Chapter 23: The Parental Text
The silence was a living thing, thick and golden and humming with spent energy. Jason and Simon lay tangled together on the new mattress, a landscape of rumpled sheets and shifted pillows. The late afternoon light cut through the half-drawn blinds, painting warm stripes across Simon’s back, the sharp line of his shoulder, the damp, dark hair stuck to his temple. Sweat cooled on their skin, a pleasant, evaporating chill. Jason’s heartbeat, wild and frantic just minutes before, had settled into a deep, satisfied drum against Simon’s ribs where their chests touched. He breathed in the scent of them—clean sweat, Simon’s faint, sharp cologne, the new fabric smell of the sheets.
Simon’s fingers traced idle, mapping patterns on the small of Jason’s back. Every pass sent a fresh, quiet shiver through him, a residual echo of more intense sensations. Jason’s own arm was flung across Simon’s waist, heavy and possessive.
A quiet ding from the nightstand broke the silence.
Simon didn’t move, his breathing still deep and even. Jason, however, felt a prickle of intrusion. The world, with its demands and its noises, was trying to get in. He grumbled, a wordless protest into Simon’s neck.
Another ding.
“Yours,” Simon murmured, his voice raspy.
“Ignore it.”
But the spell was already lightly fractured. Jason rolled over sluggishly, the sheets whispering against his skin. He reached for the sleek, black phone, squinting at the sudden brightness of the screen.
The notification was a text message. The contact name read ‘Linda Ellis’.
His thumb, moving on its own, tapped the alert.
The message bloomed on the screen, stark and unambiguous in the dim room.
Mom: Make sure you use protection, and that the mattress cover was on.
Jason’s entire body went rigid. A wildfire of pure, mortified heat swept from his chest up his neck, flooding his face. He made a small, choked sound, like the air had been punched from his lungs.
Simon, sensing the sudden tension, propped himself up on an elbow beside him. His sharp blue eyes, soft and hazy just a moment ago, flicked to the phone screen. He read the words. A beat of pure, startled silence passed.
Then he let out a surprised laugh—a short, bright, genuine sound that filled the room.
“Your mother,” he said, his voice rich with amusement, “is very thorough.”
“Oh my god,” Jason groaned, the words muffled as he slammed the phone face-down on the nightstand and buried his burning face into his pillow. “She didn’t. She actually didn’t. I’m going to dissolve. I’m going to cease molecular cohesion right here.”
Simon’s laughter subsided into a warm, breathy chuckle. His hand found Jason’s hip beneath the sheet, his thumb tracing a slow, soothing circle on the sensitive skin there. “Jason. Breathe.”
“I can’t. I’ve been medically mortified. There’s no coming back from that.”
“She’s not wrong, though.” Simon’s tone shifted, took on a faintly clinical edge that was utterly ruined by the naked affection in his eyes. “From a hygienic and safety standpoint, both points are valid.” He paused, his thumb stilling. “A relevant query. Did you put the cover on?”
Jason’s only response was a deeper, inarticulate groan into the pillow. He shook his head, a tiny, desperate movement.
Simon’s chuckle deepened. He leaned over, his lips brushing the flushed, hot shell of Jason’s ear. “The mattress is unprotected.”
“Stop saying it like that,” Jason pleaded, his voice cracking.
“I’m simply stating a material fact.” Simon nuzzled against his hair, his laughter vibrating through both of them. “We have compromised the structural warranty.”
Jason finally turned his head, one hazel eye peeking out from the pillow fortress. The sight of Simon—hair mussed, eyes crinkled with mirth, looking so utterly and disarmingly happy—drained some of the panic away, replacing it with a helpless, swelling fondness. “You’re enjoying this.”
“I am cataloguing a unique social interaction,” Simon said, but the grin he was fighting betrayed him. He pulled Jason closer, until Jason was half-draped over him again, his face now buried against Simon’s collarbone. “Your parental unit’s concern manifests in pragmatic, logistical reminders. It’s efficient. It’s… caring.”
“It’s my mom talking about our sex life,” Jason mumbled into his skin.
“An established biological process. She is aware of its occurrence.” Simon’s arms wrapped around him, solid and real. “The subtext is approval, Jason. A poorly formatted, embarrassing approval, but approval nonetheless. She wants you safe. She wants the mattress… preserved.”
Jason sighed, the last of the tension seeping out of him, replaced by the warmth of Simon’s body and the absurdity of it all. He pressed a kiss to Simon’s chest. “You’re weirdly good at translating my family.”
“I have twenty years of observational data, though most of it is fuzzy from our adolescence.” Simon whispered, his hand coming up to cradle the back of Jason’s head.
They lay like that for a long while, the golden light shifting across the floor. The phone on the nightstand was a silent, accusing relic of the outside world, but its power was broken.
“So,” Jason said eventually, his voice still slightly muffled. “The mattress is… compromised.”
“Irreversibly,” Simon confirmed, his tone grave but his fingers playing in Jason’s hair.
“And we definitely… didn’t use protection.”
Simon went very still for a second. Then his hand slid down, settling possessively on the curve of Jason’s lower back. “A mutual and conscious omission. Based on prior medical histories and established exclusivity parameters.” He said it like he was reciting from a contract, but his grip was tight. “The risk was calculated and accepted.”
Jason lifted his head to look at him. “Calculated, huh?”
Simon met his gaze, all feigned clinical detachment gone. His blue eyes were dark, serious, and endlessly deep. “The only calculation was that I wanted to feel you. Everything. No barriers. No… machine between us. Just this.” He swallowed. “It was an emotional variable I failed to account for in the original study design.”
Jason’s heart did something complicated and beautiful in his chest. He kissed him, slow and deep, trying to communicate everything words were too clumsy for—the trust, the sheer staggering rightness of it.
When they parted, Simon’s forehead rested against his. “We should probably address the mattress, though. For future… experiments.”
Jason laughed, the sound free and easy now. “Fine. But you’re finding the cover. As penance for enjoying my humiliation.”
“A fair reparations package,” Simon agreed, smiling. He shifted, rolling them gently until Jason was on his back, looking up at him framed in the dying light. Simon’s expression was soft, open, a little wondering. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Jason breathed, his hands coming up to frame Simon’s face.
The phone stayed silent. The world outside held its breath. For now, the only warranty that mattered was the one being written in the space between their bodies, in the quiet promises traded in touches, in the shared, secret laughter that still hung in the air like dust motes in the sun. The bed was theirs. The room was theirs. The mess, the laughter, the unbearable lightness of it all—theirs.