Follows: Dancing on the Light
Word Count: 1504
It took him a few minutes to remember where he was, feeling groggy and disoriented. For a while he just stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, blinking slowly and focusing on his breathing. Things started coming back to him, bit by bit, his stomach twisting uncomfortably as he vaguely remembered the night up until that point.
The first thing he realized, other than the heavy feeling that settled in his chest, was that he was relatively comfortable. He wasn’t on the hard, sad excuse for a mattress that he had in his dorm, but one that was warm with soft sheets and a fluffy pillow. He didn’t want to move.
The second thing he realized was that he wasn’t alone. The soft sound of someone breathing next to him had Yuuri turning his head to the side, heat immediately rising to his cheeks, and his heart kicked into overdrive as he saw Adrien peacefully asleep beside him.
He was in Adrien’s apartment. In Adrien’s bed. With Adrien sleeping next to him.
They’d gone out that night, he slowly started remembering. Adrien managed to get him into a club and snuck him drinks, which he took even though he knew he shouldn’t have. He had no idea how much he’d had to drink, but he remembered most of what happened, or at least how he felt about everything.
Yuuri remembered how he panicked when Adrien tried to get him to dance with him on the dance floor, the throng of people and flashing lights and booming music enough to make him feel faint, even without the alcohol. And when he’d tried to escape, Adrien had pulled him into a back hall, into a staff only room to help get him away from the people and the noise.
And then Adrien taught him how to dance. He could remember the way it felt to have Adrien’s hands on his hips, the way his arm wrapped tightly around his waist, pulling him against him, Yuuri’s back to Adrien’s chest.
He remembered how it felt to have Adrien’s lips against his neck, not quite a kiss but the contact made his heart nearly beat out of his chest. He remembered the way it felt to touch Adrien’s face, warm from the heat of alcohol or something else maybe, the way his hair felt beneath his fingers.
He remembered almost everything at the club, but how they got back to the apartment, and up the ladder and into bed, he had no idea.
The third thing he realized was that he had somehow managed to change out of his clothes and into a borrowed pair of what felt like silk pajamas. Because of course Adrien would have silk pajamas. Which meant he either somehow stumbled his way out of his clothes and into pajamas on his own, or Adrien had to help him.
Which meant he probably saw him naked, or at least mostly naked. A horrifying thought because he barely even knew this man, even if they happened to have a few things in common and, Yuuri was surprised to admit, didn’t mind each other’s company.
Okay, Yuuri enjoyed Adrien’s company, for whatever reason. Maybe because he’d been so kind to him that he latched onto it, obviously wanting more, starved for any kind of affection he could get. It was entirely unfair of him, but Adrien didn’t seem to mind.
Yuuri stared at the man’s face as he slept, marveling over how someone so active and energetic and talkative could seem so at peace. In fact, Yuuri thought he liked seeing Adrien like this more than he did when he was awake, because he wasn’t a perfect, shining image now, although it was a close second. Adrien was just as handsome and attractive asleep as he was awake. Yuuri knew he took a lot of time to fix his hair every morning, and throughout the day to make sure nothing was out of place, but laying down like this, he didn’t really have a choice for his hair to be messy.
Carefully, so as not to disturb or wake him, Yuuri shifted onto his side to face Adrien, watching the way his chest rose and fell as he breathed, his lips slightly parted, his hair falling across his forehead when it was normally meticulously brushed back.
He pulled his arm up from under the covers and began to reach out towards Adrien, but hesitated, knowing that he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t get attached to this man more than he already was because he didn’t know what would happen. It would be better that way, for both of them.
And yet, even though Adrien was exasperating and wore him out with his neverending energy, he was the first Yuuri felt comfortable around. So much so that Yuuri didn’t make to jump out of the bed and try to make himself comfortable on the couch instead.
Slim fingers reached out to slide along the pink tipped strands of Adrien’s bangs, gingerly pushing them out of his face. He thought that Adrien shifted a little, and Yuuri immediately drew his hand back, his eyes wide, staring and waiting for Adrien to wake up and ask him what he thought he was doing.
But he didn’t wake. He just kept sleeping, his breathing slow and even.
And he wasn’t wearing a shirt either, Yuuri noticed. It made him feel a little guilty, because maybe Yuuri had taken the only pair of pajamas that Adrien knew the location of. Then again, it was Adrien’s own fault for not putting his clothes away.
Without really thinking about it, Yuuri lifted his hand to place over Adrien’s chest, feeling his heart as it beat underneath his fingers, feeling how his chest rose and fell with each breath. Fingers then slid up to his collarbone, slowly tracing the line of it, and then up towards his neck where he could feel his heartbeat just as clearly as he had with his hand on his chest.
Curiously, Yuuri reached out to touch Adrien’s face, which was just as soft as his hands. Yuuri’s fingers gently traced the lines of Adrien’s face; his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw, the straight line of his nose.
The tips of his fingers slowly, cautiously, touched Adrien’s lips, feeling each time he exhaled, still sleeping soundly. He was growing much too bold, he knew, but Adrien seemed to be dead to the world. If he wasn’t asleep, he was doing a remarkable job of holding himself back from saying anything. Which meant Yuuri was fairly certain that Adrien was still asleep.
His fingers gently played with Adrien’s lips, tracing the line of them and softly prodding at them, wondering how they would feel against his own lips, easily recalling how they felt against his neck.
The very thought that suddenly entered Yuuri’s head nearly had him pulling back, surprised with himself because why would he even think to kiss Adrien? He bit at his own lip, chewing nervously, his hand shaky now as he slid his fingers up Adrien’s cheek, gently cupping his palm against his face as Yuuri shifted. He pushed himself up enough to lean close, so close that he could feel Adrien’s breath on his own face, making him wonder if Adrien could feel his heart going a mile a minute, or the heat pooling and radiating from his cheeks, by mere proximity.
It wasn’t as though Adrien would ever know. And it was just because he was curious, or that was what Yuuri told himself. Adrien would never know and he would be able to satisfy his need to find out how his lips felt against his own.
All it would take was for him to lean down the rest of the way.
But his stomach had other plans and churned uncomfortably, everything that he’d had to drink earlier suddenly deciding not to agree with him.
Yuuri pulled his hand away from Adrien’s face, clasping it over his own mouth as he practically threw off the covers so he could stumble out of bed. How he managed to get down the ladder without falling, he had no idea, and then did his best to shut the bathroom door as quietly behind him as possible before emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet, leaving him shaking and achy and feeling absolutely miserable.
He didn’t bother going back to bed at that point, afraid that his stomach wouldn’t let him stay asleep for long, and not sure he could make it up the ladder again, nor did he want to wake Adrien.
The reality of what he’d just tried doing was breaking through the haze, making him groan in horror at himself.
He’d really, really almost kissed Adrien.
A couple towels were pulled down from the rack in lieu of a blanket, Yuuri making himself as comfortable as possible on the bathroom floor mat and hoping that he would just waste away before the morning.