Me Again
I guess that I will continue to spam the comm as everyone else seems to be busy with real life. This was intended to be short and fluffy, well, that didn’t work out well. Also, I am not very good at writing Keith, so my apologies if he is a little OOC.
Title: Sometimes You Call My Name
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: John/Keith
Time Period: 1977-78ish
Warnings: SEX! Also, probably way too excessive amounts of angst.
Disclaimer: Okay, okay, you got me. This is all made up and I don’t make money off of any of it.
Summary: John is good at keeping secrets. Too good, in fact, for anybody’s good.
John never knew when the call would come. Sometimes he was at home in London. Sometimes he was away in Quarwood, fast asleep next to Alison. Sometimes he was out on the road, passed out in a hotel room after a long night of clubs and bars and parties with some girl whose name he was sure he could remember if he thought about it awhile.
It didn’t matter where or when it was. When the shrill ring of the telephone would startle him awake at two or four or even ten in the morning, he would come wide awake, knowing who was calling and why.
* * *
The harsh noise shatters the uneasy hallucination of my dreams and I sit up in bed, the thunder of my heart jerking me towards consciousness before my brain can register what is happening. By the second ring, I am fully awake. God, I think, I didn’t even know he was in England. I am not quite sure when my world had narrowed down to just one he. Hell, is it even fucking worth it to wonder about it any more?
I press the cool plastic handset to my ear and stare out the grimy window. Dawn is just breaking, a tinge of gold lights the horizon, making me feel impossibly tired.
“Hello?” The sleep roughed timbre of my voice startles even me as it breaks the early morning silence. I hear Alison stir in the big bed behind me, an indistinct mumble asking who is on the phone. I ignore her and watch a pair of mourning doves, sitting on a wire, silhouetted against the brightening sky.
“Ah, my dear boy,” your false joviality seems to fall apart under its own weight before it ever gets its feet under it, the affected accent breaking into a working class stammer in seconds. “It’s just that…I’ve had that dream again...”
“Where?” I ask simply, just as I always do and I hear that quick intake of breath on the other end of the line, surprise and relief sparking along the wire that cuts through the distance between the two of us.
“There is this place on Middleton road…” the voice is tight and so unlike its normal light hearted self.
“I know it,” I cut you off, quickly. “I can be there in ten.”
* * *
Their meetings were never the same.
Sometimes they would make love, silently and achingly slow. Face to face on a creaking bed in some crummy motel, John would murmur soothing nonsense in Keith’s ear while the other man laid there, one arm cast over his eyes. His limp body would shift rhythmically in time with John’s thrusts and he would cry as he came, great gasping sobs that seemed as though they would rend his fragile body in two. Sometimes he would call John’s name and sometimes he would call Neil’s name, but whatever he said, John would pretend not to hear as he would steal the words away from him with a kiss.
Sometimes they would sit together in a grimy doorway and watch the rain wash the city, the night people hurrying along their way. Keith would hold his hand, so tightly that a deep-seated ache built up behind his knuckles and then ran up his arm. John never dared to say anything because Keith was watching the rain and the night people and the lights moving hypnotically in the jagged puddles between the cobblestones with a desperation that bordered on despair. John always thought that if he only breathed wrong, then whatever force was holding the drummer together would disintegrate and he would go flying off into a million smoldering embers. He would instead concentrate on the feeling of a single drop of rain tracing down the side of his nose.
Sometimes they would sit in a small café, both of them nursing hangovers over cups of black, lukewarm coffee. Something about their rapport would keep the autograph seekers away and the other morning diners would do no more than sneak sidelong glances at the two rock stars. John would watch Keith’s hand tremble as he reached for the sugar. He would open his mouth to say something, a word of warning, a word of pleading, but feeling the blood pounding through his temples, he would slowly close his mouth again and bow his head over the coffee.
Sometimes John would sit quietly on the sofa while Keith raged through his house, methodically destroying bottles in a destructive fit of artistic rage that would have made Pete proud. Keith would finally collapse at John’s feet and he would turn his eyes up to the silent man, eyes that impossibly maintained their heartbreaking innocence even set in a face ravished by the worst hedonistic excesses a creative and passionate man could think of. “How can I be anything other than what they demand me to be?” he would ask, a plaintive note trembling in his voice. John could only shake his head, unable to answer.
* * *
But on this night we lie together in a tangle of hastily removed clothing and slightly threadbare sheets. I cradle you in my arms, my lips pressing against the hair of the man I would always think of as that irrepressible boy of my memory. I know that we are no longer young. I feel it in my bones when I wake up. I am 34 years old and I feel nearer to one hundred, running on leftover inertia from the days when I actually had purpose and vitality in my life. When I wasn’t just going through the motions of something that had been repeated so often it had lost all meaning.
I run a hand along your side and watch the short, fine hairs on your hip rise under my touch. The curve of your belly is new, a thick beard now covers the lines around your mouth, and there is grey underneath the black hair dye we both use. But your eyes are the same, the eyes that I believe are the only reason you ever get away with anything. At least if they can drag others into their chocolate depths and drown them the way they do to me. I can’t look in those eyes and tell you no, I can’t say we should turn in early tonight and stick to it.
You turn in my arms, rearranging our bodies until we face each other. I watch your face, normally so expressive, as you gaze back at me. Tonight your expression is shuttered and only the slight downturn of your mouth betrays your mood. I can feel your heart against my chest and the effect of the two heartbeats intertwined makes me imagine that they are stuttering, on the edge of stopping altogether. We are killing each other and there isn’t a damned thing anyone can do about it. I want to moan, but for your sake, I stop myself.
You lift your face towards me, a simple and honest invitation and I kiss you. Your mouth is hot and slightly desperate and you cling to me through the kiss. I can feel your taut fingers digging into my shoulders. You plunge your tongue deeper into my mouth and I become aware of something beginning to stir in my groin. We shift positions again and you end up straddling me, your knees gripping my hips and our chests pressed tightly together. Now you are the one moaning into my mouth. I relish the taste of you, the feel of your eyelashes brushing against my cheek and I push back into the kiss roughly. You break away and rest your forehead briefly against mine. “Oh, Johnny, I don’t know if I can…”
I don’t wait for whatever you are going to say. “Hush now,” I interrupt and I rub my hands along your sides. You arch into my touch and then bend down to slowly kiss my chest, my nipples, working your way carefully downward, your fingers tangled in the path of dark curly hair that leads from my navel to my groin.
Your mouth trails fire down my body. You linger over every inch with a maddening patience you never display in the rest of your life and I writhe helplessly beneath you. As you finally take me into your mouth, the wet heat of you almost overwhelms me and I clutch at the sheets with both hands, my teeth gritted. Your hand moves lower, gently caressing my balls before pushing between my arse cheeks. The rough friction becomes heat which merges with the heat of your mouth and I thrust helplessly deeper into your throat.
“Ah, Keith…It’s been so long, I can’t…I don’t know if I can hold on…” I babble powerlessly. In response you seal your tongue to the underside of the head of my cock and the power of the suction leaves me breathless.
You groan and the vibrations run up and down my spine like spiders. I watch as you relax to take me all the way in, my cock disappearing into your mouth. You suck harder and I can no longer hold myself back, fucking your mouth with abandon.
You pause to slick one finger with saliva before again swallowing me whole. You press against my entrance. I push back against you and the moment you slid that slender finger inside me, I feel lightning race from my groin to my brain and burst into blackness behind my eyes.
I make a choked noise that might be your name and thrust into your mouth one last time. Now there is no holding back and my orgasm takes me like a rushing, dark wave as I pour myself out into the back of your throat. You hungrily swallow every last drop of me as I fall into a warm contentment that I know is as brief as the moment of climax.
I drift aimlessly for awhile but, all too soon, you are poking and prodding at me to turn over. I muffle a groan of protest and flip onto my stomach. You cover my body with your own and I delight in the weigh of you even as your beard tickles against my ear.
“I want to fuck you, Johnny,” you whisper and your voice sends a shiver through my body.
I turn my head so that we are face to face and all I can see are the warm brown pools of your eyes. “Well, why don’t you then?” I reply, my voice husky and low.
I can feel the rigid length of your erection pressed insistently against the small of my back and at my words you buck involuntarily and seize my mouth with your own. The kiss is rough and careless, our teeth bump and you hiss and pull away as your cock rubs against my cleft.
You don’t give me time to dispute your absence. Your hands are on my arse, parting me and almost instantly, surprisingly, I am hard again when you run your tongue from the base of my balls up to my back. I moan shamelessly and push back against you. You probe at me with your clever tongue and I gasp as the sensation sends pulses of pleasure through me.
Soon one finger joins your tongue and then two, working me with agonizing patience.
“Keith…Keith, oh, God, Keith…I can’t. I need more, please.” I can’t take your tantalizing touch any longer without having more.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you…”
“Just fuckin’ fuck me already,” I growl into the pillow.
I can feel your laughter more than hear it as the tip of your slick cock pushes insistently against my entrance. You thrust into me with a long, clean stroke and the breath leaves my body in a great rush.
“John…”
“Move, I can’t bear it…more.”
You pull out slightly and reenter at a slightly different angle.
“There?”
“Oh, bloody hell, yes. Right there.”
You pick out a rhythm and maintain it, with each thrust pushing a little deeper until I feel as if I will be split in two by the force of your fervor. My heartbeat merges with your thrusts and the blood roars in my ears. Our sweat slicked bodies move together and it is the small, bright moments that sear themselves into my mind, the feel of your callused hands lightly guiding my hips closer to you, your lips breathing sweet obscenities into the nape of my neck, the musky, smoky smell of you.
“Oh, John, you feel so good.” There is a hitch in your voice as your pace falters and then resumes, slower, sweeter and more thorough. “I need you so much.”
The feel of your cock, buried deep inside of me, hitting that sweet, sweet spot relentlessly is almost too much. “Oh, Moonie…ah, fuck,” I gasp into the pillow.
“John..”
“Come for me, Keith.”
You give one last great push and friction of the sheets on my cock is almost painful in its intensity. You collapse onto my back as you come, shaking, buried inside of me. As your warmth covers me and fills me, my second orgasm takes me almost by surprise, slower and deeper this time. Something uncoils in my chest as my body wrings the last of my pleasure from me and I inhale sharply, clutching for your hands.
Moments pass and I can feel your cock become still inside of me before you roll away. We both gasp at the parting and I turn over to my back to fill the cold sense of emptiness you leave behind. I savor the remnants of feeling that remain in the slight lingering soreness and the exhaustion that makes my eyelids heavy.
We lie next to each other as the sweat dries and our breathing quiets. I stare up at the ceiling, tracing the peeling paint with my eyes, not daring to move in case I shatter the small measure of peace that exists in this instant.
Finally you stir, but it is only to nestle into the space between my arm and side. I close my eyes against the wrenching feeling of how perfectly you fit there and clench my teeth.
“John,” your voice is small and hesitant. “I…I worry about the little ones.”
“Mandy will be fine, Keith,” I sigh, unprepared to deal with the topic. You are unpredictable always, but especially in this mood.
“Not just Mandy. But yours and Roger’s and Pete’s. What will happen to them while we’re gone?” you say, your voice rising higher as you speak, until the underlying franticness is plain.
I pull you closer to me and you seem to relax slightly. “God, Keith, you know what a mess we are. The kids are better off without us screwing them up anyway.”
“Well, that is true enough,” you laugh a bit breathlessly against me. “What would I do without you, ol’ buddy?” I can hear your normal self starting to creep back into your voice. “You always know what to do to make me feel better.”
* * *
We never speak of our meetings afterward. We go back to our wives, our girlfriends, our lovers and never once mention those nights, those brief moments of shared desperation and devotion. Out there, back in the real world, you are the wild man, I am the quiet one and if we hold each other’s glance a heartbeat too long on stage, if Pete catches me gazing at you a bit too tenderly as you sleep on my lap, we simply shrug the moment off and go on pretending. Occasionally, when I see you with some girls or passed out on some dirty floor, it is more than I can bear. I want to grab you and shake you and scream, Stop doing this to me! But there is nothing I could ever do if it had even the slightest chance of taking away those stolen moments alone and so I bite my tongue and turn away. Perhaps I have turned away once too often.
* * *
John didn’t know when the call would come. He would pick up the ringing phone and he would only be able to hear silence on the other end, the silence of someone who couldn’t find the courage to break the indeterminate pause. Finally, Pete’s voice would come, high and broken, “John…”
* * *
“Oh, God,” I whisper and hit the wall, my body boneless as I slide down to land in a crumpled heap on the floor.
“I’m so, so sorry,” Pete sounds like he is talking through thick cotton and my fingers twitch reflexively around the receiver. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. This is only a nightmare. I can’t seem to make myself grasp the meaning of the words Pete says though the roaring in my head, but I can hear his pity and it makes me defensive.
“I should have…”I start and then I trail off, unable to trivialize the weight of my guilt by breaking it up into shallow specifics.
Pete is angry under the pity, helpless to keep from channeling his emotions into anger as always, “There wasn’t a damn thing you could have done and you know it.”
I shake my head but can’t seem to muster up any words.
“Look, Roger is coming over…if you would like, well, if you would like some…company,” Pete at a loss for words is a rare occasion but I cannot enjoy it
I force a carefully neutrality into my voice through the emotions that threaten to choke it off, “Thanks, Pete. But I would really rather…be alone right now, I guess.”
“Sure, sure, whatever. Whatever you need, John.”
* * *
Their meetings were never the same.
Sometimes John would sit alone on the floor in the bathroom of a deathly still hotel room, the only sign of disarray a set of rumpled sheets and a cast off comforter, next to a forlorn, intact toilet. He would clutch a photograph of a wide eyed boy in a bull’s eye jumper and, arms clutched around himself, silently rock back and forth and wait for the tears to come. And when they did come, he feared that they would never stop.
“Keith…Keith, oh, God, Keith.”