Conrad returned to a darkened apartment, ears straining toward the tinny music and bright, small noises of Veser's handheld game, Noises that were floating in from an open livingroom window; the sill on which Veser perched, face illuminated by the tiny screen, large eyes drooped and drowsy, shoulders hunched.
Veser looked up. "Hey dude." He looked back down, thumbs busy at buttons.
Conrad felt an unmistakable pinch of guilt - this was why he never really liked to do the whole big group of 'friends' thing - because eventually somebody was going to be left out, left behind. Usually, that had been Conrad. "Hi," Conrad offered in reply, forcibly casual. "Is there a reason you're sitting here in the dark?"
Instead of answering, Veser slides from the window and pads down the short hall to Conrad's bedroom.
Panic leaping to the forefront, Conrad follows - reluctantly, wincing, as if he might find a murder scene just inside the door - but also because there were boundaries that shouldn't really be crossed and a man's private bedroom was one of those and - Conrad's protest dies in his throat, the scrape of blacked-over plyboard rattling against a wall, against glass.
Veser was reaching up an open window of Conrad's bedroom to pull it shut, fingers deftly hooking over the latch before moving on to the next, shuffling the boards out of the way as he worked. The video game chirped battle music from the flat of Conrad's bed, where cold blue light from the screens bathed the ceiling in a soft glow. "Just airing the place out for ya," Veser grumbles, biting a splinter from his thumb. "I know a room can get kinda rank if you don't let some circulation in. Didn't think you'd be home this early."
"Oh." Conrad stands beside his bed, feeling ...
Feeling.
Conrad blinks, crossing his arms, shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Thank you. Do you... do this often?"
"When I know you're going into the city for the night." Veser shrugs. "I usually have the place boarded up again by the time you get back. Least I can do, y'know, I figure." Another shrug, Veser hiking his pants up by the side of his belt, scratching his ribs under the cling of a gray t-shirt. "Got some squares fitted to the other windows, too, in case you ever want to wake up early -"
"Uh," Conrad didn't know what to say, didn't want to parrot his thanks, didn't know if he should even be grateful or just tell Veser to kindly stay out of his room from then on, because - "Maybe next time we ask about this sort of thing."
Veser rolls his eyes over the curve of a shoulder, board sliding under the curtains of the second window with a practiced settle. " 'S why I wait for the nights you're out, isn't it?"
"Not the point, really." Conrad cradles his elbows in his palms. "I appreciate the, er, upkeep. But I'd really rather you didn't come into my bedroom."
Veser's eyebrows are up, but not in surprise. It's a cold look, and after he's settled the last of the boards in place he turns with a shrug carried in the corner of his mouth, "You really don't have to worry about that, dude."
Conrad's insides tighten. "Whatever you think, right now, is the reason I don't want you in here? That's not the reason. You are guessing wrong."
Veser scoops up his handheld game, grin going sharp and skeptical. "I dunno. I can guess a lot of things."
"Well." Conrad shrinks form the door, then follows Veser out. "Don't." He keeps on Veser's heels, moving impatiently. "I really don't want to have to get a lo -" the word 'lock' fades out to a breathy syllable, side-stepping the sudden halt of the (warm, living) back in his path.
"Can we talk?" Veser closes his game with the creak of a plastic hinge.
Conrad tries a lightswitch, huffing out an irritated breath because this was the third time that month the building's transformer was going all heretical on the tenants. "About what. Stay out of my room. You've got the couch, the kitchen, the TV -"
Veser waves a broad palm, fingers splayed, taking a seat on the windowsill again. "I told you, you don't gotta worry about me."
"I know you won't steal or anything, I just mean sometimes I -"
"Steal?!"
"I know you won't!" Conrad rages. "It's not that, all right, just -" a growled profanity, Conrad tearing at his hair before slapping down his pockets for the half-finished pack of cigarettes he'd taken to carrying around. "Christ. Just listen." Shaking hands try the lighter, and Conrad joins Veser at the open window so as not to smoke up the room. The flint catches and a spark hits the butane, flame illuminating Conrad's cringe as he pulls the cigarette quickly to life and snaps the flame out. Conrad exhales the jet of blued smoke out the open window, over his shoulder so as not to disturb his houseguest.
"I'm not going to steal from you, dude."
"I know," Conrad growls.
"It's ok, you know."
"That I like my privacy? I am well aware."
Veser isn't laughing, but his mouth is open like maybe he should be. He shakes his head, scratching under his chin before circling his hand around to scruff at the back of his neck. "I mean, if you had something in there that maybe you wouldn't want me to see?"
Conrad stills, eyes narrowing behind his glasses.
Veser pulls his foot up to the wide sill, chin on knee. "I'm cool with that. With, y'know." A shrug. "Whatever."
"There is nothing in my room that I wouldn't let my own mother see, trust me."
"Okay," Veser drawls, nod exaggerated. His eyes flick from Conrad to the rest of the darkened apartment.
Conrad sighs hard, dragging on his cigarette, contemplating the ash as it tumbles apart in a night wind. "Are we talking about me right now, or about you and things you may or may not be 'cool' with? Because I'm cool with 'whatever', if it's something you think you might need to tell someone about -" hedging, drawing out the painfully unsaid - "But as far as personal preference goes, I'm nnnot whatever it is you think you need to be cool with right now. So you can rel-" the word dies in Conrad's mouth.
Veser is staring at the far wall, at the black windowless hollow of the kitchen, jaw set. His fingers toy with the laces of his canvas shoes, chest expanding minutely in a silent sigh. "Can I bum one of those off ya?"
Conrad glances around like maybe there was a disapproving audience ready to boo him off stage, and slides a cigarette from the packet - thin white cylinder, fragrant. "Keep it at the window," Conrad warns. "I don't want to lose my deposit."
Veser pulls up his own lighter, nodding, deftly plucking the cigarette from between Conrad's knuckles. "Thanks." He lights up, and doesn't cough.
The two smoke in companionable silence, and Conrad eventually mushes his smoldering filter on the brick of the outside sill. "Well," he stands from the window, cigarette butt held extinguished and squashed in his grip like the remnants of their almost-conversation on an extremely uncomfortable topic. "Good talk." His posture is stiff, holding himself warily away from Veser's scrutiny. "Flush the fag-end, when you've done with it."
Veser chokes on his drag, eyes watering as he coughs out a piecemeal question -
"The cigarette," Conrad's mouth is a pinch. "Because I don't want my rubbish bin to melt. Flush it in the toilet when you're done."
"Oh," Veser's eyes are watering, his grin nervous. "Why did you - how long have you been here, dude, seriously, you cannot go around calling cigarettes that."
"I can," Conrad's smile is bitter but triumphant. "It's in the dictionary."
"Okay but seriously," voice still a bit scratchy, Veser scrubs the back of his neck again. "It's okay to be whatever it is you're cool with other people being, and not just because I'm cool with it, but because you're cool with other people being that thing. Right?"
Conrad has to think for a moment, but then, "Yes? Yes. Sure. That." A breath held hostage, a reluctant wheeze - "Aaare you, that thing? Is what you're saying?"
Veser looks about as lost as Conrad feels, and his shrug doesn't make it past a small roll of his shoulders. "Maybe. I might be."
"Because it's okay if you are," Conrad is hasty to assure. "I'm a graphic designer, christ, half my friends are g - "
"And I'm trying to tell you," Veser's eyes are shut in consternation, eyebrows scowling "That it's okay with me, whether I'm that thing that is okay or not - 'cos it doesn't matter; that you need to be okay with being the thing that is okay that you are. Otherwise, you're not actually okay with me being that thing that is actually really just okay and fine." The window slides shut with a clack, Veser clamping his cigarette between his front teeth. "Understand, dude?"
"Not..." Conrad's glasses have been pushed to his hairline, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "Not really." He huffs into the curve of his palm, muttering that he didn't have time for this.
"I'm not trying to mack on you here, Conrad, I just -" hands splayed open, arms held suspended, "I just get the feeling that you really wouldn't be okay, with me, hanging around so much, if I were the thing that is -"
"Gay," Conrad growls, rolling his eyes.
"Or bi," Veser amends, looking hurt. "I'm not trying to police your personal life, or whatever your damage is, it's just that you kinda give off that vibe, and I just don't want to, uh, irritate that, if that's like a sore subject."
"What vibe?"
Veser tilts his head in begrudging patience. "The vibe that registers on any and all working gaydars, dude; are you really gonna make me say this?" He shifts his weight, arms still out, and for a moment Conrad's mouth goes crooked imagining he's trying to make himself look larger to scare off a bear. Veser closes his eyes for a moment, huffs, opens them. His hands wag in the air as he speaks, small chops from shrugging elbows, "Like you don't want me in your room? Where you sleep? Where you probably mast-"
"WHOA," Conrad protests, throwing up the universal hand-signal for 'shut up immediately'. "I have OCD, you lunatic! I'm not a closeted homophobe!" The upper registers; Conrad's voice reaches them.
Veser winces, "Okay, no I knew that already, about the OCD." He's shaking his head, lowering his arms, digging his handheld out of his back pocket and flopping onto the couch, long-ways, settling down against the lump of his duffel bag. "Whatever, guy. Sorry I brought it up."
"It's fine," Conrad laments, "If you're going through something right now."
"No, yeah, I know." Veser is forcibly nonchalant, eyebrows raised as he gives his attention to the game in his hands. "Stay away from Worth, either way, is all." But Conrad had already disappeared in a huff of exasperation, bedroom door slamming, and doesn't hear the warning, which Veser had mumbled, because it never really seemed like that was ever going to be a problem - Doc Worth, and Conrad Achenleck.
