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Jack woke up at the sound of his door opening, jerking straight up in bed and reaching for a sword just in time to catch eye contact with Michael, frozen in the doorway. There was a long silence, until:
"This isn't my house, is it?" Michael asked.
"Yours doesn't have steps," Jack replied.
"Ah, I thought maybe there had been a surprise addition while I was gone," Michael said.
Which wasn't too far out of the range of things they would get up to in the few days Michael had been gone, doing whatever he'd been doing [they didn't keep track much of what everyone ran off to do, because everyone ran off from time to time], but it hadn't been long enough for anyone to get restless enough to decide to just slightly raise his house to give him steps. Or maybe they could lower the ground around? But that would put everyone off and it'd be a lot of work with the logo.
"Do you want to sleep here tonight?" Jack asked, because Michael hadn't moved and he looked exhausted, honestly, and it's not like he minded.
Michael nodded his head and moved across the room to join Jack on the bed.
"I meant you sleeping in the floor or something," Jack said.
"You're more comfy. There's plenty of room." Michael laid down, putting an arm across Jack's middle and curling into him. This sleepy, he was especially prone to cuddling. Jack had no idea how he'd made it home like this.
"Okay, so long as you make the bed in the morning," Jack hummed, putting his own arm around Michael and tangling their legs together. If they were going to sleep in the same bed, might as well make the most of it.
Gavin loved to hang out with Geoff. He could do it for hours - he did do it for hours. They were the ones that had built the majority of Achievement City, working for days on end to build their houses and the logo and their failsafes and pranks. They'd spent weeks alone together to keep it a secret from the rest of the crew. Of course he liked to spend time with him.
All of that said, the guy could really drag out a hang out sesh well into the night and, while Gavin thoroughly enjoyed it, he was well tired. He needed rest. Geoff probably needed rest, too, but he didn't seem enthused to take it. Nothing Gavin could do about that, but he said his goodbyes well into the night and departed, leaving Geoff to entertain himself in his massive house.
Gavin could handle the house while Geoff was there, but honestly if he was in it alone he'd probably freak out. He much preferred his own home, tucked into the hill and filled from top to button with personal touches. His favorites were the hanging pieces of art covering his doorway that he needed to part his way through the enter and exit.
It's what he was thinking about when he entered his home, taking a moment to appreciate the painted scenery as he closed his door. He focused on that, in the sort of absentminded way a tired brain does, as well as the other paintings around his house as he stepped to his bed, tucked in the corner.
He was jerked out of his already half asleep state when he flopped down, realized for some reason there was a person there, and in that instant he screamed and jumped off the bed, tangled his legs and ended up in the floor and whoever was in the bed also woke up and screamed, jerking into an upright position.
There was shouts of "who are you?" and "why are in you my house?" from both parties as they scrambled, until both of them were standing and half ready to fight the other and finally realized who each other was.
"Michael, you were in my bed, Michael," Gavin said, relaxing. He started checking parts of his body to make sure he wasn't bleeding or anything. Didn't want to yuck up his clothes.
"This is my house," Michael protested.
"Your house is wood and this is made of stone. And mine's in an L shape and yours is square. Also mine has all this art."
Michael stared at Gavin for a moment, then looked carefully around the one room of the house, blinking, before finally: "I guess you're right. You weren't here, though, so." He shrugged. Then he seemed to notice the way Gavin was checking himself and started looking over him. "Did you get hurt?"
"Nah, just fell when I realized I was laying on a person," Gavin said, giving a smile.
There was a long moment where they both just stood there - Michael was still in the way to get to the bed and Gavin was in the way to get to the door and neither was jumping to change this until Gavin shrugged and said, "Well, get back in, will you? I'm exhausted; don't wanna stand here all night."
Michael hmmed and took the invitation, climbing back into the bed and making room for Gavin, who somehow managed to take up so much more room than him despite only being an inch taller and definitely thinner.
"Michael's been gettin' bus-ay."
Michael nearly choked on his drink, some of it kind of spilling out of his mouth a little [which was super gross] while he struggled to get the rest down in a way that wouldn't kill him. Meanwhile, the others didn't seem concerned with plight.
Geoff barked out a laugh and raised a hand to offer a high five. "Sweet, dude!" he cheered, leaving the hand up for an almost embarrassingly long amount of time before giving up.
Gavin laughed, too, that high giggle that he loved to do, and Jack had an easy smile on his face. Ray was giving him that deadpan look, his eyes saying "I'm joking, but this is a real thing I believe" which was something few would understand until they spent an absurd amount of time with him.
Michael finally fixed his situation and wiped his mouth on his arm, the way a clean person does. "I mean, of course, you think the ladies can resist this?" As if they knew where any ladies where - aside from the five of them, they could each count everyone else they'd ever met on their fingers and they didn't know the current location of anybody else. "But, aside from how I'm totally hot and sexy and everything and we all acknowledge this, what makes you think that?"
"You're stupid ugly, but I've never been wrong in my life," Ray said. He then pointed to Jack and Gavin in turn. "I haven't seen you come from your house in the morning in more than a month. It's always his or his."
Geoff started laughing, a deep belly laugh that would last for at least five minutes and he'd need some time afterwards to recover before he could speak.
"You've been cheating on me?" Gavin asked, voice high-pitched and accusatory and Michael could strangle him right there, the bastard.
"Why does Michael get to be the one you point out? I'm getting half as much action as he is. I'm at least an honorable mention," Jack directed at Ray, who just shrugged.
"I get lost!" Michael defended. "Jack's house looks just like mine and Gavin's right beside it and obviously it's not Ray's dirt shithole or Geoff's stone monolith so I end up there, no biggie in sleeping in another man's house every now and then."
"It's been more than a month, dude. Closer to two," Ray said.
"Why does it matter to you?" Michael asked.
Ray shrugged again. "Weird to keep secrets when we need each other to survive, y'know? We know pretty much everything else important, it'd be strange to not tell us whatever you guys are doing."
Jack sighed, probably because the 'there's five of us and we all know each other far too well and we're all we have' kinda talk always got to him, so he had to be serious. Sappy idiot. "I don't know what Gavin's doing, but Michael shows up sometimes and sleeps in my bed and the guy's a cuddle demon, dude, nothing stopping that."
"Yea, he's on fire when he sleeps, too, if it was just a little bit warmer I'd be sweating when I woke up," Gavin said. "But that's just what I've been doing, fun to cuddle with the boi."
"That's got to be a mess to see, because you sleep like-" Jack stopped talking to spread his arms and legs out, for that was the best way to describe the other man's sleeping positions. "and Michael likes to just latch onto everything and tries to get you in one place, how do you guys manage that?"
"It's a lot of moving around, sometimes we wake up in the floor," Gavin laughed.
"Are you guys gonna keep talking about me like I'm not here?" Michael asked.
"It's to make up for you not mentioning that you had another cuddle buddy, Michael! Why didn't you mention it?" Gavin asked.
"It's not, like, super important, and you cuddle with Geoff all the time," Michael replied.
"Yea, but I don't sleep with him," Gavin protested.
Geoff snorted. "Sure don't. How long are you guys gonna talk about how y'all are in bed?"
The three happily jumped to the bait, each of them giving extremely detailed fabrications of ridiculous things the others did in bed [like, sexually].
Michael went to his own house that night.
He wasn't sure, exactly, when he started going only to Jack's or Gavin's. He hadn't latched onto his own the way the others had. He appreciated it, for sure, but ever since the beginning he'd step towards Jack's or Gavin's before he realized that wasn't right. He didn't know how many times he'd started to go to their doors before he figured out that it wasn't his. The only reason he'd ever made it in there the first time with either of them was that he'd been tired enough he just forgot and never corrected. After receiving approval, though, he found himself going to their houses on purpose, more and more, since they never seemed to mind. Sleeping next to someone was nice. Sleeping next to Jack and Gavin was especially nice.
But the conversation earlier made him feel self conscious, even if neither of them had seemed annoyed with him or anything, he hadn't realized how little he slept in his own bed. Maybe it was a bit strange.
"Why are you in my house?" Michael asked, when he opened his door. Of course, the two he'd been thinking about were in his house, sort of staring at his bed.
"Well, we never come over and sleep in your house, so we figured tonight would be a good first time," Jack said. "The only problem is that the thing's not big enough."
"I bet we could do it, if you two lay as a foundation and then I get on top," Gavin said.
Michael smiled to himself, coming inside and closing the door. "Implying you'd be a top," he joked, mostly for himself. "There might be another bed hidden somewhere around."