Zymosis
{PG | John/Rodney }
written for mcsmooch; beta and title by general_jinjur
*
The wine tastes vaguely of cherries, sweet and bright, and it has stained Rodney’s mouth obscenely. John thinks maybe it’s a bad idea to be drinking here with Rodney in his intimately dark room; it feels like every moment is leading him that much closer to giving in to long-resisted temptation, and he doesn’t care.
John drains his glass, tilts his head too far back and dizzies himself. He lists into Rodney’s solid warm shoulder and slumps awkwardly against his side. There’s an unexpected tingle behind his ear: fingers, Rodney’s fingers, scratching his scalp.
“Hey,” Rodney says. “You drunk?” He turns his face toward John’s, too close, their noses brush and John struggles to focus on steady blue and not crooked red.
“Mmm,” John replies, breathless and languid, “jus’ fuzzy. ‘M okay.”
Rodney scans his face, doubtful, and pauses to contemplate John’s mouth. “You’ve, uh -” With the hand not cradling the back of John’s head Rodney thumbs John’s sweetened bottom lip. “You’ve gotten all stained. From the wine.”
John’s breath hitches and he swallows a mouthful of lust, licking his lips on autopilot and tasting the broad side of Rodney’s thumb. Rodney’s eyes snap up, calculating, but John’s too captivated by the dilation of Rodney’s pupils to think about his own slipped mask.
“John?” Rodney’s voice is quiet and deep, intense. He tucks his fingers behind John’s jaw, waits for John to protest or pull away, but he doesn’t. Instead John gives in, gives up, drops his empty glass in favour of clumsily fisting a hand in Rodney’s collar and using his grip as leverage to pull himself upright and shove their mouths together.
The first kiss is awkward and ill-timed, teeth clacking and noses bumping painfully. Rodney pulls back sharply and sweeps his tongue over a lower lip bruised by John’s over-eager first attempt. But just as quickly he moves back in, making adjustments for height and inebriation, and god, god, Rodney tastes of cherries, and smells of ozone, and every time their tongues touch it feels a little bit like flying.
When they break apart to breathe (too soon, John’s thinks, no matter how light-headed he’s become), Rodney says, “You’d better not freak out in the morning,” and it’s so absurd that John laughs. He laughs about whale-watching, and remote-control cars; laughs about Madison’s glitter glue, and coffee brewed too strong, and orange fleece stretched over broad shoulders.
John is still laughing when he touches his forehead to Rodney’s; he is unsurprised by the comfortable intimacy. There’s a clumsy touch on his inner arm, ghosting over his wrist band before catching his hand in a firm, grounding grip. “One day you’re going to tell me what was so funny about that,” Rodney complains, but the shake in his voice says he already knows.
Feeling full to burst with the heady combination of wine and affection, John briefly contemplates Rodney’s mouth, now stained red from more than just wine, before kissing it again, and again, and again, and again, until the taste of cherries has been licked away and all that’s left is them.