Whatever Gets You Through The Night

It has started to rain by the time he leaves his house and heads down the street, so he huddles a little deeper into his coat as he walks, his mind on a hundred things other than where his feet are taking him. He doesn’t need to think about that anyway, really, since the route has become almost depressingly familiar as the murder cases and the stress continue to pile on his head.

Speaking of which... He takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes with a frustrated growl. He doesn’t need to be thinking about all that mess either. Not yet, anyway.

The apartment door opens on the first knock, and the other man motions him in. "You know where the bedroom is."

He does indeed. Like the walk to this apartment, he knows this place like the back of his hand, although he has only ever been in three particular rooms of it. Shedding his coat and hanging it up, he heads down the hall, the blond shadowing him. He can hear the shift of clothing behind him, but doesn’t pay attention to that, instead pulling open the drawer of the bedside table and reaching in to take out the heavy mess of leather straps.

"That bad, huh?" Jean asks as he straightens, looking at the black straps in his hands. From anyone else, it probably would have been a hint not to use them, but he knows better in this case.

"Yeah. It really is."

He looks away while the blond stretches out on the bed and puts his hands up over his head, then leans over him, using the straps to secure Jean's arms to one of the heavy posts of the headboard. He binds the other man a bit tighter than was probably comfortable… but this wasn’t really about comfort, was it? Once Jean is well and truly tied down, he pulls back and begins to strip out of his own clothes, letting his mind wander as he does so.

Now he can afford to think about the things he’d been mentally avoiding earlier, and so he lets it all wash over his mind. All of the frustration and anger concerning the serial killer on the loose and the unsolved murders the bastard had caused. All his worry over the Elrics, especially Edward, after the incident in the alley that afternoon. All his concern and guilt with his family and how much he had to be gone chasing some psychopath. Every negative emotion that he had been bottling up for the last couple of weeks comes bubbling up to the surface and as the last piece of clothing falls away, he shifts onto the bed and roughly forces his companion’s legs apart.

He isn’t thinking about the physical as he pushes inside with nothing to ease the passage; or, really, he isn’t thinking about the physical here. He doesn’t feel skin on skin, the give and tear under thrusts and nails or the sudden blow of a fist. He doesn’t hear the hitched gasps of Jean struggling not to make noise, or the strangled groans when he fails. His mind is on crime scenes that keep appearing, on report files that keep piling up, on a hundred looks of disappointment and thinly veiled disapproval that the cases haven’t been solved yet.

The bubbling emotions turn into a boil as he drives himself harder and faster into the body beneath him. He just keeps moving, his thoughts in a thousand places at once, and none of them in this apartment, until everything is washed away in a sudden fiery rush behind his eyelids, and he tosses his head back and gasps as he comes.

He’s panting as he begins to come down from the euphoric and cleansing high and slowly becomes aware of his real surroundings again. A small, involuntary noise of pain draws his attention, though, and he gives an alarmed hiss through his teeth as he pulls out of his companion’s body and reaches up to undo the leather bindings.

“Shit. Jean, I’m so-“

A freed hand over the mouth cuts him off, and the blond shakes his head. “Don’t you dare. Not part of the arrangement, remember?”

He pulls a face and readjusts his glasses, but sits back on his knees and tries to not say anything as Jean bites his lip to keep from making more noise as he gingerly gets up. There are bruises already forming over the man’s stomach and hips, and skin is littered with nail marks and deep welts, some bleeding. While the leather hasn’t broken skin the way the ropes they’d used the first night had, he can visibly see flesh rubbed raw and red. And then there’s the most blatant evidence, the way Jean moves so carefully and stiffly. He can’t see it from where he sits, and he won’t look down at himself, but there’s probably blood there too.

Once his companion is out of the room, he sighs. Even in this, he can’t really escape guilt, but not for the reasons he or anyone else would have originally thought. He rakes a hand through his hair and scoots to sit leaning against the footboard of the bed. Gracia knows what he’s doing, if not who he does it with, and he can’t help a small grin at the memory of how he’d practically been floored when she’d put her arms around him and promised that she understood he needed this. God, he didn’t deserve such a wonderful woman.

But that wasn’t where the well of guilt is coming from.

No, the guilt is from the rigid way Jean walked for days after their ‘sessions’. From seeing the marks he left behind, especially if they hadn’t quite healed by the next time that he had to come over. Most of all, he thinks with a small grumble, the guilt comes from the fact that Jean refuses to accept anything in return for the comfort this offers. God knows he’s tried to convince the man to take something, but he’s had no luck so far. It’s frustrating. He doesn’t want Jean to feel like a whore or anything, getting paid for this…he just wants to make sure the appreciation is evident.

He starts, surprised out of his thoughts, when something both warm and cold presses between his shoulder blades. Twisting around, he blinks, then accepts the mug of coffee the other man offers, as well as the customary cigarette. He takes a sip as Jean lights both their smokes, then blinks in surprise at the flavor that hits his tongue along with the coffee. “Krupnik?”

“Good taste buds,” the other man replies with a tired chuckle, refusing to sit. “Got it off a buddy of mine in a poker game.”

“So there are people who play worse than you?” he teases in an attempt to ease the tension in the room a little, then takes a drag off his cigarette as the other man snorts.

“Har, har. I’m beginning to see why Roy hangs up on you so much.”

The silence that falls then isn’t quite companionable, but it isn’t heavy either. It’s just… there, as they finish first cigarettes, then coffee. But there must have been something serious in his expression, because the next time Jean says anything, it’s “You gonna need another round?”

And it’s in that moment that he gets an idea. An admittedly sneaky idea, but an idea nonetheless. “Yeah,” he replies, voice just a little rough from the alcohol. “I think I will.”

He watches as the other man nods, then drains the last of his coffee and deposits the mug on the bedside table. He does the same with his own, then picks up the leather straps. “Jean?” he asks as the other man moves to lay down again.

“Yeah?”

“Put your hands behind your back this time, please?”

He doesn’t really blame Jean for giving him a raised eyebrow. It’s not exactly a request that’s part of any variation of their usual routine. But the other man, as usual, obliges him and twists around to present his hands. With the same neat efficiency as he’d done before, he binds the blond’s hands together, making sure that there wasn’t any room to move, much less escape, then leans over to begin digging in the bedside drawer again.

He ignores it when Jean asks him what the hell he’s doing and, with a slight noise of frustration, he heads into the bathroom to check the drawers and cabinets there. Finding something at least similar to what he was looking for, he returns to the bedroom and pushes the other man down onto his back.

He silences the man’s confused protest with his mouth as he one-handedly unscrews the lid from the small bottle he found in the bathroom. It won’t completely numb the pain, but it’ll do well enough for now. Coating his fingers in the oil, he draws back enough to allow them both a gasp of air, then seals their mouths together again as he pushes first one, then a second finger into his companion’s body.

He swallows the muffled noises the motion draws out of Jean, presses his other hand against an unbruised area of the man’s stomach to hold him down. Fingers stroke in and out, kneading the oil gently into torn flesh to soothe the pain from their earlier activity. “Just relax,” he murmurs reassuringly as he breaks the kiss again.

“Why are you- ah!”

“Shh. This arrangement is for my sake, right? So let me do this part my way.”

It is fairly faint reasoning as far as his he usually went, but it’s enough to make Jean sigh and stop trying to squirm away. Much better.

While it has been awhile, he had been one to experiment in his younger days, and it wasn’t exactly something one easily forgot how to do. Besides, the choked cry that his companion makes when he drags his tongue up the underside of the other man’s cock at the same time that he crooks his fingers inside the man’s body is actually rather pleasant. Once he is suitably sure that there won’t be enough pain to distract Jean from…other things, he leans back and slicks down his own erection.

He can’t hold on to Jean’s hip to brace himself, so he has to lean forward, balancing himself with one hand on the bed as he lines himself up and gently pushes into the body beneath him.

There’s no brutal pace this time. No excessive force. No nail marks or bruises. Once he finds that particular spot that made the younger man gasp minutes before, he uses it to his advantage, and adjusts his angle to make the rhythm easier on them both. When Jean swears under his breath, he wraps his oiled hand around the blond’s cock, stroking slow and firm and pulling more hitched profanities from his companion.

Back and forth, languid in comparison to what they had done earlier, he manipulates the younger man’s body until Jean arches beneath him with a sharp hiss and comes, and he reaches the same end just a few thrusts later. They’re both panting as he slowly pulls out and reaches around the man to undo the bindings.

Jean gives him a shove once he’s free. “The hell was that all about?”

He just shrugs as he stashes the leather straps in their usual space in the bedside drawer, and ignores the mutters of annoyance the younger man makes as he gets up to head for the bathroom. The hot stray of water on his back is almost as comforting as the rush from earlier, and he takes a few minutes longer than he usually does to revel in the feel of water beating down on his back once he has finished with the actual bathing.

Jean is sprawled out on his side when he comes out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry, and there’s another lit cigarette settled between the blond’s lips. He swipes it to take a drag, earning a growl, then places it neatly back where it was. “You need help looking after those?” They both know what he’s talking about, and the younger man shakes his head.

“I’ll make do. I haven’t taken a vacation or a sick day in over three years, so they owe me a little recovery time anyway.”

He can’t help a slight chuckle, or the faint tinge of guilt behind it, and begins gathering his clothing off the chair where he’d left it folded, pulling the lot back on. By the time he is dressed again, the cigarette is finished and snubbed out, and Jean has dozed off on the bed. He reaches down and brushes fingers through soft blond hair, then leans down and brushes a kiss against the sleeping man’s temple.

“You don’t ever let me say it when you’re awake, so I’ll say it when I can. Thank you,” he murmurs as he pulls away and heads for the door. He collects his coat from the rack and pulls it on, then locks the door behind him as he leaves the apartment. Down the stairs and out into the street he goes, and he is pleased to find when he gets outside that the rain has stopped.

He glances up over his shoulder one last time at the window he knows leads to the bedroom he’s just left, then he begins the walk back to his house. As he walks, he hums absently, feeling much lighter than he had when he’d arrived, and his thoughts are a mixture of new plots to pay Jean back for this absolution he gives, and how much easier it will be to face those he loves when he gets home.