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Jeremy is in his bed when Mark decides to turn in.
“Ah,” says Mark, taking only a slight pause in his pre-sleep routine. He takes a moment to process the unexpected circumstances, then bends over to methodically strip off his socks. Jeremy is still (and Mark’s not sure whether this should be prefixed with ‘fortunately’ or ‘unfortunately’) conscious, but the way he’s eyeing Mark is sort of lazy and half-asleep.
“What are you doing in my bed?” he finds it within his soul to ask, after a moment of sock removal.
“Jizzed on my sheets,” says Jeremy, in a tired drawl.
Mark scrunches up his face in what is largely an instinctive response rather than an expression of any sort of actual emotion. He could say ‘I didn’t need to know that’ or ‘I wish I hadn’t asked’, but Jeremy knows that he could say that. He’s sure Jeremy is already considering his own comebacks to the comebacks that Mark isn’t coming back with. The train of thought is rapidly getting too layered. Mark abandons it. He’s much more comfortable in the little ditch beside the tracks, watching the trains of thought go past and occasionally getting submerged in runoff.
“Okay,” Mark settles on, then moves to his dresser to retrieve tonight’s set of pyjamas. He can’t feel Jeremy’s eyes on him, per se, but he can feel Jeremy’s attention. In the unfortunate and ironic way one becomes aware of one’s own body after having learned to tune it out, Mark becomes not only aware, but self-conscious of his breathing. Come on, breathe normally! It’s not that hard!
“Could you not have changed your sheets?” Mark asks, a train of thought he vastly prefers observing from the drainage ditch than whether or not he is breathing normally. He turns away from Jeremy, pulls down his trousers, and replaces them with pyjama bottoms.
“Jizzed on ‘em,” Jeremy says, in a petulant sort of whine.
“Hence my suggestion.” Mark’s trousers are joined by his shirt in the laundry hamper. He shrugs on the button-up that matches his bottoms, and gets to work on fastening it.
“I don’t wanna talk about my jizz.”
“It’s your own fault,” Mark says, more to his sock drawer than to Jeremy. If it’s going to be a bed-sharing sort of night, he’s going to want socks. Jeremy’s feet are clammy almost all the time. Maybe that’s the real side effect of wanking too much—not hairy palms, like they always said in school, but a near-complete lack of circulation in the toes.
Jeremy makes a noise that is much closer to being a whine, especially on account of its being wordless. Mark turns and peers more closely at him—at Jeremy, laying in Mark’s bed with the covers up to his stupid chin, looking mopey.
“Are you high?” He’s not really certain what he wants the answer to be.
Jeremy looks affronted at that. “No.” His nose wrinkles as he frowns. “‘M just tired.”
“Right.” Mark pauses, then takes his carefully-selected socks in hand and sits at the foot of his bed to put them on. Jeremy watches him in an only moderately perverted way. “I suppose I’d have to teach you how to use the dryer again, anyway.”
“Nah. I could just put ’em in your hamper. You’d be honour-bound to wash ’em.”
This is true, of course, but Mark doesn’t want to give Jeremy the satisfaction of his saying that. He makes a noncommittal noise instead, and turns to face Jeremy properly.
“Are you planning to sleep here?” he asks, even though he knows the answer.
“Yep,” says Jeremy. As I suspected. He yawns so widely that his jaw clicks audibly. Then he goes sort of boneless, and looks almost innocent in his repose. “Y’gonna join me?”
Mark knows that anything but ’yes’ would be a denial of an inevitable fate, but decides it is still prudent to sigh, contributing as it does to his (as yet unsuccessful) mission of giving Jeremy a conscience.
Jeremy doesn’t even seem to notice the effort. Mark sighs again, markedly less performative, and moves aside the covers.
“Move a little closer to the wall,” Mark says, without bothering to make it a question. Jeremy responds better to direct commands, anyway.
“’Kay,” says Jeremy, in a tired mumble that shouldn’t be as endearing as it is. Mark supposes it helps that he has zero respect for the guy already.
He settles into his bed—his bed, despite what Jeremy’s regular forays into it might suggest—with Jeremy a long line of clammy exhaustion beside him. It’s almost nice.