Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s a small relief that Kip is alone when he realizes he wants to kiss Wallace.

It's a dream he has—one of the only dreams to ever wake him up that wasn't a nightmare. It was very calm and uneventful, actually, with no sense of discomfort or danger. Kip had dreamt that he and Wallace were in the latter's apartment, where they simply talked, but kept moving closer, kept trading warm laughs and affectionate words. Kip put his hand on Wallace's shoulder, and Wallace smiled sweetly. Kip smiled back at him, glanced at his lips, and leaned in.

And woke up.

Kip now stares up at the ceiling, slowly processing the fact that just minutes before, he'd unambiguously intended to kiss Wallace. He even has to acknowledge his disappointment that the dream was cut short before he could do so.

He finds himself replaying the brief fragments of the dream in his mind. The feeling of it was entirely pleasant. He had felt completely safe, and contented, and affectionately fond of Wallace. He'd wanted to kiss him and sensed that Wallace wanted the same. He'd been leaning in to do it. He would've done it, if he hadn't woken up in the next moment. And it would've felt nice.

He can't even bring himself to be truly uncomfortable about it now that he's awake and processing things rationally. It was just a dream, after all. And his relationship with Wallace has changed so much since its less-than-pleasant onset. In that early period, Kip barely got the chance to think about Wallace's personality in a context outside of the larger question of Wallace's motives and capability to endanger monsters. Kip's own feelings about him were irrelevant—a hindrance, even. At the height of Kip's suspicion, even what made Wallace seem harmless would only set Kip more on edge around the human. Wallace was too nice. He was too naïve. Too eager. Too clueless.

But when Wallace was finally proven to be just as earnest and well-meaning as he'd always appeared, things were different. Kip could allow him a basic level of intimacy that had before been impossible. Removing the heavy, ever-present cloud of suspicion meant that their entire relationship was now a fundamentally different creature—at least on Kip's end. But Wallace seemed much more comfortable around him as well. Unless Kip has simply been projecting.

But they're friends now. Kip can have feelings about him without weighing them against how likely Wallace is to hurt him or his loved ones. And he can easily admit he likes Wallace. They all do.

Kip looks at the clock by his bed. He has five more hours before he has to get up to help Cuddy open the store. He sighs, closing his eyes and dragging a hand down his face.

He rolls over and pulls the covers up around himself, hoping for a quick return to uninterrupted sleep.

—

He's a bit quieter than usual at work, somewhat stuck inside his head. The dream finds its way into his thoughts even when he's preoccupied with his job, and he has to take a second to reenter his mental flow. He's already moved past stressing about it, but it's still something unexpected and, he has to admit, somewhat intriguing.

Kate's shift overlaps with his so they can work the busier lunch hours together, with Cuddy helping up front as needed. The added company draws Kip a bit further out of his reveries; he tends to be much chattier with Kate than he is at other times, and they have a style of trading quickfire jokes and jabs even during the most fast-paced workflow—unlike with most of his other friends, when Kate teases him, Kip teases back. More than once their affectionately playful exchanges got them mistaken for girlfriend and boyfriend, to their mutual amusement.

But even now, as Kate insults his tablewashing abilities and he responds by throwing crumpled straw wrappers on the patch of floor she's trying to sweep, Kip knows he's still being noticeably quieter, and hopes Kate doesn't try too hard to coax his thoughts out of him.

She and all his friends can tell the difference between an everyday sort of withdrawn mood and when things are more serious, and won't mess with him over the latter—but the former is fair game, and he knows it. He doesn't want to endure the level of teasing he'd get if she found out he was thinking about—about at least having a crush on Wallace. Not to mention that it likely wouldn't be kept secret from Molly and Roy, who have long dropped most of their teasing over the matter, but would surely return to it with a greater enthusiasm than ever before.

Unfortunately for him, he's too distracted to come up with a good cover story for what's got him "so out of it today" as Kate points out, and can only stubbornly if unconvincingly insist that it's nothing, nothing, nothing.

—

By the time he gets home for the day, momentarily alone, he's gotten to a place where he can calmly accept a few facts, along with the additional fact that he's probably known them all along.

First, that only days after he first met Wallace, he was already having moments where he felt drawn to Wallace in a way that struck him as intimate and warm. They may have been brief, far between, and soon overwritten by feelings of fear and suspicion, but in retrospect it's as clear as ever that he felt an undeniable attraction to the human almost as far back as their relationship went.

Second, that Wallace isn't what Kip would call good-looking—at least, not by any usual standards—but that his face has a real appeal to it once you reach a certain degree of familiarity with his features, especially the way those features look when Wallace smiles.

Third, that his friendship with Wallace feels as real to him as any of his others, and he wants it to be as deep as it can grow, and he wants it to last as long as possible.

And lastly, that he'd be fine with kissing Wallace for real.

—

He and Wallace see each other nearly every day, and they always trade smiles and a wave if all they're doing is passing by, and more often at least spend a minute or two chatting with each other. But they also visit and work together, sometimes by themselves, sometimes with Molly and Roy, sometimes Kate, sometimes Ben. Wallace is so eager to be friendly with everyone that Kip finds it easy to have him as an addition to any group: if anything, Kip tends too reclusive, and Wallace tends too outgoing, and he balances Kip out and makes him feel more at ease.

He certainly feels more comfortable than he used to be when he and Wallace were alone together. They talk freely now, Kip's demeanor isn't chilled by wariness and frustration, Wallace's isn't dampened by nervousness.

Kip had even let Wallace follow him into his room once. He wasn't exactly uncomfortable as Wallace looked around, but he was self-conscious. His room was still objectively boring, with a lot of empty space and plain surfaces and an unimpressive collection of belongings. He only had maybe a shelf and a half of books, everything he wore fit inside his dresser and closet—he didn't even have a chair. Kip stood awkwardly off to the side, watching Wallace in his peripheral vision. But Wallace seemed to find it all as fascinating and admirable as he found just about everything he encountered. He commented kindly on Kip's string of lights—one of the few things in the room that was purely decorative—and remarked on how organized everything was and how calm the colors were. He smiled at Kip with a lingering look that made Kip blush. And then Kip saw Wallace turn back towards the door and stop as he saw the small fern Kip nurtured and, right next to it, the little framed portrait. Kip blushed harder and walked to the door to lead Wallace away before he could comment on it, but Wallace didn't say a thing.

After all their time together, Kip still has never discussed his family with Wallace beyond the most basic information when necessary, and has certainly never explained exactly what happened to them. The subject has been tentatively touched multiple times before, but Kip's never been willing or able to go into any details, though he doesn't know if anyone else has already provided information to Wallace. Before now, everyone who knows Kip has known what happened to him, and Kip's never had to explain it to anyone. But Wallace doesn't know. He knows something happened, and Kip’s family was killed, and maybe that's enough—and maybe it's not.

Wallace's ignorance has always been one of the most consistent things to make Kip question allowing himself to grow attached to Wallace. Granted, it's not Wallace's fault that until just this last year he lived in the extremely insulated, propaganda and misinformation-saturated world of District A, with only occasional ventures into the officially-desegregated but unofficially-very-segregated District B, where he never even knowingly saw a monster. But that doesn't change the reality of that history's effect on Wallace.

After all, it's not the fault of any humans in District B that their situation has involved them being taught to hate monsters—but still, even on the straightforward route to Eno's office, Kip is given a wide berth even in crowded stations, he has to wait for attendants to pull on gloves before handing him his pass in an effort to be "sanitary" that's used for him about half the time but almost never exercised for other humans, he weathers dirty looks and muttered comments so frequently he's all but stopped remembering them as individual occurrences. People recoil from him when they suddenly realize there's a monster in their proximity. They speak impatiently with him just for daring to be present or address them. He's been corralled off the sidewalk. When he and Eno go out for a meal together, they have to walk several blocks just to reach any of the areas with comfortably monster-friendly establishments—although monsters are technically allowed everywhere, many places find ways to subtly or not-so-subtly divert monsters away from the human clientele. Having Eno with him helps a bit, but Kip's head-to-toe blue coloring alone is a glaring giveaway, and places don't want human business kept away when passersby can tell at a glance that there's a monster inside. Eno keeps careful note of what places treat monsters well, which ones have monsters on their staff, he firmly stands up for Kip when needbe, but even so, they've had a few sour experiences.

Wallace may not have that active hatred or disdain for monsters, but he's no more untouched by the prejudice inherent to District A than anyone else there is. His desire to help everyone, monsters included, is admirable, but when his approach to helping monsters is no different than his approach for humans from A and B, he falls far short of being truly helpful at all. Monsters know well that the District A attitude for what's "best" for them involves keeping them away from humans while letting humans benefit from the suffering and misfortune of monsters. To work within that system is to guarantee monsters that you can't truly offer them any kind of wellbeing. Kip suspects that even if Wallace had been able to continue working for his original company, they would’ve eventually hit an impasse.

And Kip know his own personal experiences are only a fraction of what it means to be a monster—he knows the personal experiences of his friends, he knows the stories and rumors that spread underground, everything monsters teach each other about what it really takes to get by, all the stories that humans don't tell or even hear. Every monster knows these things. And a human who's only ever learned what A has to tell them has no clue about any of it.

Earlier, Kip's highest hopes for Wallace were that he could be a sympathetic ambassador to A who could divert small but much-needed benefits to monsters who were barely managing to hold their lives together. Wallace's naïve outlook might've been patronizing or arrogant at worst, but he would be kept in check by his own aversion to conflict, his sensitivity to noticeably hurting anyone.

What had really bothered Kip during that period was much smaller things. For a long time Wallace was still very unused to being around monsters, and things about them could startle him, or make him visibly uneasy in close quarters with monsters he was unfamiliar with. This not only embarrassed Kip, but even angered him. He knew humans largely looked and worked the same, and weren't used to the incredible variety of forms and functions amongst themselves that monsters were, how monsters were all accustomed to the same processes working differently for everyone across the board, how open your expectations had to be, how many assumptions needed to be checked. But to actually see Wallace flinch, or stare, or hesitate, or stammer with nervousness—most of the time he could just roll his eyes at Wallace's complete ignorance, but sometimes he found that it genuinely stung.

He was comforted on the matter when it became evident that Wallace had at least become aware of his own ignorance, and truly wanted to replace it with what monsters had to teach him about what their reality was actually like. He really wanted to help after all, and that redeemed him in Kip's eyes much more than Wallace's amiable personality ever could on its own. Despite his earnest intentions, Wallace still was decades behind on learning about life outside of District A. But he'd set himself on a different course than the one he'd been on in District A, and that's what feels most significant.

—

Molly texts Kip that she's going by Roy's work after she finishes some errands and they'll be back to the apartment together in an hour or so. Kip does a bit of cleaning in the meantime, washing some dishes, dusting off the furniture, running their little electric sweeper over the rugs.

He's resting on the couch, laptop beside him, head back and eyes closed, when he hears Molly and Roy's vibrant conversation as they approach and open the door.

"Hi, Kip!" Roy chirps as they enter, a few plastic shopping bags in their arms.

Kip rubs his eyes and shrugs off his sleepiness, sitting upright.

"Hey," he greets them in a slightly gravelly voice. He watches them carry the bags into their small kitchen and set them
down on the counter.

"We decided to make dinner tonight," Molly explains from the next room. "All homemade. We brought some ingredients from the store."

"What are you making?" Kip asks. "Do you want me to help?"

"Not at all," Molly answers. "We need some room too mess things up a little, and you're too perfect at cooking for that."

"Hmm." Kip hugs his knees to his chest.

"Plus, we didn't one hundred percent figure out what we're making yet," Roy adds, ducking down slightly as he steps back through the doorway into their living room. "So we need some time for that, too. Oh! And we ran into Wallace outside, and invited him to eat with us even though he looked busy, and he said he'd be back in about a half hour or so and he'll just come up here when he's ready! Isn't that great?"

"Oh," Kip says, glancing down at the floor. "Yeah—that's...yeah."

"What's that about, huh?" Roy asks. Kip looks up to see Roy grinning at him.

"What's what about?" Molly walks out of the kitchen, too.

"Kip's blushing," Roy tells her.

"What?!" Kip slams his hands down to the cushions and glares at them, indignant. He can definitely feel himself blushing now that he's been accused of it.

"Well, well," Molly puts a hand on her hip and gives him a smirk, and Roy giggles.

"Leave me alone," Kip grumbles, leaning back into the couch and looking away.

"Aw, lighten up," Molly laughs. "We're just messing with you."

"I know," he huffs, folding his arms.

He stays on the couch while the other two move around the apartment, chatting back and forth and bustling about in the kitchen. He works on a new post for his blog, editing a few points and working out the structure, making a list of possible relevant resources and articles to link to.

He's fairly engrossed in the process when there's a light knock on the door and Roy issues a "Come in!" from the kitchen. Kip stiffens a little, staring at the keyboard of his laptop, before looking up at the opening door and seeing Wallace for the first time in person since The Dream.

Wallace enters their apartment with a smile, glancing around and settling his gaze on the only other person visible to him at the moment. Kip blushes and gives him a usual casual greeting: a genuine smile and a lifted hand.

"Hey, Wallace!" Molly steps into their living room, dusting her hands off with a towel. Kip sees her quickly glance between the two of them as she walks over to wrap an arm around Wallace's torso in a hug. "How's your day been?"

"Good," Wallace says as he bends into the squeeze. "Nothing very exciting, but nothing bad either. What about you guys?"

Roy emerges to welcome Wallace as well and he and Molly easily carry the conversation. Kip lets himself be silent as he listens to the others—even at his most outgoing he tends to be less talkative than they are anyways, and for him to even be on the quiet side by his own standards still isn't anything too unusual. He crosses his legs up on the couch and types on his laptop a bit, working on some simple editing while the talk flows around him.

Wallace ends up sitting down in the middle of the couch, and Kip glances over at him a few times when Wallace is looking away. The Dream has definitely given him a new kind of self-consciousness around Wallace. He's not sure if it's an awkwardness that will quickly fade within a week or two, or if it's a previously undiscovered facet of his perception of Wallace that can now grow into something more solid since he's been made consciously aware of it.

Eventually Molly and Roy migrate back into the kitchen, though they're still talking with Wallace. Kip hears them occasionally debating between themselves how to execute some culinary maneuver; he resists the impulse to intervene. He stares intently at the words on the screen whenever there's any indication things are going off-trajectory in the other room.

"How about you, Kip?"

Wallace's question cuts through one such period of determined redirection of focus. Kip starts and looks over to see Wallace looking back at him, giving a slight smile.

"I—huh?" Kip stumbles, embarrassed to find he’s completely lost track of the conversation.

"Sorry, just—how've you been? I haven't seen you guys for a couple of days."

"Oh..." Kip closes his laptop and sets it on the floor, sliding it under the couch with his heel. "It's okay, I've been—" He stops himself from saying "good," because that's not completely true, but things haven't been that bad either—just a usual period of doing decently while hitting a few bad spots interspersed here and there.

"I've been fine," he finishes quickly. After a beat it occurs to him that he can give a longer answer. "I've been at work since Sunday, and mostly just hanging around here otherwise."

"Has it been really busy at the café?" Wallace asks.

"Um, not in any way out of the ordinary, at least not when I've been there," Kip answers. "I haven't worked in the evenings for a while though, so I don't know about that."

There's a pause.

"You should go there more often," Kip tells him. "You know any of us would give you something free whenever you stop by, right?"

"Really?" Wallace looks genuinely caught off-guard by the information.

"Yeah," Kip says with a smile.

"That's true," Molly chimes in from what sounds like a struggle with a saucepan and whisk. "And Cuddy would too, so don't think that's an issue. It's a good place to hang out, and you can even get one of the little tables to yourself for work or stuff like that, so you don't have to be holed up by yourself for hours doing paperwork, or whatever you have to do."

Wallace laughs and rubs the back of his head.

"Thanks, you guys," he says. "It CAN get a little...dull when I'm doing work in my apartment for a while. And it’s always good to see any of you.”

Kip blinks and gives a small smile.

The self-consciousness Kip felt slowly melts away and is all but gone by the time Roy and Molly finish cooking about half an hour later. He's relieved to find that the new context he has for Wallace doesn't make it much less comfortable to be around the man. He knows he shouldn't be surprised—Wallace's natural friendliness is a stubborn trait, and they've been on good terms for long enough and through so much anyhow that there's no reason that twenty minutes of quiet awkwardness from Kip should dim that warmth between them. Wallace was trying to be nice to him even back when Kip wasn't sure he wanted anything to do with the human, so he really doesn't need to worry about a touch of nervous shyness doing any damage.

They all bunch around the little table in the kitchen to eat and the crowdedness makes them all even more prone to laughter than usual and any traces of Kip feeling out of place are pushed out by the proximity and cheerfulness of his friends. His presence doesn't lessen any of it. He has no real doubts that they like being around him just as he likes being around them, but it nonetheless helps him to be periodically reminded with examples of that.

Kip puts a bit of effort into making sure he joins in the conversation throughout the evening instead of letting himself hide in his shell too much. He talks with Wallace, and Wallace talks with him, and it's easy and casual and nice. Kip keeps looking over at Wallace when Wallace's attention is elsewhere, when he's stepping out of the room, when he's talking to the others. Molly catches his eye after this a couple of times, and Kip instinctively averts his gaze and feels his face heat up.

He's more consciously observant of Wallace than he's been in a long time—since back when he was monitoring Wallace as though lives literally depended on it, which he was then sure they did. But that was unpleasant to say the least, and now his attention is driven by a softness, a fondness. He's not head-over-heels or anything so urgently intense, but he loved Wallace already and now wants to kiss him, and Wallace's presence and personality are so warm, and Kip is so drawn to warmth.

—

Even at the worst, coldest part of their relationship, when Kip lost sleep at night, shaken and horrified by the thought that if everything went wrong and he was in a scenario with no options and was forced to act, he might have to kill Wallace—Kip still occasionally experienced the appeal of being around Wallace.

He had been scared of Wallace ever since he first saw him. He knew that Wallace, as an individual, was far from threatening, but everything he represented was frightening enough to make one sick. An unknown human implanting itself in their home—Kip's home. A human from District A. A human who asked monsters to share their personal lives and utmost vulnerabilities with him. A human who might be acting for the shadowy side of that district, the one all monsters knew of and feared. A human who might be here to hurt them. To kill them. Who might be here for Kip specifically. For his friends, his family—the new family that had rushed in to fill the void left by the one that had been taken from him overnight.

When Kip thinks about something happening to the people he loves, he locks up. His heart and thoughts plunge into this terror that is consuming and comfortless. He gets physically shaky, his breaths contract, he feels completely helpless. He knows he can't go through that a second time. He's not ready to lose anyone. He's not ready to have anyone taken away. And he knows that his desperation to prevent that from happening is the strongest thing about him.

But even with all of that directed at Wallace, with Wallace continuously on trial in Kip's mind for endangering potentially every monster he had access to, including his own loved ones and all their loved ones in turn, even with all that—there were still moments even then that Kip warmed to Wallace. It didn't exactly concern or surprise him. He knew that even if Wallace's intentions were the worst that they could be, his personality could really be as nice as it seemed—Wallace could still be likeable on that most superficial level. On the shallowest surface of their interactions, things could be fine; Wallace could be planning to destroy him but still treat him with friendly kindness in the meantime.

And now, relieved of the crushing burden of that suspicion, Kip can feel the full force of Wallace's appeal. He's not just limited to appreciating only the pleasantness of Wallace's interpersonal skills. He can love Wallace. He can love him for his heart. He can love him for everything.

—

Kip lies in bed, absently playing with the hem of a blanket, staring at the juncture of the ceiling and the wall.

There's one big complication with allowing himself to fully entertain his feelings for Wallace.

He's in love with Pascal.

—

He and Kate go out to eat after work one day at a little restaurant a few blocks down. The weather warns of an impending rainstorm, but they choose an outdoor table regardless. Kip stares up at the splashes of dark grey in the overcast sky as he waits for Kate to bring her bowl of noodles out to the patio as well. There's a warm, heavy breeze moving through the streets every few minutes.

"Took you a minute," Kip says when Kate shows up, holding her food with one hand and shoving her phone into her pocket with the other.

"Yeah, I was sending a text," she explains as she takes the chair opposite him. "I needed to go to the store after this and I decided to look around a few places for fun, too, and I invited Ben to come along with me if he's free."

"Oh."

Kate picks and stirs at the noodles with her fork and glances at Kip.

"You can come along too if you want," she says. "I figure it'll be wandering around and stuff. It's just nice to get out and break up the routine sometimes. Especially with Ben—it's like he gets stuck and needs an excuse to be around people, you know. I try to drag him out here sometimes.”

"Yeah," Kip agrees. "I—should maybe head home after this, though."

Kate scoffs at him and he takes a bite of his sandwich to force a pause into the conversation.

"Ben's a really fun guy, Kip, if you just get to know him better—“

"I already know him better!" Kip argues. "God I’ve known him for ages, it's nothing like that, it’s more like...that I..."

He sighs and looks down at the tabletop, feeling a push of guilt. He thinks of how long it's been since he visited Ben on his own, not just alongside someone else who suggested it, or running into the man by chance. Despite the fact that Kip knows as well as anyone else in the world what Ben's going through, and has been going through it right along with him, despite the fact that they live in the same building, despite the fact Kip himself gets painfully lonely, yearns for company to help pull him from one of his worse days.

"It's not that I don't like him—I've always liked him. It—it's something..." He sighs. "I can come. I'll come with you guys."

"Jeez, Kip, you don't have to. You're just being weird about it. You keep being weird about things and not saying why."

"Sorry," he sighs again. "It’s kind of weird. It's just... I'll come."

"Okay, then." Kate leans back in her chair and looks at the clouds.

Kip picks at his food as he tries not to let his anxiety grow roots.

"How's saving up for the camera?" he asks eventually, something he hasn't brought up for a month or so.

"It's still going okay," Kate says. "Kind of slow, but...I really want that camera," she laughs.

"Yeah. You're fucking great with the one you have already but you've gotten so good, your pictures with a really high-quality camera would just be amazing."

"Aw," she waves his compliments off with faux-embarrassment. "Yeah, ugh, I'd love to have all those features to work with, I think about it all the time..."

Kip smiles.

—

Ben does meet up with them about an hour later. He looks tired, and Kip sometimes sees his expression take on a deeper weariness when he seems to momentarily slip into his own thoughts. Kip gives him small smiles, but mostly retreats from the other two with a show of being engrossed in the wares of whatever shop they're currently in. Kate is better with Ben than he is, he reasons, and so for that alone it would be more helpful to Ben for him to stay out of the way. Kip can tease Kate, but he can't join in to affectionately tease someone else with her the way that Molly and Roy combine forces to tease him.

Ben is gentle and patient though, and Kip dwells, not for the first time, on the fact that he could really use such a quiet energy as a source of comfort. And then he chides himself for being selfish enough to wonder how he could benefit from Ben when he's clearly never able to give anything back to the man. Kip even feels guilty for merely thinking about his own recent struggles with his emotions in Ben's presence—it feels disrespectful, somehow arrogant.

Kip does manage to do something for Ben by putting a lot of energy into appearing lighthearted and at ease, contrary to the awkwardness and guilt and confusion he feels around Ben. He tries to walk the line between giving Ben plenty of space yet not seeming to avoid him, and while he says almost nothing directly to Ben, he looks up at the pair when they talk to each other, sometimes adding a brief, general statement of agreement.

He keeps giving friendly smiles whenever he looks at Ben, keeps trying to come across as cheerful and comfortable. But Ben keeps moving away from him, looking as though every reminder of Kip's presence tires him a bit more.

Kip has always been noticing Ben's expressions undergo these tiny changes when their eyes meet. A slight dampening, an additional degree of coolness. It's no different now, and it's no different that Kip feels an equally subtle twinge of hurt each time.

—

Kip perks up a bit when they go into a little store that's mostly centered around indoor gardening and he finds himself genuinely engaged. He always considers slightly ambitious projects like a little herb garden for the kitchen, something to look and smell nice and maybe even encourage him to cook more—but in actuality he's never had anything more than the little potted fern which Roy had given him. But now there's a large collection of seed packets and displays of colorful flowers to inspire him.

The sudden release of torrential rain draws his attention to the front windows, where sheets of rain slap against the glass and the darkened atmosphere bleeds into the interior of the store.

"I guess we're stranded in here for a minute," Kate says from the other side of the room.

"I brought an umbrella," Ben says flatly, "so maybe you two are stuck, but I'll be fine."

"Ha, now we just know we can take it from you with our strength in numbers, and leave you here to fend for yourself," Kate retorts, and Ben gives a short laugh under his breath.

Kip soaks in the cozy white noise of the rainfall and wanders over to the trays of live plants, drawn to the blooming flowers. He leans in, inspecting them carefully, their intimate detail, their delicate streaks and speckles of pigmentation.

He wonders if Wallace likes plants, if he considers them a simple comfort like Kip does. He hasn't ever seen any plants in Wallace's apartment. He wonders if Wallace would take to the idea of growing any—he always seems to find so much gratification in feeling like he's supported someone, and that might even extend to flora.

He remembers how Pascal has, ironically, a green thumb—how their shared home back in D was brightened up with unobtrusive plants flourishing in every room. He remembers how Pascal surprised him one day by changing up their shared bedroom when Kip was out at work. Kip had come home, tired and sore and feeling guilty about having been in a bad place the night before and having worried and exhausted his friends. He had intended to apologize to Pascal for avoiding him and all other company, for discovering in the morning that Pascal had slept on the couch just to give him space. He had found the apartment empty and trudged into his and Pascal's bedroom to change out of his workclothes, and was momentarily stunned when he opened the door and found himself in transformed surroundings—there was a new set of heavy, cozy-looking striped blankets on the bed, new and beautifully-colored curtains, a large, patterned, circular rug on the floor, a string of fairy lights hanging around the perimeter of the room, and most impressively, a small lilac bush tucked in the corner by the window. Kip had stayed in the room even after he had gotten changed, awed by how different it felt.

Pascal had returned home less than half an hour later, apologizing that Kip came home to solitude and explaining that he had gone out to buy some new flavors of tea for them all and that he had done everything in the room while everyone else was away and hoped that Kip liked it. Kip had pulled him into a tight hug that didn't end for a couple of minutes.

He had kissed Pascal slow and long and marveled at him, he had asked him how much work he had done, especially to carry a plant all the way into the apartment, surely being heavy and awkward, surely taking up time and money. Pascal blushed and smiled but insisted it had all been manageable and that he wanted the bedroom to be a nicer place for Kip, especially whenever he needed it as a shelter to retreat into. He had taken Kip into the room to show him how to turn the lights off and on, and their warm surrounding glow melted Kip, and his continued amazement at his boyfriend's love and understanding and consideration melted him even more, and he had pulled the pillows off the bed to cushion Pascal's head and hips as he laid him out on the rug and kissed him and kissed him and finally fucked him there in the middle of the room, the scent of lilacs and sex mixed into every heavy breath.

"They're nice."

The quiet statement comes from right beside Kip, startling him out of his reverie. He flinches and snaps his head in that direction to see Ben looking over the plants as well, only a few feet away.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you," Ben says, glancing over at Kip out of the corner of his eye.

"That's—it's okay," Kip stammers, running a hand uselessly through his hair and trying to settle himself. "I—yeah. They're nice."

"Mm."

Kip is all but overcome with self-consciousness.

"I was thinking of getting some kind of flowers," he finally ventures.

"Yeah?" Ben gently brushes his fingers along the petals of a daisy.

"Uh-huh. I have one plant already, but I might like having another..."

"Maybe." Ben's voice is low. "It might help give that place some more life."

Kip looks over to see Ben give him a slight smile, and Kip's heart thumps a few times. Ben moves away and the rain picks up and Kip turns back to the flowers but stares at their leaves.

—

Kip puts the little pot of forget-me-nots on the shelf beside the fern, beside the portrait. Their name and their blue color don't go unnoticed by him, but they're sweet little flowers that fit in well with the rest of the space.

He spritzes some water onto the fern and unscrews the cap to pour a bit of water into the soil, then gives the flowers some water too. He carefully rotates the pot, scooting it a bit closer to the picture, then turns his attention to the photo itself.

The rain had calmed down but remained steady and had evolved into a thunderstorm, with occasional distant rumbles, such as the one that sounds before Kip picks up the frame and stares at the faces of his family, soaking in every detail.

His heart gets a little heavy. He climbs onto his bed and leans against the wall at the head, drawing his knees up and resting the back of the frame on his lap. The room is dim; he turns on the string of lights around his corkboard and curls around the picture.

He stays like that for a little while, silent, feeling an onset of dulled heartache.

"I love you," he breathes, tracing his nail along their forms. "I miss you, so much."

—

At this point in his life, Kip is good at calmly picking apart his emotions—when he's able to confront them in the first place instead of trying to deny or at least avoid them completely.

This most recent revelation might be almost overwhelming complex, but it's still kind of pleasant, and he finds it fairly easy to think about.

So it doesn't take long before he's lying awake again and coming to the conclusion that his new realizations about his love for Wallace haven't lessened what he's known for years about his love for Pascal.

He's in love with Pascal, he's been in love with Pascal for over half a decade, and Pascal is in love with him. That hadn't changed when Kip was dropped headfirst into an ocean of shock and grief and comfortless pain, having lost everything, absolutely everything—having nothing more than himself, a self that had been stripped of his family, his home, his safety, his possessions, his identity—with every moment and thought simply a torture of being forcibly dragged through a consciousness that seemed a billion continuous instants of agony.

Pascal had rushed to be with him that very night, but Kip had no capacity to process how long it had been between waking up after the fire and seeing Pascal, or how Pascal had gotten to him. He only knew that Pascal was there now, and he reached out immediately, wordlessly, and Pascal came to him and Kip clung to his boyfriend, huddled against his chest, swathed in his arms. In the shock of the immediate aftermath, the fire was constantly vivid and horribly close in his mind's eye, and he could neither bear to think of his family nor stop doing so for even a moment. He pushed himself against Pascal, his whole body trembling violently from his core out, gripping the fabric of Pascal’s shirt. He was intermittently wailing with grief, inhales grating at his throat as piercing sobs, sometimes choking on his horror and quieting somewhat, feeling raw and wholly exposed to a pain he felt would kill him right there.

About half an hour had passed in the same way before Kip had the conscious thought that Pascal had come over from District D immediately, had been holding him tight as he trembled and wept and keened loudly.

He cried out Pascal's name, the only coherent word he would say for a couple of hours, and Pascal squeezed him tighter and whispered urgent reassurances to him that he couldn't understand because he couldn't understand anything because nothing felt real anymore and Kip couldn't understand anything that was happening because his family was gone, just gone, they had died, had been killed and they had burned in a fire and Kip couldn't bear to think of it, he couldn't take it, he couldn't take it but he couldn't tear his mind away from remembering the unstoppable wall of bright, roaring flames and the consuming, intolerable heat and he couldn’t stop imagining their last moments alive which must have been pure, incomprehensible pain and terror and Kip can't take it, he can't bear it, he remembers the utter helplessness of seeing his home burn, knowing his family had to be trapped in it if they weren't beside him, knowing they were dying or going to die and he couldn't help them and they were going to burn with all the rest of it, yet fully expecting them to escape because they had to. He remembers his panic, so intense he can't describe it, only comparable to the panic he felt afterwards when he woke up while the ruins of the building were still smoldering and he slowly started to realize what had happened. Kip had nothing but his shock and pure agony and useless but unending tears because this couldn't happen, it had to stop, they had to go back and do this again because it was wrong, they couldn't be gone but they were and they were dead, killed, gone and it felt like every part of Kip and every part of his life had been consumed by the fire too and nothing felt real and Kip was crying without end, without exhausting his tears or himself, unable to do anything more.

But Pascal wasn't gone, and Kip was shoving his tearsoaked face against Pascal's neck, sobbing and pulling Pascal's shirt down his chest, giving hoarse, quiet screams that he’d thought only happened in nightmares.

And Pascal had stayed with him through it, and stayed with him for days, and was with him when he and Molly and Roy went to District D, and when he finally took them all into his home.

And when Kip emerged from the first awful phase of his grief and trauma, Pascal was there. And Pascal loved him, and Kip loved Pascal, and their relationship was different, because Kip was different, and Pascal was different, and everything was different and always would be.

They had never stopped loving each other.

Not when Kip started to notice that Molly and Roy still weren't truly comfortable in D, having left too much behind because they refused to leave Kip's side. When, as much as it pained him, he'd grown to accept that he couldn't be comfortable in District D either, if Molly and Roy weren't—he knew he couldn't convince them to go back to C without him. They wouldn't leave him.

And he knew that deep down he thought he personally should move back to C as well. He knows that he always wanted to help people the same way that his brother was, and he had always said so, until his family was killed and Kip ended up in D, away from the people he'd always thought he'd grow up learning how to help, now trying to keep his head as far down as possible. He knew that he always felt like he'd abandoned everyone his brother had been trying to help even while he resented the expectation that he could take his brother's place—could replace him—even worse, that Kip could simply be considered the same person as Kent, just younger. He knew if he was incapable of feeling fear, he'd still be in C. He knew he felt like he'd broken his promise to himself, the one he'd made over and over, to someday help people like Kent did.

And he knew that the reason he was more comfortable staying in D wasn't because he was truly more at home, but because he was so afraid. He'd gradually, gradually convinced himself he could bring himself to move back to C, until he had the confidence to quietly mention the idea to Molly one evening, and her response was proportionally casual but still detectably positive.

And it didn't take long to realize what was tearing him up so badly about the seemingly reasonable concept of moving back. When he couldn't bring himself to mention the idea to Pascal, he first thought it was because he felt guilty about requiring Pascal to move away from the district he'd grown up in to follow Kip, but he soon knew it was a much bigger problem—he didn't want Pascal to go to C with them.

He wanted to stay in D himself, but he had to do this for Roy and Molly's sakes—they couldn't be truly content until they were back in C, and they couldn't be back in C unless Kip was there too. And he knew his own guilt about not living in C would only increase with time. But Pascal could stay. Pascal had to stay. Kip was still scared enough of C that he would truly be afraid of bringing a monster who wasn't used to that district there for the first time, and infinitely worse being attached to him, living with him—it was far too much.

He figured it out one night simply by imagining finding out that Pascal had been killed. He'd already done that mental exercise to consider how he would react if Roy or Molly were hurt, and knew beyond a doubt he wouldn't be able to take it. He was always somewhat comforted by how much they looked after each other and how much stronger than him they were, but that couldn't fully extinguish his fears. He only knew that staying in D with the awareness that he was hurting the two would gradually but certainly destroy him, while moving back to C, if they were cautious, if they worked carefully, only had a chance of killing him—literally or figuratively.

But Pascal was happy in District D and always had been—though neither of them enjoyed the distance between them when they first started dating. Pascal could stay. And if he came along and anything happened, Kip would know it was because of Pascal’s proximity to him, completely preventable, because Kip knows better than anyone how being close to someone who’s in danger can be fatal enough for you both. That didn't just involve grief that he couldn't weather, but guilt as well. He already knew that Molly and Roy would still be in C if not for him. He didn't want to know that Pascal could still be safe in D if it wasn't for him—that Pascal could be safe anywhere if it wasn't for him. He wouldn't be able to live with it.

The first time he sat down with both Molly and Roy to seriously discuss moving back to C, he put the nail in the coffin by saying aloud that he didn't intend for Pascal to come with them. He said it with a lifted head, a straight back, and folded hands, and if the other two had played along with his style of delivery he might have continued on with it convincingly enough. But their response of a simultaneous surprised "What?!" punched right through Kip's pretense of sturdiness, and he was immediately breathing harder and stammering, and couldn't answer their demands for elaboration with anything but a fumble for words and an embarrassingly fast crumble into silence.

Roy immediately moved his chair closer and pressed a hand over Kip's, giving soothing strokes of the thumb. But Molly launched right into calling out his feigned resolve.

"What are you talking about?" She raised her hands in disbelief. "You want him to come with us; you know he'll want to come with us!"

"I know," Kip had answered. "I don't want to go without him but I need him to stay here."

Molly had argued with him over it a little longer, eventually he just repeatedly answered with "I can't, I can't. I can't."

The conversation hadn't gone much further. Kip was still visibly uneasy by the time Pascal came home, and to tell him what was wrong he had to explain it all, that he wanted to let Molly and Roy return home, but he wanted Pascal to stay away from District C while he himself was there, and it had twisted his stomach to say it and Pascal listened with patience and Kip saw that he was trying to respond with steadiness and understanding but was confused and struggling with it and Kip hadn't planned on laying it all out so soon but he couldn't stand to make Pascal feel like he was trying to hide anything from him and he couldn't make Roy and Molly keep secrets from their friend for his sake either.

They had the hushed conversation sitting on their bed, facing each other, and Kip had told Pascal the truth, that he didn't want to be separated from Pascal but he couldn't feel okay or safe letting Pascal follow him into C. He made no efforts to hide the fact that it was his own fear that necessitated this. That if Kip was anyone else—anyone whose family hadn't been killed in a fire as both a punishment and a threat, anyone who hadn't only survived that by accident—it could be safe for Pascal. But he told Pascal that even half a decade later, he would surely have that same target on his back in the eyes of the forces that remained just as unknown and undetected and unopposed as they had been when they'd first decided the Kaizers had to die. He would be noticed by everyone as an almost public figure, his presence would draw attention, and if he was dating someone that would end up being common enough knowledge too. Someone being that close to him, that special—it wouldn’t be okay. Kip would be pushing away their safety the closer to Pascal he was. He couldn't bear doing that, no matter how happy Pascal made him—he would rather be killed directly but alone than risk having Pascal killed right along with him. He told Pascal that he wanted to try helping those people again, and that Pascal would be safer the greater the distance between them.

"Kip, I—" Pascal's voice was starting to shake, something Kip had hardly ever heard in their half decade together. His heart lurched horribly in his chest. "If you want to move back to C, you should. And...I'm not going to force you to let me move with you..."

Kip grabbed Pascal's arms and squeezed them.

"I want to stay here, Pascal, I want to stay here with you," he told him. "But I can't, I—I've been thinking about this and I know Molly and Roy want to move back and they're only here in the first place because of me, and I can't keep them here just because I'm more comfortable, and I...I think I can live in C again, I know we could...and I could be more involved in everything there. I know I should—should technically never have left but—"

"You needed to,” Pascal said insistently.

"But I think I could be there again," Kip persisted. "I have to be. If I don't go, I'll never do what I always said I would do and Molly and Roy, they're—they're just going to be stuck with me, and I'll be keeping them from what they want to do and—and I have to move back, Pascal."

There was a heavy pause.

"I want to go with you," Pascal said. There was almost a whimper in his voice.

Kip was too shaken up to speak for a moment.

Pascal almost never said anything so direct; he gently suggested and offered and proposed but he hardly ever outright stated his own desires like that, but he seemed unable to bring himself to actually ask Kip to let him come along, and Kip thought that he might not be able to outright refuse if he did. But part of what made Pascal so amazing was that he never, ever did anything he knew would back Kip into a corner or pressure him or make him say something he didn't want to—even though there were so many ways to do so, accidentally or on purpose. Pascal always paid attention to all Kip's subtle signs and tells and gave Kip so much room and wouldn't ever make him feel like he was losing control or being limited. Not even then, when he looked at Kip and then down at the bed and he sniffed quietly and Kip flinched to see a tear spill down along the bridge of Pascal's nose.

"Pascal," he whispered, placing his hands on either side of his boyfriend's face and putting their foreheads together. "Pascal, I love you, I don't want to leave you," he couldn’t help saying, hating that he had to stop himself from saying the reasons he had to leave anyways.

Pascal didn't speak. His broad shoulders were shaking, more tears sliding down his face.

"Pascal..." Kip's voice quavered and he kissed Pascal's hair and brushed away the tears as they fell and painted his face with slow caresses. Pascal's breath caught and shuddered with a quiet sob, and all at once Kip was crying too.

Over the next few days, he kept talking about it with Pascal, and separately with Molly and Roy. He didn't want to make it sound as though the pair was making him leave his boyfriend. But he knew he would rather lose Pascal, knowing he was alive, than lose him the way he'd lost his family. And if he let Pascal live with him in C while trying to help people as he intended, his own fear and uncertainty would consume any chance of their happiness. Even if nothing happened to Pascal, he couldn't bear to witness himself destroy everything good about their relationship.

Molly softened a bit from her initial reaction to the news that Kip wanted to move away from Pascal—she and Roy both seemed to be invigorated by the idea of moving back home, and Kip's distress over his own decision might have convinced her to go easier on him about the matter. Eventually she had to accept that Kip wasn't going to change his mind, that he couldn't, he wasn't ready for it—he had backed himself into a corner all on his own, and all they could do was be in that corner with him.

And Kip had broken his own heart. He had told Pascal they were looking for an apartment in C already, a mile or so from where they used to live, and he told Pascal he couldn't be safe if he lived with him. He told Pascal he loved him, and he wanted to stay with him forever if he could, but that he knew he was the one choosing to leave Pascal, and he didn't think they should hold each other in that limbo under such a separation—a separation Kip intended to be permanent—so Pascal didn't need to consider himself attached to Kip after that.

Pascal hadn't responded to that; he never had. An apartment was found, a date was set. Kip packed his somewhat sparse belongings from his and Pascal's bedroom by himself because if Pascal had been there to help he would've had to see Kip break down messily, curling up on their bed and burying his face in the pillow to stifle his harsh, loud sobs. They'd never stopped sharing that bed, lying so close they were always touching, fucking each other before falling asleep or after waking up, holding each other, kissing, spooning, cuddling. They knew they were making it harder on themselves but they couldn't bear to try making it any easier. The early morning hours of the official moving day was the only time Kip had ever cried during sex. They fucked repeatedly, their buildup was always long and gradual and intense, they came together in the last round. They couldn't stop kissing and holding each other, they didn't want to do anything to bring it to an end.

Their farewell was a heartbreak of its own. Kip couldn't stop saying "thank you" and "I'm sorry", he wanted to stop himself from saying anything but it was as possible as deciding to stop bleeding. They had held each other in a hug for a long time, Kip had put a letter into his arms and kissed him quickly but softly and told him please, please, to do whatever he needed to be happy. And he had finally forced himself away and walked over to Molly and Roy, and couldn't take his eyes off Pascal until they had driven too far away to see him anymore. Molly had passed him a packet of tissues, and he went through more than half of them at once, and used the rest in smaller lapses into tears over the course of the drive.

Kip had been the one to call Pascal when they had finished bringing all their boxes into their new apartment; his voice had a slight tremor to it, but he kept himself together, and so did Pascal. It was a second goodbye, more formal, more distanced in every way. But he knew he was still in love with Pascal, and Pascal was still in love with him.

About a week later, he got a letter from Pascal in a response to the one he'd left his boyfriend with. It was deeply personal and affectionate but restrained, assuring Kip he could move on with someone else just as Kip had kept assuring Pascal he could do the same—without either of them acknowledging that they actually would. A pressed lilac bloom had been slipped into the envelope. Kip brought the signature up to his lips, held it against his chest.

He tried to get over Pascal. Settling in to a new place was a good distraction, and Molly and Roy were clearly excited to finally be back, and that cheered Kip up a bit. The familiarity of the surroundings was both comforting and upsetting, inescapable reminders of what life had been like the last time he was in the area. But he stayed away from the places closest to his old home, and was soothed by the happiness of reunions with people he'd left behind.

Kip struggled with the move more than the others did, but he kept himself mostly upright and weathered his bad days. He could see Eno much more often, both as his therapist and as his friend.

With enough time, his unfamiliar new life became routine—even the painful parts of it. He had his friends to look after him when he needed some extra support. He still missed Pascal, and still knew he hadn't gotten over him, hadn't gotten over the boyfriend he'd wanted to keep all his life, the one who had been there for him when Kip was shredded apart and helpless, when he could've backed out of the relationship that was less than a year old and just left Kip and Kip wouldn't even have realized it for days or maybe weeks, who instead had chosen without hesitation to be with Kip, to do as much as he could for him. Kip loved him with everything he had. He hadn't managed to get over that at all.

But he had learned to ignore it—most of the time. He sometimes wondered if Pascal was managing to move on. But he tried not to let himself indulge in his own heartache. He had chosen this unhappiness, and it was a dead-end road to delve deeper into it.

And then things turned on their head when Roy came home and told him they now lived in the same building as a human. And then within a matter of days, Kip was by that human's side when his stomach dropped and his heart hit his throat and Pascal stepped into the room.

He had never stopped loving Pascal. Pascal had never stopped loving him.

—

Kip turns onto his side and trails his fingers along the floor.

"I had this dream, and I sort of haven't been able to stop thinking about it," he says. "It wasn't bad, or anything, and it's not even a big deal, I just...keep thinking about it like every day."

"Does it seem important to you?"

Kip pauses and looks up at the ceiling.

"I guess so," he answers. "It's been making me think about a lot of stuff and...and just, how I feel about things, so..."

He trails off with half a shrug.

There's a pause.

"Do you want to say what the dream was about?" Eno prompts.

Kip gives a long sigh, rolling onto his back again and nervously tapping his feet together.

"...You know Wallace?" he says slowly.

"Uh-huh."

"I dreamt that, uh...that I kissed him."

"Oh," Eno says, his tone conveying perfect neutrality.

"Well...not exactly, because the first time I woke up in the middle right before the kiss happened, but...I've kind of had the same dream again a few times since then, I suppose because I've been thinking about it so much, and those had an actual kiss in them."

Kip feels a little more relief than embarrassment at discussing the dream.

"I was surprised by it, but it didn't really feel wrong, and—and I like the dream. It feels completely safe, and I'm so used to nightmares, and..."

"Do you want to kiss Wallace in reality?" Eno finishes his thought for him.

"I think so."

"Do you think that's why you keep thinking about it?"

"Yeah, I mean, that's part of it, but it just made me reevaluate all my feelings about Wallace, you know? I mean, I already love him, he's my friend, but then that's...it's been confusing because I've already been thinking about Pascal. And I...I'm still not sure how that's going to go, but I know that I love him still and...and that I at least have a crush on Wallace. And in my whole life I never really stopped to wonder if I could ever be in love with more than one person, but I'm having these feelings about both of them at once and it's just...it's so unexpected and I'm not sure what to do with it."

"Is it something you feel like you need to solve because you’ll need to act on it?"

"I don't have a clue, that's where I'm stuck," Kip says. "I really don't know. Part of me is just nervous to say anything, like we're in high school or something, but I still like being around Wallace and I can't stop thinking about...just trying to be closer, but I'm...I'm not sure if that's a bad idea, or if it's even fair..."

"How would it be unfair?" Eno asks after a pause.

Kip looks at the wall beside him.

"It's like...I know that if I have to pick one person, it would be Pascal—if that's an option. So I don't know if there's even a point in my pursuing anything with Wallace at the same time that I'm thinking about how to move forward with Pascal. It feels like I would just be leading them on, both of them. And Wallace is..."

He blushes and glances over at Eno, who gives him a trace of a smile.

Kip drags himself further upright and sighs.

"Wallace is...so, so sweet and...so friendly, and he's like that to everyone, you know? Like, I wouldn't be surprised if by now he had about three dozen people in love with him or something. I feel like...I have more access to him than a lot of people do, people who might love him a lot better than me, and if I drag him in that's probably going to be keeping him from being with anyone else, which is unfair because I'm not even sure if this is anything more than a stupid crush just because I had a nice dream about him." The pace of his words picks up a bit at the end and he's left a little low on air.

Eno gives him a few moments.

"So you feel guilty about this?"

"Yes."

—

Kip starts preparing dinner while the other two are out. He likes to do it as a surprise—the effort he puts into cooking feels natural, but by Roy and Molly's standards it's an exertion, and they try to convince him that he doesn't need to do it so often. He'd picked up the skill in his teens and refined it while living with Pascal, and found it could be calming, as long as he had the energy for it. He does as much as he can without knowing when the other two will actually be home, and puts the prepped ingredients in the refrigerator to be cooked and assembled later.

Kip trudges over to the couch and climbs into the corner of it, drawing his legs up and resting his head on the cushion of the armrest. He consciously relaxes his body and begins to practice breathing exercises he'd learned for the sake of his anxiety, measuring the breaths, deepening and slowing them, lengthening his exhales.

He lifts his head at the sound of movement in the apartment and almost has time to be alarmed before recognizing Roy's voice. He blinks his eyes open to see that Molly had just come into the apartment and that Roy is sitting in the armchair across from the couch.

He raises himself up from his slumped position. He pushes his legs off the cushions and realizes that Roy had draped a blanket over him. He looks over at Roy and smiles but Roy is walking over to Molly to initiate their standard greeting hug.

"Hello," Molly singsongs, walking by on her way to her room. Kip murmurs a hello and rubs his face, pushes himself off the couch, goes into the kitchen, and starts pulling the food out of the fridge.

His head is swimming a bit as he moves through the kitchen, taking bowls and spoons from the cabinets and drawers and pouring ingredients into a pot.

He pulls his phone from his pocket while the food cooks and notices he'd gotten a text from Wallace. "Wallace Foster: hey kip! i was just wondering..." is all the preview reads, but his pulse quickens a bit at that alone. He opens the text.

"hey kip! i was just wondering if you were free tomorrow or the next day, i was reading through a lot of old stuff on your blog and had a lot of questions and didnt want to send you an essay for an email or anything...just a lot of stuff i didnt know about and would love to learn more about! you dont have to of course, but i would get you lunch or something so it might be more use of your time haha! if you dont want to sit around answering all my questions or youre busy thats fine!! thank you anyway...your posts are really great, its amazing!"

Kip rereads it a couple of times and then puts it back in his pocket, touching his fingers to his lip and biting it out of nervous habit. He tries to quell the slight case of butterflies in stomach and reminds himself that he's probably never even going to talk to Wallace about any of the thoughts he's been having, and this isn't a date, and as always, he just needs to rein himself in.

His focus is split between the cooking and occasionally mentally drafting potential replies to Wallace's text.

Roy comes to the doorway of the kitchen, waiting for Kip to choose to acknowledge him.

"What's up," Kip says, giving the pot a stir before turning towards him.

"Just saying hi," Roy answers. "And saying thank you, too, for making us dinner, you didn't have to do that, it's so nice of you!"

"It's not a big deal for me, at all," Kip assures. "Don't worry."

There's a short pause, which, for Roy, is a very long time.

"Are you okay, Kip?" Roy asks quietly.

"Huh? Uh, yes—I mean...why?"

"I don't know, you've just been kind of, uh, quieter than usual for a while now, I guess."

"Oh, I guess I probably have, yeah." Kip turns back towards the stove. "I've been okay though, I promise, I'm just...thinking about a lot of stuff lately."

"Oh," Roy says. "Okay."

"You don't have to worry."

"Okay."

—

Kip unties his apron as he walks through the front entrance of their apartment building, dusting off the front of his pants and straightening his button-up shirt. He makes the short journey to Wallace's apartment door and knocks quietly before he has a chance to hesitate and end up piling a bit more anxiety onto himself.

He doesn't hear anything for a few moments, and then suddenly the door opens and Wallace is standing before him, smiling, wearing a grey sweater and holding a cup of what looks like coffee.

"Hey, thanks for coming over," he says cheerfully, immediately moving away from the door so Kip can walk inside. Kip murmurs an automatic reply of thanks and follows Wallace into the apartment that by now is almost as familiar to him as his own.

"Oh—" Kip pauses midstep and then continues his way into the room, caught off-guard by finding Ben in a chair with a cup of tea. There's brief eye contact, and Ben doesn't seem surprised to see Kip but he blushes slightly and glances away as Kip does the same.

"I met Ben and invited him over, too," Wallace explains. "I'll take you guys out for dinner after this, if you want. If this is still okay for you, Kip."

"It's fine," Kip says. His defenses are going up fast—not a shield, but still a shell. His shoulders go back, chin tilts up, arms straighten by his sides. He reminds himself that he’s technically here as the author of his blog. This version of him is a reporter, an activist, a resource in the community. He has a certain level of respectability and pride that can't be taken away, unlike the everyday Kip Kaizer who can secretly find himself slightly ashamed and made to feel somehow broadly inadequate around Ben.

Wallace leaves the room to make Kip his own cup of tea, and Kip settles on the couch, and looks at the notebook and pen sitting on the table, and at Wallace's coffee cup, and at Ben.

Kip's forcing away any bitterness that he's not going to be alone with Wallace. He tells himself he's not in charge of what either person does; he has no right to feel entitled to anything. He reminds himself that Ben is lonely and self-isolates maybe even more often than Kip himself does, and that it's a good thing that Ben is spending time outside his own apartment, and that it's not surprising if Ben is never comfortable around him, since he can easily guess that he reminds Ben of the worst part of both their lives.

"It's good to see you, Ben," he says quietly, folding his work apron on the side of the couch. "How's your day going?"

"Pretty good," Ben says. "Wallace said you're here to...teach him about...this district?" He speaks somewhat haltingly as though it makes so little sense that it's difficult even to put into words. “I didn’t get the clearest picture of it. Sorry.”

"It's more like I'm just here to talk about my blog." Kip breathes a laugh.

Ben gives a short laugh in turn, and Kip suddenly regrets making fun of himself. He leans back into the couch and fixes his attention on the pictures on the walls.

Wallace reenters with the tea for Kip and shows him the notebook to reveal that he'd taken notes and written down his questions as he read through Kip's blog. He sits down and launches into a surprisingly thorough description of his thoughts and reactions to what he'd read, scattering in compliments for Kip's work, and Kip finds himself undeniably flattered.

When they get down to Wallace's questions, Kip's actually a bit impressed. It's clear Wallace put a lot of thought into all of them, and most of his questions manage to notice trends and point more towards the heart of the issues. Wallace brings out his laptop to open certain posts specific to his questions and writes quick notes as Kip provides him with more in-depth explanations and elaborations.

"Oh—this is referring to an incident about eight years ago. It’s common knowledge among monsters, which means I doubt hardly any news of it reached District A. It wasn't even well-documented in many of the larger newspapers here. Most of the printed news that really covered it comes from District D."

"Most newspapers come out of B and C though, right?"

"Yes, but there are smaller, somewhat more underground publications. They obviously don't have the resources of the larger establishments, but they don't have the censorship either, and they can focus on more local issues, and there's a fair number of long-running weekly papers. And there are some that will print single-page flyers, especially if there's, uh—urgent developments. It might seem more informal, but it's common and generally taken pretty seriously, by monsters especially. A lot of people here trust photocopies from D more than, say, official newspapers from B."

Wallace nods as he scribbles in the notebook, eyebrows drawn together, biting on his lower lip.

"Plus, it helps that a lot of times they're free, or still really cheap—even specially printed stuff like booklets are usually maybe 75 cents. People aren't really doing any of this for profit, obviously...operating costs are kept as low as possible and the prices are just enough to cover those costs—sometimes not even that. A lot of times there’s personal funding or donations. It's basically volunteer work: all the stuff like research and writing and editing everything is done with little or no pay."

"That's really impressive," Wallace remarks. "People must care a lot to do that."

"Yeah. It’s important stuff. There’s information that can be incredibly important to monsters, and a lot of times the only way we can get it is from each other. A decent amount is spread mostly through word-of-mouth. Unfortunately, this can make it difficult to verify or track down original sources...which means it can all easily be waved off as lies and rumors, but it's more than that, and anyone who knows anything knows it."

"Wow, I...I never would have even thought about this kind of stuff," Wallace murmurs, looking up from his notes.

"You wouldn't ever have to think about those things in A," Kip says. "But in these other districts, and for monsters in particular, there’s all these extra inherent difficulties and hurdles that we just try to adapt to as part of our everyday life.”

Wallace blushes a little but nods.

"That's kind of like what you do," he says.

"What—adapting?"

"Part of what your blog's about, you're basically a volunteer reporter," Wallace explains.

"Oh," Kip says. "Uh, yeah, I guess that's true, in a way. I feel like a lot of it is more of...kind of consolidating preexisting resources, though."

"Still..."

Kip shrugs and picks up his cup for a drink of tea.

"Are you..." Wallace's voice is suddenly tentative and softer. "Are you ever nervous about running your blog?"

Kip stiffens and clenches the side of the cup as he sits it back on the table. He glances over at Ben.

"Yes," he answers. "I have been, yeah. I’ve always had to think about the safety of the people who read my site, and of myself. I mean, some of the papers around here don't report accurately because they're trying to clean up the information, but some papers are just intimidated by the risk of printing things at all. They're less likely to distort the news, but will probably just omit coverage altogether. The so-called rumors I mentioned are generally what's most dangerous, though. I usually don't address them head-on because I can't verify them any more than anyone else can, but I'll admit that's partially an excuse. They do inform my writing, though. The reality behind what gets censored and swept under the rug is the context for everything I write about."

He looks up to see Wallace has stopped taking notes and is looking back at him.

"I'll admit that I think my blog might be of most use to people like you, who don’t always have prior knowledge to what's going on, or for some reason or another don't have access to other, more direct resources. There's advantages to it being online, as it can accessed easily, but of course that's a double-edged sword. I'm—I’m not fearless, and I‘ve had to be restrained because of that. Particularly before. Things are a lot different after what we did, but as big a problem as E was, there’s...never only one threat facing monsters. All of us always have to be careful. I have to practically encode things sometimes.”

He's understating it, and he knows it. His fear was always eating at him. He couldn’t stay silent, but couldn’t put himself or his family and friends at risk either, and what he does with his blog is far less brave than what other monsters do to keep others informed. Kip knows he's selfish—the more others know about what's really going on around them, the safer they can really be. But more than anything in the world, Kip’s wanted to maintain the safety of those close to him. He could never trade that off in service of his own agenda.

But Wallace doesn't push the matter any further, instead bringing it back around to his original question about a reference to an event in one of Kip's older posts about a new hospital in B. Kip explained that there had been, in B especially but in C and even occasionally D as well, a trackable history of monsters being outright denied the medical care that humans received. He explained that practicing medicine targeted to monsters was viewed by humans as a niche specialty, rather than something that should be considered as common and essential as the entire field of medical treatment for humans. He explained that monsters’ varying physiologies and structures often needed different treatments and techniques, and that assuming that everything that worked for humans would always translate over for every monster was an assumption that could do real damage. He explained that many monsters often avoided seeking care for fear of being treated badly or even further harmed. How monsters who did seek care would be prioritized beneath humans. How monsters died from ignorance or negligence or both. How less studies were done on issues related to monsters, the ones that existed weren't readily available, good medical information was harder to come by even for monsters who went into the field. How on occasion there were cases that suggested monsters had been deliberately mistreated, left to die, or directly killed—often with vague excuses that implied it was dangerous or monsters were simply untreatable, their needs unknowable, so complex and varied and different from humans that it wasn’t worth the time and energy to understand it. Not a good investment.

How his and Wallace’s exposure of E has made monsters more distrustful than ever of medical establishments, particularly since this is far from the only case of exploitative experimentation on monsters by humans. Certainly the most complex and the most widely-spanning in the scope of years, areas affected, and individual involved, but not the first.

Kip becomes a bit internally exhausted by spending so long discussing almost exclusively painful, stressful, frightening subjects—they might be a constant undercurrent in everyone's lives, including his, but directly addressing them takes a lot of energy and can be a significant mental toll. Even writing a single post on his blog can be too much for him on certain days, and even though he's prepared himself for it, discussing so much of what's on his blog is draining those reserves of stoicism. Particularly when the still-recent experiences of E are called to mind.

Ben sits quietly throughout all of it. Kip keeps glancing over at him every now and then, but avoids it after he accidentally meets his eyes for a fraction of a second and immediately blushes hard enough to feel it.

Wallace finally turns the page of his notebook to see that he's gone through all his written questions, and checks the time.

"Oh, wow," he says, "it's been almost three hours."

"Oh," Kip says, surprised. "Sorry for—I went off on tangents a lot, I didn't realize that—"

"No, no!" Wallace cuts him off, raising a hand. "You were fantastic, thank you so much for going into so much detail! I REALLY appreciate this."

"You're welcome," Kip says, blushing again at the compliments. He can't restrain a small smile and a little burst of energy that translates into him shifting in his seat and clenching his toes. "I'm glad it was helpful."

"Very much," Wallace says. "...I know I'm still a beginner with all of this, but I used to feel like I was just looking at the tip of the iceberg, and now I'm finally starting to get a more complex grasp of things."

"There's a lot to get," Kip says.

He looks over at Ben again.

He wants to say something kind, or at least polite, to thank him for waiting patiently through all of Kip's monologuing, through all of the grim topics, to acknowledge that he's been here all along.

A simple "Thank you for being so patient, Ben" is echoing in Kip's mind. It's in his throat. It's pushing at him.

But he can't say it. He finds he can't say anything. He's suddenly feeling an accumulation of his small instances of discomfort around Ben. The stifling confusion, growing frustration, inescapable shame, and the sense that he must always be doing something wrong, despite that he knows he's just a reminder of their linked traumas.

He keeps telling himself that it's all nothing, but all these nothings are adding up, and now all of them at once are keeping him from being able to even speak a simple phrase aloud to Ben.

It occurs to him that it even turns himself into his own reminder of what happened. Like he's infected with it, carrying a cloud everywhere and inflicting it upon everyone in proximity.

He has to wonder, then, if this discomfort is really just a temporary thing, or whether the only way to avoid it is to avoid Ben.

—

He doesn't have to initiate conversation when they go out to dinner; Wallace does it for all of them. His shell has gone up again.

—

Kip darts from the room but every movement creaks the floorboards and the house is so silent that his breathing alone seems loud enough to give him away. Every room leads to another and Kip tries to move from one to another as fast as he can through all the piles of boxes and deteriorating furniture. Heavy footsteps move around on the floor above him and no matter how hard he tries to distance himself from them, they manage to materialize right above him again.

The rooms grow darker and more cluttered and dilapidated as he tries to escape. He stifles a gasp when he realizes that the footsteps are now on the same floor as him; he keeps bumping into things and creaking the floorboards and his fear is becoming smothering.

He can barely see anymore but it looks like some of the rooms have been burnt. The footsteps aren't closer, but they're constant and they're louder.

He knows it's going to catch him.

He starts seeing the silhouettes of what looks like bodies in the corners of rooms, limbs jutting out of a tangle of tree branches heaped along a wall.

He sees a dark shape move across the doorway he was headed towards, and he's too afraid to move until the footsteps shift into a faster pace behind and he starts to run out of panic. He crashes through the pitch dark room and hears things shifting and scrabbling around him and his terror envelopes him and he almost runs into a wall but feels along it until he comes to a doorway and there's no light from anywhere and he can't tell where he is in the next room and the footsteps are getting closer and Kip knows he can't outrun this and all he can do is hide, and he's climbing and falling along piles of something and the smell of ash is suffocating and the footsteps are too loud and too close and Kip buries himself down into what feels like heaps of wet grass and he gasps in shock to feel himself touching cold, lifeless flesh and the footsteps pounding towards him break into a run and erupt into the room and Kip works himself into such a panic that his surroundings fall away and he's twisting in on himself and crying out and finally wakes himself up.

It takes several seconds of fear to realize he had been dreaming, and that he's now awake. He gratefully relaxes into his mattress, breathing heavy, sweating.

It takes another minute to realize that frost is creeping along his shoulder and chest.

He puts on the tea kettle before he bothers saturating a handtowel with hot water and pressing it against the thin patch of ice. He turns it over after a while, wrings it out and soaks it again, and patiently repeats the process a few times until he's melted away all the crystals.

He brews his tea methodically, and sits with it on the couch, centered around its heat.

An opening door startles him into spilling a few drops into his lap and he closes his eyes and puts a hand to his chest to steady himself. He can already tell by sound alone that it's Molly's shorter stride moving towards him, and moments later she's standing beside the couch, resting her hand on its arm.

"I'm sorry if I woke you up," Kip murmurs.

"Don't be," Molly says. "You didn't make me get up. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Just the usual bad dream stuff. It's alright."

Kip stares at his tea as Molly steps past him to sit beside him with a sigh.

"And have you been doing okay, in general?"

Kip sighs too.

"I..."

For a moment or two he seriously considers telling Molly about the several ways he's struggling with his relationships, and the way he's questioning his grasp of his own feelings, questioning the way he perceives others and himself and what he thinks he wants. But imagining explaining it still feels like it would just end up an embarrassment.

"I'm just trying to figure out some stuff," he mumbles. "But, I mean, I'm alright. Are you doing okay? Our schedules have been so different the past couple of weeks, I feel like I haven't been seeing you guys..."

He looks over at her and she gives a tired smile.

"Things are okay," she says. "But it would be better if I wasn't worrying about you without knowing what's wrong."

Kip sighs again and shrugs.

"Just a lot of little things at once," he says. "And just times like..." He rubs the bridge of his nose. "Like, having those moments out of nowhere when you just wonder if you're ever going to be happy."

He closes his eyes and leans back.

Molly lays her hand on his knee. It's warm. After a few seconds he rests his own hand overtop hers.

When he settles back into bed, he leaves the string of lights on to blanket him in a protective glow.

—

Kip keeps taking his phone, opening Pascal's contact, and staring at the empty text message field for a minute or so before putting his phone back in his pocket.

It's not like he and Pascal haven't met and talked several times. But they still haven't started dating again. They still aren't exactly talking casually and regularly; they're both a bit nervous with each other. It's an awkward place, and he's not sure what to do now that he's harboring a crush for another guy as well. He won't reinitiate the intimacy of their relationship while concealing something so important from Pascal, but he doesn't know how to tell him, or if he even should. And in the meantime, it's getting really difficult not to reach out to Pascal and draw him in close.

There's no ambiguity about Pascal's love for him. As mild as Pascal seems on the surface, their relationship always dug in deeper to reveal that his love for Kip had not only a goodness and steadiness, but a surprisingly intense passion as well. They both had always been flustered by the other. And Pascal's committed support of Kip had been proven the day Kip lost his family. And, as he told Kip, he had moved to C with the intent of starting a new chapter in his life and make some changes, but also because he knew he couldn't be happy thinking that they might be together if only Pascal was in C as well. And he couldn’t stop thinking about Kip all but begging him to do whatever would make him happy.

Pascal's decision to move to C had dominated the discussion of their first meeting, when Kip had finally called Pascal and agreed to have lunch with him and talk. Kip had conceded that Pascal's move wasn't something that could be considered reversible—not only because Pascal wanted to be in C, but because he had invested his fairly modest savings into the move and into opening a store, something he had been wanting to try for a while and something that was easier to do in C than D. Kip knew Pascal probably couldn't afford to move away again anytime soon.

Kip had actually started to get angry in that first meeting. It was so good to be meeting with Pascal like that again that it took about half an hour before his frustration could come to the surface, but he couldn't suppress the fact that part of his feelings about Pascal's return was, in fact, frustration. He had pleaded for Pascal to stay put, after all. And Pascal had done so at the time, but then done otherwise without even informing him.

When his slight irritability became noticeable to the both of them, he had to explain those thoughts to Pascal. He had to admit that he wasn't even sure if he could say he was initially glad Pascal had come to the district—the surprise had been so great, the worry was so pressing, he had been trying so hard to convince himself he believed everything was over between the two of them. He had believed so strongly in the importance of Pascal remaining safely in D that he had broken his own heart for it.

But then, he had to think, he'd known that he had broken Pascal's heart too. And he'd looked at Pascal, who was looking back at him with that expression he had, the one of restrained sadness that suggested his consciousness of Kip's pain and of his own, and for a fraction of a second Kip forgot that Pascal wasn't his boyfriend anymore. He was somewhat chastened and his temper abated by the reminder that Pascal had suffered from their breakup in exactly the same way he had—was still suffering in the same way.

"I'm sorry, Pascal," he said. "I mean, it's like I'm kind of mad at you, but not really, I'm—it's just that I'm—even now I'm still always so scared—of—"

"I know," Pascal said. "I know you are—"

"I'm just..." He put a hand to his forehead.

"I know."

And when he thought through it, he had to acknowledge that Pascal had basically done the same thing that he had done first. He'd made a sacrifice because he couldn't tolerate the alternative, even though he was hurting himself and even though he knew Pascal wouldn't be happy with the choice. And Pascal had sacrificed his place of safety in District D because, as he explained, he knew he couldn't bear to stay behind any longer, even though he knew Kip wouldn't be happy with his decision. He had apologized repeatedly but insisted that he just couldn't take the separation anymore, not while knowing there was a chance to be in Kip's life again, knowing he'd regret it all his life if he ignored that chance.

"Kip, if you still don't want to see me, I'll understand. I know I can't make you okay with it. I had to come here, but that was my choice, and I'm not expecting anything from you. I just want to be sure you know that I'm here for you, if you ever want—ever need anything."

But Kip knew Pascal hoped they could be together.

In their several meetings since, they'd talked a lot without ever directly addressing their dating status—which, after all, they'd never quite formally, verbally terminated. Every time he was face-to-face with Pascal, he found it a bit easier to accept that they lived in the same district as only objective fact, rather than any problem he needed to solve. It simply was what it was.

And every meeting has melted away at Kip's attempted neutrality, every moment spent with Pascal increases Kip's desire to be close to him again. Even a pause in the conversation could lead to Kip imagining himself and Pascal standing chest to chest, Kip's head on Pascal's shoulder, Pascal's soft arms around his back, imagining Pascal dropping warm, slow kisses across his face until he guides Pascal's mouth to his.

He's secure in Pascal's love for him; it's always been more than clear to him whenever he's in Pascal's presence. But if Kip's life has taught him anything, it's to take nothing—not even the most seemingly certain things—for granted.

He considers dropping his crush on Wallace entirely, refusing to entertain it in the least, in the hope that he can move forward with Pascal faster. But given that he wants to reignite his relationship with Pascal and loves him as deeply as ever, yet just a matter of months ago was resolved to let go of all his feelings for Pascal and assume they'd never be together again, he's not so sure anything is ever going to go according to plan.

—

He tells Eno about his confusion during his next appointment, and his feelings of helplessness when it comes to maintaining control of his own life, and his concern that he has no idea what he wants or what, if anything, will make him happy, and the weird guilt he has when around Ben and how it reminds him that he represents a concept to vastly more people than he does an ordinary person. It all comes from him in one tangled monologue, and he feels a little embarrassed at making Eno sit through it despite knowing that's not the kind of conversation this ever is.

"Okay, and...I don't know if I should save this one for later, but I—I've been having this new thing and it's kind of freaking me out or something."

Eno gives a small laugh.

"It sounds like you want to talk about it now."

"Mm..." Kip scratches his face and stretches his legs.

"Go ahead, Kip."

He realizes he's holding his breath and lets it out in a long sigh, nervously crossing and uncrossing his toes. He picks a spot on the ceiling and fixes his stare on it.

"I learned some stuff about how memory works," he begins. "And sorry if you already know a lot about it and I'm just repeating the obvious, but..."

He focuses on the spot on the ceiling and begins twisting the hem of his shirt around his fingers.

"Okay, so. It was about how, when people think about how a memory is made, we usually think that a memory is kind of like taking a picture of something that happened, and then we have this photo stored in our minds, and anytime we're remembering something we get to take out that photo again and look at it. But, um, apparently the actual process is nothing like that."

He closes his eyes for another quiet sigh and then locates his mark on the ceiling again.

"It's more like, you make a videotape, and that's your memory. Except already, the memory might not be accurate from the start. Like the stuff you actually got right could be way more vague than you think, and you could've got stuff completely wrong or added in stuff that never existed. And then when you access the memory again, you're not just rewatching that original copy. It's like you're making another copy of that videotape, and the next time you remember it, the memory is another copy of that copy of the first copy you made that probably had some mistakes in it in the first place. Like how the sound gets more and more fucked up and the colors fall apart and there's more static every time you keep making copies. But with memories, it's like the more times you pull one up, the more likely you are to misremember things and lose details and add things that are completely wrong and get further and further away from
the thing that you're actually trying to remember. And it's super easy to make changes to the memory that feel real to you but aren't at all but now they've totally overwritten the original details and you can't ever go back to the most accurate copy you had, because it just doesn't exist anymore. You're not just altering the content of your memories, you're recreating and replacing them every time you think of them, and—and basically there's no way to keep a perfectly accurate memory. It's literally impossible."

He tries drawing out his exhales and relaxing his body against the cushions of the chair.

"It's not like it's hard to figure out why that could be upsetting for anybody, really—but of course I immediately applied it to thinking about them, and..."

He abandons the spot on the ceiling he'd been staring at in favor of looking directly ahead of himself.

"It's only been fi—I mean, about six years...and before that, I was with them all my life, we were almost never apart, for eighteen years. My whole life. And I love them, I—I loved them, I...loved them then and I still love them and—and already sometimes I feel like I'm forgetting things about them. And I knew all these details, these—just these habits and mannerisms and tiny personal things that I knew because I lived with them and they were my family, and nobody knew them as well as I did. Nobody else knows all the things I did and—and I've always been scared of forgetting those details and having them just be completely lost forever."

He can't maintain his slow and even pace of breathing anymore. He spreads his fingers out along the sides of the chair and grips them tightly in an attempt to ground himself to the sensation.

"Sometimes it feels like it's even hard to remember their voices and even—"

He squeezes his eyes shut.

"Sometimes it even feels harder to remember their faces," he gets out. "And if I ever forget that, then what am I actually gonna remember? I'm going to forget them and—and if I forget them, then who would be remembering them any better?"

His knees always start shaking first. He holds on harder to the edges of the seat.

"I barely have any reminders of them. All the pictures of us in the house, everything we kept, it all burned, I lost everything I'd had in my phone, all those pictures and videos and—and every text we sent each other and even losing their phone numbers fucked me up. Even though—" He makes a sound that functions as a laugh even though he can't summon an actual one. "Even though their phones were melted into nothing I still wanted to have those contacts."

His cheeks feel warm. There's a tightness in the core of his ribcage that's trying to creep up towards his throat.

"I'm so glad you had that picture to give me, Eno," he says. "Everything I have of them is the stuff other people had—there's hardly anything and that picture of them is the best thing I have, I look at it every day—"

He has to take a moment to breathe.

"I know that I can't forget their faces because I have that picture to look at, but that doesn't mean I can't still lose the memory of seeing their faces from when they were alive, you know? And—and I know they're dead but sometimes I feel like they at least still exist because of everyone who has these memories of them. I still love them, and that makes it feel like they still exist a little as part of who I am, and it's like, my memories are what keeps them real. At least, that's what I thought, but apparently I'm changing the memories and losing what's actually real. I thought I had them stored away in my head and I was keeping them safe there and preserving them but I-I'm not, I'm losing them, I—"

His brimming tears finally overflow and spill from the corners of his eyes.

"It's been six years and—and I could hardly go to sleep at the start because it felt like I was leaving them behind, like I was moving further away from them every single day. And I hated it. And I still feel that way, even now, I feel like I'm getting farther and farther from them and I'm losing what few traces of them I have left. Like, it's only in the past couple of years that it's even finally started to feel...less raw, kind of, like I'm finally getting more used to them being gone..."

He sniffs.

"But it still hurts. It still hurts and I'm not upset that I can manage to just get through my life better but I'm upset that it feels like I'm constantly moving away from them and—and it's like I'm losing them a little bit more every day, I miss them every day a-and...I've always been comforted by knowing that I still remember them, like I'm carrying part of them with me even though their real selves are getting further from me. But I'm..." His breath catches. "I'm not."

He reaches blindly over the edge of the chair into his bag and feels through it until he locates the pack of tissues he always brings to his appointments. He pulls out a couple of them and wipes at his nose and then clutches the tissues in his fist.

"Like I really thought that I could keep this tiny part of them safe in my memories," he says. "I thought that in a little way I was keeping them with me in the present and carrying them around by storing those memories but as time goes on those memories are getting less and less real and that means they're getting less real too and I'm losing them and I can't get them back, they can only get further from me and I'm—I—the more I think of those memories the more I'm messing them up. A-and—" He uses another tissue. "And, you know, when it...first happened, I-I couldn't stop thinking about them, not even for one full minute. It hurt so much but they were just in my head constantly and my thoughts were going so fast and were all about them and—and even after that I would think about them on purpose, I would spend hours just going through memories, I would be lying there for ages replaying these scenes and moments in my head while I was missing them so bad that it made me focus on those memories even more, y'know, I was just desperate to feel like I was with them again. And I-I feel so shitty about that now because every time I was doing that I was fucking up those memories a little bit more and losing a little bit of them and I—and who else is supposed to be making sure they still exist? Who else is supposed to be keeping those memories safe? Nobody else even has half as many of the memories I do! I'm—I was their family! I was with them every day and I was supposed to... There's barely anything left of them and I should be keeping them safe and instead I'm—instead, all this time I've been ruining my memories, and I'm losing them—and—"

He's gripping the chair again and getting a little breathless, so he stops and sucks in an inhale. It catches and grates in his throat. He scrubs another tissue under his nose and keeps his hand over his mouth as a shuddering tension slowly grips his whole body.

"God, Eno—"

He gives a few quiet sobs before he can even get enough air to speak.

"I miss them."

When his appointment ends a bit later, Kip is still shaky and crying a little. He swings his legs over the side of the chair and sits up and tries to clean up his face with more tissues.

Eno finishes writing some notes before walking around from behind his desk to sit beside Kip.

"I'll do some research on that between now and your next appointment," he says, putting a hand on Kip's back, just below the base of Kip's neck. "But in the meantime, I really recommend that you think about it in terms of being unable to make the wrong decision if you're not given a decision at all. Because the only possible decision would be to either keep remembering your family or to forget they ever existed, and since you can't choose to cut off access to your memories anyway, there's no real decision in this for you at all. The choice you're blaming yourself for doesn’t exist for you or for anyone."

Kip sniffs and whispers "uh-huh" as Eno rubs his back and then gives him a few messy headscratches. Kip slings an arm around Eno's shoulder and leans against the other.

"I'll make us some tea," Eno says.

He takes hold of Kip's head and pushes a kiss into his hair as Kip laughs and pretends to shove him away. Eno laughs too and stands up.

"Come and pick what kind you want," Eno says as he walks into the next room.

"Fine," Kip says, voice slightly stuffy. "But you have to tell me all about your week."

"It's a deal."

—

All day, Kip keeps taking out his phone and opening a new text message to Pascal. He stares at the blank field and his thumbs hover over the keyboard.

"Just text him," he murmurs to himself. "Oh my god, just text him, just text him..."

He puts his phone in his pocket and his head in his hands as he sits down with a groan.

He wants to open the door for Pascal, but he feels guilty that attention from Wallace still sometimes makes him blush. He's a little scared to consider that his newfound feelings for Wallace might be permanent. But there's no stopping his pulse from quickening at even a warm greeting from the human.

Even worse, he can't deny that he likes the way he feels about Wallace. He had allowed the whole thing to have a trial run and now he doesn't want any of it to go away. His affection for Wallace has deepened into something encompassing and warm and, as dramatic a change as it is from his original reaction to the human, he finds even the thought of Wallace is comforting to him now. Imagining greater intimacy with Wallace triggers a feeling he can neither stifle nor ignore.

But his love for Pascal is a simultaneity, regardless of whether he's thinking of it or if he's tuned in to the frequency of his love for Wallace. He'd always found that it stayed in his heart from one day to the next even if he never consciously reflected on it. It just existed as a part of who he was—when they first started dating and didn't see each other much more than once a week, when Kip was too overcome with grief and shock to feel anything else, when he had a long shift at work and his depression was acting up and he was irritable and numb and tired all day, when he separated himself from Pascal and tried to change the way he felt, when he thought about loving Wallace: it existed.

And when he immerses himself in his feelings about Pascal, his feelings about Wallace remain equally unchanged whenever he next thinks of him. Neither seems eroded or supplanted by the other.

Kip blinks and sits upright.

—

It takes a couple of days both for Kip to work up his nerve and for all three of them to be off work in the evening to eat together.

They sit in a pile on the couch, watching a movie on Kip's laptop, eating from bowls. Kip and Molly bookend Roy and lean slightly against him—an arrangement that is both symmetrical and a source of happiness for Roy, who can drape his long arms around both his friends. He finishes eating in about half the time the others do so that he can free up his limbs to do just that.

As the credits roll, they give a collective contented sigh. Kip closes his eyes and slumps against Roy's side.

"Hey, you guys," he says, voice quieted to match the dimmed room. "I've been, uh, thinking..."

"Yeah?" Molly prompts.

"I was, uh, wondering what you guys would think about, um..." He's already embarrassed and he pushes himself through the rest of the sentence. "What you'd think about maybe having Pascal over here for dinner sometime."

There's a beat of silence in which Kip blushes deeply before the two burst into exclamations of surprise and excitement.

"Yes! Yes yes YES!"

"Oh my god, that would be so, so great!"

"We totally need to do that, we need to do that right away, oh my god, Kip..."

"I'm so glad this is happening!"

"Kip!"

He suddenly finds himself encircled in their simultaneous embrace and can't help but laugh along with the intensity of their happiness. After several seconds, they just hold him tighter, and he melts into it.

"It wouldn't be a date, okay?" he says eventually, muffled slightly by the cocoon of hugging. "Just a regular hanging-out visit and, like, actually letting him see where we live and everything."

"We haven't all been together in forever," Roy says, already sounding a little choked up about it. Kip smiles and nudges his head against Roy's shoulder.

"I know, and...and I want us to all be together, okay?" he says. "Don't anybody try to leave Pascal and me alone with each other. I'm not talking about a date. I don't—I'm not ready for that."

"Of course—"

"Kip—oh my god—"

The hug presses in on him again and he works his arms around them both to return it.

—

Wallace sits down beside Kip. Kip adjusts his balance along with the shifting pressure on the cushion.

"You like me?" Wallace says. His face is turning pink and his eyes are wide and he's so cute and Kip can't stop from smiling, thrilled that he's finally letting himself have this, that Wallace is so captivated by this, and that they're so close together.

"Yeah, Wallace," he answers through the laughter tugging at his voice. "I like you a lot."

"Oh," Wallace breathes, staring at him, a hand hovering by his chest. "Well...I like you, too."

A genuine laugh bursts from Kip and he sees Wallace light up with a smile in response. Kip drops all resistance to the momentum that sweeps him forward to embrace Wallace and press his mouth to the human's.

Wallace gives a tiny hum and Kip gets a hand on the back of Wallace's shirt and buries the other in Wallace's hair as he kisses him. Wallace's lips are soft and his skin is warm. A light sound escapes Kip's throat when Wallace slips his hands around his waist and then up and down along his back. Kip pushes the kiss further. His body begins to curve to follow Wallace's wandering touch.

The constant exchange of encouraging signals leads their already warm kissing to grow more heated. Their hands drift up and down each other's backs, sides, and shoulders, each feeling and kneading at the body underneath them. Their tongues and teeth meet, they whimper into each other's mouth as they press and pull themselves closer.

Wallace slides a hand into the back pocket of Kip's pants; Kip rises up onto his knees with a sighed moan and pushes his tongue into Wallace's mouth. Wallace gets his other hand on Kip's ass too, gripping tightly with both. Kip responds with bites and sucks at Wallace's lip as he slides his palm up along the inside of Wallace's thigh to take a firm grip on his crotch.

They're lying on their sides in Kip's bed; Kip slides a hand down Wallace's back and tugs his hips forward, encouraging Wallace to grind gently against him. Wallace compliantly bucks against Kip and Kip growls low in his chest and grinds back as Wallace's uneven pace finds a rhythm. He's wanted this so much, the contact of soft, warm skin against his own, the eager, gratifying touching that he's so starved for, the kissing that deepens moment by moment, the intense pleasure of indulging this need for the first time in way, way too long.

He's slipping away somehow, feeling the ache inside himself as strongly as ever but losing his sensations of Wallace. His feeling of the man's body, the pressure against him, his breathing, his smell—it's all getting faded and loose. He opens his eyes to fuzzy shapes that look nothing like Wallace or anything else at all. For a moment he feels something like the shadow of a kiss, but then he has to wonder if it was just a memory so vivid he mistook it for reality.

"Kip? Are you awake?"

Kip sits straight up in the bed, now completely confused. He looks over at Pascal in the doorway—immediately his brain tries to rearrange its understanding of his existence. He reminds himself that he's living with Pascal, that Pascal is the person he kisses, not Wallace—

Wallace. Pascal doesn't even know who Wallace is; they haven't met yet.

"Kip?"

Kip hasn't met Wallace yet, either. He doesn't know who Wallace is.

He realizes he's dreaming and looks over at the Pascal he's dreaming of. His expression is one that's been directed at Kip countless times, one inherent in his memories of his years with Pascal. It rushes to his heart and he tries to wake himself up, unwilling to act out some mockery of their relationship with a Pascal who doesn't know this isn't real. He disengages with the entire environment, determined not to focus on any of it, and tries to trick his unconscious mind into feeling enough urgency to wake itself up.

He tries to thrash out, throw his head, but he's not sure if he's moving or if he's still asleep or where he is at all. He struggles to open his eyes. He's in the fog between sleep and waking and he can't figure out how to leave it.

Kip finally manages to blink his eyes open and finds himself lying in his bed, staring at the wall. He's a little hazy for a moment but quick to ascertain that he's no longer asleep.

He sighs and rubs his eyes before rolling over onto his stomach. As he does, he feels his half-hard erection press against his thigh.

"Oh, god," he groans into his pillow.

His dreams are already fragmenting and blending, but they're fresh enough in his mind that he remembers them with a clarity that heats his face and does nothing to soften his dick.

He's embarrassed by himself. While he's been aware of the sexual aspect of his attraction to Wallace, he's never gone so far as to indulge in it. Not that he didn't have occasional instances of growing slightly turned on while dwelling on the topic, but he's never actually gotten hard from doing so, or crossed over from tentative, experimental considerations into outright fantasizing.

And he's embarrassed to realize he's faintly shifting his hips back and forth in time with his breathing, rubbing himself against the mattress.

He sighs again, consciously stilling the movement. It doesn't soothe the prickling of his libido. He starts weighing the arguments for letting himself follow this through to completion. He hasn't had sex even once since Pascal, and has been consciously starved for it for almost a year, and as a result it's not like he doesn't masturbate fairly regularly—especially when the buildup of his sex drive grows to be too much and he finds himself too distracted by it, too on edge. It's been a few days since he last came, and he has no real reason to deny himself an orgasm right now. He obviously wants it, and isn't too tired to give himself one. It's only that he was caught off guard by having a sex dream about Wallace, he tells himself.

It takes another minute to ascertain that he doesn't feel it's wrong of him to have had the dream in the first place, or to still be turned on by it even though he's now awake. It's not even like it's new information—just information that he was avoiding acknowledging. But there's no real reason to be too ashamed to take care of this.

So he closes his eyes and starts grinding against the bed. In less than a minute he's clutching the pillow and giving small, quiet gasps.

He's getting overheated. He rolls over, kicks the thick layer of blankets down around his knees, and strips his pants and shirt off and drops them to the floor. He stares up at the ceiling as he takes hold of himself, lightly rubbing near the base with his fingertips before settling into steady, even strokes.

He closes his eyes again and starts replaying the dream in his mind. His pelvis starts to roll, his cock is hardening fast. In a matter of seconds he's expanding on the memories of his dream, continuing them. He's imagining Wallace's mouth pressed to his own, to his neck, biting and sucking a bruise into his throat. He's imagining his own touch as Wallace’s hand jerking him off. He imagines himself lying facedown, pinned to the bed with Wallace's hands pushing down on the back of his shoulders as Wallace grinds his erection between his thighs and ass.

He imagines Wallace kissing down his stomach until Wallace's lips close around the end of his cock and the man's warm hand cups and gently massages him. He imagines the touch drifting lower as Wallace begins to suck at the head of his erection, prompting Kip to spread his legs open for him. He imagines Wallace three fingers into him, slowly deepthroating him, hugging his thigh for stability. He imagines looking down and stroking his orange hair, bucking lightly into his mouth, hearing his stifled moans. He imagines dragging him up for a kiss, feeling the sweat on Wallace's back and the spit on his chin.

He imagines that he's got Wallace on his back against the bed and has a hand around both of their cocks and is kissing Wallace as he grinds up on him. He's imagining Pascal is kneeling behind him and mounting him, cock pressed up against his ass, pushing him even harder against Wallace.

Kip gasps and his eyes open and his hand stills. He's squeezing the base of his cock and panting. His knees draw up slightly.

Pascal.

Wallace and Pascal.

Kip bites his lip and, with a gradual and deliberate exhale, slowly closes his eyes again.

Wallace and Pascal.

Pascal is grinding hard against him, chest pushed against Kip's curved back, soft arms trailing along his bare skin to his stomach and chest and tightening around him. Wallace is shifting underneath him, arching up, trying to grind back as best he can against the pressure of both Kip and Pascal's weight pushing him against the mattress. The three of them quickly find a pace to share, moving together.

Kip's in the middle of the heat and the contact and he lightens his pressure against Wallace for a moment to grind back harder against Pascal. Wallace squirms with a faint whine and his eyes open and his lips part and he grabs at Kip's shoulders. Kip can't resist any of that and he leans in and kisses him; Wallace returns the kiss with enthusiasm. Pascal thrusts forward and Kip and Wallace's cocks are pressed together again and Wallace's hands are kneading at Kip's chest and side and Kip twists his head as far over his shoulder as he can until Pascal leans in for a kiss, messy and imprecise—neither of them mind.

Kip is on his hands and knees; his nose is buried in the hair on Pascal's pelvis, Pascal's cock fills his mouth. He sucks a few times, tasting it, and then carefully swallows around it. He feels the head pushed down his throat, feels Pascal thrust forward with a rough moan despite already having taken in his entire length. Kip lets Pascal start rolling his hips and he groans and Wallace is fucking him from behind and he's so caught up in all of it. The tops of Wallace's thighs press against the underside of Kip's and his hands are squeezing Kip's waist just above the hips as he bucks into him. Kip rubs his tongue along the underside of Pascal's cock and grinds back into Wallace's thrusts, whimpering. He's being fucked in the mouth and fucked in the ass and the sound of all their heavy breaths and sighs and moans and of Wallace's hips hitting his ass and of his own sucks at Pascal's cock are turning him on even more and his erection is starting to ache.

Kip is sitting in Wallace's lap, leaning his back against Wallace's chest as Wallace massages the inside of Kip's thigh with one hand and slowly strokes Kip's hardening cock with the other. Kip is groaning and arching his body as he moves against Wallace, trying to push his ass against Wallace's erection. Wallace slides his free hand up to Kip's stomach and holds their bodies together with rubs and squeezes along his torso. Pascal's arms are around the both of them and he's kissing Kip, kissing his throat and shoulders and chest and, over and over, his lips. The kissing grows more aggressive as Wallace is stroking faster and Kip is becoming more restless and his moans grow sharper and more frequent. Pascal takes Kip's tongue between his teeth and Kip reaches out and feels along Pascal's stomach until he can wrap his fingers around Pascal's warm and fully hard cock. He's working at Pascal and Wallace kisses the back of Kip's neck and Pascal squeezes them all tighter together in his arms and Kip buries his face in Pascal's hair as Pascal and Wallace lean in over his shoulder to kiss.

He's on his side, grinding against Wallace as Pascal grinds on his ass. His head is held tighter by Wallace's thighs as he sucks Wallace's cock and Pascal kneels behind Kip, rimming him and jerking him off. He's straddling Pascal, easing Pascal's cock fully into himself, gripping Wallace's back with one hand and threading the other into his hair while Wallace puts his tongue in Kip's mouth, both hands firm against Kip's ass, grinding against him. He's got Pascal facedown on the bed, gripping the headboard with his ass raised; he's fucking him hard while being held tightly from behind by Wallace, who follows the rhythm to grind against Kip's ass, one hand sliding up Kip's chest to his throat and jaw until Kip lets his head be tilted back and Wallace leans in to kiss and bite at his neck. His face is cradled lovingly and he's kissed sweetly and deeply while his dick is sucked. Hands are sliding down the front of his thighs, a cock presses hard and hot against his ass. Pascal's arms loop around Kip's knees and pull them open for Wallace to get between them and drag his tongue up his cock; Kip whines and sinks back against Pascal, who slides his arm around Kip's wrist and kisses his cheek. Cum is on his lips and face and chest, teeth bite gently at his stomach. Pascal's mouth is against Kip's jeans over his erection; he's slowly and carefully unfastening Kip's belt. Kip's moaning around Wallace's cock while Wallace sucks him off too and Pascal holds Kip's leg over his shoulder as he fucks his ass. Wallace holds Kip from behind and splays his hands out over Kip's chest, rubbing his nipples and suckling at the crook of his neck as Kip whines breathlessly, limp in his arms. Kip has Pascal's cock in his mouth and locks eyes with him while sucking and swallowing his cum. He's begging and thrusting as Pascal slides an arm down into the front of his pants, kissing the back of his ear and whispering encouragement to him.

Pascal fucks him so hard that Kip's shoving his face against the pillow and screaming for it and raking the sheets off the mattress. Wallace is watching them and gripping Kip's arm just above the elbow, Kip can feel and hear his masturbation and his heavy breathing. He and Wallace grind together with as much friction as they can manage, their heat and sweat mix, limbs entangling and wrapping around each other's bodies as their groans and cries roll onto each other's tongues. Kip pushes himself up to let them both draw a few unobstructed breaths and he meets Pascal's eyes and thrusts hard enough to make Wallace's voice crack. He's shifting restlessly as Pascal fucks Wallace, sighing and whimpering and grinding against his palm, his need burning like stirred embers in his stomach. He squirms and pumps his cock as he watches Pascal coax Wallace towards completion, watches their faces. He's focusing on the sounds Pascal draws from Wallace, on Pascal's fluid movement, the smooth, rhythmic rolling of his back and pelvis like waves that ripple through his whole body, moving his head and neck and shoulders and arms and legs and pushing Wallace's body with cyclic ebb and flow. Kip's breaths rasp when they look over at him, see him biting at his lip and sweating and panting, strained and desperate for them to touch him, his cock flushed bright with color and clear, shining drops slowly leaking from its tip.

Kip accidentally sighs out a real moan and turns his head to cover his mouth with his arm as he bucks into his hand and pumps hard at his cock; he's on the verge of climax and aching so bad for it and he whines and nips at the soft skin pressed against his mouth. The sensations and images in his head blur together as they overcome him and he digs his heels into the mattress, thrusting hard, till finally he tenses all over with an arching spine and curling toes and cums hard across his stomach and chest.

It takes him a few moments even to relax himself fully back down to the bed, drawing heaving breaths.

He's lying beneath heavy layers of blankets, nestled between two bodies that are soft and warm against every part of his own. Wallace is kissing his lips and rubbing one hand in lazy circles over his bare hip while slowly stroking his chest with the other. Pascal's arm is resting along his side, holding them close together as Pascal nuzzles his face into the crook of his neck and murmurs his adoration against his skin.

—

"Uh—e-excuse me..."

Kip looks up from his book to see a couple of people he remembers were sitting at one of the corner tables. He momentarily worries that they don't realize he's not actually working and glances quickly around for Kate.

"Hey, uh, we just wanted to ask, um..."

They fade off and the two look at each other, hesitant. Kip is bemused, but the way they both blush makes him blush as well and feel suddenly embarrassed.

"Oh—is this like...are you..." he stumbles, "Like...are you asking me out?"

The blushing deepens for all three of them.

"Kind of..."

Kip tries to quell his nervousness enough to pull a decent response from his thoughts.

"I-I'm not really dating anyone right now," he says, then realizes the ambiguity of his statement. "I mean—! I'm not, uh, I'm not looking to date—I'm not looking to date anyone right now."

Apologies spill from the both of them and Kip reassures them, mouth twitching into a smile, before they excuse themselves, blushing and trading urgent looks and whispers.

Kip again immerses himself in his book and cup of coffee. It takes several minutes for his vivid blush to fade.

Twenty minutes or so later, Roy makes a characteristically bright and conspicuous entrance and drops into the seat across from Kip, following Kip's quiet greeting with an exuberant one. Kip asks him about work and soaks in the ten-minute stream of a story that follows, tracing the texture of the edge of the table and his chair.

They chat pleasantly for a while before Molly emerges from the back. She and Roy have their usual reunion as she struggles out of a flour-splashed apron.

"Was there a rush earlier?" she asks Kip. "I thought I heard a lot of people come in, but it's hard to tell back there..."

"Eh, we kinda got a little busy, but nothing horrible."

As if on cue, Cuddy and Lottie walk in, laughing together, and come over to their table.

"The gang's all here, huh?" Cuddy says with a smile. "Including Kate all the way over there."

They respond with a chorus of "hey" and Lottie distributes fond pats on each of their shoulders. Kip stands up as things start pointing to their departure and he wanders over to say goodbye to Kate as she cleans off a table.

"You guys outta here?" she says.

"Uh-huh."

"How'd it go before I got here? Sorry I haven't really talked, I'm fuckin' tired and today has been kind of crazy—"

"Yeah, don't even worry about it, I know how it is. Nothing really happened today, but I think I just got like..." He pauses, reflecting hard on the memory.

"Got what?" she prompts.

"I, uh...I got asked out, and I just realized I think two people were both asking me out at once, actually."

"Oh, damn, I don't think that's ever happened to me here before," Kate says. "You fucking hot piece of ass."

"Shut up. I didn't even get it at the time."

"Why, would you have said yes if you had?"

He blushes.

"No—I just—" He huffs and pulls on his jacket. "Ugh. I'm leaving. See you later, anyway."

“See ya,” Kate laughs.

Kip buttons the front of his coat and pulls the gloves out of his pockets, yawning as he pulls them on and goes back to Molly and Roy.

"Ready?" Molly asks, rubbing her back.

"Uh-huh," Kip says, winding his scarf tightly around his neck.

"What was that you were talking about with Kate, you were offered a threesome?"

"What? No! I mean, no, just some people asked me out and I'm not sure if both of them were asking me or if it was like a wingman support thing because it was really vague, okay?" he rushes in a fluster.

"Well, like, the way you draw people's attention, I wouldn't be surprised if you had groups of people trying to get in on that—"

"Oh my god, no, probably someone just had a friend for support and I just made this assumption when I was trying to tell Kate about it, but I think I was right the first time, and now I regret everything."

He's definitely embarrassed by the teasing but he's even more sensitive about his suspicion that the only reason he supposed two people were trying to ask him to go out with both of them is because of how much he's been thinking about dating two people himself. He doesn't know if he wants to have it on the mind all the time or if it's just that he has no choice, but he's definitely been more prone to giving intimate groups a second glance and wondering if anyone anywhere around him is happily dating multiple people.

"Forget I was talking about anything," he grouses. "Let's just go."

Molly sends him a few more light digs about being extra sensitive about a pretty standard level of joking around—but as always, Kip is let off the hook whenever he seems too irritated to weather it patiently.

He deals with the issue by entering a stubborn silence which converts, as he hoped it would, into a natural quietness behind the conversation Roy and Molly enter to fill the empty space. By the time they get to the apartment, Kip's a step behind the pair and thoroughly inside his own thoughts, and they're practically walking up the steps before Roy's chipper greeting alerts him to Ben's presence outside the front door.

Kip falls back another pace or two and slips behind the others to unobtrusively make his way inside. He's standing in the safety of the lobby before he realizes his heartbeat is elevated and that the mere sight of Ben prompted noticeable anxiety and his immediate instinct had been that he needed to avoid the man entirely.

His earlier indignation and discomfort is momentarily forgotten for a new sense of shame. He'd thought he was being mature and self-aware and strong. He thought he was disallowing any aversion to Ben to take any root. He thought he was combatting it simply by knowing it was unnecessary.

He hurriedly starts unwinding his scarf and undoing his jacket as his roommates follow him in, acting as though it was simply the chill of the outdoors that drove him inside. Not that anyone but him found the weather to be cold—it was only slightly less warm than usual and Kip had additionally been especially cold since he got out of bed.

"Kip..."

He turns at Roy's address. Roy is looking down at him with that look of deep concern.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Kip answers quickly, folding his outerwear over his arm and straightening his shirt.

He glances over to see Molly giving him one of her almost-suspicious questioning gazes.

"It—it just always gets me all nervous when that kind of stuff happens at work," he explains, rubbing his forehead. "I just wanna get back to the apartment. I'm tired."

"Aw..." Roy puts one of his long arms around Kip's shoulders as they walk back to the apartment.

Back in his room, Kip changes into a soft pair of old jeans and a loose sweater and rolls onto his bed with a sigh. He closes his eyes.

He's already dozing off when a soft knock at the door snaps him back to alertness.

"What's up?" he murmurs as he drags himself upright and to the door. He opens it to see Roy, looking slightly worried but offering a warm smile.

"Oh no, were you asleep? I'm sorry—" he puts a hand to his face.

"No, it's okay. I was only, like, on the verge of it, and I hadn't meant to be anyway."

"Oh, okay, well, uh... I was making some tea and I've made enough for everyone, if you want some. Because of being nervous, maybe, since tea helps you with that sometimes..."

Kip scrubs at his eyes.

"Thanks, Roy," he says. He puts a hand on Roy's shoulder, leans up, and presses a kiss to Roy's neck. He closes his eyes and rests the side of his head against Roy's chest, sliding his hand to the back of Roy's shoulder in a hug.

He leans back upright after a moment and smiles. Roy, blushing, smiles back at him.

—

"You know, I woke up yesterday and actually forgot they weren't here anymore. Like I got out of bed and it felt like they were just down the hall or something. I was even confused for a second when I left the bedroom and I had to remember my life all over again. I mean, it's been six years and that still happens. In the middle of the day even. I'll be at work and for a few seconds I think of going home and telling them about something that happened, exactly the same way I felt when they were alive. Like after all this, I'm still not totally used to them being gone."

He takes a pause. He's been needing a lot of pauses today.

"I don't know if—if I'm supposed to be making myself always know that they're gone. Like, that first night after they died, it just—of course it felt so wrong, just so illogically wrong because in my head they were still alive. I still knew them and lived with them and—I had just seen them, and...in my mind, it felt so completely like they still existed that it didn't make any sense that they could be gone. And even when it had been months, it still felt sometimes like they were just...somewhere else, but they were going to come back. Like it was all temporary."

He twists the soles of his shoes against the carpet. Sometimes he lies down in an effort to be relaxed. Sometimes, like now, he feels more comfortable facing Eno, sitting up on the edge of the chair.

"I think in the past couple of years it's finally permanently sunk in that they aren't coming back. But I'm still having those moments where I forgot they're gone in the first place. They were always such an inherent part of my life that I've never been able to turn that off. Like suddenly all the space I had for them in my life and heart and my thoughts just—was supposed to be replaced with nothing. I mean, I have all this love for them, and they're gone, and I don't have anywhere to put it. And I don't know what to do."

He looks at Eno for the comfort of seeing his face.

"It's like...leaning against someone and then suddenly they just vanish without warning, and you're falling. And that feeling of falling never stopped. It's this—this blend of shock and panic and sickness, and I still have to feel that whenever I forget they're gone."

It's exhausting, talking about grief, but he derives courage from the knowledge that Eno already knows what it's like. He feels a little stronger whenever he tries to put the experience into words, and it never feels safer than when he's talking with Eno.

"It just feels so wrong that they could just be gone all at once like that. It'll never make sense. I'm used to them being gone but... I hate that I'm always going to be hurt like this and I have to miss them every day of my life forever but I can't stand to forget them. I have—I have really bad nightmares about forgetting them."

There's a vague sense of discomfort in his stomach.

"It seems like it's immature or something, but...I can accept that they're gone and that I can't do anything about it now, but I can't ever stop being so angry that it happened in the first place. There's nothing to do with that anger anymore and I feel it anyways."

He weaves his fingers together and tightens them.

"They—they shouldn't have been taken from me. They shouldn't have been killed. And—and I know none of us deserved what happened but I—"

He suddenly can't say any more.

"You still think about wanting to take their places?" Eno guesses quietly, ending a long pause.

Kip nods miserably.

"I'm sorry, Eno," he mumbles. "It's like I haven't made any progress at all sometimes."

"You know you have nothing to apologize for."

"...Right," Kip says half-heartedly.

His body slumps as he sighs. He doesn't want to cry today.

"Ugh... Just...on a completely different topic, I'm trying to figure out how I can tell when I'm feeling weird about something because my instincts are telling me it's the wrong thing to do, and when I feel weird just because I'm nervous, or...or scared."

"Well..." Eno starts, biting the corner of his lip. "You're pretty familiar with what your anxiety feels like on an average day?"

"Yes."

"Would just a comparison with that baseline help give you an idea of what you're dealing with?"

"I, uh..." Kip sometimes bounces a leg when he's nervous or uncomfortable, and is always glad Eno doesn't react. "The thing is that, you know, I'm nervous in different ways in different situations, and...this one's kind of new to me, so I can't be sure if I think it's a terrible idea or if I'm just, well, nervous, because I don't really have a comparison. I can't be sure that I do, anyway."

Eno puts his chin in his hands and smiles when Kip glances over at him.

Kip blushes.

"I feel like I wanna date both Wallace and Pascal and I have no idea what to do with that," he says, uncomfortably aware that Eno probably knew what he was talking about even without the clarification. "And, you know, things just kind of...everything's a mess, even after everything we went through, it still feels like absolutely everything is up in the air. Like, I—I still just don't know what I want. Out of anything. I don't know what I want in the future, I don't know how I want my life to change from here or if I even want it to change... And right now, I...I know I really, really want to be with Pascal again, but now I'm wanting to try to be with Wallace too, so that's not straightforward, and I think Ben sets off my anxiety really bad now, and I feel like I'm keeping secrets from all my friends because I'm trying to keep things private, especially while I'm trying to figure it out, like how I've always felt like I'm avoiding everyone who cares about me whenever I'm trying to hide that I'm still upset about my family. And, I don't know, it feels like I don't know who I am, and I don't know what I want, and I know it's not true but it feels like all I am is a mess of depression and anxiety and insecurity who's lucky enough to have had friends around who wanted to stay with me anyway."

He sighs and drags a hand down his face.

"I'm just so frustrated all the time. I—I'm getting the idea that I'm always going to be hurting about what happened to my family at about the level that I am now, and it's not like it's not technically manageable because it's a ton better than it used to be, but it's just really exhausting and scary to think of having to do this for the rest of my life. I know you're supposed to heal from being hurt, even if it keeps hurting, and I know I've learned a lot but I've only...changed. I know I'm just as real and whole a person as I ever was but an entire future, a whole lifetime was taken from me that day too, and I just...I changed so fast, it feels like the person I was back then was gone after that too."

He feels a wrenching pang in his gut.

"God, Eno," he says with a grimace. "It's so...it's so the exact same fucking problems I've always had. I don't feel like I can actually do anything. After all that. I'll still feel so...useless and cowardly and like all the best things about me are fake. I still feel like...I still don't like myself."

He pauses again.

"I'm always so frustrated with myself." He sighs. "I guess it's just gotten worse again recently."

Their eyes meet and Eno gives him another small smile. He has that look, the quiet, serious kind he sometimes shows Kip, the one he always gets when Kip exposes real vulnerability to him. Kip knows Eno's sense of humor and light-hearted demeanor is no indication at all that the man isn't actually taking something seriously. But on occasion he'll take on a slight air of solemnity as a way of offering some vulnerability in return.

"I'm guessing you feel pretty stuck right now," Eno says.

"...Yeah."

Both of them are silent for a few moments.

"Um...would it be okay if I could just...talk about them? My family, I mean," Kip says quietly. "You know, like sometimes I just wish I could sit around and tell stories about them and talk about what they were like with everyone who knew them. And I haven't really gotten to talk about them like that in a really...really long time."

"You'd like to do that?"

"I—I think so. Yes."

"Go right ahead."

—

They stay in and Eno makes them lunch.

"You holding up?" Eno says. Kip is leaning back in an armchair; Eno walks over and sits down next to him.

Kip grunts assent and Eno wraps his arms around Kip with a contented sigh, pulling him in close. Kip huffs his own sigh, but leans into Eno, and after a moment he shifts until he can get his arms around Eno's waist, folding his hands to rest on Eno's hip.

"Your hugs are good," he mumbles as he nestles his chin against Eno's collarbones.

"I have a lot of experience hugging you," Eno says. "I know how you like them."

As if offering proof, he rubs Kip's back and slides the other hand to the back of Kip's neck, cupping his palm around it and slowly moving a thumb along the base of Kip's hairline. Kip closes his eyes and sinks against Eno, who breathes out a laugh.

Kip relaxes further and further into Eno as time goes on. Eventually Eno murmurs "here" and reclines the chair, lying back in it with a sigh. Kip lies down beside him and Eno gathers him in. He laughs again as Kip shifts his whole body to cuddle closer.

"Don't laugh at me..." Kip cuddles in again and Eno pats him on the back.

They lie there together, still and silent. Kip's arm is thrown across Eno's chest and he occasionally rubs Eno's shoulder. Eno rests a hand on Kip's side and has an arm hooked underneath his neck, hand hanging down with his fingertips trailing lazily through Kip's hair.

Kip relaxes so much he loses track of how much time is passing. He slips into one of his breathing exercises again, and Eno's thumb gently taps a guiding rhythm for him against the base of Kip's ribs.

Kip hasn't felt so safe and warm and comfortable in a long time. He doesn't even want to move and risk disturbing the tranquility.

In a way, it takes him back to the aftermath of the fire. Eno had put everything on hold to be with him almost all day and every day, and Kip had been so grateful for his presence. The two of them didn't talk so much as they just made a point of being near each other. Eno would sit in the same room as Kip, not even necessarily in his line of sight, reading a book so Kip could hear him turning the pages. Kip would grip Eno's hand tight when he saw Eno getting a distant, pained expression. And Eno would pull Kip in for a hug and hold him until Kip was more relaxed or even until he was asleep. Kip had often been hugged by Eno before that time, but they were usually fleeting parts of a greeting or farewell or of light, affectionate joking or a moment of congratulation—it was at once familiar and new to be held by Eno the way he was when Eno saw him being dragged down and unable to hold himself up any longer.

Such an association doesn't upset him now, however. It doesn't remind him of how much pain he had been in, but of how much comfort he'd gotten from Eno.

"Are you asleep?" Eno’s whisper is the first sound after several still minutes.

"...No."

Eno responds with a few soothing, caressing strokes against Kip's shoulderblade.

"I might fall asleep though," Kip mumbles. "Would that be okay? Are you comfortable?"

"Yes."

Kip hums and puts his chin on Eno's shoulder, nose and lips grazing Eno's hair, which is somehow always soft and sweet-smelling. Kip drifts a little but never fully falls asleep. When the oven starts to chirp at them, Kip opens his eyes but Eno doesn't move.

"Eno," he breathes.

"...Mm."

"The timer's going off. The oven timer," he specifies.

Eno inhales deeply and lifts his hand from Kip's back to push his glasses into place.

Kip laughs, his stomach nudging Eno's arm. He hugs Eno tight as he leans in and kisses the side of his head.

Eno laughs and begins to sit up, extricating his arm from underneath Kip.

"You wait here," he says quietly, swinging his legs off the side of the chair and carefully pushing himself up so as not to move Kip. "And take this." He lifts up a blanket, folds it in half, and drapes it over Kip in one movement as he turns and goes out of the room.

Kip sits up a bit in the chair and tugs the blanket around himself. It's heavy and soft and in less than a minute he feels the warmth that it traps. Everything feels so relaxed and peaceful. He knows that all the things he's agonizing over are just pushed beneath the surface, but doesn't really mind that this is only a temporary break—he'll take whatever he can get.

Eno comes back in with a mug in each hand and sets one down on the table beside Kip.

"Here you go—the usual," he says, sitting down in the chair across the table. "I made yours the way you always do."

"Thank you."

Kip wraps his hands around the cup and keeps them there for a minute or two, absorbing the heat.

"I feel a lot better right now," he murmurs. "At least, a lot more than I have lately."

"Yeah?"

"I think it's been one of those weeks where I mostly needed to just...talk about stuff, like, saying it out loud and everything."

"I can believe that," Eno laughs.

Kip smiles and takes a sip of tea.

"So anyway. Let's talk about other things, Eno," he says. "C'mon, what have you been reading? Tell me how you are, I want to hear."

He glances up to see the smile he loves to get from Eno.

"Okay," Eno says, "just let me say one more thing before we go off in some other direction."

"...Sure."

There's a pause, and Kip looks up at Eno.

"As long as I've known you, you've always been prone to feeling guilty over doing anything for your own sake," Eno says. "Even for simply taking care of yourself. You're so often ashamed of yourself before you've even done anything. And right now, I think there's a lot of things that you know you want to do. I really want you to know that your instincts are a lot better than you think they are. I know it's hard for you, and I know you have a lot of guilt and fear, but I think if you try letting you guide yourself, even when you're uncertain, things could work out in ways you didn't know they could."

Kip is blushing and clutching his tea, eyes wide.

"Trust yourself a bit more, Kip," Eno says. "And I mean that as your friend, not just as your therapist. You have an excellent sense for how to take care of others, but you often don't apply it to yourself. You're very hard on yourself, and I think it's difficult for you to see yourself."

"I—" He stumbles on his own thoughts. "Jeez, Eno..."

Eno laughs and pats Kip's forearm.

"Anyway. It's been a busy week, and I've been looking forward to this even more than usual," Eno says. "I feel better too now, really."

Kip smiles to himself and draws his legs up onto the chair.

—

As he rides the train back home that evening, he keeps taking out his phone to pull up Pascal's contact. He even opens a new note and starts writing some potential texts, trying to figure out how to invite Pascal over for a visit with him and Molly and Roy. It keeps his attention well enough that he scarcely notices the painfully wide berth humans give him whenever they have to pass by to exit the train.

A potential roadblock occurs to him and he sends a group text to Roy and Molly instead, asking them about their schedules for the next week.

"are we all free any of the same evenings next week? i was thinking about asking pascal over then if we are. im off tuesday and thursday, and on friday and saturday i only work until the afternoon," he sends.

After a moment of thought, he sends out an additional text: "although of course even if we find something that works, pascal might be busy then..."

He puts his phone back in his pocket and looks out the windows for a while, but soon enough he starts receiving waves of texts from his friends as they talk back and forth with him and each other. Within mere minutes Thursday is settled on as the ideal day.

Kip's stomach tightens with anxiety. It feels as if he's already in the process of asking Pascal over—and he supposes he sort of is. He's just settled on a date, and now has the pressure of Roy and Molly's expectations. But he straightens his back and remembers what Eno told him.

He does want to make it clear to Pascal that he can be fully in their lives again—and he knows that everyone else has been wanting that too, but was holding back because of him. He wants Pascal back in his life, and to know he's going to be staying there. He wants them to be as close as they used to be. He wants all the feelings he knows Pascal gives him. He wants this.

He keeps his hand on his phone and goes through the transfer to another train at the station between B and C and spends the rest of the ride home deep in thought, trying to build up his confidence.

By the time the train gets to his stop, there's a colorful dusk sky alit with bright oranges, pinks, and blues that casts everything in a dreamy purple hue. Kip stands at the station and watches the train depart, then turns towards home. He's walking for a few minutes before he gets the idea of walking the extra fifteen minutes to see if Pascal is still at his shop.

He's quick to realize he's a little too nervous for that. But he gets a small yet helpful flow of adrenaline from the thought of it and takes out his phone again, pulls up Pascal's contact, and keeps looking at it as he moves along the sidewalk.

Finally, coming to an intersection he has to wait to cross, he takes a leap and brings his thumb down on the "call" button. Immediately, the screen darkens, showing only Pascal's name, the call timer, and the button to hang up.

His knees start shaking a little as he hears the first ring; by the time he brings the phone up against his ear he's already a bit short of breath. He stares at the light on the other end of the crosswalk, feels conscious of everyone standing within earshot, and listens to the phone ring again.

The tension is worse during the seconds of silence—the ringing is almost a moment of relief before he goes back to expecting Pascal to pick up the phone. He's so on edge he's not sure if he wants the call to be answered or not.

But the ringing continues as he stares at the light, waiting for it to change. He waits through so many rings that he gets embarrassed. His thoughts start rushing with self-consciousness and doubt, questioning if he should hang up or if he should stay on the line or if it was ever going to go to voicemail or if it would ring forever or if he should leave a message or if he should've just texted Pascal or if it would be weird to text him after attempting a call or how many more rings he should wait through before giving up or if everyone around him could hear him waiting and waiting and waiting through an unanswered call—

The light changes, and Kip glances at the traffic and heads across the street. He's trying to remember if he's waited through ten rings or not when, finally, Pascal's voice is speaking into his hear, and his heart leaps, and he's thanked for calling, apologized to, and invited to leave a message.

He realizes just in time that he's about to be recorded and ends the call, shoving the phone back in his pocket, feeling a little jittery. He tries to calculate what would be a good amount of time to wait before calling again, or if he should text Pascal, and if texting would change how long he should hold off before trying again.

He's waiting at a crosswalk again, looking up at the sky and noticing a few stars coming out, when his phone rings and vibrates in his pocket. He flinches, freezing up. After a few seconds, heart pounding, he grabs his phone and sees Pascal's name shining from the screen.

"Oh god," he whispers to himself. He takes a couple of measured breaths, stares straight ahead, and accepts the call.

"Hello?" he says.

"Kip, it's me, I'm sorry," Pascal's words are rushed. "I'm so sorry I missed your call, I was away from my phone while I was charging it—"

"It's fine," Kip says, laughter in his voice. The speed of his heartbeat suddenly has a completely different feeling behind it. "It's fine."

"I'm sorry," Pascal repeats. "How, uh—how are you? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, no, I'm fine," Kip says quickly. "I'm fine. I was, um, I wanted to know..."

He fades off and takes another deep breath and exhales it slowly.

"We were wondering—me and Roy and Molly—if you would want to come over to our place for dinner next week," he says. "We're all free on Thursday, in the evening, if you wanted—if you were able to come..." He trails off again.

There's silence. Kip keeps his eyes raised to the horizon line.

"...Really?" Pascal's voice is quiet, but Kip can hear all the emotion there. It tears him from his trepidation.

"Yes," he says, grinning against the phone. "We'd really love it."

"I'll—I—I don't know if I'd get there before seven..." He's clearly now the one who's a bit rattled, and Kip finds that, as usual, his own nervousness turns way down when someone he loves seems nervous too.

"That's fine!" he says quickly. "Don't worry, whenever you can make it is okay, if—if that works for you—we can always do it another night if that one doesn't work with your schedule..."

"I can do Thursday," Pascal answers just as quickly. "I know I can make it—if I have to, I'll move things around so I can make it."

"Okay," Kip says, hands shivering a bit. "And, you know, don't worry that this is something fancy or anything like that. Just come over and we'll have food for you, and...we can finally all hang out again," he finishes quietly.

"Yeah," Pascal says. "I'd love that."

"And, um, you know, really don't think of this as a special occasion. I mean—" Kip flusters, "not that it isn't going to be special to have you over, but...but if you want, we can do this a lot, not just this one time."

There's another pause.

"I think that would be great." Pascal's voice is soft.

"Me too."

Pascal laughs quietly, and Kip does too, blushing.

"Um, do you think I could visit you before then?" Kip asks. "Like, meet you somewhere sometime after we both get done with work?"

"Sure, of course," Pascal says quickly.

"Okay." Kip is still smiling to himself; his walking pace is faster than before. "Pascal?"

"Uh-huh?"

"I'm really looking forward to this. I mean, I know we met up earlier this month, but...I miss you." He exhales. "A lot."

"Yeah. I know what you mean. I miss you too, Kip."

There's a slight hiccup in Kip's sense of ease when he realizes he wants to say "I love you." It sits in his chest and throat and against the roof of his mouth.

"I'm gonna be home in a little bit, and I can check my schedule and text you maybe about when I could be free to meet up before next Thursday," he says instead.

"Okay."

"Okay."

A pause.

"Thank you, Kip." Pascal's voice is gentle but he places significance in the words.

"You're welcome," he says. "I really want this too, though."

"That's—that's awesome." Pascal sounds a little breathless, and it's painfully cute, and Kip can picture the blush on his face and his smile and the way he lifts his head and curls his arms around whatever he's holding—or around themselves—when he's excited.

Kip laughs, clenching and flexing his free hand.

"Okay," he says again. "...I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"Okay. I'll have my phone with me."

Kip smiles.

"I love you," he says, fixing his gaze on a star in the cerulean sky.

It's not just a preface to a goodbye; it's an admission, and they both know that. So the long silence that follows doesn't really surprise Kip. His pulse is heavy enough for him to feel it, but he's not exactly scared.

"I love you, too. I love you, Kip."

Something clicks into place inside him.

"Talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay."

"Bye, Pas."

"Bye, Kip."

Drawing a deep breath, Kip ends the call, puts his phone away, and turns his face to the sky.

—

Within ten minutes he's pushing open the door to his room, sliding the strap of his bag from his shoulder and letting it down on the floor. He puts his face in his hands and slumps onto his bed, turns on the lights around his corkboard, and curls up as he rolls over to face his wall.

Before long, he gets up and changes into pajamas, pulling on a fuzzy pair of pants, a soft t-shirt, and slippers. He goes into the kitchen, takes out a cup, and stares at it for a moment as his thoughts catch up with him and he takes hold of all the attention needed to do anything but stand there holding it for an hour.

A minute or so later, Roy appears, and his welcome apparently alerts Molly to Kip's arrival as well, and then all three of them are together.

"So?" Roy says.

Kip turns around to lean casually against the counter, arms folded.

"SO?" Molly raises her hands, leaning in.

"So, what?" he says, feigning ignorance. His smile twitches at the corner of his mouth anyways.

"Did you talk to Pascal!"

"He says he can come over Thursday," Kip answers, and is almost knocked off-balance by the hugs thrown at him.

—

It's only the next day that he ends up slowly descending the stairwell, heading for Wallace's apartment. He still has no idea what he expects—much less wants—from this situation, but he hopes to take advantage of his currently increased confidence to move things a little, to try getting unstuck. Even if all he accomplishes is stopping himself from being forever uncomfortable around Wallace due to nervousness.

He pauses at the actual door, placing a hand on the jamb.

'I can do this,' he thinks. 'I can do this.'

He has a certain knock he uses for Wallace, two knocks with a slight pause before the third. It's not an outright code so much as just something he did once and kept doing, just so that Wallace could know it was him as soon as he heard it. After all, when Molly or Roy aren't around, he can be a bit anxious about answering the door to an unknown visitor, and he can easily suppose Wallace might feel the same. His fist hovers in front of the door before he quietly taps his knuckles against the wood.

The door unlocks and opens within seconds to Wallace in socks, sweatpants, and a t-shirt. Kip raises his eyes and gives Wallace a soft smile.

"Kip," Wallace says, brushing his orange hair more into place and moving aside from the doorway. "Hey, what's up?"

"Nothing," Kip says, following Wallace into the apartment. It looks cozier every time he visits it. "I just...I'm off today, and I..." He hesitates. "I haven't really been over in a couple of weeks, and I was just thinking...if you're not busy, or—"

"Yeah, no, I'm not busy," Wallace says with a light laugh. "I've actually kind of been doing nothing today, which...it's kind of relaxing but also...y'know..."

He rubs the back of his neck and shrugs with a casual smile, and something in the gesture makes Kip feel more at ease. Maybe it's the sheer familiarity of Wallace, but Kip is remembering how comfortable it is to be around him.

"I don't think I'm the best for bringing excitement into anyone's day, and I didn't come here with any amazing ideas, but..."

"No, that's okay, it's good to have you around," Wallace says. "I...I like hanging out with you, you know."

Kip can't stop himself from smiling in response.

They end up, as Wallace phrases it, being boring together. Kip sits on the couch beside Wallace to watch an old low-budget sci-fi movie Wallace was already partway through. Wallace half-successfully tries filling Kip in on what had happened in the first half hour, but Kip insists he doesn't really care if it's actually good or if he even manages to follow the plot.

As movie involves a lot of action sequences and a general lack of significant dialogue, Kip and Wallace chat quietly over a lot of it, having small, casual conversations over chaotic scenes, or commenting with curiosity on whatever's happening on screen. Wallace sometimes has this snarky, biting sense of humor that can emerge without much warning, and getting samples of that over and over makes Kip start to laugh in earnest.

"Oh my god, Wallace," he manages, covering his face as he leans towards his knees.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Wallace is clearly trying to avoid laughing back at Kip.

"Shut up," Kip says, wiping quickly at his eyes before sitting back up, trying to keep himself reined in. "It’s your fault."

By the time the credits roll, Kip feels just as at home in Wallace's presence as he'd grown to be before his dream, as if all he needed was this reminder of how solid things between them have become.

"Are you hungry?" Wallace asks, raising his arms and stretching his back. "I, uh, I was probably just gonna have this leftover pizza, but I might have enough stuff to maybe put together something decent."

"You don't have to make anything fancy just because I crashed your party," Kip says with a wave of the hand. "I like pizza."

Wallace stands up, straightening the elastic waistband of his pants.

"Do you want it hot or cold?" he asks.

There's a pause.

"I won't make any jokes if you say 'cold,'" Wallace says.

"Okay, good. Then cold."

In about half a minute Wallace is handing him a plate with a couple of slices of pizza while the microwave runs quietly in the kitchen.

"What would you like to drink?" Wallace asks, leaning on the back of the couch. "I have, uh, I can make coffee or tea, I think I still have some orange juice, some soda, there's water—"

"Water's good," Kip answers.

There's a pause during which Kip looks up and Wallace smiles at him and Kip can't help but laugh quietly.

"What?" he says. "I just want water. Come on."

He sees Wallace grin to himself as the human turns away, and he feels a slight flutter in his heart, as though it beats its wings against his chest. It feels a little silly, a little middle-schoolish, like he wants to pass Wallace a folded note that says "do you like me?" or get someone to ask on his behalf while he shields himself with his locker door, laughing and blushing with his friends.

He knows he can be credited as being a little more mature than that, but he can't help the mild feeling of butterflies in the stomach, and that's something he associates with the memories of all kinds of newfound crushes, something he hasn't experienced since before the fire—besides maybe a few incidents of sheer nervousness around disarmingly cute people. Not until he met Wallace and would be hit with a few fleeting moments that shook up his heart before he even considered a relationship with the human at all possible—and when he ran into Pascal and was flustered about it for the rest of the day.

He doesn't mind at all that he's feeling a little pleasantly shivery. It's nice and a bit exciting—at least refreshing—to be experiencing it. But moreso than that, he has a deeper, steadier feeling running quietly beneath everything. It's that growing fondness for Wallace, the thought of which always makes him feel a bit softer, a bit warmer. It makes him want to put his hand over Wallace's and rub it with his thumb, kiss his brow as he's falling asleep, hold and comfort him with whispered words when he's going through too much.

It seems inevitably near, as if all that Kip needs to do is tilt his head forward half an inch and their foreheads can touch, noses brushing—yet also completely impossible.

Wallace reappears, holding out a glass of water to Kip with another plate of pizza and his own glass cradled in his other arm.

"Thanks," Kip says, straightening his back as he carefully takes the drink. Wallace settles onto the couch across from him and leans against the arm.

"How've you been doing lately?" Kip asks. "It seems like you've been pretty busy."

"Heh, yeah..." Wallace touches his forehead and glances at the floor. "My schedule was extra packed the last week or so... It's not the worst, but it can kind of sneak up on me when I realize I have a bunch of things piled up at once. It's definitely nice that it's kind of calming down again now."

"Yeah, I haven't really seen you even just around the building."

Wallace's quiet laugh ends with a sigh.

"I've definitely been out a lot," he says. "Which is kind of nice that it lets me leave my apartment, but then sometimes I wish I could stay here and just relax for a while..."

"You need an excuse to go out?" Kip asks with a trace of incredulity. Wallace's face tinges slightly pink.

"Well...uh..." He shrugs. "I mean, I don't 'need' one, but I just tend to...just stay in place and kind of stick to my routine. Especially when I could use some rest. I always want what's most familiar then."

"I guess being in C isn't very familiar for you, still..." Kip says, a question within a statement.

Wallace grows a little pinker.

"Well, still not exactly," he admits. "I like it here, but I...I spent all my life in the same part of District A, and it took me a while to start being comfortable here. I guess I'm just in the habit of keeping to myself in my free time."

Kip takes a bite of pizza and reflects on the feeling of being torn from a lifelong home and your sense of security.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I do have an idea of how it is to kind of...prefer staying in, even if you wish that wasn't the case."

"Really?" Now Wallace has the tone of slight surprise. "But you have friends here, right? And you know the area?"

"Of course," Kip says quickly, rankling a little. "It's—not about that—"

He sees the confusion in Wallace's face and quiets, biting the inside of his lip.

"So...you go out more if you have friends going out, too?" he infers.

"Oh, uh—" Wallace shifts where he sits. "Yeah, it's a lot easier for me if someone's inviting me or if I can invite someone along, I think. Back in A, I had friends from work mostly, maybe a few I knew from earlier, or who just lived near me..."

Kip looks down at his lap. As much as has happened to him, he's never had to be separated from everyone he's known.

"It was really lonely having to move out here, huh," he says quietly.

"Yeah." Wallace is just as quiet. "I-I mean, it's not like I don't keep in touch with friends I made back there, but...when it comes to what it's like actually being able to be around people..."

"I know what you mean. It's different... When we moved to D, we left behind a lot of people, even if we could still talk with them. We fell out of contact completely with some friends, or at least I sure did. And now that we're back in C, we can't see as much of the friends we made from the years we spent in D."

He shrugs.

"I've never had to be completely on my own like you were, though."

Wallace gives him a tired smile.

"It was a little scary," Wallace says. "Or...maybe more than a little. I mean, it was the first really big move I'd ever had to make, and on such short notice, and I had already been pretty stressed about my job even before that... And then to be moving to a place where I wouldn't know anyone, where I'd never been..."

"And with monsters," Kip adds flatly, making Wallace blush and laugh quietly.

"Y-yeah, I admit I was kind of scared about monsters," he said. "If you were like me and never left A, that meant you'd never seen a monster in person. And even people who sometimes went to B usually never encountered a monster, or at least...never interacted with any. It was really pretty rare to meet people in A who'd gone to C even once, much less multiple times. And people who'd been in D were pretty much stuff of local legend. Well, at least local rumor."

There's a pause; Kip is listening carefully, taking it all in.

"Back in A," Wallace continues, "you'd never really...actually learn anything about monsters. I mean, you knew they existed, but...it was kind of implied that, since you were in A, you'd never meet one, so you didn't need to know that much about them. And it was always implied that since District A did so well for itself, it was justified to keep monsters out. Like that changing things would just be rocking the boat, or...or even that A was well-off BECAUSE it was kept all-human.”

Kip's mouth twitches. Wallace keeps looking around the room, but not directly at him.

"Between that, and treating monsters as this really mysterious subject, and implying that they're dangerous," he continues, "a lot of people had no interest in having anything to do with monsters at all. Even though it was kind of treated like a joke that everyone was afraid of monsters, it was also kind of true."

There's a long pause.

Something nags at Kip, something he's never really discussed with Wallace yet.

"I know that sometimes humans want to be nice to monsters even when they're scared of them," he says in a low voice. "Did you..." He trails off with a slight grimace, finding it awkward—even difficult. He looks up and meets Wallace’s eyes, and he's not sure if that makes it harder or easier. "...Did you decide to come here out of pity?"

Wallace blinks.

"I didn't," he says. "It was for the same reason I'm a social worker."

Kip keeps looking at him but doesn't say anything.

"I—I never wanted to be the social worker who acts superior, or dismissive, or...contemptuous.” Wallace sighs. “I know I'm not perfect, and that it’s...basically irresponsible to assume you don’t harbor any judgments towards anyone, when working with them or otherwise. But I can promise I went into this field wanting to help people so that they could experience real results through that, not so I could feel better about myself. And I moved to C because I just—wanted to keep being a social worker. I just figured it might be easier to stay with this company where I’d been fitting in than to try to be hired at a new one. But...having said all that...I was still pretty nervous just to be around monsters. You were kind of always around the idea that, y'know, monsters are scary and dangerous, and they just hate humans for no reason, and you’re lucky to be in A.”

Kip glances down to see that thin branches of frost are creeping out from where his fingertips are touching his glass of water. He grimaces and gives a tug at the glass, but he's already stuck. He sighs and closes his eyes.

"Oh, are you..." Wallace leans in and reaches towards him, then moves his eyes from Kip's hand to his face and hesitates. "Here, uh...I can...I can maybe..." He puts down his own plate and moves closer to Kip.

Everything in Kip tenses up a little, but he makes no move to escape as Wallace slowly puts both hands around Kip's and presses them tight.

"That's—that is cold," Wallace says with a short laugh, clearly trying not to wince.

"Ah...yeah," Kip mumbles. In the vast temperature difference between Wallace's warm hands and Kip's near freezing ones, Wallace's skin feels incredibly hot, but it's soothing instead of painful.

And then Wallace takes hold of the top of the glass with one hand and starts rubbing briskly with the one atop Kip's. Kip looks at Wallace with some incredulity, but Wallace is focused intently on their hands.

"Here..." Wallace leans in and Kip reflexively shrinks slightly back at the sudden motion, curving his spine away, and presses his knees together. Wallace sees this and pauses momentarily. "Hang on, I'm just going to see if this helps—"

Wallace gently pulls the glass towards himself and Kip fights the nervous reflex to protest, letting Wallace bring it close to his chest.

"Hold it here for a second," Wallace murmurs, and Kip complies.

Wallace cups his hands around Kip's, then lowers his head and breathes into them.

Kip blinks a few times and looks down. Wallace's breath is close and warm against his skin and he doesn't move, and after half a minute or so of slow exhales from Wallace, he doesn't feel the ice clutching at him anymore.

"I think..." he starts, just above a whisper. But Wallace seems to get the message and takes his hands away.

Kip takes the cup in his free hand and, with a slight tug, detaches himself from the glass. He grimaces and squeezes the hand into a fist and tucks it under his arm, looking at the shapes in the frost left where his fingers met the glass.

"Thanks," he mutters, putting the water aside before any more mishaps can occur. He can't help but be embarrassed. It's always embarrassing. "It's a pain when that stuff happens."

"It really must be," Wallace says, who is pressing his hands together, trying to warm them up again. "How do you deal with that if you don't have any kind of heat around?"

"I just wait it out until I can get it to something hot," Kip says. "It sucks, but my threshold and tolerance for low temperatures is a lot stronger than basically anybody's. Not that I don't feel it when I'm cold—I spend a lot of time being cold and it's honestly really frustrating, but cold doesn't...it doesn't damage me nearly as easily, and it might be an unpleasant feeling but it's not painful or anything. Like, having ice on my body doesn't hurt me."

"Oh, wow," Wallace says, looking at Kip's hands. "I can't really touch ice with my bare skin for more than, like, ten seconds before it starts hurting."

Kip laughs through his nose.

"Well, can you think of any time you'd ever want to be able to do that?"

Wallace thinks for a moment, then looks at Kip silently.

"Yeah, exactly," Kip says with a slight smile. He picks up his plate again. "It's almost never convenient and it causes problems about every other day. Plus, you know...you saw where it got me.”

Wallace focuses on his own pizza for a bit as well.

"So how do you feel about monsters now?" Kip asks after a minute. He's teasing—mostly—but Wallace seems to take it straightforwardly.

"Oh, I mean..." He rubs at his arm, shifting in his seat. "It's a lot different. I mean, it all really seems ridiculous now, talking about the way a lot of people in A think about monsters. I don't...I mean, I know I've barely started to learn, and—and it sounds pretty patronizing to say anything like I have a lot more appreciation or anything like that, but... I at least do know that the way A talks about monsters is just...uh, total bullshit.”

Kip raises his eyebrows and shrugs.

"Yeah." He adjusts his glasses on his nose. "I imagine so."

He glances up and catches Wallace watching him; Wallace looks away and brushes at his hair.

"Also, I mean, I was kind of joking just then."

"Oh...yeah..."

"You don't always get when I'm joking," Kip observes.

"Sorry—" Wallace blushes.

"I'm not saying that as a bad thing. Just that it's something that happens."

"Does it happen a lot?" Wallace looks a bit nervous.

"Not really, I don't really joke around as much anymore. Well—it at least takes a while before I stop being kind of boring."

"No, you're not—"

"I'd know," Kip says, leaning back. "I'm a little boring."

"I'm the boring one, remember?" Wallace says. "Never going out, and all?"

Kip breathes a laugh.

"You just have to make some more friends," he says. "For starters, if you just like, text Molly and Roy, even if you don't have any solid ideas, you're all but certain to get one or both of them out, and they might even get other people coming along, and then after just a couple of times they'll invite you to things all the time and you'll meet just about everybody they know and see the whole town and you won't have any problems. Plus, they could use the excuse, too. They stay in for my sake way more than they should. You'd all be doing each other a favor."

"Hmm." Wallace chews thoughtfully.

Kip's mind apparently decides to have him look at Wallace and be aware, at this random point in time, that he would seriously like to kiss him. It feels real to Kip in a new way, to think about it mid-conversation, sitting a few feet away from Wallace while the man scratches the side of his face and smooths out a wrinkle in his jeans with his palm.

"You said you sometimes want to stay home even though you wish you felt like going out?" Wallace says, looking over at him.

"Yeah, I, uh...I did."

"How come?"

"Um." It's one of those blushes Kip can feel blooming across his face. "It's—"

His thoughts tangle up for a moment. But he can't avoid thinking about how Wallace has been honest to him about some potentially embarrassing and personal things. He straightens his back and preemptively smiles.

"Well, mostly because of depression," he says.

"Oh. Right."

Kip stopped caring about talking about such things a pretty long time ago, but he feels a little twinge of worry that Wallace could treat him awkwardly after he’s outright labeled it like this.

"I probably should have guessed..." Wallace murmurs.

"Oh? Why, do I seem sad?" Kip smiles so that hopefully Wallace can tell he's joking.

"I just—I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but I'm meant to be able to recognize some common symptoms of things. And it's not like I don't encounter it fairly regularly in my work... I mean, when you tell me you end up staying in, despite being in familiar surroundings with familiar people and not even necessarily preferring the solitude, that should be kind of obvious..."

"Don't worry. I don't need a diagnosis. And I've got my therapy to help me. You can miss my signals all you want."

On the one hand, it's taking Kip some real effort trying not to feel awkward, or at least succeed at seeming casual. On the other hand, he can't help but feel a little flattered that Wallace has any interest in such a personal matter at all, rather than wanting to drop the subject as quickly as possible.

"And...are you, uh, anxious?" Wallace asks. “I know that pairs up with depression a lot...”

"You mean, am I anxious right now, or do I have anxiety? Because no to the first one and yes to the second. Well, yes a little bit to the first one too, but only because we're talking about it."

Wallace nods to himself and looks off at apparently nothing.

Kip puts his empty plate next to his water and looks at his hands on his lap, hooking his thumbs together.

"Sorry if—sorry if that was too much," Wallace says suddenly. "I don't mean to pry. Or make you uncomfortable."

"No, it's alright. It's not really a secret. And it's not like you're some total stranger."

Wallace laughs quietly. Kip smiles.

"You know, you kind of smell like honey," Wallace remarks, and Kip blinks.

"I...? Do I?" he says quietly, the only response he can summon.

"Yeah, sorry, I just keep noticing it..."

Kip has no clue what to do or say. Wallace might as well have punched him in the side of the head for how blindsided he feels.

Until, all at once, he gets it, and the dissipation of his confusion is such a relief that he physically relaxes and can't help a real smile.

"Oh," he says. "It's—it's when I wash my hair, I—there's honey, it smells like honey—"

"Your hair?" Wallace repeats. "You...wash it with honey?"

"I'm not, like, pouring honey into my hair or something, but there's honey in there, yeah. I can smell it in the shower, but I guess I get used to it and don't notice it after that." He laughs brightly and brushes his hand through his hair. "In theory, I might smell like..." He thinks for a moment. "Vanilla and lilac, also. But I suppose my hair holds this scent the best."

After a moment he looks over to see Wallace looking at him with a soft smile.
He laughs again and looks down at the cushion of the couch.

"Man..." Wallace says. "Remember how long it took before I ever heard you laugh?"

That makes Kip laugh again.

"What?"

"Back after we first met, you were always so serious or tense around me, you know? And, I mean, back then I couldn't be sure that it wasn't just what you were like all the time. I mean, I kind of knew you acted different around me than you did your actual friends. But it felt like such a surprise even just to ever see you smile a little."

"Well..."

"Now I know why you were like that, of course, but oh my god, it took so much time before you laughed in front of me, remember when that happened?"

Kip smiles to himself.

"I do, yeah," he says. "It was a pretty memorable moment. Plus you pointed it out to me that you'd never heard me laugh until then, so..."

"Well, it was surprisingly exciting," Wallace says. "And honestly? It was just really great to start seeing all these new sides to you and realizing how much you'd been hiding. ...And that you'd decided you didn't have to do that anymore."

Kip blushes.

"...It wasn't just knowing that I didn't need to protect myself from you, you know," he says softly.

They pause. After a few seconds of silence, Kip looks over at Wallace. He has a quiet but attentive expression, as if they both sense they've just wandered into a different sort of territory.

"I wouldn't have changed the way I was around you just because I didn't have to be that way anymore," he says. "I let you see me because I wanted to."

He doesn't look at Wallace's reaction to that either.

"It's been pretty amazing," Wallace says after a moment, "actually knowing you. It's kind of funny to think about how unapproachable you used to seem to me."

Laughter bubbles up Kip's throat and Wallace smiles at that.

"You have a really good laugh, too," Wallace says.

Kip's fading blush flares up again and he can't manage a direct response to that.

"God, back then... Even as soon as I met you, it was such a mess," he sighs. "And it just got so much worse from there."

"Oh jeez," Wallace drags a hand down his face to his neck. "Getting pushed together like that was a little rough... I will completely admit that when I found out I was supposed to work with you I was kind of dreading it. I mean, of all the people I'd met in C..."

"I was the worst," Kip finishes for him. "And then eventually you figured out that you were right."

"Aw, no," Wallace laughs. "You just didn't seem to want anything to do with me—"

"Well..." Kip says pointedly. "I was your worst option, but you seemed like the same thing to me."

"And you turned out to be right about that, too."

"Heh, well..." Kip is already sobering a bit from reflecting on the intensity of that period. "You really scared me more than anything had in years. The difference between what it's like with you now versus what things were like then? I can't even describe how it feels."

"You're...the opposite of scared of me?" Wallace says. "I mean, hopefully you are, by now..."

"Mm. Yeah, something like that."

A pause.

"You've been to District B, haven't you?" Kip asks, looking down at his folded hands.

"Uh, sort of. I traveled through it when I moved here from A."

"Did you see any monsters?" he asks.

"I didn't notice any, no. Not until I got here."

Kip runs a finger along his thigh on the seam of his jeans.

"I like going to see Eno," he says. "But I kind of hate being in District B."

It's quiet. Kip knows he's just introduced a one-sided topic, but he's thinking about something important and, if he's ever going to be able to really talk to Wallace about anything he wants to, this is as good a time as any to test the waters.

"I really have a lot of respect for the monsters who live in B," he continues. "Because sometimes I can hardly stand just riding the train to the station that's a few blocks away from Eno. The only way I've ever figured out how to deal with it is just ignoring it however I can or disappearing into my head when I can't. I’m lucky when I have enough control to make the space around me cold enough to—to protect myself when I need to.”

He scratches the back of his neck.

"I know monsters kind of form small communities there and watch out for each other, and I'm really glad, because they deserve to live there without being pushed out. But god, half the time I think about how I'm in a district where if I just kept riding the train, I'd get out at a station where I'd be stopped from going any further. You can just feel that everywhere. That people think you shouldn't be there and want you to go away, and the closer you get to A the more they want to push you towards C."

He takes a moment just to evenly breathe a few times; Wallace doesn't speak and Kip is glad of that.

"It's not that you don't ever encounter that in C. Or even in D. Or that it stops affecting you constantly just because you don't have to deal with it all the time. But just because you get used to it doesn't mean it ever stops being horrible."

He takes hold of the bottom edge of his sweater and starts fidgeting with it, examining the interwoven colors.

"I mean, you know how far it goes. Even humans who have a single monster in their family tree are looked down on. I just..." He sighs. "Imagine if I was in A, if I could actually get in and nobody would be trying to force me out. It's bad enough the way you're treated in B, the way you're just looked at... It must be so much worse if you were ever in A, I can't even guess how anyone would react to me there. Even if A opens to us, I can't imagine trying to move there as a monster, in the middle of all that..."

He raises his gaze to the wall.

"I'm not saying that because it has anything to do with what I used to think about you," he says. "That was a problem that was completely—well, almost completely different. It's just...something I thought about. Even though I know you're not dangerous, it's still strange that you're from A. I mean, we could all be together back where we used to live in D, and we could all visit B, but we couldn't...we can't be where you used to be. I can't—we can't visit where you lived or see your favorite places or anything."

"I think about that sometimes," Wallace says quietly. "It feels strange to me, too."

"I just..." He leans back into the cushions of the couch. "I get reminded that I'm a monster. All the shit that comes with it.”

He pauses.

"Not that I ever forget, but..."

"Yeah. I get what you're saying."

Kip looks over at Wallace and gives a soft smile, which is returned.

"...You know," Wallace says slowly. "I was gonna watch another movie that's actually supposed to be kind of good."

They look at each other for a moment.

"If, you know, you wanted to do that."

"Uh—I—" he stammers. "Sure, that's, um, that's fine."

Wallace smiles, and Kip does too.

"Here, let me take your plate," Wallace says. Kip watches him extend his hand.

"Oh," he says, and picks up his empty plate. "Here—thanks—"

"You know," Wallace says as he stands up, stacking Kip's plate on top of his own. "I'm really glad we get to be friends, Kip."

It's a simple enough, even clichéd statement to make, but the way that he says it sounds genuine enough to make Kip blush.

"I am, too."

—

Kip wakes up to a bad day.

He's exhausted when his alarm wakes him up, and within seconds is aware of feeling a consuming sense of unease, dissatisfaction, and anxiety. Every tiny problem and stressor his brain can identify feels like a crisis. Every worry turns into dread and he has a confidence that everything will go wrong. He's sad and tired and has little interest in doing anything but hiding away all day and maybe trying to distract himself or sleeping it off.

But he has to go in to work. Fortunately he's used to the job well enough to maintain a great façade just by going on autopilot. Small groups of people seem overwhelming, he feels hopelessly distracted, and every sound that's unexpected or even a little bit loud sets him on edge. But as the only person working out front, he has to keep himself afloat.

His preoccupation leads to little mistakes that are easy to fix but rattle him anyways; the nervousness and self-doubt cause lead him to make more mistakes. He can't tear his thoughts from getting to go home. He knows it would help if he was able to get a head start on closing processes throughout his shift, but he's so slowed down that he barely makes headway on any of them.

In the middle of dinner, he makes a drink and then spills half of it and that just stops him for a second, frustrated and coffee-stained and fed up with himself. But he's only stuck in place for a few moments before he lets out a drawn-out exhale and starts cleaning it up, grateful it at least happened behind the counter.

By the time he's nearing the end of the shift and making some real progress in closing, he's reached the stage of mental exhaustion where he just doesn't care—he doesn't care if it takes him a long time to get home to his bedroom, he doesn't care if nothing makes him feel better, he doesn't care if he feels like a complete fuck-up. He's just checked out of his own thoughts and feelings, going through the motions as he cleans and restocks and makes sure everything is ready for the café's next opening shift.

It's only about half an hour after the store closes when he's ready to leave. It turns out he actually kind of enjoys it. He locks the door, switches off the lights up front, and gets to just finish a few familiar, straightforward tasks in quiet and solitude and finally feel like he's managed to do something. Even if all he managed was getting through a fairly easy work shift and doing an average, baseline-competent job at setting things up for the next day.

He heads home, glad that he at least had the physical energy he needed for work—though the thought does remind him that he ought to eat, even though he knows he probably won't bother with anything much more than a snack. He makes it to the floor of their apartment and is reaching for the handle of the door when he stops short.

He hears Molly's laugh, and after another second tunes in to the sound of her and Roy carrying on an animated conversation, punctuated by both their laughter. His anxiety leaps through him and he doesn't struggle with it—he just turns from the door and continues down the hallway, going into the stairwell at the end and making his way back down to the lobby, giving a tired smile to the monster he passes along the way.

He steps back outside and decides the weather is nice enough for him and there's enough light left in the day for him to at least take a walk to the park and back. He sets out, alternating the focus of his gaze between the sidewalk and the sky.

There's this fear set deep within him that he's always doing what he would have done if he'd walked into the apartment. He'd bring their conversation to a halt, and it would be obvious he was having a bad day, and they'd try to comfort him, and after that they wouldn't be able to give any signs that they were having any fun at all because they'd know Kip couldn't participate in it. It's like his bad days cast a shadow that eclipses their days too.

He's always so conscious of how it was for everyone after the fire. In the immediate aftermath, Kip was completely helpless, and the only reason he ended up safe and in a new home was because he had friends who stepped in immediately and took care of all of it. And even when Kip grew capable of participating in any routines of the day, very limited and very shaky, he still relied so heavily on all their support. For a long time he was hardly even moving around, and they had to make sure he ate, even if some days he would only take one small meal, feeling too tired or sick or just unwilling for anything more. They had to try to make sure he could sleep—although sometimes he couldn't get out of bed and slept almost all through the day, sometimes he would be up most of the night, too uneasy or just too upset to sleep, and sometimes would be repeatedly forced awake by nightmares that grew so terrible he gave up on getting any restful sleep. They had to try keeping him warm—something often impossible even at the best of times, and which required all but hourly efforts from them then, fighting it off with blankets and space heaters and hot showers and baths and food and drink.

Even back then, Kip was aware of how much everyone was doing for him, on top of their own struggles with what had happened—not to mention that Roy and Molly were in completely unfamiliar surroundings in a completely new life. The guilt made him feel worse, which if anything made it harder for him to do even basic things. He would be embarrassed to be seen or even heard after extended periods of struggling even more than usual with everyday things. He would get up and try cooking something only if no one else was around to see it. And he'd mumble apologies sometimes and they'd assure him he had nothing to be sorry for, and he couldn't bring himself to say I'm sorry for what I'm doing to all of you.

He'd hear them coming and going throughout the day, sounding sad and quiet and tired, and know that he was only making them feel moreso. He'd lie in bed staring at the ceiling in the morning—or afternoon, or evening—watching changing shadows of tree leaves waving gently across it, and try as hard as he could to feel okay—and he never could. He'd try to go through days doing any small task to distract himself, to feel like he was accomplishing anything, but he couldn't force himself to feel like anything was normal. He couldn't forget what had happened for even a moment, and he couldn't stop thinking about his family. They were always in the background of his thoughts and often all he could focus on. He didn't think he could ever stop doing anything but thinking of them. It didn't make sense that anyone could be thinking of anything else.

And even when he was slowly, slowly managing to do a little more, he was still just wholly drowned in depression and grief which tended to hit him without warning and which he couldn't force back. He knew he was draining to be around. He just couldn't do it; he couldn't make himself even seem like he was in a good mood, he could barely manage an occasional weary smile. He couldn't figure out what was best—when he kept to himself, he made them worry about him, and when he was with them, it was like he could feel himself darkening every room he'd dragged himself into. He felt like he was a ghost haunting the place, like a curse hanging over everyone that they couldn't avoid. He was hurting everyone else.

And even now, over half a decade later, he's still not past it. He still has nightmares, still has bad days, still gets unexpected pangs of grief, still collapses, still breaks down, still cries. He'd always been the most serious one among his friends and now he's far and away the most depressing. And it's not like he doesn't know they all have problems of their own, everyone does—struggle and loss and fear and trauma are endemic amongst monsters. But of course he leaves nobody any room to look after themselves, to do anything but worry about him.

He's just Kip Kaizer, whose problems supersede everyone else's, whose vulnerability demands constant attention, whose souring moods obstruct the lives of those closest to him. Kip, who can't handle his problems and forces them onto people who've actually managed to shoulder their own. Kip, who's always too close for comfort to crying or panicking and can only deal with that fragility by pretending to be frozen over. Self-defeating, self-absorbed, self-pitying Kip.

It's the very least he can do to give people the occasional break he knows they could benefit from. He can let Molly and Roy have a little bit longer without him, let them enjoy things a little more before they have to start dealing with him. He can handle taking a little longer to get back home than he thought.

He walks over to an empty bench by a tree near the edge of the park and sits down in the middle. It's his favorite place in the park in the evenings, facing him towards a wide-open view of the sky that shows both ends of the sunset's spectrum. There's mostly afterwork joggers and dogwalkers around, providing enough noise to keep him from feeling too alone but not so much that he can't relax.

He sits for a while, watching the flow of clouds and the shift of colors above him. He doesn't think of his friends, or of Wallace, or Pascal. He doesn't let himself think of his family. He doesn't think about himself. He just takes in the sky and the sounds of people moving around him and groups of birds flying by and the smell of trees and water carried to him by the breeze. When the nightward horizon deepens beyond dusk and freckles with stars, he gets up and turns towards home.

—

His mood upon waking up the next day isn't exactly good, but it's an improvement from his last. It's calmer, more like he's mentally tired than stressing out over things, and he feels like there's at least a chance it could improve at some point in the day. And if it doesn't, he's at least more inclined to be numb to any sources of stress than frustrated.

He has enough energy to settle on the couch with his laptop and a cup of tea, drawing his socked feet up onto the cushions and starting notes for a new blog post. He's been a little slower on updates for the past month or so, but the latest topic he's decided on is on the positive side—there's been an encouragingly steady uptick in monsters forming local organizations geared towards supporting each other and alleviating specific community issues—and he hopes that will make it easier for him.

His focus isn't spectacular, and he writes neither particularly fast nor well, but he figures it's good enough for the brainstorming stage. After a couple hours of work he saves the document and folds his laptop shut, stretching his legs out and leaning his head back on the couch and closing his eyes. He rests there for a while, feeling a little better for finding something to occupy his time and attention and remind him there's some things he's good at—or at least capable of.

After a little while, he decides that a day for which he doesn't have standards high enough to be disappointed by it—and a day in which his schedule is completely free—is a good day to get some chores out of the way. He changes into the pair of pants that got beat up from work and the t-shirt mottled with bleach stains and starts out by doing a few small things in his room: watering his plants, putting a fresh set of sheets on the bed, and running the little sweeper over the floor.

He tucks his phone into his back pocket, plugs in headphones, and puts on quiet music as he starts cleaning off all the surfaces of the kitchen, scrubbing every inch of the countertops, wiping along the edges of the cabinet doors, taking the knobs off the stovetop dials and soaking them in hot water. He sweeps the floor and mops it twice. He goes through the fridge, taking all the food off of a shelf and wiping the space clean before replacing everything and repeating the process on the next shelf, from top to bottom.

He finishes with that in a little less than an hour, and fills a bucket with cleaner diluted in hot water, carries it to the bathroom with a bunch of old towels, and scrubs the floor. He dries it, mops it, dries it again, scrubs the tile of the shower walls, cleans the toilet, cleans the sink, wipes the walls, changes the trash. He looks at himself in the mirror for a moment before cleaning it and pushes his glasses into place.

After putting everything he'd taken off the sink back into place, he pulls the towels down, puts them with the sheets he took off his bed, and wrings out all the rags he'd used and puts them on the pile as well. Then he puts a new set of towels in the bathroom, turns on the shower and the vent, and leans his phone against the wall outside before stripping off his clothes and stepping into the shower.

He's fairly brief about it but stands for a minute in the lingering steam before getting out. He wraps himself in a towel out of habit and picks up his clothes, carrying them out of the bathroom and adding them to the pile of laundry. He goes into his room and lets the towel fall to the floor, lies on his bed, and takes a moment to enjoy the rare experience of feeling the air against his naked body. He rolls over after a few minutes to let his back get the same treatment, but his arms are gradually horripilating and he's already starting to feel cold.

He can't really decide what to wear, so he just puts on another pair of jeans and socks and a sweatshirt, hangs the towel back in the bathroom, gathers the laundry up under one arm, and takes a bottle of detergent with the other. He puts a key in his back pocket and goes out the door, conscious of the somewhat strange feeling of walking down the hall in only socks.

When he gets to the laundry room, there's a few machines running but no one else around. He puts everything in one washer, adds the soap, and turns on the machine, watching it spin a minute as he takes in the soft rumbling filling the room. He sits up on one of the running dryers, pressing his hands against the warm metal surface and trying to get as much of his legs against it as he can.

Eventually he hears someone coming down the hall towards the door; he gets anxious and hops down and sits in one of the chairs against the wall instead. The footsteps pass by.

He stays in the room—it's small and warm and enclosed and the noise is easy to get used to, and he can think of worse places to pass the next twenty minutes or so. Nobody else comes by before his washer is done, and he breathes in the scent of the freshly cleaned fabric for a moment before pushing it into one of the dryers.

The timer on the dryers is a little longer than on the washers; Kip leans over onto it, warming his chest, humming tunelessly and tapping his fingernail against the lid. He sits on the top again when his legs start feeling cold by comparison, still tapping an erratic rhythm against the gently vibrating surface.

He stays with the dryer the whole time, and only sees two other monsters come by to collect their laundry. He acknowledges them with an instant of eye contact and a twitch of a smile before looking back at the wall, and neither of them demand anything more from him.

He slides off when the rumble stops, pulls the laundry out and folds it, stacking it on top of the dryer. He gathers the soft, warm pile of cloth up in his arms, taking a minute to hug it against his face and breathe in the smell and soak up the residual heat.

Back in their apartment, his stream of motivation to do anything at all—besides pick up his phone from the floor—seemingly runs into a steel wall and he puts the stack of laundry on the shelf in his room and flops over on his bed, burrowing his legs under the blankets and drawing them up to his neck.

He sighs deeply and closes his eyes. He didn't realize how good an idea lying down was until he did so—his muscles aren't exactly sore, but he's clearly tired them out by rushing through several fairly physical chores in such a short amount of time. He rolls onto his back and arches it as far as he can to counteract the effects of cleaning the floor and bending over the countertops, then sinks back down and tries to relax every part of his body.

He's lying there for a while, and starts considering how much he might want to make himself eat, and suddenly thinks of the fact that he only has a day and a half between him and his planned meeting with Pascal. It doesn't leave him many chances to wake up feeling better than he has the last few mornings; usually when he has a mild depressive streak like this it takes close to a week to clear up. He could be in a far worse place than the one he is now, but he wants to have steady energy and a positive mood before he even sees Pascal on that day. He's had to try to force himself into neutrality in all their meetings before, unable to predict what kind of emotions could surge up and wanting to protect the both of them from that. But now he doesn't want neutrality.

He's not very thrilled that the first strong feeling he has all day is a spike of anxiety, set off by the thought of being anxious around Pascal. He tries to derail its momentum. He sets his glasses aside and closes his eyes, draws the blankets further up around himself, relaxes every muscle, and tries to sleep.

He opens his eyes with the understanding that he's waking from the edge of sleep, and closes them again, burying himself deeper into his nest of blankets. He falls asleep slowly enough this time to feel his conscious thoughts blur and fade out.

It's an equally gradual process when he wakes up again, feeling foggy and soft. He can't focus easily, but the vague sounds he hears are distinguishable from dreams—which he's glad to have seemingly gone without. The instant he hears bubbly laughter, his brain understands what it's hearing.

After a few minutes, he sits up halfway, finding himself awake enough to process Molly and Roy's individual voices. He catches words here and there but can't make out what they're talking about. Drawers slide open and shut, footsteps pad around the apartment, and periodically something drops to the floor and Molly exclaims in annoyance.

Kip drags himself out of bed, returns his glasses to his face and his phone to his pocket, and goes over to the mirror to tug his sweatshirt into place and comb his hair. He grimaces slightly at his reflection—he looks flat and tired and messy.

He sighs and opens his door, stepping carefully outside his room in case he's throwing himself into the middle of a storm.

"Hey, guys." He greets them before he even sees them.

"Oh, Kip, we were wondering if you were here! I was going to check, but I knew if you were here you had to be in your room, and I knew if you hadn't come out already you were probably sleeping or wanted to be by yourself—"

"Hi, Kip," Molly says.

Kip follows their voices to the kitchen, and sees Molly wearing a yellow sundress and putting a sandwich together as Roy, in shorts and a bright orange shirt, folds up an old cover and a large paper handlebag sits on the table.

"Um," he says quietly, and Roy looks over at him with a smile that tells Kip something extra exciting must be happening. "What are you doing?"

"Put on outside clothes," Molly says. "And stand by the window for a second to see what you think, it's pretty warm out."

"What? What are you doing? Where are we going?" Kip says, putting a hand on the doorway and holding tight.

Molly apparently hears his rising undertone of stress because she stops and turns to him.

"Don't worry, it's going to be fun," she insists, slightly softening her voice for him. "Just give us a minute. It's supposed to be a surprise."

Kip blinks and looks between them again, and thinks about the probability that he's going to end up feeling worse if he doesn't go along this.

"Okay," he says quietly. Molly smiles.

He comes back in about five minutes or so, changed into a light gray button-up shirt and wearing his most comfortable shoes. He rubs his neck, already feeling a little less removed from everything around him, and a little more like he feels when he's having an okay day.

"Okay, so," Molly says, closing the refrigerator door. "The three of us are going to the park."

"Okay," Kip repeats, bemused.

"We're going on a picnic!" Roy says brightly, turning towards Kip. Kip smiles faintly and Roy grins back at him. "We have everything packed up and we can go whenever you're ready to go."

They're both looking at him, and Kip feels like his head is lagging behind this sudden change to the course of his day.

"I mean," he starts, "I'm ready to go whenever you guys want to. But you don't have to bring me along, I'm really fine just hanging out here today. I was thinking I could probably vacuum the living room..."

"Uh, no, we're not inviting you just now, Kip," Molly says, folding her arms.

"We planned this the other day," Roy explains. "We planned it for all of us."

"Oh—" Kip touches his mouth. "Oh—I—"

Roy smiles at him and lightly touches his back; Kip laughs softly.

"C'mon."

Five minutes later they're walking out the front door of the building into sunlight and a warm breeze. Molly leads them down the sidewalk, holding the bag under her arm, and Roy walks behind her, drawing double-takes from passersby with his height as always, and Kip finds himself following them along the same path he took the other evening after work.

He's a little tuned out when they reach the park and he realizes the others are trying to ask him where he wants to set things up. They end up on the top of a slight hill that's covered in thick green grass and a few scattered wildflowers, with a good view of the rest of the park and a tall tree providing plenty of shade. Kip sits down beside the tree, crossing his legs underneath him, and Roy and Molly work on unloading the bag.

In a few minutes the food is in the middle of the cover and a cloud is passing in front of the sun and a bird is singing from a branch somewhere nearby. Roy lays out on the blanket, unscrewing a bottle of lemonade and then passing it to Molly, who's leaning back and looking up at the sky. Kip watches them for a few moments before resting against the tree, closing his eyes and drawing slow, deep inhales. The two start an easy conversation, and simply coexisting with something so pleasant feels like a comfort to Kip.

"Oh, I wish I could show you guys what the kids made last week," Roy says. "I'd cut them out strips of paper for crowns and they all decorated themselves and they all had such different designs! It's really amazing to see the way they each interpret the idea so individually to make something beautiful for themselves."

"That was when they used glitter and markers and glue all in the same day, right?" Molly asks.

"That was brave of you," Kip murmurs.

"It's worth it every now and then to give them all the materials I can," Roy answers. "They're really so creative..."

"Oh yeah, I had to get that patch of glitter off your back for you," Kip says, sitting up and stretching. "I remember that."

"It's worth it!" Roy repeats. "They really have a lot of fun with that kind of stuff."

Kip smiles and sighs and hugs his knees to his chest. He watches a family walking in the distance, two little kids holding the leash of an equally small dog.

"I want to give them all a chance to try as many new things as they can, you know?" Roy says. "I really try to let them do things they might never have before and I hope each of them finds things they really enjoy and are really interested in and that make them feel confident about what they can do and want to try other things too!"

Kip looks over at Roy's impassioned tone to see him sit up and twist his fingers in the grass, blushing slightly. Molly smiles at him and squeezes his shoulder, and he smiles back at her.

"You do really good things, Roy," Kip says quietly. He leans back against the tree again and pushes his glasses up.

"Yeah, you do," Molly agrees.

"Aw, you guys..." Roy puts an arm around Molly and reaches out towards Kip with the other; Kip rolls his eyes but can only partially restrain a smile as he scoots forward into the inevitable hug.

Kip edges back to the tree again after a minute, trying to let himself be in the background. He's better than he was, but still feels very acutely the presence of his depression, and he would rather come off as simply being in a quiet or tired mood. But he isn't overshadowed by Molly and Roy's energy for the simple reason that they seem to keep themselves from overshadowing him. They're talking and laughing but, relative to their usual levels of vivacity whenever they're having fun together, their quietness is much more unusual than Kip's.

He watches them for any signs that something might be wrong, but he doesn't see anything else out of the ordinary. Soon enough they start eating some of the food, and Kip diverts some of his attention to his sandwich.

"How are you guys?" he asks after a while.

"Good," Molly says.

"Yep," Roy says with a laugh. "We're good."

"I mean in life," Kip clarifies. "How are you in general."

"You know? Still pretty good." Molly stretches out her legs and rocks a foot back and forth.

"Yeah! I mean—" Roy sits up, crossing his long legs. "Something I really think about, and that I'm thinking about right now, is that so much has happened to us but we've still ended up here, you know? It's nice out, and we're together, and it's really great to be here like this."

Molly grins and moves across the grass to hug him. Kip smiles, deciding he's overanalyzing things, and tries to pull himself into the moment as best as he can. He takes a piece of celery and drags it between his fangs, gradually scraping it down.

"What about you, Kip?" Roy asks.

"Hmm?"

"How are you doing?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you fine in general?" Molly says with half a smile. Kip blushes and bites down on the celery.

"Yeah," he answers. "I am."

"Really? Because part of what gave us the idea to do this is because you've really seemed kind of low lately."

"Well...I mean, yeah, I've been having a few bad days in a row, but it's only the thing where I just wake up to it. It's okay."

"But you've been kind of..." Roy starts hesitantly. "It's just seemed like for a while now you've had stuff on your mind, and we're kind of worried that you don't seem to want to tell us about any of it. We know what it looks like when you're weighed down by something. We want to make sure you're okay."

Kip is starting to bristle; he glances quickly between them and feels a little too backed up against the tree. He hates feeling confronted, but the feeling of being cornered is even worse.

"Don't worry," Molly says. She and Roy glance at each other and Kip sees their expressions momentarily shift to a sad kind of worry. "We're just asking. We know you don't always like to talk about things."

Kip softens, and then sighs.

"You don't have to worry so much about me," he says quietly. "It's just been the usual stuff, and some stuff that I...don't really feel like talking about yet." He sighs. "Sometimes I think about saying stuff about it but I just don't feel like I'm ready."

"...Is it about Pascal?" Roy asks gently.

Kip can feel his blush flood his face.

"I—of—I mean—" he stammers. He takes a deep breath to try to recover the flow of his thoughts. "I... Yes. Part of it is Pascal. And I am a little nervous about that. But, you know, it's all manageable, it's just a lot of little things at once, and I, y'know, have the usual bad day or two every now and then."

He tries to gauge how his words are landing. He sighs, seeing the hints of tension in their expressions.

"Look..." he says slowly, dropping his gaze to his knees. "I really do wish I could talk about some of this stuff with you guys especially, because I really don't want to make it seem like I don't trust you or I don't...know that you guys care about me. And I don't want you to think it means I don't want you to talk to me at all, for us to talk, I just—" He sighs again. "There's this stuff that I'm still really figuring out day to day and it feels so—so personal and kind of embarrassing and I've only even talked about it a little bit with Eno, and I...I'm not really trying to keep secrets, not forever. I wanna tell you guys, but I just haven't gotten there yet."

He looks at them again.

"But...part of it really is..." he trails off and sits up from leaning against the tree. "So much has happened so fast and it feels like stuff has changed so much, right? And I'm kind of..." His mouth twitches towards a grimace. "It's just really strange that after everything, I don't...feel like a completely different person, or anything. I still feel the same a lot more than I thought I would, after going through all that... Like, I always thought if I could ever just...do or say certain things it would have to mean I'd changed, or it would make me change, but...I've stayed the same, too. I still—I'm still kind of struggling with the same problems in the same ways and...realizing that has kind of been a hit, you know? Like it's really kind of exhausting. It feels embarrassing and disappointing to say I'm still struggling with the same stuff in the same ways as always, after so much, after so much time..."

He drops a hand to the grass, trailing his fingers through it.

"I know that it's fine and that it makes sense and that things take a lot of time and...and some things will never be okay, even though we have to live with them, but...it's gonna take a while to feel like it's fine—like it's still fine to feel bad." He gives a quiet laugh. "And knowing that things just...are going to be hard for a long time still. I mean, it's all such obvious stuff, but..."

He trails off and blushes, suddenly hit by the feeling that he's talking too much.

"...I know what you mean," Roy says softly.

"Yeah," Molly says, smiling slightly. "Nothing's ever nearly as simple as it sounds."

Kip sighs again and twists some grass between his fingers, squeezing the hand into a fist.

"It's just been kind of tiring, and with having other stuff going on, it's been really hard to not just be weighed down by all of it together. Like, it sometimes feels like I've taken a step back, or missed my chance for a step forward, and it's—obviously all of it's frustrating. But really, it's nothing terrible. I'm managing it okay. I'm sorry I'm being kind of withdrawn but I really don't want..." He rubs his palm along his thigh anxiously. "I know I'm a little more...outward with my problems than other people, even when I'm not saying anything, I know I still have a ton of tells, and I really don't want it to seem like I need everyone to give me a lot of time and attention just because it's easier to see when I'm having a bad time than with other people. I...I don't want to drain people or take anything you might need for yourselves, I..."

He lets go of the grass and fixes his gaze on the fibers of the blanket spread out in front of him.

"I want to do nice things for you guys, too," he murmurs.

"...You...uh, you already do," Molly says slowly.

"Do you think you don't?" Roy's incredulity surprises Kip.

"Um? I, uh—I mean, I'm never doing anything like this," he says, gesturing to the picnic and its beautiful and peaceful surroundings.

"Kip!" Roy sits upright with a sudden look of determination and Kip flinches back. "Of course you're nice to us! You're great to be around."

"Thanks, uh—I—"

"You do nice things all the time," Molly says firmly. "You just cleaned like half the apartment today, of course we noticed that. And the other night when you made us all dinner again? And that's only the most recent stuff. Not to mention that you're obviously looking out for us all the time, and you've been like that ever since I met you. I'm pretty sure that kind of thing counts for something."

"Yeah, but that's—that's just—" Kip stammers helplessly. "That's just everyday stuff, I should be—be able to—"

Molly cuts him off with a finger pointed at his chest.

"It's not 'just' anything!" she insists. "Do you think things don't matter just because it happens every day? You think the things we do only matter to each other if it's completely out of the ordinary?"

"No!" Kip huffs. "You know that's not what I mean."

"Well, what I mean is that you can't tell yourself that we don't know you care about us. Because I'm telling you that we do."

Kip doesn't have any interest in or energy for arguing. He clenches his jaw and shifts his gaze to the grass.

"Kip." Molly's tone could be mistaken for a rebuke, but Kip knows her well enough to tell it's an entreaty.

In his peripheral he sees Roy push himself up and he, as he always does, stays still while others move around him. A few moments later Roy's arm is around his shoulders, gently pulling him in. Kip resists it for a moment and Roy's light touch almost vanishes, but then Kip decides it's okay. He leans half an inch towards Roy and within the second finds himself hugged against Roy's torso.

Kip tilts his head up so that his forehead rests comfortably against Roy's shoulder, and puts his hand on Roy's knee, his other on the small of Roy's back. He waits for Roy to pull away first, but it quickly becomes clear that this isn't a hug; he's being held.

He lets out a prolonged, almost strained sigh, and Roy holds him a bit tighter.

It's a simple fact that it's impossible not to feel loved when cradled against Roy in one of his extra encompassing hugs, especially when Roy lightly strokes Kip's hair and softly says "we love you." Kip slowly melts, as he always does.

"...I'm sorry," Kip mumbles after a quiet half minute. "I'm not...I don't mean to be like this."

He leans a little into Roy and stares at the colorful fabric of his shirt.

"I know you guys love me," he says. "I really, really know it. And it means so much to me, and you do so much for me, and..."

He sighs a lot whenever he's struggling with what he's trying to say.

"You guys are so important to me," he says quietly. "I love you."

"We know you do, Kip," Molly says, voice quieted but strong.

"I love you guys," Kip repeats.

"We know," Roy says, echoed so quickly by Molly that their voices overlap.

"I love you so much," Kip says. He doesn't say things like this out loud very often and when he does he feels like he wants to say it a dozen or so times. "I love you."

He feels Molly lean against his back and she has her arms around both of them, and she kisses him above the ear.

"You guys..." Suddenly Kip can't help a moment of weak laughter. Their arms wrap further and closer around him and Roy leans back and Kip and Molly follow until the three of them are in a heap in the grass, still hugging each other tight.

After a minute or so Roy and Molly loosen the embrace so they're just lying by each other, looking up at the leaves and clouds.

"Hang on..." Molly pushes herself up and reaches into the bag they brought everything over in. "I almost forgot I brought these along."

Roy sits up and Kip props himself up on his elbows to see her open a small paper bag and shake the contents out into her hand.

"I made these this month," she says. "One for each of us. Here you go, Kip, this one's yours."

She puts a long, thin band in his palm and in half a beat he realizes it's a bracelet. It's made of delicately interwoven strings of light orange, peach, and yellow, with a loop at one end and an azure bead on the other.

"Oh my god, I didn't know you could make these," he says, turning it over in his hand, its color complementing the blue of his palm. "This is so good, Molly."

"Aw, thanks," she laughs. "I wanted to try it out and it was pretty fun. It's pretty relaxing and I could listen to music while I made these and I just like how they turned out!"

Roy gasps when she gives him a wider band with bright stripes of color, and helps her put the purple and pink one she made for herself around her ankle. Kip fastens his bracelet on his left wrist and traces a fingertip along it, then lies back in the grass and looks up at the sky. He gets about two seconds of warning before Roy and Molly lie down beside him, flanking him, and drape their arms across him.

"What's up?" he says, and is answered with a squeeze of his arm, a kiss to his forehead, and laughter.

—

Their outing lasts a good while longer, until they notice what looks like a front on the horizon and have a discussion about how heavy the clouds look and how fast they're coming in and whether or not the breeze feels or smells like rain. Kip eventually manages to get Molly to agree that it's a storm approaching, and they pack up and head back home and are only halfway there when they start feeling the occasional tap of drops on their skin, and only a couple of blocks away when the rain becomes dramatically heavier and they rush the rest of the way until they're finally inside, laughing at themselves.

Kip still wants to do something a little special in his own way to thank Roy and Molly, especially for picking up his mood—he may not be at 100%, but it's a significant improvement from where he'd been that morning. So he goes into their kitchen and looks at what ingredients he has on hand and starts making batter for chocolate cupcakes, working mostly from memory and a quick reference or two with his phone.

He mixes together some chocolate frosting while the cupcakes are in the oven and gives both Roy and Molly a coated spoon of it. The cupcakes finish and cool and he carefully frosts them all evenly, giving a slight spiral and peak to each one. He tells the others that the cupcakes are done while he settles on the couch with one already in hand.

They all spend the rest of the day hanging out together. Kip feels like his detachment is almost gone; it's like he's just as present in their small group as Roy and Molly are. By the time the other two start their routines for heading to bed, Kip is fairly confident that as long as nothing especially bad ruins his day tomorrow, he can start the day after that in a solid place for his plans with Pascal.

Roy and Molly say goodnight to each other and to him; he hugs both of them individually and murmurs his thanks and in both cases is hugged back so hard he's momentarily lifted off the floor. And then they both catch him up in one exuberant group hug that gradually settles into an excuse for unabashed cuddling. There's laughing, but it quiets and they have a few moments of wholehearted, affectionate warmth, manifesting in wordless looks and easy smiles, in brushing hands and palms pressed against arms.

Kip takes a brief, warm shower a bit after Roy and Molly settle in their rooms, mostly scrubbing off his face and under his arms and washing out his hair again. He slips into his pajamas and settles cross-legged on the couch with another cupcake and his laptop and types out an outline of his blog post as he waits for his hair to dry a bit, dimming the screen for the sake of resting his eyes. The soft clicking of the keys and his own voice building the sentences and the light sweetness of frosting on his lips is a comfort to him.

When he turns off the light in his room he closes his eyes too, already beginning the process of falling asleep before he even climbs into bed and under the covers.

He sleeps straight through the night. He has dreams, but they're neither pleasant nor bad—just enfolding splices of mundane routines and peaceful spaces. He wakes up gently, and hears rain softly hitting his windowpane. Rather than making himself get up right away, he spends a while lying in bed, dozing.

When he does get up, he feels okay. He puts on warm socks and fixes himself warm breakfast and tea. The apartment is a little quiet with both Molly and Roy already at work, but he washes some dishes and then reads for a while and he doesn't feel stressed about it.

When he goes into his room to change into his clothes for work, he takes a moment to water his plants and is noticing how many more flowers have bloomed when his gaze drifts to the portrait beside them and lingers there. The lighting on it is dim and filtered through the rain still audibly falling outside.

He takes it off the dresser and sits on the bed with the picture in front of him, looking at the faces of his family. He's not confident enough to dwell on things like fond memories or the wish that they were with him now—even on his best days, it's a risk to think about something so charged, one he's not currently willing to take. He thinks instead about the commonplace details of his life with them, the intricacies of their habits and tastes, the little signs of their presence that were in their home even when Kip was alone: the notepads with neat bullet points left on random flat surfaces, the newspapers with page corners folded down, the slippers on the stairs, the constant presence of a small jar of blackberry jam in the fridge.

He closes his eyes and lets himself delve into the memories as they come to him, focusing on the specific pieces rather than the potentially overwhelming whole. He lets himself replay the kinds of small moments that always brought him the most comfort. The kind that he, with Eno's help, is working on convincing himself he deserves to access whenever he wants to think of or feel close to his family. He can already override his reluctance with the feeling he gets when he thinks he's avoiding the thought of them.

He loves and misses them and lies down on his side with the picture lying next to him. It remains manageable; after ten minutes or so he sits up and carries the photo back over to the top of his dresser, carefully centering it between the plants, gently trailing his fingers along the top of the frame.

He changes into his clothes for work and combs his hair into place in the mirror. He goes into the kitchen and has some leftovers for lunch and puts four cupcakes in a plastic container to take with him to work, and another four in another container for Ben and Wallace, sticking a note on the latter set labelling it as such for Roy or Molly to see whenever one of them gets home.

When he leaves for work he folds his apron up and puts it in his back pocket so he can carry the cupcakes in one hand and his umbrella in the other. The rain patters over his head and he watches the ground as he walks so he doesn't step into any puddles.

The café doesn't look like it's busy, but there's a small group and a few pairs and individuals, some on laptops, some reading. It's the kind of pace they usually have on rainy days—most people are kept from going out, but some specifically want to be at the café during such weather. Kip hangs up his umbrella in the back and ties on his apron and hears Kate putting dishes on a rack.

They're both in a quieter mood than usual but they talk as they work. Kip points out that Kate seems to be in kind of down and with a little coaxing he convinces her to vent to him for a while, after which she apologizes for being frustrated over relatively minor things and he scoffs and says he'd never judge anybody for doing so. She laughs at that and slings an arm around his waist, pulling them together by the hips in a sideways hug. He laughs too and tells her about the cupcakes he brought for her and Cuddy; Kate scrubs at the top of his head and nudges his chin with her knuckles.

Their efficiency and teamwork during shared shifts is all but effortless at this point, and Kip knows what tasks he can do to give Kate some space to relax a little. The steady rain gives them long pauses between incoming customers, which allows them to catch up and get ahead on the smaller details of the work and keeps the job calm for them. Kip spends a while just washing dishes, which he never really minds—as long as he can take his time and they don't have to desperately wash cups and plates in the middle of a chaotic mealtime rush. He likes to submerge his arms in the hot water and feel the warmth prickle up to his shoulders and into his chest.

A couple of hours into his shift, his phone buzzes in his pocket with a text; he glances at it and sees that it's from Pascal and seems to be about confirming their meetup tomorrow. He blushes and takes a few minutes to refocus on his job. It's decent timing—he gets to take a short break about half an hour later and he sits down with the text, reads it over a few times to be sure he's getting everything, and takes his time constructing a good response.

Around fifteen minutes after that, Pascal sends a short reply, an "okay! i'll see you then!" and Kip is picturing his face.

Cuddy stops by later in the evening and chats with him and Kate a bit and Kip gives her the other cupcakes. The last hour before closing is completely uneventful, with a few people coming in for a coffee or tea. Kip and Kate finish everything within about fifteen minutes or so of the store's closing. They walk out and the rims of their umbrellas bump together and the rain sounds no lighter than it did on Kip's walk over to the café—it's maybe even a little heavier. They chat and Kate keeps cracking bad jokes that make Kip giggle and murmur "oh my god."

They reach Kate's building first and then Kip walks the several blocks further to his own. It's just late enough to be fairly quiet both on the sidewalks and inside the lobby as he takes a moment to shake out his umbrella and check their mailbox. His legs are slightly tired from work but he climbs the stairs steadily and is back in the apartment within minutes.

He gets a hug from Roy and greets Molly through her door as he unties his apron and heads to his room to change into the clothes he sleeps in. When he takes his phone out of the pocket of his pants he sees a text he hadn't felt when it was originally sent to him hour or so ago from Wallace. The realization feels like a little spark as he reads the simple message: "i just had one of the cupcakes you gave me. its really good! thank you, Kip!!"

The use of his name in the text is enough to make Kip smile. He taps out an equally simple reply: "you're welcome. im glad you like them"

He spends a few minutes going through his clothes, thinking—not for the first time—about what he wants to wear to meet Pascal. It's nothing like the stress of heading into their first meetup after Kip learned that Pascal was in C as well, but it's a completely different kind of meeting and he's possibly even less sure how to approach it. He's sure he wants to be with Pascal in the same way they'd used to be together, but he's not going to see Pascal as a date. He's going with the intention of explaining himself—explaining how he feels about Pascal, and how he feels about Wallace, and how he feels about having those coexisting feelings.

He wants to wear something nice so that Pascal knows this is important to him, but he doesn't want to create any kind of pressure. The whole point of doing this a couple of days before the dinner is to give Pascal an easier opportunity to cancel the plans if he's not comfortable with it anymore.

Kip stares at the shades and tints of blue as if one will suddenly look like the right shirt to give him any sense of certainty about tomorrow. He breathes out slow and slides the drawers shut and goes out of his room to be around Molly and Roy for a while.

Roy is putting together an activity for his job as he sometimes does, trying it out himself to get an idea of all the steps involved and gathering materials. Kip makes himself some tea and sits with his laptop at the table, opening the outline he'd made earlier and turning it into a draft. Molly walks through to take a shower and gets caught up in conversation with Roy for a few minutes.

As is usually the case, Kip is the last to head to bed, typing away until he's satisfied with the structure of the draft and saves it and shuts off the laptop. He brushes his teeth and pees and reads in bed for a little while, letting himself relax, focusing on things that won't lead to him overthinking about tomorrow.

Though when he turns off his lights and lies back, his thoughts inevitably gravitate to Pascal. It's fairly easy for him to direct them towards stress-reducing topics and he focuses in on the memories that provide him with the most sensually-loaded details about Pascal. He settles in on the thought of one particular routine they'd developed, generally when they were glad to be able to touch each other and in a playful mood with generous time to themselves.

Kip would usually be on his back as he is now, and Pascal would carefully straddle him and they would kiss. Kip would let his desire for Pascal move him freely in all ways but one—both of them would keep their hips against the other's but as still as possible, refusing to grind against each other. They would make out and push each other's shirts up and try not to be the first to break, and all the while they could feel themselves and the other growing harder, pressing together. They'd continuously become more breathless and impatient, every incidental rub of their bodies more jarring. They'd inevitably start to laugh at themselves and Kip would put on a show, arching his spine and rolling his head back and panting and moaning and sliding his hands up Pascal's chest—he'd be half-joking, but Pascal would kiss him fiercely and finally start grinding hard against him and Kip would gasp and dig his heels against the couch to grind back too and the relief was immediate and intense.

But what usually happened next was that, even after their laughter and teasing and indulgently aggressive dry-humping that worked them into a mess, they slowed down. There would be this moment where they’d try to catch their breath and suddenly things were much more deliberate and focused and it was Pascal's fault every time. He would take a minute, slowly rubbing their cocks together as he just looked at Kip and softly trailed the ends of his arms along Kip's body, his chest and shoulders and throat and jaw. And Kip would be steadily rolling his pelvis, getting harder and harder, looking back up at Pascal and feeling his heartbeat pound. The only sound would be their breathing and the fabric of their clothes rubbing together and Kip would reach for Pascal and they would kiss, slow and deep, and Kip would stroke at Pascal's tongue with his own.

And what Pascal liked to do next was retreat out of Kip's reach, moving off of him to pull his legs open and kneel between them. Kip would find himself holding his breaths and trying to stay still but gasping and fidgeting as Pascal carefully worked the front of his pants open. He'd keep his eyes locked on Pascal's face, wanting to watch how he looked at him and get every moment of eye contact he could, and drew a shaky breath when Pascal undid his belt, letting it out with a quiet, sighing groan as his zipper was opened.

He always remembered things seeming to go very slowly as Pascal gently pulled his jeans down to his thighs, kissed his erection through his underpants, then murmured to him how much he loved the moment of uncovering Kip's dick before actually doing so. By that point Kip would already be badly worked up, but Pascal would draw things out further by getting Kip's clothes off entirely, draping his pants and underwear on the back of the couch, unbuttoning his shirt from the bottom as Kip joined in at the top with trembling hands until they'd meet in the middle and Pascal would lean down to kiss Kip's bared chest and Kip would whisper Pascal's name at the feeling.

When Pascal sat back up again, his eyes would be on Kip's, and Kip would blush, and feel like he must be beautiful. He would want it more than ever and push his hips towards Pascal, quietly repeating "please,” hands twitching and clenching and unclenching. Pascal would lean in to softly kiss his parted lips while lightly wrapping the end of his arm around the base of Kip's erection, then move his mouth to Kip's throat, then smoothly glide down to give the same attention to his nipples. A hoarse moan of Pascal's name would finally convince him to bring his other arm to Kip's waist and slide it down to his hips, holding them steady as he kissed a path down Kip's stomach.

Kip hadn't ever really imagined that a blowjob could be all that sweet and affectionate until Pascal regularly demonstrated thus. The intensity of Kip's orgasm and the steady buildup with which Pascal brought him to it would alone have been enough to trigger an emotional reaction, but by the time he was pushing Pascal onto his back to return the favor, he'd have to take a minute to stroke his hair and the side of his face and look him in the eyes as he whispered loving compliments between easy, lingering kisses.

The only problem he's having now while trying to masturbate to the memory is that while the thoughts are great for arousing him intensely and quickly, his own hand can't replicate anything like the sensation of Pascal's mouth or arm around his cock. He doesn't get the benefit of feeling other parts of Pascal against other parts of himself either, and imagining all the things Pascal did to work him up isn't nearly as effective as it actually being done to him. It's becoming frustrating. Pascal knew him and knew his body so well, had been so attentively observant of everything about him, had taken such time and care to learn about what felt good to him and what he liked and what he needed and what signals he gave that he could always give Kip incredibly, exhilaratingly all-consuming sex he lost himself in and orgasms that utterly wiped him out—and Pascal could give him sex that good whether they went quickly or slowly, were being coy and silly or intensely serious, through all kinds of different approaches and positions and processes.

Pascal seemingly knew Kip's turn-ons better than Kip himself did, and the way he constantly employed that and was so tuned in to Kip made every instance of sex feel thrillingly intimate. If initiated by butterflies in the stomach or cuddling or straightforward lust, if it lasted about ten minutes or over an hour, if they were in the mood to kiss and talk and move slowly or fuck hard and aim to give each other the most overwhelming finishes they could—Pascal always acted like Kip's pleasure was his own. One time in particular after Pascal had fucked Kip senseless, while Kip was flat on his back feeling the most enjoyable, relaxed ache envelop his shivering body, Pascal lay beside him and talked to him over his breathless panting, giving him these long, detailed descriptions of everything he liked and noticed about Kip's body and having sex with him, telling him about the way he looked and sounded and felt and tasted and moved. It was unexpectedly sensual and arousing and so thorough that Pascal was still talking when Kip cut him off by pulling him in and kissing him until it was clear they were going to have a second round.

Pascal didn't quite stop there, spending a significant amount of time with his arms spiraled around Kip's thighs as he knelt between them, describing what it was like wanting to blow Kip and what it was like doing so, pausing at times to kiss and lick his growing erection, until Kip's replies became totally incoherent with moans and Pascal obligingly took him into his mouth. Kip was gripping Pascal's hair in both hands and crying out between shuddering gasps by the time he came, and Pascal kept sucking him through and even after the orgasm until Kip was weakly twisting and stretching his legs out and whining hoarsely at the overstimulation. At Kip's request Pascal lay right up beside him again, so Kip could use what little strength he still had to kiss him and work at his dick and Pascal could cum on Kip's stomach. Kip distinctly remembers how they held each other for ages afterwards and the simple, sweet things they whispered and the way Pascal cuddled him and fell asleep just before him and the way Pascal touched him and looked at him and spoke to him when they woke up.

He looks up at the corner of the ceiling and sighs quietly, stroking himself slowly.

Sometimes he'll touch his own chest, caress his own face, bring his own hand to his mouth so he can kiss something and imagine it’s someone’s lips. But it's easy for that kind of thing to just make him notice everything he can't even begin to recreate about being with Pascal. The way Pascal sounded. The full embrace of his arms. The force of being rocked into the mattress by the strength of his motion. His whole body touching and touched by Pascal's. The stubble on Pascal's jaw rubbing his skin as Pascal kissed along his thighs. The look on Pascal's face while he lay compliantly back as Kip straddled him. Having sex multiple times in a row, being fucked so well that he can't hardly think. The warmth and weight of being held against Pascal's body as they rested together in their afterglow.

Kip is frustrated with the comparative inadequacy of jerking off, but is at the same time getting restless from how long he's taking to bring himself to orgasm. He grits his teeth and gets up from the bed. A minute later he's coating a dildo with lube; soon after he's on his back again, fucking himself with it, rocking into it steadily as he works it inside, then finds the right position to work relentlessly. He has to fight to stay silent, feeling his self-control eroding with every thrust.

He can't hold back a soft whimper as he cums. His arms drop to his sides and he slides his legs down to the mattress, releasing all the tension in his body. He lies there for a while, catching his breath, keeping the dildo inside himself, enjoying feeling filled. It wasn't a coincidence that he got one close to Pascal's size and shape, after all. When he eases it out and sits up, he looks down at his chest and stomach. He remembers how he'd usually be the one to clean himself and Pascal off after sex, wiping the cum off of their torsos or faces or thighs. It was easier for him to hold things like tissues and cloth, but he'd have liked doing it even if that wasn't true. But he'd liked it too when Pascal would lick the cum off of his skin for him. If he had any on his face, his lips or jaw or nose or cheeks, Pascal would sweep him up in his arms and lean him back almost horizontally and kiss him breathless before cleaning it off for him with tender and lingering touches.

After resting his body for a few minutes, feeling Pascal's absence, he pulls his sweatpants back on and goes into the bathroom. He starts up the shower, trying to run it quietly, and washes the dildo before cleaning himself off. He starts with the cum on his front but washes his whole body from the top down and lathers shampoo into the hair on his head, under his arms, and on his pelvis. He has his usual coda to the routine, standing under the falling water for a while just to enjoy the heat and then sitting on the rug with his knees drawn up to his chest, wrapped in a soft towel, luxuriating in the steam.

He feels sleep blanketing him and hangs up the towel, slides his pants back on, brushes his teeth and combs his damp hair into place, and goes back into his room. He puts the dildo away and pulls out one of the t-shirts he uses for pajamas, thick but soft and loose, easy to slip on his body. He draws the covers up around himself as he stretches out on the mattress, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.

Falling asleep, half-dreaming, he feels Pascal's kiss pressed to his lips.

—

As soon as he wakes and remembers what the day has in store for him, he gets a twinge of nervousness. But he's at least feeling fairly well-rested, having slept soundly through the night. When he pushes the blankets down, however, he realizes that resting well is something of an understatement for the slight stain on the front of his pants. He tends to remember wet dreams as much as any other kind, but he has no memory of anything he dreamt the previous night, good or bad.

He finds himself taking another shower. He can't help wanting to look good even though he knows all too well this isn't going to be anything like a date. He puts on a dark pair of jeans that are soft and have slight signs of wear at the knees, and puts on a loose sweater, one with a small clutch of cerulean stars that Molly had stitched in over the heart. It's usually one of the things he wears around the house since he likes to project a somewhat formal presence in public, but he thinks he could stand to be slightly humbled when he meets with Pascal. He fastens Molly's friendship bracelet around his wrist.

—

Kip keeps himself busy. He's thinking about what he needs to say to Pascal, but if he lets himself focus on it fully he knows he runs a good risk of constructing a script in his head—something that will all but condemn him to trip up on it and end up even more stressed than he would have been without it. He already can't help stressing; he doesn't need to add to that. It's going to be the first time since living in C again that he's ready to be completely open to Pascal about the future of their relationship. Without being sure one way or another if he wanted to be with Pascal again, he couldn't help but maintain some barriers, hold back parts of himself, try to keep Pascal at a certain distance and keep his own emotions in check. But now he knows he no longer questions what he wants between them. He's been sure of it for a while now. He knows that.

And he may be a lot less sure what he realistically wants when it comes to Wallace, but he's moved beyond doubting his feelings about him. Even if he's not completely certain if or how or when he'll express this to Wallace, he's no longer unsure about whether he feels like it's something he should express to Pascal. Just the thought of being with Pascal on an actual date without having told him about it makes Kip feel a twist of guilt. It wouldn't be fair. He would know it was something that would need to be revealed sometime, and the longer he put it off the harder he made it to bring up.

He can't feel okay until he discusses this with Pascal as soon as he can manage. He won't feel okay talking about even the potential of them dating again without talking about this.

—

He debates whether he should take himself out for lunch. As far as he knows, nobody's available to invite along, but it's starting to seem too suspenseful as the day goes on and he feels like he's slowly pacing laps around the apartment, feels like all the clocks around him are a countdown. He's keeps trying to stay occupied to distract himself. He spends a fair amount of time tending to small things: he cleans and cuts and files his nails, he flosses, he puts balm on his lips to preempt nervously tugging on them with his fangs, he rubs lotion into the back of his hands where they sometimes get dry and rough from work, he shaves his face, he brushes and combs his hair into place several times over. He knows he's preening a little and he knows none of it is necessary, but he also knows that all the little details he takes care of in advance are things his anxiety won't focus in on later.

He takes out his laptop to try to edit his draft a bit more. He can't come up with many changes and he doesn't know if that's because his focus is lacking or because he's actually satisfied with what he's written. He at least manages spending a good half-hour on the task and afterwards messes around online for a while.

During the last hour before he has to leave he becomes aware of a distinct feeling of excitement underneath all his worrying. It's starting to feel like a reality that he's taking the first steps towards getting back together with Pascal. It's exciting to know that Pascal is thinking about him, too. He's grateful that he doesn't have to wonder whether Pascal wants the same as he does.

As he goes around making final preparations before heading out, whenever his mind wanders it goes to Pascal. As he slips his feet into socks he thinks of holding Pascal's face in his hands and kissing his mouth. He fixes his hair one more time and imagines how good it would feel to know that every time they parted ways, they'd see each other again soon. He puts his dishes from lunch in a neat stack by the sink and feels a little flutter in his chest at the thought of getting to be so involved in each other's lives again.

For the first time in more than a year, he finally has real, solid hope that he and Pascal can be together. They can finally approach this head-on. He can finally, finally stop missing Pascal.

—

It's still threatening more rain so he takes his umbrella and takes a deep breath before stepping out into the hallway. He checks his phone as he reaches the front door to make sure he's not missing any texts—as his tension increased he'd started worrying Pascal might be held up or have to cancel after all—and steps out onto the sidewalk with his head held resolutely upright.

He knows he's gone out a bit unnecessarily early, but he doesn't want to worry about getting lost or sidetracked or delayed and making Pascal wait. He doesn't mind if he doesn't get there first, but he doesn't want to risk adding any more nervousness to the situation.

He pictures what Pascal might look like; he's more than eager to see him again. He thinks about what Pascal might be wearing, what expression he might have when he sees Kip. He imagines what it might be like to walk in and see Pascal waiting for him, what Pascal must look like sitting at a table by himself, quiet and unobtrusive despite the obviousness of his presence, with a gorgeousness that takes only a glance to register.

The thought is lovely as he turns it over in his mind a few times. Then it leads to another thought that almost stops him in his tracks.

It was almost a year ago. Only a couple of weeks after they had moved to C. They all felt Pascal's absence, a heavy silence in place of someone they had been with for years. Kip knew that he alone was what kept Pascal from being with them right now; he knew Molly and Roy must be missing him badly too, but they weren't saying anything more to him about it, and he was grateful. He was having a hard time with the strangeness of both adjusting to a new environment and being in a familiar one he hadn't expected to live in again, and was struggling particularly with the loss of Pascal and of their relationship. He woke up confused that Pascal wasn't beside him. He missed him throughout the day and had trouble falling asleep without him. He missed him badly and he couldn't deny his own heartbreak—he just tried to keep it to himself.

But one day he was having so hard a time with everything that he couldn't even pretend he was okay to himself, much less anyone else. It was just a storm of mental and emotional exhaustion that together was too much. He'd had bad nightmares that stressed him horribly and deprived him of all but a few hours of sleep. He'd started the day with his family incessantly, painfully, unwillingly in his thoughts—it intruded into the forefront of his consciousness even as he fruitlessly fought to distract himself, something that used to happen all the time after their loss but usually didn't overwhelm him in that way anymore. His depression was like an ache, he was nervous, he was stressed, he was tired. He had to work that day and by the time he arrived he felt so frayed he wasn't sure he could get through it—he'd had too many instances that day where he'd needed to stop everything and dedicate all his focus to keeping himself from crumbling into immobile frustration.

And so as soon as he showed up at the café he choked down his shame and told Kate right off that in the condition he was in now he could probably get through the shift, but he knew he was very shaky and had only a fifty-fifty chance at best of remaining up to par if he started feeling worse. He remembers Kate's face falling as he told her this—she explained she was actually only supposed to have an hour left in her shift and she told Kip she couldn't stay later. He felt a pit in his stomach but nodded and said he'd figure it out.

He'd done okay for a while, as the work occupied him enough to at least keep the worst of his thoughts at bay, keep him from actually feeling sick from all of it. But when Kate squeezed his shoulder and left for the day, he suddenly felt a bit afraid. But he was still okay. He couldn't fully conceal the heaviness about him, but he was managing.

And then, during a lull, he had looked around and seen the individual people scattered around with only a few couples interspersed among them, and it had all felt lonely. And in that moment of loneliness his flimsy defenses crumbled and he was again at the mercy of cascading thoughts—he missed his family, he missed the life he'd had before the fire, he missed his home, he missed being in D, he missed Pascal. And as he looked at the people sitting quietly alone, reading and typing and writing, he wondered what Pascal was doing now, if he was sitting in any of the cafés they used to go to together, feeling lonely too.

And then Kip looked at the pair sitting by the window and his stomach was horribly wrenched. He'd suddenly, helplessly imagined Pascal out somewhere like this looking sad and painfully handsome and being approached by someone else, and before he knew it he was caught in the idea of Pascal being with someone else and then he was caught in a cycle of fear at how fast he was crumbling, and then to his horror a customer opened the door, and it was way too much and it was so much all at once and tears pooled in his eyes and one spilled down his cheeks in a matter of seconds.

He quickly wiped at his face with a paper napkin from the pile beside the register, but as she approached he knew it had to be obvious—especially since the flow of new tears was obviously not going to stop. He was crying about everything now, crying in the way he knew he couldn’t stop, but the awful flash of realization that Pascal might be dating someone else by now felt like a crisis, the potential reality of which had never fully struck him until now, all at once punching him in the chest. And the horror of it happening while alone at work was inescapably worsening it.

"I'm sorry," Kip said as the monster came within speaking range. He recognized her with some relief as a near-daily regular who was always particularly patient and friendly. "Just—I'm sorry—"

"Oh," she said quietly, concerned. "Should I...?"

"It's alright," Kip said, trying to keep his voice as steady as he could. "It just—I'm really sorry—" He wiped his face again and had to sniff and couldn't bear to lift his head and see others looking at him.

"No, don't worry," she said. "Are you—are you okay? Did something happen?"

He shook his head quickly.

"I'm sorry." He could barely manage above a whisper. "It's fine, it’s nothing, I'm just—it's been a bad day, I'm really sorry..."

He glanced up far enough to see in his blurry peripheral that she was looking at him, hugging an arm across her stomach, the other nervously touching her chin. He realized he was probably making her really uncomfortable—his too-shallow inhales were starting to hitch.

"Kip, should I... Is there anyone else here? Do you need me to call somebody for you?" she asked quietly.

He didn't know she knew his name and felt a little guilty he didn't know hers. He shook his head again.

"I can do—can do it in a minute," he said, voice on the verge of breaking. "Thank you though, I—I can—" He sniffed and wiped his cheeks and wiped his nose. "Were you going to get your usual order?"

"Oh—" She seemed to fumble with choosing words for a second. "I—yes, I was..."

"I can make it. Did you want both drinks or j-just yours?" he asked, knowing she sometimes ordered for her girlfriend as well.

"Both, please," she said quietly.

He nodded.

"Alright," he scrubbed his face with another napkin. "I—" He stifled a sob. "I promise I won't cry into it." Joking didn't make him feel any better, but he could at least manage a fleeting smile.

She laughed quietly and he lifted his eyes to hers for an instant before turning away. He cleaned his face off and cleaned his hands thoroughly and slipped on gloves, quickly making both drinks from memory, trying to breathe better, grateful for the concealing noise of the espresso machine. He finished them within a minute, poured them carefully into the paper cups, added nutmeg to one and chocolate shavings and a hypotrochoid of raspberry syrup to the other. He quickly labelled each with a marker, put sleeves on them, placed them into a carrier, and took them back to the girl, who hadn't moved away from the register.

"You don't have to pay," he explained as she took them from him. "You come here so often, and thank you for...thank you."

"I can pay, it's no problem—"

He shook his head and she smiled.

"Alright. I'll tip it instead."

Kip's huffed a breath, caught off guard by the gesture.

"You don't—" he said uselessly as she slipped eight dollars into the jar. His hard blink rumbled in his ears; he'd shed enough tears that the new ones were starting to flow down pre-established trails.

"You guys always make these so good," she said quietly. "It helps me and Lani get through our day. Feel better, Kip. Thanks for the coffees."

He nodded and his breath hitched and she gave him one more smile before she left.

As soon as she departed, he knew this wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. And knew that maybe, probably, it would get worse.

Kip rang up the order, paid for it with cash from his wallet with shaky hands, and fled to the back, grabbing the phone and dialing Cuddy's number from the contact list in his own phone. He tried desperately to stymie his tears as he listened to it ring, which only seemed to make his crying worse.

It rang six times, and he was afraid she couldn't pick up, and he was afraid someone else was going to come in, and he was afraid he was going to completely freeze up and break down in the middle of this shift and have to explain to Cuddy later why they didn't have any more sales after five. But sure enough, he finally heard a soft "Hello?" in his ear.

After a half-second of confusion, he realized that Lottie had answered the phone.

"Hi," he said, hating how badly his voice was trembling with every syllable, how irrepressibly audible his breathing was. "It's Kip, from the store, I-I...I'm okay, I just...can I talk to Cuddy for a second?"

There was a beat of a pause.

"Sure, you just hang on real quick, okay?"

He heard quiet, unintelligible talking for a few seconds as he took a napkin and wiped off the snot running down his upper lip. He glanced at the front of the store and tilted the receiver away from his mouth as he drew in a light sob.

"Kip?" Cuddy had an deliberately gentle tone. Kip knew Lottie must have told her he was crying.

"Cuddy," he answered miserably. "I'm sorry. I'm okay, the store's okay, nothing happened, I—I just can't—I don't know if I can finish my shift, I'm so sorry. I'm not—it’s not even anything, I'm just—I was having a-a bad day. And then I got freaked out about something small but then I just, I...I'm sorry. I don’t know why this is so bad." He had to sob, he tried to stifle it as much as possible.

"Kip, are you going to be okay right now?" she asked firmly and clearly.

He sniffed and nodded before realizing and answering "Yes." Cuddy murmured something away from the phone.

"Okay—"

"Kate—Kate couldn't stay, she can't come in, sh-should I call Molly? I think she's busy, I—I can try to get through this but I don’t know if I—I think I might need to close for at least a little while, I—" His voice caught in a sob. "I called you because I'm not sure... I'm not sure, uh, what would be best to do..."

"It's fine, Kip," Cuddy said. "Thanks for the thought. Listen—just put the closed sign up. Go ahead and start closing the store if you can, if you need to rest in the back that's fine. I can be there in about ten minutes, okay?"

Kip sobbed quietly and covered his mouth.

"Okay?" she repeated.

"Okay," he said hoarsely.

"Alright. I'm on my way now; I'll see you in a bit."

"Okay..."

"Bye, Kip."

"Bye." He sniffed and hung up the phone. He felt ashamed and pathetic but he was still so relieved that Cuddy was going to be there; it seemed obvious to him now that he should've known he wouldn't hold up alone. Days like this tended to be bad—if not always in this kind of way.

He clenched his teeth and went up front to clock out, walked to the door, carefully turned the sign around, and returned just as calmly to the back.

He couldn't stop thinking about Pascal. Just the thought that he might have moved on from Kip had opened up the still-raw wound of his heartbreak. He logically knew it was his own fault he couldn't go home to Pascal right then, and he knew that he didn't want Pascal to be lonely, and that he'd told him it was fine to start dating again, and he'd meant it. And he'd been trying his best to move on from Pascal and fully accept the end of their relationship. But quietly, privately, he knew that he was still in love with Pascal—he had only managed to put it in stasis so far. And even though he was slightly in denial of that, he was also slightly in denial that things were really over. He hadn't allowed himself to consider that Pascal could really, actually, right that moment be dating someone else, and the idea had just managed to burst into his consciousness while his guard was down and his defenses were weakened.

He was still in love with Pascal, and the thought that Pascal might actually, currently have moved on from him was a legitimate shakeup when he was already so unsteady from the move, and had sent him plummeting.

He sat at the table in the back, slowly feeding crumpled napkins into the trash can, trying hard not to breathe any faster, not to let his thoughts go to certain places, and stiffened when he heard the back door open. He turned and saw Cuddy close and lock the door behind her and immediately half-rose from his chair.

"I'm really sorry, Cuddy," he said quickly. "I should have said something before I even came here, I don’t know why today is so bad, but... It’s just all—I'm really sorry..."

She put her bag on the table, pocketed her keys, and sat down in the chair beside him, turned towards him. Kip fixed his gaze on her sleeve, analyzing a particular stripe, looking at the individual threads.

"I don't want you to... I don't want to—seem like I'm gonna be un-unreliable—I—th-this kind of stuff hasn't happened in a really long time—" His voice was crumbling all over the place and his face was covered in tears and snot. He hated how pathetic he seemed, how messy and weird and weak, how helpless he felt. He wanted to talk to Pascal. He wanted Pascal to hold him and kiss his face the way he used to when Kip got badly shaken up like this.

"Don't be ridiculous, Kaizer," Cuddy said. "You’re fine. You stay back here, I'm going to be able to close up everything with no problem. This is why you guys have my number in the first place. So you can reach me when there’s problems."

She handed him a napkin from the pile he'd put in the middle of the table and he wiped at his nose.

"Is it okay if Lottie meets us here in a bit?" she asked. "She went to go pick up Evelyn."

Kip nodded. He was too grateful to object to anything she could’ve said.

"Do you want to talk about anything?"

"...No," Kip murmured. "But thank you."

"Okay." She stood up and briefly touched his shoulder. "Just let me know if you need anything," she told him. "And don’t worry about things, I can take care of the rest of this."

She went through the procedures of closing calmly and steadily, showing no signs of weariness or frustration, and Kip was so grateful for it. But he missed Pascal so badly and he was so shaken that he was falling apart like this. He knew it was ridiculous that he was so stung about something he didn't even know was true or not, and he knew it would be wrong to be upset even if he did know for a fact that Pascal had a new boyfriend. But for all his logic and his determination to get over it, his emotions had been shredded into a barbed tangle that stung him every time he moved.

He was imagining Pascal kissing someone else, some vague concept of a boy he couldn't bring himself to think up any defined features for—but someone prettier, sexier, stronger, sweeter than him, someone warm to the touch, someone confident and brave and reliable. Someone without depression or grief or trauma. The Boy kisses Pascal, he climbs into bed with him and warms Pascal throughout the night instead of draining his heat. He doesn't have trouble sleeping. He isn't afraid of everything. He isn't numb and distant to everyone on random days. He doesn't worry Pascal with his struggles with his trauma. Pascal doesn't have any fears about The Boy ever leaving him. He's better in bed, better at domesticity, better to come home to, better to imagine a future with, better than Kip. He makes Pascal feel ways that Kip never could. He makes Pascal happier. He makes him feel more loved, more special, more secure. He's more attentive, more caring. And so Pascal doesn't miss Kip anymore—doesn't want Kip anymore.

Tears dripped down to his chin and he felt a physical ache in his gut. He hated this. He knew it was all in his head and it was absurd and jealous and immature in the first place but he hated it. He couldn't stop it. He hated that it upset him so much, but that didn't matter. It was almost as horrible as when he was first realizing he might have to leave Pascal. He had no idea he was so unprepared to confront this.

The imagery drilled into him. He hated himself for feeling so tortured by the thought of Pascal feeling happiest without him.

"I should be happy if he's happy," he thought, and it didn't make him stop crying.

"I can't want him to miss me forever, I can't want him to always be sad without me and wishing I was there and never be happier than when we were together," he thought, and it didn't help; his emotions refused to respond to anything.

He hated himself for this. He hated that this had come to mind. He hated that after so much time in therapy, so much dedication to learning ways to try to soften the blows of his emotions and tackle his issues as small pieces rather than an overwhelming whole, that after years of effort and practice and struggling to work through things, he could now be totally helpless to a problem he knew was a result of his own ridiculousness and cowardice and selfishness. After years, after going through so much, suffering like this so many times, he felt thrown back to square one. He felt alone. He felt sick.

The grip on his stomach gradually shifted into something else and his breaths grew too shallow. Under a barrage of thoughts he desperately wanted out of his head, he had just enough warning to grab a small trash bag, walk to the back door, unlock and open it, and kick the doorstop underneath it. He fumbled with the bag for a few seconds before finally managing to pull it open. He bent over it, felt the horrible yet expected lurch in his stomach, and vomited. He coughed and panted. The feeling of momentarily being unable to breathe had added its own tears to the mix. He felt the nausea growing again, he sucked in air rapidly as he sensed the awful choking sensation preparing to grip his throat. He leaned over into a series of harsh coughs, horribly close to retching.

"...Kip?"

He coughed roughly from deep in his chest, now just wanting everything out. He tried to force up the next inevitable gag—it worked, and he silently spat up a few ounces of mostly acid. He leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily, but relieved to be rid of the worst of his nausea.

"Kip." Cuddy's hand was on his shoulder. He opened his eyes. "God, are you okay?"

He nodded, squeezing his eyes shut and wiping them with the back of his hand, clutching the trash bag tight in the other.

"I just got too stressed out for too long,” he mumbled. "I had to throw up. But I—well, at least I don't feel sick anymore."

He sniffed and brushed a tear from his cheek, blinking at the ground. He wished his crying had gone away too, but it was at least a bit quieter than it had been before. Throwing up at least seems to have knocked him out of the spiral.

"I'm okay," he said softly as Cuddy put the back of her hand to his forehead.

"I don't even know what a fever would feel like on you, Kaizer," she said bemusedly. He laughed.

"I'm not actually sick," he said. "I just—I stressed myself out way too much a minute ago, I—" He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "Is there still people out front?"

"A few," Cuddy answered, still hovering close as though she worried he might collapse.

"I...just need a distraction," he said quietly. "Or something. This’ll all go away, I just...”

He looked up at Cuddy even though he knew he must be a mess, face sticky and shining with tears, eyes and cheeks flushed blue, holding a bag of his own vomit. She looked back at him steadily and fleetingly touched the side of his face.

"I'll stay with you," she said.

Kip tied off the bag and tied another bag around it, and rinsed his mouth out several times, and washed his hands and face again. Cuddy made him a hot tea and sat down next to him.

Kip was intensely relieved and grateful that Cuddy had so much patience with him, but he was overall still way too embarrassed by the situation to say much of anything. He stared down at the table and quietly wiped away at his tears, and after a few moments Cuddy took a sheet of printer paper and began writing across it.

"Here," she said, sliding it across to him and placing the pen on top. He saw that she'd written rows of multiplication problems, with four digit multipicands and two digit multipliers. "You could try to go through those, if you think it could help, it might distract you."

Kip picked up the pen and slowly started solving the first problem.

"I do that sometimes to get myself focused from one thing to another," Cuddy said. "I just write out random numbers and work out a few."

Kip stifled a sniff with a napkin and tried to concentrate on doing the math without allowing himself any pauses for his thoughts to wander. He could sense the horrible feeling coiled tight in his chest, ready to spring out through him again at any moment.

"I'm gonna get you some honey for your tea," Cuddy said, and Kip mumbled thanks and fought to remember the eight times table over the thought of not being important to Pascal anymore. Both warring concepts were making gains on his mind, and his shoulders started twitching with stifled sobs as he leaned in over the paper and wiped at his face and determinedly filled in the numbers.

"Kip," Cuddy said as she returned with a bottle of honey and a spoon. She put a hand on the top of his back and rubbed in circles, dragging the fabric of his shirt. His sobs became wheezes under his breath at the gentle contact and when he squeezed his eyes shut he heard a couple teardrops hit the paper.

"It's okay," he croaked once he managed to find his voice. "I'm just. I'm okay."

"It's okay that you aren't okay," Cuddy offered. "Drink some of this. You could probably use it."

He heard her mix a spoonful of honey into the cup of tea and slide it over to him.

"Thank you, Cuddy," he said, wrapping his hands around the warm ceramic. "Thank you so much for all of this. I'm sorry this happened. I knew it might. I'm sorry I let it get this far."

"Shh. Don't worry about it." She laid her hand in his hair for a moment. "I wouldn't want you to force yourself through this. It was good you called me. I'm not about to ever tell you to do damage to yourself for the sake of keeping the store open a few hours."

He blew his nose quietly and took a tentative sip of the tea. It was sweet and hot and it did make his throat feel a bit less rough.

"For as good as you guys are at keeping this place together and making things easier on me, you think I won't ever go out of my way for you?"

He gave a short laugh and looked up at her for a moment; she gave him a slight smile and he smiled weakly back.

The door to the café opened and Kip heard the unmistakable sound of a toddler's energetic chatter. He sniffed and wiped his eyes, redirecting his focus back to the half-finished paper, and Cuddy went around to greet her family.

Worrying that Lottie and Evelyn might see him turned out to be a solid distraction. But they stayed out front. He drank his tea and took out his phone and wondered if he ought to talk to Molly, wondered if Kate was going to find out he broke down, wondered if this was an incident that was going to be discussed by any of the others. He wondered how the monster from earlier would react whenever she next came in for her coffee and saw him there. He wondered what it must have looked like to all of the customers who were present when he suddenly burst into tears and couldn't stop.

He hated feeling this vulnerable again. He hated the disappointment and humiliation and shame of it. He hated feeling the loss of control—the loss of his image of control he projected around others. He felt childish for wanting Pascal back so badly and being so hurt by the reality he chose to put upon the both of them. He hated feeling so weak. He hated that he was always the weak one. He'd once wanted to be like his brother, strong and courageous, helping everyone around him, but it was proven to him all too soon that he was nothing like Kent. He was the one out of all his friends who couldn't stand on his own. Even when they'd first started dating he'd felt steadied and emboldened by Pascal, and when he lived with Pascal he often ended up in his boyfriend's arms whenever he fell apart.

He knew he could only pretend to be stronger than he was. But he was supposed to have moved on from the stage when he couldn't help but collapse and suffer outwardly and pitiably. He hated that he had no defensible explanation for why he'd broken down—just that he'd felt sorry for himself about something that was entirely his own fault and his own choice. Just that he missed Pascal and wanted him back and didn't want him to move on from the relationship Kip had decided had to end against both their wishes. It was selfish, immature, and unavoidably horrible. He didn't deserve to feel it. He didn't deserve sympathy. And he didn't deserve Pascal.

He took a drink of tea and scrubbed his face and stood up and started pacing the floor, breathing in and out to a strict rhythm. He was still doing so when Cuddy came back into the little room; he stopped and wiped his face and sighed.

"You alright?" she said.

He nodded.

"I'm trying to get it together," he said with a hoarse laugh.

"There's just a couple of people still out there," Cuddy said. "You want to hang out with us out front? I can get the last of the closing stuff done. I don't want you by yourself the whole time."

He sniffed and blinked, softly stuttering "um" a few times.

"Come on," she said, putting a hand on her hip and waving him towards her with the other. "They're coloring. Evelyn will think it's a special occasion. It'll be alright."

"Okay..."

She patted him on the back encouragingly as he blew his nose and wiped at his cheeks one more time. He took his cup of tea with him, going out front and seeing Lottie and Evelyn sitting at two little tables pulled together with a few coloring books and a bag of bright markers. There was a human sitting in a booth with a laptop and another one cutting up a piece of cake; he thought they might be glancing up at him but he made no effort to find out for sure.

Lottie looked up at him and smiled brightly.

"Kip, hello!" she said, then put a hand on the shoulder of her daughter who was scribbling purple intently onto a page. "Evelyn, you remember Kip? He helps Mommy with her store, he's Roy's friend."

Evelyn fixed her gaze on Kip as he awkwardly sat across from them, trying hard to keep his head up. She smiled at him and reached across the table for a blue marker, carefully attaching the cap to the bottom.

"Hi, Kip!"

He smiled back at her and she turned through a few pages of her book and began deliberately yet messily coloring again.

"Hi, Ev. And hi, Lottie." He turned towards the monster and his expression fell and his voice quieted. "I'm sorry I messed up your guys' schedule. I guess you were supposed to be home by now but... Thank you for coming over here."

"You're more than welcome," she answered. "Trust me, both of us have plenty of experience changing up our plans on the fly. Things like this are no trouble at all."

Kip gave a tired smile and raised his tea to his lips. He watched as Evelyn slid the book towards Lottie and offered her the other page to color on, and Lottie obligingly began filling in the body of a parrot.

Their family always looked so close-knit and sweet to Kip and it frustrated him, to say the least, when something that gave him such a nice feeling sometimes turned around and cut him. It wasn't nearly as bad as it had been in the aftermath of his family's death, when it seemed like everything reminded him of them and he couldn't help but think of them and their permanent absence whenever he was confronted with the concept of family. He didn't know if it was jealousy whenever he saw families together, especially when he heard people talking about siblings and things they did together, what they did for each other, or if it was purely grief—but he knew it upset him and he could hardly endure it in the earliest days. Crying used to be an almost daily occurrence back then, as unstoppable as a reflex. And right now it wasn't an average day, and while he had managed to recover a little bit in the past half hour or so, his crying picked up again. But it was at least silent and subtle, just a tightened throat and tears slipping faster down his cheeks.

He tried to make his tea last as long as possible. He felt like he should help Cuddy finish up since he was a lot less of a disaster, but he knew she would refuse and he felt too nervous about the thought of drawing even an ounce more of attention to himself. He could tell Lottie was aware of him but was discretely keeping her focus on Evelyn. Until Evelyn directed her attention to Kip, turning the coloring book around to hold it up and show him a picture with a stream and a tree and a monster sitting between them. He was about to issue some general praise when he realized she'd added uneven circles which had to be glasses around the eyes of the figure which only otherwise resembled him because of the dark blue color she'd applied to its body and the amorphous cloud of black filling and obscuring the outline of its clothes.

"Oh," he said. "Is that me?"

"Yeah!" she chirped, clearly satisfied with the success of her work. "I put in your glasses. Mommy wears glasses, too."

She fumbled a bit trying to put the caps back on the markers and Lottie leaned in to help.

"Yeah, she does," Kip agreed.

"Are you sad?"

"Huh?" He looked up at the unexpected question.

"Are you sad?" Evelyn repeated, tone unchanged.

"Um...yes," Kip decided to answer truthfully, as he could feel another tear preparing to fall down his face.

"How come?"

"Evelyn..." Lottie started softly.

"It's okay," Kip assured her quietly, knowing the obviousness of his condition.

He looked down at what was left of his tea while he tried to decide how he should respond.

"There's some people who I love, and I miss them," he said after a moment.

"Oh," Evelyn said. "Where are they?"

"They're, um..." Kip touched his mouth nervously, trying to remain honest without potentially requiring Lottie and Cuddy to explain some difficult subjects to a three year-old sooner than they might like. "They're not where I am. I can't see them anymore."

She stared at him a moment and nodded as though taking it in, and then tilted the coloring book towards Lottie and pointed inside.

"C-can you pull this out for me, please?"

Lottie carefully tore out the page and handed it back to Evelyn, who held it out towards Kip.

"Thank you," he said, taking the portrait she'd drawn.

"I'm gonna make another picture," she said solemnly, and flipped through the pages.

A few minutes later Cuddy came over and sat with them in the chair beside Kip's.

"How's everything going here?" she asked.

"Good," Evelyn answered.

"We've been coloring," Lottie said, steadying the plastic bag full of markers as Evelyn fished inside.

"Kip is sad," added Evelyn. She pulled out a yellow marker.

Kip laughed quietly, only a bit self-conscious.

Cuddy patted his shoulder and asked if he wanted some more tea, laughed after he fumbled with an answer, and got up to get everyone some. She returned a minute later, putting a tray on the table with three mugs of tea, honey, spoons, and four cookies that Molly had frosted with different colored stripes. She passed out the cookies to all of them and gave a tea to Lottie and Kip, who took turns sweetening it with the honey.

The last of the other people left as they sat and talked—or as Cuddy and Lottie and Evelyn talked, and Kip was silently present, trying to gather his composure. He suffered a slight setback when Cuddy reached over in the middle of talking to Lottie and rubbed his back, breaking his wall back down a little. But he found more success quietly crying it out than trying to stifle it prematurely. Evelyn passed him a crumbly piece of her cookie and he smiled and wiped a napkin across his face.

"Alright," Cuddy said. "I think once I get these dishes washed we should be good to go. Are you almost done with your picture?" she asked Evelyn.

"Uh-huh."

"Okay, let me get all this." She stood up and gathered everything onto the tray. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Thank you, Lottie."

Kip blinked and watched her as she carried everything to the back. He wiped his face again and balled the napkin up in his fist.

"I should go help her," he said quietly. He looked at Lottie and sat up straight against the back of the chair. "Thank you again, so much, I'm sorry for interrupting everything like this. Thank you guys for being so patient about it."

She smiled at him.

"Of course, Kip," she said. "Don't worry."

He stood up and took a deep breath and walked to the back.

"Cuddy?"

"Hey," she said, washing one of the cups.

"I know you don't really need it," he said, "but I thought I should at least do one thing to help. I'm a lot better now than I was. Thank you again for coming out here."

"You're very welcome."

He took a towel and dried off the dishes she had washed, head down.

"I'm...I just want to say that this isn't something that happens," he said, staring at the fabric in his hands. "I mean, yeah, I have bad days, but I can handle it. I'm used to that. I just got set off by something today that was really stupid but—I just wasn't ready for it, and I'm still getting used to the move, and it was stupid but it's—I'm not going to need help all the time or just screw it all up like this. I'm sorry I was like this today but—"

"Kip—"

"I'm not going to be like this. It isn't like this. I don't freak out like this. It was just—it was an accident. I really don't want you guys to have to worry about if I'm gonna be able to do my job."

"Kip."

"Today was just a one-off thing. I'm fine. This doesn’t happen anymore, I can do this. I'm—I'm sorry."

"Kip, for god's sake," Cuddy said. "I know. Don't worry. I don't need any explanation. You can't control everything and neither can I, I'm not going to blame you for that. Don't worry."

Kip wiped at his eyes.

"Please don't tell Kate. I don't want her to think she had anything to do with it. And, I mean, I'm kind of...really embarrassed."

"Sure." She smiled at him.

She and Kip went back out front, where Lottie and Evelyn were waiting, and told Kip to let them drive him home. He emphasized the brevity of his walk but they insisted and when Evelyn expressed excitement at the idea, he knew it was settled. He got in the back beside a box of mom supplies, sitting stiffly as Cuddy fastened Evelyn into her booster seat beside Kip and Lottie climbed into the driver's seat.

He murmured directions and they reached the curb in front of the apartment building in less than five minutes.

"Thank you again, so much," he repeated as he unbuckled and stepped from the car.

"Oh, you get an extra drawing, by the way," Cuddy said as she rolled down her window. "The other one is for Roy."

"Thank you, Ev,” he said, taking the pieces of paper, then directed his words to her parents again. "Thanks for all of this."

"You're welcome. Be nice to yourself, Kaizer," Cuddy said with a slight smile.

"Bye, Kip!" Evelyn called from the back.

"Bye," he said, waving. "Bye, Lottie. See you later, Cuddy."

He smiled and stepped back, watching the car pull away before he turned and unlocked the front door. He climbed the stairs slowly and opened the apartment door slowly as well, feeling strange to be back earlier than he was meant to be, still feeling strange that this was home now.

Molly and Roy were both inside, and the only thing he could think to do was give Evelyn's drawings to Roy with a brief explanation of their origin.

"I thought you were closing tonight?" Molly said.

"Yeah," he said, rubbing his neck nervously.

"And I’m pretty sure Lottie picked Evelyn up today, not Cuddy," Roy said thoughtfully.

"They came to pick Cuddy up from the café," Kip told them, face heating up. "I—she had to come help me. I couldn't finish the shift." His voice lowered.

"Why?"

"What happened?"

Their voices overlapped.

Kip grimaced and folded his arms tightly across himself.

"I..." He gripped his upper arm and lifted his head to look them in the faces. "Look, can you just...promise not to tell me how stupid this was? Because I really already know it. Like, seriously, please just know that I know this is already totally ridiculous."

Molly sighed.

"Just tell us what happened," she said.

He looked down again.

"Today was pretty...rough," he said, voice low. "Like, I don't know, in a way it hasn't been in ages. I guess it was stress too or whatever but I kind of felt really bad even when I got to work and, like—I know this is really stupid but I just. I thought about Pascal and I got kind of freaked out all at once and I kind of fell apart for a little bit and I—" He sighed. "I called Cuddy about it and she came over and said it was okay to go ahead and close."

The one-second pause feels painfully long in the presence of the people who tried hardest to convince him to let Pascal come with them. He finally lifts his eyes to see them exchanging a look he can't quite read.

"I know it's...it's really disappointing that I want to be with him still and that I'm—I know it's stupid and I know I shouldn't feel it but today I couldn't stop myself, on top of everything, and I just...I wish I didn’t but I broke down. But I'm not gonna let it happen like that again. I'm already seeing Eno tomorrow, I'm gonna..." His sigh was even heavier. "I'm gonna figure out how to get past this stuff. I'm sorry it happened like this."

He looked up at them again and all three of them were still and silent.

The memory spans hours, yet the whole of it is thrown back at him in a matter of moments. A fraction of a second and he has to stop walking, his tenuous confidence is dealt a near-critical blow. He grips the edge of his sweater and notices how difficult it is when he tries to lengthen his exhales.

—

Kip holds on to the silver lining with everything he's got. He plants his steps to a beat that's as steady and bold as he doesn't feel and keeps his eyes forward and chin raised.

He grips that silver lining and every ounce of his past regret telling him he can't bear to turn away from Pascal again.

He can't force away the thoughts reminding him of how awful he'd felt when he'd confronted himself with the idea of Pascal with someone else. But he can focus in on how much in that moment he'd wished he could be with Pascal again.

Pascal is back in their district. Pascal moved there because he didn't want to be so far from Kip. Kip has no more doubts about how he feels. And Pascal is waiting for him right now.

Kip isn't going to let anything keep him from this.

He slows a little as he nears the destination, his natural anxiety kicking up as he has to glance at his phone a few times to confirm he's got the address right. And then his heart jumps to see the name of the restaurant printed on a window. He sucks in a breath through his teeth, crosses the street, and opens the door.

His heart is beating through his chest as he tried to take in the entire space in a single glance. His eyes land on Pascal, sitting at a two-person table in a soft grey t-shirt and darker sweatpants with his hair spilling out of a knitted hat, just as Pascal lifts his gaze to look right at him.

The way Pascal's face lights up despite what he can tell is an effort to restrain it makes Kip laugh and pulls him forward.

"I tried to get here before you!" He guesses he's just as bad at subduing his smile. Pascal stands up as Kip approaches and Kip steps into a hug with no hesitation, resting the side of his head against Pascal's collarbone.

"It's so good to see you," Pascal says as they part, audible passion behind the sentiment. "You—you look great, I..."

He blushes and cuts himself off, momentarily glancing aside.

"...Thank you for coming," Kip says. "I've really been missing you, you know? I mean," he laughs, "I'm seeing you right now and I'm still excited about having you over Thursday. A couple of times a month really doesn’t cut it."

"I know what you mean," Pascal says, still blushing. "Like, seeing you right now just makes me want to see you again even more."

Kip grins and doesn't even look away from Pascal to do so.

They make some small talk about the day between deciding what to get, and Kip goes up to the counter to get them drinks and a couple of raspberry parfaits. He blushes and smiles when he turns and sees the look on Pascal's face as he gazes back at him.

He feels the instinct to use a pet name as he carries the drinks and the desserts over to the table, as well as an impulse to lean in and kiss his cheek, though he stifles both. Their past relationship, their present situation, and the possibility of their future is all hanging thick in the air. Their separation feels like a mere instant in their lives and barely a separation at all, as in retrospect it's clear that, although physically apart and temporarily uncommunicative, their presence and influence remained in each other's lives. And he may have been trying to get over Pascal, but with only a matter of months to do so, he never stood a chance. And Pascal made it clear he never really thought he could get over Kip—at least, not the way they left things.

Kip had definitely been frustrated and at times angry upon initially finding out Pascal had come with them to C anyways. He'd reprimanded himself for being selfishly glad of it. He was humiliated and self-conscious and upset that he seemed to be the only one in the dark about Pascal's relocation, spending weeks with it weighing in the back of his mind during quiet, solitary moments, struggling with something that wasn't even true anymore. He was confused about what he should do, and even moreso about what he could. He knew he couldn't control what Pascal did, but he thought he could at least control himself. Pascal had made himself infinitely more vulnerable simply because of where he moved, but Kip didn't want to add to that. Everything that had happened gave him a sense of dread about extending anyone his emotional intimacy. He'd focused his worry on Roy and Molly and tried to devote his energy to building up their next new life and and he had tried to get over the loss of Pascal in a way he knew he couldn't apply to the loss of his family. He had just started to gain a true sense of routine, an acceptance without any true belief of stability, a bit of hope that all he needed now was time.

And then Wallace showed up, followed almost immediately by Pascal. And both of them had taken what terrified Kip and ultimately forced the beauty of it into view. Kip had hated that his inability to control anything extended even to himself. But he was made to realize this also meant that his capacity for love, which so scared him, was as impossible for him to suppress as the color of the flush of his cheeks or the extent to which he’s loved by others. It was an inherent part of him, and he couldn't keep himself from loving Pascal. And just as his love for Pascal preceded any choice on his part, his love for Wallace developed before he could think it through or accept or even realize it. He'd tried to choose separation from Pascal and to get over loving him and now he's sitting across from him, looking him in the face and melting at the familiarly fond, warm expression he sees there. He'd never have chosen to have a District A human living within ten miles of him, and he'd never have chosen to love one.

Kip knows that he has a lot of love and he knows that he has a deep and real happiness when he's feeling love for someone who he knows loves him. But he also knows he has so much fear about so many things and has always been able to see the worst-case scenario waiting on the horizon—a tendency which was miserably intensified after the fire taught him the reality of his worst fears. He knows he's scared of believing that things could be okay. He knows he feels completely out of his depth here, seeming for the first time in ages to have a choice over things beyond his control. He didn't choose to have Pascal eliminate the basis of his argument for the end of their relationship, he didn't choose to have Wallace brought in his life, he was never expecting either. He didn't choose to find his love for Pascal as growing and alive as it had ever been, he didn't choose to have a love for Wallace blossoming underneath their relationship until it was powerful and deep by the time he even realized it might genuinely exist. But he can choose what he does with these developments now. Pascal is here with him by Kip's choice, for the promise of Kip's choice. It's more difficult with Wallace, who has no notion of Kip's feelings for him, but Kip feels that at least his awareness of his own emotions gives him the choice of what to do with them.

And he feels like he's looking out on the verge of it all.

Chapter Text

They spend a surprisingly long time making small talk, but it doesn't feel like a quietly awkward social formality or avoidance maneuver—more like they're trying to share the small, mundane details of their lives as a way to catch up on the experience of being together for them. They'd already covered the general story of the months that they spent without each other, but left out any element of missing or thinking about each other. Pascal had blushed throughout his first summation of his move to C, never mentioning what the decision had all hinged on or how he had agonized over the inevitable moment in which Kip would find out he had come to C anyways. But Kip had been stiff, a bit too sharp, words a bit too infrequent and clipped, demeanor overall colder than he felt, and Pascal had been a little meek to the point of abashed, and the untouched topic was present in the tension between them.

It had taken a while before they discussed it with any sort of ease. But they had managed it, explaining their past emotions in a slightly formal, dispassionate manner, and hadn't made it at all about their present feelings. And now Kip finds that they're in the inverse situation, with the past left behind while they're focused simply on being present with each other, talking about their lives, looking each other in the face and smiling as easily as they blinked and breathed.

Kip feels like he's Pascal's boyfriend again already, and like Pascal is his. Every impulse feels like second nature, the urge to extend his hand so Pascal can wrap his arm around his palm, to push a soft kiss to his lips, to wind his fingers in his hair, to slip into their old jokes and affectionate rituals and helpless intimacy. Neither of them is much stifling their desire for their relationship or trying too hard to hide their affection for each other anymore. It almost feels like a date already.

It's intoxicatingly pleasant. Kip's enjoyment is almost total, but he's aware that it's necessary to reveal what he arranged the meeting for in the first place, and the more they talk the more he feels the moment impend. Pascal seems completely happy with him whether conversation flows as easily as it does now or they're together in silence, but Kip is starting to feel like he's actively putting it off. Which is exactly what he wants to prevent: the feeling that there's something he has to hide from Pascal.

During a pause, looking down as he spoons a raspberry into his mouth, he makes himself cross the brink by simply starting with one word.

"So..." he says towards the parfait.

And it becomes more manageable to follow it with more words than to leave it hanging in silence.

"I wanted to meet you today so I could, um, tell you about something."

He looks up. Pascal has his drink lifted, looking back at him with a faintly curious expression.

He looks so beautiful. His genuine sweetness is all but visible in every inch of him. Kip loves him.

"I-I have a lot of stuff I want to say to you," he continues. "But I have to talk to you about something before the rest of it."

"Okay." Pascal gives him a small smile.

Kip can't just blurt it out, but if he tries to circle the topic he strongly suspects he'll just be allowing time for his fear and insecurity to become more debilitating.

"I...um..." He looks at the collar of Pascal's shirt. It dips just low enough to display a brush of the dark hair that grows on his chest. Kip remembers resting his head there, feeling it soft against his face.

He doesn't have the first clue how to say that he's in love with someone else.

He's blushing hard now; he knows it. Pascal, patiently, says nothing.

Kip has learned to start consciously controlling his breathing before he even needs to. He hooks his ankles together.

"I'm having trouble thinking of how to say it," he explains.

"That's okay," Pascal says quietly.

Kip is watching Pascal wait for him to speak, quiet and still.

Kip's heart is breaking to see Pascal crying at the news that Kip wants to move away.

Kip is pressing the sole of his foot against the floor and rubbing his spoon with his thumb.

He's watching Pascal disappear from his sight through the rearview window.

He thinks of every moment he spent building up confidence for this. How much he prepared himself for this moment and how often he told himself he was going to have to go through it, even though it was going to be difficult and painful and terrifying.

His heart is gripped and kicked by the sudden thought of Pascal loving someone in place of him and he freezes up behind the register.

He knows how frustrated he'll be with himself if he fails to tell Pascal what he knows he has to, what he's here for in the first place.

He's so shaken up and distressed and feels so deeply awful, all at the thought of Pascal not wanting him anymore.

Words are in his mind, he's telling himself over and over to say them, his voice isn't listening.

He's sobbing as he leans against a brick wall, alone, about to throw up.

Pascal seems slightly worried by the length of the silence.

Kip feels physically, mentally, emotionally horrible and completely drained and wishes he could force himself to stop thinking of Pascal moving on from him.

He's looking Pascal in the eyes and imagining giving him that same feeling.

He can't do this.

He tries to force himself.

He can't.

"...Pasc," he says. "I really do have something I need to tell you about before I can start talking about other things, and I wanted to meet you so I could do that before having you over for dinner, but...I'm really finding right now that I'm not as prepared as I thought I was."

"...That's alright," Pascal says softly.

Kip takes a deep breath. He hates how relieved he feels about delaying this, but he's determined to use that to focus on being as fair to Pascal as he can manage. At least, as much as he can be without making things truly fair by telling Pascal about his feelings for Wallace.

"Okay," he starts, dropping his head slightly. "You can probably guess how I feel about you. I know how I feel. This isn't about something that's going to change that. It's just something that I need to tell you before we talk about us because you need to be able to decide how you feel about it."

He lifts his head again to look Pascal in the face.

Pascal looks slightly surprised, and is blushing deeply, but Kip's glad to see he doesn't seem overtly worried.

He feels another push to just go ahead and tell him. He keeps his head up and straightens his back and inhales. He watches Pascal wait for him to speak and he exhales and inhales again, trying to just get himself to say the first word.

But instead of finding that word, he gets flashes of memory from the feeling of being so hurt it overwhelmed him. He's looking at Pascal and can't help but imagine him going through that. No matter how much he tries to convince himself it's not the same situation, it doesn't reach the knot of dread that's desperate to keep him from doing that to Pascal.

He wishes he knew himself well enough to predict these kinds of disasters. He tries to have confidence, but it seems that most of the time that just means ignoring his obvious problems or outright lying to himself.

He draws another long inhale in place of a sigh and shifts in his seat.

"I'm sorry, Pascal," he says. "I really meant to tell you today because I wanted to do it before you came over, but I guess I didn't do enough to make sure I was actually ready. I really can't do it right now. I'm really sorry. ...Thank you for coming here, though.”

"Of course," Pascal says. "You're important to me, Kip."

That twists at Kip's heart in a way that's both lovely and crushing. It almost makes him blurt it out and he clenches his hands, horrified at himself. He knows the worst thing he could do is dump the info on Pascal and then panic and fail to discuss it further, which is all he suspects he's capable of right now. He's just overestimated himself at Pascal's expense and refuses to let it happen again.

"You're important to me, too," he says. He wants to lay his hand on Pascal's arm and reach out with the other to touch his face. "So I really, really want to be ready to talk about you with this when I can be...reliable and prepared and I—" He sighs. "I can tell I'm not there right now. It's my fault. I need this to be fair to you, and it's not going to be fair if I can't... You know, if I can't even handle the conversation. I..."

He pushes his glasses back and fidgets with the corner of his napkin.

"I don't want to make this seem scary," he says with a quiet laugh. "I mean, I don't want to be building it up or anything. I'm just...I have to work past this issue that came up on my way over and I promise I'll figure it out. Even if—if it turns out I can't, I'll still talk about this with you."

"Okay." Pascal nods, looking a little more solemn.

Kip watches him take a sip of his tea. He glances at the wall and his expression momentarily slips into worry.

"This isn't necessarily something bad," Kip says. "It's just—something I've never dealt with before, so it's taken me a while to figure out how to think about it, and—and it's very difficult. I—I just...had something come up on the way over here, and now..."

He sighs and glances down at his lap.

"It's nothing that's going to change Thursday," he continues. "I just wanted to go ahead and talk, and I'm really only putting it off now because I know that I even have the option to. I still want to do it as soon as I can, but I'd rather know that I'm going to be able to be...in a better place for this. I want to be fair to you. It wasn't fair today to ask you to do this without knowing I could go through with it, and I... There's no good excuse for it. I'm sorry for putting you through this for nothing, but thank you for being here anyways. It's really nice of you to have made the time to do this."

He feels his persistent blush but doesn't shy away from looking Pascal in the face. He knows he owes him every ounce of respect he can possibly give. He wants to make it clear that none of the failure is anyone's but his own.

"Of course," Pascal says, looking back at him. "I'm glad to share time with you, Kip. And really, it means a lot just knowing you want to share something with me, you know? I can wait until whenever you feel ready and comfortable about it."

Kip sets his teeth and nods.

They stay a while longer. Even while feeling guilty and awkward, Kip feels warmed by Pascal's presence. He's sweet and soft and radiates strong patience and love. The desire to tell him that he already seems like a boyfriend, to slip his hand around his arm, to touch his face and kiss his lips, feels like an ache.

"I don't want to keep you here all day," Kip says quietly a bit after they've both finished their food and drinks.

"It wouldn't be so bad," Pascal says with a light laugh, head slightly tilted as he gives Kip a look of affection that could make him fall in love if he hadn't already.

Kip blushes fiercely and drops his head.

"I know," he says with a soft smile. "But not yet."

They chat a little about Thursday as they clean up their table. Kip finds it easy to laugh by the time they head to the door.

"Pascal," he says as they step outside, tracing the band on his wrist. "Listen, I promise—" He turns towards Pascal and lifts his head so they can lock eyes. "I promise that I'm going to talk to you and I'm going to make myself ready for it as soon as I can. And if I can't get ready I'm still going to talk with you. I'm not going to give you any more false starts and I'm sorry I have to now."

He takes Pascal's arm.

"I don't want to brush you off and I don't want to take you or your time or your patience for granted or—or take advantage of it, I promise. This is important to me, I—talking about this is important to me because you're important to me. I'm not going to keep you waiting forever on this, I promise. I'm going to figure this out because that's the only way to be fair and...you deserve that and I'm just repeating myself now but...thank you so much for meeting me, even if it wasn't what I meant it to be, thank you so much for giving me your time. I really, really appreciate it."

"Kip..."

Pascal steps forward a bit and Kip realizes it's a hug just in time to curve his body to fit it. He reaches his arms out to gently slip around Pascal's back and turns his head to rest against Pascal's chest. Soft arms and warmth are wrapped around him and he's starting to feel Pascal's heartbeat through his own. He expects it to be lingering yet brief, but Pascal is holding it, sometimes shifting an arm a half inch along Kip's back or squeezing just a little tighter. Kip's response to the length of the hug is inevitable—he relaxes with a long exhale, he leans into it, he curls his fingers into the fabric of Pascal's shirt and shifts his head against Pascal's chest; it feels like an inadvertent nuzzle and he blushes deeply but doesn't have the strength to move away even a millimeter. The feeling of Pascal's body is immediately, intimately familiar, yet he's gotten so used to being without it that he wishes he could stay here for hours so he can hold on to the experience like an afterimage.

Kip knows the embrace probably lasted about a quarter of a minute but it feels like a week's worth of experience was folded up into it. The warmth clings to him even as they separate and a smile keeps tugging at his mouth as he looks up at Pascal.

"Don't worry," he murmurs. "I swear I'm not just saying this: I'm gonna get this together so I can do it right and I'm going to make sure that happens as soon as I can manage."

Pascal smiles.

"I promise, Pascal," he repeats seriously.

"I believe you," Pascal answers quietly.

Kip draws his bottom lip under his teeth and bites it and then nods.

"This must be confusing," he says, lifting his shoulders in a slight shrug and nudging the bridge of his glasses up. "Thank you so much again for being so patient. I'm sorry that this is all so opaque right now, but I... It's sort of all or nothing, I don't want to just be dropping hints around and just leaving you with that..." His laugh is light and nervous.

"Right, I understand that." Pascal gives a short laugh too. "It's alright. I can wait however much time you need."

Kip's exhale is audible and in a single movement he quickly, tightly, hugs Pascal again.

"Thank you," he says quietly. He lets Pascal slide his arms around his back for a few moments before he pulls away.

He looks at Pascal's face. Again his imagination is providing him with the thought of Pascal suffering the same tumult and heartache that he had. He quickly sweeps the thought away.

"I'll see you on Thursday?" he says, shifting his weight over one foot and rubbing his thumb along the hem of his sweater.

"Yes." Pascal brushes some hair out of his eyes and his cheeks redden. "Definitely."

"Okay." Kip lets himself smile. "Until then."

They reach out and Kip curves his hand to cup Pascal's arm as it winds around to his wrist. They squeeze the hold before finally parting ways, both looking over their shoulders at each other a few times as they walk further apart down different strips of sidewalk.

—

Kip is drawn into his own head shortly after Pascal leaves his line of sight. His reflexive reaction to what happened is a stressing mix of dread and nerves: he sees himself fucking up worse on the next attempt, knowing he let Pascal down, knowing that he couldn't do right by Pascal when things became too difficult. He thinks about the likelihood he won't be able to talk openly with Wallace either. He thinks about what he's going to do if he ends up ruining his chances with both of them. What he's going to do if he has to live with the knowledge that he's not only let Pascal down, but dealt him a blow, hurt him badly.

A growing frustration begins mingling with the fears running through his thoughts. It quickly turns inwards and he's angry at himself for not remembering that he had this old insecurity that he'd really only dealt with by stubbornly ignoring it and trying to convince himself not to care or think about it. For always being so easily choked by his fear. For always seeming so weak to everyone around him. For not being as good to Pascal as Pascal is to him.

Every thought from every angle is showing him his own failure.

He's put on edge, shoving his cold hands into his pockets and staring at the sidewalk ahead of his feet. He just wants to get home and calm himself down with a mug of tea. The heat would be welcome, too—his arms are already a bit tense from their growing chill and he knows he'll start shivering soon.

A couple of times he's so caught up in his thoughts he almost runs into things, and being startled by that only increases his frustration and makes him more irritated at the remaining distance between himself and the comfort of the apartment.

The front of the building is quiet, and he's grateful for it. He sighs and twists the lining of his pockets between his fingers and pushes his way through the door and almost collides with Ben.

"Oh my god—" He jumps and his hand shoots from the door towards his own chest. He sees Ben flinch back a little as well—whether from the initial surprise or the violence of Kip's reaction, he doesn't know.

"I—sorry," he murmurs, moving aside and trying to collect himself, heartbeat raised.

"It's alright," Ben says quietly.

Kip looks up in time to see Ben turn his head away. He feels a rush of indignation—there's a subtlety to Ben's expressions but Kip knows them well and he's more than fed up with seeing shadows of distaste there. He's sick of the aversion that continues seemingly without regard for how outgoing or reserved he pushes himself to be around Ben. He hates being made to feel like there must be something inherently, unpleasantly, abrasively wrong with him—and that he deserves to be considered so repulsive because of it.

The sudden, cumulative strength of his reaction surprises him. But not nearly as much as the way his temper flies ahead of his composure and, for once, his automatic response is to speak rather than keep quiet.

"What am I doing wrong?" he snaps. "I just live here, why do you have to—"

He cuts himself off all at once, from a rising voice tinged with anger and hurt to total silence; he even physically holds his tongue between his teeth.

Ben looks over at him at the outburst, stopped in the middle of reaching for the door. His expression is still characteristically subdued, but clearly surprised as well.

Kip feels just short of shaken. He quickly glances away from Ben, stepping back. He didn't know he could lash out over such a mild provocation. He was always so much more inclined to turn away and sigh and keep silent than to confront anyone in the moment, much less do so by losing hold of his temper.

"I'm—" His voice comes out too quiet that time. He glances at Ben and glances away again, too quick and too nervous to even process the sight of his face.

"Sorry. Never mind. I—sorry," he mutters, and just puts his head down and bails. He turns and walks briskly through the lobby and sweeps through the door into the stairwell. He barely feels any less secure when he's already up on the first landing by the time he hears the door shut behind him. He climbs the rest of the stairs at the same pace, taking the steps two at a time.

He slows his pace upon reaching their floor and opens their door to a quiet, dim apartment. He switches on the kitchen light, filling the kettle with water and putting it on a stove burner, then goes into his room and changes into warmer clothes, a soft t-shirt under a heavier sweater and sweatpants and thick socks. He slides a packet of hand warmers into his pocket and goes back into the kitchen to put a teabag in a cup and wait on the kettle.

His brain is simultaneously trying to replay the tumult of the past couple of hours and analyze and solve everything and worry about what he should do. He works on shutting it all out. He knows if he's going to get anything out of his introspection, he has to rein in the initial rush of his thoughts so he can untangle him. Right now his best course of action is to keep his focus elsewhere and try to relax.

He puts his head in his hands. Every exhale is a sigh; he keeps his breathing easy and even until his pulse seems to have slowed to a calm rhythm. He doesn't move until there's a faint whistle sounding beneath the bubbling water.

He stands over the steeping tea for the first few minutes while it's too hot for even him to touch, letting the steam flow over his skin and fog his glasses, waiting.

He focuses on its scent, and on the quiet sound of activity outside. He focuses on the anticipation of the moment he can press his frigid hands to its warmth, and when he can put his lips to the surface of the tea and hold its flavor in his mouth.

—

Kip starts feeling physically tired and so he buries himself under the blankets in his room and lets himself take a nap, falling asleep with surprising ease. Although he wakes up at his phone's alarm only half an hour later, he can tell that he slept deeply. He's created layers of warmth around himself and he lays there for a while longer, reluctant to leave it.

He gets up upon checking the time and realizing Roy and Molly will probably be home in about an hour. He still wants to do things for them as thanks for the outing they took him on—though as he knows they won't let him do anything too significant, he figures that as usual his best shot at doing them a favor is making them food.

He makes a dinner without too much trouble, even having time to make a simple muffin batter and bake a pan of them. He wraps them in a towel in a bowl and puts them back in the still-warm oven and takes out three plates and makes everything as close to being finished as he can.

He takes out his laptop and adds a couple finishing touches to his post before finally officially putting it up on his blog. He feels some relief at seeing his own update.

Kip expects Roy to be back at his usual time, and gets a little worried when it's fifteen minutes past that window and there's no sign of him, but he tells himself to settle down.

He's in the bathroom when he hears Roy get back home and he steps out expectantly, eyes searching for the walking burst of color and sound as though he'll be difficult to find.

He says Roy's name even as Roy is already looking over at him.

"Hey, Kip!"

"Hello," Kip says, and Roy opens his arms as though he can sense what's coming and Kip buries his face in Roy's torso and wraps his arms tight around his back.

"Aw, did you miss me?" Roy laughs.

Kip doesn't answer; he just hugs a little tighter.

When he starts to let go a few seconds later, Roy leans in and gets his arms snug around Kip as he lifts Kip up into the air.

Kip's reflex as always is to flinch, and he clutches at Roy's shirt and digs his knees into Roy's hips.

"Sorry," he whispers, making himself relax a little.

Roy holds him securely enough to eliminate any fear of being dropped and spins him around a couple of times, making Kip giggle breathlessly. As Roy carefully lowers him back to the ground, Kip lets his hands slide up to Roy's shoulders and kisses him on the cheek during his descent. Roy laughs.

"It's good to see you," Kip murmurs.

"How come?" Roy laughs again.

"Just because it’s good to see you," Kip says.

—

Molly comes home another quarter of an hour later and goes straight to the shower, covered in patches of flour and batter and frosting from work. Kip quickly puts the rest of what he needs to cook on the stove and puts out dishes. By the time Molly gets out, clad in pajamas with a towel draped over her shoulders, he's in the process of putting the finishing touches on everything.

Molly and Roy start up a conversation with each other, which always dances from subject to subject and sustains itself with ease. Even though Kip usually doesn't join in—rarely having the energy to meet their pace and even less often to maintain it—he appreciates being able to tune in to it right now. He's in no mood to be left with his own thoughts.

Roy brings up the warm welcome he got from Kip, and when Molly jokingly demands to know why she didn't receive the same treatment, Kip silently walks over and provides it—initially as though he's just playing along with the joke, but he quickly shifts it into a genuine embrace. Molly laughs quietly and returns the hug and Kip tightens it and rests his forehead on the towel on her shoulder, not caring about the dampness of it or of her.

Kip knows for certain that she understands the sentiment behind the embrace because she lets him hold it until he's ready to let go—in this case, at least a half minute.

They eat together in the main room, Kip cross-legged at the table and Molly and Roy sharing the couch, each leaning back against the arms.

Continuously trying to stay in the moment, Kip focuses in on appreciating everything currently around him. To start, that he's alive and his friends are alive, which for him—and especially considering what each of them has gone through in the past as well as the recent chaos—is never anything to take for granted. They're in a good mood. They have a place to live and their own spaces and enough to eat and no current financial panic. None of them have any physical pain. They have each other's presence right now, and the knowledge that they'll have it indefinitely.

He watches Molly and Roy for a while, zoning out a little as he reflects on how much their friendship has meant and done for him over the years. He knows it was sheer luck he found people as loyal as them. He's never had much difficulty forming casual friendships with anyone he meets, but he's very familiar with how difficult he can be on a more personal level. He used to lean so heavily on his family, certain in their unconditional love and their deep understanding of him. But after losing that, the full strength of the support of his closest friends became more apparent to him than it had ever been. He'd been in no state to express his gratitude at the time but he felt it deeply and it relieved him of some of his worst fears of being alone and having nothing after his world was burned away. It was his friends who picked him up and took care of the few pieces that remained and all but carried him to a new life of safety and love. Yet Kip is just as impressed, if not moreso, that these people have managed to stick with him in spite of his more everyday issues—those problems borne of an uncertain person often smothered by fear who can't voice his own weaknesses because of his desperation to hide them and appear stable and sturdy to everyone on every front.

He appreciates knowing they're safe and happy and having them with him more than any other additional comfort.

But he's not grateful—he'll never say that he's grateful. Life may not have any requirement to be kind to them, but it's certainly not exceeding any standards when things aren't horrible. He's not grateful to have his loved ones alive, because he shouldn’t have to be. But he appreciates fully how wonderful it is.

—

"You and Roy haven't gotten to go on a vacation for...well, for ages, have you?"

He puts another plate on the drying rack as Molly towels off a mug.

"You ought to," he adds, submerging both hands in the soapy water.

"I guess it's been a while, yeah," Molly says after a moment. "Things have been kind of..."

"Yeah," Kip agrees, breathing a flat laugh.

"None of us have gone on a trip in a while," she says pointedly. "At least, not really, not purely for fun or for more than a single day."

"Yeah, but you guys like to go together, and maybe I'm wrong but both of you seem like you could use it. I mean, not as though I think you literally need it, but I think it would be good. Taking a break and getting away and...all of it."

"Why do you want it to be just us?" she asks. "Trying to get rid of us?"

"No. You don't have to have me around all the time, it not weird to do things without me."

"I know, but I'm just saying, you haven't gone on vacation in just as long."

"Probably not, but I..." He scrubs at a dish for a few seconds. "I feel like the routine is kind of helpful for me lately. I'd rather take a vacation when it's not. But you could use one now, and you guys have fun together. You should figure out something you want to do and just go ahead and go."

Molly doesn't answer and Kip glances over at her.

"Don't look at me like that," he says, laughing quietly. "You guys just have to let me worry about you too sometimes."

Now Molly laughs.

"Sometimes?" she repeats incredulously. "You worry about everyone and everything all the time."

Kip blushes.

"Maybe," he concedes. "But you guys—and you especially—I think you put looking after everyone else above looking after yourselves sometimes. So I think it could be a good thing if I worry to compensate for that a little."

He pulls the stopper from the sink drain and rinses his hands and wipes them off on his pants and sighs before turning towards Molly.

"I know you don't need to." He speaks softly but with emphasis. "But you should be able to just because it's nice, and it isn't cold out anymore, and things have kind of calmed down enough around here, and you guys more than deserve it."

He leans his hip against the edge of the countertop and rubs his shoulder nervously.

"I'm not trying to get rid of you..."

Molly scoffs and shoves his arm.

—

Kip indulges in a hot bath for a while, solely for the purpose of wholly engulfing himself in heat. He wraps himself in a towel as soon as he steps out of the water and gets himself into his bed as quickly as possible.

He tries not to think about the day as he waits to fall asleep, which means he has to suppress his train of thought at times when it curves in that direction. It's a cold comfort that both his sudden, debilitating recollection and his outburst seemed totally out of his control and unforeseeable—he at least doesn't have any instance of decision to replay and overanalyze endlessly in self-flagellation. Instead he can place the blame on latent and inherent weaknesses and flaws within himself, which may not be any more pleasant of an exercise but is at least familiar to him.

He isn't looking to solve his issues with what happened that day or even dwell on them right now. He just wants to sleep.

It's such a relief for him to feel himself start to drift off within the first five minutes or so rather than lying awake for an hour, body restless and mind refusing to settle.

He cuddles closer to his pillow, slowly takes in a deep breath, and lets it back out in a long sigh.

—

"Okay, I'm going," Kip says, laying his folded apron over his shoulder as he walks towards their front door.

"Alright, see you later!" Molly calls.

"Bye."

He doesn't leave by the front door. He knows it's mostly because he doesn't want to risk running into Ben again, but he's willing to allow himself that. The burst of stress after ending his botched meeting with Pascal settled quickly enough, but the run-in with Ben still sits uncomfortably in the back of his mind. He knows he'll have to decide what to do with the situation sometime, but right now his concerns about Pascal take precedence.

When he arrives at the café, he's pleased to see things seem to be going quietly and smoothly ahead of the usual swell of activity around lunch and in the afternoon. He and Kate exchange subtle smiles and small lifts of the hand across the counter as he heads to the back.

"Hi, Kip," Cuddy says, standing in front of a stack of boxes as she fills in a form on her clipboard. "How are you today."

"I'm alright," Kip says as he puts on his apron and readjusts his phone and wallet in his pockets. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yes." Cuddy gives him a slight smile before heading over into the kitchen area.

Kip feels like he's doing well in terms of staying on top of things without getting stressed, which he supposes isn't too surprising in terms of how helpful a distraction the work is for him today. Getting a slight rush for lunch actually feels like something of a relief. A few times Kate actually shoos him away for chasing work so relentlessly he's bothering her, so after the crowd out front thins out he delegates himself small organizational and cleaning tasks that they don't do everyday—emptying out the containers for straws and sugar packets so he can wash them, inching forward the stand that holds the trash can and bin for dishes so he can reach around and scrub off the floor and wall behind it.

"Trying to get promoted?" Kate teases as he wipes some cleaner along the picture frames hanging on the walls.

"Not even," Kip responds, fixing his glasses and belt. "I mean, of course I'm just in it for the money, but today I'm just... I'm just trying to, uh...I dunno. I just like the busy stuff today."

He starts focusing on the more everyday tasks and is hefting a full trash bag out of the can when the door suddenly opens beside him and he's momentarily struck speechless when he turns to see Wallace right in front of him.

"Oh, hey, Kip!" Wallace smiles brightly at him and Kip blushes and tightens his grip on the bag and inhales before giving a light laugh.

"Hi—uh—hey, Wallace." He smiles back while stepping back out of the way, averting his gaze as he breathes out and tries to collect himself.

He keeps his head down as he carries the trash into the back while Kate and Wallace chat by the register. He washes his hands and tries not to eavesdrop and tries not to get fixated on the fact that Wallace is around. His feelings for him, still being relatively newfound, tend to make him a bit lovestruck and nervous in his presence, at least before he has some time to settle down—and even moreso when he's unexpectedly confronted with Wallace's presence.

"Do you need these put away?" he asks Cuddy of the small collection of cardboard boxes against the wall.

"Uh," she looks up, slightly distracted. "Sure, if you'd like, you can go ahead and do that."

So Kip spends a while sorting the various ingredients and supplies and carefully putting them into place, trying to let himself daydream aimlessly as he does so. He finishes sooner than he thought he would and moves on to washing dishes and finishes that sooner than he expected as well.

He ventures back to the front to bring some of the cleaned dishes up. A quick glance around the room shows Wallace sitting at one of the small tables along the wall, closest to the counter, typing on his laptop with a few papers next to a cup of coffee. His brow is slightly furrowed as he reads what's on his screen and it's cute and when Wallace bites at his lip and taps it with the end of a pen, Kip blushes and turns away to stop himself from just standing there watching the little things Wallace does unconsciously.

"Hey, did you change that other trash can out there or just the one?" Kate asks.

"Oh—" Kip says. "I forgot—I'll get the other, too."

When he finds himself beside Wallace's table, he ties off the trash bag and sets it against the wall.

"Glad you came to see us today," he says with a smile as Wallace looks up at the noise.

"Yeah," Wallace says, straightening up in his chair and returning a smile. "I was just gonna be working on stuff in my apartment for a while so I figured I'd try coming here, like you said. Usually I get started before I think of coming over, and then I get too focused to stop and move everything somewhere else... But today I was feeling especially pent up, I guess, and I thought about doing things someplace different than usual, and..."

"Here you are," Kip completes.

Wallace laughs.

"Yeah. Here I am."

Kip quickly analyzes the details of his expression, frowning a little.

"Are you okay?" he says quietly, trying to be discreet. "You look kind of tired."

"Oh, yeah," Wallace says, giving that verge-of-laughing smile and rubbing the back of his head.

Wallace always habitually touches the base of his skull, and it always makes Kip wonder if there's a scar there.

"I haven't slept great the past couple of nights." A trace of a grimace twitches at Wallace's mouth and Kip feels a slight twinge of worry.

"Oh?" he prompts automatically.

"Yeah, but it's fine," Wallace says, looking back up at him with a small smile. "I just have trouble sleeping sometimes—I have for a while."

"I'm sorry," Kip murmurs. "That must be frustrating."

Wallace gives a short laugh that seems more genuine than nervous.

"It is. But usually it doesn't last too long, so I'm hoping to get a better routine soon."

He looks straight at Kip and his smile becomes warmer.

"Yeah," is all the eloquence Kip can muster as he looks back at Wallace.

He hopes his tendency to blush at prolonged eye contact isn't too obvious.

"Uh—well—" he continues after a moment, "It’s good to see you. It, um...gets lonely here too sometimes, ha. It's nice to be visited or just...know that a friend is in the store with you. Not that I'm not friends with everyone I work with—" He punctuates with a light laugh.

"Right, I get it."

Kip laughs again.

"Well, uh, I guess I should do some more of that work or something, but it's good to see you," he repeats.

"You too," Wallace says, face colored with the slight blush that generally accompanies his genuine happiness.

Kip picks up the trash bag and beams a smile once he's turned away, wringing the twist of plastic in his hands as he pulls it towards his chest and marveling again that he ended up in love with the human he used to think represented the worst threat possible to him and everyone he loved.

He collects himself and glances out at the café from habit, then freezes with a start to see Kate looking at him with enough bemusement to make him feel like his momentary silent outburst wasn't as private as he hoped. She raises her eyebrows and he flares into a blush and quickly takes the trash into the back with the other bag.

It's about half an hour filled with steady work and periodic glances at Wallace before Kate says anything to Kip upon crossing paths in the back.

"What was that about, huh?" she asks with just enough inflection to clearly imply "And I know you know what I'm talking about, so don’t even pretend."

Kip stares at the border of a tile on the wall as he deliberately sets down the rag he was holding.

"What," he says in a dulled tone. He wants to hear what she says, in case he can dodge this by virtue of her being unwilling to directly accuse him of anything.

Kate sighs at his stubbornness.

"What're you so worked up about Wallace for?"

As if he had a chance. He's already blushing and it's not getting any better. But still he doesn't answer.

"Do you like him or something?" Her tone is a bit low and hushed.

Kip frowns. As familiar as he'd become with the notion, he'd never spent much time considering discussing it with anyone—save Eno, Pascal, and possibly Wallace himself. He's being jarringly reminded of how deeply personal and sensitive a subject it still feels.

"Hm. You do, don't you," Kate continues as she organizes stacks of saucers.

His anxiety surges at the realization she's going to assume this is true and there's a chance it's going to spread if he refuses to answer and it might make it back to Wallace himself in a form too direct to be misunderstood by anyone, even him.

"Why ask if you've already decided," he says, and there must be too much of an edge to his attempt at casual sarcasm because she pats his arm with a mock slap.

"Hey."

"Uh-huh."

"Don't get mad."

"I'm not.”

"Yeah, shut up. You're mad about it because I'm right, aren't you."

"Quit it," he sighs.

"Kip." There's exasperation in Kate's voice but it seems good-humored, and he obliges to look at her. She smiles slightly and folds her arms. "I'm not trying to bother you about anything, I'm just asking because you're my friend."

He sighs again and rubs at his shoulder.

"You know I only mess with you because it's fun," she says after he stays quiet. "And so I won’t if it's not fun. You’re pretty hilarious when you're annoyed but not when you're actually upset."

He knows that's true, that she likes to get a rise out of him at times but never legitimately provokes his temper or hurts his feelings—not deliberately, at least.

"Right," he murmurs, looking back to the countertop.

"I like both of you guys a lot," Kate continues. "So I'm just kiiind of interested if you actually have a crush on him or something. I'm not trying to hold it over your head or anything like that."

"...What about not telling anyone else about it," he mumbles.

There's a pause.

"Sure."

There's another pause.

"Kip—" Kate puts her hands on his shoulders and he lets her turn him around to face her. "I'm not trying to force a confession out of you here. We don't have to talk about this anymore if you don't want. I'm just asking."

"...Yes."

He stares at a freckle by the collar of her shirt as his face heats up.

"Oh." Her touch lightens and he sees her straighten up slightly. "Yes, uh, as in you like Wallace?"

"Yes."

—

They have a longer discussion about it in the pauses scattered throughout the next hour or so. Kip can't help but be a little cagey, but he tries to be as honest as he can. Kate is obviously still enjoying the revelation, but at the same time seems to be treating it seriously, which he appreciates. Not to mention that he suspects part of him wants to receive judgment on this, which is helping push him to talk about it. They trade quick questions and answers while busying themselves with small tasks.

How long? I don't know, a while.

Have you told him? No.

Are you going to tell him? ...Maybe.

Well, have you told anybody else? Just Eno. And now you.

Are you keeping it a secret, or... Kind of. I mean, I didn't know how to feel about it at first. And I don't think I'm ready for everyone to know when I haven't even told Wallace, or—haven't even decided for sure I'm gonna tell him, y'know.

I mean, do you wanna go out with him? Well, it's fun to think about but...I'm not sure it's a good idea.

Why not? ...I don't know. Different reasons.

He's not already dating anyone, is he? I don't know. I don't think so. But, I don't know, maybe he's just really private about that kind of stuff. We've never really talked about it. It still really hasn't been all that long since we met that we've, uh, you know, been able to really talk with each other.

What are you waiting on, exactly? ...I'm just not sure that I'm ready.

You've never been sure about being ready for anything. I know.

He's super nice, and you guys are actual friends now, what do you think is the worst that can happen if you tell him?

Kip doesn't answer.

You've been single for a while, Kip. And if you've been getting laid at all you haven't been mentioning it to me, which would be rude because I told you the last time I hooked up with someone. And if I'm overstepping or something right now go ahead and let me know, but you've seemed lonely the whole time since you guys moved back here. It sure seems like you'd benefit from at least trying to start something up again.

Kip doesn't answer that either, face prickling with heat.

Can we talk about this later, he says.

Sure. Sorry.

No, it's okay. But...please don't tell anyone about any of this.

...Sure.

—

Kip's shift ends in the later afternoon, after the end of what's usually their busiest time of day. He talks briefly with Kate before heading out—they'd been planning to schedule a lunch together for a couple of weeks, and now he's provided an extra incentive to coordinate one. They always have something to talk about, but it's rare that it's anything particularly personal, even though Kip knows from experience that Kate is a deeply thoughtful person who's easy to talk to when the topic is even a little heavy. So he knows that even if any disasters occur in the next few days, he'll be comfortable confiding in her about it. And either way, their outings are always low-pressure and refreshing.

He stops by the table where Wallace is still sitting, apparently engrossed in his work as he frowns slightly at his laptop. Kip waits patiently for Wallace to notice him, and smiles when he does.

"I'm heading home for the day," he says. "But I wanted to say hey again before I do. It's been kinda fun knowing you're over here in the corner the whole time, keeping us company."

Wallace laughs. And then he stands up, and Kip blinks and seems momentarily incapable of movement as Wallace pulls him into a light hug.

"Oh—" Kip manages to gather his presence of mind enough to place his hand on Wallace's side before he pulls away. He grins and brushes his fingers through his hair and smooths the front of his shirt as he laughs a "See you later."

"Yeah!" Wallace smiles at him and Kip smiles back before realizing he's just standing there and needs to go and so he laughs quietly again and gives a tiny wave as he finally turns away.

"Bye, Kate," Kip calls as he sees her coming back up to the front.

"Bye!"

They have a quick, standard exchange across the room of silent teasing insults and then Kip glances one more time at Wallace before going out the door.

—

Kip makes himself a hot cup of tea and heats up a small bowl of leftovers as soon as he gets back and brings it to his room, where he strips his clothes off and swathes himself in layers of blankets and flops back on his bed. He lies there for a while, eyes closed, breathing slow, gently pushing himself to quiet his thoughts as much as he can. Instead he focuses on the softness of the blankets against his bare skin and the warmth gathering within them and how nice it feels to relax his body in bed and do nothing after a work shift.

Eventually he sits up and eats, leaning against the wall and looking up at his ceiling. The tea lasts a while longer.

He lies flat on his back after he's done. He closes his eyes and cozies up in the blankets and crosses his legs so that he can warm his feet by pressing them against his thighs. He's not sure if he'll even be able to fall asleep, even for a short nap, but he's willing to try, and he squints at his phone to set an alarm just in case.

For a while he's just keeping still under the weight of the blankets, trying to release the both the underlying mental and physical tension of work. But it starts to feel less like he's just lying there and more like he's embraced by the mattress and heavy blankets, and his thoughts slip into mostly visual concepts and scenes. By the time the alarm starts chirping at him, he's actually beginning to doze off. So he pushes the alarm another forty minutes away and tries to sink back towards unconsciousness.

He has an unusually simple, clear dream. He's in his old home, the one he'd lived in with his family in C. They aren't there, but he knows they'll be coming home later that day. There's the sound of thunder and rain and the lighting is the dim blue-grey of indoors during a heavily clouded afternoon storm. Kip walks the familiar halls and rooms, aware that he hasn't been in them in a while. He lies down on the big couch with the soft, thick cushions that support his body even as he sinks into them and listens to the rain drumming on the roof.

His view of the ceiling changes into that of his own room, and the couch becomes his bed. It's grown dimmer to the point it's difficult to see, especially without his glasses, but he looks around to see what his room is like and it looks like an amalgam of all the years he occupied the space. The books on the shelf include high school math textbooks and childhood favorite picture books. His old laptop is sitting in the corner of his desk. He has posters on the wall as well as taped up crayon drawings. There's the library books on local history and social programs and activist movements that he tried his best to make himself read from cover to cover and the 30-point font books on outer space and animals and the ocean from when his ever-changing ambitions included being an astronaut, a veterinarian, a deep-sea explorer.

He remembers that once for a handful of months he wanted to be a firefighter. Some vague reevaluation of his family's absence stirs in the back of his mind, and he thinks they might not make it back home today. He stares up at the glow-in-the-dark stars dappling his ceiling.

"Here you go." Pascal's voice is warm and gentle.

"Pasc?" His own voice is a little hoarse. He looks around to see Pascal sitting at the end of his bed, holding out a mug with a few wisps of steam flowing from the mouth. He has that expression he gets when he looks at Kip in moments of soft, achingly genuine affection, the one Kip mentally refers to simply as his Sweet Look.

"This is yours, love."

Kip sits up and takes the drink; warmth radiates through his fingers up his arms and the subtle smell of chocolate hits his nose.

"Thank you."

He takes a sip, and when he looks down at the cup again he sees he's finished it, so he sets it aside and lies back in the bed again. Pascal is watching him attentively, waiting for his permission.

"Come here," Kip murmurs. He slides to one side to make room and Pascal lies down next to him and snuggles closer. Kip brings his legs in to touch Pascal's and lets Pascal put an arm around his side. Eventually Kip is resting his chin on the top of Pascal's head, slowly stroking his back.

Pascal's exhales wash over Kip's chest, warm and rhythmic. Kip remembers the rain and there's distant thunder for a while.

"Are you feeling better?" Pascal's voice is soft and quiet to the point Kip wouldn't have been woken up if he'd been asleep.

"Uh-huh."

"We've always managed, haven't we."

"Yeah. We have."

"What's made you cry?"

Kip blinks and feels water streaming down his face to the pillow.

"Oh—"

He hears the sound of his alarm behind the thunder, and then he's opening his eyes to see the corkboard hanging on his wall.

—

He misses the imagined feeling of sharing a bed with Pascal. He brings up the memories of it, of Pascal cuddling up behind him and wrapping an arm around his chest to pull him back until their relaxed bodies were nestled snugly together. He indulges in the ghost of the feeling for a while.

He thinks about the times when he was the little spoon and the touches they traded were lingering and affectionate as they drifted off together, and then when they were awake again, Kip would gently grind back against Pascal and slowly get him hard until Pascal slipped the end of his arm down the front of Kip's pants to wrap smoothly around his cock and would hump his ass until they both climaxed. They'd lie there for a good while longer, laughing quietly between soft, lazy kisses, neither minding the mess in his pants or the sweat or disheveled sheets.

Kip feels no hint of embarrassment about his total lack of hesitation before reaching down to encourage the beginnings of his erection, palming himself with gentle, steady motion. He doesn't take long. His temperature rises enough for him to kick down the blankets before he cums on his front. It's nice, but it doesn't exactly sate his starvation for touch and kissing and sex—maybe even sharpens it. Kip traces little circles on the outside of his thigh with his fingertips and strokes his thumb across his lips with lingering tenderness to prompt his physical memories of brushing kisses.

He lies there for a while. He thinks of a few times when Pascal came across his chest or face and Kip let it dry there so they both knew it was still on him. Kip would give Pascal occasional playful kisses and sly touches and teasing whispers throughout the day as well, and after hours of building up that tension between them Kip would lie Pascal on their bed and fuck him again. He'd try to stay focused on Pascal as completely as possible, be as selfless as he could manage. When Kip wanted to lead things or give attention without receiving it, Pascal would deferentially accept that.

But Kip knew Pascal always wanted to be attentive and could even feel a bit guilty if he wasn't actively trying to please Kip, even if Kip expressly said he didn't want Pascal to reciprocate. So Kip would do his best to overwhelm Pascal's senses enough that there was no room in his conscious thoughts for any such concerns. He would boldly and eagerly rub up and feel up all over Pascal's body and start a firm, deliberate grind between them while sucking a hickey below Pascal's jaw. He would let Pascal feel his body too and freely give the responsive moans and sighs that he knew turned Pascal on better than anything. He’d take Pascal's dick in his mouth to make sure he was as hard as possible. He fingered Pascal until he groaned and looped his arms around his own knees to pull them back against his chest. Kip obliged and slowly pushed into him, ensuring Pascal was settled into the position before sliding gently back and forth inside him, setting an easy rhythm.

He'd take the time to stare at Pascal laid out in front of him: his stunningly gorgeous body shining with sweat, his heavy blush, his beautiful cock. And then he'd quickly locate the precise position to fuck Pascal and keep hitting quick, shallow bucks that required him to resist the urge to draw further out, instead relentlessly pushing in against Pascal's prostate. And once Pascal's composure had crumbled into a total mess and he was involuntarily moaning and twitching and rocking his hips, Kip wrapped his arms around one of Pascal's thighs and hugged it tightly for the leverage he needed to push into him even harder and faster. He'd squeeze his eyes shut for a moment and just listen to the rapid beat of their hips and Pascal's voice reverberating from his chest with the occasional hitched breath. And then he'd open his eyes again as he felt Pascal's body curving under a new tension, and he'd take hold of Pascal's dick and watch the expression on his face as he got caught up in the verge of his finish. Kip shoved his cock exactly where Pascal needed it and strained to give a few more shoves before holding still for the full duration of Pascal's orgasm, feeling his own breathlessness at the sight of Pascal lost in his euphoria, the look on his beautiful face as he experienced nothing but the pleasure Kip had given him.

Only after slowing down to stillness would Kip become fully aware of his own ache, his own sweat and shivering muscles. He'd reach down to brush Pascal's thick hair out of his eyes and leave a few soft, lingering kisses on his lips. He'd pet the leg still in his arms, now holding up the heavy limb himself as Pascal's body loosened and sank against the mattress. Pascal's skin would be warm to the touch and Kip would hope his own hands didn't feel unpleasantly cold, but rather refreshingly cool as Pascal often said they were. Pascal would open his eyes to look directly at Kip. When he lifted Kip up and rolled them over, pinning Kip to the bed with an arm spiraling tight around his dick, Kip returned the favor and surrendered all control to Pascal. He always found incredible reward in that.

He remembers times lying under Pascal, his whole body prickling with his want but being content to savor that sensation and bask in the moment, in the feeling of Pascal's full attention.

"I still remember what it was like to dream of this," Pascal had told him. "I wanted it so much that it hurt sometimes to think of it because I was so sure I could never deserve this, but it was so good to think of you that I couldn't ever help it."

Kip would wonder at the idea he could ever live up to anyone's fantasy, much less BE someone’s fantasy, but knew that Pascal wouldn't be telling him about it if he hadn't. And Pascal's look of adoration as he gazed at Kip's face and his body and touched his legs and stomach with almost halting carefulness told Kip he must be at least as good as Pascal had imagined him to be.

"I could look at you forever," Pascal continued. "But to see you looking back at me..."

He leaned in and Kip met his kiss.

"I'd always want so badly to do this," Pascal murmured against his lips before beginning to plant soft kisses across his face, down to his neck and shoulders and chest, back up to repeat the tenderly deliberate process several times over until Kip was relaxed and breathing deeply as he soaked it in, let it into his bones. The time spent pressing each kiss into his skin lengthened and so did the pauses between them until it was almost half a minute before Kip pulled himself from his near-meditative state by the expectation of the next kiss, opening his eyes to see Pascal's expression aglow with the warmth of his smile.

He remembers how his breaths would grow rougher until their edges became small moans melting out of his voice, and how the sound of that drew tiny answering whimpers from Pascal. He remembers how it felt to have his whole limp body scooped up effortlessly in Pascal's soft, strong arms and be held so close to his wide, warm torso. He loved how fantastic it was to orgasm while swathed in Pascal's embrace, soaked in contented bliss while being kissed with so much love and being bathed in such intimate affection throughout the deep tranquility of his afterglow.

He shifts on his bed. His cum is mostly dried but still feels slightly sticky against his skin. He fixes his gaze on the ceiling. He hates how much he misses Pascal; he knows how horrible and comfortless it was to truly believe he had forced the entirety of their relationship to end forever when, overwhelmed by the fears and anxieties he had about C, he thought they had to choose between separation and Pascal's ability to live his fullest life in safety—to live at all. He'd called the pain of the separation and the awareness of the emptiness where Pascal should've been and his grief for their relationship all nothing more than manifestations of self-absorption. He wants Pascal to be with him now, to know how much Kip wants to be together again. He wants him badly enough that he's willing to brave rejection rather than feel as if he was pushing Pascal away again. He wants him enough that he—

"Pascal," Kip whispers, and he sits up in his bed with a hand to his now-thudding heart.

What he's been aware of without ever truly acknowledging is now a conscious thought. He'd felt ashamed over what he saw as his failure to meet the responsibilities he'd conferred upon himself to justify the decision to separate from Pascal, his failure to let go of Pascal in his heart and even to stop feeling love for him for Pascal's sake. And that shame had made him avoid the understanding of something he's been wanting to tell Pascal for months and months without knowing how to voice it.

The separation didn't just fail to diminish his feelings towards Pascal. Kip's love for him has grown because of it.

—

After a quick shower, Kip fixes another cup of tea and fills up a hot water bottle to rest his feet on and brings them into his room and pulls out a notebook and pen to start arranging his thoughts. Even though the dinner is tomorrow, none of his concerns are about how the meal will go. He doesn't mean to impress Pascal, and there's no question about how he and Molly and Roy will get along—the only part that won't be familiar territory for them all is Pascal leaving for his own home at the end of the evening.

Tomorrow he's going to tell Pascal everything, he's sure of it now, never mind his hangups and trepidation and uncertainty. But he knows something about himself that he should've factored in last time: that when he anticipates being intimidatingly nervous, he does better to have planned out what he could say if things go in a difficult direction. And in this case, there are so many important points he needs to make that writing them down will help prevent losing track of them. Not to mention he still needs to do some work tackling the issue of the knee-jerk reaction he'd had a year ago to the thought of Pascal dating someone who wasn't him, a reaction so strong it had made him physically sick. And he knows others would laugh at him for this kind of thing, but he sometimes tries to sort out overwhelming feelings with web diagrams and bullet points. He's not the worst writer and he knows how to organize his ideas into a neat, condensed, coherent format that anyone can understand. When his thoughts are the complete opposite of that, an attempt and forcing them into words and sentences makes him feel as if he's managed to tame them, even a little.

In the same vein, he has a decent number of letters he's written to his family, some short and simple and some long and intimate and some rushed streams of consciousness and some nothing but expressions of love as raw and earnest as he could find words for. He knows no one would laugh at him for that. But he keeps them folded up and tucked away, unable to read them over again without crying.

He flips through the lined pages until he finds the first blank sheet. He crosses his legs underneath himself and taps the nib of the pen against the top of the page, drawing circles there. It feels like he's pushing his thoughts to get going and they're just stalling or spinning their wheels. He puts the hot water bottle in his lap and takes a drink of the tea and decides to start simpler.

He needs to decide on a good place to talk to Pascal regardless of what is said or what direction the conversation goes in. It should be comfortable for them both. It shouldn't make Pascal feel trapped, it shouldn't even be an unfamiliar location for him in case Pascal wants to go home from there. Simply talking in the apartment complex isn't good enough; he writes it down so he can cross it off. He doesn't want to make it feel like they're on his territory, or have to worry about being overheard, or be somewhere so lacking in intimacy. He doesn't want it to be anything so secluded that Pascal feels obligated to keep Kip company, nor so busy that they won't have any privacy.

He scribbles down ideas for appropriate locations they could find, factoring in as well the assumption that it'll be somewhat late by the time this conversation occurs—the park, the waterside square, the bench just a block over. His pen quickly leads him to a street that's basically positioned on the way back to Berkley and is dotted with shops and restaurants and has plenty of places to sit and walk. Kip hasn't been there much, but Pascal probably has—and even if he isn't familiar with it either, they'll both be on equal footing and in a comfortable environment.

He looks down at the notebook at the enthusiastically-written and underlined street name. It feels like a victory despite that all he's managed to do is come up with a solid suggestion for where they could go to talk. He still finds it heartening that he's done even that.

He turns to a new page, cheeks glowing electric blue as he directs his thoughts to the more significant matters he has to sort through. He clicks the pen rapidly for a moment, chews on his lip, and then pulls the heat of the bottle firmly against his stomach and bends over the notebook with a drawn brow.

About forty minutes later he tosses the notebook at the foot of the bed and flops back to the mattress, relieved to feel freer of the tightness long-settled in his chest than he has in a long time. He's gained no more certainty about how things are going to go tomorrow night, but he's figured out things about his own issues that make him feel vastly less like a selfish, undeserving hypocrite.

He's also glad to find he knew himself as well as he thought, having found success in untangling his thoughts by putting them to paper. There may be lines crossed out with frustrated thoroughness and a page or two spotted with a few frustrated tearstains, but he had more than one moment where he'd arrived at realizations that made him pause and stare at the words he'd written.

He's already had the epiphany that being without Pascal for so long only made his dormant love stronger.

He's realized that he completely trusts Pascal to understand him and judge and treat him fairly. He simply has to be brave enough to be as unguardedly honest and open as he can with Pascal.

Then there was what he struggled with the most but had finally gotten himself to confront: the unexpected breakdown he'd had over the thought of Pascal dating again. He'd always avoided thinking about it after his initial outburst, assuming the reason behind the violence of his emotions was simple enough, and concerned only with how to divert his thoughts from whatever distress might be summoned in the future. But as he'd found out just the other day, it was more complicated than he'd thought—much more. But his fear and shame had started softening as soon as he made the first rough stabs at breaking the matter down and began to see that his emotions had been more complex than he'd allowed himself credit for.

He'd forced himself not to avoid the memory of the pain but to focus in on it enough to analyze it, break it up into something more comprehensible than a hard strike across the face. And he found that what he'd been so disgusted with himself for—that the thought of Pascal being happy was what had upset him so badly—wasn't really what had shaken him up so much. It wasn't even as simple as being upset merely by imagining Pascal with someone else. He'd pushed further than that and realized what it really was; his concept of Pascal with a new boyfriend was just a specific vehicle for a broader implication which was what had really cut him. The implication that Kip had actually, truly been replaced in Pascal's life, that everything Pascal had once felt for Kip was now directed at something else and so the love Pascal had for Kip was gone—so entirely that Pascal had no affection even for his memory.

What had torn him up was the notion that Pascal had stopped loving him. If he had realized that right off, he might have also known sooner that the pain he felt at that was evidence that he still loved Pascal fully and was kidding himself with his efforts to stop doing so simply by making the decision to "move on."

He knows that to get past his fear of causing Pascal the same pain he'd felt about the matter, he has to feel prepared to give Pascal the kind of information that is comforting him now—that his discovery of his love for Wallace has nothing to do with his love for Pascal—hasn't taken from it, hasn't eroded it, hasn't diminished it. The development of his feelings for Wallace haven't drained any of his love for anyone else in his life. And the love he has for the two of them in particular is unique; they're not vying for a single place in his heart. His feelings for them are as different as his relationships with them, yet part of the same love he has. It's the same with everyone he loves. To think of them all at once isn't to put them in competition with each other or dull the strength of his love for any of them—it just makes him feel each love layered over each other into something brilliant.

Whenever he thinks of his love for Pascal and for Wallace simultaneously, the feelings don't conflict. If anything, they're even lovelier to think of together. He wants Pascal to know that none of this has anything to do with being dissatisfied with Pascal or loving him less or feeling as though he has to love Wallace to find forms of fulfillment that Pascal isn't providing. He needs Pascal to know he loves him more than ever, that thinking about Wallace like this only pushed him to new and deeper understanding and appreciation of his feelings about Pascal.

He won't have any way to prove this to Pascal. He'll have to trust Pascal to believe him.

And even after all that, he had one more realization—one that also felt like something he'd known but hadn't yet put to words even in his own head. It was the simple understanding that even if he could now feel that being with Pascal would be safe for both of them, he knew that at some point along the line, however soon or distant, every relationship faced some form of an end, a separation. Even if it wasn't certain to be permanent, the pain as if it was certainly permanent would still be felt. And he's willing to take that on with Pascal. It doesn't even feel like a choice, his want for life with Pascal and for their strengthened connection and their mutual support and love is all so powerful that it overwhelms everything. He loves Pascal so much he'll take on the loss of him; he feels like he couldn't possibly choose not to.

And he'll let Pascal take on his loss, too.

—

Kip has a sort of bright energy inside him. He's still nervous and a little scared but he knows he can do this as much as he knows he loves Pascal. The relief of being rid of this gnawing anxious, shameful guilt outweighs the remaining trepidation. He can look Pascal in the face without fearing he must not think Pascal deserves the same complexity and individuality Kip does, fearing that he has a possessive, selfish, controlling love that believes Pascal can only prove his love for Kip by how little he loves everyone else in the face of his boyfriend. Now that Kip's dug out what had been the real anxiety at the core of his panic over Pascal's theoretical new boyfriend, such worries seem a little ridiculous as it's now obvious how much those notions repulse him and how foreign it seems from Kip's real feelings for Pascal and his understanding of how he loved him and felt loved in return.

Besides, a good part of the credit goes to Pascal—he's never made Kip feel insecure no matter how many people Kip was sharing Pascal's attention with. Pascal was so earnest with him that Kip felt no less loved by Pascal across a room of twenty other people than when alone in bed, kissing each other to sleep.

He loves Pascal so much for that.

—

The pleasantness of his mood is apparently lasting. He just rests with the notebook for a while, occasionally flipping it open to thumb through the pages and look with admiration at the boldly written and energetically circled sentences that signal an instance of discovery or deepened understanding. It's not often he surprises himself in a positive way. And it seems like it'll stay with him the rest of the day.

He knows he's going to spend a little time tomorrow self-consciously preening again, partly as a coping mechanism to keep his nervousness from focusing in on concerns much more stressful than having remnants of bedhead or smelling too much—or too little—like sweat. But that doesn't stop him from spending a while on several largely superficial grooming habits: he scrubs under all his nails and files them to perfect smoothness, he takes a pair of scissors and grimaces at the bathroom mirror while trimming the hair behind the backs of his ears so it doesn't lie out of place, he rubs lotion into his elbows and hands and knees entirely for his own benefit, he methodically shaves his face, and he rubs balm into his lips. And then he absolutely lounges around, not bothering to work on or even research a new blog post or clean or do chores or worry about tomorrow or anything else. He's genuinely relishing it and doesn't feel at all guilty about that. All he does is water his plants, spend a silent minute or two with the photograph, and wash his teacup and saucer before he settles on the couch in a luxurious recline with a blanket draped over himself and a light book.

He's there for over an hour, at times simply letting the book rest in his lap while he closes his eyes or stares at the ceiling and lets his thoughts drift to the nice topics it seems to be attracted to. During one such interlude he nestles further underneath the blanket and relaxes his whole body with several sighs. He's so calm and comfortable that it takes an unusually short time to recover from the surprise of being awakened by Molly's touch on his shoulder.

He takes a minute to collect his wits, during which he's glad to find that slipping into an accidental nap didn't reset his mood to something worse or rouse his anxiety again. He picks the book up from where it had fallen from his legs to the floor.

"How was things? And where's Roy?" he asks when Molly reappears.

She turns back towards him after pulling a bottle of juice from the fridge.

"Pretty nice, and he's on his way back to the apartment now. Don't worry." She adds the last sentence before his anxieties even get a chance to nibble at the back of his mind, and he can't help but smile at how well he and Molly know each other.

"How've you been?" She returns the question as she pours her drink.

"Alright. I feel...surprisingly okay about tomorrow."

"Yeah, you do seem to be in a pretty good mood about it." She beams him a smile and he affirms her observation with a small smile of his own.

"I'm excited." He can hear the restraint in her voice; she's trying to keep the tone mostly matter-of-fact for his sake.

"Me too."

They share the quiet for a minute or two before Kip hears Roy's laughter in the hall outside, and he's momentarily bemused before the door opens and Roy enters the apartment with a grin, followed by the more subdued presence of Wallace.

Kip sits further upright on the couch and can't help staring for a second or two before pulling himself together. For a moment he wishes Wallace didn't keep surprising him, and then he reminds himself that there's never been a point in their relationship that Wallace hasn't. He watches Roy and Molly greet each other and embrace, and then they both hug Wallace, and then—

"Hi, Roy," he manages as his ribcage is compressed in a tight hug, Roy apparently not minding having to stoop all the way down to the couch to do so. "Hi, Wallace," he adds once he can draw another breath.

"Hello." Wallace, similarly rumpled from the hug he'd received, sends Kip a smile.

Roy and Wallace explain how they ran into each other and Wallace explains how he and Kip ran into each other, which Kip confirms.

"I thought Wallace might like to hang out a little after working all day, holed up in the café." Roy laughs at himself.

"If you're not sick of his face," Molly says. Kip sees the playful smile shot his way as she jerks her head towards him, and when Wallace's gaze is led to him by her gesture, Kip sees the human's soft smile too.

"I'm not," Wallace answers as he and Kip hold each other's eyes for maybe a whole second, which is a lot too long for Kip when he's being complimented like that by someone he has a crush on. Kip tries to make his laugh sound like he interpreted the statement as the same kind of affectionate teasing he's getting from Molly, then quickly pretends his focus is consumed with adjusting the slip of paper he's using as a bookmark and making sure the edges of his folded blanket are exactly aligned.

"Yeah, that handsome face never gets old," Roy contributes, which does nothing to help Kip's efforts not to look like he's desperately restraining his blush. "Want to sit down?"

Kip busies himself a little longer with random things within arm's reach as Roy settles on the couch beside him and Molly pulls over the chairs from the table for Wallace and herself so their group can be in something of a circle. By the time the other two settle, Kip's mostly wrangled in his nervousness.

They chat easily, the conversational flow easily sustained by their familiarity and Roy's loquaciousness. Their shared tone is pleasant and light and even a little silly, which is why Kip is caught off guard when it all suddenly slows way down by Molly asking if Wallace feels less lonely in District C.

Kip quickly glances between them, suddenly reminded of the surprise visit he'd paid Wallace and the extensive conversation they'd had, touching on such personal topics as the one addressed now.

"I do feel a bit more at home," Wallace says. "At least, a lot more than when I first moved here. And even if I'm not fully settled in still—" He rubs the back of his head. "I feel way more familiar with and...positive about everything here. I used to be so much more intimidated about things. I had no idea how unprepared I was for an environment different from A. Things were so different there, socially. And in a lot of other ways," he adds.

Nobody has anything to say to that.

"I can never regret being sent out here," Wallace continues, looking around at each of them. "Not the way everything's turned out. And I really do like it a lot better here. I used to miss A a lot more and wish I hadn't been transferred, but at some point during everything that happened I stopped thinking about wanting to go back. This actually does feel like my new home."

He smiles and Kip looks at his lap, half his thoughts occupied with remembering how this topic had led directly to him telling Wallace about his depression, the other half feeling glad for Wallace and a little flattered on behalf of their home district.

"That's so great, Wallace!" bursts Roy. "I'm so happy you're comfortable here." His genuine enthusiasm and smile are audible.

"Yeah, Wallace, everybody loves having you around," Molly says. "You totally belong here."

"Thanks, guys." Wallace smiles and looks down with reddening cheeks. And then he glances up and catches Kip's stare.

Kip is startled, but only for an instant. He lets all the softness and fondness in his heart bleed into a smile to silently communicate his agreement with his friends' sentiments. The pink stain of Wallace's face intensifies and Kip feels his own smile grow even a touch warmer at the sight.

The whole exchange can't be longer than three seconds but for once, Kip waits for Wallace to be the one to pull away from the moment. Wallace looks back up at Roy, and Kip looks down at the floor, now smiling only to himself.

The conversation picks up again and it's about half an hour before Roy offers to make some food and invites Wallace to stay for it. Kip watches with some amusement as the usual exchange unfolds: Molly immediately seconds Roy's invitation, Wallace expresses uncertainty, there's a chorus of entreaties, Wallace good-naturedly caves, and Molly and Roy cheer and hop up to get started on the meal before he can change his mind.

They all end up in the kitchen, Molly sitting at the little table, Kip helping Roy, and Wallace leaning against the counter. Kip is mainly focused on the cooking and Molly and Wallace are having a cheerful conversation which Roy occasionally chimes in on. Kip is fairly tuned out of the pleasant flow of voices as he grows somewhat engrossed in making a sauce, but he's suddenly wrenched out of whisking and fully into the discussion he hasn't been registering for the past few minutes.

"—Pascal over tomorrow evening, but he hasn't told us what he's going to make yet. But it has to be something special since it'll be the first time we've had Pascal over here."

"Oh, yeah?" Wallace says.

"Uh-huh, you know, the guy with the tea shop, tall, huge, gorgeous—"

"I know, I remember," Wallace interrupts Molly's description with a laugh while Kip blushes at it.

"The three of us used to live with him, after—we moved out of C." Kip notices her microscopic pause and realizes just as quickly that she had redirected her sentence away from any mention of the fire.

"Right, Kip told me that a while ago," Wallace says. "In that first week we'd all met, actually."

"Really?"

Kip sees both Molly and Roy turn to look at him and he realizes he must look like a deer in the headlights.

"Yeah, the first time Kip went with me for my work we ran into... Well, I took Kip to Pascal's shop. That was before I'd known that—they knew each other."

Kip notices Wallace's tiny hesitation as well. He has to guess that Wallace was avoiding describing his and Pascal's relationship in more intimate terms, but he doesn't know exactly why. He figures if it was him, he might not want to risk mislabeling other people's history with specifics like "exes" or "dated" or "boyfriends," but Wallace has never been as carefully tactful—and in fact has a bad habit of forging ahead on faulty assumptions when trying to be friendly.

"It's true," Roy says. "Tomorrow's gonna be the first time all four of us have been together since we moved back. I've been so excited ever since we made the plans..."

Kip takes hold of Roy's wrist closest to him and squeezes gently, and when Roy turns to look at him Kip gives him a soft smile, knowing how much this means to him and Molly and how it's all been for his own sake that it's taken so much time for them all to be reunited like this. How it's only out of their respect for his own unilateral decisions that Pascal was separated from their group in the first place.

"I might be the professional baker here, but I don't think I've ever known anyone who can cook as well as Kip can when he's really trying," Molly continues.

"Aw."

Kip smiles at her too and returns to the mixing bowl, somewhat hoping the topic moves away from Pascal. The idea of talking with Wallace about Pascal isn't necessarily bad, but he's already stressed about tomorrow and to do so would only exacerbate his tension.

When they're all holding a bowl of the meal Kip and Roy put together, Kip has to imagine the scene tomorrow when he makes more room at the table and serves multiple dishes and Pascal is with them for the first time. It might also be the first time they've had dinner with a guest two evenings in a row—and with Kip usually working closing shifts, it's sometimes easy for even the three of them to go awhile without having a meal together more than once every few days.

He remains mostly quiet, as he was when Wallace arrived, as he was when they all moved into the kitchen, as he usually is without the presence of those who tend to inspire his more outgoing side—Kate, Eno, and Pascal, mainly.

And, on rare occasion, Ben. He feels a twist at that and quickly hardens it, choosing to set it aside and keep it there until thinking about it can do something besides tighten his nerves and temper. He doesn't want to spoil the best mood he's had in a while or his ability to fully appreciate the nice time they're all having right now.

It happens to have the effect of encouraging him to speak up more often in the interest of not only bolstering that appreciation of the present moment but also preventing himself from being able to brood over his issues with Ben. But he soon finds that his efforts to talk a bit more aren't taking an effort at all, and he's laughing with the others instead of being caught up in any self-consciousness, self-doubt, or self-loathing.

They talk for about another hour until Roy's phone beeps with a reminder that he meant to run a load or two of laundry, and Wallace says he'll head back to his own apartment and thanks them for the dinner, and Molly offers to help Roy carry the clothes down and points out that Wallace can make the trip to the first floor alongside them.

When Roy and Molly go down the hallway to their rooms to gather up everything they need, Kip turns and enters the kitchen and stacks the bowls by the sink, then jumps to hear Wallace's "Hey" so close behind him.

"Wallace," he says automatically, turning to face him.

"Good, uh, good luck with tomorrow," Wallace says, smiling and rubbing the back of his head again.

"Thank you." Kip laughs nervously and feels his face warm up.

Wallace steps forward into his space and Kip is immobilized as Wallace surrounds him in a hug. It's immediately different from the one at the café, less a casual hello-goodbye gesture and more intimate, deliberate. It's definitely much more physical—Wallace tucks his nose behind Kip's ear and his hands slide in across the small of Kip's back until Wallace's arms are looped around him there, gently pulling their stomachs together. Kip curves his spine towards Wallace to make the embrace fit more naturally, and realizes he's being held, and realizes that—right, he's holding his breath. His thoughts are scrambling so impulse is all he has to go on, which leads him to bring his hands up to Wallace's shoulderblades to return the embrace. Wallace's breaths are warm and gently blow against strands of his hair and when Kip finally draws in a breath of his own it pushes his stomach against Wallace's and then he thinks that if their chests were together too Wallace would surely be able to feel the thump of his heartbeat. Wallace draws a slow, deep inhale, tightening the hug slightly as he does, and then loosens it, but doesn't let go as Kip expects him to.

Instead, he puts his hands feather-light on Kip's waist, moves his face to the side of Kip's, and presses a kiss to his cheek. It's gone as quickly as it came, barely more lingering than a rushed peck, but it stops Kip's breath again. He brings his hands back to his sides and is so surprised that he still hasn't managed to enter his fake-composure autopilot mode before Wallace is looking at him and all he can do is stare back and know he must be blushing ferociously—the spot where Wallace kissed him practically burns.

Wallace smiles at him so fondly that for a seizing instant Kip thinks Wallace is going to lean in and kiss his lips. Before he can decide how he would react to that, Wallace touches him on the side of his forearm and laughs softly.

"You really do have such a nice face," he murmurs, and Kip opens his mouth to give a reply he doesn't have, and then Molly laughs and Kip's heart suffers another lurch, this time from fear as he snaps his gaze over to see if she's seen them staring at each other while standing much too close and with what must be a thousand-watt blush spread across his face and Wallace is blushing too and his hand is still on Kip's shoulder after all, except he's just removed it and is moving and pivoting away. Kip is measurelessly relieved that neither Molly nor Roy have appeared yet to have caught that moment but he hears them walking back over and he turns back towards the kitchen sink and puts both hands on the counter, trying for deep breaths.

"Ready?" Roy asks.

"Yep," Wallace answers, and any strain in his casual delivery is so slight that Kip can't be sure he isn't imagining it.

"I'll get the door," Molly says. Kip hears her turn the knob and the soft drag of the door's base sweeping across the carpet. "Be back in a few minutes, Kip!"

"Okay," he says. He looks over his shoulder after a second and watches Wallace and Roy following her out, barely catching a glimpse of Wallace glancing back at him as well before the human passes out of sight and the door clicks closed behind them.

Kip walks calmly back to the couch and drops onto it, leaning his head against the back cushion and staring up at nothing, distractedly touching his lips.

"Oh god," he whispers.

—

Kip stays in the kitchen washing a few dishes, waiting for Roy and Molly's return to help him shake off the feeling his head is spinning.

When they do, they immediately draw Kip back into conversation as though they can sense he needs it. And soon enough the topic turns to the next dinner.

"How do you feel? Do you feel ready?" Roy asks as he searches Kip's expression for clues to the answer.

Kip nods.

"I'm—I'm pretty nervous but it's definitely good that this is happening. And yeah, I'm a little excited."

"It'll be fine," Roy says emphatically, taking hold of Kip's shoulders. "Pascal is such a nice person, you know how he doesn't mind even if things go wrong. Plus, we'll be here!"

Kip returns the comforting smile.

"Thank you. Both of you," he adds over Roy's shoulder to Molly. "I know you this matters just as much to you guys but it still means a lot that you're gonna be here."

Roy sweeps him smoothly into a hug and Kip laughs quietly.

At the end of another hour, the laundry has been moved to the dryer and then brought back to the apartment, and Roy and Molly have started preparing for bed, both of them getting up early while Kip has the day off. He sets in to washing the rest of the dishes and by the time he's done, both the others have bade him goodnight and offered encouragements about the next day.

His excitement about Pascal's visit is stronger than his apprehension about his planned do-over of their talk, and the thrill of what just occurred with Wallace is drowning out most other potential distractions.

It feels amazing.

He knows there's a chance that by this time tomorrow things will seem awful and he'll be as proportionally crushed as he is exhilarated now. So he's going to enjoy this feeling as it's happening.

—

Kip had already been thinking about it before he ran into Wallace at the café, before Wallace showed up at the apartment, and before Wallace held him and kissed his face and then told him he was attractive, but all of that only provides even more encouragement for his plans to indulge himself again by imagining what Wallace might be like as his lover.

It's not as if his curiosity has only now been truly piqued, but he's still new to openly embracing the concept. And new to enjoying it like this, sprawled out naked on his bed and getting a little turned on simply by resting a hand on his own chest.

How could he not let himself fantasize about it, when he wants to take off as many edges as possible for tomorrow, when he'd been wanting to think about this even before Wallace had shown him how it felt to have their bodies curved so closely with their arms around each other and with Wallace's kiss on his cheek.

Kip's mind had been racing too fast and the kiss had been too brief to give him a detailed memory of what Wallace's lips felt like, but he has a fairly solid idea that although the surface was a little rough as though slightly chapped, they were soft. His eyes slide shut as he imagines them against his own.

He does wonder what Wallace is like in bed, and how they'd be in bed, together. He knows he likes to think of pushing Wallace onto his back, pinning him to the bed by putting his hands on Wallace's shoulders as he leans over him, watching every twitch of his expression as he fucks him into the mattress. He cups himself at the thought and starts slowly rolling his hips.

But he wonders if Wallace would want to try being the one driving things, and rolls over to imagine Wallace grinding on his ass, holding him in place, maybe threading his fingers into his hair and pulling his head back so he can bite Kip's neck as he fucks him. He wonders if Wallace would try being even a little forceful or rough with him, if either of them would enjoy that at all. He wonders if they would ever compete for dominance, or if Wallace would always let him control things at the first sign of even playful conflict.

He knows he likes to bottom slightly more often than not. On occasion he has fantasies of being fucked by a large group, being in the center of things with a dick against his own and another in his mouth, another in his ass, one in each hand, held upright while being thoroughly fucked and feeling everyone else cum one at a time until he has to jerk himself off until someone else does it for him, hands and mouths all over him while he’s worked up to orgasm. He doubts if that would even make the list of situations he'd like to try in reality, but sometimes in the security and control of his own thoughts it turns him on.

But he'd definitely like getting fucked by Wallace and Pascal at the same time. He thinks of being between them, whether all of them are lying on their sides or he's on his hands and knees or someone fucks him in the ass while the other sucks him off or he's rimmed while giving a blowjob or he's the one getting his dick sucked while the other gropes and massages every inch of his body and kisses him deeply. He thinks about being cushioned on either side by a warm, naked body, someone pressed up against both his back and front, feeling their growing erections press against him, hot and hard.

Like most of his fantasies, he doesn't exactly expect any of that to become reality. But he can embellish it with the knowledge of how it feels to have sex with Pascal, and his fledgling familiarity with Wallace's body, and the simple ability to picture their faces, and that all makes it that much more consuming. But regardless of whether it could happen in the first place, he doesn't know if he could be as unguarded and fully vulnerable in front of Wallace as he is around Pascal, if he wouldn't feel the need to maintain a slight façade and restraint with the human rather than be fully exposed and completely, defenselessly trusting. And he doesn't know how Wallace would take to being in bed with Pascal, if he would enjoy the embrace of Pascal's arms or would find it repulsive.

He shakes off the derailment of the scene—Wallace recoiling or cringing or refusing to be touched by a monster or—

Wallace isn't like that. His passing moments of discomfort around monsters, of wide-eyed staring or flinching or trembling hands, though recorded vividly in Kip's memory, are from the earliest weeks of Wallace's arrival. Never mind the genuine fear that Kip had sometimes sparked in Wallace when the temperature dropped and he bared his fangs as each syllable he hurled at Wallace rang with cold fury. It wasn't surprising; monsters largely had the involuntary ability to invoke fear, and Kip had a provokable temper. Never mind the extra cushion of space between them that Wallace seemed unable to breach afterwards, or how he watched Kip's movements like his life depended on it, and Kip had hated and deeply resented that he couldn't always just be angry, as humans could, without being seen as the human idea of a deadly, vicious, horrible monster.

The mood really isn't being helped by this mental detour. Kip bites his lip to refocus his attention and reminds himself that he's dealing with their present situation, not the past, and he knows Wallace isn't repulsed by him. He's just gotten triplicate evidence suggesting the contrary, after all.

He heaves a long sigh and imagines if their first time together might be careful and deliberate and sweet. If Wallace would be both eager and a little nervous to see Kip's body and would welcome the feeling of Kip's hands on his. If they'd kiss for a long time, if Wallace's tongue would touch his fangs, if they'd put their mouths on each other's bodies. If Wallace would want to cuddle him. If he could abandon self-consciousness enough to be noisy with Wallace, if Wallace made sounds of his own, what they might be like. He imagines they might be rough, small moans, a little urgent yet subdued in volume, as though he didn't entirely intend for them to be heard but couldn't help it. He wonders if he could coax Wallace into being louder.

He wonders if he could be gentle and sweet enough to relax away Wallace's nervousness if needbe. He imagines holding Wallace flush against himself, rubbing his back, pressing his mouth to the base of Wallace neck and murmuring comforting words to him—

He's imagining them having just climbed onto a bed. Wallace is leaning back against the pillows and Kip lies beside him, partially leaning against him, hooking a leg in between Wallace's. He has a hand resting on Wallace's hip, pressing gently, with his thumb underneath Wallace's shirt, rubbing back and forth over his bare skin. Kip is planting light kisses across Wallace's cheek and chin and pulls back to look at him. How it would feel to hold each other's gaze, to be so close he could lean in and encourage the light blush across Wallace's nose by kissing it. To lie down overtop him, letting his own weight push their bodies together, and feel Wallace rest an arm across his back.

Wallace's hand sliding up into his shirt, or down his pants, or across his naked body, his hands, his palms, his—

Kip sighs and tangles the bedsheet in his fists. The stifling tension from the accidental detour of his thoughts is now mostly faded, the last remnants of it melting away as Kip imagines Wallace's fingertips ghosting across his skin. Swirling around his back, shoulders, chest. He rubs the tip of his erection and rolls his head back to expose his throat to the imagined Wallace, who has one hand firmly cupping his ass while the other scratches lightly between Kip's shoulderblades. The idea of such gentleness is turning Kip on a lot more than he thought it would.

He wonders if Wallace is one to use pet names, and how he might refer to Kip if he did. He almost laughs at the thought of Wallace calling him sweetheart or honey or babe—until suddenly he's imagining it being whispered into his ear as Wallace hugs him to his chest and pets his cheek with his thumb and murmurs reassurance and affection.

Kip exhales gradually; his heart is certainly beating a little harder. He strokes himself slowly, now thinking of lying on his back with Wallace lying on top of him, painting his throat with kisses while Kip slides and winds his fingers through Wallace's hair. He thinks of Wallace's mouth latching onto the side of his neck, leisurely sucking at him, teeth and tongue working against his skin. He sighs and starts rocking into his hand.

Being underneath Wallace must feel so different from being under Pascal. He's so much smaller, leaner, slighter—Kip wonders if he could actually lift Wallace off the ground if he got a good stance and really tried. Unless Wallace possesses some incredible wiry strength that's heretofore been entirely hidden, Kip doubts Wallace would have much more success lifting him up either, even though he's a little shorter. It’s pretty incredible that Pascal was so huge and strong that he could casually scoop Kip up off his feet and hold his entire body in his arms and even carry him around. He wouldn't particularly want Wallace to try replicating that. But he thinks about how he could maybe lift Wallace up onto a countertop or table. Surely Wallace could manage the same in turn.

If they were simply standing up, he could reach up and pull Wallace's head down onto his shoulder and thread their fingers together. He could bring Wallace to the bed and start things out slow and see what got Wallace worked up and tease him with that and finally let Wallace fuck him as hard as he wants—since, despite giving himself fairly regular orgasms, Kip's been suffering his own solid year of sexual frustration, and he really, really wants to be fucked hard and hot and desperate. He could push Wallace up against the wall and grind on him relentlessly until they both came in their pants as though it was a bathroom tryst. There are so many unknowns and so many things he wants all at once that his thoughts are jumping all over from one image and scenario to the next.

Back to the fingertips trailing over his body. Lingering at his chest. Wallace's mouth on his, chapped lips coaxing Kip's further open until Wallace flicks his tongue inside and Kip gasps and tightens his hold on Wallace's hips.

Then Kip is on his back, slowly stroking himself, exactly as he is now, but Wallace is sitting between his legs, watching. He tries to imagine Wallace saying anything but only wonders what his words would be if the scenario was real. And where on his body Wallace would touch first. He thinks of how he wants to touch Wallace—he wants to curl his hands around the human's wrists and slide them up his arms and rest his head against his thigh and kiss the very front of his throat and run his palms over his back and wrap his body around Wallace's and spread his fingers as they slip down to cup his ass. He wants to start grinding them together and he wants to turn Wallace's face so he's looking right at Kip and he wants to rub against him while holding eye contact, bodies warm and close and so much soft skin against his, he wants to see Wallace starting to fall apart, twitching and whimpering and clutching tighter at Kip while their thrusts get stronger and faster and it all becomes messily desperate but Kip keeps everything just steady enough to be able to lean in and catch every little sound Wallace makes during orgasm.

He accidentally lets out a fraction of a whine and bites down on his lip; he can tell he's getting close and just wants to cum—his mind is all over the place, and interrupting himself every time he jumps from one image to another makes it difficult to concentrate on reaching his climax. He wants so much more from Wallace than can possibly fit into one imagined encounter but he focuses in on a single scenario anyways.

Kip takes a few deep breaths, the roll of his hips sharpening into a steady, rapid rock. He's fucking his hand—Wallace's hand. Wallace is planting kisses across his shoulders that are so gentle he must consider Kip someone worth his love and care. Kip cradles Wallace's head against himself. Their chests are brushing together, their cocks are rubbing together, their fingers entwine.

Now he can feel his approaching orgasm—he thinks of Wallace's arms around his body and works his erection, teasing the base and head, rapidly bucking into his hand.

"Wallace," he breathes. It's so easy to whisper, as though that's the only way his name should be said. Completely the opposite of Kip's name, which is just a little interruption of an exhale with another interruption right on its heels. Wallace's name is so soft, can be lengthened as much as one wants, drawn out into a tender sigh. "Wallace—"

He pushes himself just a little bit more and cums within ten seconds.

Among his first coherent thoughts is wondering if Wallace would want to watch that happen.

He wants to make Wallace orgasm and see it unfold in front of him. He'd give Wallace a few seconds and then cuddle up to him, kissing his face and stroking his hair.

Kip runs his clean hand through his own hair, then gets up to wipe off his torso, slip into his pajamas, and wash his face and hands before setting his alarm and lying down for sleep.

He decides that, however things turn out, he needs to be fucked by somebody soon.

—

Kip's nightmare is a surprising throwback, one of the simplest, but one that he used to have years and years ago, after his nightmares had morphed from breathstealing replays of the fire but long before the beginning of the nightmares leading up to and after the move back to C—ones where he wasn't losing his family, but rather already knew they were gone while he repeatedly failed to bring them back.

It interrupted a dream that had been banal and meaningless but not unpleasant, until suddenly he passed through a doorway into a space that was so dark he could detect no walls or ceiling and only knew there was a floor by feeling it under his feet. When he turned around to see what had happened to the light that should've been pouring in from the doorway, he saw that it had vanished into more of the same abyssal space.

That was when he recognized what was happening and felt his heart plunge into frigid terror. He was alone and no one could help and nobody even knew he was gone and he was going to die there if he couldn't find a way out. His footsteps sounded dull, almost muted, as if the space was either too small or too vast for echoes. The air felt close and thick and he had to draw heavy breaths to get enough oxygen.

It took all of his nerve to start taking the first few timid steps forward, his dread so powerful he was shivering from his fingers up to his shoulders. Eventually he achieved a cautious but steady pace, searching for any variation in the featureless darkness that seemed to extend endlessly in every direction. He could tell that in the back of his mind he knew how this was going to turn out, and that knowledge felt intensely important, but as hard as he tried he couldn't remember what it actually was.

Something horrible was going to happen, he knew that much. Something that would make him feel as scared and endangered and helpless and exposed as he ever had. He had to escape before that happened. Or else he was in some form of hell where he was going to he forced through that no matter what he did—where something wanted it to happen to him, which made his heart pound even louder in his throat and slowed his footsteps further.

Just when he was considering sitting down where he was and waiting for something to happen, he saw something he'd all but given up on. His eyes must have adjusted to what he'd thought was pitch blackness because now he could see an even darker shape a little ways ahead of him. He thought he could make out the silhouette of a head and he squinted until he was fairly certain it was a figure sitting down, huddled in on itself. And then just a little further away he saw another figure, this one sitting more upright.

For a moment he thought they must be like him, people who'd gotten lost and wandered until they elected to just stay put and wait. And then the thought occurred to him that maybe it was his family, and they were the ones who were trapped and in danger and he was supposed to rescue them.

"Hey," he said, before he could help himself. His voice was small, barely a murmur, yet it seemed to be the loudest sound that had ever existed in the space.

And in the precise instant he had spoken, he knew he had all but sentenced himself to death. He knew they weren't his family, they weren't like him, they weren't lost. They were waiting. And he had stumbled so close to them and just announced his presence and now they knew he was there, and they were going to get him, and they wanted to kill him and they wanted him to feel as much fear and pain as he could before they did.

Kip was immobilized with terror. He stared at the still-unmoving shapes, knowing he had to run and he had nowhere to go. But the moment he made a move they were going to start chasing him. But if he stayed still they would eventually stir and advance on him anyhow. But if he ran he would have to turn his back on them and he would feel pure fear, even worse than the painful grip of horror that was filling him with ice that very moment. He was too afraid of that fear to move, to doom himself to increasing panic as he hurled himself away from the figures until suddenly hard, cold hands got him and yanked him back and he thrashed and screamed and then somehow he's already thrashing and screaming and suddenly his eyes open and he's awake.

His heart is beating so hard he can feel it in his chest and he still has the fear, lying in bed staring up at his darkened ceiling, still struck motionless by the crushing grip of panic. His brain finally processes the observation that he's lying in bed and he knows he's awake but he still has this childish terror that tells him one of those things might be in his room, and if he moves his head to look he'll not only have to acknowledge that, but also risk letting it know he's awake.

He's already ridiculously afraid when he has the additional idea that it might be right next to his bed, only a foot or two away from him, waiting for him to move, waiting for him to turn and see it right in front of his eyes. That scares him horribly and he has to concentrate hard on staring up at one exact spot on the wall and convincing his sleep-confused thoughts that he was only dreaming, he's only had a nightmare, now that he's awake it's over, of course there's nothing in his room, of course there's nothing that would have the sole motivation to Get Him, to scare him.

It still takes an embarrassingly long amount of time for him to work up the courage to reach out and find the tail of his string of fairy lights and carefully work the plug into the outlet. Their glow seems incredibly warm and bright and immediately lifts the dread upon him—though he still retains a tiny amount of trepidation when he finally glances out at the rest of the room to confirm he's safe.

It takes a while for him to breathe out the tension left from the nightmare and from replaying it in his mind. He remembers how he used to have it semi-regularly, how he'd be saved by Pascal, hearing his own name start to seep into the dream at the height of his fear when he was running as hard as he could but it wasn't fast at all and his voice was a hoarse whisper and he couldn't open his eyes and they had him in their stabbing grip and there were teeth at his back and he could barely struggle against it.

"Pascal—" His voice would come out a faint wheeze as he curled in, trying to stop one of the things from clawing at his stomach. Pascal's voice would seem so close, as though he was right next to Kip, and Kip would try desperately to answer, voice weakening even further as he lost even the strength to defend himself. But he'd then realize that he wasn't being attacked anymore, and he wasn't in the dream anymore, he wasn't anywhere—until he got some vague, indirect understanding that he wasn't awake and would finally be pulled into consciousness. Whereupon Pascal would be kneeling beside him and saying his name and would wipe sweat and tears off his face with one soft arm and hold tightly to the whole length of Kip's arm with the other.

He doesn't like being alone now, still unavoidably on edge. He's just nervous. It's simply a matter of fact that it's one of his most high-stress nightmares, the kind that would wake up those around him before it woke him up, that often made him struggle and cry out in his sleep even more noticeably than other bad dreams. The fear is so strong that, although imaginary, it's not just something that he can shrug off upon waking; he has to let it slowly ease away. It lingers with him.

Pascal used to lie beside him, curled against his body, whispering in his ear and kissing his temple and stroking his chest until its rapid rising and falling abated into deep, slow breathing that moved his stomach instead.

His thoughts clear further as he remembers that those nights are solidly in the past and Pascal—

Pascal is coming over.

For one nonsensical moment he's worried he's slept through the whole day and missed the dinner and now it's too late—until he checks the time on his phone to see its still the middle of the night.

He sighs and slips his hands up under his shirt to rest on his stomach, trying both to focus on his breathing and warm the chill in his fingers. If he'd had a choice, this wouldn't be part of the night before their dinner together. But he knows he has more than enough experience with ugly nightmares to usually be all but completely unaffected the next day.

He closes his eyes and thinks of the notebook where he'd scribbled his thoughts and worked out some of his most intimidating and complicated feelings. No matter what mood he wakes up in, he's still in a much more solid place to talk to Pascal than when he'd made the prior attempt.

But right now there's another problem—not unsolvable, but potentially very inconvenient. He's just nervous to go back to sleep. Instead of a familiar, private sanctuary, his room just feels like an isolating space. He feels cornered in his bed, vulnerable to the dream.

He thinks of what it'll be like to be waiting for Pascal, knowing he could arrive any moment. He knows that the anticipation is going to give him all the energy he'll need to get through the whole day and more. But he wants as much sleep as he can get while still having enough time to prepare for the evening without feeling rushed. So he sits up and starts gathering up the blankets.

He ignores a little shiver of fear as he slides his feet off his bed—with a momentary bitter recollection of every "monster under the bed" joke he's ever been subjected to—and takes his phone, covers, and pillow out into the living room, making the couch into his bed.

He gives himself an extra half hour on his alarm and nestles under the blankets, shifting until his hipbone is comfortably supported and his legs aren't crowded. He looks out over the room, appreciating the little pieces of light scattered across the room: glowing streetlight easing through curtains, the bright, warm bar under the door, the blinking clock display on the stove. He tells himself not to be afraid of having another bad dream, and with that goal in mind, he draws a long inhale and closes his eyes.

He thinks of Wallace's kiss. He thinks of Pascal's face. He thinks of a hot bath and the sound of rain and burying himself in one of Pascal's hoodies. He thinks of the familiar sound of the espresso machine at work, and how Roy's hands are always warm, the sweet scent of lilacs, the view from his old bedroom from over half a decade ago, where the window looked out through the leaves of a tree and he could look out and see birds alight in its branches. He thinks of listening to music on a walk, being hugged by his friends, and looking up at the evening sky and feeling completely in the moment. He thinks of bursting into laughter during a night out. He thinks of his family. He thinks of a fresh cup of tea on a cold day. He thinks of the softness of the blankets. He thinks of the pleasantly quiet hum of the refrigerator. He thinks of Pascal, deeply asleep. He thinks of his breathing. He thinks of his stillness. He thinks of his warmth.

—

He's awoken, but only just, by quiet noises that he recognizes as Roy even though he's much more asleep than not. He hovers just above the surface of complete unconsciousness but nothing wakes him up any further—though the loudest, most conspicuous person Kip's ever known and sometimes erring on being obtrusive, Roy is also incredibly sensitive to others and can be subtle and silent when needbe. Kip can barely distinguish the sound of speech from movement and though he doesn't process it, he gets the feeling he's heard his name.

He's not sure what he mumbles against his pillow but he's dimly aware of a gentle touch stroking across his hair. And then a door softly closes and the room is still again and dreams bleed into his thoughts.

When his alarm sounds, he rouses almost immediately into clear-headedness, yet is a bit glad to sense that he'd been in a deep state of sleep. And probably had been for so long prior that Molly's departure for work, though only about a half hour after Roy's, didn't seem to have woken him up at all.

Within seconds it hits him that Pascal's going to be in his home today. Today. It gets him upright and moving at once.

—

It doesn't matter how the conversation afterwards is going to turn out. He's going to be seeing Pascal in the most intimate context yet since their breakup, and nothing can extinguish his excitement for that.

—

Kip fixes himself a light breakfast and then opens his bedroom window to feel the temperature outside—it's a bit humid and feels hot even to him. He puts on one of his few pairs of shorts and a tank top and after brushing his teeth spends about eight seconds in front of the mirror, wrinkling his nose at his reflection as he hastily brushes his hair into place.

He's moving quickly, but his energy doesn't feel too nervous. His thoughts are quick and focused but aren't jumbling up—they orbit a mental image of an itinerary for the day. He's already on track, not having overslept or skipped breakfast or forgotten to water his plants and move them to his windowsill. He arms himself with his wallet, keys, and phone (which he keeps glancing at) and goes out the door, down the hall, flows down the stairwell and out a side door.

His steps are quick and sure and it takes no effort to keep his head lifted and his eyes fixed on the horizon line. He's always had a slightly stiff posture compared to others, but when he's focused he has a formal carriage as though he's royalty—he developed it early, in part to seem taller and more mature when walking with his brother and in part to fake confidence when he really felt anxious or out of place. Now it's simply natural whenever he feels conscious of his own body, whether in a positive or negative way—though at times his friends tease him for it and tell him to relax a little, it seems to give him a bit of a protective bubble around strangers. Maybe it's because of that or maybe it's because his concerns are elsewhere, but he doesn't notice anyone staring at him or doing a double-take as he goes by.

He feels just as purposeful at the store, giving a little extra attention to the fresh produce he's selecting. He doesn't want to give the impression he's made anything fancy or is trying to impress Pascal, but rather wants to make the dinner seem like an easygoing, everyday thing, as though Pascal has already been in their new home scores of times—but he still wants to ensure the simple meal is as good as he can make it. And that means taking the time to make sure the colors of the peppers he's getting look good together.

Collecting the packaged ingredients he needs is a quicker task, though he has a momentary shakeup when he sees boxed sets of cutlery and realizes he hadn't considered that the edges of their flat-handled ones would press uncomfortably into Pascal's soft arms. He takes a moment to pick a certain color of rounded plastic handles—sage green—and tucks a small set into his basket.

Then his phone buzzes and his whole body twitches. He slips it quickly from his pocket and sees it isn't Pascal—it's Kate.

"Just heard about your big date," her text read. "Tell that guy to come visit you at the café sometimes too because i only got to meet him a couple of times and that was years ago. Also try to have a good time or something."

He can guess she'd want to add "and try not to fuck this up" if they were talking in person so her tone could strike that perfect balance between joking and genuine.

He quickly sends a response: "Thanks. I'll tell you about how it goes later. but texting at work? i can't believe you." He and Kate have about a dozen ongoing games they play to help buoy each other's mood while working, all absurd and all ignored by Cuddy. They pretend to be intensely focused cooks during a rush at a busy restaurant when there's only a handful of customers in the café. They act like saboteurs trying to impede each other in ways too tiny and childish to have any real effect, such as Kate nudging his writing hand while he tries to label a paper cup, or him simply untying her apron with a casual tug. They pretend to be longtime girlfriend and boyfriend when any customers get a bit too friendly. And, like he's invoking now, they pretend to be fierce competitors vying to replace the other and exchange any criticism they can invent.

He hasn't even put his phone away before her text arrives.

"darling. i would never."

He shoots a wry smile at the ceiling as though it's in on the joke and slides his phone back into his pocket. He remembers how just the other day Kate became the only person he'd informed of his crush on Wallace, barring his therapy appointments. He supposes he has updated news for her now—not to mention an explanation or two about why he confided a crush to her right before she found out he was having someone else over for dinner. And he knows he should—and maybe even can—finally let Molly and Roy know about it as well. But he wants Pascal to be the first person he really, fully discusses it with. And he wants to keep it between just them for a bit.

—

He keeps getting little fluttery kicks of energy in his chest while he walks home. He takes the steps up two at a time despite the moderately heavy bag on each arm and even the difficulty of opening the apartment door doesn't break his flow. He puts the bags on the counter and has everything organized and put away within the minute.

Then he starts cleaning. He starts with the countertops and stovetop and tabletop. Then he mops and vacuums. He cleans the bathroom, including the shower and cleaning off the mirror and wiping the floor down and changing all the towels. He runs the vacuum over the couch. He rubs some oil into the desk. He scrubs spots from the walls and dusts flat surfaces and ends up generally being a bit more thorough than he intended, but he just tries to make sure he doesn't do anything that might make him sore and doesn't worry about it beyond that. He has plenty of time before Pascal arrives.

He takes a break after he finishes cleaning and cracks open his window for warmth while he lies back on his bed, putting a pillow under his lower legs. The room is periodically bathed in a breeze flowing through, once or twice carrying the scent of his flowers to him.

He can't help running a finger along the edge of his phone every now and then, waiting for it to hum with a text or call.

After a small lunch he starts preparing a few ingredients for later, cutting up peppers and mixing together a simple sauce and setting out some of the bowls and pans he anticipates needing later. He makes himself relax for a bit again, sitting with his laptop as he steeps a cup of tea.

He cleans some more when he finds he feels like he ought to be busying himself with something and decides he wouldn't mind wiping down the baseboard that runs around the perimeter of the room. Then he stares at his phone until he convinces himself the fact that it's mid-afternoon makes it reasonable for him to send a text.

He types a little nervously—he'd never texted Pascal before moving into C, and it's unfamiliar—and writes out a greeting followed by the question of what time he expects to be able to come over, and then with slight unavoidable tension he carefully asks if Pascal would have time for the second attempt at the conversation, making sure to add that he understands if it's not a good time for it and is more than willing to make sure whenever it takes place is at Pascal's convenience. He forces himself to stop needlessly editing unimportant word choices and send it off.

He waits a few minutes and then picks up the bedding he's left on the couch and carries it back to his bedroom. While there he decides to take care of another thing: trying to further blunt the part of his sexual frustration related specifically to Pascal. He strips off all his clothes save his underwear and quickly decides on what he wants to think of to reach orgasm; he wants to focus on his attraction to Pascal, but not in a way that will encourage him to think about their sexual tension all evening, just as something to burn off so he can set it aside more easily. So he quickly decides on a memory involving him and Pascal spontaneously having sex one afternoon, when they were both turned on to begin with and simply dove into it. It was relatively brief but it was fun and good and ridiculously passionate.

An erection is beginning even before he starts touching himself. It's easy to run through the memory of the encounter's rapid initiation—Pascal had arrived home and barely took a moment to strip off his jacket before sweeping Kip up into an embrace, greeting him warmly as Kip giggled and buried his face in Pascal's chest while tightly hugging his waist. Both were more than ready for the reunion, Kip having spoken with him when Pascal called during a break, having made a comment about wanting the pleasure of his company and getting a response that said Pascal had been thinking exactly along those same lines. They basked in the anticipation until Pascal returned and they drew together so immediately they might as well have been magnetized.

Kip straddles the corner of his bed and draws the blankets toward himself until they're heaped underneath him, then sinks down onto them. He takes his pillows and hugs them to his chest as he remembers their kissing escalating with mutual eagerness until within seconds they were making out deeply and laughing during the quick pauses for air. And just as quickly they were touching each other all over, feeling and groping and shoving fabric aside. Kip had undone the front of his pants to give himself more room, somewhat clumsy in his haste to return his hands to Pascal's body, and then, while holding Kip firmly against himself, Pascal had moved one foot a few inches forward so that his leg slid between Kip's.

And in a hot and ebullient rush towards climax Kip had worked at Pascal through his pants while humping his thigh and kissing him and licking his tongue and pushing his shirt up to his armpits as he dragged his fingers all over Pascal's torso and massaged his chest, feeling up his waist and hips and back as well, sometimes gripping his ass for leverage to shove his hips harder against him. And in the midst of a rapturously messy crescendo Pascal pushed an arm down the back of Kip's pants and in not twenty seconds Kip had tipped over the edge.

He nuzzles his face enthusiastically into the pillow, not even caring that he has to gasp for breath. He saturates his thoughts with the memory of the climax and grinds hard against the mattress and blankets until he jerks forward, choking out a few sharp cries.

Even after the tension from his buildup fades into the soft glow from his orgasm, Kip remains still for a bit, sucking in deep breaths and lying flat on his stomach. Then he slides off the bed and removes his underwear, wiping himself off with them and then taking them into the bathroom. He runs bitterly cold water from the bath and soaks the cloth with it, scrubbing them, wringing them out, and repeating the process several times more.

He's shivering from the chill of the water eating into the warmth he'd gained from when he'd worked himself up and came, and he hurriedly turns the knob from the coldest temperature to the hottest and diverts the water overhead. He switches on the vents and climbs into the shower, turning in place for several minutes to let the warm water flow thoroughly over every part of him. Then he scrubs himself off head to toe and rinses off the soap before working shampoo into every strand of hair and letting it soak in as he rubs soap over his whole body a second time, a little less exhaustively than prior.

He feels clean when he dries off and stands on the mat on the floor, letting himself absorb some of the steam hanging in the air. He gets the blowdryer from the shelves and directs it up and down his body a few times before doubling over with brush in hand to work his hair into a warm, fluffy state of perfect dryness that has no risk of looking like bedhead or worse. Then he wrings out his underpants again and aims the dryer at them for a few minutes until they're only faintly damp, and tosses them in his hamper when he walks back into his room.

He puts on deodorant, remakes his bed, and sits on it, leaning against the section of wall beside his corkboard, looking over his room. He decides that maybe he should consider getting a decorative rug to lay in the middle of the floor, and spends a little while mentally picturing combinations of various sizes, shapes, colors, textures, and patterns. His room was never so bare when he was sharing Pascal's, which was already cozy and lived-in before Kip abruptly ended up in it too. At that point Kip had so few possessions—his brother's folder, some clothes he had bought and the pajamas he'd been wearing during the fire, his framed picture of his family, and a toothbrush—that he didn't add anything to the room at all. There was room for both of them on the mattress. It took minimal reorganization to give Kip space to put his things. And though he added to his wardrobe in the following months and years, he didn't really take on many more possessions. He didn't want to; he didn't feel he needed to. The space around him never felt empty. Pascal's bedroom was warmly furnished and he added to it for Kip's sake, and the apartment's four residents soon filled any empty corner it had. Kip never had to notice how little was personally his until moving to C and barely having anything to put in his modest-sized bedroom.

He doesn't quite mind it, still. But it does look a little emptier to him than it used to. A few minor additions would be okay. But in the meantime, he figures he might be embarrassed if Pascal sees his room. It practically looks deserted compared to the memory of the bedroom they'd shared, or the few times Pascal was in his bedroom in his family's home. He's glad he at least has his fairy lights and plants to fill the space with a bit more personality—both of which he realized he liked having in his bedroom thanks to Pascal introducing them to their shared space. With that thought in mind, his lights and plants look like weak echoes of what he'd had in D. But he likes them anyhow.

Reminding himself yet again that impressing Pascal isn't important tonight, he slides off his bed and runs his hands from his chest to his thighs, assessing how much he's dried off, and then starts looking through his drawers for what to wear. He slips into old yet comfortable underwear and puts on a dark pair of jeans and then a plain tee that follows his shape but sits loosely, the soft fabric a light tint of vivid blue touched with grey, like a cloud during sunset. He can't help going to the mirror to look at himself, or smoothing his hands over his thighs and ass to feel the hug of the denim, or combing his hair back into place. He likes the way he looks: good, but casually so.

—

When he picks up his phone again he sees Pascal sent back a text. Biting on his lip, he opens it before he has a chance to put it off. It's just a few sentences but he tries to read it so quickly that he stumbles amongst the words until he manages to slow down to process it. It's straightforward and kind, saying that he should be over by 7:30 at the latest and sure, he'd be glad to talk afterwards. Kip paces in front of the couch as he writes his reply.

"Ok, thank you, let me know when you're heading over and i'll meet you out front. im really looking forward to it"

Just a few minutes later: "me too :)"

—

Kip manages not to feel nervous until Molly arrives home, which makes it feel as if a countdown has officially begun.

—

"You had a nightmare?" she asks him suddenly.

"Uh, I did, yeah," Kip answers.

"It must have been pretty bad."

He blushes.

"It made me pretty nervous," he says, "but it was an old one. I just figured I'd be able to get back to sleep a lot faster on the couch. I didn't have any more trouble after that."

"Oh, that's good," Molly says, pulling off her shoes and socks. "I wasn't sure if I heard anything last night, but when I saw you on the couch when I left for work I figured you must've had a nightmare."

"Yeah." Kip stretches his arms overhead and arches his back slightly. "But it's fine. How are you?"

"Pretty well. And excited." She grins at him. "Do you know what time Pascal is going to be here yet?"

"Probably between seven and seven-thirty."

"That's great!"

"Yeah, and, uh..." Kip rubs the side of his index finger with his thumb. "I asked Pascal and—well—I have some stuff I wanna talk with him about, and I think before he goes home we're gonna do that."

"Oh—" Molly blushes slightly. "So, do you...uh..." She seems to be fumbling, and Kip catches on after a few seconds.

"Oh, no, I wasn't gonna do that here. I was thinking of walking down to Bay? It's got places to sit and it's essentially between here and Berkley."

"You were the one saying you didn't want to be alone with him, that this 'isn't a date,' remember?" Molly accuses, laughing. "And you're gonna steal him away to take him to a nice little restaurant on Bay Avenue?"

"No..." Kip drags a hand down the side of his neck. "It's—I have stuff I want to talk with him about before we talk about dating or anything, so it's...it's just gonna be a talk. I figured a bench out there would be private enough for that and still be a good place to sit for a while."

"What do you need to tell him before you guys can talk about going out again? We all lived together for so long and you two were dating even a while before that. And you two were reintroduced just after meeting Wallace, so...what doesn't he already know?"

Kip sighs as he blushes deeply. He hesitates, and hesitates again.

"There's just something he has to know about first," he says quietly.

Molly quirks an eyebrow at him and he half-heartedly shrugs.

"I...I'll explain it eventually. But the explanation is gonna involve what Pascal thinks, and..." And maybe what Wallace thinks. "And it just might take some time to really come together."

Molly rolls her eyes.

"You're a real handful, Kip."

"And so worth the effort," he says sarcastically.

She shakes her head at him and pretends to punch him in the arm. Kip bares his fangs and retaliates with half of a hug, which she turns into a whole.

—

Pascal's face intrudes into his mind increasingly over the next hour. He occupies himself with small tasks but even as he focuses on them he's imagining Pascal standing right beside him, bodies only a few inches apart, or behind him, about to slide his arms around Kip's waist. It makes his face burn and his thoughts scramble and his hands falter and pause.

When Molly leaves to meet with Roy at the end of his workday, Kip runs a hand through his hair before biting his lip and striding into his bedroom. He shuts the door and strips off his clothes, laying them on his pillow. Then he sits on the foot of his bed and tries to let the distraction towards Pascal flow freely. He'd much rather take care of this now than try suppressing it and risk making it even harder to ignore.

He takes the thought of Pascal standing so close to him and easily blends it with memories of such moments. Countless times Pascal has approached him to touch his shoulder and bend down and kiss his cheek or temple or jawline. Pascal standing behind him and asking him to talk about what was weighing on him, gently trailing his arms up and down his back as he listened, eventually pushing his arms up into Kip's sweater to glide soft and warm across his bare skin.

He licks his palm and strokes himself, starting out slow and increasing the pace gradually, steadily.

There's the times Pascal was beside him in a public place, standing so close that Kip blushed, and would unexpectedly seduce him. Leaning in close, that sweet, low voice warm in Kip's ear. Even though he'd be covered up in plenty of layers, scarf around his neck over a coat buttoned over a sweater over a shirt, Pascal would be telling him you look so good I can barely look anywhere else, I wish I could fuck you here just like this but the only way you'd look better than you do right now would be if I took you home and got to take everything off—

The difficulty Pascal has in undressing him whenever he's wearing anything more secure than a t-shirt and sweatpants means that the process is slow and caring, buttons and zippers and belts are worked open with focus and precision. The anticipation builds nicely. Kip will almost start shivering at the end before his boxers are slipped down his legs and his body is held against the heat of Pascal's and he's melted with a deep, long kiss.

So many times he's been fucked so beautifully that his grip on himself wavered like unsteady footing, and he let himself slip and fall, being overtaken completely by the experience until he came so hard he could only collapse where he was.

Catching his breath while Pascal worked a hickey into his chest and trailed one soft arm up and down his stomach while the suckers of the other attached along his side.

Pascal standing behind him, hugging him around the waist and pulling him close, leaning in to kiss behind his ear.

Feeling Pascal drawing near, turning towards his approach and putting his hands on Pascal's face, kissing his smile.

Kip tilts his head back to look at the ceiling; his hips jerk forward a few times and he cums.

He lets himself rest for a minute. He thinks he feels more relaxed than he did before. And hopes that the last couple of hours will be busy enough to keep him from from dwelling too long on Pascal—on the thought of being around his overwhelming attractiveness and undeniable sexual draw.

As soon as he recovers he digs out the pack of tissues from his bag, wipes himself off, reapplies his deodorant, slips back into his clothes, goes into the bathroom, washes his hands, washes his stomach, washes his face, and again combs his hair into place.

He looks in the mirror, staring his reflection in the eyes. He thinks he looks a little tired, but he's not sure he doesn't always look that way and is only now critical enough to notice it. His cheeks are still a little flushed; he knows he looks better that way and is a little glad to know he's all but certain to blush when Pascal is with him. He touches his lips. They're soft and smooth and drag slightly under his fingertips. He looks at his teeth, the bright blue of his gums and of his tongue swiping across his incisors. He flosses and brushes them just to assuage his nerves.

Sure enough, when he looks at the clock and realizes that soon they'll only have about two more hours to go, he can't daydream about Pascal anymore. His anticipation is meeting his fear that this is all going to go wrong; he'd be happier with just his pleasant imaginings than with the irreversible reality of what's going to happen.

—

Kip is staring out the window when he turns at the sound of the door opening.

"Hey, Kip!" Roy says.

"Hello," Molly's voice singsongs behind his greeting.

"Hi, guys." Kip turns to face them, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. "Glad you got back okay."

"Yeah, it's—uh, do you feel alright?" Molly takes a step towards him as though to study his face better.

"I'm fine," he answers. "I'm just starting to—to get a little nervous. I'm still looking forward to it, but I just—I can't help being nervous too, and..." He gives a slight grimace and a shrug.

"It'll all be fine," Molly says. "C'mere." She opens her arms. "C'meeere..."

"Augh." Kip covers his face with his hands.

"Yes!" Roy's fist shot into the air, coming within a few inches of the ceiling. "C'mon, Kip, hug time!"

"Augh..." Kip repeats under his breath but he starts to laugh when he feels their arms encircle him; he can't help it.

They always hug him until they can feel him relax, and then hug him some more.

"Your hair smells good," Roy says.

Kip chirps a laugh and they both squeeze him tighter before releasing him.

"You look great," Roy adds.

"Yeah!"

Kip turns his smile towards the floor.

"It'll be fine," Molly repeats. "It's just the waiting around that's the worst part."

"Yeah..." Kip smooths his shirt and pushes his glasses up. "Yeah, I figure when I actually see him it'll be okay..."

Roy touches his arm.

"It'll be fine."

—

Molly works on making a cake that should be out of the oven and cooling by seven; to Kip it feels like a countdown. She tells him to find something else to occupy himself besides pacing and hovering, and he tries to find a sense of security in his room. He turns on the string of lights and takes out a book and sits on his bed and just reads and waits, trying not to tune in to every tiny sound or feel as though his phone is about to attack him at any instant.

In the last half hour before seven, his anticipation and nervousness both reach a peak, and he's jittery and eager and a little overwhelmed by the idea of what could be about to happen. In an effort to calm himself, he picks up his photo and looks at the smiles of his siblings. They would tell him he would be okay, he can imagine it, he can remember it. The softened voices they had for him when he was afraid, the arms put around his shoulders or waist, the hands squeezing his, the boundless patience and gentleness and love they always had for him, the knowledge they were always going to be there for him even if everything else went wrong.

"It'll be okay," he murmurs to them, as they would tell him and he would repeat. "I can do this. I can get through this."

He tries to smile back at them.

They were there the first time Pascal visited Kip's home, after all. Back when their relationship was new and Kip had told his family about a new friend, because that was the only word he had for it. And after that Kip just referred to him as "Pascal" and they didn't press him for details, not even when Kip began staying overnight when visiting Pascal's apartment in D. By the time Pascal came over to their home in C for a visit, it had to be obvious, Kip was head-over-heels already and glowing in the newness of it all. But they didn't make Kip say anything.

Not that he hadn't. I like him so much, he had told them, blushing and smiling. I really, really like him.

He hadn't needed to explain, because he knew that surely they knew. But the way he felt about Pascal became so important to him that he was finally moved to provide that outright explanation. That he’d been dating boys for the past few years and that now he was dating Pascal and he was really someone special. And he knows that at least they got to glimpse the truth in that. Before he was suddenly alone.

They should still be here, of course. Of course he wishes they were here. He lifts the picture and kisses the frame before resting it against his forehead. Of course that doesn't make sense since everything that's happening stemmed from the fire, but of course that doesn't stop him from missing them.

But Pascal had comforted and supported Kip through an experience so much worse than anything he'd been through before. He'd been a steadfast for Kip, completely unflinching and unhesitating in the face of all of it. Even in the ways in which he wasn't able to be comforted, Pascal was still there for him, never trying to avoid any part of him. Even when Kip wanted to be left alone and Pascal had to keep out of his own room to accommodate that, Pascal still found ways to help Kip and still wasn't driven away at all. Pascal was trying to make sure Kip was okay while Kip was miserable and in near-constant pain and it must have been wretchedly hard for Pascal, yet he never got upset with Kip. Not when Kip got angry, not when he isolated himself, not when he woke them both up at odd hours from the violence of his nightmares, which were so horrible it took half an hour or more to melt away his tension, sometimes helped along by comforting things such as a cup of hot tea and a long embrace and a handful of tissues and soft, lingering kisses before he finally got back into bed. Pascal never drifted from him. And when Kip got to a slightly more stable point, when at least he could usually hold off crying until he was safely in the bedroom—seemingly by virtue of having to suffer through so many instances of bursting into tears at inopportune moments in a paroxysm of grief, in the middle of conversations or public places, unable to stop it, until it felt like he had abruptly gone from an unbelievably endless supply of tears to having cried himself out—Pascal was as close to him as ever, and Kip found that his own love for Pascal had not only remained, but grown and sweetened as well.

Pascal had always made him feel safe, just as his family had. And after five years of living together, Kip had been nearly as secure in Pascal's love as he had been in his family's. He never gave Kip anything to be afraid of. He always treated Kip with the most kindness, with the most understanding, love, and appreciation.

And maybe his safety with his family had been annihilated. Maybe the relationship in which he'd found utter security had been ended. But he's still finding ways to draw from his family's love for him. And Pascal is coming over for dinner in less than an hour.

If anything, he knows for certain that Pascal has always brought out in him the version of himself he likes best. He can be less afraid of his own mistakes. It will all be fine.

—

He steps out of his room, pushing his keys into his pocket and biting the tip of his tongue. His face must tell the story because Roy immediately stands up from the table upon seeing him.

"Is—did—" Roy starts. In just a few strides of his long legs he's standing in front of Kip, a hand tentatively hovering between them.

Kip impulsively takes Roy's hand and grips it tightly. He looks up at him and nods, letting out his breath in a quick sigh.

"He said he's on his way," he says quietly, squeezing Roy's hand harder as he does.

"Oh, Kip—" In a second, Roy is hugging him tightly, prompting Kip to return it as he's bent slightly backwards. "This is so, so great—"

"Yeah," Kip agrees breathlessly.

Roy releases him and he quickly straightens his shirt and smooths his hair.

"Is there anything I'm forgetting that makes me look like a total mess?" he asks.

"You look extra cute," Roy says with a grin.

Kip wrinkles his nose but blushes and Roy calls over to Molly to inform her of the news, and there's a clatter as she presumably sets down everything she was holding to rush out, towel draped on her shoulder and flour smudged on her nose, to hug Kip as well and offer him a couple quick reassurances.

"Go ahead and go out and wait for him," she says. "The cake'll be done in about five minutes and I'll take it out and we'll make sure everything's ready and go on, go!"

The growing excitement in her voice sparks his own, and he laughs and she prods him in the back.

"Go get him."

"Yeah, go on, Kip!" Roy backs her up.

Kip gives them a smile and murmurs his thanks and steps into the hall.

—

He alternates between leaning against the wall and slowly pacing the sidewalk, trying to look as though he's taking a casual and calm walk for fresh air instead of patrolling the front of the building, anxiously glancing all around him at every sign of movement. He does find something to help him relax in the way the light softens as the sky's blue deepens and mixes with warm purple and gentle peach.

He finally settles for standing on the sidewalk in front of a tree, giving up on trying to avoid checking the time on his phone every two minutes. He laces his fingers together behind his back and taps his heel against the ground and runs his tongue back and forth along his teeth, heartbeat growing stronger as time goes on. His glances at everyone who enters his field of vision no longer have any subtlety; it's impossible not to immediately look in the direction of every little movement or sound. He starts consciously controlling his breathing and stills all his fidgeting save for occasionally twisting his fingers.

The minutes pass. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He forces himself not to start worrying about the possibility that Pascal doesn't show up and it's because something bad happened to him. He looks at the ground or his phone whenever someone passes in front of him. He knows he must have an unfading blush across his face but he knows just as well that he can't help it. His pulse is slower now but still beats strong.

His heart starts to leap at everyone who appears down the street.

He's checking his phone every minute now.

He's running his hand through his hair and tracing his collarbones with his fingers.

He sees Pascal, and all effort at seeming cool and collected drops at once.

"Pas!" he cries out immediately, turning towards him. Pascal looks right over at him. "Pascal!"

"Kip!"

Kip can see Pascal's smile even at the distance between them—a distance he's looking to close as quickly as possible. Pascal lifts his arm in a wave and he looks so, so good, with his dark hair just long enough to touch his shoulders and an almost-blue-grey shirt that's beautifully fitted across his broad torso and dark grey pants and the colors look lovely in the cast of the nearly-twilight sky and make the warm peach of his skin stand out and he just looks so good and Kip is blushing and trying to take it all in, an outfit he's never seen before and Pascal looking so happy to see him and they're finally able to do this when Kip understands that he doesn't need to feel guilty for wanting this and he can stop trying to convince himself they shouldn't.

He's walking fast but doesn't slow as they approach; he just strides determinedly towards Pascal, who seems to have the same thought he does and opens his arms just before Kip wraps his arms across Pascal's shoulders and hangs onto him with a hug.

"Oh gosh—" Pascal's arms go around Kip's waist and lift him up off the ground so his weight isn't dragging them down. "Oh, Kip, I'm so glad to see you—" His hold tightens and he laughs.

Kip squeezes his eyes shut and pushes his face down against Pascal's shoulder and presses his hands harder against his back.

"Thank you so much for coming," he murmurs, and loosens the hug, prompting Pascal to lower him carefully back down to the ground.

"Of course," Pascal says. "I'm so happy to be here."

Kip can hear in his voice how much that's true and then he looks up and sees it in Pascal's face as well. His smile is so real and his cheeks are flushed and the way he's looking right at Kip with so much unrestrained love—

Kip grins with a quiet laugh and holds his hand out for Pascal to take. The soft limb spirals around his forearm and Kip flexes his hand to let the end wrap around his palm; he closes his fingers around it.

"I'm so glad," Kip murmurs, and he closes his eyes and steps towards Pascal again, turning his face to the side and laying it against Pascal's chest as he gently presses the front of their bodies together. He sighs as he slips his arm loosely around Pascal's lower back, and Pascal mirrors him and slips his free arm around Kip's back.

They stand still in the pose, as though they had been slow-dancing and suddenly stopped and closed the distance to simply hold each other gently. It's a hug; Kip can feel his own heart grow stronger as the seconds go by and can feel Pascal's pulse against his cheek. But this hug doesn't hold his exuberant happiness at being here with Pascal, but rather the deep, deep contentment that would let him comfortably pass an hour simply holding Pascal to himself like this.

He has his first spasm of nervousness telling him to let go, and he ignores it and relaxes his body a little bit more, as though he plans to fall asleep here, standing up in the middle of the sidewalk. He has his next nervous moment of doubt, telling him he shouldn't ignore the first one. He ignores it too.

They don't move or speak for half a minute, and stay silent when they part. Kip holds Pascal's arm tighter, and looks at him and smiles with the slightest tilt of the head to send him a kiss without words or touch. Pascal's smile twitches wider and he blushes and looks down at the ground as though he's actually shy—Kip laughs and pivots to let Pascal fall into place beside him.

"So this is our building," he says needlessly. "C'mon. We're on the fourth floor."

And he leads Pascal inside.

—

Kip becomes flustered as they draw nearer to the apartment, yet not unpleasantly so. His speech is stumbling and stilted but interspersed with laughter and the weight of he reunion that's about to happen is suddenly pressing on him harder than ever, but at the same time it's pushing him through the motions, keeping him from hesitating. He slips his hand out of Pascal's hold to retrieve his keys and unlocks the door and gets out of the way.

It's surely nothing like it would've been if they hadn't ever seen Pascal since D, but it's still a spectacular welcome, and Kip hangs back to gather himself as they provide Pascal with a brief tour of the apartment.

He's made it here, and that's so unbelievable he doesn't even try to work out how it managed to happen.

—

"How's it going?" Molly whispers as she stands beside him in the kitchen. "Are you still nervous?"

"Yes, a little," he admits, rinsing a pan. "It's okay though. You guys are great."

As if on cue, Pascal's warm sweet laugh sounds underneath Roy's bright voice.

"Are you glad you did this?"

"I think so. It's...it's a lot, it's intimidating, but...but not really in a bad way, if that makes sense."

“Okay. Good.”

She gives him a small smile, he returns it, and she pats him on the shoulder before rejoining Pascal and Roy in the next room.

Kip puts both hands on the counter and takes a few deep breaths and then dedicates himself to finishing up the last of the cooking.

—

At one point he's standing in front of the stove, patiently waiting for the peppers to finish, and for a second it's like a flashback to the previous night.

"Hey."

He turns to see Pascal on the other side of the threshold, arm against the doorway's frame, the Sweet Look on his face as Kip meets his eyes.

"Hey, yourself," Kip says quietly, his smile all but involuntary. "I just have a couple more—I just have—I'll finish cooking in a minute and then I can—and then I won't be all the way over here," he stumbles.

Pascal smiles.

"It's fine." His voice has such tenderness. Kip misses it deeply. "I promise I’m not gonna stand here behind you the whole time. I just wanted to see you for a second."

Kip blushes. He can't think of anything natural to say, so he just stays still and lets Pascal look at him.

"I really love being with all of you guys again," Pascal murmurs, shifting his weight as he runs the end of his arm across the back of his neck and down his shoulder. Kip knows Pascal must really feel wonderful to have a smile so lovely. He pushes down a twinge of anxiety about what he needs to tell Pascal. All of that is for later.

"Yeah, it—I don't know, it feels normal already," Kip says. "Like we never stopped."

"Yeah!" Pascal's laugh is bright. "Yeah, it feels that way to me, too."

"I meant it about us being able to do this all the time," Kip says. "With...how crazy things got, we weren't really able to do stuff like visiting back and forth between friends all the time like we used to... I mean, I haven't invited anyone over for dinner in ages. And I really ought to. But—anyway, you should feel as welcome here as you do at your own place. Because you are."

Pascal blushes and smiles at the floor.

"Thanks. I'd like that. A lot."

Seeing Pascal looking so flustered and happy over something so simple as the possibility of more evenings like this gives Kip a feeling which seems to set every atom in his chest and stomach shivering. Pascal looks so handsome with his cheeks flushed a deeper red and his hair spilling a little into his face and his gorgeous body leaning against the post of the doorway, and it's just so good to be in this small moment that Kip just stands and times his breathing to his heartbeat as he looks at Pascal.

Pascal lifts his head and their eyes meet and Pascal glances away and back with a soft smile. Kip smiles back and turns off the burner on the stove as if to demonstrate he's capable of slightly more than just standing silent and motionless while blushing vividly.

"I'll let you get back to what you were doing," Pascal says, sweeping his hair to one side. "Thank you for making all this for us."

"You're welcome," Kip murmurs, glancing down at the pan. "It's nothing too fancy, don't worry."

"All the same," Pascal says. "I really appreciate you—you cooking for us. You're always brilliant at it."

Kip scoffs.

"Flattery." And then he blushes deeper at the realization he's flirting with Pascal. "Go back to Roy and Molly," he says, waving Pascal away. "I'll be finished soon."

"Okay," Pascal laughs. Kip looks over in time to catch one more smile from Pascal.

—

Everything goes together simply and easily. Their seating arrangement is spread comfortably around the room, just close enough for the meal to feel intimate without being too formal. Most of the conversation is directed to Pascal; Molly and Roy prompt him to go into detail about subjects they probably never got to talk about in any conversations held at Pascal's shop. Most of it's already known to Kip from the few tentative meetings they've had to try catching up and figuring themselves out, but those were always a bit careful and sometimes awkward, and hearing Pascal talk freely without nervousness is so enjoyable. Kip lets his gaze travel back and forth between the other three, generally following the flow of the conversation, but his eyes are drawn to and linger on Pascal. Pascal catches Kip looking at him about as often as the converse occurs.

In about a quarter of an hour their dynamic already feels almost exactly like it did when they all lived together. It's clear to Kip that they're all having fun, and so is he. He can't forget that every passing moment moves him closer to having to tell Pascal something that might ruin all of this, but even that knowledge can't ruin this.

Nobody tries to pressure him into speaking up more, but although he's again the quietest one, he doesn't feel at all uncomfortable when he does choose to talk. He laughs a lot more than usual. He feels comforted by how good everything is, by how happy his friends are. He can't possibly regret this now, no matter the outcome.

They all talk for at least an hour even after they finish the food; Kip primarily listens, but it's what he wants to do. He went so long without hearing Pascal's voice at all, and they hadn't been spending nearly enough time together before to meet the levels he now knows he wants. Pascal's presence is so beautiful and satisfying and strong while utterly gentle—Kip wants that knowledge that the presence isn't going to leave him, that fulfilling certainty he used to have.

There's a momentary break when Molly gets up to cut them all a slice of cake. When Roy follows her to help carry the dessert, Kip has to look over at Pascal, and finds him already looking back. Kip blushes and smiles and feels flustered and nervous but doesn't even glance away. Pascal smiles too, and Kip curls his toes and can't help his smile baring his teeth or his blush spreading to his throat and ears, because Pascal's face is so lovely and displays his sweetness so fully. He has to press his hands flat against the top of his thighs because he'd stretch out his shirt by wringing the hem; if he had a piece of paper to hold he'd likely be shredding it.

He almost flinches when Roy enters. He barely manages not to stumble on his thanks for the plate handed to him, and compliments Molly on her baking, and pretends not to notice the knowing smiles both she and Roy send him for his exceptionally glowing blush.

—

It takes maybe another quarter of an hour to get to the topic, but when Roy talks about how much he missed this group being able to be together, there's just enough of a tiny hint of heaviness behind his words that renders Kip temporarily unable to look anywhere but his plate. He uses a tine of his fork to trace patterns in a smudge of frosting instead. He knows everyone present is understanding enough not to blame him, but he also knows that the fact the four of them were separated was based purely on his own decision, and he knows that all of them have been hurting because of that. And he couldn't fully be there for Molly or Roy because they confided only in each other to spare him the guilt. He has no doubt that they're perfectly capable of looking out for each other without him, but he can't avoid feeling bad for being the cause of his friends' pain and being unable to help them with it.

Pascal, meanwhile, had gotten no support from him at all. Kip knows Pascal has and had friends outside this four-person group, but oddly enough for someone so universally sweet and kind-hearted, he's always been slightly isolated. And Kip left him and took his other roommates. He knows if the three of them had struggled with the void of Pascal's absence, Pascal himself surely was horribly lonely.

He reminds himself he could fix that.

Then he reminds himself it's already being fixed. Pascal has been building his own life here for months. And here he is, with his old roommates of several years and ex-boyfriend, clearly enjoying himself in their presence. It just matters that they're all together right now. He sighs quietly. He looks back up.

—

He starts getting a little antsy. He wants to have at least an hour to walk over to Bay and sit and talk, and it's a little after ten, and he doesn't want Pascal to be exhausted if he has to get up too early in the morning. He keeps trying to tuck his hair behind his ear or sweep his bangs to the side, a nervous, now useless habit remaining from when his hair was longer. He doesn't feel bad, but he's tensed with the knowledge that now it really is time to talk to Pascal about everything.

Luckily, the pace of conversation is relaxing, as though everyone can sense this. But nobody's made any move to end it, and he suspects this could continue for hours.

"Um," he says, and his tone doesn't quite fit and everyone turns to look at him. "I—um. The... What we—it's..."

He grits his teeth and cuts off the failed start and then looks at Pascal.

"It's getting kind of late," he retries. "And...I was thinking...if you still wanted to talk..."

"Of course." Pascal's response is immediate.

Kip blushes.

"Right," Molly says, a determined look appearing on her face from nowhere. "Yes. You two should do that."

And then almost too quickly, the scene has shifted from relaxed chatting to wrapping things up. But the warmth and laughter even in their goodbyes is proof enough for Kip that this part of the day has been a powerful success.

He slips away to get a light, loose jacket from his closet while Roy and Molly spend one more minute with Pascal. He checks that his keys and phone are in his pockets, he reties his shoes, he paces around the floor of his room. He picks up his notebook and squeezes it as if it's what's in need of reassurance. Then he goes to his picture. He doesn't speak or even touch it, just stares at their faces for a few seconds.

He sighs and goes back out.

—

"That was pretty great," he says as they head down the stairwell.

"Yeah," Pascal agrees. "Yeah, it really was. You guys have a great place."

Kip laughs.

"I know it's really empty," he says. "I just can't fill it out on my own or convince Roy and Molly to do it without me."

"No, it looks fine," Pascal says. "Sure, you guys don't have a ton of stuff, but there's nothing wrong with that. You all made your mark on that space anyway, I could see it."

Kip smiles to himself.

"I'm really glad we did this," he says."

"Me, too."

—

It only takes just short of ten minutes to get to Bay, and they make quiet small talk along the way, which makes it easier on Kip's nerves.

When they make the turn onto the softly glowing street, it's just as Kip had hoped—enough people are around to keep them from feeling self-consciously alone, but it's peaceful enough to give a sense of privacy. They settle on a curved bench beside some trees, which allows them a compromise between facing each other directly and sitting parallel. Kip sighs as he sits down and winds his hands together, staring at the sidewalk. Pascal casually crosses his ankles, but doesn't speak when Kip fails to.

Kip's heartbeat isn't much elevated in speed, but it's a lot harder, spreading down into his stomach and up into his throat. But he has to do this. He's not only resolved to do this for Pascal, but to stop prolonging and exacerbating his own misery.

"So," he says in a voice smaller than he intended.

He feels a brush at his elbow and looks over to see Pascal offering him a gentle smile. Pascal softly rubs his forearm a few times before withdrawing his touch. Kip manages to smile back, his anxiety agitated enough that he has to partly force it. He turns his body slightly more towards Pascal, but faces forward as though his shoes will be easier to talk to.

He takes a few deep breaths. This isn't just about things he's been holding back about Wallace—he has things that have been eating away at him since they decided to move to C.

"There's something that happened the month we moved here that—that sort of reminds me of what I've been wanting to tell you," he starts. His voice sounds hesitant and weak to his own ears.

There's a long pause. Pascal waits for him to speak.

He has to. He can't stay in the safety of ambiguity and avoidance forever, at the cost of anything better. He can't keep everyone else in the dark and expect to have this part of his life develop. He has to trust Pascal.

He trusts him with everything.

"I had almost as hard a time adjusting moving back here as when we moved to D," he says quietly, rubbing a thumb along the seam of his pants. "Coming back here was scary, and it was intimidating, and it felt more like we'd left home than returned to it, and...and of course I missed you. I—I'd broken my heart over you, and I know you had it even worse. I mean, I had Molly and Roy with me. But I still missed you all the time, and sometimes I'd cry, especially at night, because—you know—I really thought I'd left you for good."

He swallows and bites at his lower lip.

"I missed you so bad and it hurt a lot, but I was thinking that I had to learn to move on as soon as possible. I think I could tell that you were still as important to me as you'd always been, but I was worrying I was gonna be stuck forever on someone I'd never see again. And—and one weekend I was closing with Kate and I was in a bad mood and she convinced me to go out with her. Really, I had convinced myself, because I was staying in all the time and just stressed about everything and I thought if I actually tried to enjoy myself it might happen. And...and I did go out, and we went to this place that wasn't too busy but had a lot of people, and..."

He bites down at his lip again.

"It was kind of fun but I hadn't been out like that without being with a bunch of friends, and, y'know, I hadn't ever been out like that while single, and...it was still kinda fun but just...I had no idea what to do when people started flirting with me. I mean, it just felt like it was happening too fast. And I just kind of ended up in the corner and it was kind of dark and this guy said hi and it startled me so bad I almost dropped my drink, and don't worry, because it was fine and he was nice and we just—he asked me what I was doing by myself looking nervous and I just told him that I was trying to get over this guy I loved who I'd been with for years and I just didn't really know what I was doing. And he said..."

His blush has reached a fierce burn.

"He—offered to kiss me," he gets out. "I mean, I'm not trying to show off or make you feel weird or anything, but he offered because he said he figured I was uncomfortable with the idea of diving back in and he was willing to just kind of—let me try it out a little without getting involved in anything else or being over my head and—and I said okay, because he was cute and he really did seem nice, and I figured—I figured if I went home after hiding in the shadows all night I just might hide forever. And I thought, maybe this was all I needed to do, and I... And we kissed."

For a moment, his speech halts; he struggles not to feel ashamed to tell this to Pascal. He can't bear to let a pause hang between them after that, and so pushes himself back into the story.

"And it wasn't that much, we kind of made out but I was keeping it slow and he was following my lead, and—and it was kind of nice, he was a nice kisser. And, you know, he was kind of holding me by the waist, and you know I like to be held, but there—there got to this point where he put his hands right against me, and was kind of feeling my back and my sides, and it wasn't bad, and he wasn't pushing me, but I had never had anyone touch my body like that except for you for ages and ages, and...suddenly it went from feeling nice to where all I could think about was how—how this wasn't you touching me, and how much I wanted it to be. I just got hit with how much I missed you and it suddenly felt terrible. And it was okay because he stopped as soon as I froze up and when I pulled away, it was fine, he was understanding about it, and just... I just didn't bother with anything but having a couple more drinks for the rest of the night before going back home."

He does pause then as a small group of people walk past them, chatting and laughing.

"It just..." He sighs. "It all caught me completely off guard, because I'd gone out on the assumption that I was going to start moving on from you, and that's why I wanted to try kissing someone, except—kissing somebody was what made me realize how much I still wanted you."

He needs a few seconds before he can keep going.

"At the time, that really hurt, because I thought I was just going to be hung up on past issues forever and I'd never date anyone again and I'd always be wishing I was with you, and I... I'd go out with friends again sometimes, but I'd never let anyone touch me or even flirt with me because I just...I knew I wasn't ready. And I worked really hard in those few months after I moved to try to...to both give myself the time and space I needed to let go but to also push myself. I—I mean, it was just so strange that I had kissed someone because I was thinking I could just choose to be over you, and that showed me that I definitely wasn't going to be able to—to be over you because I wished I could be."

He sighs and crosses and uncrosses his legs.

"I still knew that was true by the time I ran into you. And that just proved to me even more—I mean, it was a complete shock, and I was just caught off-guard and nervous with Wallace there and everything, but when you came out to talk to me, and when I went home, and when I thought about it for days after that, I knew I...I knew I was still in love with you."

He dares a glance at Pascal, who is looking at him with a blushing expression that seems caught between sad and wondering.

"...Just because I told you that doesn't mean I ever expect you to tell me if you were with anyone else after we broke up, because I meant what I said about how I thought we should go ahead and be with other people if we found someone, and it's not my business and I don't need to know," he says, and then looks away again, back at the sidewalk. "But that, um, that kind of relates to something else I wanted to explain. About how—you remember how last time I tried to talk with you, I ended up just backing out?"

"Uh-huh," Pascal murmurs.

"Well, mostly what went wrong is—I thought I was ready, but—but what it was is that on my way over I remembered something else that happened after we moved here. I was at work, and I just already felt terrible, and then—then I just suddenly had the thought of you dating someone else. And it—it felt awful," he admits. "And I couldn't get it out of my head and I was just suddenly almost panicking because I was thinking about how you could be with someone else right then while I was thinking of it. And I just—it was too much and I was freaking out on top of feeling like shit already and then I was freaking out about freaking out and I—I couldn't really do anything about it; I pretty much had this little meltdown for half an hour or so and had to have Cuddy come in and save me." He laughs flatly. "And I felt awful because it was a bad day and because I was having an anxiety attack and because I fucked up at my job, but also—also because I was so upset at imagining you with someone else, even though I had really meant for both of us to move on and be happy. And I felt like such shit because I thought I must not have meant it and I just...I thought the only way to deal with it was to force it down and just keep distancing myself and so I never really dealt with it and when I remembered it on my way to meet you, all at once it was so stressful that I was worried I was gonna turn into a mess again if I tried to talk about us and—and even more than that, I felt like such a hypocritical, selfish jerk."

He stares down at his knees.

"I had to actually face that moment and figure out why I was hit so hard by something I'd knowingly brought onto us," he murmurs. "Before I could talk to you like this."

"Uh..." Pascal breaks in softly. "Wait, so is this—"

Kip looks over to see Pascal staring off in front of himself, his brow creased in thought.

"Is this all about that guy you kissed?" Pascal asks, voice tinged with confusion.

"Oh—n-no, it isn't..." He rubs the hem of his shirt between his fingers. "That was just...something related to this."

"To...talking about us...?" Pascal trails off.

Kip sets his jaw and stares at a tiny crack in the sidewalk where a few blades of grass have grown through. He focuses very hard on them, marking them mentally as his source of comfort, the detail to turn to as distraction from anything that ends up being too much.

"I had this dream a little while ago," he murmurs. His heart is beating very hard, thudding under his jaw, practically audible to him. It becomes difficult to interrupt its sledgehammer rhythm with his own increasingly weak voice. "It made me aware of something in my life that I hadn't been. And thinking about that made me realize ways I felt about you that I hadn't managed to figure out yet."

This time, though Pascal doesn't interrupt his pause, Kip almost wishes he would. Because there's nothing left to say other than what he's been hiding away from everyone in confusion and a little shame. And his heart is really thudding so strongly that Kip feels his pulse in his knees, his stomach, his wrists. He can't look right at Pascal, but he looks at the edge of the bench right beside the end of Pascal's arm.

The quiet between them is going on so long. It could go on forever. If he didn't tell Pascal, didn't say anything, what would Pascal think? What guesses are already forming? What is he expecting?

Say it.

Say it.

Tell him.

Tell him.

Tell him.

Just tell him.

Tell him.

Tell him.

He takes a deep breath and drops his head slightly. He can't back out now. He couldn't do that. And he couldn't stand to.

Just tell him.

One more deep breath, and a glance at the grass, and a thought of a hand on his shoulder, a long-gone voice telling him he can do this, he'll be okay. It's fine for him to be this nervous. He can say this.

"I..." he starts. "Um, I realized..."

His knees are starting to shiver. Pascal seems to realize this, and shifts his own knee a few inches over to rest against Kip's in support. This just makes it harder, but all Kip can do is ignore that. All he could blame himself for now is not telling Pascal the truth.

"I realized I have a crush on Wallace."

He's frozen in place. He stares at the grass and doubts he could look anywhere else.

"And when I was realizing that, I'd already figured out I'm in love with you." He manages to scrape his voice out. "And then a while afterwards I realized that I really wanted us to be together again, like we had been."

He's glad for his jacket; his temperature is lowering incrementally.

"You... You wanted?" Pascal repeats beside him in a voice just as small. "Did...do you still...want that?"

Kip turns and looks right at Pascal and he has no idea how he does it, he just follows his impulse.

It's so like that night when Kip said he ought to move away, the look on Pascal's face is nearly just as shaken, just as close to seeming almost afraid. Kip's heart lurches but he lets Pascal have his eye contact.

"I do still want that," he says. "I've been wanting it more and more each time I think about it. But I—I can't just tell you that without telling you that I've been...I've been realizing I love Wallace. And I love you. And I couldn't—I can't tell you how I feel about you if I was hiding that. I need you to know that. I need you to know how I feel without hiding anything."

Pascal still seems just as shaken, but that look of borderline-fear is now borderline-pained, as if at any moment he's about to wince or turn away from him. Kip realizes their knees are somehow still together. He keeps looking at Pascal. He can't turn away now.

"I—I never thought I'd have to think about loving more than one person," he says, voice louder now, if a bit tremulous. "I never assumed I would. When I realized I had a crush on Wallace, and that maybe I have for a while, I was so confused because I had no idea how I could feel this way but I did. I do. I've been thinking so hard this whole time about just trying to figure out these feelings, and all I realized about both of you was that I loved you more than I thought. When I started to think that this crush I'd gotten on Wallace might not just go away, when I thought that maybe it had started a while ago and I was just realizing it now, I also realized that even though I felt that way, I still loved you just as much as ever. I love you, and it's just as strong as it would be with or without any feelings for Wallace, Pascal. And then when I knew I love you, I thought about Wallace again, and those feelings were still there too. I don't know, Pascal, I don't know, I know that when you—when you realize you love somebody else it's supposed to mean that your love has left the first person or it's less or now you have to figure it out so you only love one of them, but...Pascal, it just isn't that way with this. These feelings for both of you aren't in competition. It doesn't feel at all like loving one of you makes me love the other any less, or like it means they're less important, or I have to push one of you away or... I mean, hell, thinking about how I loved you both only made me feel more strongly for each of you," he says, passion rising in his voice as though attempting to provide evidence.

He takes a few quick breaths, clenching a hand into a fist.

"Last time we met I was wanting to tell you this, and I remembered that time I got so upset about the idea of you being with someone else that I threw up, and I felt so guilty because I thought I must be being so selfish, wanting you to understand me loving another person too when I couldn't handle the thought of you being with someone instead of me. And I knew I had to figure it out, because I couldn't give you that same feeling I'd gotten about it, and so I went and I faced it until I realized that what I was so hurt by was just thinking that you didn't love me anymore, that you'd replaced me so that you didn't even want to have that love for me anymore, and—Pascal—"

He turns closer towards Pascal. He wants to touch his face, but knows simply meeting his eyes is just as helpful, if not moreso. Pascal's face is so flushed and he's so still and quiet.

"Pascal, all I wanted was to know that you still cared about me, that I still meant something to you, I just—Pascal, my feelings for Wallace don't mean I was missing anything with you, or my love for you was too weak or not real or you didn't love me enough or I wasn't getting something or I needed someone new or different or whatever, whatever—it isn't anything like that! My love for you and the way I feel about you is still here, just like before, and Wallace doesn't take away from that at all. It's like how—how my love for Roy, or Molly, or Eno, or my family, none of that means I have less love left to give to you, none of that means you're less important to me or I want you in my life less! I mean—I've been a lot closer to Kate than I used to be when I first lived in C, and it's not because Roy or Molly aren't good enough somehow, or I don't need them, or now I love them less because I love Kate better, and it feels exactly the same with Wallace. I know it’s supposed to be different, but it feels like it’s the same. I—I love him and I like him and I care about him and I want to kiss him and be close to him and—"

All at once he's tearing up but he presses on.

"And absolutely none of that has anything to do with how much I love you or not," he says, body tensing. His knee is now shoved against Pascal's. "And I love you so much. I keep my feelings for Wallace when I think of you, and I keep my feelings for you when I think of Wallace, and before this I wasn't sure if being in love with you was the right thing but ever since I've had to figure all this out I know—I know that I love you, and I've loved you since I met you, and I never stopped even when we broke up, and I—maybe I needed to move but that doesn't change the fact that it was stupid to think we had to split up, but I know nobody could have convinced me otherwise at the time—maybe I had to go through all this, go through our split and miss you like hell and try to move on and realize you were back and realize I still want you and now realize I like Wallace too, because, you know, going through all that just brought me here, where I don't feel guilty about wanting you or scared of loving you, and—you know what?" He sniffs and draws a deep but shaky breath.

His eyes are brimming so much that he can hardly see any distinct forms. His blink rumbles and sends tears spilling down his cheeks.

"I know neither of us needs each other," he says. "If we wanted to we could go without each other and it would be so hard but we could do it. We could move on and we would live our lives. But I don't want to. You're here, and I love you, and out of all possible ways my life could go, if I have any choice, I want the one where I can be with you. I want us to be together. And when I was trying to figure out all this mess I realized that being away from you had just made me realize how good it's been to be with you for years and how good you are and how much love I felt for you every day, and...and I realized that the love I've always had for you has only gotten stronger and deeper since I left, Pascal. I didn't know that for sure until all of this came up."

He takes a few breaths, blinking out more tears. He doesn't want to call any more attention to the fact that he's crying by wiping his face—he wants Pascal to ignore it, so he will too.

Pascal leans back against the bench, face deeply flushed, and looks down at his lap.

"I'm not telling you about how I feel for Wallace because it's affected my feelings for you, or anything," Kip says quietly. "I'm not saying something's wrong, or I don't want to be with you. I just... When I knew that it wasn't just a crush that was going to go away after a week, I already knew that I wasn't able to just wish away my feelings for you either. And so I—I couldn't tell you how I felt about you without telling you that I have feelings for Wallace. Because it would be keeping something from you and I don't want that. I want you to know everything that I've been thinking about and I...I didn't want to have any conversation about us where I couldn't be totally open with you. I just want to be honest about everything. And—and, I don't know—you know how even when there's stuff I don't want to talk about, I just say that I don't feel like talking about it, I don't have to try pretending it doesn't exist or hide it or anything like that."

He sniffs quietly and takes a slow breath through his mouth. The end of Pascal's arms are curling in on themselves, one like a fiddlehead and the other like a soft-serve helix. His whole body seems slightly curved in on itself too, back bent forward with his head bowed towards his lap. It manages to make him look almost small.

Kip wants to touch him, but instead he discreetly wipes his face and softens his voice.

"I've never told Wallace about this," he murmurs. "He doesn't know how I feel. I wanted to talk to you about it before anyone else. The only other people who know are Eno, because of my appointments, and Kate, because she guessed. But I told her it was private. I...didn't want you to feel pressured. Nobody else knows."

Pascal doesn't quite look outright upset, but he's so tensed. He seems unable to speak, and his face is so thoroughly tinged red, and he's so removed from that easy happiness he had when they left the apartment. Kip tries not to start thinking that he's ruined all of this. That won't do anything for either of them.

"I don't know what I want with Wallace," he says. "Because I've never even told him. I know the stuff I think about, but I have no idea what would happen in reality. If I went up to him and asked him out he might just turn me down and that would be it. But I know what I want with you, Pascal. If I could choose how my life goes, I'd always choose a version that has you beside me because I want us to be together as long as we can be, as close as we'd like to be. But I...I know it isn't all about what I want. I want you to be able to choose too. So I had to tell you this first, because you deserve to know in case you...aren't comfortable with it. And I don't mean that to say you have to be comfortable with me telling Wallace this, because...I want to try figuring stuff out with you before anything else. I'm not—I can have the same interactions with Wallace that I've been having without ever needing to tell him how I feel. It would be fine. I just..."

He sighs.

"The way I feel about him is real. So you deserve to know about it, so that you're able to tell me how you feel and what you want. But just because I have more love for him than I used to doesn't mean that's taken away from the love I have for you at all. And I've been feeling more strongly about Wallace since I first knew I liked him, and while that was happening I was feeling more strongly about you, too. I promise those two things aren't in conflict inside me, and they're not in competition with each other, I don't need to compare them, they're just...two feelings at the same time."

He presses his lips together.

Pascal looks so shaky. He seems so unsure of what to do that Kip immediately wants to step in to take care of him.

"Listen, Pascal..." he touches his arm. "I'm not going to do anything or tell anyone anything until you decide how you feel about this, okay? And I want you to just be able to tell me fully honestly how you feel, and don't worry, I'm fine. I'll be fine. I just wanna know how you feel. If you aren't okay with this...I want to know that too. Whatever you think."

He slowly caresses Pascal's arm as another tear tips over the brink of his eyelashes. Wanting to look after Pascal is making him regain steadiness much faster than he could otherwise.

"I needed a long time to figure this out, so you can take as much time as you need to understand what you want to say," he tells him softly. "I want to hear when you do. Don't worry about needing to be nice, I just want to know everything you think."

He stills his hand on Pascal's arm and looks at his face.

"I love you so much, Pascal." His voice is almost as gentle as Pascal's sometimes manages to be. He gets the mild burning behind his nose that leads to a few new tears pooling in his eyes. "I won't do anything that'll hurt you, okay? I won't hurt you. I love you. I never could stop loving you."

Pascal exhales and turns his head to look at him and Kip takes his hand away and quickly wipes his face, giving a small smile.

"I'm fine." His voice is almost a whisper. "Don't worry; I'm fine."

Pascal gives the slightest nod. Kip smiles more broadly and touches his shoulder briefly.

"I know you're not ready to give me an answer now, so don't worry about that. Don't try. Take as much time as you need. Okay?"

"...Okay," Pascal answers quietly. He looks a tiny bit more steadied. Kip keeps looking him in the face, regardless of whether Pascal can look back at him or not.

"...Wanna head home for tonight?" Kip suggests. "I'd be really glad to walk you home if you want."

Pascal seems to be about to speak, but it gets caught and turns into a sighing exhale.

"I..." he starts again. "I guess so."

Kip bites his lip. He stands and offers his arm to Pascal.

"C'mon. I'll take you home," he says.

Pascal looks up at him and manages a weak smile. After a moment he spirals his arm from Kip's wrist to his elbow and stands as well. A full head above Kip, and he still seems smaller.

—

Although it's a brief walk, Kip is comforted that Pascal holds his hand all the way to the door of his building. Kip breathes through his teeth as they approach it, feeling the wrap of Pascal's arm loosen on his own.

"Thank you so much for coming tonight, Pascal," he says as their steps slow. "It made me really happy, and Roy and Molly too, and I'm really glad you liked it too. I mean it that you should be able to come over as often as you want. We'd all really like that."

"It was really great being with you guys again," Pascal says, letting go of Kip's arm to turn slightly towards him. "Thanks for that—all of you guys being so cool to me."

Kip looks up at him and smiles.

"Thanks for listening," he says, clenching a hand as he does. "I'm sorry I took so long to tell you that, and I wish this was all simpler, but...I wasn’t about to keep all that to myself."

Pascal smiles back at him, and Kip is so glad to see it, because it's one of Pascal's warm, soft smiles, barely strained at all.

"Take your time, okay?" Kip murmurs. "And if you want to ask me questions, that's okay, and if you wanna talk without having any definite answer, that's fine. Just whatever is comfortable for you."

"Right," Pascal says quietly. "Thank you."

Kip glances down at his feet before looking back up to lock eyes with Pascal.

"I love you." He tries not to make it sound pleading. "I love you. I know I have no way of proving it to you, but I'm not lying about any of the stuff I said, I promise. And I really do feel—I really love you. I promise. I love you the way I always have. I promise, I..."

"Hey." It's the gentlest interruption. "I've known you for so long, Kip. I know you’re telling the truth. Don't worry."

Kip smiles.

"...I love you so much, Pascal,” he says quietly.

"I know." Pascal has the Sweet Look and it's beautiful. "I love you too, Kip."

Kip's breath becomes a light laugh of pure relief.

And then that breath is caught, because Pascal is touching his face and leaning towards him.

It's a short kiss, barely over two seconds long, but it's soft and so familiar and so intensely missed, and Pascal still holds it long enough to absolutely melt Kip and leave him staring speechlessly when they part.

"Text me when you get home, okay?" Pascal says, stepping towards the front door.

Kip nods weakly.

"Goodnight, Kip."

"Goodnight."

Kip sees the blush and the soft smile on Pascal's face as their eyes meet one more time before Pascal slips inside. The door shuts behind him, leaving Kip to feel his departure.

Kip stands there, lips still warmed by Pascal's, face still sticky with almost-dried tears.

About a minute later, he finally turns away and takes the first few steps towards home.

—

Immediately after sending both Roy and Molly a text to inform them he's heading back home, he messages Kate, asking if she's still up.

A minute later he gets a reply, a "cool!!" from Roy. And while he's reading that, the notification for Kate's "yesss whats up" intrudes on his screen.

"can i just tell you about this thing i just did. i feel like telling someone and i know i only just told you the other day about the wallace thing so its kinda weird and annoying to throw you this stuff at random but youre kind of almost the only person who knows about it except for eno and my appointment tomorrow is way too far away."

"oh god...what did you do"

"no, don't worry, it wasn't horrible. but so i guess molly told you we had pascal over tonight, right?"

"yeah. i was kinda curious about that. interesting timing"

"tell me about it. so ok, long story short, i was still trying to figure things out with pascal when i realized i had a crush on wallace, so i spent ages figuring both out and it was a mess, but basically what i finally worked out was that i definitely want to get back with pascal, but i still like wallace too. in a way where i kinda want to date him."

"whoa."

"yeah. so i've been trying for a while to just make myself tell pascal about everything. that i like wallace too but i want to be with him again. and tonight i did that. like we went on a walk and i told him and im just heading home after dropping him off and i think im getting delayed adrenaline or something here"

"oh my god? how did it go??”

"i mean, he didnt get mad or anything. i think he was just, you know. really surprised. and probably confused. but i swear i really tried to explain everything well and i just told him to get back to me on it whenever he wants to. i mean, he kissed me for a second before he went inside. on the mouth and everything. and he said he loves me, so i think that's a good sign, right? i don't know...it wasn't perfect and it was really hard to do and we both got a little shook up but at least it feels like he's not gonna stop talking to me forever. i think. oh god what if that was a kiss goodbye, not just a kiss goodbye. i dont think it was??"

"ok dont start freaking out about that, we both know he's never going to just dump you like that. even if you did tell him youre in love with another man"

"oh god"

"im joking, take it easy. you said you havent talked to wallace about all this, right?"

"right...im not even going to think about it until pascal tells me what he thinks about this. im not gonna tell anyone until then. please dont even tell roy and molly or anyone...i'll tell them but not before pascal can think it over first."

"yeah i get it, big ol kip secret. ive kept it safe all this time so im not gonna slip up now. and what if pascal isnt sure?"

"i dont know. i guess we might just have to figure it out as we go along then"

"what if youuuu....talked to them both at once? like in the same room and everything"

"maybe at some point if we get there. right now i dont know what im doing or what any of us is doing. but at least i finally told pascal and im kind of terrified but im glad he doesnt seem to hate me, you know?"

"please. he loves you as much as anyones ever loved anyone. just keep talking to him. and probably eventually wally too."

"yeah. you're right...god it just feels crazy right now. its like this whole secret thats been messing me up for forever. i almost can't believe i finally managed to tell him"

"sounds like its a good thing you did manage it then. congratulations on that and your hot date."

"thanks. and thanks for letting me throw all this shit at you."

"you know i’m always here to have shit thrown <3"

"see you for like an hour tomorrow?"

"about. can't wait. don't stay up all night worrying and overthinking ok? go get some sleep."

"alright, for you. goodnight then"

"niight"

—

Kip enters the door that leads directly from the outside into a stairwell and texts Pascal "I got back" as soon as it closes behind him. He ascends the steps slowly, feeling a little tired but moreso mentally and physically fogged up. It's quiet and he doesn't see a single person, but once or twice he hears a door shut or a blurry voice down a hallway.

He sighs as he puts the keys in the door and barely makes it all the way inside before Roy sticks his head into the room.

"Kip!" he says, brightly yet quietly enough that Kip can presume Molly has already turned in for the night. "How did it go? Did—"

Roy cuts himself off with a twitch of his brow as his gaze moves all across Kip's face with strangely intense focus. Kip blinks and holds himself stiffly under the sudden scrutiny.

"...Roy?"

The other monster's expression shifts to one of deep sympathy. He walks closer, requiring Kip to tilt his head further up.

"Roy, what is it?" Kip asks weakly, bemused.

"Kip..." Roy's voice is soaked with pathos. "You've been crying."

"What?" Kip is genuinely surprised; he'd stopped crying over twenty minutes ago and had made a decent effort to clean up the evidence.

"What happened?" Roy asks. "Is everything okay?"

"It's fine," Kip assures him quietly. "Roy, it's fine, don't worry."

"What happened?" Roy repeats. He moves closer and Kip blushes, glancing away.

"It's nothing. I...I just had to talk about some stuff that was really difficult to say and I got stressed. Nothing happened."

"You...you guys are okay? I mean...did you fight?" Roy almost whispers the last words, seemingly embarrassed.

"No." Kip laughs flatly. "Pascal's fine; I walked him home. It just got emotional, but it wasn’t a fight."

"You're okay?" Roy repeats.

Kip smiles with a small nod.

"Good—" And Roy swoops forward and hugs Kip snugly against his chest.

It only takes a minute for Kip to gamely bring his hands to Roy's back. Then Roy's hand is above his nape, at the base of Kip's skull, softly stroking his hair. Kip's exhale is a little strained but he allows his forehead to rest against Roy's chest. Roy moves his other hand to the small of Kip's back and holds him; Kip keeps still, almost breathless, finding the experience slightly overwhelming in his current state.

"I'm glad you're alright," Roy murmurs, resting his chin atop Kip's head and lengthening his strokes from up by Kip's scalp down to the border of his hair.

"Mm-hm." Kip's hands twitch and he closes his eyes.

The embrace feels really nice, better the longer it's held. It's making it easier for Kip to relax. He leans a little bit into Roy, who's so much taller that it doesn't shift them off balance even a bit.

"You're so sweet, Roy," he mumbles against Roy's shirt. "You're always so sweet to me and I hope you know how much I appreciate it."

"Aw..." Roy squeezes him tighter.

They hug until Kip twists slightly in Roy's arms to put a hand to his chin and kiss his cheek.

"Oh—"

Kip smiles softly with a glance at the pink spreading across Roy's face. He presses another kiss to his jaw, lingering longer. And places one more peck to his cheek as he gently places a hand on the side of his shoulder.

"Thank you," he says as he shifts his weight back to let Roy straighten back up to his full impressive height.

Roy is smiling warmly, looking at Kip with a fondness as though he loves the very sight of him.

"I'm glad everything went okay today," Roy says. "I'm really happy we can all hang out like that again and you guys get to see each other again. You two are so good together...it's so easy and nice to see how much you love each other."

Kip blushes and smiles at the floor.

"Thank you," he repeats softly. "I'll...I'll tell you guys about what's going on as soon as I can, okay? I promise it's nothing bad or—anything you need to worry about, but it's—uh—it's very personal, and I want Pascal to just have it to himself for a bit until he's figured out his feelings about it. And it's just...hard to talk about. I think I'm ready, but it's still hard."

"...Okay."

"I'm sorry for being so cryptic." Kip laughs dryly and rubs at the side of his neck. "I just haven't been able to talk about it."

"That's alright!" Roy assures him quickly. "You don't need to push yourself. We want you to feel comfortable about telling us whatever you want to tell us."

Kip smiles at him again.

"That's not all that's been bothering you though, is it." Roy's expression drops a little. "Not with all the times you've had bad days lately."

Kip meets his eyes for a moment and then looks at the wall, sighing quietly.

"No. But that's just usual things. Old stuff, and...bad days, and both at once. There's nothing terrible going on."

Roy reaches out hesitantly, hand hovering in the air between them. Kip takes it and strokes the back of his hand a few times with his thumb.

"You have to get up even before we do," Kip murmurs. "Go ahead to bed. I think I'm gonna take a quick bath and then I'm going to bed, too."

"Okay," Roy says, curling his hand around Kip's. "You'll be alright?"

Kip feels a flush of affection at how much earnest concern Roy has.

"Yes. Thank you. I love you." Roy is too high up to kiss his face without tugging him down, so Kip raises their clasped hands and kisses Roy's knuckles.

"Oh, gosh..." Roy sounds almost breathless, face lit up and glowing pink. "I love you too, Kip."

And Kip is pulled forward into another tight hug, returning it immediately. He squeezes Roy's torso before they release each other.

"Okay." He smiles up at Roy. "Goodnight, Roy."

"Goodnight." Roy smiles back, and bends and kisses Kip's forehead.

Kip grins and pivots away, retreating to his bedroom with a soft smile. He physically relaxes just at the sight of his bed and tosses his keys and phone on the blankets. He pulls some sweatpants and a soft tee from a drawer and takes them into the bathroom, where he runs the water for a minute to its highest heat and quickly fills the tub just short of halfway, then strips his clothes off and lowers himself in.

He just wants the heat, not a second chance in the same day to wash himself, so he simply lies still in the water and keeps his head above the surface, though he cups some water in his hands to let it run down his face. He soaks in the warmth for about ten minutes, then lathers a bit of soap and casually spreads it on his face and throat, works it under his arms, on his chest, his legs. He rinses it off and opens the stopper of the drain before stepping out and wrapping himself in a towel.

He gets into his pajamas after drying off and peeing, washes his hands, brushes his teeth, and carries the day's clothes tucked under an arm on the way back to his room. Less than a minute later he's nestling under his covers. He takes his phone to set his alarm and sees that he's gotten a response from Pascal.

His heart thumps at the sight; he opens it immediately.

"Good. Ps: im not mad at you, i want to make sure you know that."

Kip texts back: "ok. thanks pas. goodnight”

He sighs deeply as he puts the phone aside, sinks back into his mattress and pillow, and looks at the ceiling.

Kate's words come to mind, telling him to try to sleep instead of spending hours overanalyzing everything and being kept up by his anxieties. He closes his eyes and dedicates his thoughts to following her advice.

—

His alarm wakes him out of a sound sleep. The dull feeling that something is off confuses him—and when he remembers what happened the night before, he isn't sure it's real. But his phone shows the documentation via his texts.

He shoves on his clothes while wondering how Pascal felt when he woke up and how he's feeling now. He has a quick bowl of cereal and heads out for an early shift at the café.

Molly is pulling trays out of the oven when he arrives and he greets her warmly if breathlessly as he ties on his apron and then gets to work preparing the front, tills, and coffee bar for opening.

Transitioning into work mode is second nature; unless his mood is exceptionally horrific he can always front a collected, vaguely amiable demeanor. Which is true even when his mind wanders, as it's tending to do now. Fortunately, it just means he's a little distracted and liable to an occasional second or two when he stops what he's doing and stares hard at a random point in space. Otherwise he shows no signs of being preoccupied by wondering what Pascal's current thoughts and feelings are.

The store keeps up a mild, steady flow of customers with a few periods of increased busyness. He can repeat a cycle of activities to keep everything together, and time doesn't drag too badly, though he has moments where his thoughts start to race and he has to shake it off.

Kate arrives before he expects it. She grins at him with a nod and his usual smile and wave have a hint more timidity than usual. He feels a low blush rising and busies himself with cleaning up the coffee bar as he hears Kate and Molly's muffled conversation and laughter. When she joins him up front she asks how he's holding up and pats his shoulder.

The last hour of his shift slips by, and it's only when he's halfway home that some anxiety rises to the forefront of his mind in the absence of distraction. The solitude in the apartment doesn't feel peaceful as much as threatening, so once he gets out of his work clothes he slides into bed and tries for a nap to pass the next half hour or so.

It's something of a success—he drifts in and out of a light sleep, and the physical relaxation soothes his mental agitation as well. The blankets feel soft and warm against his skin and the quiet becomes welcome. He's dozing when his alarm sounds.

It takes less than ten minutes before he's dressed and has everything ready for his trip to B. He hitches the strap of his bag into place, checks his keys, phone, and wallet, and heads out the door.

The sense of routine is comforting when he's in the station, waiting for his train to arrive. As always, it becomes slightly less comforting once he crosses into B, but he works hard on ignoring it and only feels slightly drained by the increasing sense of tension in his proximity.

It feels like it's been so long since he's last seen Eno's door. He's twenty minutes early, but although his appointments aren't always on the same day of the week, Eno always has at least an hour cushion before his appointments and none scheduled afterwards, so there's no worry of anyone else being around. Sure enough, there's no sign of anyone when he walks inside and deposits himself on a padded bench. He's grateful for the feeling of sanctuary in the quiet and familiarity.

He doesn't see or hear any indication of Eno's presence, but he calls out to inform him of his arrival nonetheless, and then sinks against the wall, closing his eyes and heaving a sigh. He remembers one time he fell asleep on this bench. Though there's also been a few times in the years he's been coming for appointments when Eno would leave the room for a minute to retrieve something and Kip had been so exhausted all day that be dozed off on the chaise.

He feels exhausted now too, in a very different way.

—

"Well, I've been kissed more in the past week than I was for basically this past year, so."

"Oh. Well, then."

He lowers his bag to the floor and then himself to the couch.

"It's been...a little bit of a mess, Eno," he adds with half a smile.

"You holding up?"

"I think so." He laughs. "I'm a little worried I'm going to burn out or crash at some point here, but so far it feels like I'm at least kind of...supported by momentum right now."

"Wanna tell me about what's been going on?" Eno perches on the chair behind his desk.

"Ugh." Kip leans back and puts his hands on his face. "Okay. I'm just going to give a list and worry about coming back to parts when I'm done."

"Okay."

"Okay. So after I left my appointment last week I ended up inviting Pascal to our apartment for dinner with the three of us, and he said yes. And we both said 'I love you.' And then I visited Wallace on a whim and we just had a long conversation while hanging out and it was really nice. And then all of a sudden I woke up to a couple bad days and Roy and Molly took me out once but I was still nervous about it messing with the dinner we'd planned because I was nervous enough already. And I was trying to meet with Pascal beforehand to tell him about Wallace, but like right before I got there I remembered this time I had gotten really super upset just from imagining Pascal dating someone besides me and I backed out, and Pascal was understanding but it sucked. Oh, and then I ran into Ben and half-lost my patience for a second and I still haven't apologized for that. And I tried writing stuff down about why I'd felt all guilty and hypocritical about telling Pascal everything, and it actually helped me figure out a lot about it, and Wallace showed up at my work and I ended up telling Kate I liked him because she asked if I did, and then Wallace came by our place for dinner and that was cool and then just before he left for the night he hugged me and then he kissed me—not on the mouth, but just beside it—" He puts two fingers to the spot to clarify. "And then he compliments my face and then Roy comes back and they both head downstairs. And then yesterday was the day for Pascal to come over and it actually all went really well, and we all liked being together again, and I'd told him earlier I wanted to talk afterwards and he said okay and I took him out and I managed to tell him about Wallace and tried my best to explain everything I thought I needed to and I don't think I forgot anything important, and I know he was really surprised so I told him to just take his time coming up with whatever he wanted to say or do next, and I don't think he was mad, and when I walked him to his building we said 'I love you' again and he kissed me, on the lips, and he texted me to make sure I knew he wasn't mad, and that was last night and I'm kind of impressed I haven't fallen apart way worse at any time during all of that."

He takes a few breaths, gazing steadily at the ceiling.

"...Wow."

"And that brings it to today. It's been alright, although I have to try not to be on edge about waiting for Pascal to get in touch with me. I mean, for all I know, it could be weeks, and I don't want to feel disappointed just because it ends up taking a while."

"Mm. But maybe you want to keep in touch with him and just don't want to go a month or two without seeing or speaking to him? Do you think either you or he plans on associating with the other only if you're dating?"

"Well...I'd rather not go without him, and he's one of my best friends, and...he's Roy and Molly's friend, too. I just don't want to seem like I'm trying to pressure him, you know? As though I'm trying to give him attention to convince him to go along with whatever I want. Because it's only just this week that we've been in touch and seen each other more often than just...casually, every week and a half or two."

"Right." Eno puts his hand on his chin and taps his index finger to his philtrum. "I'm not saying I think this is necessarily more likely, but isn't it possible that avoiding contact with him entirely might pressure him as well? If he thinks that he won't get to see or speak to you at all if he's not agreeing to have a conversation about you two dating, you know?"

"That's probably true, ugh," Kip groans. "...I guess I could wait about a week and then think about getting in touch if he hasn't already? I feel like that would give him some time without being an unusually long separation or anything."

"Are you worried about it?"

"...A little. I just...I don't want to risk spoiling this. I mean, I guess I'll be alright without him if he doesn't want to be with me, but I—I'm pretty invested in him, and I get more stressed than I'd like if I start thinking about this falling apart."

He sighs.

"I mean, he did tell me that he was worried about a similar thing when he moved here. That I'd be angry with him, and I wouldn't want to be with him, and I wouldn't even want him so close to me. And he just said he knew he would rather risk living with that than feel like he was letting go of any chance to have each other in our lives."

He folds his hands in his lap, rubbing one thumb over the other.

"So I suppose I don't have to worry about him not even wanting to be friends. But I... For a while I actually was upset and even a little bit angry sometimes. And I couldn't even be certain until just recently that I wanted to date him again."

"But you're not angry at him now. And you want to be with him."

"Yeah. He just had to wait about a year and hear that I'm interested in someone else." He manages to keep almost all of the bitterness out of his dry tone.

"He told you he wasn't angry."

"...But he might've felt hurt. He looked upset. And, I don't know, that was last night and we were together and maybe after waking up to another day and not having me standing right in front of him, he feels differently now."

"Maybe. And maybe he doesn't. You'll just have to wait and see what he has to say. In the meantime, you two were together for years. Remember how much he cares about you."

Kip sighs again.

"I know... I know that's true..." He bites his lip. "I just get so nervous sometimes."

"Just remind yourself. Focus on specific memories and feelings, strong ones that can pull you out of a loop."

Kip looks right above himself at the ceiling and nods. Eno lets the pause linger for a few seconds before offering another question.

"What about Wallace?"

"I haven't told him anything. I don't think I want to talk to anyone about it until I know for sure what Pascal wants."

"You think you'll tell him even if you're not going to date him?"

"...I might. But I'm not sure. I might just tell Roy and Molly in that case. It's not like it's exactly put a strain on the relationship I've already had with Wallace. I just...I want different things too, but if that's not possible, I can accept that. I don't even know that he'd be interested anyways."

"You did, um, mention him kissing your face."

"That did happen." Kip blushes. "But to be fair, I kiss my friends on the face sometimes when we're close enough. For all I know, Wallace might do that too. I mean, we've known each other a good while now, but I feel like it's only been in recent months that we've had the time and energy and opportunity to try to get to know each other properly. There's still plenty of things I haven't asked or told him."

"Do you feel any differently about it now that you've told Pascal?"

"I don't think so. It's been pretty much the same since I became aware of it." He doesn't much care to elaborate on such developments as consciously choosing to fantasize about sex with Wallace while masturbating.

"What if Wallace talks to you first?" Eno asks. "If he thinks something like, I don't know, he's worried he overstepped a boundary by kissing you. Do you know what you'd do if something were to happen such as Wallace asking you to share your feelings towards him?"

"Oh—" Kip's blush brightens. "Well, I... I don't want to lie to him. I guess I'd just tell him I'm not upset with him, but I'd have to wait to discuss the details of how I feel."

"And if he told you he wants to go out with you?"

Kip exhales slowly; his heart has sped up slightly.

"I...I guess then I would have to..." He sighs. "I'd probably want to tell him everything, but I...I don't know if I shouldn't just give the same answer. That I'm not upset, but I can't talk about it yet. I wouldn't want to, I don't know, give him false hope by saying I like him too, even though that’s true, and have to tell him afterwards that we can't even start dating."

"Would you tell Pascal if Wallace approached you first? Do you think it would be as easy to avoid a different relationship with Wallace if you both told each other you want to be together, even if you said it was off-limits?"

The heat in Kip's face stops being a pleasant warmth and becomes a burn. He pushes himself partway up to look at Eno.

"I won't cheat on Pascal!" he says sharply.

"I know you wouldn't, Kip." Eno's voice and expression are both soft, almost tired. He brushes some hair into place. "I don't mean it like that. I just mean that in that scenario, it might be very draining to be around Wallace, and you might find it more manageable to spend less time alone with him, or around him at all."

Kip's chest feels tighter; he knows Eno is probably right. He looks away and then nods.

"I suppose," he says quietly, slowly leaning back down. "I know I don't have any actual control over what'll happen. I'm trying to keep reminding myself it's possible I could lose both of them, but it's hard. It's already so natural for me to always assume disaster from the start that I'm trying to balance it out by hoping for the best, but...I still know that wanting some outcome more doesn't make it any more likely to occur. I don't know."

He wrings his fingers.

"I don't know," he repeats. "I can't really regret this or anything, and I didn't exactly choose it, but it's not like I don't wish it was simpler."

He wishes he had a warm drink.

"I mean, when Wallace kissed me, I know I liked it. But I wasn't expecting anything like that, of course, and it still...it's confusing. I mean, looking back on it, even before I started thinking of him like this, we had a decent amount of moments together that were..." He searches for the right word. "Intimate. And I think they were a little charged, at least on my end. I'd kind of get this intense feeling in my stomach for a second, but at the time I wasn't really recognizing it as anything in particular, much less...really liking him. So, I don't know, maybe it's been mutual, but...I just don't want to entertain anything that I can't follow through on, I don't want to be—I want to be honest about how I feel, without having my feelings be pushing them in any direction or another. I want it to be about how they feel about everything."

"But anyone who cares about you is going to want to take your feelings into account, too, Kip. Even if you just present them as factual bullet points, your feelings might not be interpreted as objectively as you present them."

"...Yeah. I guess."

"It's just that...you won't necessarily be able to predict and prepare for every scenario. Things might happen in a way you haven't even considered yet. Do you think you could deal with finding yourself in a completely unexpected situation with this? Or if things go beyond what you can control and you don't wind up happy with the end result?"

"I don't know," he murmurs.

"Just..." Eno inhales deeply. "I know that feeling like you have your thoughts in order and that you've planned for a variety of scenarios helps you feel more comfortable in potentially stressful or intimidating situations. But this is dealing entirely with emotions and relationships that are already historied and complex, and it's basically impossible for you to be able to be ready for every possible development."

"I know." His voice is quieter. He's getting slightly drained.

"Are you afraid of what might happen if that's the case?" Eno is softening his voice as well.

Kip pressed his lips together.

"I...I'm not worried about what it will be like experiencing the interaction if things don't work out one way or another," he says. "I know they're both kind and sensitive and they won't be cruel to me or want to upset me, but...it's the idea of the aftermath that worries me. If I damage either relationship, or hurt either of them. If I end up feeling upset and guilty and lonely all at once. It wouldn't be anything I couldn't handle, but I always dread that kind of thing no matter how often I encounter it."

"You couldn't truly numb yourself to that even if you tried," Eno says solemnly. "I'm not asking you all this to suggest you need to feel nervous or consider it more likely that things will go badly. I just want you to be prepared to take care of yourself. It's very clear you've been thinking a lot about how to handle Pascal and Wallace's needs and are taking it very seriously. And that's a good thing. But you shouldn't forget about yourself. You need to be sure to pay attention to your own needs while waiting for any discussion, and during it, and afterwards. Have you been noticing your own emotions this last week, even those not directly involving everything that you told me was going on?"

"I think so," Kip says slowly. "I mean, things were kind of a mess and I was thinking about things with Wallace and Pascal pretty much multiple times an hour, but I tried to distract myself and focus on other things sometimes, because I knew I might get too stressed. And...it might not be the most impressive example, but when I was having a bad day or two, I could tell that was pretty separate from all the worrying; it was more of...just depression. And I had a nightmare that didn't have much to do with anything that was going on. It was just an old one. Though I guess that might've been caused by stress."

He sighs.

"That's good you've been aware of yourself, and it seems like you found enough ways to make it through everything you've had going on," Eno says. "I know you'd seem much more tense than you do if you were feeling genuinely terrible right now. I think it's a good idea to keep in mind ways to maintain that if needbe. It's much more plausible for you to be able to go into a situation prepared with a few reliable ways to cope if it goes awry than to be able to keep the situation from going south no matter what happens. Even considering the complexity and uncertainty of how things will turn out, you could probably do yourself a favor by preemptively deciding on what you can turn to if you need a source of comfort."

Kip has no response; he gives a silent nod.

"You can talk about other things if you'd like." Eno laughs quietly. "I hope it doesn't feel like you came here to be lectured. I want you to remember to pay attention to what's good for you during everything that may happen."

"I do things for myself when I'm getting upset," Kip says.

"That's good. But you still have needs even when you're not upset. Try not to lower the importance of your own feelings in comparison with others'. No matter how well or how badly it's going. Conflict can be necessary, and doesn't necessarily always damage a relationship, and one should avoid feeling guilt or shame or fear over initiating anything they feel will cause conflict. To totally avoid it requires silencing yourself, and collapsing communication will stagnate and potentially destroy a relationship."

Kip nods again, blushing.

"I keep telling myself I have to be honest with both Pascal and Wallace," he says. "But it can be so much harder to be open."

A moment passes.

"I suppose it makes sense that I never really got the chance to really focus on this stuff earlier, back when everything was happening...but it sometimes makes it seem like things had just been settled down long enough for safety to feel normal, and I had only just been able to recover and relax before I started to worry about all of this. It..."

He folds his arms across his chest in something of a hug.

"Sometimes I wonder if I've ever really been able to know myself," he says. "And I don't like to think it, because it seems so melodramatic. I know that to many extents I do know myself, really well, but I—it can feel like who I am is just always someone playing into a role. I mean, moving here meant that, at least in part, I had to embrace people's idea of who I was. And when I was in D, I thought I didn't have to worry about those expectations anymore, but I still felt this guilt for wanting to abandon even the potential for that life. And of course I didn't know who I was after...moving there for the first time. I still recognized my thoughts and feelings the same as I could still recognize my face, but I just couldn't even possibly thing about what I wanted for the longest time. And when I could, things seemed...fine. I'll always be glad for how quiet things were, and living with my friends, and just being like anyone else. I didn't like being so far from you, or that I had no choice but to keep my head down, or that what had happened to my family was...the way it was, but I figured that knowing I liked the quiet, and that I loved being with Pascal, and getting to see friends every day; all that was great. But I'd known those things already. I couldn't come up with anything I could be sure I wanted from the future except more of the same. And I mean, before all of that, before it happened, you and Kent and Yumi were already working by the time I was starting to have any serious thoughts about what I wanted to do as a job, but more than that, just what kind of person I wanted to be. And I wanted to do what you guys did, and I wanted to be like Kent—it almost didn't seem like a choice. And that was what I had to go on, and of course now I'm here, and...I still know the obvious facts about myself and the same old stuff that's always been true, but it's like I have to try on a role for ages to even tell if it appeals to me or if I just...am trying to force myself to do what I want myself to want. I don't know—there's so much about my situation here that's great, but it's like every now and then I get this...spasm of worry that maybe I'm unhappy and just avoiding it? Or I'm going to become unhappy because I don't know what I want? I get afraid that I've never known what I want, and I've never known who I am. Or maybe I already know myself, but I don't know it yet. I don't know. Like I said, it just seems so melodramatic. I mean, I'm in a good situation, I'm in a good place. Even with having bad days, or a bad week or two, I'm in a pretty good place. I don't know. I guess I just never know what to do with myself."

He's been worrying at his lip enough that it's starting to feel worn and sore. He's trying to stop.

"I guess it's part of me wondering how I'd feel if I don't date either of them. I know I'd be okay, because I've been single and it hasn't killed me or anything, and I love my friends, but it gets me thinking if I'm just defined entirely by my relationships with people. Relationships of all kinds. I know it's okay that they're a huge part of who I am and my life, but sometimes I think of if I'd even know myself when thinking of myself independently of those relationships. I guess I do. But I'm not sure."

He takes his bottom lip out from where he's pinned it between his teeth and presses his lips together and looks up at the ceiling, trying to redirect his focus from the feeling of his raw lip to the pressure of the cushions beneath him against his weight.

"You're unsure about your identity, then. Do you think that's become more prominent because of this new situation with how you're experiencing your relationships?"

"A little. But it's always kind of been there. Even when I was with my family. But then it was just a tiny doubt. Afterwards it would eat at me all day. It usually doesn't quite hurt to think of now—at least, not in that way. But I guess I'm...I'm wondering if there's other things about myself that I have no idea about."

"Of course there are."

Kip blinks and looks over at Eno.

"You, uh... You know something I don't?" he asks bemusedly.

"No—" Eno laughs. "I only mean that everyone is continuously developing as a person, and you've experienced multiple episodes of dramatic change within a few years, and even if you hadn't, you're in a period where most people are in the midst of trying to learn about themselves—and invent themselves. It's perfectly normal not to feel familiar with yourself, or like you don't have a solid identity. There's no goalposts anywhere. You have so much time and opportunity to explore your identity and grow with it. It's not any sign of failure or issue that you don't feel like you're there yet."

A pause.

"Does it frustrate you?" Eno asks.

"...A little. Sometimes." Because having doubts about himself and his life tends to feel like he's let his family down. "It can feel disappointing."

"There's no need to feel as though you have to have yourself completely in order and figured out at any time in life," Eno says gently. "And you shouldn't stifle yourself in an effort to keep from being confused about your identity. ...No one would expect or want you to feel as though you have nothing more to learn about who you are or what you want."

Kip looks over at the bookshelf against the adjacent wall, face warming. Eno seems to have the ability to sense when he's thinking of his family.

"It's not a failure that you were caught unawares by a new aspect of yourself. It's a normal experience. You're in the process of discovering something about yourself, and you'll be able to know and love yourself better by the end of it."

"I'm not sure I always like myself better," Kip murmurs.

"Maybe not short-term. Change isn't always welcome."

To say the least.

Kip sighs and tries to think of something to say.

"I try to be nice to myself," he says quietly. "When I can."

"That's good."

"I think I like myself," he adds. "At least, I know that I'm not a bad person, and I care about other people, and try not to hurt anyone. And—and things have been hard. So I try to be understanding of that."

He glances over at Eno, who smiles.

"That's good, too."

Kip manages to smile back.

—

He throws himself into trying to stay connected with everyone and trying to keep his life and routine normal rather than feeling like he's consumed by waiting. Work helps; he tells Kate a longer version of the story of his crushes while they close together, and they make overdue plans to hang out when they both get an afternoon off. He tries to cook meals when he can. He writes two new blog entries in quick succession and makes a document of notes and ideas for future posts. He even gets lucky with receiving some additional distractions—one day he joins Molly to pick up Roy from work to help carry home supplies from a special project he put together for the kids, the next day he's Molly's accompaniment to a fabric store, helping her pick out materials for a new sewing project she wants to try.

When he's alone, he's still okay. He doesn't worry too much when his thoughts gravitate to Pascal or Wallace or the inbox of his phone, but he does try to distract himself. He runs errands, walks to the store when they've run out of something. He visits the library to try to pick out a few books. He takes himself out to eat a couple of times. He cleans when the whim takes him. He lets himself daydream about Pascal and Wallace. He gets himself off before showering.

He leaves work at one in the afternoon and the sky is completely clear, it's warm, and there's a breeze. When he's home, he changes into a loose tank top and a small pair of exercise shorts and puts on one of his only pairs of sandals. A quarter of an hour later he's in the park, lying on a towel by a tree, arm lying across his eyes to shield them as he feels the sunlight and air against his skin.

The sounds around him keep his thoughts from growing too loud. He rolls over onto his stomach for good measure, letting that side get some direct sunlight too. A bird perches in the branches above him and sings loudly. He remembers park visits with his family, from when he was very young up to the week before their deaths. He listens to the distant sounds of conversation and laughter and music. He lets a tiny beetle struggle its way through the hairs on his forearm.

Alternately swimming through the flow of his thoughts and ignoring them completely to focus on everything about the environment around him, a couple of hours go by. When he decides he's ready to go back to the apartment, he sits up and looks around himself for a few minutes more before gathering everything up and walking back towards home.

His mind is wandering freely but his body is on autopilot, and he's only startled into paying attention when he sees an unfamiliar shop window on the corner of the street he just crossed. He quickly looks all around, and spends a moment completely confused before being stunned by the realization he'd been taking the old way home. A path he hadn't walked in over half a decade: the one to Berkley.

His face floods with heat and his heart rate jumps and he's utterly immobilized for several seconds. He's never walked this way once in all the months he's been back in C—the few times he's been to Pascal's store, he was deliberate in choosing a route that overlapped with any of his old ones as little as possible. He didn't even know this was still preserved in the back of his mind. But here he is, barely five minutes away from his old home. Which isn't there anymore. He doesn't know what's in its place. He's returned there before, and he's not going to now.

A little rattled, he immediately retraces his steps and easily puts himself back on his actual route. They don't live too far from where he used to—the detour probably took an extra fifteen minutes in all. He smooths the front of his shirt and lifts his chin a little higher and strides along the sidewalk with a little more confidence than he really feels.

But even that slight front falls away when his building comes into view and he sees Ben just past the steps to the front door, standing with his back to Kip and apparently looking up at the sky, wisps of smoke folding up over his right hand and arm.

Kip's pace slows to a stop and he rocks his weight over his back foot; for half a moment his instinct is to double back and take a side entrance. But he quickly overrides that as ridiculous and continues his approach, slower. He's not scared of Ben. He doesn't hate Ben. He doesn't want to back himself completely into a corner of avoiding him fully. He wants to hope that they can have as unburdened a relationship as they used to—being liked by Ben has a lovely quiet warmth that Kip wishes he could ever give off too.

Ben just makes him so self-conscious sometimes, for no apparent reason at all. Maybe it's because he can be so quiet that Kip's own quietness can't hide in the background. Maybe it's just the intensity he has. Maybe it's just his habit of noticing the kinds of little details Kip would rather went overlooked. There's a good chance it has to do with the times he expresses disappointment with Kip, but doesn't temper it with affection the way his other friends do. But whatever it is, Kip knows he doesn't want it to keep him from being on friendly terms with someone he's known for so long, someone who went out of his way to help them coordinate their move to C and have everything go as smoothly as it could.

He waits until he's standing by the steps, but Ben shows no intention of looking over to see who's coming by.

"...Ben?" he tries quietly.

Ben glances over; Kip sees a moment of bemused curiosity in his expression before it settles back to a usual dispassionate neutrality.

"Hey," Ben answers, cooperatively turning till he's mostly facing Kip.

Kip blushes, clutching his rolled-up towel a little tighter. He wishes he could've run into Ben when he was wearing something a little closer to his average style, and when he wasn't as sweaty and almost short of breath. Ben, on the other hand, looks completely put together and is wearing jeans and a soft, light blue t-shirt that Kip must not have seen before because that color looks so noticeably great on Ben that he's sure to have remembered it if he had, and now instead of speaking like any reasonable person he's just standing there and blushing even harder.

"Uh, I—" Right away he's talking too fast, too nervously. He tries to quiet it down again. "I wanted to tell you I'm sorry for—when I snapped at you a few days ago. It was—I was just stressed out and not paying attention but I shouldn't've—you didn't do anything. I'm sorry. Maybe I should've said so sooner, but I was nervous and I thought it might be weird to come after you—"

"Kip."

The calm interruption stops him at once. He stops glancing anxiously around and looks at Ben, whose expression seems wearied.

"You don't need to apologize."

"No, it was really rude of me—"

"Kip."

Kip is a little taken aback at the firmness of the second interruption.

"Don't worry about it. I didn't care."

Kip wasn't quite expecting this. He's not sure what‘s meant to be happening.

"I shouldn't have done that to you," Kip repeats with more emphasis. "You didn't—you don't deserve that."

"Don't worry about it," Ben says flatly, lifting the cigarette.

"I—I have to apologize," Kip persists bemusedly. "I treated you really unfairly."

"It doesn't matter," Ben sighs, taking a brief draw and looking off across the street.

Kip's eyebrows twitch. He knows that Ben doesn't exactly have sky-high self-esteem either, but as far as he knows it isn't so low that Ben should be acting like the kind of unmistakably harsh treatment Kip gave him isn't even worthy of apology.

"It does," Kip argues quietly. "I was—I was just...mean to you. I shouldn't treat you like that even if I am in a bad mood, and I at least should've said something then, instead of just leaving."

"I didn't really care." Ben still looks decidedly away from Kip; his voice is still impassive.

Kip is left with neither words nor any sense of resolution. He simply stands there, looking at Ben, feeling stupider than ever.

The other monster finally spares him a glance, and some evidence of discomfort comes over him, which at least turns his apparent indifference into something slightly more emotional.

"Look, Kip—" He brushes his fingers through his bangs. "It's like you said, you were in a bad mood, who cares if you were impatient with me. I've had worse. I can handle myself. I'm an adult. Don't worry about that."

"...I know you can handle it," Kip says. "But that doesn't mean what I did was okay. I...I should treat you better than that."

"Why."

Kip is too bemused to even nervously fidget anymore.

"...What?" he asks weakly.

"You don't have to like me, Kip," Ben says, his tone suggesting he's explaining something painfully obvious without wanting to. "We don't have to like each other. It's fine. It doesn't matter. I can handle myself even without being your best friend."

Kip's face is suddenly burning.

"But...I do..." His protest is clumsy. "I do like you—"

"It’s fine. Not everyone has to be your friend." Ben looks right at him. "It's okay if not everyone likes you. Just deal with that. It's not hard, trust me."

That time the deliberateness of the barb and its bitterness is so much more upfront. Kip stares back for a moment out of nothing but wounded pride, not even caring about his bared legs or ferocious cerulean blush or the fact that he never even managed to land his apology. He keeps staring even as Ben turns away again and indicates his exit from the conversation by holding the cigarette in his mouth.

"...Okay." His own voice has dropped significantly lower. "I'll see you later."

He's shoving his keys into the lock by the time he hears a bewilderingly unaffected "Bye" from behind him. He pushes through the door and propels himself up the stairs with similar impatience.

He throws everything down onto his mattress one by one: his keys, his towel, his phone, his wallet. He stands there glowering down at them.

"Fuck this," he hisses through his teeth.

He puts some water on the stove and sits down on the stool to wait on it.

He forces himself to cry just to burn off the stress more quickly. It takes just a few seconds of effort to bring tears to his eyes, and he only cries for about a minute before he feels like he's done. It's replaced by a cooled frustration, partly towards Ben for making a fool of him, partly towards himself, because he feels like Ben's right.

He ought to be able to feel perfectly fine about a scenario where he and Ben don't regard each other with any particular warmth. It's probably why he's been noticing such seeming distaste from Ben—if he expects to be liked by everyone, a simply neutral reaction is going to feel cold. Maybe he's been too accustomed to being treated warmly by strangers on the street. Maybe he's been sheltered all his life, first by the constant love of his family, then the love of his unshakably loyal friends. Maybe he's been unknowingly closed off to the possibility that anyone might not like him. Or maybe he's been so arrogant all this time that he expects to be loved by everybody he meets.

He blows his nose and wipes his face clean and then pours his tea. It doesn't matter. He already feels almost cold, almost indifferent towards Ben. Simply not being friends will be easy enough—he already wanted to avoid him, so he'll just continue doing so. According to Ben's own wishes this time. They can both handle it.

He'll be able to handle going through life one relationship fewer. He can survive such deprivation. Take away another relationship; he'll still make it. Take another. He can handle it. He's grown since his teenage years. He's been through worse.

But he doesn't need to worry about any of it to drink a hot cup of green tea.

—

Within the hour, his shame and anger cool. He knows that it was his fault, that Ben has clearly been growing more and more disinterested in him, and he was the only one who'd been needlessly pushing at it. He was the one who lost his temper with Ben, and it's only to be expected that Ben might be impatient with him in turn. He was the one who was naïve.

He's kidding himself if he thinks he's been a good friend to Ben. Or if Ben's given any signs that he ever wanted anything from Kip in the first place. To try to force an apology on Ben now would be nothing but stubborn selfishness.

All he needs to do—all Ben is asking—is to leave it alone.

He makes himself a sandwich and he lets himself heave sighs over and over and then he decides to just move on to something else.

He showers off his sweat and tears. He lies down with his eyes closed for a little while; when it's apparent he's not going to be able to nap, he picks up the book he started from his bedside stand and props it on his chest.

By the time Molly and Roy get home, he's still a little gloomy, but there's nothing he needs comforting about.

—

"You've had a busy week," he murmurs to Roy. He's not exhausted, but he's tired enough that it's just comfortable to rest his head back against the couch and keep his eyes closed and not move at all—save to put an arm around Roy when he leans over to put his head on Kip's shoulder.

"A little bit," Roy laughs. "It's been great, though. I love to do as much new stuff for the kids as I can."

"Mm." Kip tightens the arm around Roy.

The quiet is relaxing until it goes on so long that it feels unnatural.

"...Roy?"

"Uh-huh?"

"You can talk if you want."

"Oh—" Roy laughs again. "It's okay. This is nice."

"Okay."

Kip pets Roy's hair and leans further back against the couch.

—

Kip picks up his plants from the windowsill and carries them back to the shelf, positioning them evenly to flank his photo. Sitting in sunlight caused the tiny blue flowers of the forget-me-nots to face the same direction, and he rotates the plant so that they're turned out towards the room. He carefully waters them and then wipes dust from the border and glass of the frame with a tissue.

He paces slowly around his room for a minute, glancing at family's picture a few times. He wishes they could be here to talk to him, and to see the kind of person he is, and know the messes he's dealing with, and—just know him.

He sheds his clothes and puts on pajamas, then works socks and slippers onto his feet. He leaves his phone on his bed and goes out to sit at the table and try writing a little more on his laptop. It goes moderately well. He feels okay. A little lonely, and a little sad, but it doesn't feel like it's going to drag him down below the surface.

Everything going on seems to be tiring him out a little, because it's especially easy for him to unwind for a quarter of an hour or so before bed and then fall asleep quickly after lying down. He doesn't really mind sleeping alone by now. He's gotten used to it, same as he'd gotten used to sharing Pascal's bed. It wasn't even necessarily like that hadn't been more for practical purposes than preference—it was already a feat to force two more personal spaces into Pascal's fairly modest apartment before they moved into a slightly larger place, and it simply made sense for Kip and Pascal to share a bedroom. They were dating and had already spent a decent number of nights together, and Kip had next to no personal possessions to add to the room. Just himself, a few pieces of clothing, his glasses, a folder, and a photograph.

The bad news was that Pascal was so tall and wide that he didn't have a lot of extra room on his mattress. The good news is that he liked cuddling just as much as Kip did. One would fold his body along the other's and hold on with an arm or leg. Pascal warmed Kip in the winter, Kip cooled Pascal in the summer. The companionship during Kip's worst suffering in the wake of his loss, when lying awake and alone did anything but benefit him. When he had agonizingly bad dreams more often than not. When he was having a difficult time feeling like he was really still alive, that life was really still continuing. He had Pascal to hold on to, warm and soft, to kiss and talk and fall asleep with.

The opportunity for sex was a pleasant factor as well. And Pascal's afterglow cuddling was a masterpiece of affectionate physicality. That skill was mirrored brilliantly by the times Pascal initiated sex by simply holding Kip, slowly feeling his body, soft strokes turning to groping massages turning to an arm teasing his fast-growing erection by sliding over the front of his pants while the other crept up underneath the hem of his shirt and Kip's arching back pushed his head against Pascal's shoulder and his ass against his crotch. The burst of chill Kip emanated during orgasm would cool their sweating bodies off even as they held each other close. Sometimes, if he came especially hard, there would be some difficulty when his hands froze to whatever they were touching—his own chest, Pascal's back or shoulders, the headboard, the blankets, the pillow. Sometimes spiraling frost bloomed across his skin. Sometimes it was Pascal who had trouble getting his suckers to detach from Kip's body, and for a little while afterwards Kip had a trail of blue spots wrapping around his side and up his back.

It was lucky that they both enjoyed sharing a bed that, really, hadn't even been big enough for Pascal alone. It was lucky that Kip had found someone who had liked him enough and for long enough that he wanted Kip to move in with him—not only on extremely short notice in the midst of a life-altering crisis, but with just as much welcome for two friends who had refused to leave Kip's side. What had originally felt unfortunate had turned out to seem like one of the luckiest things of all: that Pascal lived in D.

But he wasn't always glad that Pascal shared his bed with him. In the early weeks, there were plenty of times he was ashamed of nightmares that woke Pascal up at unpleasant hours, times an unavoidable crying spell resulted in him trying to stifle his sniffs and occasional sobs and roll over as slowly as he could so he could slip out of bed as slowly as he could so he could finish crying in the bathroom and clean himself up before going to bed. It was largely useless to try holding back the tears and felt overwhelmingly miserable as well. But it could be so awful to feel Pascal stirring beside him and try to keep him from realizing he was crying and know he was failing completely. Even though the comfort Pascal provided him was so loving, and Kip knew so surely that Pascal never resented him for interrupting his sleep. But he still wished he could keep his little explosions of grief to himself—especially when they arrived at the worst times to get in the way of his friends simply trying to take care of themselves.

But despite the increased privacy of having his own room, it had felt so strange after years of sharing one with Pascal. The first few nights especially just felt wrong. Too still, too quiet, too lonely. He had to rediscover his routine for falling asleep. Waking up was disorienting. The fact that his room was so empty felt like unwelcome symbolism.

His room is still so empty. It's his space, and he's become comfortable with it, but he hasn't felt any desire to fill it up. He has the furniture he needs to hold his things, and a few details that make it a little more lived-in, but he doesn't want to add anything else. He likes the uncrowded feeling.

Yet everything going on has consistently gotten him thinking of being held every time he gets into bed. He's feeling Pascal's absence again in particular. Despite having slept alone for so long now, he suspects it'll feel lonely all over again if Pascal decides against dating him.

Nothing about the way his life is now will change if Pascal doesn't become his boyfriend. But it would hurt anyways.
It would be its own heartbreak. He'd get through it, of course, because he'd have to. But there wouldn't be any way to avoid it.

Before going to bed for the night, he checks his phone. It shows him nothing new except the time.

—

Kip takes the pressed lilac from the letter Pascal had given him and holds its stem between his fingers, carefully rotating it. He brings it up to his nose and inhales; it still holds traces of its sweet, heady scent.

—

It's getting a little easier every day to wait. But he has an internal countdown until a week will have passed since the dinner. He has a vague plan to ask Roy or Molly or both to come along on a trip to his store to see if he's there—just a quick, casual visit, where the presence of a third party relieves the pressure of any expectation to discuss personal matters.

He knows he's getting more accustomed to the idea of having Pascal be an everyday part of his life again, because his thoughts of such a visit don't include worrying over what kind of outfit would be best to wear or how to look as put-together as possible. It's not as though Pascal hasn't seen him at his least dignified plenty of times. And hopefully Pascal will gradually get to see every piece of clothing he owns, and he doesn't have to worry about showcasing the most impressive ones first as if he's going to run out of chances to be around Pascal.

It's a bit intimidating wondering how to make conversation with him now that they've already extensively discussed their histories in the months apart from each other and talking about their relationship is off-limits until Pascal decides he's ready to talk about the Wallace issue. It's not as though they've never made small talk, or Kip has ever felt anything but completely comfortable with sharing any of his thoughts about anything with Pascal. But the thought of having such an elephant in the room, of there being boundaries against even acting like they might have intimate feelings for each other or referring to such a thing—it's easily enough to make him debilitatingly self-conscious. They can only talk about work for so long.

Still, in a couple of days he's going to do it, just like he and Eno had discussed. If Pascal hasn't reached out to him yet, he's going to show Pascal that he wants to be around him, even if they haven't yet figured out whether they can kiss each other.

—

Kip finishes another post for his blog. The writing is coming so quickly—maybe he's too distracted to go overboard with self-criticism, maybe he's just found a flow after writing so many entries, maybe it's simply a coincidence and it's easier than usual for no reason at all. Whatever the cause, he's enjoying the feeling that he's doing well with it. It's nice to sit in warm and comfortable clothes with a hot cup of tea, sometimes with a blanket around his shoulders, and simply sit and write for a while. And everything that goes into his blog—the research, the notes, the editing, the formatting, even the occasional groundwork—has absolutely nothing to do with him personally. He doesn't need to think at all about any confusion over his love life or personal worries or how he feels while he's writing or what anyone thinks of him—because they won't.

His blog doesn't need his personal voice, and so doesn't have it. Its version of him is one without a personal life, one whose only relevant background is as someone familiar with the forces at work in the region, who grew up in C, who suffered the loss of his family in the way that so many others did—only his loss was public, was outright murder rather than a disappearing, was an example to other monsters. The fact that he had survived was simply a fluke. All three were supposed to die. And everyone knew that he had been carried out of the ashes alive.

Of course, even though most everyone knew the fire had been arson, for years there had been no evidence that it was started on purpose. It was officially deemed an accident. And everyone referred to it as such, because it didn't feel safe to say what they really knew. It was the fact the everyone knew the fire had been set that kept them from speaking of it.

But everyone knows. And now there's no need to say it. Everyone knows why Kip writes this blog, and that's all they need to know. After his first few posts, he'd get some questions about what had happened to him years ago, as if he was going to report on that in exactly the same way as any other subject. He just ignored it. That part of him wasn't ever involved here. He just works with information around him, not information about him. And it doesn't matter what he's like as a person beyond someone who cares about this and wants to help others know more about everything going on around them and affecting them and their home.

The Kip who writes these short articles and updates isn't affected by things like being in love with two people or wanting to spend a night out with friends or feeling lost in the face of his future. The only thing that affects his blog is when he doesn't have the time or energy or desire to write. But he's always kept his posting schedule open and flexible enough to allow for breaks. Several posts a week isn't much more noticeable than a week of radio silence.

In this space, there's an arm's length between who he is as an individual, and the adopted role of acting like a reporter. And he takes some comfort in knowing that no matter what happens in his personal life, this persona will remain available to him whenever he wants to use it.

—

"Are you okay back there?" Kate repeats.

"Uh—a little backed up, but I should get through that in a few minutes," Kip answers, deftly stirring strawberry flavor into a drink with one hand while picking up an empty mug with the other.

Kate continues at the register and Kip keeps his own pacing quick but steady—they're in the middle of a slight rush, and the vast majority of demand is for drinks, which is currently Kip's operation. But it's nothing new, and normally doesn't stress him out too much if everything else manages to go smoothly. He's only a little rattled now, as it's unexpectedly early for them to get busy, a couple of hours before the white-collar crowd leaves work.

He concentrates on taking the orders one at a time so that he doesn't feel overwhelmed by the whole of them and end up slowing himself down. It's always just a matter of feeling like it's all a part of his own zone, where he knows he can handle everything, and that it will all settle down before long.

It's practically a dance, memorized movements of his arms and head and feet, quick and graceful sweeps to the counter and back. And the crowd starts to thin out. And the list of orders starts to resemble something manageable.

A regular thanks Kip as she takes her drink from him.

"You're welcome." He returns her smile, and turns back towards the coffee bar.

He does a sharp double-take and freezes in place as he stares at Pascal. He feels his face flood with a blush, and for several seconds he can't move.

Pascal smiles all but shyly and lifts his arm and takes a step back, closer to the wall.

Kip blinks and breathes and remembers to turn back towards what he was doing, but he looks at the orders without processing why he's doing so; all his thoughts are swirling around the knowledge that Pascal has come to see him and he's trying to figure out exactly what that means and what's going to happen.

For several more seconds he just stands there, tossed back-and-forth between reminding himself what he was doing and forgetting it completely because his focus has been entirely caught up with Pascal. Finally, he forces himself to walk forward and stare at the orders until it finally makes sense to him again. He starts walking himself through the routine again, trying to be totally unconcerned with whether Pascal is watching him or not.

It definitely slows him down a bit; he can't maintain that quick, efficient pace when it's a constant effort to keep his thoughts directed towards the task at hand. Luckily, it's just a few more minutes before Kate joins him and everything starts getting done twice as fast.

"Did you see—"

"Uh-huh." Even his voice sounds more tense.

"Sorry I couldn't give you a heads up," she says. "I was stuck with a few more orders to take."

"I know—it's okay."

He starts to get a little more into the flow of things, but then the thinning number of people inside the café makes seeing Pascal with every glance across the counter unavoidable, and he grows more flustered again.

"Don't be so nervous." Kate encourages him with a pat on his shoulder. "I'm going to replace the paper in the receipt printer."

And with that he's left to tackle the last couple of drinks by himself.

The last person takes their to-go drink with a nod and Kip is left standing by the counter, watching them walk back out the door. And then he's just looking back out the window because the only other thing to do is look at Pascal—

Which he has to do.

So he does it.

Pascal is blushing, looking at the floor, and then he glances up and sees Kip looking at him and blushes about twice as much. Kip wrings the hem of his apron as Pascal walks over.

"Hey." Pascal speaks softly, standing right up against the edge of the counter. "I wanted to come by to see if you were here, if you wanted to talk..." He seems nervous as well as the ends of arms keep winding together and unwinding.

"Sure," Kip says immediately. "Are you busy? Can you—"

"Do you close today—"

"If you can wait, I—"

"I can wait however long, or—"

"I'll be off in a few more hours."

"I can wait. Can I wait?"

"Sure. Of course."

"Will I distract you? Should I go somewhere else?"

"I'll manage. It's fine, you can stay, don't worry."

"Okay, I'll—I'll be over here."

He gives Kip a smile, and Kip smiles brightly back at him. He takes a pivoting step away when Kip lifts a hand to stop him.

"Pascal—" He looks up to hold his eyes for a moment and tries to put what he's feeling into his tone. "Thank you."

Pascal gives him a small smile and blushes even deeper.

—

Thankfully for them both, Pascal had brought a book, and Kip finds it a little easier to avoid stressing about whether Pascal is looking at him or not.

Still, time drags at first, with Kip unable to keep his thoughts from rushing every five minutes or so. But things pick up as their usual uptick in customers begins, and then Kip suddenly feels like the end of his shift is already looming right in front of him.

—

"You're done, c'mon, there's nothing else I even need right now," Kate says, nudging him in the back. "Go talk to your boyfriend."

"We're not boyfriends yet..." It spills out automatically and his hands shake a little as he unties his apron. He's breathing too hard to blame it on anything but his nerves.

"But you might be, if you go talk to him," Kate says, a teasing note in her voice.

It makes Kip's heart jump to hear his hopes voiced like that. It feels like his blush blooms down to his sternum.

"You do want to talk to him, don't you?" Her tone turns completely serious.

"Yes," he says, rolling his apron in his hands. "I do, really badly, I'm just also really nervous."

"Okay, well, if you want I can drag you over by the ankles."

"I think I can probably make it without that," he says. "But thanks anyway."

"Then just go for it and stop making yourself even more nervous. Go do your stuff somewhere so I can do my thing here and then update me whenever you can."

"Okay," he sighs.

"Go. Shoo.”

—

He gets butterflies as he walks to the front and Pascal looks up at him and smiles warmly. They're both clearly a little flustered, fumbling with the brief words exchanged before they head outside, where it's a little warm and growing a little overcast. Kip takes a lot of comfort in the fact that Pascal seems pleasantly nervous and prone to smiling, that he doesn't seem completely miserable. Kip vividly remembers how it felt to try telling Pascal he wanted them to live in different districts and not be a couple anymore. Pascal doesn't act like he's weighed down by something like that.

Pascal takes him over by the library, where there's a little garden on the side with a few benches beside a tiny artificial pond with a fountain providing gentle background noise. It's a quiet spot, set far enough from the sidewalk to seem peaceful, and in the warmer months the air carries the subtle scents of plants, soil, water, and flowers. It's while lowering himself to sit on one of the benches that Kip realizes Pascal must have put some thought into where they were going to have this conversation.

Pascal sits down next to him. Kip self-consciously watches a bee crawling up a petal until he realizes he desperately wants to look at Pascal.

So he does. He turns and looks Pascal in the face, and he doesn't shy away when Pascal looks back at him.

"So, uh, thank you for being patient with me," Pascal says, punctuating it with a quiet, warm laugh.

"You were the one doing me a favor," Kip returns. "And it wasn't long at all, don't worry about that."

His pulse is heavy; he's more than a little nervous about what the conversation could hold. But it holds the chance that he can reinitiate an intimate relationship with Pascal, so there's no way he isn't going to dive into it. He just wants Pascal to be the one to lead it; he wants Pascal to be as comfortable as possible.

"I'm kind of glad I had to think so much about how I thought of our relationship," Pascal says slowly. Kip keeps watching his face. "Because there's a lot that I've always felt, but trying to work out how to put it in words helped me understand it even better."

Kip smiles.

"Yeah, I actually ended up writing some stuff out to try getting a better handle on it," he says. "It helped a lot."

Pascal's laugh is soft. He moves his arms from his lap to the bench on either side of him. Kip glances down, noticing how small a movement he would have to make to reach Pascal's arm.

"Look, it’s all basically down to...just that I want to be with you, Kip."

He turns and they lock eyes and Kip's heart is banging against his ribs.

"I—if you want to be with me again, I want us to be together, too."

Kip opens his mouth; for the first couple of attempts he can't speak, he only exhales.

"I want to be together," he finally breathes.

His knees start to shake from the sheer burst of happiness that's flooding his body with energy. He hooks his ankles together and grips the edge of the bench to anchor himself. Pascal is so beautiful and lovely and the expression on his face as he looks at Kip holds such softness.

"How do you...feel about everything?" Kip asks carefully.

"Well, I...I just realized that all I need to know is that..." Pascal looks down at his lap, face coloring slowly. "Just that you want to be with me. I don't want to be with you out of some expectation that—that our future has to turn out some certain way, like if it doesn't then none of this is worth it. I want to be with you now. And just keep being with you like that. I love you. I don't need to feel like I have control over you. I don't want to, I don't want that to be what our relationship is like, I want us to be able to change and grow however we want, I..."

Kip is so in love.

"I know you, Kip," he continues. "I know you wouldn't be telling me you want to be with me if you didn't. And if you love me, I never need that to mean that you can't love everyone else you care about. Or they have to matter less to you. I don't—I want this to be something that I know makes your life better because it adds to it, not because... I don't want it to be where I know you're with me because you have to be. I know you're with me because I know you want to be, because I know you love me, and I trust you."

There's no way. There's no way Kip can't reach out and take the end of Pascal's arm, and he does. His pulse is rising in his throat to be cared about so much and to be worth this thought and effort from such an incredible person. Pascal's hold wraps around his hand and squeezes a little.

"I want to have my life be a part of yours," Pascal says. "I want to be around you and love you and help make things better when I can. That's all."

"Pasc," Kip murmurs, stroking his smooth arm with his thumb. "I love you. I love being with you. I—I just know for certain that I like it better when we're together. I really would choose, whenever I could, I'd choose to have my life go with yours, too. I know you're still always your own person and I'm still mine, but I want to just...have my world added to yours. And to be able to know that we're together, and carry that with me all the time, just being able to know that we can see each other and talk about anything, and know that you know that too..."

He bites his lip and feels the urge to touch Pascal's face.

"It's always felt so good to know we're together, and know that we have each other, and love each other and—and I love you so much, and I'd be—I'd be so, so glad to be with you again." He places his other hand gently overtop Pascal's arm as he speaks.

"I would, too." Pascal speaks so softly.

Kip is almost overwhelmed by the hope diffusing through him. His heartbeat is practically vibrating in his bones, but he doesn't much notice it. He's too focused on Pascal, and on working up the nerve to ask the question he needs to ask.

"Can we..." Even his slow exhale is halting. He meets Pascal's eyes. "Could we be together?"

"Yes," Pascal answers quietly.

"Today?" he asks tentatively. "Right now?"

Pascal smiles. Some hair falls in front of his eyes as he dips his head.

"And tomorrow, too," he says.

Kip is hugging him tight before being aware of making the decision to do so, clutching the back of Pascal's shirt, shoving his face in the crook of Pascal's neck. A moment later both Pascal's arms are snug around his back, and they hold each other. Kip keeps readjusting his grip as though he can draw them together closer, he feels his pulse caught between his chest and the side of Pascal's where they're pushed against each other. He squeezes his eyes shut, he has to remember to inhale, he keeps breaking into laughter that he muffles with Pascal's shoulder.

He keeps repeating himself against the side of Pascal's neck—thank you, I love you, I love you, thank you, I love you so so much, I've missed you so badly, I've wanted this so badly, thank you I love you I love you I love you—

He presses brief kisses to Pascal's jaw and the familiar feeling of the short hairs against his lips and the scent of Pascal's skin is an incredible comfort beyond even his imagining of this moment.

Pascal's warm, low laugh makes Kip laugh too, and he leans back to see his face. Pascal is looking at him like he's wonderful, soft arms slowly rubbing up and down Kip's back. Kip sweeps his fingertips across Pascal's forehead, brushing some hair aside, and then slides his hand down to cradle the side of Pascal's face as they hold each other's gaze.

Their faces haven't been this close for this long in almost a year—for months Kip thought he might never see Pascal in person again, much less hold him as close as this—his eyes are drawn to every little detail, Pascal's lips and scruff and flushed cheeks and nose and every tiny line and freckle—and despite the fact that Pascal seems equally fascinated by every square inch of Kip's face, their eyes keep meeting.

"...Can I kiss you?" Kip gently asks, though the answer feels overwhelmingly obvious.

"Yes, please."

There's not even a half-second between the words being spoken and Kip bringing his lips to Pascal's.

Several long, warm kisses later, Kip is resting his forehead against Pascal's, fingers tangled in his hair.

"It's funny." His voice is just above a whisper. "It seemed like ages since we were really together, but now it feels like we've just...picked right back up."

"I know what you mean," Pascal murmurs. "It's like there's both been this really long break and one that barely existed."

Kip moves further away again, and they're sitting side-against-side and their arms are over each other's shoulder and resting on each other's leg and they're looking at each other's faces like they have to memorize the sight.

It's such a light feeling to be sitting in Pascal's embrace, feeling so good and so lucky and so relieved. There's no anxiety or dread or background noise of stress—he just feels so solidly, completely secure in this moment.

He leans his head against Pascal's shoulder and they sit quietly for a bit. He keeps looking over at Pascal's face. At his boyfriend.

His boyfriend.

"God, I’m so happy," he says, needing to voice the feeling. "Pascal, I'm so glad we—that—I'm so glad—"

Pascal turns and Kip is almost lifted off the bench by the hug.

"I know," Pascal whispers against his temple.

His boyfriend kisses the bridge of his nose—and then he's suddenly swept up into the air and he gasps, then laughs loudly as Pascal spins him around once before drawing him into a breathlessly close hug.

—

He probably kisses Pascal at least two dozen times before they leave the small garden to walk further down the street. They both reach for each other and Pascal's arm spools around Kip's forearm until it loops around his hand, and Kip curls his fingers around the gentle hold. They walk side-by-side, almost shoulder-to-shoulder.

It feels so beautiful to finally, really, fully be together. To have finally regained what they've both been pining for, slipped back into this way of loving each other that had made them both so happy.

Kip can't keep his appreciation of the individual, gorgeous details to himself—and he loves having the option to share things out loud with Pascal. He loves that there's no more limitations, no more reservations about simply being able to act on their feelings in full.

"I've missed you holding my hand so much," he tells Pascal. "This is so amazing."

"I've missed it, too," Pascal says. "It...sounds kind of silly, but I sometimes had dreams just about us holding hands."

Kip's pretty sure neither his blush or his bliss have faded in the past half hour or so, but hearing that strengthens both.

"I've had lots of dreams about you, too," he says. "It used to be really hard, because I missed you so much, but at the same time it was kind of nice to even get to be with you in some tiny way. For a long time it was hard to fall asleep without you, and really strange to wake up alone, too."

Pascal ducks down and kisses the top of Kip's head in mid-stride. Kip giggles.

"And you know, I... I've really appreciated everything you've done for me this year. I really can't say that enough."

"I know." There's laughter in Pascal's voice.

"I was in love with you the whole time, of course, but even if I hadn't been, I'd still be so, so grateful, and I—I was especially confused about my feelings towards you back then. But even so, I still knew how amazing you were."

"I was in love with you, and I know you knew that. But everything I did I would've done for you even if I wasn't."

Kip squeezes the end of Pascal's arm.

"I guess it's obvious to say, but I'm glad you decided to move here. I mean, of course it's easy to say that now, when I know everything turned out okay. But there's no point in wondering how else things might've turned out, because it turned out like this. And being together is... It's something that, not that long ago, I didn't even know I could hope for."

There's a pause for a moment.

"I never really reached that point where I thought I had to try moving on," Pascal says quietly. "Even as you guys left I knew I loved you just as much and that the feeling wasn't going to go away and I had to figure out how I was going to deal with that. Or maybe deal just with always being in love with you. And I guess it didn't take too long to figure out I felt like I had to try moving, and maybe if I could show that things would be okay there..."

He trails off and smiles with a slight shake of his head.

"I know it was ridiculous. But back then it felt like what I had to do. And I figured that even if nothing worked out, I'd still have given myself the chance to try something new. I don't know."

Kip slows his pace a little and turns his head so his forehead almost brushes Pascal's arm.

"I was ridiculous, too," he murmurs. "Really, our whole situation just... What we had to deal with was what was really ridiculous..."

He sighs quietly.

"If things hadn't... It would've been a lot more straightforward for us..."

After everything, he still can't help wondering what his life would be like currently if there had been no fire. No disappearances, no deaths, no fear. Where his family would be. Where he would be. His relationship with Pascal.

Everything would've been simpler. No crises, no grieving, no separation. No one would've tried to hurt Kip even after having killed the rest of his family. He wouldn't have to live with the very justified knowledge that his presence was a target that exposed others to risk of being collateral damage. He wouldn't have lived in such uncertainty for so long. He wouldn't have met Wallace.

He would've had a family, and stability, and so many choices and possibilities that were taken from him, too.

He knows that the course his life had been on—and might have taken beyond that—wasn't the only one that had potential for good things. But he can't help but mourn it, still.

It's quiet between them for a minute. Pascal breaks it gently.

"You did what you thought was the best thing to do," he says quietly. "And nobody can say for sure that it wasn't."

His arm wraps a little more snugly around Kip's.

"...You forgave me for leaving you?" Kip asks softly.

"Yes.”

"I'm not mad at you for coming after me, either." He smiles to himself.

"Thank you," Pascal says, and lifts the back of Kip's hand to his lips.

—

They go into a small restaurant just a minute or two before rain starts coming down in a light but steady fall; they take a small table by the front window. Kip cradles a mug of hot cocoa in his hands while Pascal absently swirls his cup of orange juice.

Kip wants to bring up the subject of Wallace without waiting for Pascal to do so first, both to set a precedent for himself and to show Pascal that he doesn't consider it off-limits in any way. But he gives it a few minutes so they can settle, and relaxes by watching the clouds and rain outside.

He decides to start off just by being as simple and direct as he can.

"I want to make sure that you always feel comfortable asking about things with Wallace whenever you want to," he says gently, tapping a fingertip against the tabletop. "I want to be sure I'm not pushing it on you, but also that I'm not making you feel as though there's any pressure to avoid the topic."

Pascal blushes.

"Oh—" he says, touching his face. "Well...it does feel a little awkward. But it's just because I'm just—I'm completely new to this, you know?"

Kip breathes a laugh.

"It's absolutely the same for me," he says. "I mean, it's not like there's anything between us right now, I just...have feelings for him, and I think there's at least a chance he might like me, too. I haven't talked with him about it at all, but...if you're okay with it, I think I'd like to try to at least discuss it with him.”

"I want you to do what feels right for you," Pascal says. “I trust you.”

"I know," Kip says. He gives Pascal a slight smile. "And it's really important to me to be sure that every part of being with me is something that makes you feel loved, and safe, and happy, and everything else you need. I want you to be able to talk to me about anything you're thinking of."

Pascal blushes further and looks down at the table with a hint of a smile.

"I mean," Kip starts slowly. "I think of it kind of like... I don't want it to be like some secret, or something that's affecting how I feel about you, because the way I think of each of you is its own thing, it's not one experience divided up. I already knew I loved you before I even started to think about if the way I felt about Wallace was different from how I'd thought it was."

He sips his drink before continuing.

"I kind of... I wish I had a way to put this that sounded less silly, but I kind of just want it to be like anything else, like—like talking about what I had for lunch, or something. I mean, I know I would be kidding myself if I thought talking about any of my other relationships was always going to be as casual a subject as the last meal I had, but just in terms of how I don't want it to seem like anything you have to hesitate to talk about, or something that you can't ask about or feel like it's any less accessible to you than any other part of my life."

He looks right at Pascal, and their eyes meet.

"I know that it's easy to say these things but it might take some work to really make it feel that way, and I'm more than willing to put in however much work I need to so that you feel comfortable and secure about everything. I...I'm completely and totally choosing to be with you, and I'll always choose to stay with you, and you're more than worth all the effort I have to give to our relationship." A bit of his emotion is slipping into his voice and he couldn't care less. "I know this is totally new for both of us, and I know I don't have the answers any more than you do. I know it might be confusing for a while, but I want to try to figure it all out with you. I want to do everything I can to make sure you know how much I love you. Because I—if anything, I feel closer to you than I ever have and like I know our relationship even more deeply than ever and—and I know how valuable it is better than I ever have. I love you, Pascal, and I'll do whatever I can to make everything as easy for you as it can be, and I want to share my life with you again and I don't want you to have to doubt that that means just as much as it did before."

Pascal's face is so deeply, brightly red, and Kip is sure his own blush is intense, too. But he never wants to stop having this kind of openness with Pascal. He's always felt the most intimately unguarded around him; he wants Pascal to know he feels that now, too.

"Oh gosh, Kip..." Pascal slides an arm down along his own cheek. "God, I love you too, so much. You—you've always deserved everything I can do for you, and I love you, and I want to be with you, and—and whatever's part of your life, I want to support that. If you love Wallace, I want you to be able to have that and talk to him and have whatever you want from it because—because I trust you, I trust you so much, and I trust you with me. I know you love me. I know you care about us just like I do. I don't care that I don't know how to do this, I'll just learn with you."

"Pascal—"

"I love you. Being with you is worth everything I can give you. I want this. This relationship is worth all the work I could put into anything. I feel and know how much I love you every time I see you, whenever I'm with you—"

"Pasc—" Kip repeats, more breathlessly. He grabs Pascal's arm and brings his lips to it, he strokes the suckers on the other side and kisses it again. "Oh, love—I don't want to start crying in public—" He laughs helplessly and presses one more kiss to his arm.

"Wait to make you cry in private," Pascal jokes. "Alright, then."

Kip laughs again and lowers Pascal's arm back to the table, still holding on, stroking it with his thumb. The breeze shifts outside, blowing the raindrops against the window with a gentle patter.

"You know..." Pascal softens his voice again. "Back when we first started dating...of course I didn't expect for anything like that to happen. And of course I'd never have wanted you to go through that. But, well, it did happen, and I wasn't going to leave you just because things became different from how I thought they might be. And it was really hard for everyone, and I know you knew that, but so much harder for you, and our relationship then had to be so different from how it was, in a way I'd never even considered, but...that was your life. And I hadn't wanted to be with you only if things went a certain way. I wanted to be with you. And that was you just as much as you before the fire. And I was never with you because of how simple or easy things were. I want to be with you because I love you. You're not just a convenience to me. You're worth so, so much."

"Oh, god, Pascal..." Kip's blush feels absolutely vibrant. He's so unused to hearing this kind of extolling warmth, he hasn't been experienced love like this with someone for so long—

"I know this isn't even comparable to what was happening back then, it's not even in the same category, I just want you to know that just because something is more complicated doesn't mean it's going to be worse for us. And I mean that in every way, even for little stuff like...if you had a rough day and want to talk about it. I love the whole of who you are, not just the smoothest parts. And any time we have to grow and figure things out together is fine. If we have to make it up as we go along, that's fine too. I want us to keep being together. Everything that's been a challenge hasn't been a challenge of whether I wanted to stay with you, and I always felt like our relationship had grown every time we had something we needed to get through. And I know that's not just because of me. It's because you were trying to be with me, too. I saw everything you did, even when it was taking everything you had just to survive what was happening to you. I saw that even then you were trying to make sure I was okay, that we all were, and I just... I'm telling you, I was already loving you more than ever, but if I'd needed anything to show me how amazing you are, it was seeing you try to take care of us when you could barely hold yourself up."

Kip is staring at the bright orange color of Pascal's drink. His hand has stilled, but Pascal wraps his arm around his wrist.

"I've never had any doubts about how much our relationship matters to you. Even when you left. I knew it wasn't because you didn't want me with you. I knew how hard it was on you, even though you were trying not to show me. I'm not afraid of needing to adapt our relationship to something new. We've done that plenty of times."

Kip touches his mouth as he locks eyes with Pascal.

"Pascal, you're so incredible," he says seriously. "I can't believe I met you. I can't believe we're both here, now, talking about this. I really just—I want you to know how completely I appreciate you. I don't take anything about you for granted. I don't take being together for granted. I love you—god, I love you."

They're both still for a couple of seconds, eyes locked. Then Pascal blinks and glances down towards Kip's chest.

"Oh—babe—" He gestures in a way that Kip recognizes as a point. "Let go of your cup, there."

Kip looks down and flinches away as he sees the surface of his cocoa rearranging into ice.

"Well, crap," he sighs. "That doesn't happen as much anymore."

"It's alright, I think they have a microwave over on the other side. I can take it over there, and get us something to eat if you want? I know it's kind of a weird time for food, but I can just get us both a piece of cake or something like that."

Kip blushes; he lets Pascal indulge him without trying to argue against it even as a matter of habit. He wraps his offending hand with a napkin like a bandage and looks out the window, where small puddles have formed along the edges of the sidewalk and the rain has picked up just enough that it's slightly too heavy to be called a shower. He looks over at Pascal periodically, who inevitably glances over at him too and smiles.

He wedges the hand between his thighs to finish warming it up and stares at the grain of the wood in the table. In his momentary solitude, the realness of what's happening is sinking in even faster than it was when Pascal was right in front of him. He keeps looking over at Pascal as if seeing him for the first time across the room, as if some radiant nimbus should be throwing a warm glow on everything around him. That's his boyfriend. That's his boyfriend, who loves him. And who he's been in love with for nearly a quarter of his life. His beautiful, handsome, kindhearted, understanding, even-tempered, patient, soft, gentle, caring, strong, passionate, brave, lovely—

"Here you go," Pascal says, setting a saucer with a rectangular piece of yellow cake and a fork in front of Kip. "And your drink—"

He leans a bit closer to lower the mug to the table from where he holds it a third of the way up his arm, gripped by a few of his suckers. Kip takes the freshly-warmed cup in his hands to brace it, and both remain motionless for a moment before Pascal detaches his arm.

"I don’t know why it still sometimes takes a second to coordinate letting go, even though grabbing on to something is never a problem at all," Pascal sighs.

"You're good at holding on to things," Kip says with a smile. A beat later Pascal catches on to his meaning and blushes with a soft laugh, sitting back down across from Kip with his own piece of chocolate cake.

"I got you lemon," Pascal says, nodding at Kip's dessert. "And the glaze is lemon, too. Because I know you like it."

"Not because I'm so sour?"

"Lemons have more sugar than blackberries and strawberries," Pascal replies. "And they're delicious, and everyone loves them, and they're so handsome and caring and fun—"

"Got it." Kip tries to restrain his smile as he pushes the tines of his fork through the corner of the cake. "...It's raining a little harder out there."

"Mm..." Pascal gazes out the window. "I have no idea how long it's supposed to last..."

"Do, uh—" Kip touches the side of his neck self-consciously, suddenly almost shy about the offer he wants to make. "Do you wanna come by our place again? It's closer, and...and really, I want to spend a lot more time with you today, if you want to, if you have time, because I...I don't know, I just really want to spend as much of today with you as I can. This kind of feels like a big deal, I want to be around you for a while longer than this."

"Oh—" Pascal sits further upright. "Kip, that would be great. If it's okay with you, I didn't really—I didn't have anything else I needed to do today, I was actually ready to talk yesterday but I had to do stuff for the shop till the afternoon and then do a bunch of errands, and I wanted to have a lot of time, and today I just...I wanted to check the café first to see if you happened to be there, and you were, and I guess I was lucky you weren't closing, even though I would've waited up if you were."

"Jeez, Pasc," Kip laughs. His heart is beating harder at the idea of having another evening where they're all together, where there's no awkwardness or suspense for any of them, where Kip doesn't have a quiet sense of dread weighing down even the most pleasant moments. "Here, let me text Molly, she's been off work since noon..."

He types out his message in the quick, to-the-point style he uses for her, saying that he's with Pascal, and would there be any issue in having him over for the evening again? He sends it off and slips his phone back into his pocket.

"Try mine," Pascal says when Kip looks back up. He cuts a piece onto his fork and lifts it across the table towards Kip. "There's some raspberry flavor in the frosting."

"Okay, if you try mine. You picked a good one."

He passes his fork to Pascal as he takes the one offered; the chocolate cake is rich, it's heavy flavor cut nicely by the slight tartness of the whipped frosting.

"That is really nice," he affirms. "I should tell Cuddy to steal their menu. The legal battle would be exciting, I'm sure."

"Yours is good, too," Pascal says. "I wonder what they'd be like if the icings were switched."

"Oh, I guess we could've just kept them..." Kip says right after they return each other's fork. "I mean, I'm not sick or anything, as far as I know."

"Me neither. Although I guess it'd be too late if either of us was."

Kip blushes.

"You're probably right," he laughs, and takes a drink of his cocoa.

An easy silence rests between them for a minute.

"While you were thinking everything over," Kip begins, leaning back in his chair while he cuts the last section of his cake into tiny bites. "Was there anything you thought about that you wanted to ask me about Wallace?"

Pascal's arm latches on to his napkin and he takes a moment to peel it off, face flooding rapidly with color.

"I—w-well, I—" he stammers, needlessly brushing his hair out of his face. Kip watches his expression and is glad to see that, while deeply flustered, he doesn't look pained.

"It can be like truth or dare, without the dare," he offers. "And I can tell you about other relationships to warm you up to it, if it helps. Like that things are great with Roy and Molly and I'm more grateful than ever that they've stayed with me through everything, but I'm trying to convince Molly to take Roy and just go on a trip to have some fun and relax, because they've been through so much but they go for so long without any breaks because, since they can power through, they just do. But you know how they are, they both try so hard to look out for everyone around them, and I know they sometimes try to put on a nice front for me if they think I'm having a hard time and they don't want me to feel guilty. Especially Molly, she just tries to be a complete tank, and I know she is, but she doesn't need to be. Not all the time. But they're doing pretty well, and they're still looking out for me, even a bit more than I wish they would. And Kate's been here for me as always, she's great, we just have a lot of fun together and she never really asks anything of me, you know? I'm never afraid of being a mess around her. And she's just as focused on what she wants as ever. She's like that, she just jumps into things and goes in whatever direction she chooses. And underneath all her teasing, she's a really kind person, and she's been letting me talk to her about stuff lately, since so far she's the only one who knows about my thing for Wallace besides you and Eno. And she's been really patient with me not really being able to fill in the whole story yet, so that's great of her. And just the other day, I think I had kind of a falling-out with Ben, only it was pretty small because I think it was a while coming and I guess we never really were close at all, even though I've known him for years. But I'd been getting kind of irritated with him because sometimes he just seemed to be tired of me no matter what approach I tried, and it kind of built up I guess until I kind of lost my temper for a whole five seconds, but it was enough to be embarrassing. And I finally got it together to apologize and he brushed me off and kind of told me we aren't friends, and I was upset at first but then I figured he's right. I like him, but I guess we've never been friends in our own right. And now I'm thinking was that maybe I was always so self-conscious and anxious around him because maybe he was noticing me being nervous and that made him uncomfortable around me? I don't know, maybe I remind him of the day, maybe it's a bunch of stuff. I guess it might get awkward if any of the others catch on, but all it is is accepting he doesn't have any particular interest in me. We don't need to be enemies or anything. But I don't want Roy to be stressed out by it. He would think it was a disaster, you know. He and Molly are already a little worried about me because they've noticed I've had something on my mind for a while, and of course that's because I was trying to figure out how I felt about you and how I felt about Wallace, but I haven't talked to them about it because at first I was way too embarrassed and unsure, and then it just felt way too personal, and then once I decided I had to tell you about everything, I didn't want anyone else to know about it before you could decide about it. And now I'd also rather talk to Wallace before I tell them how I've been feeling about them. And at least it could be worse, because I've told them that they were right that I've been stressing about some things but it wasn't anything bad, and that I would tell them when I could, but I wasn't ready to share yet. And of course they've been understanding and respected it completely but I know they're still worrying. And that's pretty much what's going on with all those people."

He heaves a sigh as though exhausted, but smiles at Pascal.

"Oh...I—well..." Pascal seems bemused; Kip laughs and leans forward.

"Pascal." He touches his arm. "I mean, all of that was true, but I'm joking. I want you to be able to ask whatever's on your mind, even if you know it's something personal. I trust you completely to respect my privacy, we've always done that for each other, and I know we're both our own people with parts of ourselves that'll always be personal. I'm not demanding you have to be willing to share every thought you ever have with me as some kind of payment for being with me; I know you don't ask that of me either. But you can always ask about anything."

He's started stroking Pascal's arm without realizing it, but once he does, he only softens the touch into a caress that conveys all the sweetness and affection he can manage with only his hand against Pascal's smooth skin.

"Go on and ask me anything you like," he offers again. "Give it a try, if you want." He waits for Pascal to meet his eyes to give him a gentle smile. Pascal returns it almost bashfully, head tilted down and blush lingering stubbornly.

After a moment, Pascal opens his mouth to speak, but abandons the attempt before he's hardly made a sound. He laughs at himself and tries to stifle it by ducking his face down against his arm, blushing even harder. "Oh, gosh—" He bends further under another silenced roll of laughter.

Kip can't help but laugh, too.

"Anything," he repeats. "Anything you wanna ask."

Pascal stares out the window for a moment, arm covering his mouth.

"Okay, well..." He looks back at Kip. "Do you—um, do you want to sleep with Wallace?"

Any red that had diminished in his face rushes back as he speaks, and Kip feels his heart skip a beat.

"There you go!" he encourages, laughing. "Oh, god, okay. Okay."

He drags his hands down his face before propping his chin up with his elbows against the table. He lets out a slow, even breath.

"I've thought about it," he starts. He looks right at Pascal as he speaks, and this seems to help make them both a little less nervously flustered. "I mean, obviously I don't know if it's even a possibility, but I think I would like to try it if he wanted to. And I'd tell you if we were going to, or if we did. I'd tell you if I kissed him, or if I told him about how I feel. I'm not going to hide anything from him, either—as though if one of you knew a certain amount about the other, something would explode. I mean...I think I would really like to have all three of us together to talk, if it goes that far. I know that'd kind of be skipping ahead right now, but...I don't even want either of you to feel like I'm the only one in control of the situation. It'd be both of yours business, too. And I...I think he likes you. Maybe not in a way as though he has a crush on you, but he...you know, he always seems interested about hearing about you."

Pascal glances down; his blush seems to have diffused across his entire face. And then his eyes widen and he looks back at Kip with a sudden increase in intensity.

"Do you—" His voice is lowered almost to a whisper. "Did you ever think about—you know—about all three of us—"

Kip feels a burst of warmth in his cheeks.

"Us all, at the same time... Having, you know, a threesome?" Pascal does actually whisper the last part. The color of his hair doesn't seem that much deeper than that spread across the center of his face.

Kip wouldn't be surprised if his answer was clear in the expression on his face. But he has to say it anyway.

"I started to think about it sometimes," Kip admits, staring at a hem on the shoulder of Pascal's shirt. "Mostly when I jerk off," he mumbles through his fingers.

He doesn't manage to look Pascal in the face for that confession. He's outright performatively masturbated in front of Pascal plenty of times, yet it somehow tends to be surprisingly difficult at times to describe what thoughts he's getting off to. And it's much more intense talking about his sexual fantasies to Pascal sitting right in front of him than simply turning them over in his own mind, alone.

"...I think about you all the time, by the way," he says quietly. "When I'm getting off."

Pascal's entire body stills; he's evidently taken by the concept.

"...You want to have that again?" Pascal's question is more of an offer.

Kip nods.

"Of course," he murmurs. "I want that really bad."

"So do I." Despite his persistent blush, Pascal seems a little more steadied, a little more confident now. He's sitting further upright, neither hiding his face at all nor shying away from looking directly at Kip. "I've missed you."

Kip bites his lip and slides his hand a few inches across the table for Pascal to take. Pascal's arm slips around his palm and squeezes softly.

"When did you know you like him?"

Kip's smile is half-reflexive—Pascal is already sounding more relaxed and conversational. On his own side of things, it's a little strange; in order to try being more comfortable while discussing his feelings for Wallace, he tries to ignore the fact that Pascal is his boyfriend, but it's also knowing that Pascal's his boyfriend that's enabling him to talk about things that are usually too intimate for him to share with anyone else.

"I had a dream about kissing him," he says, slowly playing with Pascal's hold on his hand. "It surprised me at first, but I think I'd probably been thinking about it before then, just...moreso subconsciously."

"That must have been confusing."

Kip breathes a laugh.

"It really was. I mean, I spent so long thinking he was the complete opposite of anyone I could trust or love. And I know we've got a lot closer since that time, but there was never any room to think about things in that way, I guess. Until it just seemed to hit me out of nowhere. But even as soon as I woke up I knew that I liked the idea of kissing him. And I just kept thinking about it from a bunch of different angles and turning it over until I knew."

He traces his thumb along the outer rim of one of Pascal's suckers and feels the arm curling in around his fingers in response.

"How do you feel about him?" Pascal asks softly.

"Well, I like him. I already love him, of course, but I have those feelings too where I just... Stuff like thinking about holding him, or lying down with him, or kissing him, talking with him about ourselves..."

He gives a soft laugh.

"It's just a total 180 from how I used to feel," he says. "I used to think that letting him near us was going to destroy everything good we all had, and now I... I want to know him more, and to let him know me. I want to know that he's going to be around. I feel like I could trust him with a lot of things about myself. And not just because I know he's not going to kill me," he adds wryly.

"He does seem nice," Pascal says. He catches Kip's eye and smiles.

"He is. I mean, don't get me wrong, he can go way too far sometimes, like... He's always so focused on helping that sometimes he forgets how much he doesn't know about, he forgets his limits and he crosses boundaries... But he's been learning to keep that in check, I think. It really can be frustrating how clueless he is sometimes, and we've definitely had arguments flare up, but he just...he just cares so, so much, and he tries so hard all the time, and he's so—he's so honest that it's funny he was the one to get sent out here."

Kip looks at the glass of the window, where raindrops are landing to slip down along tracks towards the base.

"He has such a warm personality and how much he cares can be so intense that I just...I guess it's not so surprising that I ended up feeling this way about him."

He blushes a bit and looks at Pascal.

"I'm not saying any of that as anything to compare yourself with," he says. "It's not because of anything I felt I was missing with you that made me like him. I mean, I was missing being with you as bad as ever then because of how possible it felt that we might be together again. Kind of like, being so close but not being together but knowing maybe we could—it felt terrible because I had no idea what to do, and somehow it was still so hard to consider that after everything, we could just be together like we wanted. And even though I know it must've felt just as awful for you, you were being so patient. You have such patience and understanding for everything all the time. It's one of the things I could love forever about you."

"Aw, Kip..." Pascal drops his head as though to hide his smile. Kip reaches across the table and gently touches the side of his face.

"I don't like Wallace because he has anything new that I've never had before," Kip tells him softly. "I mean, sure, he's a human, but god knows that didn't help things along any. I just need to make sure you know that the reasons I like him aren't at all related to our relationship. If I don't let you know that, then that's my fault. And, you know, if at any point you start to feel uncomfortable or like you've changed your mind, that's okay. I'll do everything I can for us."

"We'll figure it all out as we go," Pascal says again. "I mean...I've been thinking about all this since you told me. I've had a lot of time to think about how I feel. And l—well, I really, completely trust you. I've known you for so long. And I know that if this was something you didn't want to share with me, you wouldn't be, so there'd be no reason to think you were somehow lying about that. And I just—" He laughs quietly. "Maybe it's weird, but I actually worried about Wallace not liking you back. I mean, I think you should definitely talk to him about it, because it sounds like it's too important not to. But for me, it's like, how could anyone not love you? You absolutely deserve how much I love you, but I'm not the only person who does, and you deserve all of their love just as much. And if Wallace loves you, you deserve that too."

Kip stares at him, at a loss for words. He's known Pascal for years, countless times he's experienced firsthand how much compassion and generosity and understanding Pascal can give, and yet Pascal still surprises and amazes him.

The rain grows a little heavier.

"Pasc, you're a wonder," he says softly. "I wanna always make sure you know I don't ever take you for granted. You're so, so good, every time I'm with you I—there's just no way I couldn’t appreciate how amazing you are, Pascal."

Pascal lifts Kip's hand to press his lips against his knuckles.

"I feel the same," Pascal murmurs before kissing the back of Kip's wrist.

There's a slight pause before Kip speaks as he watches Pascal turn his hand over and kiss his curled fingers, kiss his palm.

"You know, there's so many reasons I love you, but if you ever needed just one to think of to know why I'd want to be with you, it's everything we've been through together. You were with me for years. You were with me through so much and I never had any reason to doubt that you wanted to be. You've been there with me for the hardest time of my life. There's no way I can't love that. Even just the everyday stuff we shared means so much, we lived together and shared our lives for years, that means so much. That matters so much."

He feels Pascal's smile against the skin of his hand. He wants to kiss him, he wants to lie back and rest Pascal's head on his chest and stroke his hair, let them both fall asleep like that.

"I guess I have a weakness for people who are clearly really loving or something," he says, pretending to be flippant.

"That's good. You deserve to have a lot of them around you."

"Jeez, Pasc..." He cups Pascal's chin in his hand and brushes his thumb across Pascal's lips in lieu of a kiss. "You don't have to win me over, I already love you."

He's proud of the genuine happiness in Pascal's expression; he seems to carry no tension or discomfort at all.

His phone hums in his pocket.

"Oh—that should be Molly."

He fishes it out of his pocket and sees his guess was right.

"Zero problem! Bring him over!!!" her message reads.

He sends back an "Ok, we'll probably head over soon" and puts his phone back.

"We should be good if you still wanna go over to our place," he tells Pascal, lifting his cup to his mouth.

"Yes, I'd really like to," Pascal says quickly.

"It looks like we might have to walk through the rain, though."

"It's okay, if you don't mind it. It's warm and it's not coming down too hard."

They both look out the window as if to assess the situation.

"It'd be worth it anyway," Kip says.

"Yeah, it would."

—

Their clothes are a bit damp when they reach the building, but Kip couldn't care any less. He's laughing at the slightest provocation by the time he's leading Pascal down the hall to his door, and Pascal had been taking advantage of that the whole walk back, joking with him and kissing the side of his head when he giggled.

Molly opens the door before he's even close enough to put the key in the lock, and Pascal gets caught up in a hug before he's passed through the doorway.

"So!" she chirps as she closes the door behind them. "What were you two up to?"

Kip glances at Pascal, and takes the small smile and shrug he's given to mean Pascal's going to let him provide the answer.

"We were talking," Kip says.

She gives him a look that suggests she expects more, and Kip spends a few seconds trying to figure out how to lead up to it before deciding there's really no use.

"We’ve...decided to date again," he says simply.

Molly's eyes widen and she looks back and forth between them.

"Like...now?" She sounds faintly bewildered.

She looks over at Pascal when he laughs, and he nods at her. An instant later she has an almost hard look on her face as she strides forward and embraces Pascal again, arms thrown tightly around his waist.

"Oh my god," she says against his shirt. "Yes. Just—yes. This is fantastic. Get over here."

She holds an arm out towards Kip. He accepts it as an inevitability, walks into the range of her reach, and is quickly pulled in against Pascal.

He and Pascal both take a deep breath when she releases them. She takes half a step back and beams up at them, looking surprisingly close to tears.

"It's okay," Kip laughs weakly.

"Shut up, it's great. Oh, Roy should be back soon, he's going to be so happy, he's been worrying over you guys—"

She hugs them again and then individually and then both once more, congratulating them all the while. Seeing his own celebratory feelings reflected in her exuberance is contagious, and Kip finds it all but impossible to completely banish his smile.

"I should change out of my work clothes," Kip says before she has a chance to catch them up in an interview for a play-by-play. "Um, Pascal, do you want me to get you a towel, or—"

"I can grab him one," Molly interrupts. "You should go ahead and get into something dry, you might freeze those."

"I hardly..." he starts, but she's already headed towards the little hallway closet beside their bathroom. He sighs, looks over his shoulder to exchange a quick smile with Pascal, and follows Molly towards his room.

Right as he's reaching his door she turns from the shelf of towels and steps over to hug him again.

"Oh—" He tries to twist around enough to return it with one arm.

"You did it," she murmurs, and then kisses his cheek before letting go.

—

Roy returns home maybe ten minutes after they did, following them so closely that Kip is caught off guard by him opening the door. Kip stands up from the couch on instinct, but Roy is immediately reacting to Pascal's unexpected reappearance with happiness and an earnest welcome—which Molly gently cuts through to inform him, as she puts it, that the two are on a date.

Roy turns and looks at the two of them for a moment, Pascal offering a small smile and Kip still standing somewhat nervously beside him. And then Kip barely has time to brace himself for the onslaught of a hug that sweeps him back against the cushions and pulls him tight against Pascal's side.

Roy is laughing as he embraces them, but where Molly was close to tears, Roy is rapidly in the midst of them. Both Pascal and Kip attempt to comfort him as best they can from the confines of his wingspan, but then Molly joins in to hug them all and all they can do is let everything happen.

Roy has enough questions to generate about a solid half hour of conversation before he's willing to take a five-minute break to put down everything he carried home from work and change into fresh clothes. Upon his return, he insists on taking everyone out for dinner until they agree to let him.

They talk for at least an hour as the conversation evolves from focusing solely on the new development of Kip and Pascal's relationship to simply being about all of them catching up and retreading parts of the past and bringing up anything else that comes to mind along the way, now that they're finally free to discuss everything without worry of alluding to a forbidden subject. And aside from a few light, customary instances of teasing directed at Kip, he notices they're being almost gentle towards him with how attentively they're ensuring his comfort over even their curiosity.

It’s almost like they love him that much.

Chapter Text

They wait until Pascal has dried off thoroughly and, each arming themself with an umbrella—Kip sharing his larger charcoal-colored one with Pascal—Roy takes them all out to eat. At that point it does feel a little like a date, even though Kip's not sure if their discussion over cake had counted as a date—maybe even their visit to the little garden. But it doesn't matter. His first date with Pascal was years ago, and even before that they'd had some ambiguous outings during which they were both clearly taken with each other. But their first officially-declared date stands out in Kip's memory—the eager anticipation, the excitement of being together in that way, the happiness he held both during the date and for days afterwards. This is all just a continuation of what they started long before.

After sharing dinner they decide to simply walk around town together so they can all keep talking and enjoying each other's company. After a while of that, they decide to go a couple of streets over to visit a shop that has ice creams and gelato and sorbet and milkshakes—it being warm enough for even Kip to partake without chilling himself to uncomfortable levels.

Seated around a little round table, it occurs to Kip that it's late enough that Kate should be ready to close soon, and they all agree to invite her as well and Kip texts her to let her know they're just about seven minutes away from her if she wants to join them. He decides it's only fair that he be first the one to tell her of what happened after he left work, and informs her that he's with Roy and Molly and his hot new boyfriend. A minute later she texts him back, telling him to shut up, but she'll still be there in about fifteen minutes.

It's unexpectedly flattering to hear Roy and Molly excitedly relay the news to Kate when she arrives. She's clearly glad for them too, and Kip grows almost shy at getting such strong positive attention all at once and ends up tripping over his thoughts while he talks and flaring up into a five-hundred lumen blush at the slightest prompt. But he's enjoying it all, gratified by such a blatant display of love for both him and Pascal. He might think it was more than he deserved if it didn't feel so nice to be in the glow of such warm attention.

Forty minutes later, they're walking Kate home, and then Kip suggests for the sake of Pascal's well-restedness that they go ahead and walk him to his home as well, and they all keep talking and laughing as they head towards it—if at a slightly slower pace. He might wish that he could go ahead and spend a night with Pascal, desperately longing to share a bed with him for a handful of equally important reasons, but it’s more than enough just having that long-lost certainty back with him, the total confidence that Pascal will still be in his life the next day, that he'll still have that same certainty tomorrow as well.

—

Once Pascal's building comes into view, Molly and Roy move a few paces ahead in a move which, although subtle enough, Kip knows must be deliberate. He turns his head towards Pascal to speak to him softly.

"Hey. I'm so, so happy this is happening," he murmurs.

"I can tell," Pascal answers. "And I'm pretty sure I'm feeling just the same."

"Good." Kip grins and momentarily presses his mouth to Pascal's upper arm as he squeezes his grip on the end of it.

They walk quietly for a few more seconds.

"I was thinking that maybe tomorrow, if I can see him, I would try to talk to Wallace? I would text you about how it goes, but if that's too soon or it's a bad time, of course it can wait. I would wait for a while anyways if it wasn't that I kind of just want to ride this momentum while I have it. I haven’t exactly felt this good in a while.”

"Right, right..." Pascal says thoughtfully. "I think that's a good reason to go ahead and give it a try. You've been turning this over for a long time, and I've been taking it seriously thinking about everything these past few days. I do really mean it about wanting to just, you know, go ahead and figure it out together and learn as we go. And tomorrow sounds like as good a day as any."

Kip squeezes their hold again and Pascal returns the gesture by stroking the back of Kip's hand with the tip of his arm.

"Alright. I'll text you and keep you updated on what's going on. And I'll probably just go ahead and do that any day, about anything."

"Sounds good to me." Pascal laughs quietly.

A moment passes.

"I love that I know we'll get to keep seeing each other," Pascal says. "Not that we wouldn't've anyway, but this feels so completely fantastic."

"I know, right? I'm already looking forward to the next time we'll be together, you know? It's been too long and I just want to like, just saturate myself with this, on getting to be with you like this."

He pauses before continuing.

"It's sucked going so long without what we used to have, but at the same time, how bad I've missed this just makes me even happier to have it again." He can't help but smile as the process of describing the feeling intensifies it.

"Sweetheart," Pascal whispers fondly. He kisses Kip's hair. "I love you, too."

Kip giggles and Molly shoots a knowing look at him over her shoulder.

Kip lets go of Pascal's arm as they get to the doorway and pats his shoulder.

"Thanks for coming over again," he says.

"Yeah!" Roy and Molly's enthusiastic support overlaps.

Pascal laughs.

"Thank you guys so much for being so cool with dealing with me on such short notice," he says.

Molly scoffs.

"It was so great!" Roy says. "You guys, that was the best surprise I could've ever gotten. I'm so glad you were here, Pascal, I'm so glad you two are together again!”

Before either Kip or Pascal have a chance to even draw a breath to respond, Roy's flung his arms around them both in another exuberant hug.

"Aw, gosh—"

Molly makes it into a quartet-hug again, and Pascal deftly places another kiss to Kip's forehead.

"Alright, alright," Kip says as they draw away again. "Go on, get out of here, Pas. I wanna keep you around longer as much as anyone, but we'd be here all night."

He raises himself up on his toes and kisses Pascal's cheek.

"We'll see you again soon," he says softly, and Pascal smiles, blushing faintly from the kiss.

"Definitely," Molly says firmly.

"Okay, well...thanks again, you guys. I loved getting to hang out. I'll see you later!"

"Goodnight!" Roy says; Molly echoes him.

"Goodnight," Pascal says with a smile and a tiny wave of his arm. He turns towards Kip and smoothly bends down as he lifts Kip's chin with his arm and, just like before, gives him a brief kiss that lingers enough in the course of a second and a half to light up Kip's blush and render him momentarily speechless.

"...Goodnight," Kip says weakly, looking up at Pascal with a flickering smile.

"Goodnight." Pascal holds his gaze for a heavy heartbeat longer and then, sending another smile towards Molly and Roy, disappears into his building again.

Kip watches the closed door for a second, biting his lip.

"C'mon," Molly calls to him, laughter in her voice. "And you might wanna get your umbrella out again, it feels like it's picking up again a little bit..."

"Okay," Kip says absentmindedly, before shaking off his thoughts to actually open up his umbrella. He turns towards the others to see them waiting for him, smiling—a bubbly laugh escapes Roy as Kip closes the small distance to walk alongside them again.

"I love you guys," Kip says matter-of-factly.

"We know."

"Well, we love you too."

—

Kip starts to feel a bit tired by the time they make it back to the apartment.

"Thank you again," he says to Molly and Roy as he locks their front door. "I really appreciate you guys giving us your evening like this."

"As if we wouldn't want to," Molly says. "This is a huge deal, Kip!" She gives him a playful shove on the shoulder.

"Yeah," Roy chimes in. "We're so happy for you, this was amazing! I mean, of course I knew you guys would work everything out eventually because you both are so fantastic and so good together and you love each other a ton, but—still! This was SUCH a nice surprise."

Kip smiles.

"I'm really glad, too," he tells them. "I totally wasn't expecting him to show up out of the blue like that today."

"Lucky you. Lucky all of us," Molly says. "Honestly, we've pretty much been hoping for today ever since the day we moved, when you guys were both so upset."

Kip looks away.

"Don't start feeling guilty," Molly says. "It doesn't even matter now. We're all here now, we all get to be together."

"We sure got a little wear and tear between then and now, though," Kip says quietly.

Molly doesn't answer, just looks at him for a moment. Kip glances away again and tries to refocus with a short laugh and a quick smile.

"But you’re right—we're here, so..." He shrugs.

And then he's in another encompassing hug.

"No, it's fine, I'm sorry for bringing it up—"

"Don't be, it's fine to talk about any of it," Molly says, while making the already tight hug a bit snugger.

"I'm alright though, really—today's been just incredible."

"I know."

And the next thing he knows—and not unexpectedly—Roy had joined in the hug from the other side, sandwiching him in the heart of the group hug.

He grumbles but accepts his fate, which conveniently includes accepting the pleasant warmth of the contact.

"Congratulations again, Kip," Roy says as he pets Kip's hair. "This is so, so good."

"It is," Kip agrees quietly.

"And it's gonna be so much fun to have Pascal around again," Roy adds.

"Yeah, definitely."

"He's so good—"

"Right? I love him."

Roy laughs and the hug squeezes in for a moment before the other two concurrently decide to release him.

"It's just really great to know you get to have this again, Kip," Molly says. "Enjoy it."

"I am.”

"I know," she says. "Just—don't rein yourself in. You deserve this. And it's so obvious how happy he is to have you back, too."

Kip brushes his fingers through his hair and casts his smile towards the floor.

"Yeah," he says softly. "Thank you."

She laughs and pats him hard on the back before going over to hang her umbrella on the rack.

"I'm gonna go ahead and take a shower," she tells them. "But I'll be out quick."

"Okay," Roy says.

"Sure," Kip says.

Roy smiles at Kip and touches his shoulder.

"Kip, I'm so glad," he says simply.

"I am, too," Kip laughs. "I'm really glad we can just all meet up however we want. I'm sorry you guys had to deal with all that. But it means so much that you two have always been so kind to me about it. I've always been so grateful for that."

Roy just catches him up in another hug that's surprisingly softer and more deliberate than usual.

"We love you," is all he answers with.

—

Kip stands in the middle of his room for a moment, staring again at the pressed sprig of lilac. He slips it back into the envelope, which he slips back into his brother's folder, which he puts back into the corner of the drawer. He turns and looks over at the picture for a few seconds, and then strips his clothes off with one hand while setting his alarm with the other. He doesn't put on any pajamas—he wants to feel the dry warmth of his sheets directly against his body. And to recreate in his mind how it feels to have Pascal's warm, soft skin against his.

He imagines how his and Wallace's bodies would feel together. Being the middle spoon in front of Pascal and behind Wallace, Pascal’s arm draped over his side, lazily trailing his fingers across Wallace’s chest, resting his lips against the back of Wallace's neck. Sitting on a bed with Wallace, both right in front of each other, forearms resting together as they look at each other's faces and grow accustomed to sharing each other's space, sharing this intimacy, touching and being so close. Waking up in the middle of the night and sensing Pascal's weight just beside him, having that moment of satisfaction, that feeling of security.

He thinks of the little looks Pascal kept giving him all afternoon and evening, loaded with affection. He thinks of how many times Pascal told him he loves him. He thinks of the kiss Wallace pressed to his face. He thinks of the responses of immediate joy his friends had on his behalf.

He wishes his family had been there for this day too. Everything important to him, everything that does and will ever make him happy—he should've been able to share it all with them. Sometimes, in blissful moments however big or small, he thinks of them, as if such times recreate their absence anew just for the occasion. To cause him to falter for just a second, visualize the space where they should be standing in front of him, imagine their faces and voices and what they might say to him and how he could turn to them as easily as to any of his friends, and laugh with them and ask them what they think and how they feel. And though he'll pull himself out of it and try to reengage in everything that's really there in the present, the moment lingers with him. He misses them, and he wishes they could be here with him too.

His room is so dark that he doesn't bother opening his eyes when he slides out of bed and walks carefully over to the shelf. He feels along the top, tracing leaves back to a plant back to a ceramic pot over to the picture frame next to it.

"Hey, so, I'm with Pascal again," he whispers, resting his fingers on the wooden frame. "I wish you had been there when we were all out tonight. I wish I could've gotten to surprise you with the news, too. I wish I could see how happy you would've been. Maybe you would've been proud of me... I'm kind of proud of myself, anyway. I'm really glad this is happening. I love Pascal so much. He loves me too, and that's amazing. He's such a wonderful guy, it's like I can't believe I didn't know about him before I met him, like he's too good for the world to keep quiet about. But I'm with him again, and I want to stay with him, and if I have my way I'll just be with him as long as I can be. I—I didn't get to tell you that kind of stuff about him. I didn't get to tell you when I realized just how much I loved him and how serious I was about it. It was—it was after you—"

He pauses. He hasn't spoken so at length like this for a while, he never knows what to expect when he's letting himself talk freely. He can't help but start tearing up a little.

"I wish you could've known how special to me he is and how much I love him and..." His voice is quavering even in a whisper. "I'm happy you at least got to meet him and know who he is. And you got to know a bit about what he meant to me. You—you knew we loved each other and were happy to be together and I'm really glad that happened, I just... I just wish it had been longer and we all could've gotten to know each other really well, and—and I feel like I was just getting old enough to really start knowing the full picture of what things were like for you, when I could understand things better and I knew more and I wasn't a kid anymore and I—I was just starting but—things were busier than they used to be and I didn't want to get in the way, I didn't want to make you involve me more in every part of your lives because I knew some things you didn't want to share 'cause I'm still your little brother and I know you just didn't have as much extra time and so I thought it would help to try looking after myself as much as I could, and maybe it did help, I don't know."

He's outright crying already and his nose is running; he goes to the bedside table to get a few tissues and then returns to the picture, again placing his fingertips on its frame.

"I don't know. I guess you guys might've had the same kinds of doubts if you could look back? I know you did your best; I guess I did too. But I wish I'd—that I'd—when—I wish on that day, that on that day I'd been around you guys more, we were all different places doing different things and then later on in the day, our different schedules for the—"

He abruptly stops and blows his nose again and wipes off all the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"For the next day," he continues, "meant we were all just out of sync I guess and our daily routines just weren't really there and I was tired, I just wanted to—to be in my room where it was quiet and be out of the way and—and I had felt like we hadn't seen each other much all day but it had still felt like a normal day and I thought—I had thought that tomorrow—"

He kneels down to sit on the floor as his crying worsens enough to keep him from trying to speak at all, choked off by quiet, hiccuping sobs. He spends a minute or two simply letting it pass through him.

"I-I miss you guys," he breathes, wiping away snot. "I miss you so much and I wish you were still here. I think about how it would've been if you'd just come back all of a sudden like you were just off on a long trip, and I got to show you who I am and tell you what I've been doing and—and what all of us have been doing—and I wish you could be here now that everything's been—that we're all—everyone's in such a better place than we were back then and—and you guys deserve to have gotten that too."

He heaves a tremulous sigh.

"I wish you could've met Wallace, too. He's—it's been rough, and he's not—not—" He drags a hand across his forehead. "He's from A and he didn't know hardly anything, but at the start he didn't even know that he didn't know anything. That sucked, honestly, and sometimes it would drive me crazy that it seemed like he thought that just—just caring hard enough was a substitute for anything, like that was the only thing you needed to do to fix everything. Like all of us who’d been dealing with it all our lives didn't all care enough already—and like you guys hadn't cared enough or been optimistic enough and I—I definitely fought with him over that kind of thing a good few times. He'd say something awful without meaning to and—I'd get so frustrated with him and sometimes he'd get frustrated back and..."

He laughs under his breath, a little hoarsely.

"I mostly just wanted him to—to know, to just realize there was a boundary when he was dealing with stuff that for one reason or another he couldn't understand... Instead of trying to—I don't know, ignore or get around stuff just by wanting to fix it hard enough. But he could be really sweet and it was so nice how much he considered even the littlest stuff worth his time... He just wanted to help over anything else. And that was really nice to see and of course I understood that feeling, but also—also I knew really well that just one person couldn't just fix everything for everyone no matter how much they wanted to, and—and for a while it really grated on me that he didn't seem to get that at all. But we've all changed since then, and he's just... He's still just a really kind person and he's loving and cares about everybody, and I wish you could meet him because I couldn't ever have known he'd be so important to us. I wish I could talk to you about how much I care about him and...want to be close to him, because it's been really confusing dealing with it on my own. I know you'd make it seem a lot less of a big deal and a lot more manageable and maybe I wouldn't've had to spend so much time wondering if it was even okay to have feelings for him."

His crying has been slowly lightening over the course of talking about Wallace, but he's still feeling tears fall from his jaw. He keeps wiping their residue from his face to make sure the tracks don't freeze to his cheeks.

"I guess timing doesn't always work out perfectly," he sniffs. "But this was way off. I wish every day that there’d been so much more time."

His eyes are adjusting to the darkness enough that he can just make out the silhouette of the frame.

"I'm glad I have you to think of," he whispers. "I miss you. I wish you were here. I miss you. I really miss you."

He scrubs his face with a clean piece of tissue, then carefully bends down and touches his lips to the top of the frame.

"I love you."

He straightens back up and stands in front of the picture for a few quiet moments more. Then he reaches out to touch the frame one more time before walking carefully across the room to throw the tissues away, then walking back to the bed. He sits down on the end with a quiet sigh.

It's not every day he talks for so long, and a lot rarer that he'll talk about such loaded, emotional topics. When he's on even slightly shaky ground, he's not sure it won't knock him over. And it's been a long, long time since stability felt like a constant in his life. He tries to make sure he doesn't do anything to make himself feel like he's weighing himself down for a collapse. And he doesn't have intimate, lengthy talks with his picture unless he's in so good a place that he knows he can carry it.

Right now he's not only in a good enough place, but he knows he'll be in a good place when he wakes up, too.

He gets back under the covers, breathes deep and slow, and falls asleep quickly.

—

He can't help but text Pascal in the morning, though he restrains himself from doing so immediately after waking up. He texts him during his lunch break, and after his shift is over. Pascal's replies are warm and , and Kip is so glad that his boyfriend—

His boyfriend.

—has a phone, and they can actually text each other. When they'd first met, Kip would have to call Pascal, or vice versa. And when they lived together, they saw each other every day. He's sure that they'll keep calling each other, as they have been since they reinitiated contact. Pascal is pleasant to talk to over the phone; his conversation is relaxed but fun and his voice sounds lovely even through the slight electric filters. But on a day like this when Pascal is working, too, Kip is glad to have his texts, especially since otherwise they'd likely still be waiting for hours before making any contact at all.

They jumped almost immediately into talking about how they felt about being in a relationship again, falling asleep to it and waking up to it and thinking about how it's still real and they're having their first full day of being able to know they're really with each other. Kip told him it felt freeing and comforting to know that nothing is off the table, nothing is too intimate anymore. Pascal told him how, even while expecting it as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, it was repeatedly a thrill to see Kip's name lit up on his phone's screen. Kip said that he likes feeling like a real, present part of Pascal's life again. Pascal said that hearing how he's making Kip happy is the only thing that could've lifted his mood even higher today.

It's another taste of the excitement of starting something new. Kip's smiles to himself feel as involuntarily as not, and he has an excess energy that buoys his mood. Pascal feels so much closer. Everything seems friendlier, more familiar. He knows it's a bit of an emotional high from the yesterday's thrill, but that doesn't mean he can't let himself enjoy it. And this one little detail, getting texts from Pascal, is an unprecedented experience between them that provides its own kick.

Just touching the rectangle in his pocket is like a fraction of the feeling of touching Pascal.

—

He strips down and showers when he gets home, scrubbing off sweat and a few coffee stains. He sends a text while toweling off, telling Pascal that he's going to try to see if he can talk to Wallace, while he's got this energy that seems to be temporarily keeping his anxiety and self-doubt at bay. After straightening back up from blowdrying his hair, he's gotten a reply, a quick well-wishing encouragement.

"I love you, i'll let you know what happens," he sends, and focuses in on getting himself put together. He intends to make this all one unbroken stream of activity that leads him right to Wallace's door, with no space for hesitation and overthinking to work its way in.

Putting on deodorant, combing his hair, examining his face in the mirror, slipping on grey jeans and a loose sweater and pacing around, just shy of wringing his hands, before having to accept he doesn't need to do anything else to descend several floors and see if Wallace is home.

Keys, phone, he goes out the door.

Down the stairs and he's trying not to worry.

Walking down the hall and telling himself his footsteps really aren't that loud.

He touches the phone in his pocket. He faces Wallace's apartment.

It only takes a few seconds for him to convince himself to knock. The quick, light knock he always uses. And then he waits, even while telling himself of course he's not home, asking why he didn't just text him like a sensible person to ask where he is, warning himself of his own ineptitude.

He thinks he can hear faint noises that might be from within the apartment, and it roots him in place. After a few seconds of this he tries once more, two quick, soft knocks—and he definitely hears Wallace's voice give some response. His cheeks flush and his heart skitters and takes off at a decent pace.

A muffled "—a second!" sounds from what Kip guesses is the bathroom; he sighs and winces at his own poor timing.

He thinks he hears Wallace approaching the door and takes a step back.

"Hey," he says. “Hey, it's Kip—"

The door swings inward and Wallace smiles at him, wearing shorts and a tee and sandals that Kip sees when he glances nervously at the floor.

"Hey!" Wallace says, opening the door fully. "Hey, how are you? What's up?"

"I'm okay," Kip says with a tiny laugh. "Um, I was wondering if you're busy right now? I wanted to talk with you about something, but it can totally wait—don't even worry about it—we can do it later—" He's blushing and waving it off with a shrug and already leaning away; maybe it's just nerves but his instincts are saying he's intruding on Wallace's day in some way.

"Oh, no, that's okay, we can talk," Wallace says quickly, raising a hand.

"Oh—" Kip murmurs, feeling a jolt of what seems to be both trepid alarm and excited anticipation. He grasps on to the latter—he can finally, finally do this. Get this all off his chest to the other person who needs to know it. He takes a deep breath. "Okay."

"Wanna, uh, come in? It's a little messy but, uh, it's not so bad in here—just give me a second and I can clear that off the couch—" Wallace turns inwards towards the apartment to survey the slight signs of disorganization and moves back from the doorway as he does, and Kip takes the cue and drops his head as he steps inside.

"Sorry...let me just..." Wallace picks up what looks like a stack of laundry from his little couch and carries it off to his bedroom; Kip shifts his weight from one foot to the other and looks around at the walls as though they're a source of quiet fascination moreso than anything else around him.

"Okay!" Wallace says, tugging absently at a piece of his hair as he walks back in. Kip lifts his posture. "Do you want anything to drink, or...?"

"Oh—" Kip is legitimately unsure whether he does or doesn't. After fumbling with it for an entire second, instinct tells him to politely accept. "A-anything's fine, really, just water is fine—"

"I have some sweet tea and lemonade, do you like that?"

"Yes—yes, that'd be fine, that's good..." he trails off as Wallace slips into his kitchen and bites his lip and tongue and tries to will away his tension.

He's relaxed himself slightly—at least physically—by the time Wallace reappears with two glasses and gives one to Kip.

"So," Wallace says, settling himself on the armchair adjacent to the sofa. "What brings you today?"

"Well, um." Kip carefully perches himself in the center of the couch, searching out a round cork coaster on the coffee table and sliding it towards himself. "I...have something to tell you that I've kind of been sitting on for a little while."

"Yeah?"

Kip is grateful that Wallace's tone remains casual.

"Mmhm." He sips his drink, steadfastly staring at the table but feeling Wallace's gaze on him. "This is good." He lifts the drink, and moves to set it down before realizing he wants something in his hands. "I'm sorry. It's nothing serious, but I'm a little nervous."

"I totally understand," Wallace says. Kip thinks he's softening his voice for him. "You can take your time."

Kip smiles at the ice floating in his cup.

"Thank you," he murmurs. "Unfortunately, ah... It's not really something I can work up to, in that—well—it's difficult, but I think I just have to say it."

"Okay..."

He sees Wallace lean back in the chair in his peripheral. He lifts his head, face hot, and fleetingly glances directly at Wallace a few times for a moment to try to make it less awkward for the both of them, though he suspects it’s counterproductive in that regards.

"Sorry, I'm just—" He smooths one of his sleeves. "This is silly. But I'm still nervous."

He leans back as well and makes eye contact with Wallace, squeezing his glass as he gives the human a slight smile that is immediately returned with an obvious warmth.

Kip takes a deep breath and laughs at himself at its height; Wallace echoes his soft laughter back to him.

"Okay." Kip looks at Wallace, who's looking back at him with a faint smile, a faint blush, a look of earnest interest, his constant air of genuine kindness.

And Kip knows he can trust him with anything. Wallace takes everyone's wellbeing as seriously as he knows how. He won't hurt Kip, and he knows how private Kip can be. This is going to be okay.

"I'm just going to say this," Kip tells both Wallace and himself.

"Okay..." Wallace breathes a laugh.

Kip feels a slight flutter in his chest at that, and uses it as the little push he needs.

"I..." He feels himself blush violently; he hooks his ankles together and digs the pad of his one foot against the carpet. "Well."

He puts his hands on his thighs and slides them to his knees. He thinks of Pascal, how lousy it would feel to tell him he'd been lucky enough to catch Wallace at home, free to chat and in a characteristically lighthearted mood, but had backed out for no good reason and just made it that much harder for himself to make another attempt. Of course he can't do that. Of course, once again, he just has to say it.

"This is a bit embarrassing to just—I suppose there's no—it's not—" He covers his face with his hand and draws in a long breath. "Oh gosh. That's a mess. I'm sorry. I'm trying to be—okay. Okay. Just, this is probably going to be embarrassing to hear, I'm sorry."

"Oh?" Wallace blushes. "Oh man, did I—that is, is this about—"

"No," Kip interrupts quickly. "No—no, it's not you, it's just that—that I..."

They stare at each other for a breathless, motionless instant.

“I, um...” Kip falters.

He curls his toes.

"I like you."

The words are forced out yet his voice is much softer than it had been just before—almost faint, even close to wavering.

There's a beat of a pause, but Kip is already too tense to feel any extra surge of nervousness. He's just waiting, bracing for the hit.

"You...?" Wallace sits upright. "...W-what do you mean, you..." He doesn't exactly sound horrified, but he does sound confused, and like he's trying yet failing to hide his own increased tension.

"I'm sorry," Kip mumbles, touching his lips, his cheek. "This is embarrassing, and I'm sorry for just dumping it on you like this, it's just—I have. A crush. On—uh, on you. And I've been aware of it and...thinking about it for a while now. And I've just—it's just felt like it's become too much to not at least tell you that it's going on."

"...Oh," Wallace almost whispers. Kip glances over at him; his face has significant patches of pink that are bleeding together across his nose, his hands are folded almost gracefully in his lap, he's looking at his knees. "Oh, I—I didn't know."

"You didn't?" Kip asks quietly. "I thought I might've been pretty bad at hiding it. But I suppose I was just self-conscious." He's more than ready to just gently mock himself for the entire duration of the remaining conversation if needbe, laugh it off until he can slide right back out the door.

"I..." Wallace laughs nervously. "I suppose I sort of noticed something, but I never exactly guessed that...that you..."

"...I like you," Kip affirms, speaking towards the drink clutched in his hand. The ice is occasionally clattering against the sides of the glass from the shakiness of his grip. "I dreamt I kissed you, and...I liked the dream, and so I had to think about how I felt about you, and—and of course I already liked you before that. But I didn't know I liked you in that I wanted to kiss you. Or at least I hadn’t seriously thought that I did. But I—well, I've realized I do. I...really care a lot about you. One way or another. And I didn't ever guess that I would feel this specific way towards you, but, well, here I am."

He shrugs and hugs an arm across his torso.

"I just wanted to at least get it off my chest, so maybe it at least wouldn't seem like I was hiding something whenever I'm around you." He shrugs again and takes a drink of the tea.

There's a pause. Kip can tell he’s going to start shaking visibly if he doesn’t get some kind of relief from the tension soon.

"...Gosh, Kip, I...I wasn't ever expecting you to tell me something like this, I..." Wallace cuts himself off with another nervous laugh.

Although Kip might earlier have been glad to know that Wallace had no idea what he was feeling, for some reason it's now a little humiliating to hear his surprise thusly emphasized.

"I couldn't think of any way to break it to you more gently," Kip says. The muscles in one knee are jumping involuntarily. He tries to ignore it. "And I'm sorry for that. I know this isn't the most comfortable thing to just bring up without warning."

"I'm fine," Wallace says softly. "Don't worry. It's fine."

"Okay... Well...that's good." Kip can't quite look right at him, instead just facing directly forward, intently taking small sips of his drink to occupy every moment in which he's not speaking.

He wants Wallace to start leading the conversation, so he can get a sense of how he's feeling, what he's thinking.

"It's just—" Wallace laughs and runs a hand through his hair, setting his own drink on the table. Kip internally cringes at that incremental move away from the casual atmosphere. "I really thought you were with Pascal again?"

"Oh." Kip feels his temperature fluctuate into a significant drop. "Oh my god. Yeah, I am. As of yesterday. I'm not—he's knows I'm here, Wallace, he knows I'm telling you this, I—"

His face is burning even as he's starting to shiver from the chilled air clinging to his body. He can't believe he didn't think to bring this topic up first; it's completely mortifying to think that Wallace might believe he's trying to cheat on Pascal. He pulls out his phone, hands trembling a little as he unlocks it and opens his and Pascal's text conversation. The newest is an "Ok!" he hadn't seen yet, but the most recent few are clear proof that he told Pascal he was going to do this, and that Pascal approved. There's a couple of slightly embarrassingly affectionate texts visible above that, but the relative shame of Wallace seeing those is much less than that of Wallace believing Kip is trying to hurt Pascal.

"Here," he says, holding his phone out screen-first towards Wallace. "Please read that. I need to show you that he knows about this."

Wallace hesitates to take his phone from him.

"Please look at it," Kip repeats a little more firmly, and Wallace complies.

He watches Wallace's eyes move across the text, and sees Wallace's blush darken as he does so. Wallace silently passes the phone back to him with a nod; Kip returns it to his pocket.

"I—I already knew I was still in love with Pascal when I first thought I might have a crush on you," he explains. "But I was also still confused about what I wanted with Pascal, what I was ready for, and I was REALLY confused about what I wanted with you, and thinking about those both at once was a kind of confusion I'd never really dealt with before. But I spent a lot of time thinking about all of it, and trying to understand everything, and I've been taking it all really seriously. I didn't come here to tell you this on a whim. I like Pascal, and I like you, and I want to like you both, if I can. And I told Pascal all of this when I had him over earlier this week. We talked about it all, and we agreed to be together after he'd heard about all this. And he knew I wanted to tell you how I feel, and I promise I'm not doing anything behind his back."

He takes a few steadying breaths.

"But I realize that—that for you it might be strange that I have a boyfriend already, and if you're not comfortable discussing it any further, I won't push the subject any more." He bites at his lip. "But I like you at the same time that I like Pascal. I want you to know that it—that it's not as if the love I have for Pascal transfers away from him when I think about you, or vice versa. It's like they're these distinct and independent feelings. And I'm not very good at explaining it yet, because it's still so new to me, but I'll do my best to try, if you ever want me to. I’m not asking anything of you, but...I wanted to at least tell you."

He lifts his glass to take another small drink and flinches when it touches his upper lip—he's chilled it into an icy slush. He takes a sip anyways, then sets it on the coaster and dares a look over at Wallace.

He's gazing back at Kip, face now all but entirely bathed in deep pink, attentively turned towards him with a thumb rubbing his index finger, his lips slightly parted.

Kip tries to offer a small smile but the movement is so weak he's not sure it was even noticeable. He shrugs again, not knowing what to do.

"You've really... You must've had to work up a lot of courage to tell me this," Wallace murmurs finally.

Kip's shoulder twitches, so does his lip.

"Please don't say that," he breathes. "Just—go ahead and tell me what you have to tell me."

"N-no, really," Wallace says quickly, eyes widening and eyebrows raising. "No, I didn't mean to sound like I'm talking down to you, I just know that—that you don't usually share this kind of stuff, and it must be really hard for you, and it does—it really means so much to me that you're here right now, telling me this."

Kip blinks and bites back his words for a moment, taking another pause to breathe instead.

"Please just..." He covers his mouth for a second while drawing a quick inhale. "You don't want to discuss this right now, do you."

Wallace huffs out a breath of his own and Kip glances over to see him give a slight grimace. His heart sinks further. He picks his glass back up and takes a drink that's larger than a sip.

"I'm...I'm kind of..." Wallace is touching the back of his neck and looking across the room.

"...You're not single, either." Kip's voice comes out flat.

The silence is an answer even before Wallace's confirmation.

"...N-not really."

Kip gives a stiff nod, crossing his legs at the knees and looking down with interest at his drink while swirling it like a wineglass. He's trying very hard not to internally panic. There’s a deep chill brewing in his stomach, threatening to creep up into his chest.

"I'd assumed that could be the case," he says, voice now breezily casual, to the point of almost being flippant. “But I didn't know one way or the other. I wouldn't have bothered you if I had."

But you did kiss me, his thoughts supply. You did kiss me and call me beautiful. That was you. You did that without any help from me.

It feels petulant and petty to think of mentioning that, and he keeps it buried. But his pride is wounded and insistent: you kissed me.

YOU kissed ME.

"It's fine. I haven't really talked about it," Wallace says slowly. Carefully.

Kip nods again. He's not completely
brokenhearted—he knows what that feels like, and this isn't quite it. But some part of him had clearly, foolishly, started assuming that Wallace was most likely single, because hearing that he isn't is a little like a gallon of ice-water splashed in his face, and he's a little crushed. Or, at least, the butterflies he'd felt are crushed, frozen into immobility by the chill spreading into his core.

"Anyone I know?" Kip asks, trying to muster even faint echoes of easygoing humor into his tone. He has no idea what he should really say—he's now driven somewhat by an instinct which just wants to minimize the damage and get out before creating any more.

"Ben," Wallace says, and Kip puts his drink back down a little too hard.

"Oh?" he responds instinctively, now all but entirely detached from what's really happening in his head. He sits up completely straight, trying to freeze himself over, keep it all together until he can gracefully exit this situation. "I suppose I really had no idea then, if I couldn’t even have known that."

His laughter is a bit nervous, but any other reaction he could provide right now would be much, much moreso.

"We've been...pretty private about it," Wallace says quietly. Kip is only minutely consoled by the fact that Wallace himself sounds a bit embarrassed. "I mean, it's been going really slowly. We're not even really officially 'dating’ in that we haven't technically called it anything specific yet, but I..." He trails off.

"But you know anyway," Kip fills in once again. It's like some cruel self-punishment to make himself say these things instead of waiting for Wallace to do so while he just sits here and pathetically hopes that Wallace will tell him something else.

Kip lifts his chin regally and clears his throat.

"Yeah, I wouldn't imagine Ben is the most comfortable with labels such as that, but it’s not necessarily anything to worry about," he says quietly. "He was—" He cuts himself off abruptly, realizing it might come across as coldly harsh towards either Ben or Wallace if he were to finish the sentence and say how much Ben had been devastated at the loss of Yumi during their engagement. He knows part of him is genuinely glad to hear that Ben is dating again, but he can't possibly feel that right now, because of course of all the humans Kip had to fall for, it would be the same one that Ben liked.

He bitterly tells himself that it's really not so surprising, it's not like either he nor Ben has reams of friends, much less human friends, much less human friends they’re interested in being with. And he himself had said that he wouldn't have been surprised if Wallace had scores of people in love with him. This is something he shouldn't have allowed himself to dismiss as a possibility.

This really shouldn't surprise him.

"Well, it's good to hear for sure that Ben is with someone again," he continues. "I'm sure you're wonderful to him."

He sighs and stands up, tugging the hem of his sweater down into place.

"Kip..." Wallace says weakly.

You kissed me, Wallace, his head retorts. Just days ago. You held me and you kissed my face and you'd never done that before and I'd thought that it meant something from you.

"This is very embarrassing for me right now, Wallace," he says instead. "I don't think I can...continue this conversation at the moment. I'd rather go for now, if that's alright with you."

He looks at Wallace, who's still sitting in his chair, seeming somewhat bewildered. He blinks, looks around the room as if it will provide him with something, then leans forward to slowly rise to his feet as well.

"Sure—I—sure," he mutters, touching the back of his head. "It's alright."

"Thank you," Kip says softly. "Thank you for listening. And thank you for understanding."

"Yeah... Y-yeah, of course." Wallace nods and folds his arms across his chest as though he's cold—Kip realizes that, in their close proximity, he actually might be.

Kip moves a few steps away.

"Could you do me one favor?" He looks at Wallace as he asks.

"...Sure." Wallace's voice is small. He's blushing furiously as he holds Kip's eye contact.

"Please don't tell Ben what I've said."

There's a pause.

Kip turns away.

"Alright," he says with more forced breeziness. "Thank you again for giving me your time with no notice like that. I'm sorry I wasn't better company."

"No, Kip—" Wallace is almost entreating, but when he speaks again he seems to be making an effort to sound less emotive as well. "Please, it's alright, it's fine—"

"I know it is, Wallace," Kip sighs. "Thank you for saying so, but honestly, I do know it. I just...really am very embarrassed, and I'd like to go. I'm sorry to leave like this, and I wish I could make this all more pleasant, but I just...can't continue this at the moment."

"...Okay." Wallace sounds resigned.

"Thank you."

And without waiting for Wallace to lead him there, Kip goes to the door.

"I hope you have a good rest of the day," he says as opens the door, making his voice as light as he can manage. "Thanks for being so patient about this. I'll see you later."

He casts one more weak smile over his shoulder as he shuts the door behind him, then walks as fast as he can to reach the stairs.

The moment he lets go of any attempt at a façade, his heart is pounding heavily and he feels surrounded by his intense humiliation, as if its some heavy, visible cloud clutching to him.

He feels so, so stupid.

How stupid to have just shown up and dumped that on Wallace's lap and then run off. How stupid to have fallen for Wallace—to have loved him, he loves him, he's gone and grown to be in love with him—without even noticing that Wallace already has someone. How stupid to have never realized that Ben wasn't alone anymore. How stupid to assume he'd not only be the first person to have his heart won over by Wallace, but the only—how stupid how arrogant how self-centered how clueless how impossibly, embarrassingly ridiculous.

He really must've seemed so stupid.

He rushes through the door of their apartment and closes it as quickly as if there's a storm following after him.

He stands there for a full minute, just staring down at the floor, fist clenched, dragging his other hand down his face, nails scraping his skin.

He feels so shaken.

Of all the people. Ben. Of course.

It's over, just like that.

—

He sits in the middle of his bedroom floor, thinking of what he and Eno had discussed. Being ready to support himself if things didn't go the way he hoped.

Being here at home, in the same building as Wallace (and Ben), feels just a little smotheringly miserable. He can't distract himself adequately here, but none of his usual cheering-up errands or destinations feel helpful right now.

He wants to be with Pascal, pour out the whole miserable story to him, but knows his boyfriend won't be done with work for at least five more hours.

He takes out his phone and starts looking up the bus schedules.

—

The first couple of weeks after they had moved in with Pascal, Kip barely left the apartment, much less the building. He just went between the bedroom and the bathroom, drinking water from the sink, eating as consistently as he could to try to keep the others from worrying about him in that regard, to keep Pascal from having to bring meals to him while he lay in bed, unable to make himself get up even for food. He wanted quiet, he would spend hours alone, staring up at the ceiling, feeling so lost and afraid and upset, sometimes so furiously sad at every moment of life he was being forced through that each beat of his heart seemed to break it. He just felt his family slipping out of his grasp; every time he fell asleep, it was like they became a little bit more lost to the past. As if part of him still believed he could save them.

He didn't exactly mind solitude during those long days. It kept him from feeling quite so guilty for being little more than a ghost. He had little energy; he'd hate the idea of falling asleep and then he'd be so tired he slept for half the day or more. He cried often, without warning, without the ability to hold it off or stifle it. Even his periods of sleep were interrupted by terrifyingly vivid recreations of the fire, in which he was reliving his desperation to save his family and his earnest belief that he was so close to rescuing them, when he'd wake up crying out and sobbing and realizing again that he had never grasped their hands through the blindingly hot flames and pulled them through, he had never fallen with their arms cradled around him and been peacefully submerged in a sea of fire, he had never been heard the screams of his family—had he?—had never heard a horrible roaring voice in the fire as it stretched ferociously towards him, cacophonous, demanding his death—

It took all he had to seem anything other than griefstricken and traumatized. All he could muster was a quietly gloomy calmness. He did still enjoy the company of his friends infinitely more than being left alone, but he was always in the midst of a crisis, where nothing felt comforting—merely fleetingly distracting from the impending disaster sitting on his shoulders. But he tried. They were the only people who really knew him, who he really mattered to anymore. They were all that didn't seem hostile and horrible to him. And he loved them.

But some days he just couldn't leave the bedroom.

After about a month of living together, he was slowly growing steadier. But he still collapsed plenty of times. One day he'd been feeling a little better than usual, and Pascal had offered that the next day he could take Kip out for dinner. Kip had gone out with one or more of the others a fair number of times, but on more than a few occasions had found himself with an uncontrollable, public wave of tears that embarrassed and disheartened him greatly. He hadn't done something like this yet, where he deliberately went out in the evening and sat down in the middle of a restaurant and took his time having dinner with Pascal.

When it had originally been discussed, it had sounded like a date. The next day, when Kip had fallen from his streak of increased stability, it seemed more like a trial, an exhausting test that he would surely only fail while feeling like this. The prior day's excitement at going out like boyfriends again had become all but totally inaccessible to him. Just the thought of getting himself together to leave was too much. The thought of being in public, around so many people, trying and hoping he could remain presentable, wishing he would somehow not ruin the outing for Pascal but knowing he would, was all so much worse.

And of course being so stressed about it just made it feel even more impossible. How could he enjoy it, how could Pascal? He didn't want to be dragged out into the open, clinging to the arm and patience of his boyfriend—they were still boyfriends, right?—only to inevitably withdraw entirely or break down into tears. He wasn't at all in the mood anymore. He wasn't in the mood for anything.

When Pascal had come home, it was all he could do to keep himself from coming apart any further. The unpleasantness of his mood was obvious, and he was ashamed and upset that Pascal had to see what he'd been looking forward to all day crumbling away in front of him. But he couldn't help it. He didn't have it in himself to feel any better.

He'd managed to admit to Pascal that he couldn't do it after all. And it was almost frustrating how Pascal refused to be disappointed. He told Kip he didn't have to force himself through something he wouldn't enjoy, and before he knew it Kip was retorting that Pascal would've enjoyed it.

And Pascal said that he wouldn't if Kip was unhappy. And Kip asked if he likewise shouldn't be happy if Pascal was. And Pascal told him of course not. You can't be happy right now. And that's fine. You're not unhappy because of anything about me, and nothing about me can bring you out of this unhappiness. It would be a lot simpler if it could.

You must hate this, Kip had said after a pause. Almost begging him to admit it. You must hate that I'm like this.

It doesn't make me happy either, Pascal allowed, but I love seeing you. That doesn’t change whether you feel good or not. It's you. I love you.

Kip had believed him, but even that couldn't make a dent in the choking grief and despondency that swelled and ebbed with every breath.

When Pascal then offered to go out somewhere quiet and nearby, a little café or diner where there'd be no pressure, Kip's heart sank. Pascal didn't know what he'd meant when he'd said he couldn't go out; he thought Kip might be capable of much, much more than he really was. And now he would just disappoint Pascal repeatedly until his boyfriend's expectations were eroded down to nothingness, or until Pascal resented him, or thought he simply must not care enough to ever try.

I can't, he'd said, sinking onto the bed. I can't go out.

We could just go across the street—

I can't do it today.

What if I—

Pascal! He’d all but snapped at him, his voice edged with his frustration. No! I can't! I can’t go out. I won’t.

There was a painful silence in which Kip had to look at the floor, weighed down by his mixing shame and anger.

Pascal quietly accepted and left the room.

Kip had felt miserable. He was afraid Pascal thought he could be cheered up out of all of it. He was afraid Pascal thought it was only a matter of bringing Kip out into the sunlight and fresh air and he'd once more become the fun, pleasant boyfriend he'd been only a few weeks before. He was afraid Pascal wasn't listening to him. He was afraid that Pascal didn't yet realize how much worse he was now, how permanent Kip feared the change would prove to be, but once he did, all of this was going to slowly unravel. He was afraid that Pascal couldn't tell anymore that Kip loved him, that he didn't recognize his boyfriend anymore, that without being able to show his passion or happiness, Kip couldn't show Pascal his love. He was afraid that Pascal thought he didn't love him as much anymore.

He’d cried a bit. He had to. He felt like everything, even this, had been ruined. But after lying down and turning the situation over, he knew he couldn't do anything to deliberately push Pascal away. He'd trust Pascal to figure out on his own if this wouldn't work out. But he deserved to see the whole plethora of reasons behind that, not just that Kip was suddenly lashing out at him and refusing to apologize. And, selfish or not, Kip loved him too dearly to try to push Pascal away even if he wanted to.

Still, he had to lie there for nearly an hour and recover his nerve before he could pick himself up and leave the room. Pascal was busying himself with washing some dishes, and Kip simply went over to stand beside him and quietly make his apology.

Pascal had insisted that it was okay and that he shouldn't have pushed Kip, and Kip had admitted that he had felt pushed but added that he hadn’t told Pascal that and he had unfairly vented all his frustrations at Pascal. He told Pascal he didn't want to do that, he wasn't going to treat him that way. He promised him that he still wanted to be around Pascal as much as he ever had, even though he couldn't bring himself to want much of anything else.

They stood together as Kip dried the dishes that Pascal washed, and Kip did his best to talk honestly about how he wished he had more energy and was more enjoyable to be around but that it just wasn't who he was right now and he didn't know if or when it ever would be again. He said he wished he felt like going out tonight like he'd said he would but, the way he felt now, he just couldn't deal with it. He said he loved Pascal and that he was aware of just how caring and generous he was.

And Pascal told him he didn't love Kip only when he was fun to be around or could show a certain level of happiness. He said he loved Kip all the time. Even if they argued or fought. He wanted to be with him all the time.

They went out that night in the sense that they went out of the room. They went for long walks in circles around the hallways and stairs, they leaned against a window and talked while looking at the mediocre view, they brought sandwiches and bottled drinks down to the lounge on the bottom floor. And the fact that Pascal was so okay with this fall from their previous plans actually did lift Kip's spirits enough that he could laugh and joke around a bit—helped along by the inherent playfulness of wandering around their old apartment building as if walking along Parisian avenues. But Pascal had managed to take him out for the night within his boundaries, and they both seemed to find genuine enjoyment in it, and it made Kip smile in earnest more than a few times.

A month or so later had brought a similar situation. Kip had much more often been feeling as though there was solid ground under his feet, but he was having a string of bad days. Pascal had offered to take all four of them out to dinner as a change of pace and scenery, but Kip had to back out twice, and couldn't convince the others to treat themselves to a nice evening out without him while he stayed home and rested.

He was feeling guilty and embarrassed about it again, yet he could handle it better, he didn't feel like he was drowning. But it still dampened his mood and he wasn't sure if he would manage to finally pull himself together anytime soon.

The third evening he let them down, it got to him. He spent an hour or so trying not to cry, trying not to avoid the others and isolate himself. They had clearly noticed that he was upset, but let him try to act as though everything was routine, until eventually Pascal came up to him and gently looped an arm around his side and pulled him close.

Pascal didn't even talk about going out, just hugged him against his broad torso and spoke to him quietly about ordinary, casual topics—his day, the weather, a book he'd read—until he whispered a few softly affectionate compliments to Kip before pressing a lingering kiss to his cheek.

Later on that night, when the four of them were sitting around the table quietly talking and laughing with each other, Pascal had offered again to take them out.

Kip had laughed. Now? he'd asked.

Yeah, now, Pascal said brightly.

Roy and Molly immediately caught on to the idea with enthusiasm.

You wanna go out and get something? Pascal turned and asked Kip.

I'm basically wearing pajamas, Kip protested, gesturing to the sweatpants and tee he wore.

Who will care, Pascal said. None of us look any better right now. It doesn't matter what any random person thinks.

It's so late, Kip said.

There's some places still open. It'll be fun.

Kip laughed and blushed and looked down at the tabletop, fidgeting with the seam of his pants along the inside of his thigh.

Half an hour later they were sitting in a tiny restaurant at an uneven table and Kip was feeling like they all must really like him after all, and as though maybe they really could make a new kind of life for themselves here.

A year or so later, Kip made covert plans for an upcoming day when both he and Pascal were off work and already intending to spend the day hanging out together. He took him out to the beach, and they simply spent the day lying right on the sand, wading in the edge of the surf, walking along the shoreline and messing around and getting soaked in water and salt and sand and ocean air. Pascal would catch Kip up in his strong arms and spin him around until he laughed, he would hug him close and talk low in his ear, he would steal a kiss as they lay side-by-side in the sun. Kip put Pascal's head in his lap and sheltered his eyes from the light with his body and stroked his hair and face, lulling him to drift off to the sound of the waves, and held him while he rested, looking between the infinite sky and blue-grey horizon and Pascal's beautiful, sweet face. He brought them drinks from the boardwalk and it didn't matter when he accidentally froze his. He kissed Pascal countless times throughout the sunset. They talked and laughed the whole ride home.

Kip had intended to go down on Pascal as the finishing touch to their day, but before he could do so, Pascal was kissing him and reaching down his pants and feeling up into his shirt. He bent Pascal down over their bed and fucked him until they both came, then got Pascal hard again as soon as he could and sucked his dick, then let Pascal jerk him off. He showered first and then started cooking dinner as Pascal took his turn washing himself. He pulled Pascal into bed that night and buried his nose and lips in Pascal's hair to rest against the back of his neck and breathe in the combined scent of the ocean, his shampoo, and his body. He fell asleep in sync with Pascal's warmth.

—

Kip descends the metal steps of the bus and can smell the water as soon as he passes through its threshold. He turns directly towards the beach and starts walking down the street, glancing up at the pitch, roll, and yaw of seagulls overhead. Little streams of sand fill the cracks in the road and sidewalk and grind under his feet as he grows nearer to the sound of other beachgoers.

It's not the most beautiful stretch of coast in the area, but it's closest to their home, just an hour's ride away, and right next to the bus stop. He doesn't really need it to be picturesque or quiet—he'd rather be in more crowded environment today, anyways. He doesn't think having a lot of space would really bring him anything.

He sends Pascal a text telling him he talked to Wallace, and maybe they could talk over the phone when Pascal's shop closed in an hour or so? And then he seals his phone in a plastic bag and drops it into his pocket and climbs up onto the sand dunes, bringing the ocean and everyone enjoying it into view.

It's pleasant weather; it feels nicely warm even to him. The air tastes good, and the breeze from the water feels more solid than the ones further inland. He first simply approaches the water, weaving his path between a few encampments of families and sunbathers, and stops to take off his sandals at the border of the darkened, smoothed slope of sand. The constant sound of breaking surf muffles the shrieks and laughs of kids. Kip digs his bare feet into the sand and looks out at the whole ocean laid out in front of him.

It doesn't really make him feel small. The ocean seems like a vast expanse of something so eternal it's timeless. Like it's the same waves that were rolling in years, decades, millenia ago, and the same waves that are crashing against the shore five hundred years in the future. Kip walks towards the water slowly, reverently, his steps as careful and deliberate as a dancer's. He stops just outside a foamy sheet of water that's sliding back towards the sea, and waits.

The next sweep of the tide falls inches short of where he stands, but the following one rushes past him, bathing his feet and splashing his ankles in comfortably cool flowing water. Sand is deposited against his heels as the water rushes back out.

He stands there and watches the tide for a while, every now and then taking a step or two closer to the water. Then he walks along until he comes across a patch of sand respectfully distant from any groups around it, and he sits back and watches people walking along in front of him, then lays back and looks up at the sky while he simply listens and feels and breathes in everything around him.

It feels so nice lying like that in warmth of the sunlight that he rests an arm over his eyes, knowing he won't fall asleep but also that he wouldn't mind if he did.

He doesn't doze off, but he does relax.

Afterwards he sits up and just watches the ocean for a while again. He always finds it beautiful. He wouldn't mind if he had friends with him right now, but having come here alone is simply peaceful, not particularly lonely or sad. He remembers to ask Molly again if she thinks she and Roy would want to take a long weekend—or even a full week—to spend somewhere fun and relaxing. He’s certain they ought to have a excuse to worry about only themselves for a little bit. And it feels like it's been so long since Kip's seen the beach—the last time those two got to have a real break or go anywhere seems like it was eons in the past by now.

He walks fifteen or twenty minutes down the beach, then turns around and makes his way back to his starting point.

Eventually, he wades into the water again, up to his knees, rising up on his toes if a slightly larger wave rolls into him and splashes his thighs. The hair on his legs shift with the movement of the water, as though the ocean is tenderly stroking every inch of him that's submerged in it.

His thoughts inevitably drift back to subjects such as how he doesn't really love the thought of going back to the apartment, now that there's two people around he'd rather avoid. Eno was right in that he now can't imagine he'd feel any sort of comfort while sharing a room with Wallace. At least with Ben they've both sort of reached an understanding, which is to not seek each other out or act like anything but passing acquaintances. That slight awkwardness and tension would be nothing compared with what he'd feel around Wallace now.

But it doesn't really matter. He can use the side entrance connected directly to the stairs and not have to worry about passing either of their doors, or seeing them out front. And he ought to head back in another hour or so whether he likes it or not—despite having left a note for Roy and Molly saying he'd be back after the usual time, he doesn't much enjoy being out too late without friends there with him. He likes watching sunsets and stargazing, but after he brings his gaze back down to earth, it all has a lonesome feel.

He cycles back and forth between standing in the ocean and sitting in the sand before it. He inevitably thinks of his family a few times, prompted by the sight of other families, and by thoughts of those he likes to share these kinds of experiences with. He remembers that it's been so, so long since he's done anything more eventful with Eno than go down the street to find somewhere to eat. They've never had too many chances to have pure fun together, and Kip's not exactly happy with that. Eno is one of his oldest friends, the next closest person to his family. But he lives in another district, he has his own life, he has a busy, carefully scheduled practice. Kip isn't ever keen on using up too much of Eno's precious free time or infrequent days off.

He hasn't spent as much one-on-one time with Kate as he'd like, either. She's always surprisingly easy to talk to when it's just the two of them. And then there's all the people he'd known from when his family was alive, who he treats as acquaintances now but but who he was friends with back then. He's not sure if he might find some of those friendships still dormant within people, or if he wants to find out by reestablishing contact with anyone. Some of those relationships just hadn't survived the change in him and the six years of complete separation.

But he didn't come out here to feel guilt or regret. He also doesn't spend enough time taking himself out places, enjoying things on his own. And he's doing that now. And it doesn't feel like a waste.

He sits at the edge of the tide's reach to look out over the water, and feels it stretch in to touch him softly.

—

Kip's lying back in the sand again, eyes closed, hands folded on his chest, when his phone starts buzzing repeatedly with a call. He takes it out of the plastic and squints at the screen to see that it's Pascal, then closes his eyes again after accepting the call.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey, how are you?"

"Eh, I'm okay. How's work going?"

"It's been fine. Things went smooth today, it was pretty quiet. We have a lot of weekly regulars, but for some reason today usually has the slowest afternoons."

"Is it ever really not calm? Running a shop that sells tea?"

"Sometimes you'd be surprised. But I guess it isn't exactly the most stressful possible place."

Kip laughs quietly.

"So, you said you got hold of Wallace? How'd that go?" Pascal continues.

"Well—" Kip laughs again, brief and humorless. "He's, um—he’s not single. So...at least it went pretty straightforwardly?”

"But...you're not single, either."

"Yeah, but it wasn't like that. I could tell he was uncomfortable as soon as I'd explained it to him, and then he said he's already with someone. I didn't stick around very long after that."

"Oh, gosh...that must've been really uncomfortable for you, too," Pascal murmurs.

"Yeah, it definitely was. It just feels like I've really embarrassed myself."

There's a pause.

"You're okay?" Pascal asks quietly. "What did you do after that?"

"I rode down to the beach." Kip's laugh is a bit more genuine. "I'm still there now, listen."

He turns the phone away and holds it out towards the ocean for a few seconds.

"Could you hear the waves?" he asks as he returns the phone to his ear.

"Yeah." Pascal's laugh is brief and quiet, but warm. "I wish I was with you."

"Oh—" Kip puts a hand to his face. "I don't want to be rubbing it in while you're at work—I'm not having the time of my life or anything. I just wanted to be somewhere else and kind of try to relax a little instead of just—whatever I would've done if I stayed home."

"No, I know, I mean I wish I could be with you no matter what you're doing. Or really, even if everything had gone well—I'd still like to be with you."

Kip smiles.

"Yeah."

"I want you to come over," Pascal says.

"What—now?"

Pascal laughs.

"I'm not even home right now," he says. "I just mean...whenever we both have a free day or two...I want to have you over."

Kip blushes and looks at the curling waves in front of him.

"That would be really nice," Kip says quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He leans his cheek a further into the phone, as if Pascal could feel it, as if it would make them just a little bit closer.

"How long do you think you're gonna stay out there?" Pascal asks.

"At the beach? Well...I do really like to watch the sun set and the stars come out here, but I'm gonna take the bus that comes by in about half an hour. I think I ought to give more warning to Molly and Roy if I was gonna go off on my own and be gone that long."

"Yeah, they might worry."

"I guess when I get home I might as well let them know the full picture too," Kip sighs.

"About Wallace and everything?"

"Yeah." Kip rubs his shoulder. "I'm pretty sure they've been thinking I have this deep, dark secret... I've been telling them I'd explain it when I could, and, well...now seems like as good time as it'll ever be. They've been patient about it for ages and they should know it wasn't ever anything to worry about."

"Sure. Have you been worried about telling them, though?"

"A bit. But just for pointless reasons. Mostly that I was too stressed out by thinking about it to really consider discussing it with other people. And for a long time I felt like everything I was thinking was just—completely ridiculous and messed up and—"

He sighs heavily.

"They won't think that," Pascal says.

"Yeah. I just went and got stuck wanting to avoid telling anyone. And then I didn't want to say anything until you knew, and maybe until Wallace knew, if I had the option. And today I told Wallace. So I guess there's no more reasons to wait."

"It'll be fine. There's nothing to lose there. They'll get to know that you trust them with that, and that there's nothing they need to worry about. And you'll get to have everything off your chest."

"Yeah." Kip laughs. "Yeah, you're right. You know, it's a lot easier to psych myself up for this kind of stuff when I have you to back me up."

Pascal laughs too.

"I'm really glad I can help again."

"I'm—it still kind of feels hard to believe we're just going to keep having each other." Kip curls his toes into the sand. "Like, that we're finally really together and—it's gonna be the same way tomorrow—it's almost too much to take in at once. But it's kind of fun having this same realization over and over, because I get to be excited each time."

"I've been wanting this for such a long time," Pascal murmurs. "I've been ready for this for so long, and it still feels incredible to me, too."

Kip laughs and hugs his knees to his chest.

"I wish we'd had, like...an evening that lasted for a week, and we could've just spent it together,” he says.

"That would've been really nice."

There's a pause.

"I want to be with you over at your place," Kip says.

"Yeah. We'll just find the earliest good time for it."

"I'm impatient, though."

"I wish it was tonight. But it’ll be soon."

"I'll send you my schedule for the next week when I get home," Kip says. "And wherever we match up is when I wanna see you."

"Okay. I'll have my schedule ready too."

Kip smiles and leans back to look up at the sky.

"I guess I should head to the bus stop," he says. "And I know you've probably got stuff to get back to."

"Mm. I could find something to do."

"Thanks for talking with me. And you don't have to stop texting me just because we had this call, or anything. I'm really enjoying being able to talk all day, whenever we feel like it, about anything."

"Yeah, I'll definitely keep texting you," Pascal assures him. "I love being able to talk."

"Cool," Kip says, grinning to himself.

"Alright...you're really feeling okay?" Pascal's voice softens and lowers. Kip blushes harder.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I'm mostly just embarrassed. And I guess I'm kind of disappointed, but I knew this is how it could go. Plus, it has to be easier to get over something that never even started."

"Okay," Pascal says slowly. "Just...you always have me if you need anyone to talk to about anything, okay? I mean that no matter what."

"Thanks, Pasc."

"And I think it was brave of you to tell him. And I think it seemed like you wanted to tell him, so it's good that you did."

"Thank you," he almost whispers.

"Just...if you do need to talk about it more later...I'm ready to listen, if you want me to hear it. Don't hesitate."

"Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you for this, just this is already great."

"You're welcome. I love you."

"I love you," Kip returns.

They share a moment or two of quietness, but it's comfortable, just resting in each other's presence.

"I'm gonna head back to the bus stop, I think," Kip murmurs.

"Okay. I'm gonna be here for another couple of hours or so and then I'm just gonna head home."

"Okay. Talk to you some more soon," Kip promises.

"Looking forward to it."

"Bye, Pascal."

"Bye, Kip."

He rests his phone on his stomach and spends another minute just staring off at the ocean, absentmindedly running his thumb over a tiny seashell.

—

His mind wanders all over the place as he looks out the window, absorbing every sway and jarring bump of the ride, feeling the ocean clinging to him still, even as he travels further from it and the sky’s colors deepen.

He thinks about how Pascal said to talk to him about what had happened with Wallace, if he wanted to.

He isn't exactly upset. He walked into the situation with no illusions that it was guaranteed to get a positive response. Wallace didn't treat him badly. He got to make the confession that had been weighing on him for so long.

But he knows better than to try to believe his crush will vanish as soon as he stops wanting it around, or that he’ll be able to brush off the discomfort and humiliation he’s brought on himself. The thought of Wallace's smile and laugh, the way he looks at someone he's listening to, intent and focused and leaning slightly in, how they'd been sitting side-by-side and Kip's whole body was shaking with the stress and fear of a stifled survival response and Wallace just grabbed hold of his wrist and squeezed tight and didn't let go.

It still makes him blush. He still wonders how it would feel to lie down next to Wallace with their faces inches apart and look at each other, fall asleep next to each other. He still wonders exactly how it would feel to kiss him. But now that he knows it's all impossible, there's this new feeling overtop it all, bittersweet, a soft longing that knows the feelings and yearnings are futile.

He rubs his wrist where Wallace had touched it. He looks out the window.

—

"I can tell," Roy says. "It's like the wind gets the saltwater in your hair."

Kip runs his fingers through his hair, which does feel a little fluffier than usual.

"It was nice just to sit out there," he says. "But I wanted to be back in time to talk to you guys for just a second."

"Yeah? Are we in trouble?" Molly jokes, sitting down on the end of the couch.

Roy, apparently wanting to avoid being the only one standing, simply sits down on the floor, staring attentively at Kip.

"Okay," Kip says, letting out a breath. He can make this admission one more time. To the fifth and sixth people. "Okay."

"Okay," Roy says encouragingly.

"Alright," Molly adds.

"So you know how sometimes you guys ask me what I'm thinking about, and I say I can't talk about it yet?"

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Molly says, leaning her head on her arm.

"Well...the basics of it are that I was really confused and really embarrassed about this for most of the time."

"Okay..."

"I mean, even more than usual," Kip amends.

"Can you tell us now?" Roy asks. He sits up a little straighter.

Kip nods, and Roy gasps silently.

"It's not that exciting..." Kip warns him.

"Aw, just tell us," Molly says.

Kip presses his lips together and taps his fingers silently on the tabletop.

"Okay, I'm just going to say this as directly as I can," he says. "Maybe try not to laugh. I'm still embarrassed."

"Got it," Roy says seriously.

Kip glances between them, both looking back at him expectantly, and then turns his gaze to the ring of keys sitting on the table.

"I was in the middle of figuring out what to do with Pascal, because I knew I liked him, and I realized I had a crush on Wallace, too," he says quickly.

He stares at the grain of the surface of the table. It's significantly more humiliating to think about now that he knows how pointless and misguided it had been to entertain his own feelings for Wallace.

But at least they don't laugh at him.

"You were afraid to tell us that?" Molly says incredulously.

"I was having enough trouble with it just in my own head," Kip mumbles. "There wasn't really anything to say for most of the time. And then when I had something figured out, I wanted to talk with Pascal about it first and... He knows already. He knew before we got back together. That's part of what I wanted to talk to him about after dinner."

"Oh," Roy says with a tone of dawning comprehension.

"What was the other part of what you told him, then?" Molly asks.

"The stuff about how I love him."

She nods thoughtfully.

"So, I, uh—I told Wallace about it today. And Pascal knows I did, and he already knew that I wanted to—if he was okay with it, which he is. And, um...Wallace let me know he wasn't able to, uh, reciprocate the way I felt. And that's fine, he was completely nice about the whole thing, I'm just really embarrassed about it. But I figured I could stop being so embarrassed for a second and just go ahead and finally tell you guys."

He fidgets with the floor, tracing little circles against it with his toe.

"I was talking with Eno about it during my appointments," he says. "And Kate accidentally figured it out the other week at work and I asked her not to say anything. And then I told Pascal, and then Wallace, and now you guys. I guess it was something pretty silly to be acting so secretive about, but—but I just hope you aren't mad that I took so long to talk about it."

He looks up at them, blushing.

"You wanna date Pascal—and Wallace?" Molly asks.

"Yeah," Kip says. "I mean, I did. I wanted to date Pascal, and I wanted to date Wallace. And I'm doing one of those things, which is great. And, I dunno, at first I was hoping I could just wave it off, but I ended up feeling so seriously about Wallace that I knew I couldn't talk to Pascal about getting back together without telling him about it. And then I realized that—that I wanted to talk to Wallace about it, too. And that I wanted to be with both of them, if they both felt that way about me. So I'm with Pascal, and he's knows about this. And I guess I at least get the benefit of knowing I finally put it all out there."

"You've been thinking about all that the whole time?" Roy says.

"Yeah."

"Did you not think we'd help you?" Molly asks disbelievingly. "You know we would listen to anything you want to talk about, right?"

"Yeah," Kip says quietly. "I just felt like moving it around in my own head for a while was what I needed to figure it out. And I was afraid of embarrassing myself."

"How?" she asks flatly.

"I was just too embarrassed about it to say anything aloud," Kip explains. "I didn't want to talk about it with anybody. I thought it was—I don't know, i thought it was going to mess everything up, and that it was ridiculous of me to end up with feelings for Wallace, and it took me ages to sort it out and I just—I felt better about keeping it all in my head, and you guys—you know both of them, and I didn't want to mess up your relationships with either of them because you had to keep this secret for me, and I didn't know if I'd ever stop carrying that secret around, and so..."

He sighs and drums a fingertip nervously against the table again.

"I only talked about it in therapy," he murmurs. "And I wasn't even really trying to get advice on what I should do about the whole situation or whether it was good or anything, I just...I wanted to ask how I could deal with how confusing the whole thing was. For a long time I couldn't even tell what I wanted."

"That must have been a lot to deal with," Roy says softly.

"It kind of depended on the day." Kip exhales a laugh. "I know it was kind of a ridiculous thing to be so serious about. But I just wanted to feel like I had it figured out before I got anybody else involved. I wouldn't've even known what to say."

Molly looks down towards the floor, expression a bit tensed. Roy is simply looking back at Kip attentively, waiting on the next word.

"I'm—it's not that I didn't think I could trust you with it," he says. "Or that I didn't know you'd try to help me. I just...I wanted to keep it private until I knew what I felt like I should do with it. I know you would've helped me. I just...I wanted to be sure I was figuring everything out for myself."

Molly looks back up at that, looking more like she's slightly worried than frustrated or hurt, and Kip is relieved. He didn't want to make them feel like they weren't important enough to him or trustworthy enough to be privy to his thoughts or feelings.

"So...that's all I've been kind of quiet about lately," he says. "The rest is just...stuff you already knew about."

He sits up a little straighter in the chair.

"I didn't feel like I couldn't tell you guys," he explains. "I just didn't really want to tell anyone until I even knew what I was talking about."

He looks back and forth between them for a moment; Molly looks back at him.

"Maybe it was pointless to have kept it to myself this whole time, or maybe it really did help me," he says quietly. "But either way...I don't ever want to hurt your feelings. I know I can tell you guys about anything. It's just that...sometimes there's things I don't want to talk about at all."

"...It's okay," Molly says, and he can tell that she means it.

Roy asks him a little about his crush on Wallace, but is clearly being careful and restrained with his questioning. Kip admits when he first became aware of it with a suddenly intimate dream, and that when they noticed him being unusually nervous around Wallace for a week or so afterwards, that was why. He doesn't touch on the details of his feelings towards Wallace beyond describing them as realizing he had a crush a long time after the crush had actually begun, and he doesn't elaborate on what he actually said to Wallace about it, or what Wallace said back. But neither of them ask.

After he runs out of anything more to tell them, Molly gets up from her perch and walks over to put a hand in his hair.

"Well, thanks for telling us about this," she says.

"You're welcome." He laughs quietly.

Roy follows her lead in standing up and Kip barely has time to stand as well before the inevitable hug.

—

Pascal texts him about half an hour later, saying he's heading home, that everything went alright and he's looking forward to getting to sit down for a while in this chair he bought from a thrift store that's really, really comfortable, and he wants Kip to get to try it out.

Kip thinks of Pascal when he's showering off the salt and sand, wondering what his new apartment looks like, how he's surely managed to make a new space warm and welcoming, even without ever having much money, and surely being set back by the move and setting up a store.

He wonders if Pascal ever has to worry about money—about losing either the place he lives in or the one he's keeping his shop in. He doubts that his own level of income would be enough to increase anyone's sense of security—but if he could help—he wonders if he's going to end up living with Pascal again. If he'd move into Pascal's place, or they'd absorb him into theirs. He supposes it wouldn't be too stressful to move to Pascal's—it's only a brief walk away from where he is now, and the process itself would be easy with how few personal belongings he's amassed.

He's never lived with just Pascal before. For a moment he worries that he'd feel lonely whenever Pascal was gone and he was the only one in the apartment, and then he realizes that he's always had the experience of occasional solitude wherever he's lived.

He squeezes his eyes shut and turns to let the stream of water hit the back of his neck. He hasn't even set foot in Pascal's apartment yet. They've only been officially together for a day. He's getting ahead of himself—and realizes he's probably doing so in part because he's stressed about how awkward he's made it between himself and two other people in the building.

Besides, it feels strange to think of living separately from Roy and Molly. He knows they don't need him to be with them, but after all, the reason the two of them don't still live where they'd used to six years ago is because of him. They formed this protective substitute family for him all but immediately after finding out what had happened to him. They stayed with him before and after moving in with Pascal. He may have moved back to C for their sakes, but he doubts he'd have been so okay if they hadn't all moved into the same place.

He can't even know for sure that Pascal would want him to move in. Maybe he'd be reminded of how things had fallen apart between them. Maybe he likes having his own space again. Maybe he just doesn't have the room for someone else.

When Kip gets out of the shower, he texts Pascal that he told Roy and Molly about Wallace and how at least now everyone who ought to know about it does. He tells him that he's thinking about what it will be like getting to come over to Pascal's apartment. He sends him a copy of his work schedule.

Twenty minutes later, they've found that neither of them need to be at work the next Saturday. And Pascal is off on Sunday as well, and Kip's morning shift on that day is only four hours—they'd have the rest of the time to themselves.

Spending the weekend with Pascal.

The thought is enough to make his heart beat quick.

—

He lies on the rug in the middle of his room, staring at his ceiling as he slowly fingers himself and grips his thigh with his free hand to resist touching his erection.

He can't possibly decide what to start off with when he and Pascal get their first chance in practically a year to have sex. Right now he's just thinking of hooking his legs tight around his boyfriend's waist as Pascal grinds his dick along the rut of his ass. His breathing is heavy, he presses his fingers deeper into himself until he can reach in far enough to give himself a steady massage. His body starts to curve into it.

Once he's taken out a dildo and coated it with lube, he kneels over it and positions himself before carefully sinking onto it. He keeps a wide stance and digs his feet into the floor to maintain his balance as he starts to fuck himself with it. He ends up leaning against the end of his bed, one hand holding the dildo in place as he rocks into it, the other working his cock.

He pushes his face against the mattress as he nears orgasm, he drives the thought of Pascal into the feeling, he bites his lip raw as he cums.

He texts Pascal after cleaning up: "it's hard to believe that now i can text you to say i just jerked off to you? because that was happening about five minutes ago."

"You know you should absolutely come over Friday evening, right?" Pascal responds.

Kip gets off again.

—

"Well, hey, you fuckin' went for it, Kip—that's awesome." Kate reaches over the table to smack him on the shoulder, presumably encouragingly.

"Thanks," he laughs, blushing. "Yeah, that's kind of what I've been telling myself, you know?" He shrugs and smiles at her, rolling his straw between his teeth.

"It's great, if you ask me. I mean, you knew what you wanted, and you had to push yourself but you did it anyways. Like I said, that's fucking awesome of you."

Kip grins and ducks his head, and Kate laughs at him and gently kicks him under the table as she dips her spoon into her bowl.

"So you've got your boyfriend back, and you at least took a leap with the other guy even if it didn't work out—any other big plans? Any other step on your agenda?" she asks.

He shakes his head slowly and takes a draw of his smoothie.

"No," he says. "I have no idea what else I want. It's kind of weird. I was thinking about how maybe I'll end up living with Pascal one way or another, but besides that...I don't really know what other kinds of changes I expect. Or even want. Like, at all."

"Hmm."

He sighs silently.

"I'm not totally sure about myself, either," Kate says. "I mean, I know I love photography, and if I'm lucky enough to save just a few hundred dollars more I'll be able to get myself that new camera I've been wanting, but...I'm not totally sure what I'd want to do with it if I had the choice. I mean, it's fun just taking pictures of whatever I'm doing just to mess around, and it's fun to bring my camera along and kind of try more seriously to document something that's happening. So, maybe I want to be in journalism? But that's just all I've had experience with, maybe any kind of event photography is good for me. Or maybe I'd like to photograph nature, or do portraits, or staged pictures like fashion shoots, or take pictures of cats for calendars."

She leans back.

"And I've been single for a while and I'm not sure that I'm even interested in trying to date right now? And maybe I want a job that travels, or maybe I want to move somewhere, or, I don't know—maybe photography should just always be a hobby, and I have some other career I haven't even considered yet..."

She gives a long sigh.

"Well..." Kip puts his chin on his hand. "I mean, I think you're really good at capturing what's going on with your photos, and making them look good, and your writing just show how attentive you are at observing everything going on... And I think you always know what you want your pictures to say? I mean, if someone else told you what they wanted a shot to say, you could totally do it. But I feel like...when you're just showing up and getting photos of what's going on, and it's not like a portrait or anything where someone can tell you what they want you to see, then you get to be the only one in control of deciding which shots are the best, right? I mean, taking photos of stuff where nobody's in control kind of makes you the only one in control of what you use your camera to get."

"I hear that," Kate says thoughtfully.

"I don't know if I want to write articles like I do for my blog," Kip says quietly. "I know I'm okay at it, but...it was kind of the only option I felt I could handle when I started doing it. But I'm kind of nervous around people sometimes when it comes to meeting with them, and...and I'm not sure I want to do anything more directly involved with people than that. I'm not sure how I would even make a career out of it if I decided I wanted to. And I—I do know I want to help people, I want to keep helping monsters, but...well, part of me wants to do this and likes to do this, but part of me feels like it's still just what I'm supposed to do or what I have to do, and part of me is still scared, and part of me feels like I'm just pretending to be my brother because I wish he was here doing this instead of me and because that's who people wish was here instead of me, or they want to believe I'm just another version of him...and part of me feels like I'm just—"

He sighs, too.

"I'm not...I don't know. People still think I'm a lot more than what I am. But anyway, I... If I don't want to make that into my career or I can't, I don't know what else I'd do for work, or what else I even could. I don't really have that many things I'm that good at. Maybe I'll work with Wallace in some way? Maybe I'll—" he sighs. "God, that's hard to think about right now. I have no idea what I want to even do. No idea about any life goals or anything. I'm lucky I at least know that I want to stay with Pascal, and that actually seems possible now, finally. If I didn't have that..."

He finishes the thought by shrugging.

"I feel you, Kaizer," Kate sighs. They lock eyes and Kip gives her half of a wry smile and she laughs flatly.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't know what they're doing, though," he mumbles. "It'd be too embarrassing to talk about, otherwise."

"You're too easy to embarrass," Kate remarks.

"I know," he sighs.

"...Did you have anything you wanted to do when you were younger?" Kate asks.

Kip bites his lip.

"Yeah," he says quietly, "but not all that consistently or realistically. Just a bunch of quick phases where I wanted to do one thing and then another and then something completely different. By the time I was kind of starting to settle down, things were already getting bad. And before I knew it, I was just focused on what my brother was doing and worrying about how we were gonna get out of it."

There's a long pause after that.

"Coming back here and starting a blog was the first thing I'd done since then to kind of try moving closer to what I wanted to do, or at least...making changes I thought I needed to make. And it only took me about five years to get to that point," he says sarcastically.

"Sure," Kate says. "But with all the shit you had to get through first, I'd say you made pretty good time. And that was one hell of a move you made, too, coming back here. I know you weren't that happy about it."

He shrugs.

"It was hard," he admits.

Kate gives him a look that he can't quite figure out, seemingly amused but a bit too intense to be just that alone. He responds with a questioning look of his own, but she just smiles and turns her attention back to her pasta.

"Look at us," Kip says with flatly sarcastic theatricality. "Just a couple of kids in the big city. Nothing but our dreams and determination."

Kate scoffs.

"I'd love to see a play about our lives that starts with this scene," she says.

"Hopefully it would be really boring because everything goes smoothly and perfectly for us," Kip sighs.

"Hey, maybe it will." Kate shrugs.

"...Maybe."

She nudges his leg under the table with the side of her shoe.

"Not very optimistic, huh," she says.

Kip is a beat too late in responding with a dry laugh.

For a moment, Kate presses her hand down overtop his, just a moment—but just a little harder and more lingering than a pat.

"Well," she says, leaning back and pushing some stray hair out of her face, "We've made it this far."

—

Kip all but relegates himself to the back and side entrances of the building. He just can't imagine himself interacting with either Ben or Wallace right now in a way that would leave him with enough room in his anxiety for any sense of dignity. And he doesn't think that trying to ignore them if he sees them would do anything to help anyone, either.

But the fact that he has to make a conscious effort to avoid them means he inevitably thinks of them for a moment every time he enters or leaves his home, and he gets a little spike of stress every time. He doesn't know what he's going to end up doing about it all, but it's good enough for now to just try not to touch it. He has to hope that, coming back to it later, he'll find that giving himself even a little distance from it all will let him handle it better.

—

He has a dream of being with his family, and he can't remember what was happening in it or what he was trying to do, but he knows that, for once, it wasn't about the fire. It wasn't even about his feelings of having lost them. But when he wakes up, his first feeling is still a deep, quiet sadness.

—

"Pascal and I both have next Saturday off," Kip says. "And I have a short shift on Sunday, so we're thinking I'll go visit his place for the weekend."

"Oh, that'll be nice for you guys," Roy says. "You have to tell us what his apartment is like; we've never been."

"I bet it's like the one we used to have with him."

"Yeah, but it'll be different, though!" Roy protests so genuinely that Kip almost flinches. “You've gotta bring back all the details! And say how it all feels, and if he has any new stuff since the move, because he always just—you know—his place always had this really nice feeling to the way it looked and how good everything smelled, he's so good with smells? How often do you meet somebody like that. And the colors were all so nice, and all the chairs were comfortable, and everything he had just looked like stuff he'd picked out himself so that it would all work together and he just is so, so good at giving this really nice, comfortable feeling to every space he takes care of, you know? Even his shop has a bit of that feeling, you can tell he just has this touch, or—gosh, I almost wish he was just in charge of putting together people's rooms for them, he's so good at it..."

Kip blushes from both the praising of Pascal but also the knowledge that their own living space has always been fairly bare and lacking of such expression—and he has no doubts which style of interior decor better suits Roy's tastes.

"Yeah," he agrees vaguely. "Well, also, I'm sure you and Molly could see it for yourselves, too. We both know he'd love to get to have you guys over, like how we've had him over here."

"You think?"

"Roy, of course," Kip laughs.

"That would be so fantastic... Do you think we should ask him about it? Or would it be better for you to ask? Or should we just wait for him to bring it up first? I wouldn't want to make any assumptions—"

"Roy," Kip interrupts, again finding himself on the verge of laughter. "Roy, don't worry about it. Of course it's sure to happen one way or another. Pascal loves you—all of us."

Roy lights up with a blush and a beaming smile.

"It's just so awesome, Kip, all of this..." he says wonderingly. "I just love that this has worked out for you."

Kip smiles down at the floor.

"Thank you," he murmurs.

"You seem happier," Roy says. "I mean, it's seemed like you've been in a good mood since you guys got together?"

"It's exciting still," Kip says. "I mean, I was trying to be hopeful about it, but it was still a surprise that it worked out after everything—it's still kind of unbelievable, and it's so different, and just..." He exhales a laugh and shrugs, running a hand down the side of his face.

When he looks over at Roy, the other monster has a soft smile for him.

"...Are you happier?" Roy asks.

Kip can't help the smile tugging at his mouth as he nods.

"Yes."

He laughs.

"Yes. I definitely am."

—

Pascal drops by the café during Kip's lunch break and sits with him at a corner table, chatting with him, holding his hand on the table, smiling at him, leaning in to kiss him goodbye when Kip has to return to work. Pascal continues their daily texting conversation after leaving—they were only hanging out in person for about twenty minutes, but it lights up Kip's whole shift.

—

"Kip!"

Kip recognizes Wallace's voice instantly. He stops in the middle of the doorway, then slowly backs into the hallway again, the doorknob in one hand and his basket of laundry under his other arm.

"Wallace," he acknowledges, trying not to feel nervous as the human walks quickly towards him from halfway down the hall.

"Hey," Wallace says as he approaches, a little breathless. "Hey, sorry, I just—I saw you and I...I haven't had the chance to talk to you for a few days..."

Wallace slows and stops a few feet feet away from Kip, just barely within arm's length of him. Kip manages to give him something of a smile and then looks down at his bottle of detergent, pointlessly rearranges the clothes heaped in the basket, glances at the floor and walls, restlessly shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Receiving this eager attention would still just feel flattering if it wasn't following the humiliation of his confession.

"So, well—uh—" Wallace is visibly more nervous than usual as well. "Oh—I didn't mean to make you stand there holding all that, you can take it in there, and I'll..."

He trails off and turns slightly towards the laundry room; Kip nods and opens the door again and carries his clothes inside. He hears Wallace follow him in as he sets the basket on top of the row of washers. His face warms up and he doesn't turn away from the machines, moving slowly as he opens one and begins to put clothes in, a few at a time. He blushes harder as the door to the room shuts, enclosing them together in the small space.

Wallace is quiet for a few moments, likely waiting for Kip to give him some cue to start speaking, but Kip is holding himself together by using the laundry as an excuse to keep his face hidden and himself occupied.

"Kip..." Wallace's voice is slightly pained, as though he's entreating Kip to engage with him.

Kip tenses, realizing he's not going to be given the chance to shrug off the implications of anything Wallace says. Of course Wallace is intent on addressing their situation earnestly. He's never been one to let Kip incrementally distance himself, gradually chill over—when Wallace notices someone turning away, he grabs on, no matter how often he's burned by the consequences of doing so.

"What is it, Wallace," he says quietly.

"Kip," Wallace repeats in that same tone. "Come on. Are you...are you angry with me?"

"No," Kip answers, even quieter. He busies himself with disentangling several pairs of socks.

Be honest, he tells himself. He deserves my effort. He’s earned my trust. I can at least talk to him.

"I'm just still embarrassed," he continues slowly. "It...makes me nervous."

He tosses a shirt into the machine.

"I'm sorry," Wallace murmurs. "I don't want to give you any reason to think you should be embarrassed."

Kip laughs humorlessly.

"I have to be," he says. He puts in larger handfuls of clothes—he can handle facing Wallace, and couldn't endlessly stall this way anyhow.

"I don't think badly of you," Wallace says. "Not about this, or anything else. You didn't embarrass yourself."

Kip sighs and scoops the last of his laundry into the washer.

"I can't help being uncomfortable," he says. "I know you have to understand that. I just can't feel relaxed about it, I—it embarrasses me to know that we both have to think about it."

There's a pause. He measures out his detergent and pours it in, closes the lid, and sets the timer. The washer begins to hum as water flows in.

"Are you going to avoid me now?" Wallace asks.

Kip turns around to look at him and leans back against the frame of the machine. Wallace stands close to the door, as if entering the room any further would be too intrusive. Kip can see the worn sections of Wallace's jeans and the bleach stains speckling the base of his shirt. His hair is slightly messy and his face is tinged pink, but his expression is one of quiet determination. Kip doesn't consider it helpful that he finds the whole sight kind of cute.

"I don't think there would really be much of anything to get from hanging out with me at the present," Kip murmurs.

"Well, I'd at least get to see you." Wallace isn't speaking with any aggression towards him, but Kip can hear notes of genuine frustration underneath his voice.

"I mean, should I just pretend we'd be able to be together like before?” Kip asks. “And not think of how I—" He sighs and folds his arms tightly across his front.

"If you don't want to talk about it, I wouldn't bring it up, and you wouldn't have to either," Wallace says.

Kip runs his fingers along the hairline of his forehead.

"I don't know," he says. "I don't know if I can just..."

He sighs again.

"...I don't know if I could.”

"Hey, it'd be fine," Wallace assures him quietly. "And maybe it'd be easier to feel comfortable again just by...interacting with each other like we normally do, instead of going for a long time without any real contact."

"Well, you don't know that," Kip argues. "Just because it sounds better doesn't mean it would work better."

"But if you try to avoid me, at what point would you be able to decide it's time to stop?"

"Do you really think I wouldn't?" Kip says, voice a little sharper. "You're asking me to trust your idea in just the same way, but you'd believe I'd just—what, never speak to you again? Just because I’d rather have some space right now?"

"I just don't want to risk it," Wallace returns, his tone sounding more emotive as well. "If you're too embarrassed right now, why wouldn't you be a few days or weeks or months from now?"

"Well, why would trying to force this whole thing make it go away, either?"

"I don't know—" Wallace sounds outright exasperated now. "But at least that would let us see each other ever."

"Right, because this is going so well," Kip says coldly.

His cheeks flush at the childish impatience of his response. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, tugging slightly on the ends. The washer starts to rumble gently, vibrating against his arm and tailbone.

"...Sorry," he murmurs.

"It's okay," Wallace sighs. "...You do kind of have a point."

Kip grimaces at the floor.

"I knew it might be like this," he says quietly. "I'm sorry for that. You didn't ask me to bring this up between us."

"It's not your fault," Wallace says. "You just...had something to tell me. I was telling the truth, you know, that it really means a lot to me that you'd do that. Tell me something that personal, I mean, even though you didn't have to, even though..."

It might end up like this.

Kip gives Wallace a faint smile and a shrug.

"I wanted to say it," he says quietly. "There was just stuff I would've rather said than not."

Wallace nods.

It wasn't everything he wanted to say, though. The kiss Wallace had given him wasn't the only thing left unaddressed. It was all sorts of moments they'd had—and not just the experience of relying fully on each other for their very lives. They had developed this surprisingly intense intimacy not only from the crises they went through, but being together for simpler things as well, quiet nights when they were up late, searching through papers, subtly trying to comfort and help each other and soothe their combined stress. Kip would wake to Wallace's gentle voice and touch when he dozed off against his couch; he'd carefully move a pad of paper from Wallace's lap and replace them with a blanket whenever Wallace was the one to drift off. Wallace had held him determinedly close when he was painfully cold, Kip had stood inches in front of Wallace and touched his face and shoulder and made him make eye contact as he whispered reassurance to the human, earnest and urgent. He'd felt a passing impulse to kiss Wallace then, to catch his focus and douse his nervous shivering by bringing their mouths together, pushing his body to Wallace's, holding and kissing him gently until they reached an equilibrium.

They couldn't recreate that nowadays, but Kip still feels the impact of all those moments in his current feelings towards Wallace. He recognizes his current feelings in those past incidents as well, as though the dream's ripples had affected his past as well as his present. And he doesn't know how to bring that up. If Wallace doesn't already feel it too, then he can't make him feel it just by reminding him of what they'd been through, what they'd done together.

He can only silently look up at Wallace to meet his gaze, and watch him grow even pinker as the eye contact continues.

"...Was it really that out of left field for you?" Kip asks hesitantly.

Wallace blinks, glancing rapidly back and forth between his eyes.

"Oh." His face falls slightly. "Oh, when you told me...?"

He pauses, seeming to gather his thoughts.

"It was at the moment," he says slowly. "I definitely wouldn’t have guessed that you...”

He trails off, then clears his throat quietly and continues.

“But now...after I had the chance to think about it...not so much."

Kip's blush isn't lessened any by the fact that Wallace's keeps deepening, too. He drops his gaze.

"I...I just want to keep seeing you, Kip," Wallace says, not much louder than the sound of the washer. "I don't want to bother or upset you. But if there's any way I can just...make it easy enough for you that you don't feel like you can't be around me..."

Kip gives a genuine smile at that.

"I guess," he laughs somewhat helplessly, raking a hand through his hair again.

“...I miss you,” Wallace says quietly.

Kip looks at him.

Wallace steps forward, and doesn't stop coming closer, and Kip is already backed against the washer, and he finds himself frozen there as Wallace unhesitatingly enfolds him in a hug, bowing his head down to the side of Kip's.

Kip stands completely still, bewildered, heart beating harder, nerves electrified. Wallace's arms enclose him gently, resting against his back, but without any real pressure; Wallace's chest touches Kip’s collarbone and shoulder but their torsos are still separated, curved away; he can feel Wallace's breath on his neck; he can feel the relaxing effect of such contact radiating through his body—even as he's quietly alarmed with how his feelings for Wallace sit up and take notice. Even as the flare-up of those emotions means that such a tenderly gentle hold is a bit intense.

He can't move, he can't return the hug, but that apparently doesn't scare Wallace off. It takes a few moments for Kip to remember to stop holding his breath; when he does slowly exhale he feels Wallace's hand press in against the middle of his back—the sensation of Wallace's fingers curling in against his spine sends a sharp, sudden thrill through him.

"Wallace—" His attempt at a rebuke is weak, but he can't just ignore how strongly this makes him feel. His voice drops into a firm whisper. "Wallace."

Wallace pulls away but keeps a hand on one of Kip's shoulders for a few seconds more, standing right in front of him, looking down at him with unflinching steadiness and something between sweetness and sadness. Kip can't meet his gaze.

"I'm sorry, should I not?" Wallace asks quietly.

"You can touch me," Kip mumbles. "It's just...you have to remember that I still feel the way I said I do. I don't know when I'll be able to move on from it. It...it’s difficult.”

Wallace is quiet. He doesn't move away.

Kip looks down at the pocket of Wallace's jeans, thinking about how he never outright said "I love you" to Wallace when explaining his feelings. He wonders if Wallace has guessed anyhow. Sometimes he seems totally oblivious to even the most blatant things, and other times comes through with surprisingly keen intuition and observations.

"You're really important to me, Kip."

Kip meets his eyes again.

"I mean... You're one of my closest friends."

"...I am?"

Wallace nods at him.

For a moment Kip can't answer—he'd been very aware over the months of how much his and Wallace's relationship was deepening and strengthening, but it had seemed arrogant to assume that Wallace felt...close to him in any special way. Just because they went through what they did
doesn't mean it would carry directly over into their everyday lives after it’d all ended. Of course they’d been close, of course they’d had more than a few moments of intimate, unflinchingly open honesty.

"I didn't ever think we'd get this close either," Kip says softly.

Wallace's mouth twitches in a smile.

Kip's heart beats hard—if he doesn't ask this now, he feels like he never will.

"Why'd you kiss me last week?" he asks, trying not to flinch away from the eye contact despite the surge of anxiety he feels.

The shade of Wallace's blush is truly impressive by this point—it's so dramatic that Kip is a little surprised that he doesn't take a step or two away.

"It was—just kind of in the moment.”

"I was washing dishes," Kip counters quietly. “It was a total surprise on my end, I—I wasn't mad that you did it, but—it made me think more that maybe it wasn't such a stupid idea to tell you how I felt—I thought maybe it meant you already knew, I don't know...I..."

"I'm sorry," Wallace murmurs. "I didn't mean to—I don't think that was fair of me, I should've stopped and thought about what I was doing..."

Kip blinks and glances down at the collar of Wallace's shirt.

"What do you mean, though," he says slowly, "that you just did it without thinking? I mean...why’d you want to in the first place?"

"I—um—well, I—" Wallace is struggling to even start the sentence, clearly as flustered by the topic as Kip.

Kip wasn't expecting that; he'd been feeling like it was just his own cluelessness blinding him to some obvious element of the encounter that Wallace would explain to him with a laugh before waving the whole thing off.

"Well, I like you a lot, and I just—" Wallace is rubbing the back of his head, looking off towards the corner of the ceiling. "I don't know—hearing that you were going to have Briggs over the next day, I guess I just..."

Kip's hand twitches where it rests against his thigh.

"I didn't mean to confuse you, I just—I really was just going on impulse, you'd just seemed so glad to see me all day, I think I was—it was really flattering, and I just sort of wanted to return that, and—" He laughs breathlessly, giving a shrug. "I just was thinking I was going to hug you, and the rest kind of happened before I knew it."

"It was a mistake?" Kip tries to clarify for the sake of his thoughts, which have started to rush.

"Well—well, it—I wouldn't put it like that—I just—it didn't—" Wallace flounders before deflating with a long, slow exhale. "I wouldn't call it a mistake at the time. It was just a mistake if I was treating you unfairly—I should've known better to do something like that without being sure of your boundaries about it, I only... It felt right in the moment."

Kip looks at Wallace, Wallace looks back at him.

Kip nods after a few beats, realizing he probably can't get any more information about the subject from Wallace for the time being.

"Okay," he says quietly. "Don't worry. I wasn't upset about it."

"That's good," Wallace says, sounding slightly recovered from the worst of his nervousness.

"Well..." Kip sighs, "I guess it's not so bad for us to be in the same room, huh?"

It takes a moment for Wallace to process that he's joking with him now.

"Oh—" He laughs lightly. "Yeah, I think it would be okay, I think we can do it."

Kip smiles slightly and lifts his posture with a deep inhale.

"Sorry for getting short with you earlier," he says. "I know you were just wanting to talk—I'm just always a little on edge about feeling like I'm being told what I need to do about something personal—"

"I get it," Wallace cuts in gently. "I know I wasn't always exactly, well, staying within my rights to try giving you advice about things in the past and...I was coming on a little strong now, still."

Kip laughs under his breath.

"Thanks," he says. His smile falters a moment later, and he glances at the floor.

"I, uh, I guess I've intruded enough on your laundry for now," Wallace laughs, finally taking a step away. "I'll let you get back to what you were doing. Thanks for letting me talk."

Kip nods.

"It's no problem," he answers.

"Cool," Wallace says, putting one hand on the side of his neck and the other in one of his pockets. "I'll, um—see you around?" He winces, speaking with trepidation.

Kip smiles.

"...Sure."

Wallace brightens at that and his whole pose relaxes.

"Awesome," he laughs. "Okay, well, till next time, then. Soon."

Kip huffs a laugh.

"See you soon," he mirrors, lifting a hand in a wave.

Wallace throws a couple more smiles Kip's way as he covers the short distance to the door.

"Later," he says quietly as he passes into the hall.

"Bye."

Kip lets out a long sigh, staring at the door for several seconds after it closes, then turns around and props himself up with his elbows as he leans down low over the washer.

He doesn't exactly feel as though that's sorted things out more. The way Wallace touches him, how he looks at him, the things he says—telling him that kissing his face had felt right—that he'd felt compelled to by learning Kip might be on the eve of getting back together with Pascal—

Kip bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut before straightening upright, assuming the kind of royal posture that gives him some extra confidence.

He's afraid of making the assumption—of being to eager to assume Wallace returns his feelings in any way. He's pretty certain that Ben will outright hate him if he thinks Kip is going after his boyfriend. He knows Ben wouldn't do anything like leverage the fact that he runs the building they live in over a personal grudge. But he knows Ben is a fairly passionate person beneath his subdued shell. And he knows how truly, truly awful it would be to have any role in taking that relationship away from Ben—presumably the first relationship of its kind that Ben's had since Yumi.

He can't possibly do anything to distance Wallace from Ben. He can't possibly believe that he doesn't love Wallace without knowing he's lying to himself. He can't possibly talk to Ben about this. He can't possibly avoid Wallace for the rest of both their lives—or Ben, for that matter. He can't possibly hope that their relationship might come apart by itself, or think that he can be in limbo about this forever with no form of closure.

It's all something of a mess, and he can't possibly figure it all out in the amount of time it's going to take him to finish doing his load of laundry.

—

"Darling," Kip teases, perching himself up by the register and pulling Pascal's face to his. He steals a few quick kisses. "What else do you have left to do?"

"Just—" Kip interrupts with another kiss. "—finishing up taking stock, it should only be maybe ten minutes more at most."

"Mm. Okay. I suppose I shouldn't distract you anymore, then."

"I'm not minding it so much," Pascal says softly, smiling at him.

Kip grins.

"Go finish," he says, waving his boyfriend away. "I want us to be able to reach the waterfront before the sunset."

"I'm pretty sure we've got a couple more hours to beat that," Pascal laughs, clicking out the nib of his pen.

Kip shrugs and slides back off the countertop, wandering slowly around the displays as Pascal goes into the back to continue counting up various supplies. On occasion, Kip can hear Pascal faintly humming, and smiles to himself at the sound of it.

"Okay—" Pascal returns to the front. "I just have to sort the register out and I'll be done."

Kip strolls casually over to his side, playfully sliding his hand across the small of Pascal's back until he's resting it against Pascal's opposite hip. He sees the momentary shift in Pascal's expression. Kip turns his head and kisses the smooth surface of Pascal's bared arm.

To his quiet satisfaction, he notices Pascal has to restart counting the pennies. He mercifully lets him finish up without any further distraction.

"Okay, now I'm really done," Pascal says, locking the drawer to the register and the little safe under the counter and then putting the lanyard of keys back into his pocket.

"Really?" Kip repeats, putting his other arm across Pascal's stomach to make it a hug.

"Really."

Kip lifts his face towards Pascal's, who obliges and leans down so that Kip can catch his lips with his own.

"Mm..." Kip hums softly into the kiss the same moment he presses it a bit more, squeezes Pascal's waist a bit tighter.

He feels Pascal's breath catch with a silent laugh, but their kiss doesn't break. Kip is the one to interrupt it a minute later after happily letting Pascal's tongue in past his teeth.

"Maybe we should take this into the back," he says against Pascal's mouth, slightly short of breath. He kisses Pascal's top lip while digging his fingers into the fabric stretched across the back of Pascal's broad shoulders. "So that we aren't making out in the front of your shop?"

Pascal grunts what Kip assumes is agreement and he feels Pascal's arms slide down his back towards his thighs—he braces himself just before Pascal deftly lifts him off the ground, pulling Kip's legs to either side of his waist. Kip hugs Pascal tight around his shoulders and Pascal carries him with ease around the corner and into the back room.

He hasn't been picked up and carried in way too long.

"Also: please, please make out with me," he says into Pascal's ear.

Pascal lowers him onto a table against the wall and complies. Kip tangles his fingers in Pascal's hair and holds Pascal's waist
with his thighs and opens his mouth wide enough for the invitation to be unmistakeable. He hasn't been felt up like this in too long, he hasn't had a guy between his legs in too long, he hasn't had the brush of scruff against his chin or a tongue licking at his own or a low voice sighing into his mouth in way, way, way too long.

Their makeout session is lengthy and fairly intense. If it's somewhat repetitive, Pascal seems to mind as little as Kip does—they've both been starved for every part of this for eons. Kip can nip and lick at Pascal's lips over and over without it growing old, Pascal can catch Kip's tongue between his teeth and suck it as often as he wants, endlessly mess up Kip's hair, Kip can run his thumbs over the pleasant roughness of Pascal's jawline until the friction warms his fingertips.

But they both keep their heads enough to exercise some restraint—they let themselves touch each other, but slowly, restricting everything to above the lower back. They keep relatively quiet, and none of their occasional soft moans are fully involuntary—Kip can tell the difference in the sound of Pascal's vocalizations. And even the kissing itself is a fair distance from the kind of passion they're capable of when they aren't holding back.

Kip starts deliberately easing it back, cooling it off when he feels the tension in Pascal's body, feels the muscles of his arms twitching and shivering at intervals. Then, after a while of kissing deeply but slowly, he finally pulls himself away, allowing Pascal to push a few more quick pecks to his lips as he does.

"Thank you," Kip sighs earnestly. "Sweet god, thank you."

"Mmm, you too," Pascal murmurs, sliding the roughness of his chin to Kip's jawline and then past it, kissing down the side of his neck with a hunger that tells Kip exactly where this is headed.

"Oh—Pascal, oh god—Pasc—wait—" he groans weakly, even as he draws Pascal closer by the shoulders. "No—no—"

Immediately Pascal pulls away and returns his mouth to Kip's with a few more kisses, firm but quick.

"I'm definitely gonna fuck you in here sometime," Kip mumbles against the corner of Pascal's mouth. "And I really wanna fuck right now, but—"

He gives Pascal a hard kiss.

"I thought it'd be fun to wait till Friday night," he breathes, nose against Pascal's, closing his eyes. "I want you to show me your home and then fuck me in it—I wanna fuck in your bed for our first time since getting back together—"

He's stifled by a noticeably imprecise kiss from Pascal.

"Oh, Pas," he gasps, tilting his head up to give himself a moment to catch his breath. "I want you to fuck me until I can barely walk, I—god, I want to taste your dick again—I want to see my cum on your face—I want—"

His sense catches up to him, interrupting the undeniable pleasure of voicing his desires to Pascal with the reminder that he's trying to convince them both to wait; that sharpening the anticipation as much as possible will make suffering the time between now and when he can visit Pascal's home just a bit more enjoyable.

"I—I want that on Friday," he clarifies, voice a little choked. He's also feeling the push of his erection against the inside of his pants. He hasn't glanced down to try to assess how Pascal is holding up on the same front, but all other signs point to Pascal being at least as turned on as he is.

"O-okay," Pascal answers, voice a bit strained as well. He leans away, gazing steadily at Kip as he straightens up his spine. Kip looks back, feeling a deep and intimate appreciation for the red flush of Pascal's cheeks and lips, the increased messiness of his hair, and most of all, the way he's looking back at him.

They stare at each other, both breathing audibly, arms resting along each other's.

"I—um—I don't suppose it'd be okay if I took a minute to, uh..." Pascal brushes some hair out of his own face, glancing at the wall. "Clear my head a little?"

Kip's pulse grows a touch stronger.

"If you're talking about getting off, I think I could probably benefit from that, too," he murmurs. He shifts his weight a bit and feels a little jolt from the rub of his jeans and underpants against his dick.

"...Okay," Pascal breathes, blushing and touching his mouth as he moves a step or two back from Kip. "Well, um, there's a bathroom—we could take turns, or..."

As he talks, Kip sees Pascal shoot a couple of fleeting glances down at his crotch. And it gives him an idea.

"Is it that door right across this one?" Kip asks, sliding down from the table.

Pascal nods, moving aside for Kip to walk past him. Instead, Kip takes hold of Pascal's arm.

"C'mon," he says, and leads Pascal into the small nook of a hallway and stands in front of the entrance to the bathroom.

Pascal looks over at him, and Kip meets his eyes.

"So, uh, I was thinking, if you wanted to... If you went in there, and I was out here..." Kip attempts to explain.

"Like, you were waiting, or... Oh—or..."

"At the same time," Kip confirms. "If you wanted. I think it would, uh, be easier for us both if we could hear each other."

Pascal's face is flooding with deeper color; Kip has no doubt he's all but glowing with a vivid blue flush as well.

"Okay," Pascal says weakly.

Moments later, Pascal is in the little bathroom, Kip is sitting outside and facing the slightly ajar door, leaning against the wall.

"Oh—could I have some toilet paper?" Kip asks, reaching a hand around the doorway. "For when I finish."

"Right, sure—"

Pascal passes him a few squares.

"Thanks," he says, folding it up and sliding it into his pocket.

"You're welcome," Pascal says, voice sounding slightly louder than usual in the acoustics of the tiled room.

There's a pause.

"I guess we should just go ahead and start," Kip laughs. "Unless you think there should be a countdown.”

"Ah, that's okay."

"Okay. Well. I'm gonna jerk off now," he says cheerfully, and undoes his belt, then pushes his pants and briefs down just far enough to expose his half-hard erection.

It feels thrillingly unfamiliar—the wooden floor feels almost cold against the bared skin along his ass, and it feels like he's doing this in public, despite the shop being empty save for him and Pascal, the view from the windows being completely blocked, and the front and back doors both secured. It still takes a minute of just sitting there and getting used to the feeling of being exposed like this before he licks his hand a few times and carefully wraps it around his dick.

He works himself slowly at first, but the mere fact that he can catch the sound of Pascal's breathing has a surprisingly strong aphrodisiacal effect. When that breathing gets louder and he picks up on the sound of Pascal stroking his own erection, Kip quickly strips off his shirt and pushes his hips further from the wall and closes his eyes as he pumps himself at a brisker pace.

His own exhales grow more audible; the faint sounds of Pascal in the next room are mostly drowned out by his own continuous noises. And then a small but distinct whimper from Pascal reaches him and he immediately swears and jerks his hips forward a few times. His back is sliding gradually down the wall but he doesn't care.

Traces of pre-cum appear on the tip of his erection like dewdrops; Kip is smearing the moisture around the head when Pascal addresses him directly.

"Kip," he sighs. "How close are you?"

"I-I'm getting there," Kip answers. "I had to slow down for a second—"

"Touch yourself," Pascal requests, his arousal resonating in his voice. "I want to hear it."

Kip slides his hand to the base of his dick and stares at the wall for a moment before complying. He pumps himself fast and steady enough to be easily heard, he opens his mouth, he slides down until he's flat on his back on the floor, feet spread apart and braced against the opposite wall. He rocks his hips freely, he breathes hard, he lets his free hand cup his own ass, caress his own chest.

"Pasc—" he calls in a throaty sigh. "Oh, fuck, Pasc, I—I wanna hear you too—please—think about fucking me, let me hear it—"

"Kip—" Pascal's voice comes out like a soft whine.

"Shit." Hearing Pascal like that again, really hearing him, not just imagining it—it's as much of a turn-on as the thumb he's swirling around the slicked head of his cock. "Oh god, Pascal—"

He feels another wave of arousal wash through his whole body; he draws a sharp inhale and lets it out as a rough moan.

Pascal's low, answering groan makes him impatiently kick off his shoes so he can extend a leg by sliding one foot up the wall, pretending that he's opening his legs to let Pascal fuck him more easily, or stretch him, or rim him—anything.

"Pascal," he pants. "Pas, are you thinking about me?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"You're riding me," Pascal answers at once, breathless. "I'm sitting like this and you're on top of me, facing me, and just—"

"Fuck me," Kip groans softly, rocking his hips back and forth along the floor, simulating the rhythm of steadily fucking himself on Pascal's dick.

"Oh my god," Pascal chokes. "God, say that again."

Kip whines softly.

"Fuck—" he whispers to himself. He speeds up his strokes a bit more, taking the hand that was circling his palm over his nipple to reach down and cup himself with a gentle yet decided grip.

Pascal's familiar, intermittent whimpering is growing more frequent, seemingly spilling from him every other breath or so. Kip knows he often sounds that way when he's getting too close to hold himself totally together—it immediately evokes intense physical memories, and Kip cries out Pascal's name again before remembering what had been asked of him.

"Pascal—" he repeats, voice loud and rough with desperation. "Fuck me, Pasc, fuck me—fuck me—oh god, Pascal—fuck me—" His voice grows more strained with each repetition. He's imagining it so clearly, Pascal's groans filling his ears just as they do now—he's so, so starved for this— "Fuck me, please fuck me—"

"Kip!—"

A few small but richly deep cries from Pascal are orgasmic enough to almost make Kip cum on the spot; he only just holds out by stilling himself for a few agonizing moments.

"Pasc, I'm so close—shit, I'm close—" he groans, tensing up with the effort of lasting just a bit longer. "Did you cum?" he breathes.

"I-I'm almost..." Pascal sounds like a total mess, as if speaking at all is a struggle; Kip can hardly take it. "I wanna hear you first—"

Kip obliges easily. He spits in his hand again and lets himself go, thrusting into his rhythmic pumping and letting himself moan and gasp without restraint. He works himself harder when his voice grows louder and crumbles with whimpers of his own. His hips move all but involuntarily, his arm is getting tired but there's no way he's going to stop, the tension inside him grips every inch of his body, his spine arches up and holds the curve, his eyes slide closed.

He's only distantly aware of slipping into a stream of moans and swears and Pascal's name—even fainter is the feeling of his own cum landing across his front, of his legs spasming to kick weakly against the wall. His orgasm lights up every nerve in his body with an intensity he hasn't managed to singlehandedly match in ages.

It's much easier for him to process the sudden caught breath and subsequent momentary stillness that he knows means Pascal just came. He stares up at the ceiling as he eases into his afterglow, feeling too nice just as he is to bother moving yet.

"Pascal..." His own voice sounds unexpectedly smooth for the intensive workout it was just getting. "Babe, did you finish?"

A few heavy breaths answer him.

"Yeah," Pascal says faintly.

Kip laughs softly with relief.

—

It takes about five minutes before Kip bothers to sit himself up against the wall again and start to put himself back together. He takes the toilet paper and carefully cleans the end of his dick, then tucks himself back into his underpants, tugs his jeans back up, and redoes his fly and belt.

He wipes some spit from the corner of his mouth, looks at the wall, and listens to the soft sounds of Pascal catching his breath and clothes brushing together as he moves.

A minute later, he can hear Pascal get to his feet and step leisurely towards the door.

"Hey, I—" Pascal cuts himself off as soon as he lays eyes on Kip slumped against the wall, shirtless.

"Hey," Kip replies casually. He watches Pascal's gaze shift to his bared torso and linger there, jumping between his collarbones and nipples and navel and the dark line of his pubic hair and the cum splashed across his chest. "Clean me off?"

Pascal nods distractedly, but when he takes Kip's hand to help lift him to his feet, his focus shifts entirely to Kip's face. Kip laughs and blushes at the attention.

"How's it going?" he gently teases.

Pascal's mouth quirks into a smile, but he keeps his focus on Kip's face, looking it all over but gravitating to his eyes.

"It's going really good," he says, and his arm loops its way up Kip's wrist and forearm as he leans down and nudges Kip's chin up with the other arm, kissing him softly.

Pascal draws away slowly after letting Kip pull him back in several times. He kisses the bridge of Kip's nose as a parting gesture.

"Honestly, Kip," he says. "You're unbelievably hot all of the time, but after you've just came..." He shakes his head. "You're incredible."

"Yeah, I'm so irresistibly attractive," Kip says sarcastically, but his face is warmed by the compliments, and he's self-conscious in a pleasant way for once.

"You're undeniably gorgeous, babe. Just accept that as fact." Pascal kisses his forehead and leads him into the bathroom.

Pascal takes a paper towel, wets it with warm water from the sink, and starts gently wiping off Kip's stomach. Kip keeps glancing at himself in the mirror but silently gasps when, in one flowing movement, Pascal leans in and puts his lips to Kip's bare chest over a small drop of cum.

It's too soon after he just came for Kip to be physically aroused, but it still feels as thrilling and sexy as it would've even if he could. He gets this glowing, slightly electric warmth as Pascal’s lips part against his skin and Pascal licks at him slowly. He stares down at Pascal, speechless, motionless.

"Mm—" Pascal leaves a kiss as he leans away again. He smiles up at Kip with a shrug. "I can't help it—I wanted to get a taste again, just a little one."

Kip exhales, trying to gather himself back up. Pascal gives him a smile before returning the paper towel to his torso to get up the last traces of his cum.

"That good?" he asks softly, smiling warmly at Kip.

"Which part?" Kip asks. "Yes, either way.”

Pascal beams and leans in to kiss Kip's forehead again; Kip tilts his head back as a silent direction to kiss his lips instead. Pascal not only does so, but also bends him over backwards with a supporting arm around the small of his back.

"That was fun." Pascal kisses his cheek as he leans them both back upright. "Thanks for the suggestion."

"I guess I have good ideas when I'm horny."

Pascal’s laugh bubbles up.

"Sure—" he manages. "Oh—absolutely."

Kip smiles to himself as he slides his shirt back on. He looks back at the mirror again, searching for the stunning post-orgasm attractiveness Pascal had informed him of. He supposes that it's in the flushed face and messy hair, or maybe it's due to the fact he's always more relaxed than usual in his afterglow, and his expression might be subtly reflecting that.

He keeps watching the reflection as Pascal's comes into view too, leaning towards him at a playfully slow pace. Kip smiles at himself, watching his own face light up as Pascal grows nearer. Pascal pretends to fall against him with a kiss to his temple, gathering his boyfriend into his embrace as Kip laughs and throws his arms over Pascal's shoulders in an invitation to pick him up.

Pascal carries him back out of the bathroom and puts him down beside his discarded shoes; Kip slips them back on and asks Pascal to look him over and see if he's missed any details that might suggest he's just jerked off. Pascal assures him he hasn't, then asks for the same favor. Kip reaches up to brush Pascal's hair into place and tells him he's ready for anything.

He can tell in his peripheral vision that Pascal keeps glancing over at him as they walk to go out the front door—not quite nervously, but as though he simply wants to keep looking over and seeing him. Kip takes Pascal's arm and holds it tight.

—

Pascal sits with his legs hanging over the edge towards the water, but Kip's always been nervous of that— as if he's going to lose his balance and fall into the water, as if he'd have trouble getting out even if he did. He perches beside Pascal on the little concrete wall, one foot on the ground and the other leg folded, his ankle resting on his knee. They've been watching the progress of a handful of rented sailboats carving long, elliptical paths as they travel in loops up and down the river.

Kip steals occasional glances at his boyfriend's profile when Pascal looks out across the water, with his hair gently swayed by the breeze, a peacefully thoughtful expression, features bathed in peach-tinted light. Kip is glad they'd indulged a bit in venting some of their sexual tension—it's making it easier not to be so preoccupied with the thought of pulling him to the ground, straddling him, and dry-humping him until they both reach completion.

Pascal looks over and catches Kip looking back at him. Kip laughs quietly and lowers his gaze to his hands. Pascal reaches out and puts an arm overtop them, lazily petting Kip's knuckles. Kip smiles down at the water.

A serene quiet rests between them. There's the occasional gentle lap of the water against the stone, calls from seabirds and songbirds, the occasional muffled conversation traveling past, footsteps, bikes, panting dogs, little kids. But nothing disturbs their stillness. They simply sit together, sharing the beauty of the scene unfolding around them. Bands of color travel across the sky as the sun lowers, a golden orange into pink and purple and a thin stripe of deeper blue on the edge of the horizon. The colors are reflected in the calm waters before them, making it looks as though they're sitting on the verge of the sky.

For about ten minutes, they don't speak.

Kip shifts closer to Pascal and leans slightly against his side.

"I love you, Pasc,” he whispers.

Pascal coils his arm around Kip's hand, the suckers grip on to him. He turns and rests his forehead gently against the side of Kip's head; Kip can feel Pascal's warm, steady breathing washing softly over his skin.

"Are you warm enough?" Pascal murmurs after a while.

"Uh-huh," Kip breathes. "Thank you."

Pascal presses a soft, lingering kiss beside Kip's ear. Kip almost shivers.

"You sure?" Pascal asks again.

"Yeah. I'm okay."

Pascal slips his arm around Kip and pulls him a little closer. Kip sighs contentedly, closing his eyes for a while. Even if he never manages to figure out anything else, he has this.

—

Kip takes the stairs up to the apartment slowly, preoccupied with the memory of Pascal's face just inches away from his own as they said goodbye, seeing a look of such genuine affection directed at him before they kissed. He focuses a bit more on the present when he gets to their door—it's so dim inside that for a moment he thinks that both Roy and Molly must be either asleep or elsewhere, but as he steps inside he sees them side-by-side on the couch, bathed in a soft glow as they watch something together on Molly's laptop, sharing a pair of headphones. Kip waves as he walks past as quietly as he can.

When he's in his room, the first thing he does is empty his pockets, take off his shoes, and roll onto his bed to lie on his back. He lets out a few deep breath as sighs, trying to relax his limbs as much as he can, closing his eyes. He lies there for a while and lets his mind wander; it orbits Pascal, but he can never totally ignore the assortment of quiet worries he carries around with him. But he still manages to rest even with his mixed bag of stressing and comforting thoughts.

He runs himself a hot bath and soaks in it, reading for a bit before washing himself down thoroughly. He kneels in it and bows his head down to submerge himself completely for about half a minute at a time, repeating it several times in a row until it feels like his whole body has absorbed the heat as much as it can. Then he lies back, head resting against the rim of the tub where it meets the wall, and rests in the warmth a while longer.

He daydreams about visiting Pascal. It's not just that he desperately wants to have passionate sex with him, though that is an intense incentive—he wants to see how Pascal makes himself at home, maybe relive the experience he had when he was eighteen and they’d been together for a few months, getting to see his boyfriend's place for the same time, then amazed and almost intimidated that this boy who was his age already had his own home, however small and modest the space was. He wants to familiarize himself with the ways the apartment is new to him and find everything he already knows. He wants to come to feel like he belongs there too, and feel like, if only for the moment, he's actually living with Pascal. He wants to relax there with him, find their tiny piece of the world there in the handful of rooms. He wants to fall asleep feeling Pascal beside him and then wake up in his presence as well.

Kip towels himself off and sits draped in the soft fabric for a few minutes to let himself dry further before he pulls on his pajamas. He walks over to the mirror, brushes his hair loosely into place, and leans in to squint at himself, eye-to-eye. He tries to see what's so appealing about his face—he can only see himself as average-looking, though he figures he must be too used to the sight of it to have any good perspective on how it must strike other people. He shrugs at his reflection and returns to his bedroom.

He eases himself to sleep, reminding himself of all the good things that have happened lately. Experiencing the passion and depth of Pascal's love for him, getting such strong support and interest for him from Roy and Molly, hearing Wallace say he matters to him, Eno wanting him to be okay no matter what, Kate letting him vent for no other reason than she wanted to hear about what was on his mind. He has plenty of reasons not to be afraid, he tells himself. He knows he can't help but worry, and he doesn't really blame or dislike himself for that anymore. But he still can try to remember the nice, comforting things that he may be overlooking. He can always manage it unless he's in a really bad place.

Sometimes he lets himself think about how his family loved him. Unless he's in a really good place, he always turns away from the thought before too long.

Tonight he holds on to it for a moment or two.

—

Kip starts taking the front door again, at least some of the time. It's not as though it's always the most convenient one, and he's made a habit of sticking to the smaller exits tucked away in other parts of the building, so it's not as though he goes out of his way to use it. But he knows it would be just as inconvenient to treat it as off-limits forever.

So far he hasn't seen either Wallace or Ben by doing so, though his heartbeat unhelpfully quickens whenever he walks past their doors. It's not as if he would. It only takes about twenty seconds for either of them to pass between the door to their apartment and the one leading out of the building; what are the odds he'd overlap with that whenever he's passing by? Sure, maybe he's familiar enough with their routines to sometimes find himself consciously avoiding the risk of running into them. But what does it matter. What kind of difference would it make whether or not he has a brief, occasional chance encounter with them in the lobby of an apartment building?

Still, he has to reflect on how he told Wallace that he wouldn't try avoiding him. He can suppose that Wallace had meant for them to be sharing more meaningful interactions than just exchanging quick greetings and pleasantries on their way past each other. But should he outright go out of his way to be around Wallace right now? Should he drop in and visit him at his apartment, or expect Wallace to do the same to him? He could cushion it with other people, go along with the group outings that involve Wallace, invite him up to their apartment for dinner like they sometimes do.

But he's gone and told his closest friends how he likes Wallace and he told him about it and it didn't work out. Wouldn't it potentially be awkward for them too? He feels like neither Roy or Molly have really even been mentioning Wallace around him often lately, much less having conversations about him. He knows they're great at aggressively tamping down any tension between other people in a group with them, but at the same time, they don't force it. And would it be unfair for him to expect them to shoulder the burden of making sure things aren't weird between him and Wallace, or would it just be matter-of-fact?

If he thinks too long about it, it starts to scare him a little. He's still in love with Wallace. It may not have the same depth behind it as the relationship he'd had with Pascal when they'd broken it off, but they've still spent a year together, they still had to come together quickly and build up an intense amount of trust basically overnight. They shared so much. And that was all before Kip ever considered having feelings for Wallace—at least, before he had ever seriously considered it. He can put in the work to get past his crush on Wallace, which he knows will be hard and messy and ongoing. But he can't possibly bring himself to throw out the personal connection and intimacy they'd built up that had contributed to him falling for Wallace in the first place.

He worries if he can trust himself. Twice now in just the past week or so, he's felt like kissing Wallace while actually having the chance to do so. He knows it isn't as though it's out of his control—all he has to do is Not Kiss Wallace. But Wallace keeps showing this tendency to touch Kip and tell him how much he means to him, and that's more than a little intimidating. It keeps making Kip feel as though Wallace actually has feelings for him back. And as Eno had said, what would he do if Wallace kissed him? The thought of it always immediately blends with his fantasies of such a thing happening, which unfortunately leads to furious blushing and a burst of pleasant feelings from his head and heart that tell him it'd feel absolutely wonderful. Maybe it would be easy, maybe all his stress over this would make it all but reflexive to pull away. But if he kissed back, even for a moment—

It's not a scenario he likes thinking about. How the immediate aftermath would feel, if they both crossed that line. It's bad enough just to consider how he'd feel if Wallace kissed him now. What he'd do. He couldn't possibly believe they could be around each other after that. And to consider losing Wallace entirely is awful—just the idea of it makes it clear how important Wallace is to him, how much a part of his life he managed to become. He just can't risk being confronted with that situation.

Maybe he just has to continuously keep at least a four foot bubble of space between himself and Wallace at all times. Maybe he just has to tell Wallace to please never touch him, even fleetingly, even casually—just don't. But Kip so loves to be touched, when the touch comes from someone he loves. When he lets someone go beyond the occasional parting hug or handshake, it means he trusts them. And when someone is allowed to touch him, he can so easily interpret affection and communication through physical contact—and in ways that don't get tangled up for him like verbal communication often can.

And yet, the physical boundaries aren't his only concern. They could just as well cross a line by talking as by kissing.

Part of him is saying not to be so afraid. But is telling himself to just trust Wallace the same as writing off his own responsibility within this situation he's created?

He tells himself that they don't have to talk about the subject at all anymore, but he doesn't know if that would be the first step to moving on, or denial.

Maybe it would be inappropriate to talk out his feelings any further with Wallace.

Maybe it would be the only way he could fully understand them and be able to deal with them.

It's like Eno told him—he can't map out a way to have total control of every possible course this whole thing could take. He can make guesses about what Wallace might do in any scenario he lays out, but he can't know for sure.

It all scares him.

He knows he's dealing with something serious here. If it was anyone else—

If it wasn't Ben—

He knows it's technically an assumption. But he knows he has information about Ben he can't ignore. It's not just that he knows this specific area of life holds extra weight and sensitivity and difficulty for Ben. It also matters that he knows it. He didn't know that Wallace was with anyone at all—he can't be blamed for that. But now he does, and moreso, he knows that it's Ben.

If he were to mess this up for him—what a horrible, horrible thing to do.

Sure, maybe there's a chance it wouldn't actually be a big deal for Ben at all. But he doesn't know that. And based on the information he has—limited, yet significant—he knows that to treat that as reality until proven otherwise would be a blatantly self-serving act.

He knows that it could do Ben so much harm to mess this up in such a way—a way that would have been completely, undeniably avoidable if Kip hadn't intruded. And the state of the personal relationship he has with Ben doesn't matter at all—he couldn't possibly do something like this to him whether they were best friends or hadn't spoken in years.

It does nag at him still, at unexpected times. That, while he and Ben had never exactly been intimately close, he'd seen him as someone so sympathetic, especially when things started going bad. This man who was so close to someone who had been just as involved in trouble as Kent. Even before things got really frighteningly worrisome, whenever Kip had seen Ben, he'd wondered if Ben had the same secret fears and stresses that Kip did. He found a kind of comfort in Ben's quiet energy—as though if this person, who was in such a similar situation, who was older and had to know more about what was really going on, if he could be so calm in the face of all this, maybe it would be okay.

Kip knows it was probably his quietly growing desperation that made him find comfort in the simple fact that Ben existed and never seemed visibly afraid in the occasional times he and Kip were in the same place. But it had been a comfort anyways. And in the end, somehow it had been a sliver of hope to learn that Ben was alive too, despite having suffered just as Kip had.

Ben had been playing a role in Kip's life before they'd ever really had the chance to form any personal connection independent of the people they'd once had in common—who they still had in common. He'd never really guessed that they would be close enough to have their relationship go south. Maybe if he'd been paying more attention, he would've been able to keep them from getting here. It's not like Wallace is the only one who can be clueless about things.

He feels guilty, he feels like he's still missing something, he feels like he's upset over something that never existed. Like this is all just a result of his own immaturity, his own lack of awareness.

It already feels miserable to think about. He can't possibly hurt Ben with this. He would never be able to fix it. And that scares him badly.

—

Kip gets home after his shift at work just before the thunderstorm rolls in. The sky had been darkening just before he left, and he'd felt the occasional drop from the heavy clouds overhead as he walked back to their building. He'd gone in the front; he hadn't seen Wallace or Ben.

Just minutes after he gets inside their apartment, he hears the rain start to come down. The first peal of thunder rumbles in the distance about five minutes later. He makes himself a sandwich and gets a glass of juice and takes it into his room, where he opens the window to let the air and the sound of the rain in. He sheds his work clothes in favor of the softest sweater he has and sweatpants and warm socks and settles under the covers of his bed, letting himself just relax and enjoy the atmosphere of the weather.

He texts Pascal about the rain, saying things might slow down at his store until it passes. He tries to lie back and fall asleep, which doesn't quite happen, but he gets a solid half hour of rest anyhow.

When the rain picks up into a heavy downfall, he gets up and washes his dishes, then waters his plants.

He spends a couple of minutes with their picture.

Pascal's text lights up his phone where it sits on his bed. It's felt so nice to just know that he can hear from Pascal multiple times a day now, even when they don't see each other. Kip hasn't often visited Pascal at his work yet. It feels like it'd be different from when Pascal stops by when Kip's working, since Kip doesn't own the café. He's okay with feeling like a pleasant distraction for Pascal, but he'd rather not feel like a serious one.

He goes back to the picture, picks it up, and sits down on the floor with it in his lap. He thinks about how he'd tell them he thinks he's really solidly alright, but he still feels like doesn't know what he's doing. Even now, he feels like he's in over his head with some of these things. But at least he's pretty sure those things won't kill him.

—

Kip is washing his hands when he glances at himself in the bathroom mirror, and for an unexpected moment, he does find himself beautiful.

He stays with it for a minute, just looking at himself with that perspective. He gently touches his lips, as if to confirm it's really his reflection.

He wonders if Pascal ever sees his own handsomeness when he looks in a mirror.

—

"That's what I thought, but then I remembered there was this whole stack of colored paper I'd got forever ago, but I'd forgot about it for months until a week ago or something I found it again while I was looking for extra gluesticks, and I remembered that yesterday, only I forgot where I'd seen it, and I had to try to walk myself through the places I'd look if I was trying to find where I'd put the extra gluesticks! I mean, I had to look for glue when I was really looking for paper, and I just thought that was so funny that sometimes that's the way you have to find things, and then Molly came by to walk back with me and I couldn't not tell her what was going on."

Due no doubt to the extra exertion of bearing paper bags of groceries under each of their arms as they walk home together, Roy has to occasionally pause in the middle of telling Kip his story to take a few full breaths.

"...And she thought it was funny too, and she said she would probably put colored paper with crayons, so she said she was going to try to find it by looking for crayons, and then I said I would look for paintbrushes, and then she said she'd look for glitter glue, and I said I would look for dried pasta, and we were both laughing and looking in places that didn't make any sense, like under the rug, or behind the door, and it was so, so funny!"

He laughs a bit at the retelling of it, which makes Kip give a quiet laugh as well. He readjusts his grip on the bag handles and smiles at the ground as they turn around the corner together.

"And well, so, anyway...I found it after a few minutes, and I put that all together with the rest of what I needed for the kids' crafts the next day, and then we went outside and Molly told me about a book she was reading that Kate had been telling her about, and we went and we met up with Wallace because he had texted us and—oh—"

Roy cuts off after his voice abruptly takes on a tone of concern. Kip looks over at him, bemused, and then realizes what Roy must be thinking.

"You can talk about Wallace, Roy," he tells him, slightly out of breath. "It's fine."

"I don't want you to be uncomfortable..." Roy says worriedly.

"I think it'd feel weirder if you tried to pretend he didn't exist," Kip says with a laugh. "Actually, I talked to him just the other day—"

"Oh, you did?" Roy interrupts, once more with his usual level of energy. "Molly was worried you'd be trying to avoid him. That's great, though!"

"I kind of was," Kip says with a wry smile. "But he ran into me, and we talked about things a little bit, and it kind of made me think that, well... That it might be easier if whenever I was around Wallace, you or Molly or all four of us were there, too? Instead of just me and Wallace. I feel like it'd all feel a lot more normal that way."

"Oh, sure," Roy says. "That'd be easy. Both you guys are great to hang out with. If it'd help, me and Molly could try asking Wallace sometimes to come over or something? Or set up dates all of us could go on? Or stuff like that. I mean, I think that'd be awesome."

"If it wasn't any trouble, I think that could be nice," Kip says. "It just feels sort of weird thinking about me doing stuff with Wallace by myself, I just think...that it'd be awkward, you know? But I think if there was other people around, it'd be okay. And I always like getting to spend more time with you and Molly, so."

"Aw, how sweet!" Roy laughs.

Coming from anyone else, that'd be teasing, but Kip knows Roy's being genuine.

Roy continues his story as they travel the last few blocks towards home, and focusing on listening is helping Kip ignore the fact that his arms are very slightly starting to ache. He's glad he'll only be carrying the bags for a few more minutes.

He's keeping his eyes trained on the ground several feet in front of them, so he isn't forewarned until Roy's "Oh! Hey!"

He looks at Roy, sees Roy looking straight ahead, then follows his gaze.

As though he's brought this on himself by talking about it, a pair of figures is visible by the front of their building, and even from two blocks away he's dead certain that it's Wallace and Ben. His heart lurches horribly as soon as he processes it. If it was just him, he could turn and go around back before he was near enough to be noticed, or simply walk by with a smile and a nod and the excuse of not wanting to intrude on other people's conversation. But Roy is going to want to talk to them, maybe extensively—and he's just told Roy that he'd like him to act as a means of facilitating interaction between himself and Wallace.

There's no way he won't be confronted with this encounter. His legs feel stiff. It's suddenly much more difficult to focus on what Roy is saying. He has no idea how he's going to be able to look either man in the face.

Of course the first time he'd run into Wallace or Ben in front of the building would be when he had no way to avoid the encounter. Of course they'd be together.

He's a lot more breathless by the time they get close enough for Roy to call out and wave to them. Kip can feel his own blush erupt when the pair looks over. He's lagging a step or two behind Roy now, who's only speeding up as they approach.

"Hey, you guys!" Roy says as he draws up to them. Kip hovers close to Roy, just slightly further back, as if Roy's huge presence will camouflage his own.

"Hi," Ben says with a slight smile.

"Hey!" Wallace greets them brightly. "How're you guys?"

"Oh, we're okay, we're just getting back from the store," Roy explains.

Kip is maintaining a friendly smile, following the conversation with his eyes in the hopes that it'll signal enough engagement to make up for the fact he wants to get through this without having to contribute anything himself.

"Yeah? Making anything?" Wallace asks.

By the time Kip realizes he was supposed to be the one to answer, Roy has jumped in to fill the pause.

"Molly wanted to make lemon cookies, and we got this bottle of lemon juice for it, but that's pretty much the only thing that's out of the ordinary."

"You didn't have any already?" Ben's quieter, easier speech contrasts Roy's. "I'd've thought you all would always have some on hand, with how often Kip takes lemon in his tea."

Kip responds with a laugh but uses it as an excuse to duck his head. He’s far too flustered to parse Ben’s intention behind the remark. He's not sure physical exertion is going to be enough to explain away the saturated turquoise of his face—not with how strong this blush feels.

"...I usually use whole lemons," he murmurs. "I can pick them up from the shop around the corner."

"Oh... This whole time I've hardly ever gone in there," Ben states.

Kip glances up at Ben; he's taking a draw of his cigarette.

"I think it's pretty cool to have a place for produce right here," Wallace says. "I really haven't taken advantage of it as much as I should either. I might make parfaits or something, since so many fruits are in season—but I doubt I'd make it as good as Kip."

Kip looks over at Wallace reflexively. Wallace meets his eyes at once with a warm smile, and Kip seriously feels like his blush is hot enough to make him start sweating. He breaks his gaze away towards the ground, feeling guilty. Having these emotions for Wallace, and right in front of his boyfriend, too.

"Ooh, we could all get together to do something like that!" Roy says eagerly. "Have dinner together and have some kind of really good, summery, citrusy dessert made out of fresh fruit, we could all make different parts of the meal, it'd be fun! We could even invite Pascal over!"

"...Maybe," Kip says helplessly. He's pretty sure his face must be creating a new wavelength of blue. He can feel the gazes directed at him but he adjusts a bag in his grip and looks down at it while he does so and then devotes the next few moments to straightening his glasses.

Wallace and Ben AND Pascal. He has no idea if involving his own boyfriend would make things even more painfully awkward, or provide him with a kind of comfort—or both. Maybe it would give him some small feeling of closure to be with Pascal while around Wallace. Maybe he would just be tortured for hours over parfaits.

"That sounds like it would be a lot of fun," Wallace says brightly.

Kip doesn't suppose that Ben has quite the same feeling. But, then again, Ben only has one person to feel uncomfortable about. Surely Pascal, who's so blameless and sweet, isn't held in the same regard that Kip is.

"I'll ask Molly, but I bet she'll love the idea, too," Roy says. "And then we can set something up! I bet we can find an evening where everybody's free."

"Yeah, definitely!" Wallace seems to be absorbing some of Roy's enthusiasm. "Let's do it!"

"Yes!" Roy seems an extra foot taller in his exuberance.

Kip accidentally glances over at Ben, whose attention is fortunately on the other two. He quickly looks away towards the front door. At least Ben doesn't seem to be consumed with loathing at his presence, which he takes to mean that Wallace did as he asked and never told Ben about his confession.

Less fortunately, Roy seems to be getting more invested in talking with Wallace about what food might be made, about what else they could all do while hanging out.

"Hey, sorry," Kip says on impulse. "But I really have to pee and my arms are getting tired—I'm gonna go inside."

He forces a smile and glances at Ben and Wallace so fleetingly that they just register as blurs, and takes a few steps to walk around Roy. At least there was some partial truth to it.

"Oh, no, I'll come with you!" Roy says quickly.

"That's okay, you don't have to—"

"I'll come with you," he repeats. "Wallace—I'll text you about some more later, okay?"

"Okay! See you guys!"

"Bye," Kip says, and puts his keys in the door.

Roy and Ben's goodbyes follow, and Kip pushes through to the refuge of the lobby, Roy on his heels.

It's only when they get to their apartment and set down the groceries that Kip realizes he'd grown so flustered and tense that his legs are trembling a little.

—

Kip slowly descends the stairs in his family's home. The continuing thunderstorm makes the lighting soft, dim, and blue. He wonders who else is here—he knows he's not alone.

"Hey, Kip," Wallace says from some other room.

Kip picks his head up and tries to figure out where the quiet voice came from.

"Wallace?" he says.

"It's fine, I'm right here."

"Wallace—"

"I'm here. I'm with you."

He squeezes his eyes closed to try to focus his hearing—he feels himself huddled up in Wallace's arms.

"I'm with you, I'm right here," Wallace repeats, voice now lowered and close.

Kip feels his back being rubbed; it undoes him, he slumps against Wallace's chest and holds on to his shirt.

"I'm here."

Kip stays still, burying his face against Wallace's shoulder, wrapped in softness and warmth.

When he blinks his eyes open, they're lying down under a thick blanket, and he's still in Wallace's embrace. He supposes that Wallace must have moved them here. He wonders if he'd been carried there somehow.

He vaguely remembers what had been happening when Wallace had last comforted him this way.

"Are we—?" he whispers.

"Everything's okay," Wallace murmurs. "You can rest. Don't worry."

"Good," Kip breathes.

After a moment, he moves his arm and slips it around Wallace, resting his elbow on his waist and his hand at the back of his shoulders. He rolls his body towards Wallace so that he's leaning against him, and they lie together.

After a couple of minutes of this, Kip gently pushes Wallace onto his back. Wallace looks up at him with tired eyes and a trace of a smile as Kip reaches out to brush some of his hair back. They stare at each other for a few seconds, and when Wallace starts to blush, Kip leans down and kisses him.

When Kip pulls away, he kisses Wallace's throat, and then rests his head against Wallace's chest again, cuddling closer. Wallace loops his arms around Kip's back. It's so warm and soft and quiet. Kip feels like he could stay here for days.

"Don't worry," Wallace says quietly, bringing a hand up to pet and play with Kip's hair.

"I'm not," Kip mumbles against Wallace's shirt. The small of his back is being scratched lightly by Wallace's other hand. "I like this."

"Good."

Kip stays still when Wallace takes the end of his shirt and drags it a few inches up, then rests his hand there. The meeting of their bare skin is warm; Wallace's hand feels almost hot. He gently rubs a finger back and forth over Kip's spine.

Kip responds by sliding a knee between Wallace's.

It stays like that for a while. Kip has no illusions about the slight eroticism of this intimacy, but he's content staying just like this, with the deeply comforting experience of holding each other, with their bodies so close.

Then Wallace slowly rolls them over so that Kip is lying on his back.

He looks at Kip, smiles softly, touches his chin.

Kip looks back at him, motionless, waiting.

"I have to go," Wallace says.

"Why?" Kip protests at once. It's so peaceful that there can't possibly be anything in the world that needs to be done—there can't possibly be anything worth leaving this.

"You're safe, don't worry."

"I'm not worried—" Kip breathes, just before Wallace kisses him, soft and lingering.

He keeps his eyes closed for several seconds afterwards. When he opens them again, Wallace has gone, and he's now lying on a couch instead of in bed. The rain is vaguely visible through the window in front of him.

Kip stands up, and walks to where the front door should be. In its place is a wide window. Kip opens it up and climbs through.

He's a little ways off the ground—just five feet or so, but it's enough to give him momentary pause before sliding off of the ledge onto the wet grass. He notices for the first time that his feet are bare, and he's only in a pair of boxers and one of Pascal's old hoodies that hangs off his shoulders and engulfs him.

He sticks his hands into his pockets and looks around at the expanse of grassy slopes that stretch in all directions, being swallowed up by trees after a few hundred feet. He circles the house, looking for any signs of anyone else, or any way to get to anything else. After two laps, he sits on the front steps under the overhang of the porch, wrapping his arms around his legs and squinting at the horizon.

He supposes it must be okay, if Wallace had said everything was fine. He wouldn't lie about that.

The rain picks up so that it blurs the scenery around him. It seems too heavy for anyone to travel through—Kip may have to accept he'll be here alone for a while.

Something occurs to him, and he goes back inside through the door he'd overlooked before and starts going through the house, looking for his phone. He quickly finds it on the couch he'd been lying on, but when he turns it on he sees he's gotten no new messages. He sends out a greeting to Pascal anyway, and lies back on the couch.

A moment later, his phone lights up, and then a flood of texts comes in, one after another. He watches them unfolding on the screen until finally they stop and he scrolls to the top and tries to read the first one, and then his dream fades out, and he wakes up.

His first instinct in the haze of his confusion is to check his phone. The light is harsh but he can clearly see he doesn't have an essay's worth of texts—he even double checks. He props himself up on his shoulders, bemused, and looks around his room for a few seconds before it occurs to him that he had been asleep. He heaves a sigh and lowers his head back to his pillow, closes his eyes, and falls asleep again within a minute.

His next dream is somewhat of a continuation of the previous, but is just disjointed and lacks the sense of peacefulness. When he wakes up naturally, some of the imagery stays with him long enough to disappoint him that his unconscious mind is still fully indulging in the idea of intimacy with Wallace.

It had felt so nice.

—

Kip has a few days of long shifts at work where most of what he does when he comes home is to unwind and rest. He'll lie back on the couch with a book and prop his feet up on the other end, he'll take hot showers, he'll have a nap before working on dinner, he'll go out for a walk just for the fresh air and change of scenery, he'll make some hot tea and sit with his laptop to work on some blog posts.

Roy hadn't said anything further to him about the proposed gathering yet. He's a bit relieved not to be pressed to weigh in on it at all, but it doesn't feel nearly so overwhelming now as it did standing on the sidewalk. A slightly awkward evening wouldn't be new, or anything he couldn't handle. None of them would have any reason to want to make anyone else uncomfortable, and there's no way anyone would accidentally bring up the topic of Kip's feelings towards Wallace or be prompted to. There might not be any discussion of anything even vaguely personal at all.

But Ben told him outright that he doesn't want Kip's company. Neither of them can pretend to have forgotten.

He can't see any way he can really do anything about it. He can't really avoid Ben forever, and he has to assume Ben knows that. He tries not to dwell on it—but he can't help coming back to it anyways.

—

Pascal's texts have suggested he's been having a tiring day, so Kip heads over just before closing time to give him some company, so they can just talk in person for a bit, see each other in person. He arrives about tens minutes before the shop closes and gets a genuinely bright smile from Pascal as he steps inside.

"Hello!" Pascal says, brushing some of his hair out of his face. He stands behind a small stack of boxes on the front counter. "It's good to see you."

"You too," Kip says, walking a bit further inside. "It's just always really nice to see you for the first time. Like, in a day, or in a few months, whichever."

"Aw," Pascal laughs, hefting the stack of boxes into his arms. "You're too sweet. Sorry I'm such a mess for your first look, though."

Kip waves it off. Pascal only has somewhat disheveled hair and clothes and is maybe a little sweaty, and if anything it only makes him even more attractive. Kip tells him so, and Pascal laughs again and blushes as he carries the boxes off.

Kip wanders idly around the front, keeping out of the way. Pascal is moving around too much for Kip to have much conversation with him without interrupting his work, but nonetheless he's glad that Pascal seems to be uplifted by his presence alone.

He stands by jars of loose teas—there's many standard, recognizable flavors, but the majority of the shelves are taken up by blends he presumes have all been created by Pascal. Some of the names are straightforward and descriptive, some are more playful, and for a while his attention is held by unscrewing the lids of the tins and inhaling the scent of the teas.

"What do you think?" Pascal asks as he passes by.

"You're great," Kip answers.

Pascal double-checks everything for a few minutes, then comes over to Kip.

"Okay, I've finished up everything work-related for the day," he says, and kisses Kip's cheek. "How's it going here?"

"Not bad," Kip says. "I've just been getting fucked up on a bunch of your tea blends."

"In a good way, I hope," Pascal laughs.

"Seriously, you do have such a talent, Pascal," he says, looking up over his shoulder at him. "I know it's already obvious and I don't need to say it, but, well, I just want you to know that I think that. I mean, I really appreciate how much skill you have, you know? And I know it must take a lot of time and care, too... All of these mixes you've made are such creative combinations, stuff you wouldn't think could be put together, but you come up with it and you just make these blends and they're surprising and they have this balance and all the different smells work together and I bet the taste is just as good and—well, I think you're really great and talented, and it’s really cool is all."

Pascal blushes and smiles as Kip compliments him, and responds with a little shrug.

"I don't think anyone can be cool for making up teas blends," he says.

"I think it's cool" Kip laughs. "But it's not like I'm very cool either."

"Everyone loves you," Pascal says, putting an arm around Kip's shoulders and pulling him a little closer.

"People who don't know me don't count," Kip argues, letting himself lean up against Pascal's side.

"I'm not talking about them," Pascal says, then repeats: "Everyone loves you."

Kip smiles softly.

"Oh! That reminds me—" Pascal reaches up to one of the higher shelves, which Kip hadn't perused as thoroughly yet, and takes down a tin from a row tucked against the righthand wall of the shelf. "I can't believe I'm just now remembering. This is for you."

Kip takes it, bemused, and then sees the name of the blend on the simple label: "For You."

"Oh," he says. "What about it? Is this your favorite?"

"It's for you.”

Kip looks at him blankly.

"I mean, that's not just the name, it's actually a blend I made for you. As in, it's yours."

"Oh—" Kip understands all at once. "Really? I mean...gosh, thank you, I..."

He trails off and carefully unscrews the lid as Pascal speaks.

"Yeah, it was in the first set of blends I came up with... I made it specifically with the thought of what you'd like. I have other ones I bet you'd like, too, but I just wanted to really personalize one for you as much as I could. And I would've named it directly after you if people—especially in this area—wouldn't have recognized it. I don’t know—I know it’s kind of silly I named it after you in any way, and it sounds kind of overly cute or something, but still...it didn’t make sense to me to call it anything else.”

Kip lifts the lid off and draws a long, slow breath of it.

"Oh—" he exhales, and immediately lifts it by his chin to get another, closer smell.

It's incredible—it's a little sweet and a little spicy, filled out with these undertones of fruit, layered and rich but still fresh and light, with so many different scents at play but with none being overwhelmed. Each component seems to simultaneously exist independently of the others and as part of a combination with them, where new elements of each distinct scent are revealed only through contrast with another. And Kip's first thought is simply that Pascal has completely succeeded in making a blend he would love. It's like no other tea he's ever encountered before, but at the same time is deeply familiar and immediately, intensely appealing.

If it tastes as good as it smells, he has a new all-time favorite.

Plus, it helps that it's a painfully sweet gesture. Pascal must have created this when he had no way of knowing that the gift would ever be received by the person it was meant for. He turns and looks at Pascal as though it's that past version of him.

"I love it," he says simply but earnestly. "This is so good and so—and thank you for making this, I can tell you made it for me, I love it, everything in it, I'd love to have it, I—thank you—"

He quickly but carefully screws the top back on the container and sets it down before wrapping his arms around Pascal in a tight hug, pressing his head against his chest.

"That's so sweet, Pasc," he murmurs. "Thank you."

"Aw, I'm glad you like it."

Kip closes his eyes as Pascal's arms loop around his back, too.

"I love you," Pascal says quietly.

Kip squeezes the hug tighter, sliding one hand up between Pascal's shoulderblades. Then he takes half a step back, brings his hands to either side of Pascal's jaw, and guides him into a kiss.

"Have one," Pascal says when they part. "Take one home, I'll buy it when I come in tomorrow. And if you like it, I can just always make you some personally."

"Aw—" Kip quickly presses another kiss to Pascal's lips before he moves out of range again. "Thank you, Pasc, that's so nice of you."

"I love you," Pascal says again.

He picks up the tea and puts it in Kip's hands.

"C'mon, I'll walk you home and you can try it out."

"I was gonna walk YOU home," Kip argues. "You're the one who's just finished all that work. I'm dropping you off first."

"Alright then, I won’t argue."

They go outside and Kip cradles the tea between his ribs and the elbow of one arm as Pascal locks the door behind them, then puts his other arm around Pascal's waist as Pascal rejoins him.

"Let's go."

—

The tea is as good as it smells, and Kip gives Roy and Molly cups of it, too, then immediately texts Pascal to let him know that not only does he love it, but his friends have enjoyed it too.

Pascal thanks him for sending over the praise and says that while it's not exactly his most widely-known blend, a decent number of regulars are devoted to it, saying they've never found anything quite like it anywhere else. And he says that getting such approval from the one the blend is devoted to means he couldn't be prouder of his work.

—

Kip is always eager to see Pascal again, as though they're completely new to dating each other and he's freshly infatuated with the novelty of sharing each other's physical presence with his boyfriend. It comes to mind at any odd time when his thoughts wander, his anticipation when he knows he'll see Pascal soon is such that it can almost set him on edge.

He figures he'll settle down about it in a few weeks. But right now he hasn't quite accepted the reality of their relationship's permanence. He isn't consciously convincing himself otherwise, but he still finds himself struggling to feel like he and Pascal really have years ahead of them. Years and years. Pascal will be with him his whole life, maybe.

That's an incredible thought to have at any time or place.

—

Kip's ready for it when Roy talks to him again about coordinating the get-together of the three of them and Wallace and Ben and, if possible, Pascal and Kate. Maybe even—Roy proposes, getting caught up in his own momentum—Cuddy and Lottie and Evelyn? Maybe they could have a picnic—although that would make it harder to have fancier, more complicated dishes. Their own apartment has the most space. They can figure out the details later, but does he think Pascal can make it?

He tells Roy that Pascal is generally free on the weekends, and only works into the evenings a couple of times during the weekdays. He says it might be trickiest to find a time when he, Molly, Kate, and Cuddy are all off. He reminds Roy of their slightly earlier closing time on Fridays and Saturdays, which could be useful if nobody minds it being a later night than usual—although that could make it more difficult for Cuddy or Lottie to come, unless they're fine with getting a babysitter. He says he hasn't asked Pascal about it yet, but he can eventually. And then he goes to get changed for work.

He's mostly fine with it now. The thought of being around Ben and Wallace isn't really at all intimidating anymore. He has no reason to expect Wallace to do anything, he has no reason to think he won't be able to manage being polite to Ben—they're both usually on the quieter side, there'd be nothing unusual about their interactions anyways. Everyone's an adult. He had simply been a little panicked earlier by the sudden, on-the-spot interaction, so of course he'd been biased to assume that further such meetings would necessarily be as unpleasantly stressful.

But there really couldn't be anything as easy to navigate as a fun group dinner. All he'd have to do was volunteer to do a lot of the cooking, which would relax him and give him a reason to keep a little on the sidelines. And he only has to be on the periphery of conversations anyway—sit off somewhere and listen and laugh as people more talkative than him keep things going. And the more people are present, the easier things will be.

Really, his only concern is that he can't be sure so far ahead of time that he'd be in the right mood or have the energy for socializing. But that's an issue he can manage.

—

Kip bites his lip and presses his ankles together as he stares up at the ceiling.

"Well, part of me had known it could've turned out that way, or else I wouldn't have been quite as nervous when I went to talk to him. So I guess—I wish I had been more aware of that, but the embarrassment would've been there even if I had. But it's good that I know now, and don't have to be wondering about it any longer than I had already been. And I don't think it'll be that hard to move on. Now that I know it won't happen, I figure that as long as I just...keep myself thinking about other things, pretty soon it'll be second nature not to want it anymore."

"It sounds like you really consider it doable," Eno says. "That's good. But I was asking more about your more immediate feelings about it, rather than how you've been reflecting on it."

Kip grows slightly nervous trying to parse what he said.

"I—what do you mean? That IS how I feel about it all," he says finally. "...I guess I wish it was all simpler? Though I know there's really no way it could've been.

"Well—I suppose I mean that you're more telling me your thoughts about dealing with it, but I'm wondering about your initial emotions after you'd first talked to him."

"Oh...well, I..." Kip looks down at his hands as he folds them over his stomach. "I mean, I was kind of as embarrassed as I could possibly be. So that felt really bad, and it took a while to stop being really tense. And I—I was a little sad. I mean, I'd let myself get kind of invested in the thought of what it would be like if we could take things further. So...yeah, I'm sad about it. But at least I didn't really lose anything except some nice thoughts."

"A possibility for you is gone, too."

Kip pinches his bottom lip between his incisors.

"Yes," he says simply.

Eno is quiet.

"I didn't need it, though," Kip continues. "I mean, I wanted it. And if I wasn't with Pascal...things would probably be a lot, lot harder. That—that would’ve been really rough. I'm glad I don't have to find out how hard it would've been. And I wanted to be with both of them. But I guess I just felt that what I needed was to talk to them both about it."

"So you don't think you need anything more out of the situation with Wallace than what you currently have?"

"No," he sighs. "...I wish I could've kissed him first. Just once. But I was never going to have a real chance for that. It would've been really unfair of me if that was how I chose to tell him how I feel," he laughs flatly. "And he wouldn't have kissed me back, and I would've humiliated myself so, so much more—there would never have been a chance."

He turns his head slightly to look over at the wall.

"But where I am is where I always would have ended up with him. And, knowing what I do, there's nothing else I could possibly get from our relationship. I mean, I guess I gained something from this whole thing after all, because when he was telling me he hopes we don't have to avoid each other, he said I matter a lot to him and he feels close to me. So, in a way, that makes things harder and easier at the same time."

"Right," Eno says thoughtfully. "...Did your feelings for Wallace change after finding out you couldn't have the relationship you wanted with him?"

"Not really," he answers quietly. "I mean, they have to be different, because now I know that it won't go anywhere. But I don't hate him for turning me down, or anything. I loved him anyways even before I had that dream about him. I guess, though, that now that I know none of the things I think about could ever be true, the way I think about my feelings for him will have to change. And I suppose over time the feelings themselves will, too."

"Mm. Do you feel like, even knowing what you do now, you still want that relationship? Despite knowing it won't exist?"

Kip exhales and blinks a few times and glances over at Eno.

"I—well, I—" He starts haltingly. "I don't want it in the sense that, with the information I have now, obviously I wouldn't want to be dating Wallace. But...it's like I said. My feelings haven't really changed. When I'm thinking about being with him in an abstract sense, just in my head—yes, I still want that. But now that's just...fantasy. I mean, sure, it was fantasy before as well, of course, but I still thought there was a chance it could be replaced by reality. Now it's—it's still nice to think of, but...bittersweet, at best, and I'd rather not."

There's a pause, and Kip collects himself with a deep breath, lying his hands flat on his stomach, feeling its rise and fall.

He hears Eno softly tap the end of his metal pen against the paper on his desk. Kip bites his tongue as he tries to think of what else to say, holding back the instinct for any attempt at nervous, stumbling, silence-filling chatter.

"Kip," Eno says.

"Uh-huh?" Kip looks at him.

"It's alright for you to be sad about this."

"Oh, I—uh, I know."

"Really, it is. If your feelings about things take a while to catch up with what you're doing, that's okay. It makes a lot of sense for those kinds of thoughts about Wallace to be with you for a while, and for them to make you sad."

Kip shrugs.

"I suppose," he says. "I still have dreams about Wallace every now and then, and in some of them I'm still... In the dreams we're still holding each other, and kissing, and stuff, and...the overall tone is just calm, and intimate. And when I remember them when I wake up, I'll wish I hadn't had them, because so far, when I'm in the dream, it feels really nice. And then I wake up and I remember the actual situation."

"Before you told Wallace, had you been excited about the idea? Did you expect it to go your way more than you thought it might not work out?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did," Kip says quietly. "Or I suppose, when I thought about what could happen if he turned me down, I thought it would take some time. I thought I'd get to leave, and then a few days later he'd say he didn't feel the same way, or whatever. I don't know. It threw me off a lot when he kissed my face when he was saying goodbye. I mean, maybe I was just interpreting it the way I wanted to, but in the moment it really...it felt almost like something out of my head."

"You mean when you'd been thinking of being together?"

"Yeah."

He looks at his shoes.

"He basically said he hadn't meant it in that way, though. I don't know. I think if I didn't like him that way, I would've just laughed it off, but—" he blushes. "It really didn't seem like he was teasing me—I mean, I know he's just—he's always really sweet, but he does joke around with me sometimes too, and that hadn't felt like that. It had felt like he was being serious with me, and—I mean, he held me for a long time, and he had his hands on my waist when he kissed my cheek, and he said I was good-looking, and I swear I thought he might kiss me on the lips—"

His voice is growing a bit rushed, and he knows he's blushing.

"It was so confusing," he says. "It wasn't like it had made me think he for sure was in love with me too or anything like that, but I guess I thought—I thought that maybe, potentially, he might like me too. Or I guess I even thought that maybe if I told him I liked him, he might realize he liked me, and—"

He cuts off suddenly; he feels a twinge if dread in his gut.

"What is it?" Eno asks gently. "Kip?"

"What if..." Kip forces a long exhale and runs a hand back through his hair. "I don't know, what if that really is what happened? What if me telling Wallace how I feel is gonna make him like me back—I mean, I did still get that feeling again when Wallace talked to me in the laundry room, like it was one of those kind of intimate moments when he hugged me and then got nervous while talking about having kissed me, and—and what if I've done actual damage already just by telling him? What if I've caused this huge problem for him, or—or—"

His heart is beating fast as he considers it—Wallace having a latent crush on him, which encourages Kip to express his own crush on Wallace, which makes Wallace aware of his own feelings, which has the potential to strain his relationship with Ben, who must still be taking it slowly and cautiously—he can't imagine that Wallace telling Ben he had feelings for someone else would go the same way as it had between himself and Pascal.

"Kip," Eno says.

"Y—uh, yeah?"

"Stop scaring yourself."

"I'm not, I—I mean, I am, but—"

"Shh. Slow down. Just slow it down for the moment."

Kip nods and bites his lip and tries to rein himself back in.

"It's just like before," Eno says soothingly. "You don't know if that's true, and you can't control it if it is. You can't make it any more or less true by worrying about it."

Kip tries to take it to heart.

"You'll be alright. There's no reason to think anything disastrous will come from this all of a sudden. You can talk things out, and if you're ever uncomfortable with anything, you can give yourself the time and space you need."

Kip presses his lips together and nods.

"Alright?" Eno prompts encouragingly.

"Okay."

Eno smiles at him.

"Why don't we talk about something easier for a bit. Like, how’s it been with Pascal?”

"Wonderful," Kip says without a moment's hesitation. "It's been really amazing."

"Oh?" Eno laughs quietly. "You wanna tell me about it?"

Kip smiles with relief and nods again.

—

"You should come over to our district," Kip says, taking Eno's wrist. "We haven't hung out in too long, and I miss you, and we always meet here. You should check out our crappy side of things again.”

Eno laughs and messes Kip's hair.

"I suppose you're right," he says as Kip swats his hand away. "It's been a while since I went over to C."

"Yeah, it has," Kip says. "I mean, Roy just started planning this whole group dinner thing that's kind of intimidating me, and that should be on a weekend. But it could be something smaller, too. It just ought to be...something."

"It does. I'll have to nail down a few appointments in my schedule still, but you know I always end up with at least one solid day off every week," he says. "And I'd be glad to use it on a visit with you."

Kip grins and looks up at Eno, it's such a familiar thing to do, this small moment repeated throughout his life. And Eno's always had this same smile for him, over and over and over.

—

Kip has a fairly unremarkable evening dealing with the slower dinner hours and the gradual process of closing the café. The worst thing to happen is that his legs grow a little sore towards the end, and during the walk back all he wants is to collapse on the nearest piece of furniture when he gets home and take his weight off his feet for a while.

He takes the front door; he doesn't much worry about avoiding it anymore.

The apartment is quiet but he can tell that Roy and Molly are both around. He heads right to his room to change into comfortable clothes and roll onto his bed, heaving a sigh as he finally relaxes the whole of his body.

He thinks of how soon he'll be spending a weekend with Pascal. Getting to be with him in his home, feeling what that's like.

Always knowing that Pascal is around.

He squeezes his eyes shut. His body feels a little warmer.

—

Once, just a few months after having moved in with Pascal, Kip had been trying to cook a simple meal for everyone, when suddenly he stopped. He stopped cooking, he stopped moving, he just stood there and stared at the countertop.

It had taken entire minutes before he got himself to slowly pick up the carrots and start peeling them again, and he never could speed up. He was just moving along at a lethargic pace, continually falling into pauses where he again just stopped and stared at whatever he had been in the middle of working on.

He'd just had no way to motivate himself through those simple tasks other than weakly nudging himself forward in a long stream of stops and starts. His energy was all but nonexistent, his focus was fuzzy, and it was difficult for him to simply retain coordination long enough to hold on to things or lift slight weights, so that sometimes even small objects fell from his loosened grasp—he just had no drive for even the slightest exertion.

He was glad when he could set an egg timer for fifteen minutes and deposit himself in a chair, staring down at the tabletop.

He had finally managed to draw himself out of it again, simply pushing himself back into the flow of routine and then letting himself withdraw again when he was done with the meal.

The sudden loss of all motivation for even the easiest tasks had been nothing new to him at that point. Sometimes it struck him in the middle of walking across a room and there would be a lengthy hesitation between one step and the next. Sometimes it hit him while sitting up in bed; he'd weakly push himself partway up on his elbows, stop, and then sink back to the mattress.

To have been able to get through cooking at all was a noticeable advancement from the weeks he'd often had trouble getting out of bed.

Later on, Pascal had held him. He'd just taken Kip in his arms in their bed and let him lie there, unmoving, unspeaking. Kip rested his head against Pascal's chest and stared at the corner of the room. But he was warm, and he was safe.

—

One night they have Kate over to their apartment to hang out and watch a movie together and they order a couple of pizzas; when it arrives, Kip volunteers to go down to the lobby to bring it up.

He's occupied by greeting the deliverer and signing the receipt and passing over the tip and so it's not until he turns around, boxes stacked in his arms, that he sees Ben coming down the sidewalk with a few plastic bags in each hand.

He blushes and leans over the boxes as he hugs them to his chest, digging his keys out of his back pocket.

"Hey," he acknowledges as Ben nears him. He raises his thigh to support the boxes as he manages to get the key in the lock. "Here, I've got it," he murmurs.

"I can—" Ben cuts off as Kip pulls the door open and holds it open with his foot.

They make eye contact, and it's nothing remarkable. No anger, no bitterness, not even that wearied, almost strained look that had so worn at Kip. Just a glance.

"Thanks," Ben says quietly as he maneuvers his bags through the doorway.

"You're welcome." Kip spends just a couple of seconds needlessly readjusting the boxes in his arms so that he's not right on Ben's heels when he follows him inside.

He takes another moment to carefully guide the door shut behind him as well, giving them an even more comfortable cushion of space between each other.

Ben walks towards his apartment door, and Kip turns and walks down the hall towards a stairwell.

Maybe it's as easy as this.

—

Kip wakes up out of a sound sleep, and already he can't remember any details of what he had just been dreaming, but he at least remembers that it was about his family. They had been in it with him. He feels sad, too quietly and deeply sad to cry. He isn't afraid, though—it hadn't been a nightmare where he struggles and ultimately fails to save them from a fire or some other danger, or where he searches urgently for them in hostile surroundings until he catches sight of them just as he's dragged away to be consumed. Not even like the ones where he chased distant glimpses of them down labyrinthine hallways and connected rooms.

This had been peaceful, and sad. He thinks he had been talking with them; that's a truly rare occurrence in his dreams. It hurts that he can't remember what might've been said. He knows it wouldn't have been real, but to have even tiny moments, even just inside dreams, where he gets to genuinely believe he's with his family again—it gives him little floods of undiluted feelings which, when he's awake, would always have to be layered with his grief.

What had been said? How had he felt? What did they look like, what did they do? He has the sense that he can almost remember some parts of it, but when he tries to focus on those flickers of imagery, they feel even further away from him. He sighs and lets it go.

But he can't stop thinking about them now. He's tired, so his thoughts quickly become fuzzy and drifting, but he knows that there's no guarantee he'll dream of them again tonight—he almost surely won't.

The only hopes he ever has for his dreams are that they aren't nightmares.

—

"So remember how I taught myself to knit?" Molly asks as she sits down on the couch and slips her shoes on.

"Yeah?" Kip lowers the screen of his laptop.

"Well, I'm not great at it yet, but I'm making Pascal a scarf. I should be done with it soon."

"Really? I mean, I'm dropping by to see him later this evening, so..."

"I mean 'soon' as in a couple more weeks maybe, not today. Especially since I'm leaving to hang out with Kate?"

"Oh, right, yeah." He leans back in his chair. "Sorry, I've been kind of out of it... Is it a surprise or should I tell him for the sake of suspense?"

"Better leave it a surprise in case it takes longer to finish than I thought. But I think it looks pretty good, I picked out a great color."

"Well, you've got a while before it gets cold out again. But I bet he'll love it."

She laughs lightly and stands up, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder.

"Just say hi to him for me when you see him, okay?"

"No problem."

When he's alone again, he turns his focus back to the document he's typing up, but he keeps glancing at the time and thinking how he's going to leave to see Pascal in less than an hour. It's only been a couple of days since they were last in the same place, and there's only a couple more before he'll be with him at his apartment. But he's kind of extra impatient for this one. He's been stressing more about Wallace and kind of lonely.

His sentences come haltingly from then on; he keeps looking at his phone. He saves his work and closes his laptop about twenty minutes before he has to leave, changing into a roomy sweater and walking shoes.

He texts Pascal to ask if he wants him to bring him anything; Pascal answers minutes later that just bringing himself is more than enough.

—

Kip is in the mood for being kissed a lot, he keeps going back for another and another and another. Pascal starts laughing quietly.

"Are you okay?" he asks Kip, smiling at him and rubbing his back.

"Yes. ...I don't know. I mean, I am. I just—it's just rough only seeing you for a little bit every couple of days."

Pascal's expression shifts.

"I know," he says quietly. "We used to live together, and all—"

"Right?" Kip says. He slides his hands down Pascal's arms and sighs. "I mean, I knew we weren't just going to be stepping back into the exact way things were in D. But I'm still used to being together at home. Sleeping in the same bed, and everything.”

Pascal kisses him again, lingering and warm. Kip opens his eyes slowly when they part.

"We'll figure it out together," Pascal murmurs to him.

Kip nods and leans in to hug Pascal, resting his head on his chest, sliding his arms beneath Pascal's to encircle his waist. He can feel the movement of Pascal's breathing, when he presses his head a little closer he can feel his heartbeat.

"We might be having a group dinner thing in a week or so," he mumbles, eyes closed. "Nothing's set yet but Roy's been pretty into it for a few days. It'd probably be me and Roy and Molly and Ben and Wallace, and maybe Kate and Eno and Lottie and Cuddy. Probably anybody who can be convinced to show up."

"...Wow," Pascal says softly.

"Yeah. I figure I'll volunteer to cook a lot and deal with food, so I'll have an excuse to be by myself for a minute if I'm not feeling super social that day."

"Do you want me to come?" Pascal asks. "I mean, it sounds like it could be fun. But if you'd rather there be less people, I can wait it out, no problem."

"No, it would be fine if you came. You're more fun than I am, you could kind of...represent me, and hang out with everyone whenever I wanna hide in a kitchen drawer and distract anyone from noticing I'm gone. Plus, it's always nicer and more relaxing for me to know you're around. And I know you like to see everybody. I wouldn't ask you to stay away from that unless I had a really, really good reason."

"I'm not more fun than you," Pascal laughs.

"You definitely are—I mean, for sure in bigger groups," Kip argues. "And on average. And overall, yeah, you definitely are."

"Well, I know you're a lot of fun. I won’t be convinced otherwise." Pascal drops a kiss onto the top of Kip's head.

Kip sighs contentedly and loosens the embrace.

"...I really don't like that I still like Wallace," he says quietly, looking at Pascal's shirt. "I feel kind of...bad."

"Oh," Pascal breathes. He gently brushes his armtip along the back of Kip's ear. "I'm sorry. I don't know anything really useful to tell you...I mean, the last time I had to get over someone, it was just a one-way crush a couple of years before I met you. It sucked, but...but it wasn't really someone I'd had the chance to get that close to."

"Aw," Kip giggles and cups Pascal's jaw. "Poor little guy."

"It was always fine," Pascal says. "Even back then, nothing was that difficult. I had a pretty quiet dating life before I met you."

"Yeah, because dating me is such a tumultuous adventure of passion," Kip jokes.

"It was different being with you because I'd fell in love in a way I never had before," Pascal says.

"Stop it—" Kip blushes and smiles. "I did too. But stop."

"Fine." Pascal pulls Kip against himself and rests his chin atop Kip's head.

Kip has to relax in the embrace; he always does.

"I do wish I knew anything that could make it easier for you, though," Pascal says quietly.

Kip exhales a laugh.

"It's alright," he says. "It's just really frustrating."

Pascal strokes his back soothingly.

"He's just so damn friendly to everyone all the time," Kip says with bitter humor. "And we've gotten so much closer since we met, he's just always been really warm to me—and of course that makes it so much harder now."

He sighs heavily.

"I'm just...I'm upset with myself for liking him in the first place. I mean, honestly, what right did I think I had? I even told myself that of course I'd feel that way towards him, but he's so nice to everyone that...that I shouldn't just..."

He pushes his forehead to Pascal's sternum—partly out of frustration, but mostly due the surprise of feeling a few tears spring up.

He hasn't ever cried over this. He didn't think he was going to. Why would he do so now, when he's enjoying being with Pascal, feeling decent until just moments ago—

He hasn't even known he's ever been holding this back.

In a matter of seconds it's obvious what's happening—his face is hot, his throat is tight, his shoulders are rigid, the tears pool too deeply and spill over the crest of his eyelashes and he has to draw an audible sniff. The tiniest crack in the dam, and all at once the whole thing is toppling.

"Oh," Pascal sighs, and slides an arm up to hold him between the shoulderblades, along the back of his neck, cupping the back of his head. "Oh, sunflower..."

Kip gives a hoarse laugh.

"I haven't heard that in a while," he mumbles. His shoulders begin to tremble and he sniffs loudly again.

Pascal kisses his hair and tightens the arm around Kip's back.

There's no better place he could possibly do this than wrapped in Pascal's arms, held against his warm body. With a long, tremulous exhale, Kip decides to let himself think of Wallace and let himself cry. Over how strongly he feels for Wallace, how real his love seems and how much that hurts, how hard it is to avoid agonizing over these feelings, how badly he's humiliated himself, how confused he is, how much he wishes his desire to stop having these feelings would actually do anything to help bring them to an end.

Pascal holds him patiently as he cries, slowly petting his back, kissing the top and side of his head.

"I'm sorry," Pascal murmurs after a faint sob breaks from Kip. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay—" Kip's voice is gravelly.

Pascal squeezes him closer and rests his forehead against the top of Kip's.

After a few minutes, Kip feels like he's mostly cried it out for now—his tears are slowing, it's easier for him to draw steady breaths. He closes his eyes and rests the side of his face against Pascal and breathes more evenly. Pascal slowly rubs his arm up and down his lower back.

"Thank you," he murmurs once his voice steadies. "I'm sorry. I really wasn't expecting to actually start crying."

"It's fine, babe. There's nothing for you to apologize for." Pascal straightens up to look down at him. "And it's nice getting to hold you like this, and...I'm always really glad to be here for you."

Kip smiles softly. Pascal leans him back to press a kiss to his tearstained cheek.

"I wish I had any advice to give you," Pascal says. "But I'm always here whenever you want someone to talk to about anything, or just to be with when you feel bad."

"Thank you," Kip repeats quietly. "Thank you, I really mean it. You help so much."

"I'm glad I can." Pascal puts such gently passionate sincerity into the words that Kip rises up onto his toes and kisses his jaw.

"Is there something I can wipe my face off with?" Kip asks. "Because I'd like to kiss your mouth again."

Pascal smiles.

—

Despite knowing that neither Molly or Roy will be back for another couple of hours, Kip is a little on edge—though he'd be way moreso if either of them was here. He sets the heavy pot of water on the stove and turns the burner on, then waits patiently until tiny bubbles form on the bottom and start rising in threads to the surface. Then he picks up the dildo and carefully submerges it in the water.

He paces around as he gives it a few minutes to boil. He knows that nobody's in the next room, that nobody's about to burst in through the door, that, even if they did, nobody's initial priority would be to stride over and see what he's got on the stove, that anyone who did know what he was doing wouldn't laugh him out of the district anyways. It all just flusters him regardless, which he knows is what always makes things about eight times worse for himself.

But nothing at all goes wrong as he turns off the burner, carefully lifts the dildo from the water, pats it dry, and brings it back to his room. He touches his door to his wall, takes a few steadying breaths, and touches the end of the dildo to his lips. It's still warm. He closes his eyes.

He sits on the very edge of his bed, gets used to just holding the first couple of inches in the front of his mouth, then starts easing it slowly in and out, keeping his teeth off of it, pushing it in a little further every few pumps. It definitely feels like it's still muscle memory for him—he doesn't have to consciously remind himself to rub it with his tongue or suck as he pulls it out.

After a minute or so he feels confident enough to push it further back in his mouth; he holds the muscles of his throat open and carefully takes it in millimeter by millimeter, ready to pull it back out at a moment's notice.

There's a few times he has to pause, trying to err on the side of caution, but he keeps his throat from reflexively tightening. The base of the dildo is drawing closer and closer to his lips. And somehow it just gets easier until he's taken in its full length and it all feels like he's been doing this every week for the whole year, like it was only yesterday that deepthroating Pascal was a familiar activity for him.

He holds it there for a few seconds, absorbing the feeling. And then he very slowly slides it out an inch, very slowly pushes it back in. He gradually increases the length of the simulated thrusts and the speed of them until, in no time at all, he's mimicking fairly rapid bucking and taking it with no problem at all.

The main issue coming up is that his simulation of blowing Pascal is going so smoothly that he's already getting fairly aroused. He withdraws the dildo completely, giving his jaw a welcome break as he opens his belt and fly and shimmies out of his jeans, letting them fall in a heap on the floor. He climbs onto his mattress, kneels with his legs slightly open, and puts a pillow between his thighs. The pressure is sorely needed relief; he grinds hard against the pillow for a few seconds before stilling himself a bit to focus on the task of taking a dick down his throat.

He rocks the dildo like he's letting Pascal fuck his mouth, he holds it steady like he's pinning Pascal's hips and lets himself move his head forward and back along its length, he sucks, he swallows, he holds the base in his hand, massaging in place with his fingers or pumping slightly up and down as he concentrates on licking the head. He flicks his tongue at the very tip, presses his tongue flat up against the head and gives hard sucks, and nudges it against the end while rolled and then flattens it out as he pushes it down the underside—he used to undo Pascal so beautifully by repeating that trick a few times in a row. He humps the pillow steadily the whole time.

After a minute or two of again pushing the end of the dildo down his throat, again sliding it back and forth like it's being thrusted in, again holding it in as far as it can go while he swallows around it, he convinces himself he's adequately prepared for the real thing. He slips the dildo out, drawing a few unobstructed gasps, and wipes some spit from the corners of his mouth. Then he leans in and stands the dildo on his bedside table, rolls off the pillow onto his side and then his back, and shoves his underwear down to join his pants on the floor.

He knows he's just given the dildo a fair amount of lubrication, but he's too far along to tolerate slowing down enough to work it inside himself—he just digs one hand into the sheets and jerks off with the other.

Within seconds, his hips are rolling forcefully into his rhythm—his head falls to the side, he allows himself soft moans and sighs and whimpers of Pascal's name. He slides his hand up into his shirt, he thumbs his nipple, he strips the shirt off and winds his fingers into his own hair and tugs.

"Pascal—"

He imagines begging Pascal to make him cum.

"Pasc, please—"

He thinks of Pascal biting on his lip in the middle of a messy kiss; he draws a sharp gasp and pumps himself hard until he's right on the edge, then blessedly falls over it.

Once he feels like moving again, he sits up and touches his lip, grimacing slightly when he feels where he nipped at it a little too hard. He raises his arms and arches his back in a luxurious stretch, then slides out of bed to work on making himself presentable again.

He washes the dildo again, this time with soap and warm water, and applies some lemon-scented balm to his bottom lip. He cleans his mess off his torso and brushes his hair into place and slides his clothes back on.

Once again he's slowly pacing the kitchen, waiting for some water to boil. When the kettle starts to steam, he pours it into his cup, gives it half a minute to cool, and submerges his tea leaves. A few minutes later, he adds in a spoonful of honey for good measure, and carefully tips some down his throat.

—

Kip is up early for work, trying to shake off his lingering sleepiness as he trots down the stairs. He stifles a yawn as he opens the door into the first floor hallway, promising himself he can nap when he gets home.

"Oh, hey."

The jolt of surprise wakes him up like a slap to the face.

He turns around and sees, like an inversion of their previous meeting, Wallace coming out of the laundry room with a green basket in one arm. His voice had been quiet and rough and his hair is messy and he's clearly in pajamas and generally looks like he's barely just awake and Kip's feeling his own face flood with heat. Even this—even without Wallace drawing nearer to him in space or through words—even just seeing what Wallace looks like just out of bed on a random Thursday—it's making his heart skip and take off at a run.

"Oh—" Wallace seems to process Kip's slight bewilderment. "I forgot my laundry in the dryer last evening...I figured I should get it out of the way..."

"...Right," Kip says weakly, trying not to stare anymore. "Um. I'm up to go to work. Still kind of tired though, so...that sucks.”

"Oh man, I shouldn't rub it in then that I'm just gonna go right back to bed after this," Wallace laughs.

Oh god, climbing into bed with Wallace looking like this and kissing him and cuddling up for warmth as they drift back off to sleep—

"I'm kind of jealous," Kip allows, nervously and pointlessly brushing back a piece of his hair as though that will adequately distract Wallace from his fluorescent blush. As inadvertently tactless and clueless as Wallace can sometimes be, the guy must really be half-asleep if he has no idea at all what he's doing to Kip right now.

"What time do you work until? I might come by later." Wallace rubs his eyes as he speaks.

"Uh—until, uh, two."

"Yeah? Two?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'll try to remember." Wallace laughs softly again. "See you later?"

"Sure," Kip says, giving a little smile and trying to not give in to the pressure to run away, instead turning slowly and taking steady strides like someone with much more confidence and coordination.

Why does Wallace do this to him?

Wallace isn’t really outright handsome, he's not the only person in the world who's kind and outgoing and earnest—just because they've formed this unique relationship with each other—just because, despite possibly being the only person in the district who'd known nothing about who Kip was, Wallace had cared about him anyways, treated him like someone who mattered anyways, like he was interesting anyways, like he deserved respect anyways, like he should be protected anyways—like he was simply good to be around at face value.

Maybe if he didn't find Wallace's treatment so flattering, he would have an easier time letting go of this. Or maybe it's not that he's flattered, it's just that it's nice.

It would have to help if he wasn't running into Wallace in this hallway or at the front door or his own apartment or anywhere he didn't have a minute or two of warning beforehand.

He really feels like there's some simple element buried here somewhere, some ridiculous false assumption he's still holding on to, and all he has to do is realize it and get rid of it and this whole issue will unravel all at once and drift away.

He doesn't want to cry over this again, or pine over Wallace, or feel like he's been shaken up and knocked off balance just by Wallace being his usual good-natured self, or simply looking a bit disheveled, or not treating Kip with distance and formality—

He throws himself into the distraction of work so aggressively that he has to deliberately slow himself down.

—

Wallace does come by as he said he might, and Kip is surprised to see Charlie following on his heels—it's the first time he's seen him in a good while, and the first time he's ever seen him in the café.

Kip slowly moves to the counter beside the register as the pair approach. Wallace looks cheerful as usual and he says something to Charlie, who also seems to have his usual demeanor—quiet and nervously shy, but Kip is glad to see he seems more relaxed than stressed or afraid.

"Hey," Kip says to Wallace, nodding at him with a slight smile. Then he focuses his attention on Charlie, but softens. "Hey, Charlie. How've you been doing?"

"I've...been okay," he answers, glancing away a few times before finally looking back at Kip. "...You work here?" he asks with a slight tone of disbelief.

"Yeah." Kip smiles. "I'm kind of...a bunch of things here, I guess. I open and close and take orders, make drinks, bring food to people, do trash and dishes, keep things clean and stocked and everything..." He counts things off on his fingers. "Pretty much just the sort of stuff that keeps everything running day-to-day. Nothing too special."

"Oh," Charlie says quietly, fidgeting with the sleeve of his hoodie. "I thought you'd be...more like... I thought you wrote?" he finishes somewhat helplessly.

"Oh—yeah, just in my free time," Kip says. "This is the only thing I get paid for."

"Heh—that's cool." Charlie shrugs and smiles slightly.

"So you brought him over here and didn't mention I'd be here?" Kip asks Wallace, hoping the playfulness in his tone is coming off more knuckles-on-the-chin than flirtatious.

"Well—" Wallace laughs. "I said you'd be here, but I don't think I said you were working..."

"Nice."

"I had gone by Pascal's shop—"

Kip's breath catches.

"And Charlie was there to see Louise, and we were all talking for a bit, and I said I was going to come by here for a coffee, and Charlie said he'd never been, so here we are! I couldn't let him keep missing out on this essential fixture of the area."

Kip scoffs.

"Sure," he says. "Charlie, this'll change your life."

But he's blushing a little; his mind is on the fact that Wallace probably saw Pascal, and went there on purpose, and they both knew about the other and knew that the other knew about them—Kip wishes he could've been a fly on the wall, mostly to see how comfortable Pascal was about it all.

And then there's the fact that Wallace had decided to deliberately visit Pascal. He may be trying to make this easier for all of them—he must really care about all this. He's putting in this extra effort when he isn't even obligated to do a single thing.

Kip has to be able to return this effort—at the very least, when he and Wallace are actually interacting.

He catches Wallace's eye and gives him a soft but genuine smile, and sees Wallace's expression light up a little in return.

A few minutes later Kip is putting the finishing touches on both their drinks; out of the corner of his eye he sees Charlie approach the counter, but he doesn't glance over. He takes his time while sealing lids over the drinks and putting the cups into sleeves. He carries them over to Charlie.

"You're really okay?" Kip murmurs as he sets the cups down. "Well...I'm sorry, it's not exactly my place to ask you for any detailed answer. It's just..."

"It's okay," Charlie says quietly.

Kip looks at him.

"I'm doing fine. Some days are better than others, but I feel okay. For the first time in a really long time. I don't think I'll ever be my old self, but...this is pretty nice."

"...Yeah. It’s always gonna be different than it was, but it can still be okay.”

"Hey, can I ask you something, too?" Charlie's tone suddenly sounds much more conversational. Kip meets his gaze, somewhat surprised.

"Huh? Or—uh—sure, I mean, that's fine."

"I was wondering if you...um...still go to...you know, have appointments? Or..."

"Do I still go to therapy? Yes," Kip says, giving him a small smile. "I have for years."

"Oh—wow—" Charlie breathes a light laugh. "That's cool. I mean, I'm still going, too..." He rubs his arm and glances downwards.

"Yeah, I mean, a lot of people think that therapy has to be a huge deal, or you only go when there's a crisis or something, but honestly? You can go just because you like it, or because you want to preempt issues by working things out or understanding them better. Really, whatever you get out of it is fine—if you feel like you're done with it, it's okay to stop, and it's okay to pick it back up if you change your mind, or it's okay to just keep going, like I do. For me, I've just found myself dealing with both new developments and old problems, a whole mix of things big and small, and I've always liked knowing I had another appointment in the next week or two. And it's just good practice for me to talk about things openly. I can get a little too quiet sometimes, even around people I trust. Being in therapy doesn’t automatically mean your life’s a mess, you know? Really it means that at least things are going well enough to willingly face and discuss your issues on a regular basis.”

Charlie looks back up at him; Kip gives him another faint smile.

"Thanks," Charlie says, and picks up the coffees.

"That's yours on your left," Kip says. "And you’re welcome."

He watches Charlie walk back over to Wallace and pass him his drink; they speak to each other for a moment and the tone of the conversation is friendly and light.

The way that Wallace has clearly managed to win over not only Charlie's trust but his comfort as well is deeply appealing. Despite the inherently flawed approach he had when he first came to C, his earnestness—and likely moreso his surprising level of stubbornness—had made him actually begin to find success in reaching anyone. Plus, it helped that he had enough humility to weather a decent number of passionate chastisements from Kip, in which he'd laid into Wallace with an emotional ferocity when the human's clumsy attempts to break down a barrier ended up feeling like hurtful intrusions, even inadvertent insults, that could only be made due to ignorance, lack of respect, completely misguided assumptions—Kip hadn't always lost his temper with him, sometimes he just lectured him firmly but coldly. But somehow Wallace was able to ignore his pride enough to actually listen to what Kip was telling him, no matter if Kip was in tears or enraged or icily calm as he tried to shut it out. And he always seemed to take it to heart—he never made quite the same mistake twice.

Maybe the same naïveté that had led Wallace to make serious mistakes and violate sensitive boundaries and even invoke implicit insults was somehow one of his advantages. He'd come from A, after all, but his biases against monsters were clearly more a matter of ignorance than of anything he'd been taught openly and directly. He'd clearly always been a humble, well-meaning person, and once he started to learn how much he didn't know and how wrong so much of what he did know really was, he became a lot more inclined to listen and to force himself to stop assuming he really knew anything about monsters. And this change happened impressively quickly—a huge number of humans from any of the districts, much less A, might never have been able to learn this simple lesson at all, say nothing of under a year.

"Okay, we're heading out, Kip, good to see you!" Wallace says brightly, waving as they turn towards the door—Charlie smiles and lifts a hand towards Kip as well.

"Bye," Kip says, waving back. He watches them go.

There's just something about him. Several times over.

—

Kip doesn't usually write out notes on paper, preferring the ability to edit and move text as freely as he can with his laptop or his phone, but he's willing to use a different medium when he's sitting on a park bench. He'd kind of felt like getting out of the apartment, and the weather was so nice, and a walk of middling length over to the park had seemed appealing.

It's the perfect level of quiet sounds all around to help him focus on his writing, though he doesn't mind letting his attention wander to things like people walking by in the distance and tree leaves waving in a breeze.

When he gets a text from Molly that mentions she's out, he lets her know that he's actually already out of the apartment too, and a minute later she's said she's heading over to where he is, just sit tight. He puts his pad of paper back into his bag and leans back, looking up at the skyline.

Molly joins him in a little over five minutes, sitting down next to him to rest and telling him a bit about how her day and her week is going. She talks about how her sandals are comfortable, and she wishes every day was as nice out as today is, and she's glad to see that Kip's enjoying himself outside as well, because he always seems a bit relaxed by getting some fresh air.

Kip invites her along on his walk to see Pascal at work—it's one of the couple of days Louise has the closing shift, and Pascal is done mid-afternoon. They set off at a leisurely pace—it's so nice out, and the shop isn't far, and it's another fifteen minutes or so before Pascal's shift will be over. On something of a whim, he tells Molly about the time he accidentally found himself taking the route back to his family's home out of habitual memory, and she takes his hand for a moment in a gentle hold.

He figures she knows he's still never gone back to that spot. Where the house had once been. He doesn't have to say that he still doesn't feel ready for anything like that, and he's not sure if he ever will.

Pascal's shop is a nice distance away from that address, but at least he's made some progress in no longer having a knee-jerk burst of anxiety at the very name of the street it's on. He doesn't even mind so much anymore the turned heads and double-takes and murmurations of his name that are way more common here than in the area of their own apartment. He can just ignore it. And maybe he's the one getting more used to it, but it seems like people are getting more used to him.

Pascal greets them warmly just seconds after they enter the shop; Kip brings up how he'd seen Wallace and Charlie the other day and they'd said they'd come over to the café from here, which Pascal confirms and Louise seconds from behind the counter. Molly asks Pascal if he can remember if there's any of his blends she hasn't tried yet—it still makes Kip blush to remember that she and Roy have a significant head start on him when it comes to frequenting his own boyfriend's store.

Pascal walks out with them and immediately comments on the nice weather too, saying it's even better than it had felt when the front door was opened for a few seconds. They go back to the park with him and sit on the same bench and talk—Kip puts his knee against Pascal's in lieu of holding his arm.

Pascal admits to having a few errands to run when they ask if he wants to go back to their apartment for a while, so Kip tells him he'll text before coming over tomorrow and kisses him briefly. Molly gives him a tight hug.

Back at their own apartment, Molly asks Kip if he's nervous about spending the weekend at Pascal's, and for once he can say that he's actually completely fine.

—

Roy is the only one still up as Kip types his writing into a document on his laptop. He sits on the couch in silence as Kip works, so quietly that Kip assumes he must be reading something until Kip glances over to see that he's not—he's just looking off thoughtfully at the wall.

Kip blushes and tries to finish up more quickly so his attention isn't taken up by this any longer—he can't really talk or listen and type something else out at the same time. But Roy seems content that they're just sharing the room.

"Hey, are you okay?" Kip asks quietly as he's glancing through the pages, checking that he got everything down.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I am, thanks—" Roy laughs.

"You're really quiet," Kip observes.

"Haha, yeah, I guess I am... I was just wanting to ask how you were, too, actually."

"Yeah? Do I seem sad?" Kip smiles over at him briefly and folds the screen of his laptop closed.

"No, but I just wanted to ask anyways..." Roy's voice fades and he seems a bit embarrassed.

"Oh, that's okay," Kip says quickly. "I'm fine, I'm doing alright. I'm...probably doing better than I've been for a while, you know?"

"Aw, Kip, that's great!" Roy perks up again at once. "Gosh, I'm so glad to here that..."

"Yeah," Kip laughs lightly. He stretches his back against the chair. "It's pretty nice."

"Are you happy, do you think?" Roy asks. "I mean, do you feel like you're happy in general and all?"

"Jeez, Roy—" Kip laughs a bit more nervously and blushes again. "That's a big question—"

Roy just gives him a smile.

"I...I mean, I really don't know, Roy," he says helplessly, gesturing vaguely with one hand. "It still feels like a lot of things are only just starting to settle. I just don't know."

"No, that makes sense," Roy says, his voice full of support. "So much has happened that it makes sense if it's gonna take a while to feel like all our lives are in order again."

"Yeah..."

"Does it feel to you, though, like where you are right now is where you want to be? Like, is it a place you're happy with?"

Kip hides his face in his hands as he blushes harder and laughs.

"Oh my god, um...I guess? I really don't know how to answer, I'm sorry. It's just—"

He sighs and looks down at the table, wrapping his arms across his front.

"I don't know, Roy... It's been a long time since I really thought about stuff like that. I don't know when I'll be able to kind of...put things in that perspective again."

"You don't know how to tell if you're happy?" Roy sounds quietly crushed.

"Oh, Roy..." Kip gives him a slightly strained smile and walks over to sit down beside him on the couch. "It's not that I'm unhappy. And I know plenty of stuff that makes me happy, like being around everybody I care about, and knowing you're all safe... I just—I'm not totally sure all of what I want out of everything. Maybe I just...have to kind of go along and see what happens instead of trying to point things in any particular direction. Because right now I don't really—I don't know what I'd like to be doing in the future, you know?"

"Oh..." Roy pulls Kip sideways into a hug. "I just really want things to be as great as they can be, Kip."

"I know—" Kip laughs breathlessly, putting a hand on Roy's side in an attempt to return the embrace. "Don't worry. I'm doing fine."

"That's good." Roy pulls back and looks down at him with some concern.

"C'mon—Roy, I'm fine."

"You are?"

"Yes!" Kip nudges Roy's shoulder with his fist in an attempt to be playful.

"Sorry—" Roy laughs. "It's just, me and Molly talk all the time, so we always know how we're doing, but...you know...you can be quieter than us sometimes."

"I mean, you can tell how I'm doing without my saying anything," Kip says. "I don't always ask you guys how you are to know if you're okay, because I can, uh... But, well, I guess maybe I should ask more often so that you know I'm thinking about it..." He trails off, embarrassed.

"It's different with you," Roy argues. "I mean, you know you...sometimes don't always show it when you're having a hard time."

Kip blushes.

"You guys do that too," he says quietly. "Just in a different way."

They're silent for a moment.

"Thank you for caring about me so much," Kip says. "Thank you for saying this kind of stuff and going out of your way to talk to me. It's really nice...and I aways appreciate it.”

"Aw—" All at once, Roy's hugging him again. "Of course you're welcome, Kip, I love you."

He squeezes the hug tighter.

"I love you, too."

Roy buries his face in Kip's hair; Kip laughs.

"Oh—" Kip twists around to face Roy. "Did Molly ever tell you I was trying to coerce her into believing that you guys should like, take a trip somewhere, or something? Just take a little break just for a few days, or a week, or whatever you want. You know, because I want to get rid of you."

Roy giggles.

"Yeah, she did mention it," he says cheerfully. "And I like the idea—although, you know, you should really think about doing the same thing."

Kip shrugs.

"I kind of like keeping my routine for now," he says. "But I'll probably look into it too at some point soon."

"Good," Roy says. "Molly said she really didn't have any ideas about where she might want to go, but I was kind of thinking about this place in D that was about half an hour from where we lived? I remember there was some bed and breakfasts out there in this really beautiful place—I mean, there isn't much out there, but there was hills and trees and flowers and open skies and I just remember it seemed really beautiful and peaceful..."

Kip watches Roy's face as he describes it.

"You should go," Kip says. "It sounds really nice."

"It is." Roy looks over at him with a smile. "I was thinking maybe we could go in a month or two. You know, we'll figure it out."

"Yeah."

"Speaking of getting rid of us, do you want to move in with Pascal?"

"What?" Kip sits up sharply.

"Oh—sorry if I shouldn't ask, I was just wondering if you already knew if you wanted to live with him..."

"I—I don't already know," Kip says. "I mean, I'm sure eventually we'll be living together again, but...I don't know, it still feels too soon for me to be thinking about that too seriously."

"Okay, that's fine!" Roy says. "I just wanted to ask."

"I mean—" Kip huffs a laugh. "I've been with you guys pretty much every day for like, six years now..."

"I know, but we were with Pascal for five of those. Plus, I mean, he lives super close by now..."

"Jeez, Roy!" Kip repeats, laughing quietly. "See, now I think you're the one who wants to get rid of me, not the other way around."

"Never." Roy sweeps Kip into the biggest hug yet, and for a minute Kip gets caught up in his own laughter.

—

Kip gets a bit on edge as the end of his shift approaches. Still, he feels like he's holding himself down well, considering that just seconds after he'd woken up his heart leapt as he remembered what day it was.

Kate is taking advantage of this opportunity to tease him, considering how much of a goldmine it is and how he's way too preoccupied to mind it.

"How are you gonna show up for your shift on Sunday if you'll be busy with your fuckfest all weekend?" she whispers to him in the back.

"Shut up," he says reproachfully. "I'm still coming in."

"I wish I could be here to see that." Kate shakes her head. "Good luck getting out of bed to drag yourself over here. Maybe I'll actually come by on my day off just to see how you're holding up."

"No, you won't."

"I will if I want to."

"Oh my god..."

She laughs and he stalks off back to the front of the store.

"Seriously, I'm happy for you, though," she says later as he tries to focus on stacking up used dishes. "You've been way behind on this for ages now. It must've been shitty."

It was, but he's not going to encourage her by giving actual answers.

And then she simply starts giving him updates on how much longer he has in his shift every half hour or so, which is actually kind of helpful as it keeps him from checking the time on his phone every two minutes.

The last hour is the worst, especially since business slows down; he spends the last twenty minutes or so essentially pacing around as he desperately searches for little tasks to take up another thirty seconds.

He's just handed a drink to a customer when Kate taps him on the shoulder and tells him he's finally reached the end of the hour.

"Oh god." His blush and his nerves both flare up. "You don't need me to do anything else before I go?"

She smirks at him and shakes her head.

His hands are actually shaking slightly by the time he clocks out and unties his apron in the back, picking up his keys from the basket he likes to keep them in. It's been forever since he's been so completely eagerly excited for something.

"I'll see you later," he says as Kate comes by.

"Get out of here, you horny bastard." She winks at him and smacks his hip and he only just manages to keep his sharp cry of surprise from being a loud swear. Kate bursts out into genuine laughter.

"God!" He can't help laughing too. "I hate you. I'm leaving."

He keeps smiling to himself until he's out on the sidewalk and once again too preoccupied with anticipation to think of anything else.

—

He turns on the shower, letting it warm up as he strips his clothes off and gets on the toilet. By the time he steps under the water, it's hot enough to make him pause for a bit to just let it run down his body.

But once he starts washing himself off, he switches back to a determined efficiency. He cleans himself thoroughly, scrubbing everywhere he can reach, as though he expects Pascal to put his mouth against every inch of his body. Once he's done, he repeats the whole process, a bit faster this time, and rinses himself off so meticulously that it's essentially like bathing himself another time over.

He rubs himself down with a fresh towel and doubles over to blowdry his hair, briefly turning the dryer towards his skin as well to further dry a few damp patches. He wraps the towel around himself and glances momentarily in the mirror, biting his lip.

He's already got a small travel bag in his room with a clean set of work clothes, a pair of jeans, a sweater, some socks and underwear and a tank top. He puts in a few last minute items—a comb, a toothbrush, a phone charger, a bottle of lube—and tries to get enough of a hold on his jittery thoughts to make sure he's not missing anything essential. Then he puts on clothes, just a soft pair of jeans and a softer t-shirt and a comfortable pair of old shoes.

He looks nervously at his reflection a few times; he seems to have a permanent blush. He's not sure if he can see himself as handsome in the way he did when he'd found himself beautiful in a passing glance. But he has to presume he looks the same way as always.

He quickly throws deodorant and lip balm in a pocket on the side of his bag and hoists the strap over his shoulder. He checks that his keys and his wallet and his phone are in his pockets about half a dozen times in a row, then paces around as he sends out a text to Molly and Roy saying that he's heading out and should be back Monday evening after work and to text him whenever they want, and then texts Pascal to say he's on his way over. He sticks a note on his door that just says "back later" and heads out of the apartment.

—

"Kip!"

Pascal calls out to him excitedly; Kip looks up to see his boyfriend waving at him from a block and a half away.

"Pas!" he cries in return. "I thought I was just gonna meet you at the door—"

"C'mere!" Pascal is already walking towards him.

Kip grins and starts jogging forward, then breaks into a light run until he propels himself right into Pascal's arms, laughing as he's scooped up and spun around and kissed on his neck and jaw and cheek.

"Hello," he coos, wrapping his arms around Pascal's shoulders. "I'm finally here, hello, hello hello hello—"

He kisses Pascal's lips and drops his embrace and Pascal lowers him back down onto his feet.

"Show me your place," says smiling up at Pascal. He holds his hand out for Pascal to take.

Pascal corkscrews his arm from Kip's elbow to palm and smiles back at him. He looks so completely happy that it makes Kip laugh again, feeling himself blush and being glad of it for once.

—

"It's not very fancy..." Pascal says as the key grinds in the lock on his door.

"I don't care about that at all, don’t worry," Kip says simply. It does seem like a slightly old building with a bit of wear, but it seems decently cared for, and Kip finds it all kind of cozy and charming.

Pascal opens the door and Kip just gets this immediate sense of welcoming familiarity and belonging.

"Oh..." He follows Pascal inside into a tiny hallway that opens immediately into a small living room on one side and another tiny parallel hall branching off on the other with a little round table and chair on one end, and a room that must be the kitchen on the other. The air has a lovely subtle scent that Kip recognizes easily as Pascal's and he's hit with the memory of exactly what it felt like to be living with Pascal every day for years—the comfort and security and their sweetly dependable routine encounters they were guaranteed every single day.

"Pascal, this is so nice," he sighs, looking all around. The colors are all so warm and soft and inviting; the space has this balance between everything being kept in order but looking lived-in, with a hoodie draped over the back of a slightly worn but cushiony armchair, a few papers on the table, shoes by the door, half-full trashcans. "It looks so comfortable..."

"That's what I was going for," Pascal says with a soft laugh. "There's some furniture from our old place, but some of it I just sold and bought some new pieces with when I got here. Well, used, not new, but..."

"You've made it look so good." Kip moves slowly, touching his fingertips to the wall, moving his eyes from one spot to the next every moment and taking in as many details as he can. "Is the kitchen over here?"

"Oh, yeah, it is..." Pascal says. "It's not very big, but there's a stove and a fridge and a sink and a little bit of space to store things..."

He's sounding slightly self-conscious. Kip gives him a smile as he walks carefully into the kitchen, looking at the simple kettle resting on the stove and the jar of cooking utensils and the little plants in a window above the sink and it's all so nice. The pot-holders and the boxes lined against the wall on the counter and the spice rack and the tins of tea on top of the fridge. He goes back out to the living room where Pascal waits with a soft blush.

"It's so cute," Kip laughs. "I love it."

"Oh, good..."

"Can I try out that chair? It looks soft."

"Definitely, yeah, it's really comfortable."

Kip turns around and sinks into it.

"Oh my god..." He leans against the backrest. "I could fall asleep in this."

"It's really comfortable," Pascal repeats, laughing.

Kip glances at the modest couch and the small coffee table and a bookshelf against the wall before standing back up.

"Um, there's really just a closet there in the corner and a bathroom and my bedroom," Pascal says as he walks to the other set of doors adjacent to each other. "Here's the bathroom—" He opens one; Kip can see a sink by the door and then a toilet and then a shower, with grass green towels hanging from a rack. "And here's my room."

He opens the other door. Inside is a bed in the middle of the room with a heavy, deep purple comforter and two pillows at the head, a little table with a lamp on one side and a window on the other. Kip steps inside, absorbing it all. The carpet feels a bit soft, the walls are a neutral brown, there's a hamper full of clothes in the corner beside a chest of drawers. Kip turns in place just as a familiar scent hits his nose and he stares speechlessly at the small lilac bush in the corner across from him.

"Is that...?" he says faintly.

"It's yours," Pascal answers quietly. "I brought it with me."

"Oh," Kip says simply, suddenly a little hit with emotion. He walks over to it and gently touches a flower, then leans in to catch the scent floating up. "Pascal, I... This just...this was something I missed a lot when we moved. I mean, it's just a little thing to have cared about in the middle of all that, but I always loved it..."

He laughs softly and turns back to the doorway, where Pascal leans against the frame.

He's not unaware of the effect of seeing Pascal in the bedroom doorway—having simply walked into the room, seen the bed they'd be sharing soon—he can definitely feel his desire coming a bit more to attention. He smiles at Pascal and stands up a little straighter.

"Oh, you can put your bag down somewhere in here, if you want," Pascal says, gesturing vaguely into the room.

"Sure—" Kip shifts it off his shoulder and sets it down along the wall.

"Do you want, uh, some tea? Or..."

Kip walks towards Pascal and smiles softly at him, reaching up to brush his fingers along the side of Pascal's face.

"Come here," he says quietly, and touches his arm as he walks back into the living room. He hears Pascal follow him.

"Should I..." Pascal starts quietly, fading off. "I..."

Kip walks slowly over to the wall of the little entrance hallway and turns around to lean against it with a long sigh, closing his eyes. When he opens them again, he sees Pascal standing still in the middle of the room by the armchair, looking at him with slightly reddened cheeks, an arm curling up against his chest.

Kip holds his gaze for a moment, then quickly runs his hands back through his hair and arches his spine in a lengthy stretch, pushing his chest out and letting his head tilt back. He brings his arms back down, trailing his hands down his sides, down to his thighs, back up until his fingertips drag the end of his shirt up to his waist—then he slides his hands down his hips and into his pants.

He hears Pascal's inhale sharpen into a quiet gasp. He closes his eyes for a moment, keeping his head back. He pushes his hands further down until his jeans sit an inch or two lower on his hips, then pulls his hands back up, taking the waistband of his underwear with them so that a wide stripe of it is visible above his belt. He lets out another slow exhale.

"Oh my god," Pascal murmurs. "Kip..."

Kip opens his eyes and brings his head back down to lock his gaze with Pascal's, who blushes even harder.

Kip brings his hands up into his shirt to touch his chest, at the same time tilting his hips down to show off as much of his bared stomach as possible. He sees Pascal's gaze jump back and forth between his crotch and stomach and chest and face; he's getting more confident and more turned on by Pascal’s reactions to his attempt at seduction.

"Kip..."

Kip sees Pascal shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"Pasc," Kip breathes, his tone outright erotic. He strategically shrugs while he pushes the cloth up a little further, and one end of the shirt's loose collar slips off his shoulder. Besides that it's comfortable and this color looks really good on him, he didn't pick a shirt with such a wide collar and soft fabric for nothing. He slowly brings his hands back down, slightly squeezing his arms in towards his middle as he lets his shirt slide further down his arm to expose the top of his chest.

"Oh my god—" Pascal repeats—he brings his arms to his face and laughs breathlessly. "Oh, Kip—"

"C'mere," Kip says, laughing in turn. He pushes his back up along the wall to drag the shirt further down until it's low enough to show part of his nipple. "Pascal..."

When Pascal looks back at him again, Kip can only keep a straight face for a couple of seconds before breaking into a smile. He tilts his head playfully to the side and rolls his hips slowly as he trails a hand to the inside of his thigh.

"Come here," he says again, laughing.

Pascal bites his lip as he smiles back. After a moment or two more of looking at Kip and fidgeting with one arm, Pascal approaches him slowly, seeming to relax as he does. Kip, on the other hand, is starting to feel like he's bubbling over with every step Pascal takes.

Pascal seems to hesitate when he's just a few feet away, and Kip looks him right in the eyes and opens his mouth to encourage him when all at once Pascal pushes in and kisses him hard, nipping and sucking his lip before Kip hardly processes what's happened.

Kip parts his lips further for Pascal with a muffled vocalization that wouldn't have been a coherent word even if Pascal wasn't pushing his tongue deep inside his mouth. Pascal wraps his soft arms snug around Kip's back as he pushes harder against him.

Kip actually feels almost dizzy, his pulse is beating through his chest and into his throat and dick, he's a little short of breath, and he's so glad he can hang on to Pascal's shoulders while his boyfriend helps hold him up.

Just as Kip is sucking on Pascal's tongue and dragging his fingernails down his spine, Pascal pulls away and straightens back up and Kip is completely bewildered for a second—until Pascal shoves his hips up against Kip's, pinning him to the wall, and starts grinding roughly against him.

Kip cries out sharply, grabbing at Pascal's arms, gritting his teeth as he rolls his hips against Pascal's rhythm.

He hasn't felt this in so so so long, this intense, heady rush from all this touching and kissing and groping and knee-buckling, pleasure-spiking friction—

He bites at Pascal's chest, at the base of his neck, working the skin between his teeth and sucking hard as he grinds back ferociously, he feels like he's going to lose his mind in just a matter of time—

"Kip..."

And oh god that groan is right in his ear and Kip helplessly whimpers and shoves a hand straight down the back of Pascal's sweatpants to grab his ass, pulling hard against it for leverage as he bucks into Pascal. He feels himself pressed even tighter between Pascal's body and the wall with every rolling shove. He can't deny himself the pleasure of gripping Pascal's bare ass with his other hand, too—skin warm and soft between his fingers, feeling every movement of Pascal's hips—

Their growing erections slide right up against each other.

"Fuck!" Kip's head knocks against the wall as he shoves it back. "Pascal!" His voice quavers as he cries out. "Fuck me—oh my god fuck me RIGHT now—"

"Oh my god—" Pascal has that deliciously low voice and he catches Kip's mouth in a messy, rough kiss and then shoves his arm up between Kip's legs, squeezing his balls and the base of his dick. Kip’s cry is rough and desperate.

They draw back and stare at each other for a heavily loaded second before Pascal steps away and starts working off his shoes.

"Take off your shirt," he says simply.

Kip complies at once, then kicks off his own shoes and starts undoing his belt.

"Pick me up," he tells Pascal. "Take me into your room and fuck me."

He's partway through unbuttoning his pants when Pascal kisses him fiercely and takes him up in his arms in one powerful lift. And then with a quick adjustment, as if it's nothing, he turns Kip so that he's on his back in Pascal's hold, looking up at him. Kip puts his hand on Pascal's face, cupping his jaw and running his thumb across his lip, and watches Pascal’s look of quietly determined focus as he walks them into the bedroom.

Kip exhales as he's laid down on the bed. It's soft and wide and he's looking up at Pascal while he's on his bed and Pascal's actually, finally about to fuck him—Kip rubs at his own dick and rolls his ass back against the mattress as he stares at Pascal, sharply aroused by the feeling of the bed underneath him and the focused intent in Pascal's gaze.

Pascal circles around the frame and stands between Kip's feet. He takes hold of the end of his own shirt and strips it off in one smooth pull.

"Pas..." Kip breathes, rubbing harder at his erection through his jeans. Pascal rests a knee on the edge of the mattress and leans in, nudging Kip's hand away to put his mouth over Kip's cock.

"Shit!" Kip cries. "Pascal!"

His hips stutter and then jerk up hard against the pressure before he has any hope of holding them back. But Pascal doesn't ease off, just presses his tongue against the denim and washes his hot breath over him before sitting up again, grabbing the waistband of Kip's jeans, and working them down.

Biting his lip, Kip lifts his ass up to help; Pascal pulls his pants down all the way but leaves his briefs caught on his erection.

Kip sits up too.

"Here," he says, reaching for Pascal's hips. "Let me..."

He glances up at his face before taking hold of either side of Pascal's sweatpants and slowly pulling them downwards. He watches the fabric press against the shape of Pascal's half-hard erection; his mouth practically waters as more and more pubic hair emerges until finally the base of his dick appears—Kip pauses for a moment to stare and breathe. He uncovers the rest of its length inch by inch as he drags the sweatpants down. He lets out a shivering exhale as the flushed tip is freed, leaning in further and further as he moves Pascal's pants even lower down his thighs, his lips drawing nearer and nearer to Pascal's cock—

Pascal pushes the sweatpants the rest of the way off with his feet and steps out of them. Kip looks back up at him, feeling the heat of his own blush.

"I wanna finish getting you hard," Kip murmurs weakly. "Can you get on the bed?"

"Okay."

Pascal does so unhesitatingly, and Kip crawls over to him and pushes him onto his back.

"Kip..." Pascal breathes. He gives a beautiful choked whine as Kip takes his dick in his hand, squeezing gently. "Oh, fuck, Kip..."

"Oh my god, I've been wanting to do this SO bad. For SO long."

Kip draws a few deep breathes. He slides his hand down to the base and takes half the length into his mouth in one go.

"Fuck!"

Kip feels Pascal's body twist against the bed and he puts his hands on Pascal’s waist, reminding him to try to keep steady—although with how long it's been since either of them have had this, he won't blame him if he can't.

Pascal starts repeating Kip's name, in weak whispers, in long groans.

Pascal's dick is so warm and fills Kip's mouth and its soft surface and the taste and feel of pressing his tongue up against the head—Kip is thriving in all of it, soaking it up, gently humping the bed as he slides his lips down the length, aching for this to last for decades.

He focuses most of his attention on the end, sucking and licking it while he works the rest of it in his hand with easy strokes. He can feel Pascal growing under his touch—he can't stop himself from periodically taking the whole of it into his mouth.

Not to mention that he can hear Pascal's elevating arousal in the sound of his voice, his unsteady words and vibrating moans. It's just as evident in the movement of his body, growing sharper and stronger even as he tries to hold himself back.

Kip is getting a bit lost in the experience of blowing Pascal, making him harder and harder, tasting him—he successfully takes Pascal's fully erect length into his mouth and throat, sliding an inch or two out and then right back in, swallowing around him, giving low, stifled moans.

"Kip...Kip—" Pascal gently pushes his shoulders; Kip pulls off of him with a deep inhale. "Babe, come here..."

Kip wipes some spit off his chin and crawls over him until he's straddling his waist, panting, looking down at him. He's so gorgeous like that, on his back, hair spilled against the pillow like a halo, face flushed, eyes fixed steadily on Kip like there's nothing else to see in the world, giving him that small smile and that sweet look.

"You have to wait," Pascal says weakly, "Or you’ll make me cum."

Kip blushes and leans down and kisses him, slipping the tongue that had just licked the head of his cock in past his lips. Pascal hums into his mouth; Kip lightly swirls the tip of his tongue around Pascal's before pulling back.

"You're beautiful," Kip tells him, reaching down to feel the shape of Pascal's wide chest, stroking the soft hair growing there. "Even beyond that. God, I love you so much."

"I love you, too.”

Kip gasps softly as Pascal rolls him smoothly onto his back and pulls his underwear off completely. Kip glances down at the bright blue flush of his nearly-full erection, then looks up to see Pascal staring down at it, lips parted.

"Fuck," Pascal murmurs. "I just..."

He wraps his arm around the base of Kip's erection and bends down to lick at the very tip, then puts it between his lips and gives the gentlest suck. Kip's leg twitches as his hips jerk reflexively towards Pascal’s mouth; he whines loudly.

“Oh fuck me—Pasc—“

With another soft suck, Pascal pulls off.

"I just needed a taste." Pascal leans up with a lopsided grin, then kisses Kip's chest. "I really love your dick."

"Oh my god," Kip breathes, laughing quietly.

"It's true." Pascal kisses Kip's mouth and runs his arm up and down the length of Kip's erection as if to prove it, pinning it between his arm and Kip's stomach.

Kip can't help bucking into it; his cock slides between the two columns of soft, warm suckers.

"The shape and color and size—it's wonderful—" Pascal murmurs against his lips between kisses. "I love the feel of it too, just touching it, or holding it against mine, or having it in my mouth, or in my ass—"

"Pas," Kip gasps, grinding hard. He's desperate for so much more, and this isn't helping him settle down. "God, please, fuck me—“

Pascal pauses, then kisses Kip's mouth more forcefully, scruff rubbing against Kip's cheeks and jaw.

"Fuck me—"

Kip opens his mouth as Pascal kisses him again, teeth against his lips and tongue flicking against his. He expects Pascal to pull back after a few moments, but instead the kiss lasts a full few minutes—just this kiss that oscillates between aggressively messy and lovingly precise. It's like Pascal is trying to fit a hundred kisses into one. He keeps gravitating towards these effective little techniques their years together had taught him—he kisses Kip's top lip a lot, he brings his own lower lip to Kip's upper teeth to push its softness against his fangs, he slides his tongue underneath Kip's to press against its base.

Kip loses any sense of how long it lasts. His hands are traveling all over Pascal, wherever they can reach. His closed eyes keep drifting up. His small groans and sighs go right into Pascal's mouth. It’s all heat and pleasure and the pound of his heartbeat.

And then Pascal presses their lips together hard one more time, and sits up. Kip realizes how out of breath he is and lies there panting, not yet bothering to move or open his eyes.

Until Pascal takes hold of Kip's thighs and lifts them up and back towards his chest. Kip blinks up at him, keeping his legs limp in Pascal's grasp.

"Hold them up," Pascal says quietly.

Kip doesn't process his words for a few seconds, completely taken by the sight of Pascal's face, his hair messed by Kip's fingers and his lips almost as flushed as his cheeks from their kissing—

"Oh—sure..."

Kip hooks his wrists behind his knees and lets the weight of his arms pull them back against his torso. The position alone provides a slight thrill.

Their eyes meet for a few moments, and then Pascal looks down.

Kip's mouth opens soundlessly as Pascal slides his arm along the groove of the center of his ass; his head presses back hard into the mattress at the stimulation.

"...Do it again," he says towards the ceiling, voice shaky.

Pascal does, with deliberate, smooth strokes of his narrowed arm.

"Ah, fuck..." Kip whispers, squeezing his eyes closed, digging his fingers into his thighs.

The movement slows before Pascal gently pushes the tip of his arm into him, just enough that Kip feels himself squeeze around it as he reflexively clenches up.

"Oh—" He gasps, holding himself perfectly still for this. "Oh, yes—more—"

Pascal pushes just a little further, then eases his arm back out.

"Keep going," Kip breathes. "Fuck, that feels good..."

Already it's overwhelming him so much more than just trying to remember these sensations when he gets himself off. Even fingering himself or taking a dildo up his ass doesn't give the same experience as having it come from someone else—from Pascal.

And then he's hit with something he could never begin to replicate alone as Pascal pushes his face between Kip's legs, licks his balls, then drags his tongue downwards—then there’s the stubbled jaw and warm breath against his hypersensitive skin and then the sudden soft press of a tongue making him tighten and relax and tighten and relax—

Kip gives a few choked sounds before a loud moan bursts out; he lets one knee fall to his side so he can reach down and grab hold of his erection.

Pascal pushes the end of his tongue into him.

"Ah—Pascal!" Kip's back arches up off the bed and he gives his dick a few rapid pumps. "Pasc—!"

For the next several minutes, all that happens is Pascal teasing and stretching Kip, alternating between the use of his arm and his tongue. Kip has to deliberately slow down with touching himself or he could cum from this alone—he desperately wants this to last longer, for Pascal's dick to be inside him when he does finally reach his peak.

For now, the little sounds Pascal makes as he rims Kip are arousing enough to send extra jolts of electricity down Kip’s spine and right to his cock.

"Yes—yes—oh, god yes—" Kip chants breathlessly, rolling his hips against Pascal’s mouth.

Pascal leans away and stretches him tightly with the girth of his arm, holds it for a few heavy breaths, then carefully slides out. He buries his face there again and flicks his tongue against Kip's soft skin; Kip whines and delves his fingers into Pascal's thick hair to pull him down harder. The process repeats over and over, until Kip knows for sure he's ready to take his dick and is entirely desperate to do so—but Pascal continues even for a few minutes beyond that point.

Kip's about to beg him to take it to the next step, but doesn't have to say anything after all.

Pascal gets on his knees in front of Kip; Kip lets out a long exhale at the loss of stimulation.

"Pass me one of the pillows?"

Kip does.

"Lift your butt up a little."

He does.

Pascal wedges the pillow underneath his raised hips, giving them support that keeps them tilted slightly up. Kip hugs his knee harder to his chest, staring at Pascal, at his look of serious concentration as he scoots his knees further along either side of Kip.

Kip gives an enthusiastically loud groan of approval when Pascal gets right up against him and slides his length along the rut of his ass.

"You ready?" Pascal asks.

Kip nods quickly.

"Yes. Please."

"Okay...let me just get this..."

Pascal leans in over Kip and reaches out slightly to his left; Kip turns his head and sees Pascal retrieve some lube from the drawer of his nightstand. Kip waits patiently as Pascal carefully applies it to both of them, breathing slow and deep while he still has the opportunity to do so.

"Okay." Pascal tosses it aside onto the mattress, takes hold of his own erection, and looks at Kip.

Kip looks back at him.

They keep their eyes locked as Pascal brings the warm head of his dick down against Kip's skin and drags it lower, millimeters at a time, until Kip tenses up in anticipation.

Pascal feels out the slight dip and centers himself perfectly, but applies no real pressure.

"Relax with it, sugardove."

Kip huffs at the nickname and nods, consciously relaxing his body with each exhale. Half a minute later, he feels himself easing against the gentle but steady press of Pascal's cock.

"You want this?" Pascal asks softly.

"Yes—I want it so much, please, Pasc, please..."

"Tell me what you want me to do," Pascal says in his beautiful low sweet voice.

"I want you to fuck me," Kip gasps, looking right at him. He sees Pascal's chest rise and fall quickly with a few silent, shallow breaths. "I wanna feel your dick, I wanna feel it all the way up in me.”

Pascal sighs a quiet moan.

"You're so... You're so goddamn gorgeous like this," Pascal says weakly.

Kip smiles at him and rolls his hips.

"Fuck me, Pasc,” he says, and watches Pascal's face redden in response.

Pascal rocks forward and all at once the whole head of his dick is inside Kip, who gasps and arches up.

"Yes!" he cries out loudly. "Yes! Yes, oh god, Pascal, keep going—YES!"

Pascal’s breath is caught on a moan—he thrusts further in again, and then again, and again, and Kip squeezes his eyes shut and lets go of his leg to grab onto the blankets.

"Oh GOD yes—get all the way inside me, babe, oh fuck—oh, FUCK me—"

He laughs at himself even as it turns into a moan—he can barely contain his crashing desire—his body is twisting and curling in ecstatic anticipation and he just wants more of this feeling of Pascal hot and thick and tight inside him, pushing and rubbing and filling him and it feels so good that he needs so much more, he needs it all—

Pascal groans Kip’s name and with one more buck of his hips, he smacks up against Kip's ass.

Kip practically yells, tangling a hand in his own hair and immediately swinging his legs around to lock onto Pascal's waist, holding him inside.

"Oh god, Kip," Pascal groans hoarsely, inching his knees a little further forward to reposition his center of weight right here, with his hips right up against Kip's ass, pushed fully inside him.

"Oh fucking hell, oh, stay there for a second, let me feel it, let me feel it..." Kip begs, hooking his feet behind Pascal's back, pulling himself harder against him, getting just a bit more length, just a bit more pressure. "Oh god I've wanted this, Pasc—oh fuck, how bad I've wanted to feel this—oh—"

He curves his back and starts rocking himself on Pascal's dick, starting with a light, easy pace that immediately grows harder and faster.

Pascal whines.

"Oh—" Kip grabs his own chest with one hand, taking hold of Pascal's thigh with the other. "Pasc! Fuck me—please—PLEASE—“

Pascal slides out a few inches, pauses for an instant, and shoves back in until they collide.

"YES! Oh GOD yes, Pascal! Yes—!"

Kip's fervid encouragement seems to work, the confidence of Pascal's movements quickly increases—and so does their strength, until Kip is holding on to the headboard to brace himself.

Pascal finds his rhythm, hard and fast and smooth, and he bends down further and grabs on to Kip's leg and leans in so close that his hair is almost touching Kip's shoulder.

"This okay?" Pascal's voice is low, gravelly, ignitingly sexy.

"Lean in more," Kip says breathlessly, and Pascal complies and then thrusts again. "Just a little more..."

Those next few thrusts are euphorically good.

"YES. There, right there, oh GOD keep going—don’t slow down—“

"Okay, good—“

Pascal holds that exact position, where every deep thrust nudges against Kip's prostate, and in no time at all Kip is being pounded into the mattress just like that. He's swearing and raking his nails against Pascal's shoulderblades and gripping the headboard for dear life; he's losing himself in Pascal's moans and the smell of their sweat and sex and the feel of Pascal's body in his arms and Pascal inside him fucking him and the striking beat of their hips and the heat and the arousal that's surging harder and rising higher with every passing moment.

How could he possibly have lived a whole year without this. The consumingly, wondrously, rapturously good way this feels makes him think he can never go even a day without it again.

Cries of Pascal's name flowing from his throat like an impassioned hymn, Pascal's velvet moans and staccato whimpers like harmony, the percussive smack of their beating hips—it all blurs and blends together in Kip's spinning head, but it’s still symphonically gorgeous.

With what little coordination he has, Kip drags Pascal's arm towards his achingly neglected dick. Pascal gets the message at once and wraps his arm around it, fully encompassing it in his hold, immediately pumping him hard in time to their rhythm.

"YES, babe," Kip groans, head falling to the side. "Oh fuck yes, keep going—do it just like that—"

"Oh god, Kip..."

Pascal sounds like he's just moments away from orgasm. But the way he's working Kip's erection on top of the already magnificent performance he’s been giving means that Kip is just as close, if not closer. He wraps both arms around Pascal's shoulders and holds on as well as he can.

"Fuck me harder," he moans. "Please—"

"Shit—" Pascal swears under his breath and complies.

"Harder!"

Pascal leans in even more until his forehead bumps against Kip's chest, and bucks with so much strength and speed that Kip just lets his body go loose.

"Oh fuck! Ah—!" It's like his whole vocabulary has been knocked out of his head, but his enthusiasm is voiced anyways in a stream of loud moans and cries.

"Good?" Pascal manages between breaths.

"Yes!" Kip yells, grabbing hold of Pascal's hair and giving it a tug.

Pascal responds by squeezing Kip's dick and giving it a few especially sharp pumps. Kip arches up, mouth open, sensing his imminent climax as the buildup from the overwhelming intensity flooding through him winds tighter and tighter in the pit of his stomach.

"Oh god, more, keep going—I-I'm so close—I’ll—!”

Kip wouldn't have guessed it was even a possibility at this point, but Pascal shifts into overdrive, latching on to him tighter, fucking him like everything in the universe depends on giving him a knockout orgasm.

Kip is yelling and raking his hands across the sheets and Pascal’s body and crying Pascal's name in desperation and chanting yes yes yes yes YES—

He thrusts into the coiled arm and in the next instant cries Pascal’s name as every muscle tenses up, freezing him in place as he cums in long, powerful pulses that send shockwaves arcing and thundering through every nerve, saturating his body all the way to his fingertips.

For a while it's like the whole of existence has become this feeling, this mindblowingly electric, overpoweringly euphoric surge of pleasure. He loses his sense of time, every neuron devoted to taking it in.

Its grip slowly starts to loosen; as his thoughts flicker gradually back into coherency it occurs to him that he doesn’t remember exactly when he last came that hard, that long.

Definitely not since Pascal was the one to give it to him.

He blinks his eyes open and looks at Pascal looking back at him. For a breathless moment everything seems suspended, and then Kip hooks his legs around Pascal's waist and takes in every detail of Pascal that his senses can provide as his boyfriend pushes into him again. It feels so intense to Kip's hypersensitivity, but with what little strength he has he rocks his limp body against the strength of Pascal's thrusts.

Kip weakly caresses Pascal's hair and tensed shoulders; he feels Pascal's hot, rapid breaths washing across his skin. He strokes the smooth surface of the arm stuck along his side and runs his fingertips down the suckers of the arm gripping on to the headboard.

"Keep going, Pasc," he murmurs to him, managing to shove his ass a bit harder against him. "Like that, that's good..."

Pascal whimpers; Kip puts a hand on the side of his jaw, rubbing the short hairs there. He can feel Pascal's rhythm changing—growing rougher, more uneven, shortening into faster jerks of his hips—the sensation of Pascal's dick moving inside him, pushing in deep, the pressure of being filled by it are that much more sharpened—

"Kip," Pascal breathes in a small voice. "Oh, Kip—"

"Fuck me," Kip whispers. "Cum inside me. Come on, Pasc."

Pascal's back curves up and the force of his thrusts rock Kip's whole body into the mattress. And then he pushes his hips in hard and holds them there, his whole body stiff, curled in around Kip, his forehead pressing against Kip’s shoulder. His weight pins Kip to the bed, the muscles of his thighs twitch against Kip's sides, and he chokes out a loud, tremulous whine—Kip gasps and digs his fingers into Pascal’s back, feeling Pascal cum deep inside him.

After a few moments frozen in place like that, Kip lifts his arms and gently hugs them around Pascal's head, tangling the fingers of one hand into his hair. He feels Pascal slowly, slowly begin to relax, breaths deepening, until he's no longer pushing against him and is instead sinking down on top of him.

Kip stares down at Pascal lying against him, shoulders and back shifting with his heavy breathing, head cushioned by Kip's chest.

"How was that, love?" he whispers after Pascal heaves a deep sigh.

"Fuck," Pascal mumbles. "Better than absolutely anything in the world. ...God, I wish I could kiss you right now.”

Kip laughs softly and lifts his head to plant a kiss in Pascal's hair.

Pascal shifts and for a concerning moment Kip thinks he's going to move off, but he simply drags the pillow out from underneath Kip's pelvis and slowly pulls out of Kip before lying right back down where he'd been.

Kip relaxes back and closes his eyes, lazily petting Pascal's hair as they rest in their afterglow.

"I love you," Kip breathes after a few quiet minutes. "So much. I've missed you bad.”

His hand stills for a moment as he speaks.

Pascal nuzzles his face against Kip's chest, then lifts his head to give him a gentle smile.

"I've missed all of this like hell," Pascal says weakly. "I’m so...so glad we're here."

Kip props himself up on one elbow and presses a lasting kiss to Pascal's forehead.

"I love you, Kip."

Pascal wraps both arms around Kip's shoulders.

Kip lets his head drift to one side. When he draws a deep breath, stomach pushing into Pascal's chest, he catches the sweet scent of lilac.

Chapter Text

Pascal insists Kip should have the shower first, and Kip sits on the edge of the tub while waiting for the water to heat up, watching Pascal lean over the sink and spit out his mouthwash.

With this unimpeded view of every bared inch of Pascal's gorgeous body, every little movement he makes is so captivatingly fascinating. Every part of him seems worth hours of study: his thick torso and arms and legs; his hair just long enough to rest against the tops of his shoulders; his handsome face; the landscape of smooth dips and curves formed by his muscles; the shading down his legs and across his front provided by his soft, earthen-red hair; his careful way of moving, so efficient with space as he keeps himself close to his center and such small, light shifts of his legs and feet and the delicate dexterity of his arms.

It's only when steam begins drifting from the shower that Kip’s focus returns to anything besides the way Pascal looks.

He climbs inside and once again washes himself quickly but thoroughly. His body feels so different from when he'd taken his previous shower. It feels more real, more physical, more solid—some soreness had set in just after they'd finished, but the worst of it had ebbed while they'd recovered together on the bed, and now even the lingering ache is pleasant. It's like he's been rearranged right down to his atoms, his body made into something sturdier yet more comfortable.

He dries himself off before stepping out of the bathroom to find Pascal removing the sheets that Kip had already pulled halfway off anyways. Kip walks up and hugs Pascal from behind, enjoying his warm skin against his own and how Pascal fills the embrace of his arms and the way his stomach and chest feel against his hands.

Pascal laughs softly as Kip hugs him close and kisses his spine. Kip slides a hand down as he moves away to briefly cup Pascal's butt and grins when Pascal returns the gesture with a light pat.

The simple act of walking around naked from room to room is a little refreshing, a little relaxing, and still a little novel—even when they'd used to live together, there weren't many times they had the place to themselves long enough to just hang around unclothed outside of their bedroom. This feels more like the visits Kip had made to Pascal when they'd first started dating, and first started having sex.

He likes it. He likes knowing Pascal sees his body. He likes just being naked together, this reminder of the fact that they're lovers even as they're in the middle of such mundane activities as showering off and stripping down a bed.

Kip tells Pascal to give him the fresh sheets so he can put them on while Pascal takes his turn washing off, and Kip lays back on the bed again once he's done, resting a hand on his stomach and staring at the ceiling as he listens to the falling water.

He's entirely preoccupied for the rest of Pascal's shower by the idea of falling asleep together, holding each other all night, and what feeling he might experience when he wakes up to find himself lying in bed with Pascal.

—

Pascal sits on the side of the bed with a towel slung over his shoulder. Kip comes over and sits behind him, taking the towel and working the length of his hair between the fabric, lying it across the top of his head and pushing it against his scalp with his fingertips kneading like a massage.

"I really like your home," Kip says, bunching up the towel and stroking it down his hair.

"Thank you," Pascal says earnestly. "I was hoping you would, I know it's pretty small, but..."

"I don't mind that at all. I don't need much space. Not that—I mean, not that I..."

He laughs a little breathlessly, embarrassed by his implication.

"...This can be as much your place as mine," Pascal murmurs. "I'd like you to feel like this is a home for you, too."

Kip feels a burst of heat in his face as he blushes. He puts the towel back over Pascal's shoulders and starts smoothing his hair by gently dragging his fingers through.

"Thank you," he says quietly. He leans in and kisses behind Pascal's ear.

—

"I do have condoms, by the way, so we don't have to stop and clean off between stuff if we have to worry about like, cross-contamination and all."

"Right—ass cross-contamination," Kip says matter-of-factly, and Pascal laughs under his breath.

"I have some in your size, too."

"You remember that?" Kip turns around to face him, slightly incredulous.

"Yeah, of course? Like...I remember that the color of your eyes is like the ocean in the pictures of beaches that they use in travel ads, and I remember your favorite kind of ice cream, and I remember your condom size."

Beaming, Kip leans up and kisses Pascal on the cheek.

—

"Oh, fuck," Pascal whispers.

Pascal's hips shift forward just an inch closer to the edge of the bed as Kip pushes his palms up the inside of Pascal's thighs. Kip rises up on his knees a little bit more and presses a lingering kiss to his stomach, keeping his eyes fixed on Pascal's face.

Kip drags his lips just below his navel and plants evenly-spaced kisses along the way as he slowly drifts downwards.

He loves how Pascal reacts as he kisses and licks all over his erection. He coaxes it to grow even harder, teasing it with light touches as he reacquaints himself with every intimate detail—nuzzling his face against it, letting his lips and nose and cheeks rub along its length—

"Kip, please—" Pascal pleads quietly, tone strained with choked-off desperation.

Kip laughs softly and kisses the tip, wrapping his hand around the base. It feels so warm that it sends a shiver rolling through his body.

"Is my hand cold?" He looks up at Pascal, gratified by the redness of his cheeks and his almost-pained expression.

Pascal shakes his head.

"Please," he repeats.

Kip smiles and keeps eye contact with Pascal as he moves his lips to the head of his dick. He flicks his tongue against it just barely, just grazes the tip, and beams when it makes Pascal flinch.

He starts slowly, pumping at the base, and keeps watching Pascal watching him as he opens his mouth. For just a second he lets his breath wash over him, sees Pascal bite his lip and curl the end of his arms, and then smoothly slips a few inches of length into his mouth.

Pascal is usually either at his loudest or his quietest during blowjobs, and in this case its the former. He strokes his arms up and down the back of Kip's head as if he wants to grab on but won't and rocks himself helplessly into Kip's mouth.

The sound of Pascal's sharp moans is running through Kip's skin like electricity.

He keeps it simple for a few minutes, steadily working Pascal up, sucking as he pushes his head down and dragging his tongue along the underside as he pulls back up. He thinks of everything he'd practiced, once again proving he can take all of Pascal's full erection into his mouth and down his throat, pushing his nose hard into Pascal's lower stomach to emphasize the fact. But he focuses more on what his tongue can do, deepthroating him only occasionally in between working the top few inches while using his fingers to provide an alleviating touch to the neglected base.

He slowly rubs a hand up and down the outside of Pascal's leg, from his knee to his hip, and feels the tension in Pascal's muscles. He slides his mouth off and kisses the flushed head.

"You can move more," he says, panting quietly as he catches his breath a little.

Pascal gives a weak groan in response.

"Fuck my mouth," Kip tells him.

"Oh god, Kip..."

"Fuck my mouth," he repeats. "I'll like it."

After a few deep breaths he takes him in again, deliberately slow, sliding up and down his length with his hands on Pascal's ass, tugging against it to encourage him to thrust. Pascal acquiesces enough to start rolling his hips a little, which Kip rewards with a throaty hum of approval.

With just a half minute more of effort, Kip has Pascal bucking into his mouth—not without some restraint, but it's a decent increase in pace from before.

Pascal twists the end of his arm around a broad clutch of Kip’s hair and pulls his head further down, holds him there as he rocks up into the back of his mouth. Kip gives a low moan and keeps his throat open, reaching down to touch his own dick.

He puts both hands back on Pascal's thighs when he needs to brace himself a little against the growing thrusts. The ache of his own untouched erection is making Kip restless, but it turns him on as well to let his own arousal build up while Pascal is coming further undone second by second.

If the increased abandon of Pascal's movement wasn't enough, the sharpness and roughness of his moans is a decent sign that he's getting close.

Kip puts his hands on Pascal's hips and lightly pushes against them, prompting Pascal to slowly dampen their movement until he's only rolling a few inches back and forth.

"Kip..." There's a pleading tone to his voice.

Kip gives a hard suck and pulls off, wrapping both hands around his length and keeping his lips pressed to the tip, panting against it.

"Want me to make you cum?" he asks, looking up at the desperately beautiful sight of Pascal's face.

"Please," Pascal breathes. "Yes."

Kip kisses the tip and stares at Pascal, unmoving, then laughs lightly and slides the end past his lips again with a generous suck.

As if Pascal's moans weren't intense enough before, every urgent sound he's making now is the best possible endorsement of Kip's skill. Kip's working at the end of Pascal's dick as well as he can, folding his tongue and sliding the head tightly through the middle and pressing his tongue flat against the leaking slit and then giving a few light sucks and swirling it around the end—anything he can do to overstimulate Pascal.

Kip senses Pascal's climax about ten seconds before it hits, and with a few pushes he takes Pascal's full length again, feeling the beating pulse of his cock, burying his nose in the hair on his pelvis. He manages to swallow twice before Pascal's body tenses completely up as he orgasms. He cries out Kip's name and leans forward and Kip feels his own dick twitch at the release of cum down his throat. He quickly slides off of Pascal's length to let the cum spill past and over his lips, then closes his eyes and lets the last small splashes adorn his face, his cheeks and forehead and nose and jawline.

He kneels there, panting slowly, Pascal's dick still in his hand, Pascal's cum across his face and in his mouth and throat and dripping down his fingers. Every bit of eager anticipation he'd had for getting Pascal's cock in his mouth again and sucking him off has been worth it, and then some. The feeling of cum clinging to his lips and sliding down the bridge of his nose while its taste fills his mouth—he loves this, he wants a moment simply to bask in this.

He slowly becomes aware of the sound of Pascal's heavy breathing. He opens his eyes and sees Pascal looking down at him, chest rising and falling, nothing short of awe and adoration in his expression.

Kip looks back at him as he slowly leans forward and licks off the cum that's dripping down Pascal's cock. Pascal's shoulders rise up as if he’s shivering under the stimulation. Kip lets go of him after cleaning him off and brings the now-free hand up to his mouth to lick the cum off it as well.

Pascal is watching every movement as though it's the first time he's ever seen anything like it. Kip crooks the corner of his mouth in a knowing smile.

"How do I look?" he teases. He draws his bottom lip into his mouth to suck off the cum.

"You’re the best thing I’ve ever seen," Pascal answers weakly.

Kip laughs quietly and blushes, glancing down for a moment and putting his hand to Pascal's knee, stroking his thumb across it. He slides his palm to Pascal's thigh and rubs slow circles over his warm skin as he gradually cleans his own face, wiping off cum with his fingers and sucking them clean, aware of how closely Pascal is watching him.

Kip sighs happily when he's done, resting his head against Pascal's leg for a moment.

“Fuck me but that was fantastic, Pasc. You feel so fucking good in my mouth..."

"Let me kiss you," Pascal says. "Come here."

He's reaching down to Kip's shoulders; Kip looks at him and slowly stands, letting Pascal guide him up and onto his lap. Kip straddles his thighs and loops his arms over Pascal's shoulders, staring at his gorgeous face just inches away. Pascal smiles warmly at him, gaze full of affection, then wraps his arms around Kip's back and pulls him into a tender kiss.

It's soft and slow and almost chaste, but it feels like it's gradually building up static in Kip's nerves. He takes a moment to open his eyes after Pascal pulls away, only to close them again as Pascal starts dropping kisses all over his face, everywhere he’d came, gently sucking and licking at the patches of slight stickiness on Kip's skin. Kip tangles the fingers of both hands into Pascal's hair and massages the back of his head as Pascal brings his mouth back to Kip's, now pushing his tongue past his lips and coaxing Kip's tongue into his own mouth.

Pascal is licking at Kip's upper teeth when he slips his arm between their bodies and lightly strokes it down Kip's erection. Kip exhales heavily and pulls out of the kiss; he locks eyes with Pascal as he starts shifting his hips back and forth.

Pascal leans in an inch so that their foreheads rest together, noses brushing. Kip closes his eyes and gives a tiny whimper as Pascal wraps his arm snugly around the length of his dick.

When Kip is overcome and starts bucking his hips, Pascal pulls him in until he's cradling Kip's head against his shoulder with one arm while smoothly working his dick with the other. Kip buries his face in the crook of Pascal's neck and clings to his back, digging his fingers into his shoulderblades as he thrusts with abandon into the warm, tight, softly textured coil of Pascal's arm.

Pascal turns his head to kiss Kip's cheek when Kip starts moaning and dragging his nails down Pascal's back.

"Is this good enough?" Pascal whispers to him. He nudges Kip's head back far enough to kiss his throat.

"Yes," Kip breathes. "Keep going, this is good, I like this."

“You do?”

“I love it.”

“Mm—“

He hangs on to Pascal and lets his boyfriend kiss his face and shoulder and neck and ear, rolling his hips as his cock is squeezed and pumped.

His moans grow a little louder and his movements a little more forceful as his buildup evens out and starts inching towards the peak. He cries out Pascal's name, simultaneously begging and praising him by repeating it.

Kip brings his mouth to Pascal's and kisses him despite his own heavy breathing. Pascal kisses him back, looping the end of his free arm around Kip’s hand. Kip tightens his grip on the arm, squeezes his knees against Pascal's thighs, thrusts hard, and does all he can to keep his lips pressed to Pascal's.

Pascal gently bites Kip’s lower lip and gives him a burst of fast and hard pumps; Kip freezes up. He gasps, choking out a whine, and grabs on to both of Pascal's arms as he cums and the flood of pleasure and relief washes over him.

The tension in his body eases away. He manages to kiss Pascal softly and then slumps forward to hug him loosely, draping himself across Pascal's torso. Pascal laughs, and Kip feels it against his chest.

Pascal slowly leans back, bringing Kip with him until they're lying against the bed. And then he carefully rolls them over so that Kip is on his back; Pascal rests on his side next to him.

Kip exhales a long sigh before opening his eyes and turning his head to look at Pascal. Pascal smiles fondly at him, heading resting on a coiled arm.

"Hello, beautiful," Pascal murmurs, smiling a little bit more.

Kip's heart sparks at the simple situation: lying close together in their afterglow, looking at each other, everything peaceful and safe, Pascal's expression so quietly filled with the deepest love at just the sight of Kip’s face.

"Pascal," he says softly. He returns his gaze with the utmost steadiness, just watching his face, just seeing him there. He smiles. He could just lie like this for hours.

Pascal lifts the arm Kip came in and brings it to his lips, keeping eye contact as he licks and kisses it clean, thorough and slow.

Kip curls one hand into a fist and glances down at Pascal's mouth a few times, feeling a deep warmth settle in his face and chest. His cum in Pascal's mouth. Pascal tasting and swallowing it, wanting it. He bites repeatedly at the inside of his lip as he watches.

"...Did it look this good when I did it?" he manages to ask.

"Better," Pascal says solemnly.

Kip wants to cum on Pascal's face too, look down and see Pascal's mouth around the base of his cock, wants to orgasm while pushed deep into his throat, see traces of his cum drip down Pascal's lips.

His own mouth opens slightly as Pascal finishes with a few sucks of his armtip.

"I've never missed any other taste so much." Pascal smiles at him, a touch flirtatiously.

Kip kisses him on impulse, catching a slight taste of himself. He looks at Pascal again, just two inches away, and rests one hand on the side of his face and softly strokes his hair.

"Hold me, love," he says quietly. "I haven't been fucked in a year, so nobody's been cuddling me after fucking me either."

Pascal takes his hand and brings it against his lips.

"I'll try to make up for that."

—

Kip finds such incredible comfort and satisfaction in lying in each other's arms that a full hour is spent just holding each other, talking sometimes, resting in silence, kissing slow. It feels just like it used to; Kip is quietly overjoyed to have it back, and keeps snuggling closer to Pascal.

Pascal's arms are heavy against his body but touch him so softly, they rest their legs together, they lie chest-to-chest and spoon and entangle themselves, Kip drags his fingertips all over Pascal's body and massages his knuckles into his back, Pascal grips on to Kip with several feet of suckers and pulls him in, holding Kip's body with his own.

Kip is so warm. Even falling asleep under a pile of soft blankets has never seemed to feel as relaxing as this. The background ache and exhaustion in his muscles only further highlights how wonderful it is to do nothing but lie here and be with Pascal.

—

The cuddling naturally turns into sex. At first it's just holding each other close, then gently grinding together, then both stroking the other off. Then Kip rolls Pascal onto his back, straddles him, and takes both their erections in his hand. He leans in and kisses him deeply as they frot until they both cum across Pascal's torso.

After a break that includes a bit of washing up and joking around and drinking some water and Pascal explaining what the usual routine of running his shop is like, they fuck in the armchair, Kip's back to Pascal's broad chest, riding him. Pascal has one arm around Kip's erection, the other moving freely across Kip's front, feeling and grasping and rubbing at him. He grips on around Kip's waist and holds him down sometimes, tucking Kip's shoulder underneath his chin and thrusting powerfully up into him, making Kip cry out and grab on to him. Pascal leans back into the chair for support when they're nearing the finish, but when he cums he squeezes their bodies together again and buries his face against the nape of Kip's neck. Gasping and shaking, Kip's bucking suddenly grows more erratic before he grasps the coil of Pascal's arm with both hands, shoves his cock as deep into it as he can, and orgasms with his spine curving and head falling back.

Pascal slips his arm around Kip's chest to slowly pull him down until he's lying against him, panting. Kip lifts Pascal's arm and kisses it.

Kip wonders for a moment what he looks like, out of breath and flushed and sweaty, cum between his legs and bright blue spots across his torso where Pascal's suckers had latched on to him, sitting on Pascal's lap, slumped back against his wide torso as though Pascal's body is enthroning his own.

"Sometimes I wish I could see ourselves when we do stuff like this," he mumbles, rolling his head to the side to kiss Pascal's jaw.

"I bet we look pretty hot," Pascal says.

Kip lets Pascal wind his soft, strong arms around him and keeps his body limp in the hold as Pascal works a hickey into the base of his throat.

—

Kip lies beside Pascal, looking at his face. He's lovely at first glance, but the sight of him only grows more gorgeous with every moment spent taking it in.

Kip has plenty of reasons to be amazed that Pascal is with him. That he stayed after Kip was dramatically, permanently changed overnight by deep trauma and grief. He was willing to leave behind his security in D for another chance to be with Kip. He waited for him for months and months without ever pressuring Kip to decide on whether he wanted to be together or not. And he reacted with sympathy and patience when Kip told him he liked another person, too.

All of it is amazing. But it's not just the circumstances of their relationship. It's not just that Pascal noticed him—Kip knows he's often found strikingly attractive by all kinds of people, and for a long time he's been easily recognizable as Kent Kaizer's little brother. It's not just that they both managed to work up the nerve to start dating.

It's that even when Pascal got to know Kip better and found out that he wasn't the handsome boy with a mysterious smile most people seemed to think he was, he was still interested. Kip's just ordinary. He's not cool and collected—he's anxious, he's easily worked up, he loves to joke around and laugh and have fun with the people he loves. He's like anyone else. He's not special, and Pascal loves him anyway. Kip marvels at that.

Kip loves to see Pascal's face even when he's asleep. But when he turns towards Kip and gives him that smile and gets that look in his eyes—it makes Kip think he'll never see anything so breathtaking.

—

Back in the bedroom, Kip has the chance to use the condoms Pascal got for him. He spends a good amount of time beforehand just kissing all over Pascal's body, feeling and caressing and following the shape of every part of him with his hands, planting kisses along the way, across his chest and stomach and on his knees and thighs and ankles and his neck and shoulders and along his hipbones and around his arms. Then he lies atop him for a little while and kisses his mouth and plays with his hair before he has Pascal roll over to lie on his front, and Kip repeats the process, kissing the nape of his neck, his spine, his sides, his arms, his shoulderblades, his ass, his legs. He lies beside Pascal to kiss him again, which quickly becomes making out, and Pascal's tiny sighs and moans into his mouth turn Kip on too much to maintain the slow pace anymore.

He ends up straddling Pascal's thighs and grinding against his ass, a hand resting on the small of his back for balance. He thrusts hard enough to push Pascal's hips into the mattress for him, then sucks on his fingers and carefully sinks the middle one into Pascal. It's not very long until he's put three fingers in at Pascal's encouragement, massaging his prostate while stretching him until Pascal all but begs to be fucked.

Kip slides off to get a condom and lube, and watching Pascal panting and whimpering and tugging at the sheets while humping the bed is one of the hottest things he's ever seen. He rolls the condom on quickly and coats it in lube and then gives Pascal a layer as well before straddling him again, widening the stance of his knees.

He keeps a hand flat against Pascal's spine as he slowly pushes into him; he can feel Pascal's body subtly arching and tensing at the sensation. He's not sure whether the feeling of being inside Pascal or the way Pascal breathes his name and moans approval spikes his arousal harder.

Once Pascal says he's ready, Kip begins rolling his hips at a gentle, steady pace. He shifts angles, holding Pascal's waist and leaning into him. He feels a little jolt in Pascal's muscles and knows he's got it and pauses, adjusts his knees slightly, and starts to thrust.

One part of him wants to draw this out as long as he can, but it's not nearly as strong as the part of him that wants to let go of his self-control and just fuck Pascal as hard as he wants. He's finding it increasingly difficult to resist doing so, and Pascal is coaxing him on, grinding back and moaning responsively whenever Kip thrusts harder.

He slows down for a moment, deepening the rocks of his hips to compensate. He always needs a moment to regain his composure before deciding to drop it entirely.

Pascal is breathlessly repeating his name and grinding back hard, clearly ready for more. Kip takes hold of Pascal's waist with one hand and leans in, reaching around and palming his dick, feeling its heat and slick traces of precum.

If he drops his restraint, Pascal will too. And if he's retained his near-instinctive knowledge of both their bodies, he's pretty sure at this point it shouldn't be too impossible of a challenge to make Pascal cum at the same time as him.

He gets a firm grip on Pascal's waist and pulls as he rocks his hips forward hard. Pascal responds passionately, shoving himself back against Kip, sliding an arm down the headboard with an enthusiastic groan. Between Pascal’s encouragement and how good it all feels, Kip has no problem bucking harder and faster into him.

His rhythm and his increasing pleasure alike reach a steady intensity and his thoughts fall behind as he loses himself a little more with every beat of their hips. But the reaction he's getting from Pascal is just as intoxicating—his pleasure is obvious in his shaky voice and forceful movements and rough gasps for air.

Kip leans in and puts one hand on Pascal's shoulder and starts stroking him off with the other. The way Pascal moans his name, the heat of his cock, watching him bury his face into the pillow and curl the tips of his arms—it's all basically just about the best experience Kip can imagine.

Kip can feel himself getting close; he bites his tongue and grips Pascal's shoulder and forces his own thrusts to be more shallow, aiming for Pascal's prostate and swiping his thumb across the tip of Pascal's erection every few strokes. But Pascal's whimpers and shivering muscles are a good sign that he must be close, too. So Kip bears down and pumps harder at Pascal's dick and tangles his hand in Pascal's thick hair, pulling it slightly as he kisses his spine and bucks into him.

Pascal is breathing heavily, but still manages to moan Kip's name louder and more frequently. Kip works Pascal's erection as though it was his own and rubs his other hand over the soft hair of his broad chest.

The moment he feels Pascal tensing up beneath him, he lets go of his own restraint and thrusts hard into Pascal to nudge them both towards the edge.

Pascal shoves back against him and then his whole body tightens beautifully, squeezing Kip’s dick, arching up. Cum spills between Kip’s fingers. Kip grabs hold of Pascal's waist and watches him climax just as he's brought to his own orgasm, pushing deep into Pascal.

Kip sinks down as it subsides, bracing himself with his elbows on either side of Pascal, resting his forehead against Pascal's back.

He seems to recover some of his strength quicker than Pascal, and sits up to gently coax him to roll over onto his back. The fact that Pascal is a mess only makes the sight of him even more gorgeous—his hair is in his deeply flushed face and he's shining with sweat and completely boneless against the bed, torso rising and falling quickly as he tries to catch his breath.

Kip leans in and kisses Pascal's forehead and cheek and the corner of his mouth, then gets up and goes to the bathroom and throws away the condom and washes the cum off his hand. By the time he walks back into the bedroom, Pascal has opened his eyes and weakly reaches out to Kip as he approaches.

Just lying side-by-side is so relaxing. Kip trails his fingertips over Pascal's chest, trying to send slight washes of coolness over his skin. He listens to Pascal's breathing slow down and even out as he recovers, and takes a gentle hold of one of his arms. Kip laughs softly when Pascal rolls over to lie half on top of Kip, an arm and a leg across his body and his temple on Kip's shoulder. Kip cradles Pascal's head and kisses his hair.

Holding Pascal feels so nice, having him so close, skin soft and smooth and blessedly warm against the length of Kip's body. His weight is perfect too, pressing Kip snugly against the bed. Kip starts gently massaging Pascal's back at a lazy pace, moving his knuckles in slow circles, and accompanies it by dragging his fingertips through Pascal's hair.

Pascal is still for so long that it takes Kip by surprise when he smoothly pushes himself up and kisses Kip on the lips. Kip opens his mouth after a few gentle licks from Pascal and lets their tongues meet, and they kiss deeply for several minutes on end, taking several breaks to breathe during which Pascal kisses Kip’s nose and cheeks.

Pascal apologizes when he realizes the suckers on his arm have involuntarily latched on to Kip's side, but Kip shushes him and cuddles closer.

—

"Before we start, I wanted to ask if you'd rather cum on my face or in my mouth?" Pascal looks up at Kip with a faint smile, slowly coiling his arm around the base of Kip's erection. "Or both, really. Because I'm fine with anything."

Kip blushes harder and puts his hands flat against the wall behind him, digging his fingertips against the surface as if he could hold on to it the way Pascal can. He draws a deep breath.

Pascal kisses the tip of his dick—Kip's legs twitch and he gasps. Pascal presses a steadying arm against Kip's right hip.

"What would you prefer, love?" Pascal asks gently, squeezing his hold on Kip's erection and pointing it towards his mouth. The warmth of his breath, his parted lips, the unwavering gaze of his gorgeous brown eyes—Kip is completely caught up in the moment.

"I—" he begins weakly, laying a hand in Pascal's hair, sliding it gently down the side of his head.

Pascal touches him with his soft lips and licks the crest of the head. Kip breaks.

"Your face," Kip gasps, leaning into the arm on his hip and clenching a hand into a fist. "Both. But especially your face."

Pascal smiles at him and blushes harder.

"Got it."

Kip figures he can be deeply proud of himself if he’d given Pascal anything like what Pascal's giving him. He drops his self-control within the minute that Pascal takes his cock into his mouth; he keeps his back against the wall but can't help bucking into Pascal’s mouth.

His thoughts stumble and mix and overlap, he grows loud and incoherent with groans and whines and sharp cries. It's like everything he has is devoted to processing the sensation, absorbing its full intensity as best he can. He has no sense of whether five minutes or an hour goes by. He's completely consumed by this rapturous feeling—he's not sure he could keep his head in this situation even if he was trying, but he has no interest in doing so.

He lets Pascal control everything and do whatever he feels like doing—and he seems to want to make Kip freeze himself to the wall with how good this blowjob is. Kip puts a hand helplessly on Pascal's head and whimpers and tries to keep his knees from buckling, and Pascal gives a few hard sucks as he winds his arm tighter around the base of Kip's dick.

It had already seemed as overwhelming as possible, but then Pascal gives a low moan while holding Kip's entire length in his mouth and throat, and locks eyes with Kip while he tongues the head of his cock. Kip feels as though he can be shaken apart into a million shivering pieces.

The only way he can inform Pascal that he thinks he's close is with a loud, long groan while giving a fistful of his hair a light tug. Pascal hums and slides an arm up between Kip's legs to rim him with the end while he deepthroats him. Kip crumbles.

He can barely hear his own cries; he thrusts forward and stiffens; Pascal gathers him in off the wall, holding him in his mouth as he starts to cum. And then Pascal pulls off to let the rest of the cum hit his face and fall on his chest; Kip watches breathlessly and tries not to outright collapse as his orgasm bursts through him in a powerful, transcendently blissful rush.

As soon as his climax begins to fade into his afterglow, Kip sinks to his knees in front of Pascal and cups his face in his hands, studying every minute detail of the sight. Pascal smiles softly at him, catching his own breath, then licks the cum from his lips. Kip pulls him in and interrupts his own "I love you" with a kiss.

—

Pascal holds on to the wall with his suckers as Kip fucks him up against it, resting his forehead over Pascal's spine. He keeps it slow, keeps his movements even and deep and controlled. He touches and kisses all over Pascal's skin and hugs him as they move together, feeling his warmth and the shift of his muscles.

He can talk to Pascal through the easy pace, murmur compliments and encouragement to him as he fucks him, stroke Pascal's cock to makes his voice waver as he answers. He kisses the base of Pascal's neck, working him up gently and slowly, taking as much time as he wants—which he wishes was all the time in the world.

—

Making out in the kitchen leads to Kip bent over the counter as Pascal grinds hard against his ass. Kip tries his best to grip on to the countertop with his hands splayed flat against it; his breathless laughs quickly turn into moans.

—

"Here you go, babe."

Pascal sets a mug of green tea on the table beside the couch, where Kip has spent several minutes engaging in a number of stretches of his back, shoulders, and arms.

"Thank you," Kip says, tilting his head towards his shoulder with the help of a hand on his temple. He straightens up after a few seconds, arches his back for a few more, and then sits with his legs crossed as he takes the warm tea in his hands.

He glances up to see Pascal watching him from where he sits in the armchair.

"...What's up?" Kip laughs quietly, feeling himself blush.

Pascal blushes too and gives him a smile.

"Sorry, it's nothing, I just..." He rubs an arm over his knee. "It's really nice just being able to see you sitting there. I love having you here so much, it's...it's something I used to daydream about since back when I first got this place."

Kip gets a fluttery feeling in his chest and holds his tea a bit tighter, self-conscious in a pleasant way.

"Back then I didn't try to get my hopes up that this would ever really happen, but that didn't keep me from wishing for it anyways. I guess that part of me's really happy just to be able to give you tea and sit here with you."

Kip touches his ear and smiles at the floor. Pascal makes him feel so wanted, so valued, even when he’s doing nothing.

He puts his tea down and walks over, directing Pascal's face upwards with a caress to his jawline, and kisses him softly.

—

Pascal goes to start dinner, but Kip works him over once more before he can. He fingers him and sucks his dick until he cums hard, then sends him off to continue with a warm kiss.

—

They sit together at the small, round table to eat, and with their close proximity and the lighting from a tea candle, it feels something like a night out at a restaurant. Save for the fact that a t-shirt, a tank top, and their underwear are the only clothing they have between them. Maybe it's the relaxation brought on by all the sex, maybe it's the simple fact that he's with Pascal, but Kip finds it naturally effortless to keep up a decent pace of conversation. He doesn't feel the slightest pressure to impress anymore. Pascal doesn't leave him with any doubt about what he thinks of Kip and how he feels about him.

—

Kip insists on helping Pascal clean up, but even now he's still so starved for touch that he keeps distracting himself by brushing his fingertips down Pascal's back, touching his side, rising on tiptoe to kiss his jaw, bumping their arms. But Pascal seems just as eager for little moments of contact as Kip is.

His favorite just might be when he's rinsing his hands off at the sink and Pascal walks up behind him and slips his arms around his waist, pulling Kip back against his chest, and kisses him behind the ear. It gives him such a nice moment of surprise and such a lasting, warm, affectionate feeling.

It's been so long since he's openly engaged with these emotions, since they've had any use save as echoes of themselves while he's remembered his past or dreamt of his future. He loves this part of himself, he loves feeling this way, sharing this with Pascal.

When he pivots in Pascal's arms to face him, his attempt at kissing him is thwarted by the fact that he starts giggling, which just makes him laugh harder when he tries to power through it. Pascal smiles and scatters light kisses all across his face.

—

"Oh my god..." Pascal sighs, closing his eyes.

Kip has put him in an apparent state of ecstasy for the past half hour by lightly scratching his back and shoulders and occasionally kneading his knuckles into his muscles. Pascal has gone from sitting up against the couch to lying boneless on his stomach; Kip straddles his thighs and leans in to let his weight intensify the massage.

"Here, tell me where it feels best." Kip slowly drifts his touch down Pascal's spine, from between his shoulderblades towards the small of his back.

"Oh, there," Pascal groans. He nuzzles his face into the cushion and pushes up slightly against Kip's hands.

"Okay." Kip digs in harder and grins when Pascal swears quietly in breathless euphoria. "Is your back sore there?"

"A little..."

Kip puts his weight into it even further.

He continues even as his arms get a little tired, basking in the glow of Pascal's deep contentment. He intersperses it with gentle scratches of his nails along Pascal's skin, pushing his hands up along the slopes his back in smooth, wide sweeps. Feeling the tiny, responsive shifts of Pascal's body beneath his touch and seeing Pascal's arm spill further and further over the side of the couch is so satisfyingly lovely.

When his arms finally grow too tired, he murmurs an apology for having to stop. Pascal rolls over onto his side and pulls Kip down to lie with him, chest to chest, thighs pushed together.

Pascal wraps a hold around Kip's hand and lifts it up to kiss it.

"Are your hands cold?" he asks.

"A little," Kip answers.

Pascal presses the hand to his own chest and holds the other against his lips, bathing it in warm exhales.

Kip closes his eyes.

—

They talk for hours into the night, sometimes laughing and swapping anecdotes, voices quieting other times under the intimate weight of deeply personal subjects. Not for the first time, Kip has another little experience of falling in love with Pascal as his boyfriend describes the certainty he had that he would always carry a deep regret if he didn't try moving to C, yet how afraid he was—of living somewhere so different from the area he'd known all his life, of trying something so new as being a shopkeeper, of facing the risks Kip had warned him of, and of potentially losing any relationship with Kip permanently. He talks of how unsure he'd been of how he ought to reach out to Kip, or when he'd work up the confidence to do so. Part of him had been relieved that Kip had accidentally walked into his shop, and part of him had been worried that it had been too much, too soon. But he says he had an inherent trust in Kip that no amount of worrying could shake—and the look on his face when he speaks of it makes Kip curl his toes.

He tells Kip about the time he got off at the wrong station when taking that train line for the second time ever and didn't realize it for about half an hour, about which he liked best of the movies he'd seen in the past year, about how he'd recently taken up a sculpting class and found he'd liked it, though it was sometimes difficult to wash his arms off completely afterwards.

Kip tells him about all the worries he's been having lately—all of them, including more elaboration on what he'd struggled with before deciding he wanted to ask out Pascal, his fears that he's never been able to know himself and that he has no idea what he really wants from his future, his feelings about Wallace, Ben, Molly, Roy, his bouts of loneliness and depression and grief and anxiety and overall stress, his enduring sense of inadequacy—and at times, inferiority. He tells him how he still feels he lacks the confidence or energy to play even a semi-public role, but worries the choice has never really been in his hands. He tells him how he sometimes feels that, in everything that's been happening in recent years, he's lost the ability to let his hair down and enjoy himself without cares the way he used to. He tells him that in the back of his mind he at times still dreads going to bed, as he associates it with unpleasant dreams, nightmares so terrible they're almost flashbacks, and night terrors that left him badly anxious the next day.

"Are you worried about that right now?" Pascal asks, drawing his legs up further onto the couch.

Kip can't help smiling.

"No. I'm actually kind of excited. I've missed sharing a bed with you really badly ever since we moved."

Pascal blushes and smiles in turn.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "Me too. It's a lot harder to relax without being able to wake up to you."

"Aw..." Kip laughs and touches his heated cheek.

Minutes later, he's in Pascal's lap again while Pascal kisses him and jerks him off. It's gentle and gradual, Kip moves his hips slowly, holds on to Pascal, and only begins to get out of breath towards the end. His orgasm is subdued but lovely; he stills his body with a long inhale, shivering as he peaks in Pascal's embrace with a satisfying wash of pleasure. Pascal cradles him even closer and they kiss softly for a quarter of an hour.

—

Kip looks at himself in the mirror after toweling off from his bath. He figures he's just imagining it, but it does look like his neutral expression is somehow softer, like his features look nicer, like they inherently radiate his contentment and relaxation. He knows it's likely just his own state of mind making him feel more positive towards himself, but at the same time, he wouldn't be surprised at all to find that Pascal makes him more beautiful.

—

Pascal draws back the sheets for him, and Kip approaches the bed almost reverently. He hesitates for just a moment and looks at Pascal lying there, and then crawls up onto the mattress and slips his legs under the blankets.

"Oh," he breathes. "It's warm..."

His heartbeat quickens as he settles on his side and puts his head on the pillow. Pascal lowers the blankets and they look at each other.

Pascal looks so handsome. Kip feels so lucky to have ever even met him.

"How are you?" Pascal smiles softly at him.

"This is so nice," Kip says. "I'm really happy, Pasc."

Pascal grins and kisses Kip's forehead; Kip laughs and puts his hand on Pascal's chest.

"I missed you," Pascal murmurs against his skin, so earnestly that Kip blushes.

"I know," Kip whispers. "I missed you, too."

He puts his arm around Pascal.

—

They cuddle for ages. Kip is so enamored with this, Pascal so close to him, every inch of their bodies together, feeling as though he's reliving what it had been like to be with Pascal every day.

They keep having several-minute periods of kissing, Kip keeps snuggling up to Pascal as though, even with no space between them, they can get even closer. Inevitably, they start slowly grinding together, but keep it relaxed and easy—it's just fun and feels good, like any of the other times they've worked each other up without the intent to take it all the way to orgasm. As they slow down, Kip puts his hand on Pascal's back and, after a few moments of focus, bathes them in gentle coolness to counter the heat they've generated. Pascal sighs with relief and kisses the top of his head.

But what feels most incredible is when they start to drift off, and Kip finds himself half-asleep in Pascal's embrace. He hasn't felt so warm and safe and comfortable in way too long. This alone is enough to make everything feel okay.

—

Kip wakes slowly, growing a bit confused as his senses return to him. But the moment he identifies the soft weight across his chest as Pascal's arm, he's fully alert. He looks over to see Pascal inches away, sleeping, and the realization is so powerful it catches his breath. He looks at Pascal's face as his remembers the prior evening, and feels a deep satisfaction fill his whole body. After a minute or two spent simply soaking in the moment, he closes his eyes again with a long exhale. He'd be happy to be here for years.

—

The whole of the next day is worthy of any of the jokes Kate cracked about this visit. They have plenty of breaks to rest and rehydrate and hold each other and have long conversations full of laughter, but from the start of their day to the finish, they have sex over and over and over and over and over, incessantly drawn right back to each other.

—

Kip takes a hot bath while Pascal makes them dinner, and lies back in the warmth of the water, eyes closed, listening to the quiet sounds of Pascal moving around outside.

—

Kip wakes up in the middle of the night to pee, and when he climbs back into bed, Pascal's mostly-asleep, mumbled "I love you" melts his heart.

—

It takes him a bit to drag himself out of bed and away from Pascal after his phone wakes him up, and he takes a warm shower simply as a reward for standing upright. He tries to keep quiet as he changes into his work clothes in the corner of his bedroom, but can't help pressing a light kiss to Pascal's forehead before he goes.

Leaving the apartment is slightly miserable, but he manages to lift his mood on the walk to work by reminding himself he's going to be returning to Pascal in a few hours. The empty café is lonely, but he tries to take advantage of the solitude to dwell on the past day and a half as he goes about the routine of getting ready to open. It renders him fairly absentminded, but Sunday mornings are usually quiet, and, luckily, this one's not an exception.

But even only a couple of hours after being with him and a few hours more away from being with him again, he misses Pascal. He supposes that when he has to leave tomorrow afternoon he'll miss Pascal even worse. But maybe, as it does now, the promise of seeing him again in the future will be a comfort.

—

He gets a text from Pascal saying "I missed waking up with you. I can't wait until you get back."

It sits light in his chest for the rest of his shift. There's this hint of a sense of total belonging that he hasn't really had since the fire, and the way it feels to be with Pascal like this—he can't doubt that it's the right thing for him.

—

The last hour definitely drags on. When Molly shows up he's nervously wringing the hem of his apron. The second his shift is over, before he even gets a chance to get a word in, she all but pushes him out the door with the order that he not keep Pascal waiting.

The clouds spit rain on him as he steps outside, but he doesn't mind in the least. He gets to go back to Pascal. He hasn't felt this eager and lighthearted in so long that he'd practically forgotten what it's like. He only gets about two blocks away from the café before he starts to jog.

—

He uses the key that Pascal had left for him to get back inside the building and only takes a few seconds to remember where the stairway is. He's at the door to the apartment in half a minute, and the moment he's back inside is so gratifying. He immediately empties his pockets, putting everything on the living room table with his apron, just before Pascal walks in from the bedroom and wraps him up in a hug.

The hug immediately becomes a kiss, and within half a minute becomes sexual. They playfully bite each other's lips and tug at each other's bodies, clumsily pushing one another up against furniture and walls in something of a game. But when Kip’s pinned down with his back arched over the arm of the couch, one hand on Pascal's side and the other in Pascal's hair as his boyfriend sucks on his throat, Kip is way too turned on to continue playing along. He instead pulls Pascal closer and grinds up against him with a prolonged, sighing moan, and is delighted when Pascal's immediate response is to grab his ass and help him grind even harder.

Pascal has to concentrate when he undoes Kip's shirt, working each button open with slow, deliberate care. Kip luxuriates in the attention, in the time and focus Pascal is more than willing to invest in the process of gradually baring his torso. Pascal keeps pausing every couple of buttons to kiss across the wedge of blue skin he's uncovered, Kip's collarbones and chest and sternum and stomach. He kisses Kip's mouth once the shirt is fully opened, sliding his arms around to Kip's back to further push the fabric off of him. Kip rolls his hips and shrugs the shirt away, pushing himself up further into Pascal's arms. And then Pascal gets to work on his belt, and Kip has to momentarily bury his face in his hands to keep still.

Pascal ends up fucking him on the floor. Kip accidentally pulls one of the cushions off the couch. He's left feeling so well worked over that he only bothers moving enough to make room for Pascal to lie down next to him and snuggle in close.

—

"I love that we're together like this," Pascal murmurs.

There's such an intensity in his gaze, but it doesn't make Kip glance away. He likes everything about this; he knows he wants to carry with him every little detail he can hold.

Pascal loops his arm around Kip's wrist to lift his hand up, lowering his head and nudging the loosely curled-in fingers with his nose until he can kiss Kip's palm.

Kip closes his eyes, relaxing against Pascal's side.

He lets Pascal slowly press kisses to the back of his hands and fingers and thumb, then sits up and leans in to catch Pascal's lips with a kiss. He holds it for several seconds, then leans away and looks at his boyfriend's face, gently brushing some of his long hair aside.

"I love you," he says quietly.

Pascal smiles and draws him into a hug, tucking his face against the crook of Kip's neck.

Kip puts his arms around him.

As they hold each other, peaceful and still, Kip feels his own body lose its coolness until he shares the same warmth as Pascal.

—

Kip kneels by Pascal's side, kissing him at length, and trails a hand down Pascal's front until he's petting his crotch. It makes Pascal's kisses grow more and more heated until they're passionately making out; soon they're dry-humping on the couch, laughing breathlessly and pulling each other closer.

The ensuing sex ends up lasting almost two hours. There were enough periods when things slowed down that they're not completely exhausted afterwards, but for a good while Kip rests against Pascal, lazily caressing his chest and gently cooling them both as Pascal traces meandering shapes on the small of Kip's back.

—

A bit after their late lunch, Pascal lays Kip down on the bed and feels all over his body with his mouth and arms, tirelessly thorough. Kip lets Pascal touch his body however he wants, keeping his own muscles relaxed as Pascal lifts and rotates his leg to kiss his ankle or nudges him slightly onto his side to get at his back.

He grows warmer and even more relaxed as the touching progresses. It gives him this relationship with his body that's different from everyday. Normally it's just there, moving and supporting and letting him interact with the world, but he doesn't need to think about it or give it any attention. But when he's in Pascal's arms, it's like he experiences his body in the way Pascal does, exploring and feeling himself and understanding every inch of his skin as something desirable and nice.

Pascal settles over him and kisses along the front of his torso, from the base of his throat to the muscles beneath his navel, his sides and shoulders. The light-as-air kisses grow slightly heavier; Pascal licks his nipple and breathes warm air on it, his lips millimeters from Kip's skin. By the time Pascal lies down beside Kip and kisses his mouth, Kip is effortlessly aware of his whole body and every movement he makes and how it touches Pascal.

When he's rolled over onto his stomach to let Pascal touch the rest of him, Pascal lingers at the patch of skin on the left side of the small of his back, a spot above his hip that's just slightly waxier than the smooth skin around it, just a little darker yet brighter in color. Kip closes his eyes and inhales deeply as Pascal runs the tip of his arm around its nebulous border and then kisses it.

It's a small region, hardly different from the unburnt skin around it, just barely scarred, always hidden under a shirt. Only a lover would ever notice it, and only Pascal out of anyone in existence would recognize it as a change to his body.

"It's left from before." Kip's quiet affirmation is further muffled by the pillow.

Pascal plants soft kisses there over and over and over.

—

"I remember when I first met you. When I first saw you. I thought you were so beautiful I stopped right where I was."

Kip cuddles closer to Pascal. He nuzzles his forehead against his chest.

"And even once I'd gotten brave enough to even try talking with you, I was sure I could never date you, and that you wouldn't ever be interested anyways. I hoped so much, though. God, I couldn't help but hope so, so hard."

Kip smiles softly.

"I wanted to be with you so badly, Kip. But you seemed totally untouchable, and I thought I must be lying to myself when it seemed like you were interested back. I could hardly believe it that I got your number, and when we would have these long phone calls it felt like I was just living out this fantasy, or I'd stepped into someone else's life. It didn't seem real that we might be dating. Even when we met up and started hanging out, I couldn't quite convince myself to believe it was a date."

"Did it help that time I suggested we stop somewhere for dinner?" Kip asks quietly, rubbing Pascal's arm with his thumb.

Pascal laughs.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I felt like that must be a good sign. I could barely think straight after I went home because part of me kept saying: what if Kip Kaizer is your boyfriend? And I would get this burst of happiness fighting to come out, and have to try to hold it back, because I still couldn't be completely sure. It just seemed so impossible that...I don't know, that you didn't already have a thousand people lined up to date you already, and that if you weren't with someone already, you'd want to be with me, of all people."

"You held my hand," Kip murmurs, closing his eyes.

"Yeah...” Pascal gives a quiet laugh. “I was so nervous to try it that there were about a million times I wanted to touch your hand before I actually did. And of course when I did, it was only after you'd accidentally touched me first—"

"It wasn't an accident."

"It wasn't?" Pascal sounds genuinely surprised.

"No," Kip laughs.

"Oh, gosh..." Pascal laughs too. "Then I guess it worked. I mean, I was able to convince myself to take your hand in part because, if you hated it or it seemed weird, I figured I could act like I had done it without thinking."

"I didn't hate it. I'd wished it had lasted longer."

"It was shorter than I would ever want it to be," Pascal agrees. "But really, once I'd held your hand for just a few seconds and you seemed okay with it, I was so excited that it made me nervous and I felt like I had to let go while I was still ahead."

Kip slips his hand down to rest on Pascal's hip.

"I was pretty much over the stars when you kissed me." Pascal's voice quiets. "That day, and just knowing we were really together, that you really liked me, it was absolutely like living a dream."

"Babe—" Kip wraps an arm around him and looks up at his face. "You made me so, so happy, too."

He kisses him softly, twice.

"From my perspective?" he continues. "This gorgeous boy just appeared out of nowhere, looking at me and talking to me like I was the most interesting person to him out of everyone around. It felt a little like something out of a story. I wanted us to kiss from that very first moment."

Now Pascal kisses him.

"I'm so glad I'm with you again," Pascal says.

"...I feel the same," Kip answers.

Pascal smiles and wraps his arm around Kip's hand and puts his lips against Kip's forehead.

—

The sex they have all day is in this lovely place where it feels like its a familiar indulgence again. The magnetic charge they've built up from being apart so long means they rarely go over half an hour without someone being pushed against the wall or bent over furniture, without falling onto the bed or reaching into underwear. Kip can't get enough of touching Pascal, blowing him, being pushed down by his weight while being fucked by him, watching Pascal come undone at his touch and then cede all control as Kip fucks him. Pascal seems to want him just as badly as Kip wants Pascal. And it only feels better the more they get each other off.

Sharing the afterglow is one of Kip's favorite kinds of cuddling. Laughing as they catch their breaths, kissing messily, tucking their heads together while they rest.

Kip's desire for sex seems insatiable; every time Pascal starts seducing him, it's a mere handful of moments before he's completely turned on; soon after their last round, Kip will find himself drawn to Pascal again. He loves it, and knows it's only fair they get to fuck as many times as they could possibly want—he figures he could even keep this pace up for a week or more, if they had that long.

Pascal is so beautiful and caring and gentle and sweet. Kip is continuously amazed just by being in his presence, in this radiance of warmth and love and intimacy that flows from him. The deep and unabashed love for Kip that he expresses is as good an aphrodisiac as anything.

Flat on his back, Kip weakly lifts himself onto his elbows to look at Pascal. Pascal looks up at him, and despite his mouth being otherwise occupied, unmistakably smiles at Kip with his eyes. Kip sighs an equal blend of a laugh and a moan.

—

"Can I bring you your tea?" Pascal's voice floats through the wall.

"Sure." Kip sits up slightly. "The door's open already."

A minute later Pascal enters the bathroom, carrying his kettle and a cup on a saucer.

"Thank you," Kip murmurs as Pascal sets the tea on the border of the tub. The ruby liquid ripples gently and issues fresh, curling folds of steam.

"Would you like the rest of the water in the tub?"

"Oh, sure—"

Kip draws his legs in and Pascal tips the near-boiling water from the kettle into the foot of the tub, splashing down gently as it diffuses through the bathwater. Kip shivers as the heat embraces him, reaching his calves and then thighs and then stomach and waist and back.

"Is that okay?" Pascal asks. "Do you need more?"

Kip smiles and shakes his head.

"This is nice. Thank you, Pas."

He tilts his head up and Pascal brings their lips together. Kip feels the steam spill against his chest and throat.

—

Kip wrinkles his nose at his reflection as he combs his hair into place; Pascal comes to the doorway and leans against it.

"I could take you out for dinner," he says.

"Hm? Oh—yeah, we could do that," Kip answers, meeting his own eyes in the mirror.

"There's a nice little place that's just a short walk away, it's not too fancy or anything, but I think it's pretty good. I usually stop by at least once a month or so."

"Sure," Kip says.

"It's quiet there. So’s the walk over.”

Kip at once understands the implication. He feels gently relieved and brushes his fingers through his hair.

"Okay," he says softly. He turns and smiles at Pascal.

Pascal blushes and Kip sees him try to hold back a laugh until it spills out of him in a giggle.

"I really want to take you out," he says, grinning. "But it doesn't have to be now, or here. I can go out and bring some stuff home, too..."

"It's fine, I can go out with you," Kip says.

"Okay." The excitement behind Pascal's voice is obvious; Kip smiles to himself, a warmth in his chest at Pascal's happiness, and laughs when Pascal leans down and kisses his cheek.

—

Kip is a little anxious at walking down the street outside, still only a few blocks away from Berkley, but the pleasure of walking with Pascal soon distracts him from his concerns—along with the fact that no one seems to pay him any mind. It had often been the case anyhow, back when they lived in D, that people's attention was drawn more by the guy standing beside him who was over twice his size.

They have a nice evening meal, enjoying both the benefits of being in public and the privacy of their little table tucked against the wall in one of the corners. Pascal's company is so restorative, Kip feels parts of himself stirring to life that had been dormant ever since he watched Pascal disappear through the back windshield of a cab. He feels more fully and genuinely himself, just sitting across from Pascal as his boyfriend, in the awareness that they're really and actually together again.

Pascal grimaces at a noodle that fell off his fork.

"I like this place," Kip says.

Pascal looks up at him and a soft smile pulls at his mouth.

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. It's nice."

He reaches across the table and lays his hand on Pascal's arm and strokes it with his thumb.

Being on a date with Pascal.

He's glad he's here.

—

Minutes after they arrive back home, they pull each other close and kiss, and somehow manage to make it all the way to the bed. Kip can't help but laugh at how eagerly Pascal kisses and touches him, and he relaxes into the pull of gravity to let Pascal do whatever he wants. But Pascal is even more driven by what feels good for Kip, keenly attentive to the slightest breath of a moan or softest push into the touch of his mouth, responding at once to any cue of especial pleasure from Kip with an enthusiastic repetition of its apparent cause.

Kip tells Pascal he'd like this to last especially long and the buildup to be slow, and Pascal complies wonderfully. Although their pace eventually grows more athletic, for a good while their efforts are calm and leisurely; they indulge in their arousal but continually return to a close embrace and a slow grind, kissing sweetly, bringing their mouths to each other's face, throat, shoulders, chest.

Pascal has so much strength—he keeps sliding an arm around Kip's back and lifting his upper body right up off the bed to pull him closer, touch him further. Kip relaxes into the hold and sighs with bliss as Pascal drags his lips across his chest and slides an arm down to stroke and grip his ass and thighs.

Kip brings his knees in to hold Pascal's hips and grinds harder against him. Pascal reciprocates at once and to Kip's delight grinds forcefully against him, pinning him to the mattress. They quickly create a thrilling friction that makes Kip laugh loudly, wrap his arms around Pascal's shoulders, and shove back against the rhythm as best as he can. His heart leaps to hear Pascal's breath catching.

The whole time they're nearing their climaxes, Kip keeps a hand against the nape of Pascal's neck, palm resting against the base of his skull, cradling his head. When Pascal rolls them onto their sides so he can wrap a few loops of his arm around their erections, Kip puts a hand in his hair again. Pascal's warm exhales spill against his skin; they quicken and intensify and Kip holds on to him tighter.

Pascal reaches his orgasm first, low moans of Kip's name replaced by a whimper as he buries his face in Kip's shoulder. He tightens the grip of his arm for Kip's sake even as the rest of his limbs relax in the wake of his climax. Pascal leans back and Kip whines softly, missing the pressure and heat of Pascal's dick. But it's not a complete loss—his own erection is now completely encircled by Pascal's suckers and lubricated with Pascal's cum.

Pascal bites the side of Kip's neck and pumps his arm, working Kip rapidly to his peak. Kip hooks a leg around Pascal and digs his fingers into Pascal's spine; Pascal bites down harder and rolls his hips to rock Kip's body and Kip pushes his head back and grits his teeth and thrusts as hard as he can manage into Pascal's arm, trying to get as much stimulation as possible.

Pascal holds Kip so close when he finishes. He's shuddering afterwards, his muscles trembling—Pascal rolls them over again so that Kip is lying on top, resting boneless against Pascal's larger body.

Pascal murmurs affection to him as Kip pants and weakly strokes Pascal's soft, broad chest. When he recovers a bit more energy, he lifts his head some and presses soft kisses to Pascal's collarbones, throat, and jaw. Pascal lays an arm across the small of his back and rubs gentle circles over his spine, and nuzzles the side of his face against Kip's to guide him until he lies his head against Pascal's shoulder.

Every time they've found themselves in this position, Kip's wished it wouldn't end. But now that he knows he's going to be leaving tomorrow, the feeling creeps in even stronger.

He closes his eyes and tries not to mourn this before it's even over, to keep his little pangs of anxiety from interfering with fully experiencing how lovely and peaceful this feels. He buries his face in Pascal's hair and clenches his hand.

—

"I wish I didn't have to leave tomorrow."

Kip confesses quietly as they sit together on the couch, warmed by a shared blanket. Two cups of tea sit on the coffee table.

Pascal leans gently against him.

"I know. Me too."

Pascal's voice has this familiar tone, one that's deeply understanding but so good-natured in its sadness that Kip can't help a small smile.

"I guess we'll have to keep reminding ourselves that we'll see each other again soon," Kip sighs. "It's not like this is the last and only time I can visit. We're so close to each other... I mean, surely I could visit at least once a week?"

"Oh, our schedules would have to line up at least that often," Pascal says. "Even if it's not overnight like this, or as many days in a row as this, we'd have to always be able to find an afternoon or something somewhere."

"Yeah..."

Kip absentmindedly pets the side of Pascal's arm.

"Just because I've been here, though, doesn't mean I don't want to keep seeing you other places," he says. "The way we've already been doing, I mean. It's really nice to see you anywhere at any time of day, even if its just for a few minutes."

"I know what you mean. No matter how good or bad a day is, it makes me like things more just by getting to talk to you."

Kip smiles again and gently squeezes Pascal's arm.

"But we aren't even at that point yet," Pascal says. "We'll be together tomorrow until you need to start your shift, and that's not until the afternoon. And we're together right now."

"...We are," Kip affirms. He wants to enjoy every moment spent like this, and once he focuses his attention on that fact, his slight stress is gently swept away. "We're together, and I'm so happy."

He spends the next hour in his boyfriend's arms, talking with him and cuddling close to his warmth. He lies contentedly against him while Pascal pets his hair. For just right now, he doesn't worry about a blessed thing in the world.

—

Kip lies Pascal back onto the bed and against his lap, resting Pascal's head on his own thigh, and occupies him with soft kisses to his arm while slowly bringing the hand that cups his face down to his chest, down to his stomach, down to his hip, his thigh—slowly, slowly drifting down between his legs.

He can feel Pascal's excitement, the telltale hint of tension in his muscles and the way he just barely moves to turn his body towards Kip's touch. When Kip brushes his fingers over Pascal's dick, Pascal moans softly and Kip squeezes his arm and licks it during a kiss.

He keeps it all gentle, slow, and close. He sits up as he pets and rubs Pascal's erection to life, watching his work's progress as he slides his hand up and down the growing length. He continually looks back and forth between Pascal's cock and his face; he keeps getting caught in the sight of Pascal's eyes closing and lips parting, color blooming into his cheeks and brow twitching as he grows more restless. But he also loves this chance to watch unimpeded as he jerks Pascal off, just stare at his dick as he touches it, soak it in. Both sights are so lovely—he keeps dropping occasional kisses to Pascal's arm, and wishes he could kiss his lips.

He works Pascal up steadily, pumping harder and playing with the tip. He cradles Pascal's head with his other hand, soothingly stroking his hair. Pascal turns his face towards Kip's stomach, squeezing his eyes shut and groaning quietly; Kip brushes the backs of his fingers down Pascal's cheek.

Pascal's arms curl and draw in onto his chest. He whines softly and his body shifts against the bed as he rocks his hips. Kip leans in to make it easier to speed his rhythm a bit more. He watches Pascal's face closely as he does, noticing the smallest twitches of his muscles, the momentary bite at his lip. He can practically feel the vibration of Pascal's low groan; he gasps silently as Pascal thrusts hard into his hand.

To be with Pascal like this, to see and touch him like this, hold him, turn him on, bring him to orgasm—it's so deeply satisfying. He has to be so lucky to be here, to be the person Pascal wants for this. How lucky he has to be to be so happy with Pascal, to be so sure in his love for him and in how he's loved right back, to have this one part of his life where he has absolutely no doubts that he's doing the right thing.

He could draw this out longer, but he can sense that Pascal is aching to finish, so he kisses Pascal's suckers and focuses in on making him cum.

The way Pascal says his name as he grows close is so sweet and appealing that Kip laughs breathlessly out of sheer happiness. Pascal slips his arm around Kip's back and he feels the limb grab onto him.

In the last few moments, Pascal turns his head and lifts it weakly; Kip is momentarily bemused until he realizes that Pascal is blindly seeking out his mouth. He has to quickly scoot back and lean in carefully and it’s an awkward position—but he pushes their lips together and Pascal pulls him in hard, kissing him with such surprising intensity that Kip almost forgets to keep moving his hand. But between his own flow and the enthusiastic roll of Pascal's hips, he doesn't have anything to worry about on that front.

Pascal moans softly into Kip's mouth just before crying out—Kip's breath catches as he realizes what's happening and he slides his nose alongside Pascal's, smiling softly when he feels cum spill against his fingers.

He strokes Pascal's hair back from his forehead while he catches his breath; he gets on his knees and brings his lips to Pascal's stomach and spends a minute kissing and licking his cum off his skin. He lies himself carefully across Pascal's chest when he's done, closing his eyes with a satisfied sigh and rubbing his cheek against the soft hair. Pascal's taste lingers in his mouth.

He's completely surprised when Pascal sweeps him into his arms and all at once they're lying on their sides, foreheads together and chest to chest. Kip's heartbeat speeds, but just as quickly he's relaxed in the head to toe embrace, in so much soft contact and warmth. He wraps an arm around Pascal's back and tangles their legs and Pascal draws him in just that much closer.

—

The shower space is small, but they'd gotten enough practice in over the years that it's no trouble sharing it. Kip uses the advantage his hands provide to do the bulk of the washing for both of them, but it's hardly a sacrifice. It's a messy way to clean and completely impractical, but they have fun with it.

Pascal's suckers provide an advantage when Kip grinds up against his ass and between his thighs until Pascal leans towards the wall and encourages him to penetrate—Kip holds on to Pascal's hips for support while he's fucking him and Pascal keeps them both steady with a secure grip on the steamed-up tiles, his rich moans amplified beautifully in the small space.

The playfulness remains even after they leave the shower; Kip is wholly lighthearted and sings to himself while he doubles over and holds his head upside-down to dry off his hair. A minute after he's right-side-up again, Pascal comes over to kiss him smartly on the lips and grab his ass with both arms. Kip's laughter is stifled, but the glow of his blush isn't.

—

Just when everything seems to be quietly winding down for the night, Pascal pushes Kip to the wall and kneels in front of him and sucks his dick. Kip can hardly catch his breath or his thoughts from the moment Pascal brings their tongues together to the moment he cums in his boyfriends mouth. He gasps for air as Pascal stands back up, looking perfectly satisfied with himself. He licks a drop of cum off his lips before smiling at Kip.

"I fucking love you," Kip says, and helplessly laughs.

—

It's just these plain, unspectacular moments that have the greatest tendency to give Kip this pleasant shiver inside that melts him like ice cream in summer sunlight. Pascal passing through the next room over, glancing over at Kip and at once gaining an affectionately warm expression. Making some offhanded remark and being surprised with laughter from Pascal, a lovely sound that's balanced between its lightness and the inherent depth of Pascal's voice. Feeling a gently tugging urge to just go over and hug Pascal tight, and actually being able to act on it.

Pascal would be too good to be true if he wasn’t right in front of Kip. More than a few times over the years it’s occurred to Kip that if he didn’t already know Pascal, he probably never would’ve dreamed of being with someone like him.

—

Kip has Pascal laid on his stomach, working at his shoulders with slow but strong kneads of his fingers. They joke and chat for a good while, but when Kip finds himself suddenly talking about intimate, personal feelings, it feels just as natural to keep the conversation going in that direction.

"I missed the obvious things, the big picture stuff. I missed our relationship, I missed being with you, and I just missed being around you. No matter how many noises were going on in our new place and how loud they are, it's like they couldn't drown out this huge silence. The big stuff I missed was always coming through in all these little things I missed. Like seeing your clothes around when I got dressed in the morning. And having the weight of your arm lying across my waist to help me sleep. And, you know, I'd go through a normal, boring day, and I'd have at least a dozen moments where something little happened and I'd think: 'I'll tell Pascal about this later.' And then, of course, I'd remember that I couldn't. And that always felt so weird, and wrong. And for the first month or two it kept making me kind of relive how hard it seemed to face the fact I might never even talk to you again. That felt really wrong. But eventually I just started to convince myself that it was true whether I liked it or not. And it got easier to remember every morning that I was waking up on my own, and every evening that you wouldn't be back in our apartment with us. But I could tell I'd always miss you. I could tell that was something I could only get used to, not get over."

Pascal is silent when Kip pauses. Kip pushes the heels of his hands against Pascal's muscles.

"I was so conscious of your absence. I missed being able to see you and talk to you. I knew you could live your life without me, but it was hard to remember I wouldn't get to be there for you. Or even with you."

He places his palms on the small of Pascal's back and slides them up along either side of his spine as though smoothing out fabric.

"Of course I'd always try to talk myself through it, and try to tell myself it would be easier tomorrow if I learned from whatever I was currently feeling and braced myself against it in the future. But it was really just a matter of going through it over and over again."

He brushes some of Pascal's hair off the back of his neck, just so he can touch his fingertips to the bare skin there.

"I knew we didn't have to get back together, you know? I figured there wasn't a choice. I really always thought in the back of my mind that I was at risk of being killed. And with Molly and Roy I knew that at least if they were okay, they could look out for each other. But that wasn't enough to keep me from being scared of the danger we could be in. And I couldn't even think of having you with us here. If I was a target, it felt like you'd be laying right across the bullseye, and I was so afraid of imagining it that I knew if you were ever really here I would be too scared of what might happen to you to let you just live your life without boundaries. I knew we couldn't be so cautious that I'd ever feel like you were really safe. And I knew it would affect us, that...that you would feel like you had to choose between being able to have the kind of life you liked and having a boyfriend who wasn't way too stressed out about you doing so."

He pushes his weight into it as he massages Pascal's upper back.

"It was...sadder than I can describe to think of having to be apart from you forever. It broke my heart before we’d even left. But I knew I what I couldn't ever bear was the thought of...our relationship becoming something bad, something that would hurt you."

He takes a deep, slow breath. Even now that they're together and he knows it's good, it's still hard to even think of that.

"But, no matter what, of course I had to miss you. I couldn't talk myself out of that. And I was trying to think of myself as single, and like...even if I knew I missed my old boyfriend and even if I didn't think I could find and date somebody new, I didn't have to think of myself as walled off from the rest of the world. But it was only a few months. I was still having these moments of missing you every day when we ran into each other. I never got the chance to figure out if I could think of myself as really being past it."

"I'm sorry," Pascal murmurs. He's been listening for so long that Kip is surprised to hear him speak, even as briefly and quietly as he does.

"It's alright," he assures him with a soft laugh.

"You might not have been ready to see me," Pascal says. "I knew it was a possibility you might just happen to see me one day. I'm honestly really lucky that it was face-to-face, where I had the chance to talk to you for a moment. I can't imagine it would have felt okay for you if you'd just seen me out a window one day, going down the street."

Kip imagines it. The shock, the disbelief, the doubt, struggling to come up with reasons and explanations while his pulse beats in his throat and he's upset at being caught so unawares and stressed about the way his heart leapt and frustrated he's not over Pascal and scared that Pascal may have ventured into their district after all, and hurt by that possibility. And if he had talked with Roy and Molly about it and had not only learned that they'd known but had it confirmed then that Pascal lived in C now? How much harder would it have been to hear? How long would it have taken to get in touch with Pascal, and what would he have chosen to say?

It had been such a thunderbolt to realize he was in Pascal's store, and that Pascal was seconds away from walking out right in front of him. As hard as it would've been to learn of Pascal's presence from a greater distance, he can't imagine it wasn't so much more stressful for him to be having those revelations and churning anxieties while in front of Pascal himself—and making it so much worse, Wallace.

But he can't doubt that while the initial encounter would've been somewhat easier to bear if it hadn't been as direct, the aftermath would've been so much messier. He'd gotten over the worst of it so quickly after all, and in retrospect that was due almost entirely to the brief but somehow healing encounter when Pascal came after him and let Kip know how he felt and what he wanted. It had been so gentle that, although still severely frazzled, Kip had been given a lovely spark of quiet happiness underneath all his stress and bewilderment. He'd known he still loved Pascal, and that Pascal still loved him.

"...I don't know if the choices we made and the things that happened were the ones that would've made things easiest for us," Kip says slowly. "But seeing as we're here like this, and things turned out the way they did...I can't say whether I feel like we did things the wrong way and worked out our own mistakes, or if we did the only things we could and there was no way to avoid taking a rougher path. Nobody could know that. So while I do wish it had been easier on us...I can't say I regret any of it."

His hands have been absently rubbing Pascal's shoulderblades. He leans down and kisses the side of Pascal's head.

"But like I was saying, remembering how I felt about you when I was missing you so badly and thinking I wouldn't be able to see you for...probably years, and maybe not ever, it... It just made it the clearest it had ever been how much being with you meant to me, since I knew for sure exactly what it felt like to lose that. I knew what it was like to just go through the day and feel like part of me was missing because it was supposed to be with you, and knowing that you wouldn't just turn up at the end of the day. I knew exactly how much I wanted to be with you because I felt it every night and morning and afternoon. And I...well, when I decided to tell you I wanted to be with you again, it wasn't just because I felt lonely. Because I'd been feeling that way ever since I left. I wanted to tell you because, if you wanted to be with me again too, I was certain that really getting together again was the right thing."

He starts kneading at his broad shoulders again.

"I knew even better just how much I'd loved you. And how much I loved you still. And here I am. And I love you."

He kisses the side of Pascal's forehead and pets his hair.

"I wish I could reach back to myself a year ago and let him know he'd get to see you again," he murmurs. He kisses Pascal again. "But I guess it's like I have him with me. Because I know that how bad I felt is part of how good I feel now."

He leans back up and continues his massage, gently rolling his knuckles into either side of Pascal's spine.

"It just feels so perfect to be with you, Pas. And I don't mean just when we're in the same room. I definitely miss living in the same place as you, but just knowing that we're together again is enough to make me happy."

His tone has been growing incrementally softer over the past several minutes. He's been getting gradually more emotional, but he's proud of how his voice has always been steady and his speech hasn't started tripping over itself.

"I love you," he says softly. "I know you know that already. But I'll keep telling you anyways. It means so much to have you with me and to be able to be with you, too. I really love you."

He leans back down, resting his forehead to the base of Pascal's neck as something of an embrace.

"I like hearing your voice," he says. "Even if you aren't talking to me. And there's this tiny change to your sound when you ARE talking to me—I love that. And I love the way you look at people you feel protective of, there's these moments where you're not even talking to someone but you look at them like you just want to watch for a second and see if they seem okay. I don't know, you're really attentive to everyone around you, it's so clear how generous you are. You care about so much and about so many people, and I don't know, it makes me feel really... I mean, I admire you so much, you're such an amazing person, and knowing that I'm important to you, it makes me..."

"Feel important?" Pascal murmurs.

Kip blushes and curls his fingers against Pascal's skin.

"I guess so," he admits quietly.

"Then that makes me feel important, too."

That sends a little flicker of electricity through Kip.

He drags his fingernails lightly up and down Pascal's back.

"I like touching you. And looking at you,” he says.

Pascal laughs softly.

"I know that's obvious, but I do. Just thinking about it isn't nearly the same as being able to actually do it. You're real and solid and...after we met the first time, I used to dream about just...being able to touch you in so many ways—and of course that definitely included sex, but also just...I really wanted to lie down against you, with my head on your chest or on your shoulder, and I wanted to put my hand on the back of your head and just look at you, and stand behind you and hug you around your waist, and just put my hands on your bare stomach and chest and back and—"

He strokes Pascal's hair again and kisses his spine.

"And maybe even more than I wanted that, I'd try to think about how it would feel to have you touch me. I mean, back when we'd just been together only a few times in our entire lives, we hadn't even really touched at all before I brushed my bare elbow against your arm on accident and I know I blushed so hard just at that. And I was trying to imagine us just being able to have all these affectionate and loving touches and..."

He has to let himself lie down completely against Pascal. Pascal's warm skin pressed to his cheek, his wide back against his chest, the soft curve of his butt beneath his hips, the hair of his legs brushing against the hair on his slightly shorter limbs.

"I could barely imagine it," he sighs. "But I tried anyway, even though I had no idea if it was something I could ever look forward to or if it would all just be in my dreams. And so often I just wanted to be able to stare at you and learn every detail of your face and just sit there for hours and watch you just go about your day, just see what you looked like when you're talking or working or cooking or resting or—or putting together a scrapbook, anything."

He laughs quietly.

"I just wanted to learn as much about you as I could. I wanted to know you. Seeing you was such a special occasion back then, but I—" He laughs again. "I wanted so badly for it to become everyday, literally everyday. I wanted to—to be completely in your life and have you in mine. I wanted you to know how much I wanted to hold on to you."

He puts his hand on Pascal's side and lightly squeezes, turns his head just slightly to press his lips to his skin.

"I was so happy when it started to come true, and when I was without that for the first time I was...I was just so shaken inside, even if I could go through the days on my own all the same. It was such a huge loss. I knew exactly what I was feeling. I couldn't focus on it without being upset, so I didn't. I knew I would get through it fine. I knew you would get through it fine, too. But god, it hurt. I wished so bad that things were different, that everything had been simple and we'd been able to stay together without any of...all that shit touching our lives."

He stares at a tiny freckle on the crest of Pascal's shoulder. He lets out a soft sigh.

"I just want you to know how happy I am being with you," he says. "Even if I hadn't had to spend that time without you. It's not just because we split up that I'm glad I'm here with you now. It did give me a more thorough understanding of my feelings and what our relationship had been, but...back when we'd already been together for years, you made me so happy then, too. I just love you, is all. I really, really love you. You're so good and beautiful to be with and I—I'm so, so glad we met—I love you, sweetest. I love you—"

He's put a few kisses to Pascal's neck and beneath his ear when a slightly hissed breath and tightening of the shoulders makes Kip draw back, worried that Pascal's in pain.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes."

There's another sharp little breath, and then Kip understands.

"Oh..." He strokes a hand down Pascal's hair, blushing and unsure whether he feels like laughing or crying as well. "Oh, come here, babe..."

Pascal coughs a laugh and sniffs as he slowly pushes himself upright. Kip has his arms out, drawing Pascal in until he's holding him across the chest. He takes in Pascal's face carefully—his cheeks are a little red, his eyes brim with tears, but only one drop seems to have spilled down alongside his nose—his features aren't too tensed, he's not too upset.

"Are you alright?" Kip repeats earnestly. He rubs Pascal's arm.

Pascal nods and then suddenly is moving towards Kip, who drops the embrace and sits up straight and keeps still as Pascal pushes his whole bulk over Kip's lap, head to his shoulder, shoulders to his chest, soft arms resting atop his thighs.

Kip's heart flutters, immobilizing him for a moment. Then he loops his arms over Pascal's shoulders, one hand flat against his back, the other hand in his hair, cradling the back of his head. He stays quiet; he has the sense that Pascal doesn't need to be comforted—he just wants to be held.

Pascal's breathing feels steady, his body doesn't tremble; he does sniff sometimes and draw rougher, shakier breaths through his mouth, the sounds muted and snuffly. Kip kisses his hair and smiles softly as Pascal shifts even closer.

A couple of minutes later, Pascal wraps his arms around Kip's back but sits up away from Kip's chest. Kip smiles at him when their eyes meet; the only evidence he'd been crying is a slight flush of his skin and eyes. His expression is fairly relaxed, he smiles back.

"You're okay?" Kip asks quietly.

"Yes." Pascal laughs, wiping the back of his arm across his eye. "Nothing's wrong. I just had strong feelings about everything you were saying, is all."

"Uh...good ones?" Kip tries, wrinkling his nose.

"Yes." Pascal laughs again and sniffs and lifts the stomach of his loose tank top up to wipe his face and nose.

He meets Kip's eyes again and gives him a smile, and it's that look that could melt Kip's heart in a blizzard in the dead of an arctic night. Kip smiles back, a little helplessly.

"I'm fine," Pascal says. "I wasn't upset, it's alright."

He takes Kip's hand and squeezes it, then lifts it to his lips. Kip blushes.

"I love you, too," Pascal says.

"Oh, I know—"

"I really do. I've never stopped wanting to be with you since I first met you. I've always wanted us to be as close as we could be. It always makes me so happy to think that’s what we have."

Kip nods and touches Pascal's face.

Pascal leans in and presses a kiss to Kip's forehead, holding it for several quiet seconds.

Kip puts his free hand overtop the arm holding the other, just barely rubbing his fingertips across the smooth skin. He closes his eyes and takes a moment before opening them again when Pascal leans away.

Kip leans against the back of the couch and holds his arms out to Pascal.

"Lie against me again," he says. "I like holding you. I like having your head on my chest."

With a blush and a smile, Pascal immediately scoots closer and carefully lowers himself down until his torso is atop Kip's. He puts the side of his head against Kip's chest and nuzzles it slightly; Kip strokes his hair and rests his other hand on Pascal's shoulder.

For a minute, they don't speak.

"I love how blue you are." Pascal touches the soft skin of Kip's bicep. "I know it makes you stand out, and that's not always helpful. But I'm always reminded of you whenever I see this color. And everything about you is just part of what makes you beautiful, after all."

"I look like I've been living in a freezer for ten months," Kip grouses.

"You look like a summer sky filled with sunlight," Pascal counters gently.

Kip is flattered enough to immediately concede.

They cuddle so close that before too long Kip has to carefully pry Pascal's arm off his side. He's dotted with bright blue ovals from the suction; Pascal kisses along their trail and then works a more lasting mark into Kip's chest.

—

As he's not exactly looking forward to waking up and knowing he'll leave in a few hours, Kip isn't eager to go to bed. But when he sees that Pascal is a getting a bit tired, he acquiesces to the inevitable.

Seemingly all his life, Kip's had trouble sleeping or a reason to worry about falling asleep. But of course that worsened considerably after the fire.

He doesn't remember dreaming the first night. He was with Eno, he fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion—even when he was so dead on his feet he could barely keep his balance, Eno almost had to pull him down onto the couch. Kip, while violently loathing the idea of going to sleep at all, had vehemently refused the bedroom, afraid of being alone when he woke up and remembered.

He was sleeping alongside Pascal within less than a month. During that time, he didn't sleep regularly at all. He tended to stay up and fall asleep whenever his exhaustion demanded it; he was trying sometimes to force himself to sleep every night, but he despised anything that felt like an attempt at routine. And whenever he woke up, he not only first thought of what had happened to him, but he felt another day further away from his family, it felt another day realer and more permanent. He couldn't stand the experience—he often refused to sleep simply so that he wouldn’t have to go through waking up. But with the stress he was suffering, he could really only go one sleepless night before he would find himself slowly collapsing halfway through the next day.

When he did sleep, Pascal made sure to lie beside him and hold him whenever he was there with Kip. It was the only thing that could offer any trace of comfort. But almost as soon as Kip finally started to resign himself to a more consistent sleeping pattern, Pascal had the night terrors to deal with.

Kip rarely remembered those, they usually didn't even wake him up. The only reason he knew when he started having them was that the next morning Pascal had tentatively asked Kip if he was alright after that nightmare, and Kip had asked him what nightmare, and Pascal had told him he'd been crying out and thrashing in his sleep for several minutes before quieting again. Kip couldn't even remember it. But apparently when he had these terrors he'd often grow so loud that sometimes Molly or Roy woke up as well—despite Pascal explaining to them that there was nothing to do when this happened but wait it out, the concerned glances Kip would receive in the morning would make him ask if he'd done it again.

Kip was slightly embarrassed and much more ashamed that he was causing them even more worry than he already was—and keeping them up at night now too. But as bad as the night terrors must have been for him in the moment, he only sometimes retained a fleeting speck of the experience upon waking. Overall, his conscious self didn't have to deal with it at all. The nightmares and flashbacks were a different story. Those would actually wake him up, those he would more often than not remember—if not details, then at least vague images and the feeling the dreams had given him.

Even the quieter nightmares were enough to make him dread sleeping, but the more intense nightmares could keep him from sleeping at all the rest of the night. If he was lucky he would wake up without disturbing Pascal and could comfort himself just by looking at his boyfriend’s face and touching his arm. Other times he would cry out or groan and kick as he woke up—not half as violently as with the night terrors, but still enough to rouse Pascal, too. Pascal was never anything but patient and loving no matter how exhausted he was—Kip loved him so deeply for that, but felt guilty about waking him anyhow. Pascal would comfort him and soothe him, but some nights Kip just couldn't relax again, and would lie in bed, spooned by Pascal, simply letting the hours drag by until morning came.

The flashbacks were the worst of all. He couldn't weather them with any kind of stoicism—when Pascal woke him and calmed him enough to stop struggling, Kip almost always broke down into tears. Pascal would simply pull him in and hold him close while he cried. The aftershocks of trauma would bleed into a fresh stab of grief, which made Kip feel as though his whole body was being clutched and squeezed by searingly cold claws; he shook all over and gasped for breath and unsuccessfully tried to bite back sobs.

One night in particular had been bad, a nightmare turned dream turned nightmare turned unusually lengthy flashback. When the stress finally woke him up, he understood why it had lasted so long—he must have kept still during the dream, as Pascal remained undisturbed. His impulse was to avoid waking Pascal or the others above all else, so before his stress could catch up with him, he slipped out of the bed and crept into the kitchen. Either he'd managed it just in time or he'd subconsciously waited until he was out of the bedroom to start crumbling apart, but his knees were shaking underneath him and his arms trembling even worse by the time he flipped on the small overhead light and leaned heavily against the countertop. In an attempt to distract himself from the imagery still slicing through his thoughts, he made himself a hot cup of tea, standing with the kettle so he could take it off the stove before it made any noise.

It had only helped so much. He held the cup close to his chest; the heat was already working to counteract the smothering chill that always started in his hands. But the moment he'd sat down with the tea he'd started to cry, and in a matter of seconds was fighting too hard to stifle it to take even a sip of his drink. It was surely worsened by the fact he'd been fighting for a few days in a row to keep himself from breaking down, and he now seemed to be dealing with the buildup. He bowed his head over his drink, eyes squeezed shut and teeth clenched, and fought to keep his sobs quiet.

It had seemed to work; when the remnants of panic had eroded and his shivering stopped and it felt like he could breathe again, he tore off a segment of paper towel and wiped the snot and tears from his face. He sat, crying more softly, despairing for the death of his family and whatever was left of himself, what his friends now had to deal with too.

He had managed to be so quiet, but all the same he was only a third of the way through his tea when Pascal came in behind him. He was so startled he flinched and bumped his knee. He barely glanced at Pascal's face before rigidly turning away, hyperaware of how pathetic he must look—the worst of sleep mixed with crying, this weak and cowardly mess that had snuck off to huddle up alone in a dark corner.

But Pascal didn't grimace or sigh, or fix him with a long, sad look, or murmur his name with a softly imploring, pitying tone. He touched Kip's shoulder, kissed his temple, and whispered "Hello, nightingale."

Pascal had sat with him and rubbed his shoulders slowly. He neither left Kip's side nor pressured him to return to bed—he just gave him company. As awful as Kip felt, he was glad that Pascal had somehow woken up after all. Pascal was just infinitely patient with him at all times. But really, he was easier to deal with at times like that, in the middle of the night, when Kip was crushed by grief and trauma. It was when his pain was kept under the surface, when he was trying to be steadier, that he had to be handled much more carefully. Anyone could comfort him when he collapsed—not so much when he was hurting badly but trying to keep it hidden. But he felt best in Pascal's arms all the same, no matter his mood.

That night, as Pascal sat with him, Kip had started crying again, because how could he not. It wasn't a total loss of composure, but it was still something of a mess; he sobbed and gripped his knees and buried his face in Pascal's shirt, and that was the easy part. Just being held by Pascal while he wept and ached. The more impressive feat was when Pascal sat up with him even after he had settled down a bit. He was clearly sad too, but didn't seem so pained that Kip felt like he was hurting Pascal. He stayed while Kip finished his tea, he stayed for the additional half hour it took Kip to want to even try getting back to bed. He told Kip that he'd hold him, and maybe the physical comfort would transfer through into his dreams, reminding his subconscious that he was in no danger.

Kip was afraid of the flashbacks and nightmares alike, both managing to be more damaging than the other. But he could brave it so that Pascal could try sleeping too. He knew he had no real way to avoid it. So he let Pascal take him back to bed, and he was so tense while lying down that he started trembling again, and Pascal took him up in his arms like he said he would and kissed him and looked at him and murmured sweet consolations and promises that he would be right beside him all night. It took the worst of the stress away.

Pascal had dozed off first, but even when he'd been asleep for a quarter of an hour, his arm remained attached to Kip's back.

Kip had been so irritable and distant the next day that he wasn't sure Pascal wouldn't try to give him as much space in the bed as possible. But when he finally crawled onto the mattress and tried nervously to relax, Pascal's voice came low and quiet through the dark and asked Kip if he wanted to be held. Kip accepted without hesitation and when Pascal's warm, soft skin pushed against the back of his body, he felt such a rush of love and gratitude for Pascal that he shed a few silent tears onto his pillow.

He knew he didn't have any choice but to experience all the bad dreams that were in store for him. But Pascal helped to alleviate some of the suffering, and he always suspected that if he'd been more stressed and fearful about his dreams, it would've made them worse. Instead, he'd known that no matter how horrible everything seemed when he woke up, Pascal would be there to comfort him. And when his dreams got too agonizing, Pascal would pull him out of them.

The bad dreams eventually became more infrequent, and their impact on Kip less crushing, and Kip more confident that he could cope with them, until in the end he was no longer avoiding sleep because of them. He knew that Pascal had made it easier, had soothed his nervousness sooner than would've been possible without him. Each night, he quietly faced the possibility of nightmares with grim acceptance. And whenever they came, he woke up and knew that as bad as it was, he would eventually comfort himself.

After a year or two, he was simply used to it. When he knew he had to leave for C, the reasons he dreaded sleeping without Pascal had little to do with his fear of his bad dreams.

While he's never really gotten to be truly comfortable with sleeping, it feels like he's been able to grow familiar with it. He doesn't know what it says that one of the first things he felt capable of dealing with was something he had such little control over and that struck him when he was completely defenseless. But, especially back then, even the smallest scraps of relief were infinitely welcome.

He's been fine sleeping alone, even with unpleasant dreams and outright nightmares still being an occasional issue. The flashbacks had faded out, but when Wallace's arrival brought on a surge in both the frequency and intensity of his bad dreams, he had the flashbacks again. Still much more rarely, but it was enough.

Sometimes when he was struggling with the damage of such dreams he would remember the kinds of things Pascal used to say to him, the way he would touch him and hold him. It was worth the risk of heartache in such moments, when he desperately needed more solid, positive imagery to anchor him to his present. The thought of Pascal could pull him out of the flames.

The dreams he's had while lying next to Pascal again have been calm. He doesn't much remember them. He knows none of them caused him stress. He knows that he hasn't slept so deeply and peacefully for more than one night in a row for years—maybe even years before the fire.

When it's like this, getting into bed feels like every kind of a blessing.

—

"Pasc..."

"Uh-huh." Pascal's voice is soft and low.

"If you wake up before me, wake me up too."

"Okay."

"Could you kiss me awake?"

"Sure."

"Okay."

Kip hears and feels Pascal shifting beneath the covers, then feels their noses bump. He opens his eyes just enough to align their faces for a kiss, then brushes their mouths together. Pascal gently presses into it. His breath and skin are so warm against Kip, his lips are so soft it feels like kissing a rose petal. Kip draws a deep inhale, lets it out as a sigh.

He feels so much better in so many ways.

—

It's not easy for Pascal to get on or off a mattress without the reverberations moving Kip around—Kip wakes up when Pascal slips out of bed and is momentarily confused about what time it is.

"Is it morning?" he mumbles, feeling the absence of Pascal's weight and warmth. "Are you getting up?"

"No, I just have to pee." Pascal kisses his temple and smooths his hair and quietly leaves the room.

Kip lies still, squinting up at the ceiling it's too dark to see and listening for the sound of the bathroom door opening and Pascal's returning footsteps. The sounds are soft when they do occur—Pascal always seems to move gently and precisely through the world and somehow manages to be light-footed.

"You alright?" Pascal murmurs when their eyes meet.

"Better," Kip answers.

As Pascal gets back into bed, Kip rolls over to face him and maneuvers himself in until he can kiss Pascal's throat.

"Mm..." Pascal puts an arm around Kip. "Now?"

"If you like," Kip says, drawing him closer.

At first they're just slowly grinding together, picking up a little energy as they further wake themselves up. Kip hooks a leg around one of Pascal's for better leverage, which makes Pascal's breath catch and shudder. But after it becomes more heated, Kip pulls himself away just long enough to flip himself around and push his ass back against Pascal's erection.

He goes limp so that Pascal can pull him back harder, then plants a foot against the mattress and grinds back to meet the roll of Pascal's hips. After a few minutes he puts his knees together and tells Pascal he can fuck him in between his legs; he reaches back at a slightly awkward angle to try lubricating Pascal's erection with its own precum and then spits on his fingers to wet the inside of his thighs a little. Then he guides Pascal as he adjusts the angle of his own hips, and closes his eyes as Pascal's cock slides between his legs—it's hot and hard against Kip's soft and warm and sensitive skin and so close to his own dick—he draws his knees up a little and takes a breath and tells Pascal to move.

It's not quite as intense as having Pascal grind against his ass, but that doesn't matter. Pascal is still grinding against him, pushing against his legs and ass and back, arm around his front, rubbing and squeezing at his stomach and chest, breath hot against the back of his neck and soft moans inches from Kip's ears.

It's all straightforward and hot and, best of all, easy enough to accomplish even though neither of them are fully awake.

It's almost relaxing—Kip just hugs Pascal's arm to his chest with one hand, gently strokes himself with the other, and squeezes his legs together to provide more pressure for Pascal. He keeps the rest of his body relaxed enough to let Pascal's thrusts rock him back and forth.

"Do you think you can cum from this?" Kip asks, a little breathlessly.

"Y-yeah, I think so—is that okay?"

"Mmhm. I want you to."

Pascal gasps and buries his face against Kip's shoulder.

When it seems like Pascal is coming unraveled, Kip puts a hand on Pascal's hip and grinds himself smoothly back, making each buck of Pascal's hips more forceful. He doesn't outright tease Pascal, but does try to work him up even further. As always, just repeating a slightly charged “yes” or "fuck me" is wondrously effective in undoing Pascal.

Kip doesn't have to put on any kind of act, though. It feels beautifully good and he's completely turned on, the rhythm and heat and the smell of Pascal's sweat and the texture of his low, throaty voice and the feeling of his kisses and bites—it's all getting to Kip in a heady rush; he's not too far off either.

Kip's breath catches when he feels the first shot of Pascal's cum. A few pulses more, and then Pascal's tension loosens and he draws a long inhale. He stops squeezing Kip so hard, stops pressing into him, but still lies close up against him and keeps his arm draped over Kip's side. Kip musters just enough focus to let a light coating of coolness slowly melt over them.

He shifts his knees a little and feels the lubrication of hot, slick cum between his thighs. He touches the head of his dick and rubs his legs together some more, relishing how much he seems to have gotten out of Pascal.

"Sorry about the mess," Pascal murmurs, as though he can tell Kip is thinking about it.

"Don't apologize," Kip responds. "Besides, I like it."

"God..." Pascal leans in over Kip to push a firm kiss to his cheek. "Fuck, Kip, I love you."

He coaxes Kip to twist his shoulders so that the back of his head is against the pillow, so that Pascal can lick his mouth open and flick his tongue against Kip's teeth and stroke it along the roof of his mouth. Kip swirls his thumb slowly around the head of his erection as he puts his tongue into Pascal's mouth in turn.

After just a minute of this, Pascal nips at Kip's bottom lip as he pulls away, panting lightly. Kip swirls his fingers absently through Pascal's chest hair.

"Want me to finish you off?" Pascal asks.

Kip smiles.

"I'll do it. I'm gonna go to the bathroom anyway to clean up before this dries too much. You just relax."

"You sure?"

Kip kisses him and pats his shoulder.

"I can handle it." He kisses him once more and sits up. "Thanks for the offer, though. I'll be back in bed before you have the chance to fall asleep again, promise."

"Okay," Pascal heaves a good-natured exaggeration of a sigh and lies back. Kip laughs and strokes his hand down Pascal's chest as he gets up.

His own arousal is such that he's impatient to alleviate it, and he turns his attention to that issue first. He drags his fingers through some of Pascal's cum and wipes it onto the length of his cock, then adds some spit, and gets to work. He has a nice climax; he takes his cum that's dripped down his hand and smears it between his legs with Pascal's, mixing it together. He sucks his own hand and sits back against the wall for a couple of minutes and then cleans himself up.

"Babe," he whispers as he reenters the bedroom.

"Mm," Pascal acknowledges.

"Wanna lie against me?"

"Yes, please."

Kip climbs into bed, lies on his back, and gathers Pascal in. The weight of Pascal's head against his chest, arm across his ribs, hips leaning into his side, and leg hooked overtop his own presses Kip further into the mattress. Kip holds the end of Pascal's arm with little caressing rubs and squeezes of his hand, lazily stroking Pascal's hair with the other, and synchronizes his respiration to Pascal's deep and slow breathing until they've both drifted off again.

—

Kip wakes up incrementally to gentle, light touches. He feels a kiss on his lips, he doesn't entirely process it—it's the friction of the scruff on Pascal's jaw that finally pulls Kip into greater alertness.

He gives a soft groan as he begins to understand that he'd been asleep and is now awake. The same sensations happen again; he squeezes his eyes shut harder and rolls his head to the side.

After several long seconds he's blinking at the opposite wall, bringing it into focus. He looks at the pillow beside his. Pascal's not there. He turns slightly, looking up. Pascal is there.

"Hi, babe," he mumbles hoarsely.

Pascal smiles.

"I kissed you until you woke up," he explains. "Is that okay?"

"Oh, yeah, it is," Kip says, rubbing his eyes. He laughs quietly. "It's hard to understand anything that's happening when I'm half-asleep."

"Want me to knock it off?"

"Not even a little."

—

Kip finds the feeling of every touch heightened in his still not fully wakeful state. Pascal kissed him a few times before his arms started to wander along Kip's body; he's felt his way down Kip's chest, trailed the soft tip of his arm down Kip's side. Soon he's kissing Kip's torso, caressing all over every part of his body, but carefully avoiding his crotch.

The contact only grows heavier as Kip becomes more excited by it, but both their sounds and movements remain on the soft and slow side. Kip lets himself stay completely relaxed against the mattress. Pascal teases him until he's more than completely turned on, but brings him to climax right before it begins to ache too badly.

Kip pulls Pascal in until he's being straddled, then encourages Pascal to grind on him. He does, humping Kip until he reaches his completion.

After catching their breath, they briefly discuss getting up, but the conversation wanders until they're just lying with each other, talking and laughing. In the back of his mind, Kip is aware that he doesn't have all day to spend with Pascal anymore, but he's feeling so nice that the worry of it can't seem to reach him. Looking into Pascal's face looking back at him is too good to let his focus wander to anything else.

Eventually Pascal offers to get up and make them some breakfast, but Kip easily manages to persuade him to stay put. After a few minutes of messing around, Kip sucks Pascal until he's completely hard—and then for a little while longer. His mouth is too dry to take in more than the first couple of inches, but he works the rest with his hand and is certain that Pascal doesn't mind—the evidence unfolds right in front of him, after all. Then he gets a condom, rolls it onto Pascal, and pours some lube into his hand. Some of it he spreads over Pascal's length, the rest he covers his own fingers with. Those he pushes one by one inside himself, easing himself open while making out with Pascal, trying to be patient in both activities.

Although they're no longer more asleep than awake, Kip enjoys the relative leisure of kneeling over Pascal, the only movement between them being one which isn't active at all: just Kip's careful, gradual acquiescence to gravity. He stops whenever he clenches and glances at Pascal, who winces under the stimulation and curls in the ends of his arms. It's slow and precise and it feels like twice as much length goes into Kip as he knows is actually there, yet it's also sooner than he expects that he finds himself sitting on his boyfriend’s pelvis, Pascal’s dick pushed fully up inside him.

It feels as wonderfully nice as ever, the different pressures from Pascal's thickness and length seeming both distinct and intermingled, the rhythm of their breathing rocking them gently together, Kip's own weight seeming to continually press Pascal in even deeper. Then Pascal starts gently, slowly stroking his arms down Kip's thighs while gazing steadily up at him like he can't miss even a second of this. Kip takes it as a signal to relax, and starts easing away more tension in the muscles of his legs than he knew was held there until he's resting even more heavily against Pascal.

Pascal only seems to like it more. Kip starts carefully rising, pausing, then sinking back down, keeping his eyes locked on Pascal's face. It becomes easier with every stroke.

When Pascal starts fucking him, he's maybe only moving an inch or two up with each thrust, but that's stimulation enough. Even without that, with just feeling the depth of the penetration, enhancing the sensation by slightly rocking his hips—it's such a good, sweet wash of pleasure, and the more Kip relaxes the better it is.

Although there are some interludes of more forceful, enthusiastic movement, most of it is rocking together at a leisurely pace, coordinating an easy roll of their hips. Pascal helps things along by looping his arm around Kip's erection, and Kip rides Pascal harder when he sees him getting more worked up.

Kip can tell Pascal wants to make him cum first, so he lets that happen. Pascal stills all movement while Kip orgasms—once he comes back down, Kip tells Pascal to just go ahead and fuck him. Pascal runs his arms up Kip's thighs and hips and sides and grips on, lifting him up a few inches and bucking up into him for about twenty seconds more. He cries out weakly just as he's on the edge—he pulls Kip down hard, Kip clenches around him, Pascal squeezes his eyes shut and seems to be holding his breath—so much so that Kip slides his hand over Pascal's chest and is about to tell him to breathe when Pascal's body relaxes underneath him and Pascal draws a long, deep inhale.

He opens his eyes, looks up at Kip, and smiles at the sight of him.

"Good morning," Kip says.

—

Kip climbs off of him and throws away the condom and is back in bed with him all in about half a minute. It's not until half an hour later that they try getting out of bed again. This time it's Kip who leads the way, and Pascal who ruins it—he wraps Kip up in a hug before they're even halfway across the room and kisses him, then they sink to the ground as Pascal bites Kip's neck and Kip drags his nails down Pascal's back. They're both laughing, it's more joking than not, even when Pascal starts grinding against Kip.

Soon enough it's in earnest, but remains messy and playful. Pascal seems to be trying to make Kip louder, and is pushing and dragging his arms over Kip's shoulders and chest and sides, giving his face and throat kisses and sucks and bites, humping him and answering his moans with grunting sighs of his own.

Kip holds tightly to Pascal's back, gives light tugs to his hair, slides his fingertips down his spine and cups his ass. When the climb of his arousal evens out and reaches its height, he puts his hand on Pascal's jaw and slides it over to his mouth, and Pascal licks his palm before Kip can even ask him to.

Kip keeps one hand on the back of Pascal's neck and the other wrapped around their dicks until they've both cum. He's grateful to already be lying down in the aftermath; Pascal has his forehead resting on Kip's collarbone and is straddling him heavily but keeps his back curved up to hover over Kip's torso, despite panting and intermittently trembling with the effort and exhaustion. Kip pulls him down.

They take a quick shower and then Pascal finally gets around to making breakfast, with Kip managing to sneak in some help here and there.

—

It makes Kip blush how happy Pascal is just cooking eggs and making toast for him. He can tell that Pascal is trying to act more casual than he really feels, that there's a bright energy behind it all setting Pascal's words and expression aglow. It's all so gorgeously domestic that Kip can feel some of his own excitement. In just a little over two days, he's already begun to feel genuinely at home in this completely new apartment. It's so clearly Pascal's space that there's no way it could remain unfamiliar to him for long.

He eats at the small table, Pascal leans against the countertop, legs crossed at the ankle, foot absently rocking on its heel like an uneven metronome. Just having the blurry, peripheral shape of him in the corner of his vision keeps Kip's mood light and relaxed.

—

"Were you scared to start your own store?" Kip asks.

He finishes drying his hands on the dishtowel and turns slightly towards Pascal, glancing over a time or two.

"Oh—" Pascal seems a little thrown by the change of subject, but recovers quickly enough. "Oh, uh—well, yes. I was kind of nervous. But I eventually just decided I had to look at stuff in manageable pieces, and once I committed to taking the first few steps, everything just kind of happened a little smoother—and a lot quicker—than I expected. Things could be kind of messy, and I know a good part of this was just luck that more stuff didn't go wrong, but I just...tried to tell myself as often as I could that it would be okay. And if it didn't work out, it wouldn't be the end of the world."

Kip looks at him; he's not being self-deprecating about his last line, he seems to genuinely be unconcerned with the success or even stability of his own life compared to the big picture of everyone else's. To have good-naturedly accepted the possibility of disaster, that he may have risked everything he had and wound up with nothing—even less than nothing. Kip's always been prone to worrying about the littlest details, even when there are no stakes at all, stressed over anxieties and constrained by worst-case scenarios that run through his head.

He knows Pascal is just a real, fallible person with vulnerabilities, as much as any of them are—even maybe as much as himself. But there's parts of Pascal he's in awe of, and it definitely includes this. Pascal has a passionate side—which maybe most people don't get to see—and that can knock Kip off his feet for sure. But the soft, unassuming elements of Pascal's personality leave him just as breathless as anything. His quiet steadiness, his everyday kindheartedness, and right now, this deep serenity he's shrugging off—it sends a shiver through the pit of Kip's stomach and momentarily grips his heart.

He doesn't stifle the impulse to walk over and stoop down to kiss Pascal on the cheek. Pascal blinks up at him with a slight blush. Kip doesn't stifle the impulse to try explaining to Pascal why he was just reminded of how much he loves him, either.

"Kip—" Pascal laughs and blushes that much deeper. "Oh, Kip, I was thinking about you half the time I was trying not to worry."

Kip is wholly bemused.

"...Pasc, I worry more than anyone I know," he says slowly.

"I don't mean when it comes to stuff like that, I mean... Kip, what you got through," Pascal says gently.

Kip stands up a little straighter.

"What... What about that, though? There wasn't anything good about any of that."

"No, I know," Pascal says quickly, leaning slightly forwards. "It was the worst, it was the hardest thing to go through, and—and I've never seen anything as amazing as...just, you. You went through that, one day at a time, you just...you're here. I saw you get through that. I've never seen anything stronger than you just...being you. Back then and now. I'd think of what you did and...it made it pretty impossible to get too stressed out over anything."

Kip shrugs and folds his arms, hugging himself a little.

"But I didn't have to do anything. Anyone who was in my place would've gone through what I did, it's not like there was anything special about me. And I think if right now I had to start my own place, I'd be pretty scared. Really scared."

Pascal smiles and looks down at the table for a moment.

"I was nervous," he says. "I still am, sometimes. I haven't even been in business a full year, yet. And it's better that it's so small and simple, actually, because it's easier for things to settle down sooner and if it was bigger it'd have bigger expenses, and..."

He sighs softly and shrugs.

"I know that this scenario isn't anything like what you were going through. And I know that what you were dealing with was a whole lot more than just being afraid. I was with you. I know it was so much more. But I saw you manage to steady yourself under the worst feelings and I saw how much you suffered, and sometimes you had to take things hour by hour or even minute to minute. And I tried to help you take things in tiny pieces, and I saw you do it. And so when I told myself to try looking at everything in smaller pieces, I had to think of you. And it was barely a fraction of what you had to do, but it still helped to try to think of being even a little bit as strong as you were."

"I wasn't strong," Kip murmurs.

"You're the strongest person I've ever known, Kip."

"I'm not, I'm still scared of so much and hung up on little things and I still run from everything—"

"Kip..." Pascal touches his arm. "Being more afraid of things doesn't have anything to do with how strong you are. You're incredible. You were so strong and so amazing even before it happened. I always saw that. I've always admired that."

Kip blinks hard and twists his fingers together. Pascal gazes up at him steadily.

"I don't think I'm amazing," he says somewhat weakly. "Bad things just happened and I was stuck with the consequences whether I liked it or not. It was never a choice, I never had options..."

"I know," Pascal says. "You didn't, but that doesn't make you any less strong either."

"But..."

"I still think you're amazing."

"Why?"

Pascal pulls him forward to hug him; Kip lets him.

"That was just reflex," Kip mumbles as Pascal's head rests against his chest. "I didn't really mean to ask why."

"I have a lot of reasons," Pascal says. "You know you're a good person. You know that."

Kip presses his lips together.

"I'm alright," he allows.

"You are. And I know neither of us is the only person in the world with the traits we like in each other, but..." Pascal laughs. "Kip, I love you. I think you're really fantastic and I always have. And you'd be this great even if I wasn't around to notice it."

Kip is stroking Pascal's hair absently.

"It's just that I..." Kip sighs. "I feel like I've always been making so many mistakes and bad decisions along the way, even if things did end up here. And I feel like I shouldn't get any credit for...for being special because of anything that happened because of what was done to me."

"...I don't think you're the only strong person in the world," Pascal says quietly. "But that doesn't mean I don't think you're strong."

"But anybody who was forced to go through what I did would've seemed just as strong," Kip argues. "It doesn't matter what you're like, people think you must be brave and tough and I wasn't either of those things. I was just...every day was so awful and I just. Had to endure it anyways. Because it was happening. There was nothing about that to celebrate."

Pascal squeezes him tightly and buries his face harder against Kip's chest. Kip stills for a moment and then slowly puts his arms around Pascal, lightly stroking his back.

"I'm sorry." Pascal's voice is muffled. "I should've thought more about everything you felt before I said something. I only meant that because of what I'd personally known about you, because I'd been there with you...you're who I think of whenever I think of needing to try to get through anything at all. Even when you were facing down much smaller things, little problems you dealt with every day, you were just as impressive to me. It's... All your life you've had so many extra things to be nervous about, and you've always had to deal with that, even when those problems are invisible to everyone around you. Stuff that seems effortless to other people can be really difficult for you. And you had to go through something where—where literally everything was made difficult for you, where just being alive to know what had happened to you was its own burden, and you—and talking and sleeping and getting up and eating and—and finding clothes, and going out, and hearing certain things, and having to say certain things, it's all—I know it was all so hard for so many reasons, I saw that. I know you were kind of...made out to be this symbol to some people, but I know that wasn't the fight you were really having. I saw how you had to push and suffer. I've never known anything more impressive than—than when—"

Pascal squeezes them even tighter together, almost startling Kip.

"Those days you would wake up and start to cry, where it took you a few seconds to remember what had happened and it was just already too horrible for you, and I was there and I saw that, I saw how bad you were hurting, and—and I'd lie there to be beside you and...when you sat up, it was the most unbelievable thing. To see you still face getting up after that. To face having to feel that for the whole rest of the day. I swear I felt like I might as well have been watching you lift an oak tree up out of the ground by its roots. Every time I saw that I was...I was just so in awe of you. Even the times you couldn't get out of bed after all. It didn't matter, you were having to feel all that either way. It's like you say, you had to deal with all of that no matter what you did, and it was so much that I can't imagine how it felt, I know I couldn't, I just wanted to try and help in any way I could manage—"

"You did," Kip says quickly. He stoops down so he can better embrace Pascal. "You did help, Pascal. You helped me so much. I don't know if we would've found a place without you, for starters, but more than that, I don't know if I...if I'd be where I am, I don't know how much harder it would've been to go through all that and how much more damage the aftermath would've done to me if it wasn't for you. Just knowing you were with me gave me so much comfort, I—that I didn't have to be alone was always so much help, but that it was you in particular..."

He kisses behind Pascal's ear.

“There wasn’t much I could think of that I could feel at all okay about, but thinking of you always helped me,” he says. “Back when I wanted so little I could hardly even feel hungry or tired...I still wanted to do things to help you and try to make anything even a little easier on you.”

He kisses him again.

“You helped me all the time. Just being able to think of you helped me. If I ever seemed strong to you, you have yourself to thank for that.”

“...I felt stronger than I ever had before back then,” Pascal murmurs, shifting his arms around Kip’s back. “From the moment I heard what had happened. First I felt a lot of shock and fear and confusion, but underneath that all, I—I already knew that I would do everything I could to keep you safe. It wasn’t even a question. I knew I’d do anything possible to protect and help you. I didn’t even have to think about it, and I was so certain. I’d never felt that way before.”

Kip smiles and softly tangles his fingers in Pascal’s hair.

“The only times I’ve felt strong were when I thought I had to protect someone,” Kip says. “Even though I never really thought of myself as someone who could.”

Pascal pulls away from Kip’s chest and sits up slightly, looking up at him. Kip blushes a little and drops his gaze to Pascal’s stomach.

“I’ve always looked up to how steady you are around other people,” Kip says quietly. “I guess I’ve always been kind of...impatient and excitable sometimes, and I could get really anxious, and that’s before I even had to worry about really falling apart in front of anyone. I guess it’s just always been part of who I am, but I still—I love that even when you get worried or upset about something, you’re still so patient about it. And you’re so patient with me, I used to be—back when we first started dating, I was worried that you’d see me when I was stressed over something or...or just realize I wasn’t very...I’m not very put together, and you wouldn’t like it. But you only seemed to like me more the more that you saw of me, and I...that made me feel even more comfortable around you, and...I feel less shaken up by things just by knowing that you’re around.”

Kip’s gently scratching the back of Pascal’s neck; he meets his eyes.

“...I guess we help each other,” Pascal says. “Because I don’t feel quite as calm or steady on my own as I do when I get to be with you.”

Kip smiles and slides his hands to Pascal’s shoulders. He feels his heart beat a little harder.

“I guess we do,” he agrees.

—

Pascal is like soft rain. His presence is peaceful and comforting, almost cozy; his love is nurturing, invigorating, steady, all-encompassing. Kip wants to lie down for hours, close his eyes, and relax, soak him in, feel him on every inch of his skin. Every breath feels fresher, better. Everything is gentle and good.

Pascal is so much, so quietly.

Kip loves him.

There was a day years ago when it had snowed for the first time since Kip’s family died. In spite of his deep aversion to the winter season, Kip had used to love the year’s first snowfall regardless—the beauty of it, the way it slowed and quieted everything, the enjoyment he shared with his siblings, playing around outside in the snowflakes until Kip was shivering all over but insisting it was fine, then recovering inside with soft, dry clothes, hot drinks, cozy blankets, and a warm and happy mood that lasted the rest of the day. But after they were gone, it was just making him think of how much he missed them.

At first he hadn’t even wanted to look at the snow or even acknowledge it at all. Then he admitted to Pascal that he used to think it was kind of lovely and had liked to sit and watch for a while, but now it was reminding him so much of his family that he wished he could ignore it completely. It almost angered him that it would snow when his family was no longer alive, that the seasons would still dare to change, the world dare to turn and pull him even further from them.

Pascal had touched his back and gently offered the option of going outside with heat packs and blankets, sitting together so closely that Pascal could hold Kip the whole time to remind him he was safe and still loved, and they could go back to the apartment whenever Kip liked. And Kip had surprised himself by tentatively agreeing to try it. He still didn’t have a completely full wardrobe of clothes—he was struggling to come to terms with buying even the most essential things—but he had a t-shirt, a secondhand sweater, socks, jeans. Pascal gave him one of his hats to cover his sensitive ears, gave him a sweatshirt multiple sizes too big to put on over it all, helped wrap his throat in a thick scarf he could easily tuck his chin or nose into. Pascal himself put on a decent coat and tucked a blanket under his arm and they headed out of the building together. Pascal took Kip’s hand as they stepped outside.

By Pascal’s suggestion, they had walked a few blocks over to a bench that happened to have an unobstructed view of a small park that was dotted with trees. The snow by that point had started to settle in a light but even dusting all over everything in sight, and it was undeniably beautiful. Kip did feel the absence of his siblings heavily, but Pascal held on to him with both arms wrapped around him, holding him against his side.

Kip said out loud that it was really pretty, and Pascal agreed.

Kip stared at the scenery, where even the most mundane and unsightly features were made somewhat pretty, where the simple change made even the most familiar sight look new. He looked at the still sea of clouds above them, the snowflakes drifting down, dancing around each other. Everything seemed tranquil and soft.

He’d looked down at Pascal’s knees and listened to his steady breathing, wondering what he was thinking of, whether he was enjoying this. He’d rested his hand on Pascal’s thigh and gently rubbed it with his thumb. He’d tried to make himself focus fully on appreciating the present experience.

You know, Pascal had said after a long period of quiet. Snow can keep you warm.

Kip had turned and looked up at him.

It can, Pascal said. Snow is a good insulator. If you built yourself a shelter out of snow, it would help protect you from the low temperature outside. And it can keep what’s underground protected from the temperature in the wintertime, too.

Really, Kip had said.

Yeah. And it can fertilize the ground, Pascal continued. Closer to springtime, though, when everything isn’t already frozen. It helps everything grow.

Snow is a fertilizer?

Yeah, snow and rain both bring down nitrogen. When the snow melts, the soil can absorb that.

I didn’t know that, Kip said. I figured snow just killed plants.

Yeah, Pascal said. But snow can protect things from the cold, too, and then help them grow back again.

Kip had looked back out over the thickening blanket of snow, and nestled in just a bit closer to Pascal.

Pascal is like gentle snow.

—

With just a handful of hours left before his shift begins, Kip tries to focus on every detail of the apartment and how each moment makes him feel. He wants to imprint the constant sense of warmth and comfort and belonging into his heart, to have it to turn to whenever he’s upset or unhappy. He’s never without Pascal for more than a minute—they both seem to be physically holding on to each other even more as their separation grows nearer.

Pascal keeps looking at Kip, just staring quietly at his face for a spell. Kip will glance over and catch him doing it, but Pascal never seems embarrassed, simply reacting with a small smile and the lightest blush. It makes Kip laugh momentarily and lay a hand on Pascal’s arm in what he intends as a soothing gesture.

Though Kip makes no attempt to seriously confront the thought of his departure, he finds that what nervousness he does have is conquered by the affection he and Pascal are continuously sharing. Everything he notes about Pascal’s demeanor suggests that he’s also holding up well. He doesn’t bother pointing out the time or referencing the end of their long weekend at all; he knows they’re both aware of it.

Kip wavers for a moment in the middle of a quiet conversation, an unexpectedly sharp twinge of stress makes him pause and stare motionlessly at the tabletop as though it’s just done something to concern him. It only lasts a couple of seconds before he rouses himself to complete his sentence, but Pascal seems to have read between the lines anyhow—he stands and easily lifts Kip up off the couch, straightening up to hold him about four feet above the floor. Kip tenses for an instant from the sheer surprise of it, but quickly relaxes again, leaning against Pascal’s chest and only partially succeeded in stifling a bright smile.

If anything is going to be okay, it’s this.

—

Pascal takes a ceramic bowl from the cabinet and holds it out; Kip inhales deeply and carefully takes it in his hands.

“Oh my god,” he says, rotating it slowly. “You did all these colors?”

“Yes.” Pascal kneels across from him. “The first glaze, the dark blue one, I did in class, and the rest I did after I brought it home, with different paints and smaller brushes to get all the details. And then I put on another glaze once it was all finished.”

Kip turns it over as Pascal speaks, marveling at its beauty. The bowl itself is smooth and symmetrical and must have been done on a wheel, but around the outside edge of the bowl is an organic arrangement of small, rose-like flowers, petals carefully placed and delicate and impressively realistic. The bowl is a deep, almost-greenish blue while the flowers are a lighter, more desaturated tone of blue. There’s a subtle gradient from their cores to their outer petals, and each individual flower seems to be a slightly different color from the one beside it. The lip of the bowl is rimmed with a thin, shimmering gold ring, which is also speckled in patches on the sides of the bowl like astral clusters.

“Pascal, this is so good,” Kip says emphatically. “And you’ve just started this?”

“Yeah...” Pascal glances aside, blushing. “It’s been a few months since I started, but...”

“Pasc, this is beautiful, you’re amazing. The colors are just gorgeous, and the petals on the flowers are so tiny and thin and you even made some of the edges wavy? That’s so incredible, Pas.”

“I mean, once you’ve figured out how to make one, you’ve made them all...”

“Still! I know you had to put a lot of time and focus into that. How long did this take you?”

“Well, I was working on the sculpting part for a few classtimes in a row, probably about six or seven hours there, not counting being put in the kiln. And when I took it home and did the extra painting, I’d just be working on it here and there some afternoons or evenings after coming home, sometimes I’d work on it while watching a movie or something.”

“Well, it really shows how much care you put into this. I can’t get over this detailing, it’s so precise and little and I don’t think I could handle something that small—I cannot believe you’ve only just gotten into this, you’re so good it looks like you’ve been doing this for years! Pasc, you have to keep this up, you’re amazing, you’re so talented! You said you like taking the class, right?”

He looks over at Pascal and is pleased to see he’s blushing deeply—it gives him a lovely kind of jolt behind his sternum.

“Yeah, I like it,” Pascal answers, brushing some of his hair behind his ear. “I was just looking for something to try mostly for the social aspect of it, and as something to kind of unwind, be around other people and give me an excuse to get out of the house, seeing as how I’m new in town and all...”

Kip is reminded of Wallace.

“Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea... I never really considered anything about any kind of school stuff myself. But I bet it has a whole variety of people in it. Did you make any friends yet?”

Pascal smiles.

“Not really, there’s people I’m friendly with and talk to while I’m there, but I’m not sure it’s to the point where I’d hang out with any of them outside class. But if they invited me to something, I might say yes? And speaking of, there’s one or two people who might have kind of a crush on me, or maybe they’re just shy around me, I don’t know.”

Now Kip feels himself blush.

“Oh, really?” he teases. “Well, they must have good taste. It’d only fair I give my blessing if you wanted to go out with any cute sculptor.”

Pascal laughs warmly.

“I’m not interested in anybody there, unfortunately,” he says. “I guess they’re not my type. People are nice, though.”

“They better be, you’re so kind and a half to everybody you ever meet. If I hear of anybody being mean to you, I’d...”

He clenches a fist and bares his fangs demonstratively. Pascal leans in and plants a kiss between his eyes.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says. “It’s just a nice couple of hours of working on different projects, making things...some days I don’t even much feel like talking, I just listen to music and put all my attention into putting something together.”

“Well, you’re great at it. This is completely beautiful,” Kip says, lifting the bowl. “You’re an artist and a natural.”

“Aw...” Pascal laughs and blushes again. “I do like working with clay, but I don’t think I can justify making too many things. This class I’m in now ends in another few months and I already have this bowl I don’t need... I mean, I guess it can be decorative, but I only have so much space to decorate, and so much space to store things...and even if everything I made was totally functional, I live by myself, I don’t exactly need very many dishes.”

“Well...” Kip looks down at the bowl again. “Well—hey, I mean, you already have a shop! You could make teapots, or teacups, and saucers—whole sets or just different items, and sell them! You’d be able to make them totally beautiful and unique and they’d be yours, it’s just like your tea blends, nobody can make them like you, and you’re so, so good at it. You’d have two kinds of your art there, and they’d look so nice on display, and people would come in to check for new pieces...”

“Gosh...I dunno, I...” Pascal trails off quietly, touching his lip.

“I mean, you could sell them separately, online or something, though I guess shipping could be expensive...or have a table at the town festivals or something, or... Really, you could just give them away if that gave you an excuse to keep making more ceramics. I think you should keep going with it if you like it, class or no class. There’s art supply stores, I’m sure you could get ahold of things you’d need through some of them.”

Pascal shrugs and smiles at him.

“Maybe so,” he says. “I’ll think about all that stuff.”

He leans in to kiss Kip on the mouth, twice, then harder a third time, then deeper a fourth. Kip pulls back to breathlessly insist Pascal put the bowl away quick before anything happens to it.

—

Kip is lifted up again and carried to the bed, but once he and Pascal are together on the mattress he begins to push for control. Pascal gives way as soon as he realizes what Kip’s doing, and lets Kip take off his shirt and boxers and lie him down on his back. Kip leans against Pascal’s chest and kisses him for a long time before he starts to move his hands across his body—he touches him almost as though it’s a massage, rubbing in circles, pushing slightly into his strokes. He slides his fingertips across his warm skin. He scratches gently at the more sensitive spots.

Pascal moves subtly to follow the contact but stays relaxed against the bed, breathing quietly and steadily. Whenever Kip feels Pascal’s muscles twitch beneath his touch, he reaches over to pet his hair or softly drag the back of his curled fingers down the side of his face. He pauses sometimes to just look at him, cups his jaw gently, slides his fingers over to the corner of his lips.

Pascal starts getting fairly hard prior before Kip’s even directly touched his dick, but he stays fairly still and relaxed regardless. When subtle signs of his restlessness begin to get away from him, Kip slides a hand down to take hold of his developing erection and gently, slowly work him to his full length. Without warning he throws in a more intensely stimulating maneuver to see what reaction it gets—Pascal audibly gasps and an arm curls in and slides onto his chest. Kip leans in and kisses the head of his cock, his stomach, his arm, his chest, his lips.

After a minute, Kip settles in a more comfortable position, sitting up against Pascal’s hip for the convenience of both the increased support and the contact for his own untended erection. He puts his hand against the underside of Pascal’s dick and brings it down to lie against Pascal’s pelvis, keeping his palm resting atop it to pin it in place. He reaches down with his free hand and cups him, evenly spreading his fingers out around his balls, stroking lightly with a beckoning motion of his fingertips and the softest pressure. A couple of minutes later he readjusts his position, slides his hand down, leans in, and takes hold of Pascal’s erection with the other.

Soon he’s simultaneously massaging Pascal’s prostate with two fingers, sucking at his balls, and stroking his cock. He can feel Pascal’s legs rotate inwards and then stretch out as though trying to touch the opposite wall; Pascal’s arms begin trembling periodically.

It’s a matter of seconds before a loud, long groan is drawn from Pascal, followed by quiet, strained swearing and the restless shift of his hips. He breathes Kip’s name and then gasps and whines so beautifully that Kip pumps harder at his dick to hear more of the same. The results are everything he could’ve wished for, throaty whimpers and rich moans and increasingly loud repetitions of his name—Pascal blindly reaches down and slides his arm across Kip’s back, hugs his shoulders, strokes his hair.

When all of Pascal’s reactions signal a growing desperation and he’s begging Kip for something he’s yet to articulate, Kip pushes him for another few solid minutes before sitting back up and letting go of his dick—though he continues to steadily nudge his fingers against his prostate. He looks over—Pascal is visibly breathing heavily, his head tossed to one side against a pillow, his face deeply reddened. Kip watches for just a few more seconds before he has to indulge in this—he pulls out and climbs on top of him, grinding their dicks together and taking hold of Pascal’s face to kiss him fiercely. Pascal responds with unhesitating passion, kissing him back and wrapping an arm around his waist to hold them closer together while he grinds up hard against Kip.

It all happens in a heady rush, but when Kip finds himself both hot and sweaty and giving off pulses of chilled air, he leans back and forces himself to slow their pace, reluctantly sliding off of Pascal’s waist to kneel between his legs. Pascal groans and slowly twists and arches against the bed, panting; he raised his shoulders up just enough to look at Kip. Kip holds his gaze for a few seconds, then bends down and kisses his stomach, biting and licking the skin.

He takes Pascal’s dick in his mouth. He slides his fingers back inside him to continue pushing against his prostate. And with his other hand he alternates cupping him and stroking him off. Pascal only lasts a handful of minutes more—when Kip senses how close he is, he only pushes him harder. He swallows as Pascal orgasms and sucks him a few more times even as he’s quieting down, then removes all of his touch and sits up. He takes a moment to just catch his breath and take in the lovely sight of Pascal.

After a still and quiet minute Kip slides off the bed and walks around the side to kiss Pascal’s cheek—Pascal whispers his name and Kip brushes some of his hair out of his eyes for him.

Kip goes over into the bathroom and washes his hands and his face, drinks a few paper cupfuls of water, then soaks a washcloth and wipes down his neck and chest. He wrings it out, wets it again, and brings it back to Pascal. He kisses him and cleans some of his sweat off, then trails his hand down his body, from his throat down his chest and stomach and down his left leg to his toes, carefully generating a quick, gentle wash of cold all along the way. Pascal gives a deep, long sigh and thanks him, then reaches out to him. Kip walks into his arms and is drawn into a soft, sweet kiss.

Kip lies beside Pascal, looking at his face and absentmindedly touching his chest. He’s more than content to just do this, just lie with him and take in the sight of his gorgeous face and body and listen to his breathing even out, feel him grow almost as relaxed as if he was asleep.

After a little while Pascal turns and rolls slightly more onto his side to look back at Kip. He smiles, and Kip smiles. Pascal rests his arm over Kip’s hip, then slides it down and pets slowly at his dick. Kip’s breath catches, but he keeps looking at Pascal and puts his arm over his shoulders, cupping the back of his head and playing with his hair.

Quicker than Kip realizes, Pascal is ready to go again. Minutes later, Kip is on all fours on the mattress, back arching as he’s swept up in his growing waves of pleasure. Pascal keeps a secure grip on his waist as he fucks him hard and steady. The buildup is overwhelmingly gratifying, only moreso when Pascal finally pulls one arm from Kip’s side and spools it around his erection instead.

Kip cries out Pascal’s name and grips the edge of the mattress when he cums. Pascal leans in to hug his chest and latch onto the headboard, holding him up, and pushes into him just a couple more times before reaching his own climax, which starts before Kip’s has even ended.

Pascal lets Kip sink slowly down to the mattress, then slumps down beside him. With what little energy he has, Kip pushes himself back against Pascal, who drapes an arm around him. Kip hugs the limb to his chest and closes his eyes, feeling Pascal’s inhalations pressing against his back.

Eventually Kip rolls over to face Pascal, and draws himself in so close that he can tuck his head underneath Pascal’s chin. They’re quiet—just holding each other, communicating their attention and affection with subtle, light touches, little caresses, soothing rubs.

For a moment it tugs at Kip that he’s not going to be able to fall asleep with Pascal tonight. It catches his breath for a moment; he furrows his brow and exhales slowly. Pascal kisses the top of his head and strokes Kip’s spine at the dip of his back. Kip squeezes his eyes shut and curls his toes and tells himself to just memorize this, every detail, draw it in and hold on to it.

—

Pascal gets up to make them some tea, and Kip only goes about a minute and a half before he feels like he just wants to be exactly where Pascal is for every moment until he has to leave. He gets out from under the covers and walks through the little hallway, through the living room, around the corner, and stands against the threshold of the kitchen doorway.

Pascal looks up from the lid he’s screwing back onto a tin of tea.

“Hey...everything okay?” he asks. He sets the tin aside and walks towards him.

Kip smiles.

“Yeah,” he says. “I just wanted to be over here, I...wanna see as much of you as I can for these last couple hours.”

Pascal unhesitating draws him into a close hug. Kip returns it at once, looping his arms around Pascal’s waist and resting his forehead against the center of Pascal’s chest; Pascal rests his cheek on the top of Kip’s head and holds him both around the shoulders and around his butt. They stand like that, their breathing providing the only movement and sound, until the kettle starts to wail with steam.

Pascal pours the water into their cups, then waits in front of them for half a minute before putting the leaves in to steep. The moment he turns back to Kip, Kip walks over to him, and they resume their embrace exactly as it had been.

—

Kip gives Pascal another backscratching massage, and it goes on long enough for them to exchange conversation that leaps and wanders between a variety of topics.

Kip asks if Pascal’s work is intimidating or stressful; Pascal says it’s usually smooth sailing as it’s a small and simple place and he’s built up a routine for it, though he does worry about some unforeseeable disaster or string of bad luck ruining everything.

Kip says he still has appointments with Eno.

He talks about how he’s been trying to read for fun again, how that’s been something that’s faded out for a couple of years more than once.

Pascal says he’s gotten more into listening to music as a way to try to relax or distract himself when he’s stressed.

Kip says he’s been putting off buying new socks for work even though one by one all his current pairs are getting work out.

Pascal says he’s been thinking about trying to figure out if he can plant a window garden.

Kip pushes at Pascal’s lower back, slowly but forcefully, then moves the treatment up around his shoulders. He can feel Pascal relaxing even further under his hands and tries to work out any ounce of tension or ache he might be carrying.

“Is this good?” Kip says. “Does this ever seem to help?”

“It feels really nice,” Pascal mumbles against the mattress. “I could do this all day.”

Kip smiles and massages the very top of his shoulders, kneading and squeezing.

“I wish I could do this for you,” Pascal says. “It’s so good.”

“It’s alright,” Kip laughs. “I wish that when I hold you it could fell the way it does when you hold me.”

“It feels great being held by you, what are you talking about?” Pascal argues. “I love it even better than this. Hug me right now.”

Kip grins as Pascal pushes himself onto his back; Pascal reaches out to pull him in and Kip bursts into laughter. But he plays along and lies on top of Pascal, wrapping his arms around him and nuzzling his face against his shoulder with a contented hum. Pascal sighs happily and puts his arms around Kip’s back, heavy and soft and warm, their weight pressing Kip down harder against his boyfriend.

“...I can’t even say how glad I am that we’re here,” Kip murmurs. “I’m so happy that you want to be with me, even with everything that’s happened. It makes me so, so happy to get to be with you, too. I love you more every time I see you.”

Pascal pulls him in just that much closer and pushes a kiss to his cheek.

“That was never in doubt for even a second,” Pascal says. “It could hardly be easier to choose this.”

Kip laughs again, burying his face against Pascal’s neck.

“I mean it,” Pascal emphasizes. “The instant I thought there was a chance we could be together again, I knew exactly what I wanted. I was just waiting to see if you wanted the same. There was never anything else I was considering.”

Pascal rubs Kip’s back.

“You mean so much to me,” he continues quietly. “I could talk about it all day and still not even cover half of it.”

He brushes his arm along the back of Kip’s neck. Kip melts further against him, exhaling deeply. He nudges his lips against Pascal’s throat and presses his fingertips a little harder into the back of Pascal’s shoulders.

“The feelings I get when I think about you—it’s so strong.” Pascal’s voice is soft and close. “It’s so strong that I know it’s tougher than anything. It’s not even just a feeling, it’s...it’s what we’ve done and been through together, and it’s knowing you, everything I know about you, and knowing I’ll always get to learn more, and that I’ll never know everything about you because you’re even more than that, there would be no way to know and understand everything even if there was an eternity. And how beautiful that seems, and how I couldn’t even know as much as I do about myself without you, and...knowing who I get to be with you, and how you bring things out in me, and...it’s just everything. Everything about you, everything about being with you, everything.”

Kip exhales a helpless laugh as quiet passion rises in Pascal’s voice; his heart is beating a blush into his face. He kisses the corner of Pascal’s jaw.

“Pasc—“ He slides off to lie beside Pascal, facing him; Pascal rolls over to face him too.

Kip takes hold of Pascal’s arm and kisses it, threads his fingers into Pascal’s hair and kisses his mouth. He kisses him again and again, trying to communicate through it how much he loves Pascal and treasures him, how much he thrives in their relationship, how much he wants this.

When he pulls a few inches away to say something, he looks Pascal in the face and sees him with his eyes still closed, blushing slightly, clearly waiting for the next kiss. So Kip doesn’t disappoint him.

It goes so slowly that it takes a while for Kip to start feeling out of breath; when he does, he tilts his head up so his lips touch Pascal’s forehead.

“Hold me,” he says quietly.

He’s gathered up in Pascal’s arms.

Kip closes his eyes. He glides his fingertips over Pascal’s skin, gently drags his nails back in circles against his shoulderblades.

They’re quiet for a few minutes until Kip breaks it with a hesitant question.

“So, uh...hey.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What’re you—or, what do you think your day’s gonna be?”

Pascal is silent for a couple of seconds.

“...Like, after this?” he says.

“Yeah...like after I leave.”

“Oh...well, I guess I’ll probably do some cleaning to distract myself a little. Then I’m gonna go over to work too a couple hours after you do. And that should keep me busy into the evening. And then at the end of the day I’ll eat something and do something to relax before bed. Should all be pretty exciting.”

“Mm. What kind of disaster do you think is gonna be waiting for you after you’ve been gone for two whole days?”

“Things get about as chaotic as you’d expect a small tea shop run by me to be.”

Kip smiles and lies his hand on Pascal’s waist.

“Well, that sounds pretty close to what I’m going to be doing. Work until close and then drag myself back to the apartment to pass out.”

“Try not to have more fun than I’ll be having,” Pascal says.

“I’ll do what I can.”

“I mean, try not to ever have any fun if I’m not around.”

“Right, I don’t.”

“Don’t ever enjoy yourself without me, you know? Sit in your room and stare at the floor until you see me again—unless the floor becomes interesting somehow, because then you’ll have to find something else that’s even less enjoyable to replace it.”

“I’ll be sure to tear out the carpet if I start enjoying myself too much by counting the individual fibers,” Kip says seriously.

“Hmm—what would you replace it with? If you’re walking around on the bare floor underneath, you’d get the thrill of having to avoid stepping on carpet tacks.”

“Uh...I could do that sort of tan vinyl tiling that’s used in schools and offices and stuff,” he suggests.

“I dunno, I know I sometimes look for shapes in the weird textures on those. Sounds like it might be too exciting.”

“I could...have the floor painted over.”

“Mm. What color?”

“Grey? Or maybe black.”

“That sounds a little risky.”

“Wh—how is that risky?” Kip demands. “That’s the least amount of visual stimulation I could choose!”

“Well, I’d just be over here worrying that one day you’ll decide to imagine your bed is a rocket and your floor is outer space. That would be way too fun.”

Kip breaks with a momentary giggle and hugs Pascal tightly against himself. Pascal huffs a low laugh as well and pushes Kip onto his back; Kip looks up at him and smiles and Pascal leans in to bring his face inches away from Kip’s.

Kip unexpectedly feels his heart beating harder and his face warming—as though they haven’t shared thousands of kisses already and this is still something intimidatingly new.

“You know we’ll still just be a little over a mile away from each other,” Pascal says quietly.

“Yeah...”

“And we can text each other now, and call and everything.”

“Yeah. That helps a lot.”

Kip tilts his head up and closes his eyes as Pascal dips down and kisses him. He pulls Pascal back in for another when the first is done. When that one’s over, he sits up and holds both of Pascal’s arms in his hands, then can’t help one more quick kiss to his boyfriend’s lips.

“Thank you—“ He kisses his cheek. “For everything you do for me. I’ve always noticed it. I’ve always appreciated it.”

Pascal leans back and smiles at him with his warm, sweet look.

“I can say the same to you,” Pascal says. “And I know you do things that you try not to be noticed for, or things you think don’t count. But everything you do counts. And you’re so good to me, love.”

Kip has to smile in turn.

“Well, it’s easy, because I love you so much.”

“I love YOU so much!” Pascal laughs and squeezes Kip close in a tight hug.

Kip hugs him back just as tightly, tucking his face against Pascal’s shoulder. Pascal makes him feel so loved, and so wanted. He adores Pascal so much—this incredible person who knows and loves his warmest and coldest—who unhesitatingly supported him with everything he had during the worst part of Kip’s life—who softly lights up every time he so much as catches sight of Kip—who makes Kip laugh and feel the deepest love and relax and not only feel like he can be himself, but like he wants to—who generates this sense of peace and safety and belonging that floats around him like a warm and gentle halo.

“Pasc,” Kip murmurs.

“Uh-huh?”

“I wanna stay with you.”

“I know. I want you to stay, too.”

“No, I mean—not just here, not just today. I mean, just...wherever and whenever, I just...I mean, whether or not we’re in the same place, I wanna be with you. I wanna stay with you.”

Pascal draws back and looks at Kip.

“Like...” Kip holds Pascal’s gaze and touches his neck. “I want to keep being with you, next month and next year and however long there is. I’ll stay with you. I want to be with you.”

Pascal blinks at him for a moment and then lets out a heavy exhale as though he was holding his breath.

“Kip,” he says simply.

Kip is about to respond when Pascal leans in and shoves his face against Kip’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around Kip’s waist. Kip is frozen for a moment, then slides his arms around Pascal’s back. He leans into the embrace and rests his cheek against Pascal’s hair and closes his eyes, breathing deeply.

Pascal turns his head and kisses Kip’s throat, then leans back up and looks at Kip again. He looks gorgeous, his hair somewhat messed, his eyes brought out by a solid blush. Kip glances back and forth between his eyes and lips, too distracted by his handsome face and the desire to kiss him to think of what to say.

But Pascal speaks first.

“I want to stay with you, too.”

—

Kip is so completely in love with Pascal.

He feels as close to him now as he did before they’d ever broken off from each other—closer even, with their experiences apart only serving to tie them together even more securely. It’s different, better than it was before—better than when they were first dating, when they took to each other like birds to the sky but were in a relationship too new to make plans; better than when they moved in together, when despite how quickly they adapted and how well they did, it was still the result of an accident, of something they’d never want, something completely removed from anything they’d ever choose for themselves.

But this is chosen. This is so deeply wanted and wished for and waited upon. This feels so right that Kip can’t sense the smallest flicker of doubt no matter how far he searches for any. Even with his deeply anxious instincts, his inevitable tendency to fear and expect the worst out of anything—the concept and experience of being with Pascal registers in his heart as nothing but good.

This feels like their relationship again. The dynamic, the communication, the connection—it feels like it’s slipped smoothly back into place, fitting perfectly, operating seamlessly. It makes Kip feel so at home not only with Pascal but with himself. Being with Pascal, being next to him and being with him, it lets Kip exist without self-doubt, without self-consciousness, without feeling out of place or obtrusive or overlooked, without worrying about being disappointing or stifling or just too much of himself. Too anxious, too avoidant, too passive, too tense, too impatient, too excitable, too much of a landmine.

With Pascal, he’s softened and intensified at once, in all the best ways. His fears are comforted, his passions are fueled, he talks and laughs more easily and sees himself more clearly and feels less disappointment in who he is, replaced with more appreciation and understanding. He’s more patient, he’s less irritable, he’s more relaxed and comfortable and content. He feels closer than he ever does to who he was years before the fire, and closest to who he’s become after it, feeling safe enough for the former and loved enough for the latter.

Even he could never talk himself out of this now.

The way Pascal smiles at him, looks at him, Kip could never question if Pascal loves and wants him, if he makes Pascal happy.

It was all true then, and that truth is just as present now.

This feels like them again.

—

Kip walks over beside the chair and strokes a hand down the back of Pascal’s head until he’s cradling its base; Pascal looks up at him.

“Don’t forget how much I love you while I’m gone, okay?” Kip smiles and gently scratches his fingers against the roots of Pascal’s thick hair.

“I won’t.”

Pascal rubs his arm up and down Kip’s side, and when it bunches up the tee Kip’s wearing he leans in and kisses the exposed blue stripe of stomach. Kip giggles and so Pascal does it again and again and again until Kip is outright laughing.

Kip grabs Pascal’s shoulders and pushes him back and it makes him smile even brighter to see that Pascal is laughing quietly too.

“God, Pasc,” he sighs heavily, looking at his gorgeous brown eyes. “I missed you so, so bad. I missed you so much.”

It’s all too easy to remember the stinging ache that came when he’d lay in bed alone and think about how he’d never see Pascal again.

“I missed you,” he says again, and then he climbs into Pascal’s lap and hugs him with his arms and legs alike. “So much.”

“I know,” Pascal says against Kip’s shoulder.

“I remember it,” Kip says, squeezing Pascal tight. “It’s so easy to remember it—thinking I’d never be with you again, and trying to sleep alone and get used to not seeing you every day, and even worse, never talking to you, and how much it felt like I was actually hurt or sick or something—“

“I know. I know exactly what you mean.”

“I just...wanted to talk to you. I’d see things or do things and put them in my head to tell you about later or I’d think of a question I wanted to ask or I’d just think of talking about how our days went—“

“I know,” Pascal murmurs. “I felt that too.”

“God, Pasc, it was such shit...”

“Yeah,” Pascal says quietly.

Kip slowly places his hands on either side of Pascal’s jaw, staring intently at his face and lightly caressing his cheeks with his thumbs.

Pascal smiles a little.

“There’s this look you get sometimes,” he tells Kip softly. “Like this is your only chance to look at me, and you’ll have to remember it forever.”

Kip blinks and slips his fingers down the sides of Pascal’s neck to his shoulders.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I guess I do that.”

Pascal takes hold of one of Kip’s wrists and brings it around to kiss its knuckles.

“Your hands are getting a little cold.” Pascal’s voice is just above a whisper.

“Sorry—“ Kip tries to pull them back.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Pascal says. “I don’t ever mind you touching me no matter how warm or cold you are.”

He pulls Kip’s palms to his chest and keeps his arms overtop them, holding them firmly against the warm skin, between soft hair and soft suckers. Kip breathes out slowly and looks up at Pascal. A shiver rolls through him at the warmth.

“You should just fuck me here,” Pascal murmurs.

“What—here?”

“Yeah. Do me on my kitchen floor.”

Kip blushes. His fingers twitch against Pascal’s chest.

Pascal leans in and presses their lips together.

—

Kip manages to hold out long enough to bring Pascal to the brink and pull him back several times in a row before they finally orgasm together. The climax drowns Kip in several long, dizzyingly intense waves until he finds his limbs are trembling and weak; he pulls out of Pascal and touches his boyfriend’s stomach, watching his arms twitch and curl as he pants for breath.

Kip leans in, breathing heavily too, and slowly brushes his fingertips down Pascal’s torso, pouring coolness against his skin. He repeats it several times, following alongside the trail made by the strands of Pascal’s cum that extends from his stomach up to his throat.

Pascal looks so good. Kip stares at his face for a few moments and then crawls over and lies down beside him. The floor is hard and almost cold, but Pascal isn’t—Kip lies his hand on the side of Pascal’s chest and inches close enough to touch at the hips and thighs.

Pascal puts his arm over Kip’s hand and turns his head to look at him. Kip smiles.

“Good?” he asks.

“Yeah. That would’ve made anyone’s day,” Pascal answers, panting quietly.

Kip rolls onto his side and touches Pascal’s face.

“God, I love you,” he murmurs. “Just...if aIl I ever accomplished was being someone who gets to know so much about you...who knows how caring and generous and...thoughtful and patient and sweet and kindhearted you are, and...you’re so fun and talking to you is so fun and you have such good thoughts that I always wish I could have you beside me just to hear what you have to say about everything...”

He’s seeing Pascal’s smile and blush and it’s making him smile and blush too.

“You’re such a lovely person and it’s so wonderful and good to be around you so much and...you’ve got a beautiful heart and you’re such...you’re so good that it’s hard to believe. And being there for you whenever things are hard and...I just can’t believe I’ve gotten to be a part of your life, you know? Like that I could be so close to you and share these things, like...”

He closes his eyes and squeezes his hold on Pascal’s arm.

“I always felt like I could trust you with anything,” he says quietly. “Even back before everything happened. I never had to have any doubts about how much you loved me and I just...I knew I could always share anything I wanted with you. And you’ve always made me feel like you trusted me just as much and wanted to tell me things too and I was so important to you, and...god, I love that it’s you, you’re the one I got to become so close to.”

He’s pressing his forehead to Pascal’s shoulder.

“I can’t put it all into words, Pasc,” he says. “Definitely not in one sitting...and even if I could, even if I was good enough with words and had all the time in the world, just telling you how good it is to be with you wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t be good enough and...you’d deserve more than just being told how fantastic it is being together. And I mean, I couldn’t love you well enough that way anyways, half the time I’m messing up what I’m saying to anyone or I’m just having a day where I can’t really say much through talking...”

“I know what you’re saying,” Pascal says. “I know when you care about someone that a lot of it is coming through in something other than words.”

Kip smiles softly and rubs his knee against Pascal’s.

“Well, you deserve everything I can show with my time and attention and my energy and everything else I can turn my love into,” he says. “And I want to give you all of it, it feels amazing to get to love you and the better I can the better it feels, and...and I wanna be able to show you with the little ordinary ways, too.”

“I think just knowing we get to talk about anything we want anytime we want is better than anything anyone could say,” Pascal murmurs. “And just stuff like...when you come up behind me and hug me and kiss me on the back. Or when you tell me about something that made you think of me. When I see all the little things you do for me throughout the day even when we’re not together. That kind of stuff means a lot to me, I think it says so much.”

Kip laughs softly and props himself up on one elbow, leaning slightly over Pascal and trailing his fingers up and down his arm.

“Well, I’m glad I have the chance to do that stuff again,” he says. “Like, really, really, really glad. More than I can say.”

“More than you can show?”

“I might be able to tell you better in a lot of other ways, yeah.”

“How long do you think that’ll take?”

“Hmm, well, each day I’m with you I’ll probably be needing the whole day to tell you. Just in little ways as we go along, so that you don’t have to sit down for it or anything.”

“Right, thanks.”

“It might have to keep going on for forever, because otherwise I’d fall behind, you know?”

“Oh, that’s good,” Pascal says, and presses a kiss to Kip’s wrist. “That’s probably how long I’d need to make sure you feel as loved as you are.”

Kip exhales slowly and can’t help smiling. Pascal plants a few more kisses along Kip’s arm and then looks up at him; Kip feels his smile.

“My sweetest Kip,” Pascal breathes. He pushes himself upright and smoothly pulls Kip into his lap.

“Only because I’m the only Kip you know—“ Kip laughs and blushes as Pascal buries his face in the crook of his neck and kisses it, his scruff rubbing a pleasant friction against Kip’s skin.

“My only Kip,” Pascal mumbles as he kisses up to the corner of Kip’s jaw.

His lips and breath are warm. Kip draws him closer until their chests meet, and Pascal slides his arms snugly around Kip’s back. Kip cradles Pascal’s head against his shoulder.

“Do you feel cold?” Pascal asks. “You’re shivering a little bit.”

“No,” Kip answers. “It’s just because you’re so warm.”

“Too warm?”

“Of course not,” Kip laughs. “I love it.”

Pascal nestles them a little closer together. Kip closes his eyes and concentrates on the feeling of every point of contact between them.

“We should probably take a shower,” Pascal says after a quiet minute or two.

“Mm, yeah, I guess that’s true,” Kip says.

“Here, hold on to me...”

Kip does, and the next thing he knows, Pascal has lifted him up with an arm under his knees and the other under his back, and stands upright with Kip held against his chest.

“God, you’re good at this,” Kip says breathlessly. He knows he’s blushing—he always does.

“You make it so much fun.” Pascal kisses his nose.

Kip laughs and puts his hand against Pascal’s chest, curling his body in to make it easier as Pascal carefully navigates the little hallway to bring him into the bathroom.

“Would you rather have a shower or a bath?” Pascal asks, lowering Kip’s feet to the floor.

“Take a shower with me,” Kip says.

Pascal does, and he also sucks Kip off while pushing the end of his arm inside him. Kip can’t hardly think at the height of it, he feels like his body is overflowing with energy yet somehow also as light and soft as moonbeams. The intensity of his climax is overwhelming; when he starts to recover himself he weakly asks if he’d pulled Pascal’s hair or scratched at his back too hard, as he’d lost himself a bit too much during his orgasm to be aware of how loud or rough he might’ve been.

After a minute spent catching both their breaths in the little, steamed-up space, Kip sits Pascal down on the bathmat, leans against him with his head resting on Pascal’s shoulder, and jerks him off as the warm water spills down their bodies. He hugs Pascal close, and can hear every tiny whimper and caught breath right up to the point when Pascal groans his name when he reaches his peak.

Kip holds Pascal until he’s recovered enough of his strength to stand up and actually wash himself. Kip works some shampoo into his own hair and smiles to himself as he breathes the familiar scent of Pascal’s soap.

—

Kip lies back on the bed after he’s dry, glad to relax against the mattress and feel the soft blankets on his bare skin. He’s still lying there when Pascal comes in, already dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants.

“I should probably start putting everything back in my bag,” Kip murmurs. “But this is so comfortable.”

“Can I join you?”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

The shifting curve of the mattress moves Kip’s body as Pascal comes over to lie beside him. Kip puts a hand on Pascal’s stomach.

“I love having you on my bed,” Pascal says.

“Yeah?” Kip laughs quietly.

“Yeah. It’s the kind of thing I’d want so much that I’d dream about it, back before we were together. Both times before we were together.”

Kip slips his hand down the inside of Pascal’s arm, feeling the soft give of the suckers beneath his fingertips.

“Poor guy,” he sighs. “You’ve had some rough times.”

Pascal laughs softly.

“No, you have,” Kip says. “I know you have. I don’t really love knowing I contributed to that some.”

“Shh.” Pascal rolls onto his side and kisses Kip’s temple. “Nobody can help what happened. But you’re an amazingly good and lovely thing that’s happened to me, Kip.”

Kip laughs and turns his head to meet Pascal’s eyes for a moment, smiling at him.

“I mean it, babe,” Pascal murmurs, touching his cheek. “For all we know, the way things happened might’ve been the smoothest possible course. I understand why you felt like you had to go. I know that you feel bad about it and I know that hurt a lot for both of us. And I want you to know I don’t hold it against you, okay? I’m not mad. I know that you wouldn’t want to be with me now if you felt the same way that you did then, I know that you—I know you chose this, you told me as much. And I’ve always known how much you care about me. I’ve always known that.”

Kip closes his eyes as Pascal brings their mouths together for a gentle kiss.

“If you still feel like you have something to apologize for,” Pascal whispers a half-inch from his lips, “I forgive it. Really and truly, I forgive any and everything.”

He pecks a kiss to Kip’s upper lip and leans back to look at him again.

“You believe me?” he asks softly.

Kip presses his lips together and looks at Pascal, his kind and loving and deeply understanding boyfriend. Underneath his shivering doubt for himself he feels his warm, steady confidence in Pascal.

He meets Pascal’s eyes.

“Yeah, I do,” he murmurs.

Pascal smiles brighter and puts his arm around Kip’s back, sliding it down to cup his butt.

“I’m so happy being with you,” Pascal says, and kisses him.

—

Packing up is a gradual process. There’s just over an hour left by the time he finishes—he leaves his work clothes laid out on top of his bag, unwilling to put them on until he has to, remaining naked instead.

He starts to give Pascal a backrub, but somehow within a few minutes he ends up being held in Pascal’s lap in the armchair, sitting on his thighs but supported with an arm under the knees and the other under his back as though he’s being carried. Pascal hugs him close at first, cuddling him against his chest and resting his head on top of Kip’s, then loosens his hold a bit so that Kip’s feet are on the cushion of the chair and the arm along Kip’s back cradles him like a hammock.

Kip leans his head against Pascal and absently traces shapes on his chest, taking in the touch and scent and warmth of his body. He can hear and feel Pascal’s breathing. Kip notices peripherally that Pascal periodically takes a few moments to just look at him—it makes Kip blush and tuck his head slightly against Pascal’s arm. Pascal takes to slowly stroking Kip’s side and hip. He kisses Kip’s hair.

Kip becomes aware of a sound that he at first thinks is the air turning on, then thinks might be a box being dragged across a distant floor. He slides his hand along the flow of Pascal’s chest hair and looks up at the ceiling.

“Is that rain?” he asks quietly.

“...I think so,” Pascal says. “You can’t really see out any of the windows from here, but the light looks pretty overcast.”

“Mm.” Kip closes his eyes again and rests his forearm across his own stomach, his knuckles touching Pascal. “It’s nice.”

Pascal leans in and kisses Kip’s knee. Kip smiles faintly and looks up at him again.

“You always touch me so gently,” Kip tells him, reaching up to touch his jawline.

“Am I being too careful?” Pascal asks.

“No, I like it. You’re so soft with me—it feels like you love me.”

Pascal smiles and a slight flush blossoms across his cheeks.

“Good.”

Kip caresses the side of Pascal’s face; his skin feels so pleasantly warm.

“I love you,” Kip says.

Pascal’s blush deepens beautifully and his whole expression subtly brightens. Kip feels his heartbeat respond at the sight. He puts his hand on Pascal’s arm and squeezes gently.

There’s a quiet roll of thunder and Pascal pulls Kip in and kisses his face. Kip laughs and hooks his arms around the back of Pascal’s neck. Pascal kisses his forehead, his nose, chin, lips, then wraps both arms around Kip’s back and hugs him tightly.

“Hey,” Pascal starts, and Kip interrupts him with a firm kiss. “Do you want—“

Kip kisses him again.

“Do you want some tea? I was thinking of making some.”

Kip hides his grin against Pascal’s throat.

“Yes, absolutely.”

—

“You’re an artist,” Kip murmurs into the steam of his cup. “I’m not even trying to compliment you. You just absolutely have such a talent that you’ve worked on and you make your blends into an art.”

Pascal puts down the kettle and kisses the top of Kip’s head.

“I do try to make them all different. And good,” he says.

“It comes through.”

“You think so?”

“Oh, definitely, Pasc. I mean, I’ve only got to try a few of these so far, and they’re each standout in their own way.”

Pascal laughs softly.

“I’m really glad to hear it. I do put thought into them, I don’t know. I guess I’d always wished there was a place around where there were more original blends, I would’ve loved it. And I do put a lot of thought into the ones I make now.”

“Yeah, I really appreciate that, and I think a lot of people already do, too,” Kip says. “You definitely seem to have a decent amount of fans.”

“Who doesn’t like tea?” Pascal shrugs and sits down in the other chair. But Kip is satisfied to see in Pascal’s face that he’s flattered.

“Anyone who likes tea will love yours,” he says, and takes another sip of his own.

Pascal leans over; Kip leans in as well to let Pascal press a kiss to the side of his head.

“And it’s lucky for me that you like tea so much,” Kip says. “Half the time I would’ve made some for myself anyhow, you’ve already made some.”

“I’ve always been glad you like it, too,” Pascal says. “I love to be able to make it for people, I don’t know, it’s just really comforting and welcoming at the same time.”

“It’s good for keeping me warm, too,” Kip adds. “And your summer iced tea saves lives when it gets really humid.”

“Yeah, that’s another reason it’s so great.”

“...I still always think of that time I was sleeping on the couch,” Kip says. “Or, trying to sleep. And I was all huddled up on one end and you laid down with me and held me. And even with your help and with the blanket I had, I was so freezing cold I couldn’t stop shaking or hardly move. And you brought me heat packs and extra blankets and a hot water bottle and put a towel under your shirt to warm it up for me. And then you brought me that mug of tea, and I remember holding it really tightly, and I was finally starting to be able to feel all the warmth of everything you’d given me. And just drinking that for a minute warmed me up that much more, and I could feel the heat inside me, and I stopped crying so bad. And for a while it was just drinking that tea and being slowly warmed up while you held me. That was so nice, especially after I’d felt so awful. It was one of those times I was feeling so bad I was sure that nothing could ever pull me back from it. So I always remember that as one of the best cups of tea I ever had.”

Pascal looks down at his own tea.

“I remember that too,” he says softly. “I could tell it was really bad for you. I’m glad the tea helped. I felt like I was sort of throwing anything I could think of to help you and just hoping that any of it would stick.”

“You always helped me,” Kip reassures him. “Even when things got hard when I was alone, I could always think of you, and I could know that we were together.”

He looks down at the surface of his tea.

“I’ve never forgot how good you’ve always been to me, even from the day we met. I never stopped appreciating everything you’ve done. I wouldn’t ever have stopped, even if we hadn’t...”

Pascal nods.

“Even when we weren’t together, I still would’ve done anything to help you,” Pascal says. “Even if I’d thought there was no chance you’d want to be with me again, I’d still have given any help you needed from me.”

“Yeah,” Kip says quietly. “I knew you would’ve.”

Kip glances at Pascal and then back to the rich red-orange of his tea.

“I would’ve done anything to keep you safe then,” he murmurs. “It wouldn’t have been my place to try to support you in any more personal way, though. But now, I...I want to be part of everything again. Anything you ever want to talk to me about, whatever I can do to help you with anything, whether it’s this huge and horrible problem or just little stuff, I, um...I’m here for you for everything.”

He thought he might make himself a bit nervous by saying these things, but he feels calmer for it.

“...I mean, I’ll be with you for everything you want me to be,” he amends. “You don’t have to let me help with everything. I just want to be here for you whenever you want me to be.”

Pascal’s foot nudges his own underneath the table; Kip looks over to see Pascal smiling softly at him. He smiles back.

“I love you,” Pascal says, and puts his arm over Kip’s hand.

Kip ducks his head as he smiles brighter.

“I love you too.”

—

“You doing okay?” Pascal asks.

“Uh—yeah, I mean, I’m holding up. Do I seem stressed out?” It’s a genuine question; Kip knows that sometimes a little bit of unhappiness comes through as heavy stress in his expression.

“You just sighed,” Pascal explains.

“I did?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh...” Kip shrugs. “It’s nothing bad. I just don’t wanna go to work.” He laughs lightly.

Pascal loops his arm around Kip’s waist and leans in so that their hips bump together.

“I hear you,” he says, and kisses Kip behind the ear.

“I mean...” Kip sighs again, then realizes it and laughs at himself. “It would be so nice if we’d had entire weeks to spend like this, just being together and not having to do anything.”

“Yeah,” Pascal agrees, a little morosely.

Kip strokes Pascal’s arm.

“Still, it’s just great to know this isn’t a real goodbye for once. I mean, we had to get used to...basically never seeing each other. Even after I met you again. I think in the back of my mind some part of me still hasn’t caught up with the fact that’s not how it is anymore, and I keep being half-surprised that every time we go separate ways that it isn’t forever, and we still get to see each other again soon.”

He’s gratified to see Pascal gain a slight smile.

“I think it’s a bit like that for me, too,” Pascal says. “Like my brain’s default when I wake up is that we aren’t dating, and then I remember that we are, which is awesome, but then I miss you.”

“Honestly, I’ve been pretty much just as excited for getting to wake up in the same bed as getting to fuck again,” Kip says. “It’s such, such a good feeling. Like, I used to wake up half-asleep and imagine I could feel you holding me, and that would practically break my heart. But to feel that and realize it’s real? ...Wow.”

Pascal’s laugh is warm. He squeezes Kip a little closer.

“It was really awful the day we moved, wasn’t it,” Kip says quietly.

“...Yeah. All that stuff that happened then was hard.”

“I’m so glad we’ve ended up together in spite of all that,” he says. “I wish that back then I’d known it was okay to even hope for this.”

Pascal wraps his arm around Kip’s hand and squeezes it gently. Kip squeezes back.

—

Kip dresses himself slowly. His head feels a little foggy. He does up the buttons of his shirt one at a time, fingers moving loosely and imprecisely. Every now and then his ears pick up on the patter of raindrops against the windowpane.

He goes into the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror for a moment. He pees and then washes his hands and face and wets a few errant strands of hair to coax them more into place. He looks at himself a moment more, then tucks his shirt in and goes back to the bedroom to put on socks and shoes.

“Ugh,” he groans as he reenters the living room. He sits down next to Pascal on the couch. “It’s not fun to have to leave.”

“Yeah, this doesn’t feel great,” Pascal agrees. He scoots closer to Kip and pulls him closer with an arm draped around his shoulders. Kip sighs and leans against him.

They sit together quietly for a while. Kip traces his fingertips on the back of Pascal’s arm and closes his eyes when Pascal rests his cheek against the top of his head.

“With the rain outside, I’d love to just stay right here like this for an hour with a blanket or two and just take a nap,” Kip mumbles. “But don’t get a blanket involved now or I might not be able to convince myself to ever get up.”

“That sounds really nice.”

“Mmhm.”

He inhales slowly as Pascal rubs an arm along his thigh, slightly bunching the fabric of his work pants.

“It’s good that we can text each other now,” he says. “It helps, since we don’t get to see each other every day like this. I mean, it feels like worlds ago that we still had to take the train to see each other. Back after we had just become friends, and when we’d just gotten together. It could be weeks before we were in the same place. That could be tough sometimes. But we hadn’t gotten as close as we would yet.”

He bites his lip gently.

“Hey,” Pascal says.

“Yeah?”

“We’ll see each other soon, okay? In just a few days. I promise we’ll be together again before it’s been even a full week.”

Kip gives a quiet laugh and hugs him.

“I mean it,” Pascal says. “It’ll only be a day or two. We’ll keep finding times to see each other. If I have to, I’ll just come over at night and we can cuddle in bed until we fall asleep. I promise.”

Kip hugs him tighter and digs his fingers into Pascal’s shirt.

“Thanks.”

—

“I should’ve thought to bring my own...”
Kip mumbles as Pascal passes him the small, bright green travel umbrella.

“It’s okay, I have another.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re sure you’ve got everything?” Pascal asks again.

“Yeah,” Kip says, smiling softly at the floor. “It’s all in here.” He shifts the shoulder strap of his bag.

“Okay. ...That’s not too heavy?”

“No, it’s pretty light. Just a couple changes of clothes and a toothbrush, mostly. I’ll be alright.”

“I could carry it for you,” Pascal offers.

“I know I’m not as strong as you, but I can handle this much,” Kip laughs. “It would be nice to walk with you, but it would take up so much time for you to go all the way over and back. You’d barely have any time before going over to work. You should take it easy here and relax a bit.”

He puts his hand on Pascal’s side as he says it, asking him. Pascal meets his eyes and nods after a beat.

“It would be cool if you went with me to the front door, though,” Kip says.

“Of course.”

Pascal takes his hand, and Kip squeezes their grip tightly.

It’s a little sad to hear Pascal close the door of the apartment behind them. But Kip tries not to focus on it. They walk down the hall and take the elevator down to the bottom floor.

“Okay,” Kip says softly as they turn the corner into the lobby. They approach the door and then Kip stops and turns to face Pascal. “No long goodbye, or I’ll lose any momentum I have.”

“Okay,” Pascal agrees. “I think you know the kinds of things I’d say.”

Kip does, and that gives him a pleasant thrill; a genuine laugh spills from him.

“Yeah, I do, and I’d tell you how much I love you.”

Pascal blushes and breaks into a warm smile and gathers Kip up into a hug. Kip returns it even before Pascal’s pulled him in all the way. They hold each other tight—Kip presses his temple against Pascal’s chest, Pascal buries his face in Kip’s hair.

They stand there in the embrace, swaying slightly with their breathing. Kip tries to communicate all his feelings through the contact and can tell Pascal is doing the same.

“I love you,” Kip whispers. He feels Pascal’s body curl in around him just a little bit more.

“I love you,” Pascal whispers back.

And with one more tight squeeze, they step back.

Kip smiles up at Pascal.

“Thank you for having me over,” he says. “I’m sad to go but you’ve made me really, really happy.”

“Good,” Pascal laughs a bit breathlessly. He’s blushing hard, looking at Kip with such open affection. “I completely mean it that this place is yours whenever you want to be here.”

Kip bites his lip and nods.

“Thank you,” he breathes.

“You’re welcome—“

Kip pushes himself up on his toes and kisses him; Pascal returns it immediately. Kip puts his hand on the side of Pascal’s neck; Pascal touches Kip’s jaw.

Kip gives Pascal’s lip the softest tug and then pulls away.

“We’ll get to see each other again soon,” he says. “How incredible is that?”

Pascal beams and presses a kiss to his forehead. Kip laughs and grabs on to the strap of his bag, squeezing tight enough to almost be wringing it.

“Thank you, Pasc,” he murmurs. “I love you so, so much.”

Pascal sweeps in with an arm loose around the small of Kip’s back and kisses him quickly. Then one more time, then whispers “I love you” against Kip’s mouth.

Kip knows he’d fall in love with Pascal if he wasn’t so deeply already.

“Okay,” he says after a moment. “Okay...I just have to go ahead and actually leave.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll text you.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Kip takes the ends of Pascal’s arms and Pascal loops his hold around his hands and they grip each other tight.

“Bye, Pasc.”

“I’ll see you later.”

One more kiss, one more look, and Kip goes to the door. He sends a smile over his shoulder to Pascal as he pushes it open; when it closes behind him he lets out a steadying exhale and lifts his chin to fix his gaze on the horizon line.

—

“Hey,” Kip calls, lifting his bag onto the shelf and hanging the umbrella beside Kate’s blue raincoat. He takes a deep breath as he ties his apron on and walks into the back.

Kate is using the espresso machine, so he simply gives her a wave and a smile as he goes past to clock in. The café isn’t too busy—the usual state of things on a rainy afternoon.

Kate approaches him several minutes later as he’s putting a batch of utensils through the dishwasher.

“There’s my boy,” she says, pulling him into a one-armed embrace.

“Kate,” he acknowledges. “How did it go before I got here? How was your weekend and all?”

“It was pretty decent,” Kate says. “My mom came into town for an afternoon and on Sunday I went to this book release at a store down by 7th and Wyld. The author was really cool and gave a talk for a little bit, so that was fun.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the book about?”

“It’s mostly a mystery novel,” she says. “Kind of a weird mix of gothic and thriller elements? It’s totally different from their other book I read, which was kinda dramatic, too, but pretty light in tone the whole time.”

“Huh...” Kip pulls the utensils out of the wash, leaning away from the clouds of steam and drips of scalding water. “I still haven’t really started reading much stuff yet. You and Eno ought to form a book club, you both seem to be on a new novel every week.”

“Yeah, I slow down sometimes, but that’s about accurate.”

“I mean, it’s pretty cool.” He starts sorting through the knives, patting them dry. “I should probably try to be more like that. How’s your mom?”

“She’s good. It’s nice to hang out with her, she’s always been really easygoing, y’know? Like, she doesn’t ask about where your career is headed or why you aren’t marrying the person you were dating three years ago, she just wants to see you and talk about whatever.”

“Yeah, she seemed really friendly that one time she stopped by here for a minute. It didn’t feel like she was trying to evaluate me as your coworker or anything.”

“Oh yeah, she did ask if I’d ever gone out with you,” Kate laughs.

“Really? Oh my god...” Kip grins at the spoon he’s toweling off. “Jeez, why don’t we get it over with and start seeing each other, then.”

“Speaking of why not, looks like you had a productive weekend?”

The “what?” Kip’s about to say dies when he turns and sees Kate glancing down at his neck, where he already knew there were plenty of visible hickeys extending up above his collar to his jawline. He blushes a bit but had already decided not to be embarrassed about it.

“Ah, yeah—“ He breathes a laugh. “Yeah, it was good.”

“I mean, good for you, honestly. Not like you haven’t earned it, and you’ve had a hell of a drought. How d’you feel?”

“Fucked,” he answers at once, and Kate laughs loudly, shoving him on the shoulder. “Well—I mean, I do, but also I just—it’s good, y’know? I was already sure this hadn’t been a mistake, but this just made me feel like...”

He blushes a little and puts down the towel.

“I mean, it’s like...I feel like I know we’re gonna be together for a long time, and...I really want that. It’s just...it was a really nice visit for a lot of reasons. I missed him a lot.”

“I know you did,” Kate says. “So, I mean, what—you gonna marry him?”

“God—!” He laughs reflexively and shoots her a look. “I am definitely not close to any of that stuff yet. I mean, I’m still, like...I miss living with him but I know I’m not even quite ready for that yet. Like, now I’ve gotten used to it being this apartment and just me and Molly and Roy. So even if I do end up moving in with him, it’s not gonna be, like...immediate.”

“Well, why not? It’s not like you don’t know what it’s like. I mean, you guys only lived with him for five fuckin’ years.”

“But not just him and me,” Kip argues. “And this is a new place, and a new location, and we have new routines and all... It wouldn’t be the same as just jumping right back into what we had.”

“Sure. But you know you want to live with him.”

“I mean...yeah, I wish we were in the same place.”

“But you’re not just gonna move in with him.”

“Just...not yet.”

She shrugs.

“Fair enough. It’s your call.”

They’re quiet for a moment before Kate speaks again.

“You holding up after going at it all weekend? Like, I see you can at least still walk and all.”

He scoffs.

“It’s not too bad,” he says. “If I have to lift something, it can get a little rough. The having-trouble-walking part was more after Friday night, but some stretching and hot baths and stuff helped.”

Kate stifles a laugh.

“Well, it shouldn’t be too hard for you today,” she says. “I think this shift’s gonna be pretty quiet for us.”

“Good.”

—

Their shift goes smoothly and they finish closing shortly after the end of the store’s open hours. It does start to weigh on Kip that he’s not going to be with Pascal again when he goes home, but he brushes it off and tells himself he’ll feel better about it shortly, once his focus is shifted from the end of their visit to the anticipation of the next one.

The rain had stopped a few hours after he arrived at the café and then started up again at a heavier rate, which helped make things slow enough for him and Kate to talk easily the whole shift but now makes their walk home slower, both huddle close together under the small umbrella and taking care to avoid deep puddles on the sidewalk. Kip hugs his bag to his chest and Kate holds on to the hood of her coat and they cautiously maneuver their way towards Kate’s apartment.

Kate gives him another one-armed hug goodnight as she goes into her building, and Kip makes the walk to his own apartment in a short enough amount of time. He shakes out the umbrella underneath the front door’s overhang and struggles momentarily with the key. The lobby is empty, and wiping his feet on the large grey mat seems too loud a disturbance. The whole building seems overly quiet; he tries to step lightly as he makes his way up the stairs.

He even enters their apartment quietly, stepping out of his shoes and twisting the umbrella nervously in his hands as he tries to figure out whether Roy and Molly have already turned in for the night or not. He heads to his room before trying to investigate too thoroughly, managing to unpack his bag and change into pajamas in just a couple of minutes. He sends off a quick text to Pascal saying that work was okay and he’s gotten home, and he’s missing him already and asking how things have gone on his end whenever he has a chance to text back.

He folds his arms around his front and looks at himself in the mirror. He’d managed to keep himself impressively dry, and his hair looks decent, and he’s just made even more bruising along his neck and shoulders and chest visible with the lower and wider collar of his loose t-shirt. He traces along some of them—even the darkest and largest ones only give the faintest twinge of soreness if pressed. He touches his bottom lip and then turns away and leans across his bed and plugs in his string of lights.

He goes back out and into the kitchen and puts the kettle on the stove for some tea to warm up from the rain. He feels more tired than he was just minutes ago, and the fact he can’t lie flat on his back while drinking tea is disappointing. He spends a while leaning against the countertop before even moving to get out a cup—he’s in the middle of getting out a teabag when the kettle starts to sing.

He leans over the steam of the steeping tea for about half a minute before he hears a door softly open and Molly’s footsteps approach. He turns and sees her in her light yellow pajama set and robe, hair still damp and messy from a shower.

“So you just snuck back in here,” she laughs quietly.

“I didn’t know if either of you guys were still up,” Kip says. “Things have been good here while I was gone?”

“Yeah. You just missed Roy—he’s heading in a little earlier than usual to put together something for the kids.”

“Mm. I’ll see him tomorrow afternoon after we’re both back from work, I guess.”

“How about you? Everything go okay?”

“Yeah, it was good. Pascal’s doing pretty well, I think.”

He absently drags the teabag from one side of the cup to the other.

“That’s it?” She shakes her head at him. “Practically spent three whole days with him and you don’t have anything better to report?”

“I mean!” He vaguely tosses a hand. “It’s not like we did anything that interesting. We were basically just at his place the whole time, we hardly left. I guess I can tell you about his place, I mean, it’s a corner apartment but still really small, but there’s still like, enough space for a tiny kitchen and this room with a chair and a little couch, and he’s got a bedroom and bathroom with a shower and all. I think it’s kind of cute, but that might just be because it’s his place—you know how he makes things look.”

“Yeah, I do,” she says. “I’d hoped his place was decent, since he never really complained about any of it, but I knew it might just be that it was so bad he was just wanting to keep it all to himself.”

“Mm, no, it’s alright, just a little bit small. I didn’t ask much about the details of it yet, though.”

“It’s too bad he’s so big,” she says. “You know that apartment would have twice as much room to one of us as it does to him.”

Kip laughs.

“I do wish he had more room,” he says quietly. “But I know he’s trying to hold on to as much savings as he can, with his shop still being so new and all. I think there’s still some of all those starting-up expenses floating around, but at least he said things are kind of steady enough right now that he’s not as stressed about it as he used to be.”

“Oh, that’s good...”

“I can tell you guys kind of more about the details of the apartment tomorrow if you want—it’s really not that interesting and I doubt I can describe it all that well, but Roy really wanted to hear about it, so.”

“Yeah, you should,” she says. “It’d be cool for all of us to be in the same place, too, it’ll only been like, five days since that happened.”

“...That’s true.”

“Well, I’m glad you got back okay, and things went well.”

“Thanks.”

He lets her wrap him in a quick hug and does his best to hug back.

They swap goodnights and Kip sits with his tea for the few minutes it takes him to drink it, then washes the cup and returns to his room.

He tries not to build up too much hope as he goes to his phone and turns it over.

But Pascal has replied, and that simple fact blunts their separation and soothes Kip’s slight uneasiness.

“i’m heading home too in about twenty more minutes,” Pascal had sent about seven minutes ago. “i’m glad the rest of your day is going okay. things are well at the shop, just had a few tiny usual things to take care of but thats easy to handle. i miss you too. i can already say that after you left things felt a bit quiet and empty in my apt.”

Kip reads it over a couple of extra times and then sits down on his bed to type out his response.

“its lonely here knowing youre not just in another room or something. but i do feel better now that we’re getting to text. are you going home soon?”

He places his phone on his stomach as he lies back against his pillow and settles in to wait for Pascal’s response, looking up at his lights and vaguely imagining that they’re stars.

Pascal’s response arrives after about five minutes.

“leaving just now, actually. im glad we have an easier way to talk now even when we’re not in the same place.”

“yeah, it definitely helps. like when we were first together it was kind of fun waiting around for our next chance to call each other or finally see each other again, but once we got to do that more often i never wanted to go back to having less contact.”

“right?? now i’m spoiled for it and want to see you every time i go home. it was kind of fantastic at work on friday when i knew i was going to be with you in just a few hrs”

“oh yeah it was the same for me, except also kind of terrible because i was wanting really badly for my shift to be over already so i could go over, haha”

“aww you were that excited to see me?”

“of course!!! i couldnt wait to be there!”

“i know...its sweet to hear about it again though”

“that i was dying to be with you?”

“yes :))”

“do you want to hear about how i love you and i miss you already just from being in my own bed again”

“i love you and miss you too...im almost home and i think i would be a lot sadder about it being empty if you weren’t texting me”

“probably. i don’t even have to deal with an empty apartment but this is still helping me too, i think im a little less upset about having to go to sleep alone”

“believe me, i’d love to be there and fall asleep with you again.”

“your bed’s a little bigger than mine, it would be better if i was the one teleported over to your place again.”

“as long as we’re in the same place i could hold you and kiss you”

“just saying that makes me wish that you were”

“if i was really with you i’d love to do even better than that”

“ooh, im listening”

“it’s hard to write much while i’m walking, but i think i’d like to go down on you”

“i would like that too”

“i’d make sure you did”

“i bet it’d probably knock me out if you got me off right now though, i got tired all at once”

“oh you can go to sleep if you want, im like literally thirty seconds from my apt”

“don’t worry, i don’t think i’m gonna fall asleep immediately. i mean if i do stop answering all of a sudden that’s what happened”

“ok, just got home. and see, i’m enjoying talking to you and it’s distracting me from being too sad about you not being here”

“oh good, yeah im not a complete heap of sadness”

“excellent results for us both then i think. so now we just need to get into the mindset of looking forward to the next time we’re together vs thinking of how this one is over”

“yeah, you’re right...but it’s always the mornings that are the problem. like tonight i’ll could feel fine about it but then my frame of mind while waking up could be a total disaster”

“right, thats kind of a downside. did you mention you were working early tomorrow?”

“i must have yeah, im opening tomorrow.”

“what time do you get up? im going in early too, maybe we could text each other and there won’t be as much of a chance of feeling bad”

“sorry, i went and brushed my teeth. i have to get up kind of disgustingly early, the store opens at 6 and it takes me a quarter of an hour to walk there and ten minutes to drag myself out of bed, so i get up around 5.”

“thats ok, i was gonna get up around 6 so i can just do 5 instead”

“you just got home, by the time you got in bed you’d only get like six hours of sleep”

“it’d be okay. i’ve got a ton of rest the past few days especially”

“what’ll you do for the whole extra hour you’d have?”

“take a long shower, clean my fridge, just sit back and relax the whole time, i’d figure out something.”

“you don’t have to do something like that. i can handle being a little lonely when i wake up. sometimes i start the day feeling like total shit. it’s all manageable. i know i’d get to talk to you later.”

“yeah, but i kind of want to do it for myself, too. i don’t trust my morning to go perfectly well, either. i think it would help and i think it would be a little fun to feel like we were getting up together, even if we’re only connected through texting.”

“damnit, i can’t argue with that”

“so its a date already, huh?”

“sure. morning at 5, both of our phones.”

“great, looking forward to it then.”

“you’re sweethearted and generous and i appreciate you so deeply, and you need to get in bed asap then.”

“i know...you should too, really.”

“i’m already in bed, lying here and texting you.”

“well then stop texting me and go to sleep so you can wake up and text me”

“i will, just so i dont keep delaying you from getting to sleep.”

“okay. i love you and i miss you. and i love you.”

“i love you so much, pasc. go to sleep asap”

“i promise. goodnight”

“goodnight.”

—

Kip feels sort of foggy and lethargic at the start of his opening shift, but his conversation with Pascal had helped him wake up. They had essentially just traded back-and-forth updates about what they were doing, but the mood had been light and easy, and it gave Kip a little extra dose of energy. His mind drifts back to it throughout lulls in the shift.

Work all goes smoothly enough; he hangs around for an extra handful of minutes after clocking out to chat with Kate.

The weather is pleasant and he takes his time walking back. He stops into a store near their street—he’s low on hair conditioner and laundry detergent, and while he’s at it he invests in two sets of condoms and more lube. He doesn’t intend for Pascal to be the only contributor on that front.

Molly returns to the apartment from her own errands not long after Kip does, though she quickly heads back out again, explaining she had offered to drop in a little early to help Roy with cleanup before walking home with him. But even being in an empty apartment while Pascal remains busy with work isn’t enough to deal any heavy damage to Kip. He seems to have slept off the worst of the feeling that something had ended, and now it doesn’t feel like a huge deal at all. The memory of the weekend is more than fond and doesn’t hurt to think of—it only makes him more eager for their future visits.

He supposes it’s never surprising that he underestimates himself. Or that his dread over something theoretical is often strangling while the event itself turns out to be all but harmless.

Or maybe he just likes to err on the side of caution and is too good at looking for reasons to beat himself up. He has been getting better at confronting fears, if only little ones.

Maybe he too often overthinks things in general.

—

Kip puts a little work into a loose idea for a new post, puts it away after a bit and takes a nap, and wakes up when Roy and Molly return home. Roy greets him as though he was gone for half the month and then tells him the story of his day; Kip manages to defer delivering his own story until later, when he makes them all a simple meal and sits up on the countertop and tries to describe every detail of Pascal’s home that he can remember.

It’s a quiet evening. Pascal texts Kip around seven and asks him how things have been, says that he himself is alright but a little tired, as predicted. They talk a little while before Kip tells him to put his phone away and make himself something to eat and relax for a while. And then half an hour later Pascal messages him with a quick summation of something funny that had happened to him that day and then the promise that he’s making himself some dinner.

If this is the new routine, if this is how it’s going to feel, Kip is sure even he can handle it with no trouble.

—

It doesn’t even occur to him for a couple of days that he’d been worried about how to comport himself around Ben. The schedule of his passage in and out of the building doesn’t align with the times he most often runs into the other monster, and he’s been so preoccupied with his stay at Pascal’s that he’d been too distracted to think of the issue anyhow. And now that he’s remembered it, it doesn’t seem so concerning and difficult anymore.

He’s fairly sure that part of it is simply that fucking continually for several days has relaxed him overall—or at least worn him out—but is even more sure that a big part of it is that Pascal’s apartment really does feel like another place to call home now. Pascal had been so earnestly hospitable and the space had so quickly become familiar and comfortable that Kip knows that even if he decided to move in there immediately, he’d be welcomed by Pascal and feel truly at ease living with him again. If staying in the current apartment becomes too uncomfortable for either him or Ben, he can just move out.

The knowledge certainly takes the vast majority of pressure off. The stakes are reduced to, at worst, a bit of temporary awkwardness and discomfort.

And somehow it just feels a little silly of him to have been so intimidated by the issue in the first place. It’s like he stepped out of his life for a moment when he was staying with Pascal, and now gets to reenter it with a refreshed perspective. And nothing really feels so bad that he’s afraid of it.

Maybe it’s that he’s always felt more confident when dating Pascal than when they weren’t together.

Maybe it’s because he always finds situations more manageable when he knows he can run away from them.

He figures the least he can do for his self-esteem is presume that it’s a combination of factors.

How he feels about Wallace now is as much a mixture as ever. He hadn’t been hoping that the weekend would magically extinguish his attachment—he knew it wouldn’t happen overnight no matter what, and he hadn’t wanted to sign any expectations to the weekend’s experience other than feeling closer to Pascal. And he’d never had the chance to dwell on anything else even if he’d been trying to.

It really feels about the same. He still feels attracted to him and deeply, vulnerably fond of him. He’s still a little embarrassed and a little afraid of how he feels.

He has to be somewhat relieved he at least approached Wallace about it—he gets to remember he did something as bold as that, he gets to be certain about the unambiguous unattainability of his daydreams, he gets a clean end to any hopes for a real relationship with Wallace that’s quicker and less painful than some other ways the reality of the situation could’ve been revealed to him.

He knows he just has to give himself time, be patient with himself. It may take months, it may even take years, but now that he knows any longing on his part is up against a dead-end, that however nice his dreams are, they won’t ever be real, he also knows that eventually the feelings will cool.

Kind of funny considering how long he struggled to warm to Wallace for any period exceeding fifteen minutes.

He’ll get over him—pleasant thoughts and inexpressible affection can only go so far, and in the absence of any real fruition, his heart will adapt. It’s managed to come to terms with much harsher realities.

—

Kip has a soft, meandering half-hour phone call with Pascal when they’ve both settled in at home for the evening. It’s surprising how strong an effect the sound of Pascal’s voice has. Getting his cadence, his tone, his quiet laughs. It soothes some tension in his chest that he hadn’t been aware of carrying.

—

He realizes he hasn’t actually seen Wallace in about a week and a half—Wallace has most free time on the weekends, and Kip had been away for the entirety of it. The hours of his work at the café often have him coming home either earlier or later than Wallace does. He misses him and doesn’t like going so long without even running into him, but he’s uncomfortable about the idea of expressly going to see him. He’d rather just meet by chance—even a twenty second chat in the front hall is better than nothing at all.

It does remember telling Wallace he intended to keep seeing him regularly—it makes him feel a bit guilty, even though he hasn’t been trying to avoid Wallace, just coincidentally not encountering him. But if he doesn’t put in any effort to see Wallace when he knows chance isn’t working in their favor then that might as well count as trying to evade his company.

So far so much of their relationship has stemmed directly by being thrust together by outside forces, by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time—or the right places and times, depending on how you view it. Even now, so much of their encounters are through their mutual friends, through the fact they still live in the same building.

He doesn’t want to meet up with Wallace and find out for sure that they really can’t be comfortable or genuine with each other anymore. When he’s in Wallace’s company but can’t warm to him for whatever reason, they can’t get much of a personal connection—both of them become nervous, though usually the ways that manifests for them are completely different. But if he doesn’t interact with Wallace at all, their connection will be damaged anyways. He’d have more hope that they’ll be fine if he could trust that his anxieties won’t become self-fulfilling.

He can’t wish he’d never said anything to Wallace; this is probably the best way things could’ve played out, bar never having developed a crush in the first place. But even that was likely unavoidable.

He repeatedly tells himself that he can handle this whole situation, that even if things do become awkward, nothing could come up that he can’t navigate. He tells himself it would really turn out to be fairly easy to drop by Wallace’s to check if he’s there and then talk casually for a minute about harmless, everyday things. And yet he still puts it off.

—

It’s a relatively relaxed train ride. His carriage isn’t too crowded, he sits in a backwards-facing window seat, puts on headphones, and doodles on the notepad he’d taken out with the intention of writing down ideas. As the ride continues into B, the general reaction to his presence becomes noticeable and typically tense, though today it happens to come off as being coldly shunned rather than feeling the radiation of a barely concealed collective hostility.

There’s a rare moment when, despite being in the middle of a song and staring at a the cluster of stars he’s drawing, Kip senses a shift in the environment and looks up to see that a monster has just boarded. He guesses they must live in the area, as they seem wearily numb to the reception rather than nervous. Just a second later they look over and immediately meet his eyes, apparently just as surprised as he is to actually see another monster in the wasteland. Kip gives the slightest nod of acknowledgement and the hint of a smile with an upward twitch of the corner of his mouth.

The monster sits in the row of seats across from him. They pull out a book and Kip goes back to his notepad, the blurry form of the other steady in his peripheral.

—

“Things seem a lot easier right now,” Kip says. “I know that’s because I’m in a better mood, but I also feel like since I’m usually prone to being kind of...pessimistic, maybe I’m just closer to having the perspective that most people would have? It’s not as though all my worries have disappeared, they just...seem to affect me less strongly. They don’t seem as stressful or intimidating as they can be.”

He pauses and rubs one thumb over the back of the other.

“I guess I’m hoping it’ll sort of average out in a bit. But for now at least, it’s a nice break.”

“Would you be disappointed if it didn’t?” Eno asks.

“If it went right back to the way it usually is, then yeah, I’d have to be a little disappointed,” Kip answers. “It’s like—I’ve kind of already been disappointed that even though I know, really KNOW that everything I’ve got going on is doable, and it’s not permanent, and I can handle it and even if it gets messed up I can get through it—I still get so tripped up worrying about things, you know? I still stress more than I need to and hold off on actually doing anything because I’m nervous—it’s like the last and first thing I do every day is make myself all tense over anything I can find to be concerned about.”

He can hear the dull, soft sound of Eno drumming his fingers against the cover of a book.

“If I think about it,” Kip says, “I know I feel like I’ve messed up somehow. It’s like—after everything that happened to me and everything I had to do, I still don’t have all that much more confidence than I used to. I’m sure not brave, or strong, or steady, I—I get angry about it sometimes, why don’t I feel like I can do absolutely anything? I hate to think of what else I could be put through—why aren’t I basically fearless by now?”

He sighs and closes his eyes for a moment. He feels like he ought to be over being frustrated with traits that have been with him practically his own life, but he can’t help it. Many years ago he used to think that if he did something really impressive or important, surely he’d finally lose the fears that kept him from being as bold and tough as his older siblings. But after being out through hell, then trying to drag himself out of it only to be put through hell again, he doesn’t seem to have acquired any kind of impressive qualities to show for it.

He stares at the ceiling, feeling somewhat small.

“Kip...” Eno’s voice is quieted. “It would have been just short of shocking if you’d actually gained confidence in yourself.”

Kip is caught off guard by this.

“What?”

He sits up slightly so he can see Eno more easily. Eno is looking down at his desk, fiddling absently with the pen in his hand.

“You were...” Eno pauses, his expression darkens just a little.

Kip sits up just a little more.

“You were struggling for years to recover from that night and everything you went through beforehand,” Eno says. “I know how difficult it was for you to rebuild a sense of security in your daily life and regain any confidence in yourself after the experience of being completely powerless in the face of the fire and the loss of your family. I know you took a real leap to move to C. But you were...betrayed by that. I imagine that all the worst of the fears you’d ever had were confirmed. I know you were once again forced into a position where your helplessness was thrown in your face. I know that now you have to carry even more incidents of trauma than you’d already had.”

He sighs softly and raises his head to look at the opposite wall.

Kip gently pinches the tip of his tongue between his fangs. He’s known Eno for ages, he knows when he’s unconsciously covering up stress—just as Eno can detect the same in him. His heart is beating hard enough to feel in his chest, because what Eno is saying is true, and because Eno is quietly getting upset.

“...The fact that you weren’t thrown entirely back to square zero or even worse is remarkable, Kip.”

Kip’s face heats.

“You know,” he says slowly. “I feel like, now that you’ve said it...I’ve known that. I hadn’t really processed it from that perspective yet.”

“It’s not always easy for you to see yourself in a good light. You’ve spent years and years all but unable to feel any significant pride in yourself—formative years, ones in which you were trying to put together your life and your identity all over again. And even when you did tell me about something you’d accomplished that you were happy about, you’d ultimately just weigh it against the guilt and even shame you felt for what you believed you owed those in your life and the people your brother had been helping and...even your family. I know that even now you retain some of that feeling, that you’d been judged and sentenced by what had happened that night.”

That night.

He really had felt like he’d deserved to have died instead—and at first he had wanted to.

He knows as he lies there—as soon as Eno said it—that it’s true he does still feel that guilt and shame. Even if it’s just an echo, just out of habit, it still sits there, barely buried under the surface.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, I do still feel it.”

He stares up at the ceiling for a moment.

“Hey, Eno?” he says.

“Yes?”

“Do you have another appointment after mine?”

“I have one later in the afternoon, at four-thirty.”

“Okay. Because, uh, I was wondering if it would be alright if we maybe took a short break? I could make us some tea.”

“Oh...” Eno looks over at him. “Ah, yes, we could if you like.”

Kip sits up and pivots his legs off the side of the chaise.

“Okay.”

—

Just ascending the stairs to the apartment prompts a subtle shift in both their demeanors. Eno’s natural neatness and organization makes his living space somehow seem more official than the relaxed—if only by design—atmosphere of his office, appointment area, and waiting room, yet Eno himself seems to be a bit softer in the space—less intently focused, just a little more subdued. Kip is always comforted by the familiar space as well, feeling like one tiny island of shelter in the whole of District B.

Kip passes his hand over the spout of the teapot.

“What kind would you like?” he asks, opening up the cabinet and glancing over the boxes of tea. “By the way, I can start bringing you some of Pascal’s, you know.”

“Oh my god, I hadn’t even thought of that,” Eno breathes.

“What tea do you want now, though?”

“Oh...jasmine, please. And where do you get the arrogance to serve me as a guest in my own home?”

“I get more fun out of it than you do, so you have to let me do it or it’s impolite,” Kip says, working the jasmine out of a stack of boxes of floral teas.

“Untrue! You like things that are actually fun, and you know I find genuine joy in household tasks type activities.”

Kip huffs a laugh.

“Only in comparison to you could I be considered an exciting person. But I was just making an excuse. I like to make you tea sometimes and I’m always over here, but you’re hardly ever over in C.”

“Because you’re ashamed of revealing what we have, babe.”

“Hush.” A smile flickers across Kip’s face as he takes out the box of green tea for himself. He knows that Eno’s ability to joke is so engrained as to be all but reflexive, but also that it means he’s feeling steady enough to do so.

They’re quiet for the minute or two more it takes for the water to start boiling. Kip does use the chance to focus in on settling himself as well—he’s definitely stirred up by the discussion they’d been having, but wants to set that feeling aside for just a few minutes more.

Another minute and they’re sitting across from each other at the kitchen table.

“So, as your friend and not your therapist, you’ve been doing well lately?”

“As your friend and not a patient, yeah. I think I’m kind of...I’ve kind of been cycling up and down. But this is something new, I—I’m really glad I had a push to stop dragging my feet so much about Pascal because...I really was intimidated by the whole issue, but it feels fucking incredible to be with him again. Like, it just feels good and right and that goes so deep, I really—it’s really, really nice to have something that I don’t have the least doubt about. It makes it easier to kind of...feel steadier? Feel less affected by anything I’m worried about?”

He brings his tea to his lips and catches Eno’s eye.

“I guess I can say it makes it easier for me to feel a little more confident.”

It’s only a second before he has to laugh; Eno laughs with him.

“Kip, are you trying to make me feel better?” he teases.

“Only with the truth... It’s like you were telling me though, isn’t it? Even before I was dating Pascal again, I was still doing better than I might’ve been.”

Eno gives him a quick smile.

“You don’t have to try acting positive just for my sake, Kip.”

“Shut up, I’m not.” Kip finds Eno’s foot and gently kicks it. “If I was just here hanging out with you, I’d schedule an hour and a half of that, not of therapy.”

“I should be so lucky—“

“Oh my god, stop it. Look, I know that...some of the stuff I have to talk about is your stuff too.”

“Anything you want or need to talk about here is fine, Kip. Everything in your appointments is about what you have going on and how to help you with it.”

“I know,” Kip says quietly. “You’re a great therapist and you’ve been doing this for forever, and I’m not saying you can’t handle it completely fine, just that...I know some things are hard for both of us. It’s not that I think either of us needs a break, just that...it might make it easier for us later than if we didn’t. Preemptive, I guess is what I mean.”

He looks at the tabletop and rubs his thumb along the warm handle of his cup.

“I know this is your job and you know how to do it, but I know some of this stuff I’m dealing with is personal for you, too. And that some of it is...still pretty recent.”

Kip looks up. Eno looks over at him too, and Kip blushes lightly.

“What if I had said there wasn’t enough time for a break?” Eno asks him.

“I know it all would’ve been fine,” Kip repeats. “I didn’t think either of us needed a break. I just felt like it would be helpful, and, if we could, it’d be nice to just pause for a second.”

He shrugs slightly and looks at Eno’s hand resting on the table.

“I’m sorry that...I wasn’t really thinking of you only as my therapist. But I can’t really just disregard what we’ve gone through together outside of these appointments. I’m sorry.”

Eno surprises him with a soft laugh.

“It’s okay, Kip,” he says. “You don’t have to. I use everything I know about you to try to help as your therapist, not just what I hear in there. Having you as a patient is unique because of how well we already know each other. You don’t have to forget that we’re friends, because you couldn’t anyways.”

Kip has to smile, relaxing his shoulders slightly.

“You’re not upset with me?”

“No, and I could never be mad at you, mon fleur de givre.”

“Ugh—!” Kip growls as Eno leans over and messes his hair.

“You love me,” Eno teases.

“I know, it’s awful.”

—

Even after the continuation and completion of the therapy session, Kip and Eno end up kicking back and chatting for a while in Eno’s apartment over a late lunch.

“I haven’t been able to see you often enough in like a whole decade,” Kip complains. “I know I see you usually once a week and sometimes we do stuff like this, but when was the last time you got to come over to C? And for more than a few hours? When was the last time we got to go out together?”

He sighs dramatically and buries his face in his hands.

“I miss you too,” Eno says, a bit of laughter in his voice.

Kip gives an answering laugh into his palms and then drag his hands down his throat to hold on to his shoulders.

“It’s even worse now that I have more energy,” he says. “It has me thinking about all the stuff I haven’t been doing so much lately, and I sure haven’t been as social—and if I’m not seeing enough of the people who live five seconds away, it’s a lot worse with you all the way over here.”

He leans back and sighs more softly.

“It’s not like you’re basically my oldest friend or anything. But even if you weren’t.”

“I was always at least a district away from you,” Eno points out.

“I know. I just actually have at least a chance of having a life...for really the first time ever, and when I think about the things I might want, being able to visit you easily is one of them.”

“We could be further. We could have to deal with seeing each other only a couple times a year, at best.”

“I know.”

Kip quietly sighs again, feeling slightly embarrassed. But he rallies quickly.

“I’d only hate it more if that were the case,” he says. “And it’s not just because of the distance—like I said, I don’t see some people in C as much as I might, either. I’ve been kind of holed up in the apartment since we moved here. I mean, I get out sometimes, and I do things, but it’s just in general been...I mean I’ve just been—you know, the usual way.”

“Nothing just really goes away overnight, does it.” Eno leans back in his chair and offers a faint smile.

“It really doesn’t...I guess that’s kind of why feeling better than usual is making me want to really just—take advantage of it, kind of. Maybe I can get a few weeks or even a couple months out of it where everything’s a little better and easier. I just can never assume that a good period is gonna last. I mean, mostly it’s Pascal that’s got me feeling alright, and I doubt that’s going to be over in just a few months from now, but it’s like—I was kind of talking to him about it, how even though I know we’re going to keep being together, it’s like I have to remember not to just automatically think that anything good is on its way out.”

He leans back too.

“I do try to remember...” He puts his head against the couch pillow and looks at the ceiling. “But just being happier isn’t what makes everything okay. Even when I was with Pascal before—I’d have awful days sometimes, even years after I’d moved in with him. There’s times like now where I think ‘maybe by now this kinda long-lasting good mood will just keep getting better’ but I know I’m gonna have a bad day again, probably soon.”

“It’s not the same as a bad mood,” Eno affirms. “It doesn’t change quickly.”

“Yeah...”

There’s a pause.

“So...what’s got you feeling this extra energy just now, then?” Eno asks.

“Sex.” Kip answers in the same pensive tone, then laughs. “No, but seriously, sex.”

“That works—“ Eno laughs too. “Congratulations!”

“Aw, thanks.”

They go back and forth for a minute as Eno pretends to try coaxing details out of Kip, who plays along, coyly deflecting everything. He’s secretly satisfied with his efforts to make Eno laugh, smiling to himself as he watches his unfolding successes.

“...I wish you were in C,” Kip says. “We could do this kind of visit pretty much whenever we felt like it.”

Eno crosses his legs and casually shrugs.

“I have thought about it...”

Kip raises his eyebrows.

“Really?”

“Yeah... It made sense for me to set up here when I did—most people I knew were here, I was familiar with the area...but working with your brother always made me consider being in C, at least in the back of my mind. I haven’t been able to think on it much this year, of course. But I suppose that lately I’ve been reevaluating my situation, too.”

Kip bites on his lip, staring. Eno looks across the room, thoughtfully tapping a finger against his knee.

“Well, I...I mean, I really would love for us to be closer, but I know you should do whatever you think would be best for you.”

“I haven’t quite worked out what that is now. Things aren’t the same as they were a few years ago,” Eno says.

“You’re telling me. I feel lost trying to figure out what I think I ought to do, or even if I think I need anything different. I know it’s a mess.”

He looks at Eno as if he could read all his thoughts and feelings of the past few months in his face. He still feels awkward trying to ever give Eno advice or even comfort—as though doing so is fraudulent, somehow. When he was first introduced to him, he’d immediately felt a little taken with him, in retrospect realizing it was a mixture of a crush and more general idolization—Eno was nice, funny, smart, put-together, handsome, and by virtue of being older was someone Kip looked up to, in some ways even aspired to be. Even as Kip got older and came more into his own, he held an inherent respect and admiration for Eno. Despite being anxious and fairly private even before the disappearances began, he had the kind of confidence and openness around Eno that he could only have around his family and closest friends.

When things started going bad, Kip found that he’d instinctively been drawn even closer to Eno. He leaned on him, his visits felt like a little dose of relief, the gentle smiles and touches on the shoulder that he always afforded Kip were comforting at a time when Kip was desperate for the tiniest scraps of reassurance.

Eno had been with him within just over an hour. When Kip had been pried away from his grip on the metal post on the sidewalk, when he had emerged from the lifetimes spent crying his throat raw in Pascal’s arms, when he had suffered through a cycle of panic attacks—Eno was the one he ended up with, taken back to his somewhat familiar apartment while the others regrouped in a hotel room. Eno had been so focused, helping Kip into a shower and putting out soft and warm clothes for him and running blankets one by one through the dryer to create layers of heat to wrap around Kip. He made a sandwich that Kip refused to eat. He cleaned up the water and shattered glass, cleaned and bandaged the cut on Kip’s hand, waited as Kip paced nervously all around the room, clutching the blankets and panting through the pounding of his heart, he hugged Kip determinedly close when he finally managed to get him to lie on the couch, petted his hair when Kip laid down, gently stroked his face as Kip rested his head on Eno’s lap and cried violently, gripping Eno’s leg and sobbing against it until he slipped into unconsciousness out of sheer exhaustion.

Kip never had any idea how long he’d slept before waking up—in confusion that quickly turned to horror and panic—but Eno hadn’t moved. He had no idea how Eno’d been able to take care of himself those couple of days with how attentive he’d been to Kip, who could barely figuratively or physically hold himself up.

Kip had wished desperately back then that Eno could’ve come with them, but he couldn’t live in B, didn’t even have the option of living in A, refused to stay in C—D was their only real option. Kip crashed harder when they settled in with Pascal; for months his only contact with Eno was through regular phone calls. In the abyssal depths of grief and depression, he assumed in the back of his mind that Eno was somehow disappointed in him, that any tie they’d had was primarily through his now-dead siblings.

Between his damaged self-worth and his longtime impression of Eno, he felt almost inferior as he’d journeyed back to B for the first time since that initial aftermath. He worried what concept Eno had of him, between the trembling wreck he’d been when they were last together and the almost-awkwardness of their check-ins.

But all of that fell away almost instantly when they were actually in the same place again. The questioning, overcritical doubts would crop up again after a while back in D, but a series of gradually-more-frequent visits between them eventually eroded that to practical nothingness.

Still, Eno felt like someone who had always looked over Kip, who had always been more collective, more knowledgeable, so much more impressive. The idea that Eno could be a good match as a therapist for Kip had always hung between them, but even when Kip had finally, finally gone to try it, he was reluctant—and more than a little intimidated. But that eroded too, and he found his self-consciousness around Eno fading both within the context of therapy and not.

Yet even by then, in all the time he’d known Eno, Kip hadn’t felt like he’d like ever really seen Eno struggling. He knew Eno was suffering like them when things started going bad—he’d see it in the occasional times he’d slip into the room while Eno and Kent were working, the tension in Eno’s expression until he looked up and saw Kip and gave him an encouraging smile, let the stress weighing on his features lighten into a softer solemnity. He would only ever tell Kip that things were going to be okay, he wouldn’t directly acknowledge the dark uncertainty of their situation whenever Kip was around. The tone of his voice when he spoke to Kip was never the one that Kip sometimes heard through the walls and doors of the house, barely echoing through a vent, humming up through the floor of his bedroom.

Even after the fire, when the grief was too terrible to pretend like anything was okay, Eno still seemed so much stronger and together than Kip. Things were different, because now it was just the two of them, and Kip tried to help Eno even though he was so shattered himself. He didn’t have much to offer; he held Eno’s hand, hugged him, looked at his face and touched his shoulder to communicate things he couldn’t speak. But Eno was still somehow a little beyond him, managing a weak smile whenever Kip tried comforting him, never once letting Kip see him break.

It wasn’t until recently that Kip had actually known Eno to seem anything other than in control of their whole situation, to be stressed to the point of panicked, to be the one who turned to Kip. For the first time, Kip was the center of things, not some tangential intruder, and it felt so alien to have Eno needing anything at all from him. Kip had no idea how to be in that position, to be without the feeling that Eno was somehow always privy to things that Kip wasn’t, a step ahead, better, somehow unreachable.

It had changed their relationship—even Kip’s memories were put into a different light. Eno hadn’t had the control that Kip had thought, that untouchable quality that made him seem so much more confident and tougher than Kip, that had left him alive to gather up what remained of Kip after the fire and try to hold him together. Kip had always felt somewhat privileged to be worthy of Eno’s attention all those years—he’d had no idea that he actually loomed large in Eno’s life, had a role deeper than the little brother of Eno’s friends, wasn’t just a leftover relationship that Kip was somewhat lucky Eno felt like keeping around.

But even with that shift in Kip’s understanding of their relationship, even with that leveling-out of his slight feeling of inferiority, their old dynamic still remained after everything—survived it. Eno had only ever cared for him, after all, had only tried to look out for him—there were too many moments shared between them over the years. Eno was always a friend, even if Kip had struggled to feel his equal in that friendship. It was somehow almost nice to know that the fact Eno still seemed somewhat out of reach even after the fire was in part due to Eno continuing his efforts to protect Kip, and in part to protect himself, and in part because of Kip’s feelings that he couldn’t measure up to Eno. All of those were things that Kip understood well.

Eno was still his longtime friend, still his therapist. Kip couldn’t feel that distant from the time he was eighteen and breaking down in Eno’s arms, because he knew that was still a huge part of who he was. It’s still just as much who he is.

And now, after months of continuing their usual, relatively peaceful relationship, Eno has for the first time given Kip something that makes him feel like a genuine confidant, like Eno is doing more than just venting to him, but actually admitting uncertainty to him, even allowing his advice.

And yet Kip sits on Eno’s couch, watching him brood over the subject, and can’t think of anything to say. He feels like he has the right to weigh in on this, sure—but he doesn’t feel like he really has much to offer. Saying he wants Eno to move to C is just based on one simple factor—but Eno has always lived in B, studied there, worked there—and Kip knows he doesn’t have the first idea what it would actually mean for Eno to move, everything it would involve.

But then—

“Um,” Kip starts. “Would you want to talk to Pascal about it? He’d never lived outside his district before he moved to C, and he started up a place and he did it basically alone...”

It makes him blush to say it, as though offering up something he intends as genuine guidance is some sort of impertinence.

But it makes Eno look over.

“That’s true...”

Kip squeezes the cup of tea between his hands.

“We talked about both our moves a fair amount back when we were first meeting up again,” he says. “And Pascal says he likes C, even though he misses some things about D. And Wallace had said he’s glad he’s in C and he feels at home here, and that’s after coming straight from A only about a year ago.”

“I don’t doubt that C is perfectly nice,” Eno says. “I’m not worried I wouldn’t like it.”

“I just...I guess Pascal is the one who’d be of some use to you right now,” Kip says with a light laugh. “The only input I have is that I’d love to have you as close as everyone else.”

“It’s fine—“ Eno’s preoccupation seems to melt away somewhat. “I’ve always wished I was closer to you—especially when you had that five hour round trip from D.”

“I might as well have been going to work with the time it took to have an appointment with you,” Kip says. “Between getting ready and getting to and from the station and the ride and the appointment itself, it’s amazing it didn’t scare me off right away how much of the day was taken off just by trying to get to therapy.”

“I was a little surprised, too...I wasn’t sure you’d want to come all the way every week. It really did take up your whole day.”

“I know. But after a few visits I could tell it was worth it.” He drops his head slightly and blushes at his tea.

“Oh, Kip, you’re flattering me,” Eno teases.

“Well, it’s not just me,” Kip insists. “You’re a great therapist for a lot of people over the years. And I’m not your only monster client, which makes you even more of a rare gem. You’d be good at what you do wherever you are.”

Eno laughs quietly.

“I like to think so,” he says. “It does seem like the majority of my clients come from C, now.”

Kip is a little incredulous that this actually seems to be real, Eno is seriously considering this. He was always in B, this always seemed like a constant, as unfortunate as it was or wasn’t.

“Are you nervous about something?” Kip asks quietly. He knows he has a good sense for what mood Eno’s really in and he’s learned not to doubt that instinct.

Eno laughs again.

“It’s mostly that I’ve been here for so long,” he says. “I may not have very many roots in the area now, but I used to.”

“Mm...” Kip takes a small drink of tea. He’s somewhat surprised it’s still warm even though he’s been holding it throughout the conversation. “I know a little about that, but I guess I’ve always been afraid of moving for different reasons.”

Eno is quiet.

“And I guess Pascal’s the only one who didn’t really move basically overnight,” Kip adds. “I mean, moving back to C was a little more drawn out, but I think when we decided to do it, it all kind of happened in about a month. Wallace says his move was pretty much just as rushed. And I think Pascal moved pretty quickly just because he was worried about talking himself out of it, but I still feel like he was the most coordinated about it. I could see about dragging him along up here for a visit sometime, you could talk to him more about what it was like.”

“It would probably be easier if I went to C,” Eno says. “It really has been too long since I made that trip.”

“You think you would want to talk to him about it?” Kip asks, looking up.

“Sure, if he’d be okay with it—I’d definitely rather hear some advice than not.”

“I could ask him. But I’m sure he’d be okay with it, he’s so easy to get along with anyways, and he already likes you.”

“He does?”

“Sure.”

“I feel like we’ve only met a few times over all the years you two’ve known each other.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like that wasn’t enough. Besides, he knows about you from what I told him and from everything you’ve done for me.”

Eno smiles slightly and shrugs theatrically.

“What is it you’re worried about?” Kip laughs. “It’s not like talking about it makes you any more obligated to do it.”

“You’re right,” Eno sighs. “I guess it’s that...it’s not so much leaving B because it’s what’s familiar as it is the fact that I have everything so organized around the way things are now. I have such an established routine. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but for me...”

Kip turns his head to hide a grin.

“It’s okay,” he tells Eno. “I know you’re ridiculous.”

Eno laughs—his beaming smile lingers for several solid seconds more, and Kip is pleased.

—

“He’s got such a peacefulness about himself, you know? And I don’t just mean that he’s calm all the time, because he’s not—he’s so much fun and he wears his heart on his sleeve, but no matter what mood he’s in, it’s so safe with him. It’s so easy to be around him, no matter who you are. And it’s completely the other way with me—I think that’s another reason I love being with him. He cancels me out,” Kip laughs.

A warm breeze brushes past their seats on Eno’s small balcony.

“I’ll tell you a million times that you’re too hard on yourself, Kip. You’re very friendly—“

Kip scoffs.

“...And that does a lot to offset the hindrances you experience upon meeting someone new,” Eno continues undeterred. “Which are generally going to be perceived as a lot worse by you than anyone else.”

“Let me complain about myself,” Kip grouses. “I think anyone could agree I’m not on Pascal’s level.”

“You’re not as different as you think. It’s obvious, what with how much you like to talk about how kind and how compassionate and loving he is.”

“Oh god, I’m talking about him too much already, I’m sorry...” Kip blushes.

“No, it’s not how much you talk about it, it’s that you get happy and all lit up. It’s not hard to tell what you’re in love with. And you value these traits so much, does it surprise you that you have them yourself?”

“Okay, fine, I know I care about people.”

“Don’t judge yourself so strongly on how you might come across to someone you’ve just met, anyways. That’s only one thing. It’s not all that matters.”

“Jeez...” Kip keeps watching the leaves on the trees across the street but reaches out to nudge Eno on the arm. “My appointment’s over, already.”

“It’s a personal mission of mine to try getting you to love yourself as much as you should,” Eno responds.

Kip laughs under his breath.

“I know,” he says. He touches Eno’s arm again, quickly, gentler. “But I guess I got off-topic, huh? The point is that I could bet you fifty dollars that Pascal would be more than fine with sitting down with you and talking about the whole moving thing. I know you’d ask more relevant questions and all than if I was trying to be a go-between.”

“I believe you,” Eno says. “I do, honestly. And I really will figure out how to come down to C soon. It’s overdue.”

“I haven’t been visiting you up here enough either,” Kip reminds him. “I’ve been missing you.”

“That brings us back around to the advantages of me moving to C.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll go on a date with your boyfriend and see how that makes me feel about things.”

Kip groans and drags a hand over his eyes and Eno reaches over and rubs his back.

“Have any plans to see him yourself?” Eno asks. “Or should I take over for you?”

“Ngh.” Kip closes his eyes momentarily. “In a couple of days we should have an evening together. I work early and he doesn’t work late. We think we should be able to meet up at least once a week without having to move work schedules around or anything.”

“Oh, good... It’s nice you two live so close.”

“Yeah, now it feels like nothing but lucky that we’re only about a mile apart.”

“See how things work out?”

Eno’s delivery is as quick as ever, but Kip can hear where the levity of his tone fails just ever so slightly, betraying some
of the earnestness.

Kip worries his bottom lip with his incisors and stares at a bird hopping along the bricked sidewalk.

“I’m pretty certain part of why I’m feeling better than usual is because of last weekend and the fact that we fucked so much. And I think that’s okay, but I’m hoping that it doesn’t mean this whole decent mood I’ve had since then is going to vanish overnight on me, you know?”

There’s half a beat and then Eno laughter bursts out, genuine and as close to loud as Eno’s laugh tends to get. Kip bites his lip again and holds it there for a second.

“Oh—“ Eno breathes another laugh. “No, I mean—you can’t do anything about it either way by worrying about it, and you might as well take advantage of it however long it lasts. Things that shake up our mood happen all the time—maybe just don’t do anything you think you’d regret later, but I wouldn’t say there’s likely to be any problem with doing things you’d want to do anyway but don’t necessarily always have the energy for. And really, just go ahead and let yourself enjoy this whole thing. There’s no harm in it.”

“Ugh, you’re right. I overthink the most straightforward stuff. I mean, I’m overthinking sex.”

“I doubt there’s anything too...straightforward about you having sex,” Eno says with pointed emphasis.

“...Oh my god, you’re impossible.”

Eno stifles a laugh.

“I don’t know why I tolerate it,” Kip sighs. “Probably to try to get as much of your therapeutic wisdom as possible.”

“That’s generous to call anything I say ‘wisdom,’” Eno says. “Knowledge, maybe. I do pick up a lot of it in my line of work.”

Impulsively, Kip reaches over and puts his hand over Eno’s arm. He peripherally sees Eno look over at him, but doesn’t move his own gaze. He wraps his fingers loosely around Eno’s wrist.

“Call me when you find a day off that you think you’d wanna use to come to C, and I can figure out with Pascal a way for you guys to get to sit down for a minute.”

Eno moves his thumb to rub the base against Kip’s fingertip.

“Okay.”

—

He and Eno talk for another hour, and he tries to keep the conversation tilted towards Eno. Eventually he checks the time and argues he ought to leave so that Eno can have some time before his last patient shows up. They both stall the departure a little bit longer, but soon enough Kip is standing in the front hall and pulling his bag back onto his shoulder.

“I’ll see you next Thursday,” he says.

“I’m looking forward to it as much as ever.”

He smiles and turns towards Eno.

“Hey. Love you,” he says, and then holds eye contact just long enough to make it clear he means it.

Before Eno responds, Kip steps forward and puts his hands on Eno’s sides, tucks his forehead in the crook of Eno’s neck, brushes their chests together. With a roll of his head, he presses his nose and lips against Eno’s jaw before leaning back.

“Goodness—what’s got you so thawed out today?” Eno gives a short laugh.

“Nothing,” Kip huffs. “Just take what you can get.”

Eno laughs a bit more freely as Kip pivots away from him.

“Aaah! God!” Kip flinches as Eno suddenly hugs him tight from behind. “Okay, okay, let go—“

Eno squeezes him before acquiescing—heat rushes through Kip’s face.

“Why do I know so many people who use hugs as an attack strategy,” Kip grumbles.

“It’s fun,” Eno argues. “And you’ll never admit you want to ask for one.”

“Sometimes I will.”

“Alright, alright...”

Kip glances back at Eno and allows him a flash of a smile.

“Okay, go ahead and get out of here before I beg you to stay,” Eno says, folding his arms.

Kip exhales sharply through his teeth.

“Don’t leave angry...” Eno puts on a faux-importuning tone.

“Eno,” Kip grumbles. “For god’s sake.”

Apparently satisfied, Eno pats Kip’s shoulder and gives him a warm, genuine smile.

“Go on,” he says. “I’ll see you next week.”

—

By the time he reaches the station, Kip only has to wait about ten minutes for the next train heading to his stop. He sits back with his bag in his lap and stares out the window, quietly processing the appointment and visit.

He exits a few stations down to wait on a connecting train from the line that goes directly to his station in C. He looks up at a clock, noticing that it’s about half an hour till Pascal’s store closes—he’s been effortlessly holding Pascal’s schedule in his head for weeks now.

“Hey.”

He wonders how Molly’s shift turned out, having heard her talking the previous night about the unusually large quantities she had been meant to bake up for the café, something about a prior order that had been put in by someone wanting to have the food for a meeting. He wonders if they gave Kate more to handle up front as well.

“Hey. You.”

The voice is more emphatic—Kip glances up, and immediately feels a dampening roll of frustration. A human standing about seven feet away is turned slightly towards him and staring right at him, with an expression that suggests something about him is amusing.

It’s nothing new—a range of resentful-to-hostile behavior is what he universally expects out of the humans from B, but usually the most direct interactions he receives from them are angry looks as they try to move away from him or little scoffs or huffs as they pass him. Having insults thrown at him from across the street isn’t exactly surprising, but usually nobody tries to engage him in any sort of sustained interaction.

Still, he’s been physically targeted before. Shoulder knocks, outright shoves, a drink or two’s been not-so-accidentally dumped on him—the list goes on.

But just because he’s been through worse, just because, to a degree, he’s used to it, this is always still unpleasant, still stressful and threatening. Kip is fixing his gaze stubbornly on a spot on the ground, rubbing a thumb along the strap of his bag, determinedly refusing to interact.

In his peripheral he sees the human shift just a little bit more in his direction.

“Hey.” The tone is more blatantly mocking. “Didn’t know animals know how to buy a train ticket.”

Kip can’t help his brow furrowing, he continues to stare slightly away from the human. Though several nearby have glanced over, none of the other people around seem much interested in intervening—which doesn’t surprise Kip either. He feels his heartbeat rising into his throat—he thinks of Pascal’s smile, the look he gets when he sees Kip.

“Nothing to say, huh? You one of the ones that can’t talk?”

Kip tightens his grip on his bag and goes for his first line of defense. He tries to feel rooted to the ground, he bites down on the end of his tongue, he focuses intently and tries to tune in to it. After just a couple of seconds he thinks he can sense the beginnings of it, the feeling of sparks jumping down his forearms into his fingertips.

The human scoffs lightly.

“You just better be on your way back to E where you belong.”

The mention of E flares up his already frayed nerves, and the undercurrent of cold fury that comes with it is just what he needs. Kip stares sightlessly ahead of himself and exhales sharply as he squeezes his hands into fists.

The pulse of cold is much more intense than he thought it would be, but he concentrates on trying to sustain it for at least a little longer. It already seems to be enough though—at the first moment of bitter frigidity, the human swears with a note of urgency and quickly backs away before turning to stalk off down the platform.

Kip doesn’t move, keeps sending out a few more pulses of deep coldness for good measure—now the humans are glancing over for a different reason, drawing their arms across their chest, huddling slightly in on themselves.

With a few slow breaths, Kip starts to relax again.

The train arrives. He gets on without anyone else bothering him.

—

Kip opens the book he brought mostly to make himself look occupied, but before too long he’s thoroughly distracted by the knowledge that Pascal is probably done with work, and can’t get through the paragraph he’s on. He’s still slightly shaken by the human that harassed him, and being surrounded by humans who are shunning him isn’t doing much to make him feel better.

He sends off a quick “hey, im riding the train back from visiting eno, how was work?” and then slips the phone back into his pocket and rests his hand overtop it.

As always, he tries not to get his hopes up for a quick response, but thrills anyway when his phone vibrates only a couple of minutes later.

Pascal talks about his day a little and asks about Kip’s, and Kip does the same in turn, and they go back and forth every few minutes trading little stories in middling-length texts.

Before too long, Kip finds that the nervous tension he’d gained has ebbed away into a quiet static in the back of his mind. Now it feels like he’s always just seconds away from a smile.

The train has crossed over to C by the time they finish talking about their days, and then they discuss things more generally—what they’ve been thinking about, what they’ve been feeling since their weekend together. It’s easy for Kip to talk about, somehow it seems that his own thoughts about their relationship take surprisingly little effort to put into words, and even less effort to share with Pascal.

It’s simple, after all. He loves Pascal, he feels loved by Pascal, he trusts him and trusts this relationship. He likes to be with him and wants to stay together.

Even the texts Pascal sends him make him feel warmer and steady.

He looks out the window for a few minutes, at the glowing sky of an early summer evening, watching trees and buildings and phone lines race by, and decides it’s been a pretty good day.

Before he knows it he’s only a few briefs stops from his own station, and he texts Pascal about this, and puts his phone away to wait out the last few miles. The atmosphere in the train is much less agitated than in B, there’s more monsters, fewer humans—who are a bit less reluctant to share the space near them. He starts to think about being home in the apartment, sitting on his own bed.

When he finally steps out of the train, the fresh air and open space are equally refreshing, it feels good to be on his feet again after the long ride. He walks over to stand beside a signpost and takes out his phone to start writing out a text to tell Pascal he’s made it off the train.

“Hey.”

Like a slingshot, Kip’s heart sinks for the merest instant before careening sky high. He snaps his head towards the voice, almost thinking he must’ve misheard—

“Pascal!” he cries, laughing.

Pascal stands up from the bench, beaming at Kip’s exuberance, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

“Pasc!” Kip repeats, unapologetically loudly. Pascal’s presence is a little overwhelming; he can’t seem to move towards him, just laugh and trip over a few syllables while staring at his face.

But Pascal is walking towards him, and when they’re within five feet of each other Kip bursts with the energy of it and flings a hug around his boyfriend.

“It’s so good to see you—“ Pascal hugs him back so tightly he lifts him up and swings him halfway around in a circle. “I was getting your texts, and when you said where you were and I saw that I’d have time to walk down here and get here about ten minutes before your train, I just had to—“

“God, I wasn’t expecting this at all!” Kip leans back to look up at Pascal’s face. “You surprised me so much—“

Pascal laughs and squeezes him tight, expression warm and eager. Kip feels the remnants of his anxiety from the station in B fizzling out, giving way to this new excitement and delight.

“I’ve been thinking about kissing you all day,” Pascal says. “Can I?”

Kip laughs and nods and at once pushes his face up, catching Pascal’s lips. Pascal hums softly and presses the kiss, gathering Kip up further in his arms. It goes on for about half a minute before Pascal gives Kip one last quick firm kiss and slackens the embrace.

“Oh, I’ve missed seeing you...” Kip sighs, taking in the sight of him. He lifts a hand and runs it softly down the side of Pascal’s face. “It’s so good to really be seeing you...”

“I know, there’s nothing that can do what this does. Actually looking at you and touching you is enough to make the whole day alright.”

“Was yours bad?” He touches Pascal’s face again, brushing the backs of his fingers from his cheek down his jaw.

“It was okay, I was just kind of tired the whole time at the shop. This and getting to text you has been the best part.”

Kip takes Pascal’s arm in his hand and kisses his chest above his v-neck collar.

“You know...” Kip interrupts himself with a giggle. “I’m actually really excited about the idea of being able to help you out with whatever bad days you have. I wanna be here for you for that kind of thing so much—all the little stuff, and all.”

“Aw—“ Pascal lifts the hand in his arm and presses the knuckles to his lips. “Well, you’ve already done enough to fix anything bad about this one.”

“Back at you.”

“So...” Pascal brushes some hair aside again. “You were heading home, or what?”

“Oh, uh—yeah, I was. You?”

“I had a couple errands to run before I go home for the day, but I’d love to walk you home first, if that’s okay with you.”

“It is!”

Pascal grins and swings their arms back and forth. Kip stretches himself up and rises on his toes and kisses the base of Pascal’s throat. Pascal laughs.

“So...” Pascal glances around them. “I was thinking about making use of the bathroom here first?”

“Oh, sure.”

“They keep them pretty nice here,” Pascal says. “Clean them a couple times a day, and all.”

“Yeah?” Kip says.

“The next train isn’t scheduled to come by for another twenty minutes or so.”

“Mm.”

There’s a pause, and then Kip fixes Pascal with a look.

Pascal blushes and shrugs playfully.

“I was just thinking, if you wanted to, I’D sure like to...”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

Pascal laughs and Kip grabs his arm, leading the way.

—

Pascal wastes no time, pushing Kip up against the wall in the stall furthest from the entrance, making out with him and grinding against him for a headspinning twenty seconds, then lowering himself down to sit on his heels and putting his arms along either side of Kip to attach to the wall and help steady them both. He nuzzles his face into Kip’s crotch and Kip bites his lip and tries to undo his belt with already-trembling hands. Kip shoves his hands down his underwear to push them down, and the moment his dick is fully out, Pascal takes it in his mouth.

Pascal quickly sucks him erect—Kip tries to keep silent but breaks a few times with whimpers or sharp gasps. Pascal slows down a bit once Kip is completely hard, even teasing him a little, dragging his tongue from the base to the head, kissing the tip, rubbing his face against the length. Kip winds his fingers into Pascal’s hair and tries to keep still and quiet and finish this before any train stops by and deposits a bunch of other people into the bathroom with them.

But it’s so good to feel Pascal’s mouth on him again. He’s so in love with this—he knows he couldn’t regret it, not even if someone somehow ended up walking right into their stall in the middle of it.

Kip pricks his ears at the sound of approaching footsteps and holds his breath and tries to communicate it to Pascal with a light tug to his hair. Pascal pauses with a few inches of Kip’s dick in his mouth, still giving a few slow, light sucks—Kip rocks his hips helplessly and squeezes his eyes shut.

The person walks right up to the door and Kip’s heart is pounding, pulse reverberating in his chest and cock alike. He fully expects them to stride inside—to have already done so. Pascal licks at the head of his dick, sending a jolt of pleasure and adrenaline through Kip with each little stroke from his tongue—and Kip finally realizes the person has simply walked past, and he slowly, slowly relaxes.

“Okay?” Pascal murmurs, looking up at him, looking beautiful.

Kip flushes blue and nods.

“Keep going,” he breathes.

For the rest of the blowjob, he lets himself give soft whines and moans as they come to him, letting Pascal know how good he is. And he’s so good—he’s great. He has Kip thrusting by the end, straining to keep himself from pushing his cock too deep, too fast, both hands tangled in Pascal’s hair, breathing heavy and quick.

“Pascal—“ he gasps as he feels himself going right up to his crest. “Pasc—“

Pascal pulls back to the top few inches and inhales deeply through his nose, then takes the full length and sucks hard, his forehead pushing against Kip’s stomach. Kip rolls his hips even with no room for them to move. His hands fly from Pascal’s hair down to his back and up again, nails dragging along his shoulders, and then Pascal swallows around him, and then he cums.

Pascal takes it all, pushing him just as hard against the wall, sucking him right through the whole duration of his orgasm.

Kip breathes Pascal’s name as he starts to come back down, pushing him away just so he can drop down and climb into his lap and kiss him, hands running through his hair. He presses his tongue along Pascal’s lips until he parts them, then kisses him as deeply as he can manage. He pulls back often to let Pascal draw breath, then makes up for the interruptions when their mouths meet again.

Straddling Pascal’s thighs has made Kip plenty aware of exactly how aroused his boyfriend is, but it’s just as telling how Pascal starts rocking slightly against him as they make out. He feels this confidence and sexiness in his afterglow and takes full advantage of it, sliding himself back and forth in time with Pascal’s movement, grinding against him, pressing his ass down a little harder each time it rubs against the nudging length of Pascal’s cock.

In no time at all he has Pascal moaning softly against his neck, one arm off the wall and wrapped around his waist instead.

“What would you like?” Kip says into his ear. “What should I do?”

“I don’t—I—“ Pascal pants.

“Here, stand up, stretch your legs...”

Kip helps pull his suckers from the tiles as Pascal rises up, then cups and squeezes him as he kisses his chest.

“What would you like?” he repeats. He strokes Pascal’s erection through the soft fabric of his sweatpants.

“Oh, Kip...” Pascal sighs.

“Want me to suck you, too? Because I think I want to.”

“Kip—“

Seconds later he’s got Pascal’s back up against the wall, pants pulled down past his hips, taking the base of his erection and sliding the end eagerly into his mouth.

It’s a heady rush to have that taste and texture on his tongue again, soft and heavy and hot, it takes him back at once to all the sex they’d just had, all the sex they’d had in the years before. He has no interest in holding himself back—in just a few short minutes, he’s sitting back, hands on the front of Pascal’s thighs, eyes closed, panting for breath, spit down his chin and cum on his lips and nose.

He feels amazing like this, public bathroom and all of it.

“Kip,” Pascal exhales.

His name sounds beautiful said that way, in that voice.

“Pascal,” he answers, slow and lingering.

He takes a length of toilet paper and starts wiping off his face, licking the cum off his lips. He takes another few pieces and deftly wipes some traces of sweat from his forehead and the base of his throat. Then he stands up and rearranges Pascal, putting his underwear and pants back into place and smoothing his shirt and reaching up to push his hair out of his face.

“Mm...” He hums in his throat and kisses Pascal’s chest, brushing his lips against the hair there before leaning back again. Pascal brings his arm up to cup the base of his head.

Kip smiles up at him, then finally has to laugh.

—

As they set off towards Kip’s building, Kip doesn’t try to hide how effervescent the tryst has made him. He can’t seem to avoid smiling every other minute or glancing over at Pascal, and he’s so grateful that Pascal surprised him with all this. He lets him know with frequent squeezes to his arm and bright smiles whenever they catch each other’s eye. He can’t help but see beauty in the details of a dozen things around them at any given point—but sees it most of all in Pascal.

—

“Thank you,” Kip says as they stand outside the front door, beaming at Pascal without restraint. “Thank you so much, thank you, you’ve made my day so awesome.”

Pascal hasn’t seemed rid of his blush since the station, and it’s deepening now as Kip stares up adoringly at him.

“It was just as good for me,” Pascal says. “I might as well have done it completely for my own sake.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you did,” Kip says. “I like what you do for your sake.”

Pascal laughs and sweeps Kip into a snug embrace.

“Oh, I love you...”

“I love you impossibly much,” Kip responds, burying his face in Pascal’s chest. He squeezes his wide torso tight.

Moments later they’re trading goodbyes, Pascal promising to text Kip when he gets home from his errands, Kip thanking him again and reminding him of the approaching evening during which they’ll get to see each other again. They share a parting kiss and then Kip waves and unlocks the door as Pascal heads off down the sidewalk.

Kip is smiling to himself still as he makes his way to the stairs and takes them two at a time, feeling light on his feet even with the bag on his shoulder. His head is full of replays of all that just occurred, and he finds the apartment door from sheer physical memory.

“Hey, guys,” he says to whoever might be within earshot, holding the doorknob in place as he extracts his key from it. “This lock is getting kind of old.”

“It’s Kip,” Molly states.

“Hey, Kip!” Roy’s voice overlaps with hers.

“Hi,” Wallace says.

For the second time in an hour, Kip snaps his head up to see if he’s hearing that voice right. With all his residual excitement—and the unusual degree to which his guard is still lowered—Kip has no chance of saving himself from the blush that rises quickly to the surface.

“H-hello,” he says, a beat late.

“We invited Wallace over; we’ve been hanging out,” Molly explains.

“You’ve mostly only missed work stories, don’t worry,” Roy assures him.

They all smile at him, Wallace a bit sheepishly. Kip closes the door and needlessly adjusts the strap on his shoulder.

“I was in B all day,” he says. “Eno. I’m gonna put my stuff away.”

Roy resumes whatever story he’d been in the middle of telling, and Kip puts his head down and makes his way to his room.

It’s a matter of seconds spent unpacking his bag, putting it in the closet, taking off his shoes and throwing his socks in his hamper. He falls back onto his bed and closes his eyes, breathing easy, feeling only the remaining strength of his heightened heartbeat. He stays there while that relaxes away too, until he’s just resting, hearing only muted voices and the occasional sound of traffic outside.

He hears a laugh, knows it’s Wallace’s. He curls his hand into a fist, rests it on his chest, and lets out a long sigh.

He thinks back on his day. His thoughts gravitate to Pascal. He recalls his low voice in his ear so easily that for a moment it’s like he’s really hearing it. He imagines having Pascal in this room, sitting with him on the floor, holding him close in the limited space of his bed.

Lying on his little bed, sandwiched snugly between Wallace and Pascal, their bodies imbuing him with warmth.

Wallace’s voice drifts into his ears again; Kip thinks of him walking into the room, looking around like he had that time Kip first let him see the space, telling him how nice it is—walking over and—

No.

And slipping his hands around Kip’s waist—

This is pointless.

And kissing him softly—

Kip tightens his fist again, then relaxes it, trying to let go of the pleasure of thinking of Wallace like that and his frustration over it alike.

Wallace laughs again. Kip blushes.

—

After about ten minutes of just lying on his bed, he gets up and returns to the room with the others. It’s easy—they’re already set in their own rhythm of conversation, he just sits back and listens, nodding at times, raising his eyebrows at others, but largely declining to be the center of attention for more than a second. The others all are happy, though, and that’s good enough to make this turn of events feel less like a shakeup and instead just one more comforting turn to his day.

Eventually the subject of dinner comes up, and Wallace is invited, but he declines with generous thanks.

Kip’s twinge of disappointment feels like hypocrisy, and then he reminds himself that didn’t he feel guilty for not seeing Wallace enough after promising not to try avoiding him? Didn’t he admit fully to himself how deeply he values his relationship with Wallace? So he lets himself smile genuinely when Wallace turns to him for his goodbye.

“It’s good seeing you,” he says, holding Kip’s gaze for a moment afterwards. Kip smiles again.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “It’s been too long.”

Wallace smiles warmer at that and turns back to the others to say thanks, see you later, and Kip stares at the wall during the slight shiver in his chest. He watches Wallace turn away and lowers his gaze as the human closes the door behind him.

“Kip, try to rein it in an ounce,” Molly says. “You’re giving off a lot of cold.”

“Sorry,” he says quickly, and tries to push it into his hands.

—

Pascal texts him not long after, and they trade a few details about their days. Kip chooses to include the aggressive human from B and the other surprise of seeing Wallace, including mention of his feelings about both events. Pascal responds with the deeply sympathetic gentleness that seems to come so naturally to him. It makes Kip feel better.

—

Kip wakes himself up from a nightmare with a whine. He opens his eyes before he believes that he’s really alone, really in his own bedroom—but it still doesn’t feel like it, in his gut he still feels the awful tension lingering from the nightmare.

It’s that it’s such a rare variation that makes it harder to recover quickly. He plugs in his lights with stiff hands and sniffs and pulls out his phone to scroll through the goodnight texts he’d gotten from Pascal, trying to force back the feeling.

It wasn’t exactly a direct replay of a memory, more an exaggerated recreation that quickly veered into a direction that had never really unfolded, yet peppered with very real moments that keep repeating, bearing down on him.

Humans.

Their silhouettes coming so close that he can start to make out blurry features.

Things that had been said, the little words and phrases that had leapt out and burned into him.

“—consistently pathetic that there isn’t the slightest difficulty in—“

“—but after all, it was a blessing for us that he survived that—“

“—born with this power and yet he couldn’t be any—“

“—pretending—a shadow of his brother—“

“—too cowardly even to run away—“

The laughter.

“—such a predictable weakness—“

“—even now, too stupid to—“

“—would have killed him years ago if he didn’t happen to—“

Why did that human on the platform have to mention E.

The deep cold remains in his stomach, he concentrates fiercely on Pascal’s words on his phone screen and repeats in the back of his mind that the past is past. It’s over. And it didn’t have anyone pressing a knife to his throat. It didn’t have him looking down to see himself bleeding from a gash in the stomach, ripping scores of needles out of himself, ones so deep they entangle with his muscles and bones—

He blinks out a tear or two and tells himself to stop being too afraid to go use the bathroom.

He hates that even while awake and going about his day, his mind sometimes whispers some of those words, in their voices, their effortlessly derisive tones, cutting into him as they did then, echoing his worst thoughts about himself, throwing such encompassing hatred at him while he collapsed under the crush of his own fear and horror and useless disgust and anger—

He can’t forget it. But he can usually avoid thinking on it.

Until he’s surrounded by humans who fix him with those glares, radiate such loathing around him, this barely-masked collective desire to force him out, hurt him, kill him. They speak to him with those same notes of contempt buried in their voices, they look over his body with the same shameless entitlement, like he’s some object laid out for their disgust and judging consumption. They put their fucking hands on him. They spit at the sight of him. Their fear at the smallest display of his powers makes them drop all pretense in their hatred towards him. They mock him for the sheer fun of it, confident of his inability to respond. They call him names from a short distance. On rare occasion, one of those jeering at him knows exactly who he is, exactly what had happened to him, and things take an extraordinarily bad turn.

Kip stands in front of the sink and runs some cold water over his hands, rubs some on his forehead, his chest. He’s crying. He stares at his reflection and tries to feel only sympathy for himself, none of the self-loathing that overlaps with the loathing others have heaped onto him over his life. A trail of snot slides down the curve of his lip.

He thinks of things Pascal has said to him while he’s this shaken and upset. Things Wallace has said. Eno. Molly. His siblings.

Humans staring at him, keeping to their perimeter around him, their unfiltered scorn and damnation and violent intent. The knowledge of what they want to do to him, what they’ve done to other monsters.

He remembers so well hugging his body, desperately holding on to it when he felt so sure it was about to be taken from him. How he tried to be brave in the fear of what limitless tortures he knew they could choose to inflict on him—and how he found he couldn’t feel brave at all. The despair and the certainty that his life was going to be nothing but agonizing pain and then it was going to end—it mirrored what had been left of him after the fire so horribly and precisely.

His breath catches in a weak sob and he curses his nightmares. Then he more passionately curses what’s been done to him and those who did it.

He thinks of Pascal. He imagines sitting with him and trying to describe the details of his more recent traumas. After Pascal worked so hard to help Kip pick himself back up after the fire. It had taken him so many weeks to work up the nerve to describe it to Eno—he’d had to sit up, to keep Eno in his field of vision, reminding him exactly where he was, who he was with. He was more numb than he expected to be. A little bit after the appointment was wrapped up, Kip realized how tense Eno was and, as soon as he tried to comfort him, broke down somewhat himself. Eno had held him so close, like he was still freshly wracked with grief six years ago, and whispered apologies, and Kip hoarsely told him he didn’t need to be sorry for anything and kept his face buried in the crook of Eno’s arm, shaking so hard his teeth would click together.

Eno had rubbed slow circles against the small of his back then, and it had comforted Kip and grounded him. He reaches behind himself now and brushes his palm along his spine as if it’s the cure for the distress ingrained in those memories.

It’s not as if Kip hadn’t always been aware of the cold treatment and animosity of humans, even since he was little. Even before he was out of grade school—even in C, there have always been plenty of humans who had the same ideas about monsters as those in B and A. Even in D. But that treatment he was so accustomed to felt more and more dangerous as he grew older, became more aware of the situation they were all in, heard more stories and saw firsthand more damage done to friends, neighbors, schoolmates. It then felt different to him after the fire. And it feels different now than it did just a year ago.

It makes him feel sick, deep inside—or not so deep. He thinks of his friends being treated with such disrespect and cruelty. He thinks of Pascal weathering it.

He sniffs and grabs some tissues and wipes away his snot and tearstains. His dredged-up pain has shivered away into anger and frustration. Memories of the hatred he felt for those on the other side of the wall—the rage that avowed to kill any of them who touched him. That wanted to rip the whole place open from the inside.

He’s suffered all of that, and humans still come up to him, try to beat him down for existing in front of them. Every time, it quietly reminds him of everything that’s been done to him and everyone he loves. And he knows it’ll never go away, not in his past or present or future. It exhausts him to his core. He’ll feel like he’s maybe numbed to it all, then some occasion like this will sting him and remind him how wrong he is.

He sits in the bathroom until his breathing is steady, until all of it’s only memories.

—

He has a rough day at work. Cuddy is in, and he can tell she’s not in a good mood and is probably tired on top of it, and he goes and drops a mug practically right at her feet. The sudden clatter of ceramic shards rings out through the whole café and it makes Cuddy flinch and swear under her breath—Kip flushes deeply the moment he realizes what he’s done, and the embarrassment only exacerbates his scatterbrained feelings that had led to him breaking a dish in the first place. He feels like he doesn’t stop blushing the whole of the rest of his shift, but he pushes himself not to get too much more caught up in his nervousness, and does his best to simply stay out of Cuddy’s way.

He feels turned around and distracted, so unable to focus that even five orders coming through becomes a difficult task. Every couple of minutes he swears to himself he’ll take a nap when he gets home and hopefully settle down a bit. He tells himself that Cuddy hasn’t sworn revenge on him just for dropping something.

Sure enough, a little over an hour before his shift ends Cuddy asks him to go into the back to bake up a set of tarts that she’d forgotten to put in Molly’s list for the day. She switches places with him and takes over the slowed-down front while he settles himself gratefully into the quiet solitude of the bakery space. It’s not a recipe he’s familiar with; he takes things slowly and carefully. By the time he’s putting his finished product on a serving platter, despite being covered in flour stains and jellies, he feels like he’s somewhat more put together.

He showers off when he gets home, blowdries his hair, and buries himself under his blankets without bothering to put on any clothes. It feels deeply comfortable to be off his feet, warm, skin feeling soft from the shower, embraced by a nest of blankets.

He falls asleep with no trouble.

He’s even comfortable in his dream, body loosed curled on its side in a nest of thick blankets and pillows. He lies there and sees sunlight through a lacy canopy of leaves and hears running water—he sits up and sees he’s sitting by a brook from a park he used to visit with his family, ages ago, when he was in his first year of school. The moss-covered banks, the peacefulness of the glade surrounded by trees, the sound of the water—it’s almost ethereal.

Wallace comes over and sits down beside him, looking out at the scenery with a faint smile. Kip stares at his face, freely focusing on the details of his features, freely feeling a deep attraction, a warm desire instead of stifled longing. Wallace keeps looking ahead of himself—possibly because Kip is wanting more and more for him to look over instead.

Kip looks down at their hands, inches apart, both resting beside their thighs. He slides his hand over, haltingly, until the side of his little finger just grazes against Wallace’s knuckles. Even that sends a rush shivering through him. And Wallace looks over, and smiles at him like they’re both meant to be here, meant to be sitting side by side and brushing skin to skin, like Kip is meant to be staring at Wallace and practically leaning towards him, like Wallace is meant to be giving him that smile that he has, the one so bright it’s as though you’ve just singlehandedly delighted him so much as to turn around a bad day for him, and he’s so glad to even look at you.

Kip feels he has to do it, like this is what’s supposed to happen. He gently slides his fingertips over the back of Wallace’s hand, looks down at his lips, leans in just a half inch or so. He looks back up to meet Wallace’s eyes, asking.

He’s not sure of the answer. He leans in a little more. A little more. He glances between Wallace’s eyes, nose, lips, then tilts his head and breathes in and leans in all the rest of the way until he feels Wallace’s lips pressed against his. His fingers twitch over Wallace’s hand, his eyes close, he melts more than a little and presses harder into it. He feels Wallace’s hand slip to the small of his back, Wallace’s lips move against his.

His dream fades out. When a new one starts up again, he’s on a station. It’s dark, all the overhead lights barely penetrate it, their areas of illumination don’t touch each other. He sees figures sitting on benches, perfectly still, and others walking slowly around, their movements reverberating with blurry echoes in the stillness.

Kip feels a quiet sense of dread. He turns and sees stairs disappearing into a hole in the ceiling; he hesitates, then goes over and starts climbing. For a while it’s just darkness, and he’s unsure, a little afraid he’s going to take the next step and suddenly plummet.

Instead, he finally sees a glowing light up ahead, races up to it to find it leads right into their neighborhood. He glances over his shoulder at the dark staircase he’d just left, sitting there quiet and ominous, and nervously focuses on putting some distance between it and himself.

Before too long he sees Pascal, sitting on the edge of a fountain beside an amber pitcher of suntea. His feet are in the water, his shoulders bared in a tank top, his hair pulled back—he looks over and beams at the sight of Kip.

Kip runs over, hopping onto the fountain’s border to sit next to him, and hooks his elbow around Pascal’s arm.

“I did it, Pasc! I kissed him.”

“You did? Was it good?”

Kip nods and giggles and shoves himself forward to embrace Pascal tightly. He ends up in Pascal’s lap, his own bared feet dangling in the water, Pascal’s arms looped around him. Their surroundings shift into nighttime, but it feels like the complete opposite of the darkness of the station.

Kip closes his eyes and feels the water swirling around his ankles and Pascal’s kiss on his face and the dream swims into another change.

Kip’s alarm wakes him up. The moment he moves to turn it off, he realizes he’s had a wet dream. He blushes slightly, managing to recall some fragments involving Pascal that, although hazy, provide more than ample explanation.

The part about Wallace flashes through his mind, too. He stares at his ceiling, breathes out, and gets up.

—

He gives himself the most quiet day possible, wearing soft and warm clothes, reading and writing. He keeps his string of lights on, makes himself a few cups of hot tea throughout the day, and does a load of laundry. He takes a picture of his thriving forget-me-nots and sends it to Pascal. He gets a text from Kate about an event the next week that she plans to attend, asking if he thinks he might want to use any photos she might take, and their conversation transitions into casual back and forth at an easy pace.

Kip opens his webpage and stares at it for a while, scrolls past scores of old articles he’s written, at the lengthy hiatus of previous months that’s now only noticeable by glancing at the little timestamps on his posts. He rubs his tongue against a fang as he stares at all the titles he’s written. He opens a little-used section of the site, a page where visitors can leave a message—though since he has an email for answering questions about his posts, the wall is mostly vague comments from people saying they frequent the site or find it useful, or talking about something mentioned in an article, or suggesting topics for him to cover—which he’s sometimes followed through on. He skims through the most recent ones, mouth quirking with a smile at the reminder that actual people read what he puts together, find it any sort of valuable.

His gaze is drawn to a short comment a little ways down: “Great site, amazing contributors. :)” He glances over at its timestamp and does a double-take—the user had entered their name as WallaceF.

Kip’s face grows warm and he laughs to himself, feeling a tiny thrill in his stomach. That Wallace had left this comment a little over a month ago, almost certainly expecting him to see it, yet never mentioning it to him directly—

Kip stares at it for a few seconds more, then quietly laughs again and closes the laptop.

He sends Wallace a text a few minutes later.

“i just saw the comment you left on my blog. thank you.”

And he’s only just put his laptop back on his desk when his phone buzzes again. Kip sits on the end of his bed and picks it up.

“I wanted to wait and see if you’d notice! You’re welcome! :D”

Kip reads it over several times, then tosses his phone onto his pillow before collapsing onto his side to bury his grin in his blankets.

—

“Oh, Kip—“ Molly turns around and widens the door again. “I think my apron’s hanging on my doorknob—grab it for me?”

Kip does, and tosses it to her, and she catches it easily.

“Thanks,” she says. “I’ll see you later.”

“Good day at work,” Kip says as she goes back out again.

“Thanks!”

Kip looks at the closed door for a few moments, scratching absently at his thigh.

Molly still hasn’t mentioned anything else about the idea of her finally going on a vacation. He knows he can’t make the argument that it’s technically necessary—all of them have inarguably settled back to a routine, and he knows it does actually invigorate Molly to feel like she’s actively helping and supporting her friends. But he can’t convince himself that even just a long vacation wouldn’t do her some good—even though she’s holding up as well as anyone.

He knows she’s ridiculously solid—and that her self-assurance can turn into a stubborn intractability at times—but he also knows that shouldn’t mean she has to go without any breaks or comforts she could give herself.

He figures that at some point soon he’ll bring the topic up one more time, and let it drop after that.

But for now his plans are just to crawl into bed and go back to sleep.

—

With a better night’s rest giving him a better morning and the anticipation of seeing Pascal after work, Kip finds himself feeling fairly relaxed, almost cheerful by his own standards. He takes advantage of his state to do a bit of cleaning around the kitchen and a quick run at vacuuming, and feels a bit impressed with himself.

He goes into his room to water his plants and wipe a rag along the top of his shelves and drawers, then sits back on his bed with a deep breath. He looks at the soft grey light coming through the gap in his curtains. Within the minute he gets up and goes to his closet and gets out the lube he bought; he sets it on his bedside table and slide his hand down the front of his pants.

His sex drive seems to have only been aroused further by being able to fuck again; he’s been jerking off at least once a day ever since. It’s been easier to do so since reconnecting with Pascal—back when he’d moved to C, his sexual frustration hit him almost at once, and badly, yet he had to struggle to avoid fantasizing about Pascal. He’d give in sometimes, justifying the usefulness of memories of great sex he’d had, but moreso he leaned on the thought of abstract people—such as a cute guy who came into the café and flirted with him subtly and charmingly, imagining backing him up against a wall and biting the corner of his jaw; the monster he’d let kiss him and touch him in soft, dim lighting, the thought of letting him slide his hands under his clothes, letting the touches grow bolder and firmer, lying underneath him in a bed; just some nice-looking stranger or a model in a banner ad in the subway car, a specific image to use when he thought of being kissed, details to think of when imagining a body against his.

But trying to turn those loose concepts into real feelings that could at all satisfy his longing for real sex was like trying to grasp water compared to using the thought of Pascal, a guy who’d actually fucked him up down and sideways, who was gorgeous and irresistibly hot, of whom Kip knew all the most intimate details—how he sounds during sex, the sight and feeling of his bare torso, his back, what it’s like to be grasped in his arms, to be rubbed by his face during a kiss, how his dick feels, what turns him on, what undoes him, what he can do to melt Kip down or drive him wild.

Having fresh memories of being with him, combined with the knowledge he’ll be with him soon again, is making Kip that much more worked up when thinking about him, making getting off feel less like dampening a buildup of desire and more like stoking it for the next encounter.

And if sometimes the thought of Wallace slips into his fantasies, if he finds himself focusing on his face, his hands, if he’s who Kip thinks of when he imagines a threesome, he lets it come and go as it does, without shame—after all, he never actually fucked the attractive guys who smiled at him in the café, either.

Kip squeezes a bit of lube into his palm and brings it up near his mouth, breathing onto it, trying to warm it up. Then he clenches his fist, works it onto his fingers, thinks of seeing Pascal shrugging off a light sweater, shaking his hair out after taking off a hat. He falls back onto his bed with a sigh and kicks his pants down and closes his eyes to imagine his own touch as Pascal’s.

—

His shift goes smoothly enough, and it helps that his mood is insulated by the anticipation of seeing Pascal afterwards. But the fact he’s working with Kate is also as helpful as ever towards keeping him from growing agitated or worn down. They dryly commiserate about the little draining things throughout the day, they joke, they simply keep each other company and chat through mundane cleaning tasks and slow periods where the café is subdued and quiet.

Kip notes she seems tired and she admits to it, so he tries to make his unusually solid mood work in her favor by taking the more complicated, intensive tasks, while she does the sort of busy work that involves a higher volume but that’s so second nature to them it almost happens unconsciously. They have a long history of covering for each other in various ways, and Kip can empathize so easily with feeling out of it or fatigued.

After the usual after-work and after-dinner swells are past, they start going through the motions of cleaning and closing tasks, and Kate talks about the thought of getting a pet, and they spend a while discussing every possible option, reasonable and impossible alike. Then she tells a few stories about childhood pets, then they talk a bit about favorite animals, and then the topic becomes favorite foods for the rest of the shift.

They keep chatting while they walk back home, going to Kate’s apartment first as usual. After they say goodbye to each other, Kip pulls out his phone, and his heart sinks.

He hadn’t noticed getting a couple texts from Pascal about half an hour ago.

“hey, i’m really sorry but something came up at the store and i’m gonna have to stay late this evening”

and then

“i’m sorry, i should’ve texted you sooner but i got caught with the register for a while”

Kip goes over them a couple of times to be sure he wasn’t misreading anything. It’s a small twinge of bitter disappointment that feels a little cold in his stomach—it’s just that he’d been looking forward to it throughout the whole day, and was now finally embracing that feeling in its fullness as he headed over.

But he’s gotten good at getting used to letdowns in a matter of minutes or less—even if his mood does always take a hit for the rest of the day. So he walks over to a lightpost and stands beside it, staring down at the sidewalk, rearranging his expectations and his ideas for how the rest of his day is going to go. He’s just going to head home and have a nice, average evening unwinding from work, and he’ll text Pascal, and it’ll be fine.

He turns towards home instead of Pascal’s shop and tries to make his dull sullenness get with the new program, the one where he knows it’s going to be perfectly fine because he’s had a good day at work and there’s not going to be anything wrong with relaxing at home, even if it’s unfortunate that he won’t get to hug Pascal and hear him talk about his day.

Part of him stubbornly flares up and repeats uselessly that he was so looking forward to seeing Pascal, just for a couple of hours even. He stifles it as immaturity, then pauses. It sweeps over him and suddenly feels less like mulish petulance and more like a determination to try to be happy. To for once dig in his heels about what he himself wants and not resign himself to anything less. Even in such a small way as this.

He stands there for several seconds and then takes out his phone again.

“can i come over to the shop anyway? i could just hang out and keep you company. if you think it wouldn’t work, that’s okay.”

He goes over to a nearby bench and sits to wait for a reply. One comes about a minute later.

“Really? It would probably be boring, but if you don’t mind then sure. It’s always nice to have you around”

Kip immediately texts back to say that he doesn’t mind and that he’s on his way, and sets out at once.

—

He sends Pascal an “i’m outside” text, and moments later his boyfriend emerges from the doorway to the back and makes his way through the front area towards the door. Kip stands up a little taller at the sight of him, not only at the soft smile he already has but also his outfit—he’s wearing a snug t-shirt with a wide neckline and beautifully fitting jeans, a rarity for him since the belt and fly can be so much fussier when you don’t have fingers to help you.

He looks great. Kip knows he doesn’t look nearly as good, still in his work clothes, black pants and an off-white button up that don’t hug his body in the least, or do anything at all to complement his form. He’s grateful that he’s at least not stained with coffee or anything worse, and that of all people, Pascal is the least likely to be disappointed by any underwhelming outfit he turns up in.

He moves out of the way as Pascal unlocks the door and pushes it open.

“Hey!” Pascal greets him eagerly with a luminous smile and the hint of a blush, gratifying to see. “Thanks for coming over here, I was really disappointed when I thought I wouldn’t get to see you after all.”

“Me too.”

He steps in and rises up on his toes to kiss Pascal’s cheek; Pascal leans in a few inches to help.

“I’d hug you,” he adds. “If my hands weren’t full. I brought this for you, since you’re having such a long workday and all.”

He holds up the smoothie that he took a short detour to pick up.

“Oh—“ Pascal’s right arm twists a bit at the end like a corkscrew. “Wow, thank you, that’s so sweet of you—gosh, you’re giving me all these nice surprises...”

He blushes harder and beams and even seems a bit flustered, and Kip is quietly delighted.

“I tried to keep it cold on the way over,” he says as he hands it to him. He can’t help smiling outright, he keeps reflexively looking down to half-hide it.

“Thank you,” Pascal repeats.

“You’re welcome,” Kip laughs as his temple is kissed.

Pascal brings him inside and over to a cushioned stool he’d set in front of the counter. Kip puts his folded apron next to the register and leans over, propping himself up on his elbows. He watches Pascal writing something on a clipboard, holding the pen with his armtip while cradling the smoothie partway up the same arm, held in place by his suckers.

“I’m basically just counting things,” Pascal says. “But it’s kind of time-consuming. I knew I’d be stuck here too long to be done the same time you were, even if I rushed.”

“Yeah, the stuff Cuddy does takes her half the morning or afternoon sometimes,” Kip says. “You don’t have to rush, though. I just wanted to hang out with you, and this counts. I don’t want you kicking yourself over any mistakes later,” he laughs.

“I like to avoid that,” Pascal agrees. “I’m sorry it’s so boring though. Just me walking around and staring at things and going through boxes.”

“I like keeping you company. I don’t need things to be fancy. I just wanted to be with you. This is great, as far as I’m concerned.”

Pascal looks up from the clipboard and smiles warmly at him.

“Yeah, this is already a lot more enjoyable than it had been,” Pascal says. “I like just...knowing you’re in the room.”

“I liked that a lot too, when I was over at your apartment. You know, I’d just be sitting there, but you were just about twelve feet away, and that made it just sitting there kind of great. It’s that—you know—I just like to be with you.”

He laughs again and knows he’s probably had a steadily increasing blush for the past few minutes.

Pascal smiles at him again, and holding the eye contact definitely makes Kip grin and blush bright.

“I am sorry it’s so boring, though,” Pascal murmurs.

“It’s okay. It’s not like you forced me to come over here. I’d’ve wanted to tag along with anything you’d been doing. I know it’s cliché or something, but I only care that I got to be here with you. It wouldn’t matter if you were retiling a wall or what. I just wanted to see you and spend some time with you.”

He can tell that Pascal is flattered by what he’s saying and it gives him a nice, gentle shiver in his chest.

“And, I dunno, I was figuring that it might be nicer for you if you had some company,” he adds. “I know you were looking forward to hanging out, too. And it sucks finding out you have to stay at work longer than you thought you would.”

“Yeah—yeah, I was pretty bummed about it. It wouldn’t have been that big a deal if
we hadn’t been planning to see each other tonight. But I wanted to see you too, I just figured, you know...I didn’t want you to think you had to come over and wait around while I did all this stuff.”

“I hear you. I don’t need you to entertain me or anything, though. I wanna be part of all the boring stuff, too. Like...I know it’s like we’re kinda dating all over again, but I don’t need actual dates. It’s definitely nice when we do, but, you know. I’ve already made my mind up about you. I’m not using any dates to make up my mind about whether I like you or not.”

Pascal laughs.

“Aw, thank you...”

“I love you,” Kip says brightly. “If you ever just, like, want company, I’d be up for it, you know. You don’t have to always be entertaining me or anything. I like to be with you, and I like to help you out.”

“Aww,” Pascal repeats, laughing again. “You’re so sweet to me.”

“You’re one to talk,” Kip returns.

He asks for a pen and paper from Pascal, and starts writing out ideas that had been floating around in his head at work while Pascal moves around slowly behind the counter, taking short notes. Kip keeps glancing over at him, and happily observes Pascal smiling softly to himself now and then.

Kip looks up from the middle of the sentence and catches Pascal already looking over at him in turn. Kip bursts into laughter and Pascal laughs too, deep and beautiful.

—

When Pascal migrates into the back of the store again, it’s no longer so possible for them to have the occasional interludes of conversation. But Kip wants to make sure Pascal is still aware he’s not alone, so he hums quietly to himself, even singing under his breath sometimes when the urge comes to him, taps the pen against the paper to help himself think of the next thing to write, kicks gently against the leg of the stool in a brief rhythm. He, in turn, feels a quiet wash of contentment in hearing the small sounds of Pascal’s movements—his soft footsteps, the drag of cardboard as he pulls a box towards himself, a sneeze, an occasional long exhale just shy of a sigh.

The effect that even the simple knowledge of Pascal’s presence has on Kip is one that always warms and softens him—this pleasant feeling that sits in his chest, but even beneath that, something that’s less of a feeling and more like almost a physical part of him. Something so certain it’s practically tangible, taking up space, carried by him constantly, no matter where his mind is.

Kip is very conscious of just how different it feels in comparison to the end of their relationship and his departure from Pascal. He appreciates it deeply.

And once or twice he expresses that appreciation by wandering into the back every once in a while to tell Pascal he wants to check on him, talking to him for a moment or two, putting an arm around his waist, kissing him on the shoulder or arm or cheek after saying he’s done holding him up for now, glancing back as he leaves the room because Pascal’s butt looks fantastically cute in those jeans.

Kip is definitely grateful that he chose this rather than resigning himself to a Pascal-free evening. His writing comes easily.

—

Pascal finishes with his work just short of two hours after Kip’s arrival. They sit up on the countertop beside each other and chat about their days, ask each other what’s been on his mind, laugh over work stories—and sympathize over them.

Pascal asks about Molly and Roy, and in the middle of providing a few updates, Kip thinks of how Pascal has likely been lonely since moving to D, away from the neighbors and friends he’d had there. He can empathize, and he knows Wallace can, and it reminds him of what he’d talked about with Eno. He’s a bit embarrassed he’d been too distracted during his last meeting with Pascal to bring it up—he mentions the discussion to Pascal, and mentions that Pascal should feel free to be in touch with any of the mutual friends they’d had before the separation. And says that he’ll try to make sure all four of them, who’d lived together for so long, keep regularly seeing each other, says that Roy and Molly like seeing him too.

Pascal says he’s lucky to have Kip, and while such concepts are always impossible for Kip to believe on his own, when Pascal says them he knows he means them. Kip puts his left leg against Pascal’s right, rests his hand on the inside of Pascal’s thigh by his knee, and leans over to press his forehead against the side of Pascal’s face. Pascal leans into each touch and puts an arm around Kip’s shoulders, laughter soft but rich.

There’s a short discussion about who gets to walk who home—Kip wins easily by pointing out Pascal lives closer, had the longer day, and walked Kip home last time.

The kiss Pascal gave him when they reached the door of his building seems to sparkle through Kip’s veins his entire walk home.

Chapter Text

Soon Kip and Pascal have a day together—an entire day. Unlike their long retreat spent in Pascal’s apartment, they meet up in the morning and go out. Out for hours. Through morning, noon, afternoon. They walk to a nice waterside spot to sit in the grass and enjoy the view, Pascal takes them to a tucked away gem of a restaurant for lunch, they take a ride on the bus to the nearby art museum. It had been so long since Kip had been inside that it feels at once foreign and familiar being there again, and Pascal admits that he’s never yet gotten around to visiting.

Though they don’t stick precisely side by side, usually the pair remain within a few paintings of each other—though sometimes they’ll drift to different corners before drifting closer again, or even be in different rooms for a little bit. Kip kind of likes having the space, neither of them having to worry about moving too fast or slow for the other, neither even needing to see the other to know that they’re still aware of the other, still together—it’s relaxed.

They both like to linger over certain things, move slowly, careful not to miss anything, focusing on details.

Kip spends several very still minutes in front of one painting that reminds him of the feeling of fuzzy memories back from when he was very young, when things would be happening that he didn’t understand much, confusing and stressful and loud, but his siblings would pull him to them and he would cling to a shirt or wrist until they led him away. Back then they seemed to have a fantastical ability to protect him, a presence bringing shelter and wellbeing, able to navigate the world in ways he couldn’t and bring him along.

He spends so long studying it, the little brushstrokes and shifts of color, that Pascal comes back over to him and gently touches his back. Pascal smiles at Kip when he looks over, and doesn’t ask him what he’s spending so long on, just stands by him and turns his own attention to the painting as well.

Kip lingers in a room of sculptures, too. He likes to circle them, slowly, several times around at different distances, shift his angle and perspective. Pascal puts the same kind of focus into his scrutiny of the collections of small sculptures in display cases.

They have a small meal in the atrium, seated across from each other at a little table near a plant-lined wall of the wide, echoing space, bathed in the glow of indirect sunlight issuing through the skylight. Despite having gotten more modest items from the expensive-leaning menu, they take their time with them. Kip indulged in a mojito for them to split, which they take partake in after finishing their respective glasses of water.

Kip appreciates deeply the natural ease with which he can converse with Pascal. Just as lovely is how Pascal seems to be so engaged with every exchange, as if Kip is some sort of genius, someone wonderful and unmatched—and even better, that Pascal even seems to enjoy talking with him, no matter how mundane Kip’s remarks or how he may trip over his words, and seems to enjoy sharing his own thoughts with Kip.

They spend another few hours traveling through more wings filled with various mediums and periods of art, reading out descriptions to each other, pulling one another over to look at a certain piece, Pascal pointing out blues that match Kip’s, while Kip returns the favor by finding a peachy warmth resembling Pascal’s hue. Pascal occasionally remarks on paintings with styles he’d like to imitate in the designs he paints on his own sculptures.

Reemerging into the outside world feels like passing back through a portal. It’s early evening, but the sky is still blue, there’s no hints of sunset yet. Kip holds his arm out a few inches from his body for Pascal to wrap his arm around. They take a circuitous, scenic route to a little ice cream shop not far from Pascal’s home, one with a small flower garden around the side to sit by and breathe in.

Even though being even vaguely near Pascal’s apartment and shop means being near Berkley, Kip doesn’t mind so much. The specific block he dreads is a ways down, in a more heavily residential stretch of the long street. And being with Pascal distracts him from his quiet concerns about being more recognizable—glancing at Pascal guarantees he won’t see anyone doing a double-take at the sight of him, staring him down as if he could be mistaken for anyone else. And talking with him keeps his attention away from any lowered voices that might be floating around nearby.

Besides that specific kind of attention, he really doesn’t mind being looked at when he’s with Pascal—Pascal naturally draws people’s gazes, being generally at least twice the size of most people around him. And Kip is a rare color, and is used to a quick glance or two for that factor alone. But he likes the idea of being seen being with Pascal; he’s proud of it, proud of himself for being the companion of such a person. And he made sure to look good today—a pale blue-grey button-up under a thin, fitted, deep blue-green sweater that he convinced himself just a week ago to buy for the explicit reason of wearing it on a date with Pascal. He knows he looks great in this particular pair of pants, and he has a light scarf draped over his shoulders simply as an accent piece and something to occupy his hands with. Even better than how good it makes him look is that it’s still comfortable enough for a day out and about—and best of all is that he can tell Pascal thinks he looks good.

Pascal looks as cute as ever today too, and Kip wonders if he planned it, or if he just followed his naturally good sense for what looks nice. It’s characteristically more casual than most of Kip’s outfits—he has on shorts that stop about a hand’s length above his knees, sandals with straps around his ankles, and a light blue v-neck that’s soft and slightly loose in a way that still manages to drape around his shape excellently. His hair is pulled back and his collarbones and cheeks have the slightest hint of developing freckles and half the time it practically makes Kip’s heart skip a beat to look at him.

Which definitely factors in when Kip asks if he can go back to Pascal’s apartment with him, and they share a look, and Pascal blushes and says of course, he’d love to have him over.

Climbing up the different, creakier stairwell brings good memories, and standing in front of the door again, passing through into his different, smaller apartment feels like entering into a sanctuary. Pascal offers Kip some sweet iced tea, and Kip smiles and accepts, and they sit back on the couch and drink slowly.

They rest there for a little bit before Kip looks over at Pascal, and Pascal looks back at him, and Kip leans in and kisses him.

Pascal carries him into the bedroom again.

They’ve just kicked off their shoes and climbed onto the bed when Kip leans Pascal over onto his back, intending to sit back up but putting it off for several minutes in favor of making out instead. Finally he gets himself upright again—he stares for a moment at Pascal, relaxed against the mattress, face already flushed, hair already messy, gazing steadily back at Kip with undisguised desire. Heart beating plenty harder, Kip undresses himself in front of his boyfriend, unhurried but still short of lingering, pulling his sweater off and combing his fingers through his hair to fix it before starting in on the buttons of his shirt, working his way down and then shrugging it off his shoulders. He lifts himself onto his knees to undo the front of his pants, slides them off completely before hooking his thumb into the waistband of his underwear, feeling the beginning of his erection already pushing against the fabric, finally dragging it down as well.

He sits naked in front of Pascal for a minute, gently running his fingertips up and down the insides of his own thighs, letting Pascal look at him.

Pascal sits up pulls his own shirt up and over his head with an arched back; Kip’s face flushes hot at the display. He thinks of the other night, when Pascal looked so good at work and his mind had wandered once or twice to the idea of lifting his shirt off him and pressing kisses all over his stomach and chest, getting Pascal’s reaction to his touches. He transforms that into a reality.

He lets Pascal return the favor, roll them over and straddle Kip’s smaller body and kiss along his shoulders and arms and chest, across his stomach and down his thighs. They make out some more and feel and caress each other and end up lying side by side, aligned and interwoven, slowly stroking the other’s erection as they kiss.

Before too long, Kip’s fucking Pascal. His hands are under Pascal’s knees, pushing them back towards his chest, eyes fixed on his gorgeous face while he rocks into him at a smooth, easy pace.

He finds a good position for them both and holds it, fucking him deep, hitting the perfect stroke. And he maintains it for seemingly ages—every now and then he asks Pascal if he wants him to take hold of his cock and finish him off, but Pascal shakes his head, says no, don’t stop, I like this, says I wanna keep taking your dick, keep going.

From the start Kip hopes that a longer duration will be as good for Pascal right now as a harder but shorter fuck—he’s wanting to go at a slower pace, one that’s gentler, more relaxed, and count on his ability to build it all up without it simply being underwhelming, without losing the gradual momentum. And after a while he feels like it’s coming to fruition when Pascal reaches a point where the intensity of his pleasure seems to grow a bit sharper minute by minute—until they have to be at least a solid hour into it and each thrust seems to undo Pascal, reverberating in the core of his pleasure, making it splash out and spill past the brim. It’s so close to overwhelming just to be watching it, much less for Kip to know he’s the one causing all of it, to be fucking Pascal while taking in his face and voice and body all sparking and shivering and so close to overflowing.

Kip eases into another interlude, leaning in close and slowing the pace down a bit more, moving deeper instead, letting himself relax his legs and abs and arms and even out his breathing a little as he does.

Pascal is beautiful underneath him, shining with sweat, aglow with unconcealed arousal, head pushing back into the pillows, torso rising and falling with the rhythm of his breathing. Every few thrusts elicits a soft, low moan carried on the edge of an exhale, he breathes Kip’s name, inhales shakily. It already feels so good to be holding his body and rocking into him—every sign of pleasure from Pascal just builds Kip’s own that much more.

Kip could spend hours and hours just like this, just holding both of them in this blissful space of being so close to each other and feeling so purely fantastic, with nothing in the world to intrude on how good it all is. But eventually he can feel the first soundings of fatigue through his body, and Pascal seems to be similarly worked over. So after a few minutes more he asks again, want me to make you cum? And Pascal says god, yes.

Kip adjusts their position, curving himself over closer to Pascal and bracing his weight with one elbow, then puts a hand around Pascal’s dick and starts thrusting into him again at a harder pace.

Kip can only hold himself together for the sake of focusing better on the gorgeous experience of Pascal unraveling beneath him—and to focus on giving a better handjob, too.

Pascal is close, and he’s so intensely aroused that Kip knows his orgasm is going to be spectacular—and he wants to see that so, so badly. He pushes it, putting a burst of extra strength and energy into his drive even though he knows he can’t sustain the pace for long, pumping hard at Pascal’s leaking cock in tandem with quicker, more forceful bucks of his hips.

Pascal is grasping at his back and his head and Kip leans in and gropes his chest and buries his face against the side of Pascal’s neck to bite and kiss it. He thrusts hard, it makes Pascal cry out, he thrusts harder and works Pascal’s dick so well it makes his arm ache.

In a single moment, Pascal’s leg hooks tight around Kip’s thighs, pulling him in closer, and Pascal climaxes—he’s pushing into Kip’s hand and clenching around him and shoving his head back and crying out before his breath and voice catches—Kip pushes himself up to see it. Pascal goes stiff and still for so long, cumming so hard it reaches his own throat and jaw, a beautiful look of such complete and rapturous relief on his face that Kip studies it fiercely, wanting to appreciate every millisecond of it, keep it in his mind as long as possible. It’s the sight of Pascal’s orgasm more than anything that draws Kip up to and past the brink.

He automatically rocks into Pascal and feels himself break loose and then the first moment of his peak hits him like a shock. He takes hold of Pascal’s thighs and digs his fingers into them, pushes fully into Pascal, hips pressed hard against his ass, and curls in towards him with a heavy groan, head falling forward. The payoff for going so long is so worth it—he can only hope Pascal’s felt as deeply wonderful as this.

The first thing he hears as his cognizance reconvenes is a softly exhaled, adoring “Oh, Kip.” He draws a couple of deep breaths and lifts his head slightly to see Pascal gazing up at him, breathless, amazed. He leans down slowly and presses a long kiss to Pascal’s cheek.

He sits back and gently guides Pascal’s feet down to the mattress, smoothly pulls out, then pushes slightly against Pascal’s knees to encourage him to let his legs rest flat against the bed.

He absently plays with Pascal’s hair and pets his jaw and chest while catching his breath, then lies himself atop Pascal to embrace him loosely.

Their breathing evens out; Pascal’s cum grows dry and sticky between their bodies. Kip lifts his head and nuzzles his face against Pascal’s, finds his mouth and kisses him—they make out for a few minutes at a lazy pace. After starting to get just a little out of breath again, Kip kisses Pascal once more and then gets out of bed, making a slightly unsteady trip to the kitchen on weakened legs to bring back two glasses of water for them.

Lying there beside Pascal, getting to see him looking like this, looking back at Kip like this, saying these sweet and funny and warm things to him—Kip is so unshakably contented. He feels a love that seems to sit in his throat and chest and abdomen alike, and his smile keeps coming so easily. Pascal is subtly lighting up at the sight of it, and tells Kip so many times, and so easily, that he loves him.

Kip eventually insists on Pascal getting to use the shower first, and tries to preempt too much developing soreness in his body with some stretches while he waits his turn. By the time he’s done with his own shower, Pascal has made decent progress on a simple dinner for them.

Late in the evening, with the colors of the sunset filtering through the curtains, Kip lies Pascal on the bed again and gently scratches and massages all over the expanse of his back. He talks to Pascal as he does, asking questions, letting Pascal’s answers guide the conversation. It’s a deeply refreshing feeling knowing he’s making Pascal feel nice, to get to touch him, to touch him in a way he likes so much, to hear more about him, because Kip can never hear enough about him, enough from him.

When Pascal leans in close to kiss him but first pauses to give him that look with a face full of plain, beautiful love, Kip has a moment of soft and penetrating happiness that could almost make him cry. He laughs instead.

Kip redresses and takes a minute to find his scarf draped over the back of the couch. Pascal holds his hand as he walks him home and gives him a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze before departing. Kip is unfalteringly warm the whole rest of the day.

—

After putting away the four bags of food he carried home from the grocery after work, Kip makes a cup of hot peppermint tea and goes into his room to hole up and relax for a little bit. Work was a little chaotic, on the verge of stressful, and he’s relieved to have had a peaceful afternoon so far since clocking out. He has plans he’s looking forward to for making a nice, simple fruit salad to go with dinner, and the apartment is even a bit unusually quiet for the afternoon—he figures Roy must be staying a bit late at his work, and would’ve asked Molly about it if she didn’t seem to have taken a shower and then settled in her own room for a nap.

Kip shuts his door and takes another drink of his tea before setting it on his bedside table and opening his window halfway. The last hour has acted like an afternoon summer storm is coming in, and the air smells of rain and keeps moving in breezes and shifts. He sits on his bed and draws his legs up and looks out for a while at the shapes of the clouds and the softly waving branches.

The overcast light gently dims a bit further, the moving air grow a bit calmer, and then Kip’s ears pick up on the sound of light raindrops against the shivering leaves.

He undresses down to his boxers and a tank and puts on some soft socks, leans back on his bed, stares out the window, and drinks his tea in slow, absent sips.

The rain gently picks up; after a while Kip shifts his gaze across the room. He gets up, carefully picks up their framed picture, and brings it to the bed. He leans back against his pillows, draws his knees up slightly, and rests the back of the frame against his thighs. He moves his eyes over every detail of their faces, sensing a million answering images swirl in his memory.

The soft blue-grey light from the rain looks nice, but the of dimness starts to come across as a little sad, reminding him that he’s just looking at a picture of their faces, never the real thing. He reaches over and plugs in the string of lights—their glow is still gentle, but warmer, golden—this is more what it would look like if he was talking to them, sitting in a room with a small light turned on rather than relying on the overcast illumination from one small bedroom window.

He breathes deeply, looking at the picture, then looks at the folds of the blanket around the foot of his bed.

“So,” he says quietly, barely penetrating the sound of the rain in the tree outside his window. “I...had a really nice time with Pascal the other day. We spent the day out and the weather was really nice and I think we both had a lot of fun. Most of the afternoon we were in the art museum across town. I guess that sounds a little boring, but I don’t know, neither of us was that interested in any movies that are out, and we’ve both always liked that kind of stuff. I mean, you guys know—even when I was a kid I thought it was cool. I guess it helps that some of the paintings are like, five times your height then. But it was nice. I hadn’t been there in ages. And never with him.”

He pauses then. The next thought that had come into his head was about how they had gone back to Pascal’s apartment and had sex—and it’s a little strange to just think of saying that directly to the picture. He was a little shy with the details of his relationships even back when they were alive, especially when it came to things like the milestones of physical affection and sexual indulgence. Yet he was always at his most open with hem, and the three had always been so close that they were often on the same wavelength and able to communicate without speaking things directly. Kip knew that, by the time he announced he was planning on spending a day at Pascal’s and staying over, his siblings knew they were probably planning to have sex. And when he came back, he knew he had told them without even speaking of it that they had, in fact, had sex, and everything had been good.

It’s not like sex is at all as intimidating anymore—not sex with Pascal, at the very least. In the years since it first became a real part of his life, he’s been maturing, the focus of his worries has changed dramatically, and he’s had sex hundreds of times with Pascal. Maybe, if his family had been alive along with him, he’d by now be discussing it as freely as he could with any other close friends—surely moreso.

“I slept with him,” he blurts out, and then laughs at himself for feeling self-conscious around people who aren’t even here, about something he isn’t even embarrassed over. “Pascal, I mean. Because, you know, we used to do that all the time when we lived together, so now it’s just—it’s kind of like we’re making up for lost time. I...got pretty frustrated about it a couple months after we moved back here, y’know, not being with anyone, and...I really wanted to have sex. But I kept being too hung up on Pascal to really give it a good try, and pretty soon things were getting too fucked up and I was too freaked out and depressed all the time to really—really be as concerned about it anymore.”

He laughs again.

“I always think it’s kind of funny that now, after I kind of have my life back again, I went and decided I wanted to kiss Wallace—since he’s kind of the factor that started everything—everything going downhill. Or—well, of course he didn’t start it, he just got caught up in all this the same way we all did, but...his arrival in C was pretty much the first time since the fire that things started happening more out in the open.”

He sighs silently and runs a finger along the edge of the frame.

“I’m still upset about him,” he says. “If you guys were here I bet I’d’ve talked your ears off about the whole thing. I still don’t know what I’m doing... But it’s not just the fact I’ve been crushing on him, you know. It’s that—it’s just made it more obvious, but I feel like ever since things have become...kind of closer to normal, it’s been kind of weird with him. At least on my end. I don’t exactly know what to do with him, with being around him, I...”

A distant roll of thunder seems to accentuate his thoughts.

“It’s just strange. I mean, the very first time I saw him, it freaked me out so bad. And...we never got a chance to get all that comfortable with each other in a regular way. When we started to get close, it was when things were a complete mess, and I was scared every day and night, and questioning who I even was or what my whole life had been, and...now that it’s settled down, everything’s still different. And I...my whole relationship with Wallace started when my life was being completely overturned. Because meeting him was what did it. And now, I—“

He laughs again, a bit helplessly this time.

“NOW I figure out that I like him this way, after everything calms down and there’s no way of knowing if that relationship we’d built up is going to translate over into just—a regular, everyday life. I mean...the stuff we became friends over was such a mix of normal stuff and...completely messed up, horrifying shit. It makes it so confusing. ...There were plenty of times back then that I thought of kissing him, and I had the chance, and I was even getting the sense that maybe he was thinking about it too. If I’d had just gone ahead and done it...just once...”

He drops his head back on the pillows and sighs. He closes his eyes and listens to the rain, thinks of the blurry memory of Wallace’s face so close to his, pushing a brief kiss to his cheek, thinks of what it might be like to feel Wallace’s fingers touch his jaw and tilt his head, feel the brush of his lips. It’s still such a deeply appealing, attractive idea.

“Maybe we’re having to start over after all,” he breathes. “But...there’s no way I can forget or let go of all of that stuff that happened between us already. None of it, big or small. I don’t know. I worry about not being able to figure it out, but it’s hard to tell if I’m being too hard on myself, as usual, or trying to hide from a problem, as usual...”

He lifts his head back up and looks at their picture again, mustering a slight smile.

“I guess I’ll figure it out one way or another as things go on,” he sighs. “I’m really, really glad I have Pascal. He’s so...I love him. I really—I absolutely love him.”

He readjusts, crossing his legs and leaning further back.

“I love him,” he repeats. “He’s so wonderful to me, I really wish you could’ve seen everything he’s ever done for me, how he’s been here for me...he’s amazing. He’s helping me right now just by being with me, and that’s just...not at all a surprise. I’ve always—being with him makes me like being myself in a way I don’t exactly feel otherwise...it’s just so nice. I love him. I...”

He draws the portrait a bit closer, holding it over his stomach, and lowers his voice to close to a whisper.

“If he asked me to marry him, I already know I’d say yes.”

He can’t help breaking into a smile as he says it.

“And I know if I asked him, he’d say yes, too.”

He blushes to share the secret, even with a static picture of people who can’t hear him or say anything back.

“I’m not—I know I’m not ready for that, I know neither of us are, but I already know, y’know? I...I’m not even ready to move in with him yet, even though I wish we did live together, even though I spent almost half a decade living with him and we were happy, I’m not quite ready, but I...I also know I want to do more than live in the same place with him. I want to BE with him.”

He sits further up, hugs the picture a bit closer.

“It feels great just being able to call him my boyfriend. To say: Pascal, my boyfriend. I love saying that aloud. I love thinking it. My boyfriend, Pascal. ...I liked being out places with him where I could be standing next to him, I even like him holding my hand. I didn’t exactly mind being looked at by strangers when I was beside him—in fact, I kind of liked it. I’m proud of being his boyfriend. Really proud. It’s probably one of the best things about me. And, well...I’ve thought plenty of times that I don’t deserve him. Especially—especially after losing you guys. I’ve never been the same person after that...I wasn’t who I was when I was first dating Pascal, and I...I wasn’t at all sure that who I was ought to be with Pascal.”

Another soft, nearly gentle peal of thunder.

“Of course, back then I didn’t think I ought to be around anyone. It took me ages to get over the guilt of just...going through the grief of losing you guys, and losing my old life and my home, and being so afraid. I suppose I’m not fully over feeling guilty about that. And, well...I guess I’m not over the grief or the fear, either.”

He touches his nail to the glass, slowly drags a line over their hands. The air outside shifts, and a breeze flows gently into the room, bringing fresh, rain-scented air. He closes his eyes and fills his lungs with it.

“It’s definitely nothing new for me to worry I don’t deserve Pascal, or I’m not good enough for him, but it finally occurred to me...I’d do anything for him, and it means so much to me to get to be here for him, and to do what I can to help him be happy—to get to make sure he’s happy. I missed having that privilege so much when it was gone. I love him so completely, and...maybe I can’t think of myself as being anyone incredible, not in the way I think of him. And I don’t have some magical way to prove to myself that there’s not some other angel on earth who’s as close to being as good as Pascal as anyone can get, but I at least know that not even an angel could love Pascal more than I do. And Pascal—he loves me, and I may not ever understand how that’s possible, but I’m so, so happy it is.”

He smiles softly at the picture. They were always so glad of any of Kip’s successes, so encouraging and supportive of his happiness and enthusiasm. Of course, despite how completely he loved them, he hadn’t quite appreciated that fully until they died. He takes the picture in his arms, almost cradling it.

“Imagine that,” he whispers. “Pascal and I being married, even.”

He smiles a bit at the thought of it.

“My husband...” He says it experimentally, testing it out, as if he’s not sure he’s capable of making such sounds. “We’re husbands. He’s my husband, I’m his husband.”

He laughs under his breath.

“Man...”

The rustling of the leaves grows louder, as though the wind has picked up. But after a few quiet moments, Kip notices that it’s the rainfall increasing, the drops heavier, a bit more frequent. He turns his eyes to the window and watches for a minute.

“I love him,” he says. “Imagine me having years and years being with him. A whole life. Things have been wonderful enough with it just being a few weeks now.”

He leans back against the pillows again and looks up at his ceiling. If there was a world where he and Pascal decided to get formally engaged, and it was a world with his family still alive, he’d get to share the news with them first. He’d be so overjoyed to get to share it, to get their reactions. He tries to imagine that scene—like the time he announced he was officially dating Pascal, but so much more, even better. He tries to imagine what it would be like to be himself in that world, to have never experienced the loss of his family, maybe even existing in a world without any of the horror and awfulness that had caused what led up to that night—that alternate Kip seems like a stranger to him. They’d all be different. Happier.

He closes his eyes and turns his thoughts away from it. If there’s some brighter parallel universe, it’s none of his universe’s concern.

“I love you guys,” he says. “Of course I wish I was really talking to you right now. I miss you. I really miss you. Every day.”

He inhales slowly, sighs. He opens his eyes and looks at their picture, smiling from almost a decade in the past, unaware of the fate inching closer with every second—unaware of him, their 24 year old brother, looking at the only picture of them he has, using it to talk about things the way he would with them, mourning them, struggling to find a hold on his own life and identity after losing them, after being dragged into hell and somehow clawing his way out the other side, needing them most desperately when they were already gone.

“I miss you every day,” he repeats. “I wish I could tell you that.”

It sits heavy in his heart, even now, after years of getting used to it. And it is a familiar ache, too familiar to terrify him as it once did, but an ache all the same.

“I love you,” he says. “And I loved you back then. I really miss you. We all do. I wish you were here.”

The rain is picking up again.

“Roy and Molly are okay,” he says. “They just...” He sighs. “They both sort of...help themselves by helping out their friends, it cheers them up to be doing things, and being with people, being involved... They’re definitely alright, I can tell, it’s just that I’m...really glad they have each other. I don’t think I would be a good enough friend to either of them nowadays if it was just two of us living together.”

He rubs a finger along the front of his nose, nudges the bridge of his glasses.

“I suppose that’s okay, though. They’re outgoing; it’s better for them to have a lot of friends instead of just one or two, no matter who it is. And...it’s not fair to imply they don’t like being around anyone quieter than them, I don’t mean that. I just...always feel bad that I changed so much after...you guys died. I mean, I had to, it’s not like I had a choice in what happened, and it’s not like...there was any way it wasn’t going to tear me to pieces. It killed me, you know, and...I was kind of swinging between being—being numb and in shock and total panic for a few days, but by the time we were with Pascal, I just crashed. It was a couple of months before I could kind of even do basic things again, and for months after that I’d—at these random times and places I’d just break down in seconds, be crying all of a sudden, I couldn’t stop it. And it felt horrible even when I was sort of trying to act normal again, at least go through a day normally, I’d—think of you and I...talking about you hurt so much, and it made me so anxious because I—it was so hard to talk about what happened, to even say aloud that you had died, and I didn’t want to break down, but I knew I couldn’t help it if I did, and...it hurt so much and it felt like such a huge deal just to bring you up, I... It would be four or five or six months since you died and it would feel so unbelievable. That I’d been without you for four months. Or for a whole half a year. You’d been gone eight, nine months, whatever—it always felt so unreal.”

He looks at them for a quiet minute. Wonders what it would have been like for any of them to have known ahead of time what was coming. Even enough to have just had a moment together, one last moment—

If he’d reached them, if he’d been with them when he started to collapse, dragging himself along the ground, choking on poisonous air, barely able to see between the blinding light of flames and opaque smoke closing in on him, his stinging eyes blurred with constant tears—

He always tells himself he can’t be sure the ice would’ve been enough for all of them, that they all would’ve had the chance to draw close enough to fit under its protection, but the small protesting thought inevitably arises to say that even if they’d all died, he’d have gotten to see them, he’d’ve gotten to be with them for a moment more. They’d’ve known where he was, they’d have gotten to know he wasn’t alone, scared and dying.

His only argument, in the end, is that it didn’t happen that way. He can’t know what could’ve happened, he doesn’t even know if it would’ve been possible for him to get to them. He only knows the way it did happen. That it can’t be changed.

“I was so hard to—so impossible to deal with,” he says haltingly. “Back then, I can’t guess how hard it was on everyone, trying to help me, but it was—I just couldn’t be—nothing could make it feel better. And it was such a mess moving to a new district and doing it all at once, and I was barely any help, the only thing I did that made it any easier was just...really only having enough stuff to fit into a few plastic bags. But I—it was only because of having everyone else there to help me that I didn’t—I don’t even know what I would’ve done on my own. They made it all happen, and I may have felt like death, but I was kept warm and I had my friends there and I ate something pretty much every day, and...and they all definitely kept me alive, because on my own I think that would’ve killed me. I mean, I know I...it was better having people around. People who were my friends. Nothing could’ve made me feel better, but they...they kept me from feeling so much worse.”

He laughs flatly. The rain shifts with a light breeze, shivering through the foliage.

“It was hard for them,” he says slowly. “But I know they wanted to do it. I know they would never have chosen to leave me, even if they knew what it would put them through. I think it was pretty obvious I needed help to make it. I just...I know I can’t return the favor. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, of course I’m also—glad I’ve never had to return the favor, that they’ve never needed it. But it’s frustrating. Because I’m still...I’ve never been as fun as I used to be, or at least not as upbeat, which sounds ridiculous, because I was never exactly that way. Or, I guess I might’ve been sometimes, but moreso when I was the ages when pretty much everyone is. I was always a bit of a downer compared to them, but it got so much worse in the years leading up to the fire, and afterwards...”

He exhales slowly through his teeth.

“I was...completely miserable, and even when that was clearing up a little, I was always so much sadder and so much more scared of everything. Because even before, I knew what could happen to people, and it terrified me, but that was nothing compared to how awful it was to know that those things I had been so afraid of had really happened. I just can’t help worrying about everything, and now of course...nothing that’s happened since has exactly made it any better. And I know they know why I’m like that, but I know it has to be annoying for them. At least sometimes.”

He pinches his tongue between his teeth.

“It’s okay,” he sighs. “I know it’s okay. Maybe I’ll be more...maybe I’ll just be a happier person with Pascal, maybe that’ll bleed into every part of my life. Maybe it’ll help me be braver. I don’t know. It feels like cheating, like I should’ve been better anyways even if we hadn’t gotten together again, but—well, we did, and I...I’ve always liked me as his boyfriend better than me without him.”

He looks at their faces, like they’re looking back at him.

“I haven’t ever been so bad of a person though, have I? I mean, I can be...not so great, and exhausting, and hold people back, and I run from everything, and I can come off a lot colder than I mean or feel, and I can have a short temper, and...well, all sorts of things. But I’ve cared about being a good person, and I’ve cared about people, and about doing good things. And I don’t think I’ve done too badly. Right? I’m not half as great as you guys, but...I...”

The picture doesn’t give him anything. He huffs a laugh through his nose.

“I didn’t use to talk like this, back when we were living at Pascal’s. I didn’t even really look at this picture as often. I’d get it out sometimes and like, say ‘I love you,’ but that was pretty much it. Since I shared a room with Pascal, and the place was just more crowded, and I didn’t really have the picture sitting out like this—it was on a shelf in the closet. It would’ve been pretty hard to have a whole monologue not be overheard or walked in on, and I really would’ve been too embarrassed for words if that’d happened. And I don’t think...I wouldn’t have wanted to do it back then. It would’ve felt too sad even to try. Even now, if I talk about you guys very much, it’ll make me cry soon enough.”

He smiles briefly at their picture as if to ward that danger off.

“I mean, I’m not even talking TO you. I’ve just...over time I’ve always been thinking, like, it’s this instinct that’s still in the back of my mind—how would I talk about something to you guys? I used to have some problem or topic sitting in my head and bring it home and talk to one of you, or both, and I still would find myself doing that, months and years after you died. And I’m doing it now. It’s not nearly the same, because we’re not really talking, you’re not here to listen or say anything back, I’m just talking to myself. But I’m at least sort of doing it the way I might if you were here. I don’t talk the way I did with you anywhere else. So at least I can do it like this.”

He shrugs. As if they could see it. As if he was sitting across from them, and they’d been patiently, silently listening to him all this time.

“But you know what I would do if I was really talking to you like that? If I was really acting the way I would if you were really here?” He laughs. “Well, at first I’d think I was hallucinating, or having some kind of weirdly coherent dream, but in about five whole seconds I’d just freak the fuck out and cry my head off and hold on to you for the next seventeen years.”

He sighs and sits back. If he could really see them again, if he could actually have a real conversation with them—if they could see him again—if he could even just know that they were hearing him, instead of just imagining it...

What would they really say? What would be the first things they’d want to say to him? He to them? He does suspect he’d largely be sobbing and crashing and tripping over all his words, but he’d tell them he loved them, and then what? What if they were back for good? What if they were back for only an hour?

He presses his eyes closed and tunes in to the sounds of the rain and air and occasional cars or voices or footsteps.

He shouldn’t imagine those scenarios. The only thing they do is prove that he misses them, that some part of him always wants to ignore reality and believe he might ever see them again.

He won’t. They’re gone, he can’t have a conversation with them, he can’t show them who he is or what his life is. He can’t even show them that he made it out of the fire. That thought always hurts him worst of all. He already knows they died in the worst kind of terror and agony—it pierces right through to his heart to think that they might’ve been in even more pain at the thought of him being trapped in it, too.

But he’s the only one still hurting.

It feels ridiculous, knowing all this, but still wanting to say hello and goodbye to the picture, or tell it how he feels about the people displayed. But all it needs to do is give him an excuse to speak these things aloud, these thoughts and feelings that swirl around in him with nowhere to go, no way to be said besides this.

“I love you,” he whispers. “I miss you.”

—

Kip is taken by surprise when his chiming phone says the incoming text is from Roy. Out of all his friends, Kate and Pascal are the only ones who he ever really expects regular texts from—Molly doesn’t like messing with the tiny touchscreen keyboards and buttons when she doesn’t have to, though between the use of a stylus and voice commands she’s getting more comfortable with her phone; Wallace always gave Kip the sense that he was never someone who used a phone primarily socially, but rather for work and contact with clients, his texts usually coming off just slightly formal or distanced, apparently not often used to communicate with his friends; and Roy simply usually has too much to say to be effectively put into a little text window, so he generally doesn’t try.

But it’s a text from Roy, all right—to both him and Molly.

“hi guys i forgot m key today!! if one of you can get the front door for me that would be so great! if not its pkay i’ll try to call ben. i should be ther in about half a minute thanks!!!”

“Oh, god, the rain...” Kip groans.

He jumps up and shoves his shoes on and spins in place for a second, looking for his own keys, then shoves them in his front pocket and races out of the apartment.

He takes the steps two at a time, trying to get to the ground floor as fast as he can while remaining reasonably lightfooted and hopefully avoiding tripping over his own feet. He knows it’s no life and death emergency, but the less often Roy’s stitches get wet, the better. His range of motion isn’t too affected whether the attachments are wet or dry, and the thread they use to keep him together is too sturdy to break or unravel from simply being saturated—but Roy has to sit with a hair dryer turned on himself for about half an hour, which is a nuisance for him, and the drying process will always make the threads just a tiny bit more brittle, a tiny bit weaker, a tiny bit closer to snapping—which Kip always worries could happen in some scenario where it would be worse than just an inconvenience.

Slightly short of breath, Kip jogs into the lobby and over to push open the front door.

It’s even nicer to actually be out in the moving air than to just be sitting by his open window—but the raindrops are coming down steadily enough to soak someone walking all the way over from Roy’s work, especially if they possibly did something like forget his umbrella in addition to his keys.

Kip looks left and right along the sidewalk, trying to spot any multicolored, lanky seven and a quarter feet tall monsters headed his way. He feels the nettling stir of concern and quickly tells himself not to be so completely literal about turns of phrase in rushed texts. Sure enough, within the minute Roy comes into view, only half-sheltered by his unsteady hold on a small umbrella, more preoccupied with the plastic box filled with what Kip guesses is the leftover supplies of some ambitious craft for the kids.

“Roy!” He calls to him and lifts a hand in greeting. The steady but gentle rain seems a lot more significant now that he’s thinking of it in terms of Roy’s ten minute walk to and from work. “Do you need me to take that for you!”

“It’s okay!” Roy’s voice travels loud and clear even through the rain. “It’s not too heavy. Thank you!”

It’s apparently so manageable that Roy jogs the rest of the distance over—Kip is about to protest, but resigns himself to it. He steps outside to open the door wide for Roy—it always seems like Roy needs about a four-foot radius of space at any given time, with his bright clothes and brighter personality and long-limbed height and rushing words and ideas.

“Thank you!” Roy says again as he draws up to the doorway, a little out of breath.

Kip gives him a smile and gets a brilliant one in return.

“No problem,” he says. “Molly’s asleep, I think, so I went ahead and ran down here.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” Roy says, stepping inside. “This wasn’t an emergency or anything, and I should’ve said so in my text, only, well, I was kind of holding my phone and my umbrella in the same hand—and anyways, thank you again, I can’t believe I forgot my keys, but I didn’t remember to switch them out of the pockets of the pants I wore yesterday, and I was really distracted this morning because of this craft I was getting all the stuff together for, which is what this is—“ He indicates the box under his arm. “There’s a bag of dry rice left, which we’d been using by dyeing it and then gluing it to paper, but WE can use it for eating, and just some other practical stuff I figured we could use before I need them in some other project—stuff like packaging tape and some paper I figure Molly could use for her art, or—by the way, Molly’s okay, right?”

Kip pauses at the stairwell door, looking back at Roy’s tone and expression of slight worry.

“Yes—what do you mean?” he asks, a little bemused.

“Oh, just that you mentioned she’s asleep, I was wondering if she said she felt sick or anything...”

“Nah, I don’t think so. She just mentioned that she was kind of worn out from the day,” Kip says. “Let me take the box up the stairs.”

Roy acquiesces, and Kip quirks a smile as Roy dips the volume of his voice mid-monologue as they enter their dim apartment. He sets the box down and helps Roy go through it, surveying the items and deciding where they should be put away.

“Oh, I need to tell you—“ Roy walks over to the kitchen doorway, reflexively ducking to stand in within it.

Kip pauses and looks up.

“Remember that group dinner idea? We were kind of thinking about having it on the Friday after next,” he says, a little too casually to be genuinely casual.

Kip blinks. He’d all but forgot in recent days.

“By ‘thinking about,’ do you mean...” He trails off.

“Heh, uh,” Roy shrugs and blushes. “I sort of already got a few people saying they can make it then, so...I guess I’m saying that’s when it’s gonna happen.”

“Okay,” Kip says simply, somewhat belying his slightly elevated pulse. He already feels a sense of pressure to prepare, to put together lists and decide what he’s going to wear and make and say and do and expect. There might be a bit of a sense of fun behind it, except— “Who’s said they’re coming?”

“Wallace is.” Roy leads with it, like he knows that’s Kip’s biggest concern. “And I got Ben the other day, and Kate said she’d come—and I know one or both you guys will probably end up that evening, but she said she’d come over even if she was closing—and Cuddy was there when I visited the café, but she doesn’t know her plans yet, and do you remember Asma? She’s one of the parents, I mentioned it to her because she just had kind of a rough month or two and I don’t think she has many friends, and I wanted to be nice, and she said she’d get a babysitter and come over! So that’s great, she’s really nice and interesting. I, um, I need to ask Louise, and you should ask Pascal!”

Kip tries to exhale his blush and nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I will, I was just telling Pascal we should have him over again sometime this week—“

“Oh, definitely,” Roy says.

Kip flashes a distracted smile. He glances around the room, trying to imagine it fitting maybe ten people, maybe more—however many Roy and Molly might be able to convince to come over. Which, knowing them, is fairly impossible to predict.

“Are you okay?”

His attention snaps back to Roy.

“I—yeah.” He gives him a more solid smile. “Just trying to get my head around it.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, it all just sort of started coming together the last few days,” Roy says. “And I—you know, I asked everyone if they thought they might be able to bring something, to help out, so it’s not like we’ll have to make a full meal for twenty people or anything—“

“Twenty?”

“No—“ Roy laughs. “I was just picking a random number, there’s not twenty people coming—or at least, not so far.”

Kip chews on his lip and nods.

“Don’t worry!” Roy assures him, stepping into the room towards him. “Me and Molly are gonna put everything together. I mean, you don’t even have to stay for it, if you don’t want. You could spend the night with Pascal and avoid the whole thing if you’re not feeling up to it.”

Kip feels a stir of affection for what he knows is a genuine offer to evade the whole thing. Roy is thoughtful and gentle with him, and he appreciates it as much now as he ever did.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, locking eyes with Roy for a moment to make sure he knows he really means it. “It’s fine, though. I know Pascal would like to come. And I said I’d make parfaits, didn’t I. That actually shouldn’t be too bad.”

“You don’t have to,” Roy says quickly.

“I know,” Kip says. “It’s okay. It’d be kind of fun. Don’t think that I’ll be upset the whole time or anything, okay? I—you know, I actually do like doing stuff and seeing people too. It’s just that...sometimes I get certain ways, and I’m not always as great at being social as other people, and you know me—I like to worry, and everything...”

He laughs softly at himself, and Roy laughs too.

“Aw, Kip, I just would want you to really get to be having fun, too. I know you don’t always enjoy being around big groups for too long. You don’t have to worry about hurting our feelings or anything if you don’t want to be involved.”

“Roy, honestly, it’s okay.” Kip puts down the plastic bag he’d been fiddling with and walks around the table to Roy’s side. “I’ll be here for it. And don’t feel like you’re twisting my arm or anything, because obviously you’re not. It’ll be fine.”

He smiles and touches Roy’s wrist.

“I don’t want you to feel pressured at all or anything...”

“I know you don’t,” Kip says. “And thank you so much for that. I just...I know it might be uncomfortable for me, at least part of the time, but you know what? I also know that I’ll be able to handle that. I mean—you know how I am, I can’t deny this kind of thing doesn’t make me at least a little nervous. But I know it’ll be okay anyways.”

Roy lights up so much that Kip can sense the impending hug before either of them even moves.

“Kip! You’re amazing!”

And the hug comes, and Kip laughs and hugs him back.

—

When Molly is up and talking with Roy on the couch, Kip hears their conversation shift to the topic of the dinner-party-potluck-hangout—and Roy recounts Kip’s reaction to the news that it’s less than two weeks away with evident happiness. Kip smiles to himself as he pushes the rice around the pan with the spatula.

Then they’re talking about who they might convince to come over, and Kip bites nervously at his lip at the thought of sharing an evening with both Wallace and Ben. He pretends that staring attentively at the rice as it heats is a necessary, foremost activity, and then turns his focus to the bread baking in the oven.

—

Kip wakes up on a little burst of adrenaline, shoving himself upright and half out of bed before processing the reality of the situation. Still, he takes his phone and glances through his most recent texts to confirm that his everything he thought was happening was a dream. And he closes his eyes and falls back to the mattress upon realizing that it was—he’s still got the goodnight text from Pascal, there’s no mention from anyone of any recent disasters.

His plethora of what he can consider “usual nightmares” seems to consist of dozens of scenarios, mixed and matched elements and as many different roles and situations for him to find himself dropped into, and seemingly endless ways to remix the presentation of his worst memories and fears.

The one he’d just had was a variation that straddled the line between the quietly horrible ones and the type that would send him into a panic, make him thrash and cry in his sleep. It always seems to start with his normal, current routine, but soon he becomes aware one-by-one of friends’ disappearances—that they never made it home after he last saw them, that someone said they hadn’t been seen for months, didn’t he know? And one by one he’d find himself in front of some burned-down building, still gently smoldering, a blackened skeleton, collapsed into a pile of rubble and ash. He’d turn around in the café to find one corner fire-scorched, he’d glance up and see columns of thick smoke rising into the clouds from some unknown locations interspersed in the distance.

The last thing he remembered before waking up was fearing that Pascal was gone, racing to his apartment even as he saw the smoke rising dead ahead, even as he saw the hollowed-out building, even as he plunged into chest-deep debris, struggling uselessly forward, screaming for Pascal, for help, with a failing, smoke-smothered voice. He was afraid that Pascal was dead, he was afraid that Pascal had been taken, and then he’d woken himself up with a sudden, actual cry.

He checks the last text from Pascal again. It would be even better to have rolled over and looked at him, heard his deep, slow breathing, reached out and brushed some hair from his face, felt his warmth. But Kip knows he’s asleep just a mile away, that everyone is fine, that everything he’d felt had just been part of the dream.

He sighs, drawing the blankets back up to his chest. The nightmare lingers in an unusually strong chill around him. He takes long, steady breaths until it disperses.

—

Kip is working the register, handling the orders and distributing out comestibles as needed, while Kate works as the barista behind him, moving in a practiced rhythm between the espresso machine and minifridge and stacks of cups and lids. Kip is still recovering his own sense of flow—after having to spend a minute or two explaining the technical difference between a latte and cappuccino—when he has to take the order of a girl whose flirtation lacks the subtlety he needs to avoid feeling uncomfortable while trying deflect it.

The blush doesn’t quite fade from his face until he’s finally taken the last order and retreats to help Kate with the rest of the drinks. Twenty or so minutes later, when the front is sparsely populated and he and Kate are chatting through some routine, repetitive catchup tasks, he complains about being made to feel awkward when people try to hit on him, and she points out that he can say he has a boyfriend now, and he counters that he could’ve been saying that all along, but it’s just completely weird trying to plow through an order while the customer refuses to move things along or stop dropping “come here often?” type lines or put too much effort into clearly-not-accidentally brushing his hand when passing over their card. But soon enough Kate stops teasing him in favor of commiserating about suffering through unwanted advances while on the clock, and their conversation turns to the broad subject of less than pleasant interactions in general.

Their talking makes him feel more at ease, as it usually does, and an hour or two passes without incident or difficulty.

And then there is something of a notable occasion when Wallace comes in. Kip doesn’t even realize it until he walks up from the back and finds out exactly who Kate’s been talking to for the last five minutes.

“Hey, Wallace,” he says automatically. He might’ve been able to avoid blushing again if it wasn’t for the knowing glance Kate sends his way.

“Hi, Kip! Good to see you,” Wallace says with a warm smile that does Kip no favors at the moment.

“Thanks,” Kip responds quickly. “How—I, uh—how are you?”

“I’m doing pretty good. And Kate was telling me that you guys have been doing okay here so far.”

“Yeah, we’ve have—it’s alright. I mean, it’s been okay,” he stumbles.

“That’s awesome,” Wallace laughs. “You know, I used to only work in an office, and it’s only now that I’m actually working with different clients face-to-face each day. I can’t guess how much of a mess it can be having to deal with, like, dozens of people every time you work. It still makes me nervous—it doesn’t ever come the most naturally to me. I feel like I definitely wouldn’t make it here.”

Kip meets Kate’s eyes for a moment, and he gives a laugh and a shrug.

“It can be rough sometimes,” he says. “It’s still going okay, though? Your work?”

“Oh—yeah, it is,” Wallace laughs and rubs his shoulder. “I’m starting to get settled into it, I think, and I like working for a local company, and—uh, one that’s not, you know...”

Kip bites his tongue and gives a brief nod, glancing away.

“It’s really thanks to you that my job is going so smoothly,” Wallace says, and Kip looks back at him. “I mean, when I was interviewing, they said they’d heard of me. Because of what we did. And not just the people at the office—a lot of clients know me now, too. And it helps that I’m working actually based in C now, not from an all-human company based in A—“

Kate snorts.

“Yeah, that was a bit laughable from the start, Wally,” she says.

“Yeah, I get that NOW,” Wallace sighs. “I mean, I’m still pretty much just at the top of the ranks amongst the most inexperienced workers there, because even though I already had a few years experience before...”

“You were in A,” Kip finishes. “All your life.”

“Heh, yeah...” Wallace blushes a little. “That whole thing.”

“Mm.” Kate folds her arms and leans against the half-wall. “Well, it’s great that you can finally, like, actually get settled in here. For real, this time.”

“Yeah!” Wallace laughs again. “Yeah, I really think it’s—actually going well.”

Kip starts to wish he had an excuse to leave them both to the conversation he’d inadvertently interrupted, but then Wallace speaks to him again.

“Oh, Roy talked to me a couple of days ago about the get-together at your guys’ place?” he says. “I told him I’d come. I hope that’s okay?”

Kip’s face grows warm.

“It’s okay,” he affirms.

“Yeah, I’ll make sure to be there too,” Kate says. “It’d be funny if we both end up closing that night, huh?”

That makes Kip genuinely laugh.

“God, I kind of wish we would,” he says. “Just show up like hours after everyone else—“

“I’d make sure to have accidentally thrown a coffee or two across your shirt, too—“

“God, brutal...”

Wallace giggles, and Kip glances reflexively over at him, only to make momentary eye contact and blush all over again. He wishes that, for all the increased control he’s gained over his ice, he could manage to be a little bit cooler overall as well.

“Ha, well, I should probably order before someone else comes in, huh?” Wallace says, turning back to Kate.

He asks for two mochas to go, one with raspberry, one with orange, and Kip starts making them even before the order is finished coming through. He wonders which is Wallace’s and which is Ben’s, and tries to make them both as good as he can, as if it’s some form of penance for his quiet shame at still having feelings for Wallace. He closes his eyes and laughs under his breath as he runs the espresso machine, imagining trying to make up with Ben just by offering him especially good coffees.

He imagines giving Ben some of Pascal’s tea as a friendly gesture, and blushes harder than ever. Even just running the scenario through his head, the self-consciousness manages to tighten his chest. He shakes himself out of it as the milk foams up in the metal cup. He doesn’t understand it—why Ben can still always make him feel so awkward and out of place, or why he himself still can’t fully shake the desire to be on good terms with Ben.

He puts the drinks in a carrier and hands them to Wallace with a smile that’s only a tiny bit forced, and Wallace wishes them both a good rest of the day, and Kate starts laughing at Kip almost before the door even shuts behind him.

“What?” Kip demands, throwing out a hand. “That is NOT easy to deal with.”

“Please.” She rolls her eyes at him. “It really kind of is! He’s too nice to ever be that much to handle.”

“I know,” he huffs. “But it’s still hard. I’m starting to hate it.”

“C’mon, it’ll be fine. Just don’t worry about it so much.”

“Yeah...” He sighs. “Stupid feelings. It’s bullshit.”

“Tell me about it,” Kate says. She shoots a smile at him. “Help me take out the trash? To help get your mind off things.”

“Oh, god,” Kip groans. He doesn’t bother mentioning that he does suspect it’ll help.

—

Kip runs into both Wallace and Ben when he gets home that evening. They’re talking quietly in front of Wallace’s door, and Kip once again has managed to screw himself over by being too lost in thought to glance around as he walked in the lobby of the building. And he startles when he looks over and sees them, nerves suddenly flooded with a little dose of stress, a pulse of cold. He stops mid-pace and wavers, realizing he can’t possibly go forward or turn back without being seen.

Sure enough, Wallace laughs at something Ben says, and Kip starts slowly forward again, gripping his apron and phone, and Wallace sees him.

“Ah—hey, Kip, work alright?” he says.

“Oh, uh—ye-yeah, it was,” Kip stammers. He smiles quickly, then flashes another small smile as Ben turns around to look at him. “Hey, Ben.”

His voice comes out quieter than he’d like.

“Hey,” Ben returns, his voice typically quiet as well.

It’s a small comfort that Wallace is blushing a little.

“Thanks for the coffees,” Wallace says. “You always make them so good.”

“Yeah, it was really good,” Ben agrees.

“You’re welcome,” Kip says, undeniably a little flattered.

There’s a beat, and Kip once again feels out of place.

“Uh, I’ll...I was just heading up to the apartment,” he says, scratching his arm just to give himself something to do with his hands. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Right—okay,” Wallace says. “See you!”

“Bye,” Ben says.

“Bye,” Kip echoes, and turns and walks away as quickly as he can without it being too quickly.

He’s a little proud of himself for being able to shake off the tension in just the time it takes to reach the apartment. Roy and Molly are also in the middle of a conversation, both laughing, and Kip is at once cheered up by it. And then they both hug him, and that cheers him up even more.

—

“Shit—“

Kip recalls in layers that he’d been in the middle of a miserable dream where once again, Pascal had died. He hears someone in the apartment—it frightens him momentarily before he recognizes the sound of Molly’s movements, and realizes that must be what woke him up. He glances at the clock—she must be getting ready to leave for work.

He rubs the bridge of his nose and sighs heavily, trying to push his half-awake thoughts away from the the dream’s mindset.

After a minute he rolls out of bed, slips into socks, a t-shirt, and old pajama pants, and quietly exits his room.

“Kip!” Molly puts a hand on her chest and exhales. “Jeez, you scared me—“

“Sorry,” he laughs. “I woke up and figured I might as well say hi before you went in.”

“Oh—I dropped my keys in the kitchen, that’s probably what woke you up—I’m sorry.”

“Nah, don’t worry.” He shrugs. “You probably did me a favor. And I usually get back to sleep pretty easily.”

“How is that a favor?” she laughs.

“Oh—bad dream.” He shrugs again.

“Ah, gotcha.” Molly steps into her shoes. “Those still bothering you a lot?”

“Eh...they sort of seem to have a kind of on-week, off-week pattern. Some are worse than others, though, as always. It was kind of the usual just now. Just a regular nightmare, not...anything worse.”

“Mm... They’d been getting better the past few years, hadn’t it. Before Wallace moved here.”

“Yeah, it definitely started getting worse again then, but—I mean, it’s never been exactly as bad as it used to be. I sort of, uh, got used to it I guess? And I can do stuff like this, y’know? I usually get up and make a cup of tea or read a chapter of a book or something.”

“Hey, nice,” she says, clapping him on the back—he grips the counter to brace himself against it. “But, you know, me and Roy don’t mind helping out any time of day if it ever IS worse.”

“I know,” Kip says. “And thank you guys for that. I do usually do that thing if it’s kind of bad—trying to fall asleep on the couch sometimes. It’s easier—I guess it’s about being in a bigger space? I don’t know.”

“Oh, yeah—well, whatever works, huh.” She walks over to the cabinet and takes out a bowl, then a box of cereal.

“Yeah.” He gives a short laugh. “So—what about you?”

“Hm?”

“How are you doing?”

“Oh—I’m fine,” she says with a slight sigh.

“Yeah?” he prompts.

“Yeah, I actually am,” she says. “I just had kinda a rough day at work yesterday, and I’m looking forward to my day off. It wasn’t anything terrible—just one of those days where it seemed like everything was going wrong.”

“Ugh, yeah, I hear you.”

“But generally...I feel like things have been good.”

“Good.”

“It’s like...I’m just pretty happy with the way stuff is right now, you know? I felt like I might need some time to figure out if I was really okay with things, but it’s been a little while now, and I’m pretty sure I really do like the whole routine I have.”

“Aw, that’s great.” Kip leans against the wall as a smile flickers through his expression. “I always hope you guys are really doing okay...I mean, I know you are, but...”

“Yeah.” Molly laughs and sits down at the counter. “We really are okay. Roy—you know he worries over you a lot sometimes, but he sees that you’re doing better, and he’s really doing solidly well too, I think.”

“Good,” Kip sighs gently. “I thought so, but it’s good to hear it from you.”

“I know, it makes a difference hearing it from someone else, huh? But really, I think the thing that most lets me know everything’s alright is that I just—I really feel like things are going to be okay. With this level of confidence I never quite had before. Like, even if I didn’t feel fine with my routine, it’d be okay, because it just...feels like everything will be. Or at least, everything is way, way more manageable now.”

Kip laughs.

“Yeah...” he says. “Yeah, that’s a nice feeling.”

The conversation pauses for a bit, Kip resting against the wall, Molly slowly eating her cereal.

“So,” Kip says after a minute. “I told myself I’d bring it up just one more time—about how you guys should definitely go on a vacation. At least a little one.”

“Oh, right...”

“I won’t pressure you anymore after this,” Kip says jokingly.

“No, it’s okay, it’s not that I’m against it, or think it’s a bad idea or anything—I just sort of get on a roll with things and never quite get around to stopping,” she laughs. “But I have actually been talking about it with Roy. He likes the idea, too. Maybe in a couple months or so? With enough time to plan, and stuff.”

“Right, yeah...” Kip blushes a little.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Molly says. “We’ll definitely be here that week.”

Kip blushes further, as surprised as always that she picked up on exactly what he was thinking.

“I’ll be alright,” he says.

“I know. We’ll be here anyways.”

Kip laughs under his breath and drops his head slightly. Molly briefly turns the conversation to the planned get-together, and then to the idea of having Pascal over again. And then she gets her things together to leave, and Kip wishes her a good workday, and Molly gives him a quick one-armed hug before going out the door.

Kip stands in the empty room for a moment after she’s gone. The quietness and solitude doesn’t feel very intimidating; he figures he’s recovered well enough from the nightmare. He looks around, picturing the room with a dozen or more people in it—their seating arrangements may be somewhat lacking, but at least the scarcity of furnishings will provide more space. He can only hope that other inhibitions of his will similarly manage to somehow contribute indirectly.

When he goes back into his bedroom, he picks up his phone and looks at his texts from Pascal again.

—

It doesn’t take Kip too long to feel relaxed after getting back into bed, but he doesn’t quite feel himself crossing the threshold into the process of falling asleep.

He decides that an orgasm could benefit him in multiple ways—though he’d gotten off twice the day before, his even-more-heightened sex drive has kept steady despite his even-more-regular masturbation. He breathes deeply, gazes up at the ceiling, and thinks of Pascal until his pulse travels low in his stomach and then drifts further down between his legs.

He rubs himself through the fabric of his pants while he thinks of being close to Pascal, looking at him just inches away from his face, his body, his chest, his stomach, his dick; touching him; kissing him, kissing all over his face, his lips, sucking on his tongue, pressing his teeth against his throat, moving his mouth across his chest; grasping his hot, full erection, pressing it between his thighs, grinding back on it, licking up its length; being held in Pascal’s arms, lifted up to lean against his chest, to wrap his legs around his waist.

When he starts growing hard enough, he gets up and sheds his clothes again, puts them back in the drawers and takes out the bottle of lube. He pours a few drops in his hand and strokes himself absently with the other while waiting for it to warm. He distantly considers, not for the first time, buying a sleeve to help himself jerk off—the soft, textured, encompassing hold of Pascal’s arm makes his own hand seem barely adequate by comparison.

He gets back on the bed and leans against the wall, closes his eyes, and wraps his slick fingers around his erection, squeezing gently and rubbing his thumb hard into the tip, making himself start and shiver.

“Pascal,” he breathes softly.

He’s slightly lost in it when an impulsive idea hits him—and he figures the only time he might act on it is now, when he’s halfway to orgasm and literally aching for Pascal. He slows his strokes to a stop and drags himself over to kneel by his bedside table and pick up his phone. He somewhat clumsily opens the camera and then scrutinizes the shot he can get by propping up the phone against a book weighed down by the lube, making minute changes to the angle. He turns on the string of lights for better visibility, and before he can overthink it, starts recording a video.

He bites his lip and glances at the tiny lens of the camera, then ducks his head and sits back on his heels, opening his knees a little. He brushes his hand over his chest, lightly stroking his fingertips across his nipple, and slowly closes his eyes again as he pushes out any self-consciousness, replacing it with the thought of Pascal. He imagines Pascal in front of him, getting to show him this, letting him watch.

He knows that seeing this would turn Pascal on—he knows he’s desperately attractive in Pascal’s eyes, the same way Pascal is to him. Pascal loves him and his body and his pleasure. Kip thinks of Pascal becoming aroused enough by just watching to start touching himself as well, an arm down the front of his pants, then pushing his waistband down to give himself more room. Both of them sitting in front of each other, longing to touch but instead sharing the tension, using it to push themselves higher, further.

“Pasc,” he murmurs, and sits all the way back again, stretching his legs out and apart, taking hold of his dick and pumping it smoothly.

He works himself intently, but more slowly than he might’ve otherwise, deliberately focusing more on building his arousal than bringing himself quickly to climax, even once he knows he could. He breathes deeply, resting his head against the wall, stroking with one hand and cupping himself with the other—then slips his hand down a few inches further into the split of his ass, leans back more heavily, feeling out the dip in his soft, warm skin. He pushes gently, spasmodically clenching at his own touch, and receives a little flow of pleasure for it. He sighs a moan.

Minutes later, he’s curled slightly over, two fingers fully inside himself, rocking steadily against them while working his dick at about twice that pace, tightening his grip, giving a slight twist, teasing the head. His own imagination is ramped up too, providing him with phantom sensations of kisses at his mouth, Pascal kneeling over him, his narrowed arm pushing up into Kip, leaning in towards Kip’s erection, parting his lips.

“Ah—fuck—“ Kip moans. “Please...”

He hears his breathing become louder and faster as he climbs towards the approaching orgasm—he wants to just go ahead and go for it, but he knows he can get even closer, he doesn’t want to risk disrupting this buildup, pushing too soon and having to try the approach all over again—

“Pas—“

He digs his feet into the mattress and thrusts up into his hand while nudging his prostate with the tip of his curled middle finger. He forgets to breathe for a moment and cries out softly with his exhale, gasping loudly with his inhale.

“Oh—yes—oh, fuck me, oh yes—Pascal—“ He squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lip, practically feeling the heavy rhythm of Pascal’s body moving his own. “Oh god, yes—“

His voice is low and throaty, he gives a long groan and sinks an inch or two further down the wall. And then with a sudden burst of drive, he pushes himself back up onto his knees in one motion, bearing down harder against his fingers, leaning into the motion of his hips, bucking hard into his tight wrap of his hand—

He gives a wordless cry, cut short by his breath catching, and falls slightly forward as he cums into his hand. He bites hard on his lower lip as the orgasm grips him, then finds his limbs shuddering as he relaxes in its gradual ebb.

He holds still for a moment, bowed a foot and a half above the mattress, panting for air. And then he brings his hands onto his thighs and sits back up, head held high, and gives a quiet laugh when he glances over at his phone. Smiling once or twice to himself, he wipes his cum onto his chest, swings his legs off the bed, and stands up, considering the camera for a moment. He steps over to it and turns it off with his knuckle.

—

His tiredness catches up with him in the warmth of the shower. When he gets out and dries off, he reenters his room and considers seeing how the video turned out, but decides to save that for later. He burrows under his blankets, nuzzles his head against the pillow, and feels close to sleep within minutes.

—

Kip texts Pascal before going to work that afternoon, saying that he’d like to have a phone call later, even just a several-minute one, to hear his voice. And he tells him he may or may not have something to send him after he’s done with work, and that he hopes Pascal’s day is going okay, and invites him to vent if it isn’t.

He gets a text back as he’s buttoning up his work shirt, thanking him for the kind message, assuring him that he’s doing well, and saying that it would be lovely to get to talk tonight.

It’s enough to make Kip blush and bring a small smile to his face every few seconds, all the way to the café.

Kate’s shift only overlaps with his for an hour and a half, but it’s long enough for her to catch on to his distraction and tease him a little about it. But beyond assuring her it’s no big deal, he doesn’t delve into any of the details—although she’d be his pick, second only to Eno, if he absolutely HAD to tell someone he’d filmed himself masturbating for his boyfriend, he feels more inclined to keep it to himself for the moment. It’s hardly as though he feels all that embarrassed—just a little self-conscious, and definitely a bit nervous about being in uncharted territory. The most they ever used to be able to do was the rare phone call that crossed from flirtation into something just a little bit heavier, and even now, they haven’t yet done anything like sending photos—even their texts on the subject have remained somewhat restrained, despite the reality of their sexual exploits.

He just hopes the video turned out decently—if so, he figures he might actually be excited about sending it to Pascal.

To his surprise, it seems like his mild anxieties over the quality of the video make the shift go by quicker than usual, and he closes up without any problem. He checks his phone as he leaves and reads the text Pascal sent him about an hour earlier, telling him he’d closed up and gotten home alright, and that looking forward to their call had kept his mood lifted ever since Kip asked him about it.

A little frisson travels through Kip at the way the simple promise of a short conversation, just hearing each other’s actual voices for a bit, is valuable enough to Pascal to make him happy. He texts back to say he’s on his way home himself, and that Pascal’s been on his mind all evening.

—

Kip plugs in his headphones and hugs his knees to his chest, procrastinates for a moment by opening a half-written note, and then finally just dives into the video with a few determined taps of the finger.

The first shot is of his torso moving away from the camera, and in the next second his mostly-hard dick comes into view as he leans back up. He hardly looks graceful scooting further back on the mattress, but fussing over the angle of the camera seems to have given him a decent shot, and he doesn’t look half bad in the soft, forgiving glow of his lights. The top of his head is cut off by the frame once or twice as he straightens up or adjusts his position, but it’s nothing disastrous or even distracting—the focus is unambiguously all on the action given to his dick, the motion of his hands.

What surprises Kip the most is the almost-confidence shown on his face every time he looks directly at the camera—he figures he remembers being too turned on for nervousness after a point. His voice is a bit louder than he’d expect, too, almost jarringly so at times. But maybe it’s just him. What he knows for sure is that the video is good; he’s even getting slightly turned on just by watching himself. Even when a shift of his weight partially blocks the view of the action, other details supply all necessary information about what’s going on and how he’s enjoying it. He feels his heartbeat strengthen as he starts fingering himself in the video, and as everything intensifies towards the end—his voice, the force of his movements, the arousal shining through his expression—Kip feels his dick twitch at a few climactic moments, and he practically shivers watching himself orgasm, infused with the memory of it. The camera even picks up a reflective glint of a drop of cum on the side of his palm—it’s perfect.

Kip sits back and closes his eyes until he calms down, then smooths himself over and opens up his email app. He puts “this is what i just texted you about” in the subject line, a single heart as the body of the email, attaches the video, takes a breath, and sends it to Pascal.

Immediately he opens his texts with Pascal and sends off “i emailed you a video i took. it’s a little under ten minutes long.” followed by “(not your work email)” and then buries his face in his hands, feeling the warmth of his cheeks.

He collapses slowly onto the mattress, letting out a low groan. He stays there for a minute or two or three, eyes squeezed shut, grimacing slightly as his nerves catch up to him. He dismisses several new concerns that spring up, telling himself Pascal has seen him naked and hard hundreds upon hundreds of times, has seen him cum, has fucked him up down and sideways, that there’s no reason he’ll somehow hate it just because it’s in video format—tells himself that he’d watched it before sending it, and if it passed his own self-aware scrutiny, surely Pascal won’t find it unwatchable—tells himself that Pascal is attracted to him, that if anyone can enjoy a video of Kip getting off, it’ll be Pascal.

He sits back up and glances at his phone: no new texts since the ones he sent.

“Oh god,” he whispers. He knows Pascal has to be actually watching the video. And in his head he’s replaying it too, suddenly questioning every moment, every element. He glances at his phone again.

Kip gets up and flees his room, going into the safety of the kitchen, where he figures it’ll be a tiny bit easier to cope if Pascal responds in any less than ideal way—laughs it off, maybe, or even worse, responds with bemusement, asking what was that? Why on earth would you do this?

Pascal won’t respond like that. He knows he won’t. But he’s tense. What if, though. Maybe it’s just not his thing. Maybe it’s bad. Maybe he’s not in the mood right now, it won’t have the appeal.

Kip returns momentarily to his room when he changes his mind and puts the phone in his back pocket, deciding he’d rather know when a text comes in than be held in suspense as it lies in wait for him. Then he goes back to the kitchen and works on making himself half a sandwich, which somehow seems to help his efforts to convince himself his worries are just silliness.

Roy passes through the room and changes course when he sees Kip, coming over to chat with him for a minute about nothing in particular. Kip is especially glad for it.

His phone vibrates quietly in his pocket as they talk, once, then again after a moment’s pause, then almost immediately after that. Kip tenses up just slightly, feels just a little jittery, but in the back of his mind he knows that it must mean Pascal enjoyed it. The tension begins transforming into excitement.

He makes himself finish the sandwich without looking at his phone. When he goes back into his room, he takes the time to first get out of his work clothes and instead slip into a soft pair of pajama pants and a roomy sweater, then a pair of fuzzy socks. He takes the phone out of the work pants as he quickly refolds them, then curls up on the bed with it.

He draws a slow inhale and turns on the phone’s display. The texts are brief enough that the thumbnail shows the entirety of them:

“kip holy fuvking shit”

“oh mh god.”

“oh my god kip”

“!!!!!!”

“!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“fuck!!!!!!!”

Kip blushes and feels a gentle wave of pride diffuse into a gentle thrill; he grins to himself and drops his head back onto the pillow as he lets go of the insecurity that tried to tell him he had anything to worry about.

—

“Hey, Pasc. How’s it going?”

“Hey—it’s, um, it’s definitely going pretty good, you?”

“I’m doing great getting to hear from you.”

“Awesome, me too.”

“...You liked the video?”

“God, yes. I, uh, will definitely have to watch it again after this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re amazing. That was so...just beyond anything. I don’t even know how to describe it. You are so, so fucking hot, I’m so lucky...”

“Aw—thanks, I’m really glad to know you like it.”

“I love it. It’s the best.”

“Good, I—uh, I was hoping it would be cool to send it to you. I thought it turned out okay.”

“Yeah—yeah, it did. And thank you so much for sending it. You really just—wow. I’m totally in love with it. You’re amazing. I mean...holy shit.”

“Haha—“

“Really, you just—you kill me, Kip.”

“Like you’re not impossible to handle, either. I was thinking of you that whole time, you know, even before I started filming.”

“Yeah, I could tell—and, by the way, it’s SO hot to hear you say my name while you jerk off.”

“Heh, thanks.”

“It’s amazing getting to see that. You’re so beautiful when you’re getting off, Kip. You’re just...you’re beautiful.”

“Jeez, Pasc, you’re making me blush.”

“It’s beautiful when you do that, too.”

“Haha—aw, thank you...”

“It’s true.”

“Mm, yeah, I believe you.”

“Good...I wish I was there so I could say all this in person.”

“Ugh, that’d be nice. This is good, though, hearing your voice and all. I think I needed that.”

“Yeah, I like hearing you, too. It makes you feel close. Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh. I’ve just been having dreams. If I can’t wake up in bed with you, at least getting to hear you is pretty good. But don’t worry, it’s not too bad. You know.”

“Yeah... It’d be so good if we could sleep together. I’m so glad we got to for a few nights, but I really wanna do it again soon.”

“Fuck, so do I. I mean, I’m off tomorrow, but I’m not exactly free, because I’m going to see Eno in the afternoon. But I ought to be back around five. I could come over when you close, maybe take you out somewhere if you feel like it, or just hang out or something. I wish I had the next day off so I could stay over and sleep in, but I work the next morning, so...”

“Ugh, yeah. It’s awesome enough just getting to be with you in any way we can manage, though, don’t worry. Like, that’d be fantastic if we could meet up when the shop closes. That makes tomorrow feel better. Even though it’s still today.”

“Well, good. That’s what I’m here for. Also—we should figure out some time for you to come over here again this week—Molly and Roy want to see you, and it’s fun having all of us hanging out again.”

“Man, yeah, that’d be great, let’s do it!”

“Oh, and have either of them talked to you about the whole, like, gathering Roy’s been masterminding? It’s in just under two weeks from now, apparently. Next next Friday. People are coming over and all. If you want to come, you totally can, and Roy said to make sure and ask you.”

“Oh, yeah? I don’t think there was a definite date last time I heard about it. I mean, you want me to come, or...?”

“C’mon, I always like having you around. Even moreso if you’re getting to do something that’s fun for you. Don’t feel like you have to come just for my sake if you can’t make it, but if you want to, then you should absolutely be here.”

“Well—I mean, sure. I haven’t really been to anything even close to a party since I came here...I think I’d like to come, even if I only know a couple of people. I mean, you guys’ll be there, that’s good enough of an excuse, honestly.”

“Ha, yeah, we will be. It was really nice actually, Roy even told me I didn’t have to stay in the apartment for it—I mean, not in like a ‘I’m hoping you won’t be here’ way—at least I hope, haha—but just because, uh, well, you know how I am sometimes. I’ve decided I’m definitely gonna be there, but it was really nice anyways. I’m just glad he didn’t, like, worry that I’d just be a walking mood-killer or something. I mean, maybe he does, and maybe I will be, but either way, it’s nice that he doesn’t act like it.”

“No, as if he’d actually hope you wouldn’t be there, I bet he’s really excited you will be.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I know he is, I just...I mean, I know they love me and they know I love them, but I mean, I’m me, and I know that it’s kind of annoying for them to deal with sometimes, even if they love me anyways.”

“Aw, Kip...”

“It’s okay, I’m glad they put up with me, I’m just hoping I don’t drop the ball for some reason. Like, I know I’ll go, because—like I told Roy, I know that even if it’s uncomfortable, it’ll just be uncomfortable. Even if I have a bad night, it’ll just be one night. I know I’LL be fine, I just—if it IS hard for me, I don’t want that to bleed out into everyone who’s trying to enjoy themselves.”

“What is it, is it the number of people who might be there? I know you haven’t been as comfortable with being stuck in big groups...”

“Since there started to be that risk of my having a breakdown in the middle of them?” Kip finishes, laughing. “That didn’t help. It’s kind of about that, yeah, and sometimes I’m just—it’s just a day when I’m already tired and would rather just hole up in my room, and I get kind of all frazzled if I can’t, and—there’ll probably be a few people I don’t really know, but—well, Wallace will be there, and Ben, and I figured they would be because they just have to come upstairs, and it’s fine, I know it’ll be fine. But, you know. I still feel a bit...”

“Awkward?”

“To say the least, yeah. It’s not THAT big of a deal, and it’s not like I’d rather they didn’t come, I’m just. Not comfortable yet. And that’s my own fault, but it’s too late to undo it now. I’d...just like to... I don’t know. It feels like I’ll at least have to be avoiding one-on-one interaction with them. Which I guess should be manageable enough? I’ll just spill a drink on myself or make some excuse to go to the kitchen or something.”

“Ha, you’re clever—but hey, they won’t really want to make it uncomfortable either, huh? I doubt you’ll be cornered by anyone. And I’ll be there too, I’ll help you out. You’ll be okay, and I want you to be able to have fun, too.”

“Yeah, I can, I’ll definitely try—I mean, it’s not like I DON’T like parties or anything, because I do, as long as I feel like I have a little space, but I—you know, I can be nervous at the same time, too. Still, I—I feel like I’ve just generally been better since I’m with you again, you know? I’m settled down a bit more than I was. I mean, it’d already been getting better, just...slowly. It can kind of come and go. And it’s been—I’ve been happier, you know, being with you. Obviously.”

“Aw, Kip, that’s awesome to hear.”

“Ha, like you didn’t know that already!”

“Well, maybe I could guess, but still.”

“Yeah. I mean, it’ll be fine. I have to worry and stress a bit, because I’m me, but it’s not that much, and I know it’ll be fine.”

“It will be. Everything’ll be fine.”

“Mm, yeah. I mean, you’ll be there, and Roy and Molly will get to have a great time, and I can just go to the kitchen and invent something to give everyone whenever I need a break or whatever.”

“Yeah, see, sounds great already.”

“Anyway—tomorrow. You and me. I want to bring you something. What would you like? I’ll bring you a lemonade smoothie, coffee, a piece of cake, both, anything. Or surprise you. Or both.”

“Aw, love...”

“C’mon, is there anything you’ve been especially wanting when you’re in the middle of the workday? Sometimes I spend an hour or so wanting a cornbread muffin or fruit salad or whatever. I wanna bring you something.”

“But I already get to see you, I don’t need anything extra.”

“Aw, please? I’d really like to, it’d be fun. I can just surprise you if you want. Okay, pretend I didn’t say anything and be surprised instead.”

“Ha—alright, I will.”

“Cool. Thanks. I love you.”

“I love you back.”

—

Though they’re connected to nothing, Kip wears a pair of headphones for the entire train ride to B. He’s already reading, and the bubble around him only grows as the proportion of monster to human passengers plummets, but he wants another element signaling that he shouldn’t be interacted with—and implying that he can’t be talked to, even if someone tried.

Pascal sends him a couple of texts partway through the ride during what must be his lunch break—one in particular casually saying he’s already had a few sessions of quality time with Kip’s video. That sparks in Kip’s stomach with a mix of butterflies and kneejerk arousal; he rests his book carefully on his lap and tries to assume a mask of more coolheadedness than his blush might suggest.

He does feel pointedly lonely a few minutes after Pascal’s text that says he’s going back to the shop. He wants to be with Pascal, physically be beside him again, that much he knows. And he misses Eno, who tends to feel so-close-yet-so-far on these train rides, and all his friends are back in C while he’s making his foray into B, he’s still awkward with Wallace, and already the train is almost all humans, almost all of whom are carefully avoiding the most indirect interactions with him, averting their eyes when they’re close, casting glances and overt stares at him from the other side of the car.

It helps in these situations to think of the smiles his friends get when they see him, but it hurts a bit too. To think of the way Pascal looks at him, and touches him, and responds with the deepest, realest warmth to his presence, how it gives him the complete opposite feeling as sitting here, chest a little tight, subconsciously monitoring all his movements, his posture, how he does and doesn’t react to things around him. For about half an hour, it feels like he ceases to be real, and can only be this role as The Monster On The Train, and then The Monster On The Streets Of B, until he slips inside Eno’s door. Even the human patients he sometimes crosses paths with treat him with a basic respect in there, the suffocation of B momentarily lifted.

He’s at least grateful he’s done this so many times over the years that he can no longer be as afraid as he was the first several times he rode the train to B completely on his own. It was just too draining to have to be that stressed the whole time—but he only numbed himself to it, tuned it out, never became really comfortable with it. Every time he starts to think he’s just going to be put through the same performance every time, some wild card comes up again to remind him he can’t get comfortable even if he wanted to. Being shoved past too roughly to be accidental, being openly and continuously glared at by some human and having to gauge whether they’ll try to follow him, being harassed and knowing he’s on his own to handle it.

He at least knows now that there’s nothing that these people can do to him that’s beyond his ability to defend himself fully against. It’s not insignificant, even if it doesn’t really let him feel more at ease.

It takes him a few minutes to get back into the flow of reading, but when he does manage it, the sense of isolation softens a little, until the anticipation of his nearing stop comes in to take its place. He looks out the window, listens to the announcements, and imagines asking Eno about his week.

—

“I made a batch of lemon cookies last night. Completely coincidental that I happened to make a double batch, and that they’re excellent, and that you’re just the person I’d like to give some to.”

“Coincidental?” Kip repeats, setting his bag down. “As in, you accidentally doubled a recipe?”

“Sure—slip of the arithmetic, happens all the time.”

Kip wrinkles his nose at Eno while simultaneously letting slip half a smile.

“But enough about my excellent baking that you cherish—“ Eno sinks down into his desk chair, casually crosses a leg, and sets Kip’s folder on his desk. “I’m ready to go, if you’re ready.”

Kip sits down on the chaise.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“How’s your week gone—did anything come up you wanted to begin with?”

“Not especially...” Kip pivots and slides his legs onto the slight curve of the cushions, then lowers himself onto the inclined headrest. “It’s been pretty solid, really. I’m doing really well with Pascal, still. I don’t think that’s going to fade out in a month or two or anything.”

“That’s good,” Eno says. “Not very surprising, huh?”

“No. I’m—honestly, I feel like our relationship is even more solid than ever. Funny, since we split up and all.”

“It makes sense. You two have been through a lot together. Not all relationships can adapt to big changes or hard times, and yours has done both several times over, and that’s a very good sign that it’ll continue to last and mature along with the both of you. Didn’t you feel similarly when you moved to D?”

“...Yeah,” Kip murmurs. “Yeah, it felt like it got a lot deeper. I mean, he’d already proven he was there for me and that he loved me, and I was already totally in love with him, but the... It changed everything. And at first I wasn’t even sure either of us considered us to even still be together, even though I was living with him and sleeping in the same bed as him and all. I didn’t have it in me to ask him about it at first. But it—it just became obvious really quickly that he was still with me. And by the time things were at least starting to settle down...it just felt like we were on another level that was beyond anything we’d had before.”

“Mm.”

“It does feel like that’s happened again...in a different way, but also really similar. I mean, it’s not like we were ever staying together before because it felt like we had to. Even though we did all live together, we both always wanted the relationship. I didn’t want to leave him—I really, really didn’t. But now it’s like...I mean, during those years we were together, we always had the choice to split up if we wanted to, but it still—it was still the norm for us, one of us would’ve had to do something about it to change things from us from being together to us being broken up. But now it’s like, we had another chance to decide if we wanted to start dating each other—we had that choice for the first time since all the way back after we met. And even with all the new shit that we’d dealt with, and even with knowing we could and did hurt each other...both of us decided we wanted this. And I feel it as much as ever, that I love him, and that he really loves me just as much. More than ever, even.”

He inhales deeply and lets it out just as slowly. Eno laughs softly but brightly.

“Well! You two have definitely always been good together right from the start,” Eno says cheerfully. “And I remember how happy you were to have even met him, and how you were even happier when you started dating. And from what I’ve already known and everything you’ve told me about it, it seems like your relationship with Pascal has only ever been strengthened by time and by the hardships you’ve been through as a couple. It’s entirely enough that you feel that way, but as someone with an outside perspective who’s known you for the whole duration, it seems that positive to me, too. You two have found something special and valuable—and you’ve made it that way, and become it. There’s no reason to doubt the happiness and benefits you’re finding in this.”

Kip smiles softly and folds his hands loosely on his lap, brushing one thumb over the other.

“I AM really happy about it,” he says. “And it feels good to be happy about something that I know actually is that good. And that I think is going to—“

He cuts himself off and blushes slightly as his heart goes just a little faster. Eno doesn’t speak.

“I, um, I like knowing that it’s something I don’t think is going to go away anytime soon,” he finishes.

“Right,” Eno says simply. “That’s an important emotional element for you in particular.”

“Yeah,” Kip says quietly. “Yeah, it’s...it’s a big deal.”

“...Are you intimidated about feeling that way?”

“Um...” Kip’s blush deepens a little. “Well, kind of, but still in a good way, you know? Like...I don’t feel uncertain about it. And it feels really good. It’s kind of like...going inside a huge...cathedral or something and looking all the way up at the ceiling, and it seems so intimidating how vast and enormous it all is, like it’s too big for just you, and kind of impossible, but...it’s really beautiful and it’s a nice feeling and...you actually do sort of manage to fill it all up, just by being someone inside of all that, how even your footsteps echo up into the highest parts of the ceiling, and...and I really went off on that metaphor,” he laughs.

“You did—“ Eno laughs too. “But I like how you put it.”

“Heh, well... The point is, it’s good. There’s just...absolutely no downside or concerns in how I feel and think about Pascal and what it’s like to be with him. And that’s coming from ME.”

“It’s a very strong endorsement, yes.”

“I...feel more confident in being with him, too,” Kip says. “And that’s still coming from me, so it’s not very impressive, but...that get-together Roy was planning, it’s coming up in about a couple weeks, and probably only half of the people will be ones I’m totally comfortable with, and so I told Roy and Pascal both that I—I know I might be uncomfortable for at least parts of it, and I probably will be, but it doesn’t really worry me that much. Like, I know I’ll make it to the other side just fine. It’s just an evening. Even when thinking about all the stuff that worries me, I know I can handle any of it, and it just...doesn’t feel like THAT big of a deal. I mean, I always know it’s not, but I can’t always FEEL that way too, y’know? But I want to be there. And hopefully have some fun too. And get to see Molly and Roy and Pascal having fun. And show myself I can handle a night with a ton of people in our apartment.”

“You’re gonna have that many?” Eno leans back in the chair, raising his eyebrows.

“I mean, there’ll probably be at least ten. And our apartment isn’t huge. It works out in our favor we kind of have a lot of open space, proportionally at least...and that we have a few chairs and stuff we can put into the living room. There might only really be enough space to sit around, but I think everybody ought to manage by just talking. Roy’ll be there after all, he can get a good energy going out of any random group. And Pascal always brings the best kind of sense of warmth into the room; people love to be around him.”

“What about you? Do you think you’ll get to enjoy it, or are you seeing it wholly as something you’ll just have to survive?”

“I might,” Kip says with a bit of a smile. “I think it’ll just depend on the day and what mood I’m in. I know I’ve—I’m a bit less social than I used to be, but it’s not like I don’t like being around people—even a bunch of people—because I do. I just also know that sometimes...I’m not really in a place to enjoy it. And...I haven’t really gotten my feet back under myself yet, after everything. But I do have plans about making excuses to be in the kitchen for a bit if I need to escape or take breaks or something. And it’ll be fun to get to be there for Pascal having a nice time. I think it’s kinda been forever since he got to do something like this.”

“Something like...?”

“Just getting to be spending time with a bunch of people he knows and likes...and with me and Roy and Molly all at once, like it used to be. I’m gonna have just him over at our apartment in a few days for that reason...and I guess, I dunno, I don’t think he’s had the chance to make many new friends of his own in this district yet. He’s been so busy with the shop as soon as he moved here, and things are different than in D, and then, you know, he got involved in all of it with us too... He’s going out sometimes, he’s taking a sculpting class he likes, and he says he likes how it gets him out of the apartment, but I know he’s still busy with the shop. I figure...it’s not like you can magically find new friends for people, and it’s not like a lot of my friends aren’t his too...I think it’s good to invite him along to our stuff. It’s not like he doesn’t belong as much as any of us.”

“Mm...it’s nice of you to put that kind of thought into it, even if you can assume he’s fine.”

“I try,” Kip says with a flat humor. “There’s, uh...there is that one other reason I’m nervous about the group dinner.”

“Hm?”

“Well...you know...Wallace,” Kip says, slightly embarrassed. “He’ll be there—and so will Ben—which I’m not sure if I expect to make it more awkward or less, really.”

“Ah. Right.”

“I’m still just...uncomfortable, and I feel like I don’t know what to do when he’s around. I can’t just be myself, I can’t act like I’m not still embarrassed about the whole situation...I think I just want to have some space. But I...”

He sighs.

“I don’t hate him, and I’m not mad at him for what happened, it’s not either of our faults, but at the same time, I’m kind of worried about...I don’t want to start feeling bitter.”

“How so?”

“Well, like...I don’t know. It’s kind of...it feels like this sense of being uncomfortable around him and wishing I could just avoid the whole thing isn’t really going to fade away anytime soon. But it also doesn’t feel like confronting him or anything would fix the situation—I don’t even know what I’d want to say. There’s nothing I COULD say that would just...all at once get rid of the feelings I still have for him. And it still hurts to feel like this. I’m kind of afraid I’ll end up trying to counter that pain by...being angrier about it, or something. I can see it happening, in little ways at first, but they just quietly pile up. I...I could see myself trying to deal with that by pushing him further and further away. In little ways that pile up. Until his role in my life is reduced to someone who’s hurt me—even though he hasn’t.”

He’s flushing a little bit at the feeling that rises in him as he puts his concerns into words. He looks up at the ceiling and breathes deeply; he hears Eno smooth out a page.

“So...” Eno says, swiveling the chair slightly. “What are some ways you think you can avoid this? Since I’m supposing you want to.”

“I dunno,” Kip says automatically. “I...talking about it won’t fix it. And neither will avoiding it. But keeping my distance will make it easier to get over him sooner. Or at least learn how to deal with it sooner.”

“Mm.”

There’s a pause; Kip closes his eyes with a silent sigh.

“Have you felt any better about it so far? In terms of keeping a distance between yourselves.” Eno asks.

“Well...I can look at him without being completely embarrassed anymore,” Kip sighs. “But overall...not really. It’s not like it’s been hardly that long, though. Even I can’t be disappointed in myself for not having put it all together in less than a month.”

Eno laughs softly.

“No, you couldn’t be,” he says. “But I don’t think you’d like feeling as if this is going to continue indefinitely and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I don’t—but I know pretty well by now that I’m not in control of everything in my life. I knew that this was a possibility when I decided to tell him. It’s not great, but...it’s just how things have turned out for now.”

“You’re not in control of all the factors, but it’s not like there’s nothing you can do. Wallace isn’t the weather—you can talk to him. And if you never talk to him, he’s going to notice, or it’ll start to feel normal not to ever be talking with you. There’ll be an effect either way.”

Kip twists his entwined fingers.

“I know,” he says shortly. “It’s already awkward enough that we live in the same building. But we can handle awkward. I don’t want to risk making it even worse by saying the wrong thing.”

“By ‘worse,’ do you mean ‘even more awkward?’”

Kip sighs.

“Even if things were more strained between you two,” Eno continues, “it’s not like anything would be that different if you said something uncomfortable once or twice. It’s not as though you can expect anything to change the fact that things are ultimately amicable between you. After all, it’s like you say— neither of you did anything to try to hurt the other.”

“No,” Kip affirms quietly. “But even so, I can’t think of anything to say to fix this.”

“Kip, you don’t have to fix it. You’ll need time, you can take it slow and play it by ear and see how your relationship adapts. Not every rejection destroys a friendship.”

“So what do I say?” Kip’s voice picks up slightly with impatience. “What am I supposed to tell him?”

“Just be honest, tell him how you feel.”

“I already did—that’s what got me into this mess in the first place.”

“Tell him how you’re feeling NOW,” Eno clarifies.

“But it’s the same,” Kip protests. “I still l-like him.”

“That’s not the only option you have; it’s not the only feeling you have. You can tell him that you feel awkward and you don’t know what to say and you’re worried about messing things up and you don’t know how you two should approach moving forward—you know, all the things you’re telling me.”

“But why? What would be the point of saying that?”

“He would know how it’s going for you and what you’re thinking without having to guess. And you might get the same from him. Wouldn’t you rather have the sense that both of you better understand whatever it is that’s going on?”

“There’s nothing new to understand—“

“You’d be talking to each other,” Eno cuts in. “It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t fix anything or even change anything. If you put yourself into a pattern of just talking with him honestly about your thoughts and feelings, I don’t think you’ll have to be so worried about the threat of...feeling bitter towards him.”

Kip bites at his lip and sighs again, wrings his hands again.

“What else about it is worrying you?” Eno asks.

“It’s just...I don’t even know where to begin. I can’t imagine walking up to him and—and, I don’t know, telling him, ‘hey, why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell you all about how I feel weird about you because I decided to tell you I’m crushing on you.’”

“Why not?”

“It’s embarrassing,” Kip huffs. “I’ve already humiliated myself with him. And if I’m being realistic, I really doubt that I’d be capable of actually doing it. I’d back out, or beat around the bush, or change the subject after five seconds or something.”

“Would you?”

“Probably.”

“You did manage to tell him you like him, though.”

“But that wasn’t exactly an extended conversation or anything. I just had to work up to telling him I like him, and I did it when I was basically on this emotional confidence high from getting back with Pascal, and as soon as I got shot down I ran away to hide. It’s not like I went into all this detail about all the things I’d been thinking—the dreams I have about him and the memories between us that I love most and everything I like about him and how I...think about kissing and holding him...and everything...”

He closes his eyes again.

“You expect it’ll be harder to talk about feeling uncomfortable than it would be to talk about something like that?” Eno says.

“I don’t know,” Kip sighs. “I just don’t trust myself to face something like that and not mess it up by half-assing it and running away again. I mean, it’s me. After everything, I’m still the same person. I can do what I have to do when it comes to protecting people, but when it comes to the small stuff that anyone should be able to handle, I’m still the way I’ve always been—too scared to handle much of anything.”

“It’s not like that, Kip,” Eno says quietly. “You’re not worse than everyone else. ...For a long time, you’ve been existing in situations and having experiences that most people don’t ever have to deal with. It’s not at all unusual to have developed the kinds of defenses you have. You’ve been trying to survive—it’s not something you’ve chosen, and it’s not something you can just retroactively decide to throw out—it isn’t your fault that you’re afraid even of what you know won’t endanger you, that you’re more afraid than other people you encounter every day. You have a different relationship with fear than other people do. They don’t often consider it to be part of their everyday lives.”

Kip’s heart beats harder as Eno speaks. He slides his hands up to rest on his stomach—he can faintly feel his pulse there too.

“I...” he starts quietly. “I just wish...”

“It’s alright, Kip,” Eno says, softly but emphatically. “It’s okay.”

Kip stares up at the ceiling and gives a quick nod. He listens intently rather than looking over at Eno, hears the faint creak of his chair as he shifts his weight, a slow, inward sigh.

“I don’t want to get my hopes up for things I know I’ll probably mess up.” Kip lets the words tumble out quietly. “I wish I could say for sure that I could...just go up to Wallace and tell him I want to talk and we could sit down and I’d be able to look him in the face and let him know everything I think—but I know I might not, I know I probably won’t, I don’t want to tell you ‘okay, I will,’ when I don’t think that’s true—“

“Kip,” Eno says. “Kip—you don’t have to do anything perfectly. I do think, though, that it would be better for you to at least try talking to him, even if it doesn’t go the right way, rather than continuing to keep all these things to yourself. I know you’ve already grown close to him before all this, and that he means a lot to you, and that you’re afraid you’re going to lose that. And I think that for you, it’s a good decision to try to have any fraction of a genuine, honest exchange with him rather than none at all. It’s good to break the pattern of avoidance—and even if you don’t manage to have a long heart-to-heart, even talking for just a moment will show you that it’s not completely impossible for you to do this.”

Kip breathes deeply.

“I feel like you definitely know me too well, Eno,” he mumbles.

Eno laughs brightly.

“I should hope so, by this point.”

“Well, it’s—you’re right, of course, I’m sure you are, I just...I get so caught up in thinking about all the ways it could go wrong, all the things that he or I could say that would just ruin things, and... When I worry about stuff like that, it feels like something being pressed against my stomach, right under the ribs. It’s awful sometimes.”

Eno is quiet.

“I’m just...horrible at this kind of thing. Even when I know I want to, when I want to try, I choke. I wish I could be optimistic about it and say I can definitely talk to Wallace, and that when I do I’m going to be open and straightforward and it’s going to be good, but...I know I’d be lying if I said for sure that I’ll do any of that.”

“It’s okay. I’m not going to demand you do anything you might not be able to do—and I’m not about to be upset with you about something like that. It’s not about disappointing me or not—I just think it’d really help you with this kind of situation.”

“Yeah...” Kip looks at the wall. “Probably.”

“...What are some of the ways you’re worried it would go badly? Do you think it’s something he’d say to you?”

“Kind of,” Kip says. “I mean, I think most of that is just...stuff I know would only happen in my own imagination, though. I don’t think he’d really be...angry with me for talking about it, or disgusted, or anything. Or hurt. He’s...well, when he doesn’t understand, he tries really hard to learn what it is he’s not getting. I don’t think I really have much of a reason to be too intimidated by it.”

“You trust him too, don’t you.”

“I...yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“I think it’d be a pretty safe endeavor for you.”

Kip bites his lip and nods.

“I’ll, uh...” He looks up at the ceiling and the image of Wallace flows into his mind’s eye, an amalgam of memories of Wallace turning to look at Kip and lighting up with a smile at the sight of him looking back. “I’ll try to sit down and talk to him.”

“That’s great, Kip. And don’t worry if you can’t do it right away. I won’t tell you you have to do it right this week, or anything. Just whenever you feel ready to try.”

“Okay.” Kip feels a bit warmer inside just at verbally agreeing to at least attempt to have a real conversation with Wallace. Somehow it abates some of that nervousness he’s been holding. “I’ll see what I can manage.”

“That’s all you need to do,” Eno says. “And to move along...I wanted to go ahead and ask you how you’re doing in terms of...well, that it’s going to be officially six years soon.”

The warmth fades away into a dull, familiar chill; Kip’s heart sinks.

“...About a month and a half from now,” he murmurs.

“Yeah,” Eno says quietly. “I know that...ever since they died, you’ve been struggling a lot with feeling further from them as time passes. And I know that being closer to the actual anniversary usually makes things harder, and can bring up those feelings associated with the original event. I’m not asking about how you should avoid these issues entirely. I think we can expect they’ll continue to be part of what you’re dealing with—certainly for at least a month and a half more. In fact, I think it’s important to basically prepare for it, and plan to have ways to recover during bad days.”

“Mm.” Kip shifts against the cushions.

“Be ready to go easy on yourself,” Eno says. “I know you may feel pressure to power through it, but I want you to be aware that you can easily exhaust yourself by overdoing that—and avoiding burnout will be more helpful to getting through this period with less extra stress. And more than anything, Kip, when you’re hurting, don’t try to hide it from the people who care about you. They’ll know anyhow, and it’ll make it so much harder for you to try pretending you’re fine.”

“I’ll try not to,” Kip murmurs. “But...sometimes I do like to be alone with it.”

“I understand.” Eno’s voice is softened. “I’m not saying you have to talk it out with everyone who asks, but—do tell them that you’re not feeling well about things, and let them help you. You don’t have to discuss it with anyone, if you don’t want. But don’t isolate yourself or pressure yourself into hiding your pain completely. Remember that everyone already knows it’s going to be becoming harder for you as these weeks go on; to hide that will only make people more worried. Try to regularly remind yourself that you don’t need to feel any guilt about being in pain—it’s not your fault that this happened to you and that you feel this way.”

Kip sighs quietly.

“I know,” he says. “...I AM still having trouble with feeling further from them, and I...I don’t like that it’s going to be six years. Somehow that seems like you might as well be saying it’s been ten. I’m pretty sure I’m just going to keep my head down on the actual day of, and...I don’t know, I’m kind of hoping I’ll be busy with work, but Cuddy’ll probably remember to give me the day off unless I ask her not to. But I don’t really want to point it out by asking her, either.”

“You can ask for things that you think will help you...”

“I know,” Kip says again. “It’s just...I don’t know. It feels like there’s pros and cons both to keeping busy and to having a quiet day. I’m not too worried about it all, I’ve dealt with this day five times already—well, six times already, I guess. I know how much it hurts. But...this past year changed everything up. I think it’s going to just...feel different, and that might make it a little harder. And it’s just strange that—that the longer I deal with this, the more I get used to always holding it, but it also hurts that it’s been so long.”

He gives a long sigh.

“...I miss them, Eno,” he says.

“I know...”

“I really miss them.”

“I know you do.”

Kip blinks hard and pinches his thumb.

“...Wanna talk more about things with Pascal?” Eno asks.

Kip laughs quietly.

“Are you trying to cheer me up?”

“Yes. I figured it would be nice to talk about something more pleasant again.”

Kip laughs a bit louder and obliges.

—

“Here you go,” Eno says brightly, holding out a large tin, lid screwed on tight; Kip takes it and feels its heaviness even before Eno has let go.

“Eno—“ Kip’s tone is almost reproachful. “This is so much.”

“Mmhm. Enjoy.”

Kip huffs and tucks the container under one arm, stepping forward to slip the other arm around Eno’s back. Eno laughs warmly and returns the embrace, hugging Kip close.

“Look after yourself till next time,” Eno says, squeezing him just a bit. “Je t’aime.”

Kip fleetingly buries his face against Eno’s shoulder.

“You too,” he murmurs. “Je t’aime.”

—

The sweet, lemony scent subtly emanating from the tin makes his train ride through B a little more pleasant.

—

Back at the apartment, Kip takes off his clothes and gets into a warm shower. He lathers his hair and scrubs his face twice over, then washes his whole body thoroughly, sitting down and hunching over to slide a hand through his legs and work the soapy water down the center of his ass, holding his feet up into the stream of the water to rinse them off as he does so. Soon he’s all but thrice cleaned over, smelling like some blend of orange, honey, pine, and sweet pea blossom. He gets out and towels off, blowdries his hair, puts on deodorant, and shaves his face.

He goes back and forth between dressing up a little in layers for a buttoned-down look or going more casual than usual, and finally decides on the latter. He slips on a pair of soft, fitted jeans with a slightly lighter wash at the knees, and then an even softer blue-grey tee with a spacious neckline. He turns to the mirror and scrubs his hand through his hair for a slightly messier look, then smiles at his reflection.

He throws a few things in his bag and hitches it onto his shoulder. He takes out his phone and glances at the time—he’s right on schedule to run out, make a few stops, and be at Pascal’s shop within ten minutes of closing. He looks at himself in the mirror one more time, then grabs his keys and wallet and heads out of the apartment.

—

“Kip!”

Kip could be in love solely for the way Pascal smiles when he sees him.

“Hey, Pasc.” Kip nudges the door once more with his hip and makes his way through into the shop, moving up to the counter, towards the end furthest from the entrance. “It’s so good to see you again—how’s your day been?”

“It’s been solid,” Pascal answers. “Especially since I’ve really been looking forward to seeing you.”

Kip smiles and then glances down at the countertop, as if he hasn’t been complimented by Pascal thousands of times.

“I brought you—uh—“

He cuts himself off at a quiet “I’m heading out, see you tomorrow,” and realizes Louise is stepping out of the back room. He blushes at once, reflexively embarrassed.

Pascal turns to look at them.

“Okay, have a good night,” he says.

“I try,” they say. “You do the same.”

They glance over at Kip as they walk by; Kip flashes a small smile and relaxes his shoulders. He exhales and turns back to Pascal when the door opens and closes again.

“I...brought you this,” he says, holding out a cup and a bowl covered with a plastic dome. “I’ve tried to keep them pretty cold. This is a strawberry lemonade, and this is a mango frozen yogurt. They have this really good orange kiwi syrup; I put it on there.”

“Oh, Kip—“ Pascal’s laugh spills out; he comes around to the other side of the counter and Kip lifts his face in time to receive a warm kiss.

“Unprofessional,” Kip teases, even as he’s beaming up at Pascal.

“I’ll take that reputation,” Pascal murmurs, and Kip almost unconsciously tips his head up again as Pascal leans back in. Even in just a second’s duration, the kiss is soft, lingering. “We’re closed now, anyway. Louise locked the door when they left.”

“Oh, so anything goes, then?”

“Sure...tea after hours.” Pascal smiles, and Kip is pleased to see him blushing faintly.

“Mm. Take your drink, I had a few sips on the way over here and it’s delicious.”

Kip settles in on the stool by the register while Pascal finishes up the last few closing tasks, listening to him talk, letting him insist on sharing what Kip had got for him. He takes his time with a spoonful of kiwi-kissed mango while Pascal carries the collection of change into the back.

When Pascal is done finished with everything work-related, he turns off the lights and leans against the counter and they talk back and forth. Pascal tells Kip about his last pottery class, what he made, a newcomer who he got to help out. Kip reaches out and takes Pascal’s arm while he talks, absently tracing winding paths along the edges of his suckers with his fingertips.

“How’re you feeling overall?” Kip asks. “Like...about everything? Life, and stuff.”

“Everything?” Pascal says, curling the end of his arm around Kip’s fingers. “Hmm, well...I’ve been feeling gradually feeling happier ever since we’ve all been able to start getting ahold of things again, and that’s never really changed. I’m still kind of nervous about all of this, being in a new district and running a shop, but I have it down to mostly a routine now, and that helps it feel more stable. And of course, the most important thing has been you, and it makes me so much happier to be with you again, and it makes me...I feel kind of just more hopeful. About everything.”

Kip squeezes Pascal’s arm and looks over at him with a soft smile. Pascal smiles back.

“Finish your drink,” Kip says, laughter beneath his voice.

—

“Have you been thinking about me?” Kip teases. He leans in closer; their stomachs brush. He loops an arm around Pascal’s waist.

“Of course.” Pascal blushes a lovely red. “How could I not?”

“Mm...” Kip closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Pascal’s chest, then slides his hand down Pascal’s thigh, between his legs, draws it back up to cup him gently.

“Oh...wow.” Pascal lets out a breath. Kip gathers up fabric of Pascal’s shirt into a fist at the small of his back and presses their chests together, feeling Pascal lean more of his weight against the counter.

He squeezes both grips a little tighter and rises slightly up onto his toes, dragging their bodies together.

Pascal lowers his head and kisses him. Kip responds eagerly, pushing into it, giving quick nips and sucks, opening his mouth generously at the first flick of Pascal’s tongue. He rubs the start of Pascal’s erection through his sweatpants with the heel of his palm.

“Kip—“ Pascal sighs, pulling his head up to draw a breath. Kip nuzzles his face along Pascal’s throat and latches on softly, working the warm skin between his front teeth. “God, Kip...”

His broad arms start to pull Kip’s shirt up, and their touch on the bare skin of his back is making Kip tremble.

“I want you so bad, Pasc,” he laughs softly. “I wanna suck your dick.”

Pascal exhales shakily as Kip kisses the light bruise on his neck.

“Please,” Kip breathes against his skin. “Can I? Please...”

He can feel Pascal’s heartbeat against his own torso, feel his dick twitch in his hand. He looks up at Pascal.

In the next moment Pascal slides an arm down around Kip’s ass, squeezing him, pulling him in until his crotch is pressed up against the front of Pascal’s thigh. Kip gasps and rolls his hips, deciding at once to follow the flow of his heady rush, grinding on him with increasing pressure until he digs his fingers into Pascal’s sides and gives a whimper of a moan.

Pascal pulls him in harder at that and Kip plants his feet wider and lines their cocks up and shoves against him and the friction is exquisite—when Kip eases up after the burst of indulgence, he’s slightly out of breath and his face is burning and he’s almost shaking with the burst of pleasure.

“I can’t hold myself up very well here,” Pascal breathes, and sweeps Kip up off his feet, holding him tight against his chest, carrying him through into the back.

“This should be better,” he murmurs as he lowers Kip’s feet back to the ground.

Pascal backs himself up against the wall, puts both arms on it, presses them until his suckers latch on to the surface.

Kip watches, shifting his weight over one foot and back to the other, trying to keep from outright pacing in circles. Pascal looks back at him and nods slowly.

“You can go ahead and do whatever you want,” he says, voice quiet and low. “I’m ready.”

Kip reaches for him and is kissing him, sucking his tongue, sighing into his mouth. He again lets his libido run rampant for a minute, holding Pascal by the hips and waist and mouth, grinding against him while making out with him and feeling him up with feverish hunger. It’s messily effective, and when he pulls away, both of them are panting for air and nicely hard for each other.

Kip closes his eyes and puts his forehead against Pascal’s chest while he catches some of his breath, then takes half a step back and looks at him, reaching up to push some clinging hair behind his ear. Pascal tilts his head into Kip’s touch and warmly returns his smile.

Kip lifts his face up for another kiss and ghosts his hands down Pascal’s sides until they come to rest at his hips. At the little thrill of Pascal’s lips meeting his, he dips his fingers down into the waistband of Pascal’s pants and pushes them down a few inches, presses the kiss firmly before breaking it off to tuck his face in the crook of Pascal’s shoulders while sliding his hands around to cup his ass.

“Kip...” Pascal turns his head to touch his nose and mouth to the side of Kip’s forehead. Kip exhales and presses his palms against Pascal’s soft, warm skin, wraps his fingers tight around the curve of his butt, then lets go to drag his pants further down. He bends his knees to continue the descent, pausing to plant a few kisses on Pascal’s stomach, then lowers himself further until he’s sitting on his heels.

He drags Pascal’s boxers down in one go and at once takes hold of the base of his cock. The familiar texture and warmth is so pleasant—Kip stares at every tiny detail as he leisurely slides his hand up and down a couple of inches, imagining it in his mouth, building up his own anticipation. He can feel Pascal’s pulse under his fingers; his own is beating in his chest and in his dick as it rubs against the inside of his jeans.

He puts his free hand on Pascal’s thigh and takes a firmer grip on his erection, and Pascal pushes his hips into it with a soft groan.

“Oh, Kip...oh my god...”

“Mmhm?”

“I love you,” he gasps.

Kip lets go of his dick to cup his balls while kissing and nipping at his stomach, dragging his nose through the patch of thick hair there, breathing in his scent.

“Pas,” he murmurs against his skin, voice low.

The sheer closeness and sensuality is as relieving as ever after several days of desiring it, fantasizing about their next chance for it; Kip revels in it all for a minute or two, squeezing and caressing Pascal’s body, palming his dick, kissing all over his stomach, hips, thighs. He keeps feeling himself gravitate towards Pascal’s erection and finally lets himself rub his face against it, earning a quiet, strangled moan from Pascal.

He looks up, waiting for Pascal to look back at him before brushing the head of his dick down his cheek until the tip grazes the corner of his mouth.

“Kip...” Pascal’s tone is pleading.

Kip smiles softly at him, holds his dick upright to gently kiss it halfway down the length. He slides his hand up and back down, fully exposing the head, grazing it with his thumb. Pascal rolls his hips and whines softly.

“I always wanna do this,” Kip murmurs. He kisses the tip, quick, then kisses it again, firmer, slower. “I love getting to do this...”

“God, I wish I could hold you,” Pascal mumbles, tilting his head back against the wall.

“It’ll be fine,” Kip says, and puts his tongue flat against the tip, pressing hard and then dragging it up in a slow lick.

Pascal whimpers and his leg twitches beneath Kip’s hand. Kip kisses the end again, looks up to watch Pascal’s face as he gives a gentle suck and a flick of his tongue.

“Fuck—“ Pascal’s voice is so rough and quiet. “Oh my god...”

Kip slides the first inch into his mouth, back out, takes a breath, and then draws his dick further in with a hard accompanying suck. The taste and feel in his mouth, the weight of it on his tongue, the thickness and heat between his lips—Kip feels no motivation to continue any teasingly slow pace, and instead throws himself fully into the task.

He hits his stride quickly, and the near-effortlessness feels almost exhilarating. He closes his eyes, moving smoothly, using his mouth and hand in tandem, eliciting low, velvety moans from Pascal. He throws in slight changes to keep it dynamic whenever impulse strikes—messy kisses and flicks of the tongue and twists of the wrist and hard sucks, occasionally taking his hand off the base of Pascal’s cock to palm his own erection.

“Kip...” Pascal keeps sighing his name. “Oh...”

Kip slides his hands around to grab onto Pascal’s ass, pushing his dick down his throat, sucking the length, swallowing hard against the head. Pascal cries out hoarsely and his hips jerk forwards; Kip moans around him.

“Fuck! Oh, fuck—Kip!”

Kip gives a few more sucks before sliding back to the tip, staying there, squeezing his grip on Pascal’s butt and pulling, encouraging him to start rocking his hips.

Pascal groans quietly and then gasps as Kip teases the head of his dick—he thrusts.

“Mm—“ Kip feels completely in his zone. He has such an inherent confidence that any insecurities aren’t even a factor—he knows he’s doing great, he’s going to make Pascal cum, it’s going to be good, and they’re both going to love it. He’s been loving it from the start, which is apparently evident to Pascal.

“D’you...like this as much as...oh, god—a-as it seems like you do?” Pascal struggles to ask, panting quietly.

Kip opens his eyes and looks at him, pushes a couple more inches into his mouth, massages the underside with his tongue and sucks gently.

“Mmhm.” He pulls off and kisses halfway down his length. “Probably even more than it looks like I do.”

Pascal laughs quietly, and Kip smiles up at him, smoothly pumping his dick with a pleasant shiver of affection. He kisses the tip the same way he would Pascal’s cheek, then shoves Pascal’s hips back against the wall and deepthroats him.

—

Kip sits back and moves his legs out from under himself, stretching them forward, tilting his head back as he draws deep breaths. His chin is streaked with his own watery spit, some of Pascal’s cum clings to his lips, he can smell it with each inhale, its taste in his throat mingles with the faint flavor of fruit.

He keeps his eyes closed for half a minute, listening to Pascal breathing almost as hard as he is. Then he pushes himself upright and licks the cum off his lips, brushes it off his nose with his finger and sucks it clean, wipes his spit off with the back of his forearm.

“Pasc,” he says as he steps over to him, still a bit short of breath. “You good?”

Pascal nods slowly and opens his eyes; Kip meets them with a warm smile.

“Good,” he says quietly, and kisses him.

His hands drift up as he presses in a few more kisses one after the other until he’s gently holding either side of Pascal’s jaw, licking slowly at his lip.

“Mm—I’m gonna get my arms off the wall,” Pascal mumbles an inch from his mouth.

Kip takes half a step back as Pascal leans in, rolling his broad shoulders forward until the first row of suckers detach from the surface with staccato, arhythmic snaps. With a ripple of his torso, he gets the rest of the his arms to to follow suit with a softer crackle, and wraps them around the small of Kip’s back as soon as the last inch of them is freed. He pulls Kip in and kisses his forehead, his nose, his lips.

Kip automatically rocks his hips against Pascal the moment his erection is pressed between their bodies; Pascal slides an arm down to sit beneath Kip’s ass, pulling him closer. Kip gasps into the kiss and Pascal flicks his tongue against Kip’s fang and sucks at his lip.

Kip grinds harder until Pascal reaches between them to get at his belt.

“Here,” Kip murmurs, moving away from Pascal with a brusqueness belying his reluctance to reduce their contact. But even his efforts to undo the buckle and unzip his pants are slightly hindered by his desperation. He finally shoves his pants down, then his underwear, then is being kissed and embraced by Pascal before he can even make a move to close the distance himself.

Pascal takes hold of his dick and it sends a surge of pleasure through Kip; he feels an accompanying wave of energy and heat and moans loudly into Pascal’s mouth.

Kip can’t quite tell if it’s him or Pascal who’s a little weak in the legs, but regardless of who’s in need of it, Pascal slides them down until he’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, pulling Kip towards him to sit in his lap. Kip gratefully leans his shoulder against Pascal’s chest and hooks an arm around his neck, clinging close to him.

Pascal’s ability to jerk him off—seemingly effortlessly—is as brilliant as usual. It undoes Kip, has him bucking hard and digging his fingers against Pascal’s skin, eyes squeezed shut; his voice breaks out of him intermittently, sometimes low and soft, other times a sharper, louder cry. Pascal murmurs to him, he doesn’t quite process all the words but he understands it—it works him up even more, the very sound of Pascal’s voice aphrodisiacal whether comprehensible or not.

As Kip gets close, Pascal lifts him up with an arm around his back, burying his face in the crook of his neck, kissing and dragging his teeth across Kip’s skin, kissing down to his chest—Kip arches up into the feeling of Pascal’s scruff rubbing against him, pushing his head back against Pascal’s arm.

When Kip’s right on the verge, practically kicking out at the tension in the pit of his stomach, tightly coiled and itching ferociously to be hit with his release, Pascal kisses his cheek and squeezes his grip and pumps down with such force that it rocks Kip’s whole body.

“Pascal—!“ he begs. “Please—!“

Pascal cradles Kip’s head against himself and, with just a few more seconds of effort, makes him cum. Kip spasms in his arms, arching up and curling in and pulling Pascal down and shoving his feet against the floor, his body apparently wanting to move in all directions at once.

He seems to go from the peak of energy and tension to bonelessness in a matter of moments.

“Pascal...” He doesn’t have to articulate any further—Pascal pulls him close and presses their bodies together.

—

Kip leans against the wall, eyes closed, lengthening and evening out his breaths. He draws one more slow inhale as he listens to Pascal coming out of the bathroom, and then opens his eyes.

“Hey,” Pascal says, laughter in his voice, brushing his hair back as he walks back over.

Kip smiles.

“Hey,” he says back.

He brings his arms forward a few inches; Pascal takes his hands and leans in, brushing his lips against Kip’s forehead.

“You’re wonderful,” he says to Kip.

“Aw, it’s not so hard to be an improvement on a long day of work,” Kip says, squeezing his hold on Pascal’s arms.

“Not just because of this,” Pascal says. “Even though, yeah, this was a great end to the workday. But even if you didn’t give me food and an amazing blowjob—you’re really wonderful. I’m happy getting to see you. I’m happy just knowing you exist.”

Kip slips a hand out of Pascal’s hold to instead slip around his waist, hugging him loosely. He leans the side of his head on Pascal’s chest.

“Aw. I love you too,” Kip says.

Pascal puts his free arm around Kip’s waist in turn—they both shift their weight slightly to one side to accommodate the adjustment, and for a moment it feels as though they’re dancing.

“It’s so good to be with you, Pasc. I’m such a good me with you. It’s such a good version of me, and it feels like a really real version of me, and that makes me feel...like a good person even when I’m not in the mood to believe that. That’s so lucky. It feels so lucky to know you.”

“I feel that way about you...what a coincidence.”

“You’re so sweet and in a real way, like—like anyone can say nice things, y’know? But I’ve always known you’ve been honest whenever you’ve been telling me that you like me, and that you care about me, and...I don’t know, that just fills me up, like...when I think about how I know that you love me, it’s a way bigger feeling. And then I think about how much I love you, and it sounds like I took this off a greeting card, but it’s like...it’s not just an emotion that I love you, it’s more than that, it’s like it’s part of my body, too, or—I don’t know, like everything I can feel is part of it. Heh—listen to me, jeez...”

“I love to listen to you,” Pascal murmurs. Kip turns to look at him with a smile; Pascal’s eyes are bright and his face is tinged with his blush.

“I talk so much with you sometimes,” Kip says. “It doesn’t ever really happen nearly as much any other time. I go on and on and—and I don’t feel that embarrassed about it. I mean, I do, because I think I should, because it’s always embarrassing in other contexts, but I don’t really. But I’m...like, I’m not...worried about telling you anything. Like, even the shit I AM embarrassed about, I’m not...it doesn’t worry me to tell you, not in a real way. And I’m scared of everything, and this is so important to me that it would make sense if I was terrified, but I...that’s not how it is, I’m not afraid at all when I’m with you. I don’t worry that you’re gonna judge me or hate me or anything like that. And I wanna share stuff with you. Anything I have to talk about. Including you, I like to talk about you, there’s so much to say even just about everything that’s fantastic about you. Like I said, you’re sweet in a genuine way, and you’re so gentle and I love that, and you’re smart and you’re so aware of everything going on around you and tuned in to people without even saying anything, and that you’re so generous and loving and you have this amazing ability to find the right words for things, and you’ll work through anything to help someone, and you shoulder being afraid so well that it doesn’t even look like you’re worried sometimes, and you just...go out and do things, if you think you ought to do something you just go out and do it, and you’re so quiet sometimes, you don’t—you listen to people, you have so many great thoughts and people don’t always hear them because you don’t force people to hear you, you don’t...build your presence by being loud, or trying to make people think you’re clever, or work your way to being the center of conversation, you just...like to be around people and you don’t try to compete. But you know? People light up when you come into a room. It’s not like everyone looks over and all their attention shifts to you, or even that everyone notices what you bring into a space, but they feel it, I see them feel it, it’s like you warm up the place and everybody benefits from it even if they don’t realize it’s because of you. But people like you, because of course they do, because you’re so genuine and good that it’s practically tangible, or visible, or—you have the nicest smile, it’s just so you, and you’re handsome, and you give the best hugs in the world, and I love being loved by you, you know?”

He finally stops his flow of praise and laughs. Pascal has an unfading smile and blush that makes Kip’s heart give a little jolt.

“I know,” Pascal says.

“I love you,” Kip continues. “And I love how you always let me know you love me just by the kinds of things you say to me, the ordinary things, the way you say them. I love the little things you’ve always done for me. I love the way you’ve always looked at me. I love how you’re so patient, and you can handle my being upset or stressed or nervous, and you’re not angry or frustrated that I’m like that, you don’t dislike the parts of me that aren’t the neatest or most put-together or appealing, even the parts that maybe aren’t good, and I love how you hold me, even when you’re holding me really tight you’re gentle, and you touch my body like you love it, and I love having sex with you, I love your voice, it’s beautiful and I think about it when I’m going to sleep. And I love how much you love me. I love how you know I love you, that’s the best thing that ever could’ve happened, that you know I love you, you really know it.”

“I do know it.”

“And I’m just going on and on and I could keep rambling forever, so I should probably stop before I do, but I have so much to say about you. And even once I talk about something, I’ll want to talk about it again on a different day, and say it a different way, and everything. I’m talking so much right now. And I keep talking. I say so much around you sometimes, it just happens.”

“Sure,” Pascal laughs. “But I like it—I like when you talk a lot, especially because I know you don’t do it very much. I’m proud that I let you feel comfortable with saying a lot.”

He leans Kip slightly over backwards, sliding his arms a little tighter around him.

“I like to listen to you. I don’t mind it when you’re quiet, either. There’s ways to listen to what you’re saying even when you aren’t doing it by talking.”

Kip laughs softly and leans his head against Pascal’s shoulder, closing his eyes.

“I don’t know why I wanna say so many greeting-card things,” he says quietly. “Especially when we’re just like, hanging out in the back of your store after getting each other off. And I know I’ve told you this before, and—well, it feels like forever since I have, and it probably has been. But I wanna say that being with you, like being in the same place as you, or just thinking about how I’m with you, it feels like I’m at home more than anything. Even if I’m someplace unfamiliar or, y’know, here. I guess it’s feeling safe and comfortable and...comfortable being myself? And liking myself, and liking the feeling, liking everything about it...you always give me that. I love it.”

Pascal kisses his shoulder.

“You remember me saying that? I know I said it more than once...the home thing...though I also remember I was probably half-asleep most of the time. I still meant it, though.”

“I do,” Pascal confirms. “It means a lot to hear even the things you say when you’re falling asleep. ...And it doesn’t feel like a greeting card, coming from you.”

“Good,” Kip laughs. “Because I don’t mean it in a fake way. Or like I’m just saying it to say it, or because I have an agenda or something... I’m just...really grateful that you give me everything that you do.”

Pascal squeezes him a little closer.

“The best I can hope for is that I can be as good for you, too,” Kip murmurs, sliding his hands up Pascal’s back. “I wanna be here for you and help everything be better for you. And I want you to have the feeling that comes with knowing that’s what I’ll do—that you always have that.”

“Aw,” Pascal whispers, and nuzzles his face against the side of Kip’s. Kip giggles at the feeling. “Don’t worry. I’ve known how much you care about me since we met. I could always tell that you were for real.”

“I am,” Kip says.

“And don’t worry about anything you say sounding, I dunno, cliché...I don’t care. I know you’re for real. I always wanna hear what you have to say. And...it’s important to me to know that I can still make you feel that way. You know, that you have a place to belong in the world, where you’re safe, and...that I’m here for you, in every way I can be, and all.”

Pascal’s voice is quiet and close; every word is warm. Kip slides a hand up into his hair.

“Hey, can I kiss you?” he asks.

“Yes,” Pascal answers.

He does.

“Can I take you out for dinner?” he asks.

Pascal looks at him.

“Is today some special occasion I don’t know about?” he laughs.

“No, I just like doing nice things with you,” Kip says. “And I like that I’m with you again, and we can do these things. And I wanna take you to dinner.”

Pascal blushes a little.

“Well...” He giggles lightly, and Kip gets soft butterflies. “How can I refuse?”

—

“Oh, god—“ Kip leans back slightly as a tortellini noodle falls from his fork. “Christ, I’m a mess.”

Pascal laughs.

“Embarrassing,” he teases.

Kip glances up in time to catch a warm look from Pascal, and smiles back.

“Whenever we next both have a free evening, you wanna come over to our place for dinner?” Kip asks. “I can’t be a public spectacle there. Only a private one.”

“Oh—sure, I’d love that.”

“I’ll figure out something fun to make. Or if there’s something you can think of that you’d like, I can work with that, too.”

“Anything you’d like is great with me,” Pascal says. “That’s always been the case. You have great ideas for what to cook.”

“You do too,” Kip says. “I really like your cooking. You’re great at it.”

“I learn.” Pascal shrugs.

“I’ve definitely learned from you,” Kip says. “I like how you kind of dive in while you’re reading the recipe and you adapt to whatever’s happening as you go—I really like that, I didn’t use to like, mess around and experiment with stuff I made before I lived with you, and I have a lot of fun with that now.”

“Yeah? I dunno, that’s how I’ve always done it. I don’t really make anything fancy enough that I can ruin it.”

“Mm...I sometimes kind of like to make the sort of complicated stuff that you have to be careful about, it’s kinda fun to make it to the other side of that once in a while. But for most days I like your style a lot better. I’m glad I practiced it, I feel like it’s saved me three hundred hours of my life or so. Even factoring in if I forget an ingredient every now and then.”

“Yeah,” Pascal laughs. “Yeah, I think that’s kinda where it comes from. I learned making simple stuff with the goal of getting something good in not a lot of time. I take my time with other stuff, but cooking for me has always kinda been about getting into a flow and not really slowing down.”

Kip smiles.

“You’re really good, whatever pace you go at,” he says.

“Thank you—so are you.”

“Aw...” Kip swings his foot out and gently taps it against the side of Pascal’s, twice. Pascal responds by momentarily lying his arm atop Kip’s wrist.

Kip focuses on his food for a second, glancing intermittently at Pascal’s face.

“...Can I tell you something?” he asks, heat preemptively rising in his throat. “It’s nothing new or anything that terrible, but...you know, half the stuff I ever have to talk about is kind of heavy.”

“Oh...sure,” Pascal says quietly, sitting up a little to look at him.

Kip gives half a smile and half a shrug.

“It just feels like some pointless secret, even though I don’t even think it’s important enough to be a secret, but...well...you know when I moved?”

“...Uh-huh.”

“Well...I know I was talking about how I felt like...I had this choice to go back to C or stay in D forever, and I knew I had to make that choice, because...if I didn’t, I’d know that I was avoiding it, and I was really...starting to feel guilty about avoiding C, especially because of Roy and Molly. You know.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“I, uh, I mean, I DID make that choice, even if I was backing down from it pretty much as soon as we arrived here...but I don’t feel like I...like I really chose to leave you.”

He takes a deep breath and looks right at Pascal.

“And I’m not—I’m not saying that anyone forced me to do anything, or that it was somehow at all your decision, or that it’s not my fault, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that I...you know, I SAID that, that I thought we were just going to have to stay apart so that my choices in C weren’t going to come back on you, and I did think that, and I did want to go on my own even though I didn’t even want to go, but...”

He suddenly has to look back down at his hand.

“I...when I left, and even when it was leading up to me leaving, I didn’t feel inside like I had really made up my mind that I should go,” he says slowly. “I—I could tell from the start that you were being careful not to argue with me about it in ways that might push me too much, and I loved you for that, and I love you for that still. But I was never sure whether I was relieved about that or disappointed, because I never really felt like I had actually, genuinely committed myself to really leaving you, and...leaving behind our relationship, and our whole history and ideas about our future...”

He makes a fist on the table and presses his thumb between two fingers.

“Even as we were actually leaving, I knew I wasn’t being strong at all. I was...I knew if you asked me to stay with you even in the most gentle way, I wouldn’t be able to go. And I—like I said, I was terrified of you asking because of that, and then I’d feel like I really hoped you’d ask, even though I was still terrified, and then I’d feel guilty and weak and we were still sleeping in the same bed and I’d just be watching you sleep beside me and wishing with everything I had that none of this had ever happened to us...”

He finds himself actually getting a little teared up at the memories’ weight. He keeps looking at the knuckles of his hand, pressing the nail of his thumb to the bottom of his pointer finger, hoping it will somehow help.

He hears every sound in the space around him as he bites at his lip and builds up his voice again.

“...I run away from things so often,” he says finally. “And I ran away from you, too. I didn’t really make the decision we had to be apart and mean it the way I should’ve—I made the decision and then knew I couldn’t back it up if I was really confronted on it and so just refused to say aloud that I felt so shaky and confused—I didn’t know what to do so I didn’t do anything and then of course we moved—it was all just as cowardly and weak as anything else I’ve done. And after we got here, it wasn’t because I was confident I’d done the right thing that I...I mean, I’d gone ahead and done it and whether that had been right or wrong, I was so scared for what could happen that I wanted desperately for you to stay in D and not even risk being involved...but... Back then I shouldn’t’ve pretended I was so dead-set on everything when I was really just completely conflicted and unsure, I was—I pressured you to go along with it without having any real conversation because I knew I couldn’t hold up against a real conversation—it was awful, and I knew it was awful of me, but I had this roundabout reasoning that—that the fact I knew I was being a terrible boyfriend just proved that I really knew I had to go, when of course that’s ridiculous. And it was a horrible excuse. There was no excuse—I shut you out before I even actually left, and that was awful and unfair, and I’m really sorry, I hate that I did that to you.”

He finds he can’t look at Pascal’s face—not like this, while he’s confessing to him and only just managing to fight off tears—he doesn’t want to pressure Pascal into feeling as though he has to provide comfort.

“I know this might be hard to listen to,” he says. “That I was—that I think I would’nt’ve been able to leave if you’d outright asked me not to—it was unfair of me, and that’s coming back around now just with me telling you about it. I—I should’ve at least been honest about the things I was thinking. It wouldn’t’ve been fair even if you HAD asked, and I HAD stayed...I’d’ve created this situation where you’d’ve felt like you pressured me into staying when I might’ve wanted something else. And of course I didn’t WANT to go, but I really did feel like I had to, like maybe I could do it, maybe I could do better with doing anything for the people around me and...at least I’d know that Roy and Molly could be happy, and I felt like...the only way I could manage actually pulling it off was to just. Say that I’d chosen this and leave it at that until we left.”

He bites down on his bottom lip again.

“I’m sorry what I did to us. It wasn’t fair, and it’s still not fair now, because it...” He sighs. “It left us in such a hard, fucked up place. When I finally saw you again, I was shocked and scared and—confused and hurt and even angry, but I was also really, really glad, and...as soon as we’d moved here, I was missing you—I missed you from the second I walked away from you, and I know it hurt us both, and I know I was miles away from being over you even by the time I ran into you again. I...probably never would’ve fully gotten over you, and it doesn’t help that I hadn’t given us a situation where we could have any real closure. It—I don’t mean to say that I think I would’ve stayed, because I know you wouldn’t want to feel like you were making me want to do something I didn’t want to do, and I don’t know if things would’ve been okay even if I HAD stayed, I...it all became so much more complicated than I thought it had been back then. I wanted a dozen conflicting things at once, and I don’t know if...I don’t think everything that had happened could’ve left us alone forever. When I first came to live with you, I couldn’t even imagine going back to C, but towards the end, when I could, I knew it would be...” He trails off. “I thought I’d always be held back if I had to hide from it for the rest of my life. That I’d be holding all of you guys back with me. I thought I had to try. I don’t know. It was such a mess...I don’t know what would’ve happened if I handled it better, maybe I messed up in a way that was accidentally to all our advantage, I don’t—I wasn’t strong about it, but I was still really scared of being in C, and I did sort of impress myself by actually living here again...”

He sighs hard.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I think a lot about... We can’t know how things would be different if we’d done something differently in the past...and I try not to think too much about things like that.”

It’s almost the most difficult to say that. The picture of his family flashes through his mind’s eye, and that’s enough to let a tear escape to start rolling down his cheek, and he squeezes his thumb hard in an effort to help keep his voice from wavering.

“...Still, even if it WAS the best possible way things could’ve gone, you still got hurt, and I didn’t treat you right with the way I left, and I...I ran from it, and I should’ve at least faced it fully for both our sakes. You were always worth that. You deserved that. It was my decision, even if I wasn’t sure of it, and I didn’t handle it right, and you had to suffer for it, and I—telling you this doesn’t change anything, and I hope it doesn’t make what happened seem worse, but I figure that...the least I can do now is face you after the fact and...tell you that I...”

The tear inching down to his jaw suddenly falls to the tabletop. Kip looks up at Pascal; he doesn’t find any anger or shock or even much tension there, just a quiet, attentive look, sad and soft.

“I ran away from it instead of at least being honest about it and talking with you first,” he says. “You deserved so much more than that. I’m sorry I didn’t face up to it. I’m sorry I...I’m so bad about running from everything. I’m sorry about what I did to you. How much I hurt you and the situation I left you in.”

Another tear spills and he looks back down, embarrassed. Pascal puts the end of his arm on the back of Kip’s hand. Kip’s knees are intermittently shivering.

“I’m really glad you came out here, too,” Kip says. “I know that was—it shouldn’t’ve been the only way you felt like you could see me again. I know I wanted you to be separate from anything I did in C so that it wouldn’t hurt you, but...I was still cutting you off. It’s such a mess. I’m so glad I’m with you again, but it scares me to think that—maybe I was really close to ruining it completely. You shouldn’t’ve had to come out here on your own just to...”

Pascal gently squeezes his hand.

“I was too scared to have you come with me,” Kip murmurs. “And I was too scared of talking with you about it and maybe saying I didn’t really want to go...”

“It wasn’t fair for me to come over without telling you, especially when I knew there was a decent chance you might run into me like you did,” Pascal says quietly. “I wasn’t sure what was best to do either, but it’s like you said...even if that WAS the best possible way, it still hurt you. And I knew there was a chance of that.”

“I’m not mad about it anymore,” Kip says after a slightly shaky inhale. Pascal gently strokes the back of his hand. “I’m just really glad you came. How could I stay mad anyways? I mean, even if it was kind of messed up, it’s only because I messed it all up first.”

He picks up his napkin in his free hand and pulls his glasses a little bit down his nose, squeezes his eyes shut, holds the fabric against them for a moment. He breathes in deeply, then puts the napkin down with a short laugh and pushes his glasses back into place.

“Man, I talk about being a public embarrassment, and then I just make it worse,” he mutters.

“You’re not embarrassing,” Pascal says. He loops his arm around Kip’s wrist, lifts gently, and kisses his knuckles.

Kip smiles weakly at him and opens the hand in Pascal’s hold, turning his palm upwards to fleetingly cup Pascal’s jaw.

“I just...I wouldn’t blame you if it sounds a little ridiculous that I’m saying I want to be here for you no matter what, when I’ve...I left you the way I did, not even a year ago.”

He exhales heavily.

“I do want to be here for you. I want to be with you for anything. And we’ve already been through more than a lifetime’s worth of shit together even just since you moved over here, and I know I still want to be here for you for everything I possibly can. I promise I do, completely, I really mean it. But I just...I say it and I have to think about what I did and how that...feels like it was me doing the opposite.”

“It wasn’t.” Pascal takes his hand again, tightly. “Don’t worry.”

Kip looks at him.

“I know you really were scared for me,” Pascal says. “I know you didn’t want us to break up. Who can even blame you for being so afraid? Especially when you were pretty much proven right... You weren’t leaving for any lack of caring about me, and I knew that even then. That’s part of why it hurt so much. I knew we both loved each other.”

“...Yeah.” Kip brushes his thumb over the smooth side of Pascal’s arm.

“Listen, Kip,” Pascal says. “I know you feel bad about that, and that it’s hard to tell me about all this, and...I really appreciate that. Thank you so much for saying all of that. But...I’ve always known it. I knew from the moment you told me about it that you were confused and unsure about every part of your decision to go back to C, and that you were scared. It was really, really hard, because I wanted so bad to help you, but I knew that trying to confront you about everything you were struggling with while you guys were trying to get everything together...all it would accomplish would be making you more confused and making you feel worse. I always knew. I won’t deny the whole situation wasn’t a mess, and I was confused about what was best, too, and... We both know how much it hurt. And yeah, I’m sure we should’ve talked a lot more openly about it, but...I understand why it was too hard for us, why we couldn’t figure it out in time. We were doing our best, but...there was so much for you to shoulder with C. Way too much.”

“I could’ve done better,” Kip argues. “I really messed up. I could’ve done way better.”

“Maybe. Maybe I could’ve, too. It’s like you said. We can’t know what would’ve happened if we’d done things different. And look—we’ve still ended up here.”

He presses Kip’s hand to his lips again.

“It wasn’t a fair situation for either of us,” Pascal says. “But I was never really mad at you for deciding to leave. It just...broke my heart how lost you were, and that I couldn’t really comfort you or help you or be there for you...I was proud of how strong you were, too, and I know you don’t think you were strong, but I think you were. Yeah, it killed me to see you leave, but I knew that even if you really never wanted me close to you again, you would make it through things even without my help. And I understood why you wanted to go back. And I knew that the reasons weren’t anything you had ever really had any control over. I—I knew you wanted me to go with you and that you also wanted me to stay. I knew how you felt—it was obvious to me. I’d been with you for too long not to know.”

“...I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“I’m just sorry you knew. It must have been awful to feel like maybe you could stop me from going, but weren’t allowed to, because of how I...” He trails off.

“Kip, it would’ve hurt just as much no matter what.” Pascal laughs softly. “And whether I thought you were set on it with all your heart or whether you were secretly wanting to stay, I wouldn’t have tried to make you stay. I just...knew it shouldn’t happen like that, I don’t know. I felt like it—it wouldn’t be right for me to try to stay together with you like that. It was too big and too complicated for that. It wouldn’t have worked.”

Kip drops his head with a breath of a laugh.

“I wish I’d had even the slightest sense of confidence in anything I was doing back then,” he says. “But I can’t say that. The only thing I can say is that at least I was sure I still loved you, even when I was leaving you. It hurt way too much for me to have any doubt about that. Being with you...probably saved my life, and you were always the very best, and the way I felt about you, I always knew...”

He sighs.

“I was sure I was still in love with you, too,” Pascal says. “And, honestly...I can’t tell you that I wasn’t already subconsciously formulating some notions about following you to C, even before you left. It feels like it only took about half an hour after seeing you guys off to be sure that I needed to give it one more shot. Or...at least be sure that we couldn’t leave it like that. I promise I didn’t come to C only to follow you—I was totally prepared to still live here and have the shop and just keep it all on my own side of the fence if you said you never wanted to talk to me again.”

“Yeah, it actually would’ve been pretty doable to avoid each other forever if we wanted, huh.”

“I would’ve made sure of it, if that’s what you’d decided,” Pascal says. “I promise I had no intentions of, like, forcing you to see me every other day for the rest of our lives. I wanted to be close so that I knew I wouldn’t be a whole district away this time if you ever needed help. Not to like, spy on you. Or make you run into me. I figured you wouldn’t just wander around Berkley.”

Kip smiles and puts his other hand on Pascal’s arm, further up its length.

“I’m sorry I ran away from you,” he murmurs. “I’ve always tried to run and hide from stuff, and I’m still doing it now, but I...really don’t want you to have to be afraid I’ll do it to you again.”

“Ah, I believe you when you say you want to be with me,” Pascal answers softly. “I know you mean it. Like how I know you mean it when you tell me you love me.”

“I’m just...” Kip squeezes Pascal’s arm. “Just...ashamed of how much I messed that up and how I hurt you, even if I did have to leave. It might’ve been all for the best in the end, and I know we shouldn’t’ve had to deal with that situation in the first place, but it still wasn’t right. Pascal—I’m really sorry.”

“You’re alright,” Pascal says, stroking Kip’s arm. “You can say it if you need to, but I don’t need any apologies. I’m not upset with you.”

“I do feel like I should say it,” Kip almost whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Pascal leans forward an inch or two and reaches out to touch Kip’s cheek. Kip meets his eyes and takes a steadying but shivering breath.

“I forgive anything you did or didn’t do,” Pascal tells him softly. “I’m not mad at you.”

Kip nods.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I run from everything. Even now, I’m still doing it.”

“Even if you do that forever, I love you,” Pascal says. “If you run from every single thing in the world, I’ll be there with you, and I’ll love you just as much as I would if you refused to move an inch against the whole universe. Just as long as you want me to stay with you, I will.”

“I do,” Kip says at once. “I want to stay with you. I don’t want to make that mistake twice.”

Pascal smiles at him, so beautifully that Kip feels it in his chest.

“I love you,” Kip says, almost importuningly.

Pascal takes his hand with both his arms and kisses it again, on the backs of his fingers, holding the kiss for several long, lingering seconds, his breath and lips soft and warm.

“I...I love how patient you are,” Kip says quietly. “You could be angry with me for everything that happened when I left, it wouldn’t be like you don’t have a right to be—but you’re always so understanding and you—you don’t get upset with me for putting you through all these extra disasters...”

“Of course not,” Pascal murmurs, lips grazing against his skin. “You’re so important to me, and I love you so much. I want to understand anything you’re ever dealing with. I don’t feel like I need to be mad, because I’ve never felt like you don’t care about me. I trust you.”

“But I’m not—you know I’m not perfect, even when I mean well, I...” Kip stops and sighs. “I want to make sure I don’t hurt you. Not just because I want to stay together—even if I knew for certain you’d never want to leave me no matter what mistakes I made, I wouldn’t ever want to do anything that would make you feel like—like you’re not every bit as important to me as you are, like I don’t love you as much as I do. I don’t want you to have to feel that. And even if I know for certain you’d never feel that way, I still wouldn’t want to ever hurt you. I’d rather you be angry at me than that you be treated in a way you don’t ever deserve at all.”

Pascal squeezes Kip’s hands and smiles affectionately at him.

“You’re wonderful,” Pascal says softly.

“I’m not being any better to you than I should be,” Kip murmurs, blushing. “Anyone who’s even a little bit good should want to treat you the right way. I—I know if there IS someone who’s the best person in the world, it isn’t me, but I want to be the best I can be for you, you know? I...I’d do anything for you. I want your life to be amazing. I want to be here to make sure of it, and to be here to help however I can when things aren’t going as well for you as they should be.”

Pascal drops his head and smiles, his eyes are bright and his cheeks flushed when he raises his head again, giving such a look that Kip feels his heart rate skip up—it’s soft but penetrating, holding such genuine love that it’s striking.

“You’re wonderful, Kip,” he repeats. “I wouldn’t care if there was some magic perfect person out there. That wouldn’t change the fact I’m in love with you. And I’m so happy that I get to be in love with you.”

Between Pascal’s words and voice and face, Kip is momentarily speechless. He finally lets out a breath and his smile flickers on; he curls his hand around Pascal’s arm and squeezes, rubbing it with his thumb.

“By the way, want to try some of my pasta?” Pascal asks quietly. “This vodka sauce is really good.”

Kip laughs breathlessly and Pascal follows suit.

—

Kip sits down on the bench next to Pascal.

“You can be mad at me, you know,” he says.

“Huh?”

“If you’re ever mad at me for something, you don’t have to hide it or anything. I know you don’t really...do that really, being angry—not in a like, yelling way or anything, unless someone’s really trying to hurt somebody, but...I’d rather have you yell at me than find out you felt like you had to like...hide how you feel about stuff for the sake of being gentle with me.”

“Heh...I mean, it’s not like we’ve never argued or neither of us have ever been in a bad mood or frustrated, but...I don’t know, that’s just how it works between us, that’s just how I am, and I don’t mind at all. Believe me, it’s not that I’ve been holding back—I’ve never felt like you didn’t care what I think, and I’ve never been afraid to tell you anything. I’m not putting on an act, and I just don’t... It’s so easy to talk to you and we’re so on the same wavelength that it’s just...well, you know, we can be soft with each other without worrying being walked all over. I never feel like I have to do anything else but talk with you.”

Kip laughs and blushes.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, hooking his arm through Pascal’s. “It’s funny, because I’m usually... I guess I mostly come off as being kinda short-tempered and...irritable, I guess... And I know you know I’m like that a lot. But I’m also...not really like that? At least not always. And with you, I...the part of me that’s not like that gets to come out a lot more. It’s kinda amazing even to me to hear you say we’re on the same wavelength. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t felt that way too, but I’m really proud to be on the same wavelength as somebody like you. It’s just really nice to hear it from you.”

“We are, I always feel like I understand what you’re trying to say and that you understand me too,” Pascal says. “And, I mean, I could be saying the same thing to you—it’s not like you’re going around losing your temper at me. Even when you’re mad, even when you need a minute to be by yourself, you talk to me. Even when it’s hard for you to actually talk...you communicate a lot to me, you know?”

Pascal brushes the outside of his arm against Kip’s thigh.

“Even when you weren’t able to do things like conversations or—really, talking about anything at all,” he continues, “you still had ways to let me know what you were thinking...including that you loved me.”

Kip smiles softly to himself, looking down at the edge of the bench. Even during long stretches of hours when he could barely find it in himself to lift his head, Pascal would lie beside him and hold him, and Kip would run his hand through Pascal’s hair, drag his fingertips slowly up and down his spine, rest his arm on Pascal’s waist with his hand on his butt while resting his cheek against Pascal’s forehead.

“Oh, hey, remember this?” he says, turning slightly towards Pascal on the bench.

He puts his thumb and index finger together and places them against Pascal’s arm, spreading them gradually out and then back in while moving his wrist up a millimeter or two and then down an inch, drawing the two halves of a heart in one smooth motion.

Pascal laughs.

“Yeah, I totally do,” he says. “And I remember you kind of simplified it—like, just put your fingers against me like that and then move them out and back in without really doing the shape, like a pinching motion without the pinch? And you’d stand next to me and do it on the back of my neck or my shoulder or arm and you were always really soft when you did it, just touching me really gently, like you’d be putting a heart against my waist or my face or back. It was cute, you know? I heard it as an ‘I love you,’ I didn’t even have to translate it in my head, it was as automatic as if you’d said it aloud.”

“Aw, good, that’s what it was,” Kip laughs. “Even though I know you can just say it...and it’s not like I’ve ever had trouble saying it to you, obviously—it’s just nice to have other ways to say it without SAYING it. Like how I’ve always liked to kiss you and hug you and just touch you to let you know how much I like being with you. I like to have options, I guess.”

“Yeah. Mixing it up.”

“Ha, right? And, well...I dunno, I DO have trouble saying stuff to other people sometimes. Like, I only really say ‘I love you’ to you. It’s like...sometimes it doesn’t feel right to me to say it, not even casually, even though I have these people that I really do love, and I’m lucky to have them... I mean, I say it sometimes, and it’s not like I don’t wanna say ‘I love you’ because I don’t think it’s true, or I think it’d be that weird or anything...”

He shrugs.

“Nah, it’s cool,” Pascal says, putting his arm across Kip’s shoulders. “I mean, you know they know you love them.”

“Yeah...I just feel guilty sometimes, cuz, y’know...Roy especially likes to say stuff directly all the time, and that’s great and it feels pretty awesome to have somebody complimenting you to your face every day, and I feel bad I don’t do anything as good as that for them. But I know I’m just not like that...even if I was saying the exact same things, it’d be different coming from me. It wouldn’t be like getting a pep talk, it’d be like, ‘god, what’s up with Kip,’ or whatever, haha...”

“Aw, you know Roy thinks you’re awesome even on days he doesn’t say ‘you’re awesome’—I’m sure it’s the same way for them. I mean, I lived with you guys for years. I never got the sense he or Molly thought you didn’t like them.”

“They know, and I know they do, but I’ve never exactly been able to be...just, regular, not the way I was before. And I know I got worse around the time we decided to move over here, like I had to be all on-guard and serious about who I was or...or the kind of stuff that happened anyways would happen. Which made me even worse again when it did. And now I’m no fun anymore and all I did for the whole time even before Wallace showed up was text them about where they were if they were five minutes off schedule or tell Roy to keep his head down more even though I know he never could or tell Molly not to go to Berkley too often or encourage Roy so much...or...”

He sighs and kicks his heel against the brick sidewalk, letting his head drop back.

“They know why you did that,” Pascal says.

“Everyone knows I’m just...scared of everything...”

“You’ve always been worried for us,” Pascal says, rubbing Kip’s shoulder. “Because you love us.”

“Of course—“

“Of course.

“But nagging them to shreds over everything isn’t as good as saying ‘I love you and am scared you’ll be hurt again or worse, but I want you to live your lives, too.’ I’ve just been doing the same thing I did to you, trying to act like I could protect anyone just by keeping them from doing certain things... I’m so...”

Pascal lightly kisses his hair.

“Believe me, Kip—it feels a lot better to have someone checking in on you even when they don’t have to than someone who pays no attention to you one way or another. It shows you think about them.”

“Maybe it did for like, the first week or so, but I know it’s just been annoying since then.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know it bugs them.”

“You‘re not annoying.”

“I’ve heard them say it,” Kip says.

That makes Pascal pause. Kip suddenly feels a little tight in the chest, as though he’s said something he shouldn’t have, like it was a secret. He didn’t really mean to actually say it aloud and hadn’t quite realized that it weighed on him a little bit more heavily than simple embarrassment.

“I know they don’t...I know it didn’t really matter,” he fumbles to add. “They weren’t being mean, I just...overheard stuff a few times. It wasn’t that bad. I could just tell they—“

He grimaces and squeezes his eyes shut a moment.

“God,” he sighs. “How do you deal with the fact that any conversation with me could veer into the direction of all my issues like, five times over? Is it exhausting? I don’t mean to be so self-centered... Thank you for being so good at listening, though...”

“No,” Pascal says earnestly. “No, babe, it’s the other way. I like to talk about things like this, it like...it gets me kinda more energized? Like, yeah, it’s a bit of work to talk about this stuff, and talking about something casual isn’t the same kind of effort, but it’s effort I like giving—it’s good. I mean, it can be a challenge, but I’m completely up for it. And it means you trust me, and I get to help you, and man—if I can make you feel better about anything? I love that so much. You’re not making trouble for me at all, believe me. I love that you trust me enough to tell me about difficult things. It means a lot to me when we get to talk about it.”

Kip looks over at him.

“...I guess if you didn’t dump me back in the day, I don’t have to worry about any of my shit being too much for you, huh,” he laughs.

“Aw, don’t worry about anything you could ever have to talk about,” Pascal says. “I don’t care if it’s literally life and death or if it’s something you don’t think even deserves to be a problem. I love that you talk to me about anything you choose to talk with me about.”

“...I know the feeling,” Kip says, putting his hand on Pascal’s arm where it rests against his bicep. “I love that I get to hear and talk with you about your problems just as much as I love that I get to hear the good stuff. I guess I’m only insecure out of habit really...I mean, I know it’s not bad to talk about bad stuff. Like, you can tell a total stranger about something nice that’s just happened to you, right? And, well...you could tell them about the bad stuff, too, but usually you don’t. I appreciate that I can hear about all kinds of things from you, and I wouldn’t tell you about mine if I didn’t love you and know you love me as much as you do. I’m just annoyed at myself for apparently managing to make anything about my problems. ...My problem of being annoying.”

He laughs.

“You’re not annoying.” Pascal leans over and kisses his hair.

“I am,” he grumbles. “I believe you when you say I don’t annoy you. But you’re special.”

“People love you,” Pascal murmurs.

“I know they do... And you’ve all stuck with me for years, through all this shit. But I’m not all that much fun, especially compared to them—that’s just a fact.”

“You’re fantastic,” Pascal says. “And anybody who’s lucky enough to really get to know you knows you’re a lot of fun, even if it’s not as obvious at first. But, like, it’s okay that you’re not happy all the time and that a lot of things are a big deal to you. People don’t make their friends only act fun all the time and pretend to be cool with everything they’re cool with—not real ones, anyway. And Roy and Molly are real friends for you.”

“Yeah...they are.”

“So are you.”

Kip laughs.

“You know me too well,” he says. “...I said that to Eno, earlier. For answering aloud what I’d been thinking, too.”

Pascal laughs as well.

“They love you, but if it’s been bothering you, I think you should bring it up.”

“I know,” Kip sighs. “Eno was saying that kind of thing too. That I need to talk to Wallace. Because I haven’t been, and, shockingly, that’s not making things less awkward. He was saying how...for me and my whole brand of issues, it’s probably more important that I worry about managing to talk to him at all than worry about saying the right thing or accomplishing something... Cuz I told him I was worried about doing that thing where I just...avoid a problem for so long that facing it isn’t even an option anymore. But where I do that with a person and end up losing touch completely. And the longer I avoid something the more impossible it gets to stop, so...it’s probably better that I just say some nonsense like, ‘Hey, haha, I’m embarrassed and feel awkward around you and I don’t think there’s a solution but I wanted to say that I don’t know what to say.’”

“Mm...that’s probably true,” Pascal says slowly. “But, you know, I don’t even think you have to even talk about how you’re feeling if you don’t want to. I think it’d be just as good if you went over and sat down and talked about the weather with him for half an hour. If that’d make it seem less difficult to you...talking about anything would be good, if you have to work your way up to talking about more serious things.”

“You think?”

“Sure. It’s like you say—it’s about giving yourself the chance to talk to him at all, not say certain things or feel like you necessarily solved something.”

“Hmm...yeah, I do think the hard part is mostly going to be the, like, being in the same room and getting words out. That’s what I’m least sure I’m even capable of... Who knows. But I just want to make sure I don’t...I don’t forget what he actually means to me. But maybe I need to readjust my ideas of who he’s going to be in my life, now that we’re just...regular people with regular lives again.”

He sighs.

“Who knows,” he repeats.

“I don’t,” Pascal says. “I don’t think anyone does. But you just need to talk with him, doesn’t really matter about what. Since you’re worried about getting too distant to talk at all, right?”

Kip leans his thigh against Pascal’s.

“Kinda...” he says. “It’s like...I’m worried that if I keep being so intimidated by this, my whole avoidance of Wallace will become this...thing, and whenever I think of him it’ll feel like crap instead of feeling like...what I actually think of him.”

He raises his heel slightly off the ground to rub his knee against Pascal’s.

“It’s kind of funny that, uh, pretty much the first thing Wallace talked to me about after the whole mess was that he thought we should get together and talk because...he was afraid I was gonna avoid him for too long and get stuck and never stop...”

He runs his hand through the hair on the back of his head and laughs.

“I got annoyed because I didn’t exactly want to be confronted with anything at the moment but...here I am a few weeks later, basically repeating everything he said. I guess everybody knows me too well.”

“...Huh,” Pascal says thoughtfully. “Well, it’s alright. It’s just as important to take the time you need and go at the right pace for yourself. Back then, having all that space was what would help you. And now you’re wanting to talk, so hey, no harm done.”

Kip laughs.

“God, I need you to follow me around all day and say stuff like that,” he jokes. “So I’m not as embarrassed that everybody has way more sense than me, while I’m just, y’know. Making everything more difficult than it needs to be.”

“You have as much sense as anybody,” Pascal counters. “You’re just like everyone else—we all react to stuff different and look at our lives in our own way. There’s nothing wrong with you. Anybody making you feel like there is is the one who’s wrong.”

“Nnh.” Kip turns and presses his forehead against Pascal’s shoulder. “You’re sweet. And you’re so thoughtful. About everything, all the time.”

“Aw...”

“You are.”

“You’d know,” Pascal says. “I like how much you think about everything.”

“I overthink stuff, maybe.”

“Mm...I stand by my opinion.”

Kip reaches his hand up by his shoulder, feeling for Pascal’s arm, which, as soon as the backs of his fingers brushes against it, curls around his palm.

“I’m getting better about some stuff, I think,” Kip murmurs, eyes moving from faint star to star. “Or at least at trying to keep myself from like...taking that overthinking and turning it into making other people...deal with the standards set by my anxieties...”

He rubs a thumb around the circumference of a sucker.

“I mean, you know, I used to try to get on Roy’s case about wanting to be a part of anything that happens on the street,” he says quietly. “I knew it was useless, but I...I guess I thought I HAD to lecture everybody, I had to try because of how much danger I saw and how scared it made me... And I’d harp on Kate for wanting to catch wherever things were the most stirred up, tell her it was too much to expect that to always be okay, and Molly for wanting to be more involved in things around Berkley, and...”

He sighs quietly.

“I mean, you of all people know that I...I take it too far, being worried and cautious and everything. I know everybody knows I’ve always been scared for all of us...but why would anyone appreciate me interfering with their life and trying to hold them back from the way they want to do things. They all know what’s going on. What would even be the point of bothering them about it anyways. It’s a joke to pretend that keeping your head down and avoiding certain things will save anyone.”

“Kip.”

“Mm?”

As soon as Kip turns his head, Pascal catches his mouth with a soft kiss. Kip’s breath halts, his eyes close reflexively, and he presses back into it.

A moment later Pascal pulls away. Kip follows after him a millimeter or two before opening his eyes to see his gentle, lovely smile. The corner of Kip’s mouth flickers upwards.

“Yeah?” he says quietly.

“Yeah,” Pascal answers.

“...I’m sorry I was like that to you, too,” Kip murmurs, and he looks back across the street. “I know you get why I did it. But I was still...I made you feel like you wouldn’t even have the option of coming here if you talked to me about it.”

“No, I knew you wouldn’t actually try to force me to do anything one way or another,” Pascal says. “I guess it was more like the way it was for you about leaving. I figured that I couldn’t make myself do it if you told me you wanted me to stay where I was. And I couldn’t really stand the thought of hurting you like that, even though...even though I did anyways.”

Kip sighs again.

“I can’t...” He bites his lip and glances upwards. “I don’t blame you for it. And I like how it turned out, so how can I complain? We were just caught in a mess, and...”

He pulls his hands into his lap to twist his fingers.

“I can’t be mad at you for wanting to avoid telling me you were moving here—I mean, god,” Kip laughs. “I could never be mad at anyone for avoiding anything. I do it worse than anybody, all the time. I know exactly how it feels to find yourself stuck.”

“I’m...” Pascal exhales slowly. “It was still messed up that I made Roy and Molly keep it a secret from you. I know you understand the why of that too, but it’s...that was different than just me not telling you. And the only reason they didn’t tell you was because of me. Just because I was too nervous to talk to you again in that situation...I told them I didn’t think I was ready. They weren’t too thrilled about it, but they...I don’t know, maybe they could tell it probably wasn’t the best time for us to be put back in touch.”

“Well...it’s not even like you were wrong. I WAS upset when I found out you were here.”

“I know.”

Kip glances over; Pascal’s face is a little flushed. Kip rests a hand on Pascal’s thigh and rubs gently, slowly.

“I just needed time,” he says softly. “I still loved you and wished we were still together; I never stopped. That’s why it was so hard to see you again. And...how much it scared me to have you so close.”

“...Yeah. I’m still sorry you had to find out like that. Running into me and all. And after Roy and Molly knew.”

“It was an accident,” Kip murmurs. “It wasn’t your fault. Wallace didn’t have a clue, and...well, like I said, Roy and Molly were never very interested in keeping off Berkley. That was kind of inevitable. I think everybody knew you were there but me.”

“Oh god, really?”

Kip huffs a laugh and shoots a smile over at Pascal, patting his knee.

“Yeah, I was pretty much the only one who tried to keep to our little corner as much as I did...and everybody talks to each other, and knows when stuff’s happening, and knows where stuff is, and everybody knew I wasn’t supposed to know, and that I was too much of a mess to know yet...”

“Ugh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve created that kind of a situation around you...”

“You didn’t know. It’s kinda different from D. Things are more...just more connected. Everybody knows about stuff.”

“I’m sorry...”

“Nah.” Kip turns and loops his arms around Pascal’s waist, rests his head against his shoulder. “It’s alright.”

“But...did it feel bad to find out that all these other people already knew?”

Kip bites his lip, presses his forehead a bit harder against Pascal.

“Yeah, a little,” he sighs. “I was embarrassed and it made me feel...kinda ridiculous that people were seeing me and knowing something like that about me while I didn’t have the first clue about it...especially since I lived with Roy and Molly and we see each other every day and they knew for weeks before I did and...”

He sighs more heavily.

“I was only angry about it at first. I understood why they didn’t tell, and why you didn’t tell, but I had to be angry, I was embarrassed and still shaken up about things and...ugh. I wasn’t that mad about it for too long. There was too much going on for that to feel like that big a deal for more than a few days. But it all just made me feel like...I don’t know. I dunno. I was scared and I felt like...everyone was thinking I was stupid for being scared and...ugh, it just...”

He buries his face against Pascal’s chest for a moment, squeezing his waist.

“I don’t blame you for it or anything,” he mumbles into Pascal’s shirt. “There was never gonna be a painless way for us to, uh, be reintroduced. And I wish I wasn’t so afraid that I made people have to...like, adjust their whole lives around me. I don’t know. I’m trying to have a different approach. I don’t want to be bothering them anymore or feeling like...somebody they have to sneak around, like I’m trying to enforce these rules I make up for everyone, or whatever. I’m not gonna accomplish anything by bugging everybody—I’m trying to only say something when it feels necessary, y’know? But it’s not as though I can know ahead of time when it’s necessary or not... That’s the whole problem, I guess.”

“I think it’s okay if you talk about it whenever you’re worried about something,” Pascal says.

“Yeah, but you like me more than most people,” Kip laughs. “I’ll talk to you about anything I’m thinking. But it’s different when it’s just like...you’re trying to hang out and do the things you like to do and I’m over here telling people to text every other hour and be careful with the mostly-human areas and why don’t we all stay home and repaint the windowsill instead.”

“Aw, just cuz you’re careful doesn’t make you boring,” Pascal says. “It’s not like the riskier something is, the more fun it is, and that’s all.”

“Sure, but I just...ruin the mood too often, and I annoy people and make them feel like they should just do certain stuff without me, and...” He sighs. “It’s like I wanna feel like I can create this safe little world where nobody will get hurt if we all play by the rules I make up, and that’s just not even possible anyways. I’m trying to let go of that. I’m trying to accept that, just—it’s all so beyond anything like where you are what you do and who’s looking out for you and who cares about you, and...”

He pushes his head a bit harder against Pascal’s chest. Pascal tightens the arm around him, pulls him in close.

“I’m trying to be less...” He pauses to take a breath. “Everyone I’m friends with always knew what’s been going on. I followed all my own rules about trying to keep safe, and hell, look where that got me. I’m trying to get out of the habit of...pressuring everybody into meeting my personal standards. If anyone is actually in danger, it’s gonna mostly all be a matter of total chance that’s out of our control. And if they aren’t, I’m just making a nuisance of myself.”

He grits his teeth and closes his eyes to focus on the feeling of Pascal pulling him in closer, the slight rippling of his arm as he shifts it.

“It’s funny how things used to be,” Kip murmurs. “I’ll like, run into people I used to go to school with or something, and we just...of course there’s nothing connecting us anymore, and I know I must seem so different... I used to have fun with a lot of people back then, we’d all just hang out and mess around and...”

He sighs slowly.

“Oh, well.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t really keep any friends from school, either,” Pascal says, kissing the top of Kip’s head. “It’s not like I didn’t have any, but I guess I was just on the sidelines of every friend group, and when things got shaken up...nothing really held.”

Kip slides his hand across Pascal’s chest, up to his shoulder.

“But I’ve found a few people here and there anyways,” Pascal murmurs. “Including you guys. And honestly, since the exact way my life went led to me standing in the right place at the right time to meet you, I don’t mind that things went the way that they did. I wish they’d been better, of course, but I made it through, and now I’m here, trying to run my own place, being with you...”

He leans his cheek against the top of Kip’s head and sighs gently.

“And I’m fine with all of it because I got to be here for you when you needed it,” Pascal says. “Even if you hadn’t wanted to be with me again after I moved here...I don’t think I could ever have regretted being with you. Those years we already had are so important to me. And to think we have more of them is just...”

He trails off, as though there are no words.

Kip feels it in his chest, and tilts his head up and kisses Pascal’s throat. He sits up and looks Pascal in the face, glancing between his beautiful eyes and reaching out to pet some hair to the side simply for the sake of the contact.

“I’m staying with you,” Kip says quietly. “You know that, right?”

Pascal smiles faintly and nods.

“Okay. Good. Because I am. I promise.”

Pascal nods again, face red, and Kip leans in and kisses his lips, holding it for a few heartbeats.

“Hey,” he says gently, pulling away. “I wanna watch the sunset a while longer, but...after that, you wanna go to your place?”

“...I thought you had to open tomorrow?”
Pascal says hesitantly.

“I do,” Kip confirms. “But I can just get up half an hour earlier than I would’ve, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I mean, if you had plans to do stuff, it’s cool, I just like hanging out over there, you don’t have to entertain me. But if you need some room, that’s alright too...I only wanna come over if it doesn’t mess up your night—“

“No, god no, I’d always rather have you over than not, are you kidding? Like, I was gonna do some laundry and maybe wash some dishes and the bathroom, that’s not very fun, but...”

“You don’t need to be fun,” Kip says. “I wouldn’t exactly be doing anything more thrilling if I went back to our place, anyways. I could help you with some of it, I wouldn’t mind at all. And, hey, you know, maybe you’d have something to look forward to when you’re done, and all.”

“Mm... Some tea?”

“Yeah—that’d be great,” Kip laughs. “Make me my personal blend, please.”

—

“Sorry I didn’t put everything into a neater pile,” Pascal apologizes, stacking up some bowls. “There’s soap in the cupboard, there...”

“It’s already a lot neater than what the three of us can build up sometimes.” Kip waves it off with his hand. “This is no sweat.”

“Thanks for helping,” Pascal says, stooping slightly to peck him on the cheek. “I appreciate it.”

Kip grins at the brush of Pascal’s scruff and the kindness in his voice.

“Mmhm, you’re more than welcome.” He rolls his shoulders back and turns on the faucet.

“I’m gonna take my laundry down, okay?” Pascal says over the running water. “I’ll be back up in a minute.”

“Okay.”

When the door closes and the apartment is quiet, Kip doesn’t feel awkward or slightly nervous or out of place. He simply feels at home. He takes Pascal’s dishes from earlier days, one by one, the mugs and the saucers and bowls, remnants of meals eaten alone, and slips them into the warm water.

—

“How’re you doing in there?” Kip calls as he towels off the inside of a teacup.

“Ah...” Pascal’s voice floats from the bathroom on the other side of the wall. “It’s going okay. I suck at holding rags, but that’s nothing new.”

“Aw, babe.”

“I’m gonna go down in a couple minutes to switch the clothes to the dryer,” Pascal says. Kip hears him working a scrub brush.

“Okay,” Kip says. “I’m almost done with these—I can fold them for you, if you like?”

“Oh, love, you don’t have to...”

“Nah, I like helping you. Besides, you know how I like warm laundry for my hands.”

“I won’t stop you,” Pascal laughs. “As long as you really don’t mind.”

“It’s cool. I like being here for this stuff, really. It kinda feels like before.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Kip takes a cup he used to use all the time and sets it on a shelf in the cabinet. He hums quietly and sings under his breath and pushes his hands into the heat of the water.

—

Kip smooths his hands overtop the stack of freshly-folded laundry. He hears Pascal shut off the bathroom sink; moments later he walks into the living room. Kip smiles at him from the couch.

“You done?” Kip asks.

“Yeah.”

“Awesome...I just put these back in the basket, I didn’t wanna try putting them in the drawers and end up organizing them wrong, or something.”

He lifts the basket off the cushion beside him as he speaks, setting it on the floor instead.

“Oh, that’s fine,” Pascal assures him. “Thank you for doing that.”

“You’re welcome.”

Pascal crosses the room and sinks down onto the couch next to Kip with a long exhale.

“You okay?” Kip asks.

“Yeah. It just feels really good to sit down somewhere comfortable.”

“Mm...this IS a pretty solid couch, especially for getting it secondhand and all.”

He watches Pascal lean back and close his eyes.

“Working all day must wear you out,” Kip says. “You haven’t really gotten to rest since, what—like, around one o’clock or something?”

“It was around then, yeah,” Pascal says. “It can get rough by closing sometimes.”

“Aw...you ought to have a nice chair for the desk in the back or something,” Kip says. “So you can get some chances to sit down and actually give your body a break throughout the day.”

“Heh, yeah, that’d be nice...”

“Mm... Lie down and I’ll rub your back?”

“Oh man, d’you wanna?”

Kip moves off the couch so that Pascal can maneuver his way onto his stomach, lying across its length, head on a pillow and ankles propped up against the arm. Kip lifts his leg across Pascal’s body and straddles him, settling his weight over Pascal’s thighs.

He leans over and brushes his fingers through Pascal’s hair, scratching lightly at the nape of his neck. Pascal breathes a quiet, happy whimper and Kip smiles.

He just rubs his palms over the expanse of Pascal’s back, following every slope and dip, moving his hands slowly and with middling pressure. After a once-over, he lifts the hem of Pascal’s shirt and drags the fabric up until it’s bunched around his chest; Pascal rocks slightly onto his side and pulls the shirt up over his head and off his arms.

Kip grows slightly heated just at the sight of Pascal taking off his shirt, at the shifting muscles and bare skin of his back as he resettles against the cushions. He slowly lowers his hands down to either side of Pascal’s spine. His skin is soft and so warm that Kip wonders if his own skin feels cold to Pascal—but with no sign of discomfort from his boyfriend, Kip begins sliding his hands across Pascal’s body again.

It feels so good to touch him like this, as always. The contact is relaxing, and the signals of contentment from Pascal are deeply gratifying. Kip begins to drag his nails lightly over Pascal’s skin, in circles and waves, back and forth, occasionally pausing to knead the heel of his palm or his knuckles into a spot that it seems could use some extra attention. Pascal gives soft sighs at the feeling of Kip’s fingertips running across his back, and Kip knows to linger in an area when his touch receives a breathy hum.

Kip is already pleasantly and quietly turned on when his massage of the top of Pascal’s shoulders earns a low whine. He feels a response that goes straight to his dick. His hands still momentarily.

“Are you sore here?” he asks quietly, putting in a bit more pressure. He moves the massage inwards to get at the base of Pascal’s neck.

“Yeah a bit,” Pascal breathes. “God, that feels nice, push a little more, maybe...”

Kip digs his thumbs into the muscles just on either side of Pascal’s neck and gives a hard, rolling massage. Pascal’s soft sigh of a moan makes Kip press his hips down just a little harder against Pascal’s thighs. He’s been anticipating sex again for a good solid hour, and his buildup is definitely intensifying through all this.

But he doesn’t want his libido to interrupt. He wants to let Pascal rest after a stretch of working and walking and cleaning that started over half a day ago, and he wants to knead away a little of his fatigue, and wants to at least let Pascal enjoy this treatment a while longer, even if his efforts don’t make any lasting impact on whatever aches Pascal’s muscles are holding. So he closes his eyes and focuses on the rhythm of his movements, leaning into it to give Pascal that much more pressure, trying to exhale away the edge of his arousal.

After a few minutes he sits more upright to give his arms a break, instead moving his nails lightly all across Pascal’s back in broad swirls and sweeps. Sometimes he pauses to scratch harder at just one spot, the small of his back, the center of his spine, the perimeter of his shoulderblades, and delights in how Pascal laughs under his breath and pushes into it.

Kip leans down and kisses the back of his neck, the edge of his cheek.

“Mmm...” Pascal hums. “Are you getting hard?”

“Ah—“ Kip blushes and reflexively rolls his crotch away from Pascal’s ass. “Uh...a little, yeah. Sorry...”

“No, it’s okay, I like it. It feels really nice.”

“Oh. I...”

Pascal reaches back and slips his arm around the base of Kip’s waist, pulling him in until Kip’s erection is pushed unabashedly firm up against the softness of Pascal’s butt. He experimentally shifts his hips forward in a subtle grind. Pascal presses back just as gently, and it gives Kip a fantastic shiver low in his gut. He bites his lip and breathes in and smooths his hands up the plane of Pascal’s back and gently rocks against his ass a few times.

He feels more relaxed this way, being able to squeeze his knees against Pascal’s sides and grind on him at a lazy pace, focusing better on what his hands are doing while letting his hips just do whatever feels good.

“Oh, this is nice,” Pascal sighs contentedly. “This is so nice...”

Kip smiles to himself and digs his knuckles into Pascal’s shoulders.

—

“C’mere,” Pascal murmurs, holding his arms out.

Kip climbs into his embrace, laughs under his breath, aligns himself against Pascal’s front so his head rests on his shoulder and the edge of his ribs don’t dig into Pascal’s. He nuzzles his face against Pascal’s throat as Pascal’s wide, heavy arms loop around his back and rest there. Kip rolls his pelvis against Pascal’s thigh, still half-hard, and presses his own leg to the erection he can feel through Pascal’s sweatpants, shifting his knee so he rubs against it.

“C’mere,” Pascal repeats, and tugs gently against Kip’s back.

Kip puts his hands on the cushion and lifts himself slightly, letting Pascal guide him forward the couple of inches needed to comfortably bring their mouths together. Pascal immediately sets the pace, sucking Kip’s lower lip before running his tongue over Kip’s teeth—Kip opens his mouth and Pascal brushes their tongues together as he scoops an arm beneath Kip’s ass, grinding more heavily up against him.

“Oh—“ Kip murmurs in a quick break for air. “Pascal...”

It still feels so good to be able to say his name.

They find each other’s mouths again and he nips at Pascal’s lip, then lets Pascal suck on his tongue. Pascal presses his own tongue against Kip’s teeth and gently bites on his lip, pinching just slightly.

“Mm, what would you like to do?” Pascal asks; his voice is enchantingly textured and low.

“I wanna fuck you,” Kip answers at once, scraping his fingernails down Pascal’s shoulders. “But first, I want you to fuck me. But before all of that I wanna keep doing this for a while.”

“Mm—“ Pascal kisses him warmly, arms gathering him in. “Then we’ll do it just like you want.”

A little jolt of anticipation goes through Kip, he squeezes his grip on Pascal’s body and humps him a little more aggressively.

After a few minutes of making out, Kip lifts his head slightly to breathe deeply, eyes closed. He opens them again at the touch of Pascal’s arm at his mouth, looks down at Pascal gazing at his lips.

“So blue,” Pascal murmurs wonderingly. “You’re gorgeous.”

Kip parts his lips and slips the first inch of Pascal’s arm into his mouth, nudges his tongue half-reflexively into the concavity of the suckers. Pascal laughs and flushes and Kip gives his arm a suck and a swipe of the tongue before sliding it back out through his lips.

“So are you,” he mumbles, sliding his fingers through the hair on Pascal’s chest. “Wish you could see yourself.”

“I’m fine with not being able to if it means I get to look at you.”

Kip has to smile and blush, and makes up for it by flicking Pascal on the collarbone.

“Mm, well, at least I can tell you how handsome you are,” Kip says. Pascal’s slightly heavy breathing pushes against his stomach with a steady, comfortable rhythm. “Like, how your eyes are a lovely color and you give such sweet looks that anybody with any sense would fall in love with you. And your mouth looks as nice to kiss as it is, and even more when you smile. You’ve got the, like, perfect unshaved look, just the perfect length, it drives me crazy sometimes how much I wanna kiss it to feel it against my face, just start by one ear and kiss all the way along your jaw to the other one...”

He strokes the back of his finger against Pascal’s chin.

“You’ve got this great shape to the sides of your face, too,” Kip murmurs. “This really subtle curve to your cheekbones, I always see it and wanna put my nose right there and kiss your cheek, then kiss your nose up to your forehead...”

He stares for a moment at the path he described, vaguely noticing Pascal staring back at him, then leans in and does it for real, pressing more than a few intent, lingering kisses to Pascal’s right cheek, his hand cupping the left one, and kisses the tip of his nose, ghosting some quick kisses up the bridge, planting a firmer one between his eyebrows, then a slow and soft one in the center of his forehead, breathing in the scent of his hair and shampoo.

“You just have a face I wanna kiss so bad,” Kip says against his skin before lifting his head again. “And touch, and watch for ages while you talk. I just can’t get enough of it, you know?”

Pascal reddens nicely.

“And you have the cutest blush,” Kip adds, satisfied to see the remark elicit a deeper one.

“Not as good as yours,” Pascal says quietly.

Kip breathes a laugh and glances back and forth between Pascal’s eyes and his lips before smoothly dipping his head down to tuck his nose under Pascal’s jaw, pushing a kiss to his warm skin. He parts his lips to let his teeth slide against his neck, biting gently, detaching to place another heavy kiss an inch away, another, another.

The quiet answering sighs from Pascal convey enough enjoyment and unaffected arousal that Kip could be happy even if they left off with this before settling in for a night’s sleep. But it’s even better that they’re warming up.

—

“Tell me what you’d like,” Pascal murmurs in Kip’s ear. He shoves his arm down the front of Kip’s pants, squeezing him, and Kip gasps loudly and leans in further towards Pascal, throat pressed against his shoulder, chests rubbing together.

He grabs Pascal’s hips.

“I wan—“ He cuts himself off with a sharp moan and squeezes his eyes shut and bucks rapidly against the soft underside of Pascal’s arm, rubbing his cock against the suckers.

Pascal kisses Kip’s cheek, his jaw, his neck, sucks and works his skin between his teeth, and rubs enthusiastically at his dick. Kip’s legs twitch and he leans back in Pascal’s embrace and slides his hands around to grip Pascal’s ass.

With one more hard suck, Pascal pulls off of Kip’s throat and kisses the hickey.

“What should I do?” Pascal asks, voice low and close and seductive. “What do you want? Tell me and I’ll do it.”

Kip pants and looks up at the ceiling and digs his fingers into his hold on Pascal’s butt. Pascal pushes Kip’s pants further down.

“I...”

“Don’t overthink it. Just say what you want, whatever you want,” Pascal murmurs, nipping the edge of Kip’s ear, kissing his temple. “Say what you want and I’ll do it.”

“Suck my dick,” Kip says breathlessly. “I want you—suck my dick but don’t make me cum and then—“

Pascal leans Kip further back, arm spooling around his erection, beginning a slow pump. He presses his lips to the base of Kip’s throat, then to the top of his chest.

“Okay. And then what do I do?” he mumbles against Kip’s skin, breath warm, lips soft, chin scratchy. Kip moans and thrusts and scrape his nails up Pascal’s back to bury his hands in his hair.

“Nnh... A-and then eat my ass—“ Kip’s voice is strained and he bucks harder into Pascal’s arm just from saying it. “And then I wanna be on all fours and you’re—on your knees behind me—and I want you to fuck me as hard as you want and jerk me off—make me cum while your dick’s inside me an-and then keep fucking me till you cum. Th-that’s what I want. Do that. Please.”

He arches up and pulls Pascal’s head down harder; Pascal drags his mouth to Kip’s nipple, teasing it with his tongue.

“Mm...” Pascal plants a kiss and rubs his cheek against Kip’s skin. “Sounds good to me.”

And he bends further over Kip, leaning him all the way back to the mattress, and kisses his way down Kip’s stomach.

—

Pascal does a fantastic job with him, sucking his dick with confident enthusiasm, bringing him so close to orgasm that Kip squirms against the bed trying to hold it off, sure that he won’t be able to, trying to give warning, only for Pascal to pull away and leave Kip stunned that he got so close without actually climaxing—then a few breathless seconds later Pascal slips his mouth over the head of Kip’s leaking erection and again brings him right up to the edge. Kip cries out and accidentally kicks, Pascal pulls off again, Kip whines and gasps and clutches at the sheets—Pascal repeats it just a few more times before burying his face in Kip’s stomach and kissing it playfully, bringing an arm up between his legs to cup him with a gentle squeeze. Kip pants and groans his ache at the lack of release; Pascal murmurs comfortingly to him, pushing himself up to bite and suck on Kip’s throat while grinding against him, making Kip cling to his arm and back and moan with every other exhale.

Pascal pushes Kip’s knees all the way to his shoulders, and Kip starts feeling shivery butterflies in his stomach before Pascal even makes another move.

When Pascal does move, putting his arms against Kip’s the bottom of thighs and bringing his head down to Kip’s ass, shoving his mouth against him, Kip’s breath catches in the middle of a sharp groan and he freezes, tilting his hips just barely to press up towards Pascal. The gentle scratch of facial hair, the warmth and textured drag of his tongue teasing him with a mix of quick and prolonged strokes, quiet but passionate moans from Pascal—with the buildup from the blowjob still electric inside him, it’s all enough to drive Kip wild.

Pascal only encourages him the more worked up he gets, and eventually coaxes him to roll over, climbing up onto the mattress with him and arranging him on his elbows and knees. Kip lets his hands slide forward, face sinking into the pillow, rocking back on his knees until Pascal takes hold of his thighs and presses his tongue almost inside him. Kip swears and cries Pascal’s name and has to free up one arm to reach down and stroke himself; Pascal rims him with increasing pressure until finally Kip begs him to go ahead and stretch him out.

It’s a smooth transition from Pascal fucking Kip with his arm to kneeling behind him and rubbing his lube-covered erection up and down the rut of his ass, making Kip moan and grind back and breathlessly assure Pascal that he’s ready.

“You want it?” Pascal asks quietly. Just hearing his low, heavy voice goes straight to Kip’s dick.

“Yes,” Kip answers immediately. “I want it—fuck me, Pasc—“

Pascal leans in close; Kip feels the thick base of his hot, slicked cock pressing against his ass.

“I wanna give you something really good to think about next time you’re by yourself in bed.”

“Aah, fuck—“ Kip breathes. “Fuck me—“

“Does that mean you’re ready?”

“Y-yeah.”

Kip squeezes his eyes shut as Pascal lines them up.

“Okay, deep breath...”

Pascal puts an arm on Kip’s waist to feel his inhale.

“And let it out.”

Pascal smoothly presses forward as Kip breathes out, and Kip pushes back, and the first inch slides into him in one go.

As always, Pascal makes sure to take things one step at a time, and Kip appreciates the care taken despite the impatience of his arousal. Soon enough Kip’s basking in the familiar pressure inside himself as Pascal rocks the last inch in, holding them still for half a minute to catch their breath.

Pascal’s initial strokes are shallow and slow, and even as he lengthens and quickens them, he makes sure to pause sometimes while fully pushed inside Kip, letting them both enjoy the feeling and catch their breath for a second. It’s all perfect to Kip, the beautiful aching pool of arousal sitting low in his stomach, Pascal’s arms holding him up, the pleasure of feeling filled with Pascal’s dick, the anticipation of really hitting their stride and being fucked into the mattress all the way to a headspinning orgasm.

Pascal doesn’t need much encouragement to intensify his pace, but even when he settles into a nice, steady rhythm, Kip shoves himself firmly back against each thrust.

“You want it harder tonight, huh?” Pascal asks.

“Yeah!” Kip breathes. “Harder, Pasc. Please.”

After just a few more thrusts, Kip switches from chants of “harder” to “yes” and lets his body go as relaxed as can be managed, save for the bare minimum needed to keep himself upright. He lets the power and rhythm of Pascal’s thrusts move them, his sole preoccupation the roiling pleasure within his body that’s growing more blessedly overwhelming by the moment.

He hears intermittent moans and breathy whimpers from Pascal over the beat of their hips and his own breathing in his ears, it’s surprisingly soft in contrast to the forcefulness with which he’s fucking Kip. Kip finds himself giving little cries of mostly coherent words, voice throaty and a little rough, he hears himself distantly: yes—oh god—yes—Pascal—like that—right there—Pas—fuck me—please—please—

It almost feels like it’s going to go beyond what his body can contain, like the pleasure and all the sensations are going to overload his nerves and be more than he can even process, and he’s completely fine with that. But then Pascal’s arm wraps around his cock, and he remembers that it’s not too much, that he gets to feel it all and gets to cum like this, and that it’s going to be as good as the whole of this, packed into a burst of pleasure and relief that just might knock him out. He pleads and eggs Pascal on accordingly, and Pascal seems to bear down on him because Kip all but collapses under it, everything stripped down to the essence of all that he’s feeling, filling his head with fireworks, reverberating through his shaking body. His voice seems to be doing his own thing, he doesn’t think he has it in himself for words anymore but he hears Pascal’s name in the mix anyway, he bucks almost involuntarily into the squeeze of Pascal’s arm.

He grabs at the pillow and shoves it against his face as he feels himself near his brink—then grabs at both Pascal’s arms, the one around his dick and the one stuck to his waist, kicking himself forward in desperation as it starts inside him, and then the peak is everything.

—

A blurry swirl of sensations gradually sharpens into kisses dropped along the back of his shoulders and Pascal’s voice quietly repeating his name.

Kip drags his head to the side.

“Mmhm?” he breathes.

“How’re you doing?” Pascal murmurs. Kip notices he’s keeping still.

“Good,” Kip mumbles. “I came.”

Pascal laughs quietly.

“I noticed,” he says.

“That was perfect,” Kip says simply, and weakly rocks back. “...C’mon, your turn. Keep fucking me.”

Pascal does, and Kip does his best to contribute and make it as good as possible, and it feels like so much that he almost can’t handle it—but he likes it, and it’s so worth it.

Hearing Pascal breathe his name, over and over, his groans growing louder and rougher until he can tell through the sound of his voice alone that Pascal can barely hold it together—Kip finds himself whining softly in response, clutching the sheets and headboard for leverage as he pushes back into every thrust.

Pascal leans so far into it that his hair brushes against Kip’s back, tickling slightly.

“Oh, Kip...”

Hearing Pascal say his name like that, weak and adoring, sends a lovely flutter through Kip’s chest. He arches his shoulders up to press against Pascal’s chest and tells him to cum.

Pascal’s breath catches with a whimper.

He bucks hard a few times and then pulls Kip’s whole body back hard as he shoves into him, and Kip holds completely still and squeezes around Pascal.

He feels the cum inside himself, hears the burst of pleasure in Pascal’s voice, and breathes out slowly as Pascal starts to relax against him.

“...Good?” Kip asks quietly. He reaches behind himself to put a hand against Pascal’s thigh, rubbing it gently.

Pascal is panting heavily, his body shaking slightly, still leaning a bit into Kip.

Kip closes his eyes and waits, and sure enough Pascal recovers himself enough to run an arm down Kip’s side before easing back, slowly pulling out.

Kip sinks down onto his stomach and scoots a little to one side, reaches out weakly towards Pascal.

“Lie down,” he says, and pats the spot on the mattress right beside himself.

“Okay,” Pascal mumbles.

The mattress dips under Pascal’s weight as he lowers himself onto his back, shifting Kip a little bit in his direction. Kip nuzzles his face against the sheets and looks at Pascal with a happy sigh. Pascal turns his head and smiles back.

“Nice job,” Kip murmurs, brushing his fingers down Pascal’s shoulder. “You did good work there.”

“Yeah?” Pascal’s face is gorgeous, hair messy, a few streaks of sweat shining against his skin, cheeks still flushed. Kip does miss getting to look at it whenever he’s being fucked from behind.

“Heh—yeah. That was everything I wanted. Actually, even better—I hope it was just as good for you?”

Pascal breathes a laugh.

“It was amazing,” he says. “I love when I can give it to you that good.”

Kip bites his lip and gives a contented hum, putting an arm on Pascal’s chest to touch his face.

“Did you cum as good as I thought you did?” Pascal asks. He shifts to turn slightly more towards Kip.

Kip smiles and strokes his thumb along Pascal’s jaw.

“Uh-huh,” he says. “I could never manage to get that on my own.”

“I’m better than nothing, then?” Pascal teases.

Kip smirks and scratches gently behind Pascal’s ear.

“Better than anything,” he says, leaning in, kissing Pascal’s forehead. He pulls away a few millimeters. “...I missed this so much. I fuckin’ love it when you fuck me.” He kisses him again, between the eyebrows, and slides his hand to the back of Pascal’s head, massaging his fingers through his hair.

Pascal laughs quietly and when Kip pulls away, he sees Pascal giving him that look, the one like he’s somehow seeing every part of who Kip is, and loves it all.

Kip lies his head down a few inches away from Pascal’s and looks back at him, at the incredible, wonderful person he loves so deeply.

He draws a heart on the back of Pascal’s neck.

“I love you so bad, Pasc,” he murmurs. “And I’m all sticky and hot. Any chance you wanna take a shower?”

Pascal smiles.

“Sure, I do.”

—

Kip stays in the shower a few minutes longer than Pascal, sitting down under the hot stream, bowing his head to bend his torso forward, then arching it all the way back. He rubs his legs and stretches them in a few different positions, and then simply relaxes for a few moments.

He takes care to towel himself off well, then sits on the bathmat in the warmth of the air while letting the fan run a bit longer. Going into the bedroom, he finds their clothes picked up from the floor, folded on the dresser, and Pascal lying comfortably back on the bed.

Kip perches on the edge of the bed and leans across Pascal, putting his head on Pascal’s shoulder and gently rubbing his chest.

“Feel okay?” he asks, leaning back up. He brushes the backs of his fingers down Pascal’s cheek.

“Yeah,” Pascal breathes, looking up at him. “I’m feeling good, actually.”

Kip smiles and presses a kiss to Pascal’s lips.

“Lie with me?” Pascal asks. “I’d feel even better if I get to cuddle you.”

Kip beams and climbs up onto the mattress beside him. He snuggles up against Pascal’s side; Pascal’s arm starts sliding across his waist the very moment they touch. Kip puts an arm across Pascal’s chest and his leg between Pascal’s and sighs happily, closing his eyes.

It’s as lovely as always to touch Pascal’s body, feel the slow rhythm of his breathing, his pulse gentle under Kip’s palm. Every tiny shift of their limbs rubs them together, Pascal’s skin is soft, he smells so good, he warms Kip with every point of contact. When Pascal turns his head and kisses Kip’s forehead, Kip feels the suckers laid across his stomach attach to him, and giggles quietly.

This is Kip’s favorite, just lying here in the arms of someone so wonderful who loves him so genuinely. He’s able to completely relax against the bed, it feels like he’s insulated from everything that isn’t this simple embrace, bodies together, sharing comfort.

It’s one of the few situations where Kip actually enjoys the fact that each moment stretches on and on.

“I’ve missed lying in bed with you.” Kip says, eyes still closed. His voice starts out so softly that it catches. “Even though the last time it happened was just days ago. It feels perfect. I want this all the time.”

“I miss it too,” Pascal murmurs back. “I love holding you. And waking up and feeling you here is just...it’s the best, nicest thing in the world.”

Kip kisses Pascal’s shoulder and strokes his arm.

“I love you, Pasc,” he whispers. “Things seem so much better just knowing I’m with you again.”

He opens his eyes after a moment, and Pascal smiles gently at him before shifting further onto his side; Kip tilts his head slightly to meet Pascal’s kiss. Pascal pulls back for a moment and presses their bodies closer, entangles them more thoroughly, and kisses Kip again.

“...Did you still wanna fuck me?” Pascal asks against Kip’s mouth. Kip’s fingers twitch against Pascal’s back. “Because if you do...I’m really down for it.”

“Sure, absolutely I do. After a little bit longer like this?”

Pascal nuzzles his face into the crook of Kip’s neck, breath hot on Kip’s skin.

Kip closes his eyes and buries one hand in the hair at the base of Pascal’s head.

—

Kip begins by kissing Pascal, then sliding on top of him and letting gravity press them together while he kisses Pascal’s chest and arms and face and neck. But before he can hardly get started on anything else, Pascal sits up and guides Kip to the edge of the bed, and Kip lets him.

Pascal spirals his arms around Kip’s thighs and wastes no time taking Kip’s dick into his mouth and sucking him. He’s indulgent but slow, neither sharpening Kip’s libido by withholding pleasure nor overwhelming him with any surge in his efforts. He keeps a perfect pace to steadily elevate Kip’s arousal until Kip can’t stay still, fidgeting and shifting restlessly, hands clutching and flexing and moving constantly from the bed to his own thighs to Pascal’s shoulders and hair and arms.

Kip lets out a low whine when Pascal finally starts to slow down; Pascal takes his whole length and sucks and then pulls back to gently suck on just the head, looking up at Kip. He slides it out through his lips with a parting flick of the tongue and smiles softly.

Kip has to stare back at him for a moment before remembering how to do things like move and speak again.

Kip has Pascal get back on the bed and lie on his back while he crawls over to retrieve a condom from the nightstand. Pascal settles comfortably with a contented sigh; Kip looks over at him as he rolls the condom on and Pascal smiles, his expression warm, his posture completely relaxed.

Kip puts a pillow under Pascal’s hips and spreads his knees out to position his legs beneath Pascal’s. He takes his time, he wants Pascal to be able to remain relaxed after their previous athletic round of sex after cleaning the bathroom and carrying laundry up and down stairs after going on a walk after an entire long day of work. He wants Pascal to be completely comfortable, to just lie back and enjoy being given the kind of pleasure he deserves.

Kip is more than eager—he’s already imagining leaning over Pascal’s body, putting his head beside Pascal’s, hooking his arms under Pascal’s shoulders and holding on to the back of his neck, his hair, fucking him, feeling each breath, hearing each moan. His fingers twitch slightly. But he wants to take his time. He wants this to be gentle and relaxed.

He slowly but steadily strokes Pascal’s erection while grinding against his ass, stroking his thighs, massaging his hips, rubbing his chest. He spends a while getting enough lube between them, being patient and deliberate. When he starts pushing into Pascal, he gives the first inch or so in one smooth, easy thrust, but follows it with gentle nudges of less than an inch each time, at the pace of their steady exhales.

He keeps his eyes fixed on Pascal’s face. He wants to hold Pascal’s gaze, see all the little subtleties of his expression.

With his hips pushed flush against Pascal’s ass, Kip leans in, scoots his knees and elbows and knees forward until he’s leaning across Pascal, close enough to kiss him. He props himself up and presses a little harder against Pascal—Pascal sighs happily and looks up at him with a slight, lopsided smile.

“I love you,” Kip says seriously. His chest feels filled with shivering warmth. “Pascal...I really love you.”

He leans in further and they kiss, it’s so good, so sweet and easy. He slides his hands over Pascal’s chest, he sets his hips into a steady, gentle roll. Pascal wraps his arms around his back.

They’re so close, pressed together, building and sharing warmth and contact and intimacy and pleasure—Kip loves this so deeply. He gets to feel absolutely right, like he belongs here, he’s wanted, desired, he’s perfect, nothing he’s doing falls short or disappoints. He slides a hand into the hair at the base of Pascal’s head and deepens the kiss.

Pascal’s response to the smooth, gentle rhythm that Kip sets is lovely. He rocks back but lets Kip lead, the weight of his arms helping to hold Kip close. His breathing is heavy but not labored, Kip can hear it and feel it, warm and steady, pushing against his stomach, washing against his jaw.

If Kip can ever be proud of anything, it’s the way Pascal says his name, soft and full of such desire, like he’s some vision or fantasy come to life, perfect. Nothing else can make him so wholly satisfied with himself, something so good that he’s so solely responsible for, the only thing causing this moment, the only one making Pascal feel this right now, loving him the way he is and fucking him the way he is and making him say his name like this, look at him like this.

“Kip,” Pascal breathes, and Kip covers Pascal’s mouth with his.

Kip’s pleasure reaches a saturating height where everything feels effortless and he wants to stay right here for as long as they can manage. He keeps his pace smooth, trying as best as he can to avoid snapping his hips forward too much, and instead curls his back a little and rolls up against Pascal’s prostate, burying his face against his neck and biting gently as he does.

“Oh, Kip—oh my god—“ Pascal gasps. “Ah—oh god yes fuck me just like that—Kip!”

Kip bears down and Pascal’s words give way to rich moans that send thrills of arousal through Kip’s body, from his toes and fingertips and throat and chest, all flooding to his cock. He gasps and drops his head to Pascal’s shoulder and digs his fingers against Pascal’s skin and lets himself start a rougher, faster pace, he can’t help it. Pascal cries out softly in his ear and Kip is so completely glad.

He can start to feel Pascal’s body shivering beneath his. He kisses Pascal and reaches down and palms his erection, hot and heavy and velvety and he has to wrap his hand around it, feel its pulse against his fingers. He thumbs the wet tip as he prods Pascal’s tongue with his own. Pascal whimpers into his mouth; Kip feels a jolt of pleasure low in his stomach and smacks up against Pascal for half a dozen quick beats in a row.

Pascal starts growing tenser, and Kip knows to finish it fast before Pascal is left too sore afterwards. He squeezes his cock and then pumps it harder, bucks into him with shallow, quick thrusts, and kisses his throat.

Pascal’s groan dissolves into a whine.

“Kip,” he pants. “Kip...”

“Love you,” Kip mumbles, kissing his way along the whiskers on his jaw. He bucks against him with another burst of power.

“Oh god, oh god—Kip!”

He’s close. Kip puts their mouths together; Pascal kisses him back at once, messy and passionate.

“Pas,” Kip breathes against his lips.

Pascal whimpers in response.

“Babe,” Kip mumbles. “‘M gonna make you cum, okay?”

He props himself up with his free hand, looks down at Pascal’s wonderfully beautiful face, and carries out his promise.

He rests for a half a minute after Pascal’s orgasm, just looking at him. He’s seen Pascal like this so many times, and it has this perfect mix of familiarity and an unfailing newness. It’s every memory of their nights together and it’s the quiet happiness that he’s here now, seeing this precise moment.

This kind of moment that feels perfect. Everything is good, in a real and whole way, and Kip knows he doesn’t get this feeling any other way. It gives him this temporary sense of simplicity, this contentment within the straightforward experience of lying in bed with Pascal, sleeping together, hold each other, fucking, kissing. Kip loves this. He loves to see Pascal so thoroughly satisfied and relaxed, his unfiltered expressions of pleasured bliss, the way he looks at Kip like he wants him more than anything, he has to have him.

Kip knows it wouldn’t impress anyone to know how much he enjoys sex with Pascal, that he feels a deep connection and security and communication in all the kissing and touching, that a full-bodied, naked embrace makes him feel so loved. That the way Pascal fucks him conveys such a care for Kip’s pleasure and comfort alike, that Pascal’s reactions to being fucked by Kip make him feel more valuable, important even, than he ever does on his own.

He knows it’s not special, that he’s not special, that all this is so ordinary and common and unspectacular. But that’s its own comfort, too. This thing that seems far too good for him and so impossible to have ever hoped for really isn’t. It’s his, and it’s within his reach, and it’s right in front of him.

He pulls out of Pascal, takes off the condom, pushes it back into the empty wrapper.

Without a word, he leans in and kisses Pascal. He starts to jerk himself off, but Pascal reaches over and brushes his arm against Kip’s hand, and Kip lets him take over. Pascal curves his other arm beneath Kip’s ass to help him thrust; Kip climaxes within the minute with a helpless groan.

Collapsed beside Pascal, hand on his chest, still soaked in his heat, Kip knows he could fall asleep just like this. So he grits his teeth and forces himself to sit up, tempering the unpleasantness by pressing a kiss to Pascal’s chest.

He brings Pascal two folded paper towels wetted with cool water, one to wipe off his torso and arm and the other to get some sweat off his face. Kip takes them and the used condom and throws it away in the bathroom, then cleans himself off a bit at the sink. He looks unflinchingly at his reflection.

Back in the bedroom, Pascal is still flat out on the bed, breathing more easily, and shifts his gaze from the ceiling over to Kip. Kip kisses him before picking up his phone to send a quick text to Molly and Roy. He tells him he knows they probably figured he’s still with Pascal but that they’d also probably think something was up if he didn’t needlessly text them about it—though he filters out the tone of self-deprecation a little. He sets an alarm, and asks Pascal what time he needs for his—Pascal gives the same time.

Kip slides back into the bed, and brushes some of Pascal’s hair into place while blushing at the adoring look he’s receiving.

“Are you okay?” he murmurs. “Are you sore?”

“I’m okay,” Pascal replies. “You were really gentle.”

“Like, too gentle? Or...”

“No,” Pascal laughs. “Good gentle.”

Kip trails his fingers down the side of Pascal’s face and brushes his thumb a few millimeters below Pascal’s lips. He slides his hand down to the top of Pascal’s shoulder and kneads gently at the muscles; Pascal lets out a sigh and closes his eyes. Kip puts his other hand on the other shoulder and rests his head on Pascal’s chest as he matches up a steady rolling squeeze and press above Pascal’s collarbones.

A few minutes later he realizes his movements have already slowed and lightened, he lifts his head again and laughs quietly.

“I’m gonna fall asleep,” he mumbles. He scoots himself over to lie alongside Pascal.

“It’s alright,” Pascal says, voice soft and low. “I am, too.”

Kip looks at Pascal’s face.

It occurs to him, in a revelation so complete and instantaneous that he wonders if he’s been holding the idea in the back of his mind the whole time, that as much as he struggles to know what he even wants in his life, he’ll know he’s making the right decisions for himself as long as they mean he has this.

“Mm...can I hold you?” Pascal asks, shifting beside him.

“Yes,” Kip answers. He feels sure, loved and in love. He gives Pascal a soft smile to convey it, and Pascal kisses the side of his mouth, and drapes his arm over Kip’s chest.

—

Kip wakes up in the middle of the night needing to pee, and feels grateful for the chance to appreciate anew that he’s spending a night here. When he climbs carefully into bed again, Pascal’s arm slides back around him.

—

The alarms don’t wake Kip until Pascal disentangles himself to sit up and turn them off. Kip gives a muffled grunt into the pillow and pushes himself up, weakly rubbing a hand up and down Pascal’s arm. Pascal turns to him with a tired smile and leans him back against the mattress to kiss him, which is when Kip realizes he’s woken up with an erection. He draws his knees up instinctively before remembering that he’s with the guy he’s shared a bed with almost every night for almost half a decade.

So he climbs out of bed after Pascal anyways and if anything, it makes things feel more familiar. Complete intimacy is something casual for them, and Kip is glad of it. Their comfort and ease with each other is more than earned.

As if proving his point, he’s mid-thought about how nice it is to look at Pascal’s bare legs when he’s caught in another quick kiss, and Pascal leans away with an arm on Kip’s butt and the other up against his dick.

“Good morning,” Pascal murmurs, and Kip blushes and smiles.

“Yeah,” he says. A tiny shift of Pascal’s arm wakes him up further.

“Hang on just a second,” Pascal says. He gives him a long parting stroke before stepping out the door and into the bathroom, leaving Kip to lean back against the edge of the bed and drag a hand down his face.

When Pascal comes back, he kisses Kip with passion no one could expect to elicit after just falling out of bed. Then he sinks to his knees and sucks Kip to orgasm in mere minutes, leaving Kip unsteady on his feet, shivering and laughing breathlessly. He kisses Pascal and wipes a bit of cum from his cheek and somewhat clumsily gives him a gentle wash of coolness.

Being suddenly brought to climax when barely even fully awake is a nicely effective—if also maybe jarringly so—way to face the start of the day. While Pascal showers, Kip makes the bed and slips into his clothes from the previous day and even manages to put together a plate of breakfast for Pascal, despite still being largely unfamiliar with his kitchen and instinctively hesitant to be too intrusive. It’s manageable enough to heat up and butter a muffin, make some hot oatmeal, and put a small bowl of applesauce on the side.

Pascal is as stunning as ever straight out of the shower, naked and just slightly damp, and Kip feels like he’s been gifted for no reason at all with an ideal morning—the best morning you can have while still needing to get up extra early for an opening shift at work. But the deep, quiet happiness of getting to share this time with Pascal, starting the day after a full night lying in his arms, is more than worth the small added inconvenience.

“Oh, you’re wonderful,” Pascal says, pulling Kip in for a hug and a kiss. “But what about you?”

“Eh, I’ll get something when I go up to the apartment to change.” Kip shrugs.

“Yeah, but first you have to walk over there for like, twenty minutes,” Pascal argues.

“Closer to fifteen...I don’t wanna use up your dishes.”

“I want you to. C’mon. Please.”

Kip caves and has a bowl of cereal.

It’s all so domestic and it takes Kip a minute or two to realize what feeling he’s developed.

“Pas,” he says. “This is a bit like it was living together, huh?”

Pascal blushes and he momentarily drops his gaze to his plate as though bashful.

“It’s kind of funny,” Kip murmurs. “It feels like forever ago that we moved over here, but it’s still not at all as long as the time we were all in D. Being here just...makes it seem weird that I haven’t been here this whole time.”

Pascal smiles and seems to blush a little harder, shifting in his chair almost nervously.

“You alright?” Kip asks. “Sorry if that’s weird to say...”

“No, it’s okay, I was thinking the same thing,” Pascal answers. He reaches out and briefly touches Kip’s wrist.

Kip watches him for a moment more, but he seems alright. Kip decides to offer him a different subject anyways.

“Uh, did I wake up last night?” he asks. “I kind of remember saying something to you, but I might’ve just been dreaming.”

“No, yeah, you did for a minute,” Pascal says. “Bad dream.”

“Ah.” Kip looks at his feet with a reflexive smile. “Yeah, those have kept acting up a little, as usual. I guess it wasn’t too terrible, though—I don’t remember any of it.”

“It didn’t seem too bad, no,” Pascal agrees. “I think you like, accidentally elbowed me, and you were almost saying something, and I just touched your shoulder and you woke up. I told you it was okay and everything, and you were looking at me, and when I lay back down next to you, you said ‘I love you.’ That was sweet.”

“Oh—“ Kip laughs. “I hope you were able to get back to sleep...”

“Yeah, I think it only took a few minutes. I doubt I was much more awake than you.”

Kip leans over and kisses Pascal’s shoulder.

—

Even on an extra early day for him, Roy is already out of the apartment by the time Kip sweeps in to change into his work clothes, and Molly doubtless would be too if she wasn’t off for the day and instead still in bed. He’s grateful as always that his schedule isn’t as A.M.-oriented as theirs—they’re at least both morning people much moreso than him, though he generally tries to pretend he weathers the more distasteful hours of the day with solemn resignation.

Parting with Pascal does feel less like a tragedy—he does seem to be adapting to the idea that they truly, actually get to just be together now. That there’s no separation heading right for them, that their relationship is real again, not just a series of near misses and second guesses. He knows he’s always going to see Pascal again soon, and his feelings finally seem to have caught up with that.

Even with the stark contrast of being at work versus being in Pascal’s apartment, he can’t find it in himself to feel too downcast. He started the day with his boyfriend and got a blowjob, after all. He’s more than prepared for a middling-length opening shift.

It gets a touch busy two or three times, but if it’s ever much of a real rush Kip doesn’t particularly notice—by the time he emerges a bit from his own thoughts, the flow of people visiting before their 9 o’clock jobs has slowed, and the pace is more leisurely, the customers more unhurried.

Every now and then he watches the street outside the front windows, watches the people, the traffic, the birds in the branches of the trees across the road. He feels okay. He feels like maybe he’s even good. Maybe it’s just Pascal, but maybe that’s okay, too.

He empties all the garbage cans and wonders how Pascal’s doing. He hopes his day has been inherently improved the way Pascal’s improved his—though Pascal’s days are generally from a little while before open to a little while after close, so Kip’s influence has to have extra staying power. He wishes he could guarantee Pascal that he could be there at the end of any and every tiring day. And guarantee himself that he could always feel confident he’d done something to truly help Pascal, something direct and tangible.

The slight swell for lunch ebbs after about an hour and a half, and an overcast dimness settles in. Kip spends a while in the back, washing dishes and warming himself from the arms up with the water, doing a bit of prep, counting off the numbers of remaining pastries to leave a list for Cuddy. He spends the last hour up front again and sees all the tree leaves shifted by slow breezes; the hanging sign on the lavender-painted shop shifts occasionally. The air that moves in whenever the front door is opened feels heavy and smells of the imminent rain.

Kip is just beginning to feel impatient to leave by the time Cuddy arrives. He comes up to the register in time to see her through the windows, saying goodbye to Lottie before coming in. She glances at him with a perfunctory lift of her hand; he returns the gesture and fiddles with the hem of his apron, his thoughts turning to reclining on his bed in soft clothes with a cup of hot tea while watching a summer storm through the window.

Cuddy sends him off with her usual unceremonious brevity, and Kip wastes no time in heading back to the apartment ahead of the rainfall, which it seems like is going to be a bit of a downpour. He takes deep breaths of the air on his walk, and repeatedly casts his gaze up to the dramatic and picturesque cloud formations that shift minute by minute. He takes a picture of a particularly good view to send to Pascal later.

Their apartment is quiet—after just a few moments Kip ascertains that Molly must have gone out. Kip makes a gently sweetened cup of green tea he’d silently promised himself, brings it into his room, sheds his clothes, slips into jeans, a sweater, and socks, and unlatches and opens his window. The moving air tastes and smells good and feels nice on his face.

Kip waters his plants, glances at the picture, and sits down cross-legged on the bed, holding the tea in his lap. The ceramic is warm against his hands; he presses them firmly to the surface to absorb as much of the heat as he can get. He breathes in the scent for a while, and the first few sips are lovely and comforting. This taste has been on his tongue countless times. He had this drink while his brother worked in the next room. When he got home from schooldays in the late fall. When he sat and looked at the blooming garden outside their windows.

Kip drinks half of the mug, then sets it down on his nightstand and lies back flat against the mattress. He stares at the ceiling, the muted light from the window, the deep shadows in the corners. He rests his hand on his stomach. He hears distant thunder, and a few minutes later, the rain starts softly, then in earnest.

—

Kip cycles gently in and out of catnaps, finding himself dreaming while only half-asleep, waking back up a little, falling asleep briefly, waking just enough to listen to the storm with his eyes closed, dozing off again.

The last little nap is the longest, about half an hour. He finds himself rolled onto his side when he wakes, and his mouth feels dry. He props himself up on his pillows and takes a drink of his tea.

He’s scared of the fact it’s going to have been six years. It sounds like too far away, and a reminder that he’s only going to get farther. But maybe it proves he’s survived. He rubs his thumb against the cup; the rain is still coming down hard.

He’ll have Pascal to lean on. Just like the first time.

Everyone else is still with him. He’s so lucky for that. He’s lucky he’s still with them.

Six years later.

At least everyone who made it that far back then is still here.

—

Around four o’clock, Kip is unexpectedly struck by the sense that he should try fulfilling his promise to Eno by talking to Wallace.

Even if it’s just about the weather.

He’s had a decent day so far, and he knows he’d definitely just be looking for a way to avoid the task if he told himself he needs to be at the absolute top of his game before even trying to see Wallace. And since the entire crux of the matter is his need to stop avoiding Wallace, he can’t be too impressed with himself if he tries to get out of it, even temporarily. Even with his level of self-esteem, he knows he can do better than that.

And he’s already doomed simply by the fact that the idea entered his head. If he puts it off now, the subtle guilt will layer in on itself and make it more difficult to try again, the acquiescence to his anxieties will only make them loom larger.

He sighs.

He doesn’t let himself change clothes or even glance in a mirror to see if he’s given himself bedhead or left flecks of coffee on his throat. He’s going as-is, damn it, and he’s not going to feel like he has to impress Wallace or even seem put-together. He isn’t, and Wallace has seen him in far worse states, and he really has no reason to care how Wallace sees him anymore.

He leaves his phone on the bed, puts his keys in his pocket, imagines being able to tell Eno he’s managed to meet basic expectations for once, and goes into the hallway.

As he descends the stairwell he tries to calculate the odds that Wallace is even home right now—half the time he spends full days in the office, half the time he does house calls, and for the latter, he tends to return with folders tucked under his arm by a little after three in the afternoon. Kip imagines saying that he did try to see Wallace, but just never caught him the several times he knocked at the door, and didn’t text him, or just try to catch him later in the evening...

He rolls his eyes at himself and steps heavily down the last flight to the bottom floor.

He stands in front of Wallace’s door and breathes deeply in, slowly out. He finds himself hesitating with his fingertips against the door’s surface, so he pretends he’s acting on impulse and knocks lightly on the door. His signature pattern, two knocks, a pause, two more knocks using a different beat on the same rhythm. Each quiet enough that if Wallace isn’t in his living room, he probably won’t hear it.

But there’s faint footsteps, and they seem to be headed towards the door, but something seems off—only increasingly so as the steps get louder, until Kip realizes exactly what’s wrong with a clammy jolt of horror just before the door to Ben’s apartment opens.

“Hey,” he chokes out automatically.

“Kip, what’s up?” Wallace says. “Need me for something?”

Some sort of persona that doesn’t seem to require his conscious input has taken over, and Casual Kip is running on autopilot while the actual Kip just below the surface, again trying not to panic.

“Nope, it’s okay,” he says nonchalantly. His shoulders lift in a shrug. “Just thought I’d drop by for a second.”

“Well, that’s alright, I just got back from work and was hanging out with Ben—“

“Right, yeah—“

“You can come in, if you want—“

Even Casual Kip flares up in a blush at that.

“Nah, you’re busy, it’s fine, I’ll just talk to you later.”

“I’m really not...” Wallace laughs quietly.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Kip repeats, smiling quickly as though he thinks Wallace is joking around with him. He takes a half-step back as he says it and Wallace looks a little bit bemused, fingers absently playing with the rolled sleeve of his button-up shirt.

“Ah, okay. I’ll see you later,” Wallace says slowly.

Kip shoots him another brief quirk of a smile and turns on his heel.

A few steps down the hallway and he hears the quiet click of the door shutting behind him; he looks back to confirm it. He slips into the thankfully empty laundry room to sit down in one of the chairs. None of the machines are running and the sound of his panting seems loud.

He’s familiar enough with himself and with the effects of his anxiety to know what’s happening—his lungs seem to freeze up, his breathing shallows and quickens with seemingly no input from him, it’s all unfortunately familiar to him by now. The silver lining is that it doesn’t alarm him further anymore—he can sit here and see how it goes and if he thinks he can walk back up to the apartment or if this is going to develop into a physical ache, even nausea, even vomiting.

It was a thorough shock, he’d known immediately it would affect him like this—the deep chill that hit him in the chest as soon as Wallace came from Ben’s apartment told him everything. It could’ve been much worse, and seeing as he’s really been through much worse moments of panic and onsets of anxiety in this past year, even before Wallace showed up, even just when he was stressed from the transition into living in C—he knows this is manageable. It’s just a passing moment of unpleasant alarm. He just needs to let it filter out of his system.

He does feel a few threatening echoes of nausea, and his knees are shaking slightly, involuntarily. Despite his overall forced calmness, his breathing hasn’t returned to normal yet, and his limbs are a little tense. He stares at the floor for a while.

He has to be a little annoyed with himself for being so unprepared for such a simple surprise. After all, the anxiety of actually seeing Wallace with Ben, being so reminded of what he’d accidentally done to Wallace and maybe Ben and what situation he’d put himself in, had made him so nervously adamant to avoid the possibility that he’d refused to use the front door of his own building for a while. To avoid Wallace, to avoid Ben, to avoid running into them together and having no idea how to act.

And now he goes and completely forgets about it, because for whatever reason he’s never able to have his shit together. How hard is it to just talk to Wallace, to just say to him hey I feel really awkward around you now and I’m not sure how to fix it or if it can be fixed, but I want you to know you’ve become really important to me and I hope I haven’t ruined that.

But maybe he has. He didn’t do this on purpose, sure, but when has every bad move of his always been on purpose? Maybe he sealed his fate the moment he told Wallace he liked them. Maybe his fate was sealed even before that. Maybe it would’ve been okay if he hadn’t fallen for Wallace himself. Maybe it wouldn’t.

There’s a twinge in his stomach.

He has to figure out what he wants from Wallace.

He wants to keep feeling as close to Wallace as he does now.

But so much of the intimacy he feels is tangled up in his crush. And how close is he to Wallace anymore when Wallace’s newest job has been taking up so much of his time and focus since spring, and Kip has been adrift between his struggles with his efforts to settle back into a normal life, with his confusion over his sense of identity, with his feelings for Pascal and Wallace, with his relationships with everyone around him. Wallace did save his life, and those of others. But plenty of people who aren’t in love with Kip protected him similarly. Even Ben—who doesn’t even like him.

Even the fact that Wallace was there with Kip when he was close to breaking down or actually doing so, that he comforted and supported Kip even when Kip was trying to be strong, that, maybe even more significantly, Kip returned the favor multiple times—in the end, maybe none of it was ever that personal. Who doesn’t Wallace care about, who doesn’t he try to be kind to? Who wouldn’t he comfort? Who wouldn’t he have protected and helped in those situations?

He knows Wallace really cares about him—maybe even loves him, even now, even when nobody’s targeting him anymore, there’s nothing else to protect him from. But that doesn’t really count for anything all that special. Wallace cares about him, and all his friends, and all his clients, and maybe all but everyone he’s ever met. That doesn’t make it meaningless, but it means he can’t look back on what they shared while struggling through a life-and-death ordeal and consider it justification for continuing to want Wallace’s affection.

He digs his fingers into his thighs.

As though it’s okay for him to want Wallace at all after finding out he’s with someone else.

As if it’s okay that he has to sit here and try to talk himself out of wishing that he could be with Wallace, because it’s not enough to simply know he’s off-limits.

Like he thinks he can write off Ben just because Ben would rather avoid him. As if he wasn’t wanting to avoid Ben even before he found that out. As if it probably wasn’t his own fault Ben didn’t like him. Even though he’d used to think it was because he was only a reminder of Kent and of Yumi and of how everything used to be—he’d been self-centered and immature not to see how his own assumptions and attitude had likely been subtly pushing Ben away the whole time.

Self-centered.

He’s trying hard to see a way where all of this isn’t just a result of his own stupidity, where his distress isn’t a direct expression of his own acute selfishness.

Maybe he doesn’t even deserve to keep Wallace as a friend for the same reasons he fears he won’t be able to.

Kip finds himself steadied enough to stand; breathing evened out enough to make the trek back upstairs without risk.

He goes straight back into his room, where the air is still infused with the rain that still falls loud and heavy. He sits on the edge of his bed for a moment, then goes into the bathroom and throws up. It’s light, all fluids, which reminds him that he skipped lunch.

He cleans up, then goes and makes half a sandwich and retreats yet again to the softness of his bed and the comfort of the rain.

—

Roy and Molly return together less than an hour later, and despite feeling recovered enough by that point, Kip is almost immediately asked by Roy if he’s alright. He confirms that he’s doing well enough, and then confirms Molly’s gently teasing remarks that he had a nice time staying over with Pascal, and then he pushes the conversation back over to Roy’s day at work and Molly’s day off.

He’s genuinely glad that both of them have always seemed to be so much more stable than him, so much better at adapting to whatever situations they find themselves in. At least he’s not so horrible that he can’t be happy for a couple of his closest friends and the fact that they’re so good at simply being okay. That they’re so good at helping each other be okay.

That neither of them has ever had to rely solely on Kip is probably a blessing for everyone. Kip’s never had to find out for certain that he’d fail them.

Wallace is a lot more similar to them than he is to Kip. Maybe Kip wouldn’t be able to help Wallace be happy, either.

But both Roy and Molly care deeply, stubbornly about Kip. They know him well and haven’t been driven away by anything about him.

And Wallace is with Ben, who’s more like Kip than like Roy and Molly.

But Ben likes Molly and Roy. But he doesn’t like Kip.

Kip leans back against the couch and looks at his knees.

It suddenly feels a lot more imminent that he’s going to have to move in with Pascal. The way he feels when he imagines getting to be with Pascal every morning and night contrasts too sharply with the bouts of loneliness he still feels when lying down to go to sleep alone, even now that he knows he and Pascal are together again. He’d be able to make Pascal’s life easier in practical ways. He’d know he could be there for him every day. He wouldn’t have to worry about being in the same building with Wallace and Ben, but they would still be so close, so would Roy and Molly.

Without him here, Molly and Roy wouldn’t have to cater to his hangups anymore. He’s always the one to slightly throw off the easy, natural consensus they’d otherwise have on virtually everything. He knows they love him, and he loves them, but he knows he’s somewhat in the way. The only reason they were living with him in the first place was because they knew he needed them. And then they came to C together because he was aware he had all but trapped them in D for the sake of staying at his side—he needed to let them return, and they wouldn’t go without him, and he could tell both them and himself that he thought he needed to return to C too, and he needed so badly to make sure they got their lives back that he even left Pascal.

Not like he had to. If he wasn’t too scared of being with Pascal while back in C, maybe things would’ve worked out.

Maybe not.

But things worked out anyways. And now that Pascal is here, and safe, and back with Kip, Molly and Roy won’t have to feel obligated to stay right by Kip’s side anymore. They can finally be their own unit again with their own space, operating freely. And Kip likes the idea of staying with Pascal in his little apartment. There’s not much extra room, but Kip doesn’t need much room.

Yet it’d still be the first time in almost six years that Kip hasn’t shared an apartment with Molly and Roy. Even this new apartment has started to feel truly familiar to him.

He knows, though, that being closer to Pascal is always going to be the right choice for himself.

How long he’s going to put it off is another matter.

—

Pascal calls him that evening, after the storm has passed and left a peaceful stillness in its wake. Kip tells him he’s glad he spent the night, that it’s made his whole day better, that he wants to figure out something he can do for Pascal on a regular schedule. Bring him lunch at work once a week, or go to his apartment and pick up a load of laundry, or do a grocery run for him every weekend, or anything. Just one set task that Pascal can be sure Kip will do for him. And Pascal laughs and says he doesn’t need to do that, and Kip says he knows, but he’d like to anyways.

“Besides,” he says. “It’d be cool to do something where you know it’ll happen without us having to arrange it specifically each time. I wanna help out with the ordinary stuff some more. I can be better than just a special occasion.”

“How would I help YOU out, though?” Pascal counters.

“I have roommates. And less hours. And I don’t have to run a store.”

Pascal acquiesces to that, and Kip at least convinces him to say he’ll think about it.

Pascal leverages this to make Kip specify a little about his difficulties talking to Wallace, though Kip insists it’s not that big of a deal.

He tells Pascal he thinks he’s nearer to accepting the good chance that he just won’t be able to be as close to Wallace as he’d like—not even as a friend. And he lets Pascal coax out an admission that Kip isn’t exactly happy about that.

Kip says he thinks if he gives it space, everything will just naturally reorganize, and they can start over if they want, or not.

Pascal says he should still try talking to Wallace even if that’s true.

Kip says he has to give some serious thought to what he really wants to say to Wallace.

Pascal says that it’s most important just to say anything. Kip says that technically he already did, and Pascal says that saying we should talk later doesn’t really count, and Kip laughs.

“If I knew I could run back to your place after it was all over, I think I’d be bolder about a lot of stuff,” Kip murmurs, eyes closed.

“I mean, you always can. I ought to just make a copy of the key for you.”

Kip laughs softly again.

“You’re so excellent, Pas,” he mumbles into the phone.

Pascal’s warm answering laugh is gentle in his ear.

—

Kip is changed into pajamas and laid out on his bed with a book when he hears a soft shower outside his still-open window. It feels like a bookend to his day. He falls asleep to it.

—

Kip lets himself sleep in for an extra couple of hours to help make up for his slightly shortened previous night. There’s a good-morning text from Pascal by the time he gets up, and he takes a warm shower to help compensate for his exit from the blankets, and spends a little more time than usual making himself breakfast. He steeps a mug of Pascal’s tea afterwards, and takes it with him from room to room as he does a few little cleaning chores, scrubbing off the stovetop, clearing off the bathroom sink and cleaning it, running the little vacuum over the carpet of his bedroom, then using it on the couch in the living room, turning over the cushions and pillows. He dusts off their coffee table and then rubs it down with a little oil and then sinks onto the couch, bringing the tea off the ledge by the window to his lap.

He imagines what it would have been like to live by himself this whole time. He doesn’t mind being alone, he’s always liked having his own quiet space, but he’s glad he gets to be guaranteed company in one way or another every day, if he wants it.

He puts his socks together and rubs the pad of his foot overtop the other.

He thinks about Ben, suddenly made alone the same day Kip was. He wasn’t wholly abandoned—Kip had known Eno was also working to make sure Ben found a place to go, a space to exist after all this, in very much the same way he was doing the same for Kip. But Kip had a boyfriend to live with in addition to two close friends, and even before the fire, Kip had been thinking of a life with Pascal. The same was true after the fire, even if it took a while for any concept of his future to reemerge from his grief and horror.

Ben must not have felt like he had a future. He had been engaged, so close to the wedding date that it must have felt like a certainty, already a reality. Kip knew enough from even his limited familiarity with Ben to tell that he was someone who found a lot of happiness and motivation in his relationship with Yumi. It had been obvious, even with someone as outwardly reserved as Ben.

Kip wonders what Ben felt like, waking up alone every day. For weeks Kip would reluctantly crawl out of unconsciousness and have to realize anew what had happened to him. It was in some ways worse than his nightmares, and he was often all but inconsolable for what felt like ages, but when he managed to see and breathe again, at least the others were still there with him.

He knows that Ben hadn’t been truly solitary. He’d had friends that visited him all those years, made a point of seeing him often, as much for the sake of keeping him safe as for giving him company. But it’s not quite the same as living with someone.

Ben may not exactly get to live with Wallace right now, but the human was sent literally to his doorstep—because of Kip. And prior to that, Kip could tell that Ben was quietly glad that he and Molly and Roy had moved in a few floors above him—at least, that Molly and Roy had. Maybe nowadays, finally, he doesn’t feel as isolated as he had.

Kip wouldn’t really know. He’s only guessing how Ben felt in the years they were away at D, though he knows his guess is far better than a shot in the dark. But even back before the fire, he found Ben’s quietness and slight air of seriousness too intimidating to try to interact with. He was on the sidelines after all, trying to help in the extremely limited ways he could, trying not to be so afraid, trying to grasp the whole of what was going on even while a part of him was glad he was being protected, sheltered from what was really happening, wanting to believe he’d never need to know the full picture of it. Thinking that someday it would be so completely in the past that he could ask them about what they’d been working on, what they’d found out, all the things that had happened. Ben was engaged to someone as deeply involved as Kent and Eno, and Kip felt like Ben must know so much more than him. He must be more like the rest of them than Kip was.

Kip doesn’t know if he’s always been harboring the same sense that he wouldn’t even have anything of value to say to Ben. It’s not like he hasn’t been around Ben, visiting him, hanging out with him—but virtually only ever in groups. He doesn’t suppose it’s too far of a stretch to think he may have come off as disliking Ben, even when he was younger, feeling almost unworthy to even linger nearby—maybe his avoidance only came off as aloofness, some subtle distaste. He’s always avoided him, in a way. Surely Ben picked up on that.

Kip’s glad there’s been other people around who were always better to Ben.

He stares down into the rich red, almost purple hue of his tea.

He doesn’t know how to face Wallace like this anymore. It’s true that Wallace’s relationship with Ben isn’t the only one in his life, that it’s far from the only one in Ben’s life, too. But Kip’s gone and made the relationship he has with Wallace about his feelings for him. He can’t take that back.

How much simpler would things be if he’d approached it like they were in middle school and started off with something like, “Hey, are you seeing someone?”

Maybe not that much simpler.

He doesn’t know what to do.

If he can’t extricate his crush for Wallace completely from their relationship, there can’t be a relationship between them. It would hurt both of them, and it would be more than a disservice to Ben. Kip owes him that much. Someone who ought to understand almost better than anyone what Ben went through can’t possibly do something to ruin what is, as far as he knows, Ben’s first real chance at regaining a new iteration of what he’d lost.

Kip is a little jealous. He knows that’s not at all fair, that Ben can’t do anything about the pain he feels about Yumi, that neither of them can regain the people and experience they lost or stop feeling the pain of a broken heart, the confusion of carrying a love that has nowhere to go. But it’s not as though knowing something can always overwrite his raw reactions to even the smallest opening of old wounds. In some ways he’s always felt guilty around all the people who lost family and friends to E—since at least the demise of his family left him with actual knowledge of what had been done, had left him something to inter. Most others had to deal with days into weeks into months of terrifying uncertainty, torturous opacity—their loved ones simply gone. Months becoming years, the few reappearances only bringing more pain for all those whose tiny, hidden-away pieces of hope left them unable to fully accept their loss, vulnerable to renewed grief even when they’d long grown numb to the loss that was now part of their normal life.

Even now, the answer that confirms the deaths in E brought no one any real comfort. It only narrowed the scope of the uncertainty—what had happened to individuals, what they had experienced, thought, felt, was now all forever unanswerable. And Kip knows that the confirmation of an agonizing death is only another burden. He knows it’s absurd to consider himself getting off easy because of having to watch an inferno blast from the windows of the house, because he got the chance to try to save them only to be completely overwhelmed by the fire almost at once, only able to clutch his brother’s folder to his chest, as if that would draw him nearer, and scream in the midst of a cacophony so absolute he couldn’t hear himself.

The damage left to so many people should make everything easier to bear when there’s so many who can understand, but it only hurts worse. It only leaves everyone obligated to each other in ways no one can possibly fulfill. It only makes each other’s suffering larger, ties them to each other’s pain, so that everyone’s wounds reverberate in a collective sting. No one can hear of someone else’s story without sensing their own in it—the similarities allow for real understanding, but every difference feels discordant, knocks and chafes against the wishes that things, even these little details, had been different, had been more like that, the way it was for them.

Kip knows that it’s still better to have a community of those whose lives were changed by E than to have only people who have no concept of the suffering involved. It’s evident from Wallace’s initial arrival at C, his clumsy attempts to forge inroads with his clients, his misguided sympathies that only served to clarify the depth of the gulf between him and the monsters around him. And that was if he managed not to say something that merely came off so thoughtless and insulting that he was really lucky that everyone—including Kip—refrained from outright hitting him across the face. Kip himself did once shove Wallace’s shoulder during an argument when the human landed himself way too far over the line, said something too stunningly hurtful and disrespectful, momentarily angering Kip so, so far beyond words.

But the way Wallace reacted to realizing what he’d done, when he stopped arguing back and processed the message behind Kip’s partly-incoherent fury—that’s what turned each instance into something that actually ended up making Kip like Wallace a little more. Even when Kip’s temper was so set off that he’d stalk away from Wallace to be by himself a moment, Wallace would be the one to carefully close the distance, look Kip’s anger in the face without any of his own, accept what Kip was feeling, that in spite of his good intentions and in spite of his ignorance he’d done something hurtful in a real, significant way. He would sit there and tell Kip he wanted to listen to what Kip had to say to him, whether it was a lengthy diatribe against his errors or a short, sharp condemnation, an expression of Kip’s frustration with him with no other benefit than to let Kip say it and be heard by him. And in the end he’d try to make Kip feel better, make up some comfortable space for him to have a moment of quiet and solitude, offer an apology or two without pushing for it to be accepted or even responded to. He made it clear he cared about Kip and he cared about learning to keep from hurting him, from hurting everyone else he knew in C, and he had the humility to recognize each time he was in the wrong and to back down, the humility to realize it wasn’t his place and it wasn’t even really about him.

Kip was always nervous about losing his temper, about lashing out at the people who cared for him, who did so much for him. So if that made his reaction to Wallace more heated when he DID vent his anger, he could understand that in himself. But it had surprised him every time to see Wallace respond in a way as considerate and careful as the behavior that caused it hadn’t been. Wallace would hand over all the power and control in the interaction to Kip, and he wouldn’t begrudge Kip his frustration or try to argue back his own thoughts and intentions. Kip would replay the exchanges in his head and realize that it was only once he’d turned the context back towards the personal hurt, the specific feelings he had for Wallace, that Wallace would explain himself a bit and apologize and try to assure Kip that he didn’t want or mean to do this to him.

Kip had never really been in a situation to be treated that way. It was the same as it had been in the days he first met Wallace—a moment of pleasant surprise and unexpected affection could turn to exasperation or butting heads or even suspicion at the drop of a hat, and, conversely, an outright fight, a moment of real pain and disappointment, could somehow transition into increased intimacy, to a quiet bloom of appreciation, sympathy, even a little flow of love.

It always surprised Kip that as ridiculous and capricious as Wallace could come across on the surface, there was a vein of deep patience at his core, a determination beneath his nervous and at times even unpredictable temperament. He yelled at Wallace when he’d told Kip he should be more active in his community if that’s what he moved for, because he’d moved with the intention of carrying out house calls and had been pushing himself to do them despite his fear and doubt, so Kip could do it too. Kip had turned at once to Wallace and demanded to know how he felt able to say that, tearing up out of sheer fury, louder in his own ears than he thought he was being. He felt such rage at all the implications, that Wallace thought Kip’s fears were the same that a human from A who was taught to hate monsters and given the power to harm them and had no idea what they’d been through could feel, that he thought he could understand Kip’s or anyone’s situation and give advice on it, that he thought Kip only needed a nudge, that the only thing he was dealing with was a lack of encouragement from someone like him, that he thought the house calls he was only able to carry out because Kip was sticking his neck out for him was anything like what Kip was ever thinking of doing, like what Kent and others had done, had died for. Kip had vented such rage and pent-up frustration with what felt like such viciousness that when he wheeled around and stormed into the bathroom to wash his face and catch his breath and wait for his body to stop shaking, he fully expected to reemerge and find Wallace unwilling to look at or talk to him, to have wholly severed the positive connection they’d built up, and have to coolly take his leave. He made himself sure of it before he even tried to open the door, but when he did, he found that Wallace turned to look at him right away and stumbled through a halting but earnest apology. Wallace had confessed that he’d made the same kind of mistake here that he kept making with his clients, building on assumptions and leaning too heavily on his desire to relate as a way to establish communication, while actually destroying confidence in the process. He told Kip that he didn’t want to hurt him specifically, implying that it was because he cares about him. He interrupted himself to point out that Kip was shivering, and Kip watched as Wallace opened his closet and brought out a heavy blanket, unfolded it, walked slowly towards Kip and swung it carefully around him to rest on his shoulders like a hug, all while Kip struggled to process that Wallace didn’t hate him, wasn’t fed up with his efforts to work with him—or even speak with him.

Kip momentarily buries his face in his hands—the memory feels so personal now, while in the days and weeks after it happened he’d held that perspective steadily at bay.

It’s no longer a surprise he’s fallen for Wallace—the only surprise would be if he somehow hadn’t.

But it doesn’t really matter how he feels about anything. Even if he thought Wallace was the sole love of his life—he has to give this up.

So what does he want from Wallace now.

He told Eno he’s afraid of losing Wallace entirely, losing their intimacy.

But he’s not so sure that intimacy will last outside what they did anyway—or even that it is now. There’s been no need for them to be up late into the night on the very couch Kip’s now sitting on, passing papers back and forth, whispering occasionally, leaning across each other to study a tiny, photocopied note. Nowadays, Kip tends to cry alone or with Pascal, it’s been months and months since Wallace was there to take his glasses and pass him some tissues and rub his back, cautiously but steadily. How would some of the closeness they shared even be continued now? Kip’s fairly sure there won’t be any further need for him to tackle Wallace to the floor and curl his body tightly over the human’s while a dome of ice arcs into place around them with a shockingly loud crash.

It’s strangely busy work simply trying to rediscover a kind of normalcy. Kip’s been trying to give Wallace space to do so—and has found himself somewhat anxious at the thought of simply dropping in on him now, though he had done so with decent frequency before having the dream. They’ve never been able to have a “normal” between themselves that wasn’t wrecked seemingly every week. And a handful of months in the aftermath of chaos doesn’t feel like it counts as having established anything. And now Kip has a crush on Wallace that he can’t pursue, so maybe none of this was ever meant to be lasting.

Kip doesn’t even know what to make of the fact that he’s gained feelings for Wallace like this. Wallace is so different from him. Yet he’s not. A human from A and a monster from C—it wouldn’t be Kip’s first choice based on that analysis alone. And he can’t ever pretend it’s something that can be transcended and rendered inactive through the simple fact that Kip loves him. If he had to pick a human, he’d start out with one from C or D. And yet he also stubbornly feels that he can pick any human he wants. He’ll be in love with Wallace if he likes, and dare anyone to think they can tell him otherwise.

But he can’t ignore himself.

He has to shake hands with Wallace and leave him to do whatever he will and go live a mile away with Pascal, close enough to stay connected, yet removed from the old framework of their history together, no longer haunted by the legacy of the tumult and trauma they shared so soon after meeting.

It’s not like Eno didn’t remain one of the most important people in Kip’s life even when Kip lived two districts away.

He brings the rim of the cup to his bottom lip just to breathe in the scent of the tea.

He wants to believe his feelings for Wallace have only been frivolous and superficial, the result of crossed wires caused by being so close to the man so many times, saving him and being saved by him, learning so much about him so quickly, supporting each other in such intimate, vulnerable moments. But there were more than a few times he knows he isn’t mistaken about, ones where the feelings that surfaced in his interactions with Wallace were beyond doubt, and certainly real.

Even he can’t think so badly of himself to merely wave those emotions aside. If he thinks of that kind of connection he felt as meaningless, he may as well throw out everything he feels for everyone else at the same time.

He drags his nails down his shoulder. How can he be surprised anymore at the idea that something is coming down the line to hurt him.

Chapter Text

Kip had thoughts of writing or reading or maybe just making lunch before heading into work, but doesn’t end up getting around to any of it.

Kate is already there by the time he comes in, and she all but immediately lets him know she has something to tell him but that she’ll let him know what it is later with an email. He pretends to complain about the fact for a good while, but he knows it’s not in the least bad news. Kate is clearly happy about it—and although she, like him, has a tendency to mask her real moods at times, and is also, less like him, most often largely successful at doing so, he knows her well enough to tell that she’s trying to play it cool.

It’s one of the reasons her brand of teasing goes a lot easier on him than that of most of his friends. They have a sort of mutual understanding; they can read each other pretty well but will let each other set their own pace, choosing instead to communicate subtly through the undertones of casual banter and pretend rivalry.

Kate is also one step ahead of him in most tasks around the café, so he figures she must be a bit worked up over whatever it is she is declining to actually tell him about in person.

He tries to make the argument that he told HER right away as soon as he’d officially gotten back with Pascal, and that he also gave her early access to his secret crush on Wallace. She counters that her surprise isn’t as big a deal as his news about Pascal was, and acknowledges that he let her in on some bonus knowledge, but she still wants to tell him via an email.

“Why does it have to be an email,” Kip asks flatly, dropping a tin on the floor and swearing under his breath as he stoops to pick it up. “Why not just text me, or something normal.”

“Email,” Kate says simply, heading into the back. Kip waits until she glances back to flip her off, and she laughs at him.

—

Kip is a bit lonely closing by himself, but there’s a few texts from Pascal to keep him distracted. They’re brief and sweet and funny, and Kip is immensely grateful that Pascal got a cellphone when he moved to C. If he could only be in touch with him for a short period each evening, he’s sure he wouldn’t be very content with the situation.

He texts Pascal when he’s leaving, saying he’s glad it’s the summer and it’s not dark and freezing every time he opens or closes the café. Pascal says he’s also probably glad it’s not winter because he knows Kip hates almost everything about it, and Kip says that’s true.

Back at the apartment, Molly and Roy are sitting amidst a cityscape-like arrangement of tiny plastic bins of various dimensions, chatting with each other. Kip leaves it alone for the time being to take a shower and change into pajamas, but when he goes back out they insist he join them, and he discovers that they’re partaking in a craft Roy has planned for the kids at the daycare, making necklaces of rigatoni noodles and colorful plastic beads of various shapes, each housed in the plastic boxes.

Molly is already wearing one of her creations and carefully threading another, and Roy has a couple finished ones sitting beside himself as well.

“I think it’s good to have some examples for them to look at, even though I think it’ll be pretty easy for them to understand,” he says. “And I don’t think they’ll have much patience to wait for me to start and finish one from scratch to show them, you know what I mean? They get especially excited about stuff they get to wear. You should’ve been there on the day we did t-shirts, Kip, they were all really amazed that they could actually make the designs on their shirts—I had to help them use these sponge stamps one by one because the paint wasn’t washable, so that took forever, but then I took them outside while the shirts hung out to dry and it all actually went pretty smoothly! With this one I’m just hoping to kind of do it in a circle, I think it’ll be easiest to make sure nobody tries to eat any beads that way. There’s only a few kids who sometimes try to taste everything, but most of them have pretty wayward focus, and I also don’t want to end up with a lot of these all over the floor in case somebody falls on one... And they’ll love it if I get to tell them that I’m showing them necklaces made by you guys, they think it’s a lot of fun to hear about you and everything.”

“How on earth do we ever come up?” Kip asks.

“Well, if I’m teaching them about something and wanna use examples, I’ll just say stuff like, ‘If Kip wants to make a painting of grass, what color would he use? What colors should he mix to make green?’ Or stuff like, ‘My friend Molly is tall—‘“

“Oh, for when you teach them about lies and exaggerations?” Molly laughs.

“‘And Kip is tall-ER,’” Roy continues undeterred. “‘And I am tall-EST!’ They think it’s funny to hear about you at random times every now and then. And you know they love it when you come in, Molly.”

“They’d get that excited for anyone,” Molly argues.

“No, they totally love you!”

Kip adjusts his socks for a moment. He’s been a bit busy for most of the year, but mostly has never been brave enough to actually help Roy with something while the kids are there. He doesn’t think he’d have the energy to survive, even with Roy to bear the brunt of it, even with others helping. But he’s pretty sure even Wallace, who’s been busier than ever with his job, has volunteered a few times.

Still, Wallace’s earnest and eager and bright nature has to make him better with kids than Kip can be. They ask questions he doesn’t know how to answer, others just stare at him, he can never think of things to say to them until their short attentions have shifted to something else. And he knows he just doesn’t seem that appealing to them. He’s too quiet and buttoned-down, and the only thing going for him would be that the kids at Roy’s daycare are too young to find him too boring or weird. His sheer novelty would grant him popularity with them for at least an afternoon.

But Roy always has other, better helpers he can call on. And he never pressures Kip to do anything he’s uncomfortable with. So Kip has gratefully kept out of it.

But he does try to help with things behind-the-scenes a bit, in part because Roy likes to go so above and beyond that a bit of additional assistance helps prevent him from overloading himself, in part because Kip does feel guilty that he never helps out during the day, and in fact part simply because Roy is his friend, and Kip loves him.

Roy and Molly’s back-and-forth has shifted effortlessly along a tangent to the subject of different kinds of sandwiches. Kip tentatively pulls a string from the pile in the center of their circle, and picks up a box of glitter-swirled opalescent blue beads.

—

In his room, casually orbiting the task of settling in for the night, Kip decides to treat himself to a relaxing routine despite the fact that he knows he could probably fall asleep just fine without it. But he takes a hot bubble bath with the light dimmed, reading a chapter of his book, a teacup of chai on the rim of the tub. He pats himself dry afterwards and rubs lotion on his elbows and knees and the backs of his hands before blowdrying his hair. He cuts and files his nails while he’s at it, and rubs some mint-scented cuticle cream in afterwards.

Back in his room, he spritzes some orchid-scented perfume on his bed so the subtle smell will linger for a while. He attaches his headphones to his phone and plays some looped audio of rainfall and crawls onto the bed to lie on his stomach. After about ten minutes he gets up again and gets out of his pajamas, and goes to his sock drawer, and takes out his prostate massager.

It’s been a long time since he’s done this. He and Pascal never exactly got around to using that many sex toys while they were together, and it’s only since living without Pascal—and thinking he’d be indefinitely reliant upon himself for pleasure—that Kip invested in a small variety of tools to enhance his masturbation. There’s his first purchase, the dildo that approximates Pascal’s size and shape, and a smaller one, easier to insert and gently waved for stimulation, and then there’s a middling-sized plug, a cock ring he’s used for particularly lengthy sessions with himself, and his one slender, slightly curved massager.

While he and Pascal’s sex had never come close to stagnant or even all that routine, they hadn’t tried giving each other orgasms through prostate stimulation alone. For a while Kip hadn’t even known that it was an available technique, and even when he did, he was too satisfied with their sex life already to give all that much thought to it. When suddenly without his longtime boyfriend, though, he became a lot more interested in improving his personal skills. Unfortunately, he never quite got around to developing a real expertise in the realm. Though sexual frustration set in quickly after the move, his stress was a significant inhibition for the first month or two—he’d often be too impatient or tired or simply uninterested to do much more than rub out a quick orgasm, only occasionally taking more time, playing with himself a bit more, trying to allow himself to fantasize more freely, luxuriate in it, really enjoy it. He only went for a prostate orgasm with a few brief tries. The first time it was taking so long he simply gave up on it and wrapped his hand around his cock, but the second time he saw it through. It took ages, he suspected a few times over that he wasn’t quite doing it perfectly, but the orgasm had been a surprise, surprisingly slow and long-lasting, more of a slope than a sharp peak. The third time had felt like it was going more smoothly, but he simply lost patience partway through again. He never got around to a fourth—Wallace moved in, and shortly thereafter, the stress of the move seemed like a day at the beach, and things would only worsen, without reprieve, for months and months.

The intense anxiety, stress, exhaustion, and eventual fresh exposures to trauma quickly decimated even his exacerbated sex drive. He simply jerked off on infrequent occasion, a practical exercise, the potential heights of his enjoyment no longer that much of a concern.

But now he wants it lengthy, indulgent, luxuriating again. He was focusing more on his pleasure even before he was sure he was intending to be with Pascal again. Now that he’s actually with him, being kissed and touched again, getting dicked down and sucked off in spectacular ways, he’s only more interested in being better at getting himself off.

He wants a sleeve to jerk off with, something that can be soft and enveloping in similar ways to Pascal’s arms, maybe even have bumps on the inside to mimic the texture of the suckers. And if he can get the hang of it, the site he bought most of the toys from had a different iteration of prostate massager so impressive he distinctly remembers it. It was much more curved, almost like a U, meant to be used hands-free. He would sit on it, one end would go into him, against his prostate, while the other end would be pressed up against his taint—he could rock back and forth on it while on his knees. He’d found himself subtly dragging his hips forward and back just looking at the picture while imagining it.

He’d also felt a spark of interest in various other concepts—trying to ride a dildo on an exercise ball for that smooth rocking movement, using a sex swing for otherwise impossible positions, dripping hot wax onto his cold skin, spreading his wrists or locking them overhead—but he never figured any of his more theoretical ideas would ever be too relevant. But maybe now he can do a little more research, maybe bring up these kinds of ponderances to Pascal if they seem like things he’d be into as well.

Like how, right now, he can try to get himself off via his prostate again, see if he can do it even better than his first ventures, see how much he likes it.

Kip covers the massager generously in lube. He lies flat on his back and rests it against his stomach for a bit, eyes closed, breathing deeply, trying to relax himself even more than he already is. He suspects he was starting off a bit impatiently the earlier times he tried doing this, and maybe if he really gives it some extra time, he’ll feel like he’s found the right approach.

He lays his dick on his stomach—he’s already growing a bit hard out of sheer anticipation, but he doesn’t want to touch his erection that much from here on out. The massager slides smoothly into him, and he quickly nestles the end against his prostate and puts the slightest amount of pressure onto it. It’s so much easier than reaching the right spot with his fingers—even when Pascal does it for him, he knows it’s difficult to maintain a precise, steady stimulation for very long.

But this is just as he remembers—so easy that he’s tempted to just go for it all at once, push unrelentingly until he’s too far gone to patiently wait for orgasm. But he deliberately ignores the urge and goes even slower than he thinks he needs to.

He worries that he’s being too gentle and nothing is going to happen. But after a couple of minutes, something is kicking in that lets him know he’s got it.

He still has his whole body relaxed against the bed, but his knees are spasming.

He’s definitely doing this better than the few times he messed with it before. Just a little more confidence in his ability to do this right, and it’s paying off sooner and more intensely than he thought it could. Every press feels like a little burst of sheer bliss—it should be too much, but it’s not, he’s still just resting, moving his wrist at an easy, flowing pace.

When it starts feeling slightly effortless, Kip builds his rhythm—still slow and steady, but just a little faster-paced, an ounce or two harder. The first thing that happens is an involuntary groan. He gasps and immediately turns his head to the side, sliding his hand up to press his pillow against his mouth. Occasional whimpers keep slipping out, he buries them and digs his fingers into the fabric.

He so badly wants to jerk off, he wants this orgasm so much, but at the same time he’s so utterly enraptured with how it’s feeling as it builds at this slow pace. Already overwhelming, each stroke already providing a deep satisfaction, his pleasure thrillingly intense.

He’s not even done and he already wants to do this again.

He gives another groan and chokes it back, manages to let it out as a quiet, drawn out, strangled-off whine. He’s trembling uncontrollably down the full length of his legs. It feels like every nudge of his prostate is a fraction of an orgasm in itself. His cock is leaking—not the usual clear drops clinging to the tip, but a slow, light flow that’s gradually puddling on his stomach, despite the fact he hasn’t yet hit his actual peak.

Whimpering with every exhale, Kip feels something like pressure, tension, energy gathering deep in his core, a different yet unmistakeable sensation of imminent climax; he squeezes his eyes shut and hooks his elbow around the pillow to pin it against his mouth, all but smothering himself with it. He doesn’t speed his pace—he knows it’s coming and he only needs to wait for it.

His orgasm seems to start somewhere in his stomach, radiating out in an incredible, intense wall of sharp, dense pleasure; he’s overcome. He cries out into the pillow, distantly feels himself spill warm across his abs—it fades, and he uncovers his face and breathes and looks up at the ceiling, lying immobile, still soaked in it—then all of a sudden he’s hit with another wave of orgasmic levels of pleasure, arching up, gasping—then another and another, until he slumps back against the bed as smaller ripples gently ease him into an all-encompassing afterglow.

Kip considers sitting up, and with a brief effort at propping himself up on his elbows, he discovers an impressive amount of thick fluid across his front, but also that he seems to be barely able to move from the waist down. It’s initially alarming, but his legs are still trembling, and he can still shift his whole body, albeit weakly. He lets himself fall back onto the blankets and simply bask in the euphoric wake of his orgasm.

He gets up what must be about a quarter of an hour later. He eases the massager out of himself and walks carefully over to retrieve some tissues from his closet, legs still remarkably unsteady. After wiping up most of his spill, he wraps the tissues around the condom and tosses it all in his wastebasket, then slips back into his pajamas and goes into the bathroom for a bit of extra cleanup.

His skin is still overly sensitive even after his climax, even after his afterglow has ebbed away; the rub of fabric against his chest and his butt and his waist feels almost overstimulating sometimes, like he wants to flinch at the touch. But the pleasantness that lingers from the whole experience is far from gone, either. Despite the weakness of his body, he doesn’t quite feel wearied, and his movements are smooth, minimal, easy.

It’s all too much in a good way, but he still can’t see himself wanting this kind of orgasm too frequently—it’s different from the usual buildup and climax at every step, sharper and drawn out, just as good, but still not exactly superior. Not to mention—the way Pascal fucks him can’t be replaced or surpassed by any damn thing in existence.

Back in his room, Kip sheds his clothes again and climbs back underneath the covers, rolling onto his stomach with a happy sigh. He distantly thinks of telling Pascal about this, and, better yet, giving it to him too. Maybe he could demonstrate on himself and have Pascal blow him while he does. Maybe Pascal has stories of his own about getting creative during their shared drought. Kip dozes off while distantly imagining it.

—

Another rainy day, more at a drizzle than a storm this time. The little drops tap pleasantly on Kip’s umbrella as he walks to work, and he finds himself in the rare state of feeling pleasantly cool.

At first it’s just him replacing Cuddy and dealing with everything up front while Molly works on her last few rounds of bakes in the kitchen, but after just an hour Kate joins him as well. They handle the lunch period together, and Kip shoulders the register and barista stations for a little while so that Kate can go into the back and chat with Molly a bit before the latter leaves.

They spend the last few hours of Kip’s shift pairing up their activities so that they can be cleaning next to each other, talking through their work. Kip still can’t get Kate to tell him in person what her news is, she just tells him to check on his laptop when he gets home, and gives a secret little smile as she turns away to keep scrubbing off the shelf under the counter.

But she’s on a roll with making Kip laugh today, so they don’t bother messing with each other much. The rainy weather seems to keep things a little slow, but they get a sizable group of friends all at once, and later the members of what seems to be a knitting circle come in, one by one and in pairs, to settle in the corner with each other. The quiet background noise of conversation is nice, his and Kate’s efforts seem to be second nature, and work somehow remains stress-free for the rest of Kip’s shift.

The rain starts up again a couple of minutes into Kip’s walk back to the apartment. The drops are fewer and further between but also heavier than before, and their rhythm on Kip’s umbrella is steady and staccato.

He empties their mailbox as he enters their building and glances at Wallace’s door when he passes by. He knows he has one more try in him, that he wants to actually say something for a moment, but he still doesn’t know what it should be. He doesn’t feel sure that he shouldn’t lose touch with Wallace, at least temporarily. In that case, he at least would owe Wallace one face-to-face meeting to tell him so.

He’s at least glad that the momentary lurch of unpleasantness from the other day didn’t manage to throw him off completely. Sure, his anxiety made him throw up again, and sure, it wasn’t as if he could shake it off completely. But it didn’t ruin his whole day, didn’t upset him as thoroughly as it could’ve. It was easier to turn his thoughts from it—he’s always known, ever since the worst of it, that the best thing he can do for himself is simply find a distraction. Think about something else for a while. Only let himself bear it in little intervals whenever he can manage to break it up.

Maybe he’ll talk to Wallace before he comes over for the dinner at the end of the week, maybe he won’t. The line between avoidance and simply letting himself off the hook when he’s not in the mood can sometimes be too thin to discern, but he at least knows that even if he feels guilty about having no progress to report at his next appointment, Eno isn’t going to be disappointed with him, think worse of him than he had, judge him. Kip’s dropped the ball plenty of times over the course of his years of therapy, and Eno’s never given up on him, nor even gotten frustrated. Whenever Kip’s struggled with some suggestion or project or given up on it completely, Eno just asks where his difficulties lay, and discussed with them how they might adapt some new method to better suit Kip’s needs and personality.

He wonders that Eno has such patience with him, and always has. He responds to it for sure—he worked up the nerve to come out to Eno even before his own family, full of dread and horrible anxiety at the task, even though he knew he had nothing to fear from any of them. He’s always known, how genuinely Eno cares for him. That he’s known about Kip’s skittish avoidance and weakness and anxieties, seen them worsened, seen them refuse to simply diffuse away after enough time, as Kip suspects a lot of people in his life had hoped or expected they would. Kip’s never felt like Eno saw him as anyone but who he was, or wished he was better than he was.

Maybe it’s just the sheer familiarity with each other—the fact that there were essentially no stakes when they first met—the fact that, barely below his surface, Eno is full of care and gentleness. And Kip has always known himself, known that’s what he responds to—simply a soft, loving approach. He’ll raise a cold shoulder, a level stare, he’ll spark up with irritation or even genuine anger—all to protect himself and those around him from those who don’t care about them, who’ll hurt them one way or another. And the only thing Kip melts for is being regarded in earnest and given a real, genuine moment of thoughtfulness—evidence that his own softness has been seen and valued, that there’s been an even momentary understanding that Kip wants to, needs to be treated gently.

Eno has always treated Kip this way, allowed Kip to be as prickly and cold and sharp as he wants, or shaky and scared and upset—he sees all of it, unflinching, only seeming to love Kip the more for each of the years they’ve known each other.

Pascal is so deeply, inherently infused with these traits—compassion and such a capacity for attentive caring focus and unshakeable, soft, deep love—that it’s no wonder Kip was so immediately drawn to him, so quickly infatuated, and, once given the chance to get to know Pascal on a deeper level, see not only the traits that existed in the ways Pascal treats and regards others, but the way Pascal regards himself, the ways he’s independent of others, the things he likes, the kinds of things he does, endlessly unfolding little details about him—it’s always been obvious to Kip why he’s loved and trusted and wanted Pascal as surely and thoroughly as he does.

And when Kip gets right down to it, the tiny moments he had with Wallace even in the very beginning all fit this pattern, too. Even when he barely knew the human, when he felt suspicious and afraid and more than a little angry, there were little flickers of disruption when Wallace surprised him by acting thoughtful and kind, not only noticing the discomforts and needs that Kip tried to hide but seeming to have real concern—seeming to care about Kip in the way a real friend might. Kip had felt little skips of the heart, little glows of warmth in his chest and throat and face, little pulses of flustered affection.

With virtually everyone he knows, it’s not the fact that they tend to be so much brighter and happier and bolder than him—it’s that each of them have their own way of being soft with him when he really needs them, and of understanding the quiet ways Kip tends to communicate his feelings on an everyday level.

But he would push himself out of his comfort zone for any of them. He wants them to accept him for the worst parts of himself and not be disappointed that he’s not someone he’s never been, but he also wants to always try to be as good as he can for each of them—he would rather them be pleasantly surprised by him, impressed by him, feel as though he’s something positive in their world.

He’d like to be able to tell Eno he did talk to Wallace—very much so.

But he doesn’t want to feel disappointed in himself if he can’t.

—

Kip carries a hamper of clothes down to the laundry room, puts it in the machine on the corner, treks back upstairs. He makes himself a warm cup of chamomile tea, and circles around a blank word document for a while, turning over various potential subjects to write about, before accepting that he just doesn’t seem to have it in him to write today.

He finally opens his email and glances over it for Kate’s address—and finds an email from her just third down the list, with the subject line “here, check it out loser.” It starts with just a couple lines of text, “jk love ya. now look at these before and afters & you’ll know my Good News (not the bible i promise!! ok reply when you know what it is!)”

Her “before and afters” are pairs of photos she’s taken, most of the old ones being simple, impromptu, candid shots that he recognizes from various posts on her blog from the past year and a half. But oddly, each “after” picture seems totally unrelated with the old photo it’s paired with—Kip doesn’t particularly recognize the new shots, but they’re at least all similarly everyday, ordinary imagery—it’s possible they’re just ones he’s forgotten about, or that she never posted before.

There’s a shot of a table in a restaurant, sugar packets and salt shaker and a windowsill in the corner of the shot. And the “after” is a sparrow on a tree branch against a sunny sky, some clouds in the background. A clutch of houseplants, the overlapping fronds forming a kind of collage within the frame, a picture of the shot turned around on Kate herself, looking at something behind the camera with badly-restrained laughter, all windblown hair and freckles and a stripe of sunlight lain diagonal across her cheek. Kip makes a mental note to tell her she looks really good in that picture. A straightforward shot aimed down a street on what looks to be a late autumn afternoon, and a picture of Kate’s dog on the tiled floor of Kate’s kitchen, stretched out on her back.

There’s a few more pairs, all seemingly just as disconnected. Kip bites his lip and scrunches up his nose, scrolls up and down a few times, trying to see if a quick glance will provide answers better than studying each shot. Maybe there’s some kind of riddle here? Kate likes to be clever and fun and just a little difficult—it wouldn’t be too far off from various things she’s pulled before. She’ll either hit you in the face with some straightforward announcement or make you follow some scavenger hunt she’s somehow laid out for you, until you find her waiting at the end to hit you in the face with the reveal anyways.

This one isn’t immediately obvious to Kip, so there has to be something deeper her. Maybe visual puns. Maybe something buried in the file names. Maybe there’s some overall theme he isn’t picking up on.

After a couple minutes more, he still feels like he’s on a total dead-end with it all, gaining no new insights, thinking up no helpful avenue or perspective to pursue. He closes his laptop and looks around the kitchen for what he could make up into a dinner and goes into his room and texts Pascal and vacuums his floor and lies down for a little bit, then goes downstairs and transfers the laundry into a dryer.

He takes another look at the email again when he returns to the apartment and finishes his tea. After a minute he stops thinking about what it could actually mean and just looks at the pictures individually, appreciating them simply as examples of Kate’s passion and flair for photography in such a variety of styles and subject matter. He looks at the way she’s handled the balance in even a simple picture of her dog, seeming to capture every strand of fur, its soft texture and rich color and the way it scatters light amidst itself. It makes him look back up at the photo of the bird, the way delicate lines of shadow in the feathers of its throat are visible, a tiny glint of sunlight reflected in its eye, both the clouds and the branches rendered in clear detail and color.

Kip bites his lip again, glances up at the ceiling, then doubles down on his analysis of each pair of pictures, leaning slightly in towards the screen, eyes flicking rapidly over the details in the images.

He scoffs a laugh and clicks the computer shut again, standing up to pace around the rug while he pulls up Kate’s contact in his phone. He’s too worked up to text this one, so he calls her instead, waiting through a couple of rings before reaching her almost-formal voicemail greeting.

“Hey,” he starts just after the beep, still pacing in tight circles. “Sorry I called you! I know you’re still at work and your phone just buzzed a lot and you’re going to see a voicemail from me and be annoyed that I didn’t just text you, because now you have to wait until a break or after work or something. But you made me wait, too, and I bet you already know that I know, or I would’ve just texted me. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to buy your new camera! I want to see it! Jesus—congratulations, I’m really glad you’ve finally been able to get a new camera. We have to do lunch sometime soon to celebrate it. And you better not have told anybody about this before me or anything. Congratulations. Thanks for the email and just text me or tell me things next time because I had to stare at it for like ten minutes and you’re lucky I figured out what you were talking about at all! Anyways I knew you were really happy about something and I’m glad too, and bye, and congratulations again.”

He ends the call and shoves the phone back in his pocket and sinks to his knees, shoving his face against a pillow on one end of the couch. His heart is still beating hard enough for him to feel.

This makes it feel even more like Kate is maybe always going to be okay. Maybe he can feel this way about all his friends. And himself.

It wasn’t that long ago that he wasn’t so sure even these kinds of simple moments of happiness weren’t solely in his past.

—

Kip is still fairly stuck on Kate’s news an hour later, itching to see her so he can freak out over it in person—her goal of getting a new camera, a real, high-end, seriously professional one that could match her wants and vision and skills has been one so long-held it seems almost legendary. He really wants to text her but is fighting the desire, if only as a way to get a tiny amount of pretend-revenge for having to wait and decipher an email puzzle.

When Molly suddenly shows up, he’s so stuck on it that his initial impulse is to ask her if she was with Kate—as though all three of them hadn’t been at work earlier, and Kip hadn’t witnessed Molly leave well before either of them, and didn’t know Kate was closing. So he trips on the very start of his sentence and then struggles through a long pause, fumbling simultaneously with a cluster of potential options that only make it out in a disjointed mess of syllables, before finally abandoning hope of recovering it at all, sighing, and landing on “What’s up?”

Molly, who waited patiently through the whole disaster, sets a paper shopping bag down on the couch and leans against the arm as she straightens out the hem of her sundress.

“Not too much today,” she says. “I came back here for lunch and went out for a walk, I got some more of that shampoo I liked, and I hung out with Ben for a while.”

“Ah, cool,” Kip says. He likes that his heart only just barely accelerates. It’s no big deal, and it’s nothing new.

Besides, knowing that Molly tends to visit and chat with Ben at least once a week has indirectly provided him with some bonus knowledge—that Ben has never told Molly about Kip’s momentary outburst that now seems so long ago, since Molly has never tried to drag him into a room with Ben and only let him out once he resolves the issue. And Wallace must not have told Ben about what Kip did, because Kip is fairly confident that if Molly suspected such a rift was set up between Ben and him, she would drag him into a room with Ben and only let him out once he resolves the issue.

“Hey—“ he says, before his silence becomes anything too weird, noticeable, or pointed. “Did you hear about Kate’s thing already?”

“Not yet, she was telling me she’d say it with an email? Which I was thinking, ‘what?’ But it’s Kate, so...”

“Okay, yeah, that’s what she told me too. I said I was gonna be mad at her if she was only doing that to me. But I guess she sent it the other day, or this morning or something...”

“Oh, you got it? What’s it say?”

“Well, it doesn’t quite tell you—not directly, or anything.”

“It’s one of those things she wants you to figure out?”

“Yeah. Want me to tell you, or...?”

He watches as she looks up towards the ceiling, crosses her arms, runs her tongue over the front of her teeth.

“Aahh, gimme a minute, I’ll see if I can figure it out—“

She turns and heads off into her room, and Kip laughs softly and leans back against the wall.

—

“Hey, need any help?” Roy swings into the doorframe mid-stride.

“No, thanks, I’m good...” Kip says, giving the skillet a superfluous stir. “I meant to ask you guys, though—Wednesday, I’m supposed to be off, do you think it would work to have Pascal over for dinner then?”

“Oh! Sure, that’d be great! I haven’t seen him since last time...”

“Yeah,” Kip laughs. “Yeah, I don’t think he’s been over often enough for any of us. It wouldn’t have to be a big thing, you know—I think he likes to be uh, considered, not a big deal...like, more like the way it was when we all lived together, right? I was thinking I could make a cake or something...if you and Molly think it’d be a good day for it, I mean. I just thought I should throw that out there, I’d been talking about it...”

“Yeah, absolutely, I can ask her, we should do it!”

“I—“ Kip starts, but glances over to see Roy is already well on his way. He turns back to the stove and warms his fingers in the steam rising from the pan.

—

“wanna come over weds night?” Kip texts Pascal. Then: “i know you’ll be here on friday too, but molly and roy say wed would work too, if you want. if not, thats cool, i’ll keep watching out for days you can come over anyways”

Pascal texts back after a few minutes to say he’d love to come over Wednesday, and Kip smiles and lays his phone on his chest.

—

During work the next afternoon, Kip gets a text from Kate saying she’s planning to get some more practice in with her new camera at the park on Saturday, and that if he and Molly wanted to join her, they could all hang out. She sends a follow-up text a little bit later, saying she’s just remembered to check the forecast, but the weather is supposed to be partly cloudy, and not overly hot.

He steals a quick moment in the back to accept.

There’s one downside to his quiet shift when he accidentally burns himself on the side of the espresso steam, and it’s more of a shock than it should be. He goes to the kitchen area and sits on the stool for a minute, his head in his left hand, the other hand crossed over his front to hold the side of his waist. He slips his hand underneath his shirt to touch the area of his burn scar, somehow finding it grounding. The quietly awful, shuddering feeling fades after about a minute, and he holds his wrist under some cold water, then closes his hand around the slightly bluer patch of skin and infuses it with a bit more chill.

The gentle press of a bandage helps alleviate the slight sting, and he can go about the rest of his shift without any more unpleasant memories acting up.

—

Kip is just about to be frustrated that someone else is coming in during the last ten minutes the café is open, but then he glances up and sees that it’s his boyfriend, and he beams in the middle of taking an order as the feeling does a complete 180.

Pascal lingers around the doorway, looking around the café as though he hasn’t been inside enough times that everything isn’t already familiar to him, glancing at Molly’s posters, at the tiles on the floor, at the tables and chairs along the opposite wall. Kip knows that the forced preoccupation is for his sake, so he knows Pascal isn’t going to be looking at him the whole time and he doesn’t have to feel too self-conscious. Kip keeps glancing at him though, because Pascal is this perfect blend of ferociously sexually attractive and just impossibly cute, and Kip appreciates how nice he is to look at and how much nicer that he’s here, and how happy it makes Kip to be with him.

He catches Pascal glancing back at him a few times and Pascal waves and blushes a little, which delights Kip endlessly. After handing off the last order across the counter, Kip meanders back to the register, hands clasped behind his back, half-stifling a smile until Pascal notices him and he lets himself laugh.

“Hey,” Pascal says as he walks up to the other side of the counter.

“Hey,” Kip returns. “It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah? I thought I could, y’know, walk you home and all. It’s pretty nice out tonight.”

Kip smiles.

“That’s really nice, Pas,” he says quietly. “I’d really like that.”

The fact that such a simple thing could again make Pascal blush and smile a little harder, seemingly almost flustered, makes Kip’s heart feel light. He wonders that he can make anyone so happy so easily, especially someone as wonderfully good as Pascal.

“Hey,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Pascal laughs and brushes some hair back and Kip reaches across the counter and takes the end of his arm.

“Jeez, what’re you so happy about?” he teases, rubbing his thumb up and down against a sucker.

“Nothing,” Pascal says. “It’s just good to see you. I really like getting to see you.”

Kip doesn’t say anything, just gives Pascal’s arm a little squeeze and holds his gaze for a moment to let him know he understands.

“Oh—“ Pascal glances down at Kip’s arm when he lets go. “Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah...” Kip touches the edge of the bandage, standing out obtrusively against his blue skin. “I just burned myself a little. It was kind of rough for a second there, but it doesn’t really hurt anymore.”

“Aw...I’m glad you’re alright.”

Kip giggles and hugs his arms across his front.

“Yeah, me too.”

Pascal hangs out in a chair while Kip finishes up closing, turns out all the lights, runs a mop over the rest of the floor upfront.

“I wanna kiss you, but I guess you’re still technically at work and all,” Pascal sighs, leaning back against the wall.

“I’m almost done,” Kip laughs, pushing the mop against a spot of dirt on the floor, trying not to think too much about the idea of Pascal making out with him right now, pushing him up against the wall, fucking him. It’s a nice fantasy, but he thinks he’d probably rather save the “sex at work” theme for occasional escapades in the back of Pascal’s shop after hours.

A few minutes more of closing up the register and turning everything off, and Kip finally clocks out. He goes back around to the front and Pascal looks up at him as he approaches and Kip leans down and kisses him.

“I’m a little gross from work,” he murmurs against Pascal’s lips.

“It’s okay,” Pascal breathes. “I was gonna go home and shower anyway.”

Kip laughs slightly and sits down astride Pascal’s lap, wrapping his arms over his shoulders, and leaning in for a deeper kiss.

Pascal wraps his arms around Kip’s back, and one slow, lazy kiss becomes another, another.

“Mm...missed you,” Kip sighs between kisses. Pascal answers him with a slightly more passionate press of his lips, and an arm slipping further up his shoulders.

After a minute Kip leans back and meets Pascal’s eyes, smiling almost unconsciously at the sight. Pascal shifts and tightens his embrace.

“I...” Kip finds his train of thought lost, and just laughs quietly instead.

“Yeah?” Pascal leans in and kisses the corner of Kip’s jaw, brushes his chin against Kip’s neck so that it almost tickles, and plants a kiss just beneath Kip’s ear while Kip giggles and draws his shoulders up in a reflexive cringe.

Kip buries his fingers in the thick hair on the back of Pascal’s head and tucks his face in the crook of Pascal’s neck. Pascal’s hold shifts subtly into a hug, and Kip gently scratches his fingertips up and down Pascal’s shoulderblades.

They sit there for a quiet minute or two.

“How was your day?” Kip asks quietly.