Part Nine

Aug 18, 2008 14:51

Title: What You Are
Author:
bellesreves
Characters: Irwin, Dakin, Lockwood, Posner
Rating: Soft R. I'm not a writer of graphic sex scenes just yet, but it does get to be a frequent topic of conversation.
Summary: Irwin and Dakin keep spinning in one-hundred-and-eighty-degree increments, and everyone learns more about what it means to be not not homosexual. Except Irwin. I suspect he already knows.
Words: ~1650
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no money by writing about them.

A/N: It seems somehow fitting that the reason this part has been so slow in coming is that I've been working on applications for further education in literature. Anyway, I'm sorry about the wait and hope that the new installment meets with expectations. There will be parts ten, eleven, and probably twelve eventually. Just as soon as I stop banging my head with the heel of my hand and finish my applications. Below are links to previous parts.
Part One: A Moment of Audacity
Part Two: More Questions Than Answers
Part Three: Two Flats
Part Four: Match of Wits
Part Five: Hands
Part Six: Coffee Spoons
Part Seven: Impulses
Part Eight: Feeling Naked

And, as promised, Part Nine:

The kitchen was now far cleaner than it had been when they’d gone to bed. In fact, Irwin couldn’t find another part of it to wipe or dust. He briefly considered getting down on his knees and scrubbing the floor, but the possibility of Dakin returning to find him on all fours was enough to make him dismiss the thought.

Halfway to the bedroom door, he turned and gazed pleadingly again at the kitchen. It stared back, pristine. Irwin surveyed the room helplessly, unable to find something to tidy before braving the dim light and unreadable eyes inside the bedroom.
It was the chill that finally brought Irwin back to his senses. He looked down, thinking of the various items of clothing he owned that might serve to guard his bare legs, all of which were on the wrong side of his bedroom door. He rubbed a hand over his eyes. Standing nearly naked in his own drafty flat, he chastised himself for being a coward and knew he’d spend the night shivering rather than press Dakin further. Back at the dining table, he rested his chin on one hand and tried to stare down the door across the room, but the pale wood remained impassive.

“I don’t know,” Posner answered honestly. “I’ve only-I mean, just the once…” He looked into Lockwood’s face, unsure of whether to go on. He didn’t look when he felt Lockwood’s hand rise, but a gust of air told him it lingered near the side of his face for a moment before flying to Lockwood’s own ear and scratching absently. A smile stole over Posner’s pale features, and he laughed. “I’m actually working very hard to remember how it’s all supposed to go.”

Lockwood huffed out an uneven chuckle. “Do it again,” he said seriously, “but more slowly.” He paused. “Please.”

Posner’s hand wandered between them, undoing his own shirt buttons. “Okay,” he said softly, pulling the sleeves down his arms.

This time, Lockwood kept his eyes open. He watched with interest as Posner kissed a path down his chest. They were both silent, made self-conscious by the voices next door.

“Oi,” said Lockwood after a few minutes. His voice was husky. He arched his back as a ripple traveled from Posner’s hands and mouth through his entire body. Posner looked up.

Lockwood studied his friend’s face for a few long moments. “Let me try doing that.”

In the bedroom, Dakin sulked. At first, he’d tried to fall asleep before Irwin came back in, only to find himself too preoccupied. Several long minutes passed, piling up on top of one another in the silent, chilly bedroom. Every time the floor creaked, his eyes flicked toward the door. He began to wonder whether Irwin had donned a long coat to cover his bare skin and simply left the flat. Perhaps Dakin had finally convinced his old teacher that having him frankly wasn’t worth the trouble.

The dark-haired boy sat down in the desk chair and threw his feet up onto the bed, not without a generous measure of petulance. He wanted Irwin to push him, just like he had at Cutler’s. He wanted Irwin to demand answers and then turn inside out whatever Dakin supplied in return. He wanted Irwin to pressure him until he figured out what it was that made being fucked by Irwin so different from any fucking Dakin had ever been a part of before.

Dakin put his forehead in his hands. He wanted Irwin to fuck him again. Oh, God, he actually wanted to do it again. Something twisted deep in his abdomen and he tried to squash it with the heel of his hand. “Jesus,” he muttered in frustration and something like disgust.

The hands of Irwin’s glowing alarm clock plunked onward. Dakin watched them, listening hard and imagining Irwin hunched against the cold, stalking off to his sister’s flat in his boxers and a coat. As time went on, the annoyance from earlier ebbed and apprehension grew in its place. The nearly-naked Irwin in his head was nearing Abigail’s imaginary flat, and the alarm clock’s ticking was relentless. Head spinning, Dakin pulled open the bedroom door at last, fully expecting an empty, lonely flat to stare him back full in the face. He braced himself for the finality of the sight.

Instead, his eyes fell on a slight, slumped figure facing him from across the room. Irwin had drifted off with his elbows on the table, one hand beneath his chin and the other flat against his cheek.

Dakin rolled his eyes so far it almost hurt. “Is this what I couldn’t sleep for?” he murmured, crossing to the chair opposite Irwin. “A skinny bloke with his glasses half off?”

The other man stirred and lightly harrumphed, at which Dakin very nearly giggled aloud. His sharp blue eyes widened in horror. Had he almost just giggled?

Posner’s head drove backward into the cushion Lockwood had pulled from the sofa. “Is that what I did to you?” he asked, digging his fingers into the carpet.

Lockwood hummed an affirmative, and the cushion behind Posner’s head slid backward several inches.

Posner moistened his lips firmly. “Then I am fucking good.”

A muffled snort reverberated through Posner’s hips. Posner grinned. Crawling back up alongside his companion, Lockwood rearranged the cushion so that both of their heads could fit on it. He lay down on his side, eyes very close to Posner’s cheek. Posner wondered whether he would kiss the freckle again.

They both breathed into the silence for a few moments, their pants blending together in a frantic, syncopated rhythm.

It was Lockwood who spoke first. “Does it hurt?” he asked at last, his voice low. Posner furrowed his brow blankly, rolling over to face him. Lockwood didn’t meet his eyes, but studied the clothes spilled over the back of the sofa. “Being fucked.”

Posner cleared his throat. “I-I don’t know,” he replied, voice soft but clear. “I’ve only ever been… on the other side of it.”

Lockwood nodded. The thick weave of the cushion rubbed his cheek pink. “I could-” he began.

“What?” Posner asked too quickly.

“I could…” Lockwood reached over to rest his hand on Posner’s waist. The muscles there tensed as though Lockwood had pressed something cold to Posner’s skin. “I could try it. And… let you know.”

“You want to try being fucked.” Posner’s voice was disbelieving.

Lockwood gave him a small smile.

Having considered and abandoned several methods for waking the man at the table, Dakin finally settled for yanking a chair out and placing himself atop it, his feet on the seat and his rear balanced on the edge of the back.

Jerking awake at the harsh noise of the chair legs on the floor, Irwin immediately straightened his glasses and looked up.

“Is your hand numb?” asked the younger man, his arms resting smugly on his knees.

Irwin tried to shake his fingers inconspicuously.

“You can damage your nerves, falling asleep on with your wrist bent like that.” Dakin rested his elbows on his knees. He let the syllables sit heavily, knowingly, on his tongue before they fell out of his mouth. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“Ah,” was all Irwin could manage. He flexed his fingers experimentally.

“Yep,” Dakin continued confidentially. “You can avoid that by sleeping in a proper bed.”

Irwin fought the urge to pull off his glasses and rub the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t think you wanted me there.”

“At the very least, you could have tried the sofa,” Dakin observed with amusement.

Irwin swallowed to clear the sleep from his throat. “You storm off. Five minutes later, you reappear with that infuriating grin-don’t look at me like that; you’re maddening and well aware of it. It is late and I don’t fancy sparring with you, verbally or otherwise.”

“Fine.” Dakin hopped downward so that he was seated properly. He toyed with the zip of his jeans, so slightly that Irwin thought he might have imagined it, before crossing his arms. “Anyway, it wasn’t five minutes. Three hours have passed.”

Irwin blinked. “You sat in there for three hours?”

“Yes. But it doesn’t matter. I was only being stupid.”

Irwin cocked an eyebrow and somewhat playfully shoved Dakin’s chair a few centimeters away with his foot. A moment later, he seemed to remember himself, pulling his legs together and sitting up straight.

Dakin grinned and resettled himself, spreading his own legs so that one foot threaded beneath the crook of Irwin’s knees. They didn’t touch. “Maybe I spent the three hours thinking about it,” he mused airily, inspecting his fingernails. He flicked some lint from his jeans and looked up with practiced nonchalance. “Maybe I want to do it again.”

Irwin’s hands closed over one another on the tabletop. The glimmer was gone from his eyes. “And maybe,” he said, gentle but serious, “you’d react just the same way all over again.”

Dakin frowned. “No, I-”

“Thought about it long enough to push your stomach back down where it belongs and decide you’d like to come again, I know.” Irwin granted his companion a stiff smile. He hesitated, but went on. "I know," he repeated. “I’ve known what I am for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I came by it easily.”

Dakin’s temper flared. “Am I what you are, then?” he demanded, his voice grating against the stillness of the hour. His features bunched up at the knotting sensation behind his navel, the feeling that was dangerously close to disgust.

The look he got in return was filled with a sort of sadness that Dakin had never seen before in his life. Dakin had to hold his breath in order to hear Irwin’s next words.

“Perhaps it’s best for me to wake up tomorrow to a life that isn’t tangled up around you again, Stuart.”

pairing:dakin/irwin, genre:slash, character:dakin, character:irwin, character:posner, character:lockwood, author:bellesreves, pairing:lockwood/posner

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