Park stood, pulling out of Cooper’s hold, breathing a bit heavily, as if stopping himself from touching was the first time he’d needed to expend any effort. “Living room. Five minutes. Bring your choice of blindfold.”

“And my dueling pistol?” Cooper asked, amused, standing.

“I was thinking a good ol’ fashioned crossing of swords.” Park squeezing himself through his pants, deliberately crude.

Cooper felt his own breath catch and he had to swallow a sudden excess of spit. “All right. Five minutes,” he said roughly, and stalked out of the kitchen, hurrying upstairs.

They’d bought a blindfold from a sex shop a few months ago, but after a couple unsuccessful attempts, Cooper had decided it wasn’t his thing. It wasn’t that he was upset or turned off by it, per se, just that he kept compulsively pulling it down to see what was going on.

“I’m sorry! I can’t help it,” Cooper had said when Park got exasperated with him just wearing it over his eyebrows like a bandanna and said he drew the line at Rambo role-play. “I like looking at you.”

An understatement if ever there was one. Still, they hadn’t bothered trying the blindfold again, and Cooper found it shoved in the back of a drawer upstairs behind other, more successful items. He grabbed it now and, because luck favored the prepared, tucked lube into his pocket as well.

Back downstairs in the living room, Park had pushed the coffee table to the side and was perched casually on the couch arm. His expression was slightly more unsure than before, as if wavering on the edge of some decision, and the moment Cooper walked into the room he examined him very intensely.

“Are you sure this is going to be okay for you?” Park asked, which was about as close to him bringing up Cooper’s PTSD without an explicit invitation as he got.

“Yes,” Cooper said quickly. “Are you?” He stepped between Park’s legs, twirling the blindfold from his finger teasingly.

“You do the honors.” Park gestured, and Cooper carefully fitted the blindfold over his head and eyes and then gently readjusted where it was pulling, taking the opportunity to run his hands through Park’s thick hair.

“Okay?” Cooper checked, and in response Park leaned forward, pecking him unerringly on the lips.

“Hey!” Cooper protested. “Can you see?”

“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,” Park said, smirking. “And the ears. And the nose.”

“What does love smell like then?” Cooper said, taking a step back with one last reassuring squeeze to Park’s thigh.

“At the moment, a bit like catnip, unfortunately,” Park said, but smiled fondly, looking much more relaxed now.