(Uncopyedited!)

When Simon picks Charlie up at the hospital, he spends twenty minutes glaring at everyone, including Charlie, then puts his sunglasses on and refuses to talk until they’re in the car. There are, by Charlie’s count, at least three reasons why Simon might be in a garbage mood right now, not counting the fact that sometimes Simon just enjoys being cranky.

“You need an epi-pen,” Simon says when they hit a red light.

“I know.”

“You could have died.”

Charlie could not have died. He had an allergic reaction to some kind of latex makeup situation they were using on set, and the only way to make them stop freaking out was to let them call an ambulance. His throat didn’t close up, the hives weren’t anywhere near his mouth, and his face isn’t even swollen anymore. At the hospital, all they did was give him a shot and tell him everything they hated about the last season of Out There. Simon knows all this already.

“I’ll find an allergist,” Charlie says.

“Good.” Simon doesn’t say anything for the rest of the drive.

“You should take a nap,” Simon says when they get home, after Edie’s finished greeting them like they’ve returned from war.

“I’m not tired,” Charlie says. But Simon’s hair is rumpled and his clothes are wrinkled and he was probably napping when they called to tell him Charlie was on his way to the hospital. “I’ll lie down if you lie down.”

Simon sniffs. “Take off your gross hospital clothes before you get in my bed.”

Charlie takes off his shirt. “You were in the hospital too,” he points out. Simon sighs and gets undressed, then buries himself under the pile of blankets that he somehow needs even though it’s eighty-five degrees out. He lies on his back with his hands folded on his stomach like he’s never been horizontal in his life. The irritation is coming off him in waves.

Charlie slides in next to him, pushes Simon onto his side, wraps an arm around him, says “for fuck’s sake, go to sleep, you big baby,” and two minutes later Simon is unconscious. It doesn’t take long for Charlie to follow him.

When Charlie wakes up, the sun is coming through the window at a totally different angle and Simon is scrolling through his phone, but still letting Charlie use him like a body pillow. Charlie kisses his shoulder, then his neck, and then Simon is pressing back into him.

“Yeah?” Charlie asks.

“I mean, since you aren’t dead, might as well make yourself useful.” Still in a mood, then. Charlie smiles into the curve of Simon’s shoulder and bites him.

The weird thing about a long term relationship is that you get used to good sex. You can have A-minus sex on autopilot and all you have to do is put in a bit of effort to break the curve completely. Today, Charlie puts in a bit of effort.

“God, fine, okay,” Simon says after a while. “You’ve made your point.”

Charlie isn’t sure what his point is supposed to be here, and he doubts Simon does either, but it probably doesn’t matter. What matters is that Simon isn’t tense and weird and worried.

“So,” Charlie says when they’re finished and sweaty and Simon has kicked off a few blankets. He’s about sixty percent sure he sounds normal. “Thanks for picking me up. I, uh, put you down as my emergency contact.” There’s probably a better time for Charlie to bring all this up but sex usually makes Simon calm down for a few minutes. Whatever happens with the rest of this conversation, Simon probably won’t lock himself in the bathroom. “Alex is always out of town and my mom is out of the question, so.”

“Same,” Simon says. He doesn’t open his eyes.

“Really?” This derails Charlie’s entire line of approach. “I figured you had Jamie.”

Simon lifts a hand about two inches off the mattress, a gesture that might have been an airy wave if he could be bothered to move. “You’d make sure he knew what was going on.”

When Charlie doesn’t say anything, Simon opens his eyes. “Right?”

“Right. Of course I would.”

Simon shuts his eyes again. “You’re Edie’s emergency contact, too. At the groomer.”

Now Charlie’s really at sea. Simon barely trusts the vet with that dog. “Really?”

There must be something in Charlie’s voice that isn’t landing right because Simon opens his eyes for real now. “Really.”

“I thought you’d be annoyed. That I put you down as my emergency contact. Without telling you.”

Charlie watches Simon lock down his expression and arrange his face into something blank and neutral. “I think,” Simon says slowly, “that might be a you thing.” He smooths a hand down Charlie’s bare arm. “I think,” he says, still in that careful voice, “that I’d have been annoyed if you hadn’t put me down. And I think you know that.”

Maybe Charlie does know that, in the part of his brain that thinks about things, instead of the majority of his brain, which apparently has spent the day doing something else. Of course it’s normal to list your partner as your emergency contact. Of course Simon is weird and possessive. Of course Charlie forgets that he’s anyone’s priority. This is all familiar ground.

“I am annoyed that you’re taking known allergens and rubbing them all over your body,” Simon says. “That you’re endangering life and limb every single day. That you–”

“They glued on a fake scar!”

“Like I said!” Simon glares at Charlie’s cheek, which is probably still red and irritated, but isn’t going to kill him or anybody else.

Usually they don’t talk about this stuff. They more or less moved in together without even mentioning it. Charlie put Simon on the deed to his house by saying “here, sign this,” and then Simon changed his will and said “I needed to set up a trust for the dog and figured I might as well.” They’ve been spending holidays and vacations together without actually mentioning that this might matter.

“I know we’ve only been together for a year,” Charlie says.

“A year and a half,” Simon says. They’ve been together for a year and a half only if you’re measuring time using some other planet’s orbit around the sun.

“Sure, a year and a half,” Charlie agrees. “Some people get married so all this stuff is settled. If I’m in the hospital I want to know that it isn’t my mom deciding whether to pull the plug or whatever.”

Probably marriage proposals shouldn’t include the phrase “pull the plug.” But this isn’t really a proposal at all.

“I can’t tell whether you think I’m more or less likely to pull the plug,” Simon says after a minute.

“Me neither. I just want it to be you.”

Simon rolls so his face his pressed into the pillow, which would probably be a bad sign in anyone else. “Me too,” he says after a minute.

“So,” Charlie says. “Do you want to fill out a lot of paperwork about that or do you want to get married.” His mouth is dry and his palms are sweaty. Simon’s hand snakes out from under the blanket and lands on Charlie’s hip. “It doesn’t have to be—I mean—” Charlie’s words are all getting tangled. “We could have a small thing at my house and then dip when we’re done.”

Simon, thank god, doesn’t point out that Charlie has clearly been thinking about this. Planning it, even. Instead, Simon pinches him.

“The nicest thing you’ve ever done for me,” Simon says, mostly speaking into the pillow, “is do this so I don’t have to. I was seriously worried I’d have to ask you.”

Charlie’s heart might beat out of his chest. “Can’t have that.” He levers himself half over Simon’s body like an interactive weighted blanket, the way Simon likes.