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Trent lies still, head resting on the delicate slope of Ted’s collarbone, one hand resting on his sternum - feeling the sleepy rhythm of Ted’s heartbeat beneath his fingers, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he snores quietly into Trent’s hair.
Tired as he is, Trent cannot sleep. There is something missing - its absence leaving Trent cold and alone, even as Ted lays beside him, his presence warm and real and comforting, but it is not enough to fill the aching hole in his chest, to dismiss the insistent itch in his brain - the one telling him something is not right, that something is wrong.
He stares up at the ceiling, at the stark shadows that flit across the walls as cars rumble past the window, their headlights brightening the room for a moment before passing, throwing Trent back into sickening darkness. He could wake Ted up - could climb atop him and press slow kisses to his neck until he awoke, hazy and soft around the edges but willing all the same, always eager to please and all too happy to repeat the night's earlier events.
Ted still smells of it, sex and sweat and affection, love. The latter chokingly thick, an ever growing presence that still knocks Trent off-kilter. Ted has not said the words yet, but that doesn’t really matter, not when he shows Trent how much he loves him, cares for him, every time they’re around each other. Trent knows he feels the same, can feel the words bubble up in his throat and threaten to spill from his lips. It’s too early for all that - this thing they have feels so fragile, new and absolutely wonderful, but Trent is still wary.
He knows it’s silly, knows that it’s just his insecurities and anxieties rearing their ugly heads for the umpteenth time - but that does not make the feelings any less sickeningly real, it does not make him any less terrified of scaring Ted away, or less likely to believe that Ted will suddenly decide that he doesn’t want this anymore, that it was all a mistake - that Trent was a mistake.
Trent swallows, drags a hand down his face and sits up, disentangling himself from Ted’s embrace. He does not bother pulling on any clothes, just shuffles out of his bedroom in his boxers, making his way downstairs and out into his tiny, fenced-off box of a garden.
The midnight air is cold, a brisk chill that cuts to bone, but it does not bother Trent - it helps, keeps his body grounded in reality even as his mind slips and spirals. Trent looks up, gazes out at the endless expanse of sky, a deep cloudless black, pockmarked with faraway stars and the red and white flash of aeroplanes. There is no moon.
Trent’s fingers twitch at his sides. He’d quit smoking when Charlotte was born but it’s at times like this that he really wishes he had a cigarette, if only to have something to occupy himself with.
He does not turn around as he hears Ted approach, simply continues staring up at the sky like he can will the moon into appearing if he does not look away. Ted’s body is a hot line against his back, his arms encircling Trent’s midriff as he buries his head in the crook of Trent’s bare shoulder.
“Sweetheart,” Ted murmurs, voice thick - his accent is particularly strong when he’s tired. “Come back to bed,”
Trent shifts around in Ted's arms so he is facing him and loops his arms around Ted’s neck. If the too-small Ziggy Stardust T-shirt Ted is currently sporting is anything to go by, then he obviously didn’t bother turning on the lights as he made his way out of Trent’s room. It clings to his chest like a second skin and sits tight over his biceps - short enough that Trent can see a wide strip of his stomach, his pale skin and trail of dark hair that leads southwards.
Trent licks his lips - an altogether unconscious gesture - at the sight of Ted in his clothes, rumpled with sleep and exhaustion. Trent does not think he is a particularly possessive man, but seeing Ted like this makes something in the pit of his stomach zing, sparking hot and harsh.
He presses a kiss to the corner of Ted’s jaw. Ted hums. “Soon,” Trent says. Being wrapped around Ted is doing wonders for the yawning, hollow feeling in his chest, but it does not disappear entirely - he still feels off, untethered and disoriented, disconnected from the thing that keeps him anchored in place with its push and pull. He hates these days nearly as much as full moons - he always ends up huddled in bed, hiding away under his duvet and layers of blankets, like their weight will keep him from floating away.
Ted looks up, into the night, before turning his attention back to Trent. “Ah,” He says, “You feelin’ all funky again?”
“It’s different, when it’s like this,” Trent says, curling his fingers through the short hairs at the back of Ted’s head. It’s been nearly two weeks since Trent had ended up at Ted’s flat, since they’d kissed and Trent had transformed in the middle of his living-room - baring his heart and his dirty little secret all in one night.
“Makes sense,” Ted says, “Full moons are one extreme - havin’ none at all must be on the other end of that spectrum.”
It’s a surprisingly accurate understanding, considering how Ted is practically falling asleep in his arms.
After a long moment - after what seems like hours but which is probably only a few minutes - of staring back into the empty sky, Trent shakes his head and takes Ted’s hand, leading him back up to bed. They collapse back under the duvet and Ted is practically unconscious the second his head touches the pillows. Trent smiles, kisses Ted’s sleep-smoothed brow; he looks so young, like this, without the weight of everyone’s expectations and his own anxieties heavy upon his shoulders.
Trent himself eventually drifts off, the sound of Ted’s heartbeat lulling him to sleep, his limbs tangled up tight with Ted’s - tying himself down with the heat and weight of him, doing his level best to ground his body and mind in the absence of the moon.
He sleeps, and when he does, he dreams of an open field and looming trees, of a wide, still lake - only now there is no light reflecting off of its pristine surface, no bright stars carpeting the sky. There is only darkness, only silence, but for once it is a peaceful - empty and quiet, yes, but Trent knows with some instinctual understanding that he is not alone, that even in dreams such as this Ted's presence, his influence, still lingers.
Tonight there may be no moon, no anchor, no beast in his blood - but there is Ted, and that is more than Trent could ever wish for.