#just.. hands

Tip-tap. Tip-tap. Tip-tap. George’s fingers play a mindless tune against the table. It would be distracting if Wilbur hadn’t been distracted by him already. By his lips, and how they purse sometimes for no reason when he’s quietly thinking to himself. By his hair, when he pushes it back with his palm only for it to fall back against his forehead and make him huff. By everything about him, really, but especially his hands.

A pit seems to swallow the butterflies in Wilbur’s stomach as he realizes with intense dread that his attraction to the brunet has reached a point of no return if he’s thinking that even George’s hands are something for his mind to get lost in. It’s not his fault he starts finding everything attractive about the person he’s interested in, and it’s certainly not his fault that George is just naturally attractive in all areas.

It feels so silly that Wilbur almost laughs at himself for it. Like a high school boy who’s just seen a girl’s bare shoulder for the first time. He feels himself get breathless sometimes from yearning so terribly to just reach out and brush a piece of his hair back, or fix his collar, or play with his fingers, run his thumb over each knuckle on each hand. Somehow, things always go back to his hands. Wilbur glances at his own fingers, calloused from guitar playing, and wonders what it would look like and how it would feel laced with George’s.

Wilbur huffs quietly to himself, laying his head and his hand on the table and wishing the distance between his fingertips and George’s would just magically shrink and then disappear. Crossing, closing the gap himself was simply out of the question– He doesn’t want to scare George away more than he probably already has. It feels so often that he could make one wrong move and ruin everything with the other. Is this what it feels like to care about something so much?

“Wilbur?” His voice cuts through the noise, quietly concerned but not overbearing in the way that only George has ever been able to pull off. He dips his head lightly, trying to make eye contact with him, but he quickly looks away–raising his head from where it once rested on his arm.

“Hm? I’m good.” He smiles, knowing that George won’t believe him, but knowing that they knew each other better than to press for such an obvious lie. Such a terrifying ordeal of being known, and yet…

“You make it look so easy.” One of their other friends says, enviously, as Wilbur plucks at his guitar. It’s a few weeks later from his revelation, and all the many thoughts from that day have been stored in the back of his mind in favor of other more important and pressing matters. He’s leaning back, resting easily, his elbow just out of reach from George. They find themselves by each other’s sides in group settings like this easily, and there have been many times where George or Wilbur would lean towards the other for some joke only they were privy to, and Wilbur’s convinced himself that the the way that George’s eyes would crinkle as he holds back a laugh is his alone, too.

“Hm? I guess since I have kind of long fingers.” The gentle strumming that filled the air stops for a moment as Wilbur holds his hand up to look at them, noticing George turn to him out of the corner of his eye.

“Are they abnormally long?” He asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“Compared to some people, yeah. Yours are about the same, maybe a little shorter.” Wilbur wasn’t even thinking about it when he did it, moving his hand, held up, towards George. It’s only when George holds his up own against his that his mind seems to catch up, all too suddenly, to what’s happening. He hopes the surprise and fluster don’t climb up his face the way it does in his brain when electricity seems to bloom between their palms as they connect for a breath of a second.

His hands are warm, and it’s almost ticklish to the touch. Wilbur focuses very hard on their fingertips, and how his end just slightly above George’s that he could bend them a little and cover his.

“Oh, not that bad.” In Wilbur’s own tiny freak out over their hands, he fails to notice the way George’s voice seems to shake as he pulls his hand away and as they return to each of their separate previous conversations.

Wilbur’s arm moves as though pushing against the rushing of tides, one of his fingers curling delicately around one of George’s and then followed by the others, one by one. He’s shaking, he notes distantly. Or maybe it’s his own tremors that are causing their fingers to knock together. Regardless of what it is–

He leans closer, his forehead almost touching George’s, but not nearly, and whispers.

“Can I kiss you?” George’s lips part as he sucks in a breath, and his fingers twitch against Wilbur’s before finally squeezing, just once, as though mimicking one pulse in their rapid heartbeat.

He nods.

“Cold?” Wilbur glances at George, noticing him blowing into his cupped hands and rubbing them together. The tips of his fingers are red and shaking, a lovely color similar to the one on his nose and his ears.

“A little. I didn’t think I would need gloves.” Wilbur steps closer to him, and doesn’t even need to think of it this time when he reaches out to cup George’s hands and blow on them as well, rubbing them between his.

Wilbur touches them against his cheeks and gasps at the frigid temperature. “They’re so cold!” He exclaims, squeezing them lightly.

“Your face is just hot from your mask,” George replies, rolling his eyes.

“Ah, so you’re saying I’m hot?” Wilbur jokes, bringing George’s hands up to his face once more, this time to press a kiss against his knuckles like a gentleman. George’s face turns even redder than it was before from the cold, and he pulls his hands away.

“You can probably use your face to warm them up now, Gogy.” Wilbur cips his gloved hands against George’s cheeks. If George was any more flustered, he could probably feel the heat from them.

George rolls his eyes, but the smile on his face was undeniable as he tilted his head up lightly. An invitation if Wilbur ever saw one, to kiss him. Which he did, of course, their cold and chapped lips meeting softly in the middle. One of George’s hands came up to rest on top of Wilbur’s as they kissed, and didn’t let go even after they parted.

Wilbur gave George one of his gloves to wear on one hand, while their bare, interlocked hands stayed warm inside the pocket of Wilbur’s outer coat as they continued walking.

“I’ve been meaning to do this for so long.” Wilbur admits, squeezing George’s hand to indicate what he was talking about.

George snorts. “I know.”

“What?” Wilbur turns to him, mouth falling open in shock. He knows? He doesn’t think he’s that obvious.

“You’re not exactly sly. I swear, every time you walk with me you do the exact same thing. Your hand, the one next to me, twitches, and then you shove your hands into your pockets and look away.” George teases him, a grin just shy of fond flickering across his face.

“Really? Do I?” Wilbur thinks back to it for a moment. He can’t remember. He’s always so nervous walking with George that his brain kind of shuts down a little bit.