Cam doesn't sleep on airplanes. Never has, as far back as he can remember, from the days when he knew nothing more about them than that he'd be flying them someday to the days when he knew he could probably fly them better than the guy who was actually in the cockpit. He likes being awake for the whole thing, likes weighing the skill of the pilot's hands against the way he would do it, even though he's never flown something as big and clunky as a whale of a jet.

Never will, now. His legs are good enough to get him from point A to point B, most of the time -- on a good day -- but there's a ticking time bomb at the base of his spine, and three different doctors have pronounced his hodgepodge of dysfunctions to be the "organic, functional, or structural disease, defect, or limitation" covered by the FAA regs, no matter how much he begged. Grounded. For life, until and unless he finds someone who'll take him up as second seat and pass him the stick on the sly once they're already airborne.

Hurts a little bit less as time goes by, but not enough that he thinks it'll ever stop hurting at all.

Cam handled the ticket purchase, but the seats printed on their boarding passes aren't the ones he selected (bulkhead row, for extra legroom; he doesn't meet FAA regs for exit-row seating now either, and just because flight crews rarely enforce the regs, it doesn't mean he feels okay with forcing someone to overlook something that should be part of their job). He's just gearing up to pitch a temper fit at the poor lady behind the counter when JD hooks his chin over Cam's shoulder and hums lightly. "Merry Christmas," JD says in his ear.

Cam looks at the seat assignment again. They're first-class seats. Bigger seats, more leg room. Cam's been flying coach to and from DC, when he has to travel. Saves money, since they're not going to be comfortably in the black for a good while yet. JD's never said a word to indicate he notices how badly being shoved in coach makes Cam's legs ache, but of course he would have noticed.

So Cam does all he can do, which is to say thank you with good grace, or as close to it as he can muster this near to a commercial flight, and politely decline the ticket counter lady's offer of wheelchair assistance through security. It's a point of pride -- and stubbornness -- that he will make it down to the gate on his own two feet and moving under his own power, and JD, Cam thinks, understands.

JD takes Cam's combined laptop case and carryon, slings it over the other shoulder from his own -- oh, Cam could grow to hate him for that casual grace, if it wasn't clear JD didn't ever mean to rub it in -- and takes up his usual position: one step behind Cam, just to the left, watching Cam's flank for thoughtless passersby and ready to take the one step forward necessary to let Cam grab on to him if he needs to.

"You didn't need to do that," Cam says, as they head on up to the security line. The TSA agent waves them to the priority queue; it's one small mercy.

"You won't let me pay rent," JD says simply.

Cam doesn't sleep on airplanes: never has. But JD presses a handful of pills on him when they get settled at the gate to wait for boarding call, and he swallows them down without any of the usual protests about how the pain's not too bad and he doesn't need the drugs, because clearing security and then walking nearly a mile to the gate is enough to cut through the bullshit without even trying. Cam doesn't do pre-board (pride, stubbornness, same thing, really) but they're in the first boarding group anyway, and first class passengers get offered drinks while steerage is boarding.

Cam orders JD a double Jack and Coke (because there's no way in hell the flight crew will believe he's twenty-one) and then winds up drinking half of it himself, silent concession that yeah, the pain really is that bad, and yeah, he really is starting to build up the tolerance his pain management doctor warned him about. Mixing booze and narcotics is a dumb idea, but he's had dumber. He's asleep before they even hit cruising altitude.

He wakes up with his iPod earbuds in his ears playing La Traviata at barely-noticeable levels, just enough to cover up the soft buzz of conversation from the other passengers and the hum of the engines. He hadn't even realized he'd packed the iPod; he probably hadn't packed it himself. JD's head is on his shoulder. For a minute, groggy, he thinks JD is asleep, but JD doesn't sleep on airplanes, either. JD's just using him as a pillow while he reads.

As always, JD knows the second Cam's awake; he sits up and nudges the plastic cup that's sitting on the armrest shelf between them. Cam stretches the kink out of his neck, tugs the earbuds out of his ears. "Opera?" he asks. Last time he'd loaded the iPod, it had been Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

"I like opera," JD says. He nudges the drink again. Looks like soda, and it's still got ice cubes in it, which means it can't be too stale. Cam takes a sip and nearly chokes. Not just soda. Looks like JD managed to charm a flight attendant into overlooking his baby face.

"You are a strange, strange man," Cam informs him.

"Could have been worse," JD says, and turns the page. "Could have picked Tosca."

They're not talking about any of it: the fight, the two days of silence, JD's astonishing monologue, the way Cam had been left sitting at the kitchen table gaping at him until JD had smiled that curious sad smile and said that they'd be late for their flight. Won't talk about any of it, Cam thinks, not until it comes up again, or something happens that means they have to deal with it. It's not precisely avoidance. It's more, Cam thinks, the fact that it took JD two days to work up the courage to say it at all, and the only way he could say it was to say it in one fell swoop, and the fallout and the implications are just going to have to wait until they have a spare week or two to tunnel through them.

Cam's kind of okay with that. Kind of. He's got a host of things he's saving up to say in return, but he's not stupid enough to think that the Mitchell family homestead in the throes of Christmas insanity is the time or the place to say them. They'll keep.

So he takes the bickering as it's intended: as a touchstone of familiarity, as JD's way of showing care, as love shown by deeds and not by words. "Yeah, yeah," he says. Can't resist yanking JD's chain a bit; he adds, "'And there La Traviata sighs another, sadder song.'"

JD raises an eyebrow; Cam's managed to surprise him. "We're going to North Carolina at Christmas-time," he says. "Not Kew at lilac-time."

"It isn't far from London," Cam says, deadpan, and is rewarded when JD actually cracks up. "Whatcha reading?"

JD sticks a finger in the book to hold his place and turns the cover to face Cam. It's a Clive Cussler book, one that someone had brought Cam as something to do during his convalescence and Cam had never gotten around to throwing out. Cam snorts. "Surprised you didn't wake me up by shouting at it."

"It was there," JD says. "Not too bad, at least. Better than Clancy would have been."

JD's probably read everything else in the apartment at least once. Maybe twice. Cam wouldn't have ever expected O'Neill to be the bookworm type; maybe O'Neill isn't. Maybe that's something JD's been cultivating since they split.

"We should build some more bookshelves," Cam says. It's not a non sequitur in his head, but he expects JD to give him another raised eyebrow at it anyway. JD doesn't, though. JD's usually able to follow Cam's leaps of conversation. It's one of the things Cam values most about having him around.

"No room for them," JD says. "Not really."

Cam hums. "Bet we could shove around some furniture and make some room somewhere," he says. "You're probably itching to get some new stuff to read."

"Library does me fine," JD says.

But Cam's considering. They could move the couch to the other wall, shove over the coffee table, pull the armchair up under the windows. Wouldn't be able to eke out much room, but there'd be enough. Have to be custom-built, really, to the exact dimensions, and that'll be more of a bitch than it would have been back when Cam could have swung the hammer himself. But JD's no slouch with his hands. They'll have to find somewhere to work, but maybe Mrs. Chaisorn will let them use the alley back behind the building; that would work fine if it doesn't rain.

And he realizes, right then, that he's thinking of things as though JD will, without question, be sticking around, and that thought eases something in his gut, something he hadn't been conscious of being tense. Yeah. They'll get through this. He still needs to apologize, and he still needs to make sure that JD knows precisely why he was so upset. But there's time, still.

"How far out are we?" he asks. He knows JD's been paying attention.

"Not far," JD says. "We started descent about five minutes ago; captain'll be announcing it soon enough."

JD's not bad at flying under someone else's hands -- the sky was never his lover the way she was Cam's, Cam thinks. For him, flight was a means to an end, not the end itself. But old habits die hard, and he knows JD keeps his awareness turned on and turned up when he's flying, whether it be as pilot or passenger. They're both grounded, in a way. And both by their bodies. Cam from his injuries, and JD from his calendar age.

So Cam doesn't say a word, just nods. He digs under the seat in front of him for his carryon, pulls out yarn and needles -- just a few more rows to go on the baby blanket, now, and it won't be the first time he's washing and blocking a gift at the eleventh hour. He's thoroughly sick of the pattern; he usually is at this point, but this one more than most. It's a simple pattern, and he's limbered up skills gone rusty and ready to pick up something more complex. Time for a visit to the yarn shop while they're back home, he thinks. JD could use some socks.

The timing works out well enough; he's onto the garter stitch border at the end just as they finish taxiing up to the gate. What with one thing and another, it takes them a good hour and a half to get through the airport, baggage claim, and car rental. JD fishes out the iPod again, along with the short-range transmitter gizmo that broadcasts it over the car radio, once they're in the car. Cam finishes up the last of the blanket edging in the car by touch just as the sun finishes going down.

They don't talk. The music's too loud, and Cam thinks that's probably by design, but he doesn't much mind. He listens to JD singing along with Rigoletto instead. JD's voice hasn't finished settling yet, Cam knows; the baritone parts that he figures O'Neill wouldn't have had problems with sit wrong in JD's range. But it's a powerful voice anyway, and Cam thinks there's something to the fact that JD will sing where Cam can hear.

When they get to the house, there's the usual chaos and confusion. For just a second when Momma comes to greet them, Cam thinks he can see something moving in her eyes, something he can't read. Was she wondering if JD would come back, he wonders? Was she assuming that, duty to the family done, Cam would avoid bringing his partner back home again?

Well, he hadn't even considered for as much as a minute not bringing JD back with him this time, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. They're a unit, now, even if it's not always natural for either of them, and his family's just going to have to get used to it. He won't let anyone make him be ashamed.

Still. Momma steers them back to the peach bedroom again, and Cam's still feeling the lingering aftermath of the drugs (and the booze), but he also knows what's expected of him. He gives JD his very best nos morituri te salutant look and heads off to the kitchen to start on the pies.

Two days away from Christmas supper and the kitchen's already full up with people working on one thing or another. But it's a big kitchen, and it -- like so much of the house -- is accessable in a quiet and unshowy way. Cam settles himself in a chair at the low part of the counter and rests his cane against the wall. JD rests his hands on Cam's shoulders and digs his thumb into one of the particularly bad knots. "Tell me what to fetch," JD says, "and I'll fetch it."

With JD as legs, the baking goes faster. Stella's glad to see them; apparently some of the tips JD gave her at Thanksgiving have her whole damn unit set to "white mutiny", which is driving her idiot CO up the wall and down again in a way that he can't even yell at anybody about, which of course doesn't seem to be stopping him. Skipper -- one half of the Skipper-and-Spencer matched set of twins, both Air Force intelligence, both involved in something they can't talk about and nobody pries -- peels the apples for the pies and chimes in now and then with a well-placed bit of advice. Cam catches JD watching Skipper out of the corner of his eye. He's not sure what the look on JD's face portends; he wonders if Skipper and Spence might be getting a knock on the door from the SGC sooner or later.

By the time he's built a baker's dozen of pies -- they'll all be inhaled in thirty seconds or less once they're on the table, and everyone will be praising Cam's baking skills to high heaven at the same time they're cursing him for not having made double -- he's worn straight through, but being around family always makes him feel soothed. He's thumping down the hallway to hit the bathroom (the kitchen bathroom's occupied) when the sound of his cane echoing off the hardwood floor is suddenly doubled; he turns his head to see his father studying him, unsmiling.

"You busy right now, Cameron?" his father asks, and Cam swallows against the sudden lump in his throat and shakes his head.

His daddy brings him back to the den, and Uncle Bayliss and Uncle Roy take one look at his daddy's face and clear right out with whatever excuse comes to mind first. Cam settles himself in the easy chair across from his daddy and waits for the ax to fall.

"You know your momma and I love you," his father starts, and that's always a bad sign.

Cam nods his head, though. "I know that," he says. "And I love you too."

His father nods. In some families, it'd be a heartfelt declaration; in theirs, it's just a simple fact of life. "We're worried about you, son," his father continues. "Your momma and I. Cooped up in that apartment halfway across the country, with nothing to keep you sane."

"Not nothing," Cam says. It leaps out of his mouth before he can stop it; he's doing his best to keep from rubbing his father's nose in the fact of JD. The family's gotten over what little prejudice might have been lurking in the corners. Doesn't mean they want to know details.

But all his daddy does is nod. "You say he's good for you, and I won't contradict that. But it's not healthy for you to be alone like that. We'd like you to consider moving back here."

For a second, Cam can't tell whether the "you" is singular or plural. "I --" he starts, but his father holds up a hand.

"Not the house," his father says. "You won't do that, and I understand why. We raised you boys to be independent. But there's no shame in wanting to be close to your family, and I know there's nothing holding you out there."

Not anymore, Cam can hear, lurking underneath. He's still not sure whether his father means just him, or him-and-JD. They've built JD a careful cover story, and they've stuck to it, and JD's cover story has him just as free of ties as Cam is.

But either way, something's sitting wrong. "We're doing just fine for ourselves," Cam says.

His daddy sighs. "For now," he says. "Cameron -- you know I've never held with prying into your affairs, and I'm not gonna start now. But what happens when that boy gets tired of you and moves on? He's young, and you're --"

Cam's throat closes over, because he knows his daddy's about to come out with some polite euphemism for "crippled", and he'll take that from his father like he wouldn't take it from just about anybody else in the world, but that doesn't mean he has to like it. "You can stop right there, sir," he says, and there's a cold pit of rage in his stomach that he didn't realize until that very second. "Because first of all, I'm more than capable of taking care of myself if I have to, and second of all, he's not going anywhere."

His father sighs. "You say that now," he starts, but Cam's already on his feet, because if there's one thing in this world he's sure of, it's the fact that even if JD couldn't live with him anymore, even if whatever the hell it is that they have flames out and crashes into the ice, JD wouldn't leave him without making sure he's settled. It's just what he is.

"I know you and Momma are looking out for me," Cam says, and it's a struggle to keep his voice even. "But I've got everything under control. And if you take the time to get to know JD, you'll know that he's not what --"

He stops, horrified. He was about to say "not what he seems", and Lord almighty, he must be pissed off, because he knows full well that's the kind of thing you can't say to anyone in the family and not expect the Inquisition. He's out of practice with keeping secrets, and that's a bad and dangerous thing to find out when the secrets you've got in your head are the sort of things worlds live on and die over.

"Cameron," his daddy says, but Cam's shaking his head.

"No," he says. "I can't have this conversation with you right now. Sir. I just -- I can't."

Too close on the heels of thinking his whole world had been turned upside down and shaken out; too close to home, too close to his own fears. He can't blame his daddy for thinking it, but he can damn well blame him for saying it, and he can't just sit here and listen.

"Cameron," his daddy says again, but Cam turns his back -- first time ever -- and walks straight out. Into the kitchen, where JD looks up from the middle of whatever he's debating with Skipper, takes one look at Cam's face and goes a little pale at what he sees there. Out the back door, onto the back porch, past Great-Aunt Suzette drowsing in the rocking chair, and down the swell of grass (watching his feet, watching the cane-tip, careful, careful) to the creek.

There aren't any footsteps behind him, but he's tuned to JD's wavelength, which is why it doesn't startle him when JD says, straight in his ear, "Is it something to talk about, or something to be quiet over?"

"They want me back here," Cam says. He's fighting back tears and rage all at once, and it's a bad headspace to be in. Bad and dangerous. "They want me to move back here, because they're worried about me, and because they think you're going to up and realize any day now that you're too damn young to bind yourself to a cripple --"

JD's voice goes cold. Cam thinks that if he turned his head, if he looked at JD's face, there'd be a look there to rival Momma at her fiercest. "Fuck a whole lot of that," JD says, neat and clipped, and then Cam does turn his head, because JD's striding back across the grass and up towards the house.

Cam scrambles to catch up, but JD's not holding back his pace the way he usually does, and Cam can't move that fast anymore. The porch door slams behind him as JD breezes through it, and the way JD's moving, it's a mercy the thing didn't come screaming off the hinges.

"Cam," Peggy says, as Cam comes limping into the kitchen. "Is everything --"

He slashes a hand in midair and she hushes. "Which way did he go?" he asks.

She bites her lip. "Den, I think," she says, and hell, that's what Cam feared, but he squares his shoulders and keeps on going.

Turns out he didn't need to ask; he can hear JD from three rooms away. JD's not shouting. If JD were shouting, Cam would rest a little easier. JD's just got so much power behind his voice that Cam thinks it might shake the house down to foundation. "--think that I am using him, think that I'm going to abandon him --"

Cam's daddy's voice is quieter, but Cam can still hear it. He rests his hand on the doorknob, debating whether to walk in or not. "Now, son --"

"Don't you call me that," JD snarls, and yeah, shit, fuck, this is about the worst possible way this conversation could go down. Cam opens the door.

Two heads whip around to stare at him. His daddy's still in the chair; JD's standing in front of him, hands on hips, practically crackling with fury. There's more than a little bit of O'Neill in him right now -- in the set of his shoulders, in the iron of his spine, in the line of his jaw. It's a mature anger, a righteous anger. The fury of an honorable man who's had his honor called into question.

JD opens his mouth, to say something to Cam. Cam doesn't want to hear it. "Stop," he says. "Stop. Both of you."

"Cameron," his daddy says, just as JD says, "Mitchell --"

"I said stop it," Cam says, and maybe he's not JD, maybe he didn't spend years and seasons learning how to command men with nothing more than the lifting of a finger and the judicious application of a well-timed word, but he knows enough of it to put steel into his voice. They both shut up.

Into the silence, Cam says, "This is not the time or the place for this."

He sees JD's concession of you're right in the twist of JD's lips, but JD doesn't back down. "I'm not going to let you be insulted in your own home."

"No insult meant," Cam's daddy says. "We just want --"

JD's head snaps around so quickly that it makes Cam wince. Whatever's in his face makes Cam's father pull back a little, just one single involuntary flinch. "To tell your own son that his choices aren't valid," JD says. "To tell him that he's misguided, or blind, or just plain wrong."

Cam lifts both his hands to his temples to rub at the migraine he can feel starting there. His cane slides away from where he's propped it against his hip and hits the floor. JD is there before the clack of its dropping has even faded; he picks it up and holds it. Cam can see his daddy taking stock, taking it all in.

"This is not the time for this," Cam repeats. Stronger this time. "Dad. I know you're trying to help. I know you're worried. But there's --"

No good way to finish that sentence, is what there is. Cam's daddy shakes his head. "Son, you're a grown man, and you can make your own decisions. I just want you to know --"

"We are both grown men," JD says. This close, Cam can feel him vibrating with the fury, vibrating with the need to be understood. "I don't care what you think I look like --"

"JD," Cam says. A warning. JD doesn't pay him a lick of attention.

"--or what you think you've figured out about me, but you need to know that this is not the first time I've --"

"Jack." The name falls from Cam's lips before he tells it to, and for a second, he thinks: oh, fucking hell, because JD's frozen solid in place and really, he's had enough of careless words hurting them both for one week. For one year.

But it got JD to shut up before he said something he shouldn't. Cam's daddy is looking back and forth between the two of them. He doesn't know one lick of what's going on, but a blind man could tell that there's one king hell of a history there.

JD's eyes are hot on Cam's face. Cam watches as he closes those eyes, takes one deep breath and lets it out so slowly that it seems to take forever. When he opens those eyes again, they're calmer. Not calm, but calmer.

"Yeah," JD says, to all the things Cam can't say out loud. "Yeah. I know. I won't."

Then he turns his head again to stare at Cam's daddy. "Be glad he's here," he says. Calm this time. Quiet. It's worse than the anger was; it always is. "Because I'm grateful to you for the hospitality, but you've managed to insult us both. And that only happens once."

Cam's left standing, awkward and uncomfortable, as JD stalks out of the room. His father blows out a breath. "Well," he says. "That's --"

"I'm sorry, Dad," Cam says. "I --"

Neither of them finish their sentences. Neither of them quite know what to finish their sentences with.

"You love him, don't you," Cam's daddy says, after another minute of silence.

It gets easier to face with repetition, Cam supposes. "Yes, sir," he says. Quiet, but heartfelt. "He's good to me."

"You're lying to us," his daddy says, and Cam's heart -- none too steady -- breaks a little. "About most of this. Aren't you."

"Don't make me answer that question," Cam says. Heartsick, aching. "Daddy, I can't say a damn word about it. I've already said more than I should. We both have. I swore an oath."

His father sighs. "Cameron Everett Mitchell," he says. More sad than upset. "All I want is for you to be settled."

There are tears burning in Cam's eyes, but he's not going to let them rise up. "I am. We are. It's going to be all right. I swear to you. It's going to be all right."

His father closes his eyes. For a minute, Cam thinks he looks old. Then he realizes his father's only a few years older than JD is, and it makes him shiver.

"Go get some sleep," his daddy says. "We'll talk about this after Christmas."

"Yes, sir," Cam says, and avoids the eyes of everyone he passes -- everyone who overheard every damn lick of the fight; no such thing as a secret in this house, really -- on his way back to the bedroom.

He isn't expecting JD to be there -- is imagining JD out running, circling the creek maybe, or down the side of the road halfway to town. But JD's sitting crosslegged on the bed, his back up against the headboard, his hands arranged perfectly in his lap, breathing deeply and evenly with his eyes closed.

Cam shuts the door behind him. When he turns back around, JD's got one eye open, watching him. Cam doesn't say anything, just thumps over to his side of the bed and starts stripping down.

"I'm sorry," JD finally says.

"It's all right," Cam says. He sits down on the edge of the bed, hard and heavy. After a second, JD's hand comes to rest on the nape of his neck, and Cam bows his head against the weight of it.

"I won't say I shouldn't have come," JD says. "But I shouldn't have lost my temper."

"It's all right," Cam repeats. It's not. Not exactly. But there isn't anything else he can say, and he knows JD will hear what he means by it.

JD takes a deep breath. "What he said pissed me off because I almost did walk out on you," he says. Quick and fast, a hot rush of words to Cam's back. "I took a look at how big it was and how much it scared me, and I wanted to take off and never look back. You scare the shit out of me. And the first three impulses were to get the hell out, and it took me everything I had to walk back into the apartment two nights ago and climb back into bed with you like everything was going to be all right. But I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I just threw this away. You need to know that."

They'd started off this morning with JD sitting up on the kitchen counter, his feet tucked up under him with that boneless grace, talking half to the coffeepot and half to his hands. And Cam had known better than to interrupt, known better than to even look at him, because he'd known the kindest thing he could have done was to give JD room to say whatever he needed to say. The content of what JD's saying now isn't a surprise, not after this morning. The fact that JD's saying it is.

"I'm glad you didn't," Cam says, because JD's paused and it's the kind of pause that needs something to fill it, not the kind of pause you wait through. He's starting to recognize the difference, with JD. They've both still got a lot of learning to do, but nothing good comes easy.

"I think I am too," JD says. "I think it might be the first time I didn't."

Cam does turn around at that. Not to check JD's face -- he knows that JD's face is going to say exactly what JD wants it to -- but because he wants to touch, and he doesn't want to touch what he can't see. He's had enough and well past enough of conversations like these for the day, and somehow he doesn't see JD objecting to a change of subject either. So he says, making it as light as possible, "It's okay if you want to walk out on me. As long as you know that if you actually do it, I'll hunt you down and kill you."

It takes JD a second to realize what Cam's said, and then he's laughing. Nothing more than a soft chuff, but it makes Cam happy to hear it anyway. "Duly noted." He scrubs a hand over his face. "Can this day be over now?"

"Yeah," Cam says. He flicks off the bedside lamp. Just as he's about to stretch out under the covers, he remembers his evening dose of meds and sighs.

"I've got it," JD says, before Cam can get up. JD never loses track of the time, no matter what timezone they're in. JD's better at keeping track of Cam's needs than Cam is. Cam hopes his daddy has taken note, that his daddy sees that JD's more than just a pretty face and a nice smile. But he'll deal with that tomorrow, or after Christmas, and by then, maybe he'll have figured out a way to explain things to his daddy that won't sound crazy or spill national secrets all over family problems. Time still to think about it. Later.

JD stands next to Cam and hands over the pills he dug out of the bottom of Cam's carryon. "When we get back," he says, and then stops.

Cam puts his hands on JD's hips and tugs him in, closer. He needs to touch. "Yeah?" he prompts.

Whatever it is that's on JD's mind, it's big. "Nothing," JD says, and then stops himself. "No. You said I need to talk. Okay. When we get back. Let's talk about where we do want to move." His eyes look scared, but it doesn't show in his voice. "Anywhere. I don't care. I just --" Deep breath. "I want a home. I want us to have a home. Not just a place where we sleep."

For a minute, Cam can't breathe against the fullness spreading out inside him. JD's eyes are searching his face. When Cam doesn't say anything, JD turns away. "Nevermind. Dumb thing to say. Forget I brought it up."

"No," Cam blurts out. Catches his fingers in the band of JD's underwear, pulls him right back to where he was. "No. I --"

He's supposed to be the one who can talk about his feelings, but this, this is fifteen layers all at once. But the one that wins is the one that JD's described as the big needy pit: need for love, need for connection, need to laugh or cry or just sit down and shake for a good ten minutes before anything gets decided. God, his life is fucking insane. Insane and terrifying and beautiful and he doesn't know how to even begin to approach it all.

He settles. They're not the words he wants, but they're the words he can find. "Yeah," he says. "Let's do that. Let's keep building ourselves a lifetime."

There's relief in JD's eyes. There are things floating around in Cam's head, bits and pieces of understanding that don't connect up to anything else -- the fact that JD doesn't love lightly, the way that tethers and ties don't chafe so hard when they're ones you put on yourself, the way that JD understands what home means to Cam, the way love isn't about what you can get from somebody else, it's about what you can give to them. They're all important, but now's not the time to try to make any of them fit into place. Now's the time to wrap his arms around JD's waist and just hold on: hold on like the world's going to end any second, and this might be the only thing that keeps them from ending with it.

JD's hand comes to rest on Cam's hair. I love you, it says. Wordless. Confident. Cam takes heart in the touch, in the fact that he knows how to read it.

When he looks up, JD is looking back down at him. He catches Cam's hand in his and pulls Cam's fingertips up to rest on the upside-down V crowned with a halo that's limned at the hollow of his throat. Cam can feel the pulse leaping underneath his touch.

"This one means 'home'," JD says, and in his voice is a beginning.

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