They were asleep. Or, well, Avery was. Jake laid awake, watching him as the younger boy liked to joke about sometimes. Jake couldn’t help it. Sometimes he just couldn’t take his eyes off Avery’s face.
He had turned onto his side, and they were curled close, Avery’s head bent towards Jake’s shoulder. He watched the other boy’s eyes flutter in his sleep, and wondered what he was dreaming about. He wondered if he was dreaming about him.
Reaching up very, very carefully, Jake lightly brushed the backs of his fingers over Avery’s cheek, and brushed stray hair back away from his eyes. As he gently threaded his fingers into the smaller boy’s hair, pressing closer, he held his breath as Avery sighed in his sleep and pressed closer as well, shifting, as Jake watched silently, to press his hand to Jake’s chest right over his heart. His breath catching, Jake watched the smaller boy sleep on even as his fingers curled carefully into his shirt.
His heart beat harder, as if Avery’s touch drew the very life of him forward, for him. That heart beat was for him. A rush of emotion swept over him, just like the blanket of warmth that seemed to come right from Avery’s hand ad Jake wondered if Avery knew how much that was true.
They could tangle their legs and their hands and even their lips, and wrap themselves around each other, but that tie went so much deeper. Jake could feel it. It pulled his heart when Avery was upset; it squeezed his chest when Avery was hurt. It pulsed through him when Avery laughed. They were weaved throughout each other, every inch, every thought, every heartbeat. If someone were to take Avery away from him, tear him away, Jake felt like he would bleed. He knew he would die.
It was impossible for anyone to love someone this much, to need someone like this. It had to be. Yet it wasn’t. It was filled Jake up like water, quickening his pulse, warming him from the inside out, until he almost felt like he couldn’t breathe. And still, Avery slept on, those thin, delicate fingers gently holding Jake’s shirt.
He combed his fingers slowly through Avery’s messy half curls, feeling his heart beat against the smaller boy’s palm. Avery shifted, leaning his head slightly back into Jake’s hand, his face now tilting up to him. Jake pressed closer, until the tip of their noses touched. He closed his eyes.
“How can you ever know how much I love you,” he breathed.