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They will laugh later how maybe it was always meant to happen in the kitchen. Ever since Fort finally moved into his new house and Peat started staying there before and/or after their joined events to save some time on travelling to his out-of-city apartment just like Fort not so secretly wished for, kitchen has kind of become their special place.
Silent dinners so late into the night you can as well call it early hours of morning when they are too tired to speak, communicating with short glances and little smiles instead. Busy lunches with their friends and colleagues and an excessive amount of take-out containers when they sit too close, their bodies pressed to each other from shoulder to knee, but they no longer react to all the teasing it gets them. Quiet evenings with serious conversations and tears dropping down on the counter and gentle hands whipping these tears away, because the world is too much, too cruel and unfair sometimes, but this kitchen feels like a safe space. Bright mornings when Peat hums some tune into his coffee cup while checking his twitter and Fort feels this little flutter in his chest that he has become well familiar with lately. Plus, everybody knows that Peat is a foodie and Fort loves to cook, so yeah, it was always meant to happen in the kitchen.
And it does.
“I need to restore my energy,” Fort mumbles one evening, slumping over Peat’s back, hands wrapping around his waist, face pressed into the back of his neck.
Even after the shower there’s still a faint echo of Fort’s favorite perfume on Peat’s skin, and Fort can’t help but drag his nose from Peat’s shoulder to ear, inhaling deeply. He smells like comfort, sweet and warm and fresh, and satisfaction sets heavy in Fort’s bones, making him smile.
“Weren’t you going to bed to do just that? Still need to bother me?” Peat retorts but it’s more out of habit than real irritation, his voice soft and sounding like he’s smiling too.
Long gone the time when Peat tried to pull out of these hugs, now he just twists his shoulders slightly when Fort’s breath tickles his neck, and continues to prepare some fancy herbal tea that he’s come to enjoy drinking before going to sleep lately. Fort burrows his face deeper into the crease of Peat’s neck and whines:
“You are hurting my feelings, Phi. I was planning to cuddle you only for a couple minutes but now I need at least ten to heal the wound. And you have to suffer through the consequences of your own actions.”
“I’m sorry, Nong,” Peat says in his I-am-talking-to-an-infant voice and pats the head leaning on his shoulder but does nothing to push him away.
They stay like that for some time: Peat takes a few sips of his tea and checks his phone, one palm still in Fort’s hair, as Fort sways them slightly, enjoying the closeness. It’s good. It’s safe, and warm, and soft, and Fort feels his body relaxing, tiredness subsiding slowly. He heaves a long drown-out sigh of relieve.
Hearing that, Peat stops scrolling, puts the phone on the counter and turns in Fort’s arms without breaking the embrace. He touches Fort’s chin gently with one hand, other sliding back into his hair, making their eyes meet. Fort bites his tongue to keep the “Why are you so fucking pretty?” from trying to escape his mouth.
“You okay, Jum?” Peat asks softly.
“I must have done something exceptionally good in my past life to deserve this,” Fort thinks, nodding.
“Much better now.”
Peat smiles and scratches just the right spot at the back of his head, making Fort involuntarily close his eyes and sigh again, pushing back into his hand in an almost dog-like gesture as if asking for more. Peat chuckles, giving in in an instant, racking his fingers through thick hair, tugging lightly at the end, and Fort opens his eyes just in time to see Peat’s gaze dropping to his lips.
It’s not like it never happened before, considering the amount of suggestive games and poses they do for the interviews and photoshoots on quite a regular basis, and don’t even start with whatever they do while filming their NC scenes, but they aren’t filming now and it’s not just a fleeting look this time. They are at home, just two of them holding each other mere centimeters apart. Peat looks at his lips like he’s trying to decide something for a moment, two, three, fingers still absentmindedly playing with his hair, and Fort swallows, feeling his mouth water. This tiny movement makes Peat’s eyes snap back to his.
They’ve been slowly closing whatever little distance still left between them for months now. Step by step, secret by secret, touch by touch. Fort never had enough courage to ask but maybe something did change after that Christmas party where Peat kissed his cheek voluntarily for the first time. Let’s face it, “on-set card” is a pretty flimsy excuse for being all over your best friend for weeks even if said friend is your screen partner. But Peat has allowed it, didn’t he? It must mean something, right?
Fort has no idea why it is happening right now. He never imagined it happening like this – an ordinary night, his dimly lit kitchen, soft hum of refrigerator in the background – but it looks like it finally might. Fort knows he can ignore the signs, can pat Peat’s cheek and say something funny, can smooch the sharp tip of his nose and let him go. He can let the whole situation go and never bring it up again, never let himself think about it again and they will continue their safe and risk-free existence as colleagues and best friends but, to be honest, that’s not what Fort wants. He likes him. He really, really does. And this silly little crush he developed at their very first meeting it seems, it never actually subsided as he expected it to, as everybody has told him it would. It only got deeper and bigger, became something more through years of getting to know each other. Through their weaknesses and strengths, their fears and dreams, through fights and ignored calls and tearful apologies and promises to be there for each other no matter what happens. All their differences taught them patience and kindness and love and tied them even closer together.
And if you put all this profound poetic staff away, all that’s left is a very simple fact: Fort hasn’t kissed Peat in months and he really wants to. Looking into his gorgeous honey-brown eyes, Fort lets himself hope Peat wants it too.
Peat’s eyes flicker between his eyes and lips before falling close, when Fort carefully pushes their foreheads together. There’s a faint bitterness of herbal tea in Peat’s breath that’s warming Fort’s mouth now, and he wants to taste it. He slowly runs his hands up and down Peat’s back, pulling their bodies closer. It is not supposed to affect him this much, but suddenly Fort can barely think.
Can I kiss you?
Do you know that you are my favorite person in the whole world?
Do you believe in destiny?
Maybe we are each other’s opposites for a reason?
What if you were made just for me?
Did I finally win the lottery?
Is it my birthday?
Did you know the longest kiss lasted 58 hours? Can we set a new record?
Did you know…
“Can you just finally kiss me before I say something stupid and ruin everything?” Fort whispers.
Peat laughs, short and loud, his nose bumping into Fort’s cheek and his lips are right there and Fort feels like he might lose his mind if he doesn’t get these lips on his in the next few seconds because he doesn’t want it anymore, he needs it.
“Peat,” he warns, his voice thick with all the emotions simmering inside his chest, and Peat, god bless him, finally listens.
He touches his index finger to Fort’s jaw, caressing gently like he did times and times before, and kisses him. His lips are still smiling so the kiss turns out to be more of a lopsided peck but Fort doesn’t mind. Fort kisses him back. Long press of his lips to the corner of Peat’s mouth, soft pull at his bottom lip caught between Fort’s, feather like touch of a tongue. They kissed each other probably a hundred times already, but Fort still feels a warm swoop in his stomach when Peat tilts his head slightly to turn the touch of their lips into a real kiss. He goes for Fort’s upper lip – like he always does – and somehow it feels even more incredible than Fort remembered. His kiss is confident but slow, sensual, and when Peat licks into his mouth with a tiny whimper hitching his breath, Fort almost shakes with the strength of desire, coursing through his body. Peat tastes like heaven and feels like a dream come true and Fort wishes this kiss would last forever. Some possessive part of him wants to take it all: to push deeper into Peat’s mouth with his tongue, to grab his hips and pin him to the kitchen counter, to steal his breath away, make him moan and beg the way Tongrak would be jealous of, to make Peat his, irrevocably, but Fort manages to shut this urge down, pushing his hand underneath Peat’s t-shirt to touch his skin instead. Peat gasps in his mouth softly at the ticklish touch of the fingers on his ribs and kisses him harder, running a smooth line along Fort’s tongue with his own.
Even as they go a little bit breathless, it still takes a few minutes for them to break the kiss. When they do, Peat’s lips look wonderfully pink and plumpy and Fort can’t help himself but chase these lips with a couple more short kisses.
“I knew you would give in one day, my kissing skills are impossible to resist,” he says, breathing hard, making Peat laugh again.
“Sure, whatever you say, Mr. Can-You-Finally-Kiss-Me,” Peat teases and makes the indignant sound the very next second when Fort presses their lips together again.
“Didn’t you just ask me to kiss you?” Fort asks looking at Peat with eyes so innocent he would’ve believed the act if he didn’t know him better.
“You know I was mocking you.”
“What?”
“I was mocking the way you said ‘Can you just kiss me before’ …”
Peat doesn’t get a chance to finish the sentence before Fort is kissing him again, clearly giddy with his anticks, which earns him a firm hit on a shoulder and a few more long, slow kisses.
This time when they break away from each other, their foreheads stay pressed together, warm air mingling between their lips.
“Are we okay?” Fort asks quietly after a pause.
There’s no humor or joke in his voice anymore, which makes Peat sigh and wrap his arms a little tighter around the body against his.
“Of course we are, Jum,” he says determently. “Any doubts?”
Fort shakes his head so vigorously he almost hits Peat in the face, so Peat has to catch his cheeks between his palms to make him stop.
“Good. Let’s go get some sleep now then. And we are still going to be okay in the morning, right?” Peat says, dropping a kiss on Fort’s forehead, nose and lips after every sentence.
Fort nods, carefully this time, and takes Peat by the hand, walking him to the bedroom.
Fort quickly learns that wake-up kisses are the best way to start a day and after-breakfast kisses are so easy to get lost in that they almost miss their work three times just the first week after that night. Good-night kisses are slow and taste a little bit like mint toothpaste, while sex kisses are hot and messy in the process but tender and soft after, when their lips are all red and swollen. On-set kisses are strictly professional no matter how much Fort wants to kiss his partner senseless sometimes, but Peat’s after-work reward kisses are even sweeter so Fort manages to keep himself under control.
And as for late night kisses in the kitchen, they will always be his favorite.