plaguedrat | (no subject)

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(no subject)

For two months, Rat has done his best to avoid cooking meals. To him, it marks acceptance giving in to the form of the city and letting the apartment it provided become his home. Grey's presence has changed that rule. It's why he's bought carrots, potatoes, a round of beef, stock wine, and spices. For Grey.

Cooking for himself, letting this place be any kind of permanent? Rat can't do that. For Grey, though, he can.

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"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble," Rat quotes as he lifts the lid. By smell he can tell that the wine needs more time to meld with the other flavors. Tasting it, he adds more salt and another bay leaf and stirs. It's almost there, but not quite. Testing the meat with a spoon, it doesn't quite yield to pressure.

"A little more time. Few more eyes of newt and toes of frog," he adds, laying on the melodrama.

Okay.

(Poor Rat. Having to deal with Grey who knows so little as to miss most humor and most sarcasm.)

He watches, wide-eyed.

"Macbeth," he explains, catching Grey's blank look. "I'll read it for you later, if you want."

When had that become a regular activity for them? Even before the kissing, the sex, the shared clothes, they'd read together.

Oh, good. Grey loves that. He smiles a little, still moving his hand, flexing it. He moves through the kitchen, finding a knife, one that feels good in his hand. Away from Rat, he starts tossing it, throwing it in the air and catching it. Something he knows. Something familiar.

Rat doesn't react, though he keeps an eye out and his ears open out of long trained instinct. He's been on the receiving end of a thrown knife more than a few times. The days when he was less skilled at catching or outrunning them are marked into his skin with all of his other scars.

...four weeks, he realizes. He's known Grey maybe four weeks now. Only four weeks and it's not that he think Grey won't turn on him with that knife. It's that Rat trusts him not to.

Grey wouldn't. He'd lay down his life for Rat; that's already a certainty, though not stated as such. It simply is.

But this is his life, here, knowing what to do with a weapon. He's got one hand back and it feels good. Now, if he could only get the cast off.

Rat would say he's done nothing to earn such loyalty, that it's dangerous to offer it so freely. He's not good, nor worth that kind of thing.

Never mind that there are people he would give his life to help and that Grey is rapidly joining that list.

"It needs another half hour, I think," he says instead, heading to the couch.

Catching the knife once more, Grey sets it down on the counter and pads over to where Rat sits, curling up next to him, toes tucked under Rat's leg.

He picks up the book that Grey left the other day and holds it up for him. "I can read it for you if you feel like it?"

Yes, please. It soothes Grey in ways he doesn't fully understand.

Finding where Grey left off, Rat continues to read. He holds the book open with one hand, barely aware of how he's let his other one wander into Grey's hair and down his chest.

With his now-free hand, Grey catches that hand and nuzzles it, kisses it as he listens, trying so hard to picture what the words say.

Rat holds out for a little while, making it to the end of the chapter in increasingly distracted tones, before laying the book face down on the arm of the couch.

"You're making it difficult to read," he says, shifting closer and dropping a kiss on Grey's shoulder.

Oh. Grey is sorry? He blinks at Rat. But as he watches the other boy's face, he presses a kiss to the palm of the hand he holds.

It's a tease. Rat moves his hand up to frame Grey's face again, looking at him questioningly.

Peering back, Grey's expression softens. He only has to lean forward a little bit to press a kiss to his mouth.

Laughing a little, Rat stretches out a little, encouraging Grey closer. Keep kissing.

Okay. Their noses touch and bump as they kiss and it makes Grey smile a little. There's that giddiness in the pit of his stomach; that they can do this now whenever they want, privately, together.

He's similarly giddy, learning how Grey kisses, how to match him. All the "should" and self-preservation instincts seem to flow away. Being here, like this, feels strangely natural.

Eventually, the inevitable happens: Grey's hard, straining his new boxers. He scoots closer, touching, hands up under Rat's t-shirt, along his legs.

Rat's not exactly complaining, responding equally to the warmth of Grey's touch. He casts a brief glance at the clock on his oven, gauging how much time they have.

Plenty.

Can Grey? Please? He wants and his free hand fists in Rat's shirt, using the grip to pull him closer, to kiss his jaw and neck.

He nods, faster than he cares to admit, twisting around for another kiss. There's little that Rat will refuse now. It's the other reason he went out shopping today, the bag he left by the door holding condoms and lubricant. If they need it, he has some.

At some point, Grey's shirt comes off, and Rat's too. They're lying next to each other on the sofa. With a gasp, Grey slips a hand down Rat's boxers, circling it around the hardness he finds there.

His own hands skim down Grey's belly, tracing those words and scars though he avoids the name of Grey's old lover. Distracting himself, he hooks his thumbs in the waistband of Grey's boxers even as he ruts up against the hand around him.