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 Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 5:49 pm
Mid March 2016 It was about mid-March when Ilian finally got the cast off his arm and stamp of approval from the doctors for him to be able to go back to normal, everyday things. He was more than thrilled because this would be the first time in six weeks in which he was able to actually play the piano without having to worry about his stupid arm being hurt and unable to move.
That was exactly what Ilian was doing when there was a knock on the door late one night. He’d come home from work, showered, and was working on a new piece when he was interrupted. Lovely was in the bathroom, probably finishing up his own shower or bath or just staring into the mirror and picking at his face, so Ilian was the one who had to get up and see who it was.
Since it was late, all he wore was an old teeshirt with a couple holes here and there, and baggy sweatpants that were obviously not his size and probably bought at a consignment store. His hair was still a little damp from his shower, but his curls had reformed as they normally did.
“Can I help you?” Ilian asked as he opened the door to a tall stranger. This man was obviously either lost or from the government. He wore an expensive suit and had a dour look on his face, one that seemed to pierce him with intense hatred. It made Ilian shiver, although he wasn’t entirely sure why. Indeed, this stranger looked very out of place in Ilian’s neighborhood. He wore a dark gray suit and black shoes that were obviously expensive. They were unscuffed and had the look of something new. He had a healthy tan, like someone who spent a fair amount of time in places that offered a lot of sunlight. His black hair was short and neatly brushed. The only thing about him that could be considered bright and cheerful were his cerulean eyes, except that they were narrowed dangerously.
He peered at Ilian as if he were looking at something unpleasant. He was at least half a foot taller than Ilian (probably more) and quite a bit heavier, with broad shoulders and a thick barrel chest. He was standing extremely close to the door, like he meant to invite himself inside without so much as a “hello.”
He glared darkly when Ilian spoke and looked him over slowly. It was obvious by the increasingly displeased look on his face that he did not like what he saw. He stared at each one of the holes in Ilian’s shirt like they offended him, and the sweat pants earned an especially severe glower.
How very uncivilised.
Preemptively, he reached out to press his hand against the door to keep it open incase Ilian should try to shut it in his face.
“Ilian Jones,” he said. He needed no introduction. He knew who Ilian was, and the deep, austere sound of his voice made it very clear that he had a very low opinion of him.For a few moments, Ilian was unconcerned that this man knew his name. There were times in which social workers or others from the government liked to stop by and make sure he was still alive and a contributing member of society. So when the man spoke his name and placed his hand on the door, he didn’t think much of it.
It was the fact that this man was so impeccably dressed that clued him in that something wasn’t quite right. Someone from the government wouldn’t have such expensive shoes, nor would they be at the door already in such a bad mood. They normally wanted something from him and tried to talk him up, rather than starting off acting like he was less than scum.
“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested,” he said, making to try and shut the door just as the man expected. Ilian shot a glare up at him, feeling hair on the back of his neck stand on end as his defenses were raised.
“Back off,” he growled, shoving harder at the door, despite the man doing an excellent job of keeping it open. “I’ll call the ******** cops if you don’t.” The stranger simply looked at Ilian as if he were nothing more than a bug he meant to squash beneath one of his expensive shoes, keeping his hand firmly pressed against the open door.
“I’m here for Leigh,” he announced.
The teen in question was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth after a dinner involving quite a bit of garlic. He heard the knock on the door and didn’t think anything of it, expecting it was one of Ilian’s neighbors. Maybe Ashley coming by to check and make sure Ilian was still doing okay now that his cast was off and his ribs were healed. Or Deb dropping off a couple of containers of sauce.
At worst it was one of the Pritchards coming to harass them for something ridiculous. It was too late in the evening for salesmen.
Then he heard a familiar voice and paused with his toothbrush in his mouth. Lovely nearly swallowed a bunch of toothpaste foam and choked, spitting it out and rinsing his toothbrush off to drop it back into the holder on the counter. He dragged his sleeve over his mouth to remove any excess toothpaste, then left the bathroom in haste.
He wasn’t dressed any better than Ilian, though his long sleeved t-shirt didn’t have any holes in it. His pajama pants hung a little low on his hips. They were ill-fitting. A pair of Ilian’s he’d grabbed at random from a clean basket of laundry, so they were the tiniest bit loose at the waist and obviously meant for someone with longer legs.
Lovely came to a stop in the middle of the living-room and felt his stomach drop a bit when he saw who was at the door.
“Claude…”If Ilian wasn’t on the defensive before, he was certainly on the defensive now. He could hear Lovely come out of the bathroom behind him, and heard him say the name of one of his brothers.
So this was Claude? He was more intimidating than Dorian, but that didn’t matter because he wasn’t able to let this man into his apartment to bother him or Lovely.
“Like hell you are,” Ilian barked, firmly planting his other hand on the door frame as he tried to shut the door. “Lovely isn’t going anywhere, especially not with you,” he informed the man, wondering what he could possibly do to get him to stay out of his apartment.
“He doesn’t want anything to do with you,” he added, hoping that would be enough to get him to go away, but he doubted it. From what Lovely had told him about his brother… if Claude was showing up at his door, he meant business. Indeed, he did. Lovely could see it on his brother’s face. Claude looked at Ilian like he was going to crush him, brush him off like a little pest and force his way in whether Ilian liked it or not. Claude looked between the two of them, first at Ilian before turning his eyes on Lovely. He looked Lovely over in much the same way, obviously displeased by his old, ill-fitting clothes.
He and Claude looked absolutely nothing alike.
Claude kept his hand on the door. He looked back at Ilian, and Lovely could tell by the look in his brother’s eye that Claude was two seconds away from striking Ilian and making his way into the apartment by force.
“Stop,” Lovely said. He wasn’t sure who he was talking to. He didn’t want Ilian to do something stupid, but he didn’t want Claude hurting Ilian either.
Lovely approached the door.
This turned out to be a very bad idea, because as soon as he was closer enough, Claude used his free hand to shove Ilian aside and grabbed onto Lovely’s arm.
“You’re going back to France,” he announced, in the sort of voice few people would dare to argue against.
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Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 6:03 pm
Ilian happened to be one of those people. “Like hell he is!” he all but shouted, after stumbling to the side. He lunged for Lovely and grabbed hold of him, trying to help get Claude’s hand off his arm by clawing at his fingers.
“He doesn’t want anything to do with you! Leave him the hell alone!” he barked, trying to force himself between Lovely and Claude to keep Lovely from being dragged out of the apartment.
Part of him hoped that some of his neighbors would hear the commotion and try to see what was going on, but so far they were all busy or didn’t hear, or didn’t particularly care.
“Lovely, stay behind me,” he told him, putting his arm once again on the doorframe, under Lovely’s arm to use his body to block him from being taken. “He’s not going back to France!”
Lovely didn’t really like all this jerking around. He felt like his brain was rattling around in his head. It made him a little dizzy and he felt sort of sick. Though that could also be from Claude’s sudden arrival.
He’d gone two months without having to see his mother or either of his brothers, and Claude chose now to show his face?
“Ilian, stop!” Lovely said. He appreciated Ilian trying to defend him, but he also knew Claude wasn’t against striking Ilian down. Claude had a very dangerous look in his eye. Lovely knew what his brother was capable of, especially when Claude thought he was practically untouchable (and, to an extent, was probably completely right).
“I don’t want to go back to France,” he told Claude, trying to jerk his arm away. But Claude held on tight. His grip was almost crushing.
“You have no business being here,” Claude said. He didn’t even so much as acknowledge ******** you,” Lovely said. “You can’t make me go anywhere.”
Claude glared at him as if to say “try me.” His grip tightened on Lovely’s ********, Claude, stop it!”
So what if this guy tried to hit him or push him away? All Ilian had to do was power up and he would have more power than this guy could ever dream of.
But for Lovely’s sake, he kept his blades in subspace and decided to handle this situation as a normal civilian.
“Stop! You’re hurting him!” Ilian shouted, this time reaching out to shove at Claude. He knew Lovely was trying to get him to stop, but if he did stop… he didn’t know what might happen to Lovely. If this man managed to drag Lovely away and force him to go back to France…
Ilian wouldn’t have it. “Leave him alone!” he shouted again, digging once more to try and get Claude’s hand off Lovely’s wrist. He was half tempted to sink his teeth into the man’s hand.
Claude didn’t so much as budge when Ilian tried to shove at him. Ilian might have power Claude could never even dream of, but it was obvious that, as civilians, Claude was much stronger than a sixteen-year-old kid.
“Ilian!” Lovely shouted, caught between stopping Ilian and trying to yank himself away from his brother. With his free hand, he grabbed at Ilian’s wrist to pull it away from Claude’s hand. He could tell Claude was two seconds away from making Ilian wish he’d never gotten involved.
Claude speared Ilian with a dark, hate filled glare. He pulled his hand from the door to grab a fistful of Ilian’s shirt. First he yanked him close to stare him in the eye threateningly. Then he used all of his superior strength to give Ilian a violent shove back.
“Claude, stop!” Lovely said again.
He pushed at Claude. When that didn’t work, Lovely recklessly pulled his arm back like he meant to punch him in the face.
Claude caught Lovely’s arm before he could follow through. For a second he had Lovely by both arms and made a very strong effort to pull him out the door. He yanked hard enough to have Lovely with one foot on the landing and one foot inside the apartment.
Lovely put up a noble fight. He almost landed a spirited kick against Claude’s leg.
He didn’t see Claude’s reaction, but he definitely felt it when Claude’s palm connected with the side of his face. The slap was so hard it snapped Lovely’s head to the side and made him stumble against the ********!” Lovely said.
The slap was jarring enough to momentarily weaken him. Only when Claude succeeded in pulling him all the way out onto the landing did Lovely dredge up an extra burst of strength to keep fighting back.
While he expected the older man to be stronger than he was, Ilian wasn’t exactly expecting to be practically lifted from the ground and shoved back into the apartment. He landed hard on his back, hitting the edge of the already rickety coffee table, and snapping one of the legs with his sudden weight. The now unbalanced table flipped over on top of him, sending the open box of Cheez-its across the living room.
Stunned, Ilian could only lay on his back, trying to comprehend just what was going on, before finally pushing himself up again.
Just in time to see Claude strike Lovely.
Ilian’s eyes widened in rage, his teeth gnashed together as he pushed himself back to his feet, lunging after both Lovely and Claude.
“That’s my boyfriend, a*****e!!” he snarled, latching himself onto Claude’s arm and digging his feet into the ground to try and get him to let Lovely go. “Let him go!” he shouted again with purpose. Someone had to hear them by now, right??
He was sure he was going to be bruised in the morning, but right now he was worried about doing whatever he could to stop Claude from taking Lovely.
Lovely really hoped no one heard them. He didn’t want someone else to come out and get involved. He was sure that would only make things ten times worse.
Luckily, no one came outside. Not even Alex, who would have surely heard them next door if he was home. Lovely assumed he was out somewhere and was momentarily thankful. If Claude would shove Ilian and hit him, he wouldn’t be against doing the same to anyone else.
With his and Ilian’s combined efforts, Lovely managed to pull his arm out of Claude’s grip. He pushed Claude back hard and saw his brother stumble over the edge of the landing, which rose up an inch or so off the ground. Lovely took advantage of the opportunity Claude’s sudden unbalance gave him. He grabbed Ilian and yanked him back into the apartment.
Then he slammed the door shut and locked it.
He listened for any sound outside. He heard Claude’s shoes scrape against the cement landing. Claude’s fist landed heavily against the door, pounding on if forcefully. Lovely felt the door shake with the power of it, but the locks held firm. Claude gave it a few more unsuccessful attempts before he stopped.
Lovely wasn’t sure how long Claude stood there. A few minutes must have passed. Eventually, he heard Claude leave. A car door slammed. An engine started, and a car pulled out of the parking lot.
Lovely leaned forward until his forehead thunked against the door. His shoulders shook a bit as he breathed ********,” he said, but it was quiet.
It was only when Claude finally left did Ilian realize that he was shaking. With fear? Or anger? He wasn’t sure. Probably both at this point. He swallowed hard, trying to settle himself after that encounter, and he reached out to take hold of Lovely’s arms, trying to check him over for any injuries.
“What the hell was that?” he breathed, trying to gently pull Lovely away from the door, taking his face into his hands so he could get a better look at him. His cheek was bright red, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if Lovely bit or cut the inside of his mouth from the force. <******** a*****e,” he hissed, pulling Lovely’s face closer to him so he could place a light kiss on the abused cheek.
He wished there had been something more he could have done. He was sure this wasn’t exactly what Lovely would have wanted, and he hoped that his kissing him wouldn’t come off as something negative.
“Are you okay?” he asked, pulling away to get another look at him, his fingers brushing back Lovely’s hair from his eyes.
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Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 6:04 pm
Lovely didn’t know what to say. He was shaking, too, and he didn’t know why, either. A lot of it was probably anger. He was furious that Claude decided to show up now instead of coming for him when he first ran away. What the hell did Claude think waiting two months was going to accomplish? Unless he’d been looking for a confrontation with Ilian, too, and had decided not to come until he was sure Ilian was back in the picture.
Lovely wasn’t necessarily afraid. He’d had sixteen years to get used to his eldest brother’s severe disposition and use of force. He knew Claude wasn’t going to bring the cops into this. That wasn’t Claude’s way. He preferred to settle family business himself.
But he was upset. He couldn’t remember the last time Claude actually hit him. Lovely’s face was sore and the inside of his cheek felt tender after getting caught on one of his teeth. He flicked his tongue over to check it and thought he tasted a little bit of ********,” he said again. He took a deep breath, but it was a shaky inhale and the exhale almost got stuck in his throat, which felt tight with emotion.
He tried to focus on Ilian. He’d heard the crash of the coffee table but only now had the chance to look at it. He fliched when he saw that one of the legs was broken and he looked back at Ilian to make sure he wasn’t hurt. But Ilian seemed as if he were more concerned for him. Lovely didn’t know how to feel about the kiss to the cheek. He was too overwhelmed from the confrontation with Claude to think much of it.
“Sorry,” he said. It wasn’t like him to apologize, and it came out sounding a little choked. “I’m fine. Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine, just sore,” Ilian said, shaking his head when Lovely showed concern for him. He was more angry than he was hurt, and more worried that Lovely might have really been hurt. The table was old, anyway. Of course, he was probably lucky that he hadn’t gotten cut by any loose nails.
Ilian didn’t want Lovely to feel like he had to apologize, and took his arms to wrap around him, pulling him close to hug, even if Lovely didn’t really want a hug. Ilian wanted to make sure Lovely knew that he wasn’t alone.
“You’re not going anywhere you don’t want to go,” he promised, hoping that Lovely wouldn’t want to go back to France, but at the same time wondered if he would be happier.
“If you did want to…” he started, although he didn’t think he could finish without getting too upset about it. He didn’t know what he would do without Lovely there. They’d gotten… probably too close. Ilian depended on Lovely for a lot of things now, including company.
Lovely let himself be pulled in for a hug.
It was strange. The only person who’d ever really hugged him was his mother. He didn’t really know what to do with Ilian’s arms around him. Should he hold him back or… would touching him be weird? Where should be put his head? At first, he simply stared over Ilian’s shoulder at the broken coffee table, feeling his throat work as he tried to swallow down his anger.
And his humiliation. He was so embarrassed that Ilian had to see that. He knew Claude hadn’t planned on being peaceful when he showed up at the door, be he certainly hadn’t expected that his older brother would slap him.
Lovely’s anger grew when he felt his eyes well up. He was so frustrated. He’d spent two months away from his family, learning to take care of himself (and another person) and getting by just fine. He could cook and clean on his own. He had a job. He got around the city without his car. He’d survived in a part of town he wasn’t at all comfortable with. And he thought he was flourishing. He thought he was really coming into his own.
Then Claude had to go and treat him like a child and remind him that he didn’t have as much power over his life as he liked to think.
“I don’t want to go back,” he said. He took another deep breath, but this one sounded even more ragged than the last.
“I don’t want to go back,” he said again, as if to make sure Ilian knew he was serious. “I want to stay here.”
Ilian closed his eyes and let out a small sigh when Lovely told him that he wanted to stay there, that he didn’t want to go back. “That’s fine,” he said softly, holding Lovely for a little while longer, before finally letting him go. He didn’t want to hold him for longer than he was comfortable with.
“You don’t have to go. I won’t let anyone take you,” he promised. Claude be damned, Lovely was going to stay where he was comfortable, and if that was with Ilian, then Ilian wasn’t going to let anything happen to him.
It sounded a little like an empty promise, he knew, seeing as Claude could clearly do whatever the hell he wanted without any repercussions. It made Ilian want all the more to keep Lovely there in Destiny City with him.
“I’ll get you some ice,” he told him, pulling himself away from Lovely and heading towards the kitchen to get a bag of peas from the freezer. He took a cloth to wrap around the bag and brought them back out for Lovely to put up against his face.
“Try to keep the swelling down with this,” he suggested, hoping it would be enough.
He didn’t know what to do when Ilian let go of him, so Lovely took a few more steps away from the door.
Something crunched beneath his socked foot. Looking down, Lovely saw the orange crumbs of a Cheez-It ground into the carpet and stuck against the bottom of his sock. There were Cheez-Its scattered all over the floor. The box had been throw from the coffee table and landed near the TV stand, spilling its contents out at is laid on its side.
Lovely took a settling breath and bent down to start picking the crackers up one by one. He didn’t know what to do with them when he’d collected a handful, so he just held onto them until he could make it out into the kitchen to throw them into the trash.
He took the wrapped peas when Ilian returned and pressed them against the side of his face. He didn’t think the swelling would be too bad, but his cheek throbbed like a ******** Claude.
“Sorry,” Lovely said again, still looking around at the mess on the floor. He moved around Ilian to head for the trashcan in the kitchen.
“I’ll replace the coffee table.”
“It was a piece of s**t, anyway,” Ilian said, watching Lovely with concern. He looked pretty out of it. He couldn’t tell if it was from being hit or because his brother was a total jackass. “Don’t go all out on it. We can look at the consignment store down the street. They occasionally have decent pieces of furniture. And they know me, so they give me a small discount,” he explained, although he quickly realized Lovely was not someone he should be admitting something like that to.
“Your brother sucks,” he added as if that wasn’t already confirmed. “But I’m hoping it’s because he cares about you. I mean, look at me,” he said, indicating to himself by lifting his arms up slightly.
He was tall for a kid of his age, and skinny as one would expect of someone who didn’t have a lot to eat and kept growing. His dark skin and hair made it obvious that he was of mixed race, and he occasionally got grief for it, even in this day and age.
“If I saw me, I would assume I was in a gang or something. Clearly a dangerous individual to be hanging around,” he half joked, although the sarcasm hinted to a bit of truth. If anything, he was trying to distract Lovely from what happened.
After a moment, he lowered his arms back down, and squatted to start picking up the flung Cheez-Its, grabbing the box to shove them into since it was now empty.
“We could probably save these,” he suggested, although he was sure Lovely would be against it.
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Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 6:06 pm
Lovely was against it. He threw away his handful carelessly. He’d just buy more the next time he went to the store.
“I’m not going to eat them after they’ve been on the ******** floor,” he said, but it didn’t sound mean. His voice still sounded pretty quiet and weak. “The carpet’s ******** gross and musty.”
He chose not to say anything about his brother. He was mad at Claude, and extremely frustrated, but Claude was still his brother and Lovely still cared about him even if he thought Claude was being a d**k. He acknowledged that Claude was kind of an a*****e. There wasn’t any avoiding that truth. But Claude hadn’t always been so hard on him. Plus, he probably deserved it. He was the idiot who ran away from home and started acting unlike himself. Claude probably didn’t know how to handle it.
Lovely swallowed down his emotions again, but he still had tears in his eyes and they started to fall without his consent. He dragged the sleeve of his shirt over his face repeatedly, trying to sop them up before Ilian saw them.
He didn’t know what he should say in response to Ilian, so he decided to change the subject.
“So I’m your boyfriend now?”
Ilian released a sigh when Lovely insisted they throw the crackers away, but decided to follow his direction and continued scooping the pieces up into the box to later toss. Part of him kind of hoped that Sorin would have done the same for him, had he suddenly decided to run away from home, but he also hoped that Sorin would have tried to understand why and would have been more concerned with supporting him than cutting him off.
At Lovely’s next question, Ilian almost dropped the box of Cheez-Its in surprise, whipping around to stare at Lovely as he felt his cheeks burn red. “T-that was just in the moment!” he sputtered, realizing only now what he’d said, and the reason why he’d said it was obviously for Claude to hear him.
Well, s**t.
“Y-you were the one to start the rumor of being my fake boyfriend, anyway! And… what else was I going to say??” he asked, trying not to sound as flustered as he felt now that he was being called out on it. He could see that Lovely was obviously upset and probably crying, so he decided to drop the conversation and somewhat stormed back into the kitchen to throw out the box of crackers he’d collected.
Lovely should have been amused by Ilian’s sputtering, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t really sure how he felt about it, not Ilian’s embarrassment or what Ilian had said, even if it had been in the moment.
People didn’t just say s**t like that in the moment, without really thinking about it, unless… unless…
He didn’t know. Lovely didn’t think he really knew anything anymore.
What he did know was that he hated crying. He’d been doing a lot of that since running away, but he’d at least managed to get better control over himself by the time Ilian came back. He didn’t want to be a little b***h and cry in front of Ilian. Ilian cried sometimes, and Lovely supposed that was okay, but… Lovely didn’t feel like he should follow Ilian’s example. He was supposed to be… better… or stronger… or some other bullshit excuse like that.
So he kept dragging his sleeve over his face and hoped it was enough to make the tears stop. He figured Ilian probably noticed already.
“Just forget about it,” he said, because it was easier to ignore it than to make Ilian explain his reasoning, especially when it just made Lovely feel… kind of weirdly upset, for absolutely no logical reason that he could discern.
“It doesn’t ******** matter. I just… can we just pretend this didn’t happen?”
Ilian took his time emptying out the box of crackers into the trash and taking apart the box so it could be recycled. He felt strangely tense and out of sorts. It wasn’t really because Lovely was crying, or even that he pointed out that Ilian had called him his boyfriend in front of Claude. He wasn’t really sure why he felt so tense, other than the fact that he didn’t know what to do.
He finally turned to see what Lovely was doing. It was obvious that he was still crying, and he felt bad about it, but didn’t really know what to do that wouldn’t result in Lovely pushing him away.
“Let’s… just get ready for bed,” he suggested, hoping that distracting Lovely with a movie would be enough to make him feel a little better.
And yet, he couldn’t just leave him like that. His chest was tight and he felt a strange sense of responsibility for what happened. Lovely looked so lost and confused and horribly upset. He couldn’t just ignore that.
Ilian approached him slowly, wanting to give him enough time to turn away if he wanted. Once he’d reached him, he lifted his hand to Lovely’s chin, tilting it up just enough for him to be able to press a lingering kiss on his lips. If he was honest with himself, he would admit that he liked how it felt. It seemed to release some of his tension and calmed him. So of course he hoped it was the same for Lovely.
Lovely gnashed his teeth together when Ilian drew closer to him, then held his breath like that would be enough to get the tears to stop falling. It wasn’t. They kept falling anyway, and he soon released the breath on a stuttered sigh.
He nodded to agree. He didn’t feel like doing much of anything else, and going to bed would give him a chance to let his emotions settle down. He could curl up and turn away from Ilian and just… cry silently or something, and then when he woke up the next morning he’d be back to normal. Hopefully. So long as Claude didn’t come back and try again.
Lovely almost pulled away when Ilian grabbed his chin. He didn’t want Ilian to see how much he was crying. It was okay if Ilian knew he was upset, but the crying was about as frustrating as the fact that Claude had shown up and tried to drag him away.
Then Ilian’s mouth was on his and Lovely stood very still because he hadn’t been expecting it. He hadn’t expected it the first time, and to be honest he hadn’t thought it would ever happen again. The last time had been a fluke or something. Ilian was just being weird and couldn’t think of any other way to say thank you.
This wasn’t a thank you. This was an offer of comfort, and Lovely didn’t know why Ilian chose this to comfort him when he could have just as easily hugged him again.
But Lovely didn’t jerk away or push Ilian back. He just stood there for a few seconds, figuring Ilian would stop soon and they could pretend like it didn’t happen again. Except Lovely leaned in and accepted it before he even really thought about it, increasing the pressure between their mouths.
He shivered a little and told himself it was because this was weird. And because he had cold peas against his face. It wasn’t because it felt nice, and it definitely wasn’t because he wanted it. He didn’t, because… he just didn’t. It was strange and awkward and made him feel weird. He didn’t want to feel weird. He didn’t want Ilian to know he felt weird. He didn’t want Ilian to realize that he might… sort of… he didn’t know... Lovely didn’t want to like it, and he hated Ilian for making him think he might.
Ilian was a little surprised that Lovely leaned into the kiss, as innocent as it was. He’d tried this before and Lovely hadn’t shoved him away, but now he was pushing his luck. He might end up doing something Lovely didn’t want him to do and their friendship would shatter. And yet, he couldn’t help but want to try again.
He let the kiss linger a little longer, before finally breaking it and pressed his forehead against Lovely’s, his hand reaching up to place on his arm in a show of continued comfort. He didn’t say anything about the tears or the fact that Lovely had been crying and obviously upset. If Lovely wanted to say anything, then he would. Ilian wasn’t going to pressure him.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked instead, his head still against Lovely’s, but his eyes were closed as if trying to pull some of Lovely’s frustration and sadness from him and transfer it to himself. If only it was that easy to make everything better.
Lovely hated a lot of things, but what he hated the most right then was that he was actually disappointed that Ilian broke the kiss.
Everything was just… wrong. He didn’t feel right. He hadn’t felt right since the first time Ilian kissed him. Longer than that, probably. Since leaving home. He felt shaken up and unglued, like all the pieces that made him who he was were mixed up and out of order. He wanted to go back to the way he was. He wanted everything to make sense again. But that meant going home, and he didn’t want to do that.
Which was stupid. Why didn’t he want to go home? Why did he choose to stay here and ******** up his life even more? He was alienating his family, and for what?
For what?
Lovely shook his head slowly and looked at Ilian’s face, glad that Ilian had his eyes closed because it meant he didn’t have to look in Ilian’s eyes and try to figure out what Ilian was feeling.
“No,” Lovely said. He said it as quietly and as quickly as he could, because it felt weird to have Ilian’s breath on his face and he didn’t want Ilian to feel weird about it, too.
For some stupid, completely illogical reason, Lovely leaned in again and put his mouth against Ilian’s. He didn’t know how to kiss properly seeing as this was only the second time he’d done it, so he just pressed his lips against Ilian’s for a little bit, then stopped, then did the same thing again.
He realized what he was doing about a minute later and finally pulled ********,” he said.
Lovely looked at anything but Ilian. He looked off to the side at the kitchen table, then glanced down at the floor and stared at his feet. He swallowed and shifted in place and felt really tense. He had no idea what he was doing. He felt stupid and out of control and he just… wanted it to stop.
So he turned and made his way into the bedroom. He shut the door behind him.
Ilian didn’t open his eyes or react in any way to discourage Lovely when it was Lovely who was pressing his lips against his, instead holding as still as he could and keeping his eyes closed. Maybe Lovely realized that it was a good way to release the frustration, or maybe there was something there that neither of them realized.
It was stupid, of course. They were just teenagers who didn’t know anything about anything, much less what they were supposed to do in these situations. If anything, what they were doing was due to the fact that they were around each other so much and they were teenagers and hormones and all that nonsense, right? That was the only way it made sense, right?
When Lovely pulled away and made his way into the bedroom, Ilian wasn’t sure what to do other than stand and watch. He let out a small sigh and bent down to continue picking up the Cheez-Its that had been thrown on the ground, and moved the broken coffee table out of the way. There was a blanket on the couch, so he at least had that going for him.
For Lovely’s sake, and so that no one would try and break into their apartment without their knowledge, Ilian took up residence on the couch, pulling the blanket over him and curling up on his side.
They would just have to either ignore everything that just happened, or figure out a way to deal with it later.
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