Work Text:
1998
Graham’s quite sick of the party now. Or he was about an hour ago.
He can’t remember too much, like who’s bloody house this is, but he knows he drank far too much of the expensive Russian vodka in the kitchen at once by the punishing gurgles of his stomach. He’s rusty, since he’d broken his sobriety not long ago, and, despite being about half an hour away from unconsciousness, can guess Damon’s upset about it. But it’s okay. Everything’s fine.
They’re at the fancy, frivolous, jewel-tone-ridden flat of someone famous. Damon’s hunched over the coffee table, playing cards with an unrecognizable arrangement of wankers. He laughs like it’s easy, shakes the man next to him by the shoulders. Wins a round of ratslap. He’s flushed with drunk, dedicated to a nice night and acting like he can’t see Graham groveling in the corner. He’s made a habit of that as of late. Turning over a mottled orange to avoid the rotting core. Damon’s never been a true chameleon, though, and fails to hide the concern curling in his gut in stolen glances towards Graham. His smile drops every time Graham catches him looking.
The next minute, laughs start to sound like screams, and Graham stumbles across the perimeter of the house like a newborn foal grasping at the wallpaper.
Their Friday night ends in a most spectacular fashion, or maybe the opposite, when Graham attempts another shot straight from the dingy glass bottle and vomits the rest of his vodka onto the card game.
In 1992, this particular feat had felt like spitting fireworks from his mouth. Now it’s akin to coughing up toxic sludge. Graham can’t tell exactly who’s gone What the fuck? and Oh shit and how many people scatter and how quickly, but he’s so gone he can’t bring himself to care.
He’s not quite privy to everything that happens after that– there’s Damon, embarrassed as ever and agitated in the way he gets when he’s really just scared for Graham, groaning out apologies in a low, exhausted voice. They form a larger landscape of shame as Graham stitches them together.
Graham’s limbs aren’t stable enough when the world goes liquid around him. In a few seconds his knees buckle. His weight collapses underneath him and he falls, becoming well acquainted with the floor, taking the beer bottles on the table with him.
There it is, the most sobering event of the night; silence.
Graham wakes up the next morning with a headache, a faint recollection as to how he’d gotten there and an ache in his lower back. The sun spills past his window shutters and leaks onto his sprawled, half-blanketed frame. The thing to do, he thinks, is stay in all day. His wallowing is inevitably ruined as the phone rings.
Graham, near-lethargic, presses the phone lazily to his cheek. Sure as ever, Damon’s voice arrives sprightly through the phone line, audibly more awake than Graham deems polite at this time of day. What time is it actually? He isn’t even sure.
“Are you up?”
Graham’s eyes roll upwards. “No, I don’t think so. I’m fast asleep,” he drawls.
“You want to meet me at the studio?” Damon asks.
Fuck. No. Damon’s addicted to his studio. Graham’s too hungover to be interested in indulging him just yet.
“We aren’t due till Monday.”
“I’ve got some demos to show you.”
“Mmm. Ugh. Demos. Not in the fucking mood for that, Dames.” Graham rubs his face, expressionist splotches dancing behind his eyelids with each janky rub.
“Not Blur demos, just uh. Other stuff I did on my little cassette contraption.”
“I don’t give a shit right now, to be quite fucking honest.” If anything, he's got a migraine coming on.
Damon’s quiet for a bit. “You said you’d show me yours two days ago.”
“I was probably pissed when I said that,” Graham says. He remembers, though. He’d sidled up to Damon during their stroll through a street market like a shy, big-eyed hound dog nudging at his feet with a bone to present. Which feels vulnerable enough to warrant denial.
Damon skips over that, likely knowing Graham well enough to spot the grumpiness. He inhales and exhales like the slower he goes, the more patience he’ll conjure.
“You’ve got to turn up when you say you will, Gra.”
Graham groans. Is there anything as irritating as having to do what you said you would?
Damon’s sigh warbles through the static line.
“Should I come get you?”
When Damon shows up to walk them over together, the studio’s the last place Graham wants to be. He knows, though, Damon’s studio is only around the corner from his flat, which means Damon trekked all the way to Camden just to bring Graham back to where he already was. So Graham’s in a corner. He’s condemned to the vulnerable awakeness of sobriety. It’s cold as shit and Graham is cursing the fact he hadn’t run out to get gloves or liquor the day before. Or any other time than now. That’s his pattern as of recent– waking up after the ornery episode and wishing he’d bought band-aids long after the wounds had been infected.
Graham’s been procrastinating to replace his old novelty ones from an American gift shop that have since fallen apart. He passed a small store earlier, but they’d only had some frivolous little mittens and ridiculous gloves that would’ve made him look like the world’s weediest astronaut, so he’d passed, sure he’d find something else on his way home. He has not since, and now trots about with his fingers raw and naked to the cold, and his fingers feel like they’re halfway to being numb and plain falling off.
No liquor store in sight, either. They’re set to go to Damon’s Iceland studio in a month, and he’s completely unprepared for any worse weather than Camden’s. Eternally hungover and shivering like an emaciated chihuahua.
Walking flush against each other on the sidewalk, Damon takes notice and huffs. “Stop fucking shifting about.”
They’re both hunched over and sickly as beached whales in their chunky puffers, turned self-sheltering by the cold. Graham, though, is worse for wear. He wishes he had a dark, warm cocoon inside which he could shut himself away forever. Or at least the foreseeable future. He blows the hot air inside his mouth onto his fingertips in a last-ditch effort.
Damon’s since turned his head to watch him and rolls his eyes.
“I told you you needed new gloves.”
Graham wishes he would leave it. They’re in one of their thorny bouts where everything Damon says seems to irritate him. Such is their pattern. He’ll get pissed with Damon then feel like shit for getting pissed right after. Whatever.
“I fucking know,” Graham huffs. “I don’t need a reminder from you.”
Damon sighs, more dejected than irritated. “I didn’t say as much as I wanted yesterday so you wouldn’t bite at me. Cause you were in one of your moods. But you’re setting yourself up for fucking hypothermia.”
“Do they pay you to nag at me? Fuck off. It’s not serious. I'm not a sickly Victorian child with tuberculosis.”
Damon lets out a humorless chuckle. His breath billows like smoky chiffon through the cold air. “Uh huh. Nothing’s ever serious til it is. And you can’t feel your fingers.”
“I’ll fucking survive it, won’t I?”
Damon tuts, his face twisted into a dissatisfied snarl. “Nope. You’ll lose your fingers that way. We need those. For songs.”
Damon stops in the middle of the path. takes off one of his gloves, shimmies it onto one of Graham’s hands, then joins their gloveless hands and shoves them both into one of his padded pockets. Damon’s now ungloved hand, still warm against Graham’s cold hand, are clasped together, Damon’s hand squeezing to warm Graham’s chapped skin as soon as possible. They’re holding hands inside Damon’s coat pocket. Which really makes Graham feel like he’d been an asshole. But warm.
“There we are. Safe for songmaking,” Damon flashes him a toothy grin with wide eyes, “like sweet love.”
Damon starts whistling-humming-scatting a husky, abstract rendition of ‘Sweet Love’, that Anita Baker record he used to spin all the time in the late ‘80s. The one Graham used to poke fun at. When they were still kids.
Sometimes Graham still feels like a kid in all the ways except the fun, whimsical ones. Just the scolded, helpless feelings remain, and adulthood is a miserable, ill-fitting suit heavy over his shoulders. Nothing about their adulthood feels normal. He feels he’s been marred by time instead of developed, or matured.
Now Graham feels even worse. But warmer still.
“They do pay me to nag at you,” Damon mutters, squeezing Graham’s hand as they turn the corner. “They pay me very well.”
Studio days are dictated, as of recent, by whatever Damon’s into, which is inevitably influenced by what Graham is into. Last time they’d started making a record, Damon had warmed beautifully to Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted and had decided in Reykjavik that he wanted their new album to sound like REM. Just a few years ago he’d decided the yanks were their enemy, declared war on all things American. Now it seemed he’d warmed to them again. However much that had to do with Graham, Graham couldn’t tell. He’d denied all accusations lobbed at him for a year straight.
This time around, they’ve both mellowed even further. They’ve found a sweet spot, a shared interest in Massive Attack, the current object of Damon’s musical obsession. It feels like a tryst, when they spin Mezzanine and Dummy and drift off honeyed together into Drugland.
The hypnotic, subterranean loops are self-reflective. Graham could close his eyes as the tipsy backbeat swamped his mind, take a long drag from a cig, watch the smoke furl upwards and think Yeah, that’s me right now. There I am. Drifting off above us all. Sinking below us all, too. As Damon bobs his head, hunched over his Portastudio, Graham knows he feels the same.
Truth has its way of bleeding out in the studio. Whatever’s wrestling in Graham’s heart could come out in this way. Damon had had the walls painted a blood orange that now waned an unavoidable deep red under low lights, like when they crawled in to make music, they’d stepped inside the fat of the heart— a stuttering heart but a functioning one nonetheless.
The gut-curling memory of last night’s party still hangs on Graham’s shoulders like a heavy coat. He plays some bullshit for the first 20 minutes, bad on purpose, at which Damon is visibly irritated. After that, he figures, they can spar in earnest.
Graham’s glued to the corner, nursing his butterscotch telecaster in his arms like an old reliable lover. They’re smitten and quite committed despite the occasional scuff. A few shows ago he’d thrown it off his shoulders in frustration; later that night he’d kissed its hard, beaten body as he cooed, whispered sorry. He’s about as bad at sorries as he’s ever been.
His hoarder-level pile of pedals lay scattered on the weedy carpet like thorny wildflowers in a muddy field. Is he picking daisies or dandelions today? Tough to tell.
Graham fiddles with his guitar, fingers dancing along the fret. He stumbles upon a chord shape he likes, moves it up and down the frets, picking at the strings to find a nice melody to orbit for the next hour.
Damon catches onto his drift, bobbing his head up and down. He scoots closer to Graham.
“Hmm. You should brighten that a little,” Damon says. “Switch the B and the F, maybe.”
Graham complies.
Damon sits up a bit more to add, “Yeah, but sort of just- add the-”
Since they’re traipsing across the same mental leyline, Graham plays exactly the chord he means before he finishes his sentence. Boom. Understanding.
Damon smiles, “Yeah. yeah.” His eyes burn a little brighter, warmed by their apparent telepathic connection. He nods in satisfaction to match Graham’s tempo.
“Play that again?”
Graham fiddles again, and gets about five seconds into the riff until Damon leans over and pecks him on the neck, steadying himself on Graham’s shoulder. The shoulder connected to Graham’s strumming hand. Graham fucks up the rest of his composition, distracted. Damon’s as steadying as he is dizzying.
“I just don’t fucking know how you do that,” Damon goes for another peck, whispering into Graham’s neck. He leans back to lie on his back on the carpet, gazing up at the ceiling.
However cranky Graham had been before, he’s always loved how loose and familiar everything felt when they were playing, how uncomplicated it was. The longer they melt together in the studio the more his staunch resistance earlier feels like cowardice.
Having left his crankiness behind a bit, Graham turns to look at Damon properly. Still unflinchingly pretty, as scruffy as he is now. There's a slinky gold chain decorating his neck, slipped under his sweatshirt collar. His hair’s getting a little longer in the back, little wisps of golden brown furling soft down his nape. It’s grown out at the top and the sides too. Graham likes him this way, tousled. Uneven. Embracing his shaggiest impulses. Dark circles in a round gradient under his eyes. He looks much more tired these days, worn down by everything.
Damon’s gaze falls from the ceiling to meet Graham’s eyes. Damon’s eyes are as intense as ever– it’s like looking into the bluest lake, entirely clear from fog, where you can see fish gliding underwater with ease. Arresting. If he hasn’t found himself bored by eye contact with Damon at this point, Graham wonders if he ever will.
Damon gives a lopsided smile at the newfound eye contact. “I wish you’d let me take you home last night, Gra.”
Graham furrows his eyebrows. Ugh. Last night.
“I didn’t?”
“Nope. Had to hope for the best, cause you’d gone off before I finished cleaning.”
Oh god. “You were cleaning?” Graham asks, aghast.
“Barely, but. A few of us were, yeah.”
Graham groans and drags his open palms over his face, attempting to will away the ego-shriveling feeling. It’s embarrassing, the vignettes he can recall. He must’ve been hard to be around. He doesn’t know what’s worse, the bits he can actually remember or the fearsome events his mind invent for the bits he can’t remember. He waits for a snide comment that doesn’t come. Damon’s gaze remains fixed on him.
“When’s your stuff out?” Damon asks, sitting up. Oh. His solo record. It hadn’t even been an intentional solo project; he’d just started writing songs one day and it was such a comforting outlet he’d never stopped. Damon’s the only one he’s really told.
“I don’t know,” Graham sighs. “I might not even do much press for it. I doubt people will give half a shit.”
Damon’s face twists in annoyance. “Then why are you bloody putting it out, Graham?”
Graham shrugs, thinking back to writing ‘I Wish’ halfway to tears mid-day, crouched over his acoustic in his cluttered living room.
“I dunno. I want people to like it. I just don’t see how they’d like all of it. It’s kind of whiny, tinny indie shite…” Graham cringes at himself, but continues, “I’m sure some people will be snickering to themselves about it and I’ll get some hard reviews but that’s alright. I’d understand it, really. I’m not sure who would like it.”
Damon goes quiet for a bit.
“I quite liked it,” Damon says. “I told you that.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah. Thanks,” Graham mutters, suddenly shy. He reaches back to ruffle his hair until the nervous itch settles.
He has the instinct to say Damon’s just being nice. But Day’s not like that about music. And he doesn’t have the energy to do polite puff-piecing to the press. He isn’t jumping at the chance to talk about himself. He’s quite honest now. Saged by time and worn down by life. A light stubble to prove it.
“You shouldn’t shit your own work in the press,” Damon says, a serious expression on his face.
“Yeah, I know. Whatever,” Graham’s volume lowers with each word he croaks out.
Damon’s eyebrows knit together. He inhales sharply before continuing.
“Why have you always invented someone in your head that hates you?”
Graham doesn’t answer, hangs his head to inspect the carpet. He knows Damon does the opposite. He imagines someone who knows he’s brilliant and goes to find them, manifested somewhere in the real world.
Damon continues, “These imaginary reviewers, Graham. Why have you imagined that they hate you? There’s someone real in front of you that doesn’t, you know. Quite the opposite.”
Graham scratches the back of his neck. “Alright, yeah.”
Damon looks at him, his hard concern softening, and sighs. “Try saying something nice about yourself, yeah? Even if it feels daft. Or hurts.”
Graham can think fondly back to an astronomically self-assured 12-year-old Damon. He’d had to be his own biggest fan at first. He didn’t have any of them at school. When they were just kids, and he’d had such mind-boggling confidence despite all the violence he'd endured at the hands of bullies. He'd never acknowledge his bruises, would walk around like they weren't there.
The thing Graham could never understand, though, was how he’d run towards others again and again, despite. Sometimes it was an aggressive run, though, one eager for confrontation. He understands the hard exterior Damon likes to present to the world. Often, it feels like heartlessness. Beneath it all, really, is a sadness quite privately held, a reaction to that violent early rejection.
Graham can see him access that confidence regardless, admires it. Can rarely access it himself. Can’t swim up to the top of himself through all the sludge and wipe the swamp from his face. Clean the gunk from under his eyes, throw it all up into the ether. Maybe he’s too comfortable with the sludge. Maybe he’s reliant on it.
“If it hurts you probably need to say it,” Damon continues, fiddling with the gold chain slung around his neck. It glints, magical under the studio’s warm light. Graham’s forgotten Damon could look like this, through his eyes. “Gets you through the trouble quicker.”
Graham nods, his head still down, gaze dedicated to his soiled sneakers. It’s so like Damon to make him feel worse with a compliment. Or maybe it’s so Graham to feel worse after a compliment. Or both.
“Whose party was that? Last night?” Graham doesn’t care. Maybe he does a little. Fears the tabloids.
Damon makes a face that says he knows, but decides it's better not to say. He shrugs. “Dunno. Doesn’t matter.”
Graham stares down at the carpet.
Damon breaks the silence. “I’ll play you mine, then.”
Damon’s tapping his foot up and down, bouncing his lower leg like he’s got a terrible current running through his calf that he’s trying to expel from his body by force. More nervous than Graham’s seen him look in a bit. Graham‘s endeared when he’s like this. Wiry and vulnerable. He feels closer to him. It makes him want to melt. Kiss him until they exhaust each other.
Damon’s got a newfangled Portastudio cassette recorder. He presses play, and out oozes an easygoing, chirpy tune. Damon’s singing nonsense over some omnichord synths, stringing consonants and syllables together at random that register sweet to the ear regardless. The room’s turned into a field, and Graham feels like rolling around in the grass. Graham bobs his head up and down, his body finding the groove. It’s as colorful as only Damon could be.
“That’s lush,” Graham gushes, shy. “Your voice sounds really good on that demo, Day.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks,” Damon says, suddenly a bit shy as a hesitant smile spreads across his face.
Graham presses his lips into a flat line. That smile, the way a crease blooms from his nose against his cheek like an exquisite faultline...
Wait. No. Graham's told himself he’s not going to let Damon kiss up on him anymore. At least not as often as he did before the godforsaken Oasis chart battle catastrophe. He’ll not let himself be melted again so easily– not for someone so susceptible to transforming into a careerist maniac at random.
That’s how he arrives in Graham’s head at dramatic times, a villain with a hole where his heart should be, however bad he feels about it. But not today. No, he’s been quite nice today. And he looks quite good, scruffy as ever. And his system is fuzzy with sweet nicotine.
“I should say– I wanted to say– well. I will say–” Graham starts, trying to arrange the maelstrom of feeling in his head into something simple. His entire body is overwhelmed by the need to say sorry.
He glances up at Damon again, whose eyes are searching him more eagerly than he'd expected. The sight of him is so arresting he gives up. “I dunno.”
He’d get the feeling sometimes, that none of this make-up stuff was worth it, that he and his feelings were worth nothing, too small to matter. That he might as well have packed his bags after the chart battle that had made their lives hell, ripped up his letters to Damon, packed his bags and found a new life. Somewhere to start over. But then he’d emerge from his self-made cave, look Damon in the eye, and in the face of such startling life, his steel ideological reserve melted away. The notion that nothing mattered seemed so ridiculous when Damon was alive and in front of him, wanting. How could he deny such primal meaning?
Damon looks to the floor then shifts his gaze back to him, his eyes alive and dreamful. He smiles softly like he knows what Graham means, what he can’t bring himself to say. It’s not fair, though, Graham should say it. He should say something. Extend his gratitude, somehow. Let him know he sees Damon as much as Damon sees him.
He shifts closer to Damon, puts a nervous hand on Damon’s thigh. He rubs his thumb back and force in a soothing motion. He’s too nervous to look up but can feel Damon’s eyes watching his hand.
He pulls his hand away, suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that Damon might be tired of him, might be tired of this caretaking routine.
“Last night, I didn’t– I didn’t mean to make you–” Graham stops, then starts again. “You don’t have to trail around after me.”
Damon frowns. “Trail around?”
“Like I’m your– I don’t know.” The fight in Graham dies as soon as it starts.
"I don't trail around after you. It's just not great when your friend--" Damon starts, prim, then seems to think better than finishing his sentence.
Damon scoots closer to Graham, holds his face in both hands.
“I just want you safe. That’s all I– that’s important to me.”
Are you sure it’s not just business anymore, Graham wonders. Deep down, though, he knows it’s not, knows it’s a reach for comfort. Knows he wants to travel back in time to when it was just him and Graham in their primary school portakabin on a grey, overcast day, filling a tinny, rickety space with warm music.
And Graham’s in the present, intent on hardening everything soft. He tries again, succumbs to the knot of shame beneath the anger.
Graham looks down, his shame weighing heavy on his shoulders, pinning his gaze to the floor. He traces a finger in circles through the carpet.
“Was it a big mess I left?”
“No.”
Graham pushes down the feeling that Damon’s fibbing for his feelings’ sake.
“You– you cleaned me up?”
“Yeah.”
Graham can’t bring himself to check Damon’s reaction, but his reply is a soft one.
“Thank you,” Graham says, barely audible to even himself.
Graham looks up at Damon then, and meets his eyes to see, something intense stirring inside them. There’s less worry, more want.
“That’s alright,” Damon’s eyes dart back and forth between Graham’s, his voice soft and just above a whisper.
“You just need to turn up. So, once the work is done, we can file it away,” Damon coos, trepidation briefly dappling across his face, “And do things like this.”
Damon pulls Graham’s face to his, angling his head to press their mouths together. Graham melts against him. The kiss is soft, and brief; Damon pulls back to scan Graham’s face and leans in again. Another soft kiss melts into a longer, more insistent one, their mouths fit snug against each other, following the kiss’s languid tidal wave.
The room’s quiet is lightly punctured by the wet little smacking noises their mouths make, and the rustling of their fatigued bodies shifting atop each other. The sounds dapple through the studio soft as rain against a window. Plush sounds of lips joining together then slipping apart again.
Damon’s been playing more of those stupid football matches to stave off stress, less than before but still, and it’s made him more toned and still nice to look at despite Graham’s annoyance. And so Graham is gripping Damon’s muscled thigh like it’s a lifeline, a railing to keep him steady, breathing hard into his mouth.
A sweat-drenched Damon had pulled him into a dingy closet the night after their Glastonbury show a week ago, and stroked Graham so hard and fast his orgasm hurt a bit as it ripped through him, blinding and nuclear. It was a gesture more mischievous than the depressive atmosphere of recent times. The current between them is always intense, in all its different forms, but sometimes he forgets it can feel like this.
Damon pauses between kisses, the peak of his ski-slope nose still hovering against Graham’s cheek, then surges back to recapture Graham’s lips, humming an encouraging little mmm muffled against his mouth. Damon holds him in, his nose pressed up against Graham’s cheek, thumb pillowy against his cheekbone. It’s nice to be this close.
Tongues and sweat and spit interchanging, Graham becomes Damon and Damon becomes Graham, another iteration of the way they’d mind-melded over music half an hour ago. The same way it feels when they jam together and Damon croons over his guitar, their minds joining however briefly in the ethereal musical current that floated above them.
Graham sucks on his bottom lip as he pulls away, Damon’s lip escaping his with a soft wet pop.
“Ooh,” Damon whispers as he pulls away, eyes heavy-lidded. He makes heated eye contact with Graham, a match newly lit inside him.
They haven’t kissed like this in a while, not since the press had sunk their eager teeth into them after the Brits, shaking them back and forth like a dog with a bone in its mouth, and in a matter of seconds things got hard and mean. Life had dimmed at the edges and curled inward, and what seemed like miles of pop star potential had revealed itself to be quite limited– maybe two inches of room to stretch until self-ruin. A dead end.
Damon liked to kiss like a rabid animal back then, when his dream of conquering the world with song ended up being more violent, more terrifying than he’d expected, and he’d grown was dedicated to partying off his panic attacks. There weren’t many other places his panic could go. A few years ago it was tongue-first, and ever insistent. Even in his carnal blindness Damon felt he had something to prove. Though Graham’s not sure that stubborn instinct in Damon to prove himself will ever die, it’s much quieter now, overtaken by a more mature desire for quiet. Now he’s more tentative, careful, and deliberate. Only touching when he means it. And he always does. Or Graham hopes he does. He can never tell. He's never aware of the enormity of any given situation until everything's boiled over and screaming in his face.
Damon grabs Graham by his nape, pulling him in again. It’s more urgent this time. His tongue rolls inside Graham’s mouth, smooth as the last of an ocean wave unfurling closest to the shore. Graham welcomes the intrusion and sucks on his tongue, hungry as his cock stiffens. The moan that spills from Damon’s mouth is so obscene it makes Graham want to save it to replay whenever he wants, press play during his next wank session and hear Damon moan into his mouth again.
“Oh, love,” Damon says, the end of love muffled by another kiss to sound like luuh-mm. He pulls away with a wet smack, just to look at Graham. His smile’s dropped now. “So lovely.”
Graham huffs and pulls away. Damon’s oh-so soppy today. “You don’t need to say all that, just – I dunno.”
“But I want to.”
“It makes me— say something else.”
“Like what?”
“You can be… less nice. You should do. I’ve been a prat.”
“I don’t want to be mean to you.”
“I ruined the party.”
“Mmm. You might have soured the mood. But that’s it.”
Graham stills, silent. Damon picks the conversation back from where he's left it, sprawling on the ground.
“Have you ever had it really nice, Graham?”
“Nice like how?”
“Sweet. Romantic.”
“I guess. Not with a–” Graham cuts himself off, stiffening at the word romantic. “Yeah. Sure.” Graham thinks back to vignettes with past girlfriends, but his mind skips past the sweetest parts, lands straight on the parts that make him hardest, the mean bits. “How sweet?”
“You can be sweet, can’t you?” Damon. “Can’t you, babe?”
Graham’s gone red now, sick from the sweetness. Damon’s talking to him like he’s his girlfriend, though. That’s pissing him off.
“Don’t say that. Prick,” Graham moves away, but Damon’s grip on him tightens. “Go find a missus if that’s what you–”
Damon tenses. “Don’t do that.”
Graham knows that’s out of bounds. He can feel himself doing it again, trying to force friction. Graham pries himself from Damon’s grip, tries to make Damon shove him, push him down, do something to get him back for being a prat last night, for possibly ruining his evening. Graham wants Damon to bite him. Gnaw him. Leave a mark. Hold him down. Do something that hurts.
“I’m nearing my limit, Gra, I’m tired today.” Damon knows what he wants. Graham’s such a morose, sorry zombie these days it likely feels unethical to indulge whatever self-punitive impulses he has. Is any of the past few years Damon’s own fault? Was there debris left by his unyielding ambitions? Could he still make it better?
“Okay.”
Damon gets up, slowly, looks down at Graham. The opposite of what Graham had been expecting. He goes to sit in a rounded, over-designed mod armchair in the studio’s corner.
“Come here.”
Graham comes over, meeting him on the floor next to the chair.
“I’m not in the mood for that sort of thing,” Damon murmurs, shifting in his chair. “Not today.”
Graham thought so.
“Open your mouth,” Damon says, voice husky with the aftereffect of smoke.
Graham complies, extending his jaw. He grabs Damon’s calf, trembling with anticipation.
Damon looks down, heavy-lidded, and watches his open mouth for a while. He exhales in a clear, round stream and hollows his cheeks, collecting the spit. Graham pants open into the air, watching Damon work the muscles in his jaw above.
In a soft, percussive sound, Damon spits into Graham’s open mouth below. Graham moans as it hits his tongue, loud like he’s just been hit by a ton of bricks, or the sky's fallen down on him.
“You want another?” Damon whispers. Graham whines, then nods desperately. His brows knit tightly together.
Damon spits down into Graham’s mouth again.
Graham lets out a sob. His jaw instinctively moves to close, but Damon holds it open. He makes a mental note of how good Graham sounds when he’s not muffling or muting himself, when he’s forced to keep his mouth open. He feels terribly open.
Damon holds his mouth open, admiring his work. Graham pants wantonly into the open air.
“Mmm, one more, love.”
Graham whines, nods.
He spits into Graham’s mouth one more time, and swallows Graham’s responding moan by connecting their mouths in a sloppy, wet kiss.
He tilts, his hand firmly grasping the back of Graham's head. He pulls away, and a trail of spit drags between their mouths.
“Fucking hell,” Damon groans, “Look how fucking hard you make me, Graham.” Damon takes Graham’s hand and holds it against the growing bulge in his pants. God. “You feel that?"
Graham blushes. Damon’s like a different person in times like this. This was a different side to him. Of all the Damons he knew, this was one of his favorites. Uncouth and unashamed. The one to say the dirty thing they were both thinking.
“I can’t fake that,” Damon says.
Damon turns away from him slightly, to Graham’s disappointment. There’s only so much initiating a worn-out Damon is wont to do these days.
Graham’s a bit too embarrassed to accept the kindness. He can’t remember, completely, what he was like last night– it can’t have been pleasant. He can’t even remember who else was there, what he might have said to whom. Nothing much but sulking and vomiting. God forbid it ends up in the tabloids.
He figures Damon must be sick of the routine now, of always cleaning up Graham’s drunk messes. He wants to give him something back, take care of him in some way.
Damon reaches for the fly of his trousers and halts, looks up to Graham as if asking permission to toss himself. Graham gives a near-imperceptible nod.
He tugs at the leg of Damon's jeans, willing him to come back into his space. Graham nuzzles his face against the crotch of Damon’s pants. Graham knows what he wants now, but can’t, won’t, say the words out loud. He ghosts his hands over Damon’s hands at the zipper, breathing heavy.
“Hey,” Graham says, hoping Damon will let him get his mouth around him. Graham pouts up at him, hoping for sympathy.
Damon looks at him a long moment. “Hm?”
Graham tilts his head, gives him a come-on look.
“Mmm. You’ve given me a hard time all day. This whole week, actually.”
All month, more like.
“I… I want to.”
“Are you sure?” Damon’s eyes flicker with an unusual trepidation, like he’s not entirely sure Graham wants him. That punctures a particularly sensitive nook in Graham’s heart.
Damon holds him by the chin, taking his other hand to rustle the hair slicked to Graham’s sweaty forehead. “I was worrying sick about you last night.”
I’m sorry, he says in his head. I can show you how sorry. It’s near impossible to get it out of his mouth.
“Just let me– let me do this.” It’s Graham's turn to be insistent. He holds Damon down by the hips.
He thinks back to the first time a blowjob had occurred between them, when they were at least a decade younger than they are now. Damon had been the one to suggest it, of course, on the tail end of one of their tipsy snogs in Damon’s bedroom at night. They’d been rutting up against each other; Graham hadn’t expected it to go further than that. Damon had stopped them, though, crawled down towards Graham’s crotch and swiftly unbuttoned his pants. Damon had looked up at him, nervous, his eyes bright and ever-searching. He’d taken Graham into his mouth, clumsy but determined. He’d said nothing, really, after that, and had only looked up intermittently to check Graham’s eyes. He'd pulled off when Graham came in a startling spurt, a few dots of come splashing onto Damon's face. Despite the trysts he’d had with girls, that had been different. Graham had never felt something so intense.
“Uh huh,” Damon looks at Graham now, eyes gleaming with affection. “Go on, then.”
He watches Graham gingerly rest back onto his knees. Damon looks at him like he wants to drop his knees to match him. Damon goes to take himself out of his boxers and Graham swats his hand away. Graham does the job himself, hooks his fingers around Damon’s boxers and jeans and shimmies them down his legs. Damon’s blushing cock springs free, then, and twitches as Graham stares at it. Heat rushes to Graham’s face at the sight of it.
He glances back up to Damon, whose eyes are glued to him, chest rising and falling in quickening pace.
Steadying himself, Damon’s hand finds the back of Graham's head. He softly threads his fingers through Graham’s hair like it’s a downy new blanket spread across the bed, petting him soft and cautious as he would to soothe a scared puppy.
Graham raises his inner brows as he looks up at Damon, as puppy as possible. He plants a sweet, wet kiss at the tip.
“Oh, babe.” Graham twists at that. Damon’s been calling him that more these days, maybe made softer, more weepy by the past few years’ relentless onslaught. These days he isn't much of a raging pitbull, anymore; just an ordinary bloodletting mammal limping down the road.
“Wait,” Damon says, more lightheaded than Graham expects. He crouches down, tugs Graham’s head up to meet his angle.
“Open?” he whispers, lidded eyes focused on Graham’s mouth. Graham complies, drops his jaw again. Graham’s heart quickens just watching him. Damon puckers and lets his spit swoon down slowly like honey from his mouth onto Graham’s tongue. Graham can’t stop a high pitched whimper escaping his open mouth; Damon’s pulled it out of him.
“There you go,” Damon breathes as Graham takes him in his mouth.
With a hand grasping a tuft of Graham’s hair like reins, Damon guides Graham’s head up and down his cock, brutally slow. The first few moments are quiet, accompanied only by the wet sounds of Damon’s cock sliding in and out of Graham’s mouth.
“I’d shag you this slowly, too,” Damon’s looking down, eyes half lidded and glued on a full-mouthed Graham. “If you’d let me.” Graham imagines it, Damon thrusting slow and holding himself inside.
“One day, if you'd — fuck — let me inside you again,” Damon pants. “Are you hard?” he whispers. Graham hums yes.
Damon’s pace speeds up slightly. After some time, Graham can’t tell how long he’s been kneeling between Damon’s legs, his head swimming in syrupy bliss from the feeling of being useful. He doesn’t want to touch himself yet, not until he feels he’s given Damon the gratitude he feels inside. He could do this for a long while. It’s been long enough, though, that his jaw is straining. He groans around Damon’s cock at the strain and it spikes something in Damon, something that makes him fist Graham’s hair even tighter. He thrusts into Graham’s mouth in a sharp, unexpected motion and it pushes him back.
“Oh fuck. Sorry.” He’s holding Graham’s head down, saying: please, hold me just as open. Stay inside. Kiss whatever you find. Take it as your own.
Graham takes the challenge and pushes his head further down, choking a bit, grunting around Damon’s hot cock taking up all the space in his mouth. Damon moans, lilting up at the end like he’s singing a vulnerable song. He thrusts up into Graham’s mouth again, hips too fast to stop, carried away by the rush of arousal, then aborts the next thrust halfway. “Ah. Sorry.”
Graham pulls off with a shaky exhale. “No, keep doing that.” There’s fewer things Graham wants more in the world right now than for Damon to fuck his mouth, to take what he needs.
“Graham, baby, I’ll come way too quickly if I do that,” Damon pants.
The pet name hits Graham differently this time, makes him unfurl like a tightly wound bud, the last left on the branch.
Graham grunts and pulls off again to whisper, “I want you to.” Graham takes Damon's cock back in his mouth, hopes Damon can feel an apology somehow. He hums and takes him all the way, as far as he can, his nose pressed against the tawny field of hair at Damon’s pubic bone. Damon groans, bucks up into Graham’s face. He fucks Graham’s mouth in earnest then, as Graham grips underneath his knees to stay stable. Graham closes his eyes, muffled moans pushed out of him with every thrust as he lets Damon take him. “Shit. Oh shit, oh shit. Fuck.”
Damon’s orgasm shatters through him with another thrust; Graham swallows as come fills his mouth. He stays there, his eyes closed as his mouth full, for an extended few seconds after that, sated despite the painful hardness between his own legs.
It reminds him of past days, when they’d wrestle and he’d let Damon win, giggling as he held him down. Damon lightly taps Graham’s cheek, pulls his cock out of Graham’s mouth with a wet pop. He collapses, then, out of the chair, his back hitting the carpet. He’s stretched out into putty by his orgasm but fixed as ever. Dazed.
Graham looks down at Damon’s blissful face and finally takes his own straining cock out of his jeans. He’s been driven close to coming in his pants from sucking Damon off and wastes no time, spits into his hand and starts jerking himself off at frantic speed. He can feel his climax approaching, just over a shrinking hill. Damon catches this, though, and grabs Graham’s wrist.
“Wait, wait,” Damon says, loose and languid. “Get off,” he coos, easing Graham’s hand away from his cock. “Gimme.”
A slow, viscous stream of spit flows from Damon’s mouth into his hand; he promptly uses this to spread across the pink head of Graham’s cock.
“Damon,” Graham whines. Blush spreads across his body like applause for Damon's efforts.
“Mmm..” Damon leans down and gives the head of Graham’s cock a sloppy wet kiss. Squeezes the base and kisses the head. The wet collision pushes Graham closer to that cliff. He keeps kissing the head, open-mouthed like it’s Graham’s mouth, swirling his tongue around. Moans around it. Gives a suck.
Graham lets out a wounded cry and jerks violently, thrusting up and nearly knocking Damon off course. Damon’s persistent, though, and finishes what he starts. Graham’s not sure where to put his hands except in Damon’s increasingly tousled hair.
“Oh shit, Dam- Day- ah, ohhh fuck, I-”
Before he knows it, the cord inside him snaps and he’s spilling into Damon’s mouth, who pulls back in surprise, then watches the rest of Graham’s come spill out of him. Damon smiles lazily and licks a dapple of come off him as Graham jerks again with what’s left of his energy.
“See what happens when you keep your promises?” Damon rasps, his eyes shining. “Beautiful things, Graham. Wonderful.”