paperplanes.
Title: paper planes
Pairing: Tom/Jon
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 685
Author: Me! (mindscomeloose)
Disclaimer: This never happened.
A/N: This was written about something Nancy, ofvanity wrote . It’s a companion piece, and the bit at the beginning is hers. Thanks for permission. <3 Hope I did it justice.
-paper planes.
in photography class. with boredom leaking from their fingertips and excess amounts of paper. tom built paper planes and sent them soaring across the room, into jon's grip. with scribbled out ideas, scribbled out suggestions. ideas tom hardly spoke on paper. ideas that were meant for snuggled sighs, meant for swaying hips and swerving lips. across the room in safety.
i.
Tom was going crazy, or at least it felt like that. The classes he had been taking had sharpened his vision in a matter of months, and sometimes he worried that it had been too much. He didn't just filter out what he was photographing, he saw everything. Swirls of smoke in the grimy light in the late late late night hours, so late it was almost morning. Each and every stitch on the cable-knit sweater the girl in front of him wore. The tastebuds on the tongue of the dog that followed him to and from school some days. Wrinkles on the hands and faces of everyone he shook hands with: professors, relatives, acquaintances. He probably would have memorized all of the sidewalk cracks had it not been for Jon.
With a clumsily folded paper airplane, a jotted, why the long face, conrad? and a crooked smile, Jon started something. Tom wasn't quite sure what that something was, whether it was purely a vehicle to pass the lackluster lecture time or it if was intended to garner momentum as time passed. Whether it would leave a dull ache or a ripple of pleasant nostalgia when it was gone, because it surely would be soon enough. What Tom did know was that when he was with Jon, the world blurred. The visual cacophony Tom usually encountered was still there, but less so. He was able to see the world less intensely, as if Jon's relaxed disposition had saturated him from the inside out. He no longer got the painful headaches he used to feel from taking in the world, one centimeter at a time.
ii.
The first time they slept together was an accident. Tom hadn't wanted to go home, had passed out instead on Jon's couch. And Jon, not wanting to move him, had stayed pinned under him for the better part of the night, so close Jon couldn't tell where he ended and Tom began. Tom smelled like bitter, chemical, developing fluid blended with the syrupy booze-of-the-week that had been on sale at the liquor store. Jon slept lightly; it was hard to sink too deep with the feel of Tom's stubble coarse against his neck. It would leave it pink and raw like a sunburn.
The second time they slept together hadn’t been. Each move had been deliberate, careful with the decision to go at this sober. Jon's hands quivered as they undid the catches on his shirt, then reached for Tom's pants. Tom held Jon's hands steady on his hips as he let out a whimper and Jon had never been more thankful for the sound. The buzz of Tom's lips to the curve of Jon's shoulder echoed through Jon's whole body as Tom bucked against him, the ohs and whispers and sounds Jon didn't even have words for.
Afterward, in the rumpled sheets, Jon was reminded of the time before: their limbs wove, strangely beautiful like tangled yarn.
"It's like without you I'm in sharp focus. But so sharp that nothing is hidden; every stray hair, every faded freckle, I see that. But with you, I'm in bokeh. And I like that."
The words were said simply, breath clement on Jon's face. Though Jon didn’t have Tom’s half-blessing half-curse for observance, for seeing things that typically went unnoticed, he could still trace the undertone. And I need that.
“You are such a photographer,” Jon said, and he laughed, because he wouldn’t have expected more than a photography-laced comment from Tom, and he had been gifted one. It pushed against a rarely-touched place inside Jon that he’d thought had been forgotten.
I need that, too.
Pairing: Tom/Jon
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 685
Author: Me! (mindscomeloose)
Disclaimer: This never happened.
A/N: This was written about something Nancy, ofvanity wrote . It’s a companion piece, and the bit at the beginning is hers. Thanks for permission. <3 Hope I did it justice.
-paper planes.
in photography class. with boredom leaking from their fingertips and excess amounts of paper. tom built paper planes and sent them soaring across the room, into jon's grip. with scribbled out ideas, scribbled out suggestions. ideas tom hardly spoke on paper. ideas that were meant for snuggled sighs, meant for swaying hips and swerving lips. across the room in safety.
i.
Tom was going crazy, or at least it felt like that. The classes he had been taking had sharpened his vision in a matter of months, and sometimes he worried that it had been too much. He didn't just filter out what he was photographing, he saw everything. Swirls of smoke in the grimy light in the late late late night hours, so late it was almost morning. Each and every stitch on the cable-knit sweater the girl in front of him wore. The tastebuds on the tongue of the dog that followed him to and from school some days. Wrinkles on the hands and faces of everyone he shook hands with: professors, relatives, acquaintances. He probably would have memorized all of the sidewalk cracks had it not been for Jon.
With a clumsily folded paper airplane, a jotted, why the long face, conrad? and a crooked smile, Jon started something. Tom wasn't quite sure what that something was, whether it was purely a vehicle to pass the lackluster lecture time or it if was intended to garner momentum as time passed. Whether it would leave a dull ache or a ripple of pleasant nostalgia when it was gone, because it surely would be soon enough. What Tom did know was that when he was with Jon, the world blurred. The visual cacophony Tom usually encountered was still there, but less so. He was able to see the world less intensely, as if Jon's relaxed disposition had saturated him from the inside out. He no longer got the painful headaches he used to feel from taking in the world, one centimeter at a time.
ii.
The first time they slept together was an accident. Tom hadn't wanted to go home, had passed out instead on Jon's couch. And Jon, not wanting to move him, had stayed pinned under him for the better part of the night, so close Jon couldn't tell where he ended and Tom began. Tom smelled like bitter, chemical, developing fluid blended with the syrupy booze-of-the-week that had been on sale at the liquor store. Jon slept lightly; it was hard to sink too deep with the feel of Tom's stubble coarse against his neck. It would leave it pink and raw like a sunburn.
The second time they slept together hadn’t been. Each move had been deliberate, careful with the decision to go at this sober. Jon's hands quivered as they undid the catches on his shirt, then reached for Tom's pants. Tom held Jon's hands steady on his hips as he let out a whimper and Jon had never been more thankful for the sound. The buzz of Tom's lips to the curve of Jon's shoulder echoed through Jon's whole body as Tom bucked against him, the ohs and whispers and sounds Jon didn't even have words for.
Afterward, in the rumpled sheets, Jon was reminded of the time before: their limbs wove, strangely beautiful like tangled yarn.
"It's like without you I'm in sharp focus. But so sharp that nothing is hidden; every stray hair, every faded freckle, I see that. But with you, I'm in bokeh. And I like that."
The words were said simply, breath clement on Jon's face. Though Jon didn’t have Tom’s half-blessing half-curse for observance, for seeing things that typically went unnoticed, he could still trace the undertone. And I need that.
“You are such a photographer,” Jon said, and he laughed, because he wouldn’t have expected more than a photography-laced comment from Tom, and he had been gifted one. It pushed against a rarely-touched place inside Jon that he’d thought had been forgotten.
I need that, too.