(Untitled)

[_johnny]

[sunday night, 2 days post-party, a month after this]Johnny loves moonlight, and moonlight on skin especially; it's not harsh like sunlight, it doesn't burn away artifice and expose flaws. Instead it softens and smooths and caresses, it makes everybody beautiful

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[_johnny]

Johnny frees a hand to fumble for the duvet, draws it up over them. The cold is all in his head, he knows it, but it feels real enough. He thinks about Orlando's question, about all the things that Jack means in his mind, considers for so long that Orlando's breathing stops sounding like waiting and more like dozing.

"Jack was - is - um." Johnny's voice sounds raw and husky to his own ears and he doesn't know where to start except to get out of the past tense, to close his eyes and summon Jack up, clear as that first long-ago day.

"Jack is tall... taller than you, even, and his hair flops in his eyes no matter what he does to it. Dark brown hair, so soft..." Johnny reflexively pets at Orlando's curls; Orlando sighs.

"Green eyes, though, like... beach glass? Bright and soft at the same time. And he's a teacher... Um. The smartest person I know. Except he never makes you feel stupid, and that's why he's such an amazing teacher, right, because he makes everyone feel that smart, he makes everyone feel good."

Jack's grin, Jack's frown, Jack's face slack in sleep. Jack rolling his eyes in mock innocence, Jack's goofy "WOT?" face, Jack's heavy-lidded mid-fuck smolder. Jack's brow furrowed in concentration, Jack's gentle smile of contentment.

"He's really generous and patient, um, he's so kind, sort of shy... and, and he swears like a truck driver." Johnny smiles into Orlando's hair. "He's a terrible cook but he makes the best tea ever, black and sweet, reminds me of my mama's. And he chews his pen caps when he's grading papers, and his fingers always have red ink on them, and when he comes home in the afternoon he smells like chalk dust and sometimes we wouldn't make it past the front hall, you know? Jack is... just... Jack is..."

Jack.

Is.

[boy_on_film]

"Yeah."

Yeah, he gets that. Bloody stupid question that was, wasn't it. But Orlando can hear the faint smile in Johnny's voice, and he turns around under the duvet, within Johnny's arms (loose now but still holding), and presses his mouth to Johnny's, sliding his tongue against Johnny's when Johnny touches his face.

They've sunk into the pillows by now, and Orlando rests his cheek on Johnny's shoulder again, this time facing him. Johnny is licking his lips absently, gaze lots in the empty ceiling. Orlando curls his fingers around Johnny's hand and kisses him again when Johnny turns to him.

[_johnny]

Orlando smoothly changes gears from one kind of comfort to the other, it's warm and it's good and it's as close to what Johnny needs right now as he's going to get.

So Johnny lets him, lets Orlando kiss and stroke and rub, lets himself be persuaded to lay it all aside for while, if not forget.

Never that.

He sighs against Orlando's lips.

[boy_on_film]

Johnny doesn't kiss back right away, lets Orlando kiss and touch without objection; and when he does kiss back, it's pliant and accommodating and not at all like the way he usually kisses Orlando, which would be hard and dominating and smothering in the best of ways.

Orlando doesn't ask and moves so he's half over Johnny, digging his fingers, with gentle pressure, in the flesh of Johnny's arms.

[_johnny]

Johnny knows how to do this, he knows; he adores Orlando and making love to this boy has kept him pretty close to sane for a long time. But he's so... he's just...

"I'm so tired," he says softly, and he didn't mean to say it out loud, but there it is, words falling like ashes onto Orlando's lips.

Orlando pauses, blinks, understands; Johnny slides his hands up Orlando's arms, up to tangle in his hair. Their next kiss is fierce, determined to push through the exhaustion and come out stronger on the other side, but Johnny can't quite make it. Johnny smears his lips across Orlando's cheek, presses his face into the crease between Orlando's neck and shoulder.

[boy_on_film]

Orlando settles his hip on the mattress so most of his weight is off Johnny, so he can rest his elbow too and slide his hand in Johnny's neck, where it's warm and moist from his hair and the pillow.

Johnny's eyes are closed--no shut tight, just closed--and Orlando just watches him like that, looking at the laugh lines and the dark skin and the tiny prickles of hair in the perfect shapes of bones and muscles of his face. He looks tired, and while that's not unusual (Johnny can go days without sleep when he's focused on a project), the reason behind the exhaustion this time tugs at Orlando's sympathy; he smoothes curled-in knuckles along Johnny's neck before settling down next to him, cradling him like Johnny dose him when he knows Orlando needs it.

Johnny always knows. Orlando doesn't always, but when he does, he's glad to give back.