Fic: Empires - Sean Van Vleet/Tom Conrad, Louis the Roommate
Pairing: Sean Van Vleet/Tom Conrad, Louis-the-Roommate
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Drunk frot; sexualizing public monuments.
Word Count: 3230
Beta: secrethappiness, as usual; poor girl.
It only takes Sean a few nights to decide that going to sleep with the closet light on is better than waking up to the sounds of Tom cursing and tripping his way across Sean's room at two in the morning.
The first time Tom stumbled into Sean's room, fumbling and muttering his way towards the bed, Sean had lifted his head, confused. The second time Tom collapsed in bed with Sean, jeans half unzipped and only one arm freed from his hoodie, Sean had actually sat up and said, "The fuck are you doing? This is my room."
Tom hadn't moved and after a few confused seconds, Sean had flopped back down onto the mattress and fallen asleep to the sound of Tom snoring next to him.
There was a third and a forth time too. There was even a fifth time. Sometime after that though, Sean got smart. Now, on nights when Tom goes out drinking with Louis, Sean goes to bed with the light on and the closet door propped half-way open with a balled up sock.
Still, he wakes up some nights regardless. Usually it's when Tom crawls into bed clumsy with too much wine, and accidently nudges his knee into the soft spot under Sean's ribs, or on one particularly unexpected occasion, the nuts. Sometimes, if Sean's still awake, they'll talk until Tom passes out, still absently patting the pillow next to Sean's face and mumbling sounds that don't quite pass for English.
Mostly, though, Sean lies awake in the empty apartment while they're gone wondering what the fuck and thinking ahead to how awkward it's going to be in the morning. Morning boners are never a good thing after you've spent the night with your roommate's arm draped over your chest.
Sean's never asked Tom why he crashes with him instead of in his own room, which, as far as Sean can tell, is a perfectly good room even if it does look like it came straight out of an IKEA catalogue. Another thing Sean doesn't like to think about is why he won't ask.
Louis comments on it though because Louis comments on everything, and this is no exception.
They're eating breakfast one afternoon when Louis, stuffing his face with Cheetos, looks at Tom and says, "Are you boning Van Vleet?"
Sean goes a little still (and by 'a little' he means perfectly) and catches Tom's noncommittal shrug out of the corner of his eye.
Louis' reply is to grab his crotch with his free hand and push his tongue against the inside of his cheek before he makes jokes about Tom and Sean being butt-buddies. Tom only smirks and kisses Louis loudly on the lips before he grabs his Canon off the countertop and walks out of their apartment for the rest of the day.
If Tom knows why he keeps passing out on the empty half of Sean's bed, he's clearly not saying.
*
The night that Tom turns 24, they all go out to celebrate. They drink cheap beer, make dirty jokes, and dance with girls wearing low-cut tops that show off their pretty lace bras. Tom hooks up with a little blond who reminds Sean of the Melissa-chick from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Louis manages to squish himself into a booth with two girls who alternate between jerking him off under the table and making out with each other. When Louis gives him a smug thumbs up, Sean shakes his head and heads straight to the bar where he asks for two tequila shots, straight up.
It's not that Sean doesn't support lesbians, even pseudo ones who make out with each other to impress boys. He totally does. It's just that it's hard to enjoy hot girl-on-girl action with Louis' shit-eating grin smack dab in the middle of it.
Afterwards, they take the El home and Sean's head bobs forward against his chest until Tom elbows him. "S'our stop," Tom says. Sean struggles to get to his feet. When they're outside, Sean looks around for Louis. He opens his mouth to say something, but Tom just shrugs and says they lost him back at the last transfer station.
Sean walks a few feet before it fully sinks in. When it does, he pulls to a stop. "Lost him?" Sean echoes.
Tom shrugs again, like it's not a big deal. And maybe it isn't; after all, Tom should know.
Sean stands there a minute longer thinking it through.
The thing about Louis, he decides, is that he's always stumbling off on his own. Whenever they leave a bar, Louis is usually long gone. He's either caught a ride home with some girl who'll fuck him in a public parking lot, or he's off humping city monuments.
Louis has a goal, he says, to dry hump every statue in Grant Park.
Sean had always brushed it off until Louis came home one morning, triumphant, with a homemade video featuring The Hanig Cow and a position straight from the Kama Sutra that required far more flexibility than Sean ever thought possible.
"That isn't at Grant Park," Sean had said, stunned.
Louis had cackled. "Dude, whatever. It's a bronze cow. Don’t tell me that's not fucking awesome!"
It's a really random thing to remember all of a sudden, Sean thinks, which then gets him thinking about the word random and how it just rolls around in your mouth like a loose marble. Sean tries the word out loud, "Random" and giggles.
Tom stops walking, and turns around to stare back at Sean. He's giving Sean the look that usually gets reserved for practice spaces. "Are you coming, or what?"
Sean blinks and looks down at his shoes. They seem very far away, and the pavement does this weird swoopy thing which makes him feel like he's going to throw up. "Yeah," Sean says, although it doesn't sound very convincing.
Tom gives him another obvious look and Sean forces his feet to move.
*
The walk home from their stop is only three blocks, but it's somewhat sobering and definitely cold. By the time they get to the front of their house, Sean's teeth are close to chattering. On the steps, Sean hangs back with his hands balled up into fists in his pockets. He lurches forward a bit and pushes his face into the space between Tom's shoulder blades, resting, while Tom fits the key into the lock.
It feels like Tom's taking forever. Sean turns his head to look over his shoulder, down the street. The denim of Tom's jacket scratches across his eyebrow. "You should have been born in July," Sean grumbles. "Fuck, why is it so cold? It's May."
After that, the door swings open and Sean hisses, "Thank God" under his breath as he pushes past Tom. Inside, he toes his way out of his shoes and then trips over one of Tom's ten thousand flip flops before he weaves his way down the hall. He bumps on and off the wall a few times until he rounds the doorway into his room. The closet light is still on, and Sean gives his bed a determined look as he kicks his way through piles of dirty jeans and plaid shirts on the floor.
His bed is gonna feel so fucking good when he finally gets to it. Three steps to go Sean thinks 'fuck it' and dives forward.
The bed bounces when Sean falls onto it, face first. Almost two minutes later, it still feels like its bouncing. Bouncing and spinning. Spinning a lot actually. Sean moans into the pillow and tries not to breathe through his mouth because that makes him feel like he's definitely going to throw up.
The mattress dips another minute later and, when Sean cracks his eyes open a slit, Tom's face is freakishly close. Sean can smell the mint on Tom's breath without even inhaling and thinks that Tom's mouth right now would probably feel wet and cold against his.
Sean licks his lips. "The room is spinning," he says flatly.
"It's not really spinning." Tom's mouth turns up into a half-smile on one side. "You're just really fucking drunk."
Sean snickers. "Which is your fault."
"Harsh," Tom grins.
"But fair." Sean rolls forward onto his side and presses his face into Tom's shoulder. Tom's shirt still smells like the bar, which is gross, and Sean wrinkles his nose. Underneath there is an odor of sweat and deodorant. "Happy Birthday, shut the motherfucking light off," Sean mumbles.
When Tom snickers and shifts away, Sean buries his face back into the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut. On the way back to bed in the dark, Tom asks, "How come you always leave the closet light on?"
"How come you always sleep with me?"
It just sort of slips out and Sean has a crystal clear moment where he thinks: WHOOPS.
Tom doesn't answer and Sean snorts over his own laughter. "Sleep in my bed, I mean. Not sleep-sleep with me. That would be weird."
"Would it?"
"Um?" Sean's brain blanks and after a long second he says, "What was the question again?"
"Never mind."
Sean falls asleep a split second later and when he wakes up sometime before six, he has to piss so bad it hurts. In the bathroom, he wrinkles his nose at the mustard stain on the leg of his jeans before dumping them onto the floor in the corner. It's weird that he can taste hot dogs when he burps, but he can't remember stopping to get any after they left the bar. There are more gross stains on his t-shirt, so he strips that off as well and chucks it on the floor next to his pants.
When Sean finally shuffles back from the bathroom Tom is angled across Sean's half of the bed. "Hey," he hisses. "Hey, move the fuck over." Sean pokes at Tom's shoulder with two fingers until Tom lifts his head.
Tom's hair is sticking straight up at the back and he stares at Sean like he's grown three heads while Sean shifts in place beside the bed. The room is cold because the heat is off. Sean's nipples are stiff, and he crosses his arms over his bare chest. "You're on my side."
Tom looks down at the pillow, then over his shoulder at the empty space beside him. Slowly, he turns his head back towards Sean. "Oh. Sorry."
Sean watches as Tom lifts up on his elbows and shifts back over, then he climbs into bed again. The covers and sheets are bunched around his knees and Tom's body jostles beside him as Sean fights to unknot them.
"Christ," Tom mumbles, after Sean flips around for the third time. "You're like sleeping with a bear."
"It's cold in here," Sean complains.
"Stop whining."
"Fuck you when I wake up dead in the morning."
Tom laughs. "That doesn't make any sense. Like. At all, dude."
"Hypothermia," Sean sighs, sounding resigned. "That's how I'm going to die."
"Better than drowning," Tom mumbles into the mattress.
Sean hums in agreement, looking up at the ceiling. "Yeah. At least with hypothermia you just fall asleep and never wake up. I never want to drown. That shit is fucked up."
"Me neither." Tom's quiet for a minute and Sean thinks he's drifted back to sleep until Tom says, "Or die in a fire. Fuck that would suck."
"Totally." Sean yawns so wide that his jaw cracks, then tingles. For a second the joint feels hot and prickly and Sean licks his tongue around the inside of his mouth.
Tom rolls from his stomach onto his side and re-bunches the pillow under his face. Sean twists his head to the side. If he strains, he can make out the line of Tom's head and shoulders, and the slope of his nose in the shadows.
"Are you still drunk?" Tom whispers.
Sean thinks about it. "No, I don't think so. Maybe? I dunno, fuck. Why?"
Tom doesn't answer, but he shifts again and the next thing Sean knows, Tom's lips are brushing over his nostril. It tickles and Sean snickers. Tom re-adjusts and tries again. This time his lips find the corner of Sean's mouth and Sean stops laughing. Actually, he also stops breathing, which feels a bit like drowning, in fact. His heart is pounding against his ribs and it feels like all the air is being squeezed out of his lungs.
Sean definitely doesn't want to drown, he decides.
"Are you freaking out?" Tom asks against his mouth.
Their lips are dry and snag together. Sean shakes his head. It's surprising that he can feel how chapped Tom's lips are against his.
This time, when Tom nudges him, Sean tilts his chin forward and opens his mouth. Tom's a good kisser, in a lazy, thorough sort of way. Sean's not surprised. He's seen Tom making out with enough girls in dark stairwells before to have guessed as much.
Sean's lips are starting to feel oversensitive and raw and his dick is tenting against the insides of his boxers. The skin on the back of his neck goose pimples and when Tom makes a low growling sound in the back of his throat, Sean's breath catches. Then Tom is shifting up on one arm and unfastening the notch of his belt.
Sean's stomach flutters.
The nervous feeling reminds him of the first time he made it to third base with Caroline Northey in the ninth grade. He was fucking certain her older brother was going to walk in on them, finger fucking downstairs on the basement couch.
"Are you freaking out now?" Tom asks. The tongue of Tom's belt is hanging open and it brushes against Sean's stomach. The metal and leather makes Sean shiver and Sean's shocked laugh comes out through his nose.
"No, but I'm still fucking cold."
Tom smirks against his mouth and reaches over Sean to flip the blanket back up over their shoulders. It ends up covering most of their faces too, and Tom's breath feels warm against Sean's cheek.
"Pussy," Tom says from under the blanket tent he's made.
"Fuck you."
"Maybe. If you're good."
Sean can't see Tom's grin, but he can hear it. Sean rolls his eyes and then the bottom completely falls out of his stomach. Tom bites the pad of Sean's bottom lip, and this time when they kiss, it's more than a little aggressive. By the time Sean feels the back of Tom's knuckles accidently brush against his dick, he's panting.
Tom strokes himself with a slow, easy rhythm. "C'mon," Tom says, on an exhale. "I wanna feel you touch yourself."
Sean groans, drops his hand to his own dick, and pushes his boxers down and out of the way. After a few erratic pulls, Sean wraps his hand around the base of his dick and settles on massaging his balls with the pads of his fingers.
His dick is leaking precome and when Tom slides just the crowns together, Sean bites his lip and sucks in a sharp breath. "Oh, Jesus. Fuck. Yeah."
Tom muffles a sound against Sean's throat and rubs their dicks together again. The motion is small and controlled, and the friction is so light that Sean holds his breath through it.
"Tom, Tom. Tom," Sean's hips snap forward and his eyes squeeze shut. "Oh, oh, fuck."
"Not yet." Tom's whisper sounds quiet and choked, and Sean drags in another deep breath until his lungs burn. "Not yet," Tom pleads. "Just. Wait for me."
Sean lets out a shaky laugh and nuzzles his face into the crook of Tom's throat. The stubble on Tom's face scratches his cheek and leaves a hot mark down the side of his face. Sean pinches the base of his dick, trying not to come, and rubs his nose against Tom's Adam's apple.
The skin there is damp with sweat and Sean can feel Tom swallow.
"Now? Are you?" Sean squeezes his eyes shut so tightly that colours spark behind his eyelids. There is a baseline twitching in his lower back, a hitch, low in his belly that he can't ignore. "Fuck, are you close, 'cause I can't-"
Sean's whole body goes tense with his orgasm. His dick pulses and Sean doesn't even try to choke back the groan that rips from someplace deep in the back of his throat.
Tom's fingers wrap over the heads of their dicks, and Sean twitches sharply, feeling Tom go rigid against him.
Afterwards, Sean wipes the mess off his stomach with a dirty t-shirt that might actually be Louis'. When he looks up, Tom is staring at him, carefully.
Tom clears his throat. "Because I'm a coward."
Sean makes an uncomprehending face.
"I keep coming in here drunk because I'm a coward."
"That's not true," Sean says, automatically. "You're not a coward. You do some pretty fearless shit. I know, I've been there for most of it."
Tom doesn't answer. As he nudges his face deeper into the pillow, Sean loops his hand over the back of Tom's neck, pulling him forward, and kissing him.
"I left the light on for you, dickwad."
Sean can feel Tom's lips curve up into a smile against his mouth.
"I figured," Tom says, grinning.
*
When Sean gets out of bed in the morning, Tom is still sleeping, splayed width-ways across the mattress. The light from the window looks cloudy and grey. Sean scratches at his chest and yawns. His boxers are twisted and sticking to his thigh with a dried spot of come, which is disgusting. In the bathroom, he strips them off and throws them onto the pile with everything else before climbing into the shower.
After his shower Sean brushes his teeth and finger combs his hair in the mirror.
Louis is watching cartoons on the couch in last night's clothes by the time Sean finally makes it out in a t-shirt and a clean pair of shorts.
Sean wrinkles his face. "You fucking stink, dude." Louis flips him off with a smile and goes back to stuffing his hand down into the open box of Apple Jacks between his knees.
In the kitchen, Sean pours himself a large glass of tomato juice and then bends over the sink, drinking water straight from the tap. The water dribbles down his chin and Sean wipes at it with the back of his hand. When he stands upright again, the vertigo hits him hard. Sean fumbles for the Tylenol and when he walks back into the living room, Louis grins at him, holding up his digital recorder.
"Buckingham!" he says proudly.
Sean stares at him. "But that's a fountain," he says, finally. "How'd you? No wait," Sean says in a rush. "I don't want to know."
Louis grins and Sean sits down on the end of the couch, throwing Louis' feet off. Louis grins at him again and fishes for another handful of cereal.
Sean shakes his head, disbelieving. "Dude, that's sick. You know that, right?"
"Says the guy boning Conrad."
Sean rolls his eyes. "Whatever, you don't know that."
Louis' laugh comes out sharp and loud. "I do know you weren't in the shower long enough to rub one out, Van Vleet."
Sean shakes his head again.
"Don't fight it, dude," Louis says, smug. "It's a gift."
________________________________________
A/N: For violetfaced
I'm not sure why, but Louis-the-Roommate is quickly becoming my favourite character to write. Maybe because there is so little canon surrounding him he feels like an Original Character, I dunno. Mostly I think I like him because it's cool to have someone you can write as obnoxious as you want. Obnoxious boys in fic = so much fun. Real life, not so much.
Dear Louis: I'm sorry? Again?
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Drunk frot; sexualizing public monuments.
Word Count: 3230
Beta: secrethappiness, as usual; poor girl.
It only takes Sean a few nights to decide that going to sleep with the closet light on is better than waking up to the sounds of Tom cursing and tripping his way across Sean's room at two in the morning.
The first time Tom stumbled into Sean's room, fumbling and muttering his way towards the bed, Sean had lifted his head, confused. The second time Tom collapsed in bed with Sean, jeans half unzipped and only one arm freed from his hoodie, Sean had actually sat up and said, "The fuck are you doing? This is my room."
Tom hadn't moved and after a few confused seconds, Sean had flopped back down onto the mattress and fallen asleep to the sound of Tom snoring next to him.
There was a third and a forth time too. There was even a fifth time. Sometime after that though, Sean got smart. Now, on nights when Tom goes out drinking with Louis, Sean goes to bed with the light on and the closet door propped half-way open with a balled up sock.
Still, he wakes up some nights regardless. Usually it's when Tom crawls into bed clumsy with too much wine, and accidently nudges his knee into the soft spot under Sean's ribs, or on one particularly unexpected occasion, the nuts. Sometimes, if Sean's still awake, they'll talk until Tom passes out, still absently patting the pillow next to Sean's face and mumbling sounds that don't quite pass for English.
Mostly, though, Sean lies awake in the empty apartment while they're gone wondering what the fuck and thinking ahead to how awkward it's going to be in the morning. Morning boners are never a good thing after you've spent the night with your roommate's arm draped over your chest.
Sean's never asked Tom why he crashes with him instead of in his own room, which, as far as Sean can tell, is a perfectly good room even if it does look like it came straight out of an IKEA catalogue. Another thing Sean doesn't like to think about is why he won't ask.
Louis comments on it though because Louis comments on everything, and this is no exception.
They're eating breakfast one afternoon when Louis, stuffing his face with Cheetos, looks at Tom and says, "Are you boning Van Vleet?"
Sean goes a little still (and by 'a little' he means perfectly) and catches Tom's noncommittal shrug out of the corner of his eye.
Louis' reply is to grab his crotch with his free hand and push his tongue against the inside of his cheek before he makes jokes about Tom and Sean being butt-buddies. Tom only smirks and kisses Louis loudly on the lips before he grabs his Canon off the countertop and walks out of their apartment for the rest of the day.
If Tom knows why he keeps passing out on the empty half of Sean's bed, he's clearly not saying.
*
The night that Tom turns 24, they all go out to celebrate. They drink cheap beer, make dirty jokes, and dance with girls wearing low-cut tops that show off their pretty lace bras. Tom hooks up with a little blond who reminds Sean of the Melissa-chick from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Louis manages to squish himself into a booth with two girls who alternate between jerking him off under the table and making out with each other. When Louis gives him a smug thumbs up, Sean shakes his head and heads straight to the bar where he asks for two tequila shots, straight up.
It's not that Sean doesn't support lesbians, even pseudo ones who make out with each other to impress boys. He totally does. It's just that it's hard to enjoy hot girl-on-girl action with Louis' shit-eating grin smack dab in the middle of it.
Afterwards, they take the El home and Sean's head bobs forward against his chest until Tom elbows him. "S'our stop," Tom says. Sean struggles to get to his feet. When they're outside, Sean looks around for Louis. He opens his mouth to say something, but Tom just shrugs and says they lost him back at the last transfer station.
Sean walks a few feet before it fully sinks in. When it does, he pulls to a stop. "Lost him?" Sean echoes.
Tom shrugs again, like it's not a big deal. And maybe it isn't; after all, Tom should know.
Sean stands there a minute longer thinking it through.
The thing about Louis, he decides, is that he's always stumbling off on his own. Whenever they leave a bar, Louis is usually long gone. He's either caught a ride home with some girl who'll fuck him in a public parking lot, or he's off humping city monuments.
Louis has a goal, he says, to dry hump every statue in Grant Park.
Sean had always brushed it off until Louis came home one morning, triumphant, with a homemade video featuring The Hanig Cow and a position straight from the Kama Sutra that required far more flexibility than Sean ever thought possible.
"That isn't at Grant Park," Sean had said, stunned.
Louis had cackled. "Dude, whatever. It's a bronze cow. Don’t tell me that's not fucking awesome!"
It's a really random thing to remember all of a sudden, Sean thinks, which then gets him thinking about the word random and how it just rolls around in your mouth like a loose marble. Sean tries the word out loud, "Random" and giggles.
Tom stops walking, and turns around to stare back at Sean. He's giving Sean the look that usually gets reserved for practice spaces. "Are you coming, or what?"
Sean blinks and looks down at his shoes. They seem very far away, and the pavement does this weird swoopy thing which makes him feel like he's going to throw up. "Yeah," Sean says, although it doesn't sound very convincing.
Tom gives him another obvious look and Sean forces his feet to move.
*
The walk home from their stop is only three blocks, but it's somewhat sobering and definitely cold. By the time they get to the front of their house, Sean's teeth are close to chattering. On the steps, Sean hangs back with his hands balled up into fists in his pockets. He lurches forward a bit and pushes his face into the space between Tom's shoulder blades, resting, while Tom fits the key into the lock.
It feels like Tom's taking forever. Sean turns his head to look over his shoulder, down the street. The denim of Tom's jacket scratches across his eyebrow. "You should have been born in July," Sean grumbles. "Fuck, why is it so cold? It's May."
After that, the door swings open and Sean hisses, "Thank God" under his breath as he pushes past Tom. Inside, he toes his way out of his shoes and then trips over one of Tom's ten thousand flip flops before he weaves his way down the hall. He bumps on and off the wall a few times until he rounds the doorway into his room. The closet light is still on, and Sean gives his bed a determined look as he kicks his way through piles of dirty jeans and plaid shirts on the floor.
His bed is gonna feel so fucking good when he finally gets to it. Three steps to go Sean thinks 'fuck it' and dives forward.
The bed bounces when Sean falls onto it, face first. Almost two minutes later, it still feels like its bouncing. Bouncing and spinning. Spinning a lot actually. Sean moans into the pillow and tries not to breathe through his mouth because that makes him feel like he's definitely going to throw up.
The mattress dips another minute later and, when Sean cracks his eyes open a slit, Tom's face is freakishly close. Sean can smell the mint on Tom's breath without even inhaling and thinks that Tom's mouth right now would probably feel wet and cold against his.
Sean licks his lips. "The room is spinning," he says flatly.
"It's not really spinning." Tom's mouth turns up into a half-smile on one side. "You're just really fucking drunk."
Sean snickers. "Which is your fault."
"Harsh," Tom grins.
"But fair." Sean rolls forward onto his side and presses his face into Tom's shoulder. Tom's shirt still smells like the bar, which is gross, and Sean wrinkles his nose. Underneath there is an odor of sweat and deodorant. "Happy Birthday, shut the motherfucking light off," Sean mumbles.
When Tom snickers and shifts away, Sean buries his face back into the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut. On the way back to bed in the dark, Tom asks, "How come you always leave the closet light on?"
"How come you always sleep with me?"
It just sort of slips out and Sean has a crystal clear moment where he thinks: WHOOPS.
Tom doesn't answer and Sean snorts over his own laughter. "Sleep in my bed, I mean. Not sleep-sleep with me. That would be weird."
"Would it?"
"Um?" Sean's brain blanks and after a long second he says, "What was the question again?"
"Never mind."
Sean falls asleep a split second later and when he wakes up sometime before six, he has to piss so bad it hurts. In the bathroom, he wrinkles his nose at the mustard stain on the leg of his jeans before dumping them onto the floor in the corner. It's weird that he can taste hot dogs when he burps, but he can't remember stopping to get any after they left the bar. There are more gross stains on his t-shirt, so he strips that off as well and chucks it on the floor next to his pants.
When Sean finally shuffles back from the bathroom Tom is angled across Sean's half of the bed. "Hey," he hisses. "Hey, move the fuck over." Sean pokes at Tom's shoulder with two fingers until Tom lifts his head.
Tom's hair is sticking straight up at the back and he stares at Sean like he's grown three heads while Sean shifts in place beside the bed. The room is cold because the heat is off. Sean's nipples are stiff, and he crosses his arms over his bare chest. "You're on my side."
Tom looks down at the pillow, then over his shoulder at the empty space beside him. Slowly, he turns his head back towards Sean. "Oh. Sorry."
Sean watches as Tom lifts up on his elbows and shifts back over, then he climbs into bed again. The covers and sheets are bunched around his knees and Tom's body jostles beside him as Sean fights to unknot them.
"Christ," Tom mumbles, after Sean flips around for the third time. "You're like sleeping with a bear."
"It's cold in here," Sean complains.
"Stop whining."
"Fuck you when I wake up dead in the morning."
Tom laughs. "That doesn't make any sense. Like. At all, dude."
"Hypothermia," Sean sighs, sounding resigned. "That's how I'm going to die."
"Better than drowning," Tom mumbles into the mattress.
Sean hums in agreement, looking up at the ceiling. "Yeah. At least with hypothermia you just fall asleep and never wake up. I never want to drown. That shit is fucked up."
"Me neither." Tom's quiet for a minute and Sean thinks he's drifted back to sleep until Tom says, "Or die in a fire. Fuck that would suck."
"Totally." Sean yawns so wide that his jaw cracks, then tingles. For a second the joint feels hot and prickly and Sean licks his tongue around the inside of his mouth.
Tom rolls from his stomach onto his side and re-bunches the pillow under his face. Sean twists his head to the side. If he strains, he can make out the line of Tom's head and shoulders, and the slope of his nose in the shadows.
"Are you still drunk?" Tom whispers.
Sean thinks about it. "No, I don't think so. Maybe? I dunno, fuck. Why?"
Tom doesn't answer, but he shifts again and the next thing Sean knows, Tom's lips are brushing over his nostril. It tickles and Sean snickers. Tom re-adjusts and tries again. This time his lips find the corner of Sean's mouth and Sean stops laughing. Actually, he also stops breathing, which feels a bit like drowning, in fact. His heart is pounding against his ribs and it feels like all the air is being squeezed out of his lungs.
Sean definitely doesn't want to drown, he decides.
"Are you freaking out?" Tom asks against his mouth.
Their lips are dry and snag together. Sean shakes his head. It's surprising that he can feel how chapped Tom's lips are against his.
This time, when Tom nudges him, Sean tilts his chin forward and opens his mouth. Tom's a good kisser, in a lazy, thorough sort of way. Sean's not surprised. He's seen Tom making out with enough girls in dark stairwells before to have guessed as much.
Sean's lips are starting to feel oversensitive and raw and his dick is tenting against the insides of his boxers. The skin on the back of his neck goose pimples and when Tom makes a low growling sound in the back of his throat, Sean's breath catches. Then Tom is shifting up on one arm and unfastening the notch of his belt.
Sean's stomach flutters.
The nervous feeling reminds him of the first time he made it to third base with Caroline Northey in the ninth grade. He was fucking certain her older brother was going to walk in on them, finger fucking downstairs on the basement couch.
"Are you freaking out now?" Tom asks. The tongue of Tom's belt is hanging open and it brushes against Sean's stomach. The metal and leather makes Sean shiver and Sean's shocked laugh comes out through his nose.
"No, but I'm still fucking cold."
Tom smirks against his mouth and reaches over Sean to flip the blanket back up over their shoulders. It ends up covering most of their faces too, and Tom's breath feels warm against Sean's cheek.
"Pussy," Tom says from under the blanket tent he's made.
"Fuck you."
"Maybe. If you're good."
Sean can't see Tom's grin, but he can hear it. Sean rolls his eyes and then the bottom completely falls out of his stomach. Tom bites the pad of Sean's bottom lip, and this time when they kiss, it's more than a little aggressive. By the time Sean feels the back of Tom's knuckles accidently brush against his dick, he's panting.
Tom strokes himself with a slow, easy rhythm. "C'mon," Tom says, on an exhale. "I wanna feel you touch yourself."
Sean groans, drops his hand to his own dick, and pushes his boxers down and out of the way. After a few erratic pulls, Sean wraps his hand around the base of his dick and settles on massaging his balls with the pads of his fingers.
His dick is leaking precome and when Tom slides just the crowns together, Sean bites his lip and sucks in a sharp breath. "Oh, Jesus. Fuck. Yeah."
Tom muffles a sound against Sean's throat and rubs their dicks together again. The motion is small and controlled, and the friction is so light that Sean holds his breath through it.
"Tom, Tom. Tom," Sean's hips snap forward and his eyes squeeze shut. "Oh, oh, fuck."
"Not yet." Tom's whisper sounds quiet and choked, and Sean drags in another deep breath until his lungs burn. "Not yet," Tom pleads. "Just. Wait for me."
Sean lets out a shaky laugh and nuzzles his face into the crook of Tom's throat. The stubble on Tom's face scratches his cheek and leaves a hot mark down the side of his face. Sean pinches the base of his dick, trying not to come, and rubs his nose against Tom's Adam's apple.
The skin there is damp with sweat and Sean can feel Tom swallow.
"Now? Are you?" Sean squeezes his eyes shut so tightly that colours spark behind his eyelids. There is a baseline twitching in his lower back, a hitch, low in his belly that he can't ignore. "Fuck, are you close, 'cause I can't-"
Sean's whole body goes tense with his orgasm. His dick pulses and Sean doesn't even try to choke back the groan that rips from someplace deep in the back of his throat.
Tom's fingers wrap over the heads of their dicks, and Sean twitches sharply, feeling Tom go rigid against him.
Afterwards, Sean wipes the mess off his stomach with a dirty t-shirt that might actually be Louis'. When he looks up, Tom is staring at him, carefully.
Tom clears his throat. "Because I'm a coward."
Sean makes an uncomprehending face.
"I keep coming in here drunk because I'm a coward."
"That's not true," Sean says, automatically. "You're not a coward. You do some pretty fearless shit. I know, I've been there for most of it."
Tom doesn't answer. As he nudges his face deeper into the pillow, Sean loops his hand over the back of Tom's neck, pulling him forward, and kissing him.
"I left the light on for you, dickwad."
Sean can feel Tom's lips curve up into a smile against his mouth.
"I figured," Tom says, grinning.
*
When Sean gets out of bed in the morning, Tom is still sleeping, splayed width-ways across the mattress. The light from the window looks cloudy and grey. Sean scratches at his chest and yawns. His boxers are twisted and sticking to his thigh with a dried spot of come, which is disgusting. In the bathroom, he strips them off and throws them onto the pile with everything else before climbing into the shower.
After his shower Sean brushes his teeth and finger combs his hair in the mirror.
Louis is watching cartoons on the couch in last night's clothes by the time Sean finally makes it out in a t-shirt and a clean pair of shorts.
Sean wrinkles his face. "You fucking stink, dude." Louis flips him off with a smile and goes back to stuffing his hand down into the open box of Apple Jacks between his knees.
In the kitchen, Sean pours himself a large glass of tomato juice and then bends over the sink, drinking water straight from the tap. The water dribbles down his chin and Sean wipes at it with the back of his hand. When he stands upright again, the vertigo hits him hard. Sean fumbles for the Tylenol and when he walks back into the living room, Louis grins at him, holding up his digital recorder.
"Buckingham!" he says proudly.
Sean stares at him. "But that's a fountain," he says, finally. "How'd you? No wait," Sean says in a rush. "I don't want to know."
Louis grins and Sean sits down on the end of the couch, throwing Louis' feet off. Louis grins at him again and fishes for another handful of cereal.
Sean shakes his head, disbelieving. "Dude, that's sick. You know that, right?"
"Says the guy boning Conrad."
Sean rolls his eyes. "Whatever, you don't know that."
Louis' laugh comes out sharp and loud. "I do know you weren't in the shower long enough to rub one out, Van Vleet."
Sean shakes his head again.
"Don't fight it, dude," Louis says, smug. "It's a gift."
________________________________________
A/N: For violetfaced
I'm not sure why, but Louis-the-Roommate is quickly becoming my favourite character to write. Maybe because there is so little canon surrounding him he feels like an Original Character, I dunno. Mostly I think I like him because it's cool to have someone you can write as obnoxious as you want. Obnoxious boys in fic = so much fun. Real life, not so much.
Dear Louis: I'm sorry? Again?