#ayatlovesme

✨I was inspired by @clones_deserved_better on Instagram to make this artwork’s lineart available to color! Just message me and I’d be happy to email the file to you, which you’re welcome to just color for fun or post using using the hashtag #kyjoraven1.2k. You’re welcome to change the colors, add your own twists on things, etc! Just make sure to include that hashtag and tag me if you end up posting so I can see the amazing things you do!💕 I thought it might be fun and relaxing☺️

✨All of my OCs (minus a few clones) in one place?? It was about time! I’ve had this scene in my head for quite sometime and finally ended up drawing it. These guys are literally all canon in my head by now😂🙃

✨Pijal is SUCH a cool planet. I’d be able to ramble about its politics and history for hours, but for now just know Pijal is beautiful (oceans, islands, very temperate😍) and Verina is the Senator responsible for passing a humanitarian bill for its people (which some people aren’t too happy about👀).

"Quiet, brat."

You huffed and set your chin on Rex's shoulder, glaring at the wall behind him. You whined again and wiggled your hips, but you were stopped by a growl in your ear and a hand gripping your hips.

"I said, quiet."

This time, you bit back the whine, knowing the next time, he wouldn't give a warning.

You couldn't remember what got you in this situation--or really, which one of your bad behaviors got you here, sitting for what felt like an hour on Rex's cock. It throbbed hot and heavy inside you, each little movement causing you to whine with want and frustration. But Rex had decided this was your punishment for the night--probably for teasing him in front of his brothers.

He shifted slightly as he reached for another datapad, the slight movement causing the barest amount of friction, enough to send white-hot threads of desire shooting up your spine and settle low in your stomach and where his hips met yours. You buried your face in his shoulder to stop the oncoming whine. You ached to rock your hips against his, to ride him until his cock split you open and your head fell back in ecstasy.

You felt Rex's hand brush against your ass briefly, making you tense. His hand returned, gripping your cheek with a sudden force, and pulling you flush with his hips. You moaned into his ear and gripped his shoulders as pleasure shot through your spine. You rolled your hips against his, testing the waters, keening against his shoulders, and clenching around him. Rex snarled in your ear, tossing his datapad on his desk. He stood, picking you up with him and pressing you against the desk, holding your arms above your head with one hand gripping your wrists. He pulled out, leaving only the head of his cock in you, then slowly thrusting back in, making you wail and throw your head back in pleasure.

Rex growled again, gripping your chin with his other hand, forcing you to look at him. “Look at me.”

You lifted your head and opened your eyes, whimpering.

“I am going to fuck you so hard against my desk,” he growled. “I am going to fuck those bratty little whines out of you and you better enjoy it because that’s all you’re going to get, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” you whimpered again.

“Good.” Rex grinned and patted your cheek.

His hand holding your wrists moved to your throat, not applying any pressure, just holding you there. You grasped at it, feeling the muscles in his forearm taught against your skin as he began a brutal pace, slamming into you. Your mouth dropped open, and an unbroken stream of moans and whines fell from it. You could feel your eyes begin to glaze over from lust, and you struggled to keep them on Rex, who snarled above you, his other hand keeping your thighs wide open as he crashed his hips against yours.

“Kix.” Jesse’s voice floats in the space around you.

Kix lets out a sigh before he moves his hand away from your waist. You rest your forehead into the crook of his shoulder.

“What?” Kix asks, and you know that Jesse can hear how irritated his brother is.

“We’ve got a briefing, and we’re needed on the bridge in 10.”

“I’ll be there.” Kix says, as he ends the transmission. Moving your head away from his shoulder, Kix leans down and presses his forehead to yours.

“Go.” Your voice is barely above a whisper and giving him a chaste kiss to his lips. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

He releases his grip on your leg, letting your feet touch the ground again.

“You’ll be waiting for me in a supply closet?” Kix questions, a smile forms on his face.

Shaking your head, you laugh. “No, I mean I’ll me waiting for you. Not that I’ll be in a supply closet waiting for you, you di’kut!”

“What if I want you to wait for me in a supply closet?”

“I have more important things to do and I can’t be waiting for you in a supply closet.”

Kix scoffs at your words. “Well then, I guess I better go.” He says softly.

“Yeah.”

But neither of you makes any move to leave. The two of you are taking in the fact that you’re together; being in a supply closet doesn’t many any change to how rare it was for the two of you to be alone.

A knock on the door has the two of you jumping. The door opens to reveal Jesse.

“I knew it!” He says smugly.

“You just wish it was you in a supply closet.” You say to him.

“Are you offering?” Jesse asks.

“Not a chance.” Kix interjects, “get your own person Jesse.”

Jesse laughs and makes room for the two of you to get out of the closet.

“Who says I don’t got one?” Jesse says with a wink. You roll your eyes. You know exactly who he’s talking about.

“Now don’t worry,” Jesse says, “this one will return back to you in no time. Now give each other one last kiss and then we have to go.”

The two of you stare at him.

“Oh, alright,” Jesse huffs, “I’ll turn around. Give you some sense of privacy.”

Kix rolls his eyes but plants a kiss to your forehead. “I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll be waiting,” you say giving his hand a squeeze.

“Jesse,” you say, and the man turns back to the two of you.

“Yes?” he says.

“Try not to get into any trouble.”

“No promises.” He says and the two of them start walking away from you.

Once the two are a few paces away from you, Kix turns around and calls out your name. Looking up at him, you raise an eyebrow.

“Yes?” You ask.

“Meet me in the supply closet when I get back. Y’know, the one closest to the hangar.” He says with a wink and walks away.

Jesse laughs at the shock on your face, and soon the shock morphs into embarrassment. Jesse comes over to you and pats you on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he makes it to the supply closet.”

Bonus scene

“Meet me in the supply closet, the one closest to the hangar.” You mutter under your breath. You couldn’t believe you are in said supply closet waiting for your favorite medic.

A knock on the door before it opens to reveal Kix pulls you away from your thoughts.

“Maker, I’ve missed you.” He says before drawing you close to him. All thoughts of words or anything leaves your brain at the searing kiss he gives you.

The stars keep you company for a while, but they do little to slow your racing thoughts - you stare back at them aimlessly and exhaustively. The thought of making caf for yourself only begins to cross your mind when his voice rings out, coarse with sleep.

As ever, Obi-Wan speaks your name like the gentlest hymn upon his lips. It surprises you, even now. “Are you alright?”

You nod, barely, and it takes you a moment to see it. The moonlight smooths over the contours of his face, highlighting every hair on his head and picking strands of shining bronze from his lashes. It’s a moment of clarity, quiet and electrifying. He is gossamer and gold, looking for all the world like the most carefully crafted work of art.

“Can’t sleep,” you say, blinking in hopes to clear the millions of thoughts running through your head.

Obi-Wan looks slightly unsure of what to do, hand raising slightly as if to reach out. “Come here, darling.”

You step toward him in a haze, extending a hand, touching his sleeve childishly. He embraces you then, a soft and lingering thing, and pulls away after you feel like you could fall back asleep in his arms.

He rests a steady palm on the side of your face, thumb smoothing over your cheekbone. Your breath catches in your throat at the sight of him, leaning into his touch, heart scampering about your chest at the intimacy of it - as if you haven’t yet learned every speck and scar on his body. You swallow hard and a thought comes to you, as clear and bright as daybreak:

I am in love with this man, and it’s going to consume me.

It doesn’t sound so horrible, you think. Falling from the edge is often easier with a hand to hold, if only you were sure he’d take yours. Love had never been mentioned between the two of you, neither word nor whisper of it. Perhaps as a silent agreement, or out of fear that such a fledgling relationship could not yet hold love - condemning and potent and new - in its fragile grasp without crumbling under the reality of it all, but you know it all the same.

Obi-Wan murmurs affections into the kiss he presses to your forehead, and you know it then.

And you look at him, his eyes like brilliant blue skies, wondering what it is you’ve done for your paths to cross so finely - to have heard every note of his laughter, watched the rise and fall of his breath, felt the warmth of him beneath your fingertips. He is precious.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, pulling you closer.

“I just… realized something,” you whisper in reply, tucking yourself into him. The words etch themselves into your throat.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

“Come back to bed and tell me about it?” Obi-Wan implores. His chest rumbles with the words, calm and affectionate.

“Yeah.” You lean back for a moment. He watches the smile dimple your cheeks as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

He smiles back and takes hold of your hand, tugging at your fingers as he moves to return to the bedroom.

You make it to the doorway before the words come itching at your throat again.

“Obi-Wan.” You begin, and your face must betray some kind of anxiousness because when he looks back at you, there’s concern in his eyes, worry creasing his brow. Your heart swells.

Your hands raise to cup either side of his face, and you kiss him delicately. It's chaste and kind and gentle and your pounding, eager heart comes to say hello again.

“I love you,” you say, and you don't fear it at all. It's spoken easier than a greeting, and it feels like lungfuls of fresh air.

Obi-Wan’s eyes flicker with something nervous, and you can't quite tell what it is until his hands are on yours and you can feel the stretch of his cheeks as a grin spreads across his face. It comes in tides, crashing against him, elation painting his features. It is ocean blues and brisk, sporadic waves that drench him in euphoria.

You yearn to taste the happiness seeping into his skin, kissing him deeply - because it's solidified now, and it's the only thing you can think to do. He returns with fervor and flames, breaking away in a silent, fogging sigh. He brings your hands to his mouth, grazing a kiss against your knuckles and holding them to his chest.

“I love you,” he breathes, like the most beloved secret. Like it ought to be kept between the two of you, despite being the only ones in the apartment.

He crams it in whispers between every kiss, every fumbled action of his hands, bumping into doorways and bedside tables and windowsills. You laugh in hitched and soundless breaths, replying in turn and smiling into the crook of his neck.

A sweet, lecherous voice rings in the back of your head. It sings praises as Obi-Wan lowers you into bed, cries in delight and worms its way into the noises slipping from your lips.

He loves with ardor and compassion - like fire crackling in your bones. He loves you in fiery embraces, warming you to your core and holding you in ecstacy. You let it wash over you, as it envelops you. As it consumes you.

you had never met the man: the mysterious OWK. your advisor had raved about his breakout lecture series that had taken place years ago, when he was a newly minted phd and you were still in undergrad. sipping a cup of cafeteria coffee (they always forgot you preferred tea, all these years later), they had rambled on about the poetry of OWK’s phrasing and his decisiveness in speech and the unparalleled skill of his primary source research. the lectures had been sadly lost, the footage deleted, or archived, they didn’t know which. just that the man had refused to distribute them and speak on the matter further, nearly abandoning academia entirely.

the beverage was bitter but you laughed lightly. “is this thomas moore and his lectures on st. augustine, then? so legendary that no one can find them?”

your advisor had inclined their head, congratulating you on your witty reference. “i suppose so,” they had mused, leaning back in their office chair and staring at some point above your head, at the oaken bookshelves with brightly colored book jackets lining the walls. “now, your latest draft—“

the memory fades as your purpose alters. a simple twist of the key and the door opens. but you remain on the threshold, stuck between two modes, between here and there.

there is a man in your room, and he is as handsome as sin. he sits in a chair in the corner of the room and one leg is resting on the other’s kneecap at a ninety degree angle. he is wearing glasses, and has short auburn hair that gleams in the dull light of the lamp beside him (although, a few wayward strands obscure his eyes, layering over the frame of his glasses). he is reading. the cover is folded over so you cannot see the title but it is hefty, judging from its position on his thigh. shadows have formed over high cheekbones.

the man removes himself from the task, focusing his gaze on you. you see now that he has bright blue eyes.

“hello there!” his greeting is polite, and amiable, and accented, though not pleasantly so. “can i help you?”

“I’m afraid there seems to be a mix-up!” you say in your ‘adult voice.’ it’s same one you used on your dissertation defense. “it seems we were placed in the same room.”

“ah.” he nods sagely, as though this were to be expected, and unfolds himself from his chair.

you place a hand on your hip — near the phone snug in the back pocket of your jeans — and shrug. “I’m sorry.” the apology is saccharine and tastes like grenadine. “I’ll pop back downstairs and find out what the problem is.”

he urges you to stay, to let him call from here rather you lugging your things all the way down and all the way back up again. “it’s not proper,” he insists, dragging you in and closing the door behind you. in the time that his is so near to you and you feel the way his frown matches the steady grip on your upper arm, something warms in you at his indignation. your hand drifts away from your phone. he retreats to his corner to make the call while you linger just beyond the threshold.

the conversation is hushed and decorated with the raised tones of inquiry. when he hangs up, he sighs.

“they were under the impression that we were a married couple. apparently we booked under a similar last name.” his voice turns down at the edges. he sounds the way his frown had earlier: weary, confused, and a dash of inexplicable certainty.

“but—“ you gesture to the beds — “two beds?”

something of a grimace shadows his face. “all that was available, apparently.”

“oh.” there is a pause. he does not continue. “but they got me a room, right?” if you sound slightly desperate, perhaps it is because you are. you are sweaty. you are nervous. you want to relax. in your own room.

he zooms past your query. “i know you,” he says, and sounds as if he is surprised he knows how to speak.

“i —“ you shake your head — “i don’t think so.”

when you give your name and recognition fails to present itself, he falters and twists to stare through the glass behind him. “i thought…” but he breaks off.  in the end he rights himself and tells you of the situation — how there is no vacancy, but he does not mind the sharing a room with you, just for the night, it wouldn’t be a bother.

there is something different about him. maybe it is the way that he emphasized the word can. maybe it is the way he is pushing the hair from his eyes, and removing the glasses from his face. maybe it is the way that, now pausing his actions, the man cants his head and furrows his brow.

air grows thick with the brush strokes of caravaggio: he is in the spotlight, sure and solid and steady, pure against the whirlpools of unknowing realism.

you are on the cusp of stepping into his white light when he offers his name. the first letter of each word drags itself from his mouth and burrows into your ear, until you almost divorce the meaning but for the particulars.

the first instinct that you are aware of is one you cannot name — it is an anger that is sweet, and one that is shielded by sadness, yet fueled by frustration.

there are dozens of others that your heart and mind have already examined, of course, turning them this way and that, inspecting their corners with bloodied hands. but they are rejected, and expelled into the waxy shadows, without your being aware of them. that is the job of the soul: to know before you are even aware.

he senses the shift. perhaps uncertainty has clouded your eyes. obi-wan kenobi, OWK, takes a step back from rising mist and shadow and once more turns to gaze out the window. through the glass there is a gentle village scene, all cobblestones and iron street lamps and hills keeping time on the horizon.

“i — “ you start, but you stop again. you must start, you feel, but you do not know what path to take, and you halt. the time he thinks you consider you are in fact not considering at all. there is only one answer (answers that are wrong are never really answers, after all, just more questions).

“i’ll stay.”

—

Obi-Wan is courteous and deferential and demands that you permit him to treat you this evening as an apology. he departs to give you privacy as you shower, and the flash of shimmering emerald carpet you spy as he exits makes you wonder if you are the Lady Bertalik to his Sir Gawain.

the steam and the water beat down clenched muscles with gentle hands and lingering touches. it is for several minutes that you linger in their warm embrace, but as you wipe away fog from the mirror you cannot help but encounter the sensation that you are alone, and wrongfully so. you cannot feel Obi-Wan’s presence and the air feels stale without him — like there is no current disrupting the atmosphere’s mundane course.

droplets decorate your shoulders and the hollow of your throat. they hold fast even when you pad softly to your belongings for a fresh change of clothes.

The ache in this room is stronger. The walls themselves are mourning his absence. You feel it settle in your gut, a gluttonous mass that lightens when you consider that he should be returning soon. the sky outside the window is orange and gold, flattering the leaves of maple trees in autumn.

the room is pretty, in a simple way: the emerald carpet of hope has been exchanged for a darkened hardwood. Chrome accents gleam in the reflection of the wood, and two beds — one at opposite ends of the wall — are smothered silver-white sheets. a series of Malevich paintings are hung up in a neat grid, as though the dissembling artist would come barging in, screaming of the devil, if the French theories of symmetry were not obeyed.

as you dress and begin to comb your hair, you wonder why you miss someone whom you have just met, and someone you are not disposed to like. can you miss someone you don’t like? he is sporadic and paradisiacal; in motion and steady. his kindness had surprised you, as had his beauty. he was less corrosive than your advisor had made him out to be, less ambitious than the accolades awarded to his name. but he is zealous, hungry, seeking: you could see in the way his eyes bunched around the edges, in the crick of his neck when he sought wisdom from the hills, how he had contorted his body in the chair.

(he is like you, both here and not here, and although you did not yet know, your soul was aware and reflective in wonder)

when your flesh-and-blood sir gawain returns, you muse that you are a poor temptress in an thick-knit ivory sweater that encases your body from neck to wrists. it had been a steal from a second-hand store a few years back, and you had never found the heart to give it up. it was like a childhood book, or a favorite mug — the object, in all its durable materiality, was akin to you.

Your smile pleases him. Obi-Wan says he has found a place for this evening, nothing special, but nice. “We are celebrating after all,” he says, shrugging off a dark woolen coat.

“We are?” you look at him through the reflection of the mirror. blue eyes meet yours.

“Of course!” the phrase suspends itself for a moment, maybe two, as though it is waiting for something to slip in and complete its trinity. but it falls, tumbling back down to terrestrial concerns. “We are celebrating our meeting.”

He is absurd, and you laugh. Obi-Wan’s theory of festivity is not so mercurial as his speech — the declaration sticks to your ribs, pumping blood to your heart and flooding your cheeks with a natural flush.

Obi-Wan continues to examine you. “Might I ask,” he starts, hands stilling in their expedition of finding suitable attire, “where you bought your sweater?”

you respond: it was from a second-hand store, you found it during your apprenticeship, it was the only thing that kept you warm that terribly dreary winter, it was your constant companion.

“does it have a trio of red threads on the left cuff?”

satisfying his quench takes precedence to mystery of his request.

Obi-Wan’s smile engulfs the spirit of the room, and the two of you, and the bedding, and the glass window, too.

“that was my sweater,” he says. “my uncle made it for me, and i gave it to my brother after we adopted him. he wasn’t used to the dampness of English winters, but he didn’t like the itchiness of the knit. he always had an aversion to gritty textures.” he reaches out a hand with a faint smile, like the combined power of his simple offering can cross space and time and memory and return him to the days of him and his uncle and adopted brother.

you do not know what to say. you watch him for several moments. you want to speak, but your mind is blank, thrumming with the idea that it is so very right that part of him has been with part of you all of these years. parts have him has seen you through the long hours of a dreary apprenticeship and discovering the healing properties of English tea and catching tears and wisps of smiles and witnessing ink spill over pages as you churned out dissertation drafts until the argument was smooth and refined.

the idea makes you feel very alive, and alert, and you want to offer him comfort. “would you like to take it back?” one hand tugs at the edge of the cloth, near your waist. “it’s yours anyway.” the pain of parting is lessened by the joy of giving.

he demurs, you coax. eventually it is determined that he will wear the garment for the evening, but only if you wear something of his, too. “that way it’s even,” he says, and you laugh again to hide the dip in your stomach at thought of wearing something of his, of wrapping yourself in his scent, of placing your body in a place his had once inhabited.

you settle on a light gray blazer that you think must compliment his eyes, which sparkle with aquamarine and crystal. it is paired with a turtleneck and when you emerge to show him the completed ensemble, spinning in a circle, he chuckles.

“you look like me,” he says, one hand cupping his chin.

a feeling pulses in your mind but you let it go. you may like him after all, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a pompous academic whose theories had made your life hell.

—

you expect him to take you to a cozy place. somewhere where they serve the local brew and make homemade shepherd’s pie, but he doesn’t.

he takes you a bar that is sleek and modern, with soft yellow lights and paneled ceilings and marble counter-tops. Obi-Wan escorts you to a high table in the corner, a hand on the small of your back. the warmth from his palm spreads through his jacket and your turtleneck and it feels like cinnamon and candlelight.  

later, you will not remember what you ordered to eat, but you will always remember the two cups water that appear on the table.

the glasses have smooth edges and and rounded sides, curving around themselves ad infinitum or perhaps reductio ad absurdum. faint golden orbs hunch against the surface; integers of light cling to any sort of tactical reassurance. even the glass will do.

the cups are hefty, and not just with the font of life. the vessel is weighty, durable. Obi-Wan tells you that they are recycled.

he does not talk about what he does now and how he teaches, and you do not mention your work. you do not need to: what these truths have taught you is in every swallow, every glance, every gentle barb. the two of you do not need shields of citation guidelines to understand one another.

the conversation dances. he pulls you in with a question. you twirl around him, brushing his five o’clock shadow. artifice glistens and then falls away. with every pass and dip and pas de chat resentment and assumption weaken, and your eyes become bigger. he changes the time signature, the style (first it was a waltz, and then a swing step, and now it is easing into something unknown). the fabric of his jacket is smooth, and comfortable, and smells like him — warm and spice and clean. you ease into it like it is your birthright.

you do not see, but Obi-Wan notices, and grins into his water.

he does not see, but you notice, the way he couches into your sweater, and your eyes curl in some form of elation.

“what were they about? the lectures, i mean.” this is the question you have been waiting to ask. here, in the bar, with glass, you are emboldened to let go of one last grudge.

he looks at you, and his gaze stabs you, but then it softens — like the needle from a shot easing into muscle before retreating as swiftly as it came.

“what did your advisor say they were about?” he fiddles with his glass.

“they said…” you close your eyes in recollection. eyelashes flutter against freckles. “they said the lectures were about grief.”

Obi-Wan’s smile is wry, but he does not seem displeased. he is still too relaxed to be angry. how you can read his body language so quickly, you are not sure — maybe it is because he is wearing your sweater. so many things you are unsure of, but he is not one of them. not really.

uncertainty is different with him. he is not an ever-fixéd mark, nor a staid anchor in the waves. but he is resolved, and you can separate him from the rest of the particulars that impede your life. he is not just krei: distinguishing and judging and explanatory and crisis all at once, all at everything.

yes, uncertainty with him is less about judgment and is rather imbued with mystery. it is krei mixed with mysteriam: separating the hidden things from that which is known.

Obi-Wan taps his finger on the glass and the sound returns you to the present. he has caught you wandering, again, wandering the wayward halls of esoteric remembrance.

“they were about grief,” he nods, staring at the transparent material in his hands.. Obi-Wan’s voice is kingly and aromatic, like basil. it lilts and sways around the words he speaks as in a courtly dance, like those Anne Boleyn performed for King Henry.

lifting his gaze to yours again, he adds, “and they were about joy. those lectures were about everything, and nothing.” a hand rises, and rhythmic fingers sweep away invisible cobwebs. “they were,” Obi-Wan concludes, “about life itself. phenomena, as it were.” the hand floats down and rests on the table.

it is perilously close to yours now: mere inches from the edges of your body. you both look down at his hand in a brief moment marked and scratched with silence, and you are alone with  your thoughts. his hands are worn, like they have been used — little scars and wrinkles and a slight puffiness that tells you that he spent a lot of time writing today. you like that.

you point to the swelling, at the v of his hand where thumb and palm meet. the tip of your index finger hovers above the spot and your confession must linger too, because it takes several moments for him to drag his eyes upwards to study your face.

“how many ACE wraps did you fray while writing your dissertation?” he asks, and you want to push him for being such a competitive brat.

your hand is still suspended above his.

you tell him your answer, and he cups his fingers around yours in a spasm of revelation. “me too!” his grip tightens. “academia is one son of a bitch.” he catches you in a sideways glance, and when you laugh, he relaxes into a smile.

“I read your dissertation, you know.” the sweater itches against your wrist, where the sleeve of his blazer has ridden up and exposed skin.

“i didn’t.” you take a sip. “but i do know how you feel about scholars such as myself.” another sip. are you biding time? you are not sure. “you feel very strongly about the color green, Dr. Kenobi.”

his grip slackens but he does not release your hand completely. “please. call me ben.”

“no?” your eyebrow arches. “not OWK, either?”

“I don’t use that name with friends.”

“Are we friends?”

his eyes are earnest, open, porous, like blue tulle on ballet costumes. “yes. i dare say we are.”

—

when the two of you stand to leave, there is a still a table that prohibits unity. emptiness subsumes you; he is so near and yet so far; Ben should be next to you. the distance continues, grows, as you exit, and an ache pours forth from your soul, because you now know what you did not know before. you had seen it in the glass, and in the reflected light, and the way you had seen yourself in his eyes when you danced with him without touching his hand.

you halt, he pauses. you take a step forward and Ben watches you. darkness blankets the town’s cobbled streets; the stones gleam dully and swallow the street lamps all into an abyss. except his eyes: Ben’s silken azure eyes are your anchor.

people don’t make sense but you do.

a few steps more and the two of you are very close. you tilt your head to look at his face. you are there, reflected in his pupils. “maybe i am you.” you mean for it to sound teasing, but your soul knows before you do, and the words are laden with imperial import, like a royal seal.

those gemstone eyes flicker over your face. he has felt it too, he is telling you, but how you know this you cannot say. “no, i do not think so.” letters drip out, leaking in a slow stream. “but i think perhaps we are a part of each other.”

and then you have narrowed down the sum to its composite parts. the glass has shattered and the left hand swims in its sand and calcium carbonate and ash, drifting through a process of becoming. particles glimmer on skin, under nails, brandishing depth and texture and a pantone coloring book of the human heart.  

it is a mutual kiss, one where individualism no longer endures. his hands — swollen, calloused, firm — are grasping your cheeks. your arms are around his waist, winding around sweater and skin and soul. when you close your eyes, you think it will be dark. you are wrong. tenebrism creeps away and shadows vanish, and there is only him, and a resounding tenor of colors.

ben’s lips are soft, and his breath is warm, and it is the kiss for which you feel like you have spent your whole life preparing. he is safe (tender) and unexpected (his tongue grazes your teeth). he likes it when you grip him harder, the knit no longer coarse against your palms, not when his hand is wandering through your hair in flashes of blue and gold and pearl.

when you pull away, and nuzzle his cheek, Ben smiles — soft and comforting like the garment on his back. maybe this is why glass shatters and cracks around your feet, crunching as you sway slightly in each other’s arms — you have worn his jacket, and he has worn your sweater.

—

it is predawn the next time he kisses you. the two of you are on his bed, near the window. sweaters and blazers have been exchanged for baggy t-shirts and sleep shorts. Ben is facing you, cross-legged on the pale sheets, and he watches you as you take in the metamorphosis of the sky, from black to navy to the merest smidgen of blue and grey on the horizon, skating across the silhouette of the hills.

he watches you as you speak, too, about the way you loved the ocean as a child, and your favorite book is Moby Dick. it was so very ethereal to you, the way that sailors used the stars to navigate. it was like they were communing with the heavens.

Ben thinks that your voice glitters. it is weary with much talk and too little sleep but it shines the way diamonds do when they are stitched onto spanish lace, supported with the strength that is only found in delicacy.

your eyes, he thinks, are more like satin, for the way they gleam and mix their depth and shadows without losing their sheen, glassy in their wonder.

but you notice his regard, and you pause. he cannot see it, but he can feel a blush jogging from your neck to your cheeks.

you stare at each other. and then — he is next to you, and laying you down, and you are learning his labyrinthine ways even as you begin to come undone.

he is coming alive, or waking up—you’re not sure. his ends and beginnings are still a unknown to you: you must fashion yourself a mystic to enter his realm. somehow you suspect he is yours. your alpha and omega, the moral force that has driven you forward to now, to this point, where his forehead is meeting the jut of your jaw as he kisses his way down your neck.

you are hot and cold all at once and when he licks your pulse point, and sucks, you gasp. it is a gentle thing, more like a deep breath than an exclamation. you feel yourself leaning into him, straining for his touch. his auburn hair under your fingertips is soft and slick with his gel and you tug at it in an act of encouragement.

he pulls away. hovering over you, eyes blue and silver in the pale light — twin moons, perhaps — he smirks. “are you trying to tell me something, darling?” he asks lowly, and his voice is dark molasses. it is sticky and sweet and bitter, inching down your body. you want his kisses to follow its tortuous path, staining you with vermillion and black and dying you with pleasure.

he is color. you are cloth.

the durability of your nature returns in a rush marked with grains of steel. “no.” you swallow and the action traces where his lips met your skin just moments earlier. “i rather thought you were trying to communicate with me.” you sound ragged, coy, on the verge of aching.

Ben does not take your bait. “i was.” his breath is hot against your ear, and arresting. he pauses. the molasses continues to drip. “i was just wanted to make sure i had a clear answer.” and he nips your earlobe. you bite your lip in response: the two of you are in sync.  

“yes.” you are fabric, and your voice is terrycloth.

“Yes?” he repeats your fiat. Shards of glass collapse around you as he again meets your gaze.

this must be how the Virgin prayed her Magnificat, you think as his heart errantly beats against his throat. She must have been like he is now, brimming with humble righteousness and bound by understanding. Tenderness cords through you; it tempers your breathing, smoothes the bubbles of molasses. Reaching up to to cup his face, you let your fingers splay over his cheek, resting on stubble and skin. your pinky finger meets the angle of his cheekbone. the image falls into place and the symmetry causes you to smile.

“yes. etiam. ja. sí.” you are about to conclude in greek — ναί — but he halts your litany of assent by placing an offering on your lips. the greek is in the twists of his tongue in your mouth, and so is the hebrew, and the arabic, and all the languages yet to engrave themselves in your memory.

it is like the first time you experienced champagne at your father’s christmas party. one of his students had poured you, then sixteen, a glass and said with a wink, “the monks declared it was the taste of the stars.” you had raised the flute to your lips and drank as you were bid, and when you had swallowed, you knew the world was different now. or perhaps the old world had not changed, you had merely adapted to fickle ways.

your tongue did as it had then, skating across your front teeth onto your upper lips in quick, jabbing motions. unsatiated and incomplete.

he pulls away again and you frown. eyes closed, you tug at his shoulder in a nonverbal ask to come back.

silence meets your plea and you open your eyes. he is still above you, weight resting on his forearms, and he is smiling.  “you are so impatient.” the rebuke is fond and he soothes its burn with a kiss to your cheek. your eyes flutter closed, briefly.

“i am not impatient.” arms cross over your chest and eyes roll. “i am —“ the phrase is paused as he kisses your other cheek. you open your eyes. “i am.” he waits for you, as he always has, but after a few heartbeats he gleans the completeness of your meaning. existence is the watchword of this night, or this dawn: let sartre and his kind be put to rest.  

so the two of you kiss again, and when his arms get tired, you drape your legs over his lap and press yourself into his chest. the last vestiges of moonlight have settled upon you, but it is no thing, not when skin feels what eyes cannot. lips are languid and hands stroll up and down pathways and alleyways and sidewalks. brittle substances of impatience are burned away through the silk of his fingers. you are content to rest in chiaroscuro.

there is another breaking: transparent and fortified compound of ash and sand — let in by the moon and the rising venus — twinkles around your head, his spine. a whispered ask, a tender assent: shirts glide over shoulders and he guides in your descent.

breathing is knowing, feeling is seeing: for here essence and existence bleed into one consummate act of communion.

lips touch your collarbone, your breast. your hands plane over his chest in a crusade of knowledge. he does not begrudge your gasps, now, or the arches your back erects to his honor. ben’s lips, hands, the vehicles of his words to the world, at once analyze and soak in praise.

clothes fall away, skin uncovering skin, manifesting a reality that had resided in your souls far before today. before the bar, the hotel, the sweater, there was always the two of you, striving for eudaemonia.

“this is phenomena,” he whispers against the curve of your hip. ben presses a kiss to the bones that give form to your body politic (the totality of your shattered glass made whole).

fin.