Troubled Thoughts and the Self-Esteem to Match

Travis

"It's so cold!" I shivered, hugging my elbows for a failed attempt at finding extra heat, reluctant to let go and fix the covers on my bed. It's was thirty minutes past lights out, and Mr.Way just left, making a round to each room before leaving us locked in for the night.
"Freezing." The slight lisp that shaped Danny's words was something that had grown on me, almost as much as he himself; it never failed to pull the corners of my mouth up. He was sprawled across his own bed at the other side of the room. One thing I learned about him when we were paired in this room together was that he never cared to make his bed. "It's just gonna get messed up again when I go to sleep tonight." He'd reasoned when we'd first started talking.
I was closer to being the neat-freak between the two of us; I couldn't sleep if my blankets weren't orderly. "Very, very cold." I repeated, putting an increased amount of emphasis on my words as I spoke. He lifted his cerulean eyes up from the screen of his MP3 player to me, an eyebrow arched slightly in question of what I was insinuating.

I wouldn't admit what was in my mind though. We hadn't been together very long, but I did in fact know that his arms were just as warm and comforting as I'd imagined them to be, and that was nice to think of on such a frigid night. "Come here." He crooked his right index finger toward me with a secretive tone, signaling for me to come closer to him, which wasn't a menacing thought.
I advanced closer, crouched slightly in wonderment of what brought on the sudden dip in his voice. A bright glimmer was in his eyes as I finally reached him, like the sun's reflection on crisp ocean water, and a smile was plastered on his lips.
His tone arms moved expertly to curl around me, pulling me down to lay flush against him, as if he'd read my mind.

"It sure is cold, isn't it?" He almost jeered, his warm breath dancing over my face in an all too delightful way. It was amazing to feel like he could already read what was going through my head without me having to say it, as if we were actually in tune like that.
"It's a little warmer now." I practically gushed against his shoulder blade, unable to contain myself from inhaling his strong scent, one that surpassed the generic aroma of Irish Spring soap; his natural scent that was hard not to enjoy.
"You know what we should do?" He inquired suggestively, and I could tell there was still a smile on his face without having to look up at him.
"We should push our beds together Like Bren and Ry do. That should keep those toes nice and toasty." Though I didn't like to acknowledge the slight tint my face took on at these words, I knew it was unable to be stopped.
I was quick to tell myself no to his suggestion, reminding myself that relationships that were more meaningful always wound slowly and sleeping together just might be taking things too fast.

He seemed to sense this as well. "Don't worry, it's just sleeping extremely close together to retain heat. Nothing above PG-rated." He assured with a beam, before adding "Well, maybe PG-13."
The laugh that left my chest was a natural occurrence, as natural as rain falling when you spotted dark clouds above. It was unbearably easy to let me be myself around him, because I felt that was acceptable. "Okay." I caved all too easily.
His large hands found the messy hair that blanketed my ears, his fingers weaving into it so that he could pull my forehead to a warm kiss his lips gave.
"I'll pull them together in a minute, but first, you wanna let me in on what was happening in the shower room earlier? For real."

I considered the thought in my head, knowing that I could trust Danny with the secret. Still, to make sure, I inquired "Promise you won't tell anyone?"
"Kay." He grunted back, his fingertips dancing circles across my spine, lulling an instilling peace inside me.
"Well, William and Michael are together." His eyes bulged unsuspectingly, probably expecting anything but this information.
"What?! I thought he wasn't gay!" He practically yelped, and I instantly clamped a hand over his mouth to hush him.
"Shh. He isn't; he's just experimenting." I explained briefly, lowering my voice to just above a whisper, considering William was in the bed just on the other side of the wall Danny was idly pressed against.
"Why?" He retorted almost dumbly, curling his lip up in confusion, acting like the idea of William not being straight changed his view on the whole world.

"Because I told him to start trying new things." I gave a proud smile at this because it only just occurred to me that my advice had actually been used.
He formed a small "oh," with his voice, that didn't quite make it past his throat, forcing a whistle through his teeth before telling himself, under his breath, "Gabe's gonna be pissed."

Now was my cue to perk up onto an elbow to gaze at him in interesting question at his words. "What?" He pushed his dirty blond hair behind an ear and out of his face as he nodded. "Yeah, he doesn't really want him around Chiz."
He began, forcing a grin to stay tamed down knowing that he held information that I wanted, and I would probably be desperate to know it after hearing this tid-bit of it.
That was exactly what he was thinking. "I dunno if I should tell you. It's kind of hard to explain, which takes effort on my part." A devious grin captivated his features, flashing perfect white teeth.
"It might cost ya something." He warned before leaning closer, so that his lips were inches from mine, making sure my eyes were concentrated on his so that I would see the suggestive waggle that waved his brows.

I had no problem with this at all, except the fact that I might get too caught up in him and forget everything we were talking about. "Control yourself." I told myself as I molded my lips to his, modestly since I wasn't the most outgoing and confident in the first place, along with the thought I just instructed myself to abide by.
Though I loved feeling such highly concentrated bliss I got from this, I pulled away just as he began to tighten the connection between us.
"There you go." I sucked my lips between my teeth wanting more, but telling myself it could wait; we had all the time in the world.
"Now what was that about Gabe not wanting Billvy around Chiz?" He looked a bit reluctant to say anything else, but did regardless.

"Yeah. He claims it's because of what Chiz is in here for. Plus, he's jealous." These words both shocked me, and struck up an urge to laugh.
"Jealous? And what did Michael Do?" I snorted back. watching him yawn tiredly before continuing.
"First off, Chiz tried to kill some dude for cheating him out of drugs, and second, yes. Jealous."
I shook the shock off of me, that seemed to hug me much like the cold chill in the air did. I shivered from the thought of it and buried deeper against him.
"Why's he jealous?" I repeated, more worried about this than the fact that he didn't want Bill around Chizzy. Gabe? Jealous? From what William told me, he was quite a mean and condescending person to him.

"Because, he and Bill are pretty good friends and then, POOF!" He threw his hands up in the air with the onomatopoeia, almost knocking me off of the small bed in the process of his heightened animation. "Chiz shows up and Gabe's shoved to the side."
There was a several gruelingly thick counts of silence in the air as I tried to even form a coherent response to this.
"Why hasn't he said anything? I mean, he doesn't have a problem saying anything else."
"He doesn't want to upset Bill." He answered simply, sounding so sure of such an absurd statement, I couldn't help but laugh rather matter-of-factly.
"What?! Since when?" I choked out, warning myself to quiet down unless I wanted to wake the others up.
"Aww, don't be like that. If he comes off as an ass, it's unintentional." He offered. "He's really a very emotional guy."

I felt it would be rude to laugh after he stood up for his friend, but I honestly didn't see Gabe caring about if he made William mad, especially recalling some of the insults William had told me he could dish out.
"Okay, I totally believe that." I fibbed, a sarcastic twinge to my tone of voice. He was already past the conversation by now though, wiggling from my side to stand beside the bed.
"Whatcha doing?" I queried, but his actions answered where words didn't need to. He pulled my bed across the floor with little effort, the metal bed-frame screeching lightly over the hard floor. He pushed it against the mattress I was curled up on before beaming at his handiwork. "Tada?" He plopped down on my bed with an irresistible snicker.
"Thanks for making my bed." He jeered, making good the work I put into smoothing the wrinkles out of the thick quilts.
He pushed his legs under the pile of covers before holding the corners up for me to slip under.

I jumped up and flicked the light-switch, darkness dominating the room before returning to curl under my covers with him. I pulled the wad of unruly blankets from his bed over us as well, craving as much warmth as possible.
"There we go." I sighed into the pillow that my orange hair almost consumed and, though I couldn't see his face, I could tell he was smiling just as widely as I was.
"I could get use to this." His voice massaged my thriving mind into a monotone haze as sleep pulled at me, staggeringly fast for just being so awake. "Me too." I mumbled almost incoherently as my head found his arm, which was curled up on his pillow, I using it as my pillow.
"What are your predictions on the whole Bill and Chizzy thing?" He questioned while peppering my cheek with light, ghosts of kisses.
"Nnn, who knows. As long as Bill's happy, anything's fine with me." I breathed out, wondering what I did every night before I fell asleep. What did tomorrow hold? Anything seemed fine and perfect at the moment. William was happy about something, I was happy with someone, and things were just...Good.