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Ash was sat alone in front of the television, with only the football to keep him company.
It really wasn't as pathetic as it sounded (except that it sort of was).
Mickey had gone to LA to assist Danny and Stacie on a con, and Emma had gone with him under the pretence of help, though everyone knows the actual reason was much more...nudge-nudge-wink-wink. Ash had deliberately made much more of a meal about that than he normally would, just because the disgusted faces Sean makes whenever someone hints about his sister having sex are priceless.
Albert was having dinner with an old friend; a man he hadn't seen in over fourteen years. If you hadn't seen someone in fourteen years, Ash figured there was a very good reason for it; they were probably either dead or far too bloody annoying for their own good. He probably wasn't dead, given that Albert was meeting him in a bar, but neither way bode well for the evening.
And Sean, well, Ash wasn't sure where Sean was - but it was Saturday night, after all, so he had probably bogged off to the pub.
Ash sat down with a bottle of beer and a packet of Brannigans to watch the football.
He wasn't even sure who was playing; he didn't recognise anyone, the abbreviations were mystifyingly cryptic and both teams were far too shit for him to bother to look it up.
He passed the time by doing everything from picking bits of crisp out of his teeth, to trimming his fingernails before finally getting out a deck of cards and practicing his shuffling. He had just got up to get another beer - both teams having come back from half time even more bloody useless than they were before - when Sean emerged from his room.
"Are you still 'ere?" he asked, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.
"Charming!" Sean retorted playfully. "I know when I'm not welcome!"
Ash thought about flipping him the bird; would have done it if he didn't have a bottle opener in his hand. He could tell Sean knew he was thinking about it, though.
"Beer?" He offered, uncapping his own, and pausing.
"Please," Sean said, followed by, "Who's playing?"
"Haven't a fucking clue," Ash said cheerfully.
"Sounds like fun," Sean said, sprawling out on one end of the couch.
Ash disposed of the bottle tops and his rubbish before heading back into the living room, where Sean was crunching his way through half a packet of Polos.
"Cheers," Sean said, taking the bottle off him and tipping it in thanks. He took a swig before grimacing comically as the tastes intermingled on his tongue.
They watched as both teams basically ran up and down the pitch for forty-five minutes; sometimes in the right direction, sometimes not, sometimes looking like they weren't sure what this whole foot-ball lark was all about.
"Well that was useless," Sean said when it was over, and Ash had to agree.
He settled back into the couch and his knee banged against Sean's. He didn't move it; they spent a lot of time like this, watching TV, while Mickey and Emma were off doing whatever, and Albert was hanging around with people who were possibly-dead.
Sean's head rolled back against the couch, and he sighed, long and deep and tired.
The con they had just completed, before Mickey fucked off to America, had been unexpectedly extended, and Sean had spent the last two weeks working as a plumber.
These things happened, sometimes.
Danny had had to spend a week as a chicken, once - Scott Westendorf owned a chain of successful fried-chicken restaurants, as well as a handful of other businesses. He also boasted the honour of being a total, complete and utter tosspot.
So, when the chance to con some money off a total wanker with less hair than sense (and there wasn't much of that to start with) came up, naturally, Danny jumped at the chance to get in by taking a job in one of the restaurants.
Too bad he hadn't realised until after he took the job, just what it entailed. Namely, getting up early to walk the streets in a chicken suit.
Quite who Westendorf had thought would be tempted into buying chicken at four in the morning was beyond Ash. But needs must, and all.
Danny had been slightly irate, when someone had accidentally let it slip that Stacie had, err, forgotten to mention that there had also been a vacancy in one of Westendorf's other businesses - which is sort of understandable, when you find out that you could have spent your time indoors, in an office, but instead had been forced to spend a week as Pollo, the crazy dancing chicken (Westendorf had also proven to be extremely unimaginative).
In retaliation, he'd sworn he'd wake them up at four a.m. every morning for the next month, but gave up on day two, when he woke up to find his alarm clock in twelve pieces on his pillow. Strange, that.
Ash's phone rang; Mickey, wanting information on something.
When he came back in the room, Sean was sprawled out across the couch, arm hanging off the edge and mouth half-open, fast asleep.
"Oi, Sleeping Beauty," Ash said, nudging at Sean's arm with his knee. "I'm awake," Sean mumbled, eyes squinting half-open, looking up at him through those ridiculously long bloody eyelashes, and Ash scoffed.
"You're sodding not."
Sean murmured something that sounded suspiciously like 'fckff', and Ash just ignored him. If he had a quid for every time someone had told him to fuck off, maybe he wouldn't have spent half his life walking out in front of cars. Would have been a steadier income, anyway. Not as much fun, though.
Not that getting hit by a car is fun; it's not, it's a pain in the arse (bit like Danny). But at least you know what you're getting. (...Again, bit like Danny).
With Sean, he's not quite sure where he stands. And he's not sure how he feels about being unsure. He knows how he feels about that, though. It's bloody irritating.
"I'm awake," Sean said, again, but he actually looked it this time. Then he said something that sounded like 'wanker', and Ash ignored him because, again, if he had a quid for every time...
Between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three, he hadn't been called much else, to be honest.
He headed into the kitchen, though he wasn't entirely sure for what; a drink, leftover pizza, something to do.
Sean followed him, getting a clean glass out of the dishwasher as Ash tried to look like he'd gone in there for a reason, before he turned abruptly, and Ash had somehow wound up jammed up against the fridge, a magnet of a goat in a dress (sent by Stacie as a souvenir of a successful con; Ash didn't know all the details, and he didn't really want to know them, either) digging into his back.
He lurched a bit unsteadily as the pointy ears hit him, and Sean grabbed his elbow to steady him. His fingertips were cold though Ash's shirt sleeves.
"Sean," Ash said, because it felt like he should, but that was sort of all he had.
"Yeah?" Sean said, and he was standing far too close, there were a million reasons why this was such a bad idea, Emma was almost certainly going to kill him.
"I-" he started. "Do-" he tried again.
"Yes," Sean said. He wasn't entirely sure what the question was, but he could never say no to Ash.
"But I didn't-"
"Doesn't matter," Sean interrupted. "Answer's yes," and he had almost definitely given too much away there, but it was done now.
Ash looked at him for what felt like ages, but could only be a few moments, before his hand fisted in his shirt and pulled him in, pulled them flush against each other, and kissed him.
The taste of mint was still sharp on his breath, and the little hitch in Sean's breathing passed into Ash's mouth as they kissed, pressed against the refridgerator for god knows how long before Ash's spine, starting to complain, forced him to move. He pushed Sean backwards, not breaking the kiss, and they somehow managed to stumble out of the kitchen (with only one minor incident with the rubbish bin), into the living room and onto the couch.
Sean's hands cupped his face, holding him in place as they kissed, before moving down over his shoulders, his arms, his sides, anywhere within reach.
One of Ash's hands is bracing himself against the couch, but the other is free to move, against the cotton of his shirt, before moving underneath, and Ash's knuckles rubbed at his stomach. Sean arched into the touch, the heat, but the couch wasn't made to have two grown men lying on it, it wasn't wide enough, and Sean's leg fell to one side, opening his hips up.
They broke apart at the thud of Sean's foot on the floor, and both of them looked down, as if to check that it was still attached to the rest of him.
Once it had been determined that everyone's limbs were still intact, Ash shifted, the slight change of weight making them realise that they were still pressed together. When they turn back in, they are face-to-face; Sean's bottom lip swollen, flushed and glistening. When they leaned in again, almost unconciously, it was slower, more intimate, intense, the whisper of Ash's breath turned almost irregularly even against his skin, like he was reminding himself to breathe.
Sean's hands slid out of his shirt and down over his hips, pressing them together as he rocked their hips together. Ash nuzzled into Sean's neck, and Sean's breath hitched at the first pleasurable scrape of teeth, head pressing back into the soft fabric of the couch cushions.
Sean's hands slid around to the front and started unbuttoning Ash's shirt from the bottom up, only to be interrupted by the scrape of a key in the lock.
Ash rocketed off Sean and halfway across the room, and straightened and re-buttoned his shirt, leaving it untucked - that solved one problem, at least - but smoothing out the wrinkles left by Sean's questing hands. The man in question had managed to get himself in an upright position, but looked exactly like he'd spent half the night snogging someone's face off.
Ash attempted nonchalance, resting an arm against the top of the TV, before realising that if he'd actually been watching it, he wouldn't be standing beside it, but it's too late now.
"Good evening, gentlemen," said Albert as he walked through the door and unwound the scarf from around his neck.
"Alright, Albert?" Ash said.
"How was your dinner?" Sean asked, craning his neck to look over the back of the couch, and Albert cocked his head wryly.
"There's a reason I hadn't seen him in fourteen years," he said, half-laughing as he headed into the kitchen and switched the kettle on.
He puttered about the kitchen making a cup of hot chocolate while detailing his evening; largely skipping over the company, which was telling, and lingering on the food.
"And how was your evening?" Albert asked as he came back into the living room, eyebrow raised expectantly. Ash, to save himself the trouble of choking on his own tongue, made a sort of non-committal noise.
"Yeah, it was good," Sean said, eyes flickering over to Ash before returning to Albert.
Albert looked at Ash curiously for a moment, like he knew something was wrong, he just didn't know what, but as long as nothing caught fire, he didn't particularly want to know. He walked over to the cupboard that was doubling as their liquor cabinet, and added a healthy glug of brandy to his cup.
He took an experimental sip and nodded contentedly, putting everything away again before bidding them goodnight.
"Night, Albie," Sean said, and Albert raised his cup to them before heading into his bedroom and closing the door.
That awkward silence descended again, the sort of awkwardness that's only achieved when you've just had your tongue down someone's throat, but it's not really appropriate to shove it back in.
After a minute of that painful, enduring silence, Sean said, "I should probably-", only he wasn't entirely sure how he was planning to finish that sentence. Learn to salsa? Whip up a bowl of moules mariniere? Run away like his arse was on fire?
Yeah, probably.
He stood up, accidentally knocking the coffee table with his shin, and sending his roll of polos flying to the ground.
He bent down and picked it up, but when he plucked one out, it was broken. He shoved the half in his mouth before reaching back into the packet for the other half, which he offered to Ash, who reached out and took it almost automatically.
"Right," Sean said. "Well. Night," he managed to stop himself from doing something really stupid, like waving, but as closing remarks go, he could have done better. It wasn't suave, or cool, wouldn't make Ash realise what he was missing out on - it was just pathetic.
"Hang on," Ash said, crunching his mint quickly. Sean turned around.
"Yeah?" he said, before cringing internally, because that was kind of what got him in this situation in the first place.
Something flashed in Ash's eyes, only Sean couldn't tell what it was.
"Yes," Ash said, like an answer, and Sean repeated it stupidly, because he didn't remember asking a question.
Some of that must have come through as he stood there, sort of gawping gormlessly, because Ash said yes again, and he was starting to realise that maybe that whole thing went both ways.
"Oh," he said, a bit lamely, though when he recounts the story to Emma later, he will say something much more suave.
"Is that it?" Ash said, face scrunched, sort of indignant mixed with frustration and something lighter, more hopeful, like - Sean didn't get to give it too much thought because Ash dragged him close and kissed him again.
The mint was still fresh and clean on their breath, not yet faded to sweet and cloying, Sean's mouth warm and pliant and wet.
He hooked an arm around the back of Ash's neck, hitched himself closer without breaking contact.
Then, somehow - he didn't know how, he didn't really care, he was just thankful it was happening - they were moving in the direction of Ash's room, Ash's hands working their way under his t-shirt, running along the smooth lines of his back, sending sparks flying down his spine.
Ash slammed the door shut and and pushed Sean against it, his nose bumping against Sean's cheekbone as they moved, and then they were kissing again, hot and dizzying.
Sean pushed, moving them away from the door, and Ash backed away.
Sean stripped off his t-shirt and dropped it to the floor. He let himself fall down onto the bed, Ash following him down.
*****
In his bedroom, Albert paused mid-sentence when he heard the door slam, cup shaking in its saucer on the nightstand. He let a self-satisfied smile creep over his face before chuckling and turning back to his book.