Re: The Apartment: Jamie/Seven
It made sense, Seven knew, that shit felt weird. It probably would have been really fucking weird if it wasn’t weird, yeah? It was like the world had been tilted slightly by a couple of degrees, barely enough of a shift to notice except for how it threw off his balance. But he’d mostly been expecting the shift on his end, the not-knowing when it came to what Jamie was thinking, or feeling, or how to act around him. He’d expected to feel fucking uncomfortable and to have to try and not let it show, to be back in the apartment after the way that he’d left it a couple of months ago.
But Jamie was - Jamie, yeah, but he was quiet, and he looked small and soft in ways that Seven wasn’t used to, yeah? But maybe there was a home field advantage, too. Because Jamie didn’t look like he wanted to run, and that was unexpected. And see, Seven might have thought that was projection on his part? Except that Jamie had ghosted him on his own turf before, back when he was staying at the bland cookie cutter of a house out in the Neighbourhood. So, it was sort of fair. And it meant that he could take it as a win, or at least another mark in the column titled ‘cautiously hopeful’ on the tally of how how he should be feeling rn.
“Right, my bad,” he deadpanned, eyebrows somehow managing to lift even further as his mouth hitched into a grin, one side higher than the other. “I guess tiger would be the big cat equivalent of tabby.” He made no move to help Jamie out, ftr, as the kitten clawed her way up the guy’s back and hauled herself up over his shoulder. Instead he just laughed some more, shaking his head so that he had to reach up and push some of his hair off his face. He hadn’t cut it in a while, motivation and a lack of sobriety definitely being a contributing factor in the first few weeks, and then he’d remembered why he’d enjoyed having his hair long for so many years. It was actually less hassle, for the most part - not having to find time for the barber every few weeks, and just throwing it back in a bun when he wanted it out of the way.
“You don’t fucking say.” He laughed harder in the face of the adorable impotence and unyielding defiance of the kitten’s hiss. She even had Jamie’s haughty expression down pat. There was still the descendent rumble of a chuckle in his chest when Jamie’s hand fisted in the front of his shirt. “Hi. It’s like someone transplanted your personality into a cat’s body, huh?”
His eyes crinkled further into the smile as he gazed down at Jamie from up close, one hand reaching to press flat against the small of the guy’s back. The other came up and cupped the side of Jamie’s face. His mouth opened against the kiss and he remembered the taste of Jamie’s tongue like it’d been a few days since the last time, instead of weeks. Seven’s fingers curled around the side of Jamie’s neck and pressed against the tendon that ran vertically there and disappeared into Jamie’s hair, and he inhaled sharply through his nose where it was pressed against the guy’s cheek. It was a rush of Jamie’s soap, or shampoo, maybe his detergent, too. All the notes that made up the sense-memory that came rushing back as Seven licked slowly, lazily, over the swell of the Jamie’s bottom lip and rubbed his thumb against the stubbled edge of his jaw.