Mmm. [ an assent, John mouthing idly at Freddie's throat in the pause between that and his own speech, nuzzling, breathing him in. ] At twenty-five past dawn's arsecrack. M'going to be late.
[ he doesn't. have anywhere to be. but that chirrup was nice to hear, to feel, and it's in idle pursuit of another that John wields clumsy humour. his hand, fisted at Freddie's back, splays open. his thumb traces happy patterns. John lets out a breath to dust down over Freddie's collarbone - it's a slow catching up of consciousness with a body already alert, and he's in no hurry to rush it along.
it's five past the arsecrack of dawn. there's no reason to rush it along. ]
[Sleep: the sequel is honestly, probably on Freddie's agenda. Though it may be slipping lower as a priority the more that John's hands wander over him. A yawn that hasn't got the memo stretches his ribcage, and follows up with the urge to stretch - one arm reaching upward, flexing, the toes of the opposite foot pointing outward, his back a perfect arch.
All this talk of arses: that's where Freddie's hands pick as a new resting place, pulling John's hips in flush.]
You can call out, though. I'll do it, if you like. Put on a gravelly voice, say I'm your dad.
[Brief reminder that Freddie's still of an age where parents might be expected to call in sick for him]
Sorry, John can't come in today. He's picked something up.
[ for as much as he tries not to spend all his time seeing it, there are moments when John can't help but to acknowledge Freddie's beauty. like now. with his eyes closed and his hand tracing the musculature of Freddie's back just in time for it to strain and curve under his palm, for Freddie's torso to press in against John with the motion and leave them close enough that he could name his pieces off like labels on an anatomy chart by the places they touch alone. the tail end of sound as sleep and the satisfaction of muscles allowed to reach perfect torsion slips between vocal folds.
Freddie grips him, pulls him in, and the sound that resonates in his chest is of a slightly different tone than the ones that came before.
convenient that he's ended up in his favourite place. his mouth bothers to form kisses now, still slow, still touched with sloth, trailed and placed down with deliberate care. it's almost chaste, except for how there's only so chastely one can suck at the skin over an adam's apple. ]
Not sure you're selling it. [ a hand tucking between body and mattress, running down Freddie's side ] Anyway, just remembered, due at half twilight's cleavage, not dawn's arsecrack.
Shame, Dawn's got a great arse. Suppose yours isn't too bad, though, if I'm stuck with it a while.
[Very little in Freddie's life manages to stay entirely chaste and this is clearly no exception. But the kisses mean something else to him, something satisfied without seeking for more. This is usually a fleeting sensation, caught only in a few minutes of afterglow - that unguarded, unwound time when touch doesn't have to be a prelude to anything, when it's just pleasure, no demand.
And this could be an afterglow of sorts, allowing for a gap of a few unconscious hours. Unhurried and undemanding.
Freddie doesn't allow much comfort into his life. John's mouth is a perfect demonstration of the reasons why. It's far too easy to get used to. He would linger in this, though, if it weren't for the interruption of his phone. A ridiculous hour to be getting messages, though not one he and John have never spoken at before.
Without pulling away too much, he gropes back across the bed for his buzzing phone, peering into the screen.]
[ a laugh, thanks for that without the word count, and John takes the opportunity to shift himself a bit, pushing up until his head's pillowed and his mouth can settle close-lipped against the skin of Freddie's shoulder. hand soothing over a hip, resting its heel in the dip of Freddie's pelvis. ]
Anything interesting?
[ like this, warm and halfway between sleeping and waking, it's easy to allow himself anything. especially this. closeness with no rhyme or reason: they can, and they want to, so they do.
he doesn't sound terribly interested, despite asking. not disinterested either, just— content. enough so not to mind much one way or the other whether Freddie discloses the contents of his messages or leaves John in the dark. he lifts his hips into marginally sacrificed distance, leg claiming space and tangling limbs further in a wordless, childish demand for attention over which John smiles to himself.
[Steady, now. Freddie strikes a grin, always a little too easily pleased when John's the one pressing closest, making the demands. Even if it's just with a shift of his body and the wrap of one leg around Freddie's, it feels as much a victory and validation as the first time and he rarely looks less triumphant.
He spares a glance at John, face lit pale in the phone's glow, his free hand still - well - free to make idle explorations across warm skin.]
Depends. Interested in a gram of coke and someone called... Sven? Ski instructor, he says. Great hip action.
[Because messages this late are usually someone else gauging interest, when the clubs are ready to throw out and they're not ready to go home. And Freddie's out at this time often enough. No one who knows him would have reason to picture this sleepy scene rather than assume he might be in a club down the road.]
[ not John's scene, no surprises there. more to the point, not for John. for Freddie.
sometimes that victorious glee in Freddie sparks up a rebellion in him, has him seeking his own successes and higher ground. today it spurs him on, the competition elsewhere, and small kisses drop up along the line of Freddie's shoulder until John's halfway laying on him, bestowed with all the languid ease of a tom cat sunning himself on a windowsill; fresh fed, sated and happy to claim whatever sunny spot he finds. which, for now, is right here, draped along Freddie's side, arm slung out over his torso and nosing into the hair behind his ear.
Freddie's aren't the only friends and acquaintances who might be surprised to see this playing out.
a pleased rumble at the idle affections of a drifting hand curls under and thickens his voice. ]
Tell him to try again another day. I'm busy.
[ busy with you. which means you're busy. which means he can't have you. ]
[Freddie does drugs when he's angry, and does people like Sven when he's bored - sometimes the other way round. In either circumstance, it's a form of release that his own languid sprawl expresses no particular craving for, now. It's nights when there's an itch under his skin that it would be unsightly to scratch out that will see him shucking on a jacket and treating the early hours of the night like an city worker's business lunch, all networking and strategic hookups.
Tonight nothing worries at him except the little huff of John's breath ruffling fine blonde hair. He lets himself be pinned with no resistance, tipping his hand back and letting the phone fall out of it to close the case.]
Don't think I'll bother. Fucking terrible beard.
[What's the point in other days when there's still tonight. Freddie takes the time to observe his own position, and John's weight evenly pressing across him. He doesn't feel trapped at all.
Fingers skim John's shoulders and strike a path insistently lower, but his tone stays wry.]
[ a stretch from John, just a small pull of the muscles of his back under roaming fingers. slow, steady breaths once he settles again, the ghosting of his lips over the shell of Freddie's ear. good. he's content that Freddie's not going anywhere and there's some sense of it in his demeanour, some echo of Freddie's earlier triumph, muted by sleep and lack of immediate direction but present in the way his slack arm loses some of its dead weight, lifts to run one splayed hand up over Freddie's belly, chest, coming to rest with fingers wrapped over ribs. ]
[He'd press up into those touches if John wasn't effectively keeping him from doing so, but chooses a different countermeasure, letting his nails drag along the track of John's spine.
His eyebrows arch.] Then, I suppose you're wide enough.
[The upper part of his body might be pinned in place but the lower isn't. Not so much that he can't lift a knee, positioning a thigh effectively between John's legs.]
[ an indulgent sigh, rich and thick and falling into Freddie's hair. he shifts against new interposition, new sensation, hips tucking and relaxing to feel for the extent of his freedom.
in the interest of payback, a purposefully obtuse: ]
I've never eaten hedgehog. [ probably ] What sort of something?
Actually, what small animals you've tried was exactly my question. Have you got a list?
[John's freedom is limited only by the light rest of Freddie's hands at his hips. Attempts to restrain him would be fairly foolish, and in a reversed position Freddie's weight wouldn't be much of a trap. So he could pull away from the rub of Freddie's thigh. If he wanted.
He smiles, but only elaborates a little.]
Something you'd want to do. If the answer's still hedgehog, that's fine.
[ he doesn't want. but that doesn't leave his hips to still, either: they've started up a unhurried roll that persists even as John's lifting himself up on one elbow to gain room to look Freddie in the face. to see that smile, echo it, light with mischief. ]
I've been around a long time. I've done a lot. [ not an answer to either question, really, but something you'd want to do isn't how John Watson operates. certainly not when it's an earnest question. even less so when he's already curled in close (and in too many more ways than just one). ]
[And yet want is what Freddie's always nudging him towards. Incentives and wishes and dark alleys. And so far he'd say he's winning I'm not sure when I started wanting to kiss you all the time, but every success is its own little battle.
It's not as if they aren't similar, if operating under different means. John blocks and barricades. Freddie distracts. He makes his whole life an open display of want - surface level, shallow things - so no one thinks to delve deeper.
Want is how he operates. What he knows how to use. And, less selfishly, something he likes to give. He narrows his lips.]
Well, you just missed your chance to say you'd never been woken up by the best blowjob of your life, but that's fine.
[There's a shift, like Freddie's pulling away, an impression he relies on to get John to give him enough space to flip their positions, so that he's on top. stretched over him like a cat at the endpoint of its pounce.]
Must be dull, though. Being so fucking worldly there's nothing new to try.
[ not that he doubts Freddie's capability, not for a minute. predictably, John gives way and finds himself shortly after spread out underneath a sprawl of person, chuckling quietly upwards at him. ]
I never said I'd done everything. I doubt I've marked off even half of your repertoire.
[ they're not unlike one another in this domain either. giving. John learned it a long time ago and since it's developed into something to take pleasure and pride in: being good at knowing, finding the things people yearn for and doing what he can with them, making people happy there in ways he doesn't elsewhere. in most situations, this no less than any other, asking for anything gives out more of him than it's worth.
and it's not that he doesn't trust Freddie to keep those things safe, it's that it's just not in him anymore. he finds what he wants now in what's asked for and what's offered, in silent gestures and the acceptance of gifts. finds bits of himself and his own desire in the ways he answers, a dance.
John notices himself inspecting the way the scant light catches on the ends of Freddie's eyelashes and wonders how he got here in the first place, how either of them did. doesn't care enough to grasp for an answer. ]
[Freddie pauses, caught between curling down against John in a way altogether too appealingly comfortable or taking this opportunity for further exploration. His focus flickers back to John's face, distracted from the choice.]
Having had lots of people and having done everything. Like, say you were into, I don't know, being blindfolded and whipped with birch branches. You wouldn't want to get into it with some headless torso on Scruff.
[His fingertips punctuate his sentences, light touches pressing a little more firmly in the spots that make him arch into them.]
I mean, Dean does. But he's a fucking idiot.
[And Freddie's far too much about control to give even the responsibility for his own pleasure to someone drifting through for a night. Satisfaction's often a hollow affair because he's learned not to want, because he's learned he can't have.
Not flogging with birch switches, incidentally. Things far more extreme. Risks he won't take even now - as he chooses against trickier forms of intimacy in favour of pressing his mouth to John's collarbone, and lower, lower.]
[ John hums softly under the press of Freddie's mouth, eventually raising a hand to cradle his skull as he considers what's been said. no. that sort of thing isn't anything to get into with a stranger. in all honesty it isn't anything that had even crossed his mind when the question was raised - but even aside from that, it's good to hear for its own reasons. John knows full well Freddie's got a sensible head on his shoulders, wise enough to know how to keep himself out of trouble for all the trouble he gets himself into, but it does beg the question.
John's thumb drags back and forth over the same short path through soft blond and he asks, straightforward as Freddie had, ]
What about you, then. [ a prompt, John watching Freddie's descent, sleep creeping slowly away from the little pools of pleasure blossoming out under touches. not far, but far enough for curiosity and something more focused to grip him firmly. ] Something you'd want to do. With someone who's got a head.
Edited (the awkward phrasing was real) 2016-05-31 01:40 (UTC)
[No, John. That's not how reciprocation works. Freddie's smile, as he lifts his head from laving a track with his tongue down the centre of John's chest says that he's not going to hold it against him, but like fuck does he get an answer in exchange for a dodge.]
I'll tell you when I want you to know.
[Whether that's merely stubbornness or there's a degree of trust John's not yet won (both), it's a subject for another day. When Freddie's in a different kind of giving mood.]
Though, speaking of getting head...
[Or, doing something that actively prevents speaking, as the case may be. The next moments may reveal that there are some things Freddie's not only done but done so often that practice makes something close to perfect. That promise of the best blowjob of John's life wasn't intended idly.]
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[ he doesn't. have anywhere to be. but that chirrup was nice to hear, to feel, and it's in idle pursuit of another that John wields clumsy humour. his hand, fisted at Freddie's back, splays open. his thumb traces happy patterns. John lets out a breath to dust down over Freddie's collarbone - it's a slow catching up of consciousness with a body already alert, and he's in no hurry to rush it along.
it's five past the arsecrack of dawn. there's no reason to rush it along. ]
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All this talk of arses: that's where Freddie's hands pick as a new resting place, pulling John's hips in flush.]
You can call out, though. I'll do it, if you like. Put on a gravelly voice, say I'm your dad.
[Brief reminder that Freddie's still of an age where parents might be expected to call in sick for him]
Sorry, John can't come in today. He's picked something up.
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Freddie grips him, pulls him in, and the sound that resonates in his chest is of a slightly different tone than the ones that came before.
convenient that he's ended up in his favourite place. his mouth bothers to form kisses now, still slow, still touched with sloth, trailed and placed down with deliberate care. it's almost chaste, except for how there's only so chastely one can suck at the skin over an adam's apple. ]
Not sure you're selling it. [ a hand tucking between body and mattress, running down Freddie's side ] Anyway, just remembered, due at half twilight's cleavage, not dawn's arsecrack.
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[Very little in Freddie's life manages to stay entirely chaste and this is clearly no exception. But the kisses mean something else to him, something satisfied without seeking for more. This is usually a fleeting sensation, caught only in a few minutes of afterglow - that unguarded, unwound time when touch doesn't have to be a prelude to anything, when it's just pleasure, no demand.
And this could be an afterglow of sorts, allowing for a gap of a few unconscious hours. Unhurried and undemanding.
Freddie doesn't allow much comfort into his life. John's mouth is a perfect demonstration of the reasons why. It's far too easy to get used to. He would linger in this, though, if it weren't for the interruption of his phone. A ridiculous hour to be getting messages, though not one he and John have never spoken at before.
Without pulling away too much, he gropes back across the bed for his buzzing phone, peering into the screen.]
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Anything interesting?
[ like this, warm and halfway between sleeping and waking, it's easy to allow himself anything. especially this. closeness with no rhyme or reason: they can, and they want to, so they do.
he doesn't sound terribly interested, despite asking. not disinterested either, just— content. enough so not to mind much one way or the other whether Freddie discloses the contents of his messages or leaves John in the dark. he lifts his hips into marginally sacrificed distance, leg claiming space and tangling limbs further in a wordless, childish demand for attention over which John smiles to himself.
the chance just to play is magic. ]
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He spares a glance at John, face lit pale in the phone's glow, his free hand still - well - free to make idle explorations across warm skin.]
Depends. Interested in a gram of coke and someone called... Sven? Ski instructor, he says. Great hip action.
[Because messages this late are usually someone else gauging interest, when the clubs are ready to throw out and they're not ready to go home. And Freddie's out at this time often enough. No one who knows him would have reason to picture this sleepy scene rather than assume he might be in a club down the road.]
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[ not John's scene, no surprises there. more to the point, not for John. for Freddie.
sometimes that victorious glee in Freddie sparks up a rebellion in him, has him seeking his own successes and higher ground. today it spurs him on, the competition elsewhere, and small kisses drop up along the line of Freddie's shoulder until John's halfway laying on him, bestowed with all the languid ease of a tom cat sunning himself on a windowsill; fresh fed, sated and happy to claim whatever sunny spot he finds. which, for now, is right here, draped along Freddie's side, arm slung out over his torso and nosing into the hair behind his ear.
Freddie's aren't the only friends and acquaintances who might be surprised to see this playing out.
a pleased rumble at the idle affections of a drifting hand curls under and thickens his voice. ]
Tell him to try again another day. I'm busy.
[ busy with you. which means you're busy. which means he can't have you. ]
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Tonight nothing worries at him except the little huff of John's breath ruffling fine blonde hair. He lets himself be pinned with no resistance, tipping his hand back and letting the phone fall out of it to close the case.]
Don't think I'll bother. Fucking terrible beard.
[What's the point in other days when there's still tonight. Freddie takes the time to observe his own position, and John's weight evenly pressing across him. He doesn't feel trapped at all.
Fingers skim John's shoulders and strike a path insistently lower, but his tone stays wry.]
Am I on your side of the bed?
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[ a stretch from John, just a small pull of the muscles of his back under roaming fingers. slow, steady breaths once he settles again, the ghosting of his lips over the shell of Freddie's ear. good. he's content that Freddie's not going anywhere and there's some sense of it in his demeanour, some echo of Freddie's earlier triumph, muted by sleep and lack of immediate direction but present in the way his slack arm loses some of its dead weight, lifts to run one splayed hand up over Freddie's belly, chest, coming to rest with fingers wrapped over ribs. ]
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[He'd press up into those touches if John wasn't effectively keeping him from doing so, but chooses a different countermeasure, letting his nails drag along the track of John's spine.
His eyebrows arch.] Then, I suppose you're wide enough.
[The upper part of his body might be pinned in place but the lower isn't. Not so much that he can't lift a knee, positioning a thigh effectively between John's legs.]
Tell me something you've never done?
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in the interest of payback, a purposefully obtuse: ]
I've never eaten hedgehog. [ probably ] What sort of something?
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[John's freedom is limited only by the light rest of Freddie's hands at his hips. Attempts to restrain him would be fairly foolish, and in a reversed position Freddie's weight wouldn't be much of a trap. So he could pull away from the rub of Freddie's thigh. If he wanted.
He smiles, but only elaborates a little.]
Something you'd want to do. If the answer's still hedgehog, that's fine.
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I've been around a long time. I've done a lot. [ not an answer to either question, really, but something you'd want to do isn't how John Watson operates. certainly not when it's an earnest question. even less so when he's already curled in close (and in too many more ways than just one). ]
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It's not as if they aren't similar, if operating under different means. John blocks and barricades. Freddie distracts. He makes his whole life an open display of want - surface level, shallow things - so no one thinks to delve deeper.
Want is how he operates. What he knows how to use. And, less selfishly, something he likes to give. He narrows his lips.]
Well, you just missed your chance to say you'd never been woken up by the best blowjob of your life, but that's fine.
[There's a shift, like Freddie's pulling away, an impression he relies on to get John to give him enough space to flip their positions, so that he's on top. stretched over him like a cat at the endpoint of its pounce.]
Must be dull, though. Being so fucking worldly there's nothing new to try.
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[ not that he doubts Freddie's capability, not for a minute. predictably, John gives way and finds himself shortly after spread out underneath a sprawl of person, chuckling quietly upwards at him. ]
I never said I'd done everything. I doubt I've marked off even half of your repertoire.
[ they're not unlike one another in this domain either. giving. John learned it a long time ago and since it's developed into something to take pleasure and pride in: being good at knowing, finding the things people yearn for and doing what he can with them, making people happy there in ways he doesn't elsewhere. in most situations, this no less than any other, asking for anything gives out more of him than it's worth.
and it's not that he doesn't trust Freddie to keep those things safe, it's that it's just not in him anymore. he finds what he wants now in what's asked for and what's offered, in silent gestures and the acceptance of gifts. finds bits of himself and his own desire in the ways he answers, a dance.
John notices himself inspecting the way the scant light catches on the ends of Freddie's eyelashes and wonders how he got here in the first place, how either of them did. doesn't care enough to grasp for an answer. ]
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[Freddie pauses, caught between curling down against John in a way altogether too appealingly comfortable or taking this opportunity for further exploration. His focus flickers back to John's face, distracted from the choice.]
Having had lots of people and having done everything. Like, say you were into, I don't know, being blindfolded and whipped with birch branches. You wouldn't want to get into it with some headless torso on Scruff.
[His fingertips punctuate his sentences, light touches pressing a little more firmly in the spots that make him arch into them.]
I mean, Dean does. But he's a fucking idiot.
[And Freddie's far too much about control to give even the responsibility for his own pleasure to someone drifting through for a night. Satisfaction's often a hollow affair because he's learned not to want, because he's learned he can't have.
Not flogging with birch switches, incidentally. Things far more extreme. Risks he won't take even now - as he chooses against trickier forms of intimacy in favour of pressing his mouth to John's collarbone, and lower, lower.]
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John's thumb drags back and forth over the same short path through soft blond and he asks, straightforward as Freddie had, ]
What about you, then. [ a prompt, John watching Freddie's descent, sleep creeping slowly away from the little pools of pleasure blossoming out under touches. not far, but far enough for curiosity and something more focused to grip him firmly. ] Something you'd want to do. With someone who's got a head.
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I'll tell you when I want you to know.
[Whether that's merely stubbornness or there's a degree of trust John's not yet won (both), it's a subject for another day. When Freddie's in a different kind of giving mood.]
Though, speaking of getting head...
[Or, doing something that actively prevents speaking, as the case may be. The next moments may reveal that there are some things Freddie's not only done but done so often that practice makes something close to perfect. That promise of the best blowjob of John's life wasn't intended idly.]