Chapter Text
The window next to him is rolled all the way down but Kuea still feels too hot.
It’s not a bad feeling. Kind of nice, the overstimulation. His skin sits tight and hot over his bones like it always does after a set, but different now, because this time his audience saw his face and still sang along, still smiled at him: some of them even yelled his real name. He feels welcomed and accepted and loved, albeit in a way that will feel impersonal come morning, and it spurs him on in terrible, destructive ways.
The driver’s GPS leads them closer to Lian’s house.
Sweat is cooling on his skin. He feels a little nauseous with nerves—with anger. His fingers, sore from the drumsticks, pink from clutching the mic, curl tightly around his phone. Sore, but not shaking. If he was smart he would’ve let the adrenaline burn out in the proper ways. He could’ve stayed behind and accepted the offers of drinks and dances and wandering hands, let Jay get him home when he got too sloppy-drunk to stand up, but the post set high felt beautiful and inspiring in the lights, like anything could happen, so when Kuea got distracted thinking about the new missed calls on his phone he made a decision. Got loud about it too, decisive and angry.
Jay just rolled his eyes at him. Your funeral, he said.
Kuea is stone cold sober when the car rolls up to Lian’s driveway, but he doesn’t feel like it. His palms are clammy and his heart is pounding, and there’s a cold front of anxiety blowing on his heels—Kuea carries his fear like storm clouds, like feeling the rain in your bones before it comes. He’s hot and cold all over, jaw set as he walks up to the outer door. He hears music inside, echoing like every window is thrown open. The saxophone part in a jazz song. It’s lovely and lilting, and all of it, the sickening romance of the music and the stars and the heat coming off of his skin is so much; it overwhelms him, delayed. The embarrassment of feeling like a lovesick little idiot, of seeming juvenile in Lian’s eyes. The sting of rejection and worse yet, the casual way Lian dressed him down. Like it was obvious to everyone but Kuea. Not something to be upset over, certainly not worth Lian’s time. The audacity he had getting annoyed, fucking—pulling rank when Kuea wanted to call it all off, raising his voice like Kuea was a child throwing a tantrum and not an adult expressing his emotions.
Lights in the driveway turn on, automatic. His hands don’t shake when he rings the doorbell (soundless, probably a beep somewhere that Kuea can’t hear). In the back of his head he knows he’s missed Lian, feeling strangely excited at the thought of being in his house. Knows the thought of not getting his stupid fairytale ending makes him want to scream, but right now the action alone feels good—like he’s doing something for the first time in his life. He rings the bell again. The door clicks open.
Lian is — well. He’s mostly so handsome it makes Kuea’s fury feel weirdly righteous. Dressed down, more so than Kuea’s ever seen, which doesn’t really say a lot. His top button is undone. His sleeves are rolled up. He’s golden in the yellow light, low-lidded, and he smiles at Kuea when he sees him, and these terrible, juvenile shivers rise up in Kuea’s chest, butterfly-light, and it loosens something in him to see that. Unfairly, it steals away from his anger.
He can’t remember the last time he saw Lian smile at him like that. Openly, softly. A simple sort of happiness that didn’t need any other context than Kuea being a good enough reason to smile. Kuea’s resolve shakes and he almost apologises, backtracks, but Lian gestures — with the glass of red wine in his hand. A flush on his face. Kuea smiles. Reckons with himself and the butterflies in his chest. He’s still a lovesick little idiot, and Lian is drunk.
Still, Lian speaks to him like anything means something, and it hurts. “Kuea.” He says, simply, like his name is a sentence in itself. “I’m so happy to see you.”
Kuea’s helpless against the soft lean of Lian’s head, his wordless gestures, and so he follows when Lian leads him past a swimming pool, through wide-open glass doors into a kitchen. There’s a mostly finished bottle of wine on the counter. He is silenced, once again, in the company of Lian. The anger is quickly crumbling in his chest, giving way to some yawning, listless thing, something fragile and familiar. Kuea hates it, wants to cling onto the anger, the productivity of it, but he feels like he’s crashing. Adrenaline is dangerous like that — he overshot his time and what he is left with now is just that cold anxiety, biting at his heels. He follows Lian into his beatiful fucking house, where everything is modern and grownup and softly lit, where low-toned jazz is playing from high-placed bluetooth speakers. Lian is barefoot. There’s still an elegance to him now, bottle-deep, but it’s softer. Loose around the edges. Kuea is helplessly charmed.
He stops just on the cusp of the open doors, and Lian rounds on him, sets his wineglass down on the long dining table. “Have you eaten?” It hurts, obviously, the way the words are familiar but the tone is not. Lian sounds like he’s missed him. Like all of this - the softness of everything, the lighting, the music - was in honour of Kuea, like Lian was waiting for him to come home . Kuea’s going to start crying. He feels it in his throat already.
He just nods and wonders if Lian notices him leaning away. “I have. I’m—sorry for barging in on you.” Lian just shakes his head.
“You’re always welcome.” Which is such a lie, which hurts more than any of the other stuff. Kuea needs to leave. If he doesn’t do it soon he’ll have to explain why his fiancé being nice to him breaks his stupid little heart. Lian is so beautiful, and such an adult, collected and calm and well-spoken, and Kuea, standing with his hands curled in his shirt, flushed and irritated and anguished feels so young, feels tiny— like a child doomed to listen to an adult party through the floor of his bedroom. Lian cocks his head to the side in the silence. “Should we talk?”
Kuea pauses. Looks at Lian’s open face, the questioning little quirk to his eyebrows. “I wanted to—” to tell you to stop calling me. To scream at you. To apologise. To have you ask for my forgiveness on your knees. To beg you to take me back. The knot in Kuea’s throat tightens, so when he speaks it’s fast, pushing the words through his teeth, quickly, quickly, the burn of ripping off a bandaid. “I think you should stop calling me.” Lian’s careful smile slips off his face. “We have different priorities. It makes sense to call of the engagement for both of us.”
“Kuea—”
He’s backing away now, watching Lian’s face fall. “I’m not interested in a relationship based on—on a business deal. Or on lies.”
“It’s not. Kuea—”
“I’m leaving. I’m sorry for interrupting you.”
He feels regret like a physical thing filling up his throat even as he’s saying it. He’s so stupid. A part of him, the biggest part of him, bigger than his pride and his self-respect and his anger, wants Lian to reach out and put him somewhere and keep him there, to not let him leave, to do whatever it takes so Kuea will believe that he is — not loved yet maybe, but possible to love, worthy of it. He wants to be proven wrong.
He turns around and slips out of the house, because there are tears in his throat, and this hollowness in his chest and it’s going to crawl out of his mouth eventually like a sob, and now his hands are shaking, and he gets two steps outside before Lian speaks, hoping he can get to the outer door before he hears it and—
“I know your ear is pierced.”
And Kuea just—stops. Not expecting that. He stares at his feet along the side of the pool. The dancing blue light, the eerie, soundless movement, the vague reflection of himself. Soft sounds behind him. He turns around on heavy feet to watch Lian come closer. His face is carefully inquisitive. Frowning. His voice is low. “Is that one of those lies you were talking about?” Kuea swallows. Feels the water close on his heels and thinks about stepping in.
“I’m—” he says, “I don’t—”
“I can see it.” Lian says. Lian, who’s raising a finger as he walks, twirling it in the air. “Thought it was a freckle at first, but no. ” He’s walking slowly, but is in front of Kuea between one blink and the next. Kuea’s breath sticks in his throat. He feels—nothing he really knows the name of, not anger or fear, not sadness. Lian is tall, like this. This close. Warm, too, every inch the dream of Kuea’s fifteen year old idealism. In snapshots of movement between Kuea blinking owlishly up at him, Lian moves his hand — up. Towards Kuea’s face. His fingers graze his jaw, his chin, his cheek. Chilling, even in the warm air. They slip over his jaw, around it until they get to Kuea’s ear where Lian just—pinches it between thumb and index finger. Tugs on his earlobe. Kuea’s mouth drops open. His heart double times it and his skin prickles. His knuckles go white in the hem of his shirt. Lian moves his thumb in little circles. Smiles.
“Little nu-Kuea.” He mumbles. His voice feels as good on Kuea’s skin as his fingers. Soft and careful and sweet. Kuea idly thinks, even through the panic, that this might be the best thing that’s ever happened to him. “What do you put in it? Studs? Pearls? Or something long, like a chain?”
Kuea shakes his head. It makes Lian pull on his ear a little harder. “No,” he says, his voice shot, “just a hoop. Just a little hoop mostly, it’s not flashy or anything, I—”
“I’ll buy you a diamond then. That’d be so pretty.” Lian says. His fingers move and Kuea feels it all over, this sweet, tickling pleasure bleeding through his skin, curling in his stomach. Lian’s thumb goes up along the shell of his ear, behind. Back to rubbing into his earlobe. Lian’s dark eyes flit over his face, thoughtful, and for the first time Kuea thinks he might like what he sees—feels appreciated, appraised. Looked at, properly. Lian sighs, speaks again. It sounds almost—dreamy. “Put a diamond in your ear and one on your finger.” He looks Kuea over, while Kuea’s eyes are trained on his face, convinced he’s dreaming. Lian’s other hand loosens Kuea’s death grip on his shirt—just to hold it apparently, to glide over the ring he still hasn’t taken off, to press into the dips between his knuckles, and Kuea can’t even think of the callouses there because the pressure feels too good as it is. Lian pushing his soft fingers into the sore spots, suspending him. He feels strung up, pulled apart, luxurious with Lian’s careful hands on him. Nobody’s ever touched him like this.
Lian continues, sounding like he’s talking to himself. “A bracelet on your wrist, a string of them on your neck.” Like he’s rattling off a list, painting this—decadent picture of spoiling him. Kuea swallows and Lian’s eyes drop as if following the bob of his throat. They’re dark. Shadowed by the fan of his eyelashes, fluttering. “Your neck is so pretty.” He says, like it’s a normal thing to think about. “You’re so pretty, Kuea, every time I talk to my idiotic friends they tease me about you and all I want is to show them pictures so they’ll get jealous and shut up.”
“You can.” Kuea says, breathless. The word pretty is echoing in his head, a loop of Lian’s mouth curling around it. He wishes he would keep talking forever. About how pretty he is, how much he thinks Kuea should be covered in diamonds. Wishes he’d talk about him to his friends around him, wants to hear whatever he has to say that could possibly make anyone jealous. “If you want. You can show them pictures of me.”
Lian looks happy. A little dazed. “Yeah?” Gives this half-cocked sleepy smile that curls the corner of his mouth up when Kuea nods. “I want real pictures though.”
“What—what kind?”
“Like pictures I take on my phone. Of you laughing, maybe. I love your laugh, I barely see it anymore.” It’s nice, and maybe a little heartbreaking, that Lian has thought of that too. “Pictures of you at dinner, of you in clothes I’ve picked out for you.” Kuea’s nodding, chest tight. This is it, this— prove me wrong, he thinks, convince me, come on come on come on— “Pictures of you in my bed.” Lian says and Kuea gasps without wanting to, which Lian smiles at like it was expected, like he did it on purpose. “Waking up, Kuea, like breakfast in bed. What did you think I meant?”
Kuea scoffs, face burning, but the corners of his mouth twitch up of their own accord. “You’re so mean to me.” He wants to look away, but Lian slides his hand to his jaw, holds him in place — gently.
“I know I am.” His eyes are bright, wide and trained on Kuea’s, and: “Can I kiss you?”
A moment passes in silence. Kuea is frozen, breathless, while regret crawls over Lian’s face and he drops his hand, wincing. The side of Kuea’s face feels cold. “Sorry.” Lian says. “You can say no.”
Kuea’s already shaking his head, feeling a little weight of regret as well. “Don’t say sorry. I—” He thinks about the mostly empty bottle of wine in the kitchen. Like feeling rain in his bones, expecting the worst of every outcome. “Will you remember this tomorrow?”
“ Kuea .” Exasperated, but not angry. A little — loving, maybe, if Kuea was being optimistic. Endeared at the very least. “Of course I will.” Which, yeah. Lian is an adult. When he gets drunk he does it with restraint and luxury, probably doesn’t get sloppy and desperate about it. “We’ll wait though, it’s okay.”
And then, incredibly, Lian kisses his hand. Something settles in Kuea’s chest. Something that’s been hovering in uncertainty since he came back from the UK, since the switch happened when they were both old enough to think of each other as partners. Kuea feels sort of content for the first time in years. The domesticity makes him dizzy. “Can we sit down inside?”
He follows Lian again, but this time there is agency, even when he’s being led by the hand. He doesn’t feel juvenile, just — young in a way he doesn’t mind. Gently led in a way that feels alright when it’s by Lian’s hand. He watches it, the clasp of their joined hands. His chest is simmering, the excitement adjacent to anxiety, but good, but so, so good.
They sit down on Lian’s couch, facing each other. Kuea in the corner, feet tucked under himself. He makes a snide comment in his head about how of course Lian has a white leather couch, and thinks that maybe he’ll say it out loud at some point. Lian turns his hand over in his, then lets go to rub a thumb over his cheek where Kuea thinks his tear tracks have dried. “If your mother knew how often I’ve made you cry she’d never let me see you again. I’m sorry.”
Kuea moves his head, in a way that sort of looks like he’s shaking it, but mostly just rubs his cheek into Lian’s hand — his palm is warm. Kuea is needy.
“That’s okay.” He says. “I cry pretty easily.” Lian looks at him, something soft to all of it: his smile, the slow blink of his eyes. “What?” Kuea says. Lian shrugs, leans his head against one hand. The scrutiny makes Kuea heat up all over. “What’re you looking at me like that for?”
“You’re so lovely.” Kuea doesn’t groan, but he does close his eyes and presses his face a little harder into Lian’s hand, using it to cover his own eyes. Lian laughs at him, softly. “Why are you hiding from me?”
“I’m— you’re drunk.” He says, and it sounds bratty, a little too much like a complaint, but Lian just grins, petting his hair, the side of his face.
“I’m fine, baby. Have you never gotten drunk before?”
Kuea bravely soldiers past the burst of heat in his stomach at the nickname, praying his tongue won’t tie itself into knots. “I haven’t.” It jumps out of him instinctively, and Lian laughs again, this quiet bubbling hiccup that Kuea can’t help but smile at.
His voice is low. “You lie to me so easily.” He says, and Kuea tells himself to breathe. The good signs are still there: Lian’s softness, his smile. His hand, still. Heavy. “I know I can’t get mad at you, because I’m not— entirely honest either, but I wish you wouldn’t lie.”
Kuea nods. He wishes that, too. “Sorry.” His fingers twist in the smooth upholstery of the couch. “I’ve gotten drunk before. Mostly with Diao but I swear I don’t do it often.” Lian takes his hand again and this time their fingers intertwine. They rest on top of Kuea’s knee, and the feeling is its own thing entirely — the combined weight of their hands touching. Their shared body heat, bleeding into Kuea’s skin. He could cry. Lian scratches the nail of his thumb over Kuea’s skin.
“I’d like to see it, I think. I bet you’re even more dramatic when you’re drunk.”
Kuea gasps. He tries to pretend he’s offended even though Lian, frankly, hasn’t seen the half of it. “You’re the one who accosted me by the pool.”
A quirk of Lian’s eyebrow, surprised, challenging, and oh, it’s so good, the sudden freedom like breathing. Kuea’s never been very comfortable with behaving. “Are you talking back to me?”
“Maybe I am.”
Lian hums. Looks thoughtful, surveying. “I like it. Do it again.”
Kuea’s afraid he’s going to start giggling. “Shut up.”
“Again.”
“Shut up, I’m going to leave you here.” He makes to get up, incredibly fake about it when Lian barely has to pull on his hand to get him back on the couch, closer now, legs pressed together. God, Kuea wants to be kissed until he can’t breathe.
Lian pulls on his earlobe again, his smile so wide and so good. “Don’t run away, Kuea.” He says. “Be good.”
Kuea sticks his tongue out at him. “I thought you didn’t like it when I’m a doll.”
It’s a bitter thing to say, unwelcome even to Kuea himself, and it makes Lian pause but still there’s no anger. Just his smile changing a little. His eyes dropping for a second. His hand tightening in Kuea’s. “I’m an idiot.” He says. “That was an awful thing to say.”
Kuea’s shaking his head. “It’s okay if you think-”
“It’s not what I think.” He’s never seen Lian look like this. Vulnerable maybe, almost pouting, his eyebrows canted up, his voice soft and hurried. His eyes look clearer than they did when Kuea showed up. “What I should have said was that I don’t want you to pretend for me. And I know you do, and it’s okay, and— if you want to be good you can, Kuea, just don’t lie to me.”
Kuea nods, ready to promise whatever is necessary to get the soft, chest-deep laughter back. He doesn’t think he could go without it now. The thought of a distant tomorrow makes him a little nervous, even while Lian is still right here. “Okay.” He says. “Okay, okay, I won’t.”
Lian leans forward, kisses Kuea right between his eyebrows. “Good boy.” He says, and it feels like the best kiss Kuea’s ever had. Brand new ways to touch, to use a language. “I’ll— I’ll do the same. Okay? We’ll practise.” Kuea touches his fingers to Lian’s shirt, curling into the fabric. Nods. He watches Lian watch him, still with the little frown on his face and it feels good to be allowed to just look — to watch him and know that Lian’s wondering about something, constructing, structuring the next thing to say. Like it’s a fact Kuea can keep to himself. When Lian starts speaking, it’s slow. “If I propose tomorrow, will that keep you from calling off the engagement?”
It’s so much. It’s too much, maybe, the way his heart kicks in his chest until it almost hurts, the flush that falls over him, heating. His breath stutters. “I thought you didn’t want to?” He says, and Lian touches both hands to his face, so Kuea has no choice but to grab onto his shirt, hands too tight again.
“I want you to want to be with me, that’s all. I want to feel that you want it.”
The fact that Lian really doubted him makes his eyes burn. “I do.” He says, voice breaking. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Lian looks a little frantic, nodding quickly like he wants to get there before Kuea’s words. “I believe you. I’m sorry. I try so hard to be perfect for you, I just forget that I’m supposed to be a person.”
To be perfect for you. Kuea wants to laugh as the tears in his eyes spill over, but the sound that comes out is broken in the middle, wet. “I know, I— yeah, I do that, too. I don’t mean to lie, I swear , I just want you to think I’m worth it.”
Lian is wiping off his tears as they come down, cooing under his breath. “I know,” he says, “I know that. Please don’t cry, honey.”
“I’m—”
“Don’t apologise either. Just— come here.” Lian’s hand on the back of his head pulls him in to press his forehead into the cradle of his shoulder. He sniffles, hoping he doesn't ruin the fabric of Lian’s shirt. Kuea breathes and sheds his overwhelmed, exhausted tears, drinking in the scent of Lian, the warmth from his skin. Thinking it’s even nice to cry if Lian’s the one he’s doing it with.
He regrets saying no to the kiss. He’d stop crying forever if Lian kissed him now.
“I’m just—” he hiccups, feeling young and a little pitiful, “I’m afraid that you’ll get tired of me.” It’s easier to be honest here, where things are dark and entirely made of Lian. “I’m afraid that you won’t like who I am, or that I’m too much. I thought I’d play it safe.”
Lian coos. He pets over Kuea’s neck, pushes long fingers through his hair. Kuea shivers. Inappropriately. “I watched you grow up, Kuea. I’ve always liked who you were.”
Kuea shakes his head then, backs away to look Lian in the eye. He can’t find it in him to care about how flushed he might look, face probably puffy and red all over. “You liked me when we were kids. You haven’t even met me yet.”
Lian looks at him for too long before nodding. “Introduce yourself to me then.”
Kuea watches him, breath still hiccuping. The resolution on his face— always such a good look, the no-nonsense of it. Kuea has no qualms about following the lead. “I’m Kuea,” he says, “I—” I lie to you all the time. So much I don’t even have to try anymore. My name is Kuea, and I sing, and I race, and I do stupid, juvenile things and forget to take care of myself, and I can’t cook, and I’m spoiled and materialistic and clueless and I’m so young and I’m so so so in love with you it makes me sick— “I make music.” He says. Quietly. Bows his head a little. “I perform it live.”
He watches Lian desperately, waits for any kind of adverse reaction, but Lian just — smiles. Relieved. Like he’s happy, like he’s proud. Like he’s something Kuea doesn’t know the name of yet. “I know.” He says. “My talented Kuea. So full of surprises.” My , Kuea thinks, in lieu of anything else because it’s the only thing he wants to make sense of, my, my, mine. Lian’s. He is. He feels dizzy.
Kuea looks at him - notes the flush of his skin, the parts where his hair sticks together, to his forehead. His shining eyes that Kuea can barely meet, blushing at Lian’s little laugh. Lian kisses his forehead, his nose. His lips move against his skin, soundless, but before Kuea can think about asking, he leans back on the couch, his shirt slipping out of Kuea’s hands. His eyes have started drooping a little, heavy. He stretches out, and the length of his body looks obscene to Kuea so he looks away, looks up, anywhere but his long legs, the sliver of skin beneath his untucked shirt. He’s frankly too emotional to deal with this right now.
“You should go to bed.” A little curt, maybe. Lian can probably see through it.
“Mh, no.” Lian says. “Take a nap with me.”
“It’s midnight, people don’t nap now, they sleep.” He eyes Lian’s stretching out his arms — the softness of his throat, where Kuea would put his face, maybe, if he was brave enough. The music has turned off, so Kuea has to focus on the things that are real. His rhythms of his own body: heartbeat, breath, post-cry-shivers. The tension across his shoulders, the energy crashing, and crashing still. The rolling peaks and valleys of everything they’ve done, a beginning, gnawing headache, but mostly just — Lian. Because what else is there for him to look at. Lian, who, since Kuea can remember, has been so deeply, intrinsically linked to the word love that there is barely a distinction anymore. Lian, who is a conceptual nightmare, who has become more than a person.
Lian, who looks like he’s about to fall asleep. Who is so soft now, who is dressed down and sobering up. Blinking his dark eyes at Kuea. Waiting.
Kuea hesitates. They should close the doors at least. Lian pats his chest once: Kuea breaks. He crawls forward slowly and it feels a little awkward, but Lian looks so happy, and sleepy, and warm, so Kuea lowers his body onto his. It is warm. It’s everything. “Just for a moment.” He says. Whispers it into Lian’s soft throat. Lian’s hum buzzes against his mouth.
“Yes. Just a moment.”
All the lights are still on, but Kuea knows he could fall asleep like this. The soft rise and fall of Lian’s chest feels lulling, deliberate. It feels like a dream and Kuea is desperate for a confirmation, for stark truth of the next day, maybe, so:
“Hia,” he says, and Lian’s rumbled mhm vibrates in his chest. “Hia, tomorrow, could you maybe ask if you can kiss me again? Please?”
Lian breathes out quick, like a gasp. His arms go tight around Kuea. “Will you put your earring back in tomorrow?”
Kuea pauses. Marvels at the ease of it all. “I— yes.”
He feels Lian nod. “We have a deal then. Sleep, nu-Kuea.”
“Okay.” Kuea whispers. “Yeah, okay."