#ope

Happy Birthday, Ai-li ! — @aetherloved

There wasn’t a doubt that she looked lovely in the candle’s light. Of course she would. More than lovely. Stunning, really, in the slinky navy silk dress he’d bought for her, adorned with crystals to look like the night sky. The dress was of course to his taste, tailored to the measurements he lovingly remembered of her. But he hadn’t quite expected how the imperial blue contrasted her fair skin, or complemented her aureate eyes and her roseate hair. Or how the candlelight would illuminate her features, shine crystalline upon her glossed lips, augment the splendor of the curl of her pretty mouth when she'd catch his gaze across the table. 

Caleb wondered why he’d brought her here. Now that he’d returned, it felt like something new. Something mature for them to do: go to a fancy dinner like adults, have an excuse to dress up and make memories she’d be able to brag about to her friends. Something enviable, something new. Halfway through their aperitifs and he’d already regretted the distracting distance of Ai-li across the table, the ambient conversation of the neighboring tables that made it nearly impossible to talk without raising their voices a little, or the way they’d just pull awkward smiles across the way like they suddenly didn’t know how to act when they had to act like adults. So he does what he does best when it comes to her. He manages.

“Hope it isn’t too early,” he says, catching her attention and reaching into his breast pocket to pull out a thin velvet box. Rising from his seat, he walks over to Ai-li’s side, opening it to reveal a thin gold chain with a pale pink jade lotus flower pendant, and the characters “夏以昼 ♡ 月艾莉 " engraved in gold on the back. Like a promise she can wear upon her skin.

he uses this to his advantage and reels dennis in promptly, only taking a few months of lingering touches and whispering praises to get him locked in.

they have their little routine. they leave work at separate times, dennis walks to the bus stop, robby picks him up, they go back to robby’s place and fuck each other a million ways into the night.

it’s really fucking good sex, but robby notices dennis starts to get a little… clingy. nothing too crazy, but he starts staying even longer after their rendezvous and hovers around robby a little more at work. it becomes too much for robby and he breaks it off justttt after seven weeks of their involvement.

he tells dennis it’s just too risky, there is just too much on the line for them to continue it. dennis is confused and upset and he tries to be an adult about it but, fuck, it came out of nowhere and it felt just a bit humiliating.

dennis tried to be an adult about it at work but he couldn’t help the way his face turned red in anger when he was near robby or the short, one worded answers he gave him when he was asked a question. even when robby cornered him in the break room trying to make sure they were cool, dennis told him to fuck off and leave him alone and stormed out into the hub.

this went on for a week or so. it wasn’t unexpected, robby was used to it from his track record and dennis did a good job making sure his work stayed solid and robby was the only one getting the brunt of his anger.

robby knew to take his reaction in stride and just keep working and stay unbothered but one day, it just stopped.

dennis stopped avoiding him, he could actually look robby in the eye as they talked, and his face stayed a nice and neutral beige when talking.

he was confused by the sudden change. he never liked to admit it, but he loved it when his ‘exes’ got rude with him. he loved a little attitude and challenge, he couldn’t lie. but even so, it was like a flip had just switched and dennis was no longer affected by what happened. it was good, he supposed.

he thought about it a little too much for his liking and he started to get a little peeved that dennis wasn’t upset anymore. like he was upset he moved on. whatever, he doesn’t want to think about it anymore so after a night of tossing and turning he made his way over to jacks place. he needed to talk to someone about whatever was going on in his fucked up head.

he gave him no warning, his truck being parked in the driveway was invitation enough. he pulled up and walked up to the front door, giving it a good, sturdy knock. he waited at the door for a minute or two before raising his hand to knock again, but the door opened suddenly, his hand falling into the open space.

his mouth dropped open at the sight in front of him. it wasn’t jack who had answered the door, not even some random woman from the bar. that had happened a time or two too many for him to have been surprised if that was the situation.

no, standing in front of him was dennis, clearly just waking up from an eventful night. his eyes were peering up at him, sleep still etched in the bags. he was wearing a shirt that hung off of his body, a shirt he recognized jack wearing years ago in medical school. the shirt fell off his shoulders and exposed a trail of dark marks that littered the bottom of dennis’ neck all the way down, disappearing under the fabric.

he stood there at a loss for words as he took in dennis’s state. before he even had the chance to speak, jack appeared behind dennis, wrapping an arm around his waist and tugging him in to his side.