Takes Place Oct 20th 2024 Follows: Urban Domesticity
He felt warm. That was the first thought to drift across his sleepy mind as he snuggled further into the source of the warmth. A moment passed. Maybe a minute. It was hard to tell when lost in the throes of sleep and waking, but eventually more sensations began to register to the boy’s mind. The weight of a leg over on his own, something draped over his waist, the steady movement of breathing against his cheek, and the very real realization that he was stark naked under the covers draped over his body.
Wakefulness slapped him like a cruel mistress and Aelius immediately opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed, besides the man he was curled up against, was that he wasn’t in his bedroom. Groggily he remembered they were at Waru’s, and to be honest, he hadn’t gotten a good look at the room itself last night. His attention had laid elsewhere. Waru’s steady breathing and heartbeat helped calm Aelius as the memories of their night together come rushing back. He smiled softly against that broad chest. His own body practically twisting itself around the other man’s, trying to find contact wherever possible in their sleep, and Waru accommodated his needy state. Alius was content, and after the initial rush of it all coming back, he contemplated if he could fall back asleep. It felt so comforting to be held and to hold onto the man next to him. For so long he’d wanted this and denied himself, and for what reason?
Oh, how fickle and cruel the human mind could be. A singular, innocent question brought about a tidal wave of hurt as Aelius remembered exactly why he’d been denying this for so long and it came in the image of a boy on fire, eyes of red and darkness staring at him. Something like a boulder settled itself on his chest and Aelius’ breath stuttered for it. What did this all mean? He’d just denied Faustite a relationship mere months ago and had then gone to bed with Waru. Faustite’s husband. There was no denying the fact he had wanted this. Finally let it happen and enjoyed it all. He wouldn’t have changed a single thing of what happened between him and Waru, and yet he fretted. Worried what implications this could have. What it could all lead to because surely Faustite would be upset?
Aelius carefully attempted to remove himself from Waru then. Tried not to wake the man as he slipped a leg away, then an arm, before he could finally sit up and effectively removed the arm around his waist in the process and freeing the appendage that had to have grown tingly under Aelius’s weight. Blankets pooled at his waist and shifted along Waru’s chest, revealing more of that toned, and well-built body. A flash of memory from last night caused a blush to surface accompanied by a smile as it helped diminish the worry for a brief moment.
***
At first it didn’t seem real, the restless movement along his side that begged waking, the way he let it go on ignored in favor sitting in a far better dream. There was a lushness to what lay behind his eyes that he didn’t want to leave just yet; a warm slice of lucidity that mixed with the half-awake pleasure of being tucked into a serene cocoon made up of deep stillness. Threads wound tight as a lover's embrace about his too heavy body. It smelled of home, and it felt like safety, and he thought he would have lain in it like an eternally lazy morning if allowed. The kinds where he had no need to leave his bed for anything, where he could float in blurry thought and fuzzy colors and just feel everything and nothing alike at the edges, some happy buzz before inevitably letting himself fall back to sleep.
But the gentle shifting continued – the pressure of the presence changed – a phantom sense that must’ve belonged to the waking world beyond. The way it wasn’t just all in his head; that warm shift and the hint of rustling fabric dragging over his skin. He was content to soak in it, the lingering heat that hedged a lucid moment, pulling in sleep deep breaths, and murmuring a half-sound of a sigh. A gentle huff of air over plush lips as he flexed into the dip he’d made in the bed. Thinking that maybe Haymitch had pounced into bed with him? Always looking for cat-cuddles. Or it could’ve been Cerbs? Hungry and demanding his presence through the bond.
It could’ve been—
And if he took stock of himself more carefully, the way he couldn’t quite feel the fingers he flexed in his left hand; pins and needles that told him how he’d slept on it. The way the sun must’ve been coming up – because there was light from somewhere – he could catch a hint of it through a peek of lashes from the one eye he bothered to let slip open…..
The light was marred by a shadow and the shadow held an unexpected form.
Oh—
He felt caught out all at once, frozen on a fresh and indecisive edge while trying to read between too many lines; except he’d forgotten what letters looked like, the reading became impossible. What he knew? Was that there was an angel sitting in his sheets, bathed in blushing smiles, looking happy! While somehow also looking for all the world like he was three steps from running out his home with wings caught aflame. It was too early to think this much, too early to move, and so Waru made a sound; a fuzzy come-hither hemmed with a question mark of a noise. It was wordless and yet full of meaning as he squinted at the boy, admiring Aelius where he sat on his barely-swathed perch.
There was a want there, always, and he thought Aelius was too far away already – thought the man needed to come back – to be dragged there – to be kissed soundly down and back to sleep so that he could puzzle out the look and all its possible meanings again some hours from now. Later, when he remembered what thinking actually was…
But he never kept anyone by holding on too tightly—and if Aelius needed to leave?
And if I don’t want him to–
“D’ngoyet–”careful and sleep driven, hazy and soft, he tried to not surprise the man with his own loudness. To offer more assurance than the confusion he himself felt, shifting to let more of the covers fall away and bear what he would’ve needed to be blind to not admire. Aelius, in his bed, preciously bare. If he said one more word it would’ve been a plea – something soft and foolish – he held his breath instead and hoped….
Such sweet, adorable sounds coming from such a large man bubbled a soft laugh from Aelius. Lowering a hand behind him, he leaned back to watch as Waru attempted to stay in that middle ground of wakefullness and sleep. Likely, he sought that sweet embrace of slumber again, but Aelius kept him from finding it.
“Hmmm…” He wasn’t sure the time. s**t. What time is it?
Golden eyes sought out a clock in the room but failed to find anything. What were the odds… Ah! There it was. When or how he managed to not just throw the device to the ground, Aelius wasn’t sure, but his phone lay there discarded on the nightstand. By the looks of it, it had barely managed to make it onto the piece of furniture as it hoover precariously on the precipice. He reached across the bed to grab it. 6:27am lit up the screen.
With more care than it probably got the previous night, Aelius put the phone back on the nightstand. “I’ve got a bit of time until the shoot.” He said, hushed. He didn’t want to ruin the other man’s attempts at more sleep than was already done by spooking him.
Grabbing the blankets that had dared exposed the rest of him, letting the cool morning air prickle his skin, Aelius pulled them up as she scootched himself back towards and into Waru’s warmth.
But, unlike Waru, there wasn’t any hope of Aelius falling back asleep. Even as he nestled into the crook of the other’s arm, the worry that had been temporarily stymied by the man at Aelius’s side, returned with a pang.
Not even turning his attention outward, focusing on Waru’s steady breathing, or the early morning sounds of the city outside could change the direction in which his mind went. He tried hugging Waru closer, wrapping an arm around the man’s torso and pulling him closer as he shifted his head to rest in the cranny between shoulder and chest. It was comfortable. Something he could get incredibly used to if only…
“Why does it feel like I’ve gone and made things worse now.” It was said softly into the quiet of the room as he stared at a wall while clinging to Waru as if he was a life-preserver in the stormy seas of his thoughts.
—---
Waru adjusted himself to better allow Aelius to curl against and on him. With each inche given, Aelius took, letting skin touch skin wherever he could manage. He did smile though at Waru’s obviously sleepy response. The poor man was trying to rev start and meet Aelius where he was, but unfortunately, Aelius’s brain had gone from 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds. Reeling in to a point that he could explain to Waru was a challenge. Especially with him trying to fully understand his own emotions and thoughts.
“Just…some anxiety about the implications of. This. Us? What Faustite might think or say.” A tilt of his head at just the right moment landed the sleepy, chaste kiss upon Aelius’s temple. He sighed for the simple, easy action removing one of two of those annoying tangles of thread in his stomach.
Aelius returned the sweet kiss with one of his own on Waru’s chest. He then settled back in, practically tucking himself under the man’s strong chin as he nuzzled into the board chest. “I am being ridiculous. I know it.”
Golden eyes stared at the wall across from him. A dresser laid there in what appeared to be organized disarray. Another bit of detail that had been missed during their night together, but now Aelius found it fascinating to view. “But I did just tell him I wanted to wait. That wasn’t that long ago and now here we are.” The arm he’d slung over Waru squeezed a bit, fingers clinging to skin he still could not keep himself from touching, even during the bout of nerves and worry.
“Sorry.” A soft apology announced to the room.
—--------
Waru wished Faustite could see *this* – could hear it – that he could simply pour into his boy exactly how much Aelius still loved him. Even here, in another man's bed, in another man's arms and the good-morning on the lips of the one beside him seemed filled with calls to ‘Faustite’.
In the shape of worries, yes? But worries were for lovers too, new and old and torn apart only to ever seek each other out after the tearing. Waru didn’t know poetry, but it felt poetic in his mind. A love worth burning for, worth lamenting the loss of to the point of dying. He chuffed softly knowing the heart in his chest that Aelius so easily pressed whisper-soft kisses over was of a softer kind.
Gods, but how he wanted to scrape out all the rest; every thorny, worn, scarred part of the pair of them and simply press them both into a shape more like this! Happily burning all the years that had built the two of them into what they now were. To alight it all in Phenix-fire and start anew from the ashes instead of laying rotted foundation atop rotted foundation; mortar-filled new on shattered old.
He wanted—
Some slice of impossible where everyone could be happy in sickly sweet ‘we-all-get-along’ kinds of ways.
And he wanted—
To be better without having to try to be better, for Aelius to not go to whatever shoot needed him, and for – ******** it – a lamp with several wishes and an easily cheated genie so he could have even more of his way. But wants required work and the world was ever at war. Even if the world stopped spinning for a day there was still the rest of space n time to consider…
Aelius’s wants, then? Far smaller things that were far easier to focus on while he lay there quietly and listened, suffusing in the warmth and smiling half-awake against the top of the boy's head. His eyes half-lidded as his mind slowly churned to life and he sought some semblance of human words instead of yawn-infused ones.
“Chhhsh–s’alright, Aelius.” Hushed sigh meant to offer ease to the boy because he could hear the line of tension waiting to cut ******** – somebody – better to snip it now. “You’re good.” Rumbled as he settled into the touches as if they were his due. He liked the clinging, had missed Eion, missed Ren, and so this? New enough to be exciting and different, good enough that it soothed the aches for what he missed; apples and oranges but all fruit was sweet and he was ********’ three steps from scurvy so this? To have Aelius as a koala instead of a porcupine for once? In his bed like a buddy instead of a blade at his back. A savorable delicacy like no other.
So he savored it.
“We’re good–you n’me, n’not-diculous at all….” To tell Aelius how at the Pointe their boy had seemed genuinely surprised in all the ways Waru hadn’t literally ‘********’ up the situation yet? Because he could keep his c**k out of it when he tried, he could!! All the ways it’d never crossed his mind – or – ******** – how he’d stricken it from his mind once he knew what kind of ground he was standing on; scorched earth meant to heal and so, no, he wouldn’t be putting his d**k in it. The idea had sat though, like a neatly planted seed. A profound worm full of ‘why not if he’s willing?’ Chances at fresh wants and new desires and who was he to turn a good idea down after glancing over it only the one time!
“N’honestly? If things’d gone differently—it’d still be us here somehow, right? Sooner or later. N’less you flat out said ‘No’ –” The way Waru thought Aelius certainly had been, in several thousand different ways. At least, up until last night. “It’s th’risk of sharing the same fire in our ‘one’ home, yeh. Th’chance that we fall into the singular bed in it lookin for warmth’n, love’n, comfort….” Pun wholly intended as every chance at using Ei’s last name was. Speaking as though it were a thing that could’ve been inevitable when viewed in just the right light, and under just the right circumstances! Because it had to have been, right? The bit of ice up his spine, a cold witchy nail belonging to reality, the unthunk idea that Aelius could regret it.
That he did regret it, because of course he could! A stark reminder of the undefined nature of their shared space, his own thoughts running rampant behind half-awake eyes: ‘You’re not his husband in x form – or his love of two lifetimes – or his frenemy of years named Elex and Eion and Greater General in one.’
Faustite ever the connecting ghost in the room, an imaginary figment sizzling out smoky, subconscious warnings as easily as he did encouragements. Waru found himself worrying, for different reasons than Aelius. He didn’t worry about what his husband would say, or how his beloved would react. He couldn’t’ve lived like that, didn’t think anyone could. Not in a world made of beds of nails and broken glass, or by tiptoeing around every action, thought, or word.
But he knew that wasn’t the type of man he’d married.
Aelius though—
The bluenette was both very much not his husband and had only recently become the friend he’d pledged to help! And ********, what if all of this was just that he’d somehow worn the boy down!? War of attrition’d him into – movies on his ratty couch and last chances between his sheets. A way to pass the time before Aelius ******** left back into that same cold reality where he chased Faustite’s every affectionate shadow and warmer than his own shoulders looking for that sharper someone to lean on — and the curtains would fall – and it’d be a hell of a closer.
“N’less—” and he felt like he was misunderstanding something large, some vow of abstinence he’d gone n pissed over, or some curse of chastity a witch had cast over Aelius, maybe?! ********, for all that he couldn’t figure where Aelius telling Faustite to ‘wait’ had anything to do with them in his mind. At least not with himself! Who’d done nothing up until now but wait while also somehow not killing each other. “--n’less where we are is not where you wanted to be, Aelius?”
———-
They were sweet words full of assurance and calm and Aelius tried so hard to take them for what they were. Meant to soothe the anxiety that was broiling like a fort of butterflies in his stomach and the non-stop Steam of thoughts that just wanted to continue to grow and overwhelm.
It as moments like these that the boy really saw the type of man Waru was. Someone who willingly would become the much needed rock for those in his life that were maybe floundering. Hell, floundering or not, he was just there. Always. Willing to share himself and his affection. Waru was endearing and it was the man's personality and opened that Eion the danseur over in the end.
“What?” He questioned quietly as after Waru’s curiosity to the extent in which they had gone in their relations. It took him a moment to fully understand where Waru was going and when he did, he immediately propped himself back up again so he could look at Waru eye to eye. “No. Gods, Waru, if I hadn't wanted this than it wouldn't have ever happened. It's not like you took advantage of me while I was drunk or coerced me into bed. Not that I think you'd ever actually do either of those so that might be a moot point.”
He watched Waru then, trying to take in all of him. His expressions, where he looked, how he looked, and well…everything. “Unless it was me that pushed this? I…that wasn't my intention. I thought you were interested and honestly, I'd been trying to tell myself otherwise for the longest time, but I have just gotten tired of denying myself because of mistakes I've made.” Shifting his weight to support himself, Aelius reached out a hand to brush at a dreadlock that laid just along Warus cheek. A small tentative smile spread across his face.
“I promise though. This is where I want to be right now. Sorry if I have you any other impression. I just…well, I got into my head.” He sighed.
—---
“Okay—okay..” A gust of a sigh, relief washing over his features as Aelius reassured him ten times over that the hadn’t, somehow, created a terrible kind of tipping point where one needn’t have been. He wasn’t th last coercive straw atop the weary camel's back, no, instead it sounded like Aelius had simply grown tired of holding himself back from what felt like this inevitable precipice.
A welcome act however spontaneously they’d come upon it; together, thank gods together. Whether Waru would've admitted it or not it would’ve hurt to think it was all his idea and his alone, thar Aelius were just along for the ride instead of actively wanting to participate.
That there would be against as often as next times and this moment right here was just some sadly singular incident, a one time wish fulfillment come out of nowhere.
Not nowhere though, never that—
“We’re good, yeah?” A greater bit of awareness in his gaze, a less sleep laden smile, as he turned to press a kiss across Aelius’s delicate wrist; fondness for the gentle touch, the motions in which the man leaning over him expressed care.
“We are—“ A brush of lips and whispered words. “I am.” Canting his gaze up again, appreciation obvious beneath a flutter of lashes as his words turned warm as the smile embedded in them. “I wish you’d push more often….I wish you’d forgive yourself…”
“Because you can have what you want, yanno? So long as you let yourself have it. Doesn’t always have t’be a trial — this thing you crawl over glass to earn..” He huffed, thinking about how his most beloved boys wounded themselves as often as each other. Like it was a competition, who could bear the largest scars the longest. Who could take the other over the hottest coals. He knew it wasn’t like that—
He heard Aelius’s concerns and realIsed the bluenette didn’t know. Not inherently. That maybe Aelius expected the worst at all times; from Faustite , hell, maybe from himself too? He couldn’t be sure, didn’t want to test it. To let sorrow in while he still had Aelius warmth at his fingertips and could admire everything from flame wrought scars to the tiniest mole in the half light of early dawn.
“If you just let yourself have it— n’only wear blinders some of the time?” Gentle tease aimed to soothe, even as his fingers became needy, greedy; to trace aimless paths while putting off what would inevitably end in a meeting.
It had to. He was ever honest with his boy, always. He felt no shame in this, no fear of retribution, no urge to hide. But just because it needed to happen didn’t mean it needed to happen today.
“Or— if theres something I can do t’help distract you from…hell.. everything?”
Including your meeting— unfiltered selfishness, but the thought remained true enough.
