Chapter Text
“I don’t know how you do that without killing yourself.”
Lee is sitting on the toilet, toweling his damp hair with one hand as he watches Richard shave. Through the open door Richard can see their unmade bed and hear music filtering in from the little iPod dock on the counter in the kitchen: some lamenting mid-nineties band Richard can never remember the name of, but Lee likes them and he shimmies his hips when he’s putting the coffee on so they can’t be all bad.
Much to his own surprise, Richard likes the mess Lee brings with him. The flat is homey now, with their shoes jumbled by the door and Lee’s jacket over the back of the sofa and dirty dishes in the sink. He let Anne go with a glowing recommendation when he found out that Lee is just as adamant about cleaning up his own messes as he is about making them (though Richard knows he won’t ever remember where he last dropped his mobile or his keys).
“What?” he asks, sliding the straight razor over the last tricky bits of his jaw and flinging the cream into the sink. He wipes the remains away with a towel that doesn’t match anything else in the room. He supposes Lee thinks it’s funny to have little out-of-place tidbits sprinkled about as reminders of past adventures. This particular towel had been stolen from a hotel in Osaka when Lee had joined him on one of his longer business trips. Remembering the joy on Lee’s face when the word “Japan” had come up makes Richard smile to this day. He isn’t one to seek out new territory, but it doesn’t bother him so much when he know he can return to this cluttered little flat and the indents of their bodies in their mattress.
“Shave like that. It takes forever, doesn’t it?” Lee grimaces as he cleans the water from the inside of his ears with a pinky, then wraps the damp towel around his hip and stretches. “My dad used to have a straight razor.”
“Are you calling me old?” Richard feigns disdain that Lee never falls for and gets the tip of Lee’s tongue poking out from between his lips in response. “Careful, or I’ll spank you for your sass.”
“Not a deterrent,” Lee sings. “And you’re not old, just old-fashioned.”
“I can’t believe you’ve never used one.” Richard cleans the blade, then whips up another lather with the small brush. His stone is nearly gone; he’ll have to get another. He smiles and pushes Lee back down onto the toilet, nudging his knees apart to get between. “Maybe it’s my turn to teach you something.”
“You’ve taught me plenty,” Lee counters. Despite the cocky look he aims up, he’s getting a bit red in the cheeks and Richard knows he’s played his cards right.
“Saying ‘hello’ in Russian hardly counts.”
“I can’t remember it anyway.” Lee sniffs, and Richard taps him on the nose with his finger.
“Liar,” he admonishes. “You’ve got a head for language if only you’d study.”
“No heart for studying.”
“Liar.” Richard cups Lee’s jaw and tips his head back. “Now stay still.” He brushes the blunt side of the blade against the bob of Lee’s Adam’s apple, then sets it aside. Gently enough to tickle—and he enjoys the way Lee squirms—he brushes the lather over chin and jaw and throat. Carefully he unsheathes the blade and sets it against tender skin.
Lee closes his eyes and stays obediently still, hands draped between his knees. He’s breathing a bit raggedly through his nose, looking at Richard through lowered lashes. The scrape of the blade makes him gasp; the close shave is why Richard will always use a straight-edge instead of the easy contraption currently residing in Lee’s side of the vanity. Judging by the way Lee tilts his head and breathes deep and slow, his mouth a little open, Richard has a new convert. Blissful in the familiar confines of their home, he scrapes every last in of stubble from Lee’s skin then wipes him clean and kisses the soft skin revealed there.
“Good lesson,” Lee mumbles, dropping his forehead against Richard’s chest. He whines and wraps his arms around Richard’s waist to draw him in close. “Can’t we just go back to bed?” He cocks one pleading brow that makes Richard want to say yes, whatever you want.
“This was your idea, darling,” he says instead, bending to kiss away crowning discontent. “And I don’t want to make a bad impression on your parents.”
“They’re already half in love with you. Just blame it on me and they’ll buy it hook, line, and sinker.”
“Get dressed.”
Lee groans in defeat and edges around Richard to go hunt for a suitable shirt. As he passes, Richard smacks him hard on the behind and he yelps and turns around, wide-eyed.
With false gravity, Richard tells him: “I did give you fair warning about getting a spanking.”
Lee grins. “Pervert.”