Bottoming From The Top
Bandslash, NC-17, ~2600 words. Pete/Ryan. Warnings: dominant masochism, pain play.
EDIT: This fic has been podficced! Thank you, crazybutsound!
***
Pete isn't really involved in the decision to start hurting Ryan Ross for pleasure.
They're just hanging out at Pete's place one day, idly chatting about nothing in particular, and Ryan breaks a silence by saying, "I want you to grab me by the hair and fuck my throat until I choke on your cock."
Pete has to take a moment to process this. It's not the sort of thing he's used to hearing from his friends, at least when they're not drunk and laughing their heads off. "Any particular reason you're mentioning this now?" he finally asks.
"Because I want you to do it now," Ryan says, and he says it like a command: do it now.
Pete does.
At first he thinks Ryan's just talking about a blowjob, that the part about grabbing his hair and making him choke was just dirty talk. Then he has his pants open and his dick in Ryan's mouth, and Ryan pulls off and says in an irritated tone, "No, really, fuck my throat. I'm not doing all the fucking work here."
Pete fists his hands in Ryan's hair and rams in hard, and Ryan hums, "Mhmm," around his mouthful of cock, like Pete's a kid who finally tied his fucking shoes right or something. Pete thrusts harder and Ryan takes it all. His face is turning red from the lack of air, but he's got his jeans unzipped and his hand down the front, rubbing furiously, so Pete figures he's okay. He yanks a handful of hair a little viciously, just testing the waters. Ryan's moan doesn't sound like an objection at all.
Ryan comes within a few minutes, splattering Pete's shoes and the floor. When the aftershocks have calmed down, he reaches up and gently but firmly disentangles Pete's fingers from his hair. He slides his mouth off, stands up, and wanders away.
"I didn't come," says Pete.
Ryan doesn't even turn around. "So? You have hands. I'm gonna go fuck with your guitar, I have an idea for that bridge I was telling you about. You'd better clean that up, jizz is a bitch when it dries."
This is how Pete starts hurting Ryan Ross for pleasure.
For Ryan's pleasure, that is.
***
The next time it happens is at Ryan's apartment. Pete goes in expecting something of a sexual nature, after the last time. It's two in the afternoon and most of Ryan's neighbors are at work. This is important, Ryan explains, because they're going to be loud.
"You're going to spank me," Ryan tells Pete.
"Oh," Pete says.
"Do it hard. I'm not talking about the wimpy porno spankings where the dude just pats the chick's thighs or whatever. Turn my skin red, got it? I want to feel it. Keep going until you can't take it anymore. Your hand will give out before my ass does. Let me know about a minute before you stop."
"Shouldn't we have a safeword?" Pete asks.
Ryan raises his eyebrows. "Why? This isn't some fucking roleplay scenario, dude. Stop means stop."
Pete's not sure what this is, if it isn't a roleplay scenario. He's had his share of freaky sex, mostly girls who wanted to be scratched and held down and that kind of thing. Handcuffs, ropes, a smack or two. They wanted him to take charge. But that's not what this is about. Ryan's not asking him to take control.
Ryan's not asking him for anything.
Pete sits down on the couch where Ryan points and lets him lie across his lap. Ryan pushes down his pants just enough to expose his ass, eliminating any risk of unwanted thigh-patting. He's clearly serious about this pain thing, so Pete takes him at his word and puts all his strength behind the first smack. Ryan doesn't even flinch. Pete keeps it up, counting in his head. If he counts out loud, Ryan will probably laugh at him, but he wants to keep track.
At thirty, Ryan's skin is starting to look pink. Pete thinks he could get a better angle if he had more elbow room. "Hey, could you maybe stand up and bend over the arm of the sofa instead?" he asks.
"No," says Ryan, and that is apparently that.
Ryan is hard, and starting to rub his erection against Pete's thigh as Pete spanks him. Pete is hard too, but he's not coordinated enough to jack off with one hand and spank with the other, and he knows which takes priority. He leaves his cock alone.
At a hundred and sixty, Ryan's ass is looking very red, and Pete's hand is stinging. "I'm gonna stop in a minute," he says. Ryan clenches his ass cheeks together and humps Pete's thigh fast and hard. In about thirty seconds, he relaxes, and Pete can feel the damp spot on his pants. He keeps slapping until his promised minute is up, then stops at two hundred and four, flexing his stiff fingers carefully.
Ryan pulls his pants back up and sits up next to Pete. "That was good," he says.
"Yeah?" says Pete, a little eagerly. He's surprised at how happy he is to hear that. It's not like he's into the whole bowing-and-scraping thing, seeking out his master's approval or whatever, but he really has no idea what he's doing here. The positive feedback is encouraging. He likes it when he gets things right.
***
It's not about Pete, not in the slightest. He's never under any illusions there. He enjoys himself most of the time, but his pleasure is incidental. If his cock isn't included in Ryan's plans, then he just gets to deal with it himself on his own time. Even if it is included in Ryan's plans, it's not as an object of attention. It's just a tool for getting Ryan off. Pete himself is just a tool for getting Ryan off.
Ryan seems to assume that Pete doesn't mind being his live-action blowup doll. It's a reasonable assumption, since Pete always does as he's told. Ryan never asks permission or checks if Pete is okay with whatever he wants to do. He just gives the orders and waits. Pete could choose to ignore him, if he wanted. He never does.
"No lube," says Ryan. "Shove it in. Just the head, then wait." He's bent over the kitchen counter, naked. Pete finishes rolling on the condom and presses his cock against Ryan's hole. He's not prepared at all, and it won't fit at first, but the thin sheen of lube on the condom is enough to slide it in when he pushes hard. Ryan whimpers a little, and Pete freezes. Just the head, then wait, were his instructions. He waits.
"Tour's starting soon," Ryan grunts.
Pete blinks. He's been wondering about that, about whether this will happen more or less often when they're touring together, but it's kind of an odd thing to bring up right this minute. "Yeah," he says.
"Pick a day," says Ryan. "On tour, I get to come one day a week. Just with you. Pick which day."
Pete tries very hard not to cream the condom then and there. "Thursday," he says.
"Push in further," says Ryan. "Yeah, right there. I might want to mess around on other days without coming, I'm not sure yet. I'll keep you posted. Okay, fuck me. Make it hurt."
Pete makes it hurt.
***
Three weeks into the tour, they miss a Thursday. The whole day is packed with interviews and soundchecks and performances, and their schedules never line up enough to give them five minutes alone. It's one in the morning by the time Pete finds Ryan.
Ryan shakes his head. "It's not Thursday anymore," is all he says.
The following Thursday, they're on the road in separate buses, and the tour is running behind. They have to push through all day. With half an hour to go until midnight, the caravan finally stops at an IHOP for a late dinner. Ryan's band has already taken up a whole booth by the time Pete gets inside, with Ryan trapped by the wall. Ryan hasn't come in two weeks, and it's going to be another week unless Pete does something now. He's considering the merits of dragging Ryan off to the bathroom when he gets a text.
come sit across from me. we're gonna play grownup footsie.
There's no room at the table, but Pete wriggles in anyway, climbing over Brendon and plopping down on Jon's lap. "Hi, Jon," he says, planting a loud kiss on Jon's cheek.
"Ow," complains Brendon. "You just kneed me in the shoulder."
"Sorry," says Pete, and kisses Brendon's shoulder too. He squirms around on Jon's lap until he can kick out at Ryan's shin. Ryan abruptly hooks his foot around Pete's ankle and pulls it up to his hand, grabs the toe of Pete's Chuck Taylor and shoves it into his crotch.
Oh. So that's what "grownup footsie" means.
Pete massages Ryan's cock with the bottom of his shoe. He can feel how hard Ryan is, even through the rubber of the sole. He tries not to let the muscle movements of his leg reach his thigh, where Jon would be able to feel.
"...should start a dress-up box," Brendon is saying. "Except it wouldn't have anything in it but lingerie. Why can't the fans ever throw, like, skinny jeans or comfy hoodies? Things we could actually use?"
"I think we should do a whole show wearing nothing but underwear tossed on stage by fans," says Jon.
"I claim that one pair of boxer briefs," Ryan says. He looks perfectly calm, but Pete can feel his thighs tensing up through the canvas of his shoes.
"Aw, but Ryan, you're the only one who'd fit in those tiny little thongs," Pete says.
Ryan looks straight into his eyes and says, "Bite me."
It's a command. Pete has learned by now what Ryan's commands sound like.
He grabs Ryan's hand and leans forward to sink his teeth deep into the flesh of Ryan's wrist, simultaneously pressing his foot down hard on his cock. "Ow, motherfucker," says Ryan mildly, and Pete hopes the others will ascribe his breathlessness to the pain. Ryan pushes Pete's foot away, which means he came. Right there, surrounded by people, with just his foot and his teeth, Pete made Ryan come. He's ridiculously proud. He finds himself hoping that Ryan will send him a text message of praise.
He doesn't. Ryan doesn't praise often.
"I would fit in the tiny thongs," says Brendon thoughtfully, completely oblivious.
As they're all getting up to leave, Ryan knocks a freshly-poured cup of coffee onto his lap. He curses and grabs for a handful of napkins to sop up the liquid. When he stands up, there's a big brown stain on the front of his pants, hiding the less explicable white one.
Before the show the next day, Ryan gets Pete alone in one of the dressing rooms and pulls down his pants, showing him the splotch of bright red skin extending from his thighs to his lower abdomen, where the coffee landed. "Scratch it," he says, and hisses in pain when Pete drags his nails across the burn, leaving three long marks on his skin.
Ryan's erection lasts the entire forty minutes until he's due to play. When he walks out on stage with a bulge still showing through his tight pants, Pete hurries off to hide in a bathroom and beat off to the memory of that involuntary hiss.
***
Pete's tried to make sense of the power dynamics of this thing they have. It doesn't fit into the traditional dom/sub schema. Pete's the one inflicting the pain, but he's definitely not the one in charge. He's pretty sure that any games being played here are between Ryan and Ryan. Ryan is the dom, and Ryan is the sub, and Pete is the sex toy.
Ryan is on the Fall Out Boy bus today. It's not a Thursday, but he's got Pete biting him in his bunk anyway. Sometimes Ryan likes to tease himself.
"Nipple," says Ryan. Pete obediently bites his nipple. Ryan's torso arches up. He's still wearing his jeans, shirt tossed on the floor somewhere nearby. He's breathing heavily, and the marks all over him are turning his skin red, but he keeps going. "Shoulder. Harder. Earlobe."
Sometimes Pete wonders what it would take to get Ryan to stop him. His pain tolerance is insane. Pete starts biting harder, trying to find the limit. It doesn't work. Ryan takes it all.
"Hip. Fingers." Ryan slips his hand into Pete's mouth. Pete clenches his jaw shut around Ryan's fingers. He can feel cartilage shifting under his teeth. Ryan doesn't try to pull away.
"Neck," Ryan says. "Lip."
Pete leaves a mark on Ryan's neck and moves up to his mouth. He's about to close in on Ryan's lip when he suddenly stops. Ryan's breath gusts over his face, shifting a lock of hair on his forehead, and Pete doesn't want to bite him. He doesn't want to hurt him anymore. Instead, he touches their lips together softly. Ryan's mouth is hot and wet and wonderful. Pete wants to stay like this, to keep kissing him for hours, to have sex without pain for once.
Ryan jerks back. "Stop that," he says sharply. He rolls out from under Pete, picks up his shirt, and heads into the back lounge, where the rest of Pete's band is hanging out.
That, apparently, is what it takes.
***
Ryan completely ignores Pete for the next week. Pete half expects him to come looking for a fuck on Thursday, but he doesn't. Pete wonders if he went without an orgasm that day. Maybe Pete has accidentally broken up their arrangement entirely. It's pretty fucked up that this is Ryan's reaction to a kiss, but then, the whole thing is pretty fucked up, if he thinks about it.
After a second Thursday passes uneventfully, Pete goes to apologize. He's not sorry, but he was really enjoying the sex, and he wants it back.
He finds Ryan alone in a dressing room at the venue, sprawled out on a sofa. "Hey," Pete says cautiously.
"What do you want?" says Ryan.
Pete shrugs one shoulder. "I'm sorry about what happened," he says, awkward. "I just... want to keep doing what we were doing. Can we?"
Ryan folds his arms. "That depends," he says. "Are you going to follow the rules this time?"
Frustration blossoms in Pete's chest. "There are no fucking rules," he snaps. "You've never explained to me what the hell is going on. You just tell me what to do and I do it."
A slow smile spreads across Ryan's face. "Got it in one," he says quietly. "I tell you what to do. You do it. Those are the rules."
Something relaxes in Pete's mind, like a knot he's been trying and trying to untangle only to discover that it's a slipknot. It doesn't matter who's the top and who's the bottom, who's the dom and who's the sub, who's the sadist and who's the masochist. Ryan has always been perfectly clear about what this is. He gives the orders, Pete follows them. That's how it works.
And Pete wants to kiss him. Pete wants to have lazy morning sex sometimes, and nuzzle his neck, and give him footrubs. But that's not what Ryan wants, and what Ryan wants is what matters.
"Okay," Pete whispers.
Ryan nods. "Good," he says. "Now get on your knees and hit me."
EDIT: This fic has been podficced! Thank you, crazybutsound!
***
Pete isn't really involved in the decision to start hurting Ryan Ross for pleasure.
They're just hanging out at Pete's place one day, idly chatting about nothing in particular, and Ryan breaks a silence by saying, "I want you to grab me by the hair and fuck my throat until I choke on your cock."
Pete has to take a moment to process this. It's not the sort of thing he's used to hearing from his friends, at least when they're not drunk and laughing their heads off. "Any particular reason you're mentioning this now?" he finally asks.
"Because I want you to do it now," Ryan says, and he says it like a command: do it now.
Pete does.
At first he thinks Ryan's just talking about a blowjob, that the part about grabbing his hair and making him choke was just dirty talk. Then he has his pants open and his dick in Ryan's mouth, and Ryan pulls off and says in an irritated tone, "No, really, fuck my throat. I'm not doing all the fucking work here."
Pete fists his hands in Ryan's hair and rams in hard, and Ryan hums, "Mhmm," around his mouthful of cock, like Pete's a kid who finally tied his fucking shoes right or something. Pete thrusts harder and Ryan takes it all. His face is turning red from the lack of air, but he's got his jeans unzipped and his hand down the front, rubbing furiously, so Pete figures he's okay. He yanks a handful of hair a little viciously, just testing the waters. Ryan's moan doesn't sound like an objection at all.
Ryan comes within a few minutes, splattering Pete's shoes and the floor. When the aftershocks have calmed down, he reaches up and gently but firmly disentangles Pete's fingers from his hair. He slides his mouth off, stands up, and wanders away.
"I didn't come," says Pete.
Ryan doesn't even turn around. "So? You have hands. I'm gonna go fuck with your guitar, I have an idea for that bridge I was telling you about. You'd better clean that up, jizz is a bitch when it dries."
This is how Pete starts hurting Ryan Ross for pleasure.
For Ryan's pleasure, that is.
***
The next time it happens is at Ryan's apartment. Pete goes in expecting something of a sexual nature, after the last time. It's two in the afternoon and most of Ryan's neighbors are at work. This is important, Ryan explains, because they're going to be loud.
"You're going to spank me," Ryan tells Pete.
"Oh," Pete says.
"Do it hard. I'm not talking about the wimpy porno spankings where the dude just pats the chick's thighs or whatever. Turn my skin red, got it? I want to feel it. Keep going until you can't take it anymore. Your hand will give out before my ass does. Let me know about a minute before you stop."
"Shouldn't we have a safeword?" Pete asks.
Ryan raises his eyebrows. "Why? This isn't some fucking roleplay scenario, dude. Stop means stop."
Pete's not sure what this is, if it isn't a roleplay scenario. He's had his share of freaky sex, mostly girls who wanted to be scratched and held down and that kind of thing. Handcuffs, ropes, a smack or two. They wanted him to take charge. But that's not what this is about. Ryan's not asking him to take control.
Ryan's not asking him for anything.
Pete sits down on the couch where Ryan points and lets him lie across his lap. Ryan pushes down his pants just enough to expose his ass, eliminating any risk of unwanted thigh-patting. He's clearly serious about this pain thing, so Pete takes him at his word and puts all his strength behind the first smack. Ryan doesn't even flinch. Pete keeps it up, counting in his head. If he counts out loud, Ryan will probably laugh at him, but he wants to keep track.
At thirty, Ryan's skin is starting to look pink. Pete thinks he could get a better angle if he had more elbow room. "Hey, could you maybe stand up and bend over the arm of the sofa instead?" he asks.
"No," says Ryan, and that is apparently that.
Ryan is hard, and starting to rub his erection against Pete's thigh as Pete spanks him. Pete is hard too, but he's not coordinated enough to jack off with one hand and spank with the other, and he knows which takes priority. He leaves his cock alone.
At a hundred and sixty, Ryan's ass is looking very red, and Pete's hand is stinging. "I'm gonna stop in a minute," he says. Ryan clenches his ass cheeks together and humps Pete's thigh fast and hard. In about thirty seconds, he relaxes, and Pete can feel the damp spot on his pants. He keeps slapping until his promised minute is up, then stops at two hundred and four, flexing his stiff fingers carefully.
Ryan pulls his pants back up and sits up next to Pete. "That was good," he says.
"Yeah?" says Pete, a little eagerly. He's surprised at how happy he is to hear that. It's not like he's into the whole bowing-and-scraping thing, seeking out his master's approval or whatever, but he really has no idea what he's doing here. The positive feedback is encouraging. He likes it when he gets things right.
***
It's not about Pete, not in the slightest. He's never under any illusions there. He enjoys himself most of the time, but his pleasure is incidental. If his cock isn't included in Ryan's plans, then he just gets to deal with it himself on his own time. Even if it is included in Ryan's plans, it's not as an object of attention. It's just a tool for getting Ryan off. Pete himself is just a tool for getting Ryan off.
Ryan seems to assume that Pete doesn't mind being his live-action blowup doll. It's a reasonable assumption, since Pete always does as he's told. Ryan never asks permission or checks if Pete is okay with whatever he wants to do. He just gives the orders and waits. Pete could choose to ignore him, if he wanted. He never does.
"No lube," says Ryan. "Shove it in. Just the head, then wait." He's bent over the kitchen counter, naked. Pete finishes rolling on the condom and presses his cock against Ryan's hole. He's not prepared at all, and it won't fit at first, but the thin sheen of lube on the condom is enough to slide it in when he pushes hard. Ryan whimpers a little, and Pete freezes. Just the head, then wait, were his instructions. He waits.
"Tour's starting soon," Ryan grunts.
Pete blinks. He's been wondering about that, about whether this will happen more or less often when they're touring together, but it's kind of an odd thing to bring up right this minute. "Yeah," he says.
"Pick a day," says Ryan. "On tour, I get to come one day a week. Just with you. Pick which day."
Pete tries very hard not to cream the condom then and there. "Thursday," he says.
"Push in further," says Ryan. "Yeah, right there. I might want to mess around on other days without coming, I'm not sure yet. I'll keep you posted. Okay, fuck me. Make it hurt."
Pete makes it hurt.
***
Three weeks into the tour, they miss a Thursday. The whole day is packed with interviews and soundchecks and performances, and their schedules never line up enough to give them five minutes alone. It's one in the morning by the time Pete finds Ryan.
Ryan shakes his head. "It's not Thursday anymore," is all he says.
The following Thursday, they're on the road in separate buses, and the tour is running behind. They have to push through all day. With half an hour to go until midnight, the caravan finally stops at an IHOP for a late dinner. Ryan's band has already taken up a whole booth by the time Pete gets inside, with Ryan trapped by the wall. Ryan hasn't come in two weeks, and it's going to be another week unless Pete does something now. He's considering the merits of dragging Ryan off to the bathroom when he gets a text.
come sit across from me. we're gonna play grownup footsie.
There's no room at the table, but Pete wriggles in anyway, climbing over Brendon and plopping down on Jon's lap. "Hi, Jon," he says, planting a loud kiss on Jon's cheek.
"Ow," complains Brendon. "You just kneed me in the shoulder."
"Sorry," says Pete, and kisses Brendon's shoulder too. He squirms around on Jon's lap until he can kick out at Ryan's shin. Ryan abruptly hooks his foot around Pete's ankle and pulls it up to his hand, grabs the toe of Pete's Chuck Taylor and shoves it into his crotch.
Oh. So that's what "grownup footsie" means.
Pete massages Ryan's cock with the bottom of his shoe. He can feel how hard Ryan is, even through the rubber of the sole. He tries not to let the muscle movements of his leg reach his thigh, where Jon would be able to feel.
"...should start a dress-up box," Brendon is saying. "Except it wouldn't have anything in it but lingerie. Why can't the fans ever throw, like, skinny jeans or comfy hoodies? Things we could actually use?"
"I think we should do a whole show wearing nothing but underwear tossed on stage by fans," says Jon.
"I claim that one pair of boxer briefs," Ryan says. He looks perfectly calm, but Pete can feel his thighs tensing up through the canvas of his shoes.
"Aw, but Ryan, you're the only one who'd fit in those tiny little thongs," Pete says.
Ryan looks straight into his eyes and says, "Bite me."
It's a command. Pete has learned by now what Ryan's commands sound like.
He grabs Ryan's hand and leans forward to sink his teeth deep into the flesh of Ryan's wrist, simultaneously pressing his foot down hard on his cock. "Ow, motherfucker," says Ryan mildly, and Pete hopes the others will ascribe his breathlessness to the pain. Ryan pushes Pete's foot away, which means he came. Right there, surrounded by people, with just his foot and his teeth, Pete made Ryan come. He's ridiculously proud. He finds himself hoping that Ryan will send him a text message of praise.
He doesn't. Ryan doesn't praise often.
"I would fit in the tiny thongs," says Brendon thoughtfully, completely oblivious.
As they're all getting up to leave, Ryan knocks a freshly-poured cup of coffee onto his lap. He curses and grabs for a handful of napkins to sop up the liquid. When he stands up, there's a big brown stain on the front of his pants, hiding the less explicable white one.
Before the show the next day, Ryan gets Pete alone in one of the dressing rooms and pulls down his pants, showing him the splotch of bright red skin extending from his thighs to his lower abdomen, where the coffee landed. "Scratch it," he says, and hisses in pain when Pete drags his nails across the burn, leaving three long marks on his skin.
Ryan's erection lasts the entire forty minutes until he's due to play. When he walks out on stage with a bulge still showing through his tight pants, Pete hurries off to hide in a bathroom and beat off to the memory of that involuntary hiss.
***
Pete's tried to make sense of the power dynamics of this thing they have. It doesn't fit into the traditional dom/sub schema. Pete's the one inflicting the pain, but he's definitely not the one in charge. He's pretty sure that any games being played here are between Ryan and Ryan. Ryan is the dom, and Ryan is the sub, and Pete is the sex toy.
Ryan is on the Fall Out Boy bus today. It's not a Thursday, but he's got Pete biting him in his bunk anyway. Sometimes Ryan likes to tease himself.
"Nipple," says Ryan. Pete obediently bites his nipple. Ryan's torso arches up. He's still wearing his jeans, shirt tossed on the floor somewhere nearby. He's breathing heavily, and the marks all over him are turning his skin red, but he keeps going. "Shoulder. Harder. Earlobe."
Sometimes Pete wonders what it would take to get Ryan to stop him. His pain tolerance is insane. Pete starts biting harder, trying to find the limit. It doesn't work. Ryan takes it all.
"Hip. Fingers." Ryan slips his hand into Pete's mouth. Pete clenches his jaw shut around Ryan's fingers. He can feel cartilage shifting under his teeth. Ryan doesn't try to pull away.
"Neck," Ryan says. "Lip."
Pete leaves a mark on Ryan's neck and moves up to his mouth. He's about to close in on Ryan's lip when he suddenly stops. Ryan's breath gusts over his face, shifting a lock of hair on his forehead, and Pete doesn't want to bite him. He doesn't want to hurt him anymore. Instead, he touches their lips together softly. Ryan's mouth is hot and wet and wonderful. Pete wants to stay like this, to keep kissing him for hours, to have sex without pain for once.
Ryan jerks back. "Stop that," he says sharply. He rolls out from under Pete, picks up his shirt, and heads into the back lounge, where the rest of Pete's band is hanging out.
That, apparently, is what it takes.
***
Ryan completely ignores Pete for the next week. Pete half expects him to come looking for a fuck on Thursday, but he doesn't. Pete wonders if he went without an orgasm that day. Maybe Pete has accidentally broken up their arrangement entirely. It's pretty fucked up that this is Ryan's reaction to a kiss, but then, the whole thing is pretty fucked up, if he thinks about it.
After a second Thursday passes uneventfully, Pete goes to apologize. He's not sorry, but he was really enjoying the sex, and he wants it back.
He finds Ryan alone in a dressing room at the venue, sprawled out on a sofa. "Hey," Pete says cautiously.
"What do you want?" says Ryan.
Pete shrugs one shoulder. "I'm sorry about what happened," he says, awkward. "I just... want to keep doing what we were doing. Can we?"
Ryan folds his arms. "That depends," he says. "Are you going to follow the rules this time?"
Frustration blossoms in Pete's chest. "There are no fucking rules," he snaps. "You've never explained to me what the hell is going on. You just tell me what to do and I do it."
A slow smile spreads across Ryan's face. "Got it in one," he says quietly. "I tell you what to do. You do it. Those are the rules."
Something relaxes in Pete's mind, like a knot he's been trying and trying to untangle only to discover that it's a slipknot. It doesn't matter who's the top and who's the bottom, who's the dom and who's the sub, who's the sadist and who's the masochist. Ryan has always been perfectly clear about what this is. He gives the orders, Pete follows them. That's how it works.
And Pete wants to kiss him. Pete wants to have lazy morning sex sometimes, and nuzzle his neck, and give him footrubs. But that's not what Ryan wants, and what Ryan wants is what matters.
"Okay," Pete whispers.
Ryan nods. "Good," he says. "Now get on your knees and hit me."