PAPER CUP

There are clearly not enough minutes in one night to give Blaine all the minutes he’d like to have, and nights are always a minute shorter than they’d wish them to be.

Cody stretches out, lying down in the sand. It’s weirdly warm, considering how cold the night air is. And yet, the coldness of the air is somehow very pleasant too, after the warmth of the water. It’s an awkward caress, but sweet nonetheless, like some of those Blaine gives him in the morning, when he wakes up and finds him by his side and, not fully aware of who he is but not completely unaware that he’s Cody and not somebody else either, he lets his hands slide down his body just to touch him.

He wouldn’t believe Blaine, when he said the sea is warm at night. “That’s not possible,” he said, uneasily, always scared to contradict, always worried he might say the wrong thing. Old habits die hard, William’s voice says in his head, and most of the time Cody ignores it, but sometimes he just can’t.

Blaine just laughed, though, blowing away bad thoughts like the wind does with the clouds. “Don’t you know anything, pet?” he said. And then, without explaining, he added, “Come. Try it, if you don’t believe me.”

Trust has always been an issue, for Cody, but he trusted him. He walked into the water, wearing nothing but his underwear. And it was warm alright.

Blaine’s arms were warmer, though, as Cody felt them around his body. He relaxed against Blaine’s chest, resting his head on the curve of his shoulder. Blaine kissed him on his neck and then stood still, watching the dark horizon, following the white, shaky trace of the moon on the black surface of the see.

“It feels like a dream,” he said. Cody didn’t want to answer that it felt so good because, in the end, it was nothing but a dream. A few minutes of suspended reality in between a moment of pain and the other. Isn’t this what dreams are all about, in the end? Dreams can be real, if they’re short enough.

It still feels like a dream, now, lying in the sand, looking up at the sky. The night is dark, and the stars can be seen so well Cody could use them as outlines to paint. He stares at them intently, trying to fix that image in his mind, take a picture and remember it. He wants to draw this, later, when he’ll be alone in his room, when Blaine won’t be there anymore, when the warmth of his skin will be long gone. He’ll want to draw this sight to try and see if there’s a way to capture the feeling that went with it. If there’s a way to summon Blaine’s fingers when they’re not there anymore.

It hurts somewhere deep inside to know it won’t be of any use.

“You’re distant,” Blaine whispers. Cody looks up at him and finds him lying on his stomach, his elbows in the sand, looking down at him with an half-sad smile. “Something bad happened?”

No, something beautiful happened. He fell in love. And that’s heartbreaking.

Cody forces a smile on his lips and shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says, “I’m just thinking.”

“About what?” Blaine asks gently.

Cody chuckles, turning on his stomach too and mirroring Blaine’s position, his shoulder brushing against his. “Guess,” he says.

“Ah!” Blaine smiles, “I like this game. Let’s see. You’re thinking about chocolate.”

“Not at all!” Cody laughs, hitting Blaine’s shoulder with his own, “I don’t always think about food.”

“But when you do, it’s chocolate,” Blaine says, nodding to himself, knowingly.

Cody’s smile softens as he nods. “That’s true,” he admits, “But it doesn’t change the fact that I wasn’t thinking about food right now.”

“Then about the fact that I was right,” Blaine tries, “The sea was warm. And you don’t want to admit it.”

“What do you think I am, twelve?” Cody chuckles again, “I admit it. It was warm.” His smile widens a bit, “It felt good.”

“So that’s what you were thinking about,” Blaine says, turning on his back and lying down, his hands searching for Cody’s and holding them gently as he guides him, silently asking him to lies down on his chest, “That it felt good. Was it weird?”

“Everything is, with you,” Cody answers in a chuckle, resting on him, his fingers tracing the outlines of his features, his fingertips lingering on the small imperfections, the things he likes the most about him, the little hump on his nose, the expression lines around his lips, the hard squareness of his jaw, “You can’t do things like normal people would.”

“Mmh,” Blaine tilts his head, pensively, “Why, what would ‘normal people’ have done in our situation?”

“I don’t know,” Cody smiles, “I’m not very normal myself.”

“That I know,” Blaine nods, “After all, you’re with me.”

“Exactly,” Cody laughs.

“But still,” Blaine insists, “Do you wish anything was different, between us?”

Cody doesn’t need time to picture all the things he’d love to be different. He can see himself and Blaine in a different reality, somewhere with a house of their own, a garden, maybe kids. He can see the sunlight, in his fantasy, he can almost feel it on his skin, and then the night wind that blows around them brings him back to reality with just a bit too much violence, and he curls up against Blaine’s chest, shivering.

“Are you cold?” Blaine asks, worried, wrapping his arms around his shaky shoulders, “Damn, of course you are. It’s late. Let’s go.”

“No,” Cody presses both his hands against Blaine’s chest and pulls away from him, just a bit, just enough to look at him. He tries a smile and he manages a very small one. It’ll have to be enough. “I wanna stay,” he says, nodding, “Just a little more.”

“You’ll freeze,” Blaine says, looking up at him with real concern in his eyes.

Cody swallows, leaning down on him. “Warm me up,” he answers.

As they kiss, and as Blaine’s hands run down his body, and as he overturns their positions and rests on him, and as he touches him and kisses him everywhere, and as they take off their soaked underwear, and as Blaine touches him, and then fingers him, and then moves inside him, Cody closes his eyes and feels the night around them. He feels the darkness, and the cold, and Blaine’s arms are the only warm thing in the world, right now. They’re the only thing in the world.

Their past means nothing, even the bits and pieces they share. There’s no Leo who broke Cody’s heart and whose heart got broken by Blaine. There’s no William who destroyed something inside Cody, and there’s no long streak of useless, empty one night stands that forged Blaine to be who he is now, this scared man, unable to form a stable, healthy relationship that goes on for more than a couple of weeks.

There’s nothing, just them. And the night. And the dark. And the cold, and Blaine’s warmth making it better.

“Why aren’t you with me, tonight?” Blaine whispers in Cody’s ear, his voice broken by sadness, as he moves slowly inside him.

“I am,” Cody answers, and he’s not lying. He is, just in a way Blaine couldn’t possibly understand. He’s already in that place where they’re over, and nothing but a memory. He’s with him, he’s just not with him where Blaine is, or when, for that matter. They’re having a relationship in the only place and time they both can afford, a place and a time that live only through memory. And dreams.

Blaine rests on him, wrapping his arms around his body. He seems unwilling to let go of him – tonight, or ever, for that matter. But Cody knows it’s not true. If not now, soon enough, Blaine will want this to end. Cody just doesn’t plan on being there when it happens. And he knows it’s cowardly and unfair, but he can’t afford his heart to break in pieces again. He wouldn’t know how to mend it on his own. This time, he wouldn’t survive it. He can’t let Blaine kill him – Blaine would never forgive himself for it, and he already doesn’t forgive himself for too many things to add that to the list.

“We should go,” Cody says after a while, his fingers running lazily through Blaine’s dripping hair, “It’s getting late.”

“Just one more minute,” Blaine answers, clinging to him.

But there are clearly not enough minutes in one night to give Blaine all the minutes he’d like to have, and nights are always a minute shorter than they’d wish them to be.