Work Text:
…draw a line in the sand and we’ll smooth it down…
Athi sings along absently to the song blaring through the speaker. A pretty one, but she’s heard it three times this afternoon. Keeps meaning to switch playlists. Keeps forgetting, too.
She rests her elbow on the top of the ladder, arching her back into a series of sick satisfying pops. Then stretches her shoulders and pulls her neck from side to side to tease out a few more. Almost done. Maybe six more feet until she’s done cutting in for this room and can move on to the next.
Or maybe she’ll roll tomorrow. Another several hours of this sounds miserable. And painful.
…it’s a slow cinnamon summer, your spell’s pulling me under…
Wide hands slide up her legs from below and Athi whirls around, startled, flicking a few drops of beige-green paint out into the room.
Makon is looking up at her, hands still moving on her body as it twists to face his. Her arms come so easily around his shoulders from up here.
“Shall we call it a day?” he asks. He has sawdust in his hair. “It is time for supper.”
“Should be more careful. You almost got painted.”
“My thanks, I will take that under advisement. Now, come wash up. You need to eat.”
“I ate like two hours ago.”
“You ate six hours ago.”
“Oh. How time flies when you’re having”—Athi looks around the Koi Pond™ rimmed walls and the drop cloths spattered with her accidents and held down by open paint cans and cheap bare-bulbed lamps—“this.”
The look Makon gives her is soft but demanding. Take care of yourself or I will. He’s sweaty. All worn out and dirty, a full day’s worth of work weighing on him. His eyes are a little red and drooping and his expressions subdued. Too much effort to smile and still he thinks of her.
He’s better to her than she ever could be.
Athi sighs and brushes at the sawdust. A losing game. “Yes, mother.”
“I am not your mother.”
“So you’re my d—”
He smothers her mouth and the grin spreading on it with one hand. It stays put, even when she licks.
“I am going to release you now,” he says, “but I implore you not to continue that sentence.”
There’s no need; he’s already blushing. Athi takes his face in her hands, brushing her thumbs along his freckled cheekbones. Leans down and presses a long kiss to his lips, relishing the way he melts, his fingers curling in. “Just going to finish this corner. Then I’m done. Promise.”
He nods, stretching up for another. “I will hold you to that.”
Athi keeps one shameless eye on his rear end as he goes, hoping he’ll turn around and catch her and blush all over again but he doesn’t.
Back at it, then. Another dip into the bucket, four or so steps up the ladder, the first lines of a different song.
If they’d planned this better, he would’ve done the cutting in and she’d have done the rest, but she wanted to paint and he was busy so that’s not the way it went. She’s not very good at it. Can keep her hands steady no problem, but isn’t patient enough. Isn’t careful.
It looks fine from the doorway but the more she looks the more she sees. And although Makon won’t give her shit for all the flaws, his keen eyes will catch on every drip mark and missed spot and green smudge on the ceiling. He’s particular like that. Wants things done right, done thoroughly, and done well. It’s one of the things she admires about him, even when she threatens to shove a stick up his ass just to pull it out so he knows how nice it feels. Most of the time, it makes her want to try harder. Go slower. Measure twice and cut once. All it costs her to see him satisfied is a little fucking patience.
But the end is in sight and she wants a hot shower, and now that food’s been mentioned her stomach is growling. So she paints a little bit of the ceiling.
Sorry, mountain man.
Perfect is the enemy, or something.
There, it's done, and Athi closes up the paint and leaves the brushes to rinse later. Even though there’s no water running, the bathroom door is still shut, steam escaping from its seams to replace the paint fumes she’s been breathing for hours with the cloying scent of sweet herb and cucumber.
By the time she’s stripped, paint-speckled clothes in a pile on the displaced dining chair to maybe wash or just reuse another day and the rest in the basket, Makon is finished. Stops just past the doorway, looking edible himself in nothing but those baggy gray sweats he knows look damn good on him, with all that warm, freshly clean skin exposed for her to—no, better not. She’s still filthy.
“You left me some hot water, right?”
Maybe she can tempt him later.
Though that look on his face has her upping her chances to definitely . Surprise, raw hunger, and something else layered in that she can’t quite pick out. Nevermind that there’s a streak of paint from wrist bone to elbow and another, she’s pretty sure, on her ear, or that her hair has got to be a right mess.
Athi poses coyly for him. “Stunned to silence by my beauty again, huh?”
“Yes.”
Makon is easy to tease but his earnestness is her downfall and she feels the blush rise to her skin. Doesn’t know what to say. Thankfully, this old house is drafty as hell and the door slamming shut snaps them both out of the moment.
Athi laughs at his wide eyes and takes the opportunity to try and slip past him, but he catches her hand before she can warn him back. Plants a hand at the back of her neck and his lips to the inside of her wrist.
She mutters, “I’m dirty,” but it’s a token protest. She wouldn’t stop him for all the world.
“And?” As if to prove his point, he kisses her good and soundly, but his self-control is better than hers. Relief and disappointment wash over her in equal measure as he takes a small step back. “Alas, I am not so selfish as to deny my beloved the pleasure of a shower. Go on. I shall prepare some sustenance.”
“Okay. Thank you.” She’s a bit shaky as she opens the door.
Makon nods, and there’s that curious expression again. He’s right in front of her and a million miles away, and it irks her that she can’t read it.
“There’s still leftover steak in there,” she reminds him, drifting down the hall. “And some greens that won’t last too long.”
The scent of his soap still hangs in the thick wet air and the mirror is fogged, blurring her reflection into a roughly person-shaped haze of brown. But there is hot water.
She makes it a quick one, dutifully washes her hair and scrubs at her skin, sloughing off the paint she can see and hoping she gets the rest blind. But she does indulge in a few long minutes more, groaning in bliss as her tight muscles melt and unknot under the cascade of heat.
The bedroom’s empty when Athi finally makes it back, hair towel-dried and dripping down her back. The closet’s huge but currently torn apart, so half their clothes are in boxes, but they’d lugged up a dresser along with the mattress when they decided to stay here through the rest of the renovations.
Well, Makon and her dad had brought it up. She’d told them where to put it.
She rummages around the top drawer for a pair of underwear and opens the third for something comfortable, stuffing several of Makon’s shirts back in before finding anything of hers.
Although—
Who is she to argue with fate?
His shirt drowns her perfectly, and she is rather fond of the way he looks at her like this.
More stairs creak than don’t on her way down. A built-in alarm system they’ll probably never get around to fixing.
She loves this place, their home. Loves the idea of a place all theirs and likes to see the progress her own hands have earned. It’s just… some days, she gets overwhelmed by the endlessness of it. Makon, on the other hand, seems to have an endless energy for the work. Even when solving one problem uncovers three more, or she makes him look at a thousand flooring samples before discarding his opinion and going back to the store for more. Even when he’s bone-tired. It’s like he sees the finished product in the possibility already, whereas all she can see is today’s to-do list.
Everything’s better with Makon, but she can’t picture doing this at all without him.
The kitchen is empty, too. A pretty series of almost sorrowful notes gets louder as she follows them to the living room where Makon sits in one corner of the couch.
Athi watches him awhile, not sure if he’s aware of her yet. Takes in the peaceful beauty of it: his long hair draped over the back, the way his muscles move as the chords shift, the small sway of his head with the phrases. There’s food on the coffee table—a sturdy roadside find—and she joins him, grinning when he sees her and misplays a note and grateful when he keeps playing. As she makes to settle on the floor in front of him, he spreads his legs a little wider.
“Was your shower satisfactory?”
Athi hums an affirmative and rests her damp head on his knee, weaving her hand around his ankle. “Did you eat?”
“I waited for you.”
The lights work but he’d lit candles instead. Looks like all of the odd ones they’d brought in case of a power outage, and it’s nice. Calm, and not too bright, and one of them smells like brown sugar. He’d brought out a large bowl of salad with strips of steak and slices of the bell peppers she’d completely forgotten about, bread with butter, two plates stacked, and an open bottle of wine with two glasses. She should go portion it out but can’t do that and this at the same time.
She turns her face into him and presses a kiss to the inside of his thigh and doesn’t think about tomorrow’s work.
The song stops and Makon sets his guitar aside. He lays one hand heavy on her head, then combs his fingers back through.
“Thank you,” she says, ready to launch into a list of all the things she loves him for.
But she doesn’t know where to start.