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ax_mainHurricanes, feelings, and a lot of kissing.
The last days of August were warm and humid, but not so oppressive as earlier in the season, so Felix had the window of the dorm room open and fresh air circulating through the room. A light breeze wandered through now and again, toying with his hair, but Felix didn't mind. Lazy days like this still felt like a rare luxury, and he doubted he would ever tire of them.
Stretched out on his bed, Felix was relaxing in the most casual clothes he owned: a pair of jeans just slightly looser than fitted, and a t-shirt that was long enough for his tall frame but too big for his skinny shoulders. The shirt read simply, Go away I'm reading in an elaborate script font, but despite his best efforts, Felix couldn't concentrate on his books (not any of the three of them he had going currently). Instead, he'd turned on the television, hoping to find something interesting about science or history, and become oddly engrossed in, of all things, the news report.
"They're talking about you," Felix informed his roommate, sprawled out on his bed and watching the television as an earnest reporter discussed preparations being made for 'Dorian' to approach a state called Florida.
It wasn’t unusual for Dorian to find himself on the news. He wound up there now and again, mostly in the tabloids when he had anything to say about it. He hadn’t done anything of note lately, though, so when he looked up from the book he’d been reading to the television it was with confusion.
“Oh.” Dorian chuckled softly, realizing. “I am a whirlwind of trouble, but I’ve never been compared to a hurricane before. I’m flattered.”
Felix rolled over so he was laying on his stomach, chin propped up in his hands. He looked perplexed, his fine red brows drawn together in confusion. "A hurricane? They've named a hurricane? What possible purpose does that serve?"
Tilting his head, he looked away from the television, and over at his roommate. The soiree at Nolan's hadn't been their last kiss -- far from it. Their friendship had taken on a flirtatious heat, and involved one hundred percent more kissing than any of Felix's other friendships, to be sure. Felix was delighted by the novelty of a friend with whom he could make out (that was, he understood, the New York term for it) but not require any further emotional or physical intimacy. Dorian seemed content with things the way they were. It was a beautiful unspoken arrangement, really.
"Rather an alluring name for a storm," Felix added, because flirting with Dorian was second nature for him by now.
“I can think of better,” Dorian replied with a smile that matched Felix’s tone in its flirtatiousness. He turned his chair to face Felix and reclined back in it, admiring him. He looked so impossibly pretty with his chin in his hands, flame-red hair falling across his face, as that playful bit of a smile curved his lips. “They name hurricanes to keep communication about them neat and tidy. It stops things from getting confusing. They name tropical storms too.”
Felix knew when he was being admired, and he stretched out a little more to give Dorian something to look at. Since he was now more interested in that, he didn't notice that he was lacking knowledge about something very basic in the world. "Neat and tidy, hm? For something so wild and destructive? How does one get his name in consideration, then?" he asked, laughing a little at this idea that seemed very absurd to him.
A smile stole across Dorian’s lips at Felix’s laughter, at his sense of humor. “There’s a list, I think. They work their way through it.” He had a thought and grabbed his phone off his desk to type in a quick search. The results populated and—he made a quiet, pleased sound of triumph—the one he was looking for was right there at the top. Felix would get a kick out of this. “There was a Hurricane Felix in 2007.”
"Really?" Felix laughed, pushing himself up from his stretch and swinging his feet with careful delicacy to the floor. He very much wanted to see what Dorian was looking at, so he invited himself across the room to lean over Dorian's arm and look at the phone. "But I was barely more than a baby," he teased, deeply amused, even though he had a bit of trouble focusing his vision on the screen. "I can't possibly have been that ill-behaved."
As Felix beamed at the wiki article, Dorian tilted his cellphone to give him a better view, but was no longer looking at it himself, his eyes all on Felix. His smile was like sunlight, the kind of bright and beautiful flowers turned toward, and the sharp herbal smell of his shampoo invaded Dorian’s senses. He reflexively breathed it in, and an underlying scent of soap and detergent came with it. “I have the distinct impression you were a terror since Day 1.”
Felix knew it was flirtation, really, but in the back of his mind he couldn't help but do the math. Twelve years prior, he remembered being a child in the slums of Yorkland, bewildered as to why he'd been given up by his mother. He wasn't a terror, then. He was a small, frightened, dirty excuse for a living creature. He'd been nothing Dorian would want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Those memories couldn't be real, but they were all that he had.
"If I terrorized anyone, I'm sure..." Felix's words faltered there. I'm sure they deserved it, he had meant to say. The words did not quite come to fruition, because he couldn't make himself believe them. He hated thinking about his mother, so long ago and so far away, because he hated to edge anywhere near the pain those memories caused. Felix didn't want to think about why she gave him up, and started him on the path to what he'd eventually become. Most importantly, he did not want Dorian to see that he couldn't keep his emotions in check.
"Well," he finally said, though his voice was more strained, with a note of defiance. "So what if I was.”
Dorian knew he’d said the wrong thing the moment that the quiet before Felix responded stretched on just a second too long. He’d hurt him. He wasn’t sure how, and it was clear he wasn’t meant to ask or even notice, but it was there in the imperious lift to Felix’s chin, and in the stubborn set of his mouth. It was a kind of amor Dorian knew well and he hated seeing it on Felix. He hated that he’d help put it there.
Setting his phone down on his desk, Dorian twisted in his chair to look at Felix. “Then, you and I are well-matched. Only I, like a fine wine, have grown more terrible with age,” he said with the kind of smile that generally got him what he wanted. In this case, was a laugh, but he’d settle for a smile.
It wasn't Dorian's fault that Felix had tripped over his own memories and uncertainties, and Felix wanted to push the past so far away that Dorian would never, ever find it. He much preferred Dorian to smile at him like that, and to ignore when Felix was awkward and when his experiences didn't match up to reality. Since that night at Nolan's beach house, Dorian hadn't questioned Felix about his past again, and that was how Felix wanted it, because he wasn't certain he could perpetuate his lies and half-truths forever.
He almost wished that it weren't impossible to tell Dorian the truth.
"I thought fine wines were supposed to improve with age," he pointed out, with the soft laugh that Dorian wanted. Felix's hip shifted, and he leaned one hand on the desk, his posture loose and relaxed enough that it was practically an invitation for Dorian to pull him closer. "Besides, you tell me you're so wicked, and yet I've never seen it. With me you're only ever..." Felix's voice half-caught on a breath, and he finished, more than a little awkwardly, "... kind.”
Dorian would not think about the way his heart warmed at the way Felix called him kind. Or why he had liked hearing it so much. “We all have our weaknesses,” he said, and he drew Felix down onto his lap by his hand, settling an arm about his waist. He started to say more, but was struck silent. At this angle, the light filtered through Felix’s hair in a way that cast it in a fiery, golden hue, making him look even more like an ethereal creature than usual, and it was beautiful.
Felix caught himself with a hand on Dorian's shoulder, his smile now alight and flushed with the precise manner of attention he'd hoped for. Usually he avoided anyone touching him -- arm's length at all times, long trousers and sleeves even in summer -- but when it was Dorian, and when Dorian wanted to hold him, Felix flowed into his arms like water. He was someone Felix chose, and now, he was looking at Felix in exactly the sort of way Felix liked best.
"You don't really believe that kindness is a weakness," Felix pointed out, looping his arms around Dorian's shoulders. Maybe Felix believed that, but not Dorian. For all his talk, Dorian really was a good boy stuck in a bad boy's life -- Felix was certain. Yet another reason that Dorian shouldn't ever learn the truth of who Felix used to be.
No, Dorian didn’t think kindness was a weakness. He tried to be kind, but, despite his best efforts, he’d still inherited some of his mother and father’s finer qualities. He was selfish and arrogant. Like his parents, he knew how to get what he wanted—A silver tongue people called it, but, really, it was just plain, old manipulation. He could be cruel. But Felix thought he was kind, and he wasn’t going to destroy that illusion.
“When did I say kindness was my weakness? Kindness is the effect. The cause... Well—” Dorian smiled charmingly and the tips of his fingers brushed along Felix’s cheekbone in their journey to tuck his bright red hair behind an ear.
Felix was starting to wonder if maybe he didn't like to be touched because he hadn't been sufficiently touched by Dorian. There was something different in Dorian's hands. He never grabbed or pushed or took. Indeed, Dorian's touch seemed specifically designed for Felix to enjoy. That, in Felix's experience, was unusual. Long lashes veiled Felix's eyes as he turned his head slightly toward Dorian's fingers. "Are you suggesting your kindness is entirely purely motivated?" he prompted, softer. Really, what business did Dorian have, making him all melty, making it hard to think? Worst of all, perhaps, making Felix want to trust him.
It was a joy to see Felix melt like this. There was always something in the way he held himself—A tension, like someone always waiting for the other shoe to drop. What put it there, he didn’t know and he knew better to push and to ask, but, God, he loved seeing it go away, loved even more when he was the one responsible for it.
“Perhaps. For some,” Dorian replied, cupping Felix’s cheek.
This was an invitation, Felix knew. Tempting, though, to tantalize Dorian a little more, make him take the initiative, make him earn a kiss that Felix was going to give him freely, no matter what. Today, Felix didn't want to play those games. He turned his cheek into Dorian's hand, and accepted his silent invitation.
Felix bent enough to cover Dorian's mouth with his own, kissing him almost terribly slowly.
Dorian tilted his head to meet Felix. The kiss was drawn out. It could almost be called a tease if it were not for how firm it was, how sure. If it not for the way Dorian could feel it right down to his bones. He made a soft sound into it, and his lips parted, catching on Felix’s bottom one. Nibbling on it, he drew Felix in closer as his other hand slid back to bury itself in his hair.
A soft sigh escaped Felix's mouth, breathed against Dorian's, whispering without words that there was nothing more in the world he wanted than this. He shifted himself in Dorian's lap to lean more closely, meet the other boy's body with his own. Both of his slim, delicate hands slid up Dorian's throat and curled under Dorian's chin to tilt it up, and Felix lorded over him for the moment, tasting Dorian's lips with curious dips of his tongue.
God, how did Felix do it? He had a way of making Dorian feel like he was coming undone from a kiss alone. He let out a sound of approval, of desire, and his arms tightened around Felix’s slim waist as he chased the kiss, moving up to meet it, to get more of Felix’s lips and his clever tongue.
Felix inhaled sharply, his pulse quickening as the moment grew more heated, as Dorian's mouth opened under his and he couldn't get enough. His fingers slid back into Dorian's thick hair and he abandoned all thought for a few blissful moments, sinking in to the rush of wanting that he hadn't been sure he would ever feel again. But now, he felt alight and alive, desire sparking electricity through every inch of his body. He wanted to wrap himself around Dorian, hear him gasp, feel him...
"Dorian," Felix breathed against his mouth. "What... what if I... said I wanted more…"
It shouldn’t be possible to want any more than Dorian already did, but, at those words, at the way they sounded coming from Felix’s mouth, want blazed, hot and all-consuming inside of Dorian and he felt like he was burning up with it. “Anything you want,” he said it like it was a promise and he dipped his head so his lips could follow the irresistible path of Felix’s jawbone. “Ask for it, and it’s yours.”
Dorian’s mouth ended its search, closing over the soft, sensitive skin of Felix’s neck, teasing with lips and tongue and teeth. Quietly, a part of him quailed at this sudden change in their dynamic. But, he’d always been reckless and hedonistic and that made self-doubt easy to ignore. He focused on the warmth of Felix against him, the feel of his pulse racing under his mouth, and the breathlessness of his voice… God, Dorian wanted this. Wanted to give and give and give until Felix knew what it was like to have the world stop for you.
Dorian's attentions were sure to leave a mark on the fair skin of Felix's throat, and Felix found he didn't care in the least. Dorian had him shivering despite the heat, alight with sensation that was at once far too much, and not nearly enough. His fingers curled into Dorian's shirt, both wanting it gone, and faintly frightened of what it might mean if it were. He wanted to be touched, and wanted, and adored, like Dorian's soft words and warm lips promised he could be... and at the same time, he was seized with an irrational fear that Dorian would learn too much, and then throw him away.
"I... I don't know what 'anything' is," Felix confessed, struggling to find the right words over the rush of his pulse and the breath that seemed to forever escape him. "But I want to touch you, and feel your hands on me, and..." And what? Felix turned his chin so he could see Dorian again, meet his eyes. "And work it out from there?”
In reply, Dorian picked Felix up in a bridal carry and brought him over to his bed. He set him down on it, and just stood there a moment, admiring Felix, dark-eyed and flushed, red hair a tousled mane, laid out on his bed. It was a sight he’d knew he could never tire of. “Absolutely beautiful,” he said like it was a prayer, and he moved to stretch out on his side beside him.
Slowly, Dorian reminded himself. He didn’t want to overwhelm Felix, and they had all the time in the world. He cupped Felix’s cheek, turning his head toward him, and kissed him softly. “Let me know if you want me to slow down, or stop.”
That was... sweet, in a way that caught Felix off-guard, his arms loosely around Dorian's neck, his hair tousled against Dorian's pillow. Maybe his wide-eyed blink and caught breath made him seem shy and unsure, when really, Felix was anything and everything but. If he thought that was what Dorian wanted -- someone innocent, a virginal boy to be guided -- then Felix could be that. But it wouldn't be real.
"You don't have to worry about me, darling," Felix promised, shifting closer to Dorian, his voice drifting low and velveted with want. He slid one leg promisingly up along Dorian's thigh, but already it was obvious there were too many clothes between them. Felix curled his hand into Dorian's shirt, and tugged, a nearly wicked smile curling his flushed lips. "Why don't we start with this.”
It was a first for Dorian to have misread someone so poorly. With how shy and naive Felix could seem at times, he’d assumed… Well, he’d assumed wrong. A hot thrill went through him at the throaty purr to Felix’s voice, at the playful confidence in the way he slid a leg up his thigh and tugged on his shirt.
“It does me good to worry about someone other than myself for a change,” Dorian said, but, encouraged, he sat up and swung his leg over Felix to straddle his hips. He started to slowly unbutton his shirt, smirking down at Felix, his eyes dark and his lips bruised from their kissing.
Felix's heart was racing, his skin flushed warm and a glittering sensation coursing through his body as if Dorian's kisses had magically turned his blood into champagne. In a way, much of this was new to him, in that he had chosen Dorian for himself, selfishly, because Dorian was beautiful and kind and wanted him.
He was lost in gazing at Dorian undoing his shirt, and his own hands went unconsciously to unbutton a few of his own buttons, before Dorian's skin became too much of a distraction. Felix reached up to touch him, run his hands over him, and draw him back down close again.
Dorian went back in readily, eagerly, capturing Felix’s mouth in a new kiss. His whole body was buzzing, like fire was crackling and popping under his skin. His tongue dipped into Felix’s mouth, and his hands moved to the front of Felix’s shirt. He undid the remaining buttons, then slid his hands up his chest, over his shoulders, and down his biceps to push the material away.
Felix forgot about everything but the sweetness of Dorian's mouth and the silky warmth of his skin, shifting eagerly to further encourage Dorian to undress him. His fingers traced Dorian's bare shoulders, the round of muscle in his upper arm, the curve of his spine -- whatever he could reach amid moving to get his own shirt off, half-lifting off the bed to get it well out of the way.
Then Dorian's touch smoothed over his own shoulders and the sensation dulled briefly for Felix. Under Dorian's hands, Felix's skin would feel rough and ridged, completely unlike the pale delicacy revealed by the removal of his shirt. Felix's faint sighs melted into a sound of clear discomfort the moment Dorian's hands encountered his back, and he tensed, but he didn't want to pull away. He didn't want this heart-racing glory to end.
At the sudden shift in Felix’s demeanor, Dorian immediately stopped everything he was doing. He sat up, not quite pulling away, but giving Felix space, and his hands moved to rest back on Felix’s chest, their touch light, and loose, easy to get away from.
Worries rose like a ride at the back of Dorian’s brain—He’d pushed too hard. Asked for too much. Felix regretted this already. He shoved them aside. He could lick his wounds later. Right now, all that mattered was Felix. “Are you alright? Do you want me to stop?”
"No," Felix answered emphatically, his eyes flashing open, one hand moving to press Dorian's hand to his chest. "No, don't stop. Stay." Faintly short of breath, Felix slid his other hand up into Dorian's hair, drawing him back down -- not to kiss again, but to touch his brow to Felix's. Echoing his words, silently, with the proof that he wanted to keep Dorian close.
"Just... my... back isn't very pretty," he managed with only a little difficulty. Damn, he should have come up with a better reason long ago. Had he really thought this wasn't going to happen? "I'd rather focus on your touching every other bit of me."
That was what Dorian had felt. Everything had happened so fast, he’d had barely any time to register the rough, raised skin beneath his fingers, but now, with the attention called to it, he realized what he had felt. Scars. Sorrow followed quickly by anger rose up in him, sudden and swift as a tidal wave. What could have left them? Who (because more pieces of Felix were beginning to fall into place, and it could only have been a who) had hurt him so badly?
“If that’s what you want, of course,” Dorian reassured. He caught Felix’s hand and pressed a soft kissed the inside of his wrist as he held his gaze. “Just know there isn’t a single inch of you that isn’t beautiful.”
"You're sweet," Felix answered breathlessly, without a thought. It was what he said when he neither wanted to acknowledge nor argue with someone else's opinion of him. All that mattered was that Dorian wasn't asking any more questions, and Felix needn't come up with any lies that might prove more difficult to remember, or to perpetuate, later.
And, since Dorian didn't ask, Felix was allowed to smile in his slow, secretive way, trail distracting fingertips over the other boy's fine silken skin, and suggest, "Let's examine that theory very closely, shall we?"
“Very, very closely,” Dorian agreed, as he leaned in to kiss Felix. He wanted to get lost in this moment, to forget himself in the arms of this too beautiful boy he felt unendingly drawn to like they were magnets, opposites charges pulling and pulling and pulling towards one another. But, more than that, he wanted to show Felix just how beautiful he was. He wanted to worship it into his body, kiss it into his skin, until it left its mark, sure and undeniable as any scar.
*****
Felix's eyes fluttered slowly open, dreamy and a little dazed, with a smile on his lips that he didn't seem to know was there. His shirt was long gone and the rest of his clothes were tousled and undone, his hair an unruly red tangle against the pillow. Sunset was coming outside the window, bathing everything in its perfect golden light when Felix's gaze finally focused on Dorian beside him.
Tension coiled up in his chest, but only for a moment. Felix had never had to talk to someone he'd just been intimate with. He had no idea what to say, or how to say it, or how to look. But Dorian had shown him so much that he hadn't known already, that Felix allowed himself to trust, just for now, that he could smile sleepily, enjoy the quiet, and learn.
The small movements seemed to stir Dorian to reality. He too had been drifting on a warm, weightless afterglow, too spent to doubt or fret and enjoying it. It was if they’d dropped into a tiny, personal pocket of time and could just live in it. He smiled back, then rolled onto his side and popped himself up on an elbow, a finger caressing idly up and down Felix’s slender, pale arm. Up until that moment, he’d been looking at Felix out of the corner of his eye, watching without watching, but now, he allowed himself to stare openly and admire the absolute vision Felix made, sex-rumpled and smiling softly as he drifted in and out of the thin line that lay between waking and sleeping.
“No creature has any right in being so beautiful,” he said.
"I trust your authority on beauty," Felix answered, quietly surprised at how easy it was to say, to lift a lazy hand and trace the shape of Dorian's elegant cheekbones and sculpted brow. This moment felt gentle and kind, yet subtly charged with sensual energy -- like nearly every moment he'd experienced with Dorian. Why should it be any different now, after Felix had trusted Dorian's hands with every inch of his skin? And now, after investing that trust, he felt like this -- alight and aglow all at once, wanting for nothing more.
"You are..." he said without thinking, "quite unlike anyone I've ever known, Dorian."
Warmth bubbled and fizzled like champagne in Dorian’s chest. He’d never had anyone say anything so sweet to him before. His fingers tips brushed along the sharp cut of Felix’s cheekbone, then continued on to tuck bright red lock of hair behind an ear. “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you. You are a wonder, Felix Harrowgate.” He smoothed hair away from Felix’s brow, smiling down at him. It should be frightening how right this felt. How safe and content Dorian was, how happy. But, it was impossible to feel any fear when Felix was looking at him with such fondness.
Felix just wanted to bask in the warmth of Dorian's attention and admiration, soak it in as if he felt worthy of it. He didn't want the shadows in the back of his mind that mocked him, asking how Dorian would feel if he knew the truth of what Felix had been, what Felix had done. Those thoughts had no place here, and Felix pushed them away, locking them up tight in the familiar corners of his mind where he banished such fears.
Instead, he laughed softly, and slid both arms around Dorian's neck. "Marvels of the world that we both are, clearly, we still will encounter the all too human issue of cleanliness in a minute or two," Felix pointed out. "I think I should be able to move again."
Dorian was loath to get out of bed. Whatever bubble it was that had settled around them would certainly burst as soon as they did. This moment—gentle and easy and intimate in its simplicity—couldn’t possibly last. But, he knew they couldn’t stay. He could only distract Felix with kisses for so long before the real world won out, so he smiled, his fingers curling and uncurling against Felix’s arm in a caress. “Then,” he kissed Felix softly, “perhaps you’d like to join me in the shower?”
For a moment, Felix couldn't choose between being stunned and delighted -- stunned that this was a thing Dorian might invite him to do, and delighted that Dorian wanted to. The idea of steaming under a sudsy shower of water with such an incredibly alluring person as Dorian made even the school's utilitarian facilities seem deliciously decadent. Imagining it, though, reminded Felix immediately of that one rather ugly fact he'd spent their entire time together trying to hide. How could he bear it if that caused Dorian finally to turn away, or worse yet, to pity him?
But Felix had trusted Dorian this far. Might he trust him just a little further? Half distracted from Dorian's gentle mouth and low murmurs by his own thoughts, Felix cautioned in a quiet voice, "You might... see more than you prefer. But I find I can't make myself say no to any suggestion you might possibly make when your hair is so attractively a-muss."
A pain squeezed Dorian’s heart at the fear in Felix’s voice. He didn’t know what had put it there, who had put it there, but he found he was willing to do anything to take it away. A small smile shaped his mouth, and kissed Felix, hand on his cheek, thumb stroking along his cheekbone. “My little hurricane, if I were to regret anything, it would be not taking full advantage of this wonderful opportunity,” he said, voice pitched low like the words were for Felix and Felix alone. His fingertips still skimmed across his arm, tracing nonsense patterns now against the soft, pale skin. “Shower with me. Let me worship you in other ways. There’s not an inch of you that I don’t want to see.”
In all of Felix's life, no one had ever spoken to him like this before, like he was something more than beautiful or exotic or special, but like he mattered. Like he mattered to Dorian. Felix suddenly wanted, blindingly, breathlessly, consumingly, to matter to Dorian. He didn't understand it and he didn't care that he didn't understand. Instead, a caravan of emotions played across his face like light fracturing through a prism, disbelief and bewilderment and longing. Then he slid both arms around Dorian's neck and pulled him down to kiss him again, deep and delicious, an unmistakable wordless yes.
The last days of August were warm and humid, but not so oppressive as earlier in the season, so Felix had the window of the dorm room open and fresh air circulating through the room. A light breeze wandered through now and again, toying with his hair, but Felix didn't mind. Lazy days like this still felt like a rare luxury, and he doubted he would ever tire of them.
Stretched out on his bed, Felix was relaxing in the most casual clothes he owned: a pair of jeans just slightly looser than fitted, and a t-shirt that was long enough for his tall frame but too big for his skinny shoulders. The shirt read simply, Go away I'm reading in an elaborate script font, but despite his best efforts, Felix couldn't concentrate on his books (not any of the three of them he had going currently). Instead, he'd turned on the television, hoping to find something interesting about science or history, and become oddly engrossed in, of all things, the news report.
"They're talking about you," Felix informed his roommate, sprawled out on his bed and watching the television as an earnest reporter discussed preparations being made for 'Dorian' to approach a state called Florida.
It wasn’t unusual for Dorian to find himself on the news. He wound up there now and again, mostly in the tabloids when he had anything to say about it. He hadn’t done anything of note lately, though, so when he looked up from the book he’d been reading to the television it was with confusion.
“Oh.” Dorian chuckled softly, realizing. “I am a whirlwind of trouble, but I’ve never been compared to a hurricane before. I’m flattered.”
Felix rolled over so he was laying on his stomach, chin propped up in his hands. He looked perplexed, his fine red brows drawn together in confusion. "A hurricane? They've named a hurricane? What possible purpose does that serve?"
Tilting his head, he looked away from the television, and over at his roommate. The soiree at Nolan's hadn't been their last kiss -- far from it. Their friendship had taken on a flirtatious heat, and involved one hundred percent more kissing than any of Felix's other friendships, to be sure. Felix was delighted by the novelty of a friend with whom he could make out (that was, he understood, the New York term for it) but not require any further emotional or physical intimacy. Dorian seemed content with things the way they were. It was a beautiful unspoken arrangement, really.
"Rather an alluring name for a storm," Felix added, because flirting with Dorian was second nature for him by now.
“I can think of better,” Dorian replied with a smile that matched Felix’s tone in its flirtatiousness. He turned his chair to face Felix and reclined back in it, admiring him. He looked so impossibly pretty with his chin in his hands, flame-red hair falling across his face, as that playful bit of a smile curved his lips. “They name hurricanes to keep communication about them neat and tidy. It stops things from getting confusing. They name tropical storms too.”
Felix knew when he was being admired, and he stretched out a little more to give Dorian something to look at. Since he was now more interested in that, he didn't notice that he was lacking knowledge about something very basic in the world. "Neat and tidy, hm? For something so wild and destructive? How does one get his name in consideration, then?" he asked, laughing a little at this idea that seemed very absurd to him.
A smile stole across Dorian’s lips at Felix’s laughter, at his sense of humor. “There’s a list, I think. They work their way through it.” He had a thought and grabbed his phone off his desk to type in a quick search. The results populated and—he made a quiet, pleased sound of triumph—the one he was looking for was right there at the top. Felix would get a kick out of this. “There was a Hurricane Felix in 2007.”
"Really?" Felix laughed, pushing himself up from his stretch and swinging his feet with careful delicacy to the floor. He very much wanted to see what Dorian was looking at, so he invited himself across the room to lean over Dorian's arm and look at the phone. "But I was barely more than a baby," he teased, deeply amused, even though he had a bit of trouble focusing his vision on the screen. "I can't possibly have been that ill-behaved."
As Felix beamed at the wiki article, Dorian tilted his cellphone to give him a better view, but was no longer looking at it himself, his eyes all on Felix. His smile was like sunlight, the kind of bright and beautiful flowers turned toward, and the sharp herbal smell of his shampoo invaded Dorian’s senses. He reflexively breathed it in, and an underlying scent of soap and detergent came with it. “I have the distinct impression you were a terror since Day 1.”
Felix knew it was flirtation, really, but in the back of his mind he couldn't help but do the math. Twelve years prior, he remembered being a child in the slums of Yorkland, bewildered as to why he'd been given up by his mother. He wasn't a terror, then. He was a small, frightened, dirty excuse for a living creature. He'd been nothing Dorian would want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Those memories couldn't be real, but they were all that he had.
"If I terrorized anyone, I'm sure..." Felix's words faltered there. I'm sure they deserved it, he had meant to say. The words did not quite come to fruition, because he couldn't make himself believe them. He hated thinking about his mother, so long ago and so far away, because he hated to edge anywhere near the pain those memories caused. Felix didn't want to think about why she gave him up, and started him on the path to what he'd eventually become. Most importantly, he did not want Dorian to see that he couldn't keep his emotions in check.
"Well," he finally said, though his voice was more strained, with a note of defiance. "So what if I was.”
Dorian knew he’d said the wrong thing the moment that the quiet before Felix responded stretched on just a second too long. He’d hurt him. He wasn’t sure how, and it was clear he wasn’t meant to ask or even notice, but it was there in the imperious lift to Felix’s chin, and in the stubborn set of his mouth. It was a kind of amor Dorian knew well and he hated seeing it on Felix. He hated that he’d help put it there.
Setting his phone down on his desk, Dorian twisted in his chair to look at Felix. “Then, you and I are well-matched. Only I, like a fine wine, have grown more terrible with age,” he said with the kind of smile that generally got him what he wanted. In this case, was a laugh, but he’d settle for a smile.
It wasn't Dorian's fault that Felix had tripped over his own memories and uncertainties, and Felix wanted to push the past so far away that Dorian would never, ever find it. He much preferred Dorian to smile at him like that, and to ignore when Felix was awkward and when his experiences didn't match up to reality. Since that night at Nolan's beach house, Dorian hadn't questioned Felix about his past again, and that was how Felix wanted it, because he wasn't certain he could perpetuate his lies and half-truths forever.
He almost wished that it weren't impossible to tell Dorian the truth.
"I thought fine wines were supposed to improve with age," he pointed out, with the soft laugh that Dorian wanted. Felix's hip shifted, and he leaned one hand on the desk, his posture loose and relaxed enough that it was practically an invitation for Dorian to pull him closer. "Besides, you tell me you're so wicked, and yet I've never seen it. With me you're only ever..." Felix's voice half-caught on a breath, and he finished, more than a little awkwardly, "... kind.”
Dorian would not think about the way his heart warmed at the way Felix called him kind. Or why he had liked hearing it so much. “We all have our weaknesses,” he said, and he drew Felix down onto his lap by his hand, settling an arm about his waist. He started to say more, but was struck silent. At this angle, the light filtered through Felix’s hair in a way that cast it in a fiery, golden hue, making him look even more like an ethereal creature than usual, and it was beautiful.
Felix caught himself with a hand on Dorian's shoulder, his smile now alight and flushed with the precise manner of attention he'd hoped for. Usually he avoided anyone touching him -- arm's length at all times, long trousers and sleeves even in summer -- but when it was Dorian, and when Dorian wanted to hold him, Felix flowed into his arms like water. He was someone Felix chose, and now, he was looking at Felix in exactly the sort of way Felix liked best.
"You don't really believe that kindness is a weakness," Felix pointed out, looping his arms around Dorian's shoulders. Maybe Felix believed that, but not Dorian. For all his talk, Dorian really was a good boy stuck in a bad boy's life -- Felix was certain. Yet another reason that Dorian shouldn't ever learn the truth of who Felix used to be.
No, Dorian didn’t think kindness was a weakness. He tried to be kind, but, despite his best efforts, he’d still inherited some of his mother and father’s finer qualities. He was selfish and arrogant. Like his parents, he knew how to get what he wanted—A silver tongue people called it, but, really, it was just plain, old manipulation. He could be cruel. But Felix thought he was kind, and he wasn’t going to destroy that illusion.
“When did I say kindness was my weakness? Kindness is the effect. The cause... Well—” Dorian smiled charmingly and the tips of his fingers brushed along Felix’s cheekbone in their journey to tuck his bright red hair behind an ear.
Felix was starting to wonder if maybe he didn't like to be touched because he hadn't been sufficiently touched by Dorian. There was something different in Dorian's hands. He never grabbed or pushed or took. Indeed, Dorian's touch seemed specifically designed for Felix to enjoy. That, in Felix's experience, was unusual. Long lashes veiled Felix's eyes as he turned his head slightly toward Dorian's fingers. "Are you suggesting your kindness is entirely purely motivated?" he prompted, softer. Really, what business did Dorian have, making him all melty, making it hard to think? Worst of all, perhaps, making Felix want to trust him.
It was a joy to see Felix melt like this. There was always something in the way he held himself—A tension, like someone always waiting for the other shoe to drop. What put it there, he didn’t know and he knew better to push and to ask, but, God, he loved seeing it go away, loved even more when he was the one responsible for it.
“Perhaps. For some,” Dorian replied, cupping Felix’s cheek.
This was an invitation, Felix knew. Tempting, though, to tantalize Dorian a little more, make him take the initiative, make him earn a kiss that Felix was going to give him freely, no matter what. Today, Felix didn't want to play those games. He turned his cheek into Dorian's hand, and accepted his silent invitation.
Felix bent enough to cover Dorian's mouth with his own, kissing him almost terribly slowly.
Dorian tilted his head to meet Felix. The kiss was drawn out. It could almost be called a tease if it were not for how firm it was, how sure. If it not for the way Dorian could feel it right down to his bones. He made a soft sound into it, and his lips parted, catching on Felix’s bottom one. Nibbling on it, he drew Felix in closer as his other hand slid back to bury itself in his hair.
A soft sigh escaped Felix's mouth, breathed against Dorian's, whispering without words that there was nothing more in the world he wanted than this. He shifted himself in Dorian's lap to lean more closely, meet the other boy's body with his own. Both of his slim, delicate hands slid up Dorian's throat and curled under Dorian's chin to tilt it up, and Felix lorded over him for the moment, tasting Dorian's lips with curious dips of his tongue.
God, how did Felix do it? He had a way of making Dorian feel like he was coming undone from a kiss alone. He let out a sound of approval, of desire, and his arms tightened around Felix’s slim waist as he chased the kiss, moving up to meet it, to get more of Felix’s lips and his clever tongue.
Felix inhaled sharply, his pulse quickening as the moment grew more heated, as Dorian's mouth opened under his and he couldn't get enough. His fingers slid back into Dorian's thick hair and he abandoned all thought for a few blissful moments, sinking in to the rush of wanting that he hadn't been sure he would ever feel again. But now, he felt alight and alive, desire sparking electricity through every inch of his body. He wanted to wrap himself around Dorian, hear him gasp, feel him...
"Dorian," Felix breathed against his mouth. "What... what if I... said I wanted more…"
It shouldn’t be possible to want any more than Dorian already did, but, at those words, at the way they sounded coming from Felix’s mouth, want blazed, hot and all-consuming inside of Dorian and he felt like he was burning up with it. “Anything you want,” he said it like it was a promise and he dipped his head so his lips could follow the irresistible path of Felix’s jawbone. “Ask for it, and it’s yours.”
Dorian’s mouth ended its search, closing over the soft, sensitive skin of Felix’s neck, teasing with lips and tongue and teeth. Quietly, a part of him quailed at this sudden change in their dynamic. But, he’d always been reckless and hedonistic and that made self-doubt easy to ignore. He focused on the warmth of Felix against him, the feel of his pulse racing under his mouth, and the breathlessness of his voice… God, Dorian wanted this. Wanted to give and give and give until Felix knew what it was like to have the world stop for you.
Dorian's attentions were sure to leave a mark on the fair skin of Felix's throat, and Felix found he didn't care in the least. Dorian had him shivering despite the heat, alight with sensation that was at once far too much, and not nearly enough. His fingers curled into Dorian's shirt, both wanting it gone, and faintly frightened of what it might mean if it were. He wanted to be touched, and wanted, and adored, like Dorian's soft words and warm lips promised he could be... and at the same time, he was seized with an irrational fear that Dorian would learn too much, and then throw him away.
"I... I don't know what 'anything' is," Felix confessed, struggling to find the right words over the rush of his pulse and the breath that seemed to forever escape him. "But I want to touch you, and feel your hands on me, and..." And what? Felix turned his chin so he could see Dorian again, meet his eyes. "And work it out from there?”
In reply, Dorian picked Felix up in a bridal carry and brought him over to his bed. He set him down on it, and just stood there a moment, admiring Felix, dark-eyed and flushed, red hair a tousled mane, laid out on his bed. It was a sight he’d knew he could never tire of. “Absolutely beautiful,” he said like it was a prayer, and he moved to stretch out on his side beside him.
Slowly, Dorian reminded himself. He didn’t want to overwhelm Felix, and they had all the time in the world. He cupped Felix’s cheek, turning his head toward him, and kissed him softly. “Let me know if you want me to slow down, or stop.”
That was... sweet, in a way that caught Felix off-guard, his arms loosely around Dorian's neck, his hair tousled against Dorian's pillow. Maybe his wide-eyed blink and caught breath made him seem shy and unsure, when really, Felix was anything and everything but. If he thought that was what Dorian wanted -- someone innocent, a virginal boy to be guided -- then Felix could be that. But it wouldn't be real.
"You don't have to worry about me, darling," Felix promised, shifting closer to Dorian, his voice drifting low and velveted with want. He slid one leg promisingly up along Dorian's thigh, but already it was obvious there were too many clothes between them. Felix curled his hand into Dorian's shirt, and tugged, a nearly wicked smile curling his flushed lips. "Why don't we start with this.”
It was a first for Dorian to have misread someone so poorly. With how shy and naive Felix could seem at times, he’d assumed… Well, he’d assumed wrong. A hot thrill went through him at the throaty purr to Felix’s voice, at the playful confidence in the way he slid a leg up his thigh and tugged on his shirt.
“It does me good to worry about someone other than myself for a change,” Dorian said, but, encouraged, he sat up and swung his leg over Felix to straddle his hips. He started to slowly unbutton his shirt, smirking down at Felix, his eyes dark and his lips bruised from their kissing.
Felix's heart was racing, his skin flushed warm and a glittering sensation coursing through his body as if Dorian's kisses had magically turned his blood into champagne. In a way, much of this was new to him, in that he had chosen Dorian for himself, selfishly, because Dorian was beautiful and kind and wanted him.
He was lost in gazing at Dorian undoing his shirt, and his own hands went unconsciously to unbutton a few of his own buttons, before Dorian's skin became too much of a distraction. Felix reached up to touch him, run his hands over him, and draw him back down close again.
Dorian went back in readily, eagerly, capturing Felix’s mouth in a new kiss. His whole body was buzzing, like fire was crackling and popping under his skin. His tongue dipped into Felix’s mouth, and his hands moved to the front of Felix’s shirt. He undid the remaining buttons, then slid his hands up his chest, over his shoulders, and down his biceps to push the material away.
Felix forgot about everything but the sweetness of Dorian's mouth and the silky warmth of his skin, shifting eagerly to further encourage Dorian to undress him. His fingers traced Dorian's bare shoulders, the round of muscle in his upper arm, the curve of his spine -- whatever he could reach amid moving to get his own shirt off, half-lifting off the bed to get it well out of the way.
Then Dorian's touch smoothed over his own shoulders and the sensation dulled briefly for Felix. Under Dorian's hands, Felix's skin would feel rough and ridged, completely unlike the pale delicacy revealed by the removal of his shirt. Felix's faint sighs melted into a sound of clear discomfort the moment Dorian's hands encountered his back, and he tensed, but he didn't want to pull away. He didn't want this heart-racing glory to end.
At the sudden shift in Felix’s demeanor, Dorian immediately stopped everything he was doing. He sat up, not quite pulling away, but giving Felix space, and his hands moved to rest back on Felix’s chest, their touch light, and loose, easy to get away from.
Worries rose like a ride at the back of Dorian’s brain—He’d pushed too hard. Asked for too much. Felix regretted this already. He shoved them aside. He could lick his wounds later. Right now, all that mattered was Felix. “Are you alright? Do you want me to stop?”
"No," Felix answered emphatically, his eyes flashing open, one hand moving to press Dorian's hand to his chest. "No, don't stop. Stay." Faintly short of breath, Felix slid his other hand up into Dorian's hair, drawing him back down -- not to kiss again, but to touch his brow to Felix's. Echoing his words, silently, with the proof that he wanted to keep Dorian close.
"Just... my... back isn't very pretty," he managed with only a little difficulty. Damn, he should have come up with a better reason long ago. Had he really thought this wasn't going to happen? "I'd rather focus on your touching every other bit of me."
That was what Dorian had felt. Everything had happened so fast, he’d had barely any time to register the rough, raised skin beneath his fingers, but now, with the attention called to it, he realized what he had felt. Scars. Sorrow followed quickly by anger rose up in him, sudden and swift as a tidal wave. What could have left them? Who (because more pieces of Felix were beginning to fall into place, and it could only have been a who) had hurt him so badly?
“If that’s what you want, of course,” Dorian reassured. He caught Felix’s hand and pressed a soft kissed the inside of his wrist as he held his gaze. “Just know there isn’t a single inch of you that isn’t beautiful.”
"You're sweet," Felix answered breathlessly, without a thought. It was what he said when he neither wanted to acknowledge nor argue with someone else's opinion of him. All that mattered was that Dorian wasn't asking any more questions, and Felix needn't come up with any lies that might prove more difficult to remember, or to perpetuate, later.
And, since Dorian didn't ask, Felix was allowed to smile in his slow, secretive way, trail distracting fingertips over the other boy's fine silken skin, and suggest, "Let's examine that theory very closely, shall we?"
“Very, very closely,” Dorian agreed, as he leaned in to kiss Felix. He wanted to get lost in this moment, to forget himself in the arms of this too beautiful boy he felt unendingly drawn to like they were magnets, opposites charges pulling and pulling and pulling towards one another. But, more than that, he wanted to show Felix just how beautiful he was. He wanted to worship it into his body, kiss it into his skin, until it left its mark, sure and undeniable as any scar.
*****
Felix's eyes fluttered slowly open, dreamy and a little dazed, with a smile on his lips that he didn't seem to know was there. His shirt was long gone and the rest of his clothes were tousled and undone, his hair an unruly red tangle against the pillow. Sunset was coming outside the window, bathing everything in its perfect golden light when Felix's gaze finally focused on Dorian beside him.
Tension coiled up in his chest, but only for a moment. Felix had never had to talk to someone he'd just been intimate with. He had no idea what to say, or how to say it, or how to look. But Dorian had shown him so much that he hadn't known already, that Felix allowed himself to trust, just for now, that he could smile sleepily, enjoy the quiet, and learn.
The small movements seemed to stir Dorian to reality. He too had been drifting on a warm, weightless afterglow, too spent to doubt or fret and enjoying it. It was if they’d dropped into a tiny, personal pocket of time and could just live in it. He smiled back, then rolled onto his side and popped himself up on an elbow, a finger caressing idly up and down Felix’s slender, pale arm. Up until that moment, he’d been looking at Felix out of the corner of his eye, watching without watching, but now, he allowed himself to stare openly and admire the absolute vision Felix made, sex-rumpled and smiling softly as he drifted in and out of the thin line that lay between waking and sleeping.
“No creature has any right in being so beautiful,” he said.
"I trust your authority on beauty," Felix answered, quietly surprised at how easy it was to say, to lift a lazy hand and trace the shape of Dorian's elegant cheekbones and sculpted brow. This moment felt gentle and kind, yet subtly charged with sensual energy -- like nearly every moment he'd experienced with Dorian. Why should it be any different now, after Felix had trusted Dorian's hands with every inch of his skin? And now, after investing that trust, he felt like this -- alight and aglow all at once, wanting for nothing more.
"You are..." he said without thinking, "quite unlike anyone I've ever known, Dorian."
Warmth bubbled and fizzled like champagne in Dorian’s chest. He’d never had anyone say anything so sweet to him before. His fingers tips brushed along the sharp cut of Felix’s cheekbone, then continued on to tuck bright red lock of hair behind an ear. “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you. You are a wonder, Felix Harrowgate.” He smoothed hair away from Felix’s brow, smiling down at him. It should be frightening how right this felt. How safe and content Dorian was, how happy. But, it was impossible to feel any fear when Felix was looking at him with such fondness.
Felix just wanted to bask in the warmth of Dorian's attention and admiration, soak it in as if he felt worthy of it. He didn't want the shadows in the back of his mind that mocked him, asking how Dorian would feel if he knew the truth of what Felix had been, what Felix had done. Those thoughts had no place here, and Felix pushed them away, locking them up tight in the familiar corners of his mind where he banished such fears.
Instead, he laughed softly, and slid both arms around Dorian's neck. "Marvels of the world that we both are, clearly, we still will encounter the all too human issue of cleanliness in a minute or two," Felix pointed out. "I think I should be able to move again."
Dorian was loath to get out of bed. Whatever bubble it was that had settled around them would certainly burst as soon as they did. This moment—gentle and easy and intimate in its simplicity—couldn’t possibly last. But, he knew they couldn’t stay. He could only distract Felix with kisses for so long before the real world won out, so he smiled, his fingers curling and uncurling against Felix’s arm in a caress. “Then,” he kissed Felix softly, “perhaps you’d like to join me in the shower?”
For a moment, Felix couldn't choose between being stunned and delighted -- stunned that this was a thing Dorian might invite him to do, and delighted that Dorian wanted to. The idea of steaming under a sudsy shower of water with such an incredibly alluring person as Dorian made even the school's utilitarian facilities seem deliciously decadent. Imagining it, though, reminded Felix immediately of that one rather ugly fact he'd spent their entire time together trying to hide. How could he bear it if that caused Dorian finally to turn away, or worse yet, to pity him?
But Felix had trusted Dorian this far. Might he trust him just a little further? Half distracted from Dorian's gentle mouth and low murmurs by his own thoughts, Felix cautioned in a quiet voice, "You might... see more than you prefer. But I find I can't make myself say no to any suggestion you might possibly make when your hair is so attractively a-muss."
A pain squeezed Dorian’s heart at the fear in Felix’s voice. He didn’t know what had put it there, who had put it there, but he found he was willing to do anything to take it away. A small smile shaped his mouth, and kissed Felix, hand on his cheek, thumb stroking along his cheekbone. “My little hurricane, if I were to regret anything, it would be not taking full advantage of this wonderful opportunity,” he said, voice pitched low like the words were for Felix and Felix alone. His fingertips still skimmed across his arm, tracing nonsense patterns now against the soft, pale skin. “Shower with me. Let me worship you in other ways. There’s not an inch of you that I don’t want to see.”
In all of Felix's life, no one had ever spoken to him like this before, like he was something more than beautiful or exotic or special, but like he mattered. Like he mattered to Dorian. Felix suddenly wanted, blindingly, breathlessly, consumingly, to matter to Dorian. He didn't understand it and he didn't care that he didn't understand. Instead, a caravan of emotions played across his face like light fracturing through a prism, disbelief and bewilderment and longing. Then he slid both arms around Dorian's neck and pulled him down to kiss him again, deep and delicious, an unmistakable wordless yes.
