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He regrets it as soon as he types out the message, his whole body physically tensing as he presses send, but in this moment, Aeron Bracken is a desperate boy, any previous feelings be damned.
So now he sits here, sits on the curb outside of his house, ignoring the screaming emanating from it, tries to ignore the harsh words coming from his uncle, has been trying to ignore the tears slowly drying on his cheeks as the wind blows colder around him. He curls closer in on himself, staring at the read receipt that’s just popped up a moment ago in response to “come get me.”
It was stupid, sending that text, expecting anything to come of it, but he had no other options. He has cousins, of course, but they’re just the same as Amos, except whereas he’s never heard that word said by his uncle until tonight, his cousins say it all the time, treat it as a laugh. Aeron knows how he presents himself, knows what he looks like, knows he’s quiet and tries his hardest to be kind, knows that his cousins see right through him and have known exactly what he is before he fully knew it himself. He knows what gets thrown around as a joke will be spit at him with malice if he tries to call any of them tonight. And despite trying his best to be a nice, pleasant person, Aeron has a chip on his shoulder, a cloud of gloom hanging over him, a sharp tongue and a hardened heart, and most importantly for tonight, he has no friends to speak of. All he has is a phone number he had unsaved years ago but still knew by heart and an 11:13pm read receipt. He hates himself for thinking that that’s all he could need right now.
At 11:36pm, long enough for Aeron’s fingers to go slightly blue in the late autumn air, a pair of blinding headlights stop right in front of him, loud angry music pouring from the speakers.
“No shit,” Aeron whispers. He stares up at the old car, at the scratched off paint, the cracked headlight, the dent in the passenger door, the passenger door that’s being pushed open.
“Well then?” the voice calls from the driver’s side. “You getting in or what?”
Something in Aeron snaps when he hears Davos Blackwood’s voice directed at him for the first time in years. He’s pushing himself off the concrete so fast it barely registers that he’s gotten up until he’s in the car, throwing his bag in the backseat and turning the vent closer to him, pressing his hands up against it.
“Where to, pretty boy?” Davos asks, leaning over to flick on the seat warmer, the one amenity this piece of shit car actually has.
Pretty boy . The words sting, despite the light teasing tone they’re said in. They’re just a reminder that everyone can tell , that all anyone has to do is look at him and they’re immediately clued into the fact that Aeron Bracken is a raging homosexual. Everyone could tell, except Amos. Amos who had tried to push so many girls into his arms he lost count, all their pretty faces blurring together, who had physically recoiled when Aeron worked up the courage to tell him tonight, as if he had been shot by the news, his shock turning into pure anger just moments later. “Not tonight, Blackwood,” he murmurs. “Just..”
“I’ll just drive,” Davos says, turning up the music even louder, the bass rattling Aeron’s teeth as they peel out of the neighborhood, far away from Amos Bracken and the sharp crack of his hand against Aeron’s cheek, away from his aunt who had sat idly by allowing it all to happen, far away from anything except the dark haired boy in the driver’s seat next to him.
“You know,” Davos says, the speedometer steadily climbing as they race down the motorway, heading closer to the city. “I was out with Ben and them tonight. Shots had just been set down when I got your text. You owe me, Bracken.”
“Sorry,” Aeron mumbles. He’s tucked himself up on the seat, knees pulled close to his chest, his head resting on the window, watching the streetlights pass by. He knows if Davos makes one wrong move he’s dead, his body crumpled like paper, but he can’t bring it in himself to care. He thinks death doesn’t sound so bad right now, thinks it would hurt less than knowing that no one really cares about him, no one loves him in the way he’s so desperate for.
Davos makes a noncommital hum before slamming on the brakes so that he can turn into a fast food parking lot. “Stay there,” he says, ducking out of the car and into the restaurant, leaving the car running and Aeron still folded in on himself.
Why am I here ? Aeron thinks to himself. Why did I text him? Why did he answer? Davos hadn’t said anything mean, no biting remarks, no insults against all of Aeron’s faults, but they were sure to be coming. They were always there, except for that night they were fifteen, that night Aeron always tries to push out of his mind yet somehow always comes back to visit him. But that doesn’t matter, the thought of how Davos looked at him that night will never matter, what matters right now is where he’s sleeping tonight, where he’s going to sleep for all other nights to come, and why the hell he thought Davos Blackwood would be of any help in answering that question.
“See you didn’t drive off with my car,” Davos says, throwing himself into the driver’s seat. “Wasn’t sure if you had that kind of decency in you, Bracken.”
“Where would I go?” Aeron asks, choking out a humorless laugh. “Back home so my uncle could hit me again?”
A hand reaches towards him, brushing back the hair that had fallen in front of his face, fingertips ghosting over his cheekbone. “Is that what happened there?” Davos asks.
“Obviously,” Aeron huffs, turning himself over in the seat so he can glare at Davos. “Did you think I did it to myself?”
Davos’s hand retreats immediately. “You’re a right cunt sometimes, you know that Bracken?” There’s the Davos that Aeron has been waiting for tonight, the one who spits his insults as easily as he takes a breath. In a way it comforts Aeron, knowing that they’re both stuck as they were as adolescents, still bitter from an age-old family rivalry, still uneasy after that night seven years ago. Davos sighs, pulling Aeron out of his thoughts. “But you don’t deserve that,” he says, pushing a milkshake into Aeron’s hands. “Hope you’re still as boring as ever with your fucking vanilla,” he says before peeling put of the parking lot.
“So why’d he do it?” Davos asks about ten minutes later. They still haven’t arrived at a destination, just continually speeding down the motorways. Aeron thinks they might’ve even doubled back at some point, but he’s not paying that much attention to truly know for sure. “Your uncle?”
“Thanks for the clarification, Blackwood,” Aeron says. “I would’ve had no clue who you were talking about.”
“Piss off,” Davos says.
“He hit me because I’m gay,” Aeron says, sentence barely audible as he chews nervously on the milkshake straw, crunching the plastic until there’s no hope for the rest of the drink to reach Aeron’s lips. The word still feels foreign in his mouth, despite how many times he’s thought it. He’s always pushed those thoughts away, thinking that if he just prayed hard enough to gods he’s not truly sure if he believes in, they’ll change him, make him what everyone else needs him to be. “And I’m pretty sure that everyone else had figured it out but he hadn’t and I was just so fucking sick of him pushing women onto me like I was just some thing, some problem he needed to pair up and send away so he could turn around and pat himself on the back for doing me a favor. So I told him and I knew what was going to happen but I hoped it wouldn’t because I’m a fucking idiot who never grew up and still thinks everything will work out like some dumbass kid. He hit me and threw a glass at me like I was lower than scum and kicked me out and now I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going to sleep tonight.”
“You’re joking, right?” Davos asks. He slams on the brakes to slow them down, and then u-turns, going back the way Aeron swears they’ve been twice before tonight.
“Why the fuck would I be joking, Blackwood?” Aeron spits out at him. “Let me make up some sob story about my uncle being a homophobic abusive piece of shit who wants me dead just for Davos Blackwood, the biggest prick in England, to have a laugh.”
“That’s obviously not what I fucking meant,” Davos says. He pulls over to the road’s shoulder, finally turning down the music as he turns in his seat to look at Aeron. “You’re staying with me.”
Aeron’s eyes flick up from the floor to look at Davos like he’s grown another head. “ What?” he asks, coughing in surprise. “No, absolutely not.”
“What were you expecting when you called me then,” Davos asks. “Huh? I know you didn’t just want my dazzling company.”
“I didn’t know what I wanted,” Aeron admits. “I just needed someone and you were the only one I had.”
“That can’t be true,” Davos says, snorting out a mocking laugh. “The great Aeron Bracken had no one else except the guy he’s ignored for the past seven years. That’s a laugh.”
“You were the one who ignored me,” Aeron tries to protest weakly. He knows that’s not true, that he’s gotten so many drunk texts calling him “pretty boy” that he’s hovered over, going so far as to type out a message before coming back to his senses and deleting it, ignoring how his heart flutters every time he receives one.
“Oh so now we’re lying?” Davos says. “I can drop you off somewhere else if you want to do that shit, Bracken. Who’s that year 10 you used to tutor? Maybe he’ll take you in.”
“You’re not dropping me off at Oscar Tully’s house,” Aeron says with a scoff. He crosses his arms over his chest and runs his tongue along his back molars, trying to calm himself down before he says something he truly regrets and Davos drops him on the side of the road. “And besides, it wasn’t a lie. You ignored me.”
“I ignored you because you pushed me out of a window!” Davos says, throwing his hands up. “You clearly didn’t want anything to do with me and I respected that because despite what you may think, I’m not actually that bad of a person.”
“I didn’t push you out of a window!” Aeron argues. “ I pushed you onto my bed towards the window”
“There was a great deal of shoving me out the window after the initial push.”
“Well, can you blame me?” Aeron asks, gesturing to the two of them. “Look what happened. All it took was me saying the word gay in Amos’s presence for him to smack me around. Imagine if he had caught me kissing you.”
“Fifteen year old Davos can still blame you,” Davos says. “You were texting me about how much you hated your family and how you wanted to leave and how you thought you would never amount to anything and all I wanted to do was sneak over and make you smile.” Aeron thinks if he really squints, he can see the shimmer of tears in the corners of Davos’s eyes, but that can’t be right. “I just wanted to make you smile like I always did when we were waiting for the bus together after school, but then you looked at me with those big sad eyes and you were leaning in and jesus fuck what was I supposed to do? Not kiss you back?”
“It was a pretty shit kiss,” Aeron tries. “I think one of my teeth fell out with how hard you clacked yours against mine.”
“You want to hear something pathetic?” Davos asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “That was my first,” he says, voice small like he’s fifteen again.
“No.” That can’t be right. Aeron had kissed girls in middle school, closed mouth awkward things at dances, just because it was expected of him, and he did nothing back then except strive to be the picture perfect model of a good son. He had even kissed a boy before, a dare at a party that was followed by a chorus of “ewws” from his thirteen year old friends, and of course he joined in, pulling a face and making a show of washing his mouth out just so that no one knew how much he liked it, how right it felt.
“Some of us realized we were gay when we were younger and just accepted the fact that we would never get kissed, so why bother.”
“But you’re-” Aeron stammers, gesturing to Davos. “With all your-” All your charm he wants to say, but it sounds ridiculous, more ridiculous than imagining a Davos Blackwood who didn’t have his tongue down someone’s throat, or his hands up someone’s shirt. (Aeron got sent pictures too on those nights he got those pretty boy texts. The message would come first, and then hours after he didn’t reply, he’d get blurry close ups of some guy’s chest, or the corner of his mouth, or the column of his throat. Aeron would ignore the heat rising in his gut as he stared at the images for longer than he should’ve and then deleted them too, the images still burned across his mind.)
“Maybe you don’t remember teenage Davos that well, but he was a pimple-faced loser who said a bunch of nasty shit just to get people to look at him.” He reaches out and gives Aeron a light punch on the shoulder. “And then he became absolutely obsessed with the first kid who did.”
Aeron smiles despite himself. “You were the only one who was nice to me,” he remembers, squeezing his eyes tight, trying to imagine the two of them as kids, sitting outside of school, listening to “Drive” by the Cars through shared earbuds as they waited for the bus. “I couldn’t believe you were a Blackwood. My family made it seem like you lot were evil incarnate.”
“Maybe your uncle just hated my family because they didn’t give a shit when I came out,” Davos says. “Ben was just glad I wouldn’t try to steal the girls he was trying to pick up whenever we went out.” He pops open the center console and fishes out a pack of cigarettes, lighting two and handing one over to Aeron.
“I don’t-” he starts, but then takes it anyway, sucking down acrid smoke, relishing in the burn it leaves even after he exhales it. It makes him forget the sting of his cheek, the way his eyes feel heavy and slightly sticky with dried tears, the way he can only breathe out of one nostril because the other is still clogged with snot. It’s a pain he can control, and so he does, reaching towards the car’s ashtray the same time as Davos, fingers brushing in a way that makes him shiver like he’s a teenager all over again.
“You should’ve snuck in my window that night,” Davos says, his voice sounding much older, like a man on his deathbed voicing all his past regrets. “I wouldn’t have pushed you.” He laughs to himself like he’s just said some private joke. “Well maybe I would’ve, because you can be a right little shit sometimes, but I wouldn’t have pushed you just because I heard footsteps down the hall.”
“I would’ve scurried out of that window anyway,” Aeron says. “I was so scared of myself back then.”
“You still scared?” Davos asks. Aeron looks up from where he had been staring at his hands to find Davos leaning in closer, his forehead parallel to Aeron’s shoulder. He leans in a little more, resting his head in a position that has to be uncomfortable as his stomach digs into the center console. He holds the cigarette far away, his arm outstretched towards the driver’s side window, careful not to let the smoke get any closer to Aeron.
“Yeah,” Aeron breathes out, watching the boy on his shoulder, knowing that what he says next is both truthful and painful. “I still wish I was normal.”
“Oh,” Davos say, lifting his head up. He pulls away in almost a mechanical fashion, putting the car in drive and pulling back on the road, speeding towards the city.
~~~~
They finally stop outside an old apartment building. It’s that distinguished type of old that clues people in to the fact that the residents have money, not the kind of old that brings about crumbling facades, peeling paint, and bugs.
“You live here and still drive that?” Aeron asks, pointing at the beater car he knows for a fact Davos has driven since he was seventeen.
“Daddy’s money can only go so far,” he says, not turning to look back at Aeron, even though he pulled his bag out of the car and has looped it over his shoulder like it’s his own.
Inside the flat was closer to what Aeron was expecting. Empty bottles on the coffee table, a pile of laundry sitting in the hallway, shoes kicked every which way near the door. On the sofa, Aeron sees a fat black cat sleeping across the back, not stirring as the two boys made their way inside.
“That’s Raven,” Davos says, stopping to stroke the cat as he walks down the hall, throwing open a door to toss Aeron’s bag inside. “And this is your room.” He doesn’t look back at Aeron, doesn’t wait for the other boy to say anything, just turns on his heel to the room at the end of the hall, shutting the door and shutting Aeron out.
Davos’s guest bedroom wall is plastered in photos. There’s pictures of Ben and Aly and Sabitha, the four of them in different configurations at bars and restaurants and inside of cars. Cregan Stark and Jaecaerys Velaryon make an appearance in one or two, tucked up against Aly, eyes on each other. There’s photos of what Aeron has to assume are one night stands, their shaky compositions too reminiscent of the drunken pictures Davos likes to send. There’s pictures of Raven, pictures of his family, pictures of landscapes and his car and random birds on the pavement, but there’s also pictures of Aeron . His face is clustered in the center, his light hair and penchant for wearing yellow make him appear like the sun, radiating out towards all the others.
Aeron reaches a hand up to brush his fingers over one of the photographs. He looks young, maybe twelve or thirteen. The photo was taken way too close, but the cord dangling down by his cheek tells him the photographer didn’t want to yank the headphones out of their ears. There’s a picture taken from outside of Aeron’s window, his hair falling in front of his face as he tries to shoo Davos away, looking every part the Juliet to Davos’s Romeo, there’s a shaky one of him in class, flipping the camera off as he nervously glances at what he has to presume was the teacher somewhere out of frame, a selfie of them together, faces smooshed so close it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. And there was one taken at their American style prom at the end of their final year, a far away shot of Aeron standing against the wall, hair tied up and drink in hand as he stared out at everyone on the dance floor. It had been two years since they had spoken, two years since the sound of footsteps and Aeron’s fear of himself had torn them apart, had pushed Davos out of the window and out of his life. And yet, there were still photos of him on the wall, and an ancient beater of a car pulling up to his house twenty three minutes after he had asked.
“Fuck,” he breathes out in the darkness, because there’s really nothing else to say, is there?
Aeron Bracken falls asleep under a collage of photos, squeezing his eyes tight to prevent any tears from falling as he thinks about the boy he pushed away, the boy who still loved him.
~~~~~
Aeron wakes up in the early afternoon to sounds of the television and dishes being washed. It’s sickeningly domestic and he tries not to think too hard about how much nicer it would be if there was a cooling warm spot on the bed next to him, if arms had been wrapped around him at night, breath tickling the back of his neck. He allows himself to think about it for a moment before he scrubs it out of his mind, thinking instead how he should go back to his uncle’s and beg for forgiveness. He thinks about telling Amos it was all a laugh, some drunken dare Jerrel had goaded him into or something like that. He would tell him that of course he wasn’t like that, that he would rather die than be like that, and could he come home? He would promise to pray every night, asking the gods to absolve him of this sin if he could just be accepted back into that house on 203 Stone Hedge Lane, would do anything to get himself out of the situation he finds himself in at the current moment.
A knock on the door startles him out of his thoughts, causing him to jump. “Bracken you still can’t be asleep,” Davos says.
“I’m not,” Aeron answers, hoping and begging that Davos accepts that answer and just moves the fuck on, but of course he doesn’t because he was put on this Earth to get under Aeron’s skin in every single way possible. He swings the door open, holding his phone in one hand and his cat like an infant in the other. Raven wriggles her way out of Davos’s hold the second he steps into the room, nosing her way into Aeron’s lap.
“She was pawing at the door all morning,” Davos says, eyes never leaving his phone. He seems like he’s almost afraid of looking Aeron in the eye, but that can’t be the case. He’s Davos Blackwood, he barrels through life fearlessly, never pausing to care what anyone thought of him. “Guess she wanted to see you.”
“Just her?” Aeron asks cautiously. He doesn’t look at Davos either, his eyes focused on the purring black cat in his lap. “Davos I’m-”
“Whatever,” Davos answers, waving his hand. “You want to be normal so bad yet you were so tired of being matched up with girls that you came out to your uncle. You can’t have it both ways Bracken, you can’t go back to him and pretend to be straight just so he’ll forgive you and act like he didn’t cause that pretty little bruise blooming on your cheek.”
“He’ll believe I'm not pretending because that’s what he wants to believe,” Aeron says. “I can show him I can be the perfect son if he would just give me another chance.” He used to take drama in school, in his much younger years when it was acceptable for boys to do that sort of thing. He moved on to football once he got older, mainly for appearances, but some part of him kind of liked it too. But that wasn’t important, what was important was that Aeron Bracken was a damn fine actor when he wanted to be, and if acting for the rest of his life was what it took to be accepted again, to have the mundane life he craved, well then he was going to give it his all.
“And that’s what you want? Him to take you back? You texted me for the first time in seven years to come pick you up just so you can run back to your abusive family with your tail between your legs?”
Aeron scoffs. “What did you expect to happen? Me to fall into your arms like we were teenagers again? I needed help last night and you gave it so thank you, but I’m leaving.”
“Fuck you, Bracken,” Davos says, gingerly picking Raven up, hands scraping Aeron’s thighs, something Aeron tries very hard not to focus on.
“The feeling’s mutual, Blackwood,” Aeron replies. Before he grabs his bag, the overwhelming urge to rip all the fucking photos off the wall courses through him. He imagines Davos’s face as he does it, the kind of horrified rage that would grace those hazel eyes, the twist of his scarred mouth. Aeron relishes in that fantasy, imagining how good it would feel to rip the pieces of paper to shreds, how it might finally click in Davos Blackwood’s mind that they’re not kids anymore, that they can’t go back to how things used to be. He reaches a hand out, but he snatches it back like the photos are on fire. He can’t, he can’t be a petty child, no matter how much he wants to. He’s better, he’s grown now, more mature than those childish impulses, something Davos most definitely isn’t.
Aeron pivots sharply, leaving the room without another word, leaving Davos Blackwood, leaving whatever pathetic childhood fantasy he had forced himself to live last night. He clenches his jaw, chin held high, trying not to let any tears fall as he hails a cab to take him back to Amos.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One year later
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He should regret it, but he’s not thinking straight enough to care. Too many shots in, Davos is reaching for his phone, pulling up a message thread he hasn’t looked at in a year, haphazardly texting “I miss you, pretty boy,” to someone who definitely won’t answer and definitely doesn’t miss him back before he’s being crowded up against a wall by some tall blond who attaches his mouth to Davos’s neck.
Davos runs his hands up a slender waist, closing his eyes to block out blonde hair and blue eyes to replace them with brown and hazel. He slides his hands under the guy’s shirt,trying to imagine what Aeron’s skin would feel like, if his breath would hitch, if he would ghost his lips over Davos’s collarbones too.
“Can I?” Davos asks, holding up his phone, camera already pulled up. “You’re just, you’re beautiful.” That’s his classic line, has done this enough to know that calling boys like this beautiful is the quickest way to make them putty in his hands, pawns in this unspoken war between him and Aeron.
“Course,” the guy answers. “Don’t mind if I don’t pose though. I want to remember you a different way.” He reattaches his mouth to Davos’s neck, sucking on one spot for far too long, almost like he was a vampire trying to drain Davos’s lifeforce from just left of the hollow of his throat.
Davos takes quick photos of the guy’s hands on his waist, of a blond head against his chest, of long legs in barely there shorts. Davos makes quick work of sending the pictures to Aeron, imagining the blush that would rise to his pretty face before he threw the phone down and deleted the message. That was the part that made him revel in this every time, knowing that for a split second, Aeron was experiencing the littlest hint of pleasure too, that would drink in all those handsome boys for a moment and forget himself, forget that he thought he was an abomination against the gods, and for just one second he would allow himself to feel what came so naturally to him, no matter how much he tried to repress it.
“I gotta go,” Davos says, peeling the guy off of the hickey that would no doubt be there in the morning. “Gotta long drive tomorrow.” He doesn’t, he just doesn’t want to be here with this guy anymore, wants to go home and jerk off and think about Aeron Bracken while he does.
“Want my number?” the blond asks.
“What’s your name?” Davos asks instead of answering.
“Maron,” the blond answers and it’s far too close for Davos to even consider thinking about seeing this one again. Why have Maron when he had thoughts of Aeron, the pictures of him tacked up on the guest room wall, the number saved in his phone that he never got a reply from, but was still never blocked?
~~~
Davos Blackwood is on the edge of sleep, slumped onto his couch, spent and still a little drunk. Raven paws at his hand and he gives her lazy strokes on the head, trying to force himself to get up and make his way to bed before he wakes up with a killer headache and a fucked up back. He rolls his neck, trying to get it to crack before he finally forces himself to stand, a wave of dizziness hitting as he does. He rubs his hands over his face, scrubbing at his eyes, and that’s when the frantic knocking at the door begins.
“Fuck off,” he says, half hoping it reaches past the door and whoever’s knocking gets the message and goes away, but the knocking isn’t stopping and Raven is already bounding to the door, excited to see who’s on the other side, so Davos huffs and follows her, regretting every single step he takes.
And of course, on the other side of the door, is Aeron Bracken, soaked from the rain that had started an hour ago and shivering like a lost kitten.
“I’m not in the mood right now, Bracken,” Davos says, but he still opens the door wider and takes a step back because he knows exactly how this is going to go.
“Well I wasn’t in the mood for your texts tonight either, but you still sent them,” Aeron answers, stepping into the flat, tossing his sopping wet jacket onto the hook beside the door. He bends down and scoops Raven up where she was circling his legs and snuggles her into his chest. Raven, the traitor, immediately starts purring and nuzzling his shirt, trying to get even closer. That damn cat hisses at Ben and scratches Cregan, but of course she loves Aeron Bracken. Davos supposed she wouldn’t be his if she didn’t.
“Whatever,” Davos says. He motions down the hall. “You know where the spare room is. We’ll talk in the morning.” He grabs Aeron’s jacket off the hook, where it had been dripping water all over his floor. “And I know you weren’t raised in a barn, Bracken. Go hang this over the shower.”
~~~
Davos rolls out of bed past noon, and stumbles his way into the living room to find Aeron sat on his sofa, nursing a cup of coffee, Raven stretched out on the top of the couch batting at loose strands of his hair.
“Just made yourself right at home, didn’t you?” Davos asks, pinching the bridge of his nose. He doesn’t know what he did in a past life to be stuck with this much too pretty thorn in his side, but he thinks he’s going to strive to be better in this one so he doesn’t suffer too much in the next one.
“Made you a cup,” Aeron says, nodding his head in the direction of the kitchen. “Put your obscene amount of sugar in it too.”
“Your kindness is astounding, Bracken,” Davos says, but fuck if the coffee isn’t exactly how he likes it. He’s not sure if it’s sweet that Aeron remembers, or sad that his tastes haven’t changed since he was a teenager. “Now why are you here?”
“I missed you,” Aeron says simply, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to say, like him saying it doesn’t tilt Davos’s world on its axis, like one of the last things he said before they didn’t see each other for a year was that he still wanted to be normal , that he was still afraid of his feelings.
“Missed you too,” Davos answers, calm as he can. “But that doesn’t explain why you were knocking on my door like there was a fucking serial killer or some shit out to get you in the middle of the night.”
“This is going to sound so fucking ridiculous,” Aeron says, putting his mug down and shifting in his seat, curling up on himself, trying to make himself appear smaller. “My uncle kicked me out again.”
“You really went back to him?” Davos asks. “How stupid are you?”
“What other choice did I have?” Aeron asks. “I have nothing.”
“That can’t be true,” Davos says. “You have to have something that’s not your family.”
“I didn’t go to uni,” Aeron says. “I worked at a clothing store and quit three months after because I was bored. I crashed my first car and didn’t want to bother with another one. I’m as bottom of the barrel as you could get.” He pulls his no longer soaked jacket closer to him, as if he hopes to hide in it. “I thought I lost my phone,” he says.
“Ok?” Davos says to the non-sequitur.
“Last night,” Aeron says. “I couldn’t find it in my room and I couldn’t be bothered to look anywhere else, so I just went to sleep. My uncle came home from the pub and found it in the kitchen. He saw your texts and knew I was still…”
“Still a queer?” Davos provides.
“Said it a bit worse than that, but that was the gist, yeah,” Aeron answers. “So here I am.”
“That still doesn’t explain how the fuck you got here,” Davos says.
“Oscar Tully,” Aeron says, a bit of embarrassment in his voice. “I think he’s my only friend.”
“I think Raven takes up another spot,” Davos says, reaching over to give the cat a scratch under her chin.
“Should’ve asked her to come get me,” Aeron says. “She would’ve remembered where you lived.”
“You missed me so much and you forgot where I lived? I’m hurt Bracken.”
“I had Oscar drop me off on some random block and I walked around for an hour trying to find the building,” Aeron says, dropping his face into his hands. “I’m such an idiot.”
“I’ll say,” Davos says, poking him on the shoulder. “You could’ve gotten killed or kidnapped walking around at night with that pretty face.” He scoots closer, feeling bold. “Why didn’t you text me?”
“I was embarrassed,” Aeron says. “I looked desperate.”
“So you decided the only way to keep your pride intact was to show up looking like a drowned little kitten?”
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds stupid.”
“I think you might be a little stupid, pretty boy,” Davos says. “But we all have our faults, don’t we?”
“And what would yours be?” Aeron asks, peeling himself out of his tightly wrapped jacket cocoon, stretching out on the couch, inching closer to Davos.
“That after all these years I’m still absolutely gone for you,” Davos answers, the words pouring out before he can think about it.
“Be serious,” Aeron says.
“You think I’m not?” Davos asks, getting closer, close enough to see the gold fleck in Aeron’s tired eyes.
“I think a lot of things are just one big joke to you,” Aeron says.
Davos laughs. “I kissed you when we were kids, I picked you up from your piece of shit uncle’s just to make you feel better, and here you are back at my place, and you think I’m joking? You’re the one who keeps pushing me away.”
“I don’t mean to,” Aeron says. “I just, I was just so scared about what other people would think.”
“Fuck other people,” Davos says. “What do you think? What do you want?”
“You,” Aeron breathes out. “It’s always been you, hasn’t it? Even when I wanted to pretend it wasn’t.”
“Promise not to push me away this time?” Davos asks, leaning in, Aeron’s breath against his lips.
“Deal,” Aeron says, closing the gap between them.
Aeron Bracken kisses with the ferocity of a man on the battlefield. His hands are everywhere, tangled in Davos’s hair, running along his collarbones (which makes him think about the hickey Maron left there last night which he does not want to be thinking about right now, not when Aeron Bracken is attached to his mouth), running up Davos’s shirt to stroke the soft skin of his belly, back up to cup his jaw so he can sort them out a better angle. He’s licking into Davos’s mouth like he’s setting up shop in there, like a surgeon would have to remove his tongue from there once this was all said and done. He’s crawling on top of Davos, plopping onto his lap like he belongs there, which Davos would argue he does. He grinding his hips in a way that makes Davos feel like he’s on fire, and all he can think about is Aeron.
“We could’ve been doing that for years,” he pants out after he pulls away to breathe. “ Fuck me Bracken, you’re an absolute menace.”
“Better than any of those boys you sent me photos of?” Aeron asks with a smirk, still very much sitting on top of Davos, already tangled hair looking an absolute mess after Davos had taken hold of it.
“Gun to my head I couldn’t tell you what any of them looked like right now,” Davos answers. “You’re the only one on my mind, pretty boy.” He wraps his arms around Aeron’s thin waist, pulling him impossibly closer. “You think you’ll take up my offer of staying with me this time?” he asks, rubbing his nose against Aeron’s cheek, trying to take him all in.
“I didn’t stop you when you tried to kiss me this time,” Aeron answers. “I think that’s your answer.”
“I want to hear it,” Davos says. “Say you’ll stay.” Say that this isn’t just a one time thing for you, say that you know what you want this time and that you won’t push me away or run away again. Say that you want me, let me want you in return. Let me be your home, let me help you. He hopes that’s all clear, hopes that Aeron can still read him like a book.
“You’re impossible, Blackwood,” Aeron answers. “But that’s what I like about you.” He leans in again, but this kiss is soft, a ghost of lips against lips. “And that’s why I’m staying.” He pulls back to look Davos in the eye, his gaze somehow communicating that he knew what Davos meant and he’s agreeing to all it, to letting himself love and be loved in return. “Happy?”
“Maybe if you kiss me one more time,” Davos says, because he can’t help himself when Aeron Bracken is right here and his mouth is free for the taking. He leans in and when their mouths meet it feels so right , a kiss of satisfaction, a kiss free of regrets.