Aiden paces circles around his dark living room, weaving in and out of the moonlight.

He’s always felt like he exists outside of all the beauty in the world. It doesn’t reach him, doesn’t touch him, isn’t meant for him.

But tonight, he came home from his job interview at City Hall and found Jamie waiting with a small potted plant for him.

It’s from Kent. He said it’s a housewarming present. I brought it over from the store.

After all these years spent apart, Aiden is just starting to figure out who Jamie is now. But one thing he picked up on right away is that Jamie isn’t a very good liar. His freckled cheeks were burning when he handed the plant over, and he seemed happy when Aiden said that the flowers were pretty.

Aiden is pretty sure that Jamie Keane just gave him a present.

He stops pacing and touches his fingers to the soft white petals. The gift caught Aiden by surprise, filled him with warmth. It’s what gave him the courage to finally offer Jamie the slip of paper with his phone number on it.

Aiden had that paper with him at Angie’s party. On more than one occasion - usually when Jamie smiled at him or laughed at something he said - Aiden closed his fingers around it, thinking he might make the leap. Every time, his heart would begin racing painfully fast, and he faltered at the last minute. He’s kept it in his pocket since then, way too fucking nervous to give it to Jamie.

Until tonight, when Aiden put the paper in Jamie’s hand, and Jamie took it. Wild hope and icy fear have stormed within Aiden ever since.

Jamie has Aiden’s number, but Aiden has no idea whether or not he’ll actually use it.

It’s been hours, now. Aiden has his phone in his hand, and he’ll feel it vibrate if Jamie says anything. Still, he keeps checking for new notifications. He can’t help himself.

“Come on,” he groans softly, when the screen comes up blank again. “Come on, please, please please please…”

Doesn’t Jamie feel it, too? That they have something?

That night at the party, talking to Jamie… Aiden couldn’t believe how it felt.

He’s had to confront a lot of difficult realities about himself since he got sober. One thing he’s brutally aware of is the way he talks. He doesn’t want to come off nasty or thoughtless, even by accident, so he has to pick his words carefully. And the noise in his head doesn’t make it any easier.

For Aiden, every sentence, no matter how simple, is a meticulous construction.

This means long silences, slow words. It’s not lost on Aiden that this makes people uncomfortable, and it adds to his sharply felt sense of inadequacy. It stresses him out, makes things so much harder, when he already struggles hard enough to give shape to his thoughts.

He’s sensitive about it. Frustrated and humiliated when he can’t match the speed or tone of a conversation. The tiniest hint that someone is losing interest in what he’s trying to say is enough to shut him down completely. He went entire days and nights in Berlin without speaking a word to anyone.

Jamie was confused at first. Like everyone else, he was clearly thrown off by Aiden’s style of speaking. But his sugar brown eyes were so sweet and patient. They were fixed on Aiden with such close, sincere interest, even when Aiden was silently working his way through his thoughts.

It took so much pressure off of Aiden that he found himself speaking to Jamie in a way that he hasn’t spoken to anyone else. He was following his intuitions without thinking about it, pouring out words at a rate that would still seem unusually slow to anyone else, but was unimaginable for him. Actually communicating the greater part of what he wanted to say, instead of the lesser. It gave him a feeling of bright expansion, real connection.

For once, someone made him comfortable enough to be his authentic self. Someone really saw him, really heard him, listened to him. Aiden knows exactly how rare it is, to find understanding like that.

Jamie’s natural tendency to chatter is helpful, too. It gives Aiden a break, time to process things and think about them before he speaks. Besides, he just likes the lilt of Jamie’s voice, the constant fluttery gestures of his hands, the way he grabs Aiden’s arm when he laughs.

The sound of Jamie’s energy helped Aiden just as much as the chatter. Having it so closeby quieted everything else, made focus come so easily.

I feel like I should shut up, Jamie had said, during Angie’s party.

Do anything but that, Aiden had wanted to answer.

Aiden already had feelings for the younger version of Jamie, the one he knew before. Serious feelings. Powerful, deeply felt, long-enduring, overwhelming feelings.

But now he has feelings for current Jamie, too. It’s like a whole other crush, layering on top of the first one. When he was fifteen, Aiden had a revelation in Jamie’s amber eyes. Now he’s had another, and he feels it at the core of himself. His very soul is crying out for this.

Which is why he can’t. Stop. Checking. His. Fucking. Phone.

No new notifications, still. The burst of confidence that Aiden felt earlier is starting to ebb away. He hasn’t been paying attention to the time, but now he checks it, and his heart ices over.

It’s four in the fucking morning.

Jamie isn’t going to text him. He probably went to sleep hours ago.

Aiden slowly lowers his phone, presses a hand over his mouth. Maybe Jamie just needs more time to think about this, but - Aiden had a feeling that if he was going to say something, he would do it tonight.

Aiden can see how this ends. His hopes torn apart, his heart shattered. Jamie is such a sweet guy, maybe he’d bring a little housewarming gift for anyone. It’s not like Aiden means anything to Jamie - nothing close to what Jamie means to him. What did Aiden even say to him, after he handed over his number?

Thanks again for your help at the party. For being my companion plant.

He wasn’t thinking, just being himself, the way he thought he could be with Jamie. It had sounded right in his head… maybe it was weird, or something? It’s so hard for Aiden to tell. He’d noticed a movement behind Jamie’s gaze when he said that. A response, definitely, but Aiden didn’t think it was a negative response.

It must have been, though. Why the hell did he think Jamie would know what he meant by companion plant, in that context? He probably hasn’t given a second thought to their conversation at Angie’s party.

Aiden groans out loud, drops his phone onto the desk, and puts his palms over his eyes.

He stands very still. Then he turns and stalks across his new apartment, leaving a stream of muttered curses in his wake.

He should have known better. This whole thing with Jamie was too beautiful to really believe in.

Aiden storms into his bedroom, tosses his snapback on the bed, pulls off his t-shirt. Then he pauses, catching sight of himself in the mirror. His expression is wilder than he’d realized. He looks like a man drowning, his breath making his chest rise and fall too fast.

He quickly breaks his gaze away from the mirror. He sees in himself every fucking complication he comes with.

Maybe it’s for the best if things don't work out with Jamie. Aiden has too many strings attached. It would be a huge thing to ask of Jamie, to accept all of them. To love that part of him. To even put up with that part of him.

Jamie deserves a whole, complete love. Aiden is so broken, still trying to fit the pieces of himself back together, so - how can he possibly offer Jamie that?

Maybe it really is better if he just stays away. After everything he's said and done, he deserves this.

Aiden lets out a heavy sigh, closing his eyes. He drops his head, buries his face in his hands.

“Want you anyways,” he mumbles, though Jamie isn’t around to hear it. “Know all that. Want you anyways. Let myself get my fucking hopes up, anyways.”

Minutes slide by in silence. Warm summer air, perfumed by the flowers outside, drifts lazily in through the open window. He takes long breaths of it until his aching heart allows him to straighten up. He doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to sleep tonight, even though he’s exhausted. Last night was nonstop nightmares.

The nightmares. Yet another thing that Jamie would have to tolerate. Aiden could make a pages-long list of all the unpleasant surprises he can’t see Jamie sticking with him through.

Aiden heads for the shower, but stops by the bedroom door, his eyes wandering to the living room. He feels like he forgot something.

Jamie’s poem. Aiden has the pages out on his desk. He was reading them earlier, trying to calm down. He should put them away. He sleeps with all of the windows open, and summer rains fall hard and fast in Ketterbridge. It’s a clear night, but sometimes the stormclouds come from nowhere.

He steps out into the living room, and his phone lights up on the desk.

Aiden draws in a sharp breath, then rushes forward. He crashes into the couch along the way, but he doesn’t stop until he reaches the desk and snatches up his phone.

He fucks up his passcode on the first two tries, swears beneath his breath, and forces himself to slow down, put it in correctly.

Unsaved Number 4:06 AM: Where was your job interview? Is it somewhere with juicy employee perks? Because if you wanna be my friend you better come with benefits

Aiden stares down at his phone, an overflow of excitement temporarily rooting him to the spot.

He spins on his heel and goes straight to the sliding glass doors, his phone clutched in his hand. The breeze rolling in is not enough. He needs more air.

He shuts the door after himself and sits down on the porch steps. Crickets chirp softly around him, hidden in the velvet darkness.

He runs a hand over his bare arm, trying to quickly think of a good response. He types out and deletes three different versions before he hits send.

Me 4:08 AM: I come with many benefits, none of them related to my job thank u. They sent me an email, by the way. I got it.

“Don’t be asleep yet,” Aiden murmurs, his leg bouncing anxiously. It only took him two minutes to respond, but it’s so late. Maybe Jamie sent the text, then went to bed. “Don’t be asleep, don’t be-”

Unsaved Number 4:08 AM: Wow, they must be really desperate to hire you

Again, Aiden stares down at his phone. He hears a soft, airy sound, and realizes he’s laughing. He picked himself such a snarky little bastard to fall this hard for.

He bites his lip, considering. He’s been trying not to flirt with Jamie, but his guard is down in the warm relief of hearing from him.

Me 4:09 AM: They clearly are desperate. Pretty sure I could have walked in there naked and still would’ve gotten it.

It takes Jamie a few minutes to respond to this one.

Unsaved Number 4:13 AM: They must have liked your answers to the five questions they asked you

Me 4:14 AM: I like your answer to the one question I asked you.

Jamie responds almost instantly. Aiden answers. They text back and forth a few times, and - a curious thing happens.

Jamie’s note is playing softly in Aiden’s head, as it always does. But as they go on talking, it changes. It brightens and rises, singing even more sweetly. 

Aiden stops to listen to it, and his own note starts to lift, interweaving with Jamie’s, forming a radiant harmony. It resounds through Aiden, not only in his head, but in his heart. Gentle as the summer wind stirring his hair.

Is it because - is Jamie happy, talking to him? That feels like a big assumption, but - it’s four o’clock in the morning, right? What else would Jamie be doing that would change his note like that?

Aiden closes his eyes, and listens.

With that perfect sound in his head, he swims upward through his nerves, and finds it within himself to type: Coffee on Friday?

He takes a deep breath, and sends it.

He expects Jamie to need a few minutes to think about it, so he jumps a little when his phone buzzes right away.

Unsaved Number 4:21 AM: You’re buying, Callahan. What time?

As if untethered from gravity, the porch table and chairs suddenly drift up into the air. Aiden twists to look, then squeezes his eyes shut, struggling to control his magic. But it’s too hard to contain everything he’s feeling, so he quickly gets to his feet and goes back inside. The floating stuff on the porch lands with a loud thunk when he closes the sliding glass door.

He stares out at the table and chairs, startled. He hasn’t really done accidental happy magic, before now. There was only that one time, on the beach with Jamie, when the light gathered around them.

Aiden puts his back to the door and responds to Jamie's text, says that he’ll figure out the details and get back to him. He needs time to make a plan, because he wants to find a way to make it special. This is the first time they’re hanging out on purpose, not thrown together by circumstance. Whatever happens, Aiden knows that he’ll never forget it, and he doesn’t want Jamie to, either.

He finally lets himself believe that this is happening, and clicks Add New Contact. Smiling as he does it, because this feels fucking good.

Aiden hesitates before hitting the save button. It strikes him that he just did something he’s been wanting to do for over a decade. It took him eleven fucking years, but he got Jamie’s digits.

He laughs softly, alone in the dark. Then he saves the contact, and goes back to his bedroom.

His phone buzzes as soon as he closes the door. It feels like a small miracle every time a text from Jamie pops up on his screen, and Aiden smiles again as he unlocks his phone.

keane 🌱 4:27 AM: Okay, just let me know! And now if you’ll excuse me I’m gonna go to sleep because what the fuck Aiden why do all of our conversations end up happening between the hours of 3-5 am? I know it’s my fault this time but it was your fault last time

Me 4:28 AM: I said I’d buy you a coffee, didn’t I?

keane 🌱 4:30 AM: On Friday? How is that gonna help me tomorrow, dude? Watch me fall asleep with my face in the flowers. Customers filing complaints 'n shit

Me 4:31 AM: Tell Kent it’s my fault, flower boy

keane 🌱 4:32 AM: You sure you want to throw yourself under the bus like that? You actually live with Kent, so no avoiding his lectures

Me 4:32 AM: Worth it. As long as you actually show up on Friday.

keane 🌱 4:34 AM: 😊 lol okay

keane 🌱 4:34 AM: Sounds like a deal, companion plant.

Aiden’s heart misses a beat. He beams down at his phone, his fingers tightening around it.

Glancing up, he catches sight of himself in the mirror again. Takes a longer look, this time.

Some days Aiden feels like a stranger to everyone, even to himself. But Jamie sees something in him. Something that he likes, right? If he wants to be Aiden’s friend?

That means something to Aiden. And maybe… maybe it means that one day, in the future, they could be more than friends. Maybe one day he can ask Jamie the rest of the questions he’s been dying for answers to.

Would you believe me if I say that it’s been torture, staying away from you?

Can you give me a chance, after everything that's happened between us?

I’m already on the highest plane of loving you - can you meet me there, companion plant?