Re: [in-person: holly & noah.]
[What Holly said was direct, and, rationally, Noah knew it was more about Holly's dad than it was about Noah himself. But, the words still scared him. Like Holly saw something about him, some edge he was teetering on, that he himself couldn't see. Like the floor could fall out from under him at any second and he'd never see it coming. He'd be lost to a miserable depression. Or, idk, worse. Forever. Noah chewed his lip. Holly's mind was flipping through memories, experiences, about his dad and his stuff, and Noah was trying hard not to, like, feel/experience/think the stuff. He didn't want to overhear it. He didn't want to know it. Because, if he knew it, he had to deal with it. And if he had to face up to the fact that Holly felt like they needed to sever the connection again or find some way to manage it that felt scary to Noah, Noah would probably cry, and he was tired of crying.
But, on the bed, when Holly made that comment about kissing him—or, not kissing him, and Noah took a second, dude. He leaned in, rolling toward Holly on his hip, to give him the kiss the dude was sure he'd been denied. It wasn't long. Noah needed to get up and get the stuff they needed or it'd never get done, but he delivered. Warm, soft—and short. Noah rolled away, did all the stuff I said before, and smiled as Holly tried to get out from beneath the marshmallow that had suddenly descended on him.—Noah did reach for his stash bag, though, and while he'd been planning bong rips, lucky for Holly, Noah could read minds AND had some joints with him. He moved back to the bed, walking on his knees on the mattress, on top of the mountain of blankets, and he lit the blunt and took a long hit to get it going.—He flopped down onto his side, elbow and hip, took another hit, just to be annoying, then placed the blunt in his husband's expectant hand. He exhaled with something like a smile, the back of his throat burning in the best fucking way.]