Entry tags:
Beheld // for John
1st October, 2020
The ride home is quiet but edged with a lovely tension that has both of them sat quite close, angled toward each other as they alternate between exchanging shy smiles and ducking their glances elsewhere. Martin reaches out to curl his hand into John's, running his thumb gently over his knuckles, blushing faintly as if this sort of easy tenderness is in anyway novel. But it isn't novelty; it's eagerness. He wants far more than these little, chaste touches; he can't stop thinking about what he wants, how much and how badly. It's all he can do to contain himself.
The moment they're outside the car and moving quickly toward the building, that containment starts to crumble away. Martin lets slip a sheepish little giggle, equal parts amused at himself and excited almost to the point of nervousness, accompanied by a sort of fluttering in his stomach. Ridiculous. Like they're on a first date; like that was only their first kiss.
It had been a bloody good kiss, is the thing, and it carried intentional weight, meant to overwrite and re-imagine what was actually, technically, their 'first.' That weight was not simply imagined, nor did it vanish; they're both still carrying it and being carried by it, propelled along with a mutual, unspoken urgency. He only lets go of John's hand to fumble for his keys, hastening to let them inside, and the moment he does, the moment they're out of the brisk autumn air, he can't even make it to their flat. He pivots on his heel and presses close, pulling John in by the strap of his bag to kiss him again. The tape recorder still sits clipped on, perhaps even still running (Martin hasn't even thought to check since John switched it on in the maze), but they can deal with that shortly. Right now, it's bloody dashing, and Martin means to enjoy himself.
The ride home is quiet but edged with a lovely tension that has both of them sat quite close, angled toward each other as they alternate between exchanging shy smiles and ducking their glances elsewhere. Martin reaches out to curl his hand into John's, running his thumb gently over his knuckles, blushing faintly as if this sort of easy tenderness is in anyway novel. But it isn't novelty; it's eagerness. He wants far more than these little, chaste touches; he can't stop thinking about what he wants, how much and how badly. It's all he can do to contain himself.
The moment they're outside the car and moving quickly toward the building, that containment starts to crumble away. Martin lets slip a sheepish little giggle, equal parts amused at himself and excited almost to the point of nervousness, accompanied by a sort of fluttering in his stomach. Ridiculous. Like they're on a first date; like that was only their first kiss.
It had been a bloody good kiss, is the thing, and it carried intentional weight, meant to overwrite and re-imagine what was actually, technically, their 'first.' That weight was not simply imagined, nor did it vanish; they're both still carrying it and being carried by it, propelled along with a mutual, unspoken urgency. He only lets go of John's hand to fumble for his keys, hastening to let them inside, and the moment he does, the moment they're out of the brisk autumn air, he can't even make it to their flat. He pivots on his heel and presses close, pulling John in by the strap of his bag to kiss him again. The tape recorder still sits clipped on, perhaps even still running (Martin hasn't even thought to check since John switched it on in the maze), but they can deal with that shortly. Right now, it's bloody dashing, and Martin means to enjoy himself.
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And then he breaks the kiss, and his fingers curl into a fist.
"Right," John muses, leaning back enough to give Martin a calm, assessing look. "Where to begin with you?"
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John's ridiculously good at this, really; beautifully adept at playing this part, taking control, rendering Martin so completely helpless. Martin could get lost thinking about how lucky he is, if John left any room for thought; as it is, the gentle tug on his hair, the haughty look in his eyes, the smug tone of his voice, it all combines to immobilize him, and it's all he can do to breathe and to meet John's eyes, waiting eagerly for whatever's next.
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"First..." John begins, his free hand lifting from Martin's waist and instead closing gently around one of Martin's wrists. Martin's hands are still braced against John's chest, and while that isn't a problem yet, John can easily imagine it becoming a distraction in a minute or two. That said, he doesn't have enough hands to both pin Martin's wrists to the wall and make good on the promise of those undone buttons. He'll just have to improvise.
To that end, he guides Martin's hand down and back until Martin's palm is pressed flat against the wall. "I'll have your hands here," he says as he repeats the move with Martin's other arm, "until I say otherwise. Understood?" He punctuates the question with an incremental tightening of his fist.
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"Y-yes," he answers, breathless but intent upon replying when prompted. Another tremor passes through him; he couldn't keep still even if he wanted to, so desperate to be touched, to be allowed to touch himself, and knowing that permission is a ways off yet. He swallows thickly, his eyes darting between John's, unable and unwilling to look anywhere else. Again, he whispers, "Yes."
It isn't just a promise of obedience, this time; it's assurance, confirmation, a plea. It's yes, I want this, I want you, please, compressed into a single fluttering syllable because he doesn't trust himself to offer more than that. The answer is all over him, in his shallow breath, his transfixed gaze, his flushed face, his wild heartbeat. It's the way he twitches and whimpers at the gradually tightening fist in his hair. It's all of him, an all-consuming surrender, an all-consuming trust. Whatever John means to do with him, and he has some guesses on that front, he is ready and eager to receive.
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"Good," he says, lifting his free hand to run a casual, proprietary forefinger along the line of Martin's collar bone and down the V of exposed skin he's just uncovered. He flexes his wrist slightly, just enough to coax Martin into tipping his head a little to one side, and then leans in to nuzzle against the arch of his neck. "The better you behave," he pauses to brush a kiss against Martin's pulse point, "the sooner you'll be free to... attend to yourself."
Perhaps not his best lofty euphemism, but he's learned how to compensate for weaker dialogue. He presses his lips against the soft skin of Martin's throat and begins to suck patiently, gentle enough to not leave any lasting marks. That will have to be earned.
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"I—I'll do my b—" he starts, a half-considered attempt to reply, but the word evaporates into a moan and a sharp hiss of breath when John starts sucking slow and careful at his throat, and Martin's fingers curl tight against the wall as he struggles to stay where he's been told. He wasn't expecting it to be so difficult to keep still without being explicitly held down, when he so commonly releases this kind of tension with desperate writhing, but in some ways that only enhances the feeling of being trapped. His eyes flicker open again, though he has trouble keeping them that way and he can't really look properly with John bent down close and himself held at this angle. That doesn't matter; he wants to see John, whatever he can, like even after so much he still needs to confirm this is real.
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Perhaps it's because his mind is already focused on what Martin wants that he gets a vague sense of something, or perhaps he's attuned to being watched — or some combination of the two. But the awareness of Martin's intermittent gaze and the reasoning behind it unfurls in his mind, and he hesitates again, this time because he's just... touched. That, and he understands the impulse; there are times when he can hardly believe this is still real, either.
But 'maudlin' isn't the mood they're going for, so John works his patient way up to the hinge of Martin's jaw. "Real enough for you?" he murmurs, punctuating the question with a light nip against Martin's earlobe.
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It is difficult to keep his eyes open as John continues wandering along his throat, up the line of his jaw. In the end he succumbs, letting them flutter shut just moments before John arrives at his ear. And then John speaks — gentle, quiet, bewildering, the words a confusion lacking context for the fraction of time it takes for Martin to realize what's just happened, what John's done. The same span it takes John to nip at his earlobe.
"Ah—!" he yelps, and one hand nearly flies up from the wall to grip at John's arm as he's suffused with an overwhelming desire to pull him in close. He only barely manages to override it, twitching and flattening his palm harder against the wall. Christ.
It isn't just the sensation, and that should be obvious from his reaction, far greater than what such a little teasing gesture would normally produce. John has never done this before, never so explicitly Known something like this, certainly never used it with such playful intent. Martin has a fairly good idea of how much shame John harbors over the slip-ups he's had in the past, the times he's Known and Asked too much. That he's used it here, now, to taunt him in such a coy, gentle way, it's... it's a reinforcement he never could have expected of something he will never take for granted: that John trusts him. John trusts him.
Martin leans as close as the hand in his hair will allow, pressing his cheek briefly to John's and breathing against his ear, "Nearly."
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But some implications can't be shunted aside so casually, and it isn't until Martin responds well that John appreciates that he could have responded badly. Not that he should have, or even that it was likely — Martin has never begrudged him these little accidents before, and not every unvoiced sentiment feels like a secret — but that the press of his cheek and the ready rejoinder are not things John should take for granted. That they are the result of far more than just a willingness to play along.
He can't take them for granted, and he can't bear to show his appreciation by way of the light torments he's subjected Martin to so far. So he draws back, meeting Martin's gaze for a breathless beat. The hand that was fisted in his hair relaxes, the other lifts to frame his face, cradling him as if he is some unbearably precious object. "Martin..." he starts, his gaze darting between Martin's eyes as he struggles to translate his swell of emotions into words, to assemble a sentence that might adequately convey how loved, how safe Martin makes him feel, and how much John wants to give him.
And then he loses patience, both with himself and with the whole bloody concept of speech, and abandons it all in favor of dipping his head to kiss him, deep and almost desperate. He kisses him until he has to pull back for air, and then he grasps a little clumsily for Martin's hand and draws it up, depositing it on his own shoulder in implicit invitation, underscored with a whispered, "Please."
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He wraps both arms around John and pulls him close, one hand splayed against John's back and the other clasping gently around the back of his neck. He doesn't stop kissing John, at once fervent and reverent, breathing him in, for a long time. Only gradually does he begin to slow, do his plaintive moans and murmurs settle and soften, does his desperation turning to something warm and gentle.
"John," he whispers against John's lips, a subtle punctuation, though precisely what sort he isn't wholly sure.
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Things slow the way they usually do, gradual and organic, until John finds himself resting his forehead against Martin's as he catches his breath. Well. Not maudlin, at least, but he can't help cracking a faint smile over just how far off-track they've managed to veer. "You," he murmurs, punctuating it with a brief, gentle kiss, "have distracted me."
Not distracted enough to forget the original trajectory, though. One hand is already in Martin's hair, and he curls his fingers deliberately, though he doesn't tighten them just yet. "Hands on the wall," he instructs, even as his thumb gently skates over Martin's cheek.
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He could be more playful; he could pretend at resistance, request some escalation by some sort of innocuous mischief. But that doesn't always hold appeal. John is good at inhabiting that role; but he's good at lots of things, and right now he clearly has a direction in mind, and Martin has no desire to delay that or draw it out. John will take care of him, and he wants that at John's pace; he wants to be good.
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The corners of his mouth curl upward once he's chosen a spot, and he tugs Martin's collar well out of the way, so he'll have plenty of room to work. "Right," he murmurs, before leaning in to blaze a slow trail down Martin's neck, his fingers still twisted around Martin's hair in implicit readiness. He pauses to suck gently at his pulse point, testing as much as teasing. He's not sure how well Martin will be able to keep his hands still without physical assistance, and he may as well get a sense of it now, before he really needs to focus elsewhere.
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Martin sucks in a gasp when John pulls his collar aside and leans in, meandering a line of soft kisses down his neck and sucking softly before he's even reached his target. Martin lets out a sharp, plaintive cry, his fingers curling against the wall as if in search of something to grip onto. Christ, this is difficult, holding still without being held. He can't quite stop himself from wriggling ever so slightly, more a subtle shifting of his hips and a desperate little quiver than anything, as he whispers on a stuttering breath, "Please—"
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Not that he strictly needs one. He's already chosen the perfect place to begin. John dips his head lower and seals his lips around a spot just below Martin's collarbone and a bit left of his sternum, this time sucking with deliberate force and purpose. The other little marks he's made will be gone within the hour; he intends for this one to last.
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"Oh, God," he moans, wanting, needing to touch himself, and it feels so soon for that but John knows he can't last long like this, and he sucks in a sharp breath before struggling to ask: "C-can I—please, John, I need to—"
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"Whatever you need," John murmurs magnanimously, kissing two of Martin's freckles in slow succession. Then he drifts to another spot, a little more to the left — and more easily hidden — and clamps down again, drawing Martin's skin between his teeth.
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"John—" he whispers, his breath stuttering in his throat as a sharp, telltale shiver moves up his spine. "Oh, Christ, I'm—"
He reaches out with his free hand to grip John's arm, gently holding him at bay as he half-crumples over on himself, gasping and shuddering until he's spent. He remains there a few seconds more until he leans forward and lets his head come to an awkward rest against John's shoulder, still curled over and breathing hard. "Mnh," he says, a start to something more substantive hampered by the inevitable wave of warm, pleasant exhaustion.
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John draws back at once, though only a little, sticking close enough to offer support. The grip he has on Martin's hair relaxes, and when Martin's head comes to rest on his shoulder, John's hand naturally curls into a fond, supportive cradle around the back of Martin's neck, his thumb rubbing a gentle arc against the base of his skull. His other hand lifts to brace against Martin's elbow, and he chuckles softly in response to Martin's wordless assessment.
"Happy to oblige," he drawls, turning his head and pressing a kiss to Martin's hair (now considerably more tousled than it was when they came in).
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Martin desperately needs to attend to himself in a less enjoyable sense, now; every time this happens he thinks they've really got to get better about prepping, but then that never feels worth it in the moment. He's not sorry at all it happened this way, but he does feel a touch sheepish now, and he wants to get cleaned up before anything else happens. He's still a bit shaky, though, so he doesn't rush with this, either; he groans softly as he pulls himself upright, lifts his head to meet John's eyes and holds his gaze for a moment. He smiles, faint and fond and without a trace of self-consciousness, and leans in to kiss him properly, brief but every bit as tender as he deserves.
"I love you," he murmurs with gentle finality before pulling back. Then he sighs, coming out of his warm haze enough to extricate himself a bit awkwardly and cut directly for the WC.
"I'll just be a moment," he says, waving John vaguely toward the bedroom. "Go and get comfortable."
It isn't meant to imply anything — he has some vague notions of what might come next, perhaps giving John a little massage or just kissing him a whole hell of a lot. It's getting easier not to worry about it so much, when he knows John still has trouble answering the question of what he might want. So there need not be anything specific. Comfortable is just what it means: Martin wants to have a bloody lie-in, and he expects John is on more or less the same page.
He doesn't even bother getting a change of clothes, just leaves his things in the hamper and steps into the shower only long enough to clean himself up. What with the jaunt through a bloody corn field, he probably could stand to have a proper wash, but he's not interested in getting his hair wet now, or being away from John for longer than is absolutely necessary. So he dries himself off briskly and wanders back into the bedroom with the towel wrapped around his waist.
He finds John waiting for him on the bed and offers him another smile, this one a bit shy for no good reason, before turning away to get changed. He pulls on his pajama bottoms and lets the towel drop, and then he pauses in front of the mirror before putting on his shirt.
Martin very rarely stops in front of the mirror; he doesn't like to look at himself most days. His relationship to his own reflection is utilitarian and almost non-existent when he isn't dressed. But he stops now, no thought to spare all the parts of himself he doesn't like; all he can see are the marks John left standing bright against his skin. Two of them, perfect little red bruises just below his collarbone and off to the side, one just on the edge of where his collar might rest. A slight touch of danger there, so to speak, but only enough to make it exciting; they'll stay hidden so long as he's careful. A little secret between them, a sign of something special, something John did for him, because he wanted to.
It is an old refrain, but never a tired one, as far as Martin is concerned — that no one else has ever done this for him, ever loved him this much, taken such care with and of him. He has never before been given hickeys he could admire, and this is still new enough that it feels momentous every time. Martin finds himself grinning outright, still scarcely aware of himself even as he reaches up to brush a finger delicately along one of the marks.
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"Love you, too," he replies, before stepping back to let Martin toddle off to the bathroom. He makes his own way into the bedroom, where he changes out of his public-facing outfit and into soft pajama bottoms and one of his lighter jumpers, something far more befitting the lounging he suspects is going to make up the rest of their day. Then he settles himself on the bed to wait, leaning back against the headboard and already feeling rather cozy.
It's a faint surprise when Martin wanders in wearing just a towel, though John realizes a beat later that it was his only option: he hadn't grabbed anything before heading into the WC. John could have brought him something, and the missed opportunity gnaws at him until he sees Martin's smile, which is a little shy, but not uncomfortable.
And there's no clearly-defined reason why it should be. It isn't something they've discussed. Martin has changed in John's presence before, though it's always been quick and a little bit furtive — not unlike the way John had changed before Martin had expressed a desire to look at him. And John has never mirrored that desire, largely for the simple reason that he's never felt it. Aesthetics are less important to him, and whatever idle curiosity he might have felt about what Martin looks like had always seemed like a small thing to set against the possibility of Martin's discomfort. Once Martin turns to rummage through their drawers, John lets his gaze slide over to the wall, politely averted.
Not so averted that he doesn't note Martin's hesitation in front of the mirror, though, and his gaze flicks back over in spite of himself. He sees Martin's reflected grin, broad and so entirely unselfconscious that John feels an immediate lurch of guilt for having observed it at all. Christ, can't he just let the poor man have a moment in peace? He bullies his gaze to the relatively safer territory of Martin's back, confident (or at least hopeful) that there will be little to see there.
Except he's wrong: the freckles that he's seen poking out of Martin's collar are, as it turns out, only the straggling edge of a broad dusting that covers Martin's back and shoulders. John straightens with a blink, a charmed smile tugging at his lips and all thoughts of politely deferring to Martin's presumed modesty fleeing his head. He loves Martin's freckles, but he'd had no idea there were so many of them. They're everywhere. It's darling.
"Martin," he says, his tone soft and wondering and carrying the faint suggestion that Martin has been holding out on him, "you've got freckles."
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But maybe he's just seeking some new place to put his attention. It could be he was watching Martin in the mirror and saw them just so in the light, or something like that. And it occurs to Martin rather belatedly that he's never been in such a state of undress around John so casually before, and he didn't even think to wonder if John was comfortable with that.
So he turns halfway back and starts to pull his shirt on, not wanting to draw any further attention to himself or the situation. "Y-yeah?" he says, chuckling softly, deciding to play into it. "So I've been told."
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And that's when reality catches up with him, and it occurs to him that Martin going for his shirt probably has far more to do with Martin's comfort zone than anything else. Before, he had presumed that his general lack of interest in the aesthetics of Martin's bare skin had coincided with Martin's own preference for remaining clothed: a little convenience that never needed to be addressed. But there’s no reason his sudden change of heart should prompt an answering one in Martin.
John lowers his hand, cheeks flushed and brows drawn in consternation. "I just... I want to see them," he explains, his voice lower and considerably more sheepish. "I-if that's okay."
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John's being serious about this, he realizes, which is confusing for a moment. Martin looks from John's sheepish, flushed face down to his shirt without understanding the connection until, finally, he blurts, "Wh—you mean on my back?"
He knows there are freckles back there, sort of, in that they're just... around. He certainly doesn't think about them, doesn't consider them worth any sort of note. But Christ, it's so rare John asks for anything, particularly with such intensity, the possibility of denial doesn't even come to mind.
"I—sure," he says, coming to join him on the bed, shirt in hand. He's not cold and he can't find it in himself to be shy right now. If John wants to have a look, then, well... he should. Martin wants to give him anything, whatever he could possibly want, no matter how small or unexpected it might seem to him. So he sits down gingerly, angled somewhat away so John can see, feeling a bit off-kilter but certainly not uncomfortable.
"Is it really that many?" he asks curiously, twisting back in a rather silly attempt to look.
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When Martin puts his startled question, all John can muster in response is an uncertain, "Y-yes?" Did he not know already? Well, that wouldn't be the strangest thing; it's not easy to get a good look at your own back. Maybe no one else had commented on it before (yet another mark against his previous entanglements, Christ).
But then Martin's surprise softens a little — not fading entirely, but not calcifying into embarrassment, either — and he comes over to the bed and sits, his back angled towards John for inspection. John blinks, a faint, cautiously optimistic smile tugging at his lips as he glances between Martin's curious face and the freckles in question.
"Well, it's not—" he pauses, wondering if there's any subjective means of measuring relative freckle amounts and then deciding he doesn't care, "excessive." Whatever that means. "But there are quite a few." His eyes drift over the spray of them scattered across Martin's shoulder blades, and he releases his own arm so he can reach over and brush the back of his index finger over a little group of them. "They're lovely," he adds with quiet, thoughtless certainty.
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