Work Text:
It started quietly.
On a warm summer day his nose took in the distinct aroma of aftershave, unfamiliar and definitely too expensive. It smelled of naive angel, wary, yet prone to complete disregard toward price tags. Expense meant little, especially on a Thursday.
The next Thursday came with it a bar of soap and a wet towel haphazardly tossed. Scented with cheap, strawberry shampoo, with a hint of musk that hadn’t yet been, but belonged, nonetheless. Gender coding objects and odor felt arbitrary; like language, it served random purpose, as the angel told him. He’d rolled his eyes.
No personal space.
Yet another Thursday found a pivotal moment. The closet contained what it assumed to be a visitor. Both he and the trenchcoat knew better. Not much time passed before a number of garments slotted in beside his own. Ease of access after a shower, was the angel’s response.
“My. Ass.”
That atrocious, blue vest found itself in the trash. And he found the angel bristled, vibrating as if he had feathers to rustle.
That moment met with a hiatus before it bled into the next. But, like all significant events, this one landed on a Thursday. A lone toothbrush sat beside his own, worn and flared from abuse. How such a tiny object, such a small sentiment, could make his heart stutter in such a way. He wouldn’t admit it, no matter how many times he found himself smiling.
Not long after the discovery, the owner had shuffled in alongside. They had exchanged a glance, then proceeded to act as if no one shared the other’s presence: a moment filled with unshed tension and bumping shoulders. Neither admitted to the comfort the small touches gave. Such days, after Thursday's, came much the same. They went with confidence every proceeding day.
Another Thursday. Another moment. Another pillow, yet no head to bare claim. It sat there, quiet just as his contemplation. A blanket the following Thursday accompanied the pillow. The covers beneath did look awfully lonely, his justification rang truth. It convinced him, nonetheless. No one followed.
The smell of expensive aftershave and strawberry shampoo mixed well, oddly enough. Or maybe he’d grown used to the mixture itself, having bled into feathers and sundering gazes. After all, the angel made no action to hide the stench. Funny how things worked; he wouldn’t relinquish it for the world.
Change became expected the following months. If it wasn’t one Thursday, then it would likely land on another. Not necessarily routine, but the little things no longer caught him by surprise. He resigned to think they went at their own pace, or maybe the angel adjusted to his lack of willing change. The past didn’t paint him a pretty portrait.
But, like a constant, Thursdays came. A beginning for something.
Parking the Lincoln, a beige monster of a machine—fit for a pimp—found itself next to the black beauty of his Impala. He complained only once. Other, subsequent complaints came in the form of finding it parked anywhere else.
Taking a daring bite from his plate happened on a Thursday, which meant it was super important that the angel try the identical steak slabbed onto a plate not his own. He let that slide and then it turned into normalcy the following days. It went to the point his plates stacked high, prepared for the angel’s assault. He forbade any stealing of his pie, however. It was enough that he share the other slices, his wouldn’t share his own.
An angel in his bed would have likely sent shivers down his spine upon first sight, aside from the fact that this one dove nose deep into a book and kept finding a pair of glasses sliding from his nose. His ploy to look smart and in place didn’t work, but if it wasn’t damnably endearing. The angel staid, though the distance between them refused discussion. When darkness shrouded them, the weight from the bed halved and the angel fled, feathers, paperback, and a pair of too big glasses. The two layers of blankets felt impossibly cold with nothing more to warm him.
Soon, as if waiting for the week to tick by, the distance between grew shorter and the time spent in the dark lengthened. Another Thursday of this quiet inching tempted him in the form of an angel in a Metallica t-shirt two, maybe three sizes too big. It hung from his shoulders like the pair of boxers hung from his hips. He wouldn’t ask where the undergarments came from, suddenly afraid to know. But it did nothing for his lungs, gasping to intake any air it could and then holding until the red in his face turned blue—some bullheaded way to deny the blush that he couldn't put blame on shortness of breath. And thus he waited, sitting, for his entire world to collapse.
As if it hadn’t already.
Thursdays became an addiction, much like the one he willingly released. One that came with no implications other than a steady, rising heart rate, blood pressure he swore was dangerous—a moose assured him it was already that high to begin with—and maybe a pair of broken wings to hold onto. Maybe he sent a few prayers to the angel, unanswered because they went unheard, but he thanked him no less. They hung, a halo of lost confessions.
Without a doubt, the next Thursday, those words were not his. It was the quiet speaking, his mind indistinguishable in the blackness that fell upon them. No doubt, in an answering, quiet call, did that question slip from his lips and not his thoughts. Just like that, in the silence that awaited, he found another body cling tight to his. A press of warmth that danced on the surface until, with a shuddering finality, sank under—deep, unyielding. He held to it, pressed the feeling to his cheek to taste the warmth that tinged his skin pink. A prayer answered on a Thursday.
A quiet Thursday, sliding in from a place he’d long let go. Yet, all Thursdays were quiet. They waited, reverent, for the next thing to come along. With determined speed, the pieces slotted together, slow, at first, testing the beginnings with cautious hand, before surging in their inevitability. A flood that washed the both of them in sanctity, for they could not be pure nor could they be forgiven, but they could find solace and relief within each other. The righteous man and his angel of Thursday.
And maybe, on one of those Thursdays, did the words, "I love you," slip. And maybe, in answering, the words, "I love you, too," fell, as well. Most undeniably, however, did the words, "Fucking finally," come, without mistake.