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The day after a swell is perfect for fishing. Everyone crawls out of their homes before dawn with their coolers packed and their boats full. It’s the feeling of fresh air and the icy burst of morning dew that makes JJ’s heart beat a nostalgic rhythm. He feels fifteen again, like Big John and John B will come down the steps at his back any moment now, carrying their gear and arguing over something that has next to no consequence, but gives them something to do.
As it is, the chateau is quiet and Big John is dead. Life is different now, changed in a way that makes memories feel like homesickness, but things have been getting better lately.
Maybe it’s all the change that’s made JJ crave a fishing day so bad. With John B and him out on the Pogue, it could be any day in time, the ocean unchanging despite it’s constantly moving waters.
He needs something familiar, something that will send him back to a moment in time when things were easier.
The call of that ease, twined in with excitement, wakes him up before dawn. He packs the boat himself, Sarge running up and down the Chateau’s dock in front of him as JJ preps for their day out.
Just from the pink skies settling over the horizon, he knows the water will be choppy, so he ties everything down and sits himself against the bow as the sun comes up.
He wonders if someday he wont get to do this anymore, if the seizures and migraines get worse. There wouldn’t be anymore sunrise boat rides or fishing trips out to the middle of nowhere. He’d probably go crazy or worse within the year. Maybe it’s the idea of the end that makes the present so much more worth while.
He decides to bask in it while he can, streaks of blue and pink mixing above his head like a painters pallet in a way that makes him want to share the view with someone. John B’s normally awake by now, but JJ had a seizure last night that made both of them restless after.
It took nearly an hour for John B to fall back asleep. His body tossed and turned all while JJ faked a steady breathing pattern until John B’s own evened out and he was able to slip undetected from the bed.
His Houdini act reminds him to check his phone, his thread with Shoupe halted at 4:08am. The guy worries himself sick sometimes, no matter how much JJ promises he’s fine. There’s something hard to grasp about that still.
JJ calls him now, knowing he’ll be awake and getting ready for work. He’s just another person JJ threw off kilter last night.
“JJ,” Shoupe answers on the second ring. “You feeling alright?”
It’s maybe a parent thing, that he’s always worried.
“I’m fine, Dad,” JJ says, the ’Dad’ more teasing than anything else. “We’re going fishing soon, just thought I’d call before we hit the water.”
Shoupe hums, the sound of the fridge opening and closing in the background of the call. “You took your morning meds?”
“Yup,” JJ pops the ‘p,’ his fingers busy playing with one of the buoy’s ropes. “Ate breakfast too and everything.”
“Good,” Shoupe breathes. “Listen, Jay. I work until six tonight, but how about you call me then too? I’d like you home tonight.”
“Yeah,” JJ agrees distractedly. “I can do that.” He’s still not used to checking in so often. Luke used to let him disappear for days without a care in the world.
It only takes three more promises that he’ll text him if anything else happens today before Shoupe lets him hang up the call.
JJ ties down the rest of their gear, feeds Sarge out on the patio, and then slowly eases open the door to John B’s room.
The light breaking in through the blinds is still blue with the sun barely up. It’s cold outside, but the room is muggy with John B’s scent warm in the air.
It was hard getting up this morning and it’s even harder to avoid the pull of the bed now, with John B stretched out on his stomach and the blankets wrapped around his waist.
He fell asleep with a shirt on, but between one toss and the next it’s halfway up his back now, the skin there goose-fleshed and temping.
JJ leans over him, crowding against his back as he kisses a line from his neck down to his spine and back up. All this realestate is his, every dip, valley, and nook practically made for the shape of his mouth.
Halfway up, John B shifts back to look at him and then melts back into the bed.
“Good morning,” JJ sings, letting John B take his weight with a huff.
“It’s not morning,” John B grumbles, grabbing JJ’s arm to pull it around his own waist and cement their curled together cuddle. “It’s too early.”
JJ tries to pull away, but John B holds firm, rolling onto JJ’s arm so that he has no chance of getting free with John B’s weight holding him down.
If that’s the game he’s looking to play, JJ has no problem playing dirty. He noses at John B’s ear, wrapping his hand in the curls at the base of his neck just so that his mouth can reach the place where his shoulder and spine meet.
“Wake up,” he whispers, soothing the words with opened mouth kisses that John B groans against.
JJ cant deny his own body is reacting to their ministrations, but his fight is only to get John B awake so that they can head out and get on the water.
“Turn over?” He asks sweetly, biting gently over every inch of skin his mouth touched.
John B’s complying before JJ’s even ready for it, their shuffle leaving him straddling John B and steadying himself with a hand to his chest. The soft, sleepy eyes that meet his make his heart pound unsteadily in his chest.
He used to dream about mornings like these.
“Hey, Sleepy.” JJ leans down to kiss him, their hips grating together with the movement, but before their lips can meet, John B presses a hand over his mouth to stop him.
“Sorry, just—morning breath,” John B reminds him, keeping his lips sealed.
“I dont care,” JJ promises, just to rip John B’s hand from his mouth to press their lips together and instantly regret it the second their tongues meet. “Ew, never mind,” he coughs through a laugh, swatting John B’s face away. “You need to brush your teeth, like, now.”
“Told you.” Contrary to his words, his body stays pliant in bed and his hands come up to JJ’s thighs and squeeze, his eyes raking their way down his body in a way that makes the temperature in the room gain ten degrees in seconds. “You look really good like this though.”
JJ’s finally gained some weight back and he knows John B’s been loving it by the way his hands always seem to find their way to his hips or thighs to knead the flesh there. He’s not complaining.
“Well how about you,” JJ turns John B’s head away to kiss one side of his neck and then the other, “meet me,” his tongue traces up to his ear, “on the dock,” he bites at his earlobe, “in ten minutes,” and pulls.
“Fuck,” John B pants, grabbing JJ roughly just to roll them over so that he can be on top. JJ hits the bed breathless, John B between his legs and his arms pinned into the mattress.
Maybe they could just stay in today, he considers, as pleasure overrides his motivations.
John B certainly seems to be sharing the sentiment, his hips pressing JJ deeper into the bed with each halted movement as he fixes their position until JJ starts to squirm over how good it feels to have him rubbing against where his board shorts are straining forward.
“You gonna brush your teeth?” JJ asks innocently, turning his head away when John B leans down to kiss him.
From the way his head drops to JJ’s chest to hide his exasperation, JJ knows he’s won.
“Just stay right here,” John B tells him seriously, sprouting up from the bed and running down the hall.
JJ lets himself recover for only a second as he smiles to himself, warm in the bundle of John B’s blankets. They couldn’t have a better morning.
By the time the faucet down the hall turns off, JJ is waiting in the kitchen with a mug of coffee for them to split.
“JJ?” John B calls, peaking around the corner with a disappointed frown on his face. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
“Fishing, John B,” JJ reminds him, dangling the boat keys. “All the good spots are gonna be dried up if we wait any longer.” He wants to hit the water for a full day and go home with the kind of tan that makes you shiver when night comes.
Thankfully, John B’s awake and done thinking with his downstairs brain. He clips the keys and intertwines their fingers and leads JJ out to the dock. “You packed the boat yourself?” He asks worriedly.
JJ tries to wave him off. “Sarge was with me the whole time.”
“Sarge cant swim and drag your lifeless ass to the shore,” John B argues, like they haven’t had this conversation a million times before.
JJ looks back to the chateau where his dog sits in the screened in porch, watching over the land. “He would’ve warned me in time for me to get to the grass,” JJ promises. Sarge has saved his life a countless number of times since he got him. He’s going to do it a million more, probably.
On the boat, JJ curls up against the housing unit for the steering wheel and pulls his hood over his head to ward off the chill as John B pushes them off.
“Where to?” He asks, but JJ doesnt care.
“Anywhere.” He just wants to spend time with his favorite person on the ocean.
They fish for hours in two different spots, JJ sitting on the edge of the boat and John B right next to him. He never gets the spacey feeling he’s so used to and he’s happy to relax back against John B once he’s decided he’s done catching for the day.
It only takes minutes more for them to both be laid out on the floor of the boat, their shirts tied to the wheel and their hands a tangled mess between them as the afternoon sun makes the air grow hotter and stickier with each passing second.
“Today’s perfect,” John B says, trailing his fingers over JJ’s wrist, up his arm, and to his peck.
If he keeps touching him like that, they’re not going to be able to stay out much longer.
These days it seems like every touch between them is like an electric current and that feeling is only made ten fold by the scorching hue of a summer’s day.
He cant last long like this, sweat and heat two entirely different things as his mind falls helplessly into the gutter. It’s not his fault his boyfriend’s shirtless and glistening in front of him, a practical wet dream of a man, while his fingers swirl nonsensical patterns on his body.
“Want to swim?” JJ asks, too long after his skin’s gone slick and it’s started to get to him.
Even now that he’s mostly better, John B still treats every request of his like a command. Maybe that’s just what boyfriends do though.
John B leaves their sprawl to drive them to a sand bar off a deserted coast, the water clear and the sand like silk, where he doesnt have to watch JJ so hard and doesnt have to try to fight him to wear a life jacket.
JJ slips into the water, barely up to his chest, and dunks himself under. It’s one of those perfect summer days that could stretch forever, but always seems to end too soon as early afternoon turns late.
“Get in,” JJ calls, pushing his hair back.
He gets the pleasure of watching John B’s muscles flex as he lowers himself off the side of the boat.
With no one around, it’s easy for JJ to swim to his side and wrap himself around him just to feel the slick press of their bodies align.
“Good day?” John B asks, pressing a sweet kiss to his mouth that’s so much better than their morning one.
“Perfect,” JJ promises. There’s not a care in the world that could take him down right now.
They float like that, John B gliding them through the water and JJ’s head dipped back in the ocean.
Like always these days, their touches don’t stay innocent for long.
Between one kiss and the next, JJ ends up pushed up against the privacy of the boat, John B’s hand on his throat and their hips so perfectly aligned that JJ’s eyes roll back and his head hits the hull as pleasure washes through him.
“Keep going,” he begs, but John B’s already a step ahead of him, his hand slipping beneath the water and under his waistband to circle his cock.
Cool water and the warmth of John B’s hand makes a too-perfect glide.
He could go out of his mind like this, he’s sure of it. Every touch brings him closer, every opened-mouthed kiss racks up the stakes.
“Good?” John B asks, his fist circling the head of JJ’s dick in a way that’s making his knees buckle.
He needs more. He needs the hand John B’s got in his hair to pull, he needs their swim trunks gone, and a bed beneath them.
In the end, he gets John B’s hand wrapping around his thigh to pull him up into his arms. He controls the pace from there, not letting JJ fuck his hand and not letting JJ do much of anything besides take what he decides to give him.
“Gonna cum?” He taunts, slowing down the twist of his hand. JJ could kill him. Instead he hides his face in John B’s neck and tries not to cry with how good it feels. “Please, Bree.”
He needs this. The release, the pleasure, the pain, all of it.
John B kisses his neck sweetly, his lips at his ear. “You’re so good for me, aren’t you?” The words shoot straight to his stomach, making it flip in a way he’d never admit to, but a way John B seems to know by heart anyway.
JJ can feel his head nodding as his cock jerks between them, so close to the edge he may as well be over it.
Of course that’s when John B’s hand stops completely, squeezing harshly around the base to starve off his orgasm.
“No, no, no,” JJ cries out, desperately trying to squirm further into his arms. His stomach is swirling and he’s so lost in the desire he’s barely in control of himself anymore.
That feeling tenfolds when John B starts to set him down on his feet, forcing him to hold himself up on barely-there legs. Even with the water supporting him on all sides, it’s hard to stay up. There’s half a sound falling from his lips in a confused haze before John B is turning him towards the boat to make him hold onto the boat spikes for the ropes. He brushes the fringe of JJ’s hair from his back and leaves kisses there that burn. “You okay, Sweetheart?”
It’s so mean that JJ would kill him if he didn’t know that what’s coming next will be so much better.
John B’s hand wraps back around him from behind, slowly at first until his fist is moving so fast that JJ can do nothing but press his head into the hull and pray for release.
John B gives it to him, lips at his ear to talk him through it. “So good for me, Jayj. Just like that, baby.” His wrist twists again, so much harsher than last time and nearly twice as good. It sends JJ’s mind floating off, stuck between their push and pull that slows the thoughts from his head and makes all the bones in his body melt into the warmth holding him up at his back.
“You’re so close Jay,” John B promises, kissing down his neck. “I’m gonna let you come, sweetheart, alright?”
JJ nods desperately, these high pitched sounds punching from his throat as he begs for it and claws back desperately for any semblance of skin he can reach. He’s right on the brink, the swop in his stomach about to drop, when John B’s teeth close around his pulse point and suddenly the whole world is whiting out as JJ comes.
“Please, please,” he begs, panting through it. He doesnt even know what he’s asking for anymore, but John B does. He gathers JJ up, holding him tight as his body shakes through the pulses of his orgasm.
“I’ve got you,” John B promises, slowing the tug of his hand. He holds JJ still like that while his breathing slows and the oceans laps away the evidence of his release.
It takes minutes too long for JJ to turn in his boyfriend’s arm and collapse against him. He can still feel John B hard against his stomach, but for the life of him he cant imagine moving enough to do something about it right now. “Give me a second,” JJ tells him, but John B shushes him, content to hold him as the after shocks bring him slowly back to his head.
“Was that alright?” John B asks, kissing him gently.
JJ finds the mind to nod. “yeah,” he promises. His hands and knees are still shaking.
John B has to lift him back up onto the boat, following him in as they lay out on a towel, curled together as the sun dries them.
Between one breath and the next, JJ decides he’s ready again. “Can I—?” He asks, nodding to John B’s hips. Despite John B usual insistence, JJ’s not quite ready to ask with words yet.
Thankfully, he doesnt fight him on it this time. John B grabs a fist full of his hair to lead him down, forcing him eye level with the tie of his board shorts.
JJ loves this. Loves that John B knows the perfect amount of pressure, of rudeness, of teasing, that gets him off. They know each other, through and through. And he trusts John B like he trusts no one else. He can swing, but would never hit. He would push him to his limits, but never cross a line. JJ trusts John B more than he trusts his own mind sometimes.
“There you go,” John B coaches him, pushing down his suit to ease himself into JJ’s mouth, his hips already bucking into the warmth.
“Fuck. Your mouth, JJ,” he swears, one hand pushing JJ down onto his dick while his fingers of his other hand mindlessly trace the stretch of his lips. “You’re so pretty like that.”
JJ’s always loved this part, with men or women. His mind goes somewhere else far away and his body melts into the task. With John B leading him, he’s not sure he’s ever felt safer and more loved.
He chokes on the next push down, but John B holds him there, his hips fucking his throat in a way that makes JJ’s eyes roll back and head dip deeper.
“You’re so good for me,” John B tells him, yanking him up for air. JJ gasps for it, the oxygen deprivation just leaving him floating higher.
He’s already pressing himself back down when John B’s hand tightens in his hair and makes him pull up short. He presses JJ to his hip, letting him mouth at his cock while he regains his breath.
He doesnt know how long he sits there on his knees between John B’s legs, but he thinks it wouldn’t ever feel like enough time.
The next time he’s pushed down, he stays there until John B’s fucking his face so insistently that the boat’s shaking with it, sending him deeper with each trust until John B’s cum is choking JJ and he’s pulled back up with it leaking from his mouth.
He tries swallowing it all, but between his lung’s need for air and his inability to think in a straight line, he inevitably ends up a mess. It makes John B pull him up, his fingers gathering it up just to fuck his mouth with them in a slow, blissed out haze.
“I could do this all day,” John B says, slipping his fingers out just to grip JJ’s jaw to pull him down into a kiss that has him licking the taste of himself from JJ’s mouth. JJ can only lean into it, his eyes shut in bliss and his mind shut off as John B handles him whatever way he wants.
Lately, John B’s been insatiable. Sometimes JJ cant even keep up, but he kind of gets the feeling that just gets John B off even more, like he lives to take care of JJ in every way his mind can imagine.
They pull back to breathe and it gives JJ half a second of clarity, his eyes looking across the open ocean and thankfully not seeing a single boat. “I cant believe I just sucked you off outside.”
The smile John B sets of him is cheeky, his hands going up to pull JJ down and to his chest, out of view of anyone that may pass by. “Did I just take your outdoor virginity?”
JJ huffs a laugh as he sprawls himself on John B’s chest as his limbs give out, not really sure how they’re expected to move after all they’ve done. They might just have to float in the ocean forever. “Hardly,” he admits, still catching his breath. He thinks of every bonfire year at the boneyard and half his surf trips. “First time during the day and outside, though.”
John B’s arm curls around his shoulders, his other at his waist. “I want to do something with you no one else has done.”
It’s maybe too honest, shocking JJ still. There’s a million mental polaroids running through his mind, each more explicit than the last. If he even could, he’d be hard again by now. “I’m sure we could think of something.”
For a long time their chests just rise and fall in tandem, the waves lapping at the hull the only sound besides their slowly steading breaths.
Eventually, John B’s hand comes up and tangles in his hair, pushing it from his face and forcing JJ to look up at him. “You alright?”
“So good.” JJ presses a kiss to his chest and buries back against him. He never wants to leave this moment.
Thankfully, John B’s as good at the after care part as he is at actual sex. He bundles JJ up in his hoodie, gives him half his protein bar, and settles him on the bench behind the wheel with an extra towel around him to keep him warm as the sun starts to dip and the ocean air gets colder as they drive back to the chateau.
It’s not until they’re back and showered that JJ touches absentmindedly at the back of his neck, wondering why the skin there burns.
“Oops,” John B laughs, tugging JJ’s fingers away to soothe his own thumb over the area. “I guess I got you kinda good?”
JJ could kill him. The last hickeys just faded.
“Go get the make up.” He shoves John B towards the bathroom, wondering how he’s going to manage to hide this one from their friends and Shoupe.
With two forms of foundation in his hands, John B makes himself comfortable behind JJ on the couch, wrapping his legs around him and settled in. “Take off your shirt.”
JJ’s already complying, his shirt pooled in his lap, when his brain catches up. “Why did my shirt need to be off?”
“It didn’t.” Strong, pressing hands knead at his shoulder and JJ loses his train of thought as he melts into John B’s chest. He’s never been handled like this before, so fierce and vicious but never with the intention of causing harm and never with John B putting his own needs above JJ’s.
Suddenly his brain’s a lot louder than the pleasure. “I think I love you,” he realizes out loud.
In response, a trail of kisses start at the back of his ear and end at his shoulder. “I love you too,” John B says simply.
“Romantically,” JJ corrects, because he’s known he’s loved John B since he was seven, but this is different. “I think I love you like that. Like love, love.”
He’s grateful they’re not face to face. He doesnt think he’d admit any of this if they were.
Of course John B has to ruin it, tapping his hip and easing him up to get him to turn around. JJ ends up straddling his lap, John B’s hands pressing into his hips in a way that grounds him.
“JJ,” he says, looking up at him, leading him on with a smile that’s so soft it’s practically a swoon.
“What John B,” JJ teases back, overly dramatic.
He’s kissed gently in a way that feels like the words themselves and when they do pull apart, he gets to hear them, the form of them a breath away. “I love you too.”
Never in his life have those words been spoken to him in that cadence. There’s not a doubt in his head that they’re true. In this life, in every life, he knows John B is his other half.
The overwhelming need to be held sends him hiding his face in John B’s neck, letting his arms wrap around him and knowing that they wont let go until he asks him to.
He’s safe with him, his home.
John B’s fingers dance down his spine, always touching him in some way as JJ breathes through the usual crest of panic and into the valley of acceptance. He’s loved, and it’s okay. The world didn’t stop turning, the ceiling didn’t collapse, and his life didn’t end. Good things keep happening and they will keep happening and he’s vowed to accept them, even if he cant always convince himself he deserves them.