Ashe groaned, squirming under the heavy covers that trapped him. It didn’t give him any release; concentrated around his waist, pressed against his side, they moved with him. His groan becoming a loud, wordless complaint, he flung an arm out- and heard a grunt as he hit something soft and fleshy.
“Ouch.” That familiar voice was throaty and quiet.
Ashe, biting down on his lip and praying he was still asleep, slowly turned his head. He found a sleepy smile and a half-closed pair of bemused green eyes. A startled squeak flew out of his mouth, and he scrambled backwards. He was saved from falling off the bed by Cormac’s arm tightening around his waist, pulling him close, trapping him.
“Leggo!” Ashe pleaded, an echo of the night before that made Cormac laugh. Rougher from just waking, the sound made Ashe shiver, closing his eyes against the onslaught.
Cormac’s smile widened; his little silverette wasn’t as immovable as he had thought. “What are you going to do if I don’t let you go?” he asked, nuzzling his face against the crook of Ashe’s neck.
An involuntary sound came out of Ashe’s mouth, his head automatically tipping back. Without meaning to, without even knowing, Cormac had hit Ashe’s weakest spot- the sensitive skin made his neck a pause button, guaranteed to muddle his brain and freeze him in place. Ashe felt Cormac’s lips move against his neck, even that little shift making him bite his lip against a moan. “W-what are you doing?” he stammered, his fingers tangling in the thin sheets.
“Enjoying myself,” Cormac replied simply, his fingers skimming up Ashe’s back.
His bare back. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, Ashe realized. Moving his legs carefully, cautiously, he realized he wasn’t wearing anything at all. That horrified him, pulling him out of the stupor; that time he fell over the side of the bed, the blankets held tight to his bare chest. Eyes wide, chest heaving, he looked like a trapped animal.
Cormac blinked the rest of the sleep out of his eyes, out of his brain. Sitting up, he frowned his concern at his silverette. “What’s wrong, Ashe?” he asked, propping himself up with one arm. Since the covers had been torn off the bed in Ashe’s fall, the silverette could see the older man wore nothing but a pair of boxers, and his fear only grew.
“W-w-we d-d-d-didn’t…” he couldn’t get the words past his mouth, even though he was ranting inside of his head, frantic words piling on top of each other. He couldn’t have, they couldn’t have… his face turned red, worse than Cormac had ever seen it.
It took Cormac a second of honest confusion before he realized what Ashe was talking about. “Oh,” he said blankly, looking between the terrified silverette on the floor and his nearly naked form. Then he started to laugh, louder and clearer than before, his head dropping to the bed.
“Don’t laugh at me!” Ashe snapped, clutching the covers tighter to his chest, glaring at the redhead who found his panic so amusing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Cormac gasped, waving his hand in the air as if to brush away the offense.
“I said don’t laugh!”
Ashe was standing before he realized he’d let go of the covers- and he only realized that because of how Cormac looked at him, like he could devour his silverette with his eyes. And worse, Ashe felt himself responding to that hungry gaze, a response that couldn’t be hidden when his body was laid bare to Cormac’s eyes.
“I’m not laughing,” Cormac replied softly. He sat up, slowly, moving like he would if Ashe really were the fox he’d dressed as for Halloween. A scared animal that could be startled away by any sudden movements. Slowly, painfully slowly, he got to his feet and moved across the room until he could put his hands on Ashe’s shoulders, feel the warmth of skin under his fingers.
Ashe looked up at him, icy blue eyes wide and hazed with the leftovers of the night’s drinking; when he came to his senses, and the hangover settled in, he would be miserable. But for the moment, as one of Cormac’s hands slid up his neck to cup his chin, he didn’t care. Not as Cormac led him gently in tipping his face up. As his eyes drifted closed. And he definitely didn’t care, didn’t have any clear thoughts to spare for caring, when Cormac’s mouth descended upon his.
It wasn’t sweet or soft, but it wasn’t the hungry, demanding kiss Ashe would have expected from the seductive teacher. Cormac’s thumb grazed along his jaw, coaxing him into tipping his head to the side. The kiss deepened, and Cormac made a happy humming sound that thrilled through Ashe. It was slightly awkward, like every first kiss was, but they both knew how to make it better; Ashe moved, closer, and the shift made him all too aware of exactly how much that kiss was affecting both of them.
Ashe jerked back, a hand flying up to cover his mouth, his eyes wider than ever over the press of his fingers. He scrambled backwards, wobbling as he almost fell over the blankets on the floor. Cormac reached a hand out to steady his silverette, but it was batted away.
Ashe, who’d been too busy panicking and then losing his mind to pay any real attention to himself, waved his hand in the air in Cormac’s direction. Cormac backed off, amused enough to let it be. It gave Ashe a chance to catch his breath- but worse, it gave his hangover the moment in needed to crush him under its weight.
A groan pushed out of Ashe’s mouth, and his hand left his mouth so he could clutch at his head with both of them. Bending over, he groaned at the floor like that was going to help.
“And this is why you don’t get roaring drunk when you don’t have a way home,” Cormac said, his words full of smug amusement.
“Shut up,” Ashe groaned, his fingers twining in his silk soft hair, hoping the pressure would give him some relief from the pain in his head.
Cormac laughed, the sound no longer pleasant; it drilled into Ashe’s head like a jackhammer, pounding against the ache. “If you hadn’t been jumping around since the minute you got up, it wouldn’t have hit you like that,” he replied, shaking his head. “Let me get you some Tylenol.”
“No. Fuck off,” Ashe snarled.
Cormac laughed again, his head shaking, and watched the silverette fumble to find and put on the clothes Cormac had neatly folded in the chair in the corner. He did it all while trying to keep his hands pressed to his head, swearing every time he realized it was impossible. In the end, he managed to get dressed- though he missed a few buttons- and stumbled out the door of Cormac’s bedroom.
He didn’t expect the apartment to be so neat; completely tidy, and completely unlike the messy rooms he inhabited. Snorting at another thing he could hate about Cormac in that moment, Ashe paused for the moment it took to find the spotless kitchen. Luckily for him, Cormac apparently enjoyed coffee as much as he did. Unlike the silverette, however, Cormac had sprung for the fancy coffeemaker, the shiny Keurig Ashe always jealously looked at in the stores, instead of sticking to the basic drip coffeemaker Ashe worshipped every morning.
It took Ashe a few minutes of banging cabinets open and closed to find the little cups he could slot into the machine, and a minute after that to find the mugs he’d forgotten the location of in the five seconds since he first found them. The machine whirred quietly, and he breathed a sigh of relief as it started and the scent of coffee filled the kitchen.
“Mm, I love that smell.”
Ashe stiffened at the sound of Cormac’s voice, and almost jumped out of his skin when Cormac’s arms wrapped around his waist. He squirmed at first, but it became clear Cormac wasn’t letting go when the redhead’s chin settled atop his head. Fingers laced over Ashe’s stomach, Cormac sighed happily, watching the coffee fill Ashe’s cup.
“Let me go,” Ashe said frostily.
“No,” Cormac replied instantly. His arms loosened, but only enough to allow him to drop his head so he could nuzzle at Ashe’s neck again.
The silverette couldn’t press his lips together before the moan slid out from between them, mortifying him. But it was enough to satisfy the redhead- or perhaps it was the coffee that tempted him, because the machine beeped its finish at that moment and he stole the cup Ashe had prepared.
“Hey!” he complained, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the taller man.
“Trust me,” Cormac set the mug down on the counter, taking up Ashe’s hand and dropping a few pills into it. Ashe took them automatically, and his eyes tracked Cormac across the kitchen as the man got him a glass of orange juice, “Coffee is only going to make your hangover worse. Orange juice and Tylenol, and then a very greasy breakfast. That’s what you need.”
“And where am I supposed to find a greasy breakfast?” Ashe asked, raising an eyebrow, not bothering to ask how Cormac knew all of that.
Cormac grinned in response. “I’ll buy it for you.”
“No funny business?” Ashe prompted.
It made him laugh. “No funny business.”
And so, Ashe made his first step towards accepting Cormac as more than just that ridiculous teacher, the bane of his existence- laughing over breakfast, with Cormac’s sunglasses covering Ashe’s pretty eyes, they started to become friends.
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