Work Text:
Arthur refused to let him drive and the countryside was painted in the dreary, wet colors of a late English fall, but Alfred still felt his cheeks stretch in a smile happy enough to counter Arthur’s disgruntled frown brought on by the excessive traffic on the M4. Sure, it wasn’t the quick sojourn to Francis’ family estate in the South of France and he was pretty sure that Professor Prim and Proper fully intended to do work while they were dipping their toes in Bath, but this was their first trip…together…and Alfred had every intention of testing his hypothesis about hotel sex.
Besides, there was something nice, something familiar and nostalgic, in listening to Arthur hurl angry insults at every other driver on the road, snarling and snapping like a sailor instead of a guardian of academia until they were clear of the city. The sight of Arthur’s fingers curled so tightly around the wheel they had turned white made Alfred want to kiss the clenched knuckles and remind the not-so-very-old curmudgeon that this was supposed to be a pleasure trip and not an experiment in the kinds of torture Beilschmidt was so fond of recounting in precise, unnecessary detail.
Now that they were free of the snarl of congestion and the confines of Cambridge, Alfred thought it might be safe to twist around the passenger seat to rifle through his bag, pretty sure that Arthur wouldn’t bark at him to “bloody well sit still and stop twitching like a grade schooler in need of the loo.” There was rain falling on the windshield and England in October wasn’t a damned thing like Panama City in April, but Alfred had always been of the belief that there wasn’t a bad time for a little Buffet and maybe a tiny stroll down memory lane.
“What’s got you in a such a good mood?” Arthur groused when Alfred flopped back into his seat and grinned shamelessly, refusing to be cowed by the severity of Arthur’s eyebrows and the incessant rain.
“Isn’t going on vacation reason enough?” Alfred said nonchalantly, already eying the radio and remembering the taste of cheap beer and even cheaper whiskey.
Arthur snorted and pressed on the gas, “I hardly classify a three day weekend in Bath so I can do research for my spring submission to Kenyon as a holiday.”
“That’s because your system of classification sucks!” Alfred laughed, clapping Arthur on the shoulder and stealing a kiss from the unamused clench of his jaw. “You should leave that to the expert.”
“And you consider yourself an expert, do you?”
Alfred ignored the obvious derision in Arthur’s voice, splaying his fingers on the back of his neck and kneading away the tension as he tried to convince Lord Stickler that this was, in fact, a vacation and that they should take every opportunity to have a good time. He smiled and used the hand not currently soothing his cranky navigator to reach for his iPod, “You’re damned right I do! Even you have to admit I’ve always been the one teaching advanced studies in fun.”
“I’ll admit nothing of the sort without proof, you dolt,” Arthur muttered, but the heat was gone from his voice, replaced with that hint of lazy pleasure Alfred liked to coax from his throat late at night and early in the morning.
Alfred leaned across the console to nose Arthur’s hair and kiss his ear, murmuring, “Oh, I’ve got all the proof I need to make you sing my tune, Artie.”
Arthur squirmed and swatted him away, grumbling roughly, “This proof of yours had better not involve hands in places that are bound to get us killed.”
“I’m flattered you think my skills could run you off the road!” Alfred laughed, squeezing Arthur’s shoulder and cheerfully soldiering on in the face of the glare of death he received for his efforts. He reached for the iPod and jiggled it Arthur’s peripheral vision. “But I’ve got something a little more rock and a little less roll in mind. At least until we get to the hotel.”
“Do I even want to know?”
Alfred rolled his eyes and clicked through until he reached the the very special, crazy nostalgic playlist he’d put together in honor of the last time he’d gotten in a car with Artie to head to places unexplored with objectives not entirely innocent. Sure, in those days his attentions hadn’t exactly pointed in Arthur’s direction, but Alfred always figured it was the sentiment that counted, especially now that Arthur was the object of all his intentions—good and bad.
“Of course you want to know!” Alfred declared, firing up the first great song on a list of many, feeling years younger as the exuberant riffs of Def Leopard echoed within Artie’s cramped little car. Arthur’s stare of disbelief was so hilariously endearing that Alfred couldn’t help but laugh and shamelessly embarrass himself with a some sweet air guitar just to watch Arthur grow increasingly horrified. “The real question is….how much do you remember?”
“Of your capacity for foolishness?” Arthur taunted, though Alfred caught the twitch of his smile when he shredded a particularly good chord. “Or of the dulcet tones of Def Leopard?”
“Little bit of Column A, little bit of Column B,” Alfred joked, turning down the volume so Arthur could actually hear him as he winked and leaned forward conspiratorially. “But mostly Column C, which is labeled Spring Break 2002: Panama City.”
Arthur chuckled dryly and shook his head, “In that case, it really depends on your definition of remember. From what I do recall, there was an awful amount of truly awful alcohol that fortunately prevents me from having fully formed memories of that experiment in debauchery.”
Alfred grinned and tapped his fingers on the dash in time with the drum beat, “Well, maybe my recreation of the “Al and Artie’s Spring Break or Bust” playlist will help your walk down memory lane.”
“Oh lord, you didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t,” Arthur grumbled.
“Do what?” Alfred replied innocently, fluttering his eyelashes and skating his hands across the dash like it was a keyboard. “All I did was download all the great songs that got us through that 8 hour drive to Panama City. I thought it might be fun to pretend we’re still young and carefree, wasting away on our way to English Margaritaville.”
“I can assure you Bath is no Margaritaville,” Arthur said haughtily, but Alfred wasn’t fooled by his sneer because five English fingers were currently tapping on the steering wheel and he just knew that a certain British behind was two minutes from shifting in its seat.
Alfred met Arthur’s gaze, smirking as he murmured, “All the same, I’d sure like the chance to pour some sugar all on you…you know, in the name of love.”
“Have you completely lost your mind?” Arthur eyes were once more firmly on the road ahead but there was pink in his cheeks and the beginnings of a smile on his lips.
Alfred attempted his best impression of Arthur’s gravest professor’s voice, “Nay, I have but been inspired by the poetry of Def Leopard and the beauty of thine face.” The car swerved while Arthur choked on what Alfred was pretty sure was laughter. “Verily, I would wish for you to shake me all night long.”
“Oh God, I give in! We can listen to whatever nostalgic nonsense you’ve brought along so long I don’t have to endure any more of your idiocy!”
“Awww, I think if you’ll just give the beauty of the words a chance to speak to your heart, you’ll be transported by the deep meaning of Hot in Herre. I think Nelly really captured that existential crisis of being a horny guy on a beach vacation,” Alfred intoned, enjoying the mock outrage in the quick flick of Arthur’s glare from his smile to the road and then back to his smile. Alfred rolled his shoulders and attempted to raise the roof. “I’m getting so hot, I wanna take my clothes off!”
“As I recall, you didn’t seem to experience any such crisis on that trip,” Arthur complained. “In fact, I seem to remember a fair amount of you doing exactly as the poet laureate Nelly advised.”
“Good times, good times,” Alfred sighed wistfully, settling in his seat as the song changed and Jimmy Buffet started crooning.
Arthur pinched his thigh. “Perhaps for those of us who didn’t have to share a room with you and discover you in flagrante in the middle of the afternoon when you were supposedly suffering from heat stroke and in need of a nap.”
Alfred trapped Arthur’s hand over his knee, rubbing his thumb over his knuckles as he waggled his eyebrows and murmured shamelessly, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Sometimes more than once and in different positions.”
Apparently what Arthur had to do was pinch him a second time and then steal his fingers away to crank up the volume, which Alfred decided meant he’d finally remembered how much he loved Buffet instead of an expression of distaste for Alfred’s little jaunt into R-rated nostalgia. Choosing to leave Arthur to his stony inspection of the M4, Alfred closed his eyes and let the rhythms of Buffet’s beaches, boats and babes carry him away from wet English roads to a messy hotel room in Panama City that smelled of sunscreen, whiskey, and McDonald’s.
He remembered how he’d played “Sweet Home Alabama” at least ten times as they drove from Birmingham to Montgomery. He remembered how Arthur had become increasingly and hilariously more irate each time Alfred had started the song over and over and over until Arthur had actually pulled the car over and threatened to make Alfred walk the rest of the way. Alfred remembered how hard he laughed and laughed that Arthur actually followed through on the weakest threat made by any and all parents who had ever packed up their kids for a long car trip.
Arthur had refused to speak to him until they reached the Florida border and that was only because Alfred had generously promised to stop calling Arthur an Alabama hating-Neil Young-loving sonofabitch. He’d also been suckered into buying the first six pack and bottle of whiskey by the severe pout of Arthur’s eyebrows, but Alfred remembered he couldn’t really be bothered by the hit to his wallet when they were half-drunk on the beach by midnight, ankle deep in the Gulf and singing off-key David Allan Coe songs.
He remembered (for a given value of remember—Arthur hadn’t been wrong about the amount of really bad booze that been consumed within waking hours) four straight days of waking up and hating the sun, only to drag Artie out of bed at noon with promises of greasy spoon breakfasts and doing nothing more than sweating out the last little drops of tequila by the pool. Once the headache had dimmed, it was time to shift from poolside to seaside, slathered in sunscreen and trying not very hard to hide cheap silver cans of beer from beleaguered cops who probably thought Spring Break was the spawn of Satan and Bacchus. There were so many bodies, so much youth and ridiculous indulgence that Alfred had thought he could get drunk on the energy of it all, and there was something really delicious, like a super sweet chaser, in sharing it all with Arthur, who unbent and unfurrowed with every hour they spent in the sun drinking shitty beer and quoting awesome songs.
Alfred remembered pretty boys and pretty girls and hands and lips. He remembered be young enough to think that a few hours of tasting sea-salt skin was as good as life could get. He remembered the look on Arthur’s face when he’d stumbled into the curtained dark of their shared hotel room and found Alfred all up on someone’s shores, riding their tides for all he was worth. He couldn’t really remember anything about the taste of that person’s kiss or the shape of their thighs, but to this day he could remember how long Arthur had stood in the doorway, Florida sunshine spilling inside the dark room and illuminating Artie’s blushing expression of shock and awe.
That night Alfred had found Arthur so drunk he’d fallen asleep twisted and frowning in a hammock, still clutching the bottle of rum like it was a teddy bear. It had nearly broken his back to carry the drunk bastard back to their room, but the twinge in his side had been nothing compared to the weird pangs of guilt he felt the next morning when Arthur stopped worshiping the porcelain god and wouldn’t even look at him. The next morning, it took a stack of pancakes, a heap of grits, a Bloody Mary, and a long phone call to Francis before Arthur stopped flushing and grumbling, and finally remembered that Alfred was his partner in crime and they only had one more night to live the Spring Break life before it was back to labs and libraries and dissertations.
And what a last hurrah they’d had! Dancing on the beach with sunburned skin and sweat hands wrapped around cold bottles of beer and cheap plastic cups of whiskey, charming their way into more house parties than Alfred could have remembered even if they hadn’t been three sheets to the wind and riding high on the waves of a damned good time. He remembered how they had squeezed every last minute out of that last day, still hot with liquor and exhaustion when they’d purloined a couple of fancy beach chairs and watched the sun come up over the Gulf. Alfred remembered how Arthur had smiled, soft and even kind of sweet, when he’d clinked the last of their beers together and said there wasn’t anywhere else on earth he’d rather be that right there on that beach on the verge of the world’s worst hangover with his best friend.
The thought of living like that now when he had more than one rogue gray hair and worried about things like his 403(b) made Alfred’s liver beg for mercy, but he still liked the taste of bourbon and still wanted that chaser of Arthur’s smile to ease the burn of liquor down his throat. He still couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be than right wherever Arthur was.
“Wake up, you lazy creature. We’re here.”
There was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him out of his sandy memories. Alfred blinked and Panama City was gone, replaced with the gray interior of a too small car and the even gray skies of England. But the radio was still humming with Buffet and Arthur’s expression was adorably fond in its familiar exasperation, and Alfred was pretty sure that even though the past was all well and good, there was no time like the present. He smiled, catching Arthur’s hand between fingers that had been missing Arthur for a long time. He let his grin slip into something wicked and remembered as he sucked two of Arthur’s fingers between his lips, enjoying the little gasp of surprise and pleasure.
Alfred leaned across the cramped little car, unbuckling Arthur’s seatbelt and turning up the radio before he kissed the cautious beginnings of lust from Arthur’s lips. He kissed him until Arthur’s hands were reaching for his face, cupping his chin and stroking down his throat. He kissed him until Arthur was humming and sighing, the pretty sounds filling all the gaps in Jimmy’s lyrics. He kissed him until Arthur’s cheeks were a little pink and his lips were nice a red and he knew there was no way Arthur was going to say no.
He had his mouth on Arthur’s neck and his palm pressed against Arthur’s lap and there was a bottle of bourbon in the bag he packed that morning while he’d thought of road trips and hotel sex. Alfred brushed his lips over Arthur’s ear and reached deep into his heart in search of the perfect lines for a seduction ten years in the making.
“Hey, Artie. Why don’t we get drunk and screw?”
~~
By the time the bottle of bourbon was more empty than full, Arthur’s cheeks were that sweet rose color of intoxication and there were clothes scattered on a bland hotel room floor. Arthur had insisted that if he was going to indulge Alfred’s nostalgia fetish, they needed to get drunk properly. According to Artie’s weird sensibilities, proper apparently meant playing strip poker and drinking booze out of coffee cups. Alfred had wisely pointed out that it was damned hard to play poker with only two people, but being an engineer he was ready to tackle any challenge and applied all his wonderful knowledge of alcohol and card games, and had suggested they play Strip Go Fish instead.
Arthur had been less than impressed, but after a mug full of whiskey and a winning streak that had Alfred down to his skivvies, Arthur was in a good enough mood to start humming “Sweet Home Alabama” under his breath and eye Alfred’s underwear like they had personally offended him. Alfred had hoped to get a Arthur out of his pants, but he kept on guessing wrong and having to Go Fish, and before he could think to ask if Artie was cheating because he wanted to get him drunk and naked, Arthur was crawling across the abandoned cards and straddling his lap.
Alfred splayed his hands on Arthur’s waist, happy enough to be relieved of his losing streak for all that he grumped, “Hey, I was just about to make a comeback!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never seen anyone play a child’s game so terribly.” Arthur sucked on his earlobe and wriggled in his lap, cock already half-hard and tenting the pants that rubbed against Alfred’s bare stomach.
“Well, you were the one that said we couldn’t play beer pong in the hotel room,” Alfred pointed out while also trying to make a point of getting his hands down the back of Arthur’s pants to palm his ass and encourage him to keep rocking and rolling over his lap. Arthur bit his throat and threaded his hands in Alfred’s hair, grinding down so nicely that Alfred had to reward him with a slap across his ass and good long groan.
Arthur arched in surprise, laughing lowly as he licked Alfred’s smug grin and whispered, “I wouldn’t have wanted you to get so drunk you couldn’t live up to the second half of your proposition.”
“You mean the screwing?” Alfred taunted, winding his arm around Arthur’s waist and toppling him to the bed, already reaching for the button and zip of pants that should have fallen victim to Alfred’s repeated,do you have any threes?.Arthur obliged with the raising of his hips and the push of his hands, helping Alfred get rid of all the clothing that kept him from Arthur’s skin. Alfred spread his naked legs and licked from knee to thigh. He skipped the cock that brushed hot and hard against is cheek as he propped his chin on Arthur’s hip and smiled innocently at Arthur’s indignant expression. “So impatient, Artie.”
Arthur looked at him with flushed cheeks and mussed hair, rolled his hips in a way that was more of a demand than a suggestion and murmured, “Our little trip down memory lane made me remember how long I’ve been walking this particular road.”
Alfred kissed the tip of his cock and winked, “Are you trying to tell me that Def Leopard and ACDC make you horny?”
“No, you idiot.” Arthur shivered, stomach quivering under the brush of Alfred’s thumbs as he pinned Arthur’s eager hips to the bed. “It reminded me just how long I’d wanted you. Wanted this.”
Alfred’s heart did that weird thing where it felt like it wanted to explode and constrict at the same time. There was no way he couldn’t kiss Arthur now, even if he knew that Arthur was going to scowl and insist that there were better uses for Alfred’s mouth, but he was already sliding between his thighs and up Arthur’s warm chest to frame his face between his hands before Arthur could think to protest.
“Yeah?” Alfred asked softly, kissing Arthur’s cheeks and rolling his hips, liking the way their bodies fit together, liking the way Arthur’s cock rubbed against his.
“To my own horror, yes.” Arthur rolled his eyes and blushed, hands sweeping up and down Alfred’s back, gentle in a way his words were not. Arthur closed his eyes while Alfred kissed his nose, kissed his chin, kissed the dip of his throat and the cut of his jaw. “When I saw you that afternoon, that was when I knew that I wanted more from you than friendship.”
Alfred parted his lips to take the kiss Arthur wanted to give, heart hammering his chest as he thought about Panama City and desires that he’d never known, loving Arthur as hard as he could in that moment to try and make up for all the days in which he hadn’t. For a moment it was sweet and soft, lips over lips, the kind of kiss meant for hazy mornings and fading afternoons. Alfred hoped that Arthur was reading between the lines of his touch and interpreting the text of their embrace.
But then Arthur was sighing into his mouth and there were nails raking down his back and his cock was slipping beneath Arthur’s ass because Arthur was impatient, shifting and arching until Alfred got the memo. Alfred smiled, bit the lip that was between his teeth and wrestled those insistent hands above Arthur’s head, pinning him to the mattress and commanding all his attention. Arthur smirked shamelessly and spread his legs further before they were wrapped around Alfred’s waist, tugging him down.
“Well, Artie,” Alfred murmured hotly, licking down his throat and scoring his collarbone with his teeth. “In the words of the great poet Steve Perry…don’t stop believing. Hold on to that feeling!”
Arthur moaned and dug his heels into Alfred’s back, head thrashing on the pillow as he grumbled, “God, why do I put up with you?”
“Because you love me.” Alfred kissed him hard and fast, rocking his hips and sliding his cock along the sweet curve of Arthur’s ass while he swallowed Arthur’s sighs and felt the rumble of his laughter in the chest that pressed so finely against his own.
“Quote any more Journey and I may have to rethink that,” Arthur said, voice all rough and cracked the way Alfred liked it.
“Do I criticize your seduction selection?” Alfred teased, lumbering off the bed to find the lube that was packed somewhere in his suitcase. He watched Arthur stroke his cock and tug on his balls while he tossed aside socks and underwear until his fingers struck gold and there was nothing to keep him from smothering Arthur’s disparaging frown with another kiss and fitting his body over Arthur’s familiar dips and bends. “I don’t. So shut up and let me sing the body electric already.”
Arthur’s only answer was to bite his shoulder and moan, hot and filthy and so good that Alfred wanted to hear it again so he curled his fingers as they pushed inside, slick and searching. He parted his lips over the pule that thrummed in Arthur’s throat and listened for each hitching sigh as he pushed his fingers in and out, made a little wild by the urgency of Arthur’s hips as they arched into his touch. He took a moment to remember Arthur like this, spread and eager, flushed with sweat beading on his forehead and desperate, demanding words on his tongue.
“More, damn you, more.”
Alfred had never been more happy to oblige but he didn’t think it was a great idea to let Arthur get the impression that he was somehow biddable, so he slipped his fingers free and wrestled Arthur onto his stomach. And because Arthur was Arthur and they were alike in many ways, Arthur followed the lead but then usurped control, going on hands and knees, and shooting filthy looks of invitation over the slope of his shoulder. Alfred slicked his cock and answered Arthur’s taunt with a palm to his ass, uncertain of what he liked more: the cracking sound of his hand slapping all that heated skin or the hissed groan that pushed between Arthur’s lips.
He decided that both were hot and each had merits, but neither held a candle to the way it felt taking Arthur by inches, one hand splayed on narrow hips and the other holding his cock as he watched himself disappear inside. By the time Arthur’s thighs were flush against him and he had his fingers curled around Arthur’s dick, stroking him as he bent down to kiss the back of Arthur’s neck and murmur inelegant words, Alfred’s heart was beating double time.
Arthur was making little noises that might have been his name and rolling his body in dirty circles that were so irresistible that Alfred had no choice but to fuck him a little more, stroke his cock a little faster, and make like he was twenty-three years old and drunk on liquor and sunshine. Those were kind of things that used to make a man shameless, but now there was the clench of Arthur’s body and the taste of his skin and the rush of lust he felt each time Arthur’s thighs slapped against his legs because he was in so deep to give Alfred all the encouragement he needed to go hard.
The bed was making a racket and Arthur’s arms were trembling and Alfred really kind of liked seeing the face Arthur made when when Alfred thrust long and deep, so he pulled out and eased Arthur onto his back. Arthur blinked and reached for him, greedy hands grasping for a face that was eager to give messy, breathless kisses to Arthur’s slick red mouth. Alfred let Arthur hear and taste the pleasure he felt shoot up his spine when he pushed his cock back inside, one sweet slide until they were chest to chest and he could feel Arthur’s cock trapped against his stomach, hard and wet and wanting.
He picked up the pace, shoving Arthur’s knees wide so he could hook an arm under each leg and angle his thrusts just the way Artie liked it. Alfred liked that he knew what Arthur liked. He liked watching Arthur fist his cock and bite his lip. He liked the flush of pink down his chest and the way Arthur’s mouth looked when it had been kissed one time too many. He liked the way Arthur tightened around him and arched off the mattress, wild and unrestrained, all deconstructed when Alfred dropped his legs to push in deep and hard so he could feel every tremble and twist when Arthur came, spilling hot over his stomach.
Alfred waited until Arthur’s body unbowed, until he sagged once more to the ruined sheets and opened his eyes before he moved again. This time he held Arthur near, sticky and satiated as he pushed in slowly, shallow little thrusts to go with the softness of a kiss that still tasted of bourbon. Alfred savored the moment, savored the careless caresses that Arthur gave when he was still riding waves of desire. Arthur kissed him and kissed him, cradling him between his thighs and in his arms. murmuring endearments and dirty wishes until Alfred decided that he’d waited long enough and came with a shudder and a sigh.
And though there was no beach beyond the hotel doors, no house party on the agenda, no chance of reclaiming all the misspent glories of their youth, when Arthur kissed him and clung to him like this, Alfred knew that these were really the best days of his life.