LANCASTER AND MAXWELL ( ✔ )

chapter nineteen.

Chapter Nineteen.

SULLIVAN wakes up with a splintering headache and the overwhelming feeling that he's just done something very bad.

Granted, he wakes up with the same feeling maybe three times out of the week, so it's nothing that catches him off guard. 

Still. 

The feeling swells in his gut, and that's one of the causes of him waking up from his blissful sleep; the other cause is because the sun is leaking through his curtains, and it hurts his eyes to keep them closed any longer. He blinks once, twice, and his eyelids flutter open to probably the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

 Arthur lays sleeping next to him, peaceful and unaware of the dangers that lurk in the corners of the universe. He doesn't have the usual crease between his brows, as if he's in constant thought. Full, pink lips are slightly parted with each soundless breath he takes, and his blonde hair is strewn in every direction but straight. Sleeping ages him back years, before he became Atlas and began to carry the world on his shoulders. He looks like the boy Sully knew once upon a time, with seraphic light in his eyes and bruises on his knuckles from fighting off the world for him. The brunette just hopes that wherever his mind is, in whatever scenery he's dreaming of, he just hopes he's there too. With a pretty face like that in his bed, he can get used to waking up to a sight like this. Sully can almost forget that Zara exists for a moment and it makes him smile.

But then he remembers that Zara does exist, and his soft smile flees quickly.

Oh. 

Sitting up on his elbows so that he can get a better view of the blonde, this is the time where he's also becoming painfully aware that the both of them are not wearing any clothes — not to mention him shifting in the bed causes a small soreness in the lower half of his body. 

Oh. 

The instinctual bad feeling he gets when he wakes up is justified for once, because for the second time in a month Sullivan has helped his best friend cheat on the most perfect girl in the world. And sure, he doesn't care — the Maxwell boy has made it unabashedly clear to everyone who knows him personally that he can't be bothered to give a single damn, shit, or a fuck because Arthur is his, always has been, and anyone getting in the way is just collateral damage  — but he knows that Arthur cares. A simple fact is that the world does weigh heavy on his shoulders because that's the way Artie has always been: he's always known him to be the martyr. He will never let anyone else get nailed to a cross and save the sins of the world on Calvary. It's always got to be him, and a part of Sully hates him for it. He wants to shake him senseless and ask him to be selfish for once in his fucking life because he is giving everyone else life jackets while he's drowning, and if he drowns then SJ will not know what to do with himself. Why does he do that? Why does Artie give a fuck about everybody else but himself—

Sully sighs. It isn't the time for this. For now Artie is safely floating above water. He is at peace, he's sleeping, and SJ is in love so he will take the time to relish in that fact. 

Lifting his hand slowly up, he reaches over and runs his thumb gently across the border of Arthur's bottom lip, content. He lets out a dreamy sigh and watches his lover sleep, thinking that he's never more at home than in this moment. He's blinded by Artie and his own selfish needs and knows that he'd never be able to sleep with anyone else again without this moment coming back to torment him every single time.