My other half

10. From now on just your pair

"The happiness of love: to rejoice, what is in front of us. Even if this only that is a gaze."

I was sitting on a bench in a small suburban park and watching the falling snowflakes. I came by metro, I couldn't explain to Joe why he had to bring me here, especially why with Dec. It was 2022's first date with my new love, and Dec was so going for sure, that he thought let us come separately. Maybe he was starting to exaggerate the concern little about the hiding, but I don't wanted to argue with him, I didn't really care how and where we meet, I just wanted to be together with him a little bit outside of work. Thanks to the snowfall, there were even fewer people walking on the street than usual, the park was actually empty. Everything was perfect for us to recharge each other a bit again. As I pondered my thoughts and memories of the past month, someone hugged my neck from behind and I smiled.

"Aren't you cold here?" Dec asked whispering in my ear.

"Not anymore" I answered with a smile, then looked up at him and greeted him with a short kiss.

Dec straightened up from the backrest of the bench, walked in front of me, and spread his arms openly, waiting for a hug. I jumped up from the cold bench and hugged my tiny love tightly to warm he up a bit.

"And you're still cold?" I asked, still drilling my face into his neck.

"Now only my lips are cold" Dec chuckled.

I raised my face with raised eyebrows, and he watched with a waiting look to see if I understood the reference. A few soft kiss turned into hot kisses, then after a few seconds I looked around in fright.

"No one is here, calm down, I've been here a lot in the past, I didn't choose this place by accident" Dec replied without a question.

Reassured that we were not in danger, I gave Dec another kiss, then intertwined our fingers we set off in the long park in the snowfall.

"I'm glad the snow is falling, it's like hiding us" I pondered looking the hundreds of different white fluffs "Listen, can I ask you something?"

"Anything" Dec answered leaning his head on my shoulder for a few seconds.

"Actually, I still don't know when you found out you love me" I admitted "I was so busy with the happiness in the past few weeks, that I didn't even ask this."

"September? October? I don't even know, a few months ago. Do you remember the day you spent together in front of Australia when we going to bowling? Before this a little I had dream with you on one night. We lived in two at you, and I didn't even remember clearly every detail, just that we were together and it was both beautiful and scary how happily I woke up that day. And from then on, I thought about this more and more every day, that why we didn't admit it to ourselves before. But I was afraid to ask you, because we agreed, what's more, I asked you, that I not to have to choose between our career and you, because I want both in my life. And I felt worse and worse for I rejected you many, many years ago, and now that you had moved on a long time ago, I became interested in you again, and I was ashamed to admit that it was I who broke the agreement, that we would never talk about this again. I just... didn't know what to do, I waited for it to pass again, but the more I thought about that dream, the more I thought about you. And when you kissed me in Australia and we spent those few days almost as a couple, it was too nice for me to no admit, I will have to belong to you once we have enough strength for it."

"Aw, Decks. I didn't want that you to blame yourself for anything" I hugged him comfortingly.

"And when did you find out?" Dec asked back.

"Sometime in the spring, I started thinking about this. When we slept together on the couch after Alien Autopsy, we sang Let's Get Ready To Rhumble in the kitchen... it was like we were living together like a silly and happy couple. And then I didn't even understand myself, why I felt so good with you, but I tried to explain this with the special friendship that is between us, and tried to think less about it because I wouldn't have dared to talk with you about this. Then when we had a picnic at the beginning of the summer and you said, you wouldn't mind if the others thought we a couple, the thought ripped through me, that... actually why didn't we become? I mean, of course I knew, because we agreed, but pretty slowly I realized that I didn't want to live my life in a fear, and that the person, who is next to me, no that who had always been the most important person to me, even if there was someone else next to me."