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Late at night, that's when he most often texted you nowadays. Not that you minded. Daeron and you had been weathering small and big storms together since before you could think. And the older you grew the bigger the storms seemed to get. Though lately it was one and the same storm coming back around and around.
Maekar wasn't happy with his sons choices. Any of them. And if Maekar was one thing besides disappointed, it was incapable of being quiet about it. Leading to Daeron spending more time at your place than at home once you got your own place. Not that you minded even when your mother would look at the two of you suspiciously.
Everything felt a little easier in that pocket of time between midnight and everybody waking up again to start their day in your apartment. When he would sneak out of the large house on the outskirts of town to the bowels of the city. Where he knew with only a short message there would be a joint rolled and an ear to listen to his venting ready upon his arrival.
A task that you get to as soon as this night's text comes in. 'You still awake? I'm coming over now.'
It's a needless question. He knows you are awake. You always are.
The click of the spare key in the door echos through the space over the low hum of the television just as your tongue seals the thin paper around a mix of tobacco and weed. Three stomped paces and the clack of his motorcycle helmet on top of the shoe cabinet. Two more and the rustle of shoes being kicked off into the nearest corner by the entrance. You don't need to turn around anymore to know what he is doing and what's coming next.
"He is impossible. It wouldn't kill him to at least try to see things from my side once. But does he ever?" A huff breaks of the brewing rant in Daeron's lungs as he falls onto the sofa. Willingly accepting the joint that you lead between his lips.
For a moment there is only the crackling of the lighter between his shaking fingers and the breath leading smoke into and then again out of his lungs.
"Of course he doesn't. Gods forbid I'm just a human and not some perfect impersonation of whatever shit he's projecting onto me."
Silently your fingers weave into his hair. Playing with the dirty blond strands and massaging his scalp while Daeron talked on.
"I mean look at us. None of us are perfect and yet even Aerion doesn't get half as much shit from our father as I do."
Tilting his head back in your lap to look up, Daeron is met with a tight lipped sympathetic smile and a hand reaching towards his to accept back the joint. Fingers lingering against each other for just the blink of a moment longer than usual.
A soft tingling spreads from the point of contact. It had started happening a lot recently, the tingling, whenever your bodies brushed against each other. Only to every time be pushed away as quickly as it rose up. Buried under the thought that it was purely platonic. Nothing worth thinking about too deeply.
"I'm sorry you have to deal with this. It isn't fair on you to single you out with those impossible standards." You finally reply in a low tone, almost a purr as your free hand runs against his scalp again. And at last the action elicits a sigh from Daeron that deflates his body to rest more relaxed against the sofa.
"I'm so tired of it. It's always the same."
He rolls over and burying his face in your stomach. And it squeezes your heart so lightly it hurts with the wish you could fix things for him. More than just being there like this at least.
The two of you sit in silence for what could have been a minute or an eternity with only whatever movie you had put on as background noise at the begining of the night playing on the lowest volume without being put on mute.
The joint shared between you causes a comfortable buzz and after it put out for your stomachs to crumble and quiet chuckles to fleetingly lift the mood.
"Have you had dinner earlier?"
Rolling back around to his back, Daeron shakes his head. Not meeting your eyes. He knows the look your about to give him already along with the reminder that he needed to eat, fittingly delivered with a worried click of your tongue.
But you can see that wouldn't help tonight. As if it ever did. Instead one of your hands rubs over his shoulder to signal him to lift his head so you can stand up. Leaving him to put some food in the oven and wash some dishes for clean plates and utensils.
Just before you begin plating the meal, the low hum of the TV gets replaced by the sound of plucking randomly at the strings of a guitar. He had left the old accoustic at your place weeks ago and hadn't played since then. So hearing even just that much brings a smile to your face.
Unhurriedly the uncoordinated notes turn into a slow, melancholic tune that you recognise in an instant as he had played countless times before. Humming along you put the plates down on the table without saying anything. Not wanting to disturb him.
He looks as peaceful as he hasn't in a long time. Lying down with the instrument in his lap and eyes dosed. A sight that makes your heart swell just the slightest bit. The smells ultimately pull his attention away however. A short distraction as the two of you inhale the food, more hungry than initially thought. Going back to what he did before. Now sitting legs crossed to make space for you and his hair pulled back into a loose bun at the back of his head, resuming the song that was previously cut short.
The guitar fills the space of the room first. The gloomy notes swaying your body in its rhythm, laying around the two of you like a warm weighted blanket. Smoke from a cigarette between your fingers curling in the air forgotten. And before you realise it the low humming turns into clear singing. Eyes closed, taken by the music. Unaware to the way Daeron's eyes flicker up. Not stopping his plucking at the strings but mind certainly somewhere else now.
He had played in your presence before, more often than either of you could count, but the way your voice harmonizes with the guitar makes a fragile yet overwhelming thing that stirs up your blood in an entirely new way.
The pull in and of itself isn't new and yet this felt different at the same time. The vibrations linger, just like the last note from the strings. Vibrating through the air almost unbearably intimate. Pulling the two of you closer towards each other until you share a breath. Eyes flickering over the others face, your skin prickling with goosebumps at the near suffocating silence. Daeron's throat bobbing around swallowing the suspense holding you in place barely a few inches from another.
And then the tension snaps. Pulling you away again to take a sip of your drink and it feels like coring of a trance as you blink away the moment.
Meawhile Daeron clears his throat and repositions the instrument in his lap. Giving way for the key notes of another song. This one you know by heart as the one you listened to near every day for the past over ten years. Which perks up the corners of your lips and pulls your body onto its feet. Giving to best breathy vocals while the melody sways your body like grass in a breeze. The movement flowing through the muscles as natural as a heartbeat.
And just like your breath flows through you, your body enters a similar flow. Rough carpet, warming with friction from swaying turning into twirling, scraping against the soles of your feet exchanged for cold, smooth tiles and back. A breeze sweeps through your hair and caresses your skin. Coming to a rather sudden stop when your eyes open to the world around spinning like a carousel put on too a too high power setting. Driving you to stagger back to the sofa.
With a soft 'umph' air pushes out of your lungs at the sudden sensation of the cold leather underneath you.
"Are you good?" Comes the question, just as light hearted as you feel in this moment.
The music cuts out once more then, the guitar finding its place against the side of the couch and Daeron his closer by your side. One hand against the small of your back as your head rests in your palm in an attempt to stop the world from spinning.
"Yeah, world's just being a carousel." You assure with a weak giggle, sitting up slightly straighter.
Daeron stays right there the entire time, rubbing up and down on your back until the uncomfortable feeling eases. Allowing you to look up again, so close it would take only a little bit of leaning into close the distance for good this time. A few inches, basically nothing. And it wasn't like you were the kind of friends that took these things too serious. The way his eyes darted down to were your tongue flicks out to wet your lips however felt more intense than drunkenly stumbling into the apartment at three in the morning, sharing sloppy kisses fuelled by alcohol and weed induced horniness. Wiping every word you are about to speak from your tongue and mind.
And as much as your mind tells you to gain distance, to not unnecessarily overcomplicate things, your body already does the exact opposite. Slowly and hesitantly. Stopping for just a second after every inch left behind, to give him or whatever force of the universe the chance to interrupt if wanted.
But neither does and so the world narrows to the space between you, shrinking with each heartbeat, which hammers against your ribs so much you fear he will still feel it against his chest.
One last warm breath fans over your face warmly, lips parted already in anticipation of what's to follow. A coy, feathery pressing against each other at first. Gentle and tentative. Testing boundaries long crossed anew in an entirely new light.
Daeron's lips are warm and slightly chapped from chewing on them so often. Tasting of the joint you had shared earlier, the food you had eaten and the cheap beer he must have drunken before driving here.
On your lower back his hands are shaking. Had they done that this whole time, you wonder as your own slide into his hair to mess up the already loosened makeshift bun further. But the the thoughts are shut down anew, quick and effectively, every time your lips meet. It's like he breathes life into you with every lip lock. Making your lungs clench with a lack of breath when you part. Though you can't bring yourselves to go far.
The lingering touch of your forehead buzzes through your body like touching a static tv. The burning of your cheeks matching the heat at the back of Daeron's neck.
Underneath the pad of one exploring finger tracing his cheek and jaw, Daeron's stubble tickles roughly against soft skin which faintly smelt of your favourite hand creme. Neither of you dares to speak in fear of ruining a moment that feels more then just fine right now. It's to comfortable right there, sharing a breath in air that feels irreparably changed, yet not for the worse.
Reluctantly you pull back, that one hand against his jaw the only point of physical connection. It wanders restlessly wanders to trace the lines of his face as if seeing him for the first time. Brushing the hair away from his eyes which, freed from the hair tie during the kiss, had fallen into his eyes.
Realising that, Daeron is shaken out of the pull that kept the two of you together. Reaching behind to pick up the elastic and tie it into the dirty blond strands.
"What was that for?" He laughs and it sounds only half as nervous as the drum in your chest.
"I don't know. It kinda felt right." You shrug around the answer. Not quite willing or able to think of a deeper meaning to the action other than the moment pulled you in. Not while you can still taste him on your lips and feel the remnant tingling in the pit of your stomach.
"It did." Daeron rests back against the cushions. The hand still on your back tugging you slightly closer. Not consciously, but neither of you complains about it either. Aware in this moment that maybe you didn't need an explanation right away.