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Elliot blinked up at his boyfriend. Luke appeared incandescent; the light of the afternoon sun streamed around him and turned his hair into a halo, the pearlescent white of his wings tinged with gold. Elliot wasn’t going to use the word angelic, but he couldn’t in all honesty say it did not apply. Even the slight crease between Luke’s eyes somehow managed to make him appear even more attractive.
“You are extremely good-looking, you know that?” he said, his tone halfway between admiring and irritated. “You must know that, what with your whole– ” he gestured vaguely in Luke’s direction, in a manner that he was fairly sure communicated Not only are you a Sunborn, but you have wings, and it turns out I am very much into both of those things.
The crease deepened. Elliot thought this was an unreasonable response to being complimented by one’s significant other.
“Elliot,” Luke said urgently, leaning over him, “how hard did you hit your head?”
“Not that hard,” Elliot replied, attempting to sit up. To his surprise, the world spun nauseatingly, and his vision grew a bit blurry. “Woah,” he said lying back down. “Why won’t the world stay still?”
“I knew it,” Luke said, sounding concerned. “We need to get that looked at, you might have some kind of head trauma.”
“I was just making an observation about your appearance,” Elliot started to object, but the truth was his head did hurt.
“Immediately after falling off a cantering horse!” Luke scolded. “I told you not to lean so far to the side, but you didn’t listen, why don’t you ever listen?”
“We were passing a troll settlement, do you know how rarely I get to see– ” he stopped, wincing as he moved his head and the world shifted again.
“That’s it,” Luke said, “I’m taking you to a medic.”
***
“Can we talk,” Elliot said later, “about your assumption that I had head trauma just because I noticed that you are attractive?”
“You did have head trauma!” Luke said, voice indignant but gentle. He was seated next to Elliot’s cot in the medic’s tent. The medic had insisted on keeping him overnight for observation. Luke, usually indifferent to his own injuries, was frustratingly firm in refusing to help Elliot escape, even though Elliot’s symptoms were already starting to improve. Luke had, however, assured the medic that he’d keep careful watch over Elliot and get them if anything changed, allowing the two of them some measure of privacy.
“Still do, technically.” Elliot could not resist a chance to correct his boyfriend, even if it was rather undermining his own point. “But I don’t need to have head trauma to recognize the objective fact of your attractiveness.”
Luke flushed. It was unfair, Elliot thought, how even beet red, Luke was still storybook beautiful.
“Attractiveness is subjective,” Luke said.
“Evidently,” Elliot agreed, gesturing to himself. “In that you are apparently into me, a redheaded jerk who insults you and irritates everyone else.”
“I like your hair,” Luke said, leaning forward so he could card his fingers through it, “and your insults.” Elliot closed his eyes and nearly lost his train of thought as he attended to the all-important sensation of Luke’s fingers in his hair.
“My hair is not the point,” Elliot said, gathering his thoughts. He refused to be sidetracked. “Nor is your weird fetish for my never-ending stream of insults.”
“What is your point?” Luke asked, in the long-suffering tones of one who suspected it might be a while in coming. Elliot could not deny that he was sometimes long-winded, but he was nothing if not contrary, and so did his best to get immediately to the point.
“My point is that some people are so universally acknowledged to be attractive that subjectivity is irrelevant. Immaterial. Inconsequential.”
Luke looked at him fondly. “Are you doing that thing again where we see who can come up with more synonyms for a single word? Because we both know I’m never going to win that game.”
“Indubitably,” Elliot agreed, just because he knew Luke would smile at the five-syllable word. “But no, I’m doing that thing where I explain in very clear and very specific detail just how wrong you are.”
That made Luke smile too. “And what precisely am I wrong about this time?”
“You’re incredibly attractive, loser!” Elliot told him. “Objectively attractive. Strangers-stop-and-stare-on-the-street attractive. I, myself, have been attracted to you since I first laid eyes on you at the tender age of 13. Of course, being the irritating person you already know me to be, this is not a fact I got around to admitting for quite some time. But it is a fact I will admit quite freely at this stage, head trauma or no head trauma.”
Luke was red again, and he was looking at Elliot with a wondering expression. “Really?” he asked, shyly.
“Really,” he said firmly. He still forgot, sometimes, that Luke had been taken in by Elliot’s whole charade-of-indifference thing for so many years. He forgot, too, that Luke did not really see himself the way everyone else saw him. The way Elliot saw him. “You are extremely good-looking. I cannot overstate how very into you I am in every way. There’s a saying on the other side of the wall – I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you walk away. And that is how I feel about you.”
Luke had lost the wondering expression and had regained a more familiar confused one. “What does that even mean? You like it when I walk away?”
“It means that that I like your ass,” he said, with a quick, appreciatively smirk, and then paused. Elliot recognized what he was doing, moving the conversation from the vulnerable expression of emotions to something safer. It wasn’t easy for him to be open with his affections, but he owed it to Luke to try. “But more importantly, it means that every time you go off to battle a part of me goes with you. It means that I’m terrified of losing you. It means that – that I love you.”
“Elliot,” Luke breathed, and surged forward and kissed him with breathtaking intensity. Elliot had quickly become accustomed to Luke’s all-consuming way of kissing him, and was disappointed when Luke pulled away after just a few moments.
“Why are you stopping?” he complained, attempting to trail kisses down Luke’s jaw. This was made difficult by the gentle hand Luke placed to his cheek.
Luke smiled at him, bright and happy, and Elliot smiled back, helplessly. “I’m not stopping,” Luke assured him, “I just wanted to say – me too.” Elliot, who honestly could not remember what they had been discussing before they’d started kissing, suspected he was now wearing Luke’s customary look of confusion. Before he could ask, Luke went on. “I love you too. I’ve loved you for years, and wanted you for even longer. And whenever I have to leave you – well, it breaks a part of my heart, but, um, your butt sure is cute?”
“You’re such a loser,” Elliot breathed, and then Luke was kissing him again. Elliot responded enthusiastically, pulling Luke onto his cot, not even caring when his head was flung back against the wall. The stars he saw were likely an effect of Luke’s incredible skill at kissing, and probably not related in any way to his recent head injury. Most likely.
And if not, well, it was totally worth it. In fact, Elliot felt that a little head injury was well worth it to gain the affection and attentions of Luke Sunborn.