Chapter Text
It’s 4PM and Nigel is fretting. None of his shirts seem to fit the context of “dinner with a friend” regardless of how many times Adam gently reminds him that it is just dinner at home and that Harlan won’t mind how Nigel looks, because Harlan doesn’t mind a lot of things.
He goes, in the end, with a dark shirt and clean jeans and something on his feet that he’s sure could pass for casual without trying too hard. Adam dresses as he always dresses, and Nigel snares him around the middle until he squirms and giggles and confirms that yes, he is wearing the red underwear, and no, there is not enough time for Nigel to see before Harlan gets here.
“No swearing,” Adam reminds him quietly, smiling as Nigel curses, almost as though to get it out of his system before he can’t anymore.
“Can I smoke?”
“On the balcony.”
“Drink?”
“We’ll have wine with dinner.”
“Fucking wine.”
“You’ll drink it,” Adam grins, nuzzling close and kissing Nigel’s neck. “It’ll be fine.”
Nigel hums, a lingering note of doubt, but buries the sound against Adam’s hair. Satiny curls spread against his cheeks and he touches a kiss there. Then another against his hairline, breathing in deep the mixture of scent and sweetness that still dizzies Nigel, years later from the first time he sighed him in. Then another, against Adam’s cheek. There, he lingers, at the corner of Adam’s lips even as they part for him.
“Can I kiss you?”
Adam laughs, a little snort, and squeezes their mouths warmly together. “Only a little,” he decides. “And no tongue.”
This draws a definite sound of dismay, kissed quickly away. Nigel spreads his hands across Adam’s back, down its sloping curve to the rise of his ass. He’s barely fucking touched him when there’s a buzz from the front door, and Nigel curses savage as he’s startled.
Adam regards him with lifted brows, and Nigel mutters an apology as he reluctantly lets him slide away.
“I still can’t believe you fucking planned all of this,” Nigel mutters, following him to the door. Adam presses the buzzer to allow his friend in, and Nigel takes the opportunity to wipe sweaty palms off against his pants.
“Because you don’t think I can?”
“Because I couldn’t fucking do it,” he says. “Arranging all this. Cooking. But you’re smarter than me so it fuck-... so it figures.”
Adam just grins and shrugs. It’s rare that he wants anyone new in his life at all, rarer still that he welcomes someone old. But Harlan has been in his life since Adam was a little boy, he had stayed in New York for a while after Adam’s dad died, to help out, but Adam was happy to see him go home. He hates to be a burden on anyone, and he knows he is a burden on everyone.
But somehow Nigel stuck around.
And that means a lot, to Adam and Harlan both.
“He was in the army with my dad,” Adam says as they hear footsteps in the lobby.
“In the fucking army, Adam?”
“I thought that would make you calmer,” Adam frowns gently, though his lips still curve in a smile.
“How the f-” Nigel swallows. “How. How would that make me calmer, darling?”
“He won’t be scared of you.”
“You need to watch more nature shows, darling,” Nigel snorts, as he draws himself up taller. He holds steady but he’s anxious. Never in his fucking life has he been asked to meet anyone’s family like this. To the contrary, those moments in which it’s happened have been accidental collisions with poor fucking results. Bristling and posturing, whispered conversations with their daughter or sister. No one, at any point, has been happy to find out that their friend or family has been fucking Nigel.
A bright laugh startles him from his snarl and he watches, keeping distance, as an older man offers his hand to Adam. They shake, and they hug, a quick pat on the back and Nigel breathes a little easier to see Adam happy as he is.
“Look at you!” Harlan declares, taking Adam in as Adam shuts the door behind, smiling. “It’s been too damn long.”
Nigel bites back a mention about cursing, swallowing his pettiness as the man turns to him.
“Nigel,” he says, stiff, offering a hand.
Harlan takes him in, Nigel the same height but slighter, muscles tense as though he wants to flee, expression one Harlan assumes Nigel thinks is neutral but it reads between desperate and relieved. A smile, warm, enough to narrow the darker man’s eyes in delight, before he takes Nigel’s hand in one broad one of his own and wraps the other around his shoulders.
“Nice to meet you, Nigel. You been taking care of my boy?”
“Trying,” Nigel says, surprised to find a smile inflecting his words. “He’s usually the one taking care of me, to be perfectly f-... frank about it.”
Harlan returns his smile and Nigel swallows down a belt of curses, allowing them to disperse. “Is that right?”
“Someone has to remind me to do the laundry,” Nigel says, pleased when this earns a laugh.
Harlan laughs easily and, apparently, often. Nigel can see how this would have been good for Adam as a child, to see someone positive, someone calm and collected and patient. He holds Nigel by the shoulder when he pulls away, finally says his name despite the fact that he knows that Adam has told him, and turns back to the boy he had come to see.
“Reminding you were always good at, weren’t you?”
“Reminding is easier than laundry,” Adam replies with a smile, and steps back to guide them both into the apartment properly. He lets Harlan take the space in, much unchanged but enough adjusted to warrant a look, several hums of appreciation. Adam grasps Nigel’s hand and squeezes.
Nigel blinks, his heart skipping a beat, and glances to their hands. He feels like a fucking kid again, embarrassed not by Adam but by the show of affection. The twining of Adam’s fingers between his own eases him back to breathing, and when Harlan isn’t looking, Nigel brushes a kiss across the back of Adam’s hand before releasing him.
“It’s good you kept the place,” Harlan says. “You know, me and your dad redid all this. Should’ve seen it before, unlivable. Laid down the payment for cheap before they started boosting it, neighborhood turning nice.”
“I know,” Adam says, and Nigel quirks a smile as he steps through to the kitchen.
“Tried to keep as much as we could, the brick and the tin ceiling, the floorboards. Used to have a pea-green carpet, horrible,” Harlan says, watching Nigel as he goes.
“Would you like some wine?” Adam asks, and Harlan shakes his head a little. Nigel meets Adam’s eyes and grins.
“Beer,” Nigel offers.
“That’s more like it,” agrees Harlan, accepting one of the silver cans when Nigel hands it to him. “I’m guessing you didn’t grow up in the city like Adam.”
“Another city,” Nigel says, pacing his words to give himself time to snare his swearing before it slides loose. “Or just outside it, anyway. Bucharest.”
“Can’t say I’ve ever been out that way,” Harlan says, taking a sip of his beer. “Is it different from New York?”
“Messier,” Nigel says, watching Adam move around the kitchen, a soda instead of a beer for him, as he checks on their dinner - not macaroni and cheese today - and gives them the space to talk. “A bit like the Bronx in some ways. Too populated, too many people in one place making it f-... hard to find your own place and establish it.”
“I grew up in a small town,” Harlan says, nodding as he watches Nigel watch him. “Coming here was, it was damn frightening for a sixteen-year-old kid looking to make it big.”
“In what?”
“You’ll laugh,” Harlan says, his own laugh already warming the words. “Jazz.”
“I can’t laugh at bravery,” Nigel responds, earnest. He grasps a platter inbound for the table from Adam and takes it for him, beer in the other hand. “Were you successful?”
“Ended up in the army, if that’s an answer,” Harlan smiles.
“What do you play?”
“Trumpet, still, when I can.”
Nigel’s smile is so wide that Adam stops to watch him for a moment, his cheeks warming. Not once has Nigel sworn. Not once has he made that hissing sound through his teeth in trying to resist it. He hasn’t even smoked and he’s halfway through his beer and Adam loves him like this, every bit as warm as Adam knows he can be and Nigel would argue.
“Like Dizzy Gillespie, with the puffy-fishery,” he says, blowing out his cheeks. Harlan claps a hand against his leg when he laughs, and takes the seat offered to him, shaking his head.
“Not quite like Dizzie, I’m afraid.”
“I like jazz,” Nigel says. Harlan laughs and Nigel’s brows lift as he grins. “I do, truly. There is a club in Bucharest, or was when I was there, down in the basement of an old building . It was where I went when I didn’t want to see anyone else, and only hear the music.”
“Romanian jazz,” muses Harlan. “I’ll be damned.”
“I doubt it compares to New York,” Nigel admits, amused. “But it fills similar spaces, dark corners and quiet alleyways, pensive notes pulling at the hearts of the lonely.”
“Damn, you’ve got the soul for it,” Harlan smiles, watching Nigel a moment more before Adam brings the food over and sits to join them, next to Nigel, watching Harlan across the table.
“How’s Denver?” He asks.
“Cold,” Harlan replies, leaning to spoon himself some potatoes. “Another small town with too much space and too little to do.”
“You could come back to New York,” Adam suggests, spearing a potato and nibbling it as he watches Harlan shrug.
“Hell, boy, what would I do in New York now that I’m retired?”
“Play the trumpet,” Adam says, and Harlan laughs again. Nigel watches the way Adam’s cheeks pinken and he smiles too, turning his eyes to Nigel and pressing his leg to his beneath the table.
Nigel’s throat jerks in a swallow, and it’s the only indication he allows of his internal battle not to think of Adam’s red underpants shamefully trapped beneath his trousers. He forks one of the pork cutlets to his plate and clears his throat, pushing his knee back against Adam’s in response.
“You’ve got to forgive an old man’s curiosity,” Harlan says, regarding them both with warm wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. “But how in the heck did you two meet?”
“Would you believe me if I said a jazz club?” Nigel teases, and Harlan squints, good-naturedly pointing with his fork.
“Not for a second.”
“I don’t like the squeaking,” Adam explains to Nigel, leaning closer, so close that Nigel would nuzzle him back to his seat if he could. He watches, though, Adam so near, the pale freckles beneath his blush, and sighs.
“Work,” Nigel says. “Stuck doing the same shi-... same f-... same things day in and day out for weeks.”
“I knew you’d find something,” Harlan tells Adam. “What do you do now?”
“Security systems and remedial action,” Adam replies with a smile. “I understand computers and he understands people, so we work well together.”
Harlan looks between them, notes the fondness with which Adam opens his entire body language to the man beside him. He is not closed off or nervous, he is not discontent and he is far from stressed. This man, in his own way, grounds Adam as Adam needs to be grounded. And Nigel seems to be just as fond of Adam as Adam is of him, a feat in itself - Adam is not easy to life with.
A slow nod and Harlan takes up his beer again with a smile.
“Good on you both,” he says, eyes narrowing in pleasure as he looks at Adam and Adam grins back. It’s enough to know that Harlan is fine with a lie by omission. It isn’t his business. What he cares about is that Adam is happy, and the boy certainly is.
They share the table long after the dinner is gone. Music is discussed frequently, and Nigel listens with interest to Harlan’s war stories. They compare their tattoos, Harlan’s faded but a pin-up girl much like Nigel’s own on his arm. Nigel takes it upon himself to finally clear away the dishes and empty cans of beer, leaving Adam and Harlan space to talk - mostly Adam, though Harlan unafraid to interject.
Nigel even takes it upon himself to kiss Adam’s head as his hand is caught in passing.
It’s altogether easy. Easy in a way Nigel’s never felt before, easy in a way he couldn’t have imagined. A lingering shame tastes briefly bitter as he recalls the fight that preceded this, his own doubt and suspicions, Adam’s righteous anger.
And then that too eases, and only when Harlan suggests he get back to the hotel before he dozes off at the table does Nigel realize how late it’s become.
Adam will see him again tomorrow, they agree, and a few more times before Harlan goes back to Denver. Nigel’s invited too and the consideration is both unexpected and welcome. He’s given a hug, at the door, firm.
“I looked after Adam for years after his dad died,” he says, and when their hands move together to shake firm, he smiles. “This does right by my heart, Nigel. You’re a good man. Even if that was a damn stupid place to get a tattoo.”
Nigel laughs before he can stop himself, ducking his head.
“The park, tomorrow,” Harlan reminds Adam as he turns to go.
Adam watches him, moves to stand behind Nigel and push up on his tiptoes to rest his chin up against his shoulder. Carefully, he swings the door closed and turns to nuzzle against Nigel’s neck.
“He liked you,” Adam tells him, arms loose around Nigel’s middle. “He thought you were funny and smart. Otherwise he wouldn’t have laughed so much.”
Nigel rests his cheek against Adam’s head, then turns to chase him for a kiss. Clumsy, pressed to his cheek, then another to his lips as he turns in Adam’s arms, then another longer, as he lifts Adam from the floor and slides his arms beneath him. Skinny legs wrap around his hips and Nigel leans back against the door, content.
Relaxed.
Happy.
“It was a good night,” he decides, eyes hooded even as a smile creeps wider. “And I didn’t curse one fucking time.”
“I’m glad you liked him,” Adam says, smile wide, hands resting on either side of Nigel’s face. “I’m glad he liked you. I knew he’d like you. You’re both brave and strong and clever and soldiers, in your own way.”
Adam looks at Nigel and Nigel realizes he is proud of him, not because he didn’t fucking swear, not because he didn’t say something stupid or mess up dinner or smoke inside. But because he is proud to have Nigel with him, at his side, known and seen as his partner.
Adam is proud to have him.
“Thanks for doing this with me,” Adam whispers.
Nigel hoists Adam higher and yields to the kisses that touch everywhere across his face, wonderfully relentless. His eyelids and his brow, the bridge of his nose and his chin. His mouth parts to give that to Adam too, and Nigel rumbles pleased and feline when Adam’s tongue softly curls against his own. He hadn’t made an ass out of himself or embarrassed Adam; he and Harlan had talked, really talked, without strife or challenge. And Adam -
Nigel would do anything with him.
Anything for him.
He would give Adam the fucking moon if he asked for it.
A careful shove from the door lurches them both forward. Nigel carries Adam towards the balcony, smiling as a little laugh snorts against his cheek. He works the door open with an awkward grasp and in the cool night air, he sets Adam on the railing and stands close enough that Adam’s arms and legs still ensnare him. With a wry look, he reaches for a cigarette and lights it, sighing smoky bliss.
“I don’t have any family,” he says. “No one I know, anyway. No friends, not like that.” Nigel runs his knuckles down Adam’s cheek, fond. “It’s a fucking honor you’d want me to know yours, darling.”
“Harlan’s the only one,” Adam says. “I would have liked for you to meet my dad but he died. Couple years before I met you, before I got brave enough to go out to do computer work and didn’t just advertise online for it.”
Adam squirms a little, holding tight to Nigel with his legs despite knowing that no harm will come to him with Nigel holding him like that. “I’m really glad you got to meet him. Even when my surprise to went wrong. You’re always patient with me.”
He bites his lip and watches Nigel smoke, it’s a ritual for him, the way he holds the filter, the way he takes a breath, the flick of his nail against it to ash the thing over the side. It’s practiced and comforting to him. Adam leans in to kiss the tattoo on Nigel’s neck.
Nigel groans low at the touch, as his pulse slows against Adam’s mouth, then quickens again when he sucks softly. Just a brief thing, but followed by another, and another. Nigel takes a long drag and tilts his head aside to bare his neck more to his darling.
“I wasn’t fucking patient,” Nigel murmurs. “I was paranoid and I was fucking mean.”
“Once,” Adam says. “You were, once. But every other time -”
“It doesn’t feel like patience,” Nigel tells him. “Patience is when you’re pissed off, annoyed, what-the-fuck ever else, and you push on anyway. I don’t have to be patient with you, darling. You just are the way you are, and I love you.”
Adam makes a sound then, almost entirely helpless and needy, and nuzzles into Nigel more. He is the way he is, and he had convinced himself early on that that being what it was, he would be alone with it forever. No one ever stayed long enough, the frustrations got too much for most people and they left, and Adam let them.
But not Nigel.
Not him.
"I love you," Adam tells him. "We'll fight sometimes, when we disagree, because you don’t step down from an argument and I am so stubborn, but that's okay - that's what people do in families."
Nigel tightens his arm, pulling Adam against him. A final drag finds his cigarette flicked to the street before he takes Adam from his perch once more. When they kiss, it’s soft - tender movements in sway with Nigel’s steps. When they kiss more, it heats - startling faster from the bang of the balcony door in time with their speeding pulse.
“Fucking Adam,” Nigel whispers, lips curling into a grin as Adam snags his hair tight. “How’d I ever get so fucking lucky?”
Nigel kicks off his shoes and they thud against the floor, as Adam twists his ankles together to toe off his own and leave them behind. A rumble resonates beneath his fingers as he works Nigel’s shirt open and curls forward, seeking as low as he can, forcing Nigel to strain to keep him from falling out of his grip.
They are frantic in the best way, missing each other since the fight, feeling the adrenaline from a night miraculously well spent with company. Adam latches his teeth gently to a nipple and Nigel growls, grasping his hair tighter, stroking down his back.
"Fucking gorgeous."
They make it to the bed this time, Adam seeking out with his hands as he’s set down before grabbing Nigel close and falling back with a laugh.
"I like you in that shirt," he says, tugging against it more. "You look so sophisticated."
Nigel snorts, but he smiles anyway. He lets Adam finish unbuttoning it. Lets Adam push it back from his shoulders, and tug off the undershirt beneath. He lets Adam seek for his belt and sighs as Adam works flushed lips against the hair on his chest. Strong fingers grasp Adam’s hair and stroke his curls between, tugging just enough to feel Adam moan against his nipple before he sucks enough to lift Nigel’s voice in turn.
“I like you in your fucking panties,” Nigel grins, laughing when Adam arches a brow at him and cool air settles across the wet skin on his chest.
“You haven’t seen them tonight.”
“Fucking thought about them, though.”
“And you like jazz,” Adam remarks, pulling Nigel’s belt free and laying it on the bed beside. It is Nigel, this time, who goes to his back, and Adam who sits over him.
“And you don’t,” observes Nigel in return, framing Adam’s cheek with his hand to pull him close again.
Three years and still rife with discovery, with newness. Three years and still an endless fascination with the other, their quirks and habits, their likes and dislikes. Three years and this - this, Nigel marvels, as their tongues and lips twist together - is still more thrilling than any drug trade or weapons deal or bar fight or quick fuck could ever be again. Hell, even Nigel’s own casual snorting and smoking has fallen by the wayside, and with little notice. His drinking, less quantity and frequency. His smoking - well. That and the swearing have stayed, but the rest -
Nigel blinks as Adam sits back to work off his own shirt. He’s not been made a fucking cuckold. He’s not been chained and neutered, turned into a fucking housepet. Everything he used to have and doesn’t now, Nigel’s given up in fits and starts on his own. Everything he has now but never did before is Adam.
A home.
A family.
Love.
Fucking love.
He grasps Adam’s legs and pulls him to sit over Nigel’s hips, bare now but for his boxers, as Adam coils in little rutting movements against him. But the sudden awe that shakes him is not seeing Adam stripping. It’s not even Adam’s cock stiff against his own. And laying a hand across his eyes because he’s sure if he watches Adam with any more wonder he’ll go fucking blind, Nigel laughs, helpless.
“Never thought I’d end up fucking married.”
Adam hums, smile wide, and presses little hands to Nigel’s stomach, stroking there, and up through the warm hair on his chest.
“Are we married?” He asks, and laughter fills his question as he presses himself over where his hands just touched. “Were you married?”
Nigel shakes his head, the tip of his nose brushing the warm blush of Adam’s cheek. “No,” he says, punctuating the word with a kiss. “Never have been. Were you?”
“No,” Adam echoes, closing his lips against Nigel’s scruffy cheek, already so despite shaving earlier in the day.
“Do you want to be?”
Adam blinks at him, smile still wide and breath warm and shivering against Nigel’s cheek. He sits up a little more and tilts his head to look at Nigel under him. Does he want to be married? The thought’s never crossed his mind. Adam’s never had reason to hate the thought of marriage or love it, it’s always been a foreign concept to him, something unattainable.
“What names would we use?” Adam asks after a moment, sitting up a little and back down in the same instant, winding Nigel enough that he can’t interrupt. “I have a legal name, the house is in my legal name, but you don’t. And we can’t use your aliases, there are connections to those, and making up another name wouldn’t help, and I wouldn’t want to marry Johann or Lucas or David, I want to marry Nigel.”
“So you do want to marry me?”
Adam laughs. “Are you actually asking?”
Nigel’s throat works on a swallow, a crease in his brow but a smile lingering, still, in the corners of his eyes. He can’t imagine allowing anyone else into his business. He can’t imagine uprooting the life had before, for anyone else. He can’t imagine wanting to lessen his shitty habits and work on his anger fucking management problems and do laundry and buy soda at three in the morning for anyone else.
He can’t imagine his life with anyone, anyone but Adam.
And he can’t imagine his life without him.
Nigel sweeps Adam’s hair back from his face and sets his palm to his cheek, and he grins wide as he asks, “Adam fucking Raki, will you marry me?”
Adam’s eyes narrow so much Nigel can barely see the blue beneath thick lashes, he can feel the dimples pulled deep on the corners of Adam’s lips and lets his hand be touched by Adam’s, lets their fingers slip together against Adam’s face as Adam makes a fussy pleased sound and nuzzles hard against his palm.
“Yeah,” Adam laughs, pushing Nigel’s hand aside to pounce on him properly and kiss him, teeth and tongue and slick lips and laughter, Adam’s fingers in Nigel’s hair just holding on. Nothing changes, he knows that, they will still argue and things will still annoy them and jobs will still go wrong and Nigel will still travel. Adam knows that. He knows. But somehow this fills a balloon in his chest with such warmth and light that he feels entirely giddy with the thought.
“Fuck,” Nigel mutters, dizzy from the flood between them as he kisses Adam over and over. Hands in his hair, he holds him back just long enough to breathe and it still doesn’t fill his lungs with how his whole chest feels like cracking, spilling heat. “I thought you were gonna go on about the fucking names again.”
Adam kisses him with a sweet, high hum, smiling. He twists and turns as Nigel unfastens his pants and shoves them down his hips, bending forward to his hands to wriggle free of them. Nigel is quick to snare Adam’s ass with both hands, fingertips teasing beneath the legs, and he ducks his head to see the bright red underpants he loves so much against Adam’s cock.
“Those fucking panties,” he swears, tugging them aside enough to stroke between Adam’s cheeks. “Fucking you, look at you,” Nigel groans, chest heaving and cock filling thick as Adam sucks with wet little sounds against his tattoo. “Little bird, I fucking love you.”
Adam’s lips part on a gasp, he slips one leg flat against the bed to spread himself more against Nigel’s hand, to press close to him and feel his pulse, the heavy press of his cock up against Adam’s torso. Nigel is lovely. Wild and feral and cruel and strong and powerful and entirely Adam’s own, entirely, at once, kind and gentle and patient and so loving.
“I love you,” Adam whispers back, rocking back against Nigel’s hand, down against his cock, slipping a hand between them to palm Nigel slowly as he himself is fondled. It’s just this easy, for a long time it has just been this easy, to touch and be touched, find pleasure together and laugh, comfortable, after.
“What do you want to do?” Adam asks him, delighted, nuzzling and pliant and cuddly. “What should we do?”
Nigel attempts to twist into another kiss but finds only Adam’s cheek as he turns, laughing. “Anything you fucking want, darling.”
A coy little sound lifts from Adam as he rocks the length of his body, sleek and skinny and smooth, along Nigel’s own, scarred and strong and hairy. “That isn’t what I asked,” Adam smiles, and Nigel grazes his teeth across Adam’s shoulder when he rocks closer.
“Should I tell you?” Nigel asks, tugging Adam’s hair just enough to lift his head and watch his lips unfurl, a glimpse of white teeth past rose-red lips. “Should I tell you how all fucking night I’ve thought about your fucking panties and fingering you in them? Or how all fucking night I’ve wanted to feel your mouth on my cock?”
Adam shivers and keens, trembling hands set to Nigel’s belly. He arches to sit up and Nigel lets go of his hair, held in sway by every twist of Adam’s hips.
“Filthy,” Nigel praises him. “You’re so fucking dirty, darling, and you look so sweet no one would ever fucking suspect. I want you to suck me,” he snarls, grinning.
Adam shivers again, flushed and pretty, eyes wide and cock hard in his underwear as he kneels spread over Nigel a moment longer, before slinking down his body to nuzzle against his cock through his boxers. Adam had learned very early just how much he loved foreplay, just how much he enjoyed being teased and doing the teasing. He learned just how Nigel likes to be sucked, how hard, when to use teeth and when to moan, he learned that sometimes Nigel liked to hear him choke, but he would never push him enough to make him.
So Adam would do it himself.
Now, he licks long against the fabric of Nigel’s underwear, eyes closed and mouth open wide as he draws his tongue flat and hot over the thick vein visible standing stark against the grey fabric. Nigel’s voice drops octaves to a low, sustained groan, eyes rolling closed before he forces them open again. Adam watches as the thin material darkens beneath his tongue; he watches as Nigel’s cock twitches and rises in response to the pressure and wetness against it. He turns his cheek against the stiff organ and sighs a hot kiss against it, smiling a little when Nigel curses.
Nigel slips a thumb beneath his boxers to peel them lower, bringing the waistband just beneath his balls. An uncertain moment - wanting everything, always, all at fucking once - finally settles his hand to Adam’s hair. He guides him, never forcing, but revelling in the power Adam gives him in this to push Adam gently against his cock.
He parts his mouth against the base of Nigel’s shaft, coarse hairs caught beneath his lips, and curls his tongue against it, head tilting. It took time to learn, for both of them, neither having any fucking clue what to do around a cock that wasn’t their own when this started, but now -
Now Adam drags the tip of his tongue so lightly up the ridge of Nigel’s cock that his stomach clenches and it jerks upward towards the ceiling before bouncing heavy back against his belly.
“You’re fucking beautiful, darling,” Nigel whispers, harsh. “Look at me.”
Adam does. A deliberate blink and a raising of his eyes to Nigel above him, smile curling his lips as Nigel curses again and strokes Adam’s hair.
“Fuck, baby, look at you,” he breathes, drawing his nails gently over Adam’s scalp before letting him go to do as he wishes. And immediately, Adam takes the head of Nigel’s cock between his lips to suck. Despite Adam’s protests that he isn’t as good at this as Nigel is, he is far from bad at giving head. Adam knows how to turn and when to hum, where to hold as his lips stretch wide, where to squeeze and how to properly swallow.
He is beautiful, always looks entirely fucked out once Nigel is done with him, and always, always grinning at the end, bright and delighted. Now, he hums and swallows Nigel deeper, bringing his knees under himself and arching, coiling beautifully, so Nigel can see the curve of his back, just the shadow of the crevice of his ass peeking over the top of his underwear.
Nigel nearly loses it, biting back his orgasm with a curse and a shuddered breath. Teeth clenched, snarling, he rocks his hips upward and watches the way his cock disappears into Adam’s mouth. He watches the way his lips press in and spread flushed again as Nigel pulls out. And he watches, fucking rapt, the way that the movement ripples down to Adam’s ass and bends his back deeper.
A questioning noise, so little and sweet that Nigel sets his hand between his teeth to ease himself, tugs tight in his belly. He catches his breath and takes the invitation as offered. They don’t need words for this anymore, not after so long, and Nigel drops a hand to Adam’s hair again. Fisting his curls tight, he doesn’t bear down on him or force him into place, but he holds and he thrusts.
Across Adam’s curled tongue and swollen lips, smearing them with spit, Nigel fucks him deeply, slowly, foreskin slipped back and the tip of his cock rubbing the back of Adam’s throat.
Adam’s eyes close, and his hands grasp and curl in the sheets as he swallows thick around Nigel’s thrusting. He knows it could be cruder, could be crueler and harsher and part of him wants to try, but another, the part that deliberately misses a swallow to gently choke, knows that this is enough for them. He chokes again and lifts his eyes to Nigel to watch the tendons taut in his throat, the way his jaw is set, his teeth gritted as he watches Adam and curses loudly, falling back to bed and arching his hips higher still in a deliberate and aching motion for more.
Adam gives him that, as much as he can, pulling back to catch his breath when he needs to, stroking hard against Nigel’s cock as he nuzzles his stomach. He is leaking and hard in his pants, now, a dark patch in the red, and he brings a hand between his legs to squirm against as he watches Nigel and brings the head of his cock to his lips again.
“No,” Nigel whispers, half a laugh tangled in his muddled breath. Adam’s own cools the flushed head of his cock, wet and dripping spit down his shaft, and Nigel catches Adam by the jaw to bring him up the length of his body again. Skilled hands snap free his panties, held around one leg still before Adam can free both.
He goes where Nigel guides him. He trusts him. Entirely and resolutely, he trusts him and when Nigel catches him in a messy kiss, Adam moans. Nigel tugs Adam’s thighs up to straddle him, grasping his own cock to hold it steady.
“On top,” Nigel says. “Let me fucking see you, angel.”
Adam squirms more, flushed and pleased and so lovely, and arches so Nigel can press against him, slowly pushing in without prep or slick, because neither care at that moment, because Adam bends to bite his lip and squeeze his eyes shut and makes the softest little keening noise when Nigel penetrates him and starts to push in.
Adam sets his palms to Nigel’s chest, head down and hair hanging over his eyes as he walks his hands up to Nigel’s stomach and sits back against him with the motion, taking him deeper, spreading his legs further when that delightful sensation of involuntary shuddering takes over and Adam laughs.
“Ah.” Another press of white teeth to his bottom lip and Adam gasps, fingers curling against Nigel’s skin. “Mmm.”
And Nigel...
Nigel doesn’t fucking move.
He can hardly breathe, hardly feel his fingers enough to set them to Adam’s thighs. All he can do - all he wants to do - is watch. His angel’s fingernails leaving red marks against his skin. The pull of delicious tension that creases Adam’s brow as he sinks. The way his lips fall open lax when he rises up again. Adam’s cock stands stiff, each movement pushing beads of precome to drip thick against Nigel’s belly.
Nigel lets his gaze slip past the heavy breaths that spread Adam’s ribs, the soft curve of his stomach, the pale legs clenching tight around Nigel’s hips. He watches his cock disappear inside Adam again and again, as Adam twists a little and Nigel feels his head brush the sensitive nub inside him. Adam’s laugh, half-moan, ripples through Nigel and he groans, resting back against the bed to watch Adam fuck himself on his cock.
Adam shifts and wriggles, tries to keep a slow pace and fails, breathing out a laugh and arching his neck when he speeds up. He doesn’t touch himself, fingers more content to explore Nigel’s taut stomach and hairy chest, fingertips rubbing over a nipple and pinching it just to hear Nigel make a sound and set wide hands to Adam’s thighs.
“Always feels so good,” Adam whispers. “Always, everywhere, but being on top you go deeper, and oh - ”
Nigel shivers at Adam’s words, beautiful in their blunt honesty, in his description of exactly what he’s feeling. Slim fingers stroke along the ugly scar on his side and still there as Nigel reaches to take Adam’s cock in hand. He hardly strokes so much as squeezes, providing a hot tunnel for Adam to thrust into as he rides. Adam professes he’s not good in bed, he says that Nigel is better, and both are always happy for Adam to lay pretty and squirming while Nigel pleasures him.
But it’s a fucking falsehood, maybe the only lie - and that, unintentional - that Nigel can remember Adam ever having said.
He isn’t good in bed.
He’s fucking wonderful.
Quickly, Adam finds a rhythm, between deep strokes and shallow ones, curling his hips forward into Nigel’s hand. Whimpering, keening, aching with enjoyment, his voice carries loud in the bedroom and Nigel’s joins it, lower, harmony struck between. Adam sinks low, twisting his hips with Nigel buried to the fucking balls inside him, and then - only then - does Nigel buck up against him.
Deeper.
Harder.
Adam laughs, nearly loses his balance and catches Nigel’s free hand to support himself, other hand up to tug his own hair, down to bite his knuckle, lower still over his throat and to his nipples, peaked and sensitive as Adam rubs against them.
It’s a show, beautiful and improvised and entirely what both want. Pleasure, comfort, sharing and experiencing this together. Adam thinks, suddenly, of the first time he had brought Nigel home, how he had insisted that they would have sex, together, it wouldn’t just be a thing he did to Adam. And it never has been, not really, there has never been a moment when Adam did not want to have sex with Nigel, and when he didn’t he would say it outright enough for Nigel to back off.
It was rare.
And even then Adam wanted him, he just didn’t know how to express that.
“You’re gonna make me come,” Adam whimpers, squeezing Nigel’s hand tighter, allowing his blush to darken the freckles against his nose. Eyes closed and lips open and red, he is beautiful.
Nigel twines their fingers, holding tight. Adam’s body ensnares his own, pulling tighter in dizzying waves of pressure. Heat. Movement. And Nigel strokes him, to match the pace at which Adam works Nigel’s cock inside himself, and he begs a litany - come for me, baby, come for me, you’re fucking gorgeous, fuck Adam, fucking come on me -
His voice jerks short, words lost to a moan as Adam spurts thick across his fingers and Nigel loses himself inside. Warm white spatters ribbon his stomach and darken his chest hair, both shuddering unsteady as the waves of their release unravel any control in their movements. Wetness slicks Nigel’s cock as he bucks against Adam trembling atop him. A slow curl of his wrist milks Adam to shaking, body clenching tight enough to empty Nigel entirely.
Adam makes a fussy sound when he gets too sensitive and Nigel lets him go. It takes several moments more before Adam pushes himself up enough to have Nigel slip free. Trembling, he rests over Nigel on all fours and grins, sleepy and soft, before leaning in to kiss Nigel again, slow and soft and loving.
“You always feel so big,” Adam whispers, smiling when Nigel growls softly against him. “Feel you for hours after. Days, sometimes, if you’re rough, I like when you are, and I like you like this.” More kisses, like flutterings of gentle wings against Nigel’s face.
Nigel could fucking purr for it.
He wraps his arms around Adam and presses him close, kissing away the fussy noise he makes at the mess smeared between them, until Adam smiles again. Nigel turns to his side, Adam facing, and tucks their heads together. Gently, he wipes away the sweat from Adam’s brow, and thumbs softly across his lips.
Adam draws it between to suckle and Nigel shivers.
“You fucking haunt me, you know that? When I have to go away, you’re still there, darling. Begging to be kissed without saying a fucking word, rubbing against me. You wake me up from a dead fucking slumber when I dream about your hands on me and your breath against my ear, and I can’t sleep again until I imagine myself inside you again.”
Adam’s nose wrinkles and he nuzzles close, freeing Nigel’s thumb to kiss him instead.
“I love fucking you,” Nigel whispers, grinning when Adam’s cheeks heat. “You’re so fucking hot inside, you spread so pretty. The fucking sounds you make, sparrow, your little chirps and whimpers. And every fucking day that I wake up and see you I wonder how I got so fucking lucky.”
“You’ve got me for years now,” Adam reminds him sleepily, smiling wide and letting his eyes meet Nigel’s again. The only light is the one in the living room through the open door, but he would know him with no light at all. Adam sighs, long and slow, and rests a heavy arm over Nigel’s middle, nuzzling nose to nose. He wants to tell Nigel that Adam is the one who is lucky, he wants to tell him that he loves when Nigel fucks him too, that he loves when Nigel picks him up and carries him bodily to bed, or bends him over the dining room table, a slow peeling of his pants and underwear down his thighs before biting against the meat of his ass with a laugh and a low pleased growl...
“I love you,” Adam tells him simply, instead. “And I will for as long as I can think.”
And with a warm nuzzle, Nigel knows that he could never want for anything else.
He has a home.
A family.
Love.
And Adam fucking Raki.