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“Are you done being dramatic?” Aaron asks.
The look Kevin shoots him manages to be both injured and affronted. Aaron would spare some energy to being impressed by his ability to achieve both at once if he were less annoying about it.
(A small voice pipes up in the back of Aaron’s head, and less cute about it too.
Aaron kicks that voice back into the battered box in the back of his mind labelled WORST THINGS ABOUT KEVIN DAY. It’s been through a lot, but still, it perseveres. Kind of like the man himself.)
“Kevin,” he says, and he reaches for Kevin’s face again. This time, Kevin does not shove his hand away—or literally shove his face away; unbelievably low point, even for someone as inclined to moments of stroppiness as Kevin Day—but there’s a suspicious look in his eyes that makes Aaron want to shake him, just a little. Only a little.
He’s pretty sure Kevin doesn’t have a concussion, but.
You know.
He carefully tilts Kevin’s face towards him, examining it closely. His skin is so warm beneath Aaron’s hands. It always is. Aaron’s not sure if it’s because his hands are always cold, or because Kevin runs hot. There’s nobody for him to ask. They’d want to know why he’s thinking about it, and then Aaron would have to give them these moments, and that’s not an option.
Even when Kevin is dramatic and annoying and insists on lecturing Aaron about whatever he’s reading or watching while Aaron is trying to make him shut up and eat some fucking food, it’s still -- he’s still --
Those moments, they’re still Aaron’s. That Kevin -- he’s annoying and fussy and so persistent that Aaron once gave up on memorising the anatomical path of the phrenic nerve and just made out with Kevin on a bed of his notes to give them both a break from Kevin’s habit of rewatching the same match three times in a row. That Kevin is all those things, but he actually smiles sometimes when it’s just the two of them, and he likes running his hand through Aaron’s hair even when they’re not doing anything at all, and he hums every time Aaron kisses him.
Aaron isn’t sure if he even knows he does it. It’s one of those quiet things that Aaron didn’t always notice, and then suddenly did, and now he can’t not notice. Just like Kevin’s huffs when Aaron shoves his cold feet beneath Kevin’s firm thighs, and the instinctive way he always wraps his hand around whatever part of Aaron’s leg he can reach. Just like the way he always stretches his arms when they get up from whatever horizontal surface they’re occupying, left arm then right, expression easier than Aaron is used to seeing on him. Just like Kevin’s frown when Aaron leaves him on read, so pronounced that Aaron can see it from across the fucking room and Katelyn clocked it that one time in the library, leading to the worst half hour of teasing Aaron had endured since Nicky found condoms in his messenger bag back in junior year of high school. Just like the way Kevin rubs his right thumb over the back of his left hand when it’s cold or he’s stressed or an interviewer asks him about Riko. Just like the way Kevin readjusts Aaron to his liking whenever they share the couch, regardless of anyone else’s presence in the room, or the way he hands Aaron his coffee without even blinking so that Aaron can smell it and decide if he wants any. Half-asleep and dead on his feet, the way he is every fucking morning, and still, there he is, sleepily tilting his coffee towards Aaron for his opinion.
There’s a lot of just likes when it comes to them these days. Aaron is learning to cope.
There’s a slight sponginess just shy of his tattoo—the fading remnant of an excellent check from Matt earlier in the week, one that made even Andrew’s eyes glimmer with something amused—and a furrow in his brow that Aaron absentmindedly presses with his thumb until it smoothes out as he carefully traces his way up Kevin’s face.
When he feels around Kevin’s hairline, he keeps his touch gentle. He never used to be able to do this. Never used to even think it possible.
But then Nicky showed up for him every day, unfailing, and Katelyn stuck out trying to sit with him in class even when he was an asshole, and Abby let him follow her around the clinic, and Matt’s mom waited him out even after he flinched, and Neil dragged him running with him, and Andrew did whatever it took to keep him, and Wymack said he’s a great fucking kid, one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met, and he’s going to help people without a moment of hesitation when a court room tried to decide whether Aaron deserved to scrub a monster’s blood from beneath his nails, and the girls cleaned him up before the trial he wouldn’t even permit them to attend, and Matt didn’t hesitate to take them all home with him for Christmas, and Kevin caught him by the hip outside Eden’s and crowded him against the wall and said Aaron in that half-exasperated, half-laughing way that made something swoop in Aaron’s stomach, like oh, like they’re actually going to do something about the late night conversations in the kitchen and weekly attempts at teaching Kevin video games and Kevin’s terrible habit of tracing designs into Aaron’s knee when they’re crammed together in the backseat of the Mas as Nicky sings along to whatever Andrew has playing on the radio, like Kevin is kissing Aaron mostly-sober this time, and Aaron is mostly-sober too, kissing back.
So now he has Kevin’s face in his hands, and he’s being gentle.
Even if Kevin is dramatic sometimes. Even if his expression is still a little sullen right now. Aaron thinks that’s probably okay. He’d probably be a little put-out too if it had been his head bashed against the headboard.
All right, he’d have sworn at Kevin for a minute straight. Whatever.
“Look at me,” he says, but when his gaze flicks down that infinitesimal amount to take it from hairline to eyes, Kevin already is.
Aaron swallows. Kevin’s gaze tracks the movement of his throat before returning to his eyes. Yet another thing Aaron has had to learn to cope with. It’s all very well and good knowing that Kevin Day and daunting amounts of focus go hand-in-hand; it’s another thing entirely to see that in motion, applied to something other than Exy or pissing off everyone around him.
The first time Aaron saw Kevin in person, he was the most shining, arrogant thing to have ever walked onto their high school court, wanting Andrew to showcase his talent and demanding Aaron’s appearance on the court alongside them in service of it. The next time, he was a bloody mess with his head buried in Abby’s lap, his entire body curled protectively around his mangled hand. The time after that, Kevin was awake and proceeded to spend twelve hours making the entire team wish he wasn’t.
Rinse, repeat. Kevin is impossible. Kevin is aggravating. Kevin loves Exy so much that he bleeds for it. Kevin is the worst person Aaron has ever met, which is a hard sell considering all the other terrible people Aaron knows, but he tops the list by virtue of one key thing: he has all these horrendous personality traits, and yet he makes Aaron like him anyway.
Unforgivable, really.
But Kevin’s eyes are so green, and he’s looking at Aaron, and it’s making it really hard to remember why shoving his face away is not the ideal course of action right now.
He exhales, forcing himself to resist the urge, and says, “You’re going to bruise.”
Kevin, predictably, squawks, but Aaron’s hold is firm enough that he stays in place.
“Hush,” Aaron says. “Stop being dramatic. You bruise all the time.” He lightly pokes at the bruise from Matt’s check to prove his point.
“They’re going to ask,” Kevin says. “They’re going to ask how I managed to bruise my head, and I’ll have to say that you did it, and that’s embarrassing. Oh my god. They’ll ask me why I wasn’t wearing a helmet. Allison’s like a dog with a bone. This—”
“Kevin,” Aaron interrupts. He’s used to the signs of Kevin gearing up for a rant, though it’s admittedly usually dedicated to Exy or historical facts or giving Neil a list of reasons he can’t do whatever it is that he just did.
He’s ninety percent sure this is what Kevin’s head sounded like earlier, when he was sitting in frozen contemplation on Aaron’s dick. Literally. Aaron doesn’t think he’s ever been so hard in his life, and he remembers puberty, so, like, thanks, Kevin. While Kevin was internalising an apparently very complicated situation in his head, Aaron was deciding that 1) if he ever went insane, it was probably Kevin’s fault, and 2) if they ever did any edging again, it was a) going to be fucking intentional, as in planned and on purpose and not a side effect of Kevin buffering whatever smutty version of an Exy training video existed in his head while literally sitting on Aaron’s dick, or whatever he was doing, and b) it was going to be happening to Kevin. (Probably. Aaron’s like 70% on this one now that he’s not hard as a rock and putting all his self-control into not moving at all, because, okay, yeah, it wasn’t ideal for Kevin to decide to conduct a roundtable about the situation in his own head while Aaron was quite literally inside of him, but obviously Aaron wasn’t going to move during it. So now that he’s no longer buried in Kevin—less desperate, less overwhelmed by tight heat and Kevin’s thighs beneath his hands and fucking Kevin, all of him, unbearably handsome and annoying and fucking endearing despite all of Aaron’s best efforts and general immunity to the parts of Kevin that the general public like him for—he’s more willing to be flexible there.)
Kevin shuts up. Aaron isn’t optimistic enough to think this is going to last long, so he takes advantage while he can and slides his hand down Kevin’s face, cradling his jaw.
“You literally don’t have to tell them anything,” Aaron reminds him. “I know it’s hard for you to keep your mouth shut—”
“I’m not Neil,” Kevin says, affronted.
Aaron rolls his eyes. “I said hard, not impossible,” he says, then wrinkles his nose. “Also I don’t want to think about him when we’re talking about us having sex. Gross.”
“Are we?” Kevin asks. Aaron stares at him. Kevin suddenly looks shy, just for a second, and then a stubborn look slides onto his face. Aaron’s seen this happen before: not that often, but sometimes, in moments when there’s something Kevin doesn’t necessarily want to do, but has decided to himself he’ll see through anyway.
“I mean, by definition, yes,” Aaron says slowly. He’s not sure what Kevin’s getting at here.
“No, I mean—” Kevin cuts himself off, looking frustrated, before saying, through gritted teeth, “Having sex. Present tense. Are we…?”
Aaron stares at him. Has he lost his mind? Obviously they are not currently having sex. Aaron is telling him to be better at shutting up and he’s holding his face, not—
Oh. He suddenly gets it. Present tense, like continuous. Like—
“You’re the one with the war wound,” he says, and it’s nonchalant, except for all the ways it’s not. “If you don’t want to—”
“No, no,” Kevin says quickly. Too quickly, really, for a boy who less than ten minutes ago was snapping at him to study how to fuck without concussing someone. Aaron can’t quite hide his smile.
“Okay,” he says, instead of calling him on it. Part of it is that he thinks Kevin probably deserves the out—he’s high-strung enough naturally, so this whole thing probably has him about to snap—and part of it is that if he calls him on it, then the natural progression from that moment is a Conversation. Capital-C. One that Aaron will also have to participate in, which – absolutely not.
He’s still smiling. He can feel it on his own face. Egregious. Another thing to hold against Kevin Day.
Aaron’s been kneeling on the bed to look at Kevin’s face better, but he still has to tilt it closer so that he can lean in and press a kiss against his bruising hairline. Which –
Stupid. Sappy. Fucking embarrassing. God.
But he can hear Kevin swallow, and that makes it – a little less terrible, knowing that Kevin has just as little game as ever.
“What was that for?” Kevin asks quietly.
Aaron, pulling away, shrugs. “Well, when a baby has a booboo…”
Kevin growls, grabbing at Aaron’s waist with enough aggravated gusto that they both go sprawling, back to horizontal on the bed. Aaron lets out a breathless laugh.
“You’re so annoying,” Kevin complains. Pot, kettle. Aaron thinks about pointing this out to him, but Kevin’s hair is falling into his eyes, and his face isn’t twisted into a frown anymore, and he’s looking down at Aaron with the same focus he fixes upon anything he wants to keep, and it all makes something tighten in Aaron’s chest.
He reaches up, carding a hand through Kevin’s hair. “You have no room to talk,” Aaron tells him. Infuriatingly, his voice comes out fond. Probably not in a way that most people could clock, but Aaron can hear it. He suspects Kevin can too, which is one of the three worst things to happen to Aaron today, and less than twenty minutes ago, he managed to smash the head of the guy he was fucking into a headboard in a poorly-coordinated attempt at a kiss.
Which.
He still wants.
“Hey,” he says, before Kevin can do something awful like open his mouth and say words that Aaron will have to hear.
Kevin’s eyes flick down to meet his. Aaron shifts his hand to the back of Kevin’s neck, and pulls him down into a kiss.
“What’s that for?” Kevin murmurs against Aaron’s lips. It’s not the world’s most enunciated sentence, given he decides multi-tasking the asking with kissing Aaron back is a good plan of action, but Aaron figures it out.
When they break apart, Aaron surveys him. They’re still close together—Aaron, in the same position as their sex attempt; Kevin, bracing himself above him, head tilted a little in question. God, he’s so close.
Aaron thinks about it. There are probably worse things, he reasons. Besides, Kevin still looks a little – fragile about the whole thing. Not in a serious way or anything—and it’s not exactly as if Aaron’s ever been anyone’s top choice to coddle someone, he’s not Nicky—but. Well. Kevin likes being good at things. Aaron doesn’t particularly want to tell him any time soon how overwhelming and good it had felt inside him—he’s known Kevin Day for a long time now, and he refuses to let him have an ego about sex this early on in their experiences together—so maybe he can give him this instead.
“I wanted to,” he says, simple and true.
Kevin searches his eyes. Whatever he finds makes a slow smile stretch across his face—a little smug, but mostly just pleased. Aaron can’t stand to look at it. Aaron can’t bear to look away.
“Well, if you wanted to…” Kevin says, a little teasing.
Aaron makes to shove his face away, but Kevin captures his wrist, swooping down to kiss Aaron again, and Aaron –
He can’t bring himself to mind.