Gavan was thinking a cold shower was in order. He rubbed at his face and eyes, his lips, trying to scrub the feel of Val from him while he rode the elevator up. He was man enough to admit he’d held secret fantasies about the quiet man a couple of bar stools down. Half the Operating Room nurses giggled like teenagers whenever the distant therapist walked by, so Gavan wasn’t alone. Being openly bisexual had allowed him to join in their twittering, and he’d never even considered the idea that it might ever go beyond twittering.

It had been a very odd week. Truly an odd week but he couldn’t complain, it had to be even stranger for Val. God knew, Gavan remembered those first confusing days. He’d flipped through one of Trist’s porno magazines while he was in college and been shocked to get a hard on. Not that Gavan hadn’t ever been uncomfortable with homosexuality, Trist had been open with his preferences from the start, but he’d never considered it from a personal angle.

How much worse it would be for Val, someone who was obviously conditioned to refuse his desires. Val who’d spent a lifetime denying himself, trying to fit into someone else’s mold of who he should be. At least Gavan had Trist to fall back on, he’d gone into his first encounter with a man fully informed and prepared. Val hadn’t ever been able to even speak to anyone about what he wanted.

The thought of how lonely that kind of life must be almost had Gavan turning around. The things he could show Val, the things they could do, well, the idea made him shiver. It left him with an itchy sense of desire as he turned his key and opened his apartment door.

“Hey! I’m home!” He tossed his keys down and hung his coat up.

“Fucking dandy.” Trist called from where he was slumped on the sofa. His socked feet were on the coffee table and an old B horror movie played across the tv.

“How’d it go with the client?” He asked, pulling off shoes and forcing the teasing memory of Val’s kiss from his mind.

“It was delightful, as always.”

Gavan crossed over to the sofa, surprised Trist was still depressed. It wasn’t like him to have any single mood last for too long. He stopped and frowned. “Are you drinking?”

“I’m high on red wine, baby!” Trist raised the glass and downed another big swallow. “It has sentimental value.” He mumbled into the glass.

“You’ve had half the bottle!” Gavan pulled the bottle from where it had been tucked between the arm of the sofa and one of the cushions. “You know better then that.”

“What fucking difference does it make.” He batted away Gavan’s efforts to pull the glass from his hands, ended up chugging the last swallows and letting his cousin pull the glass from his hands.

“It makes a big difference. God, you’re watching a horror movie too. You’ll never sleep tonight.”

“I’m not a child!” Trist shouted back. “I’ll get drunk if I want to and this fucking piece of trash is a comedy compared to the God damned horrors in my head!”

Trist being angry wasn’t odd but this time it felt different. It didn’t feel self directed, didn’t feel channeled from someone else, it felt fully aimed at and based in Gavan. He frowned as he re-corked the bottle of wine and put it away and set the glass in the sink.

“Why are you pissed at me?” He tried to keep his frustration from his voice. “I just walked in the door, you could cut me some slack.”

Trist stood up, his head pounding, the voices surging. He wanted to be alone to pout or cry or drink until he passed out. “How much slack do you want? Enough to fucking hang yourself with?”

“What’s going on here?” Gavan slipped in and stopped Trist from disappearing into his room. He reached out to try to turn Trist down a little but he found little of the oddity coming from his sight. For how drunk he was, he was fairly stable.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He tried to step around his cousin and found his way blocked again.

“Sucks to be you. There’s no way you’re going to be a bitch to me and walk away without at least explaining what I’ve done to deserve it!”

Trist frowned, his face screwing up with hurt and anger. “You fucking kissed him! God, damn it Gav! How could you!”

Gavan took a step back. “You saw that?”

“Fuck yes, Val moaning, you slobbering on his neck, fucking traitor!”

“Wait a moment here, he asked me to, not that it’s any of your concern!”

Trist tossed his hands up and muttered under his breath. He paced away and started walking four steps in one direction before turning around to pace back four in the other.

“What happened between you two?” Gavan asked carefully.

“It doesn’t matter, it’s not going to happen again!” There was pain in Trist’s voice before he buried in under anger again. “Shit, Gavan, just leave him be! Have some mercy on me!”

“I don’t understand.” And he didn’t, but he was used to not understanding and having to ask.

“Look at me!” He brushed a hand across his body. “Fuck, Gavan, it’s not like I have men lining up to date me! It was bad enough when you paraded your cute little cheerleaders around, all snuggly and happy but when you came to me thinking you were bi, was I ever anything but fucking supportive?”

“You’ve always supported anything I’ve wanted to do.” He started slowly because Trist really did try to be as little of a burden as he could.

“Not once, not once in all these years, have I said fucking word one about what it’s like to see you with a man. I want you to be happy, I’m not that fucking selfish but God, Gavan, no one is ever going to look twice at me! No matter what, I’m never going to have a happy ever after with a house and a dog and white fucking picket fence and two and a half kids! No one is ever going to love me, or want to fucking be around me!”

“That’s not true.”
“Oh it so is!” He moaned back. “I know it. It’s just, Gav, he actually looked at me. He actually saw me and didn’t turn away!” Trist hated that tears welled up but he was too drunk to stop them, his emotions were always too close to the surface. “I can’t have him, I know that, I do, I fucking do but God, please, I can’t see you with him!”

“It was just a kiss.”

“Fuck! I’m not stupid, I know what kissing him is like! Please! He’ll find some nice, fucking sane man to start a relationship with but please, Gavan, please, not you! I can deal with how men look at you and know no one is ever going to look at me the same way. I can deal with how they resent me, how much of a fucking bother I am to you. I can deal with Val fucking someone else but it’ll kill me to have to see the two of you all cute and fucking content together. I can’t stand it. I just can’t!” He was sobbing now, broken hearted over a man he really barely knew.

Gavan approached carefully, he’d never seen Trist get upset over anyone like this. Sure, their grandmother could always make him cry or rage but this was different. This felt like bitter, painful jealousy and he’d never seen Trist that way.

“If you feel so strongly towards him, you should pursue it.” He caught the tense shoulders and stopped Trist’s pacing.

“I can’t!”

“Of course you can. He likes you.” That only made Trist’s face twist up more, as if Gavan had turned the knife. “You know you could have him but you’re not chasing him. You’re never going to have a relationship with anyone until you take a chance.”

Trist closed his eyes and pulled on the steady stabilizing force that was Gavan. He shut off the anger, the hurt, the self pity. It was the way of things, he was used to being the one left drawing the short stick. Systematically, he shut himself down as much as he could because he knew what he had to do. When he spoke again, his voice was steady.

“Please, Gavan, please, all I ask is that you stay his friend and nothing more. I can stand not having him but I can’t stand watching you have him.”

Part of him wanted to snap that he’d date or fuck who he wanted, but he saw the buried hurt in Trist’s eyes and he just couldn’t. “I’ve got a boyfriend.” Gavan smiled softly and ruffled the unraveling braid. “I’m happy with him and yeah, Val is hot and he’s fun to kiss but I’ll keep us as friends. Okay?”

Trist nodded, feeling a tension he wasn’t sure would ever ease, let go a bit. “Thank you.” He was breathing more normally too.

“Welcome, still think you should try it with him.”

Trist just shook his head but he let Gavan pull him into a hug.

“You done being pissed at me?”

He clung to his cousin. “For now, if you behave.”

Gavan tugged on the braid. “Come on, brat, let’s watch the end of your movie.” Now he really, really wondered what had happened while he was gone but he was certain neither man would ever tell him.