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Basil woke first. He always made sure he did.
There was an intimacy in watching Dorian while asleep that he couldn't bear to miss - the loose strands of hair brushing across his temple, the pale, bare shoulder slipping above the sheets, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his lips as if he were dreaming something wicked or wonderful.
Morning simply illuminated him; rays of sunlight streamed through the window and kissed his head, turning it to gold, while the shadows on his face softened into the hazy afterglows of a half-remembered dream.
It struck Basil, in moments like this, how time had moved so quietly between them. How, when he nestled closer and let his eyes linger, he could find the smallest changes - the crease near Dorian’s mouth where laughter had imprinted upon the skin, the softer weight of his body, the breath slower, deeper than the restless boy he had first painted all those years ago. He had loved him then, of course - ferociously, secretly, even foolishly - but oh, how much more he loved him now, when he could love him freely.
He let his gaze travel over that beloved face - the gentle sweep of Dorian’s brow, the lashes dark and casting shadows against his skin. There were new traces there that Basil adored reverently: the lines that came together at the corners of Dorian’s eyes, and the soft puffiness around them. Even the faintest shadow of stubble on his jaw - a thing the boy Dorian Gray would have scorned - made Basil’s chest ache with tenderness.
He brushed his thumb along Dorian’s cheek, feeling the change in the shape of it that only his hands would recognize; no longer the plush roundness of youth but something more angular, refined by years of smiles and sorrows. All those moments etched into you, Basil thought, and you’ve never looked more beautiful. Because in those fine lines and subtle hollows, Basil saw not age as loss but age as living, the entire life of the man he loved written into his skin.
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the corner of Dorian’s mouth, ghosting over the curve of its smile. Then another, softer one to his eyelid, just to feel the faint flutter beneath his lips. Dorian made a tiny, grumbling sound of protest - half-asleep and petulant in the gentlest way. Basil laughed under his breath and pressed even more kisses along his temple, his brow, the tip of his nose, overcome with a sudden rush of affection.
“Wake up, love,” he murmured against warm skin, voice low and hoarse with morning. “Come back to me.”
Dorian’s lashes flickered, eyes parting just enough to show slivers of blue - still blurred with sleep but softening when they found Basil’s face above his own. He gave him a lazy, crooked smile, a small thing that cracked Basil’s heart open every time.
“I'd like you to know I was enjoying a perfectly lovely dream,” Dorian whined, voice muffled as he nudged his nose against Basil’s chin. “And now you’ve ruined it with your good intentions.”
“Oh?” Basil pressed another kiss to his cheek, slow and sweet. “And what was so lovely, hmm?”
“You,” Dorian replied, smiling. “Though I suppose this is better.” He shifted closer, one arm slipping up to cradle the back of Basil’s neck, the other curling around his waist.
Basil buried his nose in Dorian’s hair, inhaling the faint scents of last night’s cologne, sleep, and the lilacs and lilies that still clung to him from the garden. He let his lips wander down to the spot behind Dorian’s ear, pressing kisses there until Dorian squirmed with a sleepy, delighted sound.
“You’re insufferable in the morning,” Dorian sighed dramatically, though his fingers had tangled themselves in Basil’s hair, holding him close.
“And you’re beautiful,” Basil murmured back, lips brushing his skin with every word. “More beautiful now than ever, do you know that?”
Dorian huffed a soft, self-satisfied laugh, but there was a faint blush on his cheeks. “How fascinating; all these years and you flatter me in exactly the same way. I’m dreadfully old and you know it.”
Basil only kissed him again, slower this time - lingering at the corner of his mouth, then full on his lips until Dorian made a low, helpless noise against him.
“If this is what old looks like on you,” Basil whispered, their foreheads touching, “then let me grow old with you. I want to be the first to see every line, every grey hair, every little mark that says you’ve lived well.”
Dorian’s smile turned soft, that rare, timid smile that no one else in the world would ever see. He pulled Basil closer until their legs tangled and their chests pressed together, warm and safe.
“You’re ridiculous,” Dorian murmured, fingers tracing shapes along Basil's shoulder as he let out a quiet laugh. “Grow old and grey, how ghastly.” Then he paused, thumb reaching up and sweeping over Basil’s jaw. “Still… it wouldn’t be so awful, I think. Not with you."
He parted his lips as if to say more, took a slow intake of breath and said nothing, then shifted his head to finally murmur into Basil's ear. "You'd do the same for me, then? You'd continue to love me?”
Asking made him vulnerable, and it startled Basil. He looked almost like the mere boy he'd been when they'd first met, unaware of his own charm and all the more charming for it.
“Happily. Entirely. Always.” Basil let his fingertips drift along the line of Dorian’s throat, feeling the steady pulse there - proof that he was holding in his arms something alive and real.
Dorian’s eyes fluttered open fully at last, heavy-lidded and shining. He studied Basil’s face the way Basil had studied his moments before, as if to memorize every feature, every shadow softened by the dawn creeping in through the curtains.
“Promise me,” Dorian said suddenly, voice so quiet Basil almost missed it.
Basil lowered his head, just enough to meet his gaze. “Promise you what, love?”
“That you’ll still look at me like this,” Dorian whispered, his hand slipping up to cradle Basil’s cheek, thumb brushing the faint crease beside his mouth. “Years from now. When we’re both older. When I’m not beautiful anymore.”
Basil caught his wrist gently, pressed a kiss into his palm. “Oh, darling,” he murmured, so full of fierce affection it made Dorian’s breath catch. “I don't think that's possible."
"Please," Dorian pleaded. "Promise me anyway."
Basil's gaze softened. "If that is what you wish, then so I promise you. I shall never tire of looking at you, Dorian, nor of waking each day to find you here beside me, where you belong. Let time do what it must, for it cannot diminish the weight of all I feel for you. If anything, it lays bare to me the soul you'd once kept hidden from the world. No longer some cruel, changeless perfection, but an honest and beautiful thing. I will love you not in spite of the years but because of them - I will love you more for every mark time gives you, and I will trace them all until I know them better than my own face.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. They heard nothing but the sound of their own synchronized breathing, the soft thrumming of their hearts close together.
Then Dorian let out a sleepy laugh, so quiet Basil felt it more than heard it, rumbling against his chest like a cat's purr. “A true artist,” he teased, but the words were tender, not mocking. He tugged Basil down until their foreheads touched. "You are as skilled with your words as you are with your paints."
“You must remember that all I am as an artist is a conduit for beauty,” Basil whispered back. "And all beauty I know begins and ends with you."
He pressed another kiss to Dorian’s temple, then one to his cheek, then to his lips, slow and lingering, until Dorian’s arm tightened around him and they melted into each other as the sun melts into the horizon.
Outside, the sky brightened inch by inch to a vast and indifferent world, but here, in their sun-dappled room, they were infinite enough to share a world of their own.
And when sleep tugged them under once more, they stayed tangled close, hearts steady and dreams golden with the simple promise of always.