it isn’t right that he gets to see through him ; it isn’t right that kai has to stand here, feeling ripped open, like the smirk just curving off the corner of his mouth is a shield. he hears him as if through the haze of a dream, and yet, there is a part of him – a part that’s bordering on more dominant than that which the rest of him can hope to control – that hears him more clearly than he’s ever heard anything before. surely it’s more than he hears her, or more than he even hears himself. fhaari is someone who attracted him for a reason, after all, and maybe his clarity, maybe the fact that he can admit he pretends in the same sentence he accuses kai of the same, is why. at least in part.
the distance between them has expanded into a gaping hole, and continues to get wider the longer they go without touching. kai can’t explain this incessant, perpetual need he has to have his hands on someone warm, but if he had to guess, he’d say it’s because he missed being warm himself. he only pretends when it comes to things that matter, but even then, he used to be so open. he was always so open before the world taught him to be different.
hide your feelings. hide your face. hide your whole self, because you will not survive if you don’t.
“i could bring them to life now, if you gave me the right lines.” he tells him after a tick or two of silence, and suddenly pale blue eyes are cutting a path through the darkness, half his face shadowed from the illumination of the city. he’s looking at him, not necessarily appraising him, but certainly appreciating him. it’s difficult not to with a face like that, and kai thinks back to the first time he smiled at him because he wanted to. it was one of the only genuine smiles he had left inside of him, and the rest he continues to ration for whenever he’s around. for whenever they’re worth giving.
he is bare naked, but fhaari has clothed himself in a barrier. it puts him at the advantage, so far as kai can understand, but he can’t find it in himself to remember how these games are played. maybe he just doesn’t want to play them with him, is the thing ; maybe he wants to save the subtleties that he’s been taught from his mother’s chest, his father’s eyes, and every person he’s spoken to since entering this world of camera flashes and tabloids, for when he has to use them. now is not one of those times, because he makes himself raw for him in ways that he doesn’t for anybody else. perhaps not enough, but certainly more.
kai’s stance shifts a bit, weight redistributing from his right to his left, and when he reaches out, it’s to press his hand to the side of his neck. he slides it back, a slow procession, until he’s cupping over his nape, and when he moves, it’s to get a bit closer. there goes the chasm. “do i pretend with you?”
as if on cue, fhaari freezes beneath the gaze of his companion. his muscles tense, fingertips digging into soft flesh, as he suddenly becomes much too aware of his position in the darkness of the room. his walls have already come back up, and he hates that. he hates being under the scrutiny of those blue eyes unclouded by a former flash of lust. he hates knowing that kai can see the way his skin wraps far too taut around his bones and the way his tattoos are scattered like dust on the expanse of his skin. stubbornly, he does not look back. not yet.
white-hot flames lick beneath the surface of where kai touches him, and he can’t help the way his heart flashes across his face the second their eyes meet. he’s like art personified, really, and no matter how many fires, or stars, or galaxies fhaari compares him to in his literature, he knows none of his inflated purple prose will ever do kai justice. there are no words in any language that could even remotely describe who this person is, but fhaari’ll try. he’ll scrap, and he’ll cut, and he’ll draft about a million words from here til then, but eventually he’ll find them. he will.
it’s instinctual when fhaari leans into his touch, a hand coming to rest on his hip. a quick glance downwards reveals that fhaari’s seemingly overdressed for the occasion, and the pinch of pink on the apples of his cheeks shows his recognition. it’s too late now, though, and he only hopes kai won’t notice when his palm begins to dampen.
“ignorance is always bliss.”
fhaari doesn’t want to know if it’s fake, or if he’s capable of making kai feel anything other than lust and perhaps a sense of contentedness. either way fhaari doesn’t win, and he’s never particularly liked being the loser of his own story anyway. he knows his place as the forbidden fruit, or the side-chick as people call it nowadays, and it isn’t wise for him to assume anything more. it isn’t wise for him to think too deeply about all the little conversations they have, or the way they pretend to sleep afterwards. it isn’t wise to feed the feeling that grows in his chest every time they meet like this, and it isn’t wise that fhaari finds himself wishing he was brave enough to ask if he can stay.
but fhaari’s never been a wise man. if he was he wouldn’t be here, languidly closing the distance between them while actively swallowing down the fact that it feels a lot like subjugation.
“you have the whole entire world to fool when the sun comes up - i don’t think you’d intentionally add me to that list. or at least i hope not.” and he thinks he’s finished, but before he can even blink, more words are tumbling from his mouth, settling in the silence surrounding them. “there are things that we hide and things we don’t talk about, but i don’t think that’s entirely pretending. it feels more like — like preservation to me.”
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