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The sun hasn’t yet risen, still caught in the lull of either late night or very early morning, and Dave’s bed is overwarm in a now-familiar way. Jack’s bed. Not Dave’s; not really, but the whole thing sort of runs together, the line so thoroughly blurred between what’s his and what’s Jack’s that Dave’s not entirely sure where it is, anymore.
His bed; Jack’s - all the same. Their bed.
He’s never said that aloud, but he can’t help but think that Jack would be enamored about Dave thinking it; that he’d get that love-softened and fond look and that he’d be unable to keep the grin off of his face.
By the softness of moonlight through the window, he can make out Jack’s chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, a slow and encompassing comfort, and reaches out to trace the old, faded line of a scar that stretches from his shoulder to his sternum.
He’s got many, too many scars, and all of them a stark and ever present reminder of exactly what Dave is wagering, by getting tangled in this. Wagering that he won’t get hurt, or if he will, that it won’t hurt that badly. That this - these dark and soft moments with Jack in his bed, Jack supine and loose-limbed and sleep-eased on the bedsheets - will be enough to outweigh any scars it might leave.
Jack, at the contact, stirs lightly, sighs, and, without opening his eyes, says, “Davey?”
Dave adores that - the way Jack’s become entirely accustomed to Dave in his bed, wound so tightly into his life that Dave’s name is the first one he reaches for, in the softest hours of the night.
Dave hums lightly, afraid to break the moment, like if the silence shatters than the whole thing goes slipping through his fingers.
The dim light frames Jack’s face as he blinks himself awake, still sleep-addled when he asks, “Davey? ‘S not- Go to sleep.”
His voice is all Manhattan and muddled with disuse, heavy in the way it always gets when he’s just woken up. Like he’s talking through a mouthful of honey - sweet and warm and fond. Dave stifles a laugh, but can’t keep the smile from his face.
“Can’t sleep,” he offers, which isn’t a lie, but it’s not the entire truth, either.
Dave knows how this sort of thing goes - has seen it happen a handful times - and it’s never an easy break, but it’s always a break. Always limited time and a painful, tumbling end.
However it ends, Dave is sometimes struck with the urge to make sure he’s present for as much of it as he can get; that he doesn’t take Jack for granted, while he has him.
Jack smiles, soft and open and warm, and Dave can feel the steady line of his pulse where his palm rests on Jack’s chest.
“Nah,” he says, softly, as though afraid to wake the sun and bring morning too soon. “Too much goin’ on in that big head’a yours, huh?”
For as long as he can remember, Dave’s been at peace with the fact that he’ll never be really married, if he is at all - that he’ll never promise forever to someone and mean it, but the more time he spends with Jack, the less content he feels with that. There’s so many more pressing things, and if he were ask for anything, getting married wouldn’t even make the list, but still.
He wants forever. He wants the rest of his life with Jack Kelly.
Dave laughs lightly, too adoring to truly be annoyed by Jack’s picking, and leans over to close the space between them, slotting his lips against Jack’s. Warm and devoted - everything about Jack is entirely devoted, even when he’s not trying for it.
Like he’s incapable of loving anything by halves, of not jumping in headfirst without regard for consequences, and that scares Dave more than anything else. That, sooner or later, Jack’s going to come face to face with the consequences of his actions, here.
That one of those scars marring his body will be entirely Dave’s fault.
Those worries have no place here, though; no place in the safety of night and Jack’s tiny little studio apartment and the warmth of another man’s body heat caught in the bedsheets.
“You snore, y’know,” Dave says, and Jack throws his head back with a laugh, baring the smooth and tender flesh of his throat, the hill of his Adam’s apple, a silhouette that Dave could map by memory alone - that he knows entirely too well, by now.
“Oh, I’m the reason you can’t sleep?” he asks, with a teasing edge, and Dave wants desperately to stay here forever.
In the dark of night nothing can touch them. He isn’t worried about the law or repercussions or what sort of heart attack his mother might have, if she got wind of who’s bed he’s been sharing.
Night is forgiving in a way that day isn’t - at night, the whole world goes to sleep, and it’s just him and Jack, just the two of them, high above the city streets and dangers of the day.
“Yeah,” Dave relents, meaning more by it than he had intended, before it had been put into the open. “Yeah, Jackie. You are.”
Jack grins wider, so bright it almost hurts to look at him directly, and Dave’s overcome with want - want to keep this, to keep Jack, to love him entirely and forever and without pause or restraint.
He doesn’t have that, though. He doesn’t have forever, but he has tonight, and he’s damn-well determined to make use of it.
Jack reaches out, tracing the line of Dave’s jaw, from below his ear down to his chin, and then back up, fingers curling in as he does so. There it is again - the devotion. Like he’s got to commit to memory everything about the things he loves.
Is that devotion - is memorization devotion, or just a way for Jack to hold too tightly to things bound to end?
He doesn’t care. All he cares about right now is here, in this bed. As long as the sun doesn’t rise, there’s no world outside of this bed.
“Yeah? Y’think I’m that pretty, David Jacobs?”
That’s never even been a question - Jack’s always been a gorgeous man. Even back when they’d been teenagers, growing into themselves, Jack had been gorgeous, and Dave had been gone on him, entirely enamored.
He imagines Jack had to have known, because he hadn’t exactly been subtle back then, but it’d still taken them a good few years to get to this point.
If he could do it over again, Dave would kiss him sooner. Wouldn’t wait for Jack to make the first move - he’d reclaim those few years with Jack that he’d lost to his own uncertainty.
That’s the thing about hindsight, though - he couldn’t have possibly known then what he does now: that Jack loves him, and that being in love, for Jack, means that he’s softer and fonder and and more tenderhearted that any one person has a right to be.
“I think your ego doesn’t need the boost,” Dave hedges, even though the answer is yes and the most beautiful man I’ve known and I love you.
Outside, the clouds shift, leaving an open space for the moon to fly in unimpeded, and it leaves Jack looking entirely alight, dark skin laid over by the softness of night, starlight reflected back in the deep, endless brown of his eyes.
There’s nothing about him that’s less than perfect.
“I think you’re pretty,” Jack says, charm permeating the words, and the look Dave shoots him is trying for unimpressed, but can’t quite manage the hurdle of his lovestruck and besotted smile.
Jack takes no heed of it, adjusting instead so that he can easier drag his teeth along the vein of Dave’s pulse in his throat, still keeping on his lips a long of praises and tender words, incapable of anything less.
The night pulls slowly around them, and Dave finds himself unable to keep dwelling on anything other than Jack’s hands, Jack’s mouth against his flesh, Jack’s voice rumbling through his chest.
He doesn’t have to - in the cover of night, he doesn’t have to dwell on anything, other than Jack Kelly.