Office Match

Romance short. Two men exchange crafts in the office — and then exchange more than that.

4.3k, M/M, rated M. Just some sweet romance in an office setting — mild humour, back-and-forth, lots of shyness and some autistic vibes, some size difference and kink. Adapted from a TweetFic.

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Will’s noticed Hank about the office.

Of course he has — Hank’s a big man, and not at all easy to miss. He’s just about six feet and very broad across the shoulders with a heavy, generous chest — it doesn’t matter what shirt he picks out, because it seems every one of them ends up straining across his breast with the weight of his pectoral muscles forcing the buttons to strain.

The office is across three floors, and at first Hank is downstairs as he works through his probationary period, but Will sees him in the canteen or in one of the restaurants downstairs, occasionally crosses paths with him in the lift or sees him as he goes out to get the bus.

He’s a handsome man — apart from being tall and broad, he’s bald and has a strong jaw, dark, heavily lidded eyes, well-defined cheeks and a beautifully stubbled jaw. He doesn’t speak much, but Will is aware that as much as he’s noticed Hank, Hank’s noticed him back.

He’s not on any dating apps, but nor does he wear a wedding ring — and Will can often see him in the mirror as he looks him over, takes him in. It’s not as though Will gets extraordinarily dressed up for the office, but he likes to make sure his suits fit him well, likes to ensure he looks good.

He’s caught Hank looking at his arse once or twice on one morning or other, and it’s a pleasant little boost to the day each time — it’s nice to be appreciated, even if by a man so tremendously shy he never manages more than a “Hello,” or “Hi,” in the elevator.

After his three months, Hank comes up to the main office and takes the desk to the left of Will’s.

“How long have you worked here?” he asks the second morning, turning in his chair to peer over Will’s shoulder at his spreadsheet as he works through it. It’s a shared sheet — he’s perfectly capable of opening it view-only in a window on his own computer — but Will hardly minds.

“About six years,” Will says mildly.

Hank grunts, gives a nod of his head. His big hands are braced on his desk, which looks somewhat bare compared to Will’s — he’s put in those little sticky things to decorate his desk divider in faux-ceramic pinks and whites so that it resembles a tiled surface, and apart from that he’s got a few little ornaments about, some knitting, a few little figures of strolling women with parasols in their kimono.

Hank stares at his desk with his face blank, his lips shifted into a natural frown, his brow furrowed forward. “So you’re like… gay?”

Will smiles at him. “Uh huh.”

“And everyone’s, like — Fine with that?”

“They’re delighted with it,” Will answers, and Hank gets to his feet in one motion. “Making yourself a cup of tea?”

“Coffee.”

“Make a tea for me while you’re at it, will you? Black, one sugar.”

“Okay.”

Will watches him head off, and then looks to Ava as she comes to lean on his desk divider, looking down at Will with an expression of evident concern writ upon her face.

“What?”

“You okay?” she asks in a low voice, and Will tilts his head slightly as he looks up at her, leaning back in his seat and resting his elbows in the arms of his seat.

“I am,” Will murmurs. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, he’s…” Ava nods in Hank’s direction, and Will follows her gaze to the kitchenette, where he can see the bulk of Hank’s figure through the glass, looking down at the kettle. “You know. Asking you if you’re gay like that? Do you think he’s going to be a problem?”

“A — ” Will repeats, and then he smiles, not letting himself laugh as he looks up at her, resting his chin against his palm. “A problem?” he repeats. “Oh, Ava, that wasn’t… that wasn’t homophobia.”

Ava frowns at him, leaning back slightly. “He didn’t have to ask it like that, to ask you as if it’s a problem.”

“Honey, he didn’t ask as if it was a problem,” Will murmurs. “He’s just got a blunt way about him, that’s all.”

“He’s a big, cis straight guy,” Ava says. “I guess I just… I wanted to make sure you were okay. You know, um…” She trails off after the “you know”, evidently not sure what the correct thing would be for an ally to say, and he gives her an affectionate smile, reaching out and squeezing her hand.

Will is fully aware of what a crush looks like from a big man like this one, straight or not, but there’s no sense in explaining that sort of thing to Ava.

“I’m not uncomfortable, Ava, but thank you for checking in. Hank and I are alright.”

Ava nods her head, and Will smiles warmly at Hank as he comes over with their mugs and very carefully sets one of them beside him, on top of one of Will’s coasters. He tries to be subtle about it, but Will can see how carefully he’s watching as he takes a sip.

“Lovely,” he says aloud. “Thanks very much, Hank. Or — Henry?”

That takes him by surprise — Hank’s jaw initially drops, but then he smiles faintly at him and turns back to his work.

* * *

Hank remains shy and not naturally chatty, but he gets a little better about it. Whenever he gets up to make himself a coffee or a tea, he makes one for Will as well — he asks the simple questions: “How are you?”, “Did you have a good weekend?”, “How’s your day going?” from time to time, although mostly he stumbles through answering them when Will poses them.

For a few weeks, on their lunch breaks, he studies Will intently when he knits on his breaks, or sometimes when he’s on videocalls and wants to keep his hands occupied — Will doesn’t like to push the matter, so he simply waits until Hank asks himself one Thursday, eating an apple from his lunch.

“You knit?” Hank asks.

“You’ve noticed!” Will replies, and Hank laughs awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. His cheeks have darkened a bit. “I’m knitting some socks for my sister’s kids — lovely colour, aren’t they?”

It becomes easier for him after that — he asks Will questions about what he’s working on, what the current project is. He’s genuinely interested and engaged by it, and Will can see that he’s not really certain about how to approach, but at least he can ask, and Will shows him — he shows Hank the pattern he’s working on for a new jumper for his sister, or baby clothes he’s donating, or a scarf he knits especially to go with some new shoes.

When he gifts Hank a scarf of his own, knitted in a rich brown to match his handsome eyes, he wears it every day — he doesn’t even appear to own an actual winter coat, but the scarf he wears all the time.

“He really likes that scarf, doesn’t he?” Ava asks a week after Will had given it to him, watching him wrap it around his neck before he gets ready to go, and Will smirks at her. “Oh,” she says. “Oh, right. I get it.”

Will doesn’t want to spook him or intimidate him — Hank struggles to work up the courage, Will thinks, to ask about anything that Will doesn’t broach as a topic first, and even then, he often gives short, abridged answers to any question Will might ask him.

Will gets the impression that at one point or another he’s been told it’s rude to talk too much about himself, or otherwise has been punished for it — very occasionally he seems as if he wants to say more, or wants to ask more questions, and then abruptly clamps his jaw shut, bites his lip.

“Would you like to try?” Hank asks one morning as they sit, bored at their desks, waiting impatiently for the network to come back online.

“What?” Hank asks, and then looks panicked. “Oh, no. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t know how.”

“Yeah, honeybee, the point is I’ll teach you,” Will says mildly, and before Hank can protest any more, he puts a set of needles into his hands and sets about teaching him how to cast on. He’s an attentive student, leans in close to Will as Will takes him through each of the steps, and then the initial stitches.

“I’m too clumsy for this,” he mutters.

“Darling, everyone’s clumsy at first — and even veterans miss a stitch or two from time to time. Just keep at it, there you go, through the loop… There, see? You’re a natural: not clumsy at all.”

He’s smiling again, and Will feels a little bit fluttery, his chest warm and feeling ever so light.

They knit together companionably until the internet comes back on, and then Hank says, “Um, is it — Is it okay if I, if I keep these?”

“Of course,” Will says reflexively.

He doesn’t expect Hank to keep at it, but he feels terribly warm whenever he comes into the office or comes back from lunch to see Hank knitting with the needles — and feels even warmer whenever he asks Will for yarn recommendations.

* * *

“Surprise,” says Hank, almost in a whisper, when Will comes in one Monday morning, and he’s delighted at what he sees when Hank turns his chair around for him — resting up against the seat is a red and white cushion made up of nine palettes, the colours matched as best as Hank could, Will supposes, with the little tiled background he has in his office cubicle.

He picks it up and strokes the yarn on the front, very curious to see that although the red knitted panels are slightly slapdash and uneven, visibly the work of a beginner, the stitching attaching the 9 squares to a cloth cover are impeccably neat.

“Have you been hiding your background as a tailor here, Henry?”

Hank smiles up at him, shyly sliding his palms down his knees. “My mother used to do alterations,” he murmurs. “I used to help, and I did a GCSE in Design and Textiles.”

“You do surprise me. Any other boys in the class?”

“Mn, just one.”

“Was he as pretty as I am?” Will puts the backside of his hand underneath his chin, pushing it up and showing off the lines of his jaw, and Hank blinks up at him.

He looks near well bashful, the duskiness showing in his cheeks. “Mmm… No. I guess not.”

In the next few weeks, Hank gets more confident at it, and soon enough he’s knitting bits and pieces for the donation box as well, just like Will is — he’s not as quick, but he’s really quite good, and some of them laugh in the office at how they look together, both in their seats and knitting on their breaks, while they chat, while they’re on calls.

“He’s so big, and you’re so little!” Henrietta, one of the older women says, as if Will doesn’t know — as if Will doesn’t think about it all the time.

And honestly, it’s hard not to be at least a little bit smug — Hank isn’t remotely as interested in talking to any of their pretty, female coworkers as he is talking to Will, and often redirects everyone who comes over to chat to him to talking to Will instead.

“Hank,” Will says one day. “Why don’t you come over tonight, hm? We can watch a movie, we can have a few beers, I can show you all my knitting ephemera…”

“Ephemera?”

“You know, my miscellany.”

Hank looks at him flatly — he’s really got such a blunt sense of humour — “Your stuff.”

“Yes, dear, my stuff.”

Hank huffs out a laugh. “Prick,” he says, and Will beams.

“Will.”

“Henry?”

“You want me to fuck you,” says Hank, and Will stares at him, his lips parting, suddenly a flood of panic running through him as his blood goes cold. Hank’s expression doesn’t reveal much, but he does lean forward slightly, and his knee touches Will’s.

“I would like that very much,” Will says quietly, glancing to the rest of the office and ensuring no one’s eavesdropping. “But I really wasn’t making an overture, per se, if you’re at all uncomfortable — ”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” says Hank. His body is stiff and he’s staring down at his own hands, which are resting on his knees, instead of Will’s face. “I’ve just never had sex before.”

“With — With a man?”

“With anybody.”

“Oh,” says Will, taking in Hank’s handsome body, the frozen look on his face. “I see,” he says. “I see.”

“I’m sorry,” Hank mumbles. “That’s not what you wanted.”

“God, you’re perfect,” mutters Will, rubbing at his own cheek. “Hank, honeybee, I can assure you that’s not what I expected, but it’s not… We don’t have to do a thing you don’t want.”

“I want to,” Hank says very quickly, which is flattering, to say the least. “Unless I’d, um… hurt you.” He glances dubiously at Will’s body, which is plump and in his own opinion quite attractive, but compared to Hank’s could be called anything but sizable. He’s a short man, round-cheeked, round-hipped, and round-arsed, and he’s been called doll-like more times than one.

“You couldn’t hurt me if you tried, Henry, I promise you,” says Will. “Me, I stretch like bubblegum.”

Hank stares at him with his eyes wide, and then stares at his computer screen. He’s sweating, and his cheeks have darkened noticeably.

* * *

That evening, Hank sits ramrod straight in the middle of Will’s sofa, looking up at the framed art on the walls, some of it done by Will’s sister’s children, although the fancy stuff was done by Lou herself, naturally.

“You’re a really artistic family,” says Hank.

“My grandmothers despaired that Lou never wanted to join our knitting circle,” says Will. “Always wanted to throw paint at walls or graffiti bridges or make some sort of shadow sculpture with a nail gun. Knitting was too orderly for her artistic spirit.”

“Hm,” says Hank severely, then sniffs, glancing back toward the kitchen. He’d hovered for ages in the middle of the room before Will had gently squeezed his arms and asked him politely to sit down. “What are you cooking?”

“Just a pasta puttanesca. Pasta for sluts.”

Hank stares at him. “For who?”

“Putta. Puttana, a slut, a whore, a trollop. It’s just an everything pasta sauce, that’s all — tomato, pepper, mushrooms, some capers, garlic, chillis.”

“Oh, fuck,” says Hank, sitting up in his seat and looking over into the kitchen, his nostrils flaring, and Will laughs as he puts the garlic bread in the oven to toast through, let the cheese melt. “Bread too?”

“Homemade focaccia.”

“That the rectangle bread?”

Will moves past him to the bookshelf, plucking off a recipe book and flipping through the breads, opening it up so Hank can see the picture and passing it over to him.

“Rosemary and garlic.”

Hank stares at the page, then looks up at Will. His gaze rests for a second on Will’s apron, which says, “A day without knitting is no day at all,” and was a gift from several Christmases ago, before it rises up to his face. His tone is very serious as he asks, “Why hasn’t someone already married you?”

Will laughs so hard his eyes tear up.

Hank watches him intently as he grips at the side of the sofa to keep from falling. He wipes sharply at his eyes, doing his best to keep them as tears of mirth and not allow a breakdown to suddenly force its way to the surface.

“Why do you ask?” he says when he manages to halfway compose himself, putting his hands on his hips and looking sternly down at the other man. “Are you offering a ring?”

Hank stares up at him, face unmoving, and then he says in that serious way of his, “Let me taste the bread first.”

“Heartbreaker,” Will says, striding back to the kitchen, but he’s coming over a little flustered despite himself, his skin feeling warm all over under his clothes and apron in a way that has nothing to do with the heat from the oven.

“Shouldn’t I help?” asks Hank as Will starts dropping ingredients into his pot, and Will laughs.

“No, I prep my ingredients for the week on Saturday nights, chop everything in advance except for my garlic. You’ll be delighted by my fridge.”

“Yeah?”

Hank is on his feet and comes over with a light step — he puts his hand on the fridge door very delicately and carefully, all hesitation as though he expects Will to stop him, but then he opens the fridge and stares inside, agog.

“Wow,” he says, tone admiring.

“I know, I’m a real catch, aren’t I? Pass me the peppers and the chillis.”

Hank picks out the labelled boxes from the fridge, and there’s a genuinely wondering, delighted expression on his face at all the sectioned-out containers, each labelled and dated. He closes the fridge and, with a sideways glance at Will, opens up the nearest cupboard, stares at the cans in order on one shelf and the labelled containers of flours, sugars, and other baking staples on the other side.

“Beginning to see why I’m not married?” asks Will.

“No,” says Hank emphatically. “This is amazing. And you, uh, you make all your own lunches, right?”

“I do.”

“Japanese-style.”

“Bento, yeah. Like my mother taught me.”

“I thought at first you had to be buying them, they always look so… perfect. But you do make them, you… and you do all the, uh… You do everything.” He bites the inside of his lip, looking hesitant, and Will smiles slightly as Hank shifts on his feet. Will’s seen him look at his lunchboxes — once or twice, he’s even complimented them, or has smiled and taken a piece of cucumber or tomato when Will’s offered it.

“I do lunches for my sister’s kids a few times a week,” Will says. “Gotta stay in practice.”

“Can your sister do this too?”

Will laughs. “She can put together a lunch box,” he says. “It’ll taste pretty good, too — her focaccia is better than mine, and she’s really good at getting creative with an onigiri filling. They don’t exactly have the visual impact mine do.”

“Still, though,” says Hank. “It’s really impressive. The way you make everything… fit.”

“I’m rather an expert at making things fit, Hank.”

Hank stands next to him and blushes furiously, and Will doesn’t even pretend not to be pleased with himself at having rendered such an effect.

Will considers telling him to go sit down again, but he’s no longer standing there frozen, too frightened to move. Instead, he walks around Will’s kitchen and examines the insides of his cupboards, and then he stands in front of Will’s recipe books and examines them with interest.

“Is your dad Italian?” he asks.

“My dad? No, he’s Welsh. Met my mother at university — he was a theatre director. My mother lectures in fine art, and they met while she was doing a paper on costume designs and their evolution across productions.”

“Why Italian, then?”

“Why Ita — Look, Henry,” says Will, and jabs a finger into the other man’s big chest, looking up at him as sternly as he can. “Variety is the spice of life, don’t you know? There’s a hundred cookbooks there, in any case, a few thousand recipes on that wall.”

“Hm,” grunts Hank, looking down at him, lips unsmiling until they are smiling, an ever-so-slight shift up at their corners. He catches Will’s hand very gently, touching his thumb against the back of it, cupping his palm in his big fingers — the difference between their palm sizes is astonishing, makes Will’s head spin just a bit. “You, do you, um,” Hank says, “you think it’s weird? That I’m a virgin?”

“How old are you, Henry? Thirty?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Mm, no, it’s not so weird.”

“I’m…” Hank starts, and then leans back against the counter as Will stirs his sauce. “Dating apps kind of freak me out. I don’t really… People expect me to be very, um…”

“Toppy?”

“Dominant.”

“You don’t like to be dominant?”

“Why does anybody have to be dominant? Why can’t we just — You know.”

Will laughs, patting his palm against Hank’s chest — God, it’s firm under his touch — before turning to pick up his spaghetti with tongs and stir it into the bubbling sauce. He smiles at the shadow of Hank just behind him as he leans in to look inside the pot, inhaling deeply before he goes on.

“I tried, a few times, to — with girls. At university?”

“Oh,” says Will sympathetically. “Couldn’t get it up?”

“Oh, no, I do, I, uh…” He’s red as Will’s puttanesca, bless him. “I do like women. As well. I just, I think… You know, three different times I went home with a girl, or she, she came home with me, they’d come — And they’d see my…” Hank clears his throat, and then coughs. “They’d say it was too big? To…?”

How exactly is Will supposed to cook a meal like a sensible person when a large, attractive man confesses to having such a big cock that multiple people have run away from it, afraid? How is he supposed to string two thoughts together?

“I was… I never know how to bring it up without people thinking I’m trying to, to brag or bullshit or something, and I just… I got really scared that people would do that. Again.”

“I stretch, remember?”

“I do remember,” Hank says seriously. “I couldn’t forget.”

“I bet,” Will says warmly.

Hank says then, “I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

“I wouldn’t want you to either, darling — not really my thing.”

“And I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m, um, that I’m into… That I’m — ” He exhales hard, trying to cool himself down, it seems, trying to school his feelings. Will doesn’t remember him ever talking so much — perhaps this is why he stays quiet so much, because he gets so flustered. His heart pangs. “That I’m trying to… To make you into a thing? Like, a fetish?”

Will arches an eyebrow.

“Because you’re so…”

“Diminutive?” he offers.

Hank gives him a look.

“Minute? Compact? Pocket-sized?”

“Small.”

“Small,” repeats Will, his lips twitching, and he opens up a drawer, nudging Hank in the belly with it as he gestures to the cutlery inside. “Set the table for us, would you, honeybee?”

“I like that,” Hank says.

“Setting the table?”

“Honeybee. I like that.”

“Duly noted.”

Hank goes to set the table, and Will smiles as he plates everything up.

He keeps a close eye on the other man as Hank tries the puttanesca, groans aloud and tucks in with no small amount of relish — when Will pushes him a slice of the focaccia, he fumbles in his hurry to pick it up, then bites into it.

“Fuck,” he moans through a mouthful of bread, tossing back his head, and Will laughs before he starts to eat from his own plate. “Can I still lock you in on an engagement?”

Will chokes on a mouthful of capers, taking a swig of his drink to help swallow them down.

“Don’t want to take me for a test driver first, make sure the slipper fits?”

“Slipper?”

“You know, like Cinderella? It’s like getting a foot that matches her shoe exactly, but instead of a slipper, it’s my arse. And instead of your foot, it’s — ”

“Will.”

Will chuckles to himself as he sips his drink again, trying desperately to look cool and handsome and dignified.

“Sex isn’t everything,” says Hank.

“And how would you know that?”

“Guess I’ll find out.”

“Oh, you’ll find out,” Hank promises him. “I’ll show you the world, honeybee.”

Hank laughs, flushing pink and looking back to his meal, the conversation turning from his wedding proposal to crochet and the benefits one might find in its pursuit.

It’s a nice evening.

All told it’s a very, very, extremely nice, extremely taxing evening that stretches Will to the outer limits of his capabilities, a real challenge and —

Oh, it’s a pleasure.

It’s quite a lot of pleasures stacked up into a big tower of pleasures.

* * *

On the following Monday, Will comes in to find that Hank is already clocked in and settled at his desk. He watches Will like a hawk, focused on him.

“I’m not still limping, darling, calm yourself,” says Will.

“You weren’t limping,” says Hank, sounding horrified at the prospect.

“I was a bit bowlegged,” says Will, reaching into his bag after turning on his tower and monitor.

“But not — not limping, actually limping, right? I didn’t hurt you?”

“Hank, bless your cotton socks, but I — ”

“They’re not cotton, they’re wool. You made them.”

“Don’t make me kiss you at work, Henry. It’s unprofessional.”

“Oh my God,” says Hank, putting his head in his hands, and Will laughs, nudging his forearm with two lunchboxes. When Hank lifts his head, his eyes light up, and he drags them into his arms.

“Ah ah,” says Will crisply. “No peeking.”

“Two of them?”

“Two of them.”

“I can have one?”

“Of course you can have one. If you don’t take it, I’ll have to auction it off to the highest bidder.”

“I would outbid everyone,” Hank tells him seriously, and Will laughs, sinking into his cushion.

“Go put those in the fridge, will you, honeybee?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t peek.”

“I swear,” says Hank. Will doesn’t believe him, which might be why he can’t stop smiling.

Or maybe it’s the fact that Hank still has the scarf Will made him around his neck as he goes off to the kitchen to put their lunches away and make them both their morning drinks.

FIN.