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Cavendish was at the plain-looking desk, filling out paperwork that was more busywork than strictly necessary. His hat was on the desk across from him, the goggles strapped to it reflecting the overhead lights with a bluish glint. Tension held the man’s neck and shoulders roughly, rigidly cementing his musculature into a shape that’d be painful later. His tall, lean form was hunched over the desk in a way that made Dakota wince. Dakota, by contrast, was on the wood-framed sofa, one of the red cushions that was typically placed against the back of the frame instead behind his back against the keen-edged, uncomfortable armrest to make it bearable. In keeping with his comfortable seating arrangement, he was wearing a white tank top and grey pajama pants with little cartoon giraffes on them. The fuzzy socks on his feet were an almost too-bright orange in comparison, but he loved them just the same.
Dakota sighed. “You know they probably don’t even read through all that,” he said, turning his head so he had a better view of the desk Cavendish was seated at.
“It doesn’t change the fact that it has to be done,” Cavendish replied a little snippily.
“Not right this second. You’re tired. You need to relax. It’s not due for a couple of days yet. Have a seat over here.”
Cavendish leaned back to sit upright in his chair with a sequence of pops and a pained yelp. “Maybe you do have a point,” he said irritably, pushing his chair back and standing up, inciting a new symphony of popping. “Oh,” he muttered, stretching his arms over his head. “Well, that’s a little better.”
“It’d be even better over here,” Dakota told him, saying "here" in a singsong voice.
Cavendish yawned and relented, walking over to the sofa.
“You haven’t even taken your shoes off yet,” Dakota lamented, wiggling his sock-clad toes. “Act like you’re gonna stay a while, why don’tcha?”
Cavendish frowned, but did as he was told, leaving his shoes by the entryway to their tiny office space. He turned off the overhead work lights, leaving the standing lamp as the only source of illumination.
“If you want,” Dakota said, a little sheepishness entering his voice, “I can see about working out some of your tension.” He really couldn’t be blamed if his voice was a little quieter near the end of the sentence, could he?
Cavendish bit back a frustrated and underhanded remark about Dakota’s word choice, weighing how nice a good shoulder massage would feel against whether he thought his partner would retract the offer if he was offended enough. “That does sound nice,” he said after a moment.
“Have a seat,” Dakota said, giving the couch cushion in front of him a pat. He thought he did a good job of hiding the way every nerve ending seemed to scream with a cocktail of anxiety and joy. His hand was shaking, though.
Cavendish either didn’t notice or simply chose not to comment on it. Doing as he was told, Cavendish sat stiffly in front of Dakota, spine held as straight as possible.
“Cav, I can’t actually reach your neck and shoulders like that—you’re really tall,” Dakota interjected. It was a small fib—Dakota didn’t want to have to lean forward to reach his partner’s shoulders. He knew not having back support would only hurt him later.
“Oh,” Cavendish replied, scooting forward on the sofa and leaning back against Dakota so his shoulders rested against the top curve of Dakota’s belly and his head could rest against Dakota’s chest if he so chose. "Is this better?” he asked, cheeks and ears warming slightly. He was very aware of the fact that Dakota was practically straddling him, one leg against the back of the couch and the other draped over the front edge of the couch, his foot resting against the floor. Cavendish’s own long legs ended up threaded through the bare frame of wood that typically served as an armrest. It would be a problem if he needed to get up in the middle of the night, but that was a problem he could deal with if it arose.
“Yeah, that’s good,” Dakota said. Everywhere Cavendish’s weight pressed against him, Dakota felt it acutely, like the sear of fire against his skin. He realized his heart was pounding and his stomach was fluttering, so he took a mindful breath, trying to sort himself out. He raised his hands to where Cavendish’s neck met his shoulders and, though his fingertips trembled slightly, started applying pressure to Cavendish’s shoulders.
Cavendish let out a soothed-sounding sigh and smiled, letting himself truly relax against Dakota.
Dakota felt his heart rate spike again. He was almost certain his cheeks were flushed and he found that the patterns he was drawing with his thumbs were suddenly very interesting, indeed. Once he’d regained some measure of control over himself, Dakota started following the palpable tension in Cavendish’s body up along the sides of his neck, being gentle, but not light enough to tickle.
All the while, Cavendish let out involuntary, happy murmurs as muscles that had been clenched for too long finally relaxed.
Dakota slowly brought his hands back down to Cavendish’s shoulders, still pressing little circles into the other man’s back. It had been almost an hour and he realized his thumbs were starting to ache with the effort of relieving his partner’s tension. “Hey, Cav, I might need to take a break here pretty soon. My thumbs are a little tired.”
“Oh, alright,” Cavendish said, doing a poor job of hiding how disappointed he was. “To be fair, I think I just realized how tired I am, too.”
Dakota smiled lazily, even though Cavendish couldn’t see it. “Do you want me to put the cushion back and give you the sofa tonight?” Usually one of them took the sofa and the other took the tiny, beat-up air mattress they set up on the floor each night. Dakota didn’t voice his preference for their current positioning instead.
“If you’re comfortable where you are, we could…” Cavendish hesitated, his face flushing. “We could stay like this.”
Dakota nearly choked on his own saliva, his cheeks heating up. “Scoot down a little, if anything. Your head and my sternum were about to use fighting words.”
“Sorry,” Cavendish said, adjusting so his head rested on Dakota’s belly.
“Mm,” Dakota murmured thoughtfully. “Better. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Cavendish replied, noticing just how comfortable he was. Maybe he was just tired, but the next sentence slipped from his lips unbidden. “You make a very good pillow.” His eyes snapped open upon realizing what he’d said.
Dakota chuckled lightly, trying not to jostle his partner. “So, no last minute change of mind tonight?”
Cavendish swallowed. “No,” he said, his voice quiet. “I suppose not.” Dakota felt him relax against him and couldn’t suppress a grin.
“If you wanted to, that’d be fine, of course,” he said, trying to hide how his heart sank at the notion. It was a moment before he spoke again. “You gonna be warm enough like this?” Dakota asked. He was warm enough himself, but Cavendish frequently complained about being cold, even when it didn’t make any sense to Dakota. He was fairly sure that that was a big reason why Cavendish wore so many layers. Then again, it wasn’t really that much more than what Dakota wore.
“Probably. If it becomes too cold for me, I can just as easily find a blanket.”
“Okay,” Dakota said. “Good night, Cavendish.”
“Good night, Dakota.”
___________________
Dakota woke up cold on the floor, incapable of remembering the process of falling asleep. Dennis was sprawled under the red-cushioned couch in a way that made the teddy bear look inconsolably sad. Dakota sighed and pulled the plushie out, thinking that was probably an unhealthy dose of projection. He sat up, clutching the bear to his chest and hugging it tightly, barely noticing the painful stiffness in his neck and shoulders. “Cavendish, where are you?” he asked the empty room.
Silence that almost hurt his ears was the only reply he received. The hollow ache in his chest felt like it would never ease. His eyes seemed to glaze over and his vision blurred as a lump conjured itself in his throat. He blinked to try to clear the blurriness away. It took a few minutes. He swallowed to see if the lump in his throat would loosen. It didn’t.
And then he realized what his eyes had fixed themselves upon. A wrapper for crab rangoon was just barely visible in the tiny office-sized garbage can. Dakota recognized it—it was from Cavendish’s favorite Chinese restaurant. At the moment, however, Dakota couldn’t remember ordering anything from there recently.
Cavendish never ordered crab rangoon—the combination of cream cheese, crab meat, and sauce made them too rich for him.
Somehow, seeing the wrapper made the emptiness spreading through Dakota’s chest feel so much deeper.
“Come back,” he whispered against the back of Dennis’s fluffy head. He squeezed the bear tightly again as sobs started to rip through him.