Joe hadn’t expected to suddenly miss that stomping, that loud music, those happy voices until they were actually gone. He certainly hadn’t expected a knock on his door two days later, and Nicky to arrive with a bottle of wine and a tupperware full of more risotto (It’s squash, are you vegetarian?).

“I just wanted to apologize again, I’m really sorry Joe,” Nicky said completely seriously as he handed Joe the gifts.

Joe hadn’t expected to invite Nicky in to join him in eating said squash risotto and drinking what turned out to be a very nice bottle of wine.

Joe watched Nicky surveil his apartment. The neatly organized drafting table, the easels with half finished portraits of Nile and, shit, Joe thought, the open door to his recording room. To an untrained eye, it looked weird, he knew it did. A dark room with foam covered walls, a binaural microphone with uncanny ear attachments, a relatively fancy camera pointing at the whole set up. He quickly closed the door, which he then realized made it look ten times more suspicious.

“It’s an art project,” Joe said vaguely. Nicky nodded slowly with a confused look on his face.

Joe tried to distract him with questions about his doctoral studies. Yes, he wanted to be a professor, and no, there were no jobs in academia. He learned of Nicky’s academic parents and the strange route he came by to settling into doctoral student-hood (culinary school, tech startup, he’d even considered seminary). Somehow, Joe also started sharing the round about way he came to being an “artist” (surprisingly supportive parents, travelling, a brief stint in radio commercials). Joe was surprised how comfortable he felt sharing all this with the man he’d considered Most Hateful less than 48 hours before.

And yet, here they were, eating, drinking, making merry. Nicky had even cheekily told him to be quiet after Joe burst out in a particularly loud laugh, “Careful, I hear some of the neighbors need quiet around here!” which made Joe laugh even harder.

And that’s how it started. After long days of quiet, Joe working diligently recording videos, Nicky would just … show up. Sometimes with a new culinary concoction, sometimes with a bottle of wine and some fresh figs from the market down the road, sometimes with a distressed furrow in his brow and a microwave manual in his hand. And each time, Joe felt that same flutter in his stomach.

“I think what you’re describing is friendship,” Nile said after Joe described his predicament to her on her couch.

Booker nodded knowingly from the armchair.

“But,” Joe said helplessly. “He was so horrible when he moved in. You remember how loud he was?”

Nile rolled her eyes at him. “He was moving in, Joe, and he thought he was living next to a ghost!” Nile was eager to forgive Nicky his sin of existing, even though she’d never met him. She simply appreciated a good ass when she saw one.

“It’s not his fault that you need complete silence so people can get their rocks off to you whispering,” Booker said.

Joe and Nile both shot him the same glare. Nile got it, Booker… Well, he tried.

“Oh god, what if he finds out,” Joe put his head in his hands.

Nile rubbed his back gently. “Who cares?”

“What if he cares?” Joe said. Unavoidably his mind turned to his previous boyfriend, who found the whole endeavour off-putting, so much so that he’d asked Joe to stop and Joe had asked him to leave. But why was Joe even thinking about former boyfriends? He wasn’t even sure if Nicky was gay. He’d never even mentioned a former partner.

“Well, if he somehow finds out and if he is weird about it then we can go back to hating him in peace,” Booker said supportively. “I miss those days.”

“Anyway, how’s he gonna find out?” Nile asked.

It turned out, pretty easily.

Nicky showed up, as usual, at Joe’s door with a bottle of Merlot and a tray of freshly baked biscotti. An experiment, he’d announced, and Joe was to be his willing lab rat. Joe poured the wine and they settled in on his couch, tasting the biscotti which turned out to be delicious.

An hour and a few glasses later, their conversation settled and Joe could sense nervousness radiating at him from the other man. He sat on the edge of the couch, he picked crumbs off his jeans.

“What?” Joe asked, steeling himself.

“I don't want to sound weird,” Nicky said hesitantly.

“You always sound weird,” Joe teased but his heart was thumping in his chest.

“Is the reason you need so much quiet because you make videos?” Nicky asked. Just vague enough to let Joe lie.

Joe swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “Yeah.”

“ASMR videos?” Nicky asked, his voice totally neutral, though Joe could tell there was something hidden behind the question.

Joe nodded.

“I hope you don’t think this is weird,” Nicky started glancing at his hands, as if… guilty? Joe couldn’t place it. “But...I found some of your videos, at least I’m pretty sure they’re yours, and I watched them all.”

Nicky kept staring down at his hands, fidgeting, as if stopping himself from clasping them together in penance.

“You watched them all?” Joe said incredulously. Even he hadn’t watched all of his videos, they were usually hour-long affairs, he usually just edited any abrupt loud noises out and called it a day.

Nicky nodded. He looked up from his hands and gazed into Joe’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Huh?” Joe hadn’t expected an apology.

“It feels wrong to watch so much of you without your permission, those videos are so personal and … intimate … and it just feels weird and creepy for me to be…” He swallowed. “Falling asleep to you every night while you sleep next door and have no idea.”

Joe stared at him. Nicky was falling asleep to him every night?

“And I know me telling you this is probably even more awkward for you, and I get if it ruins …” He gestured to the wine and the biscotti crumbs. “But I couldn’t go on pretending I wasn’t a total freak, I just --”

“Stop,” Joe said finally. He reached out and grabbed Nicky’s hands. Nicky inhaled sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Nicky whispered again, staring at Joe’s warm hands encompassing his freezing ones.

“You really don’t have to be,” Joe said slowly, dipping his head to capture Nicky’s gaze.

To his horror, Joe noticed a tear threatening to drop from Nicky’s long eyelashes. Joe frowned as his hand automatically lifted up as the tear fell down Nicky’s face. Joe thumbed it away as his palm rested on Nicky’s cheek.

Nicky startled at the touch. His whole body seemed to shudder. Joe froze. It was the first time he’d touched Nicky’s face. He hadn’t even asked.

As he was about to draw his hand away, he felt Nicky lean in ever so slightly, his shoulders dropped, the tension in his brows eased away. His whole being relaxed into the palm of Joe’s hand.

Joe didn’t want to move, he didn’t want an inch of that tension back. So they rested there for a moment, Joe sweeping his thumb lightly over Nicky’s cheekbone, Nicky’s breathing slowing.

“It’s okay,” Joe said, and he noticed he had unconsciously taken on the vocal quality he usually reserved for videos. “I really don't mind if you watch my videos.” He paused, unsure of how to convince Nicky that was true. “That’s what they’re there for, to help people relax.”

“You really don’t mind?” Nicky asked again.

Joe shook his head. They stared at each other for a moment more, Joe suddenly aware of the heat of Nicky’s cheek under his hand. He dropped it slowly.

“A lot of my friends watch them, actually,” Joe said, trying to ease Nicky’s mind. “In fact, I only experimented with the pencil crayons last week because my friend Nile suggested it.”

Nicky nodded, he enjoyed that one immensely.

“Now, if only they would agree to be in my videos…” Joe chuckled to himself. He’d been needling Nile and Booker to join him ever since he’d seen a video with some friends in it do extremely well. They insisted they were camera shy.

Nicky looked at him resolutely, as if making up his mind. “I could do it, I could be in your video.”

“Are you sure?” Joe asked slowly. It was a big ask, putting your face out in public in a little understood sub-genre. That sort of thing was not for the faint of heart.

Nicky nodded. “If it would mean a live performance, I would be honored.”

Joe poured them each another glass of wine and they started discussing contracts (Nicky would not hear of accepting any money, he would consider an hour and a half massage his payment, much to Joe’s protestation), limits (Nicky was okay with everything except touching his hair, to Joe’s surprise, he didn’t force him to elaborate), and, of course, outfits (something soft, comfortable and no brand labels).

When the wine and the conversation was done, Nicky left with a giant grin on his face and a hug. A hug! Joe thought dizzily, their first. It was encompassing, as if Nicky’s arms were made to fit around Joe’s body’s just so. Joe was ensconced in the scent he had come to associate with Nicky and he breathed in deeply.

Joe closed the door and slumped back into the couch. He stared up at the ceiling, hoping this wouldn’t be a huge mistake.