Cin would put money on him understanding it, though. He can only do so much to ease Tom's own gender-related discomfort, but Tom must grasp how much help this would be if anything he's said is true, and Cin has no reason to doubt him.
"I wanted to offer earlier, but I kept feeling like it'd sound as if I wanted you to change. And I don't! I think you're perfect. But I think you'd be even more perfect if you were comfortable and I'd like a chance to get to know you in your own body. The way you want it."
"I already said yes. I don't need a hard sell on this."
"Okay, cool. Then I want you to pick a doctor—maybe a couple of doctors, so you find a good fit—and make an appointment. Just have them send me the bill. Unless you want me to go with you?"
"I understand they like to talk to friends and family as part of the process, so I might as well take advantage of the hand-holding, if it's on offer." Cin rubs his nose against Tom's. He knows that even if he broke up with Tom this second, Tom would go through with the offer. Not that he feels any need to break up with him right now. He's hoping he'll know when the time comes to say goodbye, and this doesn't feel like it.
Hot
billionaires also don't grow on trees. No sense wasting them.
*~*~*
"I've brought you here when I want you all over me again." Cin indicates the beach in front of them. "But I owe you a better apology." He swings the picnic basket—actually a regular basket he picked up at a market stall while he and Tom were on a grocery run—in the direction of a shady spot on the sand. They've got a rug today, so it's not impossible he'll get laid out of the deal.
"No, you don't." Tom squeezes his hand.
"Well, it's not the greatest apology. Sandwiches are kind of the height of my culinary abilities. Not quite what you're used to."
"Hey, you've experienced my cooking. It can't be much worse."
Cin laughs and tugs Tom toward the shady, flat patch he's spotted a few yards away. It's a cooler day and they took the walk slower, so Tom doesn't seem like he's dying this time. Maybe he's just gotten fitter over the summer. Cin passes Tom the basket and lays out the blanket he'd grabbed on the way out.
"Listen—and please don't interrupt me—but I know that our relationship hasn't exactly been orthodox and I really
don't
know how it's gonna fare when we have to go back to reality. What I want you to know is that this has meant a lot to me. When we started out, I really did think I was just going to have a little fun fucking an older man, because that's what weird artists
do
and it'd be cool to put in my memoirs, but that's changed. I told you I loved you the other day and I wasn't sure I meant it then, but I am now. I want that to stay true, even at the expense of being with you."
"Wow." Tom sits down on the rug, staring at Cin the whole time. "I… I dunno what to say to that."
"I have a suggestion?"
"I'm all ears."
Cin sits down on the rug in front of Tom and leans in. "Promise me that if you ever feel like this isn't working, you'll tell me sooner rather than later. I'm not likely to change, so don't wait for it. Let it finish when it's over."
Tom frowns. "Are you telling me you don't think this is worth working for?"
"No, no." Cin looks at Tom for a few minutes, giving himself a moment to piece his thoughts together. "I just don't want us to hate each other. I don't want you to sit quietly and resent me. Especially over something I can't control."
"You think I'll leave you 'cause you're trans, huh?"
Cin's not sure Tom should be
smiling
about that, but he is. It's not a happy smile, though. "That's not an unrealistic fear."
"Well, I mean, I didn't really know this at the time, but a lot of my partners have left me because of that."
"Oh." Cin shifts on the rug. He hadn't really thought of it that way. Or, rather, he hadn't really thought
Tom
would have thought of it that way. "I guess when you put it like that…"
"Look, I'm not promising you that nothing will ever come between us, because I can't. But I would like to promise you that I'll try to stop it for as long as this is working. You're not disposable to me."
"Poppy said that. That I wasn't disposable to you, I mean. In those exact words."
"Well, she's always right." Tom lifts up the corner of the kitchen towel Cin covered the picnic basket with. "Can we eat now? And stop talking about how we might not be this happy forever?"
Cin recognizes that despite Tom's light tone, this conversation really is upsetting him. It's obvious that he's been thinking about this, too. It's one thing to have a successful relationship when there are no outside influences, but when they go to their respective homes, they won't just be doing the long-distance thing. They'll be doing the long-distance, transgender, age-difference, class-difference thing. If Cin were a girl—and ideally a model—it'd be a Cinderella story. But he's not, and no one's going to see it that way. He'd like to think he was above worrying about other people's opinions, but he's smart enough to know that no one ever really is.
"Yeah, we can eat. And Tom?"
"Mmm?" Tom glances up, already peering into the basket. At least Cin always knows the way to his heart, now.
"For the record, I think this is worth working for. Fighting for, even."
"I agree," Tom says around a mouthful of sandwich. "If you let me eat now, then I will also eat later." He looks at Cin with one eyebrow raised, and it takes a moment for Cin to catch his meaning. He can feel his face light up when he gets it, though.
"Then please, don't let me stop you." Cin pushes the basket over after extracting his own sandwich. He feels better, now that they've talked about this. He'd felt before like he was keeping a secret from Tom about the possibility of their relationship not working out, but he's starting to realize that that's true of all relationships and it'd be better to just see what happens and stop worrying about it.
As true as it is that most relationships don't work out, there are also plenty that do. They might still be doing this when they're both senior citizens, for all Cin knows.
*~*~*
Cin walks into the living room as casually as he can, kisses the top of Tom's head from behind the sofa, and then drops a portable hard drive into his lap. He shouldn't be nervous about this, but there's a tiny, niggling feeling in the back of his mind that it might all go horribly wrong.
"Are you asking me to fix this? Because it's probably the cable." Tom picks the little black case up.
"It's not broken. At least, it wasn't broken a few minutes ago, but you know what happens when I go near electronics."
"You're so gorgeous that they freak out in your presence and pretend to be dead," Tom says, as though this is just a fact of life. "So what is it?"
"Porn."
"Porn?" Tom raises an eyebrow and gingerly sets the hard drive down again.
"Porn. I'm going to assume you've heard of it."
"Safe assumption. Haven't seen much that does anything for me, though."
"Well, I can't promise anything, but we've only got two days before I really need to head back to school, and then we're probably not gonna see each other for a while. So this is all porn about people like us."
"They make that?" Tom looks at Cin as though he half-expects this to be a prank.
"You know, for a genius, there are a lot of things you don't know." Cin reaches out to take Tom's hand, already thinking about how much he's going to miss it. He hadn't expected to, in the beginning, but now the idea of being without him sticks in his chest and makes him bite his lip to stop it from trembling. Cin knows it isn't the end, but he doesn't like the idea of being separated. That was a completely new feeling that he hasn't had time to think too much about yet, but he suspects that it might have something to do with being in love with Tom.
"I'm a genius?" Tom lights up.
"Duh." Cin rolls his eyes, unable to stop himself from smiling at the last second. "I couldn't find anything that was
exactly
like us, but I don't know how much fun that would be, anyway. If you wanted a sex tape, we could have made one."
"Not that I don't trust you, but I'm not sure I want anything like that to exist. I'd never live it down."
"I'm not suggesting we
do
make one. Not that I give a crap if the whole world sees me fucking you. I'm getting very proud of fucking you, actually." Cin grins. Tom blushes and links their fingers together.
"I'm still not completely clear on why you're giving me a hard drive full of porn. Though I am impressed that you've filled a whole terabyte."
"It's nothing like full, but there was more than I could fit on a USB stick. I'm giving it to you to watch, obviously. You've gotta have
something
to keep you warm in the big city."
"You don't… feel like that would be cheating?" Tom looks at Cin carefully, as though he's afraid this is some kind of test he doesn't really understand the aim of. Cin stares at him, not entirely sure how to parse that sentence for a few moments.
"I… No?" Cin frowns. "Where did you get that idea?"
"I dunno?" Tom wrinkles his nose, obviously thinking about this. "I just… Should I be looking at anyone other than you? That seems wrong."
"Well, I mean, if it genuinely makes you uncomfortable, then I don't want you to do it. But… I'm not sure what to tell you other than that as long as I'm the only person you touch, we're fine. Fantasizing is good. It makes you happier and healthier and better in bed. Not that you need to be better, but… you get what I'm getting at, right? I just thought it might help. To see that you're not alone, too."
Tom turns the hard drive over in his hands. "If you
want
me to, I guess it's okay?"
"Would it help if we watched something together?" Cin offers. This hasn't exactly gone wrong, but Cin hadn't expected to be telling Tom that it was okay to watch porn, because he'd imagined that Tom would already have come to that conclusion by himself. He wondered more and more what Tom's previous partners had really been like, but it seemed rude to ask, and Tom didn't talk about them directly. For every time Tom hesitated in something or had strange ideas about things, though, Cin put together another piece of his romantic past. It wasn't a pretty picture, as far as he was concerned.
"I've never watched porn with anyone before." Tom scratches the back of his neck. "But yeah, okay. If you want."
"If you decide you'd rather not at any point, we can stop. But there's a great teacher/student one I'd really like to show you. I will
happily
sit in your lap for it, even."
Tom seems to relax, the tension obvious in his posture easing off. "Yeah, okay," he repeats. "Porn it is."
Cin goes to grab his laptop without bothering to hide his enthusiasm. Getting to be the first person to share things like this with Tom wasn't something he'd expected to enjoy—he's never been the kind desperate to be anyone's first—but it's thrilling all the same. That's probably a part of being in love with him.
Tom had been kicked out of Cin's room over a week ago and not allowed back in, though Cin was happy to join him everywhere else in the house when they both had nothing to do. They hadn't been fighting in the meantime, but Cin was clearly doing
something
he didn't want Tom to know about. He hadn't really thought much of it until Cin kept grabbing every moment he could to lock himself in there and not come out for hours at a time. Then, it had become the mystery of a lifetime, as far as Tom was concerned.
So now that he's been invited back, his brain is working overtime trying to figure out what he's about to find in there. Cin isn't helping, all secretive smiles and giggles as he leads Tom up the stairs to the door of his bedroom.
"Don't kill me, okay? But you said I could do this and I wanted it to be a surprise."
"Should I be worried?" Tom looks at Cin carefully. "Because I'm not going to kill you; I'd miss you way too much."
"Okay, good, you can open the door, then." Cin looks innocent. Tom hesitates with his hand on the knob, then takes a deep breath and opens the door.
What he sees on the other side makes his mouth fall open and robs him of the power of speech for a moment. On the far wall, surrounding the picture window, there's a mural of the secluded beach they’d visited a few times. Like everything Cin paints, it's beautiful, but it's so much more than decoration, and the full force of everything it means hits Tom all at once, gluing him in place.
"Wow," he finally manages to say. "I… Wow."
Tom bites his lip to stop himself from crying, tears already stinging at his eyes. It feels like the greatest honor he's ever received that Cin has left his mark on the house. That he's painted a scene that reminds Tom of holding his hand and watching the sunset and ending up with sand in places he'd rather not have had sand, but wouldn't have traded for the world. It's a huge gift, bigger than anything he's given or proposed to give Cin.
Beside him, Cin takes Tom's hand gently and links their fingers together. "I take it you like it? You
did
say I could paint the walls. I wasn't sure if you were serious, though."
"If you wanna paint every wall in this house, they're all yours," Tom says, without looking away from the wall Cin has painted.
"Well, I thought I'd start with my room. Next year, you can pick the wall."
"You're coming back next year?" Tom hadn't dared ask. He's been happy to have Cin for every day he has him, but longer is definitely better.
"Assuming I'm invited." Cin clicks his tongue. "I mean, considering your response, if I didn't have to leave tomorrow, I'd do the rest of the house now. I'm gonna miss it here."
"You're definitely invited. And you know you don't have to leave if you don't want to."
Cin's nose wrinkles, a smile flickering over his lips. Tom's started to grasp that it's the look Cin gives him when he's being dense. "There's no value in anything if you can have it as soon as you think of wanting it. That's why you like me so much. You have to work for me."