Chapter 18: The Flannel Rule
The bathwater had gone tepid, a sure sign they’d been floating in their own private world for too long. Jason reluctantly pulled the plug, the loud gurgle a rude reintroduction to reality. They dried off with towels that were softer and smelled cleaner than anything Jason owned, the slow, reverent touches of before replaced by efficient, affectionate rubbing.
Simon stood before his dresser, a drawer half-open. He pulled out a thin, grey henley, holding it by the shoulders.
“Nope,” Jason said, his voice still husky from the steam. He was buttoning his own jeans, barefoot on the cool wood floor. He reached into his own discarded pile on a chair —clothes he’d dumped from his duffel while looking for underwear—and pulled out a soft, faded burgundy flannel. He tossed it at Simon’s head.
Simon caught it against his chest, the fabric unfolding. He raised an eyebrow, a familiar smirk playing on his lips. “I have clothes, you know.”
“You’re mine today,” Jason stated, as if it were the most obvious law of physics. He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. The gesture felt newly powerful. “That means you wear my shirt.”
Simon’s smirk deepened, but something in his eyes softened, warmed. He buried his nose in the plaid at the collar and took a deliberate inhale. “It smells like you. And my shower gel. A confusing, but not unpleasant, bouquet.” He slipped his arms into the flannel, which was massive on his smaller frame. The sleeves engulfed his hands, the hem brushed mid-thigh. He rolled the cuffs back twice, his movements precise.
“Since when is this a rule, by the way?” Simon asked as he moved to find pants.
“Since I found my favourite flannel in your closet two days ago” Jason said, pushing off the doorframe and walking over. He stopped in front of Simon, his hands finding the open edges of the shirt. He pulled them together, not to close it, but just to hold Simon there within the circle of his arms. “And you told me, with a completely straight face, that you wear it to bed sometimes.” His voice dropped, his eyes tracing the way the fabric hung loose on Simon’s slender shoulders. “Which reminds me, we should definitely do laundry today. Clothes. Bedding. The whole disgusting, domestic production.”
Simon leaned into him, his forehead bumping Jason’s sternum. “Domestic, huh?”
“Shut up,” Jason murmured into his damp hair. He kissed the top of his head. “I’m being practical. We’ve basically been fermenting in here for 24 hours. It’s a biohazard.”
“Our biohazard.” Simon tilted his head up. “But fine. Laundry. I have detergent pods that look like alien candy. It’ll be fun.”
Gathering the linens was an archaeological dig into the past day. The sheets held the impression of their bodies, the scent deeply ingrained. Jason stripped the bed with a clinical efficiency that contrasted with the memory of what those sheets had witnessed. Simon, meanwhile, moved around the room like a silent collector, picking up discarded boxers, socks, towels from the floor, creating a mound of fabric in his arms that was comically large against his small frame in Jason’s huge shirt.
Simon’s laundry room was in the basement, a stark, fluorescent-lit space that smelled of bleach and damp concrete.
Simon insisted on being the one to load. He had a system. Colors, whites, delicates—he sorted with a focus usually reserved for circuit boards. Jason watched, leaning against a chipped Formica sorting table. Seeing Simon’s capable, clever hands carefully placing underwear and rumpled flannel sheets into the drum was its own kind of intimacy. It was ordinary. It was huge.
“You’re staring,” Simon said without looking up, feeding a pod into the detergent drawer.
“You’re wearing my shirt and doing my laundry. It’s a good look.”
Simon snapped the door shut and started the cycle. The machine whirred to life, filling the room with a low mechanical hum. He turned, hoisting himself up to sit on the table next to Jason, his legs dangling. The fluorescent light was unforgiving, highlighting the fatigue under Simon’s eyes, the faint bruise-like mark on Jason’s neck. They were a mess. A happy, well-fucked mess.
“So,” Simon said, bumping his shoulder against Jason’s. “Feedback loop’s closed. Laundry’s spinning. What does the subject want to do now? More data collection?”
Jason laughed, the sound echoing off the cinderblock walls. He thought about it. The easy, hungry part of him wanted to drag Simon back upstairs and pick up where they left off. But something else, something quieter and more insistent, had taken root. The domesticity had opened a door to a different kind of future, one that wasn’t just stolen hours in a chaotic bedroom.
“I want pancakes,” Jason declared. “Really bad ones. Like, shape-of-the-continent bad. And bacon. And I want to eat them at your little table while we both smell like laundry and you tell me about the next stupid, brilliant thing you’re building.”
Simon’s expression shifted. The playful glint remained, but beneath it, something vulnerable flickered. Jason wasn’t asking for a secret, or a machine, or a physiological reaction. He was asking for a morning. A completely normal, shared morning.
“I can do that,” Simon said softly. “I have bisquick. And bacon. The bacon might be for a project… it was part of a conductive gel experiment, but it’s sealed. Probably fine.”
“Probably fine,” Jason agreed, grinning.
They left the laundry humming and climbed the stairs back to Simon’s kitchen. The light in the kitchen was different—cleaner, sharper than the bedroom’s gold. Simon moved with practiced ease, pulling a skillet from a cupboard, rooting in the fridge. Jason found the bisquick and a bowl, mixing the batter with a fork while Simon laid strips of bacon in the cold pan.
It was comfortable. It was clattering pans and sizzling fat and Simon’s elbow bumping Jason’s side as they navigated the small space. Jason poured lumpy batter into the skillet, creating amorphous, bubbling shapes. Simon flipped bacon with a pair of tongs, stealing a crispy piece the moment it was done and yelping when it burned his fingers.
They ate at the small table by the window, plates balanced on tech manuals. The pancakes were terrible—dense in some spots, raw in others—and the bacon tasted faintly of something metallic, but neither of them cared. Jason watched Simon across the table, the too-big flannel slipping off one shoulder as he gestured wildly, explaining a concept for a haptic feedback glove that could teach surgical techniques.
“…so the sensation wouldn’t just be visual, it’d be tactile, in the fingertips, which is where the real learning happens, but the problem is the latency, the calibration for individual nerve density…” Simon trailed off, a piece of pancake speared on his fork. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying.”
“I am,” Jason said. He wasn’t, not to the technical details. He was listening to the passion in Simon’s voice, watching the way his eyes lit up. He was hearing the sound of a future where this was normal. “I’m listening. It sounds amazing. And like a great way to give someone a heart attack.”
Simon kicked him under the table, a gentle tap. “Philistine.” He ate the pancake piece. “Your turn. What does Jason want? Besides my stunning intellect and breathtaking laundry skills.”
The question landed heavily, despite the light tone. Jason looked down at his plate, tracing a line in the syrup with his fork. The easiness of the morning had temporarily walled off the crumbling reality of his life. Now it seeped back in, cold and familiar.
“I need a job,” he said, the words simple and awful. “A real one. My last check from the café is gonna clear, and then it’s just… zero. My rent’s due next week.” He didn’t look up. Admitting it here, in this warm kitchen smelling of bacon and Simon, felt like dumping trash on a perfectly set table.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, just full. Simon put his fork down.
“Okay,” Simon said, no pity, no panic. Just assessment.
Jason finally looked up. Simon’s head was tilted, his sharp eyes calculating. It was the look he got when he was reverse-engineering a problem.
“What?” Jason asked.
“I have money,” Simon said, straightforward. “Not a ton, but some. From patents, consulting. You could—”
“No.” Jason’s response was immediate, a reflex born of pride and a lifetime of not wanting to be a burden. “Simon, no. I’m not taking your money.”
“I’m not offering you a gift,” Simon countered, his voice calm. “I’m proposing an investment. And employment.”
Jason stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
Simon stood up, collecting their plates. He carried them to the sink, turning on the water. He spoke over his shoulder. “The glove. The haptic project. It’s not just an idea. I have a prototype. A buggy, ugly, incomplete prototype. I have a meeting with a biomedical incubator in three weeks. They want a demo. A human-subject demo.”
Jason felt a familiar, wary curiosity stir. “Okay…”
Simon turned, leaning against the counter, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He met Jason’s gaze. “I need a test pilot. Someone with a known, documented neuromuscular response map. Someone I can calibrate the feedback algorithms against in real-time. Someone I trust not to sue me if it makes their fingers feel like they’re on fire.” He paused. “It’s a paid position. Contractor rate. Enough to cover your rent and then some for the next few months while we get it ready.”
The offer hung in the air, solid and intricate. It wasn’t charity. It was Simon-engineered. It was a solution built from the very rubble of their strange beginning—his body, Simon’s mind, their trust.
“You documented my neuromuscular response map?” Jason said slowly, the absurdity cutting through the tension.
“Exhaustively.” Simon’s lips quirked. “The tickling was… a side project. The biometric data from the restraints, the galvanic skin response, the heart rate spikes—that’s the valuable dataset. It’s perfect for this.”
Jason leaned back in his chair. The hum of the fridge filled the kitchen. Down in the basement, their clothes were tumbling together in the heat. He thought of the machine, the helpless laughter, the feeling of being known in a way that was terrifying and exhilarating. This was an extension of that. A use for it. A way forward.
“So,” Jason said, a slow smile spreading across his face. “You’re saying my extreme ticklishness is a marketable skill.”
“I’m saying your specific, exquisite sensitivity is a unique research asset,” Simon corrected, his own smile breaking through, bright and relieved. “So? You in? The pay is decent. The hours are flexible. The boss is a bit of a tyrant, and he might make you wear wires and occasionally zap you.”
Jason stood up. He walked to the sink where Simon stood. He took the dish towel from Simon’s hands and tossed it aside. He framed Simon’s face with his hands, the sleeves of the flannel still ridiculously long on Simon’s wrists.
“The boss,” Jason said, his voice low, “also owes me about a thousand hours of paid back-wages for unauthorized psychological and physiological experimentation.”
Simon’s breath hitched, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “We can negotiate a settlement.”
Jason kissed him. It tasted like syrup and certainty. When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against Simon’s. “I’m in. On one condition.”
“Anything.”
“We go get the laundry first. I want to sleep in clean sheets tonight. And you’re not allowed to wear any of my shirts to bed unless I’m in them.”
Simon laughed, the sound bright and free in the sunny kitchen. “Deal.”
Downstairs, the dryers chimed.
Downstairs, the dryers chimed.
The sound was a mundane fanfare. They descended into the basement’s concrete chill, the humid scent of clean cotton blooming in the air. Jason pulled open the dryer door, releasing a wave of heat that felt like a sigh.
He plunged his hands into the warm tangle, pulling out a knot of sheets. They were impossibly soft, smelling of Simon’s alien-candy detergent and simple heat. Simon grabbed the basket, holding it open as Jason fed the laundry into it, their movements falling into an unspoken rhythm. Socks, boxers, Jason’s worn t-shirts, Simon’s precise button-downs, all mixed together.
“This is it,” Simon said, hefting the full basket onto his hip. “The full merger of our ecosystems. Our fabrics are co-mingling. There’s no going back.”
“Good,” Jason said, taking the basket from him and heading for the stairs. His voice was firm, leaving no room for argument.
Back in the bedroom, the late afternoon sun slanted across the floor, highlighting dust motes dancing in the air. They made the bed together. Jason shook out a fitted sheet, the crisp cotton snapping in the air before settling over the mattress. Simon caught the opposite corners, his movements efficient. They layered the flat sheet, the blanket, aligning edges in a silent, mutual understanding.
The finished bed was a pristine landscape, a stark contrast to the rumpled nest of that morning. It looked like a promise. Simon vanished into the bathroom for a minute, emerging with his hair damp again at the temples, smelling of toothpaste. He’d changed into thin, dark sleep pants.
Jason had pulled on his own loose-fitting pyjama bottoms, a soft grey pair he’d forgotten were in his duffel. He stood by the bed, feeling a sudden, vast fatigue. It wasn’t just physical. The emotional whiplash of the day—the intimacy, the laundry, the job offer—had left him deeply drained.
Simon watched him from his side of the bed. He didn’t say anything. He just pulled back the covers on his side and slid in. He left space, an open invitation.
Jason turned off the lamp. The room was plunged into deep blue twilight, the shapes of Simon’s machines becoming soft hulks in the dark. He climbed in, the sheets cool and smooth against his skin. He settled onto his back, letting his body sink into the unfamiliar firmness of the freshly made bed.
For a moment, they lay in the dark, side by side, not touching. The space between them hummed.
Then Simon moved. He shifted onto his side, then rolled completely, settling front-down directly onto Jason. His weight was a perfect, grounding pressure. He wriggled slightly, aligning himself, his head finding its place tucked snugly under Jason’s chin. His arms came down, resting comfortably along Jason’s sides, his hands splayed open over Jason’s ribs.
Jason instinctively brought his own arms up, encircling Simon’s back, holding him there. Simon was wearing one of Jason’s old sleep-shirts, the thin cotton worn to gauze. Through it, Jason could feel every vertebra, the warmth of his skin, the steady beat of his heart.
“This okay?” Simon murmured, his breath a warm pulse against Jason’s throat.
Jason’s arms tightened in answer. He let out a long, slow exhale, one he felt like he’d been holding for years. The fatigue morphed into a heavy, luxurious warmth that seeped into his bones. Simon’s body was a live weight, a gentle anchor pressing him deep into the mattress and the moment.
“It’s perfect,” Jason whispered into the dark.
The city’s distant noises were a faint soundtrack. A siren, a few streets over. The hum of Simon’s refrigerator cycling on. Beneath it all, the sound of their breathing, slowly syncing. Jason stared up at the darkened ceiling, his fingers absently tracing the knobs of Simon’s spine through the soft shirt.
The job offer replayed in his mind. The glove. The wires. Being a test subject again, but for something real, something that could actually build a future. With Simon. Not as a secret, but as a partner. The fear was still there, a cold little stone in his gut—fear of failure, of being a burden, of this all being too good to be true. But the weight on his chest, the smell of clean sheets and Simon’s hair, acted as a counterbalance.
Simon’s breathing had evened out, deepened. He wasn’t asleep. Jason could tell by the slight tension in his fingers where they lay against his sides. He was listening, waiting.
“I’m scared I’ll screw the demo up,” Jason said to the ceiling, the confession torn from him in the protective dark.
Simon didn’t move. His voice was a low vibration against Jason’s skin. “The prototype will screw up. That’s the point. We fix it together.” He paused. “And you’ve already endured the worst testing environment imaginable. A business incubator’s conference room has nothing on my tickle machine.”
A surprised laugh shook Jason’s chest, jostling them both. “You’re never letting me forget that, are you?”
“It’s foundational data.” Simon nuzzled closer, his nose cold against Jason’s neck. “My genius recognized a world-class sensitivity. Your genius will be tolerating my debugging process. We’re a matched set.”
The words settled in Jason, warmer than the blankets. A matched set. He let his eyes close. The fear didn’t vanish, but it receded, drowned out by the sensory reality of the man on top of him. The rhythm of Simon’s heart. The slight scratch of cotton. The profound, breathtaking trust of this—Simon, giving him his whole weight, offering his future, and asking for nothing but this stillness in return.
Jason’s hands slid up, one cupping the back of Simon’s head, his fingers threading into the dark hair. The other spread wide over the center of his back, holding him secure.
“Okay,” Jason breathed, the word finally meaning yes to everything—the job, the risk, the tangled, brilliant, ordinary life unfurling before them in the dark.
Simon heard it. He melted, a final release of tension draining from his limbs into Jason’s hold. His breath grew slow and deep, a steady tide against Jason’s throat.
Jason felt the exact moment sleep pulled Simon under. The subtle twitch in his fingers. The slight, damp parting of his lips. The absolute, dead weight of total trust.
He lay awake for a long time, anchored. The clean sheets were a cool cocoon. Simon was a warm, breathing blanket. The uncertainties of tomorrow still hovered at the edges of the room, but here, in the center, was a solid, undeniable fact. This. The weight, the warmth, the shared breath.
It was enough. It was more than he’d ever let himself dream of. He pressed a kiss into Simon’s hair, inhaled the scent of his own shampoo on him, and finally let his own eyes close, drifting into the dark with the only map he needed pinned softly beneath him.