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A heavy rain is rolling in, when Etho comes back. Flying through the dark, he’s glad Bdubs has left a lantern lit on the front porch. It guides him down to a safe landing.
Unlatching the door, he’s been here often enough to only fumble around a little before finding the candles and lighting a couple. When the light spreads, the house is just as Etho remembers it. He’d been right: it was better to come back here than his own place. His house sometimes feels too big—he rattles around in it, like the last match left in the box. Bdubs’s has a full, warm kind of darkness, welcoming. A little oasis in the restless night.
There are a couple of threadbare towels on a tall shelf by the fireplace with a stool tucked under it. Etho grabs one and dries the worst of the rain off him. The fabric is stiff, a little coarse from use, but even though the fire’s long since died, the towel is still warm from being stored against the chimney bricks. He pats down his jacket and musses it through his hair as his eyes drift to the ladder upstairs.
If the fire was lit earlier, Bdubs probably is here, right? Probably. A narrow vine of uncertainty creeps through Etho. Is it weird to be here if Bdubs isn’t? Bdubs said he could stay over whenever, but still. Maybe he should—maybe he should check.
The ladder creaks with Etho’s weight as he climbs to the upper level, easing the bedroom door open to peek inside. As expected, Bdubs is there, ensconced in thick layers of blankets and a heavy eiderdown. The dark obscures his sleeping face, but just seeing the outline of him, even hidden under a mass of blankets, untenses something in Etho that had been wound up tightly.
He thinks about toeing out of his damp socks, slipping off his jacket and crawling into the warm space between the sheets where Bdubs is. Not to do anything, just to see out the rest of the night until Bdubs wakes. Bdubs probably wouldn’t mind it, waking up with Etho beside him, though it’s been months since they last—
Longer than months. A lot longer. Why is that? Why does he let it go so long?
The clock in the hall ticks softly. He watches the even rise and fall of Bdubs’s breaths a moment longer, lingering—there’s a shaft of moonlight spilling in through the thin curtains and landing over Bdubs’s hand where it rests on the pillow, winding carefully into the gaps between his fingers that Etho knows his own hand fits into—then he steps back out and closes the door behind him. Still, it takes him a long while to pull away completely, leave the bedroom door and climb back down.
Somewhere around three in the morning, the rain tapers off. He unlatches the door and looks out into the satin dark. The wood at the foot of the hill cuts a black silhouette against the deep blue sky, just clearing of clouds. He thinks, briefly, about going down to see the stables.
He decides against it. It can wait. He’ll enjoy it more when Bdubs is there to show them off in the morning.
Instead, he picks a couple of logs out of the rack by the fireplace and nestles them into the cindery hearth. Not for the first time, he’s grateful for Bdubs’s enormous chimney. That Bdubs had built it that way. It doesn’t take long to get a fire going, throwing off a solid heat that warms him through, chasing away the last of the outside cold and drying the remaining rain out of his clothes.
Perching on the edge of the couch quickly becomes settling into its most comfortable spot in an array of soft cushions. In moments, his tired eyes fall closed.
Half-aware, he dozes as fire burns down, as the little hours fade into a watercolour dawn, as pale light paints the walls and steeps him in the coming day. Bdubs’s birds pick up their morning chorus, insects begin buzzing—the world returning and returning to life.
He rouses himself just before he knows Bdubs will be up, and shuffles into the kitchen to start putting together some breakfast. Coffee in the pot, bacon in the pan. He’s just putting the scrambled eggs on the heat when—
“Etho?”
Etho looks over to see Bdubs standing in the door, wiping a little sleep out of his eye.
“Morning, Bdubs.”
Bdubs regards him with some suspicion, scratching his head, and his shirt rides up, just a little. Etho catches a half-second glimpse of soft brown skin and downy hair above his waistband. But there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Funny,” Bdubs says. “I don’t remember you being here last night.”
“You saying no to a free breakfast, Bdubs?” Etho asks, cocking his head.
“Oh, you wish. Nice of you to swing by. Put down your rod. Stop in on your old pal Bdubs once in a while,” Bdubs says, coming up beside Etho and peering at the bacon. He’s a warm, solid presence, bumping Etho’s shoulder. “Wasn’t expecting you.”
“You said I could stay over any time, so.”
“Yeah, I did. It’s a nice surprise.” Bdubs’s voice is so fond, so familiar. He says it like it’s obvious.
Etho draws a sticky breath and forces the old, stupid anxiety out. “Sometimes I think you prefer it when I’m not around.”
“What makes you say that?” Bdubs shifts next to him, and Etho can tell he’s being fixed with a look from Bdubs’s big brown eyes.
Etho just shrugs, keeping his eyes fixed on the eggs, and it’s only Bdubs’s hand coming up to touch his cheek that makes him meet Bdubs’s gaze.
“Hey,” Bdubs says. “I’m glad you’re here. I like it when you’re around. I like you making me eggs. I’ll even drink your bad coffee, I like you s’much.”
“I don’t make bad coffee,” Etho protests.
“Etho, you make coffee so bad ,” Bdubs says.
Etho elbows him and turns back to the eggs to take them off the heat before they go rubbery. Bdubs pays him no mind, just snorts a half laugh and reaches around to snag the tongs. They dodge around each other to dish everything onto a couple of plates. Etho takes the coffee pot out from under the drip and pours it out for them both. It smells pretty good to him.
They eat in companionable quiet. White morning light pours in through the east-facing window, sunbeams pooling and saturating the kitchen table. When Etho cracks the window open, the air is fresh and dewy, a cool breeze fluttering in that promises a warm morning and a sunny afternoon. The sky is duck egg blue, dotted with birds that fly between the tall mountains.
Etho breathes it in.
“Best time of the day, right?” Bdubs says from behind him, and Etho turns to him—like a compass, he always finds himself turning in Bdubs’s direction.
There, Bdubs’s hair falls carelessly into his eyes. Shaken-off bleariness has melted into an easy smile. He looks so much like himself: absolutely and finally Bdubs.
“I guess it’s pretty okay,” Etho says. He doesn’t think much about it when he steps in and ducks his head to press their mouths together. It’s not a real kiss—not with his mask on—but he buries his fingers in Bdubs’s hair and his eyes slip closed.
Bdubs doesn’t move other than to curl an arm around Etho’s waist. They stay there for a moment. For a moment, wrapped up so wonderfully close.
When Bdubs does pull back, it’s only an inch, and only to press his cheek to Etho’s. “You back for long?” he asks, voice soft.
“Not long,” Etho says. “A little while, though.”
“Tonight?” Etho nods against him. “I don’t want you sleeping on the couch.”
“I guess I could go all the way back to my place,” Etho teases.
He feels Bdubs’s laugh more than he hears it, like he feels Bdubs all around him, like he feels the rumble of Bdubs’s voice when he says, “you know that’s not what I mean.”
🥓🍳☕