“Eat my ass,” Andrew says, shoving his middle finger in Neil’s general direction. He goes back to scooping cookie dough onto the baking sheet, but the sudden silence from his usually so argumentative boyfriend unnerves him enough to glance over his shoulder. Neil clears his throat. He’s bent low over his papers, but his eyes aren’t moving anymore and his ears have turned curiously red. “I would, if you wanted me to,” he mumbles, almost too quiet to hear.

It's not a test. He isn't waiting to see when Andrew will crack, doesn't watch the bar more than usual when they go to Eden's; doesn't even think much about it at all until Nicky corners him in the bathroom at Sweetie's one night and asks, with a honey-smug smirk, about their sex life.

“Neck fetish,” Andrew growls, yanking hard at Neil's hair until the skin at the back of his head prickles hotly. “Mm,” Neil hums. “Yours or mine?”

Five times Andrew wears lingerie just for himself, and one time he still wears it for himself but lets Neil enjoy it too.

This is how it starts, lately: words on an altar, tension thick like incense between them.

In which anal sex is ruminated on, discussed, and joked about, but not actually had. Or, Andrew pokes and prods at his sexual boundaries a little at a time, as a treat.

“I can fake anything,” Neil says with a smirk. “Including passports, but those don’t come cheap.” “What about orgasms,” Andrew asks. (or, Andrew’s roommates are having noisy sex. Enter Neil Josten, actor extraordinaire and willing to help Andrew get petty revenge.)

Neil tries to get away from a boring conversation and accidentally ends up asking the most popular guy in school to dance with him at the winter formal.