Work Text:
MOONLIGHT SHADOW
Arthur and Antonio love messing with each other.
Arthur, for instance, doesn’t speak Spanish. He refuses with all his heart and soul to learn Spanish. But he learnt the basics in school, and still remembers enough to purposefully mispronounce every word he encounters. It makes Antonio’s eye twitch every time.
There’s only one Spanish word he pronounces perfectly, one reserved for Antonio and for Antonio only.
The word is gilipollas.
He also pretends to forget he has a permanent ban from the kitchen and enters it while confidently proclaiming he’s cooking today, because there are few things more hilarious than a hysterical Antonio rushing after him to try and stop him. One time, Arthur pulled this out while Antonio was in the shower. The picture he snapped of the infuriated Spaniard naked, wet and with shampoo dripping from his hair is one of his most precious possessions.
Antonio, on the other hand, is more of a practical joker.
He will hide a wireless speaker in Arthur’s office and play eerie sounds while he’s working. He will put food colouring in the showerhead before Arthur goes in, then smile innocently when he comes out completely orange. Sometimes, just sometimes, he will put cayenne in Arthur’s food and wait patiently until he bites into it.
Occasionally, if he’s feeling particularly petty, he will make tea by heating up the water in the microwave and then pouring too much sugar on it, making sure Arthur sees everything and ignoring his comments about how he’s doing it all wrong and that’s not tea at all.
These are only a few examples.
This asshole championship has been going on from the beginning. It’s the core of their relationship; what brought them together, even (because alcohol and two stupidly proud men claiming they’re a better kisser than the other are not a good combination). It flabbergasts their friends, who can’t understand them and may or may not have an ongoing betting pool about when, how and why they’re going to break up.
And their friends may not understand why their relationship works — by all means, it shouldn’t work — but they make it work.
Arthur can’t really be mad at Antonio after his little pranks simply because he loves his smile and his laugh too much. He complains and complains about Antonio’s “flavoured warm water with sugar”, but it’s a fact that after Antonio drinks it, his lips taste the sweetest ever and Arthur can’t stop kissing them. And for all that he claims that Spanish is a bullshit language, he listens attentively every time Antonio corrects his pronunciation, because he’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound absolutely gorgeous coming from his mouth.
When Arthur comes out of the shower with his pale skin tinted an outlandish colour and in revenge attacks Antonio with a handful of markers to draw doodles all over him; or when Antonio rushes out of the shower to stop Arthur from destroying their kitchen and, upset, hugs him and drenches him in both water and shampoo, it’s nothing but the perfect excuse to shower together. And they both make a big show of being mad at each other, but they’re out of their clothes in no time.
Their shower isn’t precisely big and there’s hardly room for two grown men. They find that to be the opposite of a problem.
And ever so often the moon finds them still awake, no matter how late in the night, tangled with each other under the sheets, and she’s the only silent witness as their walls fall and their hearts open. No one else gets to hear their quiet confessions; no one else gets to see the way they stare into each other’s eyes as they move together.
No one else hears the way they whisper each other’s name, with a devotion and love that are always there, even if they don’t tend to show it in front of others.
If their friends saw them then, saw how Arthur laughs breathlessly as Antonio covers his face with kisses, or Antonio’s broad smile when Arthur hugs him close, then maybe they’d understand why their relationship works.
But no one ever sees and they keep wondering; will wonder even after Antonio and Arthur say “I do”, and the couple never provides an explanation.
Perhaps because they love messing with everyone else as well.