RV: The Lamp is Burning Low
Title: The Lamp is Burning Low
Fandom: RV
Rating: Adult
Words: ~2500
Characters: Howie/Joe Joe
Summary: Joe Joe hates travelling in icy weather, Howie indulges him.
Disclaimer: Nobody here is mine. Dammit.
Author's Note: Thanks to
tsuki_no_bara, who indulges ME :)
Joe Joe pointed to the sign, and then tucked his arm in close against his body again. "There. That's the turn."
"I see it, yeah." Howie eased off the gas and signalled, even though there wasn't anybody on the road with them anymore, and took the ramp coasting just in case.
His voice had that sing-song note to it, soothing, like when he had to coax a stray animal out from under the truck. Joe Joe didn't blame him, he knew he could use some damn soothing by now. Ice had already started to collect along the edge of the side mirrors, tiny icicles hanging off the metal, and rest stop or no rest stop he was about ready to demand Howie pull off on the shoulder.
This wasn't one of the nicer ones they'd seen, not big enough to be manned or to have restrooms, even, just a handful of covered picnic areas and a small brick building that likely held a couple of soda or candy bar machines, gated against theft. The pavement was still mostly clear, it hadn't been cold enough here lately for the ground to freeze up too hard but Joe Joe knew that could change far quicker than a body realized. They had their choice of parking spots, and Howie pulled into one facing the snack machines and put the engine in park.
"You want to get more stuff out of the back, or I can do it?"
Joe Joe pulled the collar of his jacket up around his throat, and eyed the sleeting sky through the windshield. "Think I'll stay."
Howie nodded, clapped a hand on Joe Joe's shoulder, and climbed out of the cab. Joe Joe looked around while he waited but there just wasn't much to see. The storm had blown up out of nowhere and brought a hell of a cold front with it, and as the temperature dropped the rain had changed to ice. Now everything was shrouded and gray and getting darker as the sun went down.
Joe Joe reached out and cranked the blower up as far as it would go. The camper had decent heat, generally, but without a place to hook up the electric they were better off staying in the cab and running the engine every hour or so to warm up. Howie would dig out some extra pairs of socks and every blanket they owned and between the two of them, they'd be okay 'till morning.
He thought about it a second and then he cranked up the radio, too, so he could hear it over the roar of the air. They'd been listening to some local talk radio station for its weather reports for about the last fifty miles, but now they must've been on the outer edge of the transmission area because the station kept cutting in and out. Joe Joe picked out "freezing" and "ice" and "bad road conditions," which he could've known just looking out the window, but so far no word on how long the storm was set to last.
Howie yanked open the driver's door, shoved an armful of stuff at Joe Joe and climbed in after it. He pulled the door shut behind him with a slam, probably half because it was so cold outside and half because he didn't want to let out all the heat. There were tiny pellets of ice in the folds of the topmost blanket, Joe Joe brushed them off before they could melt. Howie bent forward to shake his head over the floorboard and scattered more out of his hair.
"Damn! That is some nasty-ass weather. What do you hear?"
"Nothing new." He dug into the bundle and came up with a pack of tube socks; he handed a couple to Howie, and toed his shoes off to pull some on himself.
The radio had dissolved into static -- probably because of the ice building up on the truck's antenna -- so he switched it off again before unwrapping more of the bundle.
"One of your sweatshirts is down in there somewhere," Howie told him. "And a bag of that jerky."
Joe Joe found both, set the sweatshirt in his lap and the jerky on the dashboard while Howie fidgeted with his jacket. He had the canteen with him, good thinking on his part, but he'd put it on over his head and under one arm and was trying to get the strap free without peeling off his layers. Which was just not going to happen without more hands on the job.
"Here, you've gotta... can you work that end down the sleeve?"
"Yeah, I think- yow!" Howie flinched when Joe Joe's fingers brushed against his neck.
"Sorry, sorry." He knew his hands were cold, they got cold quick in this weather and he hated the feel of gloves. Something about how they rubbed up between his fingers. Howie mentioned on occasion that they could maybe buy him a pair of mittens, but the last time they thought to look for some all the store had were ones for kids. Joe Joe didn't have anything in particular against snowmen or reindeer, but the largest ones they found didn't even reach down to the joint of his thumb. So he tried to keep his fingers to himself as best he could while they finally got Howie loose of the canteen strap.
Howie leaned back against the seat with a sigh. "That was way harder than it needed to be."
"Bet you're warmer now, though." Joe Joe had the bulk of the blankets unfolded by now, and he set them down in the middle of the bench seat to shimmy out of his jacket and put the extra sweatshirt on.
"Yeah, you got a point."
It didn't take too long to portion the blankets out and get all good and cocooned, and once the cab was nice and toasty Howie cut the air and shut off the engine. Joe Joe munched on a slice of jerky and listened to the ice plinking off the sides of the camper.
"You okay?"
Howie passed him the canteen, and Joe Joe took a swallow of water and passed it back. "Yeah. I don't mind it so much when we're not moving."
Howie nodded, took a drink himself and screwed the cap back on. "If we were indoors somewhere, it'd be almost pretty."
Joe Joe didn't have a response to that, so he just chewed on the jerky and let Howie talk to fill up the silence. Mostly speculation about the storm, and where they might stop next, and oh did Joe Joe know that Sandy's dog at the park-before-last had had puppies? Joe Joe had not known or he would've gone to see them. Dogs were great, even if the camper was a little cramped for them to have one of their own. After a while they turned the truck back on to run the heater some more, and Joe Joe tried to get the radio station to come in again, but without much luck.
"Maybe in the morning we can get a better signal," Howie suggested.
"Hope so."
"Think they'll send out sand trucks in the morning?"
"Hope so."
"Hey." Howie touched Joe Joe's cheek and his fingers didn't keep the cold as much but it still made Joe Joe start a little. "You're all up in your head again."
Joe Joe sucked in a breath and blew it back out again. "A little, yeah, sorry."
"Don't be. Is it the storm?"
"No. I don't know, maybe."
Howie laid his arm across Joe Joe's back and tugged him closer, and Joe Joe scooted over until he could lay his head on Howie's shoulder. "We could sleep for a while, if you want."
It was early yet, but to be honest sleep was probably the best use of their time anyway. Kind of like the night before Christmas, the quicker you got to sleep the sooner morning would come. Joe Joe just hoped he wouldn't dream about ice. He did, sometimes.
"That sounds good. You got your watch?"
Howie shut the truck off again, and pulled an old Timex digital out of his coat pocket and handed it over. They called it Howie's out of habit, the strap on it had broken months ago so it just lived in a drawer until they needed the alarm on it. Howie didn't ever remember which buttons to press to work it even back when he wore the thing, so Joe Joe set it for a couple hours ahead and hung it by the buckle off one of the air vent tabs.
"Here." Howie had already started unwinding the blankets from around himself, opening a spot for Joe Joe to scoot into. They would lay across the bench seat together and wrap the blankets around them both, and it was too cramped to be really comfortable but it'd keep them warm enough and Joe Joe, for one, had made do with far worse in his life. It took some shifting around and Joe Joe banged a knee on the gear shift at least once, and then had to struggle an arm free when he realized he'd forgotten to take his glasses off. By the time they settled they were both breathless and sweating a little bit, but that wasn't really a bad thing.
Howie had Joe Joe's back to his front, and just as Joe Joe was starting to doze a bit Howie nuzzled his hair and murmured, "Tell me?"
Joe Joe found Howie's hand where it rested against Joe Joe's chest. "I just hate when it takes us by surprise, is all."
"I know you do." Howie opened his hand and caught Joe Joe's fingers between his own. "We're okay, though. We'll be fine right here for the night, and the tomorrow, well, we'll see what we see."
Joe Joe sighed. Howie seemed confident they'd be able to get back on the road in the morning, or at least make it to somewhere they could hook up the camper and wait out the rest of the weather in reasonable comfort, but Joe Joe wasn't feeling that optimistic.
Howie nosed at Joe Joe's hair again, pressed lips to the back of his neck. "We're okay," he repeated.
That was true enough. "Yeah, we're alright."
Howie made a pleased noise and patted his hand. "So get some rest."
Joe Joe dozed off to the rhythm of Howie's breathing.
--
Howie's watch beeped at them, and Joe Joe noticed that the cab had gotten chilly but not completely frigid, which was good. Once the engine warmed up they ran the blower for a while, then wrapped up and fell asleep again.
Joe Joe woke up some time after that, drowsy and disoriented. The watch hadn't gone off, and he couldn't see it well enough to read the time but it still looked mostly dark outside.
And Howie's hand was cupping Joe Joe's dick through his pants. That was probably what woke him.
Howie mumbled something, Joe Joe couldn't make out what, and squeezed. Joe Joe bit his lip. He couldn't tell how awake Howie was; heck, he wasn't so sure of himself either. He felt heavy and slow, caught between moving and not moving, between doing something about the hardness growing in his jeans and ignoring it in favor of more sleep. Choosing one or the other seemed too much of a hassle.
"Joe Joe?"
That answered that question, and another squeeze made Joe Joe's hips jerk of their own accord.
"You're awake," Howie added.
"Uh huh." He closed his hand over Howie's, and Howie shifted his legs restlessly where they were tucked up behind Joe Joe's on the bench.
"I want... here."
More shifting, and Joe Joe was still too drowsy to be very coordinated or to wonder too much what it was that Howie wanted, he just let Howie move them around until his back fetched up against the truck's door, and then Howie scooted down underneath the pile of blankets and unzipped Joe Joe's fly. Oh.
"You don't gotta... oh, Christ." Joe Joe drawled worse when he was horny, and cussed more, and he could be downright blasphemous with his dick in Howie's mouth like that. Part of him wondered whether Howie could really breathe down there, all their shifting around had made about half the blankets slide off onto the floorboard but he was still pretty buried, and then Howie gripped the base of Joe Joe's cock and sucked hard and Joe Joe wondered why there suddenly wasn't enough air in the truck for him, either.
Joe Joe still felt all slow and loose-limbed with sleep, he didn't tense up a bit even when he felt his climax coming on and when it happened, it was like a sunburst pooled in his belly and shot out warm in every direction. Howie moaned, and skated a hand up under Joe Joe's shirts, pushing them up, curling around his ribs and back again. He pulled off Joe Joe's cock and panted against his bare skin, harsh and rhythmic and over sooner than Joe Joe could react.
"I'd've done that." He petted Howie's head under the blankets, and then his hair when he scooted on up.
"Couldn't wait, you were makin' these noises."
"Was I?"
"Uh huh." Howie nosed at his cheek, and then sat up enough to fetch some napkins out of the glovebox.
Joe Joe didn't remember being noisy but it wasn't out of the question. He was still sluggish, though, content to wait while Howie wiped off his hand and refastened his and Joe Joe's pants. When he was done Joe Joe tugged Howie down on top of himself, still half-propped against the door and not of a mind to move just yet. Howie fit himself between Joe Joe's knees and buried his face in Joe Joe's neck, and Joe Joe hugged him close.
"Aren't you cold?" Howie asked him.
"No." He should've been, at least a little, at least maybe where his shoulders were resting against the door panel, but he still felt like liquid sunshine had run all through him.
"You will be if we don't wrap up."
That was true enough, and Joe Joe let him go with a sigh and helped to gather up their nest again. "How long 'till morning?"
Howie leaned over to peer at the watch, and then glanced at the windshield and laughed. "We fogged the windows pretty good, huh?" He pulled the edge of his sleeve over his fist and swiped the glass with it, and looked out at the sky. "About an hour to sunrise, I think, maybe a bit less. But the ice has stopped."
"You want the heat?" Joe Joe was closest, so he sat up behind the wheel.
"Yeah, a little."
Joe Joe turned the truck on again and they ran it long enough to take the bite out of the air. Howie had the blankets sorted by then, and when they laid down again Joe Joe squirmed around to face him.
"Your butt'll get cold that way," Howie pointed out.
"Just for a while," Joe Joe said, and kissed him. Howie hmmed and kissed him back, and worked his warm hands under Joe Joe's layers to the skin at his waist. Joe Joe settled for burying his colder fingers in Howie's hood. The storm was over, Howie had said, and daylight was coming.
Fandom: RV
Rating: Adult
Words: ~2500
Characters: Howie/Joe Joe
Summary: Joe Joe hates travelling in icy weather, Howie indulges him.
Disclaimer: Nobody here is mine. Dammit.
Author's Note: Thanks to
tsuki_no_bara, who indulges ME :)
Joe Joe pointed to the sign, and then tucked his arm in close against his body again. "There. That's the turn."
"I see it, yeah." Howie eased off the gas and signalled, even though there wasn't anybody on the road with them anymore, and took the ramp coasting just in case.
His voice had that sing-song note to it, soothing, like when he had to coax a stray animal out from under the truck. Joe Joe didn't blame him, he knew he could use some damn soothing by now. Ice had already started to collect along the edge of the side mirrors, tiny icicles hanging off the metal, and rest stop or no rest stop he was about ready to demand Howie pull off on the shoulder.
This wasn't one of the nicer ones they'd seen, not big enough to be manned or to have restrooms, even, just a handful of covered picnic areas and a small brick building that likely held a couple of soda or candy bar machines, gated against theft. The pavement was still mostly clear, it hadn't been cold enough here lately for the ground to freeze up too hard but Joe Joe knew that could change far quicker than a body realized. They had their choice of parking spots, and Howie pulled into one facing the snack machines and put the engine in park.
"You want to get more stuff out of the back, or I can do it?"
Joe Joe pulled the collar of his jacket up around his throat, and eyed the sleeting sky through the windshield. "Think I'll stay."
Howie nodded, clapped a hand on Joe Joe's shoulder, and climbed out of the cab. Joe Joe looked around while he waited but there just wasn't much to see. The storm had blown up out of nowhere and brought a hell of a cold front with it, and as the temperature dropped the rain had changed to ice. Now everything was shrouded and gray and getting darker as the sun went down.
Joe Joe reached out and cranked the blower up as far as it would go. The camper had decent heat, generally, but without a place to hook up the electric they were better off staying in the cab and running the engine every hour or so to warm up. Howie would dig out some extra pairs of socks and every blanket they owned and between the two of them, they'd be okay 'till morning.
He thought about it a second and then he cranked up the radio, too, so he could hear it over the roar of the air. They'd been listening to some local talk radio station for its weather reports for about the last fifty miles, but now they must've been on the outer edge of the transmission area because the station kept cutting in and out. Joe Joe picked out "freezing" and "ice" and "bad road conditions," which he could've known just looking out the window, but so far no word on how long the storm was set to last.
Howie yanked open the driver's door, shoved an armful of stuff at Joe Joe and climbed in after it. He pulled the door shut behind him with a slam, probably half because it was so cold outside and half because he didn't want to let out all the heat. There were tiny pellets of ice in the folds of the topmost blanket, Joe Joe brushed them off before they could melt. Howie bent forward to shake his head over the floorboard and scattered more out of his hair.
"Damn! That is some nasty-ass weather. What do you hear?"
"Nothing new." He dug into the bundle and came up with a pack of tube socks; he handed a couple to Howie, and toed his shoes off to pull some on himself.
The radio had dissolved into static -- probably because of the ice building up on the truck's antenna -- so he switched it off again before unwrapping more of the bundle.
"One of your sweatshirts is down in there somewhere," Howie told him. "And a bag of that jerky."
Joe Joe found both, set the sweatshirt in his lap and the jerky on the dashboard while Howie fidgeted with his jacket. He had the canteen with him, good thinking on his part, but he'd put it on over his head and under one arm and was trying to get the strap free without peeling off his layers. Which was just not going to happen without more hands on the job.
"Here, you've gotta... can you work that end down the sleeve?"
"Yeah, I think- yow!" Howie flinched when Joe Joe's fingers brushed against his neck.
"Sorry, sorry." He knew his hands were cold, they got cold quick in this weather and he hated the feel of gloves. Something about how they rubbed up between his fingers. Howie mentioned on occasion that they could maybe buy him a pair of mittens, but the last time they thought to look for some all the store had were ones for kids. Joe Joe didn't have anything in particular against snowmen or reindeer, but the largest ones they found didn't even reach down to the joint of his thumb. So he tried to keep his fingers to himself as best he could while they finally got Howie loose of the canteen strap.
Howie leaned back against the seat with a sigh. "That was way harder than it needed to be."
"Bet you're warmer now, though." Joe Joe had the bulk of the blankets unfolded by now, and he set them down in the middle of the bench seat to shimmy out of his jacket and put the extra sweatshirt on.
"Yeah, you got a point."
It didn't take too long to portion the blankets out and get all good and cocooned, and once the cab was nice and toasty Howie cut the air and shut off the engine. Joe Joe munched on a slice of jerky and listened to the ice plinking off the sides of the camper.
"You okay?"
Howie passed him the canteen, and Joe Joe took a swallow of water and passed it back. "Yeah. I don't mind it so much when we're not moving."
Howie nodded, took a drink himself and screwed the cap back on. "If we were indoors somewhere, it'd be almost pretty."
Joe Joe didn't have a response to that, so he just chewed on the jerky and let Howie talk to fill up the silence. Mostly speculation about the storm, and where they might stop next, and oh did Joe Joe know that Sandy's dog at the park-before-last had had puppies? Joe Joe had not known or he would've gone to see them. Dogs were great, even if the camper was a little cramped for them to have one of their own. After a while they turned the truck back on to run the heater some more, and Joe Joe tried to get the radio station to come in again, but without much luck.
"Maybe in the morning we can get a better signal," Howie suggested.
"Hope so."
"Think they'll send out sand trucks in the morning?"
"Hope so."
"Hey." Howie touched Joe Joe's cheek and his fingers didn't keep the cold as much but it still made Joe Joe start a little. "You're all up in your head again."
Joe Joe sucked in a breath and blew it back out again. "A little, yeah, sorry."
"Don't be. Is it the storm?"
"No. I don't know, maybe."
Howie laid his arm across Joe Joe's back and tugged him closer, and Joe Joe scooted over until he could lay his head on Howie's shoulder. "We could sleep for a while, if you want."
It was early yet, but to be honest sleep was probably the best use of their time anyway. Kind of like the night before Christmas, the quicker you got to sleep the sooner morning would come. Joe Joe just hoped he wouldn't dream about ice. He did, sometimes.
"That sounds good. You got your watch?"
Howie shut the truck off again, and pulled an old Timex digital out of his coat pocket and handed it over. They called it Howie's out of habit, the strap on it had broken months ago so it just lived in a drawer until they needed the alarm on it. Howie didn't ever remember which buttons to press to work it even back when he wore the thing, so Joe Joe set it for a couple hours ahead and hung it by the buckle off one of the air vent tabs.
"Here." Howie had already started unwinding the blankets from around himself, opening a spot for Joe Joe to scoot into. They would lay across the bench seat together and wrap the blankets around them both, and it was too cramped to be really comfortable but it'd keep them warm enough and Joe Joe, for one, had made do with far worse in his life. It took some shifting around and Joe Joe banged a knee on the gear shift at least once, and then had to struggle an arm free when he realized he'd forgotten to take his glasses off. By the time they settled they were both breathless and sweating a little bit, but that wasn't really a bad thing.
Howie had Joe Joe's back to his front, and just as Joe Joe was starting to doze a bit Howie nuzzled his hair and murmured, "Tell me?"
Joe Joe found Howie's hand where it rested against Joe Joe's chest. "I just hate when it takes us by surprise, is all."
"I know you do." Howie opened his hand and caught Joe Joe's fingers between his own. "We're okay, though. We'll be fine right here for the night, and the tomorrow, well, we'll see what we see."
Joe Joe sighed. Howie seemed confident they'd be able to get back on the road in the morning, or at least make it to somewhere they could hook up the camper and wait out the rest of the weather in reasonable comfort, but Joe Joe wasn't feeling that optimistic.
Howie nosed at Joe Joe's hair again, pressed lips to the back of his neck. "We're okay," he repeated.
That was true enough. "Yeah, we're alright."
Howie made a pleased noise and patted his hand. "So get some rest."
Joe Joe dozed off to the rhythm of Howie's breathing.
--
Howie's watch beeped at them, and Joe Joe noticed that the cab had gotten chilly but not completely frigid, which was good. Once the engine warmed up they ran the blower for a while, then wrapped up and fell asleep again.
Joe Joe woke up some time after that, drowsy and disoriented. The watch hadn't gone off, and he couldn't see it well enough to read the time but it still looked mostly dark outside.
And Howie's hand was cupping Joe Joe's dick through his pants. That was probably what woke him.
Howie mumbled something, Joe Joe couldn't make out what, and squeezed. Joe Joe bit his lip. He couldn't tell how awake Howie was; heck, he wasn't so sure of himself either. He felt heavy and slow, caught between moving and not moving, between doing something about the hardness growing in his jeans and ignoring it in favor of more sleep. Choosing one or the other seemed too much of a hassle.
"Joe Joe?"
That answered that question, and another squeeze made Joe Joe's hips jerk of their own accord.
"You're awake," Howie added.
"Uh huh." He closed his hand over Howie's, and Howie shifted his legs restlessly where they were tucked up behind Joe Joe's on the bench.
"I want... here."
More shifting, and Joe Joe was still too drowsy to be very coordinated or to wonder too much what it was that Howie wanted, he just let Howie move them around until his back fetched up against the truck's door, and then Howie scooted down underneath the pile of blankets and unzipped Joe Joe's fly. Oh.
"You don't gotta... oh, Christ." Joe Joe drawled worse when he was horny, and cussed more, and he could be downright blasphemous with his dick in Howie's mouth like that. Part of him wondered whether Howie could really breathe down there, all their shifting around had made about half the blankets slide off onto the floorboard but he was still pretty buried, and then Howie gripped the base of Joe Joe's cock and sucked hard and Joe Joe wondered why there suddenly wasn't enough air in the truck for him, either.
Joe Joe still felt all slow and loose-limbed with sleep, he didn't tense up a bit even when he felt his climax coming on and when it happened, it was like a sunburst pooled in his belly and shot out warm in every direction. Howie moaned, and skated a hand up under Joe Joe's shirts, pushing them up, curling around his ribs and back again. He pulled off Joe Joe's cock and panted against his bare skin, harsh and rhythmic and over sooner than Joe Joe could react.
"I'd've done that." He petted Howie's head under the blankets, and then his hair when he scooted on up.
"Couldn't wait, you were makin' these noises."
"Was I?"
"Uh huh." Howie nosed at his cheek, and then sat up enough to fetch some napkins out of the glovebox.
Joe Joe didn't remember being noisy but it wasn't out of the question. He was still sluggish, though, content to wait while Howie wiped off his hand and refastened his and Joe Joe's pants. When he was done Joe Joe tugged Howie down on top of himself, still half-propped against the door and not of a mind to move just yet. Howie fit himself between Joe Joe's knees and buried his face in Joe Joe's neck, and Joe Joe hugged him close.
"Aren't you cold?" Howie asked him.
"No." He should've been, at least a little, at least maybe where his shoulders were resting against the door panel, but he still felt like liquid sunshine had run all through him.
"You will be if we don't wrap up."
That was true enough, and Joe Joe let him go with a sigh and helped to gather up their nest again. "How long 'till morning?"
Howie leaned over to peer at the watch, and then glanced at the windshield and laughed. "We fogged the windows pretty good, huh?" He pulled the edge of his sleeve over his fist and swiped the glass with it, and looked out at the sky. "About an hour to sunrise, I think, maybe a bit less. But the ice has stopped."
"You want the heat?" Joe Joe was closest, so he sat up behind the wheel.
"Yeah, a little."
Joe Joe turned the truck on again and they ran it long enough to take the bite out of the air. Howie had the blankets sorted by then, and when they laid down again Joe Joe squirmed around to face him.
"Your butt'll get cold that way," Howie pointed out.
"Just for a while," Joe Joe said, and kissed him. Howie hmmed and kissed him back, and worked his warm hands under Joe Joe's layers to the skin at his waist. Joe Joe settled for burying his colder fingers in Howie's hood. The storm was over, Howie had said, and daylight was coming.