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Sitting on the ground between their coffee table and couch, atop a pillow he’d stolen from said couch, Joel was beginning to doze off as he stared down at the large sheet of paper in front of him where he’d been attempting to draft his work for an architecture assignment.
It was—what, half past midnight? And he’d barely slept the night before, and the night before that. He was beginning to feel the consequences.
His eyelids were getting tired, and his head was throbbing slightly, and it certainly didn’t help that Etho was currently sat behind him on the couch, hands carding through his hair, nails scratching lightly at his scalp in relaxing motions that had his brain melting.
Blearily, he blinked, trying to focus his vision, tapping his index finger against his pencil. The lines on the paper were all blurred, and his thoughts were starting to merge together in a mess of this and that and tired and hurts and Etho.
Etho. Right. He jolted awake again as two fingers tapped twice in quick succession on the junction where his neck and shoulder met. The coldness of Etho’s fingertips against his exposed skin brought goosebumps along his arms, a shiver down his spine.
Dropping his pencil, he braced one hand on the table before he turned the upper half of his body, a pop in his spine as he twisted. His lidded eyes land on Etho, who had a content, if contemplative, expression on his face.
His maskless face, Joel notices—though it is slow, like trudging knee-deep through mud. Etho had been doing that more often, Joel thinks, taking his mask off around him.
It made sense, really. It was inconvenient to keep it on all the time, and they lived together; it would be hard to constantly have it on when Joel was around.
Joel wouldn’t call it special, getting to see Etho’s face without the mask on. He wasn’t the only one with that privilege, he knew, and what was behind it wasn’t really extraordinary in any way—it was just a face, if mildly pleasing to the eye; whose it was didn’t make any difference to Joel.
But, it did make his chest feel warm, looking at his roommate without obstruction. Why that was wasn’t something he cared to find out, content to stay like this—whatever this was, for the rest of time, however long that was.
Hm.
On second thought, he could do without the sleepless nights spent studying or working on a late assignment.
Actually, he thinks he would probably just prefer to go live in the middle of nowhere, in a house he’d built for himself—no responsibilities, no overworking himself. Out of everything here, though, Etho could stay.
He wouldn’t mind that.
He realizes he’d zoned out staring at Etho when there is a hand against his cheek, Etho’s index finger and thumb pinching his skin.
He scrunches his face up, wrinkling his nose, jerking his head away from Etho’s hand.
“What was that?” His voice is rough, throat dry.
“You were staring at me and not saying anything.” Etho says plaintively, “I pinched you to get your attention. Sleepyhead.”
Joel squints at him, not quite a glare, but almost. “I am fully awake.”
“Sure you are.” Etho shrugs, “get off the floor.”
Joel doesn’t move. He wants to quip back, but his brain is working too slow to come up with anything in an appropriate time frame, so instead he just stares.
“Joel,” Etho says.
Joel grumbles, removing his hand from the table and pushing himself off the floor. He picks up the pillow alongside himself, dusting it off, before he half-heartedly tosses it at Etho’s face, and sits down beside him.
He watches as Etho puts the pillow in its proper place with a minimally perturbed expression before turning to Joel, dark eyes staring directly into his own.
“You need to sleep.” Etho says pointedly, to which Joel responds by letting his upper body collapse, his forehead knocking into Etho’s collarbone—his skin is cold, pressed against his own.
“I have work to do,” he mumbles, nose uncomfortably smushed against Etho’s shirt.
“You have time for it tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to do it tomorrow.”
“And I don’t want to have to try to pick you off the floor when you pass out because you didn’t listen to me,” Etho’s hands return to Joel’s hair, twisting curls around his fingers. It feels nice.
“I’m not gonna pass out,” Joel pouts, glowering into the darkness in the minuscule space between his eyes and Etho’s collarbone.
The hands in his hair stop, moving to the sides of his face and pulling him away so that they can look at each other. The expression Etho has is one of skepticism, one eyebrow raised, lips pulled into a frown. In turn, Joel gives his best attempt at looking utterly bored.
Etho is unimpressed, unmoved.
“I’m not!” He insists, voice pitched and whiny.
“Okay,” Etho looks incredibly tired, “you’ll fall asleep on accident, then.”
Joel frowns, and Etho’s hands push against either side of his face, squishing his cheeks, causing his lips to pucker. Joel gives him a dead stare that must look ridiculous, but seeing the amusement glimmering in Etho’s eyes, corners of his lips quirked upwards, he doesn’t really care, if it makes Etho look at him like that.
The smile is contagious, and Joel doesn’t have a good poker face. He feels his own lips twist to a grin, attempting to duck his head down; unsuccessfully, which causes Etho to huff a laugh. The pressure on his cheeks eases, but Etho’s hands continue to cradle his face.
“This is stupid,” he mutters, though he’s still unable to fight back the smile in his voice.
“Oh, I’m sorry, who’s the one acting like a child that doesn’t want to have nap time?”
Joel feels his face burn. “I—what—!” he splutters, “that’s not fair, I have work to do !”
“And sleep to catch up on,” Etho reminds. Joel thinks he wants to punch him.
“Why are you so adamant about this? Don’t you have better things to do than pester me?”
“I’d like to call it taking care of you, but, yes, I do. I could be asleep right now if you would stop being so difficult.”
Maybe, at this point, he should feel bad, if it was costing his roommate sleep.
He doesn’t. It’s almost a competition to him, now, on who’ll fold first—and he’s always been stubborn. He’d committed, by now, and giving in would simply be cowardly.
“You can go to sleep right now.” He points out.
“And you?” Etho asks, rhetorically, “You’ll spend the rest of the night staring at a piece of paper like some zombie, not actually doing anything.”
Joel squints at him, deciding to ignore the dig at his lack of progress on his assignment. “and you would rather stay up with me instead of just going to sleep and letting it happen.”
“I mean, I planned on convincing you to go to bed so we would both get some rest, but, yeah.”
“Well, that’s stupid.”
Etho drops his head, looking down as he shakes his head with a low laugh, incredulous, sounding pained.
“You know what—yeah—yeah, that is stupid,” he says, softly. “But I’ve always been a little stupid when it comes to you.”
Oh, okay. Just say that, sure, that’s normal and cool. The idea that Etho was taking care of him, in his words; that he willingly did so, that even when Joel resisted all of his help or advice, he still didn’t leave. That he was willing to do this. Because it was Joel, and he was, quote, a little stupid, for Joel. Yeah, that’s fine. Joel’s fine. Normal. Cool.
He is suddenly glad Etho had dropped his gaze, because his face is hot, heart hammering in his chest, and he feels somewhat lightheaded. Etho’s fingers still lingered on his cheeks, thumbs pressed lightly on the plush skin there, touch now feverish and dizzying. He has to remember how to breathe, briefly.
The fact that he hadn’t slept in the past couple nights and was on the verge of dropping out of college and never leaving his bed again—if he didn’t enjoy what he had here so much—certainly made this all ten times more disorienting, disarming. His mind was trudging through a thick sludge, swamped by fog and impossibly tired. What was he supposed to say to that?
When Etho looks back up at him, a small, fond smile that wrinkles the skin under his eyes, Joel feels exposed, vulnerable, Etho’s hands still on his face—which he is sure must be flushed. He wants to squirm, to pry himself away from this awkwardness, but he doesn’t want to leave Etho’s touch; trapped, though not in such a bad way. How could he turn away when Etho is looking at him in the way Joel’s seen him look at young kittens, scruffy fur and wide eyes, like that, adoring, all soft and mushy? When it was all, only for him?
Joel wishes, at that moment, he could call Jimmy, or perhaps Scott, or Gem, or anyone, to ask them what the hell was going on right now, because he was freaking out a little, and could use some help, please. Alas, that was out of the question. He couldn’t simply pause this moment to go and ask a friend, two of whom were quite literally across the continent right now—and the other, who would likely just make fun of him.
No, he was on his own to figure out whatever emotion was stirring, warm in his chest. Thankfully, Etho did not give him more time to squander under clumsy fingertips.
“Are you really not going to at least try to get a little?” He asks, unknowingly breaking Joel out of some sort of trance, hands retreating from his face, “I’ll wake you up early so you have time to work on”—he gestures vaguely to Joel’s work, which, was barely comprehensible, now that he was looking at it—“all of whatever this is before your class.”
Joel purses his lips. It was tempting.
“Only if you cuddle me.”
He would blame that on his lack of sleep in the morning, because that was not what he had planned to say—although, he hadn’t really planned to say anything. He hadn’t really thought about what he was going to say, before saying it, actually. The words just kind of, came out of his mouth, as they often did.
But, he found he didn’t regret it, when Etho’s response was an abrupt, bemused laugh. “What ?”
“You heard what I said,” Joel says, a smile tugging at his lips.
“I—okay,” Etho says, giggle in his voice, “sure. I’ll cuddle you.”
Snickering, Joel grabs one of Etho’s hands and pushes himself off the back of the couch, pulling Etho up along with him. It makes his head spin, blinking rapidly, and he nearly stumbles into Etho before a hand is placed on his upper back, stabilizing him. He mutters quiet thanks before continuing along, hurriedly dragging Etho to their shared bedroom, Etho laughing softly.
When they reach the bed, Joel tosses the blankets to the side before turning around and wrapping his arms around Etho from behind, who doesn’t get a chance to question it before he’s being pulled down onto the mattress, both of them falling backwards with a thump, landing in a tangled mess of limbs.
Etho makes a startled noise, not far off a squawk, and Joel falls into a fit of giggles.
It takes a moment for them both to quiet, and then they are moving away from each other.
It ends up like this; Joel curled on his side, face squished against the pillow and his arm, Etho effectively spooning him, one arm laid over his middle, face buried in the crook of his neck, the blankets thrown over haphazardly.
Joel had cuddled with people before—Jimmy, many times, had fallen asleep on the couch with his gangly limbs splayed over Joel, or had dragged him into a cuddle pile much like how Joel had done with Etho. He thinks that somehow he expects this to be different—and maybe it is, but he finds he doesn’t care to look into it very much; he is happy to simply be, as they are now, security and contentment worming themselves into his chest, filled with warmth.
He falls asleep listening to the sound of Etho’s breathing that night, wrapped in comfort.
And that morning, when they wake up, it may be far later than planned, and he might not have time to work on his assignment—but he’ll find that Etho was right, and that he will have time for it later, and that he would much rather be asleep in his roommate’s arms than be unnecessarily overworking himself.