Dresden Gibson

     It's May.

     And while I like to think that some things do get easier with time, this particular thing, Cas lounging something like ten — twelve feet away, in a pile of blankets and pillows, and me unable to join him, has not. They're my pillows, and my blankets, that I'll take back inside later and sleep on. They'll hold his scent even after he's left. The only thing that lingers longer than his shampoo is the pain of watching him go.

     There's nothing standing in my way, nothing that could stop me from opening the screen door and walking out there and joining him. Except that Cas would lose it. We've had this fight enough times now that I can play it in my head like a recording.

     And this is better than it's been. He's not stuck on the front stoop, always looking like he's about to leave, even when he's just gotten here. It's actually kind of absurd how long it took us to figure out we could have the same distance with the privacy of the backyard. I got a projector screen so we've been doing movie nights. If not for the fact Cas cuddles with Charlie and Delta and I've got to watch from the doorway like some weird peeping Tom, it's almost like before.

     Still, none of this is getting easier. In fact, I think it's just getting harder.

     Because he's here, now, and the sun hasn't set yet. He's bathed in a golden light, looking all bronzed and pretty, sprawled across the blankets. His shirt's hiked up a bit, and he's strumming his fingers across the patch of skin between his belly button and the waist band of his sweatpants. His hair's gotten longer, unruly now because he rolled through the grass when he got here with Charlie and Delta. They're lying at his feet, haven't moved since we finished dinner. All of these are reasons I want to be in those blankets with him and not stuck in a chair on the other side of the screen door.

     "What're you thinking about?" Cas asks suddenly. He's turned over now onto his stomach to look at me, face propped up on his hand.

     "You," I say after a moment.

     He perks up at that, smiling. "Good answer."

     I say, "True answer."

     He turns his head to the side. "What are you thinking about me?"

     "What you look like naked," I answer because I know he'll appreciate it.

     He laughs loudly. There's a nervousness to the sound. "Better answer." He shifts again, sitting back so he can bring his legs in front of him. "So I actually have some news."

     "Bad news?" I ask frowning.

     Cas shakes his head quickly. "Good news. Great news, actually. Cases have dropped enough that the ER's back at a working capacity again. Which means that it's no longer all hands on deck. So I actually was able to get PTO approved."

     I interrupt him. "For when?"

     He laughs again. "Next week would be my last week and then I wouldn't be back at work until June. So I have two covid tests already scheduled and then—."

     "You can come home?" Another interruption.

     He nods. "Then I can come home."

     It feels like every muscle in my body has gone slack, like I've been carrying around tension since the day Cas packed up and left. I lean over in my chair, bracing my arms against my legs. I breathe deeply into my hands that are steepled in front of my mouth.

     "You're coming home," I say again, quieter, mostly to myself.

     Cas hears me though, and nods. "Yeah, so I'll take my PCR on Sunday and then my rapid test is scheduled for Friday morning so if that's negative I can come home right after."

     "It's going to be negative," I tell him, defensive.

     "Alright, don't jinx us now. I've managed to avoid this thing for two months. Eventually luck runs out."

     "Well now you're just jinxing yourself."

     Cas smiles. "In any event, I'm coming home Friday, barring any complications. So clear your schedule, big guy."

     I roll my eyes. "Oh, yeah, I'll need to move some things around what with the riveting and booming social life I have."

     "Quarantine has made you cynical," he says.

     "Quarantine has made me something..."

     Has made me miss you in a way that I didn't think was possible. In a way that makes the last five years feel like a primer. Like a lesson in coping from being away from you.

     "So then," I say slowly. "What happens when you go back to work?"

     I watch his expression, waiting for the face I've seen plenty of times now. The pained, guilty look he gets when he's about to say something I'm not going to like. He never makes the face.

     "Well," he responds. "They're going to start giving us rapid tests at the beginning of our shifts. And we'll still be in full PPE and with the numbers on a downward trajectory, I feel good about the risk, or, rather, lack thereof. So if you—."

     "I do," I say quickly.

     "You didn't even let me—."

     "Risk or no risk, I want you to come home permanently."

     Cas is pink in the face. "Okay, so I'm coming home permanently, then."

     I'm so relieved, I could cry.

Calvin Sumner

     The first covid test is the easiest.

     I'm unsuspecting, have no idea just how far up my nose they're going to shove this swab. I'm recording the whole thing for Dres, and for posterity's sake, so I play it off like my brain wasn't just tickled. My nurse swirls the swab, pulls it out without ceremony. I lift my finger under my nose to keep myself from sneezing as I give my phone a thumbs up.

     The second covid test I'm fully prepared for and already tense before the swab's even been removed from its package. My nurse laughs, can tell this is not my first covid-test rodeo.

     Mom gets home sometime after I've been tested. Naturally I left packing up my things to the morning so I'm upstairs finishing that. When I come downstairs, I find her in the living room drinking coffee. She stops me as I'm about to leave. "Heading out?" she calls. While I'm anxious to get back to Dres, I also feel badly about leaving her alone.

     She's got time off coming up, too, and is heading down to Florida to check on my grandparents. Not that they need any checking up on. They've been living it up. Even though they insisted they'd follow CDC guidelines, the pandemic south of the Mason-Dixon Line has been the luxury experience.

     I step into the room, dropping my two duffle bags at my feet. "Yep, just got the call my rapid's negative, so."

     She turns so she can look at me over the back of the sofa. She's holding the mug between her hands, the steam rising in front of her face. "I think it was very," she pauses, "selfless of you. To quarantine away from Dres. A show of real maturity. Not many people could have done that. Or even did. It's why we've been in this hot seat for so long."

     "Is it crazy to say this was somehow harder than the last five years away from him? Like this just hurt differently. I don't know."

     She smiles softly. "I think it says more about your relationship now. What he means to you. It's not crazy. It's love."

     "Okay but does this sound crazy: I think that he may be it for me. I know that life's not a fairytale and obviously this wasn't really some story book romance. But after everything we've been through. I'm just — I'm certain he's the one. Okay, even saying that aloud sounds extremely unrealistic. Or idealistic, I guess. I'm just, wooh — sleep deprivation and all that, just ignore me."

     "Cas," she says in that voice that always precedes a lecture. "Just because it doesn't look like the way our world and media would portray it, doesn't mean it isn't that. Doesn't mean Dres can't be the one or that you can't have a the one. If these last few months have any lessons to offer, it's that you have to be bold enough to live your life. You have to savor every moment of it. If you feel like Dres is the one, then you should let him know so that he can feel it, too."

     "That is...actually some of the best advice you've ever given me in your life. Seriously, someone woke up on the sage side of the bed this morning."

     She laughs, shaking her head. "Alright, it's been a blast but you're officially evicted."

     "You can't evict me when I'm already leaving," I exclaim picking my bags back up. "Okay, well, I'm going to be indisposed for the next three weeks—."

     Mom makes a wild noise like I just set a fire in the living room. "Cas, that is too much information!"

     "Indisposed because I am officially on vacation and turning my phone off. God, mom, get your head out of the gutter!"

     She waves me away. "Get out before you give me an aneurism."

     I call Dres when I'm down the street. He picks up on the first ring. Before he can even say hello, I go, "You will not believe this but my test came back positive."

     "What?" he practically screams into the phone.

     "Yeah, positive for being the most delicious piece of man meat on the market. Crazy, right?"

     "Are you — that is not funny, Cas."

     "You're right, it's downright hysterical."

     "You're not even on the market," he says irritably.

     "True, though I may have to put myself on the market if you leave me waiting in our driveway any longer, so."

     Dres hangs up on me. Grinning, I get out of my car. When I walk around to the lawn, Dres is there on the stairs staring at me like I could be an aberration. I pause, too, my heart beating fast. It doesn't make sense. This is Dres, after all. I have no reason to be nervous but it suddenly feels like that very first day I stepped foot into Weston's and he walked into the room and my breath left me and never came back. Maybe I'll be waiting all my life for my breath to come back. Maybe it never does. Maybe that's just what it means to be in love.

     He moves first, coming down the steps quickly. I run towards him, closing the distance enough so I can fling myself into his arms.

     Dres has to take a step back to steady himself but he pulls me tight against his chest, his arms like safety belts across my back. I press my palms down on his shoulders — my shoulders. And then I run them around to his back — my back. I remember this back. Ripped back, beautiful back. Scapula pulled taut as his arms attempt to make a second loop around my torso. He's got a snake-like hold on me, which makes sense since this is starting to feel like a mating ball occurring on the front lawn.

     Dres's head is curled into the side of my neck and he's breathing deeply. His chest expands against mine as he does. The heat of him makes me flushed and I can't really think straight, have to strum my fingers down the back of his neck to ground myself. To remind myself that this is real and really happening. After months of not touching anyone, I'm in Dres's arms and he smells like him.

     And like me?

     "Are you wearing my cologne?" I ask trying to pull away so I can look at him. Dres hasn't moved at all, nose glued to the junction of my neck that hits my shoulder. "Hello, sir, I'm talking to you. Can you come up for air, please?"

     He lifts his head, sliding it up my neck, across the underside of my jaw, a fluid motion that ends unexpectedly with his mouth on mine. He's definitely wearing my cologne and it is so hot, super hot, but not the subject of my focus anymore. Because the kissing? Even hotter.

     Dres has tipped me back and his tongue is in my mouth. I cling to his shoulders because it feels like I'm going to fall even though I know, logically, Dres can hold me up. There's more urgency in his kiss than I'm used to. He's kissing me so open and desperate, sliding his tongue over mine like he's trying to deliver a message to my throat. Which might be true because he's making these impatient, whiny sounds and I'm getting the sense that this is simply not close enough and yet I cannot imagine how we could get any closer in this moment. Only I can imagine it and then I do imagine it, and then I remember I don't need to imagine it anymore.

     Decidedly, absence makes the heart grow fonder and the dick grow harder.

     "Alright, we need to uh," I somehow manage to say despite the urgency as I try to pull away. Dres moves, kissing the side of my face, along my jawline, making me unfocused. "Nope, no, less of that." I reach over, grabbing his chin and holding his face away from mine. He turns his gaze on me, glaring. "We need to move this rodeo into the house because I'm about a second away from whipping my clothes off and making an absolute spectacle on the front lawn."

     "So let's make a spectacle, then."

     "I— you, you cannot make jokes like that, Dresden Gibson. Not when your boyfriend has tenuous, at best, sexual restraint. Please start moving your feet. I'm serious clothes are coming off in T-minus one."

     "What happened to the pillar of restraint?"

     "It freaking collapsed when you decided you were going to start wearing my cologne. Seriously, why are you moving so slowly."

     I shove Dres ahead of me. My hands are up the back of his teeshirt as he walks across the doorway, already bunching up the fabric. I kick door the closed behind me and he turns, crowding me against it. Before he can lean back in, I reach between us, lifting the hem of his shirt quickly. It's evidently not fast enough for Dres who pulls the fabric the rest of the way before reaching for my own shirt, yanking it over my head.

     And then we're kissing again, with the kind of intensity that negates finesse, usurps the need for it. The kind of kiss that knocks at my knees, makes me brace myself against the door so that I don't go down. Dres rakes a hand through my hair, dragging his fingers down towards the curls at the nape of my neck, getting a handful before he yanks on it, tipping my head upwards. I moan into his mouth and he practically swallows the sound as he sucks on my tongue.

     I feel my way over his shoulders, along the sharp cut of muscle etched like a horseshoe in the back of his arms, making my way to his pecs. Ah, yes, nipple piercings. My nipple piercings to do with what I see fit. I twirl the barbell in one, pinching the other. Dres makes this sound, sort of high pitched before he shifts his mouth, licking his way over my jaw. I lift my chin so he can get at my neck as I part ways with his chest, moving towards his jeans. Seriously, why is he wearing jeans? I'm commando in sweatpants because I have foresight, know to always come prepared.

     I make quick work of the button and zipper but I'm not going to get them off on my own. Dres isn't even paying attention to it, sucking at my neck hard enough to make me dizzy. "Dres, pants — pants, Dres. Take your pants off."

     He freaking growls at me like how dare I interrupt. I glare at him. "Excuse me, sir," I say. I don't really know where the 'sir' thing came from but it seems to be working. I'm feeling very sassy today and I jerked off to avoid exactly this so make that make sense. "Sorry but hickeys are like a lazy post-coital thing. There's allll the time in the world for hickeys but I'm currently in a sex fog that isn't going to be cured by some necking."

     "A sex fog?" Dres repeats, his tone amused as he raises an eyebrow at me. Evidently, necking is the cure-all for him. He seems perfectly at ease for someone who was trying to swallow my whole face seconds ago on the front lawn. Explain this sorcery.

     "Are you fucking me or not because I'm about to go put myself on the market. The black market. With a caption that reads my very hot boyfriend is treating me like a ninth grade hook up and I'm in need of — oh. Yes, that is, yep, that." Dres has stepped out of his jeans and shucked my sweatpants in the span of my little spiel. He's got his hand on me, jerking me slowly even though I'm already at full attention, leaking into his fist. He's dipped his head back in, planting wet kisses down my throat. They match the painstaking pace he's set with his hands.

     "Listen, I'm feeling very much like a hair trigger right now, like it would actually be embarrassing how much I am not gonna last here if I had the capacity to be embarrassed, which I do not because I'm using every ounce of energy here to not die. And so while I would love to draw this out and get oh-so-reacquainted with that body of yours I'm gonna need us to skip ahead to the end credits scene. Because if the first thing I do after quarantining from you for months is cum into your fist, I'm not gonna lie I'm gonna be a little pissed about it. Dres, are you even freaking listening to me right now? Stop doing that."

     Dres freezes, pulling away completely. I repress a whine. I wanted him to stop but also did not want him to stop at all. He's looking at me now and I have no idea what's happening until he says, "I cannot believe how much I've missed these monologues of yours."

     "I mean, that was more like a lament, but oh—."

     Dres shuts me up as he slides an arm around my waist and lifts me easily, like I weigh nothing. I don't weigh nothing, but I have lost weight. Long hours, stress, lack of sleep, and the fact I wear seventeen pounds of PPE that's more effort to take off than food is worth evidently. Still, the fact Dres can lift me like this is a testimony to his strength. It's also super duper hot.

     I expect him to walk us into the living room, or my favorite room to deface, the kitchen, but he doesn't, stepping forward instead, so I'm braced against the door.

     "Oh," I repeat tightening my legs around the backs of his thighs. I hook my heels for leverage and grip his shoulders. "I can get down with this. Also, I'm very much prepped and ready to go."

     He laughs and the sound vibrates against my sternum where his head is pressed. "I figured as much."

     And that's about all the warning I get before Dres gets his dick in me. And not in a drawn out, inch by inch sort of way. In an instance, he's buried deep. We stopped using condoms when I moved in. We both got tested, talked extensively about the implications of not using protection. There's a lot of trust you're putting in someone when you take away that barrier. I hadn't understood that the first time we'd done it, but I did now. And it was good, knowing that we were both on the same page.

     "Loosen your legs a bit," he says. His voice is tight. I wonder if I'm hurting him.

     "We could totally take it to the floor," I say but I don't exactly mean it. It feels like I'm being fucked in space, like I'm levitating, and it's the kind of intensity that could make me weep. Even though Dres is hardly moving. It's the press of him inside me, how he's buried to the base and panting against my chest. Gravity is working in our favor.

     I rest my chin on his head, which smells like me, also. I definitely took my shampoo when I left so Dres had to have ordered his own. That's enough to punch an orgasm out of me. I could probably get an award for that. World's Fastest Orgasm Brought On by Scent.

     "Cas," Dres says and I try to look at him but it's hard at this angle. "Let your legs go."

     I know my expression is skeptical. "Is that a good idea?"

     "I've got you," he says and I believe him, trust him, so I unhook the heels of my feet from the insides of his knees, letting them sort of dangle.

     He does have me, all of me really. I'm suspended against the door. Dres shifts me downwards, hiking my legs up between us so my knees are pressed against his chest. The suddenness of it, the angle and movement, jolts me. I pinch my eyes closed, taking an uneasy breath. It's good, it's really good, everyone should be fucked against a door once or maybe ten times in their life. I think we'll just have to work this into our weekly rotation.

     I get control of myself. Mindful breathing is helping. I open my eyes, meeting Dres's gaze. It's intensely focused, his eyebrows pulled taut. I'd laugh if my body wasn't contorted like a pretzel.

     And, anyway, the concept of laughing dissipates pretty quickly. Somehow, despite the gravity-defying physics of it, Dres is fucking up into me. Short thrusts that deliver a bolt of pleasure each time that makes the blood simmer where his hands are holding me. All the blood in my body is clearly trying to move to my dick, which couldn't get any harder if I delivered a shot of viagra right into it.

     It's over way too soon. It was always going to be way too soon, though.

     I think I'd like to stay here, against this door, with Dres, forever. It's all very crazy when I think about it. About what he means to me, has always meant to me. I was holding out hope, even when I'd stopped writing, even when I hated him. There was never going to be anyone else, but Dres, for me. Not because of destiny, not because we were fated and this is true love. But because I chose him, I decided on him. He's who I want to spend the rest of my life with and I should probably tell him that, but not right now. I don't think I can make coherent sentences as it stands.

    I press my palms to his face, one on each cheek. He's rosy and his cheeks are hot. But he's beautiful and I am having a hard time digesting all of this. That I'm back home, here, with him. And then because my brain is stupid, I start thinking about all the people who have died, of the people I had to FaceTime and tell them that their partner was dying, and they should say goodbye. I am so lucky, I think, that it wasn't me. That it wasn't us.

     "Don't cry," Dres says suddenly which is like exactly what you don't say.

     "I'm not," I say which is like exactly what you do say when...

     "You are."

     So I just drop my head and leave it there on his shoulder. He has to be getting tired holding me up but I can't move just yet. I'm still waiting for the blood to drain from my dick and return to my extremities.

     "What's wrong?" he asks quietly.

     "Nothing," I mumble into his arm. "Nothing's wrong. Everything's right."

     "Then why are you crying?"

     "Because I'm so — I'm just so...grateful. I feel very grateful for this little life."

     "This little life," he repeats back after a moment. He's always doing that. Repeating me.

      "So I know it's like not even noon but would it really be absurd if we went to bed right now?"

     I want to lay with you is what I don't say.

     I want to curl up against you and use your heat as a blanket.

      I want to be with you in my dreams, too.

    Dres doesn't answer but he starts walking, takes me upstairs just like that, clinging to his chest. When we get upstairs, he walks to his bed and dumps me there before disappearing into the bathroom. I land with a bounce. Not his bed, I realize. Our bed. My bed again. A much nicer bed than the one at my mom's. Smells deliciously of Dres.

    "Oh, sweet bed, how I missed thee," I say as I throw my arms and legs out like a starfish.

     "Don't move," Dres calls before he returns to the room carrying a washcloth.

     "You and your sheets," I mock quietly. God forbid a body fluid touch them. Not when they're a million thread count Egyptian cotton.

     He kneels above me, cleaning me in that weird meticulous way he has a tendency to do. "Can I move now?" I ask when he's finished. He gives me an unamused look. I throw a leg out, wrapping it around his hip as best I can so I can push him down and roll onto him.

     "What is this?" he asks now very much amused. I burrow my head into his neck, nipping at the thick muscle that makes up his traps. "I thought coming to bed meant you wanted to sleep?"

     "I do but I also need to re-familiarize myself with this foreign body in bed with me."

     "What am I a UFO?"

     "Among other things," I mumble into his suprasternal notch. I sprawl out against his body, pressing my arms against his and my legs against his so we're stacked like pancakes.

     "Other things?" he asks quietly.

     "You're the love of my life first," I say. "UFO second, meh-communicator third."

     "My communication skills are a bit more than meh, I think," he responds but his voice is off.

     "Are they, though?" I ask, lifting my head so I can look up at him. He has to tuck his chin down to make eye contact. He brings his hand up to my face. I place my hand over his.

     "Love of your life?"

     "This life, the next life, the one before. All of them, I think."

     Dres is quiet for a moment. I rest my chin on his chest so I'm still looking at him but not straining. He's looking at me. Finally, he says, "You're being very candid today."

     I bite my lip, nodding my head slightly. I say, "If you love someone, you should let them know so they can feel it, too."

     "I can feel it."

     I let us have this moment.

      But because I'm also unapologetically me, I break the silence with, "Well that actually may be my dick that you're feeling."

     Dres jabs me in the side. "You're ridiculous," he says but he's laughing.

     "But you lurveee it," I croon as I roll off of him. I really did want to go to sleep. There's going to be a round two, probably three, possibly four today. Gonna need the sleep to replenish my energy.

     I swing my leg back over his hips and an arm, too, because decidedly he can't move or leave until I've had my fill of touching him, which may take a week or so.

     Dres isn't complaining, lifting his arm up in the air so I can tuck myself up against his side. I'm half-asleep when Dres says, "I just want you to know."

     Drowsy, getting drowsier by the second, I repeat back, "You just want me to know."

     "I fully intend to marry you."

     "Not if I marry you first."

     "Oh, is it a competition now?"

     "Yeah, I'll race you to the alter."

     "I'm faster than you."

    "That may be true, but I play dirty. I'll trip you."

    "You'll probably trip yourself."

     "Funny guy."

     "I'm serious though."

     "About which part?"

     "The first part."

     "Yeah," I say after a moment. "I'm serious about that, too."