Chapter 3: Breakfast and Boundaries
Sunlight, thin and sharp as a blade, cut across Jason’s closed eyelids. He woke by degrees. First, to the unfamiliar ache in his shoulders and lower back—a deep, pleasant soreness that spoke of prolonged strain. Then, to the smell. Coffee, rich and dark. Bacon, caramelizing in its own fat. The sweet, doughy scent of waffles.
He was still in the beanbag, the navy fabric warm from his body. A soft, gray blanket was tucked around him. Memory returned not as a flood, but in precise, sensory flashes: the blue light of the lab, the hum, the suction, Simon’s mouth, the tears on Simon’s cheeks. The silence of the kitchen. The feel of Simon sleeping against his chest.
He pushed the blanket off and sat up. Every muscle protested. He ran a hand through his disastrous hair and blinked around Simon’s bedroom. It was empty. The schematics on the walls seemed to watch him.
From downstairs, a clang of a pan, followed by a muttered curse. Simon.
Jason stood, his legs steadier than he expected. He pulled on his jeans from where they’d been discarded near the beanbag, the denim stiff. He didn’t bother with a shirt. Padding barefoot down the hall, he followed the sounds and smells.
The kitchen was a war zone of good intentions. Every burner on the stove was in use. A waffle iron steamed on the counter beside a precarious tower of golden-brown waffles. A bowl of whipped cream, another of mixed berries. Scrambled eggs flecked with herbs trembled in a skillet. Bacon drained on a paper towel mound that resembled a greasy sculpture.
And in the center of it all, Simon. His back was to the doorway. He was dressed in clean, dark jeans and a fitted henley, his hair still damp from a shower. He wielded a spatula like a conductor’s baton, flipping eggs with frantic precision. The posture was all tense lines.
Jason leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. The morning light caught the dust motes dancing above the humming centrifuge on the kitchen table. “Throwing a party for one?”
Simon jumped, nearly sending the eggs airborne. He turned, and the look on his face was a complicated map. Relief, fear, shame, hope—all tangled together behind his glasses. His eyes flickered over Jason’s bare chest, then darted away, fixing on a spot near the toaster.
“You’re up. Good. I made… sustenance. To replace caloric deficit. And as… an apology.” The words came out in a clipped, technical rush. He gestured with the spatula. “Waffles. Protein. Vitamin C. The bacon is perhaps contra-indicated for cardiovascular health, but I calculated the hedonic benefit outweighed the—”
“Simon.” Jason interrupted the spiral. “It smells amazing. Thank you.”
A short, tight nod. Simon turned back to the eggs, unnecessarily stirring them. “Sit. Please. It’s all ready.”
Jason slid onto a stool at the breakfast bar, the laminate cool under his forearms. He watched Simon move with efficient, nervous energy, loading two plates with a little of everything, presenting them like solemn offerings. He set one in front of Jason, then took the stool opposite, not sitting, just perched on the edge.
The food was amazing. Jason took a bite of waffle, crisp outside, fluffy within, and couldn’t suppress a groan of pleasure. “God, okay. This helps. This seriously helps.”
Simon picked at a single berry with his fork. He hadn’t made a plate for himself, Jason noticed. He’d made a feast for Jason.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. The only sounds were the clink of cutlery and the persistent, low whir of some forgotten apparatus on the counter. The elephant in the room wasn’t just in the room; it was sitting at the table, wearing a lab coat.
Jason finally put his fork down. “My pecs are sore.”
Simon froze, his blueberry poised halfway to his mouth.
“Not like, hurt sore. Just… aware. You know?” Jason continued, his voice casual. He poked at his own chest. “Feels like I did a hundred pushups. Or like someone was… studying them. Extensively.”
Simon’s fork clattered onto his plate. He folded his hands in his lap, his knuckles white. “The dermal stimulation was intense. Micro-tears in the superficial fascial layer are a possible, if unlikely, side-effect. I have topical analgesics.”
“I don’t need a cream, Simon.” Jason took a long drink of orange juice. “I need you to talk to me. Without the manual.”
Simon’s gaze lifted, finally meeting Jason’s. The fear there was primal. “What do you want me to say? That I designed a prototype specifically to map your erogenous zones via induced hysterical paroxysm? You know that. That I used our friendship, your financial need, and your trust to execute it? You know that, too.” His voice cracked. “That I’ve wanted you for so long it felt like a structural flaw in my own design? You… might suspect that.”
The confession hung in the air, stark and simple amidst the breakfast clutter.
Jason didn’t look away. “Yeah. I’m getting that picture.”
“I don’t expect anything,” Simon rushed on, the words tumbling out. “The two hundred dollars is already transferred to your account. You can leave. You should, probably. I’ve contaminated the sample. The friendship. Everything.” He was spiraling again, his breath shortening. “The data is worthless now anyway. The emotional variable is too profound. I’ve ruined my own study.”
Jason listened, finishing a strip of bacon. He chewed slowly. The guy had just compared their relationship to a contaminated sample. It should piss him off. Instead, it just made Simon seem heartbreakingly, genuinely lost.
“You’re an idiot,” Jason said, not unkindly.
Simon flinched.
“You didn’t contaminate anything. You introduced the variable. You. That was the whole point, wasn’t it?” Jason pushed his plate aside and leaned forward, his elbows on the counter. “This wasn’t about my nerve endings. It was about getting me in that chair so you could finally… what? Show me? Touch me? Have a reason to put your hands on me without it being ‘weird’?”
Simon looked gutted. Naked. He gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
“So now you have.” Jason’s voice softened. “And I’m still here. Eating your world-class waffles. So what’s the next hypothesis, Doc?”
Tears welled in Simon’s eyes, but he blinked them back furiously. “I don’t know. I didn’t plan past… the culmination of the primary experiment. My risk assessment was flawed. I anticipated total system failure. Your permanent departure.”
“Well, I’m not a system. I’m a guy.” Jason reached across the sticky countertop. He bypassed Simon’s clenched hands and took his wrist, his thumb pressing over the rapid pulse point. The touch was deliberate, firm. “A guy who got strapped into his best friend’s sex machine and learned some truly wild stuff about himself. And about you.”
Simon stared at Jason’s hand on his wrist. He turned his own hand slowly, until their palms met. His fingers were cool, slender. They slotted between Jason’s with a tentative certainty.
“I’m scared,” Simon whispered.
“Me too,” Jason admitted. “But I’m more scared of going back to my empty apartment and pretending last night didn’t happen. Of pretending I don’t know what your hands feel like. Or that you look at me like I’m a… a fucking miracle.”
Simon’s breath hitched. He tightened his grip.
“So here’s my proposal,” Jason said, his tone shifting into something lighter, a lifeline of normalcy. “You do the dishes. Because this kitchen looks like a food bomb went off. Then, we take today. We just… be. We watch terrible movies on that couch. We order pizza. We exist in this weird new… whatever this is. No machines. No studies. No data points. Just us figuring out if we can look each other in the eye without freaking out.”
The ghost of a smile touched Simon’s lips. “Just us. A closed system.”
“See? You’re already making it weird.” Jason grinned, squeezing his hand. “But yes. A closed system. For today.”
Simon nodded again, more firmly this time. He looked at their joined hands, then back up at Jason. The fear was still there, but it was edged now with a dawning, incredulous wonder. “And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” Jason said, standing up and stretching, his body a long, sore line in the morning light, “we’ll have more data.” He let go of Simon’s hand and picked up both plates, carrying them to the sink. “Now get scrubbing, genius. I’m going to borrow a shirt. And then I’m claiming the best spot on the couch.”
As Jason walked out of the kitchen, he felt Simon’s eyes on his back. It wasn’t the clinical, observing gaze from the lab. This was different. Softer. Warmer.
He heard the faucet turn on behind him, the clatter of a pan being placed in the sink. Then Simon’s voice, quiet but clear, carried down the hall after him.
“Jason?”
Jason turned.
Simon was still at the sink, his hands submerged in soapy water, his profile outlined by the window’s light. “The spot on the couch… it’s yours. It always has been.”
Jason felt those words, simple and devastating, settle deep in his chest, right next to the memory of a touch, a tear, and a hum in the dark. He didn’t answer with words. He just smiled, a real, easy thing, and headed upstairs to find a shirt, the ghosts of the night before slowly being replaced by the solid, sunlit promise of the day ahead.
Simon’s bedroom closet was a tall, dark cavity smelling of cedar and clean laundry. Jason slid the door open on its track. He surveyed the contents: a row of impeccably hung dress shirts, a few sleek sweaters, all in blacks, grays, and deep blues. Everything was tailored to Simon’s slimmer, more compact frame.
He tugged a simple black henley from its hanger. He attempted to pull it on, the soft cotton stretching over his shoulders. It caught. He strained. The seams protested with a faint, threatening creak. He exhaled, defeated, and peeled it back off. He tried a gray thermal. Same story. The shoulders wouldn’t budge.
“Of course,” he muttered to the empty room. His torso wasn’t that much bigger, but Simon’s clothes were engineered for Simon. His own t-shirt from yesterday was a crumpled, sweated-through mess on the floor. He sighed, running a hand through his hair.
He knelt, opening the lower drawers of the dresser inside the closet. Socks, meticulously paired. Undershirts, folded into perfect rectangles. In the very bottom drawer, tucked beneath a winter scarf, his fingers brushed denim. Simon didn’t typically wear denim, most of his clothes were professional thread. He pulled the fabric out.
It was a pair of his old jeans, faded to a soft blue at the thighs. He recognized the small, repaired tear near the right knee. Beneath them was a worn, forest-green flannel shirt, the one with the missing top button. He’d loved this shirt. He’d thought he’d lost it two years ago after a movie night that had ended with him crashing here.
His heart did something slow and heavy that made his knees go weak. He sat back on his heels, the clothes pooled in his lap. The flannel still carried the faint, ghostly scent of Simon’s laundry detergent, layered over something older, something that might have been his cologne from two years back.
He understood. After Jason’s sudden growth spurt at eighteen, a bunch of his clothes didn’t fit him anymore. Simon, who never threw anything away, claimed the shirts. Using them for sleepovers or unplanned crashes at Jason’s apartment.
This, however, was different.
These clothes were bought after his last major growth spurt at twenty-one. They still fit him perfectly fine. These were kept for comfort. The image formed, uninvited and perfect: Simon, alone in this bed, buried in Jason’s stolen shirt.
A wide, helpless smile spread across his face. It was a tender, aching vandalism of Simon’s carefully controlled world. This secret was so much quieter than the machine, and somehow so much louder.
He stood and pulled on the jeans. They settled on his hips with the ease of memory. He pulled on the flannel over his bare chest, the soft, familiar fabric whispering against his skin. He left it open. He looked at himself in the mirror on the back of the door. He looked like himself, but annotated by Simon’s life.
Downstairs, the water had stopped running. Jason descended the steps, the old floorboards familiar under his socked feet. Simon was wiping down the counters with a methodical intensity, his back to the room. The kitchen sparkled, every trace of the breakfast chaos erased.
“Hey,” Jason said, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed—sleeves rolled up partially.
Simon turned, the dishcloth in his hand. His eyes tracked from Jason’s face, down the open flannel, to the jeans. Recognition flashed—instant, electric, followed by a blush that scorched his neck and cheeks. He froze, the damp cloth dangling from his fingers.
“I, uh. Couldn’t fit into yours,” Jason said, his voice casual. He thumbed the flannel’s fabric. “Found these, though. In the bottom drawer. Been looking for them.”
Simon’s throat worked. He opened his mouth, then closed it. The clinical explainer, the dissector of data, was utterly disarmed. “You kept them,” Jason said, not a question. He took a step into the kitchen.
“They were… functional,” Simon managed, his voice strained. “The fabric composition was optimal for thermoregulation. High cotton blend.”
“You slept in them.”
Simon didn’t deny it. He just stood there, exposed in the clean, sunlit kitchen. Jason closed the distance between them, stopping just inside Simon’s personal space. He could see the rapid pulse in his throat. He reached out and took the damp dishcloth from Simon’s loose grip, tossing it onto the counter.
“It’s okay,” Jason said, his voice low. “I get it now. The whole… everything. You built a monument downstairs. And you kept a relic upstairs.” He tapped Simon’s chest, just over his heart, with two fingers. “You’re a sentimentalist. Under all the wires.”
Simon captured Jason’s retreating hand, holding it tight. His gaze was fierce, vulnerable. “It’s not sentiment. It’s evidence. Of a persistent, intrusive variable I could not eliminate.” He brought Jason’s hand to his mouth, pressing his lips to the knuckles, a kiss that was more confession than caress. “You.”
The touch sent a current through Jason, warmer and deeper than any sensor’s reading. He curled his fingers, tangling them with Simon’s. “So what do we do with the evidence, Professor?”
From the living room, Simon’s phone buzzed violently on the coffee table, a harsh, insistent sound. They both flinched. Simon’s shoulders tensed, his gaze darting toward the noise as if it were a physical threat.
“Ignore it,” Jason said.
“It’s the lab.” Simon’s voice was tight. “The funding committee. They’ve moved an audit for the department. I… it’s mandatory attendance for all faculty.”
Jason understood the shift instantly. The closed system of their day was being breached. The real world, with its demands and consequences, was hammering at the door. He saw the panic reforming in Simon’s eyes, the weight of everything he was about to lose pressing down.
“Okay,” Jason said, his mind clicking into a new gear. “So you go. You nail it.”
“I can’t.” Simon’s laugh was brittle. “Look at me. I’m… I am fundamentally compromised. My focus is entirely allocatred to a non-linear variable wearing my favorite flannel.”
Jason grabbed Simon’s shoulders, giving him a slight, steadying shake. “Hey. Listen. You’re the smartest person I know. You invented a machine to tickle a guy into loving you. A university audit is nothing.” He offered a lopsided grin. “I’ll be your variable. I’ll come with you.”
Simon stared at him. “What?”
“You heard me. I’ll sit in the back. Be your… moral support. Or a hostage. Whichever works.” Jason’s tone was light, but his eyes were serious. “Besides, I want to see you in your element. The one that doesn’t involve ankle cuffs.”
The buzzing phone finally went silent. The quiet it left behind was charged. Simon searched Jason’s face, looking for a joke, a trap. He found only resolve. A slow, incredulous hope replaced the panic.
“You’d do that?” Simon asked.
“I signed up for the full study, right?” Jason said, releasing his shoulders and smoothing the fabric of Simon’s henley. “This is just a new phase. Observation of the researcher in a wild, academic habitat.” He stepped back, gesturing toward the stairs. “Now go put on your smartest suit. And for God’s sake, comb your hair. I’ll find my shoes.”