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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 17 2017, 12:34 PM (22 Views) | |
| Everitt Walker | Nov 17 2017, 12:34 PM Post #1 |
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Once, Everitt would have assumed he would be with his wife forever. That was what everybody hoped for with their partner, right? Someone they got along with, someone they loved, someone who could be their best friend with. Just everything about her had been someone he had looked at and thought 'the rest of my life seems too short'. She had been a vibrant, adventurous woman; she had been quirky and always trying to find out all the mysteries to life. She had lived in the moment. She was everything that he wasn't. She had been his foil; she had been the one to talk to new people at his office parties while he had stood around with the few people he had liked, she was the one that wanted to get lost in the city to see what they found while he just wanted to go home. Everyone always told him that opposites attracted, people said he <i>needed</i> someone like that to make his life more interesting. After all, who wanted someone exactly like themselves? That was just asking for disaster. People said he should be happy to have her and he had been. They had been in love, they had been married, they had had a kid together. Life was perfect right up until it wasn't. It was like something had opened up beneath them when they had lost their child, when their child had come back to them in broken pieces in separate parts of the city. <p> She never did forgive him for that, for falling asleep while at the playground in a place where it should have been safe. That had been fine, Everitt hadn't forgiven himself either. But things changed. Things started sliding south before he even properly realized it. She was out more, Everitt stayed in more. They didn't talk as much. He told himself that they were just adjusting. They were both mourning. Couples needed time to get over things? They fought more, but it was okay, he told himself. Even when she snapped that she needed to move, when she said <i>they</i> needed to move. They had to try and build their lives back up. All Everitt was doing was drinking and sleeping when he wasn't at work. That was all he did; did he think he was fixing things by sleeping all the time? Did he think drinking really helped make everything go away? In return, he had asked how was it going for to forget they had had a child at all? Did she enjoy running about around the city so much that their daughter had been left far, far behind them? She left one day. She didn't come back. Papers came for him and he knew, he knew they were divorce papers, but he had hidden it away. They didn't talk, they didn't communicate, they just...existed. Until one day he got a call saying that his wife had died. He couldn't believe it was suicide and it was easier to think that she had gotten into a car accident, but no one could exactly explain how she had just rammed herself off a bridge when completely sober. <p> He didn't think he would ever get over that. He had lost his daughter and then his wife; he had lost the dream he had slowly been building up. He was going to have a good life, he had vowed to himself when he had entered the police academy. He was going to be a good person; he wasn't going to be a drunk like his father and he if he became a father himself, he was never going to make his child feel as if everything they wanted would be taken away like his mother had. Then look at him. He had lost <i>everything</i> starting with his child. He had lost them, then he had lost his job, he had lost his nice apartment, and most of all his own self respect. IT wasn't total rock bottom, but he didn't know what else to call it when he was living in a one bedroom apartment and having beer for breakfast before he went to his job as a private investigator where he mostly just spied on cheating husbands and wives. At least until one day he had been contacted by a rich couple who had wanted to tabs on their son. They had wanted to find anything they could on him so they could maybe bring them home. Everitt had been expecting a teenager, maybe someone just out of high school that had fallen in with a bad crowd and rich parents that just had too much money and not enough knowledge. What he got was a twenty eight year old man who had formed a life for himself. What he got was a couple of parents who couldn't accept their son had turned out gay and somehow magically thought that they could find dirt on him or his boyfriends or whatever that would bring him home. Did they want to bring him home? Everitt couldn't even be sure but they were paying him and really it meant he got to sleep in his car while saying there wasn't much going on. Their son, he said, was living his life. <p> Which had one day brought the younger man to his car window, shoving coffee at him and snidely saying that every time he saw Everitt he was sleeping, so better to have some coffee. Then another time had been shoving food at him because he swore Everitt never ate either. Then it lead up to 'come have sex with me since you're always around'. Before Everitt really knew what was happening, he had abandoned the rich couple to go work for their decently well off son and his company. And with enough speed to make his head spin, he had somehow found himself dating Hayden. It wasn't a bad turn of events...and it wasn't <i>exactly</i> surprising considering since from the moment they had had sex, he had thought long and hard about a relationship. He'd been cautious about it but with each man Hayden had been with, Everitt had been more and more jealous. It had just made sense to try for boyfriends. There was a bitter part of Everitt that expected everything to crash and burn; he thought they might be too similar or too dissimilar or maybe Everitt wasn't bisexual enough to be with a man. But...Everitt's apartment had never been cleaner since he'd started dating Hayden, it had never been as fully stocked with food since he'd started dating Hayden, he hadn't been drinking as much since he had started dating Hayden. For the first time in years, he found himself happy. Happy but also a bit frustrated. He frowned at Hayden's back, watching the younger man hunch over a project that he had been working on since the previous day. He didn't know what it was and he hadn't bothered asking; sometimes he tried but he couldn't understand what Hayden was saying, sometimes he tried and he couldn't handle the superior tone Hayden took with him. "<b>All right,</b>" he announced with a sigh, "<b>I think it's bedtime for both of us.</b>" |
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| Hayden Cunningham | Nov 17 2017, 12:34 PM Post #2 |
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Life was confusing and terrible but wonderful all at the same time. That was something that he had been allowed to explore for years when he was younger. There were things that happened to people that others always explained away; they deserved it, God must have wanted them, it was just their time, it happened so you just better get used to it. Even as he grew older, it had all confused him but he had just accepted that. It was what everyone told you. It was what his parents had told him and he had trusted his parents. They were his parents, after all. They would know, wouldn't they? His parents were strong and intelligent, his parents took care of him. They let him indulge in his favorite hobbies and past times, they had paid thousands of dollars to allow him to hear, they had spent endless money on his education at private institutions with private tutors, all of the gadgets and toys that he wanted were at his fingertips. He was the perfect child, according to them. So handsome, so smart, he was going to go places. He would take over their fortune and their company and wouldn't it be wonderful? And he had believed it all. Life might be terrible for some people, but it just happened so he had better get used to it. Life was wonderful for him most of the time, so he was just used to it. It would always be that way, or so it had seemed to him. Then the roof had fallen in. He had known that his parents weren't perfect. Every child learned that at some point. His parents had seemed mostly close to it, though, but for a few pesky problems that Hayden had found harder and harder to ignore the older that he got. His parents would shake their heads and always comment in lowered voices about 'some people'. They would proclaim that God would never approve of behavior like that, that they hoped that the sinners appreciated the life they had now because they would have an uncomfortable after life. It hadn't taken long for Hayden to eventually realize that the people that they were talking about were normal, every day people but that they had one fatal flaw in the eyes of his parents. They were gay - gay or lesbian or bisexual or whatever wasn't the normal spectrum - and that was just unacceptable so far as they, their friends, their religion, was concerned. It had hurt to realize his parents weren't the perfect, upstanding, wonderful people he had always viewed them as. It hurt worse to have them say those things, to sneer and speak insults under their breaths, and to know that the words might not be directed at him but that they might as well have been. Hayden was gay and they would be shocked, scandalized. They would ask where they had gone wrong. He knew it as well as he knew that he loved them and it would hurt to hear them say that. So he had kept it as secret as he could. It hadn't been his choice to come out to his parents but someone had spilled the beans on him. He didn't know who. He just knew someone had given photographs to his parents and he had been confronted. There had been yelling and tears and even threats but Hayden had expected all of that. What he hadn't expected was their disowning him. One day, he had everything. The next, he only had the money he had been smart enough to save in his own bank account. There was no paid for apartment, no paid for college, no money whenever he wanted, no fancy gadgets and toys. No matter how often he called, no matter how often he showed up on their door, it was as if he didn't exist to them anymore. It had hurt. It had hurt worse than anything he had ever known and it had left him at least a little bit bitter. It had taken a long time for some of that to fade. It had taken a long time for him to get his life in somewhat of an order. He had thankfully had enough to float him comfortably through college. By then, he was competent enough to land a comfortable job. If his apartment wasn't quite as nice as the one his parents had gotten him, well, it was still nice. It was comfortable with a wonderful location. He could still afford luxuries. He didn't need them. He wanted them, wanted their love and approval, but he could live without them. He could survive... and so survive he had. A part of him had actually been overjoyed. He was free to be who he was. He was free to go to a club and kiss a strange man, to wake up in his bed if he wanted. He was free to find a boyfriend to settle down with. He was free to do his own job that he wanted to do, to drive his own car, live in an apartment that he had decorated himself. He was free to make the friends that he chose to - not that he made many - and to just do as he pleased. That freedom had carried him through seven years of life until the day he had seen the man watching him from the car. It had happened too often to be a coincidence. It hadn't taken long to get close, to bring coffee and food. It hadn't taken long for Hayden to do his research and to figure out the man was a private investigator and that his current client was Hayden's parents. He had been annoyed, the bitterness welling up again, and so he had done what he knew how to do best. He had cornered the man again, intending to mostly just flirt and be a bit of a dick to send the message back to his parents... but the man had responded when Hayden said he should come and fuck him on his parent's money. Hayden hadn't expected anything to come from that but it had evolved from a quick tryst to a sort of business proposition to Everitt pushing him back against a wall when he had complained about the way Everitt kept chasing off the men he was interested in. Everitt was not what he would have chosen in a boyfriend and yet... it seemed to turn out that Everitt was what he had needed in a boyfriend. All things considered, he was pretty patient. He wasn't afraid to poke holes in Hayden's pride and tendency to be condescending. He seemed to enjoy watching over Hayden, protecting him and caring for him... but he equally seemed to enjoy being taken care of. He let Hayden bully him into a lot of things that had been needed, but he could put his foot down, too. It had been... good for them both, surprisingly. There was always a tiny little voice in his head that said Everitt would be just like all the rest. One day, he was going to drop him. One day, there would be no warm body in his bed with rough stubble rubbing against his cheek but he tried to dismiss those thoughts. Tonight had been a night where he needed to work to do that. He brought work home a lot, both professional and personal. It was a way for his ever spinning mind to have something to do, something to relax him. It took him a minute to realize that Everitt had even spoken to him. He lifted his head up, blinking once or twice, before he frowned. "I'm working on this," he pointed out. He had been working on it for two days and he didn't like to stop his projects. "Besides, I am an adult," he huffed the last bit out. He was almost thirty. He could decide to go to bed or not when he wanted to. |
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| Everitt Walker | Nov 17 2017, 12:35 PM Post #3 |
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Sometimes he wondered what he was doing. What was he doing with Hayden? The younger man was everything his wife hadn't been...and yet, he seemed to get along awfully well with Hayden. A small voice said it was because he knew what to expect with Hayden; it knew how to handle someone that was boiling with anger and who threw themselves into their work...it hadn't known how to deal with someone that tried to find the good in <i>everything</i>. His wife had just been so chipper and bright and maybe she had been what someone had needed at some point, but that wasn't Everitt. Maybe Everitt was opening himself for disappointment. Both he and Hayden weren't exactly what people would call healthy individuals. They were broken, they had been shattered because of their own life circumstances and they hadn't been putting themselves back together again. Some would say they had just needed to find that special someone; Everitt needed to find that person that made him love again, Hayden needed to find that someone that would love him unconditionally. Everitt needed someone to take the bottle away from him and say he was better than that; Hayden needed someone to hold him and say that he was worth so much more than being cast aside. Everitt's therapist had pointed out that maybe that might help, but Everitt couldn't rely on someone else fixing him. He could have countless people come to tell him he needed to stop drinking, he needed to move on, and all of that but the fact was that <i>Everitt</i> had needed to decide that he had to move on. Maybe Hayden would help, maybe having someone with him would help him realize he needed to change, but it was a choice he had to make on his own and he wasn't entirely sure if it was even going to happen with Hayden around. <p> Then again, he felt like he had a bit more of a purpose now with Hayden about. Hayden didn't lend himself to a coddling sort of a relationship; he had scoffed at Everitt's more extreme cases of trying to take care of himself, but there had been leeway given elsewhere too. Today didn't seem to be one of the blessed days apparently. "<b>You've been working on this,</b>" he gestured, "<b>for hours.</b>" It had been since he got home. He did that an awful lot. Normally Everitt was fine with it. Hayden seemed to enjoy doing his work – or at least he didn't seemed stressed by it all the time – so Everitt had usually left him to it. "<b>You're an adult who's been awake for almost twenty four hours,</b>" he pointed out. It was a strange thing for Everitt to see, honestly. Oh, he had stayed up his long hours before, mostly back when he had been a cop proper. These days, it had been a trial to stay awake. Everitt had found a lot of solace in sleep. There hadn't been much to his life after he lost his wife and daughter, so it was easy to come home, maybe eat, and just go to bed. Hayden, on the other hand, seemed to thrive under less hours. He had come home with that project <i>yesterday</i> and there had been a few hours when Everitt had been asleep that maybe Hayden had caught some rest, but Everitt couldn't be sure. He couldn't tell and he didn't overly trust the idea that he had because when Everitt had gone to sleep, Hayden had still been working on it. When he had gotten up, Hayden had been working on. <p> He pushed himself up from the couch with a small groan, his body protesting move because while maybe it hadn't been comfortable, it had been the way he had settled. He gave a small shrug of his shoulders, a tiny stretch to make his muscles wake up, his joints to try to become lubricated again, and shuffled closer to Hayden. "<b>I mean it. Time for bed, both of us.</b>" Part of him told himself to reach out and just...close whatever Hayden was working on. That was the sort of thing Everitt's mother had done when he was younger. Almost immediately, he remembered the anger he had always felt at her for doing that because it was inevitably always when he was in the middle of some bit of homework. She would just waltz in, announce that Everitt needed to do something and he needed to do it right that minute. Everything had been messed up just because she had decided that. Add to it that he didn't totally understand Hayden's work, he didn't want to go mucking about with it. What would happen if Everitt closed the computer and it didn't say some integral part of Hayden's work? What if he turned it off and Hayden hadn't <i>saved</i> anything? It was a bunch of 'what if's that Everitt thought Hayden was smart enough to avoid, but they weren't exactly things that Everitt wanted to risk. It wasn't like he went out of his way to annoy people, to aggravate them. Hell, his superiors had said for the most part, he was one of the only people that didn't seem to have a chip on his shoulder in their precinct back when he had worked as a cop. It hadn't really been <i>true</i> but he had taken the compliment for what it was. Besides, he liked Hayden – maybe even loved him, though that seemed like an awful strong word for when they were so new to their relationship. He didn't want to make the younger man's life harder. <p> Without really thinking, he put a hand to Hayden's neck, squeezing just a little. Once, when they had first started this thing when Everitt had been an employee, it had been a way to just...corral Hayden. He started getting insufferable, he started getting so high and mighty with whoever, and Everitt had just thought to reach out and grab his neck. It hadn't quite been scruffing him but at the same time, he didn't know what else to call it so when Hayden had accused him of doing exactly that, he could only agree. It had pissed Hayden off at first, it had made flail like a wet cat and smack Everitt's chest hard enough to knock the air out of him once. But Everitt had kept doing it and it had...evolved. It had evolved into something that could be scolding, but equally soothing. He gave another light squeeze before it turned into a gentle massage, just rubbing at the skin and trying to get the muscles in Hayden's neck and shoulders to relax. "<b>You've been working on this long enough,</b>" he said. Hayden probably wouldn't see it as that until he solved whatever issue he was having with it. "<b>You're not going to be any good to anyone if you keep pushing yourself. What happens if you make a mistake because you're tired?</b>" It was always a touchy tactic to suggest that Hayden might make a mistake. Hayden lived and breathed his work at times; he complained of coworkers not being serious or not be professional or any number of things. Telling him that <i>he</i> was going to mess up could get him to put it down...or it was slightly more likely that he would get defensive and snarl that he would <i>never</i> do such a thing. |
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| Hayden Cunningham | Nov 17 2017, 12:35 PM Post #4 |
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"Yeah, that's kind of what I do," he said as Everitt pointed out that he had been working on this project for hours. There were many, many days where Hayden never realized that he was being snotty, where he realized he was being a condescending brat. It was just something that he had gotten used to being, the way his personality had formed, and he often hadn't even realized he was saying something offensive or harsh until someone had gotten angry with him. Right now, however, he could hear his own tone and he knew that it was more than a little condescending. Everitt seemed to actually not mind it that much... to a point. He usually just rolled his eyes or brushed it off but when Hayden got too shirty with him he would fight back in his own way. When Everitt pointed out that he was an adult who had been awake for almost twenty four hours he gave a huff. "I have not," he protested, although he wasn't quite certain. It wasn't that he never noticed but there were also days where time just kind of slid away from him. He would get caught up in a creative haze or be so busy trying to work something out that he wouldn't even realize that he hadn't moved for something like four hours. Some people said he seemed to actually get energy from working rather than the other way around. He wasn't so sure about that but there were some days where he would agree. There were some days where he just started working and he couldn't stop because his mind was spinning and his energy wasn't going away in the least and he just felt like he could go on and on forever. Of course, eventually the body gave out but those days and nights were the ones where he felt like he would never have to stop, that he could go on for years without even a bit of rest. He heard the sound of Everitt pushing himself up from the couch and the groan made him wince. He hadn't known, initially, that there were days where Everitt's joints and bones would ache. Not until they had been together for a short while. It had seemed so strange because Everitt was not that much older than him. He was eight years older, in his mid-thirties. Your joints and bones shouldn't ache and creak and make it impossible for you to get up, particularly if you were a werecreature. But Everitt had explained it to him, the fact that he had used his strength and reflexes and everything else to practically abuse his body. He explained the way that just because born werecreatures had bodies that were made to handle the change better didn't mean it was going to prevent things from happening. Then Everitt had kept on talking about things like that but Hayden had realized something else. Everitt drank a ton of alcohol but hardly ever ate. That was unhealthy enough for a human but while Hayden had never made it a point to study living things - he was more interested in computers and machinery than he was biology - plenty of people knew well enough that being a were burned your energy and the fuel in your body quicker than it did with humans. Everitt was always tired, always sore and hurting, and it was from a multitude of reasons. He had abused his body not only through just throwing himself headlong into pain and danger but also in not fueling it. It was a wonder he was alive, no wonder that Everitt was always asleep; his body was likely trying to conserve what little fuel it had left most days. That was when Hayden had started taking a firmer grip on things and making sure Everitt ate more than a beer at breakfast, that he stopped trying to put himself in an early grave. It had mixed results but at least they hadn't had an incident where Everitt couldn't even get out of bed in awhile. "I just said I was an adult," he pointed out as Everitt stated that he meant it was bedtime for both of us. "I don't have to go to bed just because you said so." It was petulant and bratty but it was also the truth. Hayden was not controlled by anyone but himself, thank you. The older man shuffled closer to him, but Hayden didn't turn around. If he turned around, he would probably get involved in some discussion and then the next thing he knew he would find himself in bed. Considering how highly he was protesting doing that, he didn't want that to happen. Then Everitt reached out and put his hand to the back of his neck. The squeeze that he gave wasn't in the least bit threatening, but it still made Hayden tense up for a second or two. It always had. It probably always would. It was just a natural reaction to do something like that, an instinct to try and protect yourself from a vulnerable spot being grabbed. When Everitt had first done it Hayden had hated it. It had pissed him off to no end. Somewhere along the way, though, he had started taking it as what it was - a hint. A sign that he was getting to be too much of a dick. A sign that he should stop and think and control himself. Then, one day, it was more than that. One day Everitt had just touched with his rough hands and did what he was doing now. He squeezed gently and then started to massage in a way that made Hayden's eyes flutter closed for the moment. His hands stilled their work and he gave the tiniest of groans as Everitt kept massaging against his neck, as his hand moved to the junction between neck and shoulder and then back again. He wanted to be angry when Everitt said that he'd been working on this long enough but it was hard to be angry with the massage practically lulling him to sleep although some of that fog burned away when Everitt said he would make a mistake because he was tired. "I don't make mistakes," he said in a voice that resembled an angry, wet cat... but a muffled one, because his eyes were still closed and he was still giving small groans thanks to Everitt's hand. |
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| Everitt Walker | Nov 17 2017, 12:35 PM Post #5 |
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Everitt stared at Hayden, watching the younger man with narrowed, careful eyes. It had become something of a task to date him. Oh, he didn't regret it, he loved it. Maybe it was in his nature to want to take care of things. But this wasn't always the normal task of caring; this wasn't just making sure they were happy or eating or sleeping. Dating Hayden had the extra bonus trying to figure out if Hayden was being snarky because it was just how he was...or if something had gotten stuck in his craw and was making him more irritable. It was the extra bonus of seeing if this was something Everitt needed to shake out of him or let him rant about. He certainly wasn't bored. "<b>oh, it's what you do. Sorry, I saw all the gadgets and everything and I got really confused. Carry on.</b>" Everitt wasn't going to lie and say he understood what Hayden did. Hayden talked and Everitt sometimes just couldn't catch up. He wasn't a genius, not like Hayden. But he could also admit he wasn't <i>so</i> stupid that he didn't understand the concept of Hayden doing his job. He raised an eyebrow as Hayden protested he hadn't. "<b>All right, fine, twenty hours if you're going to be technical about it. You know how I know? I've been up the same amount of time with you.</b>" Which was odder than he was use to, his body personally didn't like it and he didn't know how Hayden had managed it. They had both gone to their jobs early this morning, they had both come back together and there had just been no end in sight. Hayden had always been one to get lost in his work and most days Everitt found he was happy to just give him a light kiss and then go to bed. But something had been agitating him enough that it had been impossible. Nothing obvious, nothing he could pin down to stop, so he had just carried on. After all, Hayden was always getting on him about staying up more, right? <p> At least he wasn't hobbling, that was a good sign. Not just for the fact that it meant maybe, despite the stiffness he had, he wasn't due for a day where he couldn't move at all. But it was also because that he didn't think man people would be intimidated or willing to listen to someone who hobbled. If he made his way over to Hayden with a limp, how was Hayden going to view him with anything but pity? "<b>Well thank god we clarified that. I don't date kids.</b>" Oh, he had called Hayden a kid multiple times, but it had become it's own little term of endearment. It wasn't like they were a huge age difference – Everitt only had eight years on Hayden – and Hayden was closer to thirty than he was twenty these days. It was safe to call him that, it was safe to have the teasing and the comments. "<b>No you really don't,</b>" he agreed easily, "<b>You don't have to do anything you don't want to...but as your boyfriend, I think going this long without sleep could be pretty detrimental. Because I'm an adult who doesn't <i>have</i> to not tell you to go to bed.</b>" Even as he said it, he wondered if he shouldn't back off, if he shouldn't just let it go. It had been an issue his wife had commented on. He was boxing her in, she complained, he was trying to clip her wings and she hadn't listened when he had said no, it was a partner being concerned for one another. Was that what Hayden was feeling right now? Did he think Everitt was boxing him in? <p> Hayden tensed under his hands, but that was something Everitt had gotten use to. Hayden always tensed. At first it had made Everitt worried. It made him first think that he had done something wrong, that he had hurt or scared Hayden. But then it had become a worry of if his <i>parents</i> had done anything, if they had done more than reject Hayden just because he happened to be gay. Eventually he realized it was just a reaction. It was almost always a surprise, he was sure, and the neck could be a sensitive spot. He kept massaging, even as Hayden snapped and said he didn't make mistakes. "<b>Not yet you don't. You're good, Hayden. You're really good at what you do, but that don't change the fact that when a person is tired, mistakes can be made. You read something wrong, you misremember a number, your hands are just slightly off the keys.</b>" When he had been younger, fresher, and new to the force he had done that with a few reports he had to make. He had been running on adrenaline after a day where everything was going wrong and he had made so many errors. He doubted that Hayden would have that issue, honestly. Hayden was a lot smarter than he was and seemed awfully use to pulling these long hours...but surely that couldn't be good for him. Surely it was just as bad as Everitt sleeping all the time and unable to keep his eyes open. Then again, maybe Everitt was being smothering. Maybe Everitt was just boxing Hayden in and suffocating him slowly. <p> Logically he knew he should back off. He should say that Hayden was right, he could go to bed when he wanted and then just go to bed himself. That was what this was really about, right? He was tired so he was trying to make Hayden feel tired too. It was almost enough to make him drop away his hands and actually step away. Instead, he said, "<b>Come lay down with me, baby. I'm tired and I always rest better when you're with me.</b>" It manipulative, but at the same time, it wasn't untrue either. Everitt was a master of falling asleep. He was just tired all the time. The doctors said it was stress, it was depression, it was the fact that his body just didn't have fuel half the time to function. He had gotten better about it, but sleep was still one of those things he did most often. But what he had noticed was that he always did better when Hayden was sleeping next to him, when he had that smaller body to curl around, when he had the hair to snuffle into. Having Hayden at his side seemed to assure some part of his brain that things were okay. Things were fine and safe. |
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| Hayden Cunningham | Nov 17 2017, 12:35 PM Post #6 |
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Hayden frowned at Everitt's response - pouted, really, but he would never admit to that out loud. It wasn't that he didn't know that Everitt could be sarcastic, because he could be. It just always made him scowl and frown at the older man because he didn't like it. He had said that once and Everitt had actually laughed at him and said that was because Hayden was getting back what he gave to others and finding out it wasn't so nice. Hayden had stormed off like a cat with injured dignity and ignored Everitt for a couple of hours but he had been forced to admit that the older man was right. He wasn't used to other people treating him differently, even now. Everyone had usually praised him and petted him and said how wonderful he was - up until he was no longer considered his parent's son, anyways - and he was still taken back when someone was harsh to him or sarcastic. When he was being treated the way he treated other people. It had been a long, hard learning process, honestly. "Oh, shut up," he said, grumbling the words out. He continued to frown at the other man as he pointed out that Hayden hadn't been up for twenty four hours but that he had been up for almost twenty and that Everitt knew it for a fact because he had been up that long, too. Everitt was older than him with a body he had abused a fair amount. He slept a lot more than was probably healthy and his being up so late meant he had probably been doing it just for Hayden's sake. "Well, you don't have to stay up just because I do," he pointed out, knowing that it was childishly petulant but he couldn't stop it. He didn't like feeling guilty just because Everitt had stayed up with him. It wasn't as if he had forced the other man to do it. Even as he said that Everitt could just go to bed without him, though, he felt a selfish twinge that said he didn't want him to. He wanted Everitt to be awake and asleep with him so they didn't miss time together. "Very funny," he said as Everitt just gave him another sarcastic response to his statement. Everitt must be tired and grouchy if he was getting that sarcastic. Normally he just rolled his eyes at the things that Hayden said. He could admit that he didn't like Everitt bringing up the fact that he didn't date kids. It wasn't so much that he thought of himself as a kid - he was almost thirty years old, after all - but there was an eight year age gap between himself and Everitt. What if, one day, he decided that Hayden was a kid? What if, one day, he remembered that Hayden had honestly been the reason that he had been fired from his first job, that Hayden was a little bit broken both physically and emotionally, if he remembered that Hayden was really far more trouble than he was worth? He tried to shake that thought off, tried to dismiss it. He would just bring the mood down and get shirty with the other man if he started to think about things like that. "And you don't have to stay up, either. I do this all the time. I'm fine. You probably need the rest more than I do." Even as he spoke, he heard himself being harsher than he needed to be. He didn't want Everitt going to bed... equally, he didn't want to admit that the closer he got to thirty the harder it was to pull long nights. He still loved it, but he didn't bounce back up in the morning after a coffee. Instead he just stared blearily at a beverage that did nothing for him and dragged himself through his day until he finally got going. Not like when he had been twenty and could stay up for thirty six hours and be just fine. Not like when he had been twenty two and he could stay up until four in the morning, sleep for four hours, and then be out the door at eight for classes. He didn't want to admit that some days he actually needed as much rest as Everitt did. Sometimes, he wondered if Everitt heard the unspoken things in his words, the things that said he got tired of being treated like a breakable object by the world and yet he was always pleased at Everitt's tendency to try and keep him from doing harm to himself, that he didn't like the way your body started to turn on you even around thirty, that he didn't want to admit to a lot of things. He hoped so. He always felt that if he didn't then, one day, Everitt would just be one more person who finally got tired of him and called it quits. "I don't make mistakes," he grumbled the words out again, this time with very little heat. It was so hard to be angry when his eyes were closed and he was groaning like a pleased dog at the way that Everitt's hand massaged against his neck and his shoulders. The older man didn't let up, either. He somehow knew where the spots that had tightened up the most were, where spots of his neck had been hurting from how long he had been hunched over his laptop and his work bench. Maybe he did know. He and Everitt had been together for a decent amount of time now, honestly. If you counted before, it was even longer. It was likely that through repetition he had learned the places that bothered Hayden the most when he was working. He shifted just a little bit as Everitt hit a spot that had been particularly tight and tense and he gave another small groan. "Right there, baby," he managed to get the words out, all of his earlier moodiness forgotten in the face of how good Everitt's hands always managed to make him feel. Not only through massages. Not even only through sexual things, although he could most definitely say that Everitt always managed to make him feel good there, too. Sometimes, just the lightest touch of hand against his cheek sent all of his senses and his mood soaring. There was a moment of silence and then Everitt spoke in a way that was straightforward and honest and it did things to Hayden. It did things to Hayden because Everitt sounded so tired but also so hopeful that Hayden would do it. He turned around, opening his eyes to look at the other man. He knew that the other man had no problem nodding off - although it had improved once Hayden had started getting on him for his drinking and lack of eating - but that didn't stop his heart from jumping just a little as Everitt admitted that he rested better when he was there. He moved a hand up and smacked it against Everitt's chest. "That is cheating," he told the other man fiercely. After a moment he sighed slid his hand over Everitt's chest before he brought the other one up to rest there as well. Then he shifted close enough to rest his face against the older man's chest for a moment, closing his eyes again. "Just let me save everything," he finally mumbled out. |
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| Everitt Walker | Nov 17 2017, 12:38 PM Post #7 |
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Sometimes people asked Everitt what he saw in Hayden. Usually it was Denny because Denny and Hayden had hated each other almost on site; no matter what Everitt had done, from getting Denny to apologize for breaking in to making Hayden apologize for calling Denny terrible names. Denny couldn't understand what he saw in Hayden, mostly because Hayden was the exact opposite of Everitt's ex-wife. But Everitt had never really been the best at words, he felt. He had them when it counted, but they were few and blunt. How did he tell Denny that he thought it was adorable the way Hayden frowned and pouted but would never admit he was pouting? How did he admit that he found the nature to work hard endearing? How did he explain that the fact that Hayden giving in – whether it was doing what Everitt wanted or just listening to Everitt – had this feeling of a reward? "<b>Nah, I don't think I will. I seem to remember someone saying they actually really liked my voice?</b>" It was another tease. Inside their own home, Everitt figured it was okay to do. Inside their home, it was just Everitt and Hayden, whoever those people were. Outside they were entirely different from inside. It gave them more freedom this way. "<b>I got those sensitive 'yote ears, I'll hear you working away and I'll toss and I'll turn. Besides, I thought you might like the company.</b>" Everitt had never had a problem with falling asleep. It was something he had known and it had been the cause of him being absolutely devastated, but it was still something he did. Noise had never been a factor. Truthfully, he had been sort of dozing in his chair, but it <i>had</i> been that he wanted to keep Hayden company. He hadn't wanted to let Hayden be without someone to watch over him. <p> "<b>I am hilarious, thanks for clarifying.</b>" Some people would find it hard to figure out if Hayden was being more moody than usual. People would complain that Hayden was <i>always</i> that way, so how were they suppose to know the difference if he needed something? It had taken Everitt quite a bit of time to figure it out, sure, but it wasn't exactly <i>hard</i>. It just required patience, which he seemed to have, and it required being able to put up with Hayden. That sounded mean, but Everitt figured it hurt no one to admit that Hayden was hard to deal with at times. Granted there was a reason for all that, but it didn't change that sometimes it was a struggle. Hayden had some tells, though. He didn't usually snark this bad with Everitt when they were alone. He didn't get all huffy and puffy, though a case could be made that usually Everitt didn't make many demands of him. He gave a small sigh as Hayden spoke, the words harsh and Eveirtt felt a lesser man would have been more insulted. Maybe he should have been. Maybe he should have wrapped himself up in wounded dignity and stormed off. Instead, he scratched his chin. "<b>I probably do,</b>" he said easily, "<b>but the doctors have been saying I need to try not sleeping so much either.</b>" It had been one of the things Hayden had forced Everitt into. Going to see doctors for his sleeping problems, going in to get checked for his knees, going in for...everything. Hayden had crowed so proudly when Everitt had said the doctors said he had been burning more energy than he had, so in turn he slept more. "<b>But it doesn't change the fact of how long you've been up. No one should stay up that long.</b>" It was downright unnatural. Sure, it seemed like such a...young kid thing to do. Hell, he had done it a few times back when he was on the police force and he had balanced all the paper work and the busts and the stakeouts. It didn't change the fact that he was older now, that <i>Hayden</i> was older now. <p> "<b>Not yet you don't,</B>" he countered with the repeat. There wasn't much to take offense to in Hayden's tone, though. Everitt was slowly winning him over, he realized. Then again, maybe he was using an unfair advantage with rubbing at his shoulders. It wasn't that he had chosen to do that because he knew he could hit the right spots, but it was more...it was just a natural thing for him to do. When he took hold of Hayden's neck or shoulders, it was easy to gently squeeze. And from there, he figured it was just being a decent partner to keep doing it when the other proved that they liked it. He had always felt Hayden held too much tension. He had told Hayden that many times as they lay by each other after a session of sex with Everitt's fingers trailing over his side; Hayden always looked better without the tension weighing him down. He couldn't stop his small smile as Hayden gave a tiny groan, as Hayden told him right there. "<b>One day I'll have to figure out how to properly do this for you.</b>" Because Hayden seemed to like it and Everitt did like to see him relax. After all, if Everitt wanted him to relax more, shouldn't he be encouraging Hayden to do it more? Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go find a class on it, though it seemed awfully stupid to think of. Hell, the class instructor would probably take one look at his rough hands and say he would be absolutely useless giving massages. <p> Hayden was silent in response to his words and for a long moment, Everitt fretted that maybe, just maybe, Hayden would continue to reject him. If he did, Everitt would have to gracefully back out, no matter how much he wanted to say different. No matter how much he would just want to grab Hayden and throw him over his shoulder. But then Hayden gave him a long look before smacking him on the chest and declared he was cheating. Everitt just leaned down, wrapping an arm loosely around Hayden's shoulders so he could press a kiss against his temple. "<b>It's not cheating if it's true.</b>" It was and it wasn't. He had a pretty easy time falling asleep, but it was that he liked falling asleep with Hayden. He liked lying there in the darkness with Hayden pressed against his chest, breathing in Hayden's scent and being lulled by Hayden's heartbeat. It soothed some part of him that he couldn't be sure was an animal with a mate or just a human in love. Hayden moved into him, moved his other hand up to rest against him and then there was surrender. He lifted his hand up to stroke through Hayden's hair. "<b>You got it, baby,</b>" he said easily. Anything Hayden wanted because Everitt had won the war. |
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| Hayden Cunningham | Nov 17 2017, 12:38 PM Post #8 |
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"Must have been someone else," Hayden huffed at him, although there was very little heat at all in his words. The fact of the matter was that he very, very much liked the sound of Everitt's voice. He liked the deep rumble of it. He liked the roughness of it. He liked the timbre of it, the fluctuations of his words, his speech patterns. He liked everything about the way that Everitt spoke and the other man was right. He liked it. He wouldn't like it if Everitt actually did shut up. But, then again, that was all part of their relationship, wasn't it? Hayden said and did things that he didn't mean simply because he was mad or because he just wasn't used to having to be honest with anyone and Everitt poked holes in his pride and made his way through to see what it was that Hayden actually meant. It always surprised Hayden that Everitt made the effort, honestly. There were so many people that had decided that Hayden just wasn't worth the effort that he always expected the same from the older man but Everitt always, always surprised him. Things like right now, when Everitt pointed out that he had thought that Hayden might like the company. When had anyone ever thought about what he wanted like that? Even his parents hadn't, although they had made so much of him for such a long time it was always tinged with a feeling of doing it because they wanted him to be this perfect example of what they wanted and not because they thought he wanted it (although a part of him argued that they did do plenty of what he wanted when they gave him whatever he was whining for at the time). "Well, I guess you would hear anything with how big your ears are as a coyote," he said, perfectly aware that it was rude... but it was also his version of teasing and it seemed like only a very few people had been able to realize that Hayden could tease. Everitt, Brook... and there the lines were pretty much drawn. Everyone else just assumed he was being a rude smart ass. Which he was most of the time but it was also true. Coyotes just had big ears. It was a simple fact and it wasn't like he was saying Everitt in his human form had big ears. Hayden rolled his eyes as Everitt once again deadpanned something, saying that he was hilarious. "Yeah, I'm laughing so hard right now," he said in his own version of a deadpan. The simple fact of the matter was that Hayden did actually think Everitt was pretty funny - when he wasn't poking at him. When he wasn't tired and in the middle of a project. The problem was just simply that Hayden was prickly and he had many things that he didn't like - one of those was being interrupted in the middle of something and told that he should be doing something else. He knew Everitt had figured that out by now but it also didn't stop the older man from doing it, either. Not if he thought that someone else would be better off doing something else. He had little to no problem in trying to wrest control away from Hayden at that point. Hayden gave a huff as Everitt just mildly scratched at his chin despite Hayden's words and then spoke in an almost laconic manner. It was both infuriating - because Hayden wanted to see reactions sometimes - and it was also something that he knew - he knew - was calculated to prick Hayden's desire to see Everitt healthier and yet he couldn't stop himself from being filled with the need to push Everitt to do just that. "That's because you sleep too much because you still don't eat enough," he huffed the words out. It had been a struggle to try and get more and more energy into Everitt but it was a struggle that Hayden had been willing to take on. He could only huff and roll his eyes again as Everitt moved back onto him and said that Hayden shouldn't be staying up that long. "It's not that bad," he protested, knowing that he was fighting a battle here that could go one of three ways - he could lose poorly, he could win poorly or he could just accept the fact that he was tired and it was late and it meant neither of them had to be hurt or angry about the fact. So he just blew out a sigh but he didn't further his protests for the moment. One of the things that he loved about Everitt was his steadfastness, his ability to stick with what he wanted; tenacity. What he hated about Everitt was the exact same thing sometimes. When he was being kind, it was tenacity and focus. When he was being sour, it was stubbornness and an unwillingness to budge. "And I haven't so far," he countered yet again. A bit of a lie. Everyone made mistakes, even supposed geniuses. He hadn't made a mistake tonight though and that was what he really meant. Another problem with Everitt was how hard it was to stay mad at him most of the time. Maybe it was because Everitt didn't react to most of what Hayden did and that let the flames die down. Maybe it was because Everitt was also patient and while he didn't let Hayden get away with things he was never vicious about when he pointed out wrongs. He was just... steady. He was steady in everything. It was also damn hard to be mad when his large, strong, rough hands were rubbing in just the right spot. It was almost enough to make Hayden's eyes roll up and his knees to buckle because his muscles were responding in a way that made his legs feel like jelly and like he needed to lie down and go to sleep right now. It wasn't fair in the least. Sometimes, he honestly forgot what it felt like to not be tense. It wasn't like he made some effort to be stressed or tense, but things happened and he would get wound up. It was times like these that a sudden relief from the tension made him practically melt. "You do a pretty good job as is," he groaned the words out. After he smacked him, Everitt leaned in close to wrap his arm around his shoulders and the older man pressed a light kiss against his head. Hayden could only sigh out his defeat at that. Though he might present a prickly front most days, he was as susceptible to small gestures as the next person. Maybe even more so. Whatever the case, things like that made his willpower diminish rapidly. "It's still cheating," he grumbled the words out. He knew that Everitt could sleep very well without his being there but just the mere thought of his sleeping well because Hayden was there just... filled him with some kind of glee. He couldn't deny that he liked the same thing. He liked the warmth and the feel of the body next to his, the steady heartbeat that thrummed against his hand and the rising and the falling of the chest beneath that same hand. It was all lulling. He made a small, pleased little noise as Everitt reached up to stroke his hair and when he spoke he used a term of endearment that made his stomach flip-flop. It wasn't like Everitt didn't use it often. He'd just used it before. But God, sometimes, he couldn't even believe it. He pressed his face against Everitt's chest, breathing in his distinctive scent and then he reluctantly pulled back and pushed away so he could turn back to the computer, saving all of his data and his work before he shut the laptop entirely. "There." |
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| Everitt Walker | Nov 17 2017, 12:39 PM Post #9 |
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"<b>Hm,</b>" he murmured out the noise, "<b>Maybe it must've been.</b>" He would have gone on further, saying of course it was or list someone who had actually said that it was a nice voice in the past...but talking with Hayden was like walking a very fine line of things. He was, as he had teased the younger man before, a cat. It was all well and good to tell Hayden that he liked his voice, he liked Everitt's arm strength, he liked Everitt's warmth because those were all true. Hayden was just a prissy cat that hated being told what he did and didn't like and he would flounce away shrieking that it wasn't him who said these things, how dare he even imply this, much less say it so blatantly. But if Everitt were to say that someone else had said it and say oh he heard these things all the time? Hayden would be tipped over the edge into legitimate anger. That wasn't teasing him about something he knew to be true, but reminding Hayden that there had been other people before him. And while, on a logical level, he knew Hayden knew that that had to be true for both of them, Hayden didn't particularly want to <i>hear</i> about them. As much as Hayden wouldn't admit it, Everitt got the feeling that he'd probably start thinking about all the partners Everitt had, the ones that had and hadn't existed. He would think about what they were like and create this "perfect" partner in his eyes that Everitt was still thinking of to this day, then he would think about how that partner probably did things for Everitt that Hayden couldn't or wouldn't. It would play into Hayden's doubts about himself. If Everitt were lucky, Hayden would just snarl that maybe he should go back to the person he named then if he was so insistent. If he were unlucky...well, what they had was still on the building blocks, slowly but surely being brought up. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that between him and Hayden, they would knock it all to the ground and shatter. That seemed like an awfully big price to pay for an imaginary someone. "<b>It's true,</b>" he agreed with Hayden's comments easily, "<b>So you can understand how hard it is for me.</b>" Maybe Everitt should have been insulted that Hayden just called his ears big, but if it were a true jab, it would have been with a lot more vicious look. And, hell, Everitt could potentially use this to his advantage if he played the cards down right. <p> He gave a small nod of his head. "<b>See, they say couples that laugh together, stay together. I guess we just go to prove that point.</B>" Truthfully they worked for a lot of reasons. Mostly it was just the fact that Everitt was apathetic, long since giving up trying to figure out if that was his actual personality or if it was some disorder or something. On the opposite spectrum, you had Hayden who felt <i>too</i> much, even when he was going out of his way to say he didn't care about this or that. Honestly if someone was trying that hard to prove he <i>didn't</i> care, then he was definitely caring too much. That was how they worked; it relied on Everitt being able to let the things roll off his back and carry on and for Hayden to see that sometimes his attitude would get him what he wanted in someone staying or what he didn't want in no reaction. Truthfully, they probably didn't laugh all that much together. Not that they weren't happy, but their senses of humor didn't run the same way; Hayden tended to prefer the more "witty" humor, the kind of humor that took needing to know plays on words or were at someone's expense. Everitt's, on the other hand, usually was plain old self depreciating that just relied on being mopey sometimes. They had laughed together over a few things (well, more like they snorted over something the other had said), but that wasn't what kept them together. At Hayden's next words, he spread his hands a little in a shrug. "<b>I'm eating more than I use to,</b>" he said, even as he knew that was more or less what Hayden was talking about. It wasn't <i>enough</i>. A part of him thought that he needed to turn the conversation back around, turn it back to Hayden and him needing to rest...but a part of him felt a pause. This could potentially work. Sometimes Hayden got so wrapped up in what he was doing with someone – scolding them, yelling at them, trying to boss them around – he didn't realize what was actually happening. He could possibly be telling Everitt to go to bed and Everitt could swing it so that he came along until the next thing Hayden realized, he was in bed. "<b>It's not that bad,</b>" he repeated with little inflection in his voice. "<b>Is it only bad when you start hallucinating?</b>" He could say when Hayden started making mistakes, but Everitt knew that was a wrong move; that would make Hayden fluff up like a cat and prove him wrong out of spite. <p> Apparently he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut, though, because he still found himself uttering the words. At least, he felt, Hayden was responding better than he had hoped. He had expected a lot more snarling, a lot more wrapping himself up in wounded dignity, and a wall being built up between them so fast. "<b>Then you're proving how good you are.</b>" It was honestly true. Some days he felt if he told Hayden that, though, the younger man would sneer and say Everitt didn't even know what he was doing, how would he know if Hayden was doing good? It always depended on the mood Hayden was in; if he was in his version of pleasant, he would smirk and preen. If he was in a bad mood, he would snarl and jab at Everitt. Thankfully Everitt accepted that he would never in a million years understand it and for the most part, he recognized when Hayden threw shit like that in his face, he was <i>trying</i> to make Everitt angry, which in turn made it easier to not react. "<b>But you want to keep that record up, right? Then don't chance fate.</b>" It made sense to Everitt. If <i>he</i> were smart, he wouldn't want to make mistakes, he'd want to keep his track record up so he could continually shove it into a person's face. For a long moment, he focused on just massaging the muscles out of Hayden's shoulders, on finding each bad pressure point and working it out. He wondered if Hayden would be mad if he gave him an appointment to go get a massage. More likely he would just not go to it. Hayden wasn't <i>completely</i> avoidant to touch, but he wouldn't want some stranger doing it either and Everitt? He could understand that, probably better than anyone thought he could. "<b>Well, I <i<am</i> here to serve.</b>" From some, he was sure, it would sound bitter or sarcastic or bitterly sarcastic, but Everitt meant it. Some people would say that he shouldn't have gone into this relationship <i>serving</i> Hayden, but...a part of Everitt liked it. It was the coyote brain, he felt, that viewed this kind of thing as providing for his mate. <p> The sigh was defeated, but Everitt considered it a winning sound. It had just taken time, patience, which Eveirtt had great amounts of some days and especially towards Hayden. The thing with Hayden was that one had to know how to go into it, one had to be ready for the long haul, had to be ready to hear ten 'no's before there was a slow relenting and even then it wasn't always the immediate results someone might want. "<b>All right, I'm a no good cheater, that's fair,</b>" he said easily. He could live with being a cheater if it got him what he wanted. He could live with it if Hayden kept making pleased noises and if he kept pressing his face against Everitt's chest. Finally Hayden pulled back enough so that he could turn back to his computer, clicking all the little things that Everitt assumed were for saving, and then, finally, the laptop was closed. As Hayden said 'there', Everitt leaned in to steal a long kiss. "<b>Thank you,</b>" he said it softly because it was something to thank hayden for. He could have just ignored everything Everitt said and just kept working, but he had listened. He nuzzled against Hayden's hair before he pulled back just enough to scoop Hayden into his arms. IT always seemed to make the younger man squawk and rant, but at the same time, he had felt the way Hayden had turned more into his arms before or caught his eyes going half lidded and smelled the desire there. Other times, it was mostly just Hayden ranting, but he would keep doing it for the few times he had gotten the response. That and it was again a good feeling for him, feeling of holding his partner and loving him. |
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| Hayden Cunningham | Nov 17 2017, 12:39 PM Post #10 |
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"I can't imagine who would," Hayden commented, with a slight cast of his gaze over his shoulder. It wasn't a coy move, but it was... a different move from how he normally was. He and Everitt were still testing the waters somewhat it felt like. Some days, Hayden felt like they didn't understand each other at all. Other days, he felt like no one had ever understood him as well as Everitt did - or that no one else could possibly have ever understood Everitt the way he did. Maybe that was a balance of life, though. Maybe that was normal for relationships. Hayden had had relationships before, but they'd never been like this and he really wasn't quite sure what was good and what wasn't. He supposed the fact that he liked being around Everitt was the biggest telling factor. He knew that he could be harsh. He knew he sometimes "tested" Everitt in ways that he shouldn't. It was hard to not want to continuously test him, though, because he was just so sure that one day Everitt would finally hit the threshold and Hayden... Hayden just wanted that to happen early on if that was the case. If Everitt were to grow tired of him, make it now before anything else happened, before he got too deep into this rabbit hole. It was just very hard, he had found, liking someone. Being angry and bitter had put a shield up that kept him somewhat safe, if a bit lonely. Wanting to like someone, wanting someone to like him? It was something he wasn't used to and it made him vulnerable. every word, every action, was like a pitfall waiting to open up beneath either of them. Some days, he snapped and snarled and cursed Everitt... but there were many days he silently thanked him for being a damn saint when it came to patience. Everitt just further proved that patience as Hayden commented on his coyote form's ears and Everitt just agreed with him in his nonchalant and easy manner. "You know, they make ear plugs," he commented with a light huff, although he didn't want Everitt to do that. He didn't want Everitt to feel like he had to, for one thing and another.... Hayden had been born deaf. He had made his way through life with his implant and there were difficulties he faced but, mostly, his life went along moderately smoothly. He couldn't ever say, though, that he had slept soundly before Everitt. Having Everitt willfully deadening his sense of hearing would only serve to make Hayden feel unnerved at night. "Do they say anything about couples that roll their eyes at one another?" Hayden questioned him with an eye roll to follow it up. There were an awful lot of things that 'they' said and whoever the nebulous 'they' were, they generally weren't too right about Hayden. But, then again, Hayden supposed he had been so isolated as a child that it was only likely that he wouldn't quite have the same outlook on things as most normal individuals did. He had to wonder how often he and Everitt laughed with each other. Hayden was never much for laughing. Some people probably were sure he had no humor at all, but he found humor in some things - wit, usually. Sometimes in things he knew he wasn't supposed to, like being nasty and making someone he didn't like realize how much better Hayden was than them. Yet he could remember times where Everitt was rumbling out a chuckle at something Hayden said and times where Hayden scoffed but then he gave a laugh - a small thing - after the fact. He supposed it didn't matter because there were plenty of other things that they did, right? Hayden made sure Everitt ate and showered, had cleaned up him and his apartment. Everitt kept him leashed, somewhat. Everitt put up with things and though he might never admit it out loud, Everitt had made him more human than he probably had been in awhile. He watched Everitt spread his hands and he gave another huff, this one a sound that said he wasn't pleased with the answer. "Not enough," he said. Hayden had done a lot of studying on how much someone needed to sleep or eat, on sleep disorders, and the like and he had started pushing fuller, healthier meals on Everitt but he knew Everitt still wasn't eating as much as he should because Hayden wasn't there all the time. "Oh, shut up," Hayden grumbled as Everitt made his voice something halfway between a tease and a scoff and then asked if it was only bad when he started hallucinating. "I don't hallucinate either." Hayden couldn't stop himself from preening somewhat when Everitt spoke. He was trying to be mad at the other man - or mildly irritated - he told himself, but it was very hard when Everitt gave him a compliment and the compliment was spoken so easily and without a hint of simpering, of being patronizing or even of trying to placate Hayden. The words were just spoken simply and just as if they were a fact. "You're damn right I am," he huffed the words out, still feeling more pleased with himself than he honestly wanted to let on. It mattered to him, he knew, more than probably anyone realized that Everitt think well of him. He didn't have much to offer to the older man, he felt, and it was important to have even some recognition of his talents because he was sure there weren't many other things that Everitt could praise him for. He gave another huff at Everitt's words. "I wouldn't," he said, knowing the words just sounded like a petulant child now more than anything else. The problem was he couldn't guarantee that. At some point, he would make mistakes. He just didn't want to admit to that. It was also hard to argue and very hard to even think when Everitt was doing what he was doing. All he wanted to do was groan and drop and just lie there a puddle. He made a small noise at the words. "I like the sound of that," he said, although the words sounded a bit slurred with the way that his energy seemed to be draining quickly with the touches and the firm pressure on his shoulders and back. Hayden felt like he should be mad at the older man, but it was hard to be when his limbs felt like jelly and he just felt tired and... content. It was even harder when he was resting with his face in Everitt's chest, smelling the scent of the man, the slight musk, the scent of his cologne, feeling the warmth that radiated off of him and the strong arms around him, the hand just playing against his back. It was very, very hard to be upset with anything at that point in time. "At least you know it," he grumbled to Everitt with zero heat. It was hard to leave the warmth of the arms and the strength of them to even do such a simple task as saving his work and shutting the laptop down. He was rewarded, however, with a long kiss. When Everitt thanked him, he just gave a soft huff, a 'whatever' that was almost silent, and then he fell silent as Everitt nuzzled him. Then he gave a loud squawk of indignation as Everitt suddenly scooped him into his arms. "Ritt!" he half squawked and half scolded, almost writhing in those arms except... he didn't want to fall and he didn't exactly want Everitt to let go. |
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8:37 AM Jul 11