Peter hadn’t plannend on indulging. If he did every time he wanted to touch Johnny, he would never leave. But in sleep, Johnny’s already gorgeous features seemed to become even more beautiful. The sharp contours and defined edges of his face became soft and round and he looked even younger than he did when he was awake and vibrating with that never-ending energy that seemed to push him to burn brighter every day. Or maybe that was just Peter’s screwed-up, lovesick perspective.
But one thing was objective and that was that Johnny was drop-dead gorgeous even in his worst of stated. And now, with this new found softness and calm serenity of sleep, he looked downright innocent, angelic. Peter just couldn’t resist.
His fingertips danced over Johnny’s cheekbone as light as a feather and traced the seam of his lips. When Johnny’s eyes opened, Peter almost had a heart attack.
There were not fluttering eyelids, no slow descent into wakefulness. One sharp upwards swing and Peter’s brown eyes locked with ocean blue. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut and for one moment, time seemed to stand still. Peter’s breath was caught in his throat and he was pretty sure his heart had stopped beating only to pick up the pace when it started again a few second later. A thousand different scenarios, a thousand ways to play this off raced through his mind before Johnny gave him an out. His eyes closed again and his face went back to sleepy peacefulness.
Hadn’t Peter known him as well as he did, he wouldn’t have noticed the underlying tension in the slack lines of Johnny’s face, the barely hidden resignation.
This was Peter’s chance to go. Jump out of the window and act as if the incriminating moments he spent just studying Johnny’s face had never happened. His chance to turn his back and lock his feelings safely back deep inside where they belonged.
His chance to take a jump into the deep end and risk the longest-lasting, deepest friendship he ever had for a relationship that could be the best or the worst thing that ever happened to him. His chance to finally move this up from friends with benefits to something more, something brighter. Something utterly terrifying for someone with as many failed relationships under his belt as Peter.
He wanted to stay. He wanted to crawl back into bed and draw Johnny into his arms. Keep him safe from everything and everyone, the world and Peter himself. He wanted to lean down and press his lips to the non-existent crease between accurately plucked blond eyebrows, to the bow of a sharp nose, to high, defined cheekbones.
The window clicked shut behind him.