Cooper had been laying with his eyes shut for about an hour now, but occasionally he'd shift around or nuzzle in against Sasha's shoulder, so Sasha wasn't sure if he was actually asleep.
There was a knock on the door and Cooper lifted his head and called out, "Yeah?"
"Are you busy?" Abra asked through the door.
Cooper looked at Sasha, lifting his eyebrows in question.
Sasha shut his laptop, cutting off the video that had been playing, and nodded towards the door. Cooper got up to open it.
"Sorry," Abra said when Cooper let him in. "I thought I should talk to you before we head back. Both of you, actually."
Sasha patted his bed and the two of them joined him on it.
"So, I've been a man of many deals today," Abra said. "The first deal I made is that, in exchange for walking their dog every day and keeping the lawns mown, George and Joy are going to give us a hundred dollars a week off our rent."
Cooper opened his mouth wide in surprise. "A hundred dollars?"
"Yes, and that's a good deal for them. That comes out at less than fifteen dollars a walk, and you're not walking. You're running. They won't get those kinds of rates anywhere else. This would be a bad deal for us if it wasn't for the fact that you love it and you'd do it without being paid."
"This is why I need you to make the deals. So that I don't end up paying them to let me walk their dog."
"The second deal was with your parents, Sasha. Cooper already talked to them and they agreed to pay for a fridge for the house, because none of us own one, but that will probably take a week or so to arrive. In the meantime, they're going to pay for groceries and we're going to use their kitchen, and in return I'll make enough for them as well so they can have a week off cooking. Assuming that won't be weird for you, of course, Sasha."
"Why would it be weird for me?" Sasha asked. "They're my parents."
"I'm glad it won't be," Abra said. "Cooper, do you have work tomorrow?"
"Uhh..." Cooper pulled his phone out and checked something. "I do not, no."
"Ellie and I do, so we'll take the car back with us today if you don't mind, which will also save you the drive. After work, we're going to go shopping for beds with Sasha's parents. Sasha, you can come too if you want, or we can pick something out for you. Your parents are going to buy you a new bed because they want you to still have your old one here."
"Oh," Sasha said as his brain struggled to take in everything Abra had just said. New bed so he could keep his old bed here. That was good. Did he want to pick the new one out himself? "Uhh..."
"You can think about it. Just let us know. Anyway, this brings us to another deal I made with another neighbour. She's lending us her son's ute while he's away for a week so that we can bring the beds back after we buy them and also move. Most of the stuff can just go in the car, but Sasha, you actually own your own washer and dryer, don't you?"
Sasha nodded.
"In return for lending us the ute we have a complex series of deals. George and Joy and Sasha's parents have agreed to go halves on a skip, and in return we'll help them clear out all the old junk they have in their garages. That's also what the ute lady is getting in return for the loan. Her junk thrown out. We're getting a big one, so Joy's going to spread the word around and see what other deals we can come up with in exchange for our services. Joy thinks some people might have some good furniture and appliances they're not using that they'd be willing to give us. She said they have an old microwave we can have."
"Wow, you did make a lot of deals," Cooper said.
"Yeah. People around here are really friendly."
"And also, upper middle class," Cooper said. "The drunk guy who lived next door to us was nice enough, but he was never going to just have a whole, working microwave he wasn't using for some reason. And if he did, he would sell it to buy more booze, not give it to us."
"That sounds about right," Abra said. "Anyway, if everything goes to plan, there's no reason we can't move in tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Sasha asked.
"I know, it's quick," Abra said. "You don't have to move tomorrow, of course. You can stay here until you're ready. Hell, you don't even have to consider it moving. The house is so close that you can just be wherever you feel comfortable being whenever you feel comfortable being there. Do you want the master bedroom?"
Sasha shook his head. "No, you and Ellie should have that."
"We don't mind."
"It's illogical," Sasha insisted. "There are two bathrooms. If I have the master bedroom, I'll use the bathroom in there and then the rest of the three of you will be sharing the other one. If you two have it, it's two people for each bathroom."
Abra shrugged. "We're used to sharing with Cooper. He's not much of a bathroom hog."
"No. The other two rooms are next to one another, so. Well. I want me and Cooper to have those."
"Ohh," Abra said. "Sure, of course. As long as that's what you actually want, we're happy to take the master."
Sasha nodded. "Cooper, can I have the one on the end, or do you want that one?"
"I'm happy wherever," Cooper said. "I doubt I'll even spend much time in my room when I'm not sleeping anyway. I get lonely."
"I think that's about everything, then," Abra said. "I'll text you tomorrow and we can figure out whatever details there are to figure out, but there's not too much to worry about."
Sasha disagreed with that last part. He had so many worries in his head he didn't even know where to begin. He kept those thoughts to himself, though.
Cooper nodded. "Thanks. And thanks for talking to everyone and sorting everything out. My head's all muddled."
"I'm happy to, just make sure you take care of yourself so you can get back on your feet. Sleep if you can, don't forget to eat, and make sure you exercise."
Cooper nodded, his gaze distant like he was genuinely trying to commit those things to memory. "I didn't go jogging this morning. I'll go this afternoon."
"I think that would be good. Anyway, I'm off now. I'll see you both tomorrow."
They tried to go back to watching videos after Abra had left, but Cooper was wide awake now and he was having trouble sitting still and focusing even on the short animal videos he liked so much. After a while he planted a kiss on Sasha's forehead and left the room. He didn't come back.
That was fine. He was clearly just restless. Sometimes Sasha's brain felt a bit like that, though it mostly just happened inside of his head and made him sad. Being driven towards physical activity when you were already tired sounded exhausting.
When Sasha emerged from his room to get some lunch, he found Cooper wiping down the glass doors that led out onto their back deck. He sent his mum a quizzical look.
Sasha's mum gave a helpless shrug. "He keeps asking for things to do."
Sasha gave Cooper a kiss on the cheek and flashed him a thumbs up as he passed, because he knew Cooper could clean this entire house and then shrug it off like it was nothing when he was sad and feeling useless later. Sasha made a sandwich for himself and a sandwich for Cooper and cut up some apple slices for them both as well. He headed back out into the living room and prodded Cooper with the plate.
Cooper opened his mouth wide as a look of realisation came over his face. "Food. Right. Abra told me to eat. I've still only had coffee today."
"Sleep if you can. Food. Exercise," Sasha reminded him.
Cooper took the plate. "I'll eat this now. Thank you."
Sasha nodded and headed back to his room. It was kind of nice to be able to take care of someone else for once. He liked being helpful, it was just kind of hard to do most of the time. He got overwhelmed easily and he wasn't all that tall or strong. What could he do for anyone that they couldn't just do for themselves? He was always afraid that even if he did try to be helpful, he'd just get in the way or do something wrong.
Maybe things would be different now, though. He could help Cooper when he got overwhelmed or forgetful and maybe he could help the others too. He didn't really know his neighbours because he didn't talk to people, but he'd grown up here so he knew the area well. Plus his parents lived here, so he could borrow stuff, which was kind of his parents helping more than him, but still.
Sasha was looking forward to the move more and more. At first, moving in with the others had felt like a compromise on his ideal arrangement of going back to being neighbours but in a better place. Now he was starting to realise that he'd just been scared of change and this was actually better. Probably. Hopefully.
When he checked in on Cooper a couple of hours later, he was snuggled up in his blankets on the sofa, playing on a tablet someone had given him, which was probably a more socially acceptable way to entertain a guest than putting them to work cleaning the windows. Sasha went and sat down behind him on the arm of the sofa so that he could watch him play.
Cooper won his game, set the tablet down on his lap, and reached back to wrap his arms around Sasha as best as he was able. He tilted his head back to look up at him. "Hey."
Sasha bent down and planted a kiss on Cooper's forehead. "Hey."
"I think your parents are sick of me. They gave me this and then went and sat out on the deck and shut the doors."
Sasha turned to look out towards the deck. They were sitting out there. They never sat out there. "I think probably they're not annoyed, just..." Sasha shrugged. "They're good people, but they don't really get it, you know? They never really knew what to do with me and they probably didn't know what to do with you either."
"I can be a bit much. I don't blame them."
"It's not anyone's fault, I guess." Sasha tugged on Cooper's arm. "Come on. Come back to my room and we can play games next to each other."
"Mm. That sounds nice."
They headed back to Sasha's room and they cuddled up on the bed, side by side, Cooper with the tablet and Sasha with his laptop. Cooper was much less fidgety now that he had the tablet to focus on, but he still moved around a lot, sometimes laying on his stomach, braced up on his elbows, sometimes laying on his back with the tablet held up in front of his face, sometimes on his side, facing Sasha, his attention just as much on what Sasha was doing as it was on his own game.
Sasha didn't mind the movement, though. Cooper didn't seem agitated anymore and that had been what had really bothered Sasha. He could be a bit of an emotional sponge, so negative emotions were hard for him to be around.
An alarm went off on Cooper's phone, he gave Sasha a quick hug, and he headed out to give Piper an afternoon run.
With everything that had been happening, Sasha hadn't had much chance to really, truly relax in a while now. He felt like he was just waiting for the next thing to happen. Now that Cooper was out, he was just waiting for him to come home, and part of Sasha's brain was determined to stay focused on that even if nothing was required of him when Cooper did get back.
And that was fine, he had to remind himself. Or... not fine, but normal, or at least normal for him. This would be the roughest time, when everyone was stressed and there was a lot going on, and then there would be a transitional period when they were building new routines and getting used to living together, and then things would be okay again. Hopefully, anyway. There was just this irritating part of Sasha's brain that wouldn't stop piping up to fret over how he felt bad and it was terrible at remembering that he had good reason for that.
Sasha snuck out of his room when he heard the front door open and shut and ran into Cooper in the hallway. He was all sweaty and flushed from his run, which should have been gross more than anything, but disgust certainly wasn't the feeling it stirred in Sasha.
Sasha bapped his fingertips against the sweat-damp hair that clung just above Cooper's ear.
"Yeah, sorry," Cooper said. "I need a shower."
There was a part of Sasha that really, really, really wanted to ask Cooper if they could have that shower together, but his parents were just down the hall and he definitely wasn't in the best frame of mind to be getting into something like that. But there would be a shower at the new place in a bathroom only he and Cooper would share. There could be future shenanigans...
Sasha patted Cooper's chest where the sweat had plastered his shirt to it. "Go shower, sweaty boy."
Sasha went back to his room and stretched out on his back on his bed. He didn't feel great right now, but the future would be good. He'd decided that. No more probablys, maybes, or hopefullys. It just would be.