Southland - It's the Stuff of Country Songs (Cooper/Sherman, R)
Don't worry, kids, we'll have discussion time soon. Fic first.
Southland
Episode 2.01 Coda
John Cooper/Ben Sherman, John Cooper/OMC
Rated R
It's the Stuff of Country Songs
Sherman is parked on John's front steps when John gets home from the bar.
The illuminated dashboard says it's one-sixteen in the morning. The sprawl of Sherman's legs says he's been sitting there quite a while. Possibly since John left him at the end of shift.
Un-be-fucking-lievable.
John pulls the Challenger into the driveway far enough to nudge the rear tire of Sherman's bike with his bumper. The bike wobbles slightly. On the porch, Sherman gets to his feet, a brown paper bag in one hand.
John is not happy with Sherman at this moment; they're going to have to have a little talk about boundaries and how stalking your training officer is not okay. John's been dealing with shit all fucking day: Chickie and Slug and Sherman and his back and more Sherman and more with his back and fucking near-riots in The Jungle.
He doesn't get paid enough for this bullshit.
John cuts the engine and gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him.
"What the fuck do you want, Boot?" John snaps, as he comes around the back of his car and strides toward his front door.
Sherman shifts from one foot to the other. "Hey," he says tentatively.
John narrows his eyes. "No, not 'hey'," he retorts. "What do you fucking want?"
Sherman's eyes shift away from John briefly as the passenger side door of John's car creaks open and then clicks shut. The force behind the sound is vaguely hesitant.
"I didn't know you had company," Sherman says.
"That's because it's none of your fucking business," John replies as Andy stops just by John's left elbow.
Or maybe it's Aaron. Abner? Allen?
Whatever.
Sherman stares openly at John's one-night stand. He makes no attempt to disguise his disapproval.
Andy/Aaron laughs nervously at the tension engulfing them. "You didn't say anything about a threesome."
Sherman's laugh is twisted and raw. "A threesome? With you? Do you think--"
John takes four steps forward and one up the stairs. He and Sherman are now nose-to-nose. "You want to think real hard about the next words to come out of your mouth," he warns in a low tone.
A muscle twitches in Sherman's jaw. "You think this is about him?" He does incredulous well. "He's not my business," a pause, "but you are."
John sucks in a sharp breath. Of all the entitled, self-righteous bullshit. "Sherman, you have approximately ten seconds to get off my property before I throw you out on your pasty Beverly Hills backside."
Of course it's not true that Sherman's backside is pasty. John's been looking at said backside for six months and he knows for a fact that Sherman's ass is round, pert, tanned and as firm as two grapefruits. But pasty? Not even. Then again, John's not interested in semantics right now.
"I'm not leaving," Sherman says mulishly. "We need to talk." Sherman looks down briefly at the bag in his fist. "And I thought we could celebrate my moving on to Phase Three."
"Are you high?" John asks with some degree of seriousness. "I'm pretty sure I told you to fuck off today; and I know that because I was there when it fucking happened."
Sherman blinks; his eyelashes are so goddamn long it's infuriating. Not as infuriating as his current cock-blocking, but definitely close. John can feel the blood rushing through his veins. His heart is beating rapidly; he can hear the echo in his right ear.
"I don't want us to end up like Chickie and Dewey," Sherman says plainly. "We have to do something about your back. You have to do something about it."
"There is no 'we'!" John explodes.
"You're my partner!" Sherman shouts back just as belligerently.
John stares.
Andy/Abner coughs nervously behind them. "Hey, look, it's clear you and your man are having problems," he says. "I don't need to get involved in domestic issues."
John looks back at the man he brought home: he's blond and compact and he has biceps like... oh, god fucking dammit. He barks out a laugh. "You think this is my man? He's not a man and I don't fuck with jail--"
Sherman cuts him off. "I don't know what he told you to get you here, but he's my partner and I don't share well." Sherman shifts in John's peripheral vision, and Anthony - that's it, Anthony -- takes several steps back, bumps into the fender of the Challenger and beats a hasty retreat down John's street.
He actually runs away.
John turns back to Sherman. He can feel his eyeballs protruding slightly out of the sockets. He is going to flat out kill Sherman, but then a shiny glint at Sherman's waist distracts him.
Sherman's off-duty revolver.
He fucking ran off John's piece of ass by insinuation.
John opens his mouth, but his instincts are faster than his brain. He hears the dull thud of a glass bottle landing on his wooden porch, but it's secondary to the feeling of his palm pressed against Sherman's throat and Sherman pinned up against the wall by his front door.
"You're sticking your nose in places it doesn't belong, son," John says flatly. He doesn't think this is what he was going to say originally, but it gets his point across.
Sherman doesn't even struggle; he just gives John a defiant look. "I don't care," he says.
When Sherman talks, John can feel the muscles shifting in his neck. He tightens his hold slightly, feeling Sherman's Adam's apple bob under his palm.
His fingers circle most of Sherman's neck. The tips of his middle and index fingers brush against the hair shorn close at the nape.
Sherman makes this noise in his throat. It sounds... it sounds nothing like pain and everything like he's begging for more. John's in the wrong frame of mind to turn him down.
John uses his knee to spread Sherman's legs apart and then he leans in far too close.
"This is my life you're fucking around with," John says very quietly. "I don't need your sanctimonious, homophobic, holier-than-thou martyr complex fucking up the only good thing I have going."
"I'm not homophobic," Sherman says just as softly. "You're in pain, you won't ask for help and if you fucking think I'm going to let you end up like Dewey, you better fucking think again."
John ignores the irritated note in Sherman's voice. The cursing is interesting, though. "And to top it off, you drove off my piece of ass. He cost me three Sierra Nevadas."
"That was three too many."
"Because you would cost an entire six-pack?"
Sherman swipes the corner of his mouth with his tongue. "Because I don't cost anything."
John raises an eyebrow. "I don't know how you do things in The Hills, but down here, we don't take kindly to cockteases."
"Who said anything about teasing?"
Sherman's eyes are far too bright for their current situation. He's not even straining against John's hold. In fact, he's relaxed. And hard. John can feel Sherman's erection pressing his hip.
John's furious and frustrated, and Sherman is attempting to write checks his ass cannot possibly cash.
This is not how his night is supposed to go.
John can feel his mouth quirking at the corners. "If I don't take you over my knee and spank your ass until you can't sit down, you'll be very fucking lucky."
"Would you do it if I asked nicely?" Sherman bats those sinful eyelashes at John and grinds his ass down against the thigh John has pressed between his legs. That fucker.
John shakes his head. "No," he says, releasing Sherman and taking a step back. He is not going there. Here.
There's a red pressure band around Sherman's neck that John put there. He has to -
One minute John's thinking of tactical retreats and the next Sherman's got a handful of John's shirt and is dragging him in.
If someone had told John when he woke up this morning that he was going to end his day with Ben Sherman's tongue in his mouth, he probably would've put down the green pills he popped with his coffee and sworn off drugs for the rest of his life because they are clearly making him insane.
And yet, John's on the porch of his house with Sherman's fingers twisted in his shirt and his tongue flickering against John's palate. Surreal doesn't even begin to cover it. Sherman is attacking him like he attacks everything else: with his whole being. He's biting at John's lower lip, kissing at the corner of his mouth, nipping at his jaw.
John's back twinges briefly; he ignores it, grabs Sherman by the shoulders and shoves him away, against the siding. Sherman pants loudly, his mouth is red and slick; the things John wants to do to it are obscene. Sherman sucks on his lower lip; his eyes are wide and he's vibrating underneath John's hands.
"This is not how you make your case," John says, doing his damnedest to keep his voice steady.
"I want you," Sherman says bluntly. "That's my case."
"Five minutes ago you wanted me to give up my job because of a little pain in my back; now you want to suck my cock?"
"I wanted to suck your cock six months ago," Sherman corrects. "The back thing came later. And I don't want you to quit; I want you to get help."
John's thumbs are resting against the collar of Sherman's leather jacket. When he presses down he can feel the sharp jut of collarbones. "You don't know what you want," he says dismissively.
"I know exactly what I want," Sherman says, surging forward. Their mouths meet in a head-on collision.
These kisses are feral, sharp. John doesn't receive this time around; he gives. He uses his teeth and his hands. He turns Sherman's head the way he wants, moves them back until they hit the wall again, and then he holds Sherman still and ruts against him until Sherman's clawing at his clothes and begging in his ear, Johnjohnjohnjohn...
There are hands underneath John's shirt, short nails raking along his back. He lives here and the porch lights are on and the neighbors could be watching. He's clearly lost his fucking mind. That doesn't seem as important as it should with his orgasm so goddamn close and Sherman sucking a hickey into that soft spot behind his ear. Sherman is writhing against his thigh, gasping, shuddering.
John's orgasm hits like a two-by-four to his spine and he buckles under the weight of it and Sherman and the mistake he probably just made.
Ben Sherman should not be holding him up, but he is. Between sharp inhalations and the fog of a long-delayed orgasm, John tries to make some sense of what just happened.
He would push Sherman away, but Sherman's already against the wall. John is the one who steps back. "You are ruining my life, Sherman," he says with a shake of his head.
Sherman's face is flushed, his clothes in disarray. He offers John a hopeful smile. "If that's ruining lives, you should ruin mine every day and twice on Sunday."
"This is just a fucking joke to you, isn't it?" John says sharply.
A wounded look flashes over Sherman's face before being abruptly replaced by something dark and angry. "When are you going to get it through your head that I'm in this just as much as you are?" he demands.
John's laugh is bitter. It kills whatever post-coital lassitude he could've had. Well, that and his aching back and wet, sticky briefs. "You will never be in this as far as I am. If you can leave this job and still have something else, you're nothing like me."
Sherman crowds John, his eyes hard. Maybe he's going to hit John; John should be so lucky.
Sherman gazes at him for so long it gives John's a headache, and eventually, he has to look away.
"This is all I have," Sherman says fiercely. "This is all I want. Maybe one day you'll stop being such a fucking asshole and realize that."
John could say something, but he doesn't know what, and then Sherman is gone. A soft breeze blows against the back of John's heated neck as the stairs creak with Sherman's exit.
John listens for the sound of Sherman's bike starting up and only then does he turn around and watch him drive off.
The brown paper bag Sherman brought is lying on its side. John picks it up and glances inside. Macallan 1841. John knows expensive whisky when he sees it.
There's no point in letting it go to waste, so John takes it in the house with him.
Maybe tomorrow will look better at the bottom of the bottle.
Maybe he'll cave and call Sherman before he gets there.
-end-
For maurheti, serialkarma and sparky77 who humor me, especially when I'm spazzing the fuck out.
Title from U2's 'If God Will Send His Angels.' I'd planned to save it for a Generation Kill story, but I'd rather not hold my breath on that.
Beta by maurheti who likes to kick my ass while wearing stilettos. I'm gonna remember this later. *limps away*.
Southland
Episode 2.01 Coda
John Cooper/Ben Sherman, John Cooper/OMC
Rated R
It's the Stuff of Country Songs
Sherman is parked on John's front steps when John gets home from the bar.
The illuminated dashboard says it's one-sixteen in the morning. The sprawl of Sherman's legs says he's been sitting there quite a while. Possibly since John left him at the end of shift.
Un-be-fucking-lievable.
John pulls the Challenger into the driveway far enough to nudge the rear tire of Sherman's bike with his bumper. The bike wobbles slightly. On the porch, Sherman gets to his feet, a brown paper bag in one hand.
John is not happy with Sherman at this moment; they're going to have to have a little talk about boundaries and how stalking your training officer is not okay. John's been dealing with shit all fucking day: Chickie and Slug and Sherman and his back and more Sherman and more with his back and fucking near-riots in The Jungle.
He doesn't get paid enough for this bullshit.
John cuts the engine and gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him.
"What the fuck do you want, Boot?" John snaps, as he comes around the back of his car and strides toward his front door.
Sherman shifts from one foot to the other. "Hey," he says tentatively.
John narrows his eyes. "No, not 'hey'," he retorts. "What do you fucking want?"
Sherman's eyes shift away from John briefly as the passenger side door of John's car creaks open and then clicks shut. The force behind the sound is vaguely hesitant.
"I didn't know you had company," Sherman says.
"That's because it's none of your fucking business," John replies as Andy stops just by John's left elbow.
Or maybe it's Aaron. Abner? Allen?
Whatever.
Sherman stares openly at John's one-night stand. He makes no attempt to disguise his disapproval.
Andy/Aaron laughs nervously at the tension engulfing them. "You didn't say anything about a threesome."
Sherman's laugh is twisted and raw. "A threesome? With you? Do you think--"
John takes four steps forward and one up the stairs. He and Sherman are now nose-to-nose. "You want to think real hard about the next words to come out of your mouth," he warns in a low tone.
A muscle twitches in Sherman's jaw. "You think this is about him?" He does incredulous well. "He's not my business," a pause, "but you are."
John sucks in a sharp breath. Of all the entitled, self-righteous bullshit. "Sherman, you have approximately ten seconds to get off my property before I throw you out on your pasty Beverly Hills backside."
Of course it's not true that Sherman's backside is pasty. John's been looking at said backside for six months and he knows for a fact that Sherman's ass is round, pert, tanned and as firm as two grapefruits. But pasty? Not even. Then again, John's not interested in semantics right now.
"I'm not leaving," Sherman says mulishly. "We need to talk." Sherman looks down briefly at the bag in his fist. "And I thought we could celebrate my moving on to Phase Three."
"Are you high?" John asks with some degree of seriousness. "I'm pretty sure I told you to fuck off today; and I know that because I was there when it fucking happened."
Sherman blinks; his eyelashes are so goddamn long it's infuriating. Not as infuriating as his current cock-blocking, but definitely close. John can feel the blood rushing through his veins. His heart is beating rapidly; he can hear the echo in his right ear.
"I don't want us to end up like Chickie and Dewey," Sherman says plainly. "We have to do something about your back. You have to do something about it."
"There is no 'we'!" John explodes.
"You're my partner!" Sherman shouts back just as belligerently.
John stares.
Andy/Abner coughs nervously behind them. "Hey, look, it's clear you and your man are having problems," he says. "I don't need to get involved in domestic issues."
John looks back at the man he brought home: he's blond and compact and he has biceps like... oh, god fucking dammit. He barks out a laugh. "You think this is my man? He's not a man and I don't fuck with jail--"
Sherman cuts him off. "I don't know what he told you to get you here, but he's my partner and I don't share well." Sherman shifts in John's peripheral vision, and Anthony - that's it, Anthony -- takes several steps back, bumps into the fender of the Challenger and beats a hasty retreat down John's street.
He actually runs away.
John turns back to Sherman. He can feel his eyeballs protruding slightly out of the sockets. He is going to flat out kill Sherman, but then a shiny glint at Sherman's waist distracts him.
Sherman's off-duty revolver.
He fucking ran off John's piece of ass by insinuation.
John opens his mouth, but his instincts are faster than his brain. He hears the dull thud of a glass bottle landing on his wooden porch, but it's secondary to the feeling of his palm pressed against Sherman's throat and Sherman pinned up against the wall by his front door.
"You're sticking your nose in places it doesn't belong, son," John says flatly. He doesn't think this is what he was going to say originally, but it gets his point across.
Sherman doesn't even struggle; he just gives John a defiant look. "I don't care," he says.
When Sherman talks, John can feel the muscles shifting in his neck. He tightens his hold slightly, feeling Sherman's Adam's apple bob under his palm.
His fingers circle most of Sherman's neck. The tips of his middle and index fingers brush against the hair shorn close at the nape.
Sherman makes this noise in his throat. It sounds... it sounds nothing like pain and everything like he's begging for more. John's in the wrong frame of mind to turn him down.
John uses his knee to spread Sherman's legs apart and then he leans in far too close.
"This is my life you're fucking around with," John says very quietly. "I don't need your sanctimonious, homophobic, holier-than-thou martyr complex fucking up the only good thing I have going."
"I'm not homophobic," Sherman says just as softly. "You're in pain, you won't ask for help and if you fucking think I'm going to let you end up like Dewey, you better fucking think again."
John ignores the irritated note in Sherman's voice. The cursing is interesting, though. "And to top it off, you drove off my piece of ass. He cost me three Sierra Nevadas."
"That was three too many."
"Because you would cost an entire six-pack?"
Sherman swipes the corner of his mouth with his tongue. "Because I don't cost anything."
John raises an eyebrow. "I don't know how you do things in The Hills, but down here, we don't take kindly to cockteases."
"Who said anything about teasing?"
Sherman's eyes are far too bright for their current situation. He's not even straining against John's hold. In fact, he's relaxed. And hard. John can feel Sherman's erection pressing his hip.
John's furious and frustrated, and Sherman is attempting to write checks his ass cannot possibly cash.
This is not how his night is supposed to go.
John can feel his mouth quirking at the corners. "If I don't take you over my knee and spank your ass until you can't sit down, you'll be very fucking lucky."
"Would you do it if I asked nicely?" Sherman bats those sinful eyelashes at John and grinds his ass down against the thigh John has pressed between his legs. That fucker.
John shakes his head. "No," he says, releasing Sherman and taking a step back. He is not going there. Here.
There's a red pressure band around Sherman's neck that John put there. He has to -
One minute John's thinking of tactical retreats and the next Sherman's got a handful of John's shirt and is dragging him in.
If someone had told John when he woke up this morning that he was going to end his day with Ben Sherman's tongue in his mouth, he probably would've put down the green pills he popped with his coffee and sworn off drugs for the rest of his life because they are clearly making him insane.
And yet, John's on the porch of his house with Sherman's fingers twisted in his shirt and his tongue flickering against John's palate. Surreal doesn't even begin to cover it. Sherman is attacking him like he attacks everything else: with his whole being. He's biting at John's lower lip, kissing at the corner of his mouth, nipping at his jaw.
John's back twinges briefly; he ignores it, grabs Sherman by the shoulders and shoves him away, against the siding. Sherman pants loudly, his mouth is red and slick; the things John wants to do to it are obscene. Sherman sucks on his lower lip; his eyes are wide and he's vibrating underneath John's hands.
"This is not how you make your case," John says, doing his damnedest to keep his voice steady.
"I want you," Sherman says bluntly. "That's my case."
"Five minutes ago you wanted me to give up my job because of a little pain in my back; now you want to suck my cock?"
"I wanted to suck your cock six months ago," Sherman corrects. "The back thing came later. And I don't want you to quit; I want you to get help."
John's thumbs are resting against the collar of Sherman's leather jacket. When he presses down he can feel the sharp jut of collarbones. "You don't know what you want," he says dismissively.
"I know exactly what I want," Sherman says, surging forward. Their mouths meet in a head-on collision.
These kisses are feral, sharp. John doesn't receive this time around; he gives. He uses his teeth and his hands. He turns Sherman's head the way he wants, moves them back until they hit the wall again, and then he holds Sherman still and ruts against him until Sherman's clawing at his clothes and begging in his ear, Johnjohnjohnjohn...
There are hands underneath John's shirt, short nails raking along his back. He lives here and the porch lights are on and the neighbors could be watching. He's clearly lost his fucking mind. That doesn't seem as important as it should with his orgasm so goddamn close and Sherman sucking a hickey into that soft spot behind his ear. Sherman is writhing against his thigh, gasping, shuddering.
John's orgasm hits like a two-by-four to his spine and he buckles under the weight of it and Sherman and the mistake he probably just made.
Ben Sherman should not be holding him up, but he is. Between sharp inhalations and the fog of a long-delayed orgasm, John tries to make some sense of what just happened.
He would push Sherman away, but Sherman's already against the wall. John is the one who steps back. "You are ruining my life, Sherman," he says with a shake of his head.
Sherman's face is flushed, his clothes in disarray. He offers John a hopeful smile. "If that's ruining lives, you should ruin mine every day and twice on Sunday."
"This is just a fucking joke to you, isn't it?" John says sharply.
A wounded look flashes over Sherman's face before being abruptly replaced by something dark and angry. "When are you going to get it through your head that I'm in this just as much as you are?" he demands.
John's laugh is bitter. It kills whatever post-coital lassitude he could've had. Well, that and his aching back and wet, sticky briefs. "You will never be in this as far as I am. If you can leave this job and still have something else, you're nothing like me."
Sherman crowds John, his eyes hard. Maybe he's going to hit John; John should be so lucky.
Sherman gazes at him for so long it gives John's a headache, and eventually, he has to look away.
"This is all I have," Sherman says fiercely. "This is all I want. Maybe one day you'll stop being such a fucking asshole and realize that."
John could say something, but he doesn't know what, and then Sherman is gone. A soft breeze blows against the back of John's heated neck as the stairs creak with Sherman's exit.
John listens for the sound of Sherman's bike starting up and only then does he turn around and watch him drive off.
The brown paper bag Sherman brought is lying on its side. John picks it up and glances inside. Macallan 1841. John knows expensive whisky when he sees it.
There's no point in letting it go to waste, so John takes it in the house with him.
Maybe tomorrow will look better at the bottom of the bottle.
Maybe he'll cave and call Sherman before he gets there.
-end-
For maurheti, serialkarma and sparky77 who humor me, especially when I'm spazzing the fuck out.
Title from U2's 'If God Will Send His Angels.' I'd planned to save it for a Generation Kill story, but I'd rather not hold my breath on that.
Beta by maurheti who likes to kick my ass while wearing stilettos. I'm gonna remember this later. *limps away*.