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Virgil kisses like a storm.
It’s just the faintest rumble in the distance at first, the space between them on the couch slowly shrinking, a sidelong glance, a smirk, flashes of teeth biting down on a soft, pillowy lip. Some murmured excuse about being tired as he moves closer, puts a hand on Roman’s arm; fingertips constantly lift up and fall down, like a light drizzle.
Roman can feel it gathering in the suddenly heavy air - the smell of ozone, the preludes of electricity pulling his skin into goosebumps. The sky overhead grows gray as Virgil shifts, throwing a leg over Roman’s lap in a move too casual to be anything but painstakingly deliberate. He drops a hand down, rubbing his thumb in small circles on Virgil’s thigh.
Roman keeps his face stubbornly turned away at first, gazing vaguely forward at the movie. He loves this part, watching him brew. Virgil growls in the back of his throat, a rumble of thunder. Neither a tempest nor Virgil will be ignored. (Then again, they’re practically the same at this point. Thrashing winds and cracks of lightning and an untamable wildness rolled up into a boy with dark smudges under his eyes and a hoodie worn soft with use.)
Virgil rests his chin on Roman’s shoulder, instant. “Roman,” he murmurs into his ear. Roman makes a vague humming sound, letting his hand drift a little higher. Virgil makes a muffled groan, of frustration and anticipation and everything in between.
“Roman,” he says again. His breath comes in hot puffs, winds off the distant horizon.
“Yes, my dark and stormy night?” Roman says, as if he can’t feel the electricity crackling in the air, as if his pulse isn’t quickening in anticipation, as if he could pay attention to anything else but the storm beside him.
Virgil makes a small noise; Roman doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s scowling. Bold in some ways, still so anxious in others - Virgil still has trouble asking for what he wants. Roman’s trying to help him out there.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what on Earth you want, storm cloud.” He squeezes Virgil’s thigh lightly. It’s okay. I want this too.
The first rains fall, softly. “What” - Virgil drops a light kiss on his jaw - “could possibly” - his temple - “be more” - his cheek - “interesting” - his neck - “than me” - his shoulder - “hm?”
Maybe it’s the way he says it - cocky and teasing, for he can feel Roman’s tension. Maybe it’s the words themselves - always a little unsure, despite everything. Maybe it’s the rain falling - melting Roman. Regardless, Roman’s hands slide under Virgil’s thighs, and, with just a little pull, Virgil is in his lap, straddling him.
Virgil only looks surprised for a moment, a brief break in cloud cover, before that infuriating smirk overtakes his features. “Thought so, Princey.”
Roman glares at him, in the in-between of playful and genuine. He wants nothing more than to kiss away that smirk, to have Virgil panting, needy, desperate. Virgil cups Roman’s cheek, hand cool as fresh rain.
Roman, suddenly, thinks of a better idea.
He tilts his head and kisses Virgil’s palm, sliding his own fingers around Virgil’s. He kisses Virgil’s wrist, lips parted. He kisses Virgil’s knuckles. He lets the pad of Virgil’s thumb run along his open lip.
Virgil’s eyes are lightning gray, but they darken to the color of storm clouds as he presses, just a little, just to see how much Roman will give him. The bottom row of Roman’s teeth graze against Virgil’s thumb.
It’s everything. Time after time, Roman will give him everything he asks for.
Virgil swallows, a lapping of flood waters.
Roman’s tongue flicks out, glides over Virgil’s thumb once, twice. Eyes locked onto Virgil.
Virgil’s voice is strained, raspy with electricity. “You just like teasing me, don’t you?”
Roman lets Virgil’s thumb fall from his mouth with an agonizing slide. He presses a final kiss, butterfly-light, to it and smirks. “No idea where you came up with that.”
Virgil huffs out a laugh at that, shaking his head. “Damn, I love you.”
The sky breaks open.
Roman surges up, and Virgil is there to meet him. He’s smiling, laughing into the kiss with howls of wind and cracks of lightning.
One billion volts of raw, wild energy surge through where their lips are connected, zapping down Roman’s spine, one vertebrae at a time.
The air smells of burning ozone, and Roman can see the lightning - flashes going off behind his eyelids. His hands don’t know where to settle, sentient things afraid of getting burned if he touches the storm himself for too long. They tug on Virgil’s hair, cradle his face, run under his shirt and up his back, across a sky of smooth clouds.
Virgil takes care of the problem for him, grabbing his wrists and pinning them against the back of the couch. He pulls back and watches through wicked lightning eyes as Roman arches up, trying to reach him. The hands on his wrist hold him back.
“Now who’s the tease?” Roman growls.
Virgil just chuckles, a low crash of thunder, and looks at Roman like he can see something Roman’s ever been able to. “Still you, Princey.”
Fine then. If his storm cloud thinks him a tease, who is Roman to argue?
Roman kisses his way up the long slope of Virgil’s neck, nips and pecks and sucks. Against him, Virgil gasps and trembles like trees thrashed about by biting winds.
Experimentally, Roman wriggles his wrists, but Virgil, knowing him so well, holds tight. Roman redoubles his efforts, grazing his teeth over that spot he knows makes Virgil melt.
“That’s cheating,” Virgil breaths, eyes fluttering shut.
Roman smiles against his neck. “All’s fair in love and war.” This is both.
Achingly gently, Roman bites down, and Virgil gasps, hold faltering. Triumphantly, Roman’s hands break free, one tangling in the hair at the back of Virgi's head, one thumbing at the lightning-sharp edge of Virgil’s hipbone.
Virgil makes a noise of amusement and surges impossibly closer, kissing Roman like lightning and thunder and howling winds and biting rains and rolling clouds and Virgil, his favorite of them all.
Roman kisses him until his jaw hurts and his chest heaves and he keeps kissing him, trying to tell Virgil something with every twitch of his fingers, every press of his lips, every beat of his heart.
I love you I love you I love you Virgil Virgil Virgil
Slowly and gradually as clouds dispersing, the storm abates. It takes a moment for them to both realize, to figure out that desperate, grasping hands and demanding lips have been replaced by soft traces and playful, smiling pecks.
Virgil pulls back, eventually. He’s gorgeous like this - purple hair mused and lips kiss-swollen and eyes sparkling and cheeks bright. A hickey is budding on the side of his neck, and Roman presses his thumb against it, softly. He marvels at how it goes pale for a moment, then the color returns all at once, stronger than before.
“Yeah.” Virgil shrugs. “That was alright, I guess.”
Roman squawks indignantly, batting at him; Virgil, a laugh shining in his eyes, quiets him with a brief kiss. A final shock of lightning. He shuffles out of Roman’s lap and back onto the couch. He’s flushed, smiling to himself like he’s been let in on the world’s most wondrous secret.
Roman holds open his arms, and Virgil goes willingly, resting his head against his prince’s chest.
“I love you, Princey,” Virgil mumbles, almost as if he doesn’t want Roman to hear it.
Roman smiles softly, dropping a final kiss into Virgil’s hair. He’s nearly shy like this, suddenly determined to revert to his emo nightmare state after being so open. It’s alright. There isn’t a way Virgil could be that Roman wouldn’t love him. So, instead, he hugs Virgil tighter against his chest, runs a thumb along the sweep of his cheek, and lets the last of the thunder roll away.
“I love you, too, storm cloud.”
Roman’s never disappointed when the tempest ends. How could he be when he’s left with Virgil - a storm, an emo nightmare, but, above it all, his best friend - in his arms?
Roman simply sits with Virgil, content, and watches.
Waiting for the next time a storm rolls in off the horizon.