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Sleeping with Alex was a dream come true, a dream Willie never realized they were allowed to have. They never really said the words aloud, since the phrase carried an insinuation that they weren't even remotely interested in, but getting to curl up in bed beside the love of their life and doze off in his arms was one of Willie's favorite parts of their shared life. Alex's bed was warm and safe, because Alex himself was warm and safe.
Willie had been someone who thrived on physical contact for as long as they could remember. There had been a time where they'd shy away from it or be easily overwhelmed by it, due to years of touch starvation at home, but that was a thing of the past. Falling into bed beside their love was always a perfect opportunity to indulge in all the contact they both desired.
They drank in the calm that came with resting their head on Alex's chest, the mixed scent of pine and citrus from his shower products filling their nose. They relaxed into the safety of having Alex’s chest against their back, his arms curled securely around their torso. They relished in the quiet space between their faces, where they weren’t quite touching but they could still feel Alex’s breath against their cheek.
A glow of pride always formed in their ribs when they curled up behind Alex, spooning him and protecting him from anything and anyone that might want to hurt him. There was so much tenderness contained in how his fingers would gently trace the surgery scars on their chest while Alex laid his head on their shoulder. And Willie was glad to be the one Alex would hide his face against when the day was just too much. No matter what time it was, they would let him use them to hide for a little bit. And they would be there to talk if and when Alex was ready.
Being able to be physically close with someone every night was something Willie had always forced themselves not to want. After all, whenever their parents or other adults talked about 'sleeping with someone,' they were always talking about something else. Something that confused Willie for many reasons, both because it was only ever biological men doing it with biological women, and because they were doing it at all. Willie knew from an early age that they weren't interested in or couldn’t really have either aspect of it, so they had assumed sleeping with someone would never be something they'd want.
But there were few things in life that Willie was happier to be wrong about. Because, as it turned out, they loved sleeping with Alex. It meant a comfortable warmth by their side. It meant a hand they could hold if they wanted. It meant steady breathing to ground them as they slipped into unconsciousness.
Sleeping with Alex meant whispered conversations about their days and anything and nothing and everything. It meant goodnights murmured into their hair or shoulder just before one of them drifted off. It meant mumbled good mornings as Alex refused to open his eyes and wake all the way up. And it sometimes meant serious conversations that felt like too much to have while there was light.
Willie had been so scared to move in with Alex, worrying about various habits and quirks the drummer might discover that would scare him off, or freaking out about how he might react when they needed some space. But Alex had held their hand and promised that he loved them, no matter how the actual living situation turned out. And he’d shared a near tidal wave of his own concerns, assuring Willie that they weren’t the only one who was scared.
His confessions gave Willie the courage to ask if they could still have separate rooms in their new apartment, not because Willie didn’t want to spend the nights sharing a bed, but because they knew they needed some space sometimes and didn’t want either of them to have to deal with sleeping on whatever second hand couch they ended up getting. In the end, it ended up being a good setup for both of them, since Willie could set up a lot of their art supplies in their room and Alex could keep the infamous storyboard on his own wall for plotting the fanfics he wrote for his friends without them getting in each other’s way. And both of them took advantage of having separate beds from time to time, even though they loved curling up in Alex’s bed together most nights.
Willie loved having that space available, because it was both a comforting thing to reject and a safety net when things got to be too much. There were nights when they or Alex just couldn’t be around another human, even though they loved each other deeply, and they would spend the dark hours in their own rooms. Sometimes the need for space would break in the middle of the night like a bad fever and they’d knock on the other’s door to ask for a hug or to cuddle. Unless it was a rare night where both of them were feeling lousy at the same time, the answer was almost always yes. And some nights, Willie would feel both the need to have Alex beside them and the knowledge that being touched would make them shatter into a million tiny pieces, so they’d doze off on opposite sides of the same bed. They wouldn’t make physical contact, but hearing Alex’s steady breathing in the darkness would help lull Willie to sleep.
They were fully aware that technically the two rooms had the same mattress, since they’d splurged on two matching ones when they moved, but the one in Alex’s room always felt a bit softer. Maybe it was because of the wide variety of blankets Alex kept on his bed to satisfy his various moods and sensory issues. Maybe it was because of the light pink color of the walls, covered in posters and Willie’s art and the storyboard, creating a cocoon of safety for everything Alex loved. Maybe it was of the light scent of laundry detergent and Alex’s citrus shampoo on the pillow. Maybe it was how the room was rarely entirely silent, Alex’s small speaker playing music softly almost any time he was home, to combat the pressure of the voices and criticism in his mind. Or maybe that was because they associated Alex’s bed with Alex himself, with love and sarcasm and steady kisses and gentle fingers in their hair.
Really, it wasn’t the space or even the whole apartment that Willie thought of as home. It was Alex. It was always Alex, no matter how far away he was on tour. Alex was their home in his bedroom, or the living room, or the Molina’s studio, or in a backstage area or hotel room on the other side of the country. Alex was where Willie was home. It didn’t matter if they were in his room or theirs or on opposite sides of the apartment wall or on the pullout couch at Julie’s or in a hotel room in the middle of New York City. Home was wherever Alex was, giving his friends grief for doing stupid things while pulling out band-aids to patch up the scrapes, drumming until his hands shook and the crowd roared, tucking strands of hair behind Willie’s ear before leaning in and waiting a breath for permission before kissing them.
Willie adored sleeping with Alex. It was an objective fact that they slept better with him by their side, that they felt more rested when they woke, that they smiled more when the first thing they saw when they opened their eyes was Alex’s soft golden hair and relaxed face. No one could deny that mornings were better when one of the first sounds they heard was Alex’s gravelly morning voice, accompanied by a short peck and a warm arm holding them close.
They might have felt embarrassed by how much they loved him if not for the inescapable fact that Alex loved them just as much, maybe more. Willie had doubted it for a long time, unable to see how his best friend since they were in elementary school could possibly love them the way they loved him. They still sometimes doubted it, on days when Caleb’s voice was the loudest thing in their brain, but Alex was always there to help them through those days. Because he loved them.
Alex would gravitate to their side in bars and at parties and at band sleepovers and in their own kitchen, wrapping his arms around their waist and nuzzling their hair. Sometimes Willie would catch him watching them dancing around in the audience at a show or in their living room, a glowing smile on his face. He rarely turned down Willie’s offers to join them if he could. He’d pull Willie close in bed and Willie would feel his muscles relaxing as he breathed in the scent of their coconut shampoo. When Alex was away on tour with his bandmates, they would end up Facetiming almost every night because Alex had quietly admitted that hearing Willie’s voice helped him fall asleep.
Every time one of them had to spend a night without the other, Alex would hold Willie like they were the most precious thing in the world and whisper that he’d missed them as they dozed off the next time they slept together. Whenever Alex woke up before Willie, they would open their eyes to him watching them sleep, an adoring smile on his face as he adjusted the blankets or ran gentle fingers across their skin. And sometimes, when Alex’s mind would twist into knots and refuse to let him rest, he would turn to Willie for comfort, laying his head on their chest and tracing the dark lines of their tattoos in an attempt to ground himself while Willie hummed or rambled about their day, holding him and running scarred hands through his hair until he finally slipped into unconsciousness. Willie hated that his lover was tormented by nights like that, but they were glad that Alex trusted them enough to let them help.
Whether they were sleeping with Alex in their bed or his or on a couch somewhere, or even in separate rooms sharing a wall, it always made Willie feel safe. And they were glad that Alex felt the same way. Being able to love sleeping with their love was something Willie never thought they could have or that they would want. But now that they had it, they knew they never wanted to stop.