Archive of Our Own

“Well, here we are. Mi casa es su casa, as they say. I’d offer you a tour, but there’s no point, really.”

The front door squeaks mutedly on its hinges as it swings shut behind them. Lillium moves further into the dim space with the ease of familiarity; the faint moonlight that streams in through the blinds is enough for him to navigate the sparse furnishings by. Iris hesitates, shuffling his feet.

“You can have first go in the shower,” Lillium offers, flicking on a table lamp. The lampshade is embroidered with begonias: perhaps the crafter’s signature. “Bathroom’s through there.”

He gestures wearily off to the side, partially silhouetted against the buttery light. Iris looks in the direction indicated, and his gaze snags on a crowded bookshelf. Atop it, next to a stand of spiral notebooks, sit two small seedlings, a teddy bear chef complete with toque blanche and apron, and a snowglobe. 

“Is that your way of telling me I smell rank?” Iris deadpans, taking a couple tentative steps toward the bookshelf. He reaches out and runs a finger along the deckle edge of the nearest book.

When Lillium doesn’t volley, Iris glances over at him, in time to see him bend, one hand resting on the table for balance, and tug at his laces until he can pull his boots off. For a moment Lillium is a study in shifting shadows and light, a chiaroscuro that Iris’s fingers ache suddenly, powerfully, to paint. They exist in the rubble of civilisation and Lillium is the kind of lovely that should be plunged in amber and preserved, made precious.

He forces his gaze back to the bookshelf. Lillium doesn’t seem to notice — possibly because now he’s trying to shrug out of his vest, hissing under his breath as the movement aggravates his shoulder. It was inevitable that they have a couple of run-ins with glitches and spawncampers on their way.

Iris finds himself striding over, closing the distance between them, before he consciously decides to. Lillium freezes at Iris’s soft, barely-there touch on his arm.

“Let me?” Iris says quietly, somewhere between asking permission and just holding his breath. 

Watching him steadily, Lillium slumps down onto the nearest chair in a sort of controlled collapse. His long eyelashes flicker like moths’ wings in the low light. 

Gingerly, Iris slips off first Lillium’s gun holster and then his vest, gratified by Lillium’s unpained sigh of relief. He sets both items down on the table, his fingers dragging thoughtfully over them.

There is a question waiting for him in Lillium’s eyes. Instead of confronting it, Iris clears his throat and mutters, “Just so you know, I’m totally gonna steal some of your clothes to wear.” It’s not like he has a choice. He’s already used the change of clothes packed in his bag.

He stumbles out of his own boots and pointedly leaves them next to Lillium’s, for him to put away while Iris is in the shower. He smirks when he hears Lillium snort behind him and all too fondly call him a punk.

When Iris gets out of the shower, he puts on dark grey sweatpants, a cotton t-shirt, and a soft cableknit sweater: all oversized on him, all Lillium’s. They’re just the clothes at the top of Lillium’s drawer; the thought of snooping around in the slightest feels obscurely like transgression. 

He finds Lillium in the kitchen area, tipping a pancake onto a plate. On seeing him, Lillium grabs an oven mitt and retrieves three more pancakes from a baking paper-lined tray in the preheated oven. They make for a sizeable tower on the plate.

“You’re compulsive about breakfast food, you know that?” Iris snarks, padding over and leaning with his back against the counter, arms folded across his chest. “Also, between you making me pancakes and me wearing your clothes, this all feels very morning-after.”

To his credit, Lillium doesn’t miss a beat before replying, mock-offended, “Whoever said these were for you?” 

Iris rolls his eyes and hops up onto the kitchen counter, perching so that his legs swing freely over the side of it. Grousing good-naturedly, Lillium transfers three pancakes to a second plate and hands it to him. There’s already syrup and a small pat of butter waiting on the table; Iris helps himself.

His first bite of fluffy pancake, kept warm in the oven so that the butter now melts perfectly on it, is in a word heavenly. Iris makes a strangled noise in lieu of an actual moan. The hot food is just the thing after their treacherous journey.

Naturally, though, when he catches sight of the smug look on Lillium’s face, Iris scowls at him.

Lillium just snickers and leans against the counter to tuck in. Half a pancake later, Iris belatedly notices how close he’s standing, with his flexed bicep practically touching Iris’s thigh.

Neither of them moves away, though — at least, not until Lillium drags himself off for his turn in the shower, smugly leaving Iris to do the dishes. Lillium salutes him with two fingers at his temple; Iris returns the favour using just one finger, smiling incongruously sweetly as he does.

It’s calming, though, or maybe more like steadying, to stand at the sink and bury his hands in warm water and soap suds. Once he’s done, Iris finds himself again at awkward liberty. Eventually he gravitates back to the bookshelf, desultorily scanning all the titles on the cracked spines. He’s too muggy-headed to properly focus on reading.

The thing is, this place is Lillium’s home, or at least the closest thing he has to one. Iris doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge, nor what to do with the niggling feeling that although Lillium inhabits this place, it seems just a little empty, a little too lonely. The kind of loneliness that manifests in well-worn book spines and scrupulously clean furnishings. Walls that have only known a solitary, occasional voice.

“Anything good?” comes Lillium’s voice, softer than usual, a mere susurrus above the ambient noise of crickets outside in the night, and the low hum of a generator.

Shrugging, Iris glances at him over his shoulder. Lillium looks somehow vulnerable this way, his hair damp and curling slightly at the collar of his V-neck.

“Yeah, it’s a pretty eclectic collection,” Lillium says at last. He disappears into the kitchen, absently stretching his bruised back muscles.

The backdrop of muted sounds, of metal spoons clinking against ceramic, imbues the air with a lived-in feeling. Iris bites his lip and chooses a book at random off the shelf. 

He takes it with him to the kitchen. At the boundary where carpet gives way to tiles, his toes start curling instinctively, minimising contact with the cold flooring. For the second time tonight Iris hops up onto the counter. It’s at a good height for him. When he’s atop it he’s eye to eye with Lillium.

Lillium is fixing tea for them, because apparently he can only hold off on feeding Iris for the time it takes him to shower. Iris thumbs through the crinkly pages of his chosen book, barely noticing the words. Instead, his eyes follow Lillium as he moves confidently around the kitchen. 

“Read me something,” Lillium demands suddenly, and when Iris gives him a startled look, the curve of his lips is more than enough indication that he’s caught Iris staring. 

So Iris looks down at the page the book is open to, opens his mouth to read aloud — and then flushes. “This is, um. This is pretty raunchy stuff,” he stammers, and goes to flip to another page.

Immediately Lillium’s hand is on his, stopping him. “I think I can handle it,” he says, smooth, insouciant. “That is, if you can.”

Just as quickly, he pulls away again, fetching the kettle off the stove just as the water comes to a boil. 

Iris very nearly growls, stifling himself by clearing his throat. Fine. Almost doggedly he starts reading right where his eyes first land on the page, “It was such pleasure to behold him, such / Enlargement of existence to partake / Nature with him, to thrill beneath his touch, / To watch him slumbering, and to see him wake: / To live with him for ever were too much…” 

“Iris, Iris, where’s your sense of romance?” Lillium cuts him off. He comes around and paws at the book resting on Iris’s lap, as if to rescue it from further defilement. Iris tries not to squirm — or heaven forbid, lean into — the warmth of Lillium’s palm against his thigh. “That’s no way to recite poetry, rattling on like a machine gun. Now, listen.”

Off to the side on the counter, their tea steeps while Lillium begins reading from the next page over. “They were alone, but not alone as they / Who shut in chambers think it loneliness,” he begins, his voice dropping into a lower register, hushed and nuanced. As he speaks, Lillium’s voice conjures images of their post-apocalyptic world as it might have been once upon a time: “The silent ocean, and the starlight bay, / The twilight glow, which momently grew less, / The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay / Around them, made them to each other press.”

He pauses and looks up, meeting Iris’s gaze. Just the intensity of his eyes sends a shudder through Iris, but Lillium is still reciting, still in that strangely hypnotic way, “As if there were no life beneath the sky / Save theirs, and that their life could never die.”

It takes Iris a moment to find his voice again. “Okay, so you’re good at saying words,” he mutters, trying to disguise how disconcerted he is by brushing Lillium off. 

Yet he’s almost disappointed when it works and Lillium’s smile slips — barely, but it does. “It’s one of the longest poems in the English language, so, if you ever want to hear more…” 

He trails off and goes to strain out the tea leaves. “Not alone as loneliness,” Lillium muses, still hung up on the first lines of his recitation.

Blinking rapidly, still slightly flustered, Iris flips through a few more pages.

His voice hesitates at first. “On the southwest side of Capri / we found a little unknown grotto / where no people were and we / entered it completely…”

Noticing the lack of teacups clinking, Iris glances up to find Lillium watching him, his eyes gone dark and soft. Resisting the urge to gulp, Iris finishes reading the stanza aloud: “and let our bodies lose all their loneliness.”

Lillium lets the words fade from the air before responding. “Would you like that?” he asks quietly.

Before Iris can stammer out a reply, Lillium is holding out a hand grandly to him, his shoulders now held lofty and poised. He makes a showy, inviting flourish with his hand.

Iris tilts his head at Lillium in mild confusion but accepts his hand and slips off the counter. The floor is a shock of cold against his bare feet, and he stumbles forward slightly, leaning into Lillium with their hands still clasped.

He stares up at Lillium, suddenly aware of how closely their bodies are pressed. There’s almost an intoxication in standing this way, drinking in the look on Lillium’s face. Lillium’s other hand goes to his waist and, barely aware of what he’s doing, Iris puts his on Lillium’s shoulder.

“Step one,” Lillium murmurs, “visualise a box on the floor. In a waltz your feet go to the corners: across, and then diagonal.” Without breaking eye contact, he gently changes the positioning of their hands. Iris watches and doesn’t realise he’s holding his breath.

“What are you doing?” Iris asks, bemusement bubbling up just under his voice.

“Shh, this is my big romantic move here, teaching you ballroom dancing,” Lillium chides him lightly. That earns him a pointed eye-roll.

“So left foot forward,” Lillium says, unperturbed, stepping back with his right foot. “Then you go across… diagonal, back.” He does the opposite of each instruction: moving forward when Iris pulls away. They maintain a constant distance; they move in sync, aided by Lillium counting under his breath, “One, two three, one, two three.” 

Iris has started to smile without even realising it. Still he can’t help but tease, “Wow, stepping to and fro. Thrilling.”

His counting interrupted, Lillium quirks an eyebrow at him. They falter for a moment, foundering without a beat to follow. Then Lillium says, “Well according to my book, you also turn forty-five degrees each time,” and pulls Iris into a dramatic whirl that’s probably some ways past forty-five degrees. 

There’s not that much space in the cramped kitchen, so as they lurch about in what could charitably be called dancing, teetering on the brink of slipping out of sync with each other, Iris feels the twitch of Lillium’s fingers, subtly directing him away from obstacles like the kitchen counter or the bar stools.

Without warning Lillium spins him into a jazzy little twirl. Iris’s footwork goes to pieces but he’s laughing, their breaths twin rhythms, syncopated in the air.

“Who’s even leading this shit-show?” Iris asks laughingly, still coming down off the thrill.

Lillium shrugs as best as he can while they’re still stepping about together, narrowly missing each other’s feet as the imaginary boxes they draw on the floor become pentagons, and then hexagons, and then goodness knows what strange geometric shapes. Perhaps they tessellate.

“Technically I think you were leading at first, but we’ve switched a bunch of times since.”

Distracted by their conversation, Iris missteps and loses his balance. Without hesitation Lillium moves with him, using his momentum to turn Iris around so that Iris is tucked with his head just under Lillium’s chin. Iris’s back is right up against Lillium’s chest.

Lillium’s hands move again, so that on one side their fingers are interlaced, while on the other side he’s pressing Iris’s right hand against his chest.

“You never said what step two was,” Iris says breathily, unable to suppress the smile that dawns over his face.

“Hmm.” He feels more than hears Lillium’s voice: the vibration of it against the back of his head. Against him, behind him, Lillium begins swaying, shifting his weight from side to side. It’s an almost impish, teasing movement. Iris gives in to the impetus and follows suit.

“This. This is step two,” Lillium says.

Their tea goes cold while they just move together.