It’s this little headband with knob-like horns that Onyx zooms in on, curiosity winning out over his propriety (what fucking propriety?) and the fact that instinctually as a human being he knows its impolite to snoop, especially when the snoopee is too sick to stop the snooper.

His fingers curl around the hanger, one hand reaching out to press the other clothes away, and he pulls out the… the tiniest excuse of two pieces of fabric stitched together and called clothing that could possibly ever exist. It’s a cow-print cut out dress with ‘MILK’ stitched across the tits in pink cursive. There’s even a little cowbell choker that rings as he turns to face Andres with a grin on his face.

“What the fuck is this?” he asks, and there’s no malice in his voice, because he’s smiling, and ha-ha he thinks it’s funny because he hasn’t yet considered the possibility of it being for Andres because it couldn’t possibly be, right?

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura
cow dress time

He hums a thoughtful note as he proceeds to do it again-- the kissing, cupping the back of Andres’ head and drawing him in, holding him there like he can rewrite the history of this feeling and replace it with this, with the warmth of their mouths together and the want that burns inside of him instead of the anger and the sound of cheap metal crunching under the force of a human skull.

He kisses him for a long time until he feels his feet hit the proverbial ground again and the horny hamster in his brain jumps back on the wheel.

"Do you still have that-- Halloween costume?"

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

andres buenaventura
it is a surprise tool that will help us later

“It-- maybe?” he says, cutting off the sentence, and it curls up in a question. “I… didn’t come over here with the intent of this--,” he wraps his hands around the curves of Andres’ ass and pulls him tighter against him-- “--but I’m not mad this is where we ended up.”

It wasn’t I love you back… but, Onyx hoped, it was… close.

Andres just told him he loves him.

No one’s told him that since before his sister died. It’s a lot to process. Especially given the years of abuse Onyx had mitigated on the other man.

Andres does this to him. Andres brings it out in him. He could die here, he thinks, as he kisses him hard.

"I would like to do something. More things." He gave his hips an experimental twitch, hands splaying over Andres’ sides as he strums his thumbs appreciatively over the muscles in his lower abdomen. God, but he was beautiful.

"If you wanted."

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know what Andres is doing. It has to be a joke… something… flexible. A stress response. Something that seems so very heavy and dire in the moment, but in the morning, when the sun is shining and the meteor is gone and everything is still okay, Andres’ll laugh it off. Ha-ha, the funny things we say in the dark.

He fits his hand around the back of Andres’ skull, something soft and gentle, thumb brushing along the shell of his ear, and he remembers how it felt to take it and squeeze and--

--he shuts his eyes. Tries to focus on the here, and now. Of course, it would turn out that Onyx would be the one having panic flashbacks about the injury he’d caused, willingly, and so without remorse. He focuses on the feeling of Andres on top of him-- in more ways than one--

“I--,” he says, and he can’t find the words because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

If Andres telling him he loved him knocked the wind out of him what he says next makes him see stars. Onyx physically pulls the man off of him by the shoulders-- gentle, but firm-- and looks at him, aghast, horrified.

"Why?" he asks again, but it's less angry, more surprised. "You're-- insane," he says on half a laugh, sitting back to pull him closer, impossibly close. "There is something seriously wrong with you. With us." And then he's laughing, caught in the absurdity of it, because if he doesn’t laugh, he’ll start crying.

"Absolutely crazy. Don't cry. Please don't cry." And he's kissing the side of his head, his face, his nose, his jaw, his neck. "I don't want you to be miserable our last night on earth. I didn't exactly have a plan when I came over but I know it wasn't that."

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

"No, Andres, I don't think you do."

He's about to stand up carrying this man but remembers his injuries at the last second and just sits forward.

"Beyond the-- this. What we're... I've hurt you. Physically. Repeatedly. Badly."

God above, this was entirely too much. He didn't deserve to hold this wonderful thing so precariously in his arms.

"Don't-- look like that," he says, close to tears, himself, "I can't-- you shouldn't--,"

You shouldn't feel that way about me.

But he does. He does, he does.

"Why?" he asks, foreheads pressing close. "How? When? Why?"

It had to be the end of the world. It had to be. No other reason for such crazy decisions.

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura character switching is hard

"Because--,"

After everything he's said. After everything he's done.

"It matters."

Of course it matters. Even if they're all going to die.

Out of everything don't worry has him angry. He pushes Andres away and looks at him, really looks at him, hands on his shoulders.

"You can't just say that and then say don't worry! What if we--," he swallowed, and his thumbs thrum over the wells of his shoulders.

"If we don't die."

If we don't die, we have a chance.

He couldn't think like that. Couldn't allow himself that. That was far more than he deserved.

He kisses him again, then, softer, hands coming up to cup his face, holding him in the closest thing to tenderness Onyx can muster. What if he just let himself believe? What if he just let himself have this?

"I've hurt you."

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

"Andres," he says, and he can feel the other man trembling slightly in his lap, shaking like he's holding back tears.

It rips at something inside of him, something protective and long thought dead. A vestigial organ that has since resolved its purpose.

He puts his hand firmly over Andres' neck, slides his fingers up through his hair. Out of a million pathways he never imagined this would be where this went.

"You shouldn't."

He doesn't say it back, yet, not because he doesn't want to, not because he doesn't feel it... but because he's not deserving of this precious thing suddenly resting in his lap.

He wouldn't know how to put words to it, anyway.

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura