Their First 10,080 | Tronnor

Thursday: A New Greeting

For months and months, Connor couldn't function properly. Internet kids never sleep, as it is said, but this specific Tumblr child was starting to rethink his motto. No matter how much he denied the effects of insomnia, a mere two hours sleep a night killed his mood, and he was fed up. He tried everything in the book: tea, warm milk, sleeping pills. But he quickly diagnosed that it wasn't his body who was holding back his eyelids; it was a boy.
Yes, Connor had a crush, hot and insistent, like the taste of cinnamon gum. To his chagrin, his once platonic muse, Troye Mellet, stopped being just Troye to him, and had suddenly become a naked god in the Eden of his daydreams. Connor was never good at living around hopeless lust so, with minimal warning, his mind decided to think about Troye ninety-eight percent of the day. It was toiling on his head, not to mention on his poor, sleepless heart. It was as if his ribs were home to a bird who'd woken to a caged environment, restlessly flapping its wings in hope of freedom. There was no pushing it aside, no shutting it down with camomile nor subsiding it with four consecutive run-throughs of Magic Mike. He'd fallen deeply, and the feelings were a parasite, sucking at his skin, making him itch for human contact. Everything he did made blood go to his cheeks, as everything he did reminded his body that its stamina now depended on Australian accented nothings, whispered in its ears. He tried so hard to stop it from happening but, as he caught a glimpse of thin legs walking with a battered suitcase, across the baggage claim, his face went beet red. He sighed as he remembered all the times he'd stood in the mirror and said "you do not love him." Honestly, he didn't believe himself.

For months and months, Troye felt like he had a ball and chain on his foot. Neither of these things resembled the concept of Connor himself, as he was simply a light in Troye's life, but the things associated. Each link represented a feeling: the need to touch his skin, the desire to kiss his lips, the aesthetic pleasure of seeing him smile. And so on and so forth until you get to the grand orb of kryptonite; the fact that Troye, purely, undeniably, couldn't live without Connor. Fantasies of the little things, like pecks and holding hands with the chestnut haired boy, hung on for dear life to his heart and his mind. They had a metallic laugh as he struggled to keep his emotions in check, like the clinking of chains on a concrete floor. For his own sanity, he tried to shake them off, telling himself that their friendship was too special to spoil with awkward sensuality. The feelings called bullshit, and they bit into his ankles until his entire nervous system shuddered. Arteries, capillaries, lungs; his seemed swollen with the love and breath they couldn't put into that one specific kiss; the one his mind had played out so many times.
It was exponentially harder to escape it in the nighttime, when darkness sucked away distraction. It overwhelmed him, the way his lonely heart craved even an artificial creation what it'd feel like to be near him. He held his pillows tightly, but it still didn't satisfy him. He prayed for his body to forget all it's outlet-less affection but, when his eyes, sore from twenty-one hours of sleepless flight, saw two Starbucks coffees in graceful hands, he stopped. He stopped wishing for the emotions to leave him, for it all to end, because he really just wanted a beginning.

To an extent, via the most awkwardly romantic texting conversation either had ever had, they knew what the other wanted from them. It had been nearly a day since they typed those jittery goodbyes and see-you-soon's, but neither had figured out how to properly place the right words on their tongues. The coffee tray quivered in Connor's hands; the handle of Troye's suitcase was slicked with sweat; they knew they had about ten seconds to make a decision. Their hearts palpitated in synch as they moved towards each other, and time and distance became so irrelevant that they kept walking until their toes overlapped.
Nearly falling into one another, they were both aware of the points in which they touched: Connor's knee knocking against Troye's, Troye's knuckles grazing Connor's forearm, their faces so close that Connor pulled back, afraid Troye could smell frightened desire on his breath.

"Hi." He croaked.

Troye gulped. "Hi, how are you?"

"Good, how was your flight?" Connor said in common curtesy.

"Good." Troye looked at his feet. "Long, but okay."

Silence.

This was the first time in months that they'd experienced each other in more than two senses, and it was unusual. The uncomfortable silence forced Connor to recall exactly how much Troye stunned him in person. He smelled subtly of an unfamiliar body spray, lavender, basil, honey; not his usual smell, but like he tried to smell good. His face looked so much more real in natural lighting: softer, kinder, gorgeous. Most importantly, those beautiful eyes of his weren't dull as they were over the static of Skype; they were gentle galaxies stained with cobalt blue starlight. Divine, utterly, in the simplest of terms. They glistened slightly along the waterline, his pupils injected with droplets of uncomfortable speechlessness. Connor felt his cheeks warming up, the heat confusing him into filling the void with the first thing he thought of. He held out the tray, "Latte?"

Troye didn't take the coffee, nor did he look inclined to say anything even slightly more significant. He except felt all his humanly courage begin its rare marathon through his veins. In this spur, he fixated his intensely blue eyes on Connor's nervously, albeit very tenderly. Avec beaucoup d'amour, because the elegant throat of French sings songs of his emotional standpoint. Connor resisted the instinct to squirm under his gaze, and nearly forgot how to breathe when Troye's teeth lightly prodded his lip, biting nervously. He said his name tensely: "Um, Connor?"

Connor's hands tightened until the cardboard tray crunched in his fists. "Yeah, Troye?"

Troye closed his eyes, swallowing a message to the butterflies in his stomach, telling them to shove it and let him breathe. Suddenly, as if he embodied the man he'd been in his fantasies, he found his fingertips shadowing the small of Connor's back. He let them touch, and immediately felt warmth transfer into his hands. "I think..." He began carefully. He wanted to seem sure and sexy when he said it but, noticing the parting of Connor's lips as his eyes became raw with wondering expectation, he felt his face turn fuchsia. He was not the man from his fantasies; he could not keep cool when he was so close to a boy he only thinks about holding. He could not be flirtatious without being nervous, nor could he face the thought of rejection. Who he was, though, was somebody who looked at Connor and said to himself: this man is not ordinary, this man could not be compressed into somebody one could simply "pick up." Connor would not be free for the taking, as Troye was willing to pay a king's ransom in tenderness, just for a kiss. So he let the words slide from the back of his tongue and into open air. "I think I'm going to kiss you now."

He uttered it so quietly that the words seemed to belong in a bubble around their heads. Connor nearly dropped the coffees, suddenly becoming self-conscious of how fast his face was reddening. Soon he was absolutely scarlet, and Troye smiled anxiously.

"Does that sound okay, Con?"

The angels in Connor's heart screamed Hallelujah, singing a smile onto his face and courage into his tongue. "It sounds amazing, Troye."

So their first kiss happened right there, in the middle of the LAX baggage claim, with no awareness of the mass public. It wasn't the best kiss; too smily, too much in their hands to touch; but, at the same time, it was idyllic. All at once, Connor stopped feeling sick and tired, as his parasite evolved into a scarlet butterfly. Its wings kissed Troye's chains, and they fell away into millions of promises he couldn't wait to make. It was 4:34pm on a Thursday; the first moment. A day of much needed unshackling.

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*waves awkwardly* Hi there! One chapter in, phew. Thank you for reading, and I hope you're finding my little fic enjoyable so far. :) Chapter two should be up soon, so stay tuned.

Sydney :)