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If John Granby didn't like women so much, he'd happily try dating men. He told Will so himself, over a plate of eggs and some hot sauce (better known as the Granby family' Cure For Hangover), when Will confided, a bit red-facedly, that the man they'd brought home from the bar was gone but not forgotten.
"Let me see if I've got this straight," John said skeptically, around a mouthful of toast soaked through with butter. His head still felt fit to split open at any moment, but at least he wouldn't be hungry when it happened. "You're meeting up with him for a walk in Dartmoor Park?"
Will nodded mutely, looking back down at what John suspected was his second breakfast, as the mystery man was long gone and there had been a lingering smell of burnt eggs in the flat when he'd woken.
John grinned. "Jane just proved too much for you, didn't she?"
"No, only--" The words came slowly to Will, who looked like he might be tempted to dive beneath their rickety dining table at any moment. "Tharkay--that's his name--and I, we...had a very nice conversation this morning. I wouldn't mind getting to know him better." To call his tone "hesitant" would be incredibly charitable.
"Seems like a brilliant idea to me," John told him, and got up for some more orange juice. "Life would be so much easier if we could all just date blokes. You'd never have to deal with him getting all moody for part of the month."
Will was silent, though when John glanced over at him, he looked as though he wanted to say something more; when John gave him a do-go-on expression, however, Will seemed to think better of it and instead bit into the piece of toast in front of him.
-
"Come on, ring him up and invite him over," John said again, flipping channels on the telly. "It'd be nice to meet him when we're both sober."
Will looked unconvinced by this argument. He'd been sparse on the details of exactly how things had gone, having Tharkay over a few days ago for dinner--the best he'd offered was that Tharkay had quite enjoyed John's cooking. About Tharkay, he'd been rather quiet in general, though John imagined things must be going decently, or there would have been no reason to see him after the nature park endeavor.
Besides, as best mate, it was his duty to inspect the man and make sure he was up to standards. He'd have been happy to do so with Will's girlfriends if he'd ever dated girls who weren't Jane; you couldn't actually judge Jane by the usual guidelines, because she didn't give a toss about them. (John was fair in all this; he had himself asked Will's opinions on his current girlfriend soon after they met, and received the answer that she seemed "very nice," which was good enough for him.)
"We can watch whatever you want," he promised, much as he suspected he might live to regret those words. Will was willing to sit through the sorts of movies John liked, but his tape collection was full of old period movies about Napoleon and the like. And those were all right, of course, but Lord, were some of them long. "It's just an evening in, it'll be fine."
"All right." John had been hoping this meant Will's agreement would include less of a frown, but he decided to call victory for the fact that he'd picked the phone up at all.
-
Tharkay wasn't much more talkative than John recalled from the first hazy night they'd met, though this time it presumably had more to do with his general personality rather than the substances he was on. Rather than risk sitting around awkwardly, Will had hurriedly brought out the evening's main event--a film version of The Count of Monte Cristo, and they sat down to pizza, beer, and Edmond Dantes.
It was one of the better films in Will's collection for a lads' night in; for one thing, it was only an hour and a half long, and for another, it was just old enough that they could make snide comments about the production without Will defending it too heartily. Tharkay, it turned out, was no stranger to pointing out the flaws in movies made for the telly a decade ago. John found himself approving of the man; he was serious enough for Will (or, at least, he was quiet enough, John thought), but he wasn't boring.
As the film went on, they grew into a comfortable quiet, only occasionally broken by commentary; for his own part, John had to admit he was being drawn into the story. As for Will and Tharkay--he glanced over at them near the climax of the film and found that their attention had wandered away from Dantes some time ago. He hurriedly looked back to the screen of the television and vowed not to check on them again until the movie was done.
How long had they been snogging next to him? he wondered, frowning at Richard Chamberlain's face.
-
It was at that moment that John Granby decided he would leave the dating of other blokes to Will, who clearly enjoyed it far more than he ever would.
-
Tharkay left soon after the credits rolled, claiming some kind of classwork as his excuse and saying that it had been nice to meet John again. John answered in kind, and soon it was only Will and him once more, standing a bit awkwardly near the door.
"He seems like a good man," John finally said, then added, a bit unthinkingly, "just please give me some warning next time you plan on spending twenty minutes attached to each other by the face."
Will's eyebrows raised at this; he was silent at first, looking as though John had slapped him (which, he realized belatedly, he really might as well have). Finally, he replied in a low, careful voice that said he was traipsing on dangerous ground, "John, the last time we went on a group date, you spent half the time snogging your girlfriend."
John felt his face heat. "That was different."
"How?" Will asked, still in that same tone.
"Because--she was--" and he did at least manage to stop himself before finishing with 'a girl,' which could only help him dig himself in deeper. Will waited, eyes sharp, in that same way when they'd first started living together and John had found him so annoyingly fastidious that he couldn't resist making a game of pushing his buttons. Finally, John sighed, the tension he hadn't noticed in his shoulders slackening. "It's not different, you're right. I'm sorry, Will; this is all just very...different. You, with a man, and all."
Will said a quiet thank-you and stopped short, before nodding in agreement. Very tentatively, enough so that John knew well better than to tease him any further, he said, "It is different. For me as well."
-
"I did mean it," John added later, he was debating whether he wanted to stay up and finish some homework or go to bed and while Will was brushing his teeth, "when I said Tharkay seems like a good man." He paused, closing his book. "If you wanted to bring him 'round again, I wouldn't mind."
He heard Will reply over the sound of the tap in the bathroom, "I appreciate that."
"I'll cook us dinner," John continued as he stripped down to boxers, leaving his clothing in a crumpled heap next to his bed. "We can skip the film next time."
Will was smiling when he came back into the room. "We could try a board game instead, if you like."
"Couldn't we play poker instead?" John turned out the light. "The only board game we own is Risk."
"I like Risk," Will said through the darkness, mock-defensive.
"It's so bloody long, though." He couldn't resist throwing in one final comment on the matter. "We'll have to make it a couples' night, so I can go have a snog while you're puzzling out what to do about North Africa."
Will laughed. "Poker it is."
-
John came home from his mum's house several weeks later with the desire for a stiff drink.
What he instead received was a small bottle of massage oil on his desk, identical to the one sitting in his porno drawer except that it was full, and a flatmate trying very hard to nonchalantly read a book about ships across the room.
"What's this?" He could affect nonchalance, too, if it was necessary, and jerked his head toward the bottle.
Any semblance of calm on Will's face was quickly drowned out by a sudden look of utter dread. "It's...a replacement. We were--" and here his face began to colour. "--desperate--"
"Oh, Lord," and John felt quite stupid for not catching on immediately. Why did Will always have to make amends for borrowing his things without asking? Normally, it was a very nice quality in a roommate, but at this moment, John would have given anything for Will to be less forthright. "You--oh, Christ, I don't want to know. It's all right, thanks for replacing it for me, I hope you bought your own while you were at it."
At this, Will could only nod, gripping his book so tightly his fingers were going whitish.
"Brilliant." John managed a smile; he suspected this would be rather funny once his mind was no longer filled with images of Will and his boyfriend--naked, Lord. "Then I need never picture you shagging anyone ever again. Would you like a bottle of Bass? I think we both deserve one at this point."