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Force of habit kicks in and Din grabs for his towel as the door opens. He’s sort of glad to have it because there is a draft but Cobb pauses with the door half-shut, eyebrows raised, looking at Din as though he is something entirely new in Cobb’s experience.
‘I didn’t know you were home,’ Din offers, feeling the edges of the towel start to soak in his hands.
‘Yeah, no, I -- got in a bit early,’ Cobb says, staring at the stretch of faded orange terrycloth.
‘Sorry. I would’ve waited for you.’ Cobb nods slowly, then pulls the door the rest of the way shut for which Din is very grateful because that draft is cold, man.
‘Is this how we’re doing laundry now? ‘cause I gotta tell you, it’s gonna take longer this way.’
Din rolls his eyes, slinging the towel back over the shower door where it had been. ‘Fuck you.’
‘Wherever, whenever, baby.’ Cobb’s voice is suddenly a lot closer and Din yelps at an unexpectedly cold hand on his ass.
‘Oh yeah?’ Din says, turning his face into the warmer water as Cobb steps away and there’s the clank of porcelain. ‘And who got so anxious last week about a blowjob behind the bar he wouldn’t let me finish?’
‘The door was open!’
Din snorts. ‘Clearly, you’ve never worked graveyard stock shift as a regular thing.’
‘Oh, no?’ The toilet flushes and Din pauses to give a moment’s thanks that Cobb’s apartment, whatever else might be wrong with it, has excellent plumbing and a hot water heater for the ages. The pallet he’d fumbled that afternoon had yanked what felt like every single muscle down his right side and he hasn’t had nearly enough hot water yet.
‘Y’all have fun times in the trail mix?’
‘Toilet paper’s softer.’
Cobb chuckles and there’s another clank of porcelain. Din cracks one eye open enough to see Cobb settling himself on the closed toilet, elbows on his thighs, hands loose between his knees. He closes his eyes again, turning his face up to the water. ‘You’re not gonna get much of a show.’
‘Who says I want one?’
Din tries to shrug but the movement yanks at the soreness settling in to his neck and the back of his shoulder and he hisses.
‘What’d you do?’
‘Dropped a pallet wrong.’ Three technically but who’s counting.
‘Don’t you lift those in pairs?’
‘We do if we’ve got a full shift.’ Din rolls his shoulder cautiously once, twice, three times and tries shrugging again, slowly and exaggeratedly. It doesn’t hurt so much that time. ‘And when we’re down three people and there’s a rush, I do it myself.’
‘Couldn’t you wait?’
‘Could you wait last week when Peli was out and there were all those flats of beer to unload?’
‘Touché.’ It’s one of the things Din really likes about Cobb; he rarely bothers to defend his own inconsistencies. He thinks Cobb’s easy willingness to give in has probably saved them a lot of very stupid fights.
The room goes comfortably quiet and Din tips his head back, tilting it gingerly side to side, trying to stretch and ease the cramp he can feel coming.
‘All right, enough of this.’ Cobb’s voice breaks into his thoughts and the shower door is open and the water off before he can do much of anything except startle.
‘What -- hey! What the hell!’
‘You can stand there and drain the hot water tank or,’ Cobb holds out the towel with one hand and wriggles the fingers of the other. ‘You can take advantage of your very own set of magic fingers.’
Din rolls his eyes, grabbing the towel and scrubbing it over his head. ‘Those things are bullshit.’
‘Yeah, but I’m not.’
Din gives himself a rough onceover with the towel and slips it neatly over the rail. He doesn’t bother looking in the mirror -- why should he? he knows what’s there -- and turns to Cobb, spreading his hands. ‘All right, do your worst.’
Cobb snorts and opens the door. ‘C’mon, Rambo.’
‘Don’t remember him working retail.’
‘Picky, picky.’
The loft is colder than the bathroom and Din shivers before he even fully realises he’s cold. He can feel the air finding each and every drop of water he missed on his skin, the ends of his hair suddenly cold against the side of his throat. ‘C’mon, c’mon...’ Cobb’s hands are warm on his shoulders, hustling him towards the bed.
Cobb keeps the bed well-piled during the winter and Din lets himself be pushed onto the softness without resistance. He burrows his feet under a thick woollen blanket and grabs his favorite pillow, shoving his hands underneath it to cushion his head and waits.
Nothing happens except a few drops of water rolling into his ears.
He turns his head to one side, squinting up at Cobb. ‘Y’gonna do something or just stand there?’
‘Let me admire you, for fuck’s sake,’ Cobb says mildly and Din feels himself flush.
He resists the urge to bury his face in the pillow but only just. Cobb’s fascination with his body is -- not something Din has come across before. Sure, he knows people find him attractive, but it feels like that doesn’t really involve him -- it’s just -- people looking at him, like people looking at a garden of flowers or a beach and saying it’s beautiful. They forget it the next minute and that’s fine, Din doesn’t mind being forgotten. He doesn’t take the occasional overheard words and the slightly more frequent glances seriously.
Except from Cobb. Cobb had made them impossible to ignore from the first time he called Din gorgeous. And, yeah, sure, they were fucking at the time but Din knows honesty when he hears it and Cobb’s no liar. They’d been dancing around each other long enough that Din was damned sure it wasn’t only his ass Cobb found fascinating but he’d certainly found enough praise to shower on it, words Din would never have thought people said out loud and meant. And Cobb meant them; Din knows he does.
So Din stretches out where he is, wiggles his toes under the blanket, and closes his eyes, and waits. He can feel Cobb’s gaze on him, almost like a stroking hand up and down his back, so it’s not startling when he feels the bed dip and Cobb sit down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘I don’t know how I get so fucking lucky,’ Cobb says quietly, running his thumb over the arch of one of Din’s shoulderblade, the one with the burn scar running almost exactly parallel to the bone.
Din hums into the pillow. ‘What’re you talking about?’
Cobb laughs, a little disbelieving. ‘You, what the hell else.’
‘Nothing special about me.’
‘You are -- so fucking wrong about that and I say that with love, but it’s true.’ Cobb leans over to the bedside table as Din’s heart does the little somersault it still does whenever Cobb says love. Din may have heard plenty of wolf whistles in his time, but he hasn’t heard love all that often. Not from someone who really means it. His mama, sure, and his pop; his sisters every now and then; maybe Luke once or twice, but that’s about it. He’d pretty much come to the conclusion it was just another word, just fluff people tossed around to make each other feel better, a little pick-me-up in a world increasingly grey and grim.
But Cobb means it; when he says love, he’s not talking metaphors or some feeling just slightly north of friendship. He means the full on hearts ‘n flowers, unicorns ‘n rainbows, candy hearts showering out of the sky bit, the fucking sap. And it isn’t just that he says it; he does it. It’s his eyes every time he looks at Din, even if he’s just asking what he wants to watch and his hands every time they touch, even if it’s just to pass silverware. Din’s never met anyone like that before and he thinks he might be willing to cut the world a break for some of the shit it shovelled on him before if he gets to have Cobb.
‘Hey, Cobb.’
‘Yeah.’ There’s the sound of Cobb’s shoes hitting the floor and the bed gives again as Cobb kneels beside him. There’s a click and Cobb starts to rub his hands together, a slightly dry sound that becomes slippery and slick, a strong scent of mint and cinnamon drifting over him.
‘You know I love you, right?’
Cobb pauses and his hands come down on Din’s shoulders before he answers, palms painting oil over his skin in a long slide from shoulderblades to hips. When he answers, it’s clear he’s trying not to laugh. ‘I mean -- I guessed, yeah.’
‘But -- I’ve said it?’
‘Didn’t hit your head with those pallets, did you?’
‘I’m serious.’ Din turns his head and squints up so he can see Cobb.
Cobb looks down at him for a moment and the laugh fades off his face. He nods slowly, hands still over Din’s ribs. ‘Yeah, you’ve said it.’
‘Okay.’ Din crosses his hands on top of the pillow and rests his forehead on his knuckles.
‘What brought that on?’ Cobb shifts position slightly, using his weight to press the heels of his hands against the sore muscles along Din’s side.
‘I…’ And this is where Din gets stuck because Cobb can spin words, Cobb can spin words like it’s his fucking job -- which some nights it practically is -- and Din can’t, Din has never been able to. He can tell a joke and he can tell a story without losing track of the point but he’s not a showman about it and whatever magic it is Cobb has that makes his showmanship radiate his actual sincerity, Din definitely does not have. Being sincere at bottom probably helps and Din knows he’s that; he just doesn’t know if it translates. His knowing he means what he says -- means it right down to the blood in his veins -- doesn’t mean Cobb knows it.
‘C’mon, baby…’ The bed shifts again and Din closes his eyes as Cobb’s weight settles just north of his knees and just south of his ass. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘I just -- wanted to know you know. I’m not -- great with words like you, I mean.’ Din shifts restlessly, unhappy that he can’t see Cobb’s face, can’t read his thoughts moving over it. ‘And I don’t know...if I… show it or not.’
‘Oh, baby…’ Cobb shifts again, leaning forward this time and Din shudders with the weight over his hips, the thick press of Cobb’s cock behind denim and cotton. Kisses come in a line across the tops of Din’s shoulders. ‘’Course you do. Every time I hear your key. Every time you smile for me.’ Din shudders again and Cobb’s mouth pauses at the nape of his neck for a long, tingling moment. ‘Every time you kiss me.’ A quick lick. ‘Every time you fuck me.’
Din digs his fingers into his hair and bites at his lip to keep himself quiet.
‘Every time you touch me --’ Cobb’s tongue traces a wet line down the back of his neck that ends, unexpectedly, with a little nip over the top of his spine. ‘-- even if the fucking bar door is open.’
‘Hey!’
‘It’s all in the timing, Din.’ Cobb’s upright again, chuckling. ‘Now shut up about the eternal verities, if you don’t mind, and let me get this done so I can blow you.’
Din licks his lips. ‘You’re gonna blow me?’
Cobb leans forward, pressing a kiss over the spot he nipped. ‘How else will you know I love you?’