[fic] We Don't Dive (We Cannonball) - 1/1
Title: We Don't Dive (We Cannonball)
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Kendall/James
Rating: M
Word Count: 5,959
Warnings: Sex. Sexy sexy dripping wet sex. In public.
Summary: This place is grit and glamor, and Kendall’s just the same. He is too much, too beautiful, his lips bitten cherry red as an old school ford, his eyes green as the street signs on Hollywood and Vine. His body is a silver screen, and James wants to make his art all over it.
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine.
Author Notes: SO. It was Liz's birthday in July! And it is obviously not July now. But it is still an occasion that deserves celebration, despite my mega-lateness in delivering fic. Tada! Anyway, Liz asked me for skinny dipping fic about eight thousand years ago. She probably thinks I forgot. I did not forget! It just takes me about eight thousand years to write smut. I have to give a major shout out to jblostfan16 for the super quick, super fantastic beta, and uh. What else? Oh, yes, I do recognize that titling a story about gay porn after a song about feminism is not so appropriate, but I was short on titles, and Swimming Pools is an awesome song, okay?
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“This is a bad idea.”
“False. I don’t have bad ideas.” James vaults the fence, all long limbs and casual athletic grace. From the other side of the chain-links, he grins at Kendall and begins stripping out of his shirt. “You coming?”
“You have bad ideas,” Kendall objects, but he obediently hops over Bitters’ shoddily constructed monstrosity. When his feet touch down, his eyes linger on the pink of James’s nipple, pert in the cool night air. “Mom said if we get in trouble again, she’s going to take away my hockey gear.”
James gasps, mocking. “The tragedy.”
“It is,” Kendall insists, and yeah, sometimes James thinks Kendall has a closer, more intimate relationship with his hockey stick than he’ll ever manage with a real life human being.
He shoots back, “I meant the part where you sound exactly like Logan right now,” slipping out of his flip flops while he talks. The concrete is hot under his feet, still clutching the sun’s warmth like a lover that doesn’t know how to let go.
Kendall pouts prettily, and all James can think of is how his mom despaired of their friendship when they were little. She always tried to set him up on like, play dates with rich assholes that he couldn’t stand. Inevitably, he went back to Kendall. Because Kendall is fun.
Or, well, Kendall’s usually fun. He’s being a real wimp about this skinny dipping thing.
“Just get naked already,” James tells him, already dropping trou.
He hasn’t got anything underneath.
“No!” Kendall averts his eyes immediately, red staining the bridge of his nose. “Have I mentioned that this is a bad idea?”
“Have I mentioned that you’re being a pussy? Dude, I’m serious, if I wanted to bring a Logan-clone with me, I would have brought Logan. Now, I’m bored-“
“I feel like you can be bored with your pants on, though,” Kendall protests, looking in every which direction, anywhere but James and how not clothed he is. James smirks.
“- and you said we could do whatever I wanted to do. This is what I want to do.” He cocks his head to the side and juts his hips so that they fall just inside Kendall’s line of sight. Sure, it’s a little mean, but Kendall is always so sure of himself, every step purposeful, every hard glance exactly like a monarch, surveying his kingdom. James likes nothing more than to put him off balance.
So sue him.
“I can’t believe this,” Kendall mutters, but he’s fumbling open his jeans, and fuck, yes, finally. James waits, anticipating. He’s always had a vivid imagination, and he has no trouble imagining this; Kendall, in all his naked glory. He’s caught glimpses before, in the locker rooms after practice, backstage during a concert, but he’s never gotten the chance to savor it. He wants Kendall laid bare, alone, with nowhere to run off to and no reason to put his clothes back on. Skinny dipping is the perfect solution.
And everyone says James isn’t bright.
Kendall shucks his shoes, pants, and then his shirt. His hands freeze over the lurid plaid print of his underwear. James doesn’t know why. For now, they have this tiny little grotto of their own, palm trees and birds of paradise, unlit fire-pits and the shadow of empty cabanas, canvas fluttering untethered in the breeze. Bitters has been hoarding the pool for three days, barricading it off from the hotel’s clientele as a form of sick, twisted punishment for a teeny, tiny prank that Carlos and Lucy may or may not have pulled.
“C’mon,” James urges, and no one can prove that it sounds like begging.
Kendall pushes down his boxers in one single, smooth movement, but before James can drink anything in other than the gold crosshatch of his pubic hair, he cannonballs straight into the pool. The splash is loud, and Kendall doesn’t come up immediately after. There is this brief moment where there is nothing but the emptiness and James, shadows painting everything in black, white, and gray, the world just a few feet away turned to a silent film set. Kendall’s body is a pink blur beneath the water, and a breeze teases at the edges of James’s hair, makes goosebumps stand up on his naked skin. He still can’t believe he has any of this, motherfucking Hollywood, where actors wrapped in fur used to strut down long avenues, trailing entourages and dazzling flashbulbs, where Norma Jean found her big break and Errol Flynn wore really tight tights and the only thing brighter and more relentless than the allure of fame is the sun. You can drive past Betty Grable’s tombstone in Inglewood without even knowing, brush shoulders with celebrity eight times in a single day and be completely ignorant of it. Every time James steps outside, he’s walking in the ghostly footprints of Fred Astaire, and one day he swears he’ll be out there too, a palpable taste of stardust in the ether, his handprints on a giant slab of cement.
But for now he’s young, standing on the brink of a sparkling future, and he’s got the Palmwoods pool laid out, a glittering blue lagoon in front of him. Kendall emerges in a patch of moonlight, a silver pocket that washes him out, white-gold and palladium and the delicate angles of his wrists.
“Are you coming in?” Kendall asks innocently, water beaded on the philtrum of his upper lip. He’s standing as straight as he can, the full force of his gaze focused on James’s face, but James is looking elsewhere, staring at the curl of Kendall’s toes against the shimmering bottom of the pool.
And his calves.
And his knees.
And his thighs and on upwards, fuck. Kendall is naked, and sure, that was the entire point of this exercise, but James hadn’t expected it to hit him so hard. Kendall’s shoulders have gotten so broad, his muscles so lean, and he looks so very different than the homegrown Minnesota boy that James grew up next to. It twinges in his heart, right at the core, the deep places that Kendall has infected for years now. Love has cut ravines between his ventricles, deep, abyssal, endless, reworked his entire nervous system and rewritten his entire future, all for this boy…but he’s never been one hundred percent positive that Kendall feels the same.
Kendall is an illuminated manuscript, at once beautiful and hard to read, and James is so sick of it. He feels like they’ve been running in circles around each other for years.
He dives headfirst into the water, soundless, slices through chlorine that stings his eyes red, but he does not close them. James wants to see, kicks up to the blurred peach blob that is Kendall. They did this when they were kids, hands held like Jaws’ fin, but this time around James isn’t planning on yelling boo.
Kendall is waiting when he pops up through the surface, and up close his hair sticks up, rumpled as the crown of a cockatoo. “Are you happy now?”
“Very,” James replies agreeably.
Kendall smiles with too many teeth, pointy and bright white. “Good.”
He flops backwards, allowing his body to be swallowed whole, a baptism of sorts, and then he twists underwater, slippery as a fish, and kicks off. He swims laps, his body long and lean. Kendall’s veins trace blue beneath translucent skin, and James can’t remember ever wanting to get his hands on someone so damn much. His nerve endings are screaming out Kendall’s name.
He can’t quiet the urge, can’t give voice to it either - California is a dust bowl and his mouth is dry, tumbleweeds on his tongue when he tries to say what he needs to - so the next time Kendall passes by, James mutters, “I get it, you’re the pinnacle of athletic grace. Stop being such a loser and pay attention to me.”
Kendall stills, finding his footing again. His eyes are jewels set into his face, eerily green, witchlight and foxfire. “The problem with paying attention to you is that you’re naked.”
In the distance, the hills twinkle with lights, distant stars, promising diamonds and smooth whiskey, the smear of red lipstick on a starlet’s mouth, but that is not where James wants to be. He’s had it with girls in silk hosiery and La Perla panties, with boys wearing ten thousand dollar gold watches and cologne that reeks of money. None of them have ever looked at James like Kendall does.
“So are you.”
“Right,” Kendall agrees, “But me, nude, isn’t offensive to my eyes.” He splashes water at James, fingers cupped, smile wide. James dodges to the left.
“It’s offensive to mine. We live in the middle of California, how do you not have a tan? Freak.”
“Oh, so you’re saying you want me to get dressed? Because you might recall my saying that this is a bad-“ Kendall cuts off abruptly, diving to the left to avoid the wave James swats towards him with the full span of his arm. He smirks, shakes his head and sing-songs, “Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me.”
“I could you know,” James tells him seriously, and Kendall laughs like it’s the funniest thing James has ever said.
James has a witty reply. It is perched on his lips, ready to take flight. Kendall announces, “I bet I can hold my breath longer than you.”
“You are so on,” James retorts immediately. That is an insult to his dignity and honor that cannot be withstood. Everyone knows that James Diamond breaks records with his lung capacity; all the girls back home say so.
He gulps down as much oxygen as he can stand and slithers down to the white-washed concrete bottom of the pool, crossing his legs, settling in for a long ride. He wears his hotrod grin, aiming to dazzle Kendall right out of his misguided notion that he can beat James at anything. And he can, he so can. Things are going really well until Kendall decides to start making faces at James.
It would be fine - at first it is fine - because Kendall is crossing his eyes and wrinkling his nose and generally being utterly silly and dumb. James can work through that without laughing; it’s pretty much par for the course of Kendall’s entire existence. His face is naturally ridiculous.
It is fine, until it’s not fine, because Kendall decides to turn this game obscene.
He’s stupid about it, tweaking his own nipples and smoothing his hands down his chest while making exaggeratedly terrible sex faces. Then he gets the bright idea to mimic taking a dick in his mouth, complete with hand gestures and a puffed out cheek for emphasis. Kendall laughs through it, eyes wide with mirth, bubbles streaming from the corners of his lips, but the motion of his hand is perfectly in time with the thrust of his tongue inside his cheek, and James’s eyes aren’t the only part of him taking notice. He is blatantly fixated on the loose curl of Kendall’s fingers, the white swell of his knuckles. He is caught, enthralled, bewitched. This is the worst kind of subversive warfare, made ten times crueler because Kendall thinks it’s a joke. He’s naked and wet and faking his way through an imaginary blowjob, and he thinks it’s hilarious.
James might, and he won’t admit to this on record, not ever, but he might have slight anger management issues. He shifts, gets his ankles underneath his body, feet braced against the concrete basin of the swimming pool, which scrapes against his toes as he scrabbles for purchase. For leverage.
James lunges forward in a slow motion action sequence, movements bogged down by the weight of the pool overhead, but he’s got enough of a head start that he takes Kendall by surprise. He reaches out and shoves, grappling Kendall further down into the water. Kendall fights back, unable to turn down a challenge, and they burst to the surface of the pool in a flurry of splashes and slick limbs.
“Boom. Shot through the heart,” Kendall declares, one hand cocking an imaginary gun while his other digs into James’s bicep. “I owned you.”
“Uh, no, you give sportsmanship a bad name. You cheated. You are a cheater and a scoundrel and unfit to polish my boots.”
“Good thing I have no interest in polishing your boots, then.” Kendall grins, the dirty con, and he has no right to look so happy about his foul, foul play. James is indignant, because James is a super star, okay. Every day, he rolls that Hollywood glow on his tongue and it lights him from the inside, turns him into this jack-o-lantern boy, this beacon that everyone wants to touch or be touched by. Kendall isn’t allowed to be immune to that.
Of course, Kendall’s been vaccinated, too close to James and stardust and fame. He’s adapted and evolved; this place is grit and glamor, and Kendall’s just the same. He is too much, too beautiful, his lips bitten cherry red as an old school ford, his eyes green as the street signs on Hollywood and Vine.
His body is a silver screen, and James wants to make his art all over it.
He tackles Kendall back beneath the water, because this is what they know, this is happy, open affection. James tries to gain the upper hand, but Kendall lures it away, and when they’re wrestling beneath the stained glass surface of the pool, all Caribbean blue and silver moonlight, James could swear that he feels Kendall’s erection brush against his leg and all he can think is that he hopes Kendall doesn’t feel how hard he is right back. He claws his way up towards the sky, cyanceruleanindigo, desperate for air, hungry for it, hungry for Kendall. They both break through at the same time, and they are wet, slippery, pale in the reflection of the night lights.
Or, well, James is pale. In the moonlight, Kendall glows, and it’s weirdly dissonant because of how in the sun he can’t even catch a tan.
“What was that, jerk?” Kendall asks, and he’s laughing, and blushing, and glaring all at the same time. He’s emerged backed up against a wall, but instead of looking trapped, his expression is fierce, daring. Kendall never has any idea when to accept that he’s already lost.
Want trails unsubtle fingers up James’s spine. It settles against the back of his neck, cups warmth there and urges his head forward until he is a breath away.
Kendall goes cross-eyed. “What are you doing?”
There is a noise, loud, and a shout of laughter, footsteps racing through the lobby of the Palmwoods, echoing through the doors that stand open to the pool. James and Kendall freeze, still as flies trapped in amber, their lips hovering over each other, waiting to overlap, maybe, if James will finally take the chance.
This close, Kendall smells of chlorine, and beneath that, the faint scent of the shampoo they both use, bonded as brothers in a single apartment. James touches his cheek with a reverence that he usually reserves for holy objects, like his lucky comb and full cans of Cuda, his headshots and designer shoes. He turns his gaze down, and there, beneath the surface of the water, everything looks chlorine blue and bone white, even the rippled protrusion of Kendall’s cock. But James can feel its heat. He is intensely aware of how it is hot and silky and definitely there, and it makes him twitch with interest.
He wants Kendall like one of Mrs. Knight’s romance novels, wants to link his legs over James’s shoulders and take him steamy and slow, wants him in the back of the BTR-mobile, hard and fast, wants him with bodice-ripping passion, except Kendall has no bodice; he doesn’t even have a stitch. James drinks him in, greedy.
“James?” Kendall asks, and this time, his voice is less certain, less sure. He is off balance and so very far out of his element, his breathing uneven, a tremolo-waver accompanying every ragged draw.
The negative space between them is gaping, it is abyssal, and it is also less than inches. All James has to do is cross it, risk a lifetime of friendship and love and loyalty for something that could very well make or break them. He lives in indecision for a mere instant; he did not get to be friends with a Knight-in-shining-armor by fearing lions or tigers or bears, oh my. James holds Kendall’s mossy-green gaze and carefully, deliberately, slots their hips together, no longer hiding anything at all.
Kendall hisses, hot and bothered under his skin, and he stares up at James with astonishment, bewilderment, and maybe even hope. At least, that’s what James thinks the desperate creature that lurks in the shadows of Kendall’s parted lips is; he’s seen it reflected in his own expression often enough.
Kendall shudders, shivers like he’s cold, and James wraps his arms around his shoulders, holds him close and tight. Water drips from his bangs, from Kendall’s lips and his cheeks. It streams in tiny rivulets down the hollows of his throat, each trail sparkling with promise. James fully intends to follow them with his mouth, and soon. Because Kendall is not pushing him away, is not trying to manhandle James out of his personal space.
Except for the fine tremble in his bones, Kendall is barely moving.
“How long have you wanted this?” He asks, dark, uncertain. He is smaller in James’s arms than he has any right to be, skinny legs and a slender waist and a solid, but thin chest. His biceps are wiry and his neck is elegant, and the only thing left to remind James that Kendall can take him down in a single body check is the steady, heavy pressure of his dick.
“How long have you?” James counters indignantly. He’s not doing anything, not any of the things he wants to be doing, because he is naked and pressed tight to Kendall’s front, and there is a whole new realm of possibility here. But James is acquainting himself with self-constraint, making truly remarkable concessions for the good of his friendship. He only ruts his hips once - okay, twice - against Kendall’s, just to see how the blond’s eyes roll up, white all around.
Kendall whimpers, tucking his chin into the intersection of James’s neck and shoulder. James can feel the fever heat of his lips against his throat. “I asked you first.”
James tilts his face, chuckling into Kendall’s matted, wet hair. “Stubborn ass.” He searches out the shell of Kendall’s ear and presses his mouth against it. “Fine. How long have I wanted you?” The question lingers there, accompanied by the soft puff of his breaths tickling Kendall’s skin.
He’s rigid in James’s arms, his whole body standing at attention, waiting for an answer. James entertains the idea of drawing it out, of making this a game, but it’s Kendall, and what if he only has one chance at this? This might be it, the world ending with a whisper or a bang, and James steels himself for both.
Quietly, he confesses, “My whole life.”
Kendall lets out a strangled noise, and then he is latching his lips onto James’s throat in earnest, kissing and sucking and pushing his dick insistently against James’s. James is stunned, he allows himself a moment to be stunned, because despite the hard, steady presence of Kendall’s cock, he was only toying with the idea of enthusiastic acceptance. He has more than enough experience with rejection, knows better than to form actual, solid expectations, and even if he had, the hot trek of Kendall’s tongue up his jugular would have surpassed them all. In the warmth of Kendall’s mouth, James loses the sound of cars whizzing past outside the walled enclave of the Palmwoods, the rustle of the wind in the palm fronds, and the gentle glow of lamplight emanating from windows in the hotel up above.
Up close, Kendall has a Grace Kelly smile and Rudolph Valentino’s wicked charm. He inches along the line of James’s jaw, licking and sucking, taking his time, and James practically vibrates with impatience. When Kendall spreads his legs enough that James can work a thigh up between them, he barely thinks he can hold on, that he can wait for Kendall to make his move. He scrapes his teeth across James’s lower lip, and then he finally, finally turns it into a kiss, something hard and bruising. This is the first of many, James hopes.
He can taste dinner on Kendall’s tongue, strawberry smoothies and, beneath that, Kendall, intoxicating in his own right. James’s hands drift down, settling in a firm grip on Kendall’s ass, skin and muscle flexing beneath his fingers. Kendall keens, scrabbling back against the pool wall for leverage, trying to climb James’s body, and that is not fair at all.
Arousal is no longer a dull ache in James’s veins; it pounds through his limbs, leaves him as winded and breathless and frantic as Kendall. Kendall, who hitches his hips forward, trapping James’s cock against his, and demands, “You’re going to fuck me, right? Please say you’re going to fuck me.”
It’s such an un-Kendall thing to say that James gasps out a laugh. “You have a filthy mouth.”
Sort of. It’s pretty dirty for a vanilla serial monogamist, anyway.
Seriously, Kendall replies. “You like that.”
James does like that, but he’s a little confused about how Kendall would know it. His expression must beg askance, because Kendall explains, “Thin walls.”
James draws back, kissing Kendall’s chin, his cheek, his lips. “You’ve been eavesdropping on me?” He curls his fingers against the cleft of Kendall’s ass, dipping between flesh experimentally.
Kendall groans gustily against James’s ear. “Hard not to.”
“Yeah?” James circles the tip of his index finger against Kendall’s asshole, completely gratified when Kendall bucks back against it. “Like what you heard?”
Kendall captures James’s earlobe in his mouth. He sucks it sweetly, despite the fervent movement of his hands against James’s shoulders, spine, and the small of his back, “Yes. No. I don’t know. Jealous.”
James snorts. If Kendall tried being a little less enigmatic in his affection before now, he would have had nothing to be jealous of, not ever. James would have kept him entrapped, in his bedroom and in his heart, and never had eyes for anyone else.
“Okay, but.” James fits their hips together snugly, pushing the tip of his finger inside Kendall at exactly the same time. Kendall gasps against James’s ear, a hot puff of air that goes straight to James’s dick, sends shivers down his spine and sparks all the way to his toes, and James growls, “Did it ever get you hard?”
Kendall considers, a red flush creeping up his neck, and James takes advantage of his hesitation, of the way he is burning between shame and desire, utterly distracted. Water is the worst for this kind of thing, but he’s got experience and long, long fingers - pianist’s hands, his mom always says, and it crushed her when James didn’t want to go classical - which he uses to probe deeper, to search out Kendall’s prostate. Kendall’s helping out, rutting against James’s thigh, heat and the soft contact of his balls, and every time their dicks brush it is electric light behind James’s eyelids, more blinding than the whole county of Los Angeles.
Come to think of it, Kendall isn’t acting at all like this is his first time with a guy, and James will never admit how that burns him inside, deep possessiveness and envy spiking beneath his ribcage.
Hesitantly, Kendall confesses, “Might have.”
James finds what he’s looking for, silky smooth muscle and nerves, and Kendall’s head thunks back against cement so hard that it probably hurts him, but he’s moaning, loud and thready, a melody stretching into the night. James stares at him, wet, blond, so gorgeous it’s painful, and thinks about Kendall alone in his room, listening to James get off with his fist pumping over his own dick.
And Kendall sees right through him, because he’s had years to study James’s daydreaming face, whether his thoughts strayed to pie or girls or superstardom. His lips are parted, fruit punch red, and he is spread on James’s fingers, but he still manages to get out, “Let me show you,” snaking his hand between them and wrapping it around the solid weight of both of their lengths.
If this was anyone else, James would let it last a few moments and then bat their hand away. It’s not like he has anything against getting off, that’s a definite goal here, but he’s used to expectations. Everyone imagines James Diamond to be an experience, larger than life, in bed and out of it, and he’s got a superstar grin and a whole script for occasions just like this. But Kendall is not everyone, he’s James’s best friend since before he even knew what best friend meant. He exists in time with James’s heartbeats and breath sounds, and it is okay if James loses himself in the feel of his callused palm, because he doesn’t have to act here. There is nothing he could do to make Kendall like him more or less; Kendall has already seen everything he has to offer.
He matches the slow slide of Kendall’s hand with tiny thrusts of his fingers until Kendall props his forehead against James’s and whines, “M’ready. Want you.”
“You’re impatient, is what you are.”
“We’re naked in a public swimming pool. I get to be as impatient as I want.”
“How often do you think Bitters cleans this thing?” James kisses Kendall’s shoulder and withdraws his fingers. Kendall squirms and curses in protest, but he doesn’t get much further than what the fuck before James is spinning him so that his chest is pressed into the pool wall. He braces his hands against concrete, pushing his hips back out towards James.
James takes the invitation, dragging his dick against Kendall’s skin, down until he can feel the center of heat radiating from Kendall’s core. He teases himself, circling the head of his cock around Kendall’s hole, smearing precome that dissipates in the chlorine seconds after it beads up and connects with Kendall’s skin. The moonlight turns everything silvery-white, smoke and mirrors and illusion, like half their lives since moving west. But in the midst of it, Kendall is painfully real. All James has to do is push forward, through tight muscle, and he’ll be exactly where he’s wanted since his first wet dream.
“I don’t know,” Kendall huffs unevenly. “Why?”
James presses his lips to the back of Kendall’s neck and murmurs, “We’re going to get cum in the water.”
He fucks up into Kendall at the same time, because slow and gentle have never been words that have defined their friendship. He knows what Kendall can take, black eyes and bruised ribs and hockey injuries galore, and even before Kendall cries out his name, he knows exactly how Kendall wants it.
He’s right, he’s so right; the fingers of Kendall’s right hand dig into concrete, but his left goes up, trying fervently to catch James’s ear, his cheek, his hair and turn him in for a sloppy, enthusiastic kiss. He babbles, “You feel so good, you’re amazing, James, god,” and James doesn’t even know how to process that because Kendall’s the one who is tight and hot and perfect inside.
“Hey, hey, what I need you to do now is be very quiet,” James instructs, so acutely aware of the pool and the looming hotel and the melody that he is coaxing out of Kendall, the oh-oh, the ahs, the curse words and the prayers.
Kendal grinds back and demands raggedly, “Are you going to make me?”
“If I have to.”
Kendall appears to be positively gleeful about the prospect. He’s such an utter prick when he wants to be. James is winded, like a kick to the gut, knuckles on flesh, or a roller coaster drop-off. His stomach is in his throat and Kendall is breathing harshly in his arms, pleading, “Move, move, c’mon, yes, move.”
James works out of him painstakingly, his skin catching, but before Kendall can do much more than sigh, he punches forward, hips snapping. He builds a rhythm that is fast, hard enough that Kendall will be sore all over in the morning, and James’s only admittance to guilt about that involves wrapping one of his free hands around Kendall’s stomach, the other around his cock. He matches the speed of his hand to that of his hips, pumps into Kendall erratically and pumps over him just the same. Kendall’s spine is a pale sea serpent, his hair a crest of old gold. He’s easier, more pliant, with each thrust, his body spreading so beautifully, letting James further, deeper. He bucks his hips back, water splashing everywhere.
“I want to feel you come,” Kendall mumbles, his voice rough, raw, like he’s been sucking James off, and that’s a pretty thought. James fists his fingers at the base of Kendall, cups his balls to feel Kendall tremble. “In me, I want to feel you-“
“You first,” James directs, resuming his rhythm on Kendall’s dick. Kendall bucks his hips and cries out. He opens up for James even more nicely, from the red of his lips to the splay of his legs. The moon is a silvery stain on the water, a mark that even the ripples they make cannot shake away; brilliant luminescence. Bitters’ chain link fence rocks and sways in the breeze, but the clink of metal is lost beneath the sluice and suck of water kicked up around their bodies. They are loud, but that doesn’t stop the kissing, the press of James’s lips to Kendall’s cheek or his neck or sometimes his mouth, wide open and sloppy.
Kendall is a tight fit; he pulsates inside, sucks James back in every time he tries to withdraw. He whines and whimpers, moans, and he is hot to the touch.
“James,” he says, “James, I need-“ Kendall cuts himself off, and James realizes what’s missing from this, from everything he’s ever dreamed. Kendall wants him, sure, yes, wants James to come in him or on him or maybe even down his throat, he’s so damn greedy for it, but what else is there besides ravenous lust?
“Come on, Kendall. Tell me you need me,” James murmurs low in his ear, encouraging, sweet-talking. Kendall wasn’t wrong before; James likes being talked to, enjoys a running commentary about everything he’s doing right.
Kendall bites his lip, plush under his teeth, distracting. He circles his hips back, squeezing around James, right up to the base of his cock. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Yeah,” James voice is husky, wrecked. “But it’s no fun if you don’t say it.”
“Is that was this is about? Fun? You being bored?” Kendall bristles, posture rigid, even with James’s dick in him, and James isn’t surprised. There’s nothing Kendall likes less than head games, except maybe figure skaters and Jett Stetson.
“Don’t be dumb.”
“I’m not dumb.”
“You’re being pretty dumb. I said it already. I want you, I’ve always wanted you, I’ve never stopped wanting you, or needing you, or-” James catches Kendall’s eyes, darkened between lust and anger. He radiates both, and confidence, and power. His insides are too big for his outsides, James thinks, because he’s never been able to do that, to burn so bright that people miles away can probably see. But Kendall oozes star quality, and James can shatter that; he does, with a single thrust of his hips that chokes off all of Kendall’s protests. “Tell me.”
He’s close, on edge, the starlight sparkling brighter overhead than it was minutes ago. His balls have drawn tight to his body, aching so good. He fucks into Kendall again, again, again, blood boiling, body going loose and wonton.
Water drips down his neck, his shoulders, sparkles against his collarbone. He’s getting cold, but Kendall is so, so warm, blazing. His hand reaches back, fingers curling into James’s hip, burying James deep and keeping him there, while James’s hand strips down the length of his cock. Even with James still, unable to move, he bites back cries, like the constant thump of James’s racing pulse beneath his heated flesh is something he can actually feel. He states, gentle and broken, “I need you. Fuck, James, it’s always you.”
The noise James makes in reply is wounded, delighted, but raw-edged all the same. They could have been doing this forever, probably, but he can’t bring himself to regret the wait. He folds himself across Kendall’s back, imprinting himself with every ridge of Kendall’s vertebrae, his shoulder blades, the dimples low on his hips. His fist on Kendall’s dick turns softer, caressing, memorizing the shape of him while he brings him off, and it is echoed in the way he angles his cock, how he bites a mark into Kendall’s shoulder and rolls up against him while Kendall ruts back. Kendall mutters, “Gonna come.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s okay,” James agrees, because nothing sounds nicer than Kendall clenching up all tight around him and losing it completely. He licks a stripe up Kendall’s neck, accepts his lips when Kendall tries to catch them. When Kendall comes, James kisses him through it, white inking the water above his knuckles, no mess, no fuss.
He shakes against James, body devastated and replete with bliss. James thrusts into his sated warmth once, twice, three times. His vision whites out flashbulb fast, smile pretty for the camera, and oh, James really, really wishes he’d thought to film this. He collapses against Kendall, spidery limbs and all aglow, and Kendall staggers beneath his weight.
“We need to get out of the pool,” Kendall says, shivering now.
How long have they been in here? An hour? Two? James is coming back to himself, to the clink of the fence in the wind, the chill of night air against their pruned skin, the traffic out on the streets and the sounds of laughter and music drifting from open windows.
Bitters hasn’t stumbled upon them, so they can’t have been as loud as James thought, but still, he has what he came for. “Sure. We can do this again upstairs, right?”
Kendall snorts, trying to extricate himself from James’s clingy grip, detach himself from his softening dick and swim away. James doesn’t let him go, nuzzling against Kendall’s neck - cuddling, though he’d deny it if anyone asked - happy as can be. “You’re insatiable.”
“It’s a talent,” James replies.
Kendall turns into his embrace. His eyes are dazzling, emeralds and moss, the color of the lush hills in the distance or the ocean on a particularly warm day. “We’re okay, right?”
“We’re better than okay,” James responds, dipping into to kiss his lips. He tastes of chlorine, of sex, of something inherently Kendall, and also of James. The tilt of his neck has Audrey Hepburn’s grace, the flush burning his neck has all of Buddy Holly’s geeky charm. He wears the Californian dusk cloaked across his shoulders, palm trees and starshine, but all of Hollywood could fall into the ocean and James still wouldn’t want to move, because beneath it all, Kendall is unchanging, is the realest thing for miles; Minnesota and comfort and home. “I told you before. I don’t have bad ideas.”
“You have bad ideas,” Kendall objects, and James decides that he is never, ever letting him go.
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Kendall/James
Rating: M
Word Count: 5,959
Warnings: Sex. Sexy sexy dripping wet sex. In public.
Summary: This place is grit and glamor, and Kendall’s just the same. He is too much, too beautiful, his lips bitten cherry red as an old school ford, his eyes green as the street signs on Hollywood and Vine. His body is a silver screen, and James wants to make his art all over it.
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine.
Author Notes: SO. It was Liz's birthday in July! And it is obviously not July now. But it is still an occasion that deserves celebration, despite my mega-lateness in delivering fic. Tada! Anyway, Liz asked me for skinny dipping fic about eight thousand years ago. She probably thinks I forgot. I did not forget! It just takes me about eight thousand years to write smut. I have to give a major shout out to jblostfan16 for the super quick, super fantastic beta, and uh. What else? Oh, yes, I do recognize that titling a story about gay porn after a song about feminism is not so appropriate, but I was short on titles, and Swimming Pools is an awesome song, okay?
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“This is a bad idea.”
“False. I don’t have bad ideas.” James vaults the fence, all long limbs and casual athletic grace. From the other side of the chain-links, he grins at Kendall and begins stripping out of his shirt. “You coming?”
“You have bad ideas,” Kendall objects, but he obediently hops over Bitters’ shoddily constructed monstrosity. When his feet touch down, his eyes linger on the pink of James’s nipple, pert in the cool night air. “Mom said if we get in trouble again, she’s going to take away my hockey gear.”
James gasps, mocking. “The tragedy.”
“It is,” Kendall insists, and yeah, sometimes James thinks Kendall has a closer, more intimate relationship with his hockey stick than he’ll ever manage with a real life human being.
He shoots back, “I meant the part where you sound exactly like Logan right now,” slipping out of his flip flops while he talks. The concrete is hot under his feet, still clutching the sun’s warmth like a lover that doesn’t know how to let go.
Kendall pouts prettily, and all James can think of is how his mom despaired of their friendship when they were little. She always tried to set him up on like, play dates with rich assholes that he couldn’t stand. Inevitably, he went back to Kendall. Because Kendall is fun.
Or, well, Kendall’s usually fun. He’s being a real wimp about this skinny dipping thing.
“Just get naked already,” James tells him, already dropping trou.
He hasn’t got anything underneath.
“No!” Kendall averts his eyes immediately, red staining the bridge of his nose. “Have I mentioned that this is a bad idea?”
“Have I mentioned that you’re being a pussy? Dude, I’m serious, if I wanted to bring a Logan-clone with me, I would have brought Logan. Now, I’m bored-“
“I feel like you can be bored with your pants on, though,” Kendall protests, looking in every which direction, anywhere but James and how not clothed he is. James smirks.
“- and you said we could do whatever I wanted to do. This is what I want to do.” He cocks his head to the side and juts his hips so that they fall just inside Kendall’s line of sight. Sure, it’s a little mean, but Kendall is always so sure of himself, every step purposeful, every hard glance exactly like a monarch, surveying his kingdom. James likes nothing more than to put him off balance.
So sue him.
“I can’t believe this,” Kendall mutters, but he’s fumbling open his jeans, and fuck, yes, finally. James waits, anticipating. He’s always had a vivid imagination, and he has no trouble imagining this; Kendall, in all his naked glory. He’s caught glimpses before, in the locker rooms after practice, backstage during a concert, but he’s never gotten the chance to savor it. He wants Kendall laid bare, alone, with nowhere to run off to and no reason to put his clothes back on. Skinny dipping is the perfect solution.
And everyone says James isn’t bright.
Kendall shucks his shoes, pants, and then his shirt. His hands freeze over the lurid plaid print of his underwear. James doesn’t know why. For now, they have this tiny little grotto of their own, palm trees and birds of paradise, unlit fire-pits and the shadow of empty cabanas, canvas fluttering untethered in the breeze. Bitters has been hoarding the pool for three days, barricading it off from the hotel’s clientele as a form of sick, twisted punishment for a teeny, tiny prank that Carlos and Lucy may or may not have pulled.
“C’mon,” James urges, and no one can prove that it sounds like begging.
Kendall pushes down his boxers in one single, smooth movement, but before James can drink anything in other than the gold crosshatch of his pubic hair, he cannonballs straight into the pool. The splash is loud, and Kendall doesn’t come up immediately after. There is this brief moment where there is nothing but the emptiness and James, shadows painting everything in black, white, and gray, the world just a few feet away turned to a silent film set. Kendall’s body is a pink blur beneath the water, and a breeze teases at the edges of James’s hair, makes goosebumps stand up on his naked skin. He still can’t believe he has any of this, motherfucking Hollywood, where actors wrapped in fur used to strut down long avenues, trailing entourages and dazzling flashbulbs, where Norma Jean found her big break and Errol Flynn wore really tight tights and the only thing brighter and more relentless than the allure of fame is the sun. You can drive past Betty Grable’s tombstone in Inglewood without even knowing, brush shoulders with celebrity eight times in a single day and be completely ignorant of it. Every time James steps outside, he’s walking in the ghostly footprints of Fred Astaire, and one day he swears he’ll be out there too, a palpable taste of stardust in the ether, his handprints on a giant slab of cement.
But for now he’s young, standing on the brink of a sparkling future, and he’s got the Palmwoods pool laid out, a glittering blue lagoon in front of him. Kendall emerges in a patch of moonlight, a silver pocket that washes him out, white-gold and palladium and the delicate angles of his wrists.
“Are you coming in?” Kendall asks innocently, water beaded on the philtrum of his upper lip. He’s standing as straight as he can, the full force of his gaze focused on James’s face, but James is looking elsewhere, staring at the curl of Kendall’s toes against the shimmering bottom of the pool.
And his calves.
And his knees.
And his thighs and on upwards, fuck. Kendall is naked, and sure, that was the entire point of this exercise, but James hadn’t expected it to hit him so hard. Kendall’s shoulders have gotten so broad, his muscles so lean, and he looks so very different than the homegrown Minnesota boy that James grew up next to. It twinges in his heart, right at the core, the deep places that Kendall has infected for years now. Love has cut ravines between his ventricles, deep, abyssal, endless, reworked his entire nervous system and rewritten his entire future, all for this boy…but he’s never been one hundred percent positive that Kendall feels the same.
Kendall is an illuminated manuscript, at once beautiful and hard to read, and James is so sick of it. He feels like they’ve been running in circles around each other for years.
He dives headfirst into the water, soundless, slices through chlorine that stings his eyes red, but he does not close them. James wants to see, kicks up to the blurred peach blob that is Kendall. They did this when they were kids, hands held like Jaws’ fin, but this time around James isn’t planning on yelling boo.
Kendall is waiting when he pops up through the surface, and up close his hair sticks up, rumpled as the crown of a cockatoo. “Are you happy now?”
“Very,” James replies agreeably.
Kendall smiles with too many teeth, pointy and bright white. “Good.”
He flops backwards, allowing his body to be swallowed whole, a baptism of sorts, and then he twists underwater, slippery as a fish, and kicks off. He swims laps, his body long and lean. Kendall’s veins trace blue beneath translucent skin, and James can’t remember ever wanting to get his hands on someone so damn much. His nerve endings are screaming out Kendall’s name.
He can’t quiet the urge, can’t give voice to it either - California is a dust bowl and his mouth is dry, tumbleweeds on his tongue when he tries to say what he needs to - so the next time Kendall passes by, James mutters, “I get it, you’re the pinnacle of athletic grace. Stop being such a loser and pay attention to me.”
Kendall stills, finding his footing again. His eyes are jewels set into his face, eerily green, witchlight and foxfire. “The problem with paying attention to you is that you’re naked.”
In the distance, the hills twinkle with lights, distant stars, promising diamonds and smooth whiskey, the smear of red lipstick on a starlet’s mouth, but that is not where James wants to be. He’s had it with girls in silk hosiery and La Perla panties, with boys wearing ten thousand dollar gold watches and cologne that reeks of money. None of them have ever looked at James like Kendall does.
“So are you.”
“Right,” Kendall agrees, “But me, nude, isn’t offensive to my eyes.” He splashes water at James, fingers cupped, smile wide. James dodges to the left.
“It’s offensive to mine. We live in the middle of California, how do you not have a tan? Freak.”
“Oh, so you’re saying you want me to get dressed? Because you might recall my saying that this is a bad-“ Kendall cuts off abruptly, diving to the left to avoid the wave James swats towards him with the full span of his arm. He smirks, shakes his head and sing-songs, “Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me.”
“I could you know,” James tells him seriously, and Kendall laughs like it’s the funniest thing James has ever said.
James has a witty reply. It is perched on his lips, ready to take flight. Kendall announces, “I bet I can hold my breath longer than you.”
“You are so on,” James retorts immediately. That is an insult to his dignity and honor that cannot be withstood. Everyone knows that James Diamond breaks records with his lung capacity; all the girls back home say so.
He gulps down as much oxygen as he can stand and slithers down to the white-washed concrete bottom of the pool, crossing his legs, settling in for a long ride. He wears his hotrod grin, aiming to dazzle Kendall right out of his misguided notion that he can beat James at anything. And he can, he so can. Things are going really well until Kendall decides to start making faces at James.
It would be fine - at first it is fine - because Kendall is crossing his eyes and wrinkling his nose and generally being utterly silly and dumb. James can work through that without laughing; it’s pretty much par for the course of Kendall’s entire existence. His face is naturally ridiculous.
It is fine, until it’s not fine, because Kendall decides to turn this game obscene.
He’s stupid about it, tweaking his own nipples and smoothing his hands down his chest while making exaggeratedly terrible sex faces. Then he gets the bright idea to mimic taking a dick in his mouth, complete with hand gestures and a puffed out cheek for emphasis. Kendall laughs through it, eyes wide with mirth, bubbles streaming from the corners of his lips, but the motion of his hand is perfectly in time with the thrust of his tongue inside his cheek, and James’s eyes aren’t the only part of him taking notice. He is blatantly fixated on the loose curl of Kendall’s fingers, the white swell of his knuckles. He is caught, enthralled, bewitched. This is the worst kind of subversive warfare, made ten times crueler because Kendall thinks it’s a joke. He’s naked and wet and faking his way through an imaginary blowjob, and he thinks it’s hilarious.
James might, and he won’t admit to this on record, not ever, but he might have slight anger management issues. He shifts, gets his ankles underneath his body, feet braced against the concrete basin of the swimming pool, which scrapes against his toes as he scrabbles for purchase. For leverage.
James lunges forward in a slow motion action sequence, movements bogged down by the weight of the pool overhead, but he’s got enough of a head start that he takes Kendall by surprise. He reaches out and shoves, grappling Kendall further down into the water. Kendall fights back, unable to turn down a challenge, and they burst to the surface of the pool in a flurry of splashes and slick limbs.
“Boom. Shot through the heart,” Kendall declares, one hand cocking an imaginary gun while his other digs into James’s bicep. “I owned you.”
“Uh, no, you give sportsmanship a bad name. You cheated. You are a cheater and a scoundrel and unfit to polish my boots.”
“Good thing I have no interest in polishing your boots, then.” Kendall grins, the dirty con, and he has no right to look so happy about his foul, foul play. James is indignant, because James is a super star, okay. Every day, he rolls that Hollywood glow on his tongue and it lights him from the inside, turns him into this jack-o-lantern boy, this beacon that everyone wants to touch or be touched by. Kendall isn’t allowed to be immune to that.
Of course, Kendall’s been vaccinated, too close to James and stardust and fame. He’s adapted and evolved; this place is grit and glamor, and Kendall’s just the same. He is too much, too beautiful, his lips bitten cherry red as an old school ford, his eyes green as the street signs on Hollywood and Vine.
His body is a silver screen, and James wants to make his art all over it.
He tackles Kendall back beneath the water, because this is what they know, this is happy, open affection. James tries to gain the upper hand, but Kendall lures it away, and when they’re wrestling beneath the stained glass surface of the pool, all Caribbean blue and silver moonlight, James could swear that he feels Kendall’s erection brush against his leg and all he can think is that he hopes Kendall doesn’t feel how hard he is right back. He claws his way up towards the sky, cyanceruleanindigo, desperate for air, hungry for it, hungry for Kendall. They both break through at the same time, and they are wet, slippery, pale in the reflection of the night lights.
Or, well, James is pale. In the moonlight, Kendall glows, and it’s weirdly dissonant because of how in the sun he can’t even catch a tan.
“What was that, jerk?” Kendall asks, and he’s laughing, and blushing, and glaring all at the same time. He’s emerged backed up against a wall, but instead of looking trapped, his expression is fierce, daring. Kendall never has any idea when to accept that he’s already lost.
Want trails unsubtle fingers up James’s spine. It settles against the back of his neck, cups warmth there and urges his head forward until he is a breath away.
Kendall goes cross-eyed. “What are you doing?”
There is a noise, loud, and a shout of laughter, footsteps racing through the lobby of the Palmwoods, echoing through the doors that stand open to the pool. James and Kendall freeze, still as flies trapped in amber, their lips hovering over each other, waiting to overlap, maybe, if James will finally take the chance.
This close, Kendall smells of chlorine, and beneath that, the faint scent of the shampoo they both use, bonded as brothers in a single apartment. James touches his cheek with a reverence that he usually reserves for holy objects, like his lucky comb and full cans of Cuda, his headshots and designer shoes. He turns his gaze down, and there, beneath the surface of the water, everything looks chlorine blue and bone white, even the rippled protrusion of Kendall’s cock. But James can feel its heat. He is intensely aware of how it is hot and silky and definitely there, and it makes him twitch with interest.
He wants Kendall like one of Mrs. Knight’s romance novels, wants to link his legs over James’s shoulders and take him steamy and slow, wants him in the back of the BTR-mobile, hard and fast, wants him with bodice-ripping passion, except Kendall has no bodice; he doesn’t even have a stitch. James drinks him in, greedy.
“James?” Kendall asks, and this time, his voice is less certain, less sure. He is off balance and so very far out of his element, his breathing uneven, a tremolo-waver accompanying every ragged draw.
The negative space between them is gaping, it is abyssal, and it is also less than inches. All James has to do is cross it, risk a lifetime of friendship and love and loyalty for something that could very well make or break them. He lives in indecision for a mere instant; he did not get to be friends with a Knight-in-shining-armor by fearing lions or tigers or bears, oh my. James holds Kendall’s mossy-green gaze and carefully, deliberately, slots their hips together, no longer hiding anything at all.
Kendall hisses, hot and bothered under his skin, and he stares up at James with astonishment, bewilderment, and maybe even hope. At least, that’s what James thinks the desperate creature that lurks in the shadows of Kendall’s parted lips is; he’s seen it reflected in his own expression often enough.
Kendall shudders, shivers like he’s cold, and James wraps his arms around his shoulders, holds him close and tight. Water drips from his bangs, from Kendall’s lips and his cheeks. It streams in tiny rivulets down the hollows of his throat, each trail sparkling with promise. James fully intends to follow them with his mouth, and soon. Because Kendall is not pushing him away, is not trying to manhandle James out of his personal space.
Except for the fine tremble in his bones, Kendall is barely moving.
“How long have you wanted this?” He asks, dark, uncertain. He is smaller in James’s arms than he has any right to be, skinny legs and a slender waist and a solid, but thin chest. His biceps are wiry and his neck is elegant, and the only thing left to remind James that Kendall can take him down in a single body check is the steady, heavy pressure of his dick.
“How long have you?” James counters indignantly. He’s not doing anything, not any of the things he wants to be doing, because he is naked and pressed tight to Kendall’s front, and there is a whole new realm of possibility here. But James is acquainting himself with self-constraint, making truly remarkable concessions for the good of his friendship. He only ruts his hips once - okay, twice - against Kendall’s, just to see how the blond’s eyes roll up, white all around.
Kendall whimpers, tucking his chin into the intersection of James’s neck and shoulder. James can feel the fever heat of his lips against his throat. “I asked you first.”
James tilts his face, chuckling into Kendall’s matted, wet hair. “Stubborn ass.” He searches out the shell of Kendall’s ear and presses his mouth against it. “Fine. How long have I wanted you?” The question lingers there, accompanied by the soft puff of his breaths tickling Kendall’s skin.
He’s rigid in James’s arms, his whole body standing at attention, waiting for an answer. James entertains the idea of drawing it out, of making this a game, but it’s Kendall, and what if he only has one chance at this? This might be it, the world ending with a whisper or a bang, and James steels himself for both.
Quietly, he confesses, “My whole life.”
Kendall lets out a strangled noise, and then he is latching his lips onto James’s throat in earnest, kissing and sucking and pushing his dick insistently against James’s. James is stunned, he allows himself a moment to be stunned, because despite the hard, steady presence of Kendall’s cock, he was only toying with the idea of enthusiastic acceptance. He has more than enough experience with rejection, knows better than to form actual, solid expectations, and even if he had, the hot trek of Kendall’s tongue up his jugular would have surpassed them all. In the warmth of Kendall’s mouth, James loses the sound of cars whizzing past outside the walled enclave of the Palmwoods, the rustle of the wind in the palm fronds, and the gentle glow of lamplight emanating from windows in the hotel up above.
Up close, Kendall has a Grace Kelly smile and Rudolph Valentino’s wicked charm. He inches along the line of James’s jaw, licking and sucking, taking his time, and James practically vibrates with impatience. When Kendall spreads his legs enough that James can work a thigh up between them, he barely thinks he can hold on, that he can wait for Kendall to make his move. He scrapes his teeth across James’s lower lip, and then he finally, finally turns it into a kiss, something hard and bruising. This is the first of many, James hopes.
He can taste dinner on Kendall’s tongue, strawberry smoothies and, beneath that, Kendall, intoxicating in his own right. James’s hands drift down, settling in a firm grip on Kendall’s ass, skin and muscle flexing beneath his fingers. Kendall keens, scrabbling back against the pool wall for leverage, trying to climb James’s body, and that is not fair at all.
Arousal is no longer a dull ache in James’s veins; it pounds through his limbs, leaves him as winded and breathless and frantic as Kendall. Kendall, who hitches his hips forward, trapping James’s cock against his, and demands, “You’re going to fuck me, right? Please say you’re going to fuck me.”
It’s such an un-Kendall thing to say that James gasps out a laugh. “You have a filthy mouth.”
Sort of. It’s pretty dirty for a vanilla serial monogamist, anyway.
Seriously, Kendall replies. “You like that.”
James does like that, but he’s a little confused about how Kendall would know it. His expression must beg askance, because Kendall explains, “Thin walls.”
James draws back, kissing Kendall’s chin, his cheek, his lips. “You’ve been eavesdropping on me?” He curls his fingers against the cleft of Kendall’s ass, dipping between flesh experimentally.
Kendall groans gustily against James’s ear. “Hard not to.”
“Yeah?” James circles the tip of his index finger against Kendall’s asshole, completely gratified when Kendall bucks back against it. “Like what you heard?”
Kendall captures James’s earlobe in his mouth. He sucks it sweetly, despite the fervent movement of his hands against James’s shoulders, spine, and the small of his back, “Yes. No. I don’t know. Jealous.”
James snorts. If Kendall tried being a little less enigmatic in his affection before now, he would have had nothing to be jealous of, not ever. James would have kept him entrapped, in his bedroom and in his heart, and never had eyes for anyone else.
“Okay, but.” James fits their hips together snugly, pushing the tip of his finger inside Kendall at exactly the same time. Kendall gasps against James’s ear, a hot puff of air that goes straight to James’s dick, sends shivers down his spine and sparks all the way to his toes, and James growls, “Did it ever get you hard?”
Kendall considers, a red flush creeping up his neck, and James takes advantage of his hesitation, of the way he is burning between shame and desire, utterly distracted. Water is the worst for this kind of thing, but he’s got experience and long, long fingers - pianist’s hands, his mom always says, and it crushed her when James didn’t want to go classical - which he uses to probe deeper, to search out Kendall’s prostate. Kendall’s helping out, rutting against James’s thigh, heat and the soft contact of his balls, and every time their dicks brush it is electric light behind James’s eyelids, more blinding than the whole county of Los Angeles.
Come to think of it, Kendall isn’t acting at all like this is his first time with a guy, and James will never admit how that burns him inside, deep possessiveness and envy spiking beneath his ribcage.
Hesitantly, Kendall confesses, “Might have.”
James finds what he’s looking for, silky smooth muscle and nerves, and Kendall’s head thunks back against cement so hard that it probably hurts him, but he’s moaning, loud and thready, a melody stretching into the night. James stares at him, wet, blond, so gorgeous it’s painful, and thinks about Kendall alone in his room, listening to James get off with his fist pumping over his own dick.
And Kendall sees right through him, because he’s had years to study James’s daydreaming face, whether his thoughts strayed to pie or girls or superstardom. His lips are parted, fruit punch red, and he is spread on James’s fingers, but he still manages to get out, “Let me show you,” snaking his hand between them and wrapping it around the solid weight of both of their lengths.
If this was anyone else, James would let it last a few moments and then bat their hand away. It’s not like he has anything against getting off, that’s a definite goal here, but he’s used to expectations. Everyone imagines James Diamond to be an experience, larger than life, in bed and out of it, and he’s got a superstar grin and a whole script for occasions just like this. But Kendall is not everyone, he’s James’s best friend since before he even knew what best friend meant. He exists in time with James’s heartbeats and breath sounds, and it is okay if James loses himself in the feel of his callused palm, because he doesn’t have to act here. There is nothing he could do to make Kendall like him more or less; Kendall has already seen everything he has to offer.
He matches the slow slide of Kendall’s hand with tiny thrusts of his fingers until Kendall props his forehead against James’s and whines, “M’ready. Want you.”
“You’re impatient, is what you are.”
“We’re naked in a public swimming pool. I get to be as impatient as I want.”
“How often do you think Bitters cleans this thing?” James kisses Kendall’s shoulder and withdraws his fingers. Kendall squirms and curses in protest, but he doesn’t get much further than what the fuck before James is spinning him so that his chest is pressed into the pool wall. He braces his hands against concrete, pushing his hips back out towards James.
James takes the invitation, dragging his dick against Kendall’s skin, down until he can feel the center of heat radiating from Kendall’s core. He teases himself, circling the head of his cock around Kendall’s hole, smearing precome that dissipates in the chlorine seconds after it beads up and connects with Kendall’s skin. The moonlight turns everything silvery-white, smoke and mirrors and illusion, like half their lives since moving west. But in the midst of it, Kendall is painfully real. All James has to do is push forward, through tight muscle, and he’ll be exactly where he’s wanted since his first wet dream.
“I don’t know,” Kendall huffs unevenly. “Why?”
James presses his lips to the back of Kendall’s neck and murmurs, “We’re going to get cum in the water.”
He fucks up into Kendall at the same time, because slow and gentle have never been words that have defined their friendship. He knows what Kendall can take, black eyes and bruised ribs and hockey injuries galore, and even before Kendall cries out his name, he knows exactly how Kendall wants it.
He’s right, he’s so right; the fingers of Kendall’s right hand dig into concrete, but his left goes up, trying fervently to catch James’s ear, his cheek, his hair and turn him in for a sloppy, enthusiastic kiss. He babbles, “You feel so good, you’re amazing, James, god,” and James doesn’t even know how to process that because Kendall’s the one who is tight and hot and perfect inside.
“Hey, hey, what I need you to do now is be very quiet,” James instructs, so acutely aware of the pool and the looming hotel and the melody that he is coaxing out of Kendall, the oh-oh, the ahs, the curse words and the prayers.
Kendal grinds back and demands raggedly, “Are you going to make me?”
“If I have to.”
Kendall appears to be positively gleeful about the prospect. He’s such an utter prick when he wants to be. James is winded, like a kick to the gut, knuckles on flesh, or a roller coaster drop-off. His stomach is in his throat and Kendall is breathing harshly in his arms, pleading, “Move, move, c’mon, yes, move.”
James works out of him painstakingly, his skin catching, but before Kendall can do much more than sigh, he punches forward, hips snapping. He builds a rhythm that is fast, hard enough that Kendall will be sore all over in the morning, and James’s only admittance to guilt about that involves wrapping one of his free hands around Kendall’s stomach, the other around his cock. He matches the speed of his hand to that of his hips, pumps into Kendall erratically and pumps over him just the same. Kendall’s spine is a pale sea serpent, his hair a crest of old gold. He’s easier, more pliant, with each thrust, his body spreading so beautifully, letting James further, deeper. He bucks his hips back, water splashing everywhere.
“I want to feel you come,” Kendall mumbles, his voice rough, raw, like he’s been sucking James off, and that’s a pretty thought. James fists his fingers at the base of Kendall, cups his balls to feel Kendall tremble. “In me, I want to feel you-“
“You first,” James directs, resuming his rhythm on Kendall’s dick. Kendall bucks his hips and cries out. He opens up for James even more nicely, from the red of his lips to the splay of his legs. The moon is a silvery stain on the water, a mark that even the ripples they make cannot shake away; brilliant luminescence. Bitters’ chain link fence rocks and sways in the breeze, but the clink of metal is lost beneath the sluice and suck of water kicked up around their bodies. They are loud, but that doesn’t stop the kissing, the press of James’s lips to Kendall’s cheek or his neck or sometimes his mouth, wide open and sloppy.
Kendall is a tight fit; he pulsates inside, sucks James back in every time he tries to withdraw. He whines and whimpers, moans, and he is hot to the touch.
“James,” he says, “James, I need-“ Kendall cuts himself off, and James realizes what’s missing from this, from everything he’s ever dreamed. Kendall wants him, sure, yes, wants James to come in him or on him or maybe even down his throat, he’s so damn greedy for it, but what else is there besides ravenous lust?
“Come on, Kendall. Tell me you need me,” James murmurs low in his ear, encouraging, sweet-talking. Kendall wasn’t wrong before; James likes being talked to, enjoys a running commentary about everything he’s doing right.
Kendall bites his lip, plush under his teeth, distracting. He circles his hips back, squeezing around James, right up to the base of his cock. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Yeah,” James voice is husky, wrecked. “But it’s no fun if you don’t say it.”
“Is that was this is about? Fun? You being bored?” Kendall bristles, posture rigid, even with James’s dick in him, and James isn’t surprised. There’s nothing Kendall likes less than head games, except maybe figure skaters and Jett Stetson.
“Don’t be dumb.”
“I’m not dumb.”
“You’re being pretty dumb. I said it already. I want you, I’ve always wanted you, I’ve never stopped wanting you, or needing you, or-” James catches Kendall’s eyes, darkened between lust and anger. He radiates both, and confidence, and power. His insides are too big for his outsides, James thinks, because he’s never been able to do that, to burn so bright that people miles away can probably see. But Kendall oozes star quality, and James can shatter that; he does, with a single thrust of his hips that chokes off all of Kendall’s protests. “Tell me.”
He’s close, on edge, the starlight sparkling brighter overhead than it was minutes ago. His balls have drawn tight to his body, aching so good. He fucks into Kendall again, again, again, blood boiling, body going loose and wonton.
Water drips down his neck, his shoulders, sparkles against his collarbone. He’s getting cold, but Kendall is so, so warm, blazing. His hand reaches back, fingers curling into James’s hip, burying James deep and keeping him there, while James’s hand strips down the length of his cock. Even with James still, unable to move, he bites back cries, like the constant thump of James’s racing pulse beneath his heated flesh is something he can actually feel. He states, gentle and broken, “I need you. Fuck, James, it’s always you.”
The noise James makes in reply is wounded, delighted, but raw-edged all the same. They could have been doing this forever, probably, but he can’t bring himself to regret the wait. He folds himself across Kendall’s back, imprinting himself with every ridge of Kendall’s vertebrae, his shoulder blades, the dimples low on his hips. His fist on Kendall’s dick turns softer, caressing, memorizing the shape of him while he brings him off, and it is echoed in the way he angles his cock, how he bites a mark into Kendall’s shoulder and rolls up against him while Kendall ruts back. Kendall mutters, “Gonna come.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s okay,” James agrees, because nothing sounds nicer than Kendall clenching up all tight around him and losing it completely. He licks a stripe up Kendall’s neck, accepts his lips when Kendall tries to catch them. When Kendall comes, James kisses him through it, white inking the water above his knuckles, no mess, no fuss.
He shakes against James, body devastated and replete with bliss. James thrusts into his sated warmth once, twice, three times. His vision whites out flashbulb fast, smile pretty for the camera, and oh, James really, really wishes he’d thought to film this. He collapses against Kendall, spidery limbs and all aglow, and Kendall staggers beneath his weight.
“We need to get out of the pool,” Kendall says, shivering now.
How long have they been in here? An hour? Two? James is coming back to himself, to the clink of the fence in the wind, the chill of night air against their pruned skin, the traffic out on the streets and the sounds of laughter and music drifting from open windows.
Bitters hasn’t stumbled upon them, so they can’t have been as loud as James thought, but still, he has what he came for. “Sure. We can do this again upstairs, right?”
Kendall snorts, trying to extricate himself from James’s clingy grip, detach himself from his softening dick and swim away. James doesn’t let him go, nuzzling against Kendall’s neck - cuddling, though he’d deny it if anyone asked - happy as can be. “You’re insatiable.”
“It’s a talent,” James replies.
Kendall turns into his embrace. His eyes are dazzling, emeralds and moss, the color of the lush hills in the distance or the ocean on a particularly warm day. “We’re okay, right?”
“We’re better than okay,” James responds, dipping into to kiss his lips. He tastes of chlorine, of sex, of something inherently Kendall, and also of James. The tilt of his neck has Audrey Hepburn’s grace, the flush burning his neck has all of Buddy Holly’s geeky charm. He wears the Californian dusk cloaked across his shoulders, palm trees and starshine, but all of Hollywood could fall into the ocean and James still wouldn’t want to move, because beneath it all, Kendall is unchanging, is the realest thing for miles; Minnesota and comfort and home. “I told you before. I don’t have bad ideas.”
“You have bad ideas,” Kendall objects, and James decides that he is never, ever letting him go.