In the elevator, Trant pushes the button for his floor, then turns to look at you. He still has his arm around you and you're leaning on him, the side of your body pressed against his. He's not smiling. If you told him he has beautiful eyes, would he smile?

The elevator doors open before you have the chance. You stumble the short distance from the elevator to his front door. After you enter his apartment, he extricates himself from you, and you grab a handful of his shirt. You don't want him to let you go.

"I need to take my shoes off," he says, gently prying your hand off of him.

You lean over and try to take your own shoes off, almost falling over. Trant steadies you and helps you to take them off.

Then he stands up and looks at you. You sway slightly and try to focus on his face. You can't tell what his expression means.

Trant reaches out and brushes a hand over your hair, then does it again. It feels nice. "You have grass in your hair, how did that happen?"

You vaguely remember falling over. "Don't know," you mumble.

He steers you towards the bathroom. "You should wash your mouth, and your face. Do you need help?"

You shake your head. You shut yourself in the bathroom and stumble over to the sink. You look like hell. There's still grass in your hair despite Trant's effort to get it out. You tip your head forward and scrub at it. Your scalp hurts and you remember ripping lumps out of your hair.

You tear your eyes away from your awful reflection and splash water on your face. Then you wash your mouth out and spit repeatedly, trying to get rid of the bitter taste of vomit.

Trant is sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. He looks up when you enter the room. He gives you a smile and pats the couch next to him. You accept his offer. You still need to say something. Maybe now is the time. You don't think he's mad at you. Or he's hiding it well. Your mouth tastes less like vomit and you look slightly less fucked up, it's probably not gonna get any better than this. Maybe you don't need to say anything at all. You could just lean over and kiss him.

"Did you have another bad day?" he asks, and you know he's asking if you tried to kill yourself.

"No," you say, and you're surprised about it yourself. "Not exactly." Although if this goes badly, it's always an option, you reassure yourself.

"Then what happened? Tell me."

You open your mouth, and then close it again. Then you slap your forehead and rest your head on your hand. "I can't fucking stand this!"

"What?"

You look up at him. "You. Me. This!"

Trant frowns and shakes his head, not understanding, or pretending not to.

"Why'd you have to change your mind?"

"About what?"

"About me!"

"I still care about you, Jean. That hasn't changed."

You shake your head. "One minute you're all over me, the next you just want to be friends? You don't think that's gonna fuck with my head?"

Trant raises his fist to his mouth, and doesn't say anything for a moment. "You made it perfectly clear that you weren't interested. Not only that, you seemed distressed by my attempts to get closer to you."

"Fucking distressed," you say, shaking your head again.

"Jean, I don't understand why you're upset."

"Isn't it obvious? Can't you see I'm fucking crazy about you?"

His eyes widen. His mouth falls open. For a moment you just look at each other. "But you said-"

"I say a lot of fucking stupid things, Trant," you say, leaning towards him. "But not this." You put a hand on his shoulder. "This is true. I am interested in you, Trant." You tighten your grip on his shoulder. "Very interested."

Trant leans away from you. "Are you sure, Jean?" he says.

"What? Of course I'm sure!"

"I hate to be indelicate here, but you are rather drunk."

You point a finger at him. "Trant, you think I'd turn up here drunk and lie about being in love with you?" Your heart pounds as you realise the gravity of those words.

A strange expression crosses his face and he blinks several times. "Well, if you put it like that," a shaky smile forming on his lips.

"So, whaddaya say, you gonna change your mind back about me?"

"I didn't change my mind about you. I was trying to be respectful of what I thought were your wishes." He shifts further away from you to the far side of the couch.

"Then what's the problem? Come over here." You throw a leg over his and try to climb onto his lap.

"Jean," he says, catching hold of your jaw before you can kiss him. "You're drunk."

The frustration coupled with the ease at which he restrains you is a massive turn on. "Yeah? So?" you say breathlessly.

"More concerning, I just saw you vomiting outside," he says.

You feel ashamed and humiliated, but no less turned on. He presses his lips against your cheek and you lean into the pleasant warm sensation. He lets go of your jaw and you find yourself sliding onto the floor. You clutch at his legs and bury your head in his lap.

He touches your head, and starts to run his fingers through your hair. You shiver pleasurably. You both stay like that for what seems like a long time.

"It's getting late," Trant says eventually. "Would you like to stay here tonight, in the spare room?"

"Yeah," you mumble. You would very much like to sleep in his bed, but you haven't got the energy to try to convince him.

"In that case, you'll have to let go of my legs," he says, laughing softly.

"Oh, yeah," you say, letting go of him and hauling yourself off the floor. You still feel dizzy.

Without asking, Trant brings you pyjamas, a set of clothes for tomorrow, a towel and a toothbrush.

"Sorry," you say, "for getting drunk."

Trant looks thoughtful. "They do say alcohol is liquid courage, in vino veritas and all that. I would prefer if Mikael never sees you in this sort of state, but today there was no harm done," he says, squeezing your shoulder. "Good night, Jean."

"Good night, Trant."

After a broken night's sleep, you wake up unsure whether you imagined or dreamed what you said to Trant last night. Your head hurts. No, you're pretty sure you told him you're in love with him. What the fuck? You don't think you've even thought about him like that. Sure, you've become increasingly obsessed with him these past few weeks, you enjoy his company very much, he's so fucking hot and you don't know what you'd do without him, but… is that love? You thought you were too cynical and depressed for even one-sided love.

There's a knock on the door.

"Come in," you say, moving to sit up.

Trant has a glass of water, some drouamine and a big smile for you. "Good morning, Jean," he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"Morning," you say, and accept the glass of water to wash down the pills. "Thanks. I feel like hell."

"In that case, you shouldn't go to work today."

"I'm not sick, just stupid and hungover," you say. You find yourself smiling. "Why, are you trying to keep me here?"

He returns your smile. "No. But it's a tempting proposal," he says.

You take another drink of water, then set the glass on the bedside table.

Trant clasps his hands together and looks down at them. "Did you really mean what you said last night?" he asks, glancing up at you.

You swallow. "You mean about being… in love with you," you say, almost choking on the word.

"Yes," Trant says quietly.

"Do you really need to ask?"

"We've had a lot of misunderstandings, I don't want this to be another one."

"I meant it," you say. "Please don't make me say it again."

"I'd like it if you said it again," Trant says, glancing at you with a little smile.

"If I say it, will you let me kiss you?" you say. "I did clean my teeth. I got your hint."

You hear him take a sharp breath in, then he nods.

Your stomach clenches. You close your eyes. "Shit. Fine. I'm in love with you," you say, and when you open them he's beaming at you.

You tilt your head and lean towards him, and he meets you in the middle, and oh god you've wanted this so badly. Tears prick at your eyes as you think of how close you came to losing him, how stupidly you tried to push him away.

"I love you, Jean," he says between feverish kisses.

You kiss him deeper, and curl a hand around the back of his neck. He lets out a moan as you push your tongue between his lips. His tongue meets yours and you feel blood rush to your groin. And you want him so badly. You don't care you're hungover, that you have to get to work, you don't care about anything. You just want him to fuck you so hard you'll never be depressed again.

Trant pulls away and smiles at you. "Do you want breakfast?" he asks.

No, I want you, is what you want to say. But you know you're not suave enough to pull off a line like that when you're sober. "Sure," you say.

He gives you another quick kiss, then gets up. "Then I'll leave you to get ready."

You head into the bathroom to take a shower as you were in no fit state to do so last night. You try to concentrate on washing as quickly as you can so you don't have to think about how your body reacted simply to kissing Trant. Fuck, you're still half hard. You should turn down the heat of the water and ignore it, but as soon as your hand brushes against your cock you can't bear it. You wrap your hand around yourself and lean against the wall, pressing your head against the tiles. You wonder if Trant has ever touched himself while thinking about you. The thought of that drives you wild. You don't have time to imagine anything more elaborate than Trant kissing you and jerking you off before you come into your hand.

You lean against the wall and let the water wash over you as you get your breath back, feeling a mixture of relief and shame. Fuck, that was quick. At least you know you still work. You clean up and finish washing as quickly as you can.

Trant is waiting for you in the kitchen. He smiles as you, and for a moment you worry he knows what you got up to in the shower. But you tell yourself you're probably being paranoid, and return his smile.

"I'm sorry, I haven't got much milk left," he says, pushing the jug of milk over to you after you sit down.

"Do you want me to get you some more?" you ask as you fill your bowl with cereal and pour a small amount of milk over it.

"Actually, I have a list of things I need. Only if you wouldn't mind," he says, pouring out his own cereal.

"What have I told you? I'll do anything you need."

"Thank you," he says, and goes to get the list off the fridge.

"You can borrow my MC, that is, if you're feeling up to driving."

"Oh, thanks. Yeah, I have a headache, but when do I not?"

"You should see a doctor about that," he says.

You shrug. "It's not like they'd do anything," you say. "Anyway, what's going on with your doctor, Mr can't-play-polo?"

"I haven't heard from him. I expect it will be next week now. Today's Saturday." He sighs and looks down, pushing his cereal around with his spoon.

"It really sucks that they have to keep you waiting like this. Again."

Trant nods. "It's not just that," he says. "I usually have Mikael most weekends. This is the second one I've missed in a row."

"You should have said. I'd have gone to pick him up."

Trant gives you a little smile. "Thanks. I'll talk to Elise, see if we can arrange something. If that's okay with you?"

You nod. "Why can't she drop him off?"

"Elise? She doesn't drive," he says, his forehead creasing.

"Convenient."

"She was involved in an accident, when she was younger. The other driver didn't make it out alive."

"Oh. Shit."

"Shit indeed," Trant says. "It's never really been an issue until I became ill."

You glance at your watch. "Goddamn it, I'm gonna be late."

Trant gets the keys to the MC and hands them to you. You stand up and hurry towards the door to find where you left your shoes.

"Jean?" Trant says as you're opening the door, and you turn around. He takes hold of your arms and kisses you. "Have a good day at work."

You're momentarily stunned by this cliché bit of domesticity that you never imagined you'd be a part of. "Yeah. Thanks," you say, and lean in to give him another quick kiss. This is too good to be true. This… can't last, can it? Before you can think about it any more, you turn to leave.

As you're already late, you drive home to pick up your gun and your jacket, as it's probably best not to also get in trouble for not having your ID and weapon if you need them. You realise you didn't need to borrow clothes from Trant, you could have just gone home earlier. But this time it actually feels quite nice to be wearing his clothes. They smell of his aftershave. Oh, this is going to be distracting.