Only If For a Night(MxM)

Part 27

Boring, boring , boring , everything was so impossibly dull. Jet could handle boring, he had been a marine for most of his life, he had babysat sand dunes and done surveillance rounds that lasted north of twelve hours at a crack. But Jesus fucking christ , this was so impossibly boring. After spending a week in the forest without anything gray in his line of sight except for the occasional cloud, he had forgotten how dreary the color was, the way it seemed to suck the life out of everything around it, neutral, sure, but depressing? Yes.

The carpet in Zuko's office was gray, no flecks of white or brown or hell, a DIFFERENT shade of gray to spice up the monotony of the impossible sheet of gray that surrounded the one hundred square foot room. When the carpet drove him to madness, he'd recline his head back and glared at the black and white speckled ceiling tiles, Since they were one foot by one-foot squares, it would make sense that there are or would be, one hundred tiles. There were not one hundred tiles. There was one hundred and one.

"Someone fucked up your ceiling tiles," he said out loud, almost on accident.

Zuko's head snapped up, looking at Jet with absolute confusion.

"What?"

"I have no goddamn idea how they fucked somethin' up that is so simple, but they did it. There is one more tile than there needs to be, and I think I'm going to have a stroke if I keep thinkin' about it,"

"Then stop looking at the ceiling," Zuko grunted.

"I've already looked at the floor for too long, I need something interesting to hold my attention," Jet refused to whine, he was an adult man, and he was at work for the love of God. It happened anyway.

"Read a book," Zuko suggested, not looking away from his computer screen.

"Read a book?" Jet scoffed, giving him a sidelong look. "What do I look like? Someone that reads books?"

"Not with that attitude, you aren't," Zuko sighed.

"Rude."

"Bite me,"

"Was that an invitation?" Jet crooned, jumping on the distraction, giving himself permission to walk closer, leaning his hip against the edge of the desk.

"No," Zuko finally looked at up him, Jet's organs somersaulted in his stomach, shaking and crashing into each other under the look. It wasn't a particularly heated look, he wasn't undressing Jet with his eyes, he wasn't pairing the look with a particular facial expression that would imply promiscuity. It was just a look. And it was fully trained on Jet.

"Is it a possibility that you have ADHD?"

"What? No,"

"Did you ever get tested ?"

"...No,"

"Did you have a hard time focusing in school?"

"I was a teenage boy, of course, I had a hard time focusing in school," "Did you get in trouble for being disruptive in class?"

"Again, I was a teenage boy, a synonym for attention whore, so yeah, all the time,"

"I think you have ADHD,"

"You have no other proof, I can concentrate on lots'a stuff all the time,

 "Yeah, you get hyper-focused on stuff, and I can't get your attention away half the time,"

"Like what? I bet you can't name one damn thing."

"When you're cooking, If you're focused on it, then I could have an entire conversation with you, without you participating in it,"

"Okay, so maybe I get a little focused on my cuisine, is that a crime?" "No,"

"Then why do I feel like I'm on trial?"

"You're not on trial, Jet, I'm just worried about you,"

"You're worried about me? Kid, It's my job to worry about you, "

"Why wouldn't I be worried about you, you're my," Zuko faltered for his wording, mouthing going a little slack as he thought of a term.

Jet was instantly and HORRIFICALLY anxious. There were so many ways he could finish that sentence, and Jet would play along with whatever he said. Bodyguard. Friend. Fuckbuddy. Friends with benefits. Person I slept with twice during a stressful situation and will probably never do so again.

Zuko's cheeks took an endearing and slightly worrisome shade of red.

"Bestfriend. You're my best friend, and I think I have the right to worry about you."

Oh

In media, someone's internal processes are made corporeal by a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, but that wasn't what was happing in Jet's brain right now. One half of his mind was screaming OH THANK GOD WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO I DO? WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK! While the other half of him was quietly developing a nervous twitch in its eye about how anticlimatic the sentiment was.

None of this showed on Jet's face as he stared at Zuko from across the cramped room in silence for a little too long, mouth open.

"Jet?" Zuko tried, the heat of his cheeks not receding.

"What? Oh, sorry," his jaw snapped shut, and he straightened his shoulders and worked his fingers into knots.

"I'm your best friend? What about Yue?"

Zuko shrugged, carefully reorganizing his desk. "They're great, and I love them, yet at the same time," he was still furiously blushing, sparkling golden eyes rolled up to meet the ridiculous number of ceiling tiles. "Yue doesn't know how I like to take my tea," he said in a quiet, almost pained voice.

The walls of the office building were thin, Jet could hear the conversation happening in the office next to Zuko's, as well as the din from the cubicle area and the mechanical creak of the copy machine.

That was literally the only reason that Jet wasn't jumping up and down right now, yelling his head off and teasing Zuko about how he probably had a crush on him.

So he did it as quietly as he could.

"Oh my sweet Jesus, you are the cutest little thing," he cooed, unable to fight the obnoxious grin on his mouth. "I bet you're sweet on me, aren't you?"

"Sweet on you?" Zuko frowned as he figured out the words, then his bashful face was replaced almost instantly by a look of fire tempered steel, cutting and beautiful.

"Jet, we've fucked. Twice. I think it's safe to say I like you,"

The words were spoken low, quiet enough that no one could possibly hear them from the surrounding areas, but they reverberated through Jet like he was a gong.

He cleared his throat. "Right."

"Did you forget?" Zuko teased, the joke was rough with disuse in his mouth.

"God no, haven't thought about anything else in days," Jet mused, settling himself down in the chair opposite the desk, a voracious grin stretched over perfect white teeth.

Zuko muttered about him being impossible as he blushed and started clacking away at his keyboard.