(Yeah I’m not making this hippy shit up, guys.)

“Holiday Insights”

Smile Power Day is today. Feel the power. Give everyone you see a big, friendly, “I like you” smile. You never know, you’re warm smile just might turn someone’s day right around…for the good!

Ellis had been doing it all day. Beaming at absolutely everyone, from the irate, fist-shaking first customer of the day at the garage who insisted they were trying to bamboozle him by exaggerating the problem, to the pint-sized, badge-littered sash-wearing Girl Scout who’d come to Keith’s front door just after dinner with an order sheet Ellis had taken with cheerful flourish and a promise to have it filled out by tomorrow. When Keith took him out for icecream at dusk Ellis smiled so profusely at the counter girl she seemed both uncomfortable and intrigued; Keith snorted loudly and led his little lover to one of the outside tables to keep him out of trouble, where he proceeded to smile and nod to every passersby while slurping down his milkshake until his eyes crossed.

Keith liked it most when the brunette was smiling at him, but it was such a large part of who Ellis was to befriend everyone and (now that he wasn’t skittish of them) their dog. Something as ridiculous as Smile Power Day didn’t exactly put him outside of his normal realms of behavior – added a creepy persistency to it, maybe, but overall it was just Ellis being Ellis. So as many times as Keith felt a bristle of irritation or exasperation, he just shrugged it off and nuzzled a kiss to Ellis’s temple, the warm curl of the younger survivor’s hair beneath his scarred lips.

That was, until, about an hour after they’d gotten home and Keith’s knees were hefted up over Ellis’s shoulders so the bassist could fuck him into the mattress’s protest-whining springs. The smirk that adorned El’s plush lips bared just a hint of teeth, and held more promise than smile, but it was a look that Keith had never seen Ellis produce until after Keith’s truth-anon’d forced confession of preferring bottoming now that he’d become accustomed to it. It was a little arrogance, a little aggression, a lot of possession, but mostly it was gorgeous and masculine and framed with half-lidded gray eyes that unzipped Keith’s resolve and spilled it out through endless groans and mewls the redhead couldn’t – wouldn’t – keep quiet.

The entire expression, smile though it was not, pinned Keith more effectively than the cuffs on his wrists, hushed his breath more entirely than the collar cinched tight around his throat, and owned him more completely than anything he’d ever given himself to in his life.

It wasn’t a smile, but its raw assurances held far more power than any chipper grin at a stranger would ever have – I love you and I’ll do every goddamn thing I can to keep you mine.

“Yers,” Keith moaned, head tilting back as Ellis hid the smirk by pressing kisses just beneath the leather collar’s grip, “Ellis –…”