"Have you and your friend been having fun tonight?" Rory asks while leading Joshua into his minimalist-styled bedroom.

Joshua's heart is seconds from leaping out of his chest as he opens his mouth to answer the question, but he soon finds himself going mute after Rory shuts the door and takes his shirt off.

Joshua's mind goes blank as he awkwardly stares at Rory’s sixpack.

Rory posts shirtless selfies all the time on social media, so this isn't the first time that Joshua has seen him like this, however, it is the first time that Joshua has seen Rory like this in person and what a beautiful fucking sight it is to witness.

"Hey. You still with me, Joshua?" Rory chuckles at the starstruck look that’s on Joshua’s face. Teasingly, Rory points at his bare torso and smirks. "See something you like? Or don't?" Rory walks to Joshua in a casual yet tempting manner, needing to get inside the dresser that Joshua is leaning against for support. Rory stands unnecessarily close to the boy as he pulls a clean shirt from one of the drawers. "Anyway, the bathroom is over there if you still need it."

Joshua whispers a barely audible 'thanks' before taking off in the direction Rory points. Joshua locks himself inside the bathroom, taking a few minutes to try and regain his composure.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! Joshua stares at his bewildered reflection in the mirror, his cheeks tinted pink and eyes opened wide. I’m not imagining it. Rory was definitely flirting with me. His voice, that smirk… Could he be…?

Joshua splashes cold water on his face while praying for strength because he doesn’t want to give Rory the wrong impression by coming off skittish or uninterested. Truthfully, Joshua is enjoying all the attention that Rory has been giving him tonight. Joshua’s only problem is that he doesn't know how to handle himself when being hit on by his crush. 

“Did you get lost in there?” Rory calls out from the bedroom, laughing. 

“Almost! Your damn bathroom is like two of my bedrooms,” Joshua jokes. “No one person needs this much of a bathroom. Honestly.”

Joshua flushes the toilet to make it seem like he used it, and then he makes his way back into the bedroom. He frowns a bit, slightly disappointed to see Rory with a new shirt on.

"And to answer your question from earlier," Joshua starts, "even though parties aren’t really my thing, me and my friend have been having fun tonight. All of your friends seem to be having a great time as well. I haven't seen anyone look anything other than happy."

"Yeah…I wouldn't really call most of the people downstairs my friends.” Rory is sitting on his bed while he hooks his phone up to the charger, chuckling humorlessly at Joshua's statement. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m close with a few of them, but not all of them. I’d say the majority of the people downstairs are associates to me rather than friends."

Rory looks up at Joshua, then gently pats the empty spot next to him on the bed. Joshua’s feet start moving before his brain can talk him out of getting closer to Rory.

What was the rule that Joshua said he always abided by? Something about messing with straight boys…?

"Can I tell you something?" Rory asks. "A secret?"

"Yeah. You can tell me anything," Joshua replies, reflexively scooting closer to Rory. "What's on your mind?"

"Everything." Rory sighs, tilting his head back to look up at the ceiling. "I love my job. I love being a creative, but...sometimes this YouTube shit gets tiring, especially when you’re a one-man team like me. I record and edit my own videos, I run my social media accounts by myself, and I try my best to interact with my fans every day. I literally do everything myself and it’s great, but sometimes it can be exhausting, mentally and physically. Some days I wake up and I… I just don’t want to do this anymore. And then I start to feel like shit because YouTube is how I make my living, it’s how I inspire and make people happy, but still, I get tired of it sometimes. I've fallen into a repetitive routine and I'm so damn close to being burnt out."

After Rory is done talking, he feels like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.

He's kept all of that bottled inside of him for so long that he was bound to explode sooner or later. Rory has no idea why Joshua had been his trigger, and if Rory were sober, he wouldn't have let things get this far with Joshua, wouldn’t have let himself get this vulnerable. But regardless of how it happened, Rory is glad it happened with Joshua because he knows the boy would never turn around and use any of this against him.