“Yeah. I never thought of that. Then when you said it, it was like the damn clouds parted and I thought I saw a ray of sun for the first time in so long. It’s like…like I’ve been so deep in this whole thing for so long that I honest to god stopped trying to think of any solutions and just figured this was my life now. I feel pretty stupid, actually.”

Truman caressed his cheek and his jaw and offered tentatively, “You know, that’s why it’s nice to have a partner sometimes. You can figure things out together. That’s what I hear anyway,” he hedged.

Ash grabbed his shoulders and looked deep into Truman’s eyes. “You have to understand what you’d be getting into,” he said fervently. “I couldn’t stand for you to leave your whole life behind and then end up here and expect things from me that I can’t give. I just…I’m no fun,” he concluded.

“I hate fun!” Truman exclaimed. “The shit most people think is fun, I mean.” Then Ash’s words registered. “Wait. What I’d be getting into. You mean…you’d want me to stay?”

Ash’s eyes burned with blue-gray fire. “I have never wanted anything as much in my entire life. I just didn’t think it would be fair to—”

Truman knocked him onto his back on the bed and kissed him with everything he had.

“You’re such an idiot!” Truman crowed. “I can’t believe you said you didn’t want me to come here when what you meant was I don’t want you to come here unless you really want to and with full understanding of the reality. You get that’s super confusing, right?”

“I…I just didn’t want you to have to give up anything.”

“Hey.” Truman looked at his beautiful face and made sure he was listening. “I would be giving up things that matter very little to me and gaining things that matter very much.”

Tears came to Ash’s eyes again, but this time, a smile accompanied them. He pulled Truman down on top of him and wrapped those warm arms around him.

“I can’t believe you would do this for me,” Ash murmured.

“I’m doing this for us,” Truman said. He didn’t mention that it was precisely what Ash had done to be with his mother, because that seemed to kind of kill the romance, but he thought about it.

“Us,” Ash murmured and kissed Truman. The kiss deepened, until Ash pulled away to exclaim, “Greta!”

“Um, what?”

“We left Greta out there.”

Truman giggled. “Oh, right.”

They trooped out of the bedroom to find Greta sitting among her carnivorous plants with her eyes closed.

“Hit me,” she said without opening her eyes.

“Um. Any chance you might be interested in making this swap a little bit more…permanent?” Truman asked.