Sunlight

The sun is brilliant, beating down on the hard-packed dirt of the makeshift parking lot in the white-hot way that only midsummer rays can. It’s everywhere, heating the moist air until it hangs full and hot and smothering on bare, tanned shoulders, burning the darkest of skin tones until it itches and scratches and peels off like a vaguely disgusting sort of summertime metamorphosis.

Still, for all its brilliance, Ronnie thinks that Max shines brighter than the sun ever could.

He is energetic as usual, silky hair flying, eyes sparkling with an emerald that manages to remain welcomingly alert and cool even in this suffocating heat, movement personified in a body seemingly too small to contain the boundless energy inside. He is shining and shimmering with every shift of leanly muscled limbs, sweat glistening on his exposed skin, turning it into a moisture-fogged mirror to reflect the daytime until he looks something less than real. He bounces from person to person, from face to face, uttering queries inaudible to Ronnie's straining ears, until he stops, his search completed, and picks the circular band off the short young woman's hand with a grateful smile, slipping it up into dark locks and tugging them upwards into a thick ponytail of the sort Ronnie can no longer manage, a style choice he is currently regretting with every fiber of his being as his own ebony strands stick to his neck with a sickening wetness.

Still, it doesn’t matter, and he forgets why it ever did as Max bounds over to him, smile so wide it looks as if it may split his face in two, exposed teeth as bright and cool as those eyes, trained on him with the sparkle that Ronnie takes pride in knowing is his and his alone. Max doesn’t look at anyone else like that, and that’s how it’s going to stay.

A slim, tattooed arm slips through his own, tugging gently in a silent plea for escape from the suffocation of the crowd. Ronnie follows gladly, waving off his bandmates' half-formed questions with a short, meaningless excuse – possibly the same one he used yesterday, but it doesn't matter because by now they've learned to take it without question. So Ronnie follows behind Max, feeling the movement of lithe muscles in the tattooed arms as they lock together, sweat on bare skin rubbing together and mixing in a way he doesn't quite mind as the glimmering sun follows them through the barely-shaded maze of buses until the chatter of the crowd fades away to nothing but a murmur in the distance.

Finally, Max decides they are well enough hidden and stops, pulling Ronnie sideways into the shade of one of the buses, and Ronnie barely has time to register the shock of sudden coolness rushing over his overheated body before the arm in his is gone, slung around his neck instead, and there are lips on his own as warm as the sunlight, broken by strips of metal as hot as the sun itself.

He smiles at the feeling, his own arms slipping around full hips like they belong there (and maybe they do) and pulling Max’s body into his own, heat radiating off his skin and working its way deep into Ronnie's core, and he wonders if this is what it feels like to be pressed up against sunlight.

After what seems like an eternity in the summer they separate, and though Max’s smile blazes with the light of a thousand suns his eyes are soft and gentle, framed with thick lashes as dark as night, a refreshing spring of cool and calm and reassurance that Ronnie would like nothing more than to fall into and bathe in forever, held afloat by those eyes and warmed by that smile.

Ronnie raises a hand to one cheek, still pale and perfect even after all this time in the sun, but as his calloused thumb runs over the smooth line of Max’s cheekbone it leaves a trail of red flush behind.

“You’re beautiful.” He murmurs, and he is, beautiful in a natural way, the beauty of the sun and the rain and the dew in early morning. The kind of beautiful made to be admired, to be loved and treasured but not tainted by filthy fingers and selfishness.

Max’s smile widens, but it’s a different kind of smile now, not bright and energetic and happy but soft, so soft and tender, not blazing anymore but just smoldering with a fire that feels somehow even hotter than it was before.

“I love you.”

The words dance past sunlight lips and Ronnie is the one smiling now, thinking absently to himself that his smile is less like sunlight in summer and more like comforting embers in winter as he replies “I love you too.” with every slowly burning fiber of his being.

Then Max is in his arms again, closer than before, lips and hands wandering, warmth sinking into the most chilled of places, and Ronnie thinks that even though they’re in the shade – have been for a while now – he doesn’t feel the slightest bit cold.