kingdomsofrain | OPEN RP POST

OPEN RP POST

send a prompt, a starter, images, words, music, whatever you like.

[ Alice carefully blunts out what he'd been smoking against a ceramic ashtray before the balcony door opens (can't let the smoke waft into the apartment) (can't waste it) and settles back, one arm bent behind his head. The other hand comes to rest on his stomach, comfortable (it's a good shirt, this shirt. Soft cotton, the thin vintage kind of soft cotton, washed so many times it's just right but not so many times that it's begun to fade, and if Treavor hadn't opened the door and poked his head out, Alice might have moved it over his stomach, back and forth with an open hand and a faintly daft smile.

Good shirt. The best shirt.)

There's his Treavor. His. (His?)

Yeah. His. He's smiling, drowsy-eyed, head turned and comfortable on his arm, and that's his Treavor (the head and shoulder parts, there's more of him on the other side of the glass) (how to get the rest of him, huh), looking great. Looking like Alice did something pretty great, himself, and that sends a flood of warm affection through him.

(Alice has decided, if not previously, then as of this moment, that Treavor has the best smile in the world. He would like to take a picture of that smile, but taking a picture of it means it can go to the cloud, and if it goes there, someone else will see it. And then it won't be just for him anymore, will it? Treavor will be smiling at someone else.

No, he likes this. Him, and Hope, and Treavor on his balcony, and that smile just for Alice. His heartbeat slow, but unsteady. His nerves calm but his stomach filled with fluttering pleasure.

Maybe. Maybe Treavor will come over and let him trace that perfect smile with his fingertips. (He was just thinking about his mouth, wasn't he? His pout over a single button, and what it would be like to run a thumb along his lip, to kiss him, to make him forget all about pouting or make him pout more?) (He's been staring a little too long at Treavor's mouth.)

(It doesn't occur to him to ask why Treavor's here. Of course he's here. He should be here, because the world is right today, and it's only right when Alice moves and Treavor moves and they come together with perfect synchronicity.)

(Beautiful. Beautiful. Fuck, he's so- )

Beautiful.

And talking?

Alice blinks slowly, and then makes a sound that's almost a laugh, and mostly a purr deep in his throat: content. Desiring. Pleased. ]

Now it is. Nice view, too.

[ And then, as though the idea only just occurred to him - and truthfully, it did only just fully form in the sluggish higher functioning of his mind - he adds coaxingly: ]

Hey.

[ Alice lifts his hand from his stomach and extends it rather gracefully to the other man. ]

Come here, Beautiful.

[ A lazy, charming smile - there's no doubt he's flirting, no doubt he's giving his most innocently enticing effort. You can trust me. I'm harmless. ]

Stay a while.

Edited 2020-11-12 00:33 (UTC)

[ Oh, well, okay, that.

That laugh curling Alice’s throat. That sound of, of…

A sound that renders Treavor’s mind a golden quiet, river running through a hushed meadow sky flecked aurelian, the mildest breeze and the air untouched untouchable by anyone aside from Alice, Alice in the center of his view, the all of Treavor’s knowing, stretched in sunlight shining down, and this hallowed ground could be eternal, and Treavor feels… Oh, gratified, flung free of himself and his perpetual disquiet, he feels rung through with relief and potential and wanting, he’d like to fling himself beside the man, the two of them lounging in the golden grass so far from everyone and everything, Treavor running finger through Alice’s hair and knowing Alice’s touch running through his own, only them and their nearness and this golden, golden quiet.

He’s.

Stricken.

Smiling, a lopsided expression, dreaming and woozy and hey, hey fuck, what he wouldn’t give to hear that sound again.

And hey, hey fuck, Alice is giving him some words, and Treavor wants to hear those words, needs to catch every single thing Alice might say (every single purred sound he might offer), so he nods once, sometimes that works to clear his head a little and it does that now, lets him hear Alice talk about the view and see Alice…

Beckoning him? That hand lifted like a gift, and…

And Alice said—

And Alice said?

And Alice called him?!

Alice called him to approach and Alice called him beautiful, or ’Beautiful,’ who the fuck does that, and Treavor’s biting his lip and Treavor’s thoughts are scattering against one another all over again, tell him it can’t be possible but it is possible Alice just called him ‘beautiful’ and it sounded so good, so fucking good, not like a joke just good, and also Alice raised a hand and Alice said, Alice is inviting him to step out, maybe to stay, to approach for sure and suddenly Treavor’s aware that he’s knocking a shoulder against the mostly-unopened door, that his hand’s slipping over the handle, pushing at the side, trying and trying and failing to push open a single simple door, and yeah okay there’s a little moment of frustration of panic as he scrambles, as he feels like oh fuck maybe he’s fucked maybe the door’s against him!, but then he manages, his hand pushes the right way and Treavor’s on the balcony, right there with Alice, and Treavor’s sinking onto one knee beside Alice, Perrier still clutched in his hand, his head almost aching from the beauty of this man and this moment.

Maybe they aren’t in some far-off meadow, but everything still looks golden, and isn’t it better being here, where the city’s sounds remind him that this is real, very real and not just a work of Treavor’s dreaming?

He’s got Alice’s hand in his free hand. He draws that hand toward him, slow and careful, admiring the form of it, the soft of skin and callused skin and eased muscle and frame of bone. And he’s grinning, and he’s smiling daftly still, and he presses Alice’s perfect goddamn hand. ]

You just try getting rid of me.

Stuck here now.

[ And he can’t stop smiling. ]

[ 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: ]

I'd love you here. Can I hold you?

[ ’I’d love you here. Can I hold you?’ And Treavor’s struck to daft silence again, because holy shit, those are words he (likes to hear) (has wanted to hear) (has maybe dreamed a little bit of hearing) (words he could exist for) maybe needed, probably needed, someone - this specific someone, who melts Treavor’s spine with a glance - telling him he’s wanted, welcome. Someone asking him close, just for. Just to be held? Someone else looking for a lingering clasp, maybe, not only here and briefly wildly (absently) together and gone.

He’d love to be held.

And doesn’t being held by this man, doesn’t nestling close to this man, change the color of his day? Turns everything from nausea from resentment from disconnected gray into vibrance, into something worth watching, worth living.

And to ask like that, after brushing light against Treavor’s cheek (a caress Treavor feels still, thinks he’ll feel for days to come, careful and unhesitant and right, he feels right and cared for when Alice touches him), after treating Treavor’s hand with such care (settling it down on the soft of Alice’s shirt and stomach and yeah, this guy feels good and that fuckin shirt’s at perfect-shirt stage), after dizzying Treavor with fingers through his hair and after that sound again, that contented purr again…

Of course ‘yes.’ Of course the answer is ‘yes,’ how could he want anything other than to wiggle his way closer? (This man calls him soft and it doesn’t sting. Feels like a blessing, like something Treavor has to offer, far removed from the soft that signals failure, weakness. Alice calls him soft, and Treavor wraps himself around the word, finds he likes it, finds it’s safe here, and of course it’s safe here, and hey wait a second, wait a second, what’s he doing so far from Alice when Alice has just beckoned him on up, when he could be next to and against Alice? Pshh, he’s been sitting here like a sucker!

But not anymore! ]

Yeah!

[ There’s not a lot of grace in the way he spills himself onto the hammock, briefly aware of how far south this could go, of how he’s always had shit for balance and this thing isn’t steady and oh fuck what if he tips it what if he ruins that good stretch Alice has got going, a series of worries he hushes by burrowing up against Alice, as close as he can, because if they’re in the same place and if he follows Alice’s lead, they should be okay, right?

And. Hey. He’s close to Alice now! Danger’s been averted, and now he can look over - he does look over - and see those blue blue eyes so close, can venture to brush back a few strands of auburn hair. And now that Treavor’s here, maybe he can stay here forever. Maybe he’ll have to! Maybe it’ll be just the two of them swaying here with nobody to interrupt them.

It’s a nice thought. It’s not a bad idea, at all.

And Treavor’s smiling at Alice, grinning at Alice. ]

Well now you’ve got me. Your soft guy.

[ Tracing two fingers along Alice’s jaw, through that precisely-kept beard, soft with a little rough, not everyone can pull off a beard, but fuck, this guy owns it. ]

I dunno if you should be a gentleman, though. Think I heard they prefer blondes, and I—

[ He gives a toss his hair lightly, playfully, careful not to knock Alice’s fingers aside. ]

I’ve never been a blonde in my life!

[ There’s a little pout with that, a faux-imploring look, as if asking Alice, oh please, accept this man in all of his non-blondeness! ]

The rabbit thing I can work with. Cause hey, hey, Alice? I’ve got a secret for you. A very lucky secret for you!

[ And, watching the guy very seriously - the stone-calm serious expression of a very serious guy who— Okay, a very serious guy who can’t help loosing a flickered grin; just look at Alice, just shift a little a feel the actuality of Alice against him, Jesus fuck this is good, so whatever, never mind the serious guy ploy, Treavor’s just gonna have to grin with that secret.

Grin and wink because, you know. In for the penny, in for the thousand-dollar dork. ]

I’m a genuine cuddlebunny.

[ And just to prove his point - just to show he knows what he’s talking about! - Treavor buries his head into Alice’s neck, wrapping an arm around Alice and curling in a little, getting a genuine full-body cuddle attack!

(Gentle attack. Heedful attack. An attack that gets Treavor twined around Alice, maybe; that absolutely draws Treavor closer, and fuck, just, fuck, he’s giddy all over.) ]

Edited 2020-11-12 14:18 (UTC)

[ There's a lot of movement. A lot of elated movement, and Alice casually swings a leg over the side of the hammock to plant a foot on the floor, bracing against the possibility of Treavor sending them both tumbling out onto the balcony. The rest of his body remains in that easy relaxed state, his arm extending to give the other man a place to nestle in-

And he fits.

He fits in the hammock. He fits against Alice's side, and in Alice's half embrace, and once Alice ensures their balance together on the hammock (he and his binary star, in their shared orbit, their tandem motion, their perfect soon-to-be-stillness), he draws his leg back up, knee cocked. Listening with a gentle smile and an almost awed look around the vicinity of his eyes.

(How Treavor touches him is a miracle. Not because he has never been touched so sweetly - though it's true, it's a rare occurrence - but because those touches have only ever been skin deep. They've never meant anything the way they do now.)

(What does it mean when a touch can reach miles beneath his skin? Treavor is older than he is by six or seven years. Did he live that long knowing he was alone in the world, waiting for his star to be born? Alice feels very sorry for taking so long to be born - but maybe that's why he came so quickly. Maybe that's why his mother was so young and his father was so young and he was born two months early.

Didn't mean to make you wait. But I got here as fast as I could.

He likes that.

He'll have to tell Treavor that sometime. Under starlight.

Yeah.)

Just now, Treavor is tossing his hair and Alice doesn't believe for one minute that he was never blonde, but he only nods seriously, very serious, except for the laugh creeping at his mouth and sparkling in his eyes. And of course he's listening intently to this lucky secret, because Treavor is (unfortunately) his secret, and Treavor is the luckiest thing to have ever happened to him, and he wants every word that falls from this beautiful man's mouth.

And his eyes widen just a little - a strong reaction for someone who at the moment is not particularly capable of much in the way of strong reactions.

He wants to point and say you nerd. But his hand is heavy, and resting against Treavor's back.

He wants to say fuck yes! But that's a response far outside his realm of peaceful enjoyment.

And. Treavor's pressing cuddling clinging and this might be the closest he's ever been to, the most physical contact he's ever had with him. Time feels like a slow-moving river, slower and slower and promising to turn crystalline. He extricates his arm from under his head and holds it, and his head, frozen in a pause for a beat, looking in wonder at the man (a man) (his) against him. ]

Christ, you're wonderful.

[ He believes it. Every word, whether he's high or sober, he's able to let slip with a grin.

Easily, he's closing all the gaps. Running a hand lazily over Treavor's waist, his hip, his thigh, tugging upward so their legs can twine and they can lie here together inextricable and perfect. And there are his arms, winding around his (what is Treavor to him? he never did ask.) rabbit, his cuddlebunny, yes.

This is what heaven might feel like.

((Or as close as he's ever going to know, anyway.))

He tells that thought to fuck off. Heaven is happiness, and feeling right, isn't it. He's happy here. This feels right, with Treavor nuzzling his throat and Alice stroking non-blonde hair.

This heaven is his.

After a moment or ten or two, he thinks he ought to answer, and does drawl some response - but not before carefully giving in to his own urge to not-quite-nuzzle. To nudge Treavor's jaw with his nose and brush his mouth along the long, clean lines of the other man's throat. (Not a kiss. Of course. Not yet. Not yet. (He doesn't know why not yet, but.) Just the traces of his lips, soft, careful not to abrade that tender skin with his beard. ]

I can be a gentleman and not go for blondes. I've got good taste.

...So good, I found a genuine cuddlebunny. Do you have any idea how rare those are? You're an endangered species. A work of art. Beyond invaluable.

[ There's another low, rumbling laugh, and Alice simply rests, indulging in this incredible nearness (this intimacy) (this heaven). ]

I'm never letting you go, Bunny. I know how lucky I am.

[ What this guy fucking does to him.

There’s a sigh at that nuzzle, a soft laugh, almost-giggle, and Treavor stretches his neck, tilts his head, closes his eyes and runs a slow stroke over Alice’s arm as he feels, and he feels, and he feels those lips against his throat.

This perfect goddamn guy. This goddamn guy who smells like warmth and smoke and a rarity of air not found in this city. This perfect man who winds Treavor closer to himself, the pair of them melded, safe now forever.

This warm and this rare man who hears everything Treavor says, and every could-be-thought beneath it. Who listens with the whole of the world, and who tells Treavor that Treavor’s rare, that Treavor’s something with value, maybe someone outpacing value, and who leaves Treavor feeling that maybe, oh maybe it’s true. ]

Heyyy, you’re gonna make me feel special.

[ He’d like to be that, wouldn’t he? He’d like to feel special, and does feel rare in Alice’s presence, the way the guy watches him like there’s nothing else around, matching Treavor’s absorption and his bounding heart beat-for-beat. The way that Alice looks at Treavor and Treavor looks at Alice and the whole universe coheres within their shared sight, every smile a shimmering of stars, every gesture an act of creation. The way that without hesitation, Alice extends a hand and invites Treavor to nestle beside him, the way Alice’s hand at Treavor’s hair speaks tender and familiar, the way this guy goddamn purrs, and Treavor’s insides turn to cloud and honey and he’d do anything this guy asked, he’d do anything to inch just a little closer up against him, he’d do anything to see Alice smile, to hear that laugh, to make Alice feel all right in the world.

Yeah. He’d like to make sure Alice knows just how special he is, an improbability almost too good to be real, and yet here he is, chest rising and falling against Treavor’s own, maddening trace of perfect lips against Treavor’s skin.

Odd to think he should have reached for ’special’ as a word and found it vibrant. Treavor never used cared much for the word, used to only ever wield it with derision. ‘Special’ was only ever a lie or a dream or an insult. As in, oh ignore that guy, he’s a special case here in the offices of Pendleton & Pendleton, never mind his name or the nothing that he does. As in, years ago, special boy with his special treatment, like he’d fucking asked to endure a year and a half of sort-of-schooling at home, like he hadn’t always known he was everything aside from cherished, unamounting trouble of a son a brother a student a pseudo-friend. Yeah, that Treavor Pendleton, he’s something special, said no one seriously, ever.

The word resonates now. Glows a little when he looks at it and finds no sick-sweet insincerity. It’s a nice idea. It’s a nice thought. That something could be actually special, precious.

And it’s nice to find the word changed, now. Transformed, made real and made true because of Alice.

And how much else will Alice make new, make better simply by existing? Alice drifts a hand over Treavor’s hip, and the world shudders on its axis, and everything known tints from frostbitten toward gold. The thrum of Alice’s pulse overwhelms everything Treavor’s known, restoring meaning to dimmed dreams and tired phrases.

Everything is better with Alice. Absolutely everything.

Treavor lifts his head a little, shifts so he can look Alice dead-on in the face, looking wound up in thought, as if considering something Alice said. ]

Hmmm…

[ Hey, Alice, do you see that face? That is Treavor’s Very Serious I Am Considering This face, and that’s his forefinger set against the tip of his nose, light in contemplation. That’s his finger tapping once, twice. ]

You know, I haven’t met a lot of gentlemen.

[ Tap. Hmm. Tap. Hmm. ]

You’re definitely the best gentleman I’ve met. Maybe the only true gentleman. Gentleman highlander, hmm…

[ Hmm…

Hm!

And then, suddenly, Treavor moves that fingertip to the tip of Alice’s nose! Taps once, and then again! ]

Since you are the gentleman here, I guess I’ll have to defer to your judgement.

If you say you can go for not-blondes, than buddy, I’m your man.

[ And, his smile growing dafter and warming— ]

Or your Bunny.

Am I your Bunny?

[ His smile says he’d like to be. His smile says that even thinking it undoes him a little, says there’s little more he could wish. ]

[ He watches Treavor, wishing he would come back. Stay close. Maybe rest his head and feel that warm breeze, and the gentle sway of the hammock, and how their hearts seem to beat together at different rhythms, but in harmony.

Treavor is chaotic. All hurry and flight and go, running from moment to moment (like a rabbit, bouncing ever on and on) (what is he running from?) Maybe what he needs is a reminder that this place is (home) (safe) somewhere he can stop and linger a while, without all that spinning out. (Is that why he drinks? All that anxiety, all that nervous energy, and the things hounding him. Hunting him.) (Alice would like to protect him.)

A smile emerges from his pensive regard at the touch of a finger to his nose, and lazily, he extricates his arm to catch that hand in his own. To hold it at the level of his heart and think -

Mine.

It would be nice.

It is. Nice.

Whatever they are together, whatever this might mean for Alice's future and the folder on his desk with the five year plan inside it, the ten year plan, the possibility of disinheritance -

(He'll lose everything. If he does this wrong. If he isn't careful.)

(But right now. Everything feels okay.)

Everything feels okay with Treavor, who just asked about being his Bunny like being that means something else, and Alice's stomach is fluttering again.

They should talk about that sometime. Something to think about when he's sober.

Without evading the eyes that drew him in and captivated him while sitting by the harbor (he could drown, or maybe did drown, or maybe his eyes are blue and Treavor's are black because those are the colors of skies at different hours and this isn't drowning, but flying), he draws Treavor's hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to the backs of his fingers. ]

That's not for me to decide.

[ He turns Treavor's hand, examining it, looking at its perfection, and then, bolder now having kissed once, kisses again into his palm. ]

But I'd like you to be. Maybe I can show you just how special you are.

[ His chin is down, his attention on another kiss, lingering, and Alice feeling daft and flirtatious and untroubled - eyes raised with their drowsy, come-hither interest to Treavor's once more.

And his voice lowers an octave as he whispers, as though an important secret's being imparted. ]

I'd take very good care of my Bunny.

[ Every move Alice makes is so fluid. So unstrung from worry, and Treavor thinks again that this, this is something Alice deserves more of. This ease where he doesn’t seem so guarded, where there are no dangers. Where he can wear a tshirt and those goddamn cuffed pants and lilt into that accent of his, strange to Treavor’s ears and comforting because it seems so natural for Alice, holds his voice so well.

God, and the guy kisses his fingers.

God, and the guy kisses his palm, and maybe that was a whimpered sound from Treavor, definitely it was, because jesus shit, he could live in that kissing forever, and yeah, definitely yeah, though left him a little again, blanked him all over again. ]

You keep this up, your Bunny’s not gonna have a thought in his head.

[ Which gives his answer, doesn’t it?

An answer written clear in Treavor’s wondering grin, his expression suggesting someone stricken and freed, transported, and yeah he feels lot he’s floating, like there’s nothing in the world that could bring him down again. An answer in his eyes speaking admiration, ubiquitous belief and wonder at believing.

Treavor feels at once very different from himself (usually so prickled, jagged, crossing unstable poorly-interred moods, usually so prone to bruising and to self-proclaimed insouciance), and closer to himself than he’s been… ever, maybe. Like he’s been lifted to some outcropped sanctuary he’s only ever guessed at, tried to reach for, leap for, wish for without reaching. Like he’s always been a lot of steps away from himself, or what he needed or wanted to be.

Like maybe he’s a few steps closer now. Like maybe he doesn’t have to dislike all the things he is, or believe his own worth weighs in at nothing.

Alice said. Yeah, Alice says there’s worth in Treavor. He’s said it, clear as day, and if Alice can get Treavor feeling more like right with himself, maybe Alice is onto something about that worth.

Alice who drifts kisses over Treavor’s fingers like the act and every kiss mean worlds, and Treavor feels their magnitude of meaning.

Who kisses Treavor’s palm, and the world does turned tinged gold, and time turns infinite, turns inconsequential, and everything that Treavor is dissolves for a moment, before returning to himself.

Because he doesn’t want to miss this. He doesn’t want to miss a thing.

(And doesn’t he like that Alice offered neither imposition nor rejection? That rather than place a role on Treavor, he opened the door (beckoned without pressure, without stoneclad expectation), indicated interest, and let Treavor know it matters what Treavor would like to be.

Of course Treavor would like to be. But it isn’t a choice he’s often given, or wanting isn’t often a consideration in play. (Wanting beyond ‘yeah fucking sounds good’ or ’sure whatever you said beats loneliness.’) And it feels good to have that choice, to know there’s… what? Reciprocation. Regard.

What a good fuckin guy.) ]

I gotta tell you though, Alice: It’s a lot of responsibility.

Me, I mean. Being your bunny. Because hey my secret?

[ His voice doesn’t drop a single octave (fuck though did Alice’s secret voice grab him at the base of the spine or what), but he does shift to that exaggerated whisper, faux-hushed and leaning in a little. ]

This bunny? This bunny who would like to be your Bunny? Is kind of a trouble-prone bunny. Like. You’re looking at a lot of work!

[ He means it lightly, though there’s a sharper needle of truth in there, a note of something like regret because it isn’t as if Treavor intends to be work or wants to put work on this guy, just.

It’s the truth.

And anyway, maybe-happily, Alice seems to… maybe not mind the thought of the work? ]

Though I gotta say, if anyone’s up to the task, I think maybe it’s you.

And! Something I can say?

[ He lowers his head for a nuzzle, a nuzzle with a good push and a little bit of a pleased sigh. ]

It might not be thankless work..

[ A wink? Yeah, that’s definitely a wink. And he’s definitely running a couple of fingers through Alice’s hair, down Alice’s jaw, his own smile quirking with something like approval, something like wanting, and absolute, definite joy. ]

In fact, I can give you the Treavor Pendleton guarantee that it won’t be thankless.

[ And finally, finally he settles back down again, nestling in beside Alice, as close as he can. ]

If you’re up for the challenge, you’re definitely, definitely stuck with this Bunny.

Because I like being stuck with you.

[ That sound Treavor makes is going to lodge itself in Alice's brain. He'll revisit it again and again, examine it, trying to determine just what it meant, what it could mean. (How he'd like to hear it again.)
(There will, at some future point in time, be an elaborate constructed fantasy of mostly-innocent kisses and whimpers, possibly to be tested in varying circumstances and locations.

He doesn't dare think too long or hard about Treavor in more erotic circumstances than that. His wanting is vague (the way a dog would like to chase a car. The dog has no idea what to do with the car, should it ever catch it.) Even his own fumbling self-ministration - infrequent and guilty, infrequent and markedly shameful and tense and perfunctory - is a blank-minded activity.

Mostly.

It feels wrong. To indulge in (fantasies about a man) something that isn't his.)

But kisses are innocent. And that whimper was so sweet. And Treavor is so soft, and right now. Right now, the whole world is warm and honey-gold, and Treavor is his Bunny.

Alice's arms are winding tight around him once more right as some new thought enters his comprehension from the voice he adores, the voice that made that whimper, and Alice is looking (staring) at not really anything, just distantly past black hair and thinking about all the work it will take to care for his Bunny (trouble-prone and messy and in need of so much care.)

How much work it has taken, since that night he brought Treavor home. All the things Treavor needs to be happy and healthy. All the things he can give.

It won't be thankless, and fingers through his hair, and he's tingling, he's making a noise of his own he didn't quite tamp down, a lazy, pleased noise that would have been a moan, could have been if he had parted his lips.

Wound up as he is with (his his his) Treavor, there's no clever way of hiding his arousal. (And it's fine. He can be hard. Why does it need to be a problem? They're talking, they're talking about the best things, his favorite things, things that are bound to excite him. Treavor and care, and anyway, the sun is warm and he feels so fucking nice. Let it be what it is. It's all good, it's all wonderful.)

He shifts a little for comfort, for the pleasantry of contact and warmth of the body against his own, and murmurs something half lost in the nuzzle he burrows against Treavor's throat - the best work, that part's inescapable.

And if he presses closer. Can they melt in to one another? Can they stay here always, bound up like this? How tightly does he need to hold on to this man to keep him here under a blue sky, surrounded by plants and warm breezes and distant city sounds and the lull of music from his phone?

He eases back, because there's a perfect way to hold Treavor, to see him and still feel the length of his body, to still be wrapped up and pressed against him while watching him contentedly. When Alice finds it, he breathes a satisfied sigh and reaches up to trace his fingers through the other man's hair. (Like the first time. Along his hairline, soothing, wondering, where have you been all my life.) ]

Nothing about you is thankless.

[ A hum, and a stretch, his body settling closer, please, closer. ]

It's all 'care'. Tell me what you want. I'll go do your laundry. I'll cook your dinner. Comb your hair for you.

[ Amused, lazy, he nudges his head nearer and drops his voice to a whisper again. ]

Bathe you.

[ His hand is wandering without any ill intent - more fascination, idly - down from Treavor's hair to the buttons of his shirt. The ones he has managed to button today. Alice finds the topmost, half unbuttons it slowly, then buttons it again, a vague smile on his face. ]

Just exist, Bunny. Breathe. Smile. Be happy. That's all the thanks I'll ever need.

[ Shit? Well, shit, there’s a sound, huh? And there’s a feeling of Alice against him, and hey, there’s no sign Alice is trying to hide his hard-on, which is somehow a relief, which Treavor is glad to find, which is another sign everything is a-okay, and shit yeah there’s nothing wrong with showing interest.

That was a good goddamn sound. Another good goddamn sound, right up there with that laugh, that purr, and Alice has a compelling voice, doesn’t he? The kind of voice Treavor could immerse himself in, would listen to on end in every register and mood.

The guy’s not kidding about being okay with caring for Treavor. If Treavor’s putting the pieces together - and they seem pretty clear-cut - he’s really very okay with it, and that’s… Kind of nice? That maybe Treavor can offer this guy something that makes him feel real right. And doesn’t Treavor enjoy, even thrill at the sort of care Alice gives him? The checking-ins and the easing rhythm of a brush through his hair and a collar straightened or a button done up (or a button toyed with, long fingers strong fingers idling against his chest, and Alice could linger at that single button all day and still Treavor’d be pleased), all signs of attentive interest and a warmth shared between them.

The feeling’d been there even on that first day, when he woke on a strange couch to find he’d been wrapped up warm in blankets and clean clothes and found water and aspirin and scrambled eggs and soft words offered, careful discussion broached, and it’d dizzied Treavor, marked him. Changed the way he knew the world, and hasn’t he felt a little less hopeless (a lot less hopeless) since that day? Doesn’t Alice render him electric and grace him with honeyed ease?

There’s so much, there’s so much this guy can make him feel. Has made him feel already, and is feeling now, a warm roil of pleasantness and thrill.

So maybe the care’s good for both of them.

So yeah, Treavor feels the guy gone hard against him, and he gives Alice a nuzzle, another nuzzle, an entire set of nuzzles meant to be encouraging and reassuring and also, okay, also he just likes how it feels to nuzzle the guy, rough of that beard and all.

And maybe Treavor full-on freezes at the mention of bathing, lets a little sound like ’huh’ escape, as if this idea’d never occurred to him. As if he’d never once considered intimate bathing a thing - and he hadn’t; and he might’ve laughed at the idea before this, before Alice - and as if the idea now seems momentous. Because… Because..

He would. Like that. He thinks.

And settles out of that frozen moment to melt against Alice again, nodding a little, again managing a ’huh.’ (Consider Alice’s hands against his skin, Alice tracing warm-water trickles down his spine, Alice maybe beside him, can they find a tub for that? Because that. Because that? Would be pretty fucking great, ah shit.)

He swallows. He nods. ]

We should. Yeah, probably try the bathing thing sometime. But!

[ A playful nudge, minor headbutt. ]

But you’ve gotta get in the bath too. No fair only one of us getting wet.

[ And he nestles closer against Alice, thinks they’re both going to keep pressing closer until they do discover some secret of melding, or some way to pause the rush of time. ]

You’re a good fuckin guy, Alice.

[ A good fuckin guy who says impossible things, and somehow leaves Treavor believing them.

Like. Words like. ’Nothing about you is thankless.’ Words Treavor would like to hold against his bones and always-knowing. Words that by all rights shouldn’t make sense (how often has he been told he’s a thankless shit, an ingrate, a nobody who can’t show appreciation for all the good he’s been granted?), words he ought to doubt, and yet they strike as truth. Alice makes them truth, belying everything that came before.

This guy’s fucking matchless. Fucking peerless.

And all this time, this guy existed in the world. Getting pelted with his own bullshit, making it all the way through miles and miles of who-knows-what (Treavor doesn’t know what) (Treavor thinks he’d like to know, if it’s anything Alice’ll tell) (thinks he might, maybe, like to share some of his own shit with Alice, and thinks Alice maybe wouldn’t mind) to reach this point, this perfect fucking point that’s turned a callous city tender.

Treavor feels like.

He feels like.

He hasn’t felt like this since Davis. And even the brightest moments out there were only shadows against what he feels now, knows now. How close to right and capable of being all right he is in this moment, this please-couldn’t-it-be-eternal space.

Could that rightness last with Alice? Treavor thinks so. Treavor fucking knows it with his heart, and right now, he’s inclined to trust that heart, so often unwilling to really believe the good of a moment or the lastingness of anything. His heart knows a lot about being cautious, and if it feels all right about Alice, there’re reasons. ]

My very favorite, in fact. The best anyone.

[ And, you know what? Carefully, lightly, he’s going to brush a kiss against Alice’s beard. Not quite touching skin, just soft and a little lingering, and then Treavor’s nuzzling this beautiful guy again. ]

I’m the luckiest goddamn bunny.

Edited 2020-11-14 04:03 (UTC)

[ Alice always cautioned himself to take care with his heart. He can't, in any sort of recollection, say that he has been in Love. He has encountered girls who have demanded the words from him after several dates, and he, uncomfortable, had shrugged them off. He has felt stirrings of something like warmth, wanting, something like desperation for a place with someone. He has loved people, boundlessly, compassionately, with friendly affection.

But none of that was ever Love, capital-L. Not the person who was his First, which was supposed to be important somehow, but only felt briefly enjoyable and then cold. Not the boyfriend.

He doesn't think the word 'love' when he looks at Treavor because he spent so long not thinking the word 'love' when looking at others.

What he thinks is how he's glad he went to the harbor that night. He's glad he didn't ignore his phone, or worse, follow through on that Grindr plan. He's glad he told Treavor he'd be a pufferfish, because that poff noise made him smile.

What he thinks is Treavor's eyes are depthless, and he wants to know everything in the mind behind them, and that's going to take time, so he also wants time. All the hours to know all the thoughts and hopes and yes, even the terrible things, too. He'll take all the bad with the good.

What he thinks is that being kissed the way he was just now, by the most perfect mouth, was a blessing, and he never wants this moment to end.

What he thinks is that Otis Redding just came on his phone, and it's important to turn it up, and he does with a grin - Found your song again. - and hums along, his hand graceful and light trailing Treavor's cheek, throat, his shoulder, his back, and reversing course. And it's like the universe gave its blessing.

And he doesn't think the word 'love', but where are his thoughts every waking moment, and most non-waking ones?

Alice holds him this way, peaceful, stroking, settling into the promise of warmth (and occasionally brushing up against the idea of bathing with Treavor like an electrified fence, shivering a little, and putting it away and away and away, for the most part calm and content.)

Eventually, careful not to jostle (his Bunny) Treavor, he reaches back for the not-wholly-forgotten (not to be wasted, it wasn't cheap, the guy's been growing the same rarified strain since the sixties) joint, considers asking if Treavor minds in particular -

It seems like a question that would have been answered when Treavor stuck his beautiful head out the door. So, he re-lights, inhales, exhales the smoke away from the man at his side. (Held like a cigarette, between index and middle finger - he never could figure out the why of the thumb-index pinch thing, really.) All of this with care. Even when settling back and drawing close once more, he remains mindful to hold it away and down.

But after a beat of thought, after watching (admiring) Treavor through heavy-lidded eyes, he lifts his hand in silent offer. ]

[ It’s the song!

Treavor jolts upward just enough to flash a grin at Alice - hey, hey hey hey, this is the song you gave me! - then nestles back down with a little laugh-sigh.

How the fuck is this such a perfect day. How the fuck is Alice such a perfect guy? And how does he ease the day, ease Treavor, where was this guy all his life, and where was Treavor all of his?

(Well. Maybe better this guy didn’t get car crash Treavor or failing out of college Treavor or tried to set his apartment on fire Treavor, but also this guy didn’t get not-fuck-up-mess Treavor? This guy endured Some Shit from Treavor and still he’s here, and fuck, could Treavor be any luckier?, and he’ll make up all those days of being a dick, thinking Alice was something and someone Alice definitely wasn’t.

Treavor should’ve been watching closer.

Treavor’d had a lot of reason not to watch closer or try to give a shit.

Most importantly, Treavor’s lucky as hell Alice didn’t give up on him, or leave him lonely at that dock. That Alice looked at Treavor after everything he’d done and didn’t say ‘hey fuck off buddy I’ve got shit to do,’ which would’ve been perfectly fair. That Alice looked past a whole, whole lot of shit to find a Treavor who’d buried himself, who’d been resigned to staying buried, oh, forever.

Alice is. A goddamn miracle.)

And Alice is taking another hit, and Treavor smiles a little, nuzzles a little, because fuck yeah Alice, keep that chill going. And Alice is offering?

Hey. Well, hey. Treavor’s not about to say no.

Shit, and look at the way Alice is watching him. Languorous and approving. Shivering and warming Treavor all at once.

He doesn’t smoke much. Smoked more in California. The shit was easy to get hold of, prevalent among the people he rotated among hanging out with and the parties he pretty regularly showed up to, invited or otherwise. (Treavor did a lot more in California. Because shit was there and because why not and because he was around a lot of people a lot more and down to try whatever, even after that bad fuckin trip after those bad fuckin mushrooms, because why let one shit experience soil the escape, right?) These days it’s too much work to get hold of, and outside of Sheldon (and Sheldon’s aunt’s boytoy? who seems to be rolling in the shit), he doesn’t know a lot of people willing to share. (And anyway, Treavor’s got his one true fuck-this-shit companion, and it comes in easy-to-locate bottles and it gets him by all right.)

It’s not the weed that entices him here. Like, yeah, he’s down for it, why the fuck not especially since his companion-in-a-bottle’s not gonna be accessible while he’s here

What matters more is the sharing. That Alice is once again beckoning without pressure, an ’if you’d like to’ that invites Treavor to curl into another closer space with Alice, and of course Treavor’s gonna say yes. Of course he’s gonna take that joint (between thumb and index finger, because that’s for weed and forefinger-index is for cigarettes thank you very much), going to take an inhale of his own, let the smoke settle in his mouth, let it drift off away from Alice as he returns the joint.

He thinks maybe it’s pretty good shit. He doesn’t really know or have a taste for differentiating, but Alice seems like a guy who’d stick to the best, probably did his research and vetted his candidates with care. Yeah, Treavor can picture that. Grins a little with the thought, grins a little as he nuzzles against this very warm guy, his (?) (is that okay to think, to say?) very warm guy, who lets him feel so free and so at home.

…Fuck, that’s true, isn’t it? At home, like. Treavor’s never had much of a home. He’s got compulsory family, compulsory ‘you belong here,’ he’s never not had somewhere to live, but this is.

This is different. This feels like belonging, like fitting somewhere right, the way he feels right pressed against Alice this way, the way Alice finds the perfect way to hold him, makes the world stop spinning and halts every gear, because there’s nowhere else to be and nothing more worth doing.

What a perfect fucking day.

What a perfect fucking guy. And Treavor’s life not so bad right now, is it? Treavor’s life is pretty fucking great, and he nudges his head against Alice's jaw, sighs, and smiles, and smiles. ]

[ He's watching Treavor languidly, but closely, discerning, allowing knowing to pass into him and through him or remain as it may.

The way Treavor smokes. There's a lot to be learned just watching him, about how he doesn't cough, doesn't drag deep into his lungs either. Casual. Occasional user, Alice thinks. (Alice knows his drug of choice.) (Alice knows he doesn't drink here, he doesn't drink around Alice at all, even 'steps out for a minute' at work instead of blatantly drinking at his desk, and that's both sorrowful and wonderful of him.)

(Someday. Someday, he'll tell Treavor.

Thank you for respecting me.

And.

Please stop hiding it from me.

And.

Please, let me help you find help.)

The particularities of action: Treavor acts cool for the sake of cool, makes an art of the Fuck You School of it, where there is but one student and he is a dropout.

(If James Dean could see him now.)

For each detail, Alice finds himself unearthing only more questions. Treavor, an unfolding mystery. A philosophy he'd study his whole life, a religion, an ideology (but never, never an area of expertise. Only eternally confounding, and beautiful, and compelling.

Gratifying to pursue.)

There's so much he doesn't know.

Where does Treavor go when he's not here, and he's not at work? Where did he used to go? Where did he try his first joint, and where did he learn to hold the smoke in his mouth without puffing out his cheeks? Did he practice in front of a mirror, holding a cigarette and trying to get the perfect look of coolness, and does he know how beautiful his mouth is with the smoke curling past the curve of his lips?

And who are his friends? Has he ever been in love? Has he ever been loved back? Has he ever lain beside a boy, a man, this way, and just let the day go by without care?

The tip of Alice's thumb has found the softness of Treavor's lower lip and brushes delicately, following the crescent of the smile he's been given and given. This endless fascination, his (what are they to one another?) (stars) (birthrights) (warmth) boy's mouth.

He thinks he said something. "Hey", maybe, soft as a sigh, just enough for himself to move and for his binary star to maybe move in tandem.

He knows he leans up a little, cradling Treavor in one arm, and thinks about how his mouth feels like it's aching. It's something like greed sitting on the back of his tongue, and hunger in his throat, and his heart is hammering but everything feels good, everything is gold and warm and if anyone told him a month ago that he could have this, he'd say they were a liar.

(No one ever looked at him the way Treavor does.)

(No one ever needed him the way Treavor does.)

He's smiling, mostly tenderness, mostly warmth, a little mischief, and his mouth is very near, and his thumb is tracing a perfect (sultry, it's fucking sultry) lip again. ]

Breathe with me?

[ It's an idea, uncomplicated and eager and compelled, and he waits for the agreement (approval, consent, equal in eagerness, things he makes a point of seeking now) before taking another hit.

Before resting delicate fingertips on Treavor's jaw and holding steady, his mouth near, hovering, close enough that a single movement could upset a careful balance.

And here, just to try it. Just to see what happens, what great occurrence could shape his world from a single action: a gentle exhale of smoke, of the air from his lungs. ]

[ Alice’s thumb is soft along his lip, and Treavor’s closing his eyes against the feel of it, thinking he’d like to trace Alice’s lip right back, over and over until he knows that perfect shape by heart (and maybe then, maybe sometime he’ll put a kiss right on that perfect shape, and another, and another). Knowing no one’s ever touched him this way, with such heed and recognition; no one’s ever touched him like a way of knowing and receiving. Half-wondering how this guy could know the perfect harmony of a caress, whether he and Treavor maybe walk the same wayward frequency, or whether Alice is just good at listening, and isn’t listening another facet of care? So of course Alice’d be aces at it, and Treavor’ll try to listen back in kind, keep that harmony going.

With Alice, he thinks he can manage it.

With Alice, he knows he wants to.

And Alice has an idea and Alice is sharing that idea, a proposition curling warmth through Treavor’s chest and sparking brightness like stars across his thought, and okay, probably just about anything Alice could suggest with his thumb to Treavor’s lip would sound pretty great, but this idea - ’Breathe with me?’; Treavor’s chest fucking fluttered - sounds better and better the further it coheres through Treavor’s knowing, and he’s smiling, and he’s nodding a little, once and twice and three times, all a little sharp, very certain. Because it’s genius. Because it’s a fucking genius idea!

Because here they are together, holding together and pressing close and sharing, and here Treavor’s been wishing to twine closer still with Alice, to better and closer be where Alice is, and isn’t sharing breath a way to get there? Isn’t it the perfect fucking way to get there?

So he’s nodding again and affirming— ]

Yeah!

Shit. Yes. Please.

[ And smiling, and then there’s Alice’s touch again (a careful set of fingers, light and crucial, deft and bracing, a touch to set the center of Treavor’s world), and Alice having come so close, and Treavor can feel the easy rise of Alice’s breath, could almost actually kiss the guy and wants to, would like to, but isn’t it pretty great also, really great also to be this close and not yet meet, to give attention, give care so wholly to a breath, the life of this guy and the air out of Treavor’s own lungs, and he can taste Alice from a distance, and he thinks, ah fuck, he thinks this nearness could overwhelm him wonderfully.

There’s a soft sound from Alice, and there’s an offering of smoke, and if they weren’t so close and if the moment weren’t somehow so solemn on top of its joy, he might half-bite at the air, playful, quick. But this breath feels something like a gift and grace, consecration if Treavor might meet it, and Treavor tilts open his mouth to take in the smoke, inhaling gentle, thinking of Alice’s thumb and Alice’s tenor and of Alice’s form stretched long against him, half-thinking if ever there were a religion worth knowing, if ever there could be a blessing worthy of rejoinder and reception, it is this.

His hand shifts careful to the back of Alice’s head, to Alice’s hair, and Treavor gives a slow, a light, a careful soothing and welcome and soul-deep thanks.

And he tastes smoke, and he tastes Alice; there’s a sound deep in Treavor’s throat, blissful and stricken, and he needs nothing, oh nothing else in this world. ]

[ The Big Bang is a misnomer. People hear 'bang' and think of an explosion occurring instantaneously; let there be light. The truth is that the event precipitating the outward expansion of the universe occurred over the course of billions of years.

On the cosmic scale, of course, this is instantaneous.

Alice feels the outward expansion of the universe within himself, its nuclear core in the vicinity of his heart (thundering a slow, hard rhythm all through his body, echoing in his ears, shuddering his hands; there are centrifuges and pistons and stars born and stars dying under his skin.) He feels the incorruptible pace of the inevitable, the promise of the future rushing toward him (slowly, oh, terrifyingly slowly, and yet on the scale of stars and planets and spinning galaxies, full of violent collision and culmination.)

An inward gasp and an outward momentum.

The breath he gives.

(His soul goes with it.)

((He never contemplated matters of the soul, or of having a soul, beyond the constructed tenets of the church. Beyond what is lost by the deviants, the depraved, the sinners, in succumbing to base urges and oh, this is a base urge.

This is also.)

This is also.)

Why poets exist. Why there are songs. Why the universe began expanding: so one sunny, spring day, Alice could lean over Treavor and share a breath of smoke and oxygen and his own soul.

Alice thinks, because he has time to think in this slow-moving moment: if I can just have this. If everything could just stop here, and nothing else had to follow. If there could be no more law firms or court rooms or bottles of alcohol, nothing dogging their steps. Nowhere to go and nothing to do but lie here, breathing with one another, in and out, him and his binary star. If I can just have this, it'll be enough.

Maybe that's the thought that undoes him. Maybe it's the sound Treavor makes, as though he's caught in the same perfect rapture, and when has Alice ever managed to give another person anything nearing rapture? (And breathing back in, that sound becomes his own, that sound settles in him and propels wanting like madness; someday, someday, maybe he'll know how to call it moment by moment, and leave this man in shambles.)

Or maybe it's his own shuddered moan, excited and skittish, and the electric feel of his mouth brushing Treavor's.

Or all of it comes together, a perfect mix for an outward slow-rush: his eyes burn to a blur and his hand at some point has traded off the joint to the other hand because there's something so much better here to touch, this cheek and beautiful jaw and his thumb intervenes before he can move in any closer.

A light tease against a perfect lower lip, and his own mouth only a ragged breath away. ]

Can I kiss you, Darling?

[ It's not right to offer breath, and take kisses.

He should. Always.

Always ask.

(And live in this moment, if Treavor says 'yes'. He should. He should be soft. It should be soft. Even in the sluggish recesses of his mind, he tells himself this: he knows Treavor deserves sweetness.

(Maybe he does, too.)) ]

[ Reception and a reflective shudder, resonant sound (was that Alice’s moan or his own, or both of them in kind?), Alice swept with Treavor in the current of this exaltation, this sacrament they’ve made of breath and breath and a leaping hand-in-hand to test unbound unbridled air, to find themselves buoyed upward on the rush of an ecstatic gust. To dwell among the clouds, aren’t they twined together far above the hold of earth, couldn’t they defy every goddamn thing if they wanted, haven’t they already done so?

There was never any danger of falling.

There is nothing, nothing to fear with this man.

This beautiful heart who holds Treavor and who presses into Treavor’s hold.

This improbable man who turns every moment dire, worth remembering and worth dwelling in, lingering and stretching out across. Who feels heartrendingly real beneath Treavor’s touch, whose reality redefines belief, whose smoke-brushed breath turns the whole world right again.

How courageous Alice is.

How far Treavor would follow him, and Christ, shit, fuck, he thinks there’s nothing he wouldn’t attempt for this man.

And Alice asks—

Again Alice asks, and again, that Alice asked - thought to ask or hooked words upon an impulse - strikes Treavor to stillness and means worlds (and suggests worlds about Alice, thoughts for another time, another day). He’s so careful. Alice is so, so wonderfully careful.

Can he.

Can Alice kiss him.

And Treavor’s smiling lopsided and a little wavered, eyes burning a little as the world kaleidoscopes in vivid color, resolving into Alice, everything, everything resolving into Alice.

That perfect, perfect guy.

The trouble is responding. The trouble is finding the air to respond, and Treavor swallows. Swallows and knows, yes, that’s the breath of Alice in his throat, that’s his guy bracing him, bracing him (with the help of his guy he can find speech!), and at last he manages quietly, with wondering, not-quite-steady ardor— ]

I’d… like that.

My beautiful guy.

[ Blinking, dizzy, and smiling still, astonished. ]

Yes.

[ This moment is important. The next will also be important, but this one deserves Alice's regard, his contemplation, to be honored. The vulnerability in Treavor's smile needs to be committed to the book of his memory, because there is something in Treavor that is vulnerable, and has been gently flayed by the request of a kiss.

(And Alice thinks he knows.

He thinks he knows because he has never been asked, either. When confronted with another's desire, his consent was expected. Implicit: you're here. What else did you come here for?

Treavor, he believes (he knows, he comprehends) has encountered the implicit expectation.

That's not why he wants Treavor to come here. This safe place. This haven, this home. And having seen that smile -

Fuck. That broken smile, that tremulous smile.

He'll remember to be grateful. He'll remember that everything Treavor gives him. Every enthusiastic 'yes', every astonished or wondering or eager 'yes'. Every kiss.

It's all a gift.)

His thumb is slipping away, his hand slipping into soft hair as easily as he dreams, as though his palm was made to cup this man's neck, the back of his head, to cradle and caress only him, and how many parts of himself fit with Treavor? What will it feel like to be the warmth at his back through the night? Will his knees find a perfect place to rest behind his, and Alice's arms fit around him comfortably, and even when Treavor's hair ends up in his mouth halfway through the night - will the perfection endure?

(What could it feel like to make love to him? If there's ever that gift. Will it feel like coming home?)

What little distance he gave, he closes again, pausing in the space of a breath from connection (where he breathed, and Treavor breathed, and he understood the start and end of creation.) This moment, too - this heartbeat, this small idle before the burst - he wants to remember. The warmth of lips near his own, and the fullness of his own wanting, and how, when he closes his eyes, everything ends except Treavor, and Alice's hammering pulse, and the unsteadiness of his breath unshared.

And then sweetness that clutches his throat and stings his eyes wet. (Was any mouth ever this warm against his own?) (Was any ever this soft, without invasion, without demand - only unendurably welcoming?) He could sink, and drown, and let himself die against lips like those.

But he has to take care. Not to rush by this moment. Not to take, or harm, or destroy something beautiful.

He has to take care with Treavor.

(...He has to take care of Treavor.)

He utters a soft, broken noise into this first brush of a kiss: half plea for more, half relief and joy for what he's found here. ]

[ The day is infinite, and this moment is everything.

A kiss can be perfunctory and a kiss can be a step toward predetermined completion and a kiss can be a rushing, scrambling want. A kiss can be a bite or a trial, a demand or a rushing toward escape. A warning to hurry up and follow along, never linger, never dwell. Treavor’s known all of these kisses, learned to read and follow their tenor, learned to know what was expected and how to respond with minimal upset, get a kiss a hasty pawing a screw and move along.

(There was a time— He used to think. He used to think there could be something comforting in cuddling up next to someone. Used to think maybe love-making wasn’t a misnomer, that intimacy could come twined with safety and care if he kept looking, if he just lucked out and stumbled on the right person.

Then again. Treavor also used to think that maybe, someday, he’d be something other than a pain-in-the-ass burden to his family.

And he used to think maybe someday, he could be a little like all right with himself.)

He’d stopped looking for more. He’d stopped hoping for more. He’d stopped hoping for much at all. You learn to want within the bounds you’re permitted, or you bury your wanting and only take what comes.

This, though.

This brush of lips, warmth to warmth and euphoric excruciation. Treavor’s heart racing, body wrapped warm and prickling electric all at once, dizziness vanished and the present slammed into focus, so that he feels those lips perfectly, knows every milligram of careful pressure, knows the impress of Alice’s skin beneath his fingers and the shift of his every strand of hair beneath Alice’s touch. Every motion outlined; every pulse-beat seismic.

Alice kisses him, and the world turns again, deepens again.

Alice kisses him, and again rewrites the rhythms of the earth.

Alice…

Oh, Alice.

There’s a sigh in his throat that could be a name, the name, the name of his beautiful guy, if only Treavor could turn sound and feeling into words. But Alice has stolen the words from the sky. But Alice has filled the sky with brand-new words, a language Treavor’s never held upon his tongue, but recognizes. But knows deeper than any words he’s ever spoken.

Alice.

Alice.

This man is.

Alice is—

Yes.

Resurrection. Every hope returning, the ghost of Treavor’s wishes given life again.

Alice, breathing life into him.

Bless this man, and everything he is.

Treavor’s response is gentle, a soft brush in kind, pressure barely landing and still, still it tingles through his spine his heels his fingers. Still it could raze him, flickers toward the edge of conflagration. This sort of harrowing, he wouldn’t mind. He could welcome this burn, if it seared Alice through him, wrote Alice’s name and voice and consequence through Treavor’s bones.

He would like to kiss this guy forever, hold Alice forever, melt against his being.

But even this, now, is enough.

Even this is so, so fucking much. More than Treavor could have thought to ask for; more than he has any right to hold. (And yet. Alice says he has worth. Alice looks at Treavor, and Treavor knows there’s good in him, something worth lasting and worthy of other-than-pain.)

This is so far-flung from pain. The absolute goddamn opposite. It’s healing, the way that with a glance and a touch, this guy eases the bite of every wrong and woe. The way that with a kiss, Alice blooms Treavor’s knowing into flowered fields, the past grown over with green, dead trees flourishing to offer shade, a place to linger with his hopes and with this man. A place where the thought of some future makes sense, where there’s no sting in looking at the years ahead.

And he with this guy. His guy. His beautiful, his gracious, guy, whose kiss means renewal, whose kiss Treavor returns again, another delicate brushing, lips slightly parted, lingering a little longer in appreciation, in unhurried and ecstatic invitation. ]

[ It doesn't vanish, or strip away to something callous. Treavor meets him with the same gentle ardor, and Alice recognizes in some distant way that it's effortless. That what's being given isn't one being led, permitting the other to determine alone pace and force and where to venture next. He moves, and Treavor moves, and together.

Neither alone, neither insensible, neither left cold. Every motion is an ask and answer, a communion, and there was only one other thing like this in the world: Treavor moving to his side, and Alice's arm easing around unfamiliar shoulders.

Were they unfamiliar.

Is this unfamiliar.

Doesn't he know the invitation in the velvet brush of a parting mouth against his own and how to answer with a gentle deepening? The slightest change in pressure knocks him dizzy, sends the world reeling around him, leaving him certain he'll fall into nonexistence without the arms around him (his gravitational center, his absolute core, this man, and who's to say he isn't falling, and hard?) (Who's to say he didn't already fall.)

It's an explosion of stars behind his eyes, and the shudder of the earth waking (or that's Treavor's chest rising and falling against his own, or Treavor's heart thrumming almost indiscernible from his own, or that's someone's low sound, and it doesn't matter whose throat began the moan, because it's a shared reverb when Alice's lips part over Treavor's.

But it's not unfamiliar at all.

Hasn't he dreamed about this his whole life?

To be complete in himself. To come to another complete self, offer all of and only himself - and be welcomed. To be part of some greater whole. To move effortlessly together.

It breaks him. Of course it breaks him. Inevitable: he had to fall to his knees in fervor before this altar (Treavor, there's all and only Treavor, and never will be anything again as vital as him, certain as the ever-outward expanding of the universe and sunrise and breathing, oh, breathing. There will never be anyone held in Alice's eyes like this man.)

He had to break before he could heal, and ease, and breathe steady. Before the communion and tenderness granted to him like benevolence, like a blessing, miraculous, could be anything but wrenching. But he does ease, trembling; it's as simple as a sigh, and a winding of his arms, and a closer press of his body. An unfraught, rapturous moment when all of life seems to inhabit and be inhabited by him, and luckily, luckily, all of life is held on the perfect curve of Treavor's mouth.

He'd like to linger. He'd like to stay here in this sweetness for the rest of his life, occupying himself with nothing but the wonder of movement and movement, his awestruck regard fixed forever on the man kissing him so ecstatically.

(But he asked for one kiss.)

(But the joint is burning his fingers.)

(But life intrudes.)

(Maybe. Maybe he can ask for another.)

The parting is slow, not an abandonment - a caress of Treavor's cheek, and a touch of forehead to forehead, a silent 'wait, please, wait' - and then Alice reaches back to put the joint down. And then, as though he never left. As though there was no momentary loss, he's settled in once more, eyes fixed on what's held his focus for weeks - this incomparable beauty.

His smile the same wavered smile Treavor gave him on the other side of kissing him - as though in kissing, the expression was passed between them.

Alice's heart gently flayed.

Alice's heart, held out in both hands. ]

Thank you.

[ Hushed, reverent, still they feel inadequate for his gratitude. What he feels deserves something better than those paltry words. ]

Do you know how extraordinary you are?

[ It isn’t departing.

It isn’t severance; the press of Alice’s forehead assures this. And Alice wouldn’t leave him. Alice wouldn’t drop away or break off without warning, and didn’t they hold that kiss together, wasn’t that drift of kisses - brief and yet momentous, lasting-like-forever kisses - a giving they shared? Something they crafted together, so of course there’s no abrupt end, and even the end feels more like a shit into another moment, another phase. Not ending, but continuation.

And there’re those eyes watching him (perfect, perfect blue, when Treavor’s never given much of a shit about blue eyes or any color eyes before; Treavor can’t remember seeing blue eyes or remember anyone else’s eyes, at all, that shit’s never stuck with him, but Christ, he could picture Alice’s eyes from hours away in an instant), and doesn’t that smile feel intimately familiar, and doesn’t he love it on Alice’s face? Loves every expression on that perfect goddamn face, and he could kiss it again, maybe he will kiss Alice and Alice’s face again, but for now it’s enough to watch his guy, letting his sight trace every contour of that face, registering every shifting glow of gorgeous auburn hair.

Everything about this space is dire and lasting. Rare and perdurable.

And there’s gratitude between them, what feels like thanks offered to one another and to the so-often-bullshit circumstances that drew them here. A thanks for what finally united them; a thanks for this perfect, this uninterrupted afternoon.

It wouldn’t be possible with anyone else. The universe wouldn’t align for this peace with any other person.

And Treavor is smiling and shaking his head a little, Treavor knows his eyes are stinging but they were already burning, right, and how could he have known this would happen? That anyone - that this guy, who makes him feel so fucking good - could grace him with words like that?

A fact he’s known for years, maybe decades: He isn’t extraordinary. Well. An extraordinary disappointment, maybe. Everything in his life has shown it, everyone’s told him as much.

But even thinking that feels like an insult to Alice. Who would never bend truth or speak lies at Treavor. Who only offers what he knows. Who Treavor would trust with the whole of his life, and his heart and his soul.

And Treavor’s smiling, a quirk at the corner of his mouth, his expression largely overwhelmed and grateful. ]

I know how good you make me feel.

I know how wonderful you are, or I’m starting to get an idea.

You make me float, did you know that? When you say my name or look at me or…

I’ve never been kissed like that.

[ He cocks his head slightly, nods, eyes never leaving Alice’s, his focus linked with his guy’s. ]

You’re perfect.

[ And then - because he wants to; and then, lingering over the name— ]

Alice.

My Alice, best guy.

[ And his smile’s grown daft, wondering at that name and the irrefutable, assuring truth of the man before him. ]

You look at me, and everything changes.

[ And it's the best fucking thing in the world. ]

Edited 2020-11-15 19:35 (UTC)

[ The easy peace is creeping in again, and Alice lies near and aware of every part of himself as it exists in relation to and contact with Treavor.

The insistent beat of his pulse, throb of not-so-distant arousal, the contented warmth spilling through him like honey, and the flutter of elation. His arms shift and there's a boy (a man, Treavor, his, fuck, that's his someone, his person, his other, the-) still there, still wound inextricably with him. Legs tangled with legs, his hip against a pelvis and a hip against his pelvis (try not to focus long on that, on contact), stomach against his own, chest pressing and pressing and pressing his and they're breathing the same, but Alice can't recall trying to match Treavor's breathing.

(His body, that always felt too tall, too gangling, doesn't feel utterly out of place now beside a body from a similar mold, like clothes that fit well and not just well enough.

And he remembers the first morning, the thought of their similar but not the same hands, and how he had wondered if Treavor's would make his own beautiful. He wonders now if Treavor's form against his own makes him beautiful.

It makes him feel beautiful.)

It doesn't seem possible that there was someone so perfect all this time, who would fit so exactly against him. It seems extraordinary. It also seems impossibly natural.

Everything about Treavor has felt impossibly natural, from the moment Alice looked into his eyes on that harbor. He thinks he should tell him so, but Treavor is speaking, and Alice wants to heed him. He wants to give him every remaining energetic burst, every caress of fingertips - these, along his throat, his shoulder, his bared arm. He'd like to argue that he isn't perfect, that perfection is an unfair expectation, or maybe ascertain Treavor knows he means 'perfect for Treavor', and not to hold Alice up on some pedestal from which he's likely to fall.

But he says something else, and Alice freezes, stricken, his eyes seeking (night sky) (black water) (darkness behind starlight) Treavor's (and that's also perfect, neither up nor down but just there at his own eye level, always accessible should he need to fall into them again.)

My Alice, he said.

And without his safeguards. Without his walls. Here, high, on this perfect day, Alice looks across the space of an inch or two into the dark eyes of his other, his one (yes, that's -)

Treavor.

(Fuck.) (He's.)

Yeah. Yeah. He's the one.

And Alice thinks: It was always going to be you, wasn't it?

And thinks: Am I? Can I be?

He pauses time; it deserves pausing, and a kiss offered like a gift, pressed to Treavor's forehead.

He feels good. He feels good, and he doesn't think it's the weed. He doesn't think there's anything in the world that will make him feel as good as Treavor does, and that's something he wants to commit to memory. Something that needs to be spoken. ]

Nothing makes me feel like you do. If I look at you and make a change, it's because you alter the world for me. Make it brighter. Make it charming, and soft, and full of wonder.

That's important, Treavor. You're important to me. And - I can't promise it will be uncomplicated. But I think there's something here worth chasing.

[ He shifts a little, and his arm winds around the other man once more. Alice smiles again, though his voice lowers, and each speaks of something edging shy. ]

Worth revising my five-year plan.

[ His ten-year plan. His life plan. Fuck. ]

Because you - you say 'my Alice', and I find I quite like my name. And I. I'd like to be yours.

I'd like that.

[ A five-year plan.

If anyone else had mentioned it, Treavor might have laughed. Would have laughed. Because anyone who pieces out their future that way’s probably a stodgy sort of nerd who’s got no room for improvisation or fun (or a going-nowhere would-be-ruffian), and because setting out plans is a good way of calling down failure. Anyway, what’s the fun in a plan? And what’s the fucking point?

It’s what he’s declared time and again. What he said when he forfeited required classes for the sake of scattered electives; what he told himself when he quit attending half his classes, when he spent all his time with his camera or a revolving group of sort-of-friends at sort-of-parties. What he told Sheldon when Sheldon wouldn’t shut the fuck up about ‘hey but what’re you going to do anyway.’ What he told any date who asked, before he stopped attempting dates and stuck to hook-ups.

It’s what he told his family (in softer terms, often mumbled and half-lost) again and again, wishing they’d fuck off with their ‘now Treavor you need to do something’ bullshit, their ‘it needs to be a respectable something,’ their ‘if you had an ounce of spine you wouldn’t be back here in New York, taking jobs from our hands.’ (Eventually they did fuck off with that. Eventually a while ago, when it became clear he in fact wasn’t going to find a plan or make a plan or manage to stick to anything beyond the day-to-day of his not-really-job at his family’s firm.

It isn’t really better this way, with them resigned to his bottom-of-the-barrel place within their watch. But at least it means a little less griping from them.)

This is different, though, the way everything with Alice is different. Alice mentions a five-year plan, and Treavor glimpses a flash of meticulous calculations, of steps and maneuvers planned just-so. And what Treavor hears is Alice - painstaking in his designs, very nearly fussy (okay, maybe pretty actually kind of fussy) in everything he does - offering to open space for Treavor, to speak into possible being a possible future together.

Which is a brave thing and a generous thing to offer. Which sets Treavor surprised and smiling, attempting quiet encouragement even before he speaks. (The guy should knows that Treavor understands. That treavor doesn’t take his meaning lightly.)

(True, revising any plan around Treavor isn’t a good idea. Treavor’s a mess and he knows it, and he knows Alice should know it, and probably Alice does know it when the sun strikes a little less perfect and weed’s not a part of the equation.

Should he warn Alice? Maybe he should warn Alice. Or, no, why drag graveled details into this sun-struck afternoon? He’ll warn Alice another time, if he needs to. If Alice somehow hasn’t worked it out for himself.

And anyway. It strikes Treavor that he might like to live in this idea right now. Would like to curl himself in the thought that Alice might be inclined to make room for Treavor in his life.

It might not be so bad being part of a five-year plan. So long as that plan is Alice’s, and so long as it involves the two of them together.)

(Fuck, what would it be like to look ahead at anything beyond a roil of question marks and nothing?

What would it be like to look ahead every day, even on the darkest days, and see Alice waiting always, and Treavor rising to meet him, Treavor working day after day to meet him better, and prove worthy of this change of plans?)

This guy is wonderful.

Treavor’s guy is wonderful. ]

Hey, that’s good. Because I like your name a lot. It’s got a good sound. It conjures a great guy.

Really sticks with you.

[ It’s true he’d liked Alice’s name from day one, even if he hadn’t given the guy any kind of chance.

It’s true that since the day he awoke on Alice’s sofa, Treavor’s found himself reciting the name, relishing the name at odd moments, just to feel its form in his mouth and feel the world turned bright with his syllables.

And, speaking with appreciation, eyes slipping half-shut as he lingers in the sounds— ]

Alice.

[ That’s his thumb brushing Alice’s jawline, that’s his forefinger brushed the side of Alice’s face, deliberate and soft. That’s Treavor smiling warmly, reassuring, and yes, maybe smitter. ]

My Alice.

Definitely my Alice.

[ A small sigh, a nuzzle, and then he's seeking Alice's eyes again. ]

Complicated I can do. Complicated’s about all I know…

As long as it’s not too much for you.

[ A flash of concern, and his caress pauses, turns to a gentle hold. ]

I don’t want to make too much trouble for my best and only guy.

[ It feels good to say. Feels like relief and joy to think, the same way that hearing Alice call Treavor important thrilled him. ]

But hey, if you’re up for the challenge, I bet we can work it out.

[ A pause and a smile, a moment as he brushes his thumb along that jawline, then moves that thumb - his own thumb - to his lips, presses a kiss to his thumb, brushes his thumb at Alice’s jaw. And he cocks his head. ]

You’d really change your plan for me?

I don’t… I’m not big on planning, myself. But I’d like to be a part of yours. I’d like that a whole, whole lot.

Edited 2020-11-15 22:58 (UTC)

[ It's not easy to hold a coherent thought in his head, between the lethargic tug of the weed and the caresses lavished on him. (This is heaven, he thinks again. This is ecstasy.) His skin lights brilliant beneath Treavor's touch, his neck arches to allow the nuzzle (beg for it) (invite more and more), and there's a gasp of air and a huffed laugh.

(People routinely ask to touch his fucking beard like it's a pet he's carrying around. And some people don't ask at all, just dive right in, Alice snapping What the fuck?! and throwing a hand up to knock the intruder off his face, and oh, okay, he's the crazy one. It isn't that he minds people touching his beard - if he minded, he'd shave it off.

The same story for his hair. People (women, why is it always women?) want to play with it like he's a Barbie doll, and sometimes he'll sit and let them braid it with his eyes rolled and his mouth set in grim irritation, sure. People (men) want to pull on it while fucking.

Sure. All right.

If he minded, he'd cut it off.

He doesn't mind.

But it does nothing for him.

It. Did nothing for him.

This does something for him. How Treavor had his hand wound in Alice's hair, not pulling, not knotted or yanking. Treavor's thumb with the memory of a kiss on its pad, Treavor's every perfect touch leaves him shaken.

(There's something niggling at him, gnawing at the edges of his pleasure.)

He wants to guide Treavor's hand over every part of himself, echo every touch he ever endured with passive disinterest. He wants to know how easily he can be sundered now, can bow into a palm against his chest, into the coaxing of a fingertip at his throat.

(Something Treavor said, about.)

He wants to melt, and kiss some more, and maybe Treavor will let him gently - gently! - catch his lower lip between his teeth.

All of this, because today is lovely, and he's definitely verging towards stoned now that his heart is starting to calm itself down - and they're together, finally together, and Treavor is the One.

(That's it. The thing Treavor said.)

Alice reaches up, seeks Treavor's hand with his own and pulls it down, out of distraction range, and hums a sound: a man trying to shake off thrall, even if his eyes still track Treavor's. He said.

He said. I don't want to make too much trouble.

Alice's smile fades as the entirety of meaning sinks in, as his heart shatters down the center. (The desires, the lethargy, the dizzied warmth notions recede, and the world clarifies a little; he wishes it wouldn't. He wishes they could have held in that perfect sphere of softness just a little longer, but Treavor thinks Alice meant he's the complication, and that's gutting.

And Treavor doesn't understand, but needs to know, that Alice is the complication. And that's gutting, too.)

Softly, he manages: ]

Bunny.

[ As if to say, No, you've got it all wrong.

Or, How could you think that I meant you.

Or, Do you know how much I adore you. You wonder. You startling miracle.

He relinquishes the hand in favor of stroking his fingertips along Treavor's hairline, and then offering a cupped palm against his cheek. ]

I'm the complication.

[ He pauses, considering. Treavor drinks. Heavily. And that's a complication, and it's trouble, and it's something they need to deal with. Eventually.

But what he's bringing to Treavor's door is worse, isn't it? ]

I can't be out. [ He didn't mean to blurt that, even quietly, even with the pain lurking in his throat, so hurriedly, he adds: ] Not yet. But if you can bear with me. Wait for me to pass the bar -

[ Treavor knows, he remembers, that his life is handed to him. He also remembers telling Treavor the reason for the internship was to get out from under his father's financial hold.

He shouldn't have pressed this forward. He shouldn't have kissed Treavor. And he shouldn't be so frightened now of what could happen, of the absence of a safety net, of the lack of money.

But he's young. And he's terrified of all the walls and pyres that exist beyond his line of sight.

...And despite that. Despite that. He'd take this small risk, because Treavor is something worth chasing. Alice's eyes hold all that longing; if he can reach the finish line, then maybe. Maybe Treavor is what he can have.

Bar. Junior partnership. Treavor. The five-month plan. Three, if he pushes. Fuck. He'll push. For Treavor, he'll push. ]

Could you give me a few months of 'complicated'? Please, I.

[ It occurs to him belatedly that Treavor could very well say 'no'. He'd be right to say 'no'. There's no reason why Treavor should accommodate this unreasonable cowardice, this spinelessness, this.

He closes his eyes, holding on a moment longer to the nearness of the body against him, his hand slipping to Treavor's shoulder. And in the space between what he said and what Treavor will say, before there's an ending or a continuing, wreckage or relief, he shoves aside everything else, keeping only the warmth of a body, and the sound of blues from his phone, and the sunlight, and the smell of plants and weed and Treavor and himself, and the subtle sway of the hammock.

Just one more heartbeat of it, where the heart keeping time was in love, and he was smart enough to commit that to memory. ]

[ Oh. No. Oh no, what did… What happened?

Treavor doesn’t know where the fade came from, or how to ease that smile back.

Or. Alice doesn’t want that ease right now. Alice is telling him something in that hum, in the way he’s taken Treavor’s hand. Not tearing away Treavor’s touch, but asking for a moment, a pause. A space to let in some unknown word or thought or subject, and if there’s anything Alice needs to address, Treavor won’t bar him. Will only watch quietly, making certain his eyes never waver, making certain Alice knows Treavor’s here no matter what.

He wants, he badly wants Alice to feel safeguarded and bolstered. Wants Alice to feel even a part of the security that Treavor feels when this guy holds him, brushes against him, heeds any word he says.

It means something that Treavor finds himself at a precipice, not knowing the shape of the could-be-trouble ahead and yet not flinching away, not trying to bat off the inevitable, not shrinking inside even a little. This is a wherewithal he rarely finds. A strength granted by the man who holds his hand with such care, who looks at if his heart’s been wrenched.

And Treavor wants to fix it.

And Treavor has to wait. Listen. (And if what Alice has to say is hard to hear, he’ll listen anyway, and register its every tone.)

So he keeps his quiet, expression carefully attentive, trying not to show worry (he can’t help a little bit of worry; Alice looks so stricken), doing his best not to impose or do more than curl his fingers just slightly, so slightly against Alice’s hand.

(And Alice calls him ’Bunny.’ Only ‘Bunny,’ and Treavor loves the sound of it, how he could be, how he is Alice’s bunny.

At the same time, Alice calls him ‘Bunny,’ and the word seems stark, alone; a correction with a note of sorrow, and again Treavor wants to reach out, hold his hand over Alice’s heart and offer healing.)

Hard not to melt into the drift of those fingers at his hair; impossible to wholly muffle a choked sound at Alice’s words: ’I’m the complication.’ Words fired with pains Treavor doesn’t know the outlines of. Words that ache to hear, because what Treavor reads in those words is blame, is a bearing down beneath some burden this man should never need to take alone.

Treavor tries to be still, but his hand moves to Alice’s cheek, offering quiet, quiet caresses in kind. (He can’t let Alice hang there without succor of some kind. He can’t watch Alice suffer distant. He won’t.) And he hears Alice’s words (and he hates the history they whisper, everything that’s conspired to leave Alice severed from so much, everything that means Alice has to hide (it’s his father, isn’t it? or his father’s part of it; Alice said something about, about wanting to break away, support himself, and maybe this is why, okay, okay, it sucks, fuck Alice’s dad if that’s what it is, but it’ll be okay, Treavor’ll help make sure Alice gets through things okay). His poor fucking guy. His poor fucking guy, who’s go so much shit at his shoulders.

Treavor wraps his arms around Alice, tight, tighter. Speaks softly— ]

It’s okay.

[ And then just holds Alice, nudging at his head, his hand stroking steady assurance at Alice’s neck.

This goddamn guy’s carrying too much. Treavor’s poor fuckin, beautiful goddamn guy. ]

Alice, hey. That’s not so bad. It’s not even that complicated. Not for me.

[ He traces a thumb from Alice’s temple to his cheek. Nudges the guy’s head again, hums a little lilting sound and places a light, light kiss against Alice’s hair. ]

I’d take a few years of complicated if you wanted it. Needed it.

[ Another kiss to the head. ]

There’s no rush, okay guy? As long as I’m here with you and you’re with me. You don’t have to worry.

[ Nudge, nudge. ]

Actually if you could tamp down the worry, that’d be pretty great. You’ve got enough shit to deal with without wondering if I… Hey. I’m not going anywhere. And I’ll take complicated with you over easy trails without you, you know? Any day of any month of any year.

That’s a Treavor Pendleton promise.

[ If Alice allows, he’ll take Alice’s hand carefully, almost deftly, and kiss the back of it once, then again, seeking Alice’s eyes after. ]

And I’m not gonna rush you. I don’t want to rush you.

I’ve got my Alice. That’s all that matters. Me and my beautiful guy.

A beautiful goddamn guy and his Bunny.

Edited 2020-11-16 02:11 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OPEN RP POST

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject