Booker turned when he heard Ash’s footsteps, affection bubbling up through his chest like a freshly opened bottle of champagne. He was overwhelmed with the urge to sink his fingers into the tousled hair, much like how he assumed teenage girls responded to puppies. The threadbare shirt was a punch to the gut when he saw it, an ache blooming in his gut just as the fizzy tenderness faded. He immediately abandoned the tableware when he saw Ash retreat, switching gears as easily as he did clothes.
“You’re being a shitty date,” Booker admonished, pouring himself onto the couch and plastering to the other’s back. “I haven’t seen you in years and this is how you treat me?” Winding his arms around his waist and burying his face in his hair, he inhaled the familiar smell of Ash and soap and heartache. His stomach swooped at the way they indelibly fit, like pieces of a puzzle, or more accurately, a key sliding into a lock.
“Tell me you missed me,” Booker said, words muffled from where he spoke against the nape of Ash’s neck. He pressed even closer, words barely intelligible as he entreated, “Tell me you wanted to see me.”
Ash snorted under his breath. “This isn’t a date.” He shifted as the other joined him on the couch, years of tension bleeding out of his frame at the familiar comfort of being enveloped by Booker. It wasn’t as if Ash had close friends or family that he let touch him in even a platonic way, his bitter old bones starved for even simple forms of human connection.
He breathed a sigh of what had to be relief, too comfortable for the moment to fight. “How else should I treat you? I’m not gonna bark at the door and lick your face because you finally bothered to show up.” He grumbled with only a hint of resentment. He reached behind him to grab Booker’s elbow, pulling his arm tighter around him like a weighted blanket. “I want dinner.” He twisted onto his back at the waist, his brow furrowing as he reached to hook Booker’s head in his arm. He wanted to smash himself against Booker and stay in this moment, crushed and blissful. It couldn’t last, though. It never did. One of them would always take any good thing between them and overcomplicate it to the point of being unsalvageable.
“I missed you.” He conceded as he held the other in a headlock, pressing his cheek against Booker’s face beside him. “But I didn’t want to see you. You’re always too little too late.”
