Alden, Ilad
It is just past sundown, light filtered to grey where it settles over the world past the hallway windows. Freshly showered, blond hair still holds dampness where its been artfully mussed, his soft blue tee scented with fabric softner where it warms against his skin. Newly bought, clear tupperware that has never had a place in his own apartment is held in his hand, sliced apples drizzled in honey smooshed together inside. He knocks, the sound familiar in the sharp, patterned raps.
Several beats pass before Ilad opens the door. When he does, it is with a slight smile on his lips: warm and lingering, as though it began at the sound of the knock and lasted through whatever quiet preparations he made. He is dressed down, loose cotton pants that suggest pajamas beneath his dark tee; perhaps he has taken the day of rest with some level of seriousness. The room behind him is warmed by a plethora of candles. He must put a lot of his budget toward wax. He says, "Alden."
"Ilad love," Alden greets, the words murmured together as if they're one, no space of pause interrupting them. Light catches his attention first, grey eyes passing Ilad to rest briefly on the bright pricks of candlelight before returning to the warmth of the smile. "The internet informed me that you celebrate with apples."
"We do," Ilad says. His eyebrows quirk together, the gleam bright in his dark eyes. "For a sweet year. Come." He draws the door wide open and steps back, bare heels sliding over the carpet as he gestures Alden to proceed him inside.
With a brief, curious glance over the empty hall, Alden steps inside with the beginnings of his own smile etched lightly into the corners of his lips. He does not venture far into the apartment before turning on his own heel to face Ilad, lingering near. "Have you already celebrated?" he questions. "I wasn't sure if you'd planned anything with your brother."
"No," Ilad says. He draws the door closed behind him with a quiet kiss of door into doorframe, and then turns aside. He looks Alden over with a flick of his glance, and then steps into him, drawing him into the close fold of an embrace. "No, we did not make plans," he murmurs, dipping his head as he squeezes close and tight, fever heat burning in his skin through their clothing. "I wrote him a letter. I presume he will call me soon enough."
Alden slowly melds into the embrace, fingers flitting to rest lightly against Ilad's hip as he draws close. "Ah." Sound invoked with humor, amusement brushes deeper in his words as he says, "Are letters a thing, then? I did not read about letters."
"No," Ilad answers with a low laugh on his breath. "No, not a thing. But I found on contemplating my year, I had..." He cants his head, and brushes a kiss against Alden's near cheek before letting his forehead rest against Alden's. He smiles again, and the warmth of it hues his voice while his lashes fan dark against his skin. "Oh, a few things to say."
Shifting slightly against Ilad, Alden tips closer to press another fleeting touch of lips to lips as he answers wryly, "A few very interesting things." His hand tightens on his hip, thumb drawing in a slow stroke against the bone there. "I do not think I could find the courage in me to reflect as honestly."
"It is hard, to look oneself in the eye," Ilad agrees, quiet. He draws back, sliding his hand up over Alden's back to come to frame his face in the curve of his fingers. "I cannot say I wish to make a habit of it."
The smile on Alden's lips widens, one corner lifting higher than the other with innocent humor. It is the only movement he makes, stilling at Ilad's study. "A better habit than others," he says slowly. "Perhaps later tonight I will try to look back as well."
"I am not sure that makes me a good influence," Ilad answers him, drawing his thumb in a slow glide along his jaw, beneath his chin. Then he pulls back and away, drawing his other hand down Alden's arm to curl loose but possessive around his wrist. "Let me show you what we do with these apples."
The tupperware is lifted at the reminder, Alden's glance falling to it before flicking back to Ilad. "I've already put some honey on them," he replies as he moves to step near again, words dropping to a soft murmur as he adds, "What else do you do?"
"Well, some people eat them that way, but it is like eating sugar with sugar on top," Ilad says, drawing Alden after him towards his kitchen. He cocks an eyebrow at him with the slant of his glance. "My mother always baked them. Do you like raisins?"
"I like Raisin Bran," Alden not-quite-answers, following along without objection though his smile fades to something else, almost content.
Ilad has to let go of Alden's arm once he is in the kitchen, banging around collecting various necessary baked apple objects, like a baking dish, a jar of cinnamon, a bag of raisins, butter from the refrigerator. What he principally seems to be making, as he collects the honeyed apples from the tupperware and starts laying them out in his baking dish, is a mess. But at least he is cheerful about it.
Settling back from the mess with an easy lean against a counter, Alden watches with interest sharpening grey eyes as they trace Ilad's patterns around the kitchen. "Do you need help?" he offers lazily, though he sounds as if the answer of 'no' would be welcome.
"No, no. It won't take long." Ilad turns on the oven and slides the baking dish inside it not long afterwards, dropped to a crouch before it as he pushes it shut again. He does not bother cleaning up the mess he has made right away. Rather, he looks up at Alden with his elbows propped on his knees, his eyebrows arched.
Alden lifts a brow back at Ilad, his lips twitching from an effort to keep them straight. "What," isn't a question, the statement flat even as grey eyes dance with amusement.
Shake of his head slight, Ilad rises from his crouch and sets the oven timer with a few haphazard presses of buttons -- it takes him a couple of tries, like someone who does not frequently /use/ his oven timer. Then he wipes his hands absently on his pants. "If I burn them," he tells him, "I apologize. I am not my mother."
"How long do they take?" Alden asks, pushing away from the counter to close the space towards the timer with a sweep of his gaze over the electronic numbers. His path happens to brush him near to Ilad.
"Twenty minutes?" Ilad looks at the timer, and then back at Alden. In the close quarters of the kitchen, proximity is easy to manufacture. Ilad snakes his arm around Alden's waist, curving possessive fingers in the grasp of his further hip. "Why? Did you have in mind some way to pass the time?"
Grin breaking on his lips, Alden answers in low tones, "I wouldn't want to distract you. You'll burn the apples." Despite his words, he takes the contact as permission to press close, fingers slipping to curve over Ilad's neck as his other hand slides into his hair.
"That is a risk," Ilad murmurs, smile tucked at one corner of his mouth. Tracing Alden's cheekbone with the curving trail of a single knuckle, drawn close to his eye and then down over his cheek, he says, "It would be a bad omen, I think."
"We have enough bad omens to be cursed with any more," Alden says slowly, regret already touching his response. His thumb circles idly against Ilad's pulse, though his gaze turns to a sharper study. "Has Adam mentioned his plans to you?"
Ilad kisses Alden in answer to that slow regret, a soft brush of his lips touched with the barest flicker of his tongue; a promise of sweeter things than apples later, most likely. Then he glances briefly away and inclines his head, a brief tightening of his mouth reflecting a certain wryness in his response. "With Eshana, you mean," he says. "Yes."
His expression softens somewhat with the kiss, chasing after it with a soft application of his own lips to the corner of Ilad's. "It would be uncomfortable," he states carefully, fingers twining in dark hair as he seeks out his gaze.
Ilad's glance is acknowledging, with the slight tip of his head. "Probably," he says. His expression is rarely easy to read, but for Alden, at this point-- he is self-aware, understanding, and a little rueful. "More for him than for us, I suspect."
In the spirit of the holiday, Alden murmurs an admitting, "I've known for a long time that he has wanted you. He has wanted you for a long time." Tension held within the line of his jaw, he breaks contact first, head ducking to kiss Ilad's neck lightly rather than hold his gaze.
"I know," Ilad answers on a low exhalation. He lifts his hand to stroke his fingers through Alden's hair, a faint frown at his brow as he does.
His eyes slide closed with the touch, Alden burying himself in the curve of Ilad's neck. It takes him another moment before he speaks against his skin, "I can't trust him. I can't trust it. Any moment, something may happen and I could lose you."
"No," Ilad says, firm in anchor with the plant of his feet solid against the floor. His hand curves at the back of Alden's head. His other arm comes to wrap in a close press, hard and strong across his back. "You /can/ trust him. To his honor. You can trust /me/, Alden. Trust mine. I am with you. {I will be with you.}"
"His honor? He cheated on his wife," is said ungraciously, though Alden at least shakes his head slowly as if dismissing it, a sigh slipping from his lips. "For now, but how long? How long until something trips us up, Ilad?" he questions, finally pulling back to meet his gaze again. "You say we'll start the new year together, but it only makes me wonder if we'll finish it together as well."
"Alden," Ilad reproves mildly, but he does not fight Adam's battle so hard; perhaps because he has his own to contend with. "I cannot say that we will. We might not. We might die tomorrow." He turns his hand beneath Alden's chin, frowning into his face. "Your words sound like poison to me," he says, his accented words all soft earnest, his dark eyes steady. "Do not swallow it, ahuvi. Do not fear so."
Passivity masks Alden's withdrawl, though he inclines his chin in easy agreement before he dismisses the subject with a casual, "There is always the possibility we will die soon." His fingers cover Ilad's gently, stilling there before a smile is offered, all one-sided. "It isn't poison to accept the inevitable, Ilad, but I'd rather not invite more trouble into our relationship than we already have."
"The /inevitable/," Ilad repeats, with a rising frustration in his repetition of the word.
"It is likely," Alden corrects only slightly, taking a slow breath as his free hand curves against Ilad's lower back, attempting to draw closer. "I'm the only man you've been with, Ilad. The first. Do you not ever want to explore anything else?"
"I want you to trust me," Ilad answers him. He ducks his head, and the twist of his hand into Alden's shirt bespeaks a grasp for self-control. "I want you to trust my loyalty. It is given you, Alden. Beloved, I do not know what forever is. I do know what love is, Alden. I know it." His voice drops to a rough whisper; he draws Alden close with the inexorable pull of his hand fisted in his shirt. "I beg of you, please, do not doubt me," he says, his breath warm with the sharp words in his ear. "You cut me like a blade."
Pain responds at words though not at touch, Alden's breath hissing back out beneath his teeth as he encircles Ilad with the solid press of his arms. "I do trust your loyalty, and your love," he answers simply, twisting to find Ilad's lips with his own with a need for the contact.
Ilad kisses him hungrily, as though he might prove himself with passion. Fingers twining in Alden's hair while the others stay twisted in the fabric of his shirt, he backs him into the refrigerator, all fire and ferocity in the urgent claiming pressure of his kiss.
Passion is met with an edge of desperation to Alden's need, driving away from conversation as his hands slip under the fabric of Ilad's shirt to find flesh. With his anchor found in the refridgerator at his back, he shifts to press closer as if any amount of space is unbearable.
At some point, the oven timer goes off, but Ilad is as predicted too distracted to care. There is no room for air to breathe between the close press of their bodies. All intensity in the tangle of lips and tongue and teeth, Ilad only breaks the seal of their mouths when he has no breath left to do otherwise. "Trust me," he whispers again, on the mingling of their breath with their lips bare centimeters apart, if that. "I am yours."
"I do," Alden repeats, intense with banked desire before he nips gently at Ilad's lips. His hads do not still even as the kiss breaks, drawing fabric up with the slide of fingers over the muscles of his back. "It is hard to trust the world, but I do trust you, Ilad."
The soft fabric peels readily from his skin, sliding up under Alden's hands. "All right," Ilad says, soft and uncertain in his acceptance; he kisses Alden once more, a firmer press of lips for all its brevity. He finally looses the crumple of his hand in Alden's poor shirt, the fingers of his other hand sliding out of their feverish tangle of Alden's hair to stroke down his face between kisses. "All right."
It is perhaps not the best warning, Alden's returning one kiss with another one before he mumbles a cryptic, "Apples." For all that, he moves to pull fabric of Ilad's shirt over his head in one smooth gesture.
Ilad starts, even as he is divested of his shirt. The puff of breath that escapes his lips is almost, but not quite, a laugh. He presses back against Alden, long and lean and hot in the brace of Alden's body against the fridge under the pressure of his own; he kisses him once more, with a thorough and demanding heat. Then he withdraws again, hand sliding over his chest in a long sweep of fingers down over his torso before he makes abrupt haste to the oven door.
Clutching fabric in between his fingers, Alden twists it idly, lightly, while his gaze traces after Ilad. He lets silence fall as it will, quiet with the loss of heat and contact.
Ilad is quiet as he collects the baked apples from the oven. He draws them out bare-handed without bothering to look for mitts or a towel. He sets them out on the stove to let them cool from their immediate bubbling heat, and stands there for a moment, looking down at them with tension rippling apparent in the strong muscle of his naked back.
"Are they burnt?" Alden questions, disproportionate care filtered into his words for the outcome of the apples as he straightens. He folds the shirt carelessly and drops it on the counter.
"No," Ilad answers quietly. He steps sideways to open a drawer and pull out a single spoon. Taking this in his hand, he glances back at Alden as he closes the drawer. "They look nice."
Smile lifting his lips with a tilt of his head over at Ilad, Alden breathes out a wry, "Good." Hooking thumbs against his beltloops, he glances back to the apples. "Do you have any wine or such to go with?"
"Alas, no," Ilad answers him. But he does have a spoon. He curves it into the mixture of molten mixture of apple, raisin, butter and honey. He blows on it to cool it, and then blows on it to cool it again; obviously this bite is not for him, because his tongue does not burn. He turns with a quirked eyebrow and the spoon held in his fingers.
Stepping forward with a slow drag of his thumbs away from his jeans, Alden reaches out to touch the tips of his fingers, feather-light, to Ilad's hips. His lips part slowly, tongue darting out to wet them before he dips his head to close teeth and mouth over the spoon, taking away apples to flavor his mouth in one smooth swallow.
Smile widening, Ilad takes the spoon and scoops up another bite from the baking dish. But rather than eat it, he leans in to kiss Alden's mouth; not with the fervent, demanding heat of a moment ago, but with a long, slow sweetness to match the warmth and gentle spice of the newly baked apple.
Desire sparks sharply in contrast to gentle warmth, though Alden only leans in, his body finding Ilad's as the soft pads of his fingers slide over naked hips, thumb dipping briefly below the waistband of pants. His lips part eagerly, a low breath escaping as he returns his kiss.
Shifting into him with the possessive curl of his arm across the small of Alden's back, Ilad's kiss grows in intensity with the passage of time, harder and fiercer as the banked fire of his own desire takes on heat and air from all those sparks. Feeding itself to a conflagration, Ilad finally only breaks the kiss when the intensity reaches some breathless point of need. He is still holding the spoon, but he seems to have forgotten about it.
"Ilad," is all breathless want, Alden pressing in to his heat and flesh as fingers curl, tense with anticipation, around the edge of fabric remaining to Ilad. As he catches himself, he simply murmurs, "That was sweet."
"{For a sweet year, beloved,}" is Ilad's soft answer in Hebrew. He rests his forehead against Alden's for a moment, lashes falling low over his dark eyes.
Wry in the smile that twists his lips, Alden nuzzles softly against Ilad's cheek, mouth dragging to his ear before he answers lowly, "I will try to be sweeter as well." Fingers dip inside fabric, steady and unflinching as they find flesh, curving around him.
Ilad's hiss of breath his only audible answer, he shifts into Alden's touch, angling into the steady grasp of his fingers. He is not shy, at least, here in the privacy of his own candlelit apartment. The spoon is getting pretty incongruous, though. Also, I really can't TS while I am sitting at Esther's desk.
Maybe he'll have an opportunity to have a bite to eat later, but they'll probably be cool by then. Ftb?
Haha. OK.
Happy new year.