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A muffled laugh filled the space between them as he caught Noah licking sticky streaks of milkshake from his fingers but he couldn't say anything with his mouth crammed full of grilled cheese. He just shook his head to show his quiet mocking and reached for the bottle of water that the other held out to him, trying not to let his gaze linger too long.

He was well aware of Noah as he sat and turned to him but defiantly continued to eat (if a little faster) until he could abandon the last scrap of his crust atop the checkered paper. He swallowed and chased it with a large gulp of his water and then set that down, abandoning it too as he leaned back into the couch and let his head loll sideways to look at Noah. The food was too good to not eat all of it but Noah was too tempting to not give attention to right away. He smiled as their eyes met and pulled his legs up onto the couch with him.

"No, I don't need anything," he said softly between them. "Well, except maybe a kiss. I need one of those."

As gentle fingers slid along his cheek, his eyes began to lull. They slid to the back of his neck and parted the thick, bright curls and for the space of a breath, he had forgotten that he had even asked for a kiss in the first place. There was only that gentle, reassuring touch that made him want to lean into it like a cat begging for affection. It took the weight of Noah's forehead against his own to remember himself and he at last cracked the baby blues open to look up at the other man beneath his bright lashes.

Then Noah was speaking, soft and low in a way that made his abdomen clench and his heart thud dangerously hard against the cage that held it. He turned his knees in so that he could twist his upper body more to face him, effectively centering himself in the cave made between Noah's chest and outstretched arm.

"I do," he murmured, tilting his head up just enough that the words ghosted along Noah's lips when he spoke them. He didn't need to be told twice, though.

Pale fingers drifted from where he had dropped them in his own lap and trailed up the sweater that separated Noah's chest from them. They traced the line of his body beneath it and then slid them up over his shoulders, following the flow from his outer clavicle to the sweep of his neckline, and settling finally with both palms just below the hollow of his throat. Then he tipped his head to the side and leaned forward, catching the lips that were taunting him less than a breath away. It was gentle at first peck but then he let all of the swelling emotion that Noah had staved off bubble to the surface and leaned in closer, pressing his lips firmer against the other man's. They parted long enough to draw Noah's lower lip between them and his eyes shut.

This was a peaceful, perfect bliss.

Ellis lost his breath somewhere in the taste of Noah's lips and realized it only as the other man pulled back, leaving him drawing a ragged breath in the space he created between them. It made him crack his eyes just enough to look up into Noah's open face and, at once, he realized he was unprepared for the expression that he found looking back at him. He had really meant it when he told Noah he was endearing and it wasn't a flat compliment for the sake of one; as his bright eyes met the emerald ones framed by Noah's dark lashes, he could feel the adoration the other man was consumed with. Knowing how much he really liked him, appreciated him, was such a foreign concept that it left Ellis' heart swelling more than the softness of the lips that pressed back against his own so swiftly.

A soft, pleased hum rumbled in Ellis' throat and his lips parted to drink him in. It was like gasoline on his fire; he could feel himself consumed with the reckless abandon of his emotions and he could do little but succumb to the way he was absolutely enamored with everything about this other man.

Slowly, he pushed himself up onto his knees and slid his hands up Noah's neck to tilt his jawline back with the angle of his rising torso. It let him walk forward into the boy's space, pressing the flat of his abdomen into the other chest, and closing whatever gap was left between the warmth of their bodies. It was an emboldened gesture that Ellis might have worried over at any other moment, but right then all he wanted was to satiate his need to be close to someone that was becoming so much to him so quickly.

With their lips parted, his tongue darted forward slowly, grazing against the one still trapped behind Noah's parted lips. His fingers were splayed at the joint of his jawline so that his thumbs pressed beneath Noah's jawline with the rest parted around his ears. There was no denying the hunger in his kiss as he pressed his lips harder into Noah's, no ignoring the way he wanted to return every ounce of gentle affection he had been given, and as he concentrated on the way the other man's heart was beating beneath the layers of his sweater, he thought that maybe karma had finally given him a break.

The sound he pulled from Noah made his abdomen clench around a sudden pang of wanting. It surprised him so much that he nearly had to break away to laugh at himself and how ridiculously forward he must have seemed - but then he felt strong fingers gripping hard against his jeans, thumbs locked neatly into the dip of his hipbones, and there was nothing in the world that could have made him break away from Noah in that moment.

Noah's hands were moving over his body without an ounce of hesitation and the fierce surety in his touch left imprints like fire on Ellis' skin, burning through the layers of fabric the separated them, so new but so perfect in the same breath. He melted down and against the line of Noah's body as the other man pulled him forward and splayed his legs around his waist, letting Ellis clench his knees tight against his body and hold himself close. He fit like a puzzle piece against the handsome, charming, alluring man and all Ellis could think of was how simply lucky he felt that such a creature could want him so earnestly.

Fingers dug tips against his pulse where he felt it beating wildly just below the surface of Noah's skin, drinking in every inch of him as his lips begged again and again for more, needy and hungry, unrestrained for the first time since he had let Noah into his anxious, shaky world. A low, keening groan echoed in his throat and at last, he broke away panting, starved for breath but no less hungry as his eyes opened to show pupils blown wide and wild.

His smile was hesitant as he tried to gather his wits about him but his knees squeezed tight, flexing the muscle of his thigh beneath Noah's hand. Though his lips parted, they simply closed again, unable to find the words to express how enamored he was or how much he enjoyed being tangled in the other man. He dipped forward instead, brushing his lips gently against Noah's, a tease by comparison to the unrestrained wanting he had just tried to drown the other in. The truth was, he wanted it all, the gentle and the wild, the sweet and the fire.

Although he had just been tangled and trying to consume the boy nestled between his splayed legs, it was the way that those emerald eyes stared up at him with all the awe in the world that finally brought the flush back to Ellis' cheeks. Even if Noah hadn't spoken it aloud, he could see it in the way he looked at him, in how his hands stroked along the fabric of his straining jeans to feel the warmth beneath them. Honestly, it made his stomach flip, and he dropped his eyes shyly to trace his hands as he slid them from where he had latched them at the base of Noah's skull and down, slowly, to where he settled both palms over the swell of his chest. Pale fingers ran tiny circles against his sweater, idle and happy.

"I'm not perfect," he whispered softly, "but you make me better."

And it was the truth. As Noah pulled him down against him and secured his arms so tightly around his waist, Ellis could feel the warmth and comfort that was spreading through him at every point they touched. Noah was reaching out to all the dark, empty places that swelled within him and was shining his unerring, brilliant light into them instead. How did he explain something like that to such a gentle, beautiful creature? Maybe one day, when he had written something worth showing him.

"But that kiss was perfect." His lips were a teasing smile as he finally brought his eyes back to Noah's face, drinking in every ounce of adoration and endearment that he had to offer him. His arms lifted then and hooked over Noah's shoulders so that he could press his chest flush against his own, leaving only the barest of spaces left where they were not twined together somehow. Hands latched together, fingers lacing like a knot so that nothing could break him away from his perfect moment here, in Noah's arms.

"Just what I needed, although, I might need another one soon." He tilted his head a little to the side, letting his curls tumble with the motion. "Especially if it means I get to stay so close to you."

It was such a finite change, so swift and hidden again as sudden as it had appeared, but as close as they were tangled up in one another there was no way that Ellis didn't see it. Those dark eyes widened in unison with a sound that settled at the base of his spine and Ellis arched, just slightly, as if his nerves were pulling taut. The warm, alluring light that was pouring off of Noah in waves had taken a dark, hungry tint that he couldn't ignore and as it settled over the redhead, it woke its echo in himself.

"Yeah," he repeated after Noah, turning his face just so as the hand brushed along his jaw. But then it was drifting, trailing a thumb over his lips in a gesture that was impossibly intimate even in the wake of their kiss. Ellis froze like prey in a hunter's eyes beneath that dark gaze. His heart thudded once, twice, a thousand times in the space of a breath before he finally roused himself enough to press a purse of his lips against the boy's thumb. Then he nipped, teasing and quick, before his mouth parted and spoke around the touch.

"I'm not afraid of you," it was barely a whisper, but his voice was thick and breathy, betraying his attempt at self control. The sound of it in his own ears made his flush deepen but he did not shy away from the touch or the hungry gaze leveled on him that time.

"I can forget my name, it's only important that I remember yours."

Ellis couldn't even fathom the idea of slow. There was an overwhelming sense of necessary propriety that he was aware of in the back of his mind, an implied line that he knew they shouldn't be crossing so soon but he felt like he had known Noah forever or, at least, that he had been missing him for years without knowing it. He was a missing piece of his patchwork puzzle and each moment he spent with the brunette was another stitch in the seam that was sewing itself back together.

He wanted to throw whatever caution he was meant to have into the bin because all he really needed in that moment was every ounce of Noah that he was willing to offer him.

That breathy sigh of his name made a chill dance along his vertebrae and that only made him sink closer into the crushing arms, trying to dampen it with the same man that was causing his skin to dance and pepper.

There were no words he could speak even if he had the time, only the awareness that they had tripped some wire that had been hooked to their reservations. He felt it give as Noah hissed his name that time, a mix of scolding and wanting that made his gut clench. Then he was no longer just Ellis, but a tangle of limbs and lips, reflecting Noah's hunger and need like a perfect mirror. If the brunette was giving in then so was he.

He didn't know what they would become but he knew, in that moment, that he didn't care. Noah was all that mattered.