"Will you paint my nails sometime?" Chris is turning Joel's hand in his, inspecting the fresh coat of lavender nail polish. He's being very gentle about it, tapping his finger against Joel's thumbnail to feel the texture of the polish, leaning in close to see the way the lavender shimmers periwinkle blue under the kitchen light.
It's something Joel used to like doing and only recently rediscovered. Years ago, his nails were almost always painted - a different shade every couple of weeks after the previous one finally chipped to the point where he could scrape the remainder off his nails without using nail polish remover.
At some point he'd just stopped. Partly because he stopped doing a lot of things to take care of himself, really only maintaining the bare minimum. And partly because it was one of those unnecessary things, a whimsical little indulgence with no practical purpose.
Unnecessary, whimsical little indulgences are important to Joel. Necessary for his sanity. But The Ex didn't understand them, because they weren't the same as his whimsical little indulgences. He didn't see the point of spending money on a manicure or a nice pair of boots, and at a certain point, Joel just got tired. The whimsical little indulgences stopped bringing him joy when he knew they'd be accompanied by passive aggressive comments about his choices. It's no wonder he felt stuck, existing in his tiny world without any of his usual sources of joy.
Slowly, he's started picking back up the things he left behind after The Ex moved out. Remembering who he is and what makes him happy. Lavender nails make him happy.
Chris touching his lavender nails reverently makes him even happier.
Holding his hand still while Chris studies his fingernails, Joel says, "Sure. I don't know if I'll be very good at it, but I'll definitely try."
Actually, that's his mantra toward most things Chris-related. He doesn't have a lot of confidence in his ability to be what Chris wants or needs, but Chris makes him want to try.
They set up across from each other at Joel's table, shoving the vase of this week's chosen flowers out of the way. Lined up in its place is a row of nail polish bottles, colors Joel hand-picked because he thinks they'll look pretty against Chris's skin, soft pastels that will be a compliment to his colorful array of tattoos.
"This one," Chris says decisively, tapping the top of a bottle of soft, shimmering pink, then immediately splaying his hands across the middle of the table.
Chuckling at Chris's enthusiasm, Joel pushes the other colors out of the way while he shakes the chosen bottle. Chris watches curiously, eyes carefully tracking the movements of Joel's hands as he opens the bottle and pulls out the brush, dragging it along the edge of the bottle to remove the excess polish.
Joel can feel Chris's eyes on him as he bends down to swipe the polish onto Chris's nail carefully, using his other hand to gently lift and brace Chris's finger while he works. He sees goosebumps rising on Chris's forearms, and he looks up at Chris quizzically before he moves on to the next nail.
"It feels cold," Chris says, seeming fairly perplexed by the phenomenon.
Joel smiles as he inspects his work so far - a little messy around the edges, but pretty nice overall. Maybe he won't be so bad at this. "Weird, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Chris agrees, voice quiet, like he's afraid he might startle Joel and make him fuck up. "Is my mind playing tricks on me, or is it the skin on the other side of my nail actually feeling it?"
"No clue," Joel says, shrugging. "Maybe a bit of both? One of my favorite things is peeling off my nail polish when it starts chipping. You can feel it. It's so refreshing, like a cool breeze on the back of your neck on a hot day."
"Really?" The fascination in Chris's voice is intense, but he keeps it reigned in, quiet and soft. "That's wild."
Now Joel feels Chris's eyes lingering on his face, and he tries not to think about it while he works, even though it makes him feel warm and tingly. His hand starts shaking, the lines he's painting on Chris's nails turning into wiggles.
It's not nerves. It's something else, something better. An unavoidable chemical reaction, the inevitable result of Chris looking at Joel like this while Joel touches Chris like that.
Does Chris feel it, too?
If he does, he has a strange way of showing it. "You know my friend Erick?"
"Yeah." Not actually, but Joel's heard about Erick a lot, and sees him pop up in Chris's Instagram posts regularly enough that he feels like he knows him. "Lollipop guy."
Chris laughs gently, muscles tense like he's afraid to laugh too hard or move too much and ruin Joel's precise work. "Yeah, lollipop guy. Every fall, he rents out a house by the lake for a long weekend. Hikes around in the woods while the leaves are turning colors and shit."
"Sounds nice," Joel says, dipping the brush deep in the bottle, feeling it scrape the bottom. It's the last of one of his favorite nail polish colors, but it's worth it for Chris.
"You think so?" Chris asks, surprised. "I didn't think you were much of a, um... outdoorsy guy."
"I'm not." It's hard for Joel to focus on Chris's fingernails when his hands are right there, forcing Joel to consider how they would feel if they were touching him. "But I still think a walk in the pretty leaves sounds nice, and a cozy weekend in a house by the lake? I could just sit inside watching TV and be happy about it."
"Okay, good," Chris says, clearing his throat. "Because I'm going with Erick and I want you to come, too. And Richard, if he wants."
"Uh." Joel switches to Chris's other hand, and Chris's thumb twitches at the unexpected touch. Anything that means spending more time with Chris, Joel wants to do. Definitely, for sure. His hesitation is purely based on the fact that he has never met Erick, Chris has never met Richard, and Erick and Richard probably don't even know the other person exists.
"It'll be fine," Chris says, the hand with finished polish sliding toward Joel before abruptly pulling back, obediently returning to its original spot on the table before any damage can be done to the wet nail polish. "Erick gets along with everyone, and there are enough rooms for everybody to shut themselves away and hide if it goes south."
The jumbled feelings swirling in Joel's brain elude his ability to name them, to define them in any tangible way, to communicate them. "I definitely want to go. And I'll ask Richard about it. I just-"
"Stay with me," Chris interrupts. "We can share a room. Do the cozy watching TV thing while Erick is hiking, and Richard is playing video games."
And that's it, right there. A few sentences from Chris, and the swirling settles, and Joel realizes he's smiling at Chris's soft pink fingernails.
"Yeah, okay," he says, tracing his thumbnail along the edge of Chris's to wipe a smear of excess polish off his skin. It leaves a streak of soft pink over the lavender polish that's currently on his own nails. He likes the way it looks, though. The two colors blend beautifully. He lifts his head so Chris can see his smile and hopes that somehow Chris can see that he's the reason Joel's smiling. "Count me in."
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Comfortable Silence |Virgato|
FanfictionJoel's boyfriend touched him all the time, but it didn't feel right anymore. It made Joel's skin crawl, which was fucked up, because he used to love being touched. In hindsight, it was probably his body trying to tell his brain something wasn't righ...
