For the soft prompt fill: a BradNate reunion hug? I’ve been writing very tough boys recently and they need some soft time ❤️
The first sign Nate had that someone else was home was Brad’s arms sliding around his waist.
Well, no. The very first sign had been the grating rattle of the garage door opening, but that had happened so long ago that Nate had assumed that Brad was fiddling with his bike or cleaning his workbench. Sometimes Brad needed some buffer time in the garage as he transitioned from work to home.
“Hi,” Nate said, dropping the knife he was using to cut up vegetables for dinner, and bringing his hands up to cup Brad’s wrists.
Brad pressed his face into Nate’s hair and then dropped his face to tuck it into the curve of Nate’s neck. “A plague on all their houses.”
His voice was muffled against and his breath tickled, but Nate just made a little hmm and leaned back into the embrace. This could be a buffer too if Brad wanted.
“Bad day?”
Brad didn’t answer right away. He rubbed his nose up and down the curve of Nate’s neck and then pushed forward until Nate was supporting most of their weight, with Brad draped all over him like a very heavy cape.
Eventually, Brad heaved a sigh and stood back up, making as if to walk away, but before he could go too far, Nate turned and pulled himself back into Brad’s space. He slotted his arms around Brad’s waist and pressed his palms into their spot between Brad’s shoulder blades, a perfect fit. He squeezed and leaned his temple against Brad’s.
“They’re just so fucking stupid,” Brad bitched, “There are a few of them who I swear are functionally illiterate, and even the ones who seem like they might be able to walk and breathe at the same time don’t have the common sense God gave gravel.”
Brad kept whining, something about impossible tasks on implausible timelines and then something about the traffic, and Nate let it wash over him as he focused on the important things, like the gradual relaxation in Brad’s shoulders and the way he lost the tightness in his hips as he relaxed into Nate.