HS -- Not-Knowing
Title: Not-Knowing
Fandom: Honeydew Syndrome
Pairing: Erik/Samuel
Rating: G
Word Count: 635
Warnings: fluff!
Summary: To be quite honest, Erik wasn't sure what it was about Samuel.
Author's Note: All credit to jenwryn for introducing me to HoneySyn in the first place, and all credit to eltea for the beta and for getting me to thinking about the boys. Originally here.
NOT-KNOWING
To be quite honest, Erik wasn’t sure what it was about Samuel.
Erik liked figuring things out and always had. He suspected that that-the systematic application of logic to achieve a reasonable and comprehensive result-was why parsing Odette’s bizarre permutations of human speech proved so enjoyable. That was probably also why he did crossword puzzles, word jumbles, and those damned Sudokus over breakfast, alternating spoon and pencil in his right hand-because turning nonsense into sense was somehow desperately vindicating. It gave the world a meaning and a direction.
But Samuel… Samuel he couldn’t figure out. It was frustrating like nothing he’d ever encountered-but strangely exciting, too. It tickled his stomach lining, made him tingle with a stymied anticipation that was unfair and unsettling and every bit as satisfying as certainty but in a drastically different way.
He particularly liked watching Samuel sleep. There were ample opportunities to do so-and he couldn’t figure out why that was, either; was the kid an insomniac, or a narcoleptic? Erik had determined, however, that couches, beds, and desks were, in about that order, the most dangerous. He couldn’t be sure whether they turned into pillows to seduce Samuel to sleep when he arrived, or whether it was Samuel’s presence that transformed them.
There was that teetering not-knowing again. Erik could feel the wind on his face, could hear it howling past the precipice of ignorance. He hated this miserable place more than any other in the world (or any other in the ether of imagination, as it were), but… there was something about Samuel’s eyelashes, drawn in by the gravity of his cheekbones, that quieted the tempest and laid gently curious fingers over the contours of Erik’s heart. Probing. Encouraging. Reassuring, perhaps.
Samuel snuffled softly, and the book he had been ‘reading’ slipped all the way free from his fingers at last, tumbling to the floor binding-first and bouncing once.
Erik brushed silky hair off of a sleep-smoothed forehead.
“Rise and shine, Bright Eyes,” he said.
The bright eyes in question were gloriously uncovered as Samuel’s heavy eyelids rose again.
“What?” their owner managed to slur.
“Where’s the spinning wheel?” Erik inquired, grinning.
“Everywhere,” Samuel mumbled calmly. “The world is rife with spinning wheels, puncturing my fingers no matter where I go. There is a perpetual threat of spinning wheel-related incidents on this Earth.”
Erik raised an eyebrow. “The world is a dangerous place.”
Samuel nestled his face deeper into his folded arms. “All the more reason to sleep through it.”
Erik feigned alarm. “Surely there are some things you’d regret sleeping through.”
Samuel smiled his oddly innocent mischievous smile-another paradox, that. Another intricate weave that Erik couldn’t unravel, the component parts a mystery.
Naturally enough, Erik pondered that lightly taunting twist of the lips just a moment, and then he covered them with his own.
Erik was a meticulous kisser, assertive and systematic. He doubted this would come as a surprise to anyone. Samuel’s kiss, about equally predictably, was slightly clumsy and more than a little somnolent-but somehow never lazy, or reluctant, or unappreciative. There was a half-wakeful earnestness to it, a quiet joy, perhaps, that tasted sweeter than anything Erik could imagine.
He usually wasn’t much for confections, but the odd, inimitable combination and collision of their two worlds was enticing and addicting in a way that he couldn’t fully explain.
There it was again-not-knowing.
Erik hadn’t understood the impact of the phrase “blissful ignorance” until he’d met Samuel. But Samuel, of course, encapsulated that and some inestimable quantity more.
Erik drew back, pushed a swathe of smooth hair out of the way, and grinned. “Would you’ve regretted sleeping through that?” he inquired.
The guileless amusement danced in Samuel’s half-lidded eyes again. “I’d be dreaming it anyway,” he answered.
Fandom: Honeydew Syndrome
Pairing: Erik/Samuel
Rating: G
Word Count: 635
Warnings: fluff!
Summary: To be quite honest, Erik wasn't sure what it was about Samuel.
Author's Note: All credit to jenwryn for introducing me to HoneySyn in the first place, and all credit to eltea for the beta and for getting me to thinking about the boys. Originally here.
NOT-KNOWING
To be quite honest, Erik wasn’t sure what it was about Samuel.
Erik liked figuring things out and always had. He suspected that that-the systematic application of logic to achieve a reasonable and comprehensive result-was why parsing Odette’s bizarre permutations of human speech proved so enjoyable. That was probably also why he did crossword puzzles, word jumbles, and those damned Sudokus over breakfast, alternating spoon and pencil in his right hand-because turning nonsense into sense was somehow desperately vindicating. It gave the world a meaning and a direction.
But Samuel… Samuel he couldn’t figure out. It was frustrating like nothing he’d ever encountered-but strangely exciting, too. It tickled his stomach lining, made him tingle with a stymied anticipation that was unfair and unsettling and every bit as satisfying as certainty but in a drastically different way.
He particularly liked watching Samuel sleep. There were ample opportunities to do so-and he couldn’t figure out why that was, either; was the kid an insomniac, or a narcoleptic? Erik had determined, however, that couches, beds, and desks were, in about that order, the most dangerous. He couldn’t be sure whether they turned into pillows to seduce Samuel to sleep when he arrived, or whether it was Samuel’s presence that transformed them.
There was that teetering not-knowing again. Erik could feel the wind on his face, could hear it howling past the precipice of ignorance. He hated this miserable place more than any other in the world (or any other in the ether of imagination, as it were), but… there was something about Samuel’s eyelashes, drawn in by the gravity of his cheekbones, that quieted the tempest and laid gently curious fingers over the contours of Erik’s heart. Probing. Encouraging. Reassuring, perhaps.
Samuel snuffled softly, and the book he had been ‘reading’ slipped all the way free from his fingers at last, tumbling to the floor binding-first and bouncing once.
Erik brushed silky hair off of a sleep-smoothed forehead.
“Rise and shine, Bright Eyes,” he said.
The bright eyes in question were gloriously uncovered as Samuel’s heavy eyelids rose again.
“What?” their owner managed to slur.
“Where’s the spinning wheel?” Erik inquired, grinning.
“Everywhere,” Samuel mumbled calmly. “The world is rife with spinning wheels, puncturing my fingers no matter where I go. There is a perpetual threat of spinning wheel-related incidents on this Earth.”
Erik raised an eyebrow. “The world is a dangerous place.”
Samuel nestled his face deeper into his folded arms. “All the more reason to sleep through it.”
Erik feigned alarm. “Surely there are some things you’d regret sleeping through.”
Samuel smiled his oddly innocent mischievous smile-another paradox, that. Another intricate weave that Erik couldn’t unravel, the component parts a mystery.
Naturally enough, Erik pondered that lightly taunting twist of the lips just a moment, and then he covered them with his own.
Erik was a meticulous kisser, assertive and systematic. He doubted this would come as a surprise to anyone. Samuel’s kiss, about equally predictably, was slightly clumsy and more than a little somnolent-but somehow never lazy, or reluctant, or unappreciative. There was a half-wakeful earnestness to it, a quiet joy, perhaps, that tasted sweeter than anything Erik could imagine.
He usually wasn’t much for confections, but the odd, inimitable combination and collision of their two worlds was enticing and addicting in a way that he couldn’t fully explain.
There it was again-not-knowing.
Erik hadn’t understood the impact of the phrase “blissful ignorance” until he’d met Samuel. But Samuel, of course, encapsulated that and some inestimable quantity more.
Erik drew back, pushed a swathe of smooth hair out of the way, and grinned. “Would you’ve regretted sleeping through that?” he inquired.
The guileless amusement danced in Samuel’s half-lidded eyes again. “I’d be dreaming it anyway,” he answered.