Work Text:
Sleeping alone only felt lonely when you’d been sleeping alongside someone else for so long.
Sleeping alone was ... normal. As a child, you slept alone. As a teenager, as an adult, as a man with a sheltered personal life and an apartment that could qualify as a shoebox.
Then, someone waltzes into your life. Someone new, someone warm, bright, brilliantfantasticgonetoosoon , and everything changes. Suddenly, he’s over at your apartment sometimes, sharing your space, your body heat, your love. And then you share a home with him, in which you sleep together (figuratively, literally) every night.
And, it feels right. All of it feels right. The way you slot into his side like a missing piece to a two-part puzzle, the way he pulls his arms around you, ghosts a kiss across the top of your head, tells you that he loves you. Sometimes you shift from him in the night, too warm under the bedding, searching the coolness of personless sheets. Other times, he or you are jerked from a nightmare, and you cling like kittens, shushing, murmuring.
It’s alright. It’s going to be alright. I’m right here. I love you.
Every morning, you wake to his eyes, to his smile, to his quiet good morning as he strokes strands of hair out of your eyes. You feel like you could lay here forever next to him, simply drinking him in. But, work calls, and you slip from the comforts of your bed, leaving one last lingering kiss on his lips.
But, now he’s gone, with the snap of a finger, and the other side of the bed lays empty. Dormant. He is no longer there to fill it, and all you feel is numb emptiness. No longer is he there to warm you, nor comfort you, nor merely lay beside you so you can drink in his company.
There is only empty air, and ghosts of the moments that you used to share.
You wish the world had given you more time.
—
Everett couldn’t sleep in their bed, the first few weeks. It felt wrong, somehow. Almost everything here belonged to Stephen. It was his Sanctum, his library, his hidden rooms with the doors that led to other dimensions. But, this was their bedroom. Their bed. Theirs .
Everett didn’t want to be in there without Stephen, because Stephen had been the thing that made it feel like home. Even when Stephen had been away, Everett had always known that he’d come back as soon as he could, and he would wait there in their bed for the other to return.
But, there were no ‘I’m coming back’ promises this time, nothing to fill the numbing void that happened to be his heart at this current moment in time.
Everett hasn’t even stepped in the bedroom, not really, not since ... that day. He’d only stepped in for a change of clothes, and even then, it was everything he could do to not look at the bed.
So, he camped on the sofa downstairs. Their sofa. Another theirs, because Stephen had gotten this one after they’d gotten together. (They’d broken the other one. It’d been due for an upgrade, anyways.) Numerous times, they’ve shared space on this sofa. Sitting together, lying together, loving together.
Now, it was Everett’s place to stay, until he pulled himself back together. Until the bed didn’t seem so daunting anymore. He’d curl up there, once he’d eaten enough, after he’d gotten home from work, and he’d listen to the sounds of the building around him settling.
Sleeping was rough. He kept waking, alone and panicked, taking gulping breaths of air so that he didn’t have a complete breakdown in the middle of the sitting room. (He did, at least once. Just let himself go, took down his barriers. At least it exhausted him.)
He was trying his very damned best, to cope. And, that had to be enough.
—
It took him a month, at least, before he could even think of stepping in the bedroom for more than a few minutes at a time. And, when he finally did so, all he could do was stare. The bedding was still mussed, from the last time that he’d laid in it.
The last time, in which he’d laid there with Stephen, kissing languidly, teasing at the edges for just a little bit more— but he’d had to leave, had to go to work, forced to leave the quiet little bubble that closed the rest of the world out.
He’d come home to the roof and grand staircase being repaired, and Wong alone, who had given him a quick snippet of events before vanishing off to the Hong Kong Sanctum.
All Everett had done was wait, and wait, and wait some more. His ring had gone cold, hours later, the warmth that usually radiated from it— gone. He’d already known, then.
It was the phone call that confirmed it.
Shaking himself from the painful memory, Everett stepped forward, smoothing a hand over the duvet. Another thing that was theirs, colored a beautiful blue that reminded him of Stephen’s eyes. The only color that mattered, honestly.
The sheets crinkle, as he sits down upon them. Sitting— waiting. Eventually, he pulls his feet up onto the mattress, sprawls himself out, and sighs.
His head turns to the side, observing the empty side of the bed. Cold, unused, but— as Everett pulls one of Stephen’s pillows toward him, inhales deeply— it still smells like him.
Everett almost cries. Almost.
—
The bedroom has become his home again, although it took a while. But, Everett sleeps up here now, instead of downstairs on the sofa, and it’s bearable.
He dusts, cleans— makes sure that everything still looks in pristine condition. He’s also set up a photo frame on the bedside table, and has placed Stephen’s medical pin beside it.
In the picture frame is a photo of their wedding. Their first dance, as they sway together on the floor. The look in their eyes can only be described as true love, and nothing less. Eyes only for each other, and nobody else. That was the way it always was.
It serves as a good memory. Everett’s mutely aware that he’ll never really stop grieving, for what he lost. But, he also knows that Stephen would want him to pick himself up again, try to keep his chin up.
He’s gotten a promotion. With half the CIA gone— it can only accurately be described as hell. Everett is the competent leader, and even though it tires him, it also serves as a good distraction.
The smell of Stephen is starting to fade, from the other side of the bed. He’s used it as his crutch, a way to push through the nights. Now, he puts the white noise machine on, rolls over, and forces himself to rest.
He thinks that he’s doing pretty alright, the way that things are.
He hopes that Stephen would be proud of him.
—
There’s the familiar routine, before Everett settles into bed for the night. First, he brushes his teeth. Then, he washes his face very meticulously. It’s always a set routine, always something that he’s done, even before he met Stephen.
He shuts the bathroom light off with a soft click, then goes to climb into bed, peeling back the sheets and blanket in order to climb in.
He settles on his back, stretching his legs out as he rubs a hand over his face with a yawn. It’s been a long day, and he’s grateful for the cushion of the mattress beneath him.
The other side of the bed dips, then settles. An arm stretches across Everett’s torso, pulling him in closer until he’s snug up against a chest. The agent sighs, but contentedly, wrapping an arm around the other occupant’s waist.
“I’ve missed you.” Stephen’s voice rumbled in his ear, a kiss pressed to his temple. “Especially this.”
“And I’ve missed you just as much.” Everett replies, giving Stephen’s side an affectionate squeeze. “Five years was a very long time to wait. But ... I’m so glad that you’re back.”
He feels his husband smile, and he lifts his eyes in order to gaze upon his face. The face that he so dearly loves, the face that he’s only seen in ghostly memory the past five years. He lifts a hand to gently caress over Stephen’s cheek, thumbing over his facial hair.
“I will always come back to you, Everett. You know that.” Stephen murmurs, and their lips connect, if only for a brief moment.
Everett nudges their noses together, after they part, a smile on his own face.
It doesn’t take long for him to drift off, after that, lulled by the familiar sound of Stephen’s breathing, and the distinct scent that can only be his husband’s. The bed is no longer empty, or half-filled, but full. Just as it should be.
He would no longer sleep alone.