Re: The Apartment: Jamie/Seven
Jamie knew about balance. He felt it in his body most days, where minute changes made a difference and the spring of a floor and the flex of a tired muscle might make the difference between leaping high and falling far. And that was the thing, right? There was way far to fall, and the equilibrium that made shit certain, was thrown wild. His world had shifted? It had been a way small world, maybe quieter for six weeks, with the traffic of class and class where he taught, instead of learned and the body's aches cataloged at the start and finish of the day as Cat, buried herself in the space between his shoulder and throat - small and furry and somehow way more comforting in silence than attempting to talk to Si or Amy or Mars about the terror that bit through him like cold wind if he let it.
He wasn't small and he was like, trying to pull shit together when Seven didn't look like he felt any kind of uncertain. But the guy hadn't doubted? He had said his thing, straight. What Seven wanted was way clear, like he'd considered it and it was a step over a line for the guy, instead of fucking free-fall. It was free-fall, for Jamie and he sized Seven's grin with the jerk of his chin upward, as he fished his beanie off his head and worked his fingers through his own hair. Seven's looked long? Like, longer than he'd seen the guy, messier than he'd seen the guy look. It wasn't bad? It looked less severe, way less businessman in the city close-cropped.
"Don't give me shit," Jamie said, with the twist of knuckles that put dangerous drag-lines into seriously expensive fabric. "She's a cat. I'm just amazing."
There was a thing the guy did, both in the pressure at Jamie's back that pulled him in, and in the slide of his palm against the scuff of Jamie's half-grown beard, that was the kind of shit Jamie didn't like, get off on as a thing - but worked because the shit was Seven's? Jamie wasn't like, tall, yeah, news, whatever, Wayne Sleep wasn't tall, fuck you. But he didn't get off on domination, on the kind of shit guys pulled when they figured you were twink-material or whatever, being made to feel smaller, weaker, girlier? Yeah nah, Jamie's dick didn't get hard from being reminded that he wasn't like, the big guy in the thing and he made a deliberate thing of fucking with gestures like those ones because it fucked him off.
But it wasn't like, a power-play? He didn't think, as the slide of Seven's tongue over the fat of his lower-lip was silky, like, slow? Not reverential, just really fucking leisurely, which was probably good because Jamie wasn't like, feeling way up for getting naked. He hadn't ftr. Not even like, by himself, because the whole thing was parcelled up tight and packed in with all the reasons why he didn't feel like leaving bed any time other than class.
"So far, exactly like before," Jamie said, deliberately, a little lazily as he took a half-step back, let the clamped grip on the guy's clothes go, and smiled with studied chill. Because yeah, nah, he wasn't letting shit hang out raw, it was dumb af, and he still couldn't let go the nagging, snagged-nail feeling of uncertainty.