Work Text:
please don't let this turn into something it's not
i can only give you everything i've got
i can't be as sorry as you think i should
but i still love you more than anyone else could
make this go on forever - Hahlweg
The afternoon fog sits low on the airfield, almost obscuring the runway. It wafts around Benny’s feet as he sits smoking, bringing the smoldering stick to his mouth mechanically while scanning the equally soupy sky. Moisture is heavy in the air, thicker than the smoke in his lungs, muffling sound and turning the voices of the few mechanics milling around to low murmurs, either out of respect for the two officers or respect for the elements.
“Ain’t late yet, Flash,” Gale rasps beside him, toothpick in his mouth rather than tobacco.
“No, Sir,” Benny agrees, and stubs out his smoke just to give himself the ritual of starting a new one.
Gale straightens his lapels, glances across the airstrip where John has his head bent in low conversation with Ken Lemmons. He’s nervous in the John Egan sort of way, where he’s extra serious, extra reassuring, clapping every man on the shoulder like it‘s the cure to unease. Like he could make it better through sheer confidence. It almost works.
Gale nods to himself, perfect and polished and put together as he always was.
“Ain’t late yet,” He repeats, like by speaking it he could make it so.
Not late but not quite on time and certainly not early.
The soup is thicker than thick, stretching all the way from the heavens to the earth, and so they hear them long before they’re able to see the forts. Stuttering, stumbling engines, trying hard as their mechanical hearts can manage to bring their crews home safe. Lights blink on up and down the airstrip, ground crews scuttling across like ants to setup a safe guide home for their boys. Benny can’t breathe, won’t breathe, until he sees them touch down.
“One,” Gale murmurs under his breath, voice so absent Benny knows he doesn’t realize he’s speaking out loud, “Two, three, four…”
Five, six, seven, eight, come the fuck on Johnny, nine…
Paddlefoot’s Proxy slips through the cloud cover with all the grace of a cannonball and Benny breathes exactly none because she is about as devastated as a bird could be and still soar.
Chunks from the wings and tail sheared clean off by flak, flaps missing or only half raised, rattling with the effort, leaking fluid and debris and shuddering with the exertion of it all. There’s a hole in her belly, spilling guts across the tarmac and Gale’s shouting for an ambulance, for a fire crew, John echoing in his broader, louder voice. Benny’s not shouting, Benny’s still not breathing, he’s scared to take any air from the sky that might soften Proxy’s landing. Somehow she’s still got the correct gear, somehow they spool out seamlessly and she drops down to earth with hardly more than a bounce, creaking and groaning and sobbing but coming to a graceful stop all the same.
Benny breathes out. Feels Gale leave his side, calling for space, calling for emergency crews, the wailing sirens growing closer and closer. He won’t go, won’t risk being in the way, so he’s not close enough to see the faces of the battered bloody bodies they pull from the open gut-wound of Proxy, their screams faint and tinny and smothered by the thick fog. He waits and he breathes and he listens to men die in the distance and does exactly nothing about it because it isn’t his job to do anything about it aside from stay out of the way.
There’s commotion up by the cockpit, human bodies crawling over the surface of her body like ants and Benny brings the cigarette to his mouth mechanically. Smokes his way through five minutes of waiting, then fifteen, and then thirty. The ambulance leaves, laden with wounded bodies and Benny won’t go until he’s sure everyone is out, but he isn’t sure who’s left at this point.
If all of Proxy’s children had been chauffeured away bloody and broken.
Figures come back through the fog. Ken Lemmons, a handful of Brady’s crew, pale-faced and stricken, Major Cleven, Major Egan. Both different from Buck and Bucky, with the distinction between the two all in the serious set of their mouths. And then Benny stumbles, though he isn’t even walking, or maybe it’s just his heart forgetting to work for a moment.
John Brady, face freckled by sun and blood, hair a wet slick back from his forehead, baring every bit of the pale, blank shock written there. There’s a cut high on his cheekbone, still oozing watery blood, a bruise across the bridge of his nose like he’d adjusted the sit of his oxygen mask – a nervous habit – so many times it had left damage to the skin. But he was standing, he was walking, and had been cleared by the immediate medical crew.
“Johnny,” Benny calls in a voice he doesn’t recognize.
Says it again when Johnny seems to take a moment to focus on him. He leans forward and places his half-finished cigarette between the other man’s lips. Johnny pauses, blinks a few times like he has to remember what to do with the tobacco, and takes it from Benny’s fingers as gently as Meatball with a treat.
Normally, it would make somewhere around Benny’s hips tingle.
“Was it bad, Jack?” he asks stupidly, like it could have been anything but bad, horrendous, soul-rotting. Just like every single time was.
Johnny’s jaw works around the cigarette, but he seems unable or unwilling to talk. Refuses to meet Benny’s eyes.
“Captain Brady’s cockpit door jammed,” Bucky says, “Flak cut comms with the crew.”
He could have been flying a graveyard, for all he knew.
“Gotta get him to interrogation,” Bucky adds kindly, gentle warning in his tone.
It’s just them four so Benny reaches out, takes hold of Johnny’s bloody, bird-boned wrist and squeezes once, twice, three times. Johnny barely flickers his eyes in response, puffing on his cigarette like it’s taking every ounce of mental fortitude to remember how, and Benny knows even if he manages to catch Johnny’s eyes all he will see is pale blue skies. Bucky’s got an arm on Johnny’s shoulder, somewhere between brotherly and paternal, and Benny lets him go only because of this, only because Bucky’s the right sort of hands to leave him in, in this state, and watches the Major usher the wayward pilot into the passenger side of a jeep and take off down the runway towards interrogation. It’s a divide and conquer strategy of subtle concern, Buck left at Benny’s side. The sort of wordless, seamless, functionality that the Buckies make seem entirely natural. That hides the flavor of their inclinations, and provides an extra layer of cover to Benny and Johnny themselves.
Though truth be told, Benny figures they were far subtler, and hardly needed the protection.
It hardly matters in this moment, Johnny’s gone somewhere far away and Benny’s more present than he’d like to be, feeling every ounce of unused adrenaline crash into him at once. Sharpening him until he’s battle-ready and focused.
Johnny’s hands had been shaking, trembling so violently the tip of the cigarette had seemed a firefly in the gloom.
“I need to get him off base after this,” Benny says quietly to Buck beside him, lights himself another smoke just to give himself something to do, “Just for a bit, just enough he can put himself together some.”
Gale nods, works his fine jaw and swallows a few times judging by the bob of his clean-shaven throat, “I can get you two twelve hour passes. Not much more, short notice as it is.” He pauses, seems to consider his words carefully, “There’s an inn Bucky and I enjoy. The owner is discrete, and understands what men like us go through.”
Mouth dry, Benny doesn’t dare look over, doesn’t give Gale the disservice of looking around like he didn’t trust the Major’s ability to ensure the conversation was private, “I’d appreciate that sir.”
“Harding’s thinking of sending the whole crew down for a few days. The ones who can make it, at least. Some rest and relaxation, good food with real eggs.”
Flak house. They think Johnny needs the Flak House.
“I’ll do what I can for him, Sir.”
“Take care of Johnny, Flash. Let Egan and I worry about Captain Brady.”
-*~*-
Johnny’s quiet on the train ride, watching the countryside pass by with the same vague blankness from before. He hadn’t said much at all since interrogation, the cut on his cheek fading to a pink irritated line and the bruise across his beaky nose more green and yellow than angry black and purple. The blood had at least been washed from him, the terror-sweat and the sharp cold scent of the sky that had turned from comfort to horror these last few months. Nothing good ever came of that smell any more.
“There’s a cinema right down the road,” Benny says, thumbing through the local paper, “Maybe we can catch a late picture.”
Johnny’s eyes flicker to him, enough that Benny knows he’s at least been heard, but the other man offers him no response. Gnaws at his nailbeds, right where the skin is already choppy, and torn, and irritated. He’s not gone completely, and his hands are no longer shaking, but there’s a carefulness to every one of his movements like he wasn’t quite sure if he’d really stepped out of Proxy alive. His hands, when they weren’t being chewed on, sat in his lap on his perfectly pressed uniform, curled just slightly like they were still searching for the yoke.
A casual stretch and glance around, Benny nudges his foot forward until the polished tip of his boot presses to Johnny’s, “Or we get a late dinner sent up to our room and sleep, Jack,” He suggests softly, “Up to you.”
Johnny gives him a quiet nod, because smiling was never really his thing, gentleness reserved for their most private of moments. Early in the morning when Benny kissed him awake, still sleep-warm and humming with pleasure, and late at night outside the local pub, when Benny could blame drunken uncoordination for how close their heads bent together. They’ve got neither of those now, so Benny contents himself with the explainable press of their shows together and makes sure that Johnny doesn’t fall apart until they’re somewhere safe and alone.
-*~*-
The room is simple, well-kept, and smells pleasant enough though there was just the faintest smell of mothballs that tingles in Benny’s nostrils and reminds him of summers playing around with the old clothes in his friend's attic. A decent sized bed, a ceramic washbasin and a dresser with a mirror on the back of it. Ahead of them was the washroom, the door to Benny’s connecting room through a door in there. To his right was a small desk onto which Brady was laying his jacket, his cap, toeing his shoes off with quiet proficiency, like his body was just another machine to be handled.
Benny follows suit, shucking his jacket and tie underneath, eyeing the bed and formulating his plan of attack. How best to get Johnny laid out, get him whining for Benny in the exact way he was most shy to, slip two fingers in his ass and have him writhing. Just to warm him up.
Turning, opening his mouth to inform Johnny of that plan, because he liked the way it always made the other man go red and shivery, he finds a tongue instead. His shoulders slam back against the wall, dry cool hands cupping his face and a series of deep, sucking kisses are being pressed to his mouth. Each one gives him just enough time for his body to automatically gasp for air upon parting, barely achieving a full flex of his lungs before Johnny’s mouth is back on his, seeking and hungry and full of teeth. Spit trades between them, sour like coffee and cigarettes and like Johnny’s tobacco. By the time they part, Benny is dizzy and gasping, registering that the torso under his hands is bare skin, Johnny down to nothing but his pale undershorts.
Nimble fingers work at the buttons of Benny’s shirt, tug the belt from the loops of his pants in a slick leather glide that has Benny gasping, fingers dragging up the arched plane of Johnny’s back. Smooth skin deforms under his hand, pockmarked by scars here and there, and far leaner than Benny remembered. Some days he wonders if Johnny and Jack Kidd are in some sort of competition to see who can drop the pounds faster.
They’re backing towards the bed, Benny first and Johnny following. Benny’s shirt is down off his shoulders, vest pulled over his head and Johnny’s fingers are dragging through the hair on his chest, smoothing along his shoulders and back up to his face, pulling their mouths back together.
“God, Jack,” Benny sighs into the sting of his kiss, chases the sharp jab of Johnny’s tongue with his own, hands on the other man's narrower waist and tugging their hips flush.
Johnny’s answer is his lips against Benny’s neck, sucking and needling in turn. Together they tug Johnny’s underwear down his hips, Johnny pulling away to kick them off fully. But then he’s back quickly, the wet sticky head of his cock brushing against Benny’s belly, leaving slick needy smears.
“God, darling,” He gasps, “How long have you been hard for?”
He reaches down, and Johnny bats his hand away, pulling away just enough to look at Benny.
Breathing just as heavy as Benny is, there are red splotches of blush all over Johnny’s bare chest, high up on his cheekbones. His lips are swollen and glistening with a coating of both their saliva, and Benny can’t help but take a moment to admire him; the dusting of freckles on his narrow shoulders, the sleek line of inner armpit to ribcage and the narrow taper of his waist. His cock, flushed pink and oozing a clear thread of arousal from tip to the base. There’s a sticky smear against one hip, where he’d remained trapped and weeping for an unknown amount of time.
There were faint contusions across his chest, purpling and raw, where the straps of the pilot's seat had dug in. His cross, silver and delicate on its chain, glimmers in the faint light of the gas lamps. Benny reaches out for him, a hand sliding to the back of Johnny’s neck, feeling the bristle of recently shorn hair.
Johnny pulls away, head jerking until Benny’s palm falls from the base of his skull, nostrils flaring with breaths.
Benny tries again, just to pull him closer and soothe, but Johnny places a hand to the center of Benny’s chest and shoves. Falling back onto the bed as more of a single unit than two individuals, Benny’s slacks vice around his thighs too much for him to spread them properly, cradle Johnny properly between them. He shoves them down to his knees impatiently, Johnny doing the rest of the work and then he’s crawling his slim frame up Benny’s body, paving the way with lips and teeth that leave bright red marks on Benny’s skin.
“Ah, God , Jack, whatever you need, darling, just take it,” He gasps, fingers grasping at any bit of Johnny he can reach.
Johnny kisses him, kisses him again and again, thumbs anchoring under Benny’s jaw and sliding further up, back arching until Benny has to crane his neck back for the most ideal angle. Grips Johnny’s ass in a slow knead, feels the other man's cock kick against his belly in response, stream of arousal steady and smearing between them. Fingers tug insistently at the waistband of Benny’s undershorts and he’s got enough of a mind to drag them down off his thighs for Johnny, groaning as their bodies grind together all skin and wet arousal.
“ Fuck, ” he hisses into Johnny’s teeth, drags his hands over the spread of Johnny’s thighs, squeezing the lean muscle there.
Johnny had always been sparsely haired, the fuzz on his thighs and stomach wispy and fine, almost blonde in contrast with the darker hair on his head or nesting around the root of his cock. Pin straight, unlike the curlicues of Benny’s own pubic hair, downy soft and tickling against Benny’s nose as he throats him. Perversely, Benny likes it that way, Johnny’s hairlessness. Likes the smooth drag of his hands over his body, frictionless in a way he’d rarely encountered before the other man. Calling to mind teenagehood and hot Chicago summers watching the older boys wrestle down by the lake, hairless bodies glistening with sweat and water in equal measure.
“Kiss me,” he requests softly, looking up at Johnny’s sharp face softened by the yellow light of the room.
After a moment's consideration, he indulges Benny, the kiss not quite tender but certainly more gentle than exchanges previous, “Put your hands above your head, Benny.”
It’s the first words Johnny’s spoken in hours, his voice low and rasping from disuse and it goes straight to Benny’s weeping cock. The words more than the tone, because the dynamic they had stumbled into unintentionally and with great enthusiasm rarely had Johnny making demands or giving orders. In the world, John Brady was an officer not to be questioned or wheedled with, not like the Buckies were. He couldn’t be won over with good attitude and charm, wouldn’t be swayed by sentimentality. But here in the bedroom, John Brady was as pliant and bendable as putty, sweet as a kitten and just as ready to purr for Benny.
Benny settles back, crosses his wrists above the crown of his head and watches as Johnny shudders out a breath, like he can hardly believe how easily Benny has handed over the reins. For a moment, it almost looks like something in his face is about to crack, a faint twitch around his jaw or a twist to his mouth that is less sneer and more miserable frown and Benny almost reaches out to him in comfort once again.
Johnny looks at him like he knows, jaw setting firmly and then he’s bending over, reaching into the pocket of his discarded slacks and pulling out a tin of slick. And Benny watches with slack-jawed awe as, settling back on Benny’s thigh, Johnny reaches two glistening fingers behind him and begins working himself open all on his own.
There’s not much to see, really, just the faint flex of Johnny’s arm and shoulder as his hand moves behind him, wet knuckles brushing Benny’s thigh now and again in a barely there tease. The flutter of his eyelashes, mouth parting to pant softly, and the muscles in his long slender neck going taut as his head drops back.
“Feels good,” he murmurs and Benny’s own mouth is the one to fall open now.
“Jesus, Johnny,” he breathes.
“Feels almost as good as your fingers.”
Benny keens, rolling his hips upward into the empty air, seeking the friction of Johnny’s skin against his cock and Johnny hisses at him until he stills, panting heavily. The two of them are panting, the ragged sound filling the small room, occasionally punctuated by soft whines from the both of them.
He can hear it, slick sounds as Johnny rocks his hips down onto his fingers.
He can tell where Johnny’s hitting himself inside by the needy twitch of his cock, the frustrated purpling of the head, knows the angle can’t quite be quite right. And he can’t help running his mouth, just a bit, about it.
“Not as good, darling? Not as deep as I can get in you?”
“No,” Johnny agrees, and instead of it being a helpless admittance it sounds more like a decision.
Bending forward to kiss Benny again, Johnny uses the distraction to take Benny’s cock in hand and his eager whine, hips jumping forward like Meatball on the leash, fills the room. He’s buzzing. Burning hotter and hotter at Johnny laying him down and taking what he wanted. Lining him up, Johnny sinks down slow and then all at once, Benny’s hips hitting the backs of his thighs with a faint fleshy sound.
Underprepped and a touch too dry, it’s the tightest fit Benny’s ever felt, the drag stinging, the pressure breathtaking. Above him, Johnny keens, head thrown back and arms trembling where he holds himself up. Benny, unable to keep his composure, grips at Johnny’s hips with bruising force.
“ Fucking– Jesus, Jack ,” he hisses, “Darling are you okay?”
Johnny just moans, sweaty strands of hair drifting across his forehead as he rolls his hips with far more fluid of a motion than he deserved to have, for a man who had only done this a handful of times. Flexing, fluttering abdominal muscles contact under Benny’s fingers, punctuated here and there by the harder plane of his hipbones and ribs. It all ripples together in seamless perfection of a healthy, working body as Johnny leans back on his palms where they’re anchored on Benny’s thighs and works his hole down over Benny’s leaking cock.
“Fuck,” Benny gasps, looking at his fellow pilot splayed out and split open and riding him like it was his next mission.
Normally loud enough – especially once Benny had him pinned underneath – Johnny is shameless now, sighing with pleasure every time he takes Benny to the root and gasping at the dragging slide of Benny’s cock almost all the way out of his body. Balances himself on one hand and drags the other across the flushed red expanse of his own chest, fingering first at one nipple, then the other, and Benny can only watch in awe. All of it feels a bit like Benny’s gone insane, fallen into a dream or a parallel world. It’s already got arousal in a fist grip around his spine, tugging at his groin insistently and he can see how much he’s leaking by the way it’s slicker and slicker around the point of contact between them.
It hits him slowly and then all of the sudden, two parts the mental and only one part the way Johnny works him up so quickly every single time.
“I’m going to come,” Benny gasps.
Johnny looks down his nose at him, flush high on his cheeks and eyes glazed.
“Already?” he drawls, slowing and then stopping as Benny heaves and whines beneath him in protest.
Benny can see his own fingers trembling on Johnny’s hips, his own hips writhing to find any sort of friction but Johnny’s moving with his every twist, offering him heat and pressure but none of the needed friction.
“Please–” Benny bites his tongue, groaning as the orgasm slips away bitterly, leaving him shivery and sore in the stomach, “Fucking hell, Jack.”
“Not done, Benny,” Johnny breathes, face screwing up in pleasure as he starts working his hips down over Benny’s flushed length again.
“I should flip you,” Benny gasps as they both start picking up speed, their hips grinding together in a desperate rhythm, “Should get you on your back how you like it–”
Johnny shoves his fingers into Benny’s mouth. Too quick, and clumsy, the blunt end of Johnny’s fingers pinch Benny’s tongue against his teeth and he flinches, hisses, but moans as Johnny drags them out slow, trailing wet and slippery down Benny’s chin to palm at his throat. Puts a bit of weight there, a bit of pressure as he braces his other hand on Benny’s hip, riding him at a pace more full of intent.
Doesn’t seem to mind now, Benny’s hands tracking over him, gripping and pulling and urging closer the press of their bodies, things gone all wet between them. From sweat and precome and the way there were pinprick tears of overstimulated pleasure pooling at the corners of Benny’s eyes as he tries to give Johnny every ounce of what he’s asking for. Johnny's fingers are firm and lithe around Benny’s throat, and he can feel every twitch of them in alternating values of pressure. Not enough to choke him really, but sending his head all soft and airy like it.
Johnny’s thumb finds its way back between Benny’s parted lips and he suctions around the digit obediently, moaning. The hot press of Johnny around him is dizzying. Can feel every flutter and clench of muscles, the smooth inner walls working him back to the edge. The second he hits Johnny’s prostate he knows it, from the way the other man locks up momentarily, breath taking on a ragged pitch and again he goes back, leaning on his hands to chase that specific pleasure again and again.
It flushes Johnny’s face and chest, lashes fluttering and head falling back with decadent enjoyment, breathless noises falling from his mouth every time Benny hilts inside him. His cock, purpling and flushed, is drooling a steady crystalline stream onto Benny’s stomach, knotting the hair together in swirling clumps.
Benny can only gasp, fighting to keep his eyes open, to not just fall back and let Johnny take his satisfaction, try to weather the waves of pleasure wracking his own body in liquid waves. Like molten metal flowing down his spine and around his hips and he was never really off the ledge, not really, but suddenly he’s right back there clinging with his nails. Thrusts beginning to falter, the orgasm heavier, clawing at him from somewhere deeper, the back of his hips and his chest and behind his eyes. Intense enough that there’s no warning he needs to give this time. He’s circling round it, chest heaving and body slick with sweat, fingers bruising the fragile skin of Johnny’s hips.
The other man stills again, and Benny chokes on a sob.
Bites Johnny’s thumb because he’s got to do something with the unused tatters of his orgasm, it slipping away into nothing again as Johnny pants above him, each exhale ending on a shivery whimper like he too was fighting off completion, or simply lost to the pleasure as well.
Sweat stings Benny’s eyes, mixing with his overstimulated tears. It drips down the heaving planes of Johnny’s chest, trailing through his sparse happy trail and pooling where Benny’s fingers press into his skin. His cock is drooling, steady and unending, the string following every twitch of Johnny’s cock, welling thick at the head and stretching thin by gravity’s pull before joining the puddle around Benny’s belly button.
It’s almost calculating, the way Johnny looks at him. Like he’s charting the best course forward, single minded focus on the goal ahead. It is the sort of determination Benny had admired about Johnny from the start, and to have it turned on him now is an adrenaline rush akin to putting a thousand pound metal bird into a nosedive.
When Johnny starts to move again, Benny nearly sobs.
Still, he’s good, guiding Johnny’s thighs down at the perfect angle as they begin to tremble with exertion. Watches the contortion of Johnny’s face, his eyelids fluttering with mindless pleasure. The calculated quality to the noises Johnny has been letting out slipping away until it was nothing but pure reaction. Johnny works Benny to the edge again and when he stops Benny throws an arm over his face, shivering and writhing and gasping for air as everything in him locks up tight. There’s a vicious all-over itch under his skin and he’s the hottest he’s ever been, can’t hardly breathe for the need coursing through him.
“I can’t–” he gasps, “Johnny, I can’t, you’re going to kill me.”
Johnny’s finger slips from Benny’s mouth, eyes wild and fever bright, glittering like the ice that was beginning to coat the airfield’s grass in the early morning. His thighs are shaking, the muscles spasming with every roll of his hips, starting slow and building up, and his panting takes on a ragged, desperate tone.
Benny sits up, wraps his arms around Johnny’s waist and helps guide his movements. Takes the weight off his body and Johnny works down against him with a gasp of relief. Close now, barely an inch of space between them, more of a slow grind between their bodies than the thrusting of previous. Benny places his face to the center of Johnny’s chest, feeling the crucifix catch on his lips, salty from Johnny’s sweat.
Johnny’s making a broken little gasp in the back of his throat every few moments, bitten off and mindless. His elbows are on Benny’s shoulders, fingers mussing up the sweat slick curls on the back of Benny’s head and Benny’s sobbing against his skin.
He grips Johnny’s ass, fingers slipping right to the seam, feeling the slick point of connection between them. Johnny keens, bearing down on Benny’s cock with every grind of their hips.
It doesn’t take long at all, Benny’s orgasm creeping back over his entire body now, flooding every bone with heat down to the marrow, turning his gut tight like a rubber band.
“Please,” he mutters, head bowed like in prayer, forehead stuck to Johnny’s sparse chest hair with sweat, “Please,” he gasps, listening to th sloppy wet sounds of their coupling. “Please, Johnny,” Benny sobs, kissing Johnny’s goosebumped skin over and over as Johnny moans above him, “Please I can’t– I need to–”
“Yeah,” Johnny pants, snapping his hips down with renewed vigor, “Benny, yes .”
Benny gasps against his chest, fingers traveling up the flare of his ribs, pressing kiss after kiss after kiss. Fucks into him once, twice, vision narrowing and then going dark, breath stopping somewhere in the back of his throat and he’s coming with a howl he somehow manages to turn into a sob, thick and tearful and pulses every drop right into the welcome of Johnny’s body.
He can feel the splash of Johnny coming between their stomachs, hot and sticky and seeming to go on for as long as Benny’s own orgasm.
“I love you,” Benny breathes, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeats it over and over as they ride the waves of their orgasms against each other, until things begin to fall still and Benny starts to pull them apart.
A strange gurgling comes from Johnny’s chest, and for a second Benny thinks somehow the other man is choking, hands reaching up to help. And then he realizes there’s tears on Johnny’s face, the noise coming from him are vicious sobs, slipping out past gritted angry teeth, his body curling forward into Benny’s chest. Every muscle strained, shivering with the effort of containing it.
Benny reaches up to cup the back of Johnny’s head, scratching his fingers through the sweaty strands, and wraps the other around Johnny’s shoulders. Kisses the side of his head.
“I’ve got you, Jack.”
“I wasn't–” Johnny gasps, coughs on a sob, and swallows thickly, “I wasn’t in control.”
Benny goes cold, his fingers pausing in his lover's hair.
Johnny swallows a second time, “Not a damn bit. Not for a single second. There wasn’t a single thing I could do but fly straight.”
“You made it to the ground, darling,” Benny says softly, shocked that his voice doesn’t shake, “You flew like a goddamn ace and you made it back.”
-*~*-
Part of Benny expects them both to sleep fitfully, but after what could have been the fuck of both their lives, both men are out cold before they can even have a bite to eat and redress the bed with fresh linens they find in the closet.
They sleep with Benny’s nose tucked up against Johnny’s shoulder, the other man on his back and one of Benny’s thighs thrown over his hip.It’s only one of a handful of times they’ve ever shared a bed together for something other than a quick, indulgent coupling and it leaves Benny so warm inside he fears ever getting used to the feeling. He doesn’t know what might happen if he were to lose it after that.
He wakes first, though not by much, nuzzling gentle kisses against Johnny’s shoulder when he feels the other man begin to stir.
The eyes that blink back at him are relaxed, and mostly present now, though there was a faint glazed look to them, a slight absence. Concerning, but leagues better than the night previous, even with the faint puffiness around Johnny’s eyes from weeping, a broken blood vessel in the inner corner of one. Benny can taste the sourness on his breath but they kiss for a few moments anyway, luxuriating in the contact, just for a moment.
Johnny’s chin is still smooth under his touch, but Benny can see where his own stubble is leaving a red mark against Johnny’s skin as their kissing continues in the gloomy early hours of the morning. He gets up to wash and shave, takes his time to put himself back to rights, picture perfect presentation for any suspicious CO.
When he exits Johnny has also slipped from the comforting warmth of the bedcovers, naked as the night previous, and had padded across the small room to lean his palms against the dresser. Mouth pinched tight and serious, shoulders stiff and as drawn together as his brows, Johnny is staring into the mirror intently, into his own eyes. Flicking back and forth slightly, like he was searching for his own self in the chill depths. Benny takes a moment just to admire him. The slight tilt of his hips, leaning more on one foot than the other, muscles bunched and stretched in turn. The pale skin that showcased every muscle like an anatomy study and the flat plane of his stomach. His soft cock, tucked safely in the dark hair around his groin.
Sidling up behind him, Benny presses a kiss first right behind Johnny’s ear and then at the back of his neck, right where the bump of his spine began. Slides one hand up his spine and slowly pushes Johnny down onto his elbows. Legs spreading to account for the new stance, breath sucking rapidly through Johnny’s nose, it shows off the evidence of the previous night's activities. Johnny still open slightly, rim red and just a touch puffy from their rough coupling.
Johnny’s reflection opens his mouth in wet shock as Benny hooks a spit-slick thumb inside him just to test the stretch. He places a restraining hand on the back of Johnny’s neck, thumb under the hinge of his jaw to keep him facing the mirror.
“You’re right here, Jack,” he says softly, circling his thumb against the fluttering inner walls of his hole, “You’re here. With me.”
Johnny gasps raggedly, a wetness to it that Benny doesn’t mention.
Knowing it’ll sting, knowing it’ll be a stretch and an effort, especially with how Johnny was already sore, but knowing that it’ll pull Johnny out of any clouds or pilot seat, Benny gives his already hard cock a few rough strokes and replaces his fingers with the head. Feeds himself inside with a fist and the slow press of his hips as Johnny shouts, hips attempting to flee but only finding unyielding wood and Benny’s weight on his back.
Benny curses into his shoulder, biting down and hilting inside him with slow patience. It leaves them both trembling and sweating, Johnny’s hand on Benny’s hip, holding him close as possible.
“You made it home,” Benny continues breathlessly, “You’re right here in this room with me, you’re taking my cock so good for me, darling.”
He bends forward, sliding an arm across Johnny’s chest and pulling the other man back against him. Straightens back up, hand anchored on Johnny’s opposite shoulder and hips working into him with a steady pace that has them both already wrecked. He presses a kiss to Johnny’s neck, kisses around the curve of his ear and lets him hear every sound of pleasure from his throat. And Johnny is no better, helpless cries falling from his own lips and body already gone easy and pliant for Benny’s touch like he’s used to. Nothing of the steel and cold determination of last night. The terrified need to wrestle back an ounce of control from the universe, even if it was stuffed atop his lover. This was what Benny knew, this being of warm feeling and helpless pleasure, willing to take whatever Benny gave and whimper for more. Trained in obedience like any good soldier.
Benny sets his teeth to Johnny’s cheek. Not enough to break skin or even bruise, but enough to leave a sting.
“Couldn’t be feeling this good in a cockpit, Jack,” Benny reaches around to take Johnny’s already flushed and weeping cock in hand, jerking him in rhythm with his thrusts, “Couldn’t be anything but us.”
“Benny–” Johnny groans, head dropping back against Benny’s shoulder.
“It’s alright,” Benny croons, “Not meant to be a marathon, let it go if you have to.”
Johnny shudders, goes rigid and then very boneless as pale ropes splatter the polished wood, dripping down over Benny’s knuckles as he drags his fist to the head of Johnny’s cock. He empties himself inside the other man once again, teeth sunk in his shoulder to muffle any noise. The orgasm feels tired, pulled from down deep and cross at being woken, pulling strings from him one by one with bone-deep satisfaction.
The last of the horrible tension slips from Johnny’s shoulders, and Benny can almost see him settle back inside his bones. He leans his full weight back against Benny, who weathers it easily.
“I love you,” Johnny rasps, and it feels more so like he’s remembering Benny’s own mantra of the night before. Like he’d never quite left that single moment until now.
-*~*-
“I’m gonna talk to Cleven about getting you a longer pass,” Benny says quietly as they dress, “Some real downtime, in London.”
“Will you come with?” Johnny asks, straightening the lapels of his jacket.
Benny shakes his head, “I fly tomorrow. Grapevine says we’re hitting Bremen again.”