“Yeah,
damn right you won’t,” Alex grumbled to himself, trying his best to give the
appearance of someone who had just undergone extreme emotional pain and agony
and would definitely not be returning
to Layne, so great was the wound, while at the same time pressing his head up
and into Layne’s gently moving fingers. He shifted a little, getting comfy
against Layne’s side, and snaked an arm around his waist, squeezing for a brief
moment. “You cut me deep, babe,
claiming lack of enthusiasm from me,
a theatre person. I’m gonna have to
leave you for a remark like that, just you wait and see.” A pause. “And I’m
taking Salem with me.”
“ You always threaten to take him! ” Every mock argument they got into always managed to end up there, Layne breaking the feigned mood and laughing a little as he nudged Alex. “ One day I’m going to tell you to go right ahead. And you’ll end up with the moodiest cat in the world. ” Not that he didn’t love Salem and it would take heaven and hell to get him to give up his cat, but he couldn’t help laughing at that, pulling Alex in to press a kiss to the side of his head. “ You’re gonna need to find a new way to threaten me. ”
“Don’t you fucking
dare.” Alex glared up at Layne, lifting one hand to poke him briefly in the
abdomen before settling his hand over his stomach, feeling the shift of muscle
beneath his palm. Honestly, he had no fucking idea how Layne had the energy or
motivation to 1) achieve and 2) maintain such a degree of muscularity, but Alex
definitely wasn’t complaining. Not at all. “Are you saying I was never
enthusiastic before? I am wounded, Layne, deeply wounded. I doubt I’ll
ever recover from that cutting remark.”
“ Only because you demanded so nicely. ” The grin formed into a smirk as Alex glared up to him, laughing when his stomach was poked and moving one of his hands to brush through the man’s hair. He wasn’t planning on disappearing anytime soon, especially because Alex had missed him so much. Pressing another kiss to his head, he couldn’t help laughing at the next comments, the hand not in the other’s hair poking at his sides. “ Did that so mortally wound you? What a shame. I’ll never have anyone else appreciate me like you did. ” A nonexistent tear was wiped from his cheek and he feigned a sniffle.
“ You knew full well what you were getting into following me back here. ” Not to say Alex’s presence in the locker room of the gym was unwelcomed. But after an invigorating spar and with no one else around once they were back, Layne found it difficult to contain himself. Impulse control was never one of his strongest virtues. He pressed a few more kisses to Alex’s jaw and neck as he pressed the man against the lockers, grinning against his throat before pulling back. “ Or should I stop? ”
“I can see what you’re thinking, and the answer is not as much as you may think. I’m just kinda tired and I haven’t seen you in a while.” Alex grinned lazily, sidling closer on the couch until he could rest his head on Layne’s shoulder. “Besides, I’m pretty fucking certain I’ve said, like, some – if not most – of all that at some point. You’re super fucking hot babe. And just, y’know-“ He trailed off, waving a hand in the vague direction of what was meant to be Layne’s muscles, but probably looked more like he was gesturing at Layne’s stomach “-all of this just adds to it.”
“ Maybe I should disappear every so often just so you can shower me with praise like this. ” The mirth in his voice and the grin on his lips expressed that he was kidding about that, wrapping an arm around the man’s waist as he leaned down against his shoulder. A chuckle rumbled in his chest as Alex went on to praise him, kissing the side of his head and grinning against his hair. “ You’ve said all of that at different points. Just never so enthusiastically. ”God you’re adorable.
"Hey, Layne? You know what's unfair? Like, /super/ fucking unfair? Your goddamn abs, I swear to God. And, like, /all/ of your muscles. All of them. Fucking ridiculous. They make you too fucking hot and it's fucking /unfair/." He may have had a little bit to drink.
He had to wonder how much Alex had to drink to be able to say all of this. Completely unabashed and honest, the words that slipped past the man’s lips were something Layne could not have ever expected. It took a considerable about of self restraint to keep him grinning, yet even then his poker face was cracking. Even if he held back the thoughts that were going through his head, he was pretty sure Alex would hear them anyway. ❝ You are fucking adorable when you’re tipsy. I’m going to make sure you remember saying all of this when morning comes. ❞
“Mm, I’m not so sure of that any more,” Alex mused, but any weight his words may have carried was entirely ruined by how his hand lifted to immediately go to Layne’s head, fingers curling into his hair and gently running through it. “I mean, you are trying to suffocate me - kinda hard to love someone who’s doing that, y’know?” Alex grinned widely, leaning his head back to stare up at the ceiling as he scratched gently at the nape of Layne’s neck. Who was he kidding? Layne knew better than the believe his words, and knew just as well as Alex did that in reality, Alex was actually rather fond of the close comfort provided by this particular type of crushing.
If he wanted to suffocate Alex, he would have jumped on top of him instead of crawling into his lap and lying on top of him. That would have knocked all of the air out of him. And he knew Alex would get the image of that in his mind as he thought about it, though it was nothing more than a thought he wouldn’t follow through with. It faded fairly quickly with the man’s hand in his hair anyway, sighing softly as he was lulled into ease and comfort. Layne took the hand Alex wasn’t moving through his hair and kissed the top of it before relaxing his grip. “I think we can both agree I could do much worse like this if i truly wanted to suffocate you.” He smirked slightly and opened and eye to look up to his lover before closing it again.
Alex wheezed out a breath of air, pushing feebly at Layne as
he flopped further back against the couch, his over-dramatic actions making it
clear that he was, in fact, completely fine with being smushed by Layne. “Layne,” he said, “I’m dying here. Oxygen is sort of an
important thing, you know?” Another wheeze, another faint push, and Alex
flopped back entirely, only to prop himself up on his elbows a moment later to grin
at his boyfriend. “You,” he said, rolling his eyes even as he leaned up further
to take full advantage of the kisses being scattered across his skin, “Are such an ass-“ He would’ve said more,
too, had he not been abruptly occupied with kissing Layne back as best he
could.
Even though he had cut off Alex’s thought before it could completely form, Layne knew exactly what the man was going to say. It wasn’t something he hadn’t heard from him before, in all of the most endearing ways he meant it. So he couldn’t help but smile slightly into the embrace, kissing him once more before he pulled back to look at him, not moving from where he was resting on top of his lover. With a soft sigh, he rested against Alex’s chest and closed his eyes, listening to his heart beat. “At least I’m an ass you love.”
“What’s
the biggest lie you’ve ever heard?” If this conversation was anything to go by,
Alex rather suspected it was something he’d once said. Probably about how much
he disliked Layne, or how much of an ass Layne was being, or how he was definitely
never going to have sex with his
boyfriend ever again because Layne had abandoned him to a cold, lonely bed
because he had to go “training” or some rubbish like that. He sighed, and then abruptly
huffed out the rest of his breath when Layne fell flat on top of him. “Hey! I
was breathing here. How am I meant to breathe when my dick-ass of a boyfriend
is crushing my lungs?”
Layne couldn’t help smiling as Alex went after him for crushing him, distributing all of his weight onto his lover’s chest. It wasn’t as if he was actually crushing the man, but hearing him complain was proving to be very fun for him. He only moved himself and pressed his hands against the couch when he revisited the first question, looking Alex in the eyes and leaning in to press a kiss along his neck. “Just…” another kiss, this time a bit higher on his throat. “One…” another, this time along Alex’s jaw. “More.” Layne lifted himself more and looked to the other before leaning and stealing a kiss from his lips.
“I hate it,” Alex said promptly, pulling Layne in closer so that he could lean up to poke his cheek with his nose. “You’re an ass and I absolutely despise you manhandling me and throwing me around and picking me up and- and all that stuff.” He was lying. He was blatantly lying, and, if his growing blush was anything to go by, the reality was probably closer to the exact opposite. But Layne knew that already, and Alex couldn’t help but grin as he leaned up again to press a kiss to the place on Layne’s cheek he just poked with his nose. “Dick.”
“Now that is the second biggest lie I have ever heard in my entire life.” His expression was serious for a moment before the facade cracked, tilting his head to make Alex’s nose nuzzle against his cheek a little more. Layne raised one of his hands to cup the other’s cheek as he blushed, thumb brushing along the skin lightly. With only one hand keeping him up, he decided to lie flat on his lover after he was kissed on the cheek. “I may be, but I’m yours. Unless I’m too much of an ass for you to handle.”
