Fizzle

Participants:

leonard_icon.gif teo_icon.gif

Scene Title Fizzle
Synopsis No spark. :/
Date September 20, 2009

Old Lucy's — Leonard's Room


Since it was early morning when Leo showered and dragged Teo into bed, it's actually mid-day when Teo finds himself awake, with a drowsing Leonard snuggled up behind him, one arm draped over his ribs. Ever prudish, Al's always slept with at least boxers on, often a t-shirt, and so it is now. He's got his face nuzzled into the back of Teo's nape, and his breath is warm on Teo's neck.

Time moves slowly when you aren't doing anything at all, but it speeds up considerably when you add even the smallest of verbs, actions, doing words to the condensed quiet of your timeline. He ran out of sleep in four hours, which was a bummer but one that he's become long-since acquainted with. At some point in the yellowing hours of daylight, he exchanged the grumbling internalized process of complaining about himself to himself for the experimental practice of watching Leonard sleep.

It's a little difficult to do with the telekinetic wrapped up around his back, but not impossible. There's a mirror which gives him a sliver of Leonard's cotton sleeve visible over his shoulder, the steady cadence of Leonard's breathing tangible on his neck, Leonard's fingers resting petal even on the coverlet. Five of them, according to the dozen or so times that Teo's counted. It's enough to make him stay, hoarding heat, daylight, quiet.

There's a questioning mumble from Leonard, and the limp fingers tighten, hand slipping back to pat curiously at Teo's ribs. The blind nuzzling changes, as his breath takes in the cadence of wakefulness. And then there's a kiss planted warmly under Teo's ear, affectionate, more than amorous.

This feeling is soft-focus and tinged yellow. Or that might just be the sunlight bleeding into Teo's left eye through the slit-eyed smile of the window blinds. Despite its intrusion, he smiles by reflex: can't help it, forgets to think about it. He washed behind his ears last night, and his fingernails, ridding every inch of him of the fruity ripe stench of rotting corpse, so he's soap all over. Some unnamed brand of warm, unspecified hygiene. "Morning."

Well, it's likely a choice between whatver floral lavender concoction Abby uses, or the brown frankincense and myrrh thing that is perpetually Al's scent. That's one thing Sonny couldn't change - how he smells. There's something like a purr from him, as he hitches himself closer, puts his chin on Teo's shoulder, lips experimentally at an ear.

Likely, but wasn't: Teo was playing pattycake with terrorists last night, running through forests, away from rabid dogs and temblors and rifle-fire, packaging severed corpse parts for forensic analysis, and he had access to but the most paltry of necessities. Any flowers, frankincense or myrrh that parties onto his skin is going to come from somebody else.

Heh heh. Also: that tickles.

He mumbles something that isn't a word, a whuff of laughter sliced down to a hiss between his teeth. His fingers tighten on the linens, bracing the shift of Leonard's weight on his back.

Good morning. Afternoon. Something. Leo's eyes are still closed, and it's as if he wants to map the topography of Teo's skull, ears, neck by mouth alone. He tries the very edges of his teeth thoughtfully just over the spine, a wolf lazily trying to gauge the proper killing bite. Fits himself more closely along Teo's back, scooting down sufficiently to curve his legs behind the Sicilian's.

Morning. Almost noon, maybe a little past: it's been a few blurry minutes since Teo tried looking at the clock, so he's as unclear on that point as the half-conscious redneck crabbing around on him. Then he's held, a transition as abrupt as it is smooth, and it's not a bad fit, the symmetry of nested cups in the cupboard, the moisture of Leonard's mouth needling pink and gooseflesh instead of soapmilk residue. He puts a hand back, over his shoulder and over Leo's. Draws a fond index down the curve of Leonard's ear. "Abby left eggs," he adds, blithely.

"Mmhmm," Leo agrees, not opening his mouth. His upper hand slips back to dive under the faded t-shirt he gave Teo to sleep in, fingertips walking up the muscles of his spine as he rucks the cotton up, then sliding down to rest on the point of Teo's hip. Exploration recommences over the planes of the Sicilian's belly, palm brushing the fine gold hair there. Nothing terribly lascivious as of yet, far from his usual brutal directness.

Nnnow Leo's hands underneath his clothes. Well, technically Leonard's own clothes, given the suite he's wearing now was borrowed, consistent with the brief tradition they've worked up thus far in the peculiar, and cautious, but easy course their friendship-relationship-ish-ship-rowboat has taken in the past few weeks. Months. This goes off the beaten track a little, though, diverges from the established rituals and tacitly accepted boundaries and into — wilderness would be the wrong word. It's tame. Kind of nice.

Stops Teo's speech and moving like a shot of horse tranquilizers to the carotid, his breath dragged slow, near to a stop. No, you aren't supposed to lie real still like that, but he doesn't even blink. Only the toes of his right foot, out at the far corner of the bed, continue to close and open, close and open.

And it doesn't seem to be having the effect Leo intended, or hoped. He gives a last fond pat on the hip, shifts his weight somewhat more to his side to free his other arm, and puts both palms up Teo's shirt to his shoulderblades, and sinks fingers in. Just a backrub, for now.

At that, there's a sigh, of… some indeterminable sentiment. Relief, disappointment, melancholy, or any of the broad spectrum of subtypes underneath each one of those overarching emotions. Poetic conceits aside, it's kind of difficult to tell which based only on a lungfull of air pushed out through a man's mouth. His head tips back, his eyes lid. He mumbles some word of gratitude, recognizable in its gesture even without the easy translation of syllable or language.

Leo's got a strong, callused grip, and he works his way down Teo's shoulders and back in a businesslike fashion. Still up to the Sicilian to determine where it goes, and further into the bedroom isn't it, apparently. In no hurry to stop touching Teo, though, obviously.

It's good news to people who're bored of old news, that Teo's in no hurry to stop being touched, too. Though he was none of the melodramatic leaping and skittering of sssome trauma victims, he was feeling kind of old and apart, wary and staid, and the push of Leonard's hands bring a different kind of relief to that than renewing the physical elasticity of muscle strings and ligaments.

It turns from the kind of massage that digs deep into the muscles into something lighter. Petting and scratching, as if Teo were a beloved pet. And then he tugs on Teo's shoulder, trying to turn him onto his back.

Roll-a-dump. Teo obliges, in the spirit of being blond, blue-eyed, protector of endangered subtypes of human being and an all-round good guy, flattens his shoulder down, his arm packed in warm against the flat of Leonard's belly. His profile seesaw and sweeps into view with it, eyelids flitting up, a little difficulty refocusing. "Hi." The backs of his fingers trace an crab-legged skitter up the platea of Leonard's stomach, leaving eddied sidewinder tracks across the fabric of his shirt. He smiles, pops his jaw keeping his mouth shut around a yawn.

Leo kisses him, lazily. Once above each eye, the bridge of his nose, his mouth. It's all businesslike, rather than the precursor to passion, like he's making marks on a checklist. And then he deposits his chin on Teo's shoulder, eyes him thoughtfully.

By now, it's not so very surprising, that Teo lets him. Indeed, he even goes so far as to reciprocate the last, a twitch of jaw and shift of slanted lips. By now, he's said like fifty damn things without eliciting any sort of verbal response except that duosyllabic murmur, earlier, so Teodoro doesn't try it again. Blinks down the length of his shoulder at the other man, trying to determine from the look on Leonard's face, whether things are okay or not okay and by how far the mark they exceed the acceptable… levels of— that.

Leo's expression is a little puzzled, a little hopeful. "Hi," he says, back, with a questioning lilt to his voice. And then he kisses Teo again, and there's more of an edge, more ferocity behind it.

Mouths match. Teo's muscle-memory is off: there's a second's surprise, a twitch in his cheek, an extra beat or two needed before his lips seal the proper configuration around the other man's, a breathy snick of pressure released in the rhythm of parting that comes afterward. He remembers to get his eyes closed, at least, to breathe, suck his spit back and swallow, his fingers closing on the bulk of Leonard's bicep to help the other man balance in the morass of sheets and pillow things.

Well, that was nice, but there was no spark. Hm. Leo settles back a little, blinks at Teo for a moment, as if there were something in his eye. And then pats Teo on the shoulder, and sits up fully. "Eggs, huh? I don't much care for 'em, but there's turkey sausage, too, in the freezer. I can make that," he says, musingly, as he kicks off the covers.

The Sicilian's left under the rumpled heap of covers up to one knee, feeling a little abandoned and a little sloppy with someone else's saliva drying on his mouth, but what else is new? He pulls the edge of a linen up before the flail and shove of Leonard's heel sends them away entirely, the peels it away from himself, looking down to study his toes as if he wasn't sure that they were still there. "Yeah," he says, after a moment. "That sounds great. How long before your next work shift?"

"Off today. Got no plans," Leo says, scooching down and bouncing off the end of the bed to stretch. He collapses forward, palms on the floor, heels back. Downward dog, upward dog, down again, before he pops up to look around for a clean pair of pants.

That's funny. Antics. Teo swings his bare feet over the edge of the mattress, plants their warm soles flat against the other man's back where it's hunkered down over the floor for those few seconds before telekinetic gets up to go again. He dangles toes into empty air for a moment, stretches them scissored wide, before relaxing again. "I have a few hours before I have to check on the HF forensic shit, and how Eileen's boys are doing. Do you want to go out?"

"Let's go get lunch, yes," Leo agrees, offering him a pike's grin over his shoulder. "What news on HF?" No hurt in his tone over that carefully maintained ignorance, and only a faintly warning look.

Embarrassment's belated and strange coming, leaking red in streakily arterial dashes across the even tan of Teo's face. He doesn't even know how to assign words to this, which is not as unusual a set of circumstances as he'd like: reminds him all too much of his younger analogue's awkward, restlessly irritable days, all raw-bitten lips and stupid bar brawling habits, the vain struggle to program as many languages as he could into recall and practical use as he could, devour books, start conversations, as if that could somehow salve the inadequacy of explaining what he meant to somebody who needed to know.

"Recovered a body. One of Danko's. Psychometers might be able to give us something." He talks tactical, instead, levers himself off the other side of the bed, digging around on the floor to locate the jeans he'd worn in this morning.

Leo's throat works, once. But he nods. "How'd you get it?" he wonders, as he pulls on his own pants.

"Remnant got a few leads on Staten Island, between me and Varlane. Eileen found a corpse in fatigues. Vulture sniffed it out." The T-shirt is pulled free, with an easy sweep and shove of Teo's bent elbow. Replaced with the long sleeves he'd left in a fold on the endtable, pulled down, flattened with his palm. He dresses with mechanical efficiency rather than the sloppy-hinged boyish grace he used to crash through the Bronx apartment with. He pulls out of the track pants, dons jeans, a bare foot at a time.

"Psycho pack of scavengers jumped us on the location, but we got out all right." Gabriel's blind, Ethan got his ass knocked out, Raith has a door in his shoulder. "I think I took away enough to work with. As much as we were going to get, anyway."

Fade.


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