Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Language:

English

Collections:

Sixty Six Days of Skip

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-16 Words: 600 Chapters: 1/1

let's lay low (let's lie right here)

Summary

Kip wakes up with the light. (..). It's a little dazzling; the surprise, the view, the feel of the floodlights from the night before. He closes his eyes, letting the sunrise wash him in the memory. His cheeks still burn from smiling.

waking up the morning after The Kiss

Notes

for @sixtysixdaysofskip prompt: sunshine
title from Underneath a Beating Heart - Rosi Golan

Kip wakes up with the light. It's partly habit – he's an early bird, even if the years of catering gigs and midnight deadlines have tried to beat it out of him – and partly the fact that he's not used to having such a massive window right next to his head while he's sleeping. It's a little dazzling; the surprise, the view, the feel of the floodlights from the night before. He closes his eyes, letting the sunrise wash him in the memory. His cheeks still burn from smiling.

I love you so fucking much.

Belatedly, he realises, he should probably close those curtains, but doing so would mean disturbing Scott, and Scott is -

Scott is artwork in his bed, and Kip has never wished harder that he had the knack for painting or maybe photography that his colleagues do. Thousands of poets for thousands of years have tried to capture this: a lover, tossed and rumpled, sunshine dancing across sweat and messy limbs like he had fallen asleep in the middle of laughing. He probably had: the adrenaline crash hadn't hit until like 2am, after the game and the party and kissing and fucking until every inch of them both was exhausted. And now the lock of Scott's fringe is stuck to his forehead and his face is slack against the pillow and Kip doesn't think he's ever seen him so relaxed.

He's definitely closing those curtains. Somehow. He'll never forgive himself if the stupid sun interrupts the best sleep Scott's maybe ever had in his life. Here goes nothing.

Kip extricates himself as smoothly and quietly as he can from the bed, and aside from a little snort and a readjustment where their limbs had untangled, Scott doesn't move. The only sounds this early are their breathing, and the gently awakening city below; even Kip's footsteps are all but non-existent on the plush carpet floor, and the sheer curtains barely grate on their rail, and he re-evaluates. If he's managed to get this far, maybe he should take advantage of being out of bed before he tackles the electric hum of the blackout blinds.

(He risks another glance over his shoulder. Scott is splayed out a little more now, taking over where Kip had been, but he shows no signs of waking up. It's going to be harder to get back in, but that's a sacrifice he's willing to make).

So Kip sneaks out to the kitchen and brews a coffee so hot and fresh and rich he'll never order in again, and grabs his tablet, and prepares to settle in for a day of not doing very much at all. But when he does go to put the blinds down proper, Scott grunts out a little -

“No.”

He hits pause. “Hm?”

“No,” Scott repeats drowsily. “Like it like that.”

Could not be him, but Kip figures, Scott's always been a little odd. At least now he doesn't feel so bad nudging him out of the way to make a space for himself, and Scott wraps himself back around him like the ocean on the shore. Kip pulls up a book on his tablet with one hand and strokes Scott's hair languidly with the other and honestly, he could die here.

“I didn't mean to wake you,” he apologises quietly. “You sure the light's okay? I was just gonna read.”

“Read away.” Scott hums like a purring kitten. “Pretty sure I'm still dreaming.”

Yeah. He could die here, but not today. Maybe in fifty, eighty, a hundred years. Maybe after a hundred thousand more mornings just like this one.