peace_inthe_violence

The change that came over Booker's face was beautiful and Nicky smiled down at him, stilling his movements so that he could reach up to gently stroke his lover's beard.

Joe was the poet. Nicky showed his love with his eyes and his touches and his deeds. He certainly hoped that the message was coming through loud and clear now, but just in case he bent to press a kiss against the other man's sternum.

"I love you. You are beautiful." His voice was a little shaky and his eyes were pleasure blown, but he hoped that Booker could still hear and see the truth in them. "You feel so good, Sebastien. Your body is mine and it is perfect." He rolled his hips back, pulling out until just the head of his cock was tugging at Booker's rim, then he snapped back forward, driving himself in hard and deep all at once. "Do you feel that? Feel how you were made to take me like this?"

Andy just hummed at that, taking another sip of her lemonade. "Give her time. Something will happen that will make her feel that way."

They'd all had it happen, and some things were worth feeling malicious over. "I hope she had a better time of it than we did. Even if she got the same shitty start."

Andy let out a breath quietly. "I don't actually remember much of my family," she said softly. "It's been too long. I don't remember what my mother looked ike, or my sisters. I don't remember their names, even though I've tried to look."

She shrugs. "You're lucky, people keep better records now. They write things down like that."

When his thoughts were clear and his mind wasn't turned against him Booker could easily see just how much Nicky loved him. More importantly he believed it. There was no insidious voice whispering doubts. There was just Nicky's loving smile and heavenly voice.

Booker would never say it out loud but he really liked Nicky's accent and the way it sounded in the height of passion.

"I feel you," he moaned as he clutched tighter at Nicky's arms. "Definitely made for you."

His English was starting to slip now. He would fall back into his native tongue soon. Especially if Nicky kept up those hard thrusts.

He could hear Booker's accent getting heavy on his tongue and as much as he liked to pretend that he hated all things French...he actually really enjoyed it. He loved listening to his lover's vowels stretch and twist, hear the strain in his voice when something in English was just a little too much for his sex fuddled brain.

He'd never tell a soul, but he couldn't exactly hide the emotion in his eyes. Not when all his focus was on bringing Booker the most pleasure he possibly could.

He worked him slowly and methodically, leaning hard on his sniper's patience, waiting for that first broken word and the surrender into French....and then he was up on his knees, holding Booker's hips hard in his hands as he went from slow and methodical to hard and fast.

There were very few people in the world that could bring Booker to this state. And they all happened to be in this house. Booker only felt safe enough to surrender like this with the others. No one else.

Booker begged for release in French and then as Nicky kept pounding at him into Occitan. It flowed so easily when he was lost in pleasure.

And when he did break and come all over himself Booker didn't even need Nicky's hand that he had spent the last five minutes begging for. Which Nicky probably knew which was why he didn't give Booker what he begged for.

Nicky was just the best lover.

Nicky was not the best lover. He was simply an observant one. He was just as focused and sharp in bed as he was on a job, and the result was that he could dial in on each change in Booker's tone and pleas and be able to respond to them accordingly.

Watching Booker lose himself under him was a beautiful sight and Nicky drank in the sight of him, burning it into his memory so that he'd be able to describe it to Joe later.

His goal accomplished and his control no longer needed, he managed all of three more sharp thrusts before he was bowing to press his forehead against Booker's sternum, his grip on the man's hips hard enough to bruise as he came, Booker's name a haggard cry on his lips.

"She'll get there." He agreed with a nod, "Hopefully before she actually needs it, but not before she can handle it."

She was settling in, and well, that much they all knew, but things were different here than they would be on a job, and mostly he was hoping she'd be ready for that when the time came.

Andy huffed. "Could any of us handle it when we first felt it?" she asked, shaking her head. "I'm worried for her. It's a whole new world out there now, and I don't know if we can keep up."

She spread both hands, some kind of gesture of surrender, "Look, I'm from the city, everything's made in some kind of factory as far as I'm concerned. So yes, I would absolutely like to learn just as long as you don't mind me reacting like it's magic for a while."

Because she was going to regardless, the same way she had when she'd first learned how to make pancakes, though that had been a long time ago, now.

"I'm starting to think that might not always be a good thing." She replied, starting in on the next batch, because even with conversation she still needed something to do in those early pre-dawn hours when everything started feeling too heavy and too close.

It was also part of why she changed the subject, nodding to Andy's plate, "If you all want to make sure there's space in the fridge for a big-ass mixing bowl for twenty four hours, I can make traditional yeast ones sometime. They get a lot puffier, but not as soft, basically the same otherwise."

Booker slid his hands down Nicky's back and held him close as they both came down from their orgasm induced high. This was the other part Booker really loved. Afterglow. Curled up against his lover catching his breath and just being close.

For all his reluctance and broken thoughts he really truly craved being close to the people he trusted. His affection was buried under years of grief and pain but right now none of those walls were up.

He curled shamelessly against Nicky and made sure he was wrapped around him. Yes, they were sticky and sweaty and gross but Booker did not care. He wanted his cuddles damn it and he would get them.

"Maybe we can't, boss, but that hasn't stopped us before." It might have slowed them down a time or two, but hadn't ever fully stopped them.

"And Nicky and I started malicious and mellowed, so it's easy to fall back on that if we need to, different when it's for the first time." As far as he could remember they'd all had multiple instances of something pulling that maliciousness right back to the surface, and not always something big, either. The important part was that it never stuck, they could all slough it off again when it was no longer needed.

They were going to hate themselves in a few hours when they were literally peeling themselves apart, but it was nothing that either of them hadn't dealt with before. A simple shower would solve all their problems, and if Booker was still feeling so indulgent, they could even take one together.

Nicky wrapped his arms around Booker, holding him close and kissing his hair as he waited for his breathing to even back out and for his body to stop trembling quite so much.

"I love you." He breathed the words against the man's hair, shaking his head and sliding his thumb along Booker's lips to keep him from speaking. "Sleep, amour mio. Let me hold you."

"Love you." Booker turned his head and kissed Nicky's pulse. "You're mad if you think I'm leaving this bed anytime soon."

He closed his eyes though because sleep sounded like a fantastic idea. After an afternoon of lounging in the pool and then fantastic sex really took it out of a man.

And it might mean Nicky would catch a nap as well. The two of them were just the worst when it came to sleep. Except when Booker slept for entire days because he just couldn't be bothered to get out of bed.

Booker drifted off to sleep before he was even aware he was doing it. It just happened which was perfect really.

Andy chuckled. "I'll make sure there's room," she said. "But the boys will be pissed if we eat all these before they get up and they have to wait two days for any more."

Especially Booker. He loved anything bread-related. "Only thing like this I ever learned was choux pastry, once." And only then because a fundamental step was beating the snot out of it.

"Feels like things are different now," she murmured, brow creasing. Sometimes Andy was clear as crystal to those who knew her, and sometimes she was utterly opaque, and now was one of the latter times.

"I don't want her to end up feeling like me. Like it's all...worthless. Like we're going backwards."

He chuckled, giving her a teasing look. "Ahh, but what is science other than magic explained?"

One brow popped in an arch and he grinned wide as he finally got back up to head over to the stove. He settled the stock pot onto the burner, but didn't kick it on yet.

"First step, bring your milk up to 13 degrees. Low heat, please. You don't want to scorch it or the whole batch will be ruined."

He pocketed the bundle with the rings so that he could step forward again, catching her hand and her forearm once more, thumb pressing against the base of her palm and the inside of her wrist, just to make her aware of the beat of her pulse before tugging her hand closer to press it against his chest so she could feel his as well.

They weren't exactly the same, but they were still in time, matched without being perfectly synced, "This much is still the same, Andromache." It wasn't often that he used her name, just when he felt like she needed it, "Whatever else happens we have each other, that's what matters."

"Well if they want some maybe they shouldn't sleep in." She replied, as if she and Andy were the ones who were up at a reasonable hour and everyone else was sleeping late.

"And I can do beignets, spice cake, and cookies that look like those fancy decorated ones, but that you won't break a tooth on trying to eat them."

"What are we breaking our teeth on, sorellina? And why are we doing it this early in the morning?"

The voice came from the man in the doorway, bare chested and squinting in the bright lights of the kitchen. He reached up to rub the sleep from his eyes, then made his way into the room proper, his bare feet making little padding sounds on the tile.

"Are those beignets? Please tell me this is not what we are talking about." Because he was already reaching for one of the cinnamon sugar ones.

"Thirteen?" She squinted a moment, "So that's, what, about fifty-four, fifty-five Fahrenheit?" She wasn't entirely sure on that calculation, "And you have a candy thermometer or something to measure with or have you done this often enough that you just know? Because I'm not going to call that cheating, but it kind of is."

It was a tease in return, still testing the edges of what she was allowed to tease about and what would be too much of a dig, though she doubted she would hit any of those by accident.

"That is not cheating. That is putting in the effort. No different than any other skill, thank you much." He smirked, reaching around her to slide open a drawer that contained all the cooking utensils that weren't common to every day cooking. "But since you haven't put in that work, yet, the thermometer is there."

He affectionately flicked the braid he'd just finished. For a moment, part of him considered teaching her the old, old fashioned way of doing this...but he wasn't that mean.

He wasn't switching over to Fahrenheit, though. He wasn't American and he never had been.

She blinked up at the new arrival, "They are, and no, if you chip a tooth on one of these there's something wrong." She shrugged, turning to continue the next batch, adding: "or you found one of the rocks I put in the batter." more quietly.

She shook her head then, realizing that this time of morning probably wasn't the best time for jokes like that, "No rocks, promise, and this early in the morning because I couldn't sleep. Happens sometimes. I can be quieter next time."

She hummed, as if considering that, though there was finally amusement catching at the edges of her expression again as she said: "Fine, I'll let you have that point."

She gave the thermometer a quick rinse in the sink before setting it aside on a dishtowel, "Is this just milk or is there something in it? Because if it's just milk I think it might have gone off."

Malta

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject