He should have predicted the traffic jams on the outside of Hatchetfield, really. He’s been living there almost his entire life, he should have prepared and left earlier. Like he always does when he has to drive to CCRP, to pick up Alice from Clivesdale or drop her off at school after a weekend spent at his house, but no, this stupid house flipping program had to distract him until he accidentally glanced at the clock and realized he was running twenty minutes after his schedule.
Damn blonde millennial women on his TV and their uncanny ability to grab his attention by the throat.
Instead of arriving on time, Bill Woodward style, he stood almost motionlessly for almost forty–fucking–minutes switching between radio stations — despite Alice’s grumbling, he still hasn’t changes his car to one with a Bluetooth, and now he really regrets it — and slamming his head against the steering wheel multiple times. There aren’t that many people living in Hatchetfield to cause traffic this big, for god’s sake!
Finally, he manages to get through the absolute hell that is the bridge and the area around it. The rest of the way is pretty empty, getting through the residental neighborhoods is a breeze and before he or his brain know it, he’s pulling into the parking lot of the hotel they’re supposed to stay in.
It’s a pretty nice one, white walls and big windows and light on inside, a spacious parking and lamps outside. Definitely better than the one they stayed at the last conference where he spent half of the night fighting an ant infestation in the bathroom, and the other half of the night trying to mute his wall–to–wall neighbors going at it loudly.
“I’m so sorry I’m late!” Bill announces as soon as he barrels into the hotel lobby, shoes squeaking against the shining clean tiles, his old suitcase rattling on its shitty wheels that have been through hell and back.
Silence and one singular desk worker raising their head briefly reply to him.
The only person sitting in the otherwise empty lobby, suddenly perking up as Bill tramples in and waves to him lazily, is no one other than Ted fucking Spankoffski. Sprawled on one of the expensive–looking, light leather couches, suitcase thrown somewhere between his legs.
Bill’s blood turns to ice, muscles stalling.
Anyone but Spankoffski. Please. For the love of God or whoever is watching over him, make this all to be a big, unfunny joke. Let him take the couch in one of the hallways, just not share a room with him. He's barely able to survive having to spend more than the eight office hours with that guy, and they aren’t even in the same room for most of the time.
His feet are carrying him nonetheless, and before he knows or agrees to it, he’s standing in front of Ted, who slowly getting up and collecting his bags — a plastic, aqua blue suitcase and a suspiciously clean, for Ted, sports bag. He has crumbs all over his shirt that he brushes off once Bill’s eyes stuck on them.
“Where are all the others?” Bill finally forces his mouth to move.
Ted looks at him with a perplexed expression for a few moments. “All in their rooms. There was some shit about our management wanting to save money on rooms, so they booked less than there are people, and now we have to share. They—” He motions to the general direction of the elevator, and Bill doesn’t like the implications, doesn’t like them in the slightest, “left me here to bring you to our room.”
Our room.
Bill’s head feels like it’s about to boil like a Thanksgiving turkey and fall off. The hot water sensation starts at the back of it, and then spreads through the top, and if he was a cartoon character he’d have steam coming out of his ears. His fingers tingle around the suitcase handle.
He follows Ted nonetheless. Probably right into the worst roommate situation in his life. Worse than his college junior year roommate who used to leave used underwear on the kitchen counter. Ted is definitely worse. So much worse. Bill has seen his office, for god’s sake!
The elevator is spacious, but the ride is so tense Bill has the urge to force the doors open, go back to his car and drive to Hatchetfield; Ted’s eyes keep snapping over to him and then away when he realizes that Bill is very much aware, and even with how they’re physically as far away as possible, he can’t help but hear Ted’s steady, slow breathing.
The room, at the end of a softly–lit hallway, looks decent. Good, he’d even say, from how clean and put–together it is. The floor is carpeted in brown, and he can spot a chest of drawers with a white sheet over it, a pretty new–looking TV standing on it. He bets it's not in black and white. There’s also a closet next to it, and he can spot a door, presumably to a bathroom and—
One bed.
Standing innocuously under one of the walls, like it’s not the cause of Bill’s greatest suffering yet. Big, yes, but it’s one bed, and now he has to share it with—
Jesus. He doesn’t even want to think about it.
“Oh fuck.” Ted mumbles to his left. A suitcase bumps against a wall, and Bill echoes his words.
“Fuck.” There’s something crawling in his chest, slick and small but moving, worming its way around his chest cavity and shouting something — but it’s small enough Bill can just crush it away. Until it rises back up, like one of these worms that after being split into two, become their own beings. “What do we do now?”
Ted looks at him like he can’t decipher what Bill just said, and then shrugs. Completely casually, like he’s not making Bill’s world actively cave on itself.
“We can share.”
Bill’s head spins with something both anger– and fear–like. Why does Ted sound like this whole circus doesn’t bother him? How can he be so casual about all this? Why is he so normal?
“Like a sleepover.”
Bill’s eyebrows furrow even deeper. “We are forty–year–old men.”
“What difference does it make?” Ted shots him a slick smile before turning back over his shoulder. So here we are, back to Ted being a lazy asshole, Bill thinks. “Come on, Bill. We aren't that stubborn to sleep on the floor just because we don't want to share a bed."
By the time he gets out of the shower, Ted has already conjured two separate sets of bedding from some fuckass place — not like Bill really cares, the shower reminded him that being in his forties comes with actually being tired after ten in the evening and wanting to get more sleep than back when he was in college — and is switching between channels on the TV, sprawled out on the bed.
At least on one side. Bill has to celebrate the small wins if he wants to survive the next few days with Ted fucking Spankoffski.
Bill lays down as far away from Ted as possible, halfway off the bed and wearing the most modest pajamas he could conjure — an embarrassing, but covering and decent Ice Nine Kills t–shirt, something all the way back from his post–college broke–and–with–a–kid years, and plaid green and red Christmas–themed sweatpants, a divorce gift from Paul. The TV stays on, sound quiet but still playing some shitty reality show he couldn’t care less about, as his eyes begin to close, Ted still watching with his head propped up against one hand, remote in hand.
Bill might be already dreaming, but he swears he catches Ted looking over at him with something different in his eyes.
Bill wakes up warm.
That’s unusual, his sleep–addled brain notes as apparently the first thought of the day. His ex–wife always made sure their shared bedroom was properly aired, and as a result cold — especially during Hatchetfield winters, — and through their years together Bill took her habit as his own. Properly aired for proper sleep.
It’s not usual for him to wake up so warm. He has a tendency to toss around in sleep too, so he often wakes up cold, with the covers strung around the bed, and now he’s almost entirely under a light blanket. So, the only logical thing happens — he starts turning and tossing in the rough hotel sheets, trying to see if Ted started the heaters when he was sleeping. (If he’s even in the room, or already gone out to annoy their poor coworkers.)
Ted’s head is on his chest.
A beat.
Wait.
Ted–fucking–Spankoffski’s, The Casanova of Hatchetfield's head is on his chest. Bill faintly feels one of the man's arms around his own waist, but fuck, his head weighing down on his t–shirt is enough to process, he doesn’t even want to start thinking about the other man fully cuddling him. And he’s sleeping, obviously, sleeping like it’s the best sleep he’s gotten in years and without intentions of waking up soon. Or ever.
His hair — not given the ridiculous amount of gel treatment for once, must’ve taken the gel out for bed —, is spread around his face like a dark halo. Bill can only see the crown of it, the lack of a middle part, but it’s surprisingly soft where it’s tickling Bill’s lower neck. He’d expect Spankoffski’s hair to be rough and stringy, like the sleazeball he is wouldn’t take so much care of his hair, not fucking soft, and it’s so baffling he has to brush his hand through it.
Ted makes a noise, similar to clicking his tongue softly while he tries to stretch as wide as the covers let him. (Bill is briefly reminded of the cat his ex–wife has adopted in Clivesdale, and the thousands of pictures and short videos Alice has sent him of its antics.) White–hot embarrassment churns in Bill’s gut, both at the fucking noise Ted makes and how he reminds him of a cat, and that absolute satan of a man only curls closer, smacking his lips as he readjusts on his chest.
Jesus. Jesus fuck. Bill is not doing okay.
Bill’s hands shake as he attempts to shift over to unplug his phone from the charger, and Ted goes with him, and his hand is curled up in Bill’s t–shirt tightly and Bill can’t physically move without Ted moving too. The man smacks his lips again.
He’s going into cardiac arrest. He’ll leave Alice to be a half–orphan because his coworker doesn’t know the meaning of the word “personal space”. At least they got to see Mamma Mia before his untimely death. He hopes he’s been a good enough father for her to remember him fondly.
Maybe he should’ve taken the floor.
By the time he manages to gather the willpower to move towards his phone again, Ted looks like he’s going to wake up some time soon, so Bill takes the final leap and tugs himself from underneath. Ted flops on the mattress before jumping backwards, still half–asleep and eyes forcibly blinking over, movements still sluggish and only partially aware, and he starts turning pale white and red at the same time. Like the American flag, sans the blue.
His hand is still in Bill’s t–shirt. Their legs are still intertwined. Bill is hanging off the bed awkwardly, hand holding the phone bent at an awkward angle, t–shirt riding up just enough to expose his lower stomach, even as Bill tries to tug it back down immediately.
Ted, to his account, does look embarrassed — his eyes wandering somewhere around Bill’s face, but never directly at him. There’s some kind of sick happiness, maybe even pride in Bill, that Ted can still be embarrassed about his own actions. It starts to fizzle out as Ted scrambles off the bed, awkwardly shuffling beside it, half–heartedly attempting to collect his clothes for the day as something fearful rolls off of him in waves.
“We don’t have to talk about this.” Bill finally starts when he realizes the other man won’t dare trying to speak up. Ted’s eyes shuffle over to him, absolute mortification shining in them.
“I didn’t mean to.”
Bill’s eyebrows furrow at Ted’s surprisingly steady and even cold voice. If anything, he would expect him to sound less grieving, more joking and not taking any of this seriously, laughing it off. “I know you didn’t. We went to sleep on opposite sides of the bed, ‘s not your fault you did that in your sleep.”
“Yeah. I know.” Ted absolutely doesn’t sound convinced, but gets off the bed and starts plucking through his suitcase. Uneasiness swims in Bill’s stomach. Ted has never been quiet and timid, as long as Bill has known him — it was always the annoying, loud sleazeball desk over who left candy wrappers all around him and constantly tried to flirt with everything that moved and breathed.
Not this. This isn't the Ted Bill is used to.
“I hope you won’t be, you know, all awkward about this now. It’s no big deal.” Bill wrings his hands as he watches Ted collect his clothes hastily. “Especially since we have to share a room for the next few days now.”
“Yeah.” Ted sounds less and less convinced with each word.
Bill decides to leave it be as he gets off the bed too, warm sheets slipping off him. There’s no use in trying to talk Ted out of being all grumpy, even more so as they’re not close besides working together and accidentally cuddling at a conference. And Ted is thirty–something, he’s grown enough to deal with crises on his own.
Right?
(Both yes and no as answers ring out in Bill’s head as the door to the bathroom slams behind Ted.)