Return of the Ficlets
Just a few more AI RPF ficlets to post to wrap up everything I wrote for the HAWC donation drive. This is the Not Kradam post, and tomorrow (or possibly later today) will be the All Kradam post. (If you're linked to this post directly and want to see it with the cut tags intact, click here.)
Disclaimer: No disrespect intended to any of the persons depicted herein, who I hope are all living happy and fulfilled lives with their partner(s) of choice. This is purely fictional, and not in any way intended as an accurate representation of reality.
David Cook/David Archuleta. 1907 words. PG. For ssdimes.
Joyful and Triumphant
Prompt: Cookleta first kiss, preferably recent and not during Idol
It's not that David plays the album all the time, not that much more than any of his other new ones or his old favorites, but 'tis the season and all, and he actually has a not-entirely-secret fondness for Christmas music. Even the cheesy stuff they play a hundred times a day on the radio. Sure, some of it brings back memories that make him tear up a little, but in the good way, memories of Christmases past that he'll always carry with him.
So okay, he plays it fairly regularly. It's one part Christmas cheer and two parts nostalgia, only it feels like ninety percent cheer because it's Archie and somehow he just makes that happen
Silent Night
There's no concert tonight. David feels like a real ass about it, but it's out of his hands and all he can do is apologize and move on. It sucks that it's the last show of the tour though, makes him feel like they went out with a whimper instead of a bang.
He slaps his headphones on and scrolls through to Archie's album and closes his eyes, and wonders just where he is right now and what he's doing. He has a show tonight, David thinks, on the other side of the country. He wonders how that's going. He wonders if it's even started yet.
The music is mellowing him out, though, and he doesn't feel motivated enough to lift his wrist and check, not until the song finishes playing through, and by that point instead of checking the time he just sends a text message for Archie to have a great show.
After all, someone should.
Melodies of Christmas
He hears the album while he's shopping, of all times. Which makes complete sense, it's Christmas and Archie recorded a CD of Christmas music, but David thinks of it as something that he hears privately, not publicly. He actually stops and listens for a while, his hands half caressing the soft sleeve of a sweater just to keep them busy until he realizes what he's doing and lets it go.
What he's really in New York for is to record, so his shopping is more rushed than he'd like, but he manages to do most of it in that one store just so he can listen to the album most of the way through. Even though he has it on his iPod, and his computer, and has a copy of the physical CD packed away somewhere too. It's not the same thing.
When he goes back into the studio in the afternoon he's definitely got Archie on the brain, and if a song starts to emerge that is, at its heart, about evolution, he knows it's not actually about his career or about Kim or some combination of the two, no matter what anyone else thinks.
What Child Is This?
Really, the only thing worse than being sick over your birthday was being sick over your birthday and Christmas. Giving himself the excuse that he wasn't going to get better if he didn't take some time to himself (and really, thank God for that span of time between his birthday and New Year's when he had no obligations to anyone but his family), David made himself some tea and curled up under a blanket and let himself be a little miserable for a while.
He did manage to turn the television on at one point, to catch Archie on Regis and Kelly. He didn't remember much about it other than the fact that it happened, too early in the morning and his head muddled with flu, but he was pretty sure Archie looked good.
Then again, that might've just been his imagination. In his imagination, Archie always looked pretty damn good.
He put Archie's CD on after that and let it play him back to some much-needed sleep.
I'll Be Home For Christmas
He's happily recovered by the time Christmas actually rolls around, or as recovered as he could hope to be, but with everyone else in the same state of post-flu exhaustion-excitement too it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. David feels lucky he gets to spend this time with them relatively uninterrupted, because if there's one thing the past couple of years have taught him it's how much he values his family.
Not that that was a lesson he ever needed to learn in the first place.
He's not even the one who put Archie's CD on; he's not sure who did that, but he certainly has no complaints about it. He hasn't seen him in too long, but suddenly it's a little bit like he's right there with them. And what better time to have him around than actually on Christmas?
"Aren't you going to open that one?"
David looks at the silver-wrapped gift in front of him and shakes his head. "No, I'm saving this one for later."
"Ahhh, something you're too embarrassed to open in front of the family? Not kid-friendly, is it?"
He laughs at the idea of Archie sending him something that wouldn't be appropriate to open in front of his family. "I'm just saving it," he says. "I want to have something for later."
It won't be inappropriate, no, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want it to be private. The gift he'd sent Archie was a little personal - innocent, but personal - and he suspects this one might be too.
"If you're not going to open it, does that mean we get to eat now?"
"I guess it does," he says, and tucks the still-wrapped present in with the rest of his things, not to avoid temptation but to avoid more questions. It doesn't even really matter what it is, he just wants to be able to take a moment where he doesn't have to worry about anyone else and feel that connection with him again.
O Come All Ye Faithful
New Year's is a big deal. Hell, the days leading up to New Year's are a big deal. He flies back to Cali a few days early and heads almost straight into rehearsal for the New Year's shows, barely recovered from the flu and Christmas (not necessarily in that order).
It's great to see the guys again and get back into the rhythm of things, even if just for a couple of shows. He's heading off to do some more writing and recording right after - not that he hasn't been doing some writing all along - but for these couple of nights they're back in performance mode again.
It feels good. It feels right. Right up until the stroke of midnight.
There's something that's just so telling, about not having someone to kiss at midnight. In years when you don't care, you know you're happy being single. In years when you do, you know you're ready to have someone in your life. In years when you have someone particular in mind...well, David's never actually had one of those before.
He'd say he doesn't know what it means, but it's pretty hard not to get the message.
He fades into the shadows and pulls out his phone and he's dialing before he knows it, and it's earlier in Texas so he knows Archie's not going to be too busy to take his call.
"Happy New Year!" he says, and Archie laughs. "Okay, so it's a little early."
"Not for you," says Archie. "Happy New Year!"
"I just wanted to...I was thinking about you."
"Yeah, I've been thinking about you too," says Archie. "It's weird, huh? A whole 'nother year."
"I mean," says David, and maybe he should quit while he's ahead but his mouth doesn't get the message. "I wish you were here. We'd be having a great time."
"You'd probably be trying to give me champagne or something," laughs Archie, "thinking that nobody would notice."
"Yeah, maybe," he admits, mostly because he thinks Archie would find it endearing. "I just wish you were here."
"Oh," says Archie, and that's when the awkward silence comes, that lingers on unbearably.
"Well, I should go," he says. "Um. Since we're doing a show and everything."
"Yeah, okay," says Archie. "Happy New Year, David."
"Happy New Year," he says again, softly, and when he hangs up the phone he feels lonelier than when he started.
Joy To The World
The last thing he expects is a knock on the door of his hotel room in Vancouver, a city in which he doesn't really know anyone except the people he's working with. And he knows he didn't order room service.
No, the last thing he expects is to find Archie on the other side of the door.
"Hi," he says, at the same time Archie says, "So," and they leave it at that as David lets him into the room. It's not even really a decision; whatever he's here about, they're not going to do it in the hallway.
"So New Year's was awkward," says Archie, and bites his lip and lingers near the door.
New Year's was awkward, but there wasn't any need for Archie to fly to another country to tell him that. There wasn't really much need to talk about it at all, if they didn't want to. They could've just let it go.
"I know," he says. "It was a weird night. I was going to call you when I finished up here."
"It would've been awkward again, on the phone," says Archie, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looks good, he looks older than David remembers. He looks solid. "We can't do this on the phone."
"I just meant to wish you a Happy New Year," said David, reaching his arm up and scratching the back of his neck. "The rest was just verbal diarrhea. It was late and I was high from the show, and--"
He might've kept talking, but Archie grabs a fistful of his shirt and tugs him in closer and then they're kissing. Kissing like David thought about them kissing, days ago at midnight - like there's no one and nothing else in the world.
"Less awkward now," says Archie afterwards, though David isn't sure he agrees. "We were just going to go around in circles on the phone because we could never get that that point without being in person."
He's been an adult, technically, for a while now, but suddenly he's an adult now in all the important ways. When Archie knows better than David just what is going on and how to get what they need, that's when David really knows they've reached the point where there's not enough difference between them anymore to be a dealbreaker.
"So you decided you had to come up here to make that happen?" he says.
Archie shrugs. "One of us had to," he says, "and I figured it had to be me. So we're going to do that again now, right? Because I didn't come all this way for just one kiss."
David laughs and makes sure the door is securely latched. "I think it's safe to say," he says, "that there are a lot of kisses in our future."
"And other things?"
"There's a lot of everything," says David. Maybe not right here and right now, but it's a new year, a new decade, and maybe it's time for a lot of things to finally change.
Megan/Matt. 1377 words. NC-17. For lovealwaysliana. Contains: pegging
Hot and Bothered
Prompt: Matt/Megan. Megan dares Matt to put on a blindfold and let her do anything she wants to him
Of course Megan knows he's hot for her. Everyone's hot for Megan, except maybe Adam. Maybe. And possibly Lil, but Matt isn't even a hundred percent certain of that one. Megan's like the perfect woman, beautiful and smart and funny, a complete bombshell when she wants to be and one of the guys when she wants that. Actually, she's both at the same time, which is kind of amazing.
So yeah, Matt's hot for Megan, but apparently she's at least a little bit into him, too. Unless he's completely misinterpreted this latest game of theirs (a drinking game, of course, but they're so early into it that Matt doesn't even feel buzzed yet let alone drunk), but you don't make up games involving liquor and dares for just two people unless you're going to get kinky about it, right?
"Put this on," she says, holding the red and black scarf in one hand as she licks tequila off the fingers of the other. "Over your eyes. And then let me do whatever I want to you."
"Like a blindfold?"
"I dare you," she says, and that's part of the game right there. Matt can refuse, but there'll be consequences. And that's assuming he wants to refuse, which his dick really doesn't.
"Okay, but we need some ground rules."
"If there are ground rules, that means I can't do anything," she points out.
"Seriously," says Matt. "Like, nothing that'll make it hard for me to perform tomorrow. And if I ask, then it's over, right? You'll stop?"
"You need a safeword," says Megan, and that's when Matt really, really wonders what he's getting himself into here, because this is obviously going to be more than a swat on the ass. But he trusts her, and he's already so turned on. His dick is very sure it's going to get some action out of this. "Sparrow."
"Sparrow," agrees Matt; it's both unlikely to come up and not so ridiculous he'll have trouble saying it. "I say 'sparrow' and it's over."
"I'll stop whatever I'm doing," says Megan. "Though I really doubt you're going to want to do that. I'm not going to do anything you don't secretly want, Matt. Trust me."
He does, and he puts the blindfold on.
The first thing Megan does is strip his clothes off, piece by piece, not so slowly it's torturous and not so quickly that she's tearing them off him. He's not wearing so much that it takes very long, though, and it actually kills him a little that he can't see her expression as he stands naked in front of her, stripped down in all ways.
"Stay there," she says, and he's not sure where she thinks he's going to go, because the blindfold is tied so tightly he'd have to grope his way just to find the bed. He can't tell what she's doing, not just from the sounds, but at least he can tell that she's still there, that he's not the victim of a practical joke.
"Megan?"
"On your hands and knees," she says, and when he's slow to comply she gives him a little tap on the ass. "Trust me."
He slowly and carefully gets down on his hands and knees on the carpet. Then, as she pushes gently on his shoulders, he leans forward onto his elbows. His dick is hot and heavy between his legs, bobbing a little as he moves, and he wants to touch it but somehow he's pretty sure that's not part of the rules.
"Good," she says, and rubs her hands over his ass, all over, from his hips down to the crease before his thighs and everywhere in between.
"It's fabulous, I know, but there are other parts of me too," he says, and she laughs and slaps it gently and then reaches between his legs to fondle his balls, rolling them in her hand. "Yeah, like that one."
"Whatever I want," she reminds him as she pulls away again, "but I promise you're going to like it if you give it a chance."
That's a little ominous, but he doesn't even consider stopping her, or taking the blindfold off. Not even when her hand comes back, slick, sliding down between his cheeks. He's had girls finger him before, though they were usually going down on him at the time. And mostly they didn't bother with the lube, which he considers a nice touch.
But that's not fingers he feels pushing at him when he's all lubed up.
"Oh, hey, what?" he says, and reaches behind himself to grab her arm.
"You said anything," she reminds him, though she pauses where she is for just long enough to add, "You know how to stop me."
Matt pauses a moment himself, twisted awkwardly while still holding her arm, then as she pushes a little more insistently he lets go and leans forward onto his elbows and lets her take him. The fact that his dick stayed blindingly hard even when he first felt the nudge of the strap-on at his ass tells him everything he needs to know.
"Yeah, I thought so," she says, and rubs the small of his back with her hand as she nudges right inside him. She's not big, which is...somehow not surprising, and he laughs softly. His laughter just pushes it further inside. "Don't worry, I'll fuck you gently."
He can't help it, he laughs again, and she laughs too even as she does, even as she moves her hips, a little clumsily to begin with but soon finding a rhythm. It's weird at first, not bad just odd, then it starts to get really good.
"I'm no expert," he says, "but I think the polite thing to do is give me a reacharound."
"When I'm ready," she says, and instead leans in closer, adjusts the dildo with her hand to find a new angle, then starts running her hands all over him as she pushes it into him with short, sharp thrusts. "I think I’m getting this."
"You're definitely getting it," he says a little breathlessly, letting his forehead rest against the carpet. "That's good."
"I think I'm going to need to finger myself to get off like this," she says, casually like that, and wow does Matt get hard at that thought. Harder. Which is pretty impressive considering how hard he is already. "One hand for you and one hand for me."
And then her hand is finally wrapping around his cock, gripping it firmly before she starts to jerk it. From the way her body's moving behind him, her thrusts a little more erratic, he thinks she really is working her hand between her legs even as she keeps fucking him.
"Yeah," he says. Gasps, really, and is thankful the word is just one syllable because he isn't getting any more than that out. She keeps fucking him like that and jerking him like that and he can count the seconds until he comes from it. Five, four, three-- "Oh God," he gasps as he spills over her fingers, his legs shaking. It's kind of nice when it still manages to take him by surprise, even when he's counting.
She doesn't stop and it moves even easier now, his body completely pliant. It's almost too much but he's still not tempted to stop her, not unless it gets unbearable. It doesn't, and it's still well within the realm of pleasantly too much when her breath hitches and her fingers sink into his hip and he knows she's coming. He just wishes he could see her face.
She finally pulls out then, and Matt collapses onto the carpet, legs spread and cheek pressed against the soft pile. He feels like he stays there for a long time.
"No bird calls, hm?" says Megan in his ear, then tucks herself against his side and he can tell she's put the equipment away.
"There's only one bird I want to talk about right now," he says, lifting himself only enough to wrap an arm around her then collapsing face-down again.
She just laughs and slaps his ass and then, when he flinches, rubs it all better. And yeah, he's more hot for her now than ever.
Matt/Anoop. 1447 words. NC-17. For lovealwaysliana.
Get There Faster
Prompt: Matt/Anoop. Matt loves driving fast in a fast car. He picks Anoop up at the airport and drives so recklessly they nearly get in a wreck. Anoop is really mad so Matt attempts to comfort him with some sex right there in the car.
Anoop knows he's got some old fashioned ideas about relationships. And he knows that the whole boy-girl paradigm he grew up believing in doesn't necessarily apply to this thing he's doing with Matt, but he still doesn't think he's asking too much. He accepts that if they want to make it in the music business they're going to be traveling a lot, they're going to have a lot of time apart, but when they do have time he doesn't want to be traveling all over the country to see him. He just wants him to stay.
He goes, though. When the waiting gets to be too much and when he doesn't have to be somewhere else or meeting with someone else he goes, booking the first flight he can get on and flying to Michigan of all places, which is not a state Anoop would choose to spend a lot of time in if not for one particularly compelling draw.
They don't actually talk much in the car, not that Matt seems to notice. Anoop wouldn't say he's sullen, he's just...he wants Matt to get it. He wants Matt to get where he's coming from. Because he knows Matt's into him, and he knows Matt's into this, but it's like they're working from two different playbooks sometimes. Matt just turns the radio on and races them down the highway and he seems happy enough to see Anoop there. He doesn't even seem to notice that he's being distant.
Anoop reaches forward to change the station and bumps into Matt's hand as he does the same thing, and according to all of his instincts this is where they twine their fingers and hold hands or something, but somehow that's just not the game they're playing. Matt drives his knuckles into the back of Anoop's hand to assert his dominance and puts on the station he wants, and Anoop is torn again between what is appropriate for friends and what is appropriate for dating.
If they're actually dating.
"You're going to wreck your transmission," he says almost idly as Matt grinds around a corner on a stretch of open highway, but Matt's hardly even listening. Matt's into the grind, and Anoop's not even surprised. He likes power at his fingertips, and he loves this car, a rental that's worth more than either of them can afford, even now.
"Relax and enjoy the ride," says Matt, but Anoop's not actually that good at relaxing. Which Matt knows.
"I'd just like to arrive in one piece," he says, faking it. "I've got plans for us, you know."
"I've got plans for us too," says Matt, and jams his foot on the gas. "All the more reason to get there faster."
Anoop appreciates the sentiment, if not the methods, right up until Matt takes a corner too fast and skids on the loose gravel of the shoulder, fishtailing for a stomach-plummeting moment before he manages to pull over on the shoulder.
"Oh fuck you," says Anoop, his heart pounding so hard he can practically hear it. He feels breathless and dizzy and pissed off. "You could have fucking killed us."
"But I didn't," says Matt, both hands gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles are white. "You're okay right?"
Anoop thinks he's okay, but he takes a moment to check anyway, because his nerves are so shot right now he could have a gaping wound and not know it. But he's fine, he's okay. And so's Matt.
"I don't even know why I came," he says. "It was a stupid idea." Matt's hands are immediately in his hair, and pulling at his shirt a little, and Anoop is flustered enough to bat them away from him. "What are you doing?"
"Making sure you're okay," says Matt.
"I'm fine," says Anoop, though he finds himself gasping a little for breath as he says it. "Just pissed off and feeling stupid. Did you wreck the car? Are we stranded?"
"The car's fine," says Matt, tugging at his shirt again after Anoop pulls at his collar, undoing a couple of buttons. "Are you sure you are?"
He doesn't bat Matt's hands away this time, mostly because undoing the buttons actually feels like it helps with his breathing, and the way he feels hot all over. And partly because it's the first time Matt's really touched him since he got here.
"I'm fine," he says again, and forces himself to take a deep, shuddery breath. "You just almost crashed your car. I'm allowed to be a little uptight right now."
"Hey, I'm sorry," says Matt, slipping a hand under Anoop's shirt, and Anoop doesn't think that has anything to do with checking him for injuries. "I was just having some fun. I really do want you here, you know? I know you wish I was in LA."
"You should be in LA," says Anoop. "You need to be in LA."
"I'll get there," says Matt, and he might as well have said 'we'll get there', because that's what Anoop feels like he means. They might not be on exactly the same page right now, but they'll get there. "When the time's right."
"Better be right soon," says Anoop, as Matt undoes another button.
"I'm sorry," he says, palm grazing over Anoop's tight nipple and his still-racing heart. "I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you." Another button opens, and Anoop knows exactly what he means by that.
"It doesn't let you off the hook for driving like a maniac," he says, his breath catching. The next button that opens is the one on his pants. "You're not a fucking Nascar driver." And it doesn't let him off the hook for everything else either, but in a weird kind of a way, it's comforting that Matt knows what's going on with him. It fits with the kind of relationship he understands.
"It wasn't that bad," says Matt, and okay no, it wasn't. And maybe Anoop is more annoyed about other things, and fishtailing on loose gravel is just the icing on a cranky cake. "I'll make it better."
Anoop rests his hand on the back of Matt's head when he goes down, and only belatedly thinks to get the damn seatbelt out of their way, now that they're completely stationary on the side of the highway. It wasn't really deterring Matt anyway, who it's possible already has experience maneuvering around them. Anoop doesn't spend too much time thinking about that, especially when Matt's mouth closes over the head of his already-hard cock.
"You can't fix everything with blowjobs," he tries to say, but it comes out garbled and actually, Matt probably can fix most things with blowjobs, but Anoop doesn't want to give him any ideas. He'd just as soon have the blowjobs without the psychological trauma.
Matt doesn't try to answer, just shoves at Anoop's pants to get them out of the way as he continues to suck him down, making no pretense that this is about anything other than getting him off as fast and as hard as possible. Which is pretty much all the adrenaline pumping through Anoop's body wants to do anyway. He's already shaky and it's not just from what Matt's doing to him, though that doesn't hurt.
He grips Matt's hair a little more tightly, trying to get a hold on it, and fucks up into his mouth in spite of his best efforts to stay still. Matt hesitates for only a moment, adjusting, then he just goes with it and Anoop stops worrying so much. It's not like he can go deep and hard like this, though just thinking the words 'deep' and 'hard' make him push on the back of Matt's head a little harder, and Matt all but swallows him down.
He comes suddenly, in time with his pulse, the shock of orgasm hitting him hard in the groin and then radiating outward to his thighs as his heart continues to race. Matt pulls back, swallows, then coughs a little before moving in again to mouth Anoop clean, almost tenderly.
His heart finally begins to slow down.
"I really am sorry," says Matt as he fastens Anoop's pants again and begins to work on his shirt. "I just want to have a good time with you."
"I know," says Anoop, helping him with the last couple of buttons, their fingers tangling. "Now let's get out of here before we're arrested for indecency and end up on TMZ."
"Yeah," agrees Matt. "Though if we were, you'd make an amazing mug shot right now."
Anoop wants to scowl, but instead he just finds himself laughing. "Shut up and drive."
Disclaimer: No disrespect intended to any of the persons depicted herein, who I hope are all living happy and fulfilled lives with their partner(s) of choice. This is purely fictional, and not in any way intended as an accurate representation of reality.
David Cook/David Archuleta. 1907 words. PG. For ssdimes.
Joyful and Triumphant
Prompt: Cookleta first kiss, preferably recent and not during Idol
It's not that David plays the album all the time, not that much more than any of his other new ones or his old favorites, but 'tis the season and all, and he actually has a not-entirely-secret fondness for Christmas music. Even the cheesy stuff they play a hundred times a day on the radio. Sure, some of it brings back memories that make him tear up a little, but in the good way, memories of Christmases past that he'll always carry with him.
So okay, he plays it fairly regularly. It's one part Christmas cheer and two parts nostalgia, only it feels like ninety percent cheer because it's Archie and somehow he just makes that happen
Silent Night
There's no concert tonight. David feels like a real ass about it, but it's out of his hands and all he can do is apologize and move on. It sucks that it's the last show of the tour though, makes him feel like they went out with a whimper instead of a bang.
He slaps his headphones on and scrolls through to Archie's album and closes his eyes, and wonders just where he is right now and what he's doing. He has a show tonight, David thinks, on the other side of the country. He wonders how that's going. He wonders if it's even started yet.
The music is mellowing him out, though, and he doesn't feel motivated enough to lift his wrist and check, not until the song finishes playing through, and by that point instead of checking the time he just sends a text message for Archie to have a great show.
After all, someone should.
Melodies of Christmas
He hears the album while he's shopping, of all times. Which makes complete sense, it's Christmas and Archie recorded a CD of Christmas music, but David thinks of it as something that he hears privately, not publicly. He actually stops and listens for a while, his hands half caressing the soft sleeve of a sweater just to keep them busy until he realizes what he's doing and lets it go.
What he's really in New York for is to record, so his shopping is more rushed than he'd like, but he manages to do most of it in that one store just so he can listen to the album most of the way through. Even though he has it on his iPod, and his computer, and has a copy of the physical CD packed away somewhere too. It's not the same thing.
When he goes back into the studio in the afternoon he's definitely got Archie on the brain, and if a song starts to emerge that is, at its heart, about evolution, he knows it's not actually about his career or about Kim or some combination of the two, no matter what anyone else thinks.
What Child Is This?
Really, the only thing worse than being sick over your birthday was being sick over your birthday and Christmas. Giving himself the excuse that he wasn't going to get better if he didn't take some time to himself (and really, thank God for that span of time between his birthday and New Year's when he had no obligations to anyone but his family), David made himself some tea and curled up under a blanket and let himself be a little miserable for a while.
He did manage to turn the television on at one point, to catch Archie on Regis and Kelly. He didn't remember much about it other than the fact that it happened, too early in the morning and his head muddled with flu, but he was pretty sure Archie looked good.
Then again, that might've just been his imagination. In his imagination, Archie always looked pretty damn good.
He put Archie's CD on after that and let it play him back to some much-needed sleep.
I'll Be Home For Christmas
He's happily recovered by the time Christmas actually rolls around, or as recovered as he could hope to be, but with everyone else in the same state of post-flu exhaustion-excitement too it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. David feels lucky he gets to spend this time with them relatively uninterrupted, because if there's one thing the past couple of years have taught him it's how much he values his family.
Not that that was a lesson he ever needed to learn in the first place.
He's not even the one who put Archie's CD on; he's not sure who did that, but he certainly has no complaints about it. He hasn't seen him in too long, but suddenly it's a little bit like he's right there with them. And what better time to have him around than actually on Christmas?
"Aren't you going to open that one?"
David looks at the silver-wrapped gift in front of him and shakes his head. "No, I'm saving this one for later."
"Ahhh, something you're too embarrassed to open in front of the family? Not kid-friendly, is it?"
He laughs at the idea of Archie sending him something that wouldn't be appropriate to open in front of his family. "I'm just saving it," he says. "I want to have something for later."
It won't be inappropriate, no, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want it to be private. The gift he'd sent Archie was a little personal - innocent, but personal - and he suspects this one might be too.
"If you're not going to open it, does that mean we get to eat now?"
"I guess it does," he says, and tucks the still-wrapped present in with the rest of his things, not to avoid temptation but to avoid more questions. It doesn't even really matter what it is, he just wants to be able to take a moment where he doesn't have to worry about anyone else and feel that connection with him again.
O Come All Ye Faithful
New Year's is a big deal. Hell, the days leading up to New Year's are a big deal. He flies back to Cali a few days early and heads almost straight into rehearsal for the New Year's shows, barely recovered from the flu and Christmas (not necessarily in that order).
It's great to see the guys again and get back into the rhythm of things, even if just for a couple of shows. He's heading off to do some more writing and recording right after - not that he hasn't been doing some writing all along - but for these couple of nights they're back in performance mode again.
It feels good. It feels right. Right up until the stroke of midnight.
There's something that's just so telling, about not having someone to kiss at midnight. In years when you don't care, you know you're happy being single. In years when you do, you know you're ready to have someone in your life. In years when you have someone particular in mind...well, David's never actually had one of those before.
He'd say he doesn't know what it means, but it's pretty hard not to get the message.
He fades into the shadows and pulls out his phone and he's dialing before he knows it, and it's earlier in Texas so he knows Archie's not going to be too busy to take his call.
"Happy New Year!" he says, and Archie laughs. "Okay, so it's a little early."
"Not for you," says Archie. "Happy New Year!"
"I just wanted to...I was thinking about you."
"Yeah, I've been thinking about you too," says Archie. "It's weird, huh? A whole 'nother year."
"I mean," says David, and maybe he should quit while he's ahead but his mouth doesn't get the message. "I wish you were here. We'd be having a great time."
"You'd probably be trying to give me champagne or something," laughs Archie, "thinking that nobody would notice."
"Yeah, maybe," he admits, mostly because he thinks Archie would find it endearing. "I just wish you were here."
"Oh," says Archie, and that's when the awkward silence comes, that lingers on unbearably.
"Well, I should go," he says. "Um. Since we're doing a show and everything."
"Yeah, okay," says Archie. "Happy New Year, David."
"Happy New Year," he says again, softly, and when he hangs up the phone he feels lonelier than when he started.
Joy To The World
The last thing he expects is a knock on the door of his hotel room in Vancouver, a city in which he doesn't really know anyone except the people he's working with. And he knows he didn't order room service.
No, the last thing he expects is to find Archie on the other side of the door.
"Hi," he says, at the same time Archie says, "So," and they leave it at that as David lets him into the room. It's not even really a decision; whatever he's here about, they're not going to do it in the hallway.
"So New Year's was awkward," says Archie, and bites his lip and lingers near the door.
New Year's was awkward, but there wasn't any need for Archie to fly to another country to tell him that. There wasn't really much need to talk about it at all, if they didn't want to. They could've just let it go.
"I know," he says. "It was a weird night. I was going to call you when I finished up here."
"It would've been awkward again, on the phone," says Archie, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looks good, he looks older than David remembers. He looks solid. "We can't do this on the phone."
"I just meant to wish you a Happy New Year," said David, reaching his arm up and scratching the back of his neck. "The rest was just verbal diarrhea. It was late and I was high from the show, and--"
He might've kept talking, but Archie grabs a fistful of his shirt and tugs him in closer and then they're kissing. Kissing like David thought about them kissing, days ago at midnight - like there's no one and nothing else in the world.
"Less awkward now," says Archie afterwards, though David isn't sure he agrees. "We were just going to go around in circles on the phone because we could never get that that point without being in person."
He's been an adult, technically, for a while now, but suddenly he's an adult now in all the important ways. When Archie knows better than David just what is going on and how to get what they need, that's when David really knows they've reached the point where there's not enough difference between them anymore to be a dealbreaker.
"So you decided you had to come up here to make that happen?" he says.
Archie shrugs. "One of us had to," he says, "and I figured it had to be me. So we're going to do that again now, right? Because I didn't come all this way for just one kiss."
David laughs and makes sure the door is securely latched. "I think it's safe to say," he says, "that there are a lot of kisses in our future."
"And other things?"
"There's a lot of everything," says David. Maybe not right here and right now, but it's a new year, a new decade, and maybe it's time for a lot of things to finally change.
Megan/Matt. 1377 words. NC-17. For lovealwaysliana. Contains: pegging
Hot and Bothered
Prompt: Matt/Megan. Megan dares Matt to put on a blindfold and let her do anything she wants to him
Of course Megan knows he's hot for her. Everyone's hot for Megan, except maybe Adam. Maybe. And possibly Lil, but Matt isn't even a hundred percent certain of that one. Megan's like the perfect woman, beautiful and smart and funny, a complete bombshell when she wants to be and one of the guys when she wants that. Actually, she's both at the same time, which is kind of amazing.
So yeah, Matt's hot for Megan, but apparently she's at least a little bit into him, too. Unless he's completely misinterpreted this latest game of theirs (a drinking game, of course, but they're so early into it that Matt doesn't even feel buzzed yet let alone drunk), but you don't make up games involving liquor and dares for just two people unless you're going to get kinky about it, right?
"Put this on," she says, holding the red and black scarf in one hand as she licks tequila off the fingers of the other. "Over your eyes. And then let me do whatever I want to you."
"Like a blindfold?"
"I dare you," she says, and that's part of the game right there. Matt can refuse, but there'll be consequences. And that's assuming he wants to refuse, which his dick really doesn't.
"Okay, but we need some ground rules."
"If there are ground rules, that means I can't do anything," she points out.
"Seriously," says Matt. "Like, nothing that'll make it hard for me to perform tomorrow. And if I ask, then it's over, right? You'll stop?"
"You need a safeword," says Megan, and that's when Matt really, really wonders what he's getting himself into here, because this is obviously going to be more than a swat on the ass. But he trusts her, and he's already so turned on. His dick is very sure it's going to get some action out of this. "Sparrow."
"Sparrow," agrees Matt; it's both unlikely to come up and not so ridiculous he'll have trouble saying it. "I say 'sparrow' and it's over."
"I'll stop whatever I'm doing," says Megan. "Though I really doubt you're going to want to do that. I'm not going to do anything you don't secretly want, Matt. Trust me."
He does, and he puts the blindfold on.
The first thing Megan does is strip his clothes off, piece by piece, not so slowly it's torturous and not so quickly that she's tearing them off him. He's not wearing so much that it takes very long, though, and it actually kills him a little that he can't see her expression as he stands naked in front of her, stripped down in all ways.
"Stay there," she says, and he's not sure where she thinks he's going to go, because the blindfold is tied so tightly he'd have to grope his way just to find the bed. He can't tell what she's doing, not just from the sounds, but at least he can tell that she's still there, that he's not the victim of a practical joke.
"Megan?"
"On your hands and knees," she says, and when he's slow to comply she gives him a little tap on the ass. "Trust me."
He slowly and carefully gets down on his hands and knees on the carpet. Then, as she pushes gently on his shoulders, he leans forward onto his elbows. His dick is hot and heavy between his legs, bobbing a little as he moves, and he wants to touch it but somehow he's pretty sure that's not part of the rules.
"Good," she says, and rubs her hands over his ass, all over, from his hips down to the crease before his thighs and everywhere in between.
"It's fabulous, I know, but there are other parts of me too," he says, and she laughs and slaps it gently and then reaches between his legs to fondle his balls, rolling them in her hand. "Yeah, like that one."
"Whatever I want," she reminds him as she pulls away again, "but I promise you're going to like it if you give it a chance."
That's a little ominous, but he doesn't even consider stopping her, or taking the blindfold off. Not even when her hand comes back, slick, sliding down between his cheeks. He's had girls finger him before, though they were usually going down on him at the time. And mostly they didn't bother with the lube, which he considers a nice touch.
But that's not fingers he feels pushing at him when he's all lubed up.
"Oh, hey, what?" he says, and reaches behind himself to grab her arm.
"You said anything," she reminds him, though she pauses where she is for just long enough to add, "You know how to stop me."
Matt pauses a moment himself, twisted awkwardly while still holding her arm, then as she pushes a little more insistently he lets go and leans forward onto his elbows and lets her take him. The fact that his dick stayed blindingly hard even when he first felt the nudge of the strap-on at his ass tells him everything he needs to know.
"Yeah, I thought so," she says, and rubs the small of his back with her hand as she nudges right inside him. She's not big, which is...somehow not surprising, and he laughs softly. His laughter just pushes it further inside. "Don't worry, I'll fuck you gently."
He can't help it, he laughs again, and she laughs too even as she does, even as she moves her hips, a little clumsily to begin with but soon finding a rhythm. It's weird at first, not bad just odd, then it starts to get really good.
"I'm no expert," he says, "but I think the polite thing to do is give me a reacharound."
"When I'm ready," she says, and instead leans in closer, adjusts the dildo with her hand to find a new angle, then starts running her hands all over him as she pushes it into him with short, sharp thrusts. "I think I’m getting this."
"You're definitely getting it," he says a little breathlessly, letting his forehead rest against the carpet. "That's good."
"I think I'm going to need to finger myself to get off like this," she says, casually like that, and wow does Matt get hard at that thought. Harder. Which is pretty impressive considering how hard he is already. "One hand for you and one hand for me."
And then her hand is finally wrapping around his cock, gripping it firmly before she starts to jerk it. From the way her body's moving behind him, her thrusts a little more erratic, he thinks she really is working her hand between her legs even as she keeps fucking him.
"Yeah," he says. Gasps, really, and is thankful the word is just one syllable because he isn't getting any more than that out. She keeps fucking him like that and jerking him like that and he can count the seconds until he comes from it. Five, four, three-- "Oh God," he gasps as he spills over her fingers, his legs shaking. It's kind of nice when it still manages to take him by surprise, even when he's counting.
She doesn't stop and it moves even easier now, his body completely pliant. It's almost too much but he's still not tempted to stop her, not unless it gets unbearable. It doesn't, and it's still well within the realm of pleasantly too much when her breath hitches and her fingers sink into his hip and he knows she's coming. He just wishes he could see her face.
She finally pulls out then, and Matt collapses onto the carpet, legs spread and cheek pressed against the soft pile. He feels like he stays there for a long time.
"No bird calls, hm?" says Megan in his ear, then tucks herself against his side and he can tell she's put the equipment away.
"There's only one bird I want to talk about right now," he says, lifting himself only enough to wrap an arm around her then collapsing face-down again.
She just laughs and slaps his ass and then, when he flinches, rubs it all better. And yeah, he's more hot for her now than ever.
Matt/Anoop. 1447 words. NC-17. For lovealwaysliana.
Get There Faster
Prompt: Matt/Anoop. Matt loves driving fast in a fast car. He picks Anoop up at the airport and drives so recklessly they nearly get in a wreck. Anoop is really mad so Matt attempts to comfort him with some sex right there in the car.
Anoop knows he's got some old fashioned ideas about relationships. And he knows that the whole boy-girl paradigm he grew up believing in doesn't necessarily apply to this thing he's doing with Matt, but he still doesn't think he's asking too much. He accepts that if they want to make it in the music business they're going to be traveling a lot, they're going to have a lot of time apart, but when they do have time he doesn't want to be traveling all over the country to see him. He just wants him to stay.
He goes, though. When the waiting gets to be too much and when he doesn't have to be somewhere else or meeting with someone else he goes, booking the first flight he can get on and flying to Michigan of all places, which is not a state Anoop would choose to spend a lot of time in if not for one particularly compelling draw.
They don't actually talk much in the car, not that Matt seems to notice. Anoop wouldn't say he's sullen, he's just...he wants Matt to get it. He wants Matt to get where he's coming from. Because he knows Matt's into him, and he knows Matt's into this, but it's like they're working from two different playbooks sometimes. Matt just turns the radio on and races them down the highway and he seems happy enough to see Anoop there. He doesn't even seem to notice that he's being distant.
Anoop reaches forward to change the station and bumps into Matt's hand as he does the same thing, and according to all of his instincts this is where they twine their fingers and hold hands or something, but somehow that's just not the game they're playing. Matt drives his knuckles into the back of Anoop's hand to assert his dominance and puts on the station he wants, and Anoop is torn again between what is appropriate for friends and what is appropriate for dating.
If they're actually dating.
"You're going to wreck your transmission," he says almost idly as Matt grinds around a corner on a stretch of open highway, but Matt's hardly even listening. Matt's into the grind, and Anoop's not even surprised. He likes power at his fingertips, and he loves this car, a rental that's worth more than either of them can afford, even now.
"Relax and enjoy the ride," says Matt, but Anoop's not actually that good at relaxing. Which Matt knows.
"I'd just like to arrive in one piece," he says, faking it. "I've got plans for us, you know."
"I've got plans for us too," says Matt, and jams his foot on the gas. "All the more reason to get there faster."
Anoop appreciates the sentiment, if not the methods, right up until Matt takes a corner too fast and skids on the loose gravel of the shoulder, fishtailing for a stomach-plummeting moment before he manages to pull over on the shoulder.
"Oh fuck you," says Anoop, his heart pounding so hard he can practically hear it. He feels breathless and dizzy and pissed off. "You could have fucking killed us."
"But I didn't," says Matt, both hands gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles are white. "You're okay right?"
Anoop thinks he's okay, but he takes a moment to check anyway, because his nerves are so shot right now he could have a gaping wound and not know it. But he's fine, he's okay. And so's Matt.
"I don't even know why I came," he says. "It was a stupid idea." Matt's hands are immediately in his hair, and pulling at his shirt a little, and Anoop is flustered enough to bat them away from him. "What are you doing?"
"Making sure you're okay," says Matt.
"I'm fine," says Anoop, though he finds himself gasping a little for breath as he says it. "Just pissed off and feeling stupid. Did you wreck the car? Are we stranded?"
"The car's fine," says Matt, tugging at his shirt again after Anoop pulls at his collar, undoing a couple of buttons. "Are you sure you are?"
He doesn't bat Matt's hands away this time, mostly because undoing the buttons actually feels like it helps with his breathing, and the way he feels hot all over. And partly because it's the first time Matt's really touched him since he got here.
"I'm fine," he says again, and forces himself to take a deep, shuddery breath. "You just almost crashed your car. I'm allowed to be a little uptight right now."
"Hey, I'm sorry," says Matt, slipping a hand under Anoop's shirt, and Anoop doesn't think that has anything to do with checking him for injuries. "I was just having some fun. I really do want you here, you know? I know you wish I was in LA."
"You should be in LA," says Anoop. "You need to be in LA."
"I'll get there," says Matt, and he might as well have said 'we'll get there', because that's what Anoop feels like he means. They might not be on exactly the same page right now, but they'll get there. "When the time's right."
"Better be right soon," says Anoop, as Matt undoes another button.
"I'm sorry," he says, palm grazing over Anoop's tight nipple and his still-racing heart. "I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you." Another button opens, and Anoop knows exactly what he means by that.
"It doesn't let you off the hook for driving like a maniac," he says, his breath catching. The next button that opens is the one on his pants. "You're not a fucking Nascar driver." And it doesn't let him off the hook for everything else either, but in a weird kind of a way, it's comforting that Matt knows what's going on with him. It fits with the kind of relationship he understands.
"It wasn't that bad," says Matt, and okay no, it wasn't. And maybe Anoop is more annoyed about other things, and fishtailing on loose gravel is just the icing on a cranky cake. "I'll make it better."
Anoop rests his hand on the back of Matt's head when he goes down, and only belatedly thinks to get the damn seatbelt out of their way, now that they're completely stationary on the side of the highway. It wasn't really deterring Matt anyway, who it's possible already has experience maneuvering around them. Anoop doesn't spend too much time thinking about that, especially when Matt's mouth closes over the head of his already-hard cock.
"You can't fix everything with blowjobs," he tries to say, but it comes out garbled and actually, Matt probably can fix most things with blowjobs, but Anoop doesn't want to give him any ideas. He'd just as soon have the blowjobs without the psychological trauma.
Matt doesn't try to answer, just shoves at Anoop's pants to get them out of the way as he continues to suck him down, making no pretense that this is about anything other than getting him off as fast and as hard as possible. Which is pretty much all the adrenaline pumping through Anoop's body wants to do anyway. He's already shaky and it's not just from what Matt's doing to him, though that doesn't hurt.
He grips Matt's hair a little more tightly, trying to get a hold on it, and fucks up into his mouth in spite of his best efforts to stay still. Matt hesitates for only a moment, adjusting, then he just goes with it and Anoop stops worrying so much. It's not like he can go deep and hard like this, though just thinking the words 'deep' and 'hard' make him push on the back of Matt's head a little harder, and Matt all but swallows him down.
He comes suddenly, in time with his pulse, the shock of orgasm hitting him hard in the groin and then radiating outward to his thighs as his heart continues to race. Matt pulls back, swallows, then coughs a little before moving in again to mouth Anoop clean, almost tenderly.
His heart finally begins to slow down.
"I really am sorry," says Matt as he fastens Anoop's pants again and begins to work on his shirt. "I just want to have a good time with you."
"I know," says Anoop, helping him with the last couple of buttons, their fingers tangling. "Now let's get out of here before we're arrested for indecency and end up on TMZ."
"Yeah," agrees Matt. "Though if we were, you'd make an amazing mug shot right now."
Anoop wants to scowl, but instead he just finds himself laughing. "Shut up and drive."