Chapter 22: The Morning After the Move
The smell was what woke him—a rich, deep perfume of coffee, sizzling bacon, and something sweetly caramelized. Jason blinked into the unfamiliar light of Simon’s room. For a disoriented second, he didn’t know where he was. Then memory returned in a warm, heavy wave. Simon. The bed being built. The phone call. The way Simon had come completely, beautifully apart beneath him.
He stretched, his muscles pleasantly sore in new places. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants from a pile on the floor and padded barefoot down the hall, following the scent trail.
The kitchen was a study in controlled chaos. Morning light cut through the slats of the grimy blinds, painting hot stripes across circuit boards grafted onto the toaster, beakers of amber liquid catching the sun, a disassembled blender next to a notebook filled with frantic equations. And in the center of it all, Simon stood at the stove, his back to the doorway.
He was wearing Jason’s favorite green flannel, the one that had been hiding in Simon’s closet for two years. It was too big on Simon’s slimmer frame, the cuffs rolled past his wrists, the hem brushing the his mid-thighs. Just the flannel. The sight hit Jason like a physical touch, a slow heat spreading from his chest downward. He could almost feel his pupils dilating, drinking in the casual intimacy of it.
He moved silently on the cool linoleum. Simon was focused, carefully flipping a golden-brown waffle in a cast-iron press. A plate beside him piled with bacon, the fat still glistening.
Jason stepped up close, eliminating the space. He placed his hands on Simon’s ribs, feeling the warm cotton and the lean muscle beneath. Simon startled, a tiny jolt, but didn’t turn.
“You know…” Jason started, his voice sleep-rough. He leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of Simon’s ear, his breath stirring the dark hair at his temple. “You’re making me love that shirt even more the more times I see you in it.” It was a purr, low and private.
Simon’s shoulders relaxed. A soft, surrendering sigh escaped him. He leaned back, just a fraction, into Jason’s chest. “It was the most accessible garment. My robe was… contaminated. A minor chemical spill.”
“Uh-huh.” Jason smiled against his skin, pressing a kiss just below his ear. “A strategic selection. I approve.” His hands slid slowly around Simon’s waist, splaying across his stomach. Simon was warm, real, his heartbeat a steady rhythm Jason could feel through his own palms.
“The waffles are a precision-based recipe. One part carbohydrate for energy, one part nostalgic comfort.” Simon’s voice was a little unsteady. He gestured with the fork in his hand. “The bacon is pure hedonistic stimulus. A necessary counterbalance.”
“You’re over-engineering breakfast.” Jason nipped gently at his earlobe. “It’s perfect.”
They stood like that for a long moment, Jason holding him from behind, watching over his shoulder as Simon carefully transferred the waffle to a plate. The domesticity of it was staggering. More intimate, in a way, than what they’d done last night. This was the morning after. This was the new default.
Simon finally turned in the circle of his arms. His sharp blue eyes were clear, soft at the edges. He looked up at Jason, searching his face. “Sleep efficiency?”
“High,” Jason said. He brushed a thumb over Simon’s cheekbone. “No nightmares. No landlord notices. Just quiet.”
A nod. Simon’s hands came up to rest on Jason’s forearms. “Good. I monitored ambient noise. The house settled at 2:07 AM. I was concerned it might disrupt your pattern.”
“You were awake at 2:07 AM?”
“I was… cataloguing.” Simon’s gaze flicked away, then back, a flicker of that old vulnerability. “The new sensory data. It was… significant. It required processing.”
Jason understood. He wasn’t the only one whose world had been realigned. He kissed him, slow and deep, tasting coffee and Simon. When they parted, Simon’s lips were slightly swollen.
“Process this,” Jason murmured.
“Continually,” Simon breathed out.
They ate at the small, cluttered table, pushing aside a spectrometer to make room. The waffles were crisp, the bacon perfect. Simon watched him take the first bite, his expression one of intense analysis.
“Well?”
“Optimal.” Jason grinned, mouth full. “Seriously. Best damn waffle I’ve ever had.”
Simon’s posture loosened. He looked absurdly pleased.
“So,” Jason said, swirling a piece of bacon in a pool of syrup. “Today’s agenda. Parental extraction unit arrives. Mattress and bike retrieval.”
“Acknowledged.” Simon sipped his black coffee. “I have calculated optimal routing. The truck’s dimensions suggest a single trip will be sufficient. Loading logistics will require a two-person operation.”
“You have a spreadsheet for this, don’t you?”
Simon didn’t deny it. A faint blush crept up his neck. “Visualization aids efficiency.”
Jason laughed, the sound bright in the sun-dappled kitchen. He reached across the table, his foot finding Simon’s under the table. “I love you. You know that, right?”
Simon froze. The coffee mug hovered halfway to his lips. His eyes went wide, the blue of them almost translucent. The words hung in the air, a new variable introduced without warning.
Jason didn’t panic. He just waited, his foot resting against Simon’s ankle, his expression open.
Simon set the mug down carefully. It clicked against the tabletop. He looked down at his plate, then back up, his gaze laser-focused. “The statement is… reciprocated. At a magnitude that likely exceeds safe operational parameters.” He swallowed. “I love you. The data has been conclusive for six years, nine months, fourteen days, approximately.”
The precision of it. It was so utterly Simon. It wasn’t a romantic cliché. It was a scientific fact. Jason’s chest felt too small for his heart.
“Six years and Nine months, huh?” he said softly.
“Since the night you helped me recalibrate the electron microscope after I shorted the entire lab. You were covered in potting soil from your balcony herbs. You smelled of basil and ozone.” Simon’s voice was quiet, awed. “You didn’t get frustrated. You just laughed and started tracing circuits with me. My concentration was compromised by 73%.”
Jason remembered that night. He remembered Simon’s focused panic, the smell of burnt wiring. He’d just thought he was being a good friend.
“I was calibrating something else that night, wasn’t I?” Jason said.
Simon nodded, just once. “You were establishing the baseline for everything that followed.”
The doorbell rang, a harsh, traditional chime that shattered the fragile, beautiful moment. They both jumped.
Simon’s eyes flashed to the clock on the microwave. “They are eleven minutes early.”
“Of course they are.” Jason stood, but before he could move, Simon was there, his hand catching Jason’s.
“Jason.” His grip was tight. “The introduction protocol. I am… I am not formatted for parental approval metrics… no more in this manner.”
“Hey.” Jason squeezed his hand. “You built me a bed. You’re wearing my shirt. You just fed me a perfect waffle.” He leaned in, kissing him quickly, firmly. “You’ve already got all the approval that matters. Just be your brilliant, weird self… and maybe put some pants on. They already know you.”
He said it with a confidence he only half-felt. But Simon’s shoulders squared. He took a deep, centering breath. “Just be myself. Acknowledged.”
Simon quickly scrambled to pull on a pair of pants, ones he had discarded at some point this week, before joining Jason
The taller man led the way to the door. He could see the silhouettes of his parents through the frosted glass, his dad’s broad frame, his mom’s eager lean. He glanced back at Simon, who had unconsciously straightened the hem of the flannel shirt.
He opened the door.
“Hey, guys.”
“Jason, sweetie!” His mother surged forward, pulling him into a hug that smelled of her favorite perfume and cold morning air. His father clapped him on the back, his eyes already scanning past him, taking in the hallway cluttered with half-invented things.
And then their attention landed on Simon, hovering a few feet behind Jason.
The silence was brief, but palpable. Jason saw his mother’s eyes drop to the flannel shirt—clearly too big, clearly Jason’s—and then flick back up to Simon’s face, taking in his sharp, intelligent eyes, his wary stillness.
Simon stepped forward, his hand extending with a formality that was both awkward and endearing. “Mr. and Mrs. Ellis. Thank you for coming. The truck is the correct tool for the task.”
Jason’s father, a retired mechanic, shook his hand, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Come on boy, Call me Dan. I’ve know you since you two were tykes. Jason’s mentioned you’re a mad scientist now?”
Simon blinked. “The classification is informal, but the core principle of experimental focus is accurate.”
Jason’s mother, Linda, didn’t shake his hand. Instead, she stepped forward and, to Jason’s utter astonishment, pulled Simon into a quick, firm hug. Simon went rigid, his arms stuck at his sides, his eyes wide with panic over her shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, releasing him. “For giving him a soft place to land.”
Simon looked utterly disarmed. He managed a nod. “The landing parameters were my primary concern.”
Linda smiled, a real, warm smile. She looked past him, into the wild frontier of the kitchen. “I see you haven’t changed much. Can I use your bathroom?”
Simon pointed stiffly down the hall. “Second door. The handle requires a five-pound upward thrust before rotation. The seal is imperfect.”
As she walked away, Dan chuckled. “I like him.” He clapped Jason on the shoulder again, lower this time. “Alright. Show us what needs moving. Let’s get you settled.”
Jason looked at Simon, who was staring after his mother with a dazed expression, as if he’d been scanned by an unknown but friendly probe. Jason winked at him.
The mission was a go. The new data was streaming in. And for the first time, with his parents here, with Simon in his shirt, with his bike and mattress waiting to be retrieved, it didn’t feel like he was just staying. It felt, solidly and surely, like he was home.
It felt, solidly and surely, like he was home.
The loading operation was a quick, efficient ballet of folded sheets and ratchet straps. Dan handled the mattress with a mechanic’s practiced grunt, Jason guiding the unwieldly queen-size through the apartment door one last time. The bike was easier, its tires leaving no new marks on the faded linoleum. Jason did a final sweep, finding only dust and a lonely, bent paperclip in a corner. He pocketed it, a worthless souvenir, and locked the door behind them for good.
“She’s gonna grill him, you know,” Dan said, heaving the mattress into the truck bed with a final thump. He wiped his hands on his jeans. “Your mother. She’s got that look.”
Jason secured the bike with a strap. “He can handle it. Probably.”
“Oh, I know he can.” Dan chuckled, slamming the tailgate shut. “But can she handle his answers? That’s the real question.” He climbed into the driver’s seat, the truck’s suspension groaning. “Let’ consequence give ‘em some time. Your mother’s been puzzling that boy out since you were fifteen. She’s got a file on him.”
Back at the house, the silence left in their wake was a dense, tangible thing. Linda stood in the humming kitchen, sipping the coffee Simon had silently prepared for her. She watched him methodically wipe down the already-clean waffle iron, his movements precise, avoiding her gaze.
“So,” she said, her voice cutting gently through the ambient whir of a nearby spectrometer. “The sensory study.”
Simon’s hand stilled. The cloth paused on the chromium surface. He kept his eyes on his work. “It was a comprehensive investigation into neuromuscular response to targeted stimulus. The findings were… significant.”
“I bet.” She took a slow sip. “You know, back in high school; he was sleeping over at your place while you helped him study for his chemistry test. Jason came home after that day, you know. His ribs were sore from laughing. He said he’d never trusted anyone more in his life.” She set the mug down with a soft click. “That’s a powerful result for a science project, Simon.”
He turned finally, his blue eyes meeting hers. They were defensive, brilliant, scared. “It wasn’t just a project.”
“I know.” Her smile was small, knowing. “I’ve known since he dragged you home for Thanksgiving sophomore year and you tried to explain the thermodynamic principles of brining the turkey to my father.” She leaned back against the counter, crossing her arms. “You look at him the way my husband looks at a perfectly restored engine. With complete, terrifying fascination.”
Simon swallowed. The flannel shirt—Jason’ s shirt—felt suddenly like a flag he’d accidentally raised. “My fascination is… documented.”
“Your feelings are documented,” Linda corrected softly. Her tone shifted, a mother’s gentle probe. “The machine. The one that… tickled him. It was safe? It didn’t hurt him?”
He straightened, a scientist defending his life’s work. “The biometric safeties were redundant. Heart rate, cortisol levels, galvanic skin response—all monitored in real-time. The apparatus was designed for maximum stimulation with zero capacity for harm. I would have terminated the session at any aberrant reading.” His voice cracked, just once. “The thought of causing him distress was… it was an impossible variable.”
She heard it. The raw, un-calibrated fear beneath the technical jargon. The love, not as a hypothesis, but as a fundamental law. She nodded, accepting this. “Okay.”
He blinked, thrown by the simplicity. “Okay?”
“You love him. You built a machine to prove it to yourself, which is the weirdest, most ‘you’ thing I’ve ever heard.” She stepped closer, her eyes softening. “You’re also wearing his shirt and you helped him disassemble and reassemble his bed frame. The evidence is overwhelming, counsellor.”
A faint, almost imperceptible tremor ran through his hands. He looked down at them. “I don’t want to break him.”
“You won’t.” She reached out, not to hug him this time, but to place a firm, steadying hand on his arm. “You two have always fit in a way that didn’t make sense to anyone else. The way he trusts you… it’s his strength, not a weakness. Don’t treat it like one.”
Simon’s breath left him in a quiet rush. The tension in his shoulders, the rigid control, began to dissolve. He gave a single, sharp nod. “Understood.”
The front door swung open, breaking the moment. Boots clomped in the hall, followed by Dan’s booming voice. “Truck’s unloaded! Where do you want this geological layer of a mattress, Professor?”
Simon’s eyes snapped to Linda’s. A silent, frantic question passed between them.
She just winked, lifting her coffee mug in a small salute. “Your move.”
Simon’s gaze flicked toward the hallway door, a quick, algorithmic assessment. The variables were complex: Dan’s looming, energetic presence, the bulky mattress currently occupying the foyer, his own profound desire for the process to be efficient and correct. He disliked ceding control. But Jason’s father, Dan, operated on a frequency of straightforward physicality that Simon’s quieter wiring found chaotic.
He took a steadying breath. “Jason’s room is upstairs. The bed frame is already assembled. He knows where it is.” He didn’t necessarily like delegating, but he knew Jason’s father—Dan—was more boisterous than his timidity was accustomed to. Directing traffic was the optimal solution.
“Upstairs it is!” Dan boomed, already grabbing one end of the mattress. “Lead the way, son!”
Jason appeared in the kitchen doorway, a grateful smile on his face. He gave Simon a look—thank you—before moving to take the other end of the mattress from his dad. “I got this end, old man. You’ll throw your back out.”
“Old man? This old man just manhandled this thing down three flights by himself!” Dan grunted, but he relinquished his grip with a laugh.
The procession moved, a clumsy parade of bulky fabric and laughter. Simon watched them navigate the narrow staircase, Jason’s lean muscles flexing under his t-shirt, Dan’s steady commentary echoing in the stairwell. He felt Linda’s presence beside him again, quiet and observing.
“You’re good for him,” she said, not looking at Simon but at the space where her son had disappeared. “You steady him. Dan’s all thrust, no vector. Jason needs both.”
Simon absorbed the metaphor. Thrust and vector. Power and direction. He gave a small nod, his eyes still fixed on the empty stairs. “I intend to provide the necessary guidance.”
Upstairs, the grunts and shuffles were followed by the solid thump of the mattress settling into place. Dan’s voice drifted down. “Perfect fit! Knew my measurements were right.”
Jason came back down first, a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. He walked straight to Simon, not caring about his mother’s watching eyes, and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to his temple. “Thanks,” he murmured, the word carrying the weight of the handled conflict, the managed father, the new bed now complete.
“Efficiency increased by 40% with clear instruction,” Simon whispered back, his hand finding Jason’s for a fleeting second.
Dan clomped down the stairs, wiping his hands. “All set! Place is starting to look lived-in. A hell of an upgrade from that mold-trap.” He slapped Jason on the back, then turned his keen eyes on Simon. “Now. About that machine of yours.”
A sudden, freezing silence gripped the kitchen. Jason stiffened. Linda’s eyebrows raised slightly. Simon’s mind, a moment ago a calm stream of logistics, became a white-noise panic of static.
“The… machine?” Simon’s voice was barely a whisper.
“The one in the corner of the living room, under the tarp!” Dan said, obliviously heading that way. “Looked like some kind of articulated arm setup. Custom job. Hydraulic or pneumatic?”
He was already in the living room, pulling the heavy grey tarp off before anyone could stop him. The machine stood revealed in the slatted light, a sinister and beautiful sculpture of polished steel, carbon fiber, and soft, padded restraints. It looked clinical and oddly intimate all at once.
Jason’s face flushed a deep red. Simon felt his own blood drain to his feet.
Dan whistled low, circling it. “Fascinating. This a prototype? The actuation looks smooth as butter. What’s the load-bearing capacity on these joints?” He peered at the biometric sensor pads, now dormant and dark.
Linda had followed, her arms crossed, a knowing and slightly pained smile on her face as she looked from the machine to her son’s mortified expression.
“It’s… a biophysical feedback apparatus,” Simon stammered, the lie he’d prepared for outsiders crumbling under Dan’s genuine, technical curiosity. “For… measuring neuromuscular reflex arcs.”
“You used it on Jason?” Dan asked, turning to face them, his expression one of pure, enthusiastic inquiry. “Bet you got some wild data. Kid’s always been ticklish as hell. Remember when he was six, Linda? He’d laugh so hard he’d snort milk out his nose!”
“Dad,” Jason groaned, burying his face in his hands.
But Simon saw it—the lack of judgment, the pure engineering appreciation. A bizarre calm washed over him. This was data Dan could understand. “The stimulus application was precisely calibrated. The reflex data was… extraordinarily clear. The laughter was a secondary, if intense, biomarker.”
Dan nodded slowly, running a hand along a curved support. “Beautiful craftsmanship. Over-engineered for just tickling, though.” He looked directly at Simon, his mechanic’s eyes sharp and suddenly less oblivious. “Built to be safe. Built to take care of something precious.” He glanced at Jason, then back to the machine. “Yeah. I get it.”
The understanding in the room was sudden, profound, and wordless. Linda walked over and pulled the tarp back over the machine, not as an act of shame, but of quiet closure. “Alright, Dan. Leave the boys’ research alone.” She took her husband’s arm. “We’ve got that thing.”
Dan blinked, dragged back from his technical reverie. “Right! The thing.” He pointed a finger at Jason. “We’re late. Your mother signed us up for a… thing. But we’re doing lunch next week. You’re buying.”
They left in a whirlwind of final hugs and slammed doors. The sudden quiet in the house felt like a physical pressure releasing. Jason slumped against the hallway wall, letting out a long, shaky breath. “Oh my god.”
Simon stared at the covered shape in the living room. “Your father… he deduced the core functionality.”
“He deduced you built a spaceship to tickle me senseless because you like me,” Jason corrected, pushing off the wall and approaching him. He cupped Simon’s face, his thumbs stroving over his cheekbones. “And he approved. On an engineering level. Which, for him, is the highest compliment.”
Simon leaned into the touch, his eyes closing. “The bed is made. The assets are retrieved. Your parents have departed.” He listed the facts, stabilizing himself. “The integration phase is proceeding within acceptable parameters.”
Jason kissed him, slow and deep, pouring all the unspoken tension of the morning into it. When they parted, Simon’s breathing was uneven. “Except for one parameter,” Jason whispered against his lips.
“Which is?”
Jason’s hands slid down, gripping the soft fabric of the flannel shirt he wore. “This shirt is on you. My parents are gone.” He tugged gently. “And my new bed has a brand new mattress that needs testing. For structural integrity.”
A slow, real smile spread across Simon’s face, cutting through the last of his analytical anxiety. “A critical test. Un-skippable.”
“Exactly.” Jason took his hand and led him toward the stairs, toward the room he now knew was his. The afternoon light stretched long and golden behind them, catching the dust motes their movement stirred in the quiet, settled air.