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The night before his powers awoke, Stephen wasn’t crying. Because it was stupid to cry. He wasn’t a kid anymore…
He lay down to sleep instead, and the part of him wishing desperately for his father, for two solid, loving parents and no fighting because of exhaustion, made tears well up in his eyes.
He woke up safely snuggled between his next-door neighbors, two warm bodies that always seemed so loving and caring.
His shrink was a Neo-Freudian. He insisted this was a ‘completely natural’ stage of ‘sexual confusion’ and started getting Stephen material designed for the Questioning part of LBGTQ. Stephen learned obediently--actually, it turned out to be pretty interesting in an academic sort of way--but he kept waking up in that bed.
And there was always that one moment before he awoke, where he felt safe and warm and loved.
When he gained control of his teleportation it stopped, of course, because he wasn’t a pervert. He wasn’t. And he didn’t miss it, he just needed heat, so he piled on blankets and that was all he wanted, really.
And then one day he woke up inbetween Cara and John.
He was the one to scream. Cara and John both bolted up wildly, then looked at him with very clear ‘...what?’ expressions.
Shit.
“The hell…” John started.
Cara started snickering suddenly. Stephen tried not to blush. Oh, god, he was going to die. “Did...did you just…” Cara suddenly lost it, nearly dying of laughter.
Stephen really, really prayed the floor would open up and swallow him.
John suddenly burst out laughing too. Stephen slunk for the door. He needed to go home. And maybe die of humiliation.
“Stephen!” Cara’s hand wrapped into Stephen’s. “Stephen, no, wait.”
...What? Was she seriously...Stephen looked up, and he wasn’t hoping, of course not, that would be foolish…
Cara smiled. “It’s two-thirty in the morning. Come on. We’ll keep you from going anywhere else.” She pulled Stephen back over to the bed. Stephen stumbled after her and just tried to process this.
John snorted.
“John. We talked about this.” Cara gave John a Look to go with the reproach.
“Wait, what? You talked about what?” Stephen demanded. Was this some kind of kinky three-way thing?
John sighed. “Cara’s convinced we’re all soulmates. The three of us.” John shook his head mock-sadly. “My girlfriend can’t be into other girls, oh no…”
Stephen bit back the first remark that sprang to mind. And the second. The third was just ‘...uh...’. The fourth he blurted out as “Um, what?”
John studied Stephen for a long minute. Stephen had no idea what John saw--he didn’t care, of course he didn’t, it was John the Perpetual Jackass--but John finally nodded and slipped into bed. “C’mere, dumbass. Bed’s warmer with three people anyway.”
Stephen had no idea where this was going, but he lay down anyway, right in the middle, letting his head rest near John’s shoulder and Cara press against his back.
After a minute, Stephen took one of the hands that had settled on his waist--John’s, from the feel--and sought out the other hand, Cara’s. He held both in his own.
It was a bit tricky, but it fit.
Stephen didn’t sleep alone again.