#after the last turkport fic i wrote it was hard to uh s t o p

[helianskies]

day 1: writer & artist

written for @hwsrarepairweek2022, welcome to the first work of ~a selection~ that i hope to share with you this week!

rating: teen+ ⠀ words: 1.7k

pairing: turkey/portugal 🇹🇷🇵🇹

read it below or over here on ao3!

João woke up to the sound of scratching, quiet and a bit distant, but still invasive. He stirred and dared to pry open an eye, unsure of what time of day he would potentially find himself immersed in, but otherwise quite certain of what it was that had disturbed him. For one, the bed was empty besides himself; secondly, this was not the first, nor third, nor tenth time that he had received such a wake up call…

…what was that thing they said about history repeating itself?

“Dammit, Sadık…” he groaned, rolling onto his back, arms flopped over his face in an attempt to block out the stream of sunlight hitting the bed.

“Good morning,” Sadık replied, nevertheless, still working away in the corner of the room. “Did you sleep okay?”

João had to bite back a laugh. “I was sleeping fine until you decided to start drawing again, querido.”

“Oh, uh… Sorry about that…”

“‘S fine, at least it’s a weekend. I don’t have to be in a good mood for anyone, like clients or co-workers…  A day-long strop sounds kinda fun, really…”

“I’m stopping, I’m stopping!” Sadık professed all the while, and sure enough, João heard the scrambling and rustling of paper being hastily set down on the floor—the only place for it to go—and he couldn’t help but smile to himself.

Sadık was good. Sadık was good to him—amazing to him, really—and João treasured that. Sadık was funny, caring without being suffocating, and incredibly wholesome. But, oh my God, was he also a bit of a dork (granted, one of João’s favourite things about him).

While his partner sorted himself out, João sat up in bed and stretched. A yawn fought its way out of him—he tried to smother it behind a hand—and the next thing he knew, he was the one being smothered by kisses, a barrage against his cheek. João could not stop himself from laughing.

“Okay, okay, I accept the apology!” he assured the other, only half-heartedly fending him off.

Sadık seemed relieved. “Good!” he replied. “Am I allowed to continue drawing now?”

João stammered over a response, the words escaping him before he eventually settled on: “Are you going to let me actually see what you’re drawing this time?”

“Well, maybe. Depends how it turns out.”

“You never show me your sketches,” João huffed, giving a pout as though to exaggerate his point (and guilt-trip him). “Considering that I’m the thing you draw more often than anything else, and also bearing in mind you normally paint places and not people, I’d kinda like to see what I actually look like. I hope you’ve been drawing my good side!”

“Every side is your good side,” Sadık promised him. A hand tucked João’s hair back over his shoulder and out of the way, and the intimacy of it, minimal as it was, certainly helped to mellow him. “I’ll show you later on. There’s some things that need fixing, and I’d hate for you to see an unfinished sketch.”

João conceded—compromise was far easier and than pushing for something—and in the same breath, Sadık agreed to take a break. That was all João wanted to hear.

With that settled, he got up from bed, a sudden burst of energy in his body (which seemed to startle Sadık somewhat), and he stretched once more. There was some tension in his shoulder—a massage would surely help, he figured—but rather than getting the hint, Sadık had other priorities:

“You should probably stop giving the neighbourhood a private viewing,” he said, a blanket appearing and wrapping itself around the lower half of João’s otherwise very naked body. The latter was amused. The curtains weren’t even open that wide but bless, if the paranoia wasn’t adorable!

“And here I thought you liked it when I was naked,” he teased.

“I do,” Sadık replied, “but only when I get the private viewing.”

“Mmmh. Noted.”

Still, João took custody of the blanket and kept himself wrapped up, mostly because that blanket was nice and cosy, and he was in no real hurry to get dressed. What was on his mind more than anything was the drawing—Sadık’s little obsession with grabbing whatever medium he had to hand and just beginning to transfer João onto paper. Sometimes, it was nice. He really was a talented artist, and seeing his passion and focus was quite the inspiration, as well as just generally endearing. But sometimes, the real João wanted the attention—wanted the dutiful gaze, the gentle fingers, the artist’s appraisal…

“João?”

“Mhmm…?”

“I’ve upset you.”

“No,” João said, shaking his head (but otherwise unsure how to reassure him). “You haven’t upset me, it’s fine.”

“Something isn’t fine, though,” Sadık nevertheless noted, “and I’ve got a funny feeling it’s still the drawing thing.”

João, knowing how transparent he could be around the other, was hardly going to deny it now. “It’s always the drawing thing,” he said. Not in a confrontational way, however, so much as just a dismissive, ‘it doesn’t really matter’ sort of way. This little thing hardly warranted a serious discussion, he felt. “Like I said, querido, it’s fine. I don’t entirely hate it.”

He just hated it when it got in the way of Them.

(Well, and his sleep… but that was less important.)

Just as João was ready to move on, start the day, debating between a shower and a hug, he was interrupted. Sadık stepped in his path and blocked his route to any exit from their bedroom (for less intimidating reasons that it sounded, of course). João was ready to dig his heels in, either way, so sure that the other wanted to address this blip. He didn't want the talk, he didn't want the coddling, he didn't want the, 'there there, it's okay' because he despised it—had seen it too often in previous relationships. That, and he quite simply didn't want to get in the way of Sadık and his craft. So further discussion was off the table!

Yet, words and diatribe did not appear. Not right away.

Instead, Sadık’s hands came to hold his face, cupping his cheeks and ensuring that João listened to whatever it was he had to say. The way he smiled held a warmth that only Sadık was capable of—a warmth that spread right from his chest, through his fingertips, and into João’s very being. Silly as he thought it was, for the other to draw him so frequently and to be the subject of the other’s gaze in such a way, João... did love it. He appreciated it. Sadık loved him, and he never had to say it for it to be believed.

“Listen,” his partner duly began, “I can’t help it, and you should know that by now. There’s just something so beautiful about you, canım, and I don’t know what it is—but you are just… I can’t resist drawing you, loving you…”

Warmth became poorly-hidden surprise.

“Beautiful?” João repeated, trying to mask his wariness of the word behind a light scoff, a half-laugh. What followed was a brief but awkward pause, an uncertainty about how to respond… “Very cute and romantic of you,” he eventually managed to say as the other’s hands fell away again, “but flattery will get you nowhere. You woke me up with your endless scratchy sketching, and you still have to make it up to me!”

“Ah— Coffee?”

“And?”

“Breakfast in bed?”

João tutted. “I’m not in bed anymore, what’s the point?”

“On the balcony, then,” Sadık suggested. “Coffee and a light breakfast.”

“Better. it’s almost perfect, in fact…”

“Almost…?”

João tapped his cheek. Sadık understood. He leaned in and a peck landed on his cheek (warmth blossomed from the spot, a raindrop rippling in a lake) and, just when João was ready to let him get on his way, Sadık saw fit to then steal a heartier meal from the other, lips on lips, hands on waist.

Yes, well, when Sadık had suggested a light breakfast, João had not expected himself to potentially be on that menu.

(Maybe for lunch...)

“Go on,” João laughed, gently pushing the other away before someone got too greedy (as much as he would have loved to carry on). “Go and make a start on food, or something. I’m going to have a quick shower, okay?”

“Aw, didn't you fancy sharing with me?”

“Just go!”

Satisfied with his jesting, Sadık scarpered off, snickering away to himself through the apartment, and leaving João to himself.

A shower was indeed a good idea. His hair was in need of some attention (really, those dead ends seriously needed trimming; he would have to ask Sadık if he minded helping him with that later on) and, just in general, he preferred to feel properly refreshed and awake before getting on with the day. It put him in a better mood.

Before he did that, however, there was… something he had to quickly do.

With Sadık gone, João returned to his bedside table and opened the middle drawer. From it, he retrieved an old pen and a notebook, already half-filled with scrawl and mess and explosions of random thoughts that came to him at all times of day. But he needed it. It may have been chaos, but it was also important to him—an ongoing project that, much like his hair, required some serious attention.

Sitting down on the bed, João hurried to find where he had left off: a chunk of dialogue more matted than his own locks. Bad, bad, bad. He turned to the adjacent blank page, wielded his pen, and began to write an… alternative exchange:

“I can’t help it, and you should know that by now. There’s just something so beautiful about you, and I don’t know what it is—but you are jus—”

“Beautiful is a big word, and a very sweet one, too. But what makes me beautiful is you—your love. You give me a reason to be. Without you, there would be no one to be beautiful for; I’d be a garden with no flowers, a ship with no sea. You are why I am the way that I am, and I love you for it—more than these words could ever truly say.”

Yes, yes… That was much, much better…

Now, if only he knew how to say that, not in a book, but to a face…