Page 5 of Noah
“If you want to live here,” Jensen says, shoulders raising like the whole thing is a question and not up to him. Jensen opens the plastic bag with a wince. “So, yeah. Welcome,” he says and drops a welcome mat in front of the door.
“Oh? For me?” he asks and is pretty sure he should be weirded out that he might be the first person to have ever sparked the need for a welcome mat. Noah is a stranger.
And yet.
Isn’t it kind of nice? Maybe even thoughtful?
He follows Jensen inside and straight to the kitchen. Noah hesitates at the entryway and then closes the door behind them quietly.
The apartment is chilly. And very quiet. It’s also dark. It isn’t gloomy, just uninviting and the lights are off.
“It’s a bit…cold,” Jensen says, reading his mind. “I got flowers, but it really needs…I don’t know. Maybe it needs someone else to live here who has things…and likes color.”
“I like color,” Noah says, and then feels like an idiot because that just makes him sound like a five-year-old. “I mean, I paint and draw a fair amount. Well, not lately. But I did. Those things…have color.” Oh god, what is he saying? He can’t think of the last time he had a conversation with a normal person. He spends a lot of time with his master and hasn’t talked to his friends in months and it shows.
“Oh. Well then it sounds like you should start up again,” he says and fills a glass vase with water. He frowns. “Not that I’m trying to tell you what to do.”
Noah laughs. It isn’t a happy sound. “Haven’t you heard? I love to be told what to do even at great cost to myself.”
“Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard but I’m a shut-in who has PTSD and can barely tell myself what to do most of the time. Between the two of us we might make up one whole person,” he says, gaze fixed on the flowers he’s arranging so the gaps are filled in and the colors spread out.
“Oh. Well, I’ve only heard good things. Will thinks you’re great. Says you two go way back.”
“Yeah, we do. Military. How did you two meet?”
“Kink. Ages ago. We kept in touch.”
“Right. I guess I knew that” he says, and the silence is awkward.
“Will says you’re not into kink.”
“That’s true. I just couldn’t find a way to wrap my head around it, I guess.”
There’s another awkward silence.
“So, uh, if you want to live here there are a few things you should know.”
“Rules,” Noah says, easily.
“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t have a lot of rules” he says as if the word itself is offensive. “But one of them is guns. No guns. And no knives. No weapons. Not in your room or hidden away. Not even in a safe,” he says, green eyes meeting Noah’s.
Noah blinks, and his stomach twists at the tone of command.
Unsettled and afraid but also a little intrigued. Yeah, he’s been through a lot with Johann but some things don’t change. A beautiful man calmly telling him how things need to be will always be his weakness.
“I don’t have any guns or weapons,” he says, managing not to tack a ‘sir’ onto the end of the sentence. It is a little surprising that’s the first rule. Doesn’t that mean it’s the most important one?
Noah taps his fingers on the clean marble countertop. Has anyone ever cooked a meal in this kitchen?
“Do you have guns or weapons?” Noah asks.
“No. But like I said, the building is safe and the area is good.”
“Ah.”
“And I have nightmares sometimes. But there’s a lock on my door. You may just have to bang on the wall or live with it I’m afraid. Just so we’re clear, you can’t ever come in and try to wake me up.”
“Okay.”
