Kiss number 7 for Joplittle and that AU we talked about!
I believe you’re referring to this brilliant 1940s AU gifset by @rubysharkruby? For that, I’d be more than happy to try my hand at an “I’ve missed you” kiss! :)
By the time Tom returned, Edward was still asleep, his hair in glorious disarray across the pale expanse of the pillowcase.
After setting the morning papers down on the nightstand, he stood quietly for a moment and simply watched Edward, content to admire the way the warm shafts of sunlight were falling along his skin, and how boyish he looked with his face relaxed into sleep, those thick, dark lashes fanned into half-moons.
It was a miracle to see him like this, safe and sound in their bed, a world away from the horrors they had witnessed during the war. It was a miracle they had found each other at all, after a year’s separation and the chaos that had come when peace was finally declared, but Edward had somehow managed it, phoning nearly every Jopson in the directory until he finally reached Tom. It might have seemed strange — a naval lieutenant searching for an ordinary sailor — but as they reminisced over pints in a nearby pub, both of them could plainly see that the bond they had formed aboard Terror had not been severed with the war’s end. But a few weeks later, when Edward came to see Tom at his new gig, playing piano in a nightclub on the Edgware Road — that was the night that everything changed. The way Edward had watched him on stage, with barely-concealed hunger in his gaze, and the way Tom had felt it, deep down in the lowest reaches of his belly: it was clear they could never go back to how it had been before. In the alley behind the nightclub, Edward had kissed him, hand wrapped around the nape of his neck as he pulled him in close. Later, in the privacy of Edward’s rooms, they had done much more, finding a closeness and connection that neither had ever dreamed possible.
Within a month, Tom had moved in, leaving Edward to explain to his rather unobservant landlady that he would be taking on a flatmate to share with the expenses.
Having taken his fill of watching Edward, Tom shrugged off his coat and draped it over the bed’s brass footboard. The collar must have grazed Edward’s feet — or at least the counterpane-covered lump that appeared to be Edward’s feet — because he began to shift his legs, nose wrinkling into an expression of sleepy annoyance. His eyes blinked open and the expression vanished, replaced by a warm, contented smile.
“Good morning,” Tom said, as he sat along the edge of the bed. “Fancy going for a fry-up down the road?”
Edward said nothing, only to reach out and tug at Tom’s waistcoat, pulling him closer until he was nearly horizontal. Their lips met softly as Edward offered him a gentle greeting kiss, his mouth opening just enough to remind Tom of all the things they had done together in this bed, some only a few short hours ago.
“What was that for?” Tom asked, once he finally found the strength to pull away.
“I’ve missed you.” Edward’s smile was irrepressibly wide, his dark eyes full of something Tom now recognized as love. It was impossible, what they had, and yet here it was, enough to break Tom’s heart a hundred times over if he let it. And he would, he knew — he would risk it all just to have a chance at this kind of happiness.
He fixed Edward with a disbelieving stare. “I’ve been gone ten minutes.”
“Felt like longer,” Edward said, eyebrows raised playfully.
And then it was Tom’s turn to smile, grinning as he leaned down once more to catch Edward’s mouth with his own, their bodies cocooned together in a warm bower of the day’s morning light.
[send me a kissing prompt]