Jake and Jean-Paul

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Jake and Jean-Paul go out dancing at Silver, but the evening turns bittersweet.



They had been chasing each other all night.

It was half-past late on a Friday night and Silver had been wall-to-wall bodies since sundown, the utter dearth of personal space meaning that Jean-Paul was not terribly at-ease with until he had a drink or two in him. After that, the dance floor had seemed a lot more inviting with the crowd being less gawkers and more a potentially admiring audience. The fact that the crowd was close enough that "dancing" meant being able to claim just enough floor that you could move against another body wasn't an issue, but Jake's hopeful insistence that they should go find a free bathroom stall was. Jake had responded to Jean-Paul's rebuff with a playful pout and disappeared into the crowd, resurfacing a few minutes later with another dance partner. Jean-Paul had watched for a few moments -- damn the man anyway for looking so good when he moved -- and done the same. And so the night had been spent just missing each other (with the occasional passing grope to gauge interest) and flitting from partner to partner, each man trying to provoke a rise out of the other.

At one point, Jean-Paul lost sight of Jake in the crowd. A moment later, a warm body briefly pressed up against him from behind. "Miss me?" Jake breathed into his ear, swiping his tongue along the tip of Jean-Paul's ear before pulling away to grind with his newest partner.

Jean-Paul snagged Jake by his belt loops and pulled him back into his orbit.

"My aim is improving," he commented dryly, securing an intimate hold on Jake to keep him in place. He brought his lips to Jake's ear murmuring French under the pulse of the music. "Now, you heathen, why are you over there trying to make me think you do not care about me at all, hmm?"

Jake laughed, a delicious sound bubbling out of his chest as he leaned in to briefly fasten his teeth on Jean-Paul's neck. "Is it working?" he replied in French, pulling back to glance at Jean-Paul's face. His skin was flushed and hot, even to the speedster's normally warm touch, and his irises were thin blue rings around his dilated pupils. "I'd hate to have gone to all of that trouble if it wasn't," he murmured against the speedster's lips.

"You're making sure I see you," Jean-Paul growled against his cheek. "Looking sexy and immanently fuckable while hanging off of lesser men. Utter shame. Completely unjust. Can't be allowed to continue." Jean-Paul returned the bite, pulling Jake chest against chest with a possessive jerk. "But I don't think it is because you don't care, oh no..."

Jake squeaked at the bite, one hand sliding beneath the waistband of Jean-Paul's pants to cup his ass and pull his hips closer. The fingers of his other hand twined into Jean-Paul's hair to pull the speedster's head back, better exposing the soft skin of his neck for Jake's lips and teeth to plunder. "Careful," he moaned, "people might start to think you're jealous."

"I thought that was your point." Jean-Paul tangled his fingers in Jake's hair and pulled him away from his throat to get in a proper kiss. "But they can think whatever they like, so long as I'm the one taking you home. Now."

Jake grinned against his lips. "God, it took you long enough."

=====

If Jean-Paul had let him, they might have had sex in the cab on the way back to the Brownstone--Jake was certainly groping him enough, seemingly unable to tear his hands or lips away, even as they attempted to clumsily navigate the stairway to the second floor. The door provided another challenge, and it ultimately took Jean-Paul's intervention to get it open.

Jake was beyond amorous, Jean-Paul had realized soon after getting him out onto the sidewalk in front of Silver. He was giggly, clingy and damn near giddy to the point that he greeted the grand triumph of
getting the door open by trying to burrow under Jean-Paul's shirt.

"I didn't think there was enough alcohol in the state to get you in this condition," the speedster observed, managing to untangle himself and get another look at Jake's eyes. No, it hadn't been the light or the close quarters in the club -- they were still dilated and dream-fuzzed, Jake was still very warm. "I think someone slipped you something."

Jake grinned slyly at that, as if Jean-Paul had discovered a secret. "Mmmmmaybe," he said, laughing and wrapping his hands around Jean-Paul's hips as he leaned in for a kiss.

"Jaaake..." Jean-Paul groaned, though there was relief in there. With Jake's inability to be poisoned, the idea that someone had given him anything that could actually affect him unawares was a little troubling, what with the history of missing limbs and attempted kidnappings. "Let me amend my hypothesis: you took something."

The shapeshifter nodded, mouth too busy working its way down the curve of Jean-Paul's neck to answer as he pulled him towards the bedroom.

"And now you want me to go to bed with you, even knowing your diminished capacity for consent. Am I following this correctly so far?"

Jake took two more steps and then came to a stumbling halt, lifting his head to look at the speedster before laughing incredulously. "You're joking, right?" He stepped in close, hands sliding around to the small of Jean-Paul's back as he nuzzled the neck he'd been joined at the lip to just seconds earlier. "What makes you think I had any intention of doing anything other than letting you fuck me tonight?" he murmured, leaning back to catch Jean-Paul's lower lip between his teeth and grinning wolfishly.

Maybe it did sound a little silly when you put it like that. Still...

"Jake..." He let himself be lead a few more steps into the bedroom...and then he was suddenly on the bed, with Jake on top. "When did you get so fast?"

"I've been paying attention," Jake said expansively, "to you." He propped himself up on his hands, taking a moment to revel in the sight of Jean-Paul stretched out below him. "All of you." He let the fingers of his left hand trail down his lover's face, tracing a meandering path over his eyelids and down the bridge of his nose. "All the little pieces of you."

Jake dropped his head then, moving with a preternatural ease as he kissed the end of the speedster's nose lightly. "I like your nose," he said with a lazy grin, lips ghosting over cheek and stubble towards his next target. "And I like--no, I love your ears. I love the way you fall apart when I do this," and his teeth closed over the pointed tip of the ear in question.

It wasn't the graze of teeth over that sensitive bit of skin that made Jean-Paul's breath catch in his throat, not this time. And the disappointment that came with his exhale was unreasonable. They'd only been seeing each other for a couple of months. Still, Jean-Paul was quiet for a moment, having to swallow down the odd feeling in his throat.

Jake didn't notice the difference, continuing blissfully unawares on his path down Jean-Paul's neck. "I love your shoulder," he murmured, tasting the skin beneath his lips reverently. "I love biting your shoulder, and feeling you squirm." His teeth sank into flesh, gently at first, then harder.

Even if they had been seeing each other longer, Jean-Paul knew Jake just wasn't the type. But knowing the reasons why he couldn't be, even knowing that Jake was only coming anywhere near that word because he was rolling high, didn't take the sting out it. Hearing it in his first language somehow made it worse; he barely felt the teeth on his shoulder. Instead, pulled Jake into a hard kiss to quiet those painful little words.

Except that it didn't work. "I love your tongue," Jake moaned, barely intelligible through the tangle of their mouths.

"God, Jake, just shut up," Jean-Paul breathed, going so far as to cover Jake's mouth for a moment before stripping out of his clothes.

Mercifully, it was a command that Jake was intimately familiar with. He watched his lover strip with wordless intensity, his eyes feverishly bright in the light from the windows, fingers trailing over Jean-Paul's face again as the speedster returned to him, hot skin against hot skin. He felt happy and tingly and warm, and he gave his lover a soft smile as he settled on top of him.

Jean-Paul leaned into Jake's caresses and thought about asking him to sober up, but that was suddenly the very last thing he wanted. He kissed that smile instead, parting his lips for Jake. He didn't want to talk about this. All he wanted was to feel anything except the sting of that irrational crushed-out hope.