Aiden

"You look like shit," Abi says with a grin, when he gets in the next morning. It's true. Aiden feels like roadkill. Or how he assumes roadkill feels anyway; he can't imagine they feel all chipper and sunny, which is how Abi looks. She finishes the cappuccino she's working on and slides it over the counter to him.

"Goddess," he says, taking a sip and sliding on to the stool. "Hero."

There aren't a lot of customers in for a Saturday morning. It's hardly surprising. It smells so thickly of smoke that it feels like you should be able to see it hanging in the air. There's one elderly couple in the whole place and they look like something just died under their noses.

"Right back atcha," Abi says. She's a few years older than him. She's lithe, long blonde hair, nostril ring, green dungarees, mustard tee. "What did you do to get him to pay for clean up?" She nods to the back of the cafe where Josh is sat a table with Jason, on a pair of the cafe's mix-n-match chairs. They're going over something on a sheet of paper.

"Barely anything. He practically volunteered. Said he liked the cafe." He sips the cappuccino again and almost sighs with pleasure.

Jason looks more put together this morning, he can see when he glances back over. He's dressed down, but more with it. He's wearing a tightly fitting Evil Dead t-shirt and he's shaved, washed and combed his hair. He has a strong jaw and high cheek bones, handsome, but softer, more Rupert Giles than Captain America. He's closer to mid thirties than forty, Aiden realises. Definitely a gym goer, maybe a swimmer.

Something warm stirs inside Aiden as he's noticing Jason's biceps, and he realises that he's stopped being nosy and started checking him out. He suddenly has this strong image and sensation of what it might be like to wake up wrapped in his arms and nestle his head under his chin. Damn that'd be nice, he thinks to himself.

Aiden mentally checks himself. Sure, Jason is fit, but he's also carrying a metric fuck-ton of baggage. A matched set of luggage, so to speak. He's just lost his partner and reacted by destroying his life's work. Even if he were looking, which he definitely won't be, Aiden's not sure he is, either. Probably. He's not at the moment. Yet.

Well, Aiden thinks, no harm in looking, but that's got to be it.

When he turns back to Abi and his coffee, she's smirking at him like she can read his mind.

"Oh, shut up," he mutters, blushing.

"I literally said nothing."

"Does he come in here a lot?" He asks, trying to avoid her actually saying anything.

"Every morning."

"Every morning? How come I've never seen him?"

"He's here at eight and you don't start that early." Aiden nods glumly. His friends are too good to him, but they'd give him grief if he said it.

"So what's the deal, is he going to help clean up?"

"He's going to pay for the clean up," Abi says with a smile. Aiden can't hide his surprise. She nods. "Apparently he knows a guy that runs a company that does restoration in places like galleries and libraries after fires. He's arranged for them to come out Monday. He's going to pay, pay to replace anything that can't be restored, and give us the average earnings for last year's August weekends for yesterday, the weekend and when we're shut, Monday."

"Wow." Aiden rapidly revises his opinion of the guy upward.

"I said it was too much, the place just needs an air out and a damned good clean. We could do that tomorrow afternoon, but he insisted. They're going over the details." They glance over at the pair at the table again, deep in conversation. "He said 'it's what Rob would have done,' but I've no idea who Rob is," Abi finishes.

Oh.

"His husband," Aiden says. The emotional downer cuts through the caffeine buzz instantly.

"He died?" Abi asks, mournful. "I saw them together from time to time, he was so young-"

Jason and Josh come over, business concluded, and Abi cuts herself off.

"Good morning," Jason says to Aiden. "Can I have a word?"

Aiden nods and follows him out back and they stand there for a moment in the quiet, while Jason fishes a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his back pocket.

"Do you smoke?"

"No," Aiden says. Jason pauses, considering the smokes for a moment, and Aiden considers Jason.

Or at least, his hands, anyway. He's never been a 'hand guy,' but suddenly he can't stop imagining Jason's long, expressive fingers on him. The thoughts are suddenly and surprisingly carnal. Jason's hand on his chin, lifting it to look into his eyes from his knees. Running his thumb over Aiden's bottom lip. Wrapping his fingers carefully around the rock hard length of him. Pressing his head into the pillow, from behind-

What the hell is wrong with him today? It's like he's regressed ten years to a catastrophically horny fifteen.

Jason sighs and shoves the pack back in his pocket, finished trying to divine omens in the pic of fucked up lungs on the front.

"Yeah, me either," he says cryptically, in direct contradiction to the pack in his hand. "Disgusting habit." He turns to Aiden, grey eyes miserable. "Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. I really mean it. Not my finest moment, not my finest behaviour. It's been a rough fucking week, but that doesn't mean that it was OK to scare the shit out of people like that."

Had Aiden been scared? He'd been furious, is what he'd been, Aiden thinks. Although... he never really got scared, like cowering and shivering in fright. He always used to get angry instead. Like when his mam had her first episode, and dad had been in America, he'd got really mad. Not at her or dad, actually, but at the A&E doctor insisting that she must be on drugs, despite both her and Aiden knowing that she wasn't.

Maybe he had been scared, yesterday. At the fire. At the look on Jason's face. He'd seen that look before, the grim, wide-eyed look. He'd seen it on his mother's face. On his own. Emotions firmly in the driving seat, wild and untethered from any sort of limitation, or brake.

"I get it," Aiden says. "I can't imagine what you're going through." Jason nods, grateful. "I wanted to apologise, too. For being such a dick about it. I've felt guilty all night, actually."

"You're fine, don't worry about it," Jason says, with a smile, and it makes Aiden smile, too. A little happy buzz rushes through his chest. 'I made him smile!' He wants to shake himself, scream 'get a grip, man!'

Jason's smile fades and he sighs. He takes out the cigarettes again and has one in his mouth before he stops and looks at the pack, staring dumbfounded.

"Kind of a rough time to quit," Aiden says. Jason lets out a short laugh in agreement, and Aiden's chest does that little buzz again.

"You're not kidding." He takes it out of his mouth and puts it back in the pack. "Will you chuck these out for me?" He holds them out to Aiden, throwaway Bic, too. "Can't be reminded if they're not even in the house."

"Sure." Aiden takes them, and Jason heads across the square to the basement door of his house.

"See you around," he says, with a thin smile.

"Ta-ra."

He watches him disappear into the paint-peeling door, and turns back into the cafe himself.

He stops by the bin at the back of the shop. His hand hovers over the bin, looking at the cigarette sticking out of the packet, the one Jason had pulled out and put back in. He has this urge to take it out and smoke it, but only that one. It's shameful, and feels dirty and wrong and like he really, really wants to.

Aiden takes a breath and drops them in, and heads into the cafe.

"Don't," he says to Abi, who's smiling, half ready to say something teasing. He sits on the stool in front of the counter and puts his head down on it, his arms wrapped around in front of him.

He groans. What was wrong with him? He could feel himself, in the alley, slowly becoming aroused at the thought of smoking the cigarette that Jason had put between his lips.

He lets himself lie on the counter for a moment more, trying to come back to himself. Trying to chill the fuck out. His heart and other parts of him feel like they're electrified.

"This is actually very sticky," he says grimly, before peeling his face off the counter. "Is there something wrong with me?" he asks Abi, unguarded in his tiredness. He knows it's a mistake as soon as he sees her face.

"So much," she grins.

"Abs!" Josh gasps. "No, there's nothing wrong with you, mate. What's wrong?"

"I think I might need to start dating again. It's been too long."

"Has a certain hot neighbourhood artist provoked downstairs feelings?" Abi teases him in a childish voice. She's about thirty, and she's been a spare big-sister ever since she started seeing Josh. He loved his actual big sister dearly, but they never had that kind of easy siblings-winding each other up relationship; too much distance.

"Kinda, yeah," Aiden admits. He can feel himself glowing pink.

"Did I know you were into guys?" Josh asks as he cleans the counter. Both Abi and Aiden look at him like 'are you serious?' but he just shrugs back. That's kind of just how Josh was; so laid back that he's almost become detached from reality. He's tall, broad, bearded and dark; skin and hair. He's the kind of carefree forgetful laid back that made Aiden think he was constantly stoned when they first met, but he's just like that, and somehow manages to pull it off as charming rather than really irritating.

"Only for about five years," Aiden says with a laugh. Josh looks surprised.

"Huh. Older guys, too?" he asks. He and Aiden are the same age. They met during Aiden's aborted first year of uni, and the friendship stuck.

"Like, normally? Not really. I think it might just be because it's been so long since I've dated anyone at all that any hot guy is doing it for me."

"Is it cliche if I make a joke about daddy issues?" Abi says.

"Terribly," Aiden replies.

"Damn, that's all my best material out." The smile fades. "Honestly though, I'm glad you're bringing it up, because I was going to."

"What? Me dating?"

"Yeah. You've been kinda in stasis for a long time, dude. You made loads of progress when you got out of hospital and now it's kinda stalled. I'm not saying this to get on your case, I just mean it's not like you. It felt like you had a plan. Intention. If you're just chilling, gathering some strength, or not up for it or whatever, that's cool, but... I just wanted to check you hadn't got stuck."

Had he? He kinda had, hadn't he? Everything was sort of bland to him, these days. It had been for months. Contact after contact and commission after commission kept falling through with his song writing. That was why he'd taken some hours at the cafe when Abi and Josh had offered. And... he didn't really care. If he never got another gig, he wasn't sure if he'd notice, except for his sudden inability to pay the rent. But that would be admitting defeat.

And he'd tried to date a bit straight after the hospital, but that hadn't gone well, at all. It had been miserable. A complete meat-market. Filling out endless dating app profiles like he was applying for a fucking job hardly put a guy in the mood for love, or hell, even flirty drinks.

"How long has it been?" Abi asked. Josh keeps cleaning to the end of the counter and then goes on to the tables, effectively detaching himself from the conversation without really noticing.

He racks his brain. He kept going for about a year after he came out of hospital, and then there was another period where he got back on the apps a few years later...

"Like... three years?" He winces as he says it out loud. He didn't realise it was that long.

"Yeah, no wonder you're panting after everyone with cheekbones," Abi laughs.

"Is it that obvious?" Aiden cringes.

"Only to the people who know you. Don't worry about it. Maybe start thinking about it, though? You could always just start slow."

"Yeah, slowly sounds good," he says, morose about the prospect of The Apps. What he really wants is Jason to swan back in and say, "Oi you, we're dating, cool?" and have that be it. If only it were that simple.

There's no customers to wait on, so he pulls out his phone and heads to the app store with the joyless resolution of someone planning to update their CV.