Work Text:
It hasn’t been like this for a while, not since.
Julian flips the latch on the window and pushes it open, the air fresh with the smell of the rain that had been hammering the streets outside for hours, the pavements shiny with the gloss of raindrops sinking into the concrete.
He leans against the ledge, head pressed against his bedroom wall and watches Kai’s fingers work meticulously. He draws his eyes along the length of them as Kai rolls the joint, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, lost in an absent silence as the dull sound of traffic rolls around them.
“Do you need help?” Julian asks, one corner of his mouth tilting upwards, strands of hair falling over his forehead but he doesn’t push them back.
“I can do it,” Kai mutters but his fingers shake a little as he fumbles with the rolling, "you hate this part anyway.”
Julian turns away, sparing himself from agreeing. The streetlamps flicker across the street, small circles of light creating stepping stones along the pavement. A bike brake squeaks in the distance, it’s a mellow night, a gentle breeze blowing in from outside. It’s not cold enough to make him shiver, but Julian does anyway, sinking his chin beneath the collar of his hoodie.
He looks over at Kai again, swallowing down the words on the tip of his tongue, he’s not going to ask why he’s here, hope is for fools after all.
He’d almost fallen over himself when he opened his front door and saw his best friend leaning against the wall outside, mouth half-tilted up in a small smirk and a hi, wanna get high? that had almost knocked all of the air out of Julian’s lungs.
He’s always had the ability to do that.
“You really look like you’re struggling,” he comments, folding his arms loosely across his chest, scratching his nails against the fabric of his hoodie.
“I haven’t done it in a while,” Kai shrugs a shoulder half-heartedly, not lifting his head “Soph hates it.”
Julian’s shoulders stiffen with a tension that claws its way through his body at the mention of her name and forces himself to turn away, clearing his throat as he settles his gaze on his haphazard bag and pile of laundry that had slipped from his chair. Tarried raindrops starting to slide down the window in the corner of his eye, pooling in the groove of the frame, Julian tracing his finger across the ledge.
Julian doesn’t hate Sophia, how could he? But he can’t help the heavy set feeling that coils bitterly in his stomach whenever Kai brings her up, casually slipping her name into conversation ever since they started dating. Julian still smiles though, ignoring the dull ache in his chest that he can’t escape from whenever he does, jealousy, he knows that now.
Still, he’s never been able to help it when it comes to Kai.
It used to be easy, watching the way that Kai would become all starry-eyed whenever he mentioned Sophia, stumbling over himself and the long pauses in conversations so he could text her. Julian used to be able to make fun of him, be able to tease him about it but he used to be able to be happy for him.
Happy for him as he was falling in love for the first time.
Julian had to go and ruin that though, ruin it all by stupidly, selfishly falling in love with him too.
He pushes himself off the wall and drops into the empty space beside Kai, the mattress sinking beneath his weight as his knee knocks against Kai’s. It’s the closest they’ve been in weeks.
Julian had tried not to think too hard about it, about how his messages one day weren’t replied to for three, how something in their friendship had started to shift and it felt like they were slipping away from each other, how unasked questions started to swirl around his head and Kai, how Julian noticed the little things that had changed between them.
And yet.
Julian can’t escape the nervousness that cages him, his fingers trembling slightly underneath his sleeves.
“You okay?” Kai asks him, grazing the back of his hand with a featherlight touch that almost scorches his skin.
“Yeah,” Julian lies, because he can’t tell him the truth, pulling his hand away, like it’s scorned and shoves it into his pocket.
Kai looks away unconvinced, flicking the lighter on and letting the small flicker of an orange flame light up his best friend’s dimly lit room, letting the soft warm glow of the lamp on his bedside table frame Kai’s gorgeous face, drawing Julian’s eyes towards him once again.
Kai flicks the lighter again, lighting up the joint and putting it to his lips, taking the first drag and exhaling a cloud of smoke that floats towards the open window.
He passes it to Julian and he holds it between his fingers for a moment before mirroring the movement, letting the smoke fill his lungs, letting it squeeze and burn before exhaling it to his side, almost too aware of Kai’s eyes on him.
He hates the way Kai looks at him sometimes, like he can see through the hundreds of walls that Julian’s built up over the years. He had to, falling for Kai wasn’t something that happened overnight, it was weeks, months of letting Kai into his orbit and letting him wrap Julian up in something that he was never able to find a name for. It was lingering touches and finding him in a crowded room, it was Kai’s eyes lighting up and nights slipping away into early mornings when it felt like something shifted. It was all-consuming, it was.
It was falling in love. Irretrievably. It was the quiet acceptance that Kai Havertz might be the biggest heartbreak of his life. And Julian would let him break his heart, a million times over just to keep him.
They share it between them, letting the initial buzz settle in and wrap around them, slipping through their bodies to the tips of their fingers. It's nice, Julian thinks, to not be stuck inside his own head for a while at least.
At one point, Kai shifts closer and presses his thigh up against Julian’s and it almost sends his head spinning, the heat between them could burn to the touch but Julian would welcome it, because it’s— it’s familiar. It’s falling back into not being able to go two minutes without needing to touch each other— an arm slung over shoulders, thighs pressed together, Julian’s hand in Kai’s hair or Kai’s fingers tugging at whatever Julian’s wearing to pull him closer.
Julian remembers the first time they smoked weed, he remembers the way Kai’s eyes had blown wide and how he stared at him in silence before asking where the hell he got it, Julian never told, he still isn’t sure if he knows now. He can still hear Kai’s high-pitched giggles and how he’d stumbled up the stairs, almost faceplanting them a couple of times. He remembers the way Kai’s face had shone with a wicked grin and how he’d pressed his body flush against Julian igniting a warmth that had spiralled deep within his core, something that he’s chased every day since.
He misses it, he misses when their friendship was easy and light and Julian wasn’t teetering on the edge of an unspoken confession that could tear them apart, when he could break something so precious to him like a snowglobe smashing on a tiled floor, spending forever finding glitter. He misses when their friendship was just theirs. He misses when things weren’t left with loud silences and a tension that they continue to dance around.
He misses—
Julian rolls the joint between his fingers and listens to the patter of rain hitting the window, the howl of the wind blowing through the street outside and the drunken out-of-tune singing from revellers falling out of one club and into another.
He falls backwards onto his bed, letting his head sink into the bedspread and allowing the new lightheadedness wrap itself around him, a small hum thrumming through his body, flexing his fingers from where his arm is thrown over his stomach. And for the first time in weeks, Julian thinks he can breathe properly.
He feels Kai pulling the joint from his loose grip and lets him have it, closing his eyes and slipping into a state of bliss, embracing it because god only knows when it’ll come back.
“Jule,” Kai calls out, his whisper hoarse and his fingers touch Julian’s, nails grazing against the back of his hand.
Julian turns and opens his eyes, adjusting to the gentle warmth from the lamp on his bedside table again, tilting his mouth upwards slightly in a half-smile, squinting at his best friend.
“Kai,” Julian says his name, and grins dumbly afterwards, covering his face with his hand as he lets the lightness that he’s been devoid of for the last-however-many-weeks fade away.
Kai catches his hand, threading their fingers together as he pulls Julian’s hand from his face, dropping it to the empty space between them, Kai’s fingers cold against his own, they always were total opposites like that.
Julian blinks, letting his eyes graze across the curves of his best friend’s face, he’s always been beautiful to him, the kind that if Julian wasn’t in love with him— he’d be fucking jealous of him, hideously so.
Julian wants to reach out, trace his jaw, pull him closer— he wants to— his breath catches in his throat when Kai’s eyes drop to his lips, lingering too long for it to just be a coincidence, igniting something that Julian has wanted, craved.
“What are you—?”
Julian’s question is swallowed up by Kai closing the distance, as small as it might have been, both of them leaning in, subconsciously, deliberately, between them and Julian feels like he’s falling. Falling harder than he already has.
He reaches, grasping blindly for the front of Kai’s hoodie to scrunch up between his fingers, to tug him closer, desperate to eradicate any space remaining between them. Warm lips slide over Julian’s and his brain does that short-circuit thing, he knows they shouldn’t be doing this.
Kai has a girlfriend, a girlfriend he loves yet Julian is willing, ready to swallow down the guilt and pretend it won’t wrap around his chest and squeeze until he can’t breathe once he can think rationally again because Kai is kissing him, and it’s all he’s wanted for months.
It’s all he’s wanted for longer than he can begin to remember.
He’s thought about it, when sleep eluded him and the shadows of outside spun in a waltz across his bedroom walls and his fingers clenched underneath the blankets, he thought about what it would be like to cross that line, to kiss Kai, to hear the gasps and sounds he’d make. He nips at Kai’s bottom lip and the gasp is like a lifeline, Julian’s heart stumbles and his fingers trace the curve of his best friend’s jaw, delicate to the touch like Kai could crumble into dust, is he real? Is this real? Julian doesn’t want to open his eyes to find out.
Julian slides his hand across Kai’s neck, thumb pressing against his collarbone and feels Kai’s hand slipping beneath his hoodie, fingers dancing along his hip, folding around it and holding him in place, like Julian was ever going to move.
He tugs Kai closer, Julian’s hand on the back of his neck.
Kai goes easily. Julian wonders if he always has.
He’s different to everybody else that Julian’s kissed, even if he could count on one hand how many there have been in the last year, he kisses Julian soft but insistent, his hands unable to settle on just one part of Julian’s body, nails grazing his skin leaving a path of heat in their wake. It’s different, maybe, because of the feelings that have looped themselves around him but it might be the best of his life. He’s like a drug, one that Julian can’t get enough of.
Julian’s breath comes out in a shaky exhale when he pulls away, lip tugged between his teeth and his eyelashes almost touching his cheek, fluttering when he feels Kai’s fingers daintily dance along his jaw before they disappear completely, only a ghost of something he wants to cling to remaining.
He wants to ask, he wants to lay himself bare and accept that Kai has the power to break his heart with his answer but when Julian settles his gaze on Kai, his eyes are closed and there’s a soft sereness sweeping across his face that he hasn’t seen for a while.
He can’t bring himself to ask.
“Jule,” Kai whispers, a waver to his voice that draws his attention to him, to the sheen that lingers on his lips and the way that he sinks his teeth into them, instinctively, maybe.
Julian swallows.
“Don’t,” Julian stops him, clenching his fingers into his palm, unable to completely conceal the ache in his voice. “I get it.” He mumbles, hoping that Kai doesn’t catch it, swallowing down the inevitable rejection that binds him, deep to his bones.
Kai shakes his head, sitting up with his palm pressed to his forehead, his no you don’t tumbles from his lips with a frustration that creases at his brows. Julian follows, knocking his knee against his best friend’s and drawing Kai’s eyes back to him, letting his eyes glide across Julian’s face and the slight red tinge of his cheeks.
Before he drops his eyes to Julian’s mouth again, a vacillate gleam in his eyes. Like he wants— and Julian wants him to.
Julian opens his mouth but can’t find his voice, instead forcing himself to swallow the fear that claws at his throat, he wants to ask what’s on Kai’s mind but he’s staring at him in a way that could turn the heat curling in Julian’s stomach into molten lava, there’s something wanting, something raw colouring his beautiful eyes and Julian wants him.
It’s swift, the way that Kai’s hands find Julian’s waist again, pulling him towards him, close enough that his trembling breath touches Julian’s cheek, cold fingers against scorching skin, hot and cold but somehow not enough of either.
“I want to kiss you again,” Kai admits, in a way that sends Julian jumping head first off the cliff he’s been teetering on the edge of, unable to feel anything but Kai’s fingers digging into his hips, thumbing across the waistband of his sweats.
Too much. Not enough.
“What’s stopping you?” Julian hears himself ask, against the erratic beating of his heart as it threatens to lurch out of his chest, snapping his ribcage into irreparable pieces.
For a moment, as fleeting as it might be, Kai hesitates, something like realisation settling on his face and a sudden consciousness flaring in his eyes. Sophia. Julian leans in, letting Kai’s cologne wrap around him but doesn’t dare speak, unwilling to break the spell of the moment.
But, Kai shakes his head and slowly drags his tongue across his bottom lip.
“Nothing.”
And he kisses him again, stealing every breath from Julian’s lungs as he does.
*
The evening completely slips away, lost in languid kisses that Julian craves like a drug, Kai’s weight half on the bed but mostly draped over him, his hands in Julian’s hair, letting the low hum of Cologne outside fill the silence in empty glass bottles being poured into the dumpsters and revving of engines taking on the ghosted streets.
Julian doesn’t want to let him go, a trickle of fear settling in between the bliss curling itself around him, he doesn’t want to see Kai walk out of his door when he doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, when the unanswered questions will walk with him, haunting him if they slip back into what they were, have been.
He knows he’s a fool for allowing a shred of hope to blossom and bloom in him, to believe that something has shifted— and not just for him.
“Don’t leave.”
It comes out as a rush, a strangle of words that don’t sound right in Julian’s ears when he feels Kai’s weight shift and he sits up, pushing his fingers through his hair, tousling it more than Julian had done.
“What?” Kai asks him, turning around and lifting his eyebrows slightly.
Julian scrunches his nose and flicks his eyes over to the other side of his room, trying to steady his racing heart underneath Kai’s scrutinising look, his hands trembling at his sides.
“I said,” Julian breathes out, aware that it’s coming out unstable in the heavy silence in his room. “Don’t leave,” he repeats, a little lower this time.
If Kai’s surprised by the raw agony woven in Julian’s words, he doesn’t show it but there’s still a flicker of something, a flare of awareness shining in his eyes for a moment, his shoulders dropping under the weight of the tug of war taking place inside his head. Julian doesn’t dare move, fighting against himself because Kai should leave, Julian should want to kick him out but. He wants.
Kai’s eyes soften when he looks at Julian again, in a way that causes his stomach to do that scrunchy thing, his hand twitching when Kai’s fingers brush his own, like he’s going to twine their fingers together. He almost does.
“Please,” and Julian hates how pathetic he sounds when he says it.
Kai leans over, tracing the pad of his thumb across his best friend’s bottom lip, stuttering slightly when Julian’s eyes widen and he leans in, breath ghosting over Julian’s lips, eliciting a slight shiver.
“I’m not,” Kai murmurs, and gently presses his mouth to his.
He settles back into bed, throwing the duvet back and he turns onto his side, sliding his arm underneath Julian’s hoodie and letting his fingers rest against his best friend’s stomach, flicking the edge of his shirt underneath and pulling him back, until Julian’s back is pressed up against his chest and the steady thrum of his heart, easing some of the arisen panic in Julian.
“Wasn’t going to,” He promises after a few seconds of silence, causing Julian’s heart to leap and his lips touch Julian’s neck, somewhere between the curve where it meets his shoulder.
Julian knows in the morning everything will change again, and Kai will leave and go home to his girlfriend and he’ll be left with unspoken words that could choke him with the magnitude of something stronger that they hold. He knows that him and Kai will slip back into old, letting this night fall away to the back of their minds but every time they look at each other, they’ll know, they’ll see the line that they crossed and the line that they can never cross again. And Julian will take it, he’ll lose himself in the taste of his best friend and let the crack in his heart grow but he’ll still have Kai.
The lull of sleep comes fast, wrapping around Julian’s tired muscles unrelentingly, his eyes fluttering between open and closed as the warmth of Kai’s body envelopes him, and he lets it because—
Because, Kai is his, at least for tonight.