Work Text:
Beautiful moment in time that comes and floats away
And when i open my eyes, I hope I see your face.
It was late afternoon when the Los Angeles sun, merciless and golden, flooded his kitchen, streaming through the windows and tracing filaments of light across the wave‑carved white tiles; the heat made the air so dense that the fresh paint on my damp red hair seemed to flow like lava, dripping fiery streaks over my shoulders. I leaned against the pantry doorframe, my body still trembling from the wind‑tossed drive, and took in every tiny detail. I traced his tattoos with my eyes, like verses etched in skin, parading their stories: the lines of his Māori ancestry rendered as feathers in the braids along his left arm, his parents’ initials, and my favorite inked over his chest, inspired by Trainspotting.
He moved with the ease of someone who’s already seen the whole world, unhurried even as he rolled the tip of silk around the filter that hovered between his long, deft fingers. The gesture was gentle, ritualistic. When he lit the lighter, its flare slammed my reflection against the refrigerator, and for a second I saw myself there: skin flushed and still damp with the scent of the beach, eyes curved in expectant anticipation, lips trembling lightly from the fuel sparking inside my chest. Finally, the smoke unfurled through the corners of the kitchen like a pale veil, hinting at the bittersweet aroma of wild herb so subtle that I had to trust my body alone to sense its earthy scent.
Calum seemed to notice me then, and time froze: the frayed edge of his white tee caught on the fold of his pants, the bronze of his neck like a fragment of summer, his features so familiar they felt like the permanent home of my daydreams. He smiled without hurry, raising just one eyebrow, and in that motion I found the echo of a thousand conversations never spoken. I lowered my feet onto the cool floor, droplets of salty water falling from my bikini in a trail with each step, the entire kitchen vibrating beneath my soles. I sat before him, between the mismatched chairs, as if to establish direct contact with the ground he trod, with the air he breathed. He leaned toward me.
His smoky breath brushed my skin: it tasted of adventure and surrender, of memories gathered in Melbourne’s alleys and on Glasgow’s rain‑kissed stages. His fingertips slid through my hair, and each strand seemed to vibrate under that devoted touch, as if my color itself were the melody enchanting that porch‑like room of light and smoke. When he finished rolling another cigarette, he offered it to me with generosity and silence, and my ruby lips met the filter while he watched, patient, every inch of my face illuminated by the golden glow filtering through the blinds.
Stay. Just Tonight. He murmured, but nothing more was needed beyond that almost imperceptible word for me to feel ensnared by an ancient chant, as if there had always been an empty space inside me waiting for his soft timbre.
All time condensed into that single breath. I inhaled the warm scent of tobacco mixed with his whisper and closed my eyes, letting his body become the center of my universe. I felt the heat of the tiles beneath my palms, the muffled echo of my heartbeat leaning into the steady rhythm of his, and I thought of how the winter of my soul had always found, in the tenderness of his gestures, a refuge more comforting than any blanket. He smiled again, this time wider, as if the mere sight of me there, between shadows and flashes, were the pinnacle of every song he had ever composed.
Got me feelin' uptight every moment you're gone
Got a piece of your mind, and I'm gonna hold on
It's a hell of a ride lovin' you
My thoughts surged like untamed waves, recalling our first kiss—the warmth of his mouth still alive against my skin, the stubble grazing my cheeks, the taste of spilled beer and youthful excitement. I also remembered the cold wind stinging my skin before he lent me his jacket on the way back to his place, the streetlights flickering like fireflies all around us. In that kitchen, however, everything was one continuous breath: the patter of rain beginning outside, the rustle as the cigarette pack returned to the drawer, the soft echo of my name drifting away between one drag and the next. It was there, among those tiles and scents, that his presence felt most real, making me believe life could be whole in a single plume of smoke and in the vivid hue of my hair reflected in his eyes.
I’ll stay as long as you want.
At last he drew me close, pressing his forehead to mine without hurry. I felt the steady beat of his heart, that persistent drum I had held onto as a reminder that, even if time passed, that dawn would never fully dissolve. His fingers traced paths along my bare thighs and my waist; they climbed and brushed the curve of my ear, then the bone of my jaw, and paused there as if my face were his landing place.
In the faint chill drifting in from the blinds, I found enough warmth to understand that those hours were eternal, not because they lasted long, but because they belonged utterly to two people willing to discover each other in every smallest gesture. Calum leaned in and whispered, so close to my ear, burning in symphony with the crackle of smoke:
I wouldn’t let you go, anyway.
He stubbed out the cigarette in the sink, his tattooed fingers gleaming with sweat and ink, and I, my chest flooded by an uncanny happiness, replied in silence, keeping my eyes closed to imprint every texture of that echo: his warm breath and the certainty that, even when the night ended, the living fire of our memories would never be extinguished.
Thus we became willing prisoners of a nostalgia that hadn’t yet passed, anchored in a kitchen bathed by Los Angeles sunlight, upholding our pact with small gestures, smoke, and the singular brilliance of a love woven in the intertwining of tattooed fingers and strands of hair ablaze.
In that moment, I wanted to be smaller, to fit entirely within his hands, to be just a single point in that long summer where bodies were always sweaty, sheets were soaked, and fruit overripe in the fruit bowl. But I also wanted to be immense, able to fill every gap in his house, on his shoulders, in the music he was composing but never showed me. I wanted to be in the muted thump of the bass rising from the studio I never visited, on the napkin at Alfred’s where he sketched lyric drafts, in the wine‑stained glasses on the sink. I wanted to be the memory that smoked on his tongue every time he exhaled another ember.
I wanted to be the absence that tightened his chest when I wasn’t there.
When he approached this time, it was as if the air between us shrank and the whole world fit into the space between his hand and the loose tie of my bikini. His fingers, this time damp, slid with an almost religious slowness along the side of my salty skin, and my body answered before my mind, like someone who recognizes the way home. There was no rush. Just a silent surrender to the gesture that both dissolves and consecrates, to his mouth pressing against my skin as if he wanted to decipher the exact taste of summer, of sea spray, of me.
He engraved himself in my memory.
Calum gave me his visceral, authentic self, his contours orchestrating silent melodies on my skin, the unassuming act of offering a cigarette, the restrained gaze that contained whole dialogues. And I, with hair in flames and breath marked by the warmth of his touch, discovered that the deepest love survives in the tiniest details: in the fleeting trail of smoke, in the subtle contrast between light and shadow, in the brief fragments that lodge in the skin and refuse to fade.
Don't matter how long, I still care
And when you pick me up, no
I don't have to play pretend
And I am human once again
Some things exist only once. And yet, they last forever.