This contains two males kissing. If you don't like that, don't read it. Thanks.
TIDY Brian's houseboat is never tidy. Rome thinks he's trying to cover things up, because Rome remembers when they were kids--when Brian isn't a cop, is just fifteen years old with the neatest handwriting Rome can remember.
Rome can barely read it now. It looks like graffiti, painted on a wall that's a thousand years old and crumbling, the letters meshed together, outlined over and over until it's not even letters, just lines. It's why Brian never writes the receipts or checks when doing bills, just signs them, and Rome would care less why Brian writes like a slob except for the fact there's shit everywhere in his home.
It's like a fucking pigsty. Though Rome isn't one for tidiness himself, Brian really needs to fucking clean up one day, and that's what he does, when Brian's out driving and Rome's just chilling, waiting for him to return with a Miami-bright grin.
Rome's never told him, but Brian's really the one with all the potential--not just the hot babes with their curves, the inviting hips and their seductive, red smiles. Brian's the one who never falters, never fails--everything's in the benefit of everyone else, and Rome secretly wonders if Brian had chosen the job with Verone just to pick Rome, so Rome could clear his record.
Rome's just about done cleaning and folding stuff and making Brian's house look like a house when Brian shows up, wide-eyed and a bit alarmed. "Hey, man, what'd you do?"
"Cleaned."
"Like a housewife?" and Brian is amused, but Rome knows Brian well enough to read the line of a tremor beneath his shoulders, the anxiety that makes Brian's fists clench, shift his weight from foot to foot. "Man, it looks all brand new. Don't remember it being this clean, ever."
Rome rolls his eyes, leans against the wall, crosses his arms over his chest because Brian is such an idiot. "Fucking slob."
"I'm not a slob."
"Bro, at least my shirts don't look like mops."
Rome wonders what made Brian so messy, what made him so quick, so hasty. Brian's the reliable one, usually.
Brian huffs, sits down on his bed and runs both hands through his hair, stares blankly at the wall. It's something in his posture that makes Rome want to go over and hug him, but guys don't do that. There was a time when-- "I was just thinking, you know," Brian says, and he stares at the floor, "when I got here. In Miami, I mean--I didn't really have anything that was mine, and all the hotels. And... yeah, I had to clean up my trails and all that shit."
"Yeah?" Rome asks, only half-intrigued even though it's Brian talking about himself, because by tomorrow both of them will have forgotten, a memory thrown to waste. "So what?"
"So I thought when I finally got a place to stay..." Brian doesn't finish.
"...you'd fuck up your home?"
"No. I'd... Man, I don't know. I just hate things being clean now. Something like that."
"And the garage we own--that ain't clean?"
A shadow of another life crosses Brian's face, and Rome doesn't ask anymore. Instead, he walks over, joins Brian on the bed, several inches away and Rome can feel the heat radiating off of him. "We're cool, Brian."
"Yeah. Yeah, we are."
Clean slate. Fresh start. Rome wonders if everything was for him, not Brian, and the small reward Brian got was just a bonus. "Bro, don't hurt yourself thinkin'," Rome says, and punches him in the shoulder lightly.
Brian smiles, shockingly bright and Rome has to look away because he's staring straight at the sun or something, his eyes hurt so bad.
Brian's hand is only his upper arm, slides down, under his shirt and-- "Fuck, Brian."
"Yeah?" The hand moves down a bit, at the hem of Rome's shirt, hesitant.
And then Brian's on his back, because Brian's so fucking unsure of himself, and Rome says, as he pulls off Brian's shirt, "You're so fucked up."
"Yeah," Brian says, and gasps when Rome bites his shoulder. "Yeah, always was a little messed."