“Hello, Pup.”
Ger’s stomach gave a weird flip.
“Mouse.”
It was an effort not to stumble over his own feet as he approached. Someone had taken all his nerve endings in one fist and tugged him forward like a puppet on a string.
“What are you doing here?”
Jack began to answer, but at the creak of a door behind them, Ger’s numb limbs flooded with icy adrenaline. He had the door open and both of them shoved into the tiny box room before he could wrap his head around the decision. Jack let himself be herded without much fuss and even turned to helpfully close the door behind them. But when he started to speak again, Ger clapped a hand over his mouth and watched those soft brows pitch.
“Benan,” he whispered, and though Jack rolled his eyes, he didn’t fight Ger’s hold on him.
They listened together as Benan made his way down the hall, pausing to belch outside Ger’s door before the solid slap of his big feet faded into nothing. Ger felt the tension seep from his limbs and allowed himself a full breath. A pity, then, when thatbreath caught in his lungs at the sight of Jack’s warm, brown eyes on his.
“Um,” he said, fumbling to get a grasp on his own thoughts and only remembering to remove his hand from Jack’s mouth when the porter huffed a small laugh beneath his palm. “Sorry.”
“That’s alright. I didn’t much feel like chatting either.”
“I just didn’t want him to know you were here.”
Ger’s heart gave a too-sharp pulse of alarm.
“Not because it’s you,” he added hurriedly, and Jack’s lips twitched. “Because, you know, it’shimand he’s—”
“Benan.”
“Yeah,” Ger said lamely.
He hadn’t backed up a single step, and it occurred to him how very close they still stood. Close enough that Jack had to tilt his head back against the door to meet his eye. Close enough that Ger could smell the warm flour-and-spice scent of the kitchen clinging to the porter’s knitted sweater. Close enough that Jack’s lips curved into a smile, and Ger knew he'd been staring at them. Intently.
“So,” he said, a little loud in such intimate quarters. “Why, er—whyareyou here?”
A soft rustle was what it finally took to break the mesmerising hold of Jack’s smile. He let his eyes be dragged away, landing on the small linen bundle waving in the porter’s raised hand.
“You didn’t come for your broth yesterday, or in the morning,” he said. “And I never did deliver your parcel that day, so—”
“You were waiting for me?”
Again.His heart tumbled from one beat to the next.
Jack sighed.
“I think you should know by now,” he said, still half-smiling. “I’m always waiting for you.”
Ger felt the press of the linen bundle in his palm, but the answering swoop of his belly didn’t feel like hunger. At least, not the kind that could be sated by nuts and berries. He tucked the parcel into his pocket, gaze drifting to Jack’s lips on purpose this time. They were not smiling now; they were parted. Plump.
Waiting.
And though his heart made every effort to beat a hole through his ribs, Ger didn’t move with any of the clumsiness of the last time he’d had this chance and fumbled it. He stepped in. Raised his hand, slowly, to cup the porter’s jaw. His breath shuddered in the space between them, but his aim was sure as he bent his head and finally touched his lips to Jack’s. Soft at first, but not uncertain. He wanted this; he was brave enough to reach for it. He remembered now how to move, how to listen for those sounds, both audible and not, that told him what a partner wanted. What Jack wanted. The shared rumble of a groan was the only encouragement he needed. Ger sucked that full bottom lip between his teeth and in the space of a moment, they were lost to tongues and hands, fistfuls of clothing and hair.
“Ger,” Jack gasped, hands to his chest like he’d push him back, then curling into his shirt like he’d never let him go. “Are you sure?”
Ger did pull back then. Stared at him, brows bowing.
“I’m sorry I ever made you think I wouldn’t be.”
The chilly little box room was warmed by their breath and the heat rising between them, and Ger was coming to think that that was simply Jack’s way; warming the smallest, coldest spaces and filling them with his light. Because hewasalight. Glowing as Ger tugged him away from the door and backed him into the room, face lit with something close to rapture. It made Ger want nothing more than to brighten that glow, feed it, fuel it. He pressed Jack toward the bed and followed him when he fell, moving over him fluidly until their faces aligned again. Ger held his weight on one hand and with the other, took Jack’s face and traced a thumb beneath his straight lashes, his sharp cheekbone, his thick, curving smile.
