Love (Bernard)

Bernard loves everything about Tim.

He loves the way Tim smiles. On anybody else, it would be a very small smirk, but on Tim it's a grin he only gives at the peak of his happiness. Oh, he has an actual grin, which he trots out whenever he has to pretend to smile for cameras or an audience, but Bernard knows that that smile is as fake as pro wrestling. It's the smirk which Tim gives to Bernard that makes his knees go all wobbly.

He loves how much of a genius Tim is. Not just because all of the time he saves on studying gives them more time together, although it does, but because Tim knows everything. He writes his papers without referencing any books except when he needs quotes. Tim can make a computer sit up and beg if he wants it to. And he knows the oddest shortcuts through the city, through neighborhoods which would make Bernard nervous (even in a locked, moving car) if he weren't with Tim.

He loves how Tim protects him, even when he doesn't need protecting. He'd stopped a mugger once, in the blink of an eye. Another time, some firecrackers had gone off, sounding just like guns, and Tim had shoved him down onto the ground almost before Bernard had even registered the sound.

He loves how steady Tim is. No matter how hyped up Bernard is, no matter how much he's babbling the latest gossip, no matter what harebrained idea he has, Tim can shut him up and stop him with a look. That look, with one eyebrow raised, like he'd practiced it, and done it enough to master it.

He loves how precise Tim is. Tim's bed is always made with military precision. His room is always in perfect condition, nothing out of place, which is just freaky in a college guy. Sometimes he worries about it. But Tim wouldn't be Tim if he didn't alphabetize his CDs.

But most of all he loves the mystery of Tim. Tim is covered with scars, some of them just thin white lines like he'd been scratched by a cat years ago, others massive patches of shiny or gnawed-looking skin. Bernard loves knowing that no matter how he kisses or sucks on or bites the old wounds, all he will get out of Tim are whimpers. He will never hear that that scar is where Tim got his appendix out, or that one where the neighbor's dog attacked him, or even that that one that looks like a burn is from where, when he was a spy, he'd been nicked by one of those laser cut-you-in-half devices the villains always seemed to have. It will always be a mystery.