Chapter Text
"Wait, Jonathan. A blanket has made a knot and is digging into my side."
Jonathan Strange sighed and rolled back to his side as Mr Norrell sat up and straightened the blankets on their bed. A dozen or so lamps had been set around the room and kept burning continuously through Martinelli's writ of perpetuity. Strange could see the knot – a mere wrinkle – vanish with the first tug, and yet Norrell kept smoothing the blankets until the Prince Regent himself could have found no fault with them.
"We can desist, my dear." Though Norrell had called Strange by his first name for months now, Strange had never felt comfortable returning the favour, and so had settled upon 'my dear'. "Do not for my sake consent to something you do not wish to do. Reciprocity--"
"—is the bedrock of such relations, yes, I know. You have told me." Mr Norrell looked sadly at the bed, which was as smooth as any bed could be with Jonathan Strange in it. Even at his neatest and most fashionable, Strange had been followed everywhere by a trail of disorder, and he had not been at his neatest for quite some time. At least he had once more taken up shaving and bathing. "But I do... I do, er... It is not merely that I am sensible of the honour."
Strange grinned and rested his head on his palm. "I had gathered."
It had been some weeks since Strange had first acted upon his desire, felt for a longer time than he cared to think about, to sweep his former mentor up in his arms and shut him up with his mouth. Those weeks had been filled with rows, silences, inexplicable and almost certainly fictional headaches, long notes written in neat, small handwriting and short ones in a large, messy one, interspersed here and there with theoretical arguments and more kissing, which had then resolved itself into a kind of accord.
Strange had once longed with an overwhelming passion to impress Norrell, to engage his attention, and to argue him into submission – and now he wanted this. He was quite happy to refrain from questioning it any further. That, however, was not the case with Mr Norrell. Norrell fussed and fought and flew into a thousand agonies, but then all of a sudden he would grab Jonathan and kiss him with a great deal more passion than skill. It was then up to Jonathan to soothe and coax until the two of them were wrapped up in each other on the sofa, on an armchair by the fire, or on a blanket in the shadow of some disapproving Faerie hawthorn, mouths moving together and Norrell, more often than not, compliant as a kitten. After some time in Strange's arms, he would gasp and groan and very nearly rut against him - and then stop and scramble away. Then came the excuses – not now, not here, the blanket has made a knot. No lady of his acquaintance had ever been half so coy.
Strange had attempted before to explain to Norrell that the consummation he fled from was a most pleasant one, and had even launched into some descriptions of acts of love, but that only seemed to have distressed him more.
Norrell ceased to correct the bedclothes and sat in a sullen heap in his night-shirt and dressing-gown. He blew out a breath. "It is so very undignified."
"You are embarrassed."
Norrell nodded, avoiding Strange's eye.
That was a puzzle. Norrell contracted embarrassment like a disease. He could not be made at ease through humour – he did not understand jokes. He was terrified of letting go, while longing for it at the same time. It was the same with him whether it was love or magic, Strange mused. "Will you let me try something?" he asked, sitting up.
Norrell blinked at him. "Certainly."
"Hold on to the lattice-work here—" he indicated the headboard of the heavy, ornate bed, "—close your eyes, and trust me."
"You will stop if I ask," said Norrell urgently, but he was already sinking back onto the mattress, his fingers slipping through the lattice.
"Of course. You may give me any instructions you like, but if you want me to stop entirely, simply say 'Gregory Absalom was the greatest magician that ever lived'."
Mr Norrell started and frowned. "You are teasing me."
Strange very nearly giggled. "Close your eyes."
Norrell blinked again, then obeyed. Strange placed his palm on the side of Norrell's head, letting his fingers tangle in the untrimmed growth of dark curly hair, shot through with ample grey. Norrell frowned with his eyes closed as Strange leaned over him and kissed his forehead softly, then his closed eyes. Norrell stirred and murmured something about true sight.
Strange took his mouth. Norrell sighed and answered, his fingers still firmly entangled with the latticework. Strange climbed up on his knees (he was breeched and socked still) and continued to kiss him, sloppy and wet in a way he knew made Norrell lose his composure, and indeed Norrell moaned against his mouth.
"You do remember, my dear?" asked Strange. "'Gregory Absalom...'"
"For heaven's sake, get on with it."
Strange was not fond of being ordered around, so he slid his hand around Norrell to pinch his bottom through the cotton of his nightshirt. Norrell's exclamation was not genteel. Perhaps he had learned it from Childermass.
"Shh," said Jonathan and eased one knee between Mr Norrell's legs.
"Ah!" Norrell threw his head back, though Strange had barely begun yet. Sensing an opportune moment, he reached down and tugged Norrell's night-shirt up. "Oh, Jonathan, no..." Strange stopped. "Don't look," he begged.
Strange kissed his neck, which made a shudder run through Norrell's slight body. "I promise." He tugged the shirt up just enough to run his fingers up and down Norrell's exposed thigh.
Norrell's legs fell open, and Strange shifted his weight to press his thigh up against Norrell's crotch.
Norrell cried out and let go of the lattice. He clasped Strange's head to him, kissing him hard at first but then simply holding him in place with all the strength he had. Strange's hand was free, and so he brought it around underneath the night-shirt and up along Norrell's belly, through regions he'd never seen, until it brushed across the familiar sensation of a warm, moist cock.
Mr Norrell mewled like a cat and turned his head away, but did not ask him to stop. Strange pushed his thigh up gently, closed his fingers around Norrell's cock and stroked up along it. Norrell cried out again, louder this time. He squirmed under Jonathan's weight, up and down as if he didn't know whether he wanted to get away or hurry him up. "Oh god, Jonathan." But not a word about Gregory Absalom.
Strange sat up and slipped his other hand under the night-shirt as well. Its skirts still fell chastely over the sight. He didn't have to see the cock he was fondling to know it was thick and a little out of size with the small man it was attached to, and the knowledge was delightful to him - not because he had a preference either way, but because Strange could count the number of men whose members he was intimately familiar with by the fingers of one hand, and the pleasure of adding Gilbert Norrell to the their number was not inconsiderable. With his other hand he cupped Norrell's balls, rolling them gently in his palm. Norrell threw an arm over his eyes and cried out in something like agony, but he was rutting up into Strange's hand now and thrashing against the bedclothes. Strange leaned over and kissed him, and quite suddenly Norrell spilled in his hand with a cry.
"There now," said Strange, his breath hitching. "That wasn't so--"
"That was not what I wanted," said Norrell from underneath his arm. What Strange could see of his face was flushed and glistening with sweat.
"I'm sorry - have I hurt you?" asked Strange in alarm.
"No," said Norrell. "Not at all. It simply isn't what I had in mind. You see, I've given it some thought and I would like you... to take your pleasure with me. Please."
"My dear..."
Norrell dropped his arm and fixed his small blue eyes on Strange. "I'm very much afraid I cannot presently bring myself to do for you what you just did for me. Not yet, at any rate. Yet I want you to... Well, do you understand?"
Strange did not.
Norrell flushed an even deeper red. "Fuck me. I won't mind the pain. I understand some is to be expected. Only don't ask me to touch you. It is my peculiar constitution that I..."
Strange shut him up with a ravenous kiss. His cock was throbbing hard enough to sting. Gilbert Norrell with his night-shirt up around his waist was asking him to fuck him. He wasn't going to ask any questions.
The lamps in the room had begun to burn brighter, though neither of them had noticed. "Turn over," said Strange, and Norrell tore out of his dressing-gown and scrambled around to his hands and knees.
Strange had every intention of keeping his earlier promise. He did not look. Instead he spat into his hand and reached down. Norrell made a muffled sound into the pillow as Strange's fingers found his arse.
"Relax, my dear," Strange murmured. Norrell let out something between a sigh and a laugh, but he relaxed. Strange found surprisingly little resistance as he sank first one finger, then another inside. That seemed to have been Norrell's limit, though, as Strange felt them gripped tight even as he began to move them.
Norrell's shoulders were stiff at first, and his face remained buried in the pillow, but as Strange fucked him open with his fingers he began to sigh and then to move. Strange curled his fingers, just the way Grant had liked it, though it had left Arabella unmoved. Norrell jerked back and cried out.
Strange could hold back no more. He got up on his knees behind Mr Norrell and did undid his breeches.
"Jesus, Lord, oh Christ," prayed Mr Norrell as Strange entered him.
Strange dropped on one arm, curving above Mr Norrell's back, and used the other to steady Norrell's hips as he ground deeper inside him. Norrell shivered and moaned underneath him as he pulled out and pushed back in again into the tight heat of his body, alive to every thrust. The flames inside their lamps flared.
"Jonathan... Jonathan."
Strange fucked him gently at first, soft and slow and shallow, then picked up his pace as the approach of his climax began tugging at his cock. Each thrust invaded deeper until he was buried all the way in. "I suppose..." gasped Strange, "I should call you..." Mr Norrell grasped the lattice for leverage and shoved his arse back against him, "Gilbert."
Two of the lamps burst, which might have set the room on fire, had the flames not forthwith sputtered and been reduced to embers. Strange shivered, panting, stretched over Norrell, who was hardly in a better way.
"Jonathan, you're crushing me," said Norrell after a while.
"My apologies." Strange rolled on his back and lay there, drained and limp. The room was in complete darkness.
"Gilbert is appropriate, I believe," said Mr Norrell. There was a rustle, and Strange felt Norrell curling up next to him. "Although 'my dear' is fine, too." Strange was startled to feel the touch of a hand on his spent cock. It quickly withdrew.
"I am sorry," said Norrell. "I think I might get there yet. Thank you for understanding."
"My d-- Gilbert. What a paradoxical person you are. It was entirely my pleasure." He sought Norrell's hand out in the dark, and brought it to his lips.
They fell asleep in sheets not only tangled and knotted, but soiled as well, but it was several hours before Norrell thought to complain.