Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

    His parents have brought home a drifter.

    It’s the first thought Alex has, when they come in with a man who’s dressed in nothing but frayed denim and a pair of sneakers that seem to be falling apart, an equally worn duffel bag over one shoulder. He looks completely spaced out, as he takes in the house. 

    His parents have brought home a drifter, like they don’t have a house full of kids and an Alex to think of! It’s perhaps not the wildest thing that they’ve ever done, but during his lifetime they’ve generally displayed better judgment. Sure, shit happens, he gets it, sometimes you think you’re making a solid call and it just doesn’t go that way. Sometimes you make a bad bet on someone based on past performance. But if this guy has any kind of a past performance to go on, Alex can’t imagine what that might be. 

    “Alex, I’m glad you’re here!” His mother says brightly, as if she has not just escorted a strange, dirty man into their home. Granted, he doesn’t look like he’s actually particularly physically filthy, beyond his hair being greasy enough to stand on end, but he has a kind of aura that suggests that his natural habitat is not one of impeccable cleanliness. There’s some kind of stain on his jacket. “Meet Jim!”

    “Jim?”

    “Reverend Jim, we’ve told you about Jim. I’m sure we’ve told you about Jim.”

    Have they? ‘Reverend’ does not seem like a title one could apply to the guy with any seriousness of spirit.

    “Jim Ignatowski.” The apparent ‘reverend’ sticks his hand out, leaning forward instead of stepping past Alex’s parents, like an invisible barrier stretches between them. “Pleased to, uh, make your acquaintance.”

    “Alex P. Keaton.” Alex edges forward slightly, inspecting the proffered hand a long moment before shaking it. His mom shoots him a look like she thinks he’s being rude, but she’s willing to chalk it up to sleep deprivation, knowing the insomnia is back in full force. “So you knew my parents back during the whole… hippie thing?”

    “Yeah, yeah. Well, I knew your uncle and then… then I kind of fell in with your folks.”

    It’s hard to imagine Ignatowski knowing either of Alex’s uncles, or anyone in his family who wasn’t his parents, and during a very specific time in their lives. 

    “Jim was going to be your godfather.” His dad adds. “Until we lost him at that festival…”

    “Oh, a reverend for a godfather. Imagine the difference that would have made in my life.”

    “Yes, well. Jim’s going to be staying with us for a while. He’s had some… difficult news recently, and he needs some help getting back on his feet right now.”

    “Yeah, well… I don’t know if this has escaped you guys’ notice, in what I’m sure was a touching reunion with the rev here, but we don’t have a guest bedroom anymore.”

    “Oh, that’s fine. Just point me to the patch of floor where you want me.” Ignatowski waves the concern of having a place to actually keep him off. 

    “Jim, you’re not sleeping on the floor.”

    “Couch!” He nods, clapping his hands together. “Things are looking up!”

    “He can’t sleep on the couch. I mean, look at him!” Alex blurts out, and he knows the warning look his parents shoot him, he doesn’t need them to tell him it’s incredibly rude to suggest that their perhaps only mildly unhinged houseguest is too dirty to sleep on the couch, and sleep deprivation is no excuse on this one. “I mean, he’s too tall. It, uh… it wouldn’t be comfortable.”

    “Okey-doke, floor it is.” 

    “No– no, I’m sure we can find a camping cot in the garage.”

    “Ritzy.” Ignatowski smiles, dimples carving themselves into his face. “A cot in the garage. Oh, that’s great.”

    “No, well– we’ll bring the cot into the house.” Alex’s dad pats Ignatowski’s shoulder warmly. 

    He spreads his hands, and somehow, every part of his face. “Better and better.”

    “Since Alex is so concerned about how comfortably you sleep, maybe we can move you in there.” His mom adds. 

    “Move him in where? In my room? I don’t have enough trouble sleeping?”

    “Trouble sleeping? Oh, been there. Maybe I can help. How do you feel about heavy narcotics? Side question, where in this town does one go to find heavy narcotics? My doctor is in New York.”

    “Bad. I feel bad about heavy narcotics.”

    “Yeah, let’s try and stick with all natural methods.”

    “Oh, well I don’t know how to get those here, either. But, uh, to be honest, I gave up the dope a while ago.”

    “No– Jim, I mean… meditation, breathing exercises.” His dad sighs. 

    “Should I not be offering your kid dope? Oh, that’s probably a house rule, don’t get the kids hooked on dope.” He nods.

    “Honestly, if you could convince Alex to smoke a little dope, I wouldn’t even be mad. But you’ve got one heck of an uphill battle ahead of you if you try.” He delivers another pat to Ignatowski’s shoulder, before leading him further into the house. “Come on, you must be hungry, I’m starving.”

    “Having someone else sleeping in the room could help.” His mom suggests, coming to wrap an arm around his shoulders. “It might regulate you.”

    “I’m not meditating with the reverend. I’m not that desperate.”

    “You can’t go another week without sleep. And given the choice between putting Jim in your room, or putting Jim in Andy’s room and Andy with you… I think it’s generally less disruptive if you’re sharing with–”

    “With a total stranger? Sounds great, Mom.”

    “I am trying to do my best with a difficult situation.” She sighs. “Jim is… going through something… difficult.”

    “Oh, clearly.”

    “He is going through something difficult, which it is not my business to share with anyone, and I… I guess I feel a little responsible for him. Which is also not a story that I need to tell you.”

    “But you want him to sleep in my room.”

    “It’s not my story. And… if sharing your room with Jim makes things worse instead of better, we can discuss an alternate solution for tomorrow night. I promise. Just… try it for one night, for me. I really feel like I owe him this.”

    “What if he sees me changing?”

    “Lock the door while you change, or change in the bathroom, or– He won’t see you changing. That’s not going to happen.”

    “One night. And if I hate it, you move him to the garage.”

    “If you hate it, we’ll move him.” She gives him a look. “Not to the garage.”

    “He seemed okay with it!”

    “Where are your sisters and brother? It’s time for lunch.”

    “Mallory’s out, Andy’s in his room. Jennifer is either out or in her room.” He shrugs. He’d come downstairs to avoid the noise of toppling blocks– normally, he likes getting in some playtime with Andy on the weekends, but god, without any sleep he can’t take the sound of gleefully demolished block towers. Last time had been the worst his insomnia had been since around third or fourth grade, when he had been lucky to get an hour at a time for basically a year, had slept one hour on, one hour off every night. That year had made his middle school sleep woes seem like a cake walk, and then he’d been pretty much fine up until that week where he couldn’t even get an hour in one go. He just needs this time to not be that bad.

    “Well– You, go eat, I’ll find out if Jennifer is out or in her room.” 

    Alex goes to the kitchen, keeping an eye on Ignatowski. Trying to figure out what exactly to make of him. He doesn’t seem like he’s all there, but he seems calm, anyway. If this is what he’s like having given up smoking pot, he’s a walking anti-drug campaign, but he at least seems…

    He doesn’t set off any alarm bells. That’s the thing. There’s no creeping, growing discomfort the more Alex watches him. He seems happy with a turkey and bean sprout sandwich and a glass of milk and a seat at the table where he and Alex’s dad are catching up on their lives. He seems genuinely interested if still kind of spaced-out, listening to stories about the fast-paced world of public television. His own stories are… varyingly believable. That he was driving a cab for a while, for instance, Alex can believe. That he had briefly owned a racehorse seems untrue.

    He keeps expecting to get a bad feeling about him, it just never comes. He looks for one. He tries to imagine Ignatowski being dangerous and it feels like a badly-cast fiction in spite of all his obvious problems. He tries to tell himself he’s being naive, that if one of the people he trusted and looked up to most in the world could hurt him– did Ignatowski mean he knew that uncle?-- then a weird, gross stranger certainly could. Except… Alex isn’t naive. He doesn’t make a habit of being. Once in a while, maybe, same as anyone, but he’s pretty realistic about things. And he’s actively looking for something to distrust, in Ignatowski. He’s just not finding it so far. And when his mom comes in with Andy– both girls are out, he guesses– things just continue to seem… weirdly un-worrying? Ignatowski is good with the little guy, listens to a babbled little kid story with wide-eyed engagement, asking follow-up questions and nodding and treating a disjointed story about going to the grocery store and seeing three dogs and then something about his toy robot with real weight and gravity. And sure, he still thinks he has a right to resent the disruption to his life and his room, but…

    He doesn’t feel unsafe.

    The girls don’t know what to make of Ignatowski, either, when they get home for dinner, but Jennifer quickly seem to come to the same conclusion Alex had– that he’s harmless, whatever else he is. He doesn’t really get her humor, at all, so she does kind of give up on saying much to him. Mallory is harder to win over.

    “You’re putting this guy in Alex’s room?” She frowns. “I mean, are you totally spacing on Alex’s…”

    “Insomnia? I already asked.” He says. She cuts him a look, but shrugs and lets it go. 

    “Putting Alex and Andy together would just disrupt both of their sleep schedules.” Their mom shakes her head. “Which is the last thing we want.”

    “And Alex’s sleep is already disrupted.” Jennifer smiles. 

    “And having someone with him might help. And if it doesn’t, we’ll figure something else out.”

    “Why don’t you put him in your room?”

    “Well, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much…”

    “Oh my god, isn’t having four kids enough for you people?” Mallory’s face scrunches up. 

    “Kids? Yes. We’ve got the perfect number. Activities that sometimes lead to kids? Well…” 

    “Dad, gross.”

    “When you’re a parent and you’re still deeply in love, you’ll understand.”

    “See, that’s beautiful.” Ignatowski smiles over at them, soft and kind of fuzzy. “I always knew you two had it, you know? I mean back then, everyone was all about free love. People were hopping around from tent to tent… embracing the impermanent. But not you two. You were… solid.”

    “I never thought I’d say thank god you two are always so wrapped up in each other, but I would not have wanted to hear that story go any other way.”

    “Now you’ve got a beautiful family… nice house. Still madly in love. It’s good to see. It’s good to see two good people happy.”

    And then they’re smiling all soft, holding hands, and Mallory will probably never outgrow making a big deal about how gross and in love they are, but… with so many other people’s parents divorcing, there’s something very comforting in the fact that theirs are so overtly gross and in love. He never has to worry about that changing. 

    The slide carousels come out after dinner, and Alex comes to a horrifying realization. Ignatowski is in some of the pictures, and he was… 

    He was the pretty one. The flowers woven into the curls down to his shoulders and the big brown eyes and the dreamy smile and the too-small tie dyed tee shirt that showed off his shoulders and his chest and his biceps, and when Alex was ten he’d maybe declared he was going to marry him someday, though at ten he certainly hadn’t appreciated those biceps enough... Luckily this is a story his parents do not bring up– if there is a merciful God in heaven, they’ve forgotten the incident entirely, and if they haven’t forgotten it they’ve at least chalked it up to… to youthful foolishness. To Alex being a girl at the time and having to want to marry a man someday, and at least having the foresight to pick one with long, be-flowered hair and big doe eyes, but now Alex is a man and he’s going to marry a girl, and a pair of nice eyes wouldn’t hurt, though he’d expect her hair to be a little less whimsical and her shirts to be a lot less tie dyed.

    The important thing is, they don’t bring it up in front of Ignatowski. The three of them reminisce, and Alex almost nods off on the living room floor and then can’t.

    Alex shows Ignatowski upstairs, to where he and his dad had set the cot up earlier, staring as he proceeds to remove his shoes and his jacket and absolutely nothing else before tucking himself in.

    “You’re going to sleep in that?”

    “Yeah, well… I didn’t figure it would be polite to get naked.”

    “Come on, no. No, that’s not happening.” He motions for Ignatowski to stand. “Come on, let’s get you something… something.”

    Ignatowski trails down the hall after him, when he goes to knock on his parents’ door.

    “Dad! Can we get the rev here something he can sleep in? Something that isn’t a pair of jeans that could stand up and walk on their own if he took them off.” Alex calls through the door.

    “You think there’s a lot of risk of that happening? ‘Cause maybe I should keep ‘em on.”

    “I… can’t tell if you’re joking. Ah, Dad! Your friend needs something to sleep in.”

    “Got it. You didn’t pack pajamas?” He ducks back into the bedroom, and re-emerges quick enough with an old pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt tucked under his arm, following them back to Alex’s room. 

    “Oh, no, I didn’t, no. I packed…” Ignatowski gets back to his duffel bag and begins unpacking, starting with a second jacket and a scarf, and then a necktie. No shirt emerges which one would wear a necktie with. And no pants. “I wasn’t sure what to be prepared for, figured I’d better just bring everything.”

    A can opener, coffee pot, and hot plate follow.

    “Well, Jim, I can see you’re very prepared, but we do have a can opener at the house.”

    “Oh! No, this was just on account of, I didn’t want anyone stealing my kitchen while I was gone.” He laughs softly, with a little nod, before turning back to his bag. “Oh, whaddya know, and a toothbrush! Heyyy. We’re halfway there.”

    “You can use the toothpaste in the bathroom.” 

    Ignatowski gives another one of those smiles, the things-are-looking-up smile that it doesn’t seem to take much to get out of him. He takes the toothbrush, the sweatpants, and the tee shirt into the bathroom.

    “So, Alex, you think you’re going to be okay tonight?” His dad comes to sit on the edge of his bed beside him. 

    “Yeah, well I mean if nothing else, I’m sure I could fall asleep listening to a few more stories about the liberal ideals of the swinging sixties.”

    “Here’s hoping. Look… I want to say, I’m very proud of you. I know asking you to give up any part of your privacy is a lot, and… and there are reasons why your mother feels very responsible for Jim. Her brother… When Jim was a young man… She just feels very responsible towards him, and Ned is a part of that. Actually… Jim lost quite a lot.”

    “I find it hard to believe he was affected by the embezzling.”

    “Long before that. Back when they were at school together.”

    There are a lot of reasons why at school together has Alex reeling. He can discount that Ned was in the same year as Ignatowski, but suggesting an overlap still means he’s been off on his assessment of Ignatowski’s age. Not that he guesses he’s any great judge of that, and obviously the guy has done some hard living, but he…

    “That guy? He was at– You’re telling me, that the guy who brought a can opener and a hot plate and no pajamas… went to Harvard?”

    “Dropped out, actually.” Ignatowski says from the doorway, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. “Which is kind of a blur to me. Anyway, just… gonna drop this here.”

    There’s something sheepish in his posture, and how he moves, crossing back over to his stuff to drop his dirty denim there, before he takes his toothbrush back to the bathroom. 

    “Harvard…” Alex shakes his head. “Who would have thunk it?”

    “Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned…” His dad pushes himself up to stand, giving Alex’s knee a pat. “Anyway… really, if this arrangement doesn’t work out, we can make something else work. But I am very proud of you for being willing to try. It’s good to see a little compassion from you, kiddo.”

    “Woah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, no one said this was compassion.”

    “No, you wanted Jim to get some pajamas out of purely selfish interests, of course.”

    “Yeah, I mean I’m the one who has to sleep with him. Next to him. Across the room from him. It’s in my best interests if those clothes make it into the laundry, pronto.”

    “That would probably be a good idea. Hey, Jim, you mind if I throw your clothes into the wash in the morning?”

    “I don’t mind.” Ignatowski shuffles back in, and once he’s in the cot, Alex’s dad turns out the light and leaves them. 

    “So you got into Harvard?” Alex asks softly.

    “Yeah. That was another life… It’s… I don’t think it’s so much that I couldn’t stick it out, but I don’t… I don’t belong in that world. It didn’t make me happy. It made me pretty unhappy, actually. Lotta pressure. Turns out, uh… pressure and me, I don’t do so hot. And… some other things I also don’t do so hot with. But I found myself. And then I lost myself. And then I found myself. Lost myself again… That happened a few times. Ah, you don’t need to listen to me, I should let you sleep.”

    “I’m not going to sleep. Talk as much as you want.”

    “What about?”

    “Anything. Talk about… how you got to be friends with my parents, or how you got started driving a cab, or anything.”

    “Oh, sure. Yeah. I think I can remember both those things.”

    By the time he’s finished a second story, Alex feels… lulled. Not bored to sleep– not even bored at all, to his own surprise– just… somewhat gentled into something a little more restful. Like the almost-sleep during the slideshow. It’s tantalizingly close to what he wants, but he just can’t get there. Ignatowski’s voice gets a little rough during the third story he starts, and then he falls asleep midway into that one– not that it had been coherent enough for Alex to follow before that point, he might have been falling asleep earlier into the story than the point where he actually stopped telling it… 

    And Alex cannot sleep. But it’s not the intermittent soft snores from the cot that are keeping him awake. There’s actually something kind of reassuring about having someone in the room. Maybe he does need to have someone around to regulate himself by. Sure, and maybe it’s not working the very first night, but he’d gotten close! His body keeps yanking him back every time he thinks he might get there, but it’s been close!

    He could maybe give this thing with Ignatowski another night, see if he could get closer. It’s worth one more shot, anyway.

    At some point in the morning, Ignatowski jerks awake, rolls off the cot– which is at least no great drop, and he does it to the side where there’s not a hot plate and a coffee pot– and sits up out of the tangle of blanket he’s in.

    “Did you sleep?” He asks, wide-eyed.

    “Almost.” Alex sits up, stretching. 

    He’s not really watching Ignatowski get up in any kind of intentional way. Just the way you look at someone when they’re the only other person in the room and also it’s a room you’re normally the only person in anyway. He’s a little unprepared for seeing him emerge from the cocoon of the blanket he’d had wrapped around him. Last night he’d seen him in the same sweatpants and tee shirt, but the experience had been… well, ‘night and day’ feels a little on the nose, but it’s a very different experience now.

    The tee shirt isn’t just a little tight around the biceps and across the shoulders, it’s riding up, showing off the little bit of softness and hairiness, just enough stomach to be interesting. 

    Not that Alex is interested. He doesn’t get to be. And if he was interested, in a log cabin kind of a way, it wouldn’t be… It would not be over Ignatowski.

    He’s just noticing, that’s all. That his stomach is visible, with his shirt riding up, and that…

    And that the sweatpants are definitely fitting a little differently. Not that he would have been looking last night, either, but he has eyes, and some things are hard to miss. That thing is hard to miss. 

    Look, he’s familiar with the concept of morning wood, even if he’s anatomically exempt from some of the notable factors. Ignatowski isn’t, like… fully erect or anything, which is one thing Alex feels suddenly very grateful for. But he’s standing out enough to get the idea that he’s… not a small man by any means. He doesn’t seem to notice– not that Alex’s eyes had gone there and then quickly away, not that in sweatpants, the whole thing is that much more visible than in jeans. He’s probably used to not having someone around who could stare at it, any more than Alex is used to having someone around to stare at.

    Not that he’s staring. He’s doing a great job of not staring at it. It’s just that it’s seared into his memory.

    He scrambles out of bed just so he can check the coast is clear, before ushering Ignatowski into the bathroom so he can… take care of that whole situation. Not that he’s picturing either way he could do that. It’s still soft enough he could probably just take a leak and it would go down, if Alex’s understanding of the whole process is correct. He’d checked out a little during the health class explanation, since he didn’t figure he needed to know anything about having an erection, let alone a prostate, and the fact that the bladder was in any way involved had just felt kind of gross somehow, but there’s some relationship there. Pressure and… whatever. So he’s probably not jerking off in the hall bathroom. With Alex right on the other side of the door waiting his own turn. Not for that, just… for the room, waiting his turn for the room. He just doesn’t want to think about what he’s actually doing instead. He doesn’t want to be thinking, period.

    “Hey, wash your hands.” He says, when the door swings open.

    “You got it, boss.” Ignatowski shrugs and turns back to the sink. 

    Alex spaces out a little while he does, leaning against the doorframe, feels that kind of passing dizziness that he wishes was an indicator of sleep to come. He can’t just go to bed and hope that it resolves into anything, though, he knows that from experience. Besides, he needs to eat whether or not he sleeps.

    “Give me a couple minutes and then I’ll show you where you can put your laundry. Okay?” 

    “Okey-doke.”

    Alex tries pretty hard not to think about what he’s doing, either, when he does get the bathroom to himself. He’s at the stage of sleep deprivation where he’s either thinking too much or not at all, neither of which is exactly comfortable, but at least if he can go a couple minutes without thinking, it’s… almost like sleeping? It’s something.

    He is very aware of what is under Ignatowski’s borrowed sweatpants, when he directs him to grab his dirty clothes, and when he takes him down to throw them in the washer. He’s also very aware of what’s not under them, because his underwear goes into the washer with the rest of his clothes. 

    Alex doesn’t wait for his dad to come down and start a load of laundry– Ignatowski’s things feel like they need to be washed in a kind of quarantine, anyway, and it’s not like it’s any trouble to pour in some detergent and start the machine. The two of them seem to be the first up. It’s Sunday, which means they only have to wait around for someone to make a hot breakfast. In the meantime, he gets a second juice glass out. Figures it’s the least he can do as long as he’s getting himself some. 

    Ignatowski inspects it a moment as it’s handed to him, sniffs it, shrugs, and downs the whole thing like there’s no tomorrow.

    “Guess I was thirstier than I thought.”

    “Guess so.” Alex blinks. “The plane probably dried you out. I’m guessing you didn’t drink an extra glass of water yesterday?”

    “You’re good at guessing.” He nods, eyes wide. 

    “How much did you drink yesterday?”

    “My brother thinks I need to dry out, so only the little tiny bottle on the plane.”

    “No, I mean water.”

    Ignatowski takes a moment trying to mentally calculate. He does not come up with an answer, and if he did, Alex is beginning to think that that answer would not be ‘eight glasses’ and might not even be five.

    “Jeez.” He groans, going and getting a water glass and bringing that over, sitting back down. “Okay, well, this is one for today, let’s at least try and keep track. I’m beginning to see why my mother felt like she had to bring you back here…”

    Ignatowski just shrugs, giving him a little smile before he drains the water glass, too, with the kind of deep abandon that has little rivulets of water streaming down his chin, his throat, leaving little damp spots at the neck of his tee shirt.

    “You can just… help yourself, whenever you’re thirsty.”

    “Okay. Okay. How will I know?”

    “How will you know… when you’re thirsty? Just when you feel thirsty.”

    He nods, and Alex doesn’t really know what to make of the way he looks at him. It’s not searching or invasive or demanding or weird– after a moment, he looks around the kitchen again, it’s just that his gaze settles back on Alex, probably because they’re the only ones up. As with before, it’s just natural.

    “Oh, you two are up early.” His mom greets, as his parents drift in. “Alex, honey, how was your night?”

    He groans wordlessly, and she comes over to kiss the top of his head. 

    “I’m sorry you didn’t sleep.”

    “I’ll try to be more boring next time.” Jim offers. 

    “We came real close for a minute there.” Alex sighs. “Almost.”

    “So Jim is working out as a temporary roommate?”

    “I haven’t decided to exile him to the garage yet.”

    “Thank you, sweetheart. You’re very kind.”

    “Don’t say it like that. Mom.” He complains, shrugging her off. “I’m really not. You guys make it sound like I’m doing some kind of… bleeding heart thing, like it’s some kind of big deal. I’m just letting a guy sleep on a cot in the corner, and it just so happens that I’m giving him another shot at putting me to sleep, it’s not me being kind. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Well, potentially. So I don’t want anyone mistaking this for a big act of compassion on my part.”

    “Well… how do you feel about eggs and pancakes?”

    Alex nods.

    “About the humble egg, a sense of awe, always bordering upon but never attaining full enlightenment.” Ignatowski nods slowly. “About pancakes… an optimism which defies the memory of past regrets.”

    “Well… how do you like your eggs?”

    “Sunny side up.”

    Alex’s parents work side by side, his dad on eggs and his mom on pancakes. In roughly three minutes, when a plate with an egg is set in front of him, Ignatowski reacts with delighted surprise. Which Alex guesses is the awe bordering on but never attaining full enlightenment.

    “Hey, we have to see about getting the reverend here some clothes of his own.” Alex says, when his dad brings over a plate of eggs for him as well. “At least another pair of pants and a week’s worth of shirts and underwear?”

    “Well how much does he have now?” Mallory asks, spilling into the room with Andy– who heads straight for Alex’s lap once he spots him. 

    “He’s got nothing– oof, hey, buddy. Where’s your cup, you want some juice?”

    “Here.” Mallory grabs it for him, along with a glass for herself, before taking her own seat.

    “I’ve got a necktie and a nice jacket, just in case.” Ignatowski adds. 

    “That was a… nice jacket?”

    “Yeah. I bring it out if I have to make a real good impression.”

    “Well… it doesn’t have multiple visible stains, so… what else could people ask?”

    “Should I have changed into it for dinner?”

    “No.” Alex’s dad pats Ignatowski’s shoulder again. “We don’t stand on ceremony here. You kids want scrambled eggs?”

    “Thanks, Dad.”

    “I do!” Andy nods, and Alex shifts his plate to one side so there’s enough room for Andy’s, without shifting him out of his lap. Basks in the experience of being his favorite person– not that it’s a competition, but if it was, he’d be crushing it.

    “Well, I think it’s a great idea. I think Jim should take some of the money his brother sent along and pick out some things he likes, and I think it’s very sweet of you to offer to take him.”

    “Sweet of who?” Alex whips around to look at his mother.

    “You. I have some very important work to catch up on, your father’s busy at home all day. You did just bring it up.”

    “Yeah, well– but I just thought shopping–”

    “Will be an excellent use of your time.” Mallory’s smile is absolutely vicious. And okay, yeah, he was going to pin babysitting duty on her, but come on, he’s got the guy for the night shift! “You need to get out and walk around, it’ll help you sleep at night if you’re out doing things during the day.”

    “I’m just not sure it’s safe for me to drive, on no sleep.”

    “You can take the bus.” She shrugs.

    “Mal, that is not funny. That’s the worst thing I think you’ve ever said to me.”

    “Well, I can drive.” Ignatowski offers– comes over with another one of those surprised and delighted smiles when one of the first plates of pancakes is set down in front of him. “Just… point me where to go.”

    “See? It all works out.”

Chapter Text

    Ignatowski jumps a little, when Alex gets into the passenger’s seat. 

    “Oh.” He nods. “Right.”

    “Yeah. You’re not gonna find a meter, either.”

    “Wouldn’t charge you for doing me a favor if I did.” He shrugs. 

    “So… what’s this about your brother handing my mom a bunch of money when he sent you off with her, anyway? Did he pay her to take you in?” Alex frowns. The idea rankles, paying some stranger who’s an old friend to cart your brother off to another state just so you don’t have to deal with him? Why, because he’s an embarrassment? Alex and his sisters are constantly embarrassing each other, but he would never pay a stranger to take one of them. Not even Mallory. And even if Mallory was a total space case instead of just a partial one and she needed serious help for some reason, he’d never ship her off to another state, he’d want her to be where he could be involved in… in whatever she needed!

    “Oh, yeah. Well, that’s the whole thing. He’s, uh… he’s concerned about my ‘lifestyle’.  Wants to see me get my act together. Ehh, sometimes I’m bad with money, I guess. Back when I did a lot of drugs. And the week I had a gambling problem.”

    “Lost a lot of money? Left at the light up here.”

    “Won a lot of money.” He shakes his head, making the turn. “Blew all of it. And Tom, he thinks, you know… he thinks about that stuff differently from how I do, that’s all. When Elyse said she and Steven’d be happy to have me stay a while, you know, he thought maybe it’d be good if I got away from the city a while. Maybe it’d clear my head. And he’d take care of some stuff, he’s taking care of some stuff back in New York now, I guess.”

    “I just can’t imagine shipping one of my siblings five hundred miles away. Not even Mallory. Go straight for a while.”

    “Yeah, that’s what Tom said.”

    “What’s what Tom said?”

    “Go straight for a while. I mean, what’s he think I’ve been doing? He thinks it’s so easy? I cleaned up! He wants what’s best for me, I know that. I just don’t think either of us knows what that is. And we got some pretty different ideas about what it looks like.”

    “Well… this is a pretty good start. I, uh…” He hesitates, and doesn’t finish the thought. “I’ll tell you when to make the next turn, but you wanna get in the right lane. I’d be pretty ticked off if one of my sisters did that to me. Shipped me off for someone else to deal with. I mean, sure, maybe he wants what’s best for you, but…”

    “I’m not mad at my brother.” He shrugs, though there’s an exhausted kind of resignation to it. “I just wish we understood each other better. That’s all. I just… I lost a lot of time not speaking to my family, when they couldn’t have found me if they wanted to, and I thought they wouldn’t want to. But I think maybe they did. Now I’m found, and we just don’t know what to say.”

    Alex isn’t sure what to say to that, but he manages to direct Ignatowski to a K-Mart, anyway. It’s a store where he doesn’t think he’ll see anyone he knows– though at least Ignatowski is somewhat presentable after a shower and with his clothes having made a trip through the laundry– and where they should be able to get his basic needs seen to. 

    “Feels like a lot, I dunno.” He shakes his head, looking between the racks. 

    “It’s really not. Look… you don’t have to get anything you don’t like, but you gotta be able to change your clothes.”

    “Guess I’m used to living pretty light.”

    “Well, only one pair of pants is too light.” Alex pulls a couple of pairs off the rack, holding them up and trying to gauge which is the right size. “Try these, see which one is more comfortable.”

    “Okey-doke.” He nods, and he lets Alex pile a couple other things into his arms, before steering him to the changing stalls. He’s very… pliant, like that. Alex isn’t sure how to feel about that.

    On the one hand, he likes just being listened to. A lot of things in life would run very smoothly if people just listened to him. And Ignatowski can’t exactly afford to not listen to someone who’s actually trying to materially improve his life, when left to his own devices he owns exactly one outfit.

    He just doesn’t know why it makes him so uneasy.

    “Just– see what you like out of all that, then we’ll get the rest of what you need.” He says, closing the door of the changing stall firmly between them. 

    He manages to get a package of socks into the cart while Ignatowski is trying things on, but for the rest of the underthings he figures he’d better have him pick out whatever he prefers. And after he emerges with a pair of jeans and another work shirt that had fit comfortably, Alex takes him back over to the underwear.

    “What size are you?”

    “Actual.”

    “No– I mean… in underwear.”

    “I’m actual size in everything.”

    “Right, okay, but what size–”

    “That’s an awfully personal question.”

    “Oh my god, no– no, what size do you wear?” He can feel his face go red. He’s already way more aware than he needs to be about what size Ignatowski is in that arena. 

    “Oh. Gotcha. Lucky for me, that information… is written in the underwear.”

    “Back in the changing stall!” He hisses, before Ignatowski can unbutton his pants in the aisle. “I don’t know how they do things in New York, but you can’t take your pants off out in the middle of the store here.”

    “I wasn’t taking ‘em off, just undoing ‘em enough so you could check for a tag at the back of the waistband.”

    “Why do you think I would check?”

    “Because I can’t see the back of my own waistband without taking off a lot more than my pants.” He shrugs, but he does let Alex steer him back into the changing stall, and for a moment, there’s just the sounds of him undressing. “Huh. I got some good news and some bad news!”

    “Oh god. You really drive me crazy, you know that?” He lets his head thunk against the stall door. “What’s the bad news?”

    “The size wore off. All the words wore off. All that’s left is ‘made in’. Can’t even tell where it was made in… A country, probably.”

    “What’s the good news?”

    “I think I could figure out what size if I held it up.”

    “Okay, great. Let’s just do that.” Alex sighs, watching the gap under the door as Jim pulls his jeans on again and shoves his feet into his shoes. He refuses to look at him as they return to the aisle, feels like he’ll scream or burst into flames or something if he has to look at him just now. How is he so casual about this, about himself, about the idea of peeling even partway out of his clothes in front of someone he’s known a day, and just letting Alex help him with all of this, just… doing whatever he tells him to, just… Just, how is he like this? “Do you think you’re like, a large, a medium?”

    “I guess I’m a large medium.”

    Yeah, no, the man is going to drive him insane.

    He finds a package that will open and reclose, so he can pull out a pair and hold them up, and when he turns, Ignatowski is also holding up a pair. Except the pair he’s holding up are worn out around the waistband in a few spots and have holes and oh god he took his underwear off, he took them off so he could compare the underwear he’d been wearing to the size of the ones on the rack. Alex is looking at the man’s underwear, the underwear that had just been on his body.

    He reminds himself that bodies are normal and natural and all that crap, and that there’s nothing weird or sexual about a guy’s underwear. He doesn’t feel normal or natural about this situation, though. He feels weird. Which isn’t on Ignatowski, who isn’t even looking at Alex, and who balls his underwear up and shoves it down into his pocket the second he’s ascertained that they’re looking at the same size. Ignatowski probably believes all that hippie stuff about bodies being normal and natural and beautiful, even without frying his brain. Alex was certainly told often enough that bodies are normal and natural and beautiful et cetera et cetera, but he can’t help but feel that bodies are weird and everything they do is gross and they shouldn’t have to produce so many fluids and looking at them is uncomfortable. Okay, sometimes looking at them is fun, but that’s also kind of uncomfortable.

    They add a couple packages of underwear to the cart. Undershirts. Alex uses the sizes on the clothes Ignatowski had already okayed to grab one more pair of jeans and a couple of other shirts. He doesn’t stray too far from the man’s established comfort zone, he doesn’t figure khakis and dress shirts will really do him a whole lot of good when he goes back to driving a cab, but at least he’d be able to wear something clean and reasonably presentable to see his brother. At least now he owns socks at all. At least he has some things that will be suitable for different kinds of weather, a sweater off the clearance rack, a flannel shirt with some weight to it… spring and summer are easier to shop for. 

    He steers him towards shoes next, because the ones Ignatowski has on– the back of one is trapped under his heel, after his haste to get back into them in the changing stall– should be destroyed. He’d suggest burning them, but that might be an EPA violation. 

    It takes a disturbing amount of work to get Ignatowski to consider his own physical comfort, a thing which becomes even clearer when they do get to shoes. He doesn’t think he needs them, even though it’s a miracle he got through last winter in the ones he’s wearing.

    “I mean, don’t your feet get cold? Or wet?”

    “Well… sure.”

    “Doesn’t that hurt you?”

    Ignatowski shrugs, but he pulls on a pair of socks and tries on shoes just the same. Has no trouble paying for everything, with the wad of money his brother had sent.

    “You want a cup of coffee?” He offers, shuffling the change back into his wallet. “It’s on me.”

    “No, I’m fine.” Alex says– he has not managed to develop a taste for coffee, without a truly embarrassing amount of milk and sugar and maybe chocolate syrup to kind of offset the way it tastes like coffee. 

    “Right. You don’t want to make it any harder to get sleep.” Ignatowski nods, gathering up his bags and following Alex back out to the car. He loads everything into the trunk, before gesturing to the donut shop in the same little strip mall area. “Donut instead?”

    “You don’t have to–”

    “C’mon, what else am I gonna spend all this on?”

    “There are a lot of things you could spend all that on.” Alex points out. “I mean, isn’t there anything you want? A single, solitary, selfish capitalist desire?”

    “Sure.”

    “Okay, there you go.” He grins up at him. “What is it?”

    “I kinda want a donut.”

    And yeah, that’s not as big as he should be thinking. There are so many more things Ignatowski should want for himself. But he’s out here to get back on his feet, and if he could just want one thing, if he could just decide to want one thing, isn’t that a step? 

    “Okay.” He sighs. “Then we’ll do that. Just… no coffee for me.”

    There are not a lot of beverage options that aren’t coffee, as it turns out. Ignatowski buys him a bottle of apple juice and a cruller. They sit in the booth by the window, not that the strip mall parking lot is much of a view. But it’s that or watching the speed with which Ignatowski demolishes a cream-filled donut and licks his fingers clean.

    “So… do you like what you’re studying in school?” He asks him, and Alex blinks. Not ‘what are you studying?’, but ‘do you like it?’...

    “Yeah. Business. I… I really enjoy it. The school’s not my first choice, of course. I didn’t… I didn’t really plan for– I mean, some people, they have a list of safety schools, and I… But the classes are good. I knew I’d enjoy the mathematics, you know, the statistics and economics and all that. I didn’t expect to enjoy marketing so much. I mean, I don’t expect to go into it! It’s just interesting stuff.”

    “That’s good. That’s good that you like what you’re studying.” Ignatowski smiles, soft. “I don’t know if I ever really had a head for any of that… I guess I must have, once. But I didn’t like it.”

    “What did you like?”

    “Poetry. Which was not very serious, and not what my father sent me to school to think about.” He waves a hand. “But I think it’s something… I’m not so bad at.”

Chapter Text

    Back at the house, Alex clears out a drawer, and grabs a couple of hangers for Ignatowski’s spare jacket and his new bathrobe, helping him to get his stuff put away. Which he guesses means he’s actually committing to sharing his room for the long haul, because there’s no way he’s clearing out a drawer for one night. 

    He takes Andy off his dad’s hands, once Ignatowski is settled, which makes getting caught up on all the general home maintenance stuff run smoother, even if it doesn’t do the one thing he’d hoped and exhaust him to the point of sleep. 

    … It does the other thing he’d hoped, it makes Andy happy. 

    Ignatowski comes in from helping with yard work, and forgoes the couch to sit down on the floor with Alex and Andy.

    “What are we doing on the floor?” He asks.

    “Cars.” Andy hands him one. He has at least broadened his horizons lately. Alex would take anything over the doll phase, but playing with cars demands very little out of him when sleep deprived– there’s no plot, there’s no racket, he just has to be able to roll a car around on the floor while Andy makes vroom-ing noises and occasionally rams them together. 

    “I can do cars.” Ignatowski nods. Andy immediately t-bones him with the red one. “I should have gotten insured for this…”

    “Yeah, there’s a lot of collisions. Rough streets in this town.” Alex smiles a little, in spite of himself.

    “Well, luckily I don’t think I had any passengers. Any crash you can walk away from…” He rolls his car unsteadily forward, making it veer this way and that. “Yup, we’re going to need a good mechanic.”

    Andy halts in his gleeful crashing of cars together– one in each hand, ramming into each other or into Alex’s– to watch as Ignatowski picks up the one he’d been given, peering at the underside, giving each wheel a little spin. He launches into a spiel that’s about half actual car words and half meaningless babble, as far as Alex can tell. It absolutely delights Andy, though, who giggles madly the whole time, and who rams one of his cars straight back into Ignatowski’s the moment it’s declared fit for the road again and placed back down on the floor.

    “Oh boy… this really isn’t my day.” 

    “Well, as you weren’t at fault for either accident, I think you could still get insured.”

    “You think?”

    Alex rolls his own car over. “The Alex P. Keaton insurance agency will gladly represent yo– oh no!” He laughs, as Andy rams him again next. 

    “It’s a dangerous intersection, I should have warned you. I’ve been hit here twice today.”

    “Well, consider yourself insured for next time.” 

    “Yeah, I’ve got a feeling I’m gonna need it.”

    His smile is warm and bright and it fills the room. No one should be allowed to smile like that. It’s completely unfair. It makes him seem so soft, it makes a person want to believe in crazy things like peace and love and getting naked in a muddy field somewhere listening to The Who. Gross.

    Alex needs to get out of the room, before he does something crazy, like decide to like the guy.

    “I’m gonna get a glass of water.” He announces. “Try not to get into any accidents you can’t walk away from while I’m gon– Have you actually, I mean at any point today, did you drink a glass of water I didn’t give you?”

    Nope, not what he was going to do, abort mission.

    Again, Ignatowski weighs this question out for a long time. “I had a cup of coffee.”

    “A cup of coffee is not a glass of water. Just… wait there.”

    “You got it.”

    Once again, he seems pleasantly surprised to actually be handed a glass of water when Alex comes back in. Like it hasn’t clicked for him that people might ask him about things he needs because they actually intend to do something about it. And he shouldn’t smile at him like that over something as small as bringing back a second glass of water, like he actually did something, when he didn’t go to any kind of special trouble, when he’s not the kind of person who goes to any kind of special trouble. 

    And it wasn’t, he was just getting his own, and he would have thought maybe Ignatowski stopped and drank some water at some point between helping with the yard and sitting down on the living room floor, isn’t that what you do when you come inside from doing something sweaty outside, drink water? So okay, yes, he’s trying to keep the guy from dehydrating himself, but he’s not putting any special effort into the job. He’s being a decent host, maybe.

    “I’ve gotta go study.” He excuses himself, ruffling Andy’s hair. “Thanks for playing cars, buddy.”

    He does not, in fact, have anything he needs to study this weekend. He’s not only caught up on all his work, he’s read ahead in his hardest couple of classes in preparation for spring break and, wanting to come back ready to go in with some grasp of the material. Had intended to use his break to continue studying up, before sleep deprivation hit him. He sits at his desk anyway, grabs a book and starts reading, but the words all swim under the weight of exhaustion and he reads the same random paragraph three times, absorbing nothing. He thinks about Ignatowski, sitting on the living room floor with his arms looped around his knees, smiling up at him like anything Alex did meant anything, like he was grateful, and the gratitude itches, it doesn’t fit.

    He’s short-tempered all through dinner, which he feels a little bad about, but he doesn’t much bother trying not to be. He barely hangs on long enough for Andy to finish eating and excuse himself to go play, after which point he’s not pleasant to be around and he is not nice to anyone

    “Did you know after three days without sleep you can start hallucinating?” Jennifer asks, when he’s snapped one too many times. “People get fully delusional.”

    “Great, can’t wait. Once I’m delusional, I might find you funny.” He rolls his eyes. 

    “Mom, Dad, can Alex go eat in his room?” Mallory asks. “Please?”

    “We are not exiling your brother from the table. But I’m sure deep down he’s very sorry for being unpleasant.”

    “I’m not sorry, I’m suffering.” He groans. “What’s Jennifer’s excuse?”

    “I’m suffering, too.”

    “And we have company–”

    “Can I eat in my room, then?” Mallory sighs.

    “Alex, can you please be nice to your sisters?” His mom groans. “In spite of the suffering?”

    “Why does everyone want to eat in their rooms?” His dad opines, not so much to any of them as to some invisible audience comprised of every father throughout history to try and fail to have a nice family dinner. “One kid’s already abandoned us in favor of creating a twelve-car pileup on the living room rug.”

    “He’s a good kid, but a dangerous driver.” Ignatowski smiles, apparently undaunted by the general air of tension and unpleasantness at the table. 

    All of which is Alex’s fault, admittedly, and if his parents’ patience is wearing out, he knows he’s being a pest to put it politely, but he doesn’t need to be hallucinating and delusional to be miserable running on three days without sleep, and a part of him wants his sisters to be miserable with him, even if he doesn’t like that part of himself very much and kind of wishes it wasn’t there.

    “Ah, you’ve seen Andy behind the wheel?”

    “I was just lucky to get insured before my third through ninth collisions.”

    Maybe Alex is delusional from lack of sleep and maybe that’s why he looks at the way Ignatowski smiles and he thinks about the sun. Maybe he’s totally normal, he’s just losing it.

    He’s being totally normal when he excuses himself. He goes upstairs and brushes his teeth and changes into his pajamas and lies down in the dark early and it does not matter because he does not sleep.

    Ignatowski creeps in, quiet, much later.

    “You can turn the light on.” Alex throws his arm across his eyes. “I’m not asleep.”

    “I’m sorry.”

    “Yeah, well.”

    He listens to the sounds of him undressing and dressing. He could remove his arm, he could sit up, he could look. He doesn’t do any of those things, but there’s nothing to stop him. But then he guesses to Ignatowski it doesn’t matter, because why would he expect Alex to look? And why would he care if he did?

    There is a picture of him, wearing nothing but mud and paint and wildflowers, in the photo album in Alex’ parents’ bedroom. You can’t see anything, but you can tell he’s naked in it. They have photos of friends and beautiful strangers in various levels of un-sexual undress, which they kept in their room on a high shelf because while they wanted to instill in their children the belief that bodies are normal and natural and beautiful et cetera et cetera, they did not want to be the house where anyone else’s children saw a naked person for the first time. Alex hasn’t thought about that in years, but now of course he realizes that one of the naked, mud-and-paint-streaked hippies in the pictures from concerts and festivals and camping and… commune-ing, yeah, one of them is Ignatowski.

    Anyway, he doesn’t look, until he hears a pen scratching on paper, from over by the camping cot. Looks over to see Ignatowski with a notepad, peering out the window and up at the sky, hunched, craning his neck.

    “What are you writing?”

    “I came up with a poem last night, didn’t have any place to write it down then… Forgot most of it.” He shrugs. “Probably wasn’t that good, or I’d have remembered it… then again, I don’t remember anything real great. Maybe it was beautiful. I was hoping I could get it back, but…”

    Alex isn’t sure whether it would be more comforting to think it was beautiful and lost, or kind of crummy. He’s not sure why it matters.

    “Well… what have you got?”

    He actually looks bashful, at that, fidgets and holds the notepad to his chest. “I don’t know if what’s left is that good, either.”

    He should let it go, because they’re not close, not really. Because he doesn’t want them to be. But he’s sick of trying to sleep, and when Ignatowski had talked about poetry, he’d assumed he meant he studied it, and maybe made his forays at writing it back in college, he hadn’t realized he still did. And maybe it shouldn’t matter, but Ignatowski had asked him if he liked what he was studying.

    “Maybe it’s beautiful.” He shrugs.

    Ignatowski shuffles over, and it’s like being approached by a skittish alley cat. One that’s seen better days and probably had more than a few run-ins with less than friendly strangers, but still holds out some hope that you’re offering food or something.

    He looks different, in pajamas. Softer. He perches on the very edge of the mattress, and after one moment more of hesitant dithering, he hands over the notepad, staring straight ahead as Alex reads.

Oh moon, the watchful eye of night, which shines on me

I would stay all night singing to you

Until at daybreak, the moon sets, and sleeps 

    “It’s just… I’m not sure what it was going to be. Thought if I could see the moon it’d come back to me.”

    “It could be a short poem.” Alex offers, returning the notepad. He doesn’t know anything about poetry, about what makes it good, about the art of it. Not the way he knows numbers and figures, which come easy. Imagery and metaphor are things that take work to understand, that need to be unraveled and grappled with in a way that straightforward numbers never do. “It– I like it.”

    “You do?” The smile lights up his face the way it seems it always does.

    He thinks he does. If he’s not too tired to have an opinion, maybe he does. He’d said he did. He nods, and mostly just think he’d love to be the moon, if setting actually meant sleeping. He mostly thinks staying up all night to serenade the moon sounds like the kind of starchild nonsense he could expect out of Ignatowski. 

    “What do you sing to the moon, anyway?” He asks, not sure if he means it to come out more or less cutting than it does– which is not very, but not very soft, either.

    “You really wanna know?” Ignatowski raises an eyebrow. When he does it, it’s soft.

    And it’s a ridiculous thing to want to know, but it’s not like he’s sleeping, so he might as well ask. “Sure, yeah.”

    “Lie back down. Close your eyes.”

    Alex does, re-settles the covers. Feels when Ignatowski rises from the edge of the bed and goes to turn out the light with a soft click, and feels when he perches there again, somewhere in the neighborhood of Alex’s shins.

    “Once there was a way to get back homeward… once there was a way to get back home…” His voice is rough, and low, and warm. Alex doesn’t fall asleep listening to him, but he appreciates it just the same. Closes his eyes and lies still and appreciates it.

    In the morning, he heads downstairs early, and he pours two glasses of orange juice, and fills two glasses of water, and sets one of each out in front of the place Ignatowski had claimed the previous morning. 

    “Get any sleep?” Ignatowski greets, when he shuffles in, notepad and pen in hand. “... For me?”

    “All yours. And… close. Not yet.”

    “Well… too soon to give up.”

    “At least I’ve got spring break.” He groans. “I can sleep and get back to normal before I have classes again. I keep forgetting I have spring break and then I have these waking nightmares where I need to be in class and I’m not prepared because I can’t sleep. But I can’t even sleep to have a regular nightmare.”

    “Oh, I’ve had that. When you have a nightmare without falling asleep first? Mine are all about the Mouseketeers.”

    “... You know what, I don’t know what I expected. I really don’t.”

    Ignatowski drains his water glass, and after a contemplative moment, he takes it back to the sink to fill it again. Alex leans over to peer at the notepad, where a new poem has been started, or maybe completed.

Gentle-handed sailor, I am your vessel

Which limped, storm-tossed, into your harbor

Windless, rudderless, before you

Chapter Text

    Sunday is a weird day. It’s not like the last time he struggled with sleep deprivation. The lack of focus he feels at this point is not unexpected, but the creeping heat that settles into the core of him? Yeah, that definitely wasn’t part of it last time. There’s no horny phase of sleep deprivation– at least, not within Alex’s experience, which isn’t exactly limited. 

    Sunday he can’t seem to get away from it, though. 

    It hits him midway through eating his eggs, and has to be the least comfortable sensation to be hit with at the family breakfast table. He is, he guesses, off his regular schedule of self-maintenance, such as it even is. There are respects in which he thinks he’s your average red-blooded college man, and while he can’t chalk being horny up to sleep deprivation, the sleep deprivation has interrupted everything else. And there are things he might have done, if he had not been sharing a room, which he didn’t even think about when he agreed to try and when he cleared out a drawer, he can’t change his mind now that he’s cleared out a drawer.

    He just has to employ a little self-control, that’s all. He’s already imposed a schedule once, and now he has to deal with not being on it. And again, if he can survive losing his sleep schedule, he can survive this. A little sexual dissatisfaction never hurt anybody. Alex is a rational man.

    Alex does not feel like a rational man.

    Not because he got horny over breakfast, although that certainly doesn’t help, just in general, because of the lack of sleep.

    He makes an honest attempt in the shower but it just leaves him feeling gross and dissatisfied and worse off than he started, though it occurs to him that if he had been able to finish, he might then be able to sleep.

    The idea of lying back down in his bed makes him anxious, there’s too much a sense of looming failure. 

    He tries lying down in the back yard instead. Throws an arm across his eyes and feels the grass and the sun and tries to trick himself into taking a nap like it’s something casual. Like it’s spring break and he’s warm and relaxed and the kind of person who could take a nap outside and it’s not even a big deal. The minutes tick by.

    He feels a touch trailing over his arms and jolts upright, but there’s no one and nothing there. Lies back down, closes his eyes, covers them.

    He feels it again, like he’s being touched, but it’s impossible. Both because he just checked and he’s alone in the back yard, but also because for someone to be touching him in the places he feels himself being touched, there would be a shadow. He moves his arm from off his eyes and the location of the touch along it shifts with him, but yeah. No shadow. No person. It disappears if he opens his eyes. If he closes them long enough, he can feel it again. 

    So, he’s officially losing it. 

    “Can you hallucinate a touch?” He groans. That’s obviously what it is, it’s just different from last time. He doesn’t like that the symptoms can be different, he doesn’t like that anything could change.

    “Oh, yeah.” Ignatowski answers from the doorway. Alex sits up, to see him venture out like he’s not entirely sure if he should. A little hunched in on himself in his approach. He holds out a glass of water. “Here.”

    “... Thanks.”

    Ignatowski shrugs and lowers himself to sit. “Sorry you’re still awake.”

    “Yeah. So… you’ve had that? The hallucinating-being-touched thing?”

    “I felt rain.” He nods. “I kind of liked it. Only had the full effect once, but for a couple years after I’d sometimes get just… just one drop.” He taps the back of his hand. “That was back when I was just taking whatever people gave me, never found out which one made me hallucinate rain. Didn’t know you could get that from not sleeping.”

    “Yeah, well, I don’t recommend it. The drawbacks outweigh the hallucinogenic factor.” Alex groans, but he’d kind of liked it, too. The feeling of being touched, gently, slowly… “God, even my hallucinations are–”

    He stops himself before he can say ‘horny’. He refuses to be horny while sitting in the back yard discussing tactile hallucinations with Ignatowski. 

    He’s wearing the baseball tee that Alex had picked out. It stretches just a little tight across the chest. He imagines the same is true of the shoulders, that maybe he should have had him try that on as well. Imagines that if he were not wearing his ever-present denim jacket, that the sleeves would put his forearms on display. Not that he had been looking at his forearms or how toned they seemed or how hairy, when he’d borrowed a tee shirt to sleep in and had to hang around in it waiting for his laundry to be done. 

    He sips at his water and closes his eyes and lets the phantom touch trail over his arms and the backs of his hands, and his face. Maybe he just needs to be touched for real, but it’s not easy. Nothing is. 

    When he opens his eyes, Ignatowski is lying down, too, expression pensive. 

    “Don’t think too hard, there.” Alex snorts.

    “How hard do you think that is?”

    “Oh– I was just…” Just being kind of an ass, for no reason, to the guy who’s always sorry when he can’t get to sleep, who has tried telling him stories and singing to him and who bought him a donut to thank him for pulling babysitting duty, and… “I don’t know. What are you thinking about?”

    “Words, words, words…” He blows out a sigh. “Alex, I’m going to tell you something. I am… in love with the rain.”

    “Sure.”

    “And the moon. And the grass. And that bird.” He points, though by the time Alex turns to look, the bird has flown off. “With everything, really. And sometimes… I just don’t know. I just don’t know. You ever think you understand what your life is, and then one day… you don’t?”

    “Yeah, believe it or not, I’ve been getting a lot of that lately.” He says, but it’s not really just lately, is it? A lot of his life looks different from where he’d planned. He was supposed to be at an ivy league by now, and instead he’s living at home. Sure, he is going to a four year school, and it’s not a bad one, but it’s not like it’s Princeton, either.

    “I thought I had it pretty well together. I mean, comparatively speaking. Today has brought a sense of clarity I’m not sure I appreciate.”

    “Like maybe your brother was right and you just needed to get out of the city for a while? Only you don’t want him to be right?” Alex gets that. If one of his sisters was right about what he needed, he’d hate having to admit it.

    “Ohh, I don’t think Tom is right exactly. Or, I don’t think this is… I think neither of us was right about things. I think the world is too big and too wonderful for either of us to have been right. I still don’t know about right. I think… Life, and love, and the rain and the moon and that bird–”

    “And the grass?”

    “And the grass and that bird.” He nods. “It’s all an experience. I have to let it pass over me, and through me.”

    “Sounds very… zen.” 

    “You don’t agree?” For maybe the first time ever, he picks up on Alex’s tone.

    “I don’t know. I’ve never thought that deeply about the rain and the moon and the grass and that bird, I guess. And I don’t really get that… you know, any of that stuff.”

    Ignatowski smiles up at him, sad. Sad enough that he half wants to apologize for not understanding his hippie-dippy moon-and-rain-loving nonsense. 

    “You don’t have to.” He nods. “Sometimes it’s better… easier. Freer.”

    Alex does not feel easy or free. Though when he closes his eyes he does feel the sun touch him with human hands. 

    “God I really need to sleep soon.” He flops back on the grass, arm knocking gently into Ignatowski’s. “I mean I’m not the kind of person who hallucinates!”

    “I wish I still was.” Ignatowski sounds about as tired as Alex feels.

    For a while, they both lie there in the grass, not talking. 

    “I don’t know why I thought this would work.” Alex admits. “But nothing else has, either.”

    “Sometimes that’s the only reason you need.”

    “I just couldn’t lie down in bed and not sleep again.”

    “Sure. I don’t know what I’m doing here, either.”

    “Being in love with the grass?”

    “I am in love with the grass. And with all living things.” Ignatowski sighs, and Alex elects not to point out that the rain and the moon are not living things. “And… I am allowing love to pass over me and through me. And to change me. Maybe.”

    “How do you think it’s going to change you?” He tries not to sound too amused. He’s not having a sane enough day to laugh at Ignatowski’s hippie stuff now.

    “For the better, I hope.”

    “Nowhere to go but up, right?”

    “Oh, I don’t know. I got it pretty good. But I hope. That would be enough… to let myself be changed.”

    “Sure. You sing to the rain and the grass and that bird, too? Or is that just for the moon?” He teases, but it’s gentler. He doesn’t feel like he’s being an ass this time.

    “I could.” Ignatowski smiles. “No rain. And… that bird has flown. But for the grass, sure. Maybe.”

    Alex dips his fingertips into his water glass, flicks a couple drops at Ignatowski, and maybe it’s just the whole sleep deprivation thing, when he feels the low, soft laugh that gets out of him, like it’s a physical thing.

    “That’s the best I can do, for rain.”

    “That’s okay. I got grass. And… I got life, mother. I got laughs, sister. I got freedom, brother… I got good times, man… I got crazy ways, daughter. I got million-dollar charm, cousin. I got headaches, toothaches, and bad times, too, like you…”

    It’s no lullaby, but it’s just as soothing, somehow. A lullaby hadn’t gotten him to sleep, just like lying in bed hasn’t helped him sleep. If lying outside in the sun could help– not that it has– then so could something lively, something that says to not even worry about sleep. 

    Alex hasn’t gotten a nap when they do go inside, but he is pink from the sun and he doesn’t want to actually burn.

    And he is definitely pink from the sun and not because his whole weirdly horny thing is in any way responding to anything or because he’s thinking about a man’s tongue or tits or ass or muscles or anything at all. Those are not thoughts he has about men. That isn’t who he is. It isn’t who he allows himself to be.

    In the kitchen, he makes Ignatowski drink another glass of water. Ignatowski reminds him to finish his own, but he’d stuck his hand in it, so he just empties it out and refills it fresh. He does drink that, though. 

    Andy brings him a book the moment he sits down, clambers up onto him, and it’s a lot easier– if not half as engaging– as Keynes, so he gets through it without going over the same bit a hundred times.

    The next time he looks over at the notepad where Ignatowski has been writing his poems, he’s flipped to a new page, but it’s mostly floating words, some crossed out and others circled. Sounds or concepts or images to come back to and work into something. It’s interesting to see a process, to see that they don’t all come fully-formed. To see the little war he has with himself over whether the next poem feels hopeful or tragic. Hyacinth discus-struck in exhausted pagan ecstasy is the closest thing to a line, and it’s not connected to any others. And you, you, you. Words like limned and gilt and empyrean.

    He kind of wants to ask who this Hyacinth is, except he had asked to read the first poem, the moon poem, and he hadn’t asked to look at the rest. If it’s a woman’s name, some woman he writes poems about, or if it’s just the flower. Which Alex would not describe as existing in ‘exhausted pagan ecstasy’, but Ignatowski might. 

    “Are you sure I’m not drinking too much water now?” Ignatowski asks, wandering back into the room. Alex leans away from the notepad, face heating.

    “No, I’m pretty sure you’re not drinking too much water. I think we’re at the bare minimum of what you should be drinking.”

    “I just feel like I’m spending a lot of time in the john.”

    “I didn’t need to know that.” Mallory says, breezing through the room. 

    “I haven’t noticed you spending that much time… I mean, I don’t think you’re spending an abnormal amount of time…” Alex’s face feels even hotter. He doesn’t see why it should. But his feelings are all over the place and his thoughts are scrambled, so… maybe it just is what it is.

    “I mean, once in the morning, once at night, that should be all a man needs.”

    “No. That’s… that is incredibly not all a man needs.”

    “No?”

    “Not remotely. Oh my god, are you sure you have functioning kidneys?”

    “I mean I just took a leak, they seemed to do the trick.”

    “Have one of my parents take you to see a doctor tomorrow, you might have done actual damage to yourself.” Alex groans, and does not let himself think about any of that.

    “Okey-doke.”

    Alex does eat dinner in his room this time. 

    He stares at his bed for hours and can’t even bring himself to lie down. When Ignatowski comes in, Alex watches him change for bed out of the corner of his eye. Not in any purposeful way, just spaced out enough that he doesn’t force himself not to notice a flash of bare limb.

    “What’s the matter?”

    “Scared.”

    “Oh, sure. What of?”

    “Sleeping. I know, I know, it’s the one thing I need. But now it’s been so long that I’m in my head and I’m weird about it, like what if when I do sleep I never wake back up, and it’s… crazy.”

    “Well, believe it or not, I’ve heard crazier. Usually from myself. Hey, I… uh, I got a ride to the free clinic tomorrow. So if there’s something wrong with me I guess we’ll know. Normally I just figure… I’ll find out when I find out.”

    “Are you nervous about going?”

    “I dunno.”

    “Wouldn’t it be better to know, if there was something wrong that you could fix?”

    “Maybe. You think… if there’s one thing I could do to fix a problem, even if I’m scared that it might not, I should?”

    “Yeah, I mean that makes sense to me.”

    “That’s good advice.” Ignatowski nods. “Try and sleep. One of these days it has to work.”

    He’s about to protest that he can’t, that the stress and anxiety is too much, but Ignatowski already has him there with his own advice. Alex closes his mouth without saying anything, though he doesn’t make a move to lie down yet, either.

    “Tell you what… one hour. You try to sleep. Lights out, eyes closed, head on the pillow… and I’ll stay up. And if you stop breathing or anything, I’ll… you know. Yell, or something. And if you can’t fall asleep after an hour… I haven’t thought that far ahead. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, yeah?”

    Alex lies down and closes his eyes. 

    Ignatowski sits over him for three hours. Eventually he slides down to sit on the floor, leaning back against the bed– eventually Alex hears him snore softly. He never does wake up and move to the cot, but Alex goes and grabs his pillow and his blanket from there, easing him gently onto his side so he’s not sleeping sitting up with a crook in his neck.

Chapter Text

    The thing is, Alex isn’t great at masturbation. 

    Which is fine! It’s a disgusting thing to be good at anyway!

    He doesn’t like how wet he still gets. He can’t stand putting his hand on himself down there. Even if he didn’t ooze slime all the time– seriously, even when he’s not turned on, it never ends! It’s disgusting! Thank god for adhesive pantyliners, otherwise he’d never get through a day without soaking his briefs. If the idea of saying the word pantyliners didn’t make him break out in hives, he’d be even happier, sure, but if it keeps him from staining every chair and couch cushion he sits on, he’ll take it.

    And… the couch is kind of the point. 

    Well, not the only point– the less said about some of the ways he’s managed to get off, the better. He prefers not to think about it.

    But the couch is… pretty reliable, unfortunately. The couch is how he accidentally discovered sex– or something adjacent to it– in the first place. If he can get the house to himself, then yeah. Grinding against the arm of the couch is the closest thing to a sure bet he’s got. Fully clothed, obviously, the idea of rubbing himself naked on the family couch is abhorrent for so many reasons. He still feels like the worst kind of pervert about it, but he’s desperate, he’s horny, he can’t get a hand on himself, and with Ignatowski on the fold-out camping cot in Alex’s room, he can’t get off in there at night.

    Because normally, as a mature, rational adult, obviously he would say the couch is off limits. You don’t rub your dick on the family couch no matter how many layers you have on, that’s a rule a civilized man abides by, generally speaking. But the shower hadn’t worked out and despite not being able to blame anything on having dreams, he’d gotten up in the morning feeling uncomfortably horny, and he couldn’t take care of it in his room…

    Well, maybe he could now, late Monday morning while the house is empty, but the arm of the couch works a lot better, and time is of the essence either way so he’s going for expedience. He leans way over, gripping the back of the couch, one knee on the seat. He used to be the right height to just stand there and grind against it, he did discover the arm of the couch by complete accident– and it’s not like he’s not grateful to have grown, he’s short enough as it is, but it’s an awkward position to get up against the place where the front of the arm of the couch has the right level of give and firmness…

    He knows the family will be out long enough for him to get off. Something he’d suddenly and desperately needed, a need that hit him hard, had him begging off leaving the house with some bullshit about just trying to sleep again. And he’d been lost in trying to get there, enough that he hadn’t heard Ignatowski in the kitchen– though when the man wanders into the living room holding a bowl of popcorn, he has to wonder how he didn’t hear him.

    “Christ! God– This isn’t what it looks like!”

    “Oh, you don’t have to be embarrassed.” Ignatowski waves him off, comes right over and drops onto the seat at the couch’s other end. “Who hasn’t humped a couch? Don’t worry about it on my account.”

    “No, that’s not what this is.” He straightens up, and for once he’s grateful for his whole… anatomical situation, because Ignatowski’s eyes very briefly drop down to Alex’s crotch, and he shrugs and looks back up at him, accepting the lack of a visible erection and looking a little embarrassed to have even spent a half a second checking when obviously there's nothing to see here. “I was… trying to– I lost something in the couch cushions.”

    The couch doesn’t have cushions along the back. The throw pillow that would normally be tucked into the corner closest to where he has a hand currently isn’t. Also his hips would not have to be involved in looking for something in the cushions. It is, all told, the dumbest lie he’s come up with in a long time, and now Ignatowski knows and could tell anyone, could tell his parents, that Alex is the kind of weird, repressed little pervert who can’t even touch himself, who has to hump the couch like a freak if he wants to get off without it taking forever and ending in frustration…

    “Oh.” Ignatowski just reaches down the crevice that Alex hadn’t been anywhere near, behind the seat cushions, and fishes around. He comes up with a dime. “Was this it?”

    “Yes!” 

    “Oh.” A smile lights up his face. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation talking, but it really is a beautiful smile. It’s that light that comes streaming out of him, warm and gentle. It’s like he breaks out in sunshine. “Whaddya know. Well, here.”

    He holds it out. Alex takes it, because… what else can he do?

    “Did you want to watch something?” He asks, looking between Ignatowski and his popcorn, and the television, which remains off.

    “Sure.” The man nods, like it never occurred to him.

    Alex finds something on that he figures neither of them can complain about. His room not offering any more privacy than the living room, there’s no point going up to try to finish. Not with how damn difficult it is to even come close. He just hadn’t thought the guy would come back to the house so far ahead of everyone… He’s just going to have to be sexually unsatisfied for the foreseeable future, which isn’t all that unusual, and he guesses when weighed against the sleep deprivation, it’s hardly the worst thing he’s going through, but he’s not loving it.

    He sits in the center of the couch, instead of the opposite side. Yes, it puts him closer to Ignatowski, whose arm is draped across the back, but that feels safer than being up against the arm of the couch he’d just been humping. He needs distance from the arm of the couch. 

    He’s so aware of him now. He’s tingling with need and he’s sitting next to this man, this older man, this man who is a friend of his parents and also just the opposite of everything he’s supposed to want, so why is he thinking about this man touching him? Not that he thinks he would. The guy has been sleeping on a cot in his bedroom three nights now, and the thought that he’d ever touch him has never crossed his mind. Even now, he seems pretty off in his own world. He’d been… like, okay with the idea of Alex humping the living room couch, but in that same kind of disconnected way. He hadn’t been leering about it, hadn’t asked him to continue or anything, he hadn’t been a dirty old man about it at all, he’d just sounded like it didn’t bother him. Unaffected. Even when he'd looked at his crotch it had been... devoid, of any of that.

    But he’s warm, this close, one long, long leg crossed over the other. It would be so easy to lean back against his arm, when he doesn’t remove it from the back of the couch. Ignatowski offers the popcorn bowl and Alex accepts a handful and he thinks about what it would be like if that arm was around him. If he leaned against him.

    Which he wouldn’t, obviously. But if he did, if he did, he can tell how tall he is and how warm. If he turns his head towards him and leans in just the slightest little bit, under the guise of reaching for another handful of popcorn, he can smell him. He thinks the sweat is just baked into his denim jacket at this point. But as worked up as he is, he likes it, the musk of him. The manliness. He watches him lick the salt and butter from his fingers and thinks about those fingers inside of him. He’s never even put his own fingers inside of himself, and his are a lot… less, than Ignatowski’s would be. 

    When he imagines it, it’s sort of dispassionate. He doesn’t imagine him any other way than how he mostly is– half in his own head at best. Not a mean bone in his body– he’s a safe fantasy, in that sense. There’s no point at which Alex imagines the guy would hurt him or take advantage of him or anything like that. It’s unrealistic enough to imagine him touching him at all. But if he did, it would just… be, he guesses. A hand down his pants while they watch TV and otherwise ignore each other. 

    It would be enough if it got him off, though. He can’t help chafing his thighs together a little, watching the finger licking happen, and he’s just glad Ignatowski is ignoring him. He forces himself to stop, before it becomes something that can’t be ignored, but he feels like he’s hanging on by a thread. Like even if the angle’s all wrong to get off on, he’s halfway ready to start desperately grinding down against the seat just to get a little damn friction.

    Thinking about going to his room doesn’t help. He just thinks about Ignatowski walking in on him again, catching him riding the corner of his mattress. Grabbing at his chest through his shirt, if he’s desperate enough– which he will be, with how he’s been unable to get off. Stuffing a fist in his mouth to stop himself from making noise, bedsprings creaking on every bounce, god what would he even look like? A mess. When he tries to picture himself, he doesn’t like it. But when he pictures someone else seeing him– when he pictures Ignatowski walking in on him, seeing an Alex who is unmistakably in the act of getting off, he wants to think he wouldn’t find him unattractive. That he would touch him in all the places Alex can’t touch himself. Even if it’s not because he’s really into him, that he’d just… that he just would. 

    He bolts from the room when the program changes and heads for his room, all he can do is trust that Ignatowski is actually going to stay put in front of the TV, or that when the family comes home, he’ll get sucked into a conversation down there, and he won’t actually get walked in on… but he can’t not think about how there’s no way he could lie a second time. And so he can’t not think about Jim offering to help him with that, in the same offhand way he makes every other offer he’s made anyone since showing up. Like touching Alex is no different from setting the table or helping with the yardwork or putting away the groceries. And then when his fingers came away wet, he’d lick them off, the same rote, distracted way he’d licked them clean of salt and butter, and he’d wander back out of the room without whatever he came in for in the first place. 

    He still can’t get off, and after a while, trying is more uncomfortable than fun. He lies down and doesn’t sleep for about five minutes before that makes him crazy, too. He goes back downstairs, so far beyond on edge it’s a wonder he doesn’t shatter the second someone acknowledges his continued existence.

    Once again, he is the least pleasant person to be around, but at least everyone just continues to make it about his sleep deprivation. And he wants to die when he thinks about the lapse in judgment that had him trying to hump the couch like some feral barely-pubescent weirdo, but Ignatowski doesn’t seem to really… remember it? Certainly he hasn’t considered it something worth telling anyone else about, whether or not he actually ever believed Alex’s very weak cover story, or just had the good grace to pretend to.

    He can’t sleep, he can’t come, he can’t just scream… Honestly, he doesn’t think screaming would make him feel any better if he did, because he really wants to do both those first things. 

    If he was under the covers, maybe. He could just stop if he heard the door. He’d be fully dressed, fully covered. 

    He doesn’t trust himself to stop. In the living room, he had stopped. In his bed, with an old teddy bear he was going to throw out years go shoved between his thighs just to give him something, with the covers pulled up, with his brain addled from lack of sleep, he does not trust himself to stop. Ignatowski could walk in and Alex would just keep going. 

    Which he thinks makes him the creep, but he doesn’t think Ignatowski would hold it against him, even if he probably wouldn’t lend him a hand. He’d know, though. Maybe he’d apologize and duck back out. Maybe he’d say something, some perfectly polite non-sequitor, maybe he’d just say hey, it’s totally normal and not at all embarrassing and back in the sixties everyone was super chill about masturbation all the time, and Alex will burst into flames.

    He doesn’t trust himself to stop when he’s already pictured Ignatowski’s fingers inside of him. He trusts himself not to beg for help, he’s not so far gone, but if he was close to coming when the door opened?

    He thinks about the picture in the photo album in his parents’ room. He thinks about the hair swinging around his shoulders and the streaks of mud and paint on naked skin, some handprints too small to be Ignatowski’s own, from someone who might have loved him then– if only in passing. The pose coy and withdrawn but the smile completely open and unshy. 

    He thinks he was beautiful then but he likes him better now, for all that he is and isn’t. He’s a real person now, not a set of pictures, he’s a person Alex has to try very hard not to like. A person he likes.

    A person he does not want to sleep with, does not get to sleep with, but a person he can’t help but to like.

    “Woah.” Ignatowski shudders, standing at the sink and looking out the window.

    “What’s wrong?” Alex does not abandon his quest for the cookie jar– oatmeal raisin, but it’s better than nothing. If he can’t sleep and he can’t come, he can at least have a cookie before dinner, dammit.

    “I feel…” He visibly struggles to describe whatever it is he’s feeling for a long moment. “My head doesn’t hurt, but I don’t love the rest of it.”

    “Your head not hurting sounds good.”

    “Yeah, but I’m… What’s the opposite of dizzy?”

    “Not dizzy?”

    “Well, I’m that like a son of a bitch.” He shakes his head, frowning. “I mean I’ve been clean for a while, sober, but this is some kind of… new kind of clean and sober.”

    “Ignatowski, you’re hydrated.” Alex sighs. “You’ve been mildly to moderately dehydrated for… potentially decades. It’s a miracle your kidneys still work– I mean, do they?”

    He might not have lab results yet, but he did go into the clinic, he did see a doctor. Alex hasn’t asked about it, it isn’t his business, but he does hope he’s not having any kind of organ failure, at least.

    “You could call me ‘Jim’.”

    Alex feels thrown for a loop. Of all the things he could have said… and he just wants Alex to feel like they can be on a first name basis? Which he doesn’t know if he can do, he needs some kind of walls up. Doesn’t he?

    “That’s– No–”

    “If you don’t like ‘Jim’, you could call me ‘Iggy’. It’s what Louie calls me.”

    “Okay, uh, maybe… maybe I’ll do that, then. Look… more importantly, I know being clear-headed and not dizzy and not at risk of passing out if you stand up too fast probably feels a little…” Alex pauses, and something in him crumbles. He takes a deep breath. “It probably does feel uncomfortable. Maybe even kind of scary. Maybe kind of terrifying, to not feel the way you’re used to feeling, but you can’t just go back to being dehydrated because it makes you feel dizzy and confused and that feels safe. It’s, again, it’s seriously unsafe. You can’t just continue to be low-grade high off of not drinking water, I mean you obviously weren’t trying to do that, but you… you’re getting better. Getting better is uncomfortable and terrifying.”

    “I know that.” His frown is soft, now. There’s an awareness in the way he looks Alex over. “You know that?”

    “Diet pills.” He nods. It’s not something he ever saw himself opening up to someone about, but if there’s one person who’d get it... “Amphetamines. Got ‘em off someone so I could study harder. So I could sleep less, which– I know. Ironic. I wanted an edge. Sleeplessness without the exhaustion. Turns out I have that, uh, addictive gene. It got pretty ugly.”

    “Oh…” It’s one syllable, but it says a lot and it means it. “So, no heavy narcotics, to get to sleep now.”

    “Right.” He doesn’t meet Jim’s eyes.

    “I mostly went for downers. Hallucinogenics, if I could get ‘em. But I know my way around a few uppers. I get it. I didn’t know you already… Thank you, Alex.”

    “You’re welcome?” He does look up at that. Sees that something wistful and deep in the warmth of Jim’s brown eyes.

    “For wanting to tell me. For wanting me to know, that you understand where I’ve been. At least a little of it.” He nods. “I was going to say, you’re so young, to have gone through it all, but I guess so was I, when I started. I just… took a long time getting to the other side. You seem like you… like you got it all together okay.”

    “Well… I had a lot of help, I guess.”

    “I’m glad.”

    Alex grabs a second cookie out of the jar, holding it up. “C’mere.”

    “What’s this?”

    “It’s cookie time.” He smiles. Holds it out. 

    Jim takes it, and follows him into the living room. 

    “I hope you’re not spoiling your dinner.” His mom says in passing, moving for the kitchen.

    “No, ma’am.” Jim smiles at her, tossing off a little salute as he flops onto the couch.

    “No, mom.” Alex drops down next to him. And she gives him a look for a moment and then comes over, and bends down to kiss the top of his head.

    “Okay, good. But if Andy sees you eating a cookie before dinner, I’m going to have to give you a time-out, mister, you got that?”

    “Jennifer’s trying to teach him to roller skate.” Jim says. 

    “Oh, dear… Well, if anyone comes in bleeding… it’s Steven’s job, I’m on dinner.”

    “Okey-doke.”

    “I’ll take care of it.” Alex promises. It’s the least he can do to make up for being such a pain most of the day. 

    “Thank you, sweetheart. Feeling more like yourself?”

    “Not remotely.”

    “Aww.” She leans forward again, and he has to protest the second kiss, because he’s not a sick eight year old, he’s a man. But she smiles and ruffles his hair and heads into the kitchen, and Alex catches Jim smiling softly at him.

    “What?” He blushes.

    “It’s just nice. That you had them to raise you.”

    It is, but he doesn’t know how to agree. But, he gets it. The understanding they both have now– the full picture Jim has of Alex as someone who had needed help, to get clean, and who got it, because these are his parents. 

    “So Louie calls you Iggy? Who’s Louie?”

    “He’s my boss. Was… Will be, presuming he doesn’t hire someone better while I’m here. I think he’ll take me back, Louie likes me. He’s a great guy.”

    Alex has the feeling Jim would call anyone a great guy, but it’s not like he knows Louie to be anything else. There’s literally no reason for him to be uncharitable, except that he’s never extended the benefit of the doubt and not been hurt.

    Until Jim.

    “You’d want to go back to the same job?”

    “Yeah. It’s a good job. I like doing it. I like meeting people… and it’s really good folks. The other drivers, they’re… they’re really good people. I owe that job for a lot. My life, you know, maybe it’s not enough for my brother, but it’s… it’s my life. There’s good in it.”

    “You know what, that makes sense.”

    “Yeah?”

    “Yeah.” He nods. Meeting new people seems like it’s probably the highlight of Jim’s day. Every single one of them is the moon and the rain and the grass and a bird. He probably makes every single one of them his sole priority for the time they’re in his cab. “Jim… do you want to know something?”

    “I do.” He nods. His expression is soft, his chest expands with a quiet breath, and he waits. And Alex’s nerves hit hard now that he’s here, but he shared one thing and got nothing but accepted, and he’s never for a moment been given a reason to think Jim of all people wouldn’t…

    “My middle name, um… it’s Prudence. Which is a virtue, which I happen to believe in. I mean I think it’s one of the better things about me.” He says, rocking a little, arms wrapped tight around himself.

    “The sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful and so are you…”

    For once hearing it doesn’t chafe. For once it’s just… nice. “What I mean is, I don’t hate it. I don’t wish it was Peter, or Paul, or Patrick. It suits me. But you can’t shorten ‘Prudence’ into a boys’ name.”

    “What about backwards?”

    “Prudence isn’t anything backwards.” His brow furrows, the absurdity of the question surprising him out of the worst of his nerves.

    “Damn. Nothing ever is.”

    “I mean, I’m just… I’m telling you this, because…” He stops. “I don’t know why. Maybe because you understand what it’s like, and maybe because you lost the only thing I’ve ever cared about or wanted for myself, the one thing where I don’t know how to want anything else. When I picture my future, it goes one of two ways. I get there, Princeton, and I have that, and every single thing goes right from there forward, or I’m dead in a ditch. And if I get there, and I have that, and I lose it, then that’s the dead in a ditch one. But you’re… You seem happy.”

    “Thank you.” A slow smile unfolds across his face. It deepens into every crease and comes out as sunshine. “I am.”

    “How?”

    “Because I didn’t belong at Harvard. And I wasn’t happy. I really, genuinely wasn’t. Now, maybe my life hasn’t been all roses since. Maybe the lows have been real low and the highs have been chemically assisted. But the road I put myself on brought me to the places I’ve needed to be. And I would never have made the friends who matter if I had stayed in that world. I wouldn’t have had the experiences that made my life good. I’d have been a spiritually small man. A sad man. You like what you’re studying, but I didn’t… I didn’t like anything about the person I used to be. Maybe you would be happy at Princeton, even if it is in New Jersey… but maybe you’re going to be happy where you are. Maybe you don’t need Princeton to be the person you need to be. You are not going to wind up dead in a ditch just because you aren’t going to the ‘right’ school, because that… that isn’t you. You… you’re not me.” His voice goes soft, like he’s realizing something. “Alex… you’re going to be okay. You aren’t going to crumble under the pressure. And you– you’ve already been through– you’ve already… All you need is to sleep, and you’re going to be okay.”

    “Thanks.”

    “So, if heavy narcotics are out of the question, how do you feel about meditation and breathing exercises now?”

    “Not a chance.” He laughs. “... Maybe we’ll try breathing.”

    “Okay.” One side of his smile ratchets up a little higher than the other, and the heat that Alex had managed to forget about shoots straight through him again. “Breathing it is.”

    “I’m going to go… Go.” He says, doesn’t bother with an excuse, just hightails it out of the room. 

    He paces around his bedroom a while and tries to think about anything other than Jim Ignatowski and the way that he smiles and the way that he smells and how it feels to be close to him.

    Instead of forgetting about him, he finds his notepad.

Early spring and the tree is not yet ripe with fruit

Only broken out in darling buds of pink and white and I

Dream about a peach

Chapter Text

    Okay.

    Okay.

    So Alex maybe kind of masturbated in front of Jim in the morning and then in the afternoon, told him he was also an addict in recovery and that he was born with a girl’s name– and all that could be inferred from that.

    And, really, all the conversation they had about that stuff went great. If he hadn’t expected it to, he wouldn’t have started it. Even the girl stuff. He’d been fifty-fifty on Jim following that one to its logical conclusion, maybe, but also… Jim’s more lucid than he had been on his arrival. He’d been sixty-forty, maybe even, on Jim following him. He could have walked it back if he’d needed to, maybe– what’s in a name, right?-- but he hadn’t. 

    But now he’s sitting across the dinner table from the man he just tacitly told he doesn’t have a dick to, so now Jim knows he doesn’t have the expected visual indicators of arousal that he might have been checking for, after The Couch Incident.

    Which he still can’t believe his real lapse in judgment on. Why didn’t he pick his mattress, again? 

    If Alex isn’t a total nightmare to be around, it’s only because he’s completely spaced out as far as his family can tell, because all he’s thinking about is that Jim’s got to be reassessing some things, doesn’t he? Does he think he’s a freak, a pervert? Has he thought about what he looks like naked? And thinking about Jim thinking about him naked has him turned on again, even when he isn’t even imagining that he’s interested.

    He doesn’t think Jim is thinking of him as a freak and a pervert, because every time their eyes meet across the table, he smiles, small but sunny, private. While he reminisces with Alex’s parents, and they continue to catch up on all the time he’s been out of their lives, bits and pieces of remembered stories, a part of him still feels like Alex’s.

    Which is… sleep deprived delusion, he knows. They connected, yes, that was real– Jim knows Alex is an addict now, that he understands the real weight and cost of sobriety in a way another person might not. That he’s not just some bleeding heart, that if he gives Jim a chance to keep being better, it’s… different. He doesn’t imagine that’s meaningless, he knew it would change things when he said it and he was ready for that thing to be changed. But it doesn’t mean…

    And he doesn’t want it to.

    Okay, yes, he likes how he smiles and he likes how he smells and he likes how tall he is and how big his hands are and he likes seeing a sliver of his stomach and the hair on his forearms and he likes the way that it feels to have his arm stretched along the back of the couch and how it feels safe to try and fail to fall asleep when he knows that Jim is sitting over him in the dark and he likes the sound of his breathing and he likes the sound of his voice, okay, he likes Jim. But you can like a person and not want it to happen with them, can’t you? He’s liked people before and not pursued anything happening!

    He likes people who drive him crazy and who believe in all the things he pushes back against.

    He likes Jim.

    He doesn’t think anything’s going to happen, but god, he does want it to. 

    He’s not asleep, which he guesses puts it in the realm of fantasy and not dream, when he pictures Jim’s big hands on him, warm and gentle, and when he pictures lying down beside him, and when he pictures being kissed, a thigh slotting solid up between his own…

    “Oh god.” He jerks upright. Not asleep, no, and at the dinner table. With his family. Thinking about being laid down and kissed and all the things he’s not supposed to think about about a man.

    “Alex?” His dad frowns softly. “You all right?”

    “Just… really need to sleep.”

    “Okay. Do you want to try lying down now, you feel close?”

    He shakes his head. “No, if I even could, I’d just wake up hungry in a little bit.”

    “Well, after you eat, then.” His mom pats his hand. Someone adds a scoop of mashed potatoes to his plate during a particularly long blink.

    Possibly that someone had been Alex himself. He can’t rule it out.

    His parents dig out music, after dinner, something that they and Jim remember, which Mallory mostly groans over, and Alex can’t summon up the energy to be disgusted by. He lingers downstairs, to watch Jim ask his mom to dance, the two of them taking about half a spin around the living room.

    “May I cut in?” Alex’s dad taps Jim’s shoulder, and winds up with an armful of him.

    “All right, but you better lead. I don’t dance with that many men who are taller than I am.” Jim says, and the two of them finish the song out, before Jim puts Alex’s parents into each other’s arms for the next.

    It’s… nice. He can’t pretend it isn’t nice. The three of them laugh together, and Alex feels like he’s stuck somewhere between being someone who gets to laugh in the room with them, and being a kid sneakily watching them from the top of the stairs past his bedtime.

    It’s several days past Alex’s bedtime, but he’s grown up enough that if he were more awake, maybe he would… 

    Maybe he wouldn’t keep hating things just because his parents like them. Maybe he wouldn’t keep putting up walls even between himself and the people who care about him. Maybe he wouldn’t make stupid rules for himself that he genuinely wouldn’t ask anyone else to follow but somehow he expects himself to be perfect. He doesn’t even remember what’s so imperfect about some of the things he’s not allowed to be or want or do.

    Okay, he’s kind of lucky to remember his own name right now. 

    He really needs to sleep.

    A strong arm around him keeps the floor from rushing up to meet him. His parents sound surprised, or maybe upset, from the other side of the room.

    “Oh! Hey, I’ve got you.” Jim’s voice is soft, and much closer. 

    “You asking me for this dance?” Alex asks fuzzily. 

    “I think I’m taking you up to bed.”

    “Oh, good. I was hoping you were gonna say that.”

    “Got your feet under you? Can you keep holding onto me?”

    He can hear his dad ask Jim something, but he can’t process what the question is. 

    “I’ve got you.” He nods, holding on tight to Jim’s shoulder.

    The spell passes by the time they limp their way up to the top of the stairs, and he could cry when he realizes he’s wide awake before he gets to his bed. He’s not even dizzy enough to worry he might pass out and hit his head on the sink brushing his teeth and he sometimes worries about that when he’s not even sleep-deprived. 

    Not half as often, but sometimes.

    So he brushes his teeth and changes into his pajamas and he doesn’t bother to pull his bathrobe tight around himself. 

    “I keep getting so close.” He whines, and hates that he’s whining, as he flops down onto his bed at last. “I’m wide awake.”

    Jim sits on the edge of his bed, and after a moment of hesitation, he rests his hand over Alex’s stomach.

    “Just take a deep, slow breath– the deepest, slowest breath that still feels natural.” He says, and Alex doesn’t think the Jim of his first day with them would have been quite so… lucid, or detailed. He’d maybe tell him to breathe deep and slow and that would be it. 

    “I’m not meditating.”

    “You don’t have to. Think about whatever you want– or don’t. I guess not thinking is meditating. So maybe think.” He shrugs. “But for now, just think about breathing.”

    Alex takes a couple of deep slow breaths. Tries to focus on that. Breathing like he’s someone who could sleep. Jim’s hand is a gentle weight that rises and falls on each. When Alex can’t stay in sync with himself, his own hand is guided to Jim’s stomach and he feels the evenness of his breaths. Jim could breathe deeper and slower, he thinks, at least on presumed lung capacity and maybe a bunch of practice with this kind of thing. But he breathes each breath like Alex’s first couple, and feeling him brings Alex back into sync with himself again. 

    He feels so close and so far. He feels so tingly all over and so aware of the fact that he’s lying in bed and Jim is touching him.

    Jim touches him the way maybe you’re supposed to touch your friends’ son who can’t sleep. His hand doesn’t go anywhere it doesn’t belong and he doesn’t do anything to make Alex feel tingly about it. He just breathes with him. Getting hot about it is all Alex’s fault, not his.

    Alex doesn’t know if he’s thinking, or just feeling. Floating. He knows he isn’t sleeping, but he’s pretty sure this is the closest he’s come in days, and he might not be asleep but it doesn’t stop him from dreaming, more or less. They’re up in the clouds, or maybe he is the clouds, and Jim is just light, and that’s why his touch is so warm. 

    “Is that the bird you love?” He asks, before he remembers Jim is real and in the room and can’t see the picture painting itself across the insides of his eyelids. 

    “What kind is it?”

    “Bluebird.”

    “Then yes. That one’s my favorite. Don’t tell the other birds. Think you’ll sleep?”

    “Am I awake right now?”

    “A little bit, yeah.”

    “Then no.” He sighs, Jim’s hand following his stomach all the way down. All the way back up as he takes another, deeper breath, before they fall back into a rhythm. His hand drops to Jim’s thigh. “Sing to me again?”

    The hand that isn’t on his stomach pushes the hair back from Alex’s forehead. Rests there a moment, repeats the motion. 

    “Hasn’t helped so far.”

    “No… ‘s nice, though.”

    “Oh.” Jim smiles. He can’t see it, but he can hear it. He can feel it in the way sunshine fills the dark room. “When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now… will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine…”

    He breathes, and feels the solid warmth of Jim’s thigh under his hand. Squeezes, once, and Jim lets him. He takes his hand back when he thinks he might be tempted to do more, touch more, when he thinks Jim would just let him because he’s like that, not because it was okay.

    “You should lie down.”

    “Are you sure?”

    “Yeah. Last night you fell asleep sitting up. One of us should get some actual sleep. Horizontal sleep.”

    “I woke up lying down.”

    “I know. I tucked you in.”

    “Oh.”

    “What did you think happened?” He laughs softly, opening his eyes to the room and the dark and a reality where he cannot sleep. 

    “I didn’t think about it so much.” Jim admits. “If I had I guess I would have figured. You weren’t supposed to have to do that for me…”

    “Go ahead and tuck yourself in tonight, and I won’t have to, then. It’s– it’s okay. You were gonna get a crick in your neck because you tried to stay up all night for me.”

    “Okey-doke. Hope… hope you get some sleep tonight. Keep breathing, I guess.”

    “It beats the alternative.” He says, and Jim laughs. 

    He wants to ask him to stay, to lie down next to him, to share the same blankets and keep his hand resting over his stomach while he breathes. If he’s going to suffer through another sleepless night, he wants to feel Jim breathe, he wants to be close enough to feel the warmth of his body and to breathe in the soft end-of-day skin musk. The way he smells like Alex’s soap and shampoo and laundry detergent on top of himself. Like he could belong with him.

    He suffers through another sleepless night alone. In the morning, he pours two glasses of orange juice and two bowls of cereal, shaking his head when Jim comes in, before he can ask.

    “Pretty close, though.” He adds milk to Jim’s bowl, and motions him over. “You?”

    “I slept good. Hey, tonight– we’ll get you there.”

    “You know it’s not really your job, right?”

    “Isn’t it why I’m staying with you? So I can help you get to sleep? Otherwise, I’d be okay on the couch.”

    “I don’t think the couch would be that comfortable.” Alex says, and does not think about The Couch Incident and does not think about straddling Jim’s lap or anything else. “I mean– is the cot really okay?”

    “Oh, yeah. I like it.” 

    “Well… you can stay with me whether or not you help me get to sleep. I’m not kicking you out just because you can’t solve my problems for me.”

    “Oh.” Jim ducks his head, but it doesn’t do much to dim the brightness of his smile. “Okay, sure. Well… can I still try?”

    “... Yeah. If it’s just because you want to, not because you think you have to just to have a place to sleep. I mean– you know, I don’t do this just to be nice or anything, but I already moved your stuff in, so…”

    “I want to.” He nods. “That’s it, huh? I got a drawer and that’s it? No kicking me out?”

    “Guess so.”

    “Good deal for me. Maybe that’s always been my problem, I never had a drawer somewhere before. Never had enough to put in a drawer.”

    “How’s it feel?”

    “Good. I mean, I’m not a materialistic person, but… I don’t mind having clean clothes. Owning deodorant. Shoes without holes. Feels… kind of nice.”

    Alex isn’t sure that the weird crystal thing that one of his parents picked up for him at the same store where they buy wheat germ counts as deodorant, but he doesn’t argue the point. 

    “I’m glad.” He says instead. “You should feel good about owning things. I mean… look, I know you don’t want your brother to be right about everything and you guys don’t agree about a lot, and there’s stuff in your life that you like the way it is, but owning things is… Well, look at my folks! They have a house, with furniture and everything. You know, clothes and shoes and books and… stuff. And they’re still pretty, you know, out there with the hippie stuff. You don’t have to, like… walk the earth with nothing but the clothes on your back until they fall apart just to make a point of not being materialistic. The great machine of capitalism is gonna march on regardless, the only one you’re punishing is yourself. You don’t need to do that. You know, taking care of yourself isn’t selfish.”

    “I’ve never been any good at that. Taking care of other people, you know… maybe I’m not so much better, but I know I like doing it. Trying. Me… I’ve never been to me.” He shrugs. “Sometimes people let me, for a while, and that’s enough.”

    “Well, what about you?”

    “I just gotta trust the people I love to repay the favor.” 

    “Do they?”

    “I think they always try. Putting my life back on track’s a big job, I wouldn’t ask anyone to…”

    “What you need is someone with some ambition. No lazy slackers who take an hour for lunch and knock off early, you need to be loved by someone who’s looking to clock some overtime.” He jabs a finger at him. “Somebody who’s serious about wanting the job. You’re putting yourself in the hands of flaky, artsy, love ‘em and leave ‘em types, you need someone with a monogrammed briefcase and an MBA.”

    “I don’t exactly know a whole lot of people who love like that.”

    “Well… you should. I just mean– I mean, love is no different from anything else, you– you just need the right person for the job, and if they’re not going to take it seriously, you find the person who is.” He stammers his way to a halt, blushing. Because yeah, it sounds like he’s interviewing for the job, and that’s not what this is.

    He goes back to his cereal, leg bouncing under the table. Has to drop a hand down to rub at his thigh until he can settle. 

    “Do you want to get out of the house?” He offers, taking his bowl to the sink. “Do something today?”

    “Like what?”

    “I don’t know. What do you like?”

    “Everything.”

    “Right. Rain, the moon, the grass, birds… What about trees?”

    “I like trees.”

    “Not a whole lot of trees in New York City?”

    “Well… I hear there’s one growing in Brooklyn.”

    Alex laughs. “Okay, well, I’ve got an idea.”

    He secures car access, for the morning, in exchange for making sure his dad gets a ride to and from the station. They drop him off at work and then Alex slides up into the passenger’s seat and directs Jim to the Franklin Park Conservatory, and takes him to the palm house.

    “Whoa.” He gazes up at the broad fronds overhead, sunlight filtering through… He breaks out into a smile, turning in a circle, taking it all in. 

    They go up to every single tree in the palm house. Jim tells each one that it’s a fantastic tree and he loves it. He’s in heaven and Alex is in love.

    Oh.

    Fuck.

Chapter Text

    After the conservatory, Jim offers to buy lunch, and Alex makes a token protest, but Jim has the rest of the money from his brother that he hasn’t spent, and nothing he wants to spend it on… and Alex is too busy reeling from the idea that he could have genuine emotions about him to say no.

    It hasn’t been that long, that they’ve even known each other. It seems crazy, but then, how many people would he open up to after half a week, sleep deprivation or no sleep deprivation? How many people would be as open with him? And it’s not that he thinks he’s special, Jim seems open with the whole world. It’s just that Alex doesn’t guess he knows how to be treated the way Jim wants to treat the whole world, without wanting to make it personal.

    So, he lets Jim buy him a burger and listens to him rhapsodize about the trees they’d spent their morning with. And he wishes he could just have been the kind of person who could do this, love him and not have a list of reasons why not. A list that begins with how awful he’d been when they’d first met and ends with the fact that Jim sees him as Steven and Elyse’s Son, and in between is just a whole bunch of…

    Well, okay, a whole bunch of what society would think, but they live in a society! And why shouldn’t Alex care what people think? How many gay titans of industry are there? How many gay senators? How many people will write off everything he has to say before he can even say it, if he can’t just choose not to be? It’s not exactly easy out there, it’s…

    Alex has maybe never been on the side of making it easier, before.

    It’s just how the world is, it’s how the world has been, and if you asked him to rank his priorities, you know, sure, maybe he’d like it to be easier, but he can’t make important decisions based on whether or not it would make the world a better place to be gay in! Not even if it affects his own future. He can’t think about whether he’s going to be more comfortable or free or safe when there’s a whole lot of other shit he has to weigh out, like global and economic policy! Isn’t he supposed to be selfless once in a while? Isn’t he supposed to think outside of his own interests?

    It’s just different, when he actually has to think about this part of himself, when it’s real. When even if nothing ever happens and Jim goes back to New York and this becomes just a really weird period in Alex’s life, he can’t pretend he’s not… something. Because if he says he’s not, then that means none of this is real, and he can’t do that. Whatever this is that he’s feeling, however hopeless it might be, it is real.

    After lunch, he directs him to the art museum, on a whim. Just kind of wants to see what he makes of it, what he likes, how he looks at things. He’s not disappointed– Jim has a story about having been to an art auction in a gallery back in New York. It’s disjointed and hazy, the way his stories from the years he was using often are. There are details which might not be, strictly speaking, true, and other details which time has erased. But he shares it anyway, as they wander around not really paying all that much attention to most of the art. Alex doesn’t really know how to look at art– he’d like to be the kind of person who knows how to look at art, he understands the golden ratio and that’s about it. But anything you can’t break down mathematically feels… insubstantial. It’s just about whether or not you like something, which he doesn’t know how to do.

    Jim stops them in front of one– it’s a painting, a seascape. Not the first they’ve seen, but the first he’s really stopped over. 

    “Oh.” He says, the syllable falling heavy from his lips. “Oh, this one gets it.”

    “It does?” Alex doesn’t see the difference between any of the paintings of the ocean. Some of them have boats and some of them don’t, he guesses. They’re all messes of blues and grays, a little black, maybe a little green.

    “This painting is…” Jim waves a hand. “This is how I feel, today. How I feel…”

    He trails off, and Alex tries to look closer. The ocean looks a lot like all the others. This one has a boat in one corner, small against the sea and the big gray sky. It feels stormy, at first glance, dangerous, until he sees the rainbow, up in the corner opposite the boat. It’s faint, he would have missed it if they’d walked past this painting at the same speed they’d passed the others. The sky is gray but it’s light. The sea is rough, but the boat has already made it through the worst.

    Alex is the one to stop them, when they get to the Hopper.

    “This is how I feel.” He says, and thinks about taking Jim’s hand. He can’t, and he doesn’t, but he wants to hold his hand in front of Morning Sun. 

    The woman is alone and her world is empty and colorless, and she looks like she didn’t get any sleep, either, and her bed looks as comfortless as the blank wall of her room, but the sunlight that streams in is warm, and it touches her everywhere, it changes her…

    He wants to say it’s how he feels with Jim. Like the sun is going to change him and it’s going to make the gray in his world gold and it’s going to make the loneliness warm if he lets it. He doesn’t.

    “I think that’s beautiful.” Jim says softly. 

    “Yeah.”

    He still doesn’t think he knows how to look at art. He doesn’t even think he knows what he likes. But he knows how he feels about one painting now, that he didn’t have any feelings about before, or it knows how he does.

    “Do you come here a lot?”

    “Never. I just thought… maybe today. With you.”

    “Oh.” He grins. “Okay, then.”

    After they pick up his dad at the station, Alex tries to fall asleep in the backseat, but every time his head rests against the window, the vibration tickles his inner ear like crazy. And he’s not really sure what his long-term plan was going to be, there, anyway. He’d have to wake up to get out of the car. But it feels unintimidating in a way bed doesn’t, now.

    Jim writes poetry in the living room while Alex tries to sleep on the couch. He winds up slumped against Jim’s shoulder, breathing him in. Feels like he’s taking something that shouldn’t be his in doing it, that he’s using his exhaustion, that he’s taking advantage of Jim’s endless patience and kindness, but he can’t actually seem to sit up any straighter, even if he also can’t sleep. Which he guesses means he’s at least taking advantage of that patience and kindness honestly. Even if he maybe should still feel guilty about the heat that spreads through him when he thinks about being so close to Jim and wanting to smell more of him.

    This close, he can read what he’s writing, even if the words swim a little. Between blinks that desperately want to just be sleep, he sees the day’s poem take shape.

Longfellow’s forest primeval may yet stand, trees like druids and memories.

And Frost’s woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I prefer what I have seen.

You, in a cathedral of light. 

You, loved by the sun and the air.

Me, the air in my lungs balmy, warm and green

Me, reveling in my smallness in the face of a beautiful world.

I am free from tragedy and from regret, I am free from everything but you

And if you have miles to go before, before, then I will walk them from Acadie on down

There is a bower forever in my heart

A forest I never have to leave.

    “That’s nice.” He says, but it comes out of his mouth as mush.

    “Shh… sleep.” Jim strokes his hair. 

    “I can’t.”

    “Shh…”

    He wants to ask if the you is a real person, back in New York or somewhere else, if there’s a woman somewhere he loves or once loved, if she ever left little handprints in paint or mud on his skin or just the metaphorical kind. The trees he can figure– the part about smallness and a beautiful world, Jim had said that over lunch and Alex told him he ought to remember that for his poetry, and clearly he did. Alex doesn’t know enough about Longfellow or Frost to have anything intelligent to say, and he’s not exactly proud of the flare of jealousy when he imagines that somewhere there is some woman who does, who would understand it if she were given a poem and told it was about her. A woman he would walk miles for.

    He wants to ask, starts to, even, but it comes out so garbled.

    His family moves through the living room talking about dinner. Mallory’s sharp-whispered complaint about something, Jennifer’s gratitude that dinner is anything but lentil-loaf, Andy’s sing-song chant about lasagna going from the top of his lungs to a careful whisper as he passes by… 

    His mom leans in to kiss the side of his head.

    “Has he been sleeping long?” She whispers, and he wants to say he’s not asleep at all, but it comes out as a hum.

    “No.” Jim whispers back. “Can’t seem to get more than a minute at a time… he nods off and he jerks back awake.”

    “Maybe we’d better leave him on the couch for now, he can eat when he wakes up… I’ll go grab a blanket if you think you can get out from under him.”

    He tries again to point out that he’s awake, actually, and he would like some lasagna. It’s an unintelligible mumble and his mother strokes his hair and shushes him gently.

    “I can stay here.” Jim offers. “I don’t wanna wake him.”

    They both go quiet. The top of Alex’s head is kissed. A blanket gets draped over him before he can really speak.

    “I’m awake.” He groans. 

    “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” His mom sighs. “Are you hungry?”

    He nods, and Jim offers him a stabilizing hand, in standing up, sticks close to him until he’s in his chair at the table.

    He’s quiet again through dinner, and sometimes he thinks he spaces out on something someone says, like some kind of microsleep. He doesn’t wind up facedown in his lasagna, he gets further from sleep about midway through and tunes in to hear Jim talking about the trees again. And he’s sweet and he’s beautiful and he would have sat still on the sofa while everyone else ate if Alex had really been able to sleep, just to avoid waking him, and Alex feels just a little guilty when he imagines what it would have been like to just let that happen. If he had just been able to enjoy that shoulder beneath his head and the musk and the warmth and the nearness…

    Someone else takes his plate after he finishes eating, and he goes straight upstairs. Slips into his parents’ room and takes down the photo album, and slides the old photograph out. It’s as he remembers, but he appreciates it in ways he did not when he was a kid and bodies were neutral and he didn’t know the full force of the man’s smile in the flesh. 

    The smile is a little different now. There are deeper lines around his dimples that weren’t there before. 

    He doesn’t know how different the rest of him is, after a couple of decades. He knows he’s big, which is the one thing the picture doesn’t show. He doesn’t know how he’d feel about that, if he thought something could happen between them, but as a safe fantasy, it’s thrilling to think about. 

    He hides the photograph under his pillow. He gets ready for bed like it was just a normal night. Downstairs, Jim is watching TV with the family. No one has to know if Alex goes back to his bed and imagines being touched.

    He touches his stomach, his thigh, easier places to think about. Imagines sharing his bed with Jim, being kissed. Imagines big hands grabbing at his chest, his ass, imagines feeling the press of an erection hard and hot against him through their pajamas. Imagines lying beneath him, making out, feeling Jim between his legs… chafes his thighs together and squirms and imagines touching him, too. Imagines clinging to his shoulders, imagines leaving a hickey down along his collarbone. 

    He shoves the photo back under his pillow when he hears the door. Tries to breathe normally.

    “Still awake?” Jim asks, voice soft.

    “Yeah. I’m gonna, uh, try that breathing again. See if I can do it on my own. I got really close, so maybe.”

    “Sure. You want any help?”

    He bites his lip against the urge to tell him exactly what he wants help with. He listens to him changing and thinks about how he’d look, bare skin and coarse-silky dark hair, and the shape of him now, mostly like the shape of him then. What he’s like without the mud and the paint. 

    “You go ahead and sleep, I’ll… I’ll get there.” He says instead.

    He waits, his body on fire, until he thinks Jim must be asleep. Moves slowly and quietly and carefully, reaches under his bed where he knows he’ll find the old stuffed bear– he doesn’t remember any particular childhood attachment to it. Grabs it by one ear and pulls it up under the covers, and clamps his thighs down around it, and it ceases to be a familiar object with shape and form and meaning, it’s just something soft and solid to seek friction against. Vaguely unclean by virtue of being where it is and being used the way he’s using it, even though he’s never done this in anything less than his pajamas, never not had at least a liner to soak up how wet he wishes he didn’t get.

    Has to keep his movements small and slow to avoid the creaking of the bedsprings, to avoid waking the man sleeping in his room, who he’s already humiliated himself in front of once. Who he can’t stop thinking about. 

    He can’t get there like this. He’s so desperately horny and so tired and he knows if he could take care of the one the other would follow and he can’t.

    The frustrated sob rips out of him, shattering the quiet.

    “Alex?” Jim jerks awake, falling off his cot. “Are you okay?”

    He doesn’t have an answer. He’s afraid to open his mouth. It’s not exactly a repeat of The Couch Incident but he has a teddy bear shoved between his legs in a way which definitely doesn’t make him feel like he’s not a pervert, and a naked picture of Jim is under his pillow, which really doesn’t help on that front.

    “I can’t…” He shakes his head, feels the bed dip under Jim’s weight. 

    “I know. I know… Here, I’m here, I’ll breathe with you. You got real close today.”

    ‘Sleep’ had not been how he was going to end that sentence, but he takes it. He lets Jim touch him, not the way he’s been fantasizing about, and he tries just to breathe, he really does, but then he’s crying.

    “Shh, I’m here.” Jim lies down next to him, which is what he’d wanted so much just last night– what he guesses he still wants, or at least his libido does. “It’s okay.”

    “Is it?”

    “It will be. Deep breath for me.”

    He has to struggle for it, but Jim doesn’t rush him. The hand rests on his stomach waiting for him to breathe, thumb rubbing an idle back-and-forth, the blankets provide another layer of barrier between them and still he can’t stop thinking about Jim’s hand hot against his bare skin. He lays one of his own hands over Jim’s, wraps the other around his wrist, holding him there.

    “Why is it so hard? Why does it have to be so scary to try?”

    “I don’t know. I wish I did, honey.” Jim sighs, and Alex wants to ask to be called ‘honey’ again, and he doesn’t even care how Jim meant it. 

    “Sing to me?”

    “Even if it doesn’t help?”

    “It helps.”

    “I saw her today at the reception… a glass of wine in her hand… I knew she was gonna meet her connection… at her feet was a footloose man…”

    He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t even stop crying. It keeps bubbling out of him, as Jim sings. Rubs his stomach like he was a sick child, instead of just resting it there for him to breathe under. He doesn’t resist when Alex tugs his hand up– he doesn’t try to guide him to one side or the other, that isn’t what this is. The center of his chest, where it’s flat. Where it’s not a sex thing, where he just needs to know that his heart is still beating, and that it’s doing it somewhere within the accepted range for speed, and he feels so disconnected from himself that he can’t tell. If Jim wasn’t touching him he wouldn’t know if he was alive or not.

    “Shh…” Jim presses a soft kiss to his temple, as the sobs taper off. “That’s it. You let it all out, that’s good.”

    “Doesn’t feel good.”

    “Well… here.”

    He lifts him up, holds a tissue to his nose, and Alex wants to protest that he doesn’t need to be babied, but his arms feel heavy and his head feels snotty and he lets Jim take care of him, and he lets Jim hold the glass of water from the nightstand to his lips, and he lets Jim hold him, and he wants.

    “You probably believe in things like signs.” He croaks, as he’s laid back down, his covers smoothed over him with infinite care.

    “You mean like… you’re a gemini and therefore we’re very compatible?”

    “I don’t– No, I don’t mean like that. I don’t know what my sign is–”

    “I just said, you’re a gemini.”

    He lets this go. “I mean like an omen. Just… not a bad one.”

    “Ah. A sign from the universe. I do.” Even in the dark, warmth floods the room when he smiles. 

    “Did you actually mean that– about us being very compatible?” He’d like to make it a come-on and he can’t quite work up the nerve, even though they’re lying on his bed. But they’re lying on his bed like it’s not a thing. They’re lying on his bed, him tucked under the covers and Jim above them, like Jim is a friend of his parents who doesn’t think about him like that. Like Jim has, in fact, just been treating him like a sick child rather than an adult and a sexual being. You don’t blow a guy’s nose and then let him pick you up with a cheap line.

    “Well… what’s your non-astrological sign?” Jim asks him.

    “It’s pretty stupid.”

    “Oh, that’s just what people say when they’re closing themselves off from something beautiful and true.”

    And he wants to say that he’s been thinking about the sun a lot lately, that he’s been thinking about seeing the sun in a man’s smile, that he’s thought about the way he imagines sunshine tastes and he’s thought about men and the taste of sunshine burning his throat, and the guilt and the shame that he’s buried down deep and the desire to be a fuller and better version of himself and the fear of being that man in an unfriendly world.

    And he can’t.

Chapter Text

    Last night, he thought Not Sleeping with Jim would be better than Not Sleeping without him, but now that he’s here, it’s going to make him crazy. He doesn’t think the human body was designed to withstand this kind of horniness for extended periods. He can feel every breath Jim takes and how warm he is straight through the covers, and the arm that loops gently around him is a very nice arm, and the leg that nudges up against his is, as far as he can tell, a very nice leg. 

    He doesn’t move until Jim snuffles awake, disoriented.

    “Oh– I fell asleep… here.”

    “Yeah. It’s okay.”

    “It is?”

    Alex nods.

    “Did you–?”

    “No.”

    “What’s the longest you’ve ever gone?”

    “Eight days– I mean, you know. Nodding off for a minute and then waking back up, that kind of a thing.”

    “When do you have to go back to school?”

    “Next Monday.”

    He feels Jim’s fingers twitch against his side, as he thinks this over. “Are we on the metric system?”

    “It’s spring break.” He says. It doesn’t feel like it’s the answer to the question Jim asked, but he’s definitely missing a step somewhere there. It feels like it’s the answer to the question Jim meant.

    “Oh. Good. So you’ll sleep before then?”

    “I better.” He groans. “You want the bathroom first?”

    “Thanks.”

    He doesn’t look, as much as he wants to look, when Jim rolls away and grabs his robe. Doesn’t check to see if he’s any harder, after sharing a bed. 

    Once he’s alone, he shoves the bear back down under his bed, holding it again just by its ear. He ignores the heat in him and the tingle that spreads over him. When Jim comes back to get changed after the world’s fastest shower, Alex takes his own clothes to the bathroom to dress there, to try desperately not to think about his own body.

    The car is free for the day, so after breakfast, they spend the morning at a park, where they walk around taking in the flowers and then spread out a blanket on the grass, half in the shade. Alex tries sleeping, in hopes that the park will feel even more removed from the pressure of his bed than the back yard had been. That the sound of families enjoying the nice morning will be soothing. Jim is there, sitting over him, making it not unbearably vulnerable to try to fall asleep in a public park. Maybe. 

    That’s the hope, anyway, it just doesn’t work. But even if it isn’t sleep, it’s rest, it’s something. He lies down with his eyes closed and it’s something. 

    He directs Jim to the German village, once he’s ready to give up on napping in the park. Takes his turn to buy Jim lunch at a little place there, and they wander a little bit, just because they have nowhere to be. They trade stories, about people they know, things they’ve done, places they’ve traveled. 

    When he starts drooping, Jim drives them back, half-carries him up the stairs again to try and nap.

    “What if I can’t?” He groans, as he’s laid down, his shoes gently pulled off.

    “What if you can?”

    “Lay down with me?”

    Jim nods, toeing out of his own shoes and joining Alex on the bed. He settles close at his side.

    “Think you can try after all?” He asks, gentle. He looks at Alex the way he looks at everything else he loves, which isn’t special when he loves everything, but is still something. Looks at him with a softness that Alex is too tired to fight. He wants to be able to want that. He wants to be unafraid and unashamed to be in love.

    “Maybe. Stay with me?”

    “I was alone, I took a ride, I didn’t know what I would find there…” Jim croons softly, his hand stroking through Alex’s hair. “Another road where maybe I could find another kind of mind there. Ooh, then suddenly I see you, ooh, did I tell you that I need you, every single day of my life?”

    He’s almost there when the knock on the door pulls him right out of it.

    “Goddammit. It’s open!”

    “Sorry– phone call for Jim.” His mom winces, poking her head in. 

    “Oh…”

    “You better take it. No, I’m up, I’m up.” He shakes his head, waving his mom off when she comes in to swap places sitting up with him. 

    “Are you sure? I can try–”

    “No, I’m up.” 

    “Oh, honey, I’m sorry–”

    “It’s okay.” He says. “Really.”

    It’s not, but if the phone call is important, what was she supposed to do?

    He drifts out aimlessly after Jim heads down, his mom coming along to wrap an arm around his shoulders up at the top of the stairs. 

    “I really am sorry. I tried to knock very softly.”

    “I’m not mad. Is it family?”

    “The clinic, I think.”

    He breaks away from her at that, anxiety gripping at him just a little too tight. Thinks about all the things that could have gone wrong with his lab work.

    “All right. Thank you. Yes, thank you.” Jim hangs up the phone, and his posture says enough. The way he seems to take a moment to digest it all. 

    “Jim?” Alex’s dad puts a hand on his back, gentle. “Everything all right?”

    “Well.” He sucks in a breath. “He says he doesn’t know how, but I’m as healthy as a horse. So I’ve probably got some time, unless I break a leg and they have to shoot me.”

    “That sounds like good news.”

    “Horses are pretty fragile.”

    “Well, as an idiom, it’s good news. No problems?”

    “I guess not.” He relaxes. “Can I make a call?”

    “Of course.”

    Alex drops into a chair and waits for his heart to get normal about everything. Half-listens as Jim reports in to his brother about how he’s doing, that his health is good. That he’s bought some clothes for himself and been to an art museum, looked at some trees and some flowers. They argue a little about something, in hushed tones, but it ends on a warm enough note, with Jim saying they’ll talk soon, but not specifying a date for his return.

    One of these days he’ll have to, he’s better. He’s taking care of himself more, he’s more lucid– still weird, but weird and lucid. Maybe he’ll keep in touch with them all, but Alex won’t have him to himself all the time. 

    He could go to New York, of course, after school. Thinking about after school stresses him out. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but he doesn’t know if it matters. He’s good at school, he always has been. Out in the real world it’s going to be different, and he’s going to be…

    He’s going to be someone who has a diploma from Leland and not Princeton, which is fine, but it’s not what he planned on and he doesn’t know what to do with it. If he was graduating from Princeton he could do anything and go anywhere. He would already be living five hundred miles away from home, he would already know how to be independent in a way he isn’t. He would be… People would know that he was going to be successful, he’d have a foot in the door whatever he wanted to do. And he doesn’t have that. He doesn’t know what he has.

    He thought he got used to this. He thought he got some peace with it. But now he’s here, and he doesn’t feel peaceful at all.

    “Why aren’t you in bed?” Jim comes to sit beside him.

    “I’m just up.” He sighs, and lets himself pitch forward onto Jim’s shoulder. Tries to let himself relax as a strong hand comes up to knead at the back of his neck. “I’m just… anxious.”

    Jim lets him just lean there, humming softly, while Alex’s parents move around the room. Massages at his neck and his shoulders and wrings the tension out of him bit by bit, and he gets it, if there was something there, if there was something there on Jim’s end, he wouldn’t, would he? It would have to be something furtive, he wouldn’t just touch him out in the open if he wanted to touch him. Like, if he wanted to touch him the way that Alex wants to be touched, he wouldn’t be so casual. But it still feels so good to let him.

    He whines a little, wants too much, and Jim’s nose brushes his hair, he sings under his breath. Another song that Alex would have rolled his eyes at if his parents put it on, but which is different when it’s sung to him, in a voice that’s a little rough and a lot of sweet. 

    His mom brings her guitar out, plays really soft at his other side, she and Jim singing together, a couple of songs from back in the sixties. It doesn’t put him to sleep, but he drifts a little, anyway.

    “I’m glad you still play.” Jim keeps his voice down, keeps a hand wrapped around the back of Alex’s head like he’s protecting him from… something. 

    “Not often enough.” She rubs at Alex’s arm, gentle. “You two have really taken to each other.”

    “Oh… yeah. Well, it isn’t hard. I think… we understand each other pretty well, on the important things. Can’t imagine not… you know. Getting along.”

    “I’m glad.”

    “There’s a lot of you and Steven in him.”

    “Really?” She laughs quietly, gives his shoulder the lightest squeeze. “Most people ask if he was switched at birth. No, I’m glad, really. He’s having such a hard time…”

    He wants, again, to protest that he is awake and he can hear everything she says about him, that he’d love for her to not say anything embarrassing, to Jim. It just comes out as something somewhere between a hum and a whine when he does, and they both shush at him and gentle him, hands stroking over his arm, his back, his hair.

    “He’s a good man.” Jim says, and it’s at least heartening to be a good man instead of a good kid. 

    “He is.” She agrees. The back of her hand is gentle against Alex’s cheek. “I was hoping… I don’t know. Hoping he’d sleep. I don’t think we can get him from this chair to the couch, let alone his bed, without waking him up. He’ll be up when Steven gets back with dinner…”

    He doesn’t sleep enough not to hear them, but he’s not awake enough not to be dreaming, sort of. To see swirling colors as he listens to them talk. He feels like he’s floating, rocking. But he never fully loses touch with the room, with the chair he’s in and the scent of Jim in his nose. He’s never been able to smell in a dream– not if he’s been actually asleep. He’s just in that hallucination phase, he guesses. He closes his eyes and he…

    Maybe he’s not being touched in all the ways he thinks he is, actually. But he can’t crack an eye open to check, if his mom is squeezing his arm, if Jim is really holding him or just allowing him to lean there.

    “You know… you’ve done a lot for me. You all have.” Jim says, and maybe he squeezes gently at Alex or maybe that’s just Alex’s brain wanting him to. “I hope you know how much I appreciate this.”

    “Jim, of course. We’re so happy to have you here. You talked to Tom?”

    “I did, yeah.”

    “How’s everything going?”

    “We’re not seeing eye to eye on everything, but… we’re compromising, I hope. He wants to know when I’m going back. I don’t know. I miss parts of my life… Going back, I’m going to miss this, too. I’m going to… worry, that I won’t be ready. That going back, I’ll wind up how I used to be.”

    “You won’t.” Alex says.

    “I thought you were asleep.” Jim says.

    “Oh, sweetheart…” His mom rubs his back. “You’re awake already?”

    “Been awake. But thanks for trying.” He yawns, and feels Jim yawn with him. “Someone’s gonna have to carry me to the table for dinner.”

    “Honey, we’re sitting at the table.” She says gently.

    “Great. I knew that.”

    Jim stays in the chair that’s normally Mallory’s, instead of moving to sit across from Alex, when dinner arrives and everyone assembles and pizza is passed around. 

    “Are you staying the rest of the week, do you think?” Alex asks him, stomach tight and uneasy. 

    “I think so. I’d like to see you get some real sleep before I go.” He shrugs, looking down at his plate. 

    I’ll miss you, he wants to say, I’ll miss you and I’ll miss you and I’ll miss you, it’s the only thing he can think. That Jim will leave and Alex will miss him. He falls in love too fast, he knows that about himself. Maybe this is no different.

    He’s so tired, and he’s going to miss him.

    His head hurts and his stomach hurts, and he’s going to miss him.

    He’s completely losing it, and he’s going to miss him.

    After dinner, Jim walks him up the stairs, hand at his back. Gets ready for bed after he does.

    “You don’t have to try to go to bed this early.”

    “Well… I was worried about what if I came in and woke you back up.” He shrugs. 

    “You can keep a light on if you want, at least. The desk lamp? You can read or write. I doubt it’ll bother me– dark and quiet doesn’t help, anyway.” He groans. 

    “Nothing I can do to help right now?”

    Alex shakes his head. Takes a deep breath. 

    “Tell me something?”

    “It’s physically impossible for a horse to throw up.”

    “... I meant, I was going to ask you something, but that is… definitely information I didn’t have before. Earlier… I don’t. Believe in that out there stuff. In signs from the universe. I don’t know if I want to. I kind of think not sleeping just has me losing it and that’s the only reason I’m even thinking about it. But I thought I’d ask… what’s the word ‘sunshine’ mean to you?”

    “It’s the name of the cab company where I work.”

    “Oh.”

    “Stevie Wonder.” He adds. “You Are the Sunshine of My Life. And the actual sun. What does it mean to you?”

    You, he cannot say. How he smiles and how he is.

    “That painting, that I said I felt like? I think it’s… something I’m looking for.”

    “I don’t think that surprises me.”

    “No?”

    “I’ve seen you in the sun.” Jim says, like nothing else needs to be said.

    Alex closes his eyes and tries to breathe. He listens to Jim change into his pajamas and he listens to him try to write– he listens to him scratch things out and start over, for a while, and then he hears him hit his flow. 

    “Will you read to me?” He asks. It’s worked before, though it hadn’t worked this time, when his parents started by trying that, his mom had read to him over the phone while she’d been on her business trip, when his dad hadn’t been able to put him to sleep.

    “You’ve got a whole stack of books here, and if I start on any of ‘em, I’m gonna be the one falling asleep.” 

    “You can read me a poem, then. I probably won’t fall asleep.”

    “Won’t take it personal if you do. You– you’d wanna hear…?”

    “Yeah.”

    “The wolf and the musician and the healer love you. The dizzied prophet staggers and reels to think it might be true, that the god of sailors and the wandering ship both love you, too. Are you a distant mirror, a tree in spring? A loose nail in a doorway that catches my coat, a test, a torment, a sweetness, a succor? The wolf and the musician and the healer all love you. The dizzied prophet would fill bathtubs in pink champagne and diamonds for you, the god of sailors and the wandering ship could bring silk and caviar to your door. I could wash your feet in perfume, but I can’t buy the thing you need. The wolf and the musician and the healer all love you to madness. The dizzied prophet abandons his altar, the god of sailors lets the wandering ship drive itself upon the rocks. And… I don’t know how it ends.”

    “Doesn’t end there?”

    “I don’t think it does. But I don’t know where else it goes.”

    Alex doesn’t know what to say about it– that it sounds deep, not that he’s any expert, that he’s jealous of whoever it must be about.

    “Thanks.” He says instead. “For sharing it.”

    “Thanks. For listening.”

Chapter Text

    They go to the movies, the next morning, in the hopes that sitting in the dark where he’s not supposed to fall asleep will somehow encourage him to do so. There’s a brief standoff over buying the tickets, which Jim concedes, only to buy a large popcorn and two sodas, makes sure one of them isn’t caffeinated. 

    It isn’t a date. Alex knows it isn’t a date, can’t be a date. They’re just spending today together like they’ve been spending every day together, he’s just showing Jim around and Jim is just trying to think of things that could help somehow… 

    It feels like a date.

    He guesses he wants it to be, anyway.

    One of the guys in the movie is uptight in a way Alex finds relatable. Also, possibly completely insane? Which Alex wishes he didn’t find relatable. He doesn’t think he’s following the plot at all. The guy from Animal House is there but Alex doesn’t think he’s done anything important yet. Mr. Mom is in it. There’s been an attempted murder, maybe? He keeps closing his eyes just a little too long and missing anything visual, but not falling asleep. 

    The uptight guy is… handsome. Not handsome like he was put in a movie for his looks, but in a real person way. In a movie way, he’s not supposed to be handsome, it’s not that kind of a part, but if he holds his mouth a certain way, Alex notices his lips, and when he does things with his hands, Alex looks at those. Which means it’s not just that Alex is capable of noticing when a man is handsome in a movie way– which obviously he can, but can’t everyone? And isn’t it normal to be a little flustered if a guy in regular life is handsome in a movie way, and he talks to you out of all people?-- and it’s not just that Jim is a fluke because they’ve been spending so much time together while Alex has been steadily losing his mind, and he drove him crazy right off the bat, which is admittedly a thing that has attracted him to girls before. 

    It’s that Alex notices things about men. Lips, and hands, and whether they have beautiful eyes or deep voices. And he likes that. He likes deep voices, and it’s not an envy thing, it’s just that he likes listening to them, but he couldn’t admit that. And if a guy was the right kind of handsome, he didn’t have to admit it, because even straight guys would notice that, and it’s normal for people to favor attractive people regardless of sex, in certain situations. Handsome men get hired after job interviews and get raises and promotions faster and more reliably than other poor schlubs, and it’s not because the people in charge of that kind of decision are all secretly gay, and they’re definitely not all women. 

    But Alex isn’t noticing when a guy is Tom Cruise, which none of these guys is, he’s just noticing things. Personal things he’s personally attracted to. And sleep deprivation doesn’t turn you gay, but maybe it makes it a little harder to lie to yourself.

    There’s something of a relief, anyway, in realizing he can look at a mostly normal looking guy on screen and find things he likes. The idea of looking just at guys, just out in the world, is intimidating. Most of them aren’t Jim– not in that he couldn’t also find them beautiful, not in that he couldn’t also like the way they smell, but definitely in that it wouldn’t feel safe to notice those things in just some guy. Some guy his age, who wasn’t a friend of the family, you know, he might be hot and he might smell like a walking wet dream, but would he understand if Alex passed on something at a party because he used to have a problem? Would he understand if Alex’s pants came off and he didn’t find what he expected to? Could he put his hand on Alex’s chest and be normal about it once he knew? Could Alex feel safe being truly and completely vulnerable with him?

    There are a lot of guys that Alex thinks are attractive, who he’d never let his guard down with. He’s guarded enough with the girls he’s gone out with.

    He doesn’t follow the plot of the movie at all. He doesn’t sleep, either.

    Jim takes him home and makes him a sandwich, fusses over him. His dad’s at the station, his sisters are both out with friends, his mom has a project– and since she has a project, Andy’s got daycare arranged for the day, because while Alex would have gladly offered to take him if he were sleeping, he’s not mentally there enough for the job. He’s apparently not mentally there enough for the job of taking care of himself, because he just lets Jim bring him a sandwich and a glass of water.

    “You don’t have to do this stuff for me.” He says anyway, because he feels like he should.

    “I like doing stuff for you.” Jim shrugs. “You’ve done a lot for me.”

    “Have I?”

    He nods. “I guess I was in pretty rough shape when I first got here. But you did.”

    “You did take your underwear off in K-Mart.” Alex allows.

    “... That sounds like something I might have done, yeah.”

    “I mean, you didn’t flash anyone, but yeah. That’s something you did.”

    “Drove you crazy.”

    “Yeah, a little.” He smiles. “Jim… you don’t– you don’t have to, like, make up for that.”

    “I just like that I can. Is that okay?”

    “Yeah. That’s okay. I like that you can, too. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

    “Well, it’s weird.” He laughs, ducking his head. “My head doesn’t hurt. My feet don’t hurt. My mouth feels clean. My hair feels clean.”

    “Your hair is clean.” Alex reaches up, winds a lock of it around one finger before he can think better of the impulse. 

    “Yeah, and it feels like it. Turns out… I like showering with hot water. Who knew?”

    “I mean, I don’t think it’s a real big shocker.”

    “No?”

    “A lot of people like showering with hot water.”

    Jim shrugs again, shakes his head. “Well. Guess all those people can’t be wrong. Are you one of ‘em?”

    It’s a casual, off-hand kind of question, not that weird by Jim standards– it is in line with the conversation they’re having, it’s directly related to something Jim’s admitted to liking himself. There’s no come-on in his tone whatsoever.

    Alex is still suddenly and achingly aware of every inch of his body. He aches to be touched in places he can hardly bear to touch himself, it practically hurts not to have anyone touching him. The air in his lungs feels suddenly heated. He thinks about hot water and steam and the wall cold against his back and Jim hot against his front. 

    “Yeah.” He squeaks, swallows. “I mean, cold doesn’t, uh, doesn’t really do it for me.”

    He wishes it did. He’d jump under a cold shower right now, but he suspects you need external genitalia for it to be an effective deterrent, because every time he’s ever tried, he’s just wound up horny and cold. Now every time it takes the water too long to heat up, he winds up getting a little turned on instead.

    Or maybe he’s just a freak, that is still a strong possibility. The Couch Incident speaks to his being a freak.

    He thinks about Jim there, too, about his body boxing Alex’s in against the couch, about Jim bending him over the arm. He still pictures them both fully clothed, when they’re in the living room. Just a teasing kind of grinding, a prelude to something that would happen behind closed doors, but he thinks about the weight and muscle of him, keeping his body in place, making him hot all over. Thinks he’d feel safe if the body pinning him was Jim’s, because Jim makes him feel safe. Wants to imagine that things between them wouldn’t be dispassionate and disconnected. Wants to imagine wet kisses against his neck, and long fingers lacing between his own, and breathing in sync, bodies in sync…

    “I think you should try a nap after this.” Jim frowns softly, feeling Alex’s forehead. 

    “Yeah.” He nods a little against the hand that doesn’t leave him– catches him, even, when he leans heavily into it. Jim holds his head up while he eats his sandwich for a while and he could sit up away from that hand, but he doesn’t. He just lets Jim fuss over him, and then lead him up to bed, and kneel to help him out of his shoes.

    “There.” Jim smiles up at him. Alex can’t help but wonder how many people miss the sunshine of his smile back in New York.

    “Lie down with me?”

    “You want me to?”

    Alex nods. “I’m so… I’m so anxious, about sleep, about everything, all the time, and you make me breathe. I want you to.”

    “Okey-doke.” He whispers, and as Alex swings his legs up onto the bed and rearranges himself, Jim fits in at his side, hand coming to rest over his stomach. It makes Alex breathe deeper without even being told, now. Slower. “What’s so scary about everything?”

    “I just don’t know where I go from here. I’m almost out of school, and then… it’s the real world.”

    “Aren’t you already living in the real world?”

    “Well… yeah, I guess, but I’m… I have this… Nothing’s like I planned it. And I’ve never had to make it on my own, and what if I can’t?”

    “Why should you have to? Alex… no one’s supposed to make it alone. The world’s not built to be alone in. Do you know what the three most beautiful words in the english language are?”

    “You’re probably going to tell me it’s something corny and touchy-feely. I love you?”

    “Please help me.”

    Alex swallows, face hot– though at least for once it’s not because he feels horny.

    Well, he feels a little horny, but it’s just the low-grade kind he can ignore, that comes from being so close to Jim, but where he’s not thinking about tearing each other’s clothes off or anything.

    “Sounds like some hippie stuff still.”

    “I got it from Star Trek, actually. But I believe it. If I hadn’t been able to let your folks help me, I wouldn’t have met you. If I hadn’t let you help me, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t be back on my feet half as good as this. I don’t think I’d be as happy as I am.”

    “You… really? Because of me?”

    Jim nods. 

    “Even though I’ve been kind of a pill to you?” He asks– feels a little guilty about it even now. They’ve had their moments since then. He told the guy his embarrassing middle name, for crying out loud, and they maybe kind of connected a lot more than he expected them to, they definitely get along now, but he’d started them off by being such an ass.

    “Ehh, well.” Jim shrugs, with a little lopsided near-smile. “Not the whole time. Not even half the time. Sleep deprivation’s a hell of a thing, I wouldn’t take it personal even if you were.”

    He’d love to blame it all on being sleep deprived, but he doesn’t think it would have been better if he was fine from the start. He’d have still been at least a little bit of a pill. But… he also thinks if he hadn’t been sleep deprived from the start, he never would have told Jim his middle name, opened up about pieces of his own past. So maybe it’s a mixed bag. It still doesn’t seem right, that he should be one of the things to make Jim happy, though to be fair, everything seems to have the power to make Jim happy. But it feels wrong to think of himself as one of those things, to think of Jim being truly happy to do things for him, instead of just doing them because Alex is Steven-and-Elyse’s-Son, or because Alex did something for him and now he owes him. He doesn’t know how to wrap his head around being a piece of the happiness that seems to come so readily to Jim.

    “I gave up on the only dream I ever had.” He whispers. “And I don’t regret it, not really, but I– I don’t know what I’m doing with my life anymore. I want you to show me how you did it. I want to learn to be happy with the life I’ve got, because I’ve got nothing.”

    “You have everything.” A warm hand spreads wide and gentle over his chest. “You have… a family that wants you to be happy. Even if it’s not what you planned.”

    “They don’t want the thing that’s going to make me happy.”

    “I’m sure–” Jim’s voice dies away, as their eyes meet.

    “They don’t want the thing that’s going to make me happy.” He repeats, a new weight and a heat to the words.

    “... Okey-doke.”

    “I want you.”

    “Yeah.” He nods, expression dizzy. “No, I’m picking up what you’re putting down, just– I’m not… sure I’m good for you. And I’m not sure… that they’d like you having me. So if I hesitate here, I don’t want you thinking it’s because I wouldn’t like to. I mean normally I don’t think these things over this long. Don’t think I’ve ever thought it over this long. I mean normally I’d be licking up everything you’re offering me like there’s no tomorrow. Just… maybe you still gotta think about your tomorrow, and I don’t wanna get in the way of that.”

    “No, I’m thinking about you licking what I’m offering.” He squeaks. It’s kind of hard to think about anything else, now. “I think you could be good for me. I– Look, I know… I’ve had experiences with… I’ve been…”

    “Intimate?” Jim suggests, when Alex struggles to put the words together.

    “Hurt. Not by someone I was intimate with, I mean, just– Just in life, and– Enough that I don’t think you’re going to be the thing to hurt me. I don’t think you could. You’re not that kind of guy.”

    “You think?”

    “You’re the one who said we were compatible.” He braves a smile.

    “Yeah. Well… I mean if I’d held out a little longer, we’d have been sexual dynamite, but as it is, we have the potential for a real connection.”

    “We can’t be sexual dynamite anyway?”

    “You’re absolutely right. Why let our destinies be dictated by the stars? So I’m not a scorpio, so what? I could still– I mean… Could I still?”

    “Please.” He nods. Jim’s so warm, stretched out beside him, his heart must be hammering against his palm.

    “Now… now, Alex, I want you to know, I love every living being on this earth–”

    “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

    Jim’s eyes widen. “I do, yeah. But I mean, you’re… maybe a little more personal to me than a lot of living beings. And I wouldn’t want you to think that this wasn’t meaningful to me. Because if– if this is going to happen, it– You mean the world to me, I hope you know.”

    The world. Alex doesn’t know what to do with that, having seen Jim love the world. If Jim liked him half as much as he liked a tree, it would feel like a lot.

    “Do you know what you mean to me?” Alex asks him.

    He shakes his head. “Is it something nice?”

    “Yeah.” He reaches up, cupping Jim’s cheek. “You’re my sunshine.”

    “Oh.”

    “I want you to kiss me. I need you to kiss me.”

    “Oh, I want to kiss you.” He nods. The last of his hesitation seems to vanish, maybe at being touched, or maybe at being sunshine. His lips are soft and the kiss is slow, like a dawn that doesn’t come with the failure of having been unable to sleep through the whole of the night before. He’s gentle with it, undemanding, and so Alex doesn’t try to speed him up, he just lets himself be unfolded by it, lets it set his whole body to humming, tingling, aching for anything he can get.

   “Jim…”

    “Alex.” He nuzzles at Alex’s cheek, lets their lips brush again, not quite a kiss. Lets Alex feel the shape of his smile.

    “I am sorry, about being a jerk at first.”

    “Yeah, well… bet if I can get you to sleep, mm… I bet you’d be sweet to me all the time.”

    “If you can get me to sleep, I will be.” He promises, and he means it. But he wants to be sweet to him anyway, now. It’s not about what Jim can do for him, and he hopes he does know that. It’s about the way he tries, maybe. 

    “Then let’s see if this works.” And the little lopsided smile from before becomes a full-fledged grin, and sunlight pours out of him, and the hand that had been so neutrally resting over the center of Alex’s chest suddenly feels warmer and heavier than it had a moment before. “Uhh, it’s been a while since I’ve done this with a guy like you, so let me know if there’s any rules I’m forgetting or anything. I mean I’m good with the basic configuration, believe me.”

    “You’ve slept with a Republican before?”

    “I don’t think so.”

    “Well– what do you mean a guy like me?”

    “You know. Where you got some parts swapped around but it don’t matter. However you wanna look at it.” 

    “You… you mean– you’ve slept with… You mean there are other guys, and you’ve been with ‘em, who– who have a vagina?” His voice goes a lot higher than he’d like on ‘vagina’.

    “Oh, yeah. I mean I been with all kinds of people. Guys, girls, both, neither. You’d be surprised which ones have a vagina sometimes. And which ones don’t. Some people who switch what they are halfway through. Parts stay the same, though.”

    “Halfway through– halfway through having sex with you?”

    “Yeah, once.” He nods. “We were at it for hours, though, so I’m not surprised if it doesn’t happen so often… you just miss that window.”

    “You were at it for hours?” Alex gulps. He’s still recovering from the idea that he’s not the first guy like him Jim has even slept with, and now this. He’s a little scared and also hornier than he’s ever been in his life. Which is saying something, because he’s pretty sure when he had finally managed to introduce a little testosterone into his system, he became the horniest person in the world for a while. It didn’t do anything for his chest hair situation, and his voice still squeaks once in a while, and he’s not sure how many years he has before even Andy is taller than he is, but it makes him feel less like he wants to die all the time, anyway.

    He did eventually get a jawline, even if he didn’t get it before he was in college.

    “Yeah.”

    “Wow. Then– uh… yeah. Good. Sounds… good. Just don’t turn me into a girl halfway through, I put a lot of work into becoming the man I am today.”

    “Deal.” Jim says, in complete earnest, and then he kisses him again, and this time....

    Alex has kissed before, obviously. Necked. Engaged in some one-way petting. Demonstrated some ability of which he is pretty proud, when it comes to showing a girl a good time. It’s always had to be girls before. He never thought he could do anything else, because if he didn’t want to be in a normal relationship with a girl, if he wanted someone who wasn’t a girl, then shouldn’t he have just stayed how he was?

    Except… except he felt even worse, as a girl. And then Jennifer came along and she was a tomboy for years, and she was so different from how he was. She wore florals and tights and dresses and long hair and only sometimes fussed about the tights and dresses, and even then she sometimes liked them when she wasn’t playing some kind of sport and she never complained about her hair being too long. And he never cared about sports, or doing ‘boy things’. He just cared about looking like a boy, and then he cared about feeling like one, and then he cared about making sure everyone knew he was one, even if it meant sometimes talking about girls the way other boys did and treating them the way other boys did and asserting his belief that there were fundamental ways in which he was better than them, not even the way that other boys did, but because girlhood was a prison he had transcended, he’d beaten it, he was better than the oppressive, painful, hideous condition of being female.

    And making out with girls was fine, it was fun, and he’s cared about a couple girls, he’s liked things about them. Liked being challenged by them and then feeling… just, feeling, with them.

    But the way they smelled never made him hot and dizzy like this. Looking at them could be a pretty heavy motivator, sure. There’s no shortage of things to like about a girl as long as you don’t have to be one. But Jim smells like a man, and he’s, god, tall, and his hands are huge, and when he kisses him, Alex feels overcome by it. 

    And when he touches him, this time with intent, it’s like suddenly Alex’s body is lighting up in ways he’s not sure it ever has before. He’s been horny plenty, and for all that he kind of hates doing it and has a lot of trouble getting there, he’s gotten off enough, too. 

    His hands are slow and gentle, the way they travel over Alex’s chest, his sides, his stomach. Every single touch feels deliberate.

    “On, or off?” He asks, about the lightweight sweater. And then about the oxford shirt beneath, and then about the undershirt, and each time Alex tells him off, he strips away a layer, and he touches him again. He kisses the center of his chest, over his wildly beating heart. He kisses his stomach, heaving with ragged breaths. 

    “Oh god…” Alex whines, at the barest graze to a nipple.

    “Good god?”

    “Yeah.” He nods, and Jim does it again, his touch feather-light, and even that is so much, when Alex never touches his bare chest. With a washcloth, a towel, sure, but if he touches himself to touch himself, it’s always through at least one layer. And then it’s Jim’s lips, his tongue, a stream of breath blown across wet and sensitive skin that has Alex’s entire body jerking like a live wire. “God, too much!”

    “Shh, shh… okay, sorry.” Another kiss to the center of his chest, warm and gentle. “Sorry. I’ll take it easy on you.”

    “It’s okay.” He runs a hand through Jim’s hair. “Just… you really can’t make me scream.”

    “No, I won’t. Well… I’ll try. I’m, uh… I’m not bad at what I’m about to do, though.” He blushes. 

    “Here, shirt, take off your shirt.” He urges, and Jim gets it off and hands it over. Watches with wide eyes as Alex balls it up and brings it up to muffle himself, as he groans at the scent that clings to it. Shoves it in his mouth and guides Jim’s hand back up to his chest. 

    The kisses trail back down from the center of his chest towards his navel, hotter, wetter. The kisses are very much not the only thing feeling hotter and wetter. Alex fumbles with the button on his jeans, and Jim picks up the slack on getting him undressed again, helps him work his way free of jeans and briefs and then settles down between his spread thighs.

    “Wait–” Alex gasps, and Jim freezes. “Can we– can you– Under the covers?”

    “Sure. I don’t need a headlamp, honey. I can take care of you in the dark.” He nods, grabbing for the corner of a blanket, flipping it over them before getting down to it, letting the way Alex’s hand in his hair relaxes cue him that it’s okay to proceed.

    He’s glad he already has the shirt to muffle himself with, because if he thought what Jim did to his nipple was revelatory, what Jim does between his legs is a whole new world. ‘Not bad’! ‘Not bad’, he’d called himself, as if he wasn’t about to turn Alex’s whole life on its head, as if he wasn’t about to send him into the stratosphere! The build is so fast and so heady and it’s all he can do to keep himself quiet as Jim’s tongue delves into him, as he teases things out of him that he’s never imagined he could feel before. And with all his own sounds muffled, he can hear every sound Jim is making. Each wet lapping sound as his tongue parts Alex’s labia, and each grunt and groan as he takes to the task with abandon, with obvious relish. With pleasure– he treats Alex’s body as a source of pleasure before all else, pleasure for Alex in receiving, but pleasure for Jim in giving, in tasting. 

    A finger slides into him, slow and gentle. It feels so big, he can’t believe his body takes it so easy, but he does, and it strokes at his walls as he clenches around it, and then it finds a spot that has him seeing stars, especially combined with the sudden hard suction, the wet heat surrounding his clit and the press of that tongue…

    His toes curl. His legs spasm. His whole body feels electric and it’s all so much.

    “What… the hell… was that?” He pants, as Jim emerges from under the blankets, face smeared, clear and slick, wet around his mouth and down his chin and up to his nose. 

    “I think I made you come.” He grins, pleased with himself. Well, he deserves to be…

    “If that was an orgasm, what have I been having all this time?”

    “So it was good?”

    There is nothing distracted in the way Jim licks his fingers clean now. If he’d moaned like that over popcorn, Alex might have broken down and begged for this a lot faster.

    “Yeah.” He gulps. “Your, uh… your face is… your face is…”

    Understanding lights Jim’s eyes. He scoots up to be able to reach the tissues, mopping away the mess. “Can I kiss you now?”

    He’s so hard, it’s pressing against Alex’s thigh now, unyielding. Hot. He’s a little grossed out by the idea of tasting himself, but there’s a stale half a glass of water on the nightstand, and at Alex’s hesitation, Jim rinses his mouth out, gives him a hopeful look. Alex pulls him down into a hungry kiss– because he wants to, mostly, because that look had been so appealing and sweet, and so had the understanding, because the sex had been good… Because he just wants to, because he can now, he can kiss Jim, he can kiss him…

    Jim still kind of tastes like him, but it’s not bad, not off-putting the way he had feared it would be. He still prefers Jim tasting like Jim, but he can’t exactly complain. So he kisses him, grateful and adoring.

    And he kisses him, because feeling how hard he is makes him hot all over again.

    “You want me?” He gasps, reaching for him.

    “You got a condom?”

    “No…” God, the disappointment that hits him at that is more than he thought it could be. But why would he have condoms? Why would either of them, before this moment?

    “It’s okay.” Jim promises, kissing him softly. “It’s okay.”

    “No, I want you to–”

    “Shh, it’s okay. Next time.” He says, and next time soothes something anxious. Next time. They’re going to have a next time. “I won’t put it in, that’s all.”

    “Okay.” Alex nods, drags him in for another kiss before helping him get his fly down. “Yeah, okay.”

    And he trusts him with this, too, to mean that. Right now, he doubts he’d care if they got carried away, but he trusts Jim to mean it.

    Day one, he doubts he would have, not that he’d been thinking about it then. Not in a malicious way, even then he wouldn’t have suspected him of lying about this. But he wouldn’t have trusted him to be careful to avoid it, if he had pictured sex with him. To take this kind of care with him, to put thought into how he treated him. He didn’t picture him interested, but he also didn’t picture him…

    He didn’t picture him.

    Jim shucks his jeans, his boxers. Alex dares a look down at him, at the size of him. How hard he is, the shape of him. He’s hot, when he presses against Alex, bare skin on bare skin. The slide of them against each other is slick, spreads Alex’s labia wide. He can feel the drag across his entrance, the friction against his clit. And it’s supposed to be for Jim, this. Supposed to be a way to make him feel good, when Alex doesn’t know what he’s doing and hasn’t got the coordination to figure it out now, but it lights him back up, it shakes him apart all over again, but gentler this time. Jim comes on him, and he brings Alex with him, twitching and keening and dragging his nails down Jim’s back.

    “Oh god…” He touches the mess on his belly, fascinated. “Oh…”

    Jim grabs for the tissues again, kisses him softly as he cleans him up. Alex’s eyes drift closed as he lets himself be cared for.

    When he opens them again, the light outside his window is different, and he doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t feel desperate and he doesn’t feel crazy– he just feels hungry. Hell, starving.

    “How’d you sleep?” Jim smiles down at him, from his perch on the edge of his bed, his touch gentle against Alex’s face.

    “Good.”

Chapter Text

    No morning has ever been as beautiful as this morning. No birds have ever sung as beautifully and no sun has ever shone so bright and no one has ever woken as happy as Alex is waking up to this perfect morning. He sits up and stretches and enjoys every second of waking up from glorious sleep.

    “... Did you dress me in my pajamas?”

    “Yeah. Well, your folks came in to check on you at one point, so it’s a pretty good thing I did…” 

    “Did you go down and eat dinner?”

    Jim nods. “I wrote you a note in case you woke up during dinner, but you just slept.”

    “Good. And did you sleep?”

    He nods again. “I slept great.”

    “I’m starving, how about you?”

    “I could eat.” He smiles. 

    They both head downstairs in pajamas and bathrobes, and Alex catches himself singing, catches Jim smiling warmly at him when he does. He cuts himself off, blushing. Lets Jim sit him down with a kiss to his forehead. He brings him orange juice and cereal and then he just keeps bringing him breakfast foods. He gets him yogurt with honey and mixed berries, and he makes him toast, and Alex is hungry enough to accept it all gladly, even if he can’t help laughing, too.

    “Sit down and eat something.”

    “I had dinner last night.” Jim points out. And then he brings him a leftover piece of chicken on top of everything else.

    Alex dollops some of the honey and yogurt onto one of the slices of toast, dots the yogurt with blueberries and holds it up, feeding Jim a bite, seeing him light up over it.

    “Here we are, in the cozy chair… picking on a wishbone, from the Frigidaire…” Alex sings, while Jim chews. “Two sleepy people, with nothing to say, and much too much in love to break away… Do you remember, the nights we used to linger in the hall?”

    “Your father didn’t like it at all.” Jim joins in, wiping away the crumbs. 

    “And do you remember the reason why we married in the fall?”

    “To rent this little nest… and get a piece of rest…”

    “Here we are, just about the same. Foggy little fellow–”

    Jim cuts him off with a kiss, that tastes a little bit like honey and yogurt. 

    “Two sleepy people, by dawn’s early light.” He comes back in as they part, Alex just a little dizzied.

    “And much too much in love to say goodnight–”

    “Goodnight.” 

    Another kiss follows. They feed each other bites of breakfast until they hear Alex’s parents heading their way, and Jim has to hastily pop the last blueberry into Alex’s mouth before pulling away.

    “You slept!” His mom comes over and kisses the side of his head, before going to start coffee. His dad follows suit, pulling him in close a moment.

    “How are you feeling?” He asks, smoothing Alex’s hair out gently.

    “Great.” He smiles. Wishes he’d thought to discuss the how-and-when-to-handle-telling-who question with Jim, back up in his room, but… he can’t exactly be upset about anything right now. “Fantastic.”

    “What finally worked this time?”

    “Oh…” He hesitates, brain spinning its wheels. He really wishes he was the kind of person who could come up with excuses, or lie to his parents, or say anything remotely plausible that isn’t ‘he wore me out by teaching me what an orgasm is, twice’.

    “Meditation.” Jim says.

    “Heavy breathing.”

    “Deep breathing.”

    “Deep breathing.” Alex corrects, feeling the heat flood his face. “I did not meditate.”

    “I meditated enough for both of us.” Jim adds. 

    “Well… it worked.”

    “It did.” He breaks out in a grin in spite of himself. But hey, after finally getting some real sleep, how could he be blamed? He and Jim will just talk when they get the chance… He turns towards him, pushes the bowl with the remaining berries his way. “Anything you want to do today?”

    “I can think of, uh– Nothing.” He ducks his head. “Nothing, you should show me… something else in town. That we haven’t done yet.”

    “We can do something we haven’t done yet. I gotta swing by a store first. And, uh, pick up that thing.”

    “You– yeah?”

    “Yeah.”

    “That wasn’t a thing you, um, you just thought maybe you needed to pick up and then you got some sleep and changed your mind, that was a thing you–?”

    “Yeah, no, that’s a thing I need. And then after we pick that up, we can do whatever you want.”

    “Oh, what, anything?” Jim comes over so flustered, and it’s adorable, and it feels a little like playing with fire, flustering him before they even talk about how they want to handle any of this, but… 

    “Anything.”

    “Well, I might just stay in today, then. Let you catch up on sleep, or…”

    “Yeah. Definitely.”

    “... You haven’t actually convinced Alex to smoke dope, have you?” His dad blinks, looking between them.

    “Dad, jeez, no.”

    “As a guest in your home?” Jim gasps, hand flying to his chest.

    “Jim’s clean, I’m clean–”

    “I wouldn’t have considered a little dope unclean.” He spreads his hand. “Only asking!”

    “Oh, for me it is.” Jim shakes his head. “I’ve gotta keep off of the stuff.”

    “All right, then. I won’t ask.”

    “Alex has returned to the land of the living?” Jennifer greets.

    “You’re actually okay, right?” Mallory asks, coming in on her heels, and like… genuinely concerned. Which is… nice? Weird? Nice and weird?

    “Yeah, I’m great.”

    “And you woke up feeling… normal?”

    “Better than normal.” He nods. She looks at him like she’s not sure she believes him for a moment, and then she goes to get breakfast. 

    “Well, I’m glad.” His mom smiles, sliding into her chair. “You seem like it.”

    “Yeah, I guess.” Mallory says.

    “Maybe we’ll determine how normal you are.” Jennifer adds.

    “Everyone’s a critic.” He rolls his eyes, turning his attention to his yogurt. Swirls his spoon through it and then lets a spoonful drip back into the bowl, distracted.

    And he can’t be blamed for being distracted, because Jim keeps just not eating a raspberry. Just keeps resting it against his lower lip, rolling it between lips and fingertip, and then he touches his tongue to it and…

    And the thing is, he’s not even trying to, not really– there’s no look in his eyes like he’s thinking about it, he’s just distracted and it’s distracting . There are a few places that know exactly what that tongue is capable of, and all of them are sitting up and begging for attention now.

    He sees the moment Jim does realize he’s been accidentally teasing him, the flash of sheepish apology before he just eats the raspberry, the faint blush. The way his eyes zero in on Alex’s lips in turn, and okay, so maybe Alex teases him back on purpose, he doesn’t pretend he’s being smart , he’s just… It’s just so easy to let a little yogurt drip down from his lip to his chin, to wipe it up and suck it off a finger while Jim stares at him and Jennifer answers their parents’ questions about plans for the day like nothing’s even happening across the table, nothing is happening, they’re being so well-behaved, if you think about it. If he wasn’t being well-behaved, he’d be dragging Jim back to bed right now!

    “So, Alex, what did you need at the store?” His mom asks, interrupting him before he can get any dumber with the yogurt. “I can pick it up for you.”

    “Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

    “I’ve got to run some errands, it’s no trouble.”

    “No, you’ve got that big project, I’ll handle the errands.” He shakes his head, tamping down on the urge to panic. 

    “That’s sweet, but I’ve got to get to the bank anyway. What did you want from the store?”

    He shoots Jim a desperate come up with something look.

    “Chocolate chip cookies.” Jim nods. 

    “Yeah. Yes, that was it. Not the sleep deprivation talking, I did want chocolate chip cookies. I mean, a man can’t live on oatmeal raisin alone.” 

    “I thought it might have been the sleep deprivation talking.” Jim adds, shy.

    “Right, but it wasn’t. I happen to really want the chocolate chip cookies.”

    “Well–”

    “I’m with Alex on this one, Mom.” Jennifer jumps in. “No one’s ever picked up a chocolate chip cookie and been disappointed it wasn’t oatmeal raisin. And he’s been suffering.”

    “As he so loves to remind us.” Mallory rolls her eyes. 

    “Well, I can pick up the cookies while I’m out.” She nods.

    “Thanks.” He says, a beat too late. “I guess… we’ll just…”

    “You’ll just…?” 

    “Do the same things as yesterday?” Jim offers.

    “Or rent a movie. We could… instead of, you know, why go to the movies a second time?--”

    “You two went to the movies? When was this?” Mallory asks, and Alex appreciates that she seemed genuinely concerned about his sleep, but he doesn’t appreciate her tone on this.

    “Yesterday.” Jim blinks.

    “While you were out with your friends?” He shrugs. “Sorry, what’s the big deal?”

    “Nothing, I just… You went to the movies?”

    “Yeah. Why is that weird? Do you never go to the movies with your friends?”

    “I mean, with my friends, yes. With Mom and Dad’s friends, no.”

    “Well… we’ve pretty much spent all week together, so I don’t think it’s weird.” Alex frowns. “I’m not allowed to be friends with Mom and Dad’s friends now?”

    “Historically, no.”

    “Aw, Mallory, I think it’s nice.”

    “Thank you, Jennifer.”

    “If Alex doesn’t have any friends of his own, it’s real nice of Mom and Dad to lend him one. Gently used.”

    “Real nice.” He groans, rising. “We don’t have to put up with this abuse. Come on– you’re not ‘gently used’.”

    “No, I wouldn’t say ‘gently’.”

    Alex shoots Mallory a glare, before turning back to Jim. “How do you feel about eating in my room?”

    “Pretty good.” Jim says, and the look he gives Alex is quick, but not lost on him.

    “No one is eating in their room– Mallory, could you please be polite, if not to your brother than to our guest?”

    “Why do I have to be polite, why not Jennifer?”

    “You both need to be polite. Now listen to your mother, apologize to your brother, and… I thought this parenting thing was supposed to get easier once you all started growing up.”

    “Sorry, Dad, not all of your children could live up to the Alex P. Keaton standard. Hey, I’m being an exemplary host!” Alex says, and Jim hides a laugh, foot nudging against Alex’s, just briefly. “You think I’m exemplary, right?”

    “Oh, I think you’re swell.” He smiles up at him, picks up a strawberry, and swirls it through Alex’s yogurt. Pops it into his mouth, still holding the stem, and Alex doesn’t even need to be able to see his tongue, he knows what it’s doing. He can’t even look at him. He sits back down and shoves a bite of cereal into his mouth. Corn Flakes, there’s absolutely nothing sexy about Corn Flakes. By design there’s nothing sexy about Corn Flakes.

    “See, this is what I’m talking about.” Mallory says, sotto voce, and Alex’s stomach twists, anxious.

    “And I will say exactly the same thing I told you last time.” Their dad gives her a look. “Now eat your breakfast. Can everyone please eat their breakfast?”

    Alex has to force himself to eat normally, when all he wants is to drag Jim back to bed– and if he had to guess he’d say the feeling is mutual. But they’re both still in pajamas, they both have every excuse to go back up, no one’s going to think it weird when they both do.

    Jim takes the last strawberry up with them, sitting on the edge of Alex’s bed while Alex locks the door behind them.

    “I can’t watch you eat fruit, it drives me crazy.” He groans, whirling around.

    “All fruit?” Jim asks, the strawberry poised against his lips.

    “I dunno, maybe an apple would be okay. Not a real juicy one.”

    “I’ll keep that in mind.” He pauses. “Should I not–?”

    “Maybe if you just bite into it fast.”

    Biting into it fast does not drive Alex any less crazy. Not when a trickle of juice runs down Jim’s chin, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s straddling his lap, dragging his tongue all the way up, and Jim very nearly lets Alex lick all the way into his mouth, which is…

    It’s gross, isn’t it?

    “What’s the matter with me?”

    “Nothing.” Jim looks at him like he definitely would have let him lick into his mouth, strawberry and all. There’s a strawberry stem leaving a delicate pink stain on Alex’s bedspread and he doesn’t care. 

    Well, he does grab it with a tissue and drop it into the wastebasket, but he doesn’t care if it does stain, anyway.

    “You drive me crazy.” He kisses Jim’s cheek. Settles back onto his lap and relaxes as Jim’s arms loop around him. “You really meant it, about being serious about me?”

    “Yeah. You… you still want me?”

    “I’m wild about you. First, I’d be crazy to give you up now, and second… I just really like being around you. I just do.”

    “And you want me to not say anything to your family?”

    “I think I should try and break it to them gently.” He winces. “Maybe start by telling them I like guys, and… see how they handle that one. You’re– you’re not a dirty little secret to me, or anything, it’s just… complicated. I don’t want my folks to think you took advantage of me to get something you wanted. And I don’t want them to think I took advantage of you to get what I wanted. I want to figure everything out and do this right. I mean, I think we both deserve that. I want them to understand.”

    Jim nods, brushing a soft kiss along his jaw. “Okey-doke.”

    “I knew I was gonna like you… ‘s why I tried so hard to keep some distance between us.”

    “Yeah? When?”

    He almost says it was when Jim tried to sing him to sleep, after sharing his moon poem, and then he realizes before that, it had been Jim playing cars with Andy, but even before that…

    “You asked me if I liked what I was studying. Maybe that’s when I knew you’d be trouble.” He smiles and catches Jim’s lips. “When did you think… like, about me?”

    “I always liked you.”

    “I was a jerk.”

    “You gave me a place to sleep. You did my laundry– you made me take care of myself. And when I didn’t really know how, you took care of me. If that’s you at your worst, honey, I don’t know if I deserve your best.”

    “I know. You deserve the world.”

    “Well, I got it.”

    “Were you trying not to fall for me?”

    He shakes his head. “I wasn’t trying not to. I only really… I knew it was different– special– I realized, watching you, that you were… things, to me, that not everybody is. But I didn’t try not to feel them. Just tried not to put it on you if I did.”

    “Well, I tried pretty hard not to fall for you. It didn’t work.”

    “Lucky me.”

    “Lucky us.” He kisses Jim again. Again. Again. “Would it help save the whales or the rainforest or help some other stupid thing if we conserved water and showered together?”

    “I can think of one stupid thing it’d help.” Jim licks a stripe along his jaw. 

    “Good, let’s do that, then.”

    He has to leave Jim’s lap first, which is difficult, and then they have to make sure not to get caught sneaking into the bathroom together. Wind up laughing and shushing each other as they hurry to undress, until the running water can cover at least a little sound. 

    Sure, maybe it’s all just a cheap excuse to get naked and get their wet, soapy hands all over each other, but… they’re not not getting clean. Cleaner. Clean-ish? 

    Alex is okay with a cheap excuse. 

    He sucks a mark onto Jim’s collarbone, the spot he’d fantasized about, where any of his shirts would hide it, but Alex will know it’s there, and then he goes down on his knees. 

    “Oh. Okay.” Jim smiles at him, that kind of surprised and delighted one.

    “Yeah, I think I can figure this out now.” Alex grins up at him, wraps a hand around the length of him, about half hard just from making out and some very soapy heavy petting. Feels the way he jerks in his hand. “Oh– wow.”

    “Think that’s my line.” 

    “It’s like it’s alive.”

    “It is.”

    “I mean it’s like it has a mind of its own.”

    “It does.” He laughs. They both do.

    “Yeah, mine, too. God, if you had any idea how bad I’ve wanted you…” He presses his nose into the crease of a hip, chasing down the scent of a skin musk not entirely washed away, even as little rivulets of soapy water run down him. “That day you walked in on me…”

    “The couch? That was… that was real?”

    “I thought I was gonna die.”

    “I thought we were ignoring… that maybe it was. Only then you just sat next to me and I thought, maybe he really was just looking for a dime. I mean… you sat right next to me, I didn’t think…”

    “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

    “I was just hoping you wouldn’t notice if I was, uh… a little aroused.” Jim admits, swelling in Alex’s hands. “Especially if I was reading you wrong.”

    “Yeah, I was glad you couldn’t tell I was.” He dares a lick, and loses himself in another, and another. “Not reading me wrong– God! Thought about you putting your hand down my pants. Fingering me. God…”

    “Right there on the couch?”

    “Yeah.”

    “You really like that couch.”

    “I really like you.”

    He really likes this, too. Being down here, getting his mouth on Jim– it’s a lot to try and work around, but he’s nothing if not confident in his ability to learn. He loves the way he smells and the taste of his skin, and the feel of him, hard and hot. The soft sounds he tries to hold back, so they don’t make any noise louder than the water, the way his hands feel in Alex’s hair… How he feels important, he didn’t know giving a blowjob could make you feel important. Sexy, sure, but important?

    But that’s how it feels, when Jim cups his face and strokes his hair, and when his breathing is a little ragged, and those soft little sounds escape him. When Alex meets his eyes and sees awe there in the love that shines out of him. He feels important, and he feels like he’s taking care of Jim in a way that matters. Like it matters that he’s in it for the long haul, and not just doing this to get off with him a couple of times. 

    They’ll have to talk about that, too… how to handle Jim going back to New York while Alex finishes up school. But… there are plenty of places in New York that Alex could work after he’s done with college. He could join him there. And then… he wouldn’t be figuring his life out alone. Neither of them would be.

    “Did you– did you want me to, uh… to keep this going, or did you want to make me come?” Jim asks him, a little shaky.

    Alex thinks about what Jim had said last night, about being able to go for hours– that had to have maybe been a couple of rounds, right? That had to include time he spent going down. It had to. But… 

    But he could keep it going, if Alex stopped and they switched gears?

    The problem, of course, being that they still don’t have condoms. Although he thinks trying to have shower sex for their first time would probably end in injury. Really embarrassing injury. 

    Really embarrassing injury that would bring Alex’s entire family running.

    “I want to make you come.” He says quickly. And he can see, can feel, the way Jim lets himself go at that, lets himself relax a little more. 

    He tugs Alex away with a soft warning, comes on him, and it’s easily rinsed away, but that’s not the point. The point is, Alex would have thought that it would be… gross, maybe, but like before, it’s not. It’s really, really not. 

    “That was… that was really hot.” He says, as Jim gently washes away the come and drool before helping him up to his feet. Kisses him without asking him to so much as rinse his mouth out. “I didn’t know how, uh… how good that would be. For me, I mean. I hope for you?”

    “Very good, for me.” Jim promises, between kisses. He wraps one arm firm around Alex’s waist, his other hand sliding down between his thighs. “You want me to?”

    “Please.”

    He holds onto Jim’s shoulders, lets himself basically be held up, lets the kisses muffle all the sound he can’t help making as Jim works him through a knee-weakening orgasm. Just, lets himself go, too, a thing he still doesn’t think he’s too good at, but he trusts Jim to catch him if he tries.

    He could trust Jim to catch him, if he tries– even if he fails– in life.

    “Jim?” He pants, heavy against Jim’s shoulder as he feels cupped palmfuls of warm water sluice down his thighs.

    “Yeah, honey?”

    “What if I– what if I loved you?” 

    There are a lot of conversations they don’t need to have right away, that they’ll need to have someday, but this one… maybe he can start with.

    “Then I think I’d be the happiest man in the world.”

    “I want that for you.” Alex sighs. “I want you to be really happy.”

    “I want you to be really happy.”

    “You’ll have to show me how you do it, then.”

    “Would me loving you help?”

    “Definitely.”

Chapter Text

    They do wind up renting a movie, just because it’s an excuse to get out of the house long enough to also pick up condoms. Alex just grabs the first thing on the sci-fi shelf that doesn’t look scary– Jim has mentioned Star Trek, he’s also told Alex just how many times he’s seen E.T.-- and they spend a portion of the day watching Andy, who is mostly content to play on the living room floor and ignore the movie, but at least when he does tune in, it’s nothing scary, and he also doesn’t notice if they maybe cuddle a little bit watching. Nothing they couldn’t pull out of, if someone else came in. Or Alex could close his eyes and pretend to be catching up on sleep against Jim’s shoulder, and no one could hold that against him.

    Jim is genuinely touched by it. Alex had spent several stretches of the movie kind of distracted, either by Jim being so nice to cuddle up to, or by Andy needing some actual human interaction between block towers and driving the baby doll around the furniture in the back of a toy dump truck. He doesn’t really mind missing some of the movie, but he does appreciate seeing how invested Jim gets, how much emotion he gets out of it. 

    “You really like this stuff?” He asks, comfortably tucked under Jim’s arm, hand on his knee. “Spaceships and time machines?”

    “I just never felt like I belonged here, I guess. I found myself for a while, with these far-out people who got me, but growing up, I didn’t fit in. I didn’t belong…  Not anywhere. And I never really felt right.” Jim nods. “And then the world moved on again, from the one that did make me feel like I belonged. And things changed. And I lost the only place that made sense for me on Earth. Thinking about traveling through space– or time– just makes me think… somewhere out there, I’d belong.”

    “I guess I get that.” He turns and cuddles into his shoulder a little more. “I mean… I never felt like I fit, either. At home, I’m too much… just Alex. But when I look for the places I think a guy like Alex belongs, I’m too much a Keaton. And I don’t know where that means I fit in. I mean… hopefully on this planet.”

    “We could fit with each other, then.”

    “I’d like that a lot. I’d like… I would like to maybe see how I fit in in New York, after college.” He floats the idea. Maybe it’s way too soon, but everything about the two of them feels like it moves on its own time.

    “You would wanna do that? Come to New York?”

    “Of course.”

    “It’s a long way…”

    “Yeah, but it’s not as far as a trip to outer space, is it? And… I’d find something there. A job…”

    “I’ll have to keep a nice place, if you’re gonna come live with me. That’s what we’re talking about, right?”

    “Right. You’ll have to take care of yourself, until I get there.” Alex nods. “I’ll move out to you. Once I’m there, once I’m working, you know… you never have to worry about money or anything. I mean, I know your brother is setting things up with your inheritance and you have a job to go back to, but I really mean once I get a job, you never have to worry about money again.”

    “I’m not worried about money now.” 

    “Right, but I mean, for the rest of your life, you’ll never have to worry about money. And I mean, actually buying things. Buying clothes and shoes when they wear out, buying things you like, buying groceries, going to the doctor whenever you don’t feel well, paying for utilities, the occasional night out… and just doing that forever for the rest of your life, you never have to worry. It might take me a little while to get the ball rolling, but I’ll make enough to take care of you.”

    “Okay, but I’m really not worried about money. You could always come manage it for me.”

    “I mean, I love you, and I am basically qualified to do that, but you haven’t known me a week. You shouldn’t get control of your money from one person in your life only to immediately hand it over to someone else, someone you barely know.” He takes Jim’s hand. “You can do that for yourself. You can.”

    “Maybe. It doesn’t feel good.” He admits, squeezing Alex’s hand gently. 

    “What do you mean?”

    “Having it. I… I wasn’t there. For years, I wasn’t there. I barely got to reconnect with my father, he didn’t know what to do with me and I didn’t know how to be his son. My brother resents me, I don’t know if my sister does too or not now that money’s involved, and maybe they’re right. I threw a lot away when I set out on my own path, I… Before, the person I was, I… I didn’t choose them. I kept not choosing them. And Tom’s been fighting me on this inheritance for years now, and every time I do anything with it, he takes that to the family lawyers and says James can’t be trusted. James can’t be trusted with our father’s money, or our family’s legacy, he already threw away his name so why is he even here? And… I don’t know. Because he still loved me. But that doesn’t make it easier, you know? I… I want it, because he wanted me to have it, and because it– because it doesn’t make me feel any better to have it kept from me. I mean if he had written me out of the will, I wouldn’t want it! I wouldn’t even think about it! But he wrote me back in, so I don’t want to have that kept from me. But then I don’t want it, because I don’t deserve it.”

    “If your dad left it to you, then you deserve it. The only person who can say what you deserve to inherit is him, right?” He tugs Jim’s hand up, pressing a kiss to the back. “Your brother calls you James? You don’t seem like a ‘James’. Jim, yes. Or– one of your friends calls you ‘Iggy’? I like ‘Iggy’, ‘Iggy’ is cute. But you don’t seem like a ‘James’.”

    “I used to, I guess.” He rests his head against Alex’s. “Dad always called me James. Tom… With my family… I’m always going to be stuck between who I was supposed to be, and every mistake they think I ever made. I don’t… I don’t know if I can fix that. I don’t know what they want me to be. If they had a magic box, with two buttons, and one of them would make me just… James Caldwell, who knows what fork to use and remembers all kinds of lessons in… ballroom dancing, and who graduated from Harvard and who’s his father’s favorite and he’d do the right things with all that money, and the other button would make me Jim Ignatowski, but the Jim Ignatowski who’s still on everything, living in a van and living off handouts, who no one would ever trust with anything, who woulda been written out of the will easy… I dunno. I dunno which button they would push. But they’d push one. Maybe they’d each push a different one. And the truth is… I’m both those people. I’m not either one of ‘em.” 

    “You’re the Jim Ignatowski who got clean. You took ballroom dancing lessons?”

    “Yeah, but I don’t remember ‘em. I don’t think I do. I don’t know what I remember, from either life. I think there’s a lot of people I can never go back to being.”

    “I think we’re more than the worst mistakes we ever made, or the choices other people might think are mistakes. I think the Jim Ignatowski you are is worth a lot. I think you can take care of yourself. I think it’s your money, and you shouldn’t feel guilty for taking it, or for using it to take care of yourself. But… it’s okay if it’s hard. Or scary. I mean, I get it… taking care of yourself right always is. And if you put a lot of it away and don’t touch it until I get there, and you want my advice, or my help, by then… we’ll have been together longer. And I’ll give you the best advice I can on what to do with your money. But you’re not handing me the reins and pretending the money doesn’t exist. I mean… the money you’ve been spending this week hasn’t felt bad, has it?”

    “Feels better spending it than carrying it around, I guess. It’s different when I can spend it doing things with you. I still just think about… emptying my wallet and handing it all off to the first person I see, but… then we’re having the same fight again about whether I’m mentally competent. Which I think I am, mostly.”

    “Mostly.” Alex nods. “As much as the next guy, right?”

    “The next guy’s pretty all right. Questionable taste in men, though.”

    “Hey!” Alex pokes at him, gets poked at in return, until the two of them are laughing and slapping each other’s hands away. “Hey… Hey, really, though– thanks. For telling me all that.”

    “Sure. Well… you tell me stuff. And I don’t… I don’t like to think about all that. I don’t like to… feel all that. Easier not to, you know? But… I think it’s different.”

    “What’s different?”

    “Ignoring it, when I’m alone, or choosing not to tell you, when I feel something. I think I could hide a lot of feelings from myself, that I wouldn’t hide from you. Been thinking about that. Watching you sleep and… just thinking. I don’t want you to think I’m better than I am.”

    “I didn’t think you were better because you could be happy about everything. I want you to be upset when something hurts you, you get that, right?” He cups Jim’s cheek. “You’re still my sunshine. You could still teach me a lot about how to be happy. But you don’t have to only be happy.”

    Jim looks at him like he doesn’t know that. Like it’s a difficult thing to wrap his head around.

    “I don’t like it.”

    “Well… no. Of course you don’t. No one wants to feel unhappy, but everyone does. You’re allowed to. I mean I know you love the rain and the moon and the grass and that bird– and everything– but you’re allowed to get mad, too.”

    “You’re allowed to get mad.” He shakes his head. “I’m not.”

    “Not even with your brother?”

    “I think he’s doing his best. It’s not about him.” Another shake of the head. “It’s just… different. And I can’t… do that. I don’t like how it feels. I never know what to do with it. When I look at my brother… god, we’re both doing our best now that Dad is gone, but I don’t feel about him the way I feel about my sister. Or the rain. Or the moon. Or the grass… I don’t know what I feel about him, and it scares me a little, to have that hole there.”

    Alex nods, running his hand up through Jim’s hair, though he has to pull away when Andy climbs up into his lap. 

    “What?” He catches the look Jim gives them, soft as it always is, but deeper. It’s hard to tell if it’s more happy or sad.

    “Nothing. Just… nice, that you always have time for him. It’s just… really good to see that right now.”

    “Well… yeah. I mean, Mom and Dad don’t always appreciate my input on matters like choosing the right preschool for his future success, but you know. I like to be involved. Isn’t that right, buddy?” He wrestles him into a bear hug, since he’s got him, making him laugh. 

    “And… you could really move all the way out to New York, after school?”

    “Yeah. It’s not like I won’t be able to call… figure out visits. I mean, people grow up and move, I– I’ll be okay when it’s my turn.” He says, is surprised to find he believes it. Keeps one arm tight around Andy as he ruffles his hair. “I’ll just wish I could pack you in my suitcase, that’s all.”

    “You could pack me in your suitcase, Alex. I’m small.” Andy says, hugging onto his arm. “Where’re you going?”

    “Well, nowhere yet. After college, I’m gonna move out. I’m gonna go to another city. That’s just what grown ups do.”

    “You’re not a grown-up, you’re my brother.”

    “I’m both.” He squeezes him again. “After college, I’m going to have to go get a job and make money. And when that happens, I’ll call you on the phone all the time. That’s not for a couple months, okay? Plenty of time to do more stuff together before you have to worry about me going anywhere. Just… when I do? You’ve gotta keep Mal from annexing my room.”

    “Okay.” Andy promises.

    “Do they teach you what ‘annexing’ means in preschool?”

    “Nope.”

    “Yeah, well… bet they would have taught you that in the school I liked. It was highly competitive. But that’s okay. It just means… don’t let her start putting her stuff in my closet just because I don’t live in there anymore.”

    “Okay.” He wriggles his way back down, picks up his dump truck, and runs off. 

    “Who’s going to help Mommy put away these groceries?” Alex hears his mom ask– loudly enough that Andy is clearly not the target audience here.

    “Coming!” He sighs, getting to his feet. “I’ve got it!”

    “There’s another couple bags out in the car!” She calls back.

    “I’ll help.” Jim nods, following Alex to the kitchen, and then slipping out the back to get the rest of the groceries. 

    Alex waves his mom off, so she can get back to work– though he’s not sure how much work she’ll get done with Andy attaching himself to her side.

    “Did I hear your mother come in?” His dad pops in as he’s getting things sorted out.

    “Just missed her. Hey, Dad?” Alex wraps his arms around himself, rocking back on his heels. No time like the present… right? “You got a minute?”

    “For you? As many of them as you need.” He frowns softly, backtracking to join Alex by the kitchen island. “What’s up?”

    “You’d still, you and Mom, I mean, you’d still love me if I didn’t turn out kinda like how you expected?”

    “You didn’t. We do.”

    “Yeah, but… if I really didn’t turn out how you expected?”

    “Alex.” His dad rests both hands on Alex’s shoulders. “Your mother and I didn’t expect a single thing about you. Your interests, your intellect, your politics, your gender, your height–”

    “Yeah, okay, okay–”

    “I lost money betting on what color your eyes would turn out to be. I can safely say there’s nothing about you that came out how I expected. And I couldn’t possibly love you more.”

    “But could you love me less?”

    “No. Never.” He promises, pulling Alex the rest of the way in for a hug. 

    “What if I told you I was gay?”

    He can feel his dad tense. “If you were, would you have the same taste in boys as Mallory?”

    “What? No.”

    “Then I’d take it just fine.” He relaxes. “Is that something… you think you might tell me, one of these days?”

    “I don’t know. I mean– not all the way, maybe. But I don’t know if that matters. I mean, it might. I mean… for all intents and purposes, let’s say that I was.”

    “I guess I’d tell you to be careful around boys… I mean–”

    “Dad, I don’t need a birds and the bees talk.” He pulls out of the hug, making a face. 

    “You got a B minus in health and hygiene back in high school, in Alex world that’s an F.” His dad points out.

    “Well, now I’m an adult and I do understand… all of that stuff. And I’m very responsible! So there’s nothing to panic about.”

    “I mean, no one’s panicking, but I am going to worry about things I didn’t worry about before– Jim!”

    “Why would you worry about Jim?” Alex is the one to panic for a moment, before he realizes his dad is just greeting Jim, or rather, alerting Alex that he might not want to say anything super personal because Jim is coming in through the back door. “Oh– Jim. Hey. Hi. We’re just having a casual conversation.”

    “Oh, great. I love casual conversations. How about that weather? Disappointing news in the world of sports, huh? We’ll get ‘em next time.” He sets the rest of the groceries on the island.

    “Jim, how would you like stay in town another week so you can follow Alex to school and make sure no college boys talk to him, for absolutely no reason?”

    “Great job not panicking, Dad.”

    “I’m on it, boss.” Jim’s hands rest on Alex’s shoulders, and Alex leans back into his chest before he can stop himself. 

    “No, no, you don’t– there’s no boys, you don’t have to worry about any college boys.” He laughs, turning to push Jim gently off. “No bodyguard duty necessary.”

    “I didn’t really think it was.” He shrugs, smiling. “But I wouldn’t mind. I mean, I wouldn’t have to fight anybody, I could just stand around being tall?”

    “You would. You’d hate sitting through my classes. Macroeconomics, Iggy. Marketing.” The nickname tumbles out before he can question floating it, but… it is cute. He sees the little flicker of delighted surprise.

    “I would hate that. No guys are giving you trouble?”

    “No. Nobody’s giving me any trouble. Dad’s just getting in one last shot to be overprotective.” Alex promises, and so Jim nods and starts getting the cold stuff put away in the fridge.

    “Well, now, who says it’s my last shot?”

    “I’m a man now, I’m practically out of college, and then I’ll be moving out of the house.”

    “Right, and being safe.” He frowns.

    “Absolutely. But… being safe… five hundred miles from home.”

    “Five hundred miles? You can’t be safe in Ohio?”

    “Dad. You know, young Andrew has been handling the idea of my moving out after college with a grace and maturity I think you could learn from.”

    “I see, and he found out before me?”

    “I mean, I figured you’d assume.”

    He shrugs, pulling Alex back in for another hug. “Is the five hundred miles part non-negotiable?”

    “I’m afraid so, Dad.”

    “You make it sound like you’ve got plans. You’ve got something lined up?”

    “Well… I’m working on that.”

    “I know a restaurant that could use a new manager.” Jim says.

    “Okay, but won’t they hire somebody before I graduate?”

    “It doesn’t seem likely.” He shrugs. 

Chapter Text

    Talking to his mom proves a little more difficult, just because getting her alone is a little more difficult, but he doesn’t want it to be a thing he doesn’t talk to them both about. But, when he volunteers to help make dinner, his sisters are happy enough not to help and his dad is happy enough to watch Andy so that Alex can get that time, knowing what it is he needs to talk to her about.

    It doesn’t feel easier, knowing she’s going to say what his dad did. He can’t imagine her answer being different, not by much. But he still finds himself chopping vegetables in silence instead of pulling that bandaid off right away. 

    “Something wrong, sweetheart?” She asks. 

    “What gave it away?”

    “Oh, I don’t know. You went from all smiles after getting a good night’s sleep, volunteering to run all the errands and do all the chores, to getting kind of quiet on me.”

    “Yeah, well… I’ve been thinking. I mean, I guess I’ve had a lot of time to think. I mean I haven’t been sleeping, so I’ve been… thinking.”

    “Okay.” She nods, encouraging, wiping her hands off on the kitchen towel and turning her full attention his way. 

    “About graduation coming up, and my future, where I’m going. What I’m doing with my life, but… more than that. Who I am.”

    “I think those are good things to think about.” 

    “I, um… I like men. Other men. I always have. And I always thought it wasn’t allowed. You know? Not– not because you ever– Just… You know?”

    “I know.” She pulls him into a hug. “Sweetheart.”

    “I like men.”

    “I am very glad you felt like you could tell me.”

    “You don’t care?”

    “No. I’ve never cared.”

    “What do you mean never?”

    “I mean, I didn’t think you stopped liking boys overnight, I just hoped someday, you would feel comfortable being all of who you are.” She kisses his cheek warmly. “And whether you fall in love with a man or a woman, you don’t have to feel like you’re choosing sides or being untrue to yourself. That’s all I want for you, Alex– to get to feel like you’re you.”

    “Really?” He sniffles, doesn’t know why he’s crying now. He’d made it through telling his dad, he’d made it through being hugged and accepted and fussed over once.

    “Well, you happen to be one of my five favorite people. I want you to love yourself as much as I love you.”

    “Where am I in the rankings?”

    “You’re all even.” She laughs, and kisses his other cheek. “Do you feel better?”

    “Yeah. I really do”

    “Good. Do you want to sit down and let me finish making dinner?”

    “No. I want to. I mean… I’ve gotta get good at this stuff before I’m out of the house, right? I’m not gonna be able to just drop in any time I want a home-cooked meal.” He shrugs. “I just… I dunno. I’m thinking about being out on my own. And what my life is gonna be like. And I can’t live off of cold cereal and TV dinners.”

    “Okay, then. Thinking about moving out already, huh?”

    “Yeah. I mean… I’m almost done with school, I’m thinking about my future. I’m not totally sure what I’ll be doing, but… There’s a lot I could do.”

    “And you don’t think you can drop in any time?”

    “No. Not if I move to New York. I mean, there are a lot of financial opportunities in New York! And… a lot of people. Who might be like me. There are guys like me, you know? I mean… there are guys who are like me, and they– they look like me. They have the same… the same stuff I’ve got. Maybe if I go out there, I’ll… meet some of them, I don’t know. I think I’d like to.”

    “I think that’s wonderful, I think you should.” She rubs his back, and lets him get back to chopping vegetables. “I mean, we’re going to miss having you at home, but that sounds like it’s going to be a wonderful opportunity for you… or, a set of wonderful opportunities. I just hope that your father and I have given you everything you need, to go off and start that life. That you’ll be happy, and healthy…”

    “Dad would rather see me be happy and healthy in Ohio.”

    “Are you really surprised?”

    “Well, he took a little consolation in the fact that I don’t have the same taste in boys as Mallory. But… I dunno. I guess– I dunno.”

    “Think he’s going to have to adjust to the idea of your bringing a boy home by this Christmas?”

    “Maybe by this Thanksgiving.”

    “Glad to see you’re feeling confident.” She laughs. “He’s going to understand. Why you want to go, why you want to be able to meet men you have something in common with. He just… isn’t ready to see you fly the coop. But he will be.”

    “You guys… you’ll really be okay with that? Me bringing a guy home?”

    “Of course.”

    “And if I got serious about a guy, if I settled down with a man someday, that’s… You’d be okay?”

    “We would be.”

    Alex nods, watching her get the vegetables he’d prepped moved onto a baking sheet. She directs him to grab the olive oil. 

    “How did you learn to do this? I mean, your mom didn’t teach you– the food you make is edible.”

    “Oh, when I was a girl, you couldn’t get through high school without learning to cook, and sew… and learn to be a housewife. I hated it. I hated the idea of it.” She laughs, leans in and kisses the side of his head. “But, I married your father. And he didn’t expect me to be a housewife.”

    “After he met grandma, I bet he didn’t expect you to cook, either.”

    “He didn’t expect me to cook. And he’s grateful when I do it. And… I like to take care of my family. It makes me happy to do that for you, and with you. And I don’t… I don’t have to choose just one part of myself. I’m not a housewife, but I am a wife, I’m a mother. My career is important to me, but so are all of you. And wasn’t I fighting to have it all?” She shrugs. “Aren’t we still?”

    “Huh.”

    He wishes he’d thought of his own life that way. He wishes it didn’t take his life spiraling into a crisis to make him want to have it all, for himself. To make him wonder if he couldn’t be two things, and have that be all right. But he guesses before you really hit a certain age, no one listens to his parents. Not really. Not so as you’d absorb that stuff.

    “I guess I wouldn’t mind feeding someone, if it wasn’t because he expected it.” He adds, nodding. “I mean, someone who’d actually be grateful. Someone who… maybe he needs me to do some things, to take care of him, and… maybe he does some things to take care of me.”

    “And that’s all we want for you. Someone who feels like a real partner. Someone you want to take care of, because it makes you happy, not because it’s what someone else expects of you. Someone who does the same for you. Whether that person is a man or a woman isn’t what matters, that that person values you for the wonderful man you are is.”

    “Well… then when the holidays roll around, I’ll bring home someone you and Dad will approve of.”

    “Okay, then. You want to get an egg cracked so I can start dredging this chicken?” 

    “Sure thing, Mom.” He leans in and kisses her cheek, and gets the dredging station set up for her, before switching places and getting a pan ready on the stove for the chicken to go into. 

    And it does feel good, it really does– cooking with his mom, feeding the rest of the family. Feeding Jim, too. But then, Jim never expects any of the things someone else could do to take care of him

    Alex likes being the one who does the things Jim doesn’t expect.

    How his parents are going to feel about the two of them together, he doesn’t really know. He can only hope that they come around on it without a whole lot of friction… but he’s taken the first step. 

    Trivial Pursuit comes out after dinner, and Jim gives Alex a run for his money at it. He’s not competitive at it, which Alex is, but he knows the weirdest things. 

    Also, Jim being really good at Trivial Pursuit maybe makes Alex kind of horny. He’s not sure how much of that is the Trivial Pursuit and how much is just that it’s getting later, his bed is calling, they have condoms now… They have condoms now. 

    They have condoms now. And they’re done with babysitting and he’s done with dinner and with family time and they have condoms and they can just go to bed alone and it won’t be weird and they have condoms and Alex could not be in more of a hurry to get to bed.

    This time, he watches Jim undress, beckoning him over to the bed before he can grab his pajamas.

    “C’mere.”

    “Yeah?”

    “Well… yeah.” He nods, reaches for Jim’s hands as soon as he’s in reach. “Take me to bed?”

    “Short trip, you’re already in bed.”

    “Yeah, and I’ve got a box of condoms if you wanna get my clothes off.”

    “I do wanna do that.” Jim nods, untucking Alex’s shirts. He strips him, hands roaming, and Alex touches right back, caresses his arms, his chest, his sides. The hickey is still there, and he traces the edge of the faint bruise with gentle fingertips, smiling. Lets Jim manhandle him out of his clothes while he just focuses on touching everything he can. “Wow…”

    “Wow?”

    “Yeah, wow.”

    “You, too.” Alex’s hand drifts down to Jim’s stomach, down lower, lets his nails drag lightly over the trail of hair leading lower still. “Pretty big wow.”

    “Wow.”

    “We’re in agreement on wow.” He smiles, the two of them taking time just to feel each other up. To trade a few slow kisses before Jim moves down his body and really shows him the meaning of wow.

    He works three fingers into him this time, slowly stretching him open, and it’s all Alex can do to muffle himself– which is not nearly as fun with his own shirt, but he does love the feeling of being full, the promise of the girth of Jim, how deep in him he’ll reach…

    And, again, he watches the total abandon with which Jim licks his fingers clean after he’s delivered one earth-shattering orgasm, gasping for breath as he kisses his way back up his body, little licks and nips. His hands travel everywhere his mouth isn’t, until he finally pulls away to find a condom. 

    Once he has it on, once he’s lined up, he takes one of Alex’s hands in his, lacing their fingers together.

    “Ready for me?” He asks, their lips brushing.

    “Give it to me.” Alex nods, running his free hand through Jim’s hair, settling at the nape of his neck. “Yeah, yeah I am.”

    He moves slow, exhales the softest groan as he buries himself in Alex, and Alex just focuses on breathing, even though it feels like it’s pushing all the air out of him. He squeezes Jim’s hand, looks up into his eyes, soft and dark and he really didn’t picture it like this, when he first pictured it. Didn’t picture Jim loving him this way, or how connected to him he could feel. How physically overwhelming it could be and how much he could want to be overwhelmed that way.

    He knew he would feel safe, that part is what he expected it to be. But everything else is so much more. 

    Jim barely moves, once he’s inside him, hips just working in the tiniest circle, kisses smothering all the sounds that come out of him, out of both of them. And Alex has already come once, and he doesn’t need to come again, but he’s enjoying this for what it is, enjoying things feeling just a little too much, enjoying knowing Jim feels good– and it is no secret Jim feels good, he keeps moaning into Alex’s mouth, panting against him between kisses, squeezing his hand back. 

    And he enjoys the press of their bodies together, enjoys the time Jim takes with him, the gentleness he shows him, he enjoys feeling wanted, and treasured, and held. 

    He gets the point of this. Trying to get himself off has always felt so frustrating and so difficult and so pointless, but he gets the point of this, and it isn’t even getting off, it’s just… being here. Sharing this. Feeling good.

    “Stay.” He whispers, tightening his hold on Jim, the hand holding his and the one in his hair, the legs wrapped around him. “Hold me– stay?”

    “I’ll stay.” Jim promises. Keeps moving in him all slow, the heat building back up, the pleasure immense. 

    It’s different, having Jim inside him, instead of his mouth, but he still comes.

    And Alex is fast asleep before Jim can even pull out.

Chapter Text

    “So.”

    Alex blinks awake to find Jim smiling at him. A little smug, but considering he’s discovered his dick is the secret to giving Alex a good night’s sleep, he can’t fault him for that.

    “Hm?” He follows the flick of Jim’s eyes over to Jim’s hand, and Jim’s hand is holding Jim’s photograph. Jim’s very naked photograph. “I can explain that.”

    “You liked me.” He grins, waving the photo. “Do I, uh… live up to expectations?”

    “I like you– Yes, I– You’re way more than– I went and dug out the photo because I had the hots for you. Happy?”

    “Photo me or real me?”

    “Real you. I mean, it’s a cute photo, but… real you smells good.”

    “Gosh. It’s been a long time since someone accused me of that.” The grin softens, and he blushes faintly. Though considering how hard Alex can feel himself blushing… 

    “Real you drives me crazy. And real you makes me feel sane. And real you… sings to me, and takes me out and takes turns paying for things like– like…”

    “Dates?”

    “Yeah. Like that. Real you… plays on the floor with my kid brother. Catches me before I fall. Real you… cares. About everything, and about me.”

    “You’ve got me sold, real me sounds like a catch. Photo me… what’s he got?”

    “He’s got a pretty nice smile. He’s just… not done maturing yet.” Alex takes the picture back, tossing it gently to his nightstand. “Do not let my parents find out I stole that. I should put it back. I’ve got the real thing now.”

    He loops his arms around Jim’s neck, drawing him in to be kissed.

    “Good morning.” He smiles, as they break apart again. “Photo you never kissed me like that, either.”

    “He’s really falling down on the job. Bet he hasn’t written you any poems, either.”

    “How many of them did you write for me?”

    “All of them.”

    “Not– not all of them.”

    “All of them.” Jim nods. “I wasn’t in love with you when I started, but I fell in love with you, writing them. You’ve been my muse since the night we met.”

    Alex kisses him. Doesn’t even find it in him to mind the whole morning breath situation, because this isn’t just a good morning peck, this is a kiss. You don’t find out that every poem was for you and not kiss a man for all you’re worth.

    He arches up under Jim’s touch, as a hand slides up from his hip to his ribs– this time, he hasn’t been dressed, neither of them are dressed. He’s suddenly very aware of that fact.

    “I can feel you.”

    “Yeah, I can feel you, too.”

    “No, I mean… you know. Did you… want to?”

    “Feel you? Yeah.” The hand on him squeezes gently, slides up to his chest and then back down. 

    “Well, you can do more than just that.” Alex laughs, and kisses him again, and feels the twitch of him semi-hard against his thigh. “Mm… you’ve created a monster, you know that? I mean, I’m gonna need it all the time from you.”

    “I don’t got a problem with that.” Jim’s grin is loose and happy and sweet, his touch is gentle, hand moving over Alex now, tracing out looping patterns. 

    “Yeah? You wanna give it to me?”

    “Alex, I want to give you the world. But, for now… I think sex is a pretty good start.”

    “I mean, I gotta get these bedsheets in the laundry today anyway, so we might as well do a little more on ‘em first, right?”

    “Right. Very practical decision-making. You just get me there, honey, I’ll give you everything I got.”

    “I like that. Being your honey.” He reaches down to get a hand around him. “Hey– I’m giving you everything I’ve got, too.”

    “Don’t I know it.” Jim chuckles, low and warm, and the look he gets has the heat jolting through Alex, a sudden thing writhing and clenching and wanting inside of him.

    Sure, what they have is a pure emotional connection, something deep and mental and based in so much unexpected common ground… but finding out they’re also sexual dynamite is really nice.

    “Just a quick one– okay?”

    “Right. I should try not to knock you out for another eight hours?” He grins. 

    “Oh, you’re pretty cocky just ‘cause you’ve managed to do it twice.”

    “The first time I knocked you out for thirteen, but you really needed it, so…” He shrugs. “Here, I’ve got an idea… let’s see if this does anything for you.”

    He rolls Alex onto his side, so that Jim is spooned up behind him, kissing his neck, reaching around to touch him… big hand warm and slow, moving over his chest and belly, before lifting his thigh. And then he can feel him, getting harder between his legs as he feels him up, as the kisses to his neck get hotter and wetter. Jim pulls back to get a condom on, before sliding back into him from behind– the angle’s different, yeah. It feels different, the way he fills him, and Alex shoves the corner of his pillow into his mouth when Jim’s hand drops down to toy with his clit while he’s in him. 

    He’d said just a quick one, and this is shaping up to be that. He’s not used to this kind of direct stimulation yet– especially when Jim’s goal isn’t to explore, but to get him off fast.

    Which he does.

    “Wow.” He says, when he finally dares un-muffle himself.

    “We’re in agreement on wow.” Jim pants against him, breath stirring Alex’s hair. “Good angle?”

    “Yeah.”

    “I got you off okay?”

    “If you got me off any better than that, I’d have woken the whole house up.”

    “I’ll try to keep that in mind.” He says, smile clear in his voice. He takes his hand back and Alex can hear him lick his fingers. “You wanna go get a shower? I’d follow you in, but uh…”

    “We’re playing with fire enough as it is?” He reaches back to cup his cheek a moment, rubbing gently at the stubble, feeling it rough under his palm. He likes that, too. “Yeah. I’ll go in a sec… and I’ll figure out how to tell my parents about us. Then at least, you know… I mean, they know about me now, they both took it really well, I just… I want them to know about us. I want them to get it.”

    Jim presses kisses into his hair, until he feels like he can get up. Can pull his pajamas on and gather up clean clothes and make his way to the bathroom, feeling… just feeling. Feeling the stretch of having had Jim moving in him, feeling the absence of his warmth at his back now that he’s out of bed… 

    Feeling good, for once, as he goes through his morning routine– he jumps in the shower and he doesn’t feel like getting in and out as fast as humanly possible, without touching his own skin! He feels… 

    He feels like he could touch himself, not out of a desire to get off where he can easily wash away any grossness, but… just because he’s touchable. Jim touches him. Jim touches him and has sex with him and sees him as a man, and this is the same body Jim looks at so adoringly, and kisses everywhere, and says ‘wow’ about, and if he can accept that from Jim… can’t he just try to like himself?

    And… maybe he can. At least on this morning, he feels at peace with his body. He feels at peace with the ways he still feels the echo of Jim on him, in him. 

    When he gets back to his room, Jim has stripped the bed, bundled the sheets up for him. He takes them down and tosses them in the washer while Jim is in the shower, and then he starts on eggs. Eggs aren’t hard. He doesn’t think he can mess up eggs. It’s not like he can’t cook, more or less– yeah, usually he’s just helping out, he’s never been tasked with making a whole family meal, but… he thinks his experience helping his grandmother in the kitchen probably counts for even more than just cooking something alone, that’s working with a handicap.

    “What’s this?” Jim greets, joining him in the kitchen. 

    “Breakfast. Thought I’d… you know. If we got down here first, no sense waiting around for someone else to make breakfast, right? Um… I’m not sure if that’s... But…” He hands over the plate. “Two eggs, sunny side up.”

    They look right. The white is solid, the yolk doesn’t look too hard. There’s a little brown lacy edge on one side, but it’s not burnt.

    “Thanks.”

    “Yeah, well… I wanted to.” He blushes, grabbing his own plate, giving Jim one of the slices of toast. Letting Jim pour them each a glass of orange juice. 

    “Nice to know one of us can cook.”

    “What do you normally do?”

    “Open a can of Spaghetti-Os.” He admits. “I’m kind of a hazard in the kitchen. I tried. Didn’t set the restaurant on fire, at least.”

    “Wait, what restaurant?”

    “I didn’t tell you?”

    “You mentioned knowing one.”

    “Oh.” He ducks his head, sheepish. “It’s, uh… mine. It’s one of the things Tom and I sometimes fight about. He didn’t think I shoulda bought the place, I thought it was the kind of investment he’d approve of… it’s right by the garage, so I was hoping, you know, I wouldn’t have to give up my job to run it.”

    Alex stares at him. Okay. Okay. Jim’s inheritance involved enough money to buy a restaurant, and that maybe has something to do with the fight about how much control he has over his money. Jim… owns a restaurant. Jim owns a restaurant and didn’t want to give up driving a cab because of it.

    “And it’s, um… you need some help running it?”

    “Well… at first, when I bought it, I had all the same people working there. It never did great, I guess. We had a couple good nights, and… for a little while, it felt like things were better, with Tom and me. He came out to New York. He saw me do something right. Even when we lost our chef, you know, and I wasn’t any good at trying to step in, we still did okay. Everyone really helped me out. But when I lost the guy who used to manage the place… Now Tom thinks it’s time to sell the place back off, but…”

    “But it’s yours.”

    “It is, yeah. And I care about it. I wanted to do a good job– I did do a good job. He doesn’t see these things the way I do… he looks at the bottom line. But it’s… Sometimes business is good an sometimes business is bad.”

    “A restaurant in New York? If you can stay open, you’re doing okay.” Alex nods. “You… want to give me a job?”

    “I mean… you’ll probably wanna find something… big. But you’d have something to do when you first get there.” He nods. “I wouldn’t ever wanna stop you from going after something you could get on your own. But… yeah. I’d want to. I think you’d do a good job. Better than me. And maybe my brother would like you. And maybe you’d know what to look for when I did need to hire someone else, to do that job when you find what you really wanna do. But… you’d have a job to start right away when you come out– you wouldn’t have to worry.”

    “I didn’t know you… I didn’t know you owned a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah, okay. After school, I’ll come and– I’ll see what I can do to turn a profit. As long as I don’t have to work in the kitchen.”

    “I got people doing that. I don’t like firing people, only really had to once… but now I got, you know. I got people working there. And I don’t think we do so bad. But we never had a night like the first night he saw, and… and so he thinks maybe me doing good was a fluke.” Jim sighs. “But I really love that place. It’s a place where… it’s a place where people have always been good to me. You know, when I had nothing, there was a guy working there who’d feed me, whatever they had left when the kitchen closed. Never made me feel like I was begging for handouts, he’d bring me dinner and talk to me like I was a person. This guy used to buy me a drink any time we were both in there, and he’d just ask me how it was going… just ‘cause he liked me well enough. A stranger, I mean for a year I couldn’t tell you his name, but once or twice a week he’d buy me a drink at the bar. And my friends… That’s where I was when my friends decided to get me a job driving a cab. And it’s where we’d go, all the time. And it’s special.”

    “It sounds special.” Alex nods.

    “And now… I’m the guy who, if someone’s in there and he looks like he’s got it rough, I can say hey… whatever we got in the kitchen, send a plate of it out to this guy. His money’s no good here. It’s probably literally no good here. It’s probably string. Pocket lint. But now I get to say, that man eats at Jim’s Mario’s. And that feels good. But it doesn’t turn a profit. And Tom doesn’t like it. And he doesn’t think I should give my friends such a good discount, but I mean… hell, Alex, I know what these people make. And how hard they work. And that they could use a break. And I wouldn’t have had that one good night without all of them.”

    “It’s right next to the garage? I don’t think a discount is a bad business decision.” He taps his fork against his plate. “How often do your friends eat at your restaurant?”

    “Coupla times a week. Maybe once a week it’s the whole gang, but sometimes a couple people come in on a break. Pick up lunch to go. Come in after work just to have a few beers.”

    “How often would they eat there if it was more expensive?”

    “Less?” He shrugs.

    “And they’d buy fewer drinks. We might need to adjust prices overall, I’d have to look at your profit margins. Look at the menu and what sells and what doesn’t… I’ll need to look into what makes running a restaurant different from any other business, but I don’t think the discount is the problem. I think… if you can keep your head above water long enough for me to get out there, I’ll see what I can do to make it work. Just… make sure I have all the information from your old manager on what worked, what doesn’t work. We’ll figure it out. And–”

    The phone rings, cutting him off, and Alex hops up to answer it. It’s a ridiculous hour for a call to be coming in, no one else has even come down for breakfast.

    “Hello? Keaton household, who may I say is calling?”

    “I’m looking for Jim Cal– Jim Ignatowski.” The man on the phone corrects himself like it’s distasteful. Which is enough.

    “You must be Tom. Jim’s eating breakfast.”

    “Right. It’s… early. Well, I can wait, if it won’t take him too long.”

    Jim is already coming over, so he doesn’t put Tom off. He’s just glad that at least he sometimes calls him Jim and not James. Maybe he’s James when Tom is dealing with lawyers, Jim when it’s personal? 

    “He’s right here, yeah. I’ll put him on.” He hands the phone over, giving Jim’s waist a quick squeeze before going to give him a little privacy– as much as he can without leaving the room. He puts the kettle on even though he doesn’t want hot water for anything, just for something to do. 

    “Hey, Tom… No, I hadn’t– Oh… Well, I’ll check… If it’s not there, I’ll arrange something later– No, I know… I know you do… Yeah, I do… It’s just complicated– No… I understand… I’ll look.” He sighs. “All right… Yeah.”

    “What’s he got to say?” Alex wraps his arms around Jim from behind. 

    “He wants to know if the mail came, because if I don’t have my return ticket for Monday, he needs to know.” He heaves another sigh. “He has to go back to Boston. He wants me back to New York before he has to leave, he wants to settle everything, and… I know we agreed I’d get out of town for a week. I just… let myself forget it was only supposed to be a week. I put him off once. I didn’t realize he… he just made the decision without me when I did.”

    “Oh.” He squeezes him a little tighter. “Oh.”

    “Which he gets to do, for the rest of my life, if I can’t prove I’m competent. Which I thought I was before, and the judge said I wasn’t. And everyone, you know… everyone came out to vouch for me. But I wasn’t this good, then. I was clean, but I was still… dizzy, all the time. Memory was lousy. I wasn’t drinking enough water, wasn’t eating enough. Wasn’t living great and it left me in a bad place.” He shrugs, resting an arm along Alex’s. “It’s… I was okay. You know, I was getting by. But you saw how I was.”

    “Yeah. You’re doing a lot better.” He kisses the back of his shoulder. “This time it’s going to be different. So… we just have this weekend, before you go back?”

    “I guess so. I’ll call you. Or you’ll call me.” He grabs a pencil, the notepad. “I’ll leave you the number for the garage– hang on. Lemme check.” He dials a number, waits for someone to answer. “... Oh, good. Can you read the number I just called back to me? Uh-huh… uh-huh… Thanks– Oh, good. I’m doing good, I– I’ll be back soon… I’ll tell everyone everything about it– Thanks.” 

    “Got the right number?” Alex smiles, letting him go. He takes the number that Jim hands him.

    “Yeah. You’ll be able to get me there. And I’ll let you know what my number is. I’m gonna have a phone at this new place. You know, they’re moving me into a building with electricity. Neighbors, that’s gonna be something to get used to, but… uh. Like a real building no one wants to knock down. So. And I’ll give you a number for home. And for the restaurant. And I’ll have yours. But you’ll be able to find me one of those three places.”

    “Well… I’m glad you’ll have electricity and a phone. What do you want to do with the time we do have?”

    “Oh… I got ideas.” Jim grins at him, grabbing a peach out of the fruit bowl on his way back to the table. “Think we can get the place to ourselves at all?”

    “I think I could be motivated to get everyone out.” Alex drops back into his own seat, avidly watching Jim eating a peach.

    “You put the kettle on?” His mom asks, coming in, and Alex tries not to think about licking juice off of Jim’s chin with his parents in the room. 

    “Yeah. Thought you’d want hot water. And… um, what do you think you’re going to do with your weekend? Something fun, something interesting? Precious quality time with your youngest three children?”

    “That’s not at all suspicious.” His dad says, getting mugs out. “What are you doing, while we’re having this precious quality time?”

    “Getting a nap in with a completely quiet house?”

    “I see… Well, we’ll see. I don’t know what plans your sisters have, but if you need us to take Andy out for a little bit so you can get some rest, I don’t see why I couldn’t take him to the park while your mom gets some work done.”

    “Right.” Alex frowns, looking over at Jim– immediately regretting looking over at Jim, who is licking peach juice off of his wrist.

    “Did the phone ring first thing in the morning?”

    “Oh. Yeah– that was Tom. I’m, uh… supposed to make sure my plane ticket arrived in today’s mail. And call him back if it didn’t.”

    “Oh, that’s right… you’ve got a real life to get back to. Well, once the mail comes in, we’ll see. Maybe we should do something. I’ve been so busy all week with this project, I feel like we’ve barely gotten to spend any time together, outside of breakfast and dinner.”

    “Well, Mom and Dad, I mean I really haven’t minded, what with not having school–” He starts, not at all sure how to segue this into somehow getting everyone out of the house but Jim.

    “What haven’t you seen yet?”

    “Oh, uh… I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot.” He shrugs, helpless. 

    Well… they’ll have tonight, even if they can’t get today.

Chapter Text

    “I should just tell them. I should just tell them, first thing in the morning. I’m in love with Jim, I’d like to have one day alone with him before he flies home and it’s over a month before we can see each other again. I mean, they’d go for that, wouldn’t they?” Alex asks, not feeling particularly hopeful. It’s not that the whole day was wasted, but it was a day he thought he’d get even a little alone time with his boyfriend, and instead he had to share him with his parents all day. And the plane ticket had been in the mail, which means on Monday, they’re saying goodbye until summer.

    “You tell them when you feel ready.” Jim comes to sit on the edge of his bed, resting a hand over his stomach. 

    And yeah, it still makes him breathe easier. 

    “If I don’t, I’m not sure what kind of goodbye we’re gonna get. I’m not… I’m not the kind of guy who can kiss you in the airport. At least I’m not right now. I don’t know if that’s… I don’t know if that’s ever someone I’ll be, in New York.”

    “Well, in New York, you won’t have to kiss me goodbye at any airports.”

    “Yeah. Are we crazy?”

    “I’m not not a little bit crazy, I mean…” He shrugs, makes a face that makes Alex laugh in spite of himself, just a little. “A little bit.”

    “Two people with addictive personalities deciding within a space of one week that we’re serious about each other, though, is that… What are we doing? I’m not asking because I want to back out of it now that you’re going. I don’t. I want to come to New York. I want to… manage your restaurant. Rub it in your brother’s face when I make a lot of money for you. I want to talk on the phone every day we’re apart, I want… I want you to read me poetry.”

    “Every day.”

    “You don’t have to write me a poem every day.”

    “I could.”

    “Come down here.” Alex smiles, crooking a finger, and Jim leans down to be kissed. “You could. But you don’t have to. I’m gonna miss you.”

    “I’m gonna miss you.”

    “I’m scared, too.”

    “That things are gonna change?”

    “Not like… that you’ll forget about me, or anything like that. We’ll talk. Every day. But…”

    “But, without you around, maybe I’ll get worse again?”

    “Without you around, I might.” He shakes his head. “I mean… if we both do, well, over the phone I can ask you if you’re drinking water, and you can drink more if you’ve been behind, and… and I can just ask if you’re taking as good care of yourself as you would want to take of anyone else. I know you can do it– maybe it’s not gonna be easy for you, maybe not every day is gonna be perfect, but I know you can. Me, though? What if I go back to not sleeping? What if you’re literally the only thing that can do it for me? I mean, I haven’t exactly been going without it since you put me to sleep the first time. You’re my sedative.”

    “You’re gonna be able to sleep.”

    “What if I’m not? There are things we can’t do over the phone.”

    “There are things we can.” 

    Alex blushes. “Well… yeah. But I couldn’t get myself off, and I was trying. Not just with the couch. I– I’m not good at touching myself.”

    “You’re gonna be okay, honey. You don’t need me to fuck you to sleep every night.” He murmurs the words against Alex’s ear, one hand resting on his stomach and the other kneading the tension out of a shoulder, and it’s the first time he’s actually said ‘fuck’, they haven’t called it fucking– Alex hasn’t thought of it that way. Turns out hearing Jim say it is… good, definitely. “You needed me to unblock you, that’s all. And I can make love to you over the phone whether or not you can touch yourself. I’m not worried about that. I mean, we gotta arrange to have those phone calls when it, uh, works for both of us, and I’m at home, but I’m not worried about it. If you can’t, you know… if it’s not a physical thing, then it’s still, you can still feel wanted.”

    That sounds right, if he’s honest. Making love sounds like what he would have been calling it, if he’d let himself. And he loves that. The feeling of being wanted, and loved, and of having someone else want to put the work in with him, having someone take care of him… He’s always been so driven to prove he didn’t need anyone else taking care of him, and he guesses sometimes he does and it has nothing to do with maturity or ability, it’s just the human condition, but it feels good the way that Jim takes care of him. Not just the physical part, although he’s really going to miss that. It’s the connection he feels with him. It’s the idea that they’re giving each other something that matters.

    But Jim has been making love to him. Right now, he really, really wants Jim to fuck him.

    “Tonight…” He nods. “Tonight, just– really–”

    “Whatever you need, honey.” Jim promises, kisses him softly. “Tonight and tomorrow, anything for you.”

    “Just…” He swallows, tries to unstick the words. “I mean, yeah, like you said, you can make love to me over the phone. You can tell me what you’d, how you’d touch me if you were here or I was there. You can tell me how you feel about me. You can hear all about how I feel about you and how I want to touch you back. How maybe I never do put that old picture back, because I need to see your smile… because I miss getting to see you smile at me.”

    “Oh, I like that.” He glances over to where the photo is still on Alex’s nightstand, before the full force of his smile is turned back to him.

    “Good. But… well, tonight… I want the stuff that I can’t get over the phone. I want you to– to fuck me.”

    Jim’s mouth forms a silent oh. For a moment, they just look at each other, the weight of the request sinking in.

    The kiss that follows is deep and filthy, the need behind it overwhelming. All they have is one more day, two more nights… all they have is right now, and then they’ll have to be long distance, and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to sleep at night without Jim now, and he’s afraid to try, afraid to find out that he can’t…

    “Oh, honey… oh, darling…” Jim murmurs, still gentle even now– wipes away a tear Alex hadn’t realized was there.

    “What if I can’t do it without you?” 

    “You’re gonna make it.” He promises him. “You’re gonna be so okay, you’ll wonder why you even worried. And then you’ll come out to me, and I’ll be waiting for you…”

    “Yeah?”

    “And when you get to me… I’m gonna hold you so tight… I’m gonna kiss you all over. I’m gonna spend hours making love to you. Make up for all that lost time.”

    “That sounds good.”

    “I don’t want you to be afraid, honey… it’s just gonna be a little while, and we’ll be together again. If I can make it on my own that long, you sure can. You really think I’ll be okay?”

    “I do.” He nods. He thinks Jim might need reminders, sometimes, but a reminder over the phone is easy. And he thinks Jim can work with that. 

    “Okay. Then I will be. And you will be.” 

    And with that said, he starts undressing Alex, and Alex scrambles to return the favor, sitting up so they can strip shirts away. He presses close once they’re out of the way, buries his face against Jim’s chest and breathes him in. Licks him, an impulse he’s not totally sure about until he feels the way Jim’s hand tightens in his hair– doesn’t pull, but tightens, and he feels it in the hand spread wide across his back, too, just the way Jim reacts to him.

    “You like that?” Alex grins, letting his hands roam. “What else do you like?”

    “Everything.” Jim nods, swallows hard as Alex goes back to the fading hickey he’d left before. “That, for sure. Oh, that.”

    “This?” He circles a thumb around Jim’s nipple again. 

    “Yeah, that’s nice.”

    He takes some time exploring there, kisses his way down to one– is a little too ginger at first just because his own are so sensitive, but Jim can handle being played with, even a little rough treatment, without needing to pull away. 

    Alex gets his jeans peeled off, spends a little time lavishing attention on his hardening cock– helping get him all the way there, sure, but also just enjoying it. Enjoying getting to handle him, enjoying playing with his balls and discovering how he likes those handled, too. Enjoying learning more about what gets Jim off, when Jim has too often made things about what he could do for Alex. True, Jim gets to get Alex off more than once in a row, he’s got more freedom to make it about Alex every time, but still. It feels good, even if he has to back off from taking it too far.

    This time, Alex handles the job of rolling the condom onto him, though. Kind of wishes he’d been doing that the whole time.

    “So… when you said you wanted me to fuck you…”

    “Oh god, say that again.” 

    “When you said you wanted me to fuck you?”

    “I want you to fuck me.” He nods. It feels a little dizzying still saying it. Like somehow he could get in trouble for swearing under his parents' roof more than he could get in trouble for doing it, although he can’t actually imagine being punished for either, all things considered. But it feels that way, anyway. Feels like by using the word, he’s being bad, in a digestible kind of way. 

    Judging by the way Jim looks at him, it’s doing it for him, too.

    “Okay, well, I’m gonna.” He nods. “Just, how did you mean? I mean… did you want me to do it, uh, harder than usual, or did you want me to go for longer? Or did you want to try it in a different position, or switch partway through so you can try more than one? ‘Cause, I mean, I can do that. If that’s what you were wanting.”

    The sound Alex makes would be truly embarrassing if he were still capable of being embarrassed by it. The only feeling he has room for now is how much he wants all of that and how much he needs to wring everything out of every last minute he and Jim have before Monday.

    “Yeah. I want that. Harder. Longer. Positions. Yes.”

    “Okey-doke.”

    He finishes getting Alex undressed, kisses him deep again, and it’s wet and it’s messy, and Alex is beginning to accept that he’s into wet and messy. He’s into sloppy. He’s into Jim’s sweat and spit and come, and apparently also the juice of any fruit he might happen to be eating. He’s not into his own fluids, so much, but he’s a lot more comfortable with them than he used to be? He’s into Jim being into him. He guesses he’s into his own spit inasmuch as it relates to going down on Jim, or kisses where you can’t really tell where one person’s spit ends and the other’s begins, and he always thought the mess was just the part of sex you put up with in exchange for the part that feels good, but the mess feels good, too.

    He winds up with his legs thrown up over Jim’s shoulders– he guesses he shouldn’t be surprised. He winds up having to use his legs to hold onto him for dear life as he’s lifted up, his shoulders down on the bed and his hips grabbed onto and Jim isn’t lying down between his legs, he’s sitting up and bringing Alex up to his mouth, and Alex didn’t know that was even a possibility. It’s only for a little bit, but it feels…

    God, he hasn’t got the words for it. Jim can just pick him up and move him, he doesn’t know what to do with that. And he can’t even catch his breath from it, because no sooner is his ass back down on the bed, but there’s a finger in him and Jim’s tongue is teasing his clit, there are two fingers in him and Jim’s tongue is licking a stripe up his abs, up his sternum, three fingers in him and Jim’s tongue is circling a nipple, and Alex is muffling the sound that wants to come out of him with Jim’s shirt, and it isn’t even that Jim’s never done any of these things, because he has, but this time Alex is being fucked. He was being fucked before there was even one finger in him. Maybe it’s speed, maybe it’s intensity, maybe it’s just intent, but he’s falling apart and Jim is holding him together. Jim is taking him apart but he’s catching all of the pieces, he’s keeping them all in a roughly Alex-shaped configuration. Jim is licking his fingers clean with the same lust-fogged look, the same groan of appreciation as ever, and Alex has never imagined he could shatter into a million pieces like this and feel so absolutely safe.

    “Breathe.” Jim coos, and slides into him. “With me, come on, honey…”

    He starts off slow, one big hand spread between them, the gentle roll of his hips and the way he fills him, the way he warms him up to it first before putting any real power behind his thrusts, before each one punches the air from Alex’s lungs, driving soft little sounds out every time, muffled by a shirt that smells like Jim. 

    “More?”

    Alex nods, cupping Jim’s cheek, pulling a mouthful of sodden fabric away so he can draw him down and kiss him. To feel himself go a little boneless and extra-tingly, at the way his lower lip is sucked and nibbled at.

    “I can take you. Everything you can give me.” He clings to Jim’s shoulders, leans up to nuzzle at his throat. “Fuck me. Fuck me so good I just stop, stop thinking, stop worrying, I don’t want to be afraid I’m not gonna sleep without you here, I don’t want to be afraid to try, I just need to stop…”

    “Hey, hey… hey, Alex…” Jim pets at him, kisses softer. “Okay– Yeah. I can do that. But I don’t– I don’t want you to think this is the only thing that’s ever gonna make you feel okay. I mean… I don’t want you feeling like you’re getting so far ahead of things, we’ve got one more day, one more night, I want you spending that time in the moment with me– And when I’m not here, you’re gonna be okay. But if what you want, is for me to give you something harder, because that would be good, then I can do that.”

    “I think it’s gonna be good.” He nods. “I do want you to. I want to… I want to feel… just, the way you make me feel.”

    “That’s good enough for me. I want to feel the way you make me feel, too.”

    “Just move me, where you want me? So we can, uh, try those– those different positions?”

    “Oh, you want that?” Jim grins, grinds deep into him before pulling out, rolling him onto his side and spreading his thighs, folding one up against his chest. “You want it like this?”

    “Yeah, I want it. I want you.” He rests a hand over the one currently caressing his thigh. “Keep me in the moment with you, I’m bad at that… I know I am, but I can do it.”

    “All right. I’ve got you… Don’t miss me while I’m still here, yeah?”

    “I’m trying– oh…” Alex reaches for the shirt, just in case he needs to bite down on it, as Jim slides back into him before he can even joke about missing part of him. 

    “Good?”

    Alex nods, giving Jim’s wrist a gentle squeeze. “You’re very good.”

    Jim keeps that one hand holding his thigh, the other slides under his other hip to support him, and he rocks into him, lets him fully feel what it’s like in this position, the new angle and where it hits him, and then Jim’s flipping him again, getting his knees under him, letting him slump forward onto his chest… He folds himself over him, nuzzling at the shell of one ear, hands holding him up, touching him, keeping them together. 

    He couldn’t say how long they were in the one position before switching, he couldn’t say how long anything. He just knows he feels good, not on the edge of coming– he thinks he knows the difference now, and he’s in the place where he would have always stopped and felt satisfied, on his own, and thought this is about as good as it gets. He just knows now that there’s another place Jim is taking him. That beyond this level of pleasure and the way warmth blooms in him, there’s something that’s going to make him lose five kinds of control, and he just has to let them get there, but this is Jim taking him there slow. There’s no reaching around to play with his clit to drive him there faster, and Jim is showing no signs of being close to done. Alex’s entire body feels like jello, but if that jello was having an incredible time and there was definitely an orgasm coming that the jello just wasn’t in a rush about.

    And then it goes from leisurely to pounding, and the tension in him rises, pushes him closer and closer, makes him feel lightheaded, makes the heat pooling in the core of him so much more.

    “Oh god…” He moans into the shirt, garbled.

    “You’re gonna be okay, honey…” Jim promises him, and everywhere they touch he’s on fire. “You’re gonna sleep, it’s not gonna be scary… it’s gonna feel safe, and you’re gonna feel good, and even when I’m not here to take you there, you’re gonna be okay, aren’t you?”

    “Y-yeah… yeah, ‘m… uh-huh.”

    “It’s gonna be okay… you’re gonna breathe, and relax… I know you can do it.” He presses kisses to Alex’s neck, his ear, into his hair. “I know you can. I know you can do it, honey… know you’ve been worried about it, know you’re gonna worry about it again, but you’re safe… you’re gonna remember feeling good and feeling safe, even when I’m not with you. And I’ll call you on the phone every single night we’re apart… and you’re gonna be able to sleep, I know you are. Gonna breathe… and relax… and everything is gonna be all right. Everything is gonna feel good… and safe… and you’re gonna feel good, and safe… and you’re gonna relax, and you’re gonna let it come… and everything is gonna be all right…”

    “Alex, what the hell is going on in here, quit banging on the wal–”

    The door swings open before Alex can claw his brain back from the world of impending orgasm. He’d been right on that precipice, and now he’s suddenly very aware of the open doorway and the light from the hall and the look on Mallory’s face and at least the lights are low in his room and he’s in a position where he doesn’t think she can really see anything, but it’s the most mortified he thinks he’s ever been, and that’s before the fear hits. 

    “Oh my god.” She claps a hand over her mouth. 

    “Don’t–” He scrambles to cover them up, Jim pulling out once they’re under the blankets. “Don’t say anything, do not– do not wake anyone up. Just– close the door, let me put on some damn clothes, I’ll be right out, do not wake up Mom and Dad!”

    “Oh my god.”

    “Mal, close the door so I can get dressed!” 

    She finally does, but she doesn’t say ‘oh, of course, Alex, I won’t go tell Mom and Dad that you’re in here being fucked to within an inch of your life by their old friend’, or… well, anything. 

    “I didn’t think…” Jim looks crushed, looking between Alex and the headboard, which neither of them had noticed banging into the wall, but that must have been what brought her over… “Alex–”

    “Just wait here. Hey–” He gets his underwear yanked on and doubles back over to kiss Jim soundly. “Hey. It’s okay. I said I wanted to tell them, right?”

    “Yeah, but…”

    “I know, and I’m going to deal with this” He promises, breaking away to finish grabbing pajamas, and his robe. “I’ll talk to her, you stay here. Mal… she needs to hear this from me, alone, and– You didn’t do anything wrong, sunshine. She’s just… This has nothing to do with you, really. And you don’t need to hear whatever it is she’s going to say before I set her straight, you don’t– you don’t need to hear that.”

    “Okay. Alex… I’m sorry.”

    “So am I. Just… lie low. I’ll fix it.” He promises.

    Mallory is pacing the hallway, hands pressed over her mouth, when he slips out of his room. 

    “Downstairs.” He hisses. “We need to talk.”

    “I’m telling Mom and Dad.”

    “No. Don’t.” He pulls her into her room instead, where at least they can close a door, though he would like there to be more distance between them and the rest of the family, for anything she might say, any raised voices. He would really like to not be right on the other side of the wall from Jim, who really does not deserve this and doesn’t need to hear what she thinks was happening. He can at least try and draw her over towards the window where they’re least likely to be overheard by anyone in the house. They just have to not shout loud enough for the neighbors to hear…

    “What I saw–” Mallory starts

    “Iggy’s not Arthur.”

    He regrets saying it the second the words are out of his mouth. It feels unfair. It feels like dragging something up.

    “Arthur never got that far! God, why do you even remember that?”

    “Why do I remember– how was I supposed to forget? Do you know I had a whole legal argument made for why they couldn’t put a seventeen year old future president of the United States in prison for a murder that, if he did it, was totally justified on account of that guy was a creep who put his hands on little girls? I had nightmares about what if it took them so long to catch me and put me on trial that they had to try me as an adult!”

    “I… you had nightmares about being tried as an adult… for a murder you never even committed as a child?”

    “Yeah, it’s a normal thing to have nightmares about.” He waves her off.

    “... You thought about it?” She asks, insufficiently waved. “What did you think you were going to do, exactly?”

    “Probably poison. Something that would look like natural causes. But then I thought, if the wrong person picks up the wrong cup of coffee–”

    “I’m not sure whether that’s sweet or terrifying. You know you’re not even eligible to be president–”

    “What a thing to say to your brother who offers to commit murder for you!”

    “I didn’t know you… wanted to kill him for me. You just kind of… seemed like you didn’t want to deal with it.” She shrugs, voice softening.

    “Of course I didn’t want to deal with it! But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have wanted– But this is different, you don’t have to protect me. I had to protect you, you don’t have to protect me!”

    “He was on top of you. You were–”

    “Having the time of my life! And it wasn’t the first time. God.” He groans, dropping onto her loveseat, leg bouncing. He rubs a palm along his thigh but it doesn’t soothe. “We’ve been. He’s been… It’s the only thing that helps me sleep!”

    “Sleeping with Mom and Dad’s weirdest friend is the only thing that helps you sleep? The only thing is letting an old man have sex with you?”

    “Don’t say it like that, I’m not… I mean I’m– I mean, obviously I’m not not letting him, but you’re making it sound like he’s trying to trick me into something, which I don’t think he’s capable of, and if he was capable of tricking me into something, it wouldn’t be this. I can’t– it can’t be a case of him using me, because I want it. Hell, I need it.”

    “The things he was saying to you–”

    “Were to help me.”

    “It sounded like he didn’t want you to put up a fight.”

    “Yeah, but not against him, against sleep. That’s what we were talking about. Falling asleep. I told him I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sleep again without him once he leaves, he told me I didn’t have to worry about backsliding. That we’d talk on the phone. That he’d still find a way to help me relax even when he’s not right here with me.” 

    “It sounded bad.” 

    “But it wasn’t. He’s good to me, Mal. I– I’m in love with him.”

    “You what?”

    “Keep your voice down!”

    “You’ve known him for a week!”

    “What can I say? It’s been a big week.”

    “He’s addicted to god knows what–”

    “So am I. Remember?” He folds his arms. Tries not to let his chin wobble. “And he’s clean.”

    “That’s different–”

    “No it’s not. He didn’t have the kind of help I had to get clean, that’s the difference, okay, it took him longer to get there. Maybe there’s always gonna be consequences he has to live with because of it. But he’s not a worse person than me because I got help right away and he didn’t.”

    “He’s old.” She makes a face.

    “Well, you don’t have to like him, I like him. How old he is doesn’t matter to me, how he treats me does! And he cares about me. And he has never done anything I didn’t ask him to, and want him to–”

    “Since when do you even like men?”

    “Since always, Mal! This isn’t how you were supposed to find out, but since always. And I know– I know why you thought what you thought, but now you know, okay? Now you know, he’s with me, we’re together. He takes care of me. And if you’d been paying attention, you’d have seen, he’s doing better– he and I, we make each other better. He makes me better. He’s… he’s really important to me.”

    “And Mom and Dad don’t know?”

    “I explained the part about liking guys. I thought I was going to have more time to… to explain that Iggy’s the guy.”

    “Iggy.”

    “Jim. Iggy. Those aren’t the only two things I call him, but I’m trying to keep my dignity here.”

    “Oh, I don’t need to know. I thought living with Mom and Dad was bad, at least they lock the door when they–”

    “Yeah, okay, I should have locked the door! So sue me.”

    “I should, for emotional suffering. There are ways I don’t need to see my brother, and that was all of them! Not to mention the view I got of your– your–”

    “You can call him my boyfriend.”

    “Your elderly boyfriend!”

    “He’s not that old.”

    “He’s Mom and Dad’s age, he’s practically ancient.”

    “I think he’s actually Uncle Ned’s age.”

    “That’s not much better. God, really? He can’t be.”

    “So he’s had a hard life. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but have a little compassion.”

    “... He really treats you right?” She asks, chin jutting out. 

    “He really does.”

    “You… you’re into…” She waves a hand vaguely towards the adjoining wall.

    “Yeah.”

    “All of it?”

    “Oh, yeah.”

    “With him?”

    “You know, if you got to know him, you wouldn’t be so shocked. Well, you might be, but not because of Iggy, because of me.” He shrugs. “He might be too good for me. He didn’t hurt me, Mal, and I don’t think he ever could. He just wants to take care of me… I want to take care of him. And on Monday, he has to fly back to New York, and I can’t join him until I graduate… we just wanted to make the most of this weekend. And I had to share him with Mom and Dad all day.”

    “Well shove something between the wall and your headboard tomorrow because I don’t want to know about how vigorously you’re having sex with an old man. But… sorry.”

    “Sorry.” He nods.

    “And I won’t tell Mom and Dad, but you have to.”

    “I know. I was going to. I was going to talk to them tomorrow. This is more embarrassing for me than it is for you, you know, I’m the one who was naked.”

    “Don’t remind me, you weren’t the only one.” She groans. “Okay, go. And seriously, I don’t want to hear it again–”

    “You won’t, oh my god, you don’t think I’m mortified enough?”

    “No!” She shoves him out the door.

    He goes to the bathroom first, cleans himself up enough to feel comfortable, and accepts that he does not feel very much like he can sleep. In his room, Jim is sitting on the bed, dressed in his own pajamas now, and Alex waves him over.

    “You wanna go downstairs and see if warm milk does it for me?” He offers. Not that it’s ever done a damn thing for him before, but under the circumstances, he’s not exactly ready to jump back into bed for a more reliable sedative…

    “Yeah. Is, uh… is everything okay, with your sister?”

    “I think so. She’s… she was just worried, she misunderstood.”

    “She thought I was taking advantage of you.”

    “Not because of anything that you’ve ever done.” He takes Jim’s hand. “It’s not about you, you’ve never done anything to make her think that. She just– she just worries, sometimes.”

    “I get it. She cares about you. She’d have worried if I was anyone.” He nods.

    “Exactly.”

    “That’s nice. I mean… inconvenient, how it happened, you know, for us. But… I’m glad you have that.”

    “What’s your sister like?”

    “I don’t really know. I know how she used to be. Sweet. But… we haven’t been in touch, I don’t know. Last time we saw each other, we didn’t really get to catch up.”

    “Did she come out to deal with all the inheritance stuff, or just Tom?”

    “Tom and the lawyers. I, uh… I wish she had, but they’ve got lives, in Boston. “

    Down in the kitchen, Alex gets the milk heating on the stove, leaning back into Jim when he comes to wrap his arms around him, resting their heads together.

    “Well… if she can’t come out to New York to see you, you can always try talking to her on the phone. Maybe it’ll be… awkward, or hard. But you’ll be able to say you tried.”

    “I guess… Tom can give me the number.” He nods, cheek rubbing against Alex’s head. “I think I’d like that. I’d like to at least be able to say I tried, yeah. I mean… maybe she wants to hear from me. Hear how much better I’ve gotten. I know I’m not perfect, but who is, right? I… I can tell I’m better. I think she’d like to know that.”

    “Yeah.” He reaches up, stroking the cheek that isn’t pressed against his hair, feeling the rasp of his stubble, tracing out the smile lines. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

    “I’ve suspected.” He chuckles softly. “Thank you. You, too. Handsome.”

    Once they’ve got their milk poured out into a couple mugs, Alex goes and hops up onto the island, beckoning Jim over to come stand between his legs. 

    “What?” Jim smiles up at him, pure warmth.

    “Cookie time.” He pulls one of the chocolate chip cookies out, dunking it in his mug and holding it up for Jim to take a bite out of. “I mean, these are kind of our…”

    “Runner up to the…?”

    “Yeah.” Alex laughs. “Maybe they’ll still do the trick for us, tonight.”

Chapter Text

    It’s not a great night of sleep, but Alex does get some, curled up against Jim’s chest. Feels like he still wakes up too early, but he’s not alone in that, either. Jim is rubbing his back when he wakes, he feels him heave a sigh.

    “How are you feeling?” Alex asks, rubbing at his side, slow and gentle. The two of them fall into sync, the hand on Jim’s side and the hand on Alex’s back making the same sweep.

    “I don’t know.”

    “I can talk to them alone if you’re worried.”

    “No, no… I’m not– I know this could change things, about our friendship. And… after getting that friendship back after all these years, I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to lose it because of something I’ve done hurting them. But I know I haven’t done anything to hurt you. And all I can do is trust them to understand that.” 

    “Yeah. I’m worried, but I’m not– I mean, it could be… I don’t know. I’m going to start easing them into it, I think, and then… then you’ll be there. Okay. I’m nervous, but I’m not scared, not about them. I just… Worst case scenarios. It’s what I do. You’re the accentuate the positive guy, I’m… not that.”

    “Well… I try, I guess.”

    Alex isn’t sure he does try– he thinks he just is. Not because it’s easy– at least, Jim’s life hasn’t been easy. But because he sees too much beauty in the world not to. He probably tries, with his brother. But day in and day out, he treats life as too much of a gift.

    “You’ve got to accentuate the positive… eliminate the negative… latch onto the affirmative. Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.” Alex sings softly, words half muffled in Jim’s chest.

    “Bing Crosby… my mother liked Bing Crosby.”

    “Yeah?” Alex laughs. “Considering you listen to the same music as my parents, maybe that’s… I dunno. Just about right.”

    “I don’t remember her much. But I remember that. She was from Washington, and she loved Bing Crosby… and she wanted a big family. And her health wasn’t… wasn’t good. I didn’t really understand that part, I was… small. I was born out there. She wanted to be with her mother, when she had me, I was her first. My brother and sister never went out there, I don’t think. And I didn’t have any way of finding her folks, when I… Not that they’d have recognized me, I guess. I’d changed a lot, between infancy and college. I can’t say either of my parents would have been real thrilled with me wanting to be with another man, but I like to think she’d be glad you make me happy.”

    “She’d approve of my taste in music.”

    “Yeah. That, too. Maybe that’s enough.”

    “Maybe. Sing me a little tiny something? And then we’ll get up and… face the music and dance?”

    “Now I’m gonna love you, ‘til the heavens stop the rain… I’m gonna love you, ‘til the stars fall from the sky, for you and I…” Jim’s hand trails up to bury in Alex’s hair. “Come on, come on, come on and touch me, baby, can’t you see, that I am not afraid… what was that promise that you made? Won’t you–”

    Alex kisses him, mid-line, and Jim kisses back, holds him close a moment.

    “Ready?”

    “Ready.”

    He doesn’t feel very ready, but he doesn’t think you can, for this. When they get down to the kitchen, his parents are already up.

    “Sleep all right?” His mom greets.

    “Not great. But I slept. Um… can we talk in the living room, for a minute? Real quick?”

    She sets down the bowl of pancake batter, and takes a mug of tea from his dad with a nod. “Sounds important.”

    “Everything all right?”

    “I hope so. Um…” Alex turns to Jim, who gives him a reassuring nod. 

    “I’ll give you a minute. Just gonna… get a glass of water and… yeah.” 

    Alex paces a little, as his parents go in and settle on the couch, trying to get his thoughts together.

    “Should we be bracing ourselves?” His dad asks.

    “No. Yes. Maybe. I– So, you know how I was talking to you both, about… about certain things?”

    “Oh, yes. Cleared that right up, thank you.”

    “Guys. Men. Being… gay, or– um, I mean, for all intents and purposes we can say gay.” He takes a deep breath. “There’s, uh… there is someone. That I haven’t known how to tell you about. I mean, I haven’t been hiding him! It’s not– It hasn’t been– for a long time or anything!”

    “Okay… Someone from school, or…?”

    “Uh, well… not from school. Actually, he didn’t, uh… he didn’t finish school. And that’s okay!” He adds quickly. “We, uh… we met because I– happen to be close to a couple friends of his.”

    “Uh-huh…” His mom stares at him. “Is this someone you’re interested in, or someone you’re on the same page as?”

    “Same page.”

    “Someone you’re serious about?” His dad adds.

    “Yeah.”

    “And you two… have things in common?”

    “The things that matter. We… kind of meet in the middle on a lot of stuff.”

    They both raise their eyebrows at that. 

    “Meeting in the middle. Well that sounds…”

    “Don’t act so shocked.” He rolls his eyes.

    “No– that’s not what I mean.” She stands, coming to put an arm around him. “It sounds good. I guess really I’m just wondering… is this someone you’re making long-term plans with? I mean, when you talk about moving after college, is that… related?”

    “I mean, this– this is someone I’d like to have a future with. Yeah. And by the time I’m out of school… Yes. This is someone who I plan on moving in with when the time comes.”

    “And of course your mother and I are glad that you’re thinking about who you’re really compatible with. Someone who can offer you real balance in your personal life is more important than someone who… uh… Elyse, little help?”

    “We don’t care that that person is a man.”

    “Or that he didn’t graduate from college.” His dad nods. 

    “He’s older.” He blurts out. “Is that– Do you–?”

    “We don’t care about that.” She promises, retaking her seat.

    “... How much older?”

    “Do you care or don’t you?”

    “No, no, we don’t!” His dad waves a hand. “We don’t. As long as you’re sure. As long as this is– As long as– You’re an adult and we trust you, and we’d just like to know… how much older?”

    “See, what you were saying about balance, I’m providing the perspective of someone who’s finishing college, and he’s providing the perspective of someone who has… life experience.”

    “Yes, but how much?”

    “Well, I mean and you also have to consider how densely packed that life experience is.”

    “Alex.”

    “The question of his exact age didn’t actually come up. Look, this isn’t a situation where an older man has come onto me, this is someone I really connected with. And he’s trustworthy.”

    “What about these mutual friends?”

    “Oh, you definitely trust them.” He says, a little too glib, and he sees the exact moment the penny drops.

    “Jim, could you come in here, please?”

    “Yo.” He pokes his head through the doorway, reads the room, and shuffles in. “Ah… yeah. Yeah.”

    “Alex, when we put Jim in your room, it was under the impression that you two wouldn’t be… attracted to each other.” Alex’s dad says, gesturing helplessly. “I mean, if we had known then… I don’t know, we– we would have told you to keep your door open!”

    “Oh, I don’t think you would have liked that, Steven.” Jim shakes his head. “I mean, we usually do it under the covers, and you know I’m not embarrassed about the human body, but there are some cases where a little privacy is called for.”

    “No, I know you’re not embarrassed about the human body.” He says, and then blanches, looking between them. “Oh– oh god.”

    “Look, Dad, the fact of the matter is, I’m a little too old for you to ask me to keep my bedroom door open just because I have company over.”

    “Yes, when you’re with a girl.”

    “That sounds like a double standard. You raised me better than that.”

    “No I didn’t, I’ve always been very hypocritical when it comes to boys in bedrooms.”

    “A sterling defense.” Alex’s mom rolls her eyes. “Look, we don’t want you to be ashamed or embarrassed about exploring your sexuality, that’s not the issue. Of course you’re an adult and you can…” She trails off, rubbing a hand over her mouth, also looking between them. The awareness hits Alex, sudden and very heavy, that his parents know what his boyfriend looks like naked.

    “Are you picturing him with his pants off right now?” He groans.

    “Trying very hard not to.” His dad admits. 

    “I didn’t plan on falling for your son.” Jim puts an arm around Alex. “And I certainly didn’t plan on doing anything about it when I did. All I can say is… Alex gets me. And that’s not something I can say about a whole lot of people. In him… I can see the best parts of both of you, and I can see a lot of myself, but most of all, I just see him. He makes me want to try harder. He makes me want to do better. I drifted through a lot of my life. I could have kept right on drifting through the rest of it. When I’m with Alex… I have a reason not to drift. I have someone who… who looks at me like I can pick myself up and put myself together. I mean, everyone wants to put me back together when it’s convenient. When it’s easy. My brother’s like that. He wants to put my life on this perfect little track and then leave it to other people to run it for both of us. My sister maybe just thinks I should let him, because that’s easy for everybody. And I’ve been with people who, you know… who thought they could do something with me. And for a little while sometimes they tried. Alex thinks I could do something with myself, that’s the difference. He’s done a lot to help me, all of you have, but he’s helping me because he thinks I can hack it. Not all alone, no one should have to hack it alone, but he thinks I can hack it. He believes in me. And I believe in him. I mean… well, what I mean is, when I first started feeling some kind of way about him, I worried I was no good. I worried about all the ways his life could go wrong, if he got mixed up with a guy like me, with the past I’ve had. But he doesn’t need me to protect him. He’s smart. And he’s had his own experiences in life. And if he believes I could be good for him… hell. I’m not gonna argue the point. I’m just gonna try and live up to what he thinks I could make of myself. And as long as he wants me, he can have me, I’m his.”

    “I want you.” Alex turns, wrapping his arms around Jim’s waist. “You’re good for me.”

    “Jim, that was beautiful, really–”

    “Well, Steven, that’s just how I feel. I love him.”

    “I love you.” He buries his face against Jim’s chest.

    “A week in and you’re– the words and everything? I mean, when did this happen?”

    “Thursday. I think.”

    “It was a hell of a week, I don’t know.” Alex laughs. “When did I sleep?”

    “Thursday afternoon.” His mom nods.

    “Then we’ve been together since Thursday.”

    “How did it… happen?” She asks. “We’re just trying to understand. I mean, it’s clear to me that whatever this is, you’ve been… good for each other. No one is trying to argue the results. I just want to know you both thought about this, and– and that everyone is… being safe.”

    “We just spent a lot of time together.” Alex shrugs, detaching from Jim a little so that he can face his parents, settling back in against him with Jim’s hands on his shoulders. He sees the little flicker of recognition in his dad’s eyes, that they’d been standing just like that, when he’d maybe only half-jokingly asked Jim to chase off any college boys for a while. “We found out we actually had a lot in common. We shared things with each other.”

    “Alex took me to the art museum, we found paintings of our feelings.”

    It’s not how Alex would have worded it, but if he’s honest, he thinks his parents probably appreciate Jim’s way of putting it. They look like maybe they do.

    “Jim writes me poems.” He adds, and yeah. They definitely get that. “And on Thursday, we… we had a nice time out. We talked. One thing led to another, I don’t think you want details–”

    “No–”

    “What kind of details? No, I mean, we don’t, just– There are… details?”

    “We just want to know you both… that everything’s… good. And with how fast this has happened, there are just… concerns.”

    “Everything’s good.” Alex nods. “We had a very responsible discussion.”

    “And… when you say responsible…” His mom’s brow pinches. 

    “Please don’t make me say–”

    “We bought condoms.” Jim volunteers.

    “Thank you. Good to know.”

    “I just mean, we talked about what we wanted.” Alex says, reaching up to rest a hand over one of Jim’s. “We’ve talked about a lot of things. We… we’ve talked about, you know. Having problems– the same problem. What it’s like. And… we’re good together.”

    “Your parents don’t need to know we’re good together.”

    “I don’t mean the sex– I mean, yes, but– I mean we’re good for each other.”

    “All right.”

    “And, uh… you know. He’s about to leave. And I’d like to…”

    “You would like us to clear out and leave you alone in the house with Jim. Purely so that your mother and I can enjoy precious quality time with your brother and sisters, I’m sure. While you take advantage of the quiet to sleep.”

    “He might sleep.” Jim says.

    “But that’s not why you two would like some time to yourselves.”

    “No.” Alex admits. “We’re going to be long distance for a long time. And I– I mean, I’m worried about it. About whether I’ll sleep when he’s in New York and I’m not. And I’m going to miss him. So– can we get a little time to ourselves today?”

    “Well… we’ll talk about it after breakfast, how is that for fair? You… you two really do help each other.” His mom looks between them.

    “We really do.” Jim nods, squeezing Alex’s shoulders gently. “I– I really do love him. And… I wasn’t really ready, to have to go back, but… I promise when Alex comes out to New York, he– he’ll have a place waiting for him. Someone who wants to support him right back.”

    “We’ll figure something out. Thank you, for being honest with us, about this. And… we’ll figure something out.” Alex’s dad comes over, giving Alex’s arm a squeeze, and then reaching past him to pat Jim’s shoulder. “For now… breakfast?”

    “Breakfast sounds good.”

Chapter Text

    “Is everyone else seeing this?” Jennifer asks, gesturing to Jim.

    Well, to Alex, who is feeding Jim bites of pancake off of a shared plate.

    “Trying not to.” Mallory teases gently.

    “They told us this morning. Come get some breakfast.”

    “We’re all remarkably calm about it.” Their dad adds. “If you don’t have plans this afternoon, we’re trying to figure out something to get us out of the house– tonight we’re all having a nice dinner out, so don’t make plans for the evening, but if your friends are doing something today, that’s fine.”

    “Trying to figure out something to get you out of the house so you don’t have to look at that?” She says. “I’m in.”

    “We could go to the mall. See a movie. Say Anything is out.”

    “Why don’t you girls go to Say Anything, then, and I’ll take Andy to the play equipment.” Their dad nods. “And… Jim and Alex will stay home because there’s only so much room in the car.”

    “That’s not why we wanted to stay home.” Jim blinks.

    “No, I know, but I think we’d all like to not picture what you two…” He sighs, waving a hand. 

    “Wait, how come we’re all clearing out so Alex can have sex?”

    “Jennifer.” Alex groans. “First, you’re in high school, I’m an adult, I’m allowed to… do adult things, and you’re not. Second, it’s not about that, it’s– it’s not about that! Look, this is Jim’s last night here before he goes back to New York, I won’t see him until after graduation… And you don’t have to go out if you don’t want to, but I just want to have my boyfriend to myself.”

    “No, we’re definitely going out.” Mallory says. “Trust me.”

    “And were we all aware that Alex was…?”

    “Yes.” His mom pushes a plate into Jennifer’s hands.

    “Yes.” His dad sighs.

    “Just be glad you don’t share a wall with him.” 

    “Hi, I’m sitting right here.”

    “What’s the appeal here?” Jennifer turns to them. “Jim, what do you see in my brother, exactly?”

    “Everything.” Jim smiles at him, taking the fork out of Alex’s hand so he can feed him the bite he’d already prepared. 

    “Oh, so he’s even more delusional than he used to be, got it.”

    “You know what, Jennifer?” Alex snaps– as much as someone with a mouth full of pancake can be said to snap. “Sometimes you’re not funny.”

    “I don’t know that that’s true. I’m still asking about his intentions.”

    “You don’t have to ask about his intentions.” Alex sighs– as much as someone with a mouth full of pancake can be said to sigh.

    “Jim, what are your intentions towards my brother, exactly?” Jennifer leans forward.

    “I intend to make him very happy.”

    “Disgusting.”

    “Jennifer! She doesn’t mean because of the gay thing.” Their dad waves a hand. “Or the– It’s purely a… sibling thing.”

    Her face falls enough at the realization that it could have come across that way that Alex doesn’t even feel like shouting at her this time. 

    “I actually do want you to be happy, Alex.” She offers, contrite. 

    “Yeah, yeah.”

    “Alex, what are your intentions towards Jim?” She kicks at him lightly. Offers that same ‘you can’t possibly be mad at me’ look she’s had since she was small, which ought to be less effective now and somehow isn’t.

    “I intend to make him very happy.” He kicks back. 

    “You know, this does explain a lot. You guys sneaking off together all the time.”

    “When were we sneaking?” He asks, face heating at the memory of the shower sex.

    “That’s true, you weren’t sneaking. You were brazenly taking him out on dates, all week.”

    “Well–” He starts, about to protest that they haven’t been, but… the palm house, the museum, the movies, even just walking around… Going out and getting lunches together. It hasn’t not been dates. They’ve been able to admit as much between themselves, after all. They both wanted to be able to call them dates, even if they hadn’t. 

    “And cuddling up to him all the time.” She adds.

    “Almost falling asleep doesn’t count as cuddling, we didn’t– We’ve only been together since Thursday. How fast do you think I move?”

    “Pretty fast.” Jennifer says, and the rest of the family throws in their agreement– minus Andy, who doesn’t look up from his own pancakes.

    “Well… okay, but that’s just– We got to know a lot about each other. I’m not moving too fast. We’re going to… you know. Talk, on the phone, while we’re apart. And… yeah.”

    “And Alex is gonna move after college.” Andy adds. “He’s going to New York to get a job and make money.”

    “No, I can see you don’t move fast at all.” Jennifer laughs.

    Mallory looks up movie show times, and Jim does spend some of the morning reminiscing with Alex’s parents. At least now, though… Now, Alex’s parents sit on the sofa, and Alex sits in the chair, and Jim leans back against Alex’s legs as he laughs at old stories from around the time they lost track of him. As they trade stories of places they were at at the same time and just missed finding each other at– protests, concerts, the democratic convention in Chicago, where they narrowly missed all getting arrested together, apparently.

    “I’m just glad you were okay, after all that. We were so worried when we lost you. I mean, and I felt so responsible…”

    “You were never responsible for me, Elyse. I know… I know you felt like I was Ned’s mess and it was your job to clean up after it, but I was never his responsibility, either. I mean, you know that… Ned didn’t…” He waves a hand. “Yes. He made it easy to get my hands on a lot of stuff, that I wouldn’t have got my hands on so easy if I didn’t know him. But he’s not… he’s not the one who got me started. And if he remembered it that way when he told you, that’s not… He was there for a lot of… of how I fell apart. And I don’t remember… I don’t always remember that part of my life so good. But I don’t remember your brother being the one to push me. And if I asked him for something after that, and he didn’t tell me I couldn’t handle myself, or he didn’t stop me, that was my own fault. I mean I love you for everything you’ve done– then, now, all of it, I could never thank you enough, and if I tried, you wouldn’t let me. But I was never your mess to clean up.”

    “No. You weren’t. But you were our friend.” She reaches out, and so does he, leaning forward until he can squeeze her hand. “You are our friend. You’re not a mess.”

    “Well… I dunno about that.” He laughs, leaning back into Alex’s space, leaning his head back for Alex to run his fingers through his hair. “Still… probably always gonna be a little bit of a mess. But I know what you mean, I guess. I’m not an obligation.”

    “No, you’re not. You never have been. We should bring down some more of those old photos.” Alex’s dad pushes himself up to his feet. “Look through them before we head out.”

    “I was a mess.” Jim sighs, voice soft, face tilted up towards Alex even though his eyes are closed. “Sometimes better, sometimes worse. I took a lot, for a while. And… just whatever anyone gave me, back… back in those days. But sometimes I was better. When I was with your folks… sometimes I was better. When I was with your folks… it was never rock bottom for me.”

    “Yeah. They’re pretty good at that.” Alex smiles, stroking Jim’s forehead, one cheek. He never hit rock bottom himself… he got to be bad enough. And he had his family catching him in time. The memory of seeing someone he loved out of control to measure himself against… to realize it was bad. To feel bad, being there. At the time it felt like rock bottom because he had nothing lower to hold it up to. Now? Now he guesses he knows what it looks like when your own family can’t be bothered to pick you up– when your own family is the one tossing you a shovel so you can dig yourself deeper. That’s rock bottom. “So… Uncle Ned?”

    “Yeah. He was a genius, but… you know. The kind who, he didn’t know how to buckle down and study. The stuff he was good at just came so easy to him, and he was… charming. And he liked to party.” Jim chuckles softly. “And I… I didn’t know what it’d do to me. He didn’t get me hooked. It didn’t take a whole lot, it… Boy. It didn’t take a whole lot. He wasn’t the one to push me into it. But he liked the new me, I think. He didn’t… He liked that version of me, that I got to being, when I was… blowing everything off to get stoned. But you know, why shouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t he like… like the me that– that treated him a little better? That wasn’t so… repressed, and unhappy. And I took it too far… He was sweet enough to feel a little responsible for me, when I wound up with nowhere to go, but it’s not because he was. Least, I don’t remember him being. I remember– Ah, it’s not important.”

    There are questions Alex wants to ask, and he has no idea how to. Things maybe he’ll figure out how to say someday. The way that he says Ned didn’t push him makes it sound like someone else did. Did that person decide they didn’t like the new Jim as much as Ned did? Were there signs in college that Ned would have his own problems? But it doesn’t feel like the time for either avenue of questioning that Alex can think of.

    For now, he just keeps playing with Jim’s hair, and tracing over the lines that crease his face. Enjoying the freedom to, just to be affectionate with him, with his mom right there in the room, not caring. 

    Jim does pick his head back up and interrupt whatever it is Alex is doing, when the photo albums get brought in, one passed over for Jim to go through. Alex looks over his shoulder, while he flips through them.

    “Oh god, not this one.” He groans, recognizing the album as one that includes some of the first pictures of him. “Can we swap?”

    “Oh, if you think you really want to.” His dad laughs. “Over here I think we hav– huh.”

    Alex looks over to see what’s so ‘huh’, and realizes.

    “Or this one’s fine. I mean… I don’t even know what else is in these. Photographs, you say? What will people come up with next, haha, I mean I don’t even, I don’t even know.”

    “Oh, I think you’ve already seen this one.” He raises an eyebrow at him. “For the sake of argument, we’ll say sometime around Thursday?”

    He turns the offending album towards Alex’s mom next, so she can see just which picture isn’t there. Apparently they spend enough time going through this one on their own together that they can both recognize what’s missing.

    “Okay, and you know what, I’m keeping it.” He huffs, face hot. “I’m keeping a picture of my about-to-be-long-distance boyfriend. I refuse to be ashamed of that!”

    “Oh, sweetheart, of course you shouldn’t be ashamed.” His mom laughs gently. 

    “I mean, there are other photographs…”

    “That one happens to have the best smile.”

    “I’m sure. Your sole consideration. You can hold onto it for as long as you need to. We should get the camera out before Jim goes back, though… take some current pictures.”

    “Tonight.” His mom agrees, patting his dad’s knee. “Right now, if we want to get out the door in time for the movie, we’d better start getting Andy ready, and if we’re lucky he won’t lose a shoe more than three times.”

    “Tonight.” He agrees. “Jim, we can mail you copies of the pictures once we get them developed. And I… will go see about putting shoes on our youngest.”

    “Well, I’ll let you know my new address, when I get there. It, uh… it’s supposed to be a nice place.” Jim shrugs, and Alex can hear the nerves.

    “You deserve a nice place.” He reminds him. “Someplace safe. Comfortable. A nice place to have your friends over.”

    “Well, I guess they would be more comfortable, in a nicer place…” Jim allows, and Alex feels a little something warm and proud, at having been able to figure what would make the idea easier. “They’ve been around, to my first apartment, and then the… the place I was at, you know, some of my friends have been around, but it’s not… I guess it’s never been a real nice place for company. Could have a real, uh… a real party, when I get there. Housewarming… have everyone around.”

    “I think they’d like that.” Alex’s mom nods. 

    “I don’t really know what to do with a nice place.” He admits. “It’s a little scary. When you got a nice place, you got something to lose. Something… something you might even wanna hold onto. I never really had that– not since…”

    “Not since you got kicked out.” She says. “But this is different. This is going to be your home.”

    “Since I got kicked out, I lived in two communes, two vans, two condemned buildings, and one reptile house.”

    “One… reptile house?”

    “Yeah. The thing about that one was, you can’t let ‘em catch you living there. Unless you’re an exotic reptile. They weren’t the worst roommates I ever had… but, uh, as a long-term solution, it didn’t work out.”

    “No, I guess not.” She shrugs helplessly, glancing over at Alex. 

    Alex doesn’t really know what to think, except that if Jim’s father wasn’t dead, Alex would be calling him up with a piece of his mind, and if he ever meets his brother face to face, he’s going to have one for him, too. 

    “It went van, commune, different commune, different van, reptile house, condemned building… ahh, crashed with a friend for a little while, then condemned building. And now this new place.”

    “No one can kick you out of this new place–”

    “Oh yes they can. People can kick you out of any place. You’d think you can’t get kicked out of your own van, but they can definitely have you towed.”

    “They won’t kick you out. Not without giving you plenty of notice, and if that happens– if that happens, we’ll work something out. Look, and once I’m out there, I can help deal with anything that does come up.” Alex promises. “And… you aren’t gonna be alone.”

    Jim shudders, sucking in a breath, his cheek presses to Alex’s knee. “Okay.”

    “You’re not gonna be alone.” He strokes his hair. “You’re not going to go through anything like that alone. Even when you’re out there and I’m still here, you’re not alone.”

    “That’s right.” His mom leaves her seat again, this time to kneel next to Jim, resting a hand on his chest. “We’re all just a phone call away. Any time there’s a problem. And when you can get another hearing, I’ve got that statement typed up for the judge…”

    Jim nods, though right now it seems to be all he can do just to keep breathing. It’s not a big thing, when he cries, it’s not a loud thing, but Alex can feel every hitch, and with a hand over his chest, he knows his mom can, too. He feels a little guilty to feel grateful, to have the help, to not be holding Jim through this alone. But he thinks he needs that, anyway– to know he still has Alex’s parents in his corner, now. To know he’s not just not-alone with Alex.

    “You’re an honorary Keaton. Not because you’re dating Alex.” She continues. “You were an honorary Donnelly, I brought you over with me. You’re part of the family, Jim, nothing is changing that. Not in this family. We’re just very happy to have you back in our lives.”

    “Happy to be back.” He says, voice rough. Alex reaches down to wipe away a couple of tears. 

    “We’ll be waiting by the phone, we expect a call when you get home. We’ll want to hear all about the new place. We’re not losing you again, you hear?”

    “It… it’ll take a while before it feels like a home.” He sniffs, nodding. “But I’ll call. Right away. I got the number written down where I can’t lose it. It’ll have to be a nice enough place, for when Alex comes out… you know, I wouldn’t– I wouldn’t ask him to come out and live with me if it wasn’t gonna be nice enough.”

    “We know.”

    “It’ll be nice enough.”

    “We know, sunshine.” Alex echoes.

    “Jim… we love you, we’ll miss you, we were so happy to have you here. And so happy to be able to call you a part of this family– that doesn’t change just because you have your life in New York to go back to. Just… don’t make me a grandmother too soon.”

    “Mom.”

    “No, we’re careful.” He promises, laugh only a little wet. “Not, uh… not– well.”

    “Not.” Alex says quickly, though he can’t deny that’s a thing… 

    He never pictured himself with a man, he never pictured himself in a situation where he could get pregnant, let alone be pregnant. He pictured himself with a wife and they’d work something out with a donor or they’d go to a sperm bank or something. And his own body just wouldn’t be involved in all that.

    It’s only been a couple of days, they haven’t talked about kids, or how they’d… He doesn’t even know if Jim wants kids, though he knows he’s good with Andy, that he’s patient and gentle and imaginative and happy to sit on the floor and be repeatedly hit by cars…

    No. No. He is not thinking about having Jim’s kids. They’d probably be born tall, he can’t handle that. They’ve been together for four days, he’s not even entertaining the thought.

    They’ll get through the long-distance stuff and they’ll settle in together, and they’ll figure out whether they even want to be parents in the future. And if they don’t, they’ll come home for holidays to spend time with Andy, maybe be uncles one day when his sisters settle down. Maybe have the family come out and visit in the summer? He’ll have to work out logistics, when the time comes, but there’s no reason why his whole family couldn’t make some vacation time to come and see him in the big city. It’ll be easier for him to travel home with Jim more often, maybe, but… they’ll work it out, they’ll work it out. They have time to work everything out. They can take time now, to work everything out.

    “I’m just happy you two are… you know.” Jim gestures between Alex and himself. “Cool with this.”

    “Well… we talked about it. Assessed what we were feeling. And it’s not the kind of situation I think either of us ever expected, but… at the end of the day, it’s about what’s best for our son, and in addition to helping him sleep… All we’ve ever wanted for him, in a romantic partner, is someone who is compassionate, and loving, and who can get him to loosen up a little bit and enjoy his life.” She smiles between them, hand moving from Jim’s chest to Alex’s shin, giving his leg a gentle jostle. “Someone who makes him happy. Someone who loves him. And someone he can trust with the parts of himself he doesn’t share with just anybody. And you’re that person. And… while there are certainly things that aren’t comfortable for a mother, in thinking about her grown children’s sex lives, I do want to know that it’s good. That it’s healthy and… enjoyable.”

    “We really don’t need to talk about that.” Alex groans.

    “I do remember that Swedish boy with the butterfly tattoo and the beautiful breasts being an… enthusiastic–”

    “Mom, I don’t wanna hear it.”

    “I’m just saying, when your tent is right next to another tent and clothing is optional, you learn some things that aren’t so easy to forget.”

    “If I knew you wanted help forgetting things, I could have helped with that, back then.”

    “It’s fine. We’re… very happy for you both. Logistically it’s… we’ve agreed not to think about it too much. As long as you’re happy.”

    “Yeah.” Alex can’t look at her. The floor is stubbornly refusing to swallow him.

    “I mean–”

    “Please don’t say whatever you’re about to say.”

    “All right. I’ll go round up your sisters, then, we’ll get out of your hair. Just be ready for someone to pick you up for dinner in the evening. We’ll call the house.” She takes one hand from each of them, to help her up to her feet again. “Enjoy your time together.”

    “Mom…”

    “We will, thanks.” Jim gives Alex’s knee a squeeze, presses his cheek there again. 

    They don’t rush off to the bedroom once the rest of the family is out of the house. They don’t even move from their spot just yet. There’s no rush, and after the emotional moment, Alex wants to take his time with Jim. Wants to make sure he feels like he’s been held and cared for, not just used. He thinks about how held and cared for Jim has made him feel, and the ways he’s done it. The emotional language he speaks.

    “Of all the boys I’ve known, and I’ve known some… until I first met you, I was lonesome…” Alex croons, guiding Jim to lean back between his knees a little more, going right back to petting at him. Feeling the deepening of the dimples bracketing his smile, before trailing a light touch down the sides of his neck. “And when you came in sight dear, my heart grew light, and this old world seemed new to me… You’re really swell, I have to admit you– deserve expressions that really fit you. And so I’ve racked my brain, hoping to explain, all the things that you do to me… Bei mir bist du schön, please let me explain, bei mir bist du schön means you’re grand. Bei mir bist du schön, again I’ll explain, it means you’re the fairest in the land…”

    As Alex works his way down to caress Jim’s shoulders, Jim’s hands slide up his arms in return, touching right back. 

    “I could say bella, bella, even sehr wunderbar… Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are.” He joins in. 

    “I’ve tried to explain, bei mir bist du schön, so kiss me, and say you understand.”

    Alex has to lean down over him, and Jim leans up, and does just that, cupping his face. It’s upside-down and more than a little awkward, and they both wind up laughing a little.

    “We’ve got the house to ourselves. Anything you want to do.” Alex smiles. “I’m all yours, sunshine. Whatever’s going to make you feel how much I’m going to miss you when you go. Something you’ll remember when we’re apart. I want you to feel… I want to make you feel safe.”

    “You will.”

    “Yeah, but I mean… I’m kind of wrapping my head around what a big deal going to this new apartment is for you. And I wish that I could just go with you, and I can’t. I can’t be there… but that doesn’t mean you’re going to a new place all alone. And you’re not losing anything. You’re getting something that’s yours. You’re going to try living in it for a couple of months, okay– on your own, and then when I get there. We’re going to see how it fits. And if it really doesn’t, if you really aren’t happy being there, we’ll look at what our options are. But it’s going to be okay– trying it out is going to be okay. And if this place isn’t making you happy, we’re going to figure out what will, but one way or another, you– you are going to have a home, Jim. A real home, for forever, with me.”

    “A real home… with you.” He swallows. “That sounds like a good forever.”

Chapter Text

    They do move up to Alex’s bed, but they spend a while just cuddling when they get there, just breathing together. Recovering a little more from the emotional moment. Jim sits up, guiding Alex up into his lap.

    “Here, honey, wrap your legs around me.” He smiles, nudging his nose into Alex’s cheek. 

    “Should we be naked for this?”

    “Maybe next time. Right now… just keep breathing with me. Real deep.”

    Alex nods, their foreheads coming to rest together. Feels every breath they take in together. They get slower together, deeper. It goes from grounding and calming him, which is what breathing with Jim has always done– even if it hasn’t let him sleep– to being something he feels. And Alex is used to feeling kind of disconnected from his body, but now it’s like he can feel every part of himself. He can feel the way their bodies touch on each indrawn breath, he’s aware of his limbs wound around Jim. 

    He’s aware of the heat that spreads down along his inner thighs, that builds in him with each breath they share. They’re not doing anything, only breathing. He’s in Jim’s lap, yeah, but they’re not doing anything. But he feels awake and alive, he feels the way Jim is holding him, the span of his hands…

    “What is this?”

    “I’m making love to you.” Jim murmurs softly, kissing him. “You’re feeling it?”

    “Uh… yeah. What– what am I feeling?”

    “I’m giving you my sexual energy.”

    Alex feels like how is a good question. “Is this meditation? Because I might have been all turned around on the subject.”

    “You don’t have to meditate.” He kisses him again. “I am, though, yeah.”

    “You’re really something else, you know that?”

    “No one’s ever given you their energy before?”

    “No. I can honestly say no one’s ever given me their energy before.”

    “Thank you, for letting me.”

    “Sure I shouldn’t be the one saying thank you?”

    Jim shakes his head. “This was what I wanted. To try this with you. To feel you…”

    “Are you feeling me?”

    “Yeah, honey, I’m feeling you. Now… we’re gonna breathe again, and this time… you’re gonna rock your hips, nice and slow, in time with those breaths. Okay?”

    “Okay.” He nods. Jim’s hands settle at his hips, helping to guide him– helping to keep the pace of his motion in line with each deep breath. It’s achingly slow, and on each slow grind, he can feel Jim growing harder under him, but he won’t let him speed things up, won’t chase after more. Alex is driving the action of moving his hips, but Jim is setting the pace. Jim is offering support, and…

    And Alex isn’t sure what he’s doing, that isn’t just receiving, that’s making Jim feel taken care of, but he has to figure if this is what Jim wanted to do, then his being there is giving Jim enough. Maybe all he needs to do to make this good for Jim is to receive him– maybe it’s not about what Alex can give or do, maybe it’s about Alex being willing to do something that’s new, that’s outside of his comfort zone, that’s… a little close to something hippie-dippy. Maybe it’s just about Alex being open for him.

    He’s never been great at being open, but when he’s been with Jim, it’s felt different. Less scary. It’s hard to look at Jim and not want to receive him, however he gives himself. It’s that light that’s in him. And the way he talks about his friends– and the way that Alex’s parents talk about Jim– Alex isn’t the only person to see it. Maybe he’s lucky to be the person who sees all the things he does see in him, but he’s not the only person who sees Jim and wants to be open to him in new ways. 

    The slow build of grinding together isn’t frustrating, the way it is when he can’t take himself somewhere. Even when the urge is there to speed up and Jim keeps him moving slow, it’s not frustrating. But it’s something. 

    “Are we… gonna do more… than just breathe together?”

    “Yeah, if you think you’re ready.” Jim smiles, nipping gently at his lower lip. 

    “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.”

    “How do you think you’ll want me? Now that you know what it’s like in a few different positions…”

    “I liked all of it. I liked… I liked how easy it is for you to move me around. I guess my favorite’s when we’re face to face, I like being able to kiss you… hold you. But I liked… god, when you had me on my side? And you were just holding my leg up, and it was, uh…”

    “Oh, yeah?” He nuzzles at Alex’s cheeks, he runs his hands lightly over his arms, up his back and then down his chest. He touches him so gently. “Good?”

    “Yeah. You, uh… yeah.”

    “I’ll take you there. But we’re taking our time.”

    “How much time do you need?”

    “As much as I can get.” Jim kisses him. The next pass of his hands is a little firmer, and Alex rises up into the touch. “I’ve gotta… uhh, let’s see… I’ve gotta make sure you feel, you know… overwhelmed with pleasure and desire. Only then can I enter you, a pilgrim to your temple.”

    “I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed.”

    “Oh, not yet, you’re not…” He slides up under his shirt, stripping it away. “I’ll get you there, honey, but I’ll get you there slow.”

    “I couldn’t convince you?” Alex leans in, capturing him for a kiss. “That I am… overwhelmed with desire for you now?”

    “You seem pretty whelmed.”

    “No, never. You overwhelm me, I’m overwhelmed.” He laughs, undoing Jim’s buttons, spreading his hands across his bared chest. 

    “I gotta do this right. Because… we’re gonna be apart. Gonna be apart for a long time, and before we are, I want… I want to do this right. I want you to feel… completely devoid of self-consciousness. Free from shame. Free to enjoy everything that two people can do for each other…”

    God, how had he ever thought sex with Jim would be anything but deep? Anything but connected? How had he ever thought Jim wouldn’t look at him, when he looks at him like that? When he talks about pleasure and freedom like they’re gifts he’s dying to give, that he’s dying for Alex to have…

    “I feel that, with you.” He nods, pushing Jim’s shirt down past his shoulders, continuing to touch him. Trying to match the pace Jim sets with him, trying for slow caresses. “I’m not ashamed. I enjoy… everything.”

    Last night proved that, if nothing else. Mallory walking in on them was excruciating– it wasn’t shameful. He’d been able to defend not just Jim, not just his relationship– he’d been able to defend his own… desire? Pleasure? He’d been able to say that he liked, loved, wanted, needed what he and Jim had. That the sex was something he enjoyed, with a boyfriend he… well, liked, loved, wanted, needed.

    “Want you to enjoy this. Oh, darling…”

    It feels like there’s more, like the sound dies on his tongue as their eyes meet, that he leans in to kiss him, hands flying up to cup Alex’s face, to slide back into his hair… 

    It doesn’t lead to the rest of their clothes getting torn off. It doesn’t actually seem to speed things up at all. Jim kisses him deep, but that moment of haste in getting to the kiss is singular. 

    “How do you feel?” He asks, breath soft and warm against Alex’s jaw.

    “Hot.”

    “Where?”

    He has to let himself slow down to consider that. He’d thought ‘where’ was just everywhere. But it’s not– not uniformly, anyway.

    “In my chest. Right here.” He guides Jim’s hand there, whines when somehow that touch just makes him hotter. “Between my thighs.”

    “Yeah?”

    “Yeah… you?”

    “Same. Moving up my throat. See?” He tilts his head back, and Alex can see the way the flush creeps up his throat. “Here?” 

    Jim touches a spot high on Alex’s cheek, and yeah, he can feel the heat there, too.

    “Yeah.”

    “What else do you feel?”

    “I don’t know how to answer that.”

    “Indulge me.” Jim’s smile is warm, a little playful, one hand sliding up from chest to shoulder, the other down from cheek to other-shoulder. “We’re connecting. I want to know.”

    “It’s just a very open-ended question, I guess. And I…” And he’s not used to feeling, but that sounds so stupid to say out loud. How can you be not used to feeling?

    “Gotcha. Well… then how does this feel, for you?” He runs his hands lightly down Alex’s arms, spends a moment resting them over Alex’s hands, where those rest on Jim’s chest, before the touch slides back up to his shoulders again. “Just that.”

    “Nice. Um… warm. I kind of… tingle, when you touch me. Where you touch me. I don’t– I don’t really know what you want me to say.”

    “Just what’s true. Thank you.” The hands on his shoulders knead gently and draw him closer, Jim kisses him. Tugs just a little at his upper lip this time. And then his hands are sliding down the backs of Alex’s shoulders, and he’s pressing him into an embrace, cheek to cheek, breathing together again. “Thank you…”

    “You don’t have to thank me.”

    “Yes I do. When someone gives me a gift, I say thank you. Usually you’re asleep when I say it.”

    “God, if we’re not careful, I’m gonna sleep through dinner.” Alex pulls back enough to meet Jim’s eyes.

    “I’ll wake you.” He grins, slow and soft. Sunny. 

    “How do you feel? When I do this?” Alex lets his own touch slide over Jim’s chest, until he can thumb at his nipples. 

    “Oh, very nice. Definitely tingly. I… like having you touch me anywhere, but that’s good.”

    “Okay, well… this still nice?” He moves lower still, down to the soft, undefined plane of his abs, heels of his hands kneading in gently, sliding out to squeeze at his sides. 

    “Yes.” He sighs, tilts his head back. “I like when you grab me. I like when you hold onto me tight. I like when you dig into me. It makes me feel… it makes me feel real. And good.”

    “I like when you grab me, too.” Alex nods. Thinks he gets it. Maybe some of the people Jim’s been with haven’t held him tight enough– no one’s held him tight for good, which is what he thinks he really needs, for someone to hold him like they don’t ever want to let him go. But also maybe some of the people he’s been with have let him do all the work just because he will and he’s good at it. Or when they touch him, they’re light with it and he wants to be dug into, but he doesn’t ask. He asks for what he can give and what he can do, but he didn’t ask Alex to touch him the way he clearly needed to be touched…

    “Good, I like grabbing ya.” He grins at that, hands sliding down to grab at Alex’s ass, lifting him just slightly on it. Alex yelps– okay, he’s not proud! He yelps– and his hands move up to Jim’s shoulders in a hurry to kind of catch himself when the lift makes him feel unbalanced. But when he digs in there, he gets a really good groan out of him. “I like that, that feels incredible.”

    “You’re tight.”

    “Thought that would be my line.”

    “I mean your shoulders. You’re overdue for a massage, sunshine.”

    His expression goes almost comically slack with pleasure when Alex starts really working a knot out of the muscle. He’s careful with it, doesn’t want to dig in in a way that’s going to hurt him, but it’s very gratifying to make him moan and sigh like this… to be looked at with that open awe, not just for existing, but for what he can do with his hands. 

    Jim returns the favor, the two of them slowly working the tension out of each other’s necks and shoulders, slowly turning muscle into well-loved butter. Going back and forth between giving and receiving, tension bleeding out of their upper bodies and into their lower bodies, tension transforming from pain into pleasure as it does.

    “You make me feel so good.” Jim sighs. 

    Alex rocks down against him. “Mm, I can tell… I like making you feel good. Taking care of you…”

    “You take real good care of me. Here– lean back, I’ve got you…”

    Jim’s hands spread warm and wide across his back and Alex relaxes into his hold, trusts him. Is rewarded for that trust as he’s laid back onto the bed– he misses being in Jim’s lap as they shift and part, but if he stays there any longer, Jim’s legs are going to fall asleep from being folded up under him, and that’s if they haven’t already. 

    Jim strips him the rest of the way, kisses him from sternum to navel as he gets his pants down over his hips. Gets rid of his own once he’s freed Alex’s legs. When he comes back to lie next to him, to kiss his throat and touch his chest, Alex gives himself full permission to dig in. When he grabs at Jim’s arms, his shoulders, his back, he digs in hard and lets Jim feel needed.

    Grabbing onto Jim is the one thing anchoring him, in a sea of wanting and feeling. Big hands that skim his thighs and grasp his hips, increasingly wet kisses that land, unpredictable, over the whole of his torso, the sound of Jim’s breath and his own… the hot drag of a tongue, tracing the curving underside of one small breast and following it up into the armpit, which isn’t a thing Alex would have ever put on the big list of things he could be sexually into, or that he thought anyone could be sexually into, but something about it lights him on fire.

    “Let me do that to you.” He gasps.

    “Oh– okey-doke!” Jim rolls over and offers himself up, with a little grin that’s all uncertainty and excitement and delight.

    He doesn’t start with the armpit, obviously. Alex starts with the touching, the kissing. Runs his hands over Jim’s thighs, kisses his belly, feels the way his muscles twitch and tremble, the way he rises into each touch.

    “You feel good?” Alex asks him, between his own increasingly wet kisses. He lets himself be… wild, abandoned, sloppy. 

    “I feel great.” He nods. “You know, the– the foreplay was supposed to be for you. So you felt venerated, as my lover. But… hell! Why shouldn’t we both get to feel like that?”

    Alex has no idea what to say to that. Venerated as my lover, it’s… From anyone else, it would be a line. It would feel phony at best. From Jim, it’s just how he feels, what he wants. He wants Alex to feel venerated, as his lover. 

    “Well… I think I feel pretty venerated.” He nods, idly but firmly massages circles into Jim’s abdomen, rubs his own spit into his skin, not in any purposeful way, just because it’s there and he wants to touch Jim the way Jim needs to be touched. “And yeah– I want you to get that, too.”

    “Well, you got it.” Jim shakes his head, looking up at Alex in abject awe, with joy. “It’s been… it’s been years and years, since someone made me feel venerated.”

    “You’re a big giver. You need someone who wants to see you get a little selfish.”

    “Oh– yeah. I’m not a very selfish person.”

    “Don’t I know it. But I want you to be, okay? With me, with this? I want you to feel like it’s okay to take, and it’s okay to be given to. And it’s, you know… it’s maybe a mutual thing if you get a little selfish with me. I mean, when you do the things you like, don’t I have a good time? And… don’t I feel some satisfaction if I know you’re having fun?”

    “Yeah, I guess so.”

    “Well, there you go.”

    “You want me to be comfortable… taking, not just giving.” Jim nods, a little uncertain.

    “That’s right. Not just in bed, either. I mean– in life. I want you to feel like it’s okay to want things. To have things. Things no one gets to take away from you– things that are yours.”

    “Yeah, but…”

    Alex hears the question Jim can’t make himself ask– what if someone takes those things away from him anyway?

    “No one gets to take away what’s yours.” He leans in, pressing a kiss over Jim’s heart. “No one. And if anyone ever tries, I’ll fight for you. Because you get to have things, good things.”

    “You’re my good thing.”

    “And no one’s taking me away from you– when we’re apart, I’m gonna miss you… I’m gonna be yours still. But Iggy, sunshine… I’m not your only good thing. I want you… to fill up your whole life with good things. They don’t all have to be material possessions, but I mean… some of them are going to be. They’re going to be things you get to keep and use and enjoy… and when I come join you, you’re going to show me your new place, and you’re going to show me… your favorite chair, or your favorite coffee mug, your favorite… picture on the wall. Okay?”

    “Yeah.”

    “No one’s taking anything away from you– not ever again, not while I’m around. Okay?”

    “I believe you.” Jim nods, and draws him in to be kissed.

    He holds him a long moment after, holds him tight and trembles under and around him, and hides his face against Alex’s hair and breathes, shaky but deep. 

    When he’s ready to let Alex go again, Alex kisses his way down Jim’s throat, over his chest. 

    Does the armpit licking thing. 

    Really likes the armpit licking thing.

    Spends kind of an embarrassingly long time with his nose in Jim’s armpit just smelling him, actually. During which time, they wind up breathing in sync again for a while, which is probably all very weird, but the way Jim smells turns him on like crazy and the way Jim is warm and willing, not just to do everything he can to make Alex feel good, but willing to roll over and be vulnerable and venerated himself… 

    And the breathing, whatever that’s about, it doesn’t hurt.

    “I think I’m overwhelmed.” He moans, continues to massage at Jim wherever his hands wind up– right now, his stomach and one tricep. “You know, with desire for you? To, um…”

    “To enter you, as a pilgrim to your temple?”

    “Yeah, that. Pilgrim, temple.” He nods, licking Jim again. “God, I want you…”

    “Okay.” Jim nods. “I’m gonna get you ready–”

    “No, no, Jim, I’m ready.”

    “You don’t want me to, uh…” Jim licks his lips. 

    “I want you entering me.”

    “I was gonna warm you up a little with that tongue thing you like…”

    “Oh. Well… yeah. Okay. I mean, I just… I just want you. It can be the tongue thing. I feel pretty warmed up, but I’m not complaining about the tongue thing.”

    “Good. See, I want you to have, uh… several orgasms.”

    “Again, not trying to knock me out so I sleep through dinner, but uh… not complaining about several orgasms, either.”

    “Good. I mean, if you were gonna complain, I guess we could stop after one, but it’d be less… you know.”

    “Yeah.” He rolls over, running a hand through Jim’s hair as he moves to settle between Alex’s thighs, kissing his way up– and Alex isn’t sure if the kisses are wet or he is, or both, but either way, Jim is anything but shy about enjoying himself. 

    He traces his tongue around every contour, opening Alex up slow with it, tasting him. Savoring him, if the moaning is anything to go by. He slides a finger in, finds that spot to massage at that makes him crazy. That spot, plus the way his tongue circles Alex’s clit, giving him something that feels like too much and not enough all at once until the orgasm hits him. And then Jim is pressing in at that spot and sucking hard at his clit and he’s still coming, and he doesn’t have to be quiet about it.

    “Feeling pretty uninhibited, huh?” Jim grins up at him from between his thighs, licking his lips and then his fingers. He laughs softly when Alex grabs for his discarded shirt and uses it to wipe away some of the mess from his face. “Didn’t know you could, uh… make that much noise.”

    “Was it a lot of noise? I didn’t notice.”

    “You screamed a little.” He nods. “I liked it. And when you pulled my hair.”

    “Oh– I didn’t mean to.”

    “No, it was good. It wasn’t too hard.” He promises. “You were… I liked it. And, uh… do you feel– do you feel venerated?”

    “I feel venerated.” He nods. “C’mere… come up here, what about you?”

    “I feel good.” Jim lets Alex draw him up into his arms– he keeps enough weight off of him not to crush him even as he relaxes into his chest, pressing soft little kisses there, nuzzling warmly at him. Making his way up from the center of his chest, his throat, to kiss his face and slide home into him. 

    “That’s good.” Alex sighs.

    “I’ll pull out and put the condom on when we change positions.” He says, and Alex hadn’t even been thinking about a condom. Right now, it’s all the same to him, as long as they’re together, as long as Jim is in him. He feels right, right now, just having Jim in him. Feeling him hold still and breathe with him and fill him. Feeling Jim cover him and surround him. 

    “I love you.” He strokes his hair, his back, gentle first before he holds him hard again. “I’m keeping you.”

    “You’re keeping me.” Jim says, and he starts to move.

    “Oh god– oh…”

    “You’re keeping me.”

    “Yeah– yeah.”

    “You’re keeping me.”

    It isn’t the same explosive thing it is when Jim is working his clit, but it’s definitely an orgasm, and it’s unexpected after having just come. He’s still trembling with the aftershocks when Jim pulls out, and it’s funny the way that being flipped around and manhandled into a new position doesn’t feel the way he thinks you’d imagine. If he had imagined it, before Jim, he wouldn’t think of it as feeling very good. Physically exciting, maybe, but he would have thought it would make him feel… too small, maybe, or too feminine, or like an object or a toy instead of a partner. That it wouldn’t make him feel like a man. But when Jim moves him, he feels safe. He feels special. He feels like a man, just… a man who another, bigger, stronger man wants to take care of things for. He treats him carefully, but he still handles him like he can take it like a man– he isn’t rough, but he’s not holding back and moving him like he’ll break. He’s treating him…

    He’s treating him like Alex, who said he liked it when Jim did this with him, for him. Jim listened to him, and now he’s giving him something he said he liked. That feels good.

    He hears him fumbling with the condom, and he sits back up and turns around so he can help him with it, giving him a quick kiss before getting back into position on knees and elbows. 

    “Thank you, honey.” Jim kisses his back, kisses his way from between Alex’s shoulders down to his tailbone, and then he drives into him, uses the grip he has on Alex’s waist to pull him back onto his cock on each thrust. It’s not fast, but there’s a power behind it that makes him feel pleasantly dizzy.

    One hand slides up under his chest, and then they’re moving together, and then he’s being pulled back to sit astride Jim’s lap again, gravity doing the work of driving Jim deeper.

    “Oh… oh fuck, oh, wow, you just picked me up and… oh, Jim…”

    “Yeah… yeah…”

    He melts back into Jim’s chest, into the arms around him, reaching back so he can get a hand nice and firm in his hair. He can’t move himself, his legs feel too much like jelly, everything is so much, but for long moments, Jim doesn’t move him, either. Just holds him, right there. Just feels the way Alex clenches around him and holds him tight.

    “You feel… really big like this.”

    “You feel perfect.” He groans, nuzzling at Alex’s hair, until he can find his ear to nibble at. “Alex… Alex…”

    He can feel him, he can feel the way even when they’re holding still, they’re moving, each pulse and twitch of muscle between them. He can feel him breathing deep against his back, the way his hands flex and tighten against him…

    “You’re in me so deep.”

    “You’re so tight…”

    “Jim?”

    “Yes?”

    “I’m keeping you. Okay? When you have to go… remember this?”

    “You’re keeping me…” He swallows. His hands both come up to Alex’s chest. “I’ve never been kept…”

    “I’m keeping you. I’m keeping you.”

    “You’re keeping me.” He presses his cheek to the side of Alex’s head and he toys with his nipples until he’s squirming, until he can’t tell if he needs more or less, until he’s clenching down around him and coming, and Jim is breathing hot against his ear…

    “Do you want me to keep this going, or did you want to make me come?”

    As naturally interested as Alex is in just how long Jim thinks he can keep this going, he’s not sure how much more he can take.

    “I really want you to come.”

    “Okay, good. Good… I want that.” He kisses Alex’s neck, his shoulder, and carefully lifts him up and off, so he can lay him down on his side, so he can slide back into him. “Fast okay?”

    “Yeah, fast is okay. Hey– hey, take what you need, okay? You’ve been giving and giving, I want you to get what you need, too.”

    “I had fun giving.” He says, sweet– almost bashful, like he hasn’t been giving Alex brand new, previously unimagined kinds of orgasms. 

    “Well… let me give you something, then.”

    “You’re giving me everything.”

    “Let go, sunshine. I want you to come.”

    He’d thought he’d been prepared for letting go, but he should have realized, he’s never been prepared for anything with Jim, all he can do is hold on and enjoy finding out. The tight self control he’s kept up so far vanishes. The way his face slackens in pleasure is a lot like when Alex had been massaging his shoulders, but he is pounding into him, not the way he had before, where he was measured and careful. It’s like a jackhammer he’s barely hanging onto any control of, and it’s so, so much. Little sounds stutter out of him, mindless, rising in pitch and volume as Jim carries them both over that ledge. Time ceased to have any kind of meaning a while ago, but it still feels like maybe it’s stretched out.

    Jim doesn’t stop touching him, in the afterglow. His hands are everywhere, the two of them gasping for breath, dripping with sweat… Alex has been drooling, and his thighs are sticky with his own drying… fluids. And he should feel gross, but the only thing he feels is that he wishes he was covered in Jim’s come instead of his own. 

    “We… need a shower so bad.”

    “Yeah. Think it might help you wake up?” Jim teases, his smile sweet. His softening cock still buried to the hilt. He grinds into him one last time, with a little groan that might be as much discomfort as pleasure. “You feel so good…”

    “Yeah, I feel fantastic.” 

    “I love you… so much. I wish I didn’t have to go.”

    “So do I… but I’m keeping you anyway.”

    “You’re keeping me.”

Chapter Text

    Without the shower, Alex thinks he probably would have fallen asleep, and he doesn’t think he’s going to have any trouble with it tonight. He feels… well, okay, he’s definitely still feeling it, and they’re both kind of getting used to walking again when the phone call comes.

    His dad offers to pick them up and work out how to ferry everyone home, but Alex can drive now, he’s had enough sleep that he’s not a danger on the road, and he is awake enough despite how well he’s been fucked. 

    And, he misses being behind the wheel of his own car. He’s got to consider whether he’s planning on keeping it or not, after school… he’d have to drive five hundred miles, it might be better to let Jennifer buy it off him used and then fly out to Jim. She’d wrangled the use of it out of him when he’d been too sleep deprived to drive or put up much of an argument, in exchange for picking up some of the housework he’d normally have done and promising to keep it gassed up, which he hadn’t minded when he’d thought he wasn’t going to do anything but try and sleep… 

    Well, it had all worked out. He’d mostly got his own car back for Jim to drive, and when she did make off with it early, they still made it work. But it’s nice to get to drive them this time, to get to let Jim just relax and look out the window, take everything in.

    Dinner is really nice, when they get there, photos are taken and laughs are had, and Jim fights to cover the check for a while until Alex and his parents manage to convince him that he can’t pay for his own goodbye dinner. 

    “So… was it a good last day?”

    “Well… yeah.” Jim nods, blushing, glancing over at Alex. 

    “I wish I could drive you to the airport.” He reaches over, giving Jim’s knee a pat under the table. 

    “No, I get it. You’d, uh… you wouldn’t want to make a scene at the gate. I wouldn’t want to leave.”

    “I just think, there’s a side of ourselves that we don’t need to share with an entire airport full of people. You know? Stuff that I’d rather be… just between us.” He shrugs, blushing a little. “Plus I have classes.”

    “Oh, now there’s stuff you’d rather keep just between the two of you.” Mallory teases.

    “If you had knocked–” He hisses

    “If you had locked–”

    “Wow, Mallory, you really do lead a charmed life. You–”

    “We don’t need to discuss what happened at the dinner table, Jennifer.” Alex cuts her off, face heating further. “And especially not in a restaurant.”

    “Well, I didn’t know she opened the door on everything.”

    “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Alex. This is not a conversation we need to have ever.”

    “You can’t blame me for being curious.”

    “Yes I can!” Alex and Mallory say in unison.

    “How you two wound up being such prudes, I’ll never know.” She shakes her head.

    “I’m going to miss this.” Jim admits, voice soft.

    “Me fighting with my sisters?”

    “How much you still really care about each other when you do.”

    “Oh. Yeah. Well, any time you want to hear them be mean to me, I’m sure they’d be happy to pick up the phone in the other room and say something really embarrassing while I’m trying to talk to you.”

    “Okay.” Jim smiles. “Yeah.”

    “I like Jim, actually.” Jennifer says. “He has my blessing.”

    Alex can’t even complain. Jim looks too happy to get it.

    “I like Jim.” Andy offers, reaching over to tug at Alex’s sleeve and mostly not getting butter on his shirt. 

    “Thanks, buddy, so do I. Hey, here, napkin– come on.” He dips a corner of his napkin into his water glass, taking Andy’s hand, gently getting him as clean as it is possible to. “Don’t put your hands down in your plate… there you go, how’s that? All better.”

    “Just a reminder that I’m too young to be a grandmother.” His mom whispers to Jim, sitting at his other side. Not so quietly that Alex doesn’t hear. 

    He looks over to see Jim looking at him, absolutely besotted. He’s suddenly super aware of his own heart beating. Suddenly aware of his entire body.

    Okay, so maybe Jim is… not uninterested in parenthood. Not that it’s a thing that’s happening any time soon and not that Alex plans on being pregnant for it! But it’s a discussion for someday.

    It’s a thought he doesn’t quite shake until they leave the restaurant and head for home, and other thoughts take over after Andy’s put to bed. The melancholy of only having this one last night, the combination of pleasure and embarrassment when the camera is out again at the house and his dad suggests taking a couple of pictures of the two of them together, where they can actually look like a couple, instead of just two people in a group out to dinner together, who happen to be next to each other when the waiter gets a picture of the whole family.

    The fact that he winds up sitting on the couch for it, tucked up against Jim’s side with an arm around his shoulders does not lessen the part of him that’s embarrassed. The awareness now that Jim had been turned on, if uncertain about whether he’d actually seen what he’d definitely seen. That they’d both been sitting there just trying to deal with wanting each other, though Jim’s arm had only been along the back of the couch then and not around him, and it’s not like they haven’t sat on the couch since, and been relatively normal about it.

    It has him preoccupied and flushed, as a couple of pictures are snapped, one where Jim is leaning down and kissing his cheek, and he hears the shutter again as he turns and buries his face in Jim’s shoulder. 

    “I can’t believe this is my life.” He laughs. Or groans. Somewhere between those two.

    “I can’t believe this is mine.” Jim says, and it lodges in Alex’s heart, just what a long, strange trip it’s been for him. All the years he spent without a home and a family, being brought into this one, and somehow instead of losing two friends over the decision to date their twenty-three year old son, he’s just part of the family now. A really, really good family to be a part of.

    Well, Alex guesses he’ll be twenty-four when he and Jim are back together, but it doesn’t seem like that much of a difference.

    “I don’t think any of us can quite believe that this is our life, but… here we are.” Alex’s dad shrugs, setting the camera down on the coffee table. “And… I have to admit, you two are… cute, together. Which is not something I expected I’d ever be saying, about my son and someone I knew in the sixties, but...”

    “But they kind of are.” His mom agrees. “I mean, look at Alex.”

    “I’m not cute.” Alex protests, still half-crammed into Jim’s shoulder.

    “We’re adorable.” Jim squeezes him. 

    “You’re cute, I’m not cute.”

    “You’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

    “Take me to bed.” He sighs. “God– not– I’m just– I’m catching up on sleep! I want to be up in the morning to say goodbye before I have to go to class.”

    “You’re allowed to have sex.” His mom reminds him.

    “I know I am, but tonight I just need to sleep. Really.” 

    “Okay. Sleep well, you two.”

    “If you do change your minds, just… slide a pillow or a towel behind the headboard.” His dad adds. “So you don’t wake Mallory.”

    “I’m going to pass out the second I’m horizontal– how do you know that?”

    “About Mallory? She did mention sharing a wall.”

    “About muffling the headboard? Think of all the times we haven’t woken you.”

    “Forget I asked.”

    “Come on.” Jim helps him up to his feet. “I’ve got you.”

    “You know… you don’t have to go to sleep this early. If you wanted to watch TV and come up later, I really don’t think you’ll wake me.” He offers. “It is… pretty early for everyone who’s been able to sleep all week.”

    “I don’t mind. I like watching you sleep. Not in a weird way.” He frowns a little. “Just… you couldn’t, and now you can, so I like seeing you sleep a little.”

    “Not in a weird way. Hey… thanks to you.”

    “Well.” He ducks his head, with a little laugh. “Yeah, okay. I guess thanks to me. Would it bug you if I used the, uh, the desk lamp, while you slept?”

    “I won’t even notice.”

    “Then I’ll go up now.”

    They go up and change together, a thing he wishes he’d had time to get used to doing before they’ll have to go back to… well, to changing clothes five hundred miles apart.

    “You look cozy.” He smiles, tugging Jim in close by his waist. 

    “You picked ‘em out.” 

    “But you like them, right?”

    “Yeah. My last pair of pajamas were in a fire.”

    “Oh. Oh. God– I mean, obviously you’re okay, just… when was that?”

    “Dunno… few years back. Few years back. I just never… Most the clothes I have, during the day I’d hang ‘em out on the extension cord, you know, running over to get electricity from the next building? If they don’t know you’re running a power cord, you can get electricity.”

    “How long did your brother leave you in a condemned building?”

    “I don’t really know. While, I guess.”

    “You deserve better.” He holds him tight, head resting on his shoulder. “You deserve so much better.”

    “Well, there’s a new place now.”

    “Yeah. Just… you deserve to not have… to not have been left alone like that. For him to have either taken care of you or not fought you on the inheritance and let you take care of yourself. You shouldn’t have been waiting for someone to notice you weren’t okay.”

    “I’m okay.”

    “If anyone else was living alone in a condemned building while their family took control of their lives and didn’t help them, would you call it okay?”

    “I’m not anybody else, Alex. I’m used to it. I’ve had it pretty good, on the whole. At least… the good stuff in my life, it outweighs the bad.”

    “It just feels like I keep finding out that every horrible thing that could happen to a person has happened to you.”

    “Maybe. But a lot of good things have happened to me, too. I’ve had a lot of love come into my life. I’ve been given a lot of chances to give love. I’ve… I’ve been taken care of in all the ways that the people around me could. I’ve had experiences I wouldn’t trade. I’ve traveled around a little– enough. I… I’m okay.”

    “If it happened to me, you wouldn’t call any of it okay.”

    “It wouldn’t happen to you.” He presses a kiss into Alex’s hair. “Your family wouldn’t… they wouldn’t let half what happened to me happen to you.”

    “Don’t… don’t pretend, that it’s okay when it’s not. Okay? I know right now you’re okay, but don’t– okay?”

    “Okay.” Jim squeezes him tight. “I’m not trying to, I just… All I know is I’m okay now. And if I wasn’t before, I don’t see why it matters, I guess, I… Isn’t now enough?”

    “I don’t know. I just… wish I could make things better for you.”

    “You do.”

    “Is it enough? Fires and condemned buildings and… reptile houses…”

    “Just one reptile house.”

    “Is what you have now so good that every bad thing that happened just… doesn’t matter?”

    “Yes. What I have now… it’s worth everything else. What I have now, it’s so good I don’t know what to do with it. You… your folks. This place I’m moving into. Jim’s Mario’s.”

    “Jim’s Mario’s?”

    “The restaurant. Mario’s. Now it’s mine, so…”

    “Jim’s Mario’s.” Alex smiles. 

    “I didn’t think it oughta be just Jim’s, when it’s…”

    “Mario’s, right.”

    “Right.”

    “It was Mario’s when you met your friends there. So… it’s still Mario’s, just…”

    “Jim’s.”

    “Right. When I come to New York… I’ll help you manage Jim’s Mario’s. I’ll help you take care of whatever needs to get taken care of. And you’ll take care of me. And I’ll take care of you. And… I’ll try not to worry about all the times it hasn’t been okay. It’ll be okay when I’m there.”

    “Yeah. We– we’ll be together. In a home. You’ll… you’ll be there, and it’ll be okay.”

    “You’ll be okay until I get there, too. But I’ll do what I can to make it better.”

    Jim nods, or maybe rubs his cheek against Alex’s head like a cat. It’s hard to be sure. 

    They hold each other a little longer, before Alex really does need to lie down and let sleep claim him. Jim sits beside him, playing with his hair as he settles.

    “Iggy…” He reaches for him, drawing him down to be kissed. Gives him a look that he hopes is more bedroom eyes than pathetic pouting, but might be… not that. “Sing to me?”

    “You know, I used to be good at it. Singing. I think.”

    “I like listening to you now.”

    “Okey-doke.” He presses a kiss to Alex’s forehead, strokes his cheeks, traces a fingertip across his lips. “Asked a girl what she wanted to be, she said baby, can’t you see? I wanna be famous, a star on the screen, but you can do something in between… Baby you can drive my car, yes I’m gonna be a star, baby you can drive my car, and maybe I’ll love you…”

    Alex’s eyes slip closed, and when they open again, he’s in Jim’s arms, and it’s morning, and he’s not ready for it to be morning. He cuddles into him, holding on tight like that could… make it less morning, somehow. Feels the way Jim strokes his hair, his back.

Chapter Text

    “All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go… I’m standing here outside your door… I hate to wake you up to say goodbye. The dawn is breaking, it’s early morn, the taxi’s waiting, he’s blowing his horn, already I’m so lonesome I could die…” Jim sings, soft, and Alex doesn’t think it’s just early morning roughening his voice. He can feel his own breath hitching. “So kiss me and smile for me, tell me that you’ll wait for me, hold me… hold me…”

    “Don’t.” Alex whispers. Doesn’t think either of them can take it. Jim can’t even finish the line…

    It doesn’t feel possible, that they’re here right now. That it’s already time, that that should mean something. How can it, like this? They met on a Friday night, then the following Thursday afternoon found them in bed together, and now it’s Monday and he can’t bear to see him go. 

    “What if I’m afraid?” Jim asks weakly.

    “You?”

    “I don’t know how to be in a real apartment. I don’t know how to be this kind of sober, and not have you.”

    “You don’t need me to take care of yourself.”

    “You’ve been filling my days. I haven’t had to sit alone without that haze over me… even clean. Even clean I wasn’t… like this. Head… mostly clear. Little… holes, sometimes, or… places where I gotta slow down if I want to find what I’m thinking about, but… mostly. I’m not afraid I’ll start using anything again, but I’m afraid I won’t take the right kind of care of myself. Afraid I’ll let you down.”

    “You won’t let me down. You won’t. Just keep drinking water, and if you haven’t had enough every day, I’ll still remind you. Jim… one or two days of getting a little dehydrated isn’t going to… You aren’t gonna be starting from square one, you know? It only took you a couple days to really feel better, right? Hey– we talked about this, right? It is scary, I know. I’m scared all the time. I’m so scared of failing, at anything, even things that don’t matter!”

    “How do you do it?”

    “Jim… baby, I don’t. You saw me. I couldn’t sleep for days because I was afraid of doing something that anyone else would call succeeding, but I– I’m messed up. And I can’t… I can’t just let myself take a win, I guess. I get insomnia, or panic attacks, or I faint, or I… god, I don’t even want to tell you all the ways I don’t handle being scared. I mean… if I wasn’t so scared of failing, I wouldn’t… You know?”

    He lifts his head, meets Jim’s eyes, sees the understanding there.

    “Beautiful boy…” He sighs, cupping Alex’s cheek, brushing away a tear. “I know. But I don’t know… what do I do without you?”

    “Come on… I’m gonna make sure you can do one thing without me. You’re going to make yourself an egg.”

    “I’m real bad in the kitchen.”

    “You can do this.”

    “There’s a good reason I don’t cook. More than one.”

    “I’ll be with you. I’ll be teaching you.” He promises, which is perhaps a lot of confidence for a guy who wasn’t sure he could make a sunny side up egg just the other day. Or, he wasn’t sure he could make one well. But he doesn’t think it’s really so much harder than doing them scrambled, when it comes down to it. 

    “I’ve never been taught how to cook.” He admits.

    “Never?”

    “I wasn’t supposed to need to learn how… and then I didn’t have any place to cook anyway. And in the communes, there was plenty of other work that they wanted me doing, and… I just never did.”

    “Okay, well… I can teach you to do one thing now. So… when you’re alone, waiting for me, in the new apartment, and you make eggs… it’ll be like I’m taking care of you. All right?”

    “Oh, like you’re taking care of me?”

    “That’s right. I’m your fella, you’re my guy, I take care of you, that’s the deal. A man takes care of his… other man.”

    “You’ve convinced me, Alex. Teach me your ways.” He grins, and lets himself be pulled out of bed.

    “Okay, well– When did you get another suitcase?”

    “Your folks dropped it off for me while you were sleeping. So I could pack the clothes.” He says. “Packed almost everything… guess you’ll have your drawer back, for a while.”

    “Yeah… yeah, I guess.”

    “Alex? I really did like having a drawer, with you.”

    “Yeah. Me, too.”

    “I’ll be sure to have drawers for you, when you come.”

    “Good. Save a couple hangers for me, too.”

    “You bet.”

    Downstairs, the two of them slowly go about making enough eggs sunny side up to feed the entire household. 

    “I became a speed freak.” Alex spits the words out then. It’s not news, but it’s different, having this whole conversation, than just telling Jim they’ve been in the same boat.

    “Sure, who hasn’t?”

    “I mean, I was so afraid of failure that– you know, that’s… that’s what I did. I thought I needed an edge, and… I didn’t trust myself. And I should have, because I know how smart I am. But I didn’t… I didn’t just trust myself, instead I got hooked, and… My parents pulled me out of that spiral, you know, they helped me kick it, but… for a little while after that, maybe they worried about my choices more. Fair, you know, I– I needed that. I didn’t think… I didn’t think anything could be worse than how I felt when it got out of control and I had to really look at myself.”

    “I know.” Jim nods.

    “There were… there were other decisions I made that… I mean, at the time, I just wanted– hell, I don’t know. I mean, you don’t need the rundown of every dumb mistake I made, most of which were more related to being seventeen going on eighteen than they were to being just barely clean. I wanted to… I wanted to be grown up already, I wanted to drink... I wanted to… I don’t know. I did some of the kinds of things that scare parents, I guess. Not all the things that scare parents, but some. The same as anybody does at that age, probably, I just had a problem not everyone had. And… then Uncle Ned came back.”

    “How was Ned?”

    “Uh… bad.” He blows out a sigh, taking a plate over to the table now that every egg in the house has been fried. “He was bad. He was… drinking. A lot. And– and that’s when I saw from the outside, you know, what… what it’s like. Someone you love becoming a person who– who scares you.”

    “Oh.” Jim reaches out, rubbing gently at his arm. 

    “And that was when it really hit me, that… this was something that’s in me. In both of us, and I always… He was the one person in the family who made me feel like I knew who I was, how I belonged. I mean, if he could be my mom’s brother, then I could be her son. And I was going to be just like him. And… there we both were. And what if I scared Jen the way Ned scared me, or Mallory? I put them through it once and I couldn’t… And so I have to watch myself, with everything. My dad, you know, he respects how I felt about not wanting to take something to sleep, but I know he thinks… it’s so different, it’s like the opposite, and… I don’t know. I guess I’d rather let him think I’m overcautious, than have him know I… I’m just always going to have a problem, and it could be with anything.”

    “Your dad wouldn’t love you any less.”

    “I know. I know. So why am I scared to say this is how bad I could be?”

    “I don’t know. It really can be anything, though, that’s true… I mean, I’ve been a dope fiend, a speed freak, a drunk, a gambler… a… guy who really, really likes LSD. And for a while, I had Pac Man fever. At least when I was into dope, I’d stop sometimes to eat and sleep. Just… wired to latch onto something. But, today, I made eggs. And tomorrow… I’ll buy eggs in my new apartment. And every day… I just keep choosing to eat three times a day. Drink enough water. Not get back on drugs. I’ve been doing one of those things long enough, I just… People think that fixes things, I thought that– I mean, that’s it, right? You get clean and it fixes things, but…”

    “Getting clean doesn’t fix the thing that… that puts you there.” Alex nods. “I mean, genetic predisposition aside, I’m always going to be afraid to fail. I’m always going to want to do better, I’m always… I’m always going to think I should be able to push myself harder than I can– than anyone can.”

    “I never learned how to say no and mean it. And I was under so much pressure… everything I loved was something I had to be good at, and my good needed to be perfect, and I had my future laid out for me. And I was… I had these dreams. I had these dreams about running for something… there’d be this voice in my head saying this is what it was all for. Either I would manage to run fast enough to… to reach the finish line and get whatever I was running for– and I never knew what it was gonna be, or if I’d even want it once I got it– or… I don’t know. Pain. That I’d be a disappointment and I’d have put myself through it all for nothing and maybe it’d just hurt not to win, but I didn’t know what I was trying to win at. I didn’t know if I was racing against anyone, or trying to beat my own time, or just running and if I was fast enough I’d just get there on time to find something. I just knew there were consequences to stopping. And I didn’t want to hurt. I needed it to not hurt, if I just took a little rest. And then I found something that made me feel like I didn’t need to keep running at all, and… and as long as I stayed there, it didn’t hurt. Until it did, and I needed something better… something new… just something.”

    Alex reaches up, cupping Jim’s cheek. Sits there with him, getting it. He’d leaned into that feeling, of being unable to stop, of needing to be perfect, Jim had been running away from it. They’d both wound up here. 

    “Good morning, you two. Oh– eggs, on a Monday?” Alex’s dad greets, getting the kettle.

    “A lot of eggs on a Monday.” His mom adds, coming over to drop a kiss into his hair before moving off to make toast. “Morning, sweetheart. Morning, Jim.”

    “Morning. We had a cooking lesson.” Jim shrugs. “I, uh… I wasn’t a very confident student.”

    “I wasn’t a very confident teacher.” Alex admits. “I usually scramble. But I think we really came out okay.”

    “Uh-huh. I notice you’re eating around your yolks the way you did when you were five.”

    “I’m watching my cholesterol.”

    “Your cholesterol is fine.”

    “It’s never too early to start. You know, better to get in the habit early.”

    “Well… as long as you’re not working yourself up about it… Alex, I really don’t want you to worry about your health when you’re perfectly healthy.” His dad pats his shoulder, lets his hand rest there. “I mean, I’m allowed the occasional egg yolk.”

    “And so am I, occasionally. When they’re scrambled.” 

    “Good, good.” He nods. “Why aren’t your eggs scrambled?”

    “That would have defeated the whole point of the cooking lesson. While I’m here and Jim’s there, he doesn’t have to know how to make eggs the way I eat them, he has to know how to make eggs the way he eats them.”

    “Got it. Well, the eggs all look great. If breakfast is handled, I’ll go get your brother up… I think we can put down half a banana lengthwise on the plate and sell him on eating at least some of a smiley face before the preschool carpool.”

    “I’ll slice the banana.” His mom volunteers. “Do you want honey on your toast?”

    “Sounds divine. Back down in a minute… I hope. He hasn’t let me put him in anything but that one pair of overalls in three days, so… wish me luck.”

    “Tell Andy I want us to match today, I don’t own overalls.” Alex says. “He’ll have to choose between jeans and slacks.”

    “You really think that’s going to work?”

    “That’s how we got him out of the turtle pajamas last Christmas.” His mom shrugs.

    “Oh, he was in the turtle pajamas twenty four-seven… They were more gravy than turtle after Christmas dinner. That’s how we did it?”

    “That’s how I did it. Let’s not pretend the turtle pajamas were a team victory.”

    “You know, when you’re a parent, it’s not going to be all turtle pajamas. And if you’re letting Andy choose what the two of you wear, be prepared for mismatched socks.”

    “Andy knows I don’t do mismatched socks.” Alex waves a hand, and tries not to think about when you’re a parent. That’s not a week one conversation. “Just let him know I’m trusting him to pick what we wear today, he’ll do a good job.”

    “You’re a good brother.” Jim nudges Alex’s foot with his own, gentle.

    “I don’t know… The kid makes it easy to be, maybe. Or it took me a couple tries to get it right.”

    “Just makes me wonder, if I’d been better with Tom growing up… would we be different now? Would I… or would he? But… we were too close to the same age for me to look after him like that, and not close enough to want to do all the same things together… Maybe I felt like I didn’t need a little brother when I had Lila, he came along so soon after her that she was still… People’d mistake them for twins for a while, growing up, and… and neither of them could really miss Mom. Tom never knew her. Lila wouldn’t remember her. I dunno. But I think if I’d done… more, then it’d be different.”

    “Yeah. Maybe. But that’s not on you. I mean, if you ask Mallory or Jennifer, do you think either of them is going to tell you I’m an exemplary brother? They’re not. Because I was two when Mal was born. Seven when Jen was. With Andy, I’m… you know, I can be a third grown-up for him in a way I wasn’t before. And that’s not my fault. That’s just… how it is. When you’re a kid yourself, you’re figuring it all out still. And… you were dealing with a lot, even then. And he shouldn’t be holding it against you now if you were a kid with your own problems.”

    “Alex is right.” His mom adds, coming over to put Andy’s plate on the table, along with a cup of juice. “Whatever is going on with your brother… it’s not because you didn’t do enough when you were children. It’s not because of you at all, not really. That’s not the impression I got, anyway. Oh– morning, girls. Do you know how your father’s coming along with things upstairs?”

    “He managed to get the overalls into the laundry hamper.” Jennifer reports. “Who made eggs?”

    “I made eggs.”

    "Why aren’t they scrambled?”

    “Do you want eggs or not? I got up early on a school morning to make a hot breakfast for you kids, this is the thanks I get.”

    “Thank you, Alex.” His sisters chorus, more than a little amused, maybe, and he does not need his hair ruffled and shoulder shoved at in passing, but… 

    It is nice. He gets what his mom means, it feels good feeding your family sometimes. Not because anyone expects you to do it all the time, just because you can be the one to take care of them when it’s your turn.

    He and Jim move into the other room, once they’re done, so they can take some time just to hold onto each other, Jim swaying him gently in his arms. 

    “I’ll call you tonight.”

    “Yeah.” Alex lays his head on Jim’s shoulder, breathes him in. He’s going to miss that, the blend of familiar laundry detergent and fabric softener and soaps with Jim, Jim, Jim. That warm morning skin musk. “I want to hear about your flight, your new place…”

    “I’ll tell you about anything you want.”

    “Tell me… tell me I’ll be okay.”

    “You will be. You’re sleeping good. I’ll call you. You’ve got a picture of me… You’ve also got a family here that loves you. And I’ll be waiting for you.” He promises. “Tell me I’ll be okay, too?”

    “You will be. You’re taking care of yourself. I’ll call you. I’ll send you pictures of us. And you’ve got a family here that loves you, too. And I’ll be coming, soon as I can.” Alex kisses his neck, nuzzles into the hollow of his throat. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

    “I’m going to miss you.”

    “Alex!” Andy barrels into his legs, breaking up the party.

    “Sorry for interrupting. Sweetheart, come on– breakfast, before carpool.”

    “That’s okay. What are we wearing today?” He breaks away, hefting Andy up onto one hip. “You’re gonna be too big for me to pick up if you keep growing… The blue plaid, huh? Good choice, really brings out our eyes. Okay, go eat your breakfast, I’ll get dressed.”

    He sets him down and sends him running towards the kitchen, before turning back to Jim. 

    “Alex, if I don’t catch you before you head to class, have a good day at school, thanks for breakfast, I’ll get Jim to the airport.” His dad squeezes his shoulder in passing. “Jim, no real rush, we’ve got plenty of time for you to finish packing, double check you’ve got all your stuff.”

    “Okey-doke.”

    “C’mon, I’ll help you pack.”

    “Pretty sure the only things I’ve got left are my pajamas and my toothbrush.”

    “Well… I’ll help you pack those, then.” Alex leans up, kiss landing somewhere in the vicinity of Jim’s chin, though at that point Jim gets the picture and leans down to meet him for another. Not too deep, standing in the living room, but a nice kiss. 

    They hop in the shower together, one last opportunity just to get his hands everywhere, to enjoy the shape of Jim, long and lean, with just enough softness to him. Just enough of everything to him, really– just enough soft and just enough hard and just enough hairy and just… perfect. A man, and Alex is allowed to like that about him, and…

    Okay, more than just enough of some things. One thing. 

    Alex is allowed to like that about him, too.

    “I think it’s clean.” Jim says, starting to fill out in Alex’s hands.

    “Well, good, because I wanted to put my mouth on it. I mean– do you want that? One more for the road?”

    “Oh… yeah.” He nods, looks at Alex with that open awe again. Like every time he gets to have him is some brand new miracle. “I’d want– yeah. I’d like that a lot.”

    “Mm, I can tell.” He smiles, lets Jim give him a hand getting down on his knees without slipping. “This is just for you, okay? No feeling selfish, no trying to be anything or do anything– right now, this is just about me making you feel good, and I want you to enjoy it. And I want you to come. Like, that’s kind of the point right now. No holding back.”

    “Oh, okay.” Another nod, and a look of even greater awe, that little smile he gets when he’s given anything at all. “You got it.”

    For a while, Alex has both hands on Jim at all times– one stroking him to full hardness, the other cupping his balls, fascinated by the weight of them, the way it feels to roll them in his palm a little, the way Jim groans if he gives them a tentative tug. Both hands traveling up and down his thighs while Alex runs his tongue over every inch of his cock. One hand braced against a thigh and the other stroking his cock so he can lean down and get his mouth on his balls instead for a minute. He lets himself explore even more, this time, everything about making Jim feel good firing him up.

    And then… then he has one hand on Jim, and one on himself, and he’s too focused on having as much of Jim in his mouth as he can get to even think about the fact that he’s getting himself off, too. He’s not thinking about how it feels for his hand or what it is he’s touching, or how fast he can finish so that he can get the gross viscous feeling off of his fingers. He’s just feeling good with Jim. 

    “Come on me.” He begs, pulling off to try and catch his breath, except he’s so close himself, and Jim’s hand wraps around his, the other still stroking through his hair, and Alex has never been able to make himself feel as good as he feels right now, Jim’s release hitting his chest, with his hair being played with…

    He pushes himself over the edge as he smears Jim’s come across his skin, pushes his fingers into his mouth and tastes it, muffles a noise he’s never made himself make before.

    Jim cleans him up tenderly, in the shared afterglow, washes his chest and his hands, pulls him to his feet and washes his thighs.

    “I would have taken care of you, you know…”

    “I know you would have. But, uh… I normally can’t– When I touch myself, like that, it’s… bad. And this was really good. And… you helped, with that. You made it good.”

    “Oh.” He smiles. “Okay. Well… I’m glad it was good. I’m glad you can make yourself feel good now.”

    Alex isn’t sure if it’s something he can just do for himself from now on, or if it’s just something he could enjoy because they were together, but… at least now he knows it’s possible. And if he can get himself off in the shower but he feels a little gross washing himself off after, that’s fine. 

    “I’m gonna miss so much stuff we barely got to do.” He sighs, as Jim towels him off just to get to take care of him. “I’m going to miss just having you here…”

    “I’m going to miss you… Going to miss how it feels, just getting to hold you. How you look at me.”

    “How do I look at you?” 

    “You look at me… how people look at other guys. Like I’m somebody you want to look at for good. Sometimes you look at me…” He shakes his head, cupping Alex’s cheek in one big hand. “You look at me.”

    “You are somebody I want to look at for good. You look at me…”

    “Yeah?”

    “You look at me like I’m the rain. And the moon. And the grass.” He smiles, looping his arms around Jim’s neck. 

    “And a bird?”

    “And you love me.”

    “And I love you.” He nods. “I do love you.”

    “I love you. Hey… it’s– it’s not that long, right? I’ll be there soon… we can handle ourselves, it– it’ll be good for us.” Alex says, though he’s afraid he doesn’t sound very convincing. 

    “Just until this summer?” Jim nods. 

    They finish drying off, and Alex helps Jim dress, does up his shirt buttons in part to be able to take care of him, and in part just for the excuse to then smooth the fabric out over his chest, his shoulders… 

    “I’m keeping you.” Alex reminds him, holding him tight. “No matter how far apart we have to be for now, I’m keeping you, you’re kept. I love you, and I’m keeping you.”

    “You’re keeping me. I’m keeping you, too. Gonna make a place for you. Make sure it’s nice enough to keep you in.”

    “Yeah. A place for us, for keeps. You’re gonna be okay there waiting for me.”

    He helps Jim carry his bags downstairs, even though there are only two bags and he hardly needs the help. But it feels nice to, just to do one last thing for him. To kiss him goodbye one last time. Jim lifts him up off his feet in a hard hug before letting him head to class.

    It’s a weird day, he’s distracted all through it. Half the time being in love has him walking on air and half the time knowing they have to be apart has him dragging himself along. When he does head home at the end of it, he heads to drop his briefcase in his room and winds up flopping out on his bed, where there’s a pillow that still smells a little like Jim. Where he can reach over and find his photograph.

    He finds a folded piece of paper with it, which he knows wasn’t something he left there. 

You are the sweetness in my sorrow and the haven within my heart

I watch you sleep, the rise and fall, your soft mouth, your cheek

Brushed by the fringe of lashes, shadowed by cool evening

Staying up just to see you a minute more, knowing we must part.

You are my cool green forest, my bed of roses, my joy.

You are the welcoming somewhere I never knew I’d find.

If I was born beneath a wandering star that brought me to your door

So it brought me, so it brought me! Lucky me to find you!

You are my distant beacon and you are my constant moon

I find myself a happier man to wander nevermore.

    “Oh… Jim.” He sighs, and wishes he’d written a note, tucked it in his bag. Something. It wouldn’t be a poem, no, but it could have been something. A physical reminder he could go back to.

    He reads it over again, looks at the photo, before he heads back downstairs to do his reading there. And if he maybe pulls a chair up right next to the phone, so what?

    He picks up on the first ring. “Hello?”

    “Alex. It’s good to hear your voice”

    “Jim! How was your flight?”

    “Good. Good. I like the taking off part. And I got the window. No gremlins. How was your day?”

    “I found your poem. It’s beautiful. I wish I’d written you something, even if it wouldn’t be… you know. Anything like that. I could write to you– you got a mailing address for me? Are you at the new place?”

    “Oh– yeah. It’s, uh… well. It’s a lot to get used to. But the guys from work helped move my things in. Most of the furniture’s, uh, new… that’s not… not so bad, I guess. The bed’s real big. Feels kind of empty now, but… I think you’ll like it. Kitchen’s a lot to get used to. I don’t have much up on the walls yet. And there’s definitely room for your stuff in the closet. It’s a big place, real big place. Empty, but… yeah.”

    “It sounds great. It’s not going to feel so empty once you get some more things on the walls, pick out some stuff that makes it feel like home… I’ll send you copies of some photos soon. And it won’t feel too empty when I’m there, right?”

    “No. No, it won’t feel too empty then. You could fill this place up.”

    “You’re gonna be okay there?”

    “Yeah. It’s… a lot to get used to, but I will be. I will be.”

    “Good. I believe in you. I know a new place is gonna take some settling into, but you’ve got this. We’ve got this.”

    Alex copies down Jim’s mailing address, and the phone numbers for his new place and for Jim’s Mario’s, so he can reach him anywhere. Fills him in on his own day, unremarkable aside from the new condition that is missing Jim.

    “Call me back if you can’t sleep.”

    “It’ll be the middle of the night for you.” He laughs. “I’m not going to wake you up in the middle of the night. No– Jim, I love you, you need your sleep, too. I– I’ll be okay. If I can’t sleep… I have a photograph. And I have a poem. And… I have a package of chocolate chip cookies. And I’ll figure it out.”

    “If you’re sure. But you can always call me in the middle of the night if you really need to. I love you, too. I wouldn’t mind waking up if it was for you.”

    “Unless it’s a serious emergency, I am not waking you up in the middle of the night. But I promise if it is an emergency, I’ll call you. How’s that?”

    “That sounds fair. You’re gonna be okay tonight?”

    “Yeah. I think I am. I mean… maybe there’s one thing you could do for me, while I’ve got you?”

    “Anything.”

    “Sing to me?” He asks, toying with the phone cord and leaning back against the wall.

    “Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper ‘I love you’, birds singing in the sycamore tree, dream a little dream of me… Say ‘nighty-night’ and kiss me, just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me, while I’m alone and blue as can be, dream a little dream of me…”

    He closes his eyes and just listens to Jim sing. Even without the haze of sleep deprivation coloring his thoughts, he can’t help but think of Jim as the sunbeam he’s waiting to be found by. It’s going to be a long spring… but he’ll graduate, and he’ll go to New York, and they’ll be together. They’ll have a real life together. And it’s okay that Alex’s life isn’t going the way he planned it when he was a kid, it’s going the way he’s planning it now as an adult. It’s going somewhere good, there’s someone he loves in it who’s waiting for him. Someone who needs him just as much as he’s going to need.

    He hands the phone over when his mom comes in and asks if she can check in with Jim, too, moving over to the island where Mallory is helping her with dinner prep. 

    “You want a hand?”

    “That depends, are you offering to get out of dish duty?”

    “No. I’m just…” He shrugs, eyes straying back over to where his mom is on the phone, laughing at something Jim has said. “Offering.”

    “You really do love him, don’t you?” She passes over the cutting board, with half the vegetables left to chop. He gets to work.

    “I told you I did.”

    “Yeah, but… you really do.”

    “Yeah.”

    “And he’s not… he’s not a total flake?”

    “No. He… he was in a really bad place before. Even clean, he… he was used to not being okay. Or taken care of. And… he’s a lot better. I’ve seen him change. He’s still a little… you know. But that’s okay. He… he’s a really good guy, and he’s good for me. And I like knowing I’m good for him. We… we helped each other. And… Jim’s a sweetheart. And he loves me. And… I really like how it feels, with him.”

    “Don’t remind me.” She elbows him.

    “That’s not what I’m talking about, get your mind out of the gutter. I just mean being with him. Seeing the way he sees the world. He’s been through just about every bad thing I can think of and he’s still… he’s not afraid to be happy. Well, when I’m with him… I’m happy. When I’m with him, I guess… I notice, that the world’s a pretty good place. I don’t stress out as much, since knowing him.”

    “Well… then he’s got my blessing, too.”

    “Thanks, Mal.” He sets the knife aside, prep work done, and turns to hug her. “Really.”

Chapter Text

    “Hi, you’ve reached the Sunshine Cab Company. Possibly even on purpose. How can I direct your call?” 

    “Oh… uh, is Jim Ignatowski in today?” Alex asks, one arm wrapped around himself. He keeps counting his suitcases. “Don’t– don’t put him on if he is, just– if you can keep him there, and if I can get a cab to take me from LaGuardia to… well, you.”

    “Ah. Highly unorthodox, but I think we can accommodate you. Hang on a sec.”

    He listens to the sounds of the garage, trying to pick out Jim’s voice in the distant chatter. Second-guesses the whole surprise plan for the fiftieth time and then tells himself it’s too late now, and also, Jim likes surprises. Jim’s going to like this surprise.

    He irons out details with the voice on the other end of the phone. The wait is still excruciating, he keeps re-counting his suitcases just for something to do, but then the cab pulls up.

    “Alex Keaton, of the Columbus Keatons?” The driver greets, moving around to open the trunk, to help him with his bags.

    “Yeah. Yeah, that’s me. Jim talks about me?”

    “He does. Frequently. Alex Reiger, of the New York Reigers.” He offers Alex a handshake. “The other Alex.”

    “He’s mentioned. He talks about you all pretty glowingly.”

    “Well… that’s Jim. I’m not sure you can believe every nice thing he says, but… What did you do to him, anyway?”

    “What did I…?”

    “I mean, he’s still Jim, but he’s…” Reiger waves a hand. “More of him seems to be there, since he got back.”

    “Good. I’m glad. He’s seemed… mostly good, on the phone. I didn’t really do anything, though. He just needed some support to really get him on his feet and I had a week off and nothing to do… we spent a lot of time together.” Alex shrugs, getting the last of his bags into the trunk. “He just needed someone to make sure he was drinking enough water, eating enough food… I needed someone to help me get enough sleep.”

    “Well, whatever you did or didn’t do, it made a difference for Jim.”

    “He’s really doing okay?” Alex asks, as he gets settled into the back of the cab. He’s always seemed more or less fine when they talk, yeah, but it’s good to hear it from someone who sees him. It’s good to know that he’s also okay when he’s not talking to Alex.

    “He is. Whenever Mario’s isn’t open, he’s at the garage, I don’t think he’s really settled into the place his brother picked out– I mean, I don’t think he likes being there alone too much, but… I’d say he’s doing all right. It’s just taking him some time. Big change to get used to, having seen some of the places he’s lived before this one.”

    “What, uh… what has he said about me?”

    “Oh, you know. That you’re his muse and his inspiration and he’s wildly in love with you. Not news, I hope.”

    “No. No, not– I didn’t know if he was out at work or not.”

    “Well… I don’t think Jim ever considered himself ‘in’, but it did come as a bit of a shock to some people. But it hasn’t caused any problems, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Reiger assures him. “Everyone’s so used to accepting Jim for Jim that this was just… part of the whole package. And if you can’t accept the nicest guy you’re ever gonna meet, just because you find out he dates men as well as women, that’s your loss, that’s what I think about it. I mean… it’s not like we’ve never met a bisexual before!”

    It’s the first time someone’s said the word to him. No one in his family has made a big deal about Alex being… not straight. He’s just used ‘gay’ because he’s planning on settling down with a man. Because his relationships with girls have been complicated sometimes, and he doesn’t know what he feels about women as a whole, because he thought they were his only option. Hell, he doesn’t know what he feels about men as a whole, either, just because he knows he can find men who aren’t Jim attractive. And he doesn’t know if ‘bisexual’ is more right for him, or equally right, but it means something to know it’s just one of the options available to him. That there’s a word that other people use. 

    “So… um, it’s not going to be a problem if we’re…?”

    “Openly romantic? No, come on. You two have been apart for weeks, what, you’re just going to pretend you’re his new roommate, you’re gonna shake hands and say nice to see you? You’re going to surprise him at the garage and not let that man kiss you? No, no. This is going to be romantic.”

    “We’ve never kissed in public.” He admits.

    “The garage isn’t really ‘public’. You think a bunch of cabbies haven’t seen anything more scandalous than a couple of men kissing?”

    “I guess that’s a good point. And… this is New York. It’s… different.”

    “Sure. Look, no one’s asking you to be anything out on the street that you’re not ready to be, but in the garage… it’s just the people who work with Jim. And they’ve been listening to him talk about you since he got back. Folks are kind of curious to see how you’re real. I mean, Jim comes back, practically a new man, and he’s in love with a twenty-something year old wunderkind? I mean, I know Jim can be pretty… glowing, about people, but, uh…”

    “He is, yeah. I’m not sure how much he’s said…”

    “You’re some kind of genius?”

    “Well… yeah. Some kind.” Alex nods. 

    “He’s gone on about your eyes, he’s gone on about your lips, he’s gone on about your nose…”

    “I don’t know if my lips are actually anything to write home about, but… Jim is… um… I think ‘glowing’ just about sums it up, yeah.”

    “So how about you? What did you see in our Jim?”

    He has the feeling that he’s getting the kind of a talk that Jim’s brother and sister might never bother to give any prospective romantic partners. That he’s going to be judged based on how he answers, that there are right and wrong answers he could give.

    “When he first showed up, I didn’t really know what to think of him, but… he was sweet.” He says. “And kind of… I don’t know. He was just sweet. He drove me a little crazy, but he also made me laugh. And… he has a great smile. He’s… I could trust him with things. I could… watch him fall in love with the whole world. He’s cute. He treats me right.”

    “Glad to hear it. It’s good to see Jim happy… and with a little backbone, besides.”

    It’s good to hear that– that whatever else is going on, Jim is asserting himself even a little bit. 

    He ducks down in the back of the cab as it pulls back in at the garage, Reiger coming to a stop and getting out. 

    “Ignatowski, package for Jim Ignatowski!” He calls, opening the back door so Alex can awkwardly get out of the cab into a crouch. “Special delivery!”

    “For me?” Jim’s voice drifts over, and Alex springs up. “Alex?”

    “Iggy!” He runs into his arms, is lifted up and spun around. 

    “There’s someone else who calls Jim ‘Iggy’?” Someone asks– not that he sees who.

    “Sure. It’s a nickname with a height restriction– must be this short or shorter to call Jim ‘Iggy’.”

    “What are you doing here?” Jim asks, between kisses that cover every inch of Alex’s face. “I missed you… I love you…”

    “I missed you.” He laughs. “I love you. I wanted to surprise you.”

    “It worked!”

    “I can see that. Jim– sunshine, c’mon… let me look at you. You grew your hair out.”

    “Oh… yeah.” He pulls back, lets Alex see him. 

    “I like it.” He runs a hand through it. The extra length keeps it from sticking up quite as wildly, but there’s a certain amount that he thinks is unavoidable. Jim’s hair tends to defy gravity dirty or clean, short or long. It’s not nearly as long as it is in the old photo– Alex now has a copy of it, blown up and framed, in his suitcase– but it’s a good length on him. At least, it gives him more to play with, and he really likes the look Jim gets when he does… 

    “I like you liking it.”

    “Yeah, I can see that, too.” He gives Jim’s hair a playful tug, just to see the way his eyes roll back. Just to get swept into a real kiss. 

    “Hey– Ignatowski! No hanky-panky in the garage!”

    “Oh, lay off him, Louie. You know he’s been waiting on this long-distance thing to become no-distance.” Reiger says. 

    “Yeah, and that’s another thing.” Louie steps down from the… room? Office? From the space he’d been, and Alex isn’t used to looking down at very many adult men. He’s never actually been taller than another man. “Are we sure we like this guy? Are we sure we trust him?”

    Reiger snorts.

    “Jim’s happy, Louie.” Another guy says.

    “Jim’s lucid.” The woman, Alex recognizes, must be Elaine. “You just don’t like that you can’t take advantage of him anymore.”

    “Me? Take advantage? Nardo, you’re breaking my heart. I’m simply worried about him. I mean, how do we know this kid’s not in it for the money?”

    “I don’t think he’s with Jim for his money.” Reiger says.

    “Jim’s happy.”

    “Sure, he’s with him for his sparkling wit and intelligence, his good looks.” Louie scoffs.

    “I mean, among other things.” Alex frowns, sliding his arm around Jim’s waist now, tucking himself up against his side. “Why is that so difficult to believe?”

    “Because we know Ignatowski.”

    “Don’t listen to him.” Elaine comes around to stand with them. “Jim’s a sweet guy and he deserves someone who’s clearly been good for him.”

    “Yeah, and the three million doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

    If anyone says anything after that, Alex isn’t aware of it. 

    “Three million?” He manages– after how long a pause, he couldn’t say.

    “Oh– yeah. I didn’t ever say?”

    “No, you… you said you weren’t worried about money and I didn’t need to worry about taking care of you, but you didn’t say you were a millionaire. You mean to tell me… your brother… has been sitting on three million dollars of your money, and he let you live in a condemned building for years?” He turns, reaching up to knead at Jim’s shoulder. “I’m going to kill him. No– no, it’s okay. It’s okay now, it’s okay. I’m going to eviscerate him. Sorry. It’s okay. I am going to kill him. When is your hearing?”

    “Next month.”

    “Is Tom planning on showing his face for it?”

    “I don’t know. Not if I tell him my boyfriend wants to kill him. Alex… it’s okay.”

    “It’s really not.” He swallows. Needs to hold onto being mad, because if he stops being mad, his heart is going to break. “... Do my parents know it’s three million?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Okay. No one told me I was dating a millionaire. You know what, it doesn’t matter– I am still taking care of you. The money’s not– hnng– the money… the money’s not– god, important. Ugh. I hope I never have to say that again. But it– in this specific instance, the amount of money that you have isn’t what’s important. What’s important is that I’m going to murder your brother. He can’t treat you like this. He can’t get away with how long he treated you like this. Okay? The court needs to know that he hasn’t been holding up his end of the conservatorship, and he only stepped in and did something because he was afraid of my mother. And if the name Keaton isn’t haunting his nightmares now, I’m going to make damn sure it does from here on out. Now… take me home.”

    Jim breaks out in the broadest, sweetest, sunniest grin. “Home? With me?”

    “Home with you.” He nods. Home at last.