Kalen Holliday
Kalen has not brought champagne or
strawberries for hiking today. Ian has always seen him dressed rather
casually, but for hiking he has coffee-colored cargo pants that have
definitely been on a few adventures already judging by the scuffing on
them and an off-white tee-shirt with a golden-orange dragon on it and
(naturally) hiking boots. He does seem relaxed enough, and while he may
not have brought strawberries and champagne (he must actually be
interested in hiking), he did bring water.
And coffee. He leaves that in the car though.
He's
waiting in the parking lot for Ian, leaning on his car, sipping at a
water bottle and watching the clouds with half focused eyes. He's
transferred his water into a reusable bottle, so it is not actually
immediately apparent he is drinking ridiculous mint-infused water. Some
people with their predator's senses will likely notice eventually,
though.
Ian
Ian's car pulled into the Red Rocks
parking lot maybe ten minutes after Kalen arrived, sliding in neatly
beside Kalen's own vehicle. Ian grabbed something out of the back seat
before exiting the car - a small hiking pack of the sling bag variety
(just large enough for a few essentials) that he slung over one
shoulder.
Perhaps Kalen would be surprised to find that Ian did,
in fact, own outfits suited for wilderness travel. Given the nature of
the landscape here, he'd dressed light in a pair of black cargo pants
that tapered in at the knee and were rolled to about mid-calf, a white
t-shirt and a pair of athletic shoes. Without offering any sort of
greeting, he sidled up to Kalen and bumped him with his hip. A bit more
playful than perhaps Kalen was used to seeing him - which may have been a
product of their present environment. He wasn't exactly... unburdened?
The slight weight of wearied tension was still there in his bones, but
for now he was choosing to put it aside.
See: he liked it here. And it showed.
"Which trail are you in the mood for?"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
laughs at that hip bump and leans in to nudge Ian's shoulder with his,
playfully but not delicately. He makes no mention of the lingering
hints of tension he can see in Ian, or the surprise playfulness. He
picks up his bag from by his feet, tucks his water bottle into it, and
looks at Ian.
"I was thinking the longer one, but if you want to
move terribly quickly probably the shorter one. I'm...better, but I
spent a long time not really able to do much in the way of extended
anything. I probably can't keep up with you at a real pace pace on the
long trail." He laughs, and it is a little sharper edged. "Well, I
probably can't keep up regardless. Yet."
Ian
"I like the longer one."
Ian
regarded Kalen for a moment, then put a hand to the back of Kalen's
neck and pulled him in for a kiss. Something about the action felt more
impulsive than premeditated. An instinctive act (because Ian was an
instinctive creature.) It was the kind of kiss that new lovers gave each
other, spurred by the irresistible force of biological attraction. Like
magnets pulling together.
(It was a bad idea, to kiss people like
that. Today he did it anyway, because there was little enough room in
his life for pleasure these days.)
He bit his lip and smiled when he pulled away. "'Yet,' he says. Like he has any hope of ever catching up."
And
with that, he turned and jogged toward the entrance to the trail,
loping across the pavement with relaxed and graceful ease (as though he
meant to show off how easy it was for him to move - how perfectly in
tune he was with his own body.)
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
returns the kiss, regardless of whether or not is is a good idea or a
bad idea, blissfully and easily and with no reservation at all. He is
not always willing to just go with instinctive, but right now, and in
general with Ian, he does.
He is smiling when Ian pulls away, warm
and amused. The little nip Ian gives him gets a soft, amused sound low
in his throat. And then Ian is being Ian and jogging off and Kalen
does laugh before he follows him. "Jerk," he calls after Ian,
affectionately.
He is light enough on his feet, but he is still
getting used to being able to move again. The ease with which he leans
into things and sprawls over things is absent when he starts jogging.
He has to think about it. Where are his feet? Why is his balance so
terrible? But he manages a decent pace regardless.
Ian
[Dex+Athletics - wee!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 5, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Ian
The
landscape here was open and arid. Sandy trails bordered by thin,
scrubby grass curled around elaborate rock formations. It wasn't the
kind of land that Ian was used to, but he was traveled enough (and
adaptable enough) to take the change of scenery in stride. Ian teased
Kalen and jogged up the trail, and Kalen was not far behind when Ian's
loping pace suddenly broke into a proper run.
There really was no mercy with him, apparently. (Or maybe he just wanted to push himself.)
Sand
shifted beneath his feet as he ascended the trail, swift and
sure-footed despite the terrain. At the top of the first slope, he
leaped onto a boulder that jutted out of the ground and hopped from it
to the next closest rock formation before jumping back down to the
earth. Kalen would have to be quick to keep him in his sights.
Kalen Holliday
[Dex+Athletics - WP b/c some people have a competitive streak like whoa]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
grins when Ian takes off running. And he follows, somehow. He is not
as graceful as Ian, he's not as ready to go bounding over rocks and
springing over trails. He is definitely going to feel this tomorrow.
And he thinks that that is glorious.
He
keeps pace with Ian, at least for the moment. His world is running and
Ian and running and glimpses of the sky through trees and running and
rocks to jump between and running. He's been inside a lot. He has been
still. Waiting and planning and preparing.
So little like this.
That is playful and physical and just...immediate. There has been a
distinct lack of immediate, instinctive things. And he has missed them.
Ian
[Dex+Ath again - how hard is he trying to win this race?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian
Perhaps,
if Ian had noticed Kalen flag behind, he may have slowed to keep pace.
But Kalen was a competitive creature, and for all that he was ill-used
to this sort of activity, he wasn't exactly in poor shape. Ian didn't
need to glance behind to know that Kalen was there. He could hear
Kalen's steps; his breathing. Could even smell him, whenever the breeze
gusted past. Perhaps Ian imagined that he could feel Kalen's heart
beating. It was a familiar enough rhythm by now.
As they rounded a
curve in the trail, Ian put on a second burst of speed and pulled
ahead. For a while he was content to just run the stretch of trail. The
scenery here had a rough sort of beauty, and he watched it slip by as he
ran, all at once at home and alive. To their left, the ground rose up
in a long, steep hill, and Ian eyed it with a flashing look.
He wanted to stand on top of it.
So
he vaulted onto the rocks and began to climb, half-leaping and half
pulling himself along the sandy rock-face. When he reached the top, he
stopped running and stood there, gazing out across the wild Colorado
landscape.
Kalen Holliday
[How long can we do this? - WP again]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Kalen Holliday
And Ian does pull ahead. Determination can only make up for so much.
Kalen
falls behind and falls back to a jog. When he catches up to where Ian
is surveying everything, he scrambles up the rock face to join him. He
stays for a moment, close to the edge, breathing heavily but still
smiling.
"You. Are. Such. A. Fucking. Jerk." He takes a breath between each word, but there is still an undercurrent of amusement.
Ian
Ian did not disagree with that sentiment.
"Admit it," he grinned. "You're having fun."
He
wasn't nearly so winded as Kalen, but he still had to pause to catch
his breath while he let his pulse slow to a less active pace. The lines
of his shoulders rose and fell, and his lips parted as he scanned the
horizon.
"Have you ever read anything by Peter Matthiessen?"
Kalen Holliday
"Yeah," Kalen says, reaching into his bag to pull out his water bottle. "I may have needed this a little."
He
pushes up to his feet and comes to stand beside Ian. Not touching,
just close. "Contrary to popular belief, I do not spend all of the time
during which I am not smiting things reading." He huffs softly,
amused. "What did he write?" He sips at his water while he waits for
Ian's answer.
Ian
"He was a Buddhist and a
naturalist. Before that, a CIA Agent. Interesting guy. I've only read a
few of his books. They're very... reflective. He writes about wild
places and human nature. One of his books, called 'The Snow Leopard,'
has this passage that really stuck with me:
"I feel great
gratitude for being here, for being, rather, for there is no need to tie
oneself to the snow mountains in order to feel free. I am not here to
seek the ‘crazy wisdom’; if I am, I shall never find it. I am here to be
here, like these rocks and sky and snow, like this hail that is falling
down out of the sun."
It was an odd passage to quote, perhaps, in
the face of all this arid scrubland. But the sentiment seemed to fit,
regardless. And there in that moment, in the quiet, wind-touched space
they occupied at the top of a rocky hill, Ian shared this piece of
himself. This passage from a book that he knew by heart.
Ian ran
his tongue between his lips. They felt parched, and it reminded him that
he, too, was thirsty. So he swung his pack around and unzipped the
side, pulling out a bottle of water.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
reaches out as Ian finishes the quote, rests his fingertips against
Ian's ribs lightly. It isn't meant to be comforting, or much of
anything really beyond just contact. Maybe an acceptance of that
sharing. But he doesn't have anything to offer back, not that follows
easily here.
"I'll have to try reading some of his things."
Ian
moves to get his water and if he hasn't already broken off contact,
Kalen takes his hand back. He doesn't watch Ian for the moment, instead
he watches the sky, much as he was watching it when Ian first met him
today, eyes half focused. Almost meditative.
Ian
"What,
no jokes about illiterate fashion models?" Ian smirked lightly, and
whatever spell he'd woven moments before broke with the gesture. He
twisted the cap free from the bottle in his hand and drank deeply,
tipping back his head as he let his eyes fall shut.
When he was through, he stashed the bottle away again.
"Come on, I'll let you keep up with me this time."
And
then he climbed back down the rocks and jumped onto the path, pausing
to wait for Kalen to join him before he resumed their hike.
Kalen Holliday
"I
pick my battles carefully. I'm not even about to start a skirmish with
your ego. I know when I'm hopelessly outmatched. Pretty sure I
couldn't even scratch that ego if I tried." He smiles.
Kalen
watches him drink, then watches him move for a few seconds before he
follows him down the rock face and back to the path. "So very kind of
you." He falls into an easy pace with Ian. Calm. Relaxed. Less
interested in trying to figure Ian out and content to just share space.
Ian
Ian raised an amused eyebrow at Kalen's comment,
but did not attempt to either refute or support Kalen's claims. Instead
he grew quiet as they hiked, content, as Kalen was, merely to exist in
this place and time. They passed by a handful of impressive rock
formations, which Ian looked at but didn't attempt to climb, and above
them in the sky a hawk circled lazily, its outstretched wings drifting
on the breeze.
"How old were you when you Woke Up?"
Coming from Ian, the question was perhaps a surprise, but he seemed genuine in his interest.
Kalen Holliday
"Fourteen,"
Kalen answers, more automatic than anything. Less so because he
doesn't want to talk and more so because taking while doing any physical
activity and speaking isn't easy for him yet. He's definitely into
being out hiking - but he already pushed to play when they were racing.
This trail isn't so long or so difficult that determination won't get
him through it, but he is definitely already a bit tired.
"Vampire.
I knew where he'd be, so he never actually managed to hit me. Then I
tripped him. Into the grill of a delivery truck."
He is quiet for a few steps. "You?"
Ian
Each
of them had their own unique stories of how they came to their present
awareness. That Kalen's involved some sort of supernatural creature
should not really have surprised Ian, but he took his eyes off the trail
and watched Kalen intently, as though he found this piece of
information interesting.
"At fourteen? Lucky you survived."
And
it was, indeed, lucky. Though one could make the argument that it was
Will, and not luck, that had kept Kalen alive (and mortal.) Ian didn't
make any attempt to pry further into the subject, and when Kalen tossed
the question back at him, he answered simply with, "Eighteen."
There were no further details given.
"What about the first time you had sex?"
Kalen Holliday
"I'm
not entirely sure. There was awhile where I was never...." He pauses,
and it isn't just because he needs oxygen. "I was really different,
before the Order. But around the same time, probably. I mean...it was
probably six months before I really got used to anyone touching me, so
probably I'd've been fifteen by then.
"The first time that really
meant anything, I was seventeen. That's what I always think of. But
there were others before that."
He doesn't return the question this time, but falls quiet after answering.
Ian
[Empathy, because aw]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
is not unwilling to talk. Perhaps more interesting, though he did stop
talking, he didn't actually shut Ian out. There is no distance.
Wherever his head went...it's not exactly happy. There is a whole host
of emotions tied up in it, fondness, longing, sorrow. Because so much
of who he was was tied up with people who died, with people he didn't
quite manage to save. And he has learned to remember more than just how
they died, but he has never learned how to let them go at all.
Ian
Kalen
said he couldn't remember his first time, and although Ian didn't press
him about it, there was a kind of gravity that seemed to settle into
Ian's eyes as they talked. This quiet acceptance of the delicacy of
memories.
Kalen could not remember his first time. Ian could not have forgotten his if he'd tried.
But
that was not the memory that Kalen chose to put weight on, and Ian
accepted this with a small nod, because although it was not the same for
him, he still understood the sentiment behind it. Perhaps that was why
Ian chose to offer a response without being prompted.
"I was sixteen. Both times."
And for a moment, that was all he offered. But then he added, "I think we were all different people at that age."
Kalen Holliday
"I-"
He
doesn't finish that before he remembers the whole host of things this
isn't. And maybe Ian is trying to connect. These questions have
weight. Even the little glimmers of answers Ian provides have weight.
That quote meant something.
And Kalen wants connection.
He needs to feel people around him like he needs oxygen and Ian, for
all he has distance and solitude and mystery wrapped up around him until
even on a good day Kalen can barely tell what he's thinking at all, Ian
calms him down. And he is trying for something.
"It isn't like I
need to keep any of this secret." He pauses, but it's just to breathe.
"I know you're going to tell me stories because I tell you stories.
And that's okay." A few breaths. "A little weird, maybe, because
knowledge is power and god will this be uneven, but I trust you." There
is enough warmth in that to soften it a little.
"But I will
probably lose my mind a little if I tell you. And, and I totally mean
this observationally not judgmentally, you really don't seem like you're
interested in holding me until I stop shaking. And that's okay.
But...it means if we do this, it just can't be here."
Ian
Kalen
shared more in that moment than Ian had expected him to (more than the
beats of their conversation invited,) and the pause of silence on Ian's
end may have at least been in part due to the dramatic shift in mood
that seemed to have cropped up between them. These questions - personal
though they were - had not been asked as a way to prompt vulnerable
confessions. It was, perhaps, Ian's way of showing that he was
interested in knowing Kalen as a complete person.
Perhaps it had
not even been a conscious decision so much as a flight of fancy - a
reaction to the mood of the moment and the circumstances they'd found
themselves in. As much a whim as the time he'd asked Serafine to dance
with him in the grass.
Maybe, during the span of that slightly
awkward silence, Kalen would begin to anticipate any number of negative
reactions. But Ian didn't snap at him, and he didn't precisely ignore
the confession either. What he did was look up ahead at the next curve
in the trail and say, "Everyone has their shit, Kalen. It's fine."
It
may have sounded a little dismissive, but Ian didn't mean it that way,
so after a moment he added, "I didn't mean to press you."
Kalen Holliday
"I
know. Ian, it's okay. I just...didn't really want to evade you or lie
to you. I...I'm good at those things. But even if we're not going to
be close like people generally think about, that's not what I want
here."
Ian, he says. Not kitty-cat. See, you've gained that much ground at least.
Ian
It
was the first time since they'd met that Kalen had addressed Ian with
his name directly, and Ian certainly didn't miss that fact. For a moment
his eyes darted back from the trail to take in Kalen's posture and
expression, but in the end Ian let it pass without comment.
For a
moment it seemed as though he might try to respond, but then he gave up the effort, releasing his breath in a soft sigh.
A moment later he asked, "Why did you let me come home with you that day?"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen watches Ian almost respond but then not. He doesn't press. There is no reason for that here.
"Because I did need a distraction. Because you're beautiful. And warm. And alive.
"And because you don't need me. I needed company, but I just...I couldn't be-"
He
takes a sharp breath. "They all died. I couldn't stop it. I tried.
And so many of us here they need me to know the things that they don't
and they need me to be steady when they forget how. I can do it,
mostly. But that night I just wanted to feel someone's skin and not
have to be anything except present.
"I miss that. I know. You're not the one who made this complicated. But I do."
Ian
[Manip+Subterfuge - is he going to keep his shit together?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
[Well. We can try....]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Ian
They all died.
Another
person might have tried to offer comfort in that moment. It was what
you did when someone shared that kind of loss. But Ian didn't, either
because he didn't wish to or because he couldn't. Maybe, if he'd been
someone else - someone less capable of detaching himself from his
emotions - Kalen might have seen the shadow of familiarity in Ian's
eyes, and might have known that his silence was from something other
than coldness or superficiality. But Ian was a survivalist at heart, and
sometimes people needed to put pieces of themselves into boxes in order
to survive.
So instead he just let Kalen talk, and maybe there
was some small measure of comfort in that alone. Though maybe not. And
he kept walking, though at a slower pace than before (giving Kalen room
to breath and to move at his own pace.)
Then Ian stopped and
looked at Kalen directly. He took a few steps closer, drawing into
Kalen's space. "I'm always present," he said quietly. And he kissed
Kalen slowly - as though testing to see if what he was doing was
welcome (it might not be.) And he put a hand out to run his fingers down
the front of Kalen's shirt.
Kalen Holliday
"I know," Kalen says softly. "It's my second favorite thing about you."
He
melts into the kiss for a second, leans very lightly into Ian and lets a
little of the tension ebb out of him. And then he kisses back more
forcefully, fingers sliding under Ian's shirt. And this, this might be
about some kind of comfort. It is definitely about need. But he was
serious before. He doesn't need Ian to love him. He doesn't even
really need Ian to hold him. He just needs to know that he is there.
Present.
Ian
[Life 1, practiced]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ian
Almost, Ian said: What's your first favorite thing?
But
then Kalen kissed back and slid his hands under Ian's shirt, and
suddenly there was no room left for speaking. It was almost second
nature, the way Ian let his senses expand to take in the Life that
existed around and in front of him.
They were alone (for now.) Even the hawk had soared away.
When
Kalen made contact with Ian's skin, Ian pushed into the touch and
uttered a quiet note of approval. Without breaking the kiss, he crowded
into Kalen's space and pressed forward as though to herd him off the
path. Beneath the shadow of a large rock formation, he stopped and
pulled the pack free from around his torso, dropping it onto the sand as
though he couldn't wait to be free of it.
"No one's around," he whispered against Kalen's lips. And then, almost imperceptibly, "Tell me what you want."
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
responds to that soft approving note with a low moan that doesn't quite
leave his throat and goes with being guided off the path easily enough.
His pack follows Ian's to the ground.
"You," he breaks off the
kiss just long enough to say. He catches at Ian's shirt, pulls it
upward, and provided minimal cooperation, off. "Just this. I need to
not have to think about anything but this."
Ian
This
much, at least, Ian could give. Because it was the same thing that he
wanted. Not to think. Not to remember that someone he knew was dying, or
that moments ago Kalen had told him things that neither of them quite
knew what to do with. Just to be here. To be doing this.
Ian
lifted his arms and allowed his shirt to be pulled free. The air outside
was warmer than it had been over the weekend, but it was not yet
approaching the kind of heat they'd see in summer. It didn't matter.
After the flurry of activity they'd just put their bodies through (and
the flush of heat that Kalen was presently drawing to the surface of
Ian's skin,) Ian was anything but cold. He quickly followed suit with
Kalen's own t-shirt, pulling it off and dropping it to the ground, then
pressed in to apply an open-mouthed kiss to the side of Kalen's throat.
The skin there tasted like clean sweat, and Ian ran his tongue over it
before pressing lightly with his teeth.
The next moment, he had
his hands on Kalen's hips, and began to press him back into the rough
surface of the rock, but just before Kalen's back made contact, Ian flipped their positions. He kissed Kalen and leaned back
until his head bumped sandstone, lips parted as he breathed. They were wet
and slightly red, and Ian smiled because they were about to have sex
outside in broad daylight and really, Kalen was putting an awful lot of
trust in his ability to detect potential witnesses.
But this was hardly the first time Ian had done this sort of thing. And it showed.
If
Kalen wasn't already there, then Ian would pull him flush against
the line of his body, one hand at the small of Kalen's back while the
other opened up the front of Kalen's pants and dipped down beneath the
waistline to find skin and heat.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
shivers a little at the cold air on his skin, and to someone who grew
up in a warmer climate this is cold, but he doesn't care right now. He
wants more contact of skin on skin. His hands ease back down Ian's
body, fingers curled around the curve of his ribs, thumbs tracing over
his abs.
He lets Ian guide him, and if his grip on Ian's ribs
tightens once or twice as he remembers that he might be able to walk
backward but his balance is still imperfect...he doesn't care. When Ian
switches their position at the last second before they reach the rock
face Kalen makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a moan, low and
soft against Ian's skin.
And then he does press their bodies
together, presses Ian back into the stone, sinks his teeth into where
Ian's neck and shoulder meet with enough force to be just shy of
bruising before he kisses up the length of Ian's neck. He's just about
to nip at Ian's ear when Ian's hand slips down past the waistband of his
pants and glides over his skin, and his back arches just slightly and
he moans with his lips just grazing Ian's earlobe.
Ian, if he
still has much of a mind to pay attention to such things, will mark this
as a point beyond which Kalen was very definitely not thinking of
anything but him.
Ian
Ian's muscles shifted
fluidly beneath Kalen's hands, rolling into the touch with every
quickened breath that Ian took. They'd been together before, and Kalen
knew by now how touch-sensitive Ian's skin was - how reactive he could
be to even the smallest brushes of contact. The bite was something new -
the aggression of it, the blending of pleasure and pain - and Ian let
out first a rough gust of breath and then a quick, high moan, as though
he hadn't been expecting it.
(Truthfully, there were a lot of things about Kalen's behavior today that Ian had not been expecting.)
It
nearly derailed his focus. Nearly, but not quite. His free hand slipped
down to grab Kalen's ass, pulling their bodies together roughly, but
the shift in alignment made it difficult to move his arm, so he
reluctantly gave up this impulse in order to slide Kalen's erection free
and stroke his hand over it.
Normally Ian would take the time to
be teasing about this, but today he wasn't. His touch was slow at first,
but firm enough to be direct about his intentions. He wanted to hear
more of Kalen's moans. Wanted to feel the smooth heat of his skin and see the line of his body grow taut and shivering.
Ian looked down for a moment and ran his tongue over the bow of his upper lip.
"Fuck, you are so hot right now."
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
lets the side of his face rest against Ian's, there are two heavy
breaths against Ian's ear and then another moan as Kalen presses into
him. A soft amused huff of breath at Ian's statement, but Kalen is way
beyond any place where he wants to use things like words.
Instead,
he drops one of his hands from Ian's ribs to run lightly, practically
teasing, from the button fastening Ian's pants downward and then back
upward with a bit more pressure to unfasten the button this time. His
other hand comes up to cup th side of Ian's neck as he lays a forceful
line of open mouthed kisses from just behind Ian's ear to his shoulder. And Ian is not disappointed,
those kisses are interspersed with moans, some soft, some lower that
set his eyelids fluttering and force a slight pause in the rhythm of the kisses.
Ian
Ian
gave a low moan and a roll of his hips into Kalen's hand, encouraging
further contact. Even without the extra senses that Ian possessed, it
was easy to see how turned on he was. The dark of his eyes were made
even darker by dilated pupils, and a flush of color had risen up along
his neck, blending with the marks that Kalen left there with his mouth.
They
were the same height, and a fairly similar build, and their bodies fit
together easily. Ian pushed his thigh between Kalen's legs and applied
pressure there while he let his thumb graze over the sensitive bundle of
nerves on the underside of Kalen's cock. Rubbing against it
torturingly. And he ran the fingers of his other hand slowly up the
length of Kalen's spine, dancing over the back of his neck to finally
twine themselves up in Kalen's hair.
Above them, the sky was a
clear wash of blue, the clouds stretched and thin like wisps of white
smoke. Ian looked at it when he tipped his head back, then let his
eyelids slide shut with a flutter of lashes. His heartbeat was a wild,
vital thing, sounding a rough rhythm in his chest that Kalen would be
able to feel whenever he put his hand over a pulse-point.
It was almost a relief, how easy it was to forget every other thought in his head.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
lets the roll of Ian's hips start his hand in a smooth motion down the
length of Ian's cock, fingertips tracing at its base while his thumb
circles its head. He's mostly abandoned the kissing now, although
sometimes he'll curl into Ian with soft breathless sounds, his head
falling to rest briefly on Ian's shoulder and when he pulls away it is
with kisses pressed to the hollow of Ian's throat, soft nips at his
earlobe.
And he loves this: the contact, the pleasure, the trust,
the difference in warmth between where he is pressed against Ian and the
cool air and the echoes of the warmth of the sun in the rock at Ian's
back. He's content to let this play out how it does, though he is in no
hurry.
Still, those maddening, teasing strokes eventually send
him curling into again and he does, finally, use words, breathless and
low and raw, "Oh god. Ian." He breathes in sharply, breath catching in
his throat. "God...." And then there are no more words.
Ian
Distantly,
Ian was aware that they could be caught. That perhaps a hiker might
overhear the echoes of their moans on the breeze, or that he'd be too
far-gone to sense someone coming around the bend in the trail before
they could catch sight of the two of them pressed together half-naked
against the rocks. But maybe, right now, he didn't really care.
(Let them see.)
When
Kalen uttered those words, Ian's eyes opened, and he pulled in a
sudden, shaky breath as though he too was about to tip over the edge.
That didn't actually happen, but in a way it didn't really matter. He
felt the waves of it like an aftershock flushing over his skin, so in
tune with Kalen's pattern that it became difficult to tell where one of
them ended and the other began.
It wasn't until Kalen relaxed
against him that Ian pulled his hand away and let himself focus fully on
Kalen's touch. On the sensations it sent coursing through his body. On
the steadily peaking drive of hunger that clawed at the back of his
throat. And when he did come, not many moments later, it was not
utterances of the divine that left his lips but a handful of rough, loud
moans that felt more honest and uncontrolled than all of the words Ian
had ever spoken.
When his heart began to settle, and the spots of
light cleared from his vision, Ian licked his lips and glanced down,
and a soft, lazy smile spread across his mouth.
"Are you cold? Maybe we can drive somewhere."
There
was an edge to his energy that felt as though he had more on his mind
than what they'd done here, and if Kalen wished to stay where they were,
Ian was perfectly content to do so. But the breeze was slightly less
warm than was comfortable, and now that the driving immediacy of their
arousal was somewhat drained, it occurred to Ian that they might be more
comfortable in a bed somewhere. Or at least out of the cold.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen nods, and pressed close against Ian like he is it's almost more a nuzzle than a nod. "I
grew up in a nice sun-baked desert. I'm almost always cold here."
Which might explain some of why he is so reluctant to ease away from
Ian to get appropriately put together for the rest of the hike to where
they left the cars, but considering the conversation they just had,
almost certainly not all of it.
Even with contact broken,
he's much more relaxed again; and, while he's definitely interested in
more contact (and warmth), he is definitely a lot better than he was
when he was both trying to explain (and simultaneously not explain)
things.
Ian
Ian just smiled at that as he zipped
his pants back up and picked his t-shirt off the ground. He gave the
shirt a shake to free it of sand particles, but didn't bother putting it
back on. Instead he used it to clean the mess off his chest and
stomach.
"Alright. Come on, then."
And for a moment it
almost looked as though he might challenge Kalen to another race. There
was a faint glint of it in Ian's eyes. But thankfully it never
materialized, and he kept his pace to an easy gait as they walked back
to the parking lot.
