Part 2
-
Jude doesn’t know what to do with himself, after that. He calls the kids - each of them - and makes them talk with him. They’re by turns indulgent and confused and excited. He feels like a wanker, decides he’ll visit them all and take them on some awesome adventure, or just spend a week at the beach with them: getting burnt and salty and eating shit like an awful role model. And then lie on Sam’s couch for a bit and coo at Sophia.
Shit, his whole life feels like it’s on a turntable: catching on jags and flipping forward and back to some unknowable rhythm. This is something he’d go to Robert about, so instead he tracks down Kelly and lets her take him out to the pub and then a series of clubs after that. She hands him increasingly ridiculous drinks and he swallows them all down without complaint, deciding that he’s going to be brash with this, dare people to judge him like he’s scared they might.
He’s more than buzzed when they get to the hotel, and Kelly leaves him in the foyer to pace in favor of her bed and avoiding nasty rumors.
-
The next day of filming is awful. He’s hung-over and exhausted and spread so thin from everything that what he turns out is half-assed and false. He doesn’t know how to behave around Robert, wants to have him spread out and sweaty or drowsy with wine and long conversations. Not quiet and intense as he murmurs, “Tonight?” in Jude’s ear.
He can’t slip into Watson, so he’s awkward and Jude in front of the cameras, apologetic each time Guy calls the scene. Guy doesn’t crack any gay jokes though, at least no more than usual, until he dumps his tea over Jude’s face and tells him to fuck off and have the rest of the day to wank over thoughts of his darling investigator and let everyone else do actual work.
It isn’t angry, more teasing and frustrated, but Jude scurries off, feeling useless and ridiculous with a mustache hanging limply from his upper lip like a half-drowned rat. He lets the costuming staff have a fit over the stain and wanders to Susan’s office afterwards. He backtracks and freaks out and probably scares a number of the crew, but he makes it to knock tentatively on the door.
She lets him in and he tries to read her, quiet and awkward when he sits. She looks tired, her hair’s a bit messy, but there’s a hickey on her neck like a medal. She doesn’t flaunt it, just watches him like he’s a curious experiment, cracks her knuckles one after the other in something like nerves.
“So,” she begins.
“Yeah, um.” Christ, he doesn’t know what to say. He’s never done this responsibly, has never been this short on experience in anything like this before. Eventually he sighs, leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands. “It’s not just hypotheticals. Now. You know? So, I--” He swallows, sort of chokes down something awful and chilling at the idea of it all; this feels, more than anything, like the tipping point. The axis where everything is balanced, ready to slide down to either end. Alone. Or not. “Get it. Yeah? You’re the one with the ring. And I.”
“It’s like kids,” she says, barely interrupting since everything he’s said has been heavy with pauses. Again, her manner suggests a recounting, like this is half what she has to tell herself, as well as him. “We don’t love any one of them less just because there are more of them.”
They sit, sharing a miserable silence. Jude wishes he’d had the forethought to bring alcohol. At last she opens her mouth, closes it, studies him with a tense tilt to her shoulders, like she’s holding something back and it’s struggling at the tip of her tongue, dragging her forward. He nods, because he was reading, last night, and it’s all about honesty. Or some shit. He really can’t dwell on it too long without panicking.
“Is it okay,” she says, all in a rushed breath, “if he comes home tonight? I know. I. It’s just. Easier.”
He doesn't want to say yes. It’s not a nice thought, makes Jude feel like the third rung. Like he’s got less claim, or something. But he also gets that she’s letting him sleep with her husband. He nods again, doesn’t really trust his voice. They sit together for a bit longer before he can’t hold still any longer, he’s got the promise of sex tonight, and of some sort of relationship with Robert for the foreseeable future. He can’t stay still, not with all of it in his head, and he motions behind himself.
“I should…” he says, frowns comically to get a smile out of her before he leaves.
“Yeah,” she agrees, droll. “I like you,” she says to his back, “I think that’s important.”
He pauses, tries to keep the “You too, you know,” casual as he leaves.
-
He’s sitting in his room, a good red shifting in bloody, warm whirlpools in his glass. It’d felt wrong to even think of doing it anywhere else; he wants to have some sort of upper hand here, his territory comes with guarantee of no Susan, or mementos, too. He’s gone overboard, too, like it’s his first time over again. He changed first into sweats, trying for casual, panicked and slipped into his comfy, battered jeans that he loves best. He pulled on a tee, but he’s keeping it a bit cool - no harm in staying prepared, yeah? - so he added a shirt over the top, rolled to the elbows. He doesn’t know whether to shave, he’s never liked facial hair, but shaving the ‘tache isn’t likely to go down well, and worrying about a bit of stubble feels redundant when he’s got a bloody overgrowth of it hanging off his lip.
It’s this that he’s thinking about when Downey lets himself in, which decides the matter for him anyway. He doesn’t feel coherent: horny already from conjecture, teased by a desire to get the booze in to steady him and a fear of putting himself to more of a disadvantage. He’s jumpy, and his voice slides tellingly when he calls, “In the bedroom.”
Robert comes in with an eyebrow cocked and his hair in gravity-defying disorder, Guy no longer present to shout it into submission - which, you know, good.
“Don’t dick about, do you Judesie?”
It isn’t anything Jude hasn’t heard before, but the setting has skewed his mind to dirty, and he’s worked himself well beyond just ‘in a state’. But Robert’s features soften a little, a private smile swift to his lips. The lights are on, but the bulb closest to the door blew a few nights ago and the remaining light catches softly over each plane of his face, his eyes so dark the irises look black.
“Teasing is for people who don’t shape up between the sheets,” Jude retorts, voice steady thanks only to years of acting. He stands, mimes a face back at Robert, keeps his limbs loose as he strolls over to the man.
He sees Robert’s pupils swallow the brown when he tips his head back to keep eye contact, licks his lips distractedly. Fucking Christ, that shouldn’t be as hot as it is, all just tells and they haven’t even really begun, like they’re both still caught on the chase: pushed too far into the unknown as is.
“One day I’m going to tie you up,” says Robert casually, “and tease you for an hour and then I will swallow your cock whole and you will come so hard in my throat that you pass out. Then we’ll see your opinion on teasing.”
And yeah, you already know just how good Jude can function visually, know the fervor with which he savors words. He likes talking in bed, knows how to fit words so that they flow, pitched just right so that they affect him too, voice gone alien to his ears so he can pretend it’s someone else. He’s just never been on the receiving end, not like this. Spoken with the complete assurance that it will happen, the words, the idea, better than any scratchy drawl he could ever manage.
Robert’s studying him, still with the assumption of control, ball in his court the way it’s been since the start. Jude’s already flushing and they haven’t even touched yet. Suddenly stalking up to Robert the way he has feels ridiculous, like a fawn sauntering to the wolf. The idea builds the heat in his cheeks, embarrassment and arousal and fuck, he needs to get this back to something he can comprehend. He turns on his heels, arms already up and pulling at his shirt when Robert interrupts him.
“I didn’t tell you to do that.” His voice is still conversational.
Jude manages to subdue the full body shudder at that, but the way he tenses and blows all his air out at once feels just as obvious in the quiet of the room. He’s less successful when Robert growls, “Good boy.” It’s here that he realizes that he froze as soon as the reprimand was spoken.
“Shit,” he mumbles. “Like it when you talk,” because he’s hardwired vocal encouragement into these situations; it doesn’t even really register until after he’s spoken.
“Yeah,” Robert agrees, “Yeah this is going to be fun.” Jude has a moment to sift through that and makes to argue that of course it’s going to be fun, but Robert cuts him off. “You haven’t let any of your lady friends take control before, have you?”
He motions for Jude to sit on the edge of the bed then, rests a hand on his shoulder as he lowers himself down onto his lap. He’s heavier than a girl, firm with muscle, not the give of skin and fat that’s interrupted by sharp bones like he’s used to. His knees lock automatically and he rests both hands on the older man’s waist to keep him steady. He feels ridiculously hot, feverish even through both their clothes. Jude is glad he kept the heater on low.
“You didn’t answer,” Robert prompts, casually leaning forward to nuzzle and press dry, open-mouthed kisses to the junction of his jaw and neck, all humid breath and scratchy stubble.
“Yeah,” Jude whispers when he feels the first delicate touch of Robert’s tongue on his neck, backtracks to what the man said and tries to focus. “Um. Shit.” Tries to pull back when he hits a sensitive spot. “No, I,” swallow, “You know. Reputation, they all--” He takes a steadying breath in through his nose and cups the back of Robert’s head. “--wanted things.”
He’s pretty sure that didn’t make sense, but his companion doesn’t seem to care, humming something incoherent in reply. He’s already well on the way to hard, feels like every moment is being stretched thin under the weight of each mad thought running through his mind and every jangling scream from the nerves at the points where he and Robert are touching. An abstract, clinical part of him wants to have come, already, so that he can go about assessing each of the elder man’s weaknesses: the way he’s used to doing for his partners, building a catalogue of tactics to build them up and break them open.
Some part of this desire slips through, spills into a series of words that could be considered a loose interpretation of sentence.
“Want you to-too, please. What do you want?” Repeated several times as Robert scratches a thumbnail against the hot skin right next to where he’s breathing damply.
He pulls back, looks less composed now, lips a little swollen, color riding high on his cheekbones too. Jude idly contemplates jealousy, knows his own face is already well on the way to tomato red, spreading down his neck like some sort of cartoon character. He bites his lip at the thought and forgets to breathe when Robert’s eyes automatically snap to it, muscles shifting restlessly and sticking the edge of his tongue out the corner of his mouth.
Not one to concede easily, Jude repeats the action, slower; makes a show of it, running his tongue over the abused flesh and grins when Robert - voice pitched almost at a whine - murmurs, “Bastard.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, feeling more himself with the return of their give and take. “Don’t deny you love it.”
He catches the faux pas almost as soon as it passes his lips and presses a hungry, sloppy kiss to the corner of Robert’s mouth before he can steal his steam. It’s enough to distract him, to distract them both, and it becomes an easy, lazy exchange. Robert’s hands are everywhere, as if he’s trying to dictate each shift of Jude’s muscles, directing the tilt of their heads, the angles at which they meet. Jude lets him, prefers to focus on winning him over with each movement of his tongue, lips; makes sure he’s loud when Robert shifts closer at the first moan.
When Robert catches on - Jude’s never been fantastic at subtlety - it grows messier with the pull of shared smiles. At one point it’s their tongues, curled in a slick embrace, the only point of shared contact between spit-slicked mouths.
Robert shifts more restlessly after that, close to humping Jude’s thigh in his pursuit of friction. He fists Jude’s tee, tugs him chest to chest and rises so he’s squatting a bit above, cock pushed hard against Jude’s sternum, head tilted down to mouth obscenities against Jude’s cheekbone. It’s instinctual to try and support him, so he’s almost shocked when Robert loses it as soon as he cups his ass to brace him, hands clenched to keep in control.
It’s an understatement to say he doesn’t expect Robert to breathe a choked “Fuckfuckshitshitmotherfuckingwankerbastardsuckitshitface,” against his forehead, the forepoint of his hairline. His own hips stutter, all out, right, at the sound: torn from the man’s throat like a precious secret. He isn’t used to hearing shit like that, not that tone, the tenor pitched needy and desperate and masculine. And it doesn’t stop, not for ages, just stays a constant, desperate litany that Jude can only listen to in shifts, some part of him terrified of coming in his pants just with this, just with words, promises and the sudden, awful realization that he wants this man more than anyone else, ever.
It’s here, though, that Robert pushes off, face cast almost angry, staggering unsteadily until he’s properly upright a few paces away. His hand passes fretfully through his hair, messes it once more, as if Jude and he hadn’t already been thorough enough. His chest is heaving, pants tenting at the front. He gulps down what look to be several fortifying breaths.
“I’m going to take a leak,” he says, “and when I come back I want you undressed and lying on your stomach, arms over your head and knuckles on the headboard.”
His voice is steady, for all it’s husky too, but Jude doubts he’ll get anything but come out of that cock anytime soon. He’s played the role Robert’s assuming enough times, though, that he can understand his own. It’s more theoretical though, it feels surreal stripping down, wincing as he shucks the jeans roughly past his cock, without being the one waiting in the bathroom for the revelation of glorious skin and submission.
It’d been different, though, with the girls. He’d always had them on their back: tits resting with nipples in needy points and cunts leaking sloppy on his sheets. It’s too much an offering, in this position: his cock trapped beneath the weight of his body and the uncomfortably cool sheets, ass ridiculous in the air. He pushes his face straight into the pillow, shoves it to each side, restless and awkward. His feet are hanging over the edge of the bed.
He stills, though, when he hears the lock sound as it turns, the steady pace as Robert makes his way back to the bedroom. His breath quickens ridiculously; it hadn’t been even before, but here it sounds needy and unguarded. He refuses to give Downey the satisfaction of seeing him turn to watch him, so he keeps his eyes closed and focuses on calming himself, tries to distance himself from the shift of the bed as Robert perches above him, presses slick, unpredictable kisses sporadically over his back and ass, his upper thighs.
Jude can recognize the tact in this position, though, in the parts of his brain that aren't catching on each micrometer of skin-to-skin contact. He can’t see what’s going on any more than if he were blindfolded, has nothing really to focus on but each sensation as it comes by, growing in importance and significance for it.
“I couldn’t decide,” begins Robert, “how we should start this, once you got over your funk.” Like it was some sort of foregone conclusion. “I thought maybe we’d start nice and gentle.” The kisses up until this point had continued, but there is a dip, now, in the bed near Jude’s ribs. Something hard, warm, blunt knocks against his hip. It shifts, and the light scratch of hairs slip into the picture and Jude realizes it’s Robert’s knee. His naked knee. It should be ridiculous, but he’s suddenly aware that he doesn’t know if Robert is wearing anything.
His thoughts scatter again, though, when he feels Robert’s hand, palm and fingertips a little clammy, settle to cup his shoulder without warning. Every muscle in his upper back jerks and he pulls his elbows up so his forehead is only resting softly against the covers, eyes still closed, “Shit,” stumbling brokenly past his lips.
It’s half at Robert’s reaction, the immediate pressure applied and the sharp “You were to stay still,” half at the soft scratch of the cotton against his cock as he lowers himself back down, that his arms give out so pathetically. Once he’s calmed back down again Robert continues.
“But you’re a love ‘em and leave ‘em kinda guy.” This is accompanied by his hand smoothing a line down his back to cup his ass. “And if you leave me I want you to remember tonight as some of the best sex you’ll ever have.”
There’s an odd concentration of heat near his lower back, which is his only warning for what follows. Namely: Robert spreads his cheeks and licks a filthy line from his tailbone to past his hole. The sound he makes at the sensation feels ripped straight from his soul, his stomach and thighs clench convulsively and he can’t get any air into his lungs, he’s groaning something, shaking his head only to free a tear to roll down his cheek, slipping out the corner of his eyes squeezed shut.
“What,” he says, winces at how wrecked he sounds. There’s sweat already damp in his hair and slipping between his shoulderblades, and he can’t bring himself to care that he’s interrupting the soothing nothings Robert’s been murmuring to calm him down, hands rubbing soothing circles again his calves. “The fuck?”
Robert doesn’t reprimand him the way Jude expected, so he turns for the first time to meet his gaze over his shoulder. Robert is kneeling, stark naked, mouth hanging open with the point of that lewd tongue resting against his bottom lip, as if to moisten it. One hand is continuing to knead Jude’s calf and the other is locked tight about his hipbone to - Jude realizes all of a sudden - stop him rutting against the bed. He feels embarrassment uncoil low in his belly when Robert mouths ‘wow,’ mostly to himself, at the reaction. He pulls himself together quickly after, though, settles his features to smug, mutters a cocky “Told you so.”
He follows it with a frown and a sharp “Get back down, Sweetcheeks.”
Again, there is nothing inherently dirty about the phrase, but add a bedroom context and Robert doing what he’s just done… Jude thinks it’s pretty fucking filthy for something so innocent. So he thinks he’s excused for sort of - well. He flops, a bit, on cue, tries to shift so his cock isn’t so uncomfortable, bites his lip at the shift of skin and jangling of nerves. He hadn’t even realized how close he was until now: a white-cold-hot pulse that’s pushing out, pressing up and jittering along his spine and deep in the tips of his fingers.
“Gonna taste you again--” motheringchristshithead “--and then we’ll start with fingers. The lube tastes awful,” punctuated by a nip to his left cheek, at the point where it’d dip in if he were tensed, “so it’s going to stay fingers, promise.”
Robert doesn’t do anything else and Jude supposes he must want some sort of assent or encouragement. It seems pretty fucking greedy when he needs the breath required for it to support his efforts not to come right this second so he grinds out a sparse “Yeah,” adds “Please,” just in case.
Robert rumbles something he can’t quite hear, his breathing is so fucking loud - there is no way the neighbors can’t know what’s going on - before his stubble scratches the small of Jude’s back. He loses it a bit, here; he knows where this going, even though Downey’s taking his fucking time, and the idea is really just wrong. Jude isn’t a saint in bed, he knows and has tried plenty of the stuff out there, but sticking his tongue up someone’s asshole just never struck him as sexy. It’s unclean - not that he isn’t near compulsive with his personal hygiene - but. Tongue. Tongue. Shit.
He’s pretty sure he’s whining that aloud when Robert finally reaches his destination. It’s just. He doesn’t just pass a quick lick by it and follow it with a finger. He’s using one hand to pull Jude’s cheek back, his forehead propping the other back - and fuckit Jude doesn’t know what he’s doing with the other hand and the small part of him that isn’t focused on getting air into his lungs starts to panic - the man sucks at it, presses a tongue against the entrance. Jude clutches at the sheets and smothers something alarming akin to a scream in the sheets, almost misses the obscene, slurping noise that accompanies Robert’s actions.
He gets himself back under control faster, this time, though his breaths still sound like sobs for all he’s cussing the hell out at Robert on each exhale. Robert does his level best to drive him mad by alternating biting his ass-cheeks - hard - with broad swipes of his tongue or peppering them with kisses. The skin gets tender fast, and he realizes the ploy once a slippery finger smudges lube up his thigh and along his crack. More and more is added, till it’s sliding and dripping along the tender skin just behind his balls, and it’s only when Robert starts insistently prodding his hole that he realizes it might only just be enough.
Robert’s holding a dirty talking contest with himself against Jude’s ass and even though he only catches bits here and there he it's clear that Robert’s enjoying himself too. When the finger finally breaks through, his muscles suddenly giving to it, Robert takes the time to turn his attention back to Jude and coo, “Good boy, promise you’re gonna like it. Just. Just gotta relax,” the sentiment continues, but it’s redirected to his ass. He focuses on breathing steadily, like meditation, and relaxing for Robert. The mindless neediness of before has waned a little under the onslaught, his cock is softening, and he’s struck by the sudden fear that this is all about to fall to pieces.
He gets distracted - though - when, without warning, Robert manages to slip another finger in and keeps pushing, to his knuckles, then crooks his fingers and jams against something inside Jude that sets every nerve in his entire fucking body screaming in ecstasy. The prostate, his mind informs him, and the abstract, clinical thought runs on repeat in his mind, like a fucking lecture. He’s pretty sure he’s tipped far enough over the edge that his mouth is running on autopilot, though he no longer really feels connected to it, just tucked deep in a pocket of sex and desperation and everywhere heat.
There’s a point of uncomfortable cold that Jude supposes must be more lube; it warms fast enough, though he finds he misses the way it anchored him against the persistent way Robert was alternating between pressing against the prostate and massaging the lube into him without any real pattern.
All of a sudden the fingers are gone and Jude knows what’s next, can’t stop the way he clenches anxiously.
“Hey hey,” says Robert, voice cracking a little, “calm down man. It’s okay. Come on, need you to sit up a tick.” Jude feels hands, both slippery with lube, tug at his shoulders, just manages to curl his knees under himself and sit back, slumps against Robert’s chest -damp with sweat - and the sharp point of his cock, already rubbered up. Jude knows he’s a mess, missing half of it all the way he is, but Robert’s calmer, feels safe. Like when they go out drinking and Jude wants to get smashed, so Robert pulls back and is there to carry him home.
Robert himself has an arm hooked around Jude’s waist as he leans forward to grab some of the pillows and shove them down to lie closer to the center. Jude gets distracted by the wet patch where his mouth must have been, where he must’ve been drooling. He slides back into listening to Robert, who’s been talking the entire time.
“’t’s gonna be good too. I’ll get you to do me, slow and shallow. Not gonna be like that tonight, sorry baby. I’ll try, but you’re too good. Being too good. Want you so much. Wanna suck you too, can’t though. Have to fuck. We’re gonna fuck now honey, okay?” He doesn’t really wait for Jude to answer, just drapes him back over the pillows so his back is curved and his groin cradled higher over the mound of pillows. “Good boy.”
Everything shifts then, time scattering to discrete moments that won’t quite run together. First there is the initial push, little thrusts, of Robert entering him. It’s wrong: too big, too long, he feels like his skin is ripping, like he’s being split along some unknown seam, ripped in two, pulled inside out.
Then Robert’s pulling out, it must be faster, but that is all wrong too. His dick is dropping interest way too quickly. He can hear Robert grunting something at him, the low tug of his voice and he tries to focus on relaxing his ass, lets all the pressure build in his calves instead, curls and uncurls his toes.
Then Roberts pushing in again and he twists up, more than before, and hits that spot. Jude's back arches and he throws an arm back blindly, eyes closed of their own accord, and makes a grab at what feels like Robert’s shoulder, then the back of his neck and pulls him so that he can twist about enough to place a messy kiss against the corner of his mouth.
“Did I get it?” Robert asks, which must surely be rhetorical by now.
Jude hisses a “Yes,” which, wrung from him in the state he’s in, sounds little more than a wisp of consonants that roll into quiet little murmured ‘nnn’s with each thrust.
Time slips in and out of focus, becomes less a progression than a weird, soupish muddle of sensations and moments all mixed together. Robert, true to his word, loses the slow, steady rhythm quickly and starts ramming, near on every thrust hitting Jude’s prostate.
He can’t pull his limbs back under his control when Robert starts demanding “Up. Up. Up.” Over and over, one hand sliding on lube and sweat against his hip as he tugs, somehow they stumble a little back so there’s a small gap for Robert to slip his hand through to grab at Jude’s cock.
He misses, a blunt nail scratching a diagonal line that is way way way too much and Jude’s - Jude’s coming without any help. He’s making a lot of noise, can feel the vibrations in his larynx and he must be jerking, or thrashing, under the onslaught of sensation.
-
At some point in there, or in the blurry bit immediately afterwards where he maybe passed out, Robert comes too. Then it’s just their breaths, Robert sprawled mostly on top of him and heavy, but Jude doesn’t want to move a muscle.
-
They drowse a little longer, before the niggling at the back of Jude’s mind blooms into a memory: Susan, her eyes earnest and pleading. He turns to face Robert, who he’d shoved off a couple of minutes ago, and grins smugly when he sees he’s recovered a lot faster than his companion. Robert still looks a little breathless and dreamy, and maybe that’s just the way he is after sex, but it tenders a burst of affection that prompts him to drop a chaste kiss against the older man’s bottom lip.
He doesn’t really know what to say, can’t help the part of him that wishes Susan were out of the equation entirely, had never even seen Robert like this. But he’d agreed, and if this was going to work out at all then he had to make an effort, too.
“Susan,” he says, doesn’t want to, in any way, acknowledge her relationship with Robert, “wanted you home tonight.”
Robert’s eyes darken, and he rolls so he’s on his side proper, one hand cradling his head and the other tracing a line along Jude’s cheek.
“Yeah,” he says, “we talked. I told her I’m not sneaking out of your room at awful o’clock in the morning. I’m spending tomorrow night with her instead.”
“Oh,” says Jude, at a loss for anything else. On the one hand he doesn’t want to go without this tomorrow night, but on the other he thinks that falling asleep together, waking up and dealing with the morning after in privacy, is probably more important.
Robert smiles as if in on a private joke that he doesn’t think Jude will get, pushes up to his elbows and brushes a kiss to his temple.
“You two are so cute,” the man mutters, before his face morphs from affectionate to teasing. “Now, young man,” he says, louder than Jude’s comfortable with, but in an odd, dusty, booming sort of English accent that Robert probably thinks all Lords have. “I am buggered and you are warm.”
With the declaration voiced he proceeds to climb back onto Jude, squashing the air out of his lungs, and rearranges him so that Robert is more comfortable atop him. Save a little compromise in favor of Jude being able to breathe, this is how they fall asleep.
-
“You’ve not,” Robert interrupts himself with a sip of his coffee, which he hates because apparently Jude’s British heritage has rendered him incapable of making a good coffee, or some shit. “Before. Have you?”
Jude looks down at his hands tearing the crust of his toast into little nervous shreds.
“I wasn’t going to be that pretty boy that took it up the ass to get his name out there.”
Robert leaves it at that, which is clever of him. That’s as close as they get to acknowledging the night before vocally, though Downey seems to have taken it as his pass to use Jude as a piece of all-purpose furniture: sleeping on him and sitting on his lap and using his arm to balance himself as he stands on tiptoes to get the Frootloops from the top shelf.
-
And yeah, see, Jude thinks maybe he loves the man. Thinks he can adapt to this, to anything that’ll make it last. Thinks that any shit stuff that they’ll encounter might be worth it. Thinks maybe he might be brave enough to say the words, even, one day.
Women still think he’s fucking hot, too.
Jude doesn’t know what to do with himself, after that. He calls the kids - each of them - and makes them talk with him. They’re by turns indulgent and confused and excited. He feels like a wanker, decides he’ll visit them all and take them on some awesome adventure, or just spend a week at the beach with them: getting burnt and salty and eating shit like an awful role model. And then lie on Sam’s couch for a bit and coo at Sophia.
Shit, his whole life feels like it’s on a turntable: catching on jags and flipping forward and back to some unknowable rhythm. This is something he’d go to Robert about, so instead he tracks down Kelly and lets her take him out to the pub and then a series of clubs after that. She hands him increasingly ridiculous drinks and he swallows them all down without complaint, deciding that he’s going to be brash with this, dare people to judge him like he’s scared they might.
He’s more than buzzed when they get to the hotel, and Kelly leaves him in the foyer to pace in favor of her bed and avoiding nasty rumors.
-
The next day of filming is awful. He’s hung-over and exhausted and spread so thin from everything that what he turns out is half-assed and false. He doesn’t know how to behave around Robert, wants to have him spread out and sweaty or drowsy with wine and long conversations. Not quiet and intense as he murmurs, “Tonight?” in Jude’s ear.
He can’t slip into Watson, so he’s awkward and Jude in front of the cameras, apologetic each time Guy calls the scene. Guy doesn’t crack any gay jokes though, at least no more than usual, until he dumps his tea over Jude’s face and tells him to fuck off and have the rest of the day to wank over thoughts of his darling investigator and let everyone else do actual work.
It isn’t angry, more teasing and frustrated, but Jude scurries off, feeling useless and ridiculous with a mustache hanging limply from his upper lip like a half-drowned rat. He lets the costuming staff have a fit over the stain and wanders to Susan’s office afterwards. He backtracks and freaks out and probably scares a number of the crew, but he makes it to knock tentatively on the door.
She lets him in and he tries to read her, quiet and awkward when he sits. She looks tired, her hair’s a bit messy, but there’s a hickey on her neck like a medal. She doesn’t flaunt it, just watches him like he’s a curious experiment, cracks her knuckles one after the other in something like nerves.
“So,” she begins.
“Yeah, um.” Christ, he doesn’t know what to say. He’s never done this responsibly, has never been this short on experience in anything like this before. Eventually he sighs, leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands. “It’s not just hypotheticals. Now. You know? So, I--” He swallows, sort of chokes down something awful and chilling at the idea of it all; this feels, more than anything, like the tipping point. The axis where everything is balanced, ready to slide down to either end. Alone. Or not. “Get it. Yeah? You’re the one with the ring. And I.”
“It’s like kids,” she says, barely interrupting since everything he’s said has been heavy with pauses. Again, her manner suggests a recounting, like this is half what she has to tell herself, as well as him. “We don’t love any one of them less just because there are more of them.”
They sit, sharing a miserable silence. Jude wishes he’d had the forethought to bring alcohol. At last she opens her mouth, closes it, studies him with a tense tilt to her shoulders, like she’s holding something back and it’s struggling at the tip of her tongue, dragging her forward. He nods, because he was reading, last night, and it’s all about honesty. Or some shit. He really can’t dwell on it too long without panicking.
“Is it okay,” she says, all in a rushed breath, “if he comes home tonight? I know. I. It’s just. Easier.”
He doesn't want to say yes. It’s not a nice thought, makes Jude feel like the third rung. Like he’s got less claim, or something. But he also gets that she’s letting him sleep with her husband. He nods again, doesn’t really trust his voice. They sit together for a bit longer before he can’t hold still any longer, he’s got the promise of sex tonight, and of some sort of relationship with Robert for the foreseeable future. He can’t stay still, not with all of it in his head, and he motions behind himself.
“I should…” he says, frowns comically to get a smile out of her before he leaves.
“Yeah,” she agrees, droll. “I like you,” she says to his back, “I think that’s important.”
He pauses, tries to keep the “You too, you know,” casual as he leaves.
-
He’s sitting in his room, a good red shifting in bloody, warm whirlpools in his glass. It’d felt wrong to even think of doing it anywhere else; he wants to have some sort of upper hand here, his territory comes with guarantee of no Susan, or mementos, too. He’s gone overboard, too, like it’s his first time over again. He changed first into sweats, trying for casual, panicked and slipped into his comfy, battered jeans that he loves best. He pulled on a tee, but he’s keeping it a bit cool - no harm in staying prepared, yeah? - so he added a shirt over the top, rolled to the elbows. He doesn’t know whether to shave, he’s never liked facial hair, but shaving the ‘tache isn’t likely to go down well, and worrying about a bit of stubble feels redundant when he’s got a bloody overgrowth of it hanging off his lip.
It’s this that he’s thinking about when Downey lets himself in, which decides the matter for him anyway. He doesn’t feel coherent: horny already from conjecture, teased by a desire to get the booze in to steady him and a fear of putting himself to more of a disadvantage. He’s jumpy, and his voice slides tellingly when he calls, “In the bedroom.”
Robert comes in with an eyebrow cocked and his hair in gravity-defying disorder, Guy no longer present to shout it into submission - which, you know, good.
“Don’t dick about, do you Judesie?”
It isn’t anything Jude hasn’t heard before, but the setting has skewed his mind to dirty, and he’s worked himself well beyond just ‘in a state’. But Robert’s features soften a little, a private smile swift to his lips. The lights are on, but the bulb closest to the door blew a few nights ago and the remaining light catches softly over each plane of his face, his eyes so dark the irises look black.
“Teasing is for people who don’t shape up between the sheets,” Jude retorts, voice steady thanks only to years of acting. He stands, mimes a face back at Robert, keeps his limbs loose as he strolls over to the man.
He sees Robert’s pupils swallow the brown when he tips his head back to keep eye contact, licks his lips distractedly. Fucking Christ, that shouldn’t be as hot as it is, all just tells and they haven’t even really begun, like they’re both still caught on the chase: pushed too far into the unknown as is.
“One day I’m going to tie you up,” says Robert casually, “and tease you for an hour and then I will swallow your cock whole and you will come so hard in my throat that you pass out. Then we’ll see your opinion on teasing.”
And yeah, you already know just how good Jude can function visually, know the fervor with which he savors words. He likes talking in bed, knows how to fit words so that they flow, pitched just right so that they affect him too, voice gone alien to his ears so he can pretend it’s someone else. He’s just never been on the receiving end, not like this. Spoken with the complete assurance that it will happen, the words, the idea, better than any scratchy drawl he could ever manage.
Robert’s studying him, still with the assumption of control, ball in his court the way it’s been since the start. Jude’s already flushing and they haven’t even touched yet. Suddenly stalking up to Robert the way he has feels ridiculous, like a fawn sauntering to the wolf. The idea builds the heat in his cheeks, embarrassment and arousal and fuck, he needs to get this back to something he can comprehend. He turns on his heels, arms already up and pulling at his shirt when Robert interrupts him.
“I didn’t tell you to do that.” His voice is still conversational.
Jude manages to subdue the full body shudder at that, but the way he tenses and blows all his air out at once feels just as obvious in the quiet of the room. He’s less successful when Robert growls, “Good boy.” It’s here that he realizes that he froze as soon as the reprimand was spoken.
“Shit,” he mumbles. “Like it when you talk,” because he’s hardwired vocal encouragement into these situations; it doesn’t even really register until after he’s spoken.
“Yeah,” Robert agrees, “Yeah this is going to be fun.” Jude has a moment to sift through that and makes to argue that of course it’s going to be fun, but Robert cuts him off. “You haven’t let any of your lady friends take control before, have you?”
He motions for Jude to sit on the edge of the bed then, rests a hand on his shoulder as he lowers himself down onto his lap. He’s heavier than a girl, firm with muscle, not the give of skin and fat that’s interrupted by sharp bones like he’s used to. His knees lock automatically and he rests both hands on the older man’s waist to keep him steady. He feels ridiculously hot, feverish even through both their clothes. Jude is glad he kept the heater on low.
“You didn’t answer,” Robert prompts, casually leaning forward to nuzzle and press dry, open-mouthed kisses to the junction of his jaw and neck, all humid breath and scratchy stubble.
“Yeah,” Jude whispers when he feels the first delicate touch of Robert’s tongue on his neck, backtracks to what the man said and tries to focus. “Um. Shit.” Tries to pull back when he hits a sensitive spot. “No, I,” swallow, “You know. Reputation, they all--” He takes a steadying breath in through his nose and cups the back of Robert’s head. “--wanted things.”
He’s pretty sure that didn’t make sense, but his companion doesn’t seem to care, humming something incoherent in reply. He’s already well on the way to hard, feels like every moment is being stretched thin under the weight of each mad thought running through his mind and every jangling scream from the nerves at the points where he and Robert are touching. An abstract, clinical part of him wants to have come, already, so that he can go about assessing each of the elder man’s weaknesses: the way he’s used to doing for his partners, building a catalogue of tactics to build them up and break them open.
Some part of this desire slips through, spills into a series of words that could be considered a loose interpretation of sentence.
“Want you to-too, please. What do you want?” Repeated several times as Robert scratches a thumbnail against the hot skin right next to where he’s breathing damply.
He pulls back, looks less composed now, lips a little swollen, color riding high on his cheekbones too. Jude idly contemplates jealousy, knows his own face is already well on the way to tomato red, spreading down his neck like some sort of cartoon character. He bites his lip at the thought and forgets to breathe when Robert’s eyes automatically snap to it, muscles shifting restlessly and sticking the edge of his tongue out the corner of his mouth.
Not one to concede easily, Jude repeats the action, slower; makes a show of it, running his tongue over the abused flesh and grins when Robert - voice pitched almost at a whine - murmurs, “Bastard.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, feeling more himself with the return of their give and take. “Don’t deny you love it.”
He catches the faux pas almost as soon as it passes his lips and presses a hungry, sloppy kiss to the corner of Robert’s mouth before he can steal his steam. It’s enough to distract him, to distract them both, and it becomes an easy, lazy exchange. Robert’s hands are everywhere, as if he’s trying to dictate each shift of Jude’s muscles, directing the tilt of their heads, the angles at which they meet. Jude lets him, prefers to focus on winning him over with each movement of his tongue, lips; makes sure he’s loud when Robert shifts closer at the first moan.
When Robert catches on - Jude’s never been fantastic at subtlety - it grows messier with the pull of shared smiles. At one point it’s their tongues, curled in a slick embrace, the only point of shared contact between spit-slicked mouths.
Robert shifts more restlessly after that, close to humping Jude’s thigh in his pursuit of friction. He fists Jude’s tee, tugs him chest to chest and rises so he’s squatting a bit above, cock pushed hard against Jude’s sternum, head tilted down to mouth obscenities against Jude’s cheekbone. It’s instinctual to try and support him, so he’s almost shocked when Robert loses it as soon as he cups his ass to brace him, hands clenched to keep in control.
It’s an understatement to say he doesn’t expect Robert to breathe a choked “Fuckfuckshitshitmotherfuckingwankerbastardsuckitshitface,” against his forehead, the forepoint of his hairline. His own hips stutter, all out, right, at the sound: torn from the man’s throat like a precious secret. He isn’t used to hearing shit like that, not that tone, the tenor pitched needy and desperate and masculine. And it doesn’t stop, not for ages, just stays a constant, desperate litany that Jude can only listen to in shifts, some part of him terrified of coming in his pants just with this, just with words, promises and the sudden, awful realization that he wants this man more than anyone else, ever.
It’s here, though, that Robert pushes off, face cast almost angry, staggering unsteadily until he’s properly upright a few paces away. His hand passes fretfully through his hair, messes it once more, as if Jude and he hadn’t already been thorough enough. His chest is heaving, pants tenting at the front. He gulps down what look to be several fortifying breaths.
“I’m going to take a leak,” he says, “and when I come back I want you undressed and lying on your stomach, arms over your head and knuckles on the headboard.”
His voice is steady, for all it’s husky too, but Jude doubts he’ll get anything but come out of that cock anytime soon. He’s played the role Robert’s assuming enough times, though, that he can understand his own. It’s more theoretical though, it feels surreal stripping down, wincing as he shucks the jeans roughly past his cock, without being the one waiting in the bathroom for the revelation of glorious skin and submission.
It’d been different, though, with the girls. He’d always had them on their back: tits resting with nipples in needy points and cunts leaking sloppy on his sheets. It’s too much an offering, in this position: his cock trapped beneath the weight of his body and the uncomfortably cool sheets, ass ridiculous in the air. He pushes his face straight into the pillow, shoves it to each side, restless and awkward. His feet are hanging over the edge of the bed.
He stills, though, when he hears the lock sound as it turns, the steady pace as Robert makes his way back to the bedroom. His breath quickens ridiculously; it hadn’t been even before, but here it sounds needy and unguarded. He refuses to give Downey the satisfaction of seeing him turn to watch him, so he keeps his eyes closed and focuses on calming himself, tries to distance himself from the shift of the bed as Robert perches above him, presses slick, unpredictable kisses sporadically over his back and ass, his upper thighs.
Jude can recognize the tact in this position, though, in the parts of his brain that aren't catching on each micrometer of skin-to-skin contact. He can’t see what’s going on any more than if he were blindfolded, has nothing really to focus on but each sensation as it comes by, growing in importance and significance for it.
“I couldn’t decide,” begins Robert, “how we should start this, once you got over your funk.” Like it was some sort of foregone conclusion. “I thought maybe we’d start nice and gentle.” The kisses up until this point had continued, but there is a dip, now, in the bed near Jude’s ribs. Something hard, warm, blunt knocks against his hip. It shifts, and the light scratch of hairs slip into the picture and Jude realizes it’s Robert’s knee. His naked knee. It should be ridiculous, but he’s suddenly aware that he doesn’t know if Robert is wearing anything.
His thoughts scatter again, though, when he feels Robert’s hand, palm and fingertips a little clammy, settle to cup his shoulder without warning. Every muscle in his upper back jerks and he pulls his elbows up so his forehead is only resting softly against the covers, eyes still closed, “Shit,” stumbling brokenly past his lips.
It’s half at Robert’s reaction, the immediate pressure applied and the sharp “You were to stay still,” half at the soft scratch of the cotton against his cock as he lowers himself back down, that his arms give out so pathetically. Once he’s calmed back down again Robert continues.
“But you’re a love ‘em and leave ‘em kinda guy.” This is accompanied by his hand smoothing a line down his back to cup his ass. “And if you leave me I want you to remember tonight as some of the best sex you’ll ever have.”
There’s an odd concentration of heat near his lower back, which is his only warning for what follows. Namely: Robert spreads his cheeks and licks a filthy line from his tailbone to past his hole. The sound he makes at the sensation feels ripped straight from his soul, his stomach and thighs clench convulsively and he can’t get any air into his lungs, he’s groaning something, shaking his head only to free a tear to roll down his cheek, slipping out the corner of his eyes squeezed shut.
“What,” he says, winces at how wrecked he sounds. There’s sweat already damp in his hair and slipping between his shoulderblades, and he can’t bring himself to care that he’s interrupting the soothing nothings Robert’s been murmuring to calm him down, hands rubbing soothing circles again his calves. “The fuck?”
Robert doesn’t reprimand him the way Jude expected, so he turns for the first time to meet his gaze over his shoulder. Robert is kneeling, stark naked, mouth hanging open with the point of that lewd tongue resting against his bottom lip, as if to moisten it. One hand is continuing to knead Jude’s calf and the other is locked tight about his hipbone to - Jude realizes all of a sudden - stop him rutting against the bed. He feels embarrassment uncoil low in his belly when Robert mouths ‘wow,’ mostly to himself, at the reaction. He pulls himself together quickly after, though, settles his features to smug, mutters a cocky “Told you so.”
He follows it with a frown and a sharp “Get back down, Sweetcheeks.”
Again, there is nothing inherently dirty about the phrase, but add a bedroom context and Robert doing what he’s just done… Jude thinks it’s pretty fucking filthy for something so innocent. So he thinks he’s excused for sort of - well. He flops, a bit, on cue, tries to shift so his cock isn’t so uncomfortable, bites his lip at the shift of skin and jangling of nerves. He hadn’t even realized how close he was until now: a white-cold-hot pulse that’s pushing out, pressing up and jittering along his spine and deep in the tips of his fingers.
“Gonna taste you again--” motheringchristshithead “--and then we’ll start with fingers. The lube tastes awful,” punctuated by a nip to his left cheek, at the point where it’d dip in if he were tensed, “so it’s going to stay fingers, promise.”
Robert doesn’t do anything else and Jude supposes he must want some sort of assent or encouragement. It seems pretty fucking greedy when he needs the breath required for it to support his efforts not to come right this second so he grinds out a sparse “Yeah,” adds “Please,” just in case.
Robert rumbles something he can’t quite hear, his breathing is so fucking loud - there is no way the neighbors can’t know what’s going on - before his stubble scratches the small of Jude’s back. He loses it a bit, here; he knows where this going, even though Downey’s taking his fucking time, and the idea is really just wrong. Jude isn’t a saint in bed, he knows and has tried plenty of the stuff out there, but sticking his tongue up someone’s asshole just never struck him as sexy. It’s unclean - not that he isn’t near compulsive with his personal hygiene - but. Tongue. Tongue. Shit.
He’s pretty sure he’s whining that aloud when Robert finally reaches his destination. It’s just. He doesn’t just pass a quick lick by it and follow it with a finger. He’s using one hand to pull Jude’s cheek back, his forehead propping the other back - and fuckit Jude doesn’t know what he’s doing with the other hand and the small part of him that isn’t focused on getting air into his lungs starts to panic - the man sucks at it, presses a tongue against the entrance. Jude clutches at the sheets and smothers something alarming akin to a scream in the sheets, almost misses the obscene, slurping noise that accompanies Robert’s actions.
He gets himself back under control faster, this time, though his breaths still sound like sobs for all he’s cussing the hell out at Robert on each exhale. Robert does his level best to drive him mad by alternating biting his ass-cheeks - hard - with broad swipes of his tongue or peppering them with kisses. The skin gets tender fast, and he realizes the ploy once a slippery finger smudges lube up his thigh and along his crack. More and more is added, till it’s sliding and dripping along the tender skin just behind his balls, and it’s only when Robert starts insistently prodding his hole that he realizes it might only just be enough.
Robert’s holding a dirty talking contest with himself against Jude’s ass and even though he only catches bits here and there he it's clear that Robert’s enjoying himself too. When the finger finally breaks through, his muscles suddenly giving to it, Robert takes the time to turn his attention back to Jude and coo, “Good boy, promise you’re gonna like it. Just. Just gotta relax,” the sentiment continues, but it’s redirected to his ass. He focuses on breathing steadily, like meditation, and relaxing for Robert. The mindless neediness of before has waned a little under the onslaught, his cock is softening, and he’s struck by the sudden fear that this is all about to fall to pieces.
He gets distracted - though - when, without warning, Robert manages to slip another finger in and keeps pushing, to his knuckles, then crooks his fingers and jams against something inside Jude that sets every nerve in his entire fucking body screaming in ecstasy. The prostate, his mind informs him, and the abstract, clinical thought runs on repeat in his mind, like a fucking lecture. He’s pretty sure he’s tipped far enough over the edge that his mouth is running on autopilot, though he no longer really feels connected to it, just tucked deep in a pocket of sex and desperation and everywhere heat.
There’s a point of uncomfortable cold that Jude supposes must be more lube; it warms fast enough, though he finds he misses the way it anchored him against the persistent way Robert was alternating between pressing against the prostate and massaging the lube into him without any real pattern.
All of a sudden the fingers are gone and Jude knows what’s next, can’t stop the way he clenches anxiously.
“Hey hey,” says Robert, voice cracking a little, “calm down man. It’s okay. Come on, need you to sit up a tick.” Jude feels hands, both slippery with lube, tug at his shoulders, just manages to curl his knees under himself and sit back, slumps against Robert’s chest -damp with sweat - and the sharp point of his cock, already rubbered up. Jude knows he’s a mess, missing half of it all the way he is, but Robert’s calmer, feels safe. Like when they go out drinking and Jude wants to get smashed, so Robert pulls back and is there to carry him home.
Robert himself has an arm hooked around Jude’s waist as he leans forward to grab some of the pillows and shove them down to lie closer to the center. Jude gets distracted by the wet patch where his mouth must have been, where he must’ve been drooling. He slides back into listening to Robert, who’s been talking the entire time.
“’t’s gonna be good too. I’ll get you to do me, slow and shallow. Not gonna be like that tonight, sorry baby. I’ll try, but you’re too good. Being too good. Want you so much. Wanna suck you too, can’t though. Have to fuck. We’re gonna fuck now honey, okay?” He doesn’t really wait for Jude to answer, just drapes him back over the pillows so his back is curved and his groin cradled higher over the mound of pillows. “Good boy.”
Everything shifts then, time scattering to discrete moments that won’t quite run together. First there is the initial push, little thrusts, of Robert entering him. It’s wrong: too big, too long, he feels like his skin is ripping, like he’s being split along some unknown seam, ripped in two, pulled inside out.
Then Robert’s pulling out, it must be faster, but that is all wrong too. His dick is dropping interest way too quickly. He can hear Robert grunting something at him, the low tug of his voice and he tries to focus on relaxing his ass, lets all the pressure build in his calves instead, curls and uncurls his toes.
Then Roberts pushing in again and he twists up, more than before, and hits that spot. Jude's back arches and he throws an arm back blindly, eyes closed of their own accord, and makes a grab at what feels like Robert’s shoulder, then the back of his neck and pulls him so that he can twist about enough to place a messy kiss against the corner of his mouth.
“Did I get it?” Robert asks, which must surely be rhetorical by now.
Jude hisses a “Yes,” which, wrung from him in the state he’s in, sounds little more than a wisp of consonants that roll into quiet little murmured ‘nnn’s with each thrust.
Time slips in and out of focus, becomes less a progression than a weird, soupish muddle of sensations and moments all mixed together. Robert, true to his word, loses the slow, steady rhythm quickly and starts ramming, near on every thrust hitting Jude’s prostate.
He can’t pull his limbs back under his control when Robert starts demanding “Up. Up. Up.” Over and over, one hand sliding on lube and sweat against his hip as he tugs, somehow they stumble a little back so there’s a small gap for Robert to slip his hand through to grab at Jude’s cock.
He misses, a blunt nail scratching a diagonal line that is way way way too much and Jude’s - Jude’s coming without any help. He’s making a lot of noise, can feel the vibrations in his larynx and he must be jerking, or thrashing, under the onslaught of sensation.
-
At some point in there, or in the blurry bit immediately afterwards where he maybe passed out, Robert comes too. Then it’s just their breaths, Robert sprawled mostly on top of him and heavy, but Jude doesn’t want to move a muscle.
-
They drowse a little longer, before the niggling at the back of Jude’s mind blooms into a memory: Susan, her eyes earnest and pleading. He turns to face Robert, who he’d shoved off a couple of minutes ago, and grins smugly when he sees he’s recovered a lot faster than his companion. Robert still looks a little breathless and dreamy, and maybe that’s just the way he is after sex, but it tenders a burst of affection that prompts him to drop a chaste kiss against the older man’s bottom lip.
He doesn’t really know what to say, can’t help the part of him that wishes Susan were out of the equation entirely, had never even seen Robert like this. But he’d agreed, and if this was going to work out at all then he had to make an effort, too.
“Susan,” he says, doesn’t want to, in any way, acknowledge her relationship with Robert, “wanted you home tonight.”
Robert’s eyes darken, and he rolls so he’s on his side proper, one hand cradling his head and the other tracing a line along Jude’s cheek.
“Yeah,” he says, “we talked. I told her I’m not sneaking out of your room at awful o’clock in the morning. I’m spending tomorrow night with her instead.”
“Oh,” says Jude, at a loss for anything else. On the one hand he doesn’t want to go without this tomorrow night, but on the other he thinks that falling asleep together, waking up and dealing with the morning after in privacy, is probably more important.
Robert smiles as if in on a private joke that he doesn’t think Jude will get, pushes up to his elbows and brushes a kiss to his temple.
“You two are so cute,” the man mutters, before his face morphs from affectionate to teasing. “Now, young man,” he says, louder than Jude’s comfortable with, but in an odd, dusty, booming sort of English accent that Robert probably thinks all Lords have. “I am buggered and you are warm.”
With the declaration voiced he proceeds to climb back onto Jude, squashing the air out of his lungs, and rearranges him so that Robert is more comfortable atop him. Save a little compromise in favor of Jude being able to breathe, this is how they fall asleep.
-
“You’ve not,” Robert interrupts himself with a sip of his coffee, which he hates because apparently Jude’s British heritage has rendered him incapable of making a good coffee, or some shit. “Before. Have you?”
Jude looks down at his hands tearing the crust of his toast into little nervous shreds.
“I wasn’t going to be that pretty boy that took it up the ass to get his name out there.”
Robert leaves it at that, which is clever of him. That’s as close as they get to acknowledging the night before vocally, though Downey seems to have taken it as his pass to use Jude as a piece of all-purpose furniture: sleeping on him and sitting on his lap and using his arm to balance himself as he stands on tiptoes to get the Frootloops from the top shelf.
-
And yeah, see, Jude thinks maybe he loves the man. Thinks he can adapt to this, to anything that’ll make it last. Thinks that any shit stuff that they’ll encounter might be worth it. Thinks maybe he might be brave enough to say the words, even, one day.
Women still think he’s fucking hot, too.