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It's a strange habit, Aesop notes while watching Teodoro—not the watching itself, mind you, but the younger man's behavior.
"You don't look at yourself in the mirror," Aesop says one morning. “I’ve seen you glance at them—just not at yourself.”
Startled by the sudden ousting, Teodoro gives a slight flinch. "I– Well, that's…" Trailing off, he resumes his morning wash, his face already freshly scrubbed and still damp.
Laid out across the bed and only half-covered in bedsheets, Aesop had almost remained content to enjoy his late morning in. They're becoming so much more frequent during their holiday breaks together. Half of Easter break in Sixth—as an accident, mostly. Most of the same summer. All of winter break. And now spring again. Together, they’ve made Aesop's transitions back into his tightly-laced teacher's schedule a difficult fit—like the uncomfortable squeeze into your best pair of trousers after one too many helpings from the dessert table on Christmas.
Truth be told, he's utterly disappointed in his own sloth, but the temptation's grown stronger than his resistance. Worst of all, despite his better efforts, Aesop knows that eventually this will all catch up with him and he WILL miss his own first period class. And when that day comes, he's going to have to stare down the rest of the teaching staff and admit that their favorite pupil has simply spoiled him too much. It's not an inevitability he's looking forward to, and he certainly won't take it with grace, but much like any of his problems with his bodily wellness, it's an issue relegated to his future self.
But no matter how much he could relish the moment and luxuriant in only slightly-stale covers, it’s that little flinch and the silence trailing it that calls to him most of all.
He sits up, knowing better than to offer a hand. Unfortunately, Teodoro’s as stubborn as he is. They’ve learned to step lightly around one another’s wounds—and this tenderness, at such a short glance in, feels like one.
“If you’ve the will to speak,” Aesop says, “I’ve an ear to listen.”
The space between them stretches. Teodoro turns away, and for once, genuinely stares down his reflection in the hung mirror. His lips twitch once, his bright eyes a shade dimmer. Both catch the other’s gaze in the surface of the mirror, and Teodoro turns back. The younger man’s smile comes neither forced, nor fleeting as he drops the washcloth in the basin and returns within arms length of the bed.
“It’s not very uplifting.”
Aesop returns the gesture, his expression soft. “It already doesn’t sound like it would be. My statement stands.”
Another pause drawls out, then Teodoro nods. “Before that, could you…” By the time his grasp finds the handle of his hairbrush on the nightstand, Aesop is already waiting for it, his arm extended, palm up.
“Sit and I'll get to work.”
Teodoro’s smile boldens, returning to the standard Aesop finds it best at.
It takes a bit for Aesop to rearrange his legs into a comfortable position, but once settled and Teodoro sits, they fall into a now long-standing ritual—one that, thankfully, Aesop has made strong strides in improvement on.
Fingers first, gently detangling. Aesop gauges what pieces of the misshapen braid will come loose with the least effort, pinpointing early where he’ll have to tread gingerly as things progress. By the time boar bristles meet raven-black hair, Teodoro’s stiffened posture is long forgotten, and he sighs quietly through the show of care.
Good. Precisely the way Aesop wants it. Precisely the way Aesop want him.
At the tail end of a steady exhale, Teodoro begins:
“When I was still fairly new to…well, everything in London…” The orphanage, yes. It’s not the first time Teodoro’s spoken of it. “The woman who took care of us—”
“Isabel,” Aesop notes. He paused mid-stroke to pick his way through a snarl, rather than strong-arm it with the brush. “Because you couldn’t pronounce Elizabeth.”
Teodoro’s stilted little giggle shakes his shoulders enough to stop Aesop completely until it subsides.
“Zeds were hard, alright? I was five at the time.”
“No judgement.” Aesop laughs a little too—a short-lived chuckle at most, but it leaves him grinning behind the other’s back. “I do apologize for the interruption, though. Go on.”
“There was this little pocket mirror I carried with me. I’m not sure if it was my mother or father’s precisely, but it came in with me. My hair was already a bit long then, you see, and when we all were to quiet down for the night, she found me once brushing my hair as I looked into it.”
It’s quite the mental image: a far tinier Teodoro than the one Aesop knows—perhaps with rounder cheeks, his fingers stubby and his face unmarked by scars. It’s enough to give him an uncomfortable stroke of mental whiplash, tugged awkwardly between states of simple fatherly affection and the adoration of a lover. Aesop supposes it’s a symptom of taking a younger partner.
“There was this little bobble I did with my head that caught her attention,” Teodoro explains. “Like I was trying to watch myself while I tried to avoid it.”
Able to card his way through half the length of Teodoro’s hair, Aesop peers over the other’s shoulder, and again, their eyes meet in the mirror posted on the wall. “What were you trying to do, then?”
“Looking back now, things then are a bit blurry for me, but as she tells it, through my almost functional English, I was watching my mother.”
Aesop perks. This is definitely a new tale to his ears.
Teodoro shakes his head, banishing some unvoiced thought, though he manages to stay mindful and keep the gesture small. “Naturally, it was no ghost, though I suppose it did help create an illusion. My memory of them had begun to slip—the details blurring. I knew they looked like me: dark skin and hair, both wore it long, I believe. My father had a beard. I’m certain of that. Something much more than your scraggly mess,” he teases, leaning back until his shoulders brush Aesop’s chest, then rights himself again. “…I must have figured I resembled her more. And if I wiggled just right in front of that tiny mirror, I might mistake myself for something I was missing. Her.”
There’s so much in that singular word; it’s multitudes deeper than the seas, it’s a squalling storm’s worth of yearning, all forced into silence for over a decade. It’s a weight neither knows now to fully address, so they don’t.
“Eventually, as I grew, as more faded, looking became difficult. I wasn’t even sure what was correct and what I’d imagined. The confliction hurt. So I just stopped.” Teodoro’s shoulders sink. “Or did the best I could. It’s difficult to be presentable if you never look at yourself in a mirror. Exceptions get made.”
Finally, the worst of the tangles behind them, Aesop sinks his fingers through Teodoro’s hair—first, high near his scalp, then slowly down toward the newer breaks at the bottom. Lad was due for a trim. Knowing Teodoro, he’d shrug and gore the split ends off with the shearing clippers he used on his Mooncalves.
Brushing the length all aside over a shoulder, Aesop leans in, hesitating over the bared side, “May I?” His warm breath coaxes up a prickling of gooseflesh, and Teodoro shivers.
“Please.”
A kiss falls, pale lips to deep brown skin, and presses low on the side of Teodoro’s throat. A thoughtful rumble rises up in Aesop’s own as he mulls over all he’s been given. It is a wound—that much is undeniable. He’s less sure there’s anything he can do about it. That chafed him more than his crutches ever did. But though it’s a pain Aesop can’t fix, he can listen, and now aware, he can help guard these blind spots.
The distraction of a gorgeous naked body is apparently too much, though, made apparent by his own surprise when Teodoro’s nails find his scalp and gentle rake across it. The sound it pries out of Aesop—practically a moan—is hardly flattering.
“You made a sound a moment ago. What’s on your mind?” Teodoro murmurs and tugs close to the roots with just enough force to send a jolt of pleasure straight southward. Hells, these late mornings will kill him if this keeps up.
Aesop falls back on finely-tuned choreography, more mindful of the limitations of his body than ever. Leave the left leg stretched out, curl the right underneath. Turn and lay his terrible distracting young lover back. Ignore the stifled little giggle that creaks out of him. Aesop gives it his best performance, complete with the driest roll of his eyes he can muster.
“I suppose, then, in the absence of your friends over this break—possibly even the next—I will have to act as your spotter.”
Swift to prop himself up on his elbows, Teodoro grins, a beautiful gratitude writ across his features. “There is always Penny.” Smartarse.
“For what it’s worth, I've begun to think perhaps it’s still too early to get out of bed.” Aesop's frown, though deep, is all for show and utterly harmless. “Down, you,” he shoves, and returning to laughter as the man crawls atop him, Teodoro does just that.
“Are you saying you enjoy the taste of old sweat on my skin?” An airy groan slips free of Teodoro when the harsh scrape of stubble descends upon his neck once more and the sound unfurls alongside the dark blossoms of color sucked up across that stretch of skin. Though unlikely, perhaps it will help if Aesop simply gives him something new to focus on the next time he looks in a mirror.
To both Teodoro and his own internal machinations, Aesop too grins, “Well, I'm saying I don’t mind.”