Work Text:
❄️❄️❄️
We’re lying here together, cuddled up close under our duvet, in our bed, which we bought when we moved into our little flat. It’s ours. Did I mention that? After years of living hundreds of miles apart, and making that work, there is something so comforting about the words ‘our house’.
It’s been cold, and there’s a bite in the air, out there outside the windows, which are a little frosty in the corners. We’re warm, he’s holding me so tight, and his skin feels incredible against mine. All these years later and waking up in his arms and luxuriating in languorous morning sex and snuddles will never be beaten as a way to start the weekend.
I snuggle my nose deeper into his chest, snuffling as the hairs there tickle my face and feel his arms tighten around me.
“Good morning to you, Mr. Spring,” he says as he kisses the top of my head.
“Good morning to you too, Mr. Nelson,” I say, matching his formality and lifting my head to kiss the stubble on his jawline.
“Think it’ll actually snow, or just keep threatening to? I would love a chance to actually enjoy it.”
“I don’t know,” I acknowledge, “but I agree it would be fun.”
He squeezes me again and his face has taken on the faraway look that tells me he’s deep in a memory. I know exactly which one.
“Are you where I think you are?” I ask him, just to be sure. We’ve talked about this before; that day was such a pivotal moment for both of us, even though we didn’t know it at the time. I love hearing him talk about it though, so I hook my leg over his thigh to get closer.
“If where you think I am is dropping our controllers like they were hot potatoes and you putting on my teal hoodie…”
“My teal hoodie,” I interrupt him, and we laugh.
“ Your teal hoodie from that moment, absolutely,” he acknowledges. “It was so big on you and my stomach was in absolute knots trying to come to terms with all of the ways that seeing you in my clothes was making me feel.”
“Tell me!” I whisper, kissing his chest over his heart.
“I didn’t have any friends like you, didn’t have anyone who saw me the way you did. Oh, we were so young, and I was so full of thoughts of you. I could feel myself pulling away from those laddish eejits and questioning everything about how I’d managed to hang out with them for as long as I had. I had no idea that I could have actual conversations with a friend that didn’t devolve into questionable banter, which always made me feel icky for laughing along with.”
“You were doing what you knew, what you were around, babe.” I say to him as he trails off. He’s let it go, but I can tell it still comes up for him sometimes, the way that he used to follow the reactions of his pack of dude-bro rugby lads and the all too persuasive Harry.
“Oh, I know,” he says softly. “It was just in such stark contrast to how everything felt when I was around you.”
“Well, yes, because you had a massive gay crush on me,” I laugh, flicking his nipple with my finger and making him squeal.
“Cheek!” he laughs too, “not yet I didn’t!”
“You sure about that, Pinocchio? Fairly sure I had you from the moment you brushed a curl out of my face at your front door that day.”
“You remember that?”
“Fuck! I remember all of it.” It’s my turn to share, and I know he loves to hear this too. “I was so nervous to come round that day. It took me several tries just to ring the doorbell. I knew it was self-sabotage, there was no way that you were anything but straight, but I wanted to be around you all the time. I melted into a squealing mess when you invited me round.”
“I wanted to be around you all the time too … still do, to be fair.”
“Sap!” I tease him, without emphasis. “I was doing such a crummy job at self-protection back then. Wearing your hoodie, going out in that flurry of snow with you and Nellie, goofing around with you. You were so free. We both were. There was just something about that quiet, the way the world changed colour and we just got to be silly. I never wanted that day to end.”
“It was my favouite day, ever, up until that point anyway. It was the beginning of the end of my conviction that I was straight. That’s for sure. I’d never had a tactile friendship, with anyone, hugs and punches on the arm or shoulder from the lads or whatever, sure … but never anyone where I just wanted to see how soft their skin was, or hold their hand watching a film. You helped me understand myself.”
I shift my position slightly, just to allow my skin to play gently against his where we’re connected, my front to his side. “How soft is my skin, baby?” I whisper, feeling the energy shift just a little back into the present as I do so.
He sighs and lets the hand that’s over my shoulder run a lingering line down my spine until he’s holding my arse cheek in his hand. “You have an eighteen step skin-care routine, Char, your skin is delicious.”
I let my fingers splay out over his chest and then roll over on top of him as our bodies respond to the proximity and the familiar need. I tangle my fingers in his hair as I lean down to kiss him, thoroughly, and he pulls me closer as I feel him harden beneath me.
We get lost in each other, right here and now, and completely fail to notice the snow start to fall outside.
❄️❄️❄️