Chapter Text
Eliott can feel the back of his hoodie clinging to his skin, water droplets trickling down his neck from his hair. He sits on Lucas’ bed with his hands on his lap, caught between looking at his shoes and at Lucas’ moonlit profile.
“You’re staring.” Lucas murmurs, shy, a hint of a smile on his face as he unfolds a dry t-shirt from the wardrobe.
“I know.” Eliott answers in a hushed voice. “Can you blame me?”
Lucas hides his smile behind the t-shirt, shoulders going up in a half-hearted shrug as he raises his eyebrows teasingly. The image makes Eliott’s heart stutter in his chest, and he makes grabby hands at Lucas until the younger boy fits himself between Eliott’s legs, the black t-shirt balled up at one side of his body.
"We should get changed.” Lucas protests weakly between them, eyeing Eliott’s drenched clothes. Eliott only hums, cupping Lucas’ waist with his hands. “We’ll end up sick if we don’t.”
Eliott looks up at Lucas through his eyelashes, squeezing his hips, and sees how Lucas huffs a little at the soft worth it before giving in. He rests his hands on Eliott’s shoulders with a content sigh, smiling down at Eliott, and Eliott does the same, fitting his hands under Lucas’ sweater.
“Your hands are cold.” Lucas whispers as a shudder shakes his body.
Eliott feels the goosebumps arising after his touch - and a sick, selfish part of him wants to run the pads of his fingers all over Lucas’ body until every inch of skin is burning up; but the rest of him, the part of him that moves with warmth for the boy between his legs, urges him to stop. So he does.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, rubbing Lucas’ sides as an apology. He drops a kiss to Lucas’ ribs through the sweater, soft and lingering, making Lucas’ hands tremble on top of Eliott’s shoulders.
“It’s okay, it just surprised me.”
Eliott hums again, tracing his fingers up and down Lucas’ sides, the damp material rough underneath his fingertips. The sigh Lucas lets out sounds happy; so soft and relaxed Eliott’s heart clenches. Lucas circles Eliott’s neck with his arms, fingers twirling the short hairs on his nape, making Eliott’s smile widen.
Lucas takes one step closer, so close his knees hit the bed, just as Eliott squeezes his legs shut, caging him in. Eliott has to crane his neck up to stare up at Lucas, and he laughs internally at the irony of it all.
“This is a nice view.”
And god, it is. From where he’s sitting, Lucas looks like every single one of Eliott’s dreams. He’s all smooth skin, paled over by the moonlight coming from the window, water droplets rolling down his neck and dark eyes shining against the pitch black night.
“It is?” Lucas jokes, running his hands from behind Eliott’s head to cup his face. Eliott nods against Lucas’ palm. “Mine isn’t too bad, either.”
The adoration laced in his voice makes Eliott’s face flush red, and he grips Lucas’ arms, pulling him down. Lucas bends effortlessly until they’re eye to eye, pressing their foreheads together, and closes his eyes, waiting for Eliott to close the space between them.
Eliott does without hesitation, pressing his thumbs onto the hollow of Lucas’ neck. Their lips slide together with ease, Lucas’ bottom lip between Eliott’s and shy tongues playing hide and seek inside each other’s mouths; it feel so natural Eliott has a hard time believing they’ve kissed for the first time today. The kiss is slow and lazy, no trace of the franticness from the park in sigh, open mouths sliding against each other in comfort.
Eliott hitches his hands up further, startling Lucas when the paw of his hoodie makes contact with his skin. The shocked gasp that leaves Lucas’ mouth breaks them apart, and Eliott laughs against his chin at Lucas’ offended noise.
“Okay, you have to get out of that hoodie, Elsa. And so do I, for the matter.” Lucas says as he pulls away. Eliott laughs again, breathlessly, fingers running down Lucas’ arms as Lucas takes a few steps backwards until he’s out of Eliott’s reach. “I’ll go get a towel. Stay there.”
Eliott watches as Lucas leaves the room, snorting as Lucas stumbles over the sneakers by the door. He bites his lip to cover up his laughter when he gives him the middle finger. He can hear noises from the other room, which Eliott guesses is the bathroom, and he winces at the thudding noise against a wall before a string of curses breaks through the silent room. Eliott’s smile widens at that.
Lucas enters the room again a minute later with a towel in hand.
“This is the only one I could find, um..” he holds up the vibrant pink towel for Eliott to see, sheepishly. “It’s Mika’s.”
Eliott stands up and walks over to Lucas, fetching the towel from Lucas’ grip before lifting it up to his face to inspect it.
“It’s cute,” he concludes, reassuringly, watching as Lucas tries to hide a sigh of relief with a cough. “It has character.”
“Or something.”
Eliott laughs.
“Or something.” he agrees. He hands Lucas the towel back. “Hold this for a second.”
And with that he goes to grab the hem of his hoodie, raising his arms up and pulling it over his head. The wet fabric peeling off from his skin makes him grimace. It feels uncomfortable, like wearing jeans after a shower or sleeping on your sunburnt shoulders, and he doesn’t think twice before letting the hoodie fall to the floor with a loud thud.
Lucas’ eyes roam all over his naked chest both with appreciation and terror, as if he can’t make up his mind, and he has to laugh at Lucas’ distressed expression. He takes the towel from between Lucas’ hands before he has the chance to overthink, making a quick job of drying his torso. Then he picks up the discarded t-shirt at the foot of Lucas’ bed and puts it on.
Lucas blinks slowly, feelings of betrayal and disappointment clear on his face that he tries to bat away.
“Right.” His cheeks are flushed as he looks between the towel and Eliott, turning around to pick up a t-shirt for himself. Eliott hands him the towel before sitting down in bed with a teasing smile, earning himself an eye-roll.
He watches as Lucas throws his sweater over his head. It lands close to Eliott’s hoodie, and the image makes him strangely emotional. Lucas does a more delicate job at drying himself, and Eliott has to support himself on his hands to avoid falling over as the moon illuminates half of Lucas’ back, the light bathing his skin in white, as little water droplets roll down his shoulder-blades until they disappear under the waistband of his jean.
“Can I?” Lucas turns his head to look at him, tilting his head to one side. Eliott gestures to the towel. “Your hair is still wet. Can I?”
Lucas nods then, muted. Unmoving.
Eliott crosses the room in quick strides, withdrawing the towel from Lucas’ hold before rubbing his hair with it. Lucas falls back into Eliott’s touch, letting Eliott dry his hair and, eventually, his neck, his shoulder-blades, the dip of his spine, the small of his back. Eliott runs the towel with gentle care across Lucas’ skin, catching every drop of water reflected from the moon, entranced with the shadows the clouds cast on his skin whenever they pass by Lucas’ window.
After a while he lets the towel drop to the floor, satisfied with his work. Lucas whines softly, chasing Eliott’s touch blindly, and Eliott doesn’t think before placing his hands of Lucas’ shoulderblades. He watches as his fingers explore Lucas’ skin, from the top of his shoulders all the way down to the waistband of his jeans, fingers pressing into the dimples of his back, mesmerized by the smooth glide of his hands running up and down Lucas’ back. Lucas’ content sighs fill the room, light and relaxed, as Eliott traces the three moles on his right shoulder and draws love declarations on his spine for a long time.
He worries Lucas might be falling asleep after the younger boy lets out a characteristically loud yawn, and he halts his ministrations to a stop. Lucas lets out a confused little noise at that, attempting to turn around with clumsy movements when Eliott’s hands leave his body. Eliott shushes him gently, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder and using the proximity to steal Lucas’ t-shirt out from his grip.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs against Lucas’ neck. He throws the t-shirt over his head, fumbling with Lucas’ limbs until he gets the sleeves over his arms. “Let’s go to sleep, okay?”
“No,” Lucas protests, voice raspy, one step away from a deep slumber. “Stay like this for a little more. It’s nice. Please?”
And so they stay like this, Eliott’s arms thrown snugly around Lucas’ waist, his chin resting on Lucas’ shoulder, because it’s been a day, and Eliott already knows he would never deny the boy between his arms anything. They stay like that, staring at the wall, Lucas half asleep against Eliott and Eliott pressing small kisses to his neck and jaw, the moon illuminating their profiles; they stay like that until Eliott’s feet ache and his eyelids feel heavy, and then for a little while more, because he might not have this tomorrow. But he does today, and he’s willing to make the sacrifice.
For this boy, he’d make every sacrifice.