Like Morning Bread
LIKE MORNING BREAD
John wakes to sweat-damp sheets and the low-grade thrum of morning arousal, a line of heat and tension along his spine that's quick to kindle in the warmth of remembering himself tangled with Rodney, Rodney's mouth all over him, Rodney's desperate voice in his ear. The slow light on his eyelids disorients him, heavy with late morning, and he stretches into it, sighs as his muscles answer movement with shivers that flicker between pleasure and pain.
He reaches out to gather Rodney back to him, and morning-clumsy hands find only air.
The light comes hard against his eyes, a harsh throb of brightness and reality and he has to close his eyes again, for a moment, to gather himself. Nothing there, only the blankets kicked back and the ghost-reminder of Rodney's body in the disordered sheets.
Then, disembodied:
"Oh my God."
Everything inside him unwinds in a headrush of relief almost as terrifying as the possibility of almost never he'd had to face down last night, had finally buried in the reality of Rodney's body. He needs another moment to stare at the faint patterns of light on the ceiling, the low slope of the roof, and to tell himself Rodney's still here.
After the adrenaline dissolves and gives him his body back, John stands and looks around his bedroom as though seeing it for the first time, and maybe he is, seeing it like this, the strange chaos of the two of them. Rodney's clothes and his tangle together on the floor, a twisting trail of them from the hallway to the foot of the bed. He grins, touches a sore spot on his neck, toes his boxers out of a pile with Rodney's shirt and his flip-flops.
He walks into them, not bothering trying to find his shirt, which is a good thing because Rodney's wearing it, inside out with the tag sticking up, shoulders stretching the dark fabric. Ten in the morning, maybe twenty minutes awake judging from the lack of shaving and the still-rumbling coffee maker, and already Rodney's glaring into the refrigerator, intent and fierce as though the refrigerator holds the solution to a unified field theory and not...
John thinks for a moment. Two bottles of beer, suspicious cheese, and a box of pizza.
"Do you realize that you in fact have no food?" Rodney whirls around and scowls at him, slams the refrigerator door shut to punctuate his dissatisfaction. "Seriously, do you actually eat or do you subsist on air? Or do you steal Cash's food?"
Cash, hearing his name mentioned in the context of food, wags his tail and shifts hopefully.
"I've never liked Purina," John says.
"Oh, for..." Rodney rolls his eyes. "Go on, get dressed. We're going out."
* * *
Rodney attacks Bartlett's Farm like attacking Everest, storming up and down the aisles and accumulating a cartful of vegetables, apples, grapes, every other non-citrus fruit they have, meat, cheese, enough baked goods to slay a battalion of diabetics, an outsized bag of potato chips, expensive organic coffee because the coffee John gets is freeze-dried ammonia crystals. He warns another man away from the last box of cracked-pepper and garlic crackers with a ferocious glare and, possibly, the baring of teeth.
"Are we laying in for a siege?" John asks. "Do we really need éclairs and bear claws?"
"Did you know a school of herring is called a siege of herring?" Rodney asks as he shoves his prize into a corner of the cart. "I learned that when I went to the aquarium this week."*
He doesn't give John the chance to answer or process the completely random siege of herring or the chance to think much more than this week because he's off again. And watching him is meditating on a whirlwind, strange that someone so solid flickers and flashes and twists like following a dogfight so John gets whiplash. He's lost two weeks of this, John thinks somewhere between the doubling-back for bread and the check-out lane, a week of Rodney's hyperdrive mouth and fluent hands, of watching him storm along two hours ahead of island time, the exuberance and adrenaline of him.
The tightness of almost loss comes back, but he smiles past it when Rodney makes him pay, it's your refrigerator, endures the clucking and endless small-talk of the woman at the register (who actually seems to know Rodney), the walk back to the Wagoneer.
"I'm driving," he says the second Rodney slams the trunk shut, and pulls his keys from Rodney's pocket.
"What? Why?" Rodney makes a grab for them but John steps back, says Because, and his face must say more because Rodney's eyes go wide in recognition and he nods, wordless suddenly, and silent.
He's at the end of his patience by the time they get home, and all that's left at the end of threading through traffic is want and Rodney's overwhelming presence next to him, the warm shift of his thigh under John's hand.
"Food!" Rodney gasps when John corrals him against the passenger side door. "Unless... oh fuck," as John works his hands under Rodney's shirt, his shirt that still smells like yesterday and the two of them, which Rodney had taken off only to turn right-side out before putting back on again. "Unless you want to go back and spend more -- oh holy fuck."
The Wagoneer burns, metal and glass, against John's forearms but Rodney burns hotter against his mouth, the desperate, swift slide of his hands over John's cheekbones, through his hair.
"Food," Rodney reminds him again, without much conviction this time.
He might actually die from it, John thinks, taking as many bags as he can inside, want and need and now pressing fiercely against his ribcage, running insistent through his blood, along his nerves. Rodney's right behind him, and the refrigerator's empty enough and John's blinded enough that he shoves bags randomly in and they don't fit everything but hopefully everything that needs refrigerating and if they haven't the hell with it, John thinks, fingers already between Rodney's khakis and his belly and Rodney's hands shaking on his shoulders.
Upstairs, he says or wants to, and the word is kiss-muffled and John is off balance, only Rodney's shaking hands and okay, yeah to keep equilibrium, then John's back against the wall in the hallway when their tangled feet can't negotiate the corner. They weave, drunk on each other, up the stairs, Rodney almost breaking his neck as he tries to take his shirt off but John catches him and pulls him back, Rodney urgent and sun-warm against him, his skin shading toward uncertain gold in the hallway light.
Like yesterday John's fingers are graceless with Rodney's khaki buttons, and it helps a little that Rodney's on his are too, and like yesterday there is the brief pause at the threshold of John's bedroom, when they stare at each other and John is still drugged and disbelieving and so is Rodney, like yesterday, unsteady and uncertain like yesterday, but they can be like this and it's amazing.
Like this, and this he loves, the two of them, how Rodney stretches out under him, the hot breadth of his shoulders, the blush that rolls red from his nape to the small of his back, how he turns his head to the side so John can see a streak of glazed-glass blue under lowered lids. Light gilds sweat in fractals down the curve of Rodney's spine and John chases after it, licking, nipping at Rodney's flank, the reliable, firm curve of his hip, surface softness and hardness underneath, I'm here Rodney's body says, and is come on and please under John's mouth, telegraphed through arc and tense and impatient breath.
"Roll over," John says, and Rodney's compliance gives the distance that he's gone, almost as far as John has. John rocks back on his heels and looks, and is looked at, drinks in Rodney's body, his chest, his nipples, the sweet rise-and-fall of his belly, and oh fucking God he's hard, so hard it makes John hurt with wanting that cock inside him, with wanting Rodney beautiful and imperfect and his his his, and with his body he says this as he stretches out over Rodney again, thighs bracketing Rodney's thighs, forearms and hands cupping Rodney's head.
I want you to fuck me, he whispers into Rodney's mouth, and yes Rodney says without saying anything, hips hitching upward, one hand fumbling with the lube they've been wise enough to have left out on the nightstand.
One of Rodney's hands circles John's neck, guiding him into a kiss, fingers massaging along tendon and vein, the place behind John's ear that John already knows Rodney is a bit obsessed with, pressing pressing along pulse points, tightening in John's hair to pull him down and hold as slick fingers trace down his ass, lubricant cool against air and skin, and John almost loses it when Rodney licks assertively into John's mouth and pushes one finger inside. John shivers and steadies himself against the rush of pleasure up and down his spine, the throb of it in his blood.
Rodney asks if he's okay, staring up at him with wine-dark eyes and John nods, braces his forehead against Rodney's to breathe in reassurance, and okay Rodney says, and two fingers now.
Fuck is all he can manage and Rodney swallows the curse, the shock, twists his fingers deeper to open him and this is a terrible idea -- the panic runs along the edge of arousal because he's never done it like this, in the light and on display, Rodney's thighs powerful between his own. Rodney pushes him past hesitation, compelling, irresistible Rodney. three fingers and John's anxiety has become please, fuck, now and Rodney nods.
Terrifying and hot is what it's like as Rodney watches John sink slowly onto him, and he doesn't want know what Rodney sees, whatever it is that paints awe and pleasure across Rodney's face and has his eyes darken and his breath come so sharp his chest shakes with it. The burn and stretch, focus on that, John tells himself, not his own vulnerability refracted back at him as wonder, not his scarred, shading-to-middle-age body that Rodney reaches up with hesitant hands to touch.
Rodney fills him up, every empty space, past full very nearly, and come on Rodney whispers, hot and choked, and though his voice breaks his body is eloquent, and John has to give in, oh God yeah anything and start to move. They falter on the edge of rhythm, Rodney cradling John's hips to steady him into one, thumbs rubbing along the crease of thigh and groin. Sweat slides down John's temple, his cheekbones, chin, drops onto Rodney's chest and Rodney says something that might be John's name or a prayer or nothing, head tipped back so his neck and chest muscles tense, and John can see Rodney as clearly as Rodney sees him.
And then they find it, something like an erratic heartbeat than actual rhythm, Rodney pushing deep and deep so his hipbones press fierce against John's thighs. He's going to break apart he's fairly sure, break past being able to be put back together and only Rodney's fingers on him keep him held together, or if he does break and fall Rodney will catch him.
John closes his eyes against the thought, against the sight of his own hands on Rodney's chest, bracing himself against sweat-slick flesh, the orgasm that curls and knots and tightens deep in his groin. And maybe Rodney takes pity on him, or is getting tired of the slowness, the dragging-out because he rolls them, pushing John to his side and then to his back and oh God so much better, shadowed by Rodney's heavy shoulders, Rodney blinded with his face tucked into John's neck, his breath hot and reverent against his ear.
Better, safer, and John encourages Rodney along, not that Rodney needs it, smooth smooth smooth the two of them now, and the only place Rodney's going is deeper into John's body, into oblivion, silent except for shaking breath and John's silent too.
When Rodney comes, it's still and deep and amazed, John's name on his lips but left unspoken. Hot and hot he pours into John, one hand a vise on John's hip, digging into the muscle, and the fingers of his other hand lace through John's as they circle John's cock and he almost doesn't need it because he's wanted all day, since waking up alone this morning, since waking up alone all week on the wrong side of something that shouldn't have happened.
Orgasm breaks him with light, with heat, and only Rodney holds him together, holds him down, and already that's familiar.
* * *
They'd forgotten about the potato chips but Cash hadn't, so they come downstairs to a chip-coated floor and Cash apologizes by hoovering up the crumbs.
"We should actually cook some of this stuff," John says, gesturing to the refrigerator, but at the moment he doesn't really mean it. Rodney is wearing his t-shirt again, inside-out with the tag sticking up and is rumpled and lazy against John's chest.
"Hm," Rodney says noncommittally, and hands John an apple from the bowl.
-end-
* Actually, I learned this at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, but let's pretend--I've been dying to use this otherwise useless bit of information for some time :> (It's more popularly called an 'army,' but I prefer siege.)
The title is from Amy Lowell's "Decade."