the city’s on fire but it’s beautiful

lighting a fuse might result in a bang

Wille stepped around the corner, tall and tousled and pink-cheeked, shrugging off his long wool coat and hanging it on a row of communal hooks. Simon wondered how much it cost. Wille was facing the wall, checking his phone. He slid it into his back pocket, ran a hand through his short hair, and took a deep enough breath that Simon saw his shoulders rise and fall from across the bar. He turned, and Simon clenched his jaw, looking away and feeling jittery.

chapter 2 of there's just an empty space

Sanguine Labyrinth part 8

tagged by @skibasyndrome

I've alluded to the beautiful vacations tattoo wilmon take decades in the future and finally started writing one. Enjoy xx

Simon felt the moment Wille slipped into sleep, his head lulling suddenly heavier on Simon's shoulder.

He slowed the movements of his fingers where they were playing up and down the inside of Wille's thigh, keeping the comforting motion without risking waking him up.

The people they'd sat next to at dinner, and struck up merry conversation with for the past two hours, continued laughing and chatting. Someone handed Simon a freshly rolled cigarette.

"Light it for me?" he asked, and the girl looked at Wille with warmth, sparking the light close to Simon's face so he could inhale without disturbing his baby.

"Thanks," he mumbled around the filter, pulling it out of his mouth and gesturing, chiming back into the discussion. The wine seemed to refill itself, the waiters having brought over a few leftover, half full bottles as the night wound down.

Plates were cleared ages ago. Simon was stuffed full from the endless rounds of tapas. It was Spanish food with Italian influence, all fresh from the sea and rich with salty brine, olives and anchovies that seemed they might wiggle off their toothpick kebabs, patatas bravas and bacon-wrapped dates and pasta with fresh green herbs and bright red tomatoes and clams and scallops, all served with wine and wine and more wine. The bitter dark liquid slid down his throat in small, delicious swallows until his laughs turned silly and giggly and his whole body felt flush with the heat of a summer evening.

Wille's fingers were wrapped around his forearm, squeezing suddenly in a gentle, sleepy twitch. Simon turned and pressed his lips to Wille's soft hair. It was lighter than he'd ever seen it, streaked with gold from so many long days in the sun.