Your name is Dave Strider, you are thirty-one years old, and this is becoming the longest-running evening of your life.

If you weren't already dead certain your mind was playing tricks on you, you'd say the sun took three days to set, nostalgic, winter light fading in through the kitchen windows just before dinner was set. Dinner itself has been a year and a half though - slow, lifeless bites of mashed potatoes between aging teeth, and Casey talking about Jesus knows what anymore. You love hearing what she has to say, honestly, and normally you adore enjoying John's cooking to the fullest, but you just can't stop shaking and yet in this shaking you can't shake the thought of talking to John tonight.

Is it because you're surrounded by dominoes that tell your very fate in their lined up polka dots that make no sense to you (nor anybody)? Is it because you can't feel whether you have wings to pull you up from the broken streets anymore? Is it the clock that just keeps ticking, ticking, ticking, forever echoing in your ears? Is it your sandbound feet or your locked-shut jaw or your static-clad eyes or your run-wild thoughts or your words that just, don't, connect, anymore?

Your mind is racing, it's swimming, it's spinning, and it's all at once as if you feel something coming on, you know something's coming on, you can feel it just as you felt the end of the world beneath your converse-covered feet. Yet, silver fork hanging from your mouth, you glance up for a moment, noticing that Casey's since stopped talking and the kitchen is silent save for the unloved ceiling fan above. John is smiling at you, just this big doofy grin with some little black whispers of hair outlining his mouth (just small - his father always taught him to keep well-shaved and damn if he doesn't stick to it), and you can tell by that look that you want to sit here every day, eating the same old fucking mashed potatoes, and looking at him and listening to Casey. Who knew you could be so domestic? (Who are you even kidding anymore?)

"You have dimples when you smile!" Casey exclaims at you, and you realize that's exactly what you're doing, a twitch going through your features in gentle surprise. "I wish I had some - Mommy's got some but none from Daddy, nuh-uh."

"No siree, I took 'em all from him when we were little," you say with a full mouth, raising your eyebrows at her briefly like it's a serious story. "Maybe you can snatch your best friend's when you get a little older."

And then John's laughing, not because you're funny, but because everyone involved knows that was the stupidest thing to say and it's just kind of nice to know that. "Just be lucky you don't have freckles like Dave," John adds teasingly. "No one likes those enough to steal them." You shoot him a death glare, resisting the urge to flip him the bird.

And when dinner passes, Casey gets in her pajamas and you all watch a movie on a freshly unloaded high-def TV (it's the one you gave him, and Casey feels the need to tell you that like you don't know). The little girl sets herself up in the middle of the couch, patting both sides of her with an affirming nod. John snorts some, taking up one side of her, and you taking the other, and then she giggles as she snuggles into both of you (or at least until she fidgets her way out of said snuggle a good two minutes later, fucking kids).

The ticks aren't slow or fast right now, they're even, like a metronome, like the beats you don't pay enough attention to anymore, and you think that that's what you've been looking for. Some peace of mind. Some semblance of some steadiness that you honestly could've found elsewhere but you never would have even dreamed of that.

Yet you're shaking again (did you expect any less?) when John's put Casey to bed, her having fallen asleep on both your laps halfway through the film, and he's sitting back next to you, nestled up even closer under the blanket but still not quite close enough.

Your heart racing your hands are shaking your lungs are stopping your eyes aren't focused

but slowly you close them, and reach over, and put your hand over his.

"We gotta talk."

His eyes turn to you, a deer in the headlights - the look in them telling you he expected it and yet his guard was completely down. "I uhm… sure, dude! What is it?" he asks with a laugh (moving his hand just a little, but it's to get comfortable and you almost sigh from relief over that, almost).

"This whole… thing," you start, and you suddenly realize you have no idea what you're fucking talking about. Despite your tireless recounts and your nights staring at speckled ceilings thinking over and over this, you haven't the slightest idea, what the hell you're talking about. "With me and, you, and… what's going on?" Eloquent, Strider - really wooing him.

Why do you need to woo him anyway? You're thirty-one years old, this isn't high school, and John isn't some cute guy at your school that you wanna have perfect teeth and cool slicked-back hair to impress. You don't need cheesy lines or a winning grin to win him. He already likes you, so if anything's going to happen, it'll happen.

You still hope he thinks you're cool, but you always have, so what else is new?

He gulps, nodding his head slowly (and keeping his hand in place underneath yours). "Yeah… that."

You give him a few moments, before sighing. "Don't leave me hanging. Is it go-time or not?" And you can't believe how confident you sound when you say that - like it's so effortless and as if none of this has been hard for you. Feeling like you can even sound like that is an achievement in itself, even though you guess you've been achieving that for years and years while you've kept on going.

And still he doesn't answer, teeth nibbling his lips and his eyes downcast on the Superhero blanket stretched on over his lap. It's so cute but so frustrating and you're tired of this, you're tired of being pent up and forced in and locked up inside the cage you've created for yourself called a body. Enough… enough is enough, and maybe you just need to go for it.

What more do you have to lose?

You throw yourself forward (you've done this once, maybe twice before, and still it feels so new, feels so open, feels so freeand you're drowning in it), your lips against his. It's not harsh like last time… gentle, caring, holding his face in your hand while the other holds the hand beneath it tightly. It's like your first kiss, his lips so soft, so wonderful, just like everything you ever dreamed of. You feel sparks, a million of those cliche little explosions of fireworks at once. It's a volcanic eruption, a geyser set loose, and your chest heaves and your mouth is just barely open, not so you can make out or anything, but so you can apply that much much pleasure to it, that much more passion and all in that one moment you just have to show him what the fucking hell he's always meant to you.

Time stands still there, and you wonder if this is why you always put that dumb moment in your movies. You always just kind of followed the moments given by films past, catching on and following in their footsteps in a way that only you seemed to find hysterical. But here it is, that big crowning moment and god damn it, it's real. That simple, uneventful moment before he kisses you back, his lips moving slowly to match the feeling and his fingers intertwining with yours. Last time you were nervous and scared (and maybe you still a little are), but overall you feel free as a bird, your feet gone from under you, and you think that in that brief return, in that pressing of himself to you in response, you can see how he feels about you, too.

Yet those movie-frame moments always do what movie moments do best - they come to an end, and he's pulling back, eyes opening, and while he catches his breath he has the dorkiest fucking look on his face. "Tell me about it, stud," you breathe, still not pulled too far away from him just yet.

And then he laughs his stupid laugh, his breath smelling of toothpaste (he always makes Casey brush right after dinner, and he does it too then), and his eyes squishing up a little, showing off all his forming smile lines. It's silent then, and you're both thinking a million miles a minute, John's eyes have glassed over with focus and you ultimately closing yours.

"So is that a yes to you and me as a hot item?" you ask finally, opening those eyes and moving (clacking your glasses together at that point). You don't see at all why it'd be a no, how the hell would it even beginto be a no after that? You don't mean to brag but, you two've got a pretty sweet deal going here, you've got a sweet deal going here - not even tragedies could pull that kind of bullshit.

He laughs again, letting go of you to hit your arm roughly. "Looks like it, doesn't it?"

Today is a very important day for the person most important to you - it's the day he begins a new place for his family, his daughter peeking out of her bedroom and giggling when she sees him wrestling with you. It's a beginning, it's a new light, it's something none of you expected. It's something big for the love of your life.

And hey maybe - maybe it can be for you too.