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Soap woke to a pounding in his head, his mouth dry as cotton. It took him a moment to register that he wasn’t in his own room. The sheets beneath his cheek felt different, the texture less rough than his own. The realisation made him freeze, eyes snapping open before immediately squeezing them shut against the too bright light. Rolling over, he pulled a pillow over his face to block out the morning sun. He tried to think back to the night before, piece together what happened, where he could be, but his memory was frustratingly blank. Then a familiar scent caught his attention; something musky and herbaceous, with a touch of spice. His mind worked to piece the combination of scents together when the door opened. Immediately Soap recognised Gaz’s footsteps. At the same time he recognised the scent on the sheets as Gaz’s cologne. He relaxed, but only minutely. He’d slept in Gaz’s room before, but taking stock of his near nakedness beneath the sheets and the gap in his memory of the night before, Soap couldn’t help but wonder–had they slept together?
“Wild night, innit?” Gaz said as he stepped into the room. A cloud of warm, moist air followed behind him carrying the same scent notes that Soap had detected on the bed sheets.
Soap had a moment of panic. He didn’t want Gaz to know that he didn’t remember what happened last night. That he didn’t remember that they had slept together . He removed the pillow from his face, sitting up with a groan, hand pressed to his throbbing temple. Cracking his eyes open, he hissed at how the pale morning light stabbed at his head. Gaz leaned against the wall by the door, dark eyes watching Soap closely. Assessing. He was shirtless, a pair of track pants slung low on his hips. Soap dropped his eyes away when he spoke.
“Aye, sure was,” he replied. It was then that he noticed a glass of water on the bedside table, two white tablets next to it. He reached for them, popping them into his mouth and washing them down, emptying the glass. Never had water tasted so good.
“Shower’s free,” Gaz said, pushing off the wall and moving towards the chest of drawers, pulling out a t-shirt and slipping it over his head. Soap watched the bunch and flex of muscles in Gaz’s shoulders and back as he dressed, quietly mourning the way Gaz’s body became hidden from view.
A shower sounded like heaven. Hopefully it would clear the fog from his brain and help him remember more of the night before. “Cheers,” Soap said, sliding from the bed. He stretched his arms over his head, wincing at a twinge in his lower back.
In the bathroom, Soap turned on the water, letting it get hot as he took stock of himself in the mirror. He looked haggard. There was a crease from the bed sheet along his cheek, and the skin beneath his eyes was dark like a bruise. The corners of his mouth were crusted in white from where he had drooled in his sleep.
A mark beneath his ear caught his eye, and he angled his head to get a better look. There was a collection of coin sized bruises along his throat. Hickies. His cheeks warmed thinking about Gaz with his mouth there, those soft lips and that clever tongue leaving marks that anyone could see. They’d always been flirty with each other; the kind of flirty that often left Soap wondering how serious Gaz actually was. Had Soap finally worked up the courage to push the issue? He wished he could remember .
There was another small bruise at his hip. There were a myriad of ways he could have gotten it, but the size and location made him think of hands gripping his hips, maybe while the hickies on his neck were being made, or maybe later. His mind swirled with possible scenarios.
Then again, maybe Soap just bumped into something.
It didn’t take the water long to get hot, the small space filling with steam, and when Soap stepped beneath it, it drew a low groan, aching muscles beginning to ease. He turned his face into the spray, rubbing at tired eyes and his still dry mouth, sloughing off the last remnants of sleep. He took a minute to categorize how he felt, where the sorest muscles were. It didn’t feel like he’d had sex, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. As much as Soap likes to bottom, he was just as likely to top if that’s what his partner wanted.
There was no use dwelling on it.
He focused instead of cleaning himself up. He would be better able to make sense of things when he wasn’t still half-asleep and has some food in him. His stomach gurgled as though to confirm the truth of his thought, and Soap huffed out a laugh, rubbing the bar of soap over himself.
When he stepped from the shower, he realized that all he had to wear was the boxers he had woken up in. He dried himself and slid them over his hips. When he returned to the room, Gaz was sitting on the newly made bed, a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants next to him.
“Your clothes from last night were ruined, mate,” Gaz said. “Lucky we made it to the room at all, honestly, but there was no saving them.”
Soap tried to parse Gaz’s words. He ruined his clothes but they made it to Gaz’s room in time. Was he ill? Had he been sick on himself? Had he wet himself? Of the two options, being sick down his own front was the least embarrassing.
“Appreciate you taking care of me,” Soap answered sincerely as he pulled the shirt over his head. When he emerged, Gaz was watching him. Studying him. Did he know that Soap had no memory of what had happened? Was this a test, and Soap had failed?
“You don’t remember what happened last night, do you?”
It had been a test, and he had failed.
“What makes you think that?” Soap answered as he slipped one leg, then the other into the sweatpants, tugging them up over his hips.
Gaz leaned back on his hands, still studying Soap. “Am I wrong?”
Soap wanted to say yes, to confidently assure his friend that his memory of the previous night was clear. But more than anything he wanted to know what had happened, and so he decided to swallow his pride and be honest. “No, you’re right. Feel like looping me in?”
Gaz tilted his head to the side. “Why don’t you tell me what you do remember, and we can work from there, hm?”
That sounded reasonable.
What did Soap remember? He remembered that they’d gone to the pub with some of the officers. It had been someone’s birthday, although he couldn’t say who. There had been music. Karaoke, maybe.
A flash of memory, suddenly, and Soap remembered a body pressing him against the wall in a dark corner, lips on his throat and hands on his hips. The memory was more sensation than detail, and he willed his brain to tell him who he was with.
Another flash of memory, peeling wet clothes from his body, an ache in his hip, a familiar voice as though heard through water, the words distorted.
Soap recounted what he remembered to Gaz who listened, confirming details as he went, waiting until Soap had finished before filling in the gaps.
“You met someone at the pub,” Gaz said, and as he did a face appeared in Soap’s memory: a man, tall and broad, with ginger hair and a neatly trimmed beard, green eyes. “He was intent on taking you home, but you kept insisting you were with friends. Things got heated when some of us stepped in on your behalf, telling him to back off. He did, but not before he called you a few unkind things, dumped a pint over your head and threw a few good punches.
“Dampened the mood, if you’ll pardon the pun. Your clothes were soaked, and you’d had quite a bit to drink by then, so I took you back to base, got you cleaned up.”
“So…we didn’t have sex?” Soap asked, sounding almost disappointed. The question slipped out of him unexpectedly, surprising them both.
Gaz’s brows raised then furrowed. “Why would you think that we’d had sex?”
Soap’s cheeks heated and he looked away. “When I woke up and was in my skivvies. And since I couldn’t remember what had happened, I just…assumed.”
“You were in no state for that,” Gaz said gently. “If you and I were to have sex, I’d want you to be present to both remember and enjoy it.”
“Are you just saying that the way you always do, or do you mean it?”
Gaz’s face was serious as he reached out to take one of Soap’s hands. “I know I’ve joked about a lot of things with you, Tav, but I wouldn’t joke about that.”
An anxious knot began to form in Soap’s stomach. “Does that mean you want to have sex with me?”
Gaz’s face remained serious, and he hadn’t let go of Soap’s hand. “How honest do you want me to be?”
Soap swallowed. There was a line they were approaching that they couldn’t uncross. “Completely,” Soap said, voice barely more than a whisper.
“That bloke at the bar? Watching him with you? I’ve never wanted to be someone else so badly. Can’t tell you how many nights I’ve fallen asleep thinking about you. How many times I wish I’d been brave enough to do more than joke around with you.”
Soap swallowed again, eyes flicking up to Gaz and away. “I felt guilty that if we had had sex that I didn’t remember it. I’d want to remember it, too.”
The admission hung in the air between them. Gaz’s fingers tightened slightly around Soap’s hand, but he didn’t let go. Neither of them moved, unable to decide how to proceed. They were standing on the precipice, all one of them had to do was jump.
The more time passed, the more Soap felt sure that if one of them didn’t do something the bubble of possibility might burst. He decided that if he wanted this, really wanted this, that he would have to jump first.
He stepped towards Gaz where he sat on the bed, the other man’s knees opening to accommodate him. Soap reached out to cup Gaz’s cheek, tracing his thumb along his bottom lip. Gaz looked up at him, eyes clear and warm, filled with an adoration that Soap had never noticed or hadn’t allowed himself to recognise as anything other than platonic. Gaz let go of Soap’s hand, his hands sliding up the back of Soap’s legs to grip his thighs gently. Feeling encouraged and emboldened, Soap cupped either side of Gaz’s neck, bending to touch their mouths together.
Gaz made a soft sound, eyelids fluttering closed, and then they were falling back onto the bed, Gaz’s hands moving from Soap’s thighs to his hips, as though they were made to fit there, still holding him gently as Soap settled on top of him. Soap kissed him deeper, and Gaz opened his lips to accept the curious brush of Soap’s tongue against his own.
“Wanted it to be you,” Soap breathed as he pulled away. Gaz blinked his eyes open, looking up at Soap’s flushed cheeks and spit slick lips. “When I saw the marks on my neck,” his fingers rose to touch them, “I wanted it to be you.”
Gaz leaned forward, pressed his lips to the hickies the man in the bar had left, slid his tongue along the skin, drawing it into his mouth to worry it between lips and teeth. When he pulled back there was a new mark there. “Well, it’s me, now,” he said.
Soap crashed their mouths back together, teeth clicking briefly as they found the right angle. Gaz wrapped an arm around Soap’s waist, rolling them until Soap was beneath him. Soap’s legs fell open to give Gaz space to settle between them, the solid weight of him an almost familiar comfort. Their bodies fit together, not like puzzle pieces, but like two people who had spent careful time carving out a space for the other.
Gaz’s hand slipped beneath the hem of Soap’s shirt, smoothing over his flank, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Soap arched into the touch, moaning into Gaz’s mouth, clutching at Gaz’s own shirt, torn beneath using it to keep him close and removing it altogether. In the end he did both, clenching his fist in the fabric as he dragged it up Gaz’s back, their lips parting just long enough for the fabric to slip over Gaz’s head, discarded to the floor.
“Fuck, Tav,” Gaz whispered, eyes skating over Soap’s face. He laughed softly. “What an idiot I’ve been. I should have done– said –something sooner. Can I?” he asked, lifting Soap’s shirt higher. Soap answered the question by grabbing the back of the neck himself and pulling it off in one smooth motion.
“Know that the answer to anything you ask me going forward is yes .”
Gaz swallowed, eyes going molten. “Noted.”
His hands dropped to the waist of Soap’s sweatpants, coaxing them down his hips. He drank in the sight of Soap’s body with naked want in his eyes.
“You just gonna look or you gonna fuck me?” Soap purred, and the words spurred Gaz into motion. His lips were back on Soap’s in an instant, and his own pants were hastily pushed down and kicked off. They both groaned at the first touch of skin-on-skin, their cocks sliding against each other.
Gaz pulled away, opening the drawer of the side table next to the bed, pulling out a bottle of lube and a condom. “I’m clean,” Soap said quickly at the sight of it.
Gaz grinned. “Me, too. But it makes for easier clean up.” His grin slipped. “Unless you don’t want me to?”
“No,” Soap rushed to reply. “No, it’s fine. I don’t mind. I’m a little surprised, to be honest. Most guys don’t want to wear a rubber.”
Gaz kissed the corner of Soap’s mouth. “Most guys don’t live in barracks with fifty other people where having cum leak out of your ass isn’t exactly ideal.”
Soap shivered at the mental picture, and then again at the touch of cool lube and the press of Gaz’s fingers teasing him open.
When Gaz reached for the condom the second time, Soap stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “No. I…I want to feel you.”
Gaz made a noise almost like a growl, crashing their lips together before pulling away with wild eyes. He slicked his cock and pressed against Soap’s loosened hole, cursing as the muscle slipped around the head, drawing him inside.
“Hey, look at me,” Soap said, coaxing Gaz to open eyes that had been squeezed shut tight. “I can take more. Come on.”
Gaz nodded, bearing forward, sliding home snug against Soap’s ass. “Christ, you feel so fucking good, Tav.”
“You, too,” Soap answered.
Gaz took a moment, letting out a slow breath. Then he gripped one of Soap’s thighs, pressing it up against Soap’s chest, and began to move.
Soap gripped Gaz’s bicep, the sheets, the head board, trying to find purchase anywhere he could as Gaz fucked into him with a steady, unhurried rhythm, each thrust hard and deep. Gaz was muttering a litany of filth, but if pressed as to what, Soap couldn’t say. Not that it mattered.
Gaz’s cock brushed his prostate and Soap arched off the bed with a moan. “Yeah? Right there?” Gaz asked, fucking his hips forward again, and Soap cried out again, thighs tightening around Gaz’s waist.
Again and again Gaz hit Soap’s prostate until he was near sobbing. His cock, which had been lazily drooling pre-cum on his stomach between them, was leaking steadily. “You close, Tav? Gonna come for me? Come on my cock?”
“Fuckin’ hell, Gaz,” Soap breathed. “You’re killing me.”
Gaz chuckled breathlessly. “Only a little death, though,” he joked and Soap covered his eyes, groaning.
“You’re worse than Ghost,” he said.
“Yeah? Have a lot of experience with the lieutenant in bed?”
“Fuck off,” Soap said.
“That’s not a no,” Gaz replied. He grinned victoriously when Soap’s only answer was another drawn out moan as Gaz hit his target once more, Soap’s cock spitting out another dribble of pre-cum. “Come on, Tav. Come for me, baby.” He closed his hand around Soap’s cock, giving the head a few quick, rough jerks. It was enough to have Soap arching off the bed again, his spend coating his chest and Gaz’s fingers as he worked him though his orgasm.
A moment later, Gaz’s mouth dropped open as his hips jerked, cock emptying inside Soap’s ass. He fell forward, slumped against Soap’s chest where they lay, panting against each other’s mouths as they caught their breath.
“Christ you’re a heavy fucker,” Soap said, pushing at Gaz’s shoulder. “Ge’rrof me.” Gaz laughed, rolling off Soap and onto the narrow bed next to him.
The two lay there, pressed together on the narrow bed. Soap waited for the post-sex awkwardness to settle in. For the crushing weight of what they’d just done to crash over them like a wave battering a dinghy against the rocks.
But it never came.
Instead all there was a sense of something reaching an inevitable conclusion. Like some way or another, they would have ended up here eventually.
Soap shifted to look up at Gaz only to find the other man gazing down at him, something in his eyes indicating that he was feeling the same way.