Big Wood Cabin

by orphan_account

Summary:

Prompt:
CrissColfer - Stranded in a cabin in a snowstorm (shh there's nothing wrong with good ol' cabin fic)

 

 

 

“Chris.”

 

Chris grumbles and tightens his arms around his chest, burying his face even further in his warm pillow. His warm, moving, somewhat muscle-y pillow.

 

“Chris, dude, gotta put your belt on.”

 

Chris sits up with a jerk, blinking at his surroundings and wiping at his face in case he had drooled.

 

He had, but only a little. Darren pokes him again, graciously ignoring the small damp patch on his shoulder and gesturing at the safety belt sign blinking overhead.  

 

“Oh,” Chris says dully, taking a moment before willing his sleep-fuzzy hands to work. He fumbles with the buckle, and Darren reaches over to untwist one end of it, his fingers warm and dry where they brush against Chris’s. Chris gives up and lets Darren do it, squinting up at the lit-up sign. “We there already?”

 

Darren grabs the other side of the buckle, his forearm brushing Chris’s stomach, and tugs the belt snug across Chris’s belly. “Not quite, but there’s gonna be some turbulence. I guess we’re getting in just ahead of a storm.”

 

Chris tries to tamp down the worry in his stomach as he regains control of the buckle, swatting Darren’s hands away when he tugs it a little too hard and clicking the buckle closed himself. “Hope the others beat it, too.”

 

“Their flight was like, almost an hour after ours,” Darren points out, shifting awkwardly in his seat, sitting back up straight and tugging his shirt down. “They’re probably gonna have to reroute.”

 

Chris hums and then clutches at the armrest when the plane starts to shudder.  It’s not a small plane, Chris knows, but it’s smaller than he’s used to. The turbulence seems rougher, somehow, more immediate.

 

“You wanna hold my hand?” Darren offers, palm up, smiling but sincere.

 

Rolling his eyes, Chris ignores Darren’s hand. He does edge Darren’s elbow off the back of armrest, though, claiming the whole thing for his own.

 

“Oh it’s like that, huh?” Darren speculates, eyeing Chris keenly.

 

“It’s like that.”

 

And thus, the Battle of the Armrest is waged.

 

They get a dirty look from the guy in the business suit across the aisle, but Chris feels as though that’s a small price to pay for such a thorough distraction from the shudders and jolts that wrack the plane. He’s always been adept at slap fights.

 

The battle ends in a draw when they touch down safe and sound at the tiny airport, much to Chris’s relief.

 

***

 

***

 

“But you guys are okay?” Chris asks, shrugging Darren’s bag higher up on his shoulder and rolling his own case behind him. Darren’s guitar is strapped across Chris’s back, and Chris’s carry-on is balanced on top of his suitcase, tucked against the handle. He shuffles forward slightly, looking around.

 

“Oh yeah, we’re all fine. We got a couple of suites, and we figure we can bond in a hotel as easily as in a cabin for a little while,” Lea chatters happily. Chris can hear someone, it sounds like Chord, shout something in the background, followed by laughter. “What about you guys? You’ll be okay on your own for a day or two?”

 

“We’ll be fine.” Spotting a familiar beanie-clad head making its way across the terminal, Chris pauses and drops Darren’s bag to the floor with a relieved sigh. “We’ll meet you there in a couple days, ‘kay?”

 

“Okay, we love you. Stay safe!”

 

“You too.” Chris ends the call and pockets his phone, laughing when Darren tries to squeeze past two people who aren’t paying attention and ends up getting sandwiched between them.

 

“Oof, sorry, sorry. Ugh.” He stops in front of Chris and blows a heavy breath out, leaning down to grab his bag as Chris hands off the guitar. “Hi.”

 

“Hey. What’s up?”

 

“Well the storm is headed towards where we wanna go. We can wait it out here, but the hotels are full so it would be like, here here. Stake out a couple seats and hope no one recognizes us.”

 

Chris wrinkles his nose and Darren laughs, leading them towards the exit. “Or we can take our chances and try to make it to the cabins, but if we wanna do that we’ve gotta leave about ten minutes ago.”

 

“Option two,” Chris says without hesitation, swerving to avoid a toddler in a puffy jacket.

 

“Good. Someone cancelled while I was talking to the lady so I already got us a car. How’s everyone else?”

 

“Fine. Bonding. Probably halfway to an orgy by now.”

 

Darren snorts, holding open the door for a bustling family with a luggage trolley.

 

It’s snowing when they get outside, a steady fall that turns to slush when it hits the ground. Heading towards the mostly barren rental lot, made even bleaker by the clouds blotting out the sun, Darren makes a beeline for the last row, squeezing the key fob in his hand and veering slightly when car lights flash.

 

“Really?” Chris asks, hurrying through the clouds his breath makes. “We’re gonna outrun a blizzard in a snot green Mazda?”

 

“Yes.” The trunk pops open, and Darren swings his bag inside. “Yes we are.”

 

***

 

***

They’re almost there, about to take the turn off that will bring them to the lake, when they spy a general store through the snow.

 

“It’s got a sign, it’s got a sign! It’s open, come on.” Chris slaps at Darren’s arm. “This is the place Cory was talking about, they own the cabins.”

 

“The car’ll get buried in snow before we make it outta here,” Darren warns, but pulls in anyway.

 

Chris is unbuckled and opening the door before they’re all the way stopped. “I’d rather take our chances now than die of starvation trapped in the cabin. We’ll be quick. Just pretend you’re on Supermarket Sweep!”

 

They run for the cover of the store, bursting inside with a violent tinkle of the bell over the door and letting the wind sweep a fine layer of snow over the floor just inside before they can get it closed again.

 

“Supermarket Sweep,” Darren mumbles, then nods toward the shelves of snacks near the register. “You get the food, I’ll get the drinks,” he suggests with a nudge to Chris’s shoulder, heading towards the refrigerated cases in the back.

 

“Diet Coke!” Chris calls, and zeros in on the jerky.

 

The lady behind the counter watches their exchange with a bored but altogether neutral look. She’s dressed in three different types of plaid and there’s a dog-eared Sudoku book open in front of her.

 

“Didn’t expect any more customers today,” she says, picking up her book so Chris has room to set his first armful down. It’s mostly jerky and trail mix, with a couple of tiny cartons of Goldfish.

 

“We’re part of the group that’s staying in the cabins at the lake,” Chris explains, catching a bag of jerky before it can slide off the pile onto the floor. “Thought we’d try to beat the storm instead of camping out at the airport.”

 

“Ah, you’re Cory’s friends.” She takes the bag from him and starts to ring up, and Chris smiles and nods before heading back to see if he can find something more substantial.

 

“I’m Deb,” she continues as Chris runs his eyes over the shelves.

 

“I’m Chris,” he replies, gaze sweeping over a rack of candy. “It’s nice to meet you.”

 

“The cabins are all set up for you. I’ll send one of the kids around when the storm’s let up, see if you boys need anything.”

 

“That’d be great, thanks,” he calls, tucking a jar of peanut butter in the crook of his arm as he reaches the canned food. The tops of most of them are dusty from sitting so long, but he picks out some soup and whatever else looks like it isn’t expired. There’s a surprising amount of chopped olives, the little cans piled high, and Chris decides to grab some just because.

 

He meets Darren on the way back, who’s carrying a carton of orange juice balanced on a six-pack of Diet Coke balanced on two plastic gallons of booze. Chris rolls his eyes.

 

“Oh whatever,” Darren squints at the cans Chris is cradling. “Mister olives. You don’t get to judge me.”

 

“That’s not even enough Coke,” Chris complains, getting into an elbow-heavy scuffle to see who gets to dump their supplies first.

 

“It’s all they had.” Darren wins and sets his alcohol down, nodding at Deb with a smile and grabbing a big box of matches to add to the pile. “Hi, I’m Darren.”

 

“Deb.” She keeps swiping things and pressing buttons on the satisfyingly old-fashioned register. “We’ve got more diet in the back, I’m pretty sure.”

 

“I don’t think we’ve got time, actually,” Darren says, glancing at the snow whipping past the windows. The wind is audible even inside, a low, whooshing moan that seems to get louder as they all fall quiet.

 

“Yeah, we should probably get going.” Chris grabs a few more things and decides not to go searching for s’mores fixings, digging out his wallet and handing over his card before Darren can, muttering over Darren’s unimpressed huff, “You rented the car, doofus.”

 

Deb hands him his card and the receipt, and they gather their paper bags, heading back to the car with thankful goodbyes.

 

“Drive safe!” Deb calls after them, setting her Sudoku book back on the counter as Chris pulls the door shut behind him, the faint tinkle of the bell lost in the rush of the wind.

 

 

***

 

***

 

 

They decide to park the car in a barn, rather than risk it getting completely buried in snow.

 

Of course, Darren is driving, so that means Chris is the one who has to get out in the middle of a blizzard, figure out how to unlatch the door, and then heave the damn thing open.

 

He’s shivering and wet and miserable by the time he drags the door shut again. Darren wipes some of the snow off his shoulders with a sympathetic wince and offers to take all the groceries if Chris goes first and opens the door.

 

By the time they make it inside they’re both wet and shivering.

 

There’s a light switch just inside the door that doesn’t seem to do anything. Chris discovers it while catching his balance as he toes off his boots. Darren murmurs something vague about how Cory had talked about generators, and Chris thinks that’s probably what was in the shed butted up against the side of the cabin.

 

“It’s fucking freezing in here,” Darren points out helpfully, his breath puffing into swirling clouds. He sets everything down and makes his way through the dark cabin, past a pair of wingback chairs and an overstuffed couch, over to the empty fireplace.  Chris follows him carefully after abandoning his things by the door, stripping out of his damp scarf and coat as he goes. The floorboards creak coldly beneath his socked feet, and he winds up by the far window as Darren examines the neatly stacked logs by the fireplace. “Least there’s enough wood for a fire.”

 

Peering around as he sets his wet clothes down, Chris tries to make out the lay of the place. The windows are shuttered, with only small shafts of silvery light sneaking through at the edges to illuminate the inside of the cabin. Darren starts building the fire, stacking the wood carefully, and Chris runs the tips of his gloved fingers along the length of the wooden bench beneath the window.

 

“Could you maybe empty one of the bags?” Darren asks. “We’re gonna need kindling.”

 

“Yeah, I-” it takes him a moment to get a glove off, and then he pulls his phone out of his pocket, washing the room in a faint blue glow when he unlocks the screen. “Okay, kitchen. Right.” He makes his way back to the door, grabbing the bags, and then over to the kitchen counter, blue light bobbing as he walks. He leaves the groceries on the counter, and then helps Darren rip up the bags, fingers cold and clumsy as they twist the driest pieces up tight.

 

The paper burns hot, the wood is dry, and it doesn’t take long for the fire to catch.

 

The cabin looks different bathed in flickering orange, homey and much less hollow. There’s a folder propped up on the couch that Chris hadn’t noticed before, and he scoops it up before flopping down in its place, thumbing it open. “Welcome!” he reads, as Darren puts the grate up in front of the fire. “We hope you enjoy your stay, blah blah blah… Um…” Scanning ahead for anything relevant, he starts once more a few paragraphs later. “The generator is located around the Northern side of Big Wood Cabin.” He tucks the folder down to look at Darren, who’s sitting on the floor with his feet stretched out towards the fire. “We’re in Big Wood Cabin, by the way. Um, okay. Big Wood Cabin, generator, lights and a hot water heater oh thank god. Coffee pot under the kitchen sink. Linens, blankets, and towels in the hall closet. Firewood in, oh, in the barn. Wonderful. That was probably that big lumpy pile of stuff under the tarp, I guess.”

 

A great gust of wind rattles the windows at that moment, and he and Darren share a wince.

 

Chris eyes the small stack of wood resignedly. “That’s not enough to get us through the night, is it.”

 

Darren shakes his head, leaning back on his palms. “Nope.”

 

“Well.”

 

“On the plus side,” Darren says, leaning up and wiggling his feet. “I can feel my toes, and that calls for a celebration.”

 

“Drinks?”

 

Nodding, Darren pushes himself up to his feet. “Drinks.”

 

Chris lets Darren pull him up and shuffles over to the kitchen with him. It’s small, with only a few cabinets, and it doesn’t take them long to find the sturdy plastic dishes and thick ceramic mugs. They decide on whiskey, straight to warm them up faster, and Chris starts to pour as Darren disappears down the short hallway. He comes back a minute later with an overflowing armful of pillows and blankets, plopping them down in front of the fireplace and making a nest. There’s a spot for Chris, a couple pillows and a swirled-up blanket, and Chris sinks down carefully before handing Darren’s mug over. “Cheers.”

 

“To toe-feelage!”

 

“To ill-prepared cabin adventures .”

 

They clink their mugs together and drink, and Darren throws a blanket over their shoulders while Chris tries to breathe through the burn in his throat.

 

“So,” Darren says as Chris cups his hands around his mug and waits impatiently for warmth. “Bonding.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Let’s bond.”

 

“I think we’re pretty bonded, don’t you? I mean we’ve been playing boyfriends forever. Pretty sure Lea was just using this as an excuse to get blackmail material on all the newbies.”

 

“Well, they’re not here, and neither is Lea, so I say we bond with each other. Take our friendship to the next level.” Wiggling down into the pillows, Darren clutches the blanket close around his neck and leans toward Chris intently. “Tell me something about yourself, Christopher, something I don’t already know. No! Something nobody knows.”

 

Staring at Darren for a long moment, Chris eventually decides to play along. “My nose is cold.”

 

Darren squints at him, as though assessing the validity of his statement. Eventually, he holds a hand up, gingerly feeling the tip of Chris’s nose with the pads of his fingers. “I agree,” he declares a moment later, withdrawing his hand to breathe on his fingers, and then returning them once more to Chris’s nose.

 

Chris stays very still as Darren rubs the tip of his nose in tiny circles until, apparently satisfied, he leans back with a smile. “There! I feel closer already, don’t you?”

 

“You know,” Chris says, raising an eyebrow. “The rest of me’s pretty cold, too.”

 

Grinning, Darren wiggles his fingers and shrugs. “Well, that’s a bit closer than I’d intended, but if you really-”

 

“Shut up.” Chris knocks his shoulder into Darren’s and then rocks back up straight, unable to keep from smiling.

 

“If you’re super cold you should put on your long underwear,” Darren informs him sagely. “I think I’m gonna go change into mine. They’re amazing.”

 

“I’m sure they are.”

 

 “Keep my spot warm for me, yeah? And maybe put some more wood on the fire?” Darren asks, holding his mug out and letting the blanket fall from his shoulders.

 

“Yeah.” Chris accepts Darren’s mug, setting them both down far enough away from the blankets that they won’t get knocked over, and then moves the grate away from the fireplace. Placing another piece of wood in the flames, he settles close, and lets the warmth seep into his fingers and cheeks.

 

“Check it out!” Darren calls, and when Chris turns around he’s standing in the hall with his hands on his hips, wearing a grin and something that looks suspiciously like red feetie pajamas. “Awesome, right? Look at this.” Turning around and arching his back, he looks over his shoulder and points to his ass. “Butt flap!”

 

“Bear bottom,” Chris reads, trying not to look the winking teddy bear face in the eye. “Wow.”

 

“What do you think?”

 

“…Lots of things,” Chris answers, turning away from the jut of Darren’s ass to set the grate back in front of the fire.

 

“Clearly the awesomeness is beyond you,” Darren says dismissively. Chris snorts and wraps himself up tighter in the blanket, glancing over at Darren skeptically.  Darren pads over to the kitchen area, poking at their pile of groceries. “You want something to eat? Speak now or get it your own damn self ‘cause I am so fucking cold right now, you don’t even know.”

 

“Jerky, if you please,” Chris replies, his stomach rumbling at the thought of food.

 

A bag of jerky slaps against his chest, sliding down into his lap, and then Darren is there, practically cannon-balling into the pile of blankets.

 

“You’re not putting on any more clothes?” Chris asks, grudgingly doling out some of the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

 

“The nakeder you are, the warmer you are,” Darren says sagely, producing a bag of trail mix from god knows where, and then failing to open it with his stiff, shivery fingers.

 

“Oh, well. That makes perfect sense, thanks.” Chris grabs the trail mix and tears the bag open, stealing some before handing it back.

 

“No, seriously, like.” Darren makes an expansive hand gesture and then shudders, huddling in on himself as Chris flings the blanket farther over his shoulders and tugs it tight around his front. “Just, we need a bubble of air. One big warm bubble of air around us, not broken up or squeezed off or- Look, okay, I was on this camping trip once with my anthropology professor, right? And she’s a pro, and she was firmly in camp naked.”

 

“That doesn’t sound skeezy at all.” Chris crunches his handful of peanuts and raisins happily, reading the label on his jerky. Teriyaki. He rips the top off, shaking the bag and peering into it so he doesn’t get the little packet of Do Not Eat stuff he inevitably grabs when he’s not paying attention. Darren’s shoulder brushes against him as he reaches for the whiskey.

 

“No, but it was true, ‘cause we bundled up the first night, and woke up all achey and cold, but the second night a few of us tried it naked, and in the morning our sleeping bags were totally toasty. All the cold people hated us.” Darren takes a swig and then looks expectantly at Chris.

 

“Congratulations on being loathed by your peers,” Chris tells him, and then bites down on a piece of jerky, pulling his head back slowly until the jerky tears away into a small enough piece to fit in his mouth. He chews a couple times, jaw cracking, until his mouthful is mostly small enough to talk around. “I’m no’ getting naked for your sick amusement. We don’t even have sleeping bags.”

 

“Or manners, apparently.”

 

Chris sticks his tongue out, and Darren grins at him, keeping his smile as he tips his head back to pour some trail mix in his mouth.

 

Chris watches the glide of Darren’s Adam’s apple beneath the stubbled skin of his throat for a moment, before blinking and turning away, looking around for his mug. This time, when the alcohol slips down his throat, Chris can feel the burn in his belly and his face. The blush trickles down from his cheeks to the back of his neck, but the warmth feels too good to bother him much.  “Your turn,” he says, when Darren looks at him a little too closely. “Tell me something about yourself that nobody knows. Something that isn’t ‘oh I like to sleep naked because one of my professors in college was a pervert,’ preferably.”

 

“That is a gross misrepresentation of Professor Osbourne, and um…” Darren pauses, sucking on the inside of his lower lip as his fingernails tap against his mug. “Oh! Ever since Blaine cheated I’ve secretly been playing him like he’s periodically possessed by a mischievous demon.”

 

Chris blinks. And then nods. “Okay. Does he know he’s being possessed or-”

 

“He has no idea! He thinks he’s the one making all these horrible decisions.”

 

Chewing thoughtfully on a new piece of jerky, Chris eventually nods. “Yes. I can see it. In a strange way,” he adds, pointing the jerky in his hand at Darren, “it actually makes more sense than the other way.”

 

Stealing the jerky pointed at him, Darren nods and bites a piece off with a flourish, wrist twisting magnificently. “I thought so, too. Your turn.”

 

“Okay, okay,” Chris says, shifting until he’s sitting cross-legged, taking a fortifying sip of whiskey while he thinks. “Okay! Got one. So you know last year when I was sort of writing while filming? Like I’d sneak off and-”

 

“Disappear into a corner with your laptop and ignore everyone else, yes, I remember.” Darren pours some trail mix into his hand and proceeds to pick out the M&Ms.  “Go on.”

 

“Well,” Chris continues, snatching a blue one before Darren gets to it, and then leaning back to avoid Darren’s swipe as he pops it in his mouth. “Sometimes I wasn’t really Chris, all the way, like I’d still sort of be thinking like Kurt. I’d have to go home later and edit entire chapters that were filled with like, catty remarks about princesses in puffy-sleeved dresses and how some men just shouldn’t wear tights.”

 

Snorting, Darren curls his hand up and funnels the M&M-less handful back into the bag. “Remember when I called you that weekend you were writing your lightning journal, and you hung up on me? You called me a jackwagon. I was just asking if you wanted to go mini-golfing. Don’t take this the wrong way, man, but you pretty much always get a little over-invested in your characters.”

 

“Well, don’t take this the wrong way,” Chris says, swiping the trail mix from Darren and slapping away his grasping hands. “But your head’s pretty much always a little over-invested in your ass. And you’re way too competitive when it comes to mini-golf; no one likes playing with you.”

 

“Harsh,” Darren says, giving up on the trail mix and stealing the jerky from Chris’s lap.

 

“This is not enough food for two grown people.” Chris shakes the trail mix bag and pours the dregs into his mouth, shivering at the thought of leaving the warm pocket of space in front of the fire. He sighs. “I’ll be back. Gonna change.”

 

“Butt flap!” Darren exclaims, raising his arms in triumph.

 

“Um, no.” Chris grabs his suitcase and rolls it towards the bedroom, the wood under his socked feet growing colder the farther he gets from Darren and the fire. “No butt flaps, just normal people long johns. And it’s your turn next so you have to think of a good one.”

 

The bedroom is dark and cold, all four beds stark, stripped of their covers, and Chris spends as little time in there as possible. He shucks his clothes off and wriggles into his gray, thermal long johns, pulling on a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt over the top and reaching into Darren’s opened bag to grab the spare beanie peeking out of it.

 

“Oh hey,” Darren says as Chris shuffles quickly back into the flickering orange room, making a short detour for the whiskey and some more food. “I’ve got a beanie just like that.”

 

“Do you?” Chris smirks.

 

“You are just a thieving little shit this evening, Christopher. What’s gotten into you?”

 

“Whiskey, maybe,” Chris concedes, pouring them both some more after he settles down again. He passes the saltines to Darren and sets about unscrewing the peanut butter. “It’s your turn for a secret.” Holding out the jar, Chris digs his fingers into the packet of crackers, working some out and waiting for Darren to finish before he scoops up some peanut butter and makes messy little sandwiches. He twists his wrist around and sucks a glob of peanut butter off the side of his hand, looking back up at Darren and raising his eyebrows. “Well?”

 

“Right. Um.” Darren shakes himself and tightens his hand around the packet of crackers, crinkling the plastic. The soft red fabric of his long johns gaps in between the buttons up his chest as he rocks forward and bites his lip. “Okay, okay. I have licked three different people’s eyeballs. Not both, just one apiece.”

 

Chris blinks reflexively, eyelids fluttering so much he can’t really see Darren for a few moments. “Wow. What do they taste like?”

 

“Sort of salty, but like a mild salty. Slippery.”

 

Chris takes a deep breath, contemplates, and exhales in a rush, “That’s so gross.”

 

The whiskey sloshes thinly in Darren’s mug as he sets it down after taking a swig, and then he’s twisting around to add another log to the fire. “Eyelashes feel like feathers on your tongue,” he reveals happily. His long johns bunch and stretch tight at his waist, straining across his shoulders as he reaches for the stack of wood.

 

“So gross,” Chris reiterates, and then shoves an entire little cracker sandwich in his mouth because his stomach is twisting up tight.

 

“Your turn.”

 

“Mmm,” Chris hums, tapping a finger to his lips as he chews. “Oh! Ah-hic!”

 

Darren laughs as Chris groans, dropping his head and shaking it. “Uh- hic -gh.”

 

“Hang on, hang on.” Darren slides the grate back into place and turns back around, motioning Chris closer. “Come here, my mom always used to do this when we got hiccups.”

 

“What am I doing?” Chris asks, inching closer to Darren.

 

“Okay, um…” Darren keeps his arms up but stops moving his hands, chewing on his lower lip for a second before nodding. “Okay, turn around and lean back, just like, all the way back.”

 

“Luh- hic -ike…?”

 

“Yeah, in my lap, come on.”

 

“This is going to end badly,” Chris predicts, but he turns around anyway. Blankets swirl and bunch around his legs, and a pillow slides halfway out from under him as he leans back. He hitches to a stop when Darren’s knee brushes against his back, but then Darren’s legs are straightening out beneath him and there’s a hand pressing against his shoulder, guiding him down.

 

“Hey,” Darren says, leaning over Chris once he’s settled across Darren’s thighs.

 

“Hu- hic -ey.”

 

“So where are they?” Darren’s hand moves from his shoulder to high on his chest, and his fingers slip beneath the collar of his long johns to rub firm little circles. His touch is cool against Chris’s skin, callused fingertips pressing hard.

 

Chris swallows at the feel, eyes losing focus as his mind traces the path of Darren’s fingers. “What?”

 

“The hiccups.” Darren pushes, fingertips pressing into the hollow at the base of Chris’s throat. “Here? Lower? I need to know where they’re coming from.”

 

“Oh just - hic - there. Yeah. Right around… there.”

 

“Mmkay.” Darren’s fingers keep working in small, firm circles, and Chris keeps swallowing and staring at the exposed beams of the ceiling. Darren hums, and Chris listens quietly for the most part, hiccupping occasionally. It isn’t until Chris finally relaxes all the way, his occasionally hitched breathing slow and in time with the soothing melody Darren is humming, that Darren leans down and grabs Chris by the jaw. Chris’s breath hitches in an entirely different way, and time seems to slow as Darren’s face gets closer to his, lips parted and small puffs of warm breath ghosting across Chris’s cheek. And then Darren changes course slightly and licks Chris’s eyeball.  

 

“Ugh- what? Oh my god, why? Why, why would you- ugh!” Chris jerks up and crams the heel of his hand into his eye socket, glaring at Darren with his remaining, un-licked eye. Darren’s too busy doubling over with laughter to catch the full, scathing brunt of it, though.

 

“Four,” Darren wheezes, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “That’s four eyeballs now. My secret has evolved.”

 

“Your mom did that to you?” Chris scrubs futilely at his eye.

 

“Oh no, she’d wait ‘til we were calm and then scare the shit out of us.”

 

“I can’t believe you actually licked my eyeball,” Chris sulks, finally dropping his hand from his eye. The glare he’s still aiming at Darren probably loses some oomph with the frantic, involuntary eyelash fluttering that follows, but Chris isn’t about to let up any time soon.

 

“Worked, didn’t it?” Darren grins, eyes drifting up and over, studying the walls as if he could see through them when the wind shrieks and whooshes loudly, reminding them of its presence.

 

Chris grabs his mug and brings it up to his chin, cupping it with both hands as though it were filled with something warm. His voice reverberates faintly around the small ceramic chamber as the wind whips against the shuttered windows. “I think I’d rather have hiccups.”

 

 

***

 

***

 

 

The night wears on. They get drunk, and then drunker, sharing more and more outrageous “secrets.”

 

The cabin gets gradually, infinitesimally warmer.

 

Darren convinces Chris to help him drag a mattress in from the bedroom.

 

“Light and thin,” Chris wheezes as he shuffles awkwardly backwards, hunched over with his fingers threaded together beneath the edge of the unfeasibly heavy mattress. “Light and thin, you said.”

 

“I may have miscalculated slightly,” Darren confesses, sounding just as strained as Chris is. “But we’ll be way warmer in here tonight, by whatever’s left of the fire.”

 

Chris plops his end down unceremoniously once he can feel the heat from the fire licking up his back. He lets it warm him while Darren situates the mattress neatly between the chairs and the couch, piling the blankets and pillows back on top once he’s done.

 

“Who’s turn is it?” Darren asks, holding one end of a blanket up for Chris to slide under.

 

“I don’t know, but if we’re gonna keep going we need to change it up a bit, this is getting boring. Your last three secrets have all been laundry-based.”

 

“You’re the only person on the planet who knows about my rinse cycle shame, Chris. That’s nothing to sniff at.”

 

“How about questions?”

 

“We ask each other super revealing, intimate questions?” Darren asks without looking up from arranging the pillows around them in a lopsided circle.

 

“Yes. But not-” Chris holds up a finger, waiting until Darren looks up to see it before he continues, “asshole questions.” He wags his finger and then drops it, looking around for the whiskey bottle. They’ve reached the point where drinking straight from the bottle is less likely to result in spillage than trying to pour it into the mugs, and they’ve been passing it back and forth. “Good, clean, soul-bearing questions.”

 

“Can I go first?”

 

“Yes,” Chris declares, and then points again. “No asshole questions.”

 

“Okay, so, hypothetical.” Darren wiggles happily, settling in. “Your hypothetical boyfriend gets turned into an animal.”

 

“You are such an odd person.”

 

“I’m not finished, okay. He gets turned into an animal, right, and the only way to turn him back is to have sex with him.” Darren is grinning evilly at this point, and Chris hides his face in his hands. “Which animal would do the least damage to your psyche?”

 

“Why did I let you go first?” Chris moans into his hands.

 

“Answer! Answer, you have to answer.” Darren twists a finger into Chris’s ribs, grabbing the bottle from his lap when he squirms away from the obnoxious pressure.

 

“Ugh.” Chris drags his hands down his face and glares at Darren. “Asshole question.”

 

“Annswerrr.”

 

“Sea monkey!”

 

“What,” Darren laughs, leaning back and tossing a pillow at Chris’s face. “How would that even work?”

 

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it.” Chris plucks the bottle from Darren’s lax grip and takes a swig, whapping Darren in the shoulder with the pillow as he does. “Your turn,” Chris rasps as he lowers the bottle.

 

“Oh no.”

 

“Hypothetically.” Chris smirks as Darren buries his smiling face in the pillow. “You get…” Chris squeezes his eyes shut and thinks for a moment. “You get turned into a dog.”

 

“What kind of a dog?”

 

“Labradoodle, obviously.” Chris waves his hand dismissively.

 

“Obviously.”

 

“Your parent’s labradoodle,” Chris amends, mind working fuzzily.

 

“Oh god.”

 

“And the only way to turn back into a human is to have sex, as a dog, with… with Donald Trump!”

 

“Jesus Christ.”

 

“So?” Chris wheedles, watching as Darren tries to hide himself under the blankets. “Do you spend your life as a dog, sleeping at the foot of your mom and dad’s bed, watching them do it, or do you have kinky one-time sex with Donald Trump and then live with your shame as a human for the rest of your life?”

 

“You’re awful.”

 

Chris shrugs and looks around. “You started it. Aha!” He lurches over and grabs his can of olives off the sofa, scooping some out with his finger and leaning back to drop it into his mouth. “Ansuh the quession.”

 

“Trump, okay? I’d do Trump the one time and be human.”

 

“Knew it. Pervert.”

 

“Shut up, it’s my turn to ask. What’s your biggest… no,” Darren trails off, biting his lower lip and staring intently at Chris’s upper chest. He reels back suddenly, snapping his fingers. “Best, no, no! Worst! Worst blowjob.”

 

“Again with the asshole questions!”

 

“We’re bonding, this calls for hard-hitting questions.”

 

“I’m bonding with an asshole.” Chris winces as soon as the words leave his mouth. “Shut up.”

 

“Worst blowjob, and I’ll let that slide.”

 

“Giving or receiving?” Chris asks, shrugging the blanket higher up his shoulders as Darren makes a show of contemplating.

 

“Either,” Darren finally settles on, bouncing as he says it. His bounce tugs the blanket back off Chris’s shoulders, and Chris yanks on it, stealing most of it and cocooning himself imperiously.

 

“Fine.”

 

“Fine,” Darren echoes, reaching down to pull another blanket out from under them. Chris feels the tug beneath him and refuses to budge, launching instead into his tale of woe.

 

“I was eighteen.”

 

“Pre-Glee?” Darren clarifies, giving up and curling into the too-small corner of blanket Chris has left for him.

 

“Pre-Glee, first week of college. I wasn’t really out yet. I mean, I wasn’t really in, but I definitely hadn’t come out.”

 

Darren nods his understanding.

 

“And there was this guy in English comp who kept looking at me. I wasn’t sure why he was trying to figure me out, like for nefarious reasons or for… other reasons. But I was pretty sure he was trying to figure me out. And then after the last class of the first week he asked me back to his place for a study date.”

 

“Other reasons.”

 

Chris nods. “Other reasons. So I went, and we sort of studied, but mostly we were just laying on his bed reading this book we had to do a paper on. It was so awful.”

 

“Reading a book was awful?”

 

“The book was fine, but I was tense, and he was so tense, and there was no music or anything just the sound of us breathing. He was breathing really loudly. And then he sat up and he had this… this massive erection.”

 

Darren’s eyes bug out, which Chris finds satisfying for some reason. “From reading tensely with you?”

 

Chris scrunches his face up in a frown. “And breathing heavily, I guess. I didn’t, it felt so wrong, but I just- It was the first time I’d ever had an effect on a guy, I thought, and I didn’t want to ruin it. We didn’t even say anything. I- He just watched me, like, here’s my boner, your move. I sort of, like, slid down, I was going to push myself up and- and I was going to touch him, but I slid down and he thought I was, I mean my face was right there, and he just all of a sudden was grabbing at his pants, undoing them. They were slacks, they had all these creases like he’d been sitting in them for days, and he was wearing really tight, white underwear and he got his dick out and I was kind of frozen, like I didn’t know what to do. But I figured he thought I was going to do it on purpose and I felt like- I felt like I couldn’t not do it, then?”

 

“So you did it?” Darren asks, like if he finishes the story then Chris doesn’t have to, and Darren can be spared the uncomfortable horribleness that he totally asked for. Chris isn’t letting him off that easily.

 

“Not really. I sat up a little bit, and then he stabbed me in the cheek with his dick and came all over my hair. Then he started crying.”

 

Darren chokes on a laugh, incredulous. “No way.”

 

“Yes way. And then he made me leave.”

 

“Oh my god.”

 

“I left my book there. I spent that whole night worrying about having to get it back from him but in the morning my mom drove me to LA for my Glee call-back.”

 

“Holy shit.”

 

Nodding, Chris worms his arms out of the blanket so he can eat the last of his olives. He spends some time scraping the can clean, unwilling to look at Darren just yet.

 

“You really are bonding with an asshole.”

 

Leaning over with a snort, Chris sets the empty can between the two chairs next to the rest of their detritus, a small collection of empty wrappers and a jar of peanut butter they were too lazy to put back in the kitchen. When he sits up and turns Darren is closer than he was, and then Chris is being hugged.

 

“Darren-”

 

“Shhh, bonding.”

 

Chris rolls his eyes and relaxes into Darren’s hold, letting his head drop to Darren’s shoulder and patting him awkwardly on the back. Darren wriggles closer, legs sliding next to Chris’s, and Chris closes his eyes, smiling. “You just wanted back under the covers, didn’t you?”

 

“…Shhh, bonding.”

 

Chris unwraps himself and spreads the blanket over Darren. “It’s my turn to ask a question.”

 

“Hit me,” Darren mumbles against Chris’s shoulder.

 

“…Biggest fear.”

 

“Oo-oooh,” Darren sing-songs, sitting back and huddling into the blanket. He squints at Chris, and then shoves a tongue into his cheek, putting on what he clearly thinks is a thinking face. “Are we talking metaphysical, or like phobias?”

 

“Whichever’s more embarrassing.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Chris is treated to more of Darren’s thoughtful face, and then Darren says, “I think maybe one of each, just to even things out a bit.”

 

“Well.” Chris locates the bottle and rolls the mouth of it against his lower lip contemplatively, watching the vaguely guilty expression on Darren’s face and fighting back a shiver when the smell of the whiskey hits him. He takes a swig, and then rasps, “Do your worst.”

 

“When, uh… big one first.”

 

Chris nods, passing the bottle.

 

“The summer before high school, I got, um, like really… I got really into daytime talk shows.”

 

“Oh my god,” Chris snatches the bottle back.

 

“No, come on, let me finish! This was pretty traumatic for me.” Darren reaches for the bottle. “I was watch- give, come on, give me the-”

 

Chris bats his hands away when they change course. “No tickling!”

 

“I need fortification!”

 

“For Maury?”

 

“Jerry Springer, actually.”

 

Chris blinks, then hands over the bottle. “Fair enough.”

 

Darren takes the bottle with a grudging smile.

 

“So, Jerry Springer.”

 

“That’s just where it started.”

 

“I’m all ears.”

 

Darren’s Adam’s apple works as he tips his head back. His stubble is already in the pre-beard stage, short, dark hairs growing in a swirling grain across his throat. Chris looks away, arranging the pillows while he waits for Darren to continue.

 

“So, there was this one episode, the last episode I ever watched, actually – Secret Fetishes.”

 

“Oh god.”

 

“There was a guy who - it was fish. His fetish was - he would like, roll around in them and rub them-”

 

“No.”

 

“Yes. All over his body. Dead fish. And he was confessing to his girlfriend.”

 

Chris covers his eyes and groans, slumping over into the pile of cushions he so recently prepared. His head swims with the movement, and Chris thinks he probably shouldn’t have anything more to drink.

 

“He came out in this big ugly jacket, and I was just thinking he had an unfortunate fashion sense, but no.”

 

“No.”

 

“No. He ripped it off, and there were fish-” Chris peeks out from between his fingers, and Darren is miming, circling his hands across his chest, “- duct taped.”

 

Grinning, Chris hides his face again.

 

“Huge, slimy fish, all over his torso.” Darren’s having trouble speaking now, a laugh threatening to break through. “And like, into his pants. He- his girlfriend freaked, and he started chasing her around, arms out, like he wanted a hug.”

 

Chris rolls over, burying his face in a pillow, body shuddering with held-back giggles.

 

“It was just - the whole audience was going crazy. People were freaking out, and I just remember sitting on the couch watching and, and it was quiet. The whole house was empty and quiet except for the TV that was on too loud.” Darren sighs deeply. “It was just one of those moments, you know? One of those surreal, is this really what life is? moments.”

 

Chris has had his fair share of those moments, and he nods, rolling over and stuffing some pillows behind his head. His knees bump into Darren’s, and Chris starts to shift away, but Darren just flops down next to him, propped on his elbow with his face a little too close and his cheek smashed against his palm. Chris’s face gets hot, and he looks towards the ceiling.

 

Darren’s voice is low, rough from alcohol and right by Chris’s ear. “That night we had fish for dinner.”

 

Chris barks out a laugh, squeezing his eyes shut. “Shut up.”

 

“We did! We did. And I – thirteen year-old me just, had like, an episode. I didn’t even make it to the table. I froze in the doorway, and I saw the food, and I could see the guy, running around the stage with his arms out, fish sliding out of the duct tape as he tried to hug his girlfriend, and I looked at my parents, and my brother and I wondered if they – I wondered what about them was like that, that secret that you can’t tell anyone because you need them to love you. And I wondered if I had that, if there was a part of me like that, and whether I’d ever find anybody who would hug my fish and if I could hug theirs.”

 

“Oh my god, Darren.”

 

“Shut up, this was huge. I was having a moment.”

 

“What’d you do when your moment was over?”

 

“I ate the fish.”

 

“Was it, like, symbolic?”

 

“It was cod.”

 

Chris huffs, turning away from Darren. “I want a new cabin partner.”

 

A scratchy chin tucks its way between Chris’s neck and his shoulder. “Too bad! You’re stuck with me. You love me, don’t lie. You would hug my fish.”

 

“Never show anyone your fish, Darren, especially not me.”

 

“Oh come on, you gotta show your fish at some point. You can’t spend your whole life walking around with your fish trapped under your unflattering jacket.”

 

“Can, too.” Chris shrugs Darren away, grateful for the long sleeves that hide the wave of goosebumps Darren’s scruff scraping against his neck provoked. His head feels strange and hollow, buzzing with alcohol and the whispering melancholy that sometimes comes along with it. He rolls over to find Darren pouting. “That wasn’t even a fear.”

 

“My fear is that I’ll never find someone to embrace my fish, once I find out what my fish is, of course.”

 

“What if you don’t have a fish?”

 

“Do you have a fish?”

 

Chris blinks, and wonders, vaguely, if a fish can be a person. “Maybe.”

 

Darren nods. “Everybody’s got a fish.”

 

The fire falls, charred chunks of wood collapsing into ash, and Darren twists away. “I gotta fix this. Only two more logs.”

 

“We should go to bed while it’s still warm, sleep through the worst of it.” Chris watches as Darren pokes at the glowing embers with the wood in his hand, setting it on top when he’s satisfied.

 

“Kay.”

 

Chris sits up, scratching his nose. “I gotta pee.”

 

He’s dizzy when he stands, and it takes him a few blinks before the cabin stops sloping unnervingly. He stands on the mattress, blankets piled around his feet, and waits for his body to settle.

 

“You okay?” Darren asks, reaching up to brace a hand against Chris’s hip.

 

“Yup.” He takes a big step, bigger than he probably should, off of the mattress and away from Darren’s heavy, steadying hand. The farther he gets from the fire the hotter he realizes his face is, and the strangest parts of him feel too heavy, fuzzy and foreign to him.

 

The bathroom is freezing. His fingers are clumsy as he fumbles with his layers, and the water from the tap is frigid when he’s done. “Toothbrush,” he mumbles, blinking muzzily at the bare counter. His bag is in the bedroom. “Right.”

 

It takes a while for him to make it back to their mattress.

 

“I swear I wasn’t this drunk before I stood up,” he disclaims, letting Darren take his hand as he steps onto the mattress and sinks down.

 

“It happens,” Darren laughs. “I got you some water.”

 

“Oh, bless you.” Chris takes the mug from Darren and sips at the icy water.

 

Darren pats at his shoulder and then pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll be back.”

 

Chris watches, for a moment, the way Darren’s ass moves beneath the creepy winking teddy bear face on his long johns, but looks away before he gets too far.

 

A while later, after Darren disappears into the bathroom and closes the door, Chris can hear him peeing. Blushing, he realizes Darren probably heard him first. He finishes the water quickly, wrapping a blanket around himself and lying down with his feet towards the fire, absently wondering why being overheard while you’re peeing is the sort of thing human beings find embarrassing.

 

“What are your feelings on spoons?” Darren asks when he comes back out.

 

“Preferred for cereal,” Chris says immediately. “Um, ice cream. Soup. Occasionally mashed potatoes but only when there’s lots of gravy.” He pauses. “You meant the sleeping position, didn’t you.”

 

“I did, yes,” Darren laughs, climbing under the covers, a bit unsteady himself.

 

Chris thinks of Darren tucked behind him, chin against his neck and breath in his ear. “Oh, I… I think I would do better as the big spoon.”

 

“Big spoon it is.” Darren flops down hard next to Chris, letting out a surprised little yelp, and then starts wiggling backwards, until his ass is snug against Chris’s crotch. He lifts his arm, and Chris hesitates a moment before stretching his over Darren’s middle.  “Don’t be shy, Chris,” Darren says, grabbing Chris’s hand and tucking it up by his chest. “This is for our survival.”

 

Darren’s arms rests solidly across Chris’s, and Chris inches forward until his chest is pressed against Darren’s back. He’s just settling his head down against the pillows when he realizes, “You never told me your second fear.”

 

“Oh, mice.”

 

Chris snorts, and the curls at the nape of Darren’s neck move with the force of his breath.

 

“I mean, in cages, they’re fine, cute, even, as long as they don’t have those creepy red eyes. If I’m not expecting them, though, like if one just scuttles across the floor in front of me, I scream. I can make myself calm down, but like, knee-jerk reaction? Total scream.”

 

Smiling, Chris wriggles down, shifting the arm he’s lying on awkwardly underneath the pillows.

 

“Yeah, I never know what to do with that arm either,” Darren says, lifting his head up. Chris stretches his arm out until it’s supporting Darren’s neck, and then curls his head forward, resting his forehead against the back of Darren’s shoulder.

 

“So,” Darren says after a few moments of protracted silence. “One more question apiece.”

 

“Shoot,” Chris murmurs, flexing his toes.

 

“If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?”

 

“Abs,” Chris answers after a moment’s thought. “I’d definitely give myself abs.”

 

Darren’s shakes in a silent laugh, and Chris grins, bumping his forehead against Darren’s shoulder. “Same question.”

 

“I wanna be flexible enough to give myself a blowjob,” Darren says immediately.

 

Chris snorts violently, flattening out the hand Darren is holding and smacking him on the chest with it.

 

“What? It’s true. How amazing would that be?”

 

“…It would be pretty amazing,” Chris admits eventually.

 

“Abs,” Darren scoffs. “Those would just get in the way.”

 

“Yes, how silly of me,” Chris says around a yawn.

 

Darren pats his hand. “Go to sleep.”

 

“’Kay.” Smacking his lips, Chris listens to the crackling fire and the sound of Darren’s exhale. “Wind’s stopped.”

 

“Mm,” Darren hums, feet sliding back to tangle with Chris’s. “Storm’s over.”

 

“We should go get some more wood,” Chris says through a yawn.

 

“Mm, yeah,” Darren agrees, settling down further, his body sagging limply against Chris’s. “In the morning.”

 

Chris can feel the heaviness of sleep creeping up around the edges of his fuzzy thoughts, and he closes his eyes, giving in to it. “…Can’t believe you licked my eyeball.”

 

Darren snorts, and Chris falls asleep with a smile on his lips.

 

***

 

***

 

Chris isn’t sure what wakes him at first. The cabin is dark and cold, the fire’s gone and he can only see by the light of the small slivers of silver streaming through gaps in the shutters. It’s warm under the blankets, though, with Darren curled up against him. Chris blinks slowly, eyes gummy and head fuzzy. He can feel Darren moving against him, feel the flex of Darren’s back against his stomach, but his head is under the covers, hidden from view.

 

Chris hears a sound, a muffled, frustrated grunt, and, squints, tightening his arm around Darren’s stomach. “’arren?” he croaks, sitting up a little so he can lift the blankets and see what’s wrong.

 

Darren yelps, though, as soon as Chris starts moving, straightening out and flailing, knocking Chris back to the mattress. In the scramble to sit up, Chris’s hand lands on- on… “Oh my god!”

 

“Oh my god,” Darren grits out, jerking and shuddering when Chris lets go and scrabbles back.

 

“I didn’t mean to!” Chris says immediately, holding his hands up once he’s on the other side of the mattress.

“I’m sorry!” Darren struggles to sit up, hunching protectively over his lap and piling blankets over himself. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have, but, I just felt really…”

 

Chris is breathing heavily, he realizes now that he’s not so panicked, and he’s cold, outside of the covers.

 

Darren is still talking, explaining, wide-eyed and breathless. “I woke up and felt really loose and, and bendy. It just seemed like a good time to try? I’m so sorry man.”

 

Darren’s words take a moment to settle in Chris’s mind, but when they do they come down heavily. “You were trying to suck your own-”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I… Yeah.”

 

Watching the sheepish way Darren scratches at the back of his neck for a moment, Chris lets his gaze trail down to the pile of blankets in his lap. “How did you even… have it out?”

 

“The uh, the buttons go down pretty far.”

 

Chris nods and wets his lips, feeling kind of brave and a little reckless in the darkness of the cabin. “Did you make it?”

 

“Oh, what? No. No, I- I couldn’t quite… No.”

 

“Sorry,” Chris wraps his arms around himself, sliding his palms up his arms and returning Darren’s tentative smile.

 

“Oh fuck, you must be freezing.”

 

“I am, actually, yeah,” Chris admits with a laugh, scooting closer and letting Darren throw a blanket around his shoulders.

 

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Darren says, wrapping Chris up tight and rubbing his arms. Chris lets him, watching his face in the shadows as he bustles around Chris, making unnecessary adjustments to the blanket and the surrounding pillows. “I mean, even if I could reach, I don’t- I don’t even know, I mean. I wouldn’t even know what to do with it. Like what if I turned out to be the worst blowjobber in history?  What good is all that yoga I almost did if I can’t even-”

 

“It’s not rocket science, Darren,” Chris cuts him off, scooting down and flopping over awkwardly because his arms are trapped in the blanket. “Just do whatever feels good. It should be even easier for you ‘cause you’d have like, instant feedback.”

 

“Is that how you do it? Just do what feels good to you? You don’t have like, special tricks?”

 

Chris rolls his eyes and looks over at Darren, who’s looking intently back at him. “I don’t know. I don’t really think of it like having a super-secret bag of extra effective blowjob tricks, no.” Chris squints through the darkness at Darren, who looks… kind of disappointed. “Jeeze, okay, guys … can react strongly when you do something they really like. Or they really don’t like. You just keep doing the stuff they like. And if they’re being super stoic about the whole thing and not giving you any hints then they’re probably doing it on purpose and you should pinch them.”

 

“Just pinch them right in the middle of a blowjob,” Darren laughs.

 

“Yes,” Chris nods seriously. “Or poke them with a stick.”

 

Darren nudges Chris’s leg with his toes, and then tucks his lower lip between his teeth. “Asshole. But is there something that like, that you do that really gets them going? Something that works for all of them, or even only like a couple? Oh!” Darren bounces, his whole body coming off the mattress. “What’s the weirdest thing a guy has really liked?”

 

“How many guys do you think I’ve slept with, exactly?”

 

“Um, more than I have?”

 

“You’ve got me there.”

 

Darren is still looking at him hopefully, and Chris sighs. “If you get it really wet, and then blow on it, like cool air? It can drive a guy crazy.  I mean, it depends on where you are in the blowjob, obviously, but if he’s close and you want to surprise him, that can work sometimes.”

 

“Well, I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” Darren says, apparently satisfied, and settles down next to Chris.

 

“I’m sure it’ll come in handy one day,” Chris murmurs, rolling over and elbowing his way out of the blanket, freeing his arms so he can drape it how he likes.

 

“Hey, I’m gonna do it. I might need some help when I do, but I’ll get there eventually.”

 

Chris pauses in his rearrangement of the covers. “Help?”

 

“Yeah like, just another person there to help me out.”

 

“Like,” Chris scrunches up his nose in confusion, “with their mouth?”

 

Darren shoves at him, and then scoots in close, shivering. “No, just to, to hold my legs up. Help me with the last couple inches.”

 

“Oh. So they wouldn’t really be involved with the, the dick part of it, they’d just sort of be…”

 

“Support.”

 

“Right.”

 

Darren laughs, rolling over and spreading the blankets more evenly. “You volunteering, or what?”

 

He’s clearly joking.

 

He is very clearly joking.

 

“I might be, if you wanted.”

 

The cabin is abruptly absolutely noiseless.

 

Chris sucks a breath in through his nose and then lets it out slowly. He can barely make out the little cloud his exhale makes in the dark. “Never mind, that- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

 

“Chris.”

 

Darren’s hand his warm on Chris’s arm.

 

“Hm?”

 

“No take-backs.”

 

Chris blinks, and then laughs.

 

Darren is a sudden flurry of motion. “We are totally doing this, come here. Under- we need to get under the covers.”

 

“All the way… under?” Chris wonders, even as Darren tugs him farther down the mattress and drags the covers over their heads. It’s pitch black, but Chris can hear Darren, his babbling and his excited breathing.

 

“Obviously under the- It’s freezing out there, could you imagine? My dick would shrivel off before I could reach it.”

 

“We could go get some firewoo-”

 

“Under the covers, Christopher.”

 

“Oh my god.” Chris is manhandled up until he’s kneeling, and he can feel Darren’s legs slide into place alongside his own as Darren makes himself comfortable. The blankets drag across his head and shoulders, down his back, billowing out over Darren. “I don’t, I don’t know what to… Where do I put my hands?”

 

“I think, just, behind my knees. Here.” Darren bends his legs up and Chris feels along them gingerly until he can slide his hands into the warm, soft crooks behind Darren’s knees. “Yeah, that’s- that’s good.”

 

Shuffling forward a bit when Darren lifts his legs up, Chris follows him, waiting until Darren stops moving and then using a little bit of pressure. He pushes Darren a few inches farther, blushing when he hears the soft rustle of fabric, what has to be Darren pulling himself out. He feels like he’s been running, like he can’t quite catch his breath. “Like this?”

 

“Yep, yes. Exactly like that. Just, just, a little bit more.”

 

“Don’t you need to like… get ready?”

 

There’s a short pause, and Chris dearly wishes he could see what sort of face Darren is making. He feels oddly lost without Darren’s expressive eyebrows.

 

When Darren speaks again his voice is higher than it had been. “No, no, I’m, uh, ready to go.”

 

“Oh… kay. Just tell me when to stop then, I guess.”

 

“Yeah. Go slow?”

 

“I will,” Chris breathes, and then leans his weight against Darren.

 

Darren clears his throat and Chris stops. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah, no, keep going.”

 

“’Kay.” Staring into the darkness, Chris adjusts his hold on Darren’s knees, digging his thumbs in, and presses forward once more.

 

Darren jerks and then yelps, but before Chris can let go there are hands clutching at his. “Got it! Fuck, totally touched my chin. I need to shave more often.”

 

Chris snorts.

 

“Okay, like, just a few more inches.”

 

“Yeah,” Chris nods even though no one can see him, and leans forward, focused on the feel of Darren’s hands against his.

 

“Mm,” Darren hums a moment later, voice muffled by- by…

 

“Fuck,” Chris whispers, ears straining to catch every soft, wet sound he can. “Really?”

 

“Mm.” There’s a slick little sucking sound, and then a pop, and Darren breathes gruffly, “Yeah. Oh my god, yeah. Can you, a little more?”

 

“Yeah.” Chris is breathing heavily, and he tries to keep it quiet as he pushes down on Darren’s legs, curling him up even further, but he realizes Darren probably has other things on his mind. Chris’s stomach brushes against Darren’s lower back with every breath he takes.

 

One of the hands grasping at Chris’s slides away, and Chris freezes for a moment before letting out a breath, hot in the suddenly steamy pitch black under the blankets. He can hear Darren breathing through his nose, shaky and uneven, and the sounds send little tendrils of warmth twisting up through him, curling tight around his gut and his lungs, twisting until his insides ache with it. Darren keeps on with the shuddering breathing, like he’s trying to meter it but can’t quite manage, too hung up on whatever’s making him let out those soft, barely-there groans in the back of his throat.

 

There’s a slick sound again, and another quiet, wet pop, and then Darren is gasping out an incredulous little laugh. Chris can feel the movement of Darren’s arm, steady and quick, rustling the sheet and rocking them both subtly, and he closes his eyes. “Guess you’re not the worst blowjobber ever, huh.”

 

“I’m really not,” Darren says, voice rough. “Chris.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Fuck, Chris. I will… I will totally hold your feet while you do sit-ups for the rest of your life.”

 

That startles a laugh out of Chris, and shifts his knees, trying to get better purchase against the sheet as he arches his back, stretching where it feels too tight after bending over. “For my abs?”

 

“For your abs,” Darren agrees, and then his breath hitches along with a particularly obvious wet noise.

 

“Will you get me one of those belt thingies that shocks your muscles into working so you don’t have to?”

 

“Yes,” Darren groans. “Yes I will.”

 

“Good. I hate sit-ups.”

 

Laughing, Darren flexes his legs, squeezing Chris’s fingers, and then says, a little breathlessly. “I’m gonna- I’m gonna go back to…”

 

“Go ahead,” Chris says, and he’d be embarrassed over the strained, overly-high pitch of his voice, but Darren’s hasn’t been much better. “I’ll just be here, um, holding.”

 

Darren slurps off again, sloppier this time, louder. “Fuck, is it awkward? Do you need me to stop?”

 

Chris is quaking with laughter, shaking his head. “Just get on with it, oh my god.”

 

“Okay, yeah. I’m gonna… mm.”

 

Chris huffs out one more laugh and then tries to focus on regulating his breathing. It doesn’t work, of course. He’s too busy listening to the quiet, sucking sounds of Darren’s mouth on his own cock. Chris’s cock is painfully hard, untouched and trapped beneath the layers of his clothing. He hears Darren groan, low in his throat, and closes his eyes. It’s hot, here, hiding in the dark under the heavy blankets, hot and close with their bodies and their breath steaming up the tiny pocket of air. Darren’s legs flex in his grasp, and Chris’s dick twitches as he feels a bead of sweat slide down his hairline, tickling across his scalp.

 

There’s a slick pop, loud in dark, like Darren isn’t trying to be subtle anymore. “Fuck.”

 

“You okay?” Chris asks.

 

“I’m so okay. Fuck. I’m gonna-”

 

Chris’s stomach flutters, jolts skiddishly, and he can feel his heart rate quicken.

 

“I’m gonna try that, that- Your trick, your blowjob trick.”

 

“’Kay,” Chris exhales shakily, wondering if Darren will do it how Chris does. Wondering if Darren will like it the way Chris wants him to. Fuck. He really, really wants him to like it. There’s a conspicuous wet sound, and Chris imagines what Darren must look like, with his lips red and swollen, his tongue slipping over the head of his cock. Chris draws in a lungful of humid air as Darren starts to blow his breath out, the sound clear in the quiet.

 

“Huh-uh, mm, fuck!”

 

Darren bucks against Chris’s hold, jerking his legs out. He falls, uncurls without Chris pushing him up, and his ass drops down against Chris. Against Chris’s dick.

 

“Mother fucker,” Chris cries, jerking instinctually into the contact, and then, horrified, away from it. Darren’s legs shudder and shake in his scrabbling grasp, and Darren lets out a noise, half-shout, half-groan, before his whole body goes tense, jerking and writhing as he’s wracked with a slightly hysterical laugh.

 

He kicks Chris in the armpit.

 

“What just happened?” Chris says, once Darren has stopped shaking too hard and he’s in no danger of being kicked again.

 

“The most amazing,” Darren pants. “The most – I’m sorry I kicked you.”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

“I came on my feeties.”

 

“Call them long johns for fuck’s sake,” Chris moans through a laugh, breathless as he untangles his legs from Darren’s. He presses his palm to his dick, which is still obnoxiously hard despite the abuse he’s suffered, and crawls a few inches away, the blanket dragging heavy across his head, his hunched-over shoulders.

 

“But they have feet!”

 

“Please don’t call them feeties,” Chris sighs, rubbing a hand across his eyes and smiling tiredly. “You can’t come on something called feeties.”

 

“Can too, obviously.”

 

Laughing, Chris shakes his head and feels around for the edge of the one of the blankets. “I can’t, um, breathe, so I’m gonna…” he pulls, lifting the blanket and ducking his head out from under it. “Leave,” he sighs, closing his eyes and slumping down as a shock of frigid air fills his lungs. His head is spinning.

 

Darren’s legs shift restlessly next to his own, a bony ankle pressing into the side of his ass, and Chris’s cock twitches. He stifles a groan and lets the cold air soothe the burn in his cheeks.

 

“Chriiis,” comes a muffled voice from beneath the covers. There’s a flurry of activity under the blankets, a few grunts, and then Darren is climbing up Chris’s body, dangerously close to Chris’s uncooperatively rock-hard erection. His head pops out from under the covers right above Chris’s.

 

He smiles. “Hey.”

 

“Darren,” Chris says, a warning in his voice that he’s incapable of explaining without dying of embarrassment.

 

Darren ignores him, of course. “So listen, if you don’t want this, just say the word and it never happened.”

 

“What?”

 

Darren bites his lip, rolls his shoulder down, and runs a hand up the front of Chris’s pajama pants.

 

“Fuck.”

 

Fingers slip against his skin, just beneath his waistband, and Darren lets his lower lip drag out from between his teeth. “You want me to stop?”

 

“No?” Chris says, more of a squeak than a word.

 

Darren smiles, shoving his hand down Chris’s pants. “Okay.”

 

“Oh god,” Chris breathes as Darren’s fingers wrap around his cock. “Oh my god.” His mind is racing, reviewing the information, the feel of Darren’s hand on him, over and over again, and still rejecting the idea that this is actually happening.

 

Darren is watching him, face far too close and fist twisting slowly up the length of Chris’s cock, thumb pressing at the head, smearing the pre-come gathered there.

 

“This is happening,” Chris says. Darren smiles. Chris shuts his eyes and tries not to groan too embarrassingly, unable to keep in the little gasps of breath that shock into him when Darren squeezes tight, or slicks his fingers up underneath the head of Chris’s cock in just the right way.

 

“It is,” Darren whispers, his mouth so close to Chris’s chin that he can feel the soft brush of his lips with every word. Chris laughs, high and incredulous, because his brain is still being unhelpful, and it’s still happening, and Darren’s hand is still wrapped tight and shivering hot around Chris’s dick. The warmth of Darren’s breath gusts over Chris’s lips. He keeps talking like the world makes sense, and Chris envies him, even though he wishes Darren would stop saying things that tie helpless, twisting knots hot in Chris’s belly.

 

“Sucked my own dick and the thing that got me off was my ass on your cock,” Darren whispers, and curls the palm of his hand over the head of Chris’s dick.

 

“You can’t, uhn, say things like that,” Chris whimpers, bucking into Darren’s fist. His hands come up to rest tentatively at Darren’s waist, grasping at warm skin through the thin material of his long johns.

 

“I can.” Darren nips at Chris’s chin, teeth scraping and lips dragging, dry against Chris’s stubble. Chris bites his lips together and breathes shakily through his nose, refusing to open his eyes.

 

“Are you gonna come?” Darren asks, the wickedness gone from his voice in a heartbeat. “Chris? Can-”

 

“Yeah,” Chris cries unevenly, grinding against Darren’s hand, clutching at his sides. Pleasure swirls tight in his belly, coils down deep. “Yeah,” he keens, and Darren grasps him more firmly, works him quicker.

 

Darren slides their scruffy cheeks together, breathes heavy and wet into Chris’s ear, and Chris is gone.

 

He jerks up, presses his throat to Darren’s shoulder and curls into Darren’s hand as his cock twitches and spills between them, hard and hot and overwhelming as the buzz in his head gets louder and then blanks out, leaving him reeling.

 

He sags, spent, against the mattress, and blinks his eyes open as Darren gives him a few last, gentle tugs and then slips his hand out of Chris’s pants, patting him tenderly.

 

Chris is still staring at Darren’s open face, wondering what to do about the come on his clothes and fact that Darren just jacked him off in general, when Darren smiles at him. “Thanks.”

 

Going still, Chris studies the way Darren’s lashes fall against his cheeks when he blinks lazily. “That, that was a thank you handjob?” Chris asks, his voice nearing a squeak at the end.

 

“That was a handjob handjob,” Darren says soothingly, pressing a kiss high on Chris’s cheekbone. “I’m perfectly capable of saying thank you with my mouth and an exercise belt.”

 

“You don’t actually have to get me one of those,” Chris says, closing his eyes as Darren pets down his shoulder to his chest. “I already have two different kinds and they don’t really work.”

 

“You’re ridiculous.”

 

“You’re ridiculous,” Chris counters, arching up into Darren’s touch. “You just jacked me off.”

 

Darren stops his absent caress and grins. “I did, didn’t I? You know what comes next?”

 

“I have no idea what comes next,” Chris admits, his eyes trained on the slick corner of Darren’s mouth where it’s pulled up into a smile.

 

“I kiss you.” Darren kisses him, softly, and then sits back while Chris is still processing the sweet, warm press of their lips. Darren shrugs the blankets off his shoulders. “I get up to go pee,” he continues easily as he stands and drapes the covers back over Chris. “And then we go back to fucking sleep ‘cause it’s still freezing and I’m not ready to get up yet.”

 

“’Kay,” Chris agrees, pulling the covers up to his chin and watching Darren make his way on slightly wobbly legs to the bathroom. He doesn’t bother looking away from the bounce of Darren’s ass this time, feeling like it’s probably allowed now.

 

The light streaming through the cracks in the shutters has turned from silver to almost gold, and Chris studies the shapes it paints across the floor and the furniture as he curls up on his side. There’s a stickiness between his legs, when he shifts them, and low on his belly, a reminder of what just happened, as though he could forget. He scrubs a hand across the front of his pants, careful of his cock, still hard and over-sensitive, mopping the mess up as best he can with his clothes and then sighing as he settles back against the mattress. All the pillows are piled at the other end, but instead of grabbing them and making himself comfortable, Chris spends the time until Darren returns lying as still as he can and watching the swirling clouds of his exhalations curl into the air.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hm?” Chris rolls over when Darren’s weight dips the mattress. He thinks he might have been half-asleep.

 

“You okay?”

 

Chris smiles, and finds that once it’s on his face it feels like it belongs there. “Yeah.”

 

“Come up here.” Darren gestures him up, guides him back down until they’re back to where they started, facing each other this time. There’s an awkward sort of pause, wherein Chris isn’t sure how close he should get, but then Darren lifts an arm, and Chris curls his hands up between them, and they’re tucked together against the chill of the cabin. “How do you feel?” Darren murmurs, lips hardly moving against Chris’s forehead.

 

“Sleepy.”

 

Darren’s hand sweeps softly up and down his back. Chris plucks at one of Darren’s buttons. The fabric around it is damp and cold, like Darren tried to clean it off.

 

“And like maybe you caught a glimpse of my fish.” He can feel Darren’s smile curve up against his skin, and asks softly, “You?”

 

“Very similar, actually,” Darren admits.

 

“Your fish isn’t so bad,” Chris says, splaying a hand out on Darren’s chest and lifting one of his knees up, letting Darren’s leg slide in between his.

 

“Likewise. Hey.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Let’s sleep for hours and hours,” Darren suggests with a whisper.

 

Chris, unable to find a single objection to that plan, and grateful that he can hold off dealing with things for a little while longer, nods his head and closes his eyes.

 

 

 

 

***

 

***

 

 

Darren wakes up to a half-assed hangover headache and Chris sliding out of his arms. “Mm? No- c’mere.”

 

“There’s someone outside,” Chris says quietly, wiggling away from Darren and standing up. He runs his hands through his messy hair and shoves his feet into his boots while Darren blinks at him and tries to process what he said.

 

Somewhere outside the cabin, a door slams closed.

 

“There’s someone outside!” Darren exclaims, sitting up with a jolt and wincing when it jars his head. Chris throws a beanie at his face and then plasters himself to a window, stretching up on his tiptoes so he can peek through a gap in the shutters.

 

“It’s a guy in a pick-up.”

 

“What’s he doing?” Darren asks, jamming the beanie on his head and scrambling out of the tangle of blankets. “Does he have an axe? Should we be worried?”

 

“He’s got… a gas can.”

 

Darren crowds up next to Chris and tries, unsuccessfully, to peer out of the same crack Chris is looking through.

 

“Get-” Chris shoves at him when Darren presses their cheeks together and squints through the narrow opening. “Get your own hole.”

 

“Ooh, Mister Colfer,” Darren declares, waggling his eyebrows and darting away from Chris’s elbow.

 

Darren finds his own hole, his eye darting around and failing to see any sort of movement at all. “Where’d he go?”

 

“Around the side of the cabin, I think.”

 

“He’s gonna burn it down with us inside,” Darren says knowledgeably, cheek pressed against the freezing cold window pane, eyeing the sliver he can see of the truck parked in front of the cabin with distaste.

 

The door opens, and Darren reels away from the window, looking over to find Chris stepping delicately into what looks to be over a foot of snow piled up beyond the door.

 

“No, what are you doing?”

 

“I’m gonna go say hi. Deb said she would send one of her kids out to check on us.”

 

“Oh.” Darren watches Chris’s foot crunch through the snow. “Let me get my boots on, I’ll come with you.”

 

“Darren,” Chris sighs, holding onto the doorframe and turning back to face him. “You’re in your underwear.”

 

“They’re long,” Darren says, gesturing expansively at the length of them.  “They have feet, even. They’re an entire outfit plus socks, it’ll be fine.”

 

“Just,” Chris closes his eyes for a moment and drops his arms by his sides. “Just put some pants on, please, before you meet the strange man in the freezing cold.”

 

“Alright, mom.”

 

Chris is gone with one more sigh and a roll of his eyes, and Darren hurries to the bedroom to find the jeans he wore the day before and slide them on over his feeties. He makes a quick detour to the bathroom to take care of his funky morning breath. He eyes the mattress as he walks by it on the way to his boots by the door, gazing longingly at the rumpled blankets and the warmth they represent.

 

The night before filters vaguely through the back of his mind as he works his boots on. The feel of Chris’s cock in his hand. The hot, dark closeness of underneath the covers. The strange, wet warmth of his own mouth. And before that, the burn of the whiskey, and Chris’s flushed face in the orange glow of the fire.

 

His stomach rumbles ambiguously, and Darren pats it soothingly as he pulls the door open.

 

The white of the snow is nearly blinding. Every conceivable surface is piled with the stuff, gorgeous and pristine but for the truck and the tracks it made pulling up, and the two sets of boot tracks, both converging near the corner of the cabin. Wrinkling his nose at the offensive vehicle, Darren sets his toes in the deep impression of Chris’s first footprint and sets off to find him.

 

Chris is laughing, when Darren discovers him, hand over his mouth and nose scrunched up laughing laughing, tucked away in the little shed with the generator in it as the stranger stands there obnoxiously and makes Chris laugh.

 

“Hey guys!” Darren calls, tromping through the snow willy-nilly because Chris’s footprints aren’t really getting him there fast enough.

 

“Hey,” Chris says, looking at him weirdly and then turning to the stranger. “This is Darren. Darren, this is Paul.”

 

“Hello Paul,” Darren says, not reaching out a hand to shake because he’s not close enough yet, and also because he accidentally made the guy’s name sound like a curse. He stops, long enough to finally notice the snow melting through his jeans, and points his thumb awkwardly over his shoulder, towards the barn they’d parked in the previous night. “I’m gonna go, uh, get some firewood.”

 

Chris is looking at him oddly again, brow furled, and Darren claps his hands together and then shoots finger guns at them, because apparently he’s not done being a douchebag yet. “You crazy kids have fun.” Spinning around and tripping away before anything else embarrassing can happen, Darren makes it to the barn without further incident.

 

He heaves the door open and slips inside, blinking at the sudden dark. The car is where they left it, green and gleaming next to the dingy tarp that covers the wood. There’s a beat-up canvas log carrier hanging from the wall by a nail, and Darren sighs in relief, pulling it down and getting to work.

 

He gets the wood ready relatively quickly and waits a few more minutes, until he hears the truck start up and drive away, before cautiously making his way out of the barn. He’s shivering by now, the snow splattered up his legs has melted through his clothes and into his boots, and he has to admit that venturing out in sub-freezing temperatures without a coat on was actually pretty silly.

 

The shutters are open, he notices as he hefts the wood inside, and the cabin looks brighter and warmer with unobstructed sunshine streaming in, even if it isn’t really warmer at all, yet.

 

“There you are,” Chris says, peering around a support beam from where he’s standing in the kitchen. “You get it okay?”

 

“Yup.” Darren lifts the carrier up as evidence and steps out of his boots, frowning when his feet leave damp marks on the hardwood floor. “I’m gonna get a fire going and then…” He winces at the cold cling of his jeans. “Find more clothes.”

 

“There’s a dryer in the shed,” Chris says, padding over and inspecting Darren’s soggy clothes. “Which you would know already if you hadn’t been horribly rude and then run away. Paul thinks you hate him, by the way.”

 

“Paul,” Darren says, wrinkling his nose as he drops to his knees in front of the fireplace.

 

“What is with you?”

 

“Nothing.” Darren moves the grate and starts to stack the wood. “I just think that, we’re here, alone together in the middle of nowhere and I-” Darren shrugs, glancing over at Chris and then looking quickly back to fireplace. “I mean I think it’s implied that there’s probably something going on there, and maybe flirting all over you like that wasn’t very professional.” He slams a log down and frowns at it, remembering the way Chris had covered his mouth when he laughed.

 

“Flirting?” Chris laughs, crouching beside Darren and holding out a twisted-up piece of paper bag. “He turned on the generator, told me how to work stuff, and then talked about the German tourists who stayed here before us and left a video camera full of weird, homemade porn. Then you showed up, and he said he had to go meet his girlfriend for lunch.”

 

“Well,” Darren says, staring intently at the box of matches in his hand. “Still, who talks about German porn the first time they meet someone?”

 

“I’ve seen you do that at least twice.”

 

“You’re exaggerating. That wasn’t German porn, that was just porn in general.” Darren strikes a match and holds it to the paper Chris is still holding out, watching the flickering flame lick up the edge and then melt into it, catching quickly. He tosses the match in and gets to his feet as Chris tilts the paper, spreading the flame, and then tucks it in the space Darren left beneath the crisscrossed pieces of wood.

 

“We really need to talk,” Chris exhales.

 

“Yeah.” Looking over at Chris, Darren takes in the tense set of his mouth and the way his shoulders are leaning in, held tightly but aimed towards Darren. “Can I change my pants first?”

 

“I guess so.” Pressing his lips together in a smile, Chris stands and holds a hand out, helping Darren to his feet.

 

“’Kay,” Darren says, once he’s standing. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, wiggling his frozen toes while trying to read the look in Chris’s eye, and then goes for it, swooping in to kiss him quickly before biting his lip against a grin. Chris sways close and then stumbles back, and Darren spins around before the pleased, shocked look can slide from Chris’s face. “Be right back!”

 

He spends longer that he should in the bedroom, finding clothes to wear and then slipping them on slowly, wondering exactly what he should tell Chris. Wondering what the hell he even wants, and if Chris will want it, too.

 

By the time he’s ready to face Chris again, he hears what sounds like the shower start up.

 

Darren sighs, disappointment and relief vying for top billing as he pokes his head out of the door and discovers the bathroom door shut tight. His stomach rumbles again, and Darren sets about finding something suitably breakfasty to eat, even though it’s nearing noon.

 

 

***

***

 

He’s sitting on the couch, stomach unpleasantly sloshy as he pokes at the last half of a can of fruit cocktail, when he hears the shower shut off. When the door opens, he looks up with a smile. “Got some fruit here if- uh.” Chris is in a towel, frozen in mid-step in the hallway between the bedroom and the bathroom. He puts his foot down and turns towards Darren, gripping the towel where it’s folded together low on his waist. He’s actually steaming, little clouds of vapor rising from the damp, pink skin of his shoulders. “If you want some,” Darren finishes numbly.

 

Chris nods. “’Kay, I gotta-” He points a thumb at the bedroom, and Darren nods vigorously, waving a hand.

 

“Yeah, yeah, go. Parts of you are gonna freeze and fall off.”

 

Chris disappears into the bedroom with a snort, and Darren faces forward again, taking a deep, calming breath.

 

He scoots over on the couch, so Chris can have a seat closer to the fire.

 

When Chris comes out, dressed in a soft-looking jeans and a softer-looking hoodie, he takes his breakfast from Darren and plops down in one of the chairs.

 

“So,” Chris says, staring into the can as he mushes the fork around inside it, clanking dully at the edges.

 

“So.”

 

Chris takes a bite, and then gestures with the fork, crossing his legs as he does so, looking almost business-like. “Last night we crossed a line.”

 

“Yeah.”  Darren watches Chris’s toes flex in his socks. “It was great.”

 

Looking to the ceiling with a smile, Chris takes another bite and draws the fork out from between his lips slowly, his crossed leg bouncing. “It was pretty nice,” he agrees eventually.

 

Darren feels like he’s at an audition, or maybe a high-stakes negotiation. He feels like he needs to be careful. “…You wanna do it again?”

 

Chris’s gaze, when it turns on Darren, is piercing. He cocks his head. “Do you?”

 

His answer is less of a word than an exhale when it leaves Darren’s lips, but he thinks Chris gets that he means it. “Yeah.”

 

Chris barks out a laugh and, to Darren’s dismay, shakes his head. “I really don’t get you.”

 

“What?”

 

“You’re so confusing.”

 

“What about ‘yeah’ was confusing?”

 

“Nothing,” Chris drops his fork in the can and it rattles around as he spreads his arms. “Unless I take into account the entire rest of the time I’ve known you, during which you’ve been totally straight and the opposite of interested. It’s confusing. I’m confused.”

 

“That’s-” Darren starts, then cuts himself off and tries again. “Look, I know I don’t have… everything figured out, but, for the record, I’m not confused about being interested in you.” Chris looks down at his lap, his damp hair falling over his forehead, and Darren takes in the way his eyelashes sweep across his cheek. “That part’s very, very clear, actually.”

 

Chris looks up, eyes wide, and breathes in deep through his nose. “Maybe it’s the cabin.”

 

Blinking, Darren frowns. “What?”

 

Chris is still mumbling, staring into his can of fruit as though it’s something he needs to decipher. “Some weird, spooky sex vibes that convince tourists to make porn and straight guys to give handjobs.”

 

“Rude. There was no spooky interference. I was thinking for myself.” Darren glares when Chris looks up. “With both heads, thank you very much.”

 

Snorting, Chris leans back, looking thoughtfully at Darren and beginning once more to eat.

 

“You’re staring,” Darren says eventually, once it starts to get unsettling.

 

“Sorry. I’m processing,” Chris says without looking away.

 

“…Okay.”

 

There’s a short period of unnerving quiet, and then Darren sucks his lips into his mouth and pops them back out as loud as he can. “I have a question.”

 

“’Kay.”

 

“Are you interested?”

 

Chris doesn’t answer right away, so Darren steams on. “’Cause I was thinking that, if you’re not sure I could, you know, woo you. I mean normally I’d take you on a date if you wanted but we’re kind of already on a romantic getaway, so that’s not too feasible. But I’ll think of something, if you-”

 

“I’m interested,” Chris cuts him off.

 

“Oh. Good.”

 

Chris draws his legs up, setting his chin on his knees. He’s finished with his fruit cocktail. Darren squints at him. “Are you still processing?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What, exactly, are you processing?”

 

“Just… everything. That might happen.”

 

“Oh.” Wetting his dry lips, Darren comes to a decision and stands. “You know what might happen?”

 

Chris looks up, cocking his head. “What?”

 

“Kissing.”

 

“Really,” Chris grins

 

Taking a slightly wobbly step onto the mattress, Darren nods. “It’s a distinct possibility.”

 

Chris puts his feet back on the floor, next to the empty can, his socked toes sliding forward until they’re hidden from view by the messy blanket that’s spilling over the edge of the mattress. “I’m okay with that.”

 

“Yeah?” Darren steps closer and sinks a knee down between the edge of the chair and Chris’s thigh. Hands come up, warm and steady against his back, as Darren straddles Chris’s lap all the way, sliding his arms around Chris’s neck. It’s different, being held instead of holding, but Chris’s lips are dry and familiar against his, and Darren leans into the kiss with a smile.

 

They’re interrupted a few moments later by an unpleasant grumble.

 

“Was that your stomach?” Chris laughs as Darren leans back.

 

“Yeah, it’s-” Darren laughs and runs a hand through the hair at the back of his head. “It’s been kind of a dick this morning.”

 

“Hangover,” Chris theorizes.

 

“Just a little one.”

 

“Mm.” Chris’s hands disappear from his back for a second before returning to tentatively sweep up and down. “Maybe we should take it easy for a little while.”

 

Darren’s kind of sad at the suggestion, but his head is still a bit throbby when he moves it too fast, and the noises his stomach is making are the opposite of sexy. “I guess,” he sighs, leaning back down for a quick kiss before he sets his forehead against Chris’s. “I’m gonna go take a shower, try to clear my head up.”

 

“’Kay.” Chris’s hands keep up their rhythmic sweeping over the length of Darren’s back. “The hot tap’s really sensitive, you don’t have to move it much to adjust it.”

 

Darren smiles, wriggling a little on Chris’s lap. “Thanks for the info.”

 

“Thanks for finally taking a shower,” Chris replies with a grin, squawking and flailing when Darren pokes him in the ribs.

 

 

***

***

 

 

The shower does wonders, even though he scorches himself at first despite Chris’s warning. The pressure is decent and the water is hot, and Darren spends most of the time with the spray pounding against his back, his cheek pressed against the smooth, cold wall.

 

Afterwards, clean and happy and cooling rapidly, Darren grabs his guitar and heads out into the main room.

 

“I plugged your phone in,” Chris says from his spot on the mattress. He’s lying on his back with his legs crossed, his phone held up over his head as he pokes and drags at it with his thumbs.

 

“Do we get service out here?”

 

“Nope. Angry Birds.”

 

“Ah.” Darren’s gaze slides along the length of Chris’s legs and then off the tips of his toes, drawn to the massive, orderly stacks of wood piled on each side of the fireplace. “You sure you got enough wood?” Darren asks, stepping over Chris to sink down at the foot of the bed, closer to the blazing fire.

 

Chris looks down at him, lifting his phone out of the way. “Didn’t want to run out again.”

 

“I can see that.”

 

“You’ll thank me later.”

 

“I’ll thank you now,” Darren decides, setting the guitar aside and getting to his knees. He crawls up the mattress alongside Chris, and then plants a hand on the far side of him, leaning over. Chris looks up at him quietly, phone held absolutely still in his hands between them.  

 

Darren moves in closer, smiling when Chris’s phone gets trapped between their chests, and presses his lips to the corner of Chris’s mouth. Chris exhales shakily, hot breath glancing off Darren’s cheek, and then turns into the kiss. His lips are firm, slanted just enough so that their noses don’t bump. Darren closes his eyes and takes in a shuddering, uneven breath through his nose, surging down until Chris is pressed into the mattress. Chris lets out an encouraging noise and sucks Darren’s lower lip between his, teeth scraping closed against it. Darren groans and pulls back, going slower when Chris doesn’t let his lip go right away.

 

“Thanks,” Darren breathes, blinking down at Chris’s half-lidded gaze.

 

“You’re welcome,” Chris says softly.

 

Grinning, Darren lifts up, back to his knees.

 

Chris follows, clearing his throat and pushing himself up on his elbows. “Three stars.”

 

“Three?” Darren asks, mildly insulted. “Out of what?”

 

Chris holds up his phone, twisting it around so Darren can see the Angry Birds score on the screen. “Out of three,” Darren murmurs, peering at the golden stars. “Not bad.”  He looks at Chris, at his tight shoulders and the way he swallows and looks down. Coming to a decision, Darren leans forward for another kiss, soft and quick this time, and then sits back. He drags his guitar over and crosses his legs, nudging Chris’s thigh with his toes. “You want some mood music while you play?”

 

Chris sends him a quick, soft smile, and drops down to his back again. “I wouldn’t mind it.”

 

They stay like that for quite a while, Chris playing and Darren strumming songs. Sometimes the songs he picks make Chris laugh; a few of them make him go quiet and still as he listens.  He squirms his hips to most of the Disney ones, lips pursing gently as he shimmies along. Eventually, though, Chris sets his phone down and sighs.

 

“What’s the matter?” Darren asks, fingers plucking out a nonsense melody as Chris sits up.

 

“Phone’s dying.”

 

“Ah.” Darren continues to play. “We should do something. My head doesn’t hurt when I move it around now.” He wobbles his head in evidence, and Chris grins, drawing a leg up and toeing him in the knee.

 

“What do you want to do?”

 

Slapping his hand down to silence the strings, Darren shrugs and sets the guitar aside. “I don’t know. I feel like now is when we’re supposed to take our restless energy outside and frolic in the snow, but…”

 

“That just sounds really, really cold,” Chris finishes for him.

 

“Exactly.”

 

“There is something,” Chris says, hesitant.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I’ve been meaning to do it since last night.”

 

Darren’s stomach swoops, sudden and hot, and he sits up straighter as Chris gets to his knees and starts moving closer. “Does it involve me?”

 

“You’re integral to the plan, actually,” Chris says, voice soft as he places a hand on Darren’s shoulder, leaning in. “Wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying with anybody else in the world.”

 

“You sure know how to make a guy feel special,” Darren rasps, staring back at Chris’s intense gaze.

 

Chris smirks, the tiniest bit, and squeezes Darren’s shoulder, moving even closer. “Hold still.”

 

Darren figures it out when Chris is an inch from his face, sighing in resignation as Chris’s hand clamps down on his jaw and a warm, soft tongue swipes deftly across his left eye. He holds in a shudder and glares with one eye as Chris lets go and sits back with a grin. “I hope one of my eyebrow hairs gets stuck in your teeth like a pube.”

 

“Your tears are delicious.”

 

“Sicko.” Darren shifts until he’s on his knees, shuffling forward.

 

“You started it,” Chris points out, still smiling but backing away as Darren advances.

 

“Allow me to finish it,” Darren says, grabbing the backs of Chris’s knees while he scrambles away and upending him. Chris shouts as he goes down, reaching out and pulling Darren with him.

 

“Ooph.” Darren flops on top of Chris, provoking a wheeze and a half-hearted glare, and slithers up the rest of his body until they’re face-to-face again.

 

“You’re pretty solid for a little guy,” Chris accuses mildly as Darren arranges his legs on either side of Chris’s hips.

 

“You should see my little guy.”

 

“You should never say that again.”

 

Grinning, Darren runs his hands up Chris’s chest, anchoring them at the base of his neck, thumbs over his throat and fingers curled over his shoulders. “Hey Chris.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I’m gonna kiss you now.”

 

“I’m probably gonna kiss back.”

 

Darren nods, thumbs stroking at the soft skin of Chris’s throat, tucking beneath the warm fabric of his hoodie. “Excellent plan.”

 

Chris rolls his eyes and then bucks his hips up, knocking Darren close enough for Chris to grab the back of Darren’s head and initiate the kiss himself.

 

Relaxing into it, Darren lets Chris hold him close, parting his mouth when Chris licks against it and moaning when teeth drag against his lower lip. He bows his back and pushes down, rocking against Chris, spine tingling as Chris’s fingers scratch through his hair.

 

Chris lets out a moan, his fingers tightening, when Darren rocks down again, pushing his hardening cock against Chris’s stomach. “Fuck,” Darren whispers, breaking the kiss and sitting up. “Is this okay?”

 

“Is what- what?”

 

“This.” Darren grinds down a little, trying to keep his eyes from fluttering shut at the sensation.

 

“What- Shut up, yes.” Chris grabs the front of his sweater and tugs. “Get back here.”

 

Darren laughs and lets himself be pulled down.

 

Chris kisses him slowly, teeth gentle and arms curled around his back. Darren rocks down in a lazy rhythm, rutting his cock against Chris’s belly and then sliding back until he can feel the press of Chris’s hard dick against his ass. “Mm,” Darren hums, leaning back after a while and working one hand under Chris’s hoodie, cool fingers sweeping over hot skin. “Hey.”

 

“Hm?”

 

Darren smiles, waiting for Chris blink his eyes all the way open. “I wanna take your clothes off.”

 

“Okay,” Chris agrees, biting his lower lip and then nudging Darren up farther. “But you’re fixing the fire, first.”

 

Darren turns around to find only embers and a few charred lumps of wood where the blazing fire used to be. “Fuck, okay.” He turns back to face Chris, sliding off of him. “Don’t go anywhere.”

 

Darren scrambles over to the fireplace, grabbing the poker and moving the grate out of the way. It takes awhile to get it really going again, stacking wood and blowing on the embers. Once he's done, he turns back to find Chris sitting up with a hand at the zipper of his hoodie.

 

“No!” Darren says, moving closer. “I wanna do it. Like unwrapping a present.”

 

“You're such a weirdo,” Chris says, but drops his hand obligingly when Darren pushes it down.

 

“Yup.” Smiling, Darren grabs the zipper and pulls it down, pushing the soft fabric off Chris's shoulders and down his arms to reveal the blue henley underneath. “Arms up,” Darren urges gently.

 

He reaches around Chris once his arms are lifted, drawing the shirt up at the back, pulling it over his shoulders and dragging it off his arms.

 

Chris’s chest is pale, with light brown stubble dusted near the center. Darren takes a breath and sets his palm in the middle of it, feeling the soft scuff of growing hair and the way Chris’s chest expands when he breathes in. “Hey.”

 

Chris blinks at him, hair disheveled and cheeks pink. "Hey."

 

Running his fingertips over the freckles on Chris's shoulder, Darren scoots closer and leans in for a kiss. "Lie back," he says softly, pressing gently at Chris's shoulder when he doesn't move right away. "C'mon."

 

Chris lowers himself back to the mattress, knees falling open as Darren moves between them, dragging his hands from Chris's shoulders to the tense muscles of his stomach. "Relax."

 

"Yeah, sure, I'll get right on that," Chris breathes, craning his neck up to watch as Darren runs his fingers over the fly of his jeans.

 

Darren pauses, fingertips on the metal of Chris's button. "You sure this is okay?"

 

"It's okay.” His hips twitch up. “It'd be, oh, it'd be better if you'd hurry up."

 

Darren presses his knuckles against Chris's zipper again, grinning when Chris huffs out another moan. “You can't rush these things,” he informs Chris, carefully sliding the button free.

 

“Can, too.”

 

Biting his lip, Darren pulls the zipper down and slides his hand in over Chris’s underwear, cupping his palm over Chris's half-hard cock and watching him buck against it. “If you insist.”

 

“Stop being cute and take my pants off.”

 

Laughing, Darren curls his fingers and drags the denim down. He tugs when Chris lifts his hips, and bites his lip when Chris bends his knees up so Darren can slide the jeans down his legs without moving out from between them. He tosses the jeans onto the couch and slides his palms up Chris's thighs, pushing his boxer briefs up until he can thumb along the pale, delicate crease where his thighs meet his torso.

 

Chris lets out a shuddering breath through his nose and reaches down for Darren, fingers curling into his sweater and pulling him up.

 

Darren goes without protest, kissing his way up Chris's neck to his lips and then letting Chris guide him. Fingers come up to the sides of his face, and Chris's thighs clamp tight around Darren's hips as he bites and licks into Darren’s mouth. Darren can feel Chris's cock rubbing insistently against his own through the layers between them, and the pressure sends waves of pleasure surging through him, burning brightly in the pit of his stomach.

 

“Your turn,” Chris breathes, once he finally lets Darren up for air, and before Darren knows it their positions are reversed. Chris smiles above him, hands leaving his face to slide beneath his sweater as he gets to his knees. “Sit up,” he orders, not waiting for Darren to comply fully before rucking his sweater up. He very obviously isn't in the time-taking camp when it comes to taking other people's clothes off; Darren is divested of his clothes impatiently but with finesse. His pants are unbuttoned before he even realizes his sweater is all the way off, and he's forced onto his back as Chris tugs his jeans and underwear off in one go.

 

“Fuck,” Darren pants, dropping his hips back to the mattress as Chris climbs back up to lean over him. “You don't mess around.”

 

“I really don't,” Chris agrees, trailing a hand down Darren's chest to his stomach. “Now be quiet, I've never touched your dick on purpose before.”

 

Darren opens his mouth to reply, but Chris's fingers curl around him before he can say anything intelligible, and he winds up gasping out a groan.

 

Chris is intent, from the look on his face to the way he works Darren’s cock, focused and attentive and- “Ohfuckrightthere,” Darren gasps, bucking up when Chris rubs the pad of his thumb just under the head of Darren’s cock.

 

“Hold still,” Chris says gruffly, pressing his free hand low on Darren’s stomach. “I’m gonna try something.”

 

Darren has a second to process the words before the hand on his cock slides lower, and Chris bends low to wrap his lips around the head.

 

“Nngh,” Darren manages to say, body going rigid as he tries not to buck up into Chris’s mouth. His heels drag against the bunched up bedclothes and he shoves his head back into a pillow. Blinking hazily at the ceiling, he tangles his fingers in the blankets and grips tight, focusing on the hot, slick feel of Chris’s mouth.

 

Chris’s lips sink down on Darren’s cock again and again, his tongue twisting around the head and sliding along the underside as he chases the path his fingers took, lower and lower until Darren hits the back of his throat.

 

“Fuck,” Darren wheezes, squeezing his eyes shut as Chris bobs his head, sucking, wet and so fucking hot, and then slides his mouth back up. Darren’s cock twitches out of Chris’s mouth, dragging against his lower lip as he sucks in a breath.

 

Darren watches helplessly as Chris jacks him, catching his breath. His grip is tighter now that Darren’s cock is wet, the turns of his wrist are piercing twists of heat that coil Darren’s body up tight.

 

“Chris,” Darren chants, reaching out, his hips writhing in time with Chris’s hand. “Chris, Chris, Chris, c’mere.”

 

Chris lets himself be pulled, keeps his fist working tightly and leans down to press his open lips to Darren’s.

 

“Darren,” Chris whispers, his lips dragging wetly over Darren’s.

 

Chris mouths across Darren’s jaw as he thumbs over his slit, and Darren jerks up into it as he tries to answer. “Hu-uhn, huh?”

 

The whisper in his ear, intimate and close, shocks Darren into giggles, “I like your balls.”

 

“Fucking weirdo,” Darren grins, hooking a leg behind one of Chris’s and flipping them over. He jerks when Chris lets go of him, moaning at the loss before sucking a kiss against Chris’s jaw. “Legs,” he instructs, walking his hands backwards and then tapping Chris on the thigh until his lifts his legs up. Lifting the elastic band carefully over Chris’s cock, Darren slides the boxer briefs down Chris’s legs and off his feet, pausing at his socks until Chris shrugs, and then peeling those off as well.

 

Chris’s dick is fat and pink, curving heavily against his lower abdomen as he breathes deep and fast. Darren bats Chris’s hand away when he tries to curl his fingers around it, runs his thumb down the underside instead. “Uh-uh,” Darren warns, nudging Chris’s legs farther apart and leaning over him with a stern look. “My turn.”

 

“Hurry up and take it already, then.”

 

“God you are so impatient,” Darren breathes, wrapping his hand around Chris’s dick and giving it a few experimental tugs. Chris’s cheeks go pink as he rolls his hips up, and Darren kisses him quickly. “Don’t worry, it’s hot.”

 

“You don’t-” Chris starts, but cuts himself off when Darren straddles his thigh, leaning forward to slot his dick alongside Chris’s.

 

He lets go of Chris as they rock together, settling on his elbows and pushing some of Chris’s bangs off his forehead, his wrist bending awkwardly. “I don’t what?” he asks, grunting low in his throat as Chris’s free leg wraps around his ass, pulling him closer.

 

“Nothing,” Chris breathes. He leans into Darren’s palm, keeping his half-lidded gaze on Darren as he starts to work his hips. “Absolutely nothing.”

 

Darren flexes his fingers, pushing them through Chris’s hair, and Chris closes his eyes, arching into Darren and tilting his head. “Kiss me.”

 

Darren complies.

 

They melt together, breath hot between them as they drive against one another, closer and harder and more desperate. “I don’t wanna come yet,” Darren whispers when Chris relinquishes his lips. His balls feel full and heavy, drawing tight against him, and his head is fuzzy, sluggish and sex-stupid every time he tries to think.

 

“I do,” Chris responds, drawing Darren out of his haze. He hooks his arms around Darren’s neck and grinds up harder. “Get me off.”

 

“Chris?”

 

“Please, trust me, just- I, I need… your hand. Anything.”

 

“Come here,” Darren urges, sitting back on his knees and bringing Chris with him. “Come on, I got you.” He flops onto his ass in a seriously ungraceful move and then helps wrap Chris’s legs around his waist, maneuvering him into Darren’s lap.

 

He licks his palm and wraps his fist around Chris’s cock, pumping hard and steady. Darren still isn’t quite used to the feel of someone else’s dick in his hand, the way Chris is all angles, lanky limbs and broad shoulders arranged heavy and vulnerable in his lap. Chris’s arms never leave his neck, tightening when Chris sets his teeth against Darren’s shoulder and groans. He curls over, forehead pressing into Darren’s throat, hips jerking and breathing uneven as Darren works him.

 

Darren wishes he could see. He presses a kiss to the sweaty hair at Chris’s temple and wonders what his face looks like, what Darren’s hand looks like around his cock when he’s gasping and shuddering like this. He pets a hand down Chris’s curved back, from the knobs at the top to the dip at the bottom, and feels Chris’s heels dig into his ass.

 

“Darren,” Chris whispers, lifting his head. His eyes are barely open, lips wet and cheeks red, and he surges forward after one brief, still moment, sliding their lips together and gasping into Darren’s mouth as he jerks and bucks in Darren’s grasp. Darren swallows his moans, rocking back with the pressure and then pushing into it, tightening his fist and wringing Chris dry as he comes and then slumps down in his arms.

 

“Fuck,” Darren breathes once Chris’s mouth goes slack. His forehead slides against Chris’s as he nuzzles close and looks down, their heads ducking together. He’s still jacking Chris slowly, come splattered up their bellies, dripping down Darren’s cock and his fingers where they’re wrapped around Chris. He watches his cock jump at the sight, draped in thick, pearly strands of come, and hears Chris let out what could be construed as a whimper. When he starts to let go, Chris’s hand slaps onto his, curling his fingers back around Chris’s cock and squeezing briefly.

 

“Keep going?” Chris asks in a broken voice.

 

“Really?”

 

Chris nods against Darren’s shoulder, the one arm still hooked around his neck squeezing tight. Chris strikes up a rhythm for him. Darren watches disbelievingly as Chris guides him, quick and unforgiving, loose over the hard, slick head of his cock. After a while, Chris tentatively lets Darren’s hand go and drags his fingers through the mess on Darren’s stomach, swiping up as much as he can before wrapping them slickly around Darren’s cock.

 

Sucking in a breath through his teeth, Darren struggles to keep the pace Chris set while Chris glides his clever fingers up and down Darren’s cock in a steady, twisting rhythm. “Shit,” Darren huffs out, eyes trained on Chris’s come-slick knuckles, on the heavy settle of Chris’s thighs over his, on the red, glistening head of Chris’s cock, visible when Darren’s own hand slides low.

 

Breathing heavily through his nose, Chris turns his head and sucks at Darren’s throat, mouthing up the side of it to Darren’s ear. “Tell me when you’re close,” he pants, the force of his breath making Darren shiver. “May- huh- maybe we can come together.”

 

Darren whines, clenching his eyes shut as Chris’s words swoop through him, settling at the base of his spine. “Chris. Any fucking time now, Jesus Christ.”

 

Chris’s thighs shift against his, sweat-sticky where they’re stuck together. The heavy weight of Chris’s arm around his neck disappears, and then fingers comb through his hair, pulling his head back. “You mean it? You’re close?”

 

“Yeah,” Darren whines, eye shooting open when Chris mouths at his jaw, teeth pressing in close. Chris moves in his lap, sliding closer, his breath huffing out in little overwhelmed whimpers when Darren tightens his hand instinctively.  Their hands bump together, then their cocks, and Darren lets go to clutch at Chris’s back when Chris wraps his hand around both of them at once. Turning his head, Darren noses Chris’s cheek, searching until their lips meet and Darren can breathe in Chris’s air.

 

“Okay,” Chris says, his voice strained as his hand slides around them both.  His lips drag against Darren’s, and then up, until he’s whispering against Darren’s cheek, rocking in his lap. His words sound like a sob. “Okay, with me.”

 

Darren’s fingers dig into Chris’s back, muscle and bone shifting under his grip. His balls draw up tight, and his breath catches in his throat.

 

Chris presses a kiss to his cheekbone, and Darren comes with a shuddering grunt. He fucks into Chris’s hand, against Chris’s cock, spills over them both and absently feels the sharp tug of Chris’s fingers where they’re still buried in his hair, the twitching jerk of Chris’s dick against his.

 

When Darren’s head stops spinning, when he blinks open his eyes and can focus them, Chris is hunched over in his lap, hand curled loosely over his dick and breath coming in shaky, heaving gulps.

 

“You okay?” Darren asks, his voice scuffed and husky. He sweeps a hand down the shuddering expanse of Chris’s back.

 

“Uh huh,” Chris answers dazedly after a dry-sounding swallow. His messy fingers trace down the front of his dick, making it twitch, and Darren’s gaze flits between Chris’s red, spit-slick lips and the way his fingers tease his cock.

 

“No fucking way.”

 

“Huh?” Chris looks up, his hand stilling, and Darren wraps his arms around Chris’s waist and rolls, laying Chris out on the bed.

 

“There’s no fucking way,” Darren whispers, even as he licks his thumb and drags it down the length of Chris’s rock-hard dick.

 

“Fuck,” Chris whimpers, hips jerking. “Don’t- don’t press so hard.”

 

“You can come again,” Darren says, his own spent cock twitching painfully at the thought. “I can make you come again.” He strokes his thumb down Chris’s cock again, pressing lighter this time. Chris closes his eyes.

 

“Darren.”

 

“Fuck yeah,” Darren whispers, scraping his nails across the top of Chris’s thigh, crawling up the bed and stroking his other hand through Chris’s hair. Chris leans into it immediately, slitting his eyes open. Darren kisses him, high on his cheek and then at the corner of his mouth. “I can, right? You’ll let me?”

 

Chris nods, shutting his eyes again when Darren tickles his fingers up the underside of Chris’s dick.

 

“Fast,” Darren says, licking his palm and pressing it delicately to Chris’s dick, holding it to his lower belly. “Right?”

 

“Ngh- Mmhm.”

 

“Tell me if it’s too much.”

 

“’S already too much,” Chris slurs, his forearm coming up to drop across his eyes as Darren wraps his hand carefully around Chris’s cock and begins to stroke.

 

Darren speeds up, wrist flicking quickly. He presses his free hand against Chris’s flushed chest, feeling him breathe. “Then tell me when you can’t take it anymore.”

 

Chris nods, and his thighs start to shake, hips jerking in sporadic little trembles as Darren strips his dick, light and fast.

 

Watching intently, Darren slides his palm over on Chris’s chest, using his thumb to worry one of Chris’s nipples, pink and drawn up tight. Chris takes his arm away from his eyes, although they remain clenched shut, and drops both his hands over Darren’s, stilling it flat over Chris’s heart. It’s pounding, beneath Chris’s skin, a steady, racing thud that twists something up tight in Darren’s own chest. Chris’s hands slide away, clawing across his stomach and then fisting in the covers as his body clenches, bucking and shivering.

 

He starts breathing out in whines, high-pitched keens with barely any sound behind them, and Darren lets Chris’s cock go for a second to lick his palm again, quick and sloppy.

 

Chris cries out when Darren curls his fist around him again, loud and sobbing, and Darren bites his lip, eyes tracing the straining tendons in Chris’s neck, his sweaty, furrowed brow. He moves his hand from Chris’s heart to his hair, petting through it and urging him to open his eyes.

 

“Hey, shh, look at me. You need me to stop?”

 

Blue eyes focus on Darren, pupils huge and lids heavy. Chris licks his dry lips, breath still draining out of him in ragged whines, and lifts his chin.

 

Darren kisses him, a gentle meeting of half-chapped lips while his fingers work tangles out of Chris’s sweaty hair.

 

Chris bucks in Darren’s grasp.

 

His back arches, body taut, as his breath is punched out of him in broken, stuttering huh sounds. Beads of thin, mostly clear come blurt out over the head of his cock, and Darren works him through it, strokes a hand down his feverish cheek and kisses his temple as he curls onto his side, trembling and twitching and hitching out moans.

 

“Fuck,” Darren breathes, sliding his hand away from Chris’s spent cock and stroking a thumb across his cheek, settling down beside him.

 

Chris blinks at him, lips parted and slack, and runs his tongue across the edges of his teeth. “Yeah,” he croaks.

 

Darren laughs, incredulous, and rocks forward to kiss him again, one hand scrabbling behind his back for a blanket.

 

“Mm, no,” Chris protests weakly. “We’re filthy. We should- should-”

 

“Nap time,” Darren interrupts him, yanking until the blanket he grabs slides out from under him, using it cover them both. “Wanna cuddle?”

 

Chris rolls forward, sort of, although it’s more of a labored lean than anything else, and then drops his head to the mattress pitifully. “Can’t move.”

 

Darren collects and arranges a couple pillows from the floor beside the mattress and then grabs Chris around the ribs, under his arm. He pulls Chris close, rag-doll limp and deadweight-heavy, and positions him in a hopefully comfortable position halfway on top of his chest.

 

“Fire’s gonna go out,” Chris warns, lips moving sluggishly against Darren’s collarbone, eyes already drifting shut.

 

Sweeping a hand up and down Chris’s back, Darren hooks a leg over Chris’s and drags him even closer, talking into Chris’s hair, “We’ll keep each other warm.”

 

 

***

***

 

 

Darren wakes up with his dick in someone’s mouth.

 

He blinks his eyes open and grunts, breathing out heavily through his nose, hips swaying up as he tries to place his surroundings.

 

Cabin. Chris.

 

“Chris,” he rumbles, looking down to find Chris half-draped in a blanket, his lips stretched around Darren’s cock.

 

Darren’s hands are heavy and clumsy as he sinks his fingers into Chris’s hair, holding on as Chris hollows his cheeks and draws up the length of him.

 

Letting Darren’s dick go with a wet pop and then using his hand to jack him slowly, Chris presses into Darren’s hold on his hair, keeping his eyes locked on Darren’s. His voice is soft and warm, still a little scratchy from before. “I woke up and you were hard.”

 

Darren nods wordlessly, giving in to the urge to use his hold on Chris’s hair to guide him back down. Chris follows his lead, closing his eyes as he sinks back down on Darren’s dick, mouth soft and wet and hot.

 

Darren hasn’t shaken sleep’s hold on him yet, still groggy, eyes going blurry until he blinks them clear again. He tugs gently on Chris’s hair, playing with the soft strands with both hands as Chris hums and breathes through his nose, bobbing his head and circling the base of Darren’s dick with his fingers.

 

Chris’s other hand comes up to cup Darren’s sac, rolling his balls together and tugging gently, making Darren itch to thrust his hips off the bed.

 

He doesn’t know how long Chris was sucking him off before he woke up, but he feels close already, like the pleasure’s already had time to soak through his bones and pool in his gut, dark and deep and sweet. He wishes that he’d been awake for the whole thing. He wishes he could last forever like this, disappearing past Chris’s swollen lips, riding his face and petting his hair and watching how his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks.

 

“Chris,” Darren moans, cupping his hands around the back of Chris’s head, his hips rolling up as he tries to grunt out a warning.

 

Chris pulls it out of him gradually, dragging him from thick to thin, and Darren spills in long, slow stretches, arching into it and relaxing away, until he’s emptied himself into the heat of Chris’s mouth.

 

Chris sits back and wipes at his lips with the back of his hand.

 

Darren lets out a shuddering breath and pushes himself up, grabbing Chris by the back of the neck and pulling him in for a kiss. He feels reckless, heady and lazy and grateful that Chris is solid, that he’s strong and that Darren won’t crush him if he lies on top of him for a while, because he really wants to lie on top of him for a while. He takes Chris with him when he falls back, cataloguing the taste of his own come, and tucks an arm around Chris’s back, rolling them over.

 

“You’re fucking awesome,” he tells Chris, sliding his weight down against Chris’s chest and pressing at the back of his neck, tilting his head up for a deeper kiss.

 

Chris laughs into his mouth, letting Darren bite at his lips, and wraps his thighs around Darren’s hips, his arms around Darren’s shoulders.

 

“Hey,” Chris says quietly, after Darren spends a few minutes exploring his mouth and the texture of the stubble under his jaw.

 

“Hm?” Darren mouths at the scar on Chris’s neck, tasting it curiously, and then scraping his teeth across it.

 

“Mm, I- oh. I’m hungry, Darren.”

 

Pausing with his lips sealed to Chris’s skin, Darren blinks. His stomach growls. He leans back, looking down at Chris. “I’m fucking starving.”

 

“You want soup, or Spaghettios?”

 

Darren ponders the question, leaning his weight on one hand and stroking down Chris’s chest with the other. “I don’t know.” His hand moves lower, until he’s ghosting over Chris’s half-hard cock. “You don’t want-?”

 

“Not, uh,” Chris winces, squirming away from Darren’s touch. “Not just yet. I’m… I can’t-”

 

“Later.” Bending down and pecking a kiss against Chris’s lips, and then in the dip just beneath them, Darren lets his hand rest on Chris’s hip instead, thumb stroking back and forth across soft skin.

 

“Yeah,” Chris agrees, voice breathy as Darren rains kisses over his lips and his chin and then back up his jaw. Chris’s arms tighten around his shoulders as Darren settles back in at Chris’s scar, worrying it with his teeth and then tracing it with his tongue. “But Darren?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Food.”

 

“Right.”

 

Darren backs off, smiling down at Chris. “This is really great.”

 

Chris’s hands slide from Darren’s shoulder blades to his chest, holding there firmly but not pushing him away. “What is?”

 

Shrugging, Darren leans down for another kiss, insides fluttering as he flashes back to Chris’s mouth wrapped around his dick, lips red and stretched wide. “Everything,” he decides, as Chris’s fingers curl against his chest.

 

They find bits and pieces of their wardrobes scattered amongst the tangled up blankets and draped over the surrounding furniture, enough to be decently clothed and warm while Darren builds the fire back up, anyway. Chris heats their dinner up in the small microwave tucked in a corner on the kitchen counter. They eat on the couch, side by side. Darren starts out with Spaghettios and ends up with vegetable soup when they decide to switch half-way through.

 

Finishing with a contented sigh, Darren slumps back, letting his spoon clatter around his empty bowl. He stretches an arm behind Chris’s shoulders and studies his face, the way his nose wrinkles when he turns his spoon upside down and licks into the bowl of it.

 

“Wha’?” Chris asks, spoon still sticking out of his mouth.

 

“You’ve got a freckle on your ear,” Darren tells him. He bends the arm that’s snug against Chris’s shoulders, pulling it back so he can run a fingertip across the shell of Chris’s ear without letting him go. “Right here.”

 

“Please don’t be one of those people who has to count all the freckles they see.”

 

“I don’t want to count them,” Darren says, his fingertip still tickling over the freckle. He scans Chris’s cheeks, his nose, takes in the sheer number of barely-there freckles. They’re getting harder to see by the moment as daylight loses its nightly battle, the sky outside the windows going silvery and dark. It’s mostly firelight, now, flickering over Chris’s skin, painting him in warm tones.

 

Chris leans away from him, slowly, until Darren’s arm falls down between Chris’s back and the couch.

 

“Party pooper.”

 

Chris hands his bowl over to Darren and scoots even farther away, bending over to grab an errant sock from the floor and pull it over his one naked foot.

 

“Hey, that one’s mine,” Darren says, stacking their bowls and watching as Chris ignores him, grabs the corner of a blanket, and pulls, rolling it up as he collects more of it. “Whatcha doin’?”

 

“Laundry.”

 

“You’re taking our blankets?” Darren asks, forlorn, when Chris starts bundling up another one.

 

“Most of them go on the other beds, right?” Chris asks, not really waiting for an answer. “Everybody else is gonna get here eventually. We can’t just, re-make the beds with blankets covered in-” Chris pauses to shake out a blanket, and Darren’s underwear falls out. “Bodily fluids,” Chris finishes, making a face.

 

“I worked hard for those fluids,” Darren tells him, “don’t make that face.”

 

Chris rolls his eyes.

 

“We’ll get cold without them.”

 

“We’ll save ours ‘til last and wash our pajamas with it,” Chris says, dropping his bundle of blankets onto the stretched-out sheet and folding the corners together. He looks at Darren, slinging the blankets over his shoulder as he steps into his boots. “Then we’ll go to bed with stuff straight from the dryer.”

 

“Toasty,” Darren approves, watching as Chris opens the door and steps out into the cold. “I like that plan.”

 

Chris looks back, readjusting his grip on the sheet. “I’ll be right back.”

 

Darren watches him go, the door swinging shut behind him.

 

He takes a deep breath, wondering if Chris regrets anything or if he just needs some space. Or both. He’s not too worried, though, thinking about the way Chris had talked about their blanket and going to bed together like it was completely natural. Smiling, he takes the dishes to the sink, rinsing them off, and then takes a walk around the room, picking up the little bit of mess they’ve been able to make so far. He plugs Chris’s phone in, after finding it abandoned on the floor by the bare mattress next to an empty can of Coke, taking his off the cord and shoving it in his pocket.

 

He’s looking for Chris’s other sock beneath the couch, on his knees with his ass in the air, when Chris comes back in. He brings with him a gust of cold air and a snort when Darren wiggles.

 

“Where the hell’d your other sock go?” Darren asks, sitting up on his knees.

 

Chris shrugs as he slides his boots off by the door, shuffling over to sit on the edge of the mattress, right next to the fire. “You’re the one who took it off me,” he says eventually, rubbing at his arms.

 

“I did, didn’t I?” Darren crawls over to Chris and sits behind him, sliding his legs around Chris’s when it seems like his presence is acceptable. Curling over Chris’s chilled back, he puts his arms around Chris’s waist, resting his cheek against the back of Chris’s neck. The fire crackles and Darren closes his eyes, thinking back. “It was… No. It was when I took your underwear off, so I was pretty preoccupied with seeing your dick for the first time. I’m no help.”

 

“You’re really not,” Chris sighs, his arms resting over Darren’s where they wrap around his middle.

 

“Mm,” Darren murmurs, rubbing his nose against Chris’s neck. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

Chris doesn’t answer right away, and Darren stops moving, blinking at the back of Chris’s hair and trying to keep his breathing from getting too fast, too nervous.

 

“What are we gonna do?” Chris asks. He turns his head, looking back, and Darren shifts so their eyes can meet. “When everyone else gets here?”

 

“Well, we probably shouldn’t have sex in the living room.”

 

“No,” Chris agrees with a small smile.

 

“At least not while they’re watching.”

 

Darren tightens his hold on Chris’s middle, and Chris’s fingertips press into Darren’s knuckles, a firm pressure as he breathes. “What about after?” Chris asks in a quiet voice.

 

“When we get home?”

 

Chris nods.

 

Darren doesn’t really want to think about it. He gets a ridiculous flash of a vision, of them just staying, living on a mattress in the middle of a freezing cabin, wrapped up and warm in each other. Chris would get tired of him eventually, though. He doesn’t think hanging out on opposite ends of the mattress would be enough alone time for either of them. “I figured you’d need a little time to decompress,” he says out loud. “Chill out with your cat.”

 

“True,” Chris allows, turning around even more in Darren’s arms.

 

“And then it’s back to work,” Darren says, continuing quickly over the sound of Chris’s quiet groan. “And I thought I could come over after, sometimes.” He does that anyway, he realizes. “I’d bring food.”

 

“I like food.”

 

Darren nods, pulling Chris’s legs over his thigh when he turns far enough. Darren has no idea what he’s doing, reassuring or pressuring or disappointing Chris. All three, maybe, but he hopes it’s the first. “We could keep doing stuff.” Chris hooks an arm around Darren’s neck, and Darren leans down, pressing a kiss against Chris’s shoulder and looking up at him through his lashes, smiling. “I wanna find out how many times you can come in a row.”

 

“Oh god,” Chris groans, leaning away. Darren just holds him tighter around the waist, laughing.

 

“Or! You know what? What I really wanna know?” Darren decides, his voice getting deeper as the idea settles into his stomach. “I wanna see how long you can last.” Chris slows his half-hearted struggling and looks down at him, curious. “You’re so impatient,” Darren whispers, tempering it with another kiss to Chris’s shoulder. “I wanna make you hold on, show you what it feels like when you wait.”

 

Chris talks over the wobble in his voice, injecting his patented wryness and quirking an eyebrow at Darren. “This is you calling me a whippersnapper, isn’t it?”

 

Darren grins. “You young people with your disappearing socks and your multiple orgasms.”

 

Chris looks at him, biting his lower lip, and Darren… Darren really wants Chris to kiss him, this time, so he looks back, and he waits.

 

“I can wait for things, you know,” Chris says after a while. He holds on to Darren’s shoulder and pushes himself out of Darren’s lap, getting to his knees and leaning forward, towards Darren. “I have excellent self-control,

 

“Sex isn’t about self-control, though,” Darren smiles as he whispers, leaning right back at Chris. “I mean, maybe sometimes, but I wanna make you lose control.”

 

Chris frowns at him.

 

Darren sighs, giving in and pressing a quick kiss to Chris’s downturned lips. “You’re pouting.”

 

“Am not.”

 

“You’ve got a serious pout going on.”

 

Chris wrinkles his nose up and flops to the side, landing on his thigh. “Maybe I don’t like the thought of losing control.” He air-quotes around the last two words, making Darren laugh.

 

“Hey,” Darren sets his fingers on one of Chris’s wrists, lowering it. “Just ‘cause you can’t control something doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it.” He wraps his fingers around Chris’s wrist, feeling hard bone and soft skin and a fast, strong pulse. He relents. “But just because you might enjoy something doesn’t mean you have to try it.”

 

Chris looks down at where his wrist is held tight.

 

“I’d never do anything you didn’t want, I promise.”

 

“Stop being such a damn boy scout,” Chris says after a beat, tugging his wrist out of Darren’s grip and then shoving at Darren’s shoulders until he bounces back on the mattress. Before Darren knows it he’s being straddled, Chris’s thighs heavy across his waist as Chris bends down to look him in the eye from just a little too close. “You’re overly earnest and I find it worryingly attractive.”

 

Darren’s belly floods with heat and his heart speeds up, pounding in his chest at Chris’s admission. And the way Chris is hovering over him. “There’s nothing wrong with finding honesty attractive,” Darren informs him, gasping when Chris pins his wrists to the mattress.

 

“It’s not- It’s just… You’re like a well-meaning grandparent in an after school special,” Chris says, somewhat confusingly. “But you’ve got the face of a bearded twelve-year-old. It shouldn’t be hot.”

 

“I honestly don’t know what to say to that,” Darren confesses, tilting his head up when Chris leans down to mouth at his jaw. “Except I promise I won’t do that, I won’t try to get you to, oh, to-”

 

“Lose control?” Chris finishes for him after dragging his teeth away from Darren’s throat.

 

“Mm,” Darren agrees.

 

“Hey.”

 

Darren forces his eyes to focus, keeps himself from craning up to capture Chris’s lips in a kiss. “Yeah?”

 

“I’m about to smack you in the face with one of my fish, so I hope you’re also the type to appreciate honesty.”

 

A jolt of tensions kicks through his stomach, rattling in his chest, and Darren looks up at Chris, suddenly nervous for him. “You can tell me anything.”

 

Nodding, Chris looks down Darren’s body for a brief moment, letting go of one of his wrists to place a palm in the center of his chest. “You?”

 

Darren nods.

 

Chris is whispering when he continues, leaning so close his breath drifts, gentle and warm, across Darren’s mouth. “You don’t have to try.”

 

Darren doesn’t get it, at first. He searches Chris’s face for clues, for a hint or some elaboration.

 

“To make me fall apart,” Chris says quietly, fingers kneading gently, almost absently against Darren’s chest as Darren attempts to fathom what Chris is telling him. “You don’t even have to try.”

 

Darren covers the hand on his chest. “Me,” he says, just to be sure. Chris nods.

 

Not sex, but sex with Darren.

 

He slides his hand up, over the back of Chris’s hand, up his arm and around to cup the back of his shoulder and urge him down into a kiss. He leans down easily, arms bending and fingers still pressing into Darren’s chest, his wrist. The kiss is warm. Chris’s lips are firm and smiling slightly, stretched a bit too wide to fit together all the way.

 

“You showed me your fish,” Darren murmurs happily against Chris’s mouth when they pull apart (but not too far) to breathe.

 

“You didn’t run away screaming,” Chris points out. His smile is soft. Darren kisses it.

 

 “I wouldn’t have, even if it was an actual fish.”

 

Chris’s smile gets bigger, and Darren slides his hand around from Chris’s shoulder to gently prod at the dimple that appears to the right of Chris’s mouth. “I mean, where would I go, for starters. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

 

“Oh shut up.”

 

“Shut me up,” Darren challenges, and then Chris’s palm is clamped over his mouth. He pulls it down, with some difficulty, enough so that he can talk. “Nnnmph, I meant shut me up by doing sexy things.”

 

Sliding his hand back over Darren’s mouth, Chris uses it to turn Darren’s head until his cheek is against the mattress. Chris leans over him, lips nearly brushing against his ear, and shushes him, long and drawn-out and hot against his skin.

 

It actually is really sexy, and Darren closes his eyes against a shiver.

 

Chris hums a laugh and then noses down the side of Darren’s neck until he hits the collar of his sweater, the cold tip of his nose rubbing back and forth just above it.

 

“Cold,” Darren points out helpfully as soon as Chris lets his mouth go.

 

“It’s a little chilly outside.”

 

“No one knows your nose is cold but me. In the whole world.” Darren turns his head and looks down, eyes crossing a bit until Chris backs up into focus. It’s an odd sort of pleasure, being the only one to know something about Chris.

 

Chris, of course, knows certain things about Darren, too. “No one knows you sucked your own dick, either.”

 

Somehow, Darren had nearly forgotten about that, his eyes wandering towards the ceiling as he remembers. “Oh fuck, I did. I sucked a dick.” He looks back at Chris, an idea forming. “I could suck yours, if you want.”

 

Chris’s breath catches for a second, but then he looks down at Darren with a fond little smile, thumb stroking up his jaw. “You really don’t have to.”

 

“Obviously I don’t have to,” Darren rolls his eyes, arching his back and sticking out his stomach so that he pushes against where Chris is straddling him. “Do you not want me to?”

 

Rocking down, Chris leans over and kisses him soundly, breaking away after a moment to say breathlessly, “Not really gonna say no to a blowjob from you, Darren.”

 

“Might not be that great at first,” Darren disclaims, running his hands up Chris’s sides when Chris lets his wrist go to push his fingers through Darren’s hair. “You’re gonna hafta guide me through it. Be my bj guru.”

 

“I need,” Chris starts, closing his eyes as Darren rolls up against him again. “Unh, I uh, I need…”

 

“What is it?” Darren whispers, raking his fingers over Chris’s chest, nails tugging and pulling at the thick, soft fabric of his hoodie.

 

“Help me get all the pillowcases off?” Chris asks in a rush.

 

Deflating with a sigh, Darren scrubs his palms down Chris’s thighs and gives them a pat.

 

Chris smiles at him sheepishly, sliding off to grab a pillow and shake it out of its case. “Sorry. Need to change laundry if we want a blanket tonight.”

 

“You’re infuriatingly responsible,” Darren deadpans, grabbing a pillow and struggling listlessly to rid it of its cover.

 

Darting in quickly to press a kiss against Darren’s cheek, Chris gets to his feet and kicks some more pillows towards Darren. “Thank you for being so understanding. I’m gonna go get our clothes.”

 

Chris leaves a minute later, pajamas and pillowcases balled up against his chest, and Darren watches him go, wondering if eventually being around Chris will stop making him feel like a horny teenager.

 

Not that there’s anything wrong with feeling like a horny teenager, Darren decides, putting another log on the fire and then reclining on the mattress, trying to drape himself across it sexily. He decides immediately that he should have fewer clothes on if he wants to incite Chris into a lust-fueled sexual frenzy.

 

Chris comes back in while Darren’s foot is caught in the ankle of his jeans, and Darren catches a glimpse of his surprised face before flinging the denim away and dropping to the mattress, one hand on his naked hip, the other propping his chin up. “Hey there,” he purrs, biting his lip to keep from laughing when Chris falls back against the door, hands over his face and shoulders shaking.

 

“You’re ruining it!” Darren declares.

 

“Sorry,” Chris laughs, “I’m sorry, I just-”

 

Flapping a hand in dismissal, Darren waves Chris’s excuses away. “Whatever. Come here before I decide not to warm you up.”

 

Chris is still giggling after he takes his boots off and sinks down on the mattress in front of Darren. “I really am sorry, I just wasn’t expecting that.”

 

“You weren’t expecting all this?” Darren clarifies, making a sweeping gesture down his naked thighs and back up his side, giving an involuntary shudder now that the air has had time to prickle at his skin.

 

“How are you supposed to warm me up when you’re shivering?” Chris crawls forward.

 

Darren unzips his hoodie when he gets close enough, pushing it down his shoulders. “You’re just gonna have to get naked, too. It’s a body heat thing. Nakeder is warmer, remember?”

 

“Oh yes, your perverted professor.”

 

“Hush your mouth,” Darren murmurs against Chris’s skin.

 

He gets Chris naked again, lying down with him and hiding his mouth against Chris’s collarbone as they tangle their legs together. It’s strange, on the mattress without covers, somehow more exposed. Darren kisses Chris’s collarbone and then leans his head back, catching Chris’s gaze as he trails a hand down between them. “This okay?”

 

“Uh huh,” Chris sighs, blinking quickly and tightening his arms around Darren’s neck. His cock fills out in Darren’s loose, exploring hold, going from heavy and soft to curved and weighted and hard, dry and smooth under Darren’s fingers.

 

Chris’s hand pets down Darren’s back, tickling and pressing and kneading over the flesh of his hip, his ass. The breath catches in Darren’s throat as Chris palms his ass, a hitch in his heart beat as he realizes the things Chris could want from him. “Fuck.”

 

“Is that… not?” Chris asks haltingly, his hand sliding away.

 

“No,” Darren tightens his grip on Chris’s dick, rolls halfway on top of him to keep him from going anywhere. He kisses Chris’s lips, stroking him, hips bucking them together. “You can,” he tells Chris in between kisses. “You can touch me anywhere you want. You can, you can-” He shuts his eyes and breathes out, sliding his dick along the bumps of his knuckles, wringing Chris’s cock. “I want to try to suck you off, okay?”

 

“Fuck you,” Chris breathes, his hands curling against Darren’s hair and digging into his lower back. “You promised you wouldn’t try to make me fall apart.”

 

Darren laughs, letting go of Chris’s cock to frame his face, pushing his hair back from his forehead and looking down at him. “Tell me not to and I won’t.”

 

Chris leans into Darren’s touch, fingers tracing down Darren’s spine until they’re stroking tentatively across the top of Darren’s ass. “Stop if it’s weird,” he says eventually. “I don’t want it to be weird.”

 

Darren, skin tingling where Chris is touching him, anticipation fluttering in his stomach, leans down to smack a kiss against Chris’s chin.

 

He wiggles briefly, making Chris laugh, and then moves down the mattress, skimming kisses over Chris’s chest, his stomach. He slows down the lower he gets, glancing back up to see Chris watching him. “This is exciting,” he announces, dragging his fingers over Chris’s belly button, the soft skin below it. He traces Chris’s cock with the pads of his fingers, watching it twitch into the touch.

 

“Darren,” Chris says softly, like he can’t decide whether to urge him closer or farther away. Darren is too busy looking at Chris’s cock to pay much attention.

 

It’s weird, he thinks, how weird it isn’t. How simple it is to want to touch his tongue to the soft, pink skin of the head, see if the slit tastes different, wrap his fingers around the base and find out if he’ll be able to feel the vein running up the underside against his lips, or if he’ll notice it at all. Most of all he wants Chris to love it. He wants to hear Chris moan and sigh and whimper, wants to get him hot enough to pull on Darren’s hair.

 

He wants to blow Chris’s mind.

 

He licks his lips. “I’m gonna blow you, now.”

 

“Holy shit,” Chris breathes.

 

Darren wraps his lips around the head and sinks down, feeling the unfamiliar weight, cataloguing the feel. Chris’s slit doesn’t taste any different from the rest of him at first, but after Darren licks at him, works at him for a while, he can definitely taste something, something salty and sharp. He moves his attention lower after that, mouth in an unfamiliar stretch over the head as he tongues at the underside of Chris’s dick, the soft skin stretched tight and hot. He feels silly, kind of, when lets himself think about what he must look like, so he shuts his eyes and bends his head forward, sinking down as far as he can, his lips dragging, tacky, down the length of Chris’s dick until it bumps into the back of the roof of his mouth. He hears a muffled groan and glances up to see Chris’s chin straining up at the end of the long line of his torso, his arms across his face and his chest heaving. Darren licks back up Chris’s cock, kissing the very tip, and sucks in a breath when he can.

 

“Hey,” he says, surprised at the gruffness of his own voice. He rubs a hand up Chris’s thigh, over his hip to his stomach and then back down. His other hand wraps around Chris’s cock and works it, gliding easy over his own saliva as he waits for Chris to respond. Chris finally looks down, dropping his arms to his sides and pushing himself up until he’s almost sitting. His face is flushed, his lips swollen and red like he’s been biting them, and Darren feels a rush of satisfaction. “Okay?”

 

“Fuck, Darren. Yes. Yes.”

 

He keeps eye contact with Chris, leaning back over to flatten his tongue against the head of Chris’s dick and jerk him off a little harder. The taste from before is much stronger, now, sharp and heady. Darren closes his lips around his tongue in a kiss, watching as Chris’s eyes flutter shut. He grins.

 

He trails a line of sucking kisses down, following the curved path of the vein he’s quickly becoming obsessed with and letting his fingers push into the delicate skin of the insides of Chris’s thighs.

 

Chris’s fingers sink into his hair as he scratches the scruff of his beard up the tender crease inside Chris’s thigh, mouthing at the base of Chris’s dick, sucking at his balls when they draw up tight.

 

“Darren,” Chris exhales, tugging at his hair and then sliding his fingers down, petting falteringly at the back of his neck, at his shoulders. Chris’s hips flex. Darren scrubs his cheek in close, twisting his hand down.

 

“Fu-huck,” Chris gasps out, his hands clamping down on Darren’s shoulders.

 

Darren scrapes his scruff over the top of Chris’s thigh, kissing the muscle where it’s still a straining curve. “Is this okay? Not too much?”

 

“Prickly,” Chris says intelligently, his voice uneven. “Weird. Good.”

 

Laughing at Chris’s coherency level, Darren digs his chin into the top of Chris’s thigh, leaning forward to suck at his hip bone. Chris starts panting audibly, dropping his upper body back to the mattress, and Darren works his way back to Chris’s cock, licking and sucking and leaving wet trails over Chris’s blushing skin. He gets back to business, reveling in the choked-off sounds Chris makes, circling his fingers around the base of Chris’s cock and slipping his mouth down over the head. He bobs his head and twists his fingers, strikes up a rhythm he thinks he can keep up for a little while. He focuses on the taste and the feel and the sounds Chris makes, trying not to think too hard about whether or not he looks weird, his mouth stretched and his cheeks hollowed. He tries sucking, just a little bit, and breaks the seal of his lips with an extremely unfortunate sound that makes him blush.

 

Chris doesn’t seem bothered, just lets out a shaky breath and slides his hands up to cup Darren’s jaw, carding his fingers back through Darren’s hair.

 

Doubling his efforts, Darren moves faster, tightens his lips. He brings a hand low to press and tug at Chris’s balls, then explores farther, fingertips pressing at hot, secret skin, knuckles pushing and thumb swiping daringly.

 

“Darren,” Chris whines out, grit in his voice as his fingertips dig into Darren’s shoulders. His voice is barely a whisper, a scattered, breathless warning. “Holy shit, holy shit.”

 

Darren’s mind blanks. He has absolutely no idea what to do.

 

He pulls off, gasping for breath and still pumping with his hand, fingers twisting slickly. “Fuck, do I swallow?”

 

“Huh?” Chris whines, hips jerking up into Darren’s grasp.

 

“There aren’t any sheets, it’ll get on the mattress, oh my god. Am I ready to swallow?”

 

Chris comes with a choked off laugh, come painting his own stomach as he tenses and arches away from the mattress, flushed and naked and shaking.

 

“I’m sorry,” Darren says, eyes wide as he works Chris through it. “I’m sorry, I panicked.” His fingers get looser and looser around Chris’s twitching cock, and Chris swats at his hand, grabbing at Darren’s shoulder and pulling him up.

 

Words get pressed into Darren’s cheek and the corner of his mouth. “Thank you. That was perfect, that was so good.” Chris hooks a leg around Darren’s ass and tugs him close, getting him messy and all the way hard.

 

“Yeah?” Darren asks. Chris nods at him, smiling, and grabs his hips, adjusting until he’s satisfied and then thrusting up. The air rushes out of Darren’s lungs.

 

Chris bites his bottom lip and arches under Darren, hips screwing up as their cocks rub slickly together.

 

“God,” Darren moans, his hips starting to pump as he grinds against Chris. “How do you do that? Stay so hard?”

 

“Can’t help it,” Chris replies, squeezing tighter with his thighs and holding onto Darren’s shoulders as he starts to thrust faster. “Just huh-happens.”

 

Darren ducks down close and presses his lips against Chris’s neck, baring his teeth and pushing sloppy, scraping kisses there as he fucks in tighter. His breathing is loud in his own ears, hissing out between his teeth and cooling over Chris’s skin.

 

Chris starts letting out plaintive little groans, a stream of tight-sounding whines that swells with every jerk of Darren’s hips.

 

“Too much?” Darren asks, dragging his lips up Chris’s jaw and kissing the dip in his chin.

 

“Yeah, yes,” Chris breathes, relieved.

 

Darren forces his hips to a shuddering stop, and Chris rolls them over.

 

There are lips around him, hot and wet, before Darren knows what’s going on.

 

“Fuuuh, ngh,” Darren grunts, stomach flipping and hands hovering over Chris’s head, clenching in the air. Chris pulls off with a slurp, a thin strand of spit stretching from Darren’s cock to his wet lower lip.

 

“Can I touch you?” he asks, fingers stroking low over Darren’s balls. “Only on the outside, I promise.”

 

“Fuck, yes. Yes, yes,” Darren chants.

 

Arching up until Darren’s hands bump into his head and then leaning into them meaningfully, Chris smiles before he sinks back down.

 

Darren watches dumbly, his fingers petting through Chris’s hair, as Chris starts to work Darren’s dick with his mouth, his tongue curling and flicking and dragging hot over Darren’s skin. Chris’s knuckles start a slow drag over Darren’s hole, sending sparks and shivers crackling through his belly, and then press up behind Darren’s balls, pushing insistently, rhythmically. An aching pressure throbs inside him, dark and sweet, and Darren jerks up, pulling helplessly at Chris’s hair.

 

He comes before he realizes he’s going to, hips hitching up and cock spilling in Chris’s mouth. “Fuck! Fuck, Chris, sorry, I- uhn.” Chris grabs his ass, tugs him closer when he tries to pull away and swallows around him. “Mmm, god, oh my god.”

 

Chris hums, circles two fingers around the base of Darren’s dick, and drags his mouth off.

 

“C’mere,” Darren slurs, using his hold on Chris’s hair to urge him up. He wraps his arms around Chris’s shoulders as soon as he can, and then follows that with his legs around Chris’s ass. His kisses aren’t very elegant, he knows, but Chris opens up to him anyway, lets Darren lick into his mouth and bite at his lips, pressing as close as he can.

 

“We’re a mess,” Chris says after a while, as Darren leaves a trail of sloppy kisses down to his throat.

 

“Wanna kiss you ‘til my lips fall off,” Darren replies, rubbing his mouth aimlessly over the swell of Chris’s Adam’s apple.

 

Chris cocks his head to the side, letting Darren bury his mouth against Chris’s neck. The vibrations of his words travel up through Darren’s lips, making him smile. “That’s pretty weird.”

 

A buzz sounds, faint through the wall of the cabin, and Darren stills his lips.

 

“Dryer,” Chris says helpfully, getting to his hands and knees with a groan.

 

They clean up with Darren’s socks, because Chris is a little shit, and then put their clothes back on. Darren finds new socks, and Chris sticks with the one he has, disappearing out the door and returning before too long with three warm blankets bundled up in his arms.

 

They set about making the beds in the bedroom, and Darren is shaking out the last blanket when Chris’s missing sock falls to the floor. “Aha!”

 

“Ooh, gimme,” Chris demands, plopping down on a lower bunk and reaching out.

 

Dropping to one knee in front of Chris, Darren turns the sock right-side out and raises an eyebrow, waiting for Chris to get with the program and lift his bare foot. His toes are freezing.

 

With this sock, Darren thinks as he slips it over Chris’s toes, I thee warm.

 

“I feel like Cinderella,” Chris says, his toes wiggling beneath the cotton. “A really weird version of Cinderella.”

 

“That’d be a shitty prince,” Darren points out as he stands, holding out a hand for Chris. “I can’t remember who I had sex with but I know they were wearing socks with gray toes!”

 

“Maybe it was dark.”

 

“What a creepy thought.” Darren tosses one end of the blanket to Chris and they spread it over the last bunk. “Not knowing who you’re having sex with.”

 

“Yeah, what if it was Donald Trump,” Chris says, tucking his edges in while a small smile plays around the corners of his mouth.

 

“You suck.”

 

 

***

***

 

 

They wind up back in the main room when they’re done with the beds. Darren plucks his guitar from where it’s been carefully propped up in the chair neither of them has sat in yet, and Chris brings a can of Coke and a bag of jerky with him when he collapses on the couch next to Darren.

 

“Any requests?” Darren asks, tweaking his D string a little bit.

 

“Something guitar-ey.”

 

“You’re so helpful.”

 

Chris flashes him a cheesy grin. “I try.”

 

Darren lifts his fingers from where he’s plucking at the strings and grabs the front of Chris’s hoodie, pulling him forward for a quick, smacking kiss. Chris falls back against the armrest when Darren lets go, quiet and blinking.

 

He smiles after a moment, looking down as he opens his can of Coke, and Darren grins, turning back to his guitar.

 

The only things Darren’s fingers want to play are love songs. If Chris notices the theme he doesn’t say anything, bobbing his head for the most part and occasionally humming along.

 

“This is nice,” Darren says after a while, picking out a light, minor melody that he can’t quite place.

 

“Mm,” Chris hums in agreement, slumping farther down the couch and blinking contentedly.

 

“Hey Chris?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You know you could fuck me if you wanted.”

 

There’s a moment where Darren thinks Chris might actually choke to death on his Coke, but he just coughs once, loudly, and clears his throat, struggling to sit up straight. His voice still sounds kind of strangled, though. “I’m sorry?”

 

“Just, I mean, I’m not trying to rush you, or anything, I just wanted to put it out there. I don’t even know if you’d want to, like, if you have preferences or whatever, but I didn’t want you to worry about it. About me freaking out.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah.” Darren nods, looking down at his guitar and realizing he isn’t playing anymore. The cabin is eerily quiet. “…Do you have a preference?”

 

“Top,” Chris says, too quickly, and so many thoughts rush through Darren’s mind, each one clenching something tight and fluttering in his stomach, that he doesn’t even realize at first that Chris is still stuttering, qualifying his statement. “Not! Not- not like, top top, just, I don’t have- I don’t mean I’m a top, I mean I prefer to be-” He takes a breath and lifts his hands, stacking them and patting them together as he swallows. “On the top. Above.”

 

Darren watches him, delighted and intrigued, as Chris’s face gets steadily redder.

 

“I like both,” Chris breathes, setting his hands in his lap and twisting them together. “I’m fine with either, I just prefer to be…”

 

“On top.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Darren watches the way Chris’s knuckles turn white. “You like being the big spoon, too.”

               

Chris looks up quickly, his gaze sharp. “…Yeah. I guess I do.”

 

Setting his guitar down gently, Darren scoots back, away from Chris, until he’s leaning against the armrest. He slides one foot behind Chris, toes burrowing between the cushion and the back of the couch, and leaves his other foot on the floor. Chris watches it all, every movement Darren makes, with a curious, evaluating look on his face. Darren laces his fingers together and cradles his head with them, giving Chris a smirk.

 

“What are you doing?” Chris asks, turning to face Darren fully, apparently heedless of the jerky sliding off his thigh to land next to the Coke can on the floor.

 

“Waiting to make out with a control freak. What are you doing?”

 

Chris doesn’t waste any time crawling up to hover over Darren, his palm dipping the cushion by Darren’s head. His lips drop low enough to brush against Darren’s ear, and Darren can feel him breathing, can smell hints of sex and sweat on his skin the closer he gets. “Nothin’ much,” he says, his voice so close that Darren can feel the vibrations of it.

 

Darren closes his eyes and turns his head to nose at Chris’s jaw. Chris is a solid, warm presence along the length of him, getting heavier by the second as he relaxes down against Darren. Soft lips drag against Darren’s cheek, mouth at the corner of his eye.

 

“No licking,” Darren warns, breathing in until their stomachs meet.

 

Chris sighs a laugh across Darren’s skin and moves lower, until their lips slide together, parted and dry. They hold there, slotted together, barely touching as they take carefully measured, halfway-shaky breaths. Darren can’t help but smile, catching Chris’s upper lip between his.

 

Chris smiles back, sucking a kiss into Darren’s bottom lip, pressing closer and fitting their lips together again and again.

 

Untangling his fingers from behind his head, Darren raises his arms and fists a hand in the back of Chris’s hoodie. He cards through the hair at the back of Chris’s head with his other hand, fingertips pushing and scratching through the soft, short strands. Chris rolls his head back, into the touch, and Darren tightens his hold, rolling them over until Chris is pressed between Darren and the back of the couch. It’s tight, intimate. Darren tilts his head and pushes a knee between Chris’s legs.

 

There’s a soft, worn-out ache in the pit of his stomach, pleasure without urgency, and Darren flexes against it, stretches into the cushions and arches into Chris. Chris wraps an arm around him and slides a hand beneath the hem of his sweater, setting a palm against Darren’s lower back.

 

They fit together for a brief moment, chests and stomachs and thighs, pressed flat and close and warm, before Darren shifts his legs and Chris tilts his head, deepening the kiss.

 

“Hey,” Darren says against Chris’s lips.

 

“Hm?” Chris opens his eyes sluggishly. They’re dark in the firelight, mostly green.

 

“I feel,” Darren breathes, watching Chris’s slow, lazy blinks, “really, really fishy about you.”

 

There’s a pause, after which Darren swallows and nods, acknowledging Chris’s politely restrained smile. “I also feel like I could have worded that better.”

 

“You really could have,” Chris agrees.

 

Tightening the arm around Chris’s waist, Darren squeezes them close. “You’re gonna keep kissing me, though, right?”

 

Chris rolls his eyes and leans back in.

 

They kiss until the fire burns low, and the buzz of the dryer sounds faintly through the wall.

 

Chris comes back in with a cold nose and an armful of soft, warm laundry, and they kiss for a little while longer.

 

“Next time we do this,” Darren says, once they’ve put the sheets on and tossed the blanket on top of the mattress in a heap, “we should go somewhere warm.”

 

Chris looks up from where he’s pulling on his long johns. His cock is mostly soft, heavy between his legs as he drags the waistband up, over his hips. “What do you mean?”

 

Darren blinks for a moment, then turns back to his own clothes, starting once more to pull the arms of his feeties right-side out. “We should go somewhere where we don’t have to keep putting clothes back on.”

 

“I can’t tell if you’re a heathen or just really horny all the time.”

 

“Both, probably.” Darren shucks his pants and steps into the legs of his underwear, smiling at the feel of the soft, warm cotton. “A horny heathen.”

 

“You think you’re funny but you’re really not,” Chris informs him. He balls up the clothes he was wearing and tosses them on one of the chairs.

 

“I don’t think I’m funny.” Shrugging the cotton onto his shoulders and starting with his buttons, Darren leans forward to steal a kiss. “I know I’m funny. A hilarious horny heathen.”

 

Chris merely groans and throws himself down onto the mattress, burrowing under the blanket until only his hair is visible.

 

“Wait for me, wait for me,” Darren insists, giving up on his buttons and following Chris. “I’m the little spoon, remember?”

 

 

***

***

 

 

Darren wakes up slowly in the dark. He can see his breath when he squints. The fire is nothing but a few faintly glowing embers.

 

Chris is behind him, breathing erratically and moving in short, stiff bursts.

 

Rolling over under Chris’s arm, Darren pulls the blanket back up to their chins and pushes at Chris’s shoulder, rocking him. “Hey.”

 

“Mm.”

 

“Chris, hey. Wake up if you want.”

 

“Mmm,” Chris whines, but Darren can tell he’s more awake than asleep. The dip between his eyebrows is gone, and he’s trying not to smile.

 

“Chriiis.”

 

“It’s fucking freezing.”

 

“I know,” Darren agrees, slipping an arm around Chris to sweep it up and down his back. “Isn’t it great? Just like old times.”

 

Chris finally opens his eyes. “You mean last night?”

 

Laughing, Darren shrugs, leaning forward for a kiss. “I guess so,” he says. “Your nose is still fucking cold, too.”

 

“Well my nose is in the cabin, and the cabin is fucking cold.”

 

“The rest of you’s in the cabin,” Darren points out, slipping his hand lower to brush over Chris’s ass, and then around his hip. “Feels pretty warm to me.”

 

Chris flexes his hips into Darren’s touch, leaning close to press his nose against Darren’s cheek. His whisper glances off Darren’s lips, “Did you wake me up just to have sex?”

 

“You were having a bad dream,” Darren says, turning just enough to slide their lips together briefly. “I wasn’t even thinking about sex until you woke up and started looking at me and talking and stuff.”

 

“Mm, such a romantic.”

 

The sheets rustle as Darren slots their legs together, and he rocks forward, pressing a kiss to Chris’s lips and running his hand up Chris’s side, back down to the dip of his lower back. “I’m romantic as fuck.”

 

“You’re a jackwagon,” Chris breathes, arching his head back so Darren can mouth kisses down his throat.

 

Darren makes it to the collar of Chris’s long johns and scrapes his teeth against Chris’s warm skin in a shadow of a bite. “Still letting me kiss you, though.”

 

“Roll over,” Chris urges, pushing Darren onto his back before he can comply.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing.” Chris settles down on top of him, thighs splayed over Darren’s hips and hands on Darren’s chest.

 

“No?” Darren lets himself be pressed into the mattress, traces his fingers up and down Chris’s sides, scrunching up his top to get at the warm skin underneath.

 

“Uh uh.” Chris doesn’t move, just continues looking down at Darren. It’s oddly familiar.

 

“Are you processing?”

 

“Trying to.”

 

Stilling his palms over Chris’s hips, Darren nods carefully, trying unsuccessfully to gauge Chris’s expression in the dark. “Would you care for some assistance?”

 

After another long moment of staring, Chris nods, once, and lifts a hand from Darren’s chest. “Tip your head back.” A finger presses underneath Darren’s chin. “All the way back.”

 

“And this is helping?” Darren clarifies as he lifts his chin, eyes focusing somewhere off in the dark distance.

 

Chris’s voice is closer the next time he talks, his breath gusting over Darren’s straining neck. “I think so, yes. Hold still.” Lips scuff over the stubble on the underside of Darren’s jaw, teeth scraping, an insistent tongue painting patterns lower and lower until Chris is mouthing over Darren’s Adam’s apple.

 

Darren closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose, trying not to move, trying not to hold Chris’s head in place when he starts sucking at the hinge of Darren’s jaw. Chris starts circling his hips, slow, smooth swivels that grind them together. Darren can feel him, feel his cock getting harder, snug against Darren’s. Chris sucks the lobe of Darren’s ear between his teeth and lets it drag back out. Darren heaves out a shuddering, involuntary breath and fists his hands in Chris’s long johns, digging his heels into the mattress and holding as still as he can.

 

Fingers curl behind his neck, and Chris guides Darren’s head up, pulls him in for a quick, soft kiss. “Okay,” he whispers against Darren’s lips. “You can move now.”

 

Something snaps inside Darren, quivering impatiently in his chest. Arching up, he buries his fingers in Chris’s hair, holding him close and kissing him deep and filthy. Chris keeps moving against him, hips working in tortuous circles, fingers digging in at the back of Darren’s neck.

 

Their cocks press together, hard and hot through their clothes, and Darren twitches his hips up, sucks a breath in through his nose and reaches down. He slides a hand over Chris’s ass, palming it roughly and dragging him down, closer, harder against Darren’s aching cock. “Okay?” he checks, breath wet between them as Chris lets out a groan.

 

Chris responds, rough and breathless, grinding against him, “Uh huh.”

 

Darren’s hand slides lower, cupping the back of Chris’s flexing thigh, fingers rubbing against the curve of his ass. He rolls up into Chris’s thrusts, rocks them together and catches Chris’s lips again, wet and chaotic, an aimless, sucking kiss as his fingertips stretch, brush up between his legs, against the space behind Chris’s balls.

 

“I want, unh, I want you naked,” Darren whines, his voice gritty and high. Chris shudders against him. “Please, please, I want you-”

 

 

“Okay, shut up, okay. Give me a second,” Chris breathes, slowing to a stop. “Okay,” he sighs, patting at Darren’s chest. “Take this stupid thing off.”

 

“Don’t diss the feeties, Christopher.”

 

“Your outfit is magnificent,” Chris tells him patiently, sliding off of Darren and yanking his shirt over his head. “Please take it off.”

 

Darren’s fingers are already working on his buttons as he struggles to sit up. “Yeah, okay.”

 

The chilled air bites at the skin of his shoulders and his back as he peels his feeties off, and before he slides them down his hips he grabs the blanket, tossing it over them both up to their chins.

 

“Oh thank god,” Chris says, shivering when he brushes up against Darren.

 

“We should go all the way under.”

 

“Or just build the fire back up.”

 

“You’re no fun,” Darren says, flopping onto his back to wiggle his feeties over his ass and down his legs.

 

Chris pauses for a moment, the rustle of the sheets going still, and Darren can make out the vague shape of his right eyebrow rising in an unimpressed arc.

 

“I take it back,” Darren rushes out, kicking off his feeties and rolling over, sliding a hand up Chris’s stomach. “You’re the most fun I’ve ever had.” His palm rests on Chris’s bare chest, over the barely discernible beat of his heart.

 

Chris rolls his eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

 

“Hey,” Darren frowns, bending down for a quick kiss. After the kiss Chris’s lower lip is curved down in an almost-pout, soft and pink, and Darren kisses it again for good measure. “Mm, see?” Darren pulls back a little, reaching up to comb his fingers through Chris’s hair. “Copious amounts of fun.”

 

Biting his lower lip and not quite hiding a small smile, Chris bobs his head away from Darren’s touch, grinning fully when Darren looks at him in confusion, his fingers frozen in the air by Chris’s temple.

 

Darren lets out an offended huff. “So it’s like that?”

 

“It’s like that,” Chris confirms, and then his arms are around Darren and the world is spinning.

 

He hits the mattress with an ooph, the blanket twisted around them, Chris’s hand cradling his neck so it isn’t too jarring. Fingers slide into his hair, tugging his head up, and Chris’s lips capture his, pressing close and hard as a weight settles across his hips. Darren can feel the bump and drag of Chris’s cock against his belly, smooth and hard and enough to flood his stomach with heat. Chris rocks back, his ass naked and hot against Darren’s cock, sending a white hot flare of pleasure racing down his spine.

 

“Oh fuck,” Darren gasps, his fingers digging into Chris’s hips as he thrusts up thoughtlessly, helplessly. “Fuck.”

 

Chris smiles at him, and Darren can feel him flex, can feel the secret, dry heat of him.

 

“Mother fucker,” Darren practically whimpers into Chris’s mouth. He gives up his hold on Chris’s hips to reach farther, grabbing Chris’s ass, kneading and spreading and fucking up tight against him. The head of his cock shoves hot against Chris’s balls. “Fuck, down,” Darren pleads, curling his hips up. “Down, down, I want- us, together, like-”

 

Chris shushes him and slides down until their cocks are pressed together between them, rigid bars of heat dragging together as Chris keeps rocking his hips, fucking against Darren.

 

“What’s it like?” Darren asks suddenly, fingers still pushing into the flesh of Chris’s ass. Chris’s balls lay heavy against his, the hair on their legs rasps together as Chris slides an ankle back.

 

“What’s what like?” Chris breathes, their cheeks resting together as Chris flexes and rolls his hips.

 

“Getting fucked.”

 

A barely-there stutter hitches the rhythm of Chris’s hips, and then Chris’s lips are on Darren’s jaw, dragging lazy against his beard. “Depends,” Chris says softly, his throat tight with the hint of a groan. “On who it’s with.”

 

“If it was with you?” Darren asks, turning his head a little, talking into the corner of Chris’s mouth. His fingertips search carefully, pressing and touching between the cheeks of Chris’s ass. “How would you fuck me?”

 

“Slow,” Chris tells him, brushing their lips together and kneading at the back of Darren’s neck. “I’d just- I’d do it slow. I’d spend so long opening you up that you’d need something inside you.”

“Yeah?” Darren asks, his voice going high with the question. “Your fingers,” he thinks out loud, clenching as the thought hits him and Chris’s fingers tense around the back of his neck.

 

“And my tongue, if you’d let me,” Chris confides, nuzzling down to suck a wet kiss into the side of Darren’s neck. “It aches,” Chris whispers, trailing his lips back up to Darren’s. “After a while, it aches, and you need, and you want more and more and it can’t ever stop.”

 

“Don’t stop,” Darren breathes, grinding his hips up slow to match Chris’s pace, fingers dragging across the hot skin of Chris’s hole, up and down and back again.

 

“Turn over,’ Chris tells him, kissing him and then pulling away, holding his weight off of Darren. “Turn over, come on.”

 

“Fuck.” Darren twists around, scrambling onto his front.

 

Chris presses into him as soon as his belly hits the mattress. Legs stretched back this time, bracketing Darren’s, Chris rests his weight on Darren. He ruts his hips down, a few swift, short thrusts, until his cock is snug between the cheeks of Darren’s ass. “Okay?”

 

It’s more than okay. Darren nods and flexes his hips steadily against the mattress, rubbing himself off and reveling in the feel of it, the undisputable evidence that Chris is hot and hard for him, holding him down and getting him off. His fingers twist into the sheets, back arching as Chris’s dick rubs against him, against his hole and fuck Chris could fuck him. He could fuck Chris. That’s a thing that’s possible now. Darren laughs, tugs on the sheets and fucks against the mattress and laughs because holy shit that’s Chris’s dick against his ass and it is so fucking hot.

 

Chris’s breath is hot and wet against his ear, panting and harsh. “Something funny?”

 

“I’m gonna come humping the bed like a teenager.”

 

“You better not. I just washed the sheets.”

 

Groaning, Darren squeezes his eyes shut and scrubs his cheek against the sheet, trying to still the pump of his hips. “Stop rubbing your dick all over my ass if you don’t want me to come, jeeze.”

 

He can feel Chris twitch against him, a pulse that draws an answering twinge from Darren, and then Chris is lifting his hip away, breathing hot into the back of Darren’s neck. “Okay, just… fuck. Gimme a sec.”

 

Darren pushes up, starts to turn over before Chris’s hand splays against this back, pushing him back down. “Stay.”

 

Darren drops back to the mattress, fingers curled against the sheets. “That shouldn’t have been so hot.”

 

“You’re so fucking ridiculous,” Chris whispers, and Darren would pretend to be offended but he gets distracted by the way Chris is kissing Darren’s back, down the center, along his spine.

 

“Oh shit,” Darren whispers, his fingers scrabbling for a hold on the sheets as he realizes Chris isn’t slowing down or changing course. Sloppy, wet kisses trail down Darren’s skin, lips and teeth and a tongue every once in awhile, he thinks, taking quick swiping tastes. The blanket gets pulled back, exposing Darren’s skin to the cold of the cabin, chilled air that bites at the wetness Chris leaves behind. Chris stops at the very base of Darren’s spine, nipping and sucking and scratching his chin against the top of Darren’s ass.

 

“Yes or no,” Chris prompts, his hot breath sending goosebumps across Darren’s skin.

 

“Yeah, yes,” Darren breathes, trying to subtly shift his thighs apart, squirming against the feeling in his stomach and the ache in his balls. “Are you- yes. Please, yes.”

 

It’s softer than he expected, especially when it’s just Chris’s tongue, and even when Chris pushes closer, lips firm and his nose pressing into Darren’s skin, Darren can tell. Right away he can tell. It isn’t enough.

 

It’s fucking torture, slick swipes of tongue and a probing kiss and the way Chris breathes out against him. Darren grunts and rocks back and slides his knees across the bed, spreading them wider. Chris’s hands pull him open, fingers digging into the flesh of his ass, and Darren arches his back, tries to shove up higher, closer.

 

“Fuck,” Chris sighs, moving away from where Darren needs him and biting gently at Darren’s ass, teeth setting in and then dragging together. “I wanna wreck you.” He kisses where he just bit, and his fingertips work down to push through the slickness at Darren’s hole.

 

Darren focuses on breathing, on trying to hear Chris over the pounding of his heart.

 

Chris bites him again, smaller and harder, and then sucks the sting away, drawing out an ache. “I wanna fucking take you apart.”

 

Chris licks him, right across his hole, and then pushes the pad of a finger against it, maybe his thumb, wide and inexorable, a firm, steady pressure. “And I want you to do it back. I want to let you do it back.”

 

Darren’s cock is throbbing beneath him, his balls full and aching, and Chris keeps touching him, keeps pressing closer. “Chris.”

 

The pressure disappears, leaving Darren gasping for one desperate moment, until Chris’s hands clamp down on his hips, urging him over onto his back. He flops over gracelessly, his cock jutting up as Chris leans over it.

 

He tries to choke out a warning, but Chris’s fingers drag up behind his balls, spit-slick and searching, and before Darren can say anything intelligible his body seizes up. Something inside him twists and twists and snaps, just as the tip of one of Chris’s fingers presses up, presses in, and Darren comes with a jerk and a shout.

 

His cock pulses and spills, dragging over Chris’s mouth, his cheek, until Chris’s fingers wrap around it, steadying and twisting up and bringing the head to his lips. The hot wet of Chris’s mouth sets Darren groaning, pulls the last few dregs out of him, tight and shaking.

 

“Fuck,” Darren says, once his throat opens back up. His ass drops back to the mattress as his coiled-up muscles begin to unwind. He’s shivering, he notices, flushed hot and covered in cooling sweat. Chris lets him go with a fond pat to his pelvis, crawling back up and bringing the blanket as he does.

 

Chris is wiping at his cheek with the heel of his hand, grinning.

 

“There’s come in your hair,” Darren points out, mildly apologetic as he reaches up with shaking fingers and tries to comb it out.

 

“It’s not the first time,” Chris says with an amused shrug, leaning down for a kiss.

 

“Harlot,” Darren whispers gleefully in between kisses. Chris snorts at him and then lets out a yelp when Darren gathers enough strength in his limbs to flip them over.

 

Holding on to Darren’s shoulders, Chris relaxes against the mattress, letting out a soft, appreciative moan when Darren kisses down his neck. Darren keeps going, sweeping his hands down Chris’s ribs and sucking wet kisses down Chris’s chest, his stomach. He pays close attention to Chris’s bellybutton, sucking red marks around it sloppily, and then scratching his beard across the shiny, sensitive skin. Chris’s fingers slide into Darren’s hair and tense, holding tightly, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make any unhappy sounds, so Darren keeps going. He scrapes his teeth across the softness just below Chris’s navel and grabs one of Chris’s hips, digging his thumb in and holding him still as he mouths his way down, nosing against Chris’s cock.

 

The noises start when Darren mouths down the crease at the inside of Chris’s thigh. It’s just heavy exhales at first, breathy and shot through with short, high catches of sound. Darren follows when Chris tugs his hair, works closer and with more pressure, kissing and sucking at tender skin. Chris smells like sex, here, like man and sweat and sex, and Darren tastes the salt of his skin, works his lips over to Chris’s balls and sucks one into his mouth. Tonguing it and trying not to smile too big at the increased urgency of Chris’s little half-moans, Darren slides his hand from Chris’s hip to his cock.

 

The angle is awkward, but Darren quickly becomes enamored of the way each tug of Chris’s cock stretches at the skin of his balls, shifts it while it’s still in Darren’s mouth.

 

Chris groans above him, starting low and tapering off into a whimper when Darren flattens his tongue and licks up the underside of Chris’s dick. He makes it all the way to the tip, precome bitter and slick at the slit, and wraps his lips around the head.

 

“Darren,” Chris grinds out, curling up as his fingers scratch through Darren’s hair.

 

Darren hums, still jacking Chris with one hand, and uses the other to search across Chris’s skin. His fingertips scuff across Chris’s hip, digging in along the soft jut of it.

 

Chris is winding tight beneath him, shivers wracking through him off and on, the jumping flex of his muscles playing out beneath Darren’s palm. Darren hollows his cheeks and bobs down.

 

A harsh, bitten-off exclamation sounds above him, and Chris curls up so hard he’s almost sitting, holding on to Darren’s head and rocking into his mouth in short, staccato bursts. “Darren, fuck. I- I’m gonna-”

 

Darren wants to tell him to let go, wants to tell him he can come in Darren’s mouth or all over his face or even in his hair if he feels like it, but his mouth his full of Chris’s cock, so the only thing that comes out is a hum. It seems to do the trick anyway.

 

It’s not the most pleasant thing Darren’s ever tasted, but Chris panting out his name and shuddering under his touch more than make up for it. His lips tighten around Chris’s cock as it pulses, slick, salty come bitter at the back of his tongue.

 

Chris’s fingers gradually loosen in Darren’s hair, and Chris relaxes against the mattress, his cock sliding free. Darren wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and studies the intermittent shivers that wrack Chris’s thighs. His cock is still hard enough to bob against his lower belly.

 

When Darren glances up Chris is already looking at him. He scrubs a thumb down the gentle cut of Chris’s hip. “You think you can go again?”

 

Chris’s cock twitches, even as he drops his head back with a groan. “Ooh, fuck you so hard.”

 

“I think you can,” Darren says, ghosting his fingertips down the length of Chris’s dick, still spit-slick and flushed red.

 

Letting go of Darren’s hair, Chris crosses both his arms over his eyes, his back arching half-heartedly off the bed. “Hurry up, then. Fuck.”

 

Darren doesn’t ask questions, just licks his hand and wraps it loosely around Chris’s dick, easing him into a light, fast rhythm.

 

Chris’s breath comes quick and uneven, his stomach tensing and curving in with each rushed exhale. “I- I don’t know if I can,” he admits, propping himself up shakily on his elbows after Darren changes his grip slightly, thumb stroking feather-light just under the head. “I- ah, I want to, I really… But I don’t know if I- If I-”

 

Darren drags the knuckles of his free hand down the crease of Chris’s inner thigh, pushing up behind his balls, into smooth, taut skin.

 

Chris’s cock leaps in Darren’s grip, and he chokes out an exclamation, curling up, his whole body shaking and tight, caught somewhere on the edge.

 

Darren watches the strain of Chris’s neck, the shadowy dip at the base of his throat. He leans down and licks across the head of Chris’s dick before pursing his lips and blowing out a stream of cool air.

 

Twisting out of Darren’s grip with a wail and shudder, Chris drops back to the mattress and stretches out on his side, cock fucking against nothing as he comes. Darren follows him, sweeping a hand up the rippling muscles of his back and taking in the rigid, twitching curl of his fingers, the restless shifting of his legs. Chris curls in on himself, his breaths twisting up into a rough whine at the end until Darren slides behind him, curls around his back and smooths out the tremors in Chris’s stomach with the palm of his hand.

 

Kissing Chris’s shoulder carefully, Darren presses as close as he can and rests his cheek against the curve of Chris’s neck. “Are you okay?”

 

“I think,” Chris says, his voice graveled and wry, “maybe one at a time for a little while.” He bends away from Darren for a moment, but comes back dragging the blanket up over them.

 

“Okay,” Darren agrees softly, nuzzling his smile into the space behind Chris’s ear and settling into the warmth of the blanket, and the long, smooth stretch of Chris’s bare skin.

 

Chris wiggles against him, ass snugging up to Darren’s half-hard cock. “For me, anyway.”

 

Darren hisses a breath in through his teeth when his cock twitches. “Ahh haha, I’m good for now, thanks.”

 

“Wuss.”

 

Squeezing his arm around Chris’s waist, Darren sets his teeth against the top of Chris’s shoulder, growling.

 

Chris laughs, and then groans, his body writhing uncomfortably against Darren’s.

 

Darren hooks his chin over Chris’ shoulder, flattening his palm against his chest. “What’s the matter?”

 

“I have to pee,” Chris whines, his legs straightening out and bumping into Darren’s. “But I’m really comfortable and I don’t think my legs are working yet and it’s really cold outside of the covers and I just don’t want to move.” He takes a breath when he’s done, chest expanding beneath Darren’s palm.

 

“I’ll fix the fire for you,” Darren offers softly, brushing his lips against Chris’s jaw.

 

Heaving a great sigh, Chris grabs Darren’s hand and unwraps the arm from around his middle. “Alright.”

 

Chris’s cock is still mostly hard when he stands up, swinging thick and heavy between his long, pale legs.

 

“How do you even work?” Darren asks as he sits up, grabbing Chris’s hip when his knees look wobbly. Chris sets a hand on Darren’s shoulder, leaning on him as he steps onto the hardwood floor.

 

“I have no idea,” Chris says, taking a few shaky steps backwards and smiling at him.

 

Darren doesn’t bother trying to keep the grin off his face while he rebuilds the fire, listening absently to the sound of Chris peeing and wondering if he’d mind showering with Darren. Not right then, of course, because Darren just wants to pass out for a while, and the smell of sex and sweat is pretty awesome anyway. Maybe in the morning.

 

Darren is alerted to Chris’s return by the sound of bare feet slapping against the floor and a fwump.

 

“Cold?” Darren asks the shivering lump of bedding once he puts the grate back.

 

Chris moans pitifully, only letting go of the blanket when Darren tugs on the edge a couple times so he can crawl under, too.

 

It’s pitch black under the blanket, and Chris’s skin is cool to the touch when Darren runs his hands across it, pulling Chris close. “Really cold?”

 

Chris arches into the contact and hums an affirmative, although it comes out mostly as chattering teeth and a breathy laugh.

 

Sliding a hand down Chris’s back, Darren traces goosebumps with the pads of his fingers and tangles their legs together, shivering at the almost-familiar scuff of hair.

 

Chris hooks his prickly chin over Darren’s shoulder, tucking his arms up between them and nosing into Darren’s hair.

 

Darren keeps sweeping a palm along Chris’s spine, the breadth of his shoulders. “Better?”

 

“Mmhm,” Chris agrees, squirming even closer somehow, his nose pressing coldly into Darren’s neck. “Let’s sleep for hours and hours.”

 

Smiling into the darkness, Darren wriggles down against the pillow and closes his eyes.

 

 

***

***

 

 

Chris wakes up to Darren kissing his shoulder and sliding out of bed, but he doesn’t open his eyes. The cabin is bright and much warmer than when they fell asleep last, especially after Darren pokes around the fire for a little bit. Chris bunches up his pillow under his face, trying to be discreet about wiping away any drool, and listens to Darren head to the bathroom, and then putter around quietly in the kitchen.

 

When Darren comes back he doesn’t get into bed like Chris is hoping. He steps close to the mattress, rustling the sheets, and then flops softly into one of the chairs.

 

He goes quiet after that, and Chris slits an eye open, hugging the pillow closer to his cheek and peering up at Darren.

 

Darren’s already looking back.

 

“’Cha doin’?” Chris asks, ignoring the scratch of his sleep-thickened voice.

 

“Processing,” Darren says after a moment, a small, pleased grin flickering at the corners of his mouth.

 

Chris doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know what it implies, precisely, so he blinks and tries to focus on something else. “Wearin’ my clothes,” Chris notices, lifting his head up and letting his gaze trail down Darren’s bare chest, the creases in his belly where he’s leaning forward and the way the elastic of the long johns digs in slightly at his hips.

 

“Just the bottoms,” Darren says, sliding off the edge of the chair to his knees, dipping the mattress. “You were on my feeties and I didn’t want to wake you.” He leans down for a kiss.

 

Chris crinkles his nose and ducks away, mumbling about morning breath. Darren shrugs and kisses his cheek instead, and then his neck, and lower, mouth dragging lazily across Chris’s collarbones.

 

Sighing and stretching languidly, Chris lets his eyes drift closed again, reveling in the easy press of Darren’s lips.

 

Seconds later his eyes snap open, body tensing as the low, distant rumble of an engine becomes apparent. “Oh shit.”

 

“Fuck,” Darren agrees, scrambling to his feet and stumbling over to the window by the front door. “It’s them,” he announces, just as Chris’s ears pick out the sounds of more than one engine.

 

“You’re wearing my pants!” Chris exclaims, kicking ineffectually at the blankets twisted around his legs.

 

“Just put the feeties on and hand me the shirt.”

 

“No! Oh my god, I don’t wanna wear the feeties, Darren!” Chris cries, even as he finds the top and flings it at Darren’s head.

 

Darren shrugs it over his head, but the arms are inside out. A car door slams.

 

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Chris chants, stuffing his legs into the feeties and standing up, hopping clumsily and pulling them up to his hips. “What are we gonna tell them? About us?” he asks. Darren gives up on the top, leaving it looped around his neck, and moves to help Chris.

 

“You wanna tell them we’re together?” Darren asks, holding the top of the feeties up as Chris slides an arm through.

 

Chris freezes, one arm bent back awkwardly. “We’re together?”

 

“…Yes?”

 

“Okay,” Chris says quickly, spinning around, accidentally wrapping himself up in the feeties. Darren’s eyes are big. “Are we telling them? Do you want to tell them?” Chris has never been any good at hiding.

 

“Let’s tell ‘em,” Darren breathes, his hands coming up to smooth carefully across Chris’s back, under the feeties.

 

Chris kisses him.

 

The door opens.

 

“Oh my god am I being Punk’d?”

 

Breaking the kiss with a sigh, Chris shuts his eyes. Darren rolls their foreheads together.

 

“I’m so not being Punk’d,” Lea continues, voice getting higher and louder and more excited in general. When Chris chances a look she’s actually bouncing and clapping her gloved hands together. “You guys were doing it! You guys are totally doing it!”

 

Cory peers in through the doorway, a mildly surprised look on his face. Lea gives them one last elated look and then disappears back outside.

 

“Let’s let Lea tell the others,” Darren suggests with a smile.

 

Laughing quietly, Chris nods and reaches up to help turn Darren’s sleeves right-side out.