Coping

Chapter 8

Jim

Jim was being shaken. Shaken. He was. . . Jim. . . was being shaken. . . awake.

Blearily, he sat up, pried his eyes open, and blinked hard several times. The hands that had brought him to consciousness were fluffing his hair, and Jim leaned into the touch.

"Good morning," whispered Sebastian. "It's Saturday today." He breathed in the smell of morning Jim Moriarty: day-old cologne and that weird, special smell that his sheets had. He couldn't quite place what it was, but it always rubbed off over night.

"Mm. What time is it?" Jim looked at the clock across the room, but his morning vision was too cloudy to read it. He pulled himself up to a sitting position on the bed, leaning back against Sebastian as he did so.

"It's about 7:30."

"No, Seb, what time exactly?" He turned aggressively around in Sebastian's arms.

The taller boy squinted at the clock. "I don't know, um. . . 7:35. It's 7:35."

Smiling and sinking back down against Sebastian, Jim hummed his approval. "You need glasses. Everybody thinks there's something wrong with you when you keep squinting."

"I'm fine."

"You need glasses. Just make an appointment for the eye doctor and get glasses."

"I don't want glasses."

"You'd look very nice in them," said Jim in fake seduction. "Try these. I just want to see." He picked up a pair of square-framed glasses and slid them on Sebastian's face. "Better? You look lovely."

Sebastian rolled his eyes and looked through the smudged lenses into his boyfriend's eyes. "I look like an idiot. I can't even, like, get close to your face with these stupid things in the way."

Smirking, Jim said, "You can get close enough," and leaned up into a kiss.

"Where'd you even get these?" Asked Sebastian with no indication whatsoever that they had kissed.

Frowning, Jim took the glasses off of his boyfriend's face, folded them, and placed them back into his side table drawer. "They're mine. I usually wear contacts," Jim said with sudden acerbity. He climbed off his bed and made his way to the bathroom.

"Hey, wait," Sebastian called. "Why are you mad at me all of a sudden?"

"I'm not mad. Just - how did you never notice my glasses before?"

"Um, maybe because you never wear them? I don't go through your stuff! Is this what this is really about? Glasses?" Sebastian was now standing as well, moving closer to Jim.

"Well - I don't care! It - no. It's not the glasses. It's that every single person turns your head and you flirt with all of them! Everybody! And your head is supposed to be turned to me!" Said Jim, jabbing a finger at his own chest.

"What? Me? What about Sherlock Freaking Holmes? It's been a month of school now and still you never shut up about him! All you ever talk about is 'the game' you two play and how you met him in Ireland this summer."

Sighing exasperatedly, Jim pulled at his currently messy hair. "It's not because I like him, Seb, he has a brilliant mind, and I'm just messing with him. He clearly has something for that John kid. Besides, he's blind, for God's sake-"

"Don't I have a brilliant mind? I mean I kind of thought that's why we started planning all of these crimes together. What if I was blind? Would you still like me?" They had both been shouting now, but Jim looked hurt and softened his voice.