fic: Run Home Slow
RUN HOME SLOW
2700 words; R
And then Brendon mentally smacks himself in the forehead. He's only ten minutes from home. He doesn't need to get out of the car and jerk off in a Del Taco bathroom. Which is to say, Brendon really enjoys getting tattooed.
Apparently not!ficcing out loud to disarm_d and queen_geek is a binding contract to make with the actual goods :( And so I wrote Panic :((( I hope you're both happy :((((( (No but seriously, ilu both and I hope this is everything you ever dreamed of.)
Thanks to harborshore for looking this over for me.
Warnings for totally made up LA geography, an indeterminate recent-ish timeframe, and utter ridiculousness.
Brendon's knee bounces quickly up and down, coming dangerously close to hitting the bottom of the cart where his arm is stretched out next to a row of tiny cups of inks and a smear of Vaseline.
"Hold still," the tattoo artist mutters at him.
"Sorry, sorry," Brendon says, then presses his foot firmly to the tile floor to stop the movement.
Brendon feels too-warm all over, a little sweaty and flushed like the room somehow went from air-conditioned to jungle and skipped all the stages in between. The neck of his t-shirt feels too tight, just a little too high against his throat, and he wants to reach up to pull on it and pull it down but he can't, because he has to hold still. There's a needle jabbing ink into his arm, after all, and that shit is going to be there forever.
They've been going for about forty-five minutes now and they have maybe another thirty left, if he's remembering right. He can totally deal for another half-hour. It's not worth calling it quits now and having to come back later when they're so close to done already, even though he's getting more and more uncomfortable and the home stretch is looking like more and more of a challenge. In the last few minutes, the feeling of the needles against his skin has changed from an insistent buzz to something closer to real pain, and the problem is that he likes it.
It felt good before and it feels even better now but it's still not quite enough, like an itch he can't quite scratch. No, that's not it; it's an itch he can't stop scratching, but no matter how hard he scratches he can't soothe it, can't get rid of that thrill swirling just under his skin. It flickers back and forth between pain and pleasure a thousand times a minutes, like the wings of an insect, droning along with the motor in the tattoo gun.
He knows he shouldn't move but he can't stop himself from shifting his weight from side to side to try to get a little more comfortable. It doesn't work. He's full of sensation and he feels like he's about to split at the seams with it, like it's going to spill out everywhere and leave him cleaned out and empty inside.
It wouldn't be the worst thing, he thinks quietly.
His eyes go a little unfocused as he stares up at the ceiling, which is plastered with old flyers for tattoo conventions and hardcore shows.
Now that it's the only thing on his mind, the pain gets bigger and brighter with every new pass of the needle along his skin. His nerves are all lit up, not like they're on fire but like they're fireworks, shooting off tiny explosions that burst and sing and leave him blinking.
Brendon tries to concentrate on his breathing. Deep breath in, slow exhale, one at a time, one after the other. It works, sort of, until he realizes that it's changed the timbre of the pain and now it's settling over him, warm and comfortable, something he could get used to.
The minutes creep by with agonizing slowness. Ha, Brendon thinks, that's a good one. But he can't quite bring himself to laugh at his own almost-joke, not with the way the warmth is spreading from his arm to settle in the pit of his stomach, just like it does when-
Fuck.
Brendon closes his eyes and bites at the inside of his bottom lip and hopes very hard that when he opens his eyes again, his dick isn't going to be busy getting hard anymore, and in fact it will be quite uninterested in what's going on.
He breathes out, then opens his eyes. No such luck. Of course.
He grits his teeth and tries to think about really unsexy things, like the life in the back of his fridge, and out-of-tune pianos, and the time Pete wore one of Ashlee's bikinis, not even on a dare but just because.
It kind of helps. It passes the time, anyway.
When it's over, Brendon barely registers the little details of it-the bandage, the lotion, the aftercare instructions, paying for it-until he feels the warm afternoon sun on his face and he realizes he's somehow managed to leave the shop and get to the parking lot without really paying any attention.
He blinks at his car for a moment, and then digs into his pocket for his keys.
When he sinks into the driver's seat, he sighs in relief. The leather upholstery is hot from the sun but he can barely feel it over the buzz in his bones, the bright heat in his arm. He spreads his knees further apart and presses the heel of his hand against his dick, firm and steady. He's half-hard and he doesn't think about how it must have been obvious to anyone who looked when he was leaving the tattoo studio.
But now he's in his car where it's private enough that he can put a hand on his dick and try to get things under control-but, really, nowhere near private enough that he can really do anything about it.
He sighs and gives his dick one last squeeze before he lets go, planting his hands firmly on the wheel at ten and two. He stares straight ahead at nothing for a moment before he startles and sticks the keys in the ignition to turn the car on.
The gentle rumble of the engine is just similar enough to the steady buzz off the tattoo gun that his dick twitches in his jeans.
He grips the wheel a little tighter and eases down on the gas.
The vibrations of his wheels on the road, even just doing 30, shake his bandaged arm just the right way.
It's a twenty-five minute drive home and he isn't entirely convinced he's going to make it without going crazy.
* * *
He totally doesn't make it.
He's maybe five or six exits from his off-ramp and he's so distracted that he barely hits the brakes in time when somebody cuts him off without signalling.
Brendon slams his left hand on the wheel and then sucks in a sharp breath of surprise as the pain flashes up to his shoulder and then down, hot and fast, into his stomach.
He barely remembers to signal when he swings into the right lane to take the next exit. He has no idea what it is but it doesn't matter, he just needs to get off the fucking freeway before he gets himself killed.
There's a red light holding him up at the end of the off-ramp and it takes forever and ever to change. Brendon starts drumming on the rim of the wheel as he waits, something just slightly out of time that Spencer would probably punch him for, but he's not really paying his hands much attention because it's pretty much all on his dick. And the road. Sort of.
He pulls into the very first parking lot he sees. He does a terrible job parking but he could really give a shit because he's not about to die anymore, and that's what's most important.
His fingers are clenched tight around the wheel and he relaxes them as takes a breath. His throat is too dry and it's uncomfortable when he swallows.
When he finally looks up to figure out where the hell he parked, a giant sign for Del Taco is staring back at him.
Hey, Brendon thinks, he's been to this one before. The bathroom isn't bad.
And then he mentally smacks himself in the forehead. He's only ten minutes from home. He doesn't need to get out of the car and jerk off in a Del Taco bathroom.
Brendon sits there for a moment, taking stock of the situation.
Home is so close, he tells his dick plaintively.
But Del Taco is even closer, his dick replies.
The warm throb in his arm agrees with his dick. Of course.
Brendon sighs and unbuckles his seat belt.
He knows this is completely fucking ridiculous, but it's the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday and there aren't that many people around. He checks over his shoulder as he climbs out of his car and walks briskly towards the side door, trying to play it like he's in a hurry to get some food and not like he's in a hurry to deal with the emergency in his pants.
The bathroom is pretty much where he remembered it being, and he deliberately walks slowly towards it.
He pushes through the door and looks around to make sure he's alone. It turns out the bathroom isn't quite as nice as he remembered, with its weird yellowish fluorescent lights and dingy tiled walls, but at least he's got it to himself.
He breathes out heavily. It's not quite a sigh of relief; he's not there yet.
There's only one little stall, just beyond the pair of urinals. Brendon dashes for it and closes the door behind him, his hand lingering on the wobbly lock as he steadies himself. But then his arm throbs once, twice, and he grip the lock tightly as he slides it firmly closed.
He pulls his belt open and pops the button on his jeans, and opens his fly even as he's sliding his jeans down his hips. The relief he feels when the pressure lifts off his dick hits him in an intense rush.
He turns the rest of the way to face the toilet. He really hopes nobody comes in and sees his feet and judges him for peeing in a stall, but he figures that if they assume he's peeing then he's really coming out ahead.
That's what she said! he thinks to himself, and even though it doesn't actually make sense he laughs a little as he eases his underwear over his dick and finally gets to touch himself properly.
Normally he jerks off with his right hand, but today... it's his left arm that's warm and sore, his left arm that's throbbing gently with his heartbeat and pulsing pain through his nerves. He's totally going to use his left hand.
The first touch of his fingers to his dick is almost enough to make his knees go weak, but he catches himself and holds himself up deliberately tall. Sure, it's embarrassing to be jerking off in the bathroom of a Del Taco, but he wouldn't be doing it if it weren't a matter of life or death.
It's awkward at first, getting the hang of using the wrong hand, but the way it feels with the tendons and muscles pulling at the sensitive skin of the fresh tattoo, fuck, it's good, like there's a direct current between his arm and his dick.
A few more strokes and he settles into a good rhythm, one that gets his face hot and breath coming faster. All of a sudden he's glad he didn't try to make it home; patience is over-rated and this feels awesome. He keeps going, just enjoying the feel of it, the way each bend of his elbow shoots a new tiny flare of pain up his arm to warm the pit of his stomach.
When he rotates his arm just so it brings back a flood of remembered sensation: the way he had his arm bent away from his body, the lingering memory of the press of the artist's hand near his elbow, the needles' steady hum as they left bright sharp lines behind, and the buzzing feel of it, over and over and over, building the pain from mere scratches on his skin to something that filled his whole body. His stomach flips over and he has to press a hand to the side of the stall to help hold himself up as his whole body starts flashing over-warm and he can feel his back getting sweaty.
And then he freezes when as he hears footsteps just outside the door to the bathroom. The footsteps stop and Brendon holds his breath as he waits for the door to open. Time hangs still for a moment as he waits, his heart beating faster even as his breath catches in this throat and his face flushes as hot as his arm.
But he doesn't stop stroking himself even as he tries to keep the door from opening with the power of his mind.
Somehow it must have worked because he hears a different door opening and the footsteps going somewhere else, and he huffs out a big breath and tries to get back to where he was before he was interrupted.
But the mood has changed, just somehow gone a little off in the last ten seconds, and Brendon bites his lip as he looks down at his hand wrapped around his dick and starts tugging at it in earnest, trying to get things wrapped up so he can get out of here.
Hurry up hurry up hurry up, he thinks at his dick.
He can't say he was expecting an answer, but it twitches in his palm like it's agreeing. He closes his fist around the head and squeezes, then rubs his thumb through the pre-come that's started pooling. That's enough to make his legs start tensing up and he knows that sign all too well.
He starts jerking himself faster, a little rougher than before, squeezing tight and revelling in the friction. It feels good, really good, fucking great as he presses it to the ridge of the head at the bottom of his dick and he can feel his balls starting to pull up.
All the waiting and anticipation pushed him close before he even really did anything, and now all it takes is one last good tug on his dick and then he's coming, one hand braced on the stall wall to hold him up as his legs threaten to give out under him.
He sucks in deep breaths and stares blankly at the red-and-yellow tiled wall in front of him as he waits for the world to settle around him again. He feels dumb and heavy and slow, but fuck does he ever feel satisfied.
Some time passes--not enough for his liking, but he's starting to get really self-conscious just standing there doing nothing--and then he wipes off perfunctorily, does his pants back up, and steps out of the stall.
He startles when the bathroom door swings open as he's washing his hands and somehow manages to spray water onto the front of his shirt. He ignores it in favour of glancing over his shoulder but the guy isn't paying him any attention, just taking his stance in front of the urinal and unzipping.
Brendon shakes his head at himself and turns off the taps, drying his hands on his jeans as he looks at himself in the mirror. It's not that obvious what he was just doing, he decides, and if he looks a little pink, maybe it'll pass for a sunburn. He nods at the mirror and his reflection nods back at him.
Leaving the bathroom feels sort of like leaving a crime scene or like he's sneaking out in the middle of the night, but also like he's leaving this whole sordid undertaking behind, which is a very good thing.
He stops when he gets back out into the restaurant and looks up at the counter consideringly. Now that he's not in a hurry anymore he may as well get a burrito, seeing as he's here already and everything. Maybe he'll get one for Spencer too, and just not say anything about why he decided it was a good time for burritos. The less said about it the better, really. He just wants to put this all behind him and never think of it again, ever.
Or at least, not until the next time.
2700 words; R
And then Brendon mentally smacks himself in the forehead. He's only ten minutes from home. He doesn't need to get out of the car and jerk off in a Del Taco bathroom. Which is to say, Brendon really enjoys getting tattooed.
Apparently not!ficcing out loud to disarm_d and queen_geek is a binding contract to make with the actual goods :( And so I wrote Panic :((( I hope you're both happy :((((( (No but seriously, ilu both and I hope this is everything you ever dreamed of.)
Thanks to harborshore for looking this over for me.
Warnings for totally made up LA geography, an indeterminate recent-ish timeframe, and utter ridiculousness.
Brendon's knee bounces quickly up and down, coming dangerously close to hitting the bottom of the cart where his arm is stretched out next to a row of tiny cups of inks and a smear of Vaseline.
"Hold still," the tattoo artist mutters at him.
"Sorry, sorry," Brendon says, then presses his foot firmly to the tile floor to stop the movement.
Brendon feels too-warm all over, a little sweaty and flushed like the room somehow went from air-conditioned to jungle and skipped all the stages in between. The neck of his t-shirt feels too tight, just a little too high against his throat, and he wants to reach up to pull on it and pull it down but he can't, because he has to hold still. There's a needle jabbing ink into his arm, after all, and that shit is going to be there forever.
They've been going for about forty-five minutes now and they have maybe another thirty left, if he's remembering right. He can totally deal for another half-hour. It's not worth calling it quits now and having to come back later when they're so close to done already, even though he's getting more and more uncomfortable and the home stretch is looking like more and more of a challenge. In the last few minutes, the feeling of the needles against his skin has changed from an insistent buzz to something closer to real pain, and the problem is that he likes it.
It felt good before and it feels even better now but it's still not quite enough, like an itch he can't quite scratch. No, that's not it; it's an itch he can't stop scratching, but no matter how hard he scratches he can't soothe it, can't get rid of that thrill swirling just under his skin. It flickers back and forth between pain and pleasure a thousand times a minutes, like the wings of an insect, droning along with the motor in the tattoo gun.
He knows he shouldn't move but he can't stop himself from shifting his weight from side to side to try to get a little more comfortable. It doesn't work. He's full of sensation and he feels like he's about to split at the seams with it, like it's going to spill out everywhere and leave him cleaned out and empty inside.
It wouldn't be the worst thing, he thinks quietly.
His eyes go a little unfocused as he stares up at the ceiling, which is plastered with old flyers for tattoo conventions and hardcore shows.
Now that it's the only thing on his mind, the pain gets bigger and brighter with every new pass of the needle along his skin. His nerves are all lit up, not like they're on fire but like they're fireworks, shooting off tiny explosions that burst and sing and leave him blinking.
Brendon tries to concentrate on his breathing. Deep breath in, slow exhale, one at a time, one after the other. It works, sort of, until he realizes that it's changed the timbre of the pain and now it's settling over him, warm and comfortable, something he could get used to.
The minutes creep by with agonizing slowness. Ha, Brendon thinks, that's a good one. But he can't quite bring himself to laugh at his own almost-joke, not with the way the warmth is spreading from his arm to settle in the pit of his stomach, just like it does when-
Fuck.
Brendon closes his eyes and bites at the inside of his bottom lip and hopes very hard that when he opens his eyes again, his dick isn't going to be busy getting hard anymore, and in fact it will be quite uninterested in what's going on.
He breathes out, then opens his eyes. No such luck. Of course.
He grits his teeth and tries to think about really unsexy things, like the life in the back of his fridge, and out-of-tune pianos, and the time Pete wore one of Ashlee's bikinis, not even on a dare but just because.
It kind of helps. It passes the time, anyway.
When it's over, Brendon barely registers the little details of it-the bandage, the lotion, the aftercare instructions, paying for it-until he feels the warm afternoon sun on his face and he realizes he's somehow managed to leave the shop and get to the parking lot without really paying any attention.
He blinks at his car for a moment, and then digs into his pocket for his keys.
When he sinks into the driver's seat, he sighs in relief. The leather upholstery is hot from the sun but he can barely feel it over the buzz in his bones, the bright heat in his arm. He spreads his knees further apart and presses the heel of his hand against his dick, firm and steady. He's half-hard and he doesn't think about how it must have been obvious to anyone who looked when he was leaving the tattoo studio.
But now he's in his car where it's private enough that he can put a hand on his dick and try to get things under control-but, really, nowhere near private enough that he can really do anything about it.
He sighs and gives his dick one last squeeze before he lets go, planting his hands firmly on the wheel at ten and two. He stares straight ahead at nothing for a moment before he startles and sticks the keys in the ignition to turn the car on.
The gentle rumble of the engine is just similar enough to the steady buzz off the tattoo gun that his dick twitches in his jeans.
He grips the wheel a little tighter and eases down on the gas.
The vibrations of his wheels on the road, even just doing 30, shake his bandaged arm just the right way.
It's a twenty-five minute drive home and he isn't entirely convinced he's going to make it without going crazy.
* * *
He totally doesn't make it.
He's maybe five or six exits from his off-ramp and he's so distracted that he barely hits the brakes in time when somebody cuts him off without signalling.
Brendon slams his left hand on the wheel and then sucks in a sharp breath of surprise as the pain flashes up to his shoulder and then down, hot and fast, into his stomach.
He barely remembers to signal when he swings into the right lane to take the next exit. He has no idea what it is but it doesn't matter, he just needs to get off the fucking freeway before he gets himself killed.
There's a red light holding him up at the end of the off-ramp and it takes forever and ever to change. Brendon starts drumming on the rim of the wheel as he waits, something just slightly out of time that Spencer would probably punch him for, but he's not really paying his hands much attention because it's pretty much all on his dick. And the road. Sort of.
He pulls into the very first parking lot he sees. He does a terrible job parking but he could really give a shit because he's not about to die anymore, and that's what's most important.
His fingers are clenched tight around the wheel and he relaxes them as takes a breath. His throat is too dry and it's uncomfortable when he swallows.
When he finally looks up to figure out where the hell he parked, a giant sign for Del Taco is staring back at him.
Hey, Brendon thinks, he's been to this one before. The bathroom isn't bad.
And then he mentally smacks himself in the forehead. He's only ten minutes from home. He doesn't need to get out of the car and jerk off in a Del Taco bathroom.
Brendon sits there for a moment, taking stock of the situation.
Home is so close, he tells his dick plaintively.
But Del Taco is even closer, his dick replies.
The warm throb in his arm agrees with his dick. Of course.
Brendon sighs and unbuckles his seat belt.
He knows this is completely fucking ridiculous, but it's the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday and there aren't that many people around. He checks over his shoulder as he climbs out of his car and walks briskly towards the side door, trying to play it like he's in a hurry to get some food and not like he's in a hurry to deal with the emergency in his pants.
The bathroom is pretty much where he remembered it being, and he deliberately walks slowly towards it.
He pushes through the door and looks around to make sure he's alone. It turns out the bathroom isn't quite as nice as he remembered, with its weird yellowish fluorescent lights and dingy tiled walls, but at least he's got it to himself.
He breathes out heavily. It's not quite a sigh of relief; he's not there yet.
There's only one little stall, just beyond the pair of urinals. Brendon dashes for it and closes the door behind him, his hand lingering on the wobbly lock as he steadies himself. But then his arm throbs once, twice, and he grip the lock tightly as he slides it firmly closed.
He pulls his belt open and pops the button on his jeans, and opens his fly even as he's sliding his jeans down his hips. The relief he feels when the pressure lifts off his dick hits him in an intense rush.
He turns the rest of the way to face the toilet. He really hopes nobody comes in and sees his feet and judges him for peeing in a stall, but he figures that if they assume he's peeing then he's really coming out ahead.
That's what she said! he thinks to himself, and even though it doesn't actually make sense he laughs a little as he eases his underwear over his dick and finally gets to touch himself properly.
Normally he jerks off with his right hand, but today... it's his left arm that's warm and sore, his left arm that's throbbing gently with his heartbeat and pulsing pain through his nerves. He's totally going to use his left hand.
The first touch of his fingers to his dick is almost enough to make his knees go weak, but he catches himself and holds himself up deliberately tall. Sure, it's embarrassing to be jerking off in the bathroom of a Del Taco, but he wouldn't be doing it if it weren't a matter of life or death.
It's awkward at first, getting the hang of using the wrong hand, but the way it feels with the tendons and muscles pulling at the sensitive skin of the fresh tattoo, fuck, it's good, like there's a direct current between his arm and his dick.
A few more strokes and he settles into a good rhythm, one that gets his face hot and breath coming faster. All of a sudden he's glad he didn't try to make it home; patience is over-rated and this feels awesome. He keeps going, just enjoying the feel of it, the way each bend of his elbow shoots a new tiny flare of pain up his arm to warm the pit of his stomach.
When he rotates his arm just so it brings back a flood of remembered sensation: the way he had his arm bent away from his body, the lingering memory of the press of the artist's hand near his elbow, the needles' steady hum as they left bright sharp lines behind, and the buzzing feel of it, over and over and over, building the pain from mere scratches on his skin to something that filled his whole body. His stomach flips over and he has to press a hand to the side of the stall to help hold himself up as his whole body starts flashing over-warm and he can feel his back getting sweaty.
And then he freezes when as he hears footsteps just outside the door to the bathroom. The footsteps stop and Brendon holds his breath as he waits for the door to open. Time hangs still for a moment as he waits, his heart beating faster even as his breath catches in this throat and his face flushes as hot as his arm.
But he doesn't stop stroking himself even as he tries to keep the door from opening with the power of his mind.
Somehow it must have worked because he hears a different door opening and the footsteps going somewhere else, and he huffs out a big breath and tries to get back to where he was before he was interrupted.
But the mood has changed, just somehow gone a little off in the last ten seconds, and Brendon bites his lip as he looks down at his hand wrapped around his dick and starts tugging at it in earnest, trying to get things wrapped up so he can get out of here.
Hurry up hurry up hurry up, he thinks at his dick.
He can't say he was expecting an answer, but it twitches in his palm like it's agreeing. He closes his fist around the head and squeezes, then rubs his thumb through the pre-come that's started pooling. That's enough to make his legs start tensing up and he knows that sign all too well.
He starts jerking himself faster, a little rougher than before, squeezing tight and revelling in the friction. It feels good, really good, fucking great as he presses it to the ridge of the head at the bottom of his dick and he can feel his balls starting to pull up.
All the waiting and anticipation pushed him close before he even really did anything, and now all it takes is one last good tug on his dick and then he's coming, one hand braced on the stall wall to hold him up as his legs threaten to give out under him.
He sucks in deep breaths and stares blankly at the red-and-yellow tiled wall in front of him as he waits for the world to settle around him again. He feels dumb and heavy and slow, but fuck does he ever feel satisfied.
Some time passes--not enough for his liking, but he's starting to get really self-conscious just standing there doing nothing--and then he wipes off perfunctorily, does his pants back up, and steps out of the stall.
He startles when the bathroom door swings open as he's washing his hands and somehow manages to spray water onto the front of his shirt. He ignores it in favour of glancing over his shoulder but the guy isn't paying him any attention, just taking his stance in front of the urinal and unzipping.
Brendon shakes his head at himself and turns off the taps, drying his hands on his jeans as he looks at himself in the mirror. It's not that obvious what he was just doing, he decides, and if he looks a little pink, maybe it'll pass for a sunburn. He nods at the mirror and his reflection nods back at him.
Leaving the bathroom feels sort of like leaving a crime scene or like he's sneaking out in the middle of the night, but also like he's leaving this whole sordid undertaking behind, which is a very good thing.
He stops when he gets back out into the restaurant and looks up at the counter consideringly. Now that he's not in a hurry anymore he may as well get a burrito, seeing as he's here already and everything. Maybe he'll get one for Spencer too, and just not say anything about why he decided it was a good time for burritos. The less said about it the better, really. He just wants to put this all behind him and never think of it again, ever.
Or at least, not until the next time.