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When Joe woke up, it was to a pleasant ache in muscles that he hadn't even known he had... wait. That ache was in the muscles that he didn't have, because they belonged to his cat shape.
His eyes flew open, desperate to have some sort of proof that he was remembering a true thing and not just wishful thinking. Before he could panic too much, though, he realized that he was looking right into Nicky's beautiful eyes. "Good morning sleepyhead," Nicky said quietly. "Are you actually awake?"
"I don't know," Joe answered slowly. "Are you really in my bed or is this just a dream? Because if it's just a dream I might just have to cry."
"Well, me being here isn't a dream," Nicky said. "So that bodes well for you being awake. Why don't you tell me what you remember, and I'll let you know if any of it was a dream."
Joe thought back. "I finally found my animal form!" he said. That memory was followed by the visceral disgust of nearly having eaten - "You would have stopped me from eating a chipmunk, though, right?"
Nicky laughed, but gently. "I'd do my best, my heart," he said. "So far, though, you're two for two. What else do you remember about last night?"
Joe chewed on his lip anxiously. He remembered telling Nicky, he remembered Nicky returning his feelings, but what if that was the part he was misremembering?
Nicky's thumb pressed on his lip, freeing it from his teeth. "Just ask, Joe. It's good, I promise."
"Did I - did I tell you that I'm in love with you?" he asked in a rush.
"You did, and do you remember what I said in return?" Before Joe could blurt out an answer, Nicky leaned forward and gave him a gentle but thorough kiss.
When he finally pulled back, Joe felt like there was no air left in the room. "No, I don't remember," he said with a grin. "Want to kiss me again? It might remind me of it."
"I said," Nicky kissed him again quickly, "That I was in love with you too. And that I was grateful that your soul finally settled on a shape, so that I don't have to feel guilty about all the things I desperately want to do to you."
That sounded very promising indeed. "Want to tell me about them?" Joe asked, a bit breathlessly. It didn't matter at that moment that he was older than Nicky, or that he had more sexual experience. He wanted to hear what Nicky had in mind, because he had a feeling that they wanted the same kinds of things.
The corner of Nicky's mouth ticked up. "I want to kiss you for a while, and then I want to make you something to eat, because you're probably ravenous. And then I want to crawl back into bed with you, and possibly we can use our mouths to do... other things."
And while Joe desperately wanted to touch Nicky, wanted to hold every part of him, now that NIcky had mentioned food, he was positively starving. As if to confirm it, his belly rumbled, loud enough that Nicky heard it and smiled. "How does french toast sound for breakfast?"
"That sounds amazing," Joe admitted. He knew that Nicky didn't put anything in french toast that he didn't use himself, but somehow his version always tasted so much better. "You don't happen to have something I can snack on while I wait?"
Nicky's laugh was lovely, making Joe want to curl up in its warmth and just luxuriate in it all day long. "I suppose I can give you some of my pop tarts," he said. "But regardless, we need to get up and dressed enough for us to go to the dorm kitchen."
Clothes were the last things that Joe wanted. But Nicky rolled out of the bed and started pulling on his jeans from where they had been crumpled on the floor. It took Joe's brain a shamefully long time to realize that he hadn't put on underwear first. "You're not really going to walk around with no shorts under your jeans, are you?" he asked, feeling faintly scandalized.
Instead of answering, Nicky just gave him a quick smile. "The sooner you're dressed, the sooner you get food," he said, mock sternly.
With a deep sigh, feeling incredibly put upon, Joe got up. Unlike Nicky, he wanted underwear between his testicles and the denim of his jeans, so he went to his drawer in Nicky's dresser to grab a pair. Then he hesitated. When had Nicky given him a drawer of his own? It predated college. It might have even predated high school.
"We were always going to end up together," Joe said slowly, glancing over at Nicky.
Nicky's face grew serious. "You don't have to stay with me if you don't want to," he said firmly. "You're my best friend and always will be. But that doesn't mean that you have date me."
"Is that what we're talking about? Dating?" Joe asked, thinking aloud. Before Nicky could answer, though, Joe shook his head. "Dating seems like the wrong word. You are so much more than the man I'm dating. I don't want anyone else, though if you don't want me - "
Nicky cut in. "You're all I want," he said. "You're all I've ever wanted."
"That works out well for me," Joe said. "Since you're all I've ever wanted too. But I was so ashamed - "
"Wait, what? Ashamed? Ashamed about what?" Nicky demanded, as if he was going to find the part of Joe's brain responsible and beat it up, or at least give it a good talking to.
But it seemed like such an obvious answer that Joe just stared at him.
"You're kidding, right?" Nicky said, even as he started to chivvy Joe out of his dorm room and down towards the common kitchen. "You were ashamed of that?"
"Ashamed of what?" Andy asked as Nicky steered Joe to the table and parked him in a chair. She was chewing on an apple, but that didn't stop her from glaring at Joe. "Did you do something that you should be ashamed of?"
He sighed. He really didn't want to be having this conversation in the common areas of the dorms, if he had to have it at all, but apparently God wasn't done laughing at him just because he'd finally given Joe an animal form.
"Joe was ashamed because he didn't know what animal form his soul took yet," Nicky said, as he grabbed the box of brown sugar pop tarts off the tallest shelf and plopped them down on the table in front of him. "And that would be because he's an idiot."
"Well, yeah, he is, but does this mean he's finally found out?" she asked. One of her eyebrows went up, but from her that was practically jumping up and down in excitement.
"Yeah, I'm a black footed cat," Joe said. While he was embarrassed to be having this conversation at all, he couldn't help but be a little proud of finally finding out.
"Oh, cool," she said. She took one more bite of her apple and dropped the core in the trash. "Once you get a bit more settled into your form, we should see how well you get along with the rest of us."
"He got along just fine with me," Nicky said, already whisking up the eggs and milk.
"Well, duh," she said. "I can't think of any version of Joe that wouldn't get along with you." She started to walk out of the room and then turned back around at the last possible second. "Does this mean that you're finally going to ask him out? Because I've got to tell you that if you come up with another fucking excuse, we might just lock the two of you in a room together until you finally shag."
Joe's head hit the table with an audible thunk. "Did everyone know about my massive crush on Nicky?" he asked mournfully.
"Is it only a crush if it's one-sided?" she asked curiously. "If not, then you were both busy having crushes on each other and it was making the rest of us nuts."
"Shoo, go," Nicky said, waving her out of the room. Joe couldn't help but notice that he'd gone positively red on his cheeks and ears. "Keep everyone away from us for a day or two, would you?"
"I make no promises," Andy said, sauntering away.
"You know, just because she's been practically married since freshman year is no excuse for her to have forgotten how hard it can be on other people," Joe said. "I am glad that they didn't go for plan B, though. I might just have spontaneously combusted."
Nicky grinned as he dropped pieces of bread in the egg mixture before adding them to the hot griddle. "She and Quynh really are just scarily well matched, aren't they? Who would have thought that from a snake and a dragonfly?"
"Who would have thought having met the two of them that Andy was the dragonfly?" Joe asked in response, chuckling a little.
Nicky shrugged. "It doesn't matter," he said. "Once you know anything about them, it makes perfect sense. And the only people who get to see Andy like that are the people who'd learn about them to figure it out. Kind of like you, in a way."
"I'm never going to live down getting upset over being a tiny cat, am I?" Joe said. He refused to hide his face again, instead ripping into a package of pop tarts. Nicky hadn't been kidding when he'd said that Joe was going to be ravenous, and now that the smell of cooking food had hit him, Joe kind of felt like he could eat everything in the kitchen all at once.
"Well, I don't plan to tell our friends at least," Nicky said. "But I make no promises not to tease you myself. Now, here you go." WIth that, he put a plate with four pieces of french toast in front of Joe, along with the bottle of blueberry syrup that Joe loved and Nicky hated.
Joe eagerly poured it all over his food. "You must really love me to keep this in your kitchen stash," he said without thinking.
"You know what?" Nicky said, catching Joe's eye. "I really, really do."