Guess So!

They arrive at the airport two hours early and John insists that Gale has the full travel experience, which apparently involves getting knocked around by about ten different people, standing in line for twenty minutes to check their bags and receive paper tickets, and unpacking and repacking all his shit at security after getting pulled to the side for another random check. By the time they make it into the terminal, Gale is sweaty and irritated, grunting in response to John pointing out places to buy overpriced sandwiches. When they pass by some place called Hudson News, he says, "You can get magazines in there." 

Gale grunts again. A new pressure hangs off his backpack, John fitting a couple fingers through the daisy chain to guide him forward.

"Everything alright?"

"Yes," Gale says, flat, and John just says, "Okay," because his method of drawing Gale out involves taking him at face value unless he reveals otherwise.

While John had packed just that morning, Gale had spent a week for prep—or technically a month, if he counted the DMV appointment to swap out his license for one acceptable to TSA—wherein he'd done three loads of laundry and gone to the store twice, tape measure in hand and carry-on requirements locked in his head, and that didn't even end up mattering anyway since the bag was now in the cargo hold. He'd decanted, packed, unpacked, rearranged, and repacked, and every night he pored over travel blogs and plane walkthrough videos and seat maps online, lying on his side to shield the screen glow from John. There was really no point in trying to hide that he'd never flown before, but John let him pretend he wasn't antsy about it. The only guidance he gave was that Gale wasn't going to need half the clothes he was planning to bring, and then he offered up his own things for emergency use, "y'know, in case you need an eleventh pair of underwear."

"It's just a weekend trip," John had added, and made the wise choice not to explore the conversation any further when Gale countered, "It's Joni's graduation."

At the gate, John dozes in a row of chairs with his hat over his face and chooses the exact moment of their boarding announcement to abruptly get up for some coffee, leaving Gale to wait in line alone, looking over his shoulder every few seconds as if he's a kid abandoned at a grocery checkout. As soon as John reappears with a cup in each hand, Gale shoulders everything and says, "You almost missed it." 

"Did I?" John sips from one and makes a face. "Here. Only seven bucks each, what a deal, huh?"

They juggle their belongings back and forth. Gale doesn't even want coffee but he takes the cup anyway, opting for this minor silent concession versus expressing anything out loud, practically riding the back of the person in front of him until they're about to get their tickets scanned and he finds himself tugged out of line.

"You guys can go ahead," John tells the couple behind them, and then he fixes a neutral expression on Gale and says, "It's not too late." 

"Not too late to what?" Gale asks, thrown.

"To stay home."

Gale looks around pointedly. "We're at the airport. I'm not gonna bail now."

"But we're not on the plane yet," John says. "I'm serious. You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

For a brief moment, Gale almost tells him that's not the problem. The problem is that he wants to want to go. He knew this trip had to happen sooner or later because he's living at John's now, by choice and not circumstance, and John keeps referencing the future in little throwaway moments, the last of which was pestering Gale about winter break dates before marking it on the calendar. So of course Gale expected to see Joni again at some point. He just hadn't expected to be making his grand entrance at a graduation for the girl who'd spent the bulk of her childhood worried about being overshadowed or forgotten.

He wonders if John is even aware of that. He wonders what Joni remembers about him. He wonders what she'll think of him, and whether or not she'll be disappointed. 

"It's fine," Gale says, getting back in line, and John says, "Okay."

They settle into their seats. Gale cranes around to watch everyone else board, trying to get used to the loud humming of machinery. The air smells stale and compressed and the fan blasting into his face is making him nauseated, so he reaches up to twist it shut. Sitting still for even the hour and a half journey to Chicago seems unbearable, let alone the five hour leg out to Santa Barbara. John stretches his legs and laces his fingers together to reach them upward, though his knees hit the seat in front of him before he can get anywhere close to straight. 

"By the way," he exhales, flopping his arms down, "I am one-hundred-percent aware of how many ways this weekend can go wrong."

Gale eyes him. 

"I just get this paradoxical reaction. Being nervous makes me seem super relaxed." John shrugs and smiles, then flicks the brim of his cap up so that it's more resting on his hair rather than fitted over it. "Now gimme a kiss to calm me down."

After a pause, Gale deigns to lean in—to the side, aiming for John's cheek in another silent, begrudging concession—except John swivels at the last minute to catch the kiss on his lips instead. It's his usual trick, but this time Gale feels duped into it and he pulls back with immediacy, humiliation condensing down and coming through as something too sharp. 

"I'm gonna kill you," he mutters. He can't help but scan the parade of people walking by. No one gives them a second look, save for a pair of young girls who stare at John and giggle at each other afterward. "Are you really joking around right now?"

There's an unsure half-smile frozen on John's face. "Just trying to lift the mood."

"Well, don't. Stop."

That smile gets replaced by a wider close-lipped one that reaches John's eyes. It's got all the features to seem genuine. Anyone else would be fooled, but Gale isn't. 

"Sure," John says easily. "Whatever you want." He clears his throat and leans forward to rummage through the seatback. Probably his idea of giving Gale space while sitting right next to each other in a metal tube. 

Watching him stirs up a prickle of regret. This cycle is too familiar by now, holding onto his shitty mood until the other person starts reflecting it back to him, but that's never enough to stop said cycle from starting in the first place. Gale fiddles with his seatbelt, understanding that there's only a short window of opportunity before the silence calcifies. He could let it happen. He normally does, because John always folds first with a gentle touch or a comment about something stupid like the weather or what they should eat or narrating whatever he's watching on his phone, and the fact that Gale doesn't have the emotional tools to offer the same is starting to seem like a sorry excuse. 

John isn't looking at him, focused instead on untangling two pairs of earbuds in his lap. There are about eight pairs total strewn around the apartment. Gale's been planning on buying him a pair of bluetooth ones for his birthday this year. 

He scratches the armrest. "John." 

"Yeah."

"I'm," Gale says, and hesitates for long enough that John cuts him a cautious glance. Overhead, a chirpy voice announces that boarding is complete and they'll be shutting the cabin door. "You know you're not just—you know I feel safe with you, right?"

John contorts himself a little, crossing his arms, then unfolding one to rest his fingers on his temple and look at Gale sideways. 

"And I don't know why, but that makes me mean sometimes," Gale manages, "which is stupid. And I'm sorry. And…I want you to know my murderous thoughts are coming from a safe and loving space. That's all."

John's mouth is doing something funny. Gale watches the flight attendant demonstrate safety procedures before wrenching his gaze back to John, whose cheeks have gone pink. 

"I'll try to do better," Gale adds. 

John nods. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. You just wanted to stew and I'm not good at letting people stew so that's on me."

"No it's not. It's not," Gale repeats. "Not everything is on you."

John nods again. "You're right. Sorry. That's on me." 

The moment breaks when Gale tries to shove his knuckles up John's nose. It's too late to call him on the whole that's on me tendency; the opportunity window for that is even smaller and John inevitably finds a way to wriggle out of it anyway. They wrestle for a bit until the plane loops around a corner and starts taxiing faster, Green Bay whipping by in a blur.

John rests his chin on Gale's shoulder, settling. "I think that's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me. I have the vapors," he murmurs, a solid, real weight against him, one that Gale still doesn't think is deserved but here he is.

"Minus the time I told you I've been in love with you my entire life?"

John makes a dismissive noise. "That's a close second."

Gale must have dozed off sometime deep in the night, because when he wakes, pale dawn light is filtering through the curtains. He's warm—warmer than he's felt in the longest time. The heater in his room barely worked, despite his attempts to fix it. A small hum escapes from his throat as he shifts, searching for the furnace before he stops at a soft wall. It takes him a slow, breath-holding beat to realize that it's John pressed against his back, one arm thrown heavily over his waist. The steady rise and fall of John's chest against his spine feels like a constant, living pressure. The warm puff of breath against Gale’s neck sends a shiver through him. For a disorienting moment, he thinks he's back in enemy territory, waking in the heat of a shared bunk with his fellow prisoner. 

Then John wriggles and disturbs the delusion. 

He is hard, the length of his erection solid against Gale's lower back through the thin fabric of his pajama pants. Gale’s heart drops to his stomach.

There’s suddenly too little oxygen in the room. Gale can’t seem to take in any. Or maybe he’s trying not to, holding his existence still and as small and unnoticeable as possible in a bed that’s somehow shrunk to the size of a coffin. John doesn’t share the same awareness. He stirs again, trying to get comfortable, his hand slipping under Gale's shirt until his palm lies flat against Gale's stomach.

He sighs, a soft sound of contentment, his touch aimless. Innocent, before it turns into something else.

It feels unreal when John’s hips begin to shift, rolling rhythmically in search of friction. Gale feels like he’s watching the two of them from somewhere outside himself. John is mumbling words Gale can’t quite understand. Hands are clawing at his chest, seeking purchase even though Gale is rigid and unyielding and nothing soft. Gale represses a moan and the impulse to push back as John’s callused finger pads scrape across one of his nipples. Perhaps John’s dreaming of a woman. Maybe the same one he was having fun with earlier last night. Gale can't think of any other possibility without feeling like he's stealing something that isn't his and he has no right to crave but does anyway. When he feels John’s cock twitch, he can’t think of anything else at all. Sweat gathers at the small of his back and the crooks of his arms. He can smell John's arousal, overwhelming and suffocating like he could drown. He is drowning. In things he knows he should’ve stayed away from since the beginning.

He could leave now. He should. He would wake John in the process and it would be better for both of them.

Only, Gale knows he isn't going to move. 

The noise John makes when he finds the curve of Gale's ass and grinds against it is held back like a whimper, so human it’s borderline animalistic. Gale clamps his eyes shut tight and knows he’s a coward for it, but that doesn’t stop the image of John’s thick, hard cock from burning behind his closed eyelids even though he's only ever seen it flaccid in fleeting glimpses while John was pissing or showering. It's loosening something in Gale's head, coherent thought dissolving into hunger. 

He wants to reach back and feel the hot, sturdy presence in his palm. It’s hard to stop himself, especially when John shows no such restraint, chasing a release in his sleep that isn’t meant for the other man in his bed. Gale bites hard into his lower lip as John's cock presses more insistently against him, almost wedging in between the cheeks and rubbing against his tailbone. He should feel humiliated. Disgusted. Exploited. Instead, he feels dizzy, absent in his own mind. It’s a sin for a reason. A pleasure he doesn’t even have to earn. Too easy to just fall into the rhythm and float with the wave. 

John's breathing grows ragged, his movements more urgent, tension coiling through him. When he finishes, it’s with a heavy, scalding exhale breaking over Gale’s neck as his cock pulses, wetness oozing onto Gale’s pants.

This is so !! Let's all close our eyes and have fun picturing this.

I'm extremely drawn to the Unpeopled Boundaries of Experience;  to Solitude as something both sought after & abhorred. It's often posited to be the condition without which a Higher Understanding (of oneself - of the World) cannot be reached, because by eliminating Witnesses, except for the natural world around The Hermit – which to me is also interesting, and says something about our not yet deconstructed Human Individuality. Why is the Natural world a neutral observer? Are we not part of the natural world? Is it not as self-absorbed to think of ourselves as a plague than it is to think of ourselves as a solution? – it supposedly allows for the Consciousness to reach a Supra-Natural dimension, through contemplation & silence & just overall an awful time.

I don't really subscribe to this philosophy of enlightened suffering, but I think Thoreau (obviously) has beautifully put one of the reasons why we're so drawn to this:

We need the tonic of wildness—to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.

At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. [...] We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

I think lighthouses are on the Confines of Humanity, so they are a perfect match for #ourGale.