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It’s cozy like this.
The main room light is turned off, a few of the several lamps scattered about the room help to create the warm, dim glow that has you yawning with drooping lids as you scroll on your phone while you laze on the couch.
A line of dog toys lay forgotten in a haphazard trail across the living room floor.
Beef’s slow & deep snores and softer exhales sound from where his bed is tucked by the entertainment table the TV is sat on—the same TV that now sat quiet after having been turned off.
The silence isn’t totally flat or dead, though.
It’s alive, a gentle thrumming of idle life keeping it full; accented by the low electrical hum of the refrigerator running in the kitchen, paced by the quiet clicks of the passage of time from clock hung up above the small bookshelf on the far end of the living room, and the almost muted babble of speech from your phone.
A clip of a song that’s popular this week – a sped-up version of said song overlaid atop an equally accelerated video of a dog on a skateboard – a solemn drop to a sweet & short ‘in tribute’ to a stranger with one of the kindest smiles you’ve ever seen – full circle to an overly edited meme of a cat.
An endless swiping loop.
One you didn’t have to think about.
“No, wait. Go back, go back.”
A loop so easily broken up by the man very comfortably plastered against you, head just barely tilted enough to peek at your phone from where his face is tucked under your chin.
“Huh?”
“Go back,” he repeats in a hush murmur, lifting the arm wrapped around your abdomen to sluggishly swipe at your screen with an aimless finger, “the cat one.”
Your amusement culminates in a wispy exhale through your nose, the arm you’ve thrown around him in turn squeezing him just a fraction tighter before you’re acquiescing without fight.
The feed blurs as it shifts down instead of the usual up and there it is—that cat again. A PNG of an atomic explosion with a shitty fade transition appears briefly and it’s enough to make him snort quietly.
Robert’s hand hasn’t fully dropped back down yet either.
Instead, it braces a few long fingers on the edges of your phone case to help support it. A quick glance down reveals his sleepy eyes are focused on the screen, the smallest of grins curling his lip.
“What song is that?” he mumbles, arm finally moving to anchor himself to you again as his head dips back into the collar of your sweatshirt.
That call of perpetual scrolling calls you again; you answer by thumbing up like it’s your hand’s version of backstroke.
“Dunno,” your slight shrug jostles him a bit, but there’s no outward complaint; just another tiny squeeze before he relaxes against you again.
That busy silence from before begins to build again.
Aided by the steady beat of Robert’s heart against your rib cage, another monstrous yawn drags from deep within your lungs.
He matches it with his own.
Swipe.
An up-and-coming artist plays a part of a song they’re to release soon, acoustic guitar painted with vibrant lilies on the body – you save the post for the date written in the bio.
He shifts a bit, further wedging himself between your side and the back of the couch, legs stretching out briefly before they're angling to slot comfortably with yours once more.
Like a dog, almost. You can’t help but compare with a small smile.
The hand you have resting around the small of his back massages his hip tenderly.
It rewards you with a rumbling hum that rattles up your collarbone and tickles the base of your teeth.
Swipe.
An image of a beautiful white sand beach with picturesque blue-green water, giant text overlaid atop: You’re deserted here. Who you bringing with you?
Normally, you don’t pay attention to posts like this.
It felt more like a bid for interaction in a shitty algorithm than an actual conversation starter; there are thousands upon thousands of posts just like it, if just slightly tweaked between variations.
And yet, your thumb halts.
You find yourself staring at the post longer than you intend to—thinking about it much more than you probably should.
It’s such a cliché scenario.
“Hey.” you prompt softly, tilting your head to brush a soft kiss to his temple with your eyes glued to your screen.
When he responds with another sleepy sound, you pause—is it even worth the trouble? He’s already on the verge of passing out. It doesn’t really seem fair to ask him a question that requires more thought than a yes or no.
“If you were deserted on an island—“
“You.”
“—what would you bring– What?”
The phone in your hand lowers as you try to look down at him, the angle a bit uncomfortable but your confusion overpowers the discomfort.
“You didn’t even let me finish.”
Robert only huffs—a laugh so thoroughly dried out by exhaustion, it borders breezy, “Yeah. Didn’t need to.”
Your nose scrunches.
“You should’ve, because I would’ve told you we were deserted together.”
“As we should be,” he mumbles mindlessly, before lifting his head a bit, “wait, why were we deserted on an island in the first place? Exile? Or, like, travel mishap?”
Your exasperated deadpan pulls a more solid chuckle from him when he finally looks at you.
“I’m just saying. Context matters for this stuff.”
With his hair pushed back from your constant finger-combing, his forehead begins to look like a prime, spacious target for a well-placed flick.
“What about if we were dropped in the middle of the woods?” You try again.
“You.”
Exasperated, you pinch his side and take smug joy in how he grunts & tries to move away from your hand despite how he’s literally glued to you, “What if we were dropped on the very top of a mountain?”
“Are you there?”
You sigh, eyes rolling shut despite the grin on your lips itching to grow.
“I said ‘we’, didn’t I?”
He shrugs, head collapsing back into your collarbone, “Then I’m all set. Bring whatever you want.”
“Robert.”
“Sunscreen seems like a good choice for an island.”
“Oh. My god. You’re actually ridiculous, y’know that?”
“Melanoma is no ridiculous matter. If we’re to rebuild & live prosperously on an isolated tropical paradise, we need UV protection.”
It’s your turn to huff.
“Can you give me an actual answer?”
With a dramatically heavy exhale, Robert pushes himself up on his elbow a bit, scratching at his eyebrow as he gazes down at you.
You actively watch that impish glint of jest shift to something more focused—purposeful.
His lips purse.
His brows lower a fraction.
His eyes flit about your face as if anything written there is the only truly deciding factor for his answer.
You wait patiently—curiously—and your arm around his waist can’t resist another gentle squeeze.
“I would…” he starts, gingerly brushing a few strands of hair from your forehead before resting his hand on the centre of your chest.
“You would…?”
His teeth work at the dry skin of his bottom lip, eyebrows knitting & jumping apart as he weighs out his options.
“…I’d bring a lighter.”
“A lighter?” You echo with amused incredulity, finally locking your phone and placing it face down on your stomach.
Robert makes a grandiose show of his eyes rolling, mirth unmistakable, “You asked me for an answer.”
“I did do that, you’re right.” You concede easily, beaming simper fully on display, “Just wasn’t expecting that to be your choice.”
A thick brow raises.
“Well, believe it or not, I was never a Scout as a kid. Unless you can fully set up & start a fire on your own, I’d say that’s a pretty fair answer. Plus, it’s like ingrained in our DNA to make sharp, pointy rocks, so cutting wood or food wouldn’t be an issue. What did you expect me to say?”
“Well, for starters, I expected you to be a giant smartass about it and say me again—”
“Can’t say I wasn’t tempted,” he admits shamelessly, fingers now idly caressing the apple of your cheek.
“—secondly, I dunno. You seem like the type of guy to say, like… a Swiss army knife or something.”
Robert pauses again.
There it goes; his brain reassessing the hypothetical and recalculating his response.
With the seriousness of a man desperate to change an outcome of a life or death situation that will most likely never befall him, Robert meets your eyes with an almost resolute frown.
“…can I change my answer?”
Your laugh is bright, no longer soaked in drowsiness at his sheer absurdity. You miss the way his face softens in a disgustingly endeared way.
“Okay, fine. Then what would you bring?” You hum, fully delighted that he’s appearing to actually be using that godforsaken brain of his the way it was intended.
His reply is almost instant.
“Swiss army knife.”
Robert’s cheeky grin deepens enough to crinkle his eyes when you turn your head to snort again, tone taking on a tint of lighthearted offense.
“What? That still not good enough of an answer for you? It’s a great multi-purpose tool. Who knows? We might find a bottle with a pirate’s letter in it, and you won’t be so judgmental when you need my corkscrew to get it out.”
”Stop being dumb and come here.”
Even as he flops on you boneless, he takes great care in not completely crushing you—or at least, until he resumes his previous position, head tucking sweetly under your chin as he goes dead-weight against you.
He even presses his own fleeting kiss to the underside of your jaw before he’s shifting & wiggling to get comfortable again.
Your hand moves to his back, swirling circles & serpentine curls into the valley of his shoulder blades. Like wax sat under concentrated sunlight, he melts into you easily with a low groan.
There’s a beat of pleasant quiet again, but you can almost hear him thinking still. You know it’s coming when his fingers fiddle with the collar of your shirt listlessly.
“…you bring the lighter?”
It’s your turn to think.
He’s placid in his waiting, fingers switching from fidgeting to lightly drumming against your clavicle—the smallest thuds that feel like tiny bass kicks.
Tap.
Ta-tap.
Tap.
“Magnifying glass.”
“Magnifying glass?” he mumbles cynically unconvinced—you feel his brows gently scratch against your neck as they furrow and you stifle another chuckle.
“Well, think about it. Yeah, lighters are good for getting fast results but how long would that last us? Where would we get more lighter fluid when it runs out?”
Robert’s following silence signals that he agrees but refuses to give up this stubborn act, grumbling through a crooked grin, "You can always disassemble it; I feel like the flint would be hard to find elsewhere."
You try to shrug with the shoulder not trapped beneath him, worming a hand between your sandwiched ribs to retrieve your phone again and he squirms.
“Sunlight is infinite—” his features scrunch and his lips part to interject, but you don't let him, “—okay, asshole, to an extent, I admit. But still. Plus, what if the writing on the pirate’s letter is too tiny to read? Bet you’d want a way to—oh, I dunno—magnify it, huh?”
His chortle vibrates your torso, rattling your lungs and tripping up the steady pace of your heart in a few clumsy skips.
“What do you think the odds are that the letter is an instruction manual on how to build a luxurious bungalow—foundation included?”
The blue light of the screen smears with the gold of the lamplight on his skin when you unlock your phone, another video already primed & ready to continue feeding you shot after shot of dopamine.
“Mm, you already have your trusty-dusty hydra knife amalgamation. Surely, you can figure it out.”
Swipe.
A skit, this time - a sped up shot of a guy talking rapidly, smash-cut to his friends dead-flat expression with the most obnoxiously bass-boosted boom sound effect—
“Actually. I’m changing my answer again.”
You glance down at him from your peripheral as best you can in this position, your gentle inquisitive sound encouraging him.
“I’d bring a boat.”
You immediately want to protest—that defeats the entire thought exercise; where’s the fun in that?
Your mouth opens to say as much but the words dig their heels in at the threshold of your teeth in begrudging agreement. They instead disintegrate on your tongue like dust, blown away with your heaving sigh.
“That… I mean, that would be the best way to survive that, I guess. Technically. Ugh, that’s such a lame answer, though.”
Tap-tap-tap.
Robert’s head raises again—the normally hard creases of stress cut into the muscles of his face are so completely smoothed out by the pure affection he wears as he admires you.
“Would you do me the biggest favor ever? In the entire history of favors? For the sake of the culture of the sacred I.O.U?”
Instinctively, the saccharine bid at innocence in his tone has you on edge—he only uses it when he’s gearing up to be a pain in the ass.
Again, the words line themselves up like an assembly line with an almost aggressive certainty; I’d cross space to retrieve any star you pointed at, no matter how far, no matter how small. Shit, I’d find a way to bring a supernova back, just for you.
Instead, what comes out is: “Depends on if it’s gonna make me want to smack you upside the head.”
“Would you bring a GPS? Pretty please? Can’t exactly use the boat to go home if… we don’t know where the fuck we are.”
He has you there.
Infuriatingly, once more, he is right. Still a lame answer, but still right.
Whatever.
Your phone drops to the carpet by the couch with a muted thud, screen still lit and audio still faintly leaking from the speakers. You pay no mind to it, though.
You’re busy wrapping your arms & legs around Robert and constricting the life out of him while he chokes out wheezy giggles and softer protest, barely attempting to escape your hold—if at all.
Ugh. Fucker.