(Untitled)

[_johnny]

[sunday night, 2 days post-party, a month after this]Johnny loves moonlight, and moonlight on skin especially; it's not harsh like sunlight, it doesn't burn away artifice and expose flaws. Instead it softens and smooths and caresses, it makes everybody beautiful

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[boy_on_film]

A bit lagged, the goosebumps telegraph onto Orlando's skin and he can make out, through sated post-coital exhaustion, the way Johnny's arms settle around him heavily, familiar. Orlando lets himself go boneless, shivers sizzling out under the diffused latenight warm. For some reason the weight of Johnny's arms over his chest reminds Orlando of the one time Robbie had done this, high on something or other that had made him uncharacteristically touchy-feely and not at all like himself. Orlando had held his breath and recorded every second of it for future reminiscence. Strangely, summoning the sense-memory up now, it doesn't make him miss Robbie (who he has missed more than he still expects to, a feeling he hasn't let himself explore yet because who'll understand?) but instead makes him absurdly grateful for Johnny's unconditional affection.

Orlando closes his eyes and takes several soothing breaths (too nearly worked himself up over spilled blood), curling his hands over Johnny's forearms.

[_johnny]

Orlando tenses for a second, two, three, too long and Johnny almost says something, almost pulls back, but then Orlando relaxes, sighs deeply, settles again. Orlando's thumbs begin to stroke over the insides of Johnny's wrists and so Johnny lets his hands roam again, meandering gypsy-like over every dip and rise.

Johnny likes moments like these, they've always been his favorites. After sex, before sleep, or just waking up, moments of langour and tenderness. Orlando's skin is warm and silky, his breath is deep and even and in time with Johnny's own.

And Johnny is drowsing a little, dreaming/remembering the smell of night blooming flowers and the sound of the sea. The breeze cool on skin still damp from fucking, the taste of salt on his tongue.

His lips press to Orlando's neck, his hands slow and finally still over the beating of Orlando's heart.

[boy_on_film]

There's a slight twitch of Johnny's hand over his heart and Orlando moves within Johnny's arms, turns so he's sideways against him. He pulls Johnny's arm more tightly against himself, fingers lingering on the tattoo there.

Johnny never talks about his tattoos, though Orlando thinks maybe it's only because no one ever asks. This one, the sparrow on his arm, looks the freshest, blacker and sharper than the others. Orlando follows the curves of it with his fingertips, the skin of Johnny's arm tanned and not quite soft but firm over sleek muscles.

The cursive letters remind him of the monogrammed lighter Orlando'd bought Robbie once, which Orlando had never seen again.

"Who's Jack?" he asks, surprisingly himself. His voice his sleepy and barely above a whisper, not quite an intrusion in the comfortable silence.

[_johnny]

A very sharp blade, like the skinning knives Johnny's old man used to carry out deer hunting, cuts without almost no pain at all. It cuts quick and deep, no more than a sting. And then comes the blood and then is when you look down at what used to be your skin and wonder why you're seeing bone; only then, then's when it hurts

[_johnny]

Johnny frees a hand to fumble for the duvet, draws it up over them. The cold is all in his head, he knows it, but it feels real enough. He thinks about Orlando's question, about all the things that Jack means in his mind, considers for so long that Orlando's breathing stops sounding like waiting and more like dozing.

"Jack was - is - um." Johnny's voice sounds raw and husky to his own ears and he doesn't know where to start except to get out of the past tense, to close his eyes and summon Jack up, clear as that first long-ago day.

"Jack is tall... taller than you, even, and his hair flops in his eyes no matter what he does to it. Dark brown hair, so soft..." Johnny reflexively pets at Orlando's curls; Orlando sighs.

"Green eyes, though, like... beach glass? Bright and soft at the same time. And he's a teacher... Um. The smartest person I know. Except he never makes you feel stupid, and that's why he's such an amazing teacher, right, because he makes everyone feel that smart, he makes everyone feel good."

Jack's grin, Jack's frown

[boy_on_film]

"Yeah."

Yeah, he gets that. Bloody stupid question that was, wasn't it. But Orlando can hear the faint smile in Johnny's voice, and he turns around under the duvet, within Johnny's arms (loose now but still holding), and presses his mouth to Johnny's, sliding his tongue against Johnny's when Johnny touches his face.

They've sunk into the pillows by now, and Orlando rests his cheek on Johnny's shoulder again, this time facing him. Johnny is licking his lips absently, gaze lots in the empty ceiling. Orlando curls his fingers around Johnny's hand and kisses him again when Johnny turns to him.

[_johnny]

Orlando smoothly changes gears from one kind of comfort to the other, it's warm and it's good and it's as close to what Johnny needs right now as he's going to get.

So Johnny lets him, lets Orlando kiss and stroke and rub, lets himself be persuaded to lay it all aside for while, if not forget.

Never that.

He sighs against Orlando's lips.

[boy_on_film]

Johnny doesn't kiss back right away, lets Orlando kiss and touch without objection; and when he does kiss back, it's pliant and accommodating and not at all like the way he usually kisses Orlando, which would be hard and dominating and smothering in the best of ways.

Orlando doesn't ask and moves so he's half over Johnny, digging his fingers, with gentle pressure, in the flesh of Johnny's arms.