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He knows Khaotung takes the samples and gifts. He knows Khaotung uses the products, when he can be bothered. Most free days are cap and lip balm days, but sometimes Khaotung goes all out, foundations and shadows and glosses and whatever else comes in those little glass bottles, most which remain arcane to First despite countless hours spent with makeup on set or memorising the materials for their streams. First has neither the patience nor the coordination to manage more than the basics on his own, but Khaotung's always had a knack for that sort of thing, stylish in his own unassuming way.
It's one thing to know this abstractly, and quite another to stand beside Khaotung at the mirror while he rolls several liquid lipsticks around in his hands and makes thoughtful kissy faces at his reflection.
First recognises the brand.
He remembers the awkward echo of their mics. Failing to process the host's distant exclamations. He remembers standing so close to the camera that he could only hope his hands didn't shake perceptibly while Khaotung waited, relaxed and luminous under the studio lights, trusting and completely in his element. First thinks he applied that lipstick neatly enough. He thinks he probably didn't need to blend it with his own fingers on Khaotung's mouth.
Khaotung holds one colour up to his chin, then another, with a look of such exaggerated concentration that he's probably just stalling to be annoying after all. He already looks perfect. The next face he pulls makes an obnoxious smacking sound.
First is staring.
He knows he's staring because Khaotung starts to laugh. Khaotung has been laughing like this a lot, lately: breathy, soft, but not really teasing or shy. Just -- weirdly serene. Like someone who has already resolved all his arguments with the world. Settled into himself and waiting patiently for everyone else to meet him there.
Lately that laugh has been doing things to First's pulse. He doesn't feel serene. He feels like a plucked guitar string, resonating loud enough for the whole world to hear.
First clears his throat and probably fails to frown, and hopes it looks closer to play-acting than panic. "What?"
He should really be the one to explain himself, but Khaotung has the grace to let it go, because Khaotung is always kind. "Did you have a preference?" Khaotung says, with one of his insufferably indulgent smiles.
First does not have a preference. He reaches blindly for one of the tubes and picks out something that's probably pink. It might even be the same one from the live. Embarrasment makes him so clumsy and thick, but he has to answer the question to end this conversation, to get out of this room without making some kind of mess. "Just use this one. You're taking too long."
Khaotung only looks at him for long moment, searching, so First relaxes his expression and looks back and prays that a comprehensive index of every sordid emotion he has ever experienced isn't suddenly evident on his face. The door is shut. No one else is watching, no one can overhear, but he still feels exposed when his heartrate rings like this, dizzy reverberations too loud in his head.
Khaotung just wrinkles his nose after a while, then accepts the colour and drops the rejected shades back into his tote. "We have plenty of time. Are you bullying me now?"
He's made that little whine into an artform. First makes a dutiful show of rolling his eyes, but Khaotung is already looking back at his own face in the mirror. Khaotung is twisting open the lipstick. Khaotung is--
"Can I," First blurts out, because he is suddenly completely insane.
Khaotung turns to face him. He doesn't even look surprised. A different smile spreads slow on Khaotung's face, pleased and inevitably mischievous. He holds out his hand without hesitation, so First has no choice but to follow through on his own stupid impulse and take the lipstick from him again.
It's really not that strange, is it?
It's just -- different, without the audience. Khaotung straightens quickly, holds his face obligingly still, but his eyes glitter with this new challenge, bright and amused and entirely confident First will play along with him to the end.
Khaotung is enjoying himself. Khaotung is flirting, and it's always so different, without any cameras. A different kind of performance entirely.
First's hands are unsteady. He fumbles the bottle and it bounces onto the marble countertop, then rolls into the sink. Khaotung doesn't look at it. Khaotung brushes back his fringe and tips his chin up, so his face is better lit and his lashes are shadowing half-lidded eyes.
Vulnerable and dangerous all at once, like a cat that shows its belly and waits.
He's beautiful, but First has worked with beautiful people for his entire adult life, so it shouldn't be such a constant surprise: that this is also Khaotung, the same friend who sometimes plays video games until sunrise then whines about being so tired that First really ought to treat him at lunch.
First bites the inside of his cheek. A familiar ache swells in his chest, tight and straining behind his ribs.
The first touch of the brush is light, but then First's breath hitches involuntarily, twitching his muscles, and he smears an uneven blob of colour across Khaotung's lip.
"Sorry, I'm sorry--" he chokes, but Khaotung only reaches up to take the applicator before he can drop it. Then to grab First's empty hand and pull it closer to his face.
"Fix it," Khaotung says, sotto voce. His gaze is unexpectedly dark now, simmering with the energy he's only ever reserved for their shoots: demanding an equal response.
First stares back, hardly daring to move, head empty of anything but the ringing of his blood and a sudden awareness of how vanishingly small the room feels around them. How Khaotung leans in even closer, insistent -- his friend, the same Khaotung who touches sparingly even in private, who keeps himself impermeable to most of the world but tilts his entire body into First like flowers tilt into spring.
Helpless, First presses a fingertip to Khaotung's lip.
He has some wild, half-formed notion that it should shock him, or burn him, shake something in the foundation of him, but it's just like the last time: soft. Slightly sticky with pigment.
First remembers how to breathe around the tension in his chest, and then he dabs lightly with two of his fingers. Gently spreads the colour until what remains is more or less even, and then longer after that, because no one is watching and he's suddenly fascinated by the contrast, by the strange thrill of Khaotung's stillness beneath him, the small huff of air when Khaotung finally exhales through his nose.
Khaotung folds his own fingers around First's wrist, thumb brushing little half-circles there. Holding him in place. First must have taken too long, overstepped some boundary by now, but time's a dewy mess in his head. Khaotung doesn't want him to move, so he doesn't.
Khaotung opens his mouth.
He pushes into First's hand, just enough pressure for First's nails to touch his front teeth. For the weight to drag down on his bottom lip and expose the silky pink inner skin.
For the smallest, lightest, wet touch of Khaotung's tongue to reach the pads of First's fingers.
For a long moment, First remains frozen, unblinking, thoughts gone fully numb, but when he finally looks up from Khaotung's misbehaving mouth, Khaotung is looking right back at him, waiting to meet his eyes.
The rush of blood is so intense First nearly sways from it. His skin feels instantly too hot; his ears ache from the flush and his own mouth goes dry. His breath flutters shallow and fast in the back of his throat.
He's also hard. Just obscenely, terrifyingly turned on.
First thinks about stepping back, but he might trip over his own feet. He doesn't feel fully in control of his limbs, and Khaotung's grip is surprisingly strong. Khaotung has always been stubborn.
"Firfir," Khaotung murmurs, vibration warm and wet against First's fingertips. "Don't run away from me."
The reproach drags a shiver down First's spine. He swallows against the momentary struggle to form words, a little offended and a little hysterical. "Who's running?"
Khaotung must be satisfied, because his eyes crinkle at the corners and he pulls First's guilty hand away from his face so that he can thread their fingers together, palm to palm. It's such an incongruously sweet gesture that First could almost believe the rest was a fever dream, but for the incriminating residue of lipstick and saliva still right there on his skin.
And the way Khaotung narrows the gap even further, free hand reaching to curve around the back of First's neck.
First can see highlight shimmer on his cheeks this close, a few stray metallic flecks in his brows. There's a rosy flush spreading up from his collarbones to his throat. His eyes are barely open under the sweep of his lashes and his mouth is shiny and red where First has touched him. He's so pretty.
He's Khaotung.
That discrete compartment of First's mind where he routinely folds away his desire doesn't feel very tidy anymore, but if this is where Khaotung has been waiting to meet him, then this is probably where he wants to be. Maybe it's really that simple. Many things have been, between them.
First's eyes settle back on Khaotung's smudged lips, and he still feels a bit dazed by the impact.
"I'm going to mess it up again," he sighs.
There's a beat of silence, and then Khaotung laughs, breathy and delighted and really quite unfair, but it's fine because even while he laughs he's leaning in to press their mouths together.
The angles are all very familiar, but there's no surge of anxiety now--only the warm bass thrum of arousal in its place. First thinks: I already know how to kiss you.
But it's also not remotely the same.
Khaotung is louder, when he kisses. He doesn't hold back at all, once his grin relaxes and allows them to fit together properly, his palm guiding the tilt of First's head. He makes a little subvocal whimper when First's teeth catch his lip, melting into the sweetest hum of a moan when their mouths open to the hot slide of tongues.
He was always quiet for this, on set. Professionally considerate about the approach and intensity of every touch. Never messy, never slick with increasingly frantic energy, never whining audible frustration when First pulls away in a wet gasp against his jaw.
This part is new.
The last time they kissed, the key light was almost directly overhead, and every time First accidentally looked into it, the after-image throbbed behind his eyelids like the burn of a flashbulb. By the end of the day he had a temper and massive headache and they hadn't even eaten together, leaving each other to decompress in exhausted privacy. First has never considered filming a bad memory, but it's been months since they wrapped, and in the back of his mind something has always felt unfinished. Like reaching a destination before the radio's song reaches the hook, so that it stays stuck in your head for the rest of the day, haunting every silence.
It should feel strange, to have done this so many times yet never really even once, but it's more like the satisfaction of finding that missing refrain. He knows how to hold Khaotung, how he tastes, but now First is allowed to mouth freely at Khaotung's throat and his jawline, to nuzzle into the faint floral smell of pomade at his ear while he catches his breath, to kiss and kiss and to suck on Khaotung's tongue without stifling his own groan.
Khaotung's arms slip around First's waist, and he pulls. Khaotung walks them backward until his back hits the door and he doesn't stop pulling until their bodies press together in a single hot line, one of his thighs fitting easily between First's own. He rocks up just once, a slow lazy grind of suggestion, and First has to break apart their mouths again because it's suddenly impossible to get enough air.
He can feel Khaotung's smile against his cheek. His skin feels slightly tacky from sweat, and it's really going to ruin the makeup entirely. First's hands have been in his hair, so he's probably ruined that as well. This timing is just absurdly irresponsible, but it's hard to care or to think anymore, with Khaotung's thumbs digging into his hips.
There's so much he wants to do.
"We have to go," First breathes, a little accusatory. His lips feel bruised and a small guilty part of him hopes the lipstick has smeared enough to mark them. "I told you, didn't I? We're so late already..."
"Yes, yes, you told me," Khaotung agrees peaceably, and that quiet laugh feels a bit different now, resonating lower and warm, a chord that finally starts to make sense of First's heartbeat. Khaotung puts both palms on First's chest and lightly pushes him back, and only in the stumble does it occur to First that he hadn't even moved while he scolded him, that he was still pinning Khaotung to the door.
First should probably be embarrassed, but Khaotung is re-fastening a button he can't even remember pulling open, and he only feels a stab of regret which has more to do with an inconvenient hardon than anxiety.
Something must show on his face, because afterward Khaotung reaches out to squeeze First's cheeks between his hands, mirroring the resulting pursed expression himself. He's not in character, he's just annoying. First loves him so much.
"No more pouting," Khaotung says, and plants a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I promise we'll have plenty of time."