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Side by side in the kitchen they sit, this kitchen that feels homelike even though it's in the fucking House of Secrets, and there's half a bottle of whiskey between them. It's weird to see Blake drinking, Floyd thinks—the guy's usually so big on clean living, inasmuch as you can live clean when you spend most of your time teetering on the bloody edge that separates good and evil. But he's had a bad day, dumped by some chick (or dude, maybe), and Floyd's offering the kind of comfort he knows best. Which is pretty much liquor and a semi-supportive ear to talk into.
Blake's been talking in a monotone for almost an hour now, Floyd half-listening and making the appropriate sympathetic noises. It takes a moment for him to realize when the talking stops, and when he does twig on he looks over, feeling guilty, and says, “Well, y'know, I'm always here. If you need something. Within reason, of course, I ain't shooting anyone for free.”
The kiss comes as a complete surprise.
Blake's lips are soft, which he wouldn't have expected from the guy, and he's so thrown that he reacts the way he'd react to any kiss he was expecting, which is to say he opens his mouth a little. Blake tastes like whiskey and blood, his hands are fisted in the collar of Floyd's shirt, and for a second it's nice. And Floyd is just drunk enough that when he can talk, when he's got his mouth to himself again, he says, “Well, hell, Blake.” And before Blake can apologize or do something else moronic like that, Floyd barrels on with, “Took you long enough.”
“Look, I'm—what?”
“C'mere, asshole, before I sober up and start hearin' my mother talk about manly behaviour.”
Blake stares at him for a second and then surges forward, sending his tumbler flying and knocking over his stool and the whiskey and almost Floyd, but Floyd saw his muscles tense and braced for it. This kiss, the second one, is messy as all hell, Blake's hands moving from his collar to his face, everything is about mouths and tongues, and the spike of arousal in Floyd's stomach when he grabs the other man's arms and pulls him close...feels too much like relief to bear thinking about.
Blake's teeth catch on his lower lip for a moment before their mouths are parted. “You taste like ashes.”
“Jeannie's always tellin' me that.”
A flicker of uncertaint at the mention of Jeannette, but all Blake says, not letting go of him, is, “You shouldn't smoke so much. It's bad for you.”
“Yeah, well, what else is a guy with a death wish gonna do?”
“Try living.”
Floyd cocks his head to one side. “Thought that was what I was doing.”
And there's the smile and another whiskey-and-blood kiss, slow and careful, one of those kisses that turns into a hundred smaller ones as they pull apart. “Live for this.”
“You got it, Tomcat.”
Blake raises an eyebrow. “Tomcat? Now?”
Floyd grins. “What, you saying if I scratch your back you won't stick your ass in the air and purr?”
“Claw your hand open, more like.”
“Sounds like a few exes of mine.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“What a pair of fuckups. We should run for office.”
“As what? The only candidates from the Poor Life Choices Party?”
“We doing this or what, Blake? 'Cause if not, you knocked over the liquor and I'm gonna have to go get us another bottle.”
In response Blake peers at him for a moment, and then—this time the only reason Floyd doesn't fall over is because Blake's holding him up, and then after that because his back's hit the wall pretty hard, but he doesn't complain, because he can't talk.
At some point his shirt comes off and goes flying across the kitchen, landing on top of the stove in what's probably all kinds of a fire hazard, and Floyd says, “So we should. Uh. Probably go somewhere else. Because I tell ya, personal experience, the counter here's not too comfy, congenial company notwithstandin'.”
“Sounds good to me.”
They leave Floyd's shirt on the stove.
Blake's shirt leaves the picture at the door to the living room, dropped somewhere among the shoes and boots that clutter up the hall. They break a lamp in their haste to cross the room, ignoring the crash, and just as they're reaching the other door Blake drops. He presses one hand flat against Floyd's stomach, undoes Floyd's fly with his teeth. A deep sniff, a growl, and then at the feeling of his mouth Floyd's pretty sure his shout wakes up the whole house. Not that he gives a damn.
“What the—don't fuckin' stop—”
“Had to know.” And Blake kisses him again, licks from his mouth to his jaw and down the side of his neck and bites, almost hard enough to bruise. “You taste good.”
They maneuver for the couch, but that proves to be more than they can manage with Floyd's hand down the front of Blake's pants and Blake growling into the side of his neck. When they miss the couch completely and realize that they've started heading back toward the other door, Floyd finally manages to gasp, “Bedroom.”
“Ok, yes, bedroom.” Blake tries to take a step and pull Floyd with him, which mostly results in them starting to fall over and nearly taking out another lamp. If they were a little less horny it'd be funny, but they're way too worked up to laugh, and so Blake just picks Floyd up and slings him over one shoulder like a sack.
“Fuck, you're strong, Tomcat. 's very...very caveman of you.”
“Figured it'd be easier than clubbing you over the head and dragging you back by your hair. Then you're not just dead weight.”
“True enough.” And anyway, there are worse views to have than Blake's ass in exercise pants.
It's when they finally get up to where the bedrooms are that shit starts to get awkward, because that's when they run into Bane. He's coming back from the library, carrying a massive stack of books in one hand, a volume of Marcus Aurelius open in the other.
They stop, and Blake and Bane stare each other down. Floyd can't really participate, given the location of his head, so he just says, “What's the holdup? Am I gettin' my rocks off tonight or what?”
Bane doesn't say anything. Big guy doesn't talk much since the whole mess in Gotham, and Floyd can't blame him. He just looks them over, raises an eyebrow, and then indicates vaguely with his open book—they'll need to move if he's going to get down the hall with his armload. Granted, same could be said of Blake, who sidesteps so Bane can get by. The massive man opens the door to his room with one elbow and is gone for the night, lost to his world of ancient glories and willfully oblivious to the indiscretions of his housemates.
As they're finally heading down the hall toward Blake's room, the door to Scandal's suite opens, and she leans out for a moment and glances at them. Turns back to her darkened bedroom—“No, Kay, I'm not inviting them in.”
“Whyever not, poppet?” (with Liana's faint commentary in the background)
—and then leans across the hall and accepts one single, crisp hundred dollar bill from Ragdoll. Floyd stares at them. “Really, Sis? I mean, I would've expected it from 'Doll, but...”
“I bet that you would hold out.”
“The fact that you were even talking about it is a little strange.” Blake sort of looks like he wants to smile, though, inasmuch as Floyd can actually see his face.
Scandal rolls her eyes at him and says, in tones dripping with cheerful condescension, “Go get 'em, tiger,” before shutting the door. Ragdoll's already folded himself back into his room, content to spend the night with his monkeys and his stuffed Parademon having lost his bet.
And then...then there's Jeannette.
She stands in the doorway of Floyd's room, having never really bothered to get one of her own. Blake looks at her, and she looks at Blake, and then he moves forward a little so that Floyd can talk to her. He smiles at her in a way that's sort of an apology without suggesting that he feels remotely sorry. “Hey, Jeannie.”
There's a silence, and then she smiles a bit and trails a finger down the side of his face. “I don't think I'll be joining you tonight. Another time, maybe.”
“You don't mind? Because this is kinda happening anyway, but I do wanna know.”
“Take no other women before me, and I will consider all things quite even.” She leans forward and kisses him, gently. “Have fun.” And to Blake, “Return him to me intact, please, and we can work out some variety of time-share arrangement.”
“Don't I get a say in this?”
Blake and Jeannette simultaneously say, “Not really.”
And finally the fucking housemate gauntlet is over. They get into Blake's room, and Blake slams the door shut and tosses Floyd onto the bed and then says, “That was...awkward.”
“Yeah, kinda killed the mood, didn't—” Blake's eyes are filled with the heat that can only be conjured by someone who's known the true scorch of the sun, and he doesn't walk towards the bed so much as he stalks, and...yeah. Mood's not dead at all. It was just resting for a second while they got the side-eye from everyone they live with, but now it's all back on again and Floyd wiggles into a semi-upright position and says, grinning, “Ain't got all night here.”
“Actually, I think we do.”
“Guess that's so.”
Blake crawls up the bed and right onto him, and Floyd's honestly starting to suspect the guy has some kind of oral fixation or something, because there's the mouth again, and he manages to get out, “Thought you said I tasted like ashes,” while Blake's finishing the pants deal he started in the living room.
“You do.” Floyd's pants get thrown in a corner, and Blake's looking down at him with an expression that's a little worrying, because Floyd can't figure out if the guy wants to fuck him or have him for dinner. “I like it. It tastes like you.”
“You done a lot of thinking about what I taste like, then?”
“More than a little.”
“Huh.”
“And now I know.” Blake traces a line down to the hollow of Floyd's throat—
—and Floyd rolls them so that he's on top and has a turn himself, enjoying how Blake smells of heat and grass, the imprint of the African sun buried deep in his skin. When he gets to the scars in middle of Blake's chest the other man goes still for a second, letting Floyd outline them with his tongue in a moment that feels, in a way, more intimate than anything else they've done. Even the next thing that happens, Floyd pulling Blake's pants down and off, revealing Blake's erect cock and the reddish curls around it, doesn't feel as together as sampling the flavor of those three marks, that brand in tanned flesh.
Wait.
Logistics issue.
“So.”
“So?” One of Blake's hands rises for a movement, touching Floyd's cheek in a half-caress.
“You've done this more'n me. Probably.”
“Almost definitely, given that I didn't know you were interested in...men...until half an hour ago.”
“So you rather...what?”
Now. Uncertainty. Blake doesn't blush, but he almost looks shy. Like he was never expecting to get this far, which, yeah, not an unfair thought. Lots of circumstances conspiring here. “I like it both ways.”
Floyd grins. “Good. Because I don't feel like workin' too hard tonight.”
Blake stares at him for a moment—and then his eyes go dark, and he curls upward and drags Floyd down by his hair and says against his lips, “You won't walk tomorrow.”
“Be nice, Tomcat, I ain't done this in a while.”
“I am being nice. I just want you to remember I was there.”
“You got condoms?”
Hesitation. “...no.”
“Eh. Fuck it.”
Blake looks, for a moment, enormously relieved.
The bottle that comes out from its hiding place at the head of the bed is labeled “Gun Oil,” and Floyd sees it and smirks and says, “You thinking of me when you bought this?”
He means it as a joke. But Blake just looks at him, presses the bottle into his hand, says, “Yes.”
And don't that just beat all. There's a little spike of hot in Floyd's stomach, and his cock twitches.
“I want to watch you.”
Another spike. It's a little hard to breathe. Floyd nods and thumbs the bottle open.
Blake's eyes are hot, his skin is hot, everything about the guy is heat as he watches Floyd open himself up, making a show of it like he's never made for Jeannette, because this is entirely a different thing. Underneath him, Blake gets a palmful of lube himself and starts getting slick, then gets hold of both of them, and the look on his face is—
“Jesus, Blake. How—how long've you been thinking about doing this?”
Blake looks up at him through red eyelashes and says, “Ages. Ever since you held a gun on me in the kitchen.”
“That's what did it? Shee-it, Tomcat, at least I admit I've got a death wish.”
“It wasn't the gun.” Blake tucks the bottle of lube away, wipes his hand on the sheets, grabs Floyd's hips and pulls him down onto his cock—
Oh, fuck, wow, because Floyd realizes he'd completely forgotten how good this can feel—
“It was just you.”
He's in all the way, and it hurts, but Floyd's never been one to let something hurting throw him off his game, so he shifts a bit and grins at the way Blake's eyes roll back in his head and says, “I'm going to take that as a compli—hnng,” because Blake thrusts and for a moment he hits Floyd's prostate and Floyd has to stop talking.
Because.
Hnng.
Floyd's still got some lube, so he grabs his own cock and smirks again at the way he can see Blake's eyes focus immediately on his hand. The other man looks like there are all kinds of things he wants to say, or that he would be saying if he could talk at all. Honestly, there are plenty of things Floyd wants to be saying, there are irritating jokes he could be cracking right now, but everything's lost to the rhythm of Floyd and Blake and the two of them doing something they've apparently both wanted for years even if Floyd never realized it before tonight. It's not perfect. It's not the best sex he's ever had. But he feels better than he has in ages.
Blake is silent, and fucks him, and watches with a devouring gaze as he touches himself, and when finally he gets to the point where it's too much he jerks forward and groans and comes so hard that it hits Blake in the face.
And Blake...sticks out his tongue and licks come off the corner of his mouth, draws his hand up his stomach and chest and sucks more come off his fingers, and Floyd almost gets hard again. “Fuckin' hell, Tomcat. You trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Couldn't resist—” and Blake grabs him and thrusts up, hard, and comes himself with his hands on Floyd's hips.
Getting disentangled takes a moment, and when they're lying side by side Floyd reaches out instinctively only to realize that his smokes are in the pocket of his pants, and his pants are on the other side of the room. “You planned it like that,” he says accusingly.
“You light up in my room and I'll punch you in the gut,” Blake says sleepily. “Just so we're clear.”
“I'd trade a punch in the gut for a cig right now.”
“Ok, how about, you light up in my room and I won't make you eggs in the morning.”
“Aw, hell, Blake, now you're just being unfair.”
“Life's unfair, Lawton. Deal with it.” Some insistent pushing and pulling, and Blake settles himself down with his head on Floyd's shoulder and Floyd's arm sort of around him, and pulls the blanket up. “Now go to sleep.”
--
When they wake up like that in the morning and realize where they both are it's incredibly awkward.
But only for a minute.
And then Blake yawns and says, “Ok, so, not dreaming, that's good,” and Floyd grins down at him and says, “You promised me eggs, Tomcat.”
“Fuck you, Lawton.” Blake yawns again.
“Yeah, sure, ok. But breakfast first.”