Re: The Apartment: Jamie/Seven
Seven, ftr, had been in free-fall since fucking New Year’s Eve. Since the second that Jamie’d leaned drunkenly on the buzzer at his gate. Shit, maybe even since he’d heard that voicemail on Christmas. Or since he’d leaned into Jamie against the kitchen counter just a few feet away from where he stood now, and felt the bottom of his stomach drop out and shudder through the floorboards. It was all sort of fucking hazy in a smear of astringent juniper on this tongue and hangovers that made his fucking eyeballs feel like they’d been rubbed down with sandpaper. So it wasn’t so much that he was properly balanced where Jamie was suspended weightless in descent, yeah? More like Seven’s perception had adapted to the endless feeling of plummeting down through one floor and then the next, never quite reaching ground.
“But it’s so much fun,” he countered, brow furrowing in a momentary approximation of sulk. But Jamie’s hand tightening in his t-shirt - he didn’t care about the shirt, obviously, and yeah that was probably obnoxious but it was a shirt and Jamie was the guy he’d either been thinking about or trying not to think about for the past six weeks - the hand in his shirt tightened and tugged at the fabric and unravelled Seven’s face into something softer. A smile that was mostly contented, small, a little wistful, maybe? “And yeah, you are.”
Not a power play, because Seven didn’t have a habit of playing games he couldn’t win. The kiss was slow, leisurely, because he wasn’t in a hurry. They weren’t riding a runaway train at breakneck speed down a track that ended in a brick wall. Yeah, so maybe the wall was still going to be there at the end of the line, but at least they had room - time - to breathe. Jamie stepped back and Seven’s stomach swooped with him, feeling tugged along in his wake until Seven felt hollow. “C’mon, get the fuck back here.”
The grin was back, still lopsided as he blinked slowly at Jamie’s retreat. He felt tired, so fucking tired, and he let his eyes shut when he reached out and hooked a finger in the collar of Jamie’s sweater and reeled him back in, stepping forward to meet him. Seven’s arms came up to slide around Jamie’s shoulders and he leaned his cheek against the guy’s ruffled hair, then nosed slowly down through soft strands towards his ear. “Shut up. I fuckin’ missed you,” he mumbled, low, more breath than sound, and it was like half the tension in his body bled out right then and there as he hugged Jamie against his chest.