Chapter Text
i. lundi: matin
Morning comes too soon for Gus: morning and Monday. He hits the alarm just as it goes off, before it can wake Johnny, stares at the ceiling for a long moment, sighs, and rolls out of bed to make coffee. He knows, from years of experience, that if he doesn’t get up immediately he won’t get up at all, much as he’d like to just roll over and bury his face (etc.) in Johnny and pretend morning is still far, far away.
Mondays, he concludes, staring grimly at the coffeepot as it begins to sputter and drip, were invented by people with no lives.
He has to quell his impatience, get a grip, and it would be easier if he were a patient man to begin with. But suddenly the prospect of more two- and three-hour meetings with politicians, with the people who killed Dexter, with people as unlike Johnny as it’s possible to be, fills him with distaste.
No, he decides, getting out the cream and sugar: revulsion is an even better word.
There’s a soft padding of feet and he looks up in time to see Johnny beside him, sliding his arms around Gus’ waist and kissing the back of his neck. “Mmm.”
Gus turns, feeling the beginning of a (reluctant) smile as this particular Monday begins to redeem itself. “Coffee?” he says, his turn this time to say it against Johnny’s mouth.
“Mmm,” Johnny says agreeably, threading his fingers into Gus’ hair and stroking it gently. The kiss that follows is just as gentle, slow and unhurried as Johnny, Gus is learning, and it’s with a sense of renewed wonder that he follows Johnny’s lead, lets Johnny set the pace.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says against Johnny’s hair when Johnny pushes his robe aside to nuzzle his neck, then his shoulder, and, really, he didn’t.
“Bed was cold.” Johnny’s voice starts out muffled as he raises his head, ending at Gus’ mouth again.
If he hadn’t known, he’d have guessed at this point that Johnny had been married from the assurance of his touch. Of course, the way he pulls Gus into his mood is, Gus assumes, something unique between them or Johnny’s dead wife wouldn’t actually be dead.
He wonders what her name was.
The mood-pulling isn’t, apparently, entirely foolproof, despite Johnny’s seemingly effortless good humour.
Johnny breaks the kiss, lingering at the corner of Gus’ mouth for a delicious moment. “What’s the schedule today?”
Gus frowns reflexively. “Meetings,” he says, his voice not much more than a growl. “Ours, then theirs. Going over drafts.”
He’s startled when Johnny grins big, clearly suppressing laughter.
“What?”
“You’re not a morning person,” Johnny says, cupping a hand along Gus’ jaw, smoothing his thumb over Gus’ chin. “Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll bring coffee.”
Gus stares at him a moment, emotions chaotic, thoughts jumbled: but uppermost is that same sense of wonder he’s been feeling so regularly since he met Johnny that the real wonder is he’s not already used to it.
“Cream, no sugar,” he says at last: it’s not that he craves novelty, exactly, but it’s never something to be passed up.
Johnny kisses him again, lightly, and turns him by the shoulders, giving him a little push.
Gus doesn’t mean to doze off, he really doesn’t: while the first meeting isn’t until 10:30, he and Noelle made cursory plans to meet beforehand, and at the time he assumed it would be for breakfast.
But the next thing he knows is the scent of coffee and toasted bread: Johnny found the bagels. He looks at the clock in alarm but it’s only been twenty minutes.
He could get used to this.
He stretches; Johnny sets the mug and plate down on the nightstand and sits, one leg tucked under him, at the foot of the bed, holding his own mug and making no attempt to drink from it yet.
He takes his black: Gus wonders if sugar’s involved.
He stretches again, then pulls himself up, sitting cross-legged and balancing the plate in his lap.
For a morning person – which Johnny appears to be – he’s a considerate one, making no attempt at conversation, staring into his own coffee for long moments, looking at Gus occasionally with a smile Gus isn’t even sure Johnny’s aware is on his face. By the time Gus is halfway through his own mug, his outlook on life has improved considerably, and not just because Johnny, sleep-tousled and bundled askew in his robe, is a wonderful sight.
Gus drains his mug decisively and puts the plate with the half eaten bagel on the nightstand, along with the mug. Johnny starts to smile, the smile growing broader as Gus takes his mug too. His eyes widen in alarm and he puts up a hand as Gus puts it to his lips.
“Jesus!” Gus sputters, the warning too late, and Johnny begins to laugh.
“Amma always said it’s not coffee unless the spoon stands up,” he says apologetically, taking the mug back from Gus and leaning in to kiss him gently, as if to take away the taste.
“Are you sure the spoon didn’t just dissolve?” Gus asks, but at least his question is answered. He’s not sure, however, that he could ever brew coffee that strong: Johnny’ll have to take over the coffee making.
And doesn’t that have a nice ring to it.
He takes the mug a second time, holding it gingerly just to hear Johnny snort again, and by the time he’s turned back, Johnny’s leaning over him, pushing him back and loosening the tie on his robe.
The coffee tastes a lot better on Johnny.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Despite the coffee, and despite Gus’ near-miss – Johnny wonders what Gus would say to kúmenkaffi – Johnny’s cock has been getting heavier and heavier just imagining the feel of Gus up against him.
One track mind?
Yeah.
By the time Gus is turning back to Johnny, Johnny’s already over him, untying his robe, pushing it aside. He’s been catching glimpses of Gus’ cock, hanging soft against the dark hair between his legs, and he wants to see more, see it begin to fill, see (and hear) Gus moan, yeah, just like that when Johnny draws a finger down his breastbone to his belly, Gus arching beneath him, supple and lithe.
He knows he’s not much for figuring things out, months in the caboose notwithstanding, but while he was making coffee (and boiling coffee and finding bagels and trying to keep his mind off Gus, naked, for just a few minutes) it had occurred to him to wonder why it was so natural for him to lean in and kiss another man, why the prospect of going down on Gus was at least as hot, if not more so, than going down on Zoë, and maybe even why he was contemplating taking any of it (all of it?) further (maybe even all the way).
He wondered, too, watching the coffee boil in the microwave (Zoë, being from Winnipeg, had never acquired a tolerance for the Icelandic-style brew that was the norm in Gimli, so Johnny’d learned some adaptations early on – regular coffee, boiled, was pretty good, but a microwave would do in a pinch, and if he was staying more than a few more hours in Ottawa he was going to have to find some real coffee), what it would feel like to be inside another guy, what it would feel like to have Gus inside him, and when, exactly, he’d gone crazy.
And would Gus really feel like going cross-Canada with him after a few days, or weeks?
And if he did, could he?
Johnny was (finally) getting the idea that Gus was pretty important, or was, at least, involved in things more important than fishing rights or mayoring.
So assuming Gus didn’t follow in Zoë’s footsteps, and assuming he still wanted to go, and assuming he could actually go, what then?
The microwave had beeped again, steam condensing in the window; he’d pushed the questions aside and put the bagel halves in the toaster.
Which brought him to here and now with Gus under him and Johnny with questions and no answers except the feel of Gus’ cock sliding alongside his and the rich scent and taste of Gus and coffee and bagels surrounding Johnny every time he breathes.
Gus, lower lip caught (again) in his teeth, has his eyes closed, concentrating, or so it seems to Johnny, on the sensation. Johnny imitates him, closing his eyes and thinking of the heat between his legs, the strength of Gus’ cock, pushing back against his, the graze of hair at the base of his cock, his balls…
Oh, yeah…
There’s a hitch in Gus’ breathing: he opens his eyes and Gus is looking at him the way he looked in the Thai restaurant. Johnny closes his eyes again, overwhelmed, his stomach flipping the way it does when he hits a big wave with the boat.
“Sit up,” Gus whispers, hands on Johnny’s shoulders, pushing the robe off and him backwards at the same time.
Johnny takes a breath, settles back on his haunches, opens his eyes again.
Gus is still looking at him, his hands rubbing Johnny’s arms, gentle enough to raise goose bumps, and Johnny feels the hair prickle all the way up his spine to the base of his scalp. He swallows, riding the warm rush that follows, rubbing both hands on Gus’ chest, then down his belly to where Gus’ cock is pulsing…
Gus groans, straining under him, when Johnny rubs the wet spot on his belly into his skin, and when Johnny lifts his fingers to his mouth to taste that, too, Gus moans, a deep sound that vibrates through both of them. “Touch us,” he whispers, “touch me, God, Johnny –“
Johnny just nods, licking the last of the salt from his fingers, then reaching down to gather first Gus, then himself, into the loose circle of his hand. Gus bucks hard but Johnny settles further, onto his heels, and begins to move, exploring them, feeling the two of them together, the way first Gus’ foreskin slips back, then his, twisting his wrist to see if he can make them go the other way.
Gus is strong, so strong under his hand, so alive that Johnny thinks he can feel Gus’ heartbeat, or maybe he’s just hearing his own, thudding in his ears. Gus’ cock is straining against his and Gus is trying to move them both faster, his hips jerking, one hand grasping Johnny’s hip.
His stomach flips again: he’s doing this to Gus, him, and there’s no pretending there, nothing to hide, no way to hide it. Unconsciously he grinds down, then realizes that’s good, that’s it, his balls hitting the root of Gus’ cock and making Gus shudder, jerking against him. He does it again, letting go of himself and still working Gus, slick-shiny and wet; and Johnny licks his lips, swallowing hard.
But it’s too late: Gus shudders again, fingers digging into Johnny’s thighs, back arched, and Johnny can’t tear his eyes away but doesn’t know where to look: Gus’ cock, thick and proud and wet, jerking in his hand and spurting rich cream, gold and ivory in the lamplight; Gus’ face, eyes shut tight, mouth held tight in ecstasy.
Johnny’s never felt this power before, never held someone’s… ecstasy in his hand, never seen what he was doing, what he could do…
The idea of fucking Gus, fucking Gus and holding Gus’ cock again while he comes, with Johnny inside him, is suddenly so real Johnny can almost feel it, wishes he could feel it, feel all of it, and when Gus’ hand, warm and wet, closes over Johnny’s cock, it’s like Gus read his mind. One stroke, two, and Johnny’s spurting too, all over Gus’ belly and chest, Gus’ strong fingers pulling it out of him, Gus’ voice a dark murmuring heartbeat in the back of Johnny’s head: “That’s it, come for me, come on me, God, Johnny…”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Johnny’s nuzzling Gus’ neck, hardly moving from where he’d slumped on Gus afterwards, chest to chest; and Gus can feel their heartbeats synching. He’s murmuring too, nonsense noises, Gus thinks, and he finds the energy somewhere to raise a hand, cup the back of Johnny’s head, stroke his hair, rub his thumb through the soft bristles behind Johnny’s ear where the hair’s trimmed close to the scalp.
He feels Johnny’s tongue on his neck, licking gently, then sucking, as if Johnny can’t get enough of the taste of him.
Gus understands.
“Been thinking,” Johnny whispers after a while, his breath warm and cool in turns. His hand, spread flat on Gus’ chest, is rubbing softly, almost as if Johnny doesn’t know he’s doing it.
Gus has always thought of himself as a loner, an introvert, and in support of that theory, there were many times he felt crowded by Noelle – and she wasn’t the first of his lovers to engender that feeling.
How is it that with nothing at all between them he feels nothing but peace with Johnny?
He waits, almost daring his brain to come to its senses, conjure the discomfort, the near-panic he’d feel sometimes when Noelle would collapse on him afterwards and he would have to think of an excuse to move, to roll over, anything, just so he could breathe air that was free of her.
His brain doesn’t cooperate; his body, entwined with Johnny’s, is too comfortable, and Johnny…
Maybe the difference is the lack of expectation, or the relaxation Johnny seems to feel, or maybe it’s the fact that Johnny’s so transparent, so awed, so delighted, and so unable to hide anything that Gus is… secure – perhaps for the first time he can remember – and as certain as he can be that there is in fact nothing to hide, that Johnny wouldn’t know a hidden agenda from a lobster pot.
He puts his other arm around Johnny and turns his head to kiss Johnny’s temple and feels Johnny’s mouth stretch into a smile against his neck.
“Thinking’s good,” Gus whispers finally, because he hasn’t acknowledged Johnny’s words, too busy luxuriating in Johnny’s presence.
“Mmmm,” Johnny says agreeably, and burrows down further against Gus’ neck.
“Thinking?” Gus says, smoothing Johnny’s shoulder with his thumb, idly wondering about the significance (if there is one) of the tattoo there.
Johnny laughs, a sharp uncomfortable gust, and shakes his head. “Nothing,” he murmurs. “Never mind.”
Gus kicks himself, hard – didn’t he say he had to stop comparing them? – and twists to kiss Johnny’s cheek, running his hands down the long muscles in Johnny’s back. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I was wool-gathering. I feel so good I can’t think straight.”
There’s a quiet chuckle against his neck and then Johnny nods. “I get that,” he whispers, and then Gus feels tongue again.
No real reason, he thinks hazily, that they couldn’t just stay in bed all day.
He wonders if Noelle would buy a sudden cold. The flu. Malaria.
Johnny sighs, startling Gus; when he rolls to one side, Gus grabs his elbow. “Where’re you going?”
Johnny looks surprised but not guilty: “Thought I might be making you late,” he says, one side of his mouth lifting, adding an extra dimension to the husky cadence of his voice. His eyes move down Gus’ chest and his hand lifts, again unconsciously, Gus suspects, touching the remnants of the semen that smeared between them.
“I’d tell you,” Gus says quietly, covering Johnny’s hand with his own. He wants to tell Johnny he won’t – wouldn’t – play games with him, either, and he thinks he means it, but he can’t put the words together.
Johnny raises his eyes to Gus’ again and he turns his hand in Gus’, clasping it, while he leans in. Gus leans up, meeting him halfway, and he has to admit that Johnny’s tactile nature is more appealing to him than he’d have ever thought.
Just as Gus is about to suggest a shower, the phone chooses that inopportune moment to ring. He grimaces at Johnny, who begins to move away, and Gus captures his wrist with one hand, pushing his thumb up to Johnny’s palm, while he answers with the other.
He doesn’t know why he wants Johnny to stay; he doesn’t know what he thinks will happen if Johnny, say, goes into the bathroom without him – turn into a cat and leap out the window, seven storeys down?
But, again, Johnny doesn’t seem to mind, covering Gus’ hand with his own and raising it to his mouth, brushing across Gus’ knuckles with his lips.
It takes Gus a few seconds to remember he’s holding the phone.
“Mon cher amour!” Noelle’s cheerfulness has a forced quality: yesterday could he have discerned that? Would he have cared? “Are we meeting for petit dejeuner?”
“No,” Gus says lazily, smiling at Johnny. “I’ll meet you at your office.”
“Very well,” and he can almost hear the clicking as she rearranges her schedule. “About dinner tonight –”
“No can do,” Gus says firmly. “I already told you –”
“Auguste, you cannot behave in this way, I have told you already –”
“I ran into a friend who’s staying with me for a few days,” Gus interrupts. There’s a long silence while Noelle digests that. He adds the detail she’s waiting for next, feeling benevolent: “He’s heading to Montréal and I thought I’d go up with him.” When they first began discussing the possibility of confederation, Noelle had an attractive assistant who was gone the next time Gus came to Ottawa.
Since then Gus has been careful not to notice Noelle’s assistants.
“But what about the referendum?” Her voice is lifting, a sure sign he’s caught her off guard and she’s now feeling her way: she was expecting the friend to be a ‘she’ and hasn’t regained her footing.
“We need to get through the negotiations first,” Gus says, finally taking pity on her. “How about if I meet you at nine-thirty?” He can’t blame her for not trusting anyone, even him, although he’s wondered more than once exactly whom she thinks he could find to do what she does, especially at this late date.
“And dinner?”
“Not tonight,” Gus says again. “If they want semi-formal, the negotiations should be over, and preferably the referendum. If they want casual, we can do tomorrow night.”
“I will have Sylvie arrange it,” Noelle says, conceding without any particular animosity in her voice; and that’s another advantage, that they were together long enough that she understands what ‘no’ means to Gus. “Half past nine, then, and all of us after lunch, do not forget.”
“No,” Gus says wryly, more to himself than to her, and he cuts off her cheerful “’voir!” by hanging up.
“You were right,” Johnny says, before Gus can speak. “She doesn’t sound like it’s over.”
“It’s been over for years,” and Gus pulls Johnny back against him, wrapping both arms around him. “She’s just the… possessive type. At least when I’m around.” He wills Johnny to understand, and if there is a God he’d thank him (or her) that he at least paved the way for Noelle’s incursion. “Believe me, before all this, I was on the Christmas card list and that was the end of it.”
Johnny reaches up for Gus’ arms, but not to push them away: instead his fingers curl, holding onto Gus like Gus is the safety bar in an amusement park. He doesn’t laugh, or even grin, as far as Gus can see, but he’s relaxed against Gus. “Are you possessive?” Gus says, more to lighten the mood than anything, that and searching for a clue to what Johnny’s thinking: for someone so transparent, Johnny’s startlingly opaque this morning… or perhaps it’s the subject.
There’s a long silence, but Johnny’s not tense under him, and he’s rubbing Gus’ arm with his thumb. “I don’t think so,” he says finally, sounding thoughtful. “I mean, not… probably not afterwards. I don’t really… I don’t know.” He laughs, a small sound in the silence that’s suddenly too big, and says, “During, uh… yeah. I think so.”
Johnny’s dead wife is rapidly becoming a fixation with him, Gus realizes, and not an entirely healthy one. He wishes to hell he knew what her name was, and that’s pre-Biblical, isn’t it: knowing your enemy’s name gives you power.
“I don’t think we’d be human if we weren’t possessive during,” Gus says quietly, and Johnny, who’d tensed up after all, at the end, relaxes again after a few seconds.
Gus is now certain that Johnny’s dead wife was probably the first, the only serious relationship in Johnny’s life, which would explain a lot; and the other thing that’s not fucking fair is that he has to drag out the pastoral marriage counseling for a fucking ghost.
“Are you?” Johnny asks after a few more moments, and it takes Gus a few seconds to realize what Johnny’s asking.
“Very,” he says, somewhat thickly, pressing his mouth against Johnny’s cheekbone, licking just a little. Johnny’s cheek lifts beneath his lips, the now-familiar grin, and Johnny twists around in his arms, pushing Gus back against the pillows.
“Okay, yeah,” Johnny whispers against Gus’ mouth, “me too.”
And there, again, is the diffidence Gus wishes he could banish even while he’s trying to tell himself that the Johnny in his arms is the sum, the product, of his life, and that, if that dead woman wasn’t between them, he might not feel this way about Johnny, and that Johnny damn well wouldn’t be the Johnny rolling over with him, the Johnny spreading his legs (again!) beneath him, the Johnny moaning, so fucking eager, into his mouth. That Johnny wouldn’t, couldn’t be this Johnny, a Johnny, Gus is willing to bet, who’s never had a decent blow job in his life, a Johnny who probably had safe, normal, sane sex, once or twice a month, with a safe, normal, sane woman who didn’t have the sense to appreciate this Johnny, writhing beneath him now and gasping for breath, hands in Gus’ hair and hips moving urgently under the ministrations of Gus’ tongue, and lips, and hands, and mouth.
Just the way Johnny gets off, so fast, so surprised, tells Gus more than Johnny will ever know, and this time he draws it out as much as he can, deliberately loosing Johnny’s cock at the penultimate second, deliberately licking the crease at Johnny’s hip, deliberately tickling him just enough to back him down.
Johnny’s breath is coming in gasps now, and Gus has to breathe, himself, because truth to tell it’s been a long time (if ever) since he got off like this, almost coming, himself, just from watching/feeling Johnny come, especially when Johnny comes without even being touched…
Johnny’s skin is moist, a fresh clean sweat breaking out all over him, and Gus recognizes the signs of irrevocability. He reacts fast, grabbing Johnny’s cock with one hand, pushing Johnny’s pelvis up with the other, his tongue and his thumb hitting Johnny’s hole simultaneously, and Johnny seizes up, choking Gus’ name and thrashing, hands pulling at the sheets, while Gus thrusts his tongue as far in as he can, in time with Johnny’s cock, pulsing in his hand.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It’s not that Johnny didn’t believe Gus, because it’s clear, even from the way Gus wouldn’t let him leave, the way Gus didn’t want privacy for a phone call, that it’s over. And if she can’t quite let go, well, it’s also pretty clear that Johnny can just fucking get in line, because he understands that only too well, still wanting to hang onto Gus with both hands.
So he does, leaning back against Gus, warm and strong behind him, warm and strong around him, his arms as tough as Johnny’s, still a fisherman’s arms for all the dinners (“not tonight” in a tone that sent a thrill up Johnny’s spine) and confederations and important meetings.
But when Gus asks if he’s possessive, he has to think, and think hard: it’s the kind of question that’s a test, and chances are good, even if it’s multiple choice, the answer will not be, never is, D, all of the above. If it’s an essay question, just forget it and start with the make-up credit right away.
Or it could be that Gus was just making conversation, because a few seconds after Johnny’s less-than-quick response and more-than-lame question, Gus doesn’t mince words: “Very.”
Yeah, okay, if he came ho – if he came back to the hotel room and Gus was writhing on the bed with someone, say, tonight, no, he would not be all open-minded and he would not shrug it off, because he’s the one Gus should be writhing on the bed with if that’s what he wants to do, because Johnny was here… okay, not first, but now, and possession is nine-tenths of the law, which was why Zoë left in the first, or second, place.
He pushes her out of his head, pushing himself around at the same time he feels Gus’ lips on his cheek, leaning up and in, pushing Gus down and over, because if it’s okay to be possessive with Gus, he might as well be possessive and enjoy the hell out of it.
And it’s okay to use lips and tongue and teeth on Gus where he never would have thought to, or dared, before, and it’s okay to let Gus take control, too, roll him over and push his legs apart; in fact, it’s so much better than okay that Johnny has to try hard not to come already.
Maybe, he thinks hazily, maybe it’s just that it’s been so long since he had sex that he forgot how good it was; or maybe – he has to find that thought again after Gus licks his way down Johnny’s chest, like an arrow, straight to his cock – or maybe it’s just that he never had sex with a guy or maybe – maybe Gus is sucking his cock, tongue and lips and hands and a throaty moan around him that Johnny’s never heard before, a moan that says Gus gets off on giving Johnny head as much, okay,almost as much as Johnny’s about to –
Gus’ mouth is gone, gone gone gone, and Johnny pounds the mattress, tossing his head back, and then Gus is back, his breath warm on Johnny’s thigh, his tongue moving there just enough to tickle but not so much Johnny loses it.
He tries not to laugh, chokes on it anyway when he feels Gus’ breath on the base of his cock, warm on his balls, and he’s drawn up so fucking tight he can’t breathe–
And then Gus’ hand is on his cock and his tongue –
Christ almighty, his tongue is up Johnny’s ass again, and about the only thing better than the second time is knowing that there’s obviously going to be a third, and a fourth, and a fifth time, and he’s coming so hard his toes hurt, Gus’ tongue pushing, Gus’ hand pulling and there’s nothing but stars in the darkness.
The other best part about sex with Gus, Johnny thinks hazily, when he can think, is that Gus understands the point: even while Johnny’s blissed out, Gus is on top of him (again), rocking against him, ass flexing under Johnny’s hands, voice rough and broken and hot – ‘fuck you’ and ‘so good’ and ‘God, take it, take it, Johnny…’ – and it’s almost as good as coming again when Gus braces himself, hands digging into Johnny’s hips, and then flings his head back, baring his throat in a way that begs for Johnny’s mouth, collapsing on Johnny a few seconds later, his words a warm velvet whisper against Johnny’s neck.
And maybe they just saved time not saving time, because Gus showers with him, casual and naked, shaves, naked and casual, and when he catches Johnny watching him, in the mirror, he winks and leans in to rinse.
And he’s just as casual, just as accepting, when Johnny crosses the bathroom in two strides and pulls Gus back against him, nipping his shoulder and enjoying the hell out of the way Gus fits against him, the way Gus’ ass feels against his cock, the way Gus feels against him, skin to skin.
“It’s good,” he whispers, and his voice sounds ragged even to himself, but when Gus turns in his arms, whispering back that, yeah, it’s all good, it’s so good, his voice sounds ragged too.
“It’s going to be a long damn day,” Gus says, his voice warm, intimate, his lips finding that spot behind Johnny’s ear again. “Hope I don’t give away our fishing rights all over again because all I can think about is you.”
And when Johnny pulls away, unsure, Gus grins and pulls him back. “And it’d be worth it, Johnny, I promise you.”
Johnny tries to match Gus’ grin, but every once in a while that panic comes back, what’s he doing, what’s he doing here, and what’s he gotten himself – and maybe Gus – into?
“Worth it,” Gus says again, voice deepening, sliding a leg between Johnny’s. “Worth it, Johnny, just to think about your face when you –“
Johnny feels his skin heating and stops Gus’ words with his finger, then his lips, and Gus probably gets a kick out of Johnny’s… lack of experience, and, fair’s fair, Johnny gets a kick out of the idea of Gus watching him –
“Shit,” he says, pushing Gus away, “I am making you late, and–"
“I’m choosing to be late,” Gus says, and he’s got a sparkle in his eye that nearly kills Johnny. “Look, truce?” He holds his hands up, palms towards Johnny. “I’ll get dressed, you’ll get dressed, maybe I’ll make it out the door without undressing you all over again, and maybe I won’t, but either way I’m happy.” His grin is so… infectious that Johnny can’t resist grinning back, letting himself relax too. He’s not used to it being so… well, uncomplicated; and how much of that is Gus and how much of that is because they just met?
Gus, apparently deciding that Johnny’s also happy either way, is rummaging in a drawer.
Johnny’s never met anyone who actually unpacked in an hotel room before.
His own bag’s still by the door, and he’s not too surprised when Gus says, after he dumps it on the luggage rack, “Plenty of drawers, Johnny.”
He shrugs, finding his underwear and a clean pair of jeans, and says, “Nothing fancy in here.” Gus, who’s pulling on a tank top kind of undershirt that Johnny thought only old guys wore, shrugs back, and Johnny has to remember “late” and “meeting” so he can tear his eyes away and pull his pants up the rest of the way.
When he turns again, anything he’d thought of saying dies on his lips: Gus is putting on a clerical collar, reaching up to fasten it in the back with an ease that Johnny can tell is not just instinctive but practiced.
He stares, and stares more – Gus is pulling on an open-necked shirt over it, then shrugging into a suit jacket, and the collar – wider, thank God, than a Catholic collar, although Johnny’s not sure just now what difference it makes, because…
…a priest is a priest, representative of God, and what is a priest doing – doing here, in bed with – in bed with him, with a guy and what the hell was Gus thinking, what the hell is Gus thinking, and why –
When he was ten, his Sunday school teacher had been the simple type, getting them ready for confirmation probably needed the simple approach, so she’d been all about following the rules even if you didn’t understand them because they were there for reasons human beings couldn’t know but God did and –
Playing by the rules all his life and he thought for the past few days, maybe even months, that maybe he didn’t always have to, but damn it all to hell, damn him to hell, he did because this – this – is what happens when he doesn’t, there’s a reasonfor marriage and sex outside marriage is…
Johnny sinks to the bed, his fingers digging into the sheets, and then he realizes where he is, where they were, what they did, and jumps up as if the sheets were on fire. He looks around, anywhere but at Gus – the bathroom, the tiny kitchen, the couch – and there’s nothing, nowhere that they haven’t, that he hasn’t –
“Johnny,” Gus says, and his smile fading, like he’s been smiling for longer than Johnny knows, and he’s been saying Johnny’s name more than once. Then Gus’ hand is reaching for him, fingers spread, and Johnny jerks back, shaking his head, because it was bad enough before but now –
“Johnny,” Gus says again, insistent. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was an –”
“You’re a priest,” Johnny says, trying not to choke on the word, trying to stay calm. “You’re a – a – oh, my God, Pastor would–”
Faded blue eyes, kind enough in a lined, sunworn face but there was never, never any question where Pastor stood on the question of Heaven or Hell, and there was never any question of faith, or the Bible, or…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Gus has to think fast, fast and hard: it’s not that Johnny’s opposed to sex between men, clearly, but…
“I’m Anglican,” he says quietly. “Not Lutheran, Johnny.”
“Does that even make a difference?” Johnny asks, and he sounds so incredulous that Gus has to stop himself from smiling.
“Yes,” he says, as quietly as before. “Yes, it does, Johnny.”
“How? It’s the same God, isn’t it? It’s the same rules, the same, uh –”
“Possibly,” Gus says. “Possibly not. It rather depends on one’s point of view; otherwise there wouldn’t be Anglicans, or Lutherans, or Baptists. Or Catholics, for that matter.”
“But you – but we – you’re –”
There are different kinds of sins, different degrees of sin, he wants to say, and, really, the concept of sin is pointless unless someone actually buys into it.
But… Johnny’s spent his whole life not questioning that life, at least until three years ago; and not questioning himself, not until two nights ago, anyway, or maybe a little before that, maybe when he decided to go on this – this adventure; and certainly it’s never occurred to Johnny, as uncomplicated, even… innocent as he is, to question the tenets of his faith, whether he believes them or not. And belief, while it can follow hard on the heels of questioning, is better left to, and practiced by, those who don’t question.
Gus has often thought he’d make a better Jesuit than almost anything else, but then there’d be that vow of chastity…
And he’s twenty-one, suddenly, and it’s late at night in a smoke-filled pub and they’d filled hours playing darts and discussing nothing more than original sin and what it really meant, with forays into Sumerian mythology and the Gnostic gospels, and while Gus sometimes misses the simple faith he’d had then, he doesn’t miss the man – the boy, really – he was.
“What we did, it’s – don’t you think it’s wrong?” Johnny is saying, more earnest, Gus believes, than Gus himself ever was.
There’s a pain in Gus’ heart; and he wishes – “No,” he says quietly, decisively, gathering Johnny’s hands in his; and Johnny (thankfully) doesn’t resist, not physically.
“But–”
“I believe it’s sacred,” Gus says, more firmly still, tightening his fingers around Johnny’s.
“Sex? Sex is – is sacred? That’s –” Johnny breaks off, shaking his head.
Probably not the time, Gus thinks, to bring up the Great Marriage; and he shakes his head too. “What we do, what we’ve done, is sacred,” Gus says, whispers rather. “We’re not hurting anyone, and the reason – the reasons we do it, those reasons are here –” he touches Johnny’s head, “and here,” and he touches Johnny’s chest, where his heart is beating fast enough, hard enough that Gus can see the pulse in Johnny’s throat. “If you believe God gave you free will, if you believe you have the ability to know the difference between right and wrong, what is wrong here? What between us is wrong, Johnny?”
Johnny’s eyes are overbright: Gus smoothes his thumb across an eyebrow, feeling moisture there and wiping it away.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” Johnny says, and although he’s confused, he’s also pulling Gus’ hand towards his mouth. “I don’t… between us, no, but – anyone can say that, anyone can believe that, it’s got to – that’s why there are –”
“I’m not talking about adultery,” Gus says firmly, choosing the word deliberately, and Johnny’s quick intake of breath tells him he hit home; and he turns his hand so his palm is resting against Johnny’s cheek, so he can hold Johnny in even this small way. “Or murder, or coveting what is my neighbour’s, Johnny. Between us, you and me, what sin have we committed? What commandment have we broken, you and I? If you believe in absolute moral laws, that is.”
“Don’t – don’t you?” Johnny’s voice is so quiet Gus has to strain to hear him.
“Yes,” Gus says, trying not to remember echoes of a conversation with Noelle, too similar and yet so different – “and no.”
“You – you’re not like- you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met,” Johnny whispers. “Any minister, or, um, priest, or – or anyone…”
“Neither are you,” Gus murmurs, but Johnny’s not listening.
“But doesn’t it – doesn’t it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” and Gus gives up and pulls Johnny close, holding him tight, giving him what he wishes he could have given – “of course it matters: what we do, how we treat each other. ‘And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting: and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.’”
Johnny turns his head, holding Gus almost as tightly – “But… spiritual righteousness and…” and he seems to give up too, or perhaps give in, suddenly lowering his head to rest in the curve of Gus’ neck. “And – salvation only through the grace of, uh, God, so…”
“What do you believe, Johnny?” Gus spreads one hand wide on the other side of Johnny’s head, holding him close; and the close-cropped hair above Johnny’s ear is prickly-soft against Gus’ lips. He closes his eyes, holding Johnny… for dear life; and he whispers, “What do you believe? That’s what matters here… not me, or my collar, or whether sex is a sacrament.”
Johnny chokes, and it takes Gus one terrified moment to realize that he’s actually laughing. He leans back, pulling Johnny’s face up to his with a hand under his chin. Johnny’s still grinning, and Gus feels an answering grin on his own face, the tension suddenly shattered, gone as if it had never been there. “It might have made Christianity more popular,” he says, and Johnny starts laughing again.
“Definitely would have made church more popular. And, uh, catechism.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Catechism aside, and, yeah, it would be funny to add Grade 7 sex ed in, but Johnny’s never really had to think about what he believes, aside from the usual, where God’s in heaven and the Devil’s in hell and good and faithful people go to one and bad and unrighteous people go to the other.
What makes good good? It’s a question he’s never thought of before now. And as for what he believes…
Well, two days ago he’d probably have had more answers than he has now. Three years ago, more than that, even.
Right now…
“Why?” he asks Gus, finally looking at him, looking past the collar for the first time. “Seriously, I mean –”
“Johnny,” and Gus isn’t smiling either, “always. I will always take you seriously.” And despite the fact he’s still wearing that collar, Johnny closes his eyes and leans into the kiss that follows, trying to ignore the fact that he’s – that they’re – men, that Gus is, uh, Christ’s representative on earth, that – that if you don’t have faith it’s a sin to brush your teeth–
God forgive him, he can’t ignore how Gus makes him feel, all over, inside and out – even inside out.
Gus pulls back, looking at him, then holding Johnny’s face in his hands the way he did before, when Johnny came back to the hotel. “It’s a lot to digest,” Gus is saying, his voice gentle and warm.
Yeah.
“Yeah,” he says slowly, his hand curving around Gus’ wrist even though he’s not sure he should, or that he should want to touch him.
But really, seriously, if it’s wrong it’s wrong, whether Gus is a – a priest, or whatever Anglicans are or – or not, and if it’s not wrong –
“I’m not sure,” he says finally, looking at Gus again. “Not right now.”
“I know,” Gus says quickly, nodding in case Johnny didn’t get it, and Johnny feels his heart swelling again, and if someone walked in and told him they’d just proven the earth was flat it would probably be a good time for him to buy even that. “I didn’t mean tell me right now what you believe, Johnny, or even tell me at all, ever. I meant, I mean, that the important thing, really, is what you believe. The rest is immaterial.”
From the other room, where it’s been sitting on the kitchen counter, Johnny’s cell phone buzzes, and there’s so little noise, just the two of them looking at each other, breathing, that it sounds unnaturally loud.
Gus squeezes his hand and lets him go, and Johnny makes it to the counter in time to see Lars’ name flashing.
He has stop and remember who Lars is.
The phone call is short, thank God – no one got lost or even in trouble at the Hockey Hall of Fame, and only Chase threw up on the bus. They’re leaving Toronto in about a half hour and he just wanted to touch base, make sure Johnny was okay, and is he in Montréal yet?
“No,” Johnny says, trying not to stutter, “still here, stuff – stuff I had to do, I mean, things I had to see,” and, no, this isn’t going well at all. There’s some yelling in the background, however, so with any luck Lars doesn’t notice. He asks if Johnny’s heard from Eric, which he hasn’t, come to think of it, and then says he has to go, sorry, he’ll call later.
Gus leaves a few minutes after nine, after a few words between them, one quick kiss that’s too much and still not enough, and apparently not in the least worried about being late. Johnny’s willing to bet he’ll walk, too, and not bother with a taxi.
He spends a few minutes looking at the tourist brochures on the desk, trying to keep his head in the here and now, trying not to think about what he believes, because he knows the harder he thinks about it, the longer he thinks about it, the less he’ll figure out.
Of course, he never did think much about the future until Zoë… and even then not enough.
He decides to strike out for the part of downtown he hasn’t seen: he’d done Parliament the day he ended up at the canal, ended up meeting Gus, ended up…
Ottawa’s nothing like Winnipeg, with its old streets, narrow, some still cobbled, and cars parked wherever they can seem to nose in. The further he gets from the hotel and the canal, the less touristy it seems to be, and he wonders if this is what cities in Europe are like.
He’ll see those one day too. After he sees Canada.
He remembers Eric hasn’t called yet and then wonders what Eric will make of Gus, and vice versa, then remembers ‘today’ and ‘now.’ He’s repeating it to himself, under his breath, when the smell of coffee hits him. It’s real coffee, so it’s like someone broke a stick over his head, and it doesn’t take him more than a half a minute to track it to its source: a Scandinavian shop, big warm sweaters hanging in the windows, small painted horses displayed on shelves, probably for the tourists but definitely one of those ‘off the beaten path’ deals.
When the plump blonde woman behind the counter looks up and sees Johnny, her eyes narrow briefly and then she smiles big.
“Coffee?” Johnny says, but she is already moving from behind the counter. “How’d you know –”
“You look like you haven’t had a decent cup in weeks,” she says warmly, pressing a cup into his hands, pushing him into a chair by the table with the pot. “Hvaðan ertu? Ísland?”
“No,” Johnny says, confused and happy, taking a sip and burning his tongue, but he doesn’t care because he hasn’t had a coffee like this since the last time Auntie Auntie made breakfast for him and Eric, the week before they both left. “Gimli.”
“Ah, Western Iceland,” she says, nodding. “I live here half the year and Ísland half the year. But no one here makes good coffee.”
Johnny’s breathing in the steam and the scent. “You don’t sell it then,” he says disjointedly, remembering his quest only after her words sink in.
“I make it,” she says, winking at him. “I buy it from a place I will tell you and I roast it some more.”
“I need to make it too,” Johnny says eagerly. “I’m – I’ll be camping and I can roast the beans too, but –”
She laughs, her eyes sparkling. “You can boil it, the way our ancestors did, or the place I will tell you, it has these for the stove,” and she holds up the small pot, which Johnny suddenly sees is electric.
He ends up buying a sweater, in greys with black and white, from her – he has five or six at home but then it occurs to him that Gus might like one, or at least find it useful, because there’s not much to choose, as far as he’s ever heard, between the climate in Canada and the climate in Iceland, and the ones he has at home like this are warm enough even for the prairie winters – and two mugs, with blue horses on them, because he likes the colours and he wants to remember her, this shop, and the – the normalcy it gave him for a few minutes when he needed normalcy, and, maybe, some perspective or… something.
And he ends up buying (too much) coffee at the place she sends him, a careful note on the back of one of her cards that the woman in the coffee shop smiles at. Johnny’s afraid for a few minutes he’s going to end up with stuff he can’t or doesn’t need to carry, but in the end it’s nothing but a little brass hand grinder, tall and thin, and a small stainless steel pot with two compartments, and an airtight plastic container for the beans. The woman shows him how everything works, even sets the grind on the hand grinder – mill, she calls it a mill – and runs a batch through the little pot just to show him, let him taste the coffee and see if it’s what he likes.
It’s a hell of a lot closer than microwaved filter coffee, but he doesn’t say that, just thanks her (too much, probably) and to prove, he guesses, that she knows her market, or maybe to seal the deal, she even gives him a package of caraway seeds.
He was always bigger on cardamom, himself, and Auntie Auntie used to tease him, when he was a kid, that he must have more Viking or Swede in his blood than the rest of them, but he takes the caraway anyway because – echoes in his head from this morning – it’s all good, isn’t it?
And why did he spend all those years making coffee for Zoë when he could have had this, his own coffee, all along, and she could have had hers? Maybe he wasn’t as much into win/win as he thinks he is, or thought he was, anyway, and maybe the lose/lose thing wasn’t all Zoë’s fault.
And why did none of this occur to him ten years ago? What is it about Gus that – that sends his mind spiraling in directions he never knew existed because he never thought they might?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It takes everything Gus has, and then some, to concentrate on Noelle and the lawyers, and when they take a break, it takes all his willpower not to phone Johnny, make sure he’s… make sure he’s okay, and, maybe, make sure he’s… coming back.
Which is ridiculous, on and off the face of it, because he knows Johnny, in some indefinable way, and he knows that, really, it’s he who wants (needs) Johnny’s presence, perhaps to assuage his own guilt – not that he set out deceive Johnny but he did, whether meant or not, and while last rites might conceivably be needed at a hockey game, he’d thought he was going to a curling match – and perhaps to reassure himself. And neither of these things is fair to Johnny, who needs time to sort things out.
He’s not sure if he’ll ever be to the point he was, once upon a time, when he believed in a benevolent, beneficent God interested in the affairs of men, but even so it’s hard to see Lars’ phone call as anything but fortunate: Johnny needed space and Gus, too close to the situation, wasn’t seeing it; and hearing about (he guessed) the mischief a bunch of boys could get up to had been enough to ground Johnny, enough that they could share a (very chaste) kiss, enough that they could speak of dinner, later, with nothing more than a betraying flush on Johnny’s part.
He’d ended up walking to Noelle’s office, an upscale job near Parliament: she’d obviously parlayed her own experience in Solomon Gundy to some political advantage, and while he waited for the lift – the stairs in the building, a new “architect-designed” job, were very inconveniently placed – it occurred to him, for the first time, really, to wonder how she’d gone from nothing to this and how much Dexter, or perhaps Nelson, had had to do with it.
It’d been clear that she and Dexter were close, friends if not mentor/protégé, and equally clear, if he’d cared, which at the time he hadn’t, that her studied surprise at the Belgian deal revelation had been somewhat… rehearsed. He knew, now, from looking back that Dexter had known, and had done his best, without betraying confidences, to rectify a situation he’d clearly seen as wrong; but Gus had also been sure, even then, that Dexter had told Noelle things he couldn’t, wouldn’t tell the islanders, not even Gus.
However, he was now starting to wonder why Noelle hadn’t told him about the Belgian deal: she was bound by no promises, and clearly no ethical concerns; and Dexter, who had a way of seeing all possible solutions to all possible situations very quickly, might have – probably did – tell Noelle for more than one reason.
He reminds himself that no, life’s not fair; but his inner irrationality retorts that Dexter should have had more time, and Gus, too, to get to know Dexter, to go beyond that instinctive and nearly instant bond they’d forged, to examine it and see what lay beneath it, and, hell, to just fucking enjoy it…
Water under the bridge, and Dexter would be dead either way (but not that way, that inner voice growls) and Gus… well, suffice it to say Gus is feeling less than conciliatory when he finally makes it to Noelle’s office; and they don’t accomplish much of anything in the way of strategy.
However, when the lawyers show up, people Gus can talk to without the baggage, the history, the new (and old) questions, he feels energized, and they seem to pick up on it. They hash out quite a few terribly dull clauses and come up with what Gus, at least, thinks are reasonable suggestions for the financing of the subsidies to absorb the costs of (re-)entering the Confederation.
Still, he’s relieved when the break – a real coffee break, with silver(plate) service and china cups brought in by Noelle’s definitely-not-attractive assistant whose name he pretends not to remember – is over and the temptation to call Johnny is definitively removed; and he takes his coffee black, on a whim, even though there’s no way it could approach the brew Johnny’d come up with… was that just this morning?
Lunch passes automatically, Gus only needing a quarter of his brain to get through it, part of the rest wondering what Johnny’s finding to do and whether Nelson will have the balls to show up this afternoon. In some ways he hopes so: Nelson’s always good for a distraction, if nothing else; and Gus thinks he’s probably gotten a concession or two just from the internecine warfare rife in the Cabinet that is, apparently, centred on (surprise!) Nelson. That Nelson survived the Solomon Gundy “debacle” is a testament, however, to how deeply he’s entrenched or, possibly, how deeply the bodies he knows about are buried.
After lunch, and at a loss for twenty minutes to fill, Gus finds a remote bathroom and jerks off, starting out savage but taking it easy on himself at the end, letting his brain fill with images, sensations even, of Johnny, Johnny and him; and when he comes, he feels only a little like crying and a lot (again) like finding a phone, seeing where Johnny is, how he is…
He’s washing his hands when the door opens and, of course, it’s Nelson, who smiles sardonically and raises an eyebrow. Gus breathes in deep, the smell of sex insensibly cheering him up – bringing to mind Johnny, he supposes, or perhaps the sea – and he grins back, winks, and leaves without giving Nelson a chance to voice any of the numerous sarcastic and condescending clichés that are invariably at his command.
The feeling of being (finally) back on his game, caring about what he’s doing and simultaneously being able to hide it from the Government, carries him well through the afternoon, and afterwards the lawyers seem cautiously optimistic: true, they’d made concessions but, again, the Government made more, some without seeming to realize it. Gus is too cognizant of how these things work to think for a moment that they didn’t in fact realize it but as long as the end result is as much autonomy for Solomon Gundy as he can manage, he doesn’t actually care why they conceded.
During the conversation with the lawyers – he supposes, for lack of a better word, that it’s a debriefing – Noelle interrupts to bring up dinner again, the next night, and Gus waves a hand at her: “Call me, Noelle; and nothing earlier than seven.” The head lawyer wrangles a commitment to a meeting the next day, but Gus is successful, at least, in arranging it for the early afternoon instead of the morning.
Because if Johnny has decided, or does decide, that all of it is good (or even any of it), Gus is going to give Johnny no chance to regret that decision any time soon.
He slings his coat over his shoulder and walks back to the hotel, too, trying to move back into the real world, preparing himself to give Johnny the time, the space, whatever it is that he needs; trying to remember, himself, the price of his own hard-gained wisdom and the care he has, needs to have, for Johnny, not just his heart, or his head, but his… soul.
With that said, however, he can’t deny the relief he feels when he hears the sound of the television as he’s pulling out his keycard: the sound of television, and then the sight of Johnny, lounging on the couch, and (oddly enough) the smell of coffee.
Nor can he deny the relief he feels at the smile that lights up Johnny’s face, even his eyes, when he sees Gus; and the more-than-relief he feels at the sight of Johnny untangling those legs, yes, just as long as Gus had imagined, to come to his feet (bare!), hitting the “off” button on the remote and still managing to meet Gus halfway across the room; and relief is simply not the right word to describe the feel of Johnny in his arms again, the taste of Johnny in his mouth again, the smell of Johnny-and-coffee around him again, like a blanket.
“Just in time,” Johnny’s saying, and the grin on his face is absolutely boyishly enchanting as he takes Gus by the hands, leading him to the couch.
“For what?” Gus says, laughing despite himself and turning with Johnny.