"I think I heard something."
"You're an idiot."
But Marshall simply shook his head, shoving the other away and remaining resolute.
"I know what I heard," he said. He considered dancing around the words but eventually decided against this, "and you need to leave."
They had not left the light on so the room remained in a state of prominent darkness, but Marshall could imagine quite descriptively the way in which he was being stared at, the pure slack-jawed disbelief of it all, the oncoming "who do you think you are"s beamed belligerently at him via pupil and iris.
"You can't be serious. Don't you have any idea what time it is?"
Not a clue, but I'm sure you'll tell me.
"You need to leave, I heard her moving and if it isn't in the direction of the kitchen then she's coming in here to check on me. And she thinks- "
The prince narrowed his eyes.
"She thinks what? That you're straight? Trust me, nobody thinks- "
"Cram it Elton-fucking-John, I'm sure your parents are wondering what you're up to too."
"Obviously," he said, only he didn't sound so sure of himself. Marshall ignored the uncertainty. It wasn't his problem. None of this was his problem.
"Good. Then get out. I'm assuming you drove here?"
"Marshall?"
"Mm?"
"I don't want to go home yet," he sounded scared now, but genuinity of tone was just a phrase when it came to him, while manipulation was his motto. Marshall wondered if the Prince truly took him for such an idiot that he would fall victim to this pathetic ploy.
"Aren't you listening to me? If I go home to my own room, I'll be all alone, and I don't particularly like being alone at night."
I'll bet you don't.
Marshall sighed, annoyance as obvious as the stars that now sat upright in the bedsheets of sky.
"Do you really think that's going to work on me?"
"No, but this will."
The prince kissed him, holding him in place next to him on the too old and too saggy mattress.
"I don't want to leave," he repeated, less hesitantly this time, "I want to stay here. With you."
But to what end? Marshall closed his eyes and pretending like he was dreaming; he could always make the reality he wanted just right in his head. In his head his crush had no ulterior motive whatsoever and was genuinely a good and innocent person, so Marshall needn't feel guilty for letting him hold him. For letting him touch and kiss on his hands and neck and caress his naked body so gently, like it meant something. In his head the concept of guilt could be that of foreign origin in the first place.
But dreams are often disrupted by elements of the natural world, and in this case it was a bright light, seeping through the ceiling and falling down onto him and his closed eyelids.
"Marshy?"
Fuck.
Marshall opened his eyes again to "awaken" and let the harshly blinking bulb assault them. He wanted to burrow back under the covers and die, let the two of them sort this issue out without him.
"Told you you needed to leave."