Beta || Iancorn (NaNoWriMo 2018)

Level Twenty-Seven

David woke up the next day to find Ian's arm around his shoulder, his head on Ian's chest, and Wes shooting him a questioning look. From the look of it, everyone else was still asleep.

Groggily, David unwrapped himself from Ian and navigated through the sleeping-bag cocoons to get to Wes. The silver-haired man was sitting against a wall at Mari's feet, sharpening a knife. David sat across from him. The narrow hallway made him have to cross his legs in order to not touch Wes' with his own.

"Morning," he said awkwardly.

"Morning," Wes replied, grinning slightly. "So... that's a thing now, huh?"

"Uh, yeah?" David scratched the back of his neck. "I guess?"

"You're still figuring it out, then," Wes inferred.

David nodded. "It kind of, just happened."

"Well, there's only one rule," Wes lazily pointed his knife at David. "No fucking if there's anyone else within earshot."

David's face went red. "What- we weren't planning on-"

"Just notifying you," Wes smiled. "We don't want to have another Shayne-Damien incident. That is something I wish I could sear from my memory."

The conversation stopped after that, mainly because David had no idea how to respond. Thankfully, Mari woke up a few minutes later, breaking their silence with a loud yawn before kissing Wes good morning. After that, it was a chain reaction of people waking up, and then everyone was up and eating their salted beef for breakfast.

Ian had sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders were touching. Neither of them spoke for the entire pathetic excuse of a meal. His touch was comforting, but there was still so much David wanted to ask him; mainly about them. Were they dating now? What the fuck was going on?

He'd only ever had a few boyfriends in college, and those relationships tended to end almost as soon as they began. David couldn't remember having a single romantic relationship that he genuinely cared about. In other words, the was his first rodeo and he didn't have sufficient knowledge of how rodeos worked.

"Okay, team," Mari clapped her hands together after they had all finished their food. "What's the plan?"

"Same as yesterday," Joven suggested lazily. It always took him a bit longer to wake up than anyone else. "We just walk until we find something."

"That sounds so depressing," Matthew sighed.

"That's because it is!" Wes retorted.

"But it's all we got," Mari stood up and stretched. "Pack up your shit people! We've got several hours of walking down caves ahead of us!"

Everyone followed her instructions and started shoving their sleeping bags into their backpacks and grabbed their torches. Then, with Mari leading the way, they started walking back down the caverns. Once everyone had passed them, Ian grabbed David's hand, and followed the others, dragging David along with him.

 So that settled it, then. They were dating. Hand-holding was a dating thing, right? God David, you're pathetic, he thought. You made out for like, half an hour last night. Of course you're dating!

He squeezed Ian's hand back, earning himself a smile, and they walked in silence.

Hours passed. At least in all the other levels, there had been something to look at when you travelled. Here, there was nothing but rocks and darkness. Even the cave drawings lost their charm; there was too little detail to make them interesting to look at for hours upon hours. No one spoke, either; there was too little to talk about, and the fact that they hadn't seen any water sources yet made them careful not to waste any more energy than they needed to.