de la sierra nevada

[bossymarmalade]

His fingers drift over Oliver’s eyelids when the man is back in the bedroom. Damian had returned to the bungalow with Dick, the other room was cleared out, and so, the structure is still and empty. The air was baked stale with a lack of airflow during the highest point of sun for the day; no one had been inside.

Bruce had opened the window in the bedroom, and slowly, the breeze stirs the curtains as Bruce pulls the sunglasses. Removes them from Oliver’s face, to inspect the damage.

"You removed them yourself," he murmurs, his voice running along the edge of the bed before it lifts to the archer’s ear.

"I did." Ollie’s answering before he even realizes he’s talking; the warmth of the air is soporific, heavy and golden as honey, preserving him in its amber. His mind seems to tick along a half-beat behind his mouth, his heart, his blood. "I didn’t have much else of a choice."

He opens his eyes to look at Bruce and it’s an unctuous, greasy slide, what with the melted ointment and the swollen skin of his eyelids. But that’s better than the grinding bits of dried blood and lymph, the way his lashes had been caked with blood. There’s still beads and spots of it, here and there. Blood running along the line of his lashes to drip from the tips when he blinks.

"Mar’i helped me clean and salve them," he says, turning towards Bruce to be more closely inspected. "I think they’ll be okay. I’m just gonna look like a freakshow for a few days while they heal."

An understatement. He looks horrendous. He’d caught a glimpse of himself in the long closet mirror and almost fallen onto the bed in disgust.



There isn’t speech to ask, but Bruce’s fingers do the work his tongue and teeth cannot: he slides his fingers against Ollie’s temples. The other man hadn’t called him, had not come to Bruce for help, but.. It was alright. Mar’i had done a good job. Good work.

"Good thing you’ve never relied solely on your looks to get by," he muses, the humour dry and brittle. Bruce kneels, against the side of the bed where Oliver is sitting, checking under his jaw, fingers sliding against his neck, unbuttoning the man’s shirt to check his collarbone, chest. Oliver’s lucky Bruce hasn’t pulled out a pair of latex gloves and asked the archer to turn his head and cough.

"That’s true enough. The sheer force of my personality could win people over even if I had elephantitis of the ear, or something." Ollie submits to Bruce’s inspection mildly, letting the other man turn his head, run fingers along his clavicle, check whatever vital signs or unusual discolourations or curious incident of the dog in the night-time was gonna pique his detective mind.

"You weren’t there when I woke up," Ollie says, conversationally, pleating the soft, crumpled bedsheets between his knuckles. "So I took them out myself. Don’t feel like you should have been, Bruce. I’m a big boy and I’ve been doing shit for myself for a few years now. And I don’t …" He turns his head, looking at the window, the way that the gauzy curtains undulate and flutter in the breeze as they catch it and the white, dusty sunlight. "I’m still not crazy. I don’t know what happened, but I’m not that."

"I didn’t say you were."

Bruce’s voice is still low, and he continues to unbutton Oliver’s shirt, the rough callouses of his fingers still working over his skin. He shifts, nodding when Oliver speaks, and if he understands what Oliver is saying, the alleviation of guilt he’s attempting, he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t verbally confirm anything.

"Do you remember anything?"

He pushes the shirt off Oliver’s shoulders, lifting his arm, checking along his flank for marks.

"I remember … it was almost like … I was doing something I’d done before. Like I was calling on skills that I had, but hadn’t used in a while … oh my god, Bruce." Ollie looks at him, eyebrows up high on his forehead since widening his eyes hurts like the devil. "I think in my previous life I was a tailor!!"

Oliver laughs and darts in to plant a quick kiss against Bruce’s cheek, to apologize for the awful joke before he resumes his position and lets Bruce keep checking him over. “No, I don’t remember anything. When I woke up I had the needles in my hand and that was about it. Maybe the Cachement elves are telling me I should go make friends with the sewing machine?” Ollie smiles fondly at Bruce’s dark hair, the way it shines in the sunlight at the base and the tips, duller along the middle of the shaft. He drowsily imagines tracing lines along Bruce’s scalp with his tongue, tasting the heat of his skin. “What’re you looking for, anyhow?”

Bruce, still checking Oliver over, stops entirely when he makes the joke, his gaze hardening as he looks up at Oliver, as the other man ducks to kiss his cheek. Bruce exhales, roughly, and shakes his head, unamused as he continues to check over.

"Looking for anything out of place." He replies, evenly, even as his hands move along the other man’s body, and it’s obvious that the real search is over. Now, Bruce is just scraping his palms along the man’s rib cage, the hard, rippling muscles of his abdomen. He pauses, after a moment, and it’s evident from the stilted nature of his words, that this is a new thing for him, speaking unprompted.

"I thought I saw her last night."

The even rise and fall of breath that moves Ollie’s ribcage against Bruce’s hands stops, stutters and stammers. “Oh jesus,” Ollie says, bringing up his hand to touch Bruce’s face, the point of his cheekbone (almost healed, now, from where Ollie had lain it open with his fist) and the soft, faintly sticky skin at his temple. “I’m glad,” he says, which isn’t actually what he thought he was going to say at all. But once it’s out, Ollie finds that it’s true.

"Honey, I’m glad," Ollie says again, sliding his fingers back into the richness of Bruce’s hair. "Even if it was just a thought, even if you’re second-guessing yourself, whatever it is, whatever it was — I’m glad. I think we needed to see her, both of us. I miss her so much, god." Ollie closes his eyes momentarily as he slides his hand around the back of Bruce’s head, down his neck; the seams of his eyelids are too swollen and knotted to close evenly, and he can see past little gaps and slots, polka dots of Bruce’s blue and black and quiet. "I need you both with me."

Bruce moves his arms around the curve of Oliver’s legs and hips where he sits on the bed. He doesn’t have any words to give the other man, nothing to add, and he knows himself well enough that he doesn’t attempt to amend a statement that needs no amendment.

Instead, he pushes his lips against Oliver’s collarbone, scraping his teeth uncomfortably, against the ridge. It drops down, lips parted, until he can wrap his mouth against one of the archer’s nipples, sucking it wetly. His hands shift, up his back, over scars and the dips and peaks of muscles, as his mouth works, tracing the areola with the hardened tip of his tongue, flicking the nub, near-lazily.

Ollie hums in encouragement when the tenor of Bruce’s touching shifts, from sure-handed ungentle professionalism to something more suited to the stillness of the room and the sunshine; Bruce’s big hands move over Ollie’s body, warming, possessive and wondering. “Honeyboy of mine,” he murmurs, smiling a little as Bruce’s mouth grazes his nipple, licks as if he’s tasting.

"You’re done with your examination?" he drawls, fingertips making swirls in the bottom edge of Bruce’s hairline, the little points where it’s cut. Getting longer now, though, like his own; they’d both be shaggy soon enough, and the thought of the fat black curls that Bruce’s hair will make, Caravaggio lush and obscene, makes Ollie’s mouth water. "Or changing the focus of it?"

"I’m being thorough." His response is curt, to-the-point, his mouth continuing its lazy crawl across his chest. However, after a moment, the pace shifts, his hands move to the front of Oliver’s jeans, and he undoes the button. Slips the fly down. Bruce’s calloused fingers make the trip inside and for a moment he wants to marvel at the fact that it’s almost familiar to him, the feeling the thick, meaty coil of the man’s cock under his fingers. The sight of it, as he pulls it out, careful not to snag it on the teeth of the zipper.

”..you’ll get her back.” It’s a promise, not a half-hearted wish, something to placate Oliver. It was just a matter of time. Bruce lifted his head, against the tug and probe of Oliver’s fingers, annoyed by how long his hair was growing, how the curls were beginning to ripple the silhouette of his shadow.

"In your arms, Oliver," he murmured, suddenly, mouth sliding against his clavicle again, brushing down through the curling hair on his chest, his sternum, seeking out the other nipple. He slicks his tongue against it. "In your bed."

"Both of us," Ollie corrects, like clockwork. But it’s not going through the motions, not at this point, not when both of them are sunk so deep into him that the thought of losing either one of them can undo him like all his strings have been snipped. "She’ll be back in our bed, our big big bed, Bruce, just the way you like ‘em. Double kings and one Queen." He chortles — his jokes here in Cachement are decidedly of a low grade, but he’ll take his chuckles where he can get ‘em — and leans his head back, blinking happily at the ceiling. A black butterfly with scalloped wings sits there, slowly fanning itself, and Ollie smiles at it. "Looks like his cape," he muses, then tightens his fingers in Bruce’s curls, amending, "your cape," just in case it wasn’t clear.

"She’ll come back and then we’ll all be together again, like we’re supposed to be." The thought of it makes him shudder in pleasure. "Ahhh, god, Bruce. I love you, I dunno if you even understand how much." He shifts on the bed, tilting so his cock unfurls more into Bruce’s hand. "Everything about you, even the shit that annoys me. But I got time, I got ti-i-i-i-ime to tell you all about it."

Bruce grunts, a low hard noise in response to what Oliver says, again, offering no verbal reassurances. His mouth, however, widens and he brings his teeth down against the tip of his nipple, gripping it lightly.

In the archer’s lap, Bruce’s hand shifts against the shaft of his cock, dragging his thumb along the underside. He hums a short noise, indicating his understanding of everything Oliver says—understanding, not acceptance—and he shifts his head down, to where his ring and middle finger lift, his thumb stabilizes the head of the other man’s cock. Bruce fits his lips around it, easing the foreskin back, and swirls his tongue around the width, humming another noise. His other hand shifts to push Oliver back, against the mattress, eyes on the ceiling.

When Bruce’s mouth first slips onto the head of his cock, Ollie curls forward — only to be pushed back, flat onto the bed. He makes a noise of protest but that’s as far as it goes; he’s too lazy right now to put up any sort of concerted effort at maintaining ground. And what is there really to fight against, when Bruce’s tongue is doing loop-de-loops and his low bumblebee voice is sending shivers along the hardening length of Ollie’s prick? “Okay,” he says, somewhat belatedly, but it doesn’t matter so much. Time is liquid here, molasses dark and drippy, tasting of burnt sugar.

He lets his legs fall open, making more room for Bruce’s wide frame, and grunts when Bruce’s thumb presses in to hold his cock steady. “Easy there, tiger,” he says, rolling his head to the side to catch a glimpse of Bruce’s dark head. All he can see is the rolling waves of those curls, behind Bruce’s ear, and oop, there goes his cock making a move of approval, precome easing out as Ollie smiles up at the ceiling. The big black butterfly is still there, hasn’t moved, is just slowly fanning in time with Ollie’s pulse. “So pretty,” Ollie says, and it could apply to Bruce or the butterfly, it suits them both.

Bruce, for his part, does nothing to stop Oliver talking because his attentions aren’t on the words spilling out of the man’s mouth. His focus moves to the leaking tip of Ollie’s prick: he pulls his mouth back to look at it, the pulse of clear precome, salt-and-musk, a teasing preview of what Bruce is working towards.

He drags his tongue along the frenulum tracing it down, flicking it against the veins that begin to bulge as Ollie grows harder.

"What." He growls, opening his mouth and biting down against the shaft, lightly. Another bud of precome and Bruce laps it up. "What’s pretty."

"Mmmmf," Ollie says with feeling, as if it’s an actual word and can explain anything at all. The way his thighs tighten up when he feels Bruce’s teeth might convey his responses, though; there’s a little sizzle of heat going through his bloodstream from that, getting things moving, making his syrupy-drowsy body come alive with the movements of Bruce’s mouth. "You’re pretty, my angel," Ollie mumbles, fingers patting and stroking the covers even though he can’t reach Bruce from where he is. "You with your knife-strong nose and your deep ocean eyes."

He tips his head back, rubbing his hair into the sheets. ”And I know what the bottom of the ocean looks like, dumpling, since I dived the Titanic once. Still and cold and calm and full of secrets and things that will never be said aloud.” Bruce’s warm tongue stills for just a second, you could almost miss it, but it’s enough for Ollie to add, gently, “Some things it’s okay to never say aloud. Words are funny things.” He flattens his hands out, lifting his hips a skootch. “I’m happy with your lovely mouth just as it is.”

”..keep talking, Ollie,” Bruce orders, moving his mouth down the thick shaft of Ollie’s cock, to the velvet sac of his testicles. He opens his mouth, greedily, consuming them, his tongue working over the skin and devouring the taste of it. It’s a deep, masculine taste and Bruce’s mouth waters, goes sinfully wet as he curls his hand around the root of the other man’s cock, pumping from root to tip.

He can’t help but laugh, because this has become A Thing between them; Bruce going quiet, or just *being* quiet, Ollie assuring him that it’s fine, Bruce instructing Ollie to fill up the air with clouds and swirls of words and half-articulated thoughts that dissolve back into his tongue like cotton candy, coming dripping back out as moans and pleas and urging. “Yes, dear,” Ollie says drolly, “whatever my dear sweetheart wants.”

But then something stops him from adding to the tapestry of nonsense he’s already begun weaving, because Bruce’s mouth is moving in a way that’s … well, it started out Bruce, but now all of a sudden it’s transformed into something else familiar. Bruce’s tongue does one deliberate curl and then Ollie’s laughing for real, in delight and adoration and pure fucking joy, because what Bruce is doing is /what Kate does/. And it must be on purpose, it /must/ be, because most of what Bruce does has been planned in that glorious watchworks he calls a brain. “Katie,” Ollie thrums, voice warm and fond. “Cata. Oh, god, I love you.” He breathes out a gust of pleasure and adds, “that means you, Bruce. You crazy bastard.”

Bruce pulls his mouth off the archer’s skin with a sopping, sharp pop! of noise, the ridge of his nose pressed into the space where the base of Ollie’s cock meets the tight sac. He drags his tongue up, tracing, and Bruce’s breathing sounds tight and hot, even to his own ears. Must mean he enjoys it, Bruce decides, detached.

He releases another half-inch of control and.. Yeah. There it is. The razor-edge anguish of arousal floods him, drenching his nerves in absolute /pleasure/ and he moans aloud. His other hand, that had been around Ollie’s side, shifts down, to the fly of his own pants, the thickening coil of his own cock. He undoes the button, the zipper and speaks in a hushed low whisper, voiced stained with faltering prowess: “..keep—Ollie.”

He groans again, working his mouth against the man’s prick in perfect mimicry of how Kate had done it, on her knees, working his lips up and to the head, swallowing the tip of Ollie’s cock.

"Okay, yeah, I will," Ollie says agreeably in response to Bruce’s bitten-off directive, but then Bruce is doing it exactly like Kate does again, the hungry fierceness with slightly less of the Bruce precision (or…more of that precision? Since he’s imitating Kate? Whichever) and Ollie’s distracted for a moment with the feel of lips and tongue, sliding and swirling.

"Ah," Ollie says instead, his throat releasing the sound like it doesn’t know what’s happening as he blinks and blinks at the ceiling. "Aaahhh … ah, Bruce, okay, I’ll keep talking if you want. I’ll keep talking forever if you want me to, honey, about whatever you like. There’s nothing I don’t wanna talk with you about. Tell you everything, all the little sunken-in stones and bones of me, even the ugly ones — especially the ugly ones, those’re the ones I need to show you most of all." He looks at the butterfly as it closes up its wings, becoming a black dash along the ceiling. "You get to see everything that’s unlovable about me too. Darling, sweetheart." Ollie leaves off there for a moment because he can’t put any words to tongue while Bruce is licking broad stripes up the length of him, hand wrapped firmly around the base of his cock; the knowledge that Bruce is touching himself, too, makes the whole thing even better.

Bruce shifts his hand to pull out the heavy length of his own prick, palming the head with an intense pressure. He moves his lips around the tip of Ollie’s cock, fitting the suction of his mouth and tongue around the first three inches, pulling up so the foreskin slips back up. He pushes his mouth back down, the thick meaty head slipping against his tongue.

He bobs his head up and down, near slurping the skin, velvet-softness of it, eyes half-lidded. Between his fingers, curling and uncurling, Bruce rubs own cock, rubbing the heel of his palm against it, dry and rough.

"getting hard to talk now, B," Ollie slurs, letting the words drag out along the sides of his tongue, salt one side and sour the other, meeting sweet at the tip. "You’re kinda … baby, just like that, god … kinda distracting me. With alla this." He opens and closes his hands against the covers, his stomach muscles tightening with each motion of Bruce’s mouth, the sounds he’s making. "Wish I could watch you, but fuck, I guess I’ll have to imagine."

The black butterfly suddenly drops from the ceiling and flutters around in a circle, halfway between the light fixture and the bed, and Ollie lifts one arm a little, holding his fingers up as he pushes his shoulders back against the mattress when Bruce eases his tongue around the head of his cock. “Lord,” Ollie breathes. The butterfly circles and the heat in his balls gathers, circling as well, his cock pulsing in Bruce’s mouth. “Not gonna be long, Bruce, you’re gonna make me come…”

Bruce growls and adjusts himself and one, two, he opens up the back of his throat and forces himself down, mouth sloppy and wet, and /swallows/ Ollie’s cock. Down until his aquiline noise is shoved up against the tight blond hairs, thatched and dense at the base, his tongue flicking out over his lower lip as he sucks.

He palms his cock faster, shifting up on his knees, and now, his head is visible, the tufts of hair shifting against the flattened plane of the archer’s stomach. His other hand moves to drag his nail against Oliver’s hip, gouging white pressure marks, almost breaking skin as he sucks, hollowing his cheeks.

Ollie gasps, and then he gives a long, low yowl, a wolf-noise of animal sensation as he bucks against Bruce’s mouth, his hand, the unfettered hip rising as far as it can off the bed. The arm he has outstretched drops heavily, thumping against the sheets, then again and again as Ollie’s toes curl against the knotted rug that Bruce is kneeling on. “Oh jesus fuck,” he mutters, as his cockhead bumps the back of Bruce’s throat, as his shaft is sucked into that tight, hot wet tunnel that Bruce is making for it. If Ollie tips his head up he can see the waves of Bruce’s dark hair, moving and bobbing and twisting, like ocean water, and the thought of that along with that butterfly circling at the periphery of his vision, it topples him over the edge.

"Fucking god ALMIGHTY!" he shouts, knees trying to lift and instead dovetailing into Bruce’s sides as Ollie shoots in long spurts, sealed in the tight gloriousness of Bruce’s mouth. "Baby, honey, yes!"

When the first wide, viscous pulse of come shoots down the back of his throat, Bruce gags. It isn’t the smooth recovery he’s used to, some of it comes back up. It splatters against Ollie’s stomach and into the curls, dense at the root. He swallows, over and over, even as he rocks forward.

His own moan is muffled by the length of his lover’s prick as he comes, curling over and rocking against the edge of the bed. His hips buck as he cups his palm, collecting his come, the tops of his thighs pushing the frame. Jolting it as he comes, choking on Ollie’s dick.

He pulls back after a moment, sucking the shaft clean before he busies himself with Ollie’s stomach. Licking like a cat at cream.

Ollie lifts his hands to hold Bruce’s big, warm head as he applies his tongue in lavish strokes, pulling gently at the curls. “Thank you,” he murmurs, then when he feels enough time’s been spent on that, he sits up a little, tugging, reaching down to press his fingertips into Bruce’s shoulder. The spinny glow of orgasm’s still surging sweetly through his body, muscles gone lax, everything full of golden liquid heat. “Come up here. I wanna kiss that pretty mouth.”

Now that he’s not distracted, his eyelids are starting to throb and hurt again. Kissing, Ollie figures, will be just the right thing to take his mind off it.

Bruce cleans his hand of his come, neatly, rearranging Ollie, pulling his jeans up, his shoes off. He bodily forces the other man onto the bed, pulling the sheets around him. He presses his lips to Oliver’s, tongue tangling with his, the cloying musk of his own release tangled with Oliver’s in a way that’s.. Complimentary.

It makes Bruce smile—everso slightly— as he kneels over Oliver, pushing a hand over the man’s flaxen, golden hair.

Bruce’s body settling over his sets Ollie to stretching and purring, deep rumble in his chest, especially when Bruce starts petting his hair. He lifts his hand to Bruce’s shoulder and the scalloped black butterfly comes floating down, perching on Ollie’s finger; it doesn’t even move when he brings his hand up between them for Bruce to see it.

"Lookit that," Ollie says, pleased, his face and throat still flushed from sex. "Little you in fairy-wing form approves of us getting it on." The creature does a slow flap of its wings, creating its black cape, folding it back up. Ollie looks up at Bruce and smiles, wide. The motion crinkles his eyes and he hisses, a little, at the tug and sting, but not enough to stop smiling.

Bruce doesn’t look to the butterfly; his gaze is on Oliver. His gaze is heavy and hard, and he smoothes his hand, which is, by contrast, light and barely-there, over Ollie’s chest.

"I’m going to find the boy," Bruce states. "I’ll need you on patrol tonight." He reaches down and tucks himself back into his pants, giving the signals he needs to Oliver: he’s setting out now. Bruce pushes his hand over Oliver’s hair. "Get a good hour or two, meet me by the tower."

The butterfly flaps away as if the change in Bruce’s tone had compelled it to leave, and Ollie smooths his hand down Bruce’s arm, the swells and rises of his muscles, before nodding. Gameface is easy enough to slip into, and after all, they have work to do. No matter who’s missing or missed or what snatched moments of love they might steal.

"Whatever you need me for," Ollie says, then catches Bruce’s face with his hand. "I mean it." He doesn’t elaborate, for once, just holds Bruce’s gaze.

Bruce exhales in response, nodding once, and speaks quietly, pushing as much of the impassive, disinterest out of his voice. There are fathoms of expression there, swirling behind

"Sleep now. I’ll be back to get you, once the sun has gone down." He leans over the other man’s form, kissing his mouth firmly, giving a clear indication he’d be monitoring the bungalow, as well, while he slept.

He could protest, being told to nap like some fractious preschooler, but the truth of it is that Ollie *is* sleepy, worn out from the stress of his tacked-together eyelids and the build and release of the sex. Sleep is already settling into his limbs, making them heavy and stupid.

So instead of wasting both their time he says, “All right. I’ll meet you after sundown. I’ll be good as a daisy by then.” Ollie wants to kiss Bruce again but doesn’t. Sometimes he does this with Kate, too; forces himself not to touch when he wants to, not to kiss when he’s longing for one. He hasn’t gone into all the psychology of why he does this to himself but maybe that doesn’t even really matter. Instead he turns over, under the bridge of Bruce’s body, and pulls a pillow under his head. “Wouldn’t kill you to get some rest yourself.” It’s a lost cause, but he says it anyhow.

Bruce’s weight lifts off the bed, clearly not taking this advice, but by then Oliver’s fast asleep, dreaming of entwined waves of dark, dark hair.