Page 52 of Lifeline

“You are,” I said with a frown. “I mean, I feel like you are. And everyone has treated you like one of us. Xander too…in his fucked-up way.”

“Ugh, is this where you tell me he’s treating me like the rest of you because I got the punishment too rather than got thrown out onto my ass?” he asked with a heavy sigh and when I nodded and smirked, he groaned. “Well, isn’t that just grand? I think I’d have preferred to be thrown out.”

“Liar,” I told him.

“I am,” he said, pushing his plate containing a scrawny, half-burned fry away. “I’m done.”

“As am I,” I said, pushing up from the table and moving over to the other hatch, not the one that led to the roof. I opened it with the hook and pulled down the ladder. “Coming?”

“God, I’m so worn down even that ladder looks too much effort,” he said, but followed me to it anyway.

What awaited was more a glorified attic than any actual living space, but Reno and I had made it work. Considering we shared the open space, we had cordoned off our respective sleeping areas for when we both slept there rather than in the dormitories, with blankets that hung over each end. The middle was the ‘shared’ space where we could both use the chairs, or in Reno’s case, a beanbag I didn’t even know was still in production.

On the other side of my curtain was a futon mattress with a heavy comforter that I used as extra padding during the warmer with a cooling sheet stretched over it, the comforter pulled out for the chillier nights during the cold months. I’d used a wide stool as a bedside table, between the mattress and the folding chair I had tucked into the corner.

“Nothing fancy,” I said, feeling awkward as I realized how spartan and kind of sad it looked. “Very…bachelor pad, I guess.”

“Those government bucks hard at work,” he said with a chuckle, pulling off his boots, looking at them for a moment and then taking them and his socks out to the ‘main’ part of the attic rather than the sleeping area. I did the same, though I’d never bothered before. I supposed two men's well-used boots in the same place as their socks was a lot more overwhelming than one.

I watched as, with a grunt, he dropped onto the mattress, making an odd face before pulling off his shirt and fighting to get his pants off. Deciding I didn’t want to look like a drunken panda who didn’t know how clothing functioned, I undressed standing up. Mirroring him, I kept my underwear on and joined him on the mattress as he absconded with one of my pillows.

“It’s not the Ritz Carlton,” I said as we lay there in the low light of the lamp dangling above us, the power switch and dimmer on a cord over the table.

“I don’t care,” he snorted and rolled over to lay his head on my shoulder, his arm coming around my middle gently.

I didn’t know why it surprised me…well, maybe I did. Back then, he had never been all that affectionate, and had grown less and less affectionate as his issues had got more and more in the way. It was as though he’d been afraid I might mistake casual intimacy for a green light to jump right into sexual intimacy. Even now, he wasn’t as affectionate as some, but then again, maybe it was because what alone time we found with one another was used to slot in sexual time, so this was the first time he felt comfortable enough.

I wasn’t going to complain though, and I laid my arm over his, wrapping my fingers around his wrist as the other arm was along his back. He took a deep breath and let it out, sounding for all the world more content and happy than he should be while worn down and exhausted. The heat of his body was a constant aura around him, and despite the somewhat stuffy quarters of the attic, I didn’t dare move while I soaked up his warmth.

“It’s actually a lot more comfortable than it looks,” Aidan admitted quietly, his breath soft against my skin. “No wonder you don’t mind crashing here most of the time. Is Reno’s like this?”

“I don’t know if it’s as comfortable,” I admitted. “I’m sure it is.”

“Huh, this is more comfortable than the beds in the dormitory building,” he said with a snort. “Wonder why he doesn’t sleep out here all the time instead of just like…half the time.”

“Probably for the same reason he doesn’t always sleep in his assigned room with Colin,” I said with a shrug. “He likes to hang out in Jake’s room.”

“Do you think it bothered them to be confused as a couple?”

I thought about that for a minute and shook my head. “They’re both straight men who are comfortable in their own skins and sexualities. I think being called faggots bothered them, not because they don’t want to be seen as anything but straight, but just⁠—”

“That word,” he finished for me, and I nodded. He grew quiet, and I looked at him, seeing the distant look in his eyes that marked him deep in thought.

“Does…it bother you?”

“What?”

“The word.”

“Faggot?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, does any gay man like hearing that word from strangers who clearly use it to get to you? No. Does it bother me? No, why?”

“I don’t know, you just got…quiet.”

Aidan chuckled, turning his head to look up at me with a smirk. “I do on occasion know how to be quiet, shocking, I know.”