#rodilio

That gets him to open his eyes. She’s sitting cross-legged on the hillside, looking down at him knowingly.

“Some kids organized a ‘quiet art time’ in the community center. It’s a few times a week, and it’s not a secret or anything, but it’s low-key enough that you wouldn’t be bothered. Even then, the entire point is to get some peace and quiet.”

“I don’t do art,” Edilio counters, and she’s shaking her head before he’s done speaking.

“It doesn’t have to be art. Some people go there to read, or play solitaire. Or just nap.”

Edilio wants to point out that he comes here to be alone, but he’s aware that he simply ends up ruminating all the same worries. Still, it doesn’t feel like the kind of break he needs. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“It’s organized by Roger.” And suddenly, her eyes are a bit too knowing.

“… The art kid?” Edilio pretends to ask, even if his face clearly gave him away already.

“Yeah, you know him?”

“… No.”

“No?”

“Dekka,” he grumbles.

“ ’cause you were staring at him a lot last night…”

“Dekka!”

“I’m just saying!” Yeah, she seems to be enjoying this slightly too much for someone ‘just saying’. “We might not get another chance at this. Carpe diem, and all that.”

He looks away. Quinn’s boat is already headed back for the day. He has to get a move on if he wants to get everything done by nightfall. He still doesn’t move.

“I’m worried I’ll ruin it,” he admits, voice low. She pats his knee.

“I get it. But I also know Roger.” He looks at her questioningly, but she’s already standing up, stretching. “Just think about it. Beats sitting alone with your thoughts, don’t you think?”

“I can do that anywhere.”

“See, the trick is to find nicer things to think about.” And with a wink, she’s off.

***

  Against his better judgement, Edilio shows up.

The room is bigger than he expected, but not as full. A dozen kids are scattered across a few tables, pushed against the windows to get good lighting. Dahra and another girl are cozied up on a couch, doing crochet, and Jack is seemingly asleep, but everyone else is drawing or painting. Dekka looks up from her sketchbook as she hears him come in, and when she smiles, it’s only a little smug. Resolutely avoiding everyone else’s eyes, Edilio crosses the room, sits in an armchair and opens his book.

  “Hey.”

Edilio startles. He’d been dozing off, the low light and soft scratch of pencil on paper no match for the constant exhaustion sticking to him. Roger’s standing next to his chair, and a quick look informs him that almost everyone else is gone. His plan of getting in last and leaving first to dodge any social interaction was a fail.

“Hi,” Edilio answers shortly. He winces internally, but Roger moves on before he can find something nicer to say.

“Hi! So, I noticed you weren’t drawing, and… Oh, it’s fine, don’t worry,” he adds, probably in response to a face Edilio made. “You can do whatever you want here, as long as it’s quiet, but I was wondering if you’d like me to show you where the supplies are, in case you want to give it a go?”

Edilio very much doesn’t want to try his hand at visual arts, especially not in a room full of art kids, the best of which he has a crush on, but Roger’s smiling at him, and leaving suddenly doesn’t seem so appealing.

“Okay.”

***

  Edilio is starting to draw looks as he rummages in the bookshelves.

He just finished his book, and he thought he brought the sequel last time, but he was in a hurry and doesn’t remember where he put it. And now he’s been looking for a tad too long.

He doesn’t really have anything else to do, but his search is making noise, and the others are starting to send him meaningful looks. He risks a glance towards Roger and immediately averts his eyes when he notices the other is already looking at him.

He sits back down, stiff and unsuccessful. He doesn’t want to just leave already, because he desperately needs a break, and as much as Dekka had an ulterior motive for inviting him here, it is actually a good place for that. (The only time someone came to ask him a question, Roger glared at them until they left. He must really take this quiet time seriously.) Alright, maybe he can just… relax.

After 20 minutes, Roger takes pity on him and comes over.

“We’re doing watercolor paintings, do you wanna come?” he whispers. He’s already taller than Edilio, who looks up at him even more from his position sitting down. He’s also very close, close enough that he can lower his voice and not bother the others. Which Edilio’s definitely not thinking about too much.

“I don’t paint,” he answers. If he’s making Roger feel bad for him, he should probably just leave. “But, uh, than–”

“Why not?” Edilio blinks a few times.

“Well, I don’t know how,” he admits.

“It’s easy,” Roger brushes off. “I could show you, after this?”

Edilio’s eyes dart away as he hesitates, taken off guard. His first instinct is to decline, but Roger looks so expectant… “Uh, I mean. Okay.”

“Cool.” With a satisfied look, Roger goes back to his table. Which leaves Edilio with another 20 minutes to worry (and maybe hope, a little).

  Finally, everyone else has left. Dekka’s the last one out of the door, waving at him with a raised eyebrow that Edilio pretends not to see. He hovers at the end of the table as Roger organizes the supplies, until he looks up and smiles at him. Why does he have to look so good…

A paint-stained wooden bench runs behind the table, which Edilio approaches at Roger’s prompting. He sits on his right, at what seems to be a safe distance, but Roger simply moves his watercolor paper closer and scoots over. Their legs are touching. Edilio stares intently at the empty page.

“I can’t draw,” he reminds, a bit nervous. “So, painting…”

“You don’t really need to know how to draw for landscapes. At this level of detail, it’s mostly just shapes. Don’t worry, I’m a good teacher.” He then proceeds to guide him through applying layers of paint, each overlapping the previous one, to create the illusion of increasingly close mountains.

Roger elects to pain a sunset, purple-gray peaks against a light pink sky, reflected in the deep blue of a lake. Edilio doesn’t trust himself to pick colors that would go well together, so he sticks to various shades of blue and teal.

“A forest would look nice under all that,” Roger suggests. He’s done with his own painting, left to dry a little way away from where he’s leaning on the table, watching him.

Edilio’s mountains are a bit too uniform to look natural, and there are lines where the bottom of different layers weren’t blended properly, but it doesn’t look bad. Yet.

“It looks okay now, but–”

“It looks great.”

“… I’m worried I’ll ruin it if I try to draw trees.”

“Trees aren’t hard,” Roger assures. “Look.”

He leans closer to Edilio. He’s sitting on his left side, so he has to reach around him, behind his back, to take his right hand.

The room suddenly feels a lot warmer. Edilio tenses, and then worries Roger will back off, since he’s surely close enough to feel it. He doesn’t.

His chin brushes Edilio’s shoulder, as lightly as a paintbrush on paper. He guides him through filling the bottom of his landscape with the pointy shapes of pine trees. Edilio’s skin is usually dark enough to hide a blush. Not this time.

Roger’s hand is warm over his, a little damp, but Edilio makes no move to free himself, even when he draws the last few branches.

“Like this,” Roger says softly. “Good.” He smiles when he feels Edilio shiver.

They both look at the finished painting, and he releases Edilio’s hand to let him place the paintbrush back into its cup of water. But he doesn’t move away.

Instead, his arm wraps properly around the other’s waist.

“Is this okay?” Roger murmurs. He hums when Edilio nods, not trusting his voice to hold up. But he thinks the way he folds his own arm around the other’s, as if holding him there, is enough of an answer.

Edilio fights to keep his breathing even as Roger noses at his neck, the contact soft and ticklish, and overwhelming at the same time. A series of kisses, feather-light, is pressed on the side of his throat. Edilio exhales shakily.

“Someone’s sensitive,” Roger teases, and Edilio can feel him smile against his neck.

“Don’t make fun of me,” he protests, a bit breathless.

Roger straightens up, and Edilio turns to see him properly. They’re so close. Part of him wants to look aways from everything he can see in his eyes, but the biggest part just wants to look at him.

Roger raises a hand and cups the side of his face. Edilio leans into his palm, eyes a bit wide, a bit uncertain, but eager. The hint of mischievousness in Roger’s eyes mellows out into fondness.

“You could always shut me up,” he whispers.

Edilio leans forward, ever so slightly. He doesn’t know if he could’ve gone further. But it’s okay, because they’re very close, and Roger meets him halfway.

They kiss, light and sweet. Then deeper.

Edilio doesn’t remember when he closed his eyes, but it intensifies every sensation. Roger’s thumb is rubbing circles on his cheek. His lips are soft against his. Blindly, Edilio reaches and holds his shoulder.

He keeps holding on as they separate, as if keeping Roger from going too far, much in the same way Roger is still holding his cheek. They take a second to simply look at each other and breathe.

“Was this your first kiss?” Roger asks.

Edilio nods, turning his face to hide in the other’s palm. Roger smiles, and it’s so unbearably fond he has to look away.

“It’s fun to see you all flustered and shy,” he teases. “You’re always so serious.”

“Stop,” Edilio grumbles (whines. Edilio whines). He wraps his arms around the other boy, half to hide his face and the blush threatening to come back, and half because the contact fills something in him that he didn’t know was missing. Roger tightens his arms around him and Edilio melts.

Roger noses at his neck. “Hmm. Make me.”

Well, it worked last time.

  The next time Roger speaks, Edilio is relaxed enough that the words take a second to register.

“Oh, and remind me to give you back your book before we leave.” Edilio blinks a few times, then moves Roger away by the shoulders to send him a disbelieving look.

“You mean you–”

“Well, you wouldn’t have agreed to stay, otherwise,” he reasons, entirely unrepentant. “If you’d taken literally any hint, I wouldn’t have had to resort to trickery.”

“I sat there doing nothing for like an hour!”

“And you looked great doing it.”

This boy’s a menace. “You can’t just compliment me to get away with things...” They both know he already has, but Roger plays along.

“No? How can I make it up to you, then?”

“… Kiss me again?” Roger’s eyes soften, in a way Edilio still can’t quite believe he’s causing. Then he complies, and he thinks he could get used to it.

“You’re getting good at this,” Roger breathes when they break for air.