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The light spills into the room through the sheer curtains and splays across his skin in the loveliest shade you think you’ve ever seen. There’s a soft breeze blowing them around and it makes the colors of the sunset dance across his skin, the motion accented and elevated by the smattering of freckles that he has seemingly everywhere. You’d ask to count them, but it’d be dark before you even finished a single arm. The breeze also faintly carries the scents of the season. Dried leaves, pumpkin flavored everything, earthier notes of something you can’t quite place. If you’d lean closer you’d notice he smells faintly of vanilla and citrus. You’ve never felt more incandescently content in your life.
He’s splayed out beside you on the bed, the sheets mussed from earlier intimacies together. Your eyes trace the lines of his arms, reaching out above his head, toned but you’d never quite call him muscular. Gaze following down to his sharp shoulder blades, then past to trace the dip of his spine. He’s laying on his stomach and partially under the bed sheet, so the rest of the masterpiece is obstructed. You might normally dismay, but the hands of Michelangelo himself couldn’t create you something as tailor-made to bring you to the brink of homoerotic destruction. If looks could kill and all that.
He’s facing away from you at the moment, just resting, and you take in everything you can. Every little detail he might normally try to hide from you or distract you from observing. Things like how his hair naturally highlights with little streaks of platinum in the normally ashy-toned blond. Other things like how he keeps the back length a little scruffy to hide even just a little bit more of the scar around his neck. Once an angry red line that you worried over seeing because it reminded you of all you’d been through. The scar was much less noticeable now, though you had your doubts on it ever fully disappearing.
He has a cowlick on the back of his head that’s led to one of the most unique hairstyles you’ve ever seen a fella sport before. The man wears it with such confidence that you’d never have thought it just a mechanism to disguise what was too stubborn to be adjusted another way. Now that you’ve gone and made a right mess of his hairdo, the little tufts stick out in all sorts of directions. You want to reach out and play with them, but you resist the urge for fear of disrupting the peaceful moment. You’d gladly bask in this forever, if permitted.
Almost as if on queue with your thoughts, he takes a deep breath and starts to shift around. The blond lifts his head and turns it to face you, folding his long arms underneath it. When the light hits those honeyed amber eyes, you swear you’ve fallen victim to a siren of some sort. You’re captivated, swimming in those golden pools. He looks just a little tired, and there’s a softer fondness there that you aren’t used to seeing so close to the surface. It occurs to you that maybe you broke down some more of his walls this evening, but you wouldn’t dare give yourself the credit for the way he looks at you. You don’t deserve any aspect of it. If he’s allowed you further in it’s by his own doing, subconsciously or intentionally.
Your name is Jake English and you’re hopelessly in love with the man before you.
His name is Dirk Strider, and he’s still just staring up at you. Maybe waiting for you to say something? Make some kind of move?
You smile at him. Though it happens more like a slow spread of the expression, like butter in a pan, and less like a conscious action. He smiles back, less like a beam and more like a dim glow. It’s inexplicably perfect on him. Your heart skips a beat or two.
“What’s that look for?” He pinches his eyebrows together as he asks, and you watch the way his face shifts with the expression. He really is unfairly handsome. Strong jawline, decently high cheekbones, soft dips with the hollows of his cheeks, making him look almost like a contoured model. His eyebrows are light, but thick, and you’ve mused over this more than a few times whilst watching him pluck them. Many a time that maintenance has come with a mumbling of complaints at how you yourself get to have “perfect brows naturally”. You honestly had never given it a single thought until he mentioned something.
“Jake? You in there?” He chimes up again. That’s when you realize you’d never responded to him the first time.
“Hm? Yes. I’m- I’m perfectly fine.” You feel your lips splay into an even bigger smile and you really have to try and hold back. You’re already holding back so many things you want to say. You won’t say them, of course. Don’t want to scare him off with a heavier commitment than what he’s ready for. With the rocky history the two of you have had, it’s not something you’re willing to break again.
“What’s got you so distracted?” He looks worried and you feel a tad silly for causing that.
“It’s nothing, really, just daydreaming again.” You let your eyes wander over to the windowsill, aware of the far-off sort of wistfulness it will give off. You do try to conceal just how much you’re bursting at the seams, but for all that effort, there’s bound to be some that slips through. Can’t hold a flood back with just your hands.
Dirk seems to have been intrigued though, because he fully turns to face you now, laying on his side and propping his head up on the heel of his palm. “What about this time?”
You look back at him and you honestly forget how to breathe for a second. You take in his bare chest and the little pale scars across it. The way his pose outlines just how much of a board this man really is and his general lack of curves. It’s attractive to you, even if it wouldn’t be conventionally. As your eyes slip lower you notice the sheet has fallen just a tad more and the dip of his hipbone peeking out at you is almost too inviting. You quickly turn your gaze back upwards, only to get caught at his collarbones. They protrude ever so slightly and the number of little pinkish purplish bitemarks you’d left there becomes apparent. Had you really marked him up that much?
“You.” You breathe out, almost inaudible.
“Hm?” He looks a little smug but leans a little closer, presumably to hear you better if you did repeat yourself.
A futile motion really, but it plays to your advantage. You adjust your position to lay mirroring him, then with your free hand you reach over to cradle his jaw in your hand. He closes his eyes and leans into the touch just a little. You know he heard you, and that he’s taking the moment to bask in this. Finally, an equal playing field.
You let your hand slip down to brush your fingertips over the marks you left on his neck. The little bit of a blush that rises to his cheeks makes it all worth it. He’ll probably wear some high necked shirts over the next few days. No one will be any the wiser, outside of present company. You smirk a little to yourself.
“Oh no. No no. I know that look. Jake you are not-” He’s cut off by his own surprised gasp. You hadn’t been planning on it really, but the moment he started to protest against the idea you knew you simply had to. So you ducked your head down and started kissing at his neck again, nipping gently and not really doing much to worsen the current state of existing marks. You just wanted to tease him over them. What you hadn’t expected was for him to start moaning again.
Pulling your head back just enough to lean and whisper in his ear, you can’t resist asking him, “Rearing for a second round already, love?”
Dirk is quiet for a moment too long and you realize that you may have actually just initiated something here. You absolutely aren’t opposed, but you know you were a bit rough with him the first time around. So he’s either feeling very masochistic or wanting something a little more tender. It’s not like him to ask you to be sweet with him, so you wonder if he’s going to say anything at all. You nudge him softly with your nose and place a kiss just below his ear.
“Jake.” His tone is like a warning, but a desperate one.
“If you want something you need to ask for it.”
“Just kiss me more?” His request comes out almost softer than a whisper and if you hadn’t been as close as you are, you would have missed it entirely. Kiss him more? As if you could possibly fathom denying that request.
So kiss him you did. Again and again and again, until the sun was fully set and there was nothing left to do but fall asleep in one another’s arms. Dirk fell asleep before you, and as you drifted off you may have whispered an ‘I love you’ to him, but really who’s to say? If he didn’t hear it then there’s no real proof, right?