Chapter 6: The Morning After
Jason woke to Simon’s light tracing over the faint musculature of his stomach. He didn’t have prominent abs, but his torso was strong. Either way, Simon’s fingers felt heavenly and ticklish against his belly. Wanting to encourage the scientist, he sleepily shifts, raising an arm up and letting it curl above his head. The movement exposed the pale, vulnerable hollow of his left armpit, the skin there still marked with the faintest memory of the gel electrodes.
Simon’s breath hitched, a sharp little intake of air. His tracing fingers stilled on Jason’s ribs. For a long moment, there was only the sound of the morning rain, gentler now, and the rustle of sheets.
Then, tentatively, Simon’s touch resumed. It drifted from Jason’s ribs, a feather-light migration across the narrow plain of his chest, and dipped into the offered hollow.
Jason couldn’t suppress the shiver. A soft, sleep-rough laugh escaped him. His eyes fluttered open.
Simon was propped on one elbow beside him, his dark hair a mess against the pillow, his sharp blue eyes intensely focused. He was watching his own fingers as they sketched invisible patterns on Jason’s skin, a cartographer of intimacy. The morning light cut across his face, highlighting the faint blush on his cheeks.
“Morning, scientist,” Jason murmured, his voice gravel.
Simon’s gaze flicked up to his. He didn’t smile, but his eyes softened. “You’re awake.”
“Your data collection gave me a ticklish alert.” Jason let his arm relax further, a silent invitation. “Find anything interesting?”
Simon’s fingers ceased their exploration. He laid his palm flat over Jason’s heartbeat. “Accelerated sinus rhythm. Pupillary dilation. Minor epidermal piloerection.” He swallowed. “Subject is… responsive.”
“Subject is wide awake and kinda starving.” Jason shifted, turning onto his side to face Simon fully. The movement brought them nose-to-nose. He saw the fleeting panic in Simon’s eyes, the familiar retreat into clinical observation. Last night’s raw openness was receding with the tide of daylight, threatened by the return of ordinary reality. Jason reached out and tapped Simon’s forehead gently. “Hey. Come back out. Stop analyzing.”
Simon blinked. “It’s a habitual processing mode. It’s… difficult to disengage.”
“Try.” Jason’s hand slid around to cradle the back of Simon’s neck, his thumb stroking the short hairs there. “Just be here. With me. In the messy, un-calibrated aftermath.”
The tension in Simon’s shoulders eased a fraction. He leaned into the touch. “The aftermath is statistically complex. There are multiple variables. Emotions. Logistics. Your impending rent payment. My ethical violations.”
“Whoa. Hang on.” Jason’s thumb stopped moving. “Let’s table the ethics committee meeting until after coffee. And my rent is my problem. Not yours.”
“I made it mine.” Simon’s voice was quiet, insistent. “The study, the money… it was a constructed scenario to facilitate proximity. It was manipulative. A foundational deception.”
Jason studied him. The genuine guilt there was palpable, a weight in the space between them. He remembered the helpless laughter, the tears, the strange cocktail of agony and transcendence in that chair. But he also remembered the look on Simon’s face afterward. The raw fear that Jason would walk away. The trembling hope when he didn’t.
“Yeah, it was a dick move,” Jason said finally. “A seriously fucked-up, genius-level dick move.” He saw Simon flinch and pressed on, holding his gaze. “But I’m still here. I woke up with you. I let you poke my armpit while I pretended to sleep. I’m not here because of the money. That excuse drowned in the machine about two hours in.”
Simon’s eyes searched his. “Why are you here?”
The question hung in the sunlit room, heavier than any apparatus.
“Because you see me,” Jason said, the words simpler and truer than he’d planned. “You see the spots no one else checks for. The stupid-sensitive ribs, the way I breathe when I’m trying not to laugh. You built a machine to map my vulnerabilities because you’re obsessed with them. That’s insane. And kinda terrifying.” He took a breath. “But it’s also the most seen I’ve ever felt.”
Simon’s composure cracked. His lower lip trembled, just once, before he bit it. He looked away, out at the rain-streaked window. “Obsession is an unsustainable state. It implies a lack of reciprocity.”
Jason nudged Simon’s chin back with his knuckle. “You’re such a poet. Try this: I like you. I’ve liked you for a while. The machine was a seriously weird way to find out you like me back, but here we are.” He shrugged, a slow, easy movement. “New protocol, remember? We figure it out. Step one is probably food.”
A real smile, small and stunned, finally touched Simon’s lips. “Your blood sugar is likely low. Affecting cognitive and emotional clarity.”
“My emotional clarity is crystal, dude. I’m ravenous.” Jason threw back the sheet, the cool air hitting his skin. He stood, stretching, feeling Simon’s gaze on him like a physical touch. He pulled on his discarded flannel, not buttoning it, and a pair of loose sweatpants from his duffel. “You got eggs? Or is your fridge just full of electrolyte solutions and spare microchips?”
Simon sat up, the sheet pooling around his waist. “I have eggs. And bread. The chassis is… perishable.” He looked young suddenly, younger than Jason, tousled and unsure in the tangle of linens.
“Good.” Jason walked to the door, then paused, looking back. “You coming? Or do you need to run a diagnostic on your emotional state first?”
Simon huffed a quiet laugh. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Diagnostic incomplete. Insufficient data. Require further… observation.”
“Observational brunch it is,” Jason said, and headed toward the kitchen, leaving the door open behind him. He listened for the sound of Simon getting up, the shuffle of feet, the sigh of fabric. It came, a moment later. Soft. Tentative. Following.
The machine under the bed was silent. But the hum between them, that was new, and it was everywhere.
But the hum between them, that was new, and it was everywhere. It trailed Jason into Simon’s compact kitchen, a space of clean lines and one stubbornly cracked mug by the sink. Simon followed, wearing only a pair of soft-looking gray pajama pants, his pale skin pebbling in the morning chill.
He moved with a quiet, efficient grace, pulling eggs and butter from the stainless steel refrigerator. The rhythmic tick-tick of the gas igniter under a pan was a sound from a more ordinary world. Jason leaned against the counter, watching the precise angle of Simon’s wrist as he cracked an egg, the focused set of his mouth.
“You crack eggs like you’re performing surgery,” Jason observed.
“Consistent technique prevents shell fragments in the albumin.” Simon didn’t look up, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s basic competency.”
“It’s hot.” The word landed in the quiet kitchen, blunt and honest. Simon’s hand faltered. A tiny piece of shell plinked into the pan. He fished it out with a spatula, his movements suddenly less fluid.
“The pan is, yes. Approximately three hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit.”
“Not the pan, man.” Jason pushed off the counter and stepped closer, into Simon’s periphery. He could smell the clean scent of Simon’s skin, see the faint pink line where his own teeth had marked his neck last night. “You. This. The whole… competent breakfast thing after the world’s weirdest night. It’s a good look.”
Simon placed the spatula down carefully. He stared at the eggs sizzling in the butter. “Jason. We need to establish parameters. The financial compensation for the study is still yours. That’s non-negotiable. But the… interpersonal fallout. I have no precedents for this.”
“So we make new ones.” Jason reached over and gently turned Simon to face him. The scientist’s blue eyes were stormy with unease. “Listen. I can tell you’re spiraling in there. Running simulations of every way I could get pissed off or freak out. Right?”
Simon gave a single, stiff nod.
“Okay. So I’m proposing a system reset.” Jason kept his voice low, a gentle counterpoint to the sizzle from the stove. “Not for ‘us,’ because we’re still defining that. But for you. Right now. To stop the moping.”
“A reset.” Simon repeated the word like an unfamiliar command.
“Yeah. A hard reboot on the self-deprecation module.” Jason’s hands came up, framing Simon’s face. His thumbs smoothed over the tense lines beside his mouth. “The machine is off. The study is over. The money is just money now, not a transaction. We’re two guys who finally got their shit together, making eggs. That’s the only data point that matters this morning.”
He leaned in slowly, giving Simon every second to pull away. He didn’t. Their lips met, a soft, closed-mouth press that tasted of sleep and possibility. It was nothing like the desperate kisses from the night before. This was a statement. A period at the end of Simon’s chaotic sentence.
Jason pulled back an inch. “System reboot initiated.” He kissed him again, just as softly. “Corrupt guilt files purged.” A final, lingering touch. “New program running: ‘Jason Likes You. Make Him Toast.’”
A sound escaped Simon—a half-laugh, half-sigh that seemed to unravel the last of the wire-tight tension in his shoulders. His eyes cleared, focusing properly on Jason’s face. “The toast will burn.”
“Then save the toast, genius.” Jason grinned, releasing him.
Simon turned back to the stove with a newfound ease, a lightness in his step. He rescued the eggs, then dropped bread into the toaster with a decisive click. “The reset protocol,” he said, not looking away from his tasks, “was… effective. For now.”
“Good.” Jason fetched plates, his shoulder brushing Simon’s as they moved in the small space. “We’ll run it as needed. Now, about those parameters. My first proposal is no more ethically dubious machines without explicit, sober, signed consent.”
Simon plated the eggs. “Agreed.” He handed Jason a plate. “My first proposal is more observational research. Of this.” He gestured vaguely between them with the butter knife.
Jason took his plate, their fingers brushing. “Deal.” He headed toward the small table by the window where the morning light was finally breaking through the clouds. “But my observation? You’re a way better chef than you are a mad scientist.”
The eggs were perfect, runny yolks soaking into the buttered toast. They ate in a comfortable quiet, the only sounds the scrape of forks and the relentless patter against the glass. Simon kept stealing glances, not with analysis now, but with a kind of awed bewilderment, as if Jason might dissolve with the morning mist.
Jason nudged Simon’s foot under the table. “It’s really coming down out there. Looks like the whole world is washing away.”
Simon followed his gaze to the streaming window. “Precipitation rate suggests it will continue for approximately six to eight hours. The barometric pressure…”
“Yeah, exactly,” Jason interrupted, a slow grin spreading. “So, that’s it. The universe has spoken. We’re grounded.”
Simon blinked. “Grounded?”
“No work. No errands. Definitely no people.” Jason leaned back, stretching his arms behind his head. “Devices are banned. Except for the TV. And your fancy game console you probably use to simulate molecular structures or whatever.”
“I have a racing simulator,” Simon admitted, a defensive edge to his voice. “It’s for testing reaction times under duress.”
“Perfect. We can use it for crashing digital cars. The rule is, we do nothing of consequence. A total system standby. Just us and this house.” Jason held his gaze, his tone leaving no room for the usual logistical pushback. “Your brain needs it. My… everything needs it. A day with zero new data, just processing the old.”
Simon studied him, and Jason could see the objections forming—an unfinished calibration, a pending email, the sheer disorder of an unplanned interval. But then his shoulders dropped. He looked at the rain, then back at Jason’s open, expectant face. A surrender. “A controlled environment. No external variables.”
“The only variable is how many old movies we can stand.” Jason stood, collecting their plates. “I’ll wash. You… figure out how to actually relax. It might be your greatest invention yet.”
The day dissolved into a soft, gray bubble. They migrated to the living room, a space of low-slung modern furniture and shelves cluttered with technical manuals and a few surprisingly well-loved sci-fi paperbacks. Jason found a thick, worn blanket in a woven basket.
He commandeered the remote, scrolling through endless streams until he found a black-and-white monster movie from the ‘50s, all rubber suits and dramatic music. Simon sat rigidly at first, perched on the far end of the sofa as if awaiting further instructions.
“You know,” Jason said, not taking his eyes from the screen where a giant lizard was trampling a model city, “the whole point is to actually use the furniture.” He patted the cushion between them. “It’s rated for horizontal engagement.”
Simon let out a long, slow breath. He shifted, lowering himself until he was lying on his back along the length of the couch. He arranged a pillow under his head, his movements deliberate, like a man configuring himself for a new and unfamiliar scan.
Jason didn’t wait for an invitation. He saw the opening, the offered territory, and moved into it. He turned onto his side and then simply let himself settle, his head coming to rest on Simon’s chest, his arm draping across his stomach. He let his full weight sink down.
Simon’s entire body stiffened. His breath caught. Jason could feel the frantic beat of his heart through his thin t-shirt, a wild bird trapped against his ribs.
“Jas…”
“Shhh. System standby. No talking.” Jason wriggled slightly, getting comfortable, nestling his cheek into the solid plane of Simon’s pectoral. He was a living blanket, heavy and warm. “This is the program. ‘Weighted_Blanket.exe’. You just have to accept the input.”
For a minute, Simon remained a plank of tension beneath him. Then, incrementally, the machinery of him began to unwind. The breath left his lungs in a long, shuddering sigh. His hand, which had been clenched at his side, lifted. It hovered for a moment in the air above Jason’s back before finally coming to rest between his shoulder blades. Not stroking. Just… placed. A grounding point.
On screen, the military was futilely shelling the monster. The rain traced endless paths down the window. Jason listened to Simon’s heartbeat gradually slow, its rhythm syncing with the rise and fall of his own breath. The scent of Simon’s skin, clean cotton and something uniquely sharp and electrical, filled his senses.
Simon’s fingers moved, just once, a slow clockwise circle on Jason’s back. It was an unconscious gesture, a absent-minded tracing of a vertebra.
Jason closed his eyes. The distant, remembered click-click of the machine was gone. In its place was this: the steady drum of rain, the ridiculous movie dialogue, the profound solidity of Simon beneath him, finally, finally still. The trust was no longer in signed forms or exposed skin, but in this surrendered weight, in the allowance of this unproductive, silent press of warmth. Jason felt a deep, cellular exhaustion seep into him, the kind that follows a long fight. His limbs grew heavy. His breathing deepened, smoothing out against Simon’s chest.
He hovered in a light doze, aware of the movie’s crescendo, of the hand on his back growing heavier with its owner’s relaxation, of the perfect, quiet homeostasis of their bodies on the couch. The world, with all its complications and unpaid rent and ethical audits, was locked outside, bleary and muted by the rain. Here, there was only anchor and held.
Here, there was only anchor and held.
Simon’s mind was a silent scream. The physical input was overwhelming, a torrent of data his usual filters couldn’t parse. Jason’s weight was a profound, warm constant across his torso, his breath a humid rhythm against Simon’s sternum. This wasn’t the machine’s targeted, clinical touch. This was total.
Sure, they’d always been close. Jason was used to Simon hanging off him—quite literally after those awkward growth spurts in high school left Simon clumsy and constantly leaning, an elbow hooked over a shoulder, a head nudging for attention during late-night study sessions. That was proximity. This was penetration. Jason’s body was not just near; it was imposed, a deliberate claiming of space Simon’s own nerves were broadcasting as sacred, uncharted territory.
His fingers tingled where they lay on Jason’s back. Every point of contact felt magnified, electrically alive. He could map the ridge of each vertebra through the soft flannel, feel the expansion of Jason’s lungs with each dormant breath. The monster movie’s dialogue was a distant, tinny nonsense.
Uncalibrated. The word surfaced through the static. System error.
This was a whole new level of contact. One that his mind was struggling, but slowly managing, to understand and accept. The panic wasn’t about rejection. It was about the sheer, terrifying allowance of it. Jason wasn’t just tolerating him. He was seeking. He had initiated this collapse of personal boundaries with a terrifying casualness, as if it were simple, as if the architecture of their entire friendship hadn’t just been quietly, permanently remodeled overnight.
He forced a long, controlled breath, trying to match the rhythm of the man asleep on him. The analytical part of his brain, useless now, flailed. It attempted to categorize the pressure, the warmth, the scent of Jason’s hair—something like cheap citrus shampoo and sleep. It tried to file it under ‘Known Quantities’ and failed spectacularly.
There was no protocol for this. No dataset.
On screen, the hero gave a impassioned speech. The music swelled. Simon’s gaze stayed fixed on the ceiling, on a tiny hairline crack in the plaster he’d never noticed. Jason shifted slightly, nuzzling deeper. A soft, almost imperceptible sound of contentment vibrated against Simon’s chest.
That sound. It wasn’t laughter. It wasn’t a gasp. It was a signal of pure, unobserved comfort. A feedback loop completed.
The last coil of resistance in Simon’s spine melted. His hand, still resting on Jason’s back, flexed. Instead of just lying there, his fingers curled, just a little, grasping a handful of flannel. A deliberate act of holding. Not just being touched, but touching back. Anchoring the anchor.
The meaning rewired him. This was the new condition. The acceptance was a physical wave, warm and heavy, starting in his clenched jaw and moving down through his throat, his chest, finally unknotting the permanent tightness in his stomach. It left a profound quiet in its wake. The silent scream faded to a hum, then to this: the rain, the ridiculous movie, the weight.
He let his head roll to the side, his cheek now resting against the top of Jason’s head. He closed his eyes. The crack in the ceiling disappeared. He didn’t analyze the scent or the pressure. He just existed inside it. The system wasn’t erroring. It was simply running a new, fundamental program for the first time.
His thumb began to move, a slow, unconscious sweep across the fabric covering Jason’s shoulder blade.
“Your heart’s gonna bruise my ear,” Jason mumbled, his voice thick and slurred with near-sleep. He didn’t move.
Simon stilled his thumb. “It’s statistically unlikely. Pericardial fluid provides—”
“Shhh. Standby.” Jason’s arm tightened across his waist. “Just let it beat. It’s a good sound.”
So Simon did. He listened to his own heart, not as a biological metronome, but as a sound Jason liked. The alien lizard was vanquished. Credits began to roll in silence. The gray light deepened toward dusk.
Jason finally stirred, pushing himself up on one elbow. He blinked down at Simon, his hazel eyes soft and unfocused. “I drooled on you.”
“I registered the damp patch.” Simon’s voice was rough. “Minimal salinity. Acceptable.”
A slow grin spread over Jason’s face. He looked at Simon, really looked, as if checking the results of an experiment. He must have seen the change, the settled calm. “Good. You’re still here.” He leaned down and kissed him, a dry, chaste press of lips that nonetheless carried the entire afternoon’s quiet weight.
“Where else would I be?” Simon asked against his mouth, the question genuine.
“In your head. In your lab. Running scenarios.” Jason sat up fully, stretching his arms overhead with a grunt. “But you’re here. On the couch. With drool on your shirt.” He rose, offering a hand. “C’mon. I’m taking over the simulator. Prepare for catastrophic vehicular failure.”
Simon took the hand. He let Jason pull him up. The room was dim, the only light coming from the silent television screen, painting everything in shifting blue monochrome. He didn’t let go of Jason’s hand immediately. He looked at their joined fingers, then back at Jason’s expectant face.
“Scenarios are running,” Simon admitted quietly. “But they’re different ones now.”
Jason’s smile softened. He squeezed his hand. “Yeah? Like what?”
Simon just shook his head, a silent confession that the new simulations were too fragile, too precious, to speak into the dusty air of the room. They involved variables like tomorrow, and the day after, and the terrifying, wonderful constant of this. He tugged Jason toward the hallway, toward the blinking console in the other room. “Like whether you can complete a single lap without totaling the vehicle. The projected odds are poor.”
“Challenge accepted.” Jason laughed, and the sound was a key turning in a long-locked door.
Simon followed him, the ghost of Jason’s weight still pressed into his skin, a beautiful, bruising echo that mapped a future he was finally, desperately, starting to believe in.