Could Kip possibly get 4 with Milenko? Should come as absolutely no surprise that she’s very weak for dorky poets!
And 23 for whichever pairing you want!
Of course! We’re going with Milenko x Kipling first.
4. An accidental brush of lips followed by a pause and going back for another, on purpose.
The sound of Kipling’s steps against the cobblestones of Goldgrave was muffled by the bustling city. If Vesuvia slept, that surely did not apply for both the ever bohemian Goldgrave and the chaotic South End, never still, like water always flowing.
She wasn’t surprised that Milenko lived there, it suited him. What did surprise her was that he didn’t live in the same place as the rest of his family — she had been commissioned to take care of their winter garden more than once, and the last time she had gone, she kept waiting for Milenko to show up. If she always found him by the fountain of the palace, it made sense to Kipling that she would find him near the pond in the winter garden.
She hadn’t, and Milenko had told her he didn’t live there, he just spent a lot of time with his cousins.
Kipling made it to the building, and from there, she knew she had to go to the very last floor. Milenko’s quarters weren’t big, but they weren’t small either — an apartment made out of the attic of the building it was located in, with a small terrace that looked into the canals, per Milenko’s own description. The closer she got to it, the more nervous she was, yet she steeled her resolve, and knocked on the door.
No one came.
She knocked once more with the same result. Did he forget? Was he getting something and hadn’t returned? Or had she mistaken the day? Overthinking on all the possible results, deciding to wait some time before knocking for a third time (no one was around that she could ask anyway) she leaned to far against the wall, and accidentally pushed the door open.
It wasn’t locked.
“Mila?”
Though no answer came, Kipling was too curious not to investigate, taking her an anticlimactic short time to find Milenko, sitting in the tiny terrace, one foot against the stretcher of the table, another over the seat of his chair. Laying down at his feet was Ursula, his familiar, who did notice Kipling coming in and was wagging her tail at her.
Milenko’s eyes were fixed on a near by canal, as he messily scribbled on a notebook with his slanted handwriting, changing to a clean page when needed, all without looking. He muttered words as if describing something, writing away things only he could see. The evening breeze playing with his curls.
Kippling watched him write, his fingers changing the page with the same motion he did when he played on the strings of a mandolin — she had seen him play in the coffee house him, Amparo, Anatole and their friends used to go. He had asked Kipling to tag along, a gentle, encouraging smile on his lips, as his brown eyes examined her face, hoping. He had been sitting on a sofa there just as badly, only with a leg over Kipling’s, playing a tune he made up as he went.
Eventually, Ursula made a noise to call Milenko’s attention, bumping his leg off the stretcher. “Hey!” He complained to his dog, at the same time as Kipling said: “Hi, the door was open.”
“Kip! I—” he looked at his hands, inked. “I didn’t, did I leave you waiting? I’m so sorry.”
“Please, don’t worry! I’ve always liked watching you write, you look so absorbed in it.”
“But I promised drinks, not keeping you waiting.”
“Oh, hush.”
She smiled, and Milenko returned it. He stood up to greet her, keeping his inked hands away from her clothes, he leaned down to kiss her cheek, but Kipling had had the same idea, so when they met each other half way, their lips brushed.
“Hi, my sunset,” Milenko told her still looking at her lips.
“Hi,” Kipling replied, closing the infinitesimal distance between them to kiss him, this time, on purpose.