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Clark knew Jason was a light sleeper because he had spent the last three weeks learning how not to wake him.
The mattress was easy. Clark could keep his weight off it while he turned, settle by degrees, move a pillow without disturbing the head on the other one. The rest took practice. Jason woke when the refrigerator downstairs stopped humming. When somebody paused outside his apartment instead of continuing along the hall. Once, when Clark looked toward the window too quickly, although Clark still didn’t understand how he had noticed that with his eyes closed.
Usually he woke all at once. Hand moving before his breathing changed, eyes finding the room and then Clark, a brief distance in them that Clark had learned to wait through.
Then Jason would recognize him.
Sometimes he swore. Sometimes he pulled Clark back down by his shirt.
Clark liked the second one better.
Tonight, Jason had fallen asleep with a book open against his chest.
He’d insisted he was reading it for nearly twenty minutes after his eyes stopped moving. Clark had watched the same finger rest beneath the same line, watched his chin lower until he corrected it with an irritated little breath. The lamp caught the fine hairs along his forearm. His sleeve had ridden up, and Clark had been trying to decide how much trouble he would get into for kissing the inside of his elbow.
“You can go to sleep.”
“You can mind your business.”
So Clark had minded his business, which happened to be Jason, until the book tilted far enough that he caught it before it hit the floor.
Jason hadn’t woken.
Clark stayed leaning over him.
His mouth was slightly open. There was a pale line on his cheek where he had been resting it against a fold in the pillowcase, and his hand remained lifted for a moment after the book was gone, fingers curved loosely around nothing.
Clark put the receipt from the nightstand between the pages. Set the book down. Touched the back of Jason’s hand until it lowered onto the blanket.
Nothing.
He brushed the hair away from Jason’s forehead.
Usually he got a noise for that. An irritated little breath, a complaint about being petted, sometimes a hand catching his wrist and holding it in place after the complaint.
Jason slept.
Clark’s thumb lingered beside his temple, where the white hair gave way to black. There was a tiny freckle close to his hairline. He had noticed it four nights ago and had been waiting for an opportunity to look properly.
Apparently this was one.
He bent closer.
There were more beneath the outer corner of Jason’s eye, faint enough that Clark had first mistaken them for something else. A little uneven scattering across his cheek, one darker than the others beside his nose. Clark knew the freckles on his shoulders better. Jason let him put his mouth there. It was harder to get away with examining his face.
Got something on me?
You checking for a concussion?
Once, after Clark had been particularly quiet over dinner: If you’re about to tell me I’ve got spinach in my teeth, fucking commit.
Now he could look as long as he liked.
The realization made him smile so suddenly that he glanced at Jason’s eyes, expecting to have been caught.
Still closed.
Clark’s smile got worse.
He put one finger beside the darker freckle.
Not quite touching, at first. Then the lightest contact, the pad of his finger resting against warm skin.
Jason breathed through his mouth.
Clark moved the finger a little, following the slope of his cheek toward a small, pale scar near the jaw. He knew that one by sight. Had never touched it this carefully. Jason generally turned his head by then, caught the hand, kissed the fingers or asked what Clark was looking for.
There was a slight change in the skin beneath it. Smooth in the middle, a firmer edge Clark could feel when he went back.
He went back.
Then, because Jason remained asleep and Clark’s judgment had apparently gone with him, he did it again.
The scar at the edge of his eyebrow was smaller. It interrupted the dark hairs in a thin diagonal, easy to miss when Jason was moving. There were two hairs growing in the wrong direction beside it.
Clark smoothed them down.
They lifted again.
He tried once more, smiling helplessly now.
This was an unreasonable amount of happiness to get from somebody’s eyebrow.
He didn’t care.
Jason’s face looked different without the small, constant decisions he made with it. His jaw had loosened. The crease between his eyebrows was gone. One corner of his mouth sat a little higher than the other even now, though Clark had always thought that was something Jason did deliberately.
He wanted to kiss it.
He wanted to touch everything first.
There was a tiny nick beside one nostril, nearly healed, and a shallow dip beneath his lower lip that Clark knew very well with his mouth. He traced beside it with the back of his finger. Felt the beginning of stubble along the chin, rougher when he changed direction.
Jason swallowed.
Clark froze, finger still resting beneath his jaw.
A breath.
Another.
Nothing else.
He looked at the ceiling for a second, grinning like an idiot.
Then back down, immediately, because there was no reason to waste this.
Jason’s lashes were darker at the roots. One had caught against another near the outer corner; Clark resisted the urge to separate them. There was a faint blue vein visible beneath the thin skin at his temple, and the top of his ear folded forward slightly where it pressed into the pillow.
Clark eased the pillowcase away.
The ear returned to its proper shape.
He was going to have to live with knowing how pleased that made him.
His hand settled along Jason’s cheek, barely cupping it. He could feel the warmth spreading into his palm, the little movement when Jason breathed. Awake, Jason might have let him do this for a moment. Might even have leaned into it before remembering to ask why Clark looked so fucking tragic about touching his face.
Clark didn’t feel tragic.
He felt like laughing.
Like waking Jason just to tell him, which would defeat the entire purpose and probably get him elbowed.
Instead he stroked his thumb once beneath Jason’s eye.
Jason turned toward the hand.
Only a fraction. Enough to press more of his cheek into Clark’s palm, his mouth moving against the base of Clark’s thumb before he settled again.
Clark stopped breathing.
Oh.
They had been doing this for a few weeks now. Going out. Staying in. Jason calling to ask whether he had eaten, then arriving with enough food to make the answer irrelevant. There was a spare toothbrush in the bathroom that Jason had bought without mentioning it, and a shirt of Clark’s hanging over the chair because Jason had worn it yesterday and hadn’t offered it back.
None of it had acquired a name.
Clark had tried several privately. Had spent most of a walk home with boyfriend sitting behind his teeth while Jason held his hand inside his coat pocket.
He hadn’t asked.
There were still times Jason seemed surprised to find Clark making plans more than a few days ahead. Clark could wait until a question about Saturday stopped getting that brief, searching look before the answer.
For now, Jason’s cheek was resting in his hand.
Clark could have stayed like that until morning. Would have, if his arm hadn’t been stretched at an angle Jason was eventually going to notice. As it was, he lingered long enough to memorize the weight, then drew his hand away by degrees and switched off the lamp.
He lay down.
Jason rolled toward him almost immediately, one hand sliding over Clark’s stomach, knee settling against his thigh. His face found the space beneath Clark’s chin. There was a little adjustment, nose dragging against the cotton, before he settled with his cheek flattened and his lower lip caught against the shirt.
Clark looked down.
He had just spent several minutes getting an uninterrupted view of Jason’s face.
Now most of it was hidden against him.
Somehow this was even better.
He put a hand between Jason’s shoulder blades and felt the slow movement of his breathing through the shirt. The little ridge of an old scar beneath the collar. Warm hair brushing his throat.
Three weeks of being allowed to stay, and Jason had fallen asleep deeply enough that Clark could touch his face without waking him.
Clark pressed his lips together.
For a while he listened to the room around them. The pipes. A television upstairs. Jason’s breathing, occasionally catching in a soft sound at the back of his throat.
Forty minutes passed.
Clark knew because he checked.
Then Jason said, “Not that one.”
Clark’s attention narrowed.
The words had gone warm and indistinct against his chest. Jason’s eyebrows drew together, the rest of his face still loose with sleep.
Clark waited for him to ask where the book had gone.
“No,” Jason murmured. “The little—”
His mouth moved again without producing anything Clark could separate into words.
“Jay?”
A breath through his nose.
Nothing else.
Clark lifted his head enough to see him properly. Jason’s lashes rested against his cheeks. His hand hadn’t tightened. Even the frown was disappearing.
Still asleep.
Clark’s mouth began to lift again.
Almost two minutes passed before Jason spoke.
“Can’t put him in there.”
Clark glanced toward the door.
“Who?”
“Too many.”
The answer was so quiet that anybody else would have missed it.
“Too many what?”
Jason’s nose wrinkled.
Clark waited with an attention he had previously devoted to conversations that decided whether somebody lived.
Then Jason said, with quiet, exhausted conviction, “That’s a terrible place for a horse.”
Clark pressed his lips together.
His shoulders moved anyway.
Jason shifted against him.
Clark stopped breathing.
A small crease returned between Jason’s eyebrows. He lifted his head approximately half an inch, mouth brushing Clark’s collarbone, then dropped it again.
“No, he’s—” A pause long enough for Clark to think he was finished. “Got my fucking coat.”
Clark looked toward the chair.
Jason’s coat was there. He could see one sleeve hanging over the back beneath his own shirt.
He was considering whether reassurance would help when Jason made a small, affronted sound.
“Both pockets.”
Clark shut his eyes.
It didn’t help.
The laugh moved through his chest, almost silent. Jason’s hand slid over his stomach as though trying to find the source.
“Sorry,” Clark whispered.
Jason smacked his lips once. Settled.
Clark waited until he could trust his voice.
“What’s in the pockets?”
No answer.
The television upstairs went off. Somebody ran water. Jason’s breathing deepened again, the warm weight of him settling more fully against Clark’s side.
Then, much later, “Wednesday.”
Clark looked down.
Jason frowned at whatever was happening behind his eyelids.
“Fucking ridiculous.”
“I agree,” Clark said softly.
Jason’s hand opened against his stomach.
“Give it here.”
Clark put his fingers into it before thinking better of the idea.
Jason closed his hand.
“There.”
Clark lay very still.
He had been praised for stranger things. Could probably have listed them, if he weren’t occupied with the faint pressure of Jason’s fingers around his and the astonishing fact that Jason had asked for something in his sleep and Clark had apparently managed to provide it.
Outside, a car alarm began.
Clark’s hand stopped moving.
Usually that would do it. Jason would inhale sharply, eyes opening, his arm coming out from beneath Clark’s before he knew where he was.
The alarm sounded again.
Jason slept.
Clark listened to every ugly, repetitive burst. Watched Jason’s face through all of it, the untroubled mouth, the cheek pressed into his shirt. By the time it stopped, Clark had developed several opinions about the owner, but Jason had only shifted his foot beneath the sheet.
He hadn’t lifted his head.
Hadn’t looked for the door.
Clark lowered his mouth to his hair.
He had wanted Jason in his bed long before there was any possibility of being invited into this one. Had thought about what Jason might let him do, the places he might be allowed to touch, what his face would look like close enough that Clark wouldn’t have to borrow the distance.
He had not spent nearly enough time considering this.
Jason sleeping heavily enough to leave a damp patch on his shirt. Jason holding his hand without knowing he had reached for it.
Clark’s throat hurt.
He wanted to ask whether this had happened before. Whether anybody else had heard about the horse. Whether Jason knew he sounded so much like himself even when none of the words belonged together.
He wanted to be unbearable about it.
His phone was on the nightstand.
Within reach, if he moved carefully.
He looked at it for a while.
A few seconds would be enough. He could keep the voice, the sleepy drag at the edges of the words, the little sound Jason made between them. Listen again without having to trust how accurately he remembered.
“Bottom,” Jason muttered.
Clark looked back.
“Hold the bottom.”
He adjusted his grip on the hand he was holding.
“Like this?”
Jason breathed in. His fingers moved once between Clark’s.
“No fucking wheels.”
Clark bent his face into the pillow beside Jason’s head.
This time he couldn’t quite keep the laugh quiet.
Jason stirred. One knee slid higher against Clark’s thigh, and his head turned, cheek rubbing over cotton until he found a fresh place to settle.
“Move over.”
Clark began to shift.
Jason tugged his hand.
“No. Here.”
Another small pull, bringing Clark’s arm more firmly around him.
Clark came closer.
Jason breathed out, long and warm against his chest.
“Better.”
Clark left the phone where it was.
In the morning, Jason denied everything.
Not immediately. First he drank half his coffee, stole the corner of Clark’s toast, and asked why Clark kept looking at him like that.
“You talked in your sleep.”
Jason paused with the toast halfway to his mouth.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“What’d I say?”
Clark told him.
All of it.
In order.
Jason put the toast down somewhere around the coat pockets.
“You’re making that up.”
“I don’t think I could.”
“You absolutely fucking could.”
“Where was the horse?”
“CK.”
“Did he fit?”
Jason rubbed a hand over his face. Clark watched the redness arrive at the tips of his ears with considerable interest.
“I don’t remember.”
“Was it your leather coat?”
“I don’t remember a fucking thing. That includes any hypothetical livestock.”
Clark smiled into his coffee.
Across the table, Jason picked at a loose edge of the placemat. His hair was sticking up on the side he had slept on. The pillow mark had faded while he showered, which Clark had noticed with a small, private disappointment.
“How long was I out?”
The question sounded different.
Clark lowered his mug.
“You fell asleep just before midnight. Your alarm went off at seven.”
“Did I wake up?”
“No.”
Jason looked toward the window.
A bus passed outside, loud enough to rattle something in the kitchen cupboard.
“Usually hear that,” he said.
“I know.”
Jason’s gaze came back to him.
Clark had rather a lot of information available if he asked. Times, disturbances, the night he had woken three times in twenty minutes and pretended each time that he hadn’t been sleeping anyway.
He kept his hands around his mug.
Jason looked down at the toast instead.
“Did you sleep?”
“Some.”
“How much is some?”
Clark considered lying.
Jason’s eyebrows rose.
“I didn’t want to miss it.”
“The horse?”
Clark shook his head.
For a moment Jason stayed very still. Then he looked away, mouth pulling at one corner, and reached for the piece of toast he had abandoned.
“You’re a fucking weirdo.”
Clark knew that tone now.
It had taken him less time to learn than the mattress.
Beneath the table, Jason’s bare foot found his ankle.
Clark looked down, although he didn’t need to.
“You can wake me,” he said. “If you need something. Or if you can’t sleep.”
Jason chewed.
Swallowed.
“I know where you are.”
Clark looked up.
Jason was concentrating very hard on the toast.
Something warm and unreasonable moved through Clark’s chest. He wanted to ask whether he could stay tonight, whether Saturday still meant the two of them, whether Jason had any idea what it did to him to say something like that while eating his breakfast.
Jason’s foot moved against his ankle.
“If you tell Dick,” he said, “I’m changing the locks.”
“All right.”
“Or anybody.”
“All right.”
Jason finished the toast.
Then he reached across the table and turned Clark’s hand over, examining the faint crescents left in his palm from where he had been holding the mug too tightly.
“Tonight,” he said, thumb moving once over the marks, “you can get some fucking sleep yourself.”
Clark’s fingers closed around his.
“Okay.”