Work Text:
Landon watches Julian walk away, cigarette held disinterestedly in his left hand. He hadn’t bothered smoking while the blond stayed the night (and he feared his gentle retribution) and sleep wasn’t easy coming the night before.
He tries to play it off, briefly, as a craving to smoke, but Landon knows that it was his own mixture of feelings that kept him up. Euphoria into resentment into anxiety, each washing over him within minutes of each other. The fear that Julian would pull away (he didn’t), the resignation that Julian would be gone by the time Landon woke up (he wasn’t), the giddiness of having Julian back in his life (he was). Everything pulled at him, dragging him away from sleep and into another vein of thought. Eventually, though, a restless sleep had fallen over Landon.
Julian’s reaction, too, pulled Landon through reaction after reaction. Endless, miniature explosions of thought and feeling that puttered out after seconds. The shorter boy woke up before Landon had, and didn’t bother to leave. Rather, he waited for Landon to wake up, and then they had made the bed together. Nothing dramatic, no shyness from having slept close together last night; no, the only thing that happened was pulling the blankets up to the top of the mattress with a comfortable silence.
The redhead takes a drag. Landon wonders why he expected something else. Anything, other than comfort. Had Julian finally grown into himself, finally, free from his worries? No, he had fretted over cuddling and the visit and their spending time, so it couldn’t be that. It wasn’t Isaiah texting him, worrying about him and asking if he needed him to take him back to their dorm. No storms, no pressing matters, just Julian staying.
No, it was something Landon was loathe to admit. It was the small seed of bitterness and resentment, buried deep within his stomach. The loneliness and anger he felt when Julian stopped talking to him, stopped responding to his texts. He would never call the blond a saint, but the suddenness of it all had left Landon betrayed more than he thought. Never once had Julian shown any capacity for cruelness until the moment he started listening to his father.
But, really, it was no use fostering those sentiments. Nothing could come of it but more bitterness and worry, more fears and anger. Landon takes another hit off his cigarette. His bad habits returned soon after Julian left. Surely he doesn’t want to hear his criticisms, but Landon ponders if it would be worth it, this time, to quit smoking. Would it end up a wasted venture again, struggling through withdrawal just to please someone who stopped caring? With Julian’s apologies, probably not, but even so he is just petty enough to allow himself this one act of selfishness.
Still, even as his body rests with each puff, Landon feels restless, in need of movement or action. To chase after Julian, confirm that he’ll be coming back. He could crush the cigarette butt under his heels and probably catch up (he can still see the short man, slowly walking through the cold towards his dorm) and ask him to come back to stay another day. He feels like he should, to make sure Julian won’t abandon him again.
Landon finishes his cigarette. Even if he started after Julian, he would end up being late for a class meeting, and Julian would just chide him and push him towards attending. It seems a worthless cause, at least for now. He should get dressed, get ready to go to class and stop humoring his own anxieties. Surely, the blond would end up calling him back. Or, at least, Landon hopes he won’t run away again.