Archive of Our Own ^beta

“And then you will be married, Herbert?”

If Herbert heard the uncharitable scorn in Pip’s question, he was good enough not to acknowledge it. He was still working an arm out of his coat, so quickly had Pip assailed him for news after he’d arrived.

“How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?” he replied with a sigh, turning with coat in hand to where a handsome coat rack had once stood beside the mantle, prior to the latest demands from Pip’s creditors. Before Pip could even phrase a shameful admission of having had to sell the piece, however, Herbert tossed his coat over the mantle as naturally as if he’d done so a hundred times; indeed, as if this was where the two of them always chose to place their outerwear. Herbert knew the state of Pip’s expenses perfectly well, of course, but he’d always allowed Pip these small graces in pretending that state was something other than “poor and indebted to every shop-owner in London.”

The kindness brought a prickle of guilt to Pip for his earlier rudeness; Clara was a lovely girl, and Pip knew Herbert cared for her deeply. Pip could not shake his conviction that Herbert’s delight in helping others despite great personal expense was a obstacle in the young man’s path to success, but he could scarcely pretend he wished he were any less a devoted friend. A more ambitious young man would certainly not have taken an unpaid leave from work just because his friend—his crass, wildly-indebted, lower-class friend—had gotten himself set aflame by a mad old country widow.

Pip had, of course, received his burns in the process of trying to charm nearly a thousand pounds from the old woman for Herbert’s sake. Herbert was never to know this, however, so Pip held this gentle nursing against him all the same.

As if sensing his thoughts—or, perhaps, simply seeking a change in subject, Herbert consulted his pocket-watch and announced, “It’s time for fresh cloth on those burns, Handel.” Pip couldn’t contain a petulant groan, pulling his bandaged arm protectively against his chest with his right hand, which had escaped the greater part of the fire’s damage.

“Lay you arm out upon the back of the sofa, my dear boy,” Herbert scolded, sitting beside Pip on the couch and—oh, yes, there was this. Pip spent a great deal of time philosophizing to himself when Herbert was around, because in truth the other man’s company made him uncomfortably aware of his own body. Herbert sat close—the small couch necessitated it—and Pip shifted further back against the cushions in a futile attempt to keep some distance between them. He noticed the hurt that flickered across Herbert’s features and, with a pang of guilt, made a belated attempt to disguise the movement as an adjustment of his sling.

“Handel, really.” Herbert’s tone was light, but there was none of the usual easiness between them as he leaned close to check Pip’s forehead for fever before settling in to unravel the bandages. Pip felt a spike of something close to annoyance as he watched Herbert tend to his injuries with the same patient tenderness he had exhibited the last two times they had gone through this. His hands delicate on the inside of his wrists, his breath warm against the sensitive skin still healing there; Pip didn’t understand why he didn’t- he had tried to make it clear at least- hadn’t he spent entire nights trying to say-

“Herbert,” he said, after a tense silence, “can you see me best by the light of window, or the light of the fire?”

“By the firelight,” answered Herbert, coming close again.

“Look at me.”

Herbert’s brow creased, his gaze flickering from one of Pip’s eyes to the other.

“I do look at you, my dear boy,” he said with a distracted frown, reaching up to touch the back of one of his hands to Pip’s forehead again. Pip felt a surge of frustration and pulled back, shifting his hips conspicuously as he fell back against the cushions.

“Look at me,” he repeated, but Herbert had already glanced down, and Pip saw a flush appear on his neck as he looked away quickly. Pip watched him struggle to regain his mask of propriety, and knew what would happen next. Herbert would pretend he hadn’t seen his obvious arousal, reciting a perfect excuse to leave and leaving in an instant, never looking back at him or maybe managing a quick smile in his general direction to maintain the façade, and then he would be out into the night, likely forgetting his coat, likely going to see Clara-

“Herbert,” Pip said. It came out sharper than he’d meant it to, more of a command than a question, but it had the desired result as Herbert looked back at him, confusion still dominating his features. Pip held his gaze, desperately wishing for that ease of understanding between them to return now, for Herbert to know what he was trying to ask of him without having to say a word, the way he had just that afternoon, when Pip was struggling at lunch to wield his knife and Herbert had leaned over the table to swap his own neatly cut steak for Pip’s mangled one. Pip remembered the quick, precise movements of Herbert’s hands as he had cut into the battered steak, the way he had slid a piece into his mouth off the tip of his knife with a teasing smile, and Pip had flushed then at the playful jab at his own poor table manners just as he felt himself flushing now as he recalled the fullness of Herbert’s pink lips wrapped around the dull blade of the knife, the way he had chased the flavor with a barely-there sweep of his tongue across his lower lip.

Now, he felt his eyes flick down to that mouth again before he could stop himself, and he looked back up quickly in time to catch Herbert glancing back up as well, his pupils looking large and dark in his pale grey eyes. They held each other’s gaze for another long moment, a guilty blush climbing up to Herbert’s ears, and that was all the warning Pip had before Herbert sprang forward, catching Pip’s face between trembling hands and pulling him towards him as he pressed his lips hard against Pip’s.

Pip made an embarrassing noise of surprise in the back of his throat, shortly eclipsed by a much more embarrassing noise of approval as Herbert tilted his head to better capture Pip’s lower lip between his own. Spurred on by this, Herbert slipped a hand down to Pip’s chest to urge him further back into the pillows, and he had gotten them nearly horizontal by the time Pip gave into the urge to pull him closer and tried to grab for his lapels.

He had barely closed his fingers around them when he felt pain spike up through his hands, and he jerked back with a hiss of pain. Herbert pulled back, looking an absurd combination of concerned and aroused, and his mouth quirked into a smile when he realized what had occurred.

“Really, my dear Handel,” he murmured, reaching for the half-unraveled bandages around Pip’s left hand. Pip offered his hands to him, then started when Herbert caught him by the upper arms instead and swung the two of them down across the seat of the couch in one swift movement. He slid his hands up Pip’s arms, catching the loose bandages and twining them around Pip’s wrists as he pulled them above Pip’s head, settling them delicately on the cushion before catching both wrists in one hand and holding them there with a good deal more force. Pip stared at him, uncomprehending (and rather having had the air knocked out of him), and Herbert still had that queer smirk on his face when he pressed his lips against Pip’s ears and whispered, “You really must learn to control yourself.”

Pip arched into him as he pressed his hips flush with Pip’s own, one hand still holding Pip’s wrists against the cushions, keep him from reaching for him again. Shifting his weight onto that arm, Herbert ghosted his other hand under Pip’s untucked shirt and clasping his side. As he kissed his way back up Pip’s throat, he dragged his thumb lazily against Pip’s chest, just shy of his nipple, and Pip felt him smile as he squirmed under his hands, trying to get more contact. Herbert captured Pips bottom lip again, and Pip felt the barest drag of teeth across it just as Herbert allowed the tip of his thumbnail to drag across the edge of his nipple, making him cry out against Herbert’s mouth as his hips bucked against Herbert’s again.

“Touch me,” he panted as Herbert resumed his maddening slow strokes across his chest, but Herbert only murmured, “I do touch you, my dear boy,” as he pressed the pad of his thumb against his nipple again.

Pip struggled briefly to free his hands, but Herbert’s grip on them only tightened as he rucked Pip’s shirt up, giving Pip a rather serious look as he pressed a kiss against his sternum. Pip didn’t immediately comprehend, until he felt the question in the slight loosening of Herbert’s hold on his hands.

“No,” Pip said hastily, then corrected, “I mean no, no, keep doing it,” as the grip loosened further. After a moment of studying Pip’s expression, Herbert tightened his hold on his wrists again, and Pip tugged once experimentally before arching up against Herbert, trying to throw him off just to achieve the slight friction against his hips as Herbert caged him back in.

“Please, Herbert,” he begged, and Herbert seemed finally to take pity on him as he lifted himself up to brace on his right arm again as he reached down with the left to palm Pip’s cock through his trousers.

“Going to have to tie you to the bed next time,” he said, almost to himself, as Pip squirmed again, and just the thought of a next time, a next time with a bed, made him drop his head back against his arms, grinding his cock shamelessly up against Herbert’s hand through the thin material.

Herbert bent to kiss and nip his way across Pip’s chest again, allowing Pip to ride his hand as he worked his way up to a nipple and teased it with his mouth. Pip knew he was embarrassingly close to coming just from this, and he tried to warn Herbert through a series of failed attempts at speaking and finally another tug of his wrists.

Despite this, Pip still felt an ache when Herbert pulled his hand away from his cock, but a moment later Herbert was tugging the material down, and Pip lifted his hips to help him along. He was surprised, though, when Herbert let go of his wrists as well with a small noise of discomfort, quickly shimmying his own trousers down as well. He draped himself back over Pip a moment later, taking up his wrists in the other hand this time and dropping his elbow to rest on the cushions as he took both of their cocks in his other hand.

Pushing up into the heat of it, Pip was about to warn Herbert about his precarious state again when Herbert began stroking them together at a quick, artless pace, and Pip realized he was just as close as he was. Pressing his head back against his arms, which Herbert was scarcely restraining at all at this point, Pip felt his orgasm rushing up on him and he cried out as Herbert pushed him over the edge with just a few more hard, quick strokes.

He hadn’t had Herbert’s mouth to muffle the sound this time, and when Herbert collapsed beside him on the couch a few short moments later, it was with a throaty, panting laugh.

“The laundress is going to think you’ve just been killed,” he said, his tone awfully conversational, in Pip’s opinion, for a man dragging his fingers through streaks of cum across his flatmate’s stomach.

“I’m not sure I haven’t been,” Pip replied, rotating his shoulders and wincing at the pop as he brought his hands back down to rest on his chest.

“Oh, come now,” Herbert said with a grin, leaning up to unravel the bandages from around Pip’s wrists. “I was only doing what you asked in the first place. Now, up, we need to get these bandages changes.”

Pip stared after him as he stretched, stood, and tucked himself back into his trousers, pausing only to lick his fingers clean before straightening his clothes and going across the room for a new bandage. He seemed utterly nonchalant about the entire event, as if this was just another possible aspect of a friendship, and watching him unearth the bandages with a triumphant smile, Pip considered that perhaps, for them, it could be.