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Chapter Text

His reflection on one of the screens mounted on a metal wall of the Waverider stopped John in his track. Under a sudden spell of curiosity he got closer and examined his appearance even when John Constantine wasn’t one to place his looks at the top of his priorities – presentable was his go-by motto and so far he’d been doing a fairly acceptable job, or so he thought.

He looked… okay for the most part: hair a little messy and sticking in multiple directions but that was how it usually was – it wasn’t like he was compelled to spend half an hour every morning in a rigorous styling ritual, unlike certain members of the crew; stubbles dark on his cheeks and chin but it was the right amount of facial hairs he preferred so no problem in that department; bags under his bleary eyes but it was nothing out of the ordinary, what with his nocturnal lifestyle and perpetually short hours of sleep, plus the lack of his morning dosage of caffeine; and shirt unironed but at least clean and neatly tucked in – the day had barely started for him after all.

And there was his tie: hastily done and thus hanging limply around his collar. Again, nothing unusual since John didn’t bother too much with his tie every morning – way too sleep-addled and much reluctant to waste his time on trivial stuff. It was unlikely his clients of the day were going to comment on the state of his attire while they were having a shrieking demon-possessed kid in their household.

Then Ray’s truthful confession hit him like crossing the road in haste and getting run over by a raging bull, never mind the near-improbability and absurdity of such an incident. The damn truth bug had forced it out of Ray’s mouth, as the big man didn’t have a mean bone in his skeleton and was also too polite to have uttered a remark sure to cause some discord. That it had gone against Ray’s consent to have his inner thoughts aired out, regrettably, didn’t dispute the fact that it had been his honest opinion regarding John’s style, causing the warlock to be self-conscious out of the blue about a specific component in his choice of dress – his signature look, some might say, and he wouldn’t disagree.

Thus, John spent the next few minutes in front of a makeshift mirror that was the screen wrestling with his tie, which baffled him with its stubbornness to comply and led him to a vexing conclusion that he hadn’t really educated himself on the intricate art of doing a tie the proper way. As a result, he ended up with either a flaccid strip of fabric at his neck, which was what he usually had if John was honest, or various degrees of failed attempts to strangle himself. In the end, he gave up with an audible growl and hurried along the corridor leading to the bridge at Sara’s exploding volume due to unfashionable tardiness from a certain “dabbler of the dark arts” (see, this was why John didn’t do teams before all of this!).

Ray gently pulled him to a corner before the Legends filed into the fabrication room to get their costumes made. The big man, in his normally polite, kind of bashful manner, pointed out the problem with John’s askew tie and offered his aid, which John readily accepted because God, the bloody thing had been a thorn in his side for the whole meeting and would likely remain so until they got into a scuffle – a standard of their missions at this point, and then the damn tie would become the least of his concern.

What had robbed John of nearly ten minutes only took Ray less than twenty seconds, and it stung just a little to have his incompetence in something as simple as this highlighted to him in bold font.

“Thanks,” John said, patting Ray’s biceps, which were steadily becoming one of his favorite parts, “you make an excellent squire, squire.”

When in doubt, refer to the Constantine’s guidelines of appropriate behaviors and it was exactly what John did, opting for playful name calling to distract himself from how close Ray’s fingers – favorite parts also – had been to his throat and how turned on he had been by that alone.

To be continued

Chapter Text

John didn’t do cosplay.

Never thought about it. Never wanted to. Never interested in trying. He’d made it super clear the very moment he boarded the Waverider and sort of joined this not-so-merry band of time-hopping individuals: he would not don funny costumes or wear a ridiculous wig in order to ‘fit in’ with the era. Nope. He’d stay loyal to his beige trench coat, red tie and black trousers – they were relatively timeless anyway… unless they decided to time-jump to Camelot or something, in which case he’d pass.

The teeny-tiny problem was the Legends did do cosplay – were quite fond of it actually, judging by the giddy excitement ubiquitously plastered on their faces while they were busy picking out era-appropriate garments from the fabricator and suitable background stories to go with. As they said, when in Rome…

John had been fumbling with his neckwear for a good five minutes now.

It was a reconnaissance mission to track a fugitive mingling among the elites in a private banquet thrown by some rich douche in town, meaning the dress code was black and formal, so John couldn’t strut in dressed in his trench coat, crumpled shirt and loose tie. Technically he could, as he had a few persuasion spells up his proverbial sleeve but once inside, he would stand out like a sore thumb, which was the opposite of their goal for tonight. Hence, regardless of his personal opinion on the matter, he was going to grind his teeth and do it.

John had few issues with ties, relatively speaking, having worn them for too long he couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he had started, and even if his loose-hanging tie rarely met formal standards, it didn’t pose much of a problem. Fancy silk cravats, however, were an entirely different race of beast, one that spelt trouble for the great John Constantine that he couldn’t tackle with his arsenal of spells and magical objects.

“Need a hand?”

Huffing indignantly, John turned to the familiar chirpy voice. The sight greeting his gaze momentarily stunned him into forgetting the frustrating accessory challenge he hadn’t asked for.

It was not a debate that Ray Palmer looked good – not only good, fantastic – in just about any fabrics he chose (and even better in nothing at all but John was not ready to dive into that rabbit hole for the sake of his own sanity – and testes); the Waverider’s own nerd had the face and physique of a fashion model (which had had John baffled till this day), so that was a given. Nevertheless, such impression didn’t adequately equip him to deal with Ray Palmer in a tailored tux, with his luscious dark hair styled to bring out the best of his facial features, namely his diamond-cut jawline (dubbed the Palmer jawline, courtesy of one Nate Heywood) and large, shining eyes.

He was extending his right hand, clad in pristine glove, to John and in a different context, the warlock might allow himself to believe he was being offered to join Ray for a dance rather than having his cravat fixed.

A man could only hope.

“Yeah, could definitely use a hand here,” John replied, tease-free for once.

Ray smiled, causing a strange fluttering in John’s insides, then wordlessly set to work on John’s stubborn neckwear. Never had John imagined that watching an engineer’s fingers tying a small piece of silk would be considered therapeutic but here he was, slightly entranced by Ray’s movements that his sour mood dissipated without his awareness.

“All good and you’re ready to go.”

John snapped out of his pleasant enchantment and was faced with Ray’s trademark sunshine smile. His eyes reluctantly peeled from Ray’s face and landed on his cravat in the mirror, the pearl in the middle giving off a faint glow.

“Thanks, mate,” John said, patting Ray’s shoulder. “Can’t imagine how I’d managed without you before.”

“That’s what all good squires are for,” Ray replied with a wink.

John blinked, the cogs inside his head turning. Did Ray just…

Without giving John time to fully digest the meaning of his quip, Ray offered his arm to the confused warlock. “Shall we?”

John pretended to side-eye his arm even if his face heated up. “Do we have to?”

“Yeah, didn’t you hear Sara? The event is for the elite same-sex couples, meaning we’re entering as a pair…”

Right, he must have zoned out a bit while Sara had been listing the finer details of the mission. John felt no qualms dumping the entire blame on Ray and his distracting habit of lip biting when in contemplation for that.

“… unless you’re not comfortable with the arrangement, in which case I’m sure we can find another—”

John ran over his options at Barry Allen’s speed. “Nope,” he cut Ray, hooking his arm with his. He purposefully pressed his form against the genius inventor’s, enjoying the pink shade coloring the tips of Ray’s ears more than he properly should. “We’re good. Can’t think of a better partner. Also…”

John leaned in and spoke in confiding tone. “Can’t wait for the part where we make out passionately, squire, which I’m certain will happen sooner or later as ‘keeping up the ruse’. After all, we’re going to a maybe orgy, aren’t we?”

“We’re not—”

John chuckled, nudging them both forward, and feigned ignorance to the sputtering sounds Ray made.

To be continued

Chapter Text

It was the cliché of all clichés.

The good guys put on a cover and followed the bad guys into a secret, heavily guarded and most likely dangerous establishment. The good guys got spotted, their cover about to be blown to smithereens and their lives put in grave perils. Theirs wouldn’t be a swift, easy death with dignity, as there would be plenty of torture and humiliation to go round before the bad guys decided it was enough and put a bullet between their eyes. That wasn’t their concern however; their first and foremost priority was the mission and in order to salvage it, they had to resort to drastic measures, which as dictated by the Bible of All Clichés most certainly involved something scandalous, leaving them awkward around each other for days, and that was entirely hinged on the premise that they got out of this sticky situation unscathed.

John was familiar with that type of scenario, having seen it play out in a number of old timey films on his family’s old timey TV set during late-night intervals between dear old dad’s ‘episodes’. It had made him laugh, getting him through those gloomy times, so naturally he was nostalgically fond of it. Still, never had John imagined he would be living it.

They had just rounded the corner when John spotted the unmistakable tattooed heads of the mooks patrolling this part of the building, which as far as John could tell was off-limits to unauthorized persons. The warlock had but a split second to utter an expletive, his mind racing at the speed of lightning to come up with a way out that left all their limbs and digits intact (he’d like for Ray to keep all his beautiful fingers, thank you – it’d benefit in the long run). That was when he felt a rough tug at his immaculately tied cravat, undoubtedly rendering it less immaculate, and then lips smashed against his own. John’s instinctual, natural response was to widen his eyes in disbelief (cliché, yes, but since it was his first time ever), then a second later, both of his hands tried to shove the broad chest with all the might of a pissed off, average-built British man (which wasn’t much, unfortunately). To his shock, his assailant didn’t budge, but realization of a different kind dawned fast on him: the texture of fabricated jacket under his fingertips and the distinguished au de parfum practically screamed Ray Palmer. The calming effect was instant: his adrenaline-flooded mind soothed, his tensed muscles eased and John was pleasantly distracted from the imminent danger of being caught, allowing him to slip into a light swoon by being kissed within an inch of his life (God, it had been too long!). And damn if this wasn’t a marvelous  kiss – one of the better, if not the best he’d had in months, so good that John was willing to fight tooth and nail against the prejudice that nerds didn’t have a life, much less a love life because Ray sure as hell couldn’t have acquired those lip and tongue tricks at some science convention (or could he?); either that or Ray was a stereotype-defying anomaly (with his Superman physique? That was a given) amongst his nerdy peers, which John found himself giving very little care as he curled his fingers and fisted Ray’s jacket, trapping Ray to him – not that it needed much effort on John’s part thanks to Ray’s taciturn no-gap policy between their bodies. The man was… eager, that much John could tell, which really amped up his enjoyment of this unexpected turn of event, as well as revealing to him that Ray saw it as much more than a pretense – a minor inconvenience to preserve their cover. It was… eye-opening to say the least, since John had been under a (doleful) impression that Ray didn’t swing that way. Never had he been so elated to be proven so wrong.

If anyone asked (and by ‘anyone’ he specifically meant either Sara or Zari), John would rather ship himself to Hell than admit he’d gotten a little carried away with his lip-on-lip (and some tongue and gropes, too) stunt that the mission had kind of taken a backseat in his mind, until he was (belatedly) reminded by the crisp, frigid tone of one of those tattooed guards.

Fuck.

Really, those blockheads had spectacular timing in cockblocking – as if they’d been specifically trained for it!

Still, Ray beat John in dispensing a sarcastic remark to the guards. He turned to them, hands lingering on John’s lapels, with a smile the like of which John had never witnessed gracing his lips, currently bearing undeniable evidence of his most recent activity.

“Me and my boy got a little carried away with the atmosphere here, sorry about the show,” Ray said, as unapologetically as humanly possible, prompting a serious eye roll from the mildly stunned warlock. And what was the deal with that Southern accent and exaggerated drawl on “my boy”? Who was this chap standing beside John?

“Now, if you’d be so kind to point me to somewhere a bit more private,” Ray continued, ignoring the sourly grim expression on the guards’ faces, quite determined to play the role of a lecherous snob till the end. “Get a room, as they say, so that we could get back to our unfinished business.”

Then he pecked John’s lips, for the sake of making an obnoxious show, which John had to admit worked like a charm because those twats wordlessly pointed them to a corridor on the left while wearing a poorly concealed look of disgust. Oh, how John knew that look. But for Ray’s firm grip on the crook of his elbow, subtly steering him toward the other direction, John might light their homophobic arses on fire, consequences be damned.

“Sorry.”

Ray spoke as soon as they had put a relatively safe distance between them and the risk of exposure, sounding very much like their resident ditzy genius instead of whatever douchebag persona he’d adopted. John preferred him this way; dickiness didn’t suit his gentle, handsome face at all. “Nothing to apologise, mate,” John assured him, patting the back of Ray’s hand which had been at the crook of his elbow since they fled from the guards. “You did it to save us back there.”

Having mistaken John’s gesture for reminder, Ray retracted his hand, dropping it by his side. John immediately lamented it. “Where did you learn to speak like that? Films?”

“From Sara, actually and Snart, I guess,” Ray replied, scratching his nape and averting his gaze. “And the Southern drawl makes everything a bit sexier.”

In John’s opinion, not really, but he wasn’t going to argue with Ray on that.

“Still, I’m sorry that I… uhm…”

“Kissed me without consent?” John finished for him. Ray’s skin adopted a darker shade of pink. It could be the lighting in the corridor, though.

“Yeah… just so you know, I don’t do that… never force myself on—”

The shrew warlock shut him up mid-sentence with a deliberate kiss, grabbing the baby curls at the back of Ray’s head with one hand while the other caressed Ray’s pulses, which felt like a jackrabbit high on cocaine under his fingertips.

Keep it up and the poor chap may have a stroke, John mused, grudgingly breaking the kiss.

“Just so you know, I never force myself on others, either,” John said, lips barely parting from Ray’s, “unless it’s getting even.”

Who was being cliché now?

…

Before they re-entered the ballroom and joined the rest of the team, Ray spent half a minute fixing John’s cravat, which had gone askew during their emergency smooch. Once he was done, John surprised him with a peck at the corner of his mouth, and was pleased by his dazed look and absolute lack of protest – another reason to look forward to picking up where they’d left once things were over and they were safely back at the Waverider.

To be continued

Chapter Text

“Hold still! It’s gonna be alright!”

The urgency in the voice, bordering on mania, slipped through John’s mind like sand through cracks between fingers. The speaker’s name, too, John was certain he recognized it, was familiar with it even, but right at this moment he failed to neither spell it nor match it to a face in his limited pool of friends and business partners. His gaze, coated in a light pink sheen and blurry around the edge, landed on the stump just above his wrist, where viscous red liquid was spurting. There was a noun for it, he just needed to rake his brain a little. Ah, found it. Blood. No one else’s but his own, gushing out from where his hand used to exist. Key words: ‘used to’. His memory flooded in, filling out the caveats in his mind. John had raised his dominant hand, his fingertips glowing orange like the tip of his cigarette and a powerful immolation spell ready at his tongue. The creature snarled, foaming at its snout, and swung its scythe-limb, severing the warlock’s hand clean. He was barely given a second to register the pain before his knees buckled and his body collapsed, going into shock.

A blast of pale blue knocked the creature away as it stalked to John to deliver the final blow. John felt his torso gently lifted up and propped against a hard chest. Too hard, actually, and not in the least comfortable. Dazed, John angled his chin up and a handsome countenance entered his line of sight. A shame. If he could he would raise his hand and wipe away the fine lines of concern all over the forehead. Worry didn’t become him; John preferred him smiling like the big ray of sunshine that he was. Also, the cold hardness must be his suit, whose acronyms John couldn’t recall because science mumbo jumbo wasn’t his forte even when he was sober and not delirious with pain.

“God, you’re going into shock. Stay with me, John. Stay with me!”

He felt light-headed, which was probably due to all the blood in a hurry to escape his veins and get swallowed by the barren soil under him. John supposed he had a spell or two in store for staunching the blood flow, but his brain capacity was simple not enough to extract anything coherent other than Ray’s name and maybe his own (and that was already an effort).

John felt – or believed he felt – the loose tie from his neck ripped out none too gently, followed by tight pressure on his forearm, below the cut. R.I.P his tie, John mused, right before he drifted away.

…

His consciousness trickled in like fine sand in a pound-shop hour glass.

The ceiling was gray – metallic – and familiar-looking. He must have been here some time in the past for the image to be ingrained in his memory so that he got such an impression even in his addled state.

The lighting was too harsh, and it burnt his bleary eyes, but maybe it was because he’d just woken up from a coma.

The steady ‘beep, beep, beep’ of the machine to which he was hooked by several colorful wires was simultaneously lulling him to sleep and grating his nerves. It probably didn’t make sense, but neither did most details being filtered through his numbed senses to his groggy mind. Grimacing, John moved his torso so that he could find a switch or a button to turn the pesky thing off. That was when realization dawned on him, bringing his attention to two factors: 1. his right hand was now a bandaged stump, which triggered a whole roster of events from the beginning of hunting that scythe-limbed asshat up until the abrupt end of his consciousness going offline; and 2. Ray looked gaunt, his already pale complexion getting paler, and there were bags under his eyes and dark stubbles on his usually clean-shaven chin. The perpetual shine in his eyes had somewhat dimmed even though his features lit up as John gingerly returned to the land of the living. That he was the reason for Ray’s spelled-out fatigue pained John even more than the loss of a limb, which was likely all the medications Gideon had pumped into his system doing the talking.

John shifted on the cot, using his remaining hand to push himself up, which proved to be an instant regret because such small effort elicited a significant protest from his entire body. Ray’s hands shot out to give his shoulders a gentle but firm push. “Don’t move yet,” he ordered, his tone soft, his eyes pleading. John had already had a hard time saying no to them on a normal, healthy day; how could he resist them while weakened and under influence?

“So, no more buffin’ the bishop for dear old Johnny, eh?” John quipped, as it was his standard reaction to every traumatic incident to have ever happened in the course of his life. There was time for processing later, when he was in the quiet solitude of his room, though he doubted it would come anytime soon, given his condition and Ray’s tendency to mother-hen. “Wonder who’d be kind enough to give me a hand now.”

The joke fell flat even to John’s ears, mostly due to his low-level energy and the lingering after effect of his sedative. Ray’s expression further softened, even if a blink-and-you-miss-it streak of humor flashed his eyes. Must be exhaustion playing tricks with John’s mind. “There’s hope for that,” Ray said, bewildering him. “Soon as you’re back on your feet, Gideon will make you a new hand.” A beat. “I’m still much obliged to give you a hand though, anytime you need.”

The innuendo was almost in the face and by the shine in Ray’s eyes John could tell it wasn’t his usual slip of tongue. In any other circumstances he would play right along because Ray’s flirting was a rare occurrence he wouldn’t miss it for the world; still, his head was much overwhelmed with queries to come up with any salacious response. Ray picked up on that and his smile withered instantly. “Sorry, inappropriate timing,” he apologized, scratching the back of his head and further messing up his uncombed hair.

“What do you mean by ‘hand’, like a robot hand?”

It might pose a few problems to do the hocus locus with a mechanical hand, the major of which being he couldn’t.

“No, not a reboot hand. What I mean to say is Gideon can restore your hand after you recover from the blood loss – a real hand, like flesh and blood and having your DNA, kinda like cloning, except it’s only a hand and not an evil you running around, nobody’d want that. So you don’t have to worry about it and just focus on feeling better.”

Ray had lapsed into his habit of rambling a mile a minute when he was anxious, that much John could tell; in spite of that, John believed he’d grasped the gist, and a burst of white-hot hope cleaved through his being, lethargized by the amount of painkillers Gideon must have injected him with. “Slow down, big guy,” he said, patting Ray’s forearm (so warm, or was it because his temperature was low?). “So, basically I still have both hands.”

“Yes.”

“How’s that even possible? Not that I’m not grateful to retain my full wanking kit.”

Ray made a comical face at his exquisite diction. “22nd century technology,” he explained. “Rip Hunter, our former captain, took samples of our DNAs for situations like this. That’s why Sara insisted on taking your sample at the beginning. It helped Snart before, and it’s going to help you now.”

John breathed through his nose, taking a few seconds to let that sink in. It was… surreal, to be honest, to know that science continued to evolve and even surpassed magic. John didn’t doubt there existed a limb restoration spell somewhere, and more than a dozen demons and angels were happy to make a deal, but there was always a catch down the line: a limb for a limb, sometimes literally. Science, on the other hand, didn’t ask him to sacrifice his own cat (didn’t have any), pay with lifetime servitude or give up a part of his soul. Science required nothing more than a small vial of his blood and a few strands of his hair – laughably cheap for something as precious as a hand.

“Thanks in advance, Gideon,” John said to the ceiling.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Constantine.”

“Sorry about your tie, by the way,” Ray said. “It’s a shame I wasn’t able to save it.”

John recalled the pressure on his forearm before he’d passed out. He was also able to salvage the brief memory of Ray ripping it from his neck in haste. It would have been pretty hot if John hadn’t been on the verge of death.

“When I imagine you ripping my tie,” he said, “it’s for a sexier reason than staunching the blood flow, which is a bit of a turn-off.”

The blush on Ray’s neck and cheeks would be more prominent if it wasn’t because of his ashen color. He smiled, somewhat bashfully.

Even when they’d been fooling around for a while (mostly rushed handjobs between missions and two or three blowjobs in the bathroom), Ray the Boy Scout still managed to sport that lovely shade every time John made a suggestive comment. Honestly, it was the one thing he never wished to change about Ray.

“I could replace your tie,” Ray said, “as an apology.”

“Careful, squire. I may hold you to that.”

…

John got a brand-new hand, a brand-new, wine-colored tie and an old, familiar pair of hands eager to help him with his brand-new tie (and some more, when done). He wagered he’d gained more than lost after this ordeal.

To be continued

Chapter Text

A tie, John had learned a long time ago, was quite versatile in usage, a notion which had been renewed and reinforced lately (using it as a makeshift tourniquet, how resourceful).

A tie could be a fun accessory in the bedroom also, if one was creative enough.

And John, well, John prided himself on his ingenuity in the bedroom department.

At the moment, he was exercising that particular sort of ingenuity.

Rarely did the Waverider crew secure a lazy evening for themselves: no fugitives running amok and wreaking havoc, no magical mishaps that might or might not put them in mortal peril, and no Time Bureau agents to chew their heads off for their recklessness and the collateral damage they’d caused in the name of ‘fixing’ the timeline. Sara and Ava had already gone off to do their ‘things’, eager if not the most eager out of them to get some ‘quality time’ away from the constant crowd. Charlie had managed to coax Nate, Mick and Zari into engaging in a pub crawl, meaning, by John’s estimate, they would not be back before twilight, likely drunk off their arses and having initiated a few pub brawls. To his surprise, Ray had politely declined, earning some exaggerated groans from Nate and Charlie, because he’d been yearning for a quiet, uneventful ‘night-in’, being an introvert with the need to recharge and what nots. That had given John a perfect excuse to stay on board as well since who else is gonna mind and make sure their resident nerd stay safe and sound and not kill himself by tripping in the bathroom or something till the team’s back. It had elicited an eyeroll and a pout from Ray but had been convincing enough for their teammates to accept it at face value (Nate had even thanked him while Mick had just grunted and ushered them off the ship).

… Cue the next few hours doused in teeth-rottingly domestic bliss during which Ray had proposed to make dinner—so tired of Gideon’s ready-made, lukewarm cuisine, engaging John in the process because as much as he looked like it, the warlock wasn’t a total sloth when he could help it. Dinner had been an informal affair, no candlelight or classical violin in the background, just the two of them, each holding onto their hearty bowl of stew and comfortably crowding into a couch while watching an episode of Doctor Who (yeah, he geeked out too, once in a blue moon). John would have been content if the night had concluded on an amicable, strictly platonic note but somehow, something had sparked between them and lit up an entire acre of pent-up emotions and raging libido due to circumstantial abstinence on a goddamn time ship…

… which was, long story short, how they had ended up in this compromising position, with a half-naked Ray flat on his medium-sized bed, being straddled by an equally half-naked John, who had spent the better half of the last hour taking his sweet time stripping them off their layers (physically and emotionally) and generally making them both hot, hard and leaking in their undone trousers. If asked, John would probably claim he held no regret having initiated the first kiss right after slamming Ray into the steel wall, followed by his most honest and straightforward proposition to date. No, no regret at all.

The tie, crumpled and placid in John’s palm, was patiently awaiting its unfolded destiny. John’s voice was hoarse with lust as he spoke, “You sure about this, squire?”

A light buck of the hips answered John’s query, causing his breath to hitch. Broad, warm hands instantly followed, slithering under the hem of his unbuttoned shirt to palm his soft abdomen and protruding hipbones, before not-so-subtly snaking their way down to knead the globes of his rump. A stunted moan escaped John’s lips as his prick twitched in its fabric confinement.

Ah, should have gotten rid of those clothes eons ago.

“‘Cuz I kinda like your big, hot hands on me like this,” John breathed, reaching down to guide Ray’s hands to the obscene tent his arousal was making in his trousers.

“Positive,” Ray replied, sounding no less affected than John himself, which the warlock counted as a definite triumph. Then he put his hands together and offered them to John not unlike a criminal surrendering himself to the laws. The mental comparison had John roll his eyes hard. “I’ve had some experience with handcuffs – the playful types, with fur and velvet linings, not the hard, steel, no-fun ones.”

John huffed a laugh. “Now that’s interesting, Raymondo. Here I thought ya the vanilla type.”

He was pretty sure Ray intended for a scowl, but the pinkish tint spreading from his clavicles to his face severely undermined his attempt, which was both amusing and adorable as hell.

Can’t believe I just thought that, mused the warlock with a mental facepalm as he bent his head and met Ray in a hungry, sloppy kiss.

“I-I’d like to give up control, even just a tiny bit such as this,” Ray explained once their lips parted with a small, satisfying pop and a thin string of saliva. “It’s actually liberating, and, and I trust you.”

John promptly choked on any teases about to spill from his lips (also the saliva), feeling the heat searing his skin. It was a welcoming kind of burn though, and he couldn’t care less if it made him look like a pathetic, cliché moron when he devoured Ray’s mouth in earnest. No-one had ever said that they trusted him, which was fair as he hadn’t given anyone a good reason to, but Ray – big-hearted, trusting Ray – didn’t need John to do anything for him to gift the warlock his ultimate gift of sincere trust. Seriously, how the bloke had survived till this day was a miracle on its own.

“If you insist, big guy,” John breathed against Ray’s lips, guiding Ray’s arms above his head with the sort of careful tenderness he scarcely had for other partners or himself, for that matter. His fingers, experienced in these kinky tricks, took care when tying his tie around Ray’s wrists so that the knot didn’t cut off his blood circulation and still maintained its aesthetics. Pleased with his handiwork, John patted Ray’s forearm to signal the deed was done and they were ready for the next step.

Ray was giving him one of his signature Golden Retriever look with those big brown eyes full of trust, specially honed to turn John’s insides into mush. Chest heaving with anticipation, he licked his chapped lips and reached for the condom and lube in the open drawer.

…

True to his words, Ray forfeited his control and let John take the rein like an experienced rider and his trusted stealth: how he wanted to go, which pace and rhythm he wanted to adopt, if he wanted to take small intervals mid-ride to compose himself and delay his pleasure. More than sex, which was amazing in itself, it was Ray’s gaze and the scalding affection in it that nudged John to the edge. The climax was mind-blowing, to say the least, the most intense he’d had in a while, made even sweeter as he had managed to almost synchronize their orgasms, causing a shockwave to go through their bodies and souls, shatter them, weld them together before plunging them into the sea of bliss.

When John finally regained some semblance of awareness and reached forward to undo the tie, he found it already loosened to the point Ray could have slipped out of his bondage.

He hadn’t, and that painted a dopey grin on John’s face.

To be continued