One shot - Summer rain
The summers of Mahon are hot, but not unbearably so. This year, though, it has mainly been a very warm, very wet season with few dry days and an excess of thunder storms that rattle the houses in their street. Due to the poor weather, and the fact that it rains acid, most monsters choose to stay indoors during the day and not leave their houses unless it is absolutely necessary.
Sullivan sits on the ledge of the kitchen window, a cup of steaming hot tea in his hands, and stares out at the pouring rain. There is a hint of tightness around his mouth, the barest touches of a frown he can’t seem to smooth out even when he puts a grin on his face. Schnappie’s meows pull him out of his brooding; he looks away from the window just as she jumps up to join him and sneaks between his long legs with a purr. She climbs onto his lap and curls up there, pushing her soft head against the hand that’s not holding the cup.
“Hey, Schnaps,” he murmurs, smiling very slightly at her, and indulges her by scratching her behind the ears.
Sometimes he thinks she must know when he is in need of comfort.
Depression is an emotional state he is closely enough acquainted with to recognize when it settles over him, yet there seems to be little he can do to be rid of it. It is a persistant, tiring presence that looms over him and weighs down his shoulders. It sneaked up on him, as it very often does around this time of year- the time when he lost Nathaniel and abandoned the human world. Whether he consciously thinks of it or not, he remembers, and the dreams he has are intent on reminding him. Sometimes they are just dreams, fantasy and reality mixed together, but more often than not they are nightmares that cause him to bolt upright in bed and clench his teeth not to cry out and wake Anton. The man is a heavy sleeper, especially after sex, but he knows that his lover must have noticed that he can’t sleep well.
He is unable to tell Anton about what’s on his mind, thinking it to be ridiculous that he is so nostalgic and saddened over something he lost a long time ago. Instead he withdraws into himself and speaks little, and the man does not pry. He asks questions, very discreetly, from time to time that get him half truths and masked sadness for answers.
The letter he received this morning from Jaspre merely made him long to see the monster’s face again. At least his companion is well, as is his doe eyed lover, and that is a small mercy.
He sips the tea slowly and strokes Schnappie’s striped, soft fur with an absent minded expression.
Sullivan is aware of Anton’s presence before the man enters the kitchen. He glances his way to see him carrying a tray with a teapot, a plate and an empty cup on that he goes about cleaning and putting away meticulously. His own tea has become lukewarm.
A while passes in silence, save for the rain that hammers against the windows of the house.
“Tell me what’s on your mind.”
It is only years of knowing the man that allows him to hear the slight strain in his voice. Concern on his behalf. He turns his head to meet Anton’s firm gaze and says, quietly, “I’m just tired of the rain.”
Anton raises an eyebrow, obviously not believing him, and sighs. “Do not lie to me, Sullivan.”
“It’s not a lie.” He is tired of the rain.
“The rain is not the reason you’ve woken up in the middle of the night for three weeks now,” Anton says in a tone that does not leave room for discussion. He leans back against the kitchen counter and crosses his arms over his chest.
Perhaps he has not been as quiet as he thought he had. It comes as no surprise, though, that Anton has noticed- the man is undeniably sharp and attentive. Still, he doesn’t want to tell him that he misses Nathaniel. He should have moved past that by now. He removes Schnappie from his lap and sets her on the ledge, then slips down and goes to put the half empty cup in the sink, trying hard to ignore how Anton’s eyes on him makes his skin tingle unpleasantly.
“It’s just nightmares, Anton.”
“Nightmares happen for a reason,” is the man’s answer to that. “There is something on your mind.”
“It’s nothing,” he says. There is a note of irritation in his voice. “Leave it.”
“No.”
Normally Anton would have stopped prying by now, but he is evidently tired of waiting around for an explanation. Sullivan looks him in the eye, mouth pinched tight. Mixed emotions bubble up inside of him, and he isn’t sure whether he feels angry, hurt or just sad. They are hard to tell apart. He thinks, maybe, it’s mostly sadness, but he latches onto the anger instead because it is easier to deal with.
“I told you to stop asking,” he snaps and sees a flicker of something in his lover’s eyes.
“Sullivan,” the man warns.
It is so very easy to start a fight. They fight over the dumbest things, meaningless things, and sometimes it is merely a way to initiate sex. Rough, messy sex follows their arguments, and it’s the kind that leaves him sore and bruised in the best way possible. Come to think of it, he can’t remember clearly when they last slept together.
Maybe he can be rid of his ridiculous depression if they fight. Maybe he just needs an outlet.
“Shut up.” He stands at his full height and forces himself to glare at him. “Just fucking leave it, okay? I don’t want to discuss it.”
There is a pause.
He watches the subtle changes in Anton’s expression and knows that he is pissing him off royally. Good. That’s good. He needs him angry.
“I don’t have a fucking obligation to share everything with you. You never do, why should I?” To top it off he shoves a finger at Anton’s chest.
A line is crossed.
However, before Anton can open his mouth to spit an insult at him he leans in and mashes their mouths together. Lips and teeth knock together painfully hard, and Sullivan pushes him up against the counter. Assaults his mouth.
Anton fists a hand in his hair and yanks, sending sharp jolts of agony through him that makes him groan.
The hand holds his head in place, away from him, and Sullivan hisses and claws at the man’s sweater, trying to pull it up, to get it over his head. No warning is given before teeth sink into his throat. He yells. His knees buckle under him, and if not for the arm Anton loops around his waist he would have collapsed on the spot.
Anton swallows down the essence of him and lets the grip on his hair loosen a bit, enough for the man to trail fingers through the long, red strands instead.
His breaths come out shuddering; he is crushed to the man’s chest, his arms trapped between them, head tilted back. He stares wide eyed at the ceiling.
Something tightens in his stomach, but not in the right way. Not nearly the right way.
At that moment his lover breaks off from his throat and licks at the bite marks that still bleed before kissing his way up to his jaw; biting, nipping, licking at the skin available to him.
Sullivan is suddenly very still, holding his breath.
What is wrong with him?
Why can’t he play along?
“Stop. Please.” The words come out weak.
Anton hesitates.
Pressed flush against him he can feel that the man is aroused, and he wants to be too. Instead his chest is constricted, too tight to breathe properly, and he can’t put a name to how he feels, except to say that it is wrong.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
The arms around him withdraw.
He steps away without looking at him and rushes out of the kitchen, disappearing into the room past the stair where he once used to sleep. Sometimes, when he needs to be alone, he still goes here, where Anton can’t follow him. He closes the door and sits down, forcing himself to take deep breaths.
Soon after he hears Schnappie meow from the other side of the door.
“Not now, Schnaps. Just a little while, okay?”
She meows for a while longer, then stops.
Sullivan doesn’t cry, no matter how much he feels like it at some point. He sits there and stares into the air, pale and unmoving, while he tries to sort out his feelings. Outside the sun sets. It is far into the night when his eyes close by themselves and take him into restless dreams of times long gone.
-
A knock on the door wakes him. Two more follow, accompanied by Anton’s voice saying, “Breakfast is on the table.”
He doesn’t get up right away. Stiff from sleeping upright and cramped up he stands, stretching the kinks from his body until he feels somewhat like himself again. The ache from yesterday is duller this morning, a vague sort of hurt that is not physical. He takes a deep breath to ready himself for looking Anton in the eye again, unsure about what he will find there. They fight a lot, and in its own way that is acceptable, but what he did last night…He feels dumb for initiating a fight, then sex, only to tell him to stop and stumble away. It was downright idiotic.
Schnappie waits for him in the kitchen. When she sees him she comes running to press herself into his legs, and he picks her up and drops a kiss to the top of her head, murmuring an apology in her ear. She forgives him without hesitation, as she always does whenever he has been stupid, and is only happy to be petted again.
A familiar, mouth watering smell fills the entire first floor; the table has been set for one person, for him, with a stack of fresh, hot pancakes and a jar of golden syrup.
Anton dislikes pancakes. He thinks they are too sweet.
He stares at the food. Understanding, mixed with affection for his lover, soften his face.
Shivers creep up his legs, all the way to his torso, as he takes a seat and reaches for the top pancake. He stuffs it in his mouth in one bite and swallows. It burns his throat on the way down, but he hardly notices over the lovely, juicy taste of it on his tongue. The second one he lathers thickly with syrup and savours, as does he with the third and the fourth. Schnappie meows and begs for a bite, too, and he lets her have half a pancake. She purrs as she eats it.
He finishes them all.
Then he stands and makes his way upstairs to Anton’s study. He stands outside the door for five minutes. Ten. Twenty. Once he manages to raise a hand to knock and enter, half an hour has passed.
Anton sits hunched over the desk and is, as ever, busy at work with his papers and letters. Soft candlelight spills over the workspace and chase away some off the morning’s bleak, grey light. A teapot stands on one corner of the desk, accompanied by a cup that still has steam rising from it.
He stands awkwardly in the doorway and watches him work.
Sullivan loves the sight of the man’s broader shoulders like this, loves the smell of fresh ink and tea and spices in the study.
Is Anton ignoring him? A thick lump forms in his throat. He couldn’t be, could he, after he made him his favourite meal?
Very slowly he approaches him and takes a seat on the floor, right next to the man’s chair, to be near him. He sits stiff and tense and stares at the floor under him.
Somehow, his head ends up resting on Anton’s thigh, his legs curled under him and hands lying in his lap. It’s his lover’s bad leg, the one he damaged in the fight with Usoa that should have killed him, and Sullivan wants to kiss the scarred skin and brush his fingers over it, if only to remind Anton that the handicap doesn’t make him a lesser monster. Not one bit. Nothing ever will. He closes his eyes.
A warm, gentle hand touches his hair. Fingers trail through red strands that are in dire need of a hair cut, stroking and petting them with care. Anton’s hand slides down to his ear and cheek.
His breath hitches at the thumb that strokes his cold face.
He presses his lips into a flat line.
“I miss Nathaniel,” he says.
Silence, then-
“I know, Sulli.”
The weight on his shoulders becomes a little lighter.
“He took me to hear an orchestra play, once, while we lived in the city.” He fumbles for the words. The memory is vivid in his mind; behind closed eyelids he can see the stage and the rows of seat and the midnight blue curtains. He can see the men dressed in their suits, the women in their beautiful evening gowns. “There were violins and harps. Flutes. Contrabasses and saxophones. A grand piano. Nathaniel bought a ticket for me and let me have a seat, even if no one could see me sitting there. They thought it was empty.”
A fond smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “It was…It was magnificent. I’d never heard anything so grand. I made him play me the violin when we got home. He played half the night.”
The words come easier now.
He talks about the time Nathaniel bought him sweets for Christmas Eve, and how they’d eaten them together curled up under a blanket on the couch, making fools of themselves by trying to blow the bigger bubbles with chewing gum. He talks about how his human companion flinched whenever he saw a mirror and how he broke down crying and shouting out of nowhere.
Sullivan tells Anton of every little thing he can remember that he shared with Nathaniel, both good and bad, and the hand never stops stroking his hair. He does not notice, though, that the sound of pen on paper stops after a while.
By the end of it he feels drained, in more ways than one.
He raises his head and looks up at him. Yellow eyes meet his, clear and attentive in their gaze. He rises and seats himself on Anton’s lap with one leg on either side of him, careful not to put too much weight on the bad leg. And when he leans in, the man lets him and kisses him back softly, putting his hands on Sullivan’s hips. Lips part to let tongues touch, almost shyly, and Sullivan makes a noise and wraps his arms around his lover’s neck. Warm, steady heat awakens low in his abdomen, in his chest.
His breaths come out shaky when they part.
He rests his forehead on Anton’s, licking his lips.
“Take me to bed?”
In answer, the man sears their mouths together.
Sullivan clings to him desperately as Anton leads him from the study to the bedroom, pausing along the way to kiss, to touch. They hit the bed in a tangle of limbs and stroke hands over each other’s bodies. His skin heats up with every kiss to his collarbones, every nip at his throat, every lick at his chest and stomach, and he’s arching up into him, moaning Anton’s name over and over while he pants softly for breath and clutches at the sheets. The man takes his sweet time and teases until he begs, only to make him drown in the warmth of his hands and mouth when he gives in.
In the aftermath of it they rest together. Anton’s arms are tight around him and keep the cold away.
Sullivan presses his nose into his lover’s throat.
“I love you, Anton,” he murmurs. Sleepiness is setting in. “I love you.”
He doesn’t expect to hear those words from the man’s mouth. He doesn’t need to.
When he dreams, he dreams of the man who is curled so protectively around him.
-
a/n: Short, a tad angsty and sappy (oddly, this was very soothing for me to write). I remembered what you told me about them fighting a lot, but being there to comfort each other when needed, and this is what happened. I imagine they’ve been together for a while at this point.
Also, I had the thought that Sulli eventually starts sharing the bed with him. I think, in the beginning, sleeping by himself is not something he does just because he is more comfortable like that, but it’s a way to protect himself, since he subconsciously will worry that Anton is going to change his mind about them. As soon as their relationship is stable enough that he knows Anton won’t throw him away, he’ll seek him out to sleep curled up to him at night.
Sullivan sits on the ledge of the kitchen window, a cup of steaming hot tea in his hands, and stares out at the pouring rain. There is a hint of tightness around his mouth, the barest touches of a frown he can’t seem to smooth out even when he puts a grin on his face. Schnappie’s meows pull him out of his brooding; he looks away from the window just as she jumps up to join him and sneaks between his long legs with a purr. She climbs onto his lap and curls up there, pushing her soft head against the hand that’s not holding the cup.
“Hey, Schnaps,” he murmurs, smiling very slightly at her, and indulges her by scratching her behind the ears.
Sometimes he thinks she must know when he is in need of comfort.
Depression is an emotional state he is closely enough acquainted with to recognize when it settles over him, yet there seems to be little he can do to be rid of it. It is a persistant, tiring presence that looms over him and weighs down his shoulders. It sneaked up on him, as it very often does around this time of year- the time when he lost Nathaniel and abandoned the human world. Whether he consciously thinks of it or not, he remembers, and the dreams he has are intent on reminding him. Sometimes they are just dreams, fantasy and reality mixed together, but more often than not they are nightmares that cause him to bolt upright in bed and clench his teeth not to cry out and wake Anton. The man is a heavy sleeper, especially after sex, but he knows that his lover must have noticed that he can’t sleep well.
He is unable to tell Anton about what’s on his mind, thinking it to be ridiculous that he is so nostalgic and saddened over something he lost a long time ago. Instead he withdraws into himself and speaks little, and the man does not pry. He asks questions, very discreetly, from time to time that get him half truths and masked sadness for answers.
The letter he received this morning from Jaspre merely made him long to see the monster’s face again. At least his companion is well, as is his doe eyed lover, and that is a small mercy.
He sips the tea slowly and strokes Schnappie’s striped, soft fur with an absent minded expression.
Sullivan is aware of Anton’s presence before the man enters the kitchen. He glances his way to see him carrying a tray with a teapot, a plate and an empty cup on that he goes about cleaning and putting away meticulously. His own tea has become lukewarm.
A while passes in silence, save for the rain that hammers against the windows of the house.
“Tell me what’s on your mind.”
It is only years of knowing the man that allows him to hear the slight strain in his voice. Concern on his behalf. He turns his head to meet Anton’s firm gaze and says, quietly, “I’m just tired of the rain.”
Anton raises an eyebrow, obviously not believing him, and sighs. “Do not lie to me, Sullivan.”
“It’s not a lie.” He is tired of the rain.
“The rain is not the reason you’ve woken up in the middle of the night for three weeks now,” Anton says in a tone that does not leave room for discussion. He leans back against the kitchen counter and crosses his arms over his chest.
Perhaps he has not been as quiet as he thought he had. It comes as no surprise, though, that Anton has noticed- the man is undeniably sharp and attentive. Still, he doesn’t want to tell him that he misses Nathaniel. He should have moved past that by now. He removes Schnappie from his lap and sets her on the ledge, then slips down and goes to put the half empty cup in the sink, trying hard to ignore how Anton’s eyes on him makes his skin tingle unpleasantly.
“It’s just nightmares, Anton.”
“Nightmares happen for a reason,” is the man’s answer to that. “There is something on your mind.”
“It’s nothing,” he says. There is a note of irritation in his voice. “Leave it.”
“No.”
Normally Anton would have stopped prying by now, but he is evidently tired of waiting around for an explanation. Sullivan looks him in the eye, mouth pinched tight. Mixed emotions bubble up inside of him, and he isn’t sure whether he feels angry, hurt or just sad. They are hard to tell apart. He thinks, maybe, it’s mostly sadness, but he latches onto the anger instead because it is easier to deal with.
“I told you to stop asking,” he snaps and sees a flicker of something in his lover’s eyes.
“Sullivan,” the man warns.
It is so very easy to start a fight. They fight over the dumbest things, meaningless things, and sometimes it is merely a way to initiate sex. Rough, messy sex follows their arguments, and it’s the kind that leaves him sore and bruised in the best way possible. Come to think of it, he can’t remember clearly when they last slept together.
Maybe he can be rid of his ridiculous depression if they fight. Maybe he just needs an outlet.
“Shut up.” He stands at his full height and forces himself to glare at him. “Just fucking leave it, okay? I don’t want to discuss it.”
There is a pause.
He watches the subtle changes in Anton’s expression and knows that he is pissing him off royally. Good. That’s good. He needs him angry.
“I don’t have a fucking obligation to share everything with you. You never do, why should I?” To top it off he shoves a finger at Anton’s chest.
A line is crossed.
However, before Anton can open his mouth to spit an insult at him he leans in and mashes their mouths together. Lips and teeth knock together painfully hard, and Sullivan pushes him up against the counter. Assaults his mouth.
Anton fists a hand in his hair and yanks, sending sharp jolts of agony through him that makes him groan.
The hand holds his head in place, away from him, and Sullivan hisses and claws at the man’s sweater, trying to pull it up, to get it over his head. No warning is given before teeth sink into his throat. He yells. His knees buckle under him, and if not for the arm Anton loops around his waist he would have collapsed on the spot.
Anton swallows down the essence of him and lets the grip on his hair loosen a bit, enough for the man to trail fingers through the long, red strands instead.
His breaths come out shuddering; he is crushed to the man’s chest, his arms trapped between them, head tilted back. He stares wide eyed at the ceiling.
Something tightens in his stomach, but not in the right way. Not nearly the right way.
At that moment his lover breaks off from his throat and licks at the bite marks that still bleed before kissing his way up to his jaw; biting, nipping, licking at the skin available to him.
Sullivan is suddenly very still, holding his breath.
What is wrong with him?
Why can’t he play along?
“Stop. Please.” The words come out weak.
Anton hesitates.
Pressed flush against him he can feel that the man is aroused, and he wants to be too. Instead his chest is constricted, too tight to breathe properly, and he can’t put a name to how he feels, except to say that it is wrong.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
The arms around him withdraw.
He steps away without looking at him and rushes out of the kitchen, disappearing into the room past the stair where he once used to sleep. Sometimes, when he needs to be alone, he still goes here, where Anton can’t follow him. He closes the door and sits down, forcing himself to take deep breaths.
Soon after he hears Schnappie meow from the other side of the door.
“Not now, Schnaps. Just a little while, okay?”
She meows for a while longer, then stops.
Sullivan doesn’t cry, no matter how much he feels like it at some point. He sits there and stares into the air, pale and unmoving, while he tries to sort out his feelings. Outside the sun sets. It is far into the night when his eyes close by themselves and take him into restless dreams of times long gone.
-
A knock on the door wakes him. Two more follow, accompanied by Anton’s voice saying, “Breakfast is on the table.”
He doesn’t get up right away. Stiff from sleeping upright and cramped up he stands, stretching the kinks from his body until he feels somewhat like himself again. The ache from yesterday is duller this morning, a vague sort of hurt that is not physical. He takes a deep breath to ready himself for looking Anton in the eye again, unsure about what he will find there. They fight a lot, and in its own way that is acceptable, but what he did last night…He feels dumb for initiating a fight, then sex, only to tell him to stop and stumble away. It was downright idiotic.
Schnappie waits for him in the kitchen. When she sees him she comes running to press herself into his legs, and he picks her up and drops a kiss to the top of her head, murmuring an apology in her ear. She forgives him without hesitation, as she always does whenever he has been stupid, and is only happy to be petted again.
A familiar, mouth watering smell fills the entire first floor; the table has been set for one person, for him, with a stack of fresh, hot pancakes and a jar of golden syrup.
Anton dislikes pancakes. He thinks they are too sweet.
He stares at the food. Understanding, mixed with affection for his lover, soften his face.
Shivers creep up his legs, all the way to his torso, as he takes a seat and reaches for the top pancake. He stuffs it in his mouth in one bite and swallows. It burns his throat on the way down, but he hardly notices over the lovely, juicy taste of it on his tongue. The second one he lathers thickly with syrup and savours, as does he with the third and the fourth. Schnappie meows and begs for a bite, too, and he lets her have half a pancake. She purrs as she eats it.
He finishes them all.
Then he stands and makes his way upstairs to Anton’s study. He stands outside the door for five minutes. Ten. Twenty. Once he manages to raise a hand to knock and enter, half an hour has passed.
Anton sits hunched over the desk and is, as ever, busy at work with his papers and letters. Soft candlelight spills over the workspace and chase away some off the morning’s bleak, grey light. A teapot stands on one corner of the desk, accompanied by a cup that still has steam rising from it.
He stands awkwardly in the doorway and watches him work.
Sullivan loves the sight of the man’s broader shoulders like this, loves the smell of fresh ink and tea and spices in the study.
Is Anton ignoring him? A thick lump forms in his throat. He couldn’t be, could he, after he made him his favourite meal?
Very slowly he approaches him and takes a seat on the floor, right next to the man’s chair, to be near him. He sits stiff and tense and stares at the floor under him.
Somehow, his head ends up resting on Anton’s thigh, his legs curled under him and hands lying in his lap. It’s his lover’s bad leg, the one he damaged in the fight with Usoa that should have killed him, and Sullivan wants to kiss the scarred skin and brush his fingers over it, if only to remind Anton that the handicap doesn’t make him a lesser monster. Not one bit. Nothing ever will. He closes his eyes.
A warm, gentle hand touches his hair. Fingers trail through red strands that are in dire need of a hair cut, stroking and petting them with care. Anton’s hand slides down to his ear and cheek.
His breath hitches at the thumb that strokes his cold face.
He presses his lips into a flat line.
“I miss Nathaniel,” he says.
Silence, then-
“I know, Sulli.”
The weight on his shoulders becomes a little lighter.
“He took me to hear an orchestra play, once, while we lived in the city.” He fumbles for the words. The memory is vivid in his mind; behind closed eyelids he can see the stage and the rows of seat and the midnight blue curtains. He can see the men dressed in their suits, the women in their beautiful evening gowns. “There were violins and harps. Flutes. Contrabasses and saxophones. A grand piano. Nathaniel bought a ticket for me and let me have a seat, even if no one could see me sitting there. They thought it was empty.”
A fond smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “It was…It was magnificent. I’d never heard anything so grand. I made him play me the violin when we got home. He played half the night.”
The words come easier now.
He talks about the time Nathaniel bought him sweets for Christmas Eve, and how they’d eaten them together curled up under a blanket on the couch, making fools of themselves by trying to blow the bigger bubbles with chewing gum. He talks about how his human companion flinched whenever he saw a mirror and how he broke down crying and shouting out of nowhere.
Sullivan tells Anton of every little thing he can remember that he shared with Nathaniel, both good and bad, and the hand never stops stroking his hair. He does not notice, though, that the sound of pen on paper stops after a while.
By the end of it he feels drained, in more ways than one.
He raises his head and looks up at him. Yellow eyes meet his, clear and attentive in their gaze. He rises and seats himself on Anton’s lap with one leg on either side of him, careful not to put too much weight on the bad leg. And when he leans in, the man lets him and kisses him back softly, putting his hands on Sullivan’s hips. Lips part to let tongues touch, almost shyly, and Sullivan makes a noise and wraps his arms around his lover’s neck. Warm, steady heat awakens low in his abdomen, in his chest.
His breaths come out shaky when they part.
He rests his forehead on Anton’s, licking his lips.
“Take me to bed?”
In answer, the man sears their mouths together.
Sullivan clings to him desperately as Anton leads him from the study to the bedroom, pausing along the way to kiss, to touch. They hit the bed in a tangle of limbs and stroke hands over each other’s bodies. His skin heats up with every kiss to his collarbones, every nip at his throat, every lick at his chest and stomach, and he’s arching up into him, moaning Anton’s name over and over while he pants softly for breath and clutches at the sheets. The man takes his sweet time and teases until he begs, only to make him drown in the warmth of his hands and mouth when he gives in.
In the aftermath of it they rest together. Anton’s arms are tight around him and keep the cold away.
Sullivan presses his nose into his lover’s throat.
“I love you, Anton,” he murmurs. Sleepiness is setting in. “I love you.”
He doesn’t expect to hear those words from the man’s mouth. He doesn’t need to.
When he dreams, he dreams of the man who is curled so protectively around him.
-
a/n: Short, a tad angsty and sappy (oddly, this was very soothing for me to write). I remembered what you told me about them fighting a lot, but being there to comfort each other when needed, and this is what happened. I imagine they’ve been together for a while at this point.
Also, I had the thought that Sulli eventually starts sharing the bed with him. I think, in the beginning, sleeping by himself is not something he does just because he is more comfortable like that, but it’s a way to protect himself, since he subconsciously will worry that Anton is going to change his mind about them. As soon as their relationship is stable enough that he knows Anton won’t throw him away, he’ll seek him out to sleep curled up to him at night.