The front door closed with a click, and Jake looked up only briefly from his book.
“I made coffee,” he called. It was Avery – who didn’t head past the front room where Jake was and into the kitchen, but poked his head around the door frame, smiling softly when he spotted Jake stretched out on the floor with his back to the couch, book open on his lap. He came and sat down next to him, yawning as he leaned back and half against Jake’s shoulder.
Avery didn’t say anything, Jake’s focus still seemingly on his book. His eyes were still downward and he didn’t say anything either, but his focus wasn’t on the book anymore. The words blurred in front of him as his focus instead went automatically to the slow breathing of the boy next to him, the feel of his rumpled, day old clothes, his smell. Avery rarely spent nights with Jack – he saw him frequently but normally always came home after. Jake was never really one to say anything. He leaned against Avery slightly and asked him regular things: where did you two go, how is he, did you see anyone else at school… and they fell into another comfortable pattern, the initial apprehension clearing from Avery’s face. Jake listened and responded without thinking, Avery’s arm draped over his thigh, thumb picking over the inseam of Jake’s jeans as he laughed and said yes, I wish we didn’t have to go back though. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, and Jake turned and leaned his own head back, eyes falling over Avery. There were faint red marks on his neck, and his lips looked bitten. When Avery opened his eyes again he smiled, hand reaching up to tangle in the hair that fell to the nape of Jake’s neck. He leaned forward and kissed him softly, finger’s tightening in Jake’s hair, and Jake knew he was thinking apologies for not coming home the night before. Jake smiled at him when he pulled away, thinking back at him that it was all right, even as he pushed down a cold pang of jealousy.
“Are you hungry?” he asked him out loud, softly. He shifted as Avery shrugged slightly, resting further against Jake, and pushed aside his book. They were quiet again, Jake just looking at him as Avery continued to move his thumb idly over the inside of Jake’s thigh, eyes now on his own hand. Jake wanted to get up, wanted to fix them coffee, wanted a smoke, wanted to make Avery breakfast as he knew hadn’t had any yet. Instead he found himself kissing him again, slowly, deeply, closing his eyes as Avery turned and opened his mouth for him.
One night. He missed him.
They stayed like that for a long time, breathing together, almost breathing each other, Jake’s fingers wrapping tightly into the bottom hem of Avery’s shirt and Avery’s hand finding its place on Jake’s chest over his heart. When they did pull apart, Avery only leaned closer still, kissing Jake’s neck gently. It was reverent and quiet, the flat completely still other than the sudden sound of the refrigerator turning on in the kitchen and their own soft sighs. Avery moved down Jake’s neck, placing slow open-mouthed kisses over his jaw, his neck, the hollow of his throat. They both stilled again, Avery resting his forehead against Jake’s shoulder, breathing in as if he were about to say something, but then not. Jake’s hand found it’s way underneath Avery’s shirt and rested palm flat to his stomach.
So many things were crossing his mind – need, want, love, wonder… not doubt. Not doubt, even as his fingers found bruises that weren’t his on Avery’s waist. He brushed his fingertips over them lightly, watching as the other boy winced slightly, leaning forward to kiss him again. He couldn’t doubt him. Not after everything. He had at one point, dared to doubt, but after seeing Avery’s tears and terror… Jake realised he had somehow managed to forget who had been there and hadn’t left after he had drunk himself into the worst state he had ever been in, who had come to him when he was upset and coaxed out of him the mere fact that yes, he was head over heels in love… who had risked a love and a friendship so important to him just to be with Jake in the first place. It was all this that crossed Jake’s mind as he and Avery continued to kiss there on the floor against the couch, late morning light warming the wood floor near their feet.
It was Avery that kept him going, the noises he made when Jake opened his mouth wider, the way he moved up against him as if to climb right inside him, the way he clutched at the front of Jake’s shirt as if afraid he might just disappear if he let him go. This was how it always was - Jake couldn’t stop, feeling as if (knowing) it was Avery that was his very life force and he needed every little bit of the boy he could get to go on living.
That was what had Jake pressing back harder than before into Avery and instead of Avery’s touch and whispers speaking Mine across Jake’s skin it was Jake who gripped Avery harder, both hands under his shirt and fingers pressing that one word into his skin as if to brand it there. Avery arched against him with a soft sigh into Jake’s mouth and the kiss quickened and deepened, mine mine mine repeating itself through Jake’s head and coming out in the strokes of his tongue against Avery’s and the light scrape of his nails over the other boy’s sides. Bugger breakfast, the coffee, the world. Avery invaded and stalled his mind as Jake pressed him possessively back against the couch and straddled his lap, and it wasn’t long before their shirts were both off and tossed carelessly aside, Avery meeting Jake’s sudden breathless, needy, almost keening gasps with touches and scratches and bites as their kisses became sloppy, both of them reaching out for each other and finding and needing now everything the other offered.
When Avery’s mouth and tongue and fingers whispered love Jake’s whispered always, and when Jake actually murmured it against Avery’s dampening skin Avery gasped yes in response, his fingers tugging open the flies of Jake’s trousers. Jake’s tongue teased a path down Avery’s chest as he slid his trousers down over his hips and thighs and off, and Jake’s fingers wound themselves in Avery’s hair as Avery’s legs went easily around his waist and pulled him immediately closer. The rhythm was by far now familiar, Avery’s nails scarring Jake’s shoulders ten more times and Jake still not caring. Jake grinned as Avery’s cries echoed off half closed windows, and kissed him again before both of them lost their minds to each other.
They didn’t even think to move off the floor until the sun lay warming the floor on the other side of the room.