Love Will Find A Way

4

"Hey Eddie. Sorry, did I wake you?"

"Yeah, but it's okay. I should be waking up by now." Eddie sits up in bed and runs a hand through his hair. He looks over at Jake's sleeping form beside him in the bed.  "What's up?"

"You want to go to lunch?" Ben asks, and Eddie furrows his brow. That was random. "Just us. It's been a while since we've talked, you know? Just the two of us."

Eddie is still staring at Jake, willing him to wake up. "Yeah, Ben. I mean, that sounds nice. What time were you thinking?"

"One, maybe? If that works for you." Eddie can hear shuffling on the other side of the line. He looks at his watch. 10:00. "Hey, sorry, Eddie, but I've got to go. Something came up with Bev. But let me know if you can't come, alright? Otherwise I'll be waiting in that pizza place downtown all by myself."

"Okay," Eddie says in an unusually quiet voice. He coughs. "Yeah. I should be there. I'll let you know, though."

"Bye, Eddie."

Eddie places the phone down and looks over at Jake again. Still asleep. He sighs.

He stands up and goes downstairs to start on breakfast. He mixes the pancake batter in a bowl, then turns on the stove and sprays the frying pan. As he's cooking he gets lost in his thoughts.

Jake had work yesterday, so there's a good chance that he'll be sleeping in very late today. Surely not until one, right? He'd slept until then before. There were lots of things Eddie could absolutely not do in this situation. 1) go without asking Jake. He'd done it before, leaving Jake a note on the bed. He hadn't left the house for a week afterwards. 2) wake Jake up. The man wasn't very happy in the mornings anyway, but if he was woken up for no other reason than for Eddie ask him permission to do something? That benefited Eddie himself?

Eddie shivered just thinking about what would come afterwards if he ever did that. Jake was a man of sleep. When he wasn't working, he usually spent his time sleeping or punishing Eddie for something.

Eddie continued making pancakes, humming to himself as he did so. Once he was finished, he put them out on a plate for when Jake woke up. He washes the dishes, cleans the stove, and then goes back upstairs to see if Jake is awake yet.

He's not.

Eddie curses underneath his breath. He doesn't want to waste time in the shower and picking out clothes for nothing. He paces for a few minutes before shaking his head and deciding to shower anyway. He washes his hair quickly and rinses his body off. When he gets out of the shower he doesn't make any extra effort to look nice, just slips on a pair of jeans (the bruise on his thigh still being heavily prominent) and one of Jake's shirts. Eddie was practically swimming in it, but Jake loved when Eddie wore his clothes in public. He knows he has a better chance of getting out of the house if he wears it. When he's done getting dressed, he goes downstairs to sit at the table and wait for Jake to get up.

He doesn't get up until noon, and Eddie prays to a God he doesn't believe him and thanks Him for waking Jake up. "Hey, babe," Eddie says, getting up to greet Jake. He stands on his tiptoes, but Jake still has to lean down for Eddie to kiss him on the cheek. "How did you sleep?"
He shrugs, moving forward to the kitchen. "Fine."
"I made pancakes," Eddie says, trying to get Jake's attention. He just grunts and keeps moving. He sits down at the table where Eddie had already put out a plate for him. When he shovels the food in his mouth, Eddie has to look away before he vomits. He will never understand why Jake eats like that. He waits until Jake is finished eating to ask him. "Jake?"
"Yeah," he says dismissively.

"I, um." He coughs and messes with the end of the shirt. Eddie likes big clothes, but Jake's were just too big. It almost hit his knees. "One of my friends invited me to lunch."
At this, Jake actually looks at him full on for the first time that morning. He scans the shirt and smirks at how big it is on Eddie. He leans back against the counter and gestures Eddie forwards. When Eddie is close enough, he pulls Eddie's back to his chest and rests his chin on the top of his head. "What's the occasion?"
Eddie is suddenly glad that he's not face-to-face with Jake, because he wrinkles his nose at the smell of his morning breath, and Jake absolutely hates when he does that. "Just to catch up. We haven't really talked in a while."