The little AU: Summer Flights: Drifting
The little AU: Summer Flights: Drifting
slashfairy
~~
Water seems, somehow, terribly relevant.
Maybe it's that he's been outside working all day, digging up ground to put in a garden. Dust and dirt everywhere, the fine sandy-brown dirt of land near the ocean, in his hair, the creases in his skin, in his boots.
Maybe it's that he's gone through an entire thermos-worth of maté, AND a bottle of water as well (they re-use bottles now: Orlando's gone green on that, too, so they each have their own fancy water bottle to fill and carry. Makes sense, really; he can remember when, if you wanted to bring water with you, you wrapped a glass jar in a towel, or brought it in a Coleman thermos jug- but that's wandering, isn't it? rambling. He does more of that every day, it seems) or that he's had to dust himself off when he goes in to pee, or that he can hear the ocean from the yard as he works, but water just seems to be the theme of this dusty digging day.
"You're tracking in sand," Karl says, coming up behind him, dusting him off. "How the hell'd you get this stuff on your shoulders?"
"Dog startled me. Tossed a shovel-full right up in the air, came down on my head."
Karl laughs like he hasn't laughed in months.
"What?"
"Oh. Just that finally we're all here together for the first time in ages, and you contrive to be the one who's needing a bath. Clever, you."
"Old dog, old tricks," Viggo says, laughing too.
He sheds his dusty dirty clothes out on the deck; it's one thing to track in a little sand after a walk on the beach with the dogs, but this is the kind that gets ground into the floorboards and finds its way into the bed in the most annoying fashion. Might as well leave most of it out here.
"Orlando's filling the tub," Karl says. Orlando, who can use a bath himself, having gotten greasy when he and Karl were working on their bikes earlier in the day.
It's such a luxury, this, three of them together in the house at the end of the bluff road. The shower, large enough for three; the tankless hot water heater Karl's just put in this summer giving as much hot water as they need- "the unending shower" Orlando calls it. Though they're more careful this year about water: part of digging up the yard is to put in drip irrigation, and to xeriscape- the lawn's gone, victim of sand, Bermuda grass, and dogs. Viggo sighs happily as the hot water hits his back, feeling the difference between dry and wet, dusty and clean, change as he turns under the stream until he's wet completely.
It's not until after, though, after he's washed it off (and had his back scrubbed by Karl, and scrubbed Orlando's back, who scrubs Karl's, and there it is again, the luxury of being together to wash each other) and is easing himself into the big hot tub that he really, truly registers how sensual water is.
Orlando's already in, arms stretched out on either side of him, as he lets his feet float up, his toes breaking the surface. Viggo looks, really looks at how the water moves, runs off his toes and down the soles of his feet as Orlando lifts first one, then the other, out of the water, and how, as he lets his feet sink under again, the water closes over them like a secret.
Karl's just climbing in, one leg slung over the side, the other tensing as he pushes off the floor to shift his weight forward, and Viggo sees how his skin shifts and moves under the sheen of wetness that coats him, and how the water drips from his foot onto the slats of the floor as he lifts himself in, and how he slides into it, eases into the depth of it all the way to his neck, letting himself be in the water, in the heat of it, in its completeness. "Best thing I did for this house," Karl says, when he finally settles on one of the seats.
Viggo wants to dive in, like an otter, like a dolphin, slide in sleek and supple; arc out of the water in his own spray only to have it part around him as he knifes back into it. He contents himself with noticing how it feels, how his skin adjusts from cool-wet to hot-wet as he slips in. How his thighs sense it differently on the insides than the outsides; how his balls and cock float up as he lowers himself to sitting. How he pauses before lifting water in his hands to pour down his chest, over his collarbones and breastbone and nipples, how the water joins itself again, how his body joins itself again, warm from toes to shoulders.
There is wine, a Chilean red. There are candles, and there is music- Ravel's Bolero, oddly (or not so- as liquid a piece as anything with brass and drums can be), and here are his lovers, and here is water, surrounding them, their own sea, their own world.
previously: Mind
next: Clearing
slashfairy
~~
Water seems, somehow, terribly relevant.
Maybe it's that he's been outside working all day, digging up ground to put in a garden. Dust and dirt everywhere, the fine sandy-brown dirt of land near the ocean, in his hair, the creases in his skin, in his boots.
Maybe it's that he's gone through an entire thermos-worth of maté, AND a bottle of water as well (they re-use bottles now: Orlando's gone green on that, too, so they each have their own fancy water bottle to fill and carry. Makes sense, really; he can remember when, if you wanted to bring water with you, you wrapped a glass jar in a towel, or brought it in a Coleman thermos jug- but that's wandering, isn't it? rambling. He does more of that every day, it seems) or that he's had to dust himself off when he goes in to pee, or that he can hear the ocean from the yard as he works, but water just seems to be the theme of this dusty digging day.
"You're tracking in sand," Karl says, coming up behind him, dusting him off. "How the hell'd you get this stuff on your shoulders?"
"Dog startled me. Tossed a shovel-full right up in the air, came down on my head."
Karl laughs like he hasn't laughed in months.
"What?"
"Oh. Just that finally we're all here together for the first time in ages, and you contrive to be the one who's needing a bath. Clever, you."
"Old dog, old tricks," Viggo says, laughing too.
He sheds his dusty dirty clothes out on the deck; it's one thing to track in a little sand after a walk on the beach with the dogs, but this is the kind that gets ground into the floorboards and finds its way into the bed in the most annoying fashion. Might as well leave most of it out here.
"Orlando's filling the tub," Karl says. Orlando, who can use a bath himself, having gotten greasy when he and Karl were working on their bikes earlier in the day.
It's such a luxury, this, three of them together in the house at the end of the bluff road. The shower, large enough for three; the tankless hot water heater Karl's just put in this summer giving as much hot water as they need- "the unending shower" Orlando calls it. Though they're more careful this year about water: part of digging up the yard is to put in drip irrigation, and to xeriscape- the lawn's gone, victim of sand, Bermuda grass, and dogs. Viggo sighs happily as the hot water hits his back, feeling the difference between dry and wet, dusty and clean, change as he turns under the stream until he's wet completely.
It's not until after, though, after he's washed it off (and had his back scrubbed by Karl, and scrubbed Orlando's back, who scrubs Karl's, and there it is again, the luxury of being together to wash each other) and is easing himself into the big hot tub that he really, truly registers how sensual water is.
Orlando's already in, arms stretched out on either side of him, as he lets his feet float up, his toes breaking the surface. Viggo looks, really looks at how the water moves, runs off his toes and down the soles of his feet as Orlando lifts first one, then the other, out of the water, and how, as he lets his feet sink under again, the water closes over them like a secret.
Karl's just climbing in, one leg slung over the side, the other tensing as he pushes off the floor to shift his weight forward, and Viggo sees how his skin shifts and moves under the sheen of wetness that coats him, and how the water drips from his foot onto the slats of the floor as he lifts himself in, and how he slides into it, eases into the depth of it all the way to his neck, letting himself be in the water, in the heat of it, in its completeness. "Best thing I did for this house," Karl says, when he finally settles on one of the seats.
Viggo wants to dive in, like an otter, like a dolphin, slide in sleek and supple; arc out of the water in his own spray only to have it part around him as he knifes back into it. He contents himself with noticing how it feels, how his skin adjusts from cool-wet to hot-wet as he slips in. How his thighs sense it differently on the insides than the outsides; how his balls and cock float up as he lowers himself to sitting. How he pauses before lifting water in his hands to pour down his chest, over his collarbones and breastbone and nipples, how the water joins itself again, how his body joins itself again, warm from toes to shoulders.
There is wine, a Chilean red. There are candles, and there is music- Ravel's Bolero, oddly (or not so- as liquid a piece as anything with brass and drums can be), and here are his lovers, and here is water, surrounding them, their own sea, their own world.
previously: Mind
next: Clearing