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Gabe figures out his little ‘trick’ mostly by accident.
He’s having one of those days where everything feels slightly misaligned, like his body’s an Ikea chair that’s been assembled wrong and one wrong move from collapse because no one bothered to check to make sure the screws were all tightened. His entire body aches. It’s a low, grinding thrum radiating out from his abdomen that makes him curl in on himself. There’s a headache blooming behind his eyes. His hands are shaky enough that if he tried to do anything remotely precise, it’d definitely go wrong.
Yes, he’s learned how to live like this. No, he doesn’t like it. It just means he knows which battles are worth picking.
The flat is quiet in the way student housing rarely is, a small mercy. Grey afternoon light presses in through the window, flattened by clouds. Gabe has claimed the couch with the authority of someone who cannot currently be moved, with a blanket pulled up to his chest to top it off. His sock-covered feet are still cold.
And David is pacing.
Not the frantic pacing that Gabe’s seen before, but in slower steps that trace the length of the rug and back again. He’s reading something on his phone, stopping every few passes to scroll back, eyes scanning something. His free hand keeps twitching, fingers flexing like they’re trying to grab onto something before it escapes.
Gabe watches him through half-lidded eyes. When he’s in pain, he’ll admit that watching other people is easier than sitting and monitoring himself. David is especially easy to watch, for more reasons than just being gorgeous. He was also endlessly readable if you knew where to look.
David mutters something sharp and irritated.
“What’s happened now?” Gabe says.
David looks up like he’s forgotten he’s not alone. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” Gabe says, his voice quiet. He shifts on the couch, arching backward slightly, spine cracking once, and lets one hand drift out from under the blanket. When David passes close enough, Gabe reaches out, brushing his fingers lightly against David’s wrist.
David stops immediately. It’s reflexive, always has been.
“What’s got you like that?” Gabe asks.
David exhales. “Nothing.”
“That’s a lie,” Gabe says mildly.
David hesitates, already pulling inward, shoulders tensing like he’s about to fold himself smaller. “It’s just– something in the reading list is bothering me.”
Gabe hums. He wraps his fingers around David’s wrist. “You can complain. I’m bored.”
David snorts. “You’re not bored.”
“I am,” Gabe insists, thumb idly tracing the pulse under David’s skin. “Bored and miserable. And my phone’s dead.”
He’s also not currently sure whether he wants to crawl out of his skin, or consume a whole bottle of Advil, but that’s neither here nor there.
“Good, I don’t want to look at that case for another second.”
“Oh my God, I like orange!” Gabe protests.
David rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitches. He gives in and sits on the edge of the couch, careful at first, leaving an initial inch of space between them like he always does. Gabe closes that distance, leaning sideways until his shoulder fits against David’s arm. David goes still for half a second, then exhales and leans into it.
“It’s about Stoicism,” David says, already defensive. “Which is the whole—... Never mind, you don’t care about this.”
Gabe shifts so his head rests more comfortably against David’s shoulder. The position pulls faintly at his torso, but it’s manageable. “Try me.”
David sighs. “If you fall asleep, that’s on you.”
“That’s always on me,” Gabe says. “I’m famously a bad influence.”
David shakes his head, but he starts talking. He gives a clean version, the one he’s practiced for seminars and essays. His tone is careful but quick, like he’s bracing for interruption. Gabe listens, but his stomach tightens, a reminder that being polite costs energy he doesn’t have today.
He needs something louder. Something he can focus on hard enough that his body fades to static. David pauses after a sentence, and Gabe’s brain catches up on what he’s said.
“Wait,” Gabe says, brow furrowing. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would they even think that?”
David pauses. He opens his mouth, closes it. “Because, well, that’s the issue, isn’t it? That in—”
And then something loosens.
David’s sentences get longer. He stops circling back to qualify every opinion. His hands start moving, tracing connections in the air. He leans forward, then back, knee bouncing where it presses against Gabe’s thigh. Gabe lets his head tip sideways fully now, resting against David’s shoulder without asking. Neither of them pull away.
Gabe listens the way he used to listen to instructions as a kid, with his whole attention. He tracks the thread of David’s argument. He asks questions, nudging past the places where he might otherwise stall.
“Who said that first?”
“But didn’t that contradict—”
“Okay, but what did he actually mean by that?”
Each question is a hook. David, ever predictable, bites every time.
Somewhere along the way, Gabe notices the pain start to quiet. It doesn’t disappear. It never does. But it moves farther away, like someone turned the volume down a notch, and with that, it’s no longer the loudest thing in the room.
Gabe doesn’t think about it too hard. Thinking about it might ruin it, so the next time it happens, he’s more deliberate.
The pain is worse that day, enough that he keeps curling forward without meaning to, headache pressing hard against his temples. David is sitting on the floor, back against his bed, reading. Gabe lies half on top of him, cheek pressed to David’s shoulder, one leg draped over his lap.
“What are you reading?” Gabe asks.
David glances down. “Medical ethics.”
“Sounds fake,” Gabe says.
David huffs. “You wound me.”
“What’s the dumbest argument in it?” Gabe asks.
David looks at him, suspicious. “You don’t want the dumbest one. You want the one that makes me mad.”
Gabe smiles faintly. “I can want multiple things.”
David starts talking, and he doesn’t stop. Gabe listens, and he doesn’t stop. The pain recedes enough that he can breathe smoothly.
Over time, it becomes something like routine, though nothing about it is formal. On bad days, Gabe nudges conversations out into the open. He learns which topics make David light up and which ones make him fold inward.
Weeks pass. The weather changes. Gabe’s pain cycles through its usual patterns. Both of their coursework ramps up. Their habits knit tighter without either of them noticing.
One evening, Gabe is sprawled on the couch, head pounding, hands trembling just enough to be so violently irritating. David is at the desk, typing furiously, shoulders hunched.
“Hey,” Gabe says. His voice comes out flatter than usual. “Remind me why everyone worships Marcus Aurelius again.”
David swivels in his chair. “You want the short version or the one where I ruin him for you?”
“Ruin,” Gabe says immediately.
David launches in, irritation sharpening his thoughts into something very entertaining. Gabe closes his eyes and listens, letting the words stack up like a wall, creating a barrier.
It works too well.
At some point, David stops typing altogether. At some point he must’ve transferred to the couch, thigh pressed to Gabe’s, hand resting at Gabe’s hip like it belongs there. He keeps talking.
Gabe listens until the pain dulls enough that he can unclench his jaw.
That must’ve been when the lightbulb went off, because from then on, David started doing it first.
Gabe notices one afternoon when he’s still half-lost in the fog of his own thoughts, barely holding himself together. He hasn’t said anything in what feels like hours, too tired to even muster the effort. And then, David starts talking.
Something about inconsistencies, something singlehandedly changing the meaning of an entire concept. His words are methodical, slow enough to ease their way into Gabe’s tired brain without asking for too much. Gabe finds himself listening with half attention, not needing to follow every single thread, but the rhythm of it works like a balm.
David continues on, and Gabe closes his eyes. David’s voice ebbs and flows like a familiar current, and Gabe doesn’t fight it.
Eventually, Gabe feels something in him loosen, and untense. David’s voice trails off, the cadence softening as if he’s realized Gabe hasn’t said a word. The silence stretches for a moment before David asks, low and careful, “You okay?”
Gabe’s response is little more than a murmur. “Yeah.”
And he really is.
Once again, he lets his eyes fall shut.