so he focuses on breathing steadily, and little by little, the pain disappears completely, leaving nothing but pleasure in it’s wake. Armie makes sure to spread his fingers out a bit more than he had done previously, just to be completely sure that Timmy is stretched out enough to completely take him all the way.

“I think we’re ready to try again.” Armie whispers as he pulls his fingers back out a little while later. “If you still want to, of course.”

“Yes, please.”

“You wanna help me get hard again, or do you want to watch?” Armie asks him as he takes his now half hard co*ck in his hand.

“I want to help.” Timmy says, sitting up and batting Armie’s hand away. He also pulls the condom off, throwing it onto the floor, and at Armie’s raised eyebrow he says “I wanna do it with my mouth.” Armie spits out a curse and gets up on his knees, so when Timmy shuffles forwards a little, he can just open his mouth and catch the tip of Armie’s co*ck on his tongue.

The feeling of Armie’s dick growing hard in his mouth, is just as amazing as feeling himself grow hard in Armie’s mouth, if not even better, just because he’s the one making Armie feel good. And it’s already been well established how much he f*cking likes to be able to do that.

Timmy tightens his lips around Armie’s co*ck, leaning his head forward to take as much of him into his mouth as possible, and sucks hard for a few seconds before opening his mouth and licking at the underside of his co*ck on the way up. His hands are holding onto Armie’s hips, so he uses only his tongue to guide Armie’s dick back into his mouth, moaning around him when Armie can’t help but push his hips forward a little, pushing his dick further into Timmy’s mouth.

Armie is well and truly hard again now, so Timmy pulls off with one final lick to the head of his co*ck. He reaches for the discarded condom packet that Armie had slung onto the bed earlier when he’d put one on himself, and since Timmy’s fingers aren’t covered with lube the same way Armie’s are, he’s able to open it up the normal way. Armie sucks in another breath when Timmy rolls the condom down, and he can’t help but tighten his grip a little more than necessary when he coats Armie’s dick with lube, just to hear Armie moan for him.

Timmy lies back down onto his back, making sure the pillow is once again under his hips to help elevate them a little, and he spreads his legs as wide as he can to make room for Armie. This time Armie coats Timmy’s hole generously with lube, he might have even used a little too much going by the wet sucking sound that follows when he pushes three fingers back into him, to make sure he’s still stretched enough.

When Armie guides his co*ck into him this time, there is no resistance, Timmy just closes his eyes and moans loudly at how f*cking good it feels, being filled to the brim. When Armie finally bottoms out, he lifts Timmy’s legs onto his shoulders, pulling him even further down onto his co*ck than Timmy thought possible.

“f*ck me.” Timmy whispers, and Armie pulls almost all the way back, only the tip of his co*ck left inside of Timmy, and slams his hips forward, burying himself completely again. Timmy chokes on a scream, digging his fingertips into Armie’s back, holding on for dear life as Armie f*cks into him roughly a few more times before slowing down.

He lets Timmy’s legs fall down off his shoulders to settle on either side of his hips, and Armie leans forwards capturing Timmy’s lips in a messy kiss. His hips moving at a much slower pace, grinding against him more than anything else, but it still feels so f*cking good that Timmy doesn’t even mind.

“You feel so good around my co*ck, Timmy, f*ck. I -” Armie cuts himself off, kissing Timmy again, and he can’t help but moan into the kiss as Armie’s dick nudges against his prostate. Armie’s hips speed up a little again at that, the unmistakable slapping noise their skin makes every time Armie’s hips come into contact with Timmy’s ass is the only sound in the room, other than theirbreathing and muffled moans.

Armie sucks on Timmy’s tongue, and at the same time he gives a really powerful thrust of his hips, practically knocking the bed against the wall. Timmy’s back arches at how f*cking good that made him feel, electricity shooting down his spine and out through his co*ck, a large bead of precome bubbling to the surface, coating the head of his co*ck with slickness.

Timmy whines when Armie reaches down and wraps his hand around his co*ck, jerking him in the same rhythm as his hips move his dick in and out of him. And when you couple that with the way Armie completely devours him with his lips, kissing him desperately and wetly, Timmy feels so overwhelmed he can’t stop a couple of tears from escaping his eyes, rolling down the sides of his face.

When Armie starts getting close to coming, his hips speed up and his thrusts get harder and more frantic, the grip on Timmy’s co*ck tightening as well. Timmy moans into Armie’s mouth and after two or three hard thrusts, he comes all over himself with a loud shout, his lips separating from Armie’s with a wet smacking sound as he bends his head backwards while his dick spews out strand upon strand of pearly white come. Armie’s hips stop moving, his dick completely sheathed inside of Timmy, as he coaxes every last drop of come out of him with his hand. He only lets go when Timmy reaches down to stop his movements, shaking his head as an indicator that enough was enough.

“Can I still...” Armie points down to where they’re connected, his dick still buried inside of him, and Timmy nods. He wants nothing more than for Armie to come while inside of him, no matter how oversensitive and sluggish he feels after his own org*sm.

Armie pulls out almost all the way and slams his hips forward a few times before letting out an animalistic sound, and stilling inside of Timmy, groaning low in his throat as Timmy feel him spilling into the condom. He clenches around him periodically to help prolong his org*sm as long as possible, the same way Armie did for him.

As Armie pulls his softening dick out of Timmy, making sure to hold onto the condom on the way out, Timmy can’t help but clench his asshole a couple of times, feeling weirdly empty now that he wasn’t being filled up by the impressive girth of Armie’s co*ck anymore. Armie ties the condom off and leans over the other side of the bed to throw it into the trash can that Timmy had completely forgotten about earlier.

“How do you feel?” Armie asks as he gets out of bed, most likely to get them something to clean up with.

“Mhm.” Is all Timmy is able to say, and Armie just smiles as he walks through the door. He returns a minute or two later, smelling freshly of Timmy’s deodorant, and carrying a wet washcloth. Timmy can’t help but hiss as he runs the cloth over his sore entrance, and Armie kisses the inside of his knee in apology before moving on to cleaning up the mess of come Timmy had left on his stomach, throwing the cloth onto the floor when he’d finished.

Armie lays down next to Timmy, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and sighing in pleasure when Timmy snuggles closer. They’ve almost drifted off to sleep when Armie’s phone starts ringing, startling them both awake, and Armie only barely manages to dig his phone out of the back pocket of his pants before the call ends. But judging by the look on Armie’s face when he reads the call ID, that might not have been the worst thing to happen.

“What?” Armie spits out as he picks up the phone.

“f*ck off, seriously? You can’t wait until tomorrow?” Whatever the other person has to say, it makes Armie roll his eyes and sigh in defeat.

“Fine, whatever. Yes, I’ll take care of it – Yes, right away. Goodbye.”

Timmy watches as Armie clenches his fist and takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly through his nose and looking over at Timmy with a defeated look on his face. “That was Peter, apparently he’s not happy that we didn’t immediately provide him with pictures they could use for Instagram, so he called to make sure we’d upload some, right away.”

Timmy blinks back at Armie in confusion. “But, they only sent the link to the Dropbox account, like, a few hours ago? And they’ve already updated my account twice today, isn’t that a bit overkill?”

“They what?” Armie picks his phone back up from where he’d dropped it onto the bed after ending the call with Peter, presumably looking Timmy’s account up on Instagram. “Those f*ckers, they’ve been on mine too.” Armie shakes his head. “You’re right, if they keep this up it’s definitely overkill, but I guess that’s what they’re going for at first, a quick attention grabbing spam, to make sure people are watching.”

Timmy nods his head slowly, that did actually somewhat make sense, so Armie was probably right that that was what they were doing. Timmy gets off the bed in hunt of his own phone, digging it out of the pocket of his discarded jeans. He opens his photo gallery as he climbs back onto the bed, to see if there’s any photos he’s taken recently that could work. He finds a few usable ones and logs into the Dropbox account and uploads them, smiling a little when he sees the pictures Armie must have just uploaded. There is one of him from his piano lesson, that he hadn’t even noticed Armie had taken, but considering his eyes are closed in the picture, that’s probably not all that strange.

He uploads a couple of nature shots, and he also includes the one he had taken of Armie in the park earlier today. He hesitates a little before hitting upload on that one, considering that particular photo is one he’d like to keep for himself. It’s nothing special, the picture, it’s just Armie lying on his back in the grass with his hands under his head, but it’s the small but pleased smile on his face, and the way he’s completely relaxed for a change, that makes Timmy not want to share it with anyone. He uploads it anyway, but secretly hopes they don’t actually use it.

“There, that should be more than enough.” Armie sighs, and places his phone face down onto the nightstand, while Timmy shoves his underneath his pillow, like always.

They lie back down on the bed in the same position as before the phone rang, but this time, just as he’s about to fall asleep, no phone rings to wake him back up again. He can, however, hear Armie brokenly whisper into his hair. “f*ck, Timmy. You deserve so much more than this, and I’m sorry I failed to protect you from them.”

Unfortunately, Timmy falls asleep before he has the chance to reply.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

The first thing Timmy notices when he wakes up the next morning, is that he’s all alone in bed. The second thing he notices is that Armie’s side of the bed is cold, meaning that he left some time ago, and the third thing, is that the sound of his alarm is really f*cking obnoxious. But that also means it’s barely 8 in the morning, so where is Armie? He’d never woken up before Timmy in the couple of nights they’ve slept in the same bed, and he knows Armie likes to sleep in, because he’d told Timmy as much. But maybe he’d just woken up needing to pee and couldn’t fall back asleep.

Timmy walks into the bathroom to relieve himself and brush his teeth, but when he lifts his arm to reach for his toothbrush and smells himself – he absolutely stinks there’s no two ways about it – he decides to take a shower first.

He notices that his shower gel is starting to reach dangerously low levels, and makes a mental note to start writing a shopping list. When he reaches down to clean between his ass cheeks, he can’t help but clench up and hiss in pain when he runs a finger over his entrance. He was definitely more sore from taking Armie than he’d ever been with any of his other partners, but then Armie was also considerably bigger than any of them could ever hope to be, so it made sense. But Timmy knew that it meant they definitely couldn’t have him be on the bottom two days in a row, or they’d run the risk of actually hurting him, and he did not want that.

Honestly it was a damn shame that his apartment didn’t come with a bathtub, because a long, relaxing soak would’ve done him, and his asshole, a world of good.

Since all Timmy has on his agenda today is another piano lesson around noon, and dinner at Luca’s later in the evening, he decides to just throw on an old t-shirt that had been through the wash so many times it was practically see-through and full of tiny holes, and a pair of shorts that had once upon a time been a pair of sweatpants, until he cut the legs off because it had gotten caught in the chain of his bike back in New York.

When he walks into the living room he sees that the bottle of wine and the bowls of pistachios are still on the table, in fact everything looks exactly like they’d left it last night, when they went to bed, making Timmy frown.

Where the f*ck was Armie?

Maybe he’d gone back to his own apartment to shower and get dressed or something, so Timmy walks across the hall and knocks on his door, just to be sure. But there is no answer. Timmy’s heart sinks and ice cold anxiety takes up residence in his stomach, and a thousand and one questions run throughhis head at the same time.

Had he ditched him for some reason? Was it because of last night? Had it been too much? Had Timmy done something wrong some how? Said something? Was it because of what happened with Peter? Did Armie regret signing the contract with him? Had he pulled out of the movie and left? Was it all Timmy’s fault?

Timmy has half a mind to go grab his bike and ride it over to Luca’s on the off chance Armiewas there, but then he remembers that he and Armie had left the bikes in the city center when they’d decided to go grocery shopping on the way home, and he can’t really be bothered walking all the way there by himself to pick up two bikes.

He calls Luca instead.

“Timmy!” Luca answers happily, and despite everything, Timmy can’t help but smile at the way he pronounces his name like Tea-mee. He has half a mind to change the url on his second, still secret, Instagram to that.

“Hey, Luca. I’m sorry to bother you, but, you haven’t happened to have heard from Armie, have you? It’s just...” Timmy sighs. “I can’t find him anywhere, and I don’t know, I thought maybe he’d tell you.”

“Yes, he texted me earlier, in fact. Said he had some business to attend to, but he would be back later. Why? Is everything okay?”

Armie had told Luca, but he hadn’t bothered letting Timmy know, despite the fact that it was his bed he had spent the night in. Timmy can’t help but feel a little offended, not to mention hurt, wasn’t he important enough for Armie to bother making an effort with? He thought they were on the same page in this relatio- friendship. He at least thought he meant something, enough to leave a note if nothing else.

But apparently not.

Maybe all Armie wanted from him was a quick f*ck, and now that he’d gotten it, he was no longer interested. Timmy didn’t think Armie was a f*ck ‘em and chuck ‘em type of a guy, but, as he keeps reminding himself, he doesn’t actually know Armie all that well. So maybe he was that type of a guy after all.

“Yeah, yeah, I just – Like I said, I couldn’t find him, and he didn’t tell me he was going anywhere, so I wanted to check up on him, you know, to make sure everything’s fine.” The fact that Timmy’s voice comes out sounding all calm and collected takes him by surprise, because on the inside, well, he was feeling anything but calm. Or collected.

“I see...” Luca says slowly.

And Timmy feels the need to hastily add, “yeah, I’m sure he tried to knock, but I sleep like the dead.” Just so he wouldn’t get suspicious. Or, more suspicious, is probably the more correct turn of phrase.

“I’m sure.” Is all Luca says before he changes the subject, and Timmy releases the breath he didn’t even know he was holding.

“The location of the Perlman home is absolutely stunning, I can’t wait to take you guys there. I tried to buy it once, did I tell you?” And off Luca goes on a tangent about houses and villas and what the biggest difference is between building materials in the countryside versus the city, and how that came into play with how he visualized the Perlman’s villa. Luca also started talking about the décor, saying that the set designer was a, quote unquote, f*cking genius of a man, and if Luca believed in marriage, and the other guy hadn’t been straight, he would’ve proposed on the spot when he showed him his ideas.

Listening to Luca rambling on about the movie, is so relaxing and mind numbing, he almost falls asleep on the couch. So when he hears Luca call his name, loudly, he startles.

“Sorry! Sorry, I zoned out, I apologize. What did you say?”

He can hear Luca chuckle, which has him letting out a sigh of relief, at least he didn’t offend him. “I said, I think it’s time to say goodbye, I’m sure you have better things to do this morning than listening to me. I will see you later at dinner, Timothée.”

Timmy barely has a chance to agree before Luca hangs up, but that’s how he’d always been on the phone, as soon as he’d made it clear the conversation was done, he hung up. The first time that happened, Timmy thought they’d gotten disconnected by accident, and had called him back, only for Luca to say “I said goodbye, that means we hang up.”

Timmy spends the rest of the time before his piano lesson actually doing his homework. Sure, it wasn’t easy, practicing piano, without a piano, but Timmy had gotten good enough at reading the sheet music that he could visualize the keys in his head, as well as the sound they’d make when he pushed them down.

He loses himself completely in the music that’s only playing in his own head. His mother had always told him his imagination was going to take him places no one else could ever dream of, both literally and figuratively. Granted, Timmy had only been 7 at the time, so he hadn’t understood much, but a while later, he had come to understand that not everyone was able to get as lost inside their own heads as he did.

For the most part, it was a blessing, being able to completely submerse himself in a book, a song, a script, anything. But it also made his anxiety that much worse, because if he first lost control of that, he could be stuck inside a panicked loop of misery for way too f*cking long.

He’s lucky enough to have had a really amazing therapist, who helped him learn how to deal with that aspect of things, so that he could fully enjoy the other side of his, so called, gift. When she’d first taught him the grounding method, he’d been so happy he’d cried, making her think it hadn’t worked at all.

He had used that method so many times over the years, and it hadn’t failed him yet. His therapist had been thorough though, and taught him several other methods to use as well, in case the first one suddenly didn’t work for him anymore. He still goes to see her occasionally, but not as often as before. It had used to be a necessity, and he’d gone at least once a week, sometimes more, but these days he only had one session scheduled every three months or so, to check in.

And in case of emergencies, he had the number to her patient phone, which was on 24/7, should he need her. Luckily he had yet to call that number, but it was extremely reassuring knowing that he had it, if he ever did need it.

Timmy knows that if he hadn’t gone to therapy and learned to better control his emotions, he’d be a total nervous wreck right now. Not to say he wasn’t falling apart on the inside, because he definitely was, it just meant he knew how to not let it take complete control.

The fact that Armie hadn’t bothered telling him he was going to be gone all day, it hurt a lot more than it should. Because technically, Armie didn’t owe him anything, he didn’t have to tell him where he was going. But just the fact that he’d dismissed him so f*cking easily? Yeah, that f*cking sucked.

Timmy can’t quite decide whether he’s more sad or angry, which is a combination of emotions he’s, unfortunately, all too familiar with. He always seemed to end up here, whenever he let people get close to him. His sister had once told him he trusted way too easily, and that he should protect his heart better, but it’s not like he didn’t try! It just seemed he was a f*cking sh*t judge of character.

He had genuinely thought Armie was different. He seemed so, well, genuine. Nothing about him, from the way he smiled at Timmy when they first met, to the way he’d kissed him goodnight last night, had seemed fake in any way. Which is why Timmy just cannot for the life of him understand why he’d just up and leave the next morning after they’d had sex for the first time.

It didn’t make sense. And if there was anything Timmy truly f*cking hated, it was when things didn’t make sense. Things he couldn’t explain away with logic infuriated him to no f*cking end. Which is why, of course, Armie had to be the least logical person he’d ever f*cking met, at least in terms of what his actions meant, because nothing f*cking added up.

Armie had been so gentle, sweet and, dare he say it, loving, yesterday. From the way he’d paid for Timmy’s gelato, his groceries, how he’d cooked for him and made him dress up for dinner, setting the table with flowers and even lighting a candle. Timmy had thought that meant he at least cared a little bit, but then he woke up all alone in a cold and empty bed, and now absolutely nothing made sense to him anymore.

He still couldn’t help but worry that Armie had reached out to Peter to get the contracts annulled somehow, he didn’t have enough legal knowledge to know if that was even possible, but if Armie truly wanted to breach the contracts, damn the consequences, there would be no stopping him.

Timmy just hoped that Armie didn’t find the thought of pretending to love him to be so f*cking horrible that he’d rather go to jail to avoid it. But again, at this point, he couldn’t f*cking say for sure.

The alarm he’d set to notify him that his piano lesson was coming up goes off, and he spits out a curse when he realizes he’d forgotten to eat breakfast. He’s actually feeling more nauseated than hungry at the moment, but he knows that if he doesn’t eat, he’ll get really cranky, and considering how bad his mood already is, it’s probably for the best that he at least eats something.

Opening his kitchen cabinets just depress him, it’s not because he doesn’t have food, he does, it’s just that, everything in there, Armie paid for. And it’s the same with the fridge. He decides to just grab something on the way over to the piano lesson, and when he walks past the bike rack, he’s surprised to see that his and Armie’s bikes are chilling in their usual spots. He knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that they’d left them behind yesterday, and Luca definitely hadn’t brought them back for them, because he’d been so busy at the location of the Perlman villa that he’d actually slept there.

Which means, it had to have been Armie.

How the f*ck he had found the time to walk all the way to the city center to collect their bikes, but hadn’t bothered letting Timmy know he was going to be gone for the day, Timmy didn’t know. But it pissed him off even further, so he decided he was going to walk to his piano lesson after all, just to prove to Armie that he didn’t need his f*cking charity.

Granted, Armie wouldn’t know he didn’t take the bike, but it still made him feel better, more in control. He didn’t need Armie, he didn’t! He had been fine here alone for weeks before Armie arrived, and he’d keep being fine if Armie actually had chosen to leave.

He would. He’d be totally fine.

Timmy stops by the café to buy something to eat, and settles on getting two blueberry muffins, because f*ck Armie and the pastries he loved so f*cking much. He takes a large bite out of the muffin, and despite how angry he is at the moment, he can’t deny the fact that it tastes absolutely amazing. Since the first muffin disappears in about two or three bites, Timmy decides to savor the last one, only finishing the final bite when he arrives in front of the building where his lessons take place.

His piano teacher raises an eyebrow when Timmy walks in all by himself, and he feels more than a little disgruntled by the fact that he and Armie had become so damn co-dependent in the few days he’d been there, that people were actually surprised to see him alone. The worst part has to be, that just yesterday, that thought would have made him smile, but today it just hurts.

His teacher gestures for him to take his seat in front of the piano, and he opens his sheet music book and sits down, placing his fingers onto the correct keys before pressing them down and starting to play. Even though he knows he’s playing the keys correctly, it still doesn’t sound right, and no matter what he does, it all comes out sounding terrible.

Timmy takes a deep breath and tries again, doing his very best to clear his head of everything but the music. In this moment, nothing but him and the piano exist. But still, his teacher cuts him off, shaking her head.

“No, Timothée, what’s wrong?”

“What do you mean, what’s wrong? Everything’s fine. I’m fine.” Timmy says desperately. “Let me just try one more time.”

The teacher just shrugs her shoulders, gesturing for him to go ahead. And despite his claims of everything being fine, the music he creates sounds anything but, it’s sharp and horrible, almost like the piano can read his mind and refuses to let him get away with his lies.

“Clearly, everything is not fine. Where is your tall American, he always seemed to cheer you up, no?” His teacher asks with a smile, and to his horror, Timmy bursts out crying.

He buries his head in his hands, sobbing his heart out, he doesn’t even really know why he’s crying, but the fact that his teacher thought bringing up Armie was a sure fire way to cheer him up, that f*cking sucked. Because normally it would have worked. On any other day but today, mentioning Armie would have brought a smile to his face, but now, here he is, crying instead.

He startles a little when he feels his teacher wrapping her arms around him in a hug, but he quickly leans into her, soaking up as much comfort as he possibly could. Because, f*ck it, he really needed it.

“It’s alright, just let it out.” His teacher whispers into his ear, stroking his back as he cries. When the tears finally stop, Timmy pulls back, wiping away the wetness on his face with his hands, feeling his cheeks burn with mortification at what had just happened.

“I’m so sorry, I-” Timmy begins, but his teacher just raises a hand, cutting him off.

“Don’t ever apologize for your feelings, Timothée.” She says with a frown, reaching out and giving his shoulder a light squeeze. “Do you want to talk about it?”

To his surprise, Timmy actually nods. “Yeah, I – Yes. Uhm… I don’t even know where to begin?”

His teacher smiles, and Timmy thinks to himself that if they’re going to be friendly now, he might as well start to refer to her by her actual name instead of just, well, calling her his teacher. Only problem is, he can’t actually remember what her name is anymore, so he looks around the room, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, when his eyes land on one of her many awards. Vittoria, Timmy nods, that’s what it was.

“How about we start with why the mention of your tall American made you cry? Did something happen between you two? Did you have a fight?”

Timmy sighs, if only, because if they’d had a fight, at least he’d know what was wrong. “No, nothing like that.” He shakes his head. “Yesterday, everything was fine, better than fine even. We had such a lovely day, everything was absolutely perfect, he even cooked for me! And then we – uh – we...” Timmy clears his throat, looking sheepishly over at Vittoria, who only smiles and nods her head.

“You slept together.” She says, and Timmy nods his head in agreement.

“Yeah, we slept together. And I thought, you know, that everything was good, that he was happy with everything we had done, because I was. Happy, I mean. But then...” Timmy cuts himself off, looking down at his hands and picking at the skin around the nail on his thumb.

“But?”

“When I woke up this morning, he was just gone. No explanation, nothing. He’d told Luca he was going to be gone the entire day, because he had business to attend to, but, he didn’t tell me anything. And I… I don’t know, I can’t help but think that it’s my fault somehow? That I did something wrong, or it took him sleeping with me to realize that he didn’t actually like me at all. I just. I don’t know. And I hate it, so much.” Timmy can feel a new wave of tears threaten to break through, but he manages to swallow them down, for now.

Vittoria frowns, squinting a little, before reaching out and giving Timmy’s shoulder another squeeze. “I think, despite how difficult it is, that you should not jump to conclusions just yet. Yes, he was gone when you woke up, but it doesn’t have to mean that he has regrets?”

Timmy opens his mouth to say something, but Vittoria quickly continues talking. “I understand why you would think that, I do, but Timmy. You didn’t see him the other day, in your lesson, the way he looked at you? It’s not hard to tell that that man is truly gone on you, there is absolutely no way he’d ever regret being with you. I’m sure he has a good explanation for why he didn’t tell you about going away today.”

He’d like to believe that what Vittoria was saying was the truth, that Armie still cared about him, still wanted him, and that this whole thing was just a massive misunderstanding. But he still doesn’t understand why Armie couldn’t just have left him a note, or even a text message, that is all it would have taken for today to never have happened. And yet…

“I don’t know. If he cared so much, why not leave me a note?”

“Yeah, I can’t answer that. Only he can. Have you tried calling him?”

Timmy blinks at her in confusion, because no, he hadn’t tried calling him. He hadn’t even thought of trying to call him, and really, that should have been the first thing he did? “Uhm. No?” Hesmiles sheepishly, and she just shakes her head at him.

“Well, then, what are you waiting for? Call him!”

He digs his phone out of his pocket, and finds Armie’s name in his contacts, pressing the call button. The first time he tries, Armie doesn’t pick up, and he just gets his voice mail instead. The second time he tries, however, someone does pick up, but it’s not Armie. At the sound of an unfamiliar male voice, Timmy panics, and hangs up. Staring down at the phone in his hands like it had betrayed him on the deepest level.

“What? What happened?” Vittoria asks, looking at Timmy in confusion.

“He… He was with some other guy.” Timmy croaks out, and he feels a couple of tears run down his cheeks. He’d been right, he thinks, Armie had regretted sleeping with him, and he’d left him behind, to find someone better.

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, someone other than Armie picked up his phone. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t let complete strangers answer my phone calls!” Timmy spits out, angrily wiping away his tears. God, he felt so f*cking stupid.

“Uhm. Timmy. What did I just say about jumping to conclusions? So Armie is with another man right now, it doesn’t have to mean that he is with him. You do understand that, right? He is allowed to have friends? Co-workers? And just because you’re too paranoid to let others answer your phone, doesn’t mean that holds true for everyone else, I let people answer my phone calls all the time, if I’m busy, just on the off chance that it’s important. Maybe they saw your name on the call ID and Armie told him to pick up. Don’t automatically assume that the worst possible outcome is the correct one. You can’t let your brain jerk you around like that.”

She reminds Timmy so much of his therapist in that moment, that he can’t help but start to cry again, both because he really f*cking needed to be told that, and because he really wants her to be right.

“Armie adores you, I know it, Luca knows it, and soon the whole world will know it. I don’t doubt that for a second. I said it earlier, but the way he looks at you? After just a couple of days? He could never regret you. You just have to try and trust him, sweetheart. Don’t listen to your brain on this, follow your heart.”

Timmy wants to, he really does, he wants her to be right so f*cking badly. He just doesn’t know if he can, trust Armie, that is, because he keeps coming back to the fact that he doesn’t even know him. So much of what he’d thought he’d known about Armie was just assumptions, conclusions he’d come to that weren’t necessarily based in truth. Sure, some things he knew for sure, but there was way too much he didn’t. And that scared him, more than a little.

He’d jumped into this thing head first, he hadn’t considered the consequences at all. He thought he knew what he was getting himself into, but it turns out he didn’t have a f*cking clue. And it hadn’t even been a week since he signed those contracts, what the f*ck was going to happen the next week? Month, or even the next year?

Timmy truly hadn’t understood what Armie meant when he’d said he’d signed away his entire life, until this very moment. When he realizes that he no longer has any control, at all. Everything he says or does going forward, it doesn’t belong to him anymore. He doesn’t belong to himself anymore.

And what about Armie? Had he ever belonged to himself? Did he even know himself anymore? That was actually Timmy’s number one fear, that he’d one day wake up, and not recognize himself or his own life. That he’d look in the mirror, not understanding how, or when, this had become his reality. Whatever this turned out to be.

He suddenly felt so nauseous it was a goddamn miracle he didn’t throw up all over himself. What the f*ck had he done? He should have listened to Armie back there at the hotel, he should have said f*ck you to both Peter and Marcus, he should have fired Marcus right then and there and gotten a new manager, he should have done everything but what he actually did.

But it was too late now. He’d signed the papers. And for the next two years, he didn’t belong to himself. He belonged to Peter and the media, and Armie Hammer™ It wouldn’t actually matter if the real Armie didn’t want him, his public persona needed him, and that’s who Timmy belonged to now. Literally everyone but himself.

“I can’t… I want to believe you, really, I do. I just- I can’t.” Timmy shrugs, a few more tears making their way down his cheek before he wipes them away. Vittoria just looks at him sadly, shaking her head.

“Just promise me this, then. That when Armie comes back? Let him explain himself. Don’t just bite his head off and shove him out the door.” Timmy nods, but he doesn’t know if he’ll actually be able to keep that promise. Everything just felt way too raw right now to even think about what seeing Armie again would do to him.

They agree to try the piano again after Vittoria made them some sandwiches for lunch, he was technically way over his allotted time, but Vittoria had just shrugged and said that it didn’t matter. It goes better this time, but he’s still not up to his usual level. Vittoria just smiles and says that it’s to be expected, given his mood and how much he’s hurting, he’d done well, she says, and Timmy smiles. It had been the first time she ever complimented him, and it had come when he didn’t even perform to the best of his abilities, which made it mean so much more than it would have normally.

Timmy stops by the café again on his way back to his apartment, buying three chocolate chip muffins, two pastries and a cookie, just because he wanted one. He eats the cookie on the way, but he saves the muffins and the pastries for when he gets back inside, eating them in front of the TV, washing them down with a couple of glasses of co*ke.

He must doze off for a while, because he wakes to his phone vibrating in his pocket, indicating a phone call. He just barely manages to answer it before it goes to voice mail.

“Hello?” He answers groggily, still technically half asleep.

“We’re waiting for you at dinner, are you not coming?” Timmy pulls the phone away from his ear to look at the time, he’d been asleep a lot longer than he’d thought. Clearly being on the brink of an emotional breakdown takes a real toll on you.

“Is Armie there?”

Timmy can practically hear Luca frowning as he answers. “Yes, Armie is here.”

“Then no.” Timmy says and promptly hangs up. He knows he promised Vittoria to give Armie the chance to explain himself, and he would, probably, he just didn’t want it to happen in front of people. Let alone in front of Luca. His phone vibrates again, and the call ID once again says Luca, but instead of picking up, Timmy shuts his phone off. He just couldn’t deal with people right now.

Despite eating right before falling asleep, Timmy wakes up hungry, and he blames Luca’s dinner mention for that, because now all he can picture are plates upon plates with food. But he still can’t step foot in his kitchen to make anything, because everything in there reminds him of Armie, and if he dwells on that, it will kill his appetite.

So he puts on some shoes and goes down to the pizza shop to buy one of those instead. He carries his plain cheese pizza back up the stairs, and locks the door behind him, suddenly feeling extremely glad he never gave Armie a key like he’d briefly considered before falling asleep the other night.

He connects his laptop to the TV with the HDMI cord, and opens Netflix. He has no f*cking idea what he wants to watch, but eventually settles on an episode of Archer, because he needed something funny to take his mind off today.

Since he’d only ordered a medium pizza, he finishes the entire thing in between laughing at Archer’s hilarious one liners.

He’s in the kitchen, throwing away the pizza carton and contemplating going to bed when there’s a knock on his door, and he freezes in place. He knows it’s Armie, since he doesn’t know anyone else that would knock on his door at this hour.

“Timmy, are you awake? Open the door, please?” Despite how hurt he is, and the anger that’s festering in his stomach, Timmy can’t not open the door when Armie asks him to.

When he unlocks and opens the door, Armie’s smiling face comes into view, stopping Timmy in his tracks, because Armie looked… Well, he looked as gorgeous as he always did, but something was different. His hair looked perfectly tousled, he had forgone shaving that morning so his jaw was covered in stubble that Timmy totally did not want to rub his entire face against, and, was he wearing eyeliner?

“There you are! Why weren’t you at dinner? I missed you.” Armie takes a step into the apartment and reaches out for Timmy, either to hug or kiss him, Timmy can’t tell which, but he takes a large step back, placing himself outside of Armie’s reach.

"What’s wrong?” Armie frowns, and Timmy can’t help but scoff.

“Like you give a sh*t.” He spits out, feeling weirdly satisfied by the hurt and confusion that flashes across Armie’s face.

“What do you mean? Timmy, of course I care!”

“Oh yeah? Then where the f*ck have you been all day, hm?” Timmy spreads his arms and shrugs his shoulders before wrapping his arms around himself, closing himself off, glaring up at Armie.

Armie looks even more confused than before, staring with bewilderment down at Timmy. “I had an interview and a photoshoot in Milan? I -”

“And you didn’t bother telling me about that, because?” Timmy cuts him off, and Armie looks even more bewildered.

“What? But... I did? I left you a note.” Armie says quietly, furrowing his eyebrows.

“No, you didn’t. I woke up this morning, and you were just gone. No note. Like a soon as you got to f*ck me, that was it, I wasn’t interesting enough for you anymore.” Timmy spits out, watching Armie flinch and suck in a pained breath at his words.

“No, what? Timmy. I left a note, I swear! I wouldn’t just leave without letting you know where I went, especially not after what happened yesterday!” Armie says desperately, and Timmy wishes he could believe him, that he wasn’t the type of person to do something like that. But fact of the matter was, there was no note, so he was that type of person. And worse, he had the balls to lie about it, right to Timmy’s face.

“Yeah, well, you did. Because there was no note, Armie.” Timmy sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to stop the tears he feels building up from spilling over.

When he looks up at Armie, he tries to reach out for Timmy again, making him flinch and take another step back. He couldn’t take the idea of Armie’s hands on him right now, because he knows that would truly break him, and there’d be no way to stop those tears from falling then.

What he hadn’t taken into consideration, however, was the fact that him flinching away from his touch, would make Armie cry. So when he sees the tears spilling down Armie’s cheeks, he feels his heart break, he might still be angry as all f*cking hell, but he never wanted to be the reason that Armie cried.

After all, all of this only happened because he thought Armie had changed his mind and didn’t give a f*ck about him, he’d never stopped giving a f*ck about Armie.

“But I left a note.” Armie whispers wetly, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand, before looking at Timmy with determination in his eyes. “I left a note.” He repeats, and starts walking towards Timmy’s bedroom.

Timmy stands in the living room for about half a minute before following Armie into the bedroom. He finds him standing in front of the nightstand on Armie’s side of the bed, or, well, the side of the bed Armie had been sleeping on.

“I told you, there was no note, Armie.” Timmy sighs, but Armie just shakes his head, and gets down onto his knees, muttering something to himself that Timmy can’t hear. And when he gets back up and turns around to face Timmy, there is a piece of paper in his hand.

“I left a note.” Armie says quietly, handing him the note.

‘Timmy, I’m sorry I’m not there when you wake up, but I have to go to Milan for some stupid interview/photoshoot thing, I’ll be back later tonight. See you at dinner at Luca’s? I’ll miss you. Armie xxx’

As he’s reading, Timmy’s eyes fill with tears that immediately spill down his cheeks, and he chokes on a sob when he’s finished. Armie had left a note, Vittoria was right when she’d said that Timmy shouldn’t jump to the worst possible conclusions the first chance he got. He can’t help but curse himself out inwardly, everything today could have been f*cking avoided if he’d just thought to check the goddamn floor, because of course a quick gust of wind could have easily sent that small piece of paper flying off the nightstand. He should have f*cking thought of that.

“Oh.” Timmy says quietly, still staring down at the note in his hand, which is shaking a little. “I didn’t… I didn’t see it.” He chokes out, closing his eyes to try and limit the amount of tears flowing down his face. He can hear Armie walking closer towards him, and when he wraps his arms around Timmy, he leans into him, burying his face in Armie’s chest.

“It’s my fault.” Armie whispers, stroking Timmy’s back soothingly. “I should have secured it better, taped it to the bedroom door or something.” Timmy pulls back to look up at him, and Armie looks absolutely devastated, there’s no other words to describe it.

“I’m – f*ck Timmy – I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to feel used.” Armie croaks out, closing his eyes and letting more tears run down his face. Timmy pulls out of his embrace, and cups Armie’s cheek, carefully wiping away his tears until Armie opens his eyes again.

“Just, kiss me. Please?” Timmy whispers. That’s all he wanted right now, he knew they needed to talk this out properly, to avoid a misunderstanding like this happening again in the future, but right now, all he wanted, was Armie’s lips touching his own.

As their lips finally meet, Timmy lets out a sigh of relief and feels a couple of more tears run down his cheeks, just from pure emotional overexertion. When they pull back again, Armie wraps his arms back around Timmy, pulling him back into his chest, and he kisses the top of Timmy’s head comfortingly.

“I promise, I’ll do everything I can to make sure you never feel like this, ever again. I really am so f*cking sorry, Timmy.” Armie says, stroking his back. “If you don’t want to do this with me anymore, I understand.”

Timmy pulls back again, to look up at Armie’s face. How could he think Timmy didn’t want him? Especially considering how miserable Timmy had been all day when he’d thought it was the other way around, so he nods, wanting Armie to know he accepted his apology, and that everything would be okay.

So when Armie sucks in a pained breath, and takes a step back, separating himself from Timmy completely, and a new round of tears make their way down his face, Timmy can’t help but frown.

“Yeah, okay, I understand, I do, I… I know I already said it, but, I’m just really sorry.” Armie says wetly, rubbing his hands across his face. “I’ll call Peter right away, to see if we can work out the details of releasing you from the contracts.”

Timmy just blinks up at Armie in confusion, because, what? That’s not what he wanted at all? Sure, he still wasn’t exactly jumping with joy at the thought of essentially belonging to Peter and the public for the next couple of years, but it really wasn’t as bad now that he knew he’d get to belong to the real Armie too, and not just his public persona.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You just said you wanted out?” Armie says, tilting his head in confusion.

“No?” Timmy scrunches his nose, feeling just as confused as Armie looks.

“But… You nodded when I said the thing about you not wanting to do this anymore?”

“What? No? I nodded to show I accepted your apology!” Timmy smiles, shaking his head at himself, god they f*cking sucked at this communication sh*t. That’s one thing they definitely had to work on. Twice now, in the short time they’d known each other, they had managed to talk in circles around each other. They really really f*cking needed to get better at both talking and listening, but getting to know each other better would probably help a lot with that too.

Armie smiles down at him and sighs in relief, cupping Timmy’s cheek and kissing him softly on the lips.

“I only have one question.” Timmy pulls back to whisper against Armie’s lips, smiling widely when Armie just frowns and starts leaving kisses all over his face instead. “No, Armie, seriously.” Timmy giggles, Armie’s stubble tickling his face.

Armie heaves a great big sigh, as if having to stop kissing Timmy was the worst thing you could ask him to do, and he nods, gesturing for Timmy to ask his question.

“I called you, you know? Earlier today. But – Uh – You didn’t pick up? Instead it was some other guy? I – God, I don’t even know what I’m asking – But, who was he?” Armie frowns, clearly deep in thought, before his eyes widen when he finally realizes what Timmy was actually trying to say.

“Oh! Oh sh*t, no! Timmy, god, no. It was Giovanni! He was the photographer on the photoshoot, that’s all. I would never – no.” Armie reaches for Timmy’s hands and give them a quick squeeze, and he makes sure they’re making eye contact before he continues. “This thing? Now? You and me? It’s definitely exclusive, Timmy, please don’t ever think otherwise. Sure, technically we’re not dating in the eyes of the world yet, so we could’ve slept around if we wanted to. But, no, I don’t want to. I have you, what else could I possibly ever want?” Armie smiles and kisses him again.

This time Timmy deepens the kiss almost right away, pouring every bit of hurt, anger, sadness, heartbreak and relief he’d felt throughout the day into the kiss, and he feels Armie doing the same, filling the kiss with his own confusion, heartbreak, and relief.

When they pull back to breathe, Timmy rests his forehead on Armie’s chest, smiling when he feels Armie’s arms wrap around his shoulders.

“I’ll make today up to you, Timmy. I promise.” Armie whispers quietly, kissing the top of Timmy’s head again.

And Timmy, despite no longer thinking Armie had anything to make up for, believed him.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Timmy can feel someone watching him as his body fights to remain asleep. He opens one eye and squints against the light, barely making out the blurry figure that’s supposed to be Armie before he shuts it again. It’s too early for this.

“Are you watching me sleep?” Timmy asks, voice coming out all deep and scratchy with sleep.

“So what if I am?” Armie’s voice asks teasingly, and Timmy just grunts. “You’re so beautiful, Timmy. Of course I’m watching you.”

“Don’t be a creep.” Is all Timmy says before sleep overtakes him again. He’ll think about the sincerity in Armie’s voice later, when he’s more awake.

He wakes up a little later, to Armie kissing him lightly, lips barely pressing against Timmy’s.

“Mphf.” Timmy mumbles and reaches out blindly to grab Armie’s face, but he misses. “Kiss me properly.” He whispers with a pout, and he hears Armie laugh.

Next thing he knows, Armie is pressing wet open mouthed kisses to every inch of his face, including his eyelids.

“That’s not what I meant!” Timmy whines, opening his eyes and seeing Armie’s smiling face come into focus. He groans low in his throat when Armie leans down and kisses him properly, slipping his tongue into Timmy’s mouth as soon as he opens his mouth to it. Armie’s stubble keeps scratching his face and Timmy is strangely into it, so he cups Armie’s cheeks in his hands, rubbing his hands against the stubble, unable to stop the shiver that runs down his spine at the feel of it.

“Like that, do you?” Armie grins against Timmy’s lips, and all he can do is nod. He instantly regrets it when Armie pulls back from the kiss, only to start rubbing his face against Timmy’s, no doubt giving him a massive case of beard burn.

“No, Armie. Stop it!” Timmy giggles and tries to fight him off, but Armie is bigger than him and has the upper hand, so Timmy is helpless to do anything other than lie there as Armie rubs his face raw. Not that he minds, really, he’s just glad filming hasn’t started yet, because then Luca would probably skin them alive.

Armie pulls back to look down at Timmy, and his breath catches in his throat when he sees the look in Armie’s eyes, if he didn’t know any better he’d say it was love. But it can’t be, so Timmy writes it off as nothing more than wishful thinking, and surges up to catch Armie’s lips with his own again.

The kiss quickly grows desperate, Timmy can feel Armie pouring his heart and soul into it, obviously still feeling terrible about yesterday. Timmy lies back down and lets himself soak it up, allowing Armie to take full control, feeling that that’s something he needs right now, and Timmy is more than happy to let him do whatever he wants. Because in that moment, that’s all Timmy wants too.

“Let me take care of you?” Armie whispers against Timmy’s lips, kissing him several times in quick succession before Timmy has a chance to answer, so he settles for nodding and feels Armie smile into the kiss. Timmy half expected him to pull back and move down to suck his dick or something, but that’s not what happens at all, instead Armie straddles his lap and kisses him even deeper.

Timmy has always been fond of kissing, but none of his previous partners have been quite as into it as he was, only ever seeing it as a means to an end, but Armie seems to be on the same page as Timmy. And thank f*cking god for that, because if anyone knew how to kiss, it was Armie. He’d never known someone to hit all his buttons so f*cking fast. Timmy completely loses himself in the kiss, and Armie. He runs his hands through Armie’s hair and whines loudly when Armie bites his bottom lip and pulls back to catch his breath. “f*ck, Timmy.” Armie says breathlessly and Timmy barely has the chance to smile before Armie kisses him again.

He has no idea how much time has passed when Armie’s lips leave his and start leaving wet kisses down the side of his neck, but he notes that his alarm hasn’t gone off yet, so it’s probably still technically way too early to be conscious. But damn, if this is what his mornings are going to look like from now on, he’d happily wake up early for the next few years.

Armie kisses his way down Timmy’s neck and reaches his collarbone, where the bite mark Armie had given him the other day is still visible, but fading slightly. At least it was fading, until Armie attached his mouth to it and sucked a new fresh mark on top of it while Timmy was writhing on the bed, letting out a string of curses. “f*ck, sh*t – I want – Armie!”

Timmy’s breath catches in his throat when Armie looks up at him, the intensity in his eyes making his dick even harder than it already was, which is something Timmy didn’t think was possible, considering.

Instead of saying anything, Armie continues kissing his way down Timmy’s chest. When his lips close around one of Timmy’s nipples, he arches his back in pleasure and lets out a moan so loud it even takes him by surprise. Armie just grins around his nipple and teases it with the tip of his tongue. When he reaches his hand up to pinch Timmy’s other nipple while he gently bites the one still in his mouth, Timmy actually feels his dick leak precome, the front his underwear now completely wet and sticking to his co*ck.

Not that Armie seems to pay that any mind, Timmy half hopes he’s going to reach down and start to jerk him off once he releases his nipple, but instead all he does is move his attention over to Timmy’s other nipple, closing his mouth around that, giving it the same treatment that the previous one got. Timmy had never had anyone play with his nipples before, so he’d never truly gotten the hype about nipple play. Sure, he sometimes pinched his own nipples when working himself up while jerking off, but it had never gone further than that.

It’s safe to say he regrets that now, that he knows how f*cking good Armie is able to make him feel, just by playing with his nipples. And he can’t wait for the chance to turn the tables on him, and see how Armie reacts to having his nipples played with, Timmy imagines it will be beautiful.

When Armie releases his nipple and starts kissing his way down Timmy’s stomach, he thinks they’ve finally gotten to the blowj*b part of the morning, but apparently not. Armie does help him take his underwear off, but instead of taking Timmy’s dick into his mouth, he leaves open mouthed kisses along his groin line instead. Timmy’s co*ck even hits him in the chin when he moves from one side over to the next, but Armie pays no mind to it, focusing on tracing the line of Timmy’s groin with his tongue. Moving on to kissing down his inner thigh.

Timmy groans in frustration, and he feels Armie chuckle against his thigh, so just because he can, he closes his legs around Armie’s head in retaliation for his teasing. He hadn’t counted on the fact that Armie was going to bite him though, and the second Armie’s teeth sink into his thigh, Timmy howls and opens his legs again.

“You f*cker! That hurt!” Timmy pants out, propping himself up on his elbows and looking down at Armie’s smirking face.

“You liked it though.” Armie grins, raising an eyebrow and looking down at Timmy’s dick, which hadn’t faltered in the slightest, still rock hard and leaking. The traitor.

Timmy just shrugs his shoulders and lies back down, letting Armie keep doing exactly what he wants to do. Because he wasn’t wrong, Timmy definitely liked it. He hears Armie chuckle lightly again before his lips reattach themselves to Timmy’s thigh and he keeps kissing his way down his leg.

When his lips touch the back of Timmy’s knee he can’t help but giggle, because of f*cking course that had to be the only location on his entire body that was actually ticklish. Luckily Armie doesn’t torture him too much, only leaving two more kisses to the back of his knee before moving on, continuing his journey down Timmy’s leg.

When he reaches the now green hued but still purple bruise on Timmy’s shin, Armie hisses and licks over it with his tongue, as though his saliva had special healing properties. Timmy just shakes his head, hopelessly endeared.

As Armie’s lips touch his foot and he sits up, Timmy thinks that has to be it, that he’s done now. But apparently not, because instead of moving on to the other leg, or even reaching for his dick, Armie instead lifts Timmy’s leg and wraps his lips around Timmy’s big toe. And if he thought the kisses to the back of his knee tickled, it was nothing compared to this.

“The f*ck are you doing?” Timmy laughs, and pulls his foot away from Armie’s mouth. Armie just shrugs and with a grin he starts kissing his way up Timmy’s other leg. This time when he reaches Timmy’s dick, he doesn’t ignore it, but clearly he has decided to be the biggest tease of the century, because he doesn’t immediately take it into his mouth either.

Armie lets the tip of his tongue touch the head of Timmy’s co*ck, and traces the vein on the underside of it all the way down to the base. Timmy spits out a curse and his hands quickly bury themselves in Armie’s hair. He feels him laugh against his dick before he licks his way back up, still tracing the vein with his tongue, when he reaches the head of Timmy’s co*ck he swirls his tongue around it, but he still doesn’t take it into his mouth. Much to Timmy’s frustration.

“Armie, please, suck me.”

Instead of doing as he’s told, Armie just shakes his head, and Timmy curses him out in every language he knows, much to Armie’s amusem*nt. “Such a mouth on you.” He whispers against Timmy’s dick, and starts leaving open mouthed kisses down his shaft. Once he reaches his balls, Armie rolls them around in his hand before taking them into his mouth one at a time.

He feels his back arch at how f*cking good Armie’s mouth feels around his balls, and he tightens his hands in Armie’s hair by accident, but instead of pulling off, Armie just moans deep in his throat, and the vibrations of it travel up through his sack and spreads through Timmy’s entire body.

“f*ck, Armie. God. Please!” Timmy doesn’t even know what he’s begging for anymore, all he knows is that he wants Armie, and whatever he’s willing to give him.

Luckily, that turns out to be, his mouth wrapped around Timmy’s co*ck. Finally. Armie sucking his co*ck down his throat and swallowing around him feels so f*cking good Timmy thinks he might cry. And when Armie pulls back to rub the head of Timmy’s co*ck against his swollen lips, the visual is so f*cking hot Timmy is surprised he doesn’t come on the spot.

Armie takes his co*ck back into his mouth, and Timmy loves how he can take all of him in so easily, because he knows he’s not all that small, but Armie is just that f*cking good at sucking dick. It’s wet, messy and absolutely perfect. Armie’s hand joins his mouth for a bit as he sucks on the head of Timmy’s co*ck while jerking him off, and if he hadn’t stopped when he did, Timmy definitely would have come in his mouth right then and there.

He continues to lightly jerk Timmy off as he spreads his legs and Timmy stops breathing when he feels Armie kiss his way down his perineum.

“Turn around for me?” Armie whispers against him, and Timmy props himself back up on his elbows to look down at him.

“Are you -” Armie cuts him off before he even has the chance to finish his sentence.

“Yes, please, I want to.”

“sh*t, wait, I need to… Clean up” Timmy smiles sheepishly, and when Armie looks like he’s going to object, Timmy sits up fully and kisses him. “Trust me, I’ll be back before you’ll have the chance to miss me.”

“That’s not possible.” Armie smiles into the kiss. “I'll miss you the second you leave the room.”

Timmy doesn’t even know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything at all, just kisses Armie one last time before hurrying into the bathroom. The shower turns on and splashes him with freezing cold water before it heats up, but Timmy is practically already done washing himself by then. He really didn’t want to be away from Armie too long, especially not when he knew what was waiting for him as he got back.

He quickly dries off, and walks back into the bedroom, coming to a complete halt when he sees Armie lazily jerking himself off in the middle of the bed. He must make some sort of noise, because Armie looks over at him and smiles. “Come here.” Armie says, and reaches out for him. Timmy shuffles forwards to the bed, surprised he still has enough brainpower to walk, when Armie moves to get him to lie back down, Timmy shakes his head, making Armie frown.

“I want to watch you first.” Timmy says, nodding his head towards where Armie’s hand is still slowly jerking his co*ck.

“Really?” Armie says with surprise, and Timmy nods, licking his lips.

“Yes, really. You have no f*cking idea how hot this is to me. I want to watch you make yourself come, and then I want you to eat me out until I cry and come all over myself.”

“f*ck.” Armie gasps, and starts jerking himself off for real. Timmy finds it endlessly fascinating, watching the way the wet head of Armie’s co*ck pops up through his fist, and he smiles when he sees that Armie likes to twist his hand on the upstroke, just like him.

“That’s it, Armie. Jerk that beautiful dick for me.” Timmy purrs, loving the way he can hear Armie’s breath hitch and how he can see him grabbing himself tighter.

“f*ck, Timmy. I -”

He can tell that Armie is getting closer and closer to coming, because he speeds up the tempo of his hand and his hips start pushing up against his fist at the same time. Right as Timmy is sure Armie is about to come, Armie reaches out for Timmy’s hand, entwining their fingers as he moans loudly, come shooting out of his dick and landing on his stomach.

Timmy waits until Armie opens his eyes before he grins wickedly down at him, and leans forward to lick the come off his stomach, making Armie groan and close his eyes again. “Timmy, sh*t, I l-” Armie cuts himself off with a groan as Timmy licks the head of his co*ck clean as well, and Timmy smiles when he feels Armie grab the back of his head and pull him up for a kiss.

“God, this was supposed to be all about you.” Armie pants out as they pull apart to breathe, making Timmy laugh.

“Trust me, I’m not suffering in any way. Actually, I’m pretty sure that was one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.”

Armie kisses him again, and Timmy loses himself completely in the kiss, forgetting about the fact that he still hasn’t come. At least until Armie’s hand close around his dick, jerking him off slowly as he pulls back and looks into Timmy’s eyes.

“Lie down on your stomach for me? I do believe we have some unfinished business to attend to.” Armie says with a wink, Timmy sucks in a deep breath and nods, carefully lying down on his stomach, trying his best not to rub his dick against the mattress, lest this end before it even started.

Timmy holds his breath as he feels Armie’s thumbs spreading his ass cheeks apart, and when he feels a glob of spit hit his asshole, he moans loudly and tries to push his ass up, but Armie holds him in place.

At the first touch of Armie’s tongue against his hole Timmy freezes up completely, absolutely overwhelmed with pleasure, but Armie instantly pulls back, clearly worried he’d done something wrong.

“Is everything okay?” He asks quietly, and Timmy just nods.

“sh*t, yes, please don’t stop?”

He tries to push his ass up again, making Armie laugh in relief. And just seconds later, his tongue is back licking over Timmy’s entrance. This time Timmy can’t stop moaning. He had been rimmed before, but not nearly as often as he’d like, because f*ck, did it feel f*cking fantastic.

It’s pretty clear that Armie loves eating Timmy out as much as Timmy loves being eaten out, because he’s moaning almost as much as Timmy is. And when he pushes his tongue into Timmy, they both let out loud but muffled moans, Timmy’s lightly muffled by the pillow he’s biting into, and Armie’s muffled by, well, Timmy.

“f*ck, yes, just like that.” Timmy shudders as he feels Armie lightly suck on his rim.

Armie continues alternating between pushing his tongue into him, and sucking on his rim, even gently biting him a couple of times, which is something Timmy didn’t even know people did while rimming someone, but it felt f*cking amazing, so he was definitely going to try it out on Armie eventually.

Suddenly Armie pulls back, making Timmy whine loudly, and he whines even louder when he feels Armie actually leave his side. “Please don’t go?” Timmy chokes out, suddenly worried Armie was going to disappear again, that this was all just a dream, that he hadn’t actually come back to him last night.

“Shh, babe, I’m not going anywhere, promise.” Armie whispers, kissing Timmy’s shoulder, and Timmy relaxes when he hears the nightstand drawer being opened. He‘d only gone to get lube, possibly also a condom, he hadn’t actually left, everything was fine.

Timmy hears the lube bottle open and seconds later, Armie’s wet finger circles his hole, lightly pushing into him. Timmy groans loudly and pushes against Armie’s finger immediately, his tongue had already loosened him to the point where one finger just wasn’t enough.

“More, please, Armie, come on!”

He hears Armie’s strained chuckle before a second finger joins the first one, deliciously stretching Timmy out, just the way he liked. He moans in pleasure as Armie starts scissoring his fingers inside him, and he moans even louder when Armie’s tongue comes back to lick over his opening while his fingers are still inside of him. And when Armie brushes up against his prostate, Timmy moans so loud his voice gives out on him, and he’s left pushing back against Armie in complete silence.

Luckily Armie heard everything he didn’t say, and rubs against his prostate with more force, his tongue never stopping its movements across Timmy’s opening. When Timmy feels Armie push his tongue inside him along with his fingers, his voice returns. “Armie, f*ckf*ckf*ck please, I need – just – Armie!”

Once again Armie reads his mind, and wraps his hand, also wet with lube, around Timmy’s co*ck, jerking him off furiously while the fingers of his other hand were still inside of Timmy, rubbing against his prostate.

“Come for me, baby.” Armie growls, biting down on Timmy’s ass cheek. And that’s all it takes, Timmy screams out Armie’s name, and comes harder than he ever has before. He comes so f*cking hard he actually blacks out, and the next thing he remembers, he’s lying flat on his back and Armie is whispering nonsense into his ear as he strokes Timmy’s wet hair away from his forehead.

“There you are.” Armie smiles at him when he sees his eyes open. “You had me worried for a second there.”

“Nnnghh.” Is all Timmy is able to say, making Armie laugh.

“Yeah, I agree.”

Apparently Armie had managed to clean both of them up while Timmy was passed out, so there’s nothing stopping them from falling back asleep when Timmy snuggles up into Armie’s side.

Timmy wakes up to his alarm going off, and he groans, but he can’t help but smile as he feels Armie’s chest moving as he laughs. “Don’t laugh at my pain.” Timmy mumbles into Armie’s side, making him laugh even harder.

“It’s like 11 in the morning, Timmy.”

“So? I’m exhausted, and I blame you.” Timmy lifts his head and stares sternly down at Armie’s smiling face.

“So what you’re saying is, you don’t want to have sex anymore, because it’s exhausting?” Armie teases, and Timmy quickly shakes his head.

“No. That’s definitely not at all what I’m saying.” Timmy can’t help the smile that takes over his face. “What I am saying is that you’re way too good at wearing me out, and a man needs his beauty sleep.”

“Mhm.” Armie says unconvinced, reaching out and gently stroking Timmy’s cheek. “You’re already plenty gorgeous, Timmy.” Timmy feels the blush heat up his cheek and he rolls his eyes.

“You smooth bastard.” He whispers and kisses Armie again.

They eventually manage to get out of bed without getting too distracted. Timmy stands alone in the bathroom and studies his face in the mirror, Armie’s stubble had definitely left marks on his face, but it wasn’t as bad as he had originally feared. Obviously, it was still very much visible, but it would likely fade some time during the day, so it definitely could have been a lot worse.

Timmy had turned down Armie’s offer of showering together to save water, making him pout, but it was worth it when Timmy got to exit the bathroom and find Armie in the kitchen, still naked, cooking him breakfast. Sure, it was just buttered toast and an omelet, but it still tasted f*cking amazing. Yeah, Timmy could definitely get used to Armie cooking for him every day.

After breakfast, it’s Armie’s turn to shower, and Timmy takes care of the dishes. “Seriously, you have a dishwasher, Timmy. Use it!” Armie laughed as Timmy chased him out of the kitchen, telling him to mind his own business.

Once Armie is dressed, they head out to meet Luca. He had called them during breakfast and told them to meet him at the Perlman villa, apparently he couldn’t wait another day to show them how perfect it was.

“Did you go to the city to collect our bikes yesterday?” Timmy asks while Armie lights his usual bike cigarette.

“Not exactly. I paid this kid a couple of hundred bucks to go get them for me.” Armie laughs. “I was waiting for my taxi when I remembered we’d left them behind, and this kid was just finishing his paper route, so I asked if he wanted to make some more money, and he said yes. So I told him to go to the city center and pick up the two ugliest bikes there and bring them back here. And then I paid him upfront and hoped for the best.” Armie shrugs.

“He should have just taken your money and ran, that’s what I’d’ve done if some dumbass American asked me to do him a favor.” Timmy grins.

“Luckily there are still honest people in the world.” Armie shoots back, making Timmy laugh.

They have to put the address to the villa into the GPS on Armie’s phone before they leave, because neither of them have been there before, so they have no idea where it actually is. Turns out it’s a bit too far away for either of them to bother biking, so they call a taxi instead, hoping to catch a ride back with Luca.

Armie rests his hand possessively on Timmy’s upper thigh the entire half hour it takes to drive to the villa, because the taxi driver turned out to be a gorgeous guy in his twenties who flirted a little with Timmy when he picked them up, making Armie huffy. Timmy found the whole thing hilarious, but he knows if the situation had been reversed, he’d probably act the exact same way Armie was doing right now.

They pull up outside of the villa, and Armie pays the driver, Timmy had tried to get him to agree to going halfies on the trip before the taxi arrived at their apartment building but Armie had just raised an eyebrow and Timmy quickly admitted his defeat.

Timmy is busy looking out of the front windshield at the view of the villa, so he startles a little when he feels Armie’s hands cupping his cheeks, and the next thing he knows he’s being pulled in for a kiss. The kiss is over as quickly as it started, and Timmy is left sitting inside the taxi blinking stupidly at Armie’s retreating back as he walks up to the house.

“Your boyfriend, not really the sharing type is he?” The driver grins at Timmy in the rearview mirror, and Timmy rubs his thumb across his lips with a smile.

“No, he really isn’t.”

He catches back up with Armie in the driveway, but only because Armie had stopped to wait for him.

“I’m sorry about that.” Armie says quietly, vaguely gesturing towards the road with his hand.

“It’s okay, honestly, no harm done. I actually kinda liked it.” Timmy shrugs, smiling when the tension releases from Armie’s shoulder and he reaches out to hold Timmy’s hand in his own.

They walk the rest of the way to the house, hand in hand, smiling when Luca meets them by the door. Luca looks down at their hands, and raises an eyebrow as he looks back up at them, Timmy just smiles as Luca’s eyes catch his.

“Ah, you’ve made up. Good.” Is all he says before he turns around and walks back into the house. They quickly follow after him, still holding hands, neither of them wanting to be the first one to let go.

Luca talks a mile a minute about the interior of the villa, pointing out the various places the camera’s will get set up, and how the different shots will look. Timmy tries his very best to keep listening, but in the end the need to pee gets too great, and he has to cut Luca off.

“Sorry, sorry, just, where’s the nearest bathroom? And can I use it?” Luca chuckles and tells him the bathroom is down the hall, the second door on his right, and Timmy quickly thanks him and hurries out the room, hearing Luca and Armie laugh at him.

He sighs in relief as he pees, he had no idea his bladder was quite that full, but considering how f*cking good it feels to empty it, he probably should have gone hours ago. He can hear his mother’s voice in his head, sternly telling him to go more often. “You don’t want to risk kidney failure, Timothée!”

When he gets back to the room he left Armie and Luca in, they’re not there anymore, and he’s left trying to find them by only following the sound of their voices. Which would be a lot easier if the house wasn’t so goddamn gigantic. He eventually tracks them down in Elio’s bedroom, the one Oliver will be staying in. He’s about to walk in and announce his presence when he hears Luca say something to Armie, and he doesn’t sound happy at all. He debates with himself for about half a second before he decides to f*ck it all, and listen in on their conversation like a total creep.

“-asn’t like that, Luca. It was just a misunderstanding.”

“That may be. But did I not tell you you had to be gentle with him? He is just a teenager, Armie. One too many misunderstandings and you will lose him.” Luca’s says sternly, his voice practically cutting Timmy to the bone, and he wasn’t even the one being told off.

“I know. I…” Armie sighs loudly.

“I understand. These things are tricky. You guys want to pretend that you can just have sex and that there will be no consequences. But, already, you’re not only having sex are you?”

“What do you mean?” Armie sounds about as confused as Timmy feels. Because what the f*ck did he mean by that? As far as Luca knew, they really were only having sex. There was no way he could know about the contracts they had signed, because Timmy hadn’t told anyone about that, and he really didn’t think Armie would have either. Especially not without telling him about it first.

“Are you stupid?” Luca asks plainly, and Timmy feels himself getting angry on Armie’s behalf. How f*cking dare he?

“No?”

“You both wear your hearts on your sleeves, Armie. It’s obvious to anyone who bothers to look.” Luca sighs loudly, and Timmy hears him sit down on the bed. “There is no possible way the two of you manage to ‘just’ do anything. Much less open your heart and souls so completely to each other, as you will have to do to step into Elio and Oliver’s skin, and not come out of that changed on a personal level.”

“Yeah, but -” Luca cuts Armie off before he has a chance to finish his sentence.

“Then you add the fact you’re now sleeping together in private too, it’s bound to confuse your heart even further. So I’m sorry, but there is no way, no way, that by the end of filming you will be able to leave him behind. It might just be sex to you now. But you just wait, I can tell, just by looking at the two of you together. You’re already falling, you just haven’t noticed taking the step of the ledge yet. But you will. And then you’ll have to be even more careful.”

Luca sighs “You can’t afford to f*ck this up, Armie, because Timmy is quite like you when he gets hurt. He shuts down, and cuts people out. So I’m telling you, again. Be gentle with him.”

“Yeah. I hear you.” Comes Armie’s whispered reply. “I’ll take good care of him, Luca. I promise.”

Timmy can feel tears running down his face. He doesn’t want Luca to be right, they’re not falling in love, there’s no need to be careful, they can totally do this and be fine in the end. They can! But, realistically, he knows none of that is true at all. He might not be in love with Armie yet, but he’s definitely getting there. Yesterday had certainly proved that. It had, however, also proved, that it was too late to back down. He was already emotionally involved, there was no way to change that now, all he could do, would be to learn to deal with it. Like he had learned to deal with his anxiety issues.

Then when the time came, when the contracts end and Armie would unwittingly break his heart? Well, he’d be prepared, and he’d be fine. Eventually.

Timmy hears Luca gets back off the bed, and he quickly turns and runs back to the bathroom. He washes his face in ice cold water, hoping to reduce the redness and slight puffiness under his eyes from crying. It doesn’t really work, but it reduces it from ‘I’ve definitely just been crying’ to ‘idk maybe allergies?’ so he’ll take it.

He makes sure to walk with much heavier steps as he approaches Elio/Oliver’s bedroom again, so that this time, there’s no way they don’t hear him coming. And sure enough, they’re both looking at him as he walks through the door.

“There you are! f*cking been looking all over for you.” Timmy says with fake exasperation, loving the way it makes Armie smile. Armie crosses the room and takes his hand in his again, making Timmy smile just as widely as Armie. Luca just raises an eyebrow at them, and mutters to himself in Italian. But it doesn’t take a genius to work out what he’s saying. Not after what Timmy just overheard at least.

Luca only has a few more rooms to show them before they make their way back to Luca’s house for dinner. Timmy only feels a little bit like a child when Armie sits in the front with Luca, leaving him in the backseat by himself.

He can’t help but think about what Luca had told Armie back at the villa, that they were headed for certain disaster. It’s not like Timmy didn’t already know that, but it was something else, having it be spelled out to him by someone else like that.

Back at Luca’s, Armie and Timmy are put in charge of setting the table, they had offered to help with the food too, but Luca had just scoffed. “Like I’m going to trust Americans with my pasta.”

When the food is finally ready, a few more people arrive, and Armie gets up to collect a few more bottles of wine from the kitchen. While he’s gone, Timmy makes sure to fill his own glass, knowing Armie would raise his eyebrow at him if he saw it. He drains the glass in one go, and fills it back up, repeating the process a couple of more times before Armie returns to the table, side-eyeing the now practically empty bottle next to Timmy.

It’s not that he wants to get drunk, because god only knows what the f*ck drunk!Timmy would accidentally let slip, but he’s still feeling slightly off from yesterday and after what he overheard Luca say, well, staying sober wasn’t really an option either. He had been aiming for pleasantly tipsy, but by the time he’s started eating, he knows he’s already overshot that, so f*ck it. He fills his glass up again, and sure enough, there’s Armie’s eyebrow raising.

“I think you might’ve already have had your fill, Tim.” Armie whispers, but Timmy just shakes his head.

“Nah, it’s good wine, I’mma have at least...” He holds up two fingers, or at least he thinks it’s two fingers. “This many more glasses.” He slurs out, and ends his sentence with a nod. Armie furrows his brows, not looking completely sold on the idea, but he wasn’t the boss of Timmy. Timmy was the boss of Timmy, and if he wanted wine, he’d have the wine.

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea? You’re already well on your way to being drunk.”

“Yes. That was the plan, thank you very much. Mr. wine police.” Timmy rolls his eyes and drinks the rest of his wine, reaching for the bottle to fill his glass again, but Armie holds it out of his reach.

“Hey! That’s not fair!” Timmy whines, reaching for the bottle despite knowing his arms aren’t even close to being long enough.

“Life’s not fair, Tim. That’s just how it is. And trust me, you’ve had more than enough wine to regret it in the morning.” Timmy petulantly mutters something under his breath, and Armie raises an eyebrow at him again. “What did you just say?”

“I said! You’re not the boss of me!” Armie just rolls his eyes at him, making Timmy even more cranky.

“You’ve had more than enough, Timmy. Seriously. You don’t need any more right now. Maybe you can have a glass later, when it’s time for dessert. But right now? No. I might not be the boss of you, that’s true, but I do care about you. So I’m not gonna let you drink yourself into a stupor right now. Sorry.” Armie shrugs, placing the bottle down on the table in a place impossible for Timmy to reach, unless he got up and walked around Armie to get it. But, ugh, the effort. And Armie would probably just move the bottle again if he tried to do that anyway.

“Rude.” Timmy mutters, and rests his head on the table, closing his eyes intending to take a little nap, because he was suddenly feeling exhausted. But the table is not even a little bit comfortable, so he sits back up, glaring at Armie. “The table! ...is uncomfortable.” He says, like it’s Armie’s fault somehow. After all, it might be, Armie was the one to set their side of the table.

“Well, it’s not meant to be slept on, is it?” Armie says patiently, and Timmy just shrugs.

“But I’m tired.” He whines, making Armie chuckle.

“Do you wanna go home and sleep?” Armie asks quietly, making Timmy nod. “Okay, I’ll let Luca know, just wait here a second.”

Timmy closes his eyes again, not really paying attention to anything, so when Armie’s hand comes down on his shoulder, he startles slightly, blinking dumbly up at Armie.

“Do you think you’re good to walk home?” Armie asks, and he shakes his head, because no. Sure, he probably could, but, again, the effort.

“Alright then, if you just climb on.” Armie says and crouches down in front of him, Timmy just stares down at him, because what? “Get onto my back, and I’ll give you a piggyback ride home.” Armie explains, and Timmy’s eyes widen, but he does as Armie says. He hooks his arms around Armie’s neck and his legs around his waist, holding on for dear life as Armie gets back up and starts walking.

The gentle rhythm of Armie’s footsteps is almost enough to make him doze off, actually, he might doze off a little, because they get home much faster than Timmy thought possible, considering Armie was actually carrying him. He even carries him up the stairs, despite Timmy trying to protest.

“I’ve made it this far, Timmy. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

When they reach his door, Timmy digs his keys out of the pocket of his shorts and hands them to Armie, letting Armie carry him all the way to the bed. He was intending to get undressed before falling asleep, but the bed was so damn comfortable he might just sleep in his clothes tonight. Armie seems to understand what he was arguing with himself about, and takes the decision out of his hands by starting to undress him.

Once he’s down to his underwear, Armie takes a step back, and Timmy immediately panics, thinking he’s going to go back to his own place to sleep, and Timmy really doesn’t want to wake up alone again tomorrow.

“Don’t leave me.” He croaks out, and Armie’s face falls as he hears him. Sitting down at the edge of the bed, he reaches for Timmy’s hand and laces their fingers together.

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I’m gonna be right here, with you, as long as you’ll have me.” Armie whispers, kissing the back of Timmy’s hand.

Timmy falls asleep with a smile on his face.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

When Timmy wakes up the following morning, the smile that graced his face as he fell asleep is nowhere to be found, in it’s place is a scrunched up look of pain. His head is absolutely pounding, he knows he drank way too much wine, but f*ck, usually he handles wine hangovers with ease, but this one seems to be a true son of a bitch. He can’t even open his eyes without wanting to die.

Luckily he doesn’t need to open his eyes to feel that Armie is right next to him in the bed, like he promised, normally Timmy would have been pouting at the fact that Armie wasn’t holding him, but right now, with the nausea swirling around in his stomach, he’s really f*cking glad there is no one holding him back as he blindly makes his way out of the bed in search of the bathroom before he throws up all over himself like a child.

Timmy has always hated throwing up, not that there are ever people who actually like it, but for him it has always been an issue. He’d gone nearly 10 years without throwing up once, because his anxiety had told him that if he did, he’d die. Thankfully, with the help of his therapist, he had gotten over that, but he still hated the experience with his entire being.

The way his throat burned when the bile came up and out, the way his eyes watered at the stench of it, the way his nose always started running as he gagged. Nothing about it was glamorous in any way shape or form, so of f*cking course Armie had to follow him into the bathroom and see him like this, all pitiful, hugging the toilet as the contents of his stomach push their way out of his mouth without his approval.

Armie doesn’t say anything, just quietly fills a cup with water from the tap, and sits down next to Timmy on the floor, gently stroking his back as he throws up. And when his stomach is finally empty, after dry heaving a couple of times, Armie hands him the cup of water to wash his mouth out.

After spitting the water out into the toilet and hitting the button to flush everything out and away, Timmy rests his cheek against the toilet seat, and Armie’s hand gently strokes his sweat damp hair off of his forehead.

“Are you feeling better now, sweetheart?” Armie asks quietly, softly stroking across Timmy’s cheek with his thumb, and Timmy is helpless to stop the tears that well up in his eyes at Armie’s question from escaping.

“Hey, no, don’t cry. It’s okay, you’re okay.” Armie whispers, he gathers Timmy up in his arms and pulls him onto his lap, guiding Timmy’s head onto his shoulder, and Armie slowly strokes Timmy’s back as he sobs.

Timmy doesn’t even really know why he’s crying, he’s just tired, and achy, and Armie was being so nice, it was impossible to not cry. When he finally stops crying, he pulls back slightly, to look up at Armie, who is still stroking his back. They make eye contact and Armie smiles, softly kissing Timmy’s forehead, and Timmy pulls away with a frown.

“Don’t. I’m gross.” Timmy whispers.

“No, you’re not. It’ll take more than puke breath and a runny nose to scare me off.” Armie chuckles.

Timmy knows Armie meant that to be comforting, but all it does, is make him pull away from Armie completely, and start to cry again. He wanted Armie to mean those words in a different way, he wanted them to mean more, and he blamed Luca for putting ideas into his head. Luca was the single most perceptive person Timmy had ever met, and if he claimed he saw that they were falling for each other, then Timmy believed him. He knew, at the very least, that Luca was right about him. He was falling for Armie, or, developing feelings at the very least. So maybe he was right about Armie too? Timmy knew the easiest way to find out, would be to ask. But. What if Luca was wrong? What if all Armie felt for him, all Armie wanted from him, was friendship? And sex, of course, that they were physically attracted to one another they had definitely already established.

Timmy knew it was way too early to start talking about feelings, it hadn’t even been a week since they decided on their current agreement, and Timmy didn’t want to come off as too much of a teenager, falling in love with someone as soon as they touched his dick. So he tries his best to dry his tears with the back of his wrist, and decides to bury everything, for a little while longer. At least until the end of filming.

When Armie saw the new tears rolling down Timmy’s cheeks, he reaches for Timmy’s hand and laces their fingers together, gently squeezing his hand. “It’s okay, Timmy, really. You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

Timmy sighs and closes his eyes. “I’m not… I just feel stupid.”

Armie gently wipes away Timmy’s tears with his thumb. “There’s no need for that either, babe. Hangovers are rarely pretty.”

“Yeah, but you told me to slow down, or I’d regret it in the morning, and I didn’t listen. Just cursed you out instead.”

“True, but you were also drunk, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t exactly make the best decisions when I’m drunk. Hell, I rarely make them when I’m sober.” Armie chuckles. “So don’t worry, Timmy, we’re good.”

Timmy rubs his hands across his face. “I need a shower.” He whispers, and Armie squeezes his shoulder and stands up. When Timmy looks up at him, he extends a hand and helps Timmy get to his feet too. Timmy then stands and stares stupidly over at Armie as he turns the shower on, and checks the temperature and starts taking his boxers off.

“Wha?” Timmy tilts his head in confusion, and Armie just smiles, getting into the shower and wetting his hair.

“Come on, get naked before the water turns cold.”

Timmy just shrugs and steps out of his boxers, joining Armie in the shower. Armie steps back so that Timmy can be the one directly underneath the spray of the shower, he faces the shower, tilts his head back and opens his mouth, washing away the last traces of what Armie so eloquently called his puke breath. Armie wraps his arms around Timmy’s waist, stroking across Timmy’s stomach and pressing gentle kisses to his shoulder.

Armie carefully turns Timmy around in his arms, so they stand facing each other instead, and he smiles and quickly kisses Timmy’s nose before reaching for Timmy’s shampoo. He turns them around again, so that this time, Armie is the one standing in the direct spray of the shower. The water hitting him in the back as he pours a generous amount of shampoo into the palm of his hand and starts massaging it into Timmy’s hair.

Timmy closes his eyes and tries his best to not outright purr at the feel of Armie’s fingers in his hair, he manages, but only just, and only because Armie pulls his hands away, clearly finished shampooing Timmy’s hair. Timmy carefully opens one eye and looks up at Armie, who smiles down at him, and turns them around again. Letting the shower wash away the suds in Timmy’s hair, Armie runs his hands through Timmy’s hair a couple more times to make sure all the shampoo washes out properly, and then he quickly shampoos his own hair while Timmy stands there, watching him.

When Armie has washed out all the shampoo from his own hair, and reaches for the loofah, Timmy smiles. Unlike last time, when Armie used the loofah on him, neither of them are hard, because this time it really wasn’t about sex, at all. It was about comfort, about Armie still feeling bad that the misunderstanding the previous day had driven Timmy to drink too much, about Timmy learning to trust that Armie wasn’t just going to disappear on him. For once, it was about everything but sex, and Timmy quickly shut down the voice in his head that said that friends with benefits didn’t act like this. After all, he’d already decided he wasn’t going to deal with that until filming was done.

Timmy’s entire body is covered in suds, Armie had even used his finger to clean the insides of Timmy’s ears, rather gleefully, he might add, despite Timmy’s protests that it really wasn’t necessary. When it was time to wash the suds away, Armie steps in front of Timmy and wraps his arms around him, backing him up until they’re both standing under the spray, and Timmy just closes his eyes and rests his head against Armie’s chest.

He has no idea how long they stand there, with Armie stroking his back and occasionally kissing the top of Timmy’s head, but eventually he can feel the water getting colder and colder, until it becomes impossible to stand there any longer, without freezing their asses off.

Armie seems to be intent on doing absolutely everything, because he doesn’t even allow Timmy to dry himself off, and normally Timmy would complain, loudly, about being babied like this, but his head is still f*cking killing him, so he just shuts his eyes, and lets Armie do what he wants.

When it comes time to get dressed though, Timmy raises an eyebrow at Armie when he bends down to help Timmy put his underwear on.

“I know, I know, you’re an adult, you can dress yourself, blah blah. Just… Humor me, okay?” Armie says with a small smile, and Timmy just shrugs, he really doesn’t have the energy to fight him right now anyway.

Once they’re both dressed, Armie takes Timmy’s hand in his and leads him into the kitchen, and Timmy hops up on the counter and watches as Armie starts making breakfast. Armie scrambles some eggs and heats up a few sausages that Timmy wasn’t even aware were in his fridge. Just like with everything else Armie had cooked for him so far, it tastes f*cking amazing, and Timmy can practically feel his hangover leave him more and more with every bite. The painkillers he’d taken while watching Armie cook probably also helped a bit with that.

Timmy watches as Armie chases the last piece of sausage around on his plate with his fork, before he sighs, and looks up at Timmy.

“I know I said everything was fine earlier, and it is, sort of, but, I do think we should talk about what happened last night.” Armie says quietly, and Timmy immediately shakes his head, because no, if there was anything he didn’t want to talk about, it was that. His day was already more than bad enough, he didn’t need Armie to tell him that they’d made a huge mistake and should stop being friends with benefits immediately, on top of everything else.

“Nothing happened last night, I just, you know, had one glass of wine too many, that’s all.” Timmy can hear the shrillness of his own voice and visibly cringes at himself.

“Timmy, it’s okay, most of this is my fault anyway.” Armie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We f*cked up, I think, when we agreed to the no feelings thing. I never should have put it like that.”

Armie sighs again, and Timmy bites his bottom lip while he waits for him to continue speaking, this was not at all what he’d been expecting, and to say he’s curious about what Armie had to say was an understatement. Just, please god don’t let it be the feelings talk, he wasn’t ready for that yet.

“We’re sleeping together, and we’re preparing to pretend to be in love, both for the movie and then later for the rest of the world, it was stupid of us to assume we could manage to do that without any form of feelings creeping up on us.” Armie explains, and Timmy winces and bites his lip so hard he draws blood. sh*t, they were really doing this, they were having the f*cking feelings talk. Timmy could feel the panic start to creep up on him, but he did his very best to suppress it.

“I think going forwards, all we can really do, is be honest with each other? And if at any point, you feel like this is getting out of control, and you need to take a step back, tell me. Please. We don’t have to sleep together just because the world is going to think we’re in love. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved everything we’ve done so far, and I definitely want to continue having sex with you, but, at the end of the day, I’d rather have your friendship than nothing at all.” Armie smiles and reaches out to pull Timmy’s lip free from his teeth, rubbing across it soothingly with his thumb. And Timmy finally feels like he’s able to breathe again, honesty, he could do that. Probably. Because just like Armie, he’d much rather keep him as a friend than lose him all together, he couldn’t even think about that.

“I also need you to know, that...” Armie draws in a deep breath, sighing again, shaking his head at himself. Looking up at Timmy and smiling widely. “I need you to know, that I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop myself from developing feelings for you. And not just because we’re already sleeping together, or because we’re going to pretend, it has nothing to do with that. But everything to do with the fact that, you’re you, and I think you’re absolutely amazing. Every day with you, I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy? But...” Armie frowns, clearly searching for the right words to use, and Timmy smiles, cutting him off.

“I know exactly what you mean. I like you, a lot, and I could definitely see myself falling for you, but, I’m not in love with you.” Timmy sucks in a deep breath before continuing. “Not yet, anyway. It’s too soon for that. We need to get to know each other better first, then we can start talking about love, it’s not like we’re hurting for time.”

Timmy almost can’t believe how steady his voice sounds, he sounds like he’s completely in control of the situation, and not dying from anxiety on the inside, like he actually is. And not to mention the surprising amount of relief he feels, he doesn’t know what he would do if Armie had admitted to having feelings for him now, he’d probably panic and ruin everything, and then he’d be too depressed to even film the movie. But then Luca would probably kill him, so it’s not like he would’ve had to suffer for long.

It’s not that he doesn’t want Armie to have feelings for him, because he does, he really really does. He just – He’s always had a thing about expectations. And if Armie admitted to having feelings for him, before he’d sorted his own feelings out, he knew that he would likely freak out and overanalyze every situation they were in, trying not to give Armie false hope, or send him wrong signals. And then he’d be so busy doing that, he’d forget about his own feelings in the process, so he’d run the risk of turning Armie down only to realize a week after that, sh*t, he did love him. But then it would be too late.

“Yeah.” Armie nods, and he looks so relieved that Timmy almost wonders if he’s going to start crying, but he doesn’t, instead he gets up from his seat and crouches in front of Timmy, kissing him softly.

“What does this make us then?” Armie whispers against his lips, and Timmy smiles.

“I don’t know. Let’s just stick to friends with benefits for now, it’s a good enough label as anything else.” Timmy shrugs, before quickly adding. “Oh no, you know what, lets go with best friends with benefits.”

“Does that allow feelings?” Armie asks with a smile, and Timmy nods, kissing him.

“You know what, I think it does.”

“Cool, then yes, best friends with benefits. For now.”

“For now.” Timmy echoes, and Armie smiles, leaning forwards to kiss him again. Gently cupping Timmy’s cheeks.

Honestly, this was basically the best thing that ever could’ve come out of Timmy’s horrible wine hangover. They’ve clarified they like each other, and they’ve agreed to touch on that again later, but to see where things go first.

Timmy has to admit, that despite how scary he still found the whole, talking about his feelings out loud thing, this really hadn’t been all that bad. Maybe he’d even dare actually letting Armie know when his feelings inevitably did change, he still hoped Armie would let him know first, so that all he’d have to say is ‘me too’, and knowing him, he’d probably wait for Armie regardless. It was safer that way.

Maybe things would actually work out after all?

His piano lesson alarm goes off, and Timmy smiles at the thought of what Vittoria was going to say when Armie came along again. Armie didn’t even ask to join, he just looked at Timmy as he silenced his alarm and said “It’s time for our piano lesson already?” And went to check his hair in the bathroom mirror before joining Timmy in lacing up his shoes by the front door.

They forgo the bikes, and instead walk hand in hand over to Vittoria’s studio, and just like Timmy expected, when Vittoria sees Armie her eyes light up and she rushes over.

“Armie! You’re here!” she exclaims happily, wrapping her arms around Armie in a tight hug, and Timmy has to swallow the laughter that threatens to break through at the sight of Armie’s wide eyed look of surprise over Vittoria’s shoulder.

“I… Didn’t know I was missed?” Armie says confused, and Vittoria carefully pats his cheek.

“Don’t be silly, of course we missed you! Isn’t that right, Timmy?” She turns towards Timmy and raises an eyebrow, and he’s quick to reassure her, turning towards Armie with a grin.

“Yes, we did. Miss you, a lot.”

Armie smiles, blushing slightly, and takes a seat in his regular chair, getting ready to watch Timmy play the piano for the next couple of hours. Timmy sits down in front of the piano, and stretches out his fingers, cracking a couple of knuckles, making Vittoria wince. But they’d already had that discussion, and Timmy had won, bringing with him several research papers about how cracking your knuckles didn’t mean you were at higher risk for arthritis, so she’d stopped scolding him about it. Didn’t mean she didn’t still judge him in silence though.

Just as Timmy is about to start playing, he feels Vittoria’s hand coming down on his shoulder. “So, everything is good?” She whispers, and Timmy nods.

“Yeah, you were right. I was… Overreacting.”

“That’s not what I said. But never mind. I’m just happy you’re happy. Maybe now, the music will be happy too.” She pats him on the back and takes a couple of steps back, standing next to Armie, watching him play.

He doesn’t think he’s ever played as flawlessly as he does today, and clearly Vittoria agrees, because when he finishes she actually lets out a loud “Whoop!” and starts applauding him, jumping up and down in excitement. And Timmy can’t help but laugh at the look on Armie’s face, torn between being proud of Timmy and being weirded out by the drastic change in Vittoria’s attitude.

Timmy plays through the piece a couple of more times before Vittoria stops him, and she turns to Armie, asking him if he’s ever played before. And to Timmy’s surprise, Armie nods.

“I played for a few years, actually. But, I haven’t as much as touched a piano since I was like, 14.”

“Really?” Timmy squeaks out, and Armie chuckles.

“Yeah. I was a… Well, a rich, white kid growing up, piano lessons were kind of a must.” Armie shakes his head. “As my mother always used to say: We have an image to uphold, Armand!” Armie scrubs his hands across his face, and Vittoria gently squeezes his shoulder, startling him.

“If you want, you’re more than welcome to play a little now?” She says quietly, and Armie smiles up at her, nodding. Timmy gets up from in front of the piano, letting Armie take his place, and he kisses Armie on the cheek before going to stand next to Vittoria.

Listening to Armie play, you wouldn’t think it had been nearly 15 years since the last time, sure he’s a little rusty, but he’s still easily as good as Timmy, if not even better. When he finishes playing, Timmy and Vittoria both break out into applause, making Armie blush and hunch his shoulders, trying to appear smaller than he is.

“I always really enjoyed playing.” Armie says quietly. “But I also knew that my mom loved it, which is why, in a fit of teenage rebellion, I decided to stop. Just to spite her. I wanted to take everything she loved about me and completely cut it out of my life. Because...” Armie clears his throat, looking down at his hands like they were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “Because I knew, that once she found out about my sexuality, it wouldn’t matter. She’d hate me all the same. ...And I was right.” Armie finishes quietly, closing his eyes as a couple of tears roll down his cheek.

Timmy’s heart breaks in two thinking about how painful it must have been for Armie to come out to his parents, only to receive hatred in return, and he rushes over to the piano bench and wraps his arms around Armie’s shoulders, letting him rest his head against his stomach as he sucked in a couple of deep breaths, trying his best to not start crying.

He’d never hated someone he’d never met before, Donald Trump not withstanding, but Armie’s mother… Yeah, after hearing this, she definitely qualified. He’d noticed that Armie didn’t talk about his family that often, but he’d just written it off as an ‘it didn’t fit the conversation’ type of thing, because he hadn’t really talked much about his family either, and they were definitely not assholes. Well, Pauline could be a pain in the ass if she wanted to, but that was just the standard big sister teasing.

When Armie manages to collect himself, he pulls back from Timmy, wiping across his face with his hand, clearly embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, I -”

“Like I told Timmy the other day, never apologize for your feelings, Armie. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Crying is good for the soul.” Vittoria says, and Armie closes his eyes, clearly grateful for her words.

They agree to cut the piano lesson short, Timmy had been impressed Vittoria with his playing today, and she was feeling more than a little optimistic about him being able to play for the movie now. Armie is quiet the entire walk home, holding onto Timmy’s hand a lot tighter than he had on the way over. Timmy doesn’t push him into talking, he knows Armie will let him know when he was ready, if he needed to talk about it further.

It’s an insanely hot day, and even just walking the 15 minutes from Vittoria’s studio to their apartment is enough to soak their t-shirts in sweat, so Armie quietly mentions that he’s just going to pop into his apartment to shower and change his clothes. Timmy had kind of forgotten that they didn’t actually live together, he hadn’t set foot in Armie’s apartment since that first day, and Armie basically hadn’t either. Except to shower and pick up new clothes every now and again. It was a bit silly to be honest.

“Maybe you should, I don’t know, just, bring all your stuff over here?” Timmy says when Armie returns to his apartment after they’d both finished showering, and Armie smiles widely down at him.

“Are you asking me to move in?” He asks, and Timmy shrugs, trying his best not to let his face betray how giddy he’s feeling.

“I don’t know. Guess it depends on your answer.”

“And if I say yes?”

“Then yeah, I’m asking you to move in.” Timmy smiles, smiling wider when Armie’s face lights up and he nods.

“Yes, yes! I’d love to.” Armie leans forwards to kiss him, and just as their lips are about to touch, Armie’s phone rings. Timmy holds on to the back of Armie’s neck and quickly gets up on his tip toes to give Armie a chaste kiss before he stands back down, letting Armie answer his phone.

When Armie looks at the call ID, he groans out loud. “It’s f*cking Peter.” He rolls his eyes and Timmy frowns.

“What does he want now? We’ve been good with the picture thing?” Timmy had literally just uploaded a couple of pictures while waiting for Armie to return.

“f*ck if I know.” Armie shrugs, and swipes the green button, bringing the phone up to his ear

“The f*ck do you want?” He asks bluntly, rolling his eyes at whatever Peter has to say. Until he frowns and shakes his head. “What? Seriously? We haven’t even started filming yet! No, of course not. Don’t be so damn impatient. IT’S BEEN LESS THAN A WEEK, SHUT UP!” Armie practically shouts that last sentence, and Timmy stares up at him wide eyed, wondering what the f*ck Peter could be saying to warrant a reaction like that.

“No, we’re not doing that yet. No. I said, no. Forget it. No. The more you push this, the more I’m going to fight it. It’s not happening, no, it’s not a good idea and you know it. Stick to the pictures Peter, that’s more than enough for a week into knowing each other, and you know it.”

And with that, Armie hangs up, heaving a great big sigh and shaking his head. Timmy only raises an eyebrow when Armie looks up at him.

“He wanted us to be more public with our feelings.” Armie says, while pinching the bridge of his nose. And Timmy frowns, because, what?

“Public, how? I kinda thought we were already too public, what with the whole Luca and Vittoria thing.” Timmy says with a shrug, he knew the plan was for the people around them to view them as a legit couple, but still, it had only been a week. Back at the hotel, when they were laying down the timeline, they’d mentioned that they probably should slowly start showing more PDA around the cast, maybe sometime in the middle of filming, but there’d been nothing said about doing that now.

“Yeah, you’d think. But no. He wanted us going out to clubs and sh*t, being seen.” Armie emphasizes the last word, clearly copying Peter, and Timmy rolls his eyes. “They wanted rumors to start spreading on Twitter. Meaning, they wanted to create rumors, to spread on Twitter, and hoped someone would have noticed and tweeted a picture or two. And then of course, quietly validate it, by posting pictures from it on our profiles.”

“That makes no sense, did they forget their own timeline? We’re not gonna confirm anything for, like, another seven or eightmonths, the hell are they rushing for?” Timmy frowns, he’d never been part of a fake relationship stunt before, but from what he’d heard, and what Armie had said, the timelines usually didn’t change.

“Peter has a tendency of getting overly excited with these projects, it’s why so many of my past ‘relationships’ have moved at the speed of light.” Armie shakes his head. “Sometimes he’s had my brother meet these girls after just a couple of weeks, and then after they’ve supposedly gotten the stamp of approval, they move on to feeding the press information about me supposedly going ring shopping. Because you know, that’s totally normal, proposing after three weeks of dating.” Armie rolls his eyes and Timmy could practically see the frustration oozing off of him.

“But it worked well enough when the relationship was only meant to last a couple of months, at the very least, it got people talking. Problem is, we’re supposed to last years. He has to slow his timeline down, or, well, by this time next year we might actually have to get married.”

Timmy knows that Armie had only said it as a joke, but just hearing him talk about the two of them, and marriage… It should freak him out, be a reality check, but instead, Timmy’s heart skips a beat, and he lets himself picture their wedding, for three whole seconds, before he shuts that line of thought down. He’s only 19 years old, and they’re not even actually dating yet, marriage should be the f*cking last thing on his mind.

And yet, he can’t help but look down at his left hand, picturing a ring there. It would look good, he thinks, and shakes his head at himself. One step at a time, Timmy, he tells himself. It’s barely been a week since they met, and sure, their connection had been instant, but thinking about marriage was still miles away.

It would probably be a good idea to actually fall in love first.

They go over to Armie’s apartment, and pack up his things, bringing them over to Timmy’s apartment. Or, well, their apartment now. There wasn’t all that much to get, mainly just clothes and a couple of toiletries, but Timmy still felt strangely happy when Armie locked the door behind him, knowing that he wasn’t going to go back there ever again, even if it was just to shower and change.

Luca calls them a little later to let them know that dinner at his house would have to be canceled, because something had come up at the Perlman villa, and he was freaking out about it. Timmy barely understood what he said, but he’d caught the gist of it, enough to realize that Armie would have to cook for them again. Or they could order pizza, it was win/win either way as far as Timmy was concerned.

Armie somehow manages to pull something together with the things Timmy has in his fridge, but says that they’re due for another trip to the grocery store tomorrow, unless they want to eat just cheese and tomatoes for dinner.

“I could really get used to you cooking for me.” Tmmy smiles, sitting on the counter watching Armie cook, and Armie looks up from the pan and smiles back at him, clearly pleased.

“I make a good house husband, is that what you’re saying?” Armie teases, and Timmy nods.

“Definitely.”

Armie gets a text message while putting the finishing touches on dinner, Timmy sees him pick his phone up, and shake his head at whatever was written. He looks up at Timmy and smiles softly.

“It was Peter. He just wanted us to know that he had taken what I said into consideration, and decided that for once, I was right. So we’re sticking to the original timeline for now.”

After dinner, they relocate to the couch, Timmy’s laptop is still hooked up to the TV, so he turns it on and pulls up Netflix, letting Armie choose what they’re going to watch. He chooses some random nature documentary, and Timmy cuddles up into Armie’s side, resting his head on his shoulder.

It’s a fascinating documentary, but about halfway through, Timmy’s thoughts start to stray more towards Armie, and the fact that they haven’t had sex yet today. He’d gone long periods without having sex before, and he’d never really understood it when his friends were whining about being in a dry spell, until right this very moment, when just the thought of not having had sex with Armie for almost 24 hours, actually made him slightly cranky.

Timmy tries his best to keep his focus on the documentary, he really does, because it is actually really interesting, and on any other day, he’d devour all the information given, and then maybe he’d even google some of it later. But today, he just can’t focus. The only thing on his mind, is that Armie is right next to him, which means, Armie’s dick is right next to him. And he wants that in his mouth so badly, he’d do just about anything to get it.

He starts by putting his hand down at the top of Armie’s thigh, just to see how he reacts, but, he doesn’t react at all, too caught up in watching the documentary. So Timmy sighs, and decides to just take a page out of Elio’s book. He lifts his hand away from Armie’s thigh and brings it down onto his crotch instead, giving Armie's dick a light squeeze. This time, Armie does react.

Timmy smiles innocently over at him as he feels Armie suck in a breath and freeze in place.

“Am I offending you?” Timmy asks with a wink, and Armie starts laughing, shaking his head.

“Is the documentary not interesting enough for you?” Armie asks, raising an eyebrow at Timmy.

“Oh, no, it is. But you see, the good thing about Netflix is...” Timmy stops, watching Armie tilt his head in confusion as he waits for the rest of the sentence, and just as it’s obvious that he’s about to ask, Timmy continues speaking, in a low seductive tone. “You can pause it when you get distracted.”

“Hmm. I don’t know. I thought the whole point of Netflix and chill was that Netflix was still on.” Armie says with a laugh, and Timmy shrugs.

“Sure, I mean, by all means, if you wanna keep watching, you can keep watching. I’m still gonna suck you off though.” Timmy says, giving Armie’s dick another squeeze through his pants, making Armie groan low in his throat.

“f*ck, yeah, do whatever you want.” Armie whispers, and Timmy grins. He remembers making a note of the hardness of the floor earlier in the week, so he puts down one of the couch pillows on the floor, and gets down on his knees in front of Armie.

Despite Armie’s teasing about still watching the documentary, even while Timmy was sucking his dick, his eyes are now firmly trained on Timmy’s face. Timmy reaches out and palms Armie through his pants again, smiling as Armie lets out another moan and closes his eyes at the feel of Timmy’s hands on him.

Timmy hooks his thumbs in the waistband of Armie’s pants, and starts pulling them off, blessing the fact that Armie had chosen to wear sweatpants after his shower, just like he’d done himself. Armie helpfully lifts his hips, and Timmy gets both the pants and the underwear off in one go. Throwing the wadded up fabric somewhere behind him.

Armie is not fully hard yet, but he’s well on his way to getting there, and Timmy smirks as he sees his dick twitch and harden slightly under Timmy’s gaze. He brings his hand up to his mouth and licks a wide stripe across his palm before closing his fist around Armie, and gently squeezing him, slowly starting to move his hand up and down his length.

Feeling Armie harden in his hand makes Timmy feel strangely powerful, and he leans forward and swirls his tongue around the head of Armie’s co*ck before taking it into his mouth, moaning at the slight salty taste of Armie’s sweat and the slight precome that comes oozing out when he teases the slit of Armie’s dick with his tongue. He sucks gently on the head while jerking the rest of him into full hardness.

When Armie is fully hard, Timmy pulls back, letting Armie’s dick fall out of his mouth, much to Armie’s disapproval. His hand never stops jerking him off though. Timmy looks up into Armie’s eyes, and grins as he spits onto the head of his co*ck, spreading it over his co*ck with his hand, making it wet and shiny before taking him into his mouth again.

He focuses on sucking only on the head of Armie’s co*ck while moving his hand over the rest of him for a while, knowing it was driving Armie slightly crazy, and Timmy kept looking up at him, enjoying the look of pleasure on his face almost as much as the moans he keeps letting out.

As Timmy takes more of Armie into his mouth, Armie’s hand comes to rest at the back of Timmy’s head, and Timmy smiles around Armie’s dick, hoping to eventually make Armie lose control enough to pull his hair. If the way Armie is already struggling to keep his hips still is any indication though, that’s not going to take all that long.

Timmy hasn’t had the chance to suck Armie’s dick as much as he’s wanted these last few days, not that he’s suffered in anyway, because he really hasn’t, it just means he hasn’t gotten much further on his ‘being able to take all of Armie into his mouth and down his throat’ plan. Doesn’t mean he’s gonna stop trying though, practice makes perfect after all.

He pulls back to breathe, letting his tongue press against the vein on the underside of Armie’s co*ck on the way up, smiling to himself when he hears Armie groan, and the hand in his hair tightens ever so slightly.

“God, Timmy, you-” Armie cuts himself off by moaning as Timmy takes his co*ck back into his mouth, and this time, as Armie’s dick nudges against his throat, he focuses on breathing through his nose, and suppresses his gag reflex the best he can. Armie lets out a loud moan as Timmy takes him further down his throat, he’s still not able to take all of him, but he got further than he did last time, so he still counts it as a win. He pulls back up slightly, just enough so that Armie’s co*ck isn’t in his throat anymore, and keeps sucking him.

The excess saliva he’d produced by taking Armie as far down as he had, makes it much easier for him to keep using his hand to keep jerking off the part of Armie’s dick that still can’t fit in his mouth. A lot of the spit has also dripped down into Armie’s pubes, making its way down his balls. So Timmy pulls off of Armie’s co*ck completely, to Armie’s loud protests, and lets his tongue follow the trail made by his saliva, before sucking Armie’s balls into his mouth, one at a time.

Timmy always enjoyed when people did that to him, and Armie is clearly no different, if the loud moans, and occasional grunts, he keeps letting out are any indication.

“Tell me when you’re close.” Timmy whispers as he takes Armie back into his mouth, sucking hard all the way down, as far as he can go, making Armie spit out a loud curse and pulls his hair again.

“f*ck, Timmy. I’m – God, f*ck – I’m close!” Armie moans, and Timmy immediately pulls off. “No, wha – come back?” Armie whines.

“I want you to come on my face.” Timmy explains, and Armie groans loudly, nodding furiously as he takes his co*ck in his hand and starts jerking himself off. Timmy sits back on his heels, and opens his mouth, watching Armie bringing himself closer and closer to org*sm.

“Please.” Timmy whispers, and apparently that’s all it takes, because Armie makes a guttural sound, and next thing Timmy knows, wet come is hitting his chin, and his cheek. “In my mouth.” Timmy moans quietly, and closes his eyes. Luckily Armie always had been rather good at doing what he was told, because the next burst of come coats his tongue. Timmy moans happily and swallows, smiling when he feels Armie tap the head of his co*ck against his bottom lip. He lets his tongue poke out, and swirls it around the head, collecting the very last drops of come, before opening his mouth and sucking him down one last time.

Armie pulls back with a hiss, clearly oversensitive, and Timmy lets him go without any fight. He smiles up at Armie as they make eye contact again, and Armie groans at the sight of his come staining Timmy’s face.

“f*ck, look at you.” Armie whispers, sitting up slightly, and reaches out for Timmy’s face, letting his fingers slide through his come, and brings them down to Timmy’s open mouth. Timmy moans around Armie’s fingers, and sucks them clean.

“Yeah, you like that?” Armie breathes out. Timmy just nods, whining a little when Armie pulls his fingers out of his mouth. Timmy licks his swollen lips as he watches Armie take his t-shirt off, and he closes his eyes as Armie brings the t-shirt up to his face, wiping away the remaining come. When Armie leans down and kisses him, Timmy opens his mouth to Armie’s tongue right away, smiling into the kiss as Armie moans quietly at the taste of himself.

Timmy had ignored his own arousal in favor of Armie’s, but now that Armie has come, his desperation grows. Thankfully Armie seems to be on the same page as he pulls back from their kiss to lick across his palm, and shoves his hand into Timmy’s sweatpants, fist closing around his co*ck, and starts jerking him off as he goes back to kissing him again. Timmy moans into the kiss at the feel of Armie’s hand on him, and as worked up as he is, it only takes a few strokes, and he comes all over Armie’s fingers with a groan. No doubt soaking his underwear too.

“f*ck, Armie, I -” Timmy cuts himself off with a moan as Armie pulls his hand out of Timmy’s underwear, fingers wet with Timmy’s come, and brings his hand up to his mouth and licks them clean.

“You always taste so good.” Armie says quietly, more to himself than anything else, and Timmy groans, swatting Armie’s hands away from his mouth and replacing them with his lips. He kisses Armie hard and desperate before pulling away, their lips making a loud smacking sound as they separate.

“You can’t say things like that!” Timmy says, panting as he tries to regain his breath. Armie just smiles and shrugs.

“It’s just the truth.”

Timmy doesn’t even know what to say to that, so he chooses to just kiss Armie again, instead. Sure, he’s used to the occasional dirty talk in bed, but that had usually only been, during sex, not after. If Armie had said what he said while sucking Timmy’s co*ck, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but, because he said it after they were done, and it hadn’t seemed like Armie intended him to hear it in the first place, it just feels more, real, somehow. And Timmy doesn’t fully know how to deal with that.

They decide to take a quick shower, and to make sure it’s actually quick, they shower separately. Not bothering to get fully dressed they only put on a clean pair of underwear and a t-shirt, settling back down on the couch to continue watching the documentary. As soon as Armie works out where they left of that is.

Before he manages to do that, Timmy’s phone rings. It’s Luca, again, and Timmy cringes in anticipation as he picks up, wondering what on earth could have gone wrong now, and how stressed Luca would be on the other end. Turns out, everything that was wrong before, had sorted itself out somehow, and instead Luca wanted to know if they wanted to join him at the Monet’s berm location tomorrow. They could make a whole day of it, he said, do some hiking, maybe have a picnic. Which Timmy knew was code for, lets drink so much wine we’re gonna have to sleep there because none of us will be able to walk back.

Luca also said he was really excited for Timmy and Armie to get to see the location, not to mention, feel the location. Luca always said that you got the best result when you let yourself truly feel what your characters feel.

“Don’t just act. Feel.”

He’d kept repeating that to Timmy the few weeks he’d been here, before Armie showed up. Every time he’d asked for his input while going over his script, that’s what Luca would always end up telling him. He’d give him a lot of other interesting insights as well, and Timmy had already almost filled out a notebook with just random script notes at this point, but it somehow always circled back around to that in the end. Don’t act. Feel.

Timmy wondered just how far Luca wanted him to take that advice, because honestly, the way things were going, he sincerely doubted he was going to be doing that much acting this summer.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

The next two weeks passed in a blur of preparations, meeting the rest of the cast, sneaking around with Armie, sex, food, more preparations and more sex. Basically just a lot of fun. Of course, as with most things in life, there were certain things that were more fun than others, but at the same time, Timmy wouldn’t have wanted to be without any of it, because it was still an experience unlike anything he’d ever had before while preparing to shoot a movie.

Just like he’d thought when Luca called and said they could hike and have a picnic at the Monet’s berm location, Luca brought a lot of wine. He’d brought plenty of food as well, Timmy didn’t fully understand how he was able to prepare so much food in such a relative short amount of time, he’d literally brought so much food they’d had to split it up between the three of them to be able to carry all of it up to the picnic site.

It was beyond gorgeous up there, and Timmy could definitely understand why they’d chosen it as the location for those scenes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, putting himself in Elio’s headspace, and yeah, he could easily see himself coming here to be alone, to think, relax, and everything else Elio might’ve needed space to do. He could also picture Oliver and Elio rolling around in the grass and kissing, which made him smile. Yeah, the location was absolutely perfect.

Armie helps Luca spread out a blanket for them to sit on, and Timmy stands to the side, laughing every time the wind picked up and blew the blanket out of their hands, f*cking up everything. They do eventually manage to beat the wind, and get the blanket spread out, and they fill to the brim with food and wine, barely leaving them any space to actually sit.

The more Luca drinks, the more he gestures with his arms as he talks. Timmy knew that he himself used his hands a lot when he talked, and he’d noticed Armie did too, but neither of them were anywhere close to being on wine drunk Luca’s level. When Timmy leaned over to Armie and whispered that into his ear, he laughed and whispered back.

“It’s because he’s Italian.”

Timmy frowns and lightly hits Armie in the shoulder. “Don’t stereotype.” He huffs out a laugh and shakes his head, and Armie puts his hands up in surrender.

“I’m not, I swear! I had an Italian friend in like, high school, that told me that a surefire way to get an Italian to shut up, would be to tie their hands behind their back, because half their vocabulary is in their hands.”

Timmy just shakes his head and tries to focus back on what Luca is saying, but he seems to be talking about trees, and Timmy has absolutely no idea what to do with that. Eventually Luca trails off, noticing that neither Timmy or Armie is following along with what he’s saying, he squints accusingly over at them, and Timmy just shrugs his shoulders with a smile.

They eat and drink some more, and Timmy is feeling pleasantly tipsy when Luca’s phone rings, he’s cuddled up into Armie’s side, with his hand on the top of Armie’s thigh. Luca squints down at this phone to read the call ID and looks back up at them before answering.

“It’s… No you know what, never mind. I’m going to go, over there, and talk to this person, for a while. You guys do… Whatever you want to do.” And then he gets up, closes his eyes and sways in place for a little while, before pointing down at them. “Just do not, you know, on the food.” And then he answers the phone and staggers away.

Timmy sits up and looks over at Armie and frowns. “What’s he talking about?”

Armie just laughs and lightly pokes Timmy’s cheek. “Sex, Timmy. He meant he didn’t want us to f*ck close to the food, in case we spilled on it.”

Timmy screws his face up and shakes his head. “Spill what on the fo- No, ew. He definitely doesn’t have to worry about that.” The fact that Luca even suggested… No. They honestly weren’t that bad. They could keep their hands off each other for a few hours. They could! They totally could.

Armie on the other hand, just smirks, and raises an eyebrow at Timmy. “So you’re telling me, that if I asked to suck you off right now, you’d say no?”

“What are you talking about? Of course I’d say no! Luca is right over there!” Timmy’s voice comes out sounding more shrill than he thinks he’s ever sounded in his entire life, and Armie just shrugs.

“So?”

“He could see!” Timmy almost couldn’t believe that Armie was actually suggesting, that he’d suck Timmy off, practically in front of Luca. Yes, he already knew they were sleeping together, but that really didn’t mean they had to be quite that forward about it. He couldn’t deny though, that the thought of it, was more than a little arousing. But the idea of actually getting caught was still horrifying.

“You just have to be quiet then, won’t you?” Armie whispers, and closes the distance between them, cupping Timmy’s cheek and kissing him softly. When Timmy feels him reaching for the button on his jean shorts, he starts to shake his head, he doesn’t do anything else to stop him though, because the fact of the matter is, he isn’t sure he wants to.

It’s almost like Armie can sense his inner struggle, because he kisses him one more time, before pulling back, smiling at him as he asks. “Can you tell me your color, babe?”

Timmy releases a quiet sigh of relief, and whispers “Green.” It’s not like he’d forgotten they’d established that as their safeword system, but Timmy hadn’t realized that this was the kind of situation where it could come in handy, one where he wasn’t really sure he wanted to commit to a full yes, but he definitely didn’t want to say no.

He wanted Armie’s mouth on him, he always did, and the idea of doing it practically in public lit a fire in his veins. Granted Luca was the only other person around for miles, but, he was still an outsider, and it was still thrilling. Not to mention, how f*cking horrifying it would be if he caught them. The if though, is what gets Timmy going the most. He doesn’t actually want to get caught, but the fact that it’s a possibility? Yeah, it gets his blood flowing. And clearly it has the same effect on Armie.

Armie leans over and kisses him again, and this time, when Armie reaches for the button on his shorts, Timmy doesn’t protest, just lets Armie open them and reach into his underwear and close his fist around his co*ck, giving it a light tug before taking his hand back out. Timmy lets out a quiet whine as Armie withdraws his hand, but Armie just smiles into the kiss, and pulls the zipper all the way down. He keeps Timmy’s boxer briefs on, choosing instead to just bring his dick out through the flap in his boxers.

“Stand up, babe.” Armie whispers against Timmy’s lips as he pulls back from their kiss. Timmy puts his hand on Armie’s shoulder, steadying himself as he stands up, he feels pretty stupid, he must admit, standing there with his shorts open and his dick poking out through his underwear. But as soon as Armie takes his co*ck into his mouth, he forgets all about that.

Unlike Timmy, who has to work up to being able to deep throat, Armie takes him all the way down on the first go, and Timmy buries his hands in Armie’s hair, trying his best to not make any sound. He’s not completely successful at that, a few breathy moans make their way out, despite his best intention. Armie pulls off, lips shiny with spit and slightly swollen, smirking up at him.

“Do you wanna get caught?”

He asks quietly, Timmy shakes his head, and Armie just raises an eyebrow as he takes Timmy’s co*ck back into his mouth. He sucks gently on the head, tonguing the slit a few times, and takes him back down his throat, swallowing around him before pulling back. He repeats that pattern a few times, and every time he pulls back, he uses his hands to jerk off the bit of Timmy’s dick that isn’t in his mouth.

Timmy can feel himself hurtling closer and closer to the edge, he tries to warn Armie by tapping his cheek, and he groans quietly when he realizes he’s able to feel his dick in Armie’s mouth with his finger. It seems that Armie does realize what Timmy is trying to tell him, but he doesn’t pull off, just pulls back, focusing his attention on the head of his dick, and jerking off the rest of it at a furious pace.

Three seconds later, Timmy comes, biting the fleshy part of his palm in order to not announce his org*sm to every living creature in the nearby area. Armie pulls off him with a grin, making sure to keep eye contact as he swallows Timmy’s load.

“f*ck me.” Timmy groans as he tucks his dick back into his underwear and drops back down on his ass on the blanket.

“When we get home.” Is Armie’s raspy reply.

Barely five minutes later, Timmy only just managed to zip up his shorts, Luca comes walking back over towards them. He takes one look at the state of Armie’s lips – not to mention the obvious bulge in his shorts, which he does absolutely nothing to try and hide – and the dopey, satisfied smile on Timmy’s face, and rolls his eyes while shaking his head.

“Seriously. If you got anything anywhere near the food, I will kill you. I don’t even care about the movie, you’re dead.”

Over the next few days, the rest of the cast shows up one by one, and with every person arriving, Timmy gets more and more excited. This was really happening, they were really going to shoot this movie, he’d been waiting literal years for this, and now it was finally happening!

A couple of days after Esther arrives, Luca pulls the two of them aside, telling them to stick together and only speak French for the rest of the day. “Think of it as a bonding exercise” He says when Timmy frowns.

Timmy knows his French is rusty at best, his dad gleefully reminds him of that every time he hears him speak, and he does struggle a little to keep up with Esther for the first half hour, but after that, it gets easier and easier. What’s not so easy, however, is choosing to spend all his time with her, and not Armie. He knows it’s important they get along, that they have a believable chemistry, because Marzia is important to Elio’s story. He knows that, he does, it’s just…

He’d rather be biking around Crema with Armie, eating gelato and making out whenever the mood strikes – which to be fair, was pretty much all the time – and instead he’s stuck walking around listening to Esther talk about her boyfriend back in France.

Armie keeps texting him throughout the day, just checking in, telling him how he and Michael went to get gelato but he had to pay full price, how Luca finally showed him Oliver’s shorts and “Oh my god, Timmy, they’re so f*cking tiny, everything is gonna be on show.” Timmy didn’t really have the chance to actually reply, because apparently Esther took the only speaking French thing very seriously, and banned him from even typing in English. Naturally he circumvented that by replying to Armie using only emojis, but that only got him so far.

Esther drags him over to her side of the table when they go to Luca’s for dinner, and the look Armie sends her is nothing short of murderous. At least Michael seems to be able to keep him distracted for most of dinner, but whenever he can, he glares daggers over at Esther.

“So, you and Armie, are you two? You know, following in Oliver and Elio’s footsteps?” She asks him, and Timmy is so surprised he almost forgets to answer in French.

“What?! I mean – Wh-Why’d you ask?” Timmy cringes internally at the shrillness of his voice, he really needed to get that under control. It didn’t bode well for promo season if he couldn’t even handle his costars asking about their relationship without his voice reaching frequencies the human ear can’t even hear. How the f*ck was he supposed to remember the story they’d come up with, and lie convincingly to a hundred digging journalists?

“Oh, you know, it’s the way he looks at you. Not to mention the way he looks at me whenever I happen to touch you, like I’ve stolen his favorite toy.” Esther smirks, and Timmy smiles sheepishly back at her.

“Uhm – I – Well, I… You think?” He decides to try and make it seem like they haven’t started sleeping together yet, Luca obviously already knows, but the rest of the cast doesn’t have to, not yet. Timmy can’t deny that he quite likes the fact that Armie is seemingly jealous of Esther though, if nothing else it confirms that Timmy isn’t the only one with skin in the game, even if neither of them are quite sure just what that means yet.

“Are you kidding me, Timothée? If you aren’t already sleeping together, and you want him? Then, honestly, I think you could just walk over to him now and ask him to f*ck you, and he’d probably bend you over the table.”

He smiles at Esther and gets out of his seat, pointing over in Armie’s direction.

“I’m just gonna, you know, test your theory.” Esther just waggles her eyebrows and winks at him while smirking.

“Have fun!” She says with a laugh.

Armie is in the middle of a conversation with Michael and Luca when Timmy sits down next to him, he knows Armie noticed he sat down, despite not looking over at him, because his hand comes to rest possessively at the top of his thigh. He entertains himself by taking a few random Buzzfeed quizzes – apparently if he was an ice cream flavor, he’d be mint chocolate chip – and before he knows it, Armie squeezes his thigh to get his attention.

“You’re done being French for the day?” He asks, making Timmy laugh.

“I’m never done being French, Armie.” Timmy teases, and Armie just rolls his eyes. “But yeah, I’m done with the French for today.”

“Good.” Is all Armie says, before announcing to the table that he and Timmy were retiring for the night. As they leave, Timmy catches Esther’s eye, and she makes a crude gesture with her hands back at him before giving him a thumbs up. He just grins and shrugs as he follows Armie, who is walking so fast Timmy practically has to jog to keep up with him.

Timmy barely has the chance to close the door behind them as they get home, before Armie is on him, pressing him up against the door, and kissing him desperately.

“I really want to f*ck you again.” Armie pants into Timmy’s ear, and he moans out loud, nodding his head.

“Yes, please.” He whispers, kissing Armie again. The kiss quickly turns messy, and it’s more tongues than lips at this point, as Armie starts palming him through his shorts.

Armie pulls away from the kiss, and starts taking his clothes off as he walks towards the bedroom. Timmy follows his lead and gets undressed too, but unlike Armie, he brings the clothes with him into the bedroom, dropping them in the laundry hamper. Armie just lets his fall to the floor. They’re both completely naked by the time they reach the bedroom.

While Timmy puts his clothes in the laundry hamper, Armie has already gotten the lube and the condoms out from the nightstand drawer, and have put them down next to him on the bed. There is also a medium-sized dild* lying on the bed, that Timmy has never seen before. He looks at it for a few seconds too long, before turning his gaze onto Armie and raising an eyebrow in question.

“Since you had a bit of trouble taking me last time, I figured, you know, we could properly work up to it this time. By using this to get you all nice and loose and ready for me.” Armie’s voice takes on a husky quality as he talks about f*cking Timmy with the dild*, and a shiver runs down Timmy’s spine, threatening to make his knees buckle, so he quickly gets on the bed, crawling on all fours until he reaches Armie and kisses him. He doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of kissing Armie, and for half a second he wonders if kissing Oliver is going to be noticeably different or not.

“f*ck me, please.” He whispers into the kiss, and Armie groans low in his throat before pulling away and getting behind Timmy, gently spreading his ass cheeks apart.

“D’you wanna stay on all fours, babe?” Armie asks him, kissing him chastely on the lower back.

“If it’s easier for you, I can?” Timmy doesn’t really care what position he’s in, the most important part is getting Armie inside of him, whatever piece of him that may be.

“If you get tired, just tell me, and you can lie down.” Armie says, kissing his lower back again, making Timmy hum quietly.

Timmy hears the cap of the lube bottle opening, he’d noticed that Armie had brought out the water based lube this time, instead of the one they normally used, and he distantly remembers Armie saying something about how the silicone based lube could ruin sex toys if they were also made of silicone. Which is something Timmy definitely never would have thought of on his own.

At the first touch of Armie’s slick finger to his opening, Timmy’s breath stutters, no matter how many times Armie had fingered him by now – the last time he did it was literally yesterday – the first finger always startled him and he always involuntarily clenched up.

“Shh baby, it’s okay, relax for me.” Armie whispers, and Timmy took a deep breath, willing all the tension to leave his body as he exhaled slowly. It must do the trick, because the next thing he knows, Armie’s finger enters him and he chokes on a moan. He gets used to the first finger a lot quicker this time, at least compared to the very first time in the shower, the fact that they used real lube this time as opposed to conditioner probably helped with that, but the fact that it hadn’t been nearly a year since someone else used their fingers on him undoubtedly also helped.

“That’s it, baby, you’re taking it so well. Are you ready for two?” Armie asks, curling his finger and lightly grazing Timmy’s prostate. Timmy just nods silently, but he whines when Armie pulls his finger out, he knows he’s soon returning with two, but even in that short moment, after only one finger, he felt depressingly empty. Armie gently shushes him and Timmy keens as he feels two fingers enter him, stretching him exactly the way he’s come to love.

“f*ck, yes.” He groans, and pushes his hips back against Armie’s fingers, making him grab Timmy’s hips to still his movements.

“Don’t be greedy.” Armie chides him, stilling his fingers inside of Timmy until he stops trying to fight Armie’s grip on him, and stays still, only taking what Armie is willing to give him.

“That’s it, baby.” Armie says, and Timmy can practically hear him smiling.

Thankfully, Armie doesn’t wait too long before adding a third finger, and Timmy moans loudly as Armie grazes his prostate, and he can tell he did it on purpose, to be a tease. His suspicions are confirmed when it happens again, and he hears Armie’s breathy chuckle as he moans low in his throat and tries his best not to push back, hard, onto Armie’s fingers, and just taking what he needs.

“Come on, Armie, please, f*ck me!” Timmy begs, voice husky with arousal.

He hears Armie curse, and seconds later his fingers start to ease out of him. While he knows that he’s soon going to be filled up again, he can’t help but whine at the loss, feeling even more empty this time, and he feels Armie gently stroking across his lower back in a soothing manner.

The next thing he feels, is the head of the dild* carefully pushing against his opening. “Are you ready?” Armie asks quietly, and instead of answering, Timmy just pushes back against it, and it slides right in, making both Armie and Timmy moan at the same time, though for different reasons.

“f*ck, Timmy, you- God!” Armie stutters out, and he starts carefully moving the dild* in and out of Timmy at a relatively slow pace. And while it definitely feels good, Timmy can’t help that it just isn’t enough.

“Please, please, harder.”

Luckily Armie complies with his request, and speeds up. As the dild* hits his prostate dead on, Timmy’s arms give out, and he’s left facedown on the mattress, with his ass up in the air. To his frustration, that makes Armie stop, so he lets out a loud whine, and Armie seems to get the message, starting the movement up again.

Just as Timmy thinks he’s about to come, Armie stops, and pulls the dild* out. “No! What? Why’d you stop?” Timmy pushes himself back up, and turns his head to look over at Armie. What he sees, almost make his arms give out again, Armie has his eyes closed and his hand wrapped around his co*ck, jerking himself off quickly.

“Don’t you dare come before you’ve f*cked me properly.” Timmy warns, and Armie’s eyes pop open, meeting Timmy’s, and he grins, reaching for a condom.

“I wouldn’t.” He winks, opening the condom and expertly rolling it down onto himself in one smooth motion.

While Armie reaches for the lube, to slick himself up, Timmy lies down onto his back. He knows Armie likely wanted to take him from behind, but there is no way he’d be able to hold himself up through Armie f*cking him with everything he’s got, and Armie did say to tell him if he needed to lie down. Armie only raises an eyebrow at the change in position, but he doesn’t say anything about it, just lines himself up, and teases Timmy by rubbing the head of his co*ck against his hole before gently pushing in.

Clearly the extra preparation with the dild* worked wonders, because despite only taking three of Armie’s fingers, and the dild* not being much thicker, Armie is able to push right in, without Timmy’s body fighting him, like last time. They both moan as Armie bottoms out, and his dick is fully buried in Timmy’s body. Armie leans down to kiss him, and Timmy bites his bottom lip, making Armie’s hips stutter.

“f*ck me hard, please.” Timmy moans, grinding his hips against Armie’s, and moving his co*ck inside of him, making Armie spit out a curse and pull out almost completely, before forcefully pushing his hips forward, slamming back into Timmy in one stroke. Armie f*cks him so hard the headboard starts banging against the wall, and Timmy almost struggles to breathe, he’s moaning so loud.

“That’s it, baby, f*ck, you feel so good around me.” Armie groans as Timmy reaches down to jerk himself off.

It’s hardly a surprise that Timmy is the first one to come, he’s barely started jerking himself, when he feels the telltale tightening of his abdominal muscles, followed by the fiery pleasure of his org*sm washing over him. He spills over his hand, and lets out a guttural moan that sounds suspiciously like Armie’s name.

Timmy knows Armie isn’t even half as close as he’d been, thanks to the whole dild* thing, so despite feeling more than a little sensitive after his org*sm, he has no intentions of stopping. Armie does pull out as soon as he feels Timmy’s org*sm stop, but Timmy just sits up and catches his lips in a bruising kiss. Pushing Armie down onto his back, before straddling his hips, and sinking back down onto his still rock hard dick.

“f*ck, Timmy, wha-?” Armie cuts himself off with a moan, and he’s helpless to stop his hips from jerking up.

“Just, f*ck me. I want you to come inside me.” Timmy whispers before leaning down and kissing Armie again. They quickly settle into a frantic rhythm, where Timmy pushes down at the same time that Armie pushes up, and despite coming just a minute or two earlier, Timmy already feels ready to come again, his dick never having had the chance to soften as Armie’s dick keeps hitting his prostate.

The sound of skin slapping against skin – not to mention their constant moaning – is so loud in the room, that Timmy once again thanks the universe for making sure they don’t actually have any neighbors. Armie’s hands start to wander, moving from Timmy’s hips up his back, stroking him a few times, before one hand lightly grabs Timmy’s throat. It doesn’t restrict his airflow in the slightest, but Timmy’s eyes still snap open, he sees the question in Armie’s eyes, and nods. Yes, this was definitely okay. More than okay, even. Timmy wouldn’t mind if he wanted to tighten his grip further, and to communicate that fact, he places his own hand on top of Armie’s, and squeezes.

“f*ck, Timmy!” Armie’s hips push up so fast, and so hard, he makes Timmy fall face first onto his chest, making them both laugh as soon as they make eye contact.

“You okay? Armie asks as Timmy sits back up, straddling Armie’s thighs.

“Yeah.” Timmy smiles and Armie kisses him, softly stroking his thumb against his cheekbone.

“We should probably talk about the throat grabbing thing.” Armie says. “But right now, I just want to come, so please, will you get back on me?” Timmy definitely does not have to be asked twice, and he makes quick work of sinking back down on Armie’s dick.

They were both pretty close before, so it doesn’t take long for Armie’s rhythm to start to falter, and he takes Timmy’s dick in his hand and jerks him off fast and rough, and by some divine miracle, they come practically simultaneously. Though in reality, Timmy came first, and Armie came right after, likely because of the way Timmy’s org*sm made him clench around him.

As Armie comes, he sinks his teeth into Timmy neck, and Timmy just knows that he’s going to struggle to cover that one up. Hopefully it would be gone by the time filming actually started.

And sure enough, the next morning when he looks in the mirror, he has a nice, and very purple, bruise on the side of his neck, just high enough that it can’t be covered by a shirt.

When they meet up with the rest of the cast for lunch, Esther takes one look at his neck, and smirks.

“Told you.” She winks at him, and Timmy tries his very best to become invisible, hiding behind his menu as Esther laughs at him.

Timmy has never been part of a cast that has become as tight-knit as fast as this one, sure, he had some serious life changing conversations with Claire Danes on the set of Homeland, and Matthew McConaughey still texted him on occasion, mainly once a year to wish him a happy birthday, but sometimes he also texted him about scripts he’d read that he thought Timmy might find interesting.

Still, none of those sets, no matter how nice the people were, had ever felt like this. He’d never felt quite as at home as he did around these people. He could never picture himself cuddling on a couch with Claire as she read out loud for him, but he and Amira were already halfway through the first Lord of the Rings book.

And he could definitely never picture himself making out with, or god forbid, sleeping with McConaughey. That was just, no.

None of his past directors had been as intense as Luca either, and they hadn’t even started filming yet. Michael had asked Luca one day if they should organize a read through of the script, and Luca had just scoffed, saying that he didn’t want them to think of this as filming a movie. He wanted them to immerse themselves in the lives of their characters, to become their characters to the best of their abilities, and he didn’t want to ruin the illusion with something as arbitrary as a read through. Judging by the look on Michael’s face, he obviously thought Luca was full of it, but he was too polite to say it to his face.

When they got him drunk a few days later though, and Luca wasn’t within earshot, he definitely didn’t hold back. “The guy is insane. Talented as f*ck though. But. Insane. Artists, honestly.” He shook his head, and Armie actually laughed out loud, slapping Michael on the back.

“Like you don’t have any weird artistic hang ups, dear.” And much to Timmy’s amusem*nt, Amira reached over to slap Armie’s hand away.

“Don’t hit on my husband!” She drunkenly giggled, and Armie immediately removed his hand, acting properly chastened.

“Sorry, Mrs. Perlman, he’s all yours.” Armie winked at her and she giggled again, leaning over Michael and planting a big wet kiss on Armie’s cheek. Timmy definitely didn’t feel a small surge of jealousy at that, definitely not, and his insides definitely didn’t light up when Armie looked over at him and grinned, saying “It’s not your husband I’m after, anyway.”

“I’m surrounded by lunatics.” Michael muttered, but he couldn’t help but laugh as both Armie and Amira kissed him on the cheek next.

One evening, as they were scattered around Luca’s living room, attempting to watch a movie, Victoire had abruptly stood up, saying that she had too much energy to just sit still and watch TV, that she felt like going clubbing, and who wanted to join? To Timmy’s surprise, even Luca agreed, and off to the clubs they went.

After a quick stop at home to change into something more club appropriate than sweatpant shorts.

Although he knew it was technically way too warm, Timmy put on his tightest pair of skinny jeans, and the t-shirt that had once belonged to Pauline. He’d never actually been clubbing in New York, still too young to get in, but he’d been to his fair share of house parties, not to mention wrap parties. And he definitely knew how to have a good time.

Since they hadn’t managed to have the ‘how to act in public’ talk yet – they’d only really settled on the cast not really being considered public – Timmy decided he might as well play it safe, and follow Armie’s lead. So when a beautiful Italian girl came up to him and asked if he wanted to dance, he just shrugged and said yes. He liked dancing, and Armie had already said no five times when he’d asked him to join him on the dance floor.

Timmycould feel Armie’s eyes on him the entire time he was out on the floor, and if he made sure to be a bit more provocative in his movements than he would have normally, considering he was dancing with a girl he had zero interest in, just to make Armie jealous? Well, no one but Timmy had to know.

Clearly he’d forgotten that the poor girl he was with might get the wrong idea, so when she turned in his arms, and tried to kiss him, Timmy stuttered out an apology in Italian and practically ran off the dance floor, downing a couple of shots that Armie had ordered for himself.

The rest of the night is pretty much a blur, but he does remember Armie carrying him home again, Timmy really wouldn’t mind if that became a trend, and he slurred that out to Armie as he put him to bed, making him laugh. As Timmy fell asleep, Armie’s arms wrapped around his waist, he just hoped his hangover wouldn’t be as bad as it was last time Armie had to carry him home. Because that he really didn’t need to have become a trend, no, that was more than fine as a one off.

The only downside to everyone getting along so well was that it was practically impossible for Timmy and Armie to spend any time properly alone during the day. If they wanted to go biking, someone inevitably invited themselves along. If they wanted to go get gelato, someone inevitably invited themselves along. If they wanted to just laze around in Luca’s backyard, well, someone inevitably joined. And while neither he or Armie said anything about it, not even to each other, Timmy definitely noticed that Armie grew more and more possessive of him. He’d never had this many love bites in his entire life.

At least Armie had learned from past mistakes, namely Luca’s reaction to the bruise on his neck, and made sure none of the other ones were visible.

But the increasing number of love bites weren’t the only way Armie showed possessiveness, it was in the way he constantly had to touch him, even if it was just a hand on his knee during dinner, a pat on the back if he said anything funny, or how he held his hand, or slung his arm around his waist, every time they walked somewhere. Not that Timmy minded, in fact, he’d never been happier.

It was the day before filming, and Armie had joined Michael and Luca at the Perlman villa, making some final preparations to the set so that everything would be ready the next day. Armie had mainly joined because Michael had called him and told him he wouldn’t be able to spend a whole day alone with a frantic and anxious Luca without killing him, so for the sake of the movie, would Armie please please please join them? Timmy had laughed when Armie told him why he’d had to go, originally they had planned to spend today doing absolutely nothing, just lazing around in bed, maybe actually getting started on the kink list. Timmy could tell that Armie hadn’t really wanted to go, but when he told him that they had all the time in the world to spend together, Armie had smiled and kissed him and eventually left.

So instead of spending his day having sex with Armie, Timmy hangs out with Esther and Victoire, it’s not quite as satisfying, but he still has a really fun time. They take him shopping, and though he doesn’t actually buy anything, the girls make him try on an absurd amount of clothes, ooh’ing and aww’ing at pretty much every outfit he tries.

They stop by the gelato shop, and Esther can’t help but laugh when the guy behind the register asks Timmy where his boyfriend was. Apparently Victoire hadn’t noticed that anything was going on between Timmy and Armie, because when they walked back out of the gelato shop, gelato in hand, she turned to Timmy.

“Since when do you have a boyfriend?” Timmy didn’t really know how to respond to that, because the truth was, he didn’t actually have a boyfriend. He had, well, he had an Armie, that’s what he had. They weren’t boyfriends. Yet. But he had no idea how to even begin trying to explain that, so when Esther snorted, and said “Duh. Armie?” And Victoire looked at him with wide eyes, he figured it was just easier to go with it, so he just shrugged and smiled. Victoire looked between Esther and Timmy as though she’d never seen them before, and then let out a loud cackle, slapping her forehead.

“Of f*cking course. Armie! I should have known. These last few weeks, jesus, everything suddenly makes so much more sense.”

They go back to Luca’s house, which had quickly become the cast’s favorite place to hang out, and as soon as Victoire sees Amira she runs towards her, and Timmy can barely make out anything she’s saying, but judging from the way they’re giggling and looking over at him, it’s not that hard to work out what the subject of conversation is.

Timmy and Esther get so caught up in talking about this one French painter they’re both apparently massive fans of, that they don’t even notice Armie and the others returning. Timmy is so focused on listening to Esther’s analysis of one of her favorite paintings, that when Armie touches his shoulder, he actually jumps in his chair. His heart beating so fast it’s almost painful.

“f*ck! Warn a guy next time!” He practically shouts and Armie holds both his hands up in surrender, a sheepish smile on his face. If Timmy wasn’t flying high on adrenaline from being scared half to death, he would have noticed the look that flashed across Armie’s face before he walked away, and known that something wasn’t quite right. But as it was, he didn’t, so instead of following Armie when he turned to walk away, he stayed put, continuing his conversation with Esther.

Since they were still in the middle of conversation as dinner was put on the table, Timmy didn’t bother getting up and changing his seat to sit next to Armie. After all, they could survive one day of not sitting next to each other, it was just for a couple of hours anyway, they’d still be going home together, and they’d still be sleeping in the same bed for the foreseeable future.

He had looked over at Armie at the beginning of the meal, and seen that he was in the middle of a conversation with Luca, so Timmy figured everything was fine, and went back to arguing with Esther in French about a different painting, and how he couldn’t understand how she had managed to interpret it so incredibly differently from himself. Next time he looked up, Armie was nowhere to be found, but Timmy figured he had probably gone to the bathroom, or possibly just snuck away for a quick cigarette, so he didn’t think more of it.

Timmy only started to worry when Armie still hadn’t returned when dessert started appearing on the table, so he excused himself to Esther, and walked over to Luca.

“Where did Armie go?” He whispers, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that Armie was missing. Luca just raised an eyebrow at him, and Timmy couldn’t help but feel like he was being scolded for something.

“He said he had a headache and went back to his apartment to sleep.”

“Oh. Okay. Thank you.” Timmy goes back to his seat, but by now Esther has started talking to Amira about something completely different, and he isn’t really in the mood for more conversation anyway. He picks up his phone, and sends Armie a quick text.

‘Luca said you have a headache?? Are you okay?’ Timmy didn’t really expect Armie to answer, Luca did say he’d gone home to sleep after all. Still, he can’t help but worry when 15 minutes passes and there’s still no reply, so he excuses himself, and rides his bike back to their apartment.

He’d expected to find Armie curled up in bed, asleep, but instead he finds him sitting on the couch, with his head in his hands.

“You’re awake!” Timmy says, surprised, and Armie looks up at him and shrugs. “I thought you had a headache?”

“Nah, I just used that as an excuse to leave.” Timmy doesn’t even know what to say to that, if Armie just wanted to leave, why didn’t he tell him? They could have left together.

“Oh. Uhm. Okay?”

“I am pretty tired though, so I think I’m just gonna go sleep in my apartment.” Armie says quietly, and stands up. Timmy has no idea what’s going on, but it’s clear Armie is upset about something, and Timmy really doesn’t want him to leave. He wants them to talk about whatever it is that’s bothering Armie, and then he wants to help him fix it.

“What’s going on? I thought – I mean – you live here?” Timmy says quietly, and his heart sinks when all Armie does is shrug.

“I don’t want to be here when you don’t actually want me here.” Armie says, and he sounds so sad, it breaks Timmy’s heart a little. But he still has no idea what Armie actually means. Of course Timmy wants him here, he always wants him here, why wouldn’t he? Absolutely nothing had changed between them, and he doesn’t understand why Armie suddenly seem to think that Timmy doesn’t want him around.

“What? What are you talking about?” Timmy says, more than a little confused. “Of course I want you here! You know I don’t sleep well on my own.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should call Esther, I’m sure she’d be able to keep you company.” Armie snaps, and Timmy can’t help but look at him like he’s got two heads. Because what the hell did Esther have to do with Timmy not wanting to sleep without Armie? Unless… No.

“I’m sorry, what?” Timmy blinks slowly, he really hopes that he’s read things wrong, that Armie is going to offer up another explanation.

“You heard me.” Armie says petulantly, and Timmy sighs loudly, unfortunately it doesn’t seem like he has read things wrong, Armie really was jealous, properly jealous, even. Of Esther, of all people.

“I don’t… Armie, look at me, please?” Timmy says, reaching out and taking Armie’s face between his hands, gently stroking his cheeks, smiling at the feel of slight stubble under his fingers.

“I’m not... I’m not like Elio, you know? I don’t – I’m not attracted to girls. Like at all. Yeah, sure, Esther is lovely and everything, but, Armie…” Timmy stops to take a breath, he’s not quite sure how to say this next part without it sounding like a massive cliché, but he goes for it anyway, because it seems like Armie needs him to. And as previously established – hello fake relationship contract – Timmy would do anything for Armie.

“She’s not you.” Timmy whispers, and Armie closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath, every little bit of tension in his body disappearing. Timmy isn’t really surprised to see a couple of tears roll down Armie’s cheek, so he just wipes them away with no comment.

“I’m sorry.” Armie chokes out, and he clears his throat, but Timmy kisses him before he has the chance to say anything else.

“There’s no need for apologies, Armie. Just promise me this, yeah? Next time, when you get that jealous, tell me, don’t just walk away.” Timmy says, smiling softly. Really, the jealousy he could understand, he even understood why Armie left, but he really didn’t want Armie to leave next time, not if he could reassure him that there was nothing to actually be jealous of. Another reason he wanted Armie to tell him when the line between playful flirting using jealousy as a means to work the other one up, and real actual honest to god jealousy, was crossed, was that he really didn’t want to keep unintentionally hurting Armie’s feelings.

“But, it’s stupid. I don’t have the right to get that jealous, I have no claim on you.” Armie says quietly, picking at the skin around his thumbnail. A nervous habit Timmy was all too familiar with.

“Of course you do.” Armie’s head snaps up, and Timmy can practically see Armie’s eyes darken at his words, and next thing he knows, Armie’s mouth is on his, kissing him fiercely.

They make their way to the bedroom, still kissing, but when they reach the bed, Armie pulls back with a smile, and crawls onto the bed and digs the lube out from the nightstand drawer. Timmy climbs onto the bed right after him, and starts taking his clothes off. He’s a little confused when Armie hands him the lube, but then Armie starts getting undressed as well, so Timmy figures he must’ve just wanted him to hold it until Armie was as naked as he was.

However, once they’re both naked, and Timmy tries handing the lube back to Armie, he shakes his head. Did Armie not want to finger him this time? Did he want Timmy to do it himself? Because he could do that, no problem, he still preferred Armie’s fingers though.

“Do you not? I mean – should I do it myself? Is that – is that what you mean?” Timmy asks, tilting his head in confusion. But Armie just smiles, and leans over to kiss him.

“No, I want you to f*ck me this time.” Armie whispers against Timmy’s lips, and Timmy immediately closes his eyes and moans out loud. “I take it that’s a yes?” Armie says with a laugh, and Timmy just nods, catching Armie’s lips with his own again. Armie reaches down and wraps his fingers around Timmy’s dick, slowly stroking him to full hardness. Timmy tries to reciprocate, but Armie just playfully slaps his hand away.

Once Armie is satisfied with how hard Timmy has gotten, he pulls his hand away and breaks the kiss, lying down on his stomach. At the sight of Armie, all spread out and ready for him, Timmy actually has to squeeze the base of his dick in order not to come way too f*cking fast. It would’ve been so f*cking typical, if he managed to come now, before even getting a single finger inside of Armie.

He reaches for the lube, and opens it, pouring a small but generous amount over his fingers, he warms it up the best he can, and uses his other hand to spread Armie’s cheeks. Unlike Timmy, Armie doesn’t startle at the first touch of Timmy’s fingers to his hole, he does however, let out a moan and Timmy quickly realizes that he’s going to have quite a bit of trouble getting Armie to keep his hips still.

However, when Timmy slowly pushes his finger inside Armie, he stills immediately, and Timmy would worry about him being in pain, if it weren’t for the fact that he kept repeating the word ‘please’ over and over again. When Timmy feels that Armie is ready for a second finger, he doesn’t pull the first one out, just gently pushes the second one in to join. This time, Armie lets out a guttural moan, and his hips start moving again.

Timmy lets Armie f*ck himself on his fingers for a little while, more than a little turned on at the sight of his fingers being swallowed up by Armie’s hole. “God, you’re hot.” Timmy breathes out, unable to help himself from planting a few open mouthed kisses to Armie’s ass cheek.

“You’re taking my fingers so well. Are you ready for another?”

Timmy smiles as Armie doesn’t even hesitate to nod, pushing back against Timmy’s fingers even harder. This time, he does pull both fingers out, because he knows he needs to reapply the lube before pushing the third finger in, or he’d risk giving Armie’s rim friction burns. That had happened to Timmy once, and he’d never had such an embarrassing doctor’s visit in his life. Though the doctor had said was that it wasn’t uncommon, Timmy still felt like an idiot, and he promised to not have sex until it healed and to use more lube next time.

Pushing three fingers into Armie, Timmy felt actual proper resistance for the first time, and he stilled his fingers, only halfway in. “Are you okay?” He asked quietly, and Armie nodded, relaxing his muscles and Timmy could feel his fingers slide in more easily.

“Yeah, I’m fine, it’s just, f*ck, you fill me up so good.” Timmy can’t help but shiver at the tone of Armie’s voice, as if the words he was saying weren’t already hot as f*ck, the way he said them… It was honestly a goddamn miracle Timmy didn’t just blow his load right then and there, because really he could’ve, just up and spilled everything he got all over Armie’s back.

“f*ck, Armie. You-” Timmy cuts himself off by kissing Armie’s ass cheek again, and speeds up the movement of his fingers, reducing Armie to nothing but a sweaty, moaning, mess. And really, that was about all Timmy could take, he needed to be inside of Armie, like, yesterday.

While Timmy tries to locate the condoms, Armie turns around and gets comfortable on his back. Timmy manages to eventually find the packet of condoms they bought in his size, and takes one out and opens it. While he’s not even half as smooth as Armie in getting the condom on, he manages just fine.

He makes eye contact with Armie as he lubes his dick up, and he has to take a small break, just to remember to breathe. As Timmy lubes up his fingers again, Armie smiles up at him, and spreads his legs. Timmy gently coats his hole in a fresh layer of lube, and wipes the rest of it on the sheet behind him.

Before he got his dick inside of Armie, Timmy thought this was going to be like every time Armie had f*cked him so far, fast paced and slightly rough, the way they both liked it. But as soon as he’s buried to the hilt, and he leans forward to kiss Armie, all the urgency seems to leave them. Now all he wants, is to keep kissing Armie as he makes him feel good.

Timmy slowly starts to move his hips, making both of them moan into each other's mouths, and Timmy can’t help himself from gently biting Armie’s bottom lip. “Yeah? Does that feel good?” He breathes out, and kisses Armie again before he has the chance to answer, but the way he pushes his hips against Timmy’s, and the moans that keeps building in his throat, are all the answers Timmy really needs.

He’d never imagined that regular, slow and boring, missionary sex could feel so f*cking good, but Timmy has truly never felt as connected to Armie as he does right now, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s the one doing the f*cking, but everything to do with how it feels like their souls are connecting as well as their bodies.

Is this why they call it making love?

With that thought, Timmy comes. Apparently he really gets off on love, who knew? He stays inside of Armie a little while longer, and wraps his fingers around Armie’s co*ck to jerk him off. It only took Timmy a few more thrusts before Armie came all over his hand, and Timmy couldn’t help but hiss into the kiss as Armie clenched down on his oversensitive co*ck.

“Sorry, sorry.” Armie gasped out, and Timmy shakes his head, unable to stop himself from kissing Armie again.

“Don’t apologize, dumbass.” Timmy says with a laugh, in between kisses.

Usually Armie is on clean up duty, but since Timmy was on top tonight, it was his turn to walk naked into the bathroom and wet a cloth and bring it into the bedroom. Timmy gently wipes away every single trace of come and lube from their bodies, unlike Armie, Timmy didn’t bother walking back to the bathroom to wash his hands, or throwing the cloth into the laundry hamper, instead he just drops it onto the floor, and gets back under the covers. Cuddling up to Armie’s side and laying his head on his chest, listening to the soothingrhythmof his heartbeat.

They both fall asleep before they even have the chance to say goodnight.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

It’s almost a bit weird, being picked up at their apartment in the morning, and driven over to the set, knowing they’re actually going to start filming. That it’s actually, properly happening, for real. Even with all the weeks Timmy had already spent in Italy, preparing for this role, it still hadn’t really sunk in that it was actually happening. He’d waited years for this exact moment, and now that it was finally here, all he could think was–he’s not ready for it to be over yet.

And yeah, that was a pretty stupid thing to think of on the very first day of filming, they had literally weeks and weeks worth of work to do. But getting started also meant that the wait was over, and when the movie was done, that was it, he wouldn’t have anything to look forward to anymore. His only kind of, sort of, guaranteed role was done, and when it was over, it would be back to the grind of auditions, on top of trying to fool everyone into believing he was dating Armie. While kind of, sort of, dating Armie.

The relief he felt at the fact he wouldn’t have to say goodbye to Armie at the end of the shoot, it was nothing short of overwhelming. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he’d had the added knowledge that when the movie was over, he probably wouldn’t see Armie again until it was time to promote the movie. And seeing as it didn’t have a proper distribution deal yet, who knows if that was even going to happen.

Timmy knows that if he didn’t know for sure when and where he’d see Armie again…

Well, lets just say that he knows he’s not going to struggle in those final scenes, when Elio has to say goodbye to Oliver. He used to worry about being able to find the proper emotional response for those scenes, how to properly convey Elio’s heart breaking into a million tiny pieces. But now, all he’d have to think about, would be Armie leaving, and how he’d feel being left behind, and he knows, he’ll have no trouble at all feeling every bit of the heart break Elio felt that day he said goodbye to Oliver at the train station.

Never mind the way his heart broke all over again when Oliver called to let him know about his pending nuptials.

Timmy doesn’t even want to think about the possibility of Armie ever getting married to someone else. Or worse, what if Armie had already been married to someone else when they met? If Timmy had been too late, and Armie’s heart had already been taken. No, that, he literally can’t think about that. But at least he knows where to let his mind go when those last few scenes have to be filmed.

They arrive at the set and they’re immediately whisked away, Armie by hair and make-up, and Timmy gets dragged into the costume department, which was just an empty room in the villa that nobody else was gonna use. He grins when he sees Armie’s outfit for the day laid out, and he’s excited to see him transform into Oliver. Timmy quickly gets dressed in what the stylist gives him, and he heads over to hair and make-up as well. He expected to find Armie sitting in front of the mirror getting made up, but the only person he sees when he walks in, is the make-up artist.

He lets the make-up artist do whatever she wants with his face, and doesn’t move when the hair stylist takes her place and starts messing around with his curls. Timmy has no idea what it is he’s going for, but it seems to take an awful lot of crunching and spraying. He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he’s finally deemed ready, but it’s been long enough that his eyes needs to readjust to the sunlight, because walking outside makes him temporarily blind.

Timmy almost walks directly into Esther, and she giggles and drags him by the wrist after her. Which was for the best, honestly, because despite being the lead of the movie, he had no f*cking clue where he was supposed to go. Now, Luca had probably told him, but either he was too busy looking at, or fantasizing about Armie to notice, or he just straight up forgot. Most likely it was one of the first scenarios, because usually his memory wasn’t all that bad.

Esther leads him up a staircase and into a room that faces the front of the house, and when he looks out the window, he sees the top of Armie and Luca’s heads, as well as a very small green car. He grins at the thought of a man Armie’s size getting into a small car such as that, when just standing next to it, Armie makes it look like more of a toy car than anything else.

Timmy and Esther watch from above as they block out the scene, much like Elio and Marzia watch as Oliver arrives and is greeted by the Perlmans. They smile knowingly at each other when Luca gesticulates wildly with his arms, showing Armie, Amira and Michael where he wants them to stand. They can’t hear a word of what any of them are saying, but when Luca gets behind the wheel of the car, and Armie gets in the passenger seat, and neither of them can spot Sayombhu and his camera, it’s pretty obvious that Luca wanted them to run through the scene once before filming.

Luca doesn’t back up more than about 100 meters before he drives the car forwards again and stops, allowing Armie, as Oliver, to step outside and greet Michael, as Professor Perlman, with Amira joining as Mrs. Perlman shortly after. Luca seems pleased with what they’re doing, as he’s nodding the entire time, though apparently there was one thing he wanted to change as he calls Armie and Michael over to discuss something before getting behind the wheel again.

This time, they see Sayombhu and the camera preparing to film, so they make sure to be completely quiet, even though the chances of their voices being loud enough to be caught on camera was slim to none. Better safe than sorry after all.

It’s not that Timmy expected anyone to manage to nail a scene perfectly on the first try, but he’s still surprised when Luca calls cut – loud enough for even Timmy and Esther to hear clearly – and gestures for them to do the scene again. And again, and again, and one more time. And a few more after that.

Once Luca is finally satisfied, Timmy and Esther go downstairs to meet up with everyone and to see which scene Luca wants to do next. He decides they might as well do the shots of Elio and Marzia watching from the window first, seeing as the camera is already set up outside. So Timmy and Esther go back upstairs, and they’re quickly fitted with mic packs, and Luca walks into the room behind them, and talks them through the scene.

“It’s very simple, first, Timothée, one shot of you putting on your shirt. And then, well, you just watch out the window, pretend what you just saw is happening right this second, and Timmy, you remember your lines, I presume?” Luca grins at him and Timmy nods. “Good, then I’m sure this won’t take too long, depending on how well the camera picks up your voices of course, last thing we need is mic failure.”

Timmy takes his shirt off, and feels a bit ridiculous when the make-up lady has to put make-up onto his chest. “It’s so you’re not shiny.” She says, smiling. “Also for a bit added color, we don’t want you to look like a ghost on film.”

Luckily, the sound is perfect, and it only takes them two or three tries to get a few shots that Luca deems perfect. Then they move back into Elio’s bedroom, and Esther grins widely as she gets onto the bed, watching Timmy take his shirt back off. “Ah yes, such hard work, being an actor.” She laughs. “Laying on a bed, watching guys take their tops off. Really, exhausting.”

Timmy just shakes his head with a smile, and he makes sure to stand completely still as the hair stylist carefully rearranges his curls before nodding and getting back out of the way.

The scene where Elio throws different shirts onto the bed, before settling on the red one, is done in just two takes. It really wasn’t all that complicated, so there wasn’t much for either Timmy or Esther to f*ck up.

But then Timmy has to run down the stairs about 15 times. He’d known Luca was a nitpicker, but god damn it.

“No, you’re touching the railing wrong.”
“No, your legs are moving weirdly.”
“No, don’t bite your lip.”

Timmy was about three seconds away from screaming his lungs out, when Luca finally said the magic words. “Yes, perfect, this is the one.” And he could finally stop running up and down those f*cking stairs, he carefully massages his thigh and lets out a weak “yay!” making Luca laugh.

Up next, Elio and Oliver’s first meeting.

Finally.

Luca said he wanted to do the scene – starting with Elio running into his mother at the bottom of the stairs and all the way through to Elio offering to carry Oliver’s bags up to his room – as a one shot at first. “It feels more realistic that way.” He said. “But if it doesn’t work, we can do it in smaller segments.” Timmy just shrugged and went with it, figuring Luca knew what he was talking about, and he’d already kind of assumed that’s how they were gonna do it, because that’s what made the most sense.

The first time they try, however, Timmy is so focused on the fact that he’ll be seeing Armie as Oliver for the first time, that he totally forgets to prepare his brain for the fact that Amira will be speaking French to him. So when she comes up to him, speaking French, he can’t understand a word she’s saying, and he’s left standing there, staring wide eyed at her, like an idiot until Luca yells out ‘cut!’ and they all go back to their starting points, to get ready to try again.

The second time was looking better, at least until the moment when Elio wrapped his arm around his mother and gave her a quick kiss to the forehead, only to trip over his own feet, and nearly fall face first onto the floor.

The third time, they at least made it until the introductions, and this time it was Michael who f*cked up, when he introduced them as Timmy and Armie, making everyone laugh.

The fourth time, Michael got their names right, but just as they were about to shake hands, Armie let out an ear-shattering sneeze, and they were forced to start all over again.

“Maybe this scene is cursed.” Michael said, and Luca smiled.

“Not cursed no, I like to think of this as the universe looking out for us, making sure that the final result truly is perfection.”

Michael just started at Luca like he’d been speaking gibberish, before shrugging. “Alright. Let’s go with that.”

Timmy just hoped the universe would let them film more than half a scene every day, or their schedule would be f*cked, and for some reason, he didn’t think Luca would be quite as zen then.

The fifth time, Timmy thought everything went perfectly fine. They got through the entire scene without anyone almost falling over, saying the wrong names or sneezing. But Luca just shook his head, and made them start over. This time, as soon as Elio and Oliver shook hands, he called cut again.

Timmy feels Luca’s hand come down on his shoulder and he winces in anticipation of being scolded, he doesn’t know what he did wrong, but clearly it’s something.

“No, Timothée, there’s too much in your eyes, be more indifferent! Remember, right now this guy is just another summer guest, another room thief, he’s nothing special. Be polite, because it’s expected of you, but nothing more.”

Timmy closes his eyes as he feels a blush spreading across his cheeks. Right. Be more indifferent. He could do that. Only problem was, he thought he’d already been doing that, but apparently not. He’s not going to lie, it was a bit embarrassing hearing that whatever he felt for Armie was still clearly visible, even when he was trying so goddamn hard to take all his own feelings out of the equation and emulate a first meeting.

He takes a deep breath, and lets everything Timothée leave, so that only Elio is left behind. When he opens his eyes it’s Elio who looks up at Armie, it’s Elio who turns and walks away, taking his place at the bottom of the stairs, and when Luca lets the clapperboard click shut, it’s Elio who walks back inside the room, next to his mother, to greet their new guest.

“Elio, Oliver, Oliver, Elio.” The professor gestures between them, and Oliver takes Elio’s hand with a small smile.

The rest of the scene goes remarkably well, Luca only have them repeat it one more time, just to be sure. And then he allows them half an hour to regroup, or more accurately, Amira and Michael are done for today, but Esther, Armie and Timmy are doing one more scene before it’s time to for dinner.

It’s not hard to portray Elio’s amusem*nt at Oliver instantly falling asleep on his bed, because the way Armie is sprawled out, it’s both adorable and hilarious at the same time. And if Timmy didn’t know better, he’d say Armie actually did manage to fall asleep for about a minute or two each take, because when Elio walked back out into the room to let Oliver know it was time for dinner, and ‘accidentally’ dropped his book to the floor, the way Oliver reacted, his sleepiness and disorientation, was a bit too on the nose to be an act. Not that Armie wasn’t a hell of an actor, because he was, but some things you just can’t fake.

Dinner that night is loud, even louder than normal, Timmy on the other hand, finds that for once, he has absolutely nothing to say. More than content to just sit back in his chair and listen as everyone else bemoaned how many takes it took to get the introduction scenes done, how Luca thought they’d get more done the first day so they’d have to work even harder tomorrow, how surprisingly exhausting it had been getting up early, how f*cking warm it got in the middle of the day, how Michael truly felt old because he’d taken a midday nap for the first time in his life, and then Esther looked over at him and grinned.

“At least I got to see Timmy shirtless today, so it wasn’t all bad.”

Armie just raised an eyebrow at her, and looked over at Timmy, and then back at Esther. “Nah, see, I can see that whenever I want. It’s not that special.” He shrugs, and at Timmy’s insulted “Hey!” Armie grins and put his hands up in surrender.

“Sorry darling, you always look good, you know that.” Timmy just scoffed, and to everyone’s surprise, it was Michael who laughed the loudest – Timmy was mainly surprised because he thought Michael was the only cast member left who didn’t know about him and Armie yet – and leaned over to poke Armie in the side.

“You better watch it, or you’re not gonna get laid tonight.” Michael chuckled.

“I am still getting laid tonight, right?” Armie grins at Timmy as they walk home. Timmy stops walking, and looks up at Armie in consideration. Up until that moment, he’d taken the fact that they were going home to f*ck as a given, but now, well, since Armie first asked, Timmy was going to give him an answer.

“Only if I can top again.” Timmy says quietly, voice gone hoarse with arousal. “If that’s alright with you? I just- I came too fast last night, I want to – uhm – I want to f*ck you better, make you feel as good as you make me feel when you f*ck me.”

“f*ck, Timmy!” Armie breathes out, and for half a second Timmy worries that he’d said something he shouldn’t have, but then Armie’s lips are on his, kissing him desperately. “You can’t just say things like that, f*ck.” Armie pants against Timmy’s lips as their mouths separate, instead of answering right away, Timmy just leans in and kisses him again, letting his hands run through Armie’s hair, messing up Oliver’s sleek hairdo even further than Armie himself had already managed during dinner.

When they pull back to breathe, Armie smiles down at him, and touches his thumb to Timmy’s bottom lip, and Timmy can’t help himself from letting his tongue flick against Armie’s finger, making Armie smile even wider.

“You can definitely top again tonight, babe. Hell, anytime you want, you don’t have to ask permission.” Armie kisses his cheek, and Timmy smiles up at him.

“I just, I – I don’t want to assume… I mean, you said you prefer to – and I really like it when you f*ck me, so I don’t, like, want to stop that. But, I, you know -” Armie cuts him off with another kiss, and Timmy promptly forgets what he was even trying to say in the first place.

“I know, it’s alright. But when you do feel like topping, just say so. And despite what you said about coming too early last night, you f*cked me plenty good, don’t even worry about that.” Armie said with a smile before kissing Timmy one more time, and entwining their hands. They walk back to their apartment, hand in hand, smiles on their faces, and half hard in their boxers.

The first week of filming passes surprisingly quickly. And even though they’re still only in the starting phase of the movie, and none of the truly powerful scenes had been shot yet, Luca had still almost cried several times, exclaiming how he’s so lucky to have found a cast who is as perfect as this one, at every opportunity.

“Everyone of you, your characters, they live inside you. We are creating magic.” He said at dinner one night, before turning towards Timmy, and pointing at him. “And you! My perfect Elio. I couldn’t be more happy.”And Timmy, who isn’t really used to getting compliments, felt his face burn and mostly wanted the ground to swallow him up so he could disappear. It didn’t help that everyone around the table voiced their agreement, giving him even more compliments.

It was super flattering, no doubt about that, he just didn’t feel like he deserved them, not yet, he hadn’t done anything truly remarkable, not like Armie, who was so perfect as Oliver that he took Timmy’s breath away at times. Really, thank god Elio was already supposed to be fascinated by Oliver, or Timmy would’ve had a massive problem.

One day, in the middle of the week, when they were done shooting for the day, Luca asked Timmy and Armie to come over to his house a little earlier than they normally would for dinner. He said he had something he wanted to share with them, something special, so of course they agreed, and just hurried home to quickly shower and change.

When they arrived at Luca’s, they were surprised to see that his computer was out on the table and hooked up to a pair of massive speakers. It was mainly surprising because Luca hardly ever used his computer, and especially not for listening to music, he was more of a vinyl guy and had gleefully told Timmy – when he first arrived in Italy – how happy he was that vinyl was finally making a comeback.

“Sufjan finished the songs.” Luca said excitedly when he saw them, and Timmy felt a rush of excitement go through him as well. He still couldn’t quite believe Luca had gotten Sufjan Stevens to create music for this movie, when he’d first been told, he literally had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“Who’s Sufjan?” Armie asked, confused, and both Timmy and Luca looked at him like he’d just cursed in church, making Armie smile sheepishly back at them. “What? Is that really such a stupid question? Are they like, insanely popular?” He asked, biting his bottom lip and scratching the back of his neck.

Timmy just shook his head and smiled. “He makes the most magical sounding music, I can’t even describe his sound to you. He’s just, yeah, magic.” Timmy could see Luca nodding along to every word he was saying in his peripheral vision, and it made him smile.

“Timothée is 100% correct. This man, what he manages to create with music, it’s unlike anything else. I cannot wait to show you what he has created for us.” And with that, Luca went over to his computer and turned it on.

“We’re only waiting on Walter, he should get here soon. He’s mainly gonna be here because I want you to give inputs on where you think the songs are best suited. Just tell me, when you listen, which scenes that automatically pop into your heads.”

Timmy and Armie both nod, and sit down next to each other at the table, on Luca’s left, leaving space for Walter to sit on Luca’s right. Thankfully it doesn’t take Walter long to arrive, just long enough for Armie to have time to go to the bathroom, and Timmy smiles to himself when he sees that Armie had been in such a rush to get back that he hadn’t fully dried his hands.

“Are we ready?” Luca asks with a smile as everyone nods their head at the same time, making them laugh. “This is ‘Mystery of Love’” Luca said, hitting play.

At the first few notes of the song, Timmy was already in love, and the more he listened, the harder it was to keep his emotions in check. He’d never be able to understand how Sufjan did it, but it was like he had taken everything Timmy felt the first time he read the book, and put it to music. Every bit of joy, love, confusion and heartbreak the book offered – it was all beautifully represented in this song. And he couldn’t help but let a couple of tears make their way down his cheeks, completely overwhelmed with just how f*cking perfect this song truly was.

“I...” Armie croaked out, before clearing his throat and trying again. “It’s perfect. I don’t – I can’t. There’s not a single scene it doesn’t fit with. It’s just...” He turns to look at Timmy, eyes slightly red rimmed. “Like you said earlier, it’s magic.”

Timmy nods, and takes Armie’s hand in his, stroking the back of his hand with his thumb. “Yeah, I agree with Armie. It’s absolutely perfect, and you could literally use it wherever, and it would fit. It sums up their story so perfectly, I’m… I don’t even have words.” Timmy quickly wiped away the new tears he felt rolling down his cheeks with the hand not entwined with Armie’s.

“I agree.” Luca said, not bothering to hide his tears at all. “It’s beautiful. Even more than I hoped. I’m almost a bit scared to listen to the next one.” He chuckled wetly. “This one is called ‘Visions of Gideon’”

Timmy tightened his grip on Armie’s hand, and closed his eyes, letting the music completely envelop him. When the first line came, Timmy felt like he had been punched in the stomach, and he truly couldn’t help the little pained gasp he let out, and he definitely couldn’t control the tears that were now streaming down his face.

This was it. The song for the last scene, when Elio sits alone, reminiscing about Oliver, and cries for everything that could have been.

There was not a single dry eye in the house by the time the song finished, and they just sat in silence, looking at each other, taking it all in. Timmy had always been in awe of Sufjan’s talent, but after this, to say the guy was magic was an understatement. Timmy would truly never understand how he managed to create such masterpieces filled with such emotion, as these two songs.

“So.” Luca cleared his throat. “Any ideas for this song?” Timmy immediately nodded, wiping his nose with the back of his wrist.

“It’s the song, Luca. The final song.” He chokes out, still not able to control his tears. “It’s the perfect song to have play during Elio’s last scene. After the phone call, when his heart breaks for the final time.”

Timmy hears Armie suck in a pained breath next to him, and he lightly squeezes his hand again, knowing exactly how he feels.

“Yes. I agree.” Luca nods, wiping his tears away with a tissue he pulled out of his pocket. “Armie, what do you think?”

Armie just shrugs, pointing to his face, where tears are still streaming down his cheeks. “I… f*ck.” He breathes out, and Luca just nods. Timmy carefully releases Armie’s hand and gently wipes away the tears from Armie’s face, before kissing him softly on the lips, not caring that they weren’t alone. Armie kissed back immediately, seeking comfort in Timmy, just like he’d hoped he would.

At dinner a few days later, everyone was excited about the first week of filming coming to a close, Luca had been so pleased with the result of the scenes they had filmed that he’d decided to give them the following morning off, and everyone cheered loudly for an afternoon call time. And Michael, once again, surprised everyone by pulling a bag of pre-rolled joints out of his pocket with a grin.

“My man!” Armie shouted happily. “Where the hell did you get those?” Michael just shrugged and threw a joint at him. Timmy was really glad he hadn’t decided to throw it to him, because while Armie caught it easily, Timmy knew he’d be more likely to let it fall right to the floor.

Armie easily lit the joint, and took a deep drag, handing it over to Timmy with a wink as he exhaled. Timmy easily plucked the joint from Armie’s fingers, and brought it up to his own mouth, taking a deep drag as well, letting the smoke settle in his lungs before exhaling slowly, smiling widely at the large cloud of smoke he was able to produce. He had always been strangely fascinated by cigarette smoke, even as a child, and his mother liked to blame that for the fact that he grew up to be a smoker.

Normally when Timmy got high he got even more hyper and giggly than normal, and usually people got sick of him within the first five minutes – more often than not telling him to shut up – unless they were just as hyper and giggly as him, of course. This time, it seemed to have the opposite effect on him, he’d literally never felt this calm, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Not that he minded, he’d always secretly wanted to be one of the mellow stoners, but he was usually stuck creating new Lil’ Timmy Tim raps or dancing on tables.

Timmy takes another quick drag before handing the joint back to Armie, who is watching him with a wide smile on his face that Timmy is incapable of not copying. He watches as Armie takes a drag, and then he raises his eyebrow at Timmy, and taps his lips. Timmy just stares up at him in confusion, and Armie releases the smoke he’d been holding in with a chuckle.

“Do you wanna shotgun?” He asked playfully, and Timmy’s eyes widened, he’d never had anyone do that with him before, probably because of the before mentioned hyperactivity, but it was probably also because he’d never had any troubles with coughing and not being able to smoke the joints by himself. Though to be honest, the real reason was mainly because he usually only smoked with his high school friends. And they were all sweaty, gross teenage dudes that Timmy wouldn’t put his mouth anywhere near, even if you paid him a million bucks.

“Yeah, that – I – Yeah.” Timmy stuttered out, and if it wasn’t for the pleasant haze brought on by the weed, he’d probably be at least a little embarrassed at just how f*cking eager he sounded. Not that Armie seemed to mind, he just grinned and patted his lap a couple of times, so Timmy shrugged and got out of his seat and sat down on Armie’s thighs, slinging one arm around Armie’s neck for support.

Armie brought the joint back up to his lips and took an even deeper drag than normal, leaning forwards and touching his lips to Timmy’s, who only remembered to open his mouth at the last second, letting Armie breathe the smoke directly into his mouth. Once Armie was finished exhaling, Timmy had expected him to pull back, but instead he stayed in place, keeping their lips together as Timmy inhaled the smoke as best he could, before breathing it back out into Armie’s mouth.

“Again?” Armie whispered against Timmy’s lips, and he nodded, licking his lips, and his tongue touched Armie’s lips as well, making him shudder and bring his hand up to cup Timmy’s cheek and kiss Timmy properly. Timmy quietly moaned into the kiss, and he felt Armie smile before he pulled back and took another deep drag of the joint and dropped the roach onto the ground next to his legs, and squished it underneath his shoe.

This time, Timmy is ready, and his mouth is already open when Armie’s lips touch his. The smoke easily seeps out from Armie’s mouth and into Timmy’s. Timmy barely has a chance to exhale before Armie’s lips are back on his and his hand tightens at the back of Timmy’s head as the kiss gets more intense and messy.

At least until someone clears their throat, and they’re acutely reminded of the fact that they aren’t at home in their apartment, but outside in Luca’s backyard, along with everyone else. They quickly pull apart and Timmy goes back to his seat, wiping at his lips and feeling his cheeks burn, and when he looks over at Armie he sees him blushing too.

“Noooo, Michaeeeeeeeel.” Esther whined loudly, and Victoire pouted up at him before slapping his thigh.

“You bastard, look what you’ve done. That was so hot, and now they’re all embarrassed!” Victoire huffed.

“Yeah, you know, if you wanna continue, that’d be nice.” Esther said, wiggling her eyebrows. And Amira was unable to keep a straight face any longer, bursting out into laughter, and it only took a few seconds for everyone else to join her.

“I can’t believe you actually forgot we were here.” Michael said a little while later, when everyone calmed down, and Luca scoffed loudly.

“Oh, I can.” He said, looking over at Timmy and Armie with an evil grin. “Did I ever tell you about their first rehearsal?”

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

It’s surprisingly easy, getting into Elio’s headspace, a little too easy some days. Really the only difference between Elio and Timmy at this moment in time, was that Elio didn’t know that his feelings were reciprocated and he hadn’t even kissed Oliver yet, while Timmy had definitely kissed Armie, among other things. The rest of it though, the confusion, the jealousy, the overwhelming need to be close and to impress – Yeah, there wasn’t really much of a difference between real life and fiction there.

Everything got a little more real, and, in a way, a little worse, the moment Armie’s friend Nick dropped by for a visit. According to Armie he was backpacking through Europe that summer, and Armie had told him he’d be a f*cking idiot if he didn’t drop by Crema on his travels, and now there he was.

It’s not that Timmy didn’t want Armie to have visitors, in fact the way Armie’s face lit up when got back to their apartment after filming, and found Nick loitering on the street waiting for them, was absolutely adorable, and anyone who made Armie smile like that would definitely always be welcome. It was mainly just, it was a sharp reminder of the fact that real life still existed outside of this safe little bubble they’d created for themselves, and Timmy didn’t know if he was ready to think about that just yet.

“Nick, I want you to meet my – uh – Timothée.” Armie grinned over at Timmy, making sure to pronounce his name the French way. “Or you know, you can just call him Timmy. He’s – I mean… He plays Elio.” Armie finishes lamely, and Nick just raises an eyebrow and extends his hand, and Timmy shakes it, his eyes widening at just how tightly Nick grabs his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Timmy. I’m Nick, Armie’s best friend.” He says it almost like it’s a threat, and Timmy smiles uneasily back at him, feeling like he’s already failed some kind of test.

“I’m Timmy, uh, yeah. Nice to meet you, man.”

Armie opens the front door and holds it open for the both of them, leaving Timmy in the front to lead the way to the apartment. He doesn’t really know how all three of them will fit inside their small apartment, but he’s sure they’ll manage somehow. At least until Armie points to his old apartment and pulls the keys out of his pocket. “This is where I’m staying, sorry pal, there’s only one bedroom, so you’ll be crashing on the couch.”

Timmy frowns up at Armie, more than a little bit confused, he still had the key to his old apartment? He’d told Timmy he’d given it back to Luca last week, figuring there was no need for production to pay rent for an apartment that wasn’t being used, and since there was only one bedroom, then why not let Nick stay in that apartment by himself, when Armie spent every night in Timmy’s bed anyway?

“Catch you later, Timmy.” Nick said, throwing up a peace sign as he went into the apartment. Thankfully Armie stayed outside in the hallway with Timmy. “I’ll be right there!” He called out for Nick, turning back towards Timmy with a sheepish smile.

“I’m sorry, I – I just, I haven’t told him about you yet, and I didn’t want to completely blindside him with us living together and, I know I said I gave the keys back to Luca, and I did try!” Armie said, looking down at his shoes. “He just, he wouldn’t take them. Said it might be a good idea to keep it, just in case. So I don’t know, I just did?” He said the last part so quietly Timmy almost didn’t hear him, and it’s not like he blamed him for doing as Luca said, he probably would too, he just didn’t understand why he didn’t tell him about it, right away.

“You know, I can understand you not wanting to tell your friend about us yet, going by Peter’s schedule, we’ll only just have started fooling around, so that part, it makes sense.” Timmy shrugged, and he could’ve sworn Armie’s face fell, even if only for a second.

“What I don’t get though,” Timmy continued, looking down at his hands and picking at the skin around his thumbnail. “Is why you wouldn’t just tell me Luca told you to keep the apartment. Like, did you think I’d get mad? I don’t-” Timmy sighs, and looks up at Armie again. “I thought we promised each other honesty?”

Armie sucked in a pained breath and reached for Timmy’s hands, threading their fingers together and giving them a light squeeze. “We did, and I’m sorry, I just- I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t want you to think that Luca- That I, uhm…” Armie heaved a big sigh and released Timmy’s hands to pinch the bridge of his nose, and Timmy couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy.

“What, Armie? Just tell me, please?” Timmy chewed on his bottom lip and held his breath until Armie made eye contact with him again.

“I didn’t want you to know about me keeping the key, because I didn’t want you to think I had any doubts about us at all. Because I don’t, I really don’t. What we have right now, it might not be very conventional, but it makes me really happy. You make me happy, and I am going to tell Nick about you, I will! I just… He’s my best friend, you know? And I’m going to have to lie to him, for years, it’s just – it’s difficult. And the reason I haven’t told him about us yet is that I need to do this face to face, and -” Armie sighs again, and Timmy reaches out to cup his cheek, stroking his thumb across Armie’s cheekbone.

“I’m sorry, Timmy, but you- You can’t be there when I do that. Actually, it’s probably better if – I mean, maybe we should just cool it for a couple of days? At least until I’ve had the chance to tell him.” Timmy lets his hand fall, and he tries to keep his breathing steady, despite feeling like Armie just broke his heart.

“Oh, okay. I… We can do that. Sure.” He couldn’t quite get himself to say that he understood, on some level he knew why Armie felt he needed to do this alone, but on another level, he couldn’t help but feel excluded, which also made him feel incredibly selfish and his self loathing immediately cranked up to about 500. Timmy also couldn’t help but worry that Armie wanting them to cool things off somehow meant that Armie’s feelings for him weren’t as real as he thought. And what if Armie was going to breach their NDA’s and tell Nick the truth and that’s why he didn’t want Timmy there.

“Hey, babe, look at me, please?” Armie smiles down at him as Timmy lifts his head. “Thank you for understanding.” Timmy felt like a total fraud for nodding. “And you know, at least not everything is a lie.” Timmy only raises an eyebrow in question, not really sure what exactly Armie is referring to.

“I mean, we might not officially be ‘real’ boyfriends yet, but, we’re getting there, aren’t we?” Armie says softly, taking Timmy’s hand in his again, and bringing it up to his mouth to gently kiss the back of his hand, making Timmy shudder slightly.

“Yeah. We’re definitely getting there.” He whispers with a small smile, not really sure if he dares to believe his own words.

After a quick kiss goodnight, Armie walked into his apartment, and closed the door behind him, leaving Timmy alone with his thoughts out in the hallway.

Once he'staken a few calming breaths and gotten his head back on straight,Timmy could admit that what Armie said made sense, and he really did understand why Armie needed to do this alone – he wasn’t looking forward to lying to the people around him either. But he was also scared that despite how well things were going right now, that when filming was over, and they had to go back to reality, that whatever they’ve started here, it wouldn’t make it.

That they wouldn’t make it.

And Nick showing up, bringing a bit of that reality with him, just unearthed those fears a little earlier than expected.

Timmy lies in bed a little later, trying his best to fall asleep, but no matter how many times he changes positions – going from lying on his left side, then flopping over onto his back, trying out curling up on his right side and then on his stomach, and back on the left again – he just couldn’t get comfortable.

After the clock hits 3am, he gives up. He gets out of bed, and decides to go for a walk. Walking through the streets of Crema alone at night feels strangely surreal, and he can’t help but feel like he’s totally alone in the universe. Unlike New York, which truly is the city that never sleeps, Crema is eerily quiet at night.

Try as he might, he can’t stop his thoughts from circling back to Armie, and wondering just what he meant when he said they should cool it, because to be honest, Timmy doesn’t think he can even be around Armie without touching him and being flirty. Not as himself anyway, maybe he needed to create a character in his head, one that was completely unaffected by Armie and could handle just being his friend without any of the benefits Timmy had been very much enjoying. It was either that, or ignore him at any cost.

Timmy didn’t bring his phone, so he has no idea how long he’s been out walking, but since the sun is starting to rise, it must have been a good while. Instead of going back home, Timmy keeps walking until he finds a nice place to sit down and watch the sunrise. It’s not like this is the first sunrise Timmy has ever watched – being no stranger to bouts of insomnia they had kind of lost their appeal – but unlike the ones back in New York, that were always dimmed by everything that makes up big city life, this one was breathtakingly beautiful.

Once the sun has made its way above the horizon, Timmy slowly starts to make his way back to his apartment. It takes much longer than he expected, he hadn’t realized he’d walked quite that far. When he finally makes it back to the apartment building, just as he’s about to open the front door, it opens by itself, and he comes face to face with Nick and Armie in full workout gear.

Timmy stares wide eyed up at them, and Armie seems just as surprised to see him as Timmy is to see them. Nick, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care.

“Timmy? Wha – Where’ve you been? Are you okay?” Armie asks, sounding more than a little worried, and Timmy doesn’t even want to think about how exhausted he must look.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Have a nice, uh, workout?” Timmy can’t help but sound a little confused, he’d never known that Armie was the type of person who liked to go jogging in the mornings, mainly because he’d never done that in the weeks Timmy had known him. And he can’t help but wonder what other things he doesn’t know about Armie, but that Nick clearly does.

“Thanks man, catch you later!” Nick says cheerfully and grabs Armie by the wrist and practically drags him away. Timmy just shrugs and walks inside, and if he stomps his feet a little more than normal as he climbs the stairs, well, that’s nobody’s business.

Armie has the day off, since Oliver isn’t in any of the scenes that’s on today’s schedule, and as Timmy takes a quick shower to prepare for a long day of filming on zero sleep, he can’t help but wish they were doing scenes that required Armie to actually be there. Not only because filming would mean Armie would be too busy to hang with Nick, but also – Timmy scoffs loudly, he can’t lie to himself, Armie being too busy to hang with Nick was pretty much the only reason he had for not wanting Armie to have the day off. Along with the fact that he was going to miss having him there, of course, but that was pretty much a given at this point.

The car picks him up outside of the building before Armie and Nick has returned from their jog, and Timmy – acting very much like the sulky teenager he is – made sure to leave his phone at home, so that if Armie tries to call, or text, Timmy wouldn’t be able to respond. He knows it’s childish, purposely leaving your phone at home with the intention of ghosting someone, but he also knows that if he didn’t leave it behind, he’d spend every single moment of the day checking it to see if Armie had texted, and he had a sinking feeling that Armie wasn’t going to.

Luca takes one look at him as he arrives on set and shakes his head, whispering something to the girl standing next to him before walking over to Timmy and wrapping his arms around him in a hug. “Oh, bambino, you look exhausted. Did you even sleep?” When Timmy just shakes his head against Luca’s chest, he sighs, and pulls back to meet Timmy’s eyes, the kind and understanding smile on his face almost made Timmy tear up. But just almost. “Why don’t you go into Elio’s bedroom and lay down for a while, huh? I’ll wake you up when we’re ready for you.”

Timmy doesn’t have the energy to argue with him, so he just shrugs and goes inside the villa and starts climbing the stairs to the bedroom, faceplanting – much like Oliver – right onto the bed as soon as he gets inside. Unlike Oliver, Timmy doesn’t fall asleep immediately, but after resting his eyes for a while, he does eventually drift off.

He doesn’t have enough time to dream, but he’s still incredibly disoriented when Luca wakes him a little while later. He does feel better though, so he gives Luca a small smile and a whispered thank you as they walk down the stairs together. Luca just ruffles his hair and smiles, not saying anything.

Despite only sleeping for less than an hour, the filming that day goes remarkably well. During the breaks in filming, Timmy can’t deny that he is more than a little bored without his phone, and he scoffs at Esther when she calls him a millennial cliché, but she just laughs and lets him borrow her phone to play a couple of rounds of 2048, since it was the only game she had downloaded.

As usual Luca invites everyone over for dinner that evening, and Timmy sits down next to Esther at the table, making her frown. “Why are you sitting here?” She asks him, in French, and when all he does is shrug, her frown deepens.

“Did something happen with Armie?”

Before Timmy has a chance to answer, Armie and Nick arrive, both of them laughing at something. Timmy tries to not feel disappointed when Armie doesn’t even look at him when he sits down. “His friend doesn’t know about us.” Timmy whispers. “So we’re pretending we’re not a thing until he has the chance to tell him. I don’t know. It made more sense yesterday.” Timmy finishes with a shrug. He hopes he comes off as cool and unaffected, but somehow he doubts he managed to pull it off. Esther just shakes her head and mutters something under her breath that Timmy can’t decipher

“A toast!” Esther shouts out suddenly, startling Timmy more than a little. “To love and acceptance!” She says that part while giving Armie what could only be described as a death stare, and Timmy would laugh if he wasn’t too busy feeling mortified, especially when Armie just looks confused and seeks eye contact with him. Timmy can’t handle looking at him for more than three seconds – too afraid to give away everything he’s feeling – and he busies himself lifting his glass along with everyone else, smiling widely as they all call out “To love and acceptance!”

The rest of dinner is surprisingly uneventful, the food is as good as always, he talks a lot with Amira and Esther, and talking with them, he almost forgets about Armie for a second, but just almost.

“Not that I’m not enjoying our conversation, caro, but why are you sitting here with us, when Armie and his friend are over there?” Amira asks him a little later, and he sighs, shrugging his shoulders yet again.

“Because -” He starts, when he’s interrupted by Esther. “Because Armie is a coward who hasn’t told his friend he’s dating Timmy yet, I bet you he probably hasn’t even told him he’s gay.”

“Hey!” Timmy’s voice comes out so loud, and so angry, it even catches him by surprise. “Don’t you f*cking dare.” He says quietly but fiercely, pointing a finger at Esther, and he’s never been more happy for the fact that they’re speaking French, that way at least not everyone understood what they were saying.

“You don’t get to talk about him like that, you just don’t. You have no idea, no idea, what it f*cking takes to come out, even today – f*ck! Just… Don’t f*cking talk about things you don’t f*cking understand, okay?!” And with that, he stands up and leaves, not giving Esther the chance to say anything else. He could feel everyone watching him as he left, but nobody tried to stop him.

He walks back to his apartment and slams the door shut. He grabs his phone from his nightstand, and turns on his heel, walking right back out. Slamming the door again. He shoves his phone into his back pocket, and starts walking.

Just like the night before, he has no idea where he’s going, just that he needed to get away. So he walks, and walks, and walks some more. At least he’d brought his phone so he could listen to some music, and he put his phone on ‘do not disturb’ so that if anyone texted, or called, he wouldn’t have to know.

When he eventually comes to a stop, he doesn’t recognize his surroundings at all, which is just perfect, honestly, getting lost is exactly what he needs tonight. He takes his phone out of his pocket, and he’s surprised to see the number of missed calls, he’d kind of convinced himself that nobody had given much of a sh*t about him leaving, and that nobody was going to text or call, and that was the real reason he turned on the ‘do not disturb’ function, so he wouldn’t have to be disappointed when nobody reached out.

But they had called. A lot. He had about 37 missed calls, 23 of them from Armie, the rest was an equal mix of Esther, Luca, Michael, Victoire and Amira. There was also an unknown number that had called a couple of times, and Timmy guessed it was Armie, using Nick’s phone, maybe hoping he’d answer if it wasn’t obvious it was one of them that called.

Instead of calling any of them back, he turns on his GPS and goes to Google maps, hoping it can tell him where the f*ck he is and how to get back home. According to the map, however, he’s in the middle of the pacific ocean, which means that either his phone’s GPS has stopped working, or the maps app is f*cking up. Given his luck, it’s probably his phone, and it’s going to die on him soon, meaning he’s going to have to buy a new one, with money he doesn’t really have.

He remembers reading somewhere, that when you’re lost, you have a tendency of walking in circles, and instead of trying to find your way and exhausting yourself in the process, you should just sit in place and wait for help to arrive. Which sounds like good advice, except for the fact that no one knows he’s gotten lost in the first place. Sure, he could just call someone – he’s sure they’d be happy to hear from him by now – and tell them he’d gotten lost, but how the f*ck would they know where to look, when he doesn’t even know where he is?

Timmy screams out a few choice words – cursing both himself and the universe for getting into this mess – and flops down on his ass, not even caring about the fact that the ground is wet and that he was gonna mess up his pants. He picks up his phone again, just as Armie is calling him, and he debates with himself on whether to pick up or not for about three whole seconds before swiping the green button to answer.

“Timmy! Thank god, we’ve been looking everywhere for you! Where the f*ck did you go?!” Armie sounds so worried that Timmy can’t help but tear up, both because he really appreciates Armie’s concern, and also because, well, he’s more than a little bit scared. What if he never makes it back?

“I… I don’t know where I am.” Timmy chokes out, wiping his tears away with the palm of his hand.

“What? What do you mean you don’t know where you are?” Despite everything, Timmy can’t help but laugh, and if it comes out more than a little hysterical, well, he’s f*cking lost in a foreign country, he’s allowed to panic.

“I literally meant what I said, Armie. I have no f*cking idea where I am!” Timmy shouts before taking a deep breath and continues explaining at a more comfortable noise level “I was walking, and I wasn’t paying attention, and when I looked up I realized I don’t recognize this place at all. It’s literally all just f*cking trees and sh*t, I have no f*cking idea how I got here, or how to get back home.”

“sh*t.” Is all Armie has to say, and Timmy just nods in agreement, that was a fair summary of the situation after all. Timmy hears movement on Armie’s side of the phone call, as well as some muttered talking and then Armie comes back on the line.

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do, first, tell me how much battery you have left on your phone.” Timmy frowns at the request, not really understanding why that was important, but pulls the phone away from his ear to check.

“Uhm, 84%” Normally it would be a lot lower at this point, but, considering he charged his phone at night, and he’d left it at home all day, it still had more than enough power to last him a good long while, thank god. Something good came out of his childish sulking, maybe the universe hadn’t given up on him completely after all.

“Good, okay, good. Then I’m going to stay here on the phone with you while you start walking, and you’re gonna walk until you find a street sign, or someone to tell you where you are. And when you’ve done that, you tell me your location and then you’re going to stay there, and we’re going to come get you, okay?”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll just keep walking then.” Timmy looks around him, trying to find any indicators on where to go, but there’s nothing, just more trees. So he just shrugs and heads to the right. He’s been focusing so hard on trying to find a good path to take that he’d almost forgotten Armie was still on the phone, and when he brings it up to his ear, he can hear him talking, and a smile spreads across Timmy’s face – he’d truly never get tired of listening to the sound of Armie’s voice, he should do audio books, Timmy makes a quick mental note to mention it to him later, before he focuses back in on what Armie is saying.

“- so good, you hear me? You’re doing incredible. Just keep walking and we’re going to see you soon, don’t even worry, Luca knows this city like the back of his hand, we’re definitely going to find you, only problem is ‘trees and sh*t’ isn’t a very good landmark to follow. But as soon as you can give us something more than that, we are on our way. ...Timmy? Are you still there? Hello? - f*ck, Luca, I think we lost him again.”

“No, I’m- I’m still here, I just.” Timmy sucks in a deep breath, desperately trying not to cry. “I’d rather listen to you talk, if that’s okay? I- uhm. It’s soothing, and I’m about three seconds away from a panic attack, so, please, don’t make me talk anymore.” He quickly wipes away a couple of tears as he hears Armie’s sigh of relief on the other end.

“Of course it’s okay, if you need me to keep talking, I will keep talking. You just focus on your breathing, and keep walking. Can you do that for me, Timmy? You don’t have to speak, but some kind of noise of confirmation would be nice, just so that I know you’re still there. I don’t- I can’t lose you again, okay?”

Even though he can’t see his face, Timmy knows, just from the sound of his voice, that Armie is crying right now. And he feels like the biggest idiot on planet earth. Why did he have to be such a – such a teenager!Stomping off into the night with no care about the consequences, just because he was feeling angry, hurt, overlooked and excluded. He should know by now how to handle his emotions better, but clearly he had plenty of things to work on in that regard.

Because here he was, lost somewhere in f*cking Italy, just because his fake boyfriend’s best friend doesn’t know he’s a fake boyfriend and not a costar. And he definitely doesn’t know that maybe he’s not actually that much of a fake boyfriend, as he is a real boyfriend. And then his kind of, sort of, but not really, girlfriend in the movie they’re shooting, said some rude things in a mindless attempt to defend his honor, and he flew off the handle and walked into the night like a moron.

Yeah. Write that on his tombstone, why don’t you?

“I’m so sorry, Armie, I didn- I didn’t mean to get lost, I didn’t, I shouldn’t have left like that, and I’m so sorry for worrying you and – and- and… God, I don’t think I can breathe.” Timmy could literally feel his airway constricting, and as he was gasping for air, he dropped his phone to the ground, probably cracking the screen.

He doesn’t know if the phone survived the fall or not, but with his luck, it probably died. Before he can check it though, he has to regain his breath, or he’d probably pass out. He drops down onto the ground again, and puts his head between his knees. He thinks back to what he learned in therapy about breathing techniques, and focuses on slowing his breathing. After a little while, he feels the immediate panic lift and breathing gets a lot easier.

At least until he remembers that he dropped his phone. He looks up so fast, he actually gets a little woozy. His phone lies face down on the ground about a foot to his right, and he crawls over to it and sends a quick prayer that it still works.

Thankfully, the universe is on his side, and even though the screen now has a massive crack, it does still work, and, Armie appears to still be on the line. He brings the phone up to his ear, and a relieved smiled spreads across his facewhen he hears Armie’s voice.

“-st tell me when you can hear me, okay? We’re still here, you’re going to be fine, we’re going to find you, and nobody blames you for any of this. So all you have to do, is to just tell me when you can hear me, okay? We’re still here, you’re going to be fine, we’re going to fi-” Timmy cuts Armie off there by clearing his throat.

“I’m-I’m back, I- I- Yeah. Sorry. I… Dropped my phone.”

“Oh, thank god.” The relief in Armie’s voice is palpable, and Timmy feels like a complete idiot for worrying him all over again. He doesn’t even bother trying to wipe away the tear that rolls down his face, figuring it’s only going to be the first of many.

“I’m sorry, for everything, I -”

“No, don’t, Timmy. Don’t worry about it, yeah? Just focus on finding a landmark so that we can come get you, and we can talk about everything then.” Timmy nods, forgetting that Armie can’t actually see him, when he does remember though, he feels his heart breaking a little again, and he can’t stop the tears from welling up in his eyes.

“I just… I just wanna come home.” Timmy chokes out, feeling like a small child, lost for the very first time, crying out for their mother. Except all he wants, is for Armie to wrap his arms around him, and hold him close.

“I know, baby, I know. That’s all I want too. So you just keep walking for me, okay?”

Timmy finally gets up from the ground, brushing off some dirt from his knees, and starts walking. He walks, and walks and walks. And throughout it all, Armie stays on the phone, talking about everything and nothing, keeping him calm and focused.

Until f*cking finally, there’s a clearing, and there’s no more f*cking trees, or grass. He can see some buildings up ahead and he’s so f*cking relived he doesn’t even know where to begin.

“I think, Armie, I think- I think, uhm. I’m out! Of the woods or whatever – Hah! Out of the woods – No, but, yeah. I should have something for you soon, I think.” Timmy sees a little old lady walking her dog up ahead, and he doesn’t even think, just sprints up to her.

“Armie, would you put Luca on, please?” He hears Armie handing the phone over, just as he reaches the woman.

“Scusi, può aiutarmi?” He gestures to his phone and tries to not look too crazed, he doesn’t want to scare her off after all. Thankfully, despite looking a little scared, she nods, and takes the phone, bringing it to her ear. The dog just waggles its tail, and doesn't seem to give two sh*ts about the fact that a stranger just approached its owner.The ladystill looks warily at him until Luca must start speaking on the other end, and then she breaks out into a relieved smile and starts speaking rapid Italian back to him. Timmy only understands about, two words, but at the speed she’s talking, he’s impressed he got even that much.

The lady nods one final time, and hands the phone back to Timmy, he thanks her and quickly brings the phone up to his ear, more than ready for Luca to tell him just where the f*ck he is, and how long it’s going to take them to get here.

“So, how far did I go?” He tries playing it off as a joke, but it falls more than a little flat, luckily Luca doesn’t comment on it, and just tells him that they’re about 30 minutes out. Before he hangs up, Luca makes him promise to stay put, he repeats it about three times, and Timmy promises that he will, every single time.

He feels strangely alone, after hanging up, and he vows to tell Armie just how much it meant to him that he stayed with him on the phone the entire time.

The relief he feels when he sees Luca’s car driving down the road in front of him, it can’t even be described with words. Armie opens the passenger door before Luca has even brought the car to a full stop, and comes running towards him, Timmy doesn’t even hesitate to throw himself into his arms. Armie lifts him up as though he weighs absolutely nothing, and Timmy wraps his legs around his waist, and then Armie’s lips are on his, and Timmy kisses him back immediately.

“Oooh, right, yeah, of course.” He vaguely hears Nick saying to himself in the background, and on any other occasion, he’d pull back and let Armie explain. But right now, the only thing Timmy is able to care about, is Armie’s lips on his, and he wouldn’t want to stop kissing him even if the whole world was on fire.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Instead of going back home to their apartment building, Luca drove them to his house. Timmy and Armie sat together in the back with Nick riding shotgun. Nick hadn’t said a word since they’d come to pick him up, and if Timmy had a little bit more energy, he’d probably worry more about what he was thinking. As it was though, he could barely stay awake during the drive, almost nodding off several times.

When they arrived at Luca’s, the rest of the cast and some of the crew were still there, and as soon as Timmy walked through the door, Esther came running, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean what I said, I f*cked up, please forgive me?” she croaked out, and Timmy could feel her tears staining the shoulder of his sweater.

“Nah, hey, no.” Timmy pulled back from her embrace and put his thumb under her chin to lift her head. “I’m the one that should apologize. I never should have yelled at you, I was just… I was having a sh*t day, and when you said what you said, well. I guess my cup just ran over, and I took everything I was feeling out on you, which wasn’t fair.” Throughout his speech Esther kept shaking her head, and when he was done, she hugged him again, whispering into his ear.

“I completely understand. I’m still very sorry for what I said, I promise I won’t make that mistake again.”

After that, everyone else also came up to hug him, one by one. All of them telling him how happy they were he made it back safely, while at the same time lightly scolding him for running away in the first place. And then there was Victoire, who just slapped his shoulder, called him a dick, and made him promise to never do it again. “I’m too young to get gray hair from worrying, okay?”

Once everyone had gotten to see for themselves that Timmy was indeed safe and sound, they all started heading home. Luca had said that everyone was welcome to stay the night, but it seemed the only ones to actually take him up on it were Timmy, Armie, and, well, Nick.

Timmy was lying on Luca’s couch, with his head in Armie’s lap, as Armie was watching TV and mindlessly playing with his hair. He was seconds away from sleep, when he heard Nick clear his throat.

“Is he asleep?” He whispered, and Timmy, knowing that Armie was going to check, immediately closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.

“Yeah, he’s out like a light, poor thing.” The way Armie said it, the fondness in his voice, it made Timmy feel all warm and tingly inside.

“Good, because we need to talk.” Immediately the warm and tingly feeling disappeared, and ice cold anxiety took its place. Timmy definitely did not like the sound of that.

“Talk? Okay? About what? Are you not having a good time here, or what?” Armie sounded confused, and if he weren’t pretending to be asleep, Timmy would shake his head at him.

“That’s not it and you know it. No, what I want to talk about, is you and Timmy. It’s not right, what you’re doing, and you know it.” The sharpness in his voice cut Timmy to the bone, he’d known that Nick wasn’t exactly his biggest fan, but he didn’t think he’d made that bad of an impression. And he definitely hadn’t thought Armie was best friends with a hom*ophobe, especially not considering, based on what he’d told Timmy, he seemed to be openly gay to his friends.

“Okay? And since when were you a raging hom*ophobe?” Armie still sounded confused, but it was now tinged with hurt, and once again Timmy cursed the fact that he was supposed to be asleep, because now all he wanted was to sit up and hold Armie’s hand.

“That’s not what I’m talking about at all. It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re both guys, you know I don’t give a sh*t about that.” Nick took a deep breath, at the same time Timmy released a sigh of relief. “Do you know what Luca just told me? Earlier, when you were on the phone with Timmy, trying to keep him calm?”

Nick took a large pause in speaking, almost as if he actually expected Armie to guess what Luca had said, which seemed to piss Armie off just as much as it did Timmy. He’d always hated when people did that. “How the f*ck am I supposed to know that? I’m not a mind reader, Nick, you’re gonna have to tell me.”

“He told me that Timmy is only nineteen years old. Nineteen, Armie. He’s barely out of f*cking high school! You’re almost 30! What the f*ck are you thinking?!”

“I’m thinking that I’m happy, for the first time in a long time.” Nick actually scoffed at that, and the warmth radiating through Timmy’s body at Armie’s words, abruptly turned into fiery rage, how f*cking dare he?

“Don’t give me that, you thought you were happy with Dylan too, remember?” Timmy has no idea who the hell Dylan is, but judging by the way Armie went completely still underneath him, whatever memories that name brought with it, they definitely weren’t happy ones.

“Don’t you dare bring him into this, that’s low, even for you.” Timmy has never heard Armie truly angry, until now – even with Peter, he'd never sounded quite this mad, which is saying something –andTimmy is so f*cking happy it’s not him Armie is angry with, because the suppressed rage that colors his words is actually more than a little frightening.

“I know, and I’m sorry. But you’re obviously not thinking clearly, and I don’t want you making the same mistake twice. Just please tell me you haven’t slept with him yet.” Armie’s silence spoke volumes, and Timmy could hear Nick groan with obvious disappointment.

“Oh for f*cks sakes, Armie! He’s a nineteen year old kid. And before you go all ‘he’s legal’ at me, I know that, that’s not the issue. The issue is, he’s young, Armie. Like, really, really young. Seriously, what the f*ck did we know about life at nineteen, huh? Do I really have to remind you, that at nineteen, you still thought you were gonna marry Elizabeth?”

Timmy had no idea who Elizabeth was, but if Armie had consider marrying her at one point in his life, then Timmy didn’t think it was fair for Nick to bring her up, just to drive home a point. Not everyone worked out their sexuality as early as he did, and if Armie was a bit slower to figure things out, he didn’t think that was something he should be shamed for.

Again, Armie said absolutely nothing in response to Nick’s words, at least not vocally, Timmy couldn’t see his face, but he’d bet Armie’s face said more than enough, because Nick didn’t hesitate to continue speaking.

“I’m sure he’s nice, and you like him a lot, but, Armie, come on man, you’ve been here, what, a month? That’s not nearly enough time to get to know someone, and I mean properly getting to know them, not just the shallow every day stuff, or what gets him off the most in bed. Like, tell me, do you know what his biggest fears are? What truly makes him happy? Or which movies he can’t watch without crying? Do you know what his face looks like when he lies? Or when he’s trying to keep a surprise from you? How he looks when he’s upset but trying not to show it?”

Armie didn’t say anything this time either, but this time, Timmy didn’t need to see his face to know how it looked. He knew that, unlike what Nick said before, this actually hit home. So despite Nick saying they didn’t know each other well enough to read each other yet, Timmy knew he was wrong, but he also knew, it was something Armie worried about.

Since he’d mistaken Timmy’s interest in his conversation about art with Esther that one time, as Timmy being interested in Esther, Armie had confessed that he didn’t do well with not being able to accurately read his partners, and it made his anxiety flare up, which in turn made him act very irrationally. He had also said, that he was lucky that Timmy was such an open book. “Everything you feel, it’s right there on your face. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. I just need to learn to trust myself more.”

So the fact that that’s where Nick chose to apply pressure, well, f*ck him for knowing Armie so well, because it would definitely be effective.

"No? That’s what I thought. I really am sorry, you know, but I just can’t stand by and watch you getting your heart broken again, not after what happened last time, I just, I can’t. So I’m begging you here, get out now, before it’s too late.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t.”

“I get you don’t want to hurt the kid, but -”

“That’s- No, that’s not what I meant, Nick. I mean it’s too late, because I’m already falling for him, distancing myself now, it’s not going to work.” It was almost as if fireworks went off inside of his heart, Timmy had never experienced that before, but then he didn’t know if he’d ever felt quite this happy before either. Yes, Armie had told him that he had feelings for him, but it still felt more real, hearing him say it to Nick, when he didn’t know that Timmy could hear him.

“Oh…” Timmy could hear Nick mutter something under his breath, voice slightly muffled, and Timmy carefully opened one eye to see what was going on, and saw Nick sitting with his head in his hands, looking more than a little defeated.

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine. Timmy isn’t Dylan, he would never – I know you said I don’t know him well enough yet, and you’re right, but we’re working on that. I do, however, know that Timmy would never, ever, in a million years, do what Dylan did.”

Armie speaks so carefully, as if he was talking to a spooked animal, and despite the nice things being said about him, Timmy feels his stomach drop.

“And you know, even if he did, I’m not the same person I was back then. Now, would I be heartbroken if Timmy left me? Absolutely. But, what happened after Dylan… I wouldn’t let myself get to that point again. So while I appreciate your concern – honestly, I really do – I don’t need you out there fighting battles on my behalf, especially not when they only exist in the anxious parts of your brain.”

“Yeah, I hear you. I’m sorry. I, uh… It’s just that he’s your first, boyfriend, or whatever, since Dylan, and I can’t… I can’t not worry.”

Timmy can hear Nick sighing deeply, and he feels Armie reaching out for him, and when he quickly opens his eyes, he sees that Armie is stroking Nick’s back. Which really doesn’t help calm Timmy’s nerves.

“I get it, I do. And I’m sorry for that, you know I am. But I promise you, everything is going to be fine. And even if it isn’t, things will still be okay, because I know you’ve got my back, man. But for now, just breathe, okay? Everything’s fine, there’s no need to worry.”

Timmy’s heart is beating so fast, and he’s trying so hard not to move, or give away the fact that he’s not actually asleep. Whoever Dylan is, he clearly meant something to Armie once upon a time, but he’d obviously not given a single f*ck about Armie in return, and ended up breaking his heart. Pretty badly, if Nick’s attitude towards Timmy was anything to go on.

“I’ll try. I know I’ve been acting like a bit of a dickhe*d towards Timmy, I know that, and I’m not proud of it, I’m going to apologize to him when I get the chance, I just, you know… After what happened, and the fact that I defended that asshole when you came to me with your concerns, I just, I don’t trust my own judgment anymore…”

Nick sighs again, and if Timmy thought it was hard to not give away the fact that he wasn’t sleeping before, well, it definitely didn’t get easier, listening to this. He wanted to sit up and tell Nick that it was fine, that he understood, and that if Armie had been his best friend, and had clearly suffered after his last break up, Timmy would’ve been massively skeptical of anyone he’d start dating as well.

“And yes, from what I’ve seen, and heard, Timmy does seem really nice. I’m still not too happy about his age, but then again, I’m not the one dating him, so if it doesn’t bother you, then it’s fine. I’m telling you now though, if he does ever break your heart? I’m breaking his face.”

At that, Armie let out a loud laugh, and Timmy took the opportunity to pretend that’s what woke him up, despite never having been asleep in the first place.

“Wha- What’s going on?” He rubbed his eyes and sat up, looking confusedly between Armie and Nick. “Did I fall asleep?”

“For a little while.” Nick grinned, and Timmy smiled, recognizing the reference.

“Shall I go now?” Timmy asked, which made Nick grin even wider.

“If you’d like.” Nick finished, still grinning, and it was Armie’s turn to look confused as Nick gave Timmy a high five.

“Okay? What the f*ck just happened?” Armie asked, looking between Nick and Timmy as if they’d both suddenly grown second heads some time in the last minute.

“It’s called bonding.” Nick shrugged, and Timmy just smiled and nodded.

“What he said.” Timmy said with a wink, and leaned over to kiss Armie’s cheek.

Timmy decided then and there to pretend like he had never overheard Armie and Nick’s conversation. If Armie wanted to tell him about what had happened with Dylan, whoever he was, then he’d let him do it in his own time. Timmy might be young, but he did have things in his past he wasn’t necessarily proud of, and he knew, that being forced to share those things with someone before you were ready, it just did more harm than good.

Despite how he’d gone about saying it, Nick was right when he’d said that a month of casually sleeping together wasn’t enough time to properly get to know someone. Now, it probably would have helped if they had spent more time talking, but they still had plenty of time to do that, and Timmy had no doubts that sooner rather than later, there would be no secrets between him and Armie at all. Give them some more time and they’d know each other inside and out.

While he was looking forward to getting to that point, where everything was out in the open – and he knew everything there is to know about Armie – he was also really looking forward to learning everything. The good and the bad. He was also looking forward to sharing all of his own stories, and secrets. It would be scary, no doubt about that, but, in this last month, despite not knowing Armie as well as he’d like, Timmy had come to trust him with absolutely everything he’s got.

And if nothing else, he was really grateful for Nick, and the whole getting lost thing, for making him realize that.

Timmy also made sure to treat Armie exactly the same as he’d always done, and now that Nick knew they were, well, more than just friends, that meant Timmy was back to sitting next to Armie at every meal. TouchingArmiewhenever he got the chance and kissing him whenever he felt like – he did try not to be too public about that last one, but, f*ck it, it was difficult, okay? There were f*cking people everywhere. Nick just rolled his eyes whenever he saw them kissing, but unlike before, Timmy could see the undercurrent of fondness in his eyes when he did it. Esther and Victoire still grinned creepily at them whenever they were the once to catch them, Michael still didn’t care, Amira just smiled and Luca?

Well, one time when he caught them kissing during a break in filming, he interrupted them by saying “That’s good, do it like that for the cameras too, yes?” Neither of them knew how long he’d stood there, watching them, and for some reason, that was even more embarrassing to Timmy than when they lost control and forgot about him during their first rehearsal. And when he told Armie that, he’d laughed so hard he’d had tears form in his eyes.

“You’re telling me, that you’re basically fine with Luca watching us have sex. But kissing? That’s embarrassing?” When Timmy just shrugged, blushing furiously, Armie had laughed even harder. “Well, dude, I don’t know if you’ve read the script of the movie we’re making, but, uh, prepare to be embarrassed. A lot.”

One thing Timmy had noticed about Armie was that he was extremely terrible at accepting compliments. That’s not to say he didn’t smile and say thank you whenever someone said something nice about him, because he did, every time, without fail. No, what truly got to Timmy, was that no matter how many compliments he got, Armie never actually believed any of what was said. He still thought people just said it to be nice, not because they actually meant what they said.

It had literally shocked Timmy to the core when he realized that all of Armie’s self-deprecating jokes were what he truly thought about himself, and his performance. It made Timmy want to beat the daylights out of everyone that had ever made him feel insignificant and not good enough, and Timmy had a sinking feeling he would have to start with Armie’s parents.

After that, Timmy made sure to compliment Armie as often as he could. Everything he’d thought about Armie’s portrayal of Oliver in his head, he now said out loud. How f*cking spot on his mannerisms were, how he did this one thing in this one scene that completely blew Timmy’s mind and made him see it in a completely different way, how he made Timmy so comfortable, how Timmy thought he’d known and understood Oliver and Elio – up until now – when Armie showed him something completely different, and made him rethink his opinions.

And every time, without fail, Armie would stutter out a thank you, and a blush would darken his cheeks. Timmy just hoped he’d eventually understand how f*cking amazing he actually is, and how f*cking lucky Timmy feels to have him in his life.

Timmy also noticed that the more compliments he gave Armie, the more comfortable Nick seemed with having him around. He still hadn’t apologized to Timmy, like he said he was going to, but then Timmy still pretended he’d never heard that conversation, and they were fine now, so really, the apology was unnecessary at this point.

The time had finally come for them to start shooting the volleyball scene. They had shot quite a few scenes that followed that already, despite Luca wanting the movie to be shot more or less chronological, however, since he couldn’t control the weather, something had to give. Now though, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, and the forecast didn’t have any rain scheduled for at least the next four days.

To say that Timmy had been nervous about this scene was an understatement. He knew, that despite the seeming insignificance of the scene, it was actually one of the biggest turning points in Elio and Oliver’s story. It was where Oliver had tried to make his intentions clear, and Elio, in his confusion and longing, had accidentally rebuffed him, and made him think he was all alone in his attraction, in turn, making Oliver pull back ever so slightly.

He really wanted to portray that as accurately as possible, but he didn’t know if he would be able to pull it off. He’d read the scene in the book about seven times today alone, as well as going over the pages in the script, highlighting and underlining and writing down notes to himself in his notebook. He had, originally, written his notes in the margins of the script, but since he was apparently incapable of writing short notes, he’d bought a notebook instead and it was already more than half full.

Watching Armie walk over to the volleyball net, shirtless, wearing only Oliver’s tiny tiny shorts, Timmy thanks his lucky star that Elio is supposed to be fascinated with his body, that he’s supposed to be staring a little too forcefully, because f*ck knows if Timmy would’ve been able to f*cking stop himself.

Armie’s body is absolutely sinful, there’s no other word for it, and Timmy cannot wait for this week to be over, so that Nick will go home. Because despite knowing Armie and Timmy are a thing now, Armie still hasn’t told him they’re living together. Which means, it’s been way too many days since Timmy last got laid, and when Armie looks the way Armie does when he’s half naked, well, it’s a f*cking crime, is what it is.

Timmy channels all of his sexual frustration into Elio, and hopes he doesn’t come off as too much of a horny creep. He’s also grateful for the fact that Elio was supposed to feel jealous of Chiara in this scene, because despite knowing that Armie is about zero percent attracted to Victoire, he can’t help the spikes of — what he assumes to be — jealousy he feels watching Armie touch and hug her. The fact that they were both half naked definitely didn’t help.

If Armie hadn’t been so goddamn good at acting, Timmy probably would have been fine, but he is so f*cking convincing with his touches and his smiles, and Timmy curses himself out inside his head for getting as affected as he does. Truly, Timmy has never been happier that Elio was a gloomy little sh*t about it, because it allowed him to be a gloomy little sh*t about it too.

He knows that when he tells Armie about this later, he’s going to laugh and promise him that he’s definitely not into Victoire, just like how Oliver isn’t actually into Chiara. And sure, Timmy does know all that, but f*ck if that helps any, he still can’t stop himself from scowling whenever they get a little too close. Luca seems to love it, though he does tell him to tone it down a little a few times.

“You do not wish to kill anyone, you want the jealousy to be less murder and more confused longing.” He says a few takes later, and Timmy can feel a blush making it’s way across his face as Esther – who is sitting beside him – lets out a loud bark of a laugh.

“I… Sorry, yeah, I’ll chill it with the murder eyes.” Timmy smiles sheepishly at Luca, who just fondly shakes his head at him, before calling out for people to find their marks and start over.

When the time comes to film the part where Oliver comes over and starts massaging Elio’s shoulders, the fact that they haven’t had sex at all this week really comes back to bite Timmy in the ass, because his body is very used to reacting a certain way when Armie’s hands are on him, and well…

It makes him strangely squirmy, having Armie accidentally turn him on by massaging his shoulders, and then when Esther takes over, it’s like stepping into an ice cold shower. And, as always, they have to do it over and over and over. Once it’s because Timmy accidentally dropped the bottle of water he was supposed to be holding, but mostly it was because Luca liked having them repeat scenes at least three or four times, even if they did both the first and second take brilliantly. “For editing purposes, mio figlio.” he’d said when Timmy had asked, because he’d felt a little disappointed when he’d thought he’d really nailed a scene, only for Luca to tell him to do it all over again.

Though to be fair, they rarely managed to get things done to Luca’s satisfaction on one take alone, and some times it was even the actors themselves that asked for a redo, just because they didn’t feel like they did their best – even if Luca had been happy with what he’d gotten.

All in all, it’s definitely not a bad way to spend your day, but it definitely did nothing to help Timmy’s growing sexual frustration. Really, was Nick ever going to go home?!

Luca had invited everyone for dinner again that evening, and when Armie excused himself to have a quick smoke, Nick leaned over and whispered into Timmy’s ear.

“Got a second? I want to talk to you before Armie gets back.”

Timmy, figuring it was probably time for Nick’s apology, just nodded and followed him when he got up and started walking towards the garden – the opposite way from where Armie had disappeared to.

Funnily enough, Nick takes him to the fish pond, the exact same location Armie had taken him when he tried to talk Timmy out of taking what ever deal Peter was going to offer up. It felt like a different lifetime as opposed to just a few weeks, so much had changed since then, but also, strangely enough, things were pretty much exactly the same. Only difference being, he and Armie touched and kissed a lot more freely than they’d done back then, that’s for sure.

Nick sits down at the edge of the pond, and looks up at Timmy with a tight lipped smile. “First, I wanna start off by apologizing for being a bit of a dick towards you when I first got here, I… I wanna say that I had a reason, but it still wasn’t fair to you, and yeah, I’m sorry.”

Timmy, who had been expecting pretty much exactly this version of his apology, just smiled. “Don’t worry about it, man. It’s all good.”

Nick smiled a little easier, and nodded his head in thanks, before his eyebrows drew together, and he frowned. “There is one thing though, that I just – that I kind of have to discuss with you.” Timmy’s eyes widen, and he really hopes that Nick isn’t about to tell him about what happened with Dylan, because he truly doesn’t want to know, unless Armie is the one to tell him.

“You, honestly, you seem like a real good guy, Timmy. You really do, and I understand why Armie likes you. So I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here.” At that, Timmy can’t help but raise an eyebrow, since when had he done anything deserving of doubt in the first place? Nick doesn’t seem to notice though, as he just keeps talking.

“I want you to know this, I’m not gonna give you any details or anything – because it’s really not my place to tell you any of that – but Armie has been really hurt in the past, by someone we both wholeheartedly trusted. He plays it off like it wasn’t so bad, but it was, it really was. And I can’t watch him go through something like that again, I just can’t. So if you’re not serious about this, about him, then I’m begging you, end it now. Don’t let him fall in love with you, and then walk away. Because honestly? I don’t think he’d survive it. Not with you. You’re already – Things are different with you, I can tell, and I’m not gonna lie, it scares the living sh*t out of me. But, I’m gonna choose to trust you, so please, just… Don’t break his heart.”

Whatever Timmy had thought Nick was going to say, it certainly was not that, and he’s fairly certain that he looks like an absolute idiot, standing there staring up at Nick, wide eyed with his mouth hanging open.

“I… I wouldn’t – I mean, I’d never – never – want to hurt him. I lo- I mean. I care about him so much, you don’t even know… I have no plans on walking out on him, I can promise you that. Really, as long as it's up to me, then his heart should be safe.”

Throughout all his stuttering, Nick smile just keeps growing. “Yeah, I know. I have a good feeling about you, Timothée.” Nick stands up and wraps his arms around Timmy in a hug that catches him completely by surprise.

“You’re good for him, I haven’t seen him smile this much since… Well. It’s been a while.” Nick says as they pull apart from the hug and start walking back to Luca’s patio. Armie is back in his seat when they return, and he raises and eyebrow at them as they sit down.

“The f*ck is this? Where’ve you been? What did you do?” Armie directs the last question to Nick, who just grins and holds his hands up in surrender.

“I didn’t do anything! I’m totally innocent. Isn’t that right Tim-Tam?” When Armie turns around to look at Timmy, Nick catches Timmy’s eye and winks. When Timmy nods, Armie’s eyes widen, and Nick gives him a thumbs up.

“Tim-Tam?!” Armie exclaims, turning his head back to look at Nick, disbelief practically dripping off of every word.

“Yes. We’re best friends now, Armand, dear. And as you know, nicknames are part of friendship!”

“Sure...”

“You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first, aren’t you?” Nick says with a laugh, leaning forwards to catch Timmy’s eye again. “I mean, it’s good, right?”

Timmy just shrugs, and takes a sip of his wine. “You’re not the first one to ever call me that, so I can’t exactly give you points for originality, but, you could’ve done worse?”

Nick just nods and says “I’ll take it.”

Walking back to their apartment building later that night, all of them more than a little tipsy, thanks to Luca’s amazing wine collection, Nick tells them that he has an early flight in the morning.

“So you should stay in Timmy’s apartment tonight, or you know, move back in.” Both Timmy and Armie come to a stop once he says that, making Nick laugh.

“What? Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? Dude, there was nothing in that apartment, no food, nothing. You honestly didn’t think I noticed that you kept a weeks worth of clothes in a bag next to your bed? Normal people, when they’ve lived somewhere for a month, they, you know, unpack and go grocery shopping.” Nick shakes his head, looking more than a little amused, and Timmy can’t stop the smile that spreads across his face. Trust Armie to think he’s being extremely convincing, but forgetting the basics.

“Not to mention that stupid story you told me, about forgetting your toothbrush over at Timmy’s, because you were watching Netflix until late and you fell asleep. Like, honestly? The f*ck would your toothbrush be over there for if you fell asleep on his couch? You gotta work on your lies man, it’s embarrassing.”

Timmy can’t help but laugh, but Armie just blinks slowly over at Nick, looking more than a little confused, as well as embarrassed.

“But, if you knew, the entire time, then why didn’t you say something?”

“To be honest? At first I was kinda glad, because, well, you know.” Nick shrugs, and both Armie and Timmy nod.

“Also, it wasn’t until Timmy here managed to get himself lost, and I saw how f*cking worried that made you, coupled with the whole dramatic running into each other’s arms and kissing thing, that I knew for sure that you were actually together, and thatyou weren't just crushing onTimmy without having told him.Really, for all I knew,you could'vejust decided to be roommates because it was less, I don’t know, less lonely. After that though, well, I kinda just wanted to wait and see how long it would take you to tell me, and well, here we are.” Nick finishes with a shrug, and when Timmy looks over at Armie, he’s completely stone faced, which surprises him a little, he would have thought Armie found this as amusing as he himself did. Would he have preferred to have Armie in his bed this week, absolutely, but he also knows that if he was in Nick’s shoes, he’d probably do the same thing.

“So you’re telling me...” Armie says, furrowing his brows. “That technically, I could have been sleeping with Timmy, all f*cking week, but you decided not to tell me that, to what, teach me a lesson in honesty?!”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Nick nods, grinning up at Armie, who just shakes his head back at him.

“You… f*cking asshole. I’m going to kill you!” And with that, Armie charged, trying to catch Nick, who had clearly seen this coming, and started running. Watching two grown ass men, tipsy on wine, chasing after each other on the streets, one cackling at the top of his lungs with the other one shouting curses at him, it was one of the funniest things Timmy had seen in a while, and he laughed so hard he had trouble catching his breath.

Lying in bed next to Armie later that night, Timmy couldn’t help but smile, finally everything was back to normal. Despite knowing that it was more than a little late, and that they really should go to sleep right away, Timmy didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to talk to Armie.

Taking a deep breath, he flopped over onto his side, staring at Armie’s profile, smiling to himself as he thinks about how f*cking gorgeous he looks, and how f*cking lucky he is to have him here in bed with him.

“Are you awake?” He whispers, crossing his fingers behind his back, smiling in relief when Armie opens his eyes and nods.

“Yeah, I’m awake. Why’d you ask?”

“I just, I don’t know, I have some things I need to tell you, and… I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow, because then I might not have the courage to do it.”

Timmy sits up, scratching his Adam’s apple and clears his throat. Armie sits up as well, and Timmy suddenly finds himself unable to meet his eyes, choosing a spot right above his shoulder to focus on instead. He keeps rubbing his throat as he tries to find the right words to use, and after a little while, Armie reaches out for his hand, and threads their fingers together, holding Timmy’s hand in his lap. Timmy lets his eyes focus on that instead, his and Armie’s hands, entangled, fitting together perfectly.

“Having Nick here, it… Well at first it made me absolutely miserable. Mostly because you pulled away from me, but also because, well – It just really brought home how little we actually know about each other, despite having practically lived in each other’s pockets for a whole month.”

Timmy takes a deep breath before continuing to talk, this was already a whole lot harder than he had anticipated. No wonder people hardly ever talked about their feelings, it f*cking sucked.

“I didn’t like feeling like I was only second best. That there was someone else that knew you better than I do, someone who you’re more comfortable talking to and sharing difficult things with. And I know that’s stupid, because again, we’ve only known each other a month, and he’s been in your life since, well, basically forever.”

Timmy stops to take another deep breath, only this time, he looks up into Armie’s eyes, and he’s surprised to see that they’ve welled up with tears. He gives Armie’s hand a squeeze, and smiles when Armie squeezes his right back.

“I don’t know, I guess it just made me realize how much you actually mean to me. And then, while coming to that realization, also knowing that you- that- Having you tell me that you wanted to cool things off, it- hurt more than I thought it would. And I… I just, I need to know that I’m not alone in this. Because if you don’t feel the same, I…”

Despite hearing Armie tell Nick that he was falling for him, Timmy needed Armie to say it again, to him this time. Because maybe he meant something else when he said it to Nick, maybe he wasn’t feeling everything Timmy was feeling, their definition of falling for someone might be completely different. Timmy wanted it to mean the same to Armie as it did to him, but, what if it didn’t?

And even worse, what if, when Armie had said those words to Nick, it was just a part of their cover story, and he hadn’t actually started falling for him at all.

What if, when Timmy had been lost, Armie had realized that he didn’t actually miss him all that much. What if, when he asked to cool things off for a bit, he’d come to the conclusion that he actually preferred to be single and unattached, and that Timmy was nothing but a nuisance.

What if…

Just.

What if.

“Of course I feel the same way, Timmy, you don’t even know how important you are to me. I’m really sorry I ever made you doubt that.”

Armie scoots a little closer to him on the bed, and leans forward to give him a soft kiss. When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against Timmy’s, he can feel Armie’s breath on his lips, and it’s strangely grounding.

Armie kisses him one more time before pulling back all the way, he reaches out and strokes Timmy’s cheek, and sends him a soft smile when Timmy leans into his hand. Armie smiles even wider when Timmy turns his head and kisses the inside of his palm. Timmy threads their fingers together again, and bring their hands down into his own lap this time, nodding at Armie to continue talking.

“Me wanting to cool things off a little before telling Nick about us, it had nothing to do with you, but everything to do with something that happened a couple of years ago, with my… Well, my ex-boyfriend. I don’t want to get into specifics right now, but, it was tough, and without Nick… I don’t know.”

Armie sighs, and Timmy doesn’t like the look that crosses his face at the thought of whatever it was that had happened with Dylan. It looked… Well, it was pretty much the definition of raw pain. If Timmy ever found out who Dylan was, and what he’d done, and he ran into him somewhere? Well, it’s not like he would want to go to jail, but, for Armie? He would definitely f*ck sh*t up, that’s for goddamn sure.

“Point is, he’s seen me through some really tough times, and I knew, that because of that, because of what happened last time, I owed it to him to sit him down, face to face, and tell him about us in person. I really didn’t expect him to act the way he did towards you at first, because he’s usually always super nice to everyone, and if I had known that that’s how he was going to be, I would have told him that first night. I’m so sorry that I didn’t- that I didn’t make it clear enough to him that his behavior wasn’t acceptable. I should have, I really should have.”

Armie reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose with his free hand, and he sits there with his head in his hand for a little while, and Timmy can tell, just from the way he’s breathing, that he’s desperately trying not to cry. However, when Armie looks back up, it’s obvious that he’d failed, because not only were his eyes welled up with tears, a couple of them had even made their way down his cheeks.

Timmy immediately lifted their entwined hands up to his chest, using his other hand to hold them against his heart. He didn’t say anything though, because it was obvious that Armie wasn’t finished talking, and he knew, that if he interrupted him now, Armie would never be able to finish what he’d been saying. Better to just let him get it all out.

“I’m also really sorry about making you feel like you weren’t important enough, or that Nick coming to visit trumped absolutely everything else. That’s not at all what I wanted. And I really hate myself for making you feel like you couldn’t come to me with these thoughts. To know that I was the reason for you not being able to sleep, and going out alone at night – getting lost, that- honestly, that kills me. What if we hadn’t gotten to you in time? You could’ve…” Armie’s voice cracks, and he puts his head in his hands, pulling away from Timmy a little and Timmy can see his shoulders shaking, indicating that he’s crying.

Before Timmy has the chance to say anything, much less do anything, Armie practically throws himself into Timmy’s arms. Wrapping his arms around him in a bone crushing hug, and hiding his face in Timmy’s neck while he sobs. Timmy gently cards his fingers through Armie’s hair, and he’s unable to stop his own tears from falling down his face as he feels Armie’s tears hit his skin. He can hear Armie murmuring something, it takes a while for Timmy to understand what he’s saying, but it almost breaks his heart when he figures it out. That what Armie is repeating, over and over again under his breath while he cries, is “Please don’t leave me."

They sit there, holding each other and crying for a while, until Armie pulls back enough to look into Timmy’s eyes. Timmy smiles softly and reaches out to cup Armie’s cheek, and wipes away the remaining tears from his cheeks with his thumb.

“I… I really don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. I lo- I care about you, so much, Timmy. I am so sorry, please forgive me.” Armie whispers, looking down at his lap, and Timmy puts his thumb under Armie’s chin, and tips his head back up, holding it there, and forcing Armie to look at him.

“You’re not gonna lose me, I promise. But, you have to let me in. I can’t stand here, knocking at your door forever. If- If you truly want this, with me, then… Don’t shut me out.” Timmy clears his throat before continuing, letting his hand drop into his lap now that he knows Armie isn’t going to try and hide by looking away.

“You told me that you don’t do well when you’re not able to read your partners, and- It’s the same for me. I mean, you’ve seen how I spin out of control when I’m left to my own devices with too much time to think. So please, just- let me in.” He whispers the last part as he lays his hand flat on Armie’s chest, over his heart.

He can feel Armie’s heart speed up, and Timmy lets a smile spread across his face as Armie starts nodding. “I- I want to, I really really do. I just… What I feel for you, it scares the living sh*t out of me.”

Timmy can’t help but laugh a little, and when Armie frowns at him, looking hurt, he quickly reaches for his hand, and entwines their fingers. “No, no, I wasn’t laughing at you, I promise. It’s just, you think my feelings for you don’t scare me? I’m f*cking terrified. But it also reminded me of something my mom once told me, which I didn’t really understand, because I was only like, 12 at the time.” Timmy gently squeezes Armie’s hand and smiles at him before continuing.

“She said that if everything’s easy, it’s not real. And I never understood it, until right now, with you. You scare me, a lot. And my feelings for you, they scare me even more. But at least I know that what I feel for you… It’s real.”

Tears well up in Armie’s eyes again, and he leans forwards to capture Timmy’s lips in a soft kiss. “Me too, what I feel for you, it’s- It’s the realest thing in my life.”

Instead of saying anything, Timmy kisses Armie again, with a little more desperation this time, and as Armie’s hands find their way into Timmy’s hair a shudder runs down his spine, and a large yawn escapes through his lips, making Armie laugh and pull back.

“I’m sorry.” Timmy smiles sheepishly at him, but Armie just shakes his head fondly at him.

“It’s alright, it’s late, and you haven’t been sleeping well.” Timmy just nods in agreement. “Let’s sleep, I’ve missed having you in my arms.” Armie says with a smile, and they lie down together, ending up with Timmy’s head on Armie’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. As he’s lying there, sleep beckoning, all he can think is that this is the most comfortable he’s been all f*cking week. Followed by a quick and half panicked sh*t, I'm in love with him.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Timmy wakes up the next morning to something tickling his face, he lets out an annoyed groan and scrunches up his nose, hoping to put a stop to whatever it is. Instead, he hears Armie chuckle, and then he feels the pad of Armie’s finger gently tracing his bottom lip.

“Are you awake, babe?” Armie whispers gently, and while Timmy would love nothing more than to sleep for at least another fifteen minutes, maybe even an hour, he also doesn’t want to miss out on spending more time with Armie. So he carefully opens his eyes, squinting up at Armie’s smiling face.

“Mhm.”

“There you are.” Armie whispers before leaning down and softly kissing him, and if Timmy wasn’t awake before, he certainly is now. He buries his hands in Armie’s hair, and opens his mouth, letting Armie’s tongue in. They lie there, lazily making out for a good long while until Timmy lets out a deep groan when Armie finally lets his hips drop down and his hard dick comes into contact with Timmy’s own.

“f*ck.” Armie pulls away from their kiss and buries his face in Timmy’s neck. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“Me too.” Timmy breathes out, “but to be fair, I’m not the one at fault here.” He says with a smile as he pokes Armie in the side, grinning widely as Armie squirmed on top of him before flopping over onto his back next to Timmy on the bed.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Armie lifts himself up on his elbow, looking down at Timmy with a serious expression on his face, which almost makes Timmy a little uncomfortable. It’s too early in the morning for this level of seriousness.

“Next time I try to be a self-sacrificing dumbass, remind me of this, yeah?” Armie says and leans down to kiss Timmy’s cheek.

“Sure.” Timmy whispers, not really knowing what else to say.

“No, I mean it.” Armie says, reaching out for Timmy’s hand and sitting up, the bed sheets pooling by his waist. Timmy quickly sits up as well, not wanting to keep laying down while Armie was sitting up, just because it made him feel so… Small. And if they were going to be having a serious grown up conversation, he wanted them to be on equal footing, as it were.

“I don’t ever want to be the reason you’re upset, but I also know that I’m, well, really f*cking good at f*cking up. So I am going to need you to tell me when I do or say something that upsets you, so that I can try my hardest to make it up to you. Don’t…” Armie sucks in a deep breath and Timmy can see him fighting against the tears that desperately wish to fall down his cheeks. “Please don’t ever let me get away with breaking your heart.”

“I promise.” Timmy is less successful at fighting against his tears, and they drip down his face as if they had a mind of their own “But you have to promise me the same thing, because I don’t want to be responsible for breaking your heart either. I couldn’t bear it if I knew I’d hurt you.”

“I promise.” Armie whispers, reaching out and cupping Timmy’s cheeks before gently wiping his tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “From this day on, 100% honesty, guaranteed.” And then Armie leans in to kiss him, and whatever Timmy was planning on saying, completely disappears from his mind, all he can think about is Armie, and how desperately in love with him he is.

How could he think, even for a second, that what he’d been feeling, this entire time, wasn’t love?

However, despite what they just promised, Timmy can’t bring himself to tell Armie about his recent emotional discovery, because in some way, he still felt like it was something he should keep to himself, just a little bit longer. But also because being the first one to say it was so inherently frightening, and he didn’t think he was brave enough for it. Not yet at least. The ground beneath them still felt too fragile to let a bomb such as this drop.

“We should eat breakfast and shower, don’t wanna be late for filming after all.” Armie says breathlessly after pulling away from their kiss, again.

“No, I don’t wanna, I wanna stay here, with you.” Timmy pouted, making Armie chuckle.

“Me too, babe. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t leave this bed all day. Unfortunately, it’s not up to me.” And with that, Armie got out of bed, and left the room. Timmy stayed in bed pouting for about 20 seconds before he followed, finding Armie in the kitchen, standing in front of the fridge in just his boxers.

“So I was thinking, omelets for breakfast? How does that sound?”

“Good, yeah.” Timmy answered, only a little bit distracted with the way goosebumps seemed to spread across Armie’s chest, making his chest hair stand out even more than normal. Timmy hadn’t really known that chest hair was a thing he could get turned on by, until right this very second, because his dick was definitely getting hard from this. Which was both thrilling, and slightly embarrassing.

“Excellent! Why don’t you shower while I finish this up?” Armie said while grabbing the ingredients he needed and closing the door to the fridge. When he turned around, and saw Timmy just standing there, gawking at him, he raised an eyebrow at him, until his gaze dropped down and he saw Timmy’s dick straining against his underwear, which made him smirk, and Timmy felt strangely mortified – not necessarily for getting hard, but more for completely losing his mind and then getting caught out – and he quickly stammered out a reply.

“Sure, yeah, good idea, yeah. I’m gonna… Shower.” And with that, Timmy fled the room, the sound of Armie’s laughter following him all the way into the bathroom. The walls really were extraordinarily thin, and once again Timmy thanked his lucky stars that there were nobody living in the apartment next to them.

Once he was in the shower, Timmy wrapped his hand around his dick and let his mind go back to the kitchen, imagining what might have happened if he’d been more smooth and less, well, Timmy.

“So I was thinking, omelets for breakfast? How does that sound?” Armie asked, and Timmy, who didn’t give a f*ck about breakfast at this point in time, walked up behind Armie, and wrapped his arms around him, letting the tip of his fingers tease the waistband of Armie’s boxers.

“To be honest, I’d rather have you.” Timmy whispered into Armie’s neck, before planting a few kisses to the back of Armie’s shoulder. “You f*cking my brains out on the kitchen counter sounds like a much better way to spend our time, don’t you agree?”

“f*ck, Timmy!” Armie groaned out, letting his head fall back against Timmy’s shoulder as Timmy reached into Armie’s boxers and wrapped his fingers around his hardening co*ck.

“Exactly, f*ck Timmy.”

Next thing Timmy knew, he had his legs wrapped around Armie’s waist, and Armie’s dick was buried inside of him, making him moan so loudly his voice nearly gave out on him.

“God, please. Harder. f*ck me harder.”

Armie definitely didn’t need telling twice, and pulled out almost completely, before slamming his hips forward, burying his dick inside of Timmy again. And again, and again.

“God, yes, Armie, just like that. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

And with that, Timmy came all over the shower wall. He came so hard he nearly lost his balance, and had to grip onto the top of the shower cabinet in order not to fall over. “sh*t.” He whispered to himself, surprised with just how f*cking intense that org*sm had been, but he didn’t really want to think about how it was probably due to the fact that fantasy!Timmy got to tell fantasy!Armie exactly how he felt, because despite that, Timmy knew he wasn’t ready.

He desperately wanted to say something, but again, the timing just wasn’t right.

They needed to find their groove again, relearn how to be a couple, trust each other fully, not just with their bodies but with their hearts as well. And while they were definitely on their way, they weren’t fully there yet. They hadn’t even had the boyfriend talk, still technically in the dating phase of their relationship. Even though they’d gone on exactly zero dates, and were, you know, living together.

Doing things in the correct order clearly wasn’t their strong suit, but, they were trying. And in this case, Timmy didn’t want them to rush. They had more than enough time to do it right.

While getting out of the shower, drying off and putting on clean clothes, all Timmy could think about was how glad he was that Armie was finally back in their apartment, back home, as it were. It had been strangely quiet this past week, even though after the whole getting lost fiasco, they were back to spending just about every second of every day together, it was still extremely lonely going to sleep at night all alone, only to wake up, all alone once again. So just the fact that he could hear Armie puttering around in the kitchen, it made a huge difference, and for the first time in a whole week, Timmy didn’t dread going into the kitchen for breakfast.

“There you are! Just in time, the omelets are almost ready.” Armie said with a smile as Timmy walked into the kitchen. “Do you want ketchup or something?”

“I’m sorry what? You put ketchup on your omelets?!” Timmy asked, staring wide eyed up at Armie while scrunching his nose in disgust.

“Yeah! You don’t?”

“Uh, no, I’m not a barbarian.”

Armie just shrugged and placed the plates down on the table in front of them, and went over to the fridge to collect the bottle of ketchup. “Alright, your loss.” He said as he sat down and started squeezing ketchup out of the bottle, covering his omelet in red streaks. Timmy kept staring at it in a weird mixture of fascination and disgust, before shaking his head and starting to eat his own omelet before it got cold.

“Sure you don’t wanna try?” Armie asked with a smirk, as he held up his fork with a piece of ketchup drenched omelet on it.

“You know what, f*ck it, why not? But if this makes me barf, I’m not cleaning it up.” Timmy said, pointing his finger at Armie who just laughed.

“Sure, if you puke, which you won’t because it’s delicious, I’ll clean you up.”

Timmy nodded, and slowly opened his mouth, but he didn’t dare to keep his eyes open, for some reason his brain kept telling him the taste wouldn’t be so bad if he couldn’t actually see what he was putting into his mouth.

“Here comes the choo choo train.” Armie said with a laugh, as Timmy could feel the fork enter his mouth and come to rest on his tongue before he closed his mouth around it, and Armie pulled the fork back out. Leaving the ketchup omelet behind.

To Timmy’s surprise, it didn’t taste half bad. It definitely wasn’t revolutionary, or so good that he’d start putting ketchup on all his omelets from now on, but, it could’ve been worse. Basically, it was just, okay, and Timmy slowly opened his eyes to find Armie staring at him with amusem*nt written all over his face.

“So, whataya think?”

“Eh. It’s alright.” Timmy shrugged, a smile growing on his face as he watched Armie fake being offended.

“How dare you, mister! I slaved over this food, slaved I tell you. And all you have to say is that it’s alright.” Timmy nearly lost it as Armie made actual air quotes around alright, and huffing as he put his nose up in disgust.

“I’m so sorry, darling. You know I always love your food.” Timmy said, pretending to be properly chastised. “No one could ever make omelets with ketchup taste as good as you.”

Timmy could see Armie struggling not to laugh, so he got up from his seat, and stood beside him, reaching out and carefully tipped Armie’s head down, so they were making eye contact.

“Seriously though, even if it is omelets with ketchup, I’m gonna love all the food you make me, just because it’s you.” Timmy whispered, smiling as he saw Armie start to blush. “Honestly, I’d eat ketchup omelets every single day if it meant I got to have you in my life.”

“Timmy, I… God, I don’t deserve you.” Armie shakily breathed out, scrubbing his hands across his face. “You’re so – I mean. You – I, f*ck, I’m just so f*cking grateful, you have no f*cking idea.” Armie said quietly, as he reached out for Timmy’s hand, lifting it up to his mouth, and kissing the inside of his wrist.

“You’ve got it wrong, you know? It’s not you who don’t deserve me, it’s me who doesn’t deserve you. I’m just a stupid kid from Hell’s Kitchen, I’m a nobody, you’re… You’re f*cking Armie Hammer, you deserve the goddamn world!” Timmy stopped to wipe away a couple of tears that had started falling down Armie’s cheeks. “And I don’t know who convinced you otherwise, but I sure would like to meet them, and give them a piece of my mind, and then quite possibly kick them in the balls.”

“You’re… Timmy, I—You’re not a nobody, Timmy. You are so much more than that, and I… Honestly, I can’t picture my life without you in it anymore, it’s like you’ve always been there. I’m serious, I think back on childhood memories now, and all I can think is like, that it seems wrong, somehow, that you’re not in them. I never wanna be without you, I… f*ck.” And with that, Armie stood up from his chair and wrapped his arms around Timmy in a tight hug.

“You’re everything I’ve ever wanted.” Armie whispered into Timmy’s ear, and Timmy could feel himself choke on those three little words that desperately wanted to come out to play. But before he got the chance to vocalize them, Armie caught his lips in a fierce kiss, both of them pouring absolutely everything into it, leaving them beyond breathless as they pulled apart.

“I really hate to do this, but...” Armie sighed. “Would you mind taking care of the dishes while I hop in the shower? We’re about three seconds away from running late.”

“Of course! We’ve got all the time in the world for this, yeah?” Timmy smiled, smiling even wider at Armie’s apparent relief and the following kiss he quickly pressed to Timmy’s cheek before hurrying out of the kitchen to find clean clothes and a bath towel. “You’re the absolute best.”

“Says the man who literally made breakfast.” Timmy called after him, his heart warming when he heard Armie’s muffled laughter from the bedroom. Yeah. It really was good to have him back.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

Unfortunately they’re filming separately today, and even though Timmy technically doesn’t start filming until after Armie’s scenes are done, he really didn’t want to stay in the apartment alone while everyone else was over at the villa. So instead he’s riding in with Armie, figuring he’d rather get there early and hang out with the crew and maybe go over his lines a few more times.

Timmy rests his head on Armie’s shoulder on the drive over, and even though he didn’t mean to, he falls asleep. Waking up to Armie gently stroking his cheek and whispering in his ear. "Wake up, baby. We’re here."

He can hear himself make a rather embarrassing whining noise, but luckily Armie just chuckles and softly kisses him. "I know, I don’t want to leave you either. But, Luca would definitely murder me if I didn’t show up for these scenes, so come on, open your eyes for me."

Timmy knows Armie is right, but he really doesn’t want to leave him today, not yet. However, he doesn’t want to piss Luca off either, so he carefully opens his eyes and Armie’s smiling face comes into focus. "Well, hello there sleepyhead." Timmy just grunts in response, making Armie laugh.

Stepping out of the carArmie wraps his arm around Timmy’s waist, and Timmy doesn’t even hesitate to lean into him,resting his head against Armie’s collarbone and letting himself be lead. Trusting Armie 100% to not let him stumble or fall.

When Luca spots them, he just smiles and shakes his head, whispering something to the woman standing to his right, and next thing Timmy knew, his foldout chair was put in place and a glass of orange juice was practically shoved into his hand. He basically dropped right into the chair, letting out a pleased sound before taking a large gulp of the orange juice, making both Luca and Armie laugh when he smacked his lips afterwards.

"Well at least someone’s happy." Armie commented, making Luca frown, Timmy would’ve frowned too, but he was too sleepy to function properly, struggling just to keep his eyes open and not miss out on Armie and Luca’s conversation.

"Are you not happy?" Luca asks, placing a comforting hand on Armie’s shoulder.

"Oh! No, I— Genuinely, I don’t think I’ve been happier. I’m just... Oliver, he’s — it, I..." Armie heaves a big sigh and scratches the back of his neck. "I didn’t realize just how much I’d relate to him, it’s just hitting me a bit harder than usual today."

Luca just smiles and nods, giving Armie’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. "There is a reason why I so desperately wanted you for Oliver, and this..." Luca pats Armie’s chest, indicating to his heart. "This is exactly why. You are going to be, just — Magnifico!"

"I really hope so." Armie said with an embarrassed smile on his face.

"I know so." Luca said with a nod, giving Armie’s chest another couple of pats before turning around and walking away, calling out for someone on the crew. Timmy watches as Armie keeps staring after Luca, obviously completely lost in his own head, and Timmy can’t help himself from going over, coming up behind Armie and wrapping his arms around his waist, resting his head between Armie’s shoulder blades.

"You’re going to do amazing today." Timmy whispers, stroking his hands up and down Armie’s stomach. "You know how I know that?" Armie makes a dismissive noise, and Timmy gets up on his tiptoes and kisses the back of his neck.

"I know you’re gonna do amazing, because you’re always amazing. Honestly, acting with you, it’s been like a dream come true, and we haven’t even gotten to the true meaty and emotional scenes yet." Armie turns around in Timmy’s arms, bringing them face to face, with only a few inches between them.

"Elio wouldn’t be Elio without your Oliver, you make me better every single day."

Armie closes the distance between them and captures Timmy’s lips in a bruising kiss. "I don’t know what I did to deserve you." He whispers as they pull apart, and Timmy smiles before quickly kissing Armie three times in succession.

"I could say the same about you, you know? Honestly, Armie, I... I wake up every day having to pinch myself, just to make sure this isn’t all a dream."

"Do you know how I know that this isn’t a dream?" Armie asks, cupping Timmy’s cheek. "I don’t deserve you, and the fact that you’re here with me, in my arms right now? It’s nothing short of a miracle, and I could never have dreamed this up, because... After everything that happened with my ex, my dreams have pretty much all been nightmares, until you."

Timmy can’t stop the tears that well up in his eyes, he really don’t want to pressure Armie into telling him what happened with Dylan, but he really hopes Armie feels comfortable enough with telling him at some point, because it’s clear that even though it’s been a few years, it’s still something that has the capability of eating him alive on the inside. He honestly loves this man so f*cking much, and he’d give everything for Armie to know just how much he matters to him, how important he really is.

And suddenly Timmy realizes, this is it, the moment he’s been waiting for.

"Armie, I —"

Armie puts his finger to Timmy’s mouth, silencing him while smiling tearfully and lightly shaking his head. "Ssshh, babe. Please. Not yet, there’s still... I need to tell you something first. I can’t let you say those words without knowing the whole truth about me. I just— I need you to know everything, so that you can make a real informed decision, before saying something you might end up regretting."

"I could never regret you."

Armie sucks in a deep breath, and loses the battle against a couple of tears as they free fall down his face. Timmy gently wipes them away with his thumbs. "I mean it, Armie. I’ll do as you want, and I won’t say anything until you’ve had the chance to tell me your story, but, I need you to know this, okay? No matter what it is that you have to tell me, it’s not gonna change anything." Armie doesn’t say anything else, just tightens his arms around Timmy and pulls him into a tight hug. Timmy feels Armie’s chest start shaking against his own, and he pulls back, kissing away the tears that are now streaming down Armie’s face. "You do deserve good things, Armie." Timmy says quietly, kissing both his cheeks before giving him a quick kiss on the lips.

They’re still wrapped up in each other when they hear someone clear their throat. "I do not want to interrupt, but, Armie, we need to get you ready for filming." Timmy gets up on his toes and looks over Armie’s shoulder, meeting Luca’s slightly worried gaze, so he gives him a quick nod, smiling as most of the tension in Luca’s shoulders seem to release.

"I don’t want to leave you." Armie whispers into Timmy’s hair.

"But you’re not leaving me, I’m right here. So, go, be brilliant, and I’ll be right here when you get back."

"Promise?" Armie asks quietly, sounding extremely vulnerable, and Timmy smiles softly, kissing him again.

"I promise. You go and bring Oliver to life, and I’ll see you as soon as you’re back to being Armie."

Armie gives him a small smile, and nods. Kissing him deeply, before turning around and walking over to Luca, who lays a comforting hand on Armie’s back, leading him over to the set.

Timmy spends the next few hours reading through the script for today’s scenes, playing a couple of games on his phone and he even manages to take a nap in the grass, waking up to Esther tickling his face with the strings of his hoodie.

"Why are you sleeping on the grass? You’re not due on set for another two hours." She asks him in French, sounding more than a little confused.

"That’s why I’m asleep."

"What?"

"Because I’m not due on set for another two hours, that’s why I’m asleep on the grass." Timmy replied in English, grinning up at her.

"But, why here? You could be home, in bed!"

"Armie’s here." Was Timmy’s only explanation, but judging by the look on Esther’s face, it was the only explanation needed.

"Of course, I should have known." She said with a smile, lightly shaking her head. "Things are good between you now, yes?" Esther looked genuinely concerned, and Timmy could feel his entire chest fill with warmth and affection. He was honestly so touched that people not only accepted their relationship, but that they genuinely cared whether things between them were good or not.

It truly meant so much more than people could ever really know. Timmy honestly didn’t know if he’d ever gotten this level of acceptance from anyone other than his family before, and he’d put money down on the fact that Armie definitely hadn’t either.

"Yeah, we’re good." Timmy said with a wide smile. "I’m so happy right now I feel like I could float away at any second."

Just then Timmy sees Armie, still wearing Oliver’s clothing, walking out of the villa. He can tell immediately that something’s wrong, and not only because it’s still way too early for them to have finished shooting, but from the way Armie is carrying himself — obviously upset about something.

He quickly excuses himself to Esther and breaks into a light jog to catch up with Armie, who’s making full use of the length of his legs, quickly striding away.

"Hey, wait up!" He calls after Armie when he’s showing no signs of slowing down at all. Luckily Armie did stop walking when Timmy called out, and he catches up with him quickly, taking in the pinched look of annoyance on his face.

"Hi, what’s going on? Are you alright?"

Armie just lets out a deep sigh and shakes his head. "No, I— I don’t know what happened, but... Ugh. You know how I said Luca had promised to push me past my boundaries for this movie?" Timmy nods, remembering their conversation in the park that first day, "Yeah, I’m struggling a little today, I’m not gonna lie, so he’s just doing what we agreed on. But, f*ck, I just couldn’t listen to him criticize me one more time, so I might have blown up a little. I know he’s just doing his job, I know, but I — Timmy, I— I need you there, will you please come back with me?"

Timmy smiles softly, taking Armie’s hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze. "Of course I will, whatever you need."

Armie wraps his arms around him, burying his face in Timmy’s neck. "Thank you." Armie whispers wetly, and Timmy pulls back, kissing Armie’s cheek.

When they get back on set, Armie quickly walks over to Luca, and even though Timmy can’t hear what they’re saying, it’s pretty obvious that Armie is apologizing for his behavior. Timmy smiles widely when he sees Luca giving Armie a big hug, and despite not being able to see Armie’s face from this angle, Timmy knows that relief is written all over it.

The scene seems to get better and better with every take, not that Timmy knew how it had gone before, except that Luca hadn’t been happy with it, but judging by the wide smile on Luca’s face right now, he’s getting exactly what he wanted.

"Yes!!! Armie, il mio dolce ragazzo, I knew you could do it. That was — Perfetto!!"

Armie smiles gratefully, and Timmy walks over, wrapping an arm around Armie’s waist, leaning into him.

"I don’t know why I struggled so much, it wasn’t even that big of a scene, I just... I don’t know, I couldn’t get out of my own head."

"Everyone has bad days, Armie, it happens, yes? But we did it. You did it. Don’t be so hard with yourself." Luca says with a smile, giving Armie’s shoulder a light squeeze, then he makes eye contact with Timmy, raising an eyebrow at him. "So then, Timothée, are you ready for your scenes?"

Timmy just nods, quickly kissing Armie’s cheek and letting himself be lead away by the make-up team.

Luckily Timmy’s scenes don’t take all that long, and they’re ready to go back home after just a couple of hours. It wasn’t that Timmy had necessarily expected Armie to leave, but he was still really touched by the fact that he had chosen to stay. Though he had disappeared for about half an hour midway through filming, but Timmy was too busy being Elio to ask Luca where he’d gone, and he’d returned again before the chance to ask ever really presented itself.

Luca invited everyone over to his house for a movie night, seeing as they had a late start the next day, but before Timmy even had the chance to turn to Armie and gauge his level of interest, he felt Armie’s hands come down on his shoulders.

"Sorry Luca, but we already have plans. Maybe next time."

Timmy cranes his neck and looks up at Armie, only seeing the underside of his chin, but it still makes him smile. He’s really happy Armie turned the offer down, because all he really wants right now is to spend time alone with Armie, just, being together, it won’t even really matter what they’re gonna be doing, Timmy just wants to be with Armie. That’s literally all that matters.

When they get back to their apartment building, Armie stops Timmy in the hallway before he has the chance to unlock the door. "Wait, before we go inside, I just want to say... I still don’t really understand how I got this lucky, and I know you don’t agree, but I’m gonna keep saying it, because it is the truth, I don’t deserve you." Timmy smiles and shakes his head, wanting to interrupt and tell Armie for the hundredth time that, yes, yes he does, but he has a feeling that he’s not done talking yet, so he keeps quiet.

"Honestly, the worst thing about this whole filming a movie while falling in love at the same time thing, has got to be the lack of quality time for just the two of us. We’re always busy, and there’s always people around, and while that can be nice at times, sometimes I just want to be alone with you, you know? So, I thought I’d do something about that tonight. I... I know I can’t take you out on a proper date yet, so instead, I brought the date here."

Armie smiles nervously, biting his bottom lip, and Timmy feels more confused than ever, looking around the hallway. "Date? Here? I... What? Where?"

But Armie just laughs. "No, you big dumbo, you have to let me open the door first. The date is waiting inside."

"Oh." Timmy smiles sheepishly up at Armie, feeling more than a little stupid, of course whatever set up Armie had planned would be inside the apartment.

The second the door opens and he steps inside Timmy can smell food, and he turns to look quizzically at Armie. "Wha? Is— is there food? Did you cook? When... When the f*ck did you have time to cook?!"

Armie just laughs again, but doesn’t offer any explanation as he puts his hand on Timmy’s lower back, and gently guides him further into the apartment. When they get to the living room, Timmy freezes in place, almost unable to process the scene in front of him.

"Like I said, I brought the date here." Armie whispers into his ear, while wrapping his arms around him from behind. "What do you think?"

Timmy looks around at the fully set table and tries his best to not start crying. There are lit candles, a big bouquet of the most beautiful red roses he’s ever seen, and there’s some soft music playing from the stereo.

"I— Armie, you... It’s beautiful!" Timmy turns around in Armie’s arms, kissing him several times in quick succession. "I can’t believe you managed to pull this off. Wait... How exactly did you pull it off?"

Armie smiles, reaching up and stroking Timmy’s cheek, kissing him again, but just as Timmy was about to open his mouth to let Armie’s tongue inside, Armie pulls back. "Sometimes, having more money than your average Joe really comes in handy. I called the fanciest restaurant in town, asked how much it would cost to set this up, and, now here we are."

"You didn’t? For me?" Timmy whispers, feeling more than a little overwhelmed, he can’t believe Armie would do all that just to make him happy.

"What are you talking about? Of course I did. I’d do anything for you."

Timmy wraps his arms around Armie, hiding his face in the groove of his neck as he lets the first couple of tears fall.

"Aww, baby, no, why are you crying?" Armie asks, stroking Timmy’s back as he tries to get himself back under control.

"You— I — Armie." Is all Timmy manages to get out, but he pulls back to meet Armie’s gaze and finds him smiling softly down at him, and when Armie cups his cheek, Timmy leans into his touch, letting his eyes close, whispering a quiet. "Thank you."

"There’s no need to thank me, you deserve it, babe. Actually, you deserve so much more than this, but, gotta work with what you got, right?" Armie chuckles, leaning forward kissing Timmy on the cheek. Timmy’s eyes flutters open and he looks up, a small smile growing on his face when he sees the soft look Armie is giving him.

"It’s so much more than enough, Armie. The fact that you went out of your way to do this for me? I— I’m literally speechless. Again, just, thank you." Timmy gets up on his tip toes and kisses Armie, unable to stop himself from laughing into Armie’s mouth when he feels Armie’s hands on his ass, and then he lets out a small squeak when suddenly he finds himself getting lifted up.

"Wrap your legs around my waist." Armie whispers against Timmy’s lips, but Timmy is too busy marveling over just how easily Armie lifted him off the ground, so he doesn’t hear a word of what’s being said.

"What?"

"I said, wrap your legs around my waist." Timmy immediately does, locking his legs together behind Armie's back, and he smiles down at Armie, kissing him again, absolutely loving the fact that from this angle Armie is the one that has to crane his neck and Timmy is the one that gets to bend down. Not a lot, obviously, but still, that slight change in dynamics really gets to him.

He really does love the way Armie normally towers over him, but it’s strangely exciting getting to be the on the other side of things. Especially considering how big Armie obviously still is, it gives him a bit of a headrush.

"We can’t let the food go cold." Timmy says against Armie’s lips, in between kisses.

"You’re right, do you wanna go get changed while I finish setting this up?"

Timmy just nods, giving Armie one last kiss before unwrapping his legs from around Armie’s waist, and lets himself get lowered to the ground.

"Are you gonna change too? Not that you don’t look great! I just— I wanna know what I should aim for. Like, fancy, or just, you know, normal, but cleaner clothes." Timmy fidgets, lightly scratching at his Adam’s apple. Armie smiles, ruffling Timmy’s hair and Timmy can’t stop himself from scrunching his nose, making Armie laugh.

"You’re so cute when you do that, I love it."

That just makes Timmy scrunch his nose even more, and he adds a pout into the mix as well. Armie seems slightly hypnotized by that, and he can’t seem to stop himself from touching Timmy’s bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, and naturally, when he did that, Timmy then couldn’t stop himself from letting his tongue slip out, lightly touching the tip of his tongue to Armie’s finger.

He grins widely when he sees the way Armie’s eyes darken before he quickly shakes his head, as if trying to clear it. Timmy can’t help but feel slightly smug at the fact that he has that effect on Armie, it’s definitely a good feeling, for sure.

"But back to your question, I am gonna change too, just have to finish setting the table and then I’ll go get dressed. You don’t have to worry about looking ‘fancy’ though, just put on something that makes you feel comfortable."

Timmy smiles and nods, quickly kissing Armie’s cheek and then he goes into the bedroom to try and find something to wear. He ends up going for pretty much the same look he had on their last date, when Armie had cooked for him. It was the only button-down he’d brought after all, he did wear a different pair of jeans though, they were still black, but slightly looser than the skinny jeans he’d gone for last time.

He smiled at the memory of what had happened last time they’d had a date — it was the first time they properly slept together, the first time he’d felt Armie inside of him, and it was truly one of his favorite memories so far. That night, despite the minor hiccups, was absolutely f*cking perfect, and he can’t wait to find out what Armie had planned for tonight.

Just like last time, Armie sends him a text message when everything was ready, and when Timmy steps out of the bedroom, he finds Armie standing right outside the door, dressed in a beautiful maroon sweater and dark slacks, holding a rose in his hand.

"Armie, what— I... What?" Timmy is absolutely speechless, Armie just keeps surprising him.

"I’m here to pick you up for our date." Armie says with a wide smile, handing the rose over to Timmy and holding out his arm for Timmy to take. Timmy brings the rose up to his nose for a quick whiff, and can’t stop the smile from taking over his face as his hand comes to rest on the inside of Armie’s elbow.

If he thought the set up was beautiful before, it’s nothing compared to how it looks now that Armie has put the finishing touches on everything. There’s really no other way of describing it, other than that it looks absolutely magical, and it makes Timmy want to cry. He’s so happy and overwhelmed that he honestly doesn’t understand how he’s still holding it together.

"Armie, I can’t believe— You did all this for me?" Timmy chokes out, and Armie wraps him up in a hug and whispers into his ear.

"Of course I did, I— Uh, I... You mean so much to me, you don’t even know." Armie stutters out, and Timmy pulls back to look at him.

"Yes, I do, because I feel the exact same way about you." At that a couple of tears slip down Armie’s face, and Timmy surged up to give him a kiss.

"We should— We should eat, I, uh, after dinner I’d like for us to talk. Because, well, you know, I have something I need to tell you." Armie suddenly sounds nervous, and Timmy takes his hand in his and lifts it to his mouth, softly kissing the inside of Armie’s wrist.

"You don’t have to, you know that right? There’s no rush, I’ll wait until you’re ready, no matter how long that takes."

"I know, and that’s exactly why I want to tell you, because, I trust you and I want you to know. Actually, no, I need you to know."

Timmy smiles softly at Armie and nods, leaning in and kissing his cheek. "Then, I want us to eat and have a wonderful date, and not think about what comes afterwards until later. I don’t want you to work yourself up about this, alright? And if you change your mind, that’s fine too."

"Thank you." Armie breathes out, wrapping his arms around Timmy again, hugging him tightly. They kiss one more time before pulling apart and walking over to the table and sitting down.

"I hope you like what I ordered." Armie says with a small smile, reaching over the table to entwine their fingers together.

"It all looks amazing, Armie. Don’t even worry about it."

Armie definitely hadn’t spared any expenses, because the food both looks and tastes amazing, and Timmy can’t really stop himself from moaning at the first mouthful, making Armie smirk.

"Shut up, you haven’t even tried yours yet! You have no idea how f*cking tasty this is."

And just as expected, when Armie takes his first bite, his reaction is just like Timmy’s, a muffled moan of pleasure.

"f*ck, that’s good."

"Told ya." Timmy chuckles, taking another bite, trying to chew as slowly as possible to properly savor everything.

Throughout the meal, they’re both surprisingly quiet, mostly because the food is so f*cking good it’s hard to focus on anything else, but Timmy really doesn’t mind the quiet, it’s one of his favorite things about Armie, actually, just how comfortable silence is with him. Sadly, the food is gone way too fast, but luckily Armie had made sure to order dessert as well, and despite Timmy being more than a little full, when Armie sets the tiramisu down in front of him, he can literally feel himself start to drool.

"Oh my god, that’s my f*cking favorite dessert in the whole wide world! I’m so f*cking happy right now." Timmy giddily claps his hands, making Armie laugh.

"Seriously? I had no idea, but it’s one of my favorites too, which is why I ordered it."

Timmy had already taken his first spoonful before Armie even finished speaking, unable to wait any longer, and once again, he can’t stop himself from moaning. "Mmm, so f*cking good."

"Yeah?"

"Definitely. Try it! It might just be the best tiramisu I’ve ever had, even better than my mom’s."

Timmy practically finished the whole entire thing before Armie had even taken his first bite, he’s basically just been shoveling it into his mouth, having the best f*cking time of his life. When it’s all gone, he lets out a loud groan, feeling so full he actually has to unbutton his jeans, which makes Armie snort.

"Shut up, it’s not my fault that you ordered way too much tasty food. This, right here..." Timmy says gesturing to his unbuttoned jeans and the slight bump on his stomach. "This is all your fault."

Once Armie finally finishes his tiramisu — which honestly took half an eternity — they move over to the couch, and Timmy leans into Armie, laying his head down on his shoulder.

"I’m literally so full right now, I can feel myself slipping into a food coma, like it’s Thanksgiving or something." Timmy says before yawning. "Legit, I think I might actually fall asleep on you."

"Then you should just sleep, babe, it’s fine."

Timmy quickly sat up, shaking his head furiously. "No! You wanted to talk, so I’m not gonna fall asleep and ruin that for you."

"If you wanted to take a quick nap, that wouldn’t ruin anything." Armie says, softly stroking Timmy’s cheek.

"Still, I might be sleepy, but I don’t want to miss out on even a second spent with you. I feel we lost enough time earlier this week."

"Yeah, that’s true. I’m still sorry about that." Armie looks down at his hands, nervously picking at his cuticles, until Timmy reaches over and lays his hands on top of Armie’s.

"It’s nobody’s fault, Armie, don’t put that on yourself. We both made some mistakes, probably should’ve done better with the whole communication thing, but, it is what it is.” Timmy shrugs. “And what it is, is in the past. So don’t worry about it, yeah?"

Armie smiles softly over at him, leaning over for a quick kiss. "This is what I mean, you know, when I say that I don’t deserve you. You’re too good to me, Timmy."

"And I keep telling you, yes you do. You deserve the world." Timmy takes Armie’s hand in his, threading their fingers together and giving it a light squeeze. Timmy can see Armie struggling not to start crying again, and he smiles, leaning over and kissing him softly.

"God, why does this keep happening?" Armie whines, wiping away the few tears that despite his best efforts, managed to slip out.

"I think it’s a good sign, means we’re in touch with our emotions, and not afraid to be open with each other, even when it might not be so pretty."

"Yeah, you’re right, you’re right." Armie wipes his nose on his sleeve, grimacing slightly when it leaves a shiny wet patch on his maroon sweater, making Timmy chuckle lightly. Then Armie takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly, before meeting Timmy’s gaze.

"Speaking of being open with each other, I’ve got something to tell you." Armie says nervously, biting at his bottom lip. "I just... I don’t know where I’m supposed to start?"

"I’d start at the beginning." Timmy says, trying to bring some levity into the conversation, knowing there wouldn’t be much of that going forwards.

"That would make sense, wouldn’t it?" Armie smiles, but then the smile slowly starts to fade, and Timmy could feel his heart start to race. "I know this is gonna be a lot to ask, but could you please... Uhm, could you please let me finish talking before you say anything? I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish if I can’t just get it all out, you know?"

Timmy sends him a reassuring smile and nods. "Of course, Armie. Whatever you need. But please, if it gets too hard? Don’t force yourself, and if you need to take breaks, that’s fine too."

Armie smiles over at Timmy and nods. "Yeah, I’ll — If I feel like it gets too difficult, I’ll let you know. But, will you do one last thing for me? Will you hold my hand through it?" Armie almost looks ashamed to have asked, but Timmy feels so incredibly happy, loving the thought of his touch being able to bring Armie any form comfort.

"Aww, babe. You don’t even have to ask, of course I will." Timmy raises their entwined hands to his mouth and kisses the back of Armie’s hand.

"Right, uhm..." Armie starts, scratching his nose. "If we want to start at the beginning, we have to go back to high school, since that’s when I first met him, Dylan. That’s his name. Dylan..." Armie closes his eyes and lets out a deep sigh, Timmy can tell that just saying his name out loud is still painful, and he gently squeezes Armie’s hand, hoping it’s enough to counteract some of the bad memories.

"Even just saying his name now leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I never knew it was possible to be that disappointed by someone." Armie shakes his head, and meets Timmy’s gaze, sending him a small, sad smile.

"Uhm, yeah, so we met in high school. He’d just moved to mine and Nick’s neighborhood, so we kinda decided to like, be bros and take him under our wings, you know? And I remember being so incredibly fascinated by him, I was like, starstruck almost. Everything he did, it was just, so cool. He was just the coolest person I knew. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back now it’s pretty obvious that I was crushing on him from the start." Armie huffs out a self deprecating chuckle, and Timmy had to fight really hard not to cut him off and tell him to not be so hard on himself. Instead, he kisses the back of Armie’s hand again, and when he looks up, the expression on Armie’s face is a grateful one.

"Back then though, I just thought it meant that we were gonna be best friends, and that that’s all I wanted from him — to be his best friend. And you know, it was like that for a good long while, years even. Then we graduated, me, Nick and Dylan, still the best of friends. And then when we started college Dylan went and got himself a girlfriend. And she was.... Just, wow. She was absolutely stunning, honestly, I’d never met a girl who mesmerized me quite like her. And I remember thinking that it was all wrong that she was dating Dylan, because obviously, she was supposed to marry me." Armie smiles sheepishly up at Timmy, scrunching his nose in embarrassment, making Timmy chuckle lightly.

"And, well, I was kind of an asshole back then, I’m not gonna lie, so, I actually straight up told her that, that she should dump Dylan and date me instead, because we were destined to get married. She thought I was kidding, of course, but I wasn’t. I was dead serious. That woman, she was going to be my wife. So I kept pursuing her, despite her still dating Dylan. My best friend."

Armie somehow manages to sound both pleased and disappointed with himself at the same time, which Timmy could kind of understand. If he’d been in Armie’s shoes, he doesn’t know what he would’ve done, he’d like to think he’d do the right thing and not pursue someone who already had a partner, but, if Armie had been the one seeing someone else when they met, he’s not sure he’d be able to stop himself from at least flirting.

"Then a few weeks pass, and somehow — I still don’t quite know how, to tell the truth — I managed to charm her enough that she broke up with Dylan to be with me."

Armie just shakes his head, and Timmy knows that Armie truly doesn’t know why anyone would break up with their partner to be with him, but this time Timmy knows exactly what he would’ve done if he’d been the one with a partner and having Armie pursue him regardless, he’d also break it off for Armie, no doubt.

"At the time, I’d never been happier. I’d somehow managed to find the girl of my dreams and she’d left her boyfriend to be with me. Dylan, well, I can’t exactly say that he was happy about it, but he told me that he understood, and that ultimately it was Elizabeth’s choice who she wanted to date." Armie smiled over at Timmy before he seemed to realize something. "Oh! Yeah, that’s her name by the way, I don’t know if I remembered to say it. But, yeah. Elizabeth.

We were together when I decided to drop out of college and really go for the acting thing, and they all encouraged me, Nick, Dylan, everyone. Except my parents. They... Well, you know, their firstborn son dropping out of school to be an actor? It wasn’t exactly at the top of the list of plans they had for me, to put it mildly. So they completely cut me off, and didn’t speak to me for years.

But, you know, I didn’t care. I had my friends, and my girlfriend, I was living the life I wanted and I couldn’t be happier."

Timmy is not at all surprised to hear that Armie’s parents weren’t supportive, but it still makes him sad to hear. Especially considering how important his own parents' support had been for him when he decided to truly try and make his dreams a reality. He’s glad that Armie at least had his friends, though. Timmy gives Armie’s hand another gentle squeeze, smiling when he feels Armie squeeze back.

"Then one day, Elizabeth and I were talking, and she talked about how her brother had just come out of the closet, and that she was so proud of him. And I remember thinking ‘Wait? That’s allowed? I’m allowed to like guys?’

I know it sounds so stupid, but I genuinely didn’t know it was even a possibility. In our family, you grew up, you found a girl, you got married and you had kids. And that’s it. There was never any talk of boyfriends, being gay was never even mentioned, so I honestly just thought that these feelings I’d been having, that they... That they meant I was broken somehow, so I’d just pushed them down and pretended they didn’t exist. Because here I was, with a gorgeous girlfriend, and the fact that guys also turned me on, well, it wasn’t something I should really think too much about."

Hearing all that, Timmy can literally feel his heart break, and he has to bite down on the inside of his cheek in order not to speak and interrupt Armie, knowing how important it is for him to get this all out.

"But after that conversation, naturally, it became all that I could think about. I spent weeks agonizing over the fact that I didn’t know myself as well as I thought I did, and honestly, I no longer trusted my own judgment. Elizabeth obviously noticed that something was wrong, not only because I became quite lost in my own head, but I also... Uhm, basically we went from having sex several times a day, at least, to not having sex at all."

Armie seems embarrassed about that fact, but to Timmy it sounds like a perfectly normal reaction to getting your world flipped on its head. Sex truly would be the last thing on anyone’s mind in the middle of such emotional turmoil.

"She confronted me about it, naturally. She thought I was cheating on her, and I just... Broke down. I told her everything, and she, honestly, she was amazing. I can never thank her enough for how supportive she was back then, it meant so f*cking much. Actually, it still does.

We talked for hours, and she helped me with sorting through my feelings, and by the end of that night, we’d broken up. Because after everything we’d talked about, there was no doubt, in either of our minds, that..." Armie lets out a deep sigh, and gently squeezes Timmy’s hand. "That I was gay. She promised she’d stay my friend, and she definitely delivered on that promise. We’re actually still friends to this day, she lives in Texas with her husband and children, she runs this truly amazing bakery down there, I should take you there one day." The happy smile on Armie’s face makes Timmy smile as well, if Elizabeth can make him smile this widely, in the middle of this truly depressing story, then Timmy truly couldn’t wait to meet her.

"When I came out to Nick and Dylan, she was there, holding my hand, ready to beat them both up if they weren’t accepting of me. Luckily, they were amazing about it, and all four of us kept hanging out, as if nothing had changed.

Then I got the audition for The Social Network, and I remember thinking that there was no f*cking way they were gonna cast me, a virtual nobody, with nothing but stupid credits like Abercrombie boy on my resume. But somehow, and I still don't really understand it, but, I got the part.

And that’s when everything started to change."

Armie sucks in a deep breath, releasing Timmy’s hand to be able to use both of his hands to scrub across his face. Timmy can see that he’s starting to become slightly overwhelmed, no doubt talking about everything is bringing back an awful lot of bad memories he’d rather have kept buried. And Timmy can’t stop himself from wrapping him up in a hug, he still doesn’t say anything, keeping his promise, but he does give Armie a quick kiss when he pulls back, threading their fingers together again.

Before continuing with his story, Armie sends Timmy a grateful smile, and Timmy is glad to see that he seems a little lighter.

"Right, uh, so what happened next was that my agent and my manager called me into a meeting, to discuss the upcoming promo season for the movie. And you know, as naive as I was, I was like cool, this’ll be an excellent time to lay all my cards on the table. So I did, I told them that I was gay, and that I wanted to use the promotion of this movie as a way of letting people know.

But instead of taking me seriously, they just laughed, and then shut it right down. They literally told me that there was no way they were ever going to let me do that. It’s been a few years, but I believe some of their actual words were ‘You can be as gay as you want on your own time, but as long as you can keep making us money, we’re not gonna let you ruin it by coming out.’"

If Timmy hadn’t already met Peter, and known what a weaselly snake of a sh*tbag he truly was, he’d be beyond shocked at how truly cynical, and not to mention rude, they’d been to Armie. It wasn’t a secret that Hollywood had a history of hom*ophobia, and that closeting their actors probably — sadly — had been a good business move. But Timmy still couldn’t get over how f*cking rude they’d been, wasn’t your manager supposed to have your back? He’d thought he’d made a good choice with Marcus, but, considering it looked like he was turning into Peter 2.0, he really wasn’t so sure anymore.

"The first thing they started talking about was how far they could take the whole pr relationship thing, like my confession didn’t mean more than a ‘Great, now how do we fix this?’ They obviously knew I’d been dating Elizabeth, and they literally asked ‘Why can’t you just keep that up?’ They actually started talking about doing a faux engagement, saying it would be what was best for me, like what was best for Elizabeth didn’t even really factor into the equation, all that mattered to them was the fact that she was a girl. But Elizabeth continued to prove that she was one of the best friends anyone could have, and agreed to keep up the illusion of dating me."

Again, Timmy wasn’t necessarily surprised to hear that Peter’s first plan had been to just, fake a relationship, he had been a bit surprised to hear he’d wanted to fake an engagement though. He didn’t know that was a thing they did, but considering all the celebrity engagements that never seemed to go anywhere, only to end up as break up announcements on TMZ, he guessed it was used a lot more than he’d ever realized.

"Throughout the promotion of Social Network, Dylan and I started growing closer. I still don’t really know what changed things, and I can’t really pinpoint an exact moment in time where things did change, but one day we just went from being friends to... Flirting.

We didn’t kiss or do anything for the longest time, literally, nothing but flirting for like, two months. Mostly because I didn’t dare to be the one to take the first step, for the simple reason that I wasn’t really sure what the f*ck was even happening. And I didn’t want to lose him as a friend."

Timmy could definitely understand that last part, he never knew how people could put themselves out there, knowing they’re risking rejection, but still going for it. And he knows that that sounds silly, considering the career he’d chosen, but, professional rejection he could deal with, it still made him sad, obviously, but it didn’t have the possibility of breaking his heart as badly as romantic rejection could.

If it hadn’t been for the whole fake relationship contract, and the fact that all of that happened before any feelings had the time to develop, Timmy never would have had the balls to suggest the whole no strings attached friends with benefits thing. Obviously, that hadn’t worked out quite according to plan, because they hadn’t really had sex since before Nick arrived, and feelings were definitely involved, but still.

Timmy gives Armie’s hand another squeeze, ready to listen to the rest of what he had to say.

"We got high to celebrate the movie being nominated for an Oscar, and... That was the first time we slept together. It was also my first time sleeping with a guy. Sadly I don’t really remember much of it, but I definitely remember waking up the next morning to find my asshole aching, and there was dried come crusted all over my chest hair. So, you know, it wasn’t that difficult to figure out what had happened.

And to tell the truth, despite knowing 100% that I was gay, that I was attracted to Dylan and that we definitely did this willingly, I still freaked out about it. And I’m not proud to admit this, but I... Snuck out on him."

Timmy closed his eyes and let out a sigh, not because he was disappointed with Armie in any way, but because he knew, despite whatever happened later, Armie still regretted doing that. Not really because Dylan deserved better, but because if there was one thing Armie didn’t do well with, it was being disappointed in himself.

"Yeah..." Armie breathed out, a look of defeat on his face, making Timmy shake his head, and kiss the back of Armie’s hand again. Trying his best to communicate with his eyes that Armie had nothing to be ashamed about.

"And to make it even worse, he was asleep in my bed." Armie said with a self deprecating chuckle. "I literally didn't go home for 24 hours, because I couldn’t bring myself to face him. I was hiding out at Elizabeth’s the entire time, and I couldn’t even really tell her the whole truth of what had happened, because I didn’t want to out Dylan or anything. So all I’d told her was that I’d slept with someone, freaked out and ran. Which wasn’t exactly a lie, but it definitely wasn’t the full truth either.

Naturally, after having been my best friend for so long, Dylan knew me pretty well, so he’d known exactly where I was, the entire time. And after 24 hours, he texted Elizabeth, and told her the truth, that it was him I’d slept with, and asked her to send me home so we could talk. Obviously, I didn’t want to, because I was so sure that he was going to be pissed and that I’d somehow ruined everything."

That was definitely another thing Timmy could identify with, if he’d been in the same situation as Armie, he’d probably end up giving himself a panic attack from worrying so much.

"But, surprisingly enough, he wasn’t mad. He was strangely happy, actually, and by the end of that day, we were officially boyfriends. And at the time I thought I couldn’t get happier.

For a whole year, I was on top of the world. I had a wonderful boyfriend, the best friends anyone could ever ask for, and my career was finally taking off. No more Abercrombie boy parts — Instead I got to be in movies with Johnny Depp, Julia Roberts and Leonardo DiCaprio."

The wide smile on Armie’s face took Timmy a little by surprise, but he was also really happy that despite whatever it was that followed, Armie still felt proud of his achievements in that time, and that they could still bring him joy.

"But when I started getting cast in bigger movies, earning more money and building my name, the need to hide my sexuality became more and more important. Not to me, obviously, but to everyone else. Even Dylan was all for me finding someone really famous to pretend to date. Which I didn’t really understand at the time, because, well, you know me, I... Handling jealousy is not really my strong suit."

Timmy just smiled, nodding his head lightly, remembering the whole Esther thing and how upset Armie had been about it.

"But, as you probably know, I did end up dating Keira Knightley for a while. And all throughout, Dylan kept pushing for me to take that relationship more seriously. He kept saying, the bigger my name got, the better it would be for us in the long run. How if I did this now, and earned enough money, the more power I’d have over my own decisions. And at the time, that sort of did make sense, so I went with it, and I actually genuinely tried to be convincing with her. We were together in the eyes of the public for like, a year? I don’t even remember exactly, I just know that despite how well things were going, the fact that I kept having to go out with her to get papped and whatnot, it was always the worst part of my day. She was absolutely lovely though, don’t get me wrong — We actually still stay in touch — It was just, you know, the fakeness of everything, I really didn’t like it."

Timmy definitely remembered the Keira Knightley thing, at the time he’d thought they’d made a really gorgeous couple. Keira was the only girl he could actually genuinely say he’d been attracted to, and Armie was, well he was Armie.

He didn’t like the sound of Dylan pushing for Armie to be more involved in the fake relationship with Keira though, despite already knowing that Dylan turned out to not be a good guy, it was a big indicator of something not being quite right. Being understanding of how the industry works, as well as understanding what sort of obligations that brought with it was one thing, but to actively push for your partner to pretend to be in love with someone else? Nah, Timmy definitely didn’t understand any of that.

"I felt like I was losing myself a little for a while there, nothing in my life seemed real anymore. I spent all my time at work pretending to be someone else, and then I got off set, and I still had to pretend to be someone else, I never got to just be myself."

Timmy’s heart broke all over again, and he could feel a couple of tears sliding down his cheeks. Staying silent had never been harder, but he was intent on keeping his promise to Armie.

"Even at home with Dylan, all he wanted to talk about was if the stunt was working, talking about Google statistics — how many more people who’d started googling my name after it became known I was dating Keira. And it was just... Overwhelming. But I told myself I was being stupid, I had a good life, I finally had the job I’d always wanted, I had a boyfriend who loved me, and I was making real money for myself.

In fact, it got to the point where my name recognition was large enough that even my parents got back in touch, and wanted me to host that year’s Hammer museum gala. And to bring Keira along, of course. Which I definitely did not want to do."

That’s when it clicked for Timmy exactly who Armie actually was, and he felt more than a little stupid for not realizing sooner, it was literally right there in his last name after all, and yet... But he was definitely not surprised to hear that as soon as Armie’s name was big enough, his parents got back in touch to profit off of him.

"But Dylan, once again, talked me into it. So I went and got photographed a ton with Keira. Dylan was there the entire time, as my best friend, and he spent the entire night networking. At the time I was so proud, thinking that he was being supportive, and trying to make the best of a bad situation, but... He wasn’t thinking of me at all that night, that became clear later.

When the contract with Keira ended, I made it clear that I never wanted to enter a long-term contract like that again. I told them that I was done with the whole pr thing, I’d stay in the closet but I wasn’t gonna participate in any more pr relationships. However, Peter just smiled that disgusting smile of his, and said that I was going to sign exactly what he told me to, or he’d make sure there’d be no one in Hollywood that would ever work with me again.

So just a month later, I was out on a date with an aspiring Victoria’s Secret model, and that was the start of the whole, f*ckboy Armie Hammer thing."

Again, the urge to punch Peter in the face reared its head, but he really wasn’t surprised to hear that he’d used scare tactics and threats to keep Armie following along with everything.

"Like that whole thing wasn’t bad enough, it was around that time Dylan’s behavior really started to change. He no longer initiated intimacy, he actually rarely even touched me if he didn’t have to, and I was so confused. I wondered if maybe the whole thing with me having to pretend to date all these random women had finally gotten to be too much, but when I asked him about that, he was as supportive of it as always. But he still didn’t touch me unless he had to, or I asked for it.

So I went to Nick, asked him if he knew what was going on, if maybe Dylan had talked to him. I asked if it was just my imagination, or maybe he was cheating on me. But Nick told me it was normal for a relationship to have ups and downs like that, that Dylan probably didn’t even realize he hadn’t initiated sex or just, you know, cuddling on the couch in forever. And hearing that, I felt very relieved, because Nick always knew what he was talking about. After all he’d been in a relationship with his girlfriend since high school, so if anyone knew long-term relationships, it was him. And he also knew Dylan, so I trusted his opinion."

After accidentally overhearing Nick and Armie’s conversation the other day, Timmy already knows how badly Nick feels about defending Dylan that day, but he honestly thinks Nick is being way too hard on himself, from everything Armie told him, if he’d been Nick, he’d probably tell him to give Dylan the benefit of the doubt too.

“But then, one day, about two weeks later, I got home early from a shoot, and since I wanted to surprise Dylan, I hadn’t told him I was on my way. And when I got home, our apartment was..." Armie sucks in a deep breath, hiding his face in the palm of his hand, still holding onto Timmy with his other hand. Timmy let Armie take a breather, stroking across the back of Armie’s hand with his thumb, hoping it brought him at least a little bit of comfort.

After a little break, Armie lifts his head and meets Timmy’s gaze, giving him a small smile, and a little nod to indicate that yes, he’s ready to continue.

"When I got home, our apartment was, well, trashed is one word for it. But, it really doesn’t paint the right picture. There were half naked, drugged out people all over the living room. f*cking, lighting up and snorting things, you name it, they were doing it. And in our bedroom — f*ck — in our bedroom I found Dylan and two other girls, right in the middle of f*cking. He didn’t even bother stopping when he saw me coming in, just started laughing and kept on going until they all finished. And I just stood there, frozen in shock, letting it all play out without even saying anything.

Then Dylan casually walked out of the bedroom, still naked, asking people to leave. And when we had the apartment to ourselves again, I still hadn’t managed to say anything, but he just grinned all condescendingly, and then he said ‘You weren’t supposed to see this, Armie.’ Like somehow it was my fault for coming home early. And I still couldn’t speak, so I just stared at him, and he started laughing again.”

Timmy literally couldn’t believe what he was hearing, he’d known Dylan had been an asshole, and f*cked Armie over. But in no way did he expect this.

"When he’d finished laughing, he started telling me how he was actually relieved, because pretending to be in love with me was, in his words, exhausting. He’d never loved me, he said. At first it started out as him wanting revenge because I stole his girlfriend, meaning Elizabeth, and how at first all he wanted was to break my heart like his heart had been broken when she left him for me.

But then I actually started getting cast in things, started making money, and he decided that he might as well stick it out a bit longer, and the more money I made, the better. Because, as naive as I was, considering the fact that we’d known each other so long, and, f*ck, you know, I loved him and genuinely thought we were gonna be together forever, so, we had a joint bank account... And, well, the more money I made, the more money he had to spend on these drug fueled sex parties every time I left town. Though, sometimes, as he said, it was less of a party, and just him and some random girls he found in clubs.

Basically, he’d never loved me, never been faithful, never wanted a future with me, and just used me for money, which he spent on drugs and women."

Timmy doesn't know exactly when he started crying, but his heart was beyond broken for Armie at this point, and he couldn’t believe someone who’d once called themselves his best friend could ever do something as truly evil as that, just to get back at Armie for stealing his freshman girlfriend. It was... No, he literally couldn’t wrap his head around it, it made no sense. You didn’t do something like that to people, you just didn’t.

But he knew that, sadly, that was only half the story. Because, again, from what he’d overheard between Armie and Nick, he knew that what happened afterwards was truly what had changed everything. Armie’s reaction to having his trust violated and his heart broken, years later, still had Nick worried. And Timmy was honestly a little afraid to hear what was coming next. He didn’t think his heart could take anymore pain today, but he also knew that what he was feeling right now was nothing compared to what Armie must’ve felt when it was all going down.

So he tried his very best to keep breathing, and not say anything or break out into the loud sobs he could feel in his throat. Armie’s face was surprisingly emotionless, but Timmy knew that was probably a defense mechanism, turning off his emotions to not get completely overwhelmed so that he could actually get through the entire story.

"All of which made me feel absolutely fantastic, as I’m sure you can imagine." Armie spat out, while rolling his eyes, sarcasm practically dripping from every word.

"I’m not... I’m not proud of how I reacted, not even a little, but... I just got so f*cking angry. My heart was broken into a thousand pieces, I was beyond humiliated, and he had the nerve to laugh about it straight to my face. So I..." Armie let out a deep sigh, and Timmy could definitely tell that when he said he was ashamed of his reaction, he truly meant it.

"I knocked him the f*ck out, and called the cops. Because I knew the amount of drugs in that apartment right then would definitely be enough for a felony offense.

And I’m not even kidding, the amount of drugs the cops managed to find hidden in that apartment… It was even worse than I thought, and he’s still serving time for it. He got sentenced for 15 years with the intent to distribute. Luckily I tested clean, and had an alibi, so I wasn’t charged with anything, even though everything was technically bought with my money, and in my apartment, I easily could’ve been charged as an accessory. But my lawyer luckily quickly pointed out that all the money had been withdrawn using Dylan’s card, and my expenses were all logged as well as backed up by receipts, so thankfully they believed my side of the story.

And I know what you’re thinking, if this went to court, then how come nobody heard about it? Why wasn’t it the top story on TMZ? Well, money definitely helped, as well as, unfortunately, asking my parents for help. They had enough connections in the legal system to make sure it was a closed court, and that the legal papers were redacted and sealed, so nothing ever leaked out."

He’s not going to lie, despite the heartbreak and tears, he had wondered why he’d never heard about Armie Hammer’s best friend getting arrested for drug possession, especially when it was a criminal case, and like Armie said, it usually would have been on TMZ considering how fond they were of legal papers, and all the sources they had. But the money and connection explanation definitely made sense, if you were rich enough and knew the right people, you could basically get away with anything.

"You’d think that was revenge enough, and that like, I’d feel better because of it. But, no. If anything, it just made me feel worse, and I entered into a pretty deep depression, where I didn’t talk to anyone, just locked myself into my apartment for weeks on end. Not the same one I’d shared with Dylan, obviously, I sold that pretty quickly. But yeah. I basically cut everyone off, and just stayed inside in bed all day.

When I eventually did leave the house, it was only because I’d drunk all the alcohol I owned, and needed to buy more.

So that was my life for a good few weeks, just, being depressed and getting drunk. I didn’t really eat, definitely didn’t shower or shave or take care of myself in any way. If it hadn’t been for Nick I... I don’t know if I’d be here today. And I’m not just saying that, I genuinely truly mean it, because, I did have several moments where I considered ending it all.

But the time it was at its absolute worst, and I found myself actually planning how and when, I scared myself, and I called him. Because I realized I didn’t actually want to die, but I was just so f*cking tired, and so sad that... For one second it had seemed like a good idea. And I... Just the fact that I had actually genuinely considered it, to the point where I’d decided on how to do it, that was the moment I knew that I needed help."

This time, Timmy couldn’t have stopped the sobs even if he wanted to, and he was a complete mess. Tears and snot running down and mixing together on his face, but he couldn’t care less at this point. It was like his entire soul was aching, listening to what Armie was saying.

Armie had stopped talking again, but this time it wasn’t because he was the one in need of a break, but because Timmy was sobbing so hard he could barely breathe. Armie kept stroking his back as he sobbed, and he didn’t stop until Timmy finally managed to calm down enough so that he wasn’t in immediate danger of hyperventilating.

He’d known from his conversation with Nick that he’d been worried about Armie not surviving a break up with Timmy, but at the time he’d thought it was just a figure of speech, he never in a million years thought he’d meant it literally. But he definitely understood now, why Nick was so worried about Armie dating and opening his heart again. He did, however, also feel a twinge of happiness at the fact that Armie had chosen to trust him with his heart, despite his history, it meant so much and he was determined to not let him down. Instead he would try his hardest to show him what being in a supportive and loving relationship really looked like. Not that he had much experience with that either, but he figured they’d find out together along the way.

"Are you— I mean, will you be okay if I continue?" Timmy couldn’t get himself to talk, knowing if he spoke now, he’d never be able to keep quiet for the rest of Armie’s story. So instead he just nodded, and Armie sent him a small smile before continuing, still holding onto Timmy’s hand like a lifeline.

"So, I called Nick, and I told him absolutely everything and he came running. Literally, he dropped everything, and was at my door less than 30 minutes after I called, and I can honestly never repay him for that. He stayed with me, got me in the shower, cleaned my entire apartment, bought me groceries, made me dinner every day, and forced me to eat.

Obviously he’d known what happened, because he was there every step of the way through the trial. But I hadn’t told him that Dylan had basically planned it from the start, like, I hadn’t told him the true extent of how bad the betrayal really was. He just thought that Dylan had fallen out of love with me along the way, but stayed for the money, to be able to keep feeding his, now quite obvious, drug habit

When I told him the full truth though, he got so angry, and not only angry at Dylan, he was just as angry with himself, because of course he’d blame himself for not noticing, as if he was the only one who hadn’t seen the signs. And I know he wasn’t the nicest to you when he first got here, but, ever since that whole thing happened, Nick hasn’t been able to trust his own judgment. Because he thought he knew Dylan, and he defended him when I came to him asking if maybe he was cheating, when this had been happening all along behind both our backs. So truly, none of it was your fault, I really do hope you know that. He just... He needed time to work out his own issues and learn to not only trust you, but himself as well."

Timmy nodded, after hearing all this he definitely didn’t blame Nick for being scared and suspicious. Anyone, having gone through something like that, would come out on the other side of it with some form of scars, and even though Timmy had been completely innocent and didn’t deserve the way Nick treated him at first, he at least now truly understood the reason why, which made it a lot easier to forgive him. Not that he’d been carrying a grudge or anything, but it was nice to be able to let it go completely.

"But yeah, Nick called around and got me into a treatment facility. It wasn’t really rehab, because despite how much alcohol I’d been consuming, I luckily hadn’t developed an addiction. It was more so that I could recover from the depression in peace, and gain back some of the weight I’d lost by, you know, not eating more than maybe half a slice of bread a day, at most.

Really, it was just about recovering, and not letting anything distract me from that. Which is why we settled on a treatment facility as opposed to just, outpatient treatment.

So I was there for like, six weeks? Going to therapy every day, and it really really helped. Not only did I learn a lot about myself, but I’d truly never felt as strong as I did when I checked out, both mentally and physically. I still go to therapy, about once a month, unless I’m away filming, like now. Though if I find myself needing it while on location, my therapist and I have an arrangement where we’ll do Skype sessions. Luckily I haven’t had to do that yet, but it’s nice to know that it’s an option."

Timmy is still crying, and he’s not quite sure how he hasn’t run out of tears yet, but at least now he’s crying because of relief. He’s so happy Armie was able to get the help he needed, and that he had a friend such as Nick to lean on when he needed him the most.

"So, yeah. That’s the story of Dylan, and how he broke my heart. And you know, I just wanna say, that despite everything that happened, and how hurt I was, I honestly don’t think I’d want to be without it. As weird as that sounds.

It’s just— If there’s anything that truly made me who I am today, it’s that, you know? And I honestly don’t think you’d like who I was before that, because... I was quite a co*cky asshole, I’m not gonna lie. I needed to be knocked down a few pegs, maybe not quite as far as that, but still."

Timmy could appreciate Armie trying to lighten the mood, but it didn’t really work, because the tears kept coming, his heart was still broken, and his soul still ached. He sucked in a deep breath and cleared his throat, tightening his grip on Armie’s hand.

"I— I’m so sorry you had to go through that. God, I feel so stupid saying that, but, f*ck, Armie, I... I love you. And it absolutely breaks my heart to know that you were ever in so much pain that you considered... I can’t even say it. I just, I love you. So much. I love you, I love you, I love you."

Hearing that, that’s when Armie started crying, and Timmy could no longer stop himself from throwing himself into his arms, and wrapping him up in a hug.

"I love you, too." Armie whispered into his ear, and Timmy pulled back from the hug to kiss him. Trying his very best to pour as much love into the kiss as possible, hoping it would seep into the cracks in Armie’s heart and start healing it properly.

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

When Timmy wakes up the next morning, he feels both wrung out and more happy than he’s ever been in his entire life. Looking down at Armie, who is still fast asleep with his head on Timmy’s chest, Timmy can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. He told Armie he loved him last night, he actually said it, and even better — Armie said it back.

Granted, the main reason it was said last night wasn’t all that pleasant, to tell the truth Timmy was still a little bit in shock at just how horrible a person Dylan actually turned out to be. And sure, Armie wasn’t completely innocent, having gone after Dylan’s girlfriend despite her still being Dylan’s girlfriend. However, that definitely didn’t make any of what Dylan did okay. Ultimately, it had been Elizabeth’s choice to leave Dylan, and for him to put all the blame on Armie, it really wasn’t fair. No one was really completely innocent in that whole situation, but Dylan was definitely the one to take it a step too far.

Talk about blowing things out of proportion. Really, that whole thing could have been settled with a well aimed punch to the face, no need to go and break a man’s entire goddamn soul.

Timmy aimlessly lets his fingers run through Armie’s hair, smiling to himself at all the cute little snuffle noises he makes in his sleep. He’d never thought he’d have this. Love. He thought, well, he’d genuinely thought for a while that maybe he just wasn’t capable of it. Like how some people are asexual, that maybe he was just, aromantic. Especially after Greg, and how quickly he managed to dismiss that whole thing when he should have been completely heartbroken. It still stung, sure, but he’d never even cried, and at the time he was certain that he was in love.

Looking back now, taking what he feels for Armie into consideration, it’s easy to see that what he felt for Greg was nothing but — at the most — attraction and friendly affection. Their relationship basically was just friends with benefits, except they thought they were boyfriends. Well, Timmy did at least, he doesn’t exactly know when Greg worked out he was straight, so who the hell knows how long he’d actually known and been cheating on him with his new girlfriend, before working up the courage to tell Timmy the truth. But it was probably quite a while, because Timmy remembers hearing that they got engaged just a few months later.

So yeah, he’d genuinely believed that he was just incapable of forming romantic connections, because his sex life could definitely not be faulted. But he never did form any meaningful romantic connections with anyone, and for someone who makes new lifelong friends practically wherever he goes, that wasn’t something Timmy was particularly familiar with. He’d read up on it, a lot, and found that he could identify with quite a few of the things the people in the forums were saying, not all of it, but enough that he’d felt safe enough to label himself aromantic, if only to himself. He’d never actually told anyone, just because he didn’t really want to hear all the cringy ‘you just need to meet the right person’ speeches.

Turns out though, he did just need to meet the right person. He still wasn’t sure if this meant that he’d be able to fall for other people or not, he just knew that what he felt for Armie was unlike anything he’d ever felt in his life. Probably though, Armie was more the exception rather than the rule, because Timmy really couldn’t see himself ever feeling what he was feeling for Armie for anyone else. And not just because being in love with Armie made everyone else seem dull and uninteresting, but because nothing had actually changed. Everything he’d been feeling before, in regards to love and relationships, he still felt that, his feelings for Armie just kinda, overrode it. And ultimately, that’s how he knows that if things ever ended with Armie, he’d never find another boyfriend. Armie truly was it for him.

It should probably feel a bit more scary than it does, knowing that if he and Armie ever were to break up, he’d spend the rest of his life alone, while Armie, probably, would move on to someone else eventually. But it doesn’t. If anything it just makes him happy that he even has a shot at love, and that he’s lucky enough that when he first fell in love — Armie loves him right back.

Timmy is still running his fingers through Armie’s hair when he feels his breathing pattern change and Armie lets out a huge yawn before his eyes flutter open, craning his neck to look up at Timmy.

“Hi there.” Timmy whispers with a smile, and the smile that breaks out on Armie’s face in response is absolutely gorgeous.

“Hi yourself.” Armie whispers back, lifting himself up on his arms to plant a kiss on Timmy’s lips.

“How do you feel?” Timmy asks when Armie lies down next to him, propping himself up on his elbow so he can get a better look at Armie’s face. Armie is smiling back up at him, looking so relaxed and comfortable, Timmy almost wanted to suggest they just stay in bed all day.

“You know, I honestly thought I’d feel worse, considering everything I dredged up last night.” Armie says with a shrug, before reaching up and lightly tracing Timmy’s bottom lip with his index finger. “But... I love you, and not even Dylan can stop me from being happy when I’m with you.” Hearing that, Timmy felt happiness radiate throughout his entire body, lighting him up from the inside out, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning down and giving Armie a kiss.

“I love you too.” Timmy whispers against Armie’s lips as he pulls back, unable to stop smiling, not that Armie was having any more luck, and Timmy happily notes that the dimple in his cheek has never been more prominent than right now.

“I also love your dimples.” Timmy says with a laugh, gently poking Armie’s cheek. “They’re so cute. I love them, I love you."

Armie just smiles and shakes his head, but for once, he doesn’t try to undermine Timmy’s compliment by turning it into a joke, which is a first. Timmy leans back down and places a soft kiss right on top of Armie’s dimple, and he can both feel and hear Armie’s embarrassed laughter.

“What are you doing?” Armie asks when Timmy pulls back, a blush lightly dusting his cheek, which Timmy finds absolutely adorable. He doesn’t know why, exactly, but seeing someone as big and tall as Armie blush? It’s just, it’s really f*cking adorable is what it is.

“I’m kissing you.” Timmy says as if it should be completely obvious, which to be fair, it really kind of is. But Armie just shakes his head and laughs again.

“Obviously I knew that, I just meant... Why?” Armie bites his bottom lip and awkwardly scratches his nose, which of course means Timmy is going to kiss him there too, immediately making Armie scrunch his nose up.

“I love you, and I love every part of you, including this incredibly adorable dimple, which is why I decided to give it a kiss. Because it deserved one. Same with your nose, your lips, your everything. I just, yeah, I love you.”

“You’re such a sap.” Armie chuckled, lifting his head up to kiss Timmy again. “But, I love you too. From your gorgeous curls and your adorable freckles, all the way down to your awkward looking toes.”

All Timmy can really do is bite his lip and smile, while feeling his entire face heat up with a blush that no doubt leaves him as red as a tomato. But Armie just smiles softly and kisses him again. “Honestly, Timmy. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me too, you know? I can’t believe I get to call you mine.” Timmy whispers, suddenly feeling choked up. It makes Armie sit up and wrap his arms around him, stroking his back as Timmy rests his head against Armie’s chest.

“I know what you mean. The fact that you’re mine, and I’m yours, it’s... I know I keep saying it, but I’ve honestly never been happier.” Armie says quietly, and even though his voice is barely audible, there is no mistaking the pure happiness in his voice, and Timmy is honestly so f*cking grateful for the fact that he gets to love him the way that he deserves to be loved. And not to mention, getting loved equally as much in return. He knows it’s still technically early days, but even so, he knows that what they have is a love for the ages.

Two halves of one whole, that’s what they are. Neither one complete without the other. Soulmates, if you will. Timmy has absolutely no doubt that they were made for each other, and he can’t wait to see how his love for Armie will keep evolving and growing as each day pass.

Though he doesn’t really see how he can possibly love Armie any more than he already does, because he already feels like his body is too small to contain it all. But maybe the way to make sure he doesn’t completely bubble over, is to just, pour every bit of love he has for Armie into every single kiss, every single touch, forever.

“I love you.” Timmy says with a smile, kissing Armie again, and when he opens his mouth to Armie’s tongue, he lets himself get guided back down onto his back, burying his fingers in Armie’s hair.

They lie in bed, slowly rubbing up against each other while lazily making out for a good long while, before Timmy’s hormones get the best of him, and his dick fully hardens and start leaking in his underwear. Which, of course Armie notices — after all, how could he not, rubbing up against Timmy as he was. Armie pulls back from the kiss to look down at Timmy with hooded eyes.

“Let me take care of you?” Armie whispers, and Timmy just groans, canting his hips up in invitation.

“Please, Armie. Anything. Just... Please.”

Armie smiles down at Timmy and kisses him again, and just as Timmy is about to cant his hips up again — in hopes of rubbing against Armie again to create some kind of friction against his dick — he feels Armie reach into his boxers, wrapping his fingers around his co*ck.

Timmy groans low in his throat, and he can feel Armie smile into the kiss, but then Armie tightens his grip, and Timmy’s brain basically short circuits. It’s been too damn long since they did this, and he’s about three seconds from shooting off already.

“f*ck, Armie, wait, stop!” Timmy had barely finished getting the words out when Armie immediately pulled his hand out of his boxers, releasing his dick, and despite that being what he asked for, Timmy can’t help but whine a little at the loss.

“Are you okay? What happened?” Armie asks breathless and eyes wide with worry. Timmy just nods while trying to catch his breath.

“I’m fine, I promise. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just, heh, uh… It’s been a few days, and uh — well, I was literally about to come.” Timmy says with a sheepish smile. A look of pure relief immediately takes over Armie’s face, and he smirks down at Timmy.

“I get you hot, huh?”

“f*ck, you have no idea. I swear I could come just by looking at you.” Timmy breathes out, reaching down to push his boxers down and off, before squeezing the base of his dick. Because he really wasn’t kidding, just looking at Armie right now, how his hard dick is tenting his boxers, it was enough to send Timmy hurtling towards the edge all over again.

“I say we test that, not now, but one day. I want to see if we can make you come untouched just by watching me getting myself off.” Armie whispers darkly, making Timmy groan out loud, squeezing his dick even harder.

“Armie! f*ck, you can’t say sh*t like that.” Timmy pants out, so close to coming he really doesn’t know how he’s going to get himself back under control and not come all over himself in the next five seconds.

“Just let go, babe. Let me see you.” Armie says breathlessly, reaching down and pulling Timmy’s hand away from where he’s desperately squeezing himself. Armie makes eye contact with him as he licks across his palm, and wraps his hand back around Timmy’s dick. He gets about two strokes in before Timmy lets out a deep guttural sound and spills all over his stomach as well as Armie’s hand.

“Fuuuuck.” Timmy says, still not having caught his breath properly, and when he looks up at Armie and sees him wrapping his come soaked hand around his own dick, his breath is knocked out of him all over again. “Armie, god, you look so f*cking hot right now.”

“Yeah?” Armie breathes out, jerking himself off at a furious pace, the slick sound of his hand moving up and down on his dick was so f*cking hot to Timmy that he could feel his dick give a helpless twitch, desperately wanting to get hard again. “You like watching me spread your come all over my dick?”

“f*ck, yes, yes I really do.” Timmy wants nothing more than to sit up and replace Armie’s hand with his own, but he’s also really, really, into watching Armie getting himself off, so he stays put, knowing he’ll have plenty of chances later to put both his hands and mouth on Armie.

Watching Armie bringing himself closer and closer to org*sm, Timmy brings his hand up to his neck, wrapping it around his throat and gently giving it a squeeze, and apparently that was all it took for Armie to come. Timmy hears him groan and looks up just in time to see Armie’s dick spurting out pearly white strands that seconds later hit his stomach, adding to the mess he’d already made of himself. He slowly brings his hand down, swirling his finger in the sticky substance, mixing their releases together, before bringing his hand back up to his mouth where he puts his middle finger into his mouth and sucks it clean. All the while making eye contact with Armie, who looks like he’s completely forgotten how to breathe.

“f*ck, Timmy, you…” And then he groans and leans down, capturing Timmy’s lips with his. Timmy immediately opens his mouth to Armie’s tongue, smiling into the kiss when he hears Armie moan at the taste of their come on Timmy’s tongue.

“We taste good, don’t we?” Timmy says with a laugh, touching the tip of his tongue to Armie’s cupid bow.

“f*ck yeah, we do.”

Timmy really doesn’t want to leave the bed just yet, they have a late start today after all, but getting come all over you is more fun in the heat of the moment than it is when it starts to dry. He feels more than a little disgusting, crusty flakes of come peeling off his skin as he lightly scratches his stomach.

“Ugh, I need a shower. But I don’t wanna move.” Timmy pouts, making Armie laugh.

“Well, the way I see it, you have two choices. Stay in bed, feeling disgusting, or, get in the shower while I change the sheets, and then come back and join me for a nap.”

“f*ck you, that’s rude, bribing me with naps.” Timmy whines as he slowly makes his way out of the bed and over to the bathroom, all the while Armie is just laughing at him. “You’re not gonna shower?” Timmy asks, standing in the doorway.

“Nah, I’ll just quickly wash myself with a cloth and then I’ll shower after our nap.”

Timmy nods, and walks into the bathroom, turning the shower on and getting in. He quickly washes off the mostly dried come, sighing happily when the smell of lavender takes over the sharp stench of his sex sweat.

He walks back into the bedroom while drying off his hair, and finds Armie lying naked on top of the covers, stopping him in his tracks. “I thought we were gonna nap?” Timmy asks, confused. But Armie just laughs.

“We are, I’m just… Air drying.” He grins, indicating to his dick, making Timmy shake his head.

Getting into bed, Timmy cuddles up against Armie, smiling when he feels Armie’s arm wrap around his waist, and just seconds later, he drifts off to sleep.

They’re in the middle of cleaning up after breakfast — or more accurately, lunch — when Armie gets a text message that makes him roll his eyes and sigh in exasperation.

“What? What’s wrong?” Timmy asks, a sinking feeling in his stomach telling him this had something to do with Peter, and sure enough…

“It’s Peter. He wants to schedule a meeting on Skype. Apparently it’s time we start going through some of the key points on how to pull off this whole, uh, fake relationship thing.”

“Yeah… About that, are we—”

“No. I don’t want him to know.” Armie says, shaking his head. While Timmy had been expecting that, he’d kind of also thought Armie would want the chance to fully come clean, for once. “I don’t want him to have that power. He doesn’t deserve to know.”

Timmy nods, that makes a lot of sense actually. He takes Armie’s hand in his, giving it a light squeeze. “I don’t want him to have any say on our actual relationship either, so yeah, we don’t tell him. We let him believe we’re just going along with his plan, playing along because of the contracts. And that’s it.”

“Yeah?” Armie asks with a small smile, looking like he can’t quite believe that Timmy is agreeing with him so easily.

“Definitely! Like you said, he doesn’t deserve to know. And after what he’s done to you all these years? Nah man, f*ck him.”

Armie smiles widely, reaching up to cup Timmy’s cheek. “I love you.” He breathes out, making Timmy smile.

“I love you, too. So much.”

When their call time finally arrives, Timmy finds himself on set, already dressed for the scene they’re set to film, just waiting for Armie to get out of make-up. But when he thinks about the upcoming scene, Timmy suddenly gets hit with a burst of nerves so intense that he has to sit down. “Are you alright?” Luca asks, sounding worried, obviously thinking that something is seriously wrong. Just then Vittoria walks into the room, and once again the reality of what they’re about to do hits him. The f*cking piano scene. He hasn’t practiced at all, in over a week. He’s gonna completely embarrass himself.

“No. I mean, yeah. No. I… f*ck.” He hides his face in his hands, leaning forward and putting his head between his knees because he started feeling slightly lightheaded.

He hears Vittoria and Luca speak to each other in Italian, and then Armie’s voice cuts through everything else. “Timmy? What’s wrong? What happened?” When Armie’s hand touches his back, Timmy immediately turns towards him, and Armie carefully lifts him onto his lap. Timmy hides his face in Armie’s neck, letting the smell of him calm him down as he tries to match his breathing to Armie’s.

“We don’t know what happened, one second everything was fine, and then… Well. It was not.” Luca said, sounding confused and worried.

“I’m gonna f*ck it up.” Timmy mumbles against Armie’s neck, but he doubts anyone could understand him, because he could barely understand himself.

“Babe?” Armie asks, pulling back, tilting Timmy’s head up to make eye contact. “What did you say?”

“I said, I’m gonna f*ck it up. I’m not… I haven’t… I haven’t been practicing the piano, and now I don’t think — I mean. I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten absolutely everything. So I’m gonna f*ck it all up.” Timmy said fighting against the tears that threaten to spill out of his eyes.

“Timothée, listen to me.” Vittoria crouches down in front of him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Whether you have followed your practice schedule or not, you’re going to do amazing. How to play the piano isn’t something you just forget overnight. It’s still in you, you’ll see.”

“Also, you need to remember, this is a movie, not theater.” Luca says kindly. “You will have more than one chance to get it right.”

Timmy nods, on some level he knows they’re both right, but he still can’t help but worry that somehow, he’s still gonna ruin everything.

“Maybe, only if he wants to of course, but maybe we can have Armie play through the piece for you, just so that you can have a listen and maybe that will make you feel more prepared?” Vittoria says, looking up at Armie, and when Timmy meets his eyes, he can see that Armie is a bit unsure, but then he smiles and nods.

“Of course I can, if you think that will help?” He asks, looking questioningly at Timmy, who just nods. It would definitely help, because right now, he can’t even recall what the piece sounds like.

Armie gently lifts Timmy off of his lap, and goes to sit down in front of the piano. Vittoria hands him the sheet music, and Timmy can see him take a deep breath before bringing his fingers down on the keys. Hearing Armie play, it’s like all of Timmy’s worries just evaporates into nothingness. He feels more relaxed and calm than he has in a good long while, and he closes his eyes, letting the music flow through him.

When Armie finishes, they all give him a round of applause, and Timmy smiles widely when he sees Armie’s cheeks turning pink.

“Armie, mio caro, that was beautiful!” Luca says, sounding both surprised and proud at the same time.

“There is so much more to this man than meets the eye, but then you already know that.” Vittoria says with a smile, making the blush on Armie’s cheek darken, and when Luca nods, Armie’s entire face is basically tomato red, making Timmy feel so hopelessly endeared with him that he can’t help but walk over and give him a quick kiss.

“Thank you.” He whispers against Armie’s lips.

“Of course, baby, anything for you.” Armie smiles, running his hands through Timmy’s hair, before seemingly remembering that they were about to film. “Oh, oops?” He grins sheepishly, looking over Timmy’s shoulder at Luca, who just rolls his eyes and calls out for the hair stylist.

Once Timmy’s hair is back in shape, he takes his shirt off and hands it to Luca, and sits down in front of the piano. He still feels nervous, but he also feels like he can do this. He takes a deep breath and brings Elio to the surface, pushing down on the first keys.

Timmy plays practically flawlessly, but instead of saying his lines, Armie just stands there, staring at him. He doesn’t even seem to hear Luca calling out his name, at least not until Luca is standing right in front of him, clapping his hands together in front of his face, startling him and jerking him out of his thoughts.

“sh*t, sorry!” Armie says, biting his bottom lip, looking chastised.

“Where did you go?” Luca asks, tilting his head when Armie just shrugs.

“I don’t even know man, I just… Lost myself for a minute. Won’t happen again, I promise.”

Luca tells them to get back on their marks, and has Timmy start the piece from the start. This time when it’s time for Armie to come in with his lines, he gets about halfway before he starts mumbling, scrunching his nose up as he obviously forgets how the rest of the sentence goes. Luca just raises an eyebrow and Armie sheepishly shrugs his shoulders. “I’m sorry, I just… Timmy is — I mean, he’s… Look at him, he’s—”

Luca just nods. “That is kind of the point, he’s supposed to overwhelm Oliver, but I had hoped maybe you would keep your wits about you. It’s not like it’s your first time seeing him shirtless.” Luca says with a wink, and Armie shakes his head with a laugh.

“I know, I know. sh*t. Okay, let me try again.”

This time it goes much better, and they manage to get through the entire scene. But then Luca decides that he wants to have them more on equal footing in the clothes department, and he asks Armie to unbutton his shirt. And naturally, that just makes Timmy f*ck up his playing for the first time since they started filming.

“Oh for heavens sake.” Luca sighs, making everyone else on set laugh, including Timmy and Armie.

They do eventually manage to get through the scene without anyone f*cking up, or Luca wanting to make any last minute changes. And despite how nervous he’d been at the start of filming, Timmy only had one obvious f*ck up, and that was Armie’s fault more than anything else. Or well, more accurately, Timmy’s hormones, but still.

They hadn’t had all that many late nights on this movie yet, seeing as most the scenes happens in daylight, or inside — which means they can film them pretty much whenever. But the dance scene, Luca wanted to film that in the evening, for authenticity. So now they’re basically just sitting around, eating, talking, and waiting for the sun to set.

Suddenly Timmy’s phone rings, and he smiles when he sees Pauline’s face light up his screen. “I’m just gonna—” Timmy says to Armie, tilting his head in the direction of the door. It’s not that he can’t answer the phone in front of Armie, it’s more the fact that with everyone else around, well, it was a bit too loud to be able to hear anything else. Armie seems to understand, and nods his head with a smile.

Timmy answers the phone as he stands up, smiling widely when he hears Pauline’s voice for the first time in weeks.

“Little brother, you are in deep sh*t.” She says, sounding both amused and serious at the same time. Timmy never really understood how she managed to pull that off.

“What?”

“When were you gonna tell me?”

Timmy still has no idea what the f*ck she’s talking about, frowning to himself. “Tell you what?”

“About you and Armie.” Pauline says matter of factly, making Timmy’s heart race. He hadn’t told anyone yet, apparently he’d subconsciously been going along with Peter’s plan on when and how to tell them, which wasn’t set to happen until after filming. But the fact that they’d only just worked out that they weren’t faking a goddamn thing, was also another huge reason as to why he hadn’t told anyone yet.

“Uhm. I don’t... Uhhh. I mean, How’d you find out?” He can’t help but wince at his own lack of smoothness, if Pauline hadn’t known about them before, she definitely did now.

“Your Instagram.” Pauline says immediately. “You’re… Well, it’s pretty obvious that something is going on there.”

“Ah. Uhm. Well. Yeah.”

“So it is true. You really are sleeping with your co-star.” Pauline sighs, and Timmy can’t help but feel a little offended, he’s not gonna lie, this wasn’t exactly how he’d been expecting her to react.

“I’m not just sleeping with him, Pauline. I... I’m in love with him.” Timmy held his breath while waiting for Pauline to reply.

“Oh god. Timmy.” She didn’t sound happy at all, and Timmy feels his heart sink. “You know that things like that never last right? I mean. It’s pretty normal for co-stars to fall into bed, but, it usually ends the same time the filming does.” On some level he knows that she’s just trying to look out for him, that she’s probably been through something like that herself, but he still can’t help but get a little peeved.

“No, it’s different with him.”

“Yeah. That’s what they all say.”

“I’m serious!” Timmy spits out, he’s getting really tired of her not even bothering to listen to him. But then he figures she must be feeling exactly the same thing.

“I am too, Timmy. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken.”

“You won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?” God, where does he even begin? There are so many reasons why, but ultimately it boils down to one thing.

“Because. I love him, and I trust him. With absolutely everything I’ve got.” Pauline doesn’t have anything to say to that, but Timmy can hear her breathing, so he doesn’t say anything, waiting for her to gather her thoughts.

“Alright, I hope for your sake that you’re right about this, I really do.”

“I am, you’ll see.” Timmy says with a smile, he knows that Armie will win Pauline over sooner rather than later, they’re, honestly, they’re a little to similar to not get along.

“Yeah, I guess I will.”

The rest of the conversation is spent catching up, listening to Pauline telling him about her latest projects, how she was going to New York next week to visit their parents, how she wishes she’d have time to stop by and see him in Italy, but that her schedule just wouldn’t let her. And just like that, Timmy is hit with a massive bout of homesickness. He misses his family like crazy, but he also really f*cking misses New York, and he really can’t wait to go back. He hopes Armie will go with him, but they haven’t fully discussed what’s going to happen when filming ends yet. They’ll work something out though, if there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s that.

Timmy had never seen Armie as upset with his own performance as he is right now, and it tears at his heartstrings, because there is literally nothing he can do to help. He watches as Armie runs his hands through his hair, grabbing a handful of hair and pulling at it before letting out a deep breath, looking down at Timmy with a look of pure defeat on his face. “This would be so much easier if I actually had music. Just, something, to lose myself in. I feel like a complete f*cking moron out there.”

Timmy doesn’t say anything, just strokes Armie’s back, and hopes it at least gives him some form of comfort. With another deep sigh, Armie walks back out onto the dance floor, and the music starts back up, before cutting out completely, making Armie stop in his tracks again. Timmy can see the tenseness in Armie from a mile away, and naturally so can Luca, who walks onto the dance floor, saying something to Armie that Timmy can’t hear, but it makes him smile, which is good.

It goes a little better this time, mostly thanks to Victoire, who tries her best to help. But it doesn’t seem to be working as well as she had hoped, don’t get him wrong, Armie is doing good, it just all feels very mechanical. Victoire looks over at Timmy, tilting her head to indicate that he should come over, clearly hoping he’d have some sort of power over Armie to make him calm.

He doesn’t really know what he could say to make this any better, because he knows that if he was in Armie’s shoes, nothing anyone said would make the embarrassment any easier to handle. When he reaches Armie, he just opens his arms, letting Armie fall into him, wrapping his arms around Timmy and hiding his face in his neck.

“I know you feel like sh*t right now, and you think you look stupid, but I’m telling you, you’re doing so much better than you think. All that’s missing is that final piece of, of freedom that music gives you, you know?” Timmy whispers, stroking Armie’s back, hoping that what he’s saying is making sense to him. “And I know it’s not easy, recreating that without music, but seriously. If you just manage to let go, just a little bit more, then you’ll own this scene man.”

He has absolutely no doubts about that, if Armie managed to let go of himself enough to just, well, dance like no one was watching, this scene would be magical.

“It’d be easier if everyone wasn’t just... Watching me. I feel like an idiot.” Armie whispers, still hiding his face in Timmy’s neck.

“What if I distract them then?” Timmy asks quietly, making Armie pull back and look down at him with a small smile.

“How?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll figure it out.” Timmy chuckled, making Armie laugh, but he nodded and went back to his mark, Luca quickly walks over to talk to him, and Timmy goes back to his chair, trying desperately to come up with some sort of way to distract everyone from watching Armie too intensely.

It hits him when he sees Esther on the other side of the set, out of the range of the camera, practicing her dance moves, and he quickly talks to everyone who isn’t gonna be in frame for dance scene and asks if maybe they could still dance, just to make Armie feel less alone and awkward.

He’d already known that they had a fantastic crew, but the way everyone immediately says yes, it warms his heart all the same.

This time when the music cuts out, absolutely everyone is soundlessly dancing in place, even Luca, and when Armie notices that he can’t help but laugh, making Luca call cut, with a smile on his face this time, ordering everyone to start over.

Now that everyone is dancing with him, Armie is finally able to let go, and this time he dances with absolutely no inhibition, and to tell the truth, it is… It’s absolutely beautiful, Timmy is so in awe he almost misses his mark, noticing Luca sending him a sharp look just as the camera turns towards him.

The rest of the scene goes seamlessly after that, and Luca is so happy with Armie’s dancing that he doesn’t make him repeat it. He’s actually so happy with it that he tells them to join him behind the monitors for a quick look through of the scene, which is rarely something he allows them to do, the whole not wanting to ruin the illusion of the movie type of deal he goes on about all the time. To tell the truth, Timmy has started zoning out when he goes off on those tangents now, because really, he’s heard it all about a hundred times already.

Timmy knew Armie looked gorgeous out on the dance floor, but watching him in the monitors, actually being able to see his face. It’s absolutely breathtaking. Armie is so relieved to finally be done with that scene, that when Luca is done showing them the playback, he kisses Timmy right there behind the monitor, in front of absolutely everyone. “Thank you, I... Just, thank you.”

Back home, a couple of glasses of wine and a massive plate of pasta later, Timmy walks around the apartment in his boxers, searching for the sweatpants he’d been wearing the other day, which he was sure he’d seen somewhere in the living room earlier that morning. Just as he’s about to ask Armie if he’d seen them, he hears the shower turn on, and he figures he’d give Armie some privacy and just wait. He’ll find the pants eventually, after all, they have to be here somewhere.

Instead of the elusive sweatpants, Timmy finds their kink lists sticking out from under his printer. He can’t help but laugh at how innocent they’d been back then, barely even a month ago, thinking they could just f*ck, and that’d be it. He also can’t help but find it more than a little amusing how they were both so willing to jump straight into the hardcore kinks, even doing the whole kink list thing, only to… Do absolutely none of it.

They’d basically only been having regular old vanilla sex this entire time. It’s been really good vanilla sex though, don’t get him wrong. It’s just a bit funny, how they both expected f*cking, when in reality they’ve mainly been making love.

Timmy is so entranced by the lists that he doesn’t even notice that Armie has come into the living room, until he sits down next to him on the sofa, startling him a little.

“f*ck, where did you come from?!” Timmy breathes out, clutching his chest, making Armie laugh.

“The shower.” He says with a wide grin, making Timmy roll his eyes. “What’s got you so distracted?”

“Our kink lists.” Timmy says with a laugh, making Armie’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

“Oh, man! I completely forgot about those.”

“Right? Me too. It’s funny, isn’t it? How we were all ‘lets have kinky sex together’ and what have we actually done? Just...” Timmy finishes with a shrug, but Armie smiles softly down at him.

“We fell in love, that’s what we did.”

“Yeah." Timmy smiles, leaning in and kissing Armie. “How kinky.” He says, wiggling his eyebrows when he pulls back, making Armie laugh.

“Are you still up for this kink list stuff though?” Armie asks, and Timmy quickly thinks it over before nodding, he really doesn’t see how any type of sex with Armie could be anything other than fantastic, and why limit yourself?

“Yeah, definitely.” All the talk about the kink lists dredged up another memory, and Timmy sends Armie a small smile. “I also remember you telling me about your thing with bondage, but how you’d never gotten to indulge because you never had a regular partner to do it with?”

“Yeah?”

“But I just… Uhm, I mean, what about Dylan? You were with him for a while weren’t you?” Timmy asked quietly, nervously scratching his Adam’s apple. He absolutely hated having to bring up Dylan, but he can’t deny that he was curious about the answer.

“Yeah… Thing is though, sex with Dylan wasn’t… Uhm, well, it wasn’t actually very good. Either he just laid there, or he jackrabbitted into me for about three seconds leaving me high and dry to finish off myself. But I didn’t have any other experience with gay sex, so I kinda just assumed that was how it went.” Armie says with a shrug, shaking his head at himself.

“And then after Dylan, I never did have another boyfriend, until you. But I did… Well, f*ck around, I believe is an apt way to put it. Just a lot of one night stands. A lot. And like I said back then, it’s not really the type of thing you bring up with one night stands, unless you pick them up at like, a BDSM club. Which I never had the balls to do. So yeah, no regular partner to ever do that with.” Timmy smiles up at Armie and gives him a light nod.

“I see, the part about how your boyfriends didn’t deal all that well with the stunts though? That sounded a bit too personal to be a flat out lie, but, if you didn’t have any other boyfriends?”

“Yeah, I didn’t exactly lie? It was more like… Some times, I slept with the same guy on and off for a month or two, but we never had like, the boyfriend talk, because, well, I never let feelings into it. I probably could have with some of them, but then, you know, the whole stunting thing, and everything that came with that, most of them just backed out and found other people with less issues to f*ck. But yeah, I guess I sort of did lie to you back then, about having had several short-term boyfriends. And I am sorry about that, but, you know, I don’t tell people about Dylan. Ever. And it’s just an easy lie to tell? One I tell most people if they know I’m gay, so it was just… I don’t know, force of habit? I didn’t mean to actually lie, I just —”

Timmy puts his finger up to Armie’s lips, stopping his rambling.

“It’s fine, you don't have to explain. We didn't actually know each other then, and it’s not like I told you the full truth either. Actually, I still probably haven’t. I don’t…” This time Armie is the one to interrupt Timmy mid ramble, only instead of silencing him with his finger, he takes the more direct approach, and kisses him.

“You don’t have to tell me anything yet, you know that right? Just because I’ve told you about Dylan, it doesn’t mean that you owe me anything, take your time.” Timmy smiles gratefully up at Armie, kissing him again.

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to. The hard part is just figuring out where to start." Timmy takes a deep breath, looking over at Armie’s soft smile. "Uhm, okay, so. I haven’t really had any proper boyfriends, I mean there was Greg, but, uh… Well, he broke up with me after nine months by telling me he’d been cheating on me for a good while, with a girl, because apparently being with me made him realize he wasn’t gay after all. Which, you know, was awesome.” Timmy says, chuckling, Armie doesn’t look like he thinks it’s funny at all, taking Timmy’s hand in his, lifting it to his mouth and kissing the back of it, making Timmy smile softly over at him.

“Honestly though, I wasn’t as heartbroken as you might think. I was upset for about two weeks, but that was mostly because I felt like I should be, rather than actual heartbreak. It was around then that I started to realize that maybe… Maybe falling in love just wasn’t something I was capable of. So I did a lot of research, and basically came to the conclusion that I’m aromantic. Like asexual, just you know, with love? Yeah.”

Armie looks a little confused, but he still smiles supportingly over at Timmy, giving his hand a light squeeze. “But then there’s you. And you just… I don’t know what it is about you, but even from the first time we met, I knew you were different. I knew you were someone I could fall for, and for someone who didn’t think that was at all possible, it was… Well it was a bit confusing, to tell the truth. But even with everything, you snuck up on me. I didn’t even notice that I was falling in love, until well, Nick showed up and everything just got pushed to the surface.”

Timmy laughs at himself, shaking his head. Armie looks over at him with a smile. “Not to interrupt or anything, but, have you ever considered that maybe, I don’t know, you could be demiromantic? Like, demisexual, only with romantic attraction as opposed to the sexual one?”

Timmy just stares up at Armie, absolutely speechless. Because no, he definitely hadn’t considered that, at least not until right now. “Huh… No, I actually never considered that at all. But now that you mention it… I think, yeah. I think there’s a good possibility that’s it. I… Wow. I don’t even know what to say right now, I think you broke my brain a little.”

“You don’t have to say anything at all, babe. Take your time to take it all in. We can revisit this later.”

Timmy nods, kissing Armie gratefully, before pulling back and resting his head against Armie’s shoulder, desperately trying to gather his thoughts.

Armie reaches out for the kink list, reading over it again, with a smile on his face. “Back to these lists then?” He asks, and Timmy nods, a distraction sounded pretty f*cking good right about now.

“Yeah, good idea.”

“Where do you wanna start?”

Timmy shrugs, taking another look at the list in Armie’s hands. “I don’t know, maybe we should start small? Like, how about this?” Timmy says, pointing to something in the middle of the list, which makes Armie suck in a breath as he reads it.

“Yeah. That could be… Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Right now?” Timmy asks with a smirk, and Armie just nods, pulling him in for another kiss.

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

Even just pointing down at the word on the list is enough to get Timmy’s blood pumping, he doesn’t know why it affects him so much, seeing as it’s a completely innocuous word. But literally just thinking about it, not even the action, just the word, is making his dick perk up and slowly harden in his boxers. Which of course Armie notices, after all, how could he not, seeing as Timmy isn’t wearing anything else, so it’s not like there’s anything to cover it up with.

Timmy quickly climbs into Armie’s lap, and straddles him, smiling against Armie’s lips as he leans forwards to capture Timmy’s in a soft kiss.

“You’re really into this, huh?” Armie whispers, fondly, and Timmy just nods, kissing Armie again. “I don’t think we should do it on the couch though.” Armie says as they pull back to breathe, and Timmy nods again, and climbs off Armie’s lap, because he knows Armie is right. They could do it on the couch another time maybe, but not this time, not their first time.

He holds his hand out for Armie to take, and smiles as he helps pull him up from the couch. Timmy can’t stop the shiver that runs up his spine when Armie wraps his arms around his waist from behind, and he can feel his hard co*ck against his ass.

“You look so good like this, you know.” Armie speaks softly into his ear, and Timmy leans back against him, letting Armie carry most of his weight.

“What? Half naked and half hard?” Timmy chuckles, but Armie just lets out a confirming hum, and starts kissing down his neck.

“I love being able to see the effect I have on your body, it’s… I don’t know why, it’s just, really f*cking hot.” Timmy turns around in Armie’s arms, connecting his fingers behind Armie’s neck, smiling as he feels Armie’s hand stroking his lower back.

“You like turning me on, huh?” Timmy teases, kissing Armie’s nose, making him huff out a laugh.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. But really, I just like being able to see that I’m making you feel good.”

“You are, you definitely are. No one else has ever made me feel as good as you.” Timmy whispers, leaning forward and sucking Armie’s bottom lip into his mouth, making Armie groan low in his throat and tighten his hold on Timmy, pushing their fronts even closer together. “f*ck, feels good.” Timmy pants, pulling away from the kiss and leaning his forehead on Armie’s chest.

“We keep getting distracted.” He laughs, letting his fingers run through Armie’s chest hair. He doesn’t know why, and it’s such a weird thing to be hung up on, but Armie’s chest hair is one of his favorite things about him. Feeling it rub against his back, or his chest, when they’re f*cking, or even just cuddling in bed in the morning, it’s… Yeah, it’s just really f*cking hot. He’d probably cry a little if Armie ever decided to wax it off.

“It’s like the universe doesn’t want us to try these damn lists.” Armie smiles, lightly pinching Timmy’s hip.

“Too damn bad for the universe, because this is definitely happening tonight.”

“Yeah? You ready to get kinky with me?” Armie said with a serious look on his face, before bursting out laughing, making Timmy crack up as well. They laugh so hard they have trouble remaining standing, and Timmy actually has to sit down on the floor in order not to fall over. Armie who seems to have a little better control over his body than Timmy does, manages to remain standing, but he does lean heavily against the couch.

“Dude, what the f*ck was that?” Timmy asks, still laughing and wiping a tear away from his eye.

“Oh man, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help myself.” Armie chuckles, calming down a little, though Timmy is still laughing a little to himself, because honestly, that sounded so f*cking cheesy and terrible, he doesn’t even know where to begin. Armie holds a hand out for Timmy to take, and hauls him up from the floor, but he pulls a little too hard so Timmy goes crashing headfirst into Armie’s chest, cracking them both up again.

“This is going so well.” Timmy gasps, trying to suck in as much air as he can while in the middle of laughing. Armie just nods, clearly not even bothering to try and get his laughter under control long enough to be able to speak.

Once they’ve finally calmed down enough to not burst out laughing every time they make eye contact, Timmy takes a step back, wiping away the tears that have been streaming down his face, and combs his fingers through his hair. “f*ck, man, I don’t think I need to do any sit ups or anything for the next hundred years, because I swear, I just laughed myself to a sixpack.”

Armie just shakes his head with a smile, letting his hand trail down Timmy’s stomach. “You have the perfect body already.”

“So do you.” Timmy whispers. “Seriously, I don’t know if I’ve already told you, but, you are 100% everything I’ve ever wanted. Like even just being shallow for a second, your body is just… Amazing. And so f*cking hot. And literally? Look at me, I’m getting hard just looking at you.” Timmy definitely wasn’t lying, his dick had softened when they were in the middle of their laughing fit, but it had perked back up now, and all he’d have to do, was look at Armie.

He still couldn’t quite believe he got to call this man his, and in the same vein, the fact that he was Armie’s, it… Whatever he’d done in a past life to deserve this, he’d never know, but he was so f*cking grateful all the same.

Armie still wasn’t the best at receiving compliments, and Timmy could see him want to make a joke, or come up with a self-deprecating comment, so he raised an eyebrow, and Armie let out a small sigh of defeat. “I… I’m sorry, I’m trying to get better at this whole – You know, compliment thing. But, I… It’s not easy, you know? Like, I do believe you mean what you’re saying, I do, I just. I don’t know, I can’t really see it?”

Timmy reaches out to cup Armie’s cheek, smiling as he leans into his touch. “I know, babe, I know. We’ll work on that though, yeah? Together?”

“Yeah. Together.” Armie whispers, leaning in and kissing Timmy. No tongues, no nothing, just a simple, loving, soft kiss. “You still wanna do this?” Armie asks as he pulls back, running a hand through Timmy’s hair, making him smile.

“Definitely. Is it weird that I think because of all this, just now, that it’s going to be better, somehow? Like, I don’t know how us laughing our asses off is going to make the kinky bit better, but, I feel like it is?”

“Not at all weird, because I totally agree. This way, we’re not gonna be overly serious about the whole thing, or try and make it into something its not. It’ll just be, what it’s supposed to be, a little kinky fun added to what’s already pretty damn good sex.” Armie says with a smile, seemingly unable to stop himself from tracing Timmy’s nose with the tip of his finger, making Timmy scrunch his nose up in return.

“What’re you doing?” Timmy asks with a laugh, and Armie just shrugs, pulling Timmy in for a hug instead.

“I don’t even know, I just can’t seem to stop touching you, even if it’s your nose.” Timmy lets himself melt against Armie, trusting him to hold him up.

“I love you, you know.” Timmy says quietly, closing his eyes and just enjoying the comforting touch of Armie’s hand stroking up and down his back.

“I love you, too.” Armie whispers, kissing the top of his head. They stand there like that, just soaking in each other’s affection, until Armie moves his hips slightly to the right, and their dicks rub up against each other, making them both remember what it was they were actually supposed to be doing.

“f*ck, we got distracted, again.” Timmy chuckles, pulling out of Armie’s embrace. “You wouldn’t think getting to the point of having a bit of kinky sex would be this complicated, huh?”

“You still want to?” Armie asked again, and Timmy just raised both his eyebrows at him, making Armie laugh and put his hands up. “Okay, okay, just making sure, is all.” And with that, Armie took a hold of Timmy’s hand, and lead them into the bedroom.

“So, how do you want to do this?” Armie asked, sitting down on the bed, spreading his legs and pulling Timmy closer until his legs were touching the bed frame. Timmy smiled down at Armie, and let his fingers run through his hair, making Armie practically purr as he rested his head against Timmy’s stomach.

“I think, yeah, I wanna like, be over your lap?” Timmy said quietly, scratching the side of his neck, and Armie smiled up at him, before leaving a couple of open mouthed kisses against his stomach.

“Yeah? You don’t think it’ll be more comfortable just lying down on the bed?”

“Probably, but, I want to be able to feel you. All of you.” Timmy said, blushing a little. It was silly, blushing now, considering he had no shame about what they were about to do, but apparently his face hadn’t quite gotten that memo. Armie just smiled up at him, before pushing himself up off the bed with his arms, standing up in front of Timmy, and leaning in to capture his lips in a kiss.

“I love you.” Armie says against Timmy’s lips, and despite the amount of times they’ve said it already, it never fails to make Timmy’s heart beat faster.

“Love you too.”

“So!” Armie says loudly, taking a step back and clapping his hands together in front of him. “Naked or with clothes on?”

“Uhm… I want to be naked, but I want you to have your clothes on.”

“Okay? Can I ask why?” Armie said, tilting his head to the side, looking a little confused. And despite the topic at hand, Timmy had to really fight the urge to laugh, because by doing that, Armie looked so much like a Golden Retriever that Timmy just about f*cking died. But with a quick shake of his head, and a little cough, Timmy was back in the moment, smiling over at Armie. Ready to keep talking about the how’s and why’s of their upcoming foray into spanking.

“Yeah, it’s... I don’t know, I just feel like, the power dynamic of having you, being like, whatchacallit, the spanker, you know, the one in the position of ‘power’ if you will, still have your clothes on, it will make it that much more… Not exactly, degrading, but, I’ll feel more exposed, and vulnerable if I’m naked when you’re fully clothed. And… I kinda really like that idea.”

All throughout Timmy’s explanation, Armie has been slowly nodding his head, and when Timmy finishes, he smiles and leans in to kiss Timmy softly on the cheek.

“Alright, yeah, I can see that. You get off on the idea of me being in power over you, having full control, and you being completely bared to me. In every sense of the word.”

“Exactly. Yes.” Timmy honestly felt so relieved knowing that Armie truly got what he was trying to say, because at some point there, he confused himself a little bit. But it just goes to show how amazing Armie truly is – he understands him when Timmy barely understands himself.

“I can work with that. I can definitely work with that.” Armie says, more to himself than anything else, and Timmy smiles watching him rock back and forth on his heels. “But, it’s important to me that you know, that just because I do this to you, and the things I might say during, if it’s mean or, just, disrespectful in any way, I... It’s just really important to me that you know that I don’t mean any of it. You know? I love you, there is nothing, like, less about you, for being the submissive one in this particular scenario.” Armie nervously bites into his bottom lip while picking at the skin around his nail, and Timmy smiles, reaching out for Armie’s hand to stop him before he makes himself bleed.

“I do know that, but thank you. And I love you too, so, so much.” Timmy leans in and kisses Armie, before wrapping his arms around him in a hug, just holding him close for a while, until he feels the last remnants of Armie’s nerves leave him, and he pulls back with a smile, kissing him one final time.

“Right! I’m gonna go put on some better clothes. Don’t really think this is a holey sweatpants sort of deal.” Armie says with a laugh, going over to the wardrobe and picking out a few items before locking himself in the bathroom.

While Armie is changing, Timmy crawls onto the bed, sitting down cross-legged and clutching a pillow to his chest. It’s not that he’s necessarily nervous about what’s going to happen, it’s just, he has no frame of reference for this. And things he doesn’t have a frame of reference for? Well, his anxiety loves those. But, he trusts Armie, and he wants this, so he takes a deep breath in, holds it for a few seconds, before letting it out through his nose. Feeling the tension leave his body immediately, thankfully.

When Armie walks back out of the bathroom, it’s like Timmy’s heart stops, because holy f*cking god, does he look good. He’s only wearing tight fitting dark jeans and a navy blue sweater, but damn, Timmy actually has to wipe at his mouth to make sure he’s not actually drooling.

“So, what do you think? Will this work?” Armie asks, slowly twirling around on the floor, giving Timmy the full view of his outfit.

“Yeah, that’ll – Yes.” Timmy nods furiously, making Armie grin.

“Yeah? You don’t think maybe I should change into something a little less formfitting?” Armie says teasingly, laughing when Timmy immediately shouts “No!”

“So we like the outfit, huh?” Armie grins, crawling onto the bed and sitting down next to Timmy.

“Yeah, we definitely like the outfit.” Timmy breathes out, pulling the pillow away from his lap, showing Armie exactly how much he likes the outfit. His dick is now fully hard, and there’s a growing wet patch on his boxers, making Armie smirk as he reaches out and gently gives Timmy’s dick a squeeze, causing his breath to catch in his throat.

“f*ck, Armie. If you’re not careful, I’m gonna come before you even get me across your lap.” Timmy warns. “You saw what happened this morning.”

“What happened this morning was beautiful though, I wouldn’t mind a repeat of that.” Armie whispers, giving Timmy’s dick another squeeze before letting go. “But you’re right, that’s not what we’re here for right now. Not yet at least.” And then Timmy watches as he crawls on his hands and knees over to the edge of the bed, putting his feet down on the floor, making room for Timmy to lie down across his lap. To be spanked.

Timmy draws in a deep breath, and follows after him, and when he reaches Armie’s side, he feels his arm wrapping around his waist. “I know I’ve asked you like, half a dozen times already, but, you sure about this?” Armie asks, turning his head to the side to look at him, and Timmy smiles.

“Yes, I’m sure about this. I really am. Are you?”

“Yeah, definitely. You can’t see it so well, cause of the jeans, but f*ck baby, I’m so hard right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was the one to shoot off into my pants.” Hearing that, Timmy swore he could feel arousal shoot through his entire body like fire, and he instantly reached out with both hands and cupped Armie’s cheeks, pulling him in for a kiss.

“sh*t, okay, how do you want me?” Timmy pants out as he pulls back from the kiss, running a hand through his hair while trying to regulate his breathing.

“You were the one who wanted to go over my lap, babe. You should just do what’s most comfortable for you.” Armie said, stroking a hand up Timmy’s back. Timmy nods, and puts a hand down on Armie’s thigh, he feels a bit stupid, crawling across Armie’s lap like this, he’s not gonna lie, but, in a way that also adds a bit of authenticity to what they’re about to do, and he finds he doesn’t really mind it.

Once he’s fully settled, draped across Armie’s lap on his front, with his dick smudged against Armie’s dick, so that his ass is right in the middle of Armie’s lap, he feels… He feels right, he feels settled, he feels – Good.

Even though he’d been expecting it, Timmy startles a little when he feels Armie’s hands at the waistband of his boxers. “Shh, I’m only gonna help you take these off. You still want to do this naked, right?” Armie said gently, once again stroking his hand up and down Timmy’s back.

“Yeah, definitely, yeah. Just, caught me by surprise, I guess.” Timmy says quietly, lifting his hips when he feels Armie’s hands back on the waistband of his boxers. Armie slowly pulls them down over his ass, and when he’s pushed them far enough down, Timmy uses his legs to kick them off, making Armie laugh.

And just like that, he’s naked in Armie’s lap. It feels a little overwhelming, now that it’s actually happening, but he still feels safe and protected, so he’s definitely still on board with the plan. Which is, Armie spanking him, just like this. Just thinking about it is enough to send a shiver down his spine, and he finds himself wiggling around a bit in Armie’s lap, making him huff out a laugh.

When he feels Armie’s hand come to rest on top of his ass, he sucks in a deep breath.

“You sure you’re comfortable?” Armie asks, rubbing his thumb across Timmy’s lower back.

“Yeah, yeah it’s good. Really, I’m good.”

“Good.” Armie says, and Timmy practically chokes on a breath when he feels Armie’s lips touch down at the swell of his ass. “You remember your safeword, right?” Armie whispers against Timmy’s skin, and he nods.

“I do, yes.”

“Mind repeating it for me?” Armie asks, tracing soothing circles at the bottom of Timmy’s spine with his fingers, though Timmy is unsure of if it’s him, or himself Armie is trying to soothe.

“Of course. Red is for stop, yellow for slow down and check in, and green for all systems go.”

“Good, good.” Armie breathes out, and Timmy feels his hand go back down towards his ass, and he can’t help but cant his hips so that his ass protrudes a little more, which of course Armie notices straight away, and takes for the consent that it is. “Alright then, let’s get started.”

Armie gently grabs a hold of both of Timmy’s ass cheeks, kneading them a little, and spreading them apart, exposing his hole. Timmy feels both turned on, and slightly amused at Armie just playing grab ass instead of actually spanking him. But then he feels Armie increasing the strength of his touch, and when he kneads one of Timmy’s ass cheeks with his hand, Timmy finally understands what it is he’s trying to do.

He’s trying to increase the blood flow, to make Timmy feel as good as possible later, Timmy never even would have thought of that, to be honest, but then he’s never spanked anyone before either. He’s not really sure if Armie has either, but he’s definitely done more research than Timmy has, in any case.

“You ready?” Armie asks, while still kneading Timmy’s ass cheeks, though not quite as intensely as before, obviously starting to get pleased with the result. Timmy can only imagine how red his ass already is, though it’s nothing compared to how it’s going to look by the time Armie is done with him.

“Yeah, I’m ready.” Timmy whispers, and he feels himself closing his eyes while, well, bracing for impact, as silly as that sounds. He feels Armie lightly stroke up and down his ass before his hand lifts away, and Timmy finds himself holding his breath.

The moment Armie’s hand comes down on his ass, all Timmy can think is, he thought it’d hurt more. It’s obvious Armie is holding back, quite a lot, clearly still just warming up, but despite barely feeling like light a tap, as opposed to a legit spanking, Timmy finds himself enjoying it.

“I’m not gonna break, Armie, you can go a little bit harder than that.” Timmy says with a laugh, immediately choking on it as Armie’s hand comes down on his backside three times much harder than before, a loud ‘smack’ resonating through the room followed by Timmy’s throaty groan of pleasure.

“Yeah, you like that?” Armie says teasingly, grabbing one of Timmy’s ass cheeks and squeezing it, making Timmy moan again.

“f*ck, yeah. Again!” Timmy breathes out, lifting his ass up as though that’s going to get Armie to spank him quicker. But if anything, it has the opposite effect, and Timmy feels both of Armie’s hands leave him.

“Don’t be greedy.” Armie says darkly, clearly not pleased with Timmy’s command, and Timmy doesn’t know what it is, but being in this position, at Armie’s mercy, the idea of having disappointed him in any way shape or form, it hits him really hard, and he has to really focus on his breathing in order not to start crying. It feels right though, somehow, that he’d feel this bad about it, it fits their circ*mstance, and Timmy knows that if he truly did feel bad, Armie would stop immediately. So as soon as the urge to cry has passed, Timmy takes a deep breath, and tries a different way of begging.

“I’m sorry, so sorry, I... Please, do it again?”

“Much better.” Armie says, giving Timmy’s ass cheek another firm squeeze, following it up with two quick slaps to the middle his ass, and this time, Timmy could really feel it, and he moans deep in his throat, sounding almost like he was growling.

He also feels his dick start leaking, and despite crossing spanking off as a yes on the list, he never really thought it was something he’d actually get off on. He’d mainly only thought it’d be interesting to try, because being at Armie’s mercy, that was definitely a thing he knew he’d be into. But the spanking in and of itself, the fact that that got him going to this extent, that he hadn’t seen coming.

But f*ck if he wasn’t into it. Quite a lot too.

Armie gets into a more stable rhythm, delivering three hard slaps, before gently massaging Timmy’s ass cheeks, and then slapping them a little lighter a few times, and going back to the hard slaps again. And Timmy is practically losing his mind from how f*cking good he feels.

“f*ck, Armie, I... Nggfff.”

He hears Armie chuckle, and feels him stroking his hand all the way up Timmy’s back. “Such a good boy for me, taking it so well. Can you tell me what your color is, babe?” Armie asks, leaning down and softly kissing Timmy’s shoulder.

“Green. Definitely green, I’m so f*cking green.” Timmy babbles, making Armie laugh. “D’you – I mean, can you, you know, harder, please?”

Armie doesn’t give a verbal response, but Timmy feels his hands coming back to his ass, and this time, when Armie spreads his cheeks, exposing his hole again, he lets his finger teasingly circle it a couple of times. Timmy knows that Armie would never push into him like this, all dry, but for half a second, he actually considered pushing his hips back against it, making his body open up and take Armie in, lube or no lube. Thankfully he was able to stop himself in time, because, ouch.

He then feels Armie stroking across his lower back again, before suddenly, he delivers a slap so f*cking hard, it actually shifts Timmy forwards a bit. And oh my f*cking god, it feels amazing. It’s everything he never knew he wanted, pleasure and pain all wrapped up in each other, and Timmy can’t stop himself from groaning and wantonly pushing his hips back in search of more.

"Did it feel good?” Armie whispers, voice tinged with amusem*nt, and if he hadn’t been completely out of his mind with pleasure, he’d probably have a snappy comeback for that, but as it were, all he was able to do, was let out a small throaty groan, and nod.

Thankfully Armie took that for the confirmation he needed to do it one more time, and this time, instead of stopping to check in, he delivers three more slaps, a little less intense than the previous one, but definitely still on the stinging side. And Timmy is absolutely loving it. His ass feels like it’s on fire, and his brain is starting to go all fuzzy, and everything just feels so f*cking good.

Timmy doesn’t really know what is happening, but he feels a little bit like he’s just smoked a big fat bowl of weed, he’s floaty but drowsy at the same time, and he feels… The amount of physical pleasure he’s feeling right this second is so overwhelming, he’s surprised he’s not crying. Or maybe he is. And to make everything so much better, all he can hear, feel, see and smell, is Armie. Armie is everywhere, surrounding him completely, and Timmy has never felt more safe.

He also feels like he’s flying, high above the tree tops, soaring through the clouds, with Armie wrapped around him like a safety blanket.

He thinks he can vaguely hear Armie saying something, but he’s not really sure, it’s like his ears are filled with cotton, everything is muffled. But he knows it’s Armie, deep down in his soul he knows he’d recognize Armie anywhere. There’s a hand stroking down his back, and Timmy lets out a moan, that turns into a shout of surprise as the world shifts on its axis, until Timmy opens his eyes and he sees Armie’s blurry face hovering above his, and he smiles.

“Armie.” He whispers, trying to reach out and touch, but his arms must be filled with lead, because he can’t move. But it’s okay, Armie is here. Everything is fine. Then Armie kisses him, and suddenly Timmy can move his arms after all, so he buries his fingers in Armie’s hair, moaning into the kiss, slightly coming back to earth, but not quite.

Everything still feels a bit fuzzy, but he also still feels good. So, so good. He is slightly more aware of his surroundings though, and he’s able to move his limbs without feeling like he’s swimming through molasses or being weighted down by lead. Something that also seem to increase along with his consciousness, is the feeling of his arousal, his head being all fuzzy had made him forget for a second just how f*cking hard he is, but now it’s come back a tenfold, making him more than a little desperate to get off.

“There you are, you coming back to me?” Armie whispers with a smile when Timmy opens his eyes again, but all Timmy can do is lie there and smile dopily back up at him, until he once again remembers how f*cking hard he is, and how badly he wants to come. f*ck, what was happening to his brain?

“Mhm, touch me, please. I want you to make me come. Make me come so hard.” Timmy breathes out in a hurry, best make his intentions clear while his brain was still cooperating, who knows what would happen the next few seconds, he might forget again. He still wanted the org*sm though, craved it, really. Wanted nothing more than for Armie to take him over the edge and send him flying again. And he must be whining without realizing, because suddenly Armie’s lips are on his, and everything goes quiet, when Timmy didn’t even know he was making noise.

“Shhh, I will baby, I will. I’ll make you feel so good, I promise.” Armie whispers, and when Timmy feels him wrapping his fingers around his dick, his brain short circuits all over again, and all he can do is moan. He’s never felt so good in his entire f*cking life, and it’s all because of Armie.

“f*ck, Armie.” He gasps, feeling his org*sm creeping up on him, it’s so close right now he can feel it in his ears. And then Armie flicks his wrist, and just like that, Timmy is done for. He comes with a loud scream, chanting “I love you, I love you, I love you” under his breath the entire time.

And then he doesn’t remember anything else, until he’s somehow magically under the duvet, and feels Armie’s fingers stroking through his hair, while he’s whispering sweet nothings into Timmy’s ear, making him smile to himself before trying to open his eyes again. But that’s a lot easier said than done, because when did it get so f*cking bright in their bedroom? He squints against the light, trying his best to get at least one eye open, because he really, really, wants to see Armie right now.

It takes a while, but finally he manages to get both eyes open, and when Armie comes into view, he looks adorable, he’s still fully clothed, his hair is sticking up all over the place, and his cheeks are dusted with a light flush. Timmy honestly doesn’t think he’s ever looked better. Unless you count the two times that Timmy got to be inside of him. He looked pretty f*cking spectacular then too.

“There you are, baby.” Armie says, relief written across his entire face. “Hi, how you feeling?”

Truthfully, Timmy feels really f*cking tired, but he also feels really good, as well as a little bit confused. “Mhm, what happened?” He asks on a yawn, rubbing his eyes.

“I think I sent you flying.” Armie says sheepishly, reaching out for Timmy’s hand and entwining their fingers. If anything, his answer just makes Timmy more confused, because, he didn’t go flying? Did he? He was here, with Armie, the entire time, right?

“Wha? Whaddaya mean, flying? I didn’t… What?”

“Shh, subspace, babe. I just made you feel so good your brain kinda shut off.” Armie says soothingly, rubbing his thumb over the back of Timmy’s hand. And yeah, subspace, that makes a lot of sense actually, he really should have considered that, but clearly his brain wasn’t quite back online after all.

“Ooh, yeah. Sounds legit.” He nods, making Armie huff out a laugh. “You always make me feel good though.” He adds as an afterthought, because it’s true. He can’t really remember what they were talking about anymore, and he also really wants a nap, but, whatever it was, he knows it’s important that Armie knows how good he makes Timmy feel, all the time. Everything is always fine as long as Armie is around. And he must say that last part out loud, because Armie blushes a little, and leans in for a quick kiss.

“I’m really glad to hear it, babe. Now, if you could do me a favor, yeah? I’ve got some water here that I’d like you to drink for me.” Timmy just nods, because really, talk about a f*cking easy favor to do. He can drink water, he drinks water all the time, he’s good at that.

Once again he must be saying that all out loud, because Armie can’t stop laughing, but it’s okay, because it’s Armie, and Armie is safe. Armie is everything.

Timmy sees Armie open the bottle of water, and instead of trying to reach for it, he just opens his mouth and lets Armie feed him the water, not even trying to drink it by himself. His brain might not be operating at full capacity right now, but clearly it’s got some form of self preservation down. Armie makes him drink about half of the bottle before he screws the cap back on and puts it on the nightstand, bringing a small plate of what looks like fruit back over to the bed. And Timmy loves fruit, so he’s immediately excited, opening his mouth before Armie even has the chance to ask.

He hears Armie chuckle a little again, and while he’d like to know what it is he’s laughing about, he also really really wants to get some fruit, so he keeps his mouth open, until Armie feeds him what tastes like a strawberry, and Timmy moans as he bites into it. He can feel the juices drip down his chin, but frankly, he doesn’t give a sh*t, just immediately opening his mouth again as soon as he swallowed, letting Armie feed him another strawberry.

Then he must fall asleep again or something, because the next thing he remembers is waking up, drooling all over Armie’s sweater. He feels a lot more normal now, his brain is finally fully back online, so he carefully sits up, and sees that Armie is also sleeping, still fully dressed. Then he remembers that he just, fell asleep, without even getting Armie off. Granted, he wasn’t quite himself at the time, but he still feels really bad about it. Armie made him feel so f*cking good he literally lost his mind, and Timmy couldn’t even see fit to reciprocate. That wasn’t right, not right at all.

He takes a quick look at Armie’s old fashioned alarm clock, and they have about 30 minutes until the alarm is set to go off, plenty of time for Timmy to get Armie off, and if they’re a little late, well, that’s fine. Timmy still set the alarms about 20 minutes early, so really, they had almost a full hour. Which was definitely enough time to repay Armie with the best f*cking org*sm ever.

Timmy carefully runs his fingers through Armie’s hair, kissing his cheek and whispers into his ear.

“Baby, it’s morning. Wake up for me.” Instead of waking up, Armie just grumbles, and turns over on his side, which makes him start snoring, really loudly. Which Timmy finds absolutely adorable, not that he knows why, but then it’s Armie, and everything he does is adorable.

“Armieee, wake uuuuup!” Timmy sing-songs, crawling over Armie and lying down in front of him, covering himself back up with the duvet, not because it was cold or anything, but, it just didn’t feel quite as great being the only one naked right now. Then Timmy cups Armie’s cheek, and kisses him all over his face, until his eyes finally flutter open.

“There you are.” Timmy smiles widely. “Hi, good morning.”

Armie just grunts, letting out a huge yawn, and lifting his arms up to stretch out his back, before seemingly remembering what happened the night before, because his head snaps towards Timmy so fast, Timmy was half worried about him giving himself whiplash.

“Are you okay? How you feeling?” Armie asks, worriedly, cupping Timmy’s cheek and using his thumb to stroke across his cheekbone.

“I’m good. I’m so good. Thank you so much for last night.” Timmy smiles, leaning forward for a kiss. He only intended it to be a quick one, but apparently Armie has other ideas, as he reaches up and holds on to the back of his neck as he tries to pull away. Not that Timmy really minds, so he lets Armie deepen the kiss, lightly moaning into it as Armie starts stroking up and down Timmy’s arm.

“You sure you’re feeling good? No trace of any, I don’t know. You don’t feel like you’re dropping on me, do you?” Armie asks, eyebrows drawn together and seemingly studying Timmy’s face for signs of a so called subdrop.

“Not at all babe, I feel great, I promise. You were absolutely amazing last night. I feel like I should apologize though.” Timmy says, biting his bottom lip. But Armie just raises an eyebrow, looking more than a little confused.

“What, why?”

“I… I had no idea I was even capable of going into subspace. Let alone that fast. And… I’m sure it must’ve been a bit frightening for you, since we didn’t even consider that as an option, and just, completely forgot to even discuss what to do in case of it happening. And worse, I completely left you hanging.” Timmy says, scratching the side of his neck in embarrassment. He doesn’t know why, usually not getting his partners off wasn’t that big of a deal, sh*t happens, but, this time… It was just like, because Armie made him feel so f*cking good, Timmy feels like he deserved to get something in return, and the fact that he didn’t give it to him… It feels like he failed him, somehow.

“Aw, Timmy, baby, no. Do you have any idea how good I felt, knowing I was giving you so much pleasure you were actually able to lose yourself in it?” Armie asks, smiling over at him as he reaches for his hand, entwining their fingers together, and giving it a light squeeze. “I felt f*cking amazing. And sure, yeah, it was a little bit scary at first, but, I’m a grown man, I know how to google. So, I figured out how to care for you pretty quick. Besides, it wasn’t like it was rocket science or anything, literally all I did was be there for you, cuddle you and make sure you drank and ate something. And, you know, it’s what I would have done regardless. So it’s fine. Really, it’s better than fine. It was... I don’t even have the words, it was just, I loved it. I really did.” Armie says, kissing the back of Timmy’s hand.

“As for me not getting off, Timmy, sex isn’t always about the org*sms. You know that right? To be completely corny for a second, it’s just as much about the emotional connection, and trust me, you did not leave me hanging there. At all. Not even a little bit.”

“Yeah? I gave you a love org*sm?” Timmy teases, making Armie laugh before kissing him.

“Yeah. You did. You definitely gave me a love org*sm.”

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

The day after the spanking wasn’t as bad as Timmy had anticipated, considering the state of his ass, Armie had googled – again – and they’d come to the conclusion that the worst of the redness would fade during the day, unless Armie had hit him hard enough to bruise, and neither of them thought that was really a possibility. Not that Timmy would really mind, he’d wear any mark Armie’d leave on him with pride, but he also knows that despite how much Timmy might be begging for it, Armie would never actually hit him hard enough to hurt him.

Google also told them that applying a soothing cream might be a good idea, just in case. And being the worrier that he is, despite Timmy telling him it really wasn’t necessary, Armie went out to the nearest pharmacy and bought one.

Timmy didn’t mind it as much when Armie applied it on him though, it was actually really nice, lying in the middle of the bed getting an ass massage. He can’t say he’s ever had one before, but, he definitely wouldn’t mind a repeat. Of both the spanking and the aftermath.

He doesn’t know if the soothing cream had any effect or not, but, he’d been expecting maybe having a little trouble sitting down, but there were no real side effects to talk of. Which was good, definitely helped ease Armie’s mind. Despite Timmy reassuring him, several times, that he’d thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, Armie kept doubting his own performance, worrying he’d been too heavy handed. And despite his earlier bravado, he was also worried that he’d done something wrong when Timmy was in subspace, and he kept expecting him to drop, hovering around looking for signs. He’d even printed out the list of warning signs to look for, just in case, and if it wasn’t so sweet, it would be borderline annoying.

Actually, it was borderline annoying, and he reaches his limit in the car on the way to the set, when Armie tries to makes him eat yet another chocolate bar, again just in case.

“Armie, babe, I’m fine, I swear.” Timmy sighs, taking the chocolate bar and placing it in his lap. “Seriously, there really is no need for you to torture yourself with worrying.”

“Yeah, but-”

“No, no but’s, Armie. I mean, you trust me, right?” Timmy asks, reaching for Armie’s hand and giving it a light squeeze. He smiles softly to himself when Armie doesn’t even hesitate to entangle their fingers.

“Of course I trust you.”

“Then trust me when I tell you this, I’m fine. And if by any chance I start to feel less fine, I will tell you. So please, babe, stop your worrying. It’ll give you wrinkles.” Timmy said with a wink, making Armie laugh, and Timmy smiled even wider when he saw the tension finally leaving Armie’s shoulders. He definitely liked him better like this, he was beautiful when he was carefree, or as close to it as he ever got. Besides, if anyone had carried enough tension for several lifetimes, it was Armie. He deserved some peace of mind for a change.

“Also, you do know, that if we ever do get into a situation where there actually is a risk of a subdrop? I absolutely, 100% trust you to get me through it. There is literally no one else I’d rather be with.”

Armie nervously bites his bottom lip, and Timmy reaches out with his free hand to release it, pulling his bottom lip free with his thumb.

“Timmy, I…” Armie sighs, closing his eyes before opening them again and staring up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean tobe all overbearing. I just… I can’t help but worry, I just – I can’t.” Armie turns back towards him, his eyes meeting Timmy’s again, and Timmy sends him a small smile. “I do trust you though, I never wanted you to think that I don’t.”

Timmy leans in for a quick kiss, cupping Armie’s cheek, stroking his cheek with his thumb. “I know that, I do, because, the only person here you don’t trust is yourself.”

Armie heaves another deep sigh, his breath tickling Timmy’s face, before nodding. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I should, I don’t know...”

“Trust me.”

“But I do?” Armie pulls back, and frowns in confusion, blinking slowly over at Timmy. And Timmy really couldn’t help but chuckle at the look on his face, he really did look so much like a Golden Retriever when he did that.

“Then we’re fine, aren’t we?” Timmy said with a smile, leaning in for another quick kiss, before pulling back and staring intently into Armie’s eyes. “I mean, you are fine, right?”

“Me? Yeah, I mean, why wouldn’t I be?” If possible, Armie looks even more confused than before.

Timmy smiles softly, using his thumb to gently rub Armie’s bottom lip. “Well, just, you know… Everything that happened, I’m not the only one that can drop, you know that right?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, so, how are you feeling?”

“I’m good, yeah. Still a little worried about you, but…” Armie shrugs before nodding. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Yeah? You don’t think you should maybe eat some chocolate? You know, just in case?” Timmy said with a laugh, wiggling his eyebrows as he holds up the chocolate bar Armie had tried to get him to eat earlier.

“Ah, touché.” Armie said, smiling as he shakes his head. He does eat the chocolate though, which Timmy takes as a win.

When they arrive on set at the villa, they immediately notice that something isn’t quite right, Luca is definitely more stressed than usual, despite them actually being a little ahead of schedule. As they’re about to walk over to Luca, Michael intercepts them, his smile a little tense.

“If I were you, I’d wait a little before going over to Luca. He’s… Well, look at him.”

All three of them turn their heads to look over at Luca, just as he lets out a frustrated shout, Timmy can see that his face has gone quite a dark shade of red and hair is standing up all over the place.

“Right.” Armie winces. “What’s the matter?”

“Something about the scene not cooperating, I don’t know man, you know how he gets when he’s frustrated.” Timmy and Armie both nod, they’d both experienced plenty of Luca’s frustration first hand. He usually starts ranting at them in English, and they try as best they can to keep up with him, but after a while, depending on his frustration levels, he has a tendency of flipping over to Italian mid-rant, and they’re all left just blinking at him in confusion until he catches himself and switches back to English, without ever bothering to tell anyone what he’d been saying in Italian at all. It’s like getting half a lecture, and most the time the point of everything is literally lost in translation, because despite there being several people on set that do speak Italian, no one ever wants to translate for them – Which they all take as confirmation that Luca does it on purpose to be able to sh*t talk them all with no consequences.

“Timmy! Armie!” They both wince as they hear Luca’s shrill shout.

“Good luck.” Michael whispers as he walks off, Luca comes over huffing and puffing just seconds later, his face still pretty red, but he’s managed to at least get his hair to lie back down in a semblance of his normal style.

“Luca, hi.” Timmy smiles widely, a little too widely if the laugh Armie tries to cover up with a cough is anything to go by. But when Luca finally has made his way over, Armie sends him a quick smile, and despite everything, Luca can’t seem to stop himself from smiling back. At least a little. Only for about half a second, but it still counts.

“Hi, Luca, everything okay?”

“Yes, hello, hello.” Luca practically waves their greetings away, getting right down to business. “I know you expected to film the, you know, Elio’s confession today, but...” Luca sighs, muttering something in Italian under his breath.

“I’m having some, difficulty let’s say, trying to figure out how we’re going to actually film it. Because all of my ideas are just… Spazzatura.”

Armie hums in consideration, and Timmy wishes he could come up with a brilliant idea to help Luca out, but, he isn’t all that familiar with the different filming techniques yet. He’d love to learn more about it, maybe even direct his own movie one day, but right now he’s put all his focus into properly mastering this whole acting thing. But, at times like this, he’d love be able to be more, you know, helpful.

“Have you considered, maybe, I don’t know, shooting the entire scene, confession and all, as like… A one-shot?” Armie asks, shrugging.

“A… One-shot?”

“Yeah! I just thought, you know, you want it to be pretty reminiscent of real life, right?” Luca nods, still looking confused. “Well, in my, granted, quite limited experience with the whole love thing, when you tell people you’re interested in them, it’s never actually like how they show it in the movies. You know, the whole dramatic close ups, with the swelling music, and all that stuff. It just automatically feels… Fake.”

Timmy can practically see new ideas start spinning around in Luca’s head as he nods along to what Armie is saying.

“So, I don’t know. I just thought, why not just let it be a part of everything else? Because it wasn’t like a huge thing in the book either, I mean, it was important of course, but I feel like what really changed everything, was more what happened later at the Berm, as opposed to Elio’s first confession. So why don’t we just, you know, do it that same way?”

By the end of Armie’s explanation, it seems like Luca has completely forgotten to breathe, he’s just staring up at Armie in wonder – and Timmy can definitely relate to that – the look on his face is almost borderline hilarious, because if Timmy didn’t know any better, he’d say Luca just fell a little in love with Armie right then and there. And who knows, maybe he did – Timmy can definitely relate to that too.

“Armie, you – ” A manic grin spreads across Luca’s face as he reaches up with both hands and cups Armie’s cheeks. “ – f*cking GENIUS! Thank you!” Luca then gets up on his tip toes and plants a massive wet kiss on Armie’s forehead, and then he immediately turns around and starts walking away, calling out for Sayombhu. Armie just stands there looking more than a little bit stunned, he’s barely even blinking, and he literally startles when Timmy reaches out for his hand.

“Did I scare you?” Timmy laughs, and Armie actually blushes, much to Timmy’s delight.

“Sorry, I just – I was miles away right then.”

“Luca’s kisses got you hot, huh?” Timmy winks, Armie just rolls his eyes and pokes him in the shoulder.

“Jealous?”

Timmy knows that Armie is just joking, and it’s not like he actually is jealous of Luca or anything, and he was the one to start teasing Armie in the first place, but it does make him stop and wonder for a second if he actually is the jealous type or not. He honestly has no idea, because he has never been in love before. What he does know though, is that Armie definitely is the jealous type, that’s been established several times over already, but Timmy has never considered if he could be the same type of jealous as Armie.

He thinks back to when Nick first showed up, and he thinks maybe that was jealousy, but he’s not really sure, because it felt more like anxiety than anything else. But maybe that’s what jealousy is? Or how every time Victoire touched Armie during the volleyball scene made him die a little on the inside, if maybe that was more like what jealousy actually is. He’d been too busy worrying about Armie during the dance scene to care about much else, but if not for that, he’d probably have those same feelings watching them dance together. He’s pretty sure that he was feeling jealous those times, because he’d never felt anything quite like it, and it f*cking sucked. But, he can’t be sure, because when Armie got jealous, he didn’t react like Timmy did.

Maybe jealousy wasn’t a universal feeling? Maybe it was different for everyone. But then how come everyone seemed to know when they were jealous if no one felt the same thing?

He startles back to reality when Armie waves his hand in front of his face, his brows creased with worry. “Timmy? Are you okay? You know I was joking, right?”

“Hm? Oh, right, yeah. I mean – yeah, no, I know. I was just thinking.”

“Yeah? Care to share?”

“Uhm, it’s gonna sound a bit stupid, but… What does jealousy- I mean, you know… I- I, how does it feel like?” Timmy starts chewing on his bottom lip as he waits for Armie to reply, but he seems to be struggling with finding the right words, because he keeps opening his mouth looking like he’s about to speak, but then changing his mind at the last second and closing it again, frowning at himself. “It’s okay if you can’t tell me, I just… When you asked me if I was jealous of Luca, even though it was just a joke, it made me realize that- that I, uhm, I don’t know if I’ve ever actually been jealous? Like properly jealous, I mean. And I know – or, I mean, well, uh, you know...”

“I’m the most jealous person you know?” Armie laughs, wrapping Timmy up in a hug when he starts stammering out an apology. “Don’t apologize, babe, I was just kidding.” Armie presses a quick kiss to the top of his head.

“I don’t quite know how to put it into words, to like, help you understand it if you haven’t actually felt it. Because that’s just the thing, it’s a feeling, and it’s, I don’t know, I feel like it’s basically like trying to explain how freshly baked cookies smell to someone who has never smelled that before, and… How do you do that? I mean, cookies smell like cookies, and jealousy feels like… Jealousy.” Armie trails off, grimacing and shaking his head at himself. “That probably makes no sense, does it?”

“No, it does actually. It makes perfect sense.” Timmy smiles, reaching up and stroking Armie’s cheek with the back of his index finger. “But, uhm, I don’t know. Do you think you could still try? Just, the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the word, maybe?”

Armie sucks in a deep breath, and frowns as he starts listing things. “Pain. Insecurity. Self loathing. Anxiety. Possessiveness.” He stops, and scratches his nose with a sigh, and he suddenly looks so upset that Timmy almost regrets asking, because the last thing he wanted was to make Armie sad.

“Armie? Babe?”

“Yeah, sorry, sorry.” Armie pinches the bridge of his nose and looks over at Timmy with a small smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and it comes off looking more like a grimace than anything else, and all Timmy wants in that moment is to go back in time and stop himself from asking the stupid question in the first place.

“I didn’t mean to get all emo, I just… I don’t want to be a jealous person, because it’s so… Ugly. I mean, I don’t own you, and I know that, I do. But for me, that’s really the crux of my jealousy, you know? The whole possessiveness thing. That I just want to keep you to myself, and no one else should be allowed to have you. Even a little bit. Because…” Armie sucks in a shaky breath, and Timmy feels his stomach tie itself up in knots when he sees the tears welling up in Armie’s eyes.

“What if you find someone better than me? Someone that makes you happier than I do. Someone less complicated. Someone who is actually worthy of being loved by you. And, I guess, at its core, that’s what jealousy is. The fear of losing the most important person in your life, be it romantic or platonic, because someone else comes along that’s just… Better.”

“Oh… So then I was jealous.”

“What?”

“Of Nick. When he got here. I was jealous. Because I kept worrying that he was better than me, because he knew you better, and then you didn’t want to spend time with me, choosing to spend all your time with him. And I… I was jealous. That’s why – I mean, that’s basically why I ran off and got myself lost, like an idiot. Because I was jealous.”

Armie looks a little like he’s just been punched in the gut, but at the same time he’s smiling. “You got jealous over me?”

“Yeah! I don’t want anyone else to have you. Even during filming, watching you with Victoire? I… It made me feel a little sick, to be honest. You’re… I love you, and you’re mine. I don’t like watching you with anyone else, even if it is pretend.”

Armie wraps him up in his arms again, giving him a tight hug, clinging onto him for a good long while before pulling back enough to capture Timmy’s lips in a kiss.

“I love you, so much.” Armie whispers before leaning in to kiss Timmy again, several times in quick succession before wrapping him up in another hug. “And I know what you mean, watching you with Esther, even now before Marzia and Elio start sleeping together, it’s… Well, like you said, makes me feel a little sick.”

“For a couple of jealous idiots, we chose a sh*t job didn’t we?” Timmy said with a laugh, leaning his head against Armie’s chest. “We’re always going to have to watch each other be with other people.”

“Yeah, but hey, think of it as exposure therapy, maybe we’ll cure ourselves.” Armie chuckles. “Or maybe, none of it really matters, because… I love you, and I trust you, and I know that no matter if you kiss a hundred people, you’re still going to come back to me at the end of the day.”

Timmy pulls back and looks up at Armie, a smile spreading across his face. “Look at you, being the bigger man, all lovely and trusting and sh*t.”

Armie shakes his head with a laugh, and Timmy gets up on his tip toes and presses a kiss to his cheek. “No, but seriously, I love you too, and you’re absolutely right. I will always come back to you, and only you. Because just like how you’re mine, I’m yours, and there’s no one else I’d rather be with.”

Armie looks down at him with something that can only be described as awe in his eyes, and Timmy can’t stop himself from kissing him again, on the lips this time. “Mine.” Armie whispers into the kiss.

“Yours.” Timmy agrees.

When they finally make their way over to the rest of the cast, they received quite a bit of ribbing for being gross with their PDA, mostly from Michael, Esther and Victoire just wanted them to keep going. Amira just smiled fondly at them, ruffling their hair, and Luca…

Well, Luca was busy discussing – or loudly arguing – with Sayombhu. Not that that was anything new, really, they had these discussions at the start of basically every scene, because more often than not, Luca’s creative visions weren’t actually doable in real life, and he never wanted to listen when Sayombhu told him that. So they basically started every scene with a – loud – discussion, before reaching a compromise and being bff’s for the rest of the day. None of them really got it, but, it seemed to work for them, so they just let them be, after all, they were all actors, weird creative processes weren’t exactly unfamiliar territory.

“Hey, I have a question.” Armie whispers, and out of the corner of his eye Timmy sees him looking around to make sure no one were close enough to overhear them, which they definitely were, and Armie seemed to come to the same conclusion because he takes Timmy’s hand in his and starts walking towards the Villa. “Lets go up to Elio’s room.”

Armie holds his hand all the way up to the bedroom, but when they step inside, he lets go and uses that hand to gently close the door. “So, uhm. We kind of skipped over the whole, uhh, you not being sure you’ve ever been jealous before part. And I don’t know, I kinda just wanted to revisit that? To make sure that I fully understand, because I’m not sure that I do?” Armie nervously runs his hand through his hair, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, and Timmy can’t help but feel hopelessly endeared by him.

“It’s simple really, as I told you the other day, I’ve never been in love before you, so I’ve never had anyone to be jealous of?” Timmy shrugs, not really knowing what else to say.

“But… Timmy, jealousy isn’t purely a side effect of romantic love. You don’t have to be in love with someone to be jealous.”

“I know that. Now. And I’m sure that I have been jealous before you, I must have, I just… I guess I just never thought about the difference between envy and jealousy?” Timmy clears his throat, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “And I’ve definitely been envious of a lot of people. Or, at least, I thought I was envious of them. But I suppose a lot of that actually was jealousy? Man, I don’t know, why are feelings so f*cking complicated?”

He can hear himself whine, and immediately feels a wave of embarrassment hit him, but then Armie wraps him up in another hug, and he feels himself practically melting into the embrace. He smiles against Armie’s chest, he always knew what made him feel better, and Timmy was so f*cking grateful he got to love him.

“You’re so cute, you know that right?” Armie kisses the top of his head and steps back, and Timmy immediately misses the warmth of his body. “But you know, it’s not all that strange, envy and jealousy aren’t really all that different. At least not in how they make you feel.”

“Yeah, well, doesn’t really make me feel better. Whether I was envious or jealous, it’s still… Uhm, like you said. It’s still an ugly feeling.”

“True, but, the situation you were feeling it in, it matters. So, anything in particular you’re thinking about?”

“Just… Professionally, you know? I’ve been envious, or well, jealous, of everyone who got the parts that I wanted. Like Ansel, even back at school, he always outshone me, and sometimes, I… Sometimes I hated him for it.” Timmy feels really ashamed of himself for that, because Ansel is such a lovely guy, who despite everything, still makes an effort to keep in touch with Timmy. Even when he was in the middle of promoting his movies, he still made sure to take time out of his schedule to meet up with him for coffee whenever he’s in town. Didn’t mean he was any less envious, or well, jealous, apparently. And it only served to make him feel even worse about himself.

“Ansel? Where have I heard that name before?”

“Of course you’d know his name.” Timmy mumbles, before grimacing and shaking his head at himself. “Sorry, uhm. He recently starred in The Fault In Our Stars and the Divergent movies.”

“Ah right! He was the…” Armie quickly snaps his fingers together several times as he tries to get his brain to provide him with the correct memories. “I got it! Yeah, he was the cancer kid, with the metaphorical cigarette. Right?”

“Yeah. That’s him.”

“You guys know each other then?”

“Yeah, we went to school together. And he… Well. He basically got all the good parts in school, and then we graduate, and wouldn’t you know it? Now he’s getting all of the good parts out here too, and all I get is… Tiny, insignificant, forgettable ones.” Timmy lets his frustration get the best of him, and actually stomps his foot like a child throwing a tantrum, which he supposes is exactly what he is. Just a stupid kid, throwing a tantrum, because someone else is better than him at the thing he loves the most. He’s pathetic, that’s what he is.

“You’re anything but forgettable, babe. And you’re definitely not insignificant. You’re a better actor than most people can even hope to be, you’ll get your big break, I know it.”

“Yeah, well, tell that to the Hollywood casting agents.” Timmy huffs, every negative feeling he’s ever had following an audition he didn’t get called back to comes bubbling to the surface, and he can’t even bask in the warmth of Armie’s compliment, because he’s not really sure he actually deserves it.

“You think it’s been all sunshine and roses for me?” Armie asks with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Because trust me, if anyone knows the ugliness of professional envy and jealousy, it’s me. I mean, hello, Abercrombie boy!”

Timmy can see that Armie is working himself up, and he never wanted to make him upset. He lifts his hand and touches the palm of his hand to Armie’s chest, right over his heart, and luckily it seems to do the trick. Armie heaves a big sigh, and closes his eyes, seemingly focusing on his breathing to calm himself down.

“Sorry about that. Uhm. But yeah. Just trust me when I say, I get it. Okay? And you know, Peter worrying about me outing myself isn’t the only reason I’m not allowed to be unsupervised on Twitter. I have a… Well, lets just say I’m not very good at keeping my mouth shut in situations where I really should. Or holding my thumbs, is a better term I guess.” The self-deprecating chuckle returns, and Timmy reaches out for Armie’s hand, holding it in his own and giving it a gentle squeeze for comfort.

“We really are quite the pair, huh?” Timmy snorts. “I mean, apparently I’m one of the most jealous sons of bitches on the planet, and I didn’t even know it. Talk about being repressed.”

“Yeah, well, as you young people seem so fond of saying; same.” Timmy couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that, Armie sounded like he was 59 rather than 29, like he was literally just seconds away from going out on the front porch to yell at the neighborhood kids and tell them to stop walking on his lawn.

“Dude, you know you’re a millennial right?” At that, Armie scrunched his nose in disgust, and started shaking his head, making Timmy laugh even harder. “You should wear that with pride by the way, millennials are f*cking badass.”

“You only say that because you’re one too.”

“Actually, I think I’m more like, Gen Z.”

“Christ, well now I definitely feel old.” Armie laughs, scrubbing his hands across his face. “You’re right about one thing though. We are quite the pair, it’s almost as if we were, you know, made for each other.”

Timmy literally feels his heart skip a beat, and despite biting his bottom lip, he can’t stop the smile that’s spreading across his face. “Soulmates.” He whispers, and Armie nods, leaning in for a kiss.

“Definitely, soulmates.”

Now that he knew for sure it was jealousy he’d been feeling all this time, it made it even easier to slip into Elio’s headspace, because Elio, whether he knew it or not – and wasn’t that f*cking meta – was definitely jealous, of everyone and everything that held Oliver’s attention. And to say that Timmy could relate to that, well, that would be an understatement at this point.

Luca had ultimately decided to postpone the scene where Elio tells Oliver about his feelings until the next day, because he still needed to work out exactly how he wanted it done. Which left their day wide open. They had some small scenes at the villa to film still, but the biggest chunk of the day had been intended for that scene, and now that they weren’t going to film it after all, they were given the rest of the day off. Timmy would have been happier about that, if he didn’t know that the schedule for the next day suddenly doubled in length.

Sure, most of his day would be spent making out with Armie, but he couldn’t deny that he was a little worriedthat he was going to f*ck up somehow. He definitely worried that he was going to lose hold of Elio the second Armie’s lips touched his like they did during the first rehearsal, or do a bad job with portraying Elio’s inexperience, or the way Oliver completely overwhelms him. He’s just… Worried.

He knows they’re mostly unfounded worries, that he has been sleeping with Armie since before the filming even started, and that realistically, he’ll still be able to separate Elio from Timmy and that he has plenty of experience to draw from to properly nail these upcoming scenes.

And yet.

Even just thinking about it, makes his nerves kick into high gear. He doesn’t want to let anyone down. He doesn’t want to fail them. Any of them. Especially not Luca. Or Armie. He owes them the f*cking best performance of his life. He just doesn’t know how he’s going to achieve that.

What he does know though, is that if he really cannot figure it out, all he has to do is ask for help. Armie is a wonderful actor, despite what he seems to think about himself, and he has a great way with words and knows exactly how to phrase things to help Timmy understand. And then there’s Luca, who tells him just enough to work things out on his own, but who isn’t afraid to tell him if he f*cks up. Because Armie would never tell him that he did anything badly, he’d just gently be like “It’s not that what you’re doing is bad, but, maybe try to do more like this?” while Luca will just go “No, this isn’t working. Do it differently.”

He’s learning so much though, from both of them, and he is so f*cking grateful. Before he came here, he’d foolishly thought that he knew pretty much everything there was to know in regards to acting, but spending time listening to Luca, and then later Armie, and Michael, as well as everyone else in the cast really, taught him that he definitely didn’t know as much as he thought. Everyone has their own ways of getting into character, as well as getting out of character at the end of the day, some prefer to be more method while others prefer to keep their character and reality completely separate.

Timmy doesn’t know quite what he prefers yet. He can’t deny that there’s been times where he’s struggled to leave Elio behind when they wrap for the day, but he doesn’t know if he could ever really just, cut him out. Elio was a part of him now, and leaving him behind completely? It would be like carving out a piece of himself, leaving behind a wound that would never truly fully heal.

He’d never really struggled with leaving other characters behind before, all it really took was mentally closing the door on them, and they were gone for good. But Elio? Elio was special. And Timmy had a feeling that Elio would still be with him years from now, long after the rest of the world had forgotten all about Call Me By Your Name.

They finish filming in the early afternoon, but despite the fact that their day is now wide open, no one feels like leaving the Villa, so they all seem to congregate around the pool. It’s definitely Timmy’s favorite part about the whole set, and he still can’t quite believe it was built specifically for this movie, because it really does look like it’s been there for centuries. He’d taken so many pictures of that pool, it was almost a little embarrassing. He’d sent quite a few to his friends and his parents, and he posted it to his Instagram too – luckily the social media manager allowed it to get posted, and he can’t deny the relief he felt at that, at least some of the content on his profile actually came from him.

He also can’t deny that the social media manager is doing a good job impersonating him, it’s actually a little scary how well they’ve got him pegged, from his emoji usage, down to his f*cking punctuation. If he didn’t know any better, he’d genuinely believe all the posts they’d made were actually done by him, and he knows that is the point, but it’s still weird to think about. There is literally a person out there who is getting paid pretending to be him on social media, he can’t say he ever saw that coming when he decided to get into acting.

At least he still has his second account, nobody knows about that yet, so if fake IG Timmy is going to keep going for the next few years, he might have to clean out that account and make it his main account for friends and family. But, on the other hand, if he’s just going to keep taking pictures of pools and Armie’s face, they might as well just go up on the regular profile.

As they’re all lounging by the pool, Armie makes sure that Timmy doesn’t forget to reapply his sunscreen every couple of hours, and Timmy is really f*cking grateful, because he burns practically as soon as he even sees the sun, and yet, he can never seem to remember the goddamn sunscreen. Timmy is trying to finish the book he’d been reading before Armie arrived,he’d been using it as a bit of an escape, something to distract him from his nerves about, well, everything. From Luca’s expectations, to his worry about whether or not he and Armie would even get along. Needless to say, after Armie did arrive, the book was forgotten pretty quickly.

It’s a good book though, and he’s enjoying immersing himself in the story while letting his feet soak in the pool. He startles a little when he feels Armie’s cold, wet hands on his thighs, and he almost drops his book into the water.

“Motherf*cker!”

“Shh, babe, it’s okay, it’s just me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Despite his words, Armie can’t stop himself from laughing, and Timmy narrows his eyes at him before planting the soles of his feet against Armie’s chest, and kicking him backwards, which he definitely wasn’t expecting, and it causes him to yell out, waving his arms around as he disappears under water. This time Timmy is the one that can’t stop himself from laughing, and he laughs even harder when Armie surfaces right in front of him looking grumpy as all f*ck. And even though Armie spits water at him, and it hits him right in the face, Timmy doesn’t regret it for a second.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Armie says, shaking his head as Timmy nods, still laughing. “Okay, okay.” Then Timmy feels Armie’s fingers wrap themselves around his ankle and he has about three seconds to react, but he manages to throw his book to the side and save it before Armie pulls him kicking and screaming down into the pool.

He surfaces, coughing up water, because he basically swallowed half the f*cking pool, and Armie is laughing his ass off at him. As was everyone else. “You son of a–” He huffs out, splashing Armie with water, but he just keeps laughing, not bothered in the slightest.

Timmy moves to hoist himself back up on the ledge, but Armie swims over and crowds him against the wall, reaching out and cupping his cheek. “Aw, babe, don’t be upset. I’m sorry okay?”

“I’m not upset, I’m…”

“Angry?”

“No.”

Armie wiggles his eyebrows and grins. “Horny?”

“What? No?”

“Well, I can fix that.” Armie smirks, and Timmy gasps as he feels Armie reaching into his shorts and starts palming his dick.

“Armie, what the f*ck? There are people...” Timmy whispers, but he does nothing to try and stop him, and Armie sends him a quick wink before closing the distance between them and capturing his lips in a kiss. Timmy feels himself hardening in Armie’s grip, and just as he’s getting into it, not caring that literally everyone can see them, Armie pulls back.

“Now, if I remember correctly, public sex was a no on your list wasn’t it?” He whispers, grinning down at Timmy as he lets their noses rub together. And it's not like he's wrong, but who f*cking cares about that right now, when he could have a truly f*cking amazing org*sm, as long as Armie would just put his hands back on him. But instead of doing that, Armie pulls back even further, so that he's no longer touching Timmy at all.

“Oh, you son of a bitch.” Timmy breathes out, making Armie laugh again as he starts swimming away. “You’re going to pay for this! You know that right?” Timmy calls after him, but Armie just keeps laughing as he swims over to Michael at the other end of the pool. Timmy can’t even get out of the pool now, at least not without everyone seeing that he’s, well, hard, and he is definitely not giving Armie the pleasure of witnessing that.

Timmy glares over at him, where he’s laughing with Michael and Amira, and when Armie catches his gaze, all the motherf*cker does is wink at him. Oh, he was definitely going to get him back for this, and he already knew exactly how he was going to do it. He couldn't f*cking wait to get started, so when Luca came down to the pool to let them know dinner would be ready soon, and that they should think about changing out of their bathing suits, Timmy was so excited that he could barely contain it. And of course Armie noticed.

“What’s up with you?”

“Nothing, just looking forward to dinner.” Timmy smiled, but Armie didn’t look convinced, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“Sure you are.” Armie said doubtfully, but luckily Timmy managed to keep his face as expressionless as possible, and eventually Armie seemed to give up and let it go, but Timmy can see that he still doesn’t quite believe him, and is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Timmy doesn’t want to give himself away too soon, he thinks Armie deserves to suffer a little longer, besides, he can’t deny that it’s fun watching him jump in his chair every time Timmy brushes up against him. But the longer he waits, the more Armie starts to relax, which was exactly what he was waiting for, so when the dessert finally hits the table, and everyone has had at least one glass of wine too many, Timmy leans into Armie’s side and eases his hand into his shorts. He carefully wraps his fingers around his dick, making Armie suck in a breath and tense up under him.

“What the f*ck are you doing?” Armie hisses out between clenched teeth, but he does nothing to try and actually stop him.

Timmy gently squeezes the head of Armie’s dick, grinning as he feels him growing rock hard in his hand. “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” He whispers into Armie's ear, even going as far as sucking Armie’s earlobe into his mouth, grinning around it when he hears Armie grumbling under his breath.

And yet, he still doesn’t make him remove his hand, in fact, he actually spreads his legs, giving Timmy more room to work. Which immediately makes Timmy change his mind regarding his plan, he’d only intended to get him worked up and then pull back, just like Armie had done to him in the pool, but now?

Oh, he was going to have fun with this.

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

Timmy honestly hadn’t expected that Armie was going to let him, well, jerk him off in front of everyone. He’d known that Armie didn’t have the same hang-ups that he did when it came to public sex – the blowj*b he’d given him up at the berm when Luca went to answer his phone had definitely proven that – but he still didn’t see this coming. Because unlike with the blowj*b, where they still had some semblance of privacy, now they’re literally surrounded with people.

“Are you sure about this?” He whispers, but he doesn’t let go of Armie’s dick, still jerking him off at a slow and leisurely pace, however, when Armie doesn’t answer him, the icy hot feeling of anxiety sweeps over him and he starts to slowly move his hand out of Armie’s shorts – After all, he’s not about to force him into something he doesn’t actually want to do just for his own amusem*nt, he’s not that cruel.

“Wait.” Armie breathes out, his hand coming down on top of his shorts, keeping Timmy’s hand in place, while he carefully looks around to make sure everyone else were too busy to notice what they were doing. “Please don’t stop.”

“Yeah? Wanna tell me your color?”

“Mhm.” Armie moans deep in his throat as Timmy strokes his thumb against the inside of Armie’s thigh, he’d meant it to be soothing, but judging by the way Armie keeps twitching in his seat, it’s probably doing the complete opposite.

“We’re green, babe.” Armie manages to breathe out, and Timmy lets out a massive sigh of relief hearing that, carefully wrapping his fingers back around Armie’s dick and giving it a light squeeze.

He hadn’t really considered how restricted his movements would be trying to jerk Armie off inside his shorts, but it’s not like he can really take Armie’s dick out of his shorts at the table. Or, he could, but he really doesn’t want to risk it, he’s feeling plenty adventurous already, no need to tempt fate more than they already had.

Armie starts to rock his hips up into Timmy’s touch, so he immediately lets go of his dick to get him to stop moving, which only serves to make Armie whine instead. Luckily someone had just said something that was apparently extremely hilarious, because everyone at the table erupted into loud laughter, so no one actually heard it.

“Do you want to get caught?” Timmy bites out, and Armie hurries to shake his head. “Then be quiet, or I’m gonna leave you hanging, don’t think I won’t.”

“I’m sorry, so sorry.” Armie pants, reaching for his wine and taking a big gulp, so Timmy waits until he’s swallowed it all down before he takes Armie’s dick back in his hand, because the last thing they need right now is for him to choke on it or spray wine all over the table drawing everyone’s attention.

When he gets his hand back on Armie’s co*ck he can’t help but smile at how wet it is, he had noticed that Armie tended to produce quite a lot of precome, and he really liked that, it was always nice to actually see that he was enjoying himself. Not that he could actually see it now, but he could still feel it, and it really did make him feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. He loved that he got to be the one that made Armie feel this good, even if it was in public, literally surrounded by people.

It’s still not easy jerking someone off within their shorts, but he’s managed to get a bit of a technique down now, and Armie seems to really be enjoying it, so the fact that Timmy’s wrist will probably try and kill him later, it doesn’t really matter, it’s worth it.

He can’t really move his hand too fast, because with the amount of precome Armie’s produced the faster he goes the louder the unmistakable slick sound of a handjob gets, and no matter how loud and talkative the people around them are, someone would no doubt notice it after a while. And although it might not seem like they give a f*ck, given the fact that Timmy’s hand is literally down Armie’s shorts at the moment, neither of them actually want to get caught. Or, at least Timmy doesn’t want to get caught, but knowing Armie, he might actually get off on it.

He tries out twisting his wrist on the upstroke, just to see if he can do it properly in the confines of Armie’s shorts, it doesn’t really work, but it still makes Armie groan loud enough that he has to quickly put his hand up in front of his mouth to stop more sound from leaking out. Unfortunately Michael had already heard him, and turned around to look at him with concern.

“Are you okay?”

Armie quickly nods his head, and just as he opens his mouth to speak, Timmy lets his thumb rub against the head of his dick, and Armie immediately closes his mouth again, letting out a tiny whine.

“He’s got cramps.” Timmy says, trying to sound as sympathetic as possible, stroking Armie’s back at the same time as he starts moving his hand faster on his dick. “It was probably something he ate.”

“Aw, man, that sucks.” Michael said, before pouring some more wine for himself. “You guys want some more?” Timmy smiles and shakes his head, and when he sees Armie goes to answer, he rubs his thumb against the head of his dick again, loving the way it makes him shudder with pleasure.

Michael is still holding the wine bottle up, waiting for an answer, and as soon as Armie opens his mouth to answer him, Timmy lets his thumb rub against the head of his co*ck again, and Armie’s mouth snap shut as a shiver runs down his spine.Timmy has to fight against the grin that wants to spread across his face when Armiecloses his eyes with a sigh,and rubs his face with both hands, letting out a barely audible groan when Timmy gives his dick another little squeeze.

He probably shouldn’t be enjoying this so much, especially not when Michael is sitting right there, looking at them, but Timmy gets it now – why some people really enjoy public sex – because the rush he’s getting from this? It’s unlike anything he’s ever felt before.

“I don’t think Armie should have any more.” Timmy says apologetically, wrapping his arm around Armie’s shoulders. “Actually, we should probably think about going home, shouldn’t we?” Armie just nods, keeping his eyes shut.

“Hope you feel better soon, man.” Michael says, patting Armie’s back in consolation, and Timmy has to bite his tongue to not burst out laughing at the pained look that flashes across Armie’s face.

“Yeah, uh, tha-thank you.” Armie manages to stutter out, and Timmy is actually a bit proud of him for managing to talk at all, without giving everything away. He sincerely doubts he’d be able to do that, but then he’d always known Armie was a better actor than he gave himself credit for.

He definitely wants to make Armie come before they leave, so when Michael finally turns away to talk with Amira, he changes his grip on his dick, and makes sure to tease Armie’s slit every chance he gets. He knows Armie really loves that, and sure enough, a couple of strokes later he can feel him start to tense up, and his breathing goes a lot more shallow, which means he’s just on the edge. Timmy gives his dick another light squeeze and speeds up his strokes as he leans in and whispers into Armie’s ear. “Are you gonna come for me now, baby?”

And that’s all it takes.

Armie puts his hand in front of his mouth and lets out a muffled groan, leaning forward and resting his forehead on the table as he spills all over Timmy’s hand. He’s most likely staining his shorts, because no matter how Timmy tried to catch it all in his palm, it’s definitely going all over the place – which is going to be funto try and cover up as they leave the table – though a wet spot is probably going to be a lot easier to cover than Timmy’s hard on, so there’s that.

“You were so good for me.” Timmy whispers, kissing Armie’s cheek as he carefully slips his hand out of Armie’s shorts, trying the best he can to not spread come everywhere, so that he doesn’t stain his shorts even more, because they’re definitely plenty wet in the front already.

As Timmy reaches for a napkin to wipe his hand on, he makes eye contact with Luca across the table, and judging by the look on his face, they really weren’t as successful in keeping this whole thing between just the two of them as they thought.

Surprisingly, Timmy doesn’t feel as embarrassed as he probably should, and just sends Luca a wide smile, only getting an eye roll in return before Luca shakes his head and mutters something under his breath. Timmy couldn’t help but crack up at the exasperated look on Luca’s face, because of course it had to be Luca that caught them, just, of course.

Hearing him laugh makes Armie lift his head and look around to see if he can find the source of Timmy’s amusem*nt, and when he makes eye contact with Luca, Timmy can literally see the moment he realizes that Luca knows. The blush that spreads across his cheeks, when Luca raises his eyebrow at him, makes this whole thing worth it – Armie is absolutely gorgeous when he’s flustered.

“You’re gonna pay for this when we get home.” Armie mumbles, and Timmy smirks at him, leaning in to whisper directly into his ear.

“I’m counting on it.”

They quickly make their excuses – claiming Armie’s stomach was getting worse – and somehow they manage to leave the table without anyone noticing the state of Armie’s shorts, or at least no one points it out. Timmy luckily had his red hoodie with him, so he carried that in front of him, shielding his hard-on from view.

He hadn’t given it much thought while he was jerking Armie off at the table, because he was so focused on making sure no one noticed what was going on, while at the same time trying his best to get Armie off as quick as possible, but now, his dick was absolutely throbbing, and he could literally feel a drop of precome sliding down his shaft.

Needless to say, the bike ride back to their apartment was not very comfortable, but at least it was better than walking.

Pretty much as soon as they close the door behind them, Armie is on him. He captures Timmy’s lips in a messy kiss as he lifts him up and pushes him against the wall, Timmy isn’t used to being lifted up that easily, so he lets out a tiny squeak and quickly locks his ankles together behind Armie’s back, to make sure he can’t just f*cking drop him. Not that he thinks Armie would ever do that, but, you never know.

He buries his fingers in Armie’s hair and opens his mouth to Armie’s tongue, lightly sucking on it, and he feels a shiver run down his spine when it makes Armie moan into his mouth.

“f*ck, babe.” Armie pulls back with a gentle bite to Timmy’s bottom lip. He feels Armie’s hands slide down his back, and when he reaches the hem of his t-shirt, Timmy lifts his arms and Armie pulls the shirt over his head. Of course he was wearing one with quite a tight neckline, so it gets stuck on his nose, making him splutter while Armie laughed at him. He didn’t drop him though, so he couldn’t be too mad.

Once the t-shirt was off, and thrown to the floor somewhere, Armie immediately starts kissing his way down Timmy’s neck. He’d never known his neck was this sensitive, but here he is, moaning and grinding his hips against Armie’s stomach, letting his head rest against the wall so that Armie has full access to do whatever he wants.

When Armie reaches his collarbones, he starts kissing his way back up towards Timmy’s lips, stopping by his jugular vein to gently bite down, causing Timmy to groan deep in his throat.

“Careful not to leave marks, babe. We don’t — f*ck — Luca really doesn’t need more reasons to judge us.”

Armie just hums against his skin, and keeps kissing his way up Timmy’s neck. When he finally reaches his lips, Timmy already has his mouth open, panting for breath, so Armie just slides his tongue right in and Timmy tries really hard to stop himself from laughing when Armie’s tongue tickles the roof of his mouth. He’s not really all that successful though, and ends up giggling against Armie’s lips.

Armie pulls back with a quick peck to Timmy’s lips, tilting his head in confusion. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, just, tickles.” Timmy shrugs, and Armie just shakes his head at him before kissing him again.

It’s been a while since they let themselves just make out like this, since usually things would have evolved into sex by now, but seeing as Armie has come once already, and Timmy has always really loved kissing, they don’t let themselves rush into anything. Timmy eventually pulls away with a final kiss to Armie’s nose, immediate making him scrunch it up, and he looks so cute that Timmy can’t stop himself from kissing him again.

“What do you want?” Armie whispers against his lips, and Timmy hums into the kiss.

“I just want you.”

“Well, you have me.”

“Then I’m good.”

The smile that spreads across Armie’s face is practically blinding, and Timmy can’t stop himself from poking his finger into Armie’s dimple, making him laugh and start to gently lower Timmy to the ground. It’s almost weird standing upright after being held up for so long, and his knees are actually feeling slightly wobbly – both from not standing for a good while and because Armie’s kisses always made him weak at the knees – so really, it’s a good thing Armie didn’t let him go completely, or he might have faceplanted right into the hardwood floors. And if he showed up to set tomorrow with two black eyes and a broken nose Luca would definitely have a nervous breakdown.

Armie leans down and softly kisses both of Timmy’s cheeks, leaving his lips for last before leaning closer to his ear to whisper “Let’s move this to the bedroom, yeah?” And Timmy nods so quickly his neck actually lets out a loud crack which startles him a little because he wasn’t expecting it, and the look on his face must be quite comical because Armie can’t stop himself from laughing at him.

“Such a fragile little thing, huh?” Armie teases, tracing his collarbone with the tip of his finger. “Maybe I should just carry you to bed.”

In any other situation Timmy would have huffed at him, pretending to be annoyed, before walking to the bedroom himself, because he’s not a baby thankyouverymuch. But, he can’t deny that he really likes it when Armie carries him, and, his dick is so hard now he’d be forced to walk ten times as bowlegged as he normally does just to be comfortable. So instead of fighting the urge, he tilts his chin down and looks up at Armie from under his eyelashes, smiling softly at him.

“Yeah, maybe you should.”

Armie kisses him again, and this time when his hands slide down Timmy’s back and comes to rest on the back of his thighs, he knows what to expect, so as soon as he feels Armie start to put a little pressure on his legs, he jumps up, locking his feet together behind Armie’s back again. Armie clearly hadn’t been expecting that, as he lets out a small ‘ouuff’ and staggers around for a couple of seconds trying to regain his balance.

“Oops?” Timmy laughs when Armie finally stills, he’s breathing more than a little heavy, but he didn’t drop him, so Timmy would call that a success. Besides, even if Armie ever did try to drop him, Timmy would never have let him, if they were gonna fall, they were gonna fall together.

“f*ck, Tim. Warn a guy next time, yeah?”

Timmy just shrugs. “Eh.”

Armie shakes his head at him and kisses him on the nose, Timmy feels him changing his grip on him, only holding him up with one arm under his ass, wrapping the other one behind his back to steady him, and even though Timmy was already aware of how strong Armie was, the fact that he was essentially only carrying him with one arm, definitely made a shiver run up his spine.

When Armie started to walk towards the bedroom, Timmy attached his mouth to his neck, planting open mouthed kisses all the way from behind his ear down to the base of his neck. He had to really fight himself to not leave any marks, because like he’d reminded Armie of earlier, they really didn’t need to give Luca more reasons to judge them.

Still, he desperately wanted to bite down somewhere, to mark Armie as his, but considering Oliver’s wardrobe, there was hardly an inch of skin that wasn’t going to be on show at one point or another. So he was just going to have to wait.

Even though he knew they had all the time in the world to indulge in his need for marks, it didn’t mean the urge lessened in any way.

Timmy had been so busy lamenting the fact that Armie’s skin was going to have to remain unmarked that he hadn’t even noticed that they’d made it to the bedroom, so he really wasn’t expecting it when Armie lowered him to the bed. He let out a truly embarrassing squeak, and grabbed a hold of Armie’s t-shirt with both hands, clutching it in his closed fists.

Despitequickly figuring outthat he’d just been put down on the bed, Timmy didn’t let go when Armie tried to lift himself up. He kept his legs locked behind him, though he did loosen his hold on Armie’s t-shirt, letting one hand slide up and bury itself in Armie’s hair. And then he just laid there panting for breath, feeling Armie start to laugh on top of him, his breath tickling the side of Timmy’s neck.

“Aw, babe, did I really scare you that badly?” Armie chuckled, and Timmy just huffed, but he did let go of him enough that Armie could lift himself up and make eye contact.

“You could have f*cking warned me.” Timmy grumbles as he unlocks his feet from behind Armie’s back and plants them back on the bed. Armie just smiles down at him and shakes his head, then his eyes zero in on the bulge in Timmy’s shorts, and it’s like all the air in the room gets sucked out as they both remember exactly why they’re there in the first place.

Armie carefully reached into Timmy’s shorts and wrapped his fingers around his co*ck, the dry warmth of Armie’s hand makes him gasp and push his hips up chasing Armie’s touch. Armie grins wickedly down at him and leans in for a quick kiss. “Take your shorts off for me, babe?”

Timmy nods and scrambles to push his shorts down and off, Armie helpfully picks them up and throws them off the bed, leaving Timmy completely naked while Armie is still fully clothed. It really shouldn’t be as hot as it is, being the only one naked, but Timmy can’t deny that it sends a pleasurable tingle up through his dick.

The drop of precome that comes bubbling to the surface of Timmy’s dick makes Armie lick his lips, he wraps his hand back around Timmy’s dick, and slowly starts jerking him off.

Armie leans in, kissing his way up Timmy’s jawline to his ear, making him shudder in pleasure. “I’ll ask you again. What do you want?” Armie whispered, and Timmy would have answered if not for the fact that just as he opened his mouth, Armie covered his mouth with his own and let his tongue slip into Timmy’s mouth to gently rub against Timmy’s own.

The kiss quickly turns dirty, but then how could it not, with Armie’s hand still working Timmy’s dick so f*cking good. Eventually Armie pulls back from the kiss, making Timmy whine, he whines even louder when Armie teases the head of his dick with his thumb.

“f*ck, Armie.”

“So, what do you say? Do want my hands?” Armie smiles wickedly, stroking Timmy’s dick slowly, twisting his wrist on the upstroke, making Timmy’s hips shoot off the bed. He knew he was more turned on than he’d probably ever been, but it still took him by surprise just how f*cking good something as simple as a handjob could truly be. So when Armie stops the movement of his hand, and lets go of his dick, Timmy isn’t even embarrassed about the needy sound that leaves his lips.

“Shhh, babe.” Armie whispers, leaning in for a kiss, but just as Timmy was about to deepen the kiss, Armie starts kissing his way down his neck instead. When Armie reaches Timmy’s collarbones, he bites down, not hard enough to leave any marks – unfortunately – but it still makes Timmy moan deep in his throat.

When Armie closes his mouth around his nipple, it’s like a spark of electricity shoots through his body and Timmy’s back arches off the bed, forcing Armie to release his nipple and sit up, placing a soothing hand on Timmy’s hip.

“Shiiiiiit.” Timmy pants out, pushing his sweatslick hair off of his forehead. Armie chuckles, leaning in for a kiss, but Timmy is too busy trying to get his breathing back under control to even bother to try to kiss him back. Not that Armie seems to mind, as he leans back down and takes Timmy’s other nipple into his mouth, teasing it with his tongue and sucking on it.

It feels just as good as when he did it to the previous nipple, but now that he was kind of expecting it, Timmy was able to keep his reaction sort of under control. He still moaned, quite loudly too, but at least he didn’t buck up off the mattress. He did grab onto Armie’s hair though, making him chuckle around Timmy’s nipple.

When Armie releases Timmy’s nipple from his mouth, Timmy cries out. “Noo, don’t – Please don’t stop.” Armie just grins down at him, but instead of closing his mouth back around his nipple, Armie wraps his hand back around Timmy’s dick, and Timmy feels his eyes roll back into the back of his head as he groans.

He groans even louder when he feels Armie lightly pinching his nipples, before he slowly starts tracing a path with his tongue from between his nipples all the way down to his belly button, still slowly moving his hand up and down on Timmy’s dick.

With a final kiss to Timmy’s belly button, Armie settles himself on his stomach between Timmy’s spread legs and looks up at him with a smile.

“Maybe it’s not my hands you want.” Armie whispers, kissing the inside of Timmy’s thigh, and he has to fight the urge to close his legs around Armie’s head. “Maybe what you really want is my mouth.”

Before Timmy even had the chance to reply, Armie swallows his dick down to the root, and once again Timmy’s breath is knocked right out of him as he lets out a groan so loud it even makes his own ears ring. He somehow manages to keep his hips in check though, not that he has any idea how. He feels Armie chuckle around his dick and the vibrations of it feel so f*cking good he throws his arm across his face, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow as he keeps moaning.

Armie pulls off his dick, and Timmy lets out another desperate whine, and really, he would be a lot more embarrassed with the amount he keeps whining if he was in bed with anyone other than Armie. Luckily, even though he’s no longer sucking his dick, Armie hasn’t let go of Timmy’s dick completely, still slowly jerking him off.

“Or maybe...” Armie whispers conspiratorially against the head of Timmy’s dick before he licks away the bead of precome that comes bubbling to the surface. “Maybe, what you really want, is to f*ck me again?”

“Yes, yes, yes, that, please. Please.”

“Mm, don’t know if you deserve that though, after the stunt you pulled at dinner.” Armie keeps moving his hand on Timmy’s dick, and he teases the head with the tip of his finger, running it in circles around his slit, making more precome leak out, and Timmy is writhing against the sheets as he feels it start to drip down his shaft again. If only Armie would tighten his grip a little, maybe speed up his strokes, then he could…

f*ck, he just wanted to come.

“Armie, please, I— Babe, please, at least make me come, please.”

Armie moves from between Timmy’s legs, and sits down next to his hip, still only lightly tracing the head of his dick with the tip of his finger. “No. I don’t think so.”

Once again Timmy whines, and he pushes his hips up, desperately trying to get more friction on his dick. But it backfires pretty spectacularly, because Armie just chuckles darkly and removes his hand from Timmy’s dick completely, making him whine even louder, much to Armie’s amusem*nt.

“Here’s what I think. After the stunt you pulled at dinner, what I deserve is a long, good, and wet handjob.”

“I can... I can do that for you,” Timmy breathes out as he sits up, licking his lips, he’d want nothing more than to get his hands back on Armie. He was always so beautiful when Timmy got his hands around his dick, and he definitely didn’t get to enjoy it as much at the dinner table.

Armie shakes his head with a chuckle. “No, I don’t think so. Actually, all you’re going to do? Is sit there. And watch.”

Timmy whines again, and his dick actually starts throbbing, and more precome starts leaking out, he literally can’t remember the last time he’d produced this much precome, but then he doesn’t remember the last time he was this turned on either. He reaches for his co*ck, but Armie quickly shakes his head and he grabs his thigh instead.

“Good boy. You don’t get to touch. You’re just gonna sit there and watch as I get myself off.” Armie quickly takes his clothes off, throwing them to the side, leaving him completely naked. And at the sight of his hard co*ck, Timmy literally feels his mouth start to water, he practically chokes on his spit when Armie wraps his hand around his own co*ck and starts jerking himself off.

“Mmm, yeah, this is good. Maybe I’ll even break out my sounding set.”

Timmy closes his eyes and groans loudly, whatever he’d been expecting Armie to say, it definitely wasn’t that. But f*ck if it wasn’t hot.

“Yeah? You like that, huh?” Armie chuckled, and Timmy desperately nods his head.

“f*ck, yes, Armie, please, please, I want— let me — I- I- please.”

“Sshh baby.” Armie leans over to kiss him, and Timmy feels like he’s losing his f*cking mind. It’s not quite as intense as with the subspace during the spanking, but the fact that he isn’t allowed to touch, while being so f*cking turned on, is making everything feel so much better, and he doesn’t doubt for a second that he’ll be able to come untouched by the end of this. As long as Armie allows him to, of course.

It seems like Armie doesn’t want to stop kissing him anytime soon, because he straddles Timmy’s lap while sucking on his tongue. When Timmy feels the hand Armie’s using to jerk himself off rubbing against his dick he wouldn’t have been able to stop the whine that bubbles up in his throat even if he wanted to. Armie uses his other hand to push Timmy’s hair off of his forehead, kissing his cheek. “Babe, what’s your color? Can you tell me, please?”

“Aah, green.” Timmy breathes out. “Armie, please, let me see, I want it. I’ll be good for you, I promise.”

Armie hums against his lips before kissing him again. “Yeah? You want to watch me getting myself off?”

Timmy nods again, gasping as Armie’s hand once again rubs against his dick. “Yes, yes and, I— The... You said-”

“The sounds, yes. I did say that.” Armie smiles, before shrugging and climbing back off Timmy’s lap. He takes Timmy’s hand in his, lightly kissing the back of his palm. “But, uh, I thought you checked sounding off as a no on your list?”

Timmy shakes his head to clear it a little, smiling gratefully over at Armie, he honestly loved him so much for taking this break to make sure they didn’t overstep any of Timmy’s boundaries. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this loved before, and he feels so happy he almost wants to cry a little.

“I do have it as a no, but, that’s mainly because… Well, I just don’t think getting something put into my urethra is something I’d enjoy? And... I don’t know. I didn’t even consider the fact that I could watch you doing it to yourself. Or... Maybe one day do it to you? If I had, I’d definitely have it down as a yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, definitely. Do you see how wet you’ve gotten me, just from talking about it?” Timmy licks his lips, and reaches for his dick before remembering that Armie said he wasn’t allowed. He lets out a desperate chuckle, grabbing onto the sheets instead. “f*ck, I can’t even remember the last time I was this hard.”

Armie wraps his hand around Timmy’s dick, and slowly slides his hand up and down it a couple of times, making Timmy’s breath hitch.

“You’re such a good boy, you know that?” Armie whispers, leaning in and rubbing his nose against Timmy’s. “I love you so much, and there’s nothing I’d want more than for you to use the sounds on me.” Timmy whines again and catches Armie’s lips in a messy kiss, which quickly turns out to be more tongues than lips, until Armie pulls back, leaning his forehead against Timmy’s as they pant into each other’s mouths.

“But... You do still deserve to be punished for what you did at dinner. So, just watching this time.” Armie breathes out against Timmy’s lips, kissing him one more time before pulling back and smirking at him. “And on top of that, you’re not allowed to come until I do.”

With that, Armie squeezes the base of Timmy’s dick, chuckling when it makes him groan.

“Can I...” Timmy sucks in a breath, a shiver running down his spine when he looks into Armie’s eyes, it’s so intense that he closes his eyes. “When you’re done, I... Can I jerk off? Please?”

“Mm, no. If you’re gonna come, you’ll come untouched. And if you can’t do that? Well, no org*sms for you tonight,” Armie smiles wickedly, and Timmy lets out a desperate sob, it startles him as much as it does Armie, he really hadn’t expected to react quite like that.

Armie gently cups his cheek, smiling softly as he tilts Timmy’s head up to look into his eyes. “Still green?”

Timmy quickly nods, trying his best to focus on getting his breathing back under control. “Ye-yeah, green, yes.”

Armie smiles at him before leaning in to kiss him again, wrapping his arms around Timmy’s shoulders in a hug, and Timmy immediately clings to him. They sit there, just breathing and holding each other, and Timmy has never felt more at ease in his life, despite his dick still being hard enough to cut glass.

“Right.” Armie clears his throat as he pulls back, and Timmy immediately misses the warmth of him. “Before we start, I just need to quickly prepare.”

“Prepare how? You mean wash? Because we could shower together? I promise I’ll be good.”

Armie chuckles lightly and kisses his cheek. “Not the kind of preparing I mean babe, more like, preparing the sounds. I need to go dig them out of my bag, sterilize them, that type of thing.”

“Oh. Right. Uhm... Yeah. I’ll just wait here?” Timmy shrugs, and Armie ruffles his hair, kissing him softly on the lips.

“Tell you what, while I do that, I’m gonna allow you to jerk off while I’m gone. But, no faster than this.” Armie wraps his fingers around Timmy’s dick again to demonstrate, and it’s the slowest speed ever, he’s barely even moving, but it’s still better than nothing. “And if you feel yourself getting close, you stop. If you come, you’re not gonna get to see anything. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I- Yes.”

Armie gets up from the bed, grinning down at Timmy as he starts to walk towards the door. “It shouldn’t take too long. So, enjoy it while you can.” With a final wink he walks out of the room, leaving Timmy to his own devices. He quickly wraps his hand around his dick and starts to jerk himself off, more slowly than he ever had in his whole entire life, but it would all be worth it when Armie came back.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

Timmy can hear Armie shuffling around in the living room, why he’d been keeping his sounding equipment out there Timmy had no idea, but then he also didn’t know that Armie even had sounding equipment until today.

He keeps moving his hand up and down his co*ck at the ridiculously slow rhythm Armie had set for him, he lets his hand go up to the head, giving it a gentle squeeze that makes him hiss through his teeth. It’s been a while since the last time he’d been this sensitive, but he also hadn’t been this turned on since… Well, forever.

Another glob of precome comes bubbling out of his slit, and Timmy uses his thumb to spread it around, the slow movement of his hand makes his dick twitch in his grip, and he wants nothing more than to tighten his hold and speed up. More importantly, he really f*cking wants to come.

But he also wants to watch Armie use the sounds on himself, and he won’t get to do that if he gets himself off now.

Armie returns holding what looks like a leather wallet in his hand, as well as a small plastic bag in the other, and Timmy feels a zip of excitement run down his spine. He quickly removes his hand from his co*ck, not that Armie had told him to stop yet, but he was already so close to coming he didn’t want to risk anything. Then to be sure that he wouldn’t slip up, he shoves his hands under his ass, sitting on them, just in case.

He watches as Armie sets the supplies down on the bed, zipping open the wallet and revealing a set of steel rods in varying thicknesses. He picks one up – thicker than Timmy had anticipated – holding it close to his face and inspecting it.

Timmy swallows to wet his throat, which had gotten strangely dry in the last few seconds as he watched Armie gently handling the sound.

“Do you... I mean, uhm, I- I just, how does it, uhm, work exactly? I... I mean, I get the, you know, gist of it, but... Uhm. yeah, just, how?” Timmy winces at how shrill his voice got, but Armie just smiles, gently placing the sound back down into the wallet and reaches out to give Timmy’s ankle a soft squeeze.

“It’s pretty straight forward actually, but, how about I just show you?” When Timmy nods, Armie smiles and reaches into the plastic bag, pulling out a tiny packet of antibacterial wipes. He opens it with his teeth, clearly getting some of the antibacterial fluid on his tongue, judging by the look of pure disgust that flashes across his face, and Timmy can’t help but laugh at him.

When Armie gets the packet open he pulls out a wipe which he uses to clean his hands, and then he gets another one and lifts the sound back up and carefully wipes it clean as well before pushing both the used wipes down on the floor with the back of his hand. Holding the sound in one hand, Armie reaches into the bag and pulls out a bottle of lube which he throws up towards the pillows, before he zips the wallet close, and puts it into the plastic bag, laying it down on the floor.

Timmy watches it all with rapt attention, not that sterilizing your hands and the equipment was in anyway shape or form exciting, or new, but still. Everything Armie did was somehow fascinating.

He moves over to make room when Armie gets onto the bed, because he’d been sitting pretty much right in the middle of it, taking up way more space than necessary.

“sh*t, uh, babe? Can you hold this for me for a second?” Armie holds the top of the sound out towards him and Timmy carefully takes hold of it, using only his thumb and forefinger, holding it between his fingers as if it was going to explode at any second. Armie just shook his head at him with a laugh, and quickly took his boxers off, why he’d put them back on in the first place Timmy had no idea, it wasn’t as if they had any neighbors that could spy on them through the windows or anything.

When Armie has made himself comfortable on the bed, with his back against the headboard, Timmy immediately hands the sound back to him, both because he’s desperate to watch him get started, but also because holding it was… It was a little bit weird, especially knowing that it was about to, well, penetrate Armie’s dick.

He was definitely into it, he just… In a strange way he didn’t trust himself with holding it, because he was worried he was going to f*ck it up somehow.

“Are you ready, babe?” Armie smiles at him, Timmy bites his bottom lip and nods, crawling a bit closer to get a better look. Armie wraps his fingers around his co*ck with a pleased sigh, giving it a slow tug before he reaches for the bottle of lube he’d thrown on the bed earlier.

And while he had registered that earlier, Timmy tilts his head in confusion, because they definitely already had lube in the nightstand, in fact they’d only just started a new bottle, so why was Armie going to open yet another one? “Uhm, just a quick question?”

Armie pours quite a generous amount of lube into the palm of his hand as he nods. “Why’re you… I mean, we already have lube? What’s… Just, uhm. Why?” Timmy winces again as he struggles to word himself, but Armie just smiles and hands him the bottle of lube.

“Yes, we do already have lube, but for this, the lube needs to be completely sterile.” Timmy’s eyebrows climb on his forehead as he reads the label, he had no idea sterile lube even was a thing. Actually, he’s more surprised to find out that all lube wasn’t already sterile in the first place.

“Don’t want anything down there that can cause infections later.” Armie said with a shrug, running the sound through the pool of lube in his palm, and once he was seemingly pleased with how lubed up it was, he used the rest of it to lube up his dick, naturally focusing on the head of his co*ck and his slit.

“Right, right. Makes sense.” Timmy mumbles absentmindedly, completely mesmerized by the fact that Armie has started to slowly rub the sound against his slit, obviously teasing himself. “Uhm, another thing. Isn’t, I mean, uhh… Isn’t that one a little, uhm, thick?”

Armie keeps running the sound around the head of his dick, every now and again letting it slide across his slit, making both him and Timmy gasp. Timmy keeps waiting for the sound to just, go in, but Armie seems keen to just keep teasing himself.

“For you? Probably, yeah. But, this isn’t my first time.” Armie winks, letting the tip of the sound almost enter him, and for a second Timmy almost forgets how to breathe. “No, but seriously, it’s a valid question.” Armie says, pulling the sound away from himself, probably having figured out that if he kept playing with himself, Timmy would never be able to focus on what it was he was saying.

“I’m not into like, you know, stretching, so I’ll never go thicker than this. But, even if I were to ever get to do this to you? Despite what you might expect, I wouldn’t start with the thinnest one, just because the thinner the sound the easier you run the risk of injury.” Timmy couldn’t help but wince at that, feeling the phantom pain shoot through his dick, it did nothing at all to soften it though, but it was definitely not a pleasurable feeling.

“Yeah, exactly.” Armie said with a nod. “If there’s anywhere you definitely do not want to injure yourself, it’s there.” Timmy keeps grimacing, imagining all types of painful injuries you can end up giving yourself by doing this, and Armie chuckles at him, pushing his leg against Timmy’s hip. “Really though, it’s all about being gentle, letting gravity do its thing, and most importantly listening to your body. Because when you do it right? It’s so f*cking good.”

Armie brings the sound back down to his dick, rubbing it around the head some more before stopping to lube it up again. He lets it slide across his slit a couple of more times, and as the tip of the soundfinally penetrates Armie’s dick, both of them let out a breathless gasp.

Timmy licks his lips as he watches the sound slowly slide in a little further before Armie pulls it back out with a moan. It’s becoming harder and harder to not just say ‘f*ck it’ and jerk himself off, coming all over Armie, but he also really really wants to see how this ends.

His dick is so hard it’s practically purple, and the amount of precome he’s been producing – it’s gotten to the point where he’s basically just leaking. He’s literally never been this hard, or this wet, in his entire f*cking life.

“Do you do this a lot?” Timmy asks, desperately trying to distract himself with a question, his hands digging into his thighs in an effort to not touch his co*ck.

“Not as much as I’d like. Mmm, f*ck.” Armie keeps teasing himself by letting the sound barely enter him, pulling it back out, and pushing it back in. Timmy can practically feel himself start to drool as he watches, never in his life did he expect that this would be this f*cking hot. “It takes more time than a regular jerk off session, and some days I barely even have time for that.”

Armie lets the sound go in a little deeper, moaning deep in his throat. Timmy bites his lip as he leans even closer, his fingers are practically itching with the need to touch, not only himself, but Armie too. “f*ck, Armie, babe, you look so good.”

When Timmy sees that Armie blushes at his comment, all the way down his chest, he can’t stop himself from leaning in and kissing Armie, moaning against his lips, and when Timmy lets his tongue trace the roof of Armie’s mouth, Armie shudders and the sound goes in a little more, making them both whine.

“Timmy, god, I thought we said – f*ck – that we said no touching.” Armie breathes out, Timmy just shrugs and starts kissing his way down Armie’s neck, gently biting into his collarbone before he continues placing wet open mouthed kisses down Armie’s chest. He only stops when he’s at eye level with Armie’s co*ck.

“You said I wasn’t allowed to touch myself, you said nothing about not being allowed to touch you.” Timmy whispered as he settles himself on his stomach between Armie’s spread legs, and it takes everything in him to not start to hump the mattress, so to distract himself, he looks up at Armie and grins as he places a quick kiss to the base of his co*ck.

Armie sucks in a breath, and he slowly starts to pull the sound back out when Timmy lightly traces the vein on the underside of his dick with the tip of his finger. “Please let me? I just want to make you feel good, Armie, please. I promise I won’t touch myself, just please.”

Armie pulls the sound all the way out, and leans forward, grabbing Timmy by the back of the neck and pulls him up for a messy kiss. Timmy moans into his mouth and quickly straddles Armie’s lap, careful not to grind their co*cks together, because he knows that if he did that, this would be all over.

“Like I could ever say no to you.” Armie pants out, and Timmy’s eyes light up as a wide smile takes over his face.

“Yeah? You’ll let me?”

“f*ck yeah.”

“I don’t... I don’t wanna hurt you though, so you’ll have to help me. Guide me.” Timmy breathes into Armie’s mouth as Armie strokes his hand up anddown Timmy’s back, and Timmy lets his tongue trace Armie’s lips, kissing him again before pulling back with a bite to Armie’s bottom lip.

“Teach me how to make you feel good.” Timmy whispers, licking his way back into Armie’s mouth, making him groan, and when Timmy feels Armie’s nails scratch down his back, he groans low in his throat and pulls back from the kiss.

“Show me. Please.”

Armie nods, licking his lips, and reaches for the sound which he’d dropped onto the bed. He quickly wipes it down with a new antibacterial wipe, and hands the packet of wipes over to Timmy. “Gotta clean your hands first.”

“Of course, yeah, yeah.” Timmy quickly wipes his hands clean, and carefully takes the sound from Armie, apparently he’d lubed it up for him while Timmy was cleaning his hands. “Uhm... Now-now what?”

Armie chuckles, leaning back against the headboard, looking like the perfect picture of calm while Timmy was so f*cking nervous he was pretty sure his heart was going to give out at any second.

“You already know what to do, babe. You saw what I did before, so just do that.”

“Right, right yeah. Of course. Yeah. Just– Uh, slide it in?”

“Exactly, just slide it in, gently.”

Timmy lets the sound slide across Armie’s slit, just like he’d seen Armie doing to himself, and judging by the moan that escapes Armie’s lips, he must be doing something right at least. Timmy teases Armie’s slit a couple of more times before he uses his middle finger and thumb to carefully hold Armie’s dick in place, steadying it, as he slowly lets the tip of the sound slip into Armie’s slit.

“f*ck, baby.” Armie gasps as Timmy carefully guides the sound into him. “You can, sh*t, you can jerk me off at the same time if you want. Just. Slow.”

Timmy licks his lips, looking up into Armie’s eyes, and slowly lets his hand slide down Armie’s dick at the same time that he lets the sound drop into him a little further, making Armie’s eyes roll into the back of his head as he moans. He keeps the sound still as he carefully jerks Armie off, and the sound he makes when Timmy teases his frenulum with his thumb shoots right through his dick.

“f*ck, so good. You can – nngghhh, f*ck – You can like, move it up and down if you want too. Just, when you feel any resistance, stop, don’t just push through it, that’s like begging for trouble.” Armie pants out, and Timmy nods, staring wide eyed down at where the sound is sticking out of Armie’s dick. It looks so f*cking hot that he honestly doesn’t understand how he hasn’t come all over himself already, he’s never been able to hold out for this long before.

He slows his movement on Armie’s dick down completely as he focuses on gently sliding the sound in and out of him. He can’t deny that he’s a little curious about what Armie meant by resistance, so he keeps guiding it further in, until suddenly it just stops. He looks up at Armie, who has his head thrown back in pleasure, breathing heavily. “Timmy, baby, you… f*ck.”

“Yeah? Feels good?”

“You have no idea, baby, no idea.”

Timmy grins as he slowly extracts the sound, before letting it slide back in, and he starts jerking Armie off again. He makes sure to rub his thumb against Armie’s frenulum every now and again, increasing the pressure as he starts moving the sound up and down a little faster. “How’s that? Still good?”

“Yes, yes, yes, so good, so so good.”

“You know, I think I’ve changed my mind.” Timmy pants out, leaning down to take one of Armie’s balls into his mouth, gently sucking on it, grinning around it as he hears Armie practically start to growl.

“f*ck, f*ck, baby? Baby, stop, stop.” Timmy lets Armie’s balls fall out of his mouth, stilling his movement with the sound, and sits back up. He looks around and tilts his head in confusion, because he can’t really see any reasons as to why he had to stop. Unless…

“What? What’s wrong? Am I not making you feel good anymore?”

“Oh baby, no. That’s- that’s not that I meant. But you said... Changed your mind? Wha-”

A smile spreads across Timmy’s face and he quickly interrupts Armie’s little ramble. “Oh! Right, yes. What I meant was, I don’t want to have sounding on my no list anymore. I really want you to do this to me sometime.”

Armie moans and pulls Timmy up for another kiss, clearly not giving a f*ck that he’d just had his balls in his mouth. “f*ck, yes, god, baby. I can’t wait for you to feel this.”

“Yeah? You’d wreck me from the inside out?” Timmy smirks as he starts moving the sound a little faster, letting it slip out completely every once in a while, and sliding it around the head of Armie’s co*ck before slipping it back in.

“f*ck, baby, please.” Armie’s eyes roll into the back of his head, and his hips pump up a couple of times. Timmy reaches a hand down to fondle his balls, grinning when Armie keeps moaning and pushing up into his hands. Judging by his breathing Armie is right on the edge of coming, and just as he’s about to really get down to business and make Armie come, Timmy realizes he has no idea what to do when that happens.

“Wait, uhm, what’s gonna happen when you come? I… I mean, does it push it out? Or?”

Armie nods, panting for breath as he tries to gather his thoughts enough to actually speak. “Some-sometimes, but usually you take it out when you feel yourself start coming, just – f*ck yes – just to be safe.”

“Right. Makes sense.” Timmy nods, and starts slowly moving the sound again. “You let me know then?”

“Of course, not gonna – heh – not gonna take much longer that’s for sure.”

And while Timmy already knew that, just by the way Armie’s body was reacting to his touch, it was still nice to hear him actually say it. “Yeah?”

“Mmm, so close.”

Timmy smiles as he tightens his grip on Armie’s dick, jerking him off at a quicker pace than before, and at the same time he lets the sound slide all the way back in. He hears Armie’s breathing start to change, and leans down, teasing his frenulum with the tip of his tongue.

“Now, baby, now. Fuuuuuuck.”

Timmy quickly pulls the sound out, dropping it to the bed, and Armie lets out a guttural groan as he starts coming. Timmy works him through it, and Armie is coming so hard that some of it actually hits his chin, Timmy leans in with a smile and licks it up, before capturing Armie’s lips in a kiss. Armie breathlessly kisses him back, clutching Timmy’s back as he starts coming down from his org*sm, and Timmy lets go of his co*ck at the first hiss of oversensitivity.

“You did so good, so good.” Armie breathes out, rubbing his hands across his face. “God, I haven’t come that hard from this since – f*ck, the first time.”

“Yeah?” Timmy bites his bottom lip as he smiles, suddenly feeling shy.

“Yes, baby, I loved it. I love you, and you… Still haven’t come.”

Timmy looks down at his dick as if he just realized that it was there, and in a way that wasn’t too far from the truth, since he’d been trying his very best to forget all about it as he focused on getting Armie off without blowing his load too early and ruin everything.

“Oh, right. You said I wasn’t allowed.” He shrugs, smiling to himself as it makes Armie groan, and he can see Armie’s dick helplessly twitch against his stomach.

“You’re too good to me Timmy, f*ck.” Armie sits up properly, since he’d slid down the bed a little when he came, he traces Timmy’s bottom lip with his thumb and Timmy lets the tip of his tongue poke out to meet Armie’s finger, making them both shudder. “f*ck baby, I’m gonna give you the best org*sm of your life.”

Next thing Timmy knows, he’s flat on his back on the bed with Armie’s grinning face hovering over him, he can see out of the corner of his eye that Armie is reaching for the lube again, and for half a second he wonders if maybe Armie was going to use the sounds on him now. But even though he hears the bottle of lube open and close, none of it is used on him. “What’re… Armie?”

Timmy props himself up on his elbow and looks down to see what Armie is doing, and what he sees takes his breath away. Because Armie hadn’t planned to use the sounds on him at all, no, he’s currently got his fingers inside himself, working himself open.

“sh*t, Armie, are you...” Timmy groans, falling back down on the bed, panting for breath. He startles a little when he feels Armie touching his hip, but he lifts his head back up and lets Armie capture his lips in a kiss.

Armie pulls back from their kiss to suck in a quick breath, and Timmy can’t help himself from sitting up and reaching behind Armie to feel where his fingers are disappearing inside of himself. Even though his fingers aren’t lubed at all, Armie grabs his hand and guides one of his fingers up inside him alongside two of his own.

“f*ck, Armie.” Timmy pants out, feeling Armie clench down on their fingers before Timmy lets his slide back out to give Armie enough room to get himself ready.

“That’s the plan, yes.” Armie says with a wink, and Timmy shakes his head with a laugh.

“God, you nerd.”

“Your nerd, though.” Armie says softly, placing a chaste kiss to Timmy’s lips.

“Yeah, mine.” Timmy whispers, kissing Armie’s cheek. “And I’m yours.”

“Mine.” Armie nods, slowly pulling his fingers out and reaches up under his pillow in search of the condom packet they left there the other night. He lets out a triumphant noise indicating he’d found one, and he quickly opens it and starts rolling it down Timmy’s dick.

The fact that Timmy didn’t immediately come the second Armie’s hands were on him was nothing short of a miracle, because he’s so close to the edge that he hysterically starts to wonder if maybe he’s so far gone that he’s not even going to be able to come at all.

Armie straddles Timmy’s lap and reaches behind himself to steady Timmy’s co*ck before he slowly starts to sink down on him, and Timmy feels like all the air is knocked out of his lungs the second his dick breaches Armie.

“sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, shiiiit.” Timmy clenches his eyes shut and focuses on his breathing, desperately trying to not come too fast. He knows he’s not going to last much longer, but he’d like to at least get to f*ck Armie for more than just half a second.

Armie lets out a moan when he’s taken Timmy’s dick all the way inside, and he slowly starts moving his hips, and Timmy reaches up and grabs Armie’s neck and pulls him down for a desperate kiss. They moan into each other’s mouths as Armie keeps moving his hips, letting Timmy’s co*ck slowly slide in and out of him. Then Armie clenches down, and Timmy can’t hold back any longer, practically screaming as he feels the org*sm pulse through his entire body.

It’s like his f*cking soul comes shooting out through his co*ck, and he’s pretty sure he even blacked out for half a second, or at the very least he came so hard his brain literally shut down. He lays on his back, blinking slowly as he mindlessly stares up at the ceiling, panting harder than he has his entire goddamn life.

“Did I break you?” Armie asks, and Timmy can perfectly picture the amused look on his face, but he literally can’t get himself to answer just yet, because the only thing that comes out when he opens his mouth is another groan. Armie huffs out a laugh and kisses him on the cheek. “It’s okay, baby, you deserve to just lie there and chill. I’ll go get something to clean us up with.”

Timmy throws his arm over his face when he hears Armie leave the room, he feels so f*cking good, but also more exhausted than he remembers being in a long, long time. He startles a little when he feels Armie carefully take the condom off of his very spent dick, but Armie chuckles and kisses his hip.

“Is your brain back online yet?” Armie asks, poking his finger into his belly button making Timmy laugh. He lets his arm fall back down on the bed and pushes himself to sit up. Armie is sitting on his knees in front of him, holding the washcloth in his hand, and Timmy leans forward to kiss him.

Armie starts to move the washcloth down his back, before he brings it back up to wipe the sweat away from the back of his neck, Timmy lifts his arm when Armie asks him to, and closes his eyes with a pleased sigh as he lets Armie clean every inch of him.

Armie had already cleaned himself when he was in the bathroom, or Timmy would have loved to return the favor. He doesn’t know why, but the clean up is almost just as good as the sex itself, he just really loves the feeling of closeness it brings with it.

They cuddle up under the sheets, with Timmy resting his head on Armie’s chest, pressing a soft kiss right above his heart. “I love you.” Timmy whispers, and he smiles as he feels Armie’s arm tighten around his waist.

“I love you too, baby, so much.”

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

While they’re in the middle of making breakfast the next morning, Armie’s phone buzzes on the counter, and he frowns as he picks it up and reads it. “Ugh, Peter.” He says with a roll of his eyes. “He wants to know if we’re available for that Skype call now.”

To be honest, between filming, and not to mention the amazing sex they’d been having recently, Timmy had kind of forgotten about the whole Peter thing, and he definitely wasn’t looking forward to seeing his face again. But then he had signed that contract, so it’s not as if they had much of a choice.

Besides, dealing with Peter he could handle, it was more the whole, not letting him know that he and Armie had actually become a real couple since the last time they spoke thing, that was going to be difficult.

How would they even act if they were just friends?

Timmy had literally no idea, but keeping his hands to himself was probably a safe bet, because he really didn’t want Peter to find out the truth. Just like he’d told Armie a few days ago, Peter didn’t deserve to know, he would get to plan their public lives for the next two years, no way in hell they were going to give him any insights into their private life as well.

It was going to be really weird though, pretending to not be dating Armie, while at the same time being lectured on the best ways to make the rest of the world believe that he is dating Armie, just so that they could accurately fake the relationship they’re currently in.

“Oh, right, yeah. I kinda forgot about that.”

“You forgot.” Armie deadpans, looking at Timmy with a smile of disbelief. “Just about the Skype call, or literally the whole entire fake relationship thing?”

“Both.” Timmy said with a shrug, making Armie snort out a laugh. “It’s just weird, you know? Like, he’s no doubt going to say all these things that we have to do to accurately sell ourselves and our ‘fake’ relationship, but it’s probably all just going to be stuff I’d want to do with you regardless?”

And then there was the whole issue with Timmy literally being paid to do all those things, and now that they actually were a couple, that just seemed… Wrong. On so many levels. It’s not that he doesn’t need the money, because, f*ck, he really does, but at the same time, who gets paid to go out with their boyfriend?

Armie lightly scratches the stubble on his chin, a thoughtful look on his face. “Yeah, true. I guess we could just tell him the truth.”

“No, definitely not, f*ck that. I said it before, but that f*cking asshole doesn’t deserve to know. Not after everything he’s put you through over the years. We are not going to give him this, it’s ours, and no one else’s.” Timmy walks over to where Armie is standing and takes his hand, lacing their fingers together and lifting it up to rest on Armie’s chest, right on top of his heart. “I really don’t care what the rest of the world is going to believe, I only care about you.”

“I love you, too.” Armie says with a soft smile, leaning down for a quick kiss. “And thank you, honestly, I… I’m still really sorry you’ve been dragged into this whole thing, but, I really wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”

Armie taps out a text to Peter on his phone and then goes to get his laptop, leaving the rest of the breakfast prep up to Timmy, not that it was difficult, since they were literally just making sandwiches. Timmy could definitely handle making sandwiches.

“Best to just get it over with, I suppose.” Armie says as he comes walking back into the kitchen, carrying his laptop underneath his arm.

“So, no touching?”

“No touching.” Timmy repeats with a nod, it was going to suck, but it was for the best. No way in hell they were going to give Peter the satisfaction of knowing the truth about their relationship.

Timmy puts the finishing touches on the sandwiches and carries them over to the kitchen table while Armie boots the laptop up, and starts Skype. Not even five seconds later, the annoying Skype call jingle rings out, and Armie rolls his eyes as he clicks to accept the call.

Peter’s grinning face soon takes up the majority of the laptop screen, and Timmy instantly loses his appetite, and shoves his plate to the side, to hopefully eat later. If his appetite returned in time, that is, which was kinda doubtful.

“Armie, Timothy, nice to see you again.” Peter says with an extremely obvious fake cheerfulness to his voice. And it’s not that Timmy expected him to have bothered learning his name since the last time, but it still annoyed him more than it probably should have, that he literally didn’t seem to care that he was getting it wrong in the first place, despite Armie having corrected him, several times by now.

“First of all, I would like to thank you for your willingness to take and upload photos to the Dropbox we set up.”

Armie scoffs at that, rolling his eyes again. “Sure, cause we had so much say in the matter.”

“Now, Armie, no need to be sarcastic. You know we’re doing this for you.”

If looks could kill, Peter would be a dead man by now, and Timmy wants nothing more than to reach out and stroke Armie’s back to calm him down, but he kept his hands to himself just like they had agreed – no touching in front of Peter.

“Whatever, man. Can you just get to the point of this whole call please? We don’t have all day.” Armie sighs, running a hand through his hair. He doesn’t seem too keen on eating his sandwich either, clearly Timmy wasn’t the only one feeling sick to his stomach at the sight of Peter’s face.

“Of course, I am aware of your schedule, Armie.” Peter said saccharinely, and Timmy had to really fight with himself to not roll his eyes at him. “But very well. We’ve started talking about what we’re going to do when filming ends, like what the first steps of introducing your relationship to the world should be. And we’ve come to a conclusion on how we’re going to slowly introduce you, Timmy, to Armie’s audience, as more than just a co-star or friend.”

“Right, so what’s the plan then?” Armie says in a bored tone, Timmy knows he’s doing it on purpose to try and get on Peter’s nerves, and he can’t say he blames him. It doesn’t seem like Peter cares too much about Armie’s lack of enthusiasm though, because he just continues on, fake grin very much still in place.

“What we want you to do, Armie, is to talk about how shooting this movie completely changed your life, but we don’t want you to mention it by name just yet, so that people will have some time to speculate about the meaning of your words. Where we want you to do this, is at the New York premiere of Nocturnal Animals, because it will give us some time to keep building your social media profiles and making it easier for people to connect the dots.”

Peter smiles sweetly over at Timmy before launching into the next part of his explanation, and Timmy finds himself having to focus his eyes on a spot just above Peter’s shoulder to keep from being too weirded out at the forced eye contact. “Another reason, obviously, is that since it’s in New York, we’re going to have you papped together a few days later. Just going out for coffee or something, we haven’t quite decided yet, just to, you know, keep the speculation going. And with that, we’re really going to start to seed the idea of you being more than just friends to your fans.”

“Wait, what? I’m sorry, I don’t… Seed? I don’t understand what you mean by that.”

“Well, Timothy, think of it like this.” Timmy really couldn’t hold back the eye roll as Peter once again made zero effort to get his name right, but he also really wanted to hear the explanation, so he kept his mouth shut. “The idea of you being a couple is like a flower seed, and we are going to plant that seed into the brains of your fans, then we are going to carefully water it, until it grows roots, and then we’re going to watch it blossom into a beautiful flower.”

Timmy blinks slowly at Peter’s smirking face, before shaking his head in disbelief, because honestly, that had to be the dumbest metaphor he’d ever heard in his entire life.

“Riiight…” Armie said, staring at Peter as if he’d just claimed that the sky was green. “And how exactly do you suggest we do that?”

“You guys just leave that up to us, it’s mostly going to be lowkey work. Such as planting the idea of you spending a lot of time together by using a few cultivated sockpuppet accounts on Twitter to tweet that they’ve seen you together, possibly acting flirty. Then we’ll send some anonymous messages to the bigger fan accounts on Tumblr, asking what they think about the rumors surrounding your relationship, just to create rumors about your relationship. You know, that type of thing.”

Timmy can’t deny that despite the whole ridiculous flower metaphor, it actually sounded like a pretty solid plan. Probably not the best plan, but it would most likely work just fine, and he’s not really sure how he feels about that.

On one hand, it’s great, because that is literally the reason they’re doing all this in the first place, to get people talking. But also, he didn’t actually want Peter to be good at his job. He does want Armie to be able to change his image though, and he definitely wants to come out with him, to get to be with him, and show everyone just how badly they’d misjudged him.

But still, it would have been nice if Peter could’ve just failed miserably, and Armie still got to have his happy ending.

Apparently Peter has kept talking this entire time, and Timmy just zoned out on him, because when he returns his attention to the conversation, Peter is in the middle of a sentence, but it doesn’t really sound like he’s missed anything really important. Because f*ck if Peter doesn’t love the sound of his own voice a little too much.

“Now, naturally what’s going to be important in doing all that, is having your social media accounts reflect what the rumors are. Say we have one of our accounts tweet that they saw you out together in Los Angeles, then we really can’t have Timmy’s account post pictures from New York. You’ve been really good with letting the social media team do it’s job so far, and we’re going to need you to keep it that way.”

Not that Timmy really missed Instagram all that much right now, he knew it was going to be different when he went back home. Because now he was busy with filming, and when they weren’t filming, he was either hanging out at Luca’s, having sex with Armie, or sleeping, which definitely didn’t leave a lot of time for posting much of anything, anywhere.

But, after filming was over, and he was back to his usual routine, then yeah, Instagram had definitely featured quite heavily in his pre-Armie days. He really didn’t want to f*ck up the plan though, but he also didn’t want to be bored out of his mind just because he wasn’t allowed to be on his own goddamn profile.

Luckily he still had his second account, and it was looking more and more likely that he was going to have to revamp that and make it into a proper profile for himself and his friends and family. Where he could still post pictures of whatever the f*ck he wanted, without it having to be approved by strangers, based on whether or not it went against their narrative.

“We’re also going to write you a little bit of a script to follow, just so that you don’t forget any of the details, so it’s important that you both take the time to memorize that when the time comes.”

Armie lets out a sigh and rubs his hands across his face, looking like he’s aged about 10 years in the last 20 minutes. “You don’t think all of this is just, a little bit too much?”

“Not at all!” Peter fake exclaims, and Timmy can’t help but wonder if anything about him is genuine at all, he doubts it, probably the only thing that’s not fake about him is the fact that he’s a greedy asshole. “This is important groundwork, Armie, you should know that by now. Especially considering everything that’s been happening with Taylor Swift and her most recent fauxmance. You have got to be able to keep your stories straight, because if the story of how you met and fell in love changes every time you tell it, then no matter what we do, it won’t be enough.”

“Yeah… Okay, whatever you say.” Armie shrugs, and Peter sends him a satisfied nod, seemingly not caring that Armie was anything but enthused.

“Obviously this is just the start of everything, eventually we are going to need you to show up at events together, premieres, maybe do some ad campaigns, that sort of stuff. But we can discuss that further when you’re back in America.”

The conversation winds down after that, and Armie manages to get Peter to hang up surprisingly quickly, considering everything. Timmy had worried they’d have to sit through at least another hour of him talking, and talking, and talking, because the dude literally never shut up.

“You know, that honestly wasn’t as bad as I thought.” Timmy says as he wraps his and Armie’s sandwiches in plastic and puts them into the fridge, safe to say their appetites hadn’t made much of a comeback during that conversation.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Like.. I don’t know. Maybe I just expected it to be worse?” Timmy shrugs, walking over to Armie and wrapping his arms around his waist, leaning against him and smiling as Armie wraps his arms around his shoulders with a light squeeze. “But… Like, even if I hadn’t fallen for you, I don’t think any of that sounds like something I’d hate to do in order to help you out.”

“Yeah, but Timmy, that’s barely the tip of the iceberg right there.”

“True, true.” Timmy takes a step back and looks up at Armie’s face, sending him a soft smile as he reaches up to gently stroke his cheek with his thumb. “Still, I got you out of all of this, so, no matter the sh*t they throw at us, it’s gonna be worth it.”

“Yeah?” The smile that breaks out on Armie’s face is so beautiful that that it almost renders Timmy speechless, and he really doesn’t understand how on earth he got to be this lucky.

“Definitely. I love you, you’re worth everything, and more.”

“I love you too, so much.” Armie breathes out, before capturing Timmy’s lips in a chaste, but loving kiss. “You don’t even know how happy you make me.”

It’s pouring down with rain as they arrive at Luca’s house, they’d arranged to meet up there and then travel together to the monument for today’s shoot, but, clearly the weather had other plans. Luca declares with a frustrated sigh that all they can do is wait, and hope the rain passes quickly, so that they could at least get some filming done while it was still daylight.

But, as the hours pass by and the rain just keeps falling, it’s looking less and less likely.

In the meantime, the entire cast and quite a few of the crew, have relocated to Luca’s living room to watch some movies. Luca has the biggest collection of DVD’s and VHS tapes that Timmy has ever seen in his life, he wouldn’t at all be surprised to learn that literally every single movie ever made was in his collection.

They’re currently watching Basic Instinct, because it had been Victoire’s turn to choose the movie, and apparently it was a must watch, a classic. Armie had stepped out for a cigarette right before the movie started, and Victoire had gleefully stolen his seat as he left the room.

“I almost never get to spend time with you, Timmy.” She said with a wide grin as he’d raised a questioning eyebrow at her, and it’s not like he could argue with that. They barely had any scenes together, and he spent all of his non filming time wrapped up with Armie.

She cuddled up to him and let her head rest on his shoulder as they started the movie, Armie came in about fifteen minutes later, and furrowed his brows as he saw that his spot next to Timmy had been taken.

“Guess you’re gonna have to sit with me.” Esther said with a laugh, patting the sofa next to her.

Armie shoots Victoire a glare, but doesn’t say anything as he goes and sits down next to Esther, crossing his arms in front of him. Timmy can hear Victoire let out a barely audible snort at Armie’s behavior, but she doesn’t move from her spot, still resting her head on Timmy’s shoulder.

The movie is engaging enough that Timmy completely loses track of time, until he hears Victoire snoring, and he looks down to see that she’s fallen asleep on him. He looks over at Armie and catches his eyes as he’s already staring at them, with what can only be described as a pout on his face. Timmy sends him a sheepish smile, and a shrug, as if to say “What can you do?” and Armie just shakes his head, but he does send him a small smile, at least for a few seconds, before he goes back to pouting.

Next up is Esther’s turn to pick the movie, and she chooses, of all things, Die Hard 3.

“What? I thought we were watching the classics, this is a classic.” She said when pretty much everyone raised their eyebrows at her.

The last time Timmy watched Die Hard 3, he’d been way too young to appreciate, or even understand it, so he completely loses himself in watching Bruce Willis – with hair!! – run around New York with Samuel L. Jackson. At least until he hears Victoire let out a loud yawn, and sit up, stretching her arms out in front of her.

Not even three seconds later, Armie is there, telling her to please move. “Wow, really?” She says through a yawn.

“Yes, really. My boyfriend, not yours.” Victoire just snorts, but she does stand up to let Armie have her seat, and he immediately slings his arm around Timmy’s shoulder, pulling him in for a quick kiss.

“You guys are so gross, anyone ever tell you that?” Victoire says with a laugh. “Like seriously, there’s being in love, and then there’s you two.”

“You’re just jealous” Timmy says, sticking his tongue out at her, making her laugh even harder.

“You’re damn right I am! I f*cking wish I could find someone who’d pout through an entire movie just cause he didn’t get to sit next to me.”

“Wait… Were you awake the entire time?” Timmy asks in disbelief. He was so sure she’d been asleep, and it’s not that he didn’t know she was a good actor, but, she really had him fooled.

“You can’t prove anything.” Victoire winks, cackling to herself at the look on Armie’s face as she goes to sit next to Esther.

Armie keeps grumbling under his breath until Timmy rests his head on his shoulder, and they continue watching Bruce Willis f*ck sh*t up and ultimately save the day.

“I love this, you know.” Timmy says softly as the movie ends, and it’s Luca’s turn to choose what they watch. “Just spending time together, all of us. I’m really gonna miss this when we’re done filming.”

“Yeah.” Armie smiles, pressing a kiss to the top of Timmy’s head. “It’s going to be really hard to say goodbye to of all of this, I don’t know if I’ll ever really be ready to let it go.”

“I’m just glad I don’t have to let go of you.”

“f*ck, yeah, me too. I love you.”

“Love you too.” Timmy whispers, smiling over at Luca as he pours them all a glass of wine each, and puts on the movie, loudly explaining why it’s one of his favorites and what they should be sure to look out for.

Luca keeps his explaining which scenes are the important ones, and which ones he wished he’d be able to recreate the feeling of someday, even though by now, practically everyone has fallen asleep. It’s really endearing, Timmy thinks, how much Luca truly loves movies. Not just watching them, but creating them.

He sits up to say that to Armie, but finds him softly snoring with his head tipped back on the sofa, and he just smiles, snuggling back up into his side, and continues watching the movie until he falls asleep as well.

They’d relocated to one of Luca’s guest bedrooms sometime during the night, Armie had woken him up and guided him into a bed, so Timmy isn’t really sure which room they’re in, exactly. But there’s a bed, which is the most important part.

When Timmy wakes up the next day, he feels… Weird. There’s really no other way to explain it. Something is definitely not quite right, he feels sort of like he’s only halfway inside of his body, as well as halfway floating outside it, while at the same time, feeling vaguely like he’s inside a cotton ball.

It’s just, weird.

He can’t remember ever having felt like this before, even his ears are feeling funny, and he keeps being able to hear himself breathe inside of his head, which is definitely not something he’s used to.

And on top of all of that, he feels ridiculously weak, and surprisingly tired. Like instead of resting as he slept last night, he’d been out running thousands of miles or something. Definitely not the type of hangovers he usually gets, not that he drank all that much last night anyway, barely two glasses of wine, which really shouldn’t knock him on his ass quite as hard as this.

Figuring it’ll most likely pass during the day, Timmy gets up and joins the others for breakfast, not that he had much of an appetite, but he managed to eat at least a banana, and half a breakfast muffin.

Luckily it’s not raining today, so they quickly head on over to the set to start blocking out the scene. Luca had decided to follow Armie’s advice of doing it as a one shot, and the blush that spread across Armie’s face when Luca announced the fact that it was Armie’s idea, was so adorable that Timmy couldn’t help but start a round of applause for him, just to see it darken ever so slightly.

The scene proves more than a little difficult to get right, even just in blocking, they don’t want it to seem too contrived and fake, so no eyebrow acting, as Luca calls it. Timmy had no idea he even used his eyebrows that much, but now that he was barely allowed to move them at all, he had no idea what to do with his face.

They keep running through it, over and over and over, and they hadn’t even started filming it yet. At one point Timmy feels a wave of dizziness hit him, and he sits down on the closest available surface as he listens to Luca and Armie discuss camera angles and whatnot.

He’d been feeling a little better up until now, but the weird cotton ball feeling made it’s comeback with a vengeance. Luckily the dizziness passed, and he was back on his feet by the time Luca called for another quick run through of the scene before they started shooting it for real.

Timmy figures he must have stood up too quickly or something, because as Luca is in the middle of explaining how he wants them to approach it this time, black dots starts appearing in front of his eyes at the same time as his ears starts ringing.

The sound of Luca’s voice keeps getting further and further away, until eventually all Timmy can hear is a loud ringing noise, and not only that, the black dots had all merged together and he could barely see a damn thing anymore — only a tiny fleck of light shining through the darkness.

He tries to shake his head to get it to go away, but that just makes everything so much worse, and the last thing he hears before everything goes dark, is Armie’s voice screaming his name.

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

The first thing Timmy notices as he regains consciousness, is that the sun is really f*cking bright, the second thing is that the ground underneath him is a lot softer than he’d imagined.

Then he feels arms wrapped around him, and the scent of Armie’s aftershave hits his nose,which means that Armiemust have managed to catch him as he went down, and that the reason the ground is so soft, is that he’s currently lying against Armie’s chest in between his spread out legs.

Strangely enough, he feels a lot better now than he did before he passed out, his head is a lot clearer, his ears aren’t ringing, and the dizziness is completely gone. He tries to sit himself up a little better, but Armie just tightens his hold on him.

“Shh, babe, don’t move, okay? You passed out, we’re just waiting for the ambulance.”

Hearing the word ambulance, Timmy starts putting up a little more of a fight, because yes, he might have passed out, but, he didn’t need an ambulance. They had so much filming they still needed to get done today, and he was feeling fine now, he really didn’t need to go to the hospital.

“Luca! How long until the damn ambulance gets here?!” Armie calls out, and Timmy squints against the sunlight and barely manages to make out a blurry figure a little further down the street, that must be Luca.

“Ambulance?” Timmy croaks out, cursing the fact that his throat is so dry that he’s barely able to speak. “I don’t, Armie, I don’t need an ambulance.”

“Well, tough sh*t, you’re still getting one.”

Timmy shakes his head and starts fighting against Armie’s hold on him, trying to get up, but Armie doesn’t budge for a second, just tightens his grip on him even more until Timmy gives up, and lets his head rest back against Armie’s chest “I’m telling you, I don’t need it. I feel much better, honestly.”

“You’re going to the hospital, Timmy, okay? You f*cking passed out, we have to make sure you’re alright, I can’t… You scared us half to death, you know that right? I looked over at you, and you were so pale, even your lips were practically white! And I thought…. For a second, I thought…” Armie tightens his grip on him again, and lets out a deep sigh, before clearing his throat. “No, you don’t get to argue about this. You’re going to the f*cking hospital.”

“I’m sorry.” Timmy chokes out, feeling himself start to tear up, he’d never meant for any of this to happen, and he hates to think he’s worried anyone, but mostly he hates to think he’s worried Armie. “I never meant to scare you, but, I honestly do feel fine now.”

“You’re still going, and that’s final.” Luca said, appearing from out of f*cking nowhere, and startling Timmy so badly he let out a frightened squeak.

Normally, that would’ve made Armie laugh and poke fun at him, but now, all he does is put his hand on top of Timmy’s chest, feeling for his heartbeat, as if to reassure himself that it’s actually still there.

The ambulance arrives just a minute or two later, and Timmy has never been more embarrassed in his whole entire life. The way everyone is staring at him as he’s being wheeled into the back of the ambulance, God how he hates that. Normally, he doesn’t mind people watching him – kind of hard to be an actor if he doesn’t like to be looked at – but this is just, no. People are either flat out staring, or they’re whispering to each other, some even hold their phones up as if to take pictures – which honestly, what the f*ck?

There’s not enough room in the back of the ambulance for Armie and Luca to ride with him, so they’re going to follow in Luca’s car and meet him at the hospital. He can’t deny that he feels both very small, and very alone, as he sits on the gurney with the paramedic babbling at him in Italian.

He figures it might be important to know what the paramedic is actually saying, you know, just in case something actually was wrong. So he points to himself and smiles sheepishly. “Non parlo Italiano.” He really hopes he remembered the phrase right, it had been ages since Luca told him what to say in case he met someone who didn’t speak English and expected him to be fluent in Italian, when he’s very much not. He’s also pretty sure he definitely forgot some of the phrase, but hopefully he at least got the most important bit in there.

“Oh! English, okay?” The paramedic smiles at him, and he smiles back, gratefully.

According to the paramedic, she couldn’t see anything that would immediately need treatment, his heart was beating as it should, his blood pressure seemed okay, if a little low, so all they could do was to just wait and see what the doctors at the hospital would say after having done some more thorough tests. But at least he wasn’t in any imminent danger of dying, so there was that.

When they get to the hospital, he’s wheeled into a cubicle, where a couple of doctor’s are waiting, the paramedic says something in Italian and they all nod, and then he’s moved over to the hospital bed, and the paramedics leave.

“You American?” The doctor to his right asks, writing something down in his chart.

“Uhm, yeah?”

“Okay, then we will speak English.” The doctor nods, putting the chart down, and putting some gloves on. “Can you take your shirt off, please?”

Timmy just nods, and lifts his shirt up. His chest was still covered in those sticky things the paramedics had put on there, to connect him to the heart monitor, so the doctor carefully removes those – which f*cking sucked, oh my god – and then stuck new, slightly bigger ones on, and hooked him up to yet another heart monitor.

Listening to his heart beating, even if it was just electronic beeping, was really f*cking weird, and he couldn’t help but start feeling a little anxious. Which naturally made his heart beat faster, and the beeping followed suit, the quicker the beeping got the more embarrassed he felt, and again, the more his heart sped up.

It was a full on miserable circle of cause and effect.

“Try to relax, yes? I know it’s tough, but you’re in good hands here.”

He just nods again, smiling sheepishly up at the doctor as he tries to focus on his breathing to calm down, like his therapist had showed him about a hundred times. It takes a little while, but eventually he feels himself start to relax, and the beeping gets slower and slower until it’s at a much more regular rhythm.

“Good, you did good.” The doctor says with a smile. “We are going to give you some time to relax, and then we’re going to draw some blood, okay? You got any questions?”

Timmy goes to shake his head before he remembers that Armie and Luca aren’t here yet. Or, if they are here, they haven’t been let into his cubicle yet. If that was even allowed. “Uhm… Visitors? When are they, uh, allowed to come in?”

The doctor just smiles, pressing a couple of buttons on the heart monitor. “Your visitors will be allowed to come in once we’ve finished the first tests, but I will go talk to them now, so that they don’t worry too much about you.”

“Thanks, yeah, that’d be, yeah.” He knows that if the situation had been reversed, and it was Armie in the hospital with him in the waiting room, he’d be walking up the walls by now, worried sick, even though it had barely been 15 minutes.

A smiley nurse brings him a cup of orange juice and a magazine to read, which despite the magazine being in Italian, was really nice. It was only a tabloid anyway, so most the stories made perfect sense with only the pictures, and he couldn’t help but snort when he saw the pictures of Tom Hiddleston in his I heart T.S. tank top. That poor, poor man.

He really hoped Peter wouldn’t have him or Armie be papped wear anything similar, because even though he wouldn’t have any problems declaring to the world that he hearts A.H. it was just… No.

A new nurse comes in to take the blood tests, and he watches as vial after vial is filled, he doesn’t know why, but he’s always had a fascination with watching as they do these blood tests. Donating blood is even more interesting, even if he nearly shat himself the first time he saw the size of that particular needle.

After a little while, and a whole lot of boredom, the doctor comes back. And he's followed by a nurse carrying what looks to be a saline bag that she hangs up, and connects to the IV catheter that the paramedics had put in his hand earlier.

“We’ve got your results.” The doctor starts, and Timmy feels himself holding his breath as he waits for a bomb to drop. “Everything seems fine, apart from a mild case of dehydration, hence the fluids. The reason you passed out is most likely due to a dip in your blood pressure, probably caused by the heat and the aforementioned dehydration.”

“Oh.” Timmy frowns, that hadn’t been what he expected at all. He’d been hoping it was nothing serious, but at the same time, he’d kind of expected to be told that he would have to stay in the hospital for the foreseeable future. “So… What does that mean exactly? Like, am I free to go?”

“Not yet, I want you to stay until this bag is empty, and I’m going to need you to wear a blood pressure measuring device for the next 24 hours, on the off chance that it happens again. It looks like your standard blood pressure cuff, but it’s connected to a tiny receiver that logs your data, and we’ll go over those tomorrow. We have to rule out the option of your syncope episode being part of a larger problem.”

“Synco-- What now?” Timmy tilts his head in confusion and furrows his eyebrows, the doctor sends him a sheepish smiles and hurries to explain.

“Ah, my apologies, it’s medical speak for fainting.”

“Oh, right.” Timmy nods, that makes sense, doctors always did have to over complicate words, clearly that was a universal thing.

“So yes, after the nurse has fitted you with the blood pressure device, you will be free to leave. But you will have to come back again after 24 hours so that we can check the results.”

“Do I have to wear it while I’m sleeping?”

“Yes, you can take it off to change your clothes, of course, but in order for the results to be the most accurate, you will have to wear it for the entirety of those 24 hours.”

Timmy lets out a deep sigh, before he nods again, he can’t wait to tell Luca that they would have to put off filming for another 24 hours, just because he’d have to walk around with a f*cking blood pressure cuff just because he got a bit dizzy.

“I know, no one enjoys these things, but it’s important to be able to rule everything serious out. As it’s looking right now, you should be fine, as long as you keep hydrated and don’t skip any meals. It’s also important that you cool down if you feel yourself start to get too warm.”

"Yeah, thanks Doc, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

The doctor smiles and nods, then leaves him alone in his cubicle. When the smiley nurse comes back asking if he wants some more orange juice, he says he’d much rather have his visitors come in, if that’s okay. She comes back a few minutes later, carrying a cup of orange juice, followed by Armie and Luca.

Armie is too busy nervously biting at the skin around his finger nails to say much of anything, so Luca is the one to actually ask how he’s feeling.

“So, what did they say?” Armie blurts out, interrupting Timmy before he had the chance to even answer Luca’s question.

He knows they’re both really worried about him, which is really sweet, but he can’t stop himself from pulling a little prank on them, just to liven things up a bit. Because, honestly, everyone being so serious was making him a little uncomfortable.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but… I’m pregnant.”

Luca and Armie both just stand there, completely speechless, staring at him with their eyes widening in shock, as neither of them seem to remember that male pregnancy isn’t actually a thing.

Timmy barely manages to keep a straight face for more than a minute, before he bursts out laughing.“Oh god, your faces! You really thought?”

He cackles as both Luca and Armie seem to return to reality at the same time, shaking their heads at him. “Oh man.” Timmy giggles, wiping a tear from his eye.

“No, it wasn’t anything too serious, thank god. The doctor said it was most likely just a dip in my blood pressure, apparently. So the whole fainting thing was just that my brain didn’t get enough oxygen for a few seconds, and down I went.” He finishes with a shrug.

Before Luca or Armie can ask any further questions, the nurse returns with the dreaded blood pressure cuff. “Now, remember, you wear this for 24 hours. You don’t take it off until you come back here tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I got it.” Timmy nods, holding his arm out as the nurse wraps the cuff around his arm and starts the machine.

And then, as she checks the saline bag and confirms that it's empty, he’s free to go. After having been told, yet again, to not take the cuff off, and to return in 24 hours to review the results. Both Armie and Luca reassure the nurse that they’ll make sure he follows the rules, and Timmy give them both the stink eye, making the nurse laugh.

Before he gets into Luca’s car, Timmy turns to look at him, nervously scratching the back of his neck. “I’m really sorry about this, Luca. I… I never wanted to delay you even further.”

“Nonsense, Timmy. Your health is more important than any movie!” Luca says with a shake of his head, reaching out and giving Timmy’s shoulder a light squeeze. “So we’re delayed, it happens. We have a few rain days left in our schedule, it should be fine.”

He knows from experience that there is no arguing with Luca. Ever. If he says things are fine, then things are fine, doesn’t mean that Timmy feels any less responsible though. He wishes he could go back in time to last night and make sure he drank more water, not to mention that he probably should have made sure to eat some proper food, and not just salty snacks. Then maybe none of this would have happened, and they’d be filming at the berm by now.

It won’t help to get stuck on the what if’s though, what’s done is done, and he’s stuck with this stupid blood pressure cuff for the next 24 hours.

When they get back to Luca’s house, everyone is there waiting, so when Timmy steps out of the car, Esther comes running, immediately wrapping her arms around him in a hug.

“Are you okay?” She pulls back to cup his face with both hands, seemingly looking for any signs of injury. “When Luca said you were taken to the hospital, we thought…”

“I’m fine, I promise, I just fainted, that’s all.” Timmy smiles, and she hugs him again before letting him go. Victoire is next in line to check up on him, and she raises her eyebrow before slapping his shoulder with the back of her hand.

“I thought you promised you wouldn’t worry me like that anymore, you dick!” And then she wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him in for a hug. “f*ck, Timmy, you’re seriously going to start giving me gray hairs.”

Then it’s Michael’s turn for a hug, then Amira, then Lara from hair and make up, and so it went until Timmy is pretty sure he’s hugged every single person that’s ever been on set. It was really nice that they all worried, but at the same time, he can’t help but feel a little bit stupid. He worried them all, delayed the movie, and for what?

But again, what’s done is done. Doesn’t mean he’ll stop beating himself up about it completely though.

Everyone decides to make the most out of their sudden day off, and Luca, with a little help from Amira, cooks up a truly impressive lunch. Timmy eats so much food he’s about three seconds away from exploding, so it’s safe to say he’s more than made up for not eating enough at breakfast.

The rest of the day is spent lazing around in Luca’s backyard. Some chill out by the pool, occasionally getting in to swim some laps, others decide to sunbathe on the porch, while others prefer to sunbathe on the grass lawn. Some sunbathe while reading a book, others just straight up fall asleep under the guise of sunbathing.

Timmy does a little bit of everything, but he makes sure to go cool off in the pool every once in a while, as well as keeping himself hydrated. He’s drank so much water in the past few hours it’s a wonder he hasn’t had to pee yet.

Throughout the day, Armie is keeping himself remarkably distant, at first Timmy didn’t really notice, since everyone was crowding around him to make sure that he actually was okay. But the more time passes, the more obvious it gets that Armie is genuinely avoiding him. He doesn’t even make a fuss when Esther and Victoire each take a seat next to Timmy at the dinner table.

“What’s up with Armie?” Timmy asks Luca a little later, when they all start relocating indoors to watch some movies. He’s seen Armie talking to Luca several times so far today, so if anyone would know what’s going on with him, it's Luca.

“Ah, you really scared him, caro. He probably just needs time to, whatchasay, process.”

Timmy just shrugs, but doesn’t argue with him, it’s not really what he wanted to hear, but then he can’t really fault Luca for not betraying Armie’s confidence. If he even shared anything in the first place, which you never know with Armie.

He goes to sit next to Esther on the two-seater, and when he sits down she turns her head and raises an eyebrow at him. He just nods his head towards were Armie is sitting next to Michael and Luca on the other side the room, and she shrugs and pulls him in for a cuddle.

They watch a couple of movies in a row before Amira gets up to start making some popcorn, and while everyone is busy either going to the bathroom, or going to the kitchen to get some snacks or drinks, Timmy sees Armie popping out for a smoke, and decides to follow him, maybe now they’ll get the chance to finally talk.

“You’re avoiding me.” He says to Armie’s back, watching a large cloud of smoke appear above his head as he exhales.

“No, I’m not.” Armie says with a shake of his head, but he doesn’t turn around, or even make the effort to look at Timmy as he speaks.

“Bullsh*t, then how come you can’t even look at me right now?” Timmy wishes his voice didn’t give away how hurt he actually was, but at the same time, Armie needed to know that his actions did have consequences. And right now, the consequences were that he was making Timmy feel like sh*t. “What’s going on? Armie, baby, please, talk to me?”

Armie sighs and runs a hand through his hair, but he still doesn’t turn around. “Nothing’s wrong, Timmy, just… I don’t feel like talking right now, go back inside.”

“No, I’m not leaving until you talk to me! Something is obviously bothering you, so, please.” Timmy takes a few steps to bring him a little closer to Armie, and reaches his hand out to gently squeeze his shoulder. But instead of reacting as he normally does, Timmy’s touch makes him flinch away.

“Would you just back the f*ck off?!” Armie shouts as he finally turns around, throwing his hands out in frustration, and hitting Timmy right in the chest, making him lose his balance and fall flat on his ass.

It’s not that Armie actually pushes him all that hard, but Timmy wasn’t expecting it, so when he takes a step backward to try and stabilize himself, he only finds air, and down he goes.

Once the shock of falling down wears off, he looks up at Armie, who is staring right back at him, shock and devastation warring on his face. But despite that, he doesn’t offer up any apologies, and he doesn’t try to help Timmy back up either, which is when Timmy starts to get pissed off.

“Right.” He says quietly, carefully standing up and dusting himself off. “f*ck you too, then.”

Timmy slams the door shut as he leaves Armie outside on his own, he runs into Luca and apologizes for leaving so abruptly, and then he’s out the door, starting the walk back to his apartment. He kinda doubts Armie is going to come after him, and right now that’s probably for the best, because Timmy needs some time to cool off before he says things he might regret.

He always did tend to get a little hot headed when it came to arguments and fights. So yeah, a cooling off period was probably for the best, even though it f*cking sucked.

Just as he can vaguely make out their apartment in the distance, his phone rings in his pocket, he fishes it out and squints down at the screen. It’s still cracked from where he dropped it in the woods that time, so he can barely make out who the person calling him is – which, he really needs to get that fixed. As he squints a little more, he can barely make out the word Nick, which makes him frown, why the f*ck is Nick calling him?

“Nick? Why’re you… Oh.”

He hears a snort at the other end, and he has half a mind to just hang up, but he doesn’t, just on the off chance that Nick actually has something important to say. “Yeah. Hello to you, too.”

“Right… So…” If Nick could get to the point, that would be great, because to tell the truth, he’s so far down on the list of people Timmy wants to talk to right now, that he doesn’t even rank.

“Yeah well, basically, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’m calling on behalf of our mutual, uh, friend, to make sure you’re alright.”

This time it’s Timmy turn to snort. “And he couldn’t call, or even f*cking talk to me in the first place, because?”

“He’s scared.” Nick sighs, and Timmy rolls his eyes at him – thanking his lucky stars that this wasn’t a FaceTime call – because believe it or not, he already had that part figured out.

The question was, why was he scared, and why, instead of talking to Timmy about it, did he decide to shut him out, even after promising that they’d always be honest with each other and to always talk about difficult stuff.

“Okay?”

“He told me he told you about Dylan.” Which wasn’t at all what Timmy expected to hear right now, what the f*ck did Dylan have to do with any of this?

When it becomes clear that Nick isn’t going to say anything else, Timmy adds a quick, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. So he’s… Uhm… He loves you, you know.” Timmy rolls his eyes again, because yes, he’s aware, that really doesn’t change anything about this situation though, and if Nick isn’t actually going to offer up any useful information, he’s going to hang up.

“Okay, and?”

“And he’s scared, he lost himself so completely in that relationship, and when it ended, well, you know.”

That brings Timmy to a halt, because what does that even mean? Is Armie worried that he’s losing himself in Timmy too? That Timmy is going to somehow turn around and betray him, or what the f*ck is Nick even saying? “I don’t understand. I’m not Dylan.”

Infuriatingly enough, all Nick has to say to that is a simple, “I know” and Timmy is literally three seconds away from just throwing his phone to the ground. It’s already cracked to hell and back, so it wouldn’t even matter.

“Yeah, well, the question is then, does he?”

“Of course he does, Timmy! Don’t even think that, this isn’t… He’s not scared because he thinks you’re secretly an asshole, he’s scared because… He hasn’t thought about the possibility of losing you, until today.”

And with that, all air goes whooshing out of Timmy’s lungs, and he has to sit down before he faints again. Luckily he’s made it to the apartment now, so he can sit down on the front steps, instead of in the middle of the street.

“Oh...”

“Yeah.”

After the initial shock settles, Timmy feels himself getting angry again, because if that’s really all it is, then why does he have to hear it from Nick, of all people.

“No offense, but, why the f*ck couldn’t he say that to me himself? Why do I have to hear it from you?”

“Yeah, dude, I don’t, he’s…” Nick breaks himself off with a sigh. “He does this sometimes, when he’s overwhelmed, he just… Withdraws into himself. Only reason he even called me, is because he made a promise in therapy, you know, back then.”

If Timmy wasn’t already sitting down, being reminded of what happened with Armie after Dylan, would definitely bring him to his knees. Ice cold anxiety starts to radiate through his veins, and he can only imagine the kind of readings that blood pressure cuff is picking up right about now. “I’m not gonna lie, you’re scaring me a little, is he… Is he okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry, Luca is there with him right now, he has someone to talk to.” Nick reassures him, and he can feel himself breathe a little easier. “It’s actually why he made me call you, to make sure that you’re not alone.”

“Right, yeah, okay.” Timmy shakes his head, talk about f*cking emotional whiplash, he feels like he’s been all over the place emotionally in the span of less than 30 minutes. He couldn’t f*cking wait to explain these results to the doctor the next day.

“You sure you’re alright?”

“Hah, lets just say, if I get admitted to the hospital tomorrow because my blood pressure is going crazy, you know who to blame.” He chuckles humorlessly, and he hears Nick suck in a quick breath.

“I’m sorry, Timmy. I really am.”

“It’s not your fault.” Timmy sighs, scratching his nose. “It’s not really Armie’s fault either, but, I just wish… I wish he’d talk to me, you know? Not you, not Luca, me. Is that… Is that selfish?”

In any other situation he’d probably be embarrassed at how his voice cracks on that last word, but with everything that had happened today, he was so far passed the point of giving a sh*t that he couldn’t even see it anymore.

“Not at all!” Nick reassures him. “In fact I told him the same thing, but he’s… Well, you know him by now, and when he gets like this? He’s his own worst enemy, and he’s too worked up to listen to reason right now. I’m sure Luca will talk some sense into him though, if anyone can manage to get through his thick skull, it’s probably him.”

Timmy wipes away a few tears that has started falling down his cheeks, as he lets out a wet sounding laugh, definitely no way of disguising the fact that he was crying now. But he knows Nick is right, if anyone could talk sense into Armie right now, it would be Luca. “Yeah, you’re right. I still… I just wish it didn’t have to be like this, you know?”

“You and me both, but in a way… I mean, uhm, I don’t want to say it’s good that any of this happened, but, I am kind of glad, in a weird way, that you got to see for yourself just how badly Dylan managed to f*ck him up. Because at least this way, you actually know what it is you’re getting yourself into, being with him.”

Timmy fully understands where Nick is coming from, but even with all this, he wouldn’t trade Armie for the world. He loves him, warts and all.

“I get what you’re trying to say, I do, but… I wouldn’t call him f*cked up, I mean, we all have scars right? And love takes work, but that’s what makes it worth it, or so I’ve been told.” He adds with a little laugh, hoping to lighten the mood at least a little, because dammit, he was so tired of being upset.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He can practically hear Nick smiling through the phone. “For what it’s worth though? I’m really glad he found you.”

If anyone ever told him that Nick would ever give him a compliment, that would actually make him cry real tears of gratitude, Timmy would have thought they’d had one too many drinks, but here he was, tears welling up in his eyes as he desperately tries to clear his throat to talk.“Thanks, I- I mean, just… Thank you.”

He wipes at his eyes with the bottom of his t-shirt, wrinkling his nose as the wet fabric hits his skin, but when you don’t have sleeves to dry your tears on, you’ll have to make do. “Will you… You’re gonna call him after this right? That was the plan?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you please tell him that I love him?”

“Of course I will.” Nick promises, and Timmy sends the empty street a grateful smile, feeling another tear roll down his cheek, but he doesn’t bother doing anything to wipe it away. “Take care of yourself, Timmy, yeah?”

And with that, Nick hangs up, leaving Timmy alone with his thoughts. He’s far too keyed up to go to sleep now, and could probably benefit from taking a little walk to burn off some of that excess energy. But, he has no plans to further tempt fate today, because the way his day has gone so far, if he went on that walk, he’d probably fall into a ditch and break both his legs.

Instead, he goes inside, and makes himself a cup of tea. Luckily it helps with calming him down, and after watching a re-run of Friends – dubbed into Italian with no subtitles – Timmy finally feels tired enough to go to bed.

Instead of using his own pillow, he switches it out for Armie’s. He falls asleep with Armie's comforting scent surrounding him, and a small smile on his face.

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

For the first time in a while, Timmy wakes up alone. He’d kind of forgotten how big the bed actually was, when it didn’t have Armie sprawling all over it, and he hopes it’s not something he’s going to have to remember for long.

Eating breakfast by himself is just as boring as it’s always been, but that’s something he’s always been used to, even back when he still lived at home, they never ate breakfast together like the families on TV always did. Who the f*ck actually had the time for that in the morning?

His phone rings as he’s in the middle of getting dressed after a quick shower, and because he was a genius and left his phone in the living room, he barely manages to reach his phone in time before it cuts over to his voicemail. So he doesn’t have the time to actually check the call ID.

“Yeah?” He answers, more out of breath than he’d like to admit, considering the apartment wasn’t actually that large.

“Timmy, good, you’re awake.” Luca’s loud voice comes through the receiver, making Timmy wince as he’s forced to hold the phone about an inch from his ear in order to not go deaf. “You are going to the hospital soon, yes?”

“Yeah, I’m getting ready leave right now, actually.”

“Do you want company?” Judging by the overly innocent tone Luca is employing, Timmy knows he’s trying to pull one over on him, so instead of just accepting the offer, Timmy lets out a suspicious hum.

“Do you mean you, or Armie?”

Luca chuckles nervously before answering. “Both, he really wants to see you.”

It’s not that Timmy doesn’t want to see Armie, because he does, he really does, just… He wants them to be able to have the privacy to talk, which they definitely won’t at the hospital, so it’s better to wait.

“No, sorry. I’ll just go alone, I don’t… I don’t want the first time I see him, after all this, to be at the hospital, you know? I’ll come by your house later, when I’m done.”

“You sure? You shouldn’t have to go on your own.” Luca sounds genuinely concerned for him, which is sweet, but unnecessary. Before Italy, and before Armie, he did everything on his own, always. It’s not like it was the first time he’d gone to the hospital on his own for a check up.

“It’s fine. I mean, I’m used to it, I do most things on my own anyway.” Timmy says with a shrug, and Luca lets out a quiet sigh, making him frown. “What?”

“You’re not alone anymore, caro. You have people that love you.”

“I’ve always had that, Luca. Doesn’t really change anything does it? I’ll see you after my appointment.” And with that, he hangs up.

He knows Luca means well, and he’s endlessly grateful that he cares enough about him, and Armie for that matter, to want to fix things between them. But at the same time, their relationship, and their problems, is not for him to meddle in. What Timmy does, or does not want to do, is ultimately no one’s choice but his own.

But at the same time, he knows that if he was in Luca’s shoes, he’d probably be doing the exact same thing, and it’s not like he can be mad at Luca for caring about his well being, emotional and otherwise. He just… He’s already given Peter full control of his public life, he doesn’t need to give up control of his personal life as well.

Some choices still had to be left for him to make on his own, and if something as simple as choosing to go to the hospital by himself was one of those choices, then so be it. It might not be a great choice, but dammit, at least he made it.

When he gets to the hospital he registers at the front desk, where they take his monitor off and tell him to sit down and wait for the doctor, who will come by to discuss his results as soon as they were available.

Since his phone is too cracked to play any games, he puts an earphone into his right ear, and starts listening to an audio book. Try as he might, he finds it almost impossible to focus on the book, instead he finds himself zoning out time and time again, completely missing big chunks of the story, rewinding it, only for it to happen all over again. It would probably be easier to focus if he’d put both earphones in, but he still needed to be able to hear when his name was called, so that was off the table.

Eventually he gives up, and picks up one of the tabloid magazines instead. One of them has a page full of Sudoku puzzles in the middle of it, and luckily no one has filled them in yet. He asks the lady at the front desk for a pen, which she hands over with a quizzical smile, and sits down, hoping to finally pass some time.

He’s just about to finish the final piece when his name is called, so he brings the magazine with him, because knowing how hospitals work, he’ll probably be sent back to wait some more before he’s allowed to leave. And god forbid someone else finishes that thing before him, he literally might cry, he's that bored.

The doctor is studying the results of his blood pressure cuff as he walks in, and judging by the furrowing of his brows, whatever it is he’s seeing, it’s not great.

“So, these readings...” The doctor begins, and Timmy cuts him off with an awkward laugh.

“Yeah, uhm, before you say anything, I had a really bad day yesterday.” He smiles sheepishly at the doctor, nervously scratching the back of his neck. “I had an argument with my boyf – uhm… Yeah, I had a pretty bad argument with someone, and it made me pretty f*cking upset, I’m not gonna lie. So… I’m guessing you could see that?”

The doctor nods, a small, supportive smile on his face, making Timmy feel a little bit more at ease. At least it didn’t seem like he was going to yell at him for f*cking up the readings, or make him wear the damn thing for another 24 hours, which is what he’d been worrying about the most.

“Yeah, there was a period of time where your blood pressure went up quite significantly. But if you say you had a bad argument with your partner, then that certainly explains everything I saw in the readings.”

“So… Am I free to go?” Timmy smiles hopefully.

“Actually…” The doctor starts, and just like that, Timmy already knows that he’s going to be stuck here for another couple of hours. “I want to run a couple of more tests, mainly to double check that everything actually is fine before I let you go.”

“Oh, okay, yeah. Go for it.”

Just like he thought, after they draw some more blood, back out to the waiting room he goes. At least he still had that one Sudoku puzzle left, and hopefully there’d be some more in some of the other magazines.

But before he could get started on any of that, he had to call Luca, it wasn’t fair to keep everyone waiting on him, without letting them know he was going to be delayed. No need to worry them all over again, after all.

“Hey man, I just wanted to let you know that I’m being kept in a little longer.”

“What? But, why? Is everything okay?” Luca asks, sounding worried, and Timmy can hear Armie’s voice in the background, asking what’s going on, and if Timmy was okay, but Luca just shushes him, no doubt so that he’d be able to hear what Timmy was actually saying.

“Yeah, no need to worry. Everything is fine, I think. It’s just like, you know, checking to see that things have stabilized or whatever.”

“Right.” Luca doesn’t sound convinced, and once again, Timmy can hear Armie asking what’s going on, sounding borderline frantic. “When do you think you’ll be done?”

“I don’t know, man. Depends on how busy things get here, I suppose.” For all Timmy knows it could be hours upon hours upon hours, but he doesn’t want to tell Luca that, he feels bad enough for all the delays he’s caused already.

“Call me when you’re done, yes? And I will come pick you up.”

“Nah, there’s no need for that, Luca, honestly, I can just take a taxi.” Luca flat out scoffs into the phone at that, and it’s so loud that Timmy could practically feel his breath in his ear, making an involuntary shudder run through his entire body.

“Nonsense. I will pick you up. And if you do not plan to call, I will drive over there right now, and wait outside for you, like a crêpe.”

Timmy can’t help but snort, picturing a pancake in the driver’s seat of Luca’s tiny car. “You mean, creep?”

“Yes. That is what I said.” Luca says haughtily, and Timmy grins to himself.

“Course it is. But, okay, fine. I promise I’ll call you when I’m allowed to leave.”

After hanging up with Luca, he finishes the Sudoku puzzle in about five minutes, and unfortunately, that turned out to be the only magazine with any form of puzzles in it. So he’s left with only his imagination for company. Needless to say, seeing as the only thing he can think about is Armie – and that hurts too much to be of any real entertainment – he’s bored out of his mind.

A limping woman, probably in her mid to late twenties, checks in with the nurse at the front desk and comes to sit next to him. She’s very obviously still in last night’s party outfit, and carrying her shoes in her hand, one of which seems to be missing a heel, so it’s not that hard to work out what probably happened.

She turns to him with a smile, and says something to him in Italian, but she quickly realizes that he doesn’t understand a word she’s saying, no doubt helped by the very obvious, and slightly panicked, look of confusion on his face.

“You speak English?” She asks with a barely noticeable accent, and he smiles gratefully at her as he nods.

“Yeah, I’m American. Sorry.”

“Ooh, Americano, how exotic.” She laughs. “What are you in here for then?”

“I fainted at work, so everyone panicked and called the ambulance.” He shrugs, downplaying it as best as he can, but instead of asking any more questions, she just nods.

“Yeah, that’ll do it.” Then she pulls her purse onto her lap and opens it, pulling out a packet of gum. “Want some?” He accepts it with a surprised chuckle, and she grins at him. “It’s important to always have gum in your purse, my mother told me, makes for good first impressions or something. But you just saw me limp in here, carrying my shoes, so, I guess that’s f*cked already, isn’t it?”

“Well, I mean, just a little.” He shrugs, before laughing as an exaggerated pout makes its way onto her face.

They keep on talking, he finds out her name is Valentina, and the reason she’s in here right now, is that she fell and broke her heel while trying to impress this guy she’d been flirting with at the nightclub.

“I feel, just, stupid, you know. I wanted to impress this guy, and instead, faceplant, off the sidewalk. And now I can’t even walk properly.” She shakes her head at herself, and Timmy has to try really hard not to laugh. It’s not that he finds the fact that she’s injured herself funny, it’s more the fact that it sounds exactly like something he’d be able to do.

In another universe, maybe he’s the one sitting in a hospital waiting room, carrying his shoes because he faceplanted off the sidewalk trying to impress some guy.

“Ah man, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh or anything, just...”

“No, I know, it is ridiculous. We should laugh at it. I just wished it had happened after I had gotten laid, you know, at least then it would have been worth it.” She shrugs, and Timmy can’t help but snort. Definitely, in another universe, he’d be her, no doubt about it.

There is one thing about her story that’s confusing him a little though.

“But if this happened last night, why did you only come here now?”

“Because I am an idiot.” She says with a shake of her head. “I went home with a friend and fell asleep on her sofa, and then when I was going to leave this morning, I could barely walk, so I thought, okay, maybe hospital is a good idea. And voila!”

Before they have the chance to talk any more, she’s called back for her examination, and Timmy is once again left to his own devices. He asks the nurse at the front desk if she knows how much longer he’s going to have to wait, and she tells him that there is no real way of knowing, and things take the time they take, which was extremely helpful.

After about half an hour, where Timmy counts the tiles in the ceiling 15 times – there are 317 of them–Valentina comes back out to the waiting room, on crutches this time, and drops back into the seat next to him, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Now, I know why I’m here on my own, but, why are you?”

Timmy lets out a deep sigh, closing his eyes and letting the back of his head carefully hit the wall behind him, breathing deeply a couple of times before sitting back up again. “I, uhm, I had a pretty bad fight with my… Friend. So I didn’t really feel like having them here right now.”

“I see… You been dating him long?” She asks casually, and Timmy nearly gets whiplash from how quickly he turns his head to look at her, eyes going wide with surprise.

“I… What?”

“Oh, come on, a friend. Really? Of course it’s your boyfriend, if it had been your girlfriend you would have just said.” She says with a shake of her head, raising an amused eyebrow at him. “Besides, no one has a reaction like the one you just did, after fighting with a friend.

“Ah. Well. Yeah.”

“So, what happened? If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”

Timmy just shrugs, rubbing his thumb between his eyebrows with a sigh. “It’s… Man, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You don’t have to tell me, if it’s private. But, talking it out with a stranger might help? Isn’t that why we go to therapy?” She nudges his shoulder with a smile, and Timmy chuckles, giving a halfhearted nod.

“I guess. It’s just… Without going into too much detail, he has some unresolved issues, because of a previous boyfriend, which makes it hard for him to let other people in, like emotionally. But he promised me, right, that he was going to start letting me in, because he loves me. And he said he didn’t want there to be any walls between us, and I thought things were going well, you know, that we were properly connecting. But then…”

Timmy breaks off, looking down at his hands in his lap, nervously picking at the skin around his nails.

“But?” Valentina asks slowly, and Timmy lets out another sigh.

“But, yesterday, when I had my little fainting episode, he just… Completely shut down on me. He didn’t speak to me at all after we came home from the hospital, and when I tried to get him to talk to me, he…” Timmy runs his hands across his face, and to his horror he finds himself tearing up, which honestly would be the last thing he’d need right now, to cry in front of everyone in the hospital.

“What? Timothée, what did he do?”

She sounds genuinely worried for him, and Timmy sucks in a deep breath, desperately fighting against the tears. After a little while, he manages to at least push them down enough to be able to talk without his voice giving him away.

“Oh god, he just, blew up. Pretty much yelled at me to back off, and then stupid as I am, I was like ‘no, I’m not gonna do that’ and kept pushing him.” Timmy rolls his eyes at himself, feeling Valentina reach out and give his arm a light squeeze.

“Thanks. But uh, yeah… So, he had his back to me, right? And as I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, he totally freaked and turned around to like, reclaim his personal space? Only, I was right there, so when he threw his hands out, he kinda, pushed me?”

“Oh, honey, no.”

“Yeah. And so I fell, flat on my ass.” Timmy says with a humorless chuckle. “But that wasn’t the worst part, because that was just an accident, and just as much my fault as his. No the worst part, was how he didn’t even apologize, or make as much as an attempt to help me up. He literally just stood there. Staring at me.”

Timmy is a little taken aback at the anger he hears in his own voice, he hadn’t quite realized that he was still that angry. He knew he was hurt, but the anger? Yeah, that took him a little by surprise.

“Yikes. I’m sorry, that’s… That’s definitely a lot sh*ttier than twisting your ankle and falling in front of a guy you just wanted to f*ck.”

Timmy snorts so loudly at that, that several people turn around to look at them, and he feels himself start to blush. Much to Valentina’s amusem*nt.

“Seriously though, you said he has issues, right? Because of an old boyfriend?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you don’t heal from things like that overnight. I’m not trying to defend him or anything, because clearly he should have just talked to you, but… Speaking from experience here, when it comes to things like that? Everything is always so much easier said than done.” She smiles sadly, before continuing. “And even though you want so badly to just open your heart back up, to break down all those walls you so carefully built up to protect yourself, it’s…Let’s just say, there is a reason why I’m only looking for one night stands these days, because they’re easy. Relationships? Not so much.”

Timmy sends her a sympathetic smile, and gives her arm a light squeeze, much like she’d done to him earlier. “I’m really sorry, I wish you hadn’t had to go through whatever it was that happened to you.”

“Yeah, me too honey, me too.”

“But… Tell me, please, how am I supposed to stay in this relationship, if I’m only ever going to get half of him? I can’t… I can’t give him all of me, and then when things get difficult, have him shut down and shut me out. I can’t do that.” Timmy feels the tears well up again, but this time he doesn’t even bother trying to fight them. No one was looking at him right now anyway, besides, even if they were, he doubts he’s the first to cry in this room. “But… I love him.”

“No one is expecting you to stay with him if he can’t, or won’t, communicate with you, no relationship is a one way street. It can’t, and it won’t, work that way. Which is why, it seems, you have a choice to make. Do you choose to stay with him, to trust in love? Trust that he truly is trying to change, or do you choose to let him go? Hoping he’ll be able to find himself without you.”

“I’m not just going to give up on him!” Timmy frowns, feeling a little offended that Valentina so easily suggested that he’d just dump Armie, and go on his merry way without him.

“Then that’s your answer right there, isn’t it?” She says with a smile. “To you, he’s worth it. Now you just have to figure out if he feels the same way.”

“Yeah… I mean, I hope so.” He knows Armie loves him, he doesn’t doubt that for even a second. But, if the love Armie has for him is enough to tear down the walls Dylan helped create? That Timmy is less sure of. He wants to say yes, but, in the end, he supposes only time will tell.

“Oh, honey. I’m sure he does! Honestly, in cases like this, all you can really do is be patient. Healing isn’t linear, you know. Some days he’s going to do great, be completely honest, and communicate openly, and other days, like yesterday, he is going to shut you out, because that’s what he’s used to. All you can do is be there for him, and like I said, just try your best to be patient.”

Timmy sends her a grateful smile, and reaches out to pull her in for a hug, before realizing that she’s actually a total stranger and he has no idea how she feels about hugs. “Uhm. Can I hug you?”

“Oh, you silly boy, of course you can!” She laughs, and gives him a full body squeeze, her upper body strength catching him completely off guard, and he starts coughing as he manages to suck air in through the wrong pipe. Valentina releases him with a cackle, ruffling his hair.

“Oh, but you are adorable. Too bad you’re about a decade too young. Also taken. And… Gay?” She phrases the last part as a question, and he nods in confirmation.

“Yes, gay.” He grins, it feels good to say it out loud. He’s never really come out to anyone before, at least not like that anyway. Everyone knew he liked guys, he just, never had to say anything.

“Damn, no chance at all then. I see how it is, universe, I see.”

Then she was called back again, and once again Timmy was left waiting on his own. He spends the next ten minutes twiddling his thumb, for lack of anything else to do, until finally, it was his turn again.

“I am so sorry for the wait, I got caught up with another patient.” The doctor says with a distressed look on his face as Timmy enters his office, but Timmy just waves his apology away.

“No worries, man. It’s a hospital, sh*t happens, it’s fine, honestly.”

“Good, good.” The doctor smiles, looking down at his files as Timmy sits down in the chair across from his desk. “So, the results show that you’re back where you need to be, both in terms of hydration, and blood pressure, so that’s good. I do, however, wish to run one final test.”

Timmy raises his eyebrows in surprise, another test? That he definitely hadn’t expected. Was he ever going to be allowed to leave this damn hospital? “Okay? What kinda test?”

“I want to run a so called glucose tolerance test, just to make sure your blood sugar levels are operating within the normal range.” The doctor explains, and Timmy nods, looking at the clock on the wall behind the doctor’s back. It was barely 1 in the afternoon, so there was definitely still time for another test, before the day could be called a total bust.

“Right. So do we do that now?”

“No, I’m gonna have to ask you to return again tomorrow, I’m afraid.” The doctor sends him a sheepish smile, and Timmy feels his eyes wanting to roll into the back of his head in frustration. “You see, you need to fast for at least 12 hours before we can run this test, and I do apologize, I should have thought to include this test yesterday.”

“So what does this test entail then? Just more blood drawn or what?”

“Sort of, but that’s not all there is to it. You show up fasting, and we take a sample of your blood, as a baseline. Then you’re going to drink a sugar mixture, and then you’re going to relax for two hours, and then we’ll draw your blood again and compare the sugar levels to the first sample”

“I have to stay for over two hours?” This was just getting better and better. How the f*ck was he going to tell Luca that he was going to cause yet another delay?

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Timmy lets out a sigh, but quickly nods his head in defeat. “Okay, okay, yeah, better safe than sorry and all that, I get it. Just.” He lets out a chuckle and shakes his head. “I can’t say this is how I was picturing these days to go.”

“I can imagine, yeah. But like you said, better safe than sorry.” The doctor says with a sympathetic smile.

When Timmy goes to check out with the nurse, he receives a print out with instructions on how to prepare for tomorrow’s examination, as well as a set time and place to meet up, which made him feel a little better. At least, other than the two mandatory hours of relaxation, he wouldn’t be kept waiting for too long.

Despite still wanting to just call a taxi, he keeps his promise and calls Luca, who picks up on the second ring. He’d clearly been keeping a close eye on his phone.

“So, did you get a clean bill of health?” Luca says with a smile in his voice, and Timmy immediately cringes.

“Uhm...”

Luca grows serious immediately, just like Timmy knew he would. “Timmy? Are you not okay?” Once again he can hear voices in the background, but this time it’s not just Armie, so it’s harder to make out what they’re saying.

“Oh, it’s not, I don’t… I just have to come back tomorrow for one more test, is all, it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about you say.” Luca huffs. “As if you didn’t pass out yesterday, scaring all of us half to death.”

“Yeah. I know. And I’m sorry”

He must sound a lot worse than he thought, because Luca immediately lets out a comforting hum, before speaking softly.

“Ah, it’s not your fault, tesoro. Not your fault at all.”

It hardly takes Luca any time at all to come get him, which is why it feels so stupid to have him drive over in the first place, technically Timmy could have just walked. It would have taken maybe 20 minutes, but he could have easily done it.

When they get back to Luca’s house, everyone is waiting in the living room to hear how things had gone at the hospital, and Timmy can’t help but smile as he sees Armie sitting on the sofa, in between Esther and Victoire, clutching their tiny hands in his enormous ones.

“So?” Michael asks, giving him a quick once over. “We all good?”

Timmy sends him a tight lipped smile and quickly shakes his head. “Not exactly. I have to go back tomorrow for one final test.”

“What?” Armie whispers, and when Timmy looks at him over Michael’s shoulder, he’s biting into his bottom lip, with tears welling up in his eyes, as Esther and Victoire both comfortingly strokes his back to keep him calm.

Timmy doesn’t say anything else, but when Armie finally makes eye contact with him, he keeps his gaze, and they just keep staring at each other, in silence. Until Luca startles Timmy to look away, by clapping his hands together, and clearing his throat. “Oh good heavens, look at the time, I have to go do… Stuff.” Luca says in the most unconvincing tone of voice Timmy has ever heard in his life.

He’s about to call him on it when Esther and Victoire both stand up, nodding their heads in perfect unison. “Oh yes, the stuff! That we all have to do. Right now.” Esther says, giving Michael a stern stare, and in turn, Michael nods his head with a fake grin. “Right, the stuff! Of course.”WithAmira following suit. “Yes. Stuff. Bye.”

And just like that. They were all alone.

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

He doesn’t know how long they just stare at each other in silence, but it’s definitely a while. It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk to Armie, because he does, right now there’s nothing he wants more than that, he just… Where would he even start?

And it seems Armie is having the exact same problem, because he keeps opening his mouth to start speaking, but then nothing actually comes out, and he just sighs and closes it again.

Just as Timmy had decided to finally breach the silence, Armie somehow manages to beat him to it.

“Timmy, I –” Armie begins, but Timmy cuts him off, holding his hands up and shaking his head.

“No, I don’t need your apologies, or more empty promises. I…” He sighs, closing his eyes, and wrapping his arms around himself.

He remembers what Valentina said, about how hard it is to let people in after you’ve been hurt, and he knows it’s not easy, he knows. It’s not like he wants to be pushy, and end up literally pushing Armie away, but at the same time, he can’t constantly be stood outside knocking to be let in.

He can’t live like that. He can’t.

“Armie, what I need from you? It’s… Babe, I just need you to at least try and let me in.”

Armie blinks at him in confusion, before looking down at his lap, and whispering,“But, I – I did? Didn’t I?” He looks back up at Timmy with tears in his eyes, and Timmy feels his heart break all over again. “Haven’t I?”

“No, baby, not even a little bit.” Timmy wipes away a tear that’s threatening to fall from his eyes. “I mean, yes, you told me about what happened with Dylan, and I am honestly really grateful that you felt safe enough to do that. But, Armie, what happened yesterday? That can’t happen again.”

Timmy walks over to the couch, and sits down next to Armie, turning sideways, bringing them face to face. He carefully reaches out and cups Armie’s cheek, rubbing his thumb against the stubble on his jaw, smiling softly at him, even though his eyes are still welling up with tears.

“You told me once, not too long ago, to not let you get away with breaking my heart, so... Armie, please, please don’t break my heart?”

He doesn’t mean for his voice to crack – but then that’s not usually something you ever really plan on happening – he watches as his words hit Armie, making him flinch. And when Timmy closes his eyes to suck in a pained breath, it makes the tears that had been welling up in his eyes, finally run down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry.” Armie whispers, reaching for Timmy’s hand, entwining their fingers and holding it up to his heart as he lets out a quiet sob. “I can’t believe I… I broke us, didn’t I? I’m – Timmy, I… I’m sorry.”

Watching Armie crying as he thinks he’s completely f*cked them up, it’s… It hurts, it really does, but at the same time, Timmy can’t help but feel a little relieved, as strange as that sounds. Because watching Armie’s reaction to the prospect of losing him, it soothes any and all worry that Timmy ever had about Armie possibly not loving him as much as he loves Armie.

It’s not that he didn’t believe Armie all the times he’d told him he loved him, because he did, but at the same time, after what happened, he couldn’t help but doubt it a little. Or at the very least consider that maybe he just loved Armie more than Armie loved him, and that maybe the reason why Armie didn’t seem to let him in, despite promising to do so, was simply because he didn’t feel like Timmy was worth it.

But the man sobbing his heart out in front of him right now? There’s no way, no way in hell, he doesn’t love Timmy with everything he’s got, and as much as Timmy’s heart is still bruised, he knows they’re going to be okay.

Timmy keeps his hand entwined with Armie’s, feeling that Armie is using that connection as a life line, and he doesn’t want to sever that. But he wraps his other arm around Armie’s back, and pulls him in for a hug.

“We’re not broken, babe.” Timmy whispers, feeling Armie’s breath stutter. “We’re a little bruised, maybe, but we can fix that, we can. I just…”

Timmy pulls back, carefully taking Armie’s chin between his thumb and index finger and tilting his head up, so they were making eye contact. “You promised me honesty, you know? More than once, you promised, and you just – you haven’t delivered on it. Not even once.”

Armie closes his eyes as he nods, and Timmy softly strokes his cheek, to comfort him a little, knowing Armie was going to need it, considering what he was going to say next.

“And, you know, I understand it’s difficult for you, after everything, I do, but, Armie, it’s like i said last time. If you can’t open up and let me in, then… You are going to lose me. Not because I don’t love you, or that I don’t think you love me, but… I can’t live like this, knowing that every time something happens, you’re going to shut down and shut me out. That... That’s not how a relationship works.”

He watches as Armie seems to curl in on himself, and the tears stream down his face at an alarming rate, as he chokes on his sobs. It makes Timmy feel like a horrible person, knowing that he’s the reason Armie is in this kind of pain, and he wants nothing more than to just stop the conversation right now. But at the same time, he knows that if they don’t resolve this now, no matter how painful, then… It’s just gonna keep happening, and eventually, it would break them.

And he can’t – No, he won’t – let that happen.

“Armie, please, look at me?” He whispers, smiling as Armie reluctantly meets his gaze, still clutching Timmy’s hand. He can see every little bit of pain Armie is feeling in his eyes, and Timmy reaches out and wipes his tears away with his thumb.

“I know this is painful for you, and that all you want to do right now is to hide away, and push this pain down, and then lock it away in one of the deep dark corners of your mind, so that you never have to think about it again, but… We can’t do that anymore.”

Armie sucks in a deep breath and closes his eyes, a few more tears falling down his cheeks, as he nods. “I know, and I’ll do anything for you, Timmy. I will.”

Timmy smiles and leans in and kisses Armie’s cheek, feeling him shiver as Timmy’s lips touch his skin.

“I hear you, and I love you, Armie, I do, but, what happened yesterday? I deserve better than that.” Timmy says quietly, giving Armie’s hand a squeeze when he sees more tears well up in his eyes. Armie sends him a sad nod, but he doesn’t say anything, clearly intending to let Timmy finish saying everything he needs to. Which he really appreciates, because getting this next bit out wasn’t going to be easy.

“I get that you were scared, okay, I do, but… You don’t think I was scared? I’m the one that passed out. I really f*cking needed my boyfriend to be there for me, and what did I get?” Timmy wipes away the couple of tears that were making their way down his cheeks, he didn’t want to cry, but, clearly the pain of everything that had happened in the last 24 hours was just way too raw for him to not cry about it.

“I got pushed down to the floor and yelled at, and, dammit Armie. You didn’t even apologize! And to make it worse, I had to hear about how you were feeling from Nick. Nick. Because somehow, you manage to talk to him just fine!” He cuts himself off, sucking in a deep breath as he hides his face behind the palm of his hand. Trying his best to just keep breathing, and not start sobbing. Because if he started to properly cry now, he’d never be able to finish this conversation.

“So, if you’re not willing to work with me on this, then... I’m sorry, but I – Really, I just, this can’t keep happening, it can’t, because, I can’t take it. I can’t. So, I’m begging you, just, please, don’t keep shutting me out.”

“I’m sorry.” Armie cries, still tightly holding onto Timmy’s hand, as if letting go of him now would mean he’d lose him forever. “I – I don’t want you to think I’m not trying. That you’re not worth the effort. Because… I am trying. I am trying so hard. it’s just…”

Armie shrugs through the tears, face completely open, none of his usual barriers in place. For once he’s letting Timmy see right into the core of him, and what he finds there is, pain. A lot of pain, and it makes his heart twinge.

“I’m so scared, Timmy. I love you so much, and it’s – I’ve literally never loved anyone as much as I love you. But, we practically only just met, and, there’s so much about you I don’t know, and same with me for you. And it’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s just… I can’t stop thinking that, if I share this thing, you’re going to hate me for it. And, I am f*cking terrified, always, because I can’t lose you. I can’t. I don’t…” Armie sucks in a breath, lifting the neckline of his t-shirt up to his face to wipe away his tears, before looking back into Timmy’s eyes.

He looks more serious than Timmy has seen him in a long while, the pain is still there, joined now by fear, but also a fiery determination. “I’m willing to do anything, okay? Absolutely everything, to keep you.”

Timmy smiles and leans him to quickly kiss him on the lips. “And I appreciate that, but, I’m not asking for a million dollars or world peace, Armie. Literally, all I want, is for you to talk to me. When things get hard, just, talk to me. Don’t close yourself off, don’t push me away, but, let me in. Let me carry some of your burdens, sometimes.”

Armie nods, tears still streaming down his face despite him trying to wipe them away. “I promise. I’ll do better, for you. For me. For us.” Timmy lifts their entwined hands up to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss to the back of Armie’s palm.

“I… I didn’t hurt you, did I? Last night, when I…” Armie sucks in a deep pained breath, looking at Timmy with raw heartache in his eyes. “God, I can’t believe I pushed you.”

“Hey, shh, calm down. I’m fine, okay? It was an accident, right?” Armie nods. “Yeah, it’s fine. Physically it didn’t hurt at all. But, in the name of honesty, I can’t deny that you did break my heart a little when you didn’t even try to help me back up.”

“I don’t… I have no excuses for that, literally, none. I – I’m just… I’m an awful person, and I don’t deserve you, it’s that simple.” Armie says with a shrug, as if he’s expecting Timmy to agree with him, but Timmy just frowns.

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“I said, shut up. Don’t do that, don’t… Don’t talk like that.” Timmy shakes his head, brows still furrowed. He can’t deny that he’s a little surprised at just how angry he feels, but he truly hates the fact that Armie genuinely feels that way about himself. He hates it.

“You f*cked up, yeah. Should you have helped me back up? Yes. But, Armie, it doesn’t make you a terrible person. It makes you a person who made a mistake. So what you can do now, instead of talking sh*t about yourself, is to apologize to me, and then you make sure it’s never going to happen again.”

Armie tears up again, and practically throws himself into Timmy’s arms. “I’m sorry.” He keeps repeating it as he’s sobbing against Timmy’s shoulder, and Timmy just lets him cry, stroking his back, knowing he needs to get it all out.

“I’m sorry.” Armie repeats after he’s all cried out, and he wipes his tears with the neckline of his t-shirt again, wrinkling his nose when he lets go of it and the wet fabric hits his skin. “I’m never going to make that mistake again, that I can promise you, it absolutely will not ever happen again.”

Timmy leans in and kisses him softly on the lips, whispering, “I believe you.”

Armie looks so relieved, and his eyes well up with tears again. “I really don’t deserve you. I don’t understand how you can… I don’t… How can you love someone like me?”

“What do you mean?” Timmy furrows his brows, reaching for Armie’s hand and entwining their fingers again. “Someone loving? Caring? Empathic? Respectful?”

But Armie just shakes his head, looking down at the couch. “No. Someone f*cked up beyond repair.”

“I don’t know anyone like that.”

“Timmy...” Armie sighs, trying to pull his hand away, but Timmy won’t let him.

“No, I’m serious. You think Dylan f*cked you up? I don’t. I know he hurt you, and I know you’re still suffering for it, but, Armie, you’re not f*cked up. You’re not.” Armie keeps looking down into his lap, where their entwined hands are resting, and Timmy knows that he doesn’t believe a word of what Timmy is saying right now.

Timmy lets out a sigh, and reaches out to tilt Armie’s head back up so he can look into his eyes as he says this next part. “Armie, listen to me, okay? You’re worth love, you are. I love you, so much, and I’m not gonna stop loving you anytime soon. So please, don’t talk about my boyfriend like that, he doesn’t deserve it.”

Armie lets out a sob, leaning in for a kiss. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” He keeps whispering against Timmy’s lips, making him smile.

“I love you, too.”

They sit there, just holding hands and kissing each other every once in a while – Silently reconnecting, now that they’d gotten everything they needed to off their chests.

“We should go home.” Timmy says after a while, not that he minds being curled up with Armie on Luca’s couch, but he’d feel a lot more comfortable in their apartment. Not only because it’s their space, but also because he doesn’t have to worry about keeping Luca from being in his own house.

They find everyone chilling around Luca’s pool in the backyard, and when they see them, they all go silent, at once.

“Uhm, we’re going to home now.” Timmy says, feeling like an idiot when they’re all just, silently staring at them. But then Michael starts grinning, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Oooh, I see. Bow chicka wow wow.” And just like that, the tension around them was broken, and everyone burst out laughing.

“Yes, thank you, Michael.” Timmy says with a roll of his eyes, but he can’t stop himself from smiling, and when he looks over at Armie and sees the smile on his face, it’s all worth it.

For someone who looks as beautiful as Armie does when he’s smiling, he really doesn’t do enough of it. Hopefully that’ll change, as they keep working on his issues, together. Because Timmy definitely wouldn’t mind if Armie looked this happy, and this carefree, all the time.

Minus the red rimmed eyes, and the flushed cheeks from crying, of course.

They slowly walk home together, still holding hands, feeling absolutely no rush, just enjoying spending time together.

“Are we… Uhm. When we get home, are we going to… Uhm, go to bed?” Armie winces, and Timmy laughs.

“Are you trying to ask me if we’re going to have sex?”

“Uh… Yes. Kind of. Yeah.” Armie awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, grimacing a little. Timmy just giggles, and shakes his head in amusem*nt.

“I can’t believe we went from having me literally use sounds on you, to you not even being able to ask me to have sex.”

“Yeah, but… Things happened in between that though, to be fair.” Armie shrugs, and Timmy nods, giving his hand a light squeeze.

“Yeah, that’s true. But, I don’t want you to be embarrassed about talking to me about these things. Honesty right? It’s not just for the hard things, I want us to be able to talk about everything.”

Armie stops walking, and turns to face Timmy with a smile, cupping his cheek and leaning in for a kiss. “I’m not embarrassed to talk about sex with you, babe. I just didn’t want to force you into anything.”

“And I love you for that, but, Armie. What makes you think I would?” Timmy has a sinking feeling in his stomach, and he doesn’t like it, at all. Not even a little bit.

“What? Let yourself get forced to do something you don’t want to?”

“Yeah”

Armie frowns, looking down at his shoes, kicking a tiny rock further down the street. “I… I don’t know. I guess… No, I don’t know.”

“Did you… Did you ever sleep with Dylan when you didn’t actually want to?” Timmy holds his breath as he waits for Armie’s answer, even though he’s pretty sure he already knows what it’s going to be, he’s still holding out hope that he’s wrong.

When Armie just shrugs, Timmy feels his heart just, drop. “Uhm…”

“You did.” Timmy feels himself tear up, and he bites his bottom lip to stop himself from crying. “I’m really sorry, Armie. You didn’t deserve that, any of it, and I want you to know, okay, that you can always, always, tell me no.”

Armie just nods, still looking down at his shoes, avoiding Timmy’s gaze.

“No, listen, Armie, hey, look at me.” Armie slowly lifts his head, and meets Timmy’s eyes with his own, nervously chewing on his bottom lip. “I mean it, okay? Even if we’re in the middle of everything, and you change your mind? Please, just tell me. Either you safeword out, if that’s easier for you, or you just tell me straight up that you don’t want to anymore, and we’ll stop.”

Timmy takes a step closer, and places hand on Armie’s chest, over his heart. “Nothing matters more to me than your well-being, okay? I love you.”

“I…” Armie slowly breathes out through his nose, smiling softly down at him. “I know you would never… I know. But, I love you so much for the fact that you still made sure to tell me.”

Timmy feels like a thousand pounds has been lifted from his shoulders, and he gets up on his tip toes and kisses Armie, smiling into the kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Armie smiles, running his hand through Timmy’s hair. “So, are we going to?”

“What?”

Armie laughs, shaking his head at him. “Have sex when we get home, you idiot.”

“Oh.” Timmy smiles sheepishly, before shaking his head. “No.”

“No? Do you not…”

“It’s nothing to do with you, or us, I promise. It’s… Doctor’s orders.” Timmy shrugs, but Armie immediately looks worried.

“I almost forgot, I can’t believe I forgot. What a f*cking...” Armie sighs, closing his eyes and squeezing Timmy’s hand. “What did they say? At the hospital? Are you…”

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m okay. The reason I fainted? It was because of my blood pressure, it got a little too low, because I hadn’t eaten very well that day, it was really hot, and I hadn’t been too good at keeping myself hydrated either. So, it was all my own fault. And the test tomorrow? It’s just so the doctor can make sure that my blood sugar regulates itself the way it should. That’s it.”

Armie doesn’t look any less worried hearing that, but Timmy knows if it had been the other way around, he wouldn’t be able to stop worrying either.

“Can I come with you tomorrow? Please? I… I can’t sit at home and just wait. Today was… It was – I just can’t do that again.” Armie nervously runs a hand through his hair, and Timmy just smiles, going back up on his tip toes to kiss him again.

“Of course you can come, I would love having you there with me.”

Armie breathes out in relief, and leans in for another kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

The first thing that happens when they get home, is that Armie makes dinner, and makes sure that Timmy eats more than enough to not upset his blood pressure, and he keeps raising his eyebrow every time Timmy tries to say that he’s full, so he pushes down a few more bites just to please him.

But looking at his plate it’s as if he didn’t eat anything at all, because Armie, in all his worried glory, had dumped more than half of what he’d made, directly onto Timmy’s plate. Leaving himself with a normal sized portion, and Timmy with enough food to feed a small family.

“Armie, I’m not gonna pass out just because I don’t finish every meal, you know that right? You also know that you cooked enough for four people, and gave me three f*cking servings.”

Armie just shrugs, biting his bottom lip to keep from smiling, and a light-bulb goes off in Timmy’s brain, making him roll his eyes. “Oh, you f*cker, you did it on purpose, didn’t you? To see if I’d say anything.”

“Maybe?” Armie grins, and Timmy shakes his head in amusem*nt.

“Oh, you’re gonna pay for that.” He says, as he slowly picks up a cherry tomato with his fingers, while keeping eye contact with Armie the entire time. And when Armie just shrugs, Timmy takes the tomato, and throws it at his face, cackling loudly as it hits him straight in the forehead.

Armie clearly hadn’t been expecting that, and is left sitting with his mouth wide open as drops of tomato juice run down his forehead. “You...” He begins, slowly shaking his head as he stands up. Timmy had, however, expected that, and the second Armie stood up, Timmy was already up and running.

“You’ll never catch me!” He throws over his shoulder as he runs into the living room, Armie hot on his heels.

Naturally, given the unfair length of Armie’s legs, he catches up to Timmy pretty quickly, and he lets out a squeal of laughter as Armie digs his fingers into his sides and starts tickling him. Normally, he’s not ticklish at all, but apparently Armie has magic fingers or something, because he can’t stop squirming against his hold, laughing his ass off.

It gets even worse when Armie somehow manages to tip him backwards onto the couch, and straddles his hips as he keeps up his merciless tickle attack. The way Armie’s ass keeps grinding against his dick as he keeps tickling him, Timmy can’t stop himself from getting hard, and he laughs even harder as he suddenly remembers that one point on their kink lists, from way back, about tickle kink, that he’d written off as an obvious no.

And now look at him, already hard and panting, from being tickled.

He’s just about to fully push his hips up against Armie, to take full advantage of their position, when he remembers what the doctor said about no strenuous physical activity – including sex – before his test tomorrow. And while he wants nothing more than to just say, f*ck it, and get f*cked, he also doesn’t want to cause even further delays on the movie just because he was unable to keep it in his pants.

“Stop, Armie, please. Stop.” And just like that, in a literal blink of an eye, Armie was off him and standing at the end of the couch, staring down at him with wide eyes.

"Are you, sh*t, are you okay? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have– I just… I’m sorry.” He bites his bottom lip and looks so upset, and so nervous, that Timmy can’t help but roll his eyes and climb over the armrest to stand in front of him.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” He says with a smile, taking Armie’s hand and placing it on top of his shorts, letting him feel how hard he’d gotten. “I only told you to stop because, well, doctor’s orders.” He smirks, watching as a blush lightly darkens Armie’s cheeks.

“Oh.” Armie swallows deeply, giving Timmy’s dick a light squeeze, making him groan low in his throat.

“f*ck, Armie, we – We can’t, babe, we can’t.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Armie breathes out, letting his hand fall down to his side. “I just couldn’t help myself, you’re… f*ck.”

Timmy smiles to himself as he watches Armie close his eyes and suck in a deep breath as he tries to calm himself. But instead of letting him do that, Timmy takes a step closer, slings his arm around Armie’s neck, and pulls him in for a kiss.

“Mm, you’re f*ck, too. Babe.” He whispers against Armie’s lips, grinning wickedly as it makes a shiver run through Armie’s entire body, and kisses him again.

“God, baby. Let’s go to bed.” Armie groans, after Timmy pulls away from their kiss, but keeps planting small closed mouthed kisses along Armie’s jawline.

“I would love to, but, we can’t.” Timmy breathes against Armie’s neck, pressing one last kiss next to his Adam’s apple before taking a step back and looking up into his eyes.

Armie smiles down at him, rubbing his thumb against Timmy’s bottom lip. “I know, I didn’t mean for sex, I just- I just want to hold you, that’s all.” Timmy can practically feel his insides melting, and a blush sweeps across his face as he nods.

They decide it’s probably for the best to keep their t-shirts and boxers on, despite both of them preferring to sleep in the nude, to at least try and minimize the temptation. It sort of works, they’re both definitely semi hard, but, then, Timmy is pretty much always semi hard when he’s around Armie, so that’s not exactly a new thing.

Timmy is lying with his head on Armie’s chest, slowly rubbing his stomach, when Armie lets out a long, pleased, sigh. “Oh, I missed this.” He whispers, and Timmy lifts his head to look down at him, a wide smile on his face.

“Babe, we were only apart for one night.”

“I know.” Armie says, shrugging one shoulder. “I still missed this.”

“I missed you too.” Timmy leans in and kisses him, before lying back down, rubbing his face against Armie’s chest as if he was a cat. Then Armie starts running his fingers through Timmy’s hair, and quite frankly, if he could have purred, he would.

“It’s one of the reasons I’m so scared, you know.” Armie says quietly after a while, and Timmy tilts his head up to look at him, he can really only see his chin and his ear, but, it still counts.

“What is?”

Armie keeps running his fingers through Timmy’s hair, and it takes him so long to answer that Timmy almost thought he wasn’t going to. “Considering how much I missed you, after just one night? How am I going to…” Armie breaks off, throwing his arm across his eyes, trying to hide himself away.

“When we’re finished with this movie, and we’ll both be off doing other projects, how am I gonna sleep at night without you there?” He lowers his arm again, and sits up, staring down at Timmy. “How am I supposed to live without you?”

Timmy feels as if a block of ice just got dumped into his stomach, and he sits up, wrapping his arms around himself. “Armie… Don’t do that.” He says with a shake of his head.

“What? I thought you wanted me to be honest? This is me, being honest.” Armie looks genuinely confused, and Timmy wipes away the one tear that had managed to fall down his cheek, before reaching out for Armie’s hand.

“Yeah, but… Armie, I don’t want to hear that you’re going to die without me. I can’t… You can’t do that to me.”

Armie stares wide eyed at him, as he seems to realize exactly what Timmy is referring to, and he closes his eyes with a wince, squeezing Timmy’s hand with his own. “Timmy, no, hey, look at me.” He says soothingly, and when Timmy does look up at him, Armie has a soft, sad, smile on his face. “I didn’t mean… I’m not.. I wouldn’t ever do that to you okay? Never. That wasn’t at all what I meant.”

“Then why would you even say it?” Timmy chokes out, tears now running freely down his face, and Armie reaches up to carefully wipe them away before pulling him into his chest. Holding him, and stroking his back as he cried.

“I didn’t think, I’m sorry.” Armie whispers, pressing a kiss to the top of Timmy’s head. “All I meant was, that without you, my life has no meaning. And if I lose you, because of my inability to… To be a normal functioning human being, then... I wouldn’t have a life left to live. I’d be surviving, I wouldn’t be living.”

Timmy pulls away from Armie’s embrace, to look up at his face, rubbing his thumb against the stubble on his jaw before pulling him down for a kiss.

“You know, you’re not the first one to tell me that.” He says quietly, his thumb still stroking Armie’s jaw.

“Tell you what? That I’m an idiot?” Armie smiles, but Timmy just shakes his head, kissing him again.

“No.” Timmy smiles, poking his finger into Armie’s dimple. “You’re not an idiot. Besides, you’re talking to me right now, aren’t you? Sharing things, just like I asked. So cut yourself some slack, babe.”

Timmy rests his head on Armie’s shoulder, and picks at the hemline of his t-shirt. “No, what I meant was, it’s not the first time I’ve heard that if things end between us, that you wouldn’t… I mean, that you couldn’t… That you’d die without me.” He finishes quietly, and feels Armie stiffen beneath him.

He lifts his head, and looks up to find Armie staring at him with his mouth wide open and his eyebrows furrowed.

“What? Who said tha – Nick…” He says dangerously, narrowing his eyes and shaking his head. “That son of a bitch, when did he say that? When? Was it last night? I’m gonna kill him, I swear to god.”

“No, hey, no, Armie, breathe. Calm down, hey!” Timmy reaches up and holds Armie’s face in between the palms of his hands. He looks so genuinely angry, that if it were anyone else, Timmy would actually be scared. “It wasn’t last night, okay? It was when he was here, before you’d told me about Dylan, and what happened to you after. So I didn’t think he meant it like that, until… Until you told me.”

Armie takes a deep breath in through his nose, and slowly releases it through his mouth, obviously trying to calm himself down, but the fiery rage in his eyes doesn’t die down until he looks down at Timmy, and then it’s quickly replaced by unimaginable sadness.

“He had no right… No right, to put that on you, I… I am so sorry.” Armie chokes out, closing his eyes to try and stop the tears from welling up, but when he looks back at Timmy a few seconds later, it’s clear he very much failed. Timmy just gives him a sad smile, and carefully wipes his tears away.

“And I’m sorry for doing pretty much the exact same thing just a few minutes ago, even though it wasn’t the way I meant it, I… Obviously I understand why you’d think that, given everything. I just… I keep f*cking up, don’t I? Hurting you, over and over.” Armie shakes his head, letting a couple more tears fall, and Timmy leans in and presses a soft kiss to his cheek, tasting the salt of his tears on his tongue.

“No, don’t be sorry. No, this, this is good. Armie. Painful, yeah, but. You’re sharing things with me.” Timmy smiles, reaching for Armie’s hand and lifting it to his mouth to kiss it. “And, you know, it’s not like I was expecting this to be easy, or painless. I just – I didn’t… I didn’t expect the first thing out of your mouth to be that you’d die without me. Even if that’s not how you meant it. It… It took me by surprise is all.”

Timmy kisses Armie again, this time of the lips, smiling into the kiss as Armie’s hand comes up to cup his cheek. “I really don’t want to think about you dying.” Timmy says quietly, looking into Armie’s eyes. “I mean, you think you’re the only one who would be shattered if we broke up? Because you’re not, and if… Just, if, I wouldn’t be able to live without you either.”

Armie closes his eyes and lets out a pained groan, a few more tears falling down his cheeks, until Timmy wipes them away again. “f*ck… Timmy, I – God don’t say that.”

“Yeah, hurts don’t it?” Timmy says with a sad smile, tears falling down his cheeks as well, and Armie pulls him in for a desperate kiss, both of them pouring every little bit of hurt, and so much love into it, it leaves them both breathless and they’re forced to break apart.

Panting against each other, as they wrap their arms around each other in a hug, both of them clutching the other’s t-shirt in their fists.

“I’m sorry.” Armie repeats again a little while later, when they’d both calmed down, and gone back to cuddling. Armie had taken up running his fingers through Timmy’s hair again, while Timmy drew imaginary patterns onto Armie’s stomach with his finger.

“For what?” Timmy says absentmindedly, twirling his finger around where he thought Armie’s belly button was.

“For Nick, he had no right. None. I’m… f*ck it, I’m gonna call him.” Armie sits up to locate his phone on the nightstand, effectively pushing Timmy off of him, and leaving him staring at him with wide eyes.

“You’re gonna, what?”

“Yeah, I’m- I’m sorry, but I have to yell at him, right now, or I’m never gonna be able to sleep”

Timmy watches as Armie picks his phone up, and starts scrolling through his contact list. Just as he’s about to hit the call button, Timmy clears his throat, making him look up, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Do you… I mean, should I leave?” Timmy chews on his bottom lip as he waits for Armie to answer, but Armie just looks confused, furrowing his eyebrows and tilting his head.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, privacy?” Timmy says with a shrug of his shoulder, and Armie shakes his head with a smile as he wraps his arm around Timmy and pulls him close.

“No, no secrets remember? We share everything now.” Timmy smiles and presses a soft kiss to Armie’s collarbone, feeling a light shudder run through him.

“Good.” Timmy says, and in an attempt to lighten the mood, he adds, “just, don’t expect me to take a dump in front of you just yet.”

“Aw, what’s wrong my little Elio, do you want our bodies to have secrets?” Armie cackles while Timmy rolls his eyes, but he’s unable to stop a smile from spreading on his face.

He sits up and lightly punches Armie in the shoulder, making him giggle. “Oh, shut up. Just be glad that scene isn’t in the f*cking movie, okay? It’s bad enough that I’m gonna have to f*ck that damn peach on screen, I don’t want to also be known as the guy that has his boyfriend help him take a sh*t in the name of romance.”

Armie lets out another loud cackle, before his face goes soft, and he leans for a quick kiss. “Honestly, I’m a little sad they’re not gonna let me eat it.”

“What?”

“Yeah, in the book, I really liked that part. With how, by taking a bite of that peach, Oliver now had a piece of Elio inside of him. Like, something physical. That their bond wasn’t just an emotional one anymore. They were properly connected now.” Armie explains, taking Timmy’s hand in his and threading their fingers together as Timmy watched on, feeling his heart swell, but he wasn’t going to let Armie know that just yet.

“Connected… By Elio’s come.” Timmy deadpans, and Armie just shrugs.

“Well, I mean, yeah.”

“So you’re telling me, that all those times I sucked you off and swallowed, that was me cementing our bond?” Timmy says with a grin, starting to laugh as Armie rolls his eyes at him. “That we’re in love now, because you have such a tasty dick?”

“Oh, shut up.” Armie grumbles, and starts digging his fingers into Timmy’s side again, making him howl with laughter. Now that he knows Timmy actually is ticklish, he’s probably going to use that for all that its worth, and knowing that, Timmy quickly surrenders.

“No, I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” He squirms out of Armie’s grip, still giggling lightly. “It’s sweet. I like that you think about it like that. And I do agree, they should have kept it, but, you know Luca, he… I mean, he didn’t even really want the peach scene in there to begin with. So the fact that they cut, what’s arguably the most important part of it, it’s… It’s sad, but, at least most of the scene is still in there, and I like the way it’s been written, I’m not looking forward to shooting the actual peach f*cking, but the scene with you – I mean, Oliver, after, it’s… Yeah, it’s- I think it’s going to be good.”

Armie smiles softly at him, and nods, kissing Timmy’s nose, making him scrunch his face up, much to Armie’s apparent amusem*nt. Timmy pulls Armie in for a proper kiss, and they lose themselves in each other, letting their tongues lazily rub up against each other, until Armie pulls back with one last, chaste, closed mouthed parting kiss to Timmy’s lips.

“Okay, enough distractions, I’m gonna yell at Nick now.”

When Armie picks his phone back up, from where he’d dropped it onto the bed, Timmy puts his hand on top of the screen, stopping him from being able to make the call. “Armie, don’t.” He says quietly, lightly shaking his head.

But Armie just lifts Timmy’s hand away, and up to his mouth to give it a quick kiss. “No, I’m going to. Because what he said to you? Okay, I get that he… I know he was only trying to do the right thing, but to essentially tell you, that if you leave me, I’m gonna kill myself, and then imply that would be your fault? No, that’s not okay.” Armie sighs, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger.

“You know, I’m not the only one that Dylan f*cked up. Nick, he… I don’t think he’s fully realized it yet, which, hah, like I’m one to talk.” He says with a roll of his eyes, and Timmy reaches for his hand, and strokes his thumb over the back of his palm.

“But, uh, yeah, after Dylan, Nick’s never really been the same. He used to be so trusting, you know? Always happy to meet new people, getting along with everyone and everything, but now… I don’t think he’s made a new friend in years, and he’s completely stopped trusting his own intuition, it's… f*cking Dylan, I should have punched that asshole even harder.” Armie spits out, clenching his fist, and Timmy doesn’t blame him for one second. Because if he ever got the chance, he’d want to punch Dylan in the face too.

“I thought you said you punched him pretty hard? Because, he passed out, right?”

“Yeah. But I should’ve, at least, knocked some of his teeth out.” Armie grumbles, making Timmy laugh.

This time, when Armie picks his phone back up, Timmy doesn’t try to stop him, but he does kiss him on the cheek, and quietly say, “I get that you need to do this, but maybe you should cut Nick some slack?”

But Armie just shakes his head. “No.”

“No?”

“No, if there’s one thing this whole f*cking Dylan thing taught me, it's that there are consequences to your actions. However small, or how long ago you made them, they’re just as likely to come back and bite you in the ass. So this is me, biting Nick in the ass.” As soon as he says it, Armie bites his lip and starts frowning. And Timmy is trying so hard, harder than he ever probably has in his life, to not start laughing.

“Yeah, that…. Didn’t sound right.” Armie says with a roll of his eyes, and Timmy lets a tiny snort slip through his defenses. “But, f*ck it, you knew what I meant”

“Sure, babe.” Timmy says with a laugh, unable to hold it in any longer. “Let’s bite some ass.”

Chapter 26

Chapter Text

Armie presses a soft kiss to Timmy’s cheek, and picks his phone back up, Timmy watches as he finds Nick’s name in his contact list, and this time he doesn’t try and stop him as he presses the call button.

“I’m gonna put him on speaker.” Armie whispers, and lets his thumb lightly touch the symbol, making the ringing sound out loud into the room.

“You don’t have to do that.” Timmy says with a small smile, leaning in and pecking Armie lightly on the lips. “Honestly, it’s fine.”

Armie lightly shakes his head, pressing the call button again when Nick fails to pick up on the first try. “No, you deserve to hear everything he’s got to say.”

Nick fails to pick up this time too, and they decide to wait for a few minutes before trying him again. But before they have the chance to try a third time, Nick calls Armie.

“-ello? Armie?” Nick’s worried voice comes through the speakerphone, and Timmy feels his heart clench a little for him, because seeing the two missed calls on his phone, after what happened last night, he must’ve assumed that something bad had happened.

Timmy knows he definitely would have panicked if it had been the other way around. But then he panics the second he sees multiple missed calls on his phone in general, always assuming they’re calling to tell him someone had either died, or hurt themselves severely.

His therapist keeps telling him that it’s nothing but catastrophic thinking, and he knows, but it doesn’t make him any less worried. It’s definitely something he has to keep working on, especially now, because he can’t sh*t his pants every time Armie either doesn’t pick up when he calls, or he misses Armie’s calls.

“Why have you been calling me? Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.” Comes Armie’s steely reply, and Timmy almost flinches at how cold he sounds. He’s heard Armie angry before, pissed off even, but he’s never heard him sound like this, and he can’t say he likes it.

If anything, Nick just sounds even more worried than before. “What?”

“How could you? I trusted you, how… you son of a –” Armie spits out, voice getting louder and louder by the second, until Nick cuts him off.

“Woah, woah, woah, Armie, calm down. The f*ck are you talking about?”

Armie looks over at Timmy and takes a deep breath, “You told Timmy I was going to kill myself if he broke up with me?!”

“What? No? What?!” Nick sounds genuinely horrified, but Armie just rolls his eyes, reaching for Timmy’s hand and squeezing it so hard that Timmy’s fingertips went bright red. It made him flinch, which of course Armie noticed, and he let go of him immediately, lifting Timmy’s hand to his mouth and kissing the inside of his wrist.

“Don’t bullsh*t me, why the f*ck would he make this up? Huh?” Armie practically shouts, and Timmy is still taken aback with how venomous his voice sounds.

In one way it makes him feel really good, knowing that Armie loves him enough to even stand up to his best friend for him, but on the other hand, Nick probably thought he was doing the right thing, and being a good best friend, and he doesn’t exactly deserve having Armie ripping him a new one because of that.

Armie could have just as easily just called him and had a calm, grown up, conversation. But then again, the fact that Armie didn’t fully know how to control his emotions was basically the entire reason that they were in this mess to begin with.

“Wha – I don’t… Oh, wait, oh no. No, Armie, no, I didn’t. I swear! But he… f*ck, he must have completely misunderstood me. sh*t. Is he there? Can I speak to him? Armie? Please?”

The desperation in Nick voice takes them both by surprise, it’s not that Timmy thought Nick didn’t care, but at the same time, he hadn’t expected him to be this distraught, and judging by the look on Armie’s face, he hadn’t either.

“He can hear you, you’re on speaker. I…” Armie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You say what you need to say man, but I’m not leaving you alone with him again.”

They hear Nick suck in a deep breath, and Timmy knows that Armie’s words cut him a lot deeper that Armie probably intended, and the quick look of regret that flashes across Armie’s face confirms Timmy’s theory.

Timmy gives Armie’s hand a gentle squeeze, about to tell him that it really is okay if he wants to leave them alone, and take some time to himself. But Nick starts talking before he has the chance.

“Okay, okay. I- I understand. Uhm... Timmy? You there?” The choked up quality to Nick’s voice makes Timmy’s heart twinge a little, and the way Armie’s eyes fall shut and his shoulders tense up, it obviously hurt him too.

“Yeah. I’m here.” He says quietly, for some reason feeling that he shouldn’t speak too loudly.

“I’m so sorry, I…” Nick stops to clear his throat, and Timmy feels his own start to tighten up, he doesn’t know why Nick being this upset gets to him as much as it does, after all he barely even knows the guy.

But he was Armie’s best friend, and what he’d said yesterday, it had mattered a lot, and he’d hoped they were on their way to becoming friends too. He’s still hoping for that actually, despite all this.

“What I said? Timmy, I- I really didn’t mean it the way you heard it, okay? I know that’s no excuse, and that I probably broke your heart a little, but, I’m sorry, okay?”

Timmy frowns, and looks over at Armie who rolls his eyes, because how the f*ck else was he supposed to take ‘he won’t be able to survive that’ other than Nick telling him Armie would be likely to… To do the worst possible thing. “I… How did you mean it then? Because, Nick, I have to say, I don’t see how I could’ve misinterpreted that. I don’t, there’s- You said… f*ck, you know what you said, there is no way to misinterpret it. There just isn’t.”

“No, okay, so you didn’t misinterpret it as much as… Uhm, apply it to the wrong scenario, I guess.”

“I’m not following.” Timmy was going to give himself wrinkles with the amount of frowning he’d been doing these last few minutes, but judging by the furrows in Armie’s forehead, he wasn’t going to be the only one.

He could also feel a bit of a headache coming on, probably from the frowning, and the teeth grinding, so if Nick would be so kind as to start making sense soon, that would be much appreciated.

“Okay, so, what I said to you… f*ck, you have to remember that this was before you guys had even bothered pulling your heads out of your asses and admitted to yourself that you were dating.” Nick rambles, talking so fast Timmy was barely able to make out what he was saying. “You were living together, spending all your time tangled up in each other, and still somehow you managed to convince yourself that you were just friends with a whole hell of a lot of benefits.”

It’s not like Nick is wrong, about any of that, they definitely had a period of willful denial, but, he still doesn’t see how that justifies any of what Nick told him that day. So he heaves a sigh, and tells him as much.

“Yeah, but, Nick, come on, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything, Timmy, that’s just the thing. Because what I said? I said, don’t let him fall in love with you, and then walk away. That really would have broken him. Would he have gone to the dramatic step of actually ending things? Probably not. But he still wouldn’t….” Nick cuts himself off, sucking in a deep breath, and Timmy feels Armie’s grip on his hand tighten again. He knows that it hurts him, having to listen to all this, and that he’s probably berating himself and calling himself all kinds of bad names inside of his head right now.

It’s part of the reason why he wished Armie had left them alone for this conversation, because he knows Armie sees this as a failure on his part. Not on Nick’s, or Timmy’s. In Armie’s mind, this is all his fault, brought on by his issues, and he keeps hurting all the people he loves.

It’s going to take them a lot of time to work through all that, or, no, it was going to take Armie a lot of time to work through that. Timmy would support him every step of the way though, helping to call him out every time he slipped back into old self deprecating patterns. He gives Armie’s hand a squeeze back, and then slowly rubs the back of Armie’s palm with his thumb to try and calm him down.

The deep breath Armie lets out, and the way he leans into Timmy, tells him that he’s right, and he can’t help but smile a little at the fact that he knows Armie well enough now, to pick up on these things. The fact that Armie isn’t trying to hide from him anymore also helps of course.

“Timmy, it would have sent him straight back to where he was right after Dylan. Because even if he wasn’t ready to admit it, I could tell he already loved you. And, f*ck, that scared me, you know? Because what if you didn’t feel the same? But kept stringing him along, because you, I don’t know, enjoyed the sex or whatever. If you had been the type of person able to do that, and then went on to tell him, after he inevitably confessed his feelings, that you didn’t feel the same? Making him relive the whole falling in love with someone who never loved him back? That? That would have been the end of him, for sure.”

Timmy feels his stomach drop, and he immediately turns towards Armie, finding him with tears running down his cheeks. He pulls him in, stroking Armie’s back as he silently cries against his shoulder.

“He might not have taken that final step, I can’t say for sure, but, he definitely would have stopped living. Everything that makes him the Armie you love today, it would have been gone if that had happened. He would have completely shut down, and that was what I was desperately trying to tell you, without actually being able share the whole story. Obviously, it didn’t work, and I really am so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you in any way. I was just trying, you know, I was just trying to protect my friend. I didn’t want him to get his heart broken again. But, Timmy, I’m so f*cking sorry if I ended up breaking yours, I never meant for that to happen.”

Despite hearing the exact same thing from Armie earlier, it some how hurt even more having it confirmed by Nick now. He never wanted to picture Armie as a… A virtual zombie, surviving just to survive. No joy in his eyes, no soft smiles, no sweet touches. Nothing.

But, also, no matter how much it hurt, it was still the better option. Because at least Armie would be alive, and as long as he was alive, there would still be hope. Even if they broke up one day, they’d still have the option of reconnecting. But, if Armie had… If he, just, if, then that would be it.

There would be no second chances, and Timmy really didn’t want to live in a world with no second chances.

So, yeah. As much as hearing what Nick had to say hurt, he still felt strangely relieved.

“I… I believe you, and uh, I forgive you. But… f*ck, watch your words next time, please? Because…” Timmy couldn’t even get himself to finish the sentence, but luckily Nick was so eager to please at the moment, that he cut him off almost immediately.

“Yeah, yeah definitely, I know I keep saying it, but, I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Yeah. it’s… I’m not gonna say it’s fine, because it’s not, but, it’s not just your fault. And I do forgive you, so let’s just… Move on, yeah?”

Nick is silent for a long time, and Timmy actually looks down at the phone, for the first time since the call started, just to make sure that they haven’t been disconnected. Then he hears him suck in a deep breath, before he starts speaking again, a touch of wonder in his voice.

“You really are just, so good, aren’t you? Like genuinely, a good person.”

Armie had stopped crying by now, but he hadn’t pulled back from Timmy’s embrace. He’d only slightly moved his head, to bury his face in Timmy’s neck, slowly breathing him in to calm himself down. And when he heard what Nick said, Timmy could feel him smile against his skin, and his arms tighten around Timmy’s waist.

Timmy is still quite sh*t at accepting compliments, if Nick even meant it as a compliment, he doesn’t even know. So instead of answering coherently, he just stutters like a moron, feeling Armie’s body start to shake with badly surpressed laughter. “Oh, uh, I… Uhm. Uhhh, well… I-”

“I mean that as a compliment, by the way, I truly wish more people could be like you.”

“Oh. Uhm. Thank you?”

Timmy rolls his eyes at himself, but he can’t stop himself from smiling when he hears Nick’s chuckle, he really should practice this whole compliment thing. It was just so f*cking awkward, and he didn’t even know why.

Compliments from Armie felt f*cking amazing. Compliments from literally anyone else? It was like his brain just couldn’t fully comprehend that other people actually liked him. He knew Luca was doing his best to get him used to receiving compliments, and Esther had definitely picked up on it as well, complimenting him more and more after their scenes together. But it didn’t seem to work, he still felt as awkward now as he did the first time Luca went on a tangent practically singing his praises.

In a way he hoped he’d never get used to it, but he also didn’t want to always seem like an asshole, just standing there looking down at his feet with a tight-lipped smile every time someone said something nice about him.

“I know I’ve said it before but, I’m glad Armie found you, you’re good for him.” At that, Armie lifts his head, and their eyes meet, both of them smiling softly.

“And, you know, I really hope that whatever was going on between you guys last night, that you’ve managed to work it out. Or, keep working it out. Because, as cheesy as it might sound, I kinda feel like you guys were made for each other.”

“Yeah, we feel that too.” Armie agrees, leaning in and kissing Timmy on the lips, both of them still smiling, so it wasn’t the best kiss they’ve ever shared. But it didn’t really matter, they were happy, and in love, this was just one kiss out of a hundred million they had left to share.

Chapter 27

Chapter Text

Timmy had woken up the next morning with his face all up in Armie’s armpit, he still doesn’t quite know how they’d ended up like that, when they’d gone to sleep with Armie spooned up behind him. In a way, as gross as it might sound, waking up to the scent of Armie’s sweat was strangely grounding, and Timmy honestly can’t remember ever having slept this well.

Probably also helped that everything that had been bothering him as of late was all out in the open now, but having Armie there beside him, to hold, and – yes, smell – definitely also did wonders.

However, if he had known that Armie was going to stress himself to pieces about this doctor’s appointment, he never would have let him come, because sitting in the waiting room with him constantly bouncing his feet and picking at his nails was driving Timmy halfway to insanity, and he was supposed to be keeping it cool.

“Stop that.” Timmy whispers, laying a hand down on Armie’s knee to get him to settle down, but all that did was make him start to bounce the other leg, at least until Timmy raised an eyebrow at him, and he sent a sheepish smile back, before clearing his throat and letting his leg go still.

“Sorry, I’m just –”

“Nervous, yes, I can tell.” Timmy cuts him off with a smile. “It’s sweet really, but, babe, this is nothing to be nervous about, okay? It’s just a precaution, that’s it.” Timmy knows that he’d probably be just as nervous as Armie, if not worse, if it had been the other way around and Armie was the one in need of medical attention, but it also did sort of bug him that his words weren’t enough to calm Armie down.

It’s not that he was annoyed with Armie, not really, if anything he was annoyed with himself. He should have taken better care of himself, and he should have known that skipping meals — even if it was just breakfast — and not drinking enough in this heat was a recipe for disaster. He’d just been so distracted, by the movie, by Armie, by everything, and now he’d worried everyone all over again because he couldn’t stop acting like a child.

Another reason he didn't like the fact that his words weren’t enough to soothe Armie’s worries, was that it made him feel like he wasn't really enough, even though he knew that wasn't fair to either of them.And after all, he could barely control his own anxiety, how was he supposed to control Armie’s? But he did have hope that some time in the future, when things went sideways, all he’d have to do would be to tell Armie it would be fine, and Armie would believe it. Believe him.

It was going to take time though, he knew that, but they have all the time in the world to get to that point. Because that he was sure of, after everything they’d been through already, they could make it through anything.

“I know, but I love you, so I can’t help but worry, you know? Anything that could hurt you, would hurt me too, that’s just…” Armie cuts himself off, and reaches for Timmy’s hand, entwining their fingers together. “It’s – I don’t like the fact that I can’t just snap my fingers and fix this, you know? I can’t throw my money at this problem and make it go away for you, and that, I… It scares me, to know that despite the work we put in, making this relationship work, there are still forces beyond our control that could come and take you away from me. And honestly? That’s why I freaked out so bad the other day.”

Timmy feels torn between heartbreak and hysterical laughter, because why do they keep having these deep heart to hearts in the least private circ*mstances? First at Luca’s, where literally anyone could walk in if they wanted, and now, literally out in public, among a whole bunch of people. And sure, most of them were his grandparents age, and probably didn’t speak much English, but all the same.

The fact that Armie actually did speak about his feelings though, just like Timmy had asked, it both warmed and broke his heart at the same time, because f*ck did he have a way with making words hit you straight in the f*cking soul.

Timmy could definitely understand why Armie felt what he felt, because truly, both of them being so young, he hadn’t given their health half a thought either. But now, after all this, he was definitely going to have to ask his therapist for help to stop constantly worrying about Armie just straight up dropping dead from a heart attack every time he left the house.

Armie lifts their entwined hands up to his mouth and kisses the back of Timmy’s palm, before laying his other hand on top of it, and clutching it to his chest. Timmy could feel the way his heart was beating a lot faster than normal, and let his head come down to rest on Armie’s shoulder.

“Because, you know, up until then –” Armie continued, practically whispering. “I never even thought about the fact that we’re human, as stupid as that sounds. I didn’t, I hadn’t thought about something as simple as a stroke being the thing that took you away, I always figured that if I lost you, it would be my fault, you know? That I’d do something stupid and push you away, but at least then I would have someone to blame – someone to take my anger and hurt out on. But who do I blame if I lose you to an illness? Do I blame you? Do I blame God? The universe? Do I still blame myself? I-”

Armie trailed off, and Timmy lifts his head to see a lone tear slowly making its way down his cheek. “I know it’s not healthy to think about stuff like this, but, f*ck, I can’t help it. I love you, so naturally all I can think about is losing you.”

Timmy leans in and softly kisses Armie’s cheek, tasting the salt of his tears. “You think I’m not scared of losing you?” He asks quietly, smiling sadly as Armie’s eyes lock onto his. “Because of course I do, and I don’t think that’s ever going to go away. So all we can do, is to keep doing this, you know? Talking to each other, sharing our worries, and then… I don’t know, just do our very best to not think about the future too much. Because truth is, nobody knows how long they’re going to get to be around for, so instead of worrying about something we can’t change, lets focus on something we can.”

“And what would that be?” Armie whispers, licking his lips.

Timmy shrugs, leaning in for a quick kiss. “How about, we choose to focus on making each other happy. However many days we have left, lets make them all something worthy of looking back on with a smile, even the bad ones.”

Armie smiles, and once again lifts their entwined hands up to his mouth to kiss the back of Timmy’s palm. “I like that.” He nods, giving Timmy’s hand a little squeeze before letting it go, and slowly stroking his thumb across Timmy’s cheekbone, making Timmy’s eyes flutter shut.

Timmy had almost forgotten where they were, so when the nurse calls his name, he startles – more than just a little – making Armie snort. Timmy lightly punches him in the shoulder, and makes his way over to the nurse.

She starts to lead him towards a room further in the back, and before they disappear out of Armie’s sight completely, he asks quickly and quietly if it would be okay for Armie to come with him. The nurse smiles, and nods, adding that as long as him being there doesn’t mean Timmy won’t be able to relax, it should be fine.

“Good.” Timmy smiles shyly, rubbing the heel of his shoe against the floor. “I’ll relax more with him there, to be honest.” The nurse smiles widely at him, before turning around and opening the door to the examination room, holding it open for him.

Timmy looks up to catch Armie’s eyes, and finds him nervously chewing on his bottom lip, when Timmy sends him a quick nod, he can literally see relief run through his body as he stands and starts making his way across the room.

Armie immediately takes Timmy’s hand in his and threads their fingers together, holding onto him so tightly it’s as if he’s afraid Timmy’s going to disappear any second. “Hey, you okay?” Timmy whispers as they watch the nurse prepare the things she’d need to draw Timmy’s blood.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I just…” Armie sighs as a slight grimace flashes across his face. “I can’t help but worry.”

Timmy playfully rolls his eyes and goes up on his tip toes to press a quick kiss to Armie’s lips before turning towards the nurse, a soft smile on his face. “Would you mind telling my boyfriend here that he’s got nothing to worry about? That I’m not going to die even if the results of this test aren’t great?”

The nurse looks up at Armie, and Timmy can’t help but grin as he watches her practically fall in love with Armie right in front of his eyes. Not that Timmy could blame her, of course, because to be honest – Same.

If anything, the way she seems to melt at the sight of Armie still nervously chewing on his bottom lip, clutching Timmy’s hand as if it was a lifeline, is strangely adorable.

But it also makes him a little sad, because Armie never seems to notice when these things happen, and that he knows that when he’ll bring it up later, Armie’s not going to believe him. He is still going to bring it up though, because Armie deserves to know the effect he has on people, and dammit, Timmy is going to make him see how great he truly he is if it’s the last thing he’ll ever do.

“You don’t have to worry, Sir.” The nurse smiles, and Timmy can’t help but grin at the blush that spreads on Armie’s cheeks at being called Sir, definitely another thing to bring up later, because, interesting. He couldn’t wait to see how far down that blush actually went, but, again, it was very much a thought for later, because he really couldn’t afford to get excited now.

“Even if this test show there’s something not right with your boyfriend’s glucose levels, it’s easily manageable, and not at all, what you say, lethal.” Armie releases a deep breath, and slowly nods his head, still not looking completely convinced that Timmy wasn’t about to drop dead any second, but at least he was breathing a little easier than before.

The nurse goes back to fiddling with the vials and pours a glass of something that looks a little like lemonade, she gestures for Timmy to sit down in the recliner closest to her – which, what kind of luxury was this? He’d never been so comfortable while having his blood drawn in his entire life.

Armie goes to sit in the other recliner, and even he releases a little surprised noise at how comfortable the chairs actually were.

Once Timmy had filled the necessary vials, the nurse hands him the glass and tells him to drink it. She doesn’t even have the chance to actually add “you might want to drink it slowly” before he’s gone and downed the whole thing.

Both Armie and the nurse laugh at the look of pure disgust on his face, but honestly, it was literally one of the worst things he’d ever put in his mouth, and he’s had his mouth in plenty of interesting places.

“Just so you know, some people do experience nausea because of this, but it’s perfectly normal. But if you do start feeling sick, just press the alarm button, and we’ll get you some medicine to counteract it. Okay?” Armie starts looking concerned again, but Timmy just nods, because just going by the way that sh*t tasted, he’s pretty sure it was nothing but pure sugar in liquid form, and for someone who hadn’t eaten in over 12 hours, he wouldn’t at all be surprised if it made him feel sick.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll remember that. Thanks for telling me.”

“I’ll see you in two hours then. Make sure you relax now, but no sleeping, okay? It will ruin the results and you’d have to do it again later.” Both Timmy and Armie nod at that. And honestly, even if he was feeling tired, which he’s not, just hearing that he’d might have to take it again if he took a sneaky nap, would be enough to wake him the f*ck up.

He was sick and tired of being the reason for this shutdown in filming, and like, sure, Luca had found a way to use this setback productively, by shooting a sh*t ton of scenic shots, and had now, according to Esther, when she called to check in on him about ten minutes after the nurse had left them alone, amassed quite the sizable collection of various trees blowing in the wind.

They hadn’t only been filming trees though, Esther had said with a laugh, they’d made sure to film most of the very few scenes that didn’t require Timmy or Armie in them.

Not that it was all that many, Timmy knew, but at least it kept them a little busy, and they weren’t just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for him. Which did make him feel better, not a lot, but still, it did ease a little of the guilt he’d been feeling.

Armie pulls up a book on his phone, and starts reading out loud for Timmy, and if it hadn’t been for the warning from the nurse, Timmy probably would have fallen asleep right then and there. He was so ridiculously comfortable in this fancy-ass chair – he really needed to look into buying one for himself if he ever won the lottery – and Armie’s voice was always so incredibly soothing to listen to.

“Did I ever tell you?” Timmy begins, accidentally cutting Armie off in the middle of a sentence. “Oh, sorry, uhm. Just, did I ever tell you that I love your voice?”

Another blush makes its way across Armie’s cheeks, making Timmy smile. He really loved how easily Armie blushed, and that despite everything that had happened; how it had torn him apart, hardened him in ways he probably wasn’t even aware of himself, that little morsel of innocence had never left him.

Armie looks startled, tapping the screen to mark the page so that the phone would remember where they left off, and putting it face down on the table between them as he furrows his brows, looking more than a little confused. It’s honestly so adorable Timmy wants to say f*ck it all and climb into his lap and kiss him senseless, but, by some kind of divine miracle, he manages to stay in his seat.

“I- Really? My voice?” Adorably, Armie’s voice cracks on the last word, and Timmy just nods, smiling widely.

“Yeah! Do you have any idea how soothing it is? f*ck, listening to you read, I…” Timmy breaks off, rubbing his Adam’s apple with his thumb. He looks over at Armie with a soft smile. “It’s not the first time I’ve thought it, but you should really look into doing audiobooks, I’d love being able to hear you read for me even if we’re not actually together.”

It’s not that he likes thinking about them inevitably having to spend time apart, but he’d definitely done quite a bit of it these last 48 hours, and he knows that if Armie ever did record an audiobook, it would be what put him to sleep every single night they were separated.

“Audiobooks? Really? I can’t say I’ve ever considered that, no. What types of books would I even read? And, honestly, who’d want to listen to me when they could just read it themselves?”

“There you go again.” Timmy sighs, rolling his eyes. The Armie that went shy and blushed when he got compliments was by far preferable to the one that just flat out refused to listen to them. Sadly, you never knew which one you were gonna get, but Timmy was determined to f*cking get through to him in the end.

He was going to get Armie to start actually believing these damn compliments even if it was going to take him the rest of his f*cking life.

He might not be the best at accepting compliments either, but maybe, by helping Armie get to a point where he started believing the compliments he got, instead of just getting embarrassed or brushing them off as ridiculous, he’d find a way to do the same for himself as well.

“You have to f*cking stop putting yourself down like that, okay? You have an amazing voice, and I’m telling you, if you did decide to do audiobooks? People would love them.” Armie just shrugs, picking at the skin around his thumb, wincing a little when he accidentally makes himself bleed.

Timmy shakes his head and sighs again, he can tell that Armie is already closing himself off, despite promising to not do that anymore. It’s not like he expected him to completely turn everything around after just 24 hours, but it still sucks that the thing that makes him shut down is a compliment, of all things.

They’re supposed to make you feel good about yourself, even if he isn’t fully able to accept them either, he does at least believe that the person who gives the compliments mean what they say.

Armie doesn’t.

Timmy f*cking hated Dylan, society, Peter, and honestly, despite never having met them, he hated Armie’s parents too. Because as far as Timmy was concerned, they all shared equal blame in turning Armie into who he was today.

This giant, sad, self-loathing human being, who had no idea how beautiful he was, both inside and out. They had taken him, and completely hollowed him out, making him believe he was worth absolutely nothing at all.

And yet, all Timmy could see when he looked at him, was the sweetest human being he’d ever met. Someone who was so kind he’d bend over backwards to do you a favor, even if you didn’t deserve it. Someone so empathic and caring that when he looks at you, you feel like you could tell him your deepest, darkest secret, and he’d never judge you. Someone, who when he smiles, it’s like watching the sun come out from behind the clouds.

When Timmy looks at him, he sees the other half of his soul, and the fact that Armie doesn’t just dislike himself, but actually hates himself, it makes Timmy’s heart ache. He wished he could just wave a magic wand and miraculously fix all of Armie’s issues, but sadly, this wasn’t a fairytale, and in the end, the only person who could heal Armie, was Armie.

Unfortunately, another side effect of life not being a fairytale was that healing would never be done in the blink of an eye. It was going to take time, a lot of time. Quite possibly forever.

But to Timmy, Armie was worth it, and f*ck if he wasn’t going to get him to understand that one of these days. Be it tomorrow, a month from now, or even years. He was determined, that one day, he going to get Armie to see what Timmy sees when he looks in the mirror.

Not a broken, f*cked up man. But someone who was worth love and affection, someone who deserved the whole entire world.

Timmy also knows that this isn’t going to be their norm, he knows that the reason why everything is so raw right now is because by falling in love, they unearthed some of Armie’s deepest insecurities, but once things settle down, Armie’s heart will start to feel less like an exposed nerve, and he’ll go back to being more like the man Timmy met that first day.

The one who wasn’t afraid to barge in on his piano lesson, the man who yelled at him for his lack of self preservation, the one who was very much up for some dry humping in Luca’s backyard. They had plenty of good days in store, and Timmy knew that once they got through this, they’d be stronger than ever.

Obviously there will be bad days coming for them down the line, but everyone has those, and they’ll learn how to get through them together. And if anything, the few inevitable bad days would make the many good days that much better.

Before Timmy has the chance to say anything else, the nurse returns, and he can’t help but frown. There’s no clock in the room, and he hasn’t looked at his phone at all since he’d hung up with Esther earlier. “Wait, what? It’s been two hours already?”

The nurse nods, and starts preparing some new vials and needles while Timmy rolls his sleeve back up. It hurts a little more when she pokes him with the needle this time, but considering the amount of needles he’s had in his arm the last few days, it’s not really all that strange.

Watching his blood filling up the vials is still as fascinating as ever, despite having seen it way too many times recently, he can’t seem to take his eye off it. Armie on the other hand, seems to be looking everywhere but where the needle is sticking out of Timmy’s arm, which is understandable, Timmy doesn’t think he’d find this half as fascinating if it was Armie’s blood.

Once the vials are filled, and the nurse got what she came for, Timmy is finally allowed to leave. The nurse smirks at them when she tells them that yes, Timmy is cleared for sex, but that it probably wouldn’t hurt if they took things slowly to start with, considering.

She also said that normally they’d call him with his result, but that they knew he was busy, so if he wanted, they could text him as long as he signed a release form permitting them to do so. Naturally, he signed the papers, making sure to actually read everything before he signed this time, much to Armie’s amusem*nt.

They stop by a café on the way back to their apartment, so that Timmy could finally get some food in his stomach. He’s on his fifth pastry – and yes thank you, Armie, pastry very much counts as food so shut up – when Armie’s phone rings, it’s Luca, of course.

“Luca! Hey, yeah, we just got out actually. Yeah, it took a while, yeah.” Listening to Armie talking on the phone just further convinces him that Armie should start doing audiobooks, he hadn’t given up convincing him of that fact, but, he’d wait until Armie was in a better place mentally to bring it up again. Because at least then, maybe he’d actually agree, or at least agree to consider it, instead of just immediately laughing it off as a stupid idea.

Timmy gets up to order another cup of coffee for himself, since he’d downed most of it already, Armie had barely touched his, but he also liked to put milk in it, so there was no way Timmy was gonna be stealing any sips of that.

There’s a new guy behind the register, someone Timmy hasn’t seen at all during all the times he and Armie stop by here, which they do a lot – they have good pastries, Timmy likes pastries, shut up. When it’s his turn, and he asks for a refill on his coffee the guy gives him an obvious once over before filling his cup, and when he slides over a napkin with his phone number written on it, Timmy feels a light blush dust his cheeks and he shoves the napkin into his pocket.

He can feel the guy’s eyes on him the entire time he’s walking back over to where Armie is sitting, still talking to Luca on the phone. When Timmy looks up, after having taken a small sip of coffee, he finds the guy still watching him, and when their eyes meet, the guy winks at him before busying himself with taking care of the next customer.

It’s not that Timmy ever plans on calling the number on the napkin, because what he’s actually planning on doing, is throwing it out the second they leave. Pretty much the only reason he even picked it up in the first place was that he didn’t want the guy to feel bad. However, Timmy couldn’t deny that the fact that he’d been so open with his attraction was refreshing, and it did feel really nice to know that someone, even if it was a total stranger, found you pleasing to look at.

But then again, that is true for literally everyone. People just want other people to view them as a worthy mate, that’s been true since the second humans came into existence, the only thing that’s changed is how we go about proving that we are good enough to take a chance on. It used to be proving that you were a good provider, now it’s proving that you’ve got a pretty face.

It was shallow as all f*ck, but, that’s what society had turned everyone into. Because everyone wants to be loved, and when society tells you you can only be loved if you look pretty, then of course everyone will strive to be pretty. So then when you do get that confirmation of your beauty, despite the fact that you’re very much aware of how f*cking stupid the whole thing is, you can’t help the burst of pride and happiness you feel – because it’s been indoctrinated into your very soul, from the moment you first opened your eyes.

So even though Timmy is more than happy being with Armie, and wouldn’t trade him for anything in the world, the fact that a stranger found him hot enough to slip him his number? Yeah, it stroked his ego nicely.

Timmy had pretty much forgotten all about the café guy and the napkin in his pocket by the time they make it back to their apartment, so when he goes to pull out his keys to unlock the door, and the napkin falls to the ground, he thinks nothing of it.

But then Armie bends down to pick it up, and when Timmy sees the way he starts to frown, he remembers that sh*t, he was supposed to throw that thing in the trash, not bring it home with him!

“Uhm… What’s this?” Armie asks, looking down at Timmy with furrowed brows, and disappointed eyes.

Timmy feels the blood in his veins turn to ice, and he tries his best to stutter out a satisfactory explanation, but turns out that it’s a lot easier said than done. “Oh. Uhm. I – It’s… I mean, it’s just a napkin. I was gonna, uhm, I was gonna throw it away.”

He winces at the way his voice goes all squeaky at the end, and he knows that everything he just said makes him sound extremely guilty, and now Armie is going to think that he’d been planning on keeping the damn thing, and maybe even calling the number, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Why did he have to panic so f*cking easily? Why couldn’t he just calmly speak his mind when confronted with things? He hadn’t even done anything wrong, and he was sweating like he’d just been caught red-handed with a body in the trunk of his car

“I see...” Armie nods slowly, looking back down at the napkin. “You should, uhm, you should call him. It’s the guy from the café, right? He was cute.”

Armie speaks so quietly that Timmy almost doesn’t hear him, and he keeps staring at the napkin like it holds all the secrets to the universe. “What? Armie, no, I’m not gonna call him. Why the f*ck would I? I’ve got everything I need right here.”

At that, Armie looks up, but when their eyes meet, there is no emotions to be found on Armie’s face at all. He’d completely shut down on him. “You should call him.” Armie repeats, holding the napkin out for Timmy to take. So he does, and then he promptly tears it to pieces.

“What part of I have everything I need right here did you not understand?” Timmy asks, taking a step closer to Armie and laying his palm over his heart, feeling the way it’s beating way too f*cking fast in there. “Please, stop trying to push me away. I’ve already made my choice, and I chose you. I will always choose you.”

A lone tear makes its way down Armie’s cheek as he lets out a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry.” He whispers, wetly. “I just… You deserve so much better, Timmy.”

Timmy shakes his head with a sad smile, and reaches out to carefully wipe Armie’s tears away, before leaning in and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “I love you, that’s never going to change, so please, Armie, just let me?”

Armie closes his eyes, and a few more tears comes pouring out, but then he nods, and Timmy smiles softly and pulls Armie into his arms for a tight hug. He can’t stop himself from pressing a few open mouthed kisses to his neck, making Armie shudder in his arms.

“I love you, so f*cking much, Timmy. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.” Armie whispers into Timmy’s shoulder before turning his head and softly kissing Timmy’s neck as well.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re never going to have to find out.”

They’ve been cuddling on the couch for a little while when Timmy notices that Armie keeps running the tip of his index finger over the inside of Timmy’s elbow, where his skin is now quite bruised and you can clearly see at least three or four needle marks grouped closely together.

“Do you think make up can cover it?” Timmy whispers nervously, because even though Luca had assured him that they had spent the time Timmy was on sick leave wisely, and that they weren’t running late, he still couldn’t help but worry that he’d messed everything up. So the last thing he’d need right now would be for filming to be delayed because of him, yet again.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. They manage to cover my tattoo just fine.” Armie says softly, still running his fingers over one of the bruises that darken Timmy’s skin. “I don’t like this though, what the f*ck did they do to you?”

Timmy smiles and takes Armie’s hand in his and lifts it to his mouth for a quick kiss. “Honestly, babe, it looks a lot worse than it is, I think the nurse last night might have missed my vein at one point.”

He hadn’t been able to understand what she’d been saying, but she’d had a slight look of panicked concern on her face when she went in for a second try, and the bruise that Armie is talking about had appeared right after, so it wasn’t all that hard to work out what had happened. He had seen it before, because it had happened to his dad once when he went to donate blood, but he’d never experienced it himself, until now. He usually had quite good, easy to find, veins, but apparently even his veins gave up after being poked for the hundredth time in just two days.

“This should have never happened.” Armie says, guiltily biting into his bottom lip, making Timmy roll his eyes, because honestly, how many times were they gonna have this same discussion?

“Yeah, but it did, and it was my fault, not yours.”

“I should’ve –” Armie begins, but Timmy immediately cuts him off.

“No.”

“But –”

“No. Listen to me, please. It was not your fault, okay?” Timmy sits up and holds Armie’s face between his hands, lightly stroking his cheeks with his thumbs. “You don’t have to carry my mistakes on top of your own issues, Armie. Don’t do that to yourself.”

Armie doesn’t say anything, just nods, so Timmy knows this is not the last time they’re gonna have this talk, but it’s enough for now. These last few days have been so emotionally draining that they deserve to take some time to recharge. And reconnect.

Which speaking of.

Timmy stands up and holds his hand out for Armie to take, speaking softly, with a smile on his face. “Come on, lets go to bed.”

“But it’s only like, 2?” Comes Armie’s confused reply, but he takes Timmy’s hand and lets himself be guided to his feet.

“I know, I didn’t mean for sleep.” Timmy smirks, wiggling his eyebrows, making Armie’s eyebrows climb all the way to the top of his forehead.

“Oh! You mean? Yeah, yes.”

Armie grabs Timmy by the back of the neck and pulls him in for a wet and messy kiss, neither of them having the patience to start slow. The fact that they hadn’t done this for days definitely catching up with them.

They blindly make their way to the bedroom, mouths barely leaving each other for the few seconds it takes to pull their t-shirts over their heads, and then they go right back to feeding each other their tongues, as if they were dying men in the desert and this was their only form of sustenance.

As they keep dropping pieces of clothing along the way, and knocking into various pieces of furniture, tipping things over, it’s obvious they’re not giving a single f*ck about the fact that they’re the ones having to clean all this up in the morning.

Right now, all that matters to Timmy is getting Armie inside of him, and getting his brain f*cked out. Everything else can wait.

Chapter 28

Chapter Text

“How do you want to do this?” Armie asks, kissing his way down Timmy’s neck before lightly biting down on the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder, making him moan as it sends an electric spark down his spine.

“I want, no, I need you to f*ck me. Hard. Make me really feel it.” Timmy pants out, licking his way back into Armie’s mouth.

As his tongue licked the roof of Armie’s mouth, Timmy couldn’t help but chuckle at the way it made Armie push his hips against him, then when he took Armie’s bottom lip between his teeth and pulled back before letting go with a gentle bite, Armie let out the cutest, most desperate, whine Timmy had ever heard in his entire life.

It made what little blood he had left in his brain rush down into his dick, and he found himself even more desperate for Armie’s dick inside him – which he honestly didn’t think was possible until that very moment.

“You’re so f*cking hot, baby. Please, just, f*ck me.” He groans, taking Armie’s hand from his hip and shoving it into his boxers, his hips stuttering slightly as Armie immediately wraps his fingers around his co*ck and slowly starts moving it.

It’s way too f*cking dry to actually be good, but right now Timmy doesn’t care, in fact, he needs it to hurt a little. He wants Armie to f*cking wreck him.

“Yeah? You sure?” Armie whispers, taking Timmy’s earlobe into his mouth and lightly sucking on it. “I don’t want to actually hurt you, especially not now, after everything.”

Timmy knows they probably shouldn’t be doing this so soon, but he really couldn’t care less, all he wants right now, is Armie’s dick inside of him, stretching him so f*cking good and making him see stars.

Making him feel alive.

“You won’t, I know you won’t, I love you.” He breathes out against Armie’s lips, using his tongue to gently tease open Armie’s mouth and lightly touching the tip of his tongue to Armie’s. “But please, babe, I need you to f*ck me, so f*cking hard.”

Armie pulls his hand out of Timmy’s boxers and wraps it carefully around his throat instead, making Timmy’s eyes flutter shut and a deep groan make its way past his lips. They hadn’t really had the time to explore this much further, after the first time Timmy awkwardly put Armie’s hand on his neck and silently begged him to tighten his grip.

But god, did he want it, he wanted it so f*cking bad he was already leaking through his f*cking underwear at just the thought of it. He knew it was risky, but he still f*cking wanted it, but he also knew, it wouldn’t be today. Armie would never, not after what the nurse had said, but Timmy also knew he got off on being a tease, which was exactly what this was.

And sure enough.

“The nurse said we should be taking it easy.” Armie said with a smirk, rubbing his thumb against Timmy’s Adam’s apple as he swallowed deeply.

He knew he was playing right into Armie’s hand by letting out a disappointed whine, and pushing his hips forwards hoping to grind up against Armie’s dick – to get some much needed friction. And just like he thought, since Armie f*cking loves being a tease, he cants his hips backwards, so that Timmy only just can’t reach him, the bastard.

“I don’t care. f*ck, Armie, I do not care. Just, please, gimme your dick, I need it so bad.”

At that, Armie groans and captures Timmy’s lips in a bruising kiss. When Armie sucks his tongue into his mouth, Timmy feels it in his f*cking toes. It’s been a while since he’s been so turned on that he’s literally panting for it – not even the sounding had gotten him this hot – but right now, he barely remembers what breathing feels like.

Armie doesn’t let him pull back from their kiss, but holds him in place with a hand buried in the hair at the back of his head. “Armie, please.” He breathes out into Armie’s mouth, feeling a shudder run through Armie’s body before the grip on the back of his head lets up, and he’s suddenly lifted up into the air.

The fact that Armie can lift him up so f*cking easily has always been hot, but it’s never been as hot as it is right now – probably because he has never been as hot as he is right now. He doesn’t know what the f*ck is going on with him, because it’s not like he hasn’t gone for long periods of times without getting laid before, because he definitely has, but now it’s barely been 4 days, and he’s absolutely gagging for it.

Armie carries him the rest of the way over to the bed, and gently deposits him on top of it, before climbing up after him and straddling Timmy’s lap. His dick is so f*cking hard it could probably cut glass at this point, and he’s completely soaked through his underwear – they’re clinging to his co*ck getting wetter and wetter.

When Armie starts kissing his way down Timmy’s chest, he lets out a long moan and once again tries to lift his hips up to get some friction on his dick, this time Armie just chuckles and pushes his hips back down, and holds them in place with one hand. He’s gripping Timmy’s hip so f*cking hard it’s bound to leave bruises, and Timmy is absolutely living for it – Luca probably won’t be as happy about that, but honestly, Timmy can barely remember his own name at this point, let alone the fact that they’re actually here to film a movie. It honestly barely even registers.

As Armie’s tongue dips into Timmy’s belly button, he can’t stop himself from giggling, but it quickly turns into a groan when Armie rolls his nipple between his thumb and index finger. Armie drags his tongue back up to Timmy’s chest, and stars pressing open mouthed kisses to his pectoral muscles, knowing full well that what Timmy actually wants is for him to take one of his nipples into his mouth, lick it, and maybe even bite it a little.

Naturally, because he is such a f*cking tease, Armie doesn’t do any of that. Instead he continues kissing his way back up to Timmy’s mouth, stopping to lightly bite on Timmy’s Adam’s apple – which fuuuck, makes his hips shoot up off the bed – Armie just chuckles and lets his tongue trace the contour of Timmy’s lips before licking his way into Timmy’s mouth, making their tongues rub against each other.

As Armie lets his hand trail down Timmy’s chest, coming to rest at the waistband of his boxers, Timmy doesn’t even hesitate to push his hips up again, moaning low in his throat as his dick finally comes into contact with Armie’s – the fact that they’re both covered with their respective underwear doesn’t even matter, friction is friction, and it’s so f*cking good that, once again, Timmy barely remembers to breathe.

“Breathe, baby, come on.” Armie whispers, pulling back slightly, so that Timmy’s brain has the chance to come back online, at least a little, and he sucks in a deep breath, making Armie chuckle.

“You need to make sure to breathe, babe, or this is going to end right now.”

As much as Timmy wants Armie to just be joking, he knows in his soul that Armie is being dead serious. Because no matter how amusing Armie finds Timmy’s current desperation, or how badly Armie is dying to f*ck him right now, Timmy knows he’s never going to do anything that could possibly hurt him – and Timmy not remembering to f*cking breathe, is definitely on Armie’s list of bad things.

“I’m breathing, I’m breathing.” Timmy pants out and desperately reaches out for Armie’s hand. He lays it, palm down, on top of his dick, putting his own hand on top and pushing down hard at the same time he pushes his hips up – whining loudly at how f*cking good it feels.

“f*ck, Armie. Baby, please, please.”

Armie just chuckles again, rubbing his thumb against the head of Timmy’s dick through his boxers, making him keen and continue grinding his dick against Armie’s hand. At least until Armie stops his movement, and lifts his hand away.

Timmy is about to cry out at the unfairness of it all, when he opens his eyes and sees Armie smirking, and slowly bringing his hand to his mouth. Timmy almost forgets to breathe again when Armie’s tongue touches the palm of his hand, where Timmy’s dick had made it the wettest, and Armie lets out a pleased moan at the taste of him.

“Mmm, you always taste so good, baby.” Armie whispers, making eye contact with Timmy as he licks up all the remaining traces of himself that Timmy had left behind on his hand.

Timmy tries to sit up and pull Armie in for a kiss, but finds himself pushed back down on his back almost immediately, when he lets out a confused whine, Armie just chuckles and presses a quick kiss to his lips before attaching his mouth to his neck, sucking a light mark into the skin.

As Armie continues kissing his way back down Timmy’s chest, Timmy buries his hands in Armie’s hair. He’s learned his lesson this time, and instead of trying to push Armie down to his dick before he’s ready, and having him pull back and start all over, Timmy is just going along with whatever Armie wants to do.

What Armie seems to want to do right now, is what Timmy had practically been dying for earlier, and when Armie gently bites down on his nipple, Timmy feels his dick twitch in his underwear.

“sh*t. Please!” He has no f*cking idea what he’s begging for at his point, he just knows he never wants Armie to stop making him feel good.

Timmy feels Armie grin around his nipple, so he’s not even the least bit surprised when he suddenly pulls off and sits back on his heels to just watch Timmy writhing on the bed.

“You son of a bitch.” Timmy pants out, making Armie laugh, but it also makes him bend back down and start kissing his way from Timmy’s bellybutton down to the waistband of his boxers, making it all wet with his spit.

But instead of pushing his boxers down and out of the way to wrap his mouth around Timmy’s dick, Armie drags his tongue back up Timmy’s chest, making his way back up to his mouth, again. It’s not that Timmy doesn’t want to kiss Armie, because he pretty much always does, but right this f*cking second, the f*cking last place he wants Armie’s lips is having them touch his own.

“Armieeeee.” He whines as Armie tips Timmy’s head back, and gently bites his jaw. “Please, just, touch me.”

“I thought I already was.” Armie whispers into his ear with a light chuckle, running his hands down Timmy’s hips, holding them in place, and giving them a light squeeze. “I mean, if I’m not, then whose hands are these?”

“You f*cking know that’s not what I meant!” Timmy spits out, trashing wildy and trying his best to dislocate Armie’s grip on him, but failing miserably. “f*cking touch me.”

Armie smiles against his neck, pressing a few open mouthed kisses there, before capturing Timmy’s lips in a wet, messy kiss. Timmy can’t help but moan into the kiss as he feels Armie’s hand make its way to the front of his underwear, and when he starts to rub his thumb against the head of his co*ck, Timmy breaks away from the kiss to suck in some much needed air.

When Armie finally start pushing Timmy’s underwear down, and the wet material of his boxers drag down his dick, Timmy lets out a loud sob, and hides his face in Armie’s neck, tongue peaking out to taste the salt of his sweat, as he tries really f*cking hard to keep focusing on his breathing – both because he doesn’t need Armie to stop things now, but also because he can feel himself hurtling towards the edge way too f*cking quickly.

Feeling Armie wrap his fingers around his dick, Timmy swear he blacks out for half a second, it’s like a sparks of electricity shoots up his entire spine and comes shooing out his dick, along with so much f*cking precome it soaks Armie’s fingers.

“You’re so wet for me, baby, sh*t.” Armie breathes out, sounding completely amazed. Timmy doesn’t feel amazed, at all, in fact he feels about two seconds away from crying, because suddenly everything is just too much.

A tear run down the side of his face, landing somewhere in his ear, as a new one makes it way out, he turns his head to the side, trying to wipe away with his shoulder before Armie has the chance to notice.

But no such luck.

“Babe? Timmy? Why’re you crying? What’s wrong?” Armie immediately sits up, giving Timmy space to do the same. As Timmy sucks in a deep breath, trying to stop the tears from running down his cheeks, Armie quietly wipes them all away with his thumbs, waiting for Timmy to speak.

“I… f*ck.” Timmy wipes his nose on the back of his wrist, looking up at Armie with tears in his eyes, feeling like a total loser. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why this is happening to me. All I want is for you to make me f*cking come, but I can’t seem to stop f*cking crying?”

Armie doesn’t say anything, just wraps his arms around Timmy’s shoulders and pulls him in for a hug, letting him sob against his shoulder. As Timmy clings to him with everything he’s got, all Armie does is start to slowly stroke his back and whisper soothing noises into his ear until he calms down.

“There you are.” Armie smiles as Timmy pulls back from the embrace, and looks up at his face, feeling more than a little embarrassed. Armie carefully wipes away the last remaining tears on his face, and Timmy feels his bottom lip start to wobble again.

“Do you want to tell me what just happened?” Armie asks quietly, but Timmy just closes his eyes and shakes his head. “It’s fine, you know, you don’t have to be embarrassed.” Armie says, softly kissing his cheek, and Timmy feels another tear escape down his cheek.

“I– You… It was just too much. You make me feel too much, and, I love you, too much. It was all too f*cking much, and my body just… It couldn’t hold it in anymore.” Timmy whispers, still keeping his eyes closed. It’s not that he’s embarrassed, not really, but he knows if he looked at Armie now, and saw the look on his face, he’d start crying all over again, and he was really f*cking tired of crying.

“Baby.” Armie whispers, sounding just about as overwhelmed as Timmy feels. When Armie laces their fingers together, and gives Timmy’s hand a gentle squeeze, he carefully opens his eyes, finding Armie with a soft smile on his face, with eyes welling up with tears. “I love you, too, so much, I feel like I could explode with it at times.”

As Timmy feels another round of tears make their way down his cheeks, he lets out a whine. “I just wanted to f*ck, god f*cking dammit!”

Armie snorts, and shakes his head with a wide smile, eyes still slightly red rimmed. “We can still f*ck, babe, we’ve got all the time in the world. Don’t you even worry, even if we need to take a little break, have a nap or something, I’ll have you writhing on my dick and coming for me before today becomes tomorrow.”

Timmy sucks in a deep breath, and bites his bottom lip, looking up at Armie from underneath his eyelashes. “You promise?”

“Definitely.” Armie whispers, closing his eyes and leaning in for a kiss.

Timmy knows he only means it to be a short, soft, comforting kiss, but now that he got the whole crying thing out of his system, and Armie ever so helpfully mentioned having him writhe on his dick, naturally that’s all he’s able to think about.

He feels his dick slowly going back to full hardness, after having softened slightly during his little breakdown. “Slow down, baby.” Armie says against his lips, but Timmy just shakes his head.

“No. I wanna f*ck. You promised.” He whines, and Armie pulls back to look at him with wide eyes, his gaze dropping down to Timmy’s dick, and his eyebrows go up when he sees it’s already hard and leaking.

“Already?” Armie says while reaching out and running the tip of his finger up the underside of Timmy’s dick, catching a drop of precome, and with a smile, brings it back to his mouth to taste. “I thought we were gonna nap first?”

“No, we’ll nap later. What we’re gonna do right now? Is getting your dick inside of me, and then you’re gonna f*ck me as hard as you possibly can, and make me f*cking come.” Timmy whispers, licking his lips as he sees Armie’s eyes drop down to his mouth.

When Armie looks back up into his eyes, Timmy can see that he’s about to open his mouth and ask him if he’s sure, so instead of waiting for that, he places his finger against Armie’s lips, effectively cutting him off before he even had a chance to say anything. “Before you even start, yes, I’m sure, and yes, I really am ready. So please, babe, f*ck me.”

Armie groans low in his throat, and opens his mouth to suck Timmy’s finger in between his lips, making Timmy gasp as he teases it with his tongue, before letting it slide back out as he gently pushes Timmy to lie down on the mattress.

Timmy is almost expecting Armie to go straight back to teasing him the way he’d done before everything went a little sideways, so when he instead places a few open mouthed kisses to his shaft, and rubs his nose against his dick before sucking one of his balls into his mouth, Timmy almost forgets to breathe again.

“sh*t, yes.” He moans out, trying to grind his hips against Armie’s face and make him slobber all over his dick, but Armie must’ve seen it coming, because he’s got Timmy’s hips in a death grip – definitely leaving finger-shaped bruises behind.

Letting go of Timmy’s balls – both of them now completely wet with spit – Armie looks up at him from between his legs with a smirk, and when he licks his way up the vein on the underside of Timmy’s dick before swallowing it down to the root in one swoop, Timmy moans so loudly his voice f*cking cracks and gives out.

Armie has always been way too f*cking good at sucking dick, but it’s like he’s pulling out all his special tricks for this, to well and truly blow Timmy’s f*cking mind – and it’s definitely working. At this stage Timmy has no f*cking idea which way is up. All he knows is that Armie’s mouth feels f*cking fantastic, wet, hot, and wet.

Timmy can’t help but whine as Armie lets his dick fall from his mouth, but then he starts placing kisses to the inside of his thighs instead, and it tickles, more than a little, so instead of whining, all that’s coming out of his mouth are breathy giggles.

“Do you want me to eat you out?” Armie murmurs against his dick, and a shiver runs through Timmy’s entire body, as he lifts his hips, bringing Armie’s mouth down to his balls.

“f*ck, do you even have to ask?!” He breathes out, throwing an arm over his eyes as Armie chuckles against his perineum, pressing a few kisses there before moving lower.

Armie lifts Timmy’s legs onto his shoulder, and helps him lifts his hips enough to bring his hole on display, and he feels himself clenching in anticipation. But instead of feeling Armie’s tongue against his hole, like he’s expecting, Armie decides to tease him by letting his tongue lick wetly across one of his asscheeks.

“Armie, no, don’t tease me, please.” He pants out, blindly reaching for one of Armie’s hands that’s holding his hips up, and trying to lace their fingers together, but failing rather spectacularly, settling for awkwardly patting the back of Armie’s palm instead.

“Okay, baby, okay” Armie whispers against his ass, and immediately licking a wet stripe across Timmy’s hole, making him gasp and forget to hold himself up, sending his legs crashing down onto Armie’s back.

“f*ck, s-sorry, sorry.” He stutters out, trying to find the strength to lift himself up again, but failing miserably.

Armie presses a soft kiss to the inside of Timmy’s knee, and sits up. “No, don’t stop?” Timmy cries out, trying to reach for Armie’s head to push him back down, but Armie is too far out of reach already, and just shakes his head with a smile.

“Don’t worry, babe, we’re not stopping. I just need you to turn over for me.”

Timmy was just about to flip himself over, when he feels Armie’s hands on his hips, and then next thing he knows, he’s facedown on the mattress with Armie blanketing his body with his own as he presses a soft kiss to his shoulder. “Ready for me?” Armie whispers into Timmy’s ear, making him shudder and lift his hips up, grinding lightly against Armie’s dick, as he nods desperately.

“Please.”

He feels Armie kissing his way down his back, and when he reaches his ass Armie sits up again, but before Timmy has the chance to complain, he feels Armie gently pushing his legs apart before he uses both hands to spread his cheeks – lightly blowing on his opening just to drive Timmy mad.

“Get up on your knees, babe.” Armie whispers, rubbing his dry thumb against Timmy’s hole, pushing against it carefully a couple of times – testing the resistance.

Timmy does as he’s asked, because of course he does, it’s not the time for arguments, the sooner he can get Armie’s mouth back on his ass the better. He doesn’t bother trying to hold himself up with his hands, knowing they’d most likely just give out on him anyway, so as soon as he’s gotten himself up on his knees, he lets his chest touch the mattress again, content to just lie there with his ass in the air as Armie’s tongue makes him see f*cking stars.

Armie doesn’t waste any time once Timmy has gotten himself comfortable, he barely has enough time to take a breath before Armie licks a wet stripe across his opening, making him gasp. “Spread your cheeks for me, baby.” Armie whispers, gently sinking his teeth into Timmy’s ass cheek.

He feels his face flush as he reaches behind him to hold himself open for Armie, but as soon as he feels the wetness of Armie’s tongue on him, he stops caring. It feels way too f*cking good for embarrassment. He’d get down on his knees and spread himself open for him every single day if it meant Armie would do what he’s doing right now.

The way Armie lets the tip of his tongue enter him every so often, makes sweat run down Timmy’s forehead, and his voice cracks on a moan when Armie shoves even more of his tongue into him.

“f*ck, Armie. So good, baby, so good.” He pants out, feeling Armie grin against his hole before he lets his tongue sink all the way into Timmy, making him f*cking keen.

Armie rubs his fingers against him as he pulls back, letting the tip of a finger barely penetrate him as he spits on his opening to lubricate him, at least in theory, since spit dried way too f*cking quickly to be of much use. “God, you’re so gorgeous, babe.” Armie breathes out, still rubbing his hole with his finger.

Feeling Armie spit on his hole again, Timmy can’t stop himself from lightly clenching up in anticipation, so when Armie tries to let his finger enter him, he doesn’t get very far, and Timmy feels him pressing soft kisses to his lower back. “You gotta relax for me, Timmy, I know it’s been a while, but you gotta let me in.”

Timmy nods and tries to relax, but still finds himself clenching up when Armie teases him with the tip of his finger. But this time Armie doesn’t say anything, just goes back to licking his hole, clearly figuring that was the easier way of loosening him up, at least a little.

The noises Armie makes as he’s eating him out almost gets Timmy’s dick leaking as much as his actual tongue inside of him. He’d never really cared for his partners being noisy in bed before, most the time silence actually worked best, since he had roommates, but with Armie? God, he could listen to Armie’s sex noises all day every day.

Maybe that’s the kind of audio book Armie should look into making, just hours upon hours of him grunting, and moaning. Naturally, no one else would ever be allowed to listen to it, because these noises – and Armie – belonged to Timmy, and no one else.

Armie’s plan of loosening him up with his tongue clearly worked, because when he tried to slowly push his finger into him now, Timmy felt his finger go all the way in with no trouble. It stung a little, due to the lack of lube – again spit just dried way too f*cking quick – but it still felt good.

“There you go.” Armie happily breathes out, letting his finger slide in and out of Timmy a couple of times. “Look at you, taking my finger so well. Are you ready for more, or do you want me to eat you out some more?”

While Timmy could happily have Armie eat him out for the next few hours, he’s been dying to get f*cked for about half an eternity by now, and his brain completely shuts down at the possibility of having to wait even longer before he gets Armie inside of him.

“Just f*ck me, Armie, please, I need your dick, that’s all I want, please.” He doesn’t even fully know what it is he’s begging for, other than getting Armie in him, of course, but whatever it is that’s spewing out of his mouth seems to do the trick, because Armie lets out a guttural groan and lunges for the nightstand.

Timmy can’t be bothered to lift his head to watch what he’s doing, figuring he’s only reaching for the lube and the condoms, and sure enough, just a couple of seconds later Timmy hears the telltale snick of the lube cap opening. Armie’s finger slides all the way back into him, this time completely soaked with a little too much lube, and when he feels Armie’s other finger lightly prod at his hole, eager to join the other one, all Timmy can think is, finally.

Chapter 29

Chapter Text

The stretch of Armie’s fingers inside of him feel so f*cking good that Timmy can’t help himself from lightly pushing his hips back onto Armie’s hand, making his fingers go all the way in, and it makes Armie moan just about as loudly as Timmy.

“f*ck, baby, you want it bad, huh? Look at you, so desperate.” Timmy can hear the teasing smirk in his voice, but he doesn’t even care, because it’s not like Armie is wrong – he does want it bad, and he is really f*cking desperate.

Sadly, because Armie is a massive f*cking tease, Timmy’s desperation doesn’t make him speed up, if anything, it makes him f*cking slow down.

Feeling Armie pull his fingers back out, makes Timmy whine, and he whines even louder when Armie slowly teases him open with just his fingertips. Timmy feels the excess lube Armie had slathered himself with start to slowly run down towards his balls, and normally that alone would be enough to make him lose his mind, but couple that with the fact that Armie seems content with just carefully spreading his fingers to watch as his rim stretches to accommodate, and Timmy is about to f*cking die.

“Armie, come on! Just f*ck me already.” He tries to push back against Armie’s fingers again, but apparently Armie had been anticipating that, and he holds him in place with one hand on his hips, which makes Timmy whine yet again, but Armie just chuckles and leans forward to press a soft kiss to his shoulder blade.

“Shh, baby, soon, okay? But you’re not ready yet.”

Timmy is about to fire back with a comment about how he could have been ready f*cking ages ago if Armie would’ve just put his goddamn fingers in him properly, but then Armie slips his ring finger into him, and f*cking finally starts to fingerf*ck him.

As Armie starts rubbing his thumb against his rim, Timmy moans low in his throat, and just for a second, he wishes that Arme would just shove his entire f*cking fist up inside of him. Realistically, he knows they’re so far away from being able to do that yet, he’s way too f*cking tight for it at the moment, for one. And both he and Armie had fisting down as a no on their list, so it wasn’t very likely to ever come up in conversation either, unless Timmy brought it up of course – which despite the sudden blink and you’d miss it craving for it, he wasn’t really sure it was actually something he’d wanted to do.

He wanted Armie inside of him though, and he was so f*cking greedy for it, it wasn’t that surprising that his brain went a little all out with the fantasies.

At the first touch of Armie’s fingertip to his prostate, Timmy’s knees almost gives out, and if it weren’t for Armie’s hand still holding him by the hips, he would’ve been lying flat down on the mattress by now – which maybe wasn’t actually such a bad idea, at least he’d be getting some friction on his dick.

“Armie, please, I’m ready now, please.” Timmy tries to push back against Armie’s hand again, to get him in really f*cking deep, just one last time, but of course Armie doesn’t let him. He doesn’t seem to have heard a word that Timmy was saying either, because he doesn’t make a single move to pull his fingers out, or put his dick in. “Armie! Don’t you want to f*ck me? Baby, come on, please?!”

But Armie just chuckles, carefully pulling his fingers out and wiping them on the sheet before gently nudging Timmy’s hip to get him to turn onto his back, which he does almost immediately. “Do you really think I don’t want to f*ck you? Because, f*ck look at me.”

Timmy had almost forgotten that they’d never gotten Armie’s boxers off, so when he pushes himself up onto his elbows and sees just how f*cking wet they are, and the way they’re clinging so tightly to Armie’s dick, he feels his brain shut off and his entire mouth fills up with spit.

He’s so far gone, imagining putting Armie’s dick in his mouth – and f*cking choking on it – that he basically can’t hear any of what Armie is actually saying. “–er is, you’re not ready yet, okay?”

“Hm?” He blinks dumbly over at Armie when it becomes clear, after a lengthy period of silence, that he’s waiting for some sort of answer.

“You didn’t hear a word I was saying, did you?” Armie laughs, shaking his head, before cupping his dick through his underwear with a smirk. “Too busy staring at my dick, huh?”

It’s not like he can deny it, and he doesn’t think Armie would want him to, so he licks his lips and nods – pushing himself fully up into a sitting position – still looking down at where Armie is now rubbing his thumb against the head of his co*ck. “You really want my dick bad, don’t you baby?”

Once again, Timmy just nods, and he practically groans when Armie pushes his boxers down and takes his dick out, securing the elastic underneath his balls – Timmy knows from experience that that’s not even a little bit comfortable, but right now he’s too f*cking turned on to care, and all he wants is to get his mouth Armie’s dick right this f*cking second.

But, of course, Armie the tease has different ideas. “Not listening to what I was saying though, that’s not what good boys do, is it?”

Timmy practically chokes on a moan, staring up at Armie with wide eyes, and Armie just smirks. Slowly jerking himself off. “No, good boys they listen when people speak, good boys follow the rules, and they definitely aren’t so desperate for dick that they forget their basic manners.”

“But I–” Timmy starts, but Armie immediately shushes him and shakes his head.

“No buts, babe. Only good boys get dicked down hard, and you haven’t been a very good boy have you?” Armie asks rhetorically, rubbing his thumb against his slit, practically taking Timmy’s breath away as his mind immediately goes back to the last time they were in bed together, and they were using the sounds.

Watching Armie’s dick just swallow up that metal rod, Timmy had never in his life imagined that something like that could be so f*cking hot, but even just thinking about it is enough to make his dick twitch.

Timmy knows that no matter what he says or does now, it's just going to play into whatever it is Armie is planning, so he just goes with it – the most important part is getting Armie inside of him at the end of this, and cooperating is definitely the best way to ensure that.

“I’m sorry, I… I didn’t mean to be bad, I just – I wanted to...” He trails off, watching as Armie collects a large glob of precome on his thumb and holds it out towards him, raising an eyebrow and nodding slightly when Timmy hesitates.

“It’s okay, even bad boys deserve a treat.”

Timmy can’t help but roll his eyes a little, smiling when he hears Armie laugh, but then he wraps his lips around Armie’s thumb and when the taste of him explodes across Timmy’s tongue, he moans as loud as it’s possible to do with someone’s finger in your mouth.

He gags a little when Armie pushes his thumb down on the back of his tongue, and he feels a couple of tears leak out of his eyes, even though he had tried to blink them away. Armie murmurs out a quiet apology, and presses a soft kiss to Timmy’s cheek – no doubt tasting his tears.

Pulling his thumb out of Timmy’s mouth, Armie slowly rubs it against Timmy’s bottom lip, smiling as Timmy tries to lift his head and get it back into his mouth. “What did I say about being good, huh?” Armie laughs, and Timmy just shrugs.

“Maybe I’m just a bad boy, maybe I deserve to be punished.” He watches as Armie’s pupils dilate, and he knows he hit the jackpot, hopefully the jackpot included getting f*cked very soon, because he was about three seconds away from blue balls, he was sure of it.

“f*ck, Timmy, god, you...” Armie trails off and grabs Timmy by the back of the neck and pulls him in for a kiss. Timmy opens his mouth to Armie’s tongue almost immediately, moaning into the kiss as Armie wraps his fingers around his dick.

Armie doesn’t jerk him off for very long, in fact, he barely gives him about three pulls before backing off, but before Timmy can do much to complain about that, Armie slides his fingers back to lightly push against his hole, making Timmy gasp and arch his back to try and give him more space to work with.

“God, I wish I could just sink right into you.” Armie whispers, lazily f*cking his fingers in and out of Timmy, driving him halfway insane, because it feels so f*cking good – but it’s not enough.

Timmy reaches down and grabs Armie’s wrist, and roughly pulls it towards him, making his fingers sink all the way into him. “But you can! Armie, come on, how many times do I have to say please?! I’m f*cking done with begging, so just, get a f*cking move on!”

Armie just shakes his head, scissoring his fingers inside of Timmy, making him throw his head back and groan. “Just like that, f*ck.”

“You’re still too tight, Timmy, I try to f*ck you now, it’s just gonna hurt.” Timmy immediately opens his mouth to say that he doesn’t care if it hurts a little, but Armie had obviously been anticipating that, because he immediately lays a finger across his lips, smiling down at him, carefully pulling the other fingers out of his ass, and wiping them on his thigh.

“And before you say that you don’t care if it hurts, it’s not just you it would be hurting, okay? You’d be squeezing down so tight on me, that even if I by some miracle managed to stay inside of you without getting pushed out, I don’t think I’d be able to stay hard.”

Timmy hadn’t even considered that, but it does makes sense. “Well… Then I guess you’re just gonna f*cking have to open me up for you then, do whatever you need, because f*ck, I need you inside of me like yesterday.”

He lies down and spreads his legs, lifting his hips and shakes them a little for emphasis, making Armie laugh. But instead of coming closer, and getting his fingers back inside of him, Armie gets off the bed completely, making Timmy sit back up with a pout. “No, wait, where are you going? Come back!”

Armie quickly steps out of his underwear and bends down to collect something from under the bed, much to Timmy’s confusion, because he didn’t even know they were storing sh*t under their bed, so when Armie had put whatever it was he was looking for under there, he had no f*cking idea.

He swallows deeply when he sees what Armie is holding in his hand when he stands back up, he’d known Armie had brought some sextoys with him – naturally expecting to only use them on himself – and he’d even used one with Timmy once, but that one had been plain, black and boring.

This one, he almost wants to call it cute, but that’s probably just because it’s pink, because if this had been black, it would’ve been anything but cute. It basically looks like someone had taken a bunch of anal beads and compressed them into a dild* shape, and Timmy feels his asshole clench in anticipation, because he might have only tried anal beads once, but it felt f*cking fantastic, so if this feels anything like that?

Well, he’s almost a little worried he’s going to come all over himself before Armie even gets inside of him.

“f*ck.” Timmy breathes out as Armie throws the dild* onto the bed while he goes over to the nightstand to find the water based lube. It lands right in front of Timmy, and he knows Armie did that on purpose, because he knows there’s no way in hell that Timmy would be able to not touch it.

It’s a lot softer than it looks, at first glance he thought maybe it was made of glass or something, but no, when he picks it up, he can’t help but giggle as it flops around in his hand. And when Armie turns around and sees him waving the dild* around in his hand, he can’t help but laugh.

“Seriously, Timmy, how old are you?”

Timmy just shrugs and waves the dild* around once more before handing it over to Armie when he climbs back onto the bed. “Are you gonna f*ck me now?” He whispers, and Armie nods.

“Yeah, I’m gonna f*ck you now. But first, we need to clean you up a little bit.” Timmy is almost a little offended, because he cleaned himself pretty f*cking well earlier – thank you, but then Armie continues explaining. “Gotta wipe away the old lube, since it’s not water based, it could corrode the dild*, and we wouldn’t want that.”

Figuring it will be easier for Armie to clean him up, and use the dild* on him, if he turns back over onto his stomach, he quickly flops over, spreading his legs to make room for Armie. The first touch of the wet wipe to his hole makes him gasp, because while it’s not meant to feel good, it still does – the cold sensation of the wet wipe against his overheated rim sends an electric spark up his spine and he can’t stop himself from grinding down against the mattress.

“Oh, really? Humping the mattress already? We’re that desperate are we?” Armie jokes, poking his ass cheek with a finger.

“Already?” Timmy shoots back, rubbing his dick against the mattress one more time, just because. “I’ve been dying for a f*ck for hours, you’re the one insisting on moving at the speed of a goddamn tortoise.”

“Really now?” Armie teases, rubbing his finger against Timmy’s rim, completely soaking it with lube, and Timmy sucks in a deep breath, he hadn’t even heard him open the new bottle. “You think I’m taking too long?”

“Are you kidding? Armie, we could’ve both f*cked and finished by now, if you weren’t such a f*cking masoch*st intent on dragging this out for a goddamn eternity.” Armie just laughs, and Timmy can almost hear the shrug in his voice, but then he feels the head of the dild* being rubbed against his opening, and any thoughts he might’ve been having, completely disappear from his brain.

“f*ck, put it in me, and don’t make me f*cking beg, because you know I won’t.” Timmy groans out, trying to push back against the dild* and make it slip inside of him, because he’s fully expecting Armie to want to tease him even more.

So when Armie shoves the entire dild* into him on the first go, not even letting him have just one bump at a time like he’d been expecting, Timmy nearly swallows his tongue. “Armie! sh*t.” He practically shouts, hearing Armie chuckle into his ear as he leans over Timmy’s back and reaches around to wrap his fingers around his dick.

“Yeah? Does it feel good?” Armie whispers, thumbing Timmy’s slit, making him shudder, and try to push back onto the dild* to try and get it even deeper.

“f*ck, yeah, so good.” He moans, only whining a little when Armie lets go of his dick to focus his attention on f*cking him with the dild*. When he feels one of Armie’s fingers join it inside of him, Timmy damn near loses his f*cking mind, and the fact that he doesn’t immediately come is nothing short of a f*cking miracle.

Letting the dild* slowly slide out, one bump at a time, Timmy groans and arches his back, preparing for Armie to pull out all the stops and truly tease him when letting the dild* enter him again. Once again Armie doesn’t do what Timmy is expecting, and instead of slowly feeding the dild* into him, he quickly shoves it in completely in one go, pushing it up against his prostate and making Timmy’s voice crack as he whines.

Armie seems to really like pulling the dild* out slow, only to shove it in fast, the complete opposite to what Timmy was expecting – which is probably exactly why he did it.

Letting one of his fingers tease Timmy’s rim, which is stretched tight around the base of the dild*, Timmy hears Armie let out a quiet curse, and then seconds later, he feels Armie’s tongue on his rim and it makes his eyes roll into the back of his head.

As Armie somehow manages to wiggle his tongue inside of him alongside the dild*, the need for getting Armie’s dick inside of him grows even larger – which Timmy honestly didn’t think was possible.

“Armie, your dick, please!” He knows he said he was done with begging, but f*ck, he wanted Armie’s dick so f*cking badly, and he just knew that Armie was waiting for his resolve to crack.

And sure enough;

“I thought you weren’t gonna beg anymore?” Armie teases, kissing Timmy’s ass cheek and slowly pulling the dild* back out – throwing it to the floor for future!Armie to worry about.

Timmy spits out a humorless laugh, and looks over his shoulder as Armie slowly starts rolling a condom down over his dick. “I don’t f*cking care, just get in me!”

Despite having worked him over with the dild*, Armie still makes sure to test just how open he is before putting his dick in him. When Armie fits four fingers inside of him, the image of taking his whole f*cking fist makes a comeback in Timmy’s brain, and he can’t help but close his eyes and moan.

“Armie, I’m ready, I swear. Now, f*ck me.”

Timmy is expecting Armie to f*ck him just like this, with him facedown and ass up on the mattress, just because it’s easier to be really f*cking rough like that, which is exactly what Timmy wants – and has been quite vocal about wanting. So when he feels Armie nudging his hips to get him to turn over he’s honestly a little confused.

Turning over, and looking up at Armie with a raised eyebrow, Timmy sees him smile. “I know you want me to f*ck you hard, babe, and I will, I promise. I just want to be able to see your face – at least for a little while.”

Timmy just shrugs, and helps Armie lift his hips, it would definitely be more comfortable with a pillow underneath his hips, but, f*ck it, he’d waited long enough for Armie’s dick inside of him, he wasn’t about to postpone it even further just for a small hint of comfort.

At the first touch of Armie’s dick to his rim, Timmy feels the overwhelming urge to cry again, but he manages to swallow it down this time, and when Armie pushes into him, it’s like time just stops.

As Armie’s dick slowly sink into him, Timmy feels himself holding his breath, both because it feels f*cking amazing, and because he still slightly feels like crying, and he knows if he started crying again now, Armie would pull out immediately, and then he’d definitely have to cry.

“Baby, you have to breathe for me, you’re starting to push me out.” Armie whispers, keeping himself still – dick still only halfway inside of him – and resting his palm on Timmy’s chest, directly above his heart, no doubt able to feel just how f*cking quickly it’s beating.

Timmy immediately sucks in a breath and groans as he feels Armie bottom out inside of him. “There you go.” Armie breathes out, leaning down to press a kiss to Timmy’s lips, but he misses and hits his chin instead, making Timmy giggle. Which apparently feels really good for Armie, because he lets out a loud groan and grinds his hips against Timmy’s ass, moving his dick inside of him.

“f*ck, Armie, god, that’s good.” Timmy groans, throwing his head back and whining low in his throat when he feels Armie lightly bite down on his jaw.

“Yeah? You like feeling my dick inside of you? Stretching you open?” Armie groans into his ear, and Timmy feels a full body shudder work it’s way through him. He’d always thought the dirty talk in p*rn was so cheesy and unnecessary, at least until he met Armie, because he somehow managed to make it hot. But then, everything was f*cking hot with Armie.

Timmy undulates his hips as best he can from the position he’s in, and feels the tip of Armie’s dick bump up against his prostate, and they both moan at the same time before Timmy pushes himself up on his elbows and blindly searches out Armie’s mouth, immediately sucking his tongue into his mouth.

As Armie finally starts speeding up his thrusts, and really f*cking Timmy the way he’d asked for, Timmy gives up on trying to keep kissing Armie, he just lets himself fall back on the bed. He tries to push back against Armie’s dick as much as possible, just because he really loves the way it makes him go in even deeper, but it isn’t as easy to do as he’d hoped in the position that he’s in – he really should’ve taken those extra seconds to put a pillow beneath his hips.

He’s about to complain, loudly, when Armie slows down and pulls his dick out of him, because all the f*cking begging he had to do to get it inside in the first place, he deserved a longer f*cking than that, and if Armie was pulling out to jerk off and come on him already, he might actually cry.

Luckily, it didn’t seem that Armie had any plans of finishing just yet, however, he’d just had the same thought as Timmy, and reached up and grabbed a pillow and hastily shoved it underneath Timmy’s hips.

When Armie slams his way back in, Timmy arches his back so much he practically does a full backbend, and if his brain wasn’t so f*cked out, he’d almost be a little impressed, because he’d definitely never managed to do that the few times he tries his hands at yoga.

Armie grabs Timmy’s hips with both hands and basically moves him up and down on his dick, and as Timmy’s dick keep slapping against his stomach, he doesn’t think he’s ever been f*cked this good.

But then Armie gets a wicked glint in his eye and starts to slow down, and instead of f*cking him hard and fast – which Timmy was f*cking living for – he presses in deep and stays there, just slowly grinding his hips against Timmy’s ass.

Which, while that feels really f*cking great, it’s not what Timmy wants right now. He never gets the chance to vocalize his complaint, because just as he’s about to open his mouth to speak, Armie somehow manages to push his dick in even further. Timmy’s groan turns into a breathless gasp as Armie presses his palm down on his lower stomach, and it’s like electricity shoots through his entire body.

“Does that feel good?” Armie smirks, and Timmy can’t even find it in him to send him a death glare, because it’s like his entire body has turned to f*cking mush. Then he does it again, and even though Timmy knew what to expect this time, it didn’t mean it felt any less intense.

“f*ck, Armie, what the –” He can’t even get a full sentence out, because Armie does it again, while at the same time, grinding his hips against Timmy so f*cking hard it’s like he’s really trying to get them to become one.

Then Armie takes one of Timmy’s hands, and lays it down, underneath Armie’s own, right down by his pubes. When he pushes down, and the surge of electricity shoots through his body, Timmy can feel something bump against his palm – and if that is what he thinks it is, he might literally f*cking die.

“Do you feel that?” Armie groans, unable to stop himself from f*cking into Timmy a couple of times before slowing down again, and once again pushing his and Timmy’s entwined palms down on Timmy’s lower abdomen. “That’s my dick right there.”

“Oh, god.” Timmy whines, and Armie’s earlier promise of having him writhing on his dick before the end of the day definitely became reality, because he can’t stop moving his hips, making Armie’s dick move inside of him.

It feels f*cking amazing, but the need to get f*cked into the mattress hasn’t gone away – if anything, getting to actually feel Armie’s dick inside of him, made him even more desperate for it.

“Please, harder, Armie, f*ck me.”

Armie just grunts, and carefully positions Timmy’s legs onto his shoulders, looking down at him with a wicked grin as he slams his hips forwards, making his dick go so f*cking deep that Timmy almost loses his breath. Then he keeps slamming into him, harder and harder, just as Timmy had been asking for.

Timmy’s org*sm sneaks up on him, because he hasn’t even had the chance to touch his dick since Armie entered him, so when he feels himself start to come it takes him completely by surprise. He’s never come untouched in his life, it’s been close a few times, but he’s never actually done it. Until now.

Armie slams into him, hitting his prostate dead on, and Timmy spills all over his chest with a loud groan. It seems to take Armie by surprise as well, because he lets Timmy’s legs fall down from his shoulders as he just stares down at where his dick is spurting out its last few pumps of come. Luckily he remembers to keep moving his hips, working Timmy through the org*sm as best as he can with just his dick.

“f*ck, baby, I didn’t even touch you.” He says with awe in his voice, and it makes Timmy giggle – mostly because Armie had literally f*cked him stupid.

“Mhm, f*cked me so good.” He slurs out, “couldn’t help myself.”

Armie groans loudly, and thrusts a couple of more times, quite erratically, before Timmy feels the warmth of his come filling the condom inside of him. He lets out a happy snuffle noise as Armie immediately collapses down on top of him, not even bothering to pull out.

He knows they’re going to regret it later, but right now, having the weight of Armie on top of him, feeling his breathing slow down as his dick softens inside of him, Timmy has never felt better.

Chapter 30: INTERLUDE - ARMIE POV

Chapter Text

Lying in bed with Timmy’s head on his chest, feeling his breath tickle his skin, Armie sends a tiny grateful prayer up to the God he’d stopped believing in a long, long, time ago. He still didn’t really believe, but he felt so much gratitude for the fact that Timmy was healthy, and still – by some miracle – wanted to be with him, loved him, that it was almost overwhelming.

And because Armie desperately needed to express that gratitude somehow, before it got him too much in his head, causing even more problems, the onlyway he could think of to get it out, was to pray.

His mother would have been so proud. Or, well, less so at the content of his prayer, but whatever.

He still doesn’t understand why Timmy keeps choosing him, over and over, after everything he has done, and all the hurt he has caused him in their, admittedly short, relationship. They’d barely been together for a month, and Armie had already f*cked up so many times, but for some reason, Timmy had forgiven him every time.

Almost as if he can hear Armie’s internal monologue, Timmy tightens his grip on Armie’s waist and snuggles closer, letting out a hum of satisfaction when Armie runs his fingers through his curls.

He knows that Timmy doesn’t agree with him about this, but Armie couldn’t seem to quite shake the feeling that Timmy deserved so much better than what he had to offer. He also knows that if he ever said that out loud again, Timmy’s face would scrunch up in that sad, hurt, look he did all too well, and it would cut Armie to the f*cking core.

Just like it always did.

He truly didn’t understand how Timmy could find it in himself to forgive him for everything he’d done. He’d been allowed to f*ck up way too many times, and he needed to do better. Timmy deserved f*cking better.

The time he’d f*cked up the worst, and regretted the most, was their argument after he’d ignored Timmy when he got home from the hospital. That day, despite what he went through with Dylan, was one of the worst days of his life – just thinking about it made his heart want to tear itself to pieces.

He had tried very hard to keep his distance, not just from Timmy, but from everyone, so that he could work through his issues on his own without letting any of them affect Timmy. He had spoken to Luca, but that was just because Luca was like a goddamn oracle and already knew everything he was thinking without him having to say a thing – all he needed to do was listen.

Of course Timmy wouldn’t let him suffer in silence, and kept pushing him to talk, which he shouldn’t have done.

Armie definitely should’ve reacted a lot better than he did, he basically did every single thing wrong that night. What he should have done was tell Timmy calmly that he wasn’t ignoring him for a bad reason, that he was sorry, but he’d just need a little bit of space to wrap his brain around certain things so that he could be the supportive boyfriend that Timmy deserved. And he’s sure that if he’d done that, it would have been better for them both.

But since he’s a grade A f*ck up, he hadn’t done that. He hadn’t f*cking said anything at all. Instead, like the idiot he is, he’d bottled everything up, ignored Timmy when he needed him the most, focused solely on himself; his own fear and pain, and forgotten that Timmy was probably feeling just as scared, if not more, and that he really f*cking needed Armie to be there, and just hold him.

So then what had happened was that Timmy had pushed Armie to talk to him, to try to get him to open up so that they could work through whatever it was together, and Armie had blown the f*ck up. Then in the heat of the moment, he’d somehow managed to push Timmy to the ground.

Despite it only happening a couple of days ago, he’d had plenty of nightmares about that already. In his nightmares Timmy either didn’t forgive him, and he lost him forever, or, Timmy fell and hit his head, and he lost him forever.

Basically, his nightmares were always about losing Timmy forever.

Armie looks down at Timmy’s sleeping face with a sad smile, softly stroking the palm of his hand up and down Timmy’s sweat-damp back. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that once they left Italy, when they were no longer living in this beautiful bubble they’d created for themselves, and he f*cked up again, because he knew he would, Timmy would finally reach his limit – and choose to let Armie go.

It truly was his greatest fear at the moment, and he’d meant what he’d said when he told Timmy that he didn’t think he could live without him anymore. If Timmy ever left him, he’d be done. He wouldn’t end things, because he’d promised both Nick and Timmy to never do that to them, and he would honor that promise. He’d hurt them both enough already, he wasn’t selfish enough to break their souls completely, just to save himself from pain.

He could easily picture it – Timmy leaving him – which was the worst part of everything. Because as soon as he closed his eyes he could see Timmy telling him he’d had enough, that they were over, giving him a sad smile and a nod, before turning around and walking away, Armie left behind to watch him as he takes the steps to walk out of his life, not even looking back at him once.

And he knows, that when that happens – if that happens – what would come next for him, it… It wouldn’t be pretty. Like he’d told Timmy, he’d survive, but his life would be over.

He knows he should talk to Timmy about everything, from his fears of f*cking up, and the fact that he still couldn’t stop himself from picturing their end. But mostly, he needed to tell him about how f*cking scared he is of losing him.

And he will, but only after he’s talked it through with his therapist first, because the last time he tried talking about his fears of losing Timmy, all he’d managed to do was make Timmy cry because he’d thought Armie was talking about being suicidal again. Armie knew he wasn’t the best with words, so he knew he needed help to find a better way of approaching it, without traumatizing Timmy further.

He’d caused him enough pain, Timmy didn’t deserve to be hurt any more just because Armie couldn’t find the right f*cking words.

Pressing a soft kiss to Timmy’s forehead, Armie lets out a deep breath, looking over at the alarm clock on the nightstand, Timmy had only been asleep for about an hour, but Armie already missed him.

He’d lost so much time already, the amount of nights he hadn’t slept in the same bed as Timmy since they’d moved in together was way too f*cking high, and it was all his f*cking fault. Though, to try and make himself feel a little better, he shifted some of the blame onto Nick as well, just because he was already mad at him.

Nick had called him a couple of times since the phone call with Timmy, wanting to explain himself further, and apologize some more. Armie knew he felt terrible about the misunderstanding, but he hadn’t fully managed to find it in himself to forgive him yet, the consequence of that was that their conversations were pretty short and stilted, which Armie wasn’t used to when it came to Nick, and frankly he hated it.

Forgiveness; that was definitely another thing he needed to talk to his therapist about, just how does he forgive people when they hurt him? He’d love nothing more than to forgive Nick and move on from this, but he just couldn’t.

He’d made Timmy cry, Armie couldn’t even forgive himself for that, so how could he possibly forgive Nick?

Forgiving Dylan was another thing he wanted to find a way to do. He doubted it was possible, since Dylan was… Well, Dylan, and he’d f*cked Armie up so badly, that in a way Armie actually blamed him for all the pain he’d caused Timmy lately.

It was a coward’s way out, he was aware of that, putting all the blame on his ex instead of taking responsibility for his own actions – but he knew that if Dylan hadn’t turned out to be the f*ckface that he was, Armie wouldn’t have been as big of a mess as he is, and he never would have blown up at Timmy the way that he did.

But, there was also the fact that if Dylan hadn’t done what he did, Armie wouldn’t be the Armie that Timmy fell in love with, and he wouldn’t have him, which was just… Incomprehensible.

He wanted more than anything to finally work through his past, with Timmy by his side, drawing on his silent strength to fight every single one of his demons. He knew he could do it, with Timmy in his life, he could do f*cking anything.

But he needed to call his therapist first, and he needed to do it first thing tomorrow, because if he didn’t do it then, he knew himself well enough to know that he’d find a way to put it off. That instead of facing it head on, he’d subconsciously wait for the next emotional breakdown, and if he let himself do that, then he might actually lose Timmy forever – which he just, he couldn’t take that risk.

It almost felt like a defeat in a way, that he was planning on asking for more regular therapy sessions, he hadn’t needed that since… Well, since. And he’d truly thought he was better, but it seems he hadn’t done much but let time dull his memories, and that’s why it was easier to get through every day without thinking of Dylan at all.

But then came Timmy, and falling in love with him unearthed all his old pain, and made it feel just as fresh as it did when it just happened, and he was right back at square one.

Or, maybe square two, since it wasn’t as bad now as it had been back then. It hurt, it definitely did, but now he knew he could get through it. He was strong enough to endure the pain, and Dylan wasn’t worth ending his life over, and more than anything else, Timmy’s love for him was worth everything.

Timmy hums in his sleep again, a smile spreading on his face, and Armie hopes he’s dreaming of him. Of them. Looking down at him, Armie feels his heart skip a beat, and he knows deep down in the very core of his being, that without a shadow of a doubt, if given the choice, he’d go through the worst times with Dylan a hundred times over, as long as it meant he’d get to spend the rest of his life being loved by Timmy.

And he would spend every single day, every single second, of his life, trying his very f*cking best to be worthy of that love.