“Greg?” Nick called. “Is that you?”

“Yeah!” Greg returned from the living room.

“I um- I’m going to take a shower, so don’t touch the water!”

“Okay!”

And so Nick scrambled his naked form through the hallway, and into the bathroom. He washed quickly, and returned to find there Greg, waiting in the center of their bed. Naked and horny and so fucking hard.

“But...Greg, I just took a shower,” Nick said with a hint of an innocent whine, his thumb pointing toward the door behind him. Then, instantly, he tossed that statement onto the pile of dumbest-things-he’d-ever-said, and didn’t even give Greg a second to comprehend it before yanking off his towel. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked just before their lips met.

“Nothing,”—Greg pulled away just long enough to expel the words—“yet.”

Nick grinned into his kiss as Greg’s legs wrapped around him.

Greg’s hips flexed upwards, desperately seeking more.

“Greg, I’m not even hard enough yet and I-”

“No problem,” Greg breathed, a condom and lube already in hand.

They dismantled, only briefly as Greg came upon him again, lips seizing every opportunity to meet Nick's as they knelt before each other, and he worked the condom out of its packaging. “Mmm, wait,” Greg insisted once Nick leaned back to offer his finally solidified dick to Greg.

“What?” Nick asked, still touching and eager.

“What if...what if we switch it up this time?”

“Switch what up?” And he was kissing Greg’s neck.

“You know... What if I ‘top’ you?”

Nick suddenly stiffened, taking hold of Greg’s shoulders as he pushed himself away. “What?”

“Well I mean, maybe tonight, if you wanted to try it, I thought we could...”

“You want to fuck me,” Nick stated with a sickening sense of seriousness.

“It’s not like I was going to do it against your will, Nick. I was just asking. I- I don’t get why you’re so offended.”

“I just-” Nick sighed, his face twinging with soft regret. “You’ve never brought it up before.”

“I thought you wouldn’t want to.”

“And what makes you think I would now?”

“Because...”

He nudged Greg, trying not to seem too desperate. “What?”

“Where do you hide them?”

“Hide what?”

Greg lifted himself from the bed. “Your toys.”

“My what? Greg,” Nick warned, scrambling after him. Oh fuck, he was heading toward the closet.

“They would be in here, wouldn’t they? I never go in your closet. And they’re not in the drawer with mine...” He started tossing aside clothes in the back corner, until he found a plastic tub a fair bit bigger than a shoebox.

“Greg, stop. I don’t know what you’re talking about but this is my closet and I do not want you-”

“They were here the whole time,” Greg said after releasing the lid. He looked up to Nick. “How come you never shared these with me? I mean, I don’t mean shared—that’s cool that you have your own—but you never told me.”

“It’s none of your business.”

Greg looked instantly wounded.

Nick responded with a grunting, apologetic sort of exhalation. “Look, Greg, it’s nothing personal, I just...”

“I didn’t know you wanted to be fucked,” Greg continued, raising himself and walking to the bed. He sat, inspecting the bin's contents still. “I mean, if I did, I wouldn’t have hogged it, you could have just said-”

“I don’t want you to fuck me.”

Greg managed to look even more hurt, his brow crumpling as those soft brown eyes glossed over.

Nick softened, sitting before Greg, but still couldn’t entirely shake his defensiveness. “Greg, it’s not about you. It’s just about...me.”

“But doesn’t that seem kind of selfish? I mean I’m not trying to complain here—I don’t need to fuck you; I like being fucked pretty well myself—but it’s about you? I thought we were partners here, and you’re hiding this from me?”

Nick couldn’t help a another stifled grunt as he winced. “I’m not trying to hide anything from you. I just...it’s mine. I mean, you jack-off, G—you do what you want to yourself. This is...my thing.”

“Nick, you watch me jack-off all the time. It was the first thing we ever did together. This...” Greg removed one of the larger toys. “You never let me see.”

Nick blushed, shaking his head with critical embarrassment. “You don’t want to see that.”

Greg responded with a shocked smile. “I don’t?”

“I’m the one who fucks you. You don’t want to see me...like that.”

“Like what? Nick, I like anal sex. I don’t care who does what where, I just want to be a part of it. Or even watching it because that can be...” He willingly trailed off once his eyes met Nick’s urgent glare again. “I just mean—what do you think of me when I get fucked? When I use toys for you? You love it. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because I...”

“Because you what? You're a 'top'?"

“It’s not like that. I don’t want to be ‘a bottom’ because I never want to be ‘topped’. I just like doing it myself.”

“Why? Do you think there’s something weak about letting yourself be fucked? Do you... Do you think there’s something weak about me?” Greg asked, a softness in his tone that warded off most hints of accusation.

“No. But for me...” He blinked, the burn of tears stinging his eyes, and took a moment to try and stifle it. “I just couldn’t tell anyone.” A lone, heavy tear dropped. “I don’t think less of you, Greg,” he assured with a hitching honesty in his voice. “I think less of me.”

“But I don’t think less of you,” Greg whispered, closer.

“You only know what I’ve told you. If you saw how I...” He shook his head, trying to rid his tears along with it, and scoffed. “Taking it like a girl...”

“But I have seen you.”

Nick looked to him with startled, stern intrigue.

“The other day. I came home early and I... You left the bedroom door cracked open, so I just...looked. And you were with this thing,” Greg said, removing the largest dildo of the lot. Greg’s eyebrows raised a bit. “It’s bigger than anything I’ve ever taken. All I can take is you.”

Nick would have smirked if he weren’t still so ashamed, and afraid of Greg’s further response. But Greg was getting so aroused by this, just recalling what he’d witnessed.

“You had it suctioned to that chair.” He pointed to the metal one beneath a nearby desk. “And you were so...concentrated. The way your tongue pushed out to wet your lips, and the way you panted and your thighs trembled from the intensity of it all and... I couldn’t look away. I didn’t see anything ‘girly’. I saw...” He placed hand on Nick’s chest, breath heavy. “I saw you.”

Nick’s eyes closed as Greg’s lips met his cheek for a few affectionate kisses to the lingering wetness.

“It’s okay, Nick. It’s private, I understand that. But you don’t have to be ashamed of it, ya know. We’ve probably all done some things while alone and in that frame of mind that we’d rather keep to ourselves.”

“Yeah?” Nick forced a half-smile, a knuckle wiping the corner of his eye. “Why do you say that?”

Greg laughed a smirking sigh, looking down as he developed his own shy blush. “I knew you’d ask that.”

“You gotta tell me now, babe,” Nick said, cupping Greg’s cheek.

“It’s not...anything, really, I just...sometimes I’ll suck my thumb while...ya know.”

“Your thumb?” Nick laughed in amused disbelief.

“It’s the suction. In my mouth. I don’t know, it intensifies things sometimes.”

Nick looked a bit put off, but at the same time intrigued.

“I’m sorry I left you out of it, Nick. You can suck my thumb if you want to,” Greg assured with exaggerated emotion and a childish grin, thrusting his thumb into Nick’s face.

Nick batted it away with a grin to match Greg’s playfulness, laughing, “No.” But as things settled again, Nick's smile faded. He looked down. "I'm sorry."