Tim would have assumed that he'd wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats from a nightmare, but apparently his mind was as exhausted as his body and he slept for a full nine and a half hours before he finally opened his eyes. He blinked a few times before recognizing his dark surroundings, the cave not having any natural light reach it except what filtered through the small entrance.

He was laying on his side, and a small lump of breathing fur he remembered as Buddy was pressed up against his chest. A hand lay across the black fur, a hand attatched to an arm that was strewn across Tim's side, an arm that was attatched to Jesse. Jesse's chest rose and fell against Tim's back as his soft breathing ghosted across the back of his neck. Tim should have found the position unnerving, having a stranger that close to him, but decided for the time being he was far too comfortable to move. After reminding himself that Jesse hadn't hurt him so far, and wasn't likely to do so in his sleep of all things, he relaxed back into the matress.

Tim had almost fallen back asleep when Buddy lifted his head and growled, then emitted a loud bark. He leapt off the matress and stalked towards the door in that half-cautious, half-intimidating way that dogs have. Tim watched him curiously, wondering what he found so threatening. Maybe, he thought, Jesse wasn't the only one who lived here. Maybe Hollywood had been right, and there was a militia, but they had been off...doing militia things...when Tim showed up. The dog barked a few more times then darted out of the entrance and out of sight.

Having been entranced watching the dog be a dog, Tim had failed to notice that Jesse woke up. He rolled away from Tim and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"Fucking dog," he muttered groggily. "Worse than a damn alarm clock..."

Tim rolled onto his back, turning his head to look at Jesse. He raised his arms above his head and stretched, the muscles of his torso pulling taut. He yawned loudly and blinked a few times, then glanced over at Tim and gave him a sleepy smile.

"Hey," Tim blurted out, aware that maybe he'd been watching Jesse a little too closely.

Jesse nodded to him, sitting up. "'Morning, though I'm not sure if it's good are bad. What do you think?"

Tim arched an eyebrow in response, then shrugged.

"How are you feeling?," Jesse inquired, tilting his head.

Groaning, Tim responded. "If I would have known how things would end up, I would have let myself die."

"Ahh," Jesse said, feigning enlightenment. He stood up and stretched again, needlessly, then headed towards the low entrance of the cave. "Well, you're welcome," he added with an amused look before leaning down and going outside.

"No, that's not...," Tim started, realizing how ungrateful he'd sounded. He slumped back hopelessly. "Not what I meant."

Staring at the ceiling got boring after an extremely short period of time, so Tim decided to see if he was capable of walking. Apparently the sleep he'd gotten had helped him and he found that standing up wasn't much of a problem anymore, although his legs were ridiculously sore. Taking a few hesitant steps, it seemed that he could walk without much trouble.

He broke into the sunlight, squinting at the brightness even though it was filtered by the dense trees. The small room outside the cave was empty, so he pushed through the door and out into the woods. He found himself in a small clearing, more or less surrounded by trees, on the side of a hill. It didn't look like what he remembered of where he passed out, but then again it all sort of looked the same to him.

Jesse was near the edge of the clearing that looked out from the hill, appearing to be doing some stretches or something. Tim watched him, unsure of whether or not he should interrupt whatever the other man was doing. After a moment, Jesse fell softly onto his back with the intention of doing sit-ups when he spotted Tim.

"Well, you seem to be doing better, at least," he noted. Tim leaned against a tree and looked at the ground.

"Uh...sorry, about what I said...I didn't mean to sound ungrateful, or whatever...," he mumbled, not really used to apologizing. Then again, he wasn't used to people taking care of him either.

The sound of Jesse's soft laughter rang through the air. "Better stop now, or you'll start blushing," he told Tim, then shook his head. "Don't apologize. Something horrible must've happened for you to find your way out here, especially with the shape you're in. I don't blame you for your pessimistic attitude."

Tim's eyes narrowed slightly at the first mocking comment, but his scowl faded. Something horrible...yeah, more like life-alteringly devastating, he thought. He looked back up at Jesse, a bit confused by his perception. "Uhm...yeah, something like that. Anyway, th-"

"And don't thank me again, either. That's getting old," Jesse cut him off. "There's some food inside, it's cold but it'll be better than nothing."

Tim nodded, and Jesse went back to exercising, so he walked back inside the cave and began the hunt for food.

Tim discovered the meat that Jesse had cooked last night, as well as a couple of large bottles of water. After eating, he surveyed his surroundings again and settled down next to the guitar. He glanced at some of the papers scattered nearby, finding that most of them had lyrics or music written on them. He didn't look to closely, guessing that they might be personal, and instead pulled the guitar into his lap. It seemed like a long time ago, but he and Lars had both played guitar and for a while even had a band. It hadn't lasted long after the government had passed their newest anti-freedom act, but he remembered those times fondly.

Guitar playing was like riding a bike, Tim found, that once you learned it it was very hard to unlearn. He spent the morning remembering songs he'd known, or messing up and trying again. For a while, nothing really mattered, and his mind wasn't plagued with thoughts of his massacred friends or the hopeless state of humanity. All that mattered was the music, and he thought that maybe that was the point of it in the first place.

Jesse returned a few hours later, his arms full of wood for the fire. Tim immediately set down the guitar and almost started to apologize, but Jesse smiled at him and he decided he didn't need to.

"So you're a musician?," Jesse asked, dropping the logs on the ground next to a neat pile and starting to add them to it.

"Sometimes, when I feel like it, I guess."

Jesse gave a small nod, still smiling. "That's good. Making music is one of the most respectable things a person can do with their life."

Tim arched an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? Why do you say that?"

"Because it's honest," Jesse told him simply. "Or, it should be. People too often cover up their own feelings to save face, but no matter how much they do that, true emotions always come out through music."

Tim stared vacantly at Jesse after this little peice of insight, then nodded. "I guess that's true."

"And that's all it is," Jesse stated, then turned back to his task of stacking logs.

Tim grew uncomfortable with the silence, not being used to it. He stood up and wandered to where Jesse was, then knelt down and started helping him stack the logs.

"You don't need to do that," Jesse protested.

"I am anyway," Tim replied, then decided to attempt a conversation. "So...what are you doing here?"

Jesse looked at him, bemused, then shrugged. "I thought maybe I should be asking you that."

"Nah, I mean...how can you live like this? Cut off from everything and...out here?," Tim clarified.

Jesse finished with the wood, sitting back and facing Tim. "A better question, is how could I live like that?" He didn't have to clarify what that was, Tim knew what he meant. He nodded reluctantly, accepting that it probably was a better question, and Jesse continued.

"People aren't so bad, humanity in itself is a great thing. The problem is, when you put a lot of them together, in a society like the one we have today, they stop caring. For all the technological advances we make, we grow further and further apart until no one cares anymore. Apathy and separation are the end results of any major effort that's been made in the last ten years. I decided, if I was going to have to live in a world where people didn't give a fuck about each other, I'd rather do it without having to see them every day."

Tim blanched as he listened to Jesse, not being able to find any response to that. Seeing his expression, Jesse laughed.

"Yeah, I'm probably crazy, I know."

"Nah," Tim said, shaking his head. "I've just never heard anyone say anything like that."

"Well, how many people have you met that live in caves in the middle of the woods?," Jesse asked rhetorically, smirking.

"Good point," Tim conceeded. "But...don't you care what's going on? Don't you want to help people?"

Jesse shook his head, his expression becoming almost sad. "People don't want to be helped."

Tim looked down as Jesse's words sunk in. He knew what the other man said was true, that people didn't want to be helped. All their efforts with providing the masses with information about how their rights were being abolished had never had much effect on most people, and the ones that they did have effect on usually just increased the number of riots, therefore increasing the number of people imprisoned and killed. He hadn't really seen it before, but they hadn't done any good, and in the end it didn't amount to anything.

"Sometimes," Jesse continued, standing up again and grinning at him. "I don't have a choice, though. Sometimes I have to help people."

"You could have let me die," Tim suggested bleakly, sounding like it wasn't a bad idea at all. Jesse shook his head.

"'s not in my nature to abandon people in desperate need of assistance. Probably another reason I couldn't deal with society," he explained.

Tim nodded understandingly, then decided to revert to less depressing venues of conversation. "So, what, you just live out here and grow your own food and everything?"

Jesse shook his head. "Nah, I just eat whatever grows on it's own. I have to leave, and go back...there...sometimes, for other stuff. But for the most part I stay here."

"Alone," Tim said, not exactly a question. He was curious about that.

"Mhmm," Jesse muttered. "Alone. In complete solitude. With no one but a dog to keep me company."

'Great militia, Hollywood,' Tim thought, then backtracked and decided mocking the dead, even if they were rather creepy while alive, wasn't really something he should do. "Isn't it hard being so self-sufficient?"

"I'm not self-sufficient. I just...find ways to get what I need," Jesse told him. "And usually it has nothing to do with me."

Tim tilted his head thoughtfully. "So how do you stay clean?," he asked, arching an eyebrow at Jesse.

"Why, are you dirty?," Jesse inquired, amusement sparkling in his dark eyes.

"I'm making myself nauseous with my own stench," Tim told him, and Jesse laughed.

"I wasn't going to say anything, but...yeah," he admitted with a nod. "If you feel up to a little hike, there's some hot springs not too far from here."

Tim agreed readily, and the pair set out of the cave, followed closely by Buddy who had returned from his morning nap in the sun.

'A little hike' had turned out to be a walk of about a mile and a half, most of it uphill. Tim kept his eyes on the ground, reminding himself after about half of the way of all the reasons that he shouldn't kill Jesse. 'A little hike, my ass.'

Regardless, he found himself eternally relieved when they reached a clearing marked with a wide pool of water, a waterfall tumbling from the side of the mountain behind it. Jesse smirked at his expression.

"There you go," he told Tim, waving towards the pool. "Now you can destenchify yourself. I'm going to go ahead and start back, there's a few things I need to get done before it starts getting dark and it takes a while to get back."

Tim nodded, watching Buddy take a flying leap into the water and start splashing around like the idiot animal he was. Though Tim reminded himself he'd be doing the same thing in a few moments. Jesse started out of the clearing and Tim pulled his shirt over his head, then glanced back at Jesse's departure. He broke through the trees around the clearing and had nearly met the trail when Tim realized something.

"Uh, Jesse?," he called out hesitantly. A few seconds later Jesse reappeared from behind the shrubbery.

"Yeah?"

Tim scratched the back of his head in an embarassed gesture before continuing. "I don't think...I can find my way back."

Jesse laughed and walked back into the clearing. "Right, sorry," he said. "I forget that you haven't been here for three years. It's all right, I'll wait for you."

Tim gave him a small, grateful smile, and started to undo his pants. Jesse turned around respectfully as Tim finished undressing, waiting until he heard a splash in addition to Buddy's watersports to take a seat on a nearby rock.

Tim plunged into the water, surprised with how deep it was. He wasn't surprised with how amazingly good the warm water felt against his skin, however. Jesse lay back, placing his hands behind his head and lazily letting his eyes drop closed as Tim swam to the waterfall. He stood under it for a while, running his hands through his mohawk and attempting to clean some of the built up grease out of the hair.

Buddy ran out of the water, panting, as Tim continued to clean himself. The dog leapt onto the rock where Jesse was relaxing and started to tug at the edge of Jesse's t-shirt with his teeth. Jesse pushed him away gently.

"Cut it out, Buddy," he warned the dog peacefully.

Buddy tilted his head at Jesse, his ears springing up curiously. He nosed at Jesse's hand.

Laughing, Jesse pushed the dog away again. "I don't wanna play right now," he told him. Buddy gave up for the moment and shook, water flying from his coat.

"Ah, dammit, dog," Jesse grumbled, wiping the water off his face. Buddy only panted gleefully in response before once again clamping his jaws around Jesse's shirt and pulling. Tim watched with an amused smirk as Buddy continued to yank Jesse in the direction of the water to no avail.

"Stop it," Jesse complained towards the dog, then caught Tim watching them. "Oh, you think this is funny, huh?"

Tim ducked his head to hide his smirk, blue hair plastered to his forehead and dripping down his face. He shook his head, only looking back up at Jesse when he could fake an innocent expression. Jesse grinned and stood up, and Buddy relocated his jaws to Jesse's pant leg.

"If you like the dog so much, you deal with him," Jesse suggested, picking up the mutt and tossing him easily through the air. Buddy flailed about hopelessly then landed in the water with a large splash, a few feet away from Tim. Upon resurfacing, Buddy looked up at Tim and panted with a playful doggy sort of grin.

Tim hadn't even tried to sheild himself from the water that careened over him when the dog hit the water. He looked at Jesse, smirking again, and shook his head. "What exactly are you trying to prove? I'm already wet."

"Very true," Jesse said, shrugging. He turned around and hopped off the rock, heading back out of the clearing. "See you later."

"Wait!," Tim cried out. Jesse turned to look at him with an expression of innocent curiosity.

"Yeah?"

"Don't leave."

Jesse arched an eyebrow. "Don't leave? You seem perfectly capable of taking care of yourself."

"Well, yeah...but, I need help getting out."

"You do? Why?," Jesse turned to look at him suspiciously.

Tim crossed his arms over his bare chest, looking pretty pathetic. "The rocks are slippery..."

Sighing, Jesse found that his better side won out and he walked to the side of the pool, extending a hand and looking away. Tim splashed over and grasped it, pulling himself onto the beach. He released Jesse's hand and leaned down, pulling his pants on despite still being wet.

"Impressive, and here I was thinking you were going to pull me into the water," Jesse said, looking back at him. Tim ran a hand through his wet hair, then shook his head as if disappointed.

"You should really learn to trust people more," he suggested, but before Jesse could reply he pressed his hands against Jesse's back and pushed him into the pool.

Jesse reappeared from under the surface of the water after a minute, climbing out without a word. He rose up and watched Tim pull his boots on, remaining quiet and glaring at him. Tim finally looked up at him, eyebrows raised with a perfectly innocent smile.

"Asshole," Jesse muttered and shook his head, then laughed a little bit. Tim felt a small bit of relief; he wasn't sure how Jesse was going to respond to that but he'd assumed that with his passive nature he wouldn't care too much.

Jesse led the way out of the clearing and back to the path, Buddy taking up the rear until he found something interesting to chase and bounded off. Tim realized that it wouldn't have been too hard to find his way back but didn't remark on it, the silence seemed more comfortable than it had before. Instead he focused on the feeling of being at least somewhat clean, his hair still sending small rivers of water down the sides of his face and the slowly sinking sun warming his back.

When they had almost returned to their destination, Jesse paused.

"Hang on a second," he told Tim, then disappeared behind a few trees. Tim watched him go, confused, but relaxed against one of the trees and waited, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. His peaceful surroundings were a little less irritating now, and he was beginning to see how Jesse could live out here so easily. A moment later, Jesse returned, carrying a few items wrapped in butcher's paper.

"There's another cave back there," Jesse explained to Tim's wondering look. "Smaller, harder to get to, and a hell of a lot colder. It's where I keep food and stuff."

Tim gave a little nod. "And that is..."

"Food," Jesse said, then laughed. "Beef, actually. I usually get a whole bunch of it whenever I go into town and just keep it there."

"Oh, so you don't run around in the woods with a spear and kill buffalo then?," Tim asked, sounding a bit disappointed.

Jesse only laughed in response and they started back down the path.

The sun had fully set by the time they found themselves back at the entrance to the cave Jesse had turned into his home. Tim had pulled his shirt back on, but was still shivering a bit as they crawled inside.

"Sure does fucking get cold fast," he noted. Jesse dropped the meat he'd collected next to the fire pit and moved to a pile of clothes.

"You shouldn't bitch, you're not soaking wet," he told Tim jokingly, pulling off his shoes and procuring dry clothes from the pile. "You can start a fire if you want."

Tim meandered over to the pile of wood and grabbed some logs, then stacked them in the pit. He found some newspaper nearby and, taking what he'd seen Jesse do last night, crumpled some of it up and stuffed it under the logs. Then he paused.

"Uh, fire?"

Jesse looked back at him. "That's the point, yeah." Tim gave him a blank look and he laughed, then tossed him a lighter.

"How very domesticated," Tim noted, catching the lighter and setting flame to a newspaper in a few spots. Jesse joined him, in dry clothes, a moment later.

"Oh, for the love of Christ," he muttered. "You can't do it like that, nothing will light. You have to give it room to breathe."

Tim snorted. "Excuse me, Nature Boy, but I've never done this before." Handing the lighter to Jesse, he sat back away from the fire as Jesse rearranged the logs. Not long after, a few reasonably sized flames had sprung up on the logs.

Jesse sat back as well, then looked over at Tim. "For your next lesson, I'm going to teach you to weave clothing out of mammoth fur."

Tim looked over Jesse's blue jeans and black Falling Sickness shirt, raising an eyebrow. "You must be pretty talented with that." Jesse grinned and reached over, picking up a few of the packets of beef.

He procured a frying pan from a trunk Tim had failed to notice, unwrapped the steaks and dropped them into the pan. Sprinkling a few seasonings onto the meat, he returned to the fire and set the pan near the outer coals.

"No roasting hot dogs on sticks, then?," Tim asked.

"This isn't a boy scout expedition," Jesse told him, laying back and stretching out across the ground near the fire. "Just be glad you didn't run into a cannibal."

"Are you saying I'm appetizing?," Tim asked with the straightest face he could manage, which quickly formed into a grin when Jesse snapped his teeth suggestively.

Tim stretched out next to the fire as well, watching the flames. He felt a lot more relaxed now that he was clean, and actually surviving isntead of living from one footstep to the next.

"Who's Lars?"

And there it goes. Tim tilted his head to look at Jesse, an expression of confusion crossing his features. "Huh?"

"You said the name when you first woke up," Jesse clarified.

"Oh. I didn't remember," Tim said. "Lars is...was...my friend."

Jesse nodded slightly. "What happened to him?" He wasn't pressing about asking for the information, merely curious.

"I'm not really sure," Tim answered, his voice quieter. "I guess, the cops killed him. I wasn't there when it happened."

"I'm sorry," Jesse said, sounding sincere. "Do you know why?"

"I guess freedom of speech is a threat now," Tim muttered. "We ran a sort of newspaper thing, that...didn't agree with the government in a lot of ways. They must've found us out."

"Mmm...sounds like things haven't gotten any better," Jesse mused. "Was it just the two of you?"

"Nah...there were five other people," Tim told him. "They were all there, too. I was out walking...came back in the morning, and..."

He trailed off, images of what he'd found that morning popping back into his mind. He closed his eyes tightly against them and clenched his jaw, willing himself to fight back the tears that accompanied them as well. Jesse sat up and rubbed Tim's shoulder softly, somewhat surprised that he didn't pull away.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I shouldn't have asked about it."

Shaking his head, Tim wiped a stray tear away. "It's not your fault. I wish I could have been there, though..."

"And what would that have solved?," Jesse asked, his hand coming to rest on Tim's upper arm.

Tim opened his eyes and looked up at Jesse, offering a weak smile. "I wouldn't have to deal with this?"

Jesse nodded sympathetically, turning back towards the fire and using a fork to flip the steaks over. "I know it's hard losing people," he told Tim. "Especially when they're close to you."

"It's not only that," Tim sat up next to him. "I feel like, if I had been there, there could have been -"

"- something you could have done," Jesse finished for him, nodding.

"Yeh," Tim agreed, almost inaudible, lost in his own thoughts.

Jesse shook his head. "There's nothing you could have done."

Tim looked over at him. "What makes you so sure?"

"Full riot gear, armed to the teeth," Jesse described the cops. "How could you stand a chance against that? You're lucky enough that you got out alive yourself, shouldn't be worrying about not saving everyone else."

There was a certain bitterness to his tone that suggested Jesse had been through the same situation as Tim. Looking over at the other man, Tim dropped his voice a bit. "What happened to you?"

Jesse kept his eyes fixed on the fire as he spoke. "They broke into my house one night. I'm still not even sure why. They pinned me to the floor, and took my wife and baby girl. I have no idea what happened to them. For a while, I tried to find out...but I never found any answers. That's when I decided to come out here."

Tim looked down at his hands. "I'm sorry. That's harsh."

"I learned to live with it," Jesse said, shrugging. "You will too, after a while."

"I don't want to," Tim stated strongly.

"Do you really think it matters?," Jesse asked him, looking at him seriously. "No one cares about what you want, I thought you would have learned that by now. The things people desire don't mean shit to anyone else."

Tim groaned dejectedly and didn't respond. Buddy, who had met them back at the cave, sensed his discomfort in the strange perceptive way that dogs have and layed down next to him, resting his head on Tim's leg. Tim scratched him between the ears distractedly.

"Food?," Jesse offered the frying pan to him after a moment.

Tim picked up a steak, disregarding any need for utensils, and forced a smile. "Thanks," he muttered.

Jesse set the frying pan back down, ripping off some of the more fatty meat and giving it to the dog. "I already told you, you don't have to thank me."

"Just common courtesy when someone saves your life, I guess," Tim mumbled around the food in his mouth.

"I didn't save you," Jesse protested, smiling. "You're the one who wanted to keep living. I only helped you."

Tim looked up at Jesse and shook his head in mild disbelief. Jesse swallowed a bite before speaking.

"What?"

"I don't know how you can be so humble all the fucking time," Tim told him.

Jesse stared at him flatly. "Humble is easy to do when you get what you want out of the deal anyway."

Tim arched an eyebrow. "Meaning what?"

"Well, I still expect you to be my slave for eternity once you've recovered," Jesse told him seriously, then grinned after a moment to show that he was joking.

Tim smirked, shaking his head again. He finished eating and fed the rest of the meat to Buddy as well, who practically inhaled it. Tim once against stretched out next to the fire, laying on his stomach and resting his head against his tattooed arms.

"Tired?," Jesse asked, standing and replacing the pan to the trunk after rinsing it out.

"Mhmm," Tim muttered. "Guess I'm not used to being so active."

"You'll get used to it," Jesse sat down next to Tim, crossing his legs over each other. He reached out and laid a hand across the back of Tim's neck, his thumb rubbing a slow circle in the knot of muscles at the base.

Tim opened one eye to look up at him. "Why are you doing that?," he asked, sounding more lazy than freaked out.

"You're still tense from walking for so long," Jesse explained. "It'd work itself out eventually...I can stop if you want."

Considering it briefly, Tim shook his head. Jesse scooted a bit closer and started to use both hands to work the tension out of his muscles. Tim's eyes fell shut again.

"How long were you walking for yesterday, anyway?," Jesse inquired. Tim shrugged his shoulders a bit.

"I didn't stop once I started," he murmured sleepily. "Probably a few days."

"No wonder you were so exhausted. That's a long time, especially if you aren't used to being active," Jesse stated, letting his hands move down to Tim's shoulders. "How's your back feel?"

"Hurts like hell. How'd you know?," Tim asked, expecting another weird, informed answer like the ones Jesse kept giving.

"Huge bruise," Jesse lifted a hand and pressed two fingers into the center of Tim's back, causing him to squirm and whimper. "It was a dead give away."

"Dick," Tim whined disgruntledly, reaching behind him to bat Jesse's hands away from the bruise. Jesse laughed and replaced his hands to Tim's upper back, and he settled back against the ground comfortably. Jesse continued to rub his back, gently working the strain out of the muscles in silence. Tim felt himself slipping closer and closer to sleep, still exhausted from the overtaxing of his body plus the hike today.

Jesse watched Tim for a while, a small smile creeping onto his lips as the other man relaxed. Truthfully he was glad that Tim had told him about Lars and explained his situation, since the question had been weighing on his mind since Tim had shown up. He was also glad that Tim seemed to be feeling better, because he hadn't looked forward to dealing with a corpse if it came to that. He let his hands drift methodically down Tim's back, carefully avoiding the area where he knew the bruise was.

After a while, Jesse leaned down, his hands sliding back up to Tim's shoulders. "You should go lay down in bed," he whispered softly, not wanting to disturb Tim anymore than he knew he already would.

Tim groaned. "I was almost asleep anyway."

"You'll be more comfortable there, it won't take long for you to fall asleep," Jesse assured him, moving away and standing up.

Tim rolled onto his back and blinked up at Jesse groggily as he extended a hand. "But...you...," Tim protested brokenly, then took his hand.

"I what?," Jesse asked, pulling Tim to his feet.

Tim rubbed at one of his eyes with his free hand and forced himself to form a coherent thought before actually speaking this time. "That felt good," he managed, still in a whiney, groggy sort of tone.

Jesse smiled and tugged on Tim's hand, leading him over to the matress that lay on the floor. Tim followed, letting go of Jesse's hand and collapsing onto the bed without any further argument. He curled onto his side, facing the wall, and Jesse sat down beside him then lay down as well. As Jesse lifted a hand and slowly started rubbing Tim's back again, Tim found that his touch was a lot less unnerving that it had been when he'd woken up this morning.

"Are you gunna stay here?," Tim mumbled as Jesse's fingertips slipped over the bruise on his back softly.

"I hadn't planned on sleeping anywhere else," Jesse told him. "Does it bug you?"

Tim shook his head vaguely. "No...I meant," he rolled over onto his back. "Are you going to stay here?"

He lifted his left hand and trailed it down Jesse's side to illustrate his point of Jesse staying there, and Jesse couldn't help shivering a bit at the light touch. He looked up to meet Tim's sleepy azure gaze. "You want me to stay here?," he asked, his voice dropping a bit.

"Mhmm," Tim answered, nodding and tightening his fingers around Jesse's hip.

Jesse squirmed a little closer to him, replacing his hand across Tim's stomach. He broke his eyes from Tim's, dropping his head to rest against Tim's shoulder. Tim freed his right arm from between them and snaked it around Jesse's shoulders, closing his eyes again. Jesse reflected for a moment on how long it'd been since he'd been this close to anyone, and decided that it felt good to have another person next to him again.

"This is nice," Jesse spoke quietly after a minute. Tim responded with a small noise of agreement. Jesse's hand slid onto Tim's chest and he lifted his head, moving it onto Tim's shoulder. "Thank you," he whispered.

Tim's eyes snapped open instantly. "What'd you say about that?," he said in a mock-threatening voice.

Jesse laughed lightly and nudged Tim's neck with his nose softly. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Aaand none of that, either," Tim told him, not being able to keep the smile from his voice at the light touch.

Jesse smiled slightly to himself and didn't respond again, focusing on Tim's slowing breathing. The fire slowly died out behind them and Buddy relocated to the foot of the bed, curling up in the ample space that the two had left when falling asleep.