Jonathan's eyes flew open and he lay panting in bed. His forehead was wet with sweat, and he could feel his heart pounding in his ears. He remained still, allowing his beating heart to slow to an even pace again before sitting up slowly. Jonathan pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes before getting out of bed and throwing a shirt on. He went into the bathroom and splashed cold water in his face, hopefully to clear his mind and get rid of the nightmare he'd just had. But Jonathan wound up thinking about it a little more, and it put a sudden thought through his head.

Looking behind him at the closed bathroom door, Jonathan wondered fearfully where Luke had gone. He'd woken up in the bed alone, which meant that his boyfriend was already awake. But was he home or had Luke gone out? With a sigh, Jonathan turned off the bathroom light and left the small room, heading down the stairs. He looked around for a bit before finding Luke in the living room, playing one of their games.

"Morning," Luke said without as much as a glance behind him over the couch. "Sleep well?" He asked.

"Depends on what you mean," Jonathan said, moving into the kitchen.

There was shuffling from the living room, signifying that Luke had paused his game and stood up. A few seconds later he appeared in the kitchen with Jon.

"Something wrong, Jon?" He asked.

Jonathan sighed.

"Do you need a distraction from whatever's bothering you? Or do you want to talk about it?" Luke asked.

"Might as well talk about it, since you obviously won't shut up about it unless I tell you," Jonathan grumbled.

"Hey, I'm not saying you have to if you don't want to," Luke said quickly. "I just don't want you putting it off for too long." He explained.

Jonathan thought about this for a moment. He considered the events of his dream and decided it would be better to take the option for a distraction. So Luke went back to the living room to get the multiplayer set up in his game. Jonathan made himself a quick piece of toast before joining Luke in the living room. The older man handed him a remote, and then the two of them started going at it.

Luke happened to be recording the gameplay, so it got quite chaotic when Jonathan joined in. Now that Jonathan had a basic distraction, any thoughts about the dream he'd had last night gradually faded away, and he went back to his normal behavior over the course of the day. It was the next day that Luke became concerned.

Jonathan was acting like nothing had ever even happened the other night.

Luke wasn't saying anything, but if he knew Jon -especially the way he did- then he knew that Jonathan had found some way to avoid the problem entirely; by pushing it way down. It had happened before; with Jon's sister. Luke thought back to that one moment while in Dead By Daylight when Jonathan seemed to be having similar thought to the ones he'd had after the accident.

It had occurred some time before Jonathan and Luke met, but he understood well enough that none of it had been good. Jonathan had fallen into a kind of depression, thinking everything was his fault. Luke didn't exactly blame him for having thought that way. But it was still an accident. Jonathan hadn't meant for it to get out of control. The fire had become uncontainable, causing Jonathan's sister to have those severe burns . . .

Luke sighed as he attempted to push aside the thoughts about what had happened. He tried not to let the worst thoughts get to him. Jonathan would be fine . . . Right?


Jonathan awoke late that night shaking all over. The same terrible dream had played through his mind, but it had been worse this time. It had been so bad, that a new thought suddenly found its way to the front of Jonathan's mind and planted itself there to haunt him. Slowly, Jonathan sat up and looked over to the other side of the bed where Luke still lay asleep.

You wouldn't leave, would you? He wondered, thinking about his nightmare. No, not after everything that's happened.

Jonathan looked down at the bed sheets and thought. Luke loved him, and that was that. But for some reason . . . Jonathan felt unsure.


Several days passed, and then several weeks. Before Luke could wrap his head around it, it was January. Jonathan seemed continually bothered by whatever thoughts ran through his head, and Luke was constantly bothered by the fact that Jon wouldn't speak to him about it. What really bothered Luke the most, though, was the fact that Jonathan was clearly growing uncomfortable. He could tell by the way the younger man looked at him.

By the middle of January, Luke had just about had enough. He was finally going to talk to Jonathan about it. Hopefully it wasn't too late to do so.

Luke was worried, but Jonathan, however, felt like he was dying inside. He wanted to talk to Luke about the problem, but it was such a sensitive subject. He couldn't understand why he felt the way he did. After all, Luke was the reason that they had a relationship in the first place.

It was late one Saturday night that the much needed conversation would bring the two together.

Luke was in the bedroom, looking at a few messages from some of the guys on his phone. The room, as well as just about the rest of the house, was quiet. Strangely quiet. It was so quiet that it got to the point where Luke thought that Jonathan had fallen asleep downstairs while playing GTA 5 with the guys. But how do you fall asleep while playing GTA? It's GTA!

With a sigh, Luke continued scrolling through the messages on his phone. He stopped when one of them, sent by Evan, caught his attention.

E- Delirious okay? He's been away from the xbox for a while.

The message left Luke a bit confused, but a little concerned as well. He looked out into the hallway, where everything was still.

L- I'll go check.

E- Okay.

Luke stood up and set his phone aside before heading downstairs to the living room. He found it empty, with Jonathan nowhere to be seen. The TV was still turned on, although it had gone kind of dark due to inactivity on the xbox. Looking around, Luke saw no sign of his boyfriend, but he did notice a slight draft coming from behind him. Turning around, Luke found the source of the breeze, and was little puzzled by the open backdoor. It was a sliding door, so it wasn't too much of a surprise. Going over to it, Luke found the screen door was closed, but he also found that Jonathan was outside on the porch with Spike.

"Jon?" Luke stated his presence.

Jonathan didn't say anything nor did he turn around to look behind him. Opening the screen door, Luke stepped outside and approached Jonathan slowly. Spike turned to look at him, but Jonathan remained unmoving. Luke lowered himself onto the porch step and sat next to the quiet and unmoving Jonathan.

"Do you want to talk about it, now?" Luke asked.

Jonathan sighed. "I don't know where to start." He said.

"Maybe you could start by stating the problem," Luke suggested.

"Am I supposed to give it to you in hypothesis form?" Jonathan looked at Luke with a small glint of amusement in his eyes.

"If you can," Luke responded, getting a light laugh out of Jonathan in return.

"Well, I can only guess that you're thinking that if I tell you what's bothering me, then I might feel better because it won't be a problem anymore." Jonathan stated, causing Luke to laugh.

It fell quiet again, and the two men sat in the silence for a few minutes. Being the middle of January, it was normal to have cold temperatures at night, but tonight was abnormally cold. The rain that North Carolina was supposed to get had frozen, leaving a light blanket of snow, which they very rarely ever got, on the ground. At least Jonathan had had the sense to grab his sweater before coming out here, unlike Luke, who was already freezing his ass off.

"I don't know, Luke. I just . . ." Jonathan trailed off, getting lost in his thoughts again. "I've been worried." He said finally.

"About what?" Luke asked.

"About you," Jonathan answered, startling and confusing Luke. "I don't know why, though."

"You've been worried about me? Well, I've been really worried about you, man. You've been acting . . ." Luke thought up a word. "Strange, I guess. For lack of a better fucking word." He huffed.

"I don't know why I am," Jonathan began again. "I just . . . I'm afraid of you leaving."

Luke blinked. "Leaving?" He repeated. "Like, leaving how? What do you mean?" He asked.

"I mean I'm afraid of you leaving me," Jonathan explained. "It sounds ridiculous, I know. But ever since getting out of Dead By daylight I've had a lingering thought. It only got worse after the nightmares started."

"What nightmares?" Luke prompted, alarmed.

"Well, to sum it up in a few words; I had a couple of dreams where we got out of the game, but you . . ." Jonathan shut his eyes and let out a shaky breath.

Luke suddenly understood what Jonathan meant; he was afraid of letting him go.

"Hey, don't worry, Jon," Luke said softly, moving closer to Jonathan. "I'm not going to leave you, okay?" He stated.

Jonathan looked up at him with wet eyes. He looked away again a moment later, but leaned into Luke, who put an arm around him.

"I won't leave you even if life forces it on us, and that's a fact," Luke whispered, placing a gentle kiss on Jonathan's forehead. He didn't see it, but Jonathan smiled at his words. "Let's get the fuck inside now, okay? I'm freezing my ass off out here." Luke grumbled.

Jonathan laughed. "Okay."