Teddy

The night is still young when we fall back on the pillows, panting and sweating and still riding our individual and mutual highs. Adrenaline is still pumping through my veins; I can feel the last tremors rocking through my body, and Kellin’s as well as throws his arm over mine.

We don’t need to say anything for a few moments; the silence, awed and electrified, speaks for itself. Then his voice, hoarse and high-pitched as ever cuts through the darkness. “My god, Vic,” he moans happily. I glance over at him. He’s staring at the ceiling, blue eyes almost orb-like in the faint moonlight streaming in through the window. “That was . . .”

“Yeah,” is all I can muster. He doesn’t need to find the proper adjective; I know exactly what he means. Then I chuckle, “What was all that Spanish towards the end? I couldn’t even make it out.”

He laughs sleepily. “I dunno. Gibberish, I think. It just seemed fitting.”

He looks so beautiful, sweat pasting strands of hair to his forehead, eyes still dazed and elated, it automatically makes my lips stretch into a soft smile. My stomach tingles with warmth and affection. Even after all these months, the mere sight of the dark-haired man still gives me the butterflies. Honestly, with perfection like that, it’s harder breathing next to him.

“I love you,” I say, the words low but clear. I find his hand without looking and he finally meets my eyes, a half-smile still lighting up his features.

“Love you too,” he says.

I close my eyes in bliss. It never gets old, hearing him say that.

I pull him into my arms easily, naturally, and he feels so fucking good there, but it only lasts for a few moments before he begins to pull away as always.

“Kellin . . .”

“You know I got work tomorrow, Vic. Samson will be pissed if I’m not there for opening.” He shrugs apologetically, already pushing himself off the bed and moving towards his clothes.

I know I’m being a baby, but I feel my face fall as my very skin seems to protest his absence.

He’s pulling his pants on now, and I sigh and sit up. “You could miss work. Just this once.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Or just leave early tomorrow morning.”

“We’ve had this conversation. I gotta be home in the morning to let the dogs out. Besides,” The crooked grin is back, melting my heart. “You know there’s no way I could get to work on time, waking up next to you.”

I frown at the logic as he shrugs into his T-shirt, then follows the trail of clothing until he finds his Toms by the door. I want to say, Fuck the dogs, and fuck work, just come back to bed, baby, but he’s right; this conversation has taken place too many times in the past for me to hope for a different outcome now. So I pull the sheets over my legs resignedly and study him—his movements, his facial expressions; it’s become a hobby of mine since meeting him. Once he’s clothed—although the sex hair will be a dead giveaway to anyone he passes on the way home—he doubles back into my bedroom for one last kiss.

My hand floats to his cheek as our lips mold together, but before I can even respond to the kiss properly he’s gone again.

“See you tomorrow?” he murmurs, eyes twinkling.

“Of course.”

And just like that, I’m sitting alone in my room, naked under the covers and feeling the noticeable lack of Kellin settle in the room like a cold chill through my bones.

~~~

I have never once witnessed Kellin sleeping.

Not at night, anyway. Once or twice while visiting him at work, I’ve caught him napping behind the ticket booth with his face buried in his arms. I’m partially to blame for that; his nights have, after all, been a little busier since we began our relationship. It probably isn’t helping much that his job is physically strenuous; he works at Oasis Springs, a waterpark about thirty minutes away from our part of the city. Oftentimes he lifeguards, but mostly he prefers to keep his delicate skin out from under the sun’s harmful rays. So concessions or ticket booth it is. But either way, there’s no air conditioning to be found and dealing with a crowd of bratty kids demanding hot dogs isn’t as easy as you might imagine. So naturally he uses his break time to catch up on whatever sleep I made him miss the night before.

So, yeah. It isn’t hard to catch my boyfriend getting a few Z’s at work, in broad daylight.

But after the sun goes down? Nope.

Since the very first time we fucked, two weeks after we started seeing each other, Kellin has had no qualms about leaving the minute we’ve finished having sex, almost tripping over himself in an effort to get out of my house. I’ve never pressed the issue, really; people have weird habits. Insecurities. But that doesn’t stop me from getting upset, and perhaps the tiniest bit suspicious, whenever I hear the front door click shut softly no more than five minutes after we’re done in bed.

And of course, we’ve never done it at his house.

“I live with my mom!” he laughs whenever I bring it up.

“Your mom isn’t there all the time.”

“But my little brothers are.”

He raises a fair point. But I know for a fact that his mom and brothers take frequent overnight trips to relatives’ houses; hell, Kellin whines all the time about how he has to miss them because of work or volunteering responsibilities. It would be too easy to take full advantage of his family’s absence; probably easier than keeping it down for my roommate’s sake.

But no. No staying overnight at my apartment; no getting frisky in his family’s house while they’re away. And therefore, no excuse to see Kellin sleep.

I know it sounds creepy, and it did take me a while to pinpoint what exactly he was trying to hide from me, but now all sorts of possibilities roam around my head whenever I get bored and want to agonize over something. Does he have embarrassing habits while he sleeps? Drooling? Talking? Obnoxious snoring? Sleepwalking? I’m dying to know what it is, and even more so, it kills me that he feels he needs to hide something like that from me; obviously if it’s that big of a deal there’s no way I’d laugh at him.

I try not to entertain thoughts of far worse secrets. I trust Kellin; once I start obsessing over all the things he could get up to in those hours between one and six in the morning, then I’m done for.

But still.

What could be so bad?

~~~

Two days later I get my answer.

It’s two thirty in the morning, about an hour after Kellin left, and I can’t sleep. I’m naturally a night owl, and being abandoned by my boyfriend always leaves me with a lonely sort of insomnia; one hundred sleepless nights spent feeling his warmth fade away from the sheets. I glance at the clock and sigh, giving up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. If sleep insists on evading me, I might as well do something productive. Maybe get a head start on those scripts for tomorrow . . .

That’s when I notice the object on the floor by my bed. I squint at in the dark and nudge it with my toe. It’s smooth and soft, and when I crouch down to pick it up I realize it’s a wallet. Kellin’s wallet. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he was flinging his jeans off frantically, anxious to entangle himself one again in the messy dance of our lips and limbs before it was time to fall into bed.

There’s no way he’ll be able to make it tomorrow with no cash, no credit card and no license. I try his cell phone, listening to the robotic ring on the other end and only getting his voicemail while I turn the wallet over and over in my hands. I try again and get the same thing; he must already be asleep.

Nothing else for it, then. I throw on a pair of jean cutoffs and a tank top, and then pocket the wallet and head out of the bedroom.

My roommate Jaime is in the kitchen making a midnight snack, and I feel a little guilty for a moment over making him listen to me and Kellin in the bedroom (not that he’s new to that) before I realize he’s just gotten home.

I nod at him and he raises his eyebrows as he sprinkles cheese on tortilla chips. “Going somewhere?”

“Yeah, Kellin left something here,” I answer a little distractedly while I pull on my shoes.

“You mean other than his virginity?”

“Shut up. I’ll be back soon."

All the lights are out when I get to Kellin’s house. He lives fifteen minutes away, in one of the more suburban areas of town. I park in the driveway and chew my lip, staring at the darkened windows and wondering if I should maybe make this trip in the morning, when there’s a chance I won’t wake up his entire family. But I’m already here, and besides, I can be sneaky when I want to be. I know the Quinns keep a spare key in the flower pot on the porch; I can be in and out of there in no time without causing a neighborhood ruckus. I’ll just pray one of Kellin’s brothers or his mom doesn’t wander out at the wrong time to find a strange Mexican man, unrecognizable for a split second in the darkness, and decide in that second to beat the intruder to death with a baseball bat.

I feel extremely sketchy as I walk up the short driveway, jumping at every sound like a criminal. The key is just where it was when Kellin showed it to me two weeks ago, and it’s easy enough to get into the house without making much noise.

I’m so familiar with the layout of the house that it’s no trouble at all to navigate it even in the dead of night. I’m afraid my edginess is going to make me accidentally knock into a lamp and alert the sleeping family of my presence, but things go smoother than I would have thought possible. Soon I’m outside of Kellin’s room, staring at the cracked door contemplatively for a moment before shoving aside my qualms and pushing the door open gently.

It squeaks obnoxiously as it swings in, and I wince. Of course. This would be the time for me to start noisily giving myself away.

I haven’t been in this room as much, but I know the general arrangement of furniture and I can clearly perceive Kellin’s form on the bed. I begin to move forward, planning to leave the wallet by the bed, knowing it would be a bad idea to wake him up and run the risk of him thinking I’m a trespasser; it wouldn’t look good for him to catch me looming over him in the middle of the night. Even if he did recognize me without screaming and throwing a fit first, I would look like a stalker, to say the least.

When I’m no more than a few feet inside the room, I can make out Kellin’s sleeping figure much better, and I smile despite myself. He really is too attractive for his own good. But wait a minute—what is that he’s holding in his sleep, clutching to his chest securely like it’s his lifeline? It’s small and misshapen and furry and oh shit, my boyfriend is rolling over. I freeze, not even daring to breathe, hoping to god my heartbeat is quieter than it sounds in my ears, as Kellin shifts and stretches under the covers, moaning softly, sleepily.

Then he gets up on his elbows and it doesn’t have to be light for me to know that he’s staring right at me.

“Vic?” he whispers, rubbing his eyes and then moving to sit up properly.

“Um—”

He switches on the bedside lamp and the sudden light momentarily blinds me.

“What are you doing here?”

He’s still dazed, so I can’t exactly tell what he’s thinking as he squints at me. He doesn’t seem upset, or suspicious, just a little confused. I find my eyes drifting down to the stuffed animal that he pulled into his lap automatically when he sat up. I can’t help it; I raise my eyebrows. He glances down at it and his eyes widen in horror, like the scruffy-looking bear did something to humiliate him in public.

“I just came to give you your wallet,” I answer, tossing it lightly on the bed next to him. He stares at it and then back at me, and now a pink blush is blossoming on his cheeks and I can’t hold back the amusement in my voice. “You sleep with a teddy bear?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, just reaches for his wallet and places it carefully next to his lamp. I come closer and am a little shocked to see genuine embarrassment on his features as he hugs the teddy defensively.

He meets my eyes and nods, his eyes solemn and perhaps the teensiest bit afraid.

If he thinks I’m going to laugh at him, he’s ridiculously mistaken; I don’t find this funny, not in the way that he thinks, anyway. If anything, it’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life, but I doubt he’ll understand that, not with that hurt look on his face. I finally close the distance between the bed and me and climb up beside him. There isn’t much room in his childhood twin bed, not like there is at my place, but I don’t care; I need to be beside him, to put my arm around him and tell him it’s okay, to somehow convey the honest message that I’m not judging him, would never judge him. But as soon as I try to touch him he shrugs me off.
“You’re laughing at me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Go ahead. I don’t care,” he says, not looking at me.

It couldn’t be more obvious that he does care. I can’t help but wonder if this has been an issue with his past boyfriends. The signs certainly point in that direction, what with the shaky way he tries to meet my eyes and laugh even though I can tell he’s on the verge of tears, the way he seems afraid of me suddenly, like he already knows I’m going to make fun of him.
He doesn’t need to be scared. Not with me.

I untangle his fingers from the teddy’s worn fur and take his hand in mine. He’s trembling slightly; I squeeze his hand comfortingly and place my other hand under his chin to make him look at me. “I would never laugh at you, Kell,” I say, refusing to break eye contact. “I promise.”

He smiles a little and I let my hand drop from his face. He looks back down at his teddy bear, fingering the fur on its ear habitually. “I just—” He breaks off, takes a shaky breath, and then the words come out in a rush. “You see, m-my dad gave me this bear, not long before he left.”
Oh god. I stroke his hand with my thumb, not daring to touch him any more than that. I’ve rarely seen him this vulnerable before, and I just have to let him get it out and not baby him or, worse, try to tell him that everything’s okay or that it’s no big deal.

He goes on, “When I was a kid I used to cry myself to sleep with Teddy every night, just hoping and praying I’d see my dad again. I guess I’ve just never let go of the habit. It, um—it just makes me feel safer, more secure, I guess.” He shrugs, trying in vain to smile again even though I know this is hard for him. “It’s pretty stupid, isn’t it?”

“It’s not stupid,” I say truthfully, stroking his hair back from his face. I can definitely picture it—Kellin as a child, tears streaking down his pale cheeks, clutching his teddy bear in his small arms like it’s the only thing keeping him alive, staring out the window and wondering if the sky outside is the same that his father sees.

His smile grows a little more genuine at my words and he leans his head down on my shoulder. Neither of us says anything for a few minutes. I trail my fingers over his shoulder and down his arm, unable to shake off the troubling images, waiting for him to stop shaking and relax against me.

Then I break the silence. “I want to try something.”

“Huh?” He already sounds sleepy again.

I smile and let go of him, lying down next to him. He looks down at me confusedly. I pat the bed next to me and he follows suit.

“Now roll over onto your side,” I say once he’s comfortably horizontal.

He does so, looking justifiably suspicious, still clutching Teddy in one arm. When his back is facing me, I wind one arm over his side and crook it against his stomach, pulling him against my chest. He curls up a bit automatically and I follow suit, curling my own body around his soothingly, protectively.

I’ve never really gotten this far with Kellin in terms of cuddling. As I’ve mentioned, he’s usually so quick to leave that I’ve never had the chance before. But now . . . Now I see what I’ve been missing all this time, and I’m fully convinced that I will never let him go. He just feels so right against me, the faint but definite beat of his heart vibrating through his back against my chest, matching my own heart’s rhythm in a beautiful harmony. He slowly relaxes, letting his arm come to rest over mine and snuggling against me and he’s so small but at the same time I can feel the power of his body like I’ve never felt before, not this way.

“Feeling safe and secure yet?” I ask in a murmur.

In answer, he rolls over so he’s facing me, and buries his face in my chest. I smile victoriously as I hear Teddy fall to the floor with a flump, and lean my head down to rest on top of my boyfriend’s. Just when I think he’s asleep, he lifts up his head and kisses me softly on the lips. “I love you.”

I kiss him back after that, not in any hot or urgent manner, just enjoying, experiencing him as he does the same. We break apart after a few seconds and I say, “I love you.”

He really does fall asleep not long after that, still cradled in my arms, and the thought of extricating myself from him and going home never even enters my mind. I’m awake for a little bit after him, watching him lovingly, and my arm is asleep under him but I would let it fall off before severing this moment.

His alarm goes off at six the next morning and I know that I’m probably going to have some explaining to do to his family if they see me exiting his room at this hour, but I don’t even fucking care, because Kellin smiles at me sleepily after switching off the alarm and nuzzles his face in my neck. I rub his shoulder, helping him put off having to get out of bed and go to work.

“You should come back tomorrow night,” he says, his breath warm against my skin.

I smile and kiss the top of his head. “Baby, I’ll come back every night for the rest of my life if you want me to,” and we bury ourselves deeper in the covers.

The End.