Chapter Text
It happened in moments:
Bam had invited him out. Khun had found the restaurant in a warren of quiet, winding streets, the early morning sun clear over him, a scarf wrapped around his face. Bam had been waiting outside, his cheeks red with the chill and his eyes bright. He led Khun in.
Noise hit them, early morning breakfasters clustered around tables. I wanted to try this place with you, Bam had said over his shoulder, and there was a small table in the corner with just two chairs, empty but for Bam's jacket, waiting for them.
Two mugs already sat in front of each chair, a small carafe of coffee in the middle, and Bam smiled nervously at him. As Khun settled, Bam poured a steaming cup of coffee for him and said softly into the bustle of noise that he was going to pay.
Khun ordered the most expensive thing. Bam just smiled at him a bit like he was being charming, like Bam found him hopelessly endearing, and Khun felt light in the middle of his chest and a little bit like he had stumbled.
When Khun's meal arrived, an extravaganza of waffles and syrups and eggs and an entire casserole, for some reason, and then Khun discovered a third egg hidden under the sauce poured over the casserole, Bam had just laughed at his horrified face and offered to swap his simple pancake meal.
Khun ate pancakes, and he stole bites of eggs, and Bam laughed with each theft. Noise buffered around them, and he still felt tight in his chest, but it felt like a tightness that hadn't yet eased, but could.
Khun remembered an evening, remembered telling Bam that he was going to introduce himself as Aguero, He remembered the resolve behind it, how it had felt—like he was releasing an old version of himself, the version of himself that defined himself against and by his father, one that was all sharp teeth and glinting edges, danger and resolve and sleepless nights and drugs that kept him awake and drugs that put him to sleep.
But now that he wasn't so emotional, it felt a little intimidating. Humiliation also hung behind it, like it was exposing something, like it would change the shape of him to the Tower, like everyone would think all that he was and all that he had done was a mask and he was just—squishy and vulnerable and big fucking round cheeks and wobbly eyes and they could all push him around.
He did not introduce himself as Aguero.
One day, Bam and him sat on a bench. They only went to public places, and this public place was a small park. Khun didn't want to get drinks with him and he didn't want to go out dancing. He didn't trust his drunk self to not do something stupid like kiss Bam. Or suck his dick. Or hold his hand.
Around them, spring was on the verge of breaking, the air bitter and biting at their exposed fingers, but the trees seeming to wake up.
"Can you—" Khun asked the air between them, and then he suddenly needed to hedge his request. "Just for today. It’s just an experiment. Can you call me Aguero?"
Bam inhaled next to him. Children played in front of them.
"I, uh." Bam's voice was rough.
Khun looked at him. Bam's gaze remained resolutely forward, but he breathed steadily in the way that suggested he would not be if he wasn't actively trying. Khun's eyebrows raised.
"Yeah." Bam nodded, and his eyes seemed bright, reflecting the light, his hands gripping his knees. "I can do that."
"Bam?" Khun asked.
"Sorry." Bam ducked his head, rubbing at his eye.
Khun watched, his eyebrows high and his mouth open, feeling like he was hovering over someone injured, but not knowing why or how to treat them.
"Sorry," Bam said again, rougher, swiping at his eyes and looking away. "That was just—a really shitty night for me."
Oh. Khun sat back. He—
He looked away too. The arm of the bench curled, the metal too cold to be leaned on. Children screamed and laughed.
"Can we not—" Bam started. "Can we not talk about that night? I'll—I'll call you Aguero, I just don't want to—"
"That's alright," Khun said, realizing. It had been painful for Khun, the whole experience, and that night had been necessary, and it had felt right, what he said, and it probably was right. But he hadn't accounted for the shatter of Bam's voice, or the way it cut him.
Bam had been trying to hold his hand, he remembered. He glanced over. Bam's fingers were digging into his knees.
Slowly, uncertainty heavy in his heart, Khun reached over. Bam didn't notice, his head still turned away. Khun's fingers reached out. He had never done this, not with strangers, not with Bam, not even laughing as a small child, imagining he was older and in love, but—his fingers were long next to the stocky shape of Bam's hand.
Under the tips of his fingers, Bam's skin was cold.
Bam stilled and Khun bit his lip. He chanced it further, his hand spreading over Bam's. In the corner of his vision, he saw Bam looking at him. His heart pounded in his chest.
The hand flipped under his and their fingers laced together. Khun inhaled, the air light and bubbling in his lungs.
Bam squeezed tight, taking a shuddering breath. "Aguero," he said.
Fragility, Khun felt, staring at their hands, feeling the way they held each other, and suddenly he couldn't stand to look or think anymore.
He stared out, watching the small, brightly colored children run around. They screamed, full of joy, and he wanted to think they were stupid and ignorant and in for a harsh awakening, but all he could manage was to wonder at how easy it seemed for them.
Bam was warm next to him.
Khun thought about how he liked complicated, beautiful things, about how he liked sharp edges and intricate, moving parts. He thought about simplicity.
He scooted next to Bam, right up against him.
Bam squeezed his hand again. "Aguero."
Khun let his eyes shut, and he let the moment be simple.
The entire roof would need to be replaced, the contractors told him. Replace it, he had said back, not caring.
They started replacing it and found rotting timber in some place that was apparently structurally necessary. The place was abandoned, the contractor told him wryly. You’ll find more things like this. It might just be cheaper to tear it down and start over again.
Khun visited the property.
The day held a storm in it, clouds poised low and waiting. Beyond the drop of the cliff, the water broke on itself, grey and furious.
There was a tree next to the house. It was an old, ugly, gnarled thing, but it was tall enough that it had probably been there 20 years now. Khun looked at its branches, and he saw where buds might grow, and he looked at the window it overhung.
The window faced the water, protruding from the house, and Khun imagined a view with a sunset, he imagined shade, he imagined green leaves tossing in the wind, he imagined the scrape of branches in the middle of a storm.
Replace the beam, he told the contractor, and anything else that comes up.
Khun stood in front of the mirror. It was the mirror in the apartment, the mirror that wasn’t his, the mirror that was borrowed and would soon be given back.
What was his sat before the mirror: a pair of slim, silver scissors that laid perpendicular to the sink, a spray bottle on the other side, and a comb in his hand. He swallowed.
Above the mirror, lights lined. They did not flicker, they did not buzz, they simply shone brightly above his head.
He tipped his head up, his hair swinging around his jaw. He took a breath.
He thought about simplicity, about inertia, about the ease of always doing what he had always done.
He thought this was stupid, the fear and hesitation. His hair swung again, a little too long. A breath inhaled. The lights shone.
He started with his bangs. Damp sheafs of hair flicked down like confetti, blue against the white counter.
He looked at himself. He tipped his chin up. His hair swung around his jaw, his wet bangs sticking to his forehead.
He hated the fear in his chest, how it beat, how it profused out to his limbs.
He bargained with himself: he could always cut the rest of his hair later. Hair could always be cut, and it would always grow back out.
He took a breath. He cleaned up the bathroom. He looked wrong in his reflections, his hair a little too long and his bangs a little too correct.
No one said anything.
Bam invited him to a cave. I don't want to go by myself, he had explained.
Khun expected—he didn't know. A cave, tiny and twisting and dark and lifeless. He expected quiet, he expected echoing footsteps, Bam's voice soft next to him and bouncing around.
He did not expect the film crew.
Or the scale—the cave was the size of a city and filled with a silent jungle.
"Shinheuh live here," Bam explained, having pulled Khun off to a quiet corner away from the bustle of the crew. "They're ancient, I guess. They recently started, uh—" Bam's face screwed up. "Venturing out, I guess? No one knew they were here. But." Bam's eyes lit up. "They tell stories."
"Oh," Khun said, still feeling a little on the back foot from the crew. "And we're filming them?"
Bam became sheepish. "It's kind of an awareness thing. I was roped into it." Something earnest came over his face and he angled closer. His hands gathered in front of him like he wanted to hold Khun's. "I—" His eyes angled down. "I wanted you to be here. So that." He took a deep breath.
And Khun could see the nerves, the line of them through his shoulders, the anxious twitch of his fingers, the smallness of his mouth. He felt the old empathy, and he wondered if it should still be old, if it was okay to put his hand on Bam's shoulder and speak to him softly. He wondered if that was right for him, if it was right for Bam.
"I want." Bam looked up, gold fierce enough to steal Khun's breath. "People to get used to seeing you around me."
"Bam?" Khun asked, feeling like he was going to trip or float away.
"Aguero," Bam said.
Khun couldn't breath.
"Aguero," Bam said again, like a promise, his gaze intent. "I want everyone in the Tower to know that you're next to me."
Khun invited him over.
Just a dinner, he was very clear.
Good said Bam, and Khun was confused and unwilling to be hurt, until Bam followed up with You don’t cook for yourself. Someones gotta do it, and Khun just laughed.
Bam showed up with half a kitchen packed. Two small cartons of apparently distinct milk came out first, (“No, that’s sweetened condensed milk, we’re using that for dessert, grab me the evaporated milk.”) followed by vegetables that Khun had definitely owned at disparate times of his life, but not all at once, and never all for the same meal, and then the proteins came out, cuts of meat that Bam assured him were high-grade, with special emphasis on the fact that they were grass-fed. Khun had no idea how that would affect the flavor, so he decided to be flattered instead over the effort Bam was going to.
But when the tools started coming out, first a cheese grater, (“Bam, I’m pretty sure I already have one of those.” “Only pretty sure?”) then followed by an entire set of kitchen knives, (“I already have a set. Right there!” “Those don’t count.” “How do they not count? They’re literally on the counter. I know you’ve seen them.” “They’re low quality!” “Low quality! How could you know? You’ve never used them before!”) Khun had started to question what was going on.
“I’m starting to think you don’t trust me.” He scowled, leaning over the bar counter, Bam chopping carrots on the other side with his completely unnecessary set of knives.
Bam just snorted. “Oh, I trust you, just not your kitchen.”
“Nothing is wrong with my kitchen!” Khun defended the poor room and his own dignity. “It’s a great kitchen. It even came with it’s own set of knives.”
“But they’re not chef grade.” Bam didn’t look up from where he was expertly chopping the carrots, and Khun couldn’t even say that Bam didn’t need knives that quality.
So, instead, he defended the knives. “They’re still great knives! They can still… cut stuff. And slice stuff. I pay a lot of money for this apartment!”
Bam laughed at him. Laughed at him! “Okay, what was the last thing you cooked with them?”
Khun’s mouth opened. He had gotten take out the night before. And the night before that. And before that, leftovers, and the night before, the dinner at a restaurant with Bam that had generated the leftovers.
“See!” Bam exclaimed, pouring the carrot bits into a little bowl. Bam cooked like it was a performance, every ingredient going into its own small bowl, and yes, he had brought the tiny ingredient bowls too. Bam grinned at him, leaning forward, and the distance between them got a little silly in Khun’s heart, with Bam smiling at him like that and so close and cooking for him. “Have you ever even used them?”
“Yes,” Khun said automatically, his thoughts hissing and popping like the oil Bam had poured into the pan behind him. “I—“
He hadn’t used them.
He frowned. Bam laughed.
Khun slumped down, groaning, defeated. “I need a drink.”
Bam laughed again, and it felt like the look at the breakfast place, like Khun was being endearing, like Bam found him helplessly charming. Fond like he loved him, Bam said, “Then get one, Aguero.”
It still felt a bit like carbonation, a bit like a little explosion inside him when Bam called him that, and Khun felt warm and stupid already, so he just smiled wryly back up at Bam. “No,” he said. “I don’t want to drink around you.”
Bam paused where he was peeling dry skin off an onion, his eyes and mouth a little round. He focused down on the onion. “Why?”
Khun hummed, almost feeling a little tipsy already, and leaned his hand on his chin, smiling at Bam and the strong fingers that expertly cleaned the onion. “I don’t want to do anything stupid like kiss you.” Or suck his dick, but Khun wasn’t saying that out loud. He had already lost the front on holding hands.
The fingers paused over the onion, and Khun glanced up only to be caught. A breath inhaled, his, Khun realized, Bam looking at him, looking at him like it was a statement, looking at him like some type of truth scrubbed raw, looking at him like Khun was something to be eaten, and Khun thought of strong hands and he felt like he was backed up against something, pinned and squirming and close and warm and Bam looked until Khun’s mouth hung open on a gasp.
“Hm,” Bam said, then looked back down at the onion.
“Do you still wear jewelry?” Bam asked once.
“Oh,” Khun said, a little surprised, and reviewed the facts. His ears were naked, as was his neck and his wrists and his fingers, and his hair had no ornaments in it. And this had been the state a long time, any jewelry slipping deeper and deeper towards the back of his lighthouses as the war had progressed, his attention drifting away.
“Not anymore,” Khun said.
“Okay,” Bam had responded, and Khun didn’t think to ask him why until hours later.
“What do you mean?” Khun demanded to his pocket as he strode up the plank the contractors were using while they rebuilt the front steps. It bounced under his stride, and contractors scurried around him, covered in mud.
His suit was scientist-grade, a nice cut and a thick wool for the cold lab, but nothing extravagant.
Kass sighed back over his pocket. “It’s the lab itself.”
Khun walked into what was going to be his kitchen, drywall already up but the counters not yet installed.
“Are you still thinking of adding the island?” The lead contractor asked. It had been a recent change. Initially, the plan had included what the contractor diplomatically called a cozy kitchen, but Khun had recently became aware that there were more supplies that a kitchen could have than he realized, and it might be worthwhile to have the extra space.
“Are you at the house?” Kass asked.
“Yes,” Khun said to her and then to the contractor, “Yes, I still want the island.”
“We taped it out,” he said.
“Oh, that’s great,” Kass said, and Khun noticed the blue tape on the ground, sawdust already kicked up on it. Khun paced around it, imagining leaning against it, and shifted back and forth between the future space where counters would sit.
“What’s wrong with the lab?” Khun asked. “I just came from there and everything looked great.”
“Lab?” The contractor repeated and Khun shook his head Not You.
“The natives’ memory runs deep,” Kass said. “They don’t trust the clinical, uh—“
There wasn’t enough space for two people to move comfortably, Khun decided. He whispered to the contractor, “Move this line back to here.“ He indicated with his foot.
“It’s too similar to the old farms,” Kass said.
Khun sighed in irritation. “But the contract with the scientists—“
“You don’t have to tell me,” Kass said. “Trust me, I know how important it is.”
Khun tipped his head back, tapping his foot. “Can’t they just run the tests in the bay?”
“You already—“
“Yes, I know, but for this work, there has to be some compromises. Plenty of scientists gather data in unsterile environments.” Khun wandered into the next room. The wall where his window and tree and his imagined coffees in the morning had a hole in it and no window. He turned to the contractor.
“Temporary,” he explained. “We’re just installing double-paned glass.”
Double-paned glass? When had he asked for that? Khun stared at him.
“It’s the electrical readings,” Kass said. “They’re worried about some property in the water, the—“
“Suspendium particles, yes, I remember.” Khun raised an eyebrow at the contractor, still waiting for an answer.
“You said it was too drafty last time,” the contractor told him, “And you said, I don’t care how, just fix it.”
Huh. Khun did say that, that was true.
“And I know a person,” the contractor said. Khun raised an eyebrow. “She’s familiar with the waters here. Worked on the elevated rivers. Excellent engineer. She could help build a lab in the bay. She worked on the levies for the natives in the rivers.”
“Oh!” Kass said, “That’s brilliant!”
“How?” Khun asked them both.
“It allowed—“ Kass started as the contractor said, “They’re a bit—“ and then there was a mess of No Yous, You Go Firsts, until Kass finally ceded the battle to be the most polite and said, “It gave autonomy to the natives. It was huge win, at least before the empire fell. The levies are essentially doors that only the natives could open and close.”
“And your lab could use it to let the natives come and go as they please,” the contractor added.
Khun considered it. A place where they could both meet, the natives and the scientists, where discoveries could be found and new futures could be forged. It wasn’t perfect, and it wouldn’t erase old pain, but it allowed both to be safe. And more importantly, it allowed them both to move forward.
“You get a kickback from the referral, don’t you,” Khun said dryly to the contractor.
“Of course.” He grinned. “But it’s still a good idea.”
Khun looked through his old jewelry. He had it spread out on the floor of the apartment, and it gleamed against the wood. He had to move the coffee table and the rug underneath it and the goddamn noodle chair to have enough space.
Rows of suspendium earrings glinted at the top. Small hoops, larger hoops, some shit he stole from Maschenny after the Nest, all dangly and long and connecting at multiple parts. A pair he stole from Asensio, minimalistic and hanging, and then two other pairs that Asensio gave him in an attempt to barter back the original pair.
Below that, rings. They were the most common. They were fun to collect, even easier to steal, and Khun never wore them. He grinned at the last ring. It had belonged to at least one party of his first hookup, and he suspected it was a wedding ring. Benefit of a fake name: they couldn’t track him down.
And then—
The necklaces.
They had always haunted him. Earrings were easy, rings were fun, but necklaces had no excuse.
It was stupid, he knew it was, but he looked at the wealth of necklaces before him, collected from a hard and difficult climb, full of enough gems to buy a lower floor, and every single one of them unworn.
It had felt like a promise to himself, like little negotiations of dreams he couldn’t otherwise afford, buying necklaces. He would go to a store, and he would find one that would lose itself in his mind, and he would stare at it in its glass case, and he would touch it lightly when the assistant would bring it out for him, and it would feel like a future he wasn’t allowed to have, a softness he couldn’t allow himself to feel, and they would glimmer under his fingers and he would feel so greedy his throat would close up.
He picked one up, and it felt too light for all the memories and associations that hung to it. This one, he remembered clearly, purchased right before the Nest, right after his coma. It was a dark, almost black metal that dripped and spiked. It was made of two components: a choker that drove up towards his chin in clinging stalactites of metal that he had imagined blood on like rubies, and lower piece that oozed all the way down his chest in slinky chains and small, subtly glimmering blue jewels.
Khun had wanted to feel dangerous, he remembered, pressing on to the spikes, he had wanted to be noticed, he trailed down the long drips. He had wanted to be important and beautiful, he had wanted to be remarkable and breathtaking and he had wanted to he held and he had wanted to be eaten alive.
He hadn’t able to bear even looking at the necklace after he bought it.
He invited Bam out to dinner.
“You’re wearing jewelry.” Bam stared at him.
Khun sipped his wine, the metal long since warm against his neck. “Yes.”
“You said you don’t wear jewelry anymore.” Bam hadn’t ripped his eyes away from the necklace since the moment he arrived.
Khun had left his shirt buttoned low, the necklace sliding over his bare skin, and when he had looked at himself in the mirror earlier, he could see the chains peeking out from the flutter of fabric. It had felt like being something tantalizing, seeing the dark metal on his skin, the fold and crease of his shirt exposing and hiding.
“And I didn’t,” Khun said, feeling exposed and desired and lightheaded for it. “But there were a lot of things I never wore.”
Bam’s eyes finally met his, his gaze far too dark for the nice restaurant were in.
“I decided,” Khun breathed, rolling his wineglass against his lips, his breath fogging the glass, “to at least try wearing them.”
Bam didn’t kiss him. He hadn’t even drunk anything. Khun didn’t know if he was disappointed or not.
He just knew that his chest hurt and he wanted to throw the necklace into the bay.
“Your hair’s longer!”
Khun spun around. Isu stood in the living room of Bam’s new apartment. Music was already playing, and Bam was doing something cooking adjacent in the kitchen.
“Yeah,” Khun said, “I’m growing it out.”
“It looks nice.” Isu looked around. Bam’s apartment was kind of a mess even when it was clean, full of random things he had found over the years and had apparently been secretly hoarding. “Man, first time he’s ever decorated a place, huh?”
“I heard that!” Bam shouted from the kitchen. They both laughed.
“Do you know when Hockney’s arriving?” Isu asked.
Khun shrugged. “He hasn’t messaged me anything, so, soon, I think.”
“Aguero, can you help with the dough?” Bam shouted over the music.
Isu’s eyes went Aguero? wide and Khun shook his head.
Did you Isu mouthed, his eyes going back and forth frantically and Khun shook his head again, feeling trapped. He had no ability to explain literally any of this to Isu.
“Aguero!” Bam asked again, and Khun said, “Yeah, a minute!” and Isu’s eyes went big with You’re Not Getting Away With This and Khun scowled at him Just Watch Me and went to help Bam finish the pie crust.
Isu asked if I cheated Bam sent him.
Khun’s heart stopped a little. He was in his empty house, the smell of fresh paint heavy in his nose, the wall of his new living room a slate grey that had felt good deep in his chest a moment ago.
What did you say he sent back.
Bam didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Khun stood in his living room, in the dense hang of chemicals, not moving, watching his pocket for any new notification. Branches rattled against his new double-paned window, leaves sprouted small and fragile.
I told the truth Bam said that I had always loved you, but that I still hadn’t treated Enne right, but that I hadn’t treated you right either
Breath heaved in and out of Khun and he didn’t know if it was the fumes or not that was making him lightheaded.
He asked Bam went on what my plan was for you
Sawdust still lingered in the air, dry on Khun’s lips, and fingers shaking, he sent What did you say
I told him that was up to you
Khun owned exactly two pieces of furniture. One was a little camper bed, and one was a fold up table. The table looked stupid in his brand new home, and he realized that the bed was broken when he took it out.
He bought a mattress and had it, at least, shipped.
He stood in the window, and he looked out onto the water like he had always imagined, and it felt wrong, his home empty and cavernous around him, no light, no sound, no color, no furniture.
He sent a request to Kass.
It was raining when he opened his front door and Bam was soaked, but it wasn’t a high end hallway behind him. The light from his door exposed a wedge of scrubby bushes, and mud pooled in his unfinished walkway.
“I don’t have any towels this time,” Khun said, “or a bed, or a couch, but I do have a radiator.”
“Okay.” Bam shivered. “A radiator sounds good.”
Khun took him to the kitchen where the tiled floor would play a bit nicer with the puddle he predicted would grow around Bam. They sat on the floor between the counters and the island and they fit kind of perfectly.
Rain dripped down Bam’s bangs and he panted. “Can I take off my shirt?”
A swallow bobbed through Khun’s throat as he nodded and rain beat against the window right above him. Double-paned, he thought, Bam’s shirt stripping up, and water ran down his abs and Khun’s lungs took a moment to themselves to not work properly, and Khun thought again, a bit nonsensical, double-paned for protection, water caught in a dip of muscle.
“Where can I dry this?”
Khun jerked his head up. Bam held his soggy shirt in one hand.
“Uh.” Khun shook his head. “Yeah.” He grabbed it and disappeared into the darkness of the house, navigating to a bathroom. The tiles were grouted close enough that he could barely feel it when he knelt and he didn’t have a shower curtain yet, so he just hung it over the tub.
He came back to a shivering Bam. He sat next to him, and their knees bumped and Khun thought about everything, about galas and bars and strangers, about Bam in his bedroom, about being grabbed and desired and wanted and completely fucking miserable, about how Bam never knew what to say.
He thought about running away, about places that weren’t his and would never be, about stories that he was only part of, about endless knowledge, about Bam in his bedroom again, about being touched softly and kissed gently and wanted with no place for the wanting to roost, and he thought that it was going to be a long time before he had everything figured out.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?” he asked.
Bam looked at him, his hair in a ponytail, his hair clinging to his neck in serpentine shapes, his eyes big and his mouth small. “When?”
When? “How often have you wanted to?” Khun asked, something small and fearful in his chest that he worried could be hope.
The air between them diminished, tight in Khun’s lungs, Bam somehow closer, each breath hot and humid and full of a storm. “Every time,” Bam said.
“Every—?” Khun shook his head, trying to loosen some of the heat they swam in. “What does that even mean?”
“Every.” Bam breathed, impossibly closer, “Time. Every time I saw you. Every time you laughed. Every time you looked at me.”
The air burned on Khun’s lips, it tingled, it whispered, it desired, and he let it speak. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because you terrify me.” A hand gripped Khun’s shoulder and Bam’s eyes begged. “Aguero, Aguero, I—“ He took a deep breath. Not opening his eyes, Bam said, “The last time I kissed you, you left me.” He fractured, his face crumpling, staring at Khun like something dying, like loss, like bodies in the air. “I—“
Khun held him. “No, no, Bam,” but Bam just shook his head, breathing heavily.
He hid in Khun’s neck, and Khun let the moment be tender and held Bam, and he thought of a storm and of wetsuits, and he felt hot tears against his neck, and he wondered how long Bam had been scared. “I say Aguero because I feel like I’m not allowed to say I love you,” Bam confessed.
Khun inhaled. He gripped tighter. “You are,” he whispered into wet hair. “You can.”
Bam shook in Khun’s arms. Like breaking, like waves, like the shatter of light, he said, “I love you.”
“Bam,” Khun gasped like he was crying and his throat was so tight he could barely breath. “Bam.”
Arms tightened around him, clinging. “I love you,” Bam broke against him again.
“I’m not going.” Khun tried to stroke through tangled, wet hair, and buried himself into the mess again, salt gasping hot against his lips, salt trailing cold down his neck, and the wind crashed. “I’m not leaving.”
Bam kissed him.
And Khun kissed him back.
Khun woke to tiles sore against his hip and his shoulder, curled up on the floor of his kitchen. A watery, milky sunshine painted above him, and he rolled on his back. The blanket he had discovered in his lighthouse last night covered him comfortably, the spot next to him empty.
But the corner of the blanket was still damp, and he remembered where Bam had fallen asleep, the blanket tucked beneath his still-wet hair, and Khun remembered how it had felt, their legs tangled, a hand over his hip, Bam falling asleep in front of him. He remembered the intimacy of Bam’s expression, the individual hairs of his eyebrows, and he remembered smoothing them into place and how Bam had shifted in his sleep at the touch.
Khun sat up, and he felt old when his back hurt.
The blanket came with him as he wandered out of the kitchen.
He stopped.
It looked stupid. It still looked stupid, and Khun suspected it would look stupid no matter where it was because that was its nature as a very stupid thing, but he still felt terribly, awfully, soft somewhere deep in the middle of the chest.
In the window next to the tree, in front of the cliff and its drop into the bay, in front of the crashing waves and sky bleeding light and color, sat Bam in the noodle chair.
Khun walked to him. Bam looked up, his hair rumpled and loose around him. It felt like a future happening; it felt like the rest of Khun’s life.
Arms pulled him close and a head rested against his stomach. Khun scratched his back and Bam sighed like someone coming home, and together, they watched the sun rise.