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“John,” Arlo whispers, his voice quiet even when compared to the silence of the night. “Are you awake?”
No answer.
“John.”
Again, there’s no answer. John continues to sleep, his even breathing letting Arlo know that he isn’t having a nightmare. It’s comforting, somehow.
Arlo isn’t entirely sure how he ended up where he is in his life. Let alone where he is in body, in the Wellston dormitories and sleeping next to John. He knows, can recall every step that led to the moment, but it’s the actually comprehending it that eludes him.
He has no regrets, not anymore. But he still thinks of the what-ifs. After having lived in a world of absolutes his entire life, it’s terrifying to fully understand just how tenuous everything really is. Even something as precious to him as this.
‘This’ being the moment that he’s somehow living in right now and everything else that goes along with it—one of the most tenuous things of all.
Arlo’s relationship with John has been managed as carefully as possible from the moment it began, and all the way through to now. Neither of them—Arlo thinks so, anyway—want things to change from what little they’ve managed to carve out.
There’s the usual wryness and snark. They still work together as needed. Stunningly well, to boot. None of that has changed.
But there’s more now. There’s understanding when they look at each other and see the other start to stumble. There’s supporting each other without a word and watching each other’s backs on instinct alone.
There’s early mornings lying in each other’s embrace, late nights spent comforting each other through the pains of their pasts, and simple moments that Arlo couldn’t forget even if he wanted to (and he doesn’t want to.)
What’s perhaps the most terrifying thing of all is just how much he treasures that. Treasures John.
Saying that aloud—it’s unthinkable.
(It’s the third time in as many nights spent together that he’s considered it, simply because of an ineffable urge to see how those particular words would feel on his lips. How it would feel to say them to John.)
He isn’t sure when exactly his feelings had started to run so deep. Was it when they started to become something beyond their complex, fraught history? Or when they started sharing a bed?
“John,” Arlo whispers again, uncertain if he wants an answer or not. He wants something, and he can’t say what. It’s on the tip of his tongue, something he can taste and know as familiarly as his shadow, but never recall the name of.
However, he’s infuriatingly sure that he wants to run his fingers through John’s hair. He denies himself. He would say that he isn’t that far gone, but it would be a lie.
When this something had first started, Arlo tried to sleep without touching John at all. He kept his back to him and his limbs pulled close to himself, a faint thread of anxiety pulling itself taut and making it harder to sleep.
However, each morning like clockwork, Arlo would wake up tangled with John the bed sheets wrapped around and between them. The more surprising thing about it was that John wasn’t the only one holding on. Where John’s legs were overlapping with Arlo’s and his hand was on his arm, Arlo had wrapped an arm around him in return. He used to wonder who reached out to who first, but it doesn’t really matter to him anymore. He’s already reached out to him consciously more times than he would ever admit.
Now, he lightly presses his forehead against John’s, still taking an inexplicable comfort from his presence. He feels more at ease than he has in his life. It’s awful. It’s everything.
As if he can hear Arlo’s troubled thoughts, John shifts slightly, the arm already draped over Arlo pulling him closer. It helps.
“…were you…” John murmurs, distinctly not quite conscious. His eyes aren’t even open. “Sayin’ someth…?”
Arlo uses his free arm to pull the blanket further up over the both of them. “No.” Go back to sleep.
He hates how much he fears losing this.
“Night, then…”
“Good night.”
And John drifts right back to sleep.
This is the one time that he doesn’t want to allow his concerns to interfere. Only now.
Whether he has the right to ask that or not is irrelevant. He’s going to sleep, he decides.
With someone he loves.