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They've progressed as far as getting themselves into Carl's bedroom, and Akram is unbuttoning Carl's shirt, mouth on his throat, feeling the texture of the scar against his tongue, when a sudden noise from just outside the flat causes him to freeze and pull away.
"Neighbours next door," Carl murmurs, hands on Akram's hips, guiding him back in close. "Told you, we've got the place to ourselves tonight. Don't stop."
Akram nods and goes back to what he'd been doing. He begins lightly biting at the place he'd been tasting, savouring the range of sounds he's able to draw out of Carl, and he's just beginning to let his hips nudge with firm intent at the place where Carl is growing hard against him—
A key in a lock. Very close. Definitely not the neighbours.
"Oh, what the fuck," Carl groans. His head drops down onto Akram's shoulder in a brief slump of resignation, and then he wrenches himself free and goes to the bedroom door to listen, rapidly re-buttoning his shirt.
"Carl?" a young, angry voice calls out from the entryway. "Martin? Who's here?"
Akram watches Carl close his eyes dramatically and take a measured breath: in, out. Carl glances over at him and holds up a finger—one minute, or hush? probably both—then opens the bedroom door and goes out, closing it most of the way behind him. All the way shut would be a dead giveaway, but it still makes Akram a bit uneasy to have no real barrier between himself and the conversation that follows.
"Jasper, hey, what's going on? Thought you were halfway to London by now." He's doing a reasonably good job of sounding very casual, Akram decides, as though he'd been interrupted in nothing more vital than dozing off over a book. It takes an experienced Carl-listener to pick up the note of strain being carefully held back from the surface.
Jasper's tone is openly bitter. "Yeah, I should have been, only Mum sprung it on me at the last minute that George was going to be meeting us down there. She promised it would just be me and her this time! Why does she always have to bring her stupid boyfriends along?"
"Wow. George, huh? She's got a new one?" The voices are on the move, growing louder. Coming from the kitchen now. Tap running. "I don't know, kid. Trust your mum to always do the selfish thing, that's all I'll say. Did you eat? There's stew you can warm up…"
(A very good suggestion, in Akram's opinion. Jasper's voice has that cranky edge to it that his own girls get whenever they are either badly overtired or need to be fed.)
"I don't want fucking stew, I want someone to take my fucking feelings into account once, just fucking once, ever, and you're no better, so don't act like you're all superior to her—"
Is Akram meant to be making a quiet exit while this conversation is going on? He takes a few steps closer to the door, trying to work out where Jasper is standing in relation to his potential escape route, but it sounds as though he's on the move. There are footsteps in the entryway again, and then the conversation is dimmed by the sound of a stereo being turned on, loud, Carl's sharp answer coming through only in partial syllables.
Akram sits down on the bed. It would be a bad idea to try slipping out now, since it sounds as if Jasper's bedroom door is still at least partially open. He will wait and see.
His jacket and briefcase are in the foyer, he remembers suddenly. Presumably Jasper had been too worked up to take any notice, but Akram still wishes he had them here, in part because his notebook is in his briefcase and he doesn't want to rummage through Carl's things in search of pen and paper. Luckily he's still got his mobile in his back pocket, so he opens the Notes app on his phone and types.
When Carl returns to the room a few minutes later and shuts the door behind himself, wild-eyed and vibrating with frustration, Akram stands up and shows him the phone. He's typed: Sorry. Let me know when you think it will be safe for me to quietly leave.
Carl scowls at the screen, reading, and then makes a flicking rage-motion with his hands and shakes his head. He grabs the phone from Akram and types, fuck that. we planned this. you shd stay.
Akram raises his eyebrows and tilts his chin down slightly, looking at Carl in the way that means are you sure about this?
Nonverbal communication with Carl is a language in which Akram became fluent seemingly without effort: instinctive, ingrained, and honed to a fine economy of gesture and glance during hours and hours of interviews. Rose, observing them recently, said that it weirded her out to see the two of them at it like they were using bloody telepathy. It's very useful for weaving an invisible net around a hostile witness, but it turns out to be good for other things, too.
Carl looks away instead of answering, which generally means that he isn't sure about his current course of action, but doesn't wish to admit it. He's still holding Akram's phone, and he sits down on the edge of the bed with his back to Akram and begins to type something else, slowly.
Akram watches Carl, head bowed over his task, the back of his neck exposed and vulnerable. He wants to cover it with his hand, but desists for now. The relationship between Carl and his stepson has been improving, he thinks, but is still fraught, and he suspects that Carl hasn't wanted to risk throwing a wrench into it by introducing a new romantic partner into the balance. Especially a male one. Akram understands completely; he isn't sure how he should introduce the subject to his daughters, either, once they return from their summer holidays with their mother's family. Part of him, he has to admit, is still wondering if it will really be necessary.
Without looking up, head still bent, Carl reaches back and passes the phone to Akram, who reads his note: was going to tell him i had company for the evening but couldnt do it, not when his mum just fucked him over again to be with some guy. sorry. was looking fwd to tonight. you cd still stay just have to be quiet. he'll be up gaming half the night then sleep late tmrw and wont notice if you leave early
He turns it over in his mind. Probably he should repeat his offer to slip out right away. But Akram has been looking forward to tonight, too, very much. And, perversely, Carl's kindness to his stepson has only made Akram want him more fiercely. He'll need to control himself, though, if he spends the night here. The things he's been planning on doing to Carl tonight would not have been quiet.
Akram glances over and sees that Carl is half turned toward him, looking up at him now, his expression speculative. Hopeful but not too hopeful. Prepared to concede to Akram's judgement.
This, too, is appealing, and it tips the balance. Akram checks to make sure that Carl flipped the lock on the bedroom door when he returned to the room. He leans down and kisses Carl, a brief firm press of their lips together, and then draws back with his hand still on Carl's jaw and nods once. Then he goes around to the other side of the bed, quickly and neatly strips down to his briefs, leaves the rest of his clothing folded on a chair, and gets under the covers.
"Well, okay, then," Carl mutters under his breath, and gets up to undress and turn out the overhead light.
*
Their touches are chaste at first, or nearly so. Akram kisses Carl's shoulder; Carl's hand finds its way to Akram's outer thigh, meditatively stroking. Then Akram draws his nose up the line of Carl's throat and presses another kiss to the underside of his jaw just beneath his ear, and Carl inhales sharply.
"Fuck," he breathes. It's barely audible, and Jasper's stereo is still on loud enough to make the walls of the flat vibrate slightly. They probably don't need to be completely quiet, except that if they forget themselves they are likely to make too much noise in a way that will be distinctive, and Carl is not, in Akram's experience, given to restraint.
Experimentally, Akram gives a gentle bite to the spot he's just kissed, and Carl lets out a grating groan, nearly a growl. Akram instantly pulls away and withdraws to his own side of the bed. When Carl turns to him with a quizzical look, Akram shakes his head slightly and flicks a glance at the closed door: Quiet.
The look Carl gives him then is easy to read, one he often turns on Akram during investigations: I know what you're doing, you cheeky fuck. He shrugs, turns over onto his back on his own side of the bed, and waits. In the low light of the bedside lamp, Akram can see that he is trying not to grin.
Akram reaches over and slides a hand over the front of Carl's pants, lightly cupping, stroking him through the fabric with his thumb, and the ghost of a grin disappears. Carl shuts his eyes.
*
Twenty minutes later, Akram is cock-deep in Carl's arse and struggling to keep still, aching with the same desperation he can read in every tense line of Carl's bent neck and bowed back, every harsh breath and bitten-back curse.
Touching one another slowly, teasingly, taking their time about it, had been delightful at first. A novelty. It isn't often they have the time and the privacy to draw things out instead of yielding at once to the urgency of desire. But the need for quiet had required some creative re-thinking, too. Akram's favourite method of taking Carl apart, normally, is to tell him in dry and filthy detail what he plans to do to him. He misses the thrill of Carl's very vocal appreciation when Akram follows through on his promises.
Still, after a slow start, their bodies had adjusted to the new rules of near-silence. With hisses and held breaths, suggestive nudges and trembling sighs, they'd gained momentum enough, until they were both bare beneath the sheets and things had been progressing toward what seemed a foregone conclusion. Carl had finally reached into the drawer of his bedside table and produced a condom and a sachet of lubricant. He'd taken Akram's hand, pressed the supplies into it, and closed his fingers around them, then made fierce eye contact and mouthed two very unmistakable words before turning over onto his front and burying his face in a pillow.
Akram hadn't been inclined to argue, even if he could have.
He'd taken his time, though. He didn't like it that he couldn't check in verbally with Carl, but this was far from the first time they'd done this, and Akram had thought, if he proceeded very carefully, if he paid close attention and read the shifting play of the muscles in Carl's lower back and thighs as though he were studying a new case file—if he eased himself into Carl's body so, so slowly and paused to stroke a gentling hand down his side whenever he tensed—
From the bedroom down the hall, the sound of the stereo had abruptly ceased. "Oh, fuck," Carl said into the pillow.
*
And so now they are trapped. Fucking Carl with a minimum of sound, Akram thinks he could accomplish; having penetrative intercourse to the point of completion in total silence? Surely not possible. He starts to withdraw, and Carl reaches around and seizes Akram's hip and digs his fingers in hard enough to bruise: don't move.
After an agonising minute, Akram disengages himself and pulls out, despite Carl's grasping hand and his choked, swallowed-down cry of frustration. He leans down and kisses Carl apologetically on the ear, then takes hold of Carl's shoulder and turns him over to face him. The searing blue glare softens a fraction as Akram holds their eye contact. He points with two fingers at his own eyes, then at Carl's, and carefully adjusts their bodies to position himself for re-entry. Then he holds there, waiting, with a questioning look, until Carl finally gives a relenting nod and presses his hands to Akram's lower back.
This, they haven't done before. Not face to face. It's a lot to ask of Carl, perhaps, and at the same time, Akram needs to be able to see him if he can't hear him—even though Carl's eyes are closed after the first few too-heated moments. They remain shut tight against the intensity of sensation as Akram enters him again, slowly, and then his eyelids relax, trembling-shut, as Carl breathes into it and yields to the intrusion. Then he nods and opens his eyes again and looks directly up at Akram with an expression of...what?
Trust.
This is something Akram sees from Carl on the job as well, more and more often these days, but in this context, it seems like so much responsibility that it makes him need to glance away.
To distract himself, Akram shifts the angle of his hips and rocks himself deeper into Carl's body. In this position, in fact, he's able to get deeper than ever before, and the unaccustomed sensation draws a sharp hnff from Carl—not loud, but alarming, and Akram freezes again. Carl tilts his head back and makes a slightly louder sound, this time one of keening frustration. "Akram, c'mon," he whispers, almost subaudibly but very intense. "Fucking…don't stop, or I'm going to scream, I swear to—"
Akram bends him all but in half and leans over to silence him with a kiss.
The tension goes out of Carl immediately as he melts into it with a sigh. Akram continues to kiss him, beginning to move his hips now again as well. Kissing Carl while fucking him: also a first, also more intimate than he'd been prepared for, and yet now that he's begun, he doesn't want to stop. Akram kisses him again and again, picking up the speed of his thrusts as he does so, until Carl is half laughing into his open mouth and pulls away a bit to give him the hand signal for okay, slow down, slow down.
Slower. Control, Akram reminds himself. He nods, kisses Carl one last time, and sets a steady pace that he can manage for a while, watching for the signs that Carl needs more. He allows himself to dip down every few thrusts and taste: the tense cords of Carl's neck, the sweet damp hollow between his collarbones. Carl's cock is sliding hard and slick against his belly, and when Akram finally shifts his weight to one arm so that he can get a hand around it, Carl bucks and makes a harsh, cut-off sound in his throat that hurts Akram to hear. He hesitates, uncertain.
Carl shakes his head and gives a very quiet version of his oh, don't you fucking dare laugh, jamming one hand in between their bodies and clasping it around Akram's, thrusting up into his grasp. It unlocks something in Akram, who suddenly lets go of his own watchful tension and allows himself to fully feel, with an overwhelming rush, the pleasure of the Carl's body tight around his own cock, the shameful excitement of trying to keep quiet even while the heat of impending orgasm begins to build and spread and—
"Oh, fuck," Carl whisper-gasps, high-pitched now, throwing his head back, and Akram has too many inputs to keep track of now: his own need, the urgency of trying to keep Carl from shouting out, the sudden realisation that perhaps he will get to see Carl's face when he comes—and then pain, sharp pain; Carl bites down hard on Akram's shoulder and uses it to muffle his stifled cry as he floods Akram's fist with wet heat.
It's all too much by far, and Akram follows him over the edge while Carl is still shuddering and swearing softly into Akram's shoulder. He doesn't have a hand free to cover his own mouth, and he thinks he might choke on the sounds he needs to make, until at the last moment, as his thrusts grow messy and frantic and he begins to shake, Carl lifts his head and kisses him through it, gasping.
He's had intercourse of one kind or another with Carl many times over the past few months. Fucked him maybe a dozen times. It's always been different. But this...
It takes a long time for their ragged breaths to slow and even out. Akram eventually eases Carl's legs down and draws out of him, then quickly and wincingly deals with the condom, hesitant about what to do with it. Carl solves the problem by taking it from him and dropping it unceremoniously on the floor, exchanging it for his own discarded boxers, which he uses to mop up the worst of the mess on Akram's hand and his own stomach. It's disgusting, but it will have to do for the moment, because Akram badly needs to collapse on top of Carl and just stay there for as long as he can, face buried in Carl's neck, savouring the sensation of their twinned racing hearts beating against one another's chest.
He is overwhelmed, suddenly, by the fierce grip of his need to protect, and isn't sure whether it's Carl he needs to shield, or himself.
Carl kisses his hair a few times, and strokes his thumb up and down Akram's upper vertebrae, saying nothing. They're still bound by the need for silence, so he couldn't have said much, but Akram doubts that he would have in any case. He's already well familiar with this brief, endearing period after sex, when Carl is too spent and pleasure-drunk to speak, relieved of all the restless tension that he normally carries in every fibre of his body. It never lasts long.
True to form, after only another minute or so, Carl taps briskly on his shoulder. "Gonna get some water," he whispers, very quietly, right into Akram's ear, and Akram shifts to let him up, wincing as their sticky bellies pull apart. "And a flannel," he adds in a low murmur. "Anything else?"
Akram shakes his head and flops over onto his back to watch Carl shrug on a faded navy dressing gown and quietly exit the room—taking the used condom with him, to Akram's relief. He would have liked to get up and shower. He made his peace earlier with the fact that he will be skipping his evening prayer tonight, but even so. He wonders if he should repeat his offer to sneak out. Wonders, again, for whose benefit it would be if he does.
Carl is back before Akram has the chance to get restless, bearing gifts: a glass of water, a warm damp flannel, and a hand towel. Akram drains the glass thirstily and then nods with his chin to the closed door and what lies beyond it, putting a question into his eyes: Jasper? Carl gives him a reassuring look, makes the OK sign with his free hand, and mimes asleep, pillowing his head on his hand and letting his jaw go slack. Akram nods again in approval and extends his hand to ask for the cloth, but Carl holds it out of his reach and gives him another look and a gesture that Akram knows very well: hey, back off, I've got this.
So he subsides back against the pillows, entranced, and allows Carl to clean him. Carl takes his hand first, giving him a brief wry look as he presses a gallant kiss to Akram's knuckles once he's patted them dry, then carefully wipes down and dries his abdomen, his softened cock. Once he's finished to his own apparent satisfaction, he wraps the flannel in the hand towel, goes to drop them into the laundry bin and hang up his dressing gown, turns out the bedside lamp, and slips back into bed. Without a look or a murmur, he folds himself around Akram, head on his chest, and settles in.
Akram feels as though a fox from the garden has just crept in through an open window and made itself at home in his arms: immensely flattered, but peripherally concerned about the possibility that it will savage him if he dares to stroke it. Extensive post-coital cuddling has never really been on the table before. He thinks, at first, that Carl will drop off to sleep right away, and yet the moment stretches to minutes, and Akram can tell from his breathing that he's very much awake.
It's somewhat unnerving. Akram has spent a great deal of time observing Carl Morck. By the time he'd been acquainted with Carl for a few weeks, Akram could have written a concise academic treatise on the various significances of his gestures and pacings, his vocal cadences and inventive profanities. After six weeks, he could have taught a course on Carl's use of cutting words as weapons, deflections, posturings. What he can't yet read, months later, is the man's silent stillness. It is simply too rare an occurrence.
Carl doesn't leave him to wonder about it indefinitely. After what seems an age, but is probably no more than five minutes, he lifts his head, kisses the spot on Akram's chest he'd been lying on, and reaches over him, stretching to pick up his mobile from the bedside table. Akram averts his eyes politely while Carl taps at his device, but looks over again when he feels a sharp nudge. Carl hands him the phone, open to the notes app.
good thing we have to be quiet or i'd be tempted to say some incredibly stupid shit right about now
Something is attempting to unfurl in Akram's chest, some tight and guarded thing that he'd convinced himself was permanently dormant if not lifeless. He tries to see Carl's face in the dim light of the electronic screen, but catches only the unreadable shadow of his profile. He holds the phone so that Carl can see his measured response as he types it: Such as what?
Carl moves his head closer to Akram's on the pillow and doesn't take the phone from his hands, just reaches over and begins to tap at the keypad: too incriminating to put on record, i'll leave it up to your imagination
Akram gives a soft huff through his nose and types You wanted perhaps to tell me that I was right and that you shouldn't have gone to the McKinney house yesterday without backup, because it was incredibly risky and
The phone is snatched from his hands and Carl takes control of the keypad: yes bang on well done
It is a coward's move, Akram knows, to take refuge in humour when he has been offered, perhaps, the chance of sincerity. And yet he is indeed afraid. His heart is hammering nearly as hard as it was just a short time before in the throes of passion. It falls to Carl—his brave, foolish Carl, heedless of personal risks—to try again.
i do want to tell jasper about us. tomorrow. would that be ok w you?
He looks up at Akram as he passes him the phone, his face now illuminated by the glow of the screen. It's a look Akram can't say he's ever seen on Carl's face before, but one that he has no trouble reading.
There's only one answer he can give to that look, and he's known it, Akram finally admits to himself, ever since he learned to see what lay beneath the carapace of Carl's harsh words.
"Yes," Akram says aloud, and puts the phone aside to kiss him.
***
An hour later, Carl is asleep in his arms, and Akram is still wide awake for a variety of reasons, foremost of which is his urgent need for the facilities. Almost certainly it will be safe at this time of night. Eventually, need overcomes caution. He extricates himself from Carl's grasp—causing a slight sleepy moan of protest, but no more—gropes in the dark, and comes up with his own discarded briefs and Carl's denim shirt. Enough for decency. He makes his way through the silent flat and winces as a floorboard or two creaks, but it can't be helped.
When he lets himself back out of the bathroom, immensely relieved and at least a fraction cleaner, he doesn't register the light that now illuminates his way, doesn't realise he's been caught until the sound of a deliberate cough freezes him.
"I fucking knew it," says Jasper, lounging in his bedroom doorway.
"Oh," says Akram, and then has no idea how to proceed. There really isn't any plausible explanation for his presence in the flat at this hour other than the obvious one, especially in the absence of most of his clothes. A terrible thought occurs to him, and he feels himself go pale. "You…heard us?"
Jasper makes a face. "Eugh. No. I saw your stuff by the door when I came in. And Carl didn't tell me to turn my music down before he went to bed. Dead giveaway." He gives Akram an appraising once-over, clearly impressed. "Uh, sorry if this is rude, but…how did Carl manage to pull someone like you?"
Akram folds his arms uncomfortably as he tries to think of an appropriate reply. Carl's shirt doesn't easily button across his chest and he hadn't wanted to stretch it, so he'd left it open.
"Oh, hang on, sorry, I've met you," Jasper goes on, his gaze having finally travelled up to Akram's face. "You brought your kids over for dinner that time. They were cute. But you guys work together! Is that even allowed? Whoa."
"I think Carl would like to tell you about it himself," Akram says to the boy. "Perhaps it would be better if you didn't mention to him that we'd had this…encounter. I am sorry to have disturbed your sleep."
"Carl's going to—ohhhh, so this is actually a thing? Not just a hookup?"
Given what Akram heard a few hours ago of Jasper's reactions to his mother's romantic liaisons, he's prepared for hostility, but Jasper looks and sounds purely delighted. Akram isn't certain whether to be relieved or panicked about this development.
"This makes such total sense," Jasper informs him. "He's been so much less of a controlling prick lately. I fucking knew he needed to get—uh." The boy reddens. "Get a boyfriend, I mean. Or a girlfriend, okay, I didn't actually know he was into guys, although that's completely chill and I'm not, like, shocked or anything—"
"I really think that Carl would like to be the one to have this conversation with you," Akram repeats firmly. "He is planning to, I believe, very soon."
"Oh, sure, yeah, I'll be cool," Jasper says. He extends a closed fist, and Akram, after a moment of befuddlement, reaches out and hesitantly taps its knuckles with his own. "Wow. I can't believe this. But Carl's great, you know," he goes on quickly, looking worried all of a sudden. "I mean, when I said he was a controlling prick just now, I didn't mean he was like—"
"It's okay," Akram reassures him. "I know what Carl is like."
Jasper continues to look worried. "He's a good guy," he persists. "Really. I'm not just saying that to get you to go out with him, he's, like…"
Akram wishes that he weren't having this conversation at one in the morning in his underwear. At least, after this, his breaking the news to the girls can hardly fail to be less awkward. "I am very fond of your stepfather," he tells the boy, with all the sincerity he can summon. "I hope to take excellent care of him for as long as he will allow me to do so. And right now, please excuse me, I am going back to bed. Good night, Jasper."
"Good night, Akram," the boy says cheerfully, and Akram, who has proceeded on his way back to Carl's room, half turns in surprise that Jasper remembers his name correctly after meeting him once over a rather awkward family dinner, which took place at least two months ago. It isn't an experience he's often had since coming to live in Edinburgh. "Carl talks about you all the time," Jasper confides. "I think he's, uh, fond of you, too. Just didn't realise how fond. Well, g'night," he says again, and vanishes into his teenaged lair.
Shaking his head, Akram lets himself back into Carl's room. He pulls off the shirt and slides into bed, where he is immediately enfolded once again into a warm and sleepy embrace.
"Mm," says Carl, and Akram notices now that his eyes are half open. He's been partly wakened by Akram returning to bed, that's all, surely, but a few moments later Carl bites gently at his ear and murmurs, "Fond."
Akram raises up on his elbows. No point trying to maintain silence now. "Did you overhear that entire conversation?"
"From the bit where Jasper was impressed with my incredibly fit new boyfriend? Was there anything before that?"
He's never used the word boyfriend about Akram before; not in his hearing, anyway. Neither of them have. It gives Akram pause, but he's still irritated enough to push off Carl's octopusing limbs and move to the opposite side of the bed. "You could have said something. Or come to my assistance, even."
"Oh, you were doing fine. Saved me the trouble of the whole coming-out conversation and everything." It's too dark in the room for Akram to really see Carl's expression, but he knows exactly what it looks like just from the tone of his voice: unbearably smug. "So Jasper approves, and thinks I'm a good guy—should've got that in writing—and you…"
"Stop," Akram warns him.
"Not just fond, but very fond," Carl muses. "And you hope to take—"
Akram considers reaching over and lightly bruising his windpipe; instead, he rolls half on top of Carl and plants a threatening elbow into his solar plexus. "What is it that you say when you talk about me to Jasper all the time?"
"Ow," Carl complains, squirming beneath him and trying unsuccessfully to free himself from Akram's elbow. "I tell him what a strong-arming, humourless, completely overbearing—"
Akram digs his elbow in a little harder as Carl continues to struggle. "Because he seemed to be under the impression," he reminds Carl, "that you are also fond."
"Can we stop saying 'fond'?" Carl pleads, giving up and going limp. "The word's lost all meaning now."
"All right," Akram agrees. "I am feeling not at all fond anymore, in any case." He releases Carl and rolls back onto his own side of the bed.
There's a silence that lasts—Akram counts—twenty-five seconds. Then a sharp chin comes to rest on his shoulder, and there's a hand sliding across his lower belly, restless fingers toying with the fine trail of hairs there. "Do you still plan on taking excellent care of me, though?" Carl wants to know.
"For as long as you will allow me to do so," Akram says with a sigh. "Especially if that is the answer that will permit us to get some rest." He shifts a bit toward Carl, dislodging his chin, pushes a hand into Carl's hair, and kisses him fiercely, and then again, with tenderness, and lastly, so softly that he's really just mapping Carl's contented half-smile with his own lips, until they both surrender to the oblivion of sleep.