Clusterfuck

xv

The entire car ride is dead silent, not that Toby cares at all. Although, maybe it's a little bit dangerous, considering the sound of the road drifting past below his tires is enough to make him nod off to sleep, which is very possible without Leo's mouth running off.

The house is silent when they arrive, thank God. The last thing Toby needs right now, on top of bringing Leo into his home, is to explain to Reggie why he's bringing Leo into his home.

"My roommate's asleep," Toby tells Leo, closing and locking the door behind the both of them. "Try not to make a lot of noise."

Leo nods, his hands fiddling awkwardly with the hem of his shirt.

Toby sighs. "My room's over here. C'mon."

Toby feels like a mother dragging her child into a doctor's appointment as he guides Leo in the right direction.

Toby throws his stuff down as Leo observes the room, his gaze floating over every wall, every piece of furniture, every nook in the desk, every bump on the popcorned ceiling. And for the first time, Toby is suddenly very aware of how bare everything is and his face flushes in shame at the bland abyss he calls home.

"Uh. Here." Toby roots around in the top drawer of his dresser for a few moments, then tosses a t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts at Leo's chest. "You can. Uh. Sleep in these."

"You don't have to—"

"It's fine. Do you want to take a shower? You can, if you want."

"Um. No, I-I'm fine. I took one this morning."

As if Toby couldn't tell. As if the pleasant lemony aroma of Leo's shampoo hadn't been harassing his nostrils earlier that morning when they gave their presentation.

"The bathroom's—uh. Right there," Toby tells him, gesturing to his right, focusing his eyes on the insides of his drawer as he scourges for clothes for himself. "You can change in there."

"Okay. Thanks."

"Mhm."

Normally, Toby wouldn't bother changing out of the t-shirt he's wearing now—it's not like he's sweaty or gross or anything. But he does, tonight. Just because. He pulls on a plain white shirt, and after it's over his head, he panics for a second when he realizes that this one might be the one with the blue stain on the front, but then there's a clicking noise as the bathroom door unlocks and prepares to swing open, so he fights his arms through the shirt as fast as he possibly can. Fuck. It might be backwards. It feels too close to his neck.

Toby doesn't look at Leo when he emerges, and instead becomes set on smoothing out the sheets and fluffing up his limp pillows. Only when the display is straighter than he could ever be does he finally decide there's not a point to it anymore, so he turns to address Leo. But he stops short.

Leo is short. Like, more so than usual, it seems. He looks so—so small in Toby's clothes. What the hell. What the fuck. The shirt is only a size medium, and yet it seems to hang off of Leo's torso like drapes off a curtain rod. What the hell. The shorts are too big, too, but Leo must have cinched them to his waist using the drawstring on the inside, considering they aren't actively sliding down his legs.

"You like Queen?" Leo asks, jolting Toby back down to Earth. Not that he'd gone anywhere else.

"Huh?" Toby forgot what he was even going to say before.

"The band, Queen?" Leo looks down, gesturing to his shirt—Toby's shirt—which displays the album cover for A Day at the Races.

"Oh." Toby clears his throat. "Oh. Yeah. I do."