Love is a Dangerous Thing

"I think this year was good," Zack said when Alex finally opened his eyes Christmas Eve morning. "I liked it."

Alex murmured something that Zack didn't quite catch and then rolled on top of him to place tired kisses against his neck. A year ago the move might have scared Zack but he'd slowly grown much more comfortable.

It wasn't easy, it started slowly, for the first couple of months all they did was kiss very innocently. It wasn't until mid-march that Zack even thought about what else they could do and it was another week before he talked to Alex about it.

****

"Can you teach me more, like, kissing stuff?" He'd asked innocently one morning after he'd already kissed Alex a few times. To his credit Alex had been more than patient with the process because when Zack said "more" he definitely didn't mean he wanted anything to do with anything that was usually covered by clothing. Instead Alex had nodded and told Zack to follow his lead again and then kissed him once more this time running his tongue along Zack's bottom lip and licking his way into the younger's mouth.

That kept Zack occupied for a while, he liked it too much Alex would always jokingly say whenever Zack would randomly turn around in his lap and kiss him desperately. He tried to teach Zack some form of etiquette to stop him from wanting to make out at the most random and inconvenient of times but still in the middle of a good tv show Zack wanted to make out, when Alex had to finish his column by the hour Zack wanted to make out, and god forbid Alex slept in even a few minutes longer than usual Zack would wake him up to make out.

****

"It was a pretty good year, huh?" Alex asked, breaking Zack from his thoughts. "Only a few minor setbacks."

"Don't talk about that," Zack whined.

"Setbacks," were not things Zack enjoyed talking about and certainly not things he enjoyed living through. Some of the setbacks had been his fault, some were Alex's fault and some were a result of both of them. None of them were particularly fond memories.

****

The first big incident happened on Zack's birthday of all days. Alex had asked him to grab a stack of bills that they needed to drop off at the post office and when Zack did he accidentally dropped them. It wasn't a big deal, he thought, but Alex yelled at him as if he'd ruined the whole day by dropping a few envelopes. He tried to pick them up but Alex quickly pushed him away and collected them himself, unknowingly leaving one laying next to the younger's foot. Zack of course picked it up and his heart sunk when he saw it was a letter addressed to his parents. His face fell as he stared at the names of two people that had given up on him completely and Alex started apologizing as soon as he saw him looking at the envelope with tears running down his face.

"They left me to die and you're sending them fucking letters," he'd screamed

"I just want them to know you're okay."

The hardest part of that whole fight was finding out his parents really didn't care, they'd never written back, not once. Alex sent them updates every month for five years and even when they heard Zack was out they hadn't replied. It ruined his birthday and Alex cried when he told him to sleep in his own room that night. That one took a while to heal completely from for Zack, even now he found himself wanting to cry when he thought about how little his parents thought of him.

The second incident happened when Alex got a promotion at work. His co-workers threw him a big party that Zack had no desire to attend but Alex forced him to go to regardless. The night ended with Alex passing out and Zack calling Chris at four in the morning to come pick them up from outside a bar. Chris took them both back to his place and screamed at Alex for about an hour when he woke up. In the midst of all his celebrating the older had forgotten how important Zack's schedule was and let him skip his medicine for the night.

"It was just one night, I thought he'd be fine."

"No, you didn't think at all, are you even seeing Zack right now?" Without his medicine Zack couldn't fall asleep and he couldn't stop his mind from wandering, leaving him wide awake and crying while Chris yelled at Alex. "Let Zack miss his medicine one more time and I swear to fucking god I will take him from you, do you understand?"

That was the last time Zack missed his medicine.

The last incident, and Zack's least favorite of the three, of course involved their good friend Jack. Zack had been walking to the small convenience store just down their block on a rainy September afternoon when he ran into the taller boy who had a few choice words for him. They'd run into each other a couple times since the grocery incident and each time Zack had successfully maneuvered Alex away from their former friend but this time Alex wasn't there and he felt much more vulnerable. After pointing that fact out a few times Jack pushed him down and kicked him repeatedly until he seemed to get tired and then he told him he was just as worthless as he'd been in high school and that he should kill himself, before leaving.

What Zack should have done was collected himself and hobbled the short distance back to their apartment but instead he hobbled further down the alley Jack had assaulted him in and cried behind a dumpster. The ground was wet as he laid down but his body felt too sore to care about the way he shivered or the water that seeped through his clothes. When he woke up a few hours later it was beginning to get colder and darker but he stayed where he was on the ground. He didn't move at all until much later when it had long since been dark and he heard a familiar voice calling his name. The voice was recognizable but he wasn't exactly sure who it belonged to, still he cautiously poked his head out and waited as the voice drew nearer to the alley entrance.

"Zack!" The owner of the voice had a hood pulled over his head, making him impossible to identify and Zack shrunk back against the alley wall and closed his eyes. "Zack, buddy it's Rian, let's get you home."

Rian carried Zack quickly from the alley and back to their apartment where he held Zack in his lap, despite the fact that Zack was soaking wet, until Alex showed up. In the end Zack caught a cold that bordered dangerously close to pneumonia and developed a significantly greater appreciation for Rian. He tried to explain to Alex why he hadn't come home but the older repeatedly shook his head and told him there would never be an acceptable reason for not coming home. After that Alex got him his own phone and made Zack promise to text him or call him anytime he was going to be even half a second late.

****

"We got through it all didn't we?" Zack nodded, still laying in bed beneath Alex. "You're still my favorite person in the world, nothing could change that."

Zack smiled at that, remembering how self-conscious he'd been as the weather turned warmer. Things reached a head when Alex confronted him about not weaing any of the t-shirts he'd bought for him. He'd thought Zack simply didn't like the shirts but it wasn't that at all.

****

"People are gonna think I'm crazy," Zack had mumbled with tears in his eyes. "But I'm not anymore."

"You were never crazy buddy." Zack would never forget the way Alex kissed the scars that marred his wrists. "Anyone that writes you off because of a couple mistakes is only hurting themselves because they're missing out on getting to know a wonderful person."

"What if they say something though?"

"Then I'll beat them up," Alex rolled his eyes and pulled him into a hug. "That's how we handle things around here Zacky, people treat you poorly, I beat them up, no exceptions."

****

"We did stuff I didn't think we could." Alex hummed in acknowledgment and kissed Zack again, this time along his jaw, making the younger boy smile more.

"I always knew we could do it all, even if it meant listening to you lie about it being too hot when we slept. I had full confidence I'd love you forever even if you never wanted to touch me at all."

"It was scary!" Zack blushed as he thought again about all the first times that came before their "First Time."

It gave him more anxiety than he'd ever felt in his entire life when he came to terms with the fact that he maybe wanted to move south of Alex's mouth and try something new. It was the beginning of summer when the thought first worked its way into his mind and he'd yet to even see his boyfriend without a shirt. That prompted what became Alex's favorite quotes of the entire year, a fact he'd told Zack several times.

****

"It's sort of hot when we sleep," he'd mumbled awkwardly as Alex was giving him his medicine that late-June night.

"Sorry buddy, want me to set the thermostat lower?"

Zack sighed but nodded and Alex thought nothing of it, he turned the thermostat lower and thought that would be the end of it. The next night though Zack repeated himself again as he was taking his nightly medicine.

"Still too warm?" Alex had frowned both at the way Zack nodded and the blush that covered his cheeks. "We can get rid of the blanket completely and just sleep under the sheets, I guess?"

For the second night in a row Zack sighed but nodded and for the second night in a row Alex expected that to be the end of it. The next night though Zack repeated his complaint, this time pulling a little at the collar of his shirt. Between that small gesture, the lack of eye contact, and the way he kept blushing Alex put it together and grinned at his boyfriend.

"Do you think it'd be less hot if I took my shirt off?" He'd asked innocently and he was pulling his shirt off before Zack even nodded. "Do you think it'd be even less hot if you took off your shirt too?"

Zack took a big step back at that, "we should test this out first," he'd quickly rushed out. "It might be cool enough with just your shirt off."

The next night Zack decided that yes it was definitely still too hot and that it would probably be a lot cooler if he wasn't wearing his shirt. Ironically that led to the first time Zack got a little too hot when they were making out the next morning. Alex said it was okay but in typical Zack fashion the smaller boy shoved his boyfriend off of him and left to take a cold shower.

"If it's still too hot for you we could try sleeping in our boxers," Alex offered with a serious expression that night and that offer led to his absolute favorite line of all time.

"It's getting cold again, do you think I can borrow a sleeping bag?"

****

"A sleeping bag, Zachary! That was your best defense against ever getting another boner in your entire life."

"I was nervous!" Zack laughed along with Alex but he could clearly remember thinking it was the most serious awful thing in the world back in June.

****

He'd been so embarrassed that he actually had slept in a sleeping bag for a week until Alex told him he couldn't anymore. It took another week after that for him to kiss Alex again and two weeks until he worked up the courage to sleep without his shirt. Again they'd been making out the very next morning, Alex in just his boxers and Zack in his pajama pants, when he again got too into it but this time Alex held on to him before he could be shoved away.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," Zack had muttered with cheeks that were so red they were almost purple.

"It's fine baby," Alex whispered back. "I can take care of it, if you want, it's not a big deal."

"I haven't, you know, done anything in a long time, it's embarrassing." Zack looked close to crying that morning but Alex didn't let him.

"Can I help?" He'd asked, waiting for Zack to nod before he did anything at all. Carefully Alex reached between them, watching Zack's eyes to make sure he was okay, and put his hands down the front of his boyfriend's sweats. Zack let out a strangled moan and bucked his hips as soon as Alex's hand grazed his dick and he came not even two minutes later.

Once he'd convinced him it wasn't a big deal that he'd come so quickly Zack admitted he liked it and things progressed naturally from there. They didn't have sex for another three months but honestly Alex was fine just doing what Zack was okay with.

****

"We're gonna be together for a long time," Zack announced as he reflected back on their year. "Maybe forever."

"I'm glad you feel that way, it makes me much less nervous about what I want to ask you on New Years."

Zack grinned as he thought about how great the rest of their lives would be, maybe he'd picked the wrong guy all those years ago but it didn't matter now. He had Alex and for the first time in his life he wasn't labeling his days as part of a certain stage, he was just living. There was no room for the memories that used to haunt him, he'd pushed those out to make way for moments he loved with all his heart.

It turned out falling in love with his best friend was a much better choice than he'd originally thought.