ʀɪᴄʜɪᴇ (beepbeep) wrote in evaluation, @ 2020-01-01 19:56:00 |
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“Okay.” The morning sunlight beat down on the sand surrounding them, but the overly large umbrella overhead did its work in keeping both of them from burning to a crisp while they worked. They could have probably managed indoors, secure in the relative privacy of a room, but Dan’s room was occupied by the rough equivalent of a lurking, hungry spider and Richie’s room contained a snoring warlock and neither was ideal for his purposes. So outside it was. Out here, they had the soft white noise of the waves and soothing warmth of the sun, and nobody to interrupt them. Dan wasn’t so naive as to think Rose couldn’t peep in, but he at least had space out here to pretend otherwise. Sometimes the illusion of privacy was enough to relax. Perched cross-legged on a lounge chair, Dan exhaled slowly and gave Richie a long, measuring look. “You and I, we’re kind of working from different places, so I figure the best place to start is to get a… closer look, for lack of a better term.” His smile tilted, crooked. “So if you’re okay with it, I’m going to try talking to you first, just to test the boundaries a little. It’ll be the same as hearing me like this, only… in your head.” If that didn’t work, then Dan would have to figure out why Richie had the kind of walls that would keep him out. Most people didn’t. But Richie was an unknown, with a power that nobody seemed to understand, and better safe than sorry when talking about somebody’s brain. At least they were in a place where Richie had a collection of Hawaiian overshirts (not his own collection, but whatever) and he could get away with wearing them - jeans too, and it was actually kind of chilly on the beach this early in the morning. Close enough to the water to appreciate the gurgling and gushing of the waves, but far enough to where he wasn’t sprayed with salt water when those foaming waves collided. It was mostly just a nature CD, live and in person. “Yeah, cool with me,” he nodded, lanky frame adjusting in his own lounge chair. Being that he was from Maine, he wasn’t used to anything tropical - though when he moved to LA, he frequented Malibu a lot. Rocky outcrops and popular with boogie boarders and surfers - what better place to indulge in the nose candy after consuming Kombucha? Some of the beach bars even had specific coke mirrors next to the sink. Are these cage-free eggs? asked the girls at supermarkets, mere hours before railing an entire line of coke cut with chemicals in some South American jungle, right off the toilet seat at a party. Anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. “I don’t have anything to hide - I mean, I’m a hot mess, but I’m sure you know that.” Oh, and don’t think Rose wasn’t going to eavesdrop - she would. But initially, the only thing she passed along to Dan was a little laugh, just like a glass bell. She knew he could sense her if she lingered so she didn’t - but she’d be back. This was too good not to miss. The only acknowledgement of that chiming laugh came in a tilt of Dan’s head, like he’d heard something in the distance, but his gaze remained steady on Richie. “I think that’s the going rate for this trip,” he allowed with a soft snort of laughter. “So far everyone’s a hot mess, even when they’re pretending otherwise.” Hard to hide that kind of thing from someone like Dan. His walls weren’t perfect and odd snatches of memories that didn’t belong to him crept in at night. So far, it hadn’t been anything too messy, and he’d been tired enough from Frozen Soviet Wasteland to sleep regardless, but. Better he get to reinforcing his own boundaries sooner rather than later or he was going to have words with somebody. Lots of cranky, probably nonsensical words, but words. “Right, here we go. Only talking to start, and if that goes without a problem, we’ll see about visualization.” He exhaled, fingers curling on the bend of his knees, and projected a focused, Can you hear me? Sweet Jesus--- Richie jolted, both mentally and physically. His jaw dropped a little, and he just - he tried to focus on something, tried to simmer down so his thoughts weren't all the droning buzz of bees. It took him a second to settle, but when he did, he inhaled a breath and exhaled, hands gripping the armrests of the chair. I can hear you, he replied. It was weird as shit, to think of Dan in his head - telepathy, it was a torrent of vines reaching out, seeking proximity of the closest mind, twining around the thoughts of other people. He wasn’t in deep yet, Richie could tell - it was just a stone skimming across water. Um - I know you’ve probably been in a lot of heads before, but just...be careful? Richie appreciated the willingness to assist with Seer 101 which was why he knew they had to be cautious with this. He already told Dan about Pennywise, about the Deadlights - he simply didn’t know what that would all look like, what it would feel like, in his own mindscape. Richie’s thoughts darted and flickered, fireflies waiting to be caught and contained. Pinning them down would be tricky, but that wasn’t Dan’s goal. Not really. There was the rich, warm sensation of laughter- a chuckle, the scent of something rich and woodsy, a faint sweetness on the tongue- and an encouraging, Good, we’re good. This was all easy stuff. Dan could do it when he was too young to know what words really were, the shape of them on the palate, but intent? Emotion? All of that stuff was basically instinct, and sharing it came like second nature. Pulling it all back, that was harder. Now close your eyes and breathe. All you’ve got to do is focus on your breath, okay? Until that’s all you’re thinking about. In and out, like the waves on the beach. People talked about mindfulness, about letting thoughts go to float past, but it was a hell of a lot more difficult than self-help gurus made it sound. He didn’t want to put too many expectations on it right now, on whether or not Richie could focus himself that much. What he needed was for Richie to relax enough that Dan could lead them both deeper, and that couldn’t happen if the other man was sitting there, worrying about the razorwire that might be waiting around to trap them both. Who knew? Maybe his mental landscape would be something simple and easy and bright, and all that worry would be misplaced. Richie did as Dan asked, lashes fanning shut and he breathed in and out - he sat here in this chair, he listened to the ocean, to the rhythmic percussion of the waves on sand. His limbs went loose - similar to how he became a puppet with cut strings during a Deadlights vision, but not that loose - and he tried to conceptualize calm. Calm. Shit like the forest after the light of dawn kissed all the colors into being. The way a lake glistened at night, mirroring the stars. The warmth of early spring. Chamomile tea?? He was doing it. Or at least, he thought he was. Maybe it helped that he wasn’t thinking about Derry, or Eddie’s body beneath the rubble on Neibolt, wasn’t thinking about Eddie at all - because those thoughts wouldn’t float past (you’ll float too), they would drag him down like cement shoes, to the bottom of the ocean. But he gradually got to a state where everything finally slowed - muted colors, a hazy path toward someplace deeper, images drifting by on a lazy river. Is that good? Dan could wait. His patience wasn’t boundless, not by any stretch, but he’d spent the better part of a decade sitting around at night, feeling the walls of the hospice breathe around him while he did nothing but try to still his thoughts. He’d sit and let dreams brush past- snippets of wars he’d never fought in, families he’d never loved, parties he’d never attended and children he’d never have- and he’d focus on the weight of the cat that usually sat on his lap, and try to remember that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to just exist. So he waited Richie out, feeling the ebb and flow of his attempts to relax, and warmed into approval when the flicker-gleam of the other man’s thoughts finally slowed into something less frenetic. Good, he answered, a bare whisper that didn’t create ripples in that lake. We’re going to follow that path. I’ll lead. You keep breathing. Simple enough, at least in theory. Dan could apply power and bludgeon his way through, but why? If he wanted to teach Richie how to center himself, they had to go step-by-step. Slow. Steady. There was a beat where he linked them, and frost crept along the lake’s edges, spiraling out in whispers of lace and the scent of snow-laden pine. That was Dan, fire and ice all the way down, a study in wild contrasts. Breathe, he reminded, and pushed ahead. Their minds were intertwined, so Richie didn’t feel like he was flailing - he could do what Dan asked, he could follow. The lake lay there, without a ripple in the silvery-blue water as if time itself had been frozen. It resembled perfect glass, unsmudged by sticky prints. The lakeside air was pungent though, incense, probably, tobacco - The trees breathed in and out with him, branches swaying gently. Where are we going? he asked, just once, but the way the air changed the further they traversed the path - he might have a clue. The theater and arcade in Derry had closed, nothing but staleness and torn Meg Ryan posters left behind, but for Richie - it was very much still a part of him. His mindscape was a theater, popcorn and butter and recycled air. Fear, sadness, joy; ozone and electricity, sweat and windex and whatever was spilled onto the carpet, to be soaked up there. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go in - beneath the floors, something lurked. In the very depths of that basement - Breathe, he’d just keeping doing that. Between them, amusement bloomed in rosy shades of gold-and-rose, a sunrise lurking somewhere behind the theater. That figures, he breathed out, the faint hint of laughter that piped high and childish carried behind on a breeze that smelled like burnt caramel. Dan didn’t hesitate at the entrance, instead pushing through against a subtle resistance. That would’ve been Richie’s hesitation, a slight tarry stickiness that dragged at their feet and made the door hinges creak in protest. It was easy to ignore, at least for now. The noise inside came as a surprise. If the exterior seemed ghostly-still, a deserted playground, the interior was light and sound and a handful of arcade games that flickered and beckoned. Their songs were discordant, the graphics a bright, bubblegum smear of color. So this is you. The way you’ve organized your memories and thoughts and feelings. If we played, we could see back. Do you really want to see back? Richie snorted a laugh but he couldn’t help his curiosity - because prior to this, he had no idea what it really looked like inside of his head. Now he knew and he just had to look at it. Really drink it in. It looked just like the theater in Derry, only brighter - far from the dark panels, the dark flooring. All those standup arcade games - Defender, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, the plink plink plink of coins, either inserted into slots or jangled in the aprons of employees. There weren’t any employees, of course, the sounds - those were apparently ingrained in Richie’s very being. He slid a coin into the first machine, and images flashed by on a reel - some were older, invoking golden nostalgia. Others were less warm, they were gnarled and suffocating - ’....are you trying to bone my cousin?’ humiliation get out of here-- Richie jerked back, leaving ‘nostalgia’ behind. The screen went dark and he breathed out, turning around, distracted by the pinball machines and the way the lights traveled to and fro, in zig-zag designs. One coin slid in, the machine came to life. Means I love you, too spelled out in gold, lights and strands of truth. Then he felt the floor shake. A warning vibration - and whatever was below them, it maybe didn’t appreciate the intrusion. Shit. Hard to look forward without looking back, Dan informed, enigmatic. His past informed his future in every way that counted, and they wouldn’t be standing in a space like this if Richie’s didn’t, just the same. The familiar zing of music, of games recorded decades ago and remaining here, unchanging. There was so much nostalgia sunk in that the walls breathed with it. The basement too, apparently. Startled by the tremor, crackles of ice ate across the floor, coating a few feet in a glossy, frozen sheen. It vanished again a moment later, evaporating in a soft cloud of steam that tasted like embarrassment and something sharply bitter- black coffee and mint, Sorry, oops. Dan regained his footing, pulling composure around him with a mild, It’s fine. This is your space. You can keep it safe. Picture barring these doors, or insulating the floor. I imagine boxes and lock things inside. He could pull one of his boxes in if need be, but he wanted Richie to do this if he could. Whatever was in the basement (and Richie knew it was whatever gave him the ability to see the future), it couldn’t just keep wandering around down there. It needed to be caged, sealed off, something - it was how Richie gained control. How he showed the damn thing who was boss, in his own head. Only it was probably easier said than done. But hey, you had to start somewhere. Insulating the floor, yeah, I can do that. He tried to picture it, working over and between the joists, extending to the corners - but the floor was shaking, like they were standing right on a fault line. I don’t - Pounding, throbbing, rushing, gathering like a waiting storm - it suddenly overwhelmed him at once and with a crack like thunder, the floor caved in beneath them. The sheer cacophony of where they were falling into was, literally, mind-numbing. Time slowed to a crawl and the light. The light - it was splintering right through them, right through their souls. No! Not this time, not this way. It was instinct to wrap himself- the essence of who and what he was, crackling snow and the scent of smoke, the intangible shine that had always surrounded Dan’s thoughts and set him apart from the normalcy he craved- around Richie’s more fragile mental shape. Richie had no barriers for this, no walls or defenses, and he’d go up in that concentrated light like an ant under a microscope without help. It burned. Dan had no reference for it at all, the howl and shriek of whatever they’d fallen into, like being swallowed alive by something with a thousand teeth made of acid and jagged edges of light. He tried to pull them back, to drag Richie from his own head into the frozen quiet of Dan’s own mental scape, but he couldn’t. They were stuck, caught the same as insects in amber, tattering to pieces under that monstrous onslaught. I’m sorry, was all Richie could think - but it sounded dim to him, like he was underwater. He could feel entire blades of light digging into him, this wild and untamed force - eventually it would overload them both, kill them both, and why wouldn’t Richie be better at this? He just needed to seal it away - The overload came, but instead of dragging them both downward into a pit of the sheer white that oscillated between hot and cold it shoved them upward - like riding a geyser, almost. Walls and a ceiling formed around them, a shield from the onslaught, the light beating against candied windows of a cathedral, alternating between shades of blood oranges and bright turquoise. Candles and golden candelabra supports, a massive scale - it loomed above them, the ceiling stretched on and on and on. Richie could sense them, mind waves that spun like galaxies and burned in the middle - the middle, where the light struggled to break out from. Build, Rose commanded, starting a wall, bricks, a ring around the base of power - she built upward and it slowed the leak, but the light was beginning to overflow again. Danny, both of you, build - help me hold it back. Because she couldn’t very well do it on her own - it was going to take a combined effort and what even was this thing? It was some shine. And boy, Rose sure did want it. Build, Dan echoed weakly, and whether or not he was encouraging himself or Richie remained to be seen. He felt half-blind, burnt out, but he’d been walling bad things away for three plus decades and this was almost second nature by now. It wasn’t a box this time, not his usual trick, but he could follow Rose’s lead. This time, anyway. Where she placed bricks, he reinforced and piled on- traditional bricks, cinder blocks, anything he could imagine that might give them another layer of protection against that screaming, burning light, brighter than stars and far more painful than staring right into the heart of a sun. Grout crept in, insulation, more layers that spiraled upward to dizzying heights, but it still felt unstable, fragile and cracking along the seams. Or maybe that was him. Or Richie. Build, she’d said, the kind of command that kept beating like a drum. All they had to do was hold the rhythm. That well of power, it seemed endless and unstoppable - but Richie was going to learn to put a valve on it, even if it killed him (it very well might). With it contained behind a wall of some kind, it may even actually be useful. Guess he’d see - it flowed through him like oxygen, like he was made for it, but he knew that he really wasn’t. It was raw, this influx of what felt like mind vomit with no bucket to contain it all. Yet. That’s what they’d fix so they all built those walls, hand over hand, strengthening and rings climbing higher and higher - the spillage was still seeping, light flowing over the wall, but they kept going. Rose kept going, she’d lead this expedition if she had to - another layer went up, taller and broader, and then it finally seemed high enough. So Rose shoved them both out of the psychic plane, for both their sakes - both tossed out of the ring like Lucha libre wrestlers. On the beach, Richie’s chair toppled backward because it felt like he’d been physically shoved as well as mentally - he ended up on the sand with an oomph. Nosebleeds and headaches for everyone. Yay. Dan’s eyes snapped open, white and panicky all the way around, but they immediately screwed shut again as sunlight assaulted him like a drill right to the skull. “Fuck,” he grunted, shaky fingers swiping a slow, crimson leak away from his upper lip. He hadn’t given himself a nosebleed like this in a while. He definitely hadn’t missed feeling this fucking hungover. Jesus. His whole head felt fragile, too loose on his neck, and if he felt like that, Richie had to be feeling like flattened garbage. “Exciting morning I see,” John drawled, masking concern with something dry and a little acidic. Most of that acid was aimed at Dan, along with a cutting look, and he crouched barefoot in the sand to brace Richie upright again at the shoulders. “Hullo, lamb. Been having adventures without me?” Thankfully Rose had dragged him out of bed for this one. It had been a rude awakening, sure, but she’d been right to send him out here to collect his idiot. Hers, he would leave under that umbrella, headache or no. Richie was definitely feeling like flattened garbage. Flattened garbage left in the microwave for about forty-five seconds, mostly that. “Fuck,” he echoed, back of his hand swiping across his upper lip and - yep, he also felt the remnants of that adventure. Just a bit of drip-dropping blood, no big deal. The only thing that he had yet to do was catch his breath. It was a little easier with John out here now though. Richie reached his hands out and grasped at his warlock, using him as leverage to be pulled up. “I’m okay,” he assured. “It was - I think we did it? Or we did something. It feels...less weird now.” His English at describing Deadlights fuckery sucked, but whatever. They’d done something, that was the important thing. “Dan - you okay?” “Mm. Less weird,” John repeated, sounding dubious. He steadied Richie, fitted neatly against his side and under a shoulder, and reached to swipe at the blood gilding the other man’s upper lip. Not a good look, he had to admit, but at least Richie was verbal and upright. It was better than he’d expected, given Rose’s warning. Dan grunted, eyes still firmly shut. “Yeah. M’okay.” His skull felt like it had developed a heartbeat, but that would ease given a little time. He’d just rest here a while and drag himself in later, maybe crawl under the covers and hibernate for the rest of the day. “Water,” he recommended, waving vaguely in the direction of the other men’s voices. “Cold cloth on the forehead and the neck. Maybe a nap.” “Yeah, I got it.” John didn’t sound impressed with that recitation, but he wasn’t much of a morning person in the first place, much less keen to wake up and find Richie was spending the early hours trying to scramble his brains. “C’mon, lamb. We’re going in. Get you something for that headache you’ve got.” “You do the same thing,” Richie managed to tell Dan before he headed off with John - who was grumpy about the whole situation, but Richie supposed he couldn’t blame him. It was kind of early. He slid his arm around John’s waist - he could walk just fine, but it was nice to hold onto him regardless. “I don’t have that much of a headache,” he assured. “The inside of my mind looks like a video game arcade and a movie theater mish-mosh. It’s like, way awesome and you’re in a pinball machine,” he purred, stopping for a second to kiss John like he meant it, hunger and fire and a nip of teeth. Also he was alive, so that was cool and he was kind of relieved about that too. “That right?” John sounded more amused than cranky now, dark eyes crinkling at the edges with a smile that Richie seemed intent on kissing off. That was all right, then. He could get behind any plan that justified a stupidly early morning wakeup call with a kiss or two. “Good t’know I rate enough to make it in the ol’ memory banks. Or memory arcade, in your case.” He snickered against Richie’s mouth, stole another kiss, and then resumed nudging the other man along until he could escort him back into their room- rumpled bed, scattered articles of clothing, and all. They were neither of them much for housekeeping, as it turned out. Outside, Dan slouched back on the lounge chair, one arm thrown over his face. That could have gone worse, he supposed. Also could’ve gone better. He almost missed pseudo-Russia, and wasn’t that a kick in the teeth? The bed definitely wasn’t made, and Richie didn’t see the point when they were going to just sleep in it again that night - then again, there was the notion that only five-year-olds didn’t make their bed, so. It just depended on your perspective. That same unmade nest of blankets and sheets, Richie pushed John down onto and climbed on top of him, pinning him there with thigh muscles and knees caging him in. “Of course you’re in my memory arcade. You’re like - you’ve earned enough tokens to get yourself a Chinese finger trap,” he hummed, pressing down to collect more kisses. “I love you,” he added more seriously, just a murmur of words. “It’s okay, really - it wasn’t his fault.” Dan’s, he meant - if anything, it was probably Richie’s fault, for having that shit in his head in the first place, but their initial ‘training’ session wasn’t that bad? He was all sweet reassurances and, meanwhile, Rose was not. Be more careful next time, you absolute blunderbuss, she snapped at Dan; he was still out on the beach, but she was in their room, dabbing at her goddamn nosebleed. You felt it. I don’t even know how he’s still alive, with that thing in there. Even just a little piece of it was crippling. “Never liked those bloody things. How ‘bout a plastic comb instead?” John countered with a lazy smirk, sprawled on his back and loose-limbed beneath the familiar weight of Richie’s lanky frame. He’d never been particularly keen on arcades, but who didn’t know the basics? Honestly, it might be criminal not to know, at least if you were from their particular generation. He reached up, carding newly-healed fingers through the wild nest of the other man’s hair, the blunt edges of nails gentle along Richie’s scalp. “Love you, too, so let’s try not to find creative new ways to kill ourselves this early in the morning, yeah? Was having a nice rest for a change.” This place was a vast improvement on the last. John couldn’t recall the last time he’d taken anything passing for a vacation and wanted to enjoy it here and now. Until the inevitable tsunami tried to drown them all, obviously. Fuck off, Dan countered, wearied. He felt bruised, inside and out. How Richie was functional at all with that kind of thing squatting in his brain, he couldn’t say. Maybe it helped, not knowing the power he housed. Dan knew now, and he was suitably fucking intimidated. On the other hand, Rose was probably planning a whole menu around it. We’ve got to get it out. At best their solution was temporary. That thing wouldn’t be walled up for long. Damned if he had a better idea right now, though. We? Rose asked with a scoff, since Dan seemed to act like he was too good for her help. He had some powerful shine, more than she’d seen in most anyone, but he had no idea how to use it - he had basically been stumbling along before, and it was a wonder he didn’t fuck things up further with his basic, kindergarten-level skills. Once he stopped being afraid though... Well, yes, anyway. It wasn’t like she cared or anything. We’ll get it out, she decided since, alright - she supposed she did care. About him, about that idiot he was trying to help, about the warlock who smelled like an ashtray. At least a little bit. More than anyone else here in this traveling circus. We have to go back in though, she warned him. Really study it. It’s walled up and we’ll be more prepared but - if we’re going to get rid of it we need to learn more about it. And you have to come with me. She almost suggested going back in right now, since Richie was tired and it’d be easy to slip into the deeper recesses of his mind, but - Dan was tired too. Richie, he was tired but also thinking dirty thoughts so maybe they should just not wander in for the sake of their virgin eyes. “‘...’m sorry,” he mumbled, edge of his glasses pushing up against John’s throat when Richie buried his face there. “I just thought that since I wasn’t nerfed I could start trying to figure this shit out. But I’ll wait at least twenty-four hours before trying something else. Promise.” Both of us, Dan agreed, not half-so reluctant as he ought to be. Power or no, Dan could readily acknowledge that he was out of his depth with whatever that was. He didn’t think even Rose knew, but she stood a better chance at figuring it out than he did. So between them, maybe they could fix it before Richie’s brain started to leak out of his ears or something godawful. Not right now, though. Dan needed some time to recover or it would be his brain at risk of being scrambled. Chuckling low in the back of his throat, John reached to whisk those glasses off. They were too fragile for what he had in mind and so far he hadn’t seen an optometrist in this fancy assortment of services offered at the resort. “S’all right, just take it slow. Pattern holds, we’ve got a whole week to see about that beastie in your head.” He ducked his chin, pressing a kiss to Richie’s temple. Sounded like he’d need to have a more serious chat with Rose about the whole thing later, but it could wait. John hadn’t intended to get out of bed this morning at all, and now he was going to bend his own stubborn will toward keeping them both here until at least noon. “I have a feeling this week will go faster than the last week did,” Richie sighed, woe, since time always flew when you were on what looked like a suspicious vacation, courtesy of your mysterious, omnipotent kidnappers. But he could see the benefits in spreading out the fun of figuring out the hot dumpster fire that was the beastie. No sense in consolidating everything, so his brain exploded all at once instead of in little increments. Wiggling on John like a glow worm, Richie tugged at the top of his shirt, pulling it down enough so he could busy himself with leaving a purple bruise below John’s collarbone. Using his lips, not anything available for bludgeoning the guy - they’d both been bruised enough, in the not-so-fun ways. It was time for a switch. “Why are you still wearing clothes?” he grumbled. “If I’m gonna let you go back to sleep after waking you up you can’t be wearing anything.” Richie probably wasn’t wrong on that account. Their time in Schitt’s Creek had flown, while the whole toy factory debacle felt like it lasted a few hundred years. So this likely would feel like a fleeting taste of sunshine and coconut, and they’d be back to some sort of misery soon enough. Which was really just reason to enjoy every moment while they could. “Cos somebody had to go do the stupid thing outside, lamb, and that meant I had to put on clothes to go scrape that somebody up off the sand,” John reminded, dry. “This isn’t one of those naked resorts.” It would be a pity if they weren’t accompanied by so bloody many children. He snorted and wiggled, skimming his shirt off and tossing it aside before snaking his hands up beneath Richie’s eye-searing choice of wardrobe for the morning. Richie let out a chuff of air from his nostrils, obviously highly offended. But John was getting naked so he supposed he couldn’t complain too much. About anything. He also did his beloved a favor and took off his choice of eye-searing wardrobe, the Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned and thrown with the rest of the scattered clothes (he’d get those later, really). “How about we pretend it’s a naked resort?” he suggested, grabbing ahold of John’s pants and the way he tugged at them, you’d think they were personally offensive. Or burning his hands - off, off, off. “Like where you used to take your groupies when you were in a band. Can I have an auuutograph?” he simpered, teasing. “Please, please, I’ll suck your dick.” Well. He’d do that without an autograph, to be fair. “In this room, we can pretend,” John agreed, readily. So long it was just the two of them, anyway. They’d let that little witch pop by last night and she’d seemed uneasy enough. If they’d been nude when she turned up, John’s fingers would probably still be caged in splints. Apparently self-restraint was a thing they’d be learning to practice. Terrible, really. He snorted a laugh and tugged at Richie’s hair, fingers sifting along until they curled against his nape. “We were never big enough for groupies. Or autographs.” They’d barely been enough to rate performing in dingy pubs and the kind of places that even roaches avoided on principle. But it was cute Richie thought otherwise. Narrow hips lifted, and he let Richie help shimmy pants off and aside with a smug grin. “But this is not where I try to dissuade you from sucking anything you fancy,” he added, waggling his brows. He wasn’t crazy, thanks. He actually hadn’t gotten a chance to suck anything he fancied, not since the land of maple syrup and geese, so Richie appreciated the freedom and options, the choices, regarding such things now. Before they no doubt got tossed into a place where basic food needs weren’t met, or they were too sick to do anything but live by the toilet. “Oh, is that what you want, maybe?” he asked, cuddling up with a Constantine who was sans clothing - the way Richie preferred him (and he too was sans clothing, after ditching the jeans). Sleeping naked held many great health benefits, it was in a medical journal somewhere, probably. “I kind of wanted to just fuck you through this mattress.” Molding his body to John’s, Richie slung an arm across his chest, tangling their limbs. “Get your autograph too, maybe. You can sign my face.” “A man of simple and direct tastes,” John crooned, eyes crinkled with laughter. He did appreciate that Richie never let a thought pass without giving it voice. It kept things honest, if nothing else. Also entertaining, but he supposed that was probably a matter of taste. Luckily his sense of humour ran toward jokes about cock. He pressed a kiss to a bare shoulder and got a healthy handful of a surprisingly perky ass just to give it a squeeze. “Anything you want, lamb, I’m flexible.” If asked, he’d do his best to prove it, even. Mostly he wanted to make sure Richie was up to more than taking a nap to sleep off the morning’s adventure. His ass was delightfully perky, thank you, and Richie made a rumbling sound in appreciation when he got some attention there. Though now that there was nothing between he and John, literally, and he was soothed by the closeness and the warmth of him - it was like his brain finally began to come down off the high of adrenaline, from practically being scrambled in his skull. “When I wake up,” he promised, eyes closing. “And when you wake up.” Because it wouldn’t be any fun if John was asleep while Richie was trying to be sexy - that sort of thing didn’t happen often. Mostly because he sucked at it. “I wanna see how flexible you are.” Naptime. Just a tiny one. Considering Richie always had energy to burn, and could barely sit still half the time, he’d be raring to go in short order. There it was. Honestly, John had banked on the crash a little sooner, but Richie liked to do things in his own time and his priorities tended to get a little skewed away from self-preservation for some reason. That would be something to work on after they sorted the beastie. See? They had a schedule. It was sort of loose and hinged a lot on how much time they wanted to spend naked, but they’d make it work. “Mhm. Anything you want,” he repeated, soothing. More sleep wouldn’t hurt either of them. Humming, low and scratchy in the back of his throat, he tugged the sheets up and closed his eyes as well. Maybe a rocky start to the day, but things were looking up. |