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“Look at the sunset, Charlie.”
His eyes flicker over the water even as his head stays turned towards Nick. “I am.”
“You are not. You keep staring at me.” Nick shoots him a quick look, and Charlie sees a flash of something in his eyes. Apprehension? The blonde gestures outward. “This is what we stopped for.”
“Mmmm. Well, I am appreciating how the colours of the sunset settle over your features.”
He is definitely staring. Unabashedly, in fact. If he weren’t, he would miss all the minute microexpressions that flitter across the man’s face at Charlie’s words. The deepening pink in his cheeks. The briefest uptick in the corner of his mouth. The rapid twitch of eye movement as his eyelids open ever so slightly wider and his pupils bounce downward. The half-second spasm of his brow furrowing. And then—
Nick opens his mouth. Closes it again, and then opens it and draws in a breath.
“Tell me what you see?” he asks, and his voice is softer, breathier, barely a higher pitch than usual.
“Well,” Charlie begins, “your hair is sort of a coral colour right now. All pink and orange.”
The hush over them breaks for a moment as Nick turns his head towards Charlie and scowls. “It’s always like that,” he says. “I’m ginger.”
Charlie’s laugh comes out more sharply than he means it to, but Nick knows his stance. It’s an age-old argument between them. “You are not ginger, Nicholas, you’re blonde.”
“No, I—”
“Are you going to let me finish?”
Nicks jaws shuts, and his features soften again as he gazes at Charlie, waiting.
Charlie grasps his friend’s chin and points his face towards the setting sun once more. Nick’s chest rises and falls more noticeably as he does.
“The part of your face that’s directly in the light,” Charlie says, lifting a finger and touching Nick’s widow’s peak, tracing down over the protrusion of his forehead and the slope of his nose, “it’s like it’s glowing. Yes, the light is falling on you, but it looks like it’s beaming out from you.”
He brushes his thumb along the apple of the cheek he can see from here, looking at Nick’s profile.
“But the parts of your face that are in shadow have a purply blue tint to them.”
“Like where?” Nick asks in a whisper.
“Like here,” Charlie says, his finger now resting by the outer corner of Nick’s eye, the spot that crinkles whenever he smiles. Nick’s eyes flutter shut until he lifts his finger again.
“Here.” The pad of his middle finger presses softly into Nick’s philtrum before lifting up again, barely brushing over lips that part to suck in air, and then joining the tips of his index and ring fingers as they curve over the labiomental groove. “And here.”
And then they’re gone, and he’s letting his hand drop back down to his sides, digging into the kangaroo pouch of the hoodie he’s wearing—Nick’s hoodie, as usual.
“Anything else?” Nick asks, and Charlie thinks there’s a plea in the undertone of the older man’s voice. “That’s different? In the sunset?”
The brunette takes in every detail of the face he memorised years ago. “Your eyes.”
The eyes in question flicker towards him again, but quickly return to attention.
“Your irises are usually the colour of honey. Or maybe cinnamon? They’re this lovely warm, inviting brown. But right now in the sunset, they look like molten gold and bronze, like a fire in a hearth. Still warm, still inviting, but more... mesmerising.”
As he watches, Nick’s eyes begin to glisten more. He blinks slowly, and Charlie sees a teardrop collect in his blonde lashes. Without thinking, he reaches up once more to catch it before it can slide over ruddy cheeks. Nick leans into the touch, then turns his whole face to look at Charlie. The brunette doesn’t move his hand, just cups Nick’s cheek, stroking softly as a few more tears fall. He feels the smile before he sees it. “Char…” Nick’s entire body has turned towards him now, the dusk forgotten as his fingers reach up and tangle among curls the colour of midnight.
In the rapidly darkening blues, Charlie sees Nick’s heavy-lidded gaze drop to his mouth and back up.
He’s not sure who pulled who in, but the only thing Charlie’s seeing now is the phosphenes behind his closed eyes as he lets his other senses take over, overwhelmed as he is by the kiss he’s waited an age and half for.
He feels Nick’s lips pressing into his, sucking his bottom lip in between them. When Nick’s tongue slides over his lip and gains entrance to his mouth, Charlie feels electricity shoot up his spine to the base of his neck. He feels Nick tug his hair, tilting his head to adjust the angle. He can feel Nick’s hair, too, between his own fingers, as soft and silky as he’s always imagined. He feels his lungs burning because there’s not enough air, but he won’t fix that until he has to. And he feels a strong arm wrap around his waist, pulling him closer so that he can feel everything.
He can hear their gasps between kisses, though their lips never fully lift from another. Charlie hears the wet sounds of lips and tongues and saliva and suction. He hears Nick’s needy groans as he licks up into the taller man’s mouth, and he hears his own moan from deep within the caverns of his chest when Nick’s hand presses hard on the small of his back, sending Charlie’s hips crashing into his own.
He can smell Nick’s shower gel, mint and cedar and a hint of citrus. He smells the staleness of hours in the car. He tastes the butter and sweetness of the biscuits Sarah Nelson had sent with them on Nick’s tongue, and licks the taste of cola from his mouth.
As they finally pull apart—their lips not moving more than a few mere centimetres away—he opens his eyes once again, letting them refocus. Night has fully fallen now, but Charlie doesn’t need to look around and see how the scenery has changed in the darkness. The stars are in Nick’s eyes, and the moon is in his own, the universe settling within them as they finally, finally find each other.