chapter 6 (the date) (still)
Nov. 13th, 2002 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzie"It is now. I just had to remind myself not to wig. I mean, I've never been on a date with a guy before." Hadn't they already had this discussion? "Let's talk about something else, ok?"
So they did. They somehow kept the conversation fairly light and innocuous, talked about the kinds of things you talk about with someone you might not know all that well - ie, nothing especially pryingly personal - and except for a little food incompatibility, they either agreed on things (the perfection that was a well-fitting Armani suit, although Sam had only ever tried them on, and Aurelian actually owned a few) or had such wildly divergent opinions (on modern music, for one thing) that it made them laugh.
The food incompatibility issue really fell more into the second category than a category of its own. Sam ordered the T-bone, well done, with fries and a salad with Russian dressing, with beer and a Pepsi to drink, and Aurelian got the porterhouse and a baked potato and a glass of merlot. He asked for his steak rare, as rare and bloody as they could get away with, and Sam wasn't sure but he thought Ross the waiter shuddered. Sam agreed - that was just gross.
"Ick," he said, after the waiter had gone. "How can you eat your steak practically raw like that?"
"I like it bloody," Aurelian said, and shrugged.
"Any more rare and it's gonna get up off the plate and walk away."
"What can I say, I like my meat to sit up and say moo." Sam made a face. Aurelian grinned. "You're disgusted, aren't you."
"Well... actually... yeah." Sam looked (and felt) pretty sheepish, but he couldn't help it - he'd always liked his meat well done. As his Uncle Kenny liked to say about sushi, "If god had meant us to eat our food raw he wouldn't have given us the gift of fire."
(One of Uncle Kenny's other sayings was "If god had meant us to run he would have built us like cheetahs," something he'd started saying to his wife when she took up jogging and tried to get him to join her. He was not a jogging kind of guy.)
"Sorry," Sam went on. "I just won't watch you while you eat." He grinned, then his expression faded a little as he realized Aurelian was watching him with fairly scary intensity. Did he have something on his face? Between his teeth? (He'd had a spinach calzone for lunch, and the spinach tended to get stuck embarrassingly in his teeth.) Was he being a dork? "What?"
"Nothing."
"Dude, you were looking at me like I grew horns or another head. Do I have spinach in my teeth or something?"
"No, no spinach."
"So? It's kinda... weird."
"I like you, Sam," Aurelian said, his voice both serious and matter-of-fact, and pitched low enough so that the people at the next table couldn't hear. "I would like to see you again."
"We haven't even gotten our salad yet and you already know it's gonna be a good date?" Was the guy putting pressure on the evening, or what? Way to look ahead.
"You could go home right now without me and it would have been a good date." Aurelian leaned forward across the table. "I do not want to freak you out or put undue pressure on you, but I wanted you to know. I like you quite a lot, in fact."
"Really?"
"Really." Now he smiled.
"Why?" Oh, way to go, doofus, Sam inwardly admonished himself, giving himself a mental smack upside the head. Go on, sound like a moron on your FIRST DATE. "Sorry," he said. "But... why?"
"Why? Why do I like you? Because you're funny, and smart, and interesting, and entertaining, and astonishingly talented, and I like the way you kiss."
"I like how you kiss too." Sam blushed. "Ok. I like you too, and... I think we should go out again. After tonight. Maybe after dinner - " He stopped suddenly as he saw their waiter out of the corner of his eye, bearing down on them with his salad and their drinks.
"After dinner what?" Aurelian prompted him, after Ross the waiter had disappeared again. (Sam couldn't be sure, but he thought Aurelian's gaze might have wandered just a bit to the waiter's ass, although to be fair it was a nice ass.)
"After dinner... um.... Maybe you could come over and have some coffee or something - I've got those Danish butter cookies, and my Aunt Maggie sent me snickerdoodles for no reason - and I'll... um... you could come up and see my etchings," he finished triumphantly, having thought of something that might get his point across in a way that Aurelian might understand.
(His point in this case being that he really wanted Aurelian to come up to his apartment so they could listen to make-out jazz and make out on the couch.)
"I would like that." Aurelian smiled again, a different kind of smile this time, and something inside Sam went ping and something else went poing and if it wasn't for the fact that he'd ordered a steak and fries and he was fucking hungry, hungry to the point of passing out, "stomach growling loud enough to be heard at the next table" hungry, he'd want to leave right then.
He thought he could wait for his steak and fries, and for Aurelian to eat his steak and potato, and then he'd repeat his suggestion about coffee and snickerdoodles, and they'd go back to his house, and they'd suck face and you just never knew what could happen after that. He had that condom from Point of No Return in his coat pocket, and while the thought of first-time sex (sex!) with a guy (a guy!) made him a lot more nervous than he'd ever admit, he could handle the idea much better if he thought it might be with Aurelian.
And in the meantime they still had food to eat and conversation to enjoy and Sam would just have to think about bloody nearly-raw steak and baseball and frigid Alaskan ponds, and not about how good-looking Aurelian was and how warm it was getting in the restaurant.
By the time their steaks arrived Sam had calmed down a little. He wasn't sure he hadn't managed to cover his slight wig, but Aurelian didn't seem to think he was a complete idiot, so he couldn't be doing that badly. He was actually kind of proud of himself for acting like a normal person, all things considered. (A date! With a guy! At the Cattle Drive! And a condom in his coat pocket!)
They talked about music some more, and movies, and how long either of them had lived in Eden (since he started college, for Sam, and "a number of years," for Aurelian), and they talked about stick shift cars versus automatic shift, and what did Aurelian do for a living (apparently not much), and how old was he, anyway?
As soon as Sam asked that question he stammered an apology, because it was kind of rude and had just slipped out, and he really wasn't a rude kind of guy, but Aurelian just laughed and brushed it off and said he was only twenty-four, which made Sam remark "You don't look twenty-four. I thought you were older."
"How much older?" Aurelian's mouth twitched like he was trying not to laugh in Sam's face, like he thought the whole thing was amusing.
"Older than that. I'm not good with ages. You just... look older. Maybe it's the way you dress, I dunno. I'm used to hanging around guys like me, like a year or two out of college, we're still kind of goofballs. You're, like, mature."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"I don't think so. You're laughing at me, aren't you."
"I was trying not to." Now Aurelian grinned. "I love talking to you, Sam. I love the way you think."
"You think I actually think?" Sam grinned too, and then they were both grinning at each other, looking pleased and happy and just comfortable sitting across from each other at the Cattle Drive with their mostly-empty plates between them, like it was the most natural thing in the world to be sitting here having dinner together.
Sam was comfortable. That was it. He liked Aurelian. It felt good to be with him. Around him. Sam wasn't much for hiding things (except possibly the bisexuality) and he didn't like having to pretend around people, and he was just now realizing how normal this all felt, how relaxed he was and how easy it was, once he got over the whole DATE business, to sit across a table from Aurelian and talk to him and get to know him and in a dark little corner of his mind think about kissing him again, kissing him and more.
Ok, he had to stop thinking about that. It was just making his pants tight. He'd worn brown cords because it was so damn cold when he got dressed that morning; they were usually loose enough but now Sam shifted a little in his seat to try and get more room for what was turning into an embarrassing stiffy.
"Are you ok?" Aurelian asked. Sam nodded. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth to say something, he'd just squeak. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," he managed. "Fine. I think I ate too much."
"You didn't have to eat my baked potato."
"You weren't going to."
"True. But you also didn't have to eat the extra sour cream, and you especially didn't have to eat it with sugar on top."
"I like sugar." This was better. Distraction was good. "You sure your steak was really dead? I could've sworn I heard a 'mooo' when you cut into it."
"Cheeky," Aurelian teased. "I like that in a person."
"My mom just tells me to stop being a smart ass." He stuck a finger into the little cup they'd served the extra sour cream in, trying to get the very last bits of it, and then pulled his finger out, regarded it critically, and stuck it in his mouth and sucked on it.
He wasn't even paying attention to what he was doing, or rather he wasn't paying attention to its effects on his dinner companion, and when his focus shifted from the sour cream to the man across the table, he realized Aurelian was watching him with that look again.
"Sorry," Sam said. "Bad table manners."
"That isn't it. Shall we get the check?"
"Uh... yeah. Sure." Sam hurriedly swiped more sour cream out of the cup and swallowed the rest of his Pepsi. Aurelian waved their waiter over, handed him a credit card, and then sat back in his seat and grinned at Sam.
"Perhaps we should go back to my house," he said. "I have something I want to tell you."
"What? You're married? Oh, shit, you're married." Or you're straight.
No, it wasn't that. Jesus Christ, that kiss...! It hadn't been the kiss of a straight man.
"I'm not married. Next time we can go to your place, ok? We can stop at a bakery now if you really want cookies."
"No, I seriously ate too much. That's ok. We can go to your house, I don't mind." He shut his mouth before he could add "I can make out on anyone's couch, you know."
And then Aurelian surprised the shit out of him for the first but certainly not the last time, by saying "I have a very comfortable couch, where we can sit and... talk... some more." It was like he read Sam's mind, from the expression on his face. And Sam, of course, blushed. Aurelian just smiled.
"Oh, I do like you," he said. "Very, very much."
Ross appeared with Aurelian's credit card and the receipt, which Aurelian signed with a flourish, and before Sam could protest that he'd thought they were going dutch, Aurelian had hustled him out of the Cattle Drive and down the street to the car, where on the edge of the bright white flourescent circle cast by the street light, he put both hands on either side of Sam's face, warming his skin which had already started to get cold, and Aurelian pulled him close, and kissed him.
This time Sam was sure he was going to pass out. It went on and on and he wrapped his arms around Aurelian's neck and kissed back, tasting bloody steak and red wine and pepper and after dinner mint and something completely unidentifiable that he figured was just the way Aurelian's mouth tasted. Damn, and damn again, and how much practice did you have to have in order to be able to kiss like this? Aurelian sucked on his tongue and nipped at his bottom lip and practically devoured him, and Sam just fell right into it like it was the one thing he'd always wanted.
For all he knew, it WAS the one thing he'd always wanted.
He finally had to push away, so out of breath he was seeing stars, and half-hard inside his warm brown cords.
"Fuck," he breathed. "Holy shit, Aurelian, no one's ever kissed me like that. Do it again."
"Not here. Come home with me."
"Oh, hell yeah. Show me your etchings. I wanna... ok, this is gonna sound really stupid, but... forget it."
"Forget what?"
"You tell me what you wanted to tell me, and I'll finish my sentence."
"At the house. Ok? I have more privacy than the street can afford." But he was grinning. Sam wondered why Aurelian wasn't out of breath, flustered and panting like he was. That must be some self-control, he thought, impressed.
His eyes flicked down, involuntarily, and no, Aurelian apparently didn't have THAT much control. Sam looked up and grinned back.
"Take me home with you," he said. "I'm all yours."
words: 2,304
total words: 26,521
So they did. They somehow kept the conversation fairly light and innocuous, talked about the kinds of things you talk about with someone you might not know all that well - ie, nothing especially pryingly personal - and except for a little food incompatibility, they either agreed on things (the perfection that was a well-fitting Armani suit, although Sam had only ever tried them on, and Aurelian actually owned a few) or had such wildly divergent opinions (on modern music, for one thing) that it made them laugh.
The food incompatibility issue really fell more into the second category than a category of its own. Sam ordered the T-bone, well done, with fries and a salad with Russian dressing, with beer and a Pepsi to drink, and Aurelian got the porterhouse and a baked potato and a glass of merlot. He asked for his steak rare, as rare and bloody as they could get away with, and Sam wasn't sure but he thought Ross the waiter shuddered. Sam agreed - that was just gross.
"Ick," he said, after the waiter had gone. "How can you eat your steak practically raw like that?"
"I like it bloody," Aurelian said, and shrugged.
"Any more rare and it's gonna get up off the plate and walk away."
"What can I say, I like my meat to sit up and say moo." Sam made a face. Aurelian grinned. "You're disgusted, aren't you."
"Well... actually... yeah." Sam looked (and felt) pretty sheepish, but he couldn't help it - he'd always liked his meat well done. As his Uncle Kenny liked to say about sushi, "If god had meant us to eat our food raw he wouldn't have given us the gift of fire."
(One of Uncle Kenny's other sayings was "If god had meant us to run he would have built us like cheetahs," something he'd started saying to his wife when she took up jogging and tried to get him to join her. He was not a jogging kind of guy.)
"Sorry," Sam went on. "I just won't watch you while you eat." He grinned, then his expression faded a little as he realized Aurelian was watching him with fairly scary intensity. Did he have something on his face? Between his teeth? (He'd had a spinach calzone for lunch, and the spinach tended to get stuck embarrassingly in his teeth.) Was he being a dork? "What?"
"Nothing."
"Dude, you were looking at me like I grew horns or another head. Do I have spinach in my teeth or something?"
"No, no spinach."
"So? It's kinda... weird."
"I like you, Sam," Aurelian said, his voice both serious and matter-of-fact, and pitched low enough so that the people at the next table couldn't hear. "I would like to see you again."
"We haven't even gotten our salad yet and you already know it's gonna be a good date?" Was the guy putting pressure on the evening, or what? Way to look ahead.
"You could go home right now without me and it would have been a good date." Aurelian leaned forward across the table. "I do not want to freak you out or put undue pressure on you, but I wanted you to know. I like you quite a lot, in fact."
"Really?"
"Really." Now he smiled.
"Why?" Oh, way to go, doofus, Sam inwardly admonished himself, giving himself a mental smack upside the head. Go on, sound like a moron on your FIRST DATE. "Sorry," he said. "But... why?"
"Why? Why do I like you? Because you're funny, and smart, and interesting, and entertaining, and astonishingly talented, and I like the way you kiss."
"I like how you kiss too." Sam blushed. "Ok. I like you too, and... I think we should go out again. After tonight. Maybe after dinner - " He stopped suddenly as he saw their waiter out of the corner of his eye, bearing down on them with his salad and their drinks.
"After dinner what?" Aurelian prompted him, after Ross the waiter had disappeared again. (Sam couldn't be sure, but he thought Aurelian's gaze might have wandered just a bit to the waiter's ass, although to be fair it was a nice ass.)
"After dinner... um.... Maybe you could come over and have some coffee or something - I've got those Danish butter cookies, and my Aunt Maggie sent me snickerdoodles for no reason - and I'll... um... you could come up and see my etchings," he finished triumphantly, having thought of something that might get his point across in a way that Aurelian might understand.
(His point in this case being that he really wanted Aurelian to come up to his apartment so they could listen to make-out jazz and make out on the couch.)
"I would like that." Aurelian smiled again, a different kind of smile this time, and something inside Sam went ping and something else went poing and if it wasn't for the fact that he'd ordered a steak and fries and he was fucking hungry, hungry to the point of passing out, "stomach growling loud enough to be heard at the next table" hungry, he'd want to leave right then.
He thought he could wait for his steak and fries, and for Aurelian to eat his steak and potato, and then he'd repeat his suggestion about coffee and snickerdoodles, and they'd go back to his house, and they'd suck face and you just never knew what could happen after that. He had that condom from Point of No Return in his coat pocket, and while the thought of first-time sex (sex!) with a guy (a guy!) made him a lot more nervous than he'd ever admit, he could handle the idea much better if he thought it might be with Aurelian.
And in the meantime they still had food to eat and conversation to enjoy and Sam would just have to think about bloody nearly-raw steak and baseball and frigid Alaskan ponds, and not about how good-looking Aurelian was and how warm it was getting in the restaurant.
By the time their steaks arrived Sam had calmed down a little. He wasn't sure he hadn't managed to cover his slight wig, but Aurelian didn't seem to think he was a complete idiot, so he couldn't be doing that badly. He was actually kind of proud of himself for acting like a normal person, all things considered. (A date! With a guy! At the Cattle Drive! And a condom in his coat pocket!)
They talked about music some more, and movies, and how long either of them had lived in Eden (since he started college, for Sam, and "a number of years," for Aurelian), and they talked about stick shift cars versus automatic shift, and what did Aurelian do for a living (apparently not much), and how old was he, anyway?
As soon as Sam asked that question he stammered an apology, because it was kind of rude and had just slipped out, and he really wasn't a rude kind of guy, but Aurelian just laughed and brushed it off and said he was only twenty-four, which made Sam remark "You don't look twenty-four. I thought you were older."
"How much older?" Aurelian's mouth twitched like he was trying not to laugh in Sam's face, like he thought the whole thing was amusing.
"Older than that. I'm not good with ages. You just... look older. Maybe it's the way you dress, I dunno. I'm used to hanging around guys like me, like a year or two out of college, we're still kind of goofballs. You're, like, mature."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"I don't think so. You're laughing at me, aren't you."
"I was trying not to." Now Aurelian grinned. "I love talking to you, Sam. I love the way you think."
"You think I actually think?" Sam grinned too, and then they were both grinning at each other, looking pleased and happy and just comfortable sitting across from each other at the Cattle Drive with their mostly-empty plates between them, like it was the most natural thing in the world to be sitting here having dinner together.
Sam was comfortable. That was it. He liked Aurelian. It felt good to be with him. Around him. Sam wasn't much for hiding things (except possibly the bisexuality) and he didn't like having to pretend around people, and he was just now realizing how normal this all felt, how relaxed he was and how easy it was, once he got over the whole DATE business, to sit across a table from Aurelian and talk to him and get to know him and in a dark little corner of his mind think about kissing him again, kissing him and more.
Ok, he had to stop thinking about that. It was just making his pants tight. He'd worn brown cords because it was so damn cold when he got dressed that morning; they were usually loose enough but now Sam shifted a little in his seat to try and get more room for what was turning into an embarrassing stiffy.
"Are you ok?" Aurelian asked. Sam nodded. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth to say something, he'd just squeak. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," he managed. "Fine. I think I ate too much."
"You didn't have to eat my baked potato."
"You weren't going to."
"True. But you also didn't have to eat the extra sour cream, and you especially didn't have to eat it with sugar on top."
"I like sugar." This was better. Distraction was good. "You sure your steak was really dead? I could've sworn I heard a 'mooo' when you cut into it."
"Cheeky," Aurelian teased. "I like that in a person."
"My mom just tells me to stop being a smart ass." He stuck a finger into the little cup they'd served the extra sour cream in, trying to get the very last bits of it, and then pulled his finger out, regarded it critically, and stuck it in his mouth and sucked on it.
He wasn't even paying attention to what he was doing, or rather he wasn't paying attention to its effects on his dinner companion, and when his focus shifted from the sour cream to the man across the table, he realized Aurelian was watching him with that look again.
"Sorry," Sam said. "Bad table manners."
"That isn't it. Shall we get the check?"
"Uh... yeah. Sure." Sam hurriedly swiped more sour cream out of the cup and swallowed the rest of his Pepsi. Aurelian waved their waiter over, handed him a credit card, and then sat back in his seat and grinned at Sam.
"Perhaps we should go back to my house," he said. "I have something I want to tell you."
"What? You're married? Oh, shit, you're married." Or you're straight.
No, it wasn't that. Jesus Christ, that kiss...! It hadn't been the kiss of a straight man.
"I'm not married. Next time we can go to your place, ok? We can stop at a bakery now if you really want cookies."
"No, I seriously ate too much. That's ok. We can go to your house, I don't mind." He shut his mouth before he could add "I can make out on anyone's couch, you know."
And then Aurelian surprised the shit out of him for the first but certainly not the last time, by saying "I have a very comfortable couch, where we can sit and... talk... some more." It was like he read Sam's mind, from the expression on his face. And Sam, of course, blushed. Aurelian just smiled.
"Oh, I do like you," he said. "Very, very much."
Ross appeared with Aurelian's credit card and the receipt, which Aurelian signed with a flourish, and before Sam could protest that he'd thought they were going dutch, Aurelian had hustled him out of the Cattle Drive and down the street to the car, where on the edge of the bright white flourescent circle cast by the street light, he put both hands on either side of Sam's face, warming his skin which had already started to get cold, and Aurelian pulled him close, and kissed him.
This time Sam was sure he was going to pass out. It went on and on and he wrapped his arms around Aurelian's neck and kissed back, tasting bloody steak and red wine and pepper and after dinner mint and something completely unidentifiable that he figured was just the way Aurelian's mouth tasted. Damn, and damn again, and how much practice did you have to have in order to be able to kiss like this? Aurelian sucked on his tongue and nipped at his bottom lip and practically devoured him, and Sam just fell right into it like it was the one thing he'd always wanted.
For all he knew, it WAS the one thing he'd always wanted.
He finally had to push away, so out of breath he was seeing stars, and half-hard inside his warm brown cords.
"Fuck," he breathed. "Holy shit, Aurelian, no one's ever kissed me like that. Do it again."
"Not here. Come home with me."
"Oh, hell yeah. Show me your etchings. I wanna... ok, this is gonna sound really stupid, but... forget it."
"Forget what?"
"You tell me what you wanted to tell me, and I'll finish my sentence."
"At the house. Ok? I have more privacy than the street can afford." But he was grinning. Sam wondered why Aurelian wasn't out of breath, flustered and panting like he was. That must be some self-control, he thought, impressed.
His eyes flicked down, involuntarily, and no, Aurelian apparently didn't have THAT much control. Sam looked up and grinned back.
"Take me home with you," he said. "I'm all yours."
words: 2,304
total words: 26,521
