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Nicky awakes, dawn light filtering into the room, to find himself being pressed inexorably into the mattress. At some point in the night, he’d rolled onto his stomach, and Joe had evidently followed, blanketing him thoroughly with his warm, solid weight. It’s very nice, and very reassuring, and just ever so slightly suffocating. Nicky tries shimmying his shoulders, but he doesn’t have much leverage, and Joe doesn’t budge. “My limpet,” Nicky murmurs, and he feels the low, sleepy rumble of Joe’s response.
“Yusuf,” Nicky tries again, and Joe mutters “Spiacente, Nicolò,” his voice muffled because he has his face tucked into Nicky’s shoulder blade.
Joe doesn’t sound sorry, though, and he also doesn’t move, and Nicky is coming to realize that he’s going to have to take matters into his own hands.
It’s not the most graceful he’s ever been, but Nicky considers it a win that he doesn’t dump either of them off the bed when he flips Joe onto his back and then scrambles up to straddle Joe’s hips.
For his part, Joe blinks up at him, muzzy but seemingly unperturbed by the fact that now Nicky’s the one who has him pinned in place.
Nicky settles his weight and folds forward to brace his forearms on Joe’s chest. “Let’s see how you like it.” Even as he’s saying it, Nicky breaks out into what he’s sure is a ridiculous grin because he knows, he knows exactly how Joe’s going to respond.
“Oh,” Joe says, beaming back at him, his face lighting up like the sun cresting the horizon, “I like it.”
Nicky’s laugh spills out of him, and he leans down to kiss Joe’s smiling mouth.
When they were first untangling their confusing and complicated feelings for each other, it was much easier to speak with Joe pressed to Nicky’s back. They could whisper their fears and their declarations without having to look each other in the eyes, uncertain of what might be reflected there. Nicky can still remember lying together in the inky dark of night, Joe’s forehead hot like a brand against the nape of his neck and Joe’s arms wrapped tight around Nicky, which was a good thing, because otherwise Nicky’s sure he would have shaken apart with how hard his heart was pounding, with the way his whole body trembled, wholly out of his control. Joe held him, patient and brave, and Nicky found a way past the lump in his throat, the blood roaring in his ears to confess the thing that felt larger than all creation, the love that bloomed so fiercely in him, impossible and undeniable and all-encompassing.
Here, now, Nicky can’t imagine that there’s any secret left between them, any revelation yet undiscovered. He pulls back enough to fix Joe with his most serious gaze as he cradles Joe’s face in his hands. “I am thinking about how much I adore you,” Nicky tells him, sure that Joe already knows, and Joe’s smile goes soft, and the corners of his eyes crinkle up, as if Nicky’s thoughts are a favorite book that Joe’s read many times.
Joe opens his mouth to say, Nicky guesses, something like, “Even when I squash you into the mattress?” But before he can, Nicky closes the space between them again to kiss Joe slowly and deeply. The answer, of course, is yes, yes, always, and Nicky presses the words into Joe’s mouth with his tongue, and he rocks against Joe just in case he doesn’t get the message, and Joe replies by digging his fingers into Nicky’s thighs, his thumb slipping underneath the hem of Nicky’s briefs, and each imprint is an echo and a promise, always, always, always, always, always.