Westchester Park (Pyro) - Warning; Explicit Slash

[Pyro]

”I don’t know, Bobby, do you get tired of breathing?”

It’s a cliché, sure, the situation he finds himself in, but clichés are only there because they’re sort of true, right? Besides, what with everything Bobby’s saying cliché seems the only sensible option. And so, clichéd as it may be, John deflates. It’s not instantaneous – parts of what passes for his psyche are still determined to keep up the *lie*, as Bobby so neatly puts it, getting every inch of the picture and yet, it seems, miss the whole (because *lie* feels too small a tag for something so integral to what *John* is) – and for that seems all the more real, which scares him more since things like this never happened to him in what used to pass for reality.

He doesn’t break down. Ever. He should be fighting back, spelling out exactly why they’re not the same and never will be in great big flaming letters and never, ever admitting that there’s a scrap of truth in anything Bobby’s saying. Maybe that’s what’s really happening, somewhere, because he can’t really be fighting back tears and struggling to find words, having gotten only that one pathetic excuse for a comeback out (and even that in a tone far more defeatist, and defeated, than he’d ordinarily have liked, though it’s far better than the mess he’s rapidly becoming) before they fail him further, the pathetic whine punctuated with a machine-gun rattle of supressed not-quite sobs - ”I’m not scared... You've no idea what you're talking about” - failing even to convince him.

[Bobby Drake]

> ”I don’t know, Bobby, do you get tired of breathing?”

It's not the words Bobby responds to, so much as the tone. Because (excepting the fact that he's become "Bobby" again instead of "Bob," "Drake," or "Icicle," and Bobby isn't sure what that means but it feels like a good thing) the words are a classic John comeback, glib and facile and aggressive. Whereas the tone... isn't.

Bobby isn't sure how to interpret that tone, isn't sure what it means. Honesty from John, real honesty, the kind that hurts, isn't something he's had a lot of experience with. But he knows it's important, and files it away carefully to go over later, when he has time.

" Sometimes, yeah, I do. " It's more honest than he'd meant to be, but something about this moment seems to demand it. Maybe it's a kind of payment for having seen a little more deeply into John's psyche than he'd been meant to, which sounds stupid but feels right (a combination Bobby's learned to respect more, lately, than he ever had before).

He shrugs a little sheepishly, not-quite-apologizing for something, he's not really sure what, and adds " Never liked any of the alternatives any better, though. "

Even when you were the one trying to get me to stop, he manages not to say out loud.

> ” I’m not scared... You've no idea what you're talking about ”

It takes Bobby a moment to acknowledge what's happening, because John-in-his-head does a lot of things but he doesn't fall apart like that. Yet another sign, if he needed it, that John-in-his-head was never a real person in the first place.

It's funny -- most people are disappointed when their friends turn out to be different from what they'd expected, but with John it's the other way around, it's a kind of affirmation, a reassurance that Bobby's not completely deluded, that there really is something in there worth holding on to. Which he does, literally, standing up to close the distance between them, grabbing handfuls of the back of John's jacket in his fists, losing himself for a moment in the smell of leather and whiskey and machine oil and John.

If he'd thought about it first, he wouldn't have done it - he'd have been too awkward, too scared of being rejected or knifed in the belly or something. And it's a strange thing, now that he's doing it... too protective to be a lover's embrace, too needy to be a friendly hug. It's neither one thing nor the other but partaking of both, and if he'd needed to be hit over the head by a symbol of whatever it is they're doing, well, there it was.

It was, if Bobby was going to go on being awkwardly honest with himself, actually kinda nice. He doesn't know what's going to come next, but for the first time in a long time he thinks he might be able to handle it.

" I know, John. I know. Me too. So maybe it's OK if we're not scared together, y'know?"

He isn't stupid enough to think this moment is going to last, of course. He's not a religious man, not really, but he's sat through enough sermons to know that's not how it works. You may be granted a sign to encourage faith, but it's the faith and not the signs you count on to get through the dark nights.

Of course, sometimes you end up burned at the stake, instead.

But somehow that image isn't as frightening, right this moment, as it probably ought to be.

[Pyro]

It takes a second or two for John to realise what Bobby’s doing, and another couple pass where he’s ready to just let it happen, skipping all the frantic fumbling Bobby’s doing (though that feels right, almost feels good) and just settling into this embrace/hug/whatever, draped as loosely as he can be while still clearly clinging on, trying to bury himself in whatever’s beneath all those other trivial details which is clean and crisp and can’t quite be placed other than to say it’s the scent of cold. It’s awkward, sure, seeing as how he’s never really done *this* before (and how fucked up does that make him, that a simple (which this is anything but, but that’s not the point) hug is totally new?) but it’s a good awkward... isn’t it? Because even if everything else between them is a lie, which he’s beginning to suspect might be the only real truth, surely this can’t be, because the body never lies... right?

Except that... well, he doubts Bobby’s faking (which makes this all the more raw, all the more agonisingly fucked up) but knows that he could be, because deceiving himself into thinking it’s not really that bad is the secret behind how these things don’t yet drive him insane, and it’s not much of a step up, really, to go from *not all that bad* to *so fucking good*

It’s the uncertainty which undoes him in the end, more than the knowledge that this is still somehow weird, more than any sort of awkwardness which still passes between them. Because not knowing the play is terrifying. It’s one thing to accept that you’re no longer driving the bus, but a whole other issue when you realise both you and the new driver have no idea where you’re going, or where you’re meant to be going, or how those two places relate to each other and to reality in general. That this is weird he can accept – that’s why they call it queer, after all – but that it’s out of control? No. Never. When things get like that he’s only got one stock response, one he’s just pretty much admitted to never getting tired of. He runs…

… or, in this case, seeing as how it’s hard to run when you’re cornered like this, shoves Bobby away which is the right thing to do. It’s not meant to hurt except that it so is, is meant to destroy, just to win back some sort of distance, as if this is still a really twisted game, a war where winning territory matters, and he increases the distance as best he can, given how hard it is to run with pre-tears blinding him when he’s this fucked up.

”Get the fuck away from me, Drake.” His breathing is still hoarse and ragged, his eyes still wild, but the tone is unmistakable; something of the old is back, because rage has always been easier to deal with than fear or vulnerability or anything which risks letting the real him slip (and though some part is still aware enough to point out how futile that is now, seeing how much of the real him has already broken through, the rest is deep enough into this latest act to tell that part to shut the hell up). He might be glancing away a little more often than usual, the façade not quite waver-proof yet, the feral quality from Mimi’s rather than the self-assured kid they’d both believed he was (and he hadn’t quite accepted he wasn’t) dominating, but a clenched fist is still a clenched fist, a death glare still eloquent enough where words remain a struggle.

[Bobby Drake]

John shoving him away isn't a surprise... hell, John slipping a knife between his ribs wouldn't be a surprise. If anything, the surprising part is that John held on as long, and as tightly as he did.

Which doesn't make it hurt any less when it happens.

Something (most likely the whiskey he's been drinking) tangles his feet as he stumbles backwards, knocking him on his ass... a harmless but embarassing pratfall. Under other circumstances he'd laugh, and even here it makes him smile a little.

He flashes for a moment on the day his parents took him skating, when he was about eight years old. (In retrospect, it seems like he ought to have taken to ice-skating like a fish to water. What actually happened is he slipped, smacked his head against the ice, threw a tantrum, and refused to ever go back again. It seems to Bobby there ought to be some kind of profound lesson to be learned from that, but all he can come up with is that it's further evidence, as if any were needed, that God is an iron.)

> "Get the fuck away from me, Drake."

John's anger is unmistakable, as is the stray-dog look Bobby remembers from Mimi's, and in a weird, fucked-up way it's reassuring... it means he's touching something deeper than the surface cynicism he used to mistake for genuine indifference. Not to mention that John snarling like he'll take a bite out of Bobby's arm given half a chance is exciting as all hell, in an even more fucked-up way. (It really ought to seem like a bad idea, but it really really doesn't, and Bobby is beginning to understand consciously something that he's known on some level for months, that he's going to have to throw away a whole lot of "ought" if this is going to work at all.)

Bobby swallows hard as he gets back on his feet and starts walking towards John again. It's more difficult, this time... it's not an instinctive gesture anymore. He has to take every step deliberately, knowing that this weird little honest space they've somehow managed to carve out for themselves might collapse under the weight of its own implausibility at any moment, like one of those weird zero-point Feynman diagrams Dr. McCoy likes to torture him with explanations of. He has to do it anticipating the punch to the jaw, the kick to the crotch (which, in retrospect, he realizes would only be fair)... or, worst of all, the >click< of that damned lighter John so loves to hide behind (and which, he suddenly realizes, has been quiet for some time now, which can only be a good sign).

It really feels like he ought to say something clever, or deep, or sexy, or something when he gets within arm's reach. But all that comes out of his mouth is "No."

[Pyro]

”Did you hit your head on the way down? I said fuck off.”

It’s a threat, couldn’t be anything else, and he’s still poised to strike, but there’s a desperate stretched quality to the words, a high-spiraling half-whine to the end of the sentence which suggests that the one of them being intimidated isn’t Bobby just now. Backing off slowly would hardly help the picture, and what he’s doing is so much more pathetic, the weird scramble of not wanting to give ground but being unable to stand having Bobby that close. Having to look up to him (and when did that happen? Where did he get, what, 4 extra inches from?) isn’t exactly lending him any sort of dignity or authority now either.

This is… beyond confusing. Beyond exhausting, since he’s worn thin as it is and can’t quite keep up with what he should and shouldn’t do, because the parameters keep on changing (half the time he’s not even sure there are any, which is the really scary part…) and he’s beating himself up as much as this situation is kicking the shit out of him. Which isn’t something he does (déjà vu much? Yeah, that phrase just keeps coming up time and time again)… something Bobby does, sure, but Bobby’s not acting the way he should either… Everything’s backwards, the changeover having taken the actors as well as the audience by surprise as the cast get eaten by the play.

Fuck. “It’s too fucking much” John’s not sure whether he said that out loud, or just thought it, and doubts he can trust himself to tell the difference any more. Either way, there’s a chance Bobby misses it along with everything which follows since it’s directed at the floor rather than the adversary/friend/lover advancing on him who he can’t quite make himself lock eyes with, and could perhaps be lost behind arms which keep moving to shield him but stopping just short (whether it’s losing sight of Bobby, or losing control and just curling up in a pathetic little heap under that shield which scares him is unclear… maybe both), though both rationales seem a little like wishful thinking. ”You’re not getting in my head. Not fucking this up again. Not now.”

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby steps into arm's reach, and nothing happens.

He takes another small step... and another, even smaller, leaving him just a couple of inches away from John. Still John does nothing... or, well, he's doing something, but nothing Bobby'd expected.

He's not backing away, exactly, but the effect is similar: refusing to meet Bobby's eyes, making abortive little defensive gestures, slouching like he's going to fold into himself at any moment, looking even shorter than he actually is.

Like he's scared.

Of Bobby.

Which isn't supposed to happen. Or, well, it wasn't. But now that it is, it's actually exhilerating, exciting. On the tail of that comes an overriding sense of wonder that, were it expressed in words, would be So this is what it's like not to be scared!

> "You’re not getting in my head. Not fucking this up again. Not now."

Bobby'd never thought himself the type to ignore a clear, explicit "no," never understood guys who did that sort of thing, but now he does... it's not the words but the tone he responds to, like a dog smelling fear. And it's not that he can't stop. He can.

He just doesn't want to.

Another step, not a small one this time, and Bobby's body is pressing John's against the base of the swing-set, feeling at once familiar and new, comfortable and disorienting, arousing and frightening, omnipotent and out of control. He grabs a leather-clad wrist with one hand, feeling it slip just a little in his grip, and squeezes John's shoulder with the other, letting just enough cold radiate through it for John to feel it through the jacket.

He bends down until his lips are a hair's breadth from John's ear, and the words that come out of his mouth are nothing he'd ever expected to say. " I think you've got that backwards, Johnny. I don't think you can get me out of your head, can you? Because I sure as hell can't get you out of mine. Don't want to. " He's whispering now, his voice barely audible a foot away, so close that John can feel individual breaths, and impulsively flicks his tongue lightly along the edge of John's ear.

Then he pulls his head back, just a little, catches John's gaze with his own. " I could be wrong, though. Am I, Johnny?" He's amazed to hear his own voice teasing like that -- he's heard it done, it's been done to him more than once, he just never expected it to come out of his own mouth, never expected to be with someone who'd tolerate it. But Bobby suspects, rightly or wrongly, that John is doing more than simply tolerating it... and that thought pulls him even further out on the limb he's been crawling out onto all evening.

"Because if I am," he continues in the same voice, "all you have to do is get back on that bike of yours and go back to wherever you sent me those emails from. But if I'm not, " and his voice switches from teasing to commanding without his meaning for it to, the voice he uses on missions and DR exercises when he's sure he's right about something, "If I'm not wrong, then cut the crap, and stop pretending you don't want this just as much as I do. "

Later, after all this is over, Bobby will wonder where that burst of confidence and power came from -- it won't feel like him, really -- and all he'll be left with is the realization that, much like John (and probably everyone else in the world), there's quite a lot more going on in the hidden back corners of himself than he normally lets out.

For now, he just revels in it, leaning in again to capture John's lips with his without even waiting for an answer.

(( OOC: possible content warning on the rest of this thread... not necessarily sure where it's going, myself, but ya never know. ))

[Pyro]

Bobby’s the last person John would expect to ignore such an explicit ‘no’ – again, that feels so much more like what used to be his territory, whereas someone like Drake would, he’d always thought, back off, making hasty apologies and the like… assuming someone like him got into that sort of situation, which always seemed like something of a major leap of imagination – but it’s rapidly becoming clear that, for now at least, he’s impervious to any variation of that word, and nothing John can say will make him retreat. That Bobby has any idea where this is going may be yet another delusion, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it, and the realization that, regardless of that fact, this is a ride both of them are now strapped into come hell or high water, sinks like a knife between his ribs. Or, thinking about it, more like a kick to the nuts, robbing him of fight, breath, anything except the inescapable and suddenly intensified now.

He’s not sure he likes this new Bobby... not sure all of him does, in any case. Certain parts already seem to be murmuring their approval, the last vestiges of any sort of fire… but still, not sure. Not really. The sudden turnaround is more thrilling than it should be, granted (and that too is more than a little scary, because he’s never been the type to enjoy being dominated except that he is, that somehow he needs to be, can’t ever thrive around anything other than a strength he can leech off) but it completely changes the playing field. This is no longer about him playing with poor little Drake, about mastering and subverting the Iceman’s will (although, thinking back, he’s surprised he still thinks he can claim it was ever about that… except that he believed it was, and that was the important part, whereas now there are none of those comfortable self delusions).

It’s a lot of thought for two steps, even if those steps have the bizarre slowed-down quality of a punch before it lands, but thought, even when it’s that big and confusing, is a good thing, because it keeps reality at bay, as if it’s all happening behind plate glass.

That glass shatters spectacularly, however, as the base of the swing-set intrudes into the equation, cold metal against his back… still, not as cold as the flesh on the other side, pressing him to it, and that thought is surreal enough to raise a slightly demented inward smile, even if it doesn’t quite make it to the surface. Pinned like that, John knows he’s cornered, and thinks that maybe it should worry him more than it does, but for some reason he’s not scared or angry. If anything it’s a relief, because much as he needs to fight it’s hardly easy, and knowing it’s a waste of time brings some weird sense of release, that final free-fall before oblivion. Because flying is only falling without hitting the ground, right? And whatever happens now, he’ll probably be too distracted to notice the inevitable fatal collision… especially if Bobby keeps doing that

< I sure as hell can't get you out of mine. Don't want to[/color]
What exactly that is he’s not sure. It started off feeling like breath, and then… but no, Bobby wouldn’t… would he? John has to remind himself that he doesn’t know what Bobby does and doesn’t do now, and still can’t quite believe it). He shivers at the touch regardless of it’s origin, and again at the words which accompany it (mentally kicking himself for trying to read into them, because even if Bobby knows and means what he’s saying John’s never been one to let that sort of thing get to him) but has otherwise stopped shaking, caught in a haze of crazy calm which he doesn’t want to question incase it dissipates and wrecks things.

It’s the same as it was back at Mimi’s although not the same at all, this weird mixture of things being intense and yet unreal at the same time, because while Bobby is definitely *there* he’s also… sort of not, because this isn’t the Bobby he knows. It’s like a picture you see everyday and so cease to look at properly, thinking you know every detail, which one day, when you look properly, turns out to be completely different to the one you thought you were seeing… or something. And that doesn’t make any sense, the metaphor or the revelation, but he doesn’t really care.

< I could be wrong, though. Am I, Johnny?[/color]
John doesn’t know how he would have answered that one, because sure, there are lots of things Bobby’s very, very wrong about, while at the same time he’s got it all so right (much like this whole crazy situation… nothing clear black and white, the way he’s used to seeing the world, everything both at the same time. That should drive him crazy, but somehow doesn’t, because the one thing that’s certain, definite, is the only thing that matters). He could probably have summoned some sort of ‘snark’, reawakened a cynicism which is still as natural as breathing, rumbling away on some background track despite being told that side of him isn’t real… probably. Then again, he could have answered with his whole heart that no, Bobby wasn’t wrong at all, he did want him, here and now and always and a million other stupid little words which have no place coming out of his mouth (or didn’t, while he was still the *him* Bobby’s weird sudden insight seems intent on stripping away).

With that much confusion, it’s a good thing he doesn’t get the chance to answer.

A very good thing, really, once he gets over the initial shock. The kiss lacks finesse, sure, but is all the better for it, a thing of fire (and he thinks, in the split-second where thought is still almost possible, that it makes perfect sense, the culmination of this bizarre role reversal), and Bobby’s mouth is surprisingly warm, which is all the stranger since (his initial gasp offering plenty of opportunity for Bobby to seize yet more initiative and deepen the kiss before he does the same on some weird autopilot which is an absolute godsend just now) he tastes crisp and cold and totally new, without any of the nicotine-and-cheap-alcohol tang he’s come to associate with the act. This newness is all important, really, though he doesn’t appreciate that just yet; later is when it’ll matter, when he’s distinguishing whatever it is they have going on from backstreet liaisons and dingy motel rooms.

John comes up for air briefly once it starts to feel like they’re about to drown in each other, stars blossoming on the edge of his vision blamed on oxygen deprival though they probably have as much to do with the rush of blood and heat southwards – a slight smile blossoming as he gasps ”This doesn’t mean I’ve stopped running” – before returning the favour.

[Bobby Drake]

When Bobby’s mind finally spins free of the whirlpool of that first kiss (not to mention the second one, which would blur seamlessly into the first in his memory if it weren't for the all-important fact that John had initiated the second one) long enough to do something approximating coherent linear thought, a number of things compete for attention.

One is the realization that he hasn't actually breathed in a while, and the burning sensation in his chest is more likely oxygen deprivation than deep heartfelt love, or heartburn, or John's lighter accidentally being turned on (which seems only fair, after all).

Another is John’s comment just before that kiss. Hasn’t stopped running? Well, of course he hasn’t. That’s the thing he just realized a moment ago, that running is what John does. " I don’t care, " he gasps while drawing as much breath as he can, " as long as you aren’t running from me. " Which isn’t true, really – he does care, and he still holds out hope of somehow convincing John to stop running – but right now, right here, it’s as true as it needs to be.

The third is related the way parts of his body wordlessly clamor for more direct attention than they’re getting, and that he isn’t really sure how to obtain that attention or even if he actually wants to. It’s the realization that, for all that he's ended up the driving force behind this tumultuous collision of theirs, this is all still new for him in a lot of different ways and really he has absolutely no idea what he's doing.

He flashes on the first time he led a Danger Room mission, one of Storm's "leadership exercises"... he'd relied on bluff and bluster and the team had listened, but he'd marched them all into an impossible situation, afraid that asking for help would give away the fact that he was completely overwhelmed, and everyone would just wander off. So he’d just barreled on and gotten them all "killed."

Not his finest hour... and here he is, doing exactly the same thing again, somehow in charge and unwilling to reveal how clueless he really is. Except now he's operating in an arena the Danger Room never prepared him for (though, thinking about it now, that idea is not without its appeal) and where the deaths, even the little ones, don't go away when the session ends.

The fourth, slow to take hold but by far the most compelling once it does (at least, once he's finished taking a breath), is that he's hornier than he ever remembers being. His hands are like squirrels in early spring, moving everywhere as if of their own volition, stopping nowhere for more than a second before moving on. John’s biking leathers are smooth and sleek and supple over wiry muscle and angular bone, his face bristling with the beginnings of a beard, his lips strangely swollen, his hair tangled and matted but surprisingly soft, and Bobby’s hands try to explore all of it at once.

" I had no idea… " Bobby thinks he may have said that out loud, though he’s not sure. He’d always thought of sex as an enjoyable and intimate activity to share with someone you felt close to and comfortable with. Fooling around with Marie after she’d taken the Cure was like that, though they’d never gone particularly far. He’d never known it could be like this, a driving force so powerful that it creates its own closeness and makes comfort irrelevant, “enjoyable” in the way that a gallon of water after a week in a desert would be, “intimate” like a knife through the ribcage.

Finally, his hands manage to stay in one place and coordinate long enough to work the fasteners on the neck of John’s jacket, to pull the zipper down to his waist. He’s a little disappointed to find a T-shirt underneath it, then smiles as he bunches it up in a rapidly-cooling fist. " Mind if I owe you another shirt? "

[Pyro]

[OOC: Viewers of a sensitive disposition are reminded to change channels now]

< ... as long as you aren’t running from me
”Not from you” he says, breathless, slipping the words out in the gaps between smaller fiery kisses stolen where he can as Bobby begins his frantic exploration. ”Never from you.” It doesn’t matter that he can’t claim to really mean those words – even now, with everything else stripped away, it’s obvious that he can never promise anyone that – because they’re the weird meaningless sounds which punctuate these sort of moments, the endless litany of fuck and god and yes, just reworked.

Bob’s taking the lead, which is odd, but given how this has played out so far there’s no way John could do anything other than let him; given how the side of him which expects – no, demands – that their positions be reversed has been blasted away thus far, reawakening it is never going to work. Besides, Bobby’s inexperience is sort of cute... All the same, certain standards and expectations have been drummed hard enough into him that they’re not easily lost even now it’s not him doing the work, and in any case this is different, not the slow, controlled *act* of passion but something far more raw and wild which isn’t going to follow the script, something much, much better and more important. And so Bobby’s explorations (which feel slow, though they probably aren’t) are agonisingly paced, and he growls low in his throat - ”Fuck, Bobby, stop acting like a bloody octopus and just do it already.” – one hand wrapped around the nape of Bobby’s neck, fingers tangling in the ends of hair longer and shaggier than he remembers it being before he left (it giving him a perverse pleasure to think it’s got something to do with him, how clean-cut Iceman seems to have stopped caring about little things that used to be the alpha and omega of his world), the other sliding to guide Bobby’s towards the collar of his jacket… though it seems he’s jumped the gun a little, as Bobby finds his own way there sure enough, and John, leaning forward to make access to the zip easier, moans a slight wordless approval against Bobby’s skin. He rolls one shoulder back to aid in sliding the jacket off and (mostly coincidentally…) the opposite hipbone rolls forward, so it’s almost a thrust, and the thin layer of leather feels close enough to a second skin for him to feel *everything* and removed enough for that to drive him crazy.

Bobby grabs the shirt, and John – slipping the jacket from his shoulders with a few more careful rolls (which, of course, leads to more unintentional grinding) – shivers from something more than cold as the ice creeps, spiderlike, from Bobby’s fingers and across its surface (he’s clear minded enough to note that hey, that’s a surprise, having always thought that cold would be something of a turnoff…).

< Mind if I owe you another shirt?
”Fucking pervert” he laughs, catching the reference to that first email which sparked this all off (and conveniently ignoring the wider one, to Mimi’s and all his fucked up squirming back there) and continuing it. But he doesn’t resist, doesn’t even look down to see which t-shirt it is (though he probably should, he has so few… or did, until Bobby brought the rest. Hell, everything’s changing tonight, even the stupid little things…), just gives a final twist which should help start the shattering once Bobby’s got it fully iced.

Though damned if he’s the only one getting naked. A look of childish concentration – tip of tongue bitten, gaze intent and mildly frustrated – flashes over his features for a split second as he snakes his hands down, flips them up under the end of Bobby’s shirt, and, fisting from the inside, gives a brief tug upwards, knuckles brushing over cool, smooth, strangely (highly, he notes with approval, fantastically) toned flesh underneath. ”Only if I can have this one”

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: explicit content warning ))

> " Not from you… Never from you. "

Had there been anything of conscious thought to Bobby’s frenzied explorations, they would have stopped right then at the sheer momentousness of those words. Not a declaration of love, admittedly, but then this thing they were doing wasn’t really about love, was it? Or, well, not that kind of love, anyway, not the soft romantic hearts and flowers and violins in the background thing he’d thought he wanted. If it’s love at all, it’s a different kind… fierce and knife-edged and raw and struggling, an abused rescue dog instead of a sweet-breathed puppy.

And he’s not gullible enough to believe it’s a promise – John runs, it’s what he does, and having finally understood that Bobby refuses to forget it, much as he would like to – but it’s still more than he was expecting. “Never” is just another form of “always”, after all, and that John is willing to talk about always, or even tomorrow, blindsides Bobby like a bag of gold fired from a cannon… stunning and painful despite, or perhaps because of, its enormous value.

> " Fuck, Bobby, stop acting like a bloody octopus and just do it already. "

The urgent, demanding growl seems to vibrate through John’s body and into Bobby’s across every point of contact, sparking fire wherever it goes, melting his knees and hardening his cock and fumbling his fingers, and it takes a moment before the actual words catch up with the tone. Under other circumstances he’d be annoyed but by then it hardly matters, because John is moaning and grinding against him as he shrugs off his leather jacket and writhes against his now-frozen shirt, shattering it into shards. It’s like that night at Mimi’s, he thinks, only it’s not at all because this time they aren’t fighting, they’re working together, and while they aren’t exactly “in control” every move is still a choice, and there’s just no comparison.

And as if to remind him of that, suddenly John’s hands are sliding under Bobby’s belt and coming up under his shirt, pulling it up to his chest, and the look in John’s eyes makes every hour spent working out in the gym over the last several months worth it, and he raises his arms to let John pull the shirt over his head.

> " Fucking pervert… only if I can have this one."

Bobby pulls away for just a moment, ignoring the clamor of his body to touch, needing to see… and after a moment his body seems to approve the choice, because John half-leaning against the metal pole wearing nothing but those tight leather pants, looking back at him with what Bobby somehow knows is the mirror of his own lust-fueled intensity, escalates the sparks and the fire rushing through his body into lightning and lava, a rush of sensation and desire so overwhelming he’s surprised he doesn’t simply combust with the sheer energy of it.

" God, John… you can have anything you want. " The words slip out of him as he closes the distance between them again, vaguely aware that his body temperature is fluctuating wildly but unwilling to divert any of his attention to fix that if it distracts from the far more urgent project of distorting the laws of topology enough that every exposed square inch of his body can be in simultaneous contact with John’s.

[Pyro]

[OOC: Look away, kiddies.]

This isn’t love

It’s an odd thought, sure, especially when he’s just been giving breathless declarations of eternity, or as near to it as his mind will let him get (which is probably no closer than tomorrow, but whatever, it’s a step. A big one), but at the same time it’s perfect, just what he needs to tell himself, regardless of whether Bobby is singing from the same hymn sheet. Love’s what the girls back at the Mansion called ‘romantic’ and had usually dumped him for failing to give (which was fine, because he’d normally got bored of them by that point and been killing time trying to find the right way to cut loose), what passed between people like Scott and Jean and squicked him out. What, he realizes, Bobby had with Rogue, something which, for all that it was dangerous and complex and completely unfathomable, was still somehow rational and comfortable and *cute*. This is definitely not *cute*. This... It’s not love. If he has to call it anything, it’s hunger. Voracious ‘haven’t--eaten-in-a-week’ hunger, the kind where it suddenly wakes up and hits you with a sledgehammer after lying dormant, spending what seems like forever having gone beyond it and into numbness.

There’s a whole other layer, of course, which makes this exactly like whatever it was Bobby had with Rogue, because on some level at least it’s why he picked her, and why he now wants him, this side of Bobby which wants to be the one to fix the unfixable. It’s why he makes such a damn good X-Man, after all, while John’s never going to have that sort of drive since he knows full well some things can’t ever be anything other than broken.

Two major realizations come from all that; firstly, he doesn’t mind so much if Bobby wants to at least try, because if he ever stops it’ll break John far more completely than he used to think he still had the capacity to break. And secondly, he should probably stop thinking about Rogue, because even if it is in a sort-of-sweet jealous kind of way, she definitely has no place here, and anything which takes his attention away from Bobby for even a split second is definitely not a good thing.

< God, John… you can have anything you want[/color]
He’s definitely not thinking about anything other than Bobby now, not really thinking anything much at all, because the parts of his body which seem to have overtaken his brain aren’t really renowned for their complex cognitive abilities, though their ability to fix intently on, and lust after, one thing is truly phenomenal.

Right now, that one thing is the part of Bobby he’s fairly sure is doing the same thing, only with him as the focus, and in a slightly more surprised and less knowing way, because for Bobby, despite all his bravado, doesn’t really have much in the way of background here.

Which is probably why things are going so slow (though for Bobby they’re probably way moving way too fast… and it’s weird how they can be on the same wavelength at totally different angles). Only right and proper, of course, because this is Icicle’s first time and all. It should be special. No point blasting through things without pausing to take in the scenery (which is, it has to be said, breathtaking all on its own).

But still… there’s only so much frantic fumbling a guy can take. Having Bobby pressed up against him like that, so obviously wanting it but, damn him, not taking it, is agonizing. He’s walking a thin tight rope between pleasantly turned on and tortured… and, fuck it, maybe it’s better to fall off that one.

”Really? Anything?” John pushes Bobby back, creating just enough distance between them to drive Bobby mad, if his desperation to be in skin-to-skin contact is anything to go by, smiling slightly, eyes dark as if he’s about to set one hell of a blaze. Which, in a way, he is. His hands snake south, now Bobby’s shirt is dispensed with, hooking under the waistband of his jeans and running in to the fasters at the middle, the brush of knuckle-on-skin sending miniature electric shocks southwards, flash of childish concentration again, flash of darker determination and hunger and need. ”Fine. I want those off.”

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: Ever more explicit. Go buy popcorn or something. ))

> " Really? Anything? "

John pushing him away is surprising, infuriating, frustrating, and Bobby is about to push back when those hands switch from pushing at his newly bared chest to sliding under his waistband, and suddenly everything that came before is nothing at all compared to the back of John’s hand, hot and dry, rubbing almost casually (but not accidentally) against the head of Bobby’s insistent cock, and the universe collapses to a roughly cylindrical region a little under seven inches long and about an inch in diameter.

He’s vaguely distracted by an inarticulate cry that turns out to be coming from his own throat, but only vaguely, and his knees give way altogether as he falls onto John, managing somehow to guide his collapse to thrust himself another half-inch or so along the back of John’s hand as he traps it between their urgently thrusting hips.

" Fine. I want those off. "

It takes a moment for Bobby to understand which “those” he’s referring to, thus demonstrating that his rational mind is almost completely irrelevant to the current proceedings… because by the time he does, and decides that that’s pretty much the best idea ever, his body has already responded, his hands pushing down on his waistband as he tries to climb mindlessly to climb his way up John’s body to leave his pants behind.

It isn’t graceful or elegant, and Bobby’s pretty sure he heard the sound of fabric ripping on the way down, but in moments Bobby’s pants are down around his ankles, trapped by shoes that will not come off. Which on the one hand is completely irrelevant compared to the fact that they are no longer between his cock and John’s leathers, but on the other hand means he has no leverage or balance to speak of.

It’s not the falling he minds, so much as the notion of being separated from John’s body by so inconsequential a thing as gravity, so he grabs hold even tighter as he falls. Hitting the ground hurts only a little, and John falling on top of him only a little more, and none of that matters compared to his hands sliding across John’s bare back and under the waistband of his leathers, to discover absolutely nothing underneath them other than clenched ass, which he kneads beneath his hands for a second or two before suddenly realizing that even those thin, slick leathers are too much of a barrier between them and he shoves them down around John’s knees.

At which point his earlier plan of maximizing skin-to-skin contact suddenly seems like an excellent idea again, and he slides his hands back up John’s now-naked thighs, slides one up further to cup his ass again and brings the other around between them, wrapping it around both of their cocks at once.

It takes more willpower than he’d thought he had to slide his hand slowly around them, the way he does in the shower when he wants to take his time, rather than beat off frantically… but he manages it, just barely, even though the more insistent rhythmic thrusting of his hips makes up for much of the languid slowness of his hand.

It’s funny, a stray remaining cogent part of his mind observes… when he’d thought about this (and he might as well admit that he has thought about this), he’d always imagined John would be bigger than him, hung like a moose. He’d seen John naked a few times when they were roommates, but never this erect, and he’d never had the opportunity to compare their dicks closely. In reality, Bobby’s is significantly larger, and while it doesn’t really matter it actually really does. He hadn’t thought he could get more turned on than he was, but suddenly he is. He isn’t sure what words are coming out of his mouth, or if they’re words at all, and it doesn’t matter because they’re muffled by John’s shoulder, which somehow has worked its way between Bobby’s jaws.

[Pyro]

OOC: Leave now, or have the image burned into the back of your eyelids. Warnings for nekkidity, phalluses, debauchery and climactic boy-touching

Fuck

John shudders as Bobby slides against the hand hooked under his waistband (a hand John still can’t quite believe is his, there, now), collapsing into him. The sheer raw pleasure of that one spectacular moment, of seeing the look on Bobby’s face, hearing that cry, and knowing he’s causing both with something so very small, is too great to be put into anything other than that convulsion and the broad grin spreading across his features, and if that was all that his request provoked then he’d be happy only not, really really not, because there’s so much more they could…

Oh.

Fuck.

Fucking hell, yes.

It’s amazing how many parts of the body which are usually pretty inarticulate can learn Fuck and Yes and somehow manage to scream them at moments like this. It’s also jaw-droppingly awesome that Bobby’s somehow managed to bring them to anything like this moment without an instruction manual (which, if John were the type to worry as much about the act itself as he did the shit leading up to it, would be darkly reassuring, implying that this is somehow *natural* if functioning on instinct alone can be this fucking fantastic). It doesn’t matter that they’ve fallen, because Bob’s still there breaking the fall (and hell if that isn’t this whole crazy thing in a nutshell, though it’s only later that he’ll be coherent enough to realise that) and what he’s doing is just… wow.

The fact that he’s hung like -well, metaphors require a few more seconds of clear-headedness between each fuck, yes, god, want, now to construct, but it’s pretty damn impressive whatever - like something with a very big dick doesn’t hurt, and not even the momentary spark of something like jealousy can’t quite spoil it, because it doesn’t matter except that it so does… Well, at least John knows what to do with his, which puts them pretty much…

No, it doesn’t, because so apparently does Bobby, knows what to do with both of them, because the way he’s doing that feels so fucking good, like he’s inside John’s head, like it’s him pleasing himself only so very much better because he doesn’t have to imagine that hot dry palms are cool and smooth and… fuck. Whatever Bobby’s doing with his thumb, however he’s twisting his wrist, it’s totally spontaneous and unutterably awesome (which doesn’t stop John trying to articulate it, weird primal moans mixed in with the half-words which could be declarations of undying love or a recipe for napalm or anything in between). He’s vaguely aware of sharp teeth against his shoulder, but it’s a good pain, and part of him wants it to be harder, deeper, so he’ll be marked (which will be awkward in the morning, sure, the same way Bobby’s going to have to wake to purpling fingerprints across his shoulders, crimson clawmarks running down his back).

And the world narrows down so it’s a few inches long and filled with fire and even that fickle reality is shifting in and out of being with the pulse of hips and hand and blood rushing and fuck, he’s dead and just doesn’t know it yet, because whether Bobby stops or not the whole world’s going to end in flame and white light and…

Hopefully Bobby’s there to catch him again, because it’s his name torn from John’s throat just before he collapses against him, latching onto the building storm and letting it drag him down with it until he’s spent and shivering and laughing breathlessly as the wave rolls back and he breaks the surface, not quite believing (and somehow wierdly disappointed, because drowning forever is his new paradise) that he’s survived.

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: Content warning, yadda yadda. ))
It's not at all like Mimi's was.

Or, well, OK, it's kinda like that, especially the part where their dicks are thrusting urgently against each other and they're frantically clutching at each other's bare skin and making incoherent noises and the way lightning bolts are shooting all up and down his nervous system and he feels like he could do nothing but this for the rest of his life and count it well-spent.

So, OK, that part is all the same.

But it's different, too, because this time it's not just happening, Bobby is doing it, and when it occurs to him as he jerks them both slowly (well, as slowly as he can manage, which is not actually very slowly at all, since his hand seems to have established an urgent rhythm of its own) that John is way more experienced with this sort of thing than he is, which is to say experienced at all, it takes an effort of will not to ask if he's doing it right or something equally stupid.

Ultimately, he only talks himself out of asking by realizing it would just give John something to tease him about. Well, OK, that and the noises John's making, and the way he shudders and writhes and thrusts insistently into Bobby's hand, and the look on his face, and the steady trickle of slippery-sticky fluid from his dick that quickly coats both of them, all of which serves not only to let him know he's doing something right, but once he starts paying attention also clues him in on exactly what, making the next several minutes an intensive education in What Makes John Moan, and never has a class had a more attentive student.

So he learns pretty quickly the best places for his thumb to go, and that John likes a side-to-side twist along with the more instinctive up-and-down. And he learns that a bite on John's shoulder gets a rewarding shudder and a high-pitched moan that makes Bobby feel like the most powerful man on the planet, so pretty soon he's chewed his way halfway up John's neck. And much more.

And each buck and twitch and moan and shudder feels like someone's sending current directly to Bobby's pleasure centers, and he realizes that more than anything else this is what he wants, to know he can make John react like this, that he has something to offer, something John wants. So when the sensations from his own body get to be too much, too distracting, he slips out of his own hand and concentrates on John, who he's pretty sure is too distracted to even notice, until the What Makes John Moan final exam comes around.

Watching John climax, feeling him splash hot and sticky over Bobby's chest, pretty much brings him to the edge all by itself... but it's the way he cries out Bobby's name at the end that really does it. As John collapses on top of him, breathless and spent, Bobby rolls them both so he's lying on top of John, and a few seconds of urgent thrusting against hot, slippery skin is all it takes to set off the demolitions charge in the back of his brain, washing the universe away for a few seconds.

[Pyro]

Timelapse…
Tying this baby up. It's been epic, and ends not with a bang but with a whimper... or something. Stay tuned for the next installment[/size]

There are occasions when John half-wishes he’d taken up the smoking the way everyone always assumes he has. Usually it’s to look cool, or to have something to do with fingers which can’t keep still, and despite the appeal of the Post-Coital cigarette as an icon of something more suave and mature than the two of them this is firmly in the second camp. Because now they’re cleaned up and no longer naked it’s... awkward. Really, really awkward. John’s sat – well, more hunched – on the swing, pushing it back and forth with a mindless knee-flex. He’s the wrong sort of speechless, the speechlessness that cannot be conveyed in the weird low moans that were their language and are now somehow unreadable. This speechlessness can only be felt, and it sits heavily somewhere between throat and heart and twists down like a knife blade, and fuck, it hurts.

A cigarette would be more than fitting, thinking about it. At least then this might to feel real, because the seedy sordidness would sink in. Right now it’s got the quality of a dream… the sort where you wake up and are convinced that it’s real life which is the illusion, and the dream which you’ll wake up into. Which makes your head hurt and, when you’re John, hardly improves your mood.

Before things made sense. During he was too distracted to care. Now he’s had time to think, it’s clear that they’re both totally fucked in more ways than the obvious one. The sex was great, no doubt about it. Which is part of the problem, because there’s no fucking way he’ll be able to convince Bobby to forget about it. Things are messy now, far messier than they would have been if this could be labeled a disaster, or something meaningless.

”Fuck” It’s not an explanation, not even a declaration really. It’s punctuation, slipping between the deliberately not looking and the swinging and the trying not to think, and he’s not even sure Bobby can hear it… but still, it’s the only real response.