Sunkissed

Half-consciously, Lance rolled over and reached his arm across the bed, pausing mid-stretch when he found the other side of the bed unexpectedly empty. Feeling blindly, the sheets were only slightly warm beneath his palm, an indication that although he hadn�t slept alone, the other side of the bed had been empty for a little while. Lance inhaled deeply as he buried his face in the pillow, the cotton smooth against his skin.

As Lance reached above his head, stretching his arms in earnest, he lazily opened his eyes. Where he�d been expecting sunlight to be flooding through the thin white curtains, the room was still shaded, veiled in grey.

Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he quickly glanced at the alarm clock and the reason for the unexpected darkness became apparent. 6:03am.

Yawning widely, and wincing as his jaw cracked loudly in his ear, Lance rolled across the bed and swung his legs over the side, careful to avoid stepping on the dog-eared copy of The Catcher in the Rye that was lying on the floor. It was with great difficulty that he stumbled over to the closet in his sleep-induced haze and dug through the top shelf � his by default of his height advantage � until he found a pair of flannel pyjama pants. As he slid them on, he noticed the finger-shaped bruises marking the otherwise pale skin of his wrists. He brushed his fingers over them, pressing gently with his index finger and feeling a dull pain from the pressure. With a smirk he pulled a hooded sweatshirt off the nearest hanger. The sweatshirt was worn, faded, and -- from the writing adorning the front of it -- very obviously not his. But, he wore it so often that regardless of the cracked and faded letters spelling out �Black and Blue 2001� across his chest and a name that was not his own along his left bicep, it may as well belong to him. It really was more his size, anyway.

DEDICATIONS, etc.