[ Treavor's beating against the door like a moth, like a butterfly, trying to escape the apartment towards freedom (towards Alice, yes, and it's freedom or something like it when they're together, isn't it?) and he's just as beautiful as a butterfly, Alice thinks, even as another rumbling purr of a laugh shudders his throat.
And then Treavor's nearer (not here, but closer, at least he's within touching distance, that's nice) and Alice feels another warm glow of contentment, relief from the wellspring of their connected hands. It's been whole eons since he's held this man's beautiful hand. (More beautiful now that it's been excavated from the layers of disregard: nails cleaned, trimmed, filed, cuticles healed, he tries to get away with lotion but that's a rare one and it's really not important. Look how gorgeous, look how goddamned elegant that hand was all along, and all it needed was a little.
(Love.)
Attention.
And look how good it looks in his own.) He's admiring their two hands together, how this nameless thing between them seemed to begin, how his hand is so infrequently empty lately. His chest rises and falls with a happy breath.
Then his attention travels to a smile, and he's carefully shifting their joined hands to draw them near that smile, all beautiful things now in reach of his touch. And he does touch: strokes the back of his index finger against Treavor's cheek, right where the curve of that smile dead-ends.
He doesn't know how something so soft can exist in this world. Where Treavor was hiding it, so that the hard and jagged and cruel things didn't take it, or destroy it.
He's thinking in some distant or not distant but drifting blithely part of his mind that nothing has ever been soft. That even cashmere isn't really very soft unless you add silk, and then you feel sorry for silkworms and all those Chinese women picking silk off silkworm cocoons. And rabbit fur is soft, but in Australia, rabbits are an invasive species, so you think of rabbit fur and then you think of a rabbit infestation, but it's not like that in the States, is it.
But Treavor is soft. His hair - Alice sets Treavor's hand down on his stomach for safekeeping, presses it there, trails his fingertips along the (elegant) (beautiful) back of that not-abandoned hand featherlight and contemplative. His eyes already on that hair, and where he's reaching, following gaze with touch.
Threading his fingertips through and through and through, slow and mesmerized and adoring. And he whispers, purrs, prays his words with a smile surely just as daft as the one that came so close.
(His.
His Treavor.) ]
You're so soft. [ An amused sound. ] No one wants rabbits but me. What do they know.
[ And then a flicker of recognition, Alice lifting his head a little and looking at where Treavor's landed himself. His fingertips stop their course, coming to settle beneath the other man's chin. ]
Come be stuck up here. You're so far away.
[ Oh, maybe...? ]
I'll be a gentleman.
[ He's settling back again, smiling in a playful way that says maybe he's weighed the merits of not being a gentleman.
But for Treavor. Anything in the world for Treavor. With as much seriousness as he can through his own pleasant haze, he adds gently: ]
no subject
And then Treavor's nearer (not here, but closer, at least he's within touching distance, that's nice) and Alice feels another warm glow of contentment, relief from the wellspring of their connected hands. It's been whole eons since he's held this man's beautiful hand. (More beautiful now that it's been excavated from the layers of disregard: nails cleaned, trimmed, filed, cuticles healed, he tries to get away with lotion but that's a rare one and it's really not important. Look how gorgeous, look how goddamned elegant that hand was all along, and all it needed was a little.
(Love.)
Attention.
And look how good it looks in his own.) He's admiring their two hands together, how this nameless thing between them seemed to begin, how his hand is so infrequently empty lately. His chest rises and falls with a happy breath.
Then his attention travels to a smile, and he's carefully shifting their joined hands to draw them near that smile, all beautiful things now in reach of his touch. And he does touch: strokes the back of his index finger against Treavor's cheek, right where the curve of that smile dead-ends.
He doesn't know how something so soft can exist in this world. Where Treavor was hiding it, so that the hard and jagged and cruel things didn't take it, or destroy it.
He's thinking in some distant or not distant but drifting blithely part of his mind that nothing has ever been soft. That even cashmere isn't really very soft unless you add silk, and then you feel sorry for silkworms and all those Chinese women picking silk off silkworm cocoons. And rabbit fur is soft, but in Australia, rabbits are an invasive species, so you think of rabbit fur and then you think of a rabbit infestation, but it's not like that in the States, is it.
But Treavor is soft. His hair - Alice sets Treavor's hand down on his stomach for safekeeping, presses it there, trails his fingertips along the (elegant) (beautiful) back of that not-abandoned hand featherlight and contemplative. His eyes already on that hair, and where he's reaching, following gaze with touch.
Threading his fingertips through and through and through, slow and mesmerized and adoring. And he whispers, purrs, prays his words with a smile surely just as daft as the one that came so close.
(His.
His Treavor.) ]
You're so soft. [ An amused sound. ] No one wants rabbits but me. What do they know.
[ And then a flicker of recognition, Alice lifting his head a little and looking at where Treavor's landed himself. His fingertips stop their course, coming to settle beneath the other man's chin. ]
Come be stuck up here. You're so far away.
[ Oh, maybe...? ]
I'll be a gentleman.
[ He's settling back again, smiling in a playful way that says maybe he's weighed the merits of not being a gentleman.
But for Treavor. Anything in the world for Treavor. With as much seriousness as he can through his own pleasant haze, he adds gently: ]
I'd love you here. Can I hold you?