Fic: Fight or Flight, Cook/Archuleta, [NC-17]
A month ago, the talented merely_anger made me this awesome fic cover for my boozy, bar brawl I wrote for the awesome community cookleta_ptof, Adrenaline and Malt. Isn’t the art lovely? The superimposition of the Archie-in-Cook images, the faded sepia tone, the beer-mug ring-stain - all reach right to the heart of the story, and certainly won my heart. Thank you so much, bb!
Thusly, I set out to make her a thank you companion/sequel story - which kind of got away from me - and which ended up as a Halloween tale of frights, and flights, and fights of a different kind, and as such it’s for all of you as well.
Happy post-Halloween, f-list! (Happy birthday, too, to late October babies pretendhappyend and mrsachid - hope everyone enjoys!)
Fight Or Flight
Cook/Archuleta, [NC-17], 6,000+ words
Beta by srs academic evilgeniuslady; riding consult by pro horsewoman x_heterophobic, cheerleading by trick-or-treating aohatsu. Thank you, ladies! Not for profit work of fiction; no libel, privacy or intellectual property breaches intended. All mistakes mine.
Sequel to Adrenaline and Malt
After the fight in the bar, some things change. Cook doesn't want to admit it to himself, of course, but that doesn't stop some small part of his brain taking note of the crap the rest of him tries successfully to ignore.
So he tells himself it's just coincidence that he gets the urge to go watch open auto motor racing in West Virginia the next weekend. They get front row seats in front of the first oval turn and sit so close to the track that the tires kick grit in their faces as the cars roar by. When one Dodge Charger mounts the curb and spins around and crashes to a halt against the barrier barely a foot away, Cook puts his arm around David and pulls him tightly against his side.
"Is this exciting?" he yells hopefully above the banging din.
David shrugs. He doesn't seem particularly impressed or afraid; he watches the driver climb out and the pit crew rush to the stalled car with fire extinguishers with a bemused expression. "It's loud!" he yells back, smiling the polite smile he reserves for contract negotiations and Beth's spaghetti carbonara and other things he isn't really enthusiastic about.
After the race Cook pulls some strings with the local NASCAR officials to finagle them a spin around the track. They get suited and helmeted up and strapped into the bucket seats. Cook gears down and floors it and the vehicle takes off like a rocket at 80 mph. The g-forces flatten Cook to the seat and he grins fiercely at the speed. When he looks across at David at first he thinks he finally sees a spark of excitement or fear in David's eye, but the next instant he sees it's David trying to stifle a yawn.
Back at the hotel they're both tired from the driving; it takes a while to wash off the thin grime of the track. As soon as they're in bed David passes right out and is dead to the world in seconds. Cook kisses David's sleeping face, and tries not to sigh as he hunkers down to sleep.
*
The next weekend David wants to stay in rather than go watch a boxing match downtown. Cook seizes the opportunity to bring over a scary movie. He lingers at the horror aisle at Borders: it might be traditional to scare your date with hack 'n' slash movies like Halloween the Whateverth, plus, it’s kind of seasonal with October 31st right around the corner, but he thinks David might be more grossed out than frightened by all the chainsaws and blood, and Cook can't bring himself to purchase the torture porn that lines the Recent Releases shelf.
He decides to go with a classic, the three-hour movie version of Stephen King's IT. He remembers reading the book as a kid and lying awake at night frozen to his mattress in fear. Surely this would be similarly, sufficiently terrifying to his even-tempered David.
Thusly armed, he's admitted into David's West Hollywood stronghold. They curl up on the sofa and load up on Thai food and pizza and each other, until Cook reminds himself that the plan didn't involve passing out in a carbohydrate-induced coma, and pulls out the DVD.
"This movie came out the year I was born!" David announced brightly, making Cook feel only a little guilty about his underlying intentions.
"Yeah, I never watched it either," Cook says, and they settle into David's comfortable sofa as the opening credits roll.
It starts out slow - its lead character Bill Denbrough growing up poor with other socially awkward kids in a ramshackle small town in Middle America - and then the horror hits in the terrifying figure of Pennywise the Clown. He lurks in the shadows of Bill's dreams, materializes out of photos, and drags Bill's little brother George into the sewers and rips his arm off, killing him instantly.
It's well into the movie when Cook realizes he's pressed himself into the back of the sofa in subconscious horror. He remembers a little too clearly reading about Bill's despair and resolve; remembers thinking about his own little brother Drew and what might happen if a monster from out of their childhood clawed its way out of a book and dragged him away...
"...Cook, are you all right?" David asks, his face full of concern.
Cook pulls himself upright and shakes himself physically and mentally. He has to pull his hand off the back of the sofa, which he'd been holding on to in a death grip. C'mon, man, you're too old to be afraid of evil clowns! "I'm fine," he mumbles, but lets David put his arms around him anyway.
Midway into the movie, the kids are facing down Pennywise in the sewers and fighting off the town bullies and there's blood and dying and Cook is about to crawl out of his skin...
...and he hears sniffling against his shoulder. He turns, and, fuck, David is crying.
"Babe, what --?"
David gestures at the screen. "Those kids," he mutters. "They're trying to save the whole town by themselves! Their parents and the police aren't helping, so they know it's up to them, even though they might be killed..."
Cook stares into David's wet, guileless eyes and feels a rush of affection. "You're not scared," he murmurs, and wipes the stray moisture from David's cheek.
David frowns. "Scared? The kids'll be okay. IT can't really get to them if they're pure of heart, you know?"
Cook thinks that might as well be a metaphor for David himself, as it happens.
One more disc later, the evil under Derry has finally been vanquished. Cook's kind of ashamed at how freaked out by the movie he'd gotten - it must be the residual memories of reading the damn novel as a kid. Come to think of it, he's feeling less up for the desired action and more like he wants to just hold onto his boyfriend and shiver under the covers and wait for morning.
"You want to leave the light on tonight?" David asks jokingly as they climb into bed.
Cook rolls his eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Archuleta. I'm not ten anymore."
"Well, hold my hand then," David says, smiling, as he turns the light off, and Cook indeed finds himself curling up to David, reaching for the comfort of his boy's fingers against the dark.
*
The next weekend Cook decides they're going skydiving. That's bound to be a foolproof way to get the blood pounding, and best of all, there are no clowns involved.
The US Parachute Association has a commercial jump center in Santa Barbara which caters to celebrity clients. The instructors are discreet and efficient, its equipment is state of the art, and it has a 100% safety record, or so his assistant assures Cook.
Cook doesn't notify RCA; he knows his lawyer would only harangue him about the additional insurance premiums. He's pretty sure Beth wouldn't kill him, but he doesn't really want to risk telling her either.
David seems to have squared things with his folks and to have taken this in stride, though when their driver pulls up at the private airfield and they watch a turbine airplane take off in front of them, his eyes go wide and he presses up a little against Cook.
"That looks fast," he says, only a little unsteadily.
Gotcha, Cook thinks, smugly, and holds David close, hearing David's quickened breathing beside him.
Cook and David change up as directed into sharp jumpsuits that carry the company's logo, and sign the various standard waivers. David looks more than a little nervous, and Cook smiles privately to himself as he folds David under his arm and they follow the staff carrying their gear out to the training field.
Their instructor, Ted, is a wiry and no-nonsense older guy who reminds Cook of the Marine platoon commander he'd met in Iraq in 2008.
"I want you guys to do exactly as I say," Ted says, crisply, and proceeds to run them through an hour's worth of safety checks and procedures and demos for their jump. At the end of the drill Cook is laden with what feels like fifty pounds of sophisticated equipment and a buttload of his own apprehension. David looks even more dwarfed by the gear, and his eyes are the size of saucers - so far everything's going according to plan.
"What if I forget to pull the cord after I jump?" David asks, in a small voice.
Ted says, "Remember, we're doing this tandem, which means you're attached to an instructor, so your instructor will pull it for you. If there's some problem with the instructor, don't worry - all student gear is equipped with an automatic activation device designed to activate the parachute automatically at a safe altitude; that is, 4,500 feet. You can always monitor your altitude with the altimeter attached to your jumpsuit."
David stares at the altimeter like it's an alien device. Cook slings his arm around him, a little awkwardly because of all the equipment.
"We'll be fine, babe. This'll be fun, trust me."
"Well, trust me, anyway," says another man in an instructor's jumpsuit, materializing at David's elbow. He's tall and blond, so much the relaxed Californian type that Cook wonders when he'd traded his surfboard for a parachute. "I'm Patrick, and I'll be Mr. Archuleta's tandem today."
Everyone shakes hands and David blushes. "Aw, call me David."
"Sure," says Patrick, and winks. "Don't be nervous, I'll make it a good first time for you."
Cook absolutely wants to kill him. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Too late to back out now, though.
After a further pre-flight run-through, everyone piles on board one of the company's state of the art P-750 XS TOL turbine jump aircrafts. David takes Cook's hand as they lift into the choppy air and leave their stomachs temporarily behind.
It's surprisingly peaceful cruising at 10,000 feet. Late October in California is still sunny and golden and only a little cool, the skies bright blue.
"Get ready, guys," Ted says, and they obediently run through the pre-jump equipment check one final time.
David's face is muffled by his helmet and goggles. Cook reaches out and cups David's cheek.
"How're we doing in there, still good?"
David grins a little nervously, and fidgets with his hands - Cook knows he wants to tug at his straps and is stopping himself in case he unbuckles something. "I'm okay, I guess, for someone about to jump out of a 'plane?"
"Someone wrote an awesome song about parachutes," Cook says, slyly; "Maybe I'll sing it on the way down."
David's answering grin is as bright as the sun's glare off the windows.
"Time to jump," says Ted, and as the instructors get into position Cook feels the adrenaline take him from his helmet to the heels of his boots.
Cook and Ted go last - Cook wants to keep an eye on Surfer Dude, and Ted is the senior instructor. Cook gets in one quick kiss - David's lips are dry from the wind and nerves - and then his boyfriend is sailing through the blue away from him in the arms of another man.
"Are we good to go?" Ted asks, and Cook nods, and together they step out of the hatch.
Cook holds his breath automatically - his body buffeted by air currents, freefalling under its own weight - he can't hear a thing above the sound of his own loud heartbeat. He's torn between flailing and keeping still, between eyes open and eyes shut. Dimly he hears a thin shrill noise like mic feedback and realizes it's coming from him.
"Dammit, sorry," he tries to say to Ted, feebly, battling the rushing air. Fuck, after the last two ideas bombed out he totally shoulda known better than to try a third time.
"No, you're good," Ted shouts back. "Get ready, we're gonna let her rip."
"What?" Cook shouts, but Ted has pulled the cord, and abruptly their parachute deploys with a jerk and the muffled rushing ceases. Ted and Cook are suddenly weightless, and the massive white sail arches over their heads.
Below them is the breathtaking green sweep of California in autumn. The landing area is a white-limned postage stamp miles away. Cook can see Patrick and David's blue and yellow chute a small, brightly-colored spot beneath them.
Ted is silent, and Cook enjoys five minutes of sunlight and sky, the best kind of fight-or-flight.
All too soon the ground is coming towards them. Cook belatedly gets his limbs to move, tries to remember what he'd been told about approach angles and the descent, and he manages to get his legs correctly under him. Ted cuts himself loose, and Cook takes his weight with a thud, and for an instant he's disappointed to feel the pull of gravity, the solid ground beneath.
Then David rushes up to him and flings his arms around him, hugging gear and chute and all one hundred eighty pounds of skydiving boyfriend. David's eyes are bright, his hair standing on end from hours in the helmet, and when he embraces Cook his breath is coming fast and the adrenaline aftershock is still making his body quiver.
Grinning, Cook takes his well-deserved reward: he leans in and kisses David in the full glare of the afternoon.
He feels the fire curl through David as David kisses back, that special hunger which Cook has only tasted once before. It's fierce, overwhelming, Cook can't get enough of it and it seems neither can David, because he doesn't seem to care who sees; he winds his arms around Cook's neck and pulls the ends of Cook's hair and kisses him like he wants to devour him whole.
They kiss long and longingly enough for Ted to clear his throat and Patrick to look somewhat disappointed (Good, thinks Cook, fiercely, Surfer Dude has finally gotten the picture).
"Let's go home," Cook murmurs at last against David's lips, and his boyfriend says, "Yeah, great idea."
They scramble back into their street clothes and say their hurried goodbyes. In the limo Cook pushes his jacket off and slides into position between David's legs and starts to reel David in; he's surprised when David places a hand on Cook's chest and holds him off.
"Hang on, Cook."
"Um, what?" Cook’s brain has abdicated the driving to his body; even one-syllable words are hard.
"Look. I suddenly realized something. Have you been trying to do something on our dates, for the last couple of weeks? I kinda feel like I’ve been auditioning for Fear Factor."
David's hair is messed up from the kissing and he's breathing heavily, but his eyes are entirely transparent; he holds Cook's gaze steadily. Cook finds he wants to look elsewhere, to squirm uneasily, because he realizes he has been trying to do something, and now he thinks about it, it may have been kind of manipulative.
Cook makes himself meet David's eyes; he sits back in his seat a little. "I...yeah, I guess I have," he says. "You know how you got last month, in the bar? I'd never seen that side to you. I wanted to see if we could do that again."
"So, you took me car racing and sky diving and watched a horror movie with me, to scare me, 'cause you thought I might get, you know?" David's mouth twitches, like he wants to grin very badly. "Funny, I don’t think there’s on a tandem jump written on the List. I'm thinking maybe you should have asked me instead, Cook."
"I should have, I know." Tentatively, Cook touches the side of David's face. "It was really stupid. And not just because the movie scared me much worse than it scared you! I'm sorry, babe."
David lets himself grin, finally. "Okay," he says softly. "I guess you thought maybe it'd be more spontaneous like this? But if you tell me what you want, you know, maybe we can plan something."
The sly note in David's voice goes straight to Cook's dick. "Oh, really?" Cook asks. "And what do you have in mind?"
David keeps grinning as he slides in closer. "Actually, I have an idea."
*
The afternoon sun is low on the horizon, glinting off rows of metal and steel. Cook squints, shading his eyes: the cut-out shapes of ramparts and crenellations of the surrounding medieval buildings are stark against the blue. Overhead, fluttering pennants announce the heraldry of the lords and ladies in attendance at today's pageant.
It’s the last day of October, All Hallow’s Eve. The castle grounds are hung with commemorative orange and fake skulls, and there’s a replica of a recently executed fugitive from the King’s justice hanging as a warning over the portcullis.
Cook is sweating like the horse he's currently astride. The padded helmet, reinforced vest, rerebraces and greaves and special boots he's wearing all weigh on him uncomfortably; he can't imagine how knights of old actually managed to walk around in suits of armor made of cast iron, let alone ride on horses and fight each other in fair battle.
He's actually a halfway decent horseman thanks to a bunch of summers spent on his uncle's ranch, and for this escapade he’d first signed on for a hard week of preparatory training with the good men of the Reformation Renaissance Company Inc., learning to handle a lance and to fight and fall safely. Apart from that, though, nothing in his twenty-nine years had prepared him for what might be the stupidest stunt of his life.
He sits loose in his saddle like they'd taught him, gripping his horse with his knees. Around him in the holding area on the near side of the list field are other horses and riders, a mix of professionals and amateurs who’d had some training and who were crazy enough to want to test their skills against each other in the chivalric art of the joust. Amongst their number there he is: crazy with love, anyway, to even be attempting this.
He hopes he remembers how to hit the ground in a way that doesn't break his neck. He'd had enough lecturing from the 19E lawyers over the indemnities he'd had to sign and extra insurance they'd had to buy so he and David could have their fun.
On the plus side, he can hardly smell the horse dung anymore. In any case, the ripe odors make this Renaissance Carnival even more authentic.
He hears a trumpet being blown: a peppy fanfare in the key of C.
Someone calls his name, or rather, says, “Sir David Roland Cook of Blue Springs!”, which is totally his cue. In response, he pulls his visor into place, hefts the lance upright in his left arm, and urges his trusty steed into position in the jousting lists.
Cook glances at the stands, and smiles to see David in the front row. David’s wearing a vaguely-period tunic and leggings, and he’s waving wildly at Cook.
Cook raises his lance in an answering salute. He has David’s long red and gray scarf pinned to his right shoulder as a sign of his love’s favor, and David looks so proud and thrilled he’s almost bursting.
At the far end of the jousting field, over the striped tilt barrier, Cook sees his opponent, a pro rider, all in black astride a piebald horse. The herald announces his name, too, but Cook can’t for the life of him hear it above the roar of the crowd and the huge burst of adrenaline that lifts him in his saddle and fills him from reinforced heels to helm.
All Cook can remember is: aim for the torso, and also, lean backwards or you’ll be knocked off your seat.
There’s the signal, and Cook’s heels dig in and his horse takes off, pelting furiously down the list lane. He can see his opponent do likewise; armor jangling and hooves flying toward him, sand from the tilt ground kicking into the air in the wake of horse and rider.
It’s eerie how adrenaline makes even really loud sound into a muffled roar, because that's all he hears right now.
He’s coming hard up on the tilt barrier. His opponent is galloping hard toward him, looming closer and closer. At the last moment Cook lowers his lance at an angle across the barrier, couching it in his left arm.
Time slows down weirdly: he sees the challenger similarly lower his lance, moving in slow motion. The angle is wider because he's right-handed, where Cook is a lefty and has a natural disadvantage. The plan is for Cook to lean right and try to get a better angle on the hit and for the guys to call this one a technical win, but who knew: adrenaline and love make you do foolish things.
So, like he has all the time in the world, Cook leans to the left instead and sweeps his lance in an upward movement, knocking his opponent's weapon aside. The rubberized point of Cook's lance catches the challenger on the shoulder, and it lifts the guy right off the saddle.
His opponent makes a graceful slow parabola through the air before hitting the sandy ground with a resounding thud - before Cook has even time to think, Fuck me, that actually worked -
- the trained horses flash past each other, kicking up sand as they go...
...and then time speeds up again, and someone's finally turned the sound back up: the deafening screams and cheers shake the jousting field. Cook realizes he's shouting fiercely himself: Goddamn, yeah, unbelievable!, and pumping his lance in a totally unknightly manner.
Belatedly, he brings his horse around. His opponent is getting to his feet, cursing goddamn love-struck amateurs loudly enough to be heard above the racket. Cook doesn't care; he's shaking violently, his ears are ringing, he feels every ounce of the throbbing blood in his veins.
Cook takes the victor’s lap around the tilt field, raising his arm to the crowd like it’s weightless. Of course, he has eyes for nothing save for David’s exultant face.
When he rides back to the holding area, Robin has some security guys already waiting, and David has pushed his way through the crowd. Cook hands the reins into one of the grooms, only dimly registering the congratulations of his fellow riders, flings himself out of the saddle, and collapses into David’s arms.
*
"You were terrific," David says proudly. They've staggered into Cook's private locker room under the jousting yard; it's a narrow cell with a slit of window, Cook suspects it used to be a closet where jousters used to sneak drinks of mead. It kind of smells like it: like old sweat and feet and fermented alcohol have ground themselves into the peeling walls and floorboards.
Cook had pulled off his helm and visor in the yard so he could kiss his boyfriend properly, but David had insisted on taking care of the rest of Cook's armor himself, like a proper squire or paramour ought. Thus far, David had managed to get off Cook's fancy vambraces and greaves, and was wrestling with Cook's knee and elbow pads.
"Beginner's luck," Cook says, meaning it. He'd managed to unhorse some of the guys in the practice runs in the training week, but they had been trainers riding toward him at a slow canter with their guard wide open and who'd been ready for it (and he'd been unhorsed pretty thoroughly himself). He's sure his main trainer, a Viking-sized guy named Pete, had shouted something along the lines of how what he'd done shouldn't have worked. He hadn't really been paying attention, because David had been kissing him in the way that made the blood rush to all exposed and unexposed surfaces of his skin.
"You're so modest! I know skill when I see it," says David, pressing a kiss to Cook’s shoulder blade and starting to work on the complex straps of his vest. "You could have been a knight in the olden days, y'know, jousting in tournaments, guarding the king's highways, that kind of thing."
"Really, you think I'd have a career as Sir David Roland of Blue Springs?" Cook murmurs as David pulls the padded vest free and tosses it to the ground. He's pretty sweaty underneath, his utilitarian long-sleeved tee-shirt wet through, but David doesn't seem to mind; he winds his arms around Cook's neck and presses himself against Cook's perspiring chest.
Cook persists, though David's kiss is very distracting, "Riding around, killing dragons, rescuing stray damsels and lads in distress?"
"Yeah, totally, as long as you remember who your lord is," David says breathlessly. His hands push up under Cook's tee and he palms the damp fabric over Cook's head and off Cook's bare, sweaty skin.
"Doubt I’d forget," Cook says. The cool air feels good, better than good. "Would my lord care to take his tunic off? I think the door's locked."
"I think how this works is that I take your gear off first," says David firmly. He palms the front of Cook's skin-tight riding jodhpurs, where Cook's been alternating between half- and full-mast for quite a while now. "How does this come off again?"
"With as much skill as unhorsing an opponent," Cook snickers. "I think the trick is we need to be horizontal."
"This better not be a line you feed to all the damsels," says David, archly, but he sits down anyway on the floorboards as he’d been bidden. Cook parks himself on the edge of the pallet in a narrow patch of afternoon sunlight - upon which scores of knights-errant-wannabes had probably rested semi-drunkenly to undo their leggings and boots and cursed the narrowness of the damn Renfaire closet - and puts his left boot onto David’s lap.
"Don't think many damsels would be up for this job," Cook confesses as David takes hold of his reinforced riding boot and pulls it off and then the other one, and then peels off his socks. Cook has to wince as the stink of sweat and leather is released; he amends this to, "Yeah; I actually doubt there'd be any takers. You know the Idol hairdryer ladies would totally run away."
"Well, I'm not sure about that," says David, and he's running his hands lingeringly over Cook's aching feet with a gleam in his eyes.
Cook raises his eyebrows: David is ordinarily pretty fastidious and likes things to be neat and clean, so this is fairly out of character. "You're serious?"
David digs his thumb into the ball of Cook's right foot, and a spike of pleasure shoots all the way up Cook's leg. "No, any damsel would be honored," he tells Cook, rubbing the arch of Cook's dirty foot, and, that's it, an hour ago Cook wouldn't have believed that horses and sweat would have had this effect on David, but he can't deny the evidence - the adrenaline of watching the joust has drawn David to the down and dirty, has turned him on just like that time in the bar those weeks ago.
"Come here, damn it, and I'll show you honored," Cook murmurs, reaching for David's wrists and pulling him in.
David climbs up Cook's legs and settles his weight between Cook's thighs and Cook is suddenly so hard he can't breathe. The afternoon sun’s in his eyes, David's clean scent fills his personal space, the familiar heft of David's cock is hot and urgent and right there, and, what do you know, horizontal totally works for this as well.
"Gonna show me, are you?" David enquires innocently, and Cook says, "Actually, I'm going to dishonor you instead," and pulls off David's tunic, cupping David's eager body against him.
"I don't think my lady mother would like the sound of that," murmurs David, and then, "Oh", as Cook grinds up against him to convince him otherwise.
"We’re done talking," says Cook, warningly; his hands dig into David's ass, and David makes a surprised sound. His hands catch in Cook's sweaty hair and he presses Cook back into the thin, makeshift pallet - it's not comfortable, not entirely clean, the floorboards strewn with stable straw and sawdust, but David doesn’t seem to care. His legs tangle with Cook's; he pins Cook down and bites Cook's lower lip.
Since Cook's supposedly done talking, David's clearly figured it's time to put his tongue to better use: he kisses Cook so fiercely that the back of Cook's head bumps the floorboards under the threadbare mattress. Cook tastes the familiar tang of his own blood and - fuck, at last - David's adrenaline-fueled desire.
Cook takes belated control and pulls off and rolls David onto his back instead. They both groan loudly as their erections rub against each other through the layers of fabric, harder and harder.
Cook sucks on David's tongue to keep him quiet, then trails biting kisses along the tendon in David's neck. David's flushed and frantic, straining underneath him, desperate for more friction. When Cook eases up to try to undo both of their trousers, David's hands are already there, tugging at his flies with shaking fingers.
"Please, Cook," gasps David; Cook snickers, "I've got you, my lord," and scoops David clear of his leggings. They both kick off Cook's sodden jodhpurs too, and David wraps a leg around Cook's waist and rocks up against Cook’s bare cock and, oh fuck, this is going to be over very quickly if Cook isn’t careful.
“Cook, this is, this, please, I want to feel you,” David is pleading, heedless of where they are and the cheap door lock and cheaper mattress, and this is what Cook has been waiting for all these weeks of stupid car races and movies and finally with this latest display of chivalric jousting skills: the adrenaline surge in his lover that doesn’t make him want to fight or flee, that makes him want to fuck until he can’t stand.
“Hang on, babe,” Cook tries to say as he tries to rummage through his gear and satisfy David’s need to be all over him at the same time. Where did he - damn it -
The fluid comes out of the bottle in a cool gush, spilling everywhere, and it just adds to the mess of clothes and bare skin, sweat and pre-come. David makes a low, inarticulate noise and pulls his knees up and apart and lifts his ass blatantly to Cook.
David’s never been like this before, and Cook can’t deny him anything, he’s going to give David what he wants. He spreads David’s buttocks and pushes the first slick finger inside him and David goes entirely slack with pleasure.
“That’s good,” Cook murmurs, adding another finger, working David open with his riding hand, his guitar-fingering hand, and David starts to move again, hips writhing against the mattress, begging sounds spilling out of him.
Cook straddles David’s thighs to keep him still and adds a third finger, watching the wide-open shapes of David’s wet mouth, the bobbing movement of his swollen, leaking erection, the clenching of his slick pectoral and stomach muscles, marveling at how he’s never seen David this wild, this out of control.
Cook needs two hands to put the condom on, and when he pulls his fingers out of David’s hole David actually pulls himself upright, looking half-crazed with outrage and lust. Cook should find this hilarious -what, his knight is daring to stop without being given leave? Such an affront! - but the sight of David wanton and demanding and covered in sweat might be more than one man can bear.
“I’m sorry, I’m here, I’m,” and Cook’s fumbling to take himself in hand, his slippery head skidding against David’s opening. David pants hoarsely and takes his weight on his elbows and shoves up to meet Cook, and Cook can’t stop himself, he digs bruises into David’s hips and pushes into David with one rough stroke.
David moans, opening for him eagerly, easily, taking him all the way in; God, Cook absolutely has no control anymore. He holds David down and fucks him harder into the floorboards.
David can't get enough of it - he's thrusting up onto Cook’s dick feverishly, fingers scrabbling for purchase against the mattress. His head’s flung back and his mouth has fallen open and he’s making whining, increasingly desperate sounds. When Cook wraps his wanking hand around David’s angry-red cock, David almost bucks them both off the pallet.
“God,” Cook manages, brokenly, “David”; he can feel the shudders start, from the balls of his sore, aching feet, up through his thighs and legs to the long muscles in his back, tremors that are going to tear him apart.
David groans wordlessly against Cook’s open mouth as Cook jacks him hard and drives into him harder - it’s dirtier and messier and more reckless than they’ve ever been. Cook can’t hold himself back, the sheer drop is rushing towards him, he gasps, "Babe, I'm gonna -"
And then David’s coming with breathless, keening cries, clenching around him and spilling hotly over them both, and Cook’s coming too: harder than any fall he’d taken in the practice yard, than diving headfirst into a clear blue sky.
Afterwards Cook collapses onto his back, hoping he hasn’t broken anything. The fall sunlight turns the dingy room to gold, the smell of mead and sweat and exertion surrounding them both.
Cook can’t bring himself to care about the wreck they’ve made of the mattress. He feels superhuman, every nerve in his body throbbing and alive with the fire of his release, holding his satiated beloved in his arms.
At last, David stirs slowly. “This... was even more exciting than the joust,” he confesses, only a little shamefacedly, and Cook snorts with laughter.
“Y’know, I only did that so that we could have post-joust sex in a medieval locker room.”
David shifts against Cook’s shoulder, seemingly heedless of how everything's wet and sticking to them and they're sticking to each other. “C’mon, this is really romantic,” he points out.
Cook doesn’t mention the mess they’ve made or the decided griminess of their surroundings, or even the nastiest shower stall in Renfaire history which they’re later forced to use, because he does get it. There’s the ultimate romance in the medieval chivalric traditions, and in having a paramour to cherish and protect, and though David is so much more than that, it’s something which Cook embraces wholeheartedly.
Also, the fact that it gets his boyfriend in the mood like this? Cook needs to be buying his own lance. Heck, he should just buy Renaissance Reformation Inc.
Clean again, wearing their modern clothes, Cook and David stroll out into the early California evening.
The colorful flags and banners of the fair billow overhead; men and women in period costume hurry by, carrying supplies and victuals, headed toward one tent or another. There’s a steady stream of participants headed for the main castle, where the evening’s Halloween entertainment is being set up. Someone’s playing a jaunty air on a flute and they can see a couple of roving minstrels with guitars wandering around the fairground.
The last of the sunlight limns the stretch of the tilt yard in scarlet and ochre. The knightly horses are quiet in the stables, doubtless dreaming of their day of glory.
Cook has tied David’s colors to the strap of his jacket, and the red and gray flutter in the breeze.
“So, I’m doing this again, then?” Cook asks, trying for seriousness and failing, casting a sidelong look at David’s satisfied face.
David puts his hand under Cook’s jacket lapels. “I’m sure my knight won’t make me wait for long,” he says sweetly.
Cook snorts softly, loving him: all’s right with their world once again. “You’re such a demanding paramour, my lord. Do I need to keep trying to win your favor?”
“Always,” murmurs David, lifting his face for Cook’s kiss, and Cook feels the fire rise under his skin in response.
/le fin
This entry was originally posted on dreamwidth; you can choose to read it there.
Thusly, I set out to make her a thank you companion/sequel story - which kind of got away from me - and which ended up as a Halloween tale of frights, and flights, and fights of a different kind, and as such it’s for all of you as well.
Happy post-Halloween, f-list! (Happy birthday, too, to late October babies pretendhappyend and mrsachid - hope everyone enjoys!)
Fight Or Flight
Cook/Archuleta, [NC-17], 6,000+ words
Beta by srs academic evilgeniuslady; riding consult by pro horsewoman x_heterophobic, cheerleading by trick-or-treating aohatsu. Thank you, ladies! Not for profit work of fiction; no libel, privacy or intellectual property breaches intended. All mistakes mine.
Sequel to Adrenaline and Malt
After the fight in the bar, some things change. Cook doesn't want to admit it to himself, of course, but that doesn't stop some small part of his brain taking note of the crap the rest of him tries successfully to ignore.
So he tells himself it's just coincidence that he gets the urge to go watch open auto motor racing in West Virginia the next weekend. They get front row seats in front of the first oval turn and sit so close to the track that the tires kick grit in their faces as the cars roar by. When one Dodge Charger mounts the curb and spins around and crashes to a halt against the barrier barely a foot away, Cook puts his arm around David and pulls him tightly against his side.
"Is this exciting?" he yells hopefully above the banging din.
David shrugs. He doesn't seem particularly impressed or afraid; he watches the driver climb out and the pit crew rush to the stalled car with fire extinguishers with a bemused expression. "It's loud!" he yells back, smiling the polite smile he reserves for contract negotiations and Beth's spaghetti carbonara and other things he isn't really enthusiastic about.
After the race Cook pulls some strings with the local NASCAR officials to finagle them a spin around the track. They get suited and helmeted up and strapped into the bucket seats. Cook gears down and floors it and the vehicle takes off like a rocket at 80 mph. The g-forces flatten Cook to the seat and he grins fiercely at the speed. When he looks across at David at first he thinks he finally sees a spark of excitement or fear in David's eye, but the next instant he sees it's David trying to stifle a yawn.
Back at the hotel they're both tired from the driving; it takes a while to wash off the thin grime of the track. As soon as they're in bed David passes right out and is dead to the world in seconds. Cook kisses David's sleeping face, and tries not to sigh as he hunkers down to sleep.
*
The next weekend David wants to stay in rather than go watch a boxing match downtown. Cook seizes the opportunity to bring over a scary movie. He lingers at the horror aisle at Borders: it might be traditional to scare your date with hack 'n' slash movies like Halloween the Whateverth, plus, it’s kind of seasonal with October 31st right around the corner, but he thinks David might be more grossed out than frightened by all the chainsaws and blood, and Cook can't bring himself to purchase the torture porn that lines the Recent Releases shelf.
He decides to go with a classic, the three-hour movie version of Stephen King's IT. He remembers reading the book as a kid and lying awake at night frozen to his mattress in fear. Surely this would be similarly, sufficiently terrifying to his even-tempered David.
Thusly armed, he's admitted into David's West Hollywood stronghold. They curl up on the sofa and load up on Thai food and pizza and each other, until Cook reminds himself that the plan didn't involve passing out in a carbohydrate-induced coma, and pulls out the DVD.
"This movie came out the year I was born!" David announced brightly, making Cook feel only a little guilty about his underlying intentions.
"Yeah, I never watched it either," Cook says, and they settle into David's comfortable sofa as the opening credits roll.
It starts out slow - its lead character Bill Denbrough growing up poor with other socially awkward kids in a ramshackle small town in Middle America - and then the horror hits in the terrifying figure of Pennywise the Clown. He lurks in the shadows of Bill's dreams, materializes out of photos, and drags Bill's little brother George into the sewers and rips his arm off, killing him instantly.
It's well into the movie when Cook realizes he's pressed himself into the back of the sofa in subconscious horror. He remembers a little too clearly reading about Bill's despair and resolve; remembers thinking about his own little brother Drew and what might happen if a monster from out of their childhood clawed its way out of a book and dragged him away...
"...Cook, are you all right?" David asks, his face full of concern.
Cook pulls himself upright and shakes himself physically and mentally. He has to pull his hand off the back of the sofa, which he'd been holding on to in a death grip. C'mon, man, you're too old to be afraid of evil clowns! "I'm fine," he mumbles, but lets David put his arms around him anyway.
Midway into the movie, the kids are facing down Pennywise in the sewers and fighting off the town bullies and there's blood and dying and Cook is about to crawl out of his skin...
...and he hears sniffling against his shoulder. He turns, and, fuck, David is crying.
"Babe, what --?"
David gestures at the screen. "Those kids," he mutters. "They're trying to save the whole town by themselves! Their parents and the police aren't helping, so they know it's up to them, even though they might be killed..."
Cook stares into David's wet, guileless eyes and feels a rush of affection. "You're not scared," he murmurs, and wipes the stray moisture from David's cheek.
David frowns. "Scared? The kids'll be okay. IT can't really get to them if they're pure of heart, you know?"
Cook thinks that might as well be a metaphor for David himself, as it happens.
One more disc later, the evil under Derry has finally been vanquished. Cook's kind of ashamed at how freaked out by the movie he'd gotten - it must be the residual memories of reading the damn novel as a kid. Come to think of it, he's feeling less up for the desired action and more like he wants to just hold onto his boyfriend and shiver under the covers and wait for morning.
"You want to leave the light on tonight?" David asks jokingly as they climb into bed.
Cook rolls his eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Archuleta. I'm not ten anymore."
"Well, hold my hand then," David says, smiling, as he turns the light off, and Cook indeed finds himself curling up to David, reaching for the comfort of his boy's fingers against the dark.
*
The next weekend Cook decides they're going skydiving. That's bound to be a foolproof way to get the blood pounding, and best of all, there are no clowns involved.
The US Parachute Association has a commercial jump center in Santa Barbara which caters to celebrity clients. The instructors are discreet and efficient, its equipment is state of the art, and it has a 100% safety record, or so his assistant assures Cook.
Cook doesn't notify RCA; he knows his lawyer would only harangue him about the additional insurance premiums. He's pretty sure Beth wouldn't kill him, but he doesn't really want to risk telling her either.
David seems to have squared things with his folks and to have taken this in stride, though when their driver pulls up at the private airfield and they watch a turbine airplane take off in front of them, his eyes go wide and he presses up a little against Cook.
"That looks fast," he says, only a little unsteadily.
Gotcha, Cook thinks, smugly, and holds David close, hearing David's quickened breathing beside him.
Cook and David change up as directed into sharp jumpsuits that carry the company's logo, and sign the various standard waivers. David looks more than a little nervous, and Cook smiles privately to himself as he folds David under his arm and they follow the staff carrying their gear out to the training field.
Their instructor, Ted, is a wiry and no-nonsense older guy who reminds Cook of the Marine platoon commander he'd met in Iraq in 2008.
"I want you guys to do exactly as I say," Ted says, crisply, and proceeds to run them through an hour's worth of safety checks and procedures and demos for their jump. At the end of the drill Cook is laden with what feels like fifty pounds of sophisticated equipment and a buttload of his own apprehension. David looks even more dwarfed by the gear, and his eyes are the size of saucers - so far everything's going according to plan.
"What if I forget to pull the cord after I jump?" David asks, in a small voice.
Ted says, "Remember, we're doing this tandem, which means you're attached to an instructor, so your instructor will pull it for you. If there's some problem with the instructor, don't worry - all student gear is equipped with an automatic activation device designed to activate the parachute automatically at a safe altitude; that is, 4,500 feet. You can always monitor your altitude with the altimeter attached to your jumpsuit."
David stares at the altimeter like it's an alien device. Cook slings his arm around him, a little awkwardly because of all the equipment.
"We'll be fine, babe. This'll be fun, trust me."
"Well, trust me, anyway," says another man in an instructor's jumpsuit, materializing at David's elbow. He's tall and blond, so much the relaxed Californian type that Cook wonders when he'd traded his surfboard for a parachute. "I'm Patrick, and I'll be Mr. Archuleta's tandem today."
Everyone shakes hands and David blushes. "Aw, call me David."
"Sure," says Patrick, and winks. "Don't be nervous, I'll make it a good first time for you."
Cook absolutely wants to kill him. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Too late to back out now, though.
After a further pre-flight run-through, everyone piles on board one of the company's state of the art P-750 XS TOL turbine jump aircrafts. David takes Cook's hand as they lift into the choppy air and leave their stomachs temporarily behind.
It's surprisingly peaceful cruising at 10,000 feet. Late October in California is still sunny and golden and only a little cool, the skies bright blue.
"Get ready, guys," Ted says, and they obediently run through the pre-jump equipment check one final time.
David's face is muffled by his helmet and goggles. Cook reaches out and cups David's cheek.
"How're we doing in there, still good?"
David grins a little nervously, and fidgets with his hands - Cook knows he wants to tug at his straps and is stopping himself in case he unbuckles something. "I'm okay, I guess, for someone about to jump out of a 'plane?"
"Someone wrote an awesome song about parachutes," Cook says, slyly; "Maybe I'll sing it on the way down."
David's answering grin is as bright as the sun's glare off the windows.
"Time to jump," says Ted, and as the instructors get into position Cook feels the adrenaline take him from his helmet to the heels of his boots.
Cook and Ted go last - Cook wants to keep an eye on Surfer Dude, and Ted is the senior instructor. Cook gets in one quick kiss - David's lips are dry from the wind and nerves - and then his boyfriend is sailing through the blue away from him in the arms of another man.
"Are we good to go?" Ted asks, and Cook nods, and together they step out of the hatch.
Cook holds his breath automatically - his body buffeted by air currents, freefalling under its own weight - he can't hear a thing above the sound of his own loud heartbeat. He's torn between flailing and keeping still, between eyes open and eyes shut. Dimly he hears a thin shrill noise like mic feedback and realizes it's coming from him.
"Dammit, sorry," he tries to say to Ted, feebly, battling the rushing air. Fuck, after the last two ideas bombed out he totally shoulda known better than to try a third time.
"No, you're good," Ted shouts back. "Get ready, we're gonna let her rip."
"What?" Cook shouts, but Ted has pulled the cord, and abruptly their parachute deploys with a jerk and the muffled rushing ceases. Ted and Cook are suddenly weightless, and the massive white sail arches over their heads.
Below them is the breathtaking green sweep of California in autumn. The landing area is a white-limned postage stamp miles away. Cook can see Patrick and David's blue and yellow chute a small, brightly-colored spot beneath them.
Ted is silent, and Cook enjoys five minutes of sunlight and sky, the best kind of fight-or-flight.
All too soon the ground is coming towards them. Cook belatedly gets his limbs to move, tries to remember what he'd been told about approach angles and the descent, and he manages to get his legs correctly under him. Ted cuts himself loose, and Cook takes his weight with a thud, and for an instant he's disappointed to feel the pull of gravity, the solid ground beneath.
Then David rushes up to him and flings his arms around him, hugging gear and chute and all one hundred eighty pounds of skydiving boyfriend. David's eyes are bright, his hair standing on end from hours in the helmet, and when he embraces Cook his breath is coming fast and the adrenaline aftershock is still making his body quiver.
Grinning, Cook takes his well-deserved reward: he leans in and kisses David in the full glare of the afternoon.
He feels the fire curl through David as David kisses back, that special hunger which Cook has only tasted once before. It's fierce, overwhelming, Cook can't get enough of it and it seems neither can David, because he doesn't seem to care who sees; he winds his arms around Cook's neck and pulls the ends of Cook's hair and kisses him like he wants to devour him whole.
They kiss long and longingly enough for Ted to clear his throat and Patrick to look somewhat disappointed (Good, thinks Cook, fiercely, Surfer Dude has finally gotten the picture).
"Let's go home," Cook murmurs at last against David's lips, and his boyfriend says, "Yeah, great idea."
They scramble back into their street clothes and say their hurried goodbyes. In the limo Cook pushes his jacket off and slides into position between David's legs and starts to reel David in; he's surprised when David places a hand on Cook's chest and holds him off.
"Hang on, Cook."
"Um, what?" Cook’s brain has abdicated the driving to his body; even one-syllable words are hard.
"Look. I suddenly realized something. Have you been trying to do something on our dates, for the last couple of weeks? I kinda feel like I’ve been auditioning for Fear Factor."
David's hair is messed up from the kissing and he's breathing heavily, but his eyes are entirely transparent; he holds Cook's gaze steadily. Cook finds he wants to look elsewhere, to squirm uneasily, because he realizes he has been trying to do something, and now he thinks about it, it may have been kind of manipulative.
Cook makes himself meet David's eyes; he sits back in his seat a little. "I...yeah, I guess I have," he says. "You know how you got last month, in the bar? I'd never seen that side to you. I wanted to see if we could do that again."
"So, you took me car racing and sky diving and watched a horror movie with me, to scare me, 'cause you thought I might get, you know?" David's mouth twitches, like he wants to grin very badly. "Funny, I don’t think there’s on a tandem jump written on the List. I'm thinking maybe you should have asked me instead, Cook."
"I should have, I know." Tentatively, Cook touches the side of David's face. "It was really stupid. And not just because the movie scared me much worse than it scared you! I'm sorry, babe."
David lets himself grin, finally. "Okay," he says softly. "I guess you thought maybe it'd be more spontaneous like this? But if you tell me what you want, you know, maybe we can plan something."
The sly note in David's voice goes straight to Cook's dick. "Oh, really?" Cook asks. "And what do you have in mind?"
David keeps grinning as he slides in closer. "Actually, I have an idea."
*
The afternoon sun is low on the horizon, glinting off rows of metal and steel. Cook squints, shading his eyes: the cut-out shapes of ramparts and crenellations of the surrounding medieval buildings are stark against the blue. Overhead, fluttering pennants announce the heraldry of the lords and ladies in attendance at today's pageant.
It’s the last day of October, All Hallow’s Eve. The castle grounds are hung with commemorative orange and fake skulls, and there’s a replica of a recently executed fugitive from the King’s justice hanging as a warning over the portcullis.
Cook is sweating like the horse he's currently astride. The padded helmet, reinforced vest, rerebraces and greaves and special boots he's wearing all weigh on him uncomfortably; he can't imagine how knights of old actually managed to walk around in suits of armor made of cast iron, let alone ride on horses and fight each other in fair battle.
He's actually a halfway decent horseman thanks to a bunch of summers spent on his uncle's ranch, and for this escapade he’d first signed on for a hard week of preparatory training with the good men of the Reformation Renaissance Company Inc., learning to handle a lance and to fight and fall safely. Apart from that, though, nothing in his twenty-nine years had prepared him for what might be the stupidest stunt of his life.
He sits loose in his saddle like they'd taught him, gripping his horse with his knees. Around him in the holding area on the near side of the list field are other horses and riders, a mix of professionals and amateurs who’d had some training and who were crazy enough to want to test their skills against each other in the chivalric art of the joust. Amongst their number there he is: crazy with love, anyway, to even be attempting this.
He hopes he remembers how to hit the ground in a way that doesn't break his neck. He'd had enough lecturing from the 19E lawyers over the indemnities he'd had to sign and extra insurance they'd had to buy so he and David could have their fun.
On the plus side, he can hardly smell the horse dung anymore. In any case, the ripe odors make this Renaissance Carnival even more authentic.
He hears a trumpet being blown: a peppy fanfare in the key of C.
Someone calls his name, or rather, says, “Sir David Roland Cook of Blue Springs!”, which is totally his cue. In response, he pulls his visor into place, hefts the lance upright in his left arm, and urges his trusty steed into position in the jousting lists.
Cook glances at the stands, and smiles to see David in the front row. David’s wearing a vaguely-period tunic and leggings, and he’s waving wildly at Cook.
Cook raises his lance in an answering salute. He has David’s long red and gray scarf pinned to his right shoulder as a sign of his love’s favor, and David looks so proud and thrilled he’s almost bursting.
At the far end of the jousting field, over the striped tilt barrier, Cook sees his opponent, a pro rider, all in black astride a piebald horse. The herald announces his name, too, but Cook can’t for the life of him hear it above the roar of the crowd and the huge burst of adrenaline that lifts him in his saddle and fills him from reinforced heels to helm.
All Cook can remember is: aim for the torso, and also, lean backwards or you’ll be knocked off your seat.
There’s the signal, and Cook’s heels dig in and his horse takes off, pelting furiously down the list lane. He can see his opponent do likewise; armor jangling and hooves flying toward him, sand from the tilt ground kicking into the air in the wake of horse and rider.
It’s eerie how adrenaline makes even really loud sound into a muffled roar, because that's all he hears right now.
He’s coming hard up on the tilt barrier. His opponent is galloping hard toward him, looming closer and closer. At the last moment Cook lowers his lance at an angle across the barrier, couching it in his left arm.
Time slows down weirdly: he sees the challenger similarly lower his lance, moving in slow motion. The angle is wider because he's right-handed, where Cook is a lefty and has a natural disadvantage. The plan is for Cook to lean right and try to get a better angle on the hit and for the guys to call this one a technical win, but who knew: adrenaline and love make you do foolish things.
So, like he has all the time in the world, Cook leans to the left instead and sweeps his lance in an upward movement, knocking his opponent's weapon aside. The rubberized point of Cook's lance catches the challenger on the shoulder, and it lifts the guy right off the saddle.
His opponent makes a graceful slow parabola through the air before hitting the sandy ground with a resounding thud - before Cook has even time to think, Fuck me, that actually worked -
- the trained horses flash past each other, kicking up sand as they go...
...and then time speeds up again, and someone's finally turned the sound back up: the deafening screams and cheers shake the jousting field. Cook realizes he's shouting fiercely himself: Goddamn, yeah, unbelievable!, and pumping his lance in a totally unknightly manner.
Belatedly, he brings his horse around. His opponent is getting to his feet, cursing goddamn love-struck amateurs loudly enough to be heard above the racket. Cook doesn't care; he's shaking violently, his ears are ringing, he feels every ounce of the throbbing blood in his veins.
Cook takes the victor’s lap around the tilt field, raising his arm to the crowd like it’s weightless. Of course, he has eyes for nothing save for David’s exultant face.
When he rides back to the holding area, Robin has some security guys already waiting, and David has pushed his way through the crowd. Cook hands the reins into one of the grooms, only dimly registering the congratulations of his fellow riders, flings himself out of the saddle, and collapses into David’s arms.
*
"You were terrific," David says proudly. They've staggered into Cook's private locker room under the jousting yard; it's a narrow cell with a slit of window, Cook suspects it used to be a closet where jousters used to sneak drinks of mead. It kind of smells like it: like old sweat and feet and fermented alcohol have ground themselves into the peeling walls and floorboards.
Cook had pulled off his helm and visor in the yard so he could kiss his boyfriend properly, but David had insisted on taking care of the rest of Cook's armor himself, like a proper squire or paramour ought. Thus far, David had managed to get off Cook's fancy vambraces and greaves, and was wrestling with Cook's knee and elbow pads.
"Beginner's luck," Cook says, meaning it. He'd managed to unhorse some of the guys in the practice runs in the training week, but they had been trainers riding toward him at a slow canter with their guard wide open and who'd been ready for it (and he'd been unhorsed pretty thoroughly himself). He's sure his main trainer, a Viking-sized guy named Pete, had shouted something along the lines of how what he'd done shouldn't have worked. He hadn't really been paying attention, because David had been kissing him in the way that made the blood rush to all exposed and unexposed surfaces of his skin.
"You're so modest! I know skill when I see it," says David, pressing a kiss to Cook’s shoulder blade and starting to work on the complex straps of his vest. "You could have been a knight in the olden days, y'know, jousting in tournaments, guarding the king's highways, that kind of thing."
"Really, you think I'd have a career as Sir David Roland of Blue Springs?" Cook murmurs as David pulls the padded vest free and tosses it to the ground. He's pretty sweaty underneath, his utilitarian long-sleeved tee-shirt wet through, but David doesn't seem to mind; he winds his arms around Cook's neck and presses himself against Cook's perspiring chest.
Cook persists, though David's kiss is very distracting, "Riding around, killing dragons, rescuing stray damsels and lads in distress?"
"Yeah, totally, as long as you remember who your lord is," David says breathlessly. His hands push up under Cook's tee and he palms the damp fabric over Cook's head and off Cook's bare, sweaty skin.
"Doubt I’d forget," Cook says. The cool air feels good, better than good. "Would my lord care to take his tunic off? I think the door's locked."
"I think how this works is that I take your gear off first," says David firmly. He palms the front of Cook's skin-tight riding jodhpurs, where Cook's been alternating between half- and full-mast for quite a while now. "How does this come off again?"
"With as much skill as unhorsing an opponent," Cook snickers. "I think the trick is we need to be horizontal."
"This better not be a line you feed to all the damsels," says David, archly, but he sits down anyway on the floorboards as he’d been bidden. Cook parks himself on the edge of the pallet in a narrow patch of afternoon sunlight - upon which scores of knights-errant-wannabes had probably rested semi-drunkenly to undo their leggings and boots and cursed the narrowness of the damn Renfaire closet - and puts his left boot onto David’s lap.
"Don't think many damsels would be up for this job," Cook confesses as David takes hold of his reinforced riding boot and pulls it off and then the other one, and then peels off his socks. Cook has to wince as the stink of sweat and leather is released; he amends this to, "Yeah; I actually doubt there'd be any takers. You know the Idol hairdryer ladies would totally run away."
"Well, I'm not sure about that," says David, and he's running his hands lingeringly over Cook's aching feet with a gleam in his eyes.
Cook raises his eyebrows: David is ordinarily pretty fastidious and likes things to be neat and clean, so this is fairly out of character. "You're serious?"
David digs his thumb into the ball of Cook's right foot, and a spike of pleasure shoots all the way up Cook's leg. "No, any damsel would be honored," he tells Cook, rubbing the arch of Cook's dirty foot, and, that's it, an hour ago Cook wouldn't have believed that horses and sweat would have had this effect on David, but he can't deny the evidence - the adrenaline of watching the joust has drawn David to the down and dirty, has turned him on just like that time in the bar those weeks ago.
"Come here, damn it, and I'll show you honored," Cook murmurs, reaching for David's wrists and pulling him in.
David climbs up Cook's legs and settles his weight between Cook's thighs and Cook is suddenly so hard he can't breathe. The afternoon sun’s in his eyes, David's clean scent fills his personal space, the familiar heft of David's cock is hot and urgent and right there, and, what do you know, horizontal totally works for this as well.
"Gonna show me, are you?" David enquires innocently, and Cook says, "Actually, I'm going to dishonor you instead," and pulls off David's tunic, cupping David's eager body against him.
"I don't think my lady mother would like the sound of that," murmurs David, and then, "Oh", as Cook grinds up against him to convince him otherwise.
"We’re done talking," says Cook, warningly; his hands dig into David's ass, and David makes a surprised sound. His hands catch in Cook's sweaty hair and he presses Cook back into the thin, makeshift pallet - it's not comfortable, not entirely clean, the floorboards strewn with stable straw and sawdust, but David doesn’t seem to care. His legs tangle with Cook's; he pins Cook down and bites Cook's lower lip.
Since Cook's supposedly done talking, David's clearly figured it's time to put his tongue to better use: he kisses Cook so fiercely that the back of Cook's head bumps the floorboards under the threadbare mattress. Cook tastes the familiar tang of his own blood and - fuck, at last - David's adrenaline-fueled desire.
Cook takes belated control and pulls off and rolls David onto his back instead. They both groan loudly as their erections rub against each other through the layers of fabric, harder and harder.
Cook sucks on David's tongue to keep him quiet, then trails biting kisses along the tendon in David's neck. David's flushed and frantic, straining underneath him, desperate for more friction. When Cook eases up to try to undo both of their trousers, David's hands are already there, tugging at his flies with shaking fingers.
"Please, Cook," gasps David; Cook snickers, "I've got you, my lord," and scoops David clear of his leggings. They both kick off Cook's sodden jodhpurs too, and David wraps a leg around Cook's waist and rocks up against Cook’s bare cock and, oh fuck, this is going to be over very quickly if Cook isn’t careful.
“Cook, this is, this, please, I want to feel you,” David is pleading, heedless of where they are and the cheap door lock and cheaper mattress, and this is what Cook has been waiting for all these weeks of stupid car races and movies and finally with this latest display of chivalric jousting skills: the adrenaline surge in his lover that doesn’t make him want to fight or flee, that makes him want to fuck until he can’t stand.
“Hang on, babe,” Cook tries to say as he tries to rummage through his gear and satisfy David’s need to be all over him at the same time. Where did he - damn it -
The fluid comes out of the bottle in a cool gush, spilling everywhere, and it just adds to the mess of clothes and bare skin, sweat and pre-come. David makes a low, inarticulate noise and pulls his knees up and apart and lifts his ass blatantly to Cook.
David’s never been like this before, and Cook can’t deny him anything, he’s going to give David what he wants. He spreads David’s buttocks and pushes the first slick finger inside him and David goes entirely slack with pleasure.
“That’s good,” Cook murmurs, adding another finger, working David open with his riding hand, his guitar-fingering hand, and David starts to move again, hips writhing against the mattress, begging sounds spilling out of him.
Cook straddles David’s thighs to keep him still and adds a third finger, watching the wide-open shapes of David’s wet mouth, the bobbing movement of his swollen, leaking erection, the clenching of his slick pectoral and stomach muscles, marveling at how he’s never seen David this wild, this out of control.
Cook needs two hands to put the condom on, and when he pulls his fingers out of David’s hole David actually pulls himself upright, looking half-crazed with outrage and lust. Cook should find this hilarious -what, his knight is daring to stop without being given leave? Such an affront! - but the sight of David wanton and demanding and covered in sweat might be more than one man can bear.
“I’m sorry, I’m here, I’m,” and Cook’s fumbling to take himself in hand, his slippery head skidding against David’s opening. David pants hoarsely and takes his weight on his elbows and shoves up to meet Cook, and Cook can’t stop himself, he digs bruises into David’s hips and pushes into David with one rough stroke.
David moans, opening for him eagerly, easily, taking him all the way in; God, Cook absolutely has no control anymore. He holds David down and fucks him harder into the floorboards.
David can't get enough of it - he's thrusting up onto Cook’s dick feverishly, fingers scrabbling for purchase against the mattress. His head’s flung back and his mouth has fallen open and he’s making whining, increasingly desperate sounds. When Cook wraps his wanking hand around David’s angry-red cock, David almost bucks them both off the pallet.
“God,” Cook manages, brokenly, “David”; he can feel the shudders start, from the balls of his sore, aching feet, up through his thighs and legs to the long muscles in his back, tremors that are going to tear him apart.
David groans wordlessly against Cook’s open mouth as Cook jacks him hard and drives into him harder - it’s dirtier and messier and more reckless than they’ve ever been. Cook can’t hold himself back, the sheer drop is rushing towards him, he gasps, "Babe, I'm gonna -"
And then David’s coming with breathless, keening cries, clenching around him and spilling hotly over them both, and Cook’s coming too: harder than any fall he’d taken in the practice yard, than diving headfirst into a clear blue sky.
Afterwards Cook collapses onto his back, hoping he hasn’t broken anything. The fall sunlight turns the dingy room to gold, the smell of mead and sweat and exertion surrounding them both.
Cook can’t bring himself to care about the wreck they’ve made of the mattress. He feels superhuman, every nerve in his body throbbing and alive with the fire of his release, holding his satiated beloved in his arms.
At last, David stirs slowly. “This... was even more exciting than the joust,” he confesses, only a little shamefacedly, and Cook snorts with laughter.
“Y’know, I only did that so that we could have post-joust sex in a medieval locker room.”
David shifts against Cook’s shoulder, seemingly heedless of how everything's wet and sticking to them and they're sticking to each other. “C’mon, this is really romantic,” he points out.
Cook doesn’t mention the mess they’ve made or the decided griminess of their surroundings, or even the nastiest shower stall in Renfaire history which they’re later forced to use, because he does get it. There’s the ultimate romance in the medieval chivalric traditions, and in having a paramour to cherish and protect, and though David is so much more than that, it’s something which Cook embraces wholeheartedly.
Also, the fact that it gets his boyfriend in the mood like this? Cook needs to be buying his own lance. Heck, he should just buy Renaissance Reformation Inc.
Clean again, wearing their modern clothes, Cook and David stroll out into the early California evening.
The colorful flags and banners of the fair billow overhead; men and women in period costume hurry by, carrying supplies and victuals, headed toward one tent or another. There’s a steady stream of participants headed for the main castle, where the evening’s Halloween entertainment is being set up. Someone’s playing a jaunty air on a flute and they can see a couple of roving minstrels with guitars wandering around the fairground.
The last of the sunlight limns the stretch of the tilt yard in scarlet and ochre. The knightly horses are quiet in the stables, doubtless dreaming of their day of glory.
Cook has tied David’s colors to the strap of his jacket, and the red and gray flutter in the breeze.
“So, I’m doing this again, then?” Cook asks, trying for seriousness and failing, casting a sidelong look at David’s satisfied face.
David puts his hand under Cook’s jacket lapels. “I’m sure my knight won’t make me wait for long,” he says sweetly.
Cook snorts softly, loving him: all’s right with their world once again. “You’re such a demanding paramour, my lord. Do I need to keep trying to win your favor?”
“Always,” murmurs David, lifting his face for Cook’s kiss, and Cook feels the fire rise under his skin in response.
/le fin
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