he has a thing about your hands. the size of them, the rise of your knuckles, the soft meat of your palm. he likes the way your fingers curl—-he never thought that’d be something he pines after, but sometimes on slow days he finds himself staring off into space, swept up in the notion of how well you hold things. how your hands were made to be gentle.
not that he’d ever tell you, ever push you one direction or the other. he’s mostly just basking in this little world you two have cultivated for yourselves, a place where it’s just you and the warmth of sake in your chests, or the artificial glow of a tv screen lighting your face in the dark like an angel, or the way your fingers curve and clasp as you peel clementines at the kitchen table.
you don’t remember when you started eating breakfast together. around the time he started getting too busy to hang out every night. around the time you figured out that a day without seeing him laugh is a waste of a day.
breakfast is different than your other get togethers. rarer, for one. quieter, too. there’s a kind of inescapable candidness that comes with it. you’re still in your nightclothes, haven’t done your makeup yet, haven’t made it through your first cup of coffee. hawks doesn’t talk as much, doesn’t feel the need to fill in the space. it’s too delicate for mindless chatter.
he’s been tired lately, but it doesn’t stop him from seeing you. he just slumps in his seat, smiling softly when you hand him segments of fruit, passing them between his own hands for a moment before finally popping it in his mouth.
his dark circles are more prominent today. usually he covers them with concealer—-doesn’t want to let the public know he’s anything but golden—-but he must have forgotten today. it makes him look older, his features more defined. without thinking you reach for him, wanting to smooth them out.
you pause a breath away from his skin, hand curved as if to cup his cheek. he’s staring at you, bright eyes wide. you’ve touched casually before, like all friends do, but this feels like something else. something more.
wordlessly, he closes the gap, lower his cheek into your palm, lips brushing against your wrist, against your pulse point. there’s a moment of ecstatic silence, trepidation and anticipation as you wait for him to pull back, to laugh it off.
he doesn’t. he takes a long, deep breath, and lets it out. it’s warm against your bare skin, has you shuddering in turn. and all hawks can think as you touch him so kindly, so perfectly, is that this must be fate, your hands were made for this. peeling clementines and holding him.