[ it should have been Henry. he thinks on it as he watches the water take on new shape, head turning as they pass it as if the look of it had caught him somehow, struck some chord somewhere. or, perhaps more accurately, as if his head's busy somewhere else and his gaze found something interesting to land on and didn't feel like moving away. ]
That's good. [ of you. that's good of you. Henry. they've covered that already - I'm not a complete cunt - but John's slow to catch up tonight and the saying of it seems enough to pull himself back into focus. he looks at Freddie. looks for something obscure and, finding nothing in the dark but his face, smiles instead. faint, as if distracted. ]
You're not bad, really, are you?
[ a joke in there, said with enough mirth for it to be one, but a statement too. John knows. it's not hard to know that about Freddie really. you've just got to bother to hang around for more than five minutes. and that in itself, five minutes and beyond, is worth something. ]
[That's thrown off as a joke, because John has an odd look in his eyes, and fuck off, you soppy old prick is -
No, it's an entirely appropriate thing to say to him on his birthday, but it's not something Freddie's choosing to acknowledge now. He's pleasantly warm with a beer haze, and the one John's precipitating must be more significant still, but neither are drunk. Definitely not enough to forget it in the morning.
Freddie lets John pass him and exit the park without allowing himself the momentary inclination to take his hand. Besides, they're practically back at his place, now, just rounding the corner to it.]
Shame there's no testimonials section on cuddlr. At least a star rating. We still haven't got you into a suit.
[ and John's already set to sticking his hands in his pockets for his keys, dragging them out to jangle loosely as he walks the final stretch, moment of observation passing just as easily as that ]
Oh, yeah. That could only end well. [ a star rating, christ. ] No. Though I've got to say, I'm impressed by your commitment to the cause.
[ may the story of get-a-suit never die. he casts a look back over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised in a silent ribbing. it's been an age, hasn't it? since that first day. since he was told and told again. it's been a long time. ]
... Maybe not that much commi— [ he'd finish that sentence, only he didn't quite anticipate the slow shift his crown's been making during their walk and the new angle of his head's enough to have it tipping off - the feeling of something unexpected bouncing off his shoulder is enough to bring him to silence and a standstill as he watches it fall the rest of the way. ]
[Not quite all the way. Freddie's quick enough to flick a wrist out, catching John's crowning glory against the side of his thigh and holding it there, catching his eye, before drawing back and depositing it on his own head - flattening some of those magical waves just a little.]
It's a shame. I could have got one for your birthday, but I forgot the present part. Not even a card.
[Fresh from setting the crown lopsided into his hair, Freddie curls a hand around John's wrist - keys dangling, door still unopened - keeping him from it a moment.]
[ crown goes caught and claimed and John watches him, watches as it's kept, as it's raised and set down. then there's a hand about his wrist, stopping progress, and that gets him to look elsewhere, down at the place he's now caught too ]
Were you. [ eyeline raised, back up and looking to Freddie and there is, perhaps, a sense of effort to the vacancy in his expression, tinged as it is with mirth and a purposeful void of anything else ] Dangerous.
[Freddie's mouth is a sharp-cornered curve. A blue gaze flicks up to meet John's blank return, but focus drifts inexorably downward. You can't keep an expression unreadable. There's always a tell. Freddie seems to be looking for John's in the set of his mouth.
His breath's hitched: silent laughter, maybe.]
Yeah. Because, it's still your birthday, until morning.
[Until you sleep on it: Freddie's rules.
John's arm is drawn up by the wrist, and pinned back against the door.]
So I've got time to make it up to you.
[His mouth, pressed to John's, tastes like sugar. Like the frosting to that cake in the box at his side.]
[ there's a hum, immediately, against Freddie's mouth, surprised (why? it's not as if he hadn't sensed it coming). snatches of sense memory rise and warm him, wrist making one weak attempt at straining - instinct, and the keys clink in his hand - before falling still. quickly, softly, he's searching for a fit. for the ways their mouths can meet that feel just right, pressing in, pliant.
catching flavour, John goes chasing after it. is reminded of his immobility: box under one arm, the other held.
his head dips, just enough to part them, to allow for words murmured now in a way he hadn't bothered with murmuring moments before - but it's less like he's just remembered there are people, probably, trying to get some sleep, and more like he's forgotten there's anyone else worth talking loud enough to be heard by. Freddie's right here. god knows there's no forgetting that. ]
Sounds like a cop out to me.
[ he's been braced for it, braced for it since Freddie took on a certain tone, since a point of contact and I was thinking and John had been thinking that maybe, possibly, there was a question to be asked. something to be picked up on. like for how long were you thinking, exactly?
but he loves kissing. there's something uncomplicated about the simple fact of mouths, isolated or as a promise of something following, chaste or charged. maybe it's because his own mouth's usually so useless, incapable of meaning anything. pressed against someone else's he's so much better.
maybe that's why all that comes out is a vague challenge when he forces even the slightest, barest distance, lips just an inch or two apart. because for all he maybe should ask, know, Freddie's close and immediate and he doesn't know how. that really would be dangerous— this, though. this sits in a different space altogether. one he knows how to occupy. ]
[Freddie speaks as he closes that hard won distance again, sound swallowed between parted lips that aren't his own. There's an ease to how he navigates this, the underlying implication being that he's more used to being this side of the person pressed against the wall.
(not strictly true, but this is the role he's studied hardest, the other still more instinct than anything).
Blessed with one free hand once his bag's summarily dropped to the ground, he presses the palm of it to the flat of John's abdomen, pinning him by a second point. He kisses eagerly, imprecisely, hot breath and the heat of his mouth and wanting. Like a decision's been made and actioned all in the space of a moment's impulse.
He twists John's wrist, using the near match of their height to push up on the balls of his toes and gain the upper hand - quite literally. He curls his fingers into John's palm, around the keys.]
Well, I haven't finished, yet.
[The keys are a quick twist in the door and the support's falling away from John's back as it opens.]
[ he shouldn't be surprised, isn't strictly, but each stage is something new, some turn unprecedented, and John's not got the time to be sure if it's just been too long for him to remember that it's always like this or if it's Freddie, the individual thrill of Freddie, of the way he operates when the tables are turned.
which, speaking of, is keeping John on his toes. almost literally, not quite. the hand to his abdomen, door at his back and this certainly isn't anything he's used to— the sharp, heady risk of new waters is enough to keep him where he is, to spark him awake and kill off hesitation before it has time to settle. he's narrowed down, fiercely aware of Freddie's mouth and of meeting him there, rising to each crest, of having to contain himself to just that one point of action (reaction). of having to contain himself at all. of being contained and the points of contact.
it's got all of his attention, so when suddenly the one thing he took for granted, inanimate as it is, is the one abandoning him, John's breath punches out and catches on sound. it isn't enough to render reflex useless - his hand's darting for purchase, an arm, wrist, anything, vice tight around whatever it finds (if I'm going down I'm taking you with me) as he takes stumbling footfalls back... oh. the door. right, jesus, okay, and he's got a barely-voiced laugh picking up at the corner of his mouth as that processes on the second shuddered step and John, caught in the offcuts of the sensation of waking in bed after feeling like falling and almost giddy with what's gone before, doesn't refrain from comment - ]
Come on in, why don't you.
[ before shoving the cake box out of the way onto an entryway table probably too small for it - no, really, feel free - and dragging Freddie back in close. ]
[The bag Freddie so carefully went back for is left outside as he catches the door with his foot and tugs it closed. Tomorrow, when John opens his door for milk, he'll find it - and inside, neatly gift-wrapped in silvered tissue paper: a suit. Freddie called in some favours (he has a remarkable number to call on) and this isn't anything that comes off the shelf at marks and sparks. He'd had to steal a jacket and pair of trousers to get the closest tailoring possible, so John can have those back too once he notices they're missing.
There's even a card. John will recognise the sheet of sketchbook paper and the feather design he's already been shown. Tomorrow. After Freddie's made up for forgetting.]
Careful. [He tumbles in against John, hands wrapping the back of his neck, pushing up into his hair as Freddie makes a soft shh-ing sound as though it's the code for caution and not quiet. He looks on the verge of laughter, eyes bright.] Slow down. You're older now, remember, don't want to break something.
[More kisses, not confined to his mouth but his jaw and throat to the cut-off point of his shirt collar. And Freddie walks him backwards through it, ducking his head to the side here and there to keep an eye on the location of the couch.]
[ John chokes out one swift cough of laughter that quickly devolves into some thick rumbling sound sunk low in his throat as Freddie's mouth roams. with hands now free to do as they like, one goes to Freddie's waist while the other searches until there's only one thin layer of fabric to separate the drag of his palm and his fingertips from the skin down over Freddie's ribcage. ]
At least I'm not 25. I've heard it's all downhill from there.
[ walking blindly backwards isn't John's forte, but even like this he's quick enough to unravel at least the interior of his own space and so, when he's got the idea of where they're headed, steps become stronger, John less concerned to feel his calves pressed up against something that wasn't there before and, then, to topple down into it, not releasing Freddie as he goes. ]
How far down does that make 41? [He bats back, easily. On another day, scrawled in network comments or via text this might be meant to dig - but even then the sting has surely long gone - here it's just the return move of a game no one's really trying to win. It's a game of contradictions: the arched eyebrow to match the arch reply, and the easy way he straddles John's lap working against both these things, his fingertips tilting John's head back. The easy kisses interrupting the rest of his words.]
They must have had to dig a ditch for you by now. Anyway, I'm not bothered.
[He stretches back enough to tug his shirt over his head, losing it somewhere over the side of the couch but not watching to see where it falls. His attention's on John, watching his reaction as Freddie lifts one knee and resettles it between John's thighs, nudging them apart.]
I was planning on going down already.
[This is, John Watson, the last waystation of being able to discourage anything. Before Freddie steps back off the couch and gets to his knees again. A chance to stop things that wasn't offered last time and may not be again.]
[ John's breath, shallow from contact, halts altogether in its slow, level pants as his focus drops to the place Freddie's knee is persuading his legs apart. he stays motionless, momentarily muted, paused to absorb it... hn. up slides his gaze. up, slowly, time taken to take in a familiar stretch of naked torso in new context (and from this angle it really is something new to spend a moment with, the half dark picking out some details and throwing others into obscurity). finally he's back to staring Freddie in the face, glint in his eyes changed just slightly and just enough.
a hand moves near magnetically to his own belt, toying it open, and that's all the answer he gives. ]
[Freddie watches this with a lazy assurance, a smile that reads: thought so.
It's different, this. Choice more than impulse, not the result of pushing him so far he snaps. And it's a test, of course. If Sherlock were still around he could have diagnosed Freddie's general promiscuity without so much as looking up from his breakfast. He's painted in case studies, psychology textbooks. An urge for sex without attachment, the definition of worth pinned to the value of desire. A means that abuse survivors use to take back control - to cope.
He doesn't bring home a new face every five minutes for the sheer joy of it. It's a coping mechanism, like the cigarettes he rarely goes an hour without.
The people he comes back to, they're something different. And they're rare. Commitment is a different animal to Freddie, but it doesn't mean less to him than anyone else.
Not that a second go's commitment. Just a test. And, not forgetting, something he wants, too. Someone he wants to be wanted by. Fuck knows how John Watson's found himself in this position (and in this position, legs dragged wider, trousers over his hips, with Freddie's attentions alternating between teasing and relentless - a light touch of his tongue and then swallowing him deep).
But he has. And here they are. Freddie's fingertips have worked grooves into John's hips before he's halfway done, but when it's close enough he lets go of any restraint, lets John fuck his mouth. Winding him tight and then letting him unravel's another form of art that Freddie enjoys.]
[ he starts in with a control that speaks volumes, held and practised with the unsteady, hitching pattern of his breath and its sequence of appreciative murmurs giving gentle but no less desperate way to sounded sighs. that much is fine, that much of an allowance, the glide of his hand from the cushions at his side to smooth over hair, into hair when tease turns tumultuous and nails over scalp is all the message he can send. but Freddie's hands set a firm bar against easing himself seamlessly around the need to come undone and soon he's stumbling roughly over consonants he hasn't chosen, over blunt words, stuttering out and savage with fingertips digging into the muscle over shoulders and eventually there's oh G— Freddie, his fingers curled and clutched in the hairs at a nape, body taut and then compressed and needing, needing, needing—
Freddie Baxter is dangerous in a way that wouldn't mean much to most people. more so than the people he's been known to let in and out like revolving figures to be the head bowed between his legs - rarely for this long, rarely to a point of undoing, John inclined to see more of other people than they'll ever see of him even if he doesn't care to inspect what he finds. Freddie's no threat to life or limb or freedom but he is capable of this, of John's fingers tightening into a fist in his hair and his hips moving frantically, past the point of concern. honesty. somehow, trust.
he's not thinking about that when he hits an edge and tips. he's thinking about what Freddie's face looks like from this angle with his mouth wrapped around John's cock. what it had looked like hours before, laughing easily at something stupid, surrounded by people he barely knew and could already enjoy. thinking of nothing at all. ]
[Freddie doesn't put it down to more than skill (he'll fucking retire the day he sucks someone off for nothing more than appreciative murmurs). But that doesn't mean there's not a thrill to hear his name fall that way, a stuttered plea. It doesn't mean that the need inherent in the hand John fists through his hair or the wordless sounds he makes as don't fill some kind of craving for him, don't set a buzz pulsing through his nerves.
He can hear echoes of his voice, softly mocking you're so restrained and knows that he never thought that was the truth, but could never be sure he'd be shown this deep beneath the veneer.
Until the alley. But the alley was impulse and urgency of another kind, a reaction to a near irresistible force that had been pressed down so tight it was going to explode somehow.
It's different, when it's a choice.
He's catching shallow breaths when he's done, making up for time forgoing air. An arm pressed to his mouth for a second them reaches up to catch John's wrist and guide the hand still curled into his hair down to the side of his jaw, his throat, the point where his collarbones jut. He leans into the touch, unguarded.]
[ there's a stark contrast between the ache and tension of coming down after a screaming release of too-long-held steam and this, this shared thing, neither one of them tearing or taking and John left light and sinking easy into the comfort of his own sofa. two very different experiences. both true enough. but this one gives him leave to stay after, invited to touch, and John finds in himself none of the sense of suspension he'd felt the time before— he won't be walking on eggshells this time tomorrow. he won't be texting Claire with the details, either. not even with the facts.
thumb roams over skin, over the swell of bone underneath, fingers smoothing up to toy at and map over the shape of throat and of jaw in reverse journey that stays rooted down at his sternum. moments pass before John has the wherewithal to raise his other hand, draw his thumbpad just lightly over the curve of Freddie's bottom lip.
he gestures with a quick tip of his own head, voice soft and freshly warmed. all invite and no command. ]
[He leaves John still somewhat decent, clothing barely disturbed, as he climbs back onto the sofa. It's a stark contrast to Freddie's discarded shirt and toppled crown (he'll find that later and hang on to it).
Not into his lap, quite, but stretched alongside him, knees bent in half across his thigh. His smile's a satisfied little thing, because cat-that-got-the-cream would be too heavy handed a metaphor, and he tips his head in to graze the side of John's face with his own, nuzzling in against his jawline. He slept like this once, face pressed in to the curve of John's neck, that first night after his injury when the pain meds finally kicked in.
It's enough to suggest he might be naturally affectionate in more ways than the obvious, if he hadn't taught himself to be so prickly.
He'd kiss John but there's a vague part of him that wonders if he might be squeamish about it. But the thought is there. His mouth presses a few inches from John's lips, instead.]
[ Freddie presses in and John thinks vaguely to himself that whoever ruined you might not ever come to see what they did (has to be someone, it's always someone, people don't get like this by themselves in a vacuum), at least not regret it for the reasons John does now, but at least he gets to be around for this. gets to be here for the softer moments.
a turn of his head is enough to meet the corner of Freddie's mouth, to press a kiss to fuller lips with a further turn. his arm circles round, settles, keeps him close. ]
Do you need anything?
[ it's an afterthought but not by much, need to be substituted for want if it better suits and for once John isn't intent upon the answer, happy one way or the other, to return or simply to accept the giving, however unwrapped. he's mellow already, made mellower for affection, and it's now or John's not certain he won't drift too far from thoughts of any of it to pull himself back. easier to lay his head against the sofa cushions, neck craned and lips pressed against Freddie's hairline with eyes closed as he waits for answer, thumb drifting rhythmically over the bare skin at Freddie's back.
this too might be uncharacteristic, somehow isn't. John can't help but to care, too much and fiercely - appearances, morality. people. easy, quiet touch is rare, but falls from him now in these exact circumstances easily as he might scribble out his signature on a prescription or pick out his outfit in the morning. ]
[It's such a quaint question. Freddie's preoccupied for a moment, chasing John's mouth and catching his amusement there - teeth grazing his lip in something not quite a bite but enough to keep him from slipping too much into softness. If it's offered, he'll take it - and here that means kisses. Where John's was an invitation, Freddie's accepts and takes more, mindful that John knows exactly where he's been.
It's not a breathless kiss. Freddie recognises the haze of afterglow too neatly for that, but it's deep, and his breathing's still shallow. He's just enough air to hum a suggestion of consideration as he breaks back to refill his lungs.]
Mm, don't know. Cup of tea?
[His laugher's too light to rumble. There's a purr of a chuckle in his throat, and his fingertips trace artful lines down John's chest, creating work for idle hands.]
How long have I got before you fall asleep? [All teasing, until he isn't.] I'd like you to fuck me, slow this time, and ignore me when I tell you to pick it the fuck up. I'd like to see your teeth grit and feel your thighs shake and know it's killing you, too. I'd like you to fuck me, hard enough to break bedslats, when you do let it go. [And now we know why Freddie's been on a mattress on the floor for a while. John's eyes are met as he speaks, held for a long minute, then his body quirks with a fresh, unvoiced round of laughter.]
But if it's going to take three hours and a nap for you to feel up to that, you could just watch me get myself off, I suppose.
[ oh, but that's enough to get John's eyes dark, to get his breath slow and heavy despite the recent need to drag more in. to hone his focus down again, to eyes and the lips speaking words that sink into his spine and straighten it, just slightly, vertebra by vertebra. what he's best at. what he's built for almost, what he loves. taking to pieces. shouting down his own urge to crumble and pushing onward into someone else's, further, dismantling.
he doesn't know if Freddie knows, suspects, or if it's just something to pull him back up into action, another gift. either way, happy birthday, John Watson. today or another day. a chance to show what he's made of.
there's the barest edge of something stirring at the corners of John's lips. ]
How about you start off with that and I'll let you know if it wakes me up.
[Oh but Freddie's never anything other than a challenge. If no one else got bored with the alternative, he would. There are all kinds of easy, and Freddie is precisely one of them.]
You lazy bastard.
[And Freddie's lips curl just as lazily. Splaying himself against John's side, he stretches idly, unbending one leg to lay it out across John's thighs. They'd sat like this not so very long ago over beers in his flat, telling stories.
All right. Not exactly like this.
He rubs himself through his jeans at first, slowly, fingers curling in to ruck up the fabric. There's the slightest catch in his voice when he speaks now.]
So, I know you... mostly... do girls. But I don't know how mostly that is.
Girls. [ John's lips hitch up in earnest, girls, he's forty one for fuck's sakes, but he doesn't use the laugh to push the question aside. eyes drift down the line of Freddie's torso to where his hand works as he considers his answer. ] Almost exclusively.
[ the break in exclusivity being recent and easily named, splayed out as it is beside him and across his lap. John's palm moves to stroke over the inside of a thigh. ]
I've had my moments.
[ to know himself, understand his tastes. still home first, in anger, a brief span of months spent more and more often out and away from the house and never discovered for what it was after his sister's forcible dismissal: impossible to be there for her without a station on the inside, able to put in good words and pass out whispers. impossible to be anything other than the better child, the good son. later, out from all that, in a time of wandering that ended with university and the people he gravitated to. stifled by the time he made the army, the silence after.
he's always known, but he hasn't had much time. hatred was ground in early, shame alongside, fury and fear and a cocktail of so many other delicate parts of himself, wanting and caring and feeling, that this, too, became too precious a thing to show casually. difficult to get around all that. John's not inclined towards vulnerability at the best of times. wrap all his weak points up in the same package and very quickly you find yourself with something too sore, too fragile to touch.
so he doesn't. typically. flirts around on the outskirts, plays at it, never takes the final step. it's that way that he's left a trail he doesn't even know about: imperceptible to all (including himself, unconscious and easy as his actions are by now) but those who stumble after him, abandoned. friends. only ever friends. only ever.
eyes raise again, smile still sharp, kneading Freddie's thigh under his hand. ]
What would you have said?
[ before all this. he's heard accounts, heard his early opinions, recent ones too, but they're here now and John's curious: how mostly, in Freddie's best guess? John wears a well cultivated exterior, fits so well he sometimes forgets it's a second skin. until he catches an eye or the timbre of a voice and discovers it burns. ]
Edited (mandatory edits since it's been a while) 2016-04-17 16:40 (UTC)
[Girls. Women just sounds so... old. Women are his mum's age - and she's forty-five, so it probably is the correct term for the kind of dates John's supposed to go on. It's just a stretch of Freddie's vocabulary to make the connection between women and people you fuck (and that's one of the rare areas he's barely explored: he fucks boys, and men, and dates girls).]
Almost.
[There's no attempt to hide amusement, his eyes drifting down to focus on the hand that's curled around his thigh.]
Well, I figured that part out. [Or, he knows now. But if he's as honest as he can be, with the surface stripped down, he wasn't one hundred percent sure there'd be an exception made for him. When push came to shove in that bar, the threat might not have been idle. He's met men like that. Men you can push so far before some learned revulsion in them makes them snap. Men who would have broken his spine. It's one reason among many that Freddie's careful not to push - for the most part. Lance met a man like that, and pushed, and he's the one who fell.
But John.]
I would have said you were straight. [He gives that answer simply. To anyone else, it's how he'd have described him. Still would be, in fact.
He rubs his hand over the back of John's, spreading his legs a little more to accommodate the slight nudge higher he teases out of him.] But I've fucked a lot of straight men. And I might be their first time, but I'm never the first time they've thought about it.
[He's unfastening his fly, sliding a hand under the waistband of his briefs, still teasingly invisible, though his back arches sharply as his hand wraps his cock. Swallows hard when he starts stroking himself.]
I'd have said you thought about it. [There's another question there, but he holds it a moment, humming out a sigh.] Almost exclusively. So I really am your teenage experimental phase.
[At some point his eyelashes have shuttered down, letting John watch him unobserved and unanalysed by a sharp-eyed gaze. This, in itself, is another gift. But the question lingers on his tongue and his eyes open narrowly as he asks it.]
[ there's no shame in the way John's hand wanders, no hesitation. not now he's here, no nerves or first time flutters. and that's because it isn't. it really isn't. but it is the first time in a long time - the first person in a long time, anyway, this isn't their first time with their hands on each other - and so John doesn't rush to disillusion him. not when he's been asked a question. more important things to be doing besides, like watching all the small little ways Freddie's hand around himself hidden there inside the confines of his jeans is expressed in the rest of him. there's a sharp beauty in that, in the little ways pleasure paints itself on a person, that he hasn't had the time to watch in Freddie before.
and Freddie doesn't need the help, really, does he? where beauty's concerned. and still, ]
Not really.
[ not quite true, but he doesn't think his answer's what Freddie's asking after, so he gives that one first: Freddie was never fodder, strangely enough, before. but that doesn't mean he never thought about him. ]
I thought about how close it was coming. Whether you were doing it on purpose, really on purpose, or whether it was just something you do. [ thumb draws firm, insistent circles into the material under it now, smoothly working higher ] I'd think about that.
[ and how strangely complex a thing it had grown into despite itself. hard, because people are once they get closer than he realises he's let them, where he seems to root himself down beside the most difficult of the lot... but there's an ease to it too, to the way he can navigate the majority of his time with Freddie, the way Freddie navigates John. but there was a question, always, in the times he knew it and the times he didn't: is this turning into the step too far I've been waiting to take for the last seven... nine... God, or is it ten years now? longer than that? and when it comes down to it, it's never really been a matter of Freddie's age. it's that he's been standing in front of a door he's closed for ages now, never pushed quite hard enough in quite the right ways to persuade him to pull it open again and step over the threshold until, apparently, this.
Freddie's narrow eyes find John's watching closely the corner of his mouth where the particular stretch of its edge widening out into the fuller swell of lips had been worth keeping watch over. ]
You're not my first time. You're my first in a long time. [ gaze flits up, meets. ] I'll think about you now.
Edited (hopefully this is now a less shitty tag than it was I'm never tagging in the morning again in my life) 2016-04-18 18:01 (UTC)
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no subject
[ it should have been Henry. he thinks on it as he watches the water take on new shape, head turning as they pass it as if the look of it had caught him somehow, struck some chord somewhere. or, perhaps more accurately, as if his head's busy somewhere else and his gaze found something interesting to land on and didn't feel like moving away. ]
That's good. [ of you. that's good of you. Henry. they've covered that already - I'm not a complete cunt - but John's slow to catch up tonight and the saying of it seems enough to pull himself back into focus. he looks at Freddie. looks for something obscure and, finding nothing in the dark but his face, smiles instead. faint, as if distracted. ]
You're not bad, really, are you?
[ a joke in there, said with enough mirth for it to be one, but a statement too. John knows. it's not hard to know that about Freddie really. you've just got to bother to hang around for more than five minutes. and that in itself, five minutes and beyond, is worth something. ]
no subject
[That's thrown off as a joke, because John has an odd look in his eyes, and fuck off, you soppy old prick is -
No, it's an entirely appropriate thing to say to him on his birthday, but it's not something Freddie's choosing to acknowledge now. He's pleasantly warm with a beer haze, and the one John's precipitating must be more significant still, but neither are drunk. Definitely not enough to forget it in the morning.
Freddie lets John pass him and exit the park without allowing himself the momentary inclination to take his hand. Besides, they're practically back at his place, now, just rounding the corner to it.]
Shame there's no testimonials section on cuddlr. At least a star rating. We still haven't got you into a suit.
no subject
Oh, yeah. That could only end well. [ a star rating, christ. ] No. Though I've got to say, I'm impressed by your commitment to the cause.
[ may the story of get-a-suit never die. he casts a look back over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised in a silent ribbing. it's been an age, hasn't it? since that first day. since he was told and told again. it's been a long time. ]
... Maybe not that much commi— [ he'd finish that sentence, only he didn't quite anticipate the slow shift his crown's been making during their walk and the new angle of his head's enough to have it tipping off - the feeling of something unexpected bouncing off his shoulder is enough to bring him to silence and a standstill as he watches it fall the rest of the way. ]
no subject
[Not quite all the way. Freddie's quick enough to flick a wrist out, catching John's crowning glory against the side of his thigh and holding it there, catching his eye, before drawing back and depositing it on his own head - flattening some of those magical waves just a little.]
It's a shame. I could have got one for your birthday, but I forgot the present part. Not even a card.
[Fresh from setting the crown lopsided into his hair, Freddie curls a hand around John's wrist - keys dangling, door still unopened - keeping him from it a moment.]
I was thinking, though...
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Were you. [ eyeline raised, back up and looking to Freddie and there is, perhaps, a sense of effort to the vacancy in his expression, tinged as it is with mirth and a purposeful void of anything else ] Dangerous.
[ always ]
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[Freddie's mouth is a sharp-cornered curve. A blue gaze flicks up to meet John's blank return, but focus drifts inexorably downward. You can't keep an expression unreadable. There's always a tell. Freddie seems to be looking for John's in the set of his mouth.
His breath's hitched: silent laughter, maybe.]
Yeah. Because, it's still your birthday, until morning.
[Until you sleep on it: Freddie's rules.
John's arm is drawn up by the wrist, and pinned back against the door.]
So I've got time to make it up to you.
[His mouth, pressed to John's, tastes like sugar. Like the frosting to that cake in the box at his side.]
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catching flavour, John goes chasing after it. is reminded of his immobility: box under one arm, the other held.
his head dips, just enough to part them, to allow for words murmured now in a way he hadn't bothered with murmuring moments before - but it's less like he's just remembered there are people, probably, trying to get some sleep, and more like he's forgotten there's anyone else worth talking loud enough to be heard by. Freddie's right here. god knows there's no forgetting that. ]
Sounds like a cop out to me.
[ he's been braced for it, braced for it since Freddie took on a certain tone, since a point of contact and I was thinking and John had been thinking that maybe, possibly, there was a question to be asked. something to be picked up on. like for how long were you thinking, exactly?
but he loves kissing. there's something uncomplicated about the simple fact of mouths, isolated or as a promise of something following, chaste or charged. maybe it's because his own mouth's usually so useless, incapable of meaning anything. pressed against someone else's he's so much better.
maybe that's why all that comes out is a vague challenge when he forces even the slightest, barest distance, lips just an inch or two apart. because for all he maybe should ask, know, Freddie's close and immediate and he doesn't know how. that really would be dangerous— this, though. this sits in a different space altogether. one he knows how to occupy. ]
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[Freddie speaks as he closes that hard won distance again, sound swallowed between parted lips that aren't his own. There's an ease to how he navigates this, the underlying implication being that he's more used to being this side of the person pressed against the wall.
(not strictly true, but this is the role he's studied hardest, the other still more instinct than anything).
Blessed with one free hand once his bag's summarily dropped to the ground, he presses the palm of it to the flat of John's abdomen, pinning him by a second point. He kisses eagerly, imprecisely, hot breath and the heat of his mouth and wanting. Like a decision's been made and actioned all in the space of a moment's impulse.
He twists John's wrist, using the near match of their height to push up on the balls of his toes and gain the upper hand - quite literally. He curls his fingers into John's palm, around the keys.]
Well, I haven't finished, yet.
[The keys are a quick twist in the door and the support's falling away from John's back as it opens.]
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which, speaking of, is keeping John on his toes. almost literally, not quite. the hand to his abdomen, door at his back and this certainly isn't anything he's used to— the sharp, heady risk of new waters is enough to keep him where he is, to spark him awake and kill off hesitation before it has time to settle. he's narrowed down, fiercely aware of Freddie's mouth and of meeting him there, rising to each crest, of having to contain himself to just that one point of action (reaction). of having to contain himself at all. of being contained and the points of contact.
it's got all of his attention, so when suddenly the one thing he took for granted, inanimate as it is, is the one abandoning him, John's breath punches out and catches on sound. it isn't enough to render reflex useless - his hand's darting for purchase, an arm, wrist, anything, vice tight around whatever it finds (if I'm going down I'm taking you with me) as he takes stumbling footfalls back... oh. the door. right, jesus, okay, and he's got a barely-voiced laugh picking up at the corner of his mouth as that processes on the second shuddered step and John, caught in the offcuts of the sensation of waking in bed after feeling like falling and almost giddy with what's gone before, doesn't refrain from comment - ]
Come on in, why don't you.
[ before shoving the cake box out of the way onto an entryway table probably too small for it - no, really, feel free - and dragging Freddie back in close. ]
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There's even a card. John will recognise the sheet of sketchbook paper and the feather design he's already been shown. Tomorrow. After Freddie's made up for forgetting.]
Careful. [He tumbles in against John, hands wrapping the back of his neck, pushing up into his hair as Freddie makes a soft shh-ing sound as though it's the code for caution and not quiet. He looks on the verge of laughter, eyes bright.] Slow down. You're older now, remember, don't want to break something.
[More kisses, not confined to his mouth but his jaw and throat to the cut-off point of his shirt collar. And Freddie walks him backwards through it, ducking his head to the side here and there to keep an eye on the location of the couch.]
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At least I'm not 25. I've heard it's all downhill from there.
[ walking blindly backwards isn't John's forte, but even like this he's quick enough to unravel at least the interior of his own space and so, when he's got the idea of where they're headed, steps become stronger, John less concerned to feel his calves pressed up against something that wasn't there before and, then, to topple down into it, not releasing Freddie as he goes. ]
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They must have had to dig a ditch for you by now. Anyway, I'm not bothered.
[He stretches back enough to tug his shirt over his head, losing it somewhere over the side of the couch but not watching to see where it falls. His attention's on John, watching his reaction as Freddie lifts one knee and resettles it between John's thighs, nudging them apart.]
I was planning on going down already.
[This is, John Watson, the last waystation of being able to discourage anything. Before Freddie steps back off the couch and gets to his knees again. A chance to stop things that wasn't offered last time and may not be again.]
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a hand moves near magnetically to his own belt, toying it open, and that's all the answer he gives. ]
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It's different, this. Choice more than impulse, not the result of pushing him so far he snaps. And it's a test, of course. If Sherlock were still around he could have diagnosed Freddie's general promiscuity without so much as looking up from his breakfast. He's painted in case studies, psychology textbooks. An urge for sex without attachment, the definition of worth pinned to the value of desire. A means that abuse survivors use to take back control - to cope.
He doesn't bring home a new face every five minutes for the sheer joy of it. It's a coping mechanism, like the cigarettes he rarely goes an hour without.
The people he comes back to, they're something different. And they're rare. Commitment is a different animal to Freddie, but it doesn't mean less to him than anyone else.
Not that a second go's commitment. Just a test. And, not forgetting, something he wants, too. Someone he wants to be wanted by. Fuck knows how John Watson's found himself in this position (and in this position, legs dragged wider, trousers over his hips, with Freddie's attentions alternating between teasing and relentless - a light touch of his tongue and then swallowing him deep).
But he has. And here they are. Freddie's fingertips have worked grooves into John's hips before he's halfway done, but when it's close enough he lets go of any restraint, lets John fuck his mouth. Winding him tight and then letting him unravel's another form of art that Freddie enjoys.]
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Freddie Baxter is dangerous in a way that wouldn't mean much to most people. more so than the people he's been known to let in and out like revolving figures to be the head bowed between his legs - rarely for this long, rarely to a point of undoing, John inclined to see more of other people than they'll ever see of him even if he doesn't care to inspect what he finds. Freddie's no threat to life or limb or freedom but he is capable of this, of John's fingers tightening into a fist in his hair and his hips moving frantically, past the point of concern. honesty. somehow, trust.
he's not thinking about that when he hits an edge and tips. he's thinking about what Freddie's face looks like from this angle with his mouth wrapped around John's cock. what it had looked like hours before, laughing easily at something stupid, surrounded by people he barely knew and could already enjoy. thinking of nothing at all. ]
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He can hear echoes of his voice, softly mocking you're so restrained and knows that he never thought that was the truth, but could never be sure he'd be shown this deep beneath the veneer.
Until the alley. But the alley was impulse and urgency of another kind, a reaction to a near irresistible force that had been pressed down so tight it was going to explode somehow.
It's different, when it's a choice.
He's catching shallow breaths when he's done, making up for time forgoing air. An arm pressed to his mouth for a second them reaches up to catch John's wrist and guide the hand still curled into his hair down to the side of his jaw, his throat, the point where his collarbones jut. He leans into the touch, unguarded.]
I don't think Hallmark do those.
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[ there's a stark contrast between the ache and tension of coming down after a screaming release of too-long-held steam and this, this shared thing, neither one of them tearing or taking and John left light and sinking easy into the comfort of his own sofa. two very different experiences. both true enough. but this one gives him leave to stay after, invited to touch, and John finds in himself none of the sense of suspension he'd felt the time before— he won't be walking on eggshells this time tomorrow. he won't be texting Claire with the details, either. not even with the facts.
thumb roams over skin, over the swell of bone underneath, fingers smoothing up to toy at and map over the shape of throat and of jaw in reverse journey that stays rooted down at his sternum. moments pass before John has the wherewithal to raise his other hand, draw his thumbpad just lightly over the curve of Freddie's bottom lip.
he gestures with a quick tip of his own head, voice soft and freshly warmed. all invite and no command. ]
Come here.
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[He leaves John still somewhat decent, clothing barely disturbed, as he climbs back onto the sofa. It's a stark contrast to Freddie's discarded shirt and toppled crown (he'll find that later and hang on to it).
Not into his lap, quite, but stretched alongside him, knees bent in half across his thigh. His smile's a satisfied little thing, because cat-that-got-the-cream would be too heavy handed a metaphor, and he tips his head in to graze the side of John's face with his own, nuzzling in against his jawline. He slept like this once, face pressed in to the curve of John's neck, that first night after his injury when the pain meds finally kicked in.
It's enough to suggest he might be naturally affectionate in more ways than the obvious, if he hadn't taught himself to be so prickly.
He'd kiss John but there's a vague part of him that wonders if he might be squeamish about it. But the thought is there. His mouth presses a few inches from John's lips, instead.]
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a turn of his head is enough to meet the corner of Freddie's mouth, to press a kiss to fuller lips with a further turn. his arm circles round, settles, keeps him close. ]
Do you need anything?
[ it's an afterthought but not by much, need to be substituted for want if it better suits and for once John isn't intent upon the answer, happy one way or the other, to return or simply to accept the giving, however unwrapped. he's mellow already, made mellower for affection, and it's now or John's not certain he won't drift too far from thoughts of any of it to pull himself back. easier to lay his head against the sofa cushions, neck craned and lips pressed against Freddie's hairline with eyes closed as he waits for answer, thumb drifting rhythmically over the bare skin at Freddie's back.
this too might be uncharacteristic, somehow isn't. John can't help but to care, too much and fiercely - appearances, morality. people. easy, quiet touch is rare, but falls from him now in these exact circumstances easily as he might scribble out his signature on a prescription or pick out his outfit in the morning. ]
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It's not a breathless kiss. Freddie recognises the haze of afterglow too neatly for that, but it's deep, and his breathing's still shallow. He's just enough air to hum a suggestion of consideration as he breaks back to refill his lungs.]
Mm, don't know. Cup of tea?
[His laugher's too light to rumble. There's a purr of a chuckle in his throat, and his fingertips trace artful lines down John's chest, creating work for idle hands.]
How long have I got before you fall asleep? [All teasing, until he isn't.] I'd like you to fuck me, slow this time, and ignore me when I tell you to pick it the fuck up. I'd like to see your teeth grit and feel your thighs shake and know it's killing you, too. I'd like you to fuck me, hard enough to break bedslats, when you do let it go. [And now we know why Freddie's been on a mattress on the floor for a while. John's eyes are met as he speaks, held for a long minute, then his body quirks with a fresh, unvoiced round of laughter.]
But if it's going to take three hours and a nap for you to feel up to that, you could just watch me get myself off, I suppose.
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he doesn't know if Freddie knows, suspects, or if it's just something to pull him back up into action, another gift. either way, happy birthday, John Watson. today or another day. a chance to show what he's made of.
there's the barest edge of something stirring at the corners of John's lips. ]
How about you start off with that and I'll let you know if it wakes me up.
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You lazy bastard.
[And Freddie's lips curl just as lazily. Splaying himself against John's side, he stretches idly, unbending one leg to lay it out across John's thighs. They'd sat like this not so very long ago over beers in his flat, telling stories.
All right. Not exactly like this.
He rubs himself through his jeans at first, slowly, fingers curling in to ruck up the fabric. There's the slightest catch in his voice when he speaks now.]
So, I know you... mostly... do girls. But I don't know how mostly that is.
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[ the break in exclusivity being recent and easily named, splayed out as it is beside him and across his lap. John's palm moves to stroke over the inside of a thigh. ]
I've had my moments.
[ to know himself, understand his tastes. still home first, in anger, a brief span of months spent more and more often out and away from the house and never discovered for what it was after his sister's forcible dismissal: impossible to be there for her without a station on the inside, able to put in good words and pass out whispers. impossible to be anything other than the better child, the good son. later, out from all that, in a time of wandering that ended with university and the people he gravitated to. stifled by the time he made the army, the silence after.
he's always known, but he hasn't had much time. hatred was ground in early, shame alongside, fury and fear and a cocktail of so many other delicate parts of himself, wanting and caring and feeling, that this, too, became too precious a thing to show casually. difficult to get around all that. John's not inclined towards vulnerability at the best of times. wrap all his weak points up in the same package and very quickly you find yourself with something too sore, too fragile to touch.
so he doesn't. typically. flirts around on the outskirts, plays at it, never takes the final step. it's that way that he's left a trail he doesn't even know about: imperceptible to all (including himself, unconscious and easy as his actions are by now) but those who stumble after him, abandoned. friends. only ever friends. only ever.
eyes raise again, smile still sharp, kneading Freddie's thigh under his hand. ]
What would you have said?
[ before all this. he's heard accounts, heard his early opinions, recent ones too, but they're here now and John's curious: how mostly, in Freddie's best guess? John wears a well cultivated exterior, fits so well he sometimes forgets it's a second skin. until he catches an eye or the timbre of a voice and discovers it burns. ]
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Almost.
[There's no attempt to hide amusement, his eyes drifting down to focus on the hand that's curled around his thigh.]
Well, I figured that part out. [Or, he knows now. But if he's as honest as he can be, with the surface stripped down, he wasn't one hundred percent sure there'd be an exception made for him. When push came to shove in that bar, the threat might not have been idle. He's met men like that. Men you can push so far before some learned revulsion in them makes them snap. Men who would have broken his spine. It's one reason among many that Freddie's careful not to push - for the most part. Lance met a man like that, and pushed, and he's the one who fell.
But John.]
I would have said you were straight. [He gives that answer simply. To anyone else, it's how he'd have described him. Still would be, in fact.
He rubs his hand over the back of John's, spreading his legs a little more to accommodate the slight nudge higher he teases out of him.] But I've fucked a lot of straight men. And I might be their first time, but I'm never the first time they've thought about it.
[He's unfastening his fly, sliding a hand under the waistband of his briefs, still teasingly invisible, though his back arches sharply as his hand wraps his cock. Swallows hard when he starts stroking himself.]
I'd have said you thought about it. [There's another question there, but he holds it a moment, humming out a sigh.] Almost exclusively. So I really am your teenage experimental phase.
[At some point his eyelashes have shuttered down, letting John watch him unobserved and unanalysed by a sharp-eyed gaze. This, in itself, is another gift. But the question lingers on his tongue and his eyes open narrowly as he asks it.]
Did you think about me?
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and Freddie doesn't need the help, really, does he? where beauty's concerned. and still, ]
Not really.
[ not quite true, but he doesn't think his answer's what Freddie's asking after, so he gives that one first: Freddie was never fodder, strangely enough, before. but that doesn't mean he never thought about him. ]
I thought about how close it was coming. Whether you were doing it on purpose, really on purpose, or whether it was just something you do. [ thumb draws firm, insistent circles into the material under it now, smoothly working higher ] I'd think about that.
[ and how strangely complex a thing it had grown into despite itself. hard, because people are once they get closer than he realises he's let them, where he seems to root himself down beside the most difficult of the lot... but there's an ease to it too, to the way he can navigate the majority of his time with Freddie, the way Freddie navigates John. but there was a question, always, in the times he knew it and the times he didn't: is this turning into the step too far I've been waiting to take for the last seven... nine... God, or is it ten years now? longer than that? and when it comes down to it, it's never really been a matter of Freddie's age. it's that he's been standing in front of a door he's closed for ages now, never pushed quite hard enough in quite the right ways to persuade him to pull it open again and step over the threshold until, apparently, this.
Freddie's narrow eyes find John's watching closely the corner of his mouth where the particular stretch of its edge widening out into the fuller swell of lips had been worth keeping watch over. ]
You're not my first time. You're my first in a long time. [ gaze flits up, meets. ] I'll think about you now.
it was a wonderful tag originally too fyi
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