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soundsaboutrighttumblr · 4 years

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Cool Boy - ramking fic

Read at AO3

Summary:

My take on what happens after season one’s final episode for them. Ram’s POV.

Texting. Then meeting back at the condo.

Also, this song put me in the mood: youtube.com/watch?v=CCPqEEC8J_0 Josh Rabenold's cover of Ocean Eyes

---

I’m sorry

---

By late afternoon, Ram is back at the condo.

The washing machine’s been loaded with the trip’s laundry, and his tooth brush has been put back into its holder. The plants needing water have been cared for. Feeling modestly accomplished and a tad less restless Ram takes to the couch, swiping through pictures of the last two days that his friends have kept sending to him. Mostly because he knows he’ll come across and stop at that one.

He opens the tab with King’s messages. Just in case he didn’t hear the notification. But this morning’s sent text still sits unanswered.

I wasn’t drunk last night.

Ram deliberates sending King the photo. But Ting already might have. For sure she did. He’s about to get up for something to drink, when suddenly his eyes are drawn to movement, and the typing bubble pops up in the corner. If Ram sits up straighter for it, no one is there with him to judge him for it. The notification sounds off in his hand.

Thanthep King: I’m sorry

Ram stares at it. He doesn’t want it to, but it feels like a punch to the gut somehow. A damper on his careful, hopeful waiting. He’s been telling himself to keep his worrying in check, tells himself the same thing now. What is King saying? I am sorry I can’t do this?

Ram waits. A long minute. Two.

Thanthep King: I shouldn’t have shouted at you like this

More typing.

Thanthep King: Or pushed you

Ram breathes out slowly. Texts back:

It’s okay

Thanthep King: I am 80 percent sure I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t been drunk…

Ram feels the corner of his mouth tick up. It’s only half a smile. He types:

I know

The dots in the upper corner keep moving. But no more messages come through.

Ram waits.

---

Ram knows King’s plan was to stay the night at his grandma’s house, and drive home after lunch the next day. King can take a car that his grandma’s gardeners will collect on their next errant in the city. They’ve done it before, apparently. It’s almost a two-hour drive, so Ram first expected King back around afternoon.

He took the dogs out for a long walk around midday, but left them at Duen’s parents’ for a few more nights with a heavy heart. Daoheni cares for them with that special possessive brand of generosity only a child can muster, and they have a big garden for them to play in, so he supposes it’s okay.

It's starting to get dark outside.

Ram’s trying to watch a tech documentary that one of their teachers recommended, but he keeps pausing and switching tabs because he can’t seem to concentrate. He’s halfway across the room to check their stock of cold drinks in the fridge, when he hears rustling at the entrance. So once the door opens, Ram kind of just stands there.

King’s eyes flick over to him, but then he turns around to bring in his bags. Ram reaches for a glass on the counter, to have something to do, but he waits. Fills it at the tab. Then sets it down again. King glances at him once more, shuffling off his shoes, but then he skips down, crouching to address some of his plants on the lower levels of his shelf:

“Hello, hello, I am back at last, did you guys miss me?” His voice trails off at the end, but he coughs and touches two of the succulents in passing, his tone light: “Have you grown? I have only been gone for three days…” He runs his fingertips along several of the long, hanging leaves, but his movements are erratic, like he is unsure how many more plants he can greet before he has to face Ram.

Then he stands and turns to Ram with the same bright quality of voice:

“Hey.”

Ram brings his chin up in a careful smile he isn’t sure makes it all the way to his lips.

King’s head is tilted in that observing way, apprehensive almost, with eyes that are tiny bit too wide. He looks oddly vulnerable in the hallway of his own apartment.

“Have you eaten?”

Ram nods. Ignores how his heart wants to beat out of his chest.

“I’ve brought so many leftovers from at my grandma’s. It’s like a week’s worth of Tupperware…” He half-laughs and gestures to bag he left next to entrance.

Ram nods again. Takes a step closer to King. He’s not so sure why. He just wants King to look at him, not in that furtive way, but really look at him, so that Ram can see, and so that he can let King know.

He doesn’t know why it feels so strangely urgent, maybe it’s the day of waiting, or the dismissive lightness of King’s voice.

King’s forefinger and thumb rub against each other, and there’s that slope to his neck again, but at least he doesn’t take a step back. His eyes are ever assertive, still glancing, but he has turned his body towards Ram nonetheless.

Ram knows that any inch more will bring him inside King’s space, and he doesn’t want to be invasive, but he wants to be there.

“I think I should put them in the fridge…”

Ram reaches for King’s hand. Puts his fingers around his forearm, stopping him in his motion to go for his bag. King stills. Ram just tightens his grip once, an impulse, a signal, then he makes the circle of his fingers gentle, loose but there, and his thumb draws a caress along King’s skin.

He thinks he feels King shiver. Then King looks at him. The flicker is in his eyes as well.

“Ai’Ning…”

“Why?“

King blinks, a question in the lift of his brows; in the part of his lips. He looks caught and chased and puzzled and knowing at the same time.

“What changed?” Ram’s voice is low even to his own ears. Pleading. And somehow he doesn’t even mean since the text he sent yesterday morning, not since the time they last saw each other, doesn’t mean since the kiss… he somehow means what has changed since that time you put that flower in my hair and told me I’d always be welcome around you. And he wishes he could make King understand what he means. Don’t you want this? Didn't you say you do?

Ram has brought King’s arm in his hand up to their chests, their feet stepping in between each other’s, barefoot toes almost touching. King’s face is so close to his that everything else around him blurs.

Ram sees him trying to make sense, behind those clever eyes, watches his mouth open and close, and open. Huffed bouts of breath trickle along his neck, before King’s voice carries:

“I don’t want to hurt you, and even more, in a stupid way like this!” There’s force behind King’s words at first, but then it stumbles, peters out. “…and, honestly, all it needed was some alcohol, and I was hurting you.”

He swallows, a hitch like a dry laugh to his voice. His eyes are so wide.

“I don’t think… I think I am actually really not good at this?"

A skipped breath, a missed heartbeat.

"I don’t know what I am doing? You deserve-”

Ram seals his lips to King’s open mouth mid-word.

----

He doesn’t even move fast. It's like he’s carried along, inside a shore-bound wave the tide pulled in.

----

King’s eyes flutter closed in reflex, but Ram’s linger. He has to know King is okay. With this.

A sound like pain leaves king's throat, breath pushing out through his nose.

But he stays.

So, Ram kisses him as slow and gentle as he dares, empathically so. His own heart loud and high and wild in his chest.

King’s lips taste different today, with no trace of whiskey. His mouth feels softer, and there is gentle give. It pushes Ram into a rush like sudden falling.

When King shifts his weight from one foot to the other one in between Ram’s stance, Ram keeps him close just by the yielding angle of his mouth.

He brings one hand up to King’s neck, the other lost somewhere in the fabric of King’s shirt. King’s fingers hold fast onto the sides of Ram’s sweater.

When the first kiss stops, King is still almost vibrating inside of Ram’s embrace, breath shaking, although his forehead leans lightly to touch Ram’s.

But it feels like getting there. Somewhere. Better.

Ram decides and searches King's lips again, unhurried as before. King makes a soft sound of surprise and welcome.

And Ram is kissed back. Was before, too, but now it is in every way King’s body makes contact with his, drawing him in, gaining steady momentum.

---

When they pull back for air, just slightly, cheeks and noses keep touching, still nudging, grazing against each other.

This time King’s hand has found its way to the neckline of Ram’s sweater, loosely clinging there. His fingertips draw tiny caresses into Ram’s collar bone, and Ram is reminded of the way King has greeted his plant just earlier, and all those times before: subtle touches, checking up and reconnecting and exploring, and he feels lighter. Despite it all, everything feels lighter.

King’s voice is warm and slightly cracked against Ram’s neck:

“You are… important.”

Ram isn’t sure he gets everything King wants to tell him with those words right now. But he understands the implied ‘to me’.

He nods against King’s shoulder.

As close as they are, it’s just a shifting of their weight, really, to pull each other deeper into their arms.

Notes:

Did I get up yesterday night after already going to bed to write the rough draft of this until 3 am on a work day? Maybe.

Shout at me? Lemme know what you think? <3

Also thank you to @electricunicorn5678 for helping out with the spelling of Ai'Ning <3

#ramking #fic #after season 1 #kingram #feels #kinda angsty at firts but intense later i guess #possibly kisses so yeah

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