Who: Felix
With: Tate ( @sxncerelyme )
Verse: Love on the Range
Prompt: send me a 💏 and i will randomise a number in order for my muse to kiss yours... 10. Desperately.
The thing was, he’d slept around with the city slickers that stayed at Abuela’s Bed and Breakfast plenty of times. He’d been discrete, maybe not discrete enough but honestly, would she have preferred he reject them? Huh? All he was doin’ was making their stays a lil more enjoyable. He stuck by that. It wasn’t purely selfless, he wasn’t that much of a saint, but... it didn’t have to be somethin’ totally selfish either.
But god, if this last one hadn’t gotten under his skin.
It wasn’t just that Tate was the prettiest human being Felix had ever seen, including magazines and the grand silver screen itself. It was the way he looked at Felix with those big, soft brown eyes of his, like he could see through all his layers and pretense just as clear as day. It was the way he called him on his shit and met his challenging words head on and still touched Felix with an air of almost delicacy, an arm gentle around his shoulder, the soft way he’d nudge Felix’s chin up with his fingertips sometimes when they kissed despite the filthy mouths between them and the decided lack of shame all around. They way he treated him like something soft even though Felix had spent the first week just trying to display all his barbwired edges and keep the saccharine intimacy at bay.
Tate saw him. Saw the best and the worst of him for what it was, and he chose to spend his time with him anyways. The way they behaved together, like a couple of rowdy, insatiable teens, you’d think they were all rough and passionate fire nonstop- and maybe sometimes they were- but Tate had this way of warming him from the inside out, this way of melting him without scorching and turning his brain all soft and mushy and stupid.
He’d never had this before. A- they weren’t even boyfriends- but a significant someone who could just fucking smile at him and turn his guts to warm syrup. A significant someone that had him craving hugs and forehead kisses more than sex. A significant someone where just the prospect of holding hands and taking naps together on a rainy afternoon was enough to have him tearing up with want.
So yeah. It was safe to say that Felix had fucked up. Like, really fucked up, in a big, irreversible way.
And now the month- long stay was at an end, and Tate was meant to be leaving. Tomorrow.
There was something sick in Felix’s stomach. Something that felt like both nausea and like a clawed fist had a vice grip around his throat. It hurt in a physical, tangible way. He’d been growing steadily colder this past week, dreading the end, dreading good- fucking- bye, and he knew Tate knew. Knew he was picking up on it, knew he was hurting, and Felix hated himself for it but what the fuck else was he supposed to do?
The one and only time he’d visited the big city at fifteen it had left him so panicked and anxious that he’d hid in the McDonald’s bathroom crying and hyperventilating to the point where his fucked- up heart had just about gone into cardiac arrest and he’d had to be taken out on a stretcher. It was the worst, most embarrassing day of his life, and he’d never gone back. But Tate had a whole life there. Had a job, a home of his own, friends, fuck knew what all else. Felix didn’t even know all that much about him. Oh, they’d spent hours pillow- talking, hours just curled up trading facts and asking questions- but it felt like there was still this chasm of information that Felix didn’t know. That maybe he’d never know. And that hurt.
The point was, where the fuck did he get off even thinking about asking him to stay? Asking him to give all that up for this one hot fucking mess of a poor, anxious reclusive country boy with a grand total of one friend, maybe one and a half friends if you squinted really hard at Davis and not much more than a ramshackle little farmhouse to his name- it was unbelievably selfish.
So fucking selfish. And yet, Felix couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He’d told Tate he wasn’t going to come to the bonfire. Part of that was because he just didn’t want to fucking be a part of this sending away party. He didn’t want to say goodbye. Didn’t think he could. This was the part where he let him go, sent him off to a life that was far more than anything he would ever have here- but it was... it was hard. Far more difficult than he’d ever anticipated.
He hadn’t expected to fall in love with him.
There was a part of him that questioned whether he even knew what love was. It wasn’t selfish, right? There was some bible verse or another about that, but he’d always been terrible at paying attention in church, heathen that he was. It wasn’t selfish, and Felix was fucking selfish because he’d shown up at this shitty stupid sendaway bonfire.
And Tate... he looked rougher than Felix had anticipated.
He didn’t want it to be because of him, because that would have been fucking shitty, but at the same time- maybe it meant something. Maybe it could mean the same thing that Felix looking like regurgitated trash meant.
“I need to tell you something,” He said, quiet, not even really meeting Tate’s eyes as he grabbed the sleeve of the man’s hoodie and hauled him out of his seat by the bonfire and off into the shadows at the edge of the party. Maybe he should have asked, maybe he should have- but he hadn’t. And now all that was left to do was to slice himself open and spill his guts.
“Just- just let me get this out, alright? And then you can tell me to fuck off or slap me or whatever, I know I probably deserve it. I haven’t- I haven’t been fair to you this past week. I know that. I’ve been...” Felix swallowed hard, eyes glassing over as he finally forced them to meet Tate’s. “Selfish. And I’m going to be selfish for a little longer.”
It was the scariest thing he’d ever done.
“I’m in love with you. I know it’s only been a month and I know we don’t- objectively don’t know everything about each other but you know all the parts of me that matter. You know I’m a bitch when I get jealous and you know I get jealous real easy. And you know I have a shitty heart and can’t eat citrus and that the only thing I can cook is eggs and that I’m allergic to basically all sea food and you know that my hands and feet are always cold and you sleep with me anyway. And I know how you snore a little bit when you sleep and the way you smile widest when you don’t really mean it and that you can’t fucking grow anything more than like a stupid little bit of peachfuzz, and you’re so fucking proud of your stupid little peachfuzz beard, and I think that’s so adorable that it’s made me love your stupid peachfuzz just because you’re so proud of it- and you can’t handle losing at checkers you big baby, and you’re really good at drawing and you like drawing trees and you’re allergic to bananas. I know your favorite color and that you’re pretty shameless and you don’t like beating around the bush. And I- I’ve been beating around the bush basically this whole time and I- I wanted to let you go back to this big city life you had because you’re gorgeous and talented and the kind of pretty that belongs in a big city, seen and appreciated by everyone. And I know loving someone means wanting what’s best for them but I just really, really want you to stay here. Stay with me. Please. And we can keep finding out all this stupid shit about each other and I’ll make you eggs for breakfast and you can make me pancakes and we’ll nap on my couch while it’s raining. And we’ll be happy together, I know we will, because I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything and I think- I think you love me too. So please.”
Felix was crying, the messy, awful kind of crying that he hated to do in front of anyone ever, but he didn’t let it stop him from slipping a hand up Tate’s shoulders to curl around the back of his neck while his other hand gripped at his hip, secure. He didn’t let it stop him from kissing him, either, rough and needy and just plain desperate. The movement of his lips was a plea, even if he was no longer speaking- and he didn’t stop with just the one kiss, either, didn’t try very hard to keep it chaste because this was it. Maybe he’d pull away and Tate would tell him he was sorry, but he just couldn’t. Maybe he’d break Felix’s heart. Break his own heart. Who knew?
He kissed Tate until his head was spinning, dizzy, until his lungs screamed for air and he was forced to pull away. He stood, panting for just a moment with his eyes still shut before he finally opened them, looking at this face he loved so much.
“Please don’t leave me,” He whispered, waiting with a heart filled with dread and hope in equal measure.
