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The Scotch bastard. John huffed through his teeth as he paced across the well-worn floorboards in James Fraser's Edinburgh apartment. If anyone would call a private room in a brothel such a thing. The sigh that left his lips was punctuated by a fist on a nearby empty table. John never cared about Fraser's lodgings, only that he wasn't currently lodged in them. He'd sent a letter with his approximate arrival date and they never had this sort of trouble before. Not since… But that didn't matter as much as Jamie's whereabouts. The men sent letters as often as they did receive them and did not go too many weeks without seeing the other since Fraser parted from Helwater. Beyond the Scot's inherent skill towards incarceration, this behaviour was anything but expected.
Lord John paced from the hearth to the door and back again as he grumbled nonsense and German insults under his breath. He arrived closer to midday and his patience was thinning even as he warmed the room with the newly lit fire. The sun had started to set which put the Englishman in a scurry to prepare himself for a night alone. Definitely not how he'd planned it.
The creak of the heavy door distracted him from his thoughts and revealed the object of them. "Jamie. Where the devil have you been?" The relief was evident as the Scot smiled and the fire lit his face, like he'd expected it all long. His coat and tricorn hat were darker from the rain that soaked them through. "I was lucky Madame Jeanne has taken a liking to me enough to let me wait for you here."
"I'm sorry, Major. I expected to be back afore ye came." Jamie went about divesting his overcoat and hat as he spoke to Grey with an ease that frustrated the man hearing it. Lord John straightened his spine, hands on hips as he looked about the room trying to collect himself. He tried not to worry too much about Fraser's damp state or insist he sit closer to the fire in case he caught a chill.
"You should have told me you had a trip planned then. You haven't even used your real name in eight years, Jamie and the smuggling you try to hide from me—" He was silenced by a surprising warm, wide palm on his cheek that focused his eyes on his friend's amused smirk and steadying gaze.
"I didna mean tae worry ye, mo charaid and I didna actually plan anything as much as I wished I thought of it enough tae." Fraser strode passed him to grab the decanter of whiskey and glasses from the shelf behind him not seeming bothered by the Englishman's annoyance or the state of his dress. Grey would be lying if he said the Scot's melodic lilt hadn't slightly lulled his temper.
Lord John rolled his eyes even as the smile tugged at his lips and he pulled a chair out to sit. He let the heat of the flames burn away his worry and the warmth creep it's way through his bones. "Will you tell me of your travels then? A tale along with the drink may yet help me forget the numerous ways in which I expected you to get yourself jailed. Or killed." The caress on his cheek settled him better than the grandest of hearths. It was enough, it always was but he didn't need to admit that yet.
"Weel, we canna have a cross meal together, can we?" John had taken the whiskey from Jamie's hands and poured them each a generous dram but the man didn't sit. He looked lost in his thoughts as he picked up the glass and sipped it carefully. His slanted, blue eyes searching the back wall for something or nothing at all if Grey was reading him right. And he usually did. The flickering mixing orange and blue in Jamie's eyes inspired an itch to paint such a mix of vivid colour and then poetry to fall from his lips if he allowed himself. Which he would not. Fraser's long, sun-burnt fingers couldn't keep still on either hand, he noticed, as the man gave up on holding the glass altogether.
John's brown furrowed in a knowing concern. "What is it, Jamie? You can tell me."
That seemed to bring the man back to the present as a tender smile turned in John's direction. "I ken. And I must. Tis only I… I fear ye may think me mad despite everythin' between us—"
"That's… preposterous!" The pause to find the most exaggerated thing in his vocabulary to describe it made him bluster and bumble through his indignation like an old man. John wanted to laugh at himself until he realized that Fraser already had. "There is nothing left between us that we can't possibly share… is there?"
The look on Jamie Fraser's face made him think he must be resembling a doe-eyed innocent again. He liked to tease him for it occasionally and only quelled John's discomfort by saying how pretty the look was paired with a hint of blush on his cheeks. John detached from the focus of Jamie's stare when his cheeks prickled with heat not from the fire and didn't see the look on his face when he finally spoke.
"No. There isna. I can barely believe it and have tried on my way back to ye and still canna be sure. I was returnin' Young Ian tae Jenny in Lallybroch as I did afore but the lad willna listen tae anyone, ken." Grey knew the story of Fraser's young nephew who'd escaped to Edinburgh to be with his uncle and work like the man he thought he was. Jamie continued his story as he paced about the small room, swirling the glass of whiskey in his hand before he sipped to wet his tongue. The whiskey burned down his throat to warm his belly was the last ingredient in his calm sense of relief that Jamie was here and they were together again. He was an excellent storyteller like John had known most Scots to be in his time there but this one was by far his favourite.
Fraser had taken the lad through his favourite parts of the Highlands to show the countryside off and instill a sense of pride in the boy. It made John sigh and stroke his own glass that dear William would never learn such a thing from his father. The Scot spoke about the serenity he felt to connect with his homeland after being away from it for so long. Grey couldn't have taken his eyes off the roving figure of James Fraser if he wanted as he shared his rediscovered experience of Scotland.
"... An' then I saw 'im." Jamie finally stopped as he said it and fixed his gaze on a spot on the wall above the Englishman's head. John saw sparks spit out at the Scot's feet unbeknownst to him, littering the floor with vibrant orange until it cooled to sooted black. He didn't even have to ask who before Fraser was divulging the strange circumstances of his reacquaintence with one, Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender. Grey missed some of the details in his wild disbelief. Surely, the Bonnie Jacobite Prince wasn't traipsing across the Highlands after the destruction he brought on the Scottish people. He shook his head to clear the distracting thoughts and focused on the astonishing events that occurred.
Jamie almost shouted with energy as he told it. "Disguised as a woman, he was, ken. Called 'imself Betty an' travelled wi' another. Flora MacDonald… fecking traitorous bastards, MacDonalds if I ever saw one. I couldna believe mae sight though it hasna died on me yet." It was hard to tell who the words were meant or if it was simply retold for his own amusement.
"An' he was scairt o' me first, aye. But I was loyal tae 'im once or so he believed an' I made 'im do sae again… they were takin' a boat tae the Isle o' Skye." He paused then. The great Scot, rattling in his boots that he'd forgotten on his feet and better for it as he traipsed closer to the fire growing wilder as he spoke, spitting heat and burnt flecks in his path. But Jamie seemed frozen in a startled motion John couldn't understand; eyes wide and locked on Grey's, fingers splayed on each hand at his sides, almost reaching out.
It took him a moment to realize the man was waiting for him. "Oh. If you turned him into the authorities… Jamie, it was the only thing to be done. I would expect nothing less honourable of you."
The blood drained from the Scot's face even as his body relaxed. "No. John… I couldna let 'im get away wi' it. Again. Hidin' in the Moors fer years wi' help from those whose kin he all but slaughtered 'imself…" Grey's jaw detached and his head shook while he searched for any words in response but none came. Fraser put a hand up to stop him from trying and sighed before continuing. The ramblings that came as he circled the room and finally inched towards John Grey would not be something easily forgotten. He could feel the heat surrounding man as he stalked closer like he carried the flames at his back with him. The glow around his figure—almost God-like—lighting the ends of his ginger curls like his own golden halo and darkening the menacing shadow preceding him.
"John. I'm no' mad. No' one would think me sae when they heard it. I wasna planned like I said... until the thought caught in mae heid an' wouldna let me rest. I thought no' tae do it when I saw 'im, ye ken. A wispy reed o' a thing. He hadna a chance against me. It was easy an' he was scairt. He saw me as a friend no' foe an' I dined wi' 'im fer three nights aforehand. An' at night, I would look in on 'im just tae frighten the wee gomerel wi' dreams o' me while he slept. He thought I would help him an' I let 'im think sae."
"Ye see, mo chridhe, I didna do it out o' passion or rage though we both ken I had reason tae. Ye had reason tae as weel. He all but butchered Hector 'imself an' ye ken it." John couldn't believe the words. They hadn't spoken of Hector since Ardsmuir where they started their tangled journey. But Fraser wasn't finished, "I did it fer ye as much as fer Claire an' mae bairn. An' fer Scotland. He's responsible fer Dougal's murder no' I. The man left fire in his wake where he stood an' didna care how it burnt Scotland tae the ground… a service tae mae country an' the clans who built it afore any King made claim. Took from the English too! Tried tae see a false King wear the crown oot o' greed an' arrogance."
"My senses were sharpened, no' destroyed or dull durin' the act. Ye willna see a crazed man as I tell the story an' then ye will ken, John. I almost returned wi' Young Ian instead o' seein' 'im tae Lallybroch conceivin' the idea in mae heid, how best tae do it an' such. The thoughts keepin' sleep at bay until I returned tae the town where I sawr 'im. I needed tae rid the world o' tha' bastard ferever. I wish ye couldha seen me, John. You think me mad now but if ye sawr it."
"I have no love for the man, Jamie. I never met him—" John responded to the only thing that made sense to him through it all which wasn't much.
"So ye understand then... Ye ken I had tae… Ye ken it was fate that brought him in my path." They weren't questions from Fraser's lips but statements with grasps of persuasion that Grey couldn't swallow fully.
John's worry wrecked his face but Jamie shook his head as he quit treading the floor and sat across from him. "I ken yer worrit. But I promise ye, mo ghraidh, I used mae heid an' no' mae heart. When the law came, we sat in the very room an' spoke o' the woman who was seen wi' me. Said she'd gone tae Italy tae see her family like she meant tae all along… while he rested in pieces under their feet."
John gasped, despite himself and shifted in his seat. He'd never heard that tone in his love's voice before. Cold and vile. "Jamie—"
Jamie grabbed both hands across the table in a grip that stung his skin. "Tis all right. They wouldna let me leave if they suspected. I had tae find a place fer 'im an' under the floorboards was better than any shallow stream nearby. There's nothing tae fear, mo leannan."
But John was afraid and more afraid for the man to see it. So he smiled and looked at their hands, wound together, turning white at the stop of blood flow. "I was so worried when I arrived and there was no word from you. I feared the worst… "
The large Scot used his strength to pull the Englishman into his arms then. John's legs were useless in his stunned state and he was grateful for Jamie's bruising hold to keep him upright. His hands throbbed as the tickle of motion rushed back into them, pinned this time to the glorious muscles of Fraser's chest. His eyes were distracted by the sight of the colour returning to them until one of Jamie's own, large hands reached into his breeches and seized his buttocks. The moan that left his lips was a mix of shock and pleasure as their groins slotted together. God, this man would be the death of him. One moment, fear and the next, desire and somehow the tangle of both made the dance sweeter.
"I will take care o' ye, John. Always." He punctuated the promise with squeeze, hard enough to make Grey yelp even as Jamie caught his lips to seal it with a kiss. This shouldn't have been the end of it since he knew it wasn't the end of Fraser's tale. Or not all of it, at the very least. But the man's lips were John's weakness and always had been; full, the most attractive pink and impossibly soft for the way he used them. They were warm like the rest of him too, reminding him of the crisp uneasiness under his skin. Let him warm you. Feel every inch of it.
And Jamie knew what it did to him when those big, rough palms covered his arse. The possessive claim was unspoken but as urgent as the first time they'd crossed the boundary from friends to lovers. The memory was branded into his mind and heart like the love of Jamie Fraser had been all along; a rough and clumsy attack off the narrow road back to Athlone. John could still hear those obnoxious frogs if he closed his eyes long enough that mocked them both until they joined in their past time. Mark me… mark me. His eyes blinked open at the whisper surrounding them even though he couldn't part from the Scot's undeterred lips.
Fraser's tongue was surer these days as it swiped his bottom lip to coax open the mouth he wanted to explore and mimicked the motion with eager fingers between Grey's cheeks. It was easy to forget the queer moment when he twitched, a strip of naked skin exposed to a nearby flame. Jamie had maneuvered them too close to the fire in his lovely assault and John felt the distinct trickle of sweat roll down his back until it was used to help guide probing fingers inside him. Lord John couldn't even complain about the burn since suddenly he was feeling it everywhere, arching to feel it deeper even as he tried to draw away from the hearth. Fraser was still teasing his rim as he liked and the initial grunts of intrusion melted into pleading moans of encouragement.
Just when he believed it possible to flay the sensitive skin off his arse and lower back, Jamie tore the seal of their lips and spun John around until it was his cock in danger of igniting. The sweat was starting to pour in earnest now and had more of the Scot's large fingers sliding easily as they entered his body. Grey smacked his hands against the wooden mantle harder than he intended and used the resistance to push back even as his lover fought him aggressively. The war within to let Jamie Fraser have him however he wanted and the fear of the unspeakable that caused their current joining was unyielding.
Grey's breeches were falling to his ankles but his shirt and waistcoat still hung, heavy on his overheated skin—slap!
"Ahh!... yes!" Slap! Slap!
The sound was as arousing as the sharp sting it left on the plump roundness and it didn't stop until the rhythm was as predictable as a throb. Mark me… mark me. There it was again… John's exposed cock was the last bit of him withering under the dry heat until the persistent arse-beating made him grow steadily towards the licking tongue of the flames.
"Christ, I need yer arse. Will ye give it tae me now that I killedt fer ye?" It was an inane statement but the lightning bolt to his prick shattered any rational thought. Jamie had killed for him. Jamie loved him. There was no talk of that woman this time. Beyond that, Grey felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the first boy he'd ever loved along with the man who honoured him. Fraser was chucking behind him and it confused him until John heard the whimpering on his own lips and gave into the grind his body needed against rough, thick fingers. "There's a good lad. Show me how much ye crave it."
Oh God, not that voice. A whispered cadence in a vicious tone that twisted inside him to make room for deep, impending cock. Jamie gave a sharp thrust when he added a fourth finger and if not for the slip of sweat between them, Grey was sure it might have actually split him open. He groaned desperately anyway, the pain going straight to his head as he rocked against the brilliance of the fire. Fraser's patience diminished with a blunt prodding against his slick rim. They should really stop to grab the oil tucked away in—
"Uh—" but Jamie's fingers wound around his throat and held tight before John could finish his scream. His airflow compromised and the skin of his throat stimulated by more warmth and agonizing callouses.
"Quiet, mo chridhe. It may be a hoorhouse, ken but when ye cry out sae pretty that way, it pierces through all the womens' false pleasure aboot the place." Jamie ground out a lazy moan of deep satisfaction that had John leaking onto the floor. "I hate tae stop ye but I willna share it wi' anyone else, ye ken. It belongs only tae me."
John's shout in response was weak and choked, the saliva swirling at the back of his throat unable to swallow. "Yer mine, John Grey." Fraser released his hold just enough to pinch the skin at the base of his neck and the gasp that filled the air between them was riotous. Mark me.
Jamie was so deep inside him and fucked closer even still as John trembled around him, only distracted momentarily. The hand not occupied with his airway crept down to hold the base of his cock until their balls knocked together in an unexpected massage. Something vile twisted in John's stomach as Fraser pummelled him. "Tell me… tell me how you did it."
His laugh sent a thrilling chill through John's hot skin. "Ye wannae hear how I cornered 'im in 'is room after supper? How I took the thong from 'is 'air—" John felt the tug on his bound hair as it fell loose about his shoulders and choked on leather as it replaced Jamie's hand around his neck. "And strung it round until the Bonnie Prince couldna scream any longer. His verra last 'mark me' from blue lips… " Grey's eyes went impossibly wide with recognition and felt like they might jump from their sockets when Fraser pulled.
The growl from Jamie's throat shouldn't have made his cock jump but the man was already rewarding his reaction with a firm, slow stroke. Jamie's hand was dry and burned against the fire crackling below them. The warmth climbing up to prickle at his balls was incredible but every tug that revealed his wet cockhead to the flames made his unsteady legs shake against Fraser's strong thighs. "Jamie… " Nothing else came but an exaggerated whine and a few twitches of his hips that Fraser understood only as more.
Those dangerous teeth moved to his ear this time and snagged the skin just behind. "Ye need this, do ye no', mo charaid? I do. I need tae see yer body beggin' fer mae own." Dear God, it was sweet torture to have Jamie Fraser want him so even if his prick burned as his blood painted the hearth surrounding them. "Ye need mae hands possessin' ye," an enveloping yank on his balls made him shriek, "mae mouth claimin' ye," a slithery tongue digging into wounded skin, "an' mae cock buried sae deep in yer arse tha' ye may jus' swallow me whole until we're finally one." John threw his head back and screamed, jutting his cock into hot, cracked skin and bouncing his ass on that punishing prick. John imagined if someone did hear them then there would be no question as to who was the whore and whom he was servicing.
"Tell me… " Grey was being torn apart piece by piece and the completion of the act wouldn't come until the story was revealed in full with Fraser's cum dripping out of him. Mark me.
Jamie released the endless teasing of his desperate prick to dig his nails into John's inner thigh, "I pulled the dirk from mae kilt an' dragged it o'er his body goin' limp against me." Whether it was unconscious or not, Grey sagged against the sturdy wall of Fraser's chest. His nails grated angry red marks down his abs before pulling on his stiff prick, once teasingly and then two and three times more to renew his arousal. His neck seared all the sudden and the ache of wounded skin drew his attention to Jamie's teeth buried sharply into his shoulder. The trickle of sweat was thick enough down his arm to make Grey look and see… blood. Grey flinched at the mix of fluids and found that Fraser's teeth were tucked in deep enough that they disappeared into the gash. John sighed a pained moan and tried to shudder away the pent up tension in his muscles but Jamie held him firm as his nails scratched their way from thigh back to his oversensitive nipples.
"It was dark like tis now an' I couldna take the thought o' another dinner wi' the man. I would ha' given anythin' tae listen tae 'mark me' die on 'is shrivelled lips." The Scot's snarl spat in his ear as he raised his free hand and brought it back towards John's chest with such violence that he lost his breath before it could be knocked out of him. But Jamie only pressed deliberate fingerprint bruises between each rib to indicate where the blade struck his victim, no doubt. Mark me. He didn't explain, only pushed until his impossible strength crowded Grey and he tweaked his nipples one at a time. The ghostly whispers rhythmically aiding the beat of their lovemaking.
That was the end of Jamie's teasing. Now there was only determination and a show of power that tore the breath right from his lungs and turned it into helpless cries of desperate need. Determination to turn John into a boneless, liquified mess of a man with only his jutting prick as evidence of life. Grey wanted to tug his own cock or beg Jamie to stroke the seed out of him but it seemed the Scot meant to do just that but from the inside out. He didn't even know it was possible but then he was spurting violently, muscles throbbing with furious tension and pulling off Fraser's cock with the force of his dive into oblivion. Jamie's groan was outrageous as he released John's throat and kneaded the Englishman's taut arse with free hands. As if Fraser was unable to get inside him again, he knocked his prick across and between tight cheeks until he was shouting his own powerful release: hot bursts of the man he loved decorating his skin.
A murderer.
Though he'd been one when they'd met and would continue it until Culloden and so on. They were soldiers. John would never judge a man for the duty to his country, his man or to his family. It was swirling thoughts of honour and denial of past and futures that haunted his sated glow. Mark me… mark me. Grey's lids slammed shut as memories attacked the present. Jamie's smile as he closed a heavy door and the desperate cry of someone bound to a chair, dripping blood. Jamie's new riding boots caked in mud as he came in later that rainy night with a sharp slash across his chiseled cheek. Mark. Me.
No. The insistent voice was grating now and John growled at the sound. You killed them.You killed them all. Jamie's arms wrapped tightly around him as they used each other as support in their luxurious bliss. Go away. If anyone deserved to die at the hands of his love, it was that murderous traitor. And for that matter, anyone else who'd harmed him before or meant to harm him now and to come!
John's skin ached with the dry, exposed burn but he turned to seek solace in the Scot's embrace which he offered willingly. He pulled them away from the hearth and the draft was a balm for the mind and body. Fraser stroked his cheek and left a lingering kiss on his lips before he asked, "Is something amiss, mo ghraidh?"
Tears filled the stubborn Englishman's eyes but he willed them away with the shake of his head. "No. You are here. I am with you. Just as I was meant to be." His voice was soft as he heard the faintest, drifting echo of mark me…
Jamie's brilliant smile was infectious in its sincerity and the chuckle set a new beat to rhythm between them. His brow quirked as he gave John a pointed look, face flushed with their shared passion and something else. That same mysterious something soothed Grey's aches from his core and he smiled quizzically up at his lover. He was too well-fucked at the moment to do anything other than love the man in front of him and promise to do so until his soul dried up like dust that could waft through an open window. Not that he had ever been able to do anything else before.
Jamie traced the tender mark that gnawed at John's throat, "Now. Yer brother, the Duke… is he well?"