Soulmate Cravings

Domesticity

     (A/N: This chapter is pure undiluted fluff. I had something happen in my personal life that devastated me and I was spiraling. I wrote this to cheer me up and to give me some sweet thoughts to cling to. I hope that you either enjoy this, or that you will at least forgive my overindulgence since it is in relation to the story, but not necessarily important to the overall storyline, just more of a character and relationship building chapter I guess.)

     Tine was slowly falling into the domesticated habits of Sarawat. It had been so long since Tine had been in any semblance of an actual relationship, especially one that had any degree of permanence in it that he had forgotten what it felt like to get used to a person. Not that he really knew what it felt like to actually be used to another person, since he'd never really been able to truly get used to anyone else in his personal space.

     But this, getting used to Sarawat, it was surreal for him because they'd only been together for a few days, but it felt so much longer than that. This life with Sarawat already had a normalized permanence embedded in it. There was a comfortable domesticity he felt with Sarawat that he'd never felt before in his life. As much as Tine truly felt for Sarawat, he still expected some of his reticence to be physically close to people to still lurk beneath the surface, but much to his surprise, everything about being with Sarawat just seemed to come naturally to Tine.

      There were little things he had experienced with former lovers that he had hated with them, but found peace in those same things when Sarawat would do them. For example, Tine was one of those types who very much needed times to be inside of his own head, to organize the events of the day, or just live in his own little dream world. He had been with people in the past who had been clingy and wouldn't give Tine the space or freedom to just be peaceful in his own presence for a while, and it had created high levels of anxiety in him during those moments.

     Sarawat was understandably clingy as well. But Tine found for the first time that it didn't bother him, it didn't raise his anxiety, if anything, Sarawat's presence soothed his anxiety. Sarawat was, for the most part, very quiet and pensive himself. He didn't need to prattle or have Tine prattle on a constant basis like Tine's past lovers did. Sarawat just had this internal need to constantly be in Tine's presence. And Tine understood that, because for the first time in his life, Tine had found that same internal need to be in Sarawat's presence, as well.

     They would naturally gravitate around each other. One would settle to read a book and the other would curl up next to them to do paperwork. One would be hungry and go to the kitchen and the other one would find themselves suddenly thirsty and follow the other one to the kitchen. One would shower and the other would do the environmentally conscientious thing and join them in the shower to save water. However, there was a good chance there wasn't any water actually saved in that process, but the excuse still worked. They didn't have this need to entertain or even engage with each other all the time; it was more of just that reassurance that the other's physical presence being there gave them. Like magnets, they wouldn't even realize they were doing it. They just instinctually always had an excuse to follow each other around, unwilling to allow walls to separate them.

     It was later in the evening, after Tine had revealed his darker side, that Sarawat had been going over some files and Tine had meandered out onto the balcony of the penthouse. He was standing above the world in the night sky's peace and enjoying the cool wind cooling down the warm night air when he felt Sarawat come up behind him and wrap his arms around him, hooking his chin over Tine's shoulder. Tine simply closed his eyes and leaned into Sarawat's body. For a while, neither of them said anything. They just stayed there in each other's arms as the breeze wrapped around them and the moon shone on them. For a frozen moment of time, the serenity of the moment settled upon them, as nothing could touch them in that little bubble of time. A moment of peace, of perfection, of just being together, as one, without the presence of the outside world to taint them.