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You woke to the sound of rain pattering against your window and smiled to yourself. As much as you loved nice sunny days, a rainy day inside was a welcome treat. There was something inherently cozy about keeping the overhead lights off, turning on candles and fairy lights and lamps, and snuggling up by the window. The fact that it was colder outside somehow made it warmer inside.
The bed was empty, but that wasn’t surprising. Kevin was not the type to lay in bed cuddling for very long, and while J.D. did often enjoy lingering he also was usually the one downstairs making breakfast if you didn’t beat him to it. After cleaning up and throwing on your clothes, you headed downstairs to find the two men exactly where you expected. JD was leaned over the stove in an oversized, black, dirty t-shirt (he never used an apron but instead tended to keep a whole shirt for the purposes of cooking), and was on what you presumed to be his second cup of coffee already.
Kevin was sipping through his first, but at the rate he was going you figured it was already lukewarm, and he was plucking the leaves off a plant you’d recently got for the house. You rolled your eyes and came up behind him, swatting his hand, which caused him to give a self satisfied smirk over his shoulder. “Good morning to you too,” he greeted.
“Stop killing my plants, asshole,” You said, making your way over to the coffee pot to pour yourself a cup. Luckily the hot plate kept what was there actually rather warm. “I wanted a pet and you said no. This was our compromise.”
“Exactly. Plants aren’t pets.” Kevin said, raising his eyebrows, leaning over, and plucking another leaf off. He shook it in the air triumphantly with his fingers. “It’s not like it felt anything.”
“Well, if you break the plant, I’m making you go with me to pick out a new one,” J.D. said, finally putting the finished breakfast out on the kitchen island you two were sitting at. Kevin glared at his boyfriend like he intended to set him aflame, but he allowed J.D. to lean in and give him a kiss so he wasn’t that agitated. Following that, Kevin simply rolled his eyes and began eating his eggs.
You grinned after taking your first bite, giving J.D. an appreciative smile. You tried to cook as much as you could– J.D. had had to cook far too much from far too young an age, you felt, but as a result he was quite a phenomenal cook. You could swear that even when it came to something as simple as eggs, he did a far better job than you. He leaned over and kissed your forehead. “So, you two got any plans today?” You asked.
“Nothing much on the agenda for me,” J.D. shrugged.
“Maybe we could stay in,” You suggest. “You could share whatever you’ve been reading lately.”
J.D. seemed pleased by this concept. Kevin’s expression remained indifferent which, again, for Kevin was almost the same thing as express approval when it came to most matters. And so shortly after breakfast, you found yourself with your head laying in J.D.’s lap on the little couch by the window, the string lights above turned on along with the lamp to provide sufficient reading light.
Kevin sat in the nearby chair, fiddling around with his laptop as J.D. flicked open a book, one you had seen on other previous occasions: A leatherbound copy of Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil. You were surprised J.D. even went through the ritual of opening the book to read from it at this point. It would be shocking if he didn’t have at least some of the poems memorized.
Relaxing, your eyes shut in his lap as he began to read. He would read a poem or two, and then take a moment to flip through the pages, carefully picking out his next selection.
“Naught but a long blind tempest was my youth, / Sun-shot at times; the thunder and the rain / Have worked their havoc with so little ruth / That in my garden few red fruits remain.” The lines of this poem weren’t as familiar to you as some of them had become at this point. You stretched a little in his lap, opening your eyes, paying closer attention than you had to the previous, more familiar readings. J.D. started lightly running his fingers across your scalp through your hair. You smiled at the touch.
“Now have I reached the autumn of my thought, / And shovel and pick must use some soil to save / From out the ruins that the rain hath wrought / Where all around great pits gape like the grave.” Kevin yawned, but that was just Kevin. And if he really was bored by what J.D. was reading, you knew Kevin well enough to know that you’d be seeing his eyes dart across the laptop screen he was staring blankly at, or hear the clicks of his keyboard.
“Who knows if these last flowers of my dreams” –You notice J.D.’s hands moving a bit more firmly, at a few points his hand stills entirely, wrapping around some of your hair before letting go– “Shall find beneath this naked strand that streams / The mystic substance which their strength imparts?” His tone doesn’t sound frantic, but more… emotive, now. You sense that this poem hits home a bit more than some others he’s read to you. Something personal.
“O misery! misery! Time eats our lives, / And that dark Enemy who gnaws our hearts / Grows by the blood he sucks from us, and thrives.”
You’re quiet, for a moment. He starts to flip through the pages one-handed, not wanting to move his hand from your head. “How do you understand the poem?” You ask J.D., attempting to spark conversation and see what made him so tense.
J.D. leaned back a little more, glancing down at you in his lap. While his hands always gave away his emotions– his joys or his discomforts– your boyfriend’s face didn’t always show that he was bothered. That is, unless something really got him.
Just when it seemed that he may not want to share his opinion (a rarity), J.D. replied. “Having to piece yourself together after something shitty. And make things better. Having that… mission, even when people you care about have tried to deter you.” He spoke with a bit of caution in his voice. You knew his childhood wasn’t ideal; it was something he’d been quite candid and forward about. So the wariness with which he broached his interpretation– which clearly drew on that experience– was somewhat odd to you. Maybe there was something there that he hadn’t shared. Maybe the ‘people trying to deter him’ part of things, and what exactly they were trying to deter him from.
Kevin stretched, shutting his laptop. “Put on Netflix. We should watch Do Revenge.”
You raise your eyebrows. Kevin, suggesting a trendy teen movie? You sit up, looking between him and J.D. You’re sure there’s something you’re not picking up on, but know there’s no sense in pushing when it comes to getting secrets out of those two, so you grab the remote and turn on the television.