Title: Temptation
Rating: T
Warnings: Mature themes, strong language
Ivan jumped away as Shiv's fingers lingered a little too long on his shoulder. He didn't bother to glare. Whenever he did, Shiv just smiled, all innocence despite the way his dark eyes somehow seemed to be always laughing at Ivan. This was impossible, eyes laughing, complete bullshit spun by people who wrote books about lions that weren't really about lions. But Shiv's eyes somehow did it.
It made Ivan want to hit him.
Shiv leaned over, pale, thin, pointy features in the corner of Ivan's eye. And he was pale, very pale next to Ivan's dark skin, and thin, the thinnest person Ivan had ever met who wasn't a smackhead. Not natural thin either, even though his tall frame was built slighter than Ivan's. Thin, like skinny, like he didn't get enough to eat. Sometimes, when he was lying on the floor of Ivan's living room, his shirt would lie against his body enough for Ivan to see his ribs, and when he slept, all joints and clothes that were too big, Ivan could count every bone in his neck, his spine pressed through the skin like it was trying to escape.
"When'd you wake up?" Shiv shrugged, casual roll of his shoulders, and sat on the floor at Ivan's feet, back against the wall. "Go eat something." Shiv looked up at him, his face briefly obscured by the smoke from Ivan's cigarette. His eyes were so dark, the same color as the nice furniture Ivan saw in the upscale stores, and they somehow always managed to draw Ivan's own eye. "I told you to go eat something." Ivan concentrated on the window he leaned against, on the streetlights and the houses. Shiv's dark hair was in the corner of his vision, the spikes just above the sill.
"I'm not hungry." Shiv said, the warmth of his thin body against Ivan's leg distracting. "Stop trying to be my parent too. I'm not like Adam." The fact that Shiv was not Adam had never been a particular sticking point for Ivan, as much as he wished he could put him in the same category as his brother.
"You look like a damn junkie." He inhaled from his cigarette. "Go eat." He nearly let it slip through his fingers when Shiv leaned all of his weight against Ivan's leg, his hair just above Ivan's hip, distracting Ivan, always distracting. "And get off me." Shiv giggled, and got to his feet, too close to Ivan's side. Or maybe he just wasn't close enough. Ivan could never tell anymore.
"You sure you just don't want me to get you off?" The cigarette bent in Ivan's fingers. Shiv was gone from Ivan's side before he could respond, the sudden lack of him disconcerting. Through the thin walls in the tiny house, he could hear Shiv rummaging around in the kitchen. He hoped Shiv got something complicated, something that would give Ivan some time to calm down. The fact that he had to calm down at all from Shiv's body being so close was frustrating.
Shiv came back in, an apple in hand. "So, what's the new plan?"
"No plan."
"We're going to run out of food soon." Shiv teased, singsong and taunting.
"We're fine." The apple disappeared too quickly, giving Shiv away. The core was tossed away and Shiv approached Ivan again.
"Are we?" Ivan put the cigarette out, the thing bent beyond use from his nervous fingers.
"What do you want?" And then Shiv was right there against his back, long fingers up and over Ivan's shoulders, breath against his neck, and god, Ivan didn't want to want him so badly. He didn't want to think about Shiv the way he did.
Shiv laughed against his skin, and Ivan's heart seemed to float into his throat. "The question is, how badly do you want it?" Shiv teased, always teasing, always holding what Ivan wanted right within his grasp, eyes always laughing even when his mouth was closed. Warm thin body and all his angles right in the reach of Ivan's hands.
"Get off." Shiv just laughed, hands going down, around Ivan's body, down to the waistband of Ivan's jeans, fingers making their way under his shirt, brushing his bare skin. He wanted to say stop, wanted Shiv to keep going, wanted to just never have a single amorous feeling in his life, and especially not for a skinny boy with eyes that laughed at Ivan and a mouth that seemed to promise that it could say the hundred things Ivan had wanted to hear all of his life and mean them.
Shiv hands had stopped, maybe finally put off by Ivan's façade of disinterest, and sat down at his feet again, warm, and tempting, and so readily available.
Ivan sighed.
Even the strongest of men break eventually.
A/N I ain't dead. I've just been busy.