Chapter Text
- tu me dessinerais comment
14 Avril 2019 | Dimanche 11h26
The bus is very late; the large crowd gathered at the stop, rustling their shopping bags and unbuttoning the too-heavy jackets they'd put on in the coolness of morning, are beginning to grumble. He can't help bouncing a little from foot to foot, pinching his lips between his teeth, as he scrolls backward in his chat history for what must be the third or fourth time since waking.
08 Avril
yay, not too hot next Sunday, 9's the high 16:55
perfect <3 16:55
I can come get you around noon 16:56
parents want to eat dinner and go to the movies Saturday before they leave again 16:56
otherwise I'd just spend the night and leave from your place hehehe 16:57
Lucas's answering text bubble had appeared almost immediately.
How about I plan this one, actually? 16:57
I have a good idea. 16:57
His thumbs are arrested mid-dance as he rereads. He inhales: the sweet stink of exhaust mingling with the faint bitterness of the young leaves hanging from the honey locusts overhead, overlaid by the heady sugar of pastries stacked in someone's paper bag. He exhales.
Almost a whole week later, he can still taste Lucas's fear, pulsing from each pixel behind the glass of the screen. A small spurt of answering annoyance still rises in his throat, to float like fresh grease above the sour, sludgey sea of his guilt. He'd started and deleted several messages in a row.
At last, he'd managed let's save your good idea. no houseboats involved, haha and sent it before he could change his mind.
Okay... Lucas had replied. His next message, a couple of hours later, was asking for help with Antigone.
The bus arrives just in time to save him from having to apologize for being late; he is shuffled on board and has hardly the time to put his bulging backpack at his feet before he is pinned in place among the crowd.
*
"But no," Lucas says, eyes very big and very blue, as they are disgorged from the bus; one of the bottles inside the reusable shopping bag he carries on his shoulder clinks against its companion. "Eliott, it's the middle of the day!"
"Will you be our lookout, then?" He takes Lucas's hand, chuckling at the resulting little jump. "Come."
*
The lock is a little stubborn today. "What if someone else comes," Lucas is saying behind him. "What if someone notices the gate being open?"
He smiles. "We must be quiet then, no? And you're looking out, aren't you, hérisson?" Sighing, Lucas pivots to scan the street, which remains as quiet as when they'd first arrived; a small dog yips once or twice from inside a house.
At last the lock opens; he muffles the rattle of the chain with his fist. "All right!" He hoists the backpack onto one shoulder and chuckles again at Lucas's nervous pout. "Come!"
*
Even he has rarely come here before dusk. It is very different, under the sun, and with Lucas beside him. Very different from the last time he was here, too. The light flicks and flutters, landing like dots of golden confetti on Lucas's hair and cheeks and hands, which are clutching the bagful of bread and cheese and ham and pears for dear life.
"Eliott," Lucas finally says, when they reach the underpass. It is easy to see to the other side, in the daylight. Something aches a little behind his breastbone. "Are you—?"
He turns, smiles extra wide to reassure. "I wanted to draw you properly." He puts his backpack onto a concrete slab and slides out his pens and pencils and the paint-speckled masonite drawing board with a piece of blank Bristol already clipped in place. "Here," he says, handing Lucas a mylar blanket, origamied into a neat little bundle. "Spread it under that big linden-tree and have a seat, will you?"
Lucas's eyes glitter above his small grin. "And you made me haul all this here?" He nudges the bag of groceries, long since plopped unceremoniously on the leaves, with his sneaker. "So you could draw me with crumbs all over my face?"
"Yes," Eliott answers that look in the only way possible; he bends, curling his forearm behind Lucas's nape, and gives a slow kiss. "And all over the rest of you." He kisses again, letting his tongue lick the corner of Lucas's mouth. "We'll be here a while. We'll get hungry."
"Ah yes?" Lucas's lashes tremble against his cheek. "How thoughtful. How cozy."
"It's my place," he replies, whispering. "But you make it home."