Work Text:
When he sees John, the first thing he feels is a sick churning in his gut that he immediately knows as guilt. It has been three years almost to the day since he saw him last. Three years since Ned and George and Tom and Sol had agreed that they would keep up with John, that it would be what Henry wanted them to do.
John looks the same, Ned thinks, if slightly greyer than he was. His hair is pulled back, a thick scarf obscures his beard. He waits in line with another man who is tall, handsome in a square sort of way. Posh coat. They speak to one another quietly, closely. Ned wonders if this is John’s new partner, and then he feels something else, which feels less like guilt, and more like grief.
Ned shifts his weight from one foot to the other, wills the barista to speed up his order -- though he would never go as far as to actually ask -- to avoid coming face-to-face. But then-
“Edward?”
John is beside him.
“I thought that looked like you.” John smiles, a small thing. His eyes are dark. His hair is definitely greyer than the last time he and Ned were in the same room. But then perhaps mourning your partner has a way of speeding up the aging process.
John always called him Edward, never Ned.
“John,” says Ned, who then casts about for something else to say, some small talk that any well adjusted person would have at hand. He comes up empty.
“Are you well?”
The last time he saw John was in front of a pub where they’d all gone after Henry’s funeral. They’d all tried to share memories, have a drink in Henry’s honour, have a bit of a warm laugh. But at every turn the needlessness of what had happened got in the way. Henry had been 32. None of them should have been there sharing memories at all.
They had all liked John, while Henry had been alive. He was kind, could hold a conversation on anything presented to him, but with all the years between them he’d never lingered too long when Henry’s friends had gathered. John had had his own friends, middle-aged former sailors and the odd academic. It made for some strange parties.
They had liked John, who had always been good to them, had put each of them up on the sofa more than once when they couldn’t get back to their own flats after a late night out. He’d left water on the coffee table for when they woke up dry mouthed. John had known how Ned had taken his tea. John’s memory for personal details had been impeccable. In the rare moments they were alone, when Henry was showering or had insisted on being the one to pop out for breakfast pastries, John always asked after Ned’s siblings and parents. He asked how work had been treating him. He asked what Ned was reading and if he liked his new flat.
(John had come with Henry to help Ned move in. He’d helped Ned move and Ned hadn’t called on him once after Henry died.)
When he asked these things he’d always been really asking. And then he listened, and he remembered.
So when John asks Ned if he’s well, Ned knows that John is actually asking, and a lump forms in his throat as he prepares to answer.
“Great, yeah. Great,” he says, with all the confidence of a sheltered child being dropped off on the curb for his first day of school.
John’s gaze is steady, and Ned is tempted to think of it as unrelenting. He looks back to the counter and swallows.
“I’m glad to hear it,” says John in a tone that clearly suggests he does not believe Ned at all.
“And what about you? Are you well?” Ned asks, still staring at the counter, still willing his order to materialize.
“Most of the time, yes.” John says this with such honesty that Ned’s guilt immediately boils over. He is scalded by everything he’s failed to do in the past three years.
“Ned?” Calls the girl behind the counter.
His coffee, finally. He lunges forward to grab it and some of it sloughs over the edge. “Shit,” he mumbles.
“Steady there,” says John, who grabs napkins from the counter and presses them into Ned’s free hand, who holds one hand under Ned’s elbow.
“I’m great,” Ned says again, for some reason. “I’m fine.”
John hums in acknowledgment, then takes his hand away from Ned’s elbow.
“I always meant to,” Ned suddenly finds himself saying, without meaning to, without having any control over his stupid mouth. “To call you. I mean, to check in with you. Not that you need it. I’m sorry. I’m just kind of useless when it comes to this.”
In front of him, John’s expression freezes, and Ned wants to kick himself.
“That’s alright, Edward.”
A tightness settles in Ned’s chest when John says his name.
“We should grab coffee or something.” When the words leave Ned’s mouth he cringes. Has anyone in the entire world ever meant it when they say two people should get coffee? Because it certainly doesn’t sound genuine when Ned says it.
John lets out a little breath of a laugh, and the corners of his eyes crease. “How about this? If you're even in Greenwich, stop by the shop.”
John has seen right through Ned’s pedestrian insincerity, and has instead made an offer that removes obligation from them both. John does not have to go anywhere, and Ned is only expected to appear at John’s store if he happens to be in Greenwich, which he never has occasion to be.
“Yeah, alright,” Ned says. He flushes some, he can feel it on his neck. He blinks rapidly and holds up his coffee. “I’d better get back to work.”
John nods. “It was lovely to see you. You’ll take care of yourself, yes?”
The man who John had been standing in line with is suddenly at John’s shoulder, or perhaps he’s been there the whole time and Ned’s only just now noticed him. The man levels him with an appraising glance.
Is it Ned’s hair, in desperate need of a cut, that the man notices? That he’s two days past a shave? Is it that his hands have begun to shake and his coat smells of the cigarettes that he’s only started smoking again recently? Less recently. Three years ago.
“You too,” says Ned.
He is eager to escape but when he does he feels a tug back towards the man he just said goodbye to. His warm eyes and his kindness. Something blooms low and hot in Ned’s belly and crawls up his throat. He wonders if it is shame.
He remembers it very clearly, years later. Sometimes he thinks it is the last thing he remembers clearly, all his memories since then are mottled and in soft focus. But that day he replays like a movie, even when he doesn’t want to. He never wants to.
The screech of metal. Everyone yelling. Blanky hollering at people to stay back. Several hysterical phone calls to 999 all happening at once.
Ned had been walking in the direction of the chaos, and between the frantic bodies all he had seen were legs dressed in denim and steel toed boots, motionless on the concrete floor. Then, in the other direction, a blue hard hat upturned and abandoned. George had stumbled towards him, paler than he usually was, and he put his hands on Ned’s arms and urged him back with desperate, red rimmed eyes.
“Who-” started Ned, throat closing. “What happened?”
“He fell,” George had said.
“Who?”
George’s face crumpled. “Henry.” And he had collapsed into Ned, and Ned had frozen, until he and George and everyone else were ushered away to make room for the paramedics.
It was the last time he saw Henry, and all he saw were his legs.
For ten days Ned reflects on his chance run in with John, and each time he recalls John’s invitation to the shop a cold blade of guilt stabs him between the ribs. John’s offer was not insincere, but it was not one he ever believed he would be taken up on, because Ned is many things but he is not reliable. He is not the person you call in a crisis. A fair amount of the time he is the crisis.
He disappears into his apartment for weeks at a time. He survives off of cereal and juice from concentrate. He hasn’t been able to hold a bloody job for three years. He doesn’t show up when he says he will. He doesn’t respond to texts. He goes for walks on the river and considers walking into it with stones in his pockets.
It is no small wonder that he is on the DLR on a Thursday evening, just as the sky is turning that deep, remarkable blue, heading through Canary Wharf and Crossharbour, and crossing the Thames to Greenwich, where he knows John’s shop is only a short walk from the station.
He had almost come the previous evening but he had decided to get a haircut instead after catching an unintentional glance of himself in the mirror. The haircut had been enough for the day.
He is on the DLR and he is wearing denims and a clean sweater and his hands are sweating. He wonders, belatedly, if he should have brought something with him, a gift.
He tells himself he is going because he needs to be reliable once in his life. Of Henry’s friends, they had all said they would check on John - George, Sol, Tom - and none of them did. Ned could though. It was late but he could check on John like Henry would have wanted.
The streets of Greenwich are nearly empty.
He’s almost surprised that he remembers where the shop is. He’d only ever come by the once, when he and the lads were meeting Henry before a night out, and then they’d only stood outside and waited for Henry to join them. All the same, his feet carry him in the right direction with an unfamiliar confidence.
It’s not on the main streets but tucked off on a narrow side road. The front window glows yellow and warm as he approaches, and he can see over the half curtain the tops of several wooden bookcases. Used, rare, antiquarian the painted window reads.
He second guesses himself then. What in the world will he say when he goes in? “I was just in the neighbourhood.” Ned is never just anywhere. Getting to any place that isn’t his living room has to be meticulously planned and strategized these days.
Now that he’s standing still he’s started to notice how cold it is. He’s forgotten gloves of course, and a scarf. No hat. It’s January.
The shop looks warm.
He’ll say that he wanted to see how John was doing. That’s it. Then upon hearing John is as well as he can be, Ned will turn around and go home to eat whatever happens to be in his fridge.
He takes a steadying breath, and opens the door.
A small bell above the doorframe rings as he enters a crowded, golden room that smells thickly of dust and frankincense. It is silent. Every single surface, every shelf of the endless, ceiling high bookshelves is lined in books with worn leather covers in colours like green and red and navy blue. There’s a cluttered counter with a cash off to the right, though no one is standing behind it.
Ned takes a breath and then another. He cannot bring himself to walk any further into the shop, and suddenly the weight of this decision -- not impulsive exactly, but something like it -- feels like it could smother him. He begins to reach behind him for the door handle, to escape, when something warm weaves around his ankles.
In the half second before he realizes it’s a cat, he cries out. Large yellow eyes look up at him, unimpressed, but the cat pushes its little head into his shin again. Ned freezes, staring down at the cat with one hand on the door handle.
“Edward.”
He looks up and John has emerged from behind a bookcase, as quietly as the cat itself.
“Um, hi. I…” His words skitter away from him as John smiles. It’s a soft thing, he’d maybe even call it fond, if Ned was worth being fond of. Kind, he settles on.
“I haven’t seen this much of you in a long time,” John says.
Three years, thinks Ned. “Yeah, I was--” Ned makes a vague gesture with his hand. What had he meant to say, again? He tries to smile. He doesn’t quite succeed.
John puts down the books he’s carrying on the counter, on top of other books, and dusts his hands off on his trousers. “I’ll make us some tea then, shall I? If you have a moment.”
It sounds so natural, almost like John hasn’t already clocked that Ned has more moments than he knows what to do with.
John turns and heads to the back of the store, and the cat abandons Ned to chase John instead.
“Kettle’s in the back,” John calls through the shop, and Ned understands he’s being beckoned.
At the back of the shop, through a small door, is a kitchenette. A kettle and ancient microwave. A little fridge. A small table with two chairs. John puts the tea on with one hand and removes the cat from the counter with the other.
“I was surprised when I heard the door open,” says John without turning around. “It’s not often I have customers in the evenings in January. It’s a rare thing when someone comes in here after the museum closes.”
“Why don’t you close when the museum does?” Ned asks, hands shoved so deep in his coat pockets he might make holes in the both of them.
“Because I’d miss out on visits like this.” It is said with such sincerity that Ned feels tears threaten.
John is being nice, he reminds himself. And besides that, he’s come here to check in on John. Because that’s the kind of thing a person is supposed to do.
John looks over his shoulder. “Take your coat off, Edward. If you like.”
Ned does as he’s told, and holds his jacket in his arms. He watches John’s movements, the gentle shifts in the muscles of his broad back. He looks away.
(When John puts the tea down on the table, Ned immediately knows it’s the way he takes it: with far too much sugar, and only a little milk. John remembers.)
“Sit down, lad. Can I get you a biscuit?”
Ned slides into the chair closest, his coat in a bundle on his lap. “That’s alright. I don’t want to put you out.”
John chuckles warmly. “You won’t put me out if you have a biscuit. Have you had dinner?”
Ned shakes his head and John takes a sleeve of biscuits out of the lone cabinet and places them in the centre of the table. “In case you change your mind,” John offers.
John settles across from him and watches Ned for a moment, before his study is interrupted by the cat jumping on the table and startling them both.
“That’s enough, Fagin,” John says, his big hands removing the cat from the table and placing it down on the floor. “We don’t often have company back here,” John says. “He’s forgotten his manners.”
“Was that man at the coffee shop your boyfriend?” Ned asks, and immediately wants to sink into the ground. He’d just wondered, when John said he didn’t have company, Ned thought… What had he thought? What’s wrong with him? He should be put in a cage.
His face flushes red. He can feel the heat on his skin.
John’s eyes widen in surprise, but not offence. “James? No. He’s an old friend. We used to work together.”
“Right,” Ned says. His hands twist in his coat. He stares at his tea. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I asked that.”
“It’s alright,” says John, low and warm. “James and I have coffee a couple of times a month on my day off. He works in the area of that particular shop. Do you?”
The question catches Ned off guard. “Do I?”
“Work in the area.”
“I did.” Ned finds, under John’s non-judgemental gaze, in the warmth of this tiny back room, with a cat head-butting his ankles, that he wants to be honest. He clears his throat. “I’m just temping, at the moment.”
There is a flicker of concern on John’s face, but he rearranges his features. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. I’ve moved around a bit. Can’t seem to find anything that fits.” This is almost the truth. The whole truth is that he never went back to Northwestern Shipping after Henry died. He couldn’t even walk through the door. George had to pack up his desk for him. Then he had three jobs in quick succession, lasting around six months each. He was fired from the first one. He left before they could fire him from the two that followed.
It was then he found, suddenly, that he couldn’t take the pressure. Any responsibility weighed on him until he was dragging his chin on the floor. He broke out in sweat when he had to engage in office chit chat.
The temping wasn’t easy, but it was easier. The commitment was shorter. They all expected so little of him, which was perfect, because he had so little to give.
“What would you like to be doing?” asks John.
Ned shrugs. “Not sure, honestly.” He picks up his tea and takes a sip. It’s perfect, and something catches in him. All at once, and for the second time that night, he is perilously close to tears.
“Have something to eat, Edward.” John opens the packet of biscuits, and holds one out to Ned, who accepts it hesitantly. Then John stands.
Ned must show some distress on his face , because John makes a sort of shushing noise, like you would for a child crying themself to sleep.
“Just need to lock the door and turn the sign,” John says. As he slips past Ned, he places a heavy hand on Ned’s shoulder.
He is back in seconds, sitting down again, looking pleased when he sees that Ned has finished the biscuit. John puts a biscuit in front of himself on a napkin, then pushes the package towards Ned.
“No one calls me Edward, anymore,” Ned offers. “Just Ned.”
“Would you prefer I called you Ned.”
“No.” Immediate. Definitive. More sure than anything he’s said in a long time.
They talk about the shop, how January through March are John’s quietest months, after the rush of a new school year and the holidays and before the tourist season starts up. It’s consulting and antique book repair that keeps John paid in the winter, rather than selling books themselves. He says he’s in the shop more now, even on days when it’s closed. He “misses the cat,” he says.
“Are you still in Hackney?” Edward asks, remembering John and Henry’s apartment, with the bookshelves and the big windows to the garden and the mess of plants over the radiator. There is a sharp ache as he thinks about the nights he spent there, and the mornings after. Being piled on the couch with Henry as John puttered around the kitchen, nudging them to relax as they nursed their hangovers.
A sad smile plays on John’s lips. “No. I moved a couple of years ago. I can walk here now.”
“I don’t think I could’ve stayed either,” Edward says, putting words to what John has left silent. Of course he couldn’t have. Edward couldn’t even go back to work. “I want to talk about him sometimes,” Edward starts, not entirely sure where the words are coming from. “I think about him all the time but when I bring him up, with our friends, it feels like I’ve done something wrong.”
The breath he takes pushes at the wall of his rib cage, making it sore. “Everyone gets really quiet until someone else changes the subject. But I want to be able to do it, to remember him with other people. The nice things. Like that terrible fucking camping trip we took to Skye-” John laughs, soft, “-or that stupid bit he used to do, with the wine. I want to be able to laugh about it and not feel so fucking wrecked. I don’t want the only thing I have left of him to be his legs.”
Edward stops, the catch in his breathing splitting “legs” into two words not one. He looks up to John, who looks back to him. “Fuck. I can’t… I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I’m saying this to you, of all people.”
John’s expression doesn’t change as he takes Edward’s wrist, his fingers warm against Edward’s rapidly beating pulse point. “Me, of all people?”
“You don’t need me doing this. Showing up at your shop and whinging on about,” he swallows. “ Your person.”
John squeezes his wrist. “He was your person too, Edward.”
With that benediction, the validation of the place Henry’s friendship held for him, that Henry was important to him and without him there is an empty place in his life, Edward can’t tell if a weight has been lifted from him, or if in fact he’s been given something else to carry. Another person who will only exist further if Edward carries him along his whole life.
“I’d like to talk about him too, sometimes. I miss him too. It’s strange to think about now, but so much of our lives were very separate. My friends were mine, and his friends, his. I don’t know people who knew him.” John’s thumb draws a gentle arc against the underside of Edward’s wrist.
“He was a really good friend,” is all Edward can find to say.
“You were a good friend to him,” John replies.
He is taken by a quick, sharp sob. John hands him a napkin, but his hand stays loosely encircled around Edward’s wrist.
“Sorry,” says Edward again, recovering shockingly quickly for him. Usually when these crying jags start the rest of the day is a bit of a write off.
“More tea, then.”
John takes and refreshes Edward’s cup. When he hands it back, their fingers touch, and linger.
They move on to lighter things, how John has become even more of a regular at the Maritime Museum, long summer nights in the park near the observatory, how living out here almost feels like being in a village. They laugh as Fagin jumps up on the counter again, and seems to challenge John with a glare. “He’s the boss here,” John says, leaving Fagin to knock a stack of paper cups onto the floor. “I am merely an employee.”
Edward begins to open up about the exact shape that the last three years have taken for him. How he is deeply unsure of what his future looks like, how he avoids his family, often his friends. He is often alone. He is often lonely. He does not quite say that he feels married to his loneliness. He doesn't want it but he feels obligated to hold onto it and keep it close. Like he chose it. Like he is bound to it. He does not quite say this, but he thinks John can tell.
Through all of this, John holds his wrist, then his hand. (Through all of this, Edward notices how gently John treats him. He notices, not for the first time, but in a new way, that John is handsome in a way that is suddenly very compelling.)
“I can’t keep temping,” Edward says, after an extended digression about the way he’s tanked his own career. “But I don’t know what else is out there for me. I used to be good at things, and now I’m useless. Some days I wake up, and I think ‘this is it. Today is the day I’ll sort myself out.’ But it never happens. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to be better.”
“Edward,” John says, eyes so dark in the low light, they seem blown. “You’re just fine as you are.”
This is almost too much for Edward, this fantastically unearned praise. John is so kind, and lovely, and it makes him feel the least empty he has for ages and ages. He has done nothing to deserve it.
Does John actually think he’s just fine as he is?
Fagin starts to meow, pacing in circles around the table legs.
“You’d think I never feed him,” John mutters, releasing Edward’s hand and rising to fill Fagin’s bowl.
Edward looks up past John, and there’s a clock on the wall he’s just noticed. It’s half nine.
He doesn’t want to go but he knows he’s imposed on John far too long, made a place for himself at a table he doesn’t belong at. He has made himself too big here. He stands and the chair he was sitting in scrapes loudly against the tile, scaring Fagin. The cat makes a break for it, bolting into the belly of the shop.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Edward says.
“He’ll live,” John says. “Are you off?” For a moment, John sounds almost disappointed. He is probably just tired.
Edward nods. He moves out to the front of the shop, and John follows him.
“Thank you for tea,” he says. “And biscuits. And everything, I suppose.”
“It was no trouble, Edward. It was lovely to see you.”
John holds out his hand and Edward takes it, and slowly, smoothly, their handshake becomes an embrace. One of John’s arms is around Edward’s shoulders, the other is around his back. Edward places his hands on John’s shoulder blades.
“Thank you for coming tonight,” John says, low into Edward’s ear. “It was lovely to see you.”
Edward swallows. “Yeah. I mean, you’re welcome? You too.”
He begins to pull back but John’s hand slides up to the back of his neck. John holds Edward in place, so their faces are close. Edward stops breathing.
“You’ll be good to yourself, won’t you?”
Something clicks in Edward, or rather, something breaks. Some dam he hadn’t known existed bursts at all sides and he is suddenly in desperate need. His mouth is dry. He nods, dumbly.
“And you’ll let me know if I can do anything for you?”
Edward looks down. There is almost no space between them. John strokes the back of Edward’s head with his broad hand.
“Yes? You’ll let me know.”
Edward dips his chin in acknowledgement. John embraces him one more time, lightly kissing him on the cheek as he does, and Edward’s heart swells.
He steps out onto the pavement, waving minutely to John as the door closes behind him.
He only makes it fifteen paces.
When he opens the door again, John is still at the front, by the cash. He does not look surprised, but he is waiting for Edward to speak.
“I’m sorry,” Edward says.
John steps forward, and takes Edward’s face in his hands. His eyes are serious. Lips parted. “Yes?” he asks.
“Please,” Edward responds. “Please?”
And John kisses him.
It does nothing to stem the violent tides in him. If anything, it makes them rise, puts him on rockier, untrustworthy seas, and so he clings to John, yields to him. A life preserver. His hands fist in John’s jumper and he whines, a wholly undignified noise, that only makes John hold him closer.
They decide to go back to John’s place, only a ten minute walk away. Twice on the way John crowds him up against the side of a home, his hands firm on Edward’s hips and they kiss, openmouthed and halfway wanton. He wants and feels wanted and he can’t remember the last time it was like this for him, with anyone.
They stumble into John’s flat and Edward can’t stop touching him. He pushes his body into John’s hands, feeling an acute ache whenever they leave him, even when it’s to undress them both.
“Aren’t you a beautiful boy,” John whispers into Edward’s ear once his shirt is off, and his hands are scaling Edward’s ribs. John kisses up underneath his chin. “Would you like me to take care of you? Hm?”
Edward moans and kisses John, and though he means to say “Yes, please. I’ll give anything. I’ll do anything you want me to,” what he says - no - whimpers, is “Daddy.”
Before he can take it back, before he can think of some excuse or apology that would only emerge stuttered and incomprehensible in the air between them, John crushes Edward’s body to his, hands that have been so gentle instead grasping, gripping. John groans into Edward’s mouth and says, rasping and broken, “Again.”
The relief runs thick and heavy through Edward’s veins. “Please, Daddy?” he asks, lightheaded. “Please take care of me?”
John is undoing Edward’s belt, tugging him towards what Edward can only presume is the bedroom. “Will you be a good boy for me?” John murmurs.
“Yes,” Edward says, the desire of it overflowing in him. “I’ll be good. I’ll be good.”
The curtains are only half closed in the bedroom and the moon light spills through the window and over the quilt on the bed, settles over John’s shoulders. “I don’t know why I asked,” John says, pulling his sweater off over his head. “I know you will be. You want to be so badly. I can see it on you.”
He encourages Edward back onto the bed. The quilt is worn soft, the seam and creases almost undetectable against the bare skin of his back. Warm fingers curl over Edward’s waistband and pull his trousers off, leaving him bare, completely exposed. All he’s left in is his socks. It’s been ages since he’s let himself be this undressed in front of someone. He’s lost too much weight, too much muscle. He feels it in the way his clothes have come to hang off of him, in the belt that’s stopped fitting. He’s stopped looking at his body in the mirror.
But the way John is looking at him. When has anyone looked at him that way? Standing over Edward, he reaches into his undone trousers and pulls out his cock, strokes it heavily. Thick, uncut. Edward wants it inside him.
“You’re such a pretty boy,” John says, his voice soft. “You just need someone to pay you a little attention, yes? Take care of you, feed you up a little.”
Edward’s cock twitches against his stomach, and leaks.
“Show Daddy how you make yourself feel good, Edward. How you touch yourself.”
He pulls up his knees, puts the soles of his feet to the bed, and spreads his thighs. He spits into his palm, and begins to tug at himself, watching John do the same.
“Yes, sweetheart. Good boy,” John says, low and coaxing.
It makes Edward greedy, hearing that, makes him hungry. Ravenous. His spit-slicked fingers drift down to his rim but he doesn’t push them in, doesn’t enter himself, feels it would be out of turn in some way to go there without John directing him to.
John places a warm hand on Edward’s knee. “That’s it, Edward. Get yourself nice and wet for me. For Daddy.”
His cock throbs in his hand. Spend leaks onto his fingers.
John begins to stroke the sensitive skin of Edward’s inner thigh. He whispers little encouragements until Edward is ready to beg for it. “Daddy,” he whines.
“I’m right here, sweetheart.” He leans over Edward and kisses him firmly. “Move up, head on the pillows, alright? Are you warm enough?” While he asks these things he strokes himself still.
Edward shifts as John told him to, puts his head back on the pillows. He’s not cold at all, his skin is on fire, actually, but if he says he is might John lay on top of him, cover him entire with his weight, push Edward back into the mattress and squeeze out of him the last of the things that make him feel horribly unworthy of any good, kind thing?
“What do you need, love?” John asks.
It’s the love that does it for him. The warmth of it, how it feels true and honest and like Edward deserves it. “Fuck me, Daddy,” he begs. “Fill me up, please?”
“Jesus Christ, Edward.” John rubs his palm roughly across Edward’s cheek, then leans in to kiss him. There’s a bite in it.
He retrieves lube and a condom from the bedside table and Edward makes a sound of protest that he hadn’t planned on.
John freezes. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want,” Edward starts, his tongue thick in his mouth, cheeks burning in shame and the knowledge that he shouldn’t be asking for this. “The condom. I’ve been tested. I want to feel you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Please? I just, want to feel you inside. Want you to come inside, Daddy.”
It is in the way John sucks in breath, the way his shoulders shudder that Edward finally realizes just how much John wants him like this. Needy, begging, a little helpless maybe. He wants to be helpless. He wants to be helpless and have it be okay and allowed and for someone to take care of it. He wants to fall apart like this and have someone pick up after him.
John is kissing him. John’s lube-slicked finger is pressing into him to the first knuckle.
“You’re so good,” John says. “Telling Daddy what you need.”
There is nothing impatient about John, nothing desperate. He is slow and attentive and exacting. He watches the way Edward’s body shifts and responds as he opens him up. He can see what Edward likes before Edward can even respond with a moan, or “Daddy, please!”
It’s so easy. With John it just feels so easy.
When John’s fingers crook inside of him, and John’s mouth is on his cock, Edward goes breathless, grabbing at the cushion behind his head and screwing his eyes shut. He mouths a silent prayer built of words he cannot speak aloud, and then, then, he thinks of Henry.
It is only for a moment that Henry comes to Edward. Smiling, kind, bright Henry who picked him up from the airport and brought croissants into work and showed him how to better pack for camping. No imaginary words are exchanged, no conversation where an ethereal Henry gives him blessing. It’s just that a knowledge takes up home in Edward that he is here, that John is here, because they both knew the same man. Loved him in different ways.
He carries Henry with him.
John holds Edward’s wrists above his head with one hand as he presses into him, and Edward keens, his heels digging into the mattress as he tries to push himself closer to John.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” John murmurs, voice all throat.
John takes his time. They rock together and Edward feels all of it. It’s the first time in ages where he’s wanted to feel everything. He loves the way John feels against him, solid and warm, the dark hair on his chest providing a beautifully soft friction. His skin burns where John’s breath sweeps over it. John looks at him, really looks at him, and Edward is almost brought to tears for the second time that night.
John has seen him, Edward knows, and for the first time in years the prospect of it does not terrify him. John sees him, and Edward looks back, tries to see him too. His whole person vibrates with the weight of what he finds.
“Daddy,” Edward says, the word full and overflowing.
“Yes,” John says, kissing him. “Yes.”
John brings Edward off first, telling him how good he is, how well behaved and thoughtful and sweet and pretty. Edward does not recognize the sound of his own voice, stripped bare of all pretense and performance. Cracked open and peeling away as John kisses his cheekbones, his eyebrows, his lips, again and again.
He fucks into Edward harder as he finds his own release, sitting back on his knees, Edward’s thigh up against John’s chest. He comes inside Edward, just as Edward asked. When he comes, he calls Edward “sweetheart,” and “lovely,” and “my boy.”
As they both find their breath, John lies down beside Edward and gently pulls them together. Allowing himself to be arranged, Edward slips his face down into the crook of John’s neck and kisses it. John’s throat vibrates as he makes a low sound of contentment.
“I like your haircut. Very handsome,” he says, and Edward feels himself go pink to the tip of his ears. “I didn’t mind the shaggy look I saw on you last week, but I must admit I think this suits you better.”
Edward burrows closer, resolves to make an appointment to get his haircut again in six weeks, like the receptionist suggested he do.
John holds him, holds him, holds him.
“Why don’t you stay and let me make you breakfast?” John asks.
“Yes, Daddy,” Edward says. “Please.”