Work Text:
“What. Is that.”
Pat pouts, rocking against the door frame, the doll cradled in his arms. “Pran,” he whines, that terrible glint in his eyes that means that Pran is going to be completely at his mercy for the rest of the evening. “Please let my Nong Nao doll in. He just wants to say goodnight.”
Pran scoffs. “It’s not even seven p.m. yet. What time does your old doll go to bed?”
“He’s only a little boy. He’s tired. He says your couch is soooo comfy.” Pat grins, leaning in, close enough that Pran can feel the puff of his laugh on his face. He doesn’t move back, watching Pat bite his lip, the drag of his gaze up Pran’s face. It sends a flutter through him, the same fluttering that seems to be a permanent fixture in his stomach any time Pat looks at him like he is now. Pat tilts his head, eyes lidded, and whispers, “He’s hungry.”
The fluttering turns into a hot twist in his stomach, and Pran huffs a laugh, shoving him back in defense, stepping into the room and out of the doorway before Pat can see how red his face is. “Fine,” he yields, already walking back over to where his sketching things are set out on the coffee table. “Whatever. Bring your sad doll in, I don’t care.”
Pat bounds in, overtaking him and throwing himself onto the couch, the Nong Nao doll clutched to his chest, stretching out his legs. “Ah! Why would he be sad? He’s not sad. He’s very happy. Incredibly happy.”
“Uhuh.” Pran sits down again on the rug, hiding the fondness of his smile in resharpening his pencil. He can hear Pat vibrating silently behind him, unable to stay still or silent for any length of time. He gives him ten—no, five seconds—
“Do you wanna cook me something?”
It comes with arms flung over his shoulders, the weight of Pat leaning off the sofa and onto him, the hard press of his chin against the side of his neck. Pran pauses in his drawing, and turns his head so that he can look at him—as much of him as he can see, this close up.
“Am I your personal chef now?”
Pat hums and shuffles further off the sofa, pressing Pran down into the carpet. He’s heavy, in a way that Pran definitely is only thinking about logistically and not in any way that he might want to explore later. He puts down his pencil and circles his fingers around Pat’s wrist. “I see how it is,” he continues. “You let me win and suddenly this is restaurant Parakul? What’s next, I expand into a hotel chain? Free accommodation every night?”
Pat’s breath spreads warm in a laugh against his cheek. “Mhm. And bubble baths. And scented candles. And personal massages—”
“Personal massages, huh?”
Pran seizes his opportunity to twist around and pull Pat down off the couch, grabbing at his arms, wrestling him to the ground. “Personal massages? You want a personal massage?”
They roll over, bumping into the table as Pat snorts and tries to push his shirt up so he can—massage him, maybe. Pran goes hot at the feeling of his hands on his skin and flips them back over again before he has time to find out. Pat won’t stop grinning, his eyes bright and daring as he fights against Pran’s hold on his arms, as their legs intertwine and knock into each other and the coffee table gets shoved with a loud scrape across the floor.
“I’m gonna—” Pat gasps, on top again, and Pran feels completely wild, like he’s a pencil pot that’s been knocked over and scattered all across the table, “I’m gonna massage you so hard—you’re not gonna be able to feel your arms—”
“Not if I massage you so hard you can’t walk first,” Pran shoots back, and finally gets his ankle hooked behind Pat’s knee so that he can flip them again, and straddle him, and get a hand on each of his wrists, and pin him with a thump to the floor.
The moment descends on them, sudden, a stunned silence. He can feel Pat’s gasping against his chest. The grin that had been dancing so merrily around his eyes has faded now into something questioning—hungrier. His lips are parted enough that every breath spreads hot and quick across Pran’s chin. Pran feels minuscule in the face of the want he feels for him.
“I don’t think this a very professional way to treat your hotel guest,” Pat breathes.
Pran glares at him, and whispers, “Shut up,” and kisses him.
They have kissed, by his accounts, a grand total of fifty-six times since that first time on the roof, most of them quick pecks and glancing smooches—twelve longer, open-lipped kisses, and then three proper making out sessions, which only count as one kiss because otherwise he would lose count. This is—not a peck. Not a glancing smooch. It certainly starts open-lipped.
Pat is firm underneath him, the solid press of his chest warm under Pran’s own. His hands are less steady, moving from his shoulders to his neck to his waist and ribcage. He dips his fingers, again, under Pran’s shirt, pushes it up to feel his skin, and Pran makes some unpermitted noise into his mouth, nips at his lower lip. Pat responds with a sound of approval, and spreads his fingers over the bared skin of Pran’s waist, a pressure that gets firmer until—
— they’re flipped, and Pran is on his back, and Pat’s full weight is on top of him, and he’s moving now, hands roaming and mouth open and ankles tangled into a mess with Pran’s own. Pran is obsessed with him: obsessed with the shape of him, the taste of him, the sound he makes when he finds a spot under Pran’s jaw that he likes, when he latches his mouth around it. His biceps are just big enough that Pran can’t close his hand all the way around them. The thought makes all the blood in his brain rush south.
Which is—oh, shit, yes he is—he is very much turned on right now, and Pat is in no way showing any signs of stopping. He’s carefully lined their hips up off-centre, and Pran can’t get any friction because of it, but he’s moving in a way which suggests—
Pran wants to feel him. He wraps his arm around Pat’s waist and holds him as they roll, again, positions himself on top and drags Pat’s lips back up to his own. Their legs are slotted between each other, and all of the filters in his brain have been removed by the taste of Pat’s mouth, which must be why he lets his hips drop and press against him—
He can feel him. Holy shit, he can feel the—the heat of him, the firmness, the answering arousal—Pat is turned on by this too, Pat is turned on by him, Pran can feel him—
Pran wrenches himself away with a gasp, shoves himself off until he’s away, away, leaning back against the sofa. The only place they're touching now is where the arch of Pat’s foot is brushing his ankle. It burns like a brand.
And Pat—Pat looks absolutely wrecked. His chest is still heaving, shirt rucked up enough that Pran can see the soft skin above his waistband. He wrenches his gaze upward, meets Pat’s eyes, lidded and smug, his lips still open and glistening.
“Shut up,” Pran says, kicking at his foot.
Pat grins and rolls over onto his side, grabbing a cushion that had fallen off the couch with him and pressing it into his stomach in a way that’s not surreptitious at all. “Ah? I didn’t say anything.”
Pran glares at him, and tilts his head back onto the couch seat, letting his heart rate come back down to normal. Too much, too fast. Not enough. His thoughts are scattered and crazed, all variations on shoving Pat back down onto the floor and climbing on top of him, or grabbing his wrist and dragging him into the bedroom, or kicking the cushion out from in front of his belly and forcing them both to confront the situation. He can’t—they can’t, they’ve not talked, he’s not allowed himself to think enough about the how and the where and the when of that yet, not when he still doesn’t know what, exactly, they are.
He pushes himself up to his feet, and Pat looks up at him with wide, pleading eyes. Pran sighs, and holds a hand out for him. “Come on. I’ll make you some curry.”
Pat is no help in the kitchen whatsoever—he gets in the way, and wants to taste things, and won’t stop trying to wrap his arms around Pran’s waist when he’s trying to get a bowl out of the cupboard or something out of a drawer, and eventually Pran has no choice but to turn and point his knife at him until he goes to sit down out of the way.
Unfortunately, this only allows for more opportunities for verbal aggravation, which Pran takes fondly into his heart despite chipping back at him with just as much vigour.
“You’re attacking that potato like it personally offended you. Who knew you were so vicious, huh? I should be glad it’s not me under your knife.”
Pran shakes his head. “Don’t push your luck.”
“Ah, don’t say things like that, it’s too sexy.” A pause. “Do you make curry for your Wai, hmmmm?”
“He is not my Wai.” It’s good to hear him joke about this, at least; Pat’s jealousy over his relationship with Wai had been sharp and messy at the beginning and is sometimes? still fresh. Pran turns around to face him. Pat is leaning on the counter with his chin in his hands, but his eyes have gone serious again, hesitant. Pran sighs and puts down his knife, and crosses the small kitchen to him, fixing him with what he hopes is a gently admonishing gaze. “I like cooking. I’ve made curry for my friends before, yeah.”
Pat does that lips-pressed-together smile, nodding, and Pran has no choice but to go to him and rest his chin on his shoulder and sigh.
“Pat.”
“Yes.”
“You know that I want to make you curry as much as my friends, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You know that I don’t just go around opening up restaurant Parakul to anyone, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You know,” Pran tilts his head, so that he can whisper it against Pat’s ear, pushing down the squirming inside him, “that the curry I make for you is not just friend curry, right?”
Pat is quiet, head dipped, but Pran can see the way his cheek is twitching, can feel the little happy wriggle in his shoulders. When he looks up, his eyes are playful again, so close that it’s hard to focus on them, leaning into Pran’s space.
“Not just a friend curry, huh?” Pat tilts his chin, breathes into the narrow gap separating their mouths. “What kind of curry is that? I bet it tastes good.”
Pran stares at him, caught in the moment: the glint in Pat’s eyes, the warmth of his breath, his solid presence, buzzing with anticipation. The room is quiet around them, held there with them, a diver on the end of a board; all it would require to fall off into the deep end would just be one little movement—
“Hah,” Pran says, pulling back, getting out of there before he gets lost again, before he loses himself completely. Pat follows after him with still-lidded eyes, then catches himself on the counter before he falls off the stool and grins innocently. “You’ll have to wait,” Pran tells him. The back of his neck feels very warm. “Wait until it’s ready. Then you can find out.”
“Ahhh, okay, okay, I get it,” Pat says, shuffling around to face him again as Pran returns to his chopping board. “Good things come to those who wait.”
“Uhuh,” Pran agrees, immensely glad that Pat can’t see just how red his face must be.
It is good curry, in Pran’s opinion, when he dishes them out two bowls and comes to join Pat at the table; perfectly balanced savouriness and sweetness and spice. Pat moves his bowl around the corner of the table as he sits down so that he can follow it and press his leg against Pran’s. Pran lets him.
“So how do you rate my restaurant?” he asks, when they’re both halfway into their bowls and Pat has gone all soft and content next to him.
“Hm? Oh, I’ll be leaving a review, alright.” Pat finishes his mouthful with an overexaggerated hum of enjoyment, his eyes slipping closed. “Mm. Good food, good service.” He opens his eyes, teasing, and winks at Pran. “The staff are nice to look at.”
Pran’s stomach leaps again, and he smacks Pat’s knee, tutting. “You go somewhere to objectify the staff like that? Ach, you have absolutely zero manners.”
“I’m just giving you my honest review,” Pat shoots back, and dares—dares!—to combine it with sneaking a spoonful out of Pran’s bowl. “Huh? Oh, I gotta sample everything, to make sure my review is as thorough as possible.”
“That’s my dinner.”
“Mhm.” Pat chews it, head tilted, and nods. “Yeah. Yours tastes better than mine. We’re swapping.”
He gets as far as starting to pull Pran’s bowl across the table towards him before Pran grabs his wrist, glares at him. “Don’t you dare.”
Pat gapes, fake-innocent. “I’m seriously starting to worry about how you treat your guests, you know—”
“Come here—”
By the time they get back to eating—Pran’s nice rug once again all rucked up from too much wrestling—the food is barely lukewarm, but it still tastes good. Pat gathers up the dishes after, and washes them while Pran sits on the couch and watches him, feeling warm and full and wholly in love. Not that he’s going to tell him that, of course. They’ve only just admitted they liked each other.
He picks up the Nong Nao doll and looks at it. It’s kinda cute, in a silly way. He waves one of its little arms. He’s still not sure why Pat has brought it, this evening of all evenings, but it’s nice that—that he’s not embarrassed about it, or that it’s not something to make fun of. Just another aspect of who he is—all these little, silly things, like his doll and his fake-innocent eyes and his insistence on never letting Pran live anything down. Pran knows—is beginning to know—that underneath that excess of energy and brightness there is something firmer, steadier, a warm glowing ember of caring that doesn’t ever seem to blow out. He likes that he can be silly with Pat. He likes that he can joke with him, and tease him, and play with him, and know that it’s all because this—whatever this is—is not going to go away, not any time soon, firm as it is on that foundation. The thought terrifies him a little bit. It’s already enough of a gift that they get to have this, and to have each other, and to hope for more and longer and in front of everyone is daring—too daring, too big to fully control—
“Aw, Nong Nao doll likes you.”
Pat’s voice snaps him out of his thought spiral, which is for the best, probably, as it was starting to tip downwards. He drops onto the couch beside him, his knee pressed warm and firm into Pran’s thigh.
“You can’t tell whether it likes me or not.”
“I can.” Pat leans in, sliding his hands over Pran’s knee. He’s wearing shorts. It’s something, alright. “I wouldn’t be a very good parent if I couldn’t understand what my child was saying.”
“Your child?”
“Yep. I gave birth to it myself.”
Pran stares at him, and Pat stares back, face completely still. Pran is not going to be the first person to break. Pat can laugh at his own damn jokes, if he thinks he’s so funny, he can take his stupid face and butterfly-inducing smile and bright eyes and shove his jokes up his—
Pat’s eyebrow twitches. A challenge. “I was waiting for you to come to the hospital. The nurses all said how sad it was that the father wasn’t there. They were saying that I would have to be laughed at by all my friends, all alone on the biggest day of my life, my poor little Nong Nao in my arms—”
Pran breaks. He shoves the doll at him, hiding his laughs in the back of the couch cushions, and Pat won’t stop giggling too, waving the stupid doll at him and making baby crying noises, and his heart is so full it might burst.
“I have to finish my homework,” Pran says, some time later, his face still smushed against Pat’s chest. Pat is on his phone above him, lips ajar as he stares at the screen. Pran’s tally is on fifty-eight. He wonders how long it will be before he loses count entirely.
“Okay,” Pat says, distracted, and Pran nudges the underside of his bicep. “Huh?”
“I have homework,” Pran repeats. “You probably do too. You should go back to your room.”
Pat waves his hand, halfway through tapping out a message. “I did it already. It’s fine, you get on it with it. I don’t mind staying here.”
Pran looks at him, the relaxed shape of his eyebrows, the reflection of the screen in his eyes. He realises, at once, that he doesn’t want Pat to leave. That even if they’re not doing something together, just having him here—having the warm glow of his ember suffusing the room—is nice. Comforting. A little bit special.
“Okay,” he says, sliding off Pat’s chest and back into a sitting position on the floor. “Suit yourself.”
His pencils have rolled all over the coffee table from when it got shoved during their—activities, earlier, and he takes his time to line them all up again, to set everything out in the right place for optimal working conditions. His sketch is of a design for a fountain that encompasses a narrative story within its shapes; he has gone for something bold, abstract, two symmetrical sections of half-circles that run in parallel and only meet right at the very top, where the water will splash out and down. The shape had come to him before the story, but it’s easy to see what it’s about, now that he’s got the outlines down: two halves of the same whole, held apart, trying to find each other. It’s achingly obvious, when he looks at it. He glances at Pat, neutral face lit up by the light of his phone. He kind of wants him to notice.
Pat doesn’t return the glance, though, so Pran gets back to work, filling out the shapes and giving them depth and volume, and annotating everything precisely, his fine metal ruler in hand. It’s a good piece; he thinks he will receive a good mark for it. He hopes his professor doesn’t ask too many questions about his inspiration.
“It looks good.” Pat’s voice is soft, close, and Pran realises that in his focus to finish his design he hadn’t heard him slide off the couch, or felt him shuffle up behind him. The heat of his shoulder presses against his own. “What is it?”
“A fountain,” Pran says, holding up the drawing. “For design class.”
“Huh,” Pat says. “What does it represent?”
Pran shrugs; just saying it out loud would give too much away, would be too much of a peeling back to the soft fleshy truth inside him. “I guess it’s up to the interpretation of the person looking at it.”
Pat is quiet for a long while, resting his chin on Pran’s shoulder. When he does speak, it’s low, intimate.
“I think it’s about two lives,” he says, “that are mirrors of each other, that follow the same paths. Only because they’re separated by the air in between them, they don’t get to touch, even though they’re the perfect fit for each other. And then when they finally do, at the top, above all that air in between, that’s when you get the water.” He pauses, rubbing his temple against Pran’s ear. “Does that sound right?”
Pran’s breath is caught, a little, because Pat had looked at his drawing and had simply seen, had known exactly what it was about, and who it was about. He nods, rather than replying aloud, and puts the drawing down. Pat’s fingers twist into the hair above his ear. He feels a little electric, a little hungry, a little like he’s in a trance.
“Do you want to stay over?”
Pat’s fingers stop, pause, and then resume again. “For the night?”
Pran nods, holding at bay the barrage of he doesn’t want to and you’re being too needy and is this going too far thoughts. “Yeah. Only if you…”
“Pran. Yeah, yeah I want to.”
They put the living area back to rights, first; Pran carefully puts away his pencils and slides his drawing into a folder to take to class tomorrow and straightens out the rug. Pat helps by watching him and making commentary, which is fine, really, Pran wouldn’t have it any other way—Pat is very good at turning nicely organised things into an explosion of chaotic energy, but Pran likes to feel all put away and neat and tidy before bed. The door to his room is open, ajar, and he is constantly aware of his bed looking at him as he busies himself with arranging the couch cushions and pushing the chairs in at the table. His bed. Which he just invited Pat to stay over in. Which Pat is going to stay over in.
Nothing has to happen, he tells himself. We can sleep flat on our backs with our hands folded on our chests and not even acknowledge each other all night, nothing has to happen—
Pat has been in his bedroom before. They’d watched a film on his bed last week, leaning back against the headboard with Pran’s laptop across their knees and Pat’s arm across Pran’s shoulders. It had been a very good film and had had a lovely musical score and Pran can remember nothing of it. His tally had gone up by at least seven, over the course of that evening. He’d made sure they stayed sitting up straight the whole time, and didn’t allow himself to climb into Pat’s lap like he wanted to, had kissed him sweetly and close-lipped and had held his hand and he still cannot remember a single plotline from the entire movie.
“Do you want to go and get your stuff?” Pran asks, getting his pyjamas out. Pat is still standing in the doorway to his bedroom, a little stuck, staring at the bed. “I know you have Nong Nao, but—”
“Paa’s in there,” Pat says, still staring at the same spot. “She’ll want to know…”
“Ah, ah, it’s fine, don’t worry.” Pran goes to his dresser and finds an old shirt, one that has BEST BOY plastered across the front of it in huge garish letters, a joke gift from Louis two years ago. Pat will like it, and it will be correct. “Here. And there’s a spare toothbrush in the cupboard, you can go and shower and change and I’ll be. Uh. Here.”
Handing him the shirt seems to shake Pat out of his stupor; he takes one look at it then immediately brings it to his face and inhales deeply. “Oh yeah, wow,” he says. “Mm. It smells like you.”
Pran smacks him with a towel. “You are so weird,” he tells him. “Go shower! Go! Be clean!”
“Ah, ah, I’m going, I’m going—the hotel staff are so sexy but so demanding—”
Pran shoves him into the bathroom and shuts the door firmly behind him.
He returns to his bed, and sits on it, and stares at the floor. His mind is racing with every possible scenario that could happen tonight. They could just climb into bed and not say anything and go straight to sleep. They could stay up talking till 3am and be absolutely exhausted in the morning. They could watch another movie, maybe, or an episode of something, and they might end up sliding down in bed a bit, and leaning against each other, and it would be so easy to shove the laptop out of the way and feed the always-deepening pit of want inside him. They could…
Pran finds himself remembering their makeout session from earlier, the electrifying shock of realising how much it was affecting them both, of feeling—feeling—
Nothing has to happen. They are just two—friends? Not just-a-friends? Somethings?—sharing a bed for the evening. They can literally just sleep.
The white background noise of the shower stops, and Pran shakes himself out of his thoughts, hurrying to get changed into his pyjamas before Pat gets back. He can shower in the morning, it’s fine. Maybe—in the future, maybe there will be a time when they won’t have to wait to schedule their showers—
The bathroom door opens and Pat emerges with the towel around his neck, hair silky wet. He is wearing the shirt and his boxers. Pran’s throat goes a little dry.
“My water pressure is better than yours,” Pat tells him, and Pran rolls his eyes. Pat grins, climbing up to kneel on the bed next to him. “But I will concede that your bathroom is maybe just very slightly only a tiny bit bigger than mine.”
“Seriously?” Pran asks him. “We’re comparing bathrooms now? What’s going to be next, length of shower hose?”
Pat’s eyes go bright, daring, and Pran immediately regrets ever letting those words come out of his mouth. He shoves at Pat’s chest, knocking him back onto the mattress, and stands. “Shut up. I’m going to brush my teeth.”
“Have fun measuring your shower hose!” Pat calls after him, and Pran slams the bathroom door in his face.
When he returns, Pat is sitting in his bed. Fully in his bed, under the covers, pillow propped up behind his head as he scrolls through his phone. He’s even left Pran’s side empty, the top of the duvet folded down in a neat triangle. The Nong Nao doll is sitting snug in the middle between their two pillows.
Pran’s heart clenches with fondness. His stomach clenches with some other kind of anticipation.
“Hey,” he says, approaching the bed. Pat looks up at him, locking his phone screen and setting it on the side table, smiling that silly doe-eyed smile that makes Pran feel insane. Pat holds out his hand, and Pran slides his palm against his. He hopes Pat can’t feel the slight tremble in his fingers.
“Hey,” Pat says, and pulls him down so that he’s sitting, almost on Pat’s legs. “Thanks for inviting me to stay over.”
Pran slots their fingers together and rocks their hands back and forth. He shrugs. “My door is unlocked. The hotel is open.” He had felt a lot more confident, that time back in the library, when he had leaned into Pat’s space and dangled the teasing of his desire in front of him. Now that he’s here, alone with him in his room, in his most intimate space, he feels smaller, younger.
“Careful what you promise,” Pat says. He goes quiet for a moment, then— “Ah! Anyway, you should get into bed, we need to get the sleepover started properly! When Paa has them they do face masks, and manicures, and gossip about boys, so you’d better provide me with at least one of those things or I will lodge a complaint with reception—”
It works. He doesn’t know how Pat does this, how he just sees him, every time, sees exactly what he needs and knows exactly how to give it to him. He laughs, the sudden lack of confidence diminished for now, and climbs over to his side of the bed, slipping under the covers and promising him some hot juicy gossip and leaning over to whisper in his ear, There’s this really hot, fit guy in the engineering faculty, and he thinks he’s really cool, but actually he’s a massive nerd and he’s soooooo totally got a crush on this guy in architecture, it’s so embarrassing—
Pat smacks him for that, and they laugh and laugh and laugh.
Eventually, when their giggles have died down enough, Pran lies on his side and looks at Pat in the lamplight of his bedroom and feels so incredibly, undeniably happy. Pat is looking at him, too, his fierce eyes gone all soft at the corners. Pran feels like melted wax under his gaze.
“What.”
“What nothing. Am I not allowed to look at you?”
Pran huffs, and rolls a little, shuffling closer. “I never said you weren’t. What are you looking at, then?”
“Hm.” Pat reaches out a finger, slow, and Pran watches it approach his face, then go blurry as Pat touches it to his head. “Nice hair,” he says, and drags it downwards, over his forehead and sliding along to the tip of his nose. “Nose.” He moves it up again, over the curve of one eyebrow, back, over the curve of the other. “Eyebrows.”
“Those are all facial features, yes,” Pran says, but there’s no heat to it. Pat smiles but doesn’t stop. The tip of his finger traces over Pran’s temple, along his cheekbone, down into the soft meat of his cheek.
“Smile for me,” he whispers.
“No.”
“Smile.”
“No.”
Pat leans in and squeezes Pran’s cheek between his finger and thumb, shaking it. “Smile!”
It takes everything Pran has not to give in to him. He has to keep pressing his lips together to stop them from curving upwards. “No.”
“You—you little—”
Pran can’t help himself; he gives in, can feel the moment Pat finally gets what he wants, the moment his mouth curves and his cheeks go with it and—
“Dimples! Dimples dimples dimples dimples—”
“Okay, okay, we get it, I have cute dimples, you’re jealous, I know—” He swats Pat’s hand away, trying to roll over onto his back, but Pat simply moves it to the back of his neck, holding him in place.
“You do have cute dimples,” he says. “You are the cutest dimple in the whole wide world.”
“Pat,” Pran whines, trying to shrug him off. “A person can’t be a dimple.”
“Yes they can,” Pat disagrees. “What are you then?”
“I’m a boy.”
“A boy? What kind of boy goes around calling himself a dimple?”
“I never—you were the one that said that!”
“I’m just here to help you see the truth—”
“I don’t need to see anything. I’m going to bed.”
Pran rolls over and hits the off switch on the light before Pat can stop him, plunging the room into darkness. All of a sudden it feels much, much more real, when he can hear Pat breathing in the bed beside him, can feel the heat emanating from him under the covers, the shift of the mattress when he moves.
“Pran,” Pat breathes, a pout in his voice even if he can’t see it. “You forgot to do something before going to bed.”
Pran lies on his back and stares up at the dark ceiling. “What.”
A shuffle, the feeling of Pat pressing into his side. “You forgot to give Nong Nao doll a kiss goodnight.”
Pran turns his head, and he can just make out the vague outline of him, silhouetted against the dim grey light from the window. “I know you can’t see me right now,” he says, “but the glare I am giving you could freeze lava.”
A sad, whiny sound, and the soft tap of the doll against his shoulder. “Pran. Nong Nao doll can’t sleep if you don’t kiss him goodnight.”
“Can’t he now.”
“No. Impossible. Completely undoable. Can’t even begin to consider it—”
“Fine.” Pran shuffles up onto one arm. “Where is it? It’s too dark—”
“Here.” The soft fabric of it rubs against the side of his face. “Just one little kiss.”
Pran cannot believe he is about to do this. Anything for love.
“Okay,” he says, and holds the doll, and plants a big smooch on its head, loud enough that Pat can hear that he’s done it. “Is that—”
“No,” Pat says, and the doll moves, shifting. “One more.”
Pran sighs. “Ugh. Alright.”
He purses his lips and feels the fabric of the doll underneath them—feels it moving, sliding, and then—
“Pat.”
He’s breathing it directly against Pat’s lips, where he’s replaced the doll with himself, a gentle press of his mouth against Pran’s own, and really, Pran is an idiot for not realising that this had been his plan all along.
“Hi,” Pat says, the word moving against his mouth, and kisses him, close-lipped and tender. “Nong Nao wasn’t the only one who wanted a kiss goodnight.”
“Apparently not,” Pran replies, but he can’t help himself: he pushes Pat back down against the pillow, follows him, kisses him like that, soft and slow. Pat makes a little noise, and his hand folds around the back of Pran’s head, holding him there, and then it’s less soft and slow, and more open-mouthed, and deeper, and wetter. Pran leans his weight fully on his chest, pinning him to the bed, and Pat makes another really, really good noise, somewhere caught between a sigh and a hum of appreciation, sucking Pran’s top lip between his and threading his fingers into his hair—
It is not a question of confidence, Pran thinks, as he rolls closer, as his knee inadvertently slides over Pat’s, as he drags his mouth over the skin of his chin, his jaw. It is rather one of being comfortable, of feeling safe, and feeling wanted—and Pat has only ever made him feel those things, even before, even when they were just friends.
Pat breaks off, momentarily, his breath hot on Pran’s face. Pran has a hand up his shirt and his hips dangerously close to Pat’s. Pat asks, “Is this okay?”
And Pran, more sure now than he has ever been, replies, “Yeah,” and dives right back in.
It does, of course, get hotter and more desperate after that, hands and mouths and skin and then—hips, and the feeling of Pat’s answering arousal pressed against his own, and the feeling of moving against each other, friction and heat and hunger, hunger, hunger. Pat is not quiet. Pran is incredibly grateful that the back wall of his bedroom backs onto the corridor and not someone else’s room, given the sounds Pat makes when Pran settles himself properly between his legs; when he pushes Pat’s BEST BOY shirt all the way up to his chin and lets himself drag his mouth over the swell of his chest. The sounds Pat makes when he—when Pran feels him go completely tense underneath him, the hand wrapped around Pran’s arm squeezing hard, and then he’s stuttering, and shuddering, and gasping, and going as floppy as a limp noodle.
It does not take long for Pran to get there too, after that, his hand down his boxers and Pat watching him with heavy, lidded eyes, chest still heaving as he recovers. Pran rolls forward into the curve of his body when he comes, pressing his face into Pat’s neck, desperately trying not to yell, sounds coming out of him instead in short, staccato gasps. Pat smooths his hand up and down his back, murmurs things that Pran can’t hear into his ear, only that he’s sure are as smug and cheesy as they’ve ever been.
Pran sends Pat to the bathroom first, despite the increasing discomfort of his own situation. He waits there curled up on the bed, feeling completely euphoric and desperate to try that again and also very exhausted. So much for just one kiss.
Pat comes back in fresh boxers and winks at him as Pran scurries out of the room. He cleans himself up and changes and washes his face and stares at himself in the mirror: they did it. They did something, and it was not terrifying, and it was not a disaster, and everything was completely fine. More than fine. Way more than fine.
Back in bed, Pat holds an arm out for him to snuggle up on, and he wraps his own around Pat’s waist, tangling their ankles together under the covers. There’s a huff of breath against his head, then another, and Pat moves, and there’s a huff of breath then against his neck.
“What are you doing,” he asks, even though he knows the answer.
“Checking.”
“Checking what?”
“Checking if you smell different. After…”
Pran snuggles his head closer. “And do I?”
“Hm. Not different. Nice.” Pat’s chuckle tickles his ear. “Stronger.”
“You are such a freak,” Pran informs him, and Pat hums happily.
Sleep does not wait long for him. He spreads out across Pat’s chest, tucks them together, Nong Nao doll as well, cuddled up under Pat’s arm. A little happy family. A well-treated guest.
“You’d better give me a good review in the morning,” he murmurs, just before the dregs of slumber pull him fully under.
“Oh, I will,” Pat whispers, gentle in the night. “Ten out of ten, would visit again. Good food, excellent service, the staff have the best dimples in the world. They even, after much persuading, decided to treat my Nong Nao doll properly.”
“Shut up,” Pran huffs, fond, and sinks into the warm embrace of sleep.