<blockquote>ooc. Private for Beast. Tessera 46th, 81381. ic. The cold sky through the glass was a rare and extrordinary shade of pinkish-blue. Khodan's fur had the bright laquered look of wet leaves in sunlight. It was beautiful hair, with a shine like wet acrylic. Leaf-silk. Wind and sunshine spun into threads. The line from his ear to the hollow of his throat reminded Gabriel of an elegant silverpoint drwaing or perhaps a piece of modern architecture. 'Riel played with his hair as he painted, coiling it up and down fingers so thin and sticklike to seem almost exoskeletal - artist's hands. Gabe dropped his shyness like a theatre curtain, and in the liquid glare of sunlight on old floorboards, he put down his painbrush and held up his hands - as if in falling in love, he had at last understood that he, Gabriel yv sha Azela - was beautiful. In his own way. He had painted Khodan bright and anguished in oil so far, and he still needed to touch up the shadows on the left side of his face and in the nether regions. "Do you want to come see?" he asked quietly, a lopsided smile curling up one side of his face. "Maybe take a stretch, or have a snack or something. I have a robe for you to put on. It's not finished yet," he said, rising to his feet and gesturing to the painting. "But it's pretty good so far."</blockquote>
"Do you want to come see?" Khodan slumped out of the pose almost before the words were fully out of Gabriel's mouth, clenching and unclenching his hands. They'd been the first thing to fall asleep, and now the intensity of the pins-and-needles sensation was almost unbearable, shooting through his wrist and palm and fingers like electric current. After his hands, his feet had gone, and from there the sleep had traveled up his limbs until his entire body was heavy, clumsy. He'd never realized how tough this kind of modeling was -- but now he was pretty sure he never wanted to do it again. Ever. "I have a robe for you to put on." Abruptly, he was aware of how bare he was. How very, very bare. Ordinarily it wouldn't bother him that much -- he was overall pretty comfortable with himself -- but there was something about being around Gabe that made him feel inadequate somehow. A slight, lingering feeling of ineptitude, stupidity, inferiority; he almost thought he, Khodan, wasn't good enough for someone like Gabe. The last few weeks had been straight from a storybook romance, and yet there was that pale cloud of doubt following Khodan around. "Thanks," Khodan said, grinning awkwardly as he grabbed it off its hook and slung it on. He wrapped it and tied it with a relieved sigh, then padded barefoot across the wood floor to Gabe and the easel. Slowly, he came around to Gabe's side, eyes tracing the paths of color as he took it in. "It's.. amazing." And it was. The colors, the shapes -- everything was spot-on, and Khodan blushed when his eyes found those unfinished nether regions; the thought of Gabe staring so analytically at him, painter's eyes picking up everything untrained eyes wouldn't notice... And so to distract himself from such thoughts, he blurted again, "It's amazing, Gabe. It really is." OoC; Oh, yuck. D: I just reread this post & realized it was kinda badly written. Sorry.
<blockquote>ooc. NO IT ISN'T. You lieeee. It's beautiful. ic. An excess of nerves brought his hand up to scratch one eye – the one not fortunate enough to be covered by hair and thus free to doze off. Thoughts flashed on the closed eyelid, lighting up what was normally dreamless, blank space with obscure pictures he preferred to keep in their respective folders until death. Possibly beyond. They’d disappeared while he was painting – for a second – but now they came running back like lost devil children to their exhausted parental figure. What if Khodan, in the end, didn't really want him? "Aw, Khodan," he murmured, pulling the skinny boy close and hugging him, right before planting a soft kiss on his nose and poking him playfully in the ribs. "Thank you. I really appreciate it. The fridge is fully stocked, if you want anything."</blockquote>
OoC; Thanks. BiC; No matter how many times it happened, Khodan still wasn't prepared for these out-of-the-blue moments of physical contact. His parents hadn't been the huggy type, though he'd never been especially close to them anyway; but even with his sister, who he considered his best friend on the planet, he didn't often share hugs or familial kisses or pats on the shoulder. She was physically distant; it was what Khodan was used to. These playful bearhugs, soft kisses, gentle pokes -- Khodan enjoyed them, surely, but he was startled by them. And so, against his own wishes, he flinched when Gabe pulled him in. He tensed, and he half-shut his eyes, and then he felt Gabe's smooth lips press lightly against his nose. Khodan's body relaxed -- almost melted, even -- and he smiled. The poke didn't even phase him. "Thank you. I really appreciate it. The fridge is fully stocked, if you want anything." Khodan kissed Gabe back on the nose, but he had to stretch to reach -- Khodan was a full four inches shorter, not to mention ensnared by the lithe arms of the other arden. Innocently, and quite unintentionally, Khodan slipped from Gabe's nose to Gabe's lips; again, he seemed startled by the suddenness of contact, but after half a heartbeat of this he pressed against him, reassured by something intangible. "Let's go see what's in that fridge," he said, breaking the unintentional kiss with a smile as he drew back slowly.
<blockquote> Gabriel felt like melting into a puddle every time they touched, crumbling into dust, falling to his knees, lips forming prayers to the lavender Adonis - and what was it but that? The slender khell was nothing less than a god to him. Stunned by his kiss, Gabe ran a hand down the delicate curve of the arden's back, his fingers feeling the knobs of his spine through the terrycloth. He drew back as Khodan did, squeezing his hand once in his, and drew him close to him so he would trail behind as they walked to the fridge. He opened the fridge door to reveal a large stock of fruits and vegetables, along with a few slices of pizza and cold cuts. He slipped one arm around the shorter male's waist and kissed him on the cheek, his heart thundering like a trapped bird in the ivory-barred cage of his bowed ribs. "So," he asked. "Want anything?" To hold his heart in your hands.</blockquote>
There was something so sweetly reassuring in the way Gabe's arm felt against his waist, and Khodan reveled in the sensations of contact. A light brush of arm against waist was enough to make Khodan shiver slightly, a tiny smile on his lips. But Gabe's touch along his spine brought out something more, an electrified tumult where Khodan's stomach used to be. It was beyond butterflies. But he said nothing, surveyed the open fridge quietly for a moment, visually skimming over the fruits and vegetables. Then Gabe asked, "Want anything?" And Khodan turned to face him, keeping that constant physical pressure between them. "Yes." And, pulse thudding through his body, blood thundering in his ears, he leaned in for another quick kiss, this one deliberate and slightly more forceful. "Pizza, please."
<blockquote>His movements seemed to have been copied straight from the little girl in Gothika – abrupt and irregular, as though the behavior of an insect had been interspersed with that of a particularly lazy sloth. A second, quick head-tilt accompanied the progression of his fingers from Khodan’s waist to his shoulders, where they sat poised like predatory spiders. "I love you," he vowed, before turning around to pull out the cardboard pizza box, which was printed with a vector illustration of a slice of pizza. His heart, as well, was beating loud enough that he could hear it - or was it Khodan's? or maybe both of theirs in union? - and he pulled out a pair of plates from the cabinets above before setting a piece of pizza on each, and putting them each in the microwave with a space of thirty seconds between. Gabriel brought each over to the nearby table, before pulling a chair out from under it for Khodan and settling in his own. "Come eat, Khodan'sla," he said.</blockquote>
Khodan smiled at the words, I love you, though they still induced a slight twinge in his chest. Terribly uncomfortable words, they used to be for him -- he recalled that day in the Hell Pit, several weeks ago, when Gabriel had first let slip the charged phrase. Khodan had blushed, awkward, and given a sincere though less certain response. Now, however, he could stare back shyly, grin playing at his mouth, and reply, "I think I love you, too." Still, the hesitance -- the reserve, though Khodan knew he could say it more honestly than before. Seeing Gabe had became the highlight of his day, everyday. The beep of the microwave and the aroma of pizza distracted him from any further reminiscing, and he shuffled over to the chair Gabe pulled out for him with a grateful nod. "Thanks." Plucking a bit of vegetable from the slice and placing it in his mouth gingerly, he tested the temperature. It was perfect. After chewing thoughtfully and swallowing, Khodan said with a short laugh, "Modeling makes me hungry."
<blockquote>A fragile silence had settled over the studio, like snow that had fallen a month too early. Quietly, quietly, like a spider on the wall he sat, pale and perfect like a marble statue with his deep eyes fixed coolly ahead of him at Khodan. He nibbled at the edge of the pizza. A smile curled at the edges of his lips as Khodan echoed his words, albeit with a knife-edge of hesitation. A flurry of agitation rose along GabeÂ’s neck, and the mane that lay against his nape stood up on end. "Do you really mean it?" he asked quietly. The artist was loyal, to say the least, and would willingly give his life to aid Khodan. More than that, he trusted implicitly in the arden; if he'd commanded "Jump!" he wouldn't need to ask how high. He'd simply jump his highest, and if that wasn't good enough, then he'd force himself beyond impossibility. Nothing was impossible. Nothing would ever be, if Gabriel had anything to say about it. "You're welcome," he said shyly, and then adding, "You're so beautiful when you smile."</blockquote>
"Yes, I mean it," Khodan replied firmly, no trace of uncertainty in his voice. He could not yet say those three words alone and truly mean them; but he could pad them with less intense affixes like "I think," and then what he said was truth. He really, really, really liked Gabriel, and he would do anything Gabe asked of him -- he felt a sort of bond with Gabe that was different from anything else he'd ever felt, nearly as strong as his tie to his sister though forged in a fraction of the time. "I think I love you." And then Khodan gingerly picked up the steaming slice and brought it to his mouth, eating carefully through the heat. After a few slow, thoughtful bites, he heard Gabe speak again. "You're so beautiful when you smile." A self-conscious blush tinted his blue-purple fur pink, and a smile blossomed across his face like the day dawning. He put his hand in front of his mouthful of pizza and murmured, "Thanks," then swallowed and added, "You're beautiful all the time, especially when you're concentrating on painting. You get this really focused expression, and you seem to -- I don't know -- glow." He blushed again; it sounded cheesy when he said it aloud. "Good pizza," he added awkwardly, trying to distract himself.
<blockquote>Gabe blushed vividly, turning away momentarily. "Thank you." He gingerly pecked Khodan on the cheek before looking him in the eyes. Outside the window, crowded cilibis and onye sjaa pressed close upon the building. The black lattices of near-bare branches around the apartment only admitted a small amount of the cotton-candy light to leak through. "Um... do you want to cuddle?" he asked sheepishly, his face twisting into an ear-to-ear grin. There was, honestly, nothing more in the world that Gabe loved more than cuddles. Except for Khodan, of course.</blockquote>
