When I Come Around. R. Tom/Chiz.
When I Come Around
Bandom. The Academy Is…/Empires. Tom Conrad/Michael Guy Chislett. R. 7,678 words.
It's been like, fifty years since I actually finished a full-length fic, it's such a strange feeling. I'm hoping this is the first of many. A huge thanks to wayoffbase for the speedy once-through! It was just what I needed. :) Title from the Green Day song. These events are fictional.
&
Tom’s never been a particularly assuming guy, not the great expectations sort of person, but he can’t say that this was something he ever thought possible, probable, whatever.
Sean leans in, nudges him, “This’ll be good,” he mumbles. “Great even,” and Tom arches an eyebrow, but nods, shuffles his feet and runs a hand through his hair. It’s a second before the Butcher comes over, wraps his arms around Tom’s shoulders and holds him too tight.
“Been a while,” he mumbles, warm against the shell of Tom’s ear, and Tom makes a noise of agreement, can’t stop his own arms from snaking around Butcher’s waist and holding him just as tight. Because it has been a while, and there’s something not unlike relief uncurling in the pit of his stomach, and fuck, Tom thinks, maybe this tour won’t be a disaster on every front.
&
So, maybe Tom is an assuming sort of guy, because if you’d asked him last year, he never would have counted this as an option.
He got the phone call somewhere between regular-work and music-work last month, and it wasn’t William or Mike or anyone really, just Tony, his old - their -tour manager, who said something about no hard feelings and an open slot for a support act on the next tour. He used words like they and sorry and finally I, and really it was only that last one that Tom believed.
“I want this,” Tony had said, and Tom had watched the raindrops racing each other down one of the windows of his apartment and thought we need curtains, and then we need money, and when he’d said yes, he’d wished it was for something nobler.
He wished that it was for building bridges and old friendships, for them.
Fuck.
He lights a cigarette, shuffles his feet, and the cold is biting out here, nips at his heels, at his hips and the back of his neck. Sitting on the curb of some abandoned parking lot whilst his band and his old band and the other support get hammered isn’t his idea of a good time. Well. Not with his old band anyway.
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see William, Butcher, Sisky, Al, Ryan. He can see bodies and booze and someone calls out, loud and hoarse and slurred. Tom ignores it, stumps his cigarette out on the bitumen instead and he’s about to reach for the bottle beside him when somebody stands over him, blocks the light of the street lamp.
Okay, he thinks, okay, here’s the problem. Here’s the issue.
The point is that they’ve been on tour for a week and a half, and the issue is that Michael hasn’t made it one. Michael is five-foot-eleven inches of Australian sun; warm and painfully bright, to the point that Tom wonders how much it’d burn to be around him too long. He doubts the metaphor extends that far, especially since people don’t get sick of him. Michael’s nice, and he doesn’t go out of his way to include Tom, but he doesn’t exclude him either, and when Michael talks, smiles, laughs, Tom smiles back, and thinks you replaced me.
He offers his drink upwards and Michael shuffles a little, hums, and the night air carries it down to Tom too easily, effortlessly. It rings in his ears.
“Don’t drink,” Michael says with a shrug, and Tom blinks, then he squints a little, glances down at where his fingers wrap around the neck of the bottle like a noose or a tie, whatever. Says, “Aren’t you Australian?” then, after a beat, “Aren’t you in a band with William Beckett and Mike Carden?”
Michael laughs at that, this easy thing that Tom doesn’t think is fair, not when Tom can’t return the kindness, can’t think in terms of the nows, when it’s the thens that burn up his chest.
“Yeah, but, y’know, I kind of stopped caving to peer pressure when I finished puberty.” Then he adds, “Waking up in a gutter after a weekend bender when you’re fifteen kind of helps too on the booze front, to be honest.”
Tom doesn’t reply to that, and Michael doesn’t offer further explanation, just drops down to the sidewalk beside Tom and rubs a little at his knees. Michael’s fingers are almost painfully long, languid and Tom can’t help but pay attention to the way they curl around Michael’s ridiculously skinny legs. It’s photogenic. Of course it is.
“You don’t need to do this,” Tom says, and Michael doesn’t roll his eyes or look dumb, just says, “Do what?”
“Reach out to me, or whatever. They made their decision.” The William picked you, the you won, doesn’t reach his mouth, but maybe Michael gets it, because he pauses, purses his lips.
“I have a new band,” Tom says, and Michael nods, smiles, and it’s genuine, stupidly so, as he says, “I know, I bought the album. You guys are good. Really good.”
“Thanks,” Tom mumbles into the mouth of the bottle, and Michael just nods, glances around behind him, before he suddenly says, “I don’t want to be the bad guy on this tour, okay? I’m not good at it.”
Tom blinks at him. “We’re touring together,” Michael supplies, “And you have issues with Bill and Mike especially, and I get that, but like, fuck, I barely know you, and you barely know me, and I just. I thought we could be mates or whatever. Clean slate and all.”
It takes Tom a minute, because no, that’s not what he wants. He doesn’t want Michael to be a nice guy, he wants him to be a dick, he wants him to have reason to hate him, even if William and Mike decided to kick him out before Michael was even in the picture, he wants to be mad, but before he even knows it, he’s saying, “Yeah, okay,” and Michael’s flashing him a wide, relieved grin and slapping Tom’s shoulder affectionately before getting up to head back to the bus.
&
And that’s that.
Only not really, because touring is regurgitated highschool redundancy, and that’s never really just that.
“It’s an olive branch,” Sean tries, and he’s pulling a box out of the back of the van, equipment for tonight’s gig, as Tom fiddles with the settings on the back of his camera. “It’s a good thing, Tom. I mean, fuck, the guy could’ve just ignored you.”
Tom purses his lips, tilts his head and says, “Either an olive branch, or it’s a Trojan Horse.”
“Always the optimist,” Sean rolls his eyes. “I’ll be sure to look out for any Australian soldiers lurking around the van.”
“Trojans, Sean.”
Sean gives him a look at that, and Tom laughs, turns the camera up in his lap, until the lens is pointing at the underside of his chin, he snaps a picture, before he points the camera at Sean, snap, and then towards the venue. Michael’s coming out the front door with Carden in tow, and Tom snaps a picture before he even thinks anything more of it.
&
The crowd in Vegas is electric, wild, and it probably means something, that it’s only in the chaos of performing in a sweaty, too-small venue, that Tom’s life makes sense, falls together in a way that’s cohesive, that fits in the back of his head.
The sweat pools at the small of his back, in the dip of his collarbone, and it sticks as he pulls his guitar off of his chest, drops it into the stand and wipes his face on his shirt.
“Do you know what would be awesome?” Siska says, and Tom starts a little, hadn’t even realised Siska was there. He is though, prepped for the gig, looking taller and thinner than Tom ever remembers. The short hair suits him, puts him back in proportion which he maybe never was with all the curls.
“What?”
“If we talked about it.” It’s so upfront, that Tom can’t help but grin. The only one in TAI who ever minced words was William, and it was always refreshing, is still refreshing.
“I’m not the one not talking about it,” Tom says, deceptively light, and he runs a hand through his hair. Siska does laugh at that, loud and brash, and drops to sit on the floor in front of Tom. He points, says, “Nice to know that you’re still full of shit,” and Tom laughs because, yeah, he is.
&
The thing about Michael is he’s not anything special.
This probably matters, because by the time Tom realises he’s been taking photos of him, he’s got enough stored on film to take up half an album. It’s not deliberate, not thought out or sought out, but between sets it’s almost too easy to snap pictures of Michael, sleepy or wired, of his impossibly long fingers on the strings of his beaten up guitar and the thin line of his back as he leans over to lug around equipment. It feels almost voyeuristic at times, perverse, but Michael doesn’t notice or, if he does, he doesn’t say anything. No one says anything, and Tom isn’t sure if it makes this whole thing more interesting, exciting, or less so. Whatever.
He’s almost finished the roll when Ryan slings an arm over his shoulder, small and narrow against his side. Tom pushes the camera into one hand, drops it to his other side.
“He’s not that pretty,” Ryan says with a sly grin, and Tom just flips him off, cigarette dangling from his lips.
He doesn’t say that’s half of the appeal.
&
William doesn’t say anything right away, instead props himself against the crates of equipment. He’s not drinking, nor is he drunk, and it makes for a nice change for Tom, even if Siska told him that Bill doesn’t drink as much as he used to. As much as he did when Tom was still a part of them. He’s not sure whether to be hurt, pleased or insulted. Whatever.
William sighs, rubs at one of his eyes, and it takes a minute before he finally says, “So.”
Tom arches an eyebrow, “So what?” he asks, and William just sighs again, rolls his eyes, more at himself than at Tom, and he opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. Tom really doesn’t have the time (the effort, energy) for this shit anymore.
“So what?” Tom says again, and it takes William a minute to answer, and when he does, it’s so casual, like he hadn’t been fumbling for words seconds earlier.
“You used to take photos of me.”
“I did,” Tom says, because he did. He used to take a lot of photos of William, because William’s photogenic, and Tom’s a sucker for anything with long limbs and a pretty face, no matter what he tells himself otherwise.
William purses his lips at that, drops his head back and looks at the ceiling. It exposes the long, perfect line of his neck, and Tom can’t tell if it’s deliberate or not. William’s always known his best angles, what he excels at, it’s the flaws he has the trouble admitting. “You stopped.”
Tom can’t suppress a grin at that, “Well, you did kick me out of your band.”
William snorts, fiddles with his bangs. “Since when have you been in a band with Michael?”
“Never,” Tom says, “I didn’t say I wasn’t in a band with you, I said you kicked me out.”
William looks at him at that, scrunches his nose, and looks like he’s about to add something, then stops himself. “I didn’t…” he trails off, huffs out a breath, and Tom arches an eyebrow.
“No, musical differences, right?”
“I thought you didn’t care anymore,” William bites, and Tom shrugs, “I don’t,” and he thinks they both know that that’s a lie, especially when the what-ifs run races between them like white noise. He doesn’t waver though, and finally William drops to the crate Tom’s sitting on, offers him a cigarette.
Tom hesitates, but takes it.
“I don’t hate you,” Tom says finally, around the cigarette, and William glances back at him, says, “Good.” And then, “You probably don’t believe me, but that’s never what I wanted.”
Tom just shrugs.
&
Later, Tom will think about taking photos of William.
Not think, he amends, reminisce, remember, because Tom doesn’t itch for it anymore, doesn’t reach for his camera when William looks happy, sad, when he sings or when he passes out drunk in the back of the bus. He’d be lying to himself if he said it was purely because of leaving the band, because really, if Tom had still wanted to take photos of William, he still would be taking photos of him.
Really, Tom used to think that William could’ve easily up and left the band, been a model, found fame in his own time, on his own stage, on the runway. William was (is, he corrects) tall, thin, angular. Pretty.
William is photogenic, Tom will think. William is boring.
He was too perfect. Tom didn’t even have to try.
Apparently, neither did William.
&
“So, this chick came up to me after the show, and - hey, Tom, you listening, man?”
Tom bats Ryan’s hand away when the guy waves it right in front of his face, gives him a look, and Ryan just rolls his eyes. “You’re so out of it at the moment, fuck.”
The gig finished a few hours ago, and they’re all set up out the back of the venue. It feels like a unified front, like there aren’t cracks that split them up, creeping up their legs and around their jaw lines. The laughter echoes in the back of Tom’s head, in his throat, and he watches as Ryan loses interest, throws his hands up and turns, finds somebody to jump on.
It’s good really, but the booze is already blurring Tom’s senses, making him feel out of sorts, and it’s too easy to slip away, out of the crowd. To disappear with a bottle and a joint to lonelier pastures. He’s never been a social animal, not really.
“Anyone else would say you were pretty fucking weird,” Sean says, and it takes a moment for Tom to blink his eyes back open, hadn’t realised he’d fallen asleep, and to glance over the edge of the van roof.
“Thanks,” Tom replies, and he fumbles beside himself for the bottle of Scotch and the joint, waggles it over in Sean’s direction until Sean gets the hint, grabs Tom’s free hand and let’s himself be pulled up onto the roof of the van.
The best thing about this, about them, is that they’re both believers in the comfortable silence. Tom’s always found it easier to talk in photos, pictures, and Sean in music. Tom doesn’t know why it works, but as Sean leans over, steals the joint from between Tom’s fingers; he finds he doesn’t entirely mind not knowing.
“Thought you’d be out,” Tom starts, and he stretches loosely on the van roof, watches as Sean watches him, focus shifting from face to neck to the bare line of skin that Tom knows shows when his shirt rides up. Sometimes he thinks he should stop picking friends he’s attracted to, but there’s a camera lens fitted to his mind’s eye, a roll of film in the back of his head, and maybe he can only focus on the ones that he wants.
“Either that, or you’re tanked,” Sean supplies, and Tom hadn’t realised he was speaking out loud, lets his lips slip into a smirk, and Sean just laughs, loud and loose in the night air. Sean’s head lulls to the side, and he makes a noise in the back of his throat, easy, and when he glances back at Tom, the smile is somewhere between smug and amused, pulling at the edges of his cheeks.
“We have a visitor,” Sean says, and he takes another smoke from the joint. “Or you do anyway.”
Tom blinks, and Sean slides off the roof of the van and Michael’s there, staring first at Sean and then up at the roof where Tom is still sprawling, scotch in hand. He sees Sean and Michael mumble a couple of sentences, and Sean’s reaching into the back of the van for a six-pack and waving a short goodbye before Tom can push himself off the roof to join them.
“Where’s he going?” and Tom’s at Michael’s side now, tilting his head and taking another swig of the scotch. Michael just shrugs, “He said something about finding Al, I don’t know,” and then he scrunches his nose a little, glances back at Tom.
“You smell like shit, mate.”
Tom just holds his arms out either side of him, “Tour,” he supplies, and Michael snorts on a laugh. Tom ends up leaning against the side of the van, head hitting the glass window as Michael stands in front of him, hands buried in his pockets and he looks almost awkward, uncomfortable, and Tom stares at the way his feet turn into each other on the carpark floor.
“The crowd tonight was good,” Michael says finally, and Tom glances back up, at where Michael’s face looks soft in the dark, shadowed.
He makes a small noise of agreement in the back of his throat, and Michael rolls his eyes, looks at Tom pointedly. “Look, I know you’re capable of more than just grunts or whatever, so - “
“Where are you from?” Tom cuts him off, “Like, I know Australia, but that’s pretty general. Big country, isn’t it?”
Michael gives Tom a strange look, but finally just tilts his head, says, “Sydney,” and Tom nods, then adds, “You’re not just saying that are you? I know people tend to think that Sydney’s the only place in Australia that Americans know about.”
Michael laughs at that, low in the back of his throat, “Nah, seriously. Skipton originally, but I live in Sydney now.”
Tom nods, says, “I always wanted to go to Australia,” and just like that, it’s easy.
&
They end up in the back of the van when Michael makes a comment about tired legs, and Tom’s not bothered either way, but wouldn’t mind sprawling out on one of the benches either. It’s quick though, sudden, that Michael finds Tom’s digital camera on one of the seats.
“This one yours?” Michael asks, and Tom starts a little, blinks and nods somewhat hesitantly. Michael just grins though.
“Cool. I’m pretty shithouse at taking photos. Butcher says you’re awesome at it but. Mind if I take a look?”
The no sits in Tom’s throat, the stop, but he can’t bring himself to say it, even though he knows exactly what it’ll look like. There’s a blind hope in Tom’s gut that tells him maybe Michael won’t, but there are more photos of Michael on that camera than Tom can name, and when the familiar tinkling sound of the camera switching on fills his head, there’s something in his head that tells him it’s too late. That says sprung even if Tom never considered this to be something secretive or wrong.
It’s a minute before Michael says anything, flipping through the digital album and somewhere along the line, he stops smiling. His forehead furrows and he bites his lip.
“You know,” Michael says finally, and he hasn’t stopped looking through the pictures, “Aboriginal Australians believe cameras can steal people’s souls.”
Tom perks up a little, the knot loosening in his stomach as he nurses the scotch on his knee, his eyes still trained on the way Michael’s blue ones flit across the tiny screen. “Really?”
Michael makes a favourable noise in the back of his throat before finally putting the camera down, nudging Tom’s ankle with his own foot, as he leans his head back against the glass window of the van. “I’m not exactly…” and he trails off a little, and Tom arches an eyebrow. “Not exactly what?”
Michael shrugs, laughs a little, and it’s embarrassed this time, self-deprecating. “Good?” he supplies after a minute, and then he laughs again, “Hot? I don’t know. You could find better people to-“ and he waves his hand around for a second. He’s red now, flushed, and Tom can’t say he isn’t slightly charmed. That’s probably weird, peculiar, whatever.
“I don’t want to photograph better people,” Tom supplies after a minute, and he shrugs again. “You’re interesting. Different.”
And Michael does laugh at that, “Australian?”
“And etcetera,” Tom says, and Michael grins, ends up staring at the floor of the van. He fingers the hole in the knee of his jeans, and Tom glances out the window. It’s getting late - early. The sun’s starting to peek up over the horizon line, and Tom really should try and get some sleep before the next gig.
“You could’ve asked.”
It’s sudden, but Tom’s not entirely surprised. He just shrugs in the end, looks back over at where Michael’s staring at him, contemplating. Finally he huffs a little, shakes his head.
“Well, next time. I don’t know,” Michael puffs out another little breath, looks embarrassed, and Tom’s nothing if not observant. He picks up on the colour rising to Michael’s cheeks, down his neck.
“If you want to photograph me again or whatever, I’d. Like, not that there’ll necessarily be a next time, but if there is, you don’t have to be…” Michael struggles for the word, and Tom finds it hard to suppress the grin. “…Stealthy, sly or whatever.”
Tom nods, watches the way Michael bites his lip, scrunches his nose, and thinks, yeah, there’ll be a next time.
&
“This has been good.”
Al hums in agreement, head thrown back towards the sky. Tom can’t pick what he’s looking at, but maybe it doesn’t matter. Sometimes you don’t need a focus just to be looking.
“Seriously,” Sean says. “I mean, when Tony called, I thought this would be a total train wreck tour.”
“More so than usual?” Al asks, but the grin’s obvious, pulling at the sides of his mouth. Sean just flips him off.
“It’s been good meeting the others though,” and he shoots Tom a sideways glance. “Getting to know them and everything.”
Sean’s never been good at the baiting game, is too honest and open for it, so Tom just arches an eyebrow and fiddles with the strings of his guitar. “Good to know,” Tom says finally, and Sean huffs a little, turns to where Al is watching them now, amused.
“Don’t say I didn’t try,” Sean says, and Al does laugh at that.
Tom kind of thinks he missed something.
&
Painting his ex-girlfriend’s bedroom two years ago taught him that the sky tonight is a blend of the Azure Fusion 1 (70BG to be precise) and the Ebony Mists 2 palette.
It’s broken up by the loose flecks of stars, by the crackle of the flames, and Tom tosses up which would be the better option, camera or cigarette. The others are mostly gone, off filming an episode of TAI TV, with the exception of Michael, who sits a little further along the bench beside Tom, and one of the roadies, Jake, Tom thinks, who’s fiddling around with the equipment under the shelter of the venue roof.
Cigarette, Tom concludes in the end, and he pulls one out of his back pocket, ignoring the look Michael shoots him when he moves.
“I can never get used to the cold here,” Michael says, and Tom just lights a cigarette, takes a drag as Michael coughs a little, hoarse in the back of his throat. He’d stub it out, but Tom’s never been as considerate as people think he is.
“It’s not so bad,” Tom says eventually, “You get used to it.”
Michael hums a little, but he’s still rubbing at his legs. It’s a habit, Tom guesses, nervous or otherwise. Tom doesn’t need a solid answer, never has really, because leaving things open to interpretation is the best part about photography.
There’s a campfire here, sitting in an old bin, and it crackles perfectly, ideally, and Tom’s starting to wish he had chosen his camera instead of the cigarette. He bristles a little when it crackles again, and Michael breathes out smoke. He’s shivering now, and Tom finally offers him his coat.
Michael just arches an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Tom says, “No one’s here to call you a chick, and even I’ll refrain from making the bitch comment, so, seriously.”
Michael laughs, short and surprised, before he just says, “I’ll manage, thanks.”
It’s a second more of shivering before Tom starts to shrug out of his jacket, and Michael’s protesting. “No, come on. The last I want is you catching hypothermia or whatever, and then having all the fans come after me with how I got you thrown out of the band and killed you.”
Tom pauses at that, contemplates. “You didn’t get me thrown out.” The words feel honest in his mouth, solid and warm. Easy.
Michael laughs again, but it’s self-deprecating in a way that Tom hadn’t noticed before. “I know,” he says, but then, “but, y’know, fans and-“
“And nothing,” Tom says, and he’d say something else if he thought he could find the words. Fuck, he was never very good at this. He lights another cigarette, and Michael watches, shivers again, and fuck this. “Come on,” Tom says, and he holds an arm out.
“What?”
“If you’re going to be a little bitch about taking my jacket, you can like, snuggle for body heat or whatever.”
“Snuggle?” Michael’s all arched eyebrow and disbelieving tone.
“Yes,” Tom says, “Or are you morally opposed to that too?”
Michael snorts, but he edges closer to where Tom sits on the log until Tom closes the difference, their thighs pressed close together. Michael’s still shivering, and Tom can feel it now, and this, this is weird, because Michael is suddenly tangible. Michael is suddenly not just pictures or skin, voice, eyes, burnt freckles and dirty hair, he’s here, pressed again Tom’s side like a, fuck, like a person, a body, and Tom hates the way this happens, the way things crossover too often for him, just like with William and Sean and now the fucking guy playing in his spot in The Academy Is… set, and just fuck.
Michael’s real, and he’s this dumb guy with the broadest Australian accent who’s shivering against his side, and Tom is full of vices, of cigarettes and booze and guys and girls that talk to him in pictures, and leaning in, kissing him, is just the next mistake in a history of them.
It’s barely a brush of the lips really, and Michael pulls away so quickly, glances at Tom and opens his mouth like he’s about to say something else, but finally just closes the distance and kisses Tom back and he tastes like Tom thought he would, like week-old sun and veggie burgers and orange juice. His impossibly long, cold fingers curl around the back of Tom’s neck, and Tom can’t bring himself to touch Michael back. Not yet, because it’s one thing to kiss him, but it’s another to touch him. Kisses are anonymous, faceless, it’s the touches that are distinctive, unique, personal.
Michael pulls away, and neither of them say anything else, but they don’t move either. It’s been minutes or hours or seconds before Michael mumbles an excuse and leaves. Tom doesn’t say anything then either.
&
Sometimes Tom wonders which is the hobby and which is the thing he can’t live without, music or photography. Maybe both, maybe neither, but Tom’s leaning towards the former when he feels his fingers itch for his camera every time Michael picks up his guitar.
It’s been three days since the incident, as Tom’s taken to calling it in his head, and it’s the first hotel night in a week. It’s only logical that they sort whatever it was out then, there, when they’re not all living in each other’s skin quite as much as usual. When they finally pull into the hotel, Tom is sure to climb out of the van first, and wait until Michael is there, lagging behind the others in the foyer before he grabs his wrist, says, “We can share,” and ignores the startled looks of pretty much everyone but William and Sean.
There’s a single bed and a fold out couch, and Michael shrugs off his over-night bag and heads towards the bathroom. Whilst he’s there, showering apparently, if the water’s anything to go by, Tom pulls out his camera, his real one this time, not his uncomplicated digital one, and he fiddles with it too easily, professionally.
By the time Michael gets out, in the same dirty jeans and a clean wife beater, Tom’s as ready as he’s ever been, more so, and he just holds out his camera, watches the way Michael towel dries his hair.
“You said I could ask,” Tom says suddenly, “If I wanted to take pictures again, all I had to do was ask.”
Michael blinks at that, jerks back a little, and stares too long, too hard, like he can’t quite figure Tom out. At least it’s even ground there, Tom thinks, and he purses his lips, watches as Michael finally shrugs, says, “Sure,” and Tom grins, moves to grab a new roll of film.
If Tom’s camera is his security, his safe place, the guitar must be Michael’s, because it’s the first thing he reaches for, holds close to his body, and he sits on the floor, cross legged with the guitar pulled into his lap. He strums lightly at a couple of chords, and Tom snaps a few pictures of long fingers on longer strings.
“When’d you start taking pictures?” Michael asks, and Tom arches an eyebrow.
“Why are you curious?”
Michael just shrugs, bites his lip, and snap. Michael blinks from the flash, and Tom grins.
“Just am,” Michael says in the end, “It’s weird. Like, good weird.”
Tom doesn’t say anything, just focuses the camera on the way Michael’s fingers pull at the strings, the way they clamour their way through music with an awkward sort of grace.
“Hey,” Tom says suddenly, and Michael hums a little. “Yeah?”
“Let’s try something else.” He pushes the dresser aside and gets Michael sitting against the wall, long legs sprawling out across the cheap carpet, his guitar in his lap, and it’s good like this, tortured artist or some other perfect, pretty cliché, and Tom snaps another picture.
“Sean said something really weird the other day,” Michael says suddenly, and Tom just hums a little, “You shouldn’t listen to anything he says, he’s full of shit,” and Michael laughs.
It’s a minute before he says anything else, but when he does, it’s short, “He said you don’t really take photos like this of other people anymore.”
Tom pauses, but he doesn’t stop, just pauses for a second, lingers. “I do.”
“But not all the time,” Michael supplies. “I know you took photos of William like this, and Sean and like, a couple of girls too, but not-“ and Tom’s kissing him before he can stop himself, crouching over Michael and his guitar, relishing the way that Michael’s head hits the wall with a thud and the fact that Michael doesn’t push him away.
It’s too easy to keep going, to set his camera down on the floor beside them and cup the back of Michael’s neck. It’s something like relief when Michael curls his fingers in Tom’s hair, when he pants, sighs, eases himself into Tom’s kisses and Tom’s touch like this is something simple, something that makes sense.
And it’s a problem, maybe, that now that Tom’s started, he can’t stop. His camera isn’t in hand, but Michael is, and he’s suddenly entirely too tangible, real and soft underneath his fingers, and when Tom kisses him, it’s because he can’t not anymore.
“Fuck,” Michael mumbles, and he arches up against him, pushes his fingers against Tom’s back and suddenly away, beneath his shirt until Tom can feel the half-moon crescents of Michael’s blunt nails making patterns in the flesh of his back. He grunts, pulls away, the guitar is still between them, and it’s hard against Tom’s chest, getting in the way. The strings are imprinting themselves in the soft flesh of Tom’s stomach and it’s a second, minute before Michael’s shoving it aside, panting as Tom pushes his own fingers up Michael’s tank. He pulls it off with a practiced ease and then leans back, yanks his own shirt off and they’re not even completely undressed, but Tom feels so naked, too naked, raw and spread open, and Michael watches Tom’s chest, neck, face like he’s not entirely sure what he’s doing.
Tom’s half-hard already, and he grinds down against Michael’s jagged hip, pushes himself down until Michael’s rearranging them, lying flat on the floor and pulling Tom on top of him, and when he whispers, “Just fucking do something,” Tom can’t help but oblige.
&
Morning afters won’t ever be his strong suit.
He’s never been that sort of guy, and maybe it points to intimacy issues, but not really. Tom just doesn’t like spooning, doesn’t like sleeping in somebody else’s skin, not when he’s not sure if he belongs there, and Michael is definitely not somewhere (someone) Tom belongs. He sighs, paws at his eyes and clambers out of the bed. Michael sleeps like the dead.
They don’t leave for another few hours, and Tom finds himself sitting out the front of the hotel, watching the road and the barely-risen sun peek over the horizon line. He lights a cigarette, and starts smoking his way through the packet, because this, at least, is something he can control.
&
“Hey,” the accent is too familiar, and Tom fumbles with his guitar as one of the roadies mentions the lighting Sean wants for the gig tonight.
“Hey,” the voice calls again, and Tom hesitates, before turning around. Michael’s in the doorway, long and thin. The light pools behind him, leaves his shadow dark against the floor of the venue, sprawling.
“Missed you this morning,” he says, glances at the roadie. “Like, at breakfast. You know.”
Tom shrugs, says, “Max and I grabbed something on the way to the venue, we wanted to get here early.” The excuse feels false in his mouth, uncomfortable. Michael doesn’t look like he believes it anymore than Tom does, but Tom’s not sure that he cares.
Michael just quirks an eyebrow, and doesn’t say anything else, starts talking to the roadie. When Tom turns to leave, Michael grabs his sleeve, leans in and mumbles, “I’m not expecting anything,” and Tom pauses, blinks, as Michael let’s go and heads off to talk to Mike.
&
It’s not meant to happen again.
It’s not, because fucking around with someone on tour is one thing, but fucking around with someone repeatedly on tour is a completely different ballgame. Just, the thing is, Tom’s never been good at denying himself, at setting something up as taboo in his head, because he functions in the school of boyish rebellion and when he thinks don’t touch, his fingers, lips, skin think the opposite.
Michael doesn’t seem to mind though, not now anyway, not when he’s fast asleep, face down in the hard, hotel-issued pillows, snoring lightly or breathing hard, one of them. The sheets have pooled around his waist, and Tom traces Michael’s spine with the lens of his mind’s eye, and then with his fingers, follows the movement of Michael’s muscles, the way his shoulder blades shift beneath his skin.
He’s almost painfully thin like this; the benefits of a no-booze, no-meat diet, and Tom can outline his ribs, the freckles left by months old Australian sun across his chest, face, back and there’s nothing about Michael that isn’t flawed, that isn’t without character. It’s perfect for Tom’s camera, perfectly photogenic.
Tom’s camera is still in the van.
This probably matters.
&
“Hey, wait,” and Tom turns around with a start, glances behind him at where William is throwing something into the trash can before hurrying along to meet him, to catch up. “I want to talk to you.”
Tom arches an eyebrow quietly, shifts on his feet, but he doesn’t make to move away. They’ve barely talked all tour, and when they have it’s been hesitant, self-conscious. William stands beside him, lips pursed, and throws an arm over Tom’s narrow shoulders, pulls him away from where everyone else is milling about, preparing for the gig in a few hours time.
He tugs them both into a corridor, and finally lets go, leans back against the wall and watches Tom almost contemplating. It takes him a moment to say something, anything, and when he does, it’s not entirely what Tom is expecting.
“Don’t take us out on him, okay?” William says in the end, and Tom just blinks, feels his chest constrict, something hot and wild burn in the pit of his stomach, in his throat as he snaps, “Yeah, William, because everything’s about you, right?”
William flushes at that, says, “Fuck you, Tom, you know that’s not what I meant.”
Tom clenches his eyes shut, rubs his sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans and tries to just breathe. He feels choked up, wrung out, and it aches, all of him. He can feel William’s eyes on him, focused, and it’s not fair, it’s not, that he’s only ever been able to get this sort of attention from William when he’s fucking someone else.
They’re like that for a while, minutes, seconds, whatever, and the silence is pulled taut, tough, heavy between them both, and William finally breaks it up, a pebble through a window, dropped in a stream, something. “For what it’s worth,” William says, and it sounds careful, hesitant, “We were pretty fucking awesome.”
Tom just laughs, scrunches his nose at the way William grins, looks relieved and unsurprised all at once. “Yeah, yeah,” Tom says, and the way William looks at him then makes his fingers itch for his camera for the first time in years. “Whatever.”
&
They don’t talk about it. Michael and Tom, or, for that matter, Tom and Sean, or Michael and anyone. It’s like a secret that everyone knows about, but no one has the balls to question. Like that’ll make it real somehow, like Michael panting, groaning, eyes clenched shut and fingers shaking is all in Tom’s head, in his camera.
Fuck, Tom doesn’t know. They barely talk between hotels and sex. Michael hangs out with his band, and Tom hangs out with his, and maybe Tom stops taking pictures of Michael, doesn’t feel that pulsing, raw, honest need in his gut or his chest or his head any longer. It’s a relief, and it isn’t, it’s a mess of things that Tom doesn’t take the time (doesn’t want to) name.
Whatever, point is, tours end, and so do relationships.
Michael comes to say goodbye after the last show, somehow shy, quieter than he’s ever been and more hesitant than Tom remembers. He can’t find the words, and Tom can see skin beneath Michael’s t-shirt, hoodie, jeans, can see the bare outline of Michael’s old bones like he’d taken the pictures last night, can see Michael’s long fingers on guitar strings, Michael’s lips as he comes, Michael’s freckled back against motel sheets.
“This is it,” Michael says finally, awkwardly, and Tom, camera hanging loose around his neck, takes a picture.
“One for the road,” he says, shrugs, and then, a surprise to both of them, he leans over and kisses him, quick and easy, says, “That one’s just for luck,” and Michael smiles, small and perfect and everything that makes Tom feel like he’s the king of fucking America and the biggest asshole in the world all at once.
He doesn’t take a picture of it. That one’s just for him.
&
The transition back into real life after tour is always difficult, and Tom gets back from regular-work to Sean shifting through a box of undeveloped film rolls. He drops his bag to the floor pointedly, half expecting Sean to backtrack and apologise, but he doesn’t, just waves a short hello, and puts the box back on the shelf.
“Are those all from the last tour?” Sean asks, and Tom shrugs, flicks through the mail he’d picked up on his way home.
“Yeah, why?”
Sean just runs a hand through his hair, watches Tom for too long, before finally just laughing, hoarse and low in the back of his throat. “No reason, just if you’re not going to develop them, it would be awesome if you could put them in storage. I’m seriously finding rolls of that shit all over the apartment.”
Tom shrugs again, doesn’t meet Sean’s eye right away. It’s been two weeks since the end of the tour, and it’s not that Tom hasn’t been busy, it’s just that he hasn’t been busy enough to use it as an excuse. He doesn’t usually neglect his film, but he can’t bring himself to do it yet. Memories are forgettable, or at least adjustable; photographs are evidence, triggers, real. Fuck.
“You should develop them,” Sean says after a minute, and Tom glances up at him, says, “I know.”
&
The holiday season sneaks up on Tom this year, slips in when he isn’t expecting it, and the Chicago chill gives way to snow and frostbitten toes before Tom can switch into Christmas mode. He doesn’t really get a holiday with his job, not a paying one anyway, but the new tours are put on halt until a few days after Christmas.
Tom loves the break, and sleeps for most of it, cosy beneath the blankets, and warm in a way he forgets exists on winter tours. It’s two days before Christmas when a knock at his bedroom door startles him awake. He groans, forces the blankets down from over his face and blinks as Sean’s head ducks out from behind the door. “You awake, man?”
Tom mumbles something inaudible even to himself and Sean says, “There’s someone here to see you.”
He groans, but throws the blankets back enough to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. He rubs blearily at his eyes with cold fingers, and by the time he glances back up, Michael’s there, staring back with those big, blue eyes that Tom hasn’t been able to forget, neglect. He looks tired, cold like someone not used to Chicago winters. He’s paper-white skinned and it just makes those eyes and the rosy red cheeks, nose, lips stand out stark in contrast.
Tom must look startled, surprised, because a look passes Michael’s face that Tom can’t pick, maybe would be able to if he knew more about Michael than his skin, bones, thin-lined muscles and the freckles on his shoulders and knees.
Michael waves a gloved hand at him, bites his lip and scratches his head a little, finally settles on, “I never got to see the pictures from the end of the tour,” and that might pass as a valid excuse if the tour hadn’t finished three months ago.
Tom doesn’t say anything right away, isn’t sure he could if he wanted to, and Michael just stands still, watching him with those same blue eyes that litter Tom’s dark room. It’s off-putting. Comforting. Something.
Finally Tom rolls out of bed, stretches, “I’ll show you, that’s cool,” because it is.
He tries not to pay attention to the way he can feel Michael’s eyes on his hips as his shirt rides up. To Michael’s eyes on him.
&
Tom turned the apartment’s tiny second bathroom into a dark room back when he and Sean first moved in. It’s some barely-there space with a bathtub and a patchy set of tiles from where they ripped the old toilet out. It’s not perfect, but it does the job, and Tom doesn’t think it’s ever seemed bigger than right now, photographs dangling from every inch of free space.
Sleep makes him bleary, edgy, and he yawns as he ducks beneath a row of photos, checks to see if some are dry. It’s a minute before Michael moves, walks along the line of pictures and it’s weird, the way they’re all of him. Of his lips and his spine, the way the lines of his ribcage stand out when he’d breathe out too hard or of his hipbones peaking over the top of his skinny jeans.
He’s not looking at Tom anymore, just at the photos instead, and he squints, stands too close to a couple that Tom can’t see from where he’s standing. He watches Michael reach out, glove-clad fingers skimming the edges of the photograph. There’s a lump in Tom’s throat, heavy and hot, and Tom talks in pictures, has since he was old enough to pick up a crayon, but it’s only now that it occurs to him that maybe he thinks in pictures too. That his camera knows how he feels about something before Tom does, because he hasn’t wanted to take photos of Michael since halfway through the tour, not really, but maybe it’s only because he wants Michael. That he doesn’t want to share him with lens or paper or audience, and maybe it’s obvious, telling, maybe definitely, because suddenly Michael’s pushing one of the trays aside and pressing Tom against the wall, kissing him hard and honest and easy. There’s a gloved hand in his hair, the other against the wall, and as Tom pushes his ice-cold fingers up the back of Michael’s shirt, listens to his breath hitch, feels the way his teeth nip at his lip, it occurs to him they should talk about this, whatever it is, but not now.
Not yet.
Bandom. The Academy Is…/Empires. Tom Conrad/Michael Guy Chislett. R. 7,678 words.
It's been like, fifty years since I actually finished a full-length fic, it's such a strange feeling. I'm hoping this is the first of many. A huge thanks to wayoffbase for the speedy once-through! It was just what I needed. :) Title from the Green Day song. These events are fictional.
&
Tom’s never been a particularly assuming guy, not the great expectations sort of person, but he can’t say that this was something he ever thought possible, probable, whatever.
Sean leans in, nudges him, “This’ll be good,” he mumbles. “Great even,” and Tom arches an eyebrow, but nods, shuffles his feet and runs a hand through his hair. It’s a second before the Butcher comes over, wraps his arms around Tom’s shoulders and holds him too tight.
“Been a while,” he mumbles, warm against the shell of Tom’s ear, and Tom makes a noise of agreement, can’t stop his own arms from snaking around Butcher’s waist and holding him just as tight. Because it has been a while, and there’s something not unlike relief uncurling in the pit of his stomach, and fuck, Tom thinks, maybe this tour won’t be a disaster on every front.
&
So, maybe Tom is an assuming sort of guy, because if you’d asked him last year, he never would have counted this as an option.
He got the phone call somewhere between regular-work and music-work last month, and it wasn’t William or Mike or anyone really, just Tony, his old - their -tour manager, who said something about no hard feelings and an open slot for a support act on the next tour. He used words like they and sorry and finally I, and really it was only that last one that Tom believed.
“I want this,” Tony had said, and Tom had watched the raindrops racing each other down one of the windows of his apartment and thought we need curtains, and then we need money, and when he’d said yes, he’d wished it was for something nobler.
He wished that it was for building bridges and old friendships, for them.
Fuck.
He lights a cigarette, shuffles his feet, and the cold is biting out here, nips at his heels, at his hips and the back of his neck. Sitting on the curb of some abandoned parking lot whilst his band and his old band and the other support get hammered isn’t his idea of a good time. Well. Not with his old band anyway.
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see William, Butcher, Sisky, Al, Ryan. He can see bodies and booze and someone calls out, loud and hoarse and slurred. Tom ignores it, stumps his cigarette out on the bitumen instead and he’s about to reach for the bottle beside him when somebody stands over him, blocks the light of the street lamp.
Okay, he thinks, okay, here’s the problem. Here’s the issue.
The point is that they’ve been on tour for a week and a half, and the issue is that Michael hasn’t made it one. Michael is five-foot-eleven inches of Australian sun; warm and painfully bright, to the point that Tom wonders how much it’d burn to be around him too long. He doubts the metaphor extends that far, especially since people don’t get sick of him. Michael’s nice, and he doesn’t go out of his way to include Tom, but he doesn’t exclude him either, and when Michael talks, smiles, laughs, Tom smiles back, and thinks you replaced me.
He offers his drink upwards and Michael shuffles a little, hums, and the night air carries it down to Tom too easily, effortlessly. It rings in his ears.
“Don’t drink,” Michael says with a shrug, and Tom blinks, then he squints a little, glances down at where his fingers wrap around the neck of the bottle like a noose or a tie, whatever. Says, “Aren’t you Australian?” then, after a beat, “Aren’t you in a band with William Beckett and Mike Carden?”
Michael laughs at that, this easy thing that Tom doesn’t think is fair, not when Tom can’t return the kindness, can’t think in terms of the nows, when it’s the thens that burn up his chest.
“Yeah, but, y’know, I kind of stopped caving to peer pressure when I finished puberty.” Then he adds, “Waking up in a gutter after a weekend bender when you’re fifteen kind of helps too on the booze front, to be honest.”
Tom doesn’t reply to that, and Michael doesn’t offer further explanation, just drops down to the sidewalk beside Tom and rubs a little at his knees. Michael’s fingers are almost painfully long, languid and Tom can’t help but pay attention to the way they curl around Michael’s ridiculously skinny legs. It’s photogenic. Of course it is.
“You don’t need to do this,” Tom says, and Michael doesn’t roll his eyes or look dumb, just says, “Do what?”
“Reach out to me, or whatever. They made their decision.” The William picked you, the you won, doesn’t reach his mouth, but maybe Michael gets it, because he pauses, purses his lips.
“I have a new band,” Tom says, and Michael nods, smiles, and it’s genuine, stupidly so, as he says, “I know, I bought the album. You guys are good. Really good.”
“Thanks,” Tom mumbles into the mouth of the bottle, and Michael just nods, glances around behind him, before he suddenly says, “I don’t want to be the bad guy on this tour, okay? I’m not good at it.”
Tom blinks at him. “We’re touring together,” Michael supplies, “And you have issues with Bill and Mike especially, and I get that, but like, fuck, I barely know you, and you barely know me, and I just. I thought we could be mates or whatever. Clean slate and all.”
It takes Tom a minute, because no, that’s not what he wants. He doesn’t want Michael to be a nice guy, he wants him to be a dick, he wants him to have reason to hate him, even if William and Mike decided to kick him out before Michael was even in the picture, he wants to be mad, but before he even knows it, he’s saying, “Yeah, okay,” and Michael’s flashing him a wide, relieved grin and slapping Tom’s shoulder affectionately before getting up to head back to the bus.
&
And that’s that.
Only not really, because touring is regurgitated highschool redundancy, and that’s never really just that.
“It’s an olive branch,” Sean tries, and he’s pulling a box out of the back of the van, equipment for tonight’s gig, as Tom fiddles with the settings on the back of his camera. “It’s a good thing, Tom. I mean, fuck, the guy could’ve just ignored you.”
Tom purses his lips, tilts his head and says, “Either an olive branch, or it’s a Trojan Horse.”
“Always the optimist,” Sean rolls his eyes. “I’ll be sure to look out for any Australian soldiers lurking around the van.”
“Trojans, Sean.”
Sean gives him a look at that, and Tom laughs, turns the camera up in his lap, until the lens is pointing at the underside of his chin, he snaps a picture, before he points the camera at Sean, snap, and then towards the venue. Michael’s coming out the front door with Carden in tow, and Tom snaps a picture before he even thinks anything more of it.
&
The crowd in Vegas is electric, wild, and it probably means something, that it’s only in the chaos of performing in a sweaty, too-small venue, that Tom’s life makes sense, falls together in a way that’s cohesive, that fits in the back of his head.
The sweat pools at the small of his back, in the dip of his collarbone, and it sticks as he pulls his guitar off of his chest, drops it into the stand and wipes his face on his shirt.
“Do you know what would be awesome?” Siska says, and Tom starts a little, hadn’t even realised Siska was there. He is though, prepped for the gig, looking taller and thinner than Tom ever remembers. The short hair suits him, puts him back in proportion which he maybe never was with all the curls.
“What?”
“If we talked about it.” It’s so upfront, that Tom can’t help but grin. The only one in TAI who ever minced words was William, and it was always refreshing, is still refreshing.
“I’m not the one not talking about it,” Tom says, deceptively light, and he runs a hand through his hair. Siska does laugh at that, loud and brash, and drops to sit on the floor in front of Tom. He points, says, “Nice to know that you’re still full of shit,” and Tom laughs because, yeah, he is.
&
The thing about Michael is he’s not anything special.
This probably matters, because by the time Tom realises he’s been taking photos of him, he’s got enough stored on film to take up half an album. It’s not deliberate, not thought out or sought out, but between sets it’s almost too easy to snap pictures of Michael, sleepy or wired, of his impossibly long fingers on the strings of his beaten up guitar and the thin line of his back as he leans over to lug around equipment. It feels almost voyeuristic at times, perverse, but Michael doesn’t notice or, if he does, he doesn’t say anything. No one says anything, and Tom isn’t sure if it makes this whole thing more interesting, exciting, or less so. Whatever.
He’s almost finished the roll when Ryan slings an arm over his shoulder, small and narrow against his side. Tom pushes the camera into one hand, drops it to his other side.
“He’s not that pretty,” Ryan says with a sly grin, and Tom just flips him off, cigarette dangling from his lips.
He doesn’t say that’s half of the appeal.
&
William doesn’t say anything right away, instead props himself against the crates of equipment. He’s not drinking, nor is he drunk, and it makes for a nice change for Tom, even if Siska told him that Bill doesn’t drink as much as he used to. As much as he did when Tom was still a part of them. He’s not sure whether to be hurt, pleased or insulted. Whatever.
William sighs, rubs at one of his eyes, and it takes a minute before he finally says, “So.”
Tom arches an eyebrow, “So what?” he asks, and William just sighs again, rolls his eyes, more at himself than at Tom, and he opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. Tom really doesn’t have the time (the effort, energy) for this shit anymore.
“So what?” Tom says again, and it takes William a minute to answer, and when he does, it’s so casual, like he hadn’t been fumbling for words seconds earlier.
“You used to take photos of me.”
“I did,” Tom says, because he did. He used to take a lot of photos of William, because William’s photogenic, and Tom’s a sucker for anything with long limbs and a pretty face, no matter what he tells himself otherwise.
William purses his lips at that, drops his head back and looks at the ceiling. It exposes the long, perfect line of his neck, and Tom can’t tell if it’s deliberate or not. William’s always known his best angles, what he excels at, it’s the flaws he has the trouble admitting. “You stopped.”
Tom can’t suppress a grin at that, “Well, you did kick me out of your band.”
William snorts, fiddles with his bangs. “Since when have you been in a band with Michael?”
“Never,” Tom says, “I didn’t say I wasn’t in a band with you, I said you kicked me out.”
William looks at him at that, scrunches his nose, and looks like he’s about to add something, then stops himself. “I didn’t…” he trails off, huffs out a breath, and Tom arches an eyebrow.
“No, musical differences, right?”
“I thought you didn’t care anymore,” William bites, and Tom shrugs, “I don’t,” and he thinks they both know that that’s a lie, especially when the what-ifs run races between them like white noise. He doesn’t waver though, and finally William drops to the crate Tom’s sitting on, offers him a cigarette.
Tom hesitates, but takes it.
“I don’t hate you,” Tom says finally, around the cigarette, and William glances back at him, says, “Good.” And then, “You probably don’t believe me, but that’s never what I wanted.”
Tom just shrugs.
&
Later, Tom will think about taking photos of William.
Not think, he amends, reminisce, remember, because Tom doesn’t itch for it anymore, doesn’t reach for his camera when William looks happy, sad, when he sings or when he passes out drunk in the back of the bus. He’d be lying to himself if he said it was purely because of leaving the band, because really, if Tom had still wanted to take photos of William, he still would be taking photos of him.
Really, Tom used to think that William could’ve easily up and left the band, been a model, found fame in his own time, on his own stage, on the runway. William was (is, he corrects) tall, thin, angular. Pretty.
William is photogenic, Tom will think. William is boring.
He was too perfect. Tom didn’t even have to try.
Apparently, neither did William.
&
“So, this chick came up to me after the show, and - hey, Tom, you listening, man?”
Tom bats Ryan’s hand away when the guy waves it right in front of his face, gives him a look, and Ryan just rolls his eyes. “You’re so out of it at the moment, fuck.”
The gig finished a few hours ago, and they’re all set up out the back of the venue. It feels like a unified front, like there aren’t cracks that split them up, creeping up their legs and around their jaw lines. The laughter echoes in the back of Tom’s head, in his throat, and he watches as Ryan loses interest, throws his hands up and turns, finds somebody to jump on.
It’s good really, but the booze is already blurring Tom’s senses, making him feel out of sorts, and it’s too easy to slip away, out of the crowd. To disappear with a bottle and a joint to lonelier pastures. He’s never been a social animal, not really.
“Anyone else would say you were pretty fucking weird,” Sean says, and it takes a moment for Tom to blink his eyes back open, hadn’t realised he’d fallen asleep, and to glance over the edge of the van roof.
“Thanks,” Tom replies, and he fumbles beside himself for the bottle of Scotch and the joint, waggles it over in Sean’s direction until Sean gets the hint, grabs Tom’s free hand and let’s himself be pulled up onto the roof of the van.
The best thing about this, about them, is that they’re both believers in the comfortable silence. Tom’s always found it easier to talk in photos, pictures, and Sean in music. Tom doesn’t know why it works, but as Sean leans over, steals the joint from between Tom’s fingers; he finds he doesn’t entirely mind not knowing.
“Thought you’d be out,” Tom starts, and he stretches loosely on the van roof, watches as Sean watches him, focus shifting from face to neck to the bare line of skin that Tom knows shows when his shirt rides up. Sometimes he thinks he should stop picking friends he’s attracted to, but there’s a camera lens fitted to his mind’s eye, a roll of film in the back of his head, and maybe he can only focus on the ones that he wants.
“Either that, or you’re tanked,” Sean supplies, and Tom hadn’t realised he was speaking out loud, lets his lips slip into a smirk, and Sean just laughs, loud and loose in the night air. Sean’s head lulls to the side, and he makes a noise in the back of his throat, easy, and when he glances back at Tom, the smile is somewhere between smug and amused, pulling at the edges of his cheeks.
“We have a visitor,” Sean says, and he takes another smoke from the joint. “Or you do anyway.”
Tom blinks, and Sean slides off the roof of the van and Michael’s there, staring first at Sean and then up at the roof where Tom is still sprawling, scotch in hand. He sees Sean and Michael mumble a couple of sentences, and Sean’s reaching into the back of the van for a six-pack and waving a short goodbye before Tom can push himself off the roof to join them.
“Where’s he going?” and Tom’s at Michael’s side now, tilting his head and taking another swig of the scotch. Michael just shrugs, “He said something about finding Al, I don’t know,” and then he scrunches his nose a little, glances back at Tom.
“You smell like shit, mate.”
Tom just holds his arms out either side of him, “Tour,” he supplies, and Michael snorts on a laugh. Tom ends up leaning against the side of the van, head hitting the glass window as Michael stands in front of him, hands buried in his pockets and he looks almost awkward, uncomfortable, and Tom stares at the way his feet turn into each other on the carpark floor.
“The crowd tonight was good,” Michael says finally, and Tom glances back up, at where Michael’s face looks soft in the dark, shadowed.
He makes a small noise of agreement in the back of his throat, and Michael rolls his eyes, looks at Tom pointedly. “Look, I know you’re capable of more than just grunts or whatever, so - “
“Where are you from?” Tom cuts him off, “Like, I know Australia, but that’s pretty general. Big country, isn’t it?”
Michael gives Tom a strange look, but finally just tilts his head, says, “Sydney,” and Tom nods, then adds, “You’re not just saying that are you? I know people tend to think that Sydney’s the only place in Australia that Americans know about.”
Michael laughs at that, low in the back of his throat, “Nah, seriously. Skipton originally, but I live in Sydney now.”
Tom nods, says, “I always wanted to go to Australia,” and just like that, it’s easy.
&
They end up in the back of the van when Michael makes a comment about tired legs, and Tom’s not bothered either way, but wouldn’t mind sprawling out on one of the benches either. It’s quick though, sudden, that Michael finds Tom’s digital camera on one of the seats.
“This one yours?” Michael asks, and Tom starts a little, blinks and nods somewhat hesitantly. Michael just grins though.
“Cool. I’m pretty shithouse at taking photos. Butcher says you’re awesome at it but. Mind if I take a look?”
The no sits in Tom’s throat, the stop, but he can’t bring himself to say it, even though he knows exactly what it’ll look like. There’s a blind hope in Tom’s gut that tells him maybe Michael won’t, but there are more photos of Michael on that camera than Tom can name, and when the familiar tinkling sound of the camera switching on fills his head, there’s something in his head that tells him it’s too late. That says sprung even if Tom never considered this to be something secretive or wrong.
It’s a minute before Michael says anything, flipping through the digital album and somewhere along the line, he stops smiling. His forehead furrows and he bites his lip.
“You know,” Michael says finally, and he hasn’t stopped looking through the pictures, “Aboriginal Australians believe cameras can steal people’s souls.”
Tom perks up a little, the knot loosening in his stomach as he nurses the scotch on his knee, his eyes still trained on the way Michael’s blue ones flit across the tiny screen. “Really?”
Michael makes a favourable noise in the back of his throat before finally putting the camera down, nudging Tom’s ankle with his own foot, as he leans his head back against the glass window of the van. “I’m not exactly…” and he trails off a little, and Tom arches an eyebrow. “Not exactly what?”
Michael shrugs, laughs a little, and it’s embarrassed this time, self-deprecating. “Good?” he supplies after a minute, and then he laughs again, “Hot? I don’t know. You could find better people to-“ and he waves his hand around for a second. He’s red now, flushed, and Tom can’t say he isn’t slightly charmed. That’s probably weird, peculiar, whatever.
“I don’t want to photograph better people,” Tom supplies after a minute, and he shrugs again. “You’re interesting. Different.”
And Michael does laugh at that, “Australian?”
“And etcetera,” Tom says, and Michael grins, ends up staring at the floor of the van. He fingers the hole in the knee of his jeans, and Tom glances out the window. It’s getting late - early. The sun’s starting to peek up over the horizon line, and Tom really should try and get some sleep before the next gig.
“You could’ve asked.”
It’s sudden, but Tom’s not entirely surprised. He just shrugs in the end, looks back over at where Michael’s staring at him, contemplating. Finally he huffs a little, shakes his head.
“Well, next time. I don’t know,” Michael puffs out another little breath, looks embarrassed, and Tom’s nothing if not observant. He picks up on the colour rising to Michael’s cheeks, down his neck.
“If you want to photograph me again or whatever, I’d. Like, not that there’ll necessarily be a next time, but if there is, you don’t have to be…” Michael struggles for the word, and Tom finds it hard to suppress the grin. “…Stealthy, sly or whatever.”
Tom nods, watches the way Michael bites his lip, scrunches his nose, and thinks, yeah, there’ll be a next time.
&
“This has been good.”
Al hums in agreement, head thrown back towards the sky. Tom can’t pick what he’s looking at, but maybe it doesn’t matter. Sometimes you don’t need a focus just to be looking.
“Seriously,” Sean says. “I mean, when Tony called, I thought this would be a total train wreck tour.”
“More so than usual?” Al asks, but the grin’s obvious, pulling at the sides of his mouth. Sean just flips him off.
“It’s been good meeting the others though,” and he shoots Tom a sideways glance. “Getting to know them and everything.”
Sean’s never been good at the baiting game, is too honest and open for it, so Tom just arches an eyebrow and fiddles with the strings of his guitar. “Good to know,” Tom says finally, and Sean huffs a little, turns to where Al is watching them now, amused.
“Don’t say I didn’t try,” Sean says, and Al does laugh at that.
Tom kind of thinks he missed something.
&
Painting his ex-girlfriend’s bedroom two years ago taught him that the sky tonight is a blend of the Azure Fusion 1 (70BG to be precise) and the Ebony Mists 2 palette.
It’s broken up by the loose flecks of stars, by the crackle of the flames, and Tom tosses up which would be the better option, camera or cigarette. The others are mostly gone, off filming an episode of TAI TV, with the exception of Michael, who sits a little further along the bench beside Tom, and one of the roadies, Jake, Tom thinks, who’s fiddling around with the equipment under the shelter of the venue roof.
Cigarette, Tom concludes in the end, and he pulls one out of his back pocket, ignoring the look Michael shoots him when he moves.
“I can never get used to the cold here,” Michael says, and Tom just lights a cigarette, takes a drag as Michael coughs a little, hoarse in the back of his throat. He’d stub it out, but Tom’s never been as considerate as people think he is.
“It’s not so bad,” Tom says eventually, “You get used to it.”
Michael hums a little, but he’s still rubbing at his legs. It’s a habit, Tom guesses, nervous or otherwise. Tom doesn’t need a solid answer, never has really, because leaving things open to interpretation is the best part about photography.
There’s a campfire here, sitting in an old bin, and it crackles perfectly, ideally, and Tom’s starting to wish he had chosen his camera instead of the cigarette. He bristles a little when it crackles again, and Michael breathes out smoke. He’s shivering now, and Tom finally offers him his coat.
Michael just arches an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Tom says, “No one’s here to call you a chick, and even I’ll refrain from making the bitch comment, so, seriously.”
Michael laughs, short and surprised, before he just says, “I’ll manage, thanks.”
It’s a second more of shivering before Tom starts to shrug out of his jacket, and Michael’s protesting. “No, come on. The last I want is you catching hypothermia or whatever, and then having all the fans come after me with how I got you thrown out of the band and killed you.”
Tom pauses at that, contemplates. “You didn’t get me thrown out.” The words feel honest in his mouth, solid and warm. Easy.
Michael laughs again, but it’s self-deprecating in a way that Tom hadn’t noticed before. “I know,” he says, but then, “but, y’know, fans and-“
“And nothing,” Tom says, and he’d say something else if he thought he could find the words. Fuck, he was never very good at this. He lights another cigarette, and Michael watches, shivers again, and fuck this. “Come on,” Tom says, and he holds an arm out.
“What?”
“If you’re going to be a little bitch about taking my jacket, you can like, snuggle for body heat or whatever.”
“Snuggle?” Michael’s all arched eyebrow and disbelieving tone.
“Yes,” Tom says, “Or are you morally opposed to that too?”
Michael snorts, but he edges closer to where Tom sits on the log until Tom closes the difference, their thighs pressed close together. Michael’s still shivering, and Tom can feel it now, and this, this is weird, because Michael is suddenly tangible. Michael is suddenly not just pictures or skin, voice, eyes, burnt freckles and dirty hair, he’s here, pressed again Tom’s side like a, fuck, like a person, a body, and Tom hates the way this happens, the way things crossover too often for him, just like with William and Sean and now the fucking guy playing in his spot in The Academy Is… set, and just fuck.
Michael’s real, and he’s this dumb guy with the broadest Australian accent who’s shivering against his side, and Tom is full of vices, of cigarettes and booze and guys and girls that talk to him in pictures, and leaning in, kissing him, is just the next mistake in a history of them.
It’s barely a brush of the lips really, and Michael pulls away so quickly, glances at Tom and opens his mouth like he’s about to say something else, but finally just closes the distance and kisses Tom back and he tastes like Tom thought he would, like week-old sun and veggie burgers and orange juice. His impossibly long, cold fingers curl around the back of Tom’s neck, and Tom can’t bring himself to touch Michael back. Not yet, because it’s one thing to kiss him, but it’s another to touch him. Kisses are anonymous, faceless, it’s the touches that are distinctive, unique, personal.
Michael pulls away, and neither of them say anything else, but they don’t move either. It’s been minutes or hours or seconds before Michael mumbles an excuse and leaves. Tom doesn’t say anything then either.
&
Sometimes Tom wonders which is the hobby and which is the thing he can’t live without, music or photography. Maybe both, maybe neither, but Tom’s leaning towards the former when he feels his fingers itch for his camera every time Michael picks up his guitar.
It’s been three days since the incident, as Tom’s taken to calling it in his head, and it’s the first hotel night in a week. It’s only logical that they sort whatever it was out then, there, when they’re not all living in each other’s skin quite as much as usual. When they finally pull into the hotel, Tom is sure to climb out of the van first, and wait until Michael is there, lagging behind the others in the foyer before he grabs his wrist, says, “We can share,” and ignores the startled looks of pretty much everyone but William and Sean.
There’s a single bed and a fold out couch, and Michael shrugs off his over-night bag and heads towards the bathroom. Whilst he’s there, showering apparently, if the water’s anything to go by, Tom pulls out his camera, his real one this time, not his uncomplicated digital one, and he fiddles with it too easily, professionally.
By the time Michael gets out, in the same dirty jeans and a clean wife beater, Tom’s as ready as he’s ever been, more so, and he just holds out his camera, watches the way Michael towel dries his hair.
“You said I could ask,” Tom says suddenly, “If I wanted to take pictures again, all I had to do was ask.”
Michael blinks at that, jerks back a little, and stares too long, too hard, like he can’t quite figure Tom out. At least it’s even ground there, Tom thinks, and he purses his lips, watches as Michael finally shrugs, says, “Sure,” and Tom grins, moves to grab a new roll of film.
If Tom’s camera is his security, his safe place, the guitar must be Michael’s, because it’s the first thing he reaches for, holds close to his body, and he sits on the floor, cross legged with the guitar pulled into his lap. He strums lightly at a couple of chords, and Tom snaps a few pictures of long fingers on longer strings.
“When’d you start taking pictures?” Michael asks, and Tom arches an eyebrow.
“Why are you curious?”
Michael just shrugs, bites his lip, and snap. Michael blinks from the flash, and Tom grins.
“Just am,” Michael says in the end, “It’s weird. Like, good weird.”
Tom doesn’t say anything, just focuses the camera on the way Michael’s fingers pull at the strings, the way they clamour their way through music with an awkward sort of grace.
“Hey,” Tom says suddenly, and Michael hums a little. “Yeah?”
“Let’s try something else.” He pushes the dresser aside and gets Michael sitting against the wall, long legs sprawling out across the cheap carpet, his guitar in his lap, and it’s good like this, tortured artist or some other perfect, pretty cliché, and Tom snaps another picture.
“Sean said something really weird the other day,” Michael says suddenly, and Tom just hums a little, “You shouldn’t listen to anything he says, he’s full of shit,” and Michael laughs.
It’s a minute before he says anything else, but when he does, it’s short, “He said you don’t really take photos like this of other people anymore.”
Tom pauses, but he doesn’t stop, just pauses for a second, lingers. “I do.”
“But not all the time,” Michael supplies. “I know you took photos of William like this, and Sean and like, a couple of girls too, but not-“ and Tom’s kissing him before he can stop himself, crouching over Michael and his guitar, relishing the way that Michael’s head hits the wall with a thud and the fact that Michael doesn’t push him away.
It’s too easy to keep going, to set his camera down on the floor beside them and cup the back of Michael’s neck. It’s something like relief when Michael curls his fingers in Tom’s hair, when he pants, sighs, eases himself into Tom’s kisses and Tom’s touch like this is something simple, something that makes sense.
And it’s a problem, maybe, that now that Tom’s started, he can’t stop. His camera isn’t in hand, but Michael is, and he’s suddenly entirely too tangible, real and soft underneath his fingers, and when Tom kisses him, it’s because he can’t not anymore.
“Fuck,” Michael mumbles, and he arches up against him, pushes his fingers against Tom’s back and suddenly away, beneath his shirt until Tom can feel the half-moon crescents of Michael’s blunt nails making patterns in the flesh of his back. He grunts, pulls away, the guitar is still between them, and it’s hard against Tom’s chest, getting in the way. The strings are imprinting themselves in the soft flesh of Tom’s stomach and it’s a second, minute before Michael’s shoving it aside, panting as Tom pushes his own fingers up Michael’s tank. He pulls it off with a practiced ease and then leans back, yanks his own shirt off and they’re not even completely undressed, but Tom feels so naked, too naked, raw and spread open, and Michael watches Tom’s chest, neck, face like he’s not entirely sure what he’s doing.
Tom’s half-hard already, and he grinds down against Michael’s jagged hip, pushes himself down until Michael’s rearranging them, lying flat on the floor and pulling Tom on top of him, and when he whispers, “Just fucking do something,” Tom can’t help but oblige.
&
Morning afters won’t ever be his strong suit.
He’s never been that sort of guy, and maybe it points to intimacy issues, but not really. Tom just doesn’t like spooning, doesn’t like sleeping in somebody else’s skin, not when he’s not sure if he belongs there, and Michael is definitely not somewhere (someone) Tom belongs. He sighs, paws at his eyes and clambers out of the bed. Michael sleeps like the dead.
They don’t leave for another few hours, and Tom finds himself sitting out the front of the hotel, watching the road and the barely-risen sun peek over the horizon line. He lights a cigarette, and starts smoking his way through the packet, because this, at least, is something he can control.
&
“Hey,” the accent is too familiar, and Tom fumbles with his guitar as one of the roadies mentions the lighting Sean wants for the gig tonight.
“Hey,” the voice calls again, and Tom hesitates, before turning around. Michael’s in the doorway, long and thin. The light pools behind him, leaves his shadow dark against the floor of the venue, sprawling.
“Missed you this morning,” he says, glances at the roadie. “Like, at breakfast. You know.”
Tom shrugs, says, “Max and I grabbed something on the way to the venue, we wanted to get here early.” The excuse feels false in his mouth, uncomfortable. Michael doesn’t look like he believes it anymore than Tom does, but Tom’s not sure that he cares.
Michael just quirks an eyebrow, and doesn’t say anything else, starts talking to the roadie. When Tom turns to leave, Michael grabs his sleeve, leans in and mumbles, “I’m not expecting anything,” and Tom pauses, blinks, as Michael let’s go and heads off to talk to Mike.
&
It’s not meant to happen again.
It’s not, because fucking around with someone on tour is one thing, but fucking around with someone repeatedly on tour is a completely different ballgame. Just, the thing is, Tom’s never been good at denying himself, at setting something up as taboo in his head, because he functions in the school of boyish rebellion and when he thinks don’t touch, his fingers, lips, skin think the opposite.
Michael doesn’t seem to mind though, not now anyway, not when he’s fast asleep, face down in the hard, hotel-issued pillows, snoring lightly or breathing hard, one of them. The sheets have pooled around his waist, and Tom traces Michael’s spine with the lens of his mind’s eye, and then with his fingers, follows the movement of Michael’s muscles, the way his shoulder blades shift beneath his skin.
He’s almost painfully thin like this; the benefits of a no-booze, no-meat diet, and Tom can outline his ribs, the freckles left by months old Australian sun across his chest, face, back and there’s nothing about Michael that isn’t flawed, that isn’t without character. It’s perfect for Tom’s camera, perfectly photogenic.
Tom’s camera is still in the van.
This probably matters.
&
“Hey, wait,” and Tom turns around with a start, glances behind him at where William is throwing something into the trash can before hurrying along to meet him, to catch up. “I want to talk to you.”
Tom arches an eyebrow quietly, shifts on his feet, but he doesn’t make to move away. They’ve barely talked all tour, and when they have it’s been hesitant, self-conscious. William stands beside him, lips pursed, and throws an arm over Tom’s narrow shoulders, pulls him away from where everyone else is milling about, preparing for the gig in a few hours time.
He tugs them both into a corridor, and finally lets go, leans back against the wall and watches Tom almost contemplating. It takes him a moment to say something, anything, and when he does, it’s not entirely what Tom is expecting.
“Don’t take us out on him, okay?” William says in the end, and Tom just blinks, feels his chest constrict, something hot and wild burn in the pit of his stomach, in his throat as he snaps, “Yeah, William, because everything’s about you, right?”
William flushes at that, says, “Fuck you, Tom, you know that’s not what I meant.”
Tom clenches his eyes shut, rubs his sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans and tries to just breathe. He feels choked up, wrung out, and it aches, all of him. He can feel William’s eyes on him, focused, and it’s not fair, it’s not, that he’s only ever been able to get this sort of attention from William when he’s fucking someone else.
They’re like that for a while, minutes, seconds, whatever, and the silence is pulled taut, tough, heavy between them both, and William finally breaks it up, a pebble through a window, dropped in a stream, something. “For what it’s worth,” William says, and it sounds careful, hesitant, “We were pretty fucking awesome.”
Tom just laughs, scrunches his nose at the way William grins, looks relieved and unsurprised all at once. “Yeah, yeah,” Tom says, and the way William looks at him then makes his fingers itch for his camera for the first time in years. “Whatever.”
&
They don’t talk about it. Michael and Tom, or, for that matter, Tom and Sean, or Michael and anyone. It’s like a secret that everyone knows about, but no one has the balls to question. Like that’ll make it real somehow, like Michael panting, groaning, eyes clenched shut and fingers shaking is all in Tom’s head, in his camera.
Fuck, Tom doesn’t know. They barely talk between hotels and sex. Michael hangs out with his band, and Tom hangs out with his, and maybe Tom stops taking pictures of Michael, doesn’t feel that pulsing, raw, honest need in his gut or his chest or his head any longer. It’s a relief, and it isn’t, it’s a mess of things that Tom doesn’t take the time (doesn’t want to) name.
Whatever, point is, tours end, and so do relationships.
Michael comes to say goodbye after the last show, somehow shy, quieter than he’s ever been and more hesitant than Tom remembers. He can’t find the words, and Tom can see skin beneath Michael’s t-shirt, hoodie, jeans, can see the bare outline of Michael’s old bones like he’d taken the pictures last night, can see Michael’s long fingers on guitar strings, Michael’s lips as he comes, Michael’s freckled back against motel sheets.
“This is it,” Michael says finally, awkwardly, and Tom, camera hanging loose around his neck, takes a picture.
“One for the road,” he says, shrugs, and then, a surprise to both of them, he leans over and kisses him, quick and easy, says, “That one’s just for luck,” and Michael smiles, small and perfect and everything that makes Tom feel like he’s the king of fucking America and the biggest asshole in the world all at once.
He doesn’t take a picture of it. That one’s just for him.
&
The transition back into real life after tour is always difficult, and Tom gets back from regular-work to Sean shifting through a box of undeveloped film rolls. He drops his bag to the floor pointedly, half expecting Sean to backtrack and apologise, but he doesn’t, just waves a short hello, and puts the box back on the shelf.
“Are those all from the last tour?” Sean asks, and Tom shrugs, flicks through the mail he’d picked up on his way home.
“Yeah, why?”
Sean just runs a hand through his hair, watches Tom for too long, before finally just laughing, hoarse and low in the back of his throat. “No reason, just if you’re not going to develop them, it would be awesome if you could put them in storage. I’m seriously finding rolls of that shit all over the apartment.”
Tom shrugs again, doesn’t meet Sean’s eye right away. It’s been two weeks since the end of the tour, and it’s not that Tom hasn’t been busy, it’s just that he hasn’t been busy enough to use it as an excuse. He doesn’t usually neglect his film, but he can’t bring himself to do it yet. Memories are forgettable, or at least adjustable; photographs are evidence, triggers, real. Fuck.
“You should develop them,” Sean says after a minute, and Tom glances up at him, says, “I know.”
&
The holiday season sneaks up on Tom this year, slips in when he isn’t expecting it, and the Chicago chill gives way to snow and frostbitten toes before Tom can switch into Christmas mode. He doesn’t really get a holiday with his job, not a paying one anyway, but the new tours are put on halt until a few days after Christmas.
Tom loves the break, and sleeps for most of it, cosy beneath the blankets, and warm in a way he forgets exists on winter tours. It’s two days before Christmas when a knock at his bedroom door startles him awake. He groans, forces the blankets down from over his face and blinks as Sean’s head ducks out from behind the door. “You awake, man?”
Tom mumbles something inaudible even to himself and Sean says, “There’s someone here to see you.”
He groans, but throws the blankets back enough to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. He rubs blearily at his eyes with cold fingers, and by the time he glances back up, Michael’s there, staring back with those big, blue eyes that Tom hasn’t been able to forget, neglect. He looks tired, cold like someone not used to Chicago winters. He’s paper-white skinned and it just makes those eyes and the rosy red cheeks, nose, lips stand out stark in contrast.
Tom must look startled, surprised, because a look passes Michael’s face that Tom can’t pick, maybe would be able to if he knew more about Michael than his skin, bones, thin-lined muscles and the freckles on his shoulders and knees.
Michael waves a gloved hand at him, bites his lip and scratches his head a little, finally settles on, “I never got to see the pictures from the end of the tour,” and that might pass as a valid excuse if the tour hadn’t finished three months ago.
Tom doesn’t say anything right away, isn’t sure he could if he wanted to, and Michael just stands still, watching him with those same blue eyes that litter Tom’s dark room. It’s off-putting. Comforting. Something.
Finally Tom rolls out of bed, stretches, “I’ll show you, that’s cool,” because it is.
He tries not to pay attention to the way he can feel Michael’s eyes on his hips as his shirt rides up. To Michael’s eyes on him.
&
Tom turned the apartment’s tiny second bathroom into a dark room back when he and Sean first moved in. It’s some barely-there space with a bathtub and a patchy set of tiles from where they ripped the old toilet out. It’s not perfect, but it does the job, and Tom doesn’t think it’s ever seemed bigger than right now, photographs dangling from every inch of free space.
Sleep makes him bleary, edgy, and he yawns as he ducks beneath a row of photos, checks to see if some are dry. It’s a minute before Michael moves, walks along the line of pictures and it’s weird, the way they’re all of him. Of his lips and his spine, the way the lines of his ribcage stand out when he’d breathe out too hard or of his hipbones peaking over the top of his skinny jeans.
He’s not looking at Tom anymore, just at the photos instead, and he squints, stands too close to a couple that Tom can’t see from where he’s standing. He watches Michael reach out, glove-clad fingers skimming the edges of the photograph. There’s a lump in Tom’s throat, heavy and hot, and Tom talks in pictures, has since he was old enough to pick up a crayon, but it’s only now that it occurs to him that maybe he thinks in pictures too. That his camera knows how he feels about something before Tom does, because he hasn’t wanted to take photos of Michael since halfway through the tour, not really, but maybe it’s only because he wants Michael. That he doesn’t want to share him with lens or paper or audience, and maybe it’s obvious, telling, maybe definitely, because suddenly Michael’s pushing one of the trays aside and pressing Tom against the wall, kissing him hard and honest and easy. There’s a gloved hand in his hair, the other against the wall, and as Tom pushes his ice-cold fingers up the back of Michael’s shirt, listens to his breath hitch, feels the way his teeth nip at his lip, it occurs to him they should talk about this, whatever it is, but not now.
Not yet.