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Freckles.
Scattered across his cheeks. Spotted along his collarbones. Dancing up his arms. Dappled down his back.
They were a part of him, and a part that were loved.
Shedding clothes just for comfort, all they needed were each other. Hands in hands, hands on cheeks, hands in hair, on shoulders, muscled arms, hips, thighs. Pale skin contrasted against rich olive skin. Pale skin complimented by freckles.
He liked to try and count them when they were together, whether they were listening to voices from a screen, music from a speaker or just the silence of their company. He liked to look closely at each one, tried to separate them from one another. Sometimes it just seemed like they blended together.
Freckles everywhere. Covering his cheekbones, above his eyes, around the dimples that deepened every time he laughed or grinned.
The more time they spent together, the more freckles he discovered on his love.
The first time he pulled off his shirt at the beach with their friends, he wore a galaxy on his back. Like someone had simply sprinkled cocoa powder over him while he was lying down to sunbathe. They followed his every curve, every bone, every bump of his spine.
He was a masterpiece of constellations on a night sky of pale skin.
When he wore shorts on hot days and draped himself over the couch, arm over his eyes in exhaustion. Finding freckles along his calves and around his knees was like a little game, laying kisses upon the rarities and laughing when swatted away.
The evenings after haircuts where they laid in bed, bodies fit together like puzzle pieces. They shared the same spaces and breathed one another in. Bright nights where the moon was full and gentle, she would illuminate the points of chocolate brown over the nape of his neck, dancing where they would often hide beneath longer hair.
And those nights where they laughed, clothes no longer in their thoughts as they fought to remove any possible space between them. Freckles were most subtle on his thighs, but warm. They giggled and glowed under the gentle touch of fingertips, under the press of lips, under the heat of a tongue.
They were for only one person, they were for only him and he cherished them. They were intimate.
But to pick a favourite part of this body that wore freckles on pale skin wasn’t as difficult a choice as it seemed. Every inch of skin, every freckle, every sparkle in ocean eyes; he loved all of him unconditionally and knew there was not a single piece of his existence that could be replaced or improved.
Flawless.
Yet on lazy days when the most common collection of words was, “I can’t be bothered”: those days were the ones he treasured most.
Days where they couldn’t be bothered with clothes, with cooking, with cleaning up or moving. Days where they could lay in the gentle warmth of the sun and drift. Days where the most attention was given to pretty the patch of freckles that decorated that pale tummy.
They weren’t alike other parts of him where freckles were spotted at random. Uniquely, they clustered on the left side of his belly button. They crawled and stretched up to tickle against the bottom of his ribs and dipped just below his waistband. It was impossible not to adore them, more concentrated than his thighs or arms or shoulders. Similar to his cheekbones more than anything.
They were his favourite part.
He liked to lay between long legs, sometimes falling asleep with his head against his love’s hip. He’d lay there, smile on his lips, and trail a finger from freckle to freckle, losing track of his personal constellations and not caring when he couldn’t follow the shape in his thoughts.
Soft murmurs of, “Ev, that tickles,” that weren’t much more than an excuse to add to the sounds of birds and breathing. He never asked for him to stop and both knew he’d never want that.
When tan hands rested on the outline of his ribs, laughter filled the air above them. Lips that wouldn’t stop smiling dropped kiss after kiss on impossibly-soft skin, drowning in his favourite sound, appreciating his favourite person and loving his favourite part of this body. Needing to hold said body down when he blew raspberries, despite the other’s breathless protests. Teasing. Loving.
Fortunately, limited movement included pulling that tan face up, freckled fingers framing the cheeky smile. When they kissed he felt spotted butterflies beat their wings against his lungs and he wished he could spend all eternity like that; eyes closed, laying occasional kisses to pale, pretty collarbones and letting his finger draw pretty messages and pictures over the soft skin of his favourite tummy.