fic: Grin and Bear It (2/2)
[ part one]
The less said about Joe's shift at work the next day, the better. He's distracted all day, and he keeps putting things on the wrong shelf and getting yelled at by his supervisor. The hours keep getting longer and longer, the minutes expanding to feel like days, and Joe still isn't sure how exactly he feels about what's supposed to be happening when he gets home. He's anxious about it, definitely, but he still can't pin down whether it's in a good way or a bad way. After his lunch break, when his stomach is full of delicious food that Pete bought with his porno profits, Joe finally decides that maybe it's a good way. Like, 60-40 for the good way. Maybe even 70-30, if he's being honest.
And the only reason it's not a clean sweep for the good way is because there's going to be a camera. As much as Joe likes to front when he's around the other guys, he knows he's kind of awkward and maybe not the best-looking dude out there. And he's never seen his own face when he's jerking off or anything, but if the faces other dudes make in the porn he's seen are anything to go by, he's pretty sure he's not going to be winning any beauty contests during the act, either.
He can almost hear Pete's voice in his head at that, loud and insistent and saying "but that's not the point!" Which is true, Joe supposes, when the point of the picture is not the body in it, but the balloon. Or the stuffed animal. Or whatever. Which Joe, by gut reaction, puts on the "anxious in a bad way" side at first, but moves to the "good way" side when he realizes that anything that takes focus away from him is a big fucking silver lining to this whole strange cloud he's suddenly found himself floating on.
So, yeah, the props are what's bumping it from 60% good to 70% good.
And as for the rest of the good, well.
That's pretty much all Pete.
Joe sighs and makes an extra effort to put things on the right shelf for the rest of the day, which goes both too fast and too slow for his liking.
* * *
Pete is pacing the apartment when Joe gets home after work, and if he didn't know better he would think that Pete was maybe actually a little nervous.
"You're early!" Pete whirls around when Joe comes in the front door.
"Sure," Joe agrees, even though he really isn't. Maybe by five minutes. Not a lot, anyway.
Pete puts down the box of Trix he'd been eating out of, and says, "Okay, okay, I'm going to go get things ready. You can go freshen up, or whatever you need to do." Pete jitters off to his room, and Joe absolutely does not watch his ass as he goes.
Joe kicks off his shoes-they didn't used to have a rule about no shoes in the apartment, but then it started snowing and the kitchen floor got wet and filthy and Joe had put his foot down on the matter-and throws his coat over one of the chairs.
Joe makes a quick pit stop in the bathroom and then goes into his room and shuts the door. He sits on his bed and pulls his guitar into his lap and takes a few deep breaths, trying not to think too hard about what's about to happen. It's not like he's about to have sex. It's not like he's about to have sex with Pete. He's just going to jerk off, which is something he does pretty much every day anyway, and he's going to try really hard to pretend that there isn't a camera capturing the entire thing for posterity. And for five hundred bucks, he reminds himself. Joe wonders idly if that makes him a sell out, and he surprises himself by laughing at the thought.
He feels a lot more relaxed, now, and he puts his guitar aside and goes and stands in front of the giant pile of his clothes that's taken over one corner of his room. He looks down at it, consideringly.
"Hey, Pete!" he yells. He's pretty sure Pete'll be able to hear him; he knows the walls are really thin.
"What?" Pete yells back.
"Should I wear something nice?" Joe nudges the edge of his pile with his toe. He realizes belatedly that he's not exactly sure what would count as nice, or if said clothing would be clean. Probably not.
"You're gonna be naked, dude," Pete yells, and it sounds louder than before.
Oh. Right. Duh, Joe thinks, and tries not to feel embarrassed.
There's a knock at Joe's door a moment later, and then Pete says, at a more normal volume, "Are you ready yet? We don't exactly have a lot of time, here."
"Hold on," Joe says, and he takes another deep breath, reaches out to pat his guitar one more time, and goes to open his door.
Pete is standing right there, and he's holding his camera. Pete must see Joe eying the camera, because he gives an exaggerated leer and says, "Hey, baby, I'm going to make you a star."
Joe groans and punches Pete in the arm-the one not holding the camera, though. "Let's get this over with," he mutters, and follows Pete the three steps down the hall to Pete's room.
* * *
"Okay," Pete says once they're both in his room with the door shut, "so here's the plan."
Joe leans against the wall near the door and crosses his arms over his chest. He uncrosses them a second later and shoves his hands into his pockets.
"Basically, you're just going to jerk off, but make a show of it, you know? But don't be cheesy, nobody likes that. Just be yourself, but entertaining. And, like, pretend you're really into the bear, okay?"
"Bear?" Joe echoes.
"Oh, yeah, here, you're going to need this." Pete picks up a bag off the floor in the corner and pulls out a teddy bear, which he hands to Joe.
The teddy bear is nice, as teddy bears go, Joe supposes; it's a reasonable size, and it's wearing a green reindeer sweater and a red Santa hat. Seasonally appropriate, always a plus. He really doesn't think it's so nice that he wants to have sex with it, though. He holds it gingerly as he asks, "I'm not going to have to have sex with this, am I?"
"Nope," Pete says. "You just need to gaze at it adoringly."
"That is so fucking creepy."
"Yeah, but it turns out that it pays the bills." Pete sounds totally blasé about this, which kind of makes Joe wonder whether Pete knows a little more about this whole selling fetish porn thing than he originally let on.
Joe carefully puts the bear down on Pete's bed, resting it against one of the pillows piled at the headboard. "The Santa hat on this thing is kind of starting to creep me out, by the way."
"Dude, come on, it's festive, your audience is going to love that shit."
"I don't even celebrate Christmas!"
"Whatever, nobody's going to know."
"I hate you," Joe sighs, still looking at the bear with something like suspicion.
"Yeah, yeah," Pete waves it off. "Now take off your clothes, we need to get started."
"Okay," Joe says, but he doesn't move.
"What are you waiting for?" Pete asks impatiently.
"For you to turn around," Joe tells him. "I'm not giving you a strip tease."
"That's too bad," Pete says, but he turns around anyway and starts adjusting settings on his camera. "Anyway, so as I was saying before we got sidetracked, you're going to jerk off, and I'm going to be in here with the camera."
"Wait," Joe says. He's only got one leg out of his pants and he almost falls over when he stops in the middle of getting the other leg free. "Why do you need to be in here?
"Because I'm filming you?" Pete still has his back to Joe, which Joe really appreciates, even though it might make it harder to argue with him.
"I thought you said pictures! I didn't agree to make a fucking movie!"
"Yes you did," Pete says placidly, "I totally told you I wanted to make a movie."
"No you didn't." Joe isn't completely sure why he's still taking his clothes off while arguing the format of their porn-to-be, but he toes his last sock off and there he is, standing bare-ass naked in the middle of Pete's bedroom.
"I really did." Pete turns around then, like he has some sort of weird sixth sense for nudity, and his voice trails off as he stares at Joe.
"What?" Joe asks. He fights off the urge to cover himself with his hand, because, let's be honest, this is probably the least compromising position Pete's going to see him in until this whole thing is over.
Pete keeps staring, and then he says, "Nothing, nothing."
Joe sighs, and wonders if there's anywhere he can stand that would hide him from Pete's weird staring. "You really didn't say movie."
"I did, but whatever, you're already naked and getting ready to show that bear a good time. Work with me, why don't you?" Pete points at the bear and then lifts the camera and starts attaching it to a tripod Joe somehow hadn't managed to notice before.
Joe goes and sits down on the edge of the bed. The blanket is soft against his skin, which Joe likes. "So, uh, how are we going to start this?" he asks after a minute of awkward silence.
Pete just looks at him. "I say 'action', and you give me some action."
Joe sighs. He's not going to let Pete make him feel dumb over a totally valid question. "But, I don't know, do you have a script? Or a plan? Or anything?"
Pete shakes his head. "Just go for it, man."
"I can do that," Joe says.
"You ready?" Pete asks.
Joe takes a deep breath and looks down at his dick. Are you ready? he asks it. He's almost surprised to realize that his dick is not completely soft, and it feels like he could probably get it fully hard with a few minutes of careful visualizing. He takes that as a yes.
"Yeah," Joe says. "I'm ready."
Pete points to the head of the bed, with its pile of pillows and the teddy bear. "Go sit up there."
Joe pushes himself along the bed until he's sitting with his back against the pillows. His heart starts beating a little faster. He really hopes he's not blushing, not when it's going to get caught on film for everybody to see.
Pete ducks his head behind the camera and starts adjusting things, tugging the tripod back an inch and then twisting it ever so slightly to the left. "Can you move the bear?"
"Where?"
"Six inches forward?"
Joe moves the bear six inches forward, more or less. He doesn't have a ruler or whatever, but he's pretty sure about it.
"Awesome," Pete says. "Hey, put your legs out straight in front of you."
Joe hesitates for a second, and then just does it. He feels exposed, and he's not sure if it's because of the camera or because Pete is watching.
"Don't forget to look at that bear like it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to you," Pete says, and before Joe can say anything to that, Pete yells, "Action!"
The red light on the front of the camera goes on.
Joe looks at the bear for a moment, hoping his face conveys the right amount of whatever it is Pete wants from him, and puts his hand on his dick. He picks up an easy rhythm to start, his hand gliding up the length of his dick and then moving slowly back down. He realizes belatedly that he doesn't have any lotion or anything, but it's not quite a problem yet; his touch is still light, his dick still isn't quite fully hard, and his palm is starting to get kind of sweaty.
It only takes about a dozen more strokes for Joe to start relaxing, to start getting into the same easy place he always ends up when he jerks off. It's like his body knows what to do, and his brain is just along for the ride to provide helpful visuals when necessary.
It's even getting easier to tune out Pete and the camera, which Joe didn't think was going to be possible, but totally isn't going to fight against. He's still stuck staring at the damn bear, but he's even getting used to that. It helps that he's not wearing his glasses so the bear is coming in and out of focus as his eyelids flicker, and so it's just a gaudy red and green and tan blur a lot of the time anyway.
Joe is just getting to the point where he's really comfortable-he's almost in the zone-when Pete's voice breaks his concentration: "Wait, you're eighteen, right?"
Joe groans, then lets go of his dick and thunks his head back against the headboard. "I'm nineteen, you asshole."
"Oh." Pete sounds disappointed. "Do you think we can still market you as barely legal?"
"I don't care, oh my god."
"It's important, though," Pete says, furrowing his brow in concern.
"We can figure it out later, okay?" Joe gets out through gritted teeth.
"Sure," Pete says, and then, "shit, I'm going to have to edit this out of the tape. Hey, do you mind starting again?"
Joe very much minds starting again, and tells Pete as much.
"As you were, then," Pete sighs.
Joe puts his hand back on his dick and starts stroking himself slowly, gripping tighter as his hand slides up towards the head. He squeezes briefly before moving his hand back down to the base and sliding it back up again. The warmth that had been building in his stomach before Pete's interruption comes back almost right away, and it's not too much longer before it starts spreading outward, into Joe's thighs and up towards his chest.
Joe slides into muscle memory then, and his body's autopilot turns back on. He drags the tip of one finger lightly up the underside of his dick, circles it around the ridge of the head, presses it to the slit and smears around the bit of pre-come already starting to gather. It's good, but of course it's good, it's what he always does, what he's used to, what he responds to.
And as for his brain, well.
Joe thinks about Pete. He can't not. He thinks about Pete on stage, grinning like a loon and whirling around. He thinks about the heat from Pete's body when he bumps into Joe. He thinks about how Pete is practically invincible when he's got a stage under his feet and a microphone at hand. And he thinks about Pete once he gets off stage, too; the way his shirt gets damp and sticks to his stomach, the way his hair sticks to the sides of his forehead, the way he'll grab Joe up in a smelly, sweaty hug that sometimes seems to last forever before Pete breaks off to ruffle Joe's hair and then go talk to one of the seemingly hundreds of people he knows.
And he thinks about Pete's stomach, flat and tight under that stupid tattoo Pete loves so much, and his hands, and his ass. How his ass looks in jeans, how it looks in sweatpants, how it looks when Pete's walking around the apartment naked, just because he can. Jesus. Joe tilts his head a bit, trying to still make it look like he's looking at the bear when he's actually trying to see if he can see Pete from the corner of his eye.
Pete's hovering behind the camera and Joe can just see the edge of his body, not quite in profile but not quite facing him straight on, either. When Pete shifts his weight Joe catches a flash of the shape of Pete's ass and it makes his dick jump against his hand, and he's finally all the way hard.
Joe groans, then, the noise slipping out before he can stop it, and he sees Pete light up behind the camera.
"More," Pete mouths at him, and Joe breathes out hard through his nose as he grips his dick hard and palms firmly at the head, rubbing the new drops of pre-come against his palm before starting to jerk himself off again, faster and harder than before.
There's friction, now, and a lot of it at that. It's good, really good, almost too much. He can't help but make more noise, now-every time he breathes in, it catches, and every time he breathes out it comes out as a cut-off noise somewhere between a moan and a grunt-and he tries not to think about that, because he knows he'll get self-conscious.
Instead, he focuses on what he's doing. He slides his left hand up his thigh and then spreads his legs a little further so he can take hold of his balls and start rolling them in his palm the way he sometimes does when he wants to spice things up. It's good enough that his hips start to come off the bed as he thrusts up against his hand, almost grinding against his fist.
"Love the bear," Pete hisses at him, and Joe realizes that he must closed his eyes at some point and not noticed.
Joe pries his eyes open to try to gaze lovingly at the Christmas teddy bear even while trying to, like, turn off his optic nerve receptors to make it easier to pretend that he's not actually staring at a Christmas teddy bear, because he's starting to get pretty into this, and the bear just makes it creepy. Joe isn't creepy. Or at least, he didn't used to be creepy. Maybe this changes anything. Does it really count as creepy if you're doing it for money? He'll worry about that later, he decides. He's too busy right now to have thoughts.
"Touch the bear," Pete hisses then, and Joe tries to shoot him a look that he hopes conveys his deep confusion without actually ruining the movie. He doesn't want Pete to have another fit about having to edit things out.
Joe takes his hand off his balls and reaches out to touch the bear, running his fingers lightly down the bear's arm. It's really weird. He wonders what Pete plans to do with the bear, now that Joe has basically rubbed his balls against it.
Joe's other hand is still working his dick, and he manages to get a stroke in at a particularly good angle that distracts him from all thoughts of the bear as his eyes start to roll back in his head. He's actually starting to get kind of close now, and the heat in his stomach and groin is getting to the point where it's turning into a buzz, a tension that needs to snap soon.
"Okay, that's great," Pete says loudly then. "You can stop now. Stop, Joe. Stop."
Joe blinks at Pete dumbly. His hand is still busy with his dick but it's slowing down as Pete's words register. "Um? I'm kind of busy here?" is all he's got in response.
Pete steps out from behind the camera-Joe notices the red light is off, which, what the fuck, how much of his masterpiece did Pete not get on tape?-and comes towards the bed. He's got that look on his face again like Joe might not like what he's about to say.
"Okay, so, you asked before if I had a script," Pete says tentatively.
"And you said you didn't," Joe reminds him. He's still got his hand on his dick but he's barely doing anything now, just easing off. If he'd stopped cold turkey-he doesn't even want to contemplate the consequences of that one. His balls would probably be blue forever.
"Well, I didn't, for the beginning."
"But you do for the end, I take it." This is about where Joe's boner should be losing interest in the whole undertaking, but for some reason, it isn't. Maybe it's because Pete is right there, standing near Joe's feet, smiling tentatively at him instead of, like, saying something mean about Joe's dick or sex face or scrawny legs.
"The movie has a second act," Pete says. He's more confident now. Joe is pretty sure he should take this as a bad sign.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Well, I'm telling you now."
Joe groans and shuts his eyes. He is somehow still hard and he isn't sure what to make of the fact. "What happens in the second act, Pete?"
"Right, so, okay, I was thinking that the bear comes to life, right?" Pete sits down on the edge of the bed by Joe's knees, but he doesn't lean in.
"And how are we doing this? Do you suddenly know how to do, like, CGI, Industrial Lights and Magic shit, and didn't tell us?"
Pete doesn't answer right away.
Joe opens his eyes just far enough that he can peer at Pete, who's twisting his hands together in his lap.
"I bought a bear suit," Pete finally says.
Joe sits up, then. He can't have this conversation on his back. "With your balloon money? Like, some kind of kinky trading-up scheme?"
"Uh, actually it was like a year ago." Joe just kind of goggles at Pete. "Anyway, so the bear comes to life-"
"I'm not having sex with you," Joe interrupts. His hand is still on his dick, though, so he's not sure how much force his protests are going to carry.
"No, I know," Pete says. "The bear comes to life because you touched it, and, you know, finishes jerking you off."
"You're going to be touching my dick," Joe says. He's totally stating the obvious, but whatever. It sounds like a really bad idea, if only because it means the movie will probably be over in ten seconds.
"I'll have a mitten on?" Pete offers.
Joe raises both eyebrows.
"It's the hand of the suit," Pete explains.
Joe can't decide if that's better or worse than if Pete uses his bare hand.
"Right, so," Pete says awkwardly, gesturing at nothing with both hands. Then he gets up, drops his jeans, and pulls his hoodie over his head. Joe can't help but notice that Pete's got a semi. Actually, that might not be giving him enough credit-Pete is pretty much hard, and his thin boxers are doing absolutely nothing to hide the fact.
Pete takes the two steps over to his closet door, and when he pulls it open there's a bear costume hanging right there, like Pete was planning ahead. Which he obviously was. The bear suit is almost the same shade of brown as the bear at Joe's hip, and the fur is kind of shiny. Pete steps into it easily, then sticks his arms into the sleeves. He picks up a green sweater off the floor and struggles into it, messing up his hair when he pulls it over his head. He grabs a pair of brown fur mittens from the closet floor and slides them on, and then pulls the costume's head out from behind an amp and balances it on his hip as he walks back to the bed.
"Zip me up?" Pete asks, turning so he's got his back to Joe and sitting once more on the edge of the bed.
Joe is still having problems finding actual words rather than just a series of facial expressions spanning the entire spectrum from confused to surprised, so he just does up the zipper as asked, reaching under the green sweater-seriously, the match between the costume and the bear is uncanny, Joe thinks-to get the zipper all the way to the top. He can't help but notice that the fur of the outfit is pretty soft as it brushes against the side of his hand.
Pete looks over his shoulder to throw a huge smile at Joe before lifting the bear head up and on. He walks around the bed and picks up the teddy bear, carefully setting it aside on the floor, and sits down where the bear had just been. Then he picks up a Santa hat off the floor and tries to position it on the bear's head, but he's fumbling through his mittens and the hat won't stay.
Joe takes pity on him and leans in to hook the hat over one ear of the head. It only takes him a couple tries to get it to stay.
"Thanks," Pete tells him. "Now lean back."
Joe does. Pete is sitting awfully close to him, now; Joe can feel the brush of fur against his thigh and his hip, but just barely. It doesn't quite tickle, but it sets him on edge, makes him tense up. He wants to shiver but forces himself not to.
"Okay, you ready?" Pete asks. The words come out kind of muffled through the bear head.
"Sure," Joe says. He's not actually sure at all, but at this point, there's really no stopping things.
"Action," Pete mumbles, then paws at a tiny remote through his furry glove until the red light on the camera comes back on.
Joe has about half a second to mentally prepare himself for what's about to happen before Pete's big soft furry hand is on his dick, wrapping around it not nearly tight enough for Joe's liking, and pumping it pretty tentatively.
But it's Pete's hand, and that counts for a lot to Joe's dick. Plus, the fur gives it an extra sort of slipperiness that bare skin could never have, and it's new and exciting and different, which goes a long way towards helping balance out the fact that it's not exactly good.
It takes Joe a moment to figure out what to do with his hands now that he's not using them anymore. Should he just put them down on the bed? Should he be feeling himself up, or is that too cheesy? But then Pete squeezes Joe's dick, just once, but firmly enough that Joe jerks and ends up grabbing onto Pete's forearm. The fur of the bear costume is soft and warm under his palm, and he can feel the muscles in Pete's arm flexing as he jerks Joe off. Joe lets his other hand fall lightly onto his thigh, not touching himself particularly, but just kind of there-and if he starts tracing light circles onto his leg with his fingertips, it's just because it feels good and not because he's trying to play to the camera.
So Joe manages to get back into it surprisingly quickly, and once Pete finally settles on a decent rhythm instead of just pawing at him experimentally, Joe starts rolling his hips into it, which actually helps a lot.
The fur of the mitten and the cuff of Pete's sleeve keep brushing against Joe's lower stomach and the tops of his thighs. Each time Pete runs his hand back down Joe's dick the fur rubs against Joe's skin again, sending tiny tremors shooting out to poke tiny holes in Joe's stomach, which feels like it's going to turn itself inside out from all the weird feelings he's got churning around inside.
"Hey, love the bear," Pete mutters at Joe, which pulls Joe back out from where he was getting lost in his head. He blinks at Pete-or rather, at the bear in the Santa hat awfully close to his face, and he tries to pull his expression into something conveying whatever it is Pete's going for. It must work, because Pete makes an approving noise and tightens his grip around Joe's dick.
Joe grunts then, loudly, from surprise and the jolt of warm pleasure, and Pete picks up his pace, too, jerking Joe off a little faster than before.
The smooth fur of the mitten slides quickly along Joe's skin, and even with the way Pete's holding his dick tighter there still isn't quite enough friction for Joe's liking. Joe is starting to get just a little bit worried about this not ending well-or at all, if the friction situation doesn't improve at some point-but then the sound of Pete's breathing changes, getting faster and rougher and with a little noisy edge to it every time he breathes in. If it weren't for the bear head, he'd practically be panting in Joe's ear, and it's hot and almost totally overwhelming.
Joe can't quite decide how he feels right now, can't pin down any of the thoughts swirling half-formed through his head, fading out in the face of the fact that Pete's hand is on his dick and he's going to come soon. Because it's one thing to think about Pete when he's jerking off and get off on it, even when Pete is right there and watching him, but it's another thing to have Pete's hand on his dick, to have Pete be the one actually jerking him off. Joe's thought kind of a lot about what it would be like to have Pete touch him, to have Pete's hand on his dick on purpose and for sex, rather than some sort of stupid prank, but he really, really never thought it was going to be like this. On camera, for money, not even able to feel Pete's skin against his.
But it's still Pete, and that's going to be enough.
And the noises that Pete's making, those aren't the noises of a guy who's just phoning it in, they just aren't. Joe would put money on the fact. He can't help but wonder what that means, though. Is Pete actually enjoying it? Is it because it's sex, or is it because it's Joe? Pete did say he was cute, so maybe it is because it's Joe. The very thought sends a rush shooting through Joe's body straight down into his toes.
"Hey," Joe gasps, "Hey, I'm-"
Pete's fingers tighten around him again, and the furry mitten brushes against the head of Joe's dick, back and forth against the slit, rubbing against the ridge, and Joe hears Pete draw in a long, shaky breath.
"Look at me," Pete whispers.
Joe does. He can't not. He forces himself to keep his eyes open as he stares at the bear head, mentally superimposing Pete's face over the big cartoon features. But then his balls draw in tight and his eyes flicker shut and he comes hard, shooting onto his stomach and into the furry mitten still cupped over the head of his dick. He feels it dripping back down a moment later, warm and wet as it starts to pool around the base of his dick and roll down the inside of his thigh.
Joe breathes out, slow and shuddery and satisfied. He has just enough presence of mind to try to throw another loving look at Pete-at the bear-and it's easier this time than it was before, when he's still dumb and floating on his orgasm.
The bear head just gazes back blankly at him, and after a few seconds Joe closes his eyes and sinks back against the pillows to try to enjoy his afterglow, such as it is, while he can. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth and keeps time against his heart slowing its frantic thudding in his chest.
Joe gets a few lovely long moments to relax before Pete nudges him in the ribs.
"Unzip me," Pete groans. His voice is hoarse and rough and he sounds a little desperate.
When Joe opens his eyes, he sees that Pete's got the bear head off and the green sweater hanging from one wrist. His hair is all damp with sweat and disheveled and sticking up weirdly and matted against his forehead, and his eyes are dark in a way Joe's never seen before.
Pete turns so that his back is to Joe, and Joe struggles up into a more-or-less upright position so he can reach the zipper where it sits at the back of Pete's neck, just under the point of the knob at the top of his spine. He gets it open in a couple smooth tugs, and Pete starts wrestling the sleeves off his arms even before Joe is completely done unzipping him.
Pete doesn't even get off the bed before he starts wriggling out of the bear suit, flailing and pushing at it until it's around his ankles. He falls back onto the bed next to Joe and shoves his boxers down and then starts jerking himself off frantically, his hand wrapped tight around his dick and pumping fast.
His eyes are closed and his mouth is open and Joe can't help but stare as Pete licks his lips, probably totally unconsciously, and then stops jerking off just for a moment so he can lick his hand wetly. Joe can see the spit pooling at the edge of Pete's palm in the moment it's up at his face, and then Joe watches as Pete puts his hand back on his dick, hears it as the spit squelches between Pete's fingers, can't help but stare at the wet gleam at the top of Pete's dick where it's showing out the middle of his fist.
Joe is staring. He knows he's staring. He knows he's a little slack-jawed but he can't quite convince his mouth to close because he needs it to breathe, which he's having a bit of trouble with at this particular moment. Because Pete is jerking off. Right in front of him. Like he's going to die if he doesn't come in the next ninety seconds. Which he is totally on track to do, at the rate he's going.
Joe is overwhelmingly aware that right now, his options are basically watch, leave, or help. He's already watching-seriously, he can't look away-and he's not sure his knees have stopped being so wobbly that getting up is anything but a bad idea. Plus, he really doesn't want to leave. He's torn on helping, though. Should he? Because Pete jerked him off, so it'd be like returning the favour. Except that Pete was wearing a furry mitten-he was in costume, playing a part-and that kind of changes things.
He should at least offer, though, he finally decides. He can play it off as a joke if Pete says no.
Joe is still trying to work up the balls to offer when Pete tips his head back and his whole body arches up off the sheets as he groans, loud and choked and intense, and then comes all over his stomach and chest. Joe just watches as Pete kind of deflates, flopping out on the bed as he breathes hard and doesn't otherwise move.
It's just the sound of them breathing, then, as a quiet settles over the room.
Pete starts to reach for a pillow, but stops and pulls himself up the bed so that his head is resting on Joe's shoulder. Pete's head is heavy, practically pinning Joe in place, but the back of his neck is warm against Joe's armpit and Joe is really reluctant to try to dislodge Pete, who's now curling himself in towards Joe and clearly making himself comfortable.
Joe grits his teeth against a moment of panic when he can't decide what to do with his arm. He's not sure if it's okay to put his arm around Pete or not, to hold him, to hug him. He wants to, but he thinks it would be weird. Which isn't to say that everything else that's happened today hasn't been weird, but. It would be like the weird icing on a very weird cake, and Joe isn't sure he's ready to eat it yet.
It's also a gross cake, a fact which Joe feels shouldn't be overlooked. Neither of them have cleaned up at all, and now, Pete is-oh, holy Jesus, Pete is putting his hand on Joe's stomach, with apparent total disregard for the fact that it's still sticky with Joe's come, and he's pressing himself up against Joe's side, with further disregard for the fact that he is also still sticky-wet and gross, and-
And then Pete kisses Joe, right on the mouth.
It's not fast enough to be a joke, not brief enough just to be, like, a thank-you or something.
It's a real kiss.
Joe freezes up, his brain completely shorting out in surprise. His body clearly has some idea of what to do, though, because he can feel his lips moving against Pete's just enough that he's not a total dead fish.
When Pete pulls away after a few seconds, Joe is stunned and silent, blinking and trying to gather his thoughts, which are spinning dizzily around his head at a thousand miles an hour.
"Is this in the script, too?" is what Joe finally settles on.
"Nope," Pete says, and presses his nose into the side of Joe's neck. "Is that a problem?" he mouths against Joe's skin. His voice is pitched low, and his breath is hot, damp, and kind of gross, but Joe likes it anyway.
Joe just shakes his head.
"Anyway, the camera's off," Pete tells him.
Joe peers down towards the end of the bed, and sure enough, the little red light is gone.
"Okay," Joe says, and as his thoughts start to settle into their obvious conclusion, he can feel the smile spreading slowly across his face. He bends his arm, then, and wraps it around Pete, his hand sliding along Pete's ribs to rest on his hip and pull him in close.
"Okay," Joe says again, still smiling, and then tips his head down and kisses Pete back properly.
The less said about Joe's shift at work the next day, the better. He's distracted all day, and he keeps putting things on the wrong shelf and getting yelled at by his supervisor. The hours keep getting longer and longer, the minutes expanding to feel like days, and Joe still isn't sure how exactly he feels about what's supposed to be happening when he gets home. He's anxious about it, definitely, but he still can't pin down whether it's in a good way or a bad way. After his lunch break, when his stomach is full of delicious food that Pete bought with his porno profits, Joe finally decides that maybe it's a good way. Like, 60-40 for the good way. Maybe even 70-30, if he's being honest.
And the only reason it's not a clean sweep for the good way is because there's going to be a camera. As much as Joe likes to front when he's around the other guys, he knows he's kind of awkward and maybe not the best-looking dude out there. And he's never seen his own face when he's jerking off or anything, but if the faces other dudes make in the porn he's seen are anything to go by, he's pretty sure he's not going to be winning any beauty contests during the act, either.
He can almost hear Pete's voice in his head at that, loud and insistent and saying "but that's not the point!" Which is true, Joe supposes, when the point of the picture is not the body in it, but the balloon. Or the stuffed animal. Or whatever. Which Joe, by gut reaction, puts on the "anxious in a bad way" side at first, but moves to the "good way" side when he realizes that anything that takes focus away from him is a big fucking silver lining to this whole strange cloud he's suddenly found himself floating on.
So, yeah, the props are what's bumping it from 60% good to 70% good.
And as for the rest of the good, well.
That's pretty much all Pete.
Joe sighs and makes an extra effort to put things on the right shelf for the rest of the day, which goes both too fast and too slow for his liking.
* * *
Pete is pacing the apartment when Joe gets home after work, and if he didn't know better he would think that Pete was maybe actually a little nervous.
"You're early!" Pete whirls around when Joe comes in the front door.
"Sure," Joe agrees, even though he really isn't. Maybe by five minutes. Not a lot, anyway.
Pete puts down the box of Trix he'd been eating out of, and says, "Okay, okay, I'm going to go get things ready. You can go freshen up, or whatever you need to do." Pete jitters off to his room, and Joe absolutely does not watch his ass as he goes.
Joe kicks off his shoes-they didn't used to have a rule about no shoes in the apartment, but then it started snowing and the kitchen floor got wet and filthy and Joe had put his foot down on the matter-and throws his coat over one of the chairs.
Joe makes a quick pit stop in the bathroom and then goes into his room and shuts the door. He sits on his bed and pulls his guitar into his lap and takes a few deep breaths, trying not to think too hard about what's about to happen. It's not like he's about to have sex. It's not like he's about to have sex with Pete. He's just going to jerk off, which is something he does pretty much every day anyway, and he's going to try really hard to pretend that there isn't a camera capturing the entire thing for posterity. And for five hundred bucks, he reminds himself. Joe wonders idly if that makes him a sell out, and he surprises himself by laughing at the thought.
He feels a lot more relaxed, now, and he puts his guitar aside and goes and stands in front of the giant pile of his clothes that's taken over one corner of his room. He looks down at it, consideringly.
"Hey, Pete!" he yells. He's pretty sure Pete'll be able to hear him; he knows the walls are really thin.
"What?" Pete yells back.
"Should I wear something nice?" Joe nudges the edge of his pile with his toe. He realizes belatedly that he's not exactly sure what would count as nice, or if said clothing would be clean. Probably not.
"You're gonna be naked, dude," Pete yells, and it sounds louder than before.
Oh. Right. Duh, Joe thinks, and tries not to feel embarrassed.
There's a knock at Joe's door a moment later, and then Pete says, at a more normal volume, "Are you ready yet? We don't exactly have a lot of time, here."
"Hold on," Joe says, and he takes another deep breath, reaches out to pat his guitar one more time, and goes to open his door.
Pete is standing right there, and he's holding his camera. Pete must see Joe eying the camera, because he gives an exaggerated leer and says, "Hey, baby, I'm going to make you a star."
Joe groans and punches Pete in the arm-the one not holding the camera, though. "Let's get this over with," he mutters, and follows Pete the three steps down the hall to Pete's room.
* * *
"Okay," Pete says once they're both in his room with the door shut, "so here's the plan."
Joe leans against the wall near the door and crosses his arms over his chest. He uncrosses them a second later and shoves his hands into his pockets.
"Basically, you're just going to jerk off, but make a show of it, you know? But don't be cheesy, nobody likes that. Just be yourself, but entertaining. And, like, pretend you're really into the bear, okay?"
"Bear?" Joe echoes.
"Oh, yeah, here, you're going to need this." Pete picks up a bag off the floor in the corner and pulls out a teddy bear, which he hands to Joe.
The teddy bear is nice, as teddy bears go, Joe supposes; it's a reasonable size, and it's wearing a green reindeer sweater and a red Santa hat. Seasonally appropriate, always a plus. He really doesn't think it's so nice that he wants to have sex with it, though. He holds it gingerly as he asks, "I'm not going to have to have sex with this, am I?"
"Nope," Pete says. "You just need to gaze at it adoringly."
"That is so fucking creepy."
"Yeah, but it turns out that it pays the bills." Pete sounds totally blasé about this, which kind of makes Joe wonder whether Pete knows a little more about this whole selling fetish porn thing than he originally let on.
Joe carefully puts the bear down on Pete's bed, resting it against one of the pillows piled at the headboard. "The Santa hat on this thing is kind of starting to creep me out, by the way."
"Dude, come on, it's festive, your audience is going to love that shit."
"I don't even celebrate Christmas!"
"Whatever, nobody's going to know."
"I hate you," Joe sighs, still looking at the bear with something like suspicion.
"Yeah, yeah," Pete waves it off. "Now take off your clothes, we need to get started."
"Okay," Joe says, but he doesn't move.
"What are you waiting for?" Pete asks impatiently.
"For you to turn around," Joe tells him. "I'm not giving you a strip tease."
"That's too bad," Pete says, but he turns around anyway and starts adjusting settings on his camera. "Anyway, so as I was saying before we got sidetracked, you're going to jerk off, and I'm going to be in here with the camera."
"Wait," Joe says. He's only got one leg out of his pants and he almost falls over when he stops in the middle of getting the other leg free. "Why do you need to be in here?
"Because I'm filming you?" Pete still has his back to Joe, which Joe really appreciates, even though it might make it harder to argue with him.
"I thought you said pictures! I didn't agree to make a fucking movie!"
"Yes you did," Pete says placidly, "I totally told you I wanted to make a movie."
"No you didn't." Joe isn't completely sure why he's still taking his clothes off while arguing the format of their porn-to-be, but he toes his last sock off and there he is, standing bare-ass naked in the middle of Pete's bedroom.
"I really did." Pete turns around then, like he has some sort of weird sixth sense for nudity, and his voice trails off as he stares at Joe.
"What?" Joe asks. He fights off the urge to cover himself with his hand, because, let's be honest, this is probably the least compromising position Pete's going to see him in until this whole thing is over.
Pete keeps staring, and then he says, "Nothing, nothing."
Joe sighs, and wonders if there's anywhere he can stand that would hide him from Pete's weird staring. "You really didn't say movie."
"I did, but whatever, you're already naked and getting ready to show that bear a good time. Work with me, why don't you?" Pete points at the bear and then lifts the camera and starts attaching it to a tripod Joe somehow hadn't managed to notice before.
Joe goes and sits down on the edge of the bed. The blanket is soft against his skin, which Joe likes. "So, uh, how are we going to start this?" he asks after a minute of awkward silence.
Pete just looks at him. "I say 'action', and you give me some action."
Joe sighs. He's not going to let Pete make him feel dumb over a totally valid question. "But, I don't know, do you have a script? Or a plan? Or anything?"
Pete shakes his head. "Just go for it, man."
"I can do that," Joe says.
"You ready?" Pete asks.
Joe takes a deep breath and looks down at his dick. Are you ready? he asks it. He's almost surprised to realize that his dick is not completely soft, and it feels like he could probably get it fully hard with a few minutes of careful visualizing. He takes that as a yes.
"Yeah," Joe says. "I'm ready."
Pete points to the head of the bed, with its pile of pillows and the teddy bear. "Go sit up there."
Joe pushes himself along the bed until he's sitting with his back against the pillows. His heart starts beating a little faster. He really hopes he's not blushing, not when it's going to get caught on film for everybody to see.
Pete ducks his head behind the camera and starts adjusting things, tugging the tripod back an inch and then twisting it ever so slightly to the left. "Can you move the bear?"
"Where?"
"Six inches forward?"
Joe moves the bear six inches forward, more or less. He doesn't have a ruler or whatever, but he's pretty sure about it.
"Awesome," Pete says. "Hey, put your legs out straight in front of you."
Joe hesitates for a second, and then just does it. He feels exposed, and he's not sure if it's because of the camera or because Pete is watching.
"Don't forget to look at that bear like it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to you," Pete says, and before Joe can say anything to that, Pete yells, "Action!"
The red light on the front of the camera goes on.
Joe looks at the bear for a moment, hoping his face conveys the right amount of whatever it is Pete wants from him, and puts his hand on his dick. He picks up an easy rhythm to start, his hand gliding up the length of his dick and then moving slowly back down. He realizes belatedly that he doesn't have any lotion or anything, but it's not quite a problem yet; his touch is still light, his dick still isn't quite fully hard, and his palm is starting to get kind of sweaty.
It only takes about a dozen more strokes for Joe to start relaxing, to start getting into the same easy place he always ends up when he jerks off. It's like his body knows what to do, and his brain is just along for the ride to provide helpful visuals when necessary.
It's even getting easier to tune out Pete and the camera, which Joe didn't think was going to be possible, but totally isn't going to fight against. He's still stuck staring at the damn bear, but he's even getting used to that. It helps that he's not wearing his glasses so the bear is coming in and out of focus as his eyelids flicker, and so it's just a gaudy red and green and tan blur a lot of the time anyway.
Joe is just getting to the point where he's really comfortable-he's almost in the zone-when Pete's voice breaks his concentration: "Wait, you're eighteen, right?"
Joe groans, then lets go of his dick and thunks his head back against the headboard. "I'm nineteen, you asshole."
"Oh." Pete sounds disappointed. "Do you think we can still market you as barely legal?"
"I don't care, oh my god."
"It's important, though," Pete says, furrowing his brow in concern.
"We can figure it out later, okay?" Joe gets out through gritted teeth.
"Sure," Pete says, and then, "shit, I'm going to have to edit this out of the tape. Hey, do you mind starting again?"
Joe very much minds starting again, and tells Pete as much.
"As you were, then," Pete sighs.
Joe puts his hand back on his dick and starts stroking himself slowly, gripping tighter as his hand slides up towards the head. He squeezes briefly before moving his hand back down to the base and sliding it back up again. The warmth that had been building in his stomach before Pete's interruption comes back almost right away, and it's not too much longer before it starts spreading outward, into Joe's thighs and up towards his chest.
Joe slides into muscle memory then, and his body's autopilot turns back on. He drags the tip of one finger lightly up the underside of his dick, circles it around the ridge of the head, presses it to the slit and smears around the bit of pre-come already starting to gather. It's good, but of course it's good, it's what he always does, what he's used to, what he responds to.
And as for his brain, well.
Joe thinks about Pete. He can't not. He thinks about Pete on stage, grinning like a loon and whirling around. He thinks about the heat from Pete's body when he bumps into Joe. He thinks about how Pete is practically invincible when he's got a stage under his feet and a microphone at hand. And he thinks about Pete once he gets off stage, too; the way his shirt gets damp and sticks to his stomach, the way his hair sticks to the sides of his forehead, the way he'll grab Joe up in a smelly, sweaty hug that sometimes seems to last forever before Pete breaks off to ruffle Joe's hair and then go talk to one of the seemingly hundreds of people he knows.
And he thinks about Pete's stomach, flat and tight under that stupid tattoo Pete loves so much, and his hands, and his ass. How his ass looks in jeans, how it looks in sweatpants, how it looks when Pete's walking around the apartment naked, just because he can. Jesus. Joe tilts his head a bit, trying to still make it look like he's looking at the bear when he's actually trying to see if he can see Pete from the corner of his eye.
Pete's hovering behind the camera and Joe can just see the edge of his body, not quite in profile but not quite facing him straight on, either. When Pete shifts his weight Joe catches a flash of the shape of Pete's ass and it makes his dick jump against his hand, and he's finally all the way hard.
Joe groans, then, the noise slipping out before he can stop it, and he sees Pete light up behind the camera.
"More," Pete mouths at him, and Joe breathes out hard through his nose as he grips his dick hard and palms firmly at the head, rubbing the new drops of pre-come against his palm before starting to jerk himself off again, faster and harder than before.
There's friction, now, and a lot of it at that. It's good, really good, almost too much. He can't help but make more noise, now-every time he breathes in, it catches, and every time he breathes out it comes out as a cut-off noise somewhere between a moan and a grunt-and he tries not to think about that, because he knows he'll get self-conscious.
Instead, he focuses on what he's doing. He slides his left hand up his thigh and then spreads his legs a little further so he can take hold of his balls and start rolling them in his palm the way he sometimes does when he wants to spice things up. It's good enough that his hips start to come off the bed as he thrusts up against his hand, almost grinding against his fist.
"Love the bear," Pete hisses at him, and Joe realizes that he must closed his eyes at some point and not noticed.
Joe pries his eyes open to try to gaze lovingly at the Christmas teddy bear even while trying to, like, turn off his optic nerve receptors to make it easier to pretend that he's not actually staring at a Christmas teddy bear, because he's starting to get pretty into this, and the bear just makes it creepy. Joe isn't creepy. Or at least, he didn't used to be creepy. Maybe this changes anything. Does it really count as creepy if you're doing it for money? He'll worry about that later, he decides. He's too busy right now to have thoughts.
"Touch the bear," Pete hisses then, and Joe tries to shoot him a look that he hopes conveys his deep confusion without actually ruining the movie. He doesn't want Pete to have another fit about having to edit things out.
Joe takes his hand off his balls and reaches out to touch the bear, running his fingers lightly down the bear's arm. It's really weird. He wonders what Pete plans to do with the bear, now that Joe has basically rubbed his balls against it.
Joe's other hand is still working his dick, and he manages to get a stroke in at a particularly good angle that distracts him from all thoughts of the bear as his eyes start to roll back in his head. He's actually starting to get kind of close now, and the heat in his stomach and groin is getting to the point where it's turning into a buzz, a tension that needs to snap soon.
"Okay, that's great," Pete says loudly then. "You can stop now. Stop, Joe. Stop."
Joe blinks at Pete dumbly. His hand is still busy with his dick but it's slowing down as Pete's words register. "Um? I'm kind of busy here?" is all he's got in response.
Pete steps out from behind the camera-Joe notices the red light is off, which, what the fuck, how much of his masterpiece did Pete not get on tape?-and comes towards the bed. He's got that look on his face again like Joe might not like what he's about to say.
"Okay, so, you asked before if I had a script," Pete says tentatively.
"And you said you didn't," Joe reminds him. He's still got his hand on his dick but he's barely doing anything now, just easing off. If he'd stopped cold turkey-he doesn't even want to contemplate the consequences of that one. His balls would probably be blue forever.
"Well, I didn't, for the beginning."
"But you do for the end, I take it." This is about where Joe's boner should be losing interest in the whole undertaking, but for some reason, it isn't. Maybe it's because Pete is right there, standing near Joe's feet, smiling tentatively at him instead of, like, saying something mean about Joe's dick or sex face or scrawny legs.
"The movie has a second act," Pete says. He's more confident now. Joe is pretty sure he should take this as a bad sign.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Well, I'm telling you now."
Joe groans and shuts his eyes. He is somehow still hard and he isn't sure what to make of the fact. "What happens in the second act, Pete?"
"Right, so, okay, I was thinking that the bear comes to life, right?" Pete sits down on the edge of the bed by Joe's knees, but he doesn't lean in.
"And how are we doing this? Do you suddenly know how to do, like, CGI, Industrial Lights and Magic shit, and didn't tell us?"
Pete doesn't answer right away.
Joe opens his eyes just far enough that he can peer at Pete, who's twisting his hands together in his lap.
"I bought a bear suit," Pete finally says.
Joe sits up, then. He can't have this conversation on his back. "With your balloon money? Like, some kind of kinky trading-up scheme?"
"Uh, actually it was like a year ago." Joe just kind of goggles at Pete. "Anyway, so the bear comes to life-"
"I'm not having sex with you," Joe interrupts. His hand is still on his dick, though, so he's not sure how much force his protests are going to carry.
"No, I know," Pete says. "The bear comes to life because you touched it, and, you know, finishes jerking you off."
"You're going to be touching my dick," Joe says. He's totally stating the obvious, but whatever. It sounds like a really bad idea, if only because it means the movie will probably be over in ten seconds.
"I'll have a mitten on?" Pete offers.
Joe raises both eyebrows.
"It's the hand of the suit," Pete explains.
Joe can't decide if that's better or worse than if Pete uses his bare hand.
"Right, so," Pete says awkwardly, gesturing at nothing with both hands. Then he gets up, drops his jeans, and pulls his hoodie over his head. Joe can't help but notice that Pete's got a semi. Actually, that might not be giving him enough credit-Pete is pretty much hard, and his thin boxers are doing absolutely nothing to hide the fact.
Pete takes the two steps over to his closet door, and when he pulls it open there's a bear costume hanging right there, like Pete was planning ahead. Which he obviously was. The bear suit is almost the same shade of brown as the bear at Joe's hip, and the fur is kind of shiny. Pete steps into it easily, then sticks his arms into the sleeves. He picks up a green sweater off the floor and struggles into it, messing up his hair when he pulls it over his head. He grabs a pair of brown fur mittens from the closet floor and slides them on, and then pulls the costume's head out from behind an amp and balances it on his hip as he walks back to the bed.
"Zip me up?" Pete asks, turning so he's got his back to Joe and sitting once more on the edge of the bed.
Joe is still having problems finding actual words rather than just a series of facial expressions spanning the entire spectrum from confused to surprised, so he just does up the zipper as asked, reaching under the green sweater-seriously, the match between the costume and the bear is uncanny, Joe thinks-to get the zipper all the way to the top. He can't help but notice that the fur of the outfit is pretty soft as it brushes against the side of his hand.
Pete looks over his shoulder to throw a huge smile at Joe before lifting the bear head up and on. He walks around the bed and picks up the teddy bear, carefully setting it aside on the floor, and sits down where the bear had just been. Then he picks up a Santa hat off the floor and tries to position it on the bear's head, but he's fumbling through his mittens and the hat won't stay.
Joe takes pity on him and leans in to hook the hat over one ear of the head. It only takes him a couple tries to get it to stay.
"Thanks," Pete tells him. "Now lean back."
Joe does. Pete is sitting awfully close to him, now; Joe can feel the brush of fur against his thigh and his hip, but just barely. It doesn't quite tickle, but it sets him on edge, makes him tense up. He wants to shiver but forces himself not to.
"Okay, you ready?" Pete asks. The words come out kind of muffled through the bear head.
"Sure," Joe says. He's not actually sure at all, but at this point, there's really no stopping things.
"Action," Pete mumbles, then paws at a tiny remote through his furry glove until the red light on the camera comes back on.
Joe has about half a second to mentally prepare himself for what's about to happen before Pete's big soft furry hand is on his dick, wrapping around it not nearly tight enough for Joe's liking, and pumping it pretty tentatively.
But it's Pete's hand, and that counts for a lot to Joe's dick. Plus, the fur gives it an extra sort of slipperiness that bare skin could never have, and it's new and exciting and different, which goes a long way towards helping balance out the fact that it's not exactly good.
It takes Joe a moment to figure out what to do with his hands now that he's not using them anymore. Should he just put them down on the bed? Should he be feeling himself up, or is that too cheesy? But then Pete squeezes Joe's dick, just once, but firmly enough that Joe jerks and ends up grabbing onto Pete's forearm. The fur of the bear costume is soft and warm under his palm, and he can feel the muscles in Pete's arm flexing as he jerks Joe off. Joe lets his other hand fall lightly onto his thigh, not touching himself particularly, but just kind of there-and if he starts tracing light circles onto his leg with his fingertips, it's just because it feels good and not because he's trying to play to the camera.
So Joe manages to get back into it surprisingly quickly, and once Pete finally settles on a decent rhythm instead of just pawing at him experimentally, Joe starts rolling his hips into it, which actually helps a lot.
The fur of the mitten and the cuff of Pete's sleeve keep brushing against Joe's lower stomach and the tops of his thighs. Each time Pete runs his hand back down Joe's dick the fur rubs against Joe's skin again, sending tiny tremors shooting out to poke tiny holes in Joe's stomach, which feels like it's going to turn itself inside out from all the weird feelings he's got churning around inside.
"Hey, love the bear," Pete mutters at Joe, which pulls Joe back out from where he was getting lost in his head. He blinks at Pete-or rather, at the bear in the Santa hat awfully close to his face, and he tries to pull his expression into something conveying whatever it is Pete's going for. It must work, because Pete makes an approving noise and tightens his grip around Joe's dick.
Joe grunts then, loudly, from surprise and the jolt of warm pleasure, and Pete picks up his pace, too, jerking Joe off a little faster than before.
The smooth fur of the mitten slides quickly along Joe's skin, and even with the way Pete's holding his dick tighter there still isn't quite enough friction for Joe's liking. Joe is starting to get just a little bit worried about this not ending well-or at all, if the friction situation doesn't improve at some point-but then the sound of Pete's breathing changes, getting faster and rougher and with a little noisy edge to it every time he breathes in. If it weren't for the bear head, he'd practically be panting in Joe's ear, and it's hot and almost totally overwhelming.
Joe can't quite decide how he feels right now, can't pin down any of the thoughts swirling half-formed through his head, fading out in the face of the fact that Pete's hand is on his dick and he's going to come soon. Because it's one thing to think about Pete when he's jerking off and get off on it, even when Pete is right there and watching him, but it's another thing to have Pete's hand on his dick, to have Pete be the one actually jerking him off. Joe's thought kind of a lot about what it would be like to have Pete touch him, to have Pete's hand on his dick on purpose and for sex, rather than some sort of stupid prank, but he really, really never thought it was going to be like this. On camera, for money, not even able to feel Pete's skin against his.
But it's still Pete, and that's going to be enough.
And the noises that Pete's making, those aren't the noises of a guy who's just phoning it in, they just aren't. Joe would put money on the fact. He can't help but wonder what that means, though. Is Pete actually enjoying it? Is it because it's sex, or is it because it's Joe? Pete did say he was cute, so maybe it is because it's Joe. The very thought sends a rush shooting through Joe's body straight down into his toes.
"Hey," Joe gasps, "Hey, I'm-"
Pete's fingers tighten around him again, and the furry mitten brushes against the head of Joe's dick, back and forth against the slit, rubbing against the ridge, and Joe hears Pete draw in a long, shaky breath.
"Look at me," Pete whispers.
Joe does. He can't not. He forces himself to keep his eyes open as he stares at the bear head, mentally superimposing Pete's face over the big cartoon features. But then his balls draw in tight and his eyes flicker shut and he comes hard, shooting onto his stomach and into the furry mitten still cupped over the head of his dick. He feels it dripping back down a moment later, warm and wet as it starts to pool around the base of his dick and roll down the inside of his thigh.
Joe breathes out, slow and shuddery and satisfied. He has just enough presence of mind to try to throw another loving look at Pete-at the bear-and it's easier this time than it was before, when he's still dumb and floating on his orgasm.
The bear head just gazes back blankly at him, and after a few seconds Joe closes his eyes and sinks back against the pillows to try to enjoy his afterglow, such as it is, while he can. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth and keeps time against his heart slowing its frantic thudding in his chest.
Joe gets a few lovely long moments to relax before Pete nudges him in the ribs.
"Unzip me," Pete groans. His voice is hoarse and rough and he sounds a little desperate.
When Joe opens his eyes, he sees that Pete's got the bear head off and the green sweater hanging from one wrist. His hair is all damp with sweat and disheveled and sticking up weirdly and matted against his forehead, and his eyes are dark in a way Joe's never seen before.
Pete turns so that his back is to Joe, and Joe struggles up into a more-or-less upright position so he can reach the zipper where it sits at the back of Pete's neck, just under the point of the knob at the top of his spine. He gets it open in a couple smooth tugs, and Pete starts wrestling the sleeves off his arms even before Joe is completely done unzipping him.
Pete doesn't even get off the bed before he starts wriggling out of the bear suit, flailing and pushing at it until it's around his ankles. He falls back onto the bed next to Joe and shoves his boxers down and then starts jerking himself off frantically, his hand wrapped tight around his dick and pumping fast.
His eyes are closed and his mouth is open and Joe can't help but stare as Pete licks his lips, probably totally unconsciously, and then stops jerking off just for a moment so he can lick his hand wetly. Joe can see the spit pooling at the edge of Pete's palm in the moment it's up at his face, and then Joe watches as Pete puts his hand back on his dick, hears it as the spit squelches between Pete's fingers, can't help but stare at the wet gleam at the top of Pete's dick where it's showing out the middle of his fist.
Joe is staring. He knows he's staring. He knows he's a little slack-jawed but he can't quite convince his mouth to close because he needs it to breathe, which he's having a bit of trouble with at this particular moment. Because Pete is jerking off. Right in front of him. Like he's going to die if he doesn't come in the next ninety seconds. Which he is totally on track to do, at the rate he's going.
Joe is overwhelmingly aware that right now, his options are basically watch, leave, or help. He's already watching-seriously, he can't look away-and he's not sure his knees have stopped being so wobbly that getting up is anything but a bad idea. Plus, he really doesn't want to leave. He's torn on helping, though. Should he? Because Pete jerked him off, so it'd be like returning the favour. Except that Pete was wearing a furry mitten-he was in costume, playing a part-and that kind of changes things.
He should at least offer, though, he finally decides. He can play it off as a joke if Pete says no.
Joe is still trying to work up the balls to offer when Pete tips his head back and his whole body arches up off the sheets as he groans, loud and choked and intense, and then comes all over his stomach and chest. Joe just watches as Pete kind of deflates, flopping out on the bed as he breathes hard and doesn't otherwise move.
It's just the sound of them breathing, then, as a quiet settles over the room.
Pete starts to reach for a pillow, but stops and pulls himself up the bed so that his head is resting on Joe's shoulder. Pete's head is heavy, practically pinning Joe in place, but the back of his neck is warm against Joe's armpit and Joe is really reluctant to try to dislodge Pete, who's now curling himself in towards Joe and clearly making himself comfortable.
Joe grits his teeth against a moment of panic when he can't decide what to do with his arm. He's not sure if it's okay to put his arm around Pete or not, to hold him, to hug him. He wants to, but he thinks it would be weird. Which isn't to say that everything else that's happened today hasn't been weird, but. It would be like the weird icing on a very weird cake, and Joe isn't sure he's ready to eat it yet.
It's also a gross cake, a fact which Joe feels shouldn't be overlooked. Neither of them have cleaned up at all, and now, Pete is-oh, holy Jesus, Pete is putting his hand on Joe's stomach, with apparent total disregard for the fact that it's still sticky with Joe's come, and he's pressing himself up against Joe's side, with further disregard for the fact that he is also still sticky-wet and gross, and-
And then Pete kisses Joe, right on the mouth.
It's not fast enough to be a joke, not brief enough just to be, like, a thank-you or something.
It's a real kiss.
Joe freezes up, his brain completely shorting out in surprise. His body clearly has some idea of what to do, though, because he can feel his lips moving against Pete's just enough that he's not a total dead fish.
When Pete pulls away after a few seconds, Joe is stunned and silent, blinking and trying to gather his thoughts, which are spinning dizzily around his head at a thousand miles an hour.
"Is this in the script, too?" is what Joe finally settles on.
"Nope," Pete says, and presses his nose into the side of Joe's neck. "Is that a problem?" he mouths against Joe's skin. His voice is pitched low, and his breath is hot, damp, and kind of gross, but Joe likes it anyway.
Joe just shakes his head.
"Anyway, the camera's off," Pete tells him.
Joe peers down towards the end of the bed, and sure enough, the little red light is gone.
"Okay," Joe says, and as his thoughts start to settle into their obvious conclusion, he can feel the smile spreading slowly across his face. He bends his arm, then, and wraps it around Pete, his hand sliding along Pete's ribs to rest on his hip and pull him in close.
"Okay," Joe says again, still smiling, and then tips his head down and kisses Pete back properly.