Fic: 'If I'm With You (Then I'm With All Of You)' (7/25)
Title: If I'm With You (Then I'm With All Of You)
Fandom: The Matrix
Characters: Mouse/Zephyr (OC)
Word Count: 1460
Prompt: From fanfic25 , 5/6: 'Embarrassed'.
Notes: It's easier to get back into the saddle after other challenges when you're writing about naked guys. It gets fairly descriptive, but no explicits today.
Summary: Mouse hasn't actually woken up next to Zephyr yet.
If I'm With You (Then I'm With All Of You)
Mouse groaned quietly, opening one eye a fraction to assess his surroundings. Not his cabin. Not on the Nebuchadnezzar which, he remembered, had been docked for nearly a week now. That meant he was in Zion. Someone's apartment. A someone who was asleep against his shoulder. Zephyr. Yes. Oh, yes. Mouse closed his eye again and smiled broadly, even as he felt Zephyr shift slightly and mutter. Mouse usually spent a few seconds when he didn't wake up in his own cabin wondering where he was. It was the dreams that got him; they sank hooks into his brain and kept trying to pull him into their tempting fictions. He didn't want the fictions any more, he just wanted this moment. He wanted to dream about it, so every time it happened he tried to commit it to memory. Zephyr, asleep, their bodies pressed together the entire length, shoulder to foot, him warm, Mouse cool. A perfect temperature system.
He couldn't tell what time it was, as Zephyr's apartment always seemed to be trapped in that artificial and endless half-light that you found on the outskirts of Zion. It wasn't an unpleasant place to wake up - even ignoring the naked guy Mouse found fitting into his shape - but it just seemed dim. He wondered if Zephyr kept it that way deliberately to disguise the worn clothing piled on a chair and the run-down electronics that cluttered a desk. The only light that was actually on in the room was the lamp over the desk, casting a set of jagged shadows across the floor. Mouse held up a hand to try and adjust to the light that he'd inadvertently stared at. What time was it? He gently pulled himself away from Zephyr, who mumbled unhappily and curled up a bit, and squinted across the room at a clock readout. Half-eleven. He supposed he should probably get up.
"What time is it?" Zephyr asked, his voice barely audible with his face pressed into the pillow.
"Eleven thirty," Mouse replied, crawling back into bed and trying to contort himself to fit Zephyr's new sleeping arrangement. "Don't you have work?"
"Not until the afternoon," Zephyr said.
Mouse felt that something was a little strange. He suddenly seemed unsure around Zephyr. He looked across the room to his jeans, crumpled on the floor where Zephyr had dragged them off Mouse's hips the night before. That was it. He'd never actually woken up next to Zephyr; just drifted out of sleep, noticed him there, then settled back in again, contented. Twice he'd stayed the night here: the first time he'd woken up early, leaving a note full of gratitude while Zephyr slept, and the second time Zephyr was showering when he woke up, and they were both clothed when the bathroom door clanked open. Now he'd either have to get up and pretend to be unembarrassed walking across the room stark naked, or pretend to fall asleep and wait until Zephyr got up.
As inviting as the second option seemed, Zephyr had twisted face-down, and there was no way for Mouse to wrap his arms around him again. Right then, Mouse thought. I guess I'm getting up.
Zephyr didn't shift as Mouse sat up, wincing for a moment as his bare feet hit the cold steel floor. Mouse rose to his feet, rubbing a hand across his eyes. He looked up and caught his slightly smudged reflection in a cabinet door. The reflection seemed to dull down the weird things his body did: his shoulders were a little less defined, rather than the awkward curves his collarbones made in reality. His face was rounded out more in this representation; his eyes not as wide, a little less confronting. He couldn't see any detail in his groin at all - the low lighting cast the whole area into shadow, which Mouse was more than a little pleased about.
He got up and wandered across the room, trying not to seem too rushed, in case Zephyr could hear the panic rising in his footsteps, but not taking his time either. He didn't know what Zephyr wanted this to turn into, and to be truthful, Mouse didn't know either, but hanging out in someone's apartment unnecessarily naked was probably overstepping the line. He picked up the jeans and pulled one leg on. He felt the cuff wind up an inch or two above his ankle, and realised with resignation that he was trying to put on Zephyr's jeans. The threadbare T-shirt over the back of the chair was Mouse's, though, and he pulled it on, feeling even more self-conscious now that he was the bad kind of half-naked. He heard a quiet cough, and when he turned around, Zephyr was watching him, sleepily but with interest.
"Hey," he said. "Looking good."
Mouse found himself grinning. "Sorry," he muttered. "Couldn't find my jeans."
"I think they're over here," Zephyr said, swinging his feet over the side of the bed and sitting up. He turned a little away from Mouse as he did so, and Mouse realised he was hunched over a little, keeping his scars hidden in the shadows of his chest. Mouse blushed and turned around, pretending to be very interested in the possibility of his boxers having wound up near the doorway. He heard Zephyr get up and start rummaging around, and the rustle of fabric. After a moment, it sounded like Zephyr was fairly close to dressed, so he turned around.
Zephyr was not, and was holding Mouse's jeans and boxers in front of him like a rather ineffective riot shield.
"Shit. Sorry!" Mouse muttered, turning away as Zephyr handed him his clothes.
"It's okay," Zephyr said, although there was a quiver in his voice, and Mouse knew that they were both equally as nervous. Mouse let his hands drop to his sides, and stood there, taking in every inch of Zephyr's body, a sight made even more powerful by the light that was cast across it. Zephyr was shorter than Mouse, and broader across the shoulders, but still looked less than imposing: a body that was crafted rather than buffed, Mouse thought. The shadows on his body made deep rivers between his muscles, and he actually looked like a statue, carved from hardwood and polished to a shine.
Mouse took a step closer, and Zephyr almost stumbled backwards. "Sorry," he breathed. "I wasn't expecting... I'm not used to..."
Mouse bowed his head a little, almost in apology, and raised his eyes to meet Zephyr's. For what seemed like minutes, Zephyr stared back, nervous, and then finally he relaxed a little, managing a smile as Mouse returned to looking at him like he'd never laid eyes on him before.
His hands, Mouse thought, restraining himself at the last second from actually reaching out and touching them. They were broad and far smoother than Mouse expected them to be. His feet were narrow, the curve of his neck elegant, the gentle hollow below his stomach smoothly ran down to his crotch, where Mouse had to stop and catch his breath for a moment. He'd been quite close to Zephyr before, but this felt different, a kind of intimacy that he wanted but wouldn't dare ask for, unlike the night before when all that either of them could hiss through clenched teeth was 'more'. As his eyes travelled back up, Mouse found himself looking at the scars that ran across Zephyr's chest properly for the first time. The light lines across his skin looked like ripples on a rain-soaked street, picked up by the lights of neon signs. They were absolutely beautiful, and Mouse realised with a sudden sting, meeting Zephyr's gaze, that he wanted this. All of this. Everything from those hands to the stunning curve of Zephyr's arse (an adoration Zephyr had noticed and responded to in kind) to those leaf-vein scars that ran across his chest: Mouse felt like he wanted to belong to those things. He hesitantly reached a hand out and pressed it against Zephyr's chest.
Zephyr took a shuddering breath. He'd followed the path of Mouse's attentions, noticing the way that Mouse's awkward smile had steadily grown more genuine, the way his cock had stirred at certain points (and it certainly helped that the tear in Mouse's T-shirt led the eye straight down). He could practically feel the awe radiating from the young man, and that touch almost made him melt. He put his hand over Mouse's.
Mouse grinned shyly. "Zephyr... thanks," he said. "For letting me do that."
"My pleasure," he whispered, and pulled Mouse's T-shirt off, kissing him before he could blush.