Archive of Our Own

Beer. Peanuts. Saliva. Pretzels. Mint. Whiskey.

Bill doesn’t know why he is enumerating these things he could taste in his mouth right now. His brain is mush so he barely has any control over what his head is thinking and what his body is doing.

Suddenly, a tongue that isn’t his scrapes the roof of his mouth, sending an electrifying sensation into his groin, which makes him thrust his hips upward. There is a heavy weight pinning him down, radiating the same amount of heat he is emitting.

It is too dark to see anything and Bill couldn’t even tell if his eyes are closed or the room he is in right now is just consumed by darkness. He orders his hands to touch whatever this large mass pressing against his body is, but his fingers are too busy pulling hairs and digging into sweaty shirt fabric. Grunts and groans are vibrating inside his mouth, though he is sure that a few of them do not come from his own throat.

Bill’s head is throbbing with a painful beat but he can barely feel it because of the intoxicating pleasure currently numbing his senses. His hands finally catch up with his thoughts and he manages to draw the body closer to him, leaving not an inch of space between them.

He hasn’t felt like this in a while. And he doesn’t want this feeling to stop.

But it didn’t last long.

Or maybe it had stopped before he even knew it.

By the time Bill comes back to his senses, he knows that it’s already morning because of the orange glow of sunshine seeping through his eyelids. When he tries to stretch for a little bit, he instantly feels pain everywhere all at once. His shoulder muscles, his stomach, his feet, and mostly his head.

He tries not to move too much as he still feels a bit hungover from all the booze he drank from the bar last night. Instead, he slowly inhaled and exhaled, hoping that heavy breathing could stop his temples from throbbing painfully. While he breathes through his mouth, he realizes that his throat feels raw, as if he had spent the entire night screaming his lungs out.

Great. I’ve got the hangover of hangovers.

Suddenly feeling curls of hair tickling his face and warm skin pressing up his chest, Bill instinctively pulls the body beside him closer into a tight embrace. To his surprise, a pair of arms is wrapped tightly around him, hugging him back.

His wife usually pushes Bill away whenever he tries to cuddle after coming home late and drunk. Apparently, she seems to be in a good mood right now and Bill knows it is best to relish this as much as he can before she starts getting cold towards him again.

So, Bill stays still, gingerly rubbing Nancy’s back with his palm, feeling her light breathing against his touch. He then hears a muffled sigh below him, which brings a smile to his lips, making him feel a sense of peace he hasn’t had in a long time.

I wish every waking day was as simple as this. Just like the good old days. Bill thinks wistfully.

Slowly, he sinks his face into his wife’s hair, nuzzling his nose deep into strands of her hair before inhaling deeply. He is expecting her usual hair product or at least the soap that she’s using would fill his nostrils. But, for some reason, Nancy doesn’t smell anything like Nancy. She almost smells like the shower gel that he uses in motels, mixed with a musky scent and a little bit of alcohol.

Furrowing his brows in confusion, Bill’s eyes lazily flutter open. He blinks a few times, adjusting his vision to the brightness. But because the scorching sun is blinding him, he lets his eyelids fall shut once more to shield his eyes.

He doesn’t want to say anything at first, as he doesn’t want to ruin this serene moment they have been sharing for a few minutes. But Bill wants to know if Nancy has been drinking a lot lately. He can‘t blame her if she has turned to alcohol as her way of coping with their family problems, but he couldn’t help but feel a little concerned about this.

“Hey, Nance,” Bill slurred with his voice vibrating roughly along his throat. “Have you been drinking?”

Bill waits for Nancy’s response, but all he can hear is soft rhythmic breathing that he can feel blowing against his chest. Okay. Maybe not the best thing to ask your wife first thing in the morning .

“Nancy,” Bill tries again, as one of his hands, which isn’t around Nancy’s waist, crawls up her shoulder and gives it a gentle shake in an attempt to wake her up.

He slowly opens his left eye to take a peek at his wife’s face. But instead of seeing a large mane of light curls, he finds waves of unruly dark brown hair prickling the underside of his nose. Bill’s other eye snaps wide open as he nudges the person in his arms away from him to take a good look at them.

The messy crown of hair belongs to a sleeping man who is still in his work clothes, minus the necktie and coat. For a moment, Bill is relieved that this person had mistaken for his wife is not a complete stranger. But he is immediately horrified to find out that the one sleeping beside him this whole time is Holden, who looks completely relaxed while asleep, with his chest slowly rising and falling with his even breathing.

What the fuck?

Bill’s blood runs cold with horror as realizes that he has been cuddling his co-worker all this time. Panicked, Bill slowly pushes Holden away from him, trying to make himself as far away from the man as possible without waking him up. But Holden’s body is heavy and his arms are still clinging to him, so he finds himself struggling to make even an inch of space between them.

Because of all of the writhing Bill has been doing, the walls around him started spinning right in front of his eyes. To make things worse, his stomach acid creeps up his throat and stings the back of his tongue. This is not the best moment to puke his guts out, so Bill stops moving and catches his breath as he racks his brain to try and remember how he ended up sharing the same bed with Holden.

His brain is still swimming in a nasty hangover. He can’t fully comprehend the events from last night, but he knows enough that Holden wasn’t supposed to be here right beside him. If they were still on the road, neither of them would be careless enough to book a room with a single bed to spend a night on. There is no way they would’ve reserved a room while intoxicated.

Bill thinks hard as he tries to keep his breathing even, with his heart pounding so hard that it feels like it is going to burst out of his chest. Why did I have too much to drink last night? We’re not supposed to get wasted like this because we still have a case to—

And then he remembers. They have finally closed the case that they’ve been trying to solve for weeks because they just cracked it yesterday after squeezing out the confession from the perp, and they decided to celebrate with the local police in a bar afterward.

Holden, who wasn’t a heavy drinker, had way too much fun gloating around about his thought process regarding the case, so he lost track of how many glasses of alcohol he consumed that night. Bill started off drinking a reasonable amount of whiskey since he was the one driving them back home. But he then recalls that he had to snatch some of the hard drinks the cops kept giving Holden, which explains why he ended up getting sloshed later that night.

Apart from the memory of Holden’s arm weighing down his neck as he hauled his partner to their motel room, everything that had happened outside the bar is hazy in Bill’s mind. He couldn’t even remember how he managed to drive both of them safely back without crashing the car. At that point, the alcohol in his system had already dulled his brain, turning everything that transpired into a blur. His stomach churns at the idea of him or Holden doing something stupid that he couldn’t remember.

The furrow of his brows deepening, Bill’s eyes darted to Holden’s sleeping face, which looks so serene that he has to admit he looks beautiful right now especially in the sunlight. Beautiful?

We couldn’t have— But he couldn’t even bring himself to say it in his mind. The possibility of him and Holden messing around in bed. Impossible. He wouldn’t have let that happen… I mean, why would we do that? There’s no reason—

As Bill’s teeth bite his lower lip, he is instantly reminded of the familiar sensation of a different set of teeth sinking into his lips not too long ago. Goosebumps prickle all over his skin at the vague memory.

“No… No, no, no, no, no,” Bill mumbles under his breath as he cranes his neck to check if either of them have shed a piece of their clothing. Thankfully, he is as clothed as Holden, whose dress shirt is still tucked in his pants. Bill looks down at himself and sighs in relief after finding out his clothes are still on, albeit a bit disheveled.

Okay. So, technically we slept together. But not, sleep-sleep. Bill shakes his head in disbelief as his gaze shoots down and lingers on the small scar right below Holden’s plump lips. All of a sudden, a vivid image of his thumb, tracing Holden’s moles along his jaw and resting his finger over the white gash, before tilting his chin upward to press Holden’s lips with his.

That didn’t happen. That isn’t real. We didn’t do that. I didn’t do that. Bill keeps repeating to himself like a mantra, as he tries to pry himself away from Holden’s embrace once again.

While he tries to untangle Holden’s limbs around his own, the younger man lets out an irritated groan and brings himself even closer. Bill could feel his warm and damp sweat through the fabric of his clothes and something hard prodding against his thigh.

Bill immediately freezes as his eyes widen in terror. He doesn’t have to look down at the space between them to confirm what that is. Every man has that predicament that they have to go through almost every waking day, even at his age and at that very moment. He isn’t as hard as Holden right now, but he still backs his hips away from his partner, to make sure his growing erection does not brush against any part of him.

Yet Holden’s body seems to continue to chase him for contact, with his legs intertwining with Bill’s so he can press his hardness against him.

When Holden mewls out a small sound of pleasure, Bill’s eyes land on his face to check if the man is aware of what his body is doing and has woken up. But Holden is still sound asleep, with his eyelashes still resting on his cheeks and his parted lips blowing soft gusts of breath in and out. It is almost hard to believe that he is still sleeping when his hips start moving in a gentle rocking motion into Bill’s leg.

But Bill is also aware that nearly every other morning, Holden has a nasty habit of humping the mattress before getting out of bed. He had always thought that it was a little pathetic that Holden discreetly relieves himself this way instead of taking care of his business in the bathroom, like how Bill always does.

But now, the young man seems to be unconsciously doing the same thing to Bill’s thigh. That is when Bill ultimately decides to finally wake Holden up before things go out of hand. He quickly seizes his ability to think straight, even though his head is pounding with excruciating pain. “Holden,” Bill says, a little louder and firmer this time, as he shakes his shoulders again with one hand. “Wake up.”

At first, Holden murmurs something incoherent as he stirs from his sleep. After what seems like an eternity, his eyelids slowly flutter open, revealing half-lidded, bleary eyes. Bill can easily tell that the blank, glassy look means that Holden has barely registered what is in front of him.

“C’mon, Holden. Get up, man,” Bill says gruffly, his voice filled with urgency.

Stretching his arms that have been clinging around Bill, Holden blinks multiple times until sleep finally clears from his eyes.

“Wha— Bill?” Holden gurgles, his voice thick and heavy.

“Finally, you’re awake,” Bill sighs in relief with a hint of irritation.

Narrowing his eyes, Holden stares at Bill for a long while before speaking again. “What are you doing in my bed?”

“Your bed? This is my bed.”

Frowning, Holden peeks over his shoulder to look for the empty twin bed next to them. “No… I picked this one last night. Got dibs closest to the door.”

Knowing that he cannot afford to argue over something as petty as this, Bill grits his teeth. “Okay, fine. Whatever. It’s yours. But could you please get off me now?” Then, he tries pushing Holden’s leg off with his but fails as their legs seem to be magnetized with each other, as Holden lazily flops into him, pushing Bill down with his body’s weight.

In this new position, Bill could feel the outline of Holden’s hard cock lining up with his own, and he hates to admit it but the contact sends a delicious rush of pleasure through his body. And Holden, who probably felt the same thing, continues to roll his hips into Bill, lightly panting in every small thrust.

Bill feels his face burn hot as conflicting emotions of annoyance and arousal simmer inside his chest. Before he can let this unearthed lust take over him, he grabs Holden by the hips and keeps him still, as he growls, “Seriously— Jesus… What’s the matter with you?” He tries to catch his gaze so he can reprimand him with his scowl, but Holden squeezes his eyes shut as he struggles from Bill’s grasp.

“Ah… Don’t move too much, Bill,” he groans, “Please. You’re making me dizzy.”

“Holden— You need to fucking—” Bill says, trying his hardest to sound composed and stern, but his voice comes out shaky. “I swear to god, I’ll kick you off this bed if you don’t—”

“Wait, please… I’m close…” Holden cuts Bill off, as his hands clamp and his fingernails bite into Bill’s shoulder.

“You’re what?” Bill’s jaw drops and his hands go slack, letting go of Holden, petrified of what he might mean.

As Holden buries his face into Bill’s chest, his relentless humping intensifies, causing the mattress underneath them to squeak noisily and the headboard to repeatedly bang on the wall. Bill sucks in a ragged breath as Holden grinds against him, sliding their rock-hard cocks against each other. His dick is starting to get sore from the friction, but the pain is nothing compared to how good it feels.

Soon, Holden’s muffled moans turn into choked gasps, with his muscles tensing and body shuddering, a sign that he finally tipped over the edge. His hips give a few stuttering jerks before his entire body goes limp against Bill.

The heavy panting exchanged by the two men is suddenly interrupted by a huge sigh filling the room. Definitely, that sound of relief did not come from Bill, who is still in a state of disbelief with his mind spinning with confusion. He is feeling a lot of things all at once: nausea, second-hand embarrassment, anger, and on top of that, his hard cock is pulsating to the beat of his racing heart.

After a few deep breaths, Holden lifts his head slowly and his unfocused eyes connect with Bill’s unblinking ones. The dazed look in Holden gradually morphs into a grim one as he looks at Bill in horror.

“Oh my god… Bill, I—” he splutters as shame heats his face deep red. “I’m sorry! I— I didn’t mean to—”

“Oh, I bet you didn’t, you piece of shit,” Bill sneers at Holden. He is usually the cool-headed one, always quick to forgive, no matter how much Holden gets on his nerves. But he doesn’t have a cigarette in his mouth to help him calm down like he usually does. It doesn’t help that his hangover is making things worse for him.

A string of apologies spills non-stop from Holden’s mouth but all Bill could hear is a shrill ringing in his ears, until something snapped inside him, causing aggression to course through his veins like raging rapids. A rush of adrenaline immediately gives him the strength to roll the both of them to the other side of the bed, flipping their positions this time, with Holden lying on the bed and Bill straddling him.

“Bill!” Holden cries out again, squirming underneath the older man.

But Bill digs his knees deeper into the mattress as he pins Holden’s wrists into the sheets. “Hold still!” he snarls.

“I swear I’m—”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Bill barks, his voice cracking with fury through his gritted teeth. “Using my body like some pillow you can just rut into? What are you? A dog in heat?”

“I’m not— I’m sorry… I said, I’m sorry…” Holden whimpers.

“Sure you are,” Bill says in a lower tone, as he bows down to glower at Holden, who is cowering underneath him. “You think you’re gonna get away with what you just did? You’re just gonna apologize your way out of this?”

Bill isn’t exactly expecting an answer to his rhetorical questions, but Holden, who doesn’t break his eye contact with him, almost inaudibly replies under his breath. “But… I mean it. I’m really sorry… I have no other excuse that— I don’t know… I kept doing it because it felt good—”

“It felt good?” Bill scoffs, eyes narrowing. “Letting your body decide shit for you? Not putting that big brain of yours to good use?” When Bill’s hips grind down into him as he bombards him with these questions, Holden’s breath catches in his throat. But after Bill feels a hard lump between Holden’s legs, he couldn’t help but suck in air through his teeth too.

”Well, doesn’t it?” Holden then says in a small voice, almost sounding innocent. “Feel good, I mean.”

Instead of responding, Bill pushes himself up to sit upright, as he lets go of Holden’s hands and reaches for the man’s belt buckle to yank it away. Fingers shaking in anticipation and impatience, Bill didn’t bother unzipping Holden’s pants after popping his pant button when he pulled them down along with his underwear in one firm tug.

“What the—” Bill mutters as he stares down at Holden’s flushed cock, glistening with his own release from earlier. It twitches slightly against his pale belly, still rock hard. “How the fuck are you still hard?” he asks, bewildered.

Already expecting bullshit coming out of Holden’s mouth, Bill is ready to dismiss his response. But Holden just shakes his head and simply says, “Unsatisfied, I guess?” 

Looking down at Holden with hooded eyelids, Bill shakes his head and then sighs, “You’re impossible, Holden Ford.”

He clumsily unbuckles his belt and pulls his pants down to his thighs. Holden’s round eyes instantly dart downward to Bill’s crotch, awed at how his cock underneath is straining against the front of his boxers and how the fabric is a little damp with his arousal.

As he begins to palm himself through his underwear, Bill grasps Holden’s thigh with his free hand, about to lift it up but he immediately stops himself. He hasn’t done this before. He realized he was not entirely sure how to do this. Even during the rare times, his mind wanders off to these homosexual thoughts, he hasn’t gotten this far.

But he can’t stop now. With heat burning hot deep in his belly, Bill is undeniably agitated and aroused. He needs an outlet. He needs to blow off steam any second now because he feels like any time now he would explode.

Bill waits for any sign of repulsion or resistance from Holden. Anything from him, that would urge him to stop what he is about to do. He also couldn’t take it if this charged moment that they are in is ruined by the fact that Holden is revolted with what he assumed he also enjoyed. That he misread this situation from the very start. That he didn’t fool around with Holden last night. That every look and touch from Holden that lingered a second longer than he usually did meant nothing after all.

But Holden just stares intently at his moving hand, and after a few beats, his gaze flicks up to Bill’s face, looking at him with his unblinking eyes, as if he is waiting for Bill to do something else.

Fucking impossible.

Letting out a low growl, Bill frees his cock from its confinement through his boxer flap with one hand, and spits a large glob of saliva on the other. Holden’s eyes widen even more as he watches Bill stroke himself to his full length with the plump tip disappearing and reappearing in his slick fist. Bill swears he saw Holden lick his lower lip for a split second.

It has only taken a few pumps before Bill lined his dick between Holden’s closed thighs that Bill had trapped with his knees on either side of him. And then, he lowers his weight into him, letting his cockhead pierce into the tight space, just right against Holden’s balls underneath.

“Ah!” Holden lets out a high-pitched gasp as Bill’s entire length disappears into Holden’s legs when he pushes himself deeper with a deep grunt. Bill feels pleasure surge inside him as he lifts his hips up and slides his cock back down. Because of how demanding their work was, Bill didn’t have the time to relieve himself, let alone have sex or at least engage in any kind of sexual activity. That’s why he didn’t stop himself when he let out a sound filled with raw need.

Bill tries to imagine Nancy, or any woman, just anyone who isn’t Holden, as he starts thrusting with a greater force. But every time he lowers himself and his groin bumps into Holden’s stiff cock and his cum sticks to his lower belly, it is no use closing his eyes and picturing another person, when it is clearly a man underneath him right now, making all of these undignified sounds that he never thought he would ever hear.

And somehow, Bill isn’t turned off by this. He isn’t even regretting that he should’ve flipped Holden around so he doesn’t have to see his face while he fucks his thighs like this. Like he is fine seeing him laid out like this in all of his glory, arousal in full display. His cock twitching every now and then, his face contorting into expressions filled with lust, his sounds coming out loud and clear from his parted lips.

He is also expecting to second guess himself midway, maybe snap out of it, and finally stop this madness. But why would he deprive himself of this wonderful feeling that he hasn’t felt for so long? Thrumming in exhilaration, he could feel his cock continuing to throb and grow even harder, orgasm rising in him that he couldn’t help but groan out loud.

Holden, who is panting hard underneath Bill, squeezes his thighs around Bill’s cock. Bill chokes out a strained gasp in surprise. He lowers his gaze to throw a dirty look at Holden, who looks pleased with himself, amused with what he has just done.

”You like that?” Holden asks, with the corner of his lips curling to a smirk, as his leg muscles strain to press tighter. “You like feeling how tight I am?”

Fighting a blush, Bill almost answered yes, but he grinds his teeth and covers Holden’s mouth with his sweaty palm.

“Shut your fucking—“ Bill barked but is abruptly broken by a moan spilling from his lips. He feels Holden’s hot breath against his hand, probably a muffled laugh trapped by his palm. He can’t believe this guy enjoys every single second of this. He considered bringing his hand down and clutching it to his throat, not to hurt him but to hold him in place. But even that might excite Holden even more and Bill knows it would just enrage him seeing how much Holden relishes that.

So Bill’s next thought is to kiss Holden, but immediately hits the brakes because they’re not there yet.

Yet?

They’re nowhere. This is nothing. They just accidentally found themselves sleeping on the same bed and things went out of control from there. It’s not like they wanted this, and when this is all over, it’s not like they still want to keep doing this, right?

But Bill feels the need to put his mouth somewhere. Anywhere. Because he could feel that he wasn’t going to last long at this rate. And he didn’t want to hear any embarrassing sounds coming out of his mouth that might slip beyond his control.

As his hard thrusting mellows down to slow rutting, Bill bends down and rests his face on the curve of Holden’s neck, burying himself into his open collar with his lips searching for skin. Holden’s hands find themselves grabbing Bill’s bare ass, urging him to press even lower and harder into him. He kneads into his skin with one hand inching closer to the middle, and all of a sudden, he slips a finger between Bill’s cleft, brushing lightly against his puckered flesh.

This made Bill emit a loud sound he didn’t recognize. To dampen the noise, he bites down into Holden hard, so hard that he hardly felt that he was already coming ropes of cum in between Holden’s legs. His orgasm was so intense that he swore he went deaf for a moment because all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears.

When that subsides, he can hear Holden’s heavy panting speed up, which is suddenly interrupted by his own grunt. His body lurches underneath Bill, with his hot release seeping into the fabric of their shirts.

While catching his breath, Bill wonders if he could erase all of the noises that echoed in this motel room from his memory. He has never felt this good in years, probably even decades. But he wasn’t supposed to experience this with another person other than his wife. A man, at that. That man being Holden, of all people.

Bill doesn’t notice that he still has his hand clamped on Holden’s mouth until the man says something incoherent underneath his fingers. As he rolls off from Holden, he takes his hand off and asks in a rough voice, “What?”

“So, it wasn’t a dream…” Holden says softly in between soft pants, making Bill connect his eyes with his. “You did want me last night… And you still do…”

Flinching, Bill must’ve already given away his answer with the emotion on his face that he failed to hide. But he tries his best to dismiss it with, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I thought I just made it up in my head. Everything,” Holden continues. “You wanted me too all along.”

Clicking his tongue, Bill sits up on the edge of the bed to turn away from Holden. “Get yourself cleaned up. We’ve got a flight to catch, kid,” he mumbles gruffly, emphasizing the last word almost too deliberately as his pathetic attempt to set a boundary he already crossed.

With the bed creaking as Holden shifts to stand up, he scoffs a laugh. “Of course, you’re quick to dismiss what had just happened.”

Bill bites the inside of his cheek while he pulls up his pants and he fishes his cigarettes inside his pocket. “Yeah, well. This was a one-time thing. Don’t get any ideas in your head.”

Holden swallows audibly. “I won’t,” he promises, even though Bill is sure that his mind is already teeming with a lot of ideas to make sure a “next time” happens.

As he inhales the lit cigarette, Bill’s eyes follow Holden who staggers toward the bathroom. He is about to close the door when he grumbles out loud after seeing his reflection in the mirror. One of Bill’s eyebrows shoots up as Holden peeks out from the doorway, tugging his collar to the side to show the older man his neck.

“Jesus, Bill. What if Debbie sees this?” Holden says in an exasperated voice with a hint of panic in his tone.

Bill averts his eyes away, but he already saw how red his own bite mark is on Holden’s pale skin. “That’s why I didn’t leave it somewhere conspicuous for the world to see,” Bill shrugs as he blows out smoke from his lips, trying to sound as nonchalant as he could.

“Yeah, but what if we have sex and she sees it when I undress?”

“Well then, no sex for you for a week or two.”

Rolling his eyes, Holden groans in annoyance before pulling his soiled shirt over his head and discarding it on the floor. Before Bill has a chance to say anything, Holden has already headed outside, after mumbling something that sounded like “ice machine” and slamming the door behind him. Leaving Bill in an empty motel room with a throbbing headache and a growing desire that he doesn’t know how to control.

After plucking the cigarette from his lips, Bill stares into the orange glow of the burning ember, as he contemplates on what to make out of what just happened.

He knows he just firmly told Holden that this is just a one-time thing. But right now he is scared of the possibility that this, whatever this is, might end up being another bad habit of his, as if smoking, drinking, golfing, and drowning himself in work isn’t enough.

Bill takes one last drag before stubbing the cigarette out, and he exhales a long sigh. He doesn’t know what the future holds, but one thing is for sure: he’s definitely going to have a hell of a time dealing with this.