ONLY FOOLS RUSH IN — PRIVATE

[WANDERER]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-size: 9.4pt; line-height: 1.4;"]/ you are. very right. this is adorable.
+ if this is crap, blame it on it being my first mobile post in three years

And to think that Val had been a perfect student at one point, the kind of kid to sit in the library until it closed and ask the teacher how he could do the best on the project. Sure, he’d also been the kid that’d end up in storage closets with a stolen pack of cigarettes, but everyone needed to let off stress in some way, and that wasn’t a story many people knew. Sneaking off to smoke just wasn’t supposed to lead to underage drinking and letting himself get swept up in a certain someone’s charm. See, Val hadn’t been a delinquent his whole life, so even though Butch blushed pink when Val got a little confident in public, and the constant toying with his hair was sweet — not a lot of people knew about it, that’s all. He’s pretty sure he deserves whatever crazy looks he gets for letting his head rest on that particular shoulder, but just because they don’t see all of it. Like the way Butch had taken their first kiss slow, or the way he’d frozen up with Val’s hands on his skin. It’s not like things are perfect, but really? He’s never been happier.

When his stomach first decided it was a good idea to do flips around Butch, that was just… a mess. Saying that Val beat himself up over it was an understatement. He’d spent an eternity waiting for the ground beneath his feet to crumble, heart catching in his throat every time it felt like their tentative okay was ready to fracture back to the way things were. Or —this. The first time Butch kissed back, everything lit up in shades of gold. They’d both trusted their weight to the unknown and it was solid, Butch was solid. He trusts him. More than anything, really, even separated by all this space. The lady he’s chatting with seems nice enough, but he can feel where blue eyes linger even when most of his concentration is on moving. It’s only when she walks off with a meek sort of farewell that curiosity gets the best of him, and Val abandons the people dancing with him to head for the bar with uncharacteristically few apologies for shoulder bumps and near hip checks.

Instead of ordering a drink of his own once he gets there (thankfully without more than an accidental bruise or two), he leans over him and steals a sip from Butch’s glass, an almost teasing challenge in the way he smiles at him. Unfortunately used to alcohol’s burn and already hot halfway up his chest from it, he manages to keep himself from clearing his throat as he sets the glass back down. His hands skate from Butch’s shoulders, down his shirt to his hips, everything warm from his jacket. His own feels insufferably, unbearably hot on his skin, but that could just be the atmosphere. Or Butch. Either way, it’s still the most comfortable thing he has. A perfect fit now, like the way he fits between his thighs as he stands here, even if the stupid barstool keeps him around Val’s height, not much shorter that normal. That’s probably a good thing.  ”So. What’d you say to chase her off? Hopefully you were nice about it.” Does he really care? Maybe a little, but barely. How unkind.