IT’S NEVER DARK ENOUGH WHEN YOU DON’T WANNA SEE

There’s nothing he hates more than when Blaine comes visit. Nothing.

He likes to think of this house, the house Leo and him share near college, this place they found for themselves and they’re paying for by themselves, as some sort of sacred domain. It’s a bubble -- their place. People are allowed inside, it’s not forbidden or anything, but they had never brought in people for sex specifically, before Blaine, and this is something unacceptable from his point of view.

It’s not just because he’s jealous.

(Oh, he is. Of course he is. Jealousy consumes him day after day. Jealousy’s been consuming him day after day since attraction became a word with a meaning in his head. Because it’s always been linked to Leo. But Leo never managed to link it back to him.)

It’s that Leo forgets about him entirely, when he’s with somebody. And it’s one thing to know he’s been forgotten, if only for just the few weeks or months the new relationship will last, but it’s another thing entirely to have it rubbed against his face every time the man decides he’s tired of only seeing Leo outside, or in Westerville, and wants to come pay a visit to where his boyfriend lives.

It’s excruciating. Not only he has to live with Leo ignoring him completely when the fucker’s around, but said fucker is absolutely despicable. He’s, like, poster boy for despicability. He’s got it all: he’s cocky, confident, constantly relaxed and at ease in his own skin, he’s rich, famous and living extraordinarily well with it, he’s got the loosened up, snobby and kind of classy New Yorker’s attitude despite being from shit-hole Westerville, he’s a free spirit, he came barging in and teaching Leo questionable things like having an open relationship, fucking around, clubbing all night and all that jazz and, of course, he’s dashingly beautiful. ‘Cause no, obviously, he couldn’t be ugly, he had to have those ridiculously shiny and full hair, that tan, fit body, who the fuck’s so fit passing 40s? It’s just not normal, but he is. No wonder Leo lost his shit about him.

They met almost a year ago, at this point, at one of Leo’s parents’ parties. Apparently they knew each other when Leo was very, very small, because Blaine used to be one of Kurt’s best friends at the time, but as it turns out the man Kurt thought was just one of his best friends was also his ex-boyfriend, and had still a few unresolved issues with him, namely was more or less still romantically attracted to him, so after a few years he basically ran off as far as he could possibly go, so Leo went from seeing him weekly until he was, like, five, to ever see him at all until he was twenty.

Time can work magic on people, and so it did with Blaine, who managed to forget Kurt in fifteen years, and with Leo too, who managed to shrug off easily the fact that once upon a time this man used to make him bounce on his lap offering him sweets before he could even speak, and fall hopelessly in love with him the moment he set eyes upon him again.

They’ve been glued together since that day. Adam’s not sure what happened after that party, but he knows he lost track of Leo that night, and he only saw him again the morning after. Maybe he spent the night with Blaine, maybe he just came back very late. He doesn’t know, honestly he doesn’t care because he’s a practical man and he’s only interested in the final result, which is that now they’re together, they’ve been for months and they spend together every single second they can. Which is already unbearable as it is. Without having to add sharing the house.

Blaine usually comes by unannounced, which means Adam never has the chance to plan something to stay away. If he knew in advance, he’d do things differently. He’d ask Annie to stay at her apartment in the meantime, she’s almost never there anyway. Or he’d go back to his mother for a few days. Sure, it’s a 40 minutes bus ride from his mother’s house to the campus, but he’s never been a lazy person, he doesn’t shy away from early wake ups, he would find a way to make it work. It’d only be for a few days anyway, he wouldn’t mind.

But Blaine never asks and never warns beforehand. He just arrives, acting like he was some God-sent gift to mankind, to show off how perfect man could be if he only worked out a little.

When he arrived this afternoon, Adam was home alone. As it always happens, Leo was out grabbing a coffee with one of his no-ones. This time it was probably Candice, the black haired pretty girl who started working at the tea house a few weeks ago. Leo set his mind on her the moment the manager came in and told him “Leo, this is Candice, show her around, tell her how it works here, then show her to the locker room and have her in her uniform in ten minutes, it’s almost five, the tsunami will hit soon.” She’s extremely pretty, fair-skinned and green-eyed as she is. She’s short and thin and she looks very fragile, but Leo told him she’s strong, she carries boxes upstairs from the storage room like it’s not a big deal, which of course fascinates him – he’s always been mesmerized by this kind of contrast.

Adam has only seen her a couple times, they don’t share turns at the tea house. He doesn’t share turns with Leo anymore either. He used to, but since Candice arrived Leo moved his own to always be there when she is. That’s how Leo is, once he set his mind on someone he turns into a predator, he’s like a lioness, waiting and waiting, flattened on the ground, until his prey comes close enough for him to grab it by its throat and kill it.

Maybe he’s dramatizing a bit. But still.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Candice’s time is clearly over now that Blaine’s here. That’s how their stupid arrangement works. They’re free to have everybody they want, as long as it’s not when they’re together. When they’re together in the same place, they only share one another and no one else is allowed. Adam’s almost sorry for poor Candice. She’s been fooled around with for weeks, and now she’s gonna be discarded with no previous notice. Easily. Just like that.

He knocked on the door as he always does, playing some stupid tune with his knuckles against the wood. That’s how he announces himself. He could ring the bell, but no, that’d be too mainstream. He just knocks. Expecting the whole world to fall in silence just long enough to let them hear him from inside.

Surprisingly enough, more often than not, the world does.

It didn’t have this afternoon, though, it was already silent the moment Blaine arrived. Adam was studying, hunched over his books, and there it was, the stupid knocking. It was awful. It’s always awful when Blaine comes around, but it’s twice as bad when Leo’s not around to welcome him when he arrives, ‘cause he wants to make conversation, he follows Adam around, he asks him questions. Adam already can’t see him without feeling the urge to pin him down on the couch and draw him and smash his face against the wall all at the same time, it’s bad enough without having him follow him around like a fucking puppy, asking questions and saying things with that annoying deep and confident voice of him. Christ, he hates him.

He had to endure it, though. Leo gets angry when he leaves him outside and ignores him. He’s perfectly able to stop speaking with him for days in retaliation. Adam can’t stand it, so he had to stand up, open the door and soldier through every single minute he spent alone with the man, until Leo finally came back and his whole face lightened up in that annoying way it does every time Blaine and him meet, and there, there it was, Adam completely disappearing from Leo’s eyes, the whole world fading away to nothing, leaving only Blaine.

How is it possible that his heart still breaks, after almost a year, every time he sees that happen?

He has locked himself up in his room in retaliation. Not that he thinks this changes anything for Leo, he barely even noticed it. He was disappointed in him, actually. “Come out,” he said, “Don’t be a baby.”

Adam doesn’t know how not to be a baby when it comes to Blaine. He upsets him in so many different ways he doesn’t know how to face him. That’s why he prefers not to, it’s easier like that. Easier than pretending to hate him when he doesn’t, or not to hate him when he really does. He’s not sure yet, it’s something in between. He knows it’d be easier to at least understand what’s going on with him if Leo wasn’t involved, because jealousy makes everything more confused, it muddles feelings up. Sometimes he even gets as far as to think he’d find Blaine to be a perfectly nice human being if it wasn’t for the fact that he put his filthy hands on Leo. And then some other times he wonders if it isn’t the fact that he finds him so goddamn outrageously beautiful clouding his judgement, making him think he could potentially be a nice man when he’s a sick bastard, really, just because he’s used to hold beauty high as the most important judge of character.

He’d like for this to be less fucking conflictual. He wonders why do these things always have to be so fucking conflictual at all. Like, is loving Leo any less conflictual, really? He’s desperate for him, and at the same time he finds the mere idea of getting close to him in a sexual way so upsetting it makes him want to throw up. How can people go on and on about love as if it was life’s most wondrous wonder? All he got from love in twenty years is that it’s confusing, messed up, it deprives you of any control you might pride yourself to hold over your body and it sometimes makes you wanna puke. How’s that for life’s most wondrous wonder.

It’s past 2 AM when they finally come back from their night out. Adam’s lying in bed, still awake, of course. He was waiting for them. He keeps hoping and fearing they’re gonna fight, that Leo’s gonna come back alone, one of these nights, and will knock on his door, asking him if they can sleep together. “We broke up, Adam, we broke up. I’m so sad. Can you hug me?”, something like that. Something he knows Leo would never say. He feels his heart burst if he only thinks about it. It’s dreadful and amazing, like everything else linked to the specific state of mind he slips into whenever he thinks there could be a chance between Leo and him. He’s pretty sure somebody would call it madness.

They’re together, of course. Chuckling softly, not to disturb him. They think him asleep – they always do. Or maybe they’re not thinking about him at all, maybe their voices aren’t so low because they don’t want to disturb him, maybe they just want to keep their happiness all to themselves. If they were too loud about it, they’d already be sharing. Adam knows Leo’s jealous of his happiness with Blaine, of his time with Blaine. It hurts to think that, with him, Leo’s always laughed the loudest. Wasn’t jealous of their happiness enough to keep it quiet.

They walk inside Leo’s bedroom chatting under their breaths. Blaine tells some joke Adam cannot hear, but he can hear Leo’s soft laughter in response. Then the smack of their lips, the click of their tongues. The wet sounds. Adam squeezes his eyes shut and tries counting sheep, to no amount.

They chuckle some more, then get undressed. For a few seconds everything’s the clinking of their belts and the rustling of their clothes. Then their steps, their naked feet on the floor. One of them gets into bed, the other turns the light off and then joins him.

It’s silence, after that. Adam’s heart is beating so hard and fast he almost feels sick.

He barely has time enough to delude himself into believing that silence is sign enough to think they’ve fallen asleep already, and then Leo moans, and Adam wants to die. Damn these cardboard walls, the proximity of their rooms, the endless reserve of energy allowing them to want to fuck despite it being so ridiculously late. Leo moans and Blaine shushes him sweetly, a discrete sound that melts into another kiss. Those wet sounds again. It’s unbearable.

He tries and turn on his stomach, slowly, as silently as possible, not to make them suspect he was awake all the while. A useless courtesy, considering they don’t care about him being awake or asleep. Even if he got out of his bedroom and to the kitchen, even if he started dropping plates on the floor just to hear how the smashing sound would echo through the night, they wouldn’t notice.

He hides his face against the pillow. He bites at his bottom lip and tries to keep it in. Whatever it is that’s pushing to come out. He hopes it’s not tears, he hopes it’s just rage because holding tears back would be as bad as actually crying, right now.

It isn’t tears, though. He realizes it when he feels that push moving. Away from his eyes, away from the tension in his neck and shoulders. It rolls down his spine in a shiver and it pools in his underbelly, drop after drop, growing with every suffocated moan, with every wet kiss.

He’s aroused.

The realization hits him in the face like a punch. It can’t be, must be a nightmare. And yet he’s hard, and his hardness is pushing against the mattress, now, impossible to be left alone.

Leo keeps moaning, beyond the wall. “Yes,” he’s saying. He must be tipsy, ‘cause he’s never so vocal. “Yes, Blaine, harder, right there. God, it feels so good.”

Blaine doesn’t answer, but Adam hears him grunt, hears him breathe heavily. He hears the bed creaking under their shifting weights, and it’s a moment: he closes his eyes and he can see them. Naked on the bed in the blue light of the night. He can see the outlines of their entwined bodies, and so many details. The different grain of their skins, how the texture differs in color and pattern. How softly their curls, so similar to the eye and yet, he likes to think, so different to the touch, bounce with every movement. How their eyelashes flutter. The shiny wetness of their lips. It should be darker. It’s never dark enough when you don’t wanna see.

He doesn’t touch himself. That’d sicken him. The mere thought sickens him already. His hips move, though, and he prefers to think they’re moving of their own volition. He clings to the pillow, pressing his face hard against it as his erection slides up and down against the mattress through the thin fabric of his pajamas pants. He feels hot and sweaty, his muscles ache, he’s breathing so heavily he can’t believe they’re not hearing the wheezing sound echoing through the entire house.

If they do, they don’t seem to notice. More probably they just can’t hear it over the sound of their own noises.

Leo muffles half a yell against Blaine’s skin. He’s coming, and he must’ve bitten Blaine, because he hisses and slaps him on his ass. Adam hears the sound, he hears Leo yell again as the shivers overwhelm him and he bites hard at the pillow as he comes too, shivering as wildly as he thinks Leo’s doing.

He’s virtually following the curve of Blaine’s spine with his fingertips as he relaxes on the bed afterwards, still shaken and unable to tame the wild beating of his own heart. He imagines feeling his weight upon his own body. He imagines feeling the touch of Leo’s fingers over his face and neck. He pictures himself lying in the bed between them. For the very short moment his heart manages to bear the thought, it feels dangerously good.

Then he forces it to the back of his head, locking it away when it starts to sting.

Leo and Blaine chuckle among themselves for a few more minutes, speaking softly under their breaths. They still kiss, every now and then. Adam tries to ignore the wet feeling underneath himself. He doesn’t wanna think about it now. He just wants to sleep.