Chapter Text
John tries not to measure time in increments since Sherlock. He acknowledges the passing of time like everyone around him. Remembers Mrs. Hudson’s birthday, remembers Mary’s too. That doesn’t stop him from knowing to the minute how long it has been since Sherlock said goodbye. He doesn’t allow himself to wallow in it; he’s aware, he knows, but he keeps it to himself. He is after all British and male.
That he works too much is probably a given, he responds to stress by throwing himself full force into whatever is causing the stress. Now there is nothing left for him to throw himself at; Sherlock is gone, he’s coming back slips like a mantra into each of his thoughts, Moriarty is either dead or doesn’t find John interesting enough on his own. Or perhaps he and Sherlock truly are happy together. No no NO, he’s coming back.
Medicine? Well medicine no longer holds any allure for him.
He grieves. The occasional stranger will stop him in the street, or people Sherlock helped, victims saved. John nearly bumped into the wife of the banker they’d rescued, she spit on his shoes and called him a monster.
It is safer in the shop. The disconnect is strong enough there that even people who think they recognize him don’t bring it up for fear of being wrong. And tattoo artists are like bartenders and hairdressers, they are only expected to make comforting noises of encouragement and listen to the client’s problems. No one needs to know who he is. After Sherlock, listening to twenty somethings rant about the system, or their teachers, parents, lovers... it is all easy.
He books appointments, builds a customer base and takes referrals. Mary recommends him for cover-ups. He likes the challenge, taking the image that is already in the skin and distorting it so that it becomes a part of something better.
“John, the five-thirty is here for you.” Mary’s voice pushes him back in time. They could have been ten years in the past. They had taken up where they left off, with one important exception. She hadn’t asked and he hadn’t offered.
“Ta, M. Gimmie a mo to finish with this.” John’s just finished a walk-in, he’s wiping down the chair, swapping in clean instruments. It feels like field surgery, nearly, except here the screaming is voluntary. People are only metaphorically dying to get a tattoo.
He surveys his station, content with the order and cleanliness. The walk-in meant that he hasn’t had a chance for dinner, but he squares his shoulders and puts on his best, ‘I’m very happy to be tattooing you on a Friday night at half five.’ smile.
He stops, tries to remember if Mary had told him the client’s name. Decides that she only mentioned that he had a cover booked for half five. He’d grunted and gone back to the light table, tracing lines of text from an old letter. He could photocopy it, but this gives him a better feel for the words, the texture of emotion conveyed. Mary might have said the name, and John wasn’t in any position to listen, certainly wouldn’t have made the connection.
There are, after all, any number of Greg’s in the city. “Greg?”
He’s startled, surprised and nervous. “John... what?”
“Of all the tattoo shops in all the cities?”
“You...” Greg shakes his head. “Wait... you are a tattoo...er?”
“Yup!” John decides in that moment that he will make the best of this, he doesn’t blame Greg for what happened. Sherlock is coming back. In a flash that stabs somewhere near his heart he realizes that Greg might blame himself, that Greg doesn’t know, and no small part of Greg’s nervousness will be coming from the fact that he’s been wallowing in guilt and avoidance for the better part of a year. John doesn’t know how to fix this for Greg, he can only offer an out. “Ah... If you don’t... I can book you in with someone else?”
Greg’s spine straightens and his fingers twitch against the cuffs of his jacket, he’s dressed like he’s just come from the Yard. John suffers another moment of sadness/frustration/melancholy, he’s been so fixated on waiting for Sherlock to come back that he has abandoned so much of the rest of his life. He inhales sharply against a year of missed pub nights with Greg.
All of the hesitation falls away from Greg. “No, I really need to get this done... er... well maybe started. I need to do this now.”
John’s smile is warm, and he feels the weight of Greg’s potential rejection lift. “Where is it then?”
Greg raises his right hand, touches his left bicep.
“Do you know what you want?”
“I was thinking a big fucking black square, honestly. Part of me doesn’t care. I just want to not see... I don’t want to look at it anymore.”
John tilts his head, gestures for Greg to follow him into his cubicle. “I can do a black square, but... depending on what it is, sometimes it will show through... the old tattoo, depending on how it was done. Anyway, get that kit off and let me see it... then we can decide what to do.”
Greg shucks himself out of his jacket, hanging it on a hook on the cubicle wall. His fingers pause over the buttons of his shirt.
John realizes he’s never seen Greg in anything less than long sleeves. “Do you want a minute?”
“I.. it’s... no one has seen it, for ages.”
“Tea? There is coffee... it might be hours old though.”
“Ta, tea would do it.”
John turns and leaves Greg, removing himself to make a cuppa with a smile. “Do you still take milk?” John calls from the other side of the large room.
“Yes, ta.”
By the time John comes back with a steaming mug, Greg has settled in the tattoo chair. Stripped down to his vest, his jaw is locked, staring at the far wall.
“There you are,” John hands over the mug, waits until Greg takes a sip before moving around to stand in front of him. “As bad as that?”
“Isn’t there some rule about names?”
John flinches, waits for Greg to sip his tea again. “Alright then... Can I see? I’d do it blindfolded... can’t say that I’d get it all.”
Greg laughs, small and dry and barely more than an exhale. “Yeah, go on.”
It really isn’t that bad, properly done for all that it is a transfixed heart with a ribbon that reads ‘Rebecca.’ Not for the first time John wishes it was illegal to have names incorporated into tattoos, but then Greg wouldn’t be sitting in his chair. “Yeah, I can do a black square and cover it up... or a pattern if you like, give you a band around the arm... The colours, sometimes they resurface... so you might need to have it touched up as the black settles.”
John snaps on gloves and runs his fingers over Greg’s bicep, noting the texture of his skin even through the latex. “Be a bit of a shame... I could give you a... all the kids have them now, but Koi are... it would suit you.”
John looks away as Greg thinks; obviously he’s been thinking about getting rid of the tattoo on his arm for a while. John calculates, its been a year and a half since Baskerville, which might mean that this is the anniversary of the divorce. John’s surprised Greg hasn’t tried to carve the heart off his arm, John can’t imagine living with a reminder like that everyday.
“A great bloody fish?”
“It wouldn’t be huge... well... no it would, just here to here.” John indicates the top of Greg’s shoulder to the curve of his elbow, feeling unaccountably greedy for Greg’s skin. He hasn’t worked on anyone he... other than Sherlock... no one else has mattered. He feels like he is laying claim to a part of Greg, and removing his ex from Greg’s skin is a challenge John wants to accept. “I’d work the colours in, and the scales cover a multitude of sins. Sort of a what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger type thing... Take it and turn it into something new.”
Greg clears his throat, shifting against the padding of the chair. “That sounds like a lot of... time.”
“I’d do the outline, and the colour around that, today. You’ll probably have to come back for more colour and finishing.” John narrows his eyes, “You... aren’t a screamer, are you?”
“John, I don’t think I can afford all that.” Greg ignored the comment about screaming altogether.
John snorts, offended. “Your money is no good here, officer.”
Greg tries, and John almost takes pity on him. But this is as much for John as it is for Greg. John can’t say that his motivations are entirely altruistic. He wants Greg to have a reason to come back. The tattoo feels like an olive branch.
John wins in the end, by brute force. John wrangled Sherlock into doing things he didn’t want to do for eighteen months, Greg didn’t stand a chance. John spins his chair away and begins to draw. He ignores Greg’s last sputtered attempts to bribe John with cash.
The koi flows out of John’s pen, and it feels like a new beginning. He thinks he has drawn thousands of them... the detail work is good practice, koi and roses.
Greg sits still for the placement. Doesn’t fuss when John wipes it off, presses a fresh copy against his skin, slightly lower and to the left of the original.
John lets him up to look in the mirror. Greg is silent when he comes back, only nods. John wonders if they have run out of words, finishes preparing his inks and needles in silence. He pauses for a moment, right hand on Greg’s arm, left poised with the machine. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, on you go.”
Greg, as John suspected is not a screamer. He accepts the sting of the tattoo with something approaching relief, going boneless under John’s fingers and relaxing back into the chair. John has tattooed several people who sleep through the entire tattoo, and part of his mind is greedy for the freedom that would give him to push detail into Greg’s skin. Another part of him wants to... do something to bring Greg back.
He glances up at Greg’s face, while he pauses for more ink. He’s relaxed; totally at ease and open, the lines on his face have smoothed and he looks five years younger. John pushes aside the desire to bring Greg up, settles into a rhythm - ink, pedal, line, wipe - working his way up Greg’s arm. He’s already mapping out the pattern of scale colours, with Greg under like this he might be able to work until the piece is finished... which will hurt like Hades tomorrow... John flinches, if he finishes tonight Greg won’t have any reason to come back. John hadn’t acknowledged the lack of Greg’s presence in his daily life. The surprise reunion makes him wish he could go back in time and never lose touch with Greg.
John huffs. In the beginning it had been difficult to pretend Sherlock was dead. He just wanted to scream at everyone, the false sympathy from people who didn’t care about him. Didn’t know his skin well enough to not be fooled. He’d tried to talk to... well anyone. But the conversations always reached a certain point, ‘John, denial and bargaining are healthy parts of the grieving process. He’s dead, you need to work through it.’ Yes, thank you for your opinion.
“I could use a cigarette.”
Greg’s voice startles John out of his thoughts and he swipes at the tattoo, making sure he hasn’t strayed from his outline. He’s either very lucky or very good, because the pattern of scales is unbroken. “I’d thought you quit.”
“Did, will again. Just taking a holiday.”
“Yeah... alright, lemme wrap it...” John rolls cling film around Greg’s arm, smoothing it down. “How’s it feel?”
Greg’s arm tenses and relaxes under Johns fingers, “Yeah... good.” He’s still monosyllabic and John feels a rush of almost forgotten chemicals. He strips off his gloves and tosses them in the bin.
“There’s a bench round the back. C’mon.” John leads the way through the back of the shop and out into the alley way, propping open the door with a decorative rock to stop it latching. Mary’s rigged up a little alcove behind their door, latticework fencing blocking off the view of the bins. There isn’t really enough sunlight, but she is coaxing a vine of some sort up the lattice, all in all it is quite cozy and on warm afternoons John eats his lunch on the bench.
“I’d... I just never imagined you in a place like this.” Greg pulls a pack from the inside pocket of his jacket, flicks a lighter against the gathering darkness.
“Mary and I, we came up together. When I went away to the army she stayed in town and... You though... What are you doing in a place like this?”
“Pretty much the last place you would look for me isn’t it. I’m not hiding from her, I just can’t be anywhere she might find me. Which is stupid. She’s not looking for me. She got the flat, and I don’t have to pay her... one of the perks of divorcing a CPS solicitor. I guess this is the one time I’m glad we didn’t have kids.” He inhales, and the sound of burning leaves and paper is sharp against the silence. “I just wanted something different.”
John nods, tries not to let himself imagine just how much different Greg is looking for. He pokes at his own emotions, he hasn’t been with anyone since Sherlock, hasn’t wanted to and it hasn’t seemed a hardship. The few abortive attempts at conversation, the single time John had tried to distract Sherlock from a case, and the rather suggestive text message at Baskerville all led John to believe that Sherlock’s definition of relationship was rather more fluid than John was used to. It was a relief, he’d felt... free. Sherlock would have laughed, called him tiny minded, but there wasn’t room in his life for anyone else, but knowing that he could... if he needed to. Sherlock wasn’t here to ask now... but “Tell Lestrade...” rang in his head.
He is getting ahead of himself. Greg’s here to smooth over the memory of his ex-wife in ink, he wasn’t expecting John to be the one holding the machine. And even if he did know John was here...
John took a step forward, raising his hand slowly, giving Greg a chance to pull the cigarette away. Their fingers brush, sometimes a cigarette is absolutely not just a cigarette. Greg lets it go reluctantly, he’s only had half after all. John almost feels sorry for him, but by then he is too caught up in watching Greg’s reaction. “This is a terrible habit.” He brings the cigarette to his lips and draws smoke into his lungs, holding his breath and Greg’s gaze until he feels the zing of nicotine and adrenaline in his blood.
“Yes Doctor.”
“I’m not a doctor anymore... jesus, don’t say that too loud. All the kids that come in here will start calling me Doc. We need to get that outline finished.” He bends and crushes the cigarette into the bucket of sand at the end of the bench. He exhales, letting the smoke sting his eyes, the work unfinished overriding the desire to tackle Greg.
John straightens, and there is a hardness in Greg’s eyes when John looks again. Something swift and predatory and not at all discouraging, John feels the corner of his mouth curl up. Tilts his head back towards the shop.
Greg goes ahead, and the warmth of the shop flows over John. Mary is just pulling down the blinds on the front windows, the closed sign already hanging in the door. She smiles at him, “You’ll lock up when you are done, ya? I’ve got a date I don’t want to be late for.”
John puts on his best shocked expression, “Me... all alone? Whatever shall I do?”
Mary punches John in the shoulder, hard. Eyes up Greg. “Don’t let this one give you trouble.”
“I think I can handle him.”
Mary grins, throws a saucy wink from the door. “I’m sure you can... don’t do anything I wouldn’t boys.” She’s gone before John can come up with a response, he’d blush but he’s long since gotten over any embarrassment Mary has tried to cause him.
“Shall we?” John hold out his hand to gesture Greg back into the booth.
Greg smirks, “She’s a fun one.”
“You’ve no idea.”
“You and her?” Greg’s appraising now, settled back into the chair and John can almost feel the slide of information behind Greg’s eyes.
“Before I left for the war. She’s got some man in international sales. He’s always popping off on business, never in town for long. She has to catch him when she can.” John opens the wrapping and checks the rest of the outline. “Maybe a half hour more?”
“So?”
John looks up, the weight of the question pulling him closer to Greg. “No...” He pulls back and sets out fresh ink. “Not since.”
“John... I’m sorry. I should have done something...”
John is glad they aren’t touching now, that he doesn’t have to feel Greg’s pulse under his skin when he says this. He doesn’t need Greg’s sympathy - Sherlock is coming back. Greg doesn’t need the guilt either, so John unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “You couldn’t have... There was nothing to do. He made me his note and there was nothing I could do to stop him.”
John swallows, he’s not trying to shift blame to himself. Wonders if he can tell Greg that Sherlock faked it all, one big lie to cover up all the truth. “He said ‘Alone is what I have, alone protects me.’ I don’t think anyone could have changed it. He wanted me to tell you he was a fake and a liar.” He’s not dead, he’s coming back.
“He never was. He can’t have, they made us go back over everything. We found things in cases he never worked on, cases he didn’t even know about that pointed back to Moriarty. The Chief, he thought it was just him being clever. He’d never do anything that sick. He wasn’t.” Greg trails off, realizing that he is preaching to the choir. “I shouldn’t have doubted him. I’m sorry.”
“He never makes anything easy.”
“No. He does like to complicate things.”
He’s coming back, would that complicate this Greg?
John tests the machine, dips into his inks and turns back to Greg. “You ready?”
Greg lets his head drop back against the headrest. “Do your worst, Doc.”
John huffs and pulls Greg’s skin tight, pressing the tattoo back to his skin. The outline only needs the head and whiskers to be complete, but Greg is no longer smooth and pliant under John’s hands. He’s fighting for his relaxation now.
“Breaks are a bad idea.”
“Yup, breaks are terrible. Your skin gets used to not hurting, and then coming back is twice as prickly. We are almost done though, well almost to a point where your arm will look like you have a tattoo... Done is wishful thinking at this point.”
Greg exhales and some of the tension runs out of him. John smiles and concentrates on the curve of the koi’s head. He needs to colour in some of the scales in the body, to erase Rebecca’s name from Greg’s arm. This part will be over too quickly, but if he wants proper colour Greg will have to come back, and John has to content himself with that.
Greg is just starting to float when John finishes everything he deems necessary. He pauses, weighing immediate satisfaction against future gratification. The former heart now looks like a pattern in the scales, but the rest of the fish is uncoloured. John tells himself he can do the rest of the black scales, leaving the white and colour for the next appointment, but leaving Greg with something that looks balanced.
John pulls back, sprays down Greg’s arm and wipes it with a flannel, turning the arm and the light at the same time to check for gaps or bad patches. He changes his gloves and pulls out a tub of the aftercare balm Mary makes. Working the balm into Greg’s skin brings Greg back up and he turns his head, trying to see through John’s hands.
“You’ll crane your neck.... There. Go look.”
Greg lifts himself slowly out of the chair, his motions still languid and relaxed. The spike of desire that travels through John nearly draws a groan from his lips. He digs his fingers into his knees before standing to follow Greg to the big mirror in the front room.
Greg is half turned away from the mirror, standing in the light. John moves to stand beside the mirror, looking only at Greg, not his reflection.
“God, John. It’s gone!”
The koi flows up towards Greg’s shoulder, unfinished to John’s eye but well begun. “It needs more colour, and a wave. You’ll have to come back.”
“I... yeah, I’ll be back. Work is...”
“Yeah I know... I’ll give you my card. I have all my stuff at the flat. You can... I can work on you whenever.” The idea of having to wait for Greg to call him fills John with panic, he swallows against the desire beg Greg for an appointment. Something that John will be able to look forward to, instead of the pathetic hope that Greg hasn’t forgotten him.
John goes back to the cubicle, pulls out more cling film and balm. He stands in front of Greg at the mirror and rubs more balm into his skin, wraps it in cling film. “Leave that on a day. If you can get away without showering don’t... Soap will sting like a bitch.”
His fingers don’t want to leave Greg’s skin, he needs something to hold onto. He can picture how this will go, he feels as though there are hooks in his knees, ratcheting him down. Pulling him over the edge and onto the floor. Greg would grow hard in his mouth, filling him until John chokes and gasps. John has a condom in his wallet, kept there against any sense or logic. Greg could wrap his fingers around John’s neck, take him against the wall, slick with Mary’s bloody aftercare balm.
John wants all of those things, but his knees are locked and his mouth is closed. He’s properly afraid Greg will reject him, pity him, or have him sectioned because Sherlock is coming back is bursting against John’s teeth, his tongue can’t form other words. Please, or Greg, or even Yes.
“John?” Greg’s fingers close over John’s wrist and John’s knees buckle momentarily. Greg’s specific gravity overcoming John’s fears and doubts.
John has no evidence to offer, no photos of Sherlock bathed in John’s inks. No witnesses to call to corroborate his story. He knows that, even if he could prove it he would sound like a besotted teenager. He’s coming back, he’s coming back for me.
“I want it to mean something.” John surprises himself by being able to speak, and that he does. He can’t now, with the real possibility in front of him, imagine catching Greg on the rebound from Rebecca - having just this moment and nothing more. Greg is important. He mattered to Sherlock and he matters to John. The idea of going back to the flat without Greg... of going back to being alone and waiting for Sherlock. No, not anymore, I can’t.
Greg is close, warm and - holding John up -one hand on John’s wrist, the other arm across John’s shoulders, supporting John’s weight against his chest. Greg’s lips brush against John’s hair, “I’m sorry John, I should have... Oh god, I missed you and I didn’t even know. Please, we don’t have to...” He stoppers his mouth against John’s skull.
John can hear the beating of Greg’s heart, high and fast and close, keeping time. “I’m not designed for this. I didn’t know how broken I was until him. I’m not good at this, but I want it to mean something.”
Greg’s arms tighten around John, and he lets his own arms snake around Greg’s waist. He’d stand there forever, given the option to remain still and inside this embrace. The things he wants can wait, they could tell everyone it is performance art and sell tickets. Greg doesn’t say anything and John is grateful he doesn’t try to deny that John is damaged. John’s fingers curl into the soft warm cotton of Greg’s vest, and he inhales deeply, savouring the scent: cigarettes, coffee, the sharp green of aloe and tea tree leaking from under the cling film.
He’s so close, with his forehead on Greg’s right shoulder, all he needs to do is turn his head and he can run his tongue over the exposed skin at Greg’s throat. Greg’s breath is warm against his scalp. He tastes of salt and smoke, Greg inhales sharply at the touch of John’s tongue.
“Will you come home with me?” John lets it escape from his mouth before his brain can second guess.
Greg pulls back, twisting until he can see John’s face. “Yes, fuck yes.” He presses closer, pauses and gives John a chance to pull back or slide away before his lips catch against John’s. He’s gentle, asking permission and John lets his lips fall open. If he wasn’t pressed against Greg from lips to thighs he would collapse now, because he needs this, and he has to push away thoughts of how it felt with Sherlock. This isn’t Sherlock, and it isn’t cheating. He’s... well he isn’t free, but he’s not going to waste away pining for Sherlock either. Greg is here and his fingers are digging into the back of John’s neck.
“Fuck, cab, tube, motorcycle, fucking TARDIS... how... god, Greg, fuck... Please take me home.”
“Yeah, alright.” Greg’s smiling and stroking his hands down John’s back. “Just... Mary said to close up yeah?”
John groans, detaches himself from Greg by increments. Once they are apart John breaks free and starts moving around the room with purpose. He shakes out a sheet and tucks his tray against the chair in his cubicle, throwing a sheet over the whole mess, the universal signal for ‘Fuck off I was tired and I’ll clean it up in the morning.’ The back door locks automatically, but John checks it anyway. Turns off the lights in the back room and blesses Mary for turning on the sterilizer. His blood is singing, tension and desire warring with the necessity of not having the shop ransacked in the night. Greg stands still in the centre of John’s activity, watching with darkened eyes. John feels the pull of his gravity again, the desire to kneel at his feet, he could and Greg would let him.
He sways, checking over the shop one last time, he needs to have Greg at home. Needs to make this more than something disposable, momentary. He retrieves Greg from the centre of the room, lets himself take hold of Greg’s elbow and flow with his movements, drawn in for another slow warm kiss.
He pulls Greg towards the door, impatient now that he’s free of the constraints of duty. “Hang on, my coat.”
Greg bundles his shirt and jacket together, folds it down and pushes it under his arm. It should be too cold out for him to be outside in his vest, but John raises his hand after he locks the door and a cab pulls up, whisking them off the sidewalk in an instant. In the cab their fingers touch, brushes of contact hidden from an anonymous cabbie. John checks now, always careful to look at them, he’s not expecting Jim, but he hadn’t expected Jim the first time either.
They’ve hit a golden time in London traffic, a moment when it is too early for the pubs and late enough that most of the commuters have gone home. The ride across London is quiet, the cabbie doesn’t make small talk and John can’t speak for fear he will spill forth with all his desires... how easy it would be to open Greg’s fly and fold himself down, let Greg use his mouth, hard and fast and over before the cabbie can find somewhere to pull over to throw them out.
They struggle briefly, before John lets Greg pay the fare. He holds the door open to 221B, waits for Greg to sort out his notes and turn to see where they are. John waits to see if the air goes out of Greg’s lungs, if he will scold John or pity him. Greg smiles, looks up at the windows before joining John in the doorway.
John’s old room at the top of the stairs is disused, dusty and cold. He hesitates at the sitting room door before pushing it open and letting Greg in. The flat hasn’t changed much in the last year, there are still two computers on the desk in the sitting room. Books and papers crowd every surface. The kitchen table gets used more often for food, but there is only the bare necessities of bachelor life in the fridge. “I have beer, if you want.” John feels transported back in time, awkwardly bringing home a partner for the first time. He tidies the empty tea mug and toast plate off the kitchen table, dropping them in the sink.
Greg has dropped his jacket and shirt on one of the chairs by the desk, and John’s heart kicks as Greg flips through the papers John has left scattered there. Sherlock’s progress, through whatever mysterious mission he is on is charted there... news clippings of arrests made, lost valuables mysteriously returned and the occasional political scandal. All circumstantial, all completely possible without Sherlock’s hand in them but all containing the same texture, the fingerprint of wrongs righted that is so essential to Sherlock’s work.
“Greg... I can...” but John can’t explain... not without telling Greg the truth, not without admitting that he has known all the time.
Greg lets the news clipping fall from his fingers. “You know?”
“I put music on his skin. It wasn’t there when I took his pulse. I... I couldn’t at first... I thought it had leaked out... It was him on the phone... I fell too. I don’t know what happened to him.” John’s frozen, clutching the back of his chair so hard he can hear the upholstery creaking.
It is possible that he closed his eyes, but he might have blacked out for a second, he’s swaying and Greg is holding him up. The relief of no longer being alone, of having someone to believe him moulds itself together with the warmth of Greg’s hands on his skin, the tripping sensation of his heart beating.
“He’s coming back.” It is spoken into Greg’s shirt, and John marvels at how Greg can be so supportive, can hold him so close and make him feel strong, whole again.
“Yeah, he is... I won’t... you don’t have to choose. Now or later... It is fine”
“I’m so tired. Will you stay, please? I want you to stay, but I need to sleep. Please.”
Greg smiles, and John can feel it against his forehead. “Yeah, let’s go.” Greg pulls him away from his chair, leads him down the hall to the bedroom. They stop in the loo, share a toothbrush, Greg standing behind John as he brushes his teeth.
In the bedroom John’s eyes are greedy, drinking in the sight of Greg as they strip down to pants and vests. Under the covers he lets his hands explore, slow and sleepy. Greg’s warmth seeps into him, pulling him down until he barely feels the brush of Greg’s lips over his as sleep claims him.