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“Are you watching me sleep?” Anderson opened his eyes.
“No.” Hotch shook his head, pushing hair off Anderson's forehead.
“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that you're a bad liar, Baseball Boy.” He gave Hotch a drowsy smile. “You’ve got the straight face down, but something in your eyes gives you up every time.”
“I woke up first. I guess I wanted to preserve this in my memory…it’s our first sanctioned nap together.”
“Huh?”
“Your mom knows I'm up here.” Hotch said. “She knows we’re napping and she hasn’t stuck her head in once.”
“I bet she's paced outside the room a few times listening for gay teen sex noises.” Anderson said. “And it’s our second.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you talking about the gay teen sex noises or…?”
“Grant.” Hotch tried to put on his serious face but the dimples were a dead giveaway.
“That time is was raining and your mom didn’t want me to walk to the train in bad weather so she told me to stay and then we made sandwiches and took a nap.”
“That was February 21st.”
“Oh my God, you remember the date?”
“I have this thing.” Hotch pointed to his head.
“What kind of thing?” Anderson sat up on an elbow. He was still sleepy. Maybe in a minute or two he could get Hotch to stop talking and nap some more.
“I remember things. I remember a ridiculous amount of things. Most of the time I don’t tell people because they freak out. I remember dates, times, names, faces…it’s as hard for me as it is for them. The good, the bad, the mundane is all in there.”
“We just have to make sure to fill it with more good stuff than bad. Like naps; naps are good. Naps are great.”
“Are you telling me to shut up and go to sleep?” Hotch asked.
“You can continue to stare at me.” Anderson lay back down. He turned on his side and curled in toward Hotch. “I think I'm gonna get another hour though. There's plenty of afternoon left.”
It was Saturday, it was dreary, and he wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep all day, then wake up tomorrow and maybe try life again. Time was moving so slow right now. Sometimes that was good and sometimes bad. Anderson felt if he slept through it then it would have no choice but to go by. And of course he was an 18 year old boy…few things topped naps on the list of things to do at any given time.
“We should have a kiss first.” Hotch slid down on the pillow, taking Anderson's face in his.
“I don’t think we've ever had just one.”
“So we’ll see where the first one takes us.”
“I adore you.” Anderson said laughing. “I love you. But nap now, kisses later I promise. I'm really beat. The never ending last trimester of senior year might be the death of me. I had three tests and a book report last week. Next week its two quizzes and a paper on Gloria Steinem. Kevin is helping me put the final touches on what will surely be the best PowerPoint presentation in the history of LBJ High.”
“OK, I’ll let you sleep.” Hotch smiled. “I’ll hold you.”
“Spoons.” Anderson said.
Hotch kissed his nose and then Grant turned in his arms. When he wiggled his ass against Hotch’s erection, the teen moaned. He plucked Anderson's back and that made him laugh. Then Hotch kissed the nape of his neck. That was the closest he would get to kissing at the moment.
It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy lying with his boyfriend and relaxing. Hotch just wasn’t very good at sleeping. He was good at a lot of things, some by nature and some because he worked hard to be the best. But sleep never came easy to him.
When he was little he would lie in bed with the pillow over his head so he wouldn’t have to hear his parents scream at each other. After his father died, Hotch would lie in bed and wonder why he was sad when he wanted to be happy. His life wasn’t miserable, it was far from that. He just had no idea what he was doing most of the time.
Since Anderson came into his life he started to find some meaning. The idea of latching all of his hopes, for whatever the hell you hoped for, on one person only scared him more. And it wasn’t easy to sleep when you were afraid. Hotch was always afraid of something. He was afraid of forgetting and deathly afraid of remembering.
“I love you too, Grant.” He closed his eyes and exhaled. Sleep most likely wouldn’t come. But the comfort of being close had been there from the beginning.
***