fic: Bloodbuzz [Southland, Cooper/Sherman]
I saw these pictures of Ben and Michael from The Glass Menagerie’s opening night, and I couldn’t stop wondering: What would it take to get Cooper in a suit? Also there was this.
So I did this:
Bloodbuzz
Southland, Cooper/Sherman. Explicit, 6,000 words.
Disclaimer: Mostly real places. Made up people. Not mine. Title/lyrics by The National. And thanks to aproposofnothin for beta!
I never thought about love when I thought about home
1
With one devastating swing, Ben crushes his fancy phone against the dashboard, knuckles white and jaw tense. John intercepts the second blow, catching the square of smooth glass and overpriced electronics and elbowing Ben back into the seat. He keeps him pinned there as they roll down a quiet block and only when Ben slumps - rolling his neck back and turning to face the window - does he let go.
He keeps the phone, tucking it into his shirt pocket. Ben is still seething so hard and won’t look at John, as if sulking in his three feet of personal space on the other side of the cruiser means John can’t tell something is really fucking wrong.
“No more toys in the front seat,” John says. “You can have your little gadget back at the end of class.”
Ben doesn’t respond. John lets it go for another quarter-mile down Hollywood Boulevard, enjoying that hushed last hour before the clubs close and kick their miscreants back into general population.
The phone buzzes, a loud tickle against John’s chest like a tattoo needle. Another ring, then another. Ben doesn’t ask for it back. John could pull it out and see who’s calling, who Ben’s so angry with, but he won’t. John will push and prod and poke and generally try his damnedest to break through that soft reserve for Ben’s own damn sake, but he’s not going to stoop to snooping. It’s on Ben to do the telling.
They pull over a drunk driver, a douchebag in a thousand dollar suit jacket and jeans. Ben does everything by the book, impeccably competent, even kind when the driver sheds a few blubbery tears, so trashed he can barely stand. Then they hand the guy off to another unit to take in, sign the tow truck paperwork, and get back in the car.
Halfway back to the station, Ben’s phone buzzes in John’s shirt again. “Who’s calling?” John asks, eyes on the road. Ben shakes his head and clenches his left hand into a fist, then carefully relaxes it.
In the locker room, Ben strips fast and hits the showers. John takes the phone from his pocket. The screen is dark; a tiny voicemail indicator light flashes blue at its edge. Ben’s locker is open a crack and John sets the phone on the top shelf, closing the door loosely.
Ben’s waiting outside when John comes into the parking lot, 3 a.m. chilly against his damp hair. They walk together towards Ben’s bike and John weighs what to ask, how to get Ben to say what he needs in order to go home and put this day behind him.
“My dad,” Ben says suddenly.
God, the things John would like to do to Ben’s scumbag old man. Which is why he only says, as quiet as he can make his voice go, “What’d he do?”
Ben laughs, hard and angry. “I guess he finally decided there was business to be done showing off his son. So he bought a table at the Police Protection League’s Eagle and Badge gala.”
His voice is rough, hurt. John grabs his shoulder. “Let him swing his dick with the mayor and the brass if that’s what does it for him. You don’t have to go.”
Ben looks up through his eyelashes.
“Cops like us don’t go to fancy shit like that except to get a medal. I’ve been in the union my whole time on the job and it’d still cost me a month’s pay to get in the door.”
“There was a note at the desk,” Ben says. “The captain thanked me and my -“ He looks down, chews at his lip. “My family. For our generous support.”
John’s hand slides down Ben’s arm like it doesn’t know John is trying to be careful, trying to keep his hands to himself no matter how bad his back is screaming and his house is empty at the end of a long shift. He stops at Ben’s wrist, cool skin at the edge of his leather jacket.
“It said, ‘See you there.’ What am I supposed to do?”
This is what kills him, how the kid actually gives a shit what John thinks. How he thinks John has real fucking advice to go with their respective, impressively fucked-up family histories.
“I don’t know,” John allows, buying a minute. Ben smiles at the edge of his mouth, embarrassed a little, John can tell, for being unsure how to handle the least lethal threat of their week. “You think you can go a whole night in the same room without punching him?”
“I don’t know,” Ben says. “Want to come see?” He shrugs, a different smile now creeping through. “I mean, he bought a whole table.”
John laughs before he can stop himself. “You asking me to prom?”
Ben shrugs again, but his shoulders are looser, grin lighter.
“Yeah, what the fuck, okay,” John says. “This mean I have to wear a fucking suit?”
2
There’s a suit wedged in the far back of his closet. It’s light brown, and it doesn’t fit. The last time he wore it was to a wedding with Laurie, and he hasn’t gotten any thinner through the middle since. The suit looks like it’s been in the back of a closet for years.
Normally John wouldn’t give a shit if you could tell just by looking how rarely he plays into this kind of game, but he’s not going for himself. He’s going to keep Ben out of trouble. He just doesn’t want to embarrass Ben or look like a dumbfuck flatfoot who doesn’t know the difference between a Sunday barbecue and a fancy party.
Laurie laughs at him, then pokes around trying not to ask who’s so special that John would get dressed up, old pain at the edges of her interrogation. Eventually she says, “Jesus Christ, John, just go to Nordstrom’s and get them to help you.”
So he spends a midweek morning at an oversized outdoor mall, the manifestation of everything John ever hated about growing up in California. At least there aren’t many people around.
A wall of men’s suits stares back at him, unflinching in the face of his contempt. There are, upon closer inspection, about 25 different shades of black, and another dozen in gray. He hasn’t bought clothes anywhere other than Target or uniform supply in longer than he can remember. What the fuck is he even doing here?
“Is there something you need, sir?” A simpering sales assistant with too much gel in his hair and a fake smile. His name tag says LUIS.
John grunts. He feels like a time-traveling caveman, dropped into alien lands with an obscure mission. Me need suit.
What he needs is help, and like fucking always, he has no idea how to ask for it. He’s so glad he spent thousands of dollars in therapy so he could articulate to himself just how bad he is at this kind of shit.
He rolls his eyes and waves at the rack. “How do I pick?”
It’s another interrogation: What kind of event? What kind of fundraiser? Where is the venue? Does the invitation say black tie only or black tie optional or neither? Will they be standing or seated in a theater or having dinner?
“Tables,” he says. “We’re at a table.”
“Okay, good,” Luis says.
“I’m not paying -“ John doesn’t want to think about that part yet. “I better be able to wear this again.”
“Of course,” Luis says. “Something neutral.”
Luis holds a few different jackets on his arm and cocks his head at John. “Do you know what your date is wearing? We can fancy these up quite a bit with a bold shirt and tie, we don’t want them to clash with her dress.”
John really doesn’t fucking understand how he’s always been able to spot a gay guy a mile off, even all those years he was trying not to look too much, and this shit still happens to him all the time. “Neither of us is wearing a dress,” he bites out, and grabs the jackets. “Do I try on pants too or what? I wear a forty regular.”
Luis walks him into the fitting room and promises to bring the other halves of everything. John starts trying jackets on over his t-shirt and jeans. The first is too tight across his back. The second has sleeves that fall over his knuckles. Subtle Shade of Black number three is basically inoffensive.
“Forty,” Luis says, holding up a sheaf of slacks. “But - you’re used to a uniform, right?” John never said that. “Haircut,” Luis says, smiling. “Dress blues tend to run a little short and tight compared to what you want for a suit, so I brought you some forty-twos as well.”
It goes on like that, totally humiliating and stupid. They agree on what Luis calls a gunmetal blue striped dress shirt and a silk tie that Luis almost comes in his pants over and John doesn’t hate. He almost gets away with using his uniform dress shoes and belt until Luis tells a cautionary story about how the wrong accessories can drag down an otherwise perfect suit and John says fine just to get him to stop talking.
Basically he gets browbeat by a wispy little twink into nearly a thousand dollars worth of clothes. He stands in front of the mirror, fully assembled, Luis calling down to give instructions to the in-house tailor he promises will shorten the sleeves as part of the absurd price.
Luis hangs up and looks at both their reflections. “You look good,” he says, proud. “You’ll make - anyone around you will look good, too.”
Ben probably has a walk-in closet full of suits and shirts and ties and belts and shoes, a designer army of indulgence.
John sighs. “He’s a fucking Abercrombie ad.”
“Get it,” Luis says, laughing, and John feels a tiny bit better. Stronger men have fallen for far less.
3
John gets a haircut and a shave. He puts on the ridiculous suit and shirt and tie and belt and shoes. He wears his work socks because Luis neglected to sell him some hundred-dollar pair.
Ben is going to bust his balls so bad, and probably he deserves it.
Especially when he shows up to get Ben and there’s a shiny car parked in the driveway behind Ben’s bike. He’s sitting there trying to figure out if he’s supposed to go up and ring the bell or just call when Ben struts out.
John opens the door and gets out. “Whose car is that?” Ben looks at him like he’s retarded, and maybe he is. What the fuck, does Ben live with someone?
“It’s mine,” Ben says easily. “You think I ride on days it rains?”
John has no idea what Ben does on days it rains. He’s never asked, and it hasn’t rained since Ben got assigned to him anyway. All he said about tonight was, If I have to go to the west side, I can pick you up on the way, and Ben said, Sure, that sounds good.
Ben comes around the passenger side of John’s car just like he does every day. Except tonight he’s wearing this sleek, light gray suit with a darker gray shirt. No tie. Open collar with a smooth V of neck showing. He waits with a hand on the door, waiting for John to get in first, for John to stop staring like a fucking rookie facing down his first d.b.
“You gonna drive me to this thing or what?” Ben asks.
4
Ben’s father spends most of the night at other people’s tables, shaking hands and talking out of his ass. He talks right through the color guard presentation, the medal of valor ceremony, the mayor’s speech.
“C’mon, Ben,” he tries once, twice, trying to rope him in to the show and tell, but Ben shakes the hand off his shoulder and stays stuck to his chair, resolute.
It doesn’t stop people from coming to them. Not scumbag defense attorneys, and nobody who gives a shit that Sherman Sr. is acting like one night undoes everything he’s done to fuck up their arrests. But one by one they receive the best and the brightest of the brass, every top-notch plum assignment a cop could have wet dreams over. They’re all there to talk to Ben, though they pay John his due, pump his hand and tell him he cleans up nicer than they thought possible.
“You’re getting close to the end of your probation, right?” they ask Ben, like they’ve been pulling his file and marking the date in their little diaries.
“Ever thought about homicide?”
“This is LA, man, gangs is where it’s at.”
“Got some slots coming open in SWAT later this year.”
Ben smiles and nods, polite as could be, making lots of new friends but no promises.
“Told you,” John says during the dinner course, a tiny roasted bird a lady at their table with a bad facelift declares the best Cornish hen she’s had all year.
Ben turns, eyes steady on John as he chews. He swallows. “Told me what?”
“You’re gonna have your pick of the litter, Sherman. Name the department you want and they’ll find you a place.”
“Eh,” Ben says, lifting his fork.
“The little debutante with all the suitors traipsing on over here, making their intentions clear.”
“Traipsing?”
John takes a big bite of miniature potatoes. “The little prince.”
“What’s that make you?”
“Well at the very least I’m hoping somebody will buy me dinner in gratitude I’ve trained you so goddamned well.”
Ben smiles, just a flash before he covers it up with more food. He finishes what’s on his plate, then his wine glass, and then he says, “I just want to be a good cop.”
All John’s ever wanted from the job was to be a good cop.
Ben turns towards John, forearms crossed on the table, his back to the lady on his right, ignoring the room. He’s so close John’s whole leg tingles through his wool pants.
“You will be,” John promises, and Ben’s cheeks redden. “Long as you stay out of bullshit ballrooms like this and keep your head in the job, you’ll do fine.”
Ben leans back so the waiter can pour a cup of coffee. “Thank you,” he says, staring down at the tablecloth. “For coming with me tonight.”
John stares at the short hair on the back of Ben’s neck, his tanned skin, the ridge of collarbone. He thinks, get it.
Ben looks up and John can’t think of anything else to say. He takes a too-hot sip of black coffee and nods in acknowledgement. He considers the relative expedience of strangling himself with his tie.
Ben bumps his knee against John’s. “Maybe you can -” he starts, trailing off when Ben’s dad waltzes up to the table.
“Ben, come take a picture with me and the chief.”
“No,” Ben says.
“Come on, son, it’s a big night for him.”
“I said no.”
“Help me out here,” he says to John. “He has to listen to you, right?”
John stands up. “You have got to be kidding.”
“Ben, the chief of police wants to meet you personally -“
“If you’re here to make friends and influence people, sir, you might try shutting the hell up when people are being honored on stage.” The smirk on Ben’s father’s face is a little too familiar for comfort but it’s not going to stop John once he’s going. Every day he does his best to put back together a tiny piece of a life this man destroyed. He’s just getting started. “They put their life on the line so the assholes you defend can spend another day making the world a little less safe, and that might not mean much to you but it still means a hell of a lot to most of the people in this room.”
The asshole gets right in John’s face, hissing between a clenched smile. “If you people were doing your job so well, my family wouldn’t have been victims of such a heinous attack -”
Ben’s chair falls over backwards, and John catches his fist as it arcs upward. “Okay,” he says into Ben’s ear, trying to sound calmer than he is. “We’re done here, let’s go.” Ben’s suit is soft under John’s fingers as he steers him out of the room, Ben’s ragged breaths loud even over the uninterrupted tinkle of china and gossip.
5
Down an escalator, out the first set of doors that look like they lead to fresh air. It’s a bar, long padded benches and high tables and a bar lit violet blue. He walks Ben to a low couch and sits with him, a hand on Ben’s neck.
A blonde in a dress smiles at them as she passes by with a tray and John flags her down. “Maker’s rocks,” he says, and nods to include Ben.
“Doubles?” she asks, and he shrugs a yes.
Ben has his elbows braced on his knees, staring at the ground, and he’s still breathing hard. The back of his neck is flushed and warm, his shoulders rock solid under John’s arm.
John tries to inhale and exhale as evenly as possible. He’s here to steady the situation, even if with every touch it feels like he’s lighting a slow fuse at both ends. Eventually Ben sits up. John doesn’t move his arm. He really doesn’t give a shit what they look like right now.
“He doesn’t even know how bad it was,” Ben says suddenly. “The attack. She never told him.”
John doesn’t ask what there was to tell; there are only a few possibilities that end with everybody still alive and none of them are better than the others for being said aloud.
“No cop in there is fooled by his little show,” he says instead, “don’t you worry. They’ll let him buy a fancy table, sponsor a scholarship or two and take a couple grip-and-grins. If their own kid gets busted with a bag of weed they can’t bury, maybe they call him to get a good deal, keep it out of the papers.”
Ben scowls. He doesn’t buy it.
“They’re cops, Ben. They spend every day of their lives measuring the worth of a man in a millisecond. They know shit when they smell it.”
That earns a low chuckle, and another headshake, but this time there’s finality to it. He’s shaking it off. It’s all you can do, really, when your family’s a fucking mess. You have to decide every day how much energy they’re worth even being angry at.
John leans back, lets his arm fall onto the couch. Eventually he can feel the tension in Ben’s body start to fade. The waitress brings them another round, doubles, and they watch the mating game at the bar.
A white girl with red hair in a short skirt, twenties, is trying desperately to sleep with a Latino man in his forties or early fifties, laughing too brightly at anything he says, touching the lapels of his jacket when she doesn’t need to.
“She’s trying too hard,” John says.
Ben’s smile is sympathetic. “Sometimes subtle doesn’t work.”
A guy in his thirties, black, short trimmed hair, nurses a beer at the end of the bar and steals a look at his watch every minute or two.
“Nothing worse than those moments right before you figure out you were stood up. That’s the part you hate yourself the most for later.”
“Hmm.” Ben swirls the melted ice in his glass around a few times. “Hard to imagine.”
“Oh right,” John says. “Probably never happens to guys like you.”
“You, I meant. Hard to imagine you get stood up.”
Ben’s suit jacket grazes his, shoulder dimly warm through all the layers between them. John closes his eyes to hold that warmth, feeling the steady drumbeat in the bridge of his nose that means he’s halfway buzzed from drinking so fast.
“Been a while since I bothered,” he says finally, and opens his eyes to find Ben staring back. He doesn’t look away. The weight of Ben’s shoulder presses into his for a long moment, then eases off.
Ben rubs his palms together and stands up. “I need to -” he says, and cocks his head towards the door.
This is why John doesn’t bother, because just when you think you have some fucking glimpse of an idea it all goes to hell anyway.
“- splash some water on my face,” Ben is saying. “Order me another if you’re having one?” And then he’s striding towards the door. He walks different in a suit, or maybe it’s the drinks, or the bar, or not wearing a gun belt and polyester uniform pants. He glides through the room like a whisper of a silk tie against a shirt. John hates every thread of fabric that’s touching Ben’s body when he can’t.
6
The Hilton lobby is golden hued, gleaming brass and glinting mirrored lights. A bellhop passes with a cart full of designer luggage, a matching miniature pet carrying case stacked at the top. John might as well be in France for all this rich world makes sense to him. He waits outside the men’s room and uses the rug to buff off a mark on the side of his fancy shoes.
Ben walks along the middle of the carpet’s flourishes like he’s steering his bike down the center line. He moves so easily, dark gray shirt open against his neck, and John swallows hard against his tie as Ben comes closer and closer and never slows down, keeps coming until they’re practically toe to toe and John raises his hand to catch Ben’s elbow, thinking they’re about to fall down, crash on impact.
Ben smiles, not like any of the times John’s seen before. His whole face is open, calm, confident.
“We should do this again sometime,” John says, without realizing he’d decided to speak. “Maybe next time with fewer assholes patting themselves on the back, but -”
Ben leans in. His chest touches John’s. “I got a room,” he says.
He hears what Ben says but he has no fucking idea what Ben is talking about. He got a room. For him? For - them? For what fucking purpose?
John’s whole body feels fiery, dizzy, and he shifts his weight back on his heels to try to find balance. Ben’s hand steals between them, grabbing John’s tie and pulling him back close and upright. His knuckles push pressure points into John’s sternum, and Ben nods, twice. The terrifying part is how John knows exactly what he means, what he’s going to say next.
“Come upstairs with me,” Ben says. He keeps John’s sleeve in his grip and they’re in the elevator before all the reasons this is a fucking impossibility rush back into John’s brain.
The doors open on the fifteenth floor, and Ben stands on the threshold, one shoe wedged into the elevator door, until John follows him into the hall. Ben got a room. They went upstairs.
“We’re in a hotel,” John says. His voice sounds hoarse and hurts coming out, like it’s fighting him all the way up from his lungs.
Ben looks down at the key, then at the sign directing which rooms are where. “Nothing gets by you,” he says, and John yanks him back by the arm as he tries to set off down to the left.
“I don’t want -” John wants to shoot himself in the foot with his own service weapon for this, but he has to say it. “I’m not looking for a night in a hotel,” he says, “not like this, not because we got dressed up in these suits and got our heads screwed up for a minute -”
“Fine,” Ben says.
Now John is going to shoot himself in the face.
“But we just sat through three hours of bullshit, and we’ve been doing this, this little dance, for way longer than that. Let’s not waste any more time.”
“Ben -”
“We can spend tomorrow night anywhere you want, okay?”
He sounds so fucking reasonable about it. “You’re my trainee, Ben.”
That doesn’t sound like much of a reason not to once John says it out loud. It’s just a statement of fact, a temporary assignment. If any one of the dozen lieutenants downstairs have their way with Ben he’ll be moving on up within the year. John’s been trying not to think about it, about some other cop spending all day every day in a car with Ben, about having to break in some new boot, some kid who John will never call his partner, not even by accident.
He doesn’t say any of that but Ben sees it anyway, can read it plain on John’s face just like the cop he is. Ben looks down at the key again. “Room 1534,” he says, soft and sure, and this time John follows him down the hall.
7
“Do I really seem this easy?”
Ben closes the door and walks John back against it.
“Nothing about you is easy,” Ben says.
He reverse engineers John’s Windsor knot, and the silk slides free of John’s collar with a sharp snap. His fingers press against John’s throat, pushing hard on the windpipe as he undoes buttons.
With the shirt opened, Ben spreads his hand around John’s neck, thumb in the soft spot under John’s jaw. He holds John there and John doesn’t resist, doesn’t try to go anywhere, won’t even move his eyes away.
Ben’s cheeks are flushed and he’s wedged a knee between John’s legs. One of his hands, the one not on John’s neck, is resting lightly at John’s waist, but none of the combined attack is enough to actually keep John there or even push him all the way against the door.
John breathes in through his teeth, then again. He licks his bottom lip and watches Ben’s eyes fall to track the movement. John leans forward, just an inch, just his head and shoulders, so he can reach Ben’s mouth. Ben surges up immediately, kissing John back into the door, putting weight behind the holds on his neck and hip, torquing John’s jaw with his thumb to exactly where he wants it.
It’s entirely selfish to let Ben have at it for a few minutes, to keep as calm as possible as the object of your barely acknowledged obsession devours you like his last meal. John’s all right with being selfish. He’s not accustomed to getting what he wants. This is more than he let himself want, Ben’s eager assault.
Ben slides John’s jacket off his shoulders and onto the floor, unbuttons the shirt with far less care than John gave it that afternoon. It requires more assistance to come all the way off, Ben’s fingers pushing the sleeves down and cuffs over his wrists until that’s gone, too. Then the undershirt. Ben’s hands are warm as he smoothes them up John’s chest, over his collarbone and across his shoulders. He’s concentrating so hard he flinches a little when John bends in and bites his way along Ben’s chin to his mouth.
“Okay, enough,” he says, and Ben instantly stops, steps back, drops his hands. He looks like he’s about to apologize, for fuck’s sake. John shoves him back towards the bed. “I’m not that easy.”
Ben bounces a little as his back hits the mattress, then rises up on his elbows, grinning. “You bought a new suit to come with me tonight,” he says. “You hate suits.”
“It was a formal event.”
Ben smirks. “You picked me up and drove me here.”
John comes closer and his slacks rub against his heavy cock with every step. “It’s not like I rented a fucking limo. I drive your ass around every day.”
“You stare at my ass every day.”
“Uniform pants run small,” John says. And he doesn’t want to but he has to ask. “Have you done this before?”
“Chased after somebody for months because they’re so fucking self-righteous they never noticed they weren’t the only one who wanted it?”
John won’t stop either way but he has to know. Ben rolls his eyes.
“Yes, John,” he says with an annoyed sigh. “Do you need a list of references? What do you want from me here?”
John says, “Take off your socks and shoes. And your jacket.” Ben raises an eyebrow. “Come on, I’m not breaking my back just to get a glimpse of your pretty little ankle.”
Ben shrugs out of his jacket and lies back down, kicking off his shoes and socks. He unbuckles his belt, lifts his hips toward the ceiling and strips off his pants. They fall on the carpet with a dull clank. His front shirttails flutter and settle over the front of short, silky boxers. Checked pattern.
John has no fucking idea why he’s still standing at the foot of the bed when Ben is stretched out waiting like this, for him, almost half naked and all but begging for more. He puts his hand on Ben’s bare calf, running two fingers up the inside of his thigh to the edge of his underwear, dipping under and then out again. Ben groans, curling his toes and hunching his shoulders forward.
John crawls up between Ben’s legs, fallen far apart, and leans over him, unbuttoning from the bottom of the shirt up to the neck. There’s a ribbed cotton tank top under and John shoves it forward with the tips of his fingers, the heels of his hands following behind. Ben wriggles around, impatient, but doesn’t try to actually go anywhere, especially when John ducks down and drags his tongue up Ben’s chest. Jesus Christ. Somehow he even tastes smooth and rich and perfect and forbidden and when John sucks one nipple between his teeth, Ben gasps and grabs at John’s hair, fingers skidding on his scalp.
John hasn’t had sex - real sex he actually gave a shit about, not hand jobs in bathrooms - in almost a year, not since Cesar got serious about Robert. He hasn’t had all that much real sex worth getting all teary-eyed about, period, not the kind that feels like a beginning instead of a bad idea. He’s still not completely convinced which this is; it feels too goddamned good to be true but not like any of his old mistakes.
He bites his way across Ben’s collarbone, and one of Ben’s legs wraps around his thighs, knee pressing up into John’s ass in shallow thrusts. His nose is near Ben’s ear, his own breath damp against Ben’s neck, and he should say something, state his intentions, detail every dirty thing he wants to do to Ben in this swank hotel room. He doesn’t know where to start.
Ben arches his back, bringing their dicks together, then again, and on the third time he pushes John up with one hand, hard, swinging through the movement until John is on his back and Ben is straddling his thighs, breathing raggedly and smiling down. “Are you trying to fucking kill me before I even get your pants off?” he asks, stretching forward for a fast, hard kiss that makes John see stars like he just got punched in the nose.
And then Ben’s hands are on John’s belt, unzipping his fly, pulling his dick out of his underwear. He doesn’t bother pulling John’s pants down, just slides back into the V of his legs and bends down to take the head of John’s cock in his mouth. He has definitely done this before.
John lifts his neck to watch but Ben’s blond buzz cut and the fluid movement of his head up and down and his tongue, fuck, his tongue, and when Ben backs off for a second to stare up at him, wide blue eyes so intent, so determined, John falls back on the pillow, hears the whine he makes and doesn’t care. He can’t fucking handle having Ben suck his cock and watching it happen, too. He’s just not that strong a man.
It sneaks up on him, like it always does when it’s really good, and he tries to force Ben’s name past his lips in warning, manages something like a grunt instead, and Ben doesn’t stop anyway. He opens his eyes to see Ben wiping his mouth with a tiny grimace, and John would apologize but he’s pretty sure he can’t fucking talk at all. “Didn’t want to ruin your new outfit,” Ben says, falling back down to stretch out beside him, and John kisses him because it’s better and easier than figuring out what the fuck to say about a thing like this.
Ben smiles into the kiss and slings one ankle over John’s. The waistband of his boxers are slick and smooth against John’s hip and John regains enough use of his limbs to get a hand inside, stroking Ben’s cock slower than he’s trying to hurry things along.
He wants to do this the right way, all the way naked, in his own bed on a late morning when he can see every golden hair on Ben’s stomach in the sunlight, when he can fuck into him lazy and entitled, sure no one’s going anywhere until they’ve both done their worst to each other. He wants that and right now he thinks he could even say so, the way Ben’s staring at him and whimpering and moaning into John’s mouth.
One more hard twist and he comes in John’s hand, gnawing on John’s neck, pulse skittering and the taut skin of his stomach trembling against John’s arm.
“Next time,” Ben mumbles against John’s chest, “we should get all the way naked.”
Just like that there’s a next time, and John meant it when he said he wasn’t looking for a hotel hook-up but he knows he would have settled for it, if that’s what it had come to. There’s a next time, a tomorrow.
John cranes his neck to read the alarm clock. “We should sleep a little,” he says, “until the party’s definitely over.”
“Mmm,” Ben agrees, a dead weight on the mattress. John slides out, kicks off his pants, tugs Ben’s shirts and underwear off, and drapes himself over Ben’s back.
He kisses behind Ben’s ear and clears his throat, though the dizzy buzz in his head doesn’t fade. “I want to wake up with you in my bed,” he says, and Ben smiles into the pillow.
END.
So I did this:
Bloodbuzz
Southland, Cooper/Sherman. Explicit, 6,000 words.
Disclaimer: Mostly real places. Made up people. Not mine. Title/lyrics by The National. And thanks to aproposofnothin for beta!
I never thought about love when I thought about home
1
With one devastating swing, Ben crushes his fancy phone against the dashboard, knuckles white and jaw tense. John intercepts the second blow, catching the square of smooth glass and overpriced electronics and elbowing Ben back into the seat. He keeps him pinned there as they roll down a quiet block and only when Ben slumps - rolling his neck back and turning to face the window - does he let go.
He keeps the phone, tucking it into his shirt pocket. Ben is still seething so hard and won’t look at John, as if sulking in his three feet of personal space on the other side of the cruiser means John can’t tell something is really fucking wrong.
“No more toys in the front seat,” John says. “You can have your little gadget back at the end of class.”
Ben doesn’t respond. John lets it go for another quarter-mile down Hollywood Boulevard, enjoying that hushed last hour before the clubs close and kick their miscreants back into general population.
The phone buzzes, a loud tickle against John’s chest like a tattoo needle. Another ring, then another. Ben doesn’t ask for it back. John could pull it out and see who’s calling, who Ben’s so angry with, but he won’t. John will push and prod and poke and generally try his damnedest to break through that soft reserve for Ben’s own damn sake, but he’s not going to stoop to snooping. It’s on Ben to do the telling.
They pull over a drunk driver, a douchebag in a thousand dollar suit jacket and jeans. Ben does everything by the book, impeccably competent, even kind when the driver sheds a few blubbery tears, so trashed he can barely stand. Then they hand the guy off to another unit to take in, sign the tow truck paperwork, and get back in the car.
Halfway back to the station, Ben’s phone buzzes in John’s shirt again. “Who’s calling?” John asks, eyes on the road. Ben shakes his head and clenches his left hand into a fist, then carefully relaxes it.
In the locker room, Ben strips fast and hits the showers. John takes the phone from his pocket. The screen is dark; a tiny voicemail indicator light flashes blue at its edge. Ben’s locker is open a crack and John sets the phone on the top shelf, closing the door loosely.
Ben’s waiting outside when John comes into the parking lot, 3 a.m. chilly against his damp hair. They walk together towards Ben’s bike and John weighs what to ask, how to get Ben to say what he needs in order to go home and put this day behind him.
“My dad,” Ben says suddenly.
God, the things John would like to do to Ben’s scumbag old man. Which is why he only says, as quiet as he can make his voice go, “What’d he do?”
Ben laughs, hard and angry. “I guess he finally decided there was business to be done showing off his son. So he bought a table at the Police Protection League’s Eagle and Badge gala.”
His voice is rough, hurt. John grabs his shoulder. “Let him swing his dick with the mayor and the brass if that’s what does it for him. You don’t have to go.”
Ben looks up through his eyelashes.
“Cops like us don’t go to fancy shit like that except to get a medal. I’ve been in the union my whole time on the job and it’d still cost me a month’s pay to get in the door.”
“There was a note at the desk,” Ben says. “The captain thanked me and my -“ He looks down, chews at his lip. “My family. For our generous support.”
John’s hand slides down Ben’s arm like it doesn’t know John is trying to be careful, trying to keep his hands to himself no matter how bad his back is screaming and his house is empty at the end of a long shift. He stops at Ben’s wrist, cool skin at the edge of his leather jacket.
“It said, ‘See you there.’ What am I supposed to do?”
This is what kills him, how the kid actually gives a shit what John thinks. How he thinks John has real fucking advice to go with their respective, impressively fucked-up family histories.
“I don’t know,” John allows, buying a minute. Ben smiles at the edge of his mouth, embarrassed a little, John can tell, for being unsure how to handle the least lethal threat of their week. “You think you can go a whole night in the same room without punching him?”
“I don’t know,” Ben says. “Want to come see?” He shrugs, a different smile now creeping through. “I mean, he bought a whole table.”
John laughs before he can stop himself. “You asking me to prom?”
Ben shrugs again, but his shoulders are looser, grin lighter.
“Yeah, what the fuck, okay,” John says. “This mean I have to wear a fucking suit?”
2
There’s a suit wedged in the far back of his closet. It’s light brown, and it doesn’t fit. The last time he wore it was to a wedding with Laurie, and he hasn’t gotten any thinner through the middle since. The suit looks like it’s been in the back of a closet for years.
Normally John wouldn’t give a shit if you could tell just by looking how rarely he plays into this kind of game, but he’s not going for himself. He’s going to keep Ben out of trouble. He just doesn’t want to embarrass Ben or look like a dumbfuck flatfoot who doesn’t know the difference between a Sunday barbecue and a fancy party.
Laurie laughs at him, then pokes around trying not to ask who’s so special that John would get dressed up, old pain at the edges of her interrogation. Eventually she says, “Jesus Christ, John, just go to Nordstrom’s and get them to help you.”
So he spends a midweek morning at an oversized outdoor mall, the manifestation of everything John ever hated about growing up in California. At least there aren’t many people around.
A wall of men’s suits stares back at him, unflinching in the face of his contempt. There are, upon closer inspection, about 25 different shades of black, and another dozen in gray. He hasn’t bought clothes anywhere other than Target or uniform supply in longer than he can remember. What the fuck is he even doing here?
“Is there something you need, sir?” A simpering sales assistant with too much gel in his hair and a fake smile. His name tag says LUIS.
John grunts. He feels like a time-traveling caveman, dropped into alien lands with an obscure mission. Me need suit.
What he needs is help, and like fucking always, he has no idea how to ask for it. He’s so glad he spent thousands of dollars in therapy so he could articulate to himself just how bad he is at this kind of shit.
He rolls his eyes and waves at the rack. “How do I pick?”
It’s another interrogation: What kind of event? What kind of fundraiser? Where is the venue? Does the invitation say black tie only or black tie optional or neither? Will they be standing or seated in a theater or having dinner?
“Tables,” he says. “We’re at a table.”
“Okay, good,” Luis says.
“I’m not paying -“ John doesn’t want to think about that part yet. “I better be able to wear this again.”
“Of course,” Luis says. “Something neutral.”
Luis holds a few different jackets on his arm and cocks his head at John. “Do you know what your date is wearing? We can fancy these up quite a bit with a bold shirt and tie, we don’t want them to clash with her dress.”
John really doesn’t fucking understand how he’s always been able to spot a gay guy a mile off, even all those years he was trying not to look too much, and this shit still happens to him all the time. “Neither of us is wearing a dress,” he bites out, and grabs the jackets. “Do I try on pants too or what? I wear a forty regular.”
Luis walks him into the fitting room and promises to bring the other halves of everything. John starts trying jackets on over his t-shirt and jeans. The first is too tight across his back. The second has sleeves that fall over his knuckles. Subtle Shade of Black number three is basically inoffensive.
“Forty,” Luis says, holding up a sheaf of slacks. “But - you’re used to a uniform, right?” John never said that. “Haircut,” Luis says, smiling. “Dress blues tend to run a little short and tight compared to what you want for a suit, so I brought you some forty-twos as well.”
It goes on like that, totally humiliating and stupid. They agree on what Luis calls a gunmetal blue striped dress shirt and a silk tie that Luis almost comes in his pants over and John doesn’t hate. He almost gets away with using his uniform dress shoes and belt until Luis tells a cautionary story about how the wrong accessories can drag down an otherwise perfect suit and John says fine just to get him to stop talking.
Basically he gets browbeat by a wispy little twink into nearly a thousand dollars worth of clothes. He stands in front of the mirror, fully assembled, Luis calling down to give instructions to the in-house tailor he promises will shorten the sleeves as part of the absurd price.
Luis hangs up and looks at both their reflections. “You look good,” he says, proud. “You’ll make - anyone around you will look good, too.”
Ben probably has a walk-in closet full of suits and shirts and ties and belts and shoes, a designer army of indulgence.
John sighs. “He’s a fucking Abercrombie ad.”
“Get it,” Luis says, laughing, and John feels a tiny bit better. Stronger men have fallen for far less.
3
John gets a haircut and a shave. He puts on the ridiculous suit and shirt and tie and belt and shoes. He wears his work socks because Luis neglected to sell him some hundred-dollar pair.
Ben is going to bust his balls so bad, and probably he deserves it.
Especially when he shows up to get Ben and there’s a shiny car parked in the driveway behind Ben’s bike. He’s sitting there trying to figure out if he’s supposed to go up and ring the bell or just call when Ben struts out.
John opens the door and gets out. “Whose car is that?” Ben looks at him like he’s retarded, and maybe he is. What the fuck, does Ben live with someone?
“It’s mine,” Ben says easily. “You think I ride on days it rains?”
John has no idea what Ben does on days it rains. He’s never asked, and it hasn’t rained since Ben got assigned to him anyway. All he said about tonight was, If I have to go to the west side, I can pick you up on the way, and Ben said, Sure, that sounds good.
Ben comes around the passenger side of John’s car just like he does every day. Except tonight he’s wearing this sleek, light gray suit with a darker gray shirt. No tie. Open collar with a smooth V of neck showing. He waits with a hand on the door, waiting for John to get in first, for John to stop staring like a fucking rookie facing down his first d.b.
“You gonna drive me to this thing or what?” Ben asks.
4
Ben’s father spends most of the night at other people’s tables, shaking hands and talking out of his ass. He talks right through the color guard presentation, the medal of valor ceremony, the mayor’s speech.
“C’mon, Ben,” he tries once, twice, trying to rope him in to the show and tell, but Ben shakes the hand off his shoulder and stays stuck to his chair, resolute.
It doesn’t stop people from coming to them. Not scumbag defense attorneys, and nobody who gives a shit that Sherman Sr. is acting like one night undoes everything he’s done to fuck up their arrests. But one by one they receive the best and the brightest of the brass, every top-notch plum assignment a cop could have wet dreams over. They’re all there to talk to Ben, though they pay John his due, pump his hand and tell him he cleans up nicer than they thought possible.
“You’re getting close to the end of your probation, right?” they ask Ben, like they’ve been pulling his file and marking the date in their little diaries.
“Ever thought about homicide?”
“This is LA, man, gangs is where it’s at.”
“Got some slots coming open in SWAT later this year.”
Ben smiles and nods, polite as could be, making lots of new friends but no promises.
“Told you,” John says during the dinner course, a tiny roasted bird a lady at their table with a bad facelift declares the best Cornish hen she’s had all year.
Ben turns, eyes steady on John as he chews. He swallows. “Told me what?”
“You’re gonna have your pick of the litter, Sherman. Name the department you want and they’ll find you a place.”
“Eh,” Ben says, lifting his fork.
“The little debutante with all the suitors traipsing on over here, making their intentions clear.”
“Traipsing?”
John takes a big bite of miniature potatoes. “The little prince.”
“What’s that make you?”
“Well at the very least I’m hoping somebody will buy me dinner in gratitude I’ve trained you so goddamned well.”
Ben smiles, just a flash before he covers it up with more food. He finishes what’s on his plate, then his wine glass, and then he says, “I just want to be a good cop.”
All John’s ever wanted from the job was to be a good cop.
Ben turns towards John, forearms crossed on the table, his back to the lady on his right, ignoring the room. He’s so close John’s whole leg tingles through his wool pants.
“You will be,” John promises, and Ben’s cheeks redden. “Long as you stay out of bullshit ballrooms like this and keep your head in the job, you’ll do fine.”
Ben leans back so the waiter can pour a cup of coffee. “Thank you,” he says, staring down at the tablecloth. “For coming with me tonight.”
John stares at the short hair on the back of Ben’s neck, his tanned skin, the ridge of collarbone. He thinks, get it.
Ben looks up and John can’t think of anything else to say. He takes a too-hot sip of black coffee and nods in acknowledgement. He considers the relative expedience of strangling himself with his tie.
Ben bumps his knee against John’s. “Maybe you can -” he starts, trailing off when Ben’s dad waltzes up to the table.
“Ben, come take a picture with me and the chief.”
“No,” Ben says.
“Come on, son, it’s a big night for him.”
“I said no.”
“Help me out here,” he says to John. “He has to listen to you, right?”
John stands up. “You have got to be kidding.”
“Ben, the chief of police wants to meet you personally -“
“If you’re here to make friends and influence people, sir, you might try shutting the hell up when people are being honored on stage.” The smirk on Ben’s father’s face is a little too familiar for comfort but it’s not going to stop John once he’s going. Every day he does his best to put back together a tiny piece of a life this man destroyed. He’s just getting started. “They put their life on the line so the assholes you defend can spend another day making the world a little less safe, and that might not mean much to you but it still means a hell of a lot to most of the people in this room.”
The asshole gets right in John’s face, hissing between a clenched smile. “If you people were doing your job so well, my family wouldn’t have been victims of such a heinous attack -”
Ben’s chair falls over backwards, and John catches his fist as it arcs upward. “Okay,” he says into Ben’s ear, trying to sound calmer than he is. “We’re done here, let’s go.” Ben’s suit is soft under John’s fingers as he steers him out of the room, Ben’s ragged breaths loud even over the uninterrupted tinkle of china and gossip.
5
Down an escalator, out the first set of doors that look like they lead to fresh air. It’s a bar, long padded benches and high tables and a bar lit violet blue. He walks Ben to a low couch and sits with him, a hand on Ben’s neck.
A blonde in a dress smiles at them as she passes by with a tray and John flags her down. “Maker’s rocks,” he says, and nods to include Ben.
“Doubles?” she asks, and he shrugs a yes.
Ben has his elbows braced on his knees, staring at the ground, and he’s still breathing hard. The back of his neck is flushed and warm, his shoulders rock solid under John’s arm.
John tries to inhale and exhale as evenly as possible. He’s here to steady the situation, even if with every touch it feels like he’s lighting a slow fuse at both ends. Eventually Ben sits up. John doesn’t move his arm. He really doesn’t give a shit what they look like right now.
“He doesn’t even know how bad it was,” Ben says suddenly. “The attack. She never told him.”
John doesn’t ask what there was to tell; there are only a few possibilities that end with everybody still alive and none of them are better than the others for being said aloud.
“No cop in there is fooled by his little show,” he says instead, “don’t you worry. They’ll let him buy a fancy table, sponsor a scholarship or two and take a couple grip-and-grins. If their own kid gets busted with a bag of weed they can’t bury, maybe they call him to get a good deal, keep it out of the papers.”
Ben scowls. He doesn’t buy it.
“They’re cops, Ben. They spend every day of their lives measuring the worth of a man in a millisecond. They know shit when they smell it.”
That earns a low chuckle, and another headshake, but this time there’s finality to it. He’s shaking it off. It’s all you can do, really, when your family’s a fucking mess. You have to decide every day how much energy they’re worth even being angry at.
John leans back, lets his arm fall onto the couch. Eventually he can feel the tension in Ben’s body start to fade. The waitress brings them another round, doubles, and they watch the mating game at the bar.
A white girl with red hair in a short skirt, twenties, is trying desperately to sleep with a Latino man in his forties or early fifties, laughing too brightly at anything he says, touching the lapels of his jacket when she doesn’t need to.
“She’s trying too hard,” John says.
Ben’s smile is sympathetic. “Sometimes subtle doesn’t work.”
A guy in his thirties, black, short trimmed hair, nurses a beer at the end of the bar and steals a look at his watch every minute or two.
“Nothing worse than those moments right before you figure out you were stood up. That’s the part you hate yourself the most for later.”
“Hmm.” Ben swirls the melted ice in his glass around a few times. “Hard to imagine.”
“Oh right,” John says. “Probably never happens to guys like you.”
“You, I meant. Hard to imagine you get stood up.”
Ben’s suit jacket grazes his, shoulder dimly warm through all the layers between them. John closes his eyes to hold that warmth, feeling the steady drumbeat in the bridge of his nose that means he’s halfway buzzed from drinking so fast.
“Been a while since I bothered,” he says finally, and opens his eyes to find Ben staring back. He doesn’t look away. The weight of Ben’s shoulder presses into his for a long moment, then eases off.
Ben rubs his palms together and stands up. “I need to -” he says, and cocks his head towards the door.
This is why John doesn’t bother, because just when you think you have some fucking glimpse of an idea it all goes to hell anyway.
“- splash some water on my face,” Ben is saying. “Order me another if you’re having one?” And then he’s striding towards the door. He walks different in a suit, or maybe it’s the drinks, or the bar, or not wearing a gun belt and polyester uniform pants. He glides through the room like a whisper of a silk tie against a shirt. John hates every thread of fabric that’s touching Ben’s body when he can’t.
6
The Hilton lobby is golden hued, gleaming brass and glinting mirrored lights. A bellhop passes with a cart full of designer luggage, a matching miniature pet carrying case stacked at the top. John might as well be in France for all this rich world makes sense to him. He waits outside the men’s room and uses the rug to buff off a mark on the side of his fancy shoes.
Ben walks along the middle of the carpet’s flourishes like he’s steering his bike down the center line. He moves so easily, dark gray shirt open against his neck, and John swallows hard against his tie as Ben comes closer and closer and never slows down, keeps coming until they’re practically toe to toe and John raises his hand to catch Ben’s elbow, thinking they’re about to fall down, crash on impact.
Ben smiles, not like any of the times John’s seen before. His whole face is open, calm, confident.
“We should do this again sometime,” John says, without realizing he’d decided to speak. “Maybe next time with fewer assholes patting themselves on the back, but -”
Ben leans in. His chest touches John’s. “I got a room,” he says.
He hears what Ben says but he has no fucking idea what Ben is talking about. He got a room. For him? For - them? For what fucking purpose?
John’s whole body feels fiery, dizzy, and he shifts his weight back on his heels to try to find balance. Ben’s hand steals between them, grabbing John’s tie and pulling him back close and upright. His knuckles push pressure points into John’s sternum, and Ben nods, twice. The terrifying part is how John knows exactly what he means, what he’s going to say next.
“Come upstairs with me,” Ben says. He keeps John’s sleeve in his grip and they’re in the elevator before all the reasons this is a fucking impossibility rush back into John’s brain.
The doors open on the fifteenth floor, and Ben stands on the threshold, one shoe wedged into the elevator door, until John follows him into the hall. Ben got a room. They went upstairs.
“We’re in a hotel,” John says. His voice sounds hoarse and hurts coming out, like it’s fighting him all the way up from his lungs.
Ben looks down at the key, then at the sign directing which rooms are where. “Nothing gets by you,” he says, and John yanks him back by the arm as he tries to set off down to the left.
“I don’t want -” John wants to shoot himself in the foot with his own service weapon for this, but he has to say it. “I’m not looking for a night in a hotel,” he says, “not like this, not because we got dressed up in these suits and got our heads screwed up for a minute -”
“Fine,” Ben says.
Now John is going to shoot himself in the face.
“But we just sat through three hours of bullshit, and we’ve been doing this, this little dance, for way longer than that. Let’s not waste any more time.”
“Ben -”
“We can spend tomorrow night anywhere you want, okay?”
He sounds so fucking reasonable about it. “You’re my trainee, Ben.”
That doesn’t sound like much of a reason not to once John says it out loud. It’s just a statement of fact, a temporary assignment. If any one of the dozen lieutenants downstairs have their way with Ben he’ll be moving on up within the year. John’s been trying not to think about it, about some other cop spending all day every day in a car with Ben, about having to break in some new boot, some kid who John will never call his partner, not even by accident.
He doesn’t say any of that but Ben sees it anyway, can read it plain on John’s face just like the cop he is. Ben looks down at the key again. “Room 1534,” he says, soft and sure, and this time John follows him down the hall.
7
“Do I really seem this easy?”
Ben closes the door and walks John back against it.
“Nothing about you is easy,” Ben says.
He reverse engineers John’s Windsor knot, and the silk slides free of John’s collar with a sharp snap. His fingers press against John’s throat, pushing hard on the windpipe as he undoes buttons.
With the shirt opened, Ben spreads his hand around John’s neck, thumb in the soft spot under John’s jaw. He holds John there and John doesn’t resist, doesn’t try to go anywhere, won’t even move his eyes away.
Ben’s cheeks are flushed and he’s wedged a knee between John’s legs. One of his hands, the one not on John’s neck, is resting lightly at John’s waist, but none of the combined attack is enough to actually keep John there or even push him all the way against the door.
John breathes in through his teeth, then again. He licks his bottom lip and watches Ben’s eyes fall to track the movement. John leans forward, just an inch, just his head and shoulders, so he can reach Ben’s mouth. Ben surges up immediately, kissing John back into the door, putting weight behind the holds on his neck and hip, torquing John’s jaw with his thumb to exactly where he wants it.
It’s entirely selfish to let Ben have at it for a few minutes, to keep as calm as possible as the object of your barely acknowledged obsession devours you like his last meal. John’s all right with being selfish. He’s not accustomed to getting what he wants. This is more than he let himself want, Ben’s eager assault.
Ben slides John’s jacket off his shoulders and onto the floor, unbuttons the shirt with far less care than John gave it that afternoon. It requires more assistance to come all the way off, Ben’s fingers pushing the sleeves down and cuffs over his wrists until that’s gone, too. Then the undershirt. Ben’s hands are warm as he smoothes them up John’s chest, over his collarbone and across his shoulders. He’s concentrating so hard he flinches a little when John bends in and bites his way along Ben’s chin to his mouth.
“Okay, enough,” he says, and Ben instantly stops, steps back, drops his hands. He looks like he’s about to apologize, for fuck’s sake. John shoves him back towards the bed. “I’m not that easy.”
Ben bounces a little as his back hits the mattress, then rises up on his elbows, grinning. “You bought a new suit to come with me tonight,” he says. “You hate suits.”
“It was a formal event.”
Ben smirks. “You picked me up and drove me here.”
John comes closer and his slacks rub against his heavy cock with every step. “It’s not like I rented a fucking limo. I drive your ass around every day.”
“You stare at my ass every day.”
“Uniform pants run small,” John says. And he doesn’t want to but he has to ask. “Have you done this before?”
“Chased after somebody for months because they’re so fucking self-righteous they never noticed they weren’t the only one who wanted it?”
John won’t stop either way but he has to know. Ben rolls his eyes.
“Yes, John,” he says with an annoyed sigh. “Do you need a list of references? What do you want from me here?”
John says, “Take off your socks and shoes. And your jacket.” Ben raises an eyebrow. “Come on, I’m not breaking my back just to get a glimpse of your pretty little ankle.”
Ben shrugs out of his jacket and lies back down, kicking off his shoes and socks. He unbuckles his belt, lifts his hips toward the ceiling and strips off his pants. They fall on the carpet with a dull clank. His front shirttails flutter and settle over the front of short, silky boxers. Checked pattern.
John has no fucking idea why he’s still standing at the foot of the bed when Ben is stretched out waiting like this, for him, almost half naked and all but begging for more. He puts his hand on Ben’s bare calf, running two fingers up the inside of his thigh to the edge of his underwear, dipping under and then out again. Ben groans, curling his toes and hunching his shoulders forward.
John crawls up between Ben’s legs, fallen far apart, and leans over him, unbuttoning from the bottom of the shirt up to the neck. There’s a ribbed cotton tank top under and John shoves it forward with the tips of his fingers, the heels of his hands following behind. Ben wriggles around, impatient, but doesn’t try to actually go anywhere, especially when John ducks down and drags his tongue up Ben’s chest. Jesus Christ. Somehow he even tastes smooth and rich and perfect and forbidden and when John sucks one nipple between his teeth, Ben gasps and grabs at John’s hair, fingers skidding on his scalp.
John hasn’t had sex - real sex he actually gave a shit about, not hand jobs in bathrooms - in almost a year, not since Cesar got serious about Robert. He hasn’t had all that much real sex worth getting all teary-eyed about, period, not the kind that feels like a beginning instead of a bad idea. He’s still not completely convinced which this is; it feels too goddamned good to be true but not like any of his old mistakes.
He bites his way across Ben’s collarbone, and one of Ben’s legs wraps around his thighs, knee pressing up into John’s ass in shallow thrusts. His nose is near Ben’s ear, his own breath damp against Ben’s neck, and he should say something, state his intentions, detail every dirty thing he wants to do to Ben in this swank hotel room. He doesn’t know where to start.
Ben arches his back, bringing their dicks together, then again, and on the third time he pushes John up with one hand, hard, swinging through the movement until John is on his back and Ben is straddling his thighs, breathing raggedly and smiling down. “Are you trying to fucking kill me before I even get your pants off?” he asks, stretching forward for a fast, hard kiss that makes John see stars like he just got punched in the nose.
And then Ben’s hands are on John’s belt, unzipping his fly, pulling his dick out of his underwear. He doesn’t bother pulling John’s pants down, just slides back into the V of his legs and bends down to take the head of John’s cock in his mouth. He has definitely done this before.
John lifts his neck to watch but Ben’s blond buzz cut and the fluid movement of his head up and down and his tongue, fuck, his tongue, and when Ben backs off for a second to stare up at him, wide blue eyes so intent, so determined, John falls back on the pillow, hears the whine he makes and doesn’t care. He can’t fucking handle having Ben suck his cock and watching it happen, too. He’s just not that strong a man.
It sneaks up on him, like it always does when it’s really good, and he tries to force Ben’s name past his lips in warning, manages something like a grunt instead, and Ben doesn’t stop anyway. He opens his eyes to see Ben wiping his mouth with a tiny grimace, and John would apologize but he’s pretty sure he can’t fucking talk at all. “Didn’t want to ruin your new outfit,” Ben says, falling back down to stretch out beside him, and John kisses him because it’s better and easier than figuring out what the fuck to say about a thing like this.
Ben smiles into the kiss and slings one ankle over John’s. The waistband of his boxers are slick and smooth against John’s hip and John regains enough use of his limbs to get a hand inside, stroking Ben’s cock slower than he’s trying to hurry things along.
He wants to do this the right way, all the way naked, in his own bed on a late morning when he can see every golden hair on Ben’s stomach in the sunlight, when he can fuck into him lazy and entitled, sure no one’s going anywhere until they’ve both done their worst to each other. He wants that and right now he thinks he could even say so, the way Ben’s staring at him and whimpering and moaning into John’s mouth.
One more hard twist and he comes in John’s hand, gnawing on John’s neck, pulse skittering and the taut skin of his stomach trembling against John’s arm.
“Next time,” Ben mumbles against John’s chest, “we should get all the way naked.”
Just like that there’s a next time, and John meant it when he said he wasn’t looking for a hotel hook-up but he knows he would have settled for it, if that’s what it had come to. There’s a next time, a tomorrow.
John cranes his neck to read the alarm clock. “We should sleep a little,” he says, “until the party’s definitely over.”
“Mmm,” Ben agrees, a dead weight on the mattress. John slides out, kicks off his pants, tugs Ben’s shirts and underwear off, and drapes himself over Ben’s back.
He kisses behind Ben’s ear and clears his throat, though the dizzy buzz in his head doesn’t fade. “I want to wake up with you in my bed,” he says, and Ben smiles into the pillow.
END.