Part 6
Part 5
Bob's half-way through heaping sugar he doesn't want into a cup of coffee he's not sure he needs when it actually settles in his mind; he doesn't want a fucking tattoo. It's been plaguing him all week; he's found himself staring absently at the arms and necks of cons, and of Quinn (which is a great recipe to having his head bounced off a fucking railing someday), and contemplating the process.
A needle, under his fucking skin, distorting the way he looks. A needle, for fuck's sake. A fucking needle. The thought alone is enough to make him go green. He's caught himself touching the tattoo when they're fucking, and caught Frank smiling at him, and he hates it.
He hates that smile, he hates that fucking knowing smile, and he hates that he keeps touching the lines where there were no lines; that idiotic ugly rose, that stupid joke. He hates that Frank gives that much of a shit about him.
He also hates that there is nothing in the world he can do back that would be the same.
The coffee ends up abandoned on top of the refrigerator, alongside two other mugs Bob may or may not have forgotten about in the last hour; Bob ends up sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands and the smell of beans permeating the room like air-freshener, a dog - he doesn't check which - snuffling with smelly canine concern at his bare toes.
Piercing his other nipple. That would be … sort of permanent, and painful. And the needle wouldn't be there for as long, and … it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't count, it wouldn't matter, it wouldn't be saying I believe in you like Frank just fucking … more or less scribbled Bob on his wrist forever, like Frank just said I think I'll still want this, without opening his mouth.
Frank's faith in permanence, Frank's hard-won belief in him being allowed to stay. And Bob's first nipple fucking piercing, the one Frank won't let him remove, what does that say? It says Bob was drunk with Quinn once. Or more accurately, Bob was drunk with Quinn a lot.
Piercing his fucking nipple will not mean a goddamn thing. It'll just mean he's spent money he can't spare on pain and probable infection to make Frank think … nothing.
Bob lets his head drop onto the table and whichever dog it is under there makes a wurff noise and scampers off into the sitting room in pursuit of some imagined goal.
Bob wishes sometimes that he were a dog. They don't need to think about this bullshit meaning things. They just lick their balls, eat off the floor, and occasionally sniff the butts of strangers.
A week later it occurs to him that he still hasn't fucking done anything.
Frank's tattoo is winking at him, if roses can fucking wink which Bob is sure they can't, peeking out from under the sleeve of his jacket as he humps a huge bag of pasta from the paper bag on the floor onto into the high cupboards.
Bob could probably have helped, but it just doesn't always cross his mind; sometimes he gets distracted by the way Frank's back moves, or how his legs are when he's trying to balance, or right now, by that motherfucker of a tattoo. What the hell can he do?
They're not going to cook the pasta. This is just another futile purchase, Frank playing cargo-cult domesticity with foodstuffs. If I buy enough pasta, food will come; they both know it. What the hell is he supposed to do as an answer? He can't buy the kid a house or a car or a holiday in fucking Hawaii. He can't … even if he could marry him the thought of … rings and … all that bullshit makes him feel ill...
Bob turns abruptly and squats in the sitting room doorway beside Daisy, who wags her tail, licks his chin, and makes a worraworra noise of ecstasy.
"You're a good dog," Bob says aimlessly, staring at the back of his own hand. What the fuck do you do to tell someone you agree with their tattoo?
"You okay out there?" Frank asks. He's probably caught Bob's tonelessness and translated it into something terrible. Frank is a bastard, Bob decides, and he ruffles Daisy's ears.
"Good dog, good dog, good dog dog dog," Bob chants, flopping Daisy's ears around her head until she sneezes at him and shakes his hands off, wandering away to sniff something under the sofa. "Fine, leave me, Daisy. I don't care."
"Bob?"
Bob gets up slowly and gives his feet undue consideration. What do normal people who actually know how to have relationships do? He should ask someone. In the living room the dogs start a half-hearted bark-fight.
"SHUT UP OUT THERE," Frank yells, and the barking dies away with guilty yips and grumbles.
Okay so normal people who aren't fuck-ups get … married and mortgages and bullshit and rings and terror and debts and all that shit. Bob runs his hand over the back of his neck, where the hair has gotten too long and is curling up on itself like feather's on a duck's ass. Normal people who aren't him. Normal people who don't find themselves faced with a tattoo of a joke of their fucking name whenever they aren't careful about where they look (normal people who don't get their heart caught in their throat whenever they catch sight of it), normal people know how to say this shit with … flowers. Or chocolates. Something like that.
Bob watches Frank balancing the pasta sack on his head and thinks, Frank would pitch a fucking fit if I bought flowers. He tries to imagine himself buying flowers and nearly goes purple at the stupidity of it all. Fuck that. This isn't a Hugh Grant movie.
And flowers aren't an answer to a fucking tattoo, they die and rot in weeks, and the tattoo is forever. Jesus, flowers are the worst fucking possible answer.
Frank shoves the pasta from his head onto the high shelf. "That's going to fall on whoever opens the door next," Frank says with an air of satisfaction. He looks over his shoulder at Bob for a reaction, but it's wasted; Bob barely registers it as he gazes at the table.
Maybe he should ask Quinn.
"So don't open the cupboard door," Frank adds, closing it with a thump, "or you'll get a face-full of tortellini. I heard that shit can kill you."
Bob thinks about what Quinn's advice usually amounts to, and what most of their interactions come down to.
Okay, probably he shouldn't ask Quinn. Probably Quinn would just suggest he get drunk and, like, piss his name into the towels or something. Bob's pretty sure he can't piss Frank onto anything, let alone towels that he would quite like to one day use again.
"Bob?"
"Mm." Bob rubs the back of his neck again. He's not sure he wants to go asking every fucking person he knows what to do. It would involve telling them, and he's not sure he can deal with the expressions of these people. They'll all hate him for this, this tattoo bullshit. But he can't do nothing. There needs to be something really big.
"Are you mad about something?"
"No," Bob says automatically, staring past Frank to the cupboard door, which is more open than it was a second ago.
"Riiiight."
The tortellini comes tumbling out of the cupboard like it's been shoved, and the sack splits on the floor, scattering pieces of hard wheat pasta all over the linoleum and bringing the dogs running like a dinner gong. Daisy and Duke stare at the exploded galaxy of crunchy stuff with uncertainly-wagging tails, and Bob signs.
"Okay, I did not balance it that badly," Frank mutters, getting down on his hands and knees.
His tattoo flashes out as he picks up the first handful in quick pecks.
Something has to happen.
“Okay," Frank says, maybe a week after that, a paper sack with a little pharmacy cross printed on the side of it braced between his shins, "I got supplies."
Bob's in the middle of trying to get the TV to understand that when he presses down on the remote it does not mean he wants to watch clips of the Jay Leno early evening show over and over and over, but that he does in fact want to go down through the TV guide; it takes him kind of a long time to register that Frank is talking to him and a little longer to get that Frank is apparently talking in code.
“What?" he offers once he's got that straight and Jay Leno is at least babbling silently thanks to the technological wonder of the mute button.
"I got Neosporin," Frank said, picking it out of the bag and holding it up for Bob to inspect, "and Band-Aids. And I guess there are clean towels because I spent about twenty fucking hours in a laundromat this weekend watching them get white and fluffy - grey and fluffy - beige and fluffy, whatever …"
"Okay," Bob hazards, weighing the remote in his hand, trying to decide if he needs to put it down and start panicking. Has Frank hurt himself? Is he planning on trying to fix something that they should call someone qualified to fix? What, in short, the hell is going on?
"So," Frank says, kinda aggressively, "now you tell me what the fuck is going on."
"What?" Bob screws up his face and drops the remote. "What the fuck is going on with what?"
"If you’re going to punch the fucking wall again," Frank says seriously, sounding kind of … determined but just a little scared, like he's worried Bob might freak out completely and just smash himself to bits like a bird against a windowpane … "I am prepared. You see this shit? I got Excedrin too, in case it's my fault you're pissed."
Not for the first time, Bob wishes he had some sort of Frank-to-English translation book. Or the first clue what the fuck is happening and why Frank looks like he's going to burst a vein in the side of his face if he clenches his jaw any tighter.
"You're acting weird," Frank spells it out slowly, paper bag in one hand and Neosporin in the other, "and I want to know what the fuck is wrong so I can fix it."
"No," Bob says rather desperately.
"No what the fuck?" Frank snaps, dropping the bag. "No? No nothing. Something is the fuck up with you."
"No," Bob repeats, getting up and shuffling his weight from foot to foot, unsure where he's supposed to go next and what he's meant to say. "I. No. It's not a. You didn't do. Everything's."
"If you say everything's okay I will kick you in the shin." Frank throws the Band-Aids at Bob, aiming to miss; they bounce on the dogs' cushion and Duke lifts his head up, ears quizzical and lop-sided, confused by all the tension. There's a low thud of curious tail hitting the cushion in a slow wag. "It's not fucking okay. You're acting all fucked up. You're going to hit some shit or freak out or something. Say something."
"No," Bob repeats. It's not what he means, but his brain is not making any other words, and the only other sound he can feel himself making is a low, pre-verbal grrr noise which will just freak the dogs out.
"SAY SOMETHING. Use words." Frank throws the Neosporin down and bounces up to his feet. "Fuck you, Bob."
Bob retreats into the kitchen, his fingers numb from being clenched so tightly together, his heart thumping in his fucking sinuses. The no seems to have quit choking him now, but there's nothing else in his head that looks like a sentence or even proper English. He wheels about on the kitchen floor, pacing back and forth between the table and the counter like a caged bear.
Frank shouts, "Tell me what I did wrong," from the sofa, his purchases apparently forgotten. One of the dogs underlines his request with a wuff, a half-bark.
Bob wheels about on his heel and makes a noise which starts as a no but turns into a grrrrrggggghhh sound as he nears the door and jerks himself back again. He shuffles back to the table and glares around at the kitchen. The paint on the walls is a little loose and he feels like he's choking. The linoleum is scuffed by unclipped dog nails and he feels like he's drowning in something and he's going to throw up.
"Bob," Frank yells, framed in the doorway.
The kettle is still sitting on the stove. Bob glares at it.
"Bob what the fuck is the problem - you're freaking me out here -"
The kettle reflects Bob's face and the ridiculous blonde chin fuzz which is in the process of turning into something like a beard (which he's gonna have to get rid of before he gets back to work), and it reflects the ceiling and, far in the background in a tiny distorted doorway, a worried and noisy Frank.
"I FUCKING LOVE YOU," he shouts at the kettle.
There is a silence which wraps around Bob's chest like a fist and squeezes until he can hardly breathe. This is it. Frank is going to walk out and never come back. He'll sneak back in when Bob's on shift and collect up his shit and Bob will never, ever see him again; the fist in Bob's ribcage tightens and he doesn't know if that's a bad thing or not, the never seeing Frank again. He'll miss him so fucking much but then he won't have to see the look of disappointment on his face and -
Frank's mouth hits his so hard that his lip actually bursts in the middle, a tiny split in his chapped skin; Bob doesn't care about the blood that seeps back over his teeth with Frank's tongue, or the way Frank's pulling his head down too hard and hurting his neck. He can't quite get his arms to move yet, can't stop them from hanging loose and limp and bewildered by his sides.
It takes him a moment to notice that his legs are shaking, just a little.
“You fucker, I thought you were gonna dump me!” Frank says, his mouth still mashed against Bob’s. His fingers are digging into Bob’s neck.
Given how long it took him to get those tiny little words out, it's funny that now that Frank's apparently trying to kiss the life right out of him, Bob can't seem to shut himself up. 'What the fuck?' gets licked away by Frank's tongue and 'you fucking idiot' gets bitten right in half when Frank's teeth close on his aching mouth and, Jesus Christ, he's been torturing Frank with this as much as it's been torturing him, hasn't he? Has he? His eyes are watering at the pain in his bleeding lip.
"Huh?" Frank breathes, giving him an iota of space to talk, still frenetically petting at his face, his neck.
"Didn't mean," Bob says eloquently. "I. You weren't. Fuck, Frank. I'm."
Frank chokes out a laugh through his grin. "Yeah, I fucking love you too, you idiot," he says, and goes back to trying to taste Bob's tonsils, wrapping his arms around Bob's neck like a touch-starved octopus. Bob finally gets his arms to work, functioning enough to move his hands to Frank's hips to hold onto him, anchor himself against the storm of Frank's reaction. Frank is smashing himself so close to Bob he's pretty sure that they're about to fall over, and when Frank pushes up to kiss him again his knees go out.
They go down, falling to the crumby floor in a tangle of grabbing hands and awkward arms. Bob bites Frank's lip on the way, and they're both bleeding now. Frank was right to bring a medkit to this conversation. If it can even be called that at this point.
"Frank. Um." He tries to say something, apologize for making him bleed, for falling, for being such a fucking dick and making Frank upset, but the words are tangled up behind his teeth. Frank just smears his bloody mouth across Bob's cheek in a messy kiss, and Bob can't talk at all after that.
He fumbles for Frank's arm, with that stupid tattoo, and grabs at it, pulls it up. Frank's wrists are so fucking small, it always shocks Bob when he can hold both of them in one hand, but this time he only wants this wrist, he isn't holding Frank down. He carefully, soberly, awkwardly, pulls the tattoo to his face and kisses it. He thinks his face might be on fire, and his eyes are burning, but Frank is looking at him like... like... Bob doesn't know what like, he's never seen that sort of expression on Frank's face before. He kisses it again, the fucking ridiculous claim of permanence Bob never asked Frank to make and doesn't want to think of him without.
He look as wrecked as Bob feels, in a way that has nothing to do with the specks of blood on his chin, his bruised mouth, and Bob’s got his teeth set against the meat of Frank’s arm before he can think. Frank makes a noise that’s a bit more familiar than his expression (that guttural groan just a little off from pain that Bob usually hears when Frank’s going to come) and shoves his hips up against Bob's eagerly.
"Wait," Bob mutters, breathing hard, and pins Frank against the crappy lino with all his weight to stop Frank from moving, to stop himself from trembling like he's having a fucking seizure.
Or maybe that's Frank doing some of the shaking. When Bob runs his tongue over the dents he's left in Frank's inked skin, Frank exhales in an unsteady burst like he's falling apart. "Fuck, Bob," he says, his voice gone tight like it's costing him everything to hold still like this.
Bob pulls back to run his fingers over Frank's hair, gracelessly petting at him. The thought of exactly how close he came to fucking this right up is breath-takingly terrifying, as though he'd been stumbling around trying to regain his balance and hadn't realized that he was standing at the lip of the Grand fucking Canyon until someone came along and hauled him back. Jesus, if Frank had just called this quits ... If he hadn't pressed this to the breaking point ...
Fuck.
He winds up gnawing furiously on the inside of his mouth like that's going to do a goddamn thing to hold him together, his face burning. He gulps in a breath that bursts out again with a stupid broken noise and shoves his face against the shoulder of his shirt, because untangling himself from Frank to hide somewhere is just ... so much more than he's got in him right now and that would involve letting go of Frank, and he's fucking never letting go of Frank. If he just hangs onto him, he'll be okay.
"Hey," Frank says, his mouth against Bob's throat, just breathing with him for a moment before actually managing to form a kiss. "We're good, man, we're good. It's all cool."
Bob hauls in a deep breath that he manages to let out without any more wounded animal noises, feeling wrung out like he's just finished a double shift in the space of the last ten minutes. He's decidedly less-than-cool right now, but doing his best to believe Frank on that subject.
"Hey," Frank murmurs again, sounding more amused than concerned now, giving his hair a little tug. "This floor seriously sucks, dude. And I think I missed some of the tortellini. You want to... Bed might be better for this."
Bob swallows thickly and nods against Frank's shoulder before rolling off of him, hastily dragging his sleeve over his face and looking anywhere but at Frank as he gets to his feet and offers him a hand up. Frank doesn't try to make him meet his eyes or anything either, just kind of wraps himself around Bob and bites his shoulder fondly before pressing his forehead there. "Love you, you dumbass," he sighs, hooking his fingers through Bob's belt loop and towing him along towards the bedroom. Bob follows blindly, rubbing at his sandpapery eyes again and wishing he could blow his nose. "I'll have to rent a billboard or something, then you'll get it. One of those Goodyear blimps maybe ..."
The dogs get shut out of the bedroom with a muttered apology from Frank. Bob hides in his hood until Frank comes up behind him and leans against him. "You're never getting rid of me now," Frank says, shoves his hands in Bob's hoodie pockets. Bob gropes awkwardly at Frank's hands for a second before letting them fall to his sides again. "Guess you shoulda thought that through, huh?"
Frank can't seem to stop petting at Bob's hair, brushing sweat-damp strands off his forehead while he keeps up the monologue of quiet chatter like he's soothing a ... a guy who's forgotten how to move and would really like a Kleenex. Good thing one of them is still functioning. Frank's up on his toes, bumping his nose reassuringly against Bob's cheek, and Bob turns his head to kiss him some more. Kissing is good. Hanging onto Frank is good too. He feels a little less like he's drowning on dry land that way. His hands are probably too tight around Frank's hipbones, but he knows by now that Frank doesn't mind bruises when they're in the shape of Bob's fingers.
"We're so fucked," Bob decides, shutting his eyes and sagging to rest his forehead on Frank's shoulder. He can feel Frank shake with laughter.
"C'mon," Frank orders, tugging him towards the bed, "I'm calling you in sick." He gives Bob a little push onto the bed and crawls on to the mattress after him, patting him down for his cell.
Bob can only lie there and watch as Frank sits back on his heels, sucking absently on his lower lip as he scrolls through the cell. I fucking love you, Bob thinks helplessly, and tucks his hand under Frank's thigh in an attempt to indicate as much. Frank shoots a sidelong smile at him and lays down to fold himself in against Bob's side, phone to his ear and his fingers spread over Bob's chest as he calls Bob's work, then his own, easy as that.
"Voila," Frank says, shutting the cell off with a definitive deedle-deedle-do and tossing it towards the pillow. Bob sticks his hands under the back of Frank's shirt, feeling the raised lines of his tattoos and the flutter of his heart through his ribs. Frank's hands are curled into fists now, clutching at Bob's hoodie. "It's just us, Bobby," Frank mutters against Bob's throat. Bob presses his lips to Frank's forehead, his ear. "You and me, just you and me."
Bob's half surprised when Frank's mouth presses against his, but he's never gonna argue about kissing Frank. He can't talk when he's kissing, so he can't fail at telling Frank what he wants to say. Not that he’s convinced he does such a terrific job of telling Frank what’s going on in his head through actions either, but it gets him a little closer to communication.
Frank just keeps kissing him, deep and steady, and it’s enough that Bob’s able to relax just a little, running his hands over Frank’s back instead of clutching and clinging. It's no less intense for the change in pace though, no idle touches when Frank pushes his warm hands under Bob's hoodie to stroke his sides. They're tangled up in each others' clothing, like they're tied together, and Bob's just fine with that.
Frank slides over him, skinny legs on either side of Bob's hips so his squirmy hot weight is holding Bob down. Bob's hands slide down, out from under the comforting warmth of Frank's shirt to rest on his ass. Frank is still kissing him, letting Bob try to get him to understand how much he fucking loves him without messing up his words.
Bob grabs too-hard at Frank's jeans-covered ass, squeezing, holding onto him and kissing him for what feels like forever. But Frank doesn't want to just keep kissing forever, Bob realizes. Frank's hands are inching towards his chest, taking the hoodie and his shirt up with them, edging over Bob's piercing.
Bob gladly helps him along, putting his arms up just long enough to let Frank pull the whole tangle up over his head and off of him, and then he’s got Frank in his arms again. Frank hums with satisfaction, mouthing his way down Bob’s throat; he’s got goose-bumps rising on his skin wherever Frank’s breath touches him and it’s not even cold in here.
He wants Frank’s skin against his …
Hell, he’s felt fucking naked since this whole thing started. The least they can do now is make their actual clothing match the mood by getting the hell out of here. After a mental debate as to what he needs to get Frank out of first … which is briefly sidetracked by the hot sting of Frank’s tongue sliding over his cut lip … Bob tugs wordlessly at Frank’s t-shirt, glad that this much has always been understood between them.
Then it's just getting naked, something they've had down for almost two years now. Frank sits up, taking his mouth away from Bob, and pulls his shirt off over his head. Bob can't keep his hands off Frank's belly, ink and warm skin and the faintest reminder of formerly gym-toned muscles under soft flesh.
Bob has always fucking loved Frank's skin, drawing slow circles over his stomach with his thumbs and trying not to get bleary eyed again when Frank smiles down at him with fucked-up hair. "Fuck, you're hot," Frank says, runs his thumb over Bob's chest, his sternum, his nipple. "I fucking love you, ok?" Bob doesn't answer, just gets his hands on the fly of Frank's jeans and starts getting him naked the rest of the way.
The look in Frank’s eyes when Bob glances up at him though ... He gets it, even if Bob can’t make his mouth say it again just yet. Frank’s jeans get stuck mid-thigh and he’s got to roll off of Bob to get them sorted out and that’s way more distance than Bob’s happy with, so he rolls with him. It’s easier getting Frank naked in a hurry when he’s the one on top, although he’s pretty sure they could make it happen right now in just about any position.
Frank’s trying to be helpful but just getting in the way when he won’t stop touching, unbuckling Bob’s belt before getting distracted and petting at his arms. Bob looks at him … just one look … and Frank nods, moving his hands and lifting his hips for Bob to pull off his jeans and shorts.
Yeah, this part they’re good at.
Bob has Frank finally fucking naked under him, all stretched out for him. He can see the bruises on Frank's hips from his fingers, red over the bones, and Frank's still smiling at him. Bob manages to get his shit together enough to wrestle out of his own jeans, his boxers, kicking them aside and laying back down over Frank. "Frank ..." he mutters, right against his mouth, and Frank leans up.
"I know," Frank says, and it's back to kissing. Frank's hands slide up over Bob's back, curl around his shoulders, tangled together properly again. This, this is easy. Sex with Frank is easy. It's not simple and it's never straightforward and sometimes it scares Bob shitless, how much he cares about the skinny kid who lets Bob hurt him and asks for more, but it's easy.
Frank is hard against his belly, ready to go, but he’s not as frantic as he often is, seemingly content to just keep kissing Bob, pressing up against him more like a slow dance than sex. So where Bob is usually completely engulfed by the moment, the Technicolor, surround-sound, overwhelming moment, now he’s got enough free thought left to keep up a consistent mantra of amazing, amazing and so fucking lucky and love you.
“Please,” says Frank, low and earnest, but without the usual knife-edge urgency, “Please, I want you.”
Denying Frank right now is entirely out of the question. He shifts, kissing down Frank's neck and throat and shoulder until he runs out of skin and bone to taste and has to move again. Frank drags his mouth over his chest, distracting him with hot-wet-slick kisses while Bob rummages through the clutter of the drawer for lube. "Wait," Bob mutters, finally getting his fingers on the slippery bottle. Frank mumbles something incoherent against Bob's collarbone. "Frank."
Frank ‘mm-mm’s happily against the hollow of his throat in a clear refusal to wait, so Bob kisses him again, hard, and … and he’s got his rewards and his punishments mixed up at some point and could really care less. Like Frank told him: it’s just them here now, as stripped down as they get.
Bob knows what he's doing now, getting his fingers slick and down between Frank's thighs. Frank whines quietly into Bob's mouth when Bob pushes two fingers in, not gentle, how Frank likes it. Frank's legs slide apart, eager and easy for Bob to settle between and get him ready. Frank's hands move from Bob's shoulders to his hair and back again, touching his face and his arms and his chest as Bob opens him up.
Whenever they’ve gone this slow in the past, it’s usually because they’re onto round two or because they’re both exhausted from work. This is … different. They’re both breathing hard and Frank’s just trembling with the restraint that it’s taking him not to rush. Bob can’t stop staring at him and marveling at the easy rhythm they fall into. He opens his mouth, doesn’t trust himself, and ducks his head to nuzzle at Frank’s throat instead.
Frank just kisses across Bob’s hair until Bob can face him to kiss him properly, the drag of Frank’s hands over his back a soothing pressure till then.
Bob pulls his fingers out of Frank’s ass, gets a low whine in return. “Be fucking patient,” Bob mumbles, resting his hand on Frank’s stomach, soothing (soothing his own frayed patience as much as Frank’s), staring down at Frank’s pretty flushed face. He gets more slick over his hand, on his dick. Frank watches his hand like a cat does a mouse, and Bob watches him.
"Patient," Frank scoffs, still just tense and poised for Bob's command. He mumbles his words out in a jumble of sounds. "I'm the patron fucking saint of patience. I'm..."
Bob nods slightly and Frank scrambles to shift back for him, hooking his calf over Bob's hip. Bob can't get over the way Frank's expression, despite his talk, is pretty much the exact mirror of what Bob's feeling right now. Amazed, adoring, like he can't quite believe his luck.
"Shit, you're worth waiting for," Frank adds in a low voice, and Bob has to kiss him to keep things from getting embarrassing again.
He’s pretty sure Frank doesn’t just mean now, waiting for the sex. Frank’s arms go around his neck, and Bob moves his hand from Frank’s soft belly to his hip, his thigh, to hold him down and push into him. He muffles the sweet, harsh noise Frank makes with his own groan, his own panting breaths. Frank’s body is so tense under his hands, trembling and twitching and eager. “Ffffrank,” he gasps against Frank’s mouth, when he’s sunk into him and can’t even think his own name properly any more.
Frank's not doing much better in the coherency department, licking helplessly at Bob's mouth, panting when he remembers to breathe at all. Locked together like this, Bob can feel the way that Frank's legs shake like Bob's taking him apart when he starts to move. He can feel the heat from the flush of blood that crawls up Frank's chest and neck when Frank hisses and arches against him, trying to set his own pace, and they're both going to be soaked within minutes here.
Bob can’t be bothered by that though, not when Frank’s knees are hitched around his hips and he’s got sharp teeth sunk into his lip. He’s trying to go slow, keep his head together for as long as he can. He wants to enjoy how beautiful Frank is, and somehow get his shit together enough to tell him again how much he fucking loves him.
But Frank is whining and begging for more, and Bob can’t not give in to him. He shifts, tightens his hand around Frank’s thigh, and pushes harder, faster, listening for Frank’s - his Frank’s, Frank is his, now Frank knows and maybe he can be less afraid that Frank will leave him because Frank loves him too - Frank’s heart-wrenching, ball-clenching noises.
There's a point though ... there's always that point, with Frank ... where the frantic worried thoughts whirling around so constantly in his head that he's probably worn a groove in his brain by now, those frantic thoughts just stop. Or not stop, exactly, but get pushed aside by the need to lick the salt sweat off Frank's throat and drive into him like he's trying to break him.
Frank makes a feral, strangled noise of approval and gets one of his hands up above his head to brace himself against the wall. Bob goes after it automatically because the world makes more sense when he's got his hands around Frank's wrists. Frank bares his teeth at him in something like a grin, and Bob decides that forming actual words is going to be an accomplishment far beyond him right now.
Frank’s hands clench into fists above Bob’s fingers, his head tilted back so Bob can see the pulse jumping in his throat. Bob buries his face in Frank’s sweaty shoulder, licking the flutter of his breath and blood and sweat and mumbling vague incoherent nothings against his skin. He might be saying I love you, but he’s not sure himself. He can hear Frank whining his name, and maybe Frank’s saying I love you, too, but he’s not sure. The blood pounding in his ears is too loud for him to know for sure.
They're on the same page though, Frank moving with him so perfectly now that he's pretty sure he can read his mind anyway. It's just the slap of skin on skin now, and Bob's rough breaths, and then Frank whines in his throat and mutters something like "C'mon, lemme", so somebody's still capable of words.
There are red marks on Frank's thigh when he lets go of it, blossoming bruises, and when he gets his hand around Frank's dick, Frank just thrashes under him and gasps out a broken "Fuck" before coming all over his hand and stomach.
Bob watches in amazement as Frank’s face twists and flushes and goes slack again, dives in to kiss Frank’s loose mouth. He lets go of Frank’s wrists to hold onto his hips, slamming into him only twice more before he’s coming with a strangled whine.
"Christ," he mutters, all out of breath and coherent thought. Frank hmms in agreement, apparently content to have Bob sweating and panting on top of him for the moment, not letting go yet.
The real world is going to come creeping back in soon, there's no preventing that, and he's going to have to think about the things that he's said, the stakes that he's just raised. But... not yet.
He's probably seen hundreds of Frank-smiles by now, ranging from the 'I dare you' smirks when they first met to the soft little smiles that Bob suspects he's probably not supposed to catch while they're watching TV, but the dazed, unfocused grin that he's on the receiving end of right now is definitely on his shortlist of favourites.
Next
Bob's half-way through heaping sugar he doesn't want into a cup of coffee he's not sure he needs when it actually settles in his mind; he doesn't want a fucking tattoo. It's been plaguing him all week; he's found himself staring absently at the arms and necks of cons, and of Quinn (which is a great recipe to having his head bounced off a fucking railing someday), and contemplating the process.
A needle, under his fucking skin, distorting the way he looks. A needle, for fuck's sake. A fucking needle. The thought alone is enough to make him go green. He's caught himself touching the tattoo when they're fucking, and caught Frank smiling at him, and he hates it.
He hates that smile, he hates that fucking knowing smile, and he hates that he keeps touching the lines where there were no lines; that idiotic ugly rose, that stupid joke. He hates that Frank gives that much of a shit about him.
He also hates that there is nothing in the world he can do back that would be the same.
The coffee ends up abandoned on top of the refrigerator, alongside two other mugs Bob may or may not have forgotten about in the last hour; Bob ends up sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands and the smell of beans permeating the room like air-freshener, a dog - he doesn't check which - snuffling with smelly canine concern at his bare toes.
Piercing his other nipple. That would be … sort of permanent, and painful. And the needle wouldn't be there for as long, and … it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't count, it wouldn't matter, it wouldn't be saying I believe in you like Frank just fucking … more or less scribbled Bob on his wrist forever, like Frank just said I think I'll still want this, without opening his mouth.
Frank's faith in permanence, Frank's hard-won belief in him being allowed to stay. And Bob's first nipple fucking piercing, the one Frank won't let him remove, what does that say? It says Bob was drunk with Quinn once. Or more accurately, Bob was drunk with Quinn a lot.
Piercing his fucking nipple will not mean a goddamn thing. It'll just mean he's spent money he can't spare on pain and probable infection to make Frank think … nothing.
Bob lets his head drop onto the table and whichever dog it is under there makes a wurff noise and scampers off into the sitting room in pursuit of some imagined goal.
Bob wishes sometimes that he were a dog. They don't need to think about this bullshit meaning things. They just lick their balls, eat off the floor, and occasionally sniff the butts of strangers.
A week later it occurs to him that he still hasn't fucking done anything.
Frank's tattoo is winking at him, if roses can fucking wink which Bob is sure they can't, peeking out from under the sleeve of his jacket as he humps a huge bag of pasta from the paper bag on the floor onto into the high cupboards.
Bob could probably have helped, but it just doesn't always cross his mind; sometimes he gets distracted by the way Frank's back moves, or how his legs are when he's trying to balance, or right now, by that motherfucker of a tattoo. What the hell can he do?
They're not going to cook the pasta. This is just another futile purchase, Frank playing cargo-cult domesticity with foodstuffs. If I buy enough pasta, food will come; they both know it. What the hell is he supposed to do as an answer? He can't buy the kid a house or a car or a holiday in fucking Hawaii. He can't … even if he could marry him the thought of … rings and … all that bullshit makes him feel ill...
Bob turns abruptly and squats in the sitting room doorway beside Daisy, who wags her tail, licks his chin, and makes a worraworra noise of ecstasy.
"You're a good dog," Bob says aimlessly, staring at the back of his own hand. What the fuck do you do to tell someone you agree with their tattoo?
"You okay out there?" Frank asks. He's probably caught Bob's tonelessness and translated it into something terrible. Frank is a bastard, Bob decides, and he ruffles Daisy's ears.
"Good dog, good dog, good dog dog dog," Bob chants, flopping Daisy's ears around her head until she sneezes at him and shakes his hands off, wandering away to sniff something under the sofa. "Fine, leave me, Daisy. I don't care."
"Bob?"
Bob gets up slowly and gives his feet undue consideration. What do normal people who actually know how to have relationships do? He should ask someone. In the living room the dogs start a half-hearted bark-fight.
"SHUT UP OUT THERE," Frank yells, and the barking dies away with guilty yips and grumbles.
Okay so normal people who aren't fuck-ups get … married and mortgages and bullshit and rings and terror and debts and all that shit. Bob runs his hand over the back of his neck, where the hair has gotten too long and is curling up on itself like feather's on a duck's ass. Normal people who aren't him. Normal people who don't find themselves faced with a tattoo of a joke of their fucking name whenever they aren't careful about where they look (normal people who don't get their heart caught in their throat whenever they catch sight of it), normal people know how to say this shit with … flowers. Or chocolates. Something like that.
Bob watches Frank balancing the pasta sack on his head and thinks, Frank would pitch a fucking fit if I bought flowers. He tries to imagine himself buying flowers and nearly goes purple at the stupidity of it all. Fuck that. This isn't a Hugh Grant movie.
And flowers aren't an answer to a fucking tattoo, they die and rot in weeks, and the tattoo is forever. Jesus, flowers are the worst fucking possible answer.
Frank shoves the pasta from his head onto the high shelf. "That's going to fall on whoever opens the door next," Frank says with an air of satisfaction. He looks over his shoulder at Bob for a reaction, but it's wasted; Bob barely registers it as he gazes at the table.
Maybe he should ask Quinn.
"So don't open the cupboard door," Frank adds, closing it with a thump, "or you'll get a face-full of tortellini. I heard that shit can kill you."
Bob thinks about what Quinn's advice usually amounts to, and what most of their interactions come down to.
Okay, probably he shouldn't ask Quinn. Probably Quinn would just suggest he get drunk and, like, piss his name into the towels or something. Bob's pretty sure he can't piss Frank onto anything, let alone towels that he would quite like to one day use again.
"Bob?"
"Mm." Bob rubs the back of his neck again. He's not sure he wants to go asking every fucking person he knows what to do. It would involve telling them, and he's not sure he can deal with the expressions of these people. They'll all hate him for this, this tattoo bullshit. But he can't do nothing. There needs to be something really big.
"Are you mad about something?"
"No," Bob says automatically, staring past Frank to the cupboard door, which is more open than it was a second ago.
"Riiiight."
The tortellini comes tumbling out of the cupboard like it's been shoved, and the sack splits on the floor, scattering pieces of hard wheat pasta all over the linoleum and bringing the dogs running like a dinner gong. Daisy and Duke stare at the exploded galaxy of crunchy stuff with uncertainly-wagging tails, and Bob signs.
"Okay, I did not balance it that badly," Frank mutters, getting down on his hands and knees.
His tattoo flashes out as he picks up the first handful in quick pecks.
Something has to happen.
“Okay," Frank says, maybe a week after that, a paper sack with a little pharmacy cross printed on the side of it braced between his shins, "I got supplies."
Bob's in the middle of trying to get the TV to understand that when he presses down on the remote it does not mean he wants to watch clips of the Jay Leno early evening show over and over and over, but that he does in fact want to go down through the TV guide; it takes him kind of a long time to register that Frank is talking to him and a little longer to get that Frank is apparently talking in code.
“What?" he offers once he's got that straight and Jay Leno is at least babbling silently thanks to the technological wonder of the mute button.
"I got Neosporin," Frank said, picking it out of the bag and holding it up for Bob to inspect, "and Band-Aids. And I guess there are clean towels because I spent about twenty fucking hours in a laundromat this weekend watching them get white and fluffy - grey and fluffy - beige and fluffy, whatever …"
"Okay," Bob hazards, weighing the remote in his hand, trying to decide if he needs to put it down and start panicking. Has Frank hurt himself? Is he planning on trying to fix something that they should call someone qualified to fix? What, in short, the hell is going on?
"So," Frank says, kinda aggressively, "now you tell me what the fuck is going on."
"What?" Bob screws up his face and drops the remote. "What the fuck is going on with what?"
"If you’re going to punch the fucking wall again," Frank says seriously, sounding kind of … determined but just a little scared, like he's worried Bob might freak out completely and just smash himself to bits like a bird against a windowpane … "I am prepared. You see this shit? I got Excedrin too, in case it's my fault you're pissed."
Not for the first time, Bob wishes he had some sort of Frank-to-English translation book. Or the first clue what the fuck is happening and why Frank looks like he's going to burst a vein in the side of his face if he clenches his jaw any tighter.
"You're acting weird," Frank spells it out slowly, paper bag in one hand and Neosporin in the other, "and I want to know what the fuck is wrong so I can fix it."
"No," Bob says rather desperately.
"No what the fuck?" Frank snaps, dropping the bag. "No? No nothing. Something is the fuck up with you."
"No," Bob repeats, getting up and shuffling his weight from foot to foot, unsure where he's supposed to go next and what he's meant to say. "I. No. It's not a. You didn't do. Everything's."
"If you say everything's okay I will kick you in the shin." Frank throws the Band-Aids at Bob, aiming to miss; they bounce on the dogs' cushion and Duke lifts his head up, ears quizzical and lop-sided, confused by all the tension. There's a low thud of curious tail hitting the cushion in a slow wag. "It's not fucking okay. You're acting all fucked up. You're going to hit some shit or freak out or something. Say something."
"No," Bob repeats. It's not what he means, but his brain is not making any other words, and the only other sound he can feel himself making is a low, pre-verbal grrr noise which will just freak the dogs out.
"SAY SOMETHING. Use words." Frank throws the Neosporin down and bounces up to his feet. "Fuck you, Bob."
Bob retreats into the kitchen, his fingers numb from being clenched so tightly together, his heart thumping in his fucking sinuses. The no seems to have quit choking him now, but there's nothing else in his head that looks like a sentence or even proper English. He wheels about on the kitchen floor, pacing back and forth between the table and the counter like a caged bear.
Frank shouts, "Tell me what I did wrong," from the sofa, his purchases apparently forgotten. One of the dogs underlines his request with a wuff, a half-bark.
Bob wheels about on his heel and makes a noise which starts as a no but turns into a grrrrrggggghhh sound as he nears the door and jerks himself back again. He shuffles back to the table and glares around at the kitchen. The paint on the walls is a little loose and he feels like he's choking. The linoleum is scuffed by unclipped dog nails and he feels like he's drowning in something and he's going to throw up.
"Bob," Frank yells, framed in the doorway.
The kettle is still sitting on the stove. Bob glares at it.
"Bob what the fuck is the problem - you're freaking me out here -"
The kettle reflects Bob's face and the ridiculous blonde chin fuzz which is in the process of turning into something like a beard (which he's gonna have to get rid of before he gets back to work), and it reflects the ceiling and, far in the background in a tiny distorted doorway, a worried and noisy Frank.
"I FUCKING LOVE YOU," he shouts at the kettle.
There is a silence which wraps around Bob's chest like a fist and squeezes until he can hardly breathe. This is it. Frank is going to walk out and never come back. He'll sneak back in when Bob's on shift and collect up his shit and Bob will never, ever see him again; the fist in Bob's ribcage tightens and he doesn't know if that's a bad thing or not, the never seeing Frank again. He'll miss him so fucking much but then he won't have to see the look of disappointment on his face and -
Frank's mouth hits his so hard that his lip actually bursts in the middle, a tiny split in his chapped skin; Bob doesn't care about the blood that seeps back over his teeth with Frank's tongue, or the way Frank's pulling his head down too hard and hurting his neck. He can't quite get his arms to move yet, can't stop them from hanging loose and limp and bewildered by his sides.
It takes him a moment to notice that his legs are shaking, just a little.
“You fucker, I thought you were gonna dump me!” Frank says, his mouth still mashed against Bob’s. His fingers are digging into Bob’s neck.
Given how long it took him to get those tiny little words out, it's funny that now that Frank's apparently trying to kiss the life right out of him, Bob can't seem to shut himself up. 'What the fuck?' gets licked away by Frank's tongue and 'you fucking idiot' gets bitten right in half when Frank's teeth close on his aching mouth and, Jesus Christ, he's been torturing Frank with this as much as it's been torturing him, hasn't he? Has he? His eyes are watering at the pain in his bleeding lip.
"Huh?" Frank breathes, giving him an iota of space to talk, still frenetically petting at his face, his neck.
"Didn't mean," Bob says eloquently. "I. You weren't. Fuck, Frank. I'm."
Frank chokes out a laugh through his grin. "Yeah, I fucking love you too, you idiot," he says, and goes back to trying to taste Bob's tonsils, wrapping his arms around Bob's neck like a touch-starved octopus. Bob finally gets his arms to work, functioning enough to move his hands to Frank's hips to hold onto him, anchor himself against the storm of Frank's reaction. Frank is smashing himself so close to Bob he's pretty sure that they're about to fall over, and when Frank pushes up to kiss him again his knees go out.
They go down, falling to the crumby floor in a tangle of grabbing hands and awkward arms. Bob bites Frank's lip on the way, and they're both bleeding now. Frank was right to bring a medkit to this conversation. If it can even be called that at this point.
"Frank. Um." He tries to say something, apologize for making him bleed, for falling, for being such a fucking dick and making Frank upset, but the words are tangled up behind his teeth. Frank just smears his bloody mouth across Bob's cheek in a messy kiss, and Bob can't talk at all after that.
He fumbles for Frank's arm, with that stupid tattoo, and grabs at it, pulls it up. Frank's wrists are so fucking small, it always shocks Bob when he can hold both of them in one hand, but this time he only wants this wrist, he isn't holding Frank down. He carefully, soberly, awkwardly, pulls the tattoo to his face and kisses it. He thinks his face might be on fire, and his eyes are burning, but Frank is looking at him like... like... Bob doesn't know what like, he's never seen that sort of expression on Frank's face before. He kisses it again, the fucking ridiculous claim of permanence Bob never asked Frank to make and doesn't want to think of him without.
He look as wrecked as Bob feels, in a way that has nothing to do with the specks of blood on his chin, his bruised mouth, and Bob’s got his teeth set against the meat of Frank’s arm before he can think. Frank makes a noise that’s a bit more familiar than his expression (that guttural groan just a little off from pain that Bob usually hears when Frank’s going to come) and shoves his hips up against Bob's eagerly.
"Wait," Bob mutters, breathing hard, and pins Frank against the crappy lino with all his weight to stop Frank from moving, to stop himself from trembling like he's having a fucking seizure.
Or maybe that's Frank doing some of the shaking. When Bob runs his tongue over the dents he's left in Frank's inked skin, Frank exhales in an unsteady burst like he's falling apart. "Fuck, Bob," he says, his voice gone tight like it's costing him everything to hold still like this.
Bob pulls back to run his fingers over Frank's hair, gracelessly petting at him. The thought of exactly how close he came to fucking this right up is breath-takingly terrifying, as though he'd been stumbling around trying to regain his balance and hadn't realized that he was standing at the lip of the Grand fucking Canyon until someone came along and hauled him back. Jesus, if Frank had just called this quits ... If he hadn't pressed this to the breaking point ...
Fuck.
He winds up gnawing furiously on the inside of his mouth like that's going to do a goddamn thing to hold him together, his face burning. He gulps in a breath that bursts out again with a stupid broken noise and shoves his face against the shoulder of his shirt, because untangling himself from Frank to hide somewhere is just ... so much more than he's got in him right now and that would involve letting go of Frank, and he's fucking never letting go of Frank. If he just hangs onto him, he'll be okay.
"Hey," Frank says, his mouth against Bob's throat, just breathing with him for a moment before actually managing to form a kiss. "We're good, man, we're good. It's all cool."
Bob hauls in a deep breath that he manages to let out without any more wounded animal noises, feeling wrung out like he's just finished a double shift in the space of the last ten minutes. He's decidedly less-than-cool right now, but doing his best to believe Frank on that subject.
"Hey," Frank murmurs again, sounding more amused than concerned now, giving his hair a little tug. "This floor seriously sucks, dude. And I think I missed some of the tortellini. You want to... Bed might be better for this."
Bob swallows thickly and nods against Frank's shoulder before rolling off of him, hastily dragging his sleeve over his face and looking anywhere but at Frank as he gets to his feet and offers him a hand up. Frank doesn't try to make him meet his eyes or anything either, just kind of wraps himself around Bob and bites his shoulder fondly before pressing his forehead there. "Love you, you dumbass," he sighs, hooking his fingers through Bob's belt loop and towing him along towards the bedroom. Bob follows blindly, rubbing at his sandpapery eyes again and wishing he could blow his nose. "I'll have to rent a billboard or something, then you'll get it. One of those Goodyear blimps maybe ..."
The dogs get shut out of the bedroom with a muttered apology from Frank. Bob hides in his hood until Frank comes up behind him and leans against him. "You're never getting rid of me now," Frank says, shoves his hands in Bob's hoodie pockets. Bob gropes awkwardly at Frank's hands for a second before letting them fall to his sides again. "Guess you shoulda thought that through, huh?"
Frank can't seem to stop petting at Bob's hair, brushing sweat-damp strands off his forehead while he keeps up the monologue of quiet chatter like he's soothing a ... a guy who's forgotten how to move and would really like a Kleenex. Good thing one of them is still functioning. Frank's up on his toes, bumping his nose reassuringly against Bob's cheek, and Bob turns his head to kiss him some more. Kissing is good. Hanging onto Frank is good too. He feels a little less like he's drowning on dry land that way. His hands are probably too tight around Frank's hipbones, but he knows by now that Frank doesn't mind bruises when they're in the shape of Bob's fingers.
"We're so fucked," Bob decides, shutting his eyes and sagging to rest his forehead on Frank's shoulder. He can feel Frank shake with laughter.
"C'mon," Frank orders, tugging him towards the bed, "I'm calling you in sick." He gives Bob a little push onto the bed and crawls on to the mattress after him, patting him down for his cell.
Bob can only lie there and watch as Frank sits back on his heels, sucking absently on his lower lip as he scrolls through the cell. I fucking love you, Bob thinks helplessly, and tucks his hand under Frank's thigh in an attempt to indicate as much. Frank shoots a sidelong smile at him and lays down to fold himself in against Bob's side, phone to his ear and his fingers spread over Bob's chest as he calls Bob's work, then his own, easy as that.
"Voila," Frank says, shutting the cell off with a definitive deedle-deedle-do and tossing it towards the pillow. Bob sticks his hands under the back of Frank's shirt, feeling the raised lines of his tattoos and the flutter of his heart through his ribs. Frank's hands are curled into fists now, clutching at Bob's hoodie. "It's just us, Bobby," Frank mutters against Bob's throat. Bob presses his lips to Frank's forehead, his ear. "You and me, just you and me."
Bob's half surprised when Frank's mouth presses against his, but he's never gonna argue about kissing Frank. He can't talk when he's kissing, so he can't fail at telling Frank what he wants to say. Not that he’s convinced he does such a terrific job of telling Frank what’s going on in his head through actions either, but it gets him a little closer to communication.
Frank just keeps kissing him, deep and steady, and it’s enough that Bob’s able to relax just a little, running his hands over Frank’s back instead of clutching and clinging. It's no less intense for the change in pace though, no idle touches when Frank pushes his warm hands under Bob's hoodie to stroke his sides. They're tangled up in each others' clothing, like they're tied together, and Bob's just fine with that.
Frank slides over him, skinny legs on either side of Bob's hips so his squirmy hot weight is holding Bob down. Bob's hands slide down, out from under the comforting warmth of Frank's shirt to rest on his ass. Frank is still kissing him, letting Bob try to get him to understand how much he fucking loves him without messing up his words.
Bob grabs too-hard at Frank's jeans-covered ass, squeezing, holding onto him and kissing him for what feels like forever. But Frank doesn't want to just keep kissing forever, Bob realizes. Frank's hands are inching towards his chest, taking the hoodie and his shirt up with them, edging over Bob's piercing.
Bob gladly helps him along, putting his arms up just long enough to let Frank pull the whole tangle up over his head and off of him, and then he’s got Frank in his arms again. Frank hums with satisfaction, mouthing his way down Bob’s throat; he’s got goose-bumps rising on his skin wherever Frank’s breath touches him and it’s not even cold in here.
He wants Frank’s skin against his …
Hell, he’s felt fucking naked since this whole thing started. The least they can do now is make their actual clothing match the mood by getting the hell out of here. After a mental debate as to what he needs to get Frank out of first … which is briefly sidetracked by the hot sting of Frank’s tongue sliding over his cut lip … Bob tugs wordlessly at Frank’s t-shirt, glad that this much has always been understood between them.
Then it's just getting naked, something they've had down for almost two years now. Frank sits up, taking his mouth away from Bob, and pulls his shirt off over his head. Bob can't keep his hands off Frank's belly, ink and warm skin and the faintest reminder of formerly gym-toned muscles under soft flesh.
Bob has always fucking loved Frank's skin, drawing slow circles over his stomach with his thumbs and trying not to get bleary eyed again when Frank smiles down at him with fucked-up hair. "Fuck, you're hot," Frank says, runs his thumb over Bob's chest, his sternum, his nipple. "I fucking love you, ok?" Bob doesn't answer, just gets his hands on the fly of Frank's jeans and starts getting him naked the rest of the way.
The look in Frank’s eyes when Bob glances up at him though ... He gets it, even if Bob can’t make his mouth say it again just yet. Frank’s jeans get stuck mid-thigh and he’s got to roll off of Bob to get them sorted out and that’s way more distance than Bob’s happy with, so he rolls with him. It’s easier getting Frank naked in a hurry when he’s the one on top, although he’s pretty sure they could make it happen right now in just about any position.
Frank’s trying to be helpful but just getting in the way when he won’t stop touching, unbuckling Bob’s belt before getting distracted and petting at his arms. Bob looks at him … just one look … and Frank nods, moving his hands and lifting his hips for Bob to pull off his jeans and shorts.
Yeah, this part they’re good at.
Bob has Frank finally fucking naked under him, all stretched out for him. He can see the bruises on Frank's hips from his fingers, red over the bones, and Frank's still smiling at him. Bob manages to get his shit together enough to wrestle out of his own jeans, his boxers, kicking them aside and laying back down over Frank. "Frank ..." he mutters, right against his mouth, and Frank leans up.
"I know," Frank says, and it's back to kissing. Frank's hands slide up over Bob's back, curl around his shoulders, tangled together properly again. This, this is easy. Sex with Frank is easy. It's not simple and it's never straightforward and sometimes it scares Bob shitless, how much he cares about the skinny kid who lets Bob hurt him and asks for more, but it's easy.
Frank is hard against his belly, ready to go, but he’s not as frantic as he often is, seemingly content to just keep kissing Bob, pressing up against him more like a slow dance than sex. So where Bob is usually completely engulfed by the moment, the Technicolor, surround-sound, overwhelming moment, now he’s got enough free thought left to keep up a consistent mantra of amazing, amazing and so fucking lucky and love you.
“Please,” says Frank, low and earnest, but without the usual knife-edge urgency, “Please, I want you.”
Denying Frank right now is entirely out of the question. He shifts, kissing down Frank's neck and throat and shoulder until he runs out of skin and bone to taste and has to move again. Frank drags his mouth over his chest, distracting him with hot-wet-slick kisses while Bob rummages through the clutter of the drawer for lube. "Wait," Bob mutters, finally getting his fingers on the slippery bottle. Frank mumbles something incoherent against Bob's collarbone. "Frank."
Frank ‘mm-mm’s happily against the hollow of his throat in a clear refusal to wait, so Bob kisses him again, hard, and … and he’s got his rewards and his punishments mixed up at some point and could really care less. Like Frank told him: it’s just them here now, as stripped down as they get.
Bob knows what he's doing now, getting his fingers slick and down between Frank's thighs. Frank whines quietly into Bob's mouth when Bob pushes two fingers in, not gentle, how Frank likes it. Frank's legs slide apart, eager and easy for Bob to settle between and get him ready. Frank's hands move from Bob's shoulders to his hair and back again, touching his face and his arms and his chest as Bob opens him up.
Whenever they’ve gone this slow in the past, it’s usually because they’re onto round two or because they’re both exhausted from work. This is … different. They’re both breathing hard and Frank’s just trembling with the restraint that it’s taking him not to rush. Bob can’t stop staring at him and marveling at the easy rhythm they fall into. He opens his mouth, doesn’t trust himself, and ducks his head to nuzzle at Frank’s throat instead.
Frank just kisses across Bob’s hair until Bob can face him to kiss him properly, the drag of Frank’s hands over his back a soothing pressure till then.
Bob pulls his fingers out of Frank’s ass, gets a low whine in return. “Be fucking patient,” Bob mumbles, resting his hand on Frank’s stomach, soothing (soothing his own frayed patience as much as Frank’s), staring down at Frank’s pretty flushed face. He gets more slick over his hand, on his dick. Frank watches his hand like a cat does a mouse, and Bob watches him.
"Patient," Frank scoffs, still just tense and poised for Bob's command. He mumbles his words out in a jumble of sounds. "I'm the patron fucking saint of patience. I'm..."
Bob nods slightly and Frank scrambles to shift back for him, hooking his calf over Bob's hip. Bob can't get over the way Frank's expression, despite his talk, is pretty much the exact mirror of what Bob's feeling right now. Amazed, adoring, like he can't quite believe his luck.
"Shit, you're worth waiting for," Frank adds in a low voice, and Bob has to kiss him to keep things from getting embarrassing again.
He’s pretty sure Frank doesn’t just mean now, waiting for the sex. Frank’s arms go around his neck, and Bob moves his hand from Frank’s soft belly to his hip, his thigh, to hold him down and push into him. He muffles the sweet, harsh noise Frank makes with his own groan, his own panting breaths. Frank’s body is so tense under his hands, trembling and twitching and eager. “Ffffrank,” he gasps against Frank’s mouth, when he’s sunk into him and can’t even think his own name properly any more.
Frank's not doing much better in the coherency department, licking helplessly at Bob's mouth, panting when he remembers to breathe at all. Locked together like this, Bob can feel the way that Frank's legs shake like Bob's taking him apart when he starts to move. He can feel the heat from the flush of blood that crawls up Frank's chest and neck when Frank hisses and arches against him, trying to set his own pace, and they're both going to be soaked within minutes here.
Bob can’t be bothered by that though, not when Frank’s knees are hitched around his hips and he’s got sharp teeth sunk into his lip. He’s trying to go slow, keep his head together for as long as he can. He wants to enjoy how beautiful Frank is, and somehow get his shit together enough to tell him again how much he fucking loves him.
But Frank is whining and begging for more, and Bob can’t not give in to him. He shifts, tightens his hand around Frank’s thigh, and pushes harder, faster, listening for Frank’s - his Frank’s, Frank is his, now Frank knows and maybe he can be less afraid that Frank will leave him because Frank loves him too - Frank’s heart-wrenching, ball-clenching noises.
There's a point though ... there's always that point, with Frank ... where the frantic worried thoughts whirling around so constantly in his head that he's probably worn a groove in his brain by now, those frantic thoughts just stop. Or not stop, exactly, but get pushed aside by the need to lick the salt sweat off Frank's throat and drive into him like he's trying to break him.
Frank makes a feral, strangled noise of approval and gets one of his hands up above his head to brace himself against the wall. Bob goes after it automatically because the world makes more sense when he's got his hands around Frank's wrists. Frank bares his teeth at him in something like a grin, and Bob decides that forming actual words is going to be an accomplishment far beyond him right now.
Frank’s hands clench into fists above Bob’s fingers, his head tilted back so Bob can see the pulse jumping in his throat. Bob buries his face in Frank’s sweaty shoulder, licking the flutter of his breath and blood and sweat and mumbling vague incoherent nothings against his skin. He might be saying I love you, but he’s not sure himself. He can hear Frank whining his name, and maybe Frank’s saying I love you, too, but he’s not sure. The blood pounding in his ears is too loud for him to know for sure.
They're on the same page though, Frank moving with him so perfectly now that he's pretty sure he can read his mind anyway. It's just the slap of skin on skin now, and Bob's rough breaths, and then Frank whines in his throat and mutters something like "C'mon, lemme", so somebody's still capable of words.
There are red marks on Frank's thigh when he lets go of it, blossoming bruises, and when he gets his hand around Frank's dick, Frank just thrashes under him and gasps out a broken "Fuck" before coming all over his hand and stomach.
Bob watches in amazement as Frank’s face twists and flushes and goes slack again, dives in to kiss Frank’s loose mouth. He lets go of Frank’s wrists to hold onto his hips, slamming into him only twice more before he’s coming with a strangled whine.
"Christ," he mutters, all out of breath and coherent thought. Frank hmms in agreement, apparently content to have Bob sweating and panting on top of him for the moment, not letting go yet.
The real world is going to come creeping back in soon, there's no preventing that, and he's going to have to think about the things that he's said, the stakes that he's just raised. But... not yet.
He's probably seen hundreds of Frank-smiles by now, ranging from the 'I dare you' smirks when they first met to the soft little smiles that Bob suspects he's probably not supposed to catch while they're watching TV, but the dazed, unfocused grin that he's on the receiving end of right now is definitely on his shortlist of favourites.
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