Kaelix stares at the photo on his phone again. Freo’s hair is a green mess across the couch cushions, waves sticking to his forehead. He’s laughing, mouth partly hidden behind his hand, pink creeping up his cheek. Freo lets out a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh, swiping blindly at Kaelix’s face, a lazy slap with no force. “Delete that.” “Never,” Kaelix says, smug, shoving his phone back into his pocket.
Or Kaelix's favorite photos of Freodore, and then some.
1 (+1)
The bottle’s nearly gone. Kaelix can see the bottom when he tilts it into his own glass after Freo’s. Just a trace of honey wine in the last pour, enough just to wet the rim of Freo’s glass.
“Don't hog it,” Freo says without looking, his tone lazy. His hair’s half-dried from a shower, already back to its natural waves.
“I poured it, didn’t I?” Kaelix leans in and sets the bottle aside. “Show a little gratitude.”
Freo lifts his glass. “Gratitude.”
They clink. The TV's still on, some sci-fi flick half-muted with subtitles lagging behind the action. Bright colors flash now and then, but neither of them are watching.
There hadn’t been time to drink more than a few polite sips at the venue earlier. Most of the night blurred into clinking glasses in the interest of adhering to the bare minimum of social graces, answering the same five questions, laughing too loud at the same three comments. Small talk cut into pieces, strung between greetings and goodbyes. Kaelix had spent most of it thinking about their couch, their sleepy cats, Freo, and the door finally clicking shut behind them.
The show had gone well. It was his final exhibition of the year, hung with the prints from that last stretch in Europe—long exposures of alpine skies, star trails dragging across snowfields, constellations caught between jagged cliffs. He’d been gone a little over a month, and when he got back, he’d barely even slept before being launched into setup and final prep.
That had been some four weeks ago. The days since then had filled themselves with emails, guest lists, last-minute fixes, interviews about his work, finalizing the accompanying photo book, meals grabbed standing up.
Now it’s finally quiet. Freo’s beside him, finishing the last of his glass.
Freo’s stretched out along the couch, back braced against the armrest, legs draped over Kaelix’s lap. Kaelix has a hand resting absently on his shin, thumb moving in slow circles without thinking. The TV murmurs in the background, low and flickering.
It’s been half a bottle between them by now, split across the last hour of meandering thoughts and circling back on stories they didn’t get to tell when Kaelix first got home. A kind of easy talking that only happens when there’s no need to rush through anything.
Kaelix shifts in his seat, leaning in closer towards his boyfriend. Freo’s warm against him, eyes a little glossy, cheeks flushed faintly from the wine.
Freo turns his head and kisses him, tasting the sweet edge of Kaelix’s mouth.
Kaelix follows, slow and steady. His hand trails up, fingers slipping under the hem of Freo’s shirt, brushing lightly along his side, skin warm beneath his touch.
Freo exhales his version of a yes.
Kaelix kisses him again, this time deeper, hungrier. They’ve done this dance before, many, many times, but something about the offhand way Freo opens up when he’s tipsy always catches Kaelix off guard. Not entirely because he doesn’t expect it, but mostly because it feels like a gift every time. Freo’s hand curls around the back of Kaelix’s neck as he gets into it too, pulling him down just slightly.
Kaelix’s knee brushes lower, as do his fingers, finding the a spot just under his shirt to rest his hands on. He hasn’t had time to cut his nails back to blunt like he usually does, and so they drag across Freo’s skin lightly as he moves. Freo flinches, then blinks at him, a little startled.
“What?” Kaelix says. He does it again, slower this time and with more intent.
Freo huffs a small laugh, barely one, but Kaelix could recognize that sound from a mile away. “Kaelix.”
“You’re ticklish here?” Kaelix asks, already grinning.
“No.”
Kaelix raises his eyebrows.
Freo presses his lips together, visibly trying not give anything away. “That was a one-time thing.”
“Uh-huh.” Kaelix tests the theory again, both his hands this time, a little bit of his fingernails, skimming under the hem of Freo’s shirt, just above the waistband of his shorts. Freo jolts, laughs, tries to twist away.
Kaelix pounces.
“No, Kaelix—stop it—! Bad boy!”
Too late. Kaelix pins him down, straddling Freo’s thighs as he launches a full assault, fingertips dragging along the sensitive skin of his midriff. Freo’s half-laughing, half-gasping now, legs kicking against the cushions.
“Say you’re ticklish,” Kaelix demands playfully.
“Go to hell—!”
“Admit it!”
“Okay—wait—stop, I can’t—!” Freo breathes out in mostly a wheeze in between laughter he’s trying to tamp down.
Kaelix pauses long enough to yank his phone out of his pocket one-handed. Freo’s too breathless to resist, especially with Kaelix’s other hand still teasing at his stomach. He’s still giggling a little, one hand clamped over his mouth, hair a wild halo of sea-foam green against the couch cushions.
He clicks on the big white button, capturing the scene before him.
Kaelix checks the screen only briefly. It might be a little out of focus by his standards, but it’s perfect. Freo mid-laugh and flushed, trying to glare at him and failing completely. He saves it to his favorites.
“You’re the worst,” Freo mumbles, hand still covering his mouth, eyes a little wet at the edges.
Kaelix leans down and kisses his forehead. “You look so cute like this.”
“Shut up.” But there’s no bite and he lets Kaelix flatten the palm of his one hand over his side.
Freo would only let Kaelix touch him like this. In their seven years together, Kaelix thought he had learned every weak point: the back of Freo’s knees, his ear when kissed too softly, the sensitive arches of his feet that Freo guarded like state secrets. But this? This particular spot just above his waist? All new uncharted territory. All for Kaelix. Maybe he’d just gotten more sensitive in new places as time passed, the longer they were together, who knows.
Kaelix stares at the photo on his phone again. Freo’s hair is a green mess across the couch cushions, waves sticking to his forehead. He’s laughing, mouth partly hidden behind his hand, pink creeping up his cheek.
Freo lets out a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh, swiping blindly at Kaelix’s face with a lazy slap with no force. “Delete that.”
“Never,” Kaelix says, smug, shoving his phone back into his pocket.
Freo narrows his eyes. Then, without warning, he breaks free from him, pushing Kaelix down against the couch this time, moving to straddle him in a practiced shift of weight. Kaelix only goes willingly with his body because he likes to let Freo have things like this sometimes.
“What are you—?”
Freo doesn’t answer. He just leans down and brushes his mouth along the side of Kaelix’s neck. He does it again, slower. Lips barely open. His fingers slide up the back of it and rake through the shorter hair there, just light enough to tease, and then he tugs gently, knowing exactly what it’ll do to him.
Kaelix stiffens.
“Freo—” he breathes, both a warning and a plea.
Freo exhales against his skin, a quiet puff of heat, and presses another kiss just beneath his jaw.
The sensation makes Kaelix’s spine tingle and his mouth falls open in a moan without meaning to.
His hands shoot to Freo’s waist, gripping him there like he’s bracing for impact. His fingers dig in, not hard, but they’re firm enough on Freo to hold him in place.
“Oh my god,” Kaelix mutters.
Freo hums, pleased, and keeps going.
Kaelix still hasn’t recovered when Freo moves lower.
His fingers slip under Kaelix’s shirt, nails dragging lightly down his sides. Dainty little scratches with them, and then the pads of his fingers, as he kisses Kaelix’s neck, just shy of driving him insane.
“Wait—wait, wait a sec,” Kaelix chokes, twisting, legs kicking lightly at the throw. “That’s—you can’t do that! That’s illegal!”
Freo grins. “Oh, now we’re talking about rules?”
Kaelix makes a strangled noise, somewhere between laughter and collapse. He tries to roll them but Freo anticipates it and shifts his weight again, knee planted just right to tell him he doesn’t want to be overpowered right now, at least not yet. He knows Kaelix won’t manhandle him if he insists he wants to be on top of him. Kaelix is taller, broader, objectively stronger, but he’ll always let it happen this way. He lets himself get pinned, still sprawled flat against the cushions while Freo hovers above him.
On the bookshelf, one of their cats lifts her head. The other one doesn’t even bother. Maybe one blink and a twitch of tail. But then it’s right back to sleep she goes. These two again, they’re probably thinking. No peace in this house.
Kaelix goes still, catching his breath. Freo’s sitting on top of him now properly, straddling his waist, hair still tousled from earlier, the last of the movie-light from the television flicker across his face in their low-lit living room. He’s flushed, pink-cheeked, but his expression is smug this time. Catlike and triumphant.
“You think you’ve won,” Kaelix says, narrowing his eyes.
“Mm.”
Kaelix grins up at him, loose and easy, shaking his head. He reaches back into his pocket, fingers grazing until he finds his phone again. He tilts it up.
Freo doesn’t move and doesn’t stop him.
Still caught in the moment, he keeps that smile right where it is, trained on Kaelix like he’s the only thing in the room worth paying attention to. And Kaelix, from beneath, hits the shutter.
2
The cabin sits quiet under a thin sheet of snow. Morning isn’t fully here yet, the sky a soft gray stretching over the treetops. Breath comes in clouds. The pine trees don’t move. The picnic bench outside creaks once when Zeal shifts in his seat.
“Remind me why we’re up,” Zeal mutters, his chin tucked deep in a scarf.
“Because Kaelix is like this,” Seible says, blinking through foggy glasses. “You know? He might cry if he misses the sunrise here and we leave without him getting to time lapse it.”
Freo doesn’t say anything. He’s wedged between them, hunched in a heavy coat, knit cap slouched halfway down over his ears. His eyes are half-lidded, body slack from sleep he isn’t finished having. Seible’s pressed in on one side, knees bumping his. Zeal’s broader and quieter on the other. They’re basically holding him upright.
“You okay, Freo?” Zeal asks, not looking.
Freo makes a sound. It might be a hum or his last breath before unconsciousness.
“Okay,” Zeal says. “Just checking.”
The snow crunches under someone’s foot not long after.
Kaelix returns from the tree line, boots coated in frost, cheeks pink from the cold. He lifts his camera with one hand and grins, flipping through the shots from this morning.
“I got ones of the fat little birds,” he says, breathless with triumph. “The white ones that look like dumplings with legs. So cute. You guys have to see them.”
He slows as he reaches the picnic bench outside their rented cabin. He sees the shape of them—his boyfriend, folded between two of their best friends, barely upright, caught in that specific half-aware state between warmth and sleep. Seible’s hat is slipping, Zeal’s mild displeasure looks like it’s frozen on his face. No one’s saying anything or getting up either.
Kaelix smiles, raises his camera again, and clicks the shutter.
In the frame: Freo swaddled between Zeal and Seible like the world’s grumpiest group of marshmallows. Freo’s chin is sunk in his coat collar, head tipped faintly toward Seible’s shoulder. Zeal’s got his arms crossed—the look of a man betrayed by the early morning. Behind them, the sky’s still undecided about what it wants to do with the daylight, soft gray still pressing down on darker trees.
Kaelix glances at the shot, laughing quietly to himself, then puts his camera back in the bag slung around his frame.
“Fat birds later,” he says, starting back across the snow-packed yard, boots crunching with each step. “Sorry guys, let’s head inside.”
Zeal finally regards him, raising an eyebrow. “Oh? Got everything you needed?”
Kaelix thinks back to the latest photo he just snapped, thinks about printing it out and framing it, wondering if his friends would want a copy.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Come on, you three look like you’re seconds from freezing into a group statue,” he adds, waving them up, knowing they’re only all out here because they didn’t want him circling the place too far or alone. “Inside.”
Freo doesn’t move. His head’s tipped forward, eyes closed, knit hat barely clinging to his head. Kaelix stops in front of him and crouches a little.
“Up?” he says softly, offering both arms.
Freo unfolds wordlessly. Kaelix helps him upright, he’s not heavy, just all coat and slack limbs, and then just picks him up outright when Freo leans in without protest, arms looping loosely around his neck.
Kaelix adjusts his hold automatically. “Wow,” he says.
Zeal watches, blinking snowflakes off his lashes. “He’s really that gone?”
“At home, he’d be two hours into the deepest sleep of his life,” Kaelix says, adjusting Freo’s weight. “This is borrowed consciousness.”
“Oof, he deserves an award for being able to sit out here for so long then,” Seible mumbles, already shuffling toward the door, hands in his pockets, shoulders drawn.
The cabin’s porch creaks as they step up. The door’s slightly warped and takes a shoulder to push open which Seible gets done. Inside, it’s warm from a slightly lopsided radiator, it smells faintly of old wood, drying wool, and leftover cocoa. The windows are fogged from the heat, snow pressed against the outside glass, edges frosty. One of the cats (Freo had insisted on bringing them instead of leaving them with any of Kaelix’s siblings) peeks out from behind a chair and promptly retreats.
Kaelix lowers Freo onto the couch, guiding him gently into the cushions. He tugs the heavy blanket from the back and covers him in one practiced motion. Freo’s eyes flutter halfway open.
Kaelix leans in, presses a kiss to his forehead. Then pauses, checks if anyone’s looking. Zeal and Seible have started debating whether the fireplace is real or a very elaborate electric setup. Neither of them pays any attention.
Kaelix kisses Freo again, soft on the mouth. He lingers a second, then pulls back.
“You want the bed?”
Freo blinks, then shakes his head into the couch cushions. “No… ‘ta rico aquí.” His voice is barely there, eyes already slipping back shut.
Kaelix smiles. “Okay. Sleep well, mi amor.”
Freo stirs, a breath caught in his throat. “Huevitos, porfa…”
Kaelix laughs quietly, adjusting the fit of Freo’s knit hat over his head. “You got it, sweetheart.”
He steps toward the kitchen. “I’m making breakfast.”
Seible perks up, unzipping his coat and starting towards the fridge. “You know what? I’m helping.”
“Saint,” Kaelix says without turning.
Zeal drops onto the far end of the couch with a thud, remote already in hand. He thumbs through the fuzzy TV interface. “Might as well put something on.”
Behind them, Freo shifts under the blanket, already asleep again.
3
The reception hums behind him—silverware clinks, someone shout-laughs too loud near the dessert table. Kaelix slips through it without thinking, glass half-full in one hand, the other buried in his pocket like it might ground him. The sky’s just starting to turn lavender, edges of gold peeling away from the courtyard walls, it’s his favorite time of day, but he can’t focus on it. There’s a pleasant weightlessness to everything now, like the nerves burned off and left just this: the music, the warmth, the fact that it’s done.
He keeps looking down at his ring like it might vanish. The same feeling from earlier, right after the vows. He’d cried—predictably, messily, and not quietly either. He heard a couple of sniffles elsewhere in the hall, but knew none of them were Freo’s. Freo stood mostly quiet through all of it, hands steady on his, thumb stroking just once along his palm to calm him. That was the dynamic, wasn’t it?
What really got Kaelix, though, was that it actually happened at all. That it was real.
A year ago, he wasn’t so sure it would be. That stupid conversation—whoever it had been at the one dinner party post- yet another project that had kept him away from home for over a month—something about a seven-year itch, had wormed its way into brain right around the time it occurred to him to start browsing ring catalogs. He’d laughed it off in the moment, but it had unfortunately stuck. And then everything Freo did that month, every silence, every side-comment, every late night with no real talking—Kaelix had read into it too much. Pulled it apart until it barely resembled anything Freo had actually meant. They’d argued more than usual. Slept back-to-back for a week. Freo went to go visit home for a few days. He’d started to wonder if pushing forward might actually break them further.
Then Freo proposed.
And Kaelix, idiot that he was, almost hesitated. Not because he didn’t want to say yes, but because he’d spent so long looking over his shoulder that he forgot to look at him.
So no one can really blame him, trying to reconcile the then and the now.
“Hey.”
He turns. Seible’s standing a few steps off, holding a drink and something small in his other hand. He offers it out without much fanfare, hand stretched out with a smile.
Kaelix takes it. It’s a square polaroid.
The shot isn’t of one from the ceremony proper, and not from the crowd either.
It’s just him and Freo. Caught in the quiet between events, probably on the path between the courtyard and the reception hall. Freo’s in his arms, Kaelix kissing him, soft, close, and Freo is smiling into it. He isn’t beaming or outright laughing, but in it, he’s clearly pleased. That quiet sort of indulgence he only shows when he thinks no one’s watching. Eyes closed, mouth curved slightly like he just got something he really, really wanted but is also trying very hard not to show it.
Kaelix blinks at it. “Oh! You took this?”
Seible scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry.” (Except he really doesn’t sound like he is.) “I caught it on the way in. Didn’t mean to intrude.”
Kaelix keeps looking. “No… no, it’s perfect.”
It was a private moment. But maybe it’s because it’s Seible that he doesn’t really mind. He loves catching Freo like this, too. Loves having proof, every once in a while, that Freo’s not just vaguely satisfied, or even content—but that he’s happy. And the fact that it’s while Kaelix is kissing him? Big bonus.
Seible watches him for a beat, he smiles softly around the rim of his glass. “He uh, actually, told me you two weren’t doing so great last year.”
Kaelix exhales. “Oh, well, yeah. I guess I wasn’t.”
Seible pulls his glass away, a bit taken aback. “Wait, wait. Hold on. I’m starting to think he severely downplayed how bad it was back then…”
“It’s bygones by now,” Kaelix shrugs. “But we were fighting more. I think, we talked about it a couple of times. Or you two might have. I actually thought maybe he was getting tired of me,” he admits, sheepish.
Seible blinks.
“He thought you were getting tired of him.”
Kaelix looks up, right at him. “What?”
Seible nods. “I mean, okay. He didn’t say that out loud. You know how he is. But when we went to look at rings—”
“Oh, you were with him?”
“Yeah. He needed someone to tell him none of them were hideous.” Seible laughs a little at the memory. “He was quiet the whole time, then said something like, ‘If Kaelix doesn’t want this, I won’t push.’”
Kaelix frowns at the photo again. His thumb brushes the edge where the color hasn’t quite finished developing. His mouth parts, breath catching, the pressure behind his eyes starts to sting in an all too-familiar way.
“I—” he tries, voice thinner than he means it to be.
Seible’s hand is already on his shoulder, steady and warm, thumb pressing gently like he’s trying to keep him tethered. His tone softens, just a little. “Hey. Happens to everyone, y’know? A rough patch doesn’t mean the road ends. Just means it’s a real road and it’s just the uh... bumpy part,” he says with a little laugh.
“The bumpy part,” Kaelix echoes, huffing out a short breath, his own small chuckle.
His eyes flick back to the image in his hands. Freo pressed against him, a half-smile still caught on his face, mouth soft where it meets Kaelix’s. The kind of happiness you wouldn’t really be able to portray if you had to pose for it. He can tell, just by the shape of it, that Freo thought no one was looking.
He thinks about what it took to get here, which hadn’t been some sweeping, cinematic fix. It was just another early morning. Maybe a bit rare in that Freo was awake at that hour.
They’d fought again the night before. One of those dead-end arguments that left both of them stretched thin and quiet for the rest of the evening before bed. He’d gone into a restless sleep thinking Freo might be done-done. That maybe they were just too tired of trying.
But the next morning, Kaelix had woke to the sound of the front door creaking behind him unexpectedly as he was getting ready to leave for his morning walk down the short trail behind their house to the clearing where the ridge opened up to the skyline. He liked the stillness there; how the light always came in clear.
Freo followed, his boots crunching over warm-colored leaves, in a coat and that same tired face from the night before. He walked beside Kaelix in silence for a few minutes, huffing softly trying to keep up with longer strides, until Kaelix would realize and slow down and offer his arm to him even though he felt awkward about doing so after last night.
Once they reached the clearing, it’s Freo who had spoken first to say, “I’m sorry for being so stubborn.”
Kaelix had looked at him then, unsure of what was happening.
An evil, traitorous part of his brain had started thinking this was actually the beginning of the end. That Freo was finally going to break it to him right then and there, in the twilight just before dawn.
Then Freo had said, tightening his hold around Kaelix’s arm. “This… might sound a bit insane after last night, but there’s really only one person I can imagine having dumb arguments like this with for the rest of my life.”
And then, softly, perhaps because Kaelix hadn’t fully caught up to the moment yet and wasn’t saying anything, Freo had added, “Whatever it is you’re trying to work out on your own, Kaelix… I’ll wait. Or if you’ll let me, I’ll help. Like I always have. You know I’ll always want to.”
He’d pulled the case from the coat pocket close to his free hand just as the sun crested the ridge, gold cutting the last of the night in half. Incredibly typical of him to time it just right without even really trying. Freo managed to flip the box open with one hand. Kaelix blinked at the two rings nestled inside, the one seated closer to the hinges clearly larger than the other one in front of it.
Kaelix hadn’t spoken for a full thirty seconds. He just stared at the rings. Then at Freo. Then back at the rings.
And then he’d started sniffling. There’s a part where he forgets to say something, anything, right after and Freo nearly starts to backpedal before Kaelix finally manages to pull from the brain lag and assure him that, yes, 100 percent, Kaelix would like to marry Freo.
Standing now in the echo of that memory, in the glow of a very different golden hour, he slips the photo into his jacket pocket.
Across the courtyard, Freo is laughing at something one of their friends had just said, the corners of his eyes creased, that same quiet curve to his mouth.
Kaelix smiles, his chest warm and aching in a good way.
“I really, really love him,” he says, half to himself, with a small sigh.
Seible grins into his glass. “Yeah. We’ve noticed.”
4
The afternoon light spills across the living room floor, soft and angled.
Kaelix has the photo albums spread out over the coffee table in their living room and halfway across the rug, some open, others stacked, one balancing dangerously on the arm of the couch. He’s flipping through a plastic-sleeved page when he stops.
It’s a film photo from university, an older print with an apparent grain that thankfully doesn’t wash out the finer details. He recognizes the background immediately: the art building’s rooftop. Student groups had access to it back then, and they’d used it all the time to hang out, argue, nap, chain-drink coffee and sodas and a questionable variation of energy drinks (Seible) during exam season.
Kaelix’s arms are wrapped around Freo in the picture, his chin hooked over Freo’s shoulder. Freo’s head is turned slightly to the side, mid-eye-roll, but he’s smiling a bit more than usual. Kaelix looks younger, way too confident in a secondhand jacket he used to think was timeless.
They weren’t together then. He remembers that much. He recalls that year specifically too, the way his schedule was split between studio classes and a part-time job. He doesn’t remember the exact reason someone took this photo. Some group thing, probably. Very likely that it was Zeal hovering just off-frame with that film camera he’d lug around with him during his senior year.
Something in their posture in the photo—his arms around Freo, the way Freo’s leaning just enough to not shake him off—makes his chest ache a little.
Footsteps approach.
Freo rounds the corner, two mugs in hand. “Knee-deep in the archives, huh?”
Kaelix holds the photo up. “Look at this. Rooftop days.”
Freo peers over his shoulder and squints. “Ancient.” He sets the mugs carefully behind them on a side table, far from elbows and knees that might knock them over the photos. “Wow. That does take me back.”
He stays there for a second, looking. Then he sits, settles himself on Kaelix’s lap, legs folded, back against his chest as he glances down again.
“I remember this time,” he says. “You were seeing someone then.”
Kaelix winces slightly. “Yeah. I think we’d just started dating like a couple of weeks before.”
Freo flushes. “Mm, I remember…” And then after a slight pause, “I also remember having the biggest crush on you back then.”
Kaelix laughs into his shoulder. “Wait, no way? You did?”
“Yes. And that’s the one time I’ll ever say it. Don’t make me regret it.”
Kaelix kisses the side of his head. “I’ll only tease you about it today, I swear. Please let me have this. Everyone thinks I fell in love with my husband first, but I, in fact, was the one who fell harder.”
“Sure,” Freo says, shaking his head, a touch amused.
“That’s so sweet though,” Kaelix holds him a little tighter, unable to help himself.
Freo huffs. “It wasn’t. It was inconvenient.”
He’s quiet a beat, then adds, “That’s why I had this photo for the longest time, you know. I used to tell myself it was harmless. Just one nice picture with a friend.”
Kaelix’s hand slips under Freo’s hoodie, fingers resting lightly at his waist.
Freo shrugs a little. “But if I’d been more honest with myself back then, I’d maybe admit that it wasn’t… just that.”
Kaelix doesn’t say anything right away. Just holds him, eyes tracing the shape of their younger selves frozen in the print and light grain, caught mid-something. Whatever it was, it clearly mattered, or was about to. Even if they didn’t know it yet.
Kaelix shifts the photo in his fingers, still holding it lightly at the edges, like too much pressure might smudge the moment. Freo's weight on his lap is more than habitual by now, and warm through the thin fabric of his sweatpants and his shirt.
“You want to know something controversial?” Kaelix says.
“Oh?” Freo murmurs, tilting his head just a little.
Kaelix leans forward to rest his chin on Freo’s shoulder. “I probably liked you back then, too.”
“Probably, he says.” Freo repeats flatly.
Kaelix can’t see it, but he’s certain there’s an eye-roll happening.
He smiles against Freo’s shoulder. “Yeah. Thought you were way out of my league for the longest time. Still do sometimes, if I’m being real.”
Freo doesn’t respond right away, but Kaelix can feel the subtle shift in him, the way he leans back just slightly more, letting himself be held.
Kaelix lifts the photo again, turns it toward the light. “Maybe if I’d gotten a copy of this back then, I would’ve second guessed ever agreeing to date anyone else.”
He lets out a low, breathy laugh, one that catches in his chest before it escapes. “Like, wake up, Kaelix! Can you not see how you’re holding onto this man in this picture?”
The photo’s a little overexposed, bleached in that student-camera kind of way. The rooftop behind them is sun-washed and familiar, the sky a pale, cloudless blue stretching out behind the two of them. There’s a folding chair tipped halfway out of the frame, someone’s backpack crumpled nearby. Zeal’s brief film photography phase had paid off, and the auto-focus had worked as intended, capturing what it needed to capture:
Kaelix’s arms looped around Freo’s chest from behind, chin resting comfortably on his shoulder like the spot’s always belonged to him. Freo’s head turned slightly, mouth caught mid-smile after someone (probably) Kaelix had said something a bit questionable, possibly outlandish.
There’s an ease in the way they’re pressed together, like neither of them had been thinking about it much, and as though that was just how they fit, something unshakably intimate despite the yawning difference in the time of their lives the photo had been taken in. Both leaning into each other just enough.
Maybe in another time, one second later, they might’ve turned to each other more fully, maybe even kissed. But they don’t and they hadn’t, and the moment had stayed suspended like that—in a breath between shared impulse and restraint.
That’s probably why no one else kept a copy and why Zeal immediately relinquished the developed photo and handed it off to Freo without a word for him to keep.
Freo snorts. “You’re lucky I didn’t run for the hills.”
“Mm. I’d’ve chased you.”
“You did, eventually.”
Kaelix presses a kiss to the top of Freo’s head. “Yeah. Took me long enough.”
5
(Photos and then some.)
Freo lies back against the pile of pillows, arms loose at his sides, one hand absently clutching the edge of a blanket. His knees are drawn up, legs parted to make space for Kaelix between them. Kaelix sits upright, knees pressed into the mattress, hips moving slow and deep. The stretch of Freo’s body beneath him is lit by the soft lamp on the nightstand. His head turns toward the side, one cheek against a cushion, mouth open around a breath.
Outside, the rain taps steady against the window, a gentle, constant rhythm drumming along the glass. The sky beyond is muted charcoal, clouds thick and low, pressed close like they’re settling in for the night. The air feels sealed in, quiet and close, just the hush of rain, the faint creak of the bed, and the low hum of their breathing between them.
Kaelix watches Freo come apart like this, face slack, chest rising and falling in small jerks; his hands twitch with the need to frame it. He doesn’t stop moving as he paws for his camera on the beside table.
It’s already on. He brings it to his eye for a second, then lowers it. No need to compose too carefully. He knows how he wants it: Freo’s stomach shifting with each push, his flushed chest, his soft, swollen nipples. The shadows over his collarbones. That mouth parted around a quiet moan.
He takes a few shots.
Click: Freo’s eyes screwed shut.
Click-click: Freo, hearing the unmistakable sound of the shutter, eyes snapping open.
Click-click-click: Turning towards Kaelix, and looking up at him from below, but not saying anything.
Kaelix licks his lips in concentration, steadies his stance, puts his all in holding up his camera with one hand, and keeping his other one on Freo’s waist. Then, he starts recording.
Freo doesn't say anything. He just blinks slowly up at him, eyes damp, before shutting them, perhaps zeroing in on the drag of Kaelix’s cock in and out of him. Kaelix adjusts the angle, keeping the rhythm with his hips, slower now, drawn out. Freo lets out a breathy sound, somewhere between a whimper and a sigh, but doesn’t tell Kaelix to stop whatever he’s doing.
“Freo,” Kaelix says. “Baby, look at me.”
It takes another moment, but then Freo turns his face back properly toward the lens. His pretty sunset eyes catch the light. His hair clings to his temples. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t flinch, just looks straight into it as Kaelix ruts into him.
“Fuck, you’re perfect like this,” he mutters. “You trust me that much, huh?”
Freo’s only answer is a small, choked moan, hand lifting to his mouth involuntarily. Kaelix lets him, captures that too.
He leans back just enough to tilt the lens downward to get more into the frame. He shifts slightly to catch the way his cock pushes into Freo, the give of his body around it, the slow spread and glide into him. His breath hitches as he watches it play out through the screen. Freo’s body reacts, tightening under him.
His free hand moves down, dragging slowly along Freo’s stomach before wrapping around his cock. Freo jerks under him when he teases the head with his thumb, back curling. A sharp gasp leaves him, one arm flinging up to grab at the pillow under his head.
“Kaelix—” It's caught between a moan and something warning, though there's no resistance in him. His hips twitch forward into Kaelix’s grip.
“I know,” Kaelix says, barely audible. “You feel that? God, baby, you’re so—” He doesn’t finish. He groans instead, deep and broken. His eyes stay locked on the screen. The lens catches everything: Freo’s flushed chest, the slick movement between them, the way Freo’s body tightens and twitches under the rhythm.
Freo moans louder, head tilting back into the pillow. His thighs start to shake. Kaelix works him slowly, stroking in time with his own thrusts. His grip shifts around Freo’s cock, not too tight, but just enough to draw him closer and closer to where he needs to be. All of it’s still recording.
“You look so good like this,” Kaelix says, breath hitching. “So fucking good, baby. Let me keep going. Just like this, alright?”
Freo nods, eyes shut. “Feels good,” he says, almost slurred. “Keep going too… don’t stop.”
Kaelix doesn’t. He adjusts the camera again, raises it just slightly to catch the stretch of Freo’s body. His flushed soft skin, his open mouth, the sheen of sweat. Freo shifts, spreading his legs a little wider before curling them up and locking around Kaelix’s waist, grounding them both.
Freo’s hand fumbles for Kaelix’s, slender fingers wrapping around the one still stroking his cock, tugging it upward instead, toward his face. Kaelix doesn’t ask; doesn’t have to be told twice. He moves with him, dragging his hand up, still sticky with Freo’s pre-cum.
Freo opens his mouth without saying anything.
Kaelix breathes out hard, rubs his fingers against Freo’s lips. The shine smears across them, messy and warm. Freo parts his mouth wider and takes the two fingers in slowly, his eyes fluttering shut as he sucks them down.
Kaelix groans, body shaking, coming out half-strangled. He sees it twice. Once live, right in front of him, and again on the camera's screen. Freo’s flushed lips stretched around his fingers, the slow pull of his mouth, the drag of his tongue sometimes between Kaelix's two fingers, his lashes dark against his cheeks.
“Fuck,” Kaelix mutters, his thumb fumbling at the screen, feeling lightheaded. He taps to pause the recording.
He holds still, eyes locked to the frozen frame. Freo’s face mid-movement, lips wet and parted, his body soft and spread beneath him. It’s not framed perfectly, but it doesn’t matter. He knows what he’s keeping.
One click. Kaelix gets the still.
He exhales, sets the camera back to record again. His hands move, instinct working ahead of thought now.
He almost never shoots people, not trusting his eye for it, not the same way he does when he’s on the road chasing light over fields or rock. But like this, theory flows through him easy, because Freo makes it that way and gives him everything.
Kaelix’s fingers slip free from his mouth. Freo moans around them before they go, dragging against his lips.
Kaelix holds the camera steady in both hands this time, although it’s with plenty of effort.
“Can you move for me?” Kaelix asks, voice already shy of wrecked from being allowed to have this, pitched too warm. “C’mon, Freo. Show me.”
Freo’s eyes flutter open again. He doesn’t speak right away. His breath stutters as Kaelix presses into him deeper, holding there, letting him feel the weight of it. Then, slowly, Freo rolls his hips up, body tightening around him. The motion drags a moan from his throat, sharp and involuntary.
Kaelix’s mouth parts. He exhales hard as he tries to steady the camera in his hands. It’s angled to catch as much of everything in front of him as he can. Freo’s flushed body spread beneath him, the slick roll of his hips, the strain in his stomach, Kaelix’s cock deep inside him when the angle will permit it. Freo’s legs stay tight around his waist, ankles crossed behind him, holding him in.
Kaelix adjusts his grip on the camera, careful not to shake it, the recording's still going. His breathing is uneven as he watches Freo move.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “That's right, baby. Just like that.”
He shifts slightly, enough to make room for Freo to keep moving as he likes. He lets one of his hands skim down Freo’s thigh, before gripping him lightly behind his knee as he adjusts the position for them both.
“Fuck yourself on my cock,” Kaelix says, a little breathless, the words sliding out low and coaxing. “Let me see you do it, how good you take it every time.”
Freo swallows. His hand stays gripped on one of the pillows by his head, knuckles pale from the tension. The other slides down, shakily, settling on his own stomach. His fingertips press there, just beneath his ribs, as he breathes out slow.
“You’re here, Kaelix,” he whispers, voice barely audible, eyes not quite open. “I feel you here.”
Kaelix lets out a sound that’s almost a groan, almost a gasp. He doesn’t move. The camera is miraculously still steady in his hands, tilted to catch as much as it can, this time Freo’s hand splayed across his stomach, the twitch in his thighs, the stretch of his body beneath him.
Freo’s hips lift again, slower this time, grinding himself down onto Kaelix’s cock. The sound he makes is soft but unrestrained, the kind of sound that comes from deep in his throat and isn’t shaped for words. He watches the strain in Freo’s stomach, the slight tremble in his thighs. He lets Freo take the pace and lets him do exactly what was asked.
He lifts again. Presses down. Moans. His body shakes.
Kaelix’s jaw tightens. His hands are steady, but his breath isn't. “That’s it. Just like that. You’re so fucking good.”
Freo tilts his head back into the pillow, lips parted and damp. Each roll of his hips gets more confident, more desperate. His breathing goes heavy, cheeks red, chest flushed and rising fast.
Kaelix shifts the camera, dragging the view lower, catching the line of Freo’s body, the arch of his back, the flex and give as he grinds down again and again and again.
“You don’t even know what you look like right now,” Kaelix mutters, voice shaking. “You’re perfect.”
Freo’s hips jerk at that. His hand slips from his stomach, reaching blindly toward the sheets before catching hold of the pillow again, anchoring himself.
“Do you like it, Freo?” Kaelix asks, breath catching on the question. “Tell me. Does it feel good?”
Freo nods, but Kaelix presses.
“Say it. Want to hear you say it.”
“Feels good,” Freo manages, his voice rough now, cut up between breaths. “You make me feel so good, Kaelix.”
“You want more?”
“Yeah…”
Kaelix’s camera catches the way Freo’s mouth forms the word, lips pink and kiss-bitten, eyes blinking slow.
“You want me to keep watching?” Kaelix asks, a little softer.
Freo pauses mid-roll, and his hand, trembling, still a little unsure, reaches toward the camera instead, fingers grazing Kaelix’s wrist.
“…Can I?”
Kaelix looks down at him. “You want to hold it?”
Freo nods.
There’s a beat where they just breathe at each other. Then Kaelix leans in and presses a kiss to Freo’s temple, slow and warm.
“Yeah,” he says, handing it over carefully. “Of course. Here, you go, baby.”
Freo smiles, small. His hands are a bit unsteady, but he manages to cradle the camera in them and to keep his arms up to point it back up towards Kaelix. The lens catches Kaelix now too, over him, flushed and shining with sweat, still buried deep.
“Okay,” Kaelix murmurs, smiling gently with a slight tilt of his head, “Your turn.”
Kaelix gives it to him in kind.
He braces his hands on either side of Freo’s hips, still inside, and starts moving again, slow at first, then deeper, sharper, a rhythm that pulls breath from Freo’s throat. Freo tries to keep the camera steady, arms raised, focus trembling.
Kaelix knows exactly what he looks like on that screen. How his body moves when he’s focused, hair damp at the edges, head bent, how the sweat slides down the line of his throat, eyes fixed only on Freo. If Freo can keep the lens steady, it’s all there.
He leans in more, driving into him just right and just hard enough. “That feel good?” he asks.
Every push gets a reaction. Freo gasps, then moans. Then says something that barely counts as words.
“Just like that—fuck, Kaelix—yeah—”
His fingers twitch around the camera, barely holding it.
Kaelix leans in, hips grinding, cock dragging slow and steady, as he watches Freo try to keep it framed. “Keep it on me, baby,” he breathes. “You’re doing so good.”
Freo laughs, choked and a little bit breathless, and tries.
“Right there, Kaelix,” Freo says, his grip tightening around the camera, voice in part a strangled moan. “More please, don’t stop—”
Freo’s arms shake a little with strain. He tries to brace the camera against his chest, still filming, but it wobbles hard.
Even in through the haze of his own pleasure, Kaelix notices. He slows, one hand moving gently to touch Freo’s wrist.
“Hey.” His voice softens. “Give it to me.”
Freo doesn’t argue. He lets Kaelix take it. Kaelix hits the shutter button to turn off the recording, thumb brushing over the edge of the screen before he leans over to his side a little and sets it on the nightstand, angled out of the way.
He comes back to him not long after, stays there for a second, looking down at Freo, who’s still flushed and panting. The image of Freo falling apart under him, eyes glassy, voice wrecked, would’ve made a beautiful end to the footage.
But Kaelix doesn’t push for it. He’s got enough and he’s already burning with it.
He moves in again, easing Freo’s legs back around his waist. He strokes his side once, warm and slow. Freo relaxes into the motion. Kaelix guides himself back in, gentle first, watching for the shift in Freo’s face.
Freo sighs when he’s filled properly again, completely. Kaelix holds still for a moment, letting them breathe together. Then he starts moving in earnest.
He loves Freo the most like this. When everything else between them drops away. When it’s just Freo beneath him, clinging to the pillow with one hand, gasping with each roll of his hips, the sound of their bodies moving together filling the room.
Freo reaches up, slow at first, fingers dragging over Kaelix’s neck like he’s still catching his breath. Then he wraps his arms around him fully, pulling him down until their mouths meet. Kaelix goes easily. The kiss is open, uncoordinated, slick with spit and heat. Kaelix sinks into it with a soft noise, groaning when Freo’s fingers tighten at the nape of his neck. Freo mouths at him like he needs it, like there’s nothing else left in him but this.
Kaelix sinks into it, groaning low in his chest, their lips dragging together again and again. He doesn’t stop moving inside him. Freo moans against his mouth, and Kaelix swallows it down, hips still pushing in, still taking everything Freo keeps giving.
There’s a moment, somewhere between one kiss and the next, where Kaelix realizes that he’s shaking a little too. Not from effort, just from the closeness. From how tightly Freo clings to him and from how much he wants to hold him too.
This is what he loves most. Not the camera, not the image it’s meant to capture. Not even the sound Freo makes when he comes apart, though that gets him too, always. But this. Freo pressed into him like they’re made to fit. Their bodies sticky and trembling, still moving, always reaching for each other.
They kiss through it. Freo’s fingers fist in the hair at the back of his neck, tugging him closer. Kaelix presses their foreheads together, mouths still brushing. Freo’s legs are tight around his waist, locking him in, and Kaelix doesn’t want to be anywhere else.
He fucks into him one more time, deep, and that’s all it takes. Freo gasps, loud and near-wrecked, his whole body seizing up as he comes. Kaelix feels it hit, hot between them, and chokes on his own groan, buried in as deep as he can get. He follows right after, hips stuttering, warmth spilling out of him and into Freo as his vision goes white for a second.
But still, he doesn’t pull away.
Freo’s arms stay around him, locked tight. Their chests pressed together, sticky and shaking with each breath. Kaelix noses along Freo’s temple and kisses him again, softer this time, with less heat, and not at all harried.
They don’t speak.
Kaelix stays right there, still inside him, still kissed into him, muttering softly into his skin, his hand stroking lightly along Freo’s side. When they’re like this, lost in it, in the quiet and the heat and the closeness, he doesn’t want anything else. He wouldn’t trade this for any still, any perfect shot. Not the golden haze that breaks over the Dolomites at sunrise, when the fog rolls low across the grass like breath. Not the mirrored stillness of the salt flats where the sky swallows the earth in reflection. Not even the time he caught a storm forming over the Icelandic coast—clouds like bruises, sea thrashing below, light slicing through like it had been waiting just for him.
He has everything he wants right here.
6
Today is late morning, quiet.
The rain hasn’t let up since yesterday, just a soft, steady mist now, low and patient. It drapes over the outside like gauze, tucks between tree branches, pools gently at the corners of windows. Kaelix doesn’t usually like this weather. It sticks to him, makes everything cold and a little gloomy. But he knows Freo does, appreciative of the steady patter of it, making things feel more grounded, slower.
Kaelix gets it, a little more each year.
He’s just finished doing the dishes from a breakfast Freo had been begrudingly awake for, still humming quietly to himself. Not a tune, really. Just something light and idle that came out of his chest. The plates were warm from the water, their glasses cleaned and drying by the sink. He wipes his hands off on the kitchen towel, then turns, already halfway to stepping out to ambush his husband in the living room.
He’s still buzzing from last night, sore in the best ways, maybe even a little over-eager. He knows Freo’s probably tired. Kaelix is always the one who forgets to pace himself.
But then he stops just at the threshold, frozen mid-step.
Freo is curled in the bay window.
Blanket tucked over his legs. One of their cats is pillowed on his lap, purring low, paws stretched in sleep. The other one, curled at his side, warm and faintly twitching in her dreams. Freo has a hand around his coffee cup, and the other resting on the back of the cat on his lap. His wedding band catches what little gray light comes through the rain-streaked glass, and stark against white fur.
The cat lifts its head when Freo’s hand stills. A moment later, she bats at him. It’s not hard, but it’s with enough sass to flash a little claw.
Freo murmurs, eyes still on the rain. “Ah, Gatita, no,” soft and almost amused.
Kaelix doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move just yet.
The light from the window is diffuse, cool-toned, but it casts Freo in warmth anyway. The kind of warmth Kaelix always ends up chasing with a lens; one that's soft, honest, unposed. He’s spent years running toward moments like that in other people’s landscapes, framing light against water, rock, open sky. But nothing ever holds him still like this. Nothing roots him in the way this does. The stillness in their house isn’t ever empty silence. It’s the creak of floorboards that only Freo’s soft steps make. It’s two mugs drying beside the sink, the soft scrape of a chair pushed in by careful hands. It’s cats who know which lap belongs to them. It’s the way Freo looks when he thinks no one’s watching.
Kaelix used to think he’d build his home wherever the light looked best.
Now he knows—he already has. It’s here, wrapped up in their morning quiet and the curve of Freo’s spine in their window seat. In the sound of his voice saying no, gently, to a cat who always tests her luck. In the fact that he still wears his ring even on slow days. Freo has always been the place he comes back to. The place that keeps him still; in the person whose eyes are the color of his favorite sky.
Kaelix smiles, soft and automatic.
Then he quietly turns, steps back, and reaches for his camera sitting on the kitchen counter this time.
He lifts it, adjusts nothing, and takes the shot.