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“What do you want, Infume?”
Evbo’s voice is soft, but it carries a sort of amusement that makes Infume’s ears instantly burn.
Infume remains still on the edge of the mattress, his knuckles white where his fingers are tightly clamped around the cuff of Evbo’s sleeve, pinched between his thumb and index finger. He gives it a weak, sharp tug, simply because he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands.
“Nothing,” Infume mumbles, his jaw tight.
Evbo doesn’t pull his sleeve away. He doesn’t say anything, either, which is infinitely worse. The mattress moves as Evbo leans forward, and even without looking, his expression is painfully clear: the half-lidded one, the one where his mouth is doing something infuriating.
“You’re actively trying to rip the cuff off my sweater, man.” Evbo’s voice is closer now. “It’s not nothing. Use your words.”
Infume releases the sleeve like it burned him. His hand drops to the mattress, pressing hard into the sheets. “I don’t have words. I’m fine. I was just—it’s nothing. Forget it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious.”
“You look serious. You look like you’re about to snap the bed frame in half.” Evbo shifts again, and the mattress dips closer. “Your whole neck is red, by the way.”
Infume’s hand flies to the back of his neck, scowling the moment it heats up under his palm. He drops it. “It’s warm in here.”
“It’s really not.”
“Then I run warm.”
“Sure you do.”
Infume lets out a tiny, strangled sound that dies on his tongue, and then does the only rational thing left available to him: he hides his face in his palms, his shoulders dropping forward in complete and utter defeat. The tips of his ears glow between his fingers, and his heartbeat hammers in his throat.
Evbo, because he is a fundamentally terrible person, does not let this go.
“Come on,” he says, closing the remaining distance between them. He slides closer on the mattress until his warm breath brushes against Infume’s knuckles. “You’ve been sitting on the edge of this bed for ten minutes like you’re waiting for a bus to run you over. Just tell me what you need.”
A muffled groan escapes from behind Infume’s palms. He shakes his head, fingers digging into his own hair. “I don’t need anything. Leave me alone.”
“You grabbed my sleeve.”
“It was an accident.”
“You grabbed it twice.”
“A recurring accident.”
“Infume.”
“What?”
His name sounds different when Evbo says it without his usual teasing lilt.
Infume’s stomach flips.
“I’m not gonna make you do anything,” Evbo says, his foot nudging lightly against Infume’s ankle, “but I’m also not gonna sit here pretending you aren’t shaking right now. So. Whenever you’re ready… I’m right here.”
Evbo delivers the words with ease, like the solution is simple.
Meanwhile, Infume is completely falling apart over wanting something so small it shouldn’t even require asking.
He drops his hands. His face is flushed a deep, miserable crimson, and he still refuses to look anywhere near Evbo’s eyes.
“Fine,” Infume murmurs. “Hold me, idiot. Please.”
The silence that follows lasts exactly one second, and it is the longest second of Infume’s life.
Evbo’s expression softens. He scoots himself back toward the center of the bed, near the headboard, and pats the mattress beside him.
“Move back from the edge, then.”
Infume exhales through his nose. He crawls backward, pulling himself toward the middle of the bed. The sheets rustle under his knees. He settles with his back against the headboard, and for one terrible, suspended moment they’re just sitting side by side and nothing is happening and Infume is staring at his own hands in his lap thinking this was a mistake, this was a mistake, this was—
Evbo moves with an ease that makes Infume want to put his head through the wall, swinging one leg over and sliding it directly into Infume’s lap, settling his full weight there like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His knees bracket Infume’s hips, and his hands come to rest on Infume’s shoulders.
Infume makes a small, choked sound. His arms snap around Evbo’s waist on pure instinct, pulling him in tighter, like he’s trying to close every last millimeter of space between them until there’s nothing left. He buries his face into the crook of Evbo’s neck and finally stops thinking.
Evbo reaches up, his palm cupping the back of Infume’s head, burying his fingers deep into the messy strands of his hair. His other hand settles on the nape of Infume’s neck, thumb tracing a slow, steady line back and forth.
“There you go,” Evbo murmurs, the words rumbling directly against Infume’s cheek where it’s pressed to his throat. “Good boy. See? Was that so hard?”
Infume goes beautifully silent, the praise scrambling the rest of his thoughts. He buries a heavy, shuddering sigh into Evbo’s neck as his body finally unwinds, like tension leaving a wire one thread at a time.
Evbo settles deeper into Infume’s lap, and in immediate response, the arms around his waist tighten. Infume holds on for like he’s afraid Evbo will be taken away if he even loosens his grip for even a second.
“You are so hot right now,” Evbo says after a moment, and it takes Infume’s ruined brain a full three seconds to understand he’s talking about his temperature. “Seriously. You’re like a furnace. Are you running a fever, or is this just what happens when you have to ask nicely for something?”
Evbo’s right; the fast-talking, sharp-tongued version of him is completely gone, replaced by dead weight and slow breathing and a face that is never, ever leaving the crook of Evbo’s neck.
“No comeback? Nothing?” Evbo tilts his head, his lips brushing the shell of Infume’s ear. “You usually have so much to say.”
Infume rubs his face against Evbo’s neck in a slow headshake. A flat, wordless no. The hand in hair keeps moving—nails dragging lightly against his scalp—and every pass pulls him further down into some warm, thoughtless place where language doesn’t exist and nothing is required of him except staying exactly where he is.
Evbo lets out a quiet breath and leans fully back against Infume’s chest, letting himself be held. He keeps talking, because he always keeps talking, his voice settling into that low, idle murmur he slips into when he’s comfortable. Infume catches maybe a third of the actual words he says. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. It’s just sound that fills up the anxious, restless space in Infume’s skull and replaces it with silence.
His grip around Evbo’s waist loosens as his eyes close and his breathing eases into a slow, even rhythm.
Evbo trails off mid-sentence, his fingers still in Infume’s hair.
“You falling asleep on me?”
Infume hums. It is the most non-committal, contented sound a human being has ever produced.
Evbo’s thumb traces once, slowly, behind Infume’s ear. He resumes the steady rhythm through his hair, gentler now.
“Yeah,” he says, barely above a whisper. “Okay.”