Colors We Cannot Name

The world shifted in the moment their lips met.

For Noah, it was like stepping into a painting without knowing the colors, without measuring the brushstrokes. Uncalculated. Raw. A mistake waiting to be made.

And yet, he didn’t pull away.

Elijah tasted like midnight—something forbidden but intoxicating, something that made Noah’s head spin and his heart pound in ways he wasn’t ready for.

When they finally broke apart, Elijah's forehead rested against Noah’s, his breath uneven.

“I was wondering when you’d stop running,” Elijah murmured.

Noah let out a breathless laugh. “I think I just ran straight into the fire.”

Elijah smirked. “Yeah. But tell me you regret it.”

Noah didn’t answer.

Because he couldn’t.

Because for the first time in years, he didn’t.

The Edge of Fear

They didn’t talk about the kiss immediately.

Instead, it settled between them, like the drying layers of a painting—not quite finished, not yet ready to be framed.

Noah found himself returning to Elijah’s world more often. The reckless strokes of his paintings no longer looked chaotic but alive, filled with something Noah had spent his entire life avoiding—feeling.

And Elijah, despite his teasing, didn’t push him for answers.

Until one night.

They were in Elijah’s studio, the air thick with the scent of turpentine and coffee.

Noah was sitting on the floor, flipping through one of Elijah’s sketchbooks.

He hesitated when he saw the drawings of himself—fragments of stolen moments, sketches filled with quiet admiration.

He swallowed hard. “You—”

Elijah glanced over, unbothered. “What? You thought you were the only one observing?”

Noah stared at the page, his stomach twisting.

“You make me look different,” he muttered.

Elijah raised an eyebrow. “Because I don’t draw you the way you see yourself.”

Noah exhaled, closing the sketchbook. He wasn’t used to being seen like this.

And Elijah? Elijah saw everything.

“Noah,” Elijah said quietly, “are you afraid of this?”

Noah looked at him. “Of what?”

“Of us.”

Silence stretched between them.

Noah could lie. He could brush it off, like he always did.

But then Elijah reached out, tracing the inside of Noah’s wrist with his fingertips.

And Noah broke.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted. His voice was barely above a whisper.

Elijah tilted his head. “Then let’s figure it out together.”

A Different Kind of Forever

Noah had spent years believing love was like a perfectly structured painting—something controlled, something predictable.

But Elijah?

Elijah was a splash of color outside the lines, a hurricane of emotion that Noah had tried and failed to resist.

And maybe that wasn’t a mistake.

Maybe that was the point.

So when Noah kissed him again—this time slower, more certain—he wasn’t thinking about how the colors might bleed together.

He was thinking about how, for the first time, he wanted to see what they could create.

Together.

The End.

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