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quentin toma NOTES: sailor, navigator, loverboy, war-bringer. THREAT LEVEL LIKABILITY LEVEL SCANDAL LEVEL FASHION LEVEL WEALTH LEVEL

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[ quentin bundles him up against his chest, drags him close and wants nothing more than to intertwine and wrap around him, so that they may never part. koby is warm in the sun, their bare chests smushed together, legs tangled. he peppers soft kisses against that plush mouth, humming when their noses brush. ]

For the foreseeable future, how's that sound, hm?

[ he doesn't know what it holds for them, but so long as they're here, it's koby he wants at his side. it's koby he wants to return home to, it's koby he wants to love. all it takes is for the man to repeat those words i love you and quentin laughs brightly, kissing him again, longing and hard and deep - committing ever moment of this to his memory.

their noses nudge together and his face hurts for the smile pulled across it. ]

That's their loss. My gain. [ he reaches to run a hand back through koby's hair. ] There is so much about you to love. Your curiosity for the world. Your hunger to know more, to do right, to do well. Your heart as big as the sea itself. Your laugh, your stubbornness, your smile, the little freckles I can kiss when you're in the sun too long. The chapped skin on your bottom lip. The ink on your fingers and the taste of strawberries on your tongue.

[ his mouth slides against koby's jaw, to his ear, where he murmurs against it. ]

Your light helps me remember that there are good things in the world. Good people. I love that your heart shows on your sleeve - I love your tired kisses in the morning, the way you wrap your legs around me, the way you trust me with your body because it is perfect and beautiful. I love your scars, the wrinkle between your eyebrows.

[ he sighs softly. ] Do I make myself clear, Captain?

[kobes]

Yeah. [It comes out in a whisper, teary and grinning and giddy, one hand reaching to wipe away his tears, knowing he probably looks like a red-faced, crying mess, almost apologizing for it, but – but Quentin’s looking at him like nobody has, like even Koby at his messiest is beloved, and there’s no room for doubt in the face of that. The hissing, snarling, malevolent voice that lives in his mind is silent again, no sneaking tendrils of doubt in the way Koby feels when Quentin promises him as long as the future might last. There’s no fear about what if and what about and when he gets bored, when he leaves, what’ll be left?

There’s a lot about this place that Koby is cautious of, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the ground to fall out beneath him. But he’s somehow never doubted that Quentin cares about him, that his affection and tenderness was genuine. Because it’s been genuine from Koby since that very first day, because of the way everything went quiet, went calm and blissful and safe the first time Quentin touched him.

So he doesn’t curl away or try to poke holes in what Quentin says, doesn’t try to deflect the compliments, even if they make him blush deeper, squirm a little, hiding his bright red cheek against Quentin’s as the kisses trail up towards his ear. Koby shivers, inhales shakily, knowing he’s not as good at words, that he fumbles and stammers his way through anything serious. But Quentin’s voice, his warmth, sunkissed and adoring and the safest, safest Koby’s ever felt in his life – he wants to try, to say something.] I don’t – you’re so smart and you make me laugh and you find so much to be happy about, you’re always finding the sun, you’re always pointing me to it and. [He falters, laughs, squeezes his arms around Quentin’s neck, breathes him in through those dumb, incessant tears and he chokes out:] I don’t hate myself, when I’m with you. I don’t, and if I can – somehow be that for you, if I can keep being the place you go when you’re afraid, when you need that reminder that I – I love you, when you need to hide from the world for a little, then. Then I’ll be that as long as I can.

[Another sniff, and it’s probably good Quentin isn’t wearing a shirt because Koby would’ve cried a big wet patch into it by now, nuzzling his teary messy face closer and hiccuping out:] L-Loud and clear.

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[ as koby speaks he laughs softly, brushing the other man's neck with kisses, trying to sooth him as he hiccups and cries into his neck, his shoulder. quentin would stay in this boat, adrift on the lake forever if it meant he could have koby for the rest of his life, not only his life here in the house. so he continues to kiss every inch of skin he's able to, smooths his hands down the man's sides, his hips, his chest, tracing the scars and anything he can. ]

You're all of that for me, there's no somehow. No trying. No Ifs. I wake up beside you and find all I can think of is your light. I feel frightened or sad or scared and you're the firelight from shore. I want nothing more than to sail home to you and press against your hearth, breathe in your warmth and kindness and maybe learn a little of my own.

[ he draws his head back, kissing koby again and again, sweet little things, a hand reaching again to wipe away those tears over and over. when quentin looks down with his own wet, happy eyes he smiles, genuine and unguarded and so immensely happy. ]

I love you. Loud and clear.

[ he leans in again, bumps their noses together, allows another kiss to pass through them, slow and yearning and hot, savoring and enjoying the fire burning between them. ]

[kobes]

[He wants to say more, wants to say that Quentin's the first person who's ever laughed when he cried and meant it in kindness, that the world has to be basically good, basically loving because he's in it, that the way his hair smells drives Koby insane, except -- well, that hair is tumbling down in loose, silky, heavy curls, and he's only human, after all. Instead he takes you're all of that and my true north and I love you and burrows the words deep into his marrow, for the bad days, for the nightmares.

And for now, he leans up, mumbles love you, I love you between a thousand kisses, matching Quentin's slow sweetness with open arms, with hunger, with kindling for that fire. Emotion is physical, for Koby, always has been -- he's sad, he cries, he's angry, he cries, he's happy, he cries. Everything is out on his sleeve, there for anyone to see, bleeding bright and vivid and inescapable where anyone can see. He thinks vaguely about haki, oddly, about the idea that emotion is a color, a taste, a sound, about reaching out and feeling someone else's like trailing fingertips over skin.

He stops thinking when his needy, insistent arch up towards that kiss makes the boat rock, getting a startled gasp, teary and laughing and shaken momentarily out of the heady haze.] I -- forgot where we were for a minute, I'm. Whoops. [Another laugh, red-faced and bright-eyed and reaching up to stroke his fingers down the curve of Quentin's face.] Sorry, keep going. You wanted to show me -- show me. [There's a quirk of a grin, that bright wickedness Koby has sometimes (mostly around Quentin, mostly when faced with his irrepressible, brilliant, addictive self), and he repeats, softer, knees nudging closer on either side of Quentin, wanting him closer, wanting to drown in him:] Show me.