Rue

Going to bed with Ethan was almost as weird as going to bed in an actual bed was. It was so… domestic. I spent almost all of my time alone, so the idea of not having to be alone even while I slept was blowing my mind a little.

But in the end, it was that goddamn bed that kept me awake.

Oh, sure. It was comfortable. The most comfortable thing I could remember sleeping on in my whole life. It beat our couch by a mile. It just wasn’t what I was used to. Yeah, I’d drifted off earlier with a belly full of food and Ethan in my arms, but now I was wide awake.

Eventually, long after Ethan had fallen asleep, I slunk out of the room and back into the living room, Ethan’s little throw blanket wrapped around my shoulders for warmth. I turned the TV on with its volume set to a low murmur and cuddled up on the couch. That was where I fell asleep.

I woke up to soft dawn light and the creak of a door opening down the hall. I pushed up onto my elbow, the blanket dropping away to expose my bare arms to the morning chill, to see Ethan appear ruffle haired and bleary eyed. He walked over and crawled gracelessly onto the couch—onto me—and then went limp and boneless. I tugged the blanket out from under him and wrapped it around us both, then let my eyes fall shut as I curled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck.

As we lay there together, still and silent other than the gentle murmur of the TV, I wasn’t quite sure if we were slowly waking up or drifting off for a bit more sleep. How could something that was kinda uncomfortable considering his elbow was jabbing me in the ribs and I could only halfway breathe underneath his weight feel so soothing and right?

That was probably a metaphor for something. The perfection of imperfection and all that. All I knew was that I never wanted to let go. I’d been feeling that since practically the moment we met, but holding his sleepy body in my arms made my heart ache for the inevitable loss of him even more. It felt like he was mine, his breath steady against my neck, but this was just… what? Some brief fling?

Ruminating on this now wouldn’t make me any less miserable later. I focussed on the here and now, mapping out the shape of his shoulder blades, the curve of his back, with long strokes of my hand. 

He stayed so still, so quiet that if he hadn’t been laying literally on top of me, I wouldn’t have realised he felt any kind of way about that other than sleepy. At least not at first. The longer I kept it up, the more wriggly he started to get, and then things escalated until somehow I ended up halfway on top of him and we were making out. Whoops.

I heard a door open down the hall and then heavy footfalls that could have only been Connor’s and leapt back, but then another door shut. He was just going to the bathroom.

Ethan crawled away and flopped dramatically at the other end of the couch. At first I thought he was just play-sulking about being interrupted, but the longer he lay there, gaze aimed pointedly away from me, the more I started to feel like whatever mood he was in was no game.

“Sorry,” I said, internally cringing at how weak my voice came out. I didn’t even know what I was apologising for, and it was obvious.

“I didn’t mean to… I don’t know,” I tried, which wasn’t any better. Possibly worse. 

Ethan turned his head just enough so that he could look at me from the corner of his eye. “I’m not a child.”

I frowned, completely baffled by where that had come from. “Yeah, I know. I mean, not any more than I am, anyway. We’re both pretty young.”

“So, I can kiss who I want.”

“Yeah…” Was he mad I pulled away? He was way too smart not to understand that I could decline the kissing at any time.

He turned his head, looking at me properly now. “Then why do you act like you’re going to get in trouble whenever you think my dad might catch us if you don’t think you’re doing something wrong?”

“Oh!” I said, glad to at least have a question I understood. “I dunno? I guess I’m just not sure how much he’d be cool with.”

Ethan frowned.

“Not that you need his permission to do anything,” I hurried to add. “Just, he’s been really nice to me, and I’m not used to…” I gestured vaguely between us. “This. Being out at all. You know?”

He nodded.

“There were gay people who were out at my school, but I’ve never seen two guys kiss in real life. I mean, maybe a couple of straight guys as a joke, but not two guys seriously kissing, you know? And there’s not much real fire and brimstone homophobia here, nothing super serious, but a lot of people—especially older people—are casually homophobic. And when Pride Month comes around, you wouldn’t even know it. Hiding just felt… normal. But I guess it’s not.”

“Well I’m not upset about whether or not it’s normal,” Ethan groused. “But okay, as long as you don’t think you’re taking advantage of me. Because you’re not, and it’d be weird if you were doing all this if that was what you thought.”

“Shit, no.” I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think that. It wasn’t to do with you being autistic at all. Just my own closeted bullshit, which apparently still gets in the way even though your dad very much knows I’m gay and involved with his son.”

“If it makes you feel better, after we drove you home that first day and we went to the pharmacy to get bandages for my leg, he bought me condoms and lube.”

That startled a choked laugh out of me. “Excuse me?”

Ethan’s mouth pinched down around the smile that sprung onto his face, like it wasn’t quite sure what to do with the way it contorted his face. “That was pretty much how I felt about it, too. He just wanted me to be safe, no matter what happened. But if that’s a possibility he’s prepared for, he’d have to walk in on us doing some weird shit to even be surprised. Kissing isn’t going to phase him.”

“I guess not. My dad gave me condoms too, but, uh…” I winced. “Well, that was because I told him you were a girl. I mean, when I said a friend bought me the tiger, he assumed, and I wasn’t gonna correct him. Not because I’m ashamed or anything, it’s just that he’s the biggest reason I’m still in the closet. Because he is homophobic, and I still live with him, so…”

I’d looked away, but the gentle prod of Ethan’s toes against my thigh brought my eyes back to him. He’d folded his arms against his chest at an awkward angle, his chin resting against his wrist. Clutching at himself. Did that bring him comfort?

“I want you to be safe,” he told me. “I don’t care if you have to be in the closet or anything like that. I was only worried about how things were between you and me. But I misunderstood, so it’s fine. There’s no problem. Even if you still have a hard time with my dad, that’s fine. You don’t have to not have any problems. That’s not what I care about.”

I nodded. I wanted to thank him, but I was worried my voice would shake.

He’d taken the throw blanket with him when he’d retreated in a huff, and he untangled it from his body now and tucked it around me. He’d put on sweatpants before he went to bed, but I was in only my boxers and a shirt. “Was my dad why you came out and slept on the couch?”

“Uh, no,” I admitted. “This is gonna sound dumb, but I’ve been sleeping on the couch in front of the TV ever since I got too old to sleep with my dad in his bed. I woke up and it was just… too quiet. I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

Ethan’s head tilted to the side as he regarded me. “You think it’s going to sound dumb to an autistic person that you were uncomfortable with change? Buddy…”

I laughed. “I guess not. It just felt lame that I didn’t get to wake up next to you.”

“Well, last night you fell asleep and I woke you up, so technically you did wake up next to me.”

Another laugh. “I guess so.”

Obviously that wasn’t the point. This had probably been my only chance to wake up with him in the morning, to nuzzle into his arms and kiss him softly on the lips as he blinked his sleepy eyes awake. Now that would never happen.

But I wasn’t going to dwell on it, because every moment with him was a moment I’d never get back and I didn’t want to waste a single one of them mourning what could have been. There’d be plenty of time for that later, after he was gone.

I lifted the blanket up and held my arm out to him. “Come here. You’ll get cold.”

I was right. His skin was cold against mine when he crawled into my arms, but it quickly warmed as I held him close and chafed his arms. I heard the bathroom door open again, footsteps down the hall, and as Connor stepped into the living room, I pressed my lips to Ethan’s.

It was awkward. I was fumbling and nervous and he was too surprised to do anything more than draw in a startled, aborted breath against my lips before I was already pulling back. It must have looked weird, but when I dared a look at Connor, he was beaming.

“Good morning,” Connor said as he strolled into the room. “You boys sleep well?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said as Ethan tucked in against my chest, getting comfortable. I didn’t want to give him any reason to think I’d taken his son’s virginity last night—besides that awkward kiss he’d just witnessed, which honestly, probably had the opposite effect. Nobody who kissed like that was ready for sex. “What about you? Did you… sleep okay?”

“Can’t complain,” he said on his way through to the kitchen.

He came back a few minutes later and stopped in front of us, to the side of the TV. “You boys want to come on a cave tour with us today?”

Ethan didn’t stir from where he lounged against my chest. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m going to ask you every time, even when I know you’re going to say no, so that you never doubt that we love you and want you with us.”

Ethan’s only response was a derisive grunt, but I was getting deja vu from a minute ago when Ethan told me that he wanted me to be safe, that I didn’t have to not have problems. Sure, the words were completely different, but it wasn’t hard to see Connor’s influence in Ethan.

What had my father’s influence made of me? I thought I’d done a pretty good job of my half of talking through that situation, but I couldn’t help but wonder if my dad had left some taint in me that ran as deep as the heartfelt kindness Connor had marked Ethan with. Maybe I’d already put it on display every time my temper had run short or I’d done something stupid. Or maybe that’d been all me.

Connor took a sip of his coffee. “So, when are we taking Rueben home?”

Ethan offered a lazy, one-shouldered shrug. “He can stay for as long as he wants to eat biscuits and watch TV. I’m not doing anything else today.”

Connor chuckled. “Alright. There’s leftover pizza in the fridge as well in case he feels like a little variety in his diet.”

Apparently the possibility that I might choose to head out early didn’t even cross Connor’s mind. Was I that obvious? Was it so bad if I was, when Connor could watch me kiss his son and have nothing but smiles in response?

It was like stepping into some kind of bizarro world. A good one, sure, but that didn’t make it any less confusing. I had imposter syndrome for this whole situation, like I’d say the wrong thing and they’d figure out that I wasn’t like them. Like I was some alien from another world.

And the funny thing was, it also kinda felt like the only place I could be myself.