Astronomy (of Us)

xv

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All We Know (feat. Phoebe Ryan) by The Chainsmokers
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Everything moved, tasted, and soothed like honey.

Sapnap hadn't gotten a haircut since he showed up in Rothels, so Karl was braiding small twists into the inky swatches right behind his ear. He was crying, silent tears sliding across his slack cheeks]. He looked lost in his own head. Karl just let him lay there, arms wrapped around his torso like a panda to its mother, clutching to Karl like he'd float into the clouds, a lonely balloon if he loosened his grip.

The motel still wasn't perfect, with minute stains on some of the walls and a fan that refused to be shut off, even after Karl got on a rickety chair and fiddled and fucked with it for almost an hour as Sapnap showered yesterday. 

Coming out of the bathroom, jeans riding along his hips and boxers flashy with their high waistband, white towel paused midway to dry his hair, Sapnap had watched Karl. That boy inspected the ceiling fan, brow scrunched and logical, analytical thoughts sprinting like cheetahs and comets, as he tried to figure out its issue. Sapnap had to convince him to get down, Karl chuffing at the fan for defeating his intellect. Even if their setting wasn't perfect, they still thought the other boy was.

"Are you okay?" The end of Karl's question sounded abrupt, like he was going to tack on another word to the phrase before snipping his little paper snowflake short, detail lost in translation. The fan continued to creak. They could've turned the tv to a random cable show, maybe logged into Karl's Netflix if they felt like kickboxing, sparring, or jousting with another piece of technology in that motel room, but they didn't. Sapnap deserved peace, and Karl was content to give it to him.

"What were you going to say?" Sapnap murmured tenderly, voice drifting to the surface of a airy, breathy sea in patches. 

They both remembered how they argued about surviving and sleeping in Gullston, Sapnap carding through his hair with stress and barking at Karl about how they couldn't throw the taller boy's savings and money however they pleased. He refused to be responsible for such a thing. 

Karl, however, thought it was his own decision, told Sapnap so, and refused to listen to another word. The same way Sapnap couldn't make him spend, he couldn't stop him, either. Fuck the heart burrowed in Sapnap's ribcage, the one that only desired Karl's lips to smile all pretty and lively. The bed they laid on was warm and worth it anyway, the one where Karl wedged himself between any of Sapnap's limbs and received copious amounts of affection.

Karl continued weaving coal shades into miniature bundles as he replied, "I was gonna call you something."

The bed trembled a bit as Sapnap shifted, wiping his tears away, tugging his locks away from Karl's fleet and dexterous fingers, and dragged himself from the cave within his skull, where bats maliciously and cobwebs caught his ankles . He sat up, thighs still on either side of Karl's waist and weight still resting on that boy's pelvis. 

Karl was still awed at how heavy a human body was; it wasn't even about it being Sapnap, who was nowhere as near lithe as Karl was. He was sturdier, with fat and muscle wrapped around his thighs and hips, pectorals the closest to defined that Karl had seen on someone that wasn't a football player. No, it was just that humans were fucking heavy. Though, honestly, Karl still enjoyed the attention and contact with and from his lover, his boy. Lover boy.

"We don't have pet names, do we?" Sapnap stretched his back and yawned. Karl watched that boy, three days after they pelted from bitching parents. What were they even meant to do on a Tuesday?