Welcome to Gaia! ::

“Stop, stop, stop,” Shiloh whined as Ian repeated his compliment, softly pressing a kiss to his cheek. He dipped his head away with a shy smile, his hand pushing Ian’s face playfully away.

“You’re… You’re pretty good-looking yourself,” he said quickly, stumbling over his words in a way that was unlike him, and a way that he felt was very unbecoming. If he honestly felt that way, he should just say it. There was no harm in it, Ian certainly okay with the way things were proceeding. “Really,” he added firmly, as though to make up for his hesitance.

He really did mean it, Ian was incredibly handsome and Shiloh peeked back at him, really taking him in, from the rich brown of his hair, to the alluring green of his eyes. He sighed a little, without even realizing it, before Ian’s question knocked him out of his little reverie.

“Oh,” he blinked, resting his chin on Ian’s chest again, a smile crossing his face. “Am I supposed to be thinking about something important? I told you there’s not a whole lot going on up there.”

He was ever aware of Ian’s hand on his back, his fingers sweeping over it, the touch feathery and light, reassuring.

Shiloh wasn’t sure how to answer Ian’s pseudo-question, but he was almost entirely sure that that he ‘wanted’, even if he wasn’t sure what the offer entailed. Maybe it was just Ian’s way of cheekily asking to kiss him again. Maybe it was… Well, he’d cross that bridge when they came to it. Shiloh felt increasingly like a grade-schooler, inexperienced and fumbling, and impossibly warm all over, but he didn’t pull away, just glanced curiously at Ian instead.

“And what is that?”

Shiloh exhaled softly as Ian’s fingers played over his face and neck, down and back again. He did so again when Ian’s hand move from his back, joining the one caressing his face. His brown eyes stared into Ian’s green, anticipating and curious, and a little timid. His breath hitched when Ian pulled him downwards, until their lips were just short of meeting, until he could see nothing else but Ian’s face in front of him. Shiloh quivered. This was it.

Ian wasn’t moving this time. Ian wasn’t going to kiss him. He had to make the choice himself, he had to be the one to make the first move this time. There was no pretending that he was just going along with the flow, that he was just letting things happened as they may. He had to make a conscious decision about this, he had to be brave about this for the first time in his life and just go for it.

He leaned in, and closed the slight distance between them, his breath shuddery as he finally pressed his lips again Ian’s. It wasn’t a skilled kiss, and he was sure it wasn’t pretty, but he had kissed him, and it had been wonderful all the same.

Shiloh pulled back, just enough to speak, whispering anxiously.

“Was that okay?”

Shiloh really wasn’t a shy person, he had no problem getting in people’s faces or pushing himself into most situations. This situation, however, was entirely unprecedented. He’d gone from zero to sixty in seconds flat, having moved from the stuff of daydreams to lying on top of another man, in his bed, their lips currently engaged.

So yes, he was shy. For Ian, this was likely child’s play, but for Shiloh, they’d pretty much already covered the sum of his romantic experiences in the short time they’d laid together. He was new at this, and taking the lead was scary, Shiloh wishing that this sort of thing came with instructions. Granted, he definitely liked the hands-on learning aspect of what they were doing, but the problem was that he didn’t know where the heck he was supposed to put his hands.

“’M not,” he mumbled after they’d broken apart, wrinkling his nose and pouting at Ian. “We went over this, remember?”

Shiloh relaxed a little, Ian had said it was okay, and he was relieved. He hadn’t slobbered all over him, he wasn’t a terrible kisser, and it was okay. He smiled, and was about to answer, when Ian pulled him down again, a little more forcefully this time, and claimed his lips again. Shiloh let him, and let himself sink into the kiss, and against Ian as the other held him closer. He wrapped his own arms best he could around Ian, as he nestled into the fabric of Ian’s sweater.

“That’s better,” he said, though his subsequent laughter was shaky, his voice a little breathless after their kiss, and the warm press of Ian’s lips against his ear as he complimented him not helping the situation any. Ian’s assumption was entirely far off the mark, and if anything, gave Shiloh more credit than was due, man or woman. But it wasn’t that Shiloh was averse to it, with Ian, because despite his lack of experience he’d always known that he leaned a particular way, and that this was what he wanted. It felt right, at least, though to a small-town boy the pacing was off, as thought they’d skipped the first five steps and dived right into the good bits.

Ian’s arms looped lower, and Shiloh moved slightly, not in a panic but merely shifting his weight, scooting upward and rolling half off of Ian at the same time, tucking himself against his side. He rested his head on the pillow, just above the crook of Ian’s neck, exhaling softly.

“I’m not being down on myself,” he argued, timidly venturing to drape his arm across Ian’s chest, the other curled beneath himself, his first gently propping up his chin. “And, well, I don’t mind it really, it’s just not something a guy usually hears, y’know? It just takes some getting used to.”

He smiled at Ian, his fingers playing idly with the sleeve of his shirt. This would all take some getting used to.

Ian was talking, but Shiloh’s attention was on Ian’s hand as his fingers swept over his arm, the light touch giving him goosebumps. Then his hand found Shiloh’s, and Shiloh closed his fingers carefully over the ones in his palm, twining his fingers with Ian’s as he tilted his head to glance back up at him.

Ian’s hand was warm in his own, and it was a comforting thing, something innocently reassuring about the gesture. It was something he could do, arguably better than kissing, and he wasn’t quite ready to consider anything further than that but the question had been posed anyway. He leaned his head back against the pillow, and blew out a small sigh, staring up at the ceiling instead of meeting Ian’s eyes.

“Right,” he admitted.

Ian seemed just as stumbling in this as he was, and Shiloh guessed it was because he was trying to be careful around him. He had said he liked him though, that he really liked him. Shiloh turned back to him, studying Ian’s face. He liked Ian too, definitely as a friend and now… He hadn’t really considered him in any other capacities, because even though it was clear Ian was interested, Shiloh had stubbornly refused to believe that was the case, because it had never been the case before. Now he was considering all sorts of things, his face flushed.

“I like you too… You’re a good guy you know,” he said, feeling equally stupid after he’d said it. Why had he just said that? It sounded like he was talking to an acquaintance, not the man he was currently wrapped around. He shook his head, reaching up with his hand to take hold of Ian’s again, curling his around it.

“I’m, uh, comfortable,” he said softly, “I think. I’ve never… Done this sort of thing before.”

There, he’d said it.

“None,” Shiloh answered, shaking his head a little. “It’s pretty uh… Well, embarrassing.”

Pathetic, was another word that came to mind, but he knew better than to voice it. Unlike Ian, he was well trained in keeping personal insults confined to his consciousness only. Although he was new to the physical side of things, it had never stopped Shiloh from caring, and he thrived in the closeness of others. The intimacy of things was different, but not entirely different from caring about someone a lot. And as much as Ian protested he wasn’t a good guy, he had yet to prove Shiloh otherwise, his promise more proof to Shiloh’s initial judgment of his character. Ian squeezed his hand lightly, and Shiloh nodded, squeezing it back with a little smile at the last bit of the Mist hunter’s words. Shiloh cared about Ian, and he highly doubted he would ever find himself saying something like that to the other man.

“You’re doing it again,” he said softly, letting go of his hand to bop him gently on the nose.

Shiloh tilted his head in Ian’s hand, wondering why he looked so worried all of a sudden. It took a second, but slowly but surely, what Ian had said sunk in.

Shiloh stared.

He wasn’t sure whether to tease Ian, or laugh, or hide his face from the blush rising in his cheeks. In the end he settled for all three.

“You probably mean it on some level, liar,” he laughed, shifting forward just enough dip his head, hiding his face against Ian’s neck.