The other side.

Long, fluffy fic is long and fluffy.

If by some cruel twist of fate either Jesse, TotalBiscuit, or anyone who is able to relay this onto them ever finds this, please turn and leave. This isn’t meant for your eyes and you know it. its nothing dirty anyway. Dont you have better things to do?

anywhoodles.

This time it wasn’t Jesse’s fault.

They had packed just about everything. Every blade, ball, boomerang, whip, fancy-shmancy do-dad and charm John had deemed useful. So what was the cause of this unrest? Surely no monster could violate the glory that was their makeshift cabin of solid candy cane. No, a zombie would sooner be struck by lightning than catch this duo off-guard. It was just that John was so busy with packing every flavour of weapon, he forgot to bring a bed.

John was more than reluctant at first. He would sleep on the floor if he had to, maybe even take the hike back to the village to pick up the other one, anything but crawling into bed with Jesse. That’s what he said at least, but it seems he had less against it than he made it sound. There were no real efforts to get away, and in the back of his mind Jesse suspected him of only saying it to keep up his Jesse-hating reputation. When dark rolled around John checked all around the hut, seeing if the rainwater eroded the candy cane while they were out. He and Jesse had shed their armour and threw on their sleep clothes, To John one corner of the room and Jesse the other. Jesse stared at the wall intensely, trying to push the thought that the faint rustling sound on the other side of the room was the sound of john stripping.

It wasn’t that that bothered him, though. He would have been fine with this had someone else tagged along, was all. Back at their village-ette, there were plenty of people. Wake up in the morning, there’s a person sharing your house. The partner is in the house next door. That was what he was used to. Hell, some odd part of him was preaching about how those were the rules. Damn it, why was he being such a pansy about all this? Because he’d be sleeping next to a man that has made it very clear he hates his guts, that’s why.

“…Are you trying to burn a hole in the wall?” Jesse jumped at the hand on his shoulder, snapping back to earth. “You weren’t blinking.” Jesse made a face at Him, he had obviously made him jump on purpose.

John had a black T-shirt with the name of some obscure band that he didn’t know and black and grey checked pants. Jesse himself was wearing black pants and a blue-grey shirt. They had both bought them from the tailor, but it took a while for them to have the money to afford such “frivolous things”. For the longest time Jesse found himself curled up in nothing but boxers and a sheet on cold nights, dreaming of the day he would have the luxury of pants.

John gestured with his head towards the ball of light that had been floating around him for most of the day as he waved his hand snuffing his own out. Jesse turned and moved his hand through the heatless light a couple times, making it disperse into fog and slip out the crack under the door. The room was very dimly lit now, only a small flame by the door from complete blackness.

John was the first to slip into bed. He did so wordlessly with a disturbing amount of grace, even for a man that just spent his day fighting off the undead and other unspeakable horrors. In one swift motion he was under the covers, back turned. Jesse worked with less ease. He flipped the covers back and sloppily slid his way beside him, panicking when his foot brushed against John’s pantleg.

Jesse smirked as he decided to do what always made him feel better in situations like these. Be an idiot. “Good night sweetie.” He said in a sing song voice, earning him a swift elbow to the gut. “Good night you insufferable moron.” John mimicked back, voice seeping with sarcasm.

And the silence following it was deafening. Some part of jesse’s mind had decided to slideshow all the points where he could have avoided this. He could have slept on the floor, surely the candycane imprint on his face from the dye wouldn’t last that long. He wouldn’t even have had to do that, he could have slept on the pile of cobwebs that had gathered In their inventories. If he had tracked back early enough in the day to go get the bed he would have even had to sleep on the floor, but no.

Jesse you utter dipshit.

Shut up brain.

Eventually the need for sleep won over his nerves and he slipped into sleep, while desperately trying not to move too much. It would have been nice if it had stayed that way, but no. The back of Jesse’s mind was simply beating up on him that night left right and center.

 He didn’t know what time it was when he had woken up, maybe midnight, maybe later. His eyes opened slightly, checking to see the amount of light in the room. It was still as dark as when they had gotten home, but he could see the vague outline of everything from the candlelight.  Apparently he and john had rolled over, because he was now face to face with him, rather closely one might add. Really, really closely. Like, breathing the same air.

He tried rolling onto his back slowly, but by some evil work of fate the blankets were arranged in such a way that if he was to do so he would wind up waking john up. The man must have been slowly taking up more and more of the blanket while Jesse was out.

Urgently trying to get to sleep is the most futile thing any human could try. It just doesn’t happen. It’s a paradox within itself, but he was trying it anyway. He shut his eyes tightly and thought sleepy thoughts, counting sheep and everything. He thought of that one time when he had stayed up for three solid days with john, maneuvering the underground jungle. He had been barely sentient when that was over, and he really wished he could recapture the ease he fell asleep with that day. He had literally fallen asleep standing up, but that was another story.

During this little slideshow of events, Jesse got to thinking about something else. John and Jesse were never really close. No, not in the way that is all emotional and gushy, that part was obvious. John was rarely physically close to him. They spent a lot of their time at least two meters away from each other. Even when they planned things they stood on the roofs of their respective houses and shouted at each other. Even when they were close it was always fleeting, and before he knew it one of them would go tearing off to wherever.  This was perhaps the closest they had ever been, and for the longest.

Why would you tell me that, brain.

Shut up jesse.

An interesting thing happens when people fall asleep. A person would think that one would be at their quietist when sleeping, but that’s actually not the case. A person breathes heavier, and is much more prone to making the small noises that one would normally catch otherwise. It was only seconds later Jesse found this out.

“mph…”

A harmless, innocent little noise. There was no intention behind it, no subtext, but when it’s One am and the first thing he’s heard in hours john may as well just thrown his head back in the best porn-esque orgasm anyone had ever laid witness to.

WHY.

Jesse tensed as the sheer one-sided horror of it all. He could feel his heartbeat go at least five times faster than it should have. He focused all his energy on not whimpering or breathing too loudly, which was difficult for someone who was so used to making noise at any given opportunity. Seconds passed like minutes and Jesse’s brain was screaming at intense levels for him to stop being such an idiot.

He could feel a jolt go through him when john moved. He had been thinking so loudly he had forgotten to pay attention to his surroundings, as john was now conscious and had nudged him with the back of his hand.

“You awake?” John’s voice shook slightly, probably from just waking up.

“Yeah.” Jesse answered back, praying John would think the waver in his voice was from the same cause.

“You were breathing weirdly for a bit, nightmare or something?” The power in johns voice was returning bit by bit, rolling onto his back and lo and behold, pulling what little Jesse had of the blankets off him.

“Hey…” Jesse said defensively, with all the enthusiasm he could muster at such a late hour. “You’re hogging the sheets.”

“Sorry, here.” John grabbed the scrunch of blanket he had on his side and dragged them over to Jesse. They both took a moment to readjust. Jesse was surprised that he had just heard the word “sorry” coming from john’s mouth. He was also happy to be able to roll back, he had been lying awkwardly on his arm for who knows how long and the blood flow had begun to cut off.

“Now I don’t have to smell your breath for the next six hours…” Jesse joked, feeling a lot more comfortable and tired from the little adrenaline burst.

“Are you really complaining about the smell in a house made entirely or candy cane? Everything smells like mint…!”

“Are you volunteering to go lick the wall?”

They both laughed to themselves lightly, turning away from each other and regaining comfortable distance.

“Good night, sweetie.” John said through a tired, mocking voice.

“g’night.” Jesse said back, happy to feel himself relax and finally drift back to sleep.