Three in the morning finds me sprawled in a hotel room bed with Jesse curled up against my side, making little noises in his sleep. I'm used to that second part, as long as it comes from the opposite side of the room. I'm not used to feeling every breath that comes with them.

Hell, I'm certainly not complaining. Not about that, at least.

It bothers me that I don't even know where we are. I'm not just talking about what hotel, I'm talking about what city. Call me a romantic, but it'd be nice to know where Jess and I screwed each other blind for the first time.

I'm pretty sure that most people think we've been sleeping together since the first time we tagteamed. When he demanded to know if I was 'with him', people thought he meant in the biblical sense. Some of what we've done on camera has even fooled his family; I'm not going to forget that night that Bob Armstrong cornered me and asked me, very calmly, exactly how far my partnership with his son extended. Bob's not a kid anymore, but I wasn't about to give the man an answer he didn't want to hear. I like my bones intact. So I told him the truth, that we flamed all over the damned place but kept our hands to ourselves. Or kept our hands off each other, anyway. It's not like either of us are completely straight. As ex-jobbers to the stars, we've both clocked some impressive time on our knees. Jess did it to keep Jarrett off his back, and to drag himself out of sidekick hell. As for me... how the hell else were me and Bart supposed to get tag title shots? Like Bart would lower himself. He was fine with letting me do it, but him? Never.

Not that I'm still bitter or anything.

Jesse is shifting a little, starting to wake up. It's the light from the TV that's doing it, probably. I can't turn it off without waking him up. Either way I play it, I'm going to have to face him sooner or later.

Christ, listen to me. Jesse isn't a threat. He's the closest friend I've had, although I'm not looking at much comparison, since I'm not exactly easy to get along with. Jess doesn't turn his back on friends, no matter how obnoxious they get. Even if what happened tonight turns out to not mean shit to him, there's still that. But I still can't shake the feeling that this opened the gate to something that's been held back for the last couple of years we've been working together. I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with that. I'm not sure if this is going to destroy everything.

I'm not sure about anything right now.

Well, actually, I'm fairly sure that this is all his fault. We'd been doing fine for most of the night, just us, Hunt and Sean drinking and nursing our wounds from matches earlier that night. Sean fucked up his shoulder pretty badly during Raw, so we stayed in and were relatively quiet for once. The shoulder thing was what conveniently took Sean and Hunter out of the picture for the night. Hunter's shoulder massage had the kid purring and as pliant as hot candle wax, nearly boneless against Hunter as they moved off to continue someplace more private.

There was an unfamiliar note to Jesse's chuckle as he watched them go, something that made me glance up at him. He met my look with one of his own, his eyes dark and unreadable. I should've bolted when he suddenly laid back on the bed, finishing off the rest of his beer and letting the bottle roll out of his fingers as he stretched like a cat. I even remember trying to get off the bed, but he reached out and touched my leg to make me stop. It worked. With just one fleeting touch to my thigh, I was pretty much caught. I heard our conversation through a haze, like it was coming from under water.

Eyeing me with an amused, somehow shaky smirk, Jesse looked at the tv. "Nothing on," he noted.

"It's midnight," I replied, in probably one of the denser things I've said in my life.

"Mmm." Jesse shifted a little, opened his mouth to say something, then sighed and let his head drop back. "Fuck it. I've never been good at being subtle." That said, he grabbed me by the shirt and yanked me down into a kiss.

For the first second, I was too stunned to react. His lips and body were warm under mine, tentative, still asking for permission. When I finally untensed, opening for him more out of instinct than anything, he growled softly and took the invitation. I could only taste him for a second as his tongue darted across the roof of my mouth, so quick I wasn't sure it had actually happened until the taste of Jesse and alcohol hit me hard. When Jesse urged me off of him and on to my back, covering my body with his and lowering his head to lick at my throat, I finally got it together enough to demand, "Jess, what the hell is this?"

"Low pressure guy groping." For somebody who's usually so good with words, Jess was being annoyingly unhelpful. The distraction of his mouth on my skin wasn't making things any clearer.

"And what the hell is that?"

"Groping. With low pressure. Between guys, even."

"Thanks for clarifying-" A nip to the crook of my throat promptly shut me up for a moment, my body shivering hard in reaction as he soothed the sting with a few warm laps of his tongue. When I could string coherant words together again, I asked shakily, "Why?"

He stopped suddenly, raising his head to look at me in concern. "You want me to stop?"

"God, no, but..."

"But you want a reason." Laying his head on my chest, Jess shrugged. "A few months of having to beat the hell out of you. A few years of touching each other like we're sleeping together and never really doing a damned thing. My bad memories of low pressure gropes in the back of a truck in a desert. The fact that we're both still breathing, and that the sky hasn't fallen in. Because there's nothing on tv." With a wry smirk, he asked, "Does it really matter, Billy?"

I remember hearing my heartbeat loud in my head. I remember part of me protesting, screaming that this is a mistake. And I remember running my hand down his spine, feeling him shiver and watching his eyes flare.

"No," I said. "It doesn't matter."

No one has ever explained the finer details of 'guy groping' to me, but I'm pretty sure that we didn't play by the rules. One of us was supposed to back off at some point, before clothes started coming off. I don't think it was supposed to end with Jess fucking me slow and hard while I whimpered under him, struggling to think around what he was doing to me. I shouldn't know what he sounds like when he comes, the soft, broken mewls that could be my name or could just be nonsense, reaction. Nothing important.

My mind shouldn't have splintered like that when he pulled me over the edge after him.

A soft noise from beside me drags me back into reality, making me glance at Jess. The sudden, blue jolt of his eyes fixed on mine makes me want to move back, out of reach. I'm so not ready to deal with this now. Before I can move, he shifts closer, laying on his stomach with his hip pressed against mine. Throwing an arm over my chest, he puts his head down on my shoulder and blinks sleepily up at me. "Hi," he comments quietly. "You okay?"

"I'm good." Please, Jess, just go back to sleep.

With a drowsy version of his usual, little boy grin, he adds lecherously, "Very good." Stretching a little, he raises his head to look at the television and smirks. "Great. Seduced by the flickering light of 'Earth Girls are Easy'. My life is complete."

"You've got some damned low standards then. And YOU were seduced? I beg to differ."

"Mmm. Begging is good. I like it when you beg." Before I can react to that, he looks towards the bedstand. "Time is it?"

 "Around three."

"Ugh." He turns a suddenly piercing look on me. "Why are you still awake?"

Oh, yay. It's question dodging time. With a fake grin, I shrug. "Just can't sleep. Don't worry about it."

Jesse frowns. "I already am. C'mere." Tugging me close, he tangles one hand in my hair and traces lazy circles on my temple with his thumb, still studying me thoughtfully. "You feeling okay? You're tense."

"I'm fine." I try to pull my head away, but he's having none of it. "Listen, we need to talk-"

"At three in the morning?" With a snort, he shakes his head. "Trust me, unless it's life-threatening, it can wait."

I finally manage to squirm back and reply, trying to ignore that the entire side of my body is protesting the loss of his body heat, "Can it? What the hell are we doing here, Jess?"

Blinking at me, he says slowly, "Well... right now, I'm trying to get back to sleep, and it looks like you're freaking."

"I'm not freaking."

"Right. That explains real well why you're on the other side of the bed. Get back here, would you? It's like a fucking meat locker in here."

Against every better judgement I still have, I move back warily. I can't help tensing a little as he pulls me up against him, his hand resting heavily on my hip. His warmth soaks into me, branding me. Letting my head fall forward against his shoulder, I fight the urge to swear out loud. What the fuck did I get myself into here?

"Thanks." Coming from Jess, that sounds awkward as hell. We've been travelling together long enough that politeness is kind of a moot point. It's totally at odds with the way we're curled together, something strangely more intimate than what we were doing a few minutes ago. He's close enough that I can feel him sigh. "You know, I meant what I said about low pressure. It's called that for a reason."

"Right. But it's also called 'grope' for a reason. Not fuck or suck off, both of which I'm pretty sure happened. And you want to tell me that you slept with somebody like this after a grope in the back of a truck in the desert?"

Jess frowns slightly, considering that for what seems to be the first time. "No," was his eventual answer. "We didn't. And we still slept in different bunks afterwards." Turning towards me in the dark, he studies me. His voice is hesitant, careful, when he goes on, "But it felt right this time. I mean, God, as soon as I touched you I was pretty much gone with the flow. I didn't have a chance. And afterward, I didn't want to move away. I could've moved, but it didn't feel right." Still frowning a little, he says, "This is... different."

"Yeah, no shit."

Raising his head, he meets my eyes. He cups my jaw with his hand, stroking my cheek with his thumb. "I think," he admits softly, "I like this better."

Christ. He might as well have gut-punched me.

It must have shown on my face, because he backs off a little. With a final pat and a gentle smile, he moves his hand away. "Listen, we've got a flight tomorrow. Get some sleep. This can wait until morning."

I recognize that note in his voice, the one that says the subject is closed, and I know better than to argue with him over it. Not when he has the advantage of about an hour of sleep, anyway. So I cooperate for once, laying my head on his shoulder and trying to ignore the part of me that's wondering if he'll still be here in the morning.

Jesse absently rubs my shoulder, holding me close against him. When he finally speaks up again, there's a strange note to his voice. "You still gonna be here when I wake up, Billy?"

"Depends. You want me to be?"

He laughs again. It's a nice sound. It's addictive. Oh, I am so fucked... "It's one of the reasons I'm holding on like this."

Raising my head, even though it's getting seriously difficult to just keep my eyes open, I ask without thinking. "What are the other reasons?"

His smile fades out, to be replaced by a thoughtful look that makes my stomach knot. Finally, he nudges my head back, nuzzling my throat. I purr, my eyes drifting closed. God, that's nice. It manages to dispel that gnawing anxiety in my stomach, at least. Moving back a little and pressing his cheek to the top of my head, he comments wryly, "Give me a few years and I might actually come up with the answer to that."

Way to dodge the question, Jess. He almost managed to con me into believing him. If I wasn't so tired that the room is blurring, I'd call him on it. Instead, I give him a doubtful look, then shift until my head is resting in the crook of his throat. Hey, he's obviously not planning on letting go, so I might as well get comfortable. I can feel him breathing, a slow, rhythmic motion. When he murmurs, "Get some sleep, okay?", it's more vibration than sound. Weird.

I can live with weird.

Over the next few minutes, I can feel his breathing even out. For some reason, probably sleep deprivation, that fascinates me, becomes my focus. The quiet sound of Geena Davis's voice still coming from the tv, the cold of the room and any doubts I was having fade into the background, drowned out by the warmth of his body and the pattern of his breathing. He won't stop stroking my arm with his fingertips, grounding me. It's not bad, actually. Not bad...

"Jess?" Damn, I sound out of it. All right, I just need another minute and I'll wake all the way up.

"Hmm?" There's an annoyingly fond, amused tone to his voice. The bastard's just humoring me. I ought to smack him.

"You think this is better than the guy groping?"

He laughs low and soft in his throat, making it sound like a purr. "Much better."

I'm not really sure why that makes me smirk, but I'm just going to blame it on lack of sleep. Safer that way. "'Kay. Thought so."

With another chuckle, he kisses my forehead gently. "Glad you approve. Now go to sleep."

All right. Fine. I'll do what he says, but not because he told me to. I don't exactly have a choice. I'm half out already, not even hearing the rest of what he says to me. It's probably important, but if I miss it, it's his own damned fault for being so comfortable.

I really ought to tell him something. I ought to tell him that this is better than the guy groping would have been. It can wait, though. He'll still be here in the morning.

I'm walking out on to a ledge here. God, please let him still be here in the morning.
---
End.