-rainbow cookie, tracob

27,

-

A week after the sex-in-the-alley incident, it hits him. Jacob really should have known better than to avoid talking about the box.

They talk about literally everything, him and Troye, from school to feelings to what the best type of cheese is for making mac n' cheese. They're both open books, pages and pages of the truth for each other that really don't ever shut up.

So the fact that Jacob doesn't talk about the box kind of stands out. Jed talks about the box, when he's feeling mischievous and wants to make the usually unflappable Jacob blush. Jacob never really responds, though, except to curse at Jed or make some sort of bodily threat. He doesn't talk about it when he and Troye move either, and what used to reside beneath Jacob's bed is shoved into the back of their closet. "Don't worry about it," he just tells Troye when he's met with an inquisitive gaze. "It's not that important."

And it isn't. It totally isn't, because they've been together for quite some time now and they've never needed to open the box before, so if Jacob is content leaving it shut then really, Troye shouldn't be so concerned about it.

But Troye is Troye, and therefore it takes about a month of that mysterious box burning a hole in their closet floor before Jacob comes home from work one day to find Troye propped up against the headboard with his legs crossed primly at the ankle and hands folded nicely in his lap with the box sitting next to him on the duvet. "We need to talk about the box, Jacob."

Jacob freezes for a second in the doorway and then forces himself to start moving again with deliberate calm. He shucks his suit jacket and throws it over the back of a chair, then kicks off his shoes in the general direction of his shoe pile, far neater than he usually is. "Did you open it?" he asks as casually as he can manage. It feels like walking through quicksand, the few steps over to the bed. He climbs up and mirrors Troye's pose, the box laying ominously between them.

Troye's eyes are locked on Jacob's face. "Of course not. Didn't want to invade your privacy."

"I wouldn't be mad," Jacob is quick to say. "What's mine is yours."

It's beside the point and they both know it. "Wanted you to tell me what's inside."

"Just some stuff. Old stuff. Of mine. Haven't even opened it in like a year," Jacob mumbles vaguely, fingers tapping nervously on his thigh. Keep your cool, Bix.

There's a pause, like Troye is waiting for Jacob to go on and provide more detail-- or any detail, as the case may be. No such information comes. He clears his throat and presses again. "Jedidiah seems to think that the box is full of sex toys or something."

Jacob slides his tongue between his teeth and runs it across the metal on the inside of his lip where the piercings poke through. "He- yeah. He's right."

Another pause. "We have a lot of sex."

"We do."

"You've never brought up sex toys though."

"Look, it's really not that important," Jacob reiterates with a plea in his voice, face definitely starting to get pink with embarrassment. Keep. It. Together. "We don't need sex toys, we have fantastic sex just the two of us."

Troye takes on that ultra-calm therapist voice he's picked up from Jacob over their time together. "I'm not saying that I think we need them or anything," he reasons, "I'm just curious why we haven't even talked about it. You have this box full of stuff that you never talk about, and we-- I dunno, we talk about things. We talk about everything. I'm just curious why you're hiding these."

"I'm not hiding them," Jacob jumps in at once, but then has to bite down on the inside of his cheek because he recognizes the lie straight out of his own mouth. After that, he kind of has to reach down and push the lid off the box, just so that it can be the truth. "I'm not hiding them."