Chapter Text
When John wakes on the morning of Roger’s birthday, Roger is still fast asleep beside him. The sound of his breathing is soft and steady in the quiet of the room, and the sunlight spilling in through the window is making John’s skin feel warm and flushed. The heat wave that had hit London a few days prior is still going strong, and despite it still being early in the morning, the air in their bedroom already feels heavy and humid.
They’d fallen asleep last night on opposite sides of the bed, too sick with the heat to even entertain the idea of touching, but as John slowly comes to he realizes he can feel Roger now pressed against his back, an arm thrown over his waist. It’s funny, the way Roger seems to gravitate towards him even in sleep; it’s somehow even endearing when John has to spit a chunk of Roger’s hair from his mouth.
It’s only a quarter to nine, and the heat isn’t enough yet suffocating enough to warrant peeling himself away from Roger, so John just sighs sleepily and shifts back a little closer, smiling when Roger makes a quiet, content sound in his sleep. John closes his eyes, settling in in hopes of getting a few more winks of sleep.
Sleep doesn’t come, though, and instead John finds his mind wandering. It wanders from his summer classes, to his shift at work that afternoon, to how much longer it’ll be until they’ve saved up enough to start recording their first album. All four of them have been taking extra shifts wherever they can get them to pay for the studio time, and between that, playing gigs every weekend, the endless rehearsals, and the extra classes he’s been taking to finish up his engineering degree, John feels like he’s been operating at maximum capacity non-stop for the better part of a year now. It’s exhausting.
Which is why slow, quiet mornings like this mean the world to John. Neither he nor Roger have anywhere to be until John’s shift starts at noon, which is still hours away yet. Of course, he’d rather not have to work on Roger’s birthday at all, but if he must, he’s at least glad that it’s an afternoon shift and they can spend the morning together.
Except Roger is still asleep.
John should let Roger rest, it would be the nice thing to do for his boyfriend on his birthday. But John is bored, and he misses Roger despite being right next to him, and he’d like to actually be able to spend their rare lazy morning in bed together. As John lies there debating the morality of waking his boyfriend up on his birthday just because he’s bored, a second, naughtier, idea occurs to him. John’s stomach flutters as the idea takes root, and when he looks over at Roger— soft and pretty in sleep just like he always is— John knows he has no choice.
It is Roger’s birthday, after all.
Ever so carefully John extracts himself from Roger, almost holding his breath as he removes Roger’s arm from around his waist and shifts away from him. Roger’s breathing changes for a moment and John goes still, watching carefully to make sure he doesn’t wake. But Roger only snores softly and rolls onto his back, settling again with a quiet sigh. Roger has always been a heavy sleeper, and this is the one time that’s worked to John’s advantage.
As John shifts a little further down on the bed, kicking the sheets down with him as he goes, he takes a long moment to let himself admire the view. Roger is all soft, bare skin laid out on the sheets under him, fast asleep and breathing softly, and John thanks whatever god might happen to be listening that the two of them have started sleeping naked since the heat wave hit. Jesus, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of seeing Roger like this.
John settles on the bed, pressed up against Roger’s hip with his head near the bottom of his stomach. Pushing his hair out of his face, John licks a strip up his hand, before carefully curling it around Roger’s length and stroking him slowly from base to tip. Roger is soft, but it isn’t long before long John feels him starting to harden in his hand. He smiles to himself, pleased, and squeezes his fist a little tighter to stroke Roger more firmly, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the head.
Roger makes a soft sound, close to a whimper, but when John glances up he finds him still fast asleep. He leans in closer, his hand still moving around the base, and sucks the head of Roger’s cock into his mouth. Roger makes another low sound in his throat as John bobs his head slowly, hollowing his cheeks as he sinks down just a little.
Roger’s hips jerk slightly, and John uses his arm to hold him down as he flattens his tongue, dragging it along the vein on the underside of his cock. Roger is fully hard now, hot and heavy against his tongue, and John’s eyes flutter shut as he hums softly and sucks. Pulling back, he takes a moment to suckle on the head and swirl his tongue over the slit, already tasting Roger starting to leak against his tongue. He sighs through his nose, taking a second to relax his throat and get his breathing right before he starts to sink down, taking as much of Roger as he can before it starts to get uncomfortable.
He can take Roger all the way to the base when he really tries, but it’s still early and John’s head is still feeling rather fogged with sleep, and while he loves his boyfriend very, very much, deepthroating him barely 15 minutes after waking up isn’t quite at the top of the list of things John was planning on doing today. So he just takes as much as he can before he starts to gag and then stops, flattening his tongue and starting to bob his head slowly, working his fist over what he can’t reach.
John can’t deny that he loves this. He’s always loved sucking Roger off, but there’s something about waking him up with a blowjob that never fails to make his head spin. Any kind of morning sex, really; there’s just something about Roger when he’s warm and pliant and sleepy like this that makes John’s heart flutter and arousal pool between his hips. He lets himself get lost in the feeling of Roger warm and heavy on his tongue, swallowing around him and hearing his breathing get more and more shallow, but he doesn’t realize Roger has woken up until a gentle hand settles in his hair.
“John,” Roger sighs.
John opens his eyes to see Roger looking down at him through his lashes, a red flush dusting the apples of his cheeks. John blinks up at him, hollowing his cheeks and slowly pulling back to kitten lick over the tip of his dick as Roger’s mouth falls open.
“Oh, shit,” Roger groans, closing his eyes and tipping his head back into the pillow. “Baby.”
John wraps his lips around the head and sucks, his hand still working Roger over in slow, steady strokes. Roger’s voice is low and gravelly like it always is in the mornings in a way that makes a delicious sort of heat pool in John’s stomach, and he wonders absentmindedly whether Roger will be able to go again in time fuck him before they have to get up if he makes him come now.
Roger strokes his hair lazily, brushing his fringe back where it’s falling in his eyes. “What’s this for?” he mumbles sleepily.
John hums, pulling back and removing his lips with a soft, wet pop. He smiles, pressing slow, gentle kisses up the shaft. “Happy birthday.”
A slow smile spreads on Roger’s face. “Oh, yeah.”
“Did you forget?” John laughs softly, rubbing circles over the head with the pad of his thumb. “Twenty-three,” he sighs dreamily. “How does it feel?”
“Well right now it feels pretty fucking incredible."
John hides his pleased smile by wrapping his lips around Roger again. He lets himself get lost in it, falling into a steady rhythm of sucking and licking as Roger’s fingers stroke through his hair, occasionally tightening ever so slightly when something feels especially good. The wet sounds of it mix with the soft moans and gasps spilling past Roger’s lips to fill their bedroom.
“S’good,” Roger breathes. “Really good, Deaks. Christ baby, your mouth.”
John hums, the vibrations making Roger groan lowly in the back of his throat. He blinks up at Roger through his eyelashes, giving his best doe eyes as he hollows his cheeks and sucks, hard. Roger’s hand tightens in his hair for a moment as he gasps, letting his head tip to the side to face their bedside table. Suddenly, his whole body freezes and his eyes widen in horror when he sees the clock.
“Oh, shit.”
Roger is suddenly scrambling to get up under him, and John quickly pulls away in shock to let him. He sits up on his knees and watches wide-eyed as Roger clambers off the bed, his mind racing and a heavy pit of anxiety taking root in his chest.
“Rog?” John asks, alarmed.
“Shit,” Roger is muttering to himself as he stumbles towards the dresser, “shit shit shit shit—”
“Roger?” John asks again, more clearly, an edge of panic in his voice. Did he do something wrong? Did he hurt Roger, somehow?
Roger sighs, digging around haphazardly in the top drawer of the dresser, groaning loudly in frustration when he doesn’t immediately find what he’s looking for. “I’m late for work,” he says finally. “I’m so late, shit—”
John blinks slowly, his sluggish brain struggling to catch up with what’s going on. “I— you’re working today?”
“I was supposed to open the shop at 9.”
John glances over at the dinky little analog clock on their bedside table. It reads 9:21.
“Oh,” is all he manages to say, still a little stunned by the sudden change of pace.
“Must’ve forgotten to set the bloody alarm,” Roger is mumbling to himself, frantically opening and closing drawers in search of his work uniform, “god, stupid—”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize…” John says finally, before his eyebrows draw together in confusion. “Wait, I thought you were taking your birthday off?”
“I was supposed to,” Roger sighs, finally finding his black jeans half strewn over the edge of the clothes hamper and pulling them on, jumping a few times to get them over his hips, “but Reid asked me to take the morning shift today, and I know we could really use the money so I said yes. Sorry, I must’ve forgotten to tell you.”
He glances over at John as he zips up his trousers, sighing unhappily. John can only assume he looks rather pitiful and dejected, kneeling there naked on the bed with his hair a mess and his lips red and swollen, because Roger darts over to give him a quick kiss.
“I’m sorry love,” he frowns, “I should’ve told you, I didn’t mean to ruin your plans or anything.”
John waves him off, shaking his head as Roger steps away again to look for his shirt. “It’s alright,” he says, pushing down the small twist of disappointment deep in his gut as the possibility of a nice, relaxing morning with just the two of them is pulled out from under him. “If anything, I should be apologizing to you for getting you all interested and leaving you hanging,” he laughs a little, eyeing the obvious bulge in Roger’s trousers.
It’s only then that Roger seems to realize he’s still, in fact, incredibly hard. He follows John’s eyes down to where his erection is straining obscenely against the fabric of his jeans, before he curses and sets to work trying to adjust himself, trying his best to tuck it into his waistband. John giggles at the sight as he finally gets up, snagging his bathrobe from where it’s hanging on the closet door and slipping it on.
“Finish getting ready,” he says, “I’ll see if I can’t scrounge up some breakfast for you to bring with you.”
“God, you’re an angel,” Roger mutters, smacking a thankful kiss to his cheek as John smiles.
He slips out the door, padding down the hallway to the kitchen. Brian is already up and dressed, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and his laptop open in front of him.
“Morning,” John says, hearing Roger dart out of the bedroom somewhere behind him and sprint to the bathroom.
“Morning, Deaky.”
John wanders over to the cupboard, opening it to look inside. And then he looks in the other cupboard, and then the fridge, searching for anything quick and easy he can send Roger off to work with so he doesn’t starve. And as he looks, he has to push down the wave of irritation that rises in his chest when he realizes that they don’t have any food.
Again.
Living with three other men has gotten John fairly used to this, but it will never stop being one of the most frustrating things in the world. John loves them all dearly, but neither Roger nor Freddie would ever think to do the shopping on their own— in fact the two of them would probably starve to death before it even occurred to them to go to the grocery store. Brian thinks of it sometimes, but whenever they send him off to the grocery on his own he always comes back with bags full of only the pure, organic, vegetarian stuff, and nothing else. John can appreciate a good vegetarian meal every now and again, but frankly he would rather off himself than have to eat that exclusively, which means Brian has officially been banned from doing the shopping on his own.
Which of course means that the responsibility of buying food so the four of them don’t starve to death has fallen on John’s shoulders. And with everything that’s been going on, John hasn’t had time to do the shopping.
And so they have no food.
“Why isn’t there anything to eat?” John sighs, staring into the empty fridge.
Brian doesn’t say anything, typing away furiously on his laptop. John rolls his eyes.
“Brian?”
“Hm?” Brian glances over, blinking at him.
John pushes down the urge to pinch him. “We have no food,” he repeats.
“We never have any food,” Brian mutters, turning back to his laptop and continuing typing. When John doesn’t answer, clearly unimpressed with his response, Brian waves his hand in the air in the vague direction of the cupboard above the refrigerator. “I think I’ve still got some fruit and nut bars up in that cupboard if you’re desperate.”
“Did you put them up there so nobody would take them?” John asks curiously. That cupboard is mostly used to store random household clutter, not food.
Brian just sips his tea and doesn’t answer.
John shakes his head, leaning up on his tiptoes to open the cupboard. He pushes through the jumble of spare flashlights and duct tape and various cleaning supplies they’d bought and only used once, before his hand finally lands on a small pile of bars. He takes one down, glancing at the label.
All natural Fruit ’n Nut bar with dried prunes, raisins, walnuts, and coconut! Now with added fibre.
John wrinkles his nose. The only way Roger would ever eat this thing would be at gunpoint, and maybe not even then.
“You really think anyone wants to steal these?” He raises his eyebrows at Brian, who once again chooses to ignore him. John sighs, tossing the bar down onto the countertop.
The bathroom door opens then, and Roger comes barreling down the hall. He thankfully looks at least a little more put together— there’s still a red flush to his cheeks that screams ‘I was getting sucked off five minutes ago,’ but at least he’s brushed his hair. He breezes past the kitchen to the doorway, shoving on his shoes.
“Happy birthday Rog,” Brian calls, and Roger shoots him a grin as he straightens back up.
“There’s nothing here to eat, I’m sorry,” John tells Roger apologetically, reaching up to fix his collar where it’s tucked into the neckline of his shirt. “I’ll pop by the café and bring you some breakfast in a half hour or so, yeah?”
Roger leans in and gives him a brief kiss. “You’re the best, you know that right?”
“Well I did make you late on your birthday,” John says, smoothing his hands down the front of Roger’s shirt a few times in an attempt to even out the wrinkles. “Sort of seems like the least I could do.”
Roger waves him off, squirming away from John’s best efforts to make him look a little more presentable. “You didn’t know I was working, and I’m the one who forgot to set an alarm,” he counters, pulling on his denim jacket.
John can’t deny that, but it still doesn’t stop him from feeling a little guilty.
“You’re going to roast in that,” he says pointedly, watching Roger adjust his jacket in the mirror beside the door. “It’s going to be really hot today.”
“Yeah, but it makes me look cool,” Roger winks at him in the mirror.
“If by ‘cool’ you mean ‘gay.’”
Roger laughs brightly. They both know he’s right, of course; it’s a denim jacket for christ’s sake, covered in all sorts of political pins and patches and flowers that Freddie embroidered.
“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Roger grins. “God, imagine being mistaken for a heterosexual. I could never.”
John’s head tips back as he laughs, and when Roger surprises him with another kiss John is still smiling against his lips.
“We’ll finish what we started later, yeah?” Roger asks lowly, his hands sliding down John’s waist to his hips.
Brian coughs awkwardly from the kitchen table, but they both ignore him.
John giggles. “Yes, yes. Now go,” he stresses, pushing Roger towards the door. “You’re so late.”
Roger grins, gives him one last quick kiss goodbye, and then darts out the door and down the hallway toward the stairwell.
John shakes his head, still smiling as he closes the door behind Roger. After a moment he wanders back to the kitchen, scratching absently at his stomach as he pulls out the chair beside Brian and sits down heavily with a sigh, causing Brian to finally glance up from his laptop.
“You’re up early,” John says, stifling yawn.
“I’ve got a paper due Wednesday,” Brian sighs, leaning back in his chair and scrubbing his hands over his face, “and since I’m losing tonight to drinking and tomorrow to a hangover, I figured I should get as much of it done now as I can before this afternoon.”
“Are you working later?”
Brian shakes his head. “I’m just going out with Fred to get some things for tonight.”
“Oh. Make sure you stop for booze, yeah?”
“Yeah, that’s number one on the list,” Brian nods. “Who’s all coming over again?”
“Uh…” John looks up at the ceiling, trying to think. “Well there’s us four, plus Freddie’s bringing Jim so that’s five… plus Ronnie and Dom, and then Crystal, Ratty, and Jobby makes what, ten? Oh, and Chrissie, so that’s eleven.”
Brian laughs sharply in surprise, before quickly shaking his head. “No, Chrissie isn’t coming. That’s off again.”
“Again?”
“Mhm. Really off.”
“Jesus.” John shakes his head. He barely even bothers trying to suppress his amused grin; at this point it seems like Brian and Chrissie are breaking up at least once a month. “Well, uh, I’m sorry?”
“Don’t.”
“Okay,” John laughs.
Brian groans loudly, tipping his chair back and running his hands through his unruly hair. “Why do I keep doing this to myself John?” he sighs.
John is quiet for a few beats. “Actually, why do you keep doing this to yourself?” he finally asks curiously. “What is this, the eighth time you two have broken up?”
“Actually it’s the ninth,” Brian says lightly. “And my therapist says it’s consistent with my regular pattern of self-destructive behaviour, so do with that what you will.”
He’s grinning when he says it, and when John laughs Brian laughs along with him. At least he’s got a sense of humour about it. After a long moment John sighs, pushing his chair back from the table to stand, leaving Brian to his schoolwork and heading back to his bedroom to get dressed.
He throws on a pair of jeans and a baggy t-shirt he’s pretty sure used to belong to Roger’s sister, tucking it in and adding a belt just to make himself look a little more put together. By the time he’s washed his face and brushed his hair and teeth, it’s already been nearly twenty minutes since Roger left. John tries to pick up the pace, searching around for his apron and work shoes and throwing them in his backpack to take with him. Pulling on his boots by the entryway, John shouts a quick goodbye to Brian, and then is out the door before he can even hear Brian’s response.