Work Text:
Zhengxi groans into the quiet darkness, his eyebrows contorting confusedly.
His eyes open sleepily, and he feels like a tortoise knocked onto its back, and maybe a little drunk with how his eyes refuse to cooperate with his demands to open them.
Ah, he realises. The tortoise feeling was accurate, he’d fallen onto his back in his sleep.
It’s a habit he’s had since he was a kid, that developed into him only being able to sleep on his side, but how did he…
He looks to his side with his eyelids raised only a slither, and he sees blonde hair splayed over his skin, and he feels the weight of a hand covering him to reach and play with his ear and the jewellery there. That idiot must’ve tried to snuggle closer in his sleep and put too much weight.
He sighs, then grimaces when his eyes focus in on, and he feels, saliva going down his bicep where Jian’s resting the side of his drooling mouth.
He turns a quarter onto his side and uses the hem of Jian’s shirt to rub it off, carelessly revealing his friend's lower body.
Thoughtlessly, he then runs his thumb harshly over Jian’s mouth to stop him from drooling so carelessly over himself; after all, that’s how people get sore lips.
Then he gulps.
His skin is still so soft after all this time, he realises, his other fingers besides his thumb splayed over the boy's cheek in an unintentionally intimate way. It’s made even more so when Jian’s hand slips away from his ear at all of his movement, making him cup the brunette's face as well.
His thumb twitches downwards, as if instinctively, tugging Jian’s bottom lip.
Overcome with a fascination, he raises his thumb and reveals some of Jian’s upper teeth, then he pulls to the side and watches the muscle follow, before the boy makes a sleepy sound and shifts, the chub of his cheeks bunching into Zhengxi’s arm, licking his lips and exhaling heavily.
Zhengxi huffs in relief when he does nothing else, and his eyes stay closed. His eyelashes are long.
He then fully turns onto his side and finds himself looking at Jian just a little more.
Is all his body this soft?
He’s wondered before, but naturally, he can’t just feel his friend up. Their current relationship status doesn’t allow him to run his hands up Jian’s bare waist, or his thighs, or his hips, and he knows it’s his own fault and that he can stop at any time, but it’ll remain his dirty little thought for a while longer.
Zhengxi never normally wakes up before Jian, his body too accustomed to staying up too late playing games and thus waking up later; and any time he has coincidentally woken up first, Jian was hugging him from behind, so this scenario never happens.
He can’t remember the last time he’s seen Jian’s face so close up like this… maybe it was that time when Jian first came back. His cheeks are a little more full now than they were then, though, and with a healthier undertone.
His hair is all over his face, none of it restrained by a hair tie, and carelessly swooping all around. Zhengxi’s never said it, but he’s glad his friend grew his hair out this long. So smooth.
Zhengxi brushes the hair back, behind his ear, then shifts so his chin is on top of Jian’s head, his arm that’s not pinned down moving to cover Jian’s neck like he was hugging his head.
Jian’s hand shifts around, his arm moving under Zhengxi’s armpit, trying to lock onto his earring again, only resulting in carding his hands through brown hair and straining his arm to do so, before he tucks his head further into Zhengxi’s chest once more and goes back to being still.
As he closes his eyes, relishing in a warmth he thought he’d lost forever, Zhengxi’s glad he agreed to the one bedroom apartment.
… And that’s the exhaustion talking, not him!