Chapter Text
Spartans weren’t good at physical affection, that much Lasky knew. He’d assumed at first that they didn’t like it. That was only partly true. They were unfamiliar with it and far too wary, but paradoxically, they still seemed to crave it. Lasky had heard it described as being “touch-starved.” He’d also heard someone--he couldn’t remember who--call it “skin hunger,” but he found the other term less gross.
Anyway, skin hunger or no, the fact remained that Spartans were terrible at affection. It was almost amusing--they were built to be the best at everything, but the UNSC had apparently missed a couple skills on their checklist.
Case in point: Even once he was comfortable enough to let Lasky touch him for more than a couple seconds, Chief would never initiate contact. Instead, he hovered, standing like an uncomfortable specter in Lasky’s periphery until he asked
“Something you want, John?”
at which point John turned red and retreated into himself. So Thomas Lasky learned to pick up the slack. He didn’t really mind. Whatever it was that they had, it made him happy to hold Chief against himself, press the two of them together and feel the other relax (for once in his goddamn life) in his grip. It filled his chest with a strange heat when he looked at John curled against him, stripped of his helmet and armor, vulnerable and unaccustomed to the open air, and realized this was something nobody else had seen.
They’d kissed a couple times, and that was something he knew no one else had seen. It had been clumsy, and the first time it happened John pulled back afterwards to cover his face.
“Sorry,” he’d said, voice muffled behind his hand, “I um. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Lasky pulled the hand away and grasped his face by the jaw, turning it back towards him with a firm but gentle grasp.
“I’ll show you,” he’d said.
So John liked to be touched, and he liked whatever nameless thing it was he shared with Lasky, and he liked to be kissed. He liked being told what to do and how to do it instead of having to figure it out himself. And surprisingly, if their current position was any indication, he liked to be manhandled.
They were in Lasky’s quarters. Lasky had John braced under him, bracketed on either side by his arms. John staying pinned was pointless, since they both knew he could toss Lasky off without a second thought if he’d wanted to, but Lasky appreciated the gesture. He kissed him on the cheek before John turned his head to catch his next kiss on the mouth. Lasky laughed into the kiss, and John pulled back.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” he replied, “I was just thinking that you’re a fast learner.”
“I’d sure hope so,” John said, grinning, “Or else the Spartan program wasted a shit-ton of money trying to make me one.”
Lasky ran a hand through John’s hair (just past regulation length, but nobody really wanted to press the Chief on it) and felt him lean into the touch. He kissed him again, this time on the temple he’d just brushed free of hair. When John turned to catch his mouth, he anticipated it, moved and kissed the other side of his face instead.
“Get back here, asshole,” John said without malice.
Lasky laughed quietly, a rush of air from his nose that ruffled John’s hair and tickled against his skin. He pressed his mouth to John’s jaw, then the side of his neck, and felt him tense under his weight.
“Tell me to stop and I will,” Lasky said. John had gone stock-still, frozen with what Lasky now recognized as the specific brand of nervousness that manifested in the face of the unfamiliar. John said nothing, but nodded in reply. Lasky kissed him again, properly this time, and hiked up his shirt’s hem. John’s chest was riddled with scars, jagged ones earned in battle overlapping with the precise surgical lines underneath. A handful of adhesive bandages were scattered across one side of his torso, and Lasky brushed a hand over them.
“What happened here?”
“Nothing,” John muttered. Lasky looked back, nonplussed. “Nothing serious, Captain.”
Lasky laughed and sat up.
“I think, given our current circumstances, you can use my name,” he said, brushing a thumb over one of the criss-crossing scars, “Unless you want me to call you by your full title too.”
“God, no,” John replied. Lasky could feel his half-bare chest shaking with silent laughter.
“Well if you don’t mind, Chief, I’m going to get this out of the way.” Lasky pulled at the shirt’s hem again, and John obliged, extending both arms over his head so he could pull it off. Lasky balled up the regulation-grey fabric and tossed it against the regulation-grey wall. John’s body temperature always felt abnormally high, almost feverish, and the effect was doubled without fabric separating them.
“You’re warm,” Lasky said against his skin, “Is that a Spartan thing or a you thing?”
John shrugged. He’d have to ask someone else if he wanted to know, he supposed, though asking that question at all would raise a whole lot of other questions in whoever he spoke to. For the time being, though, he kissed John again, longer this time, and brushed the pad of his thumb over one nipple. He felt John’s body twitch in response.
“Oh,” said John.
“Sorry,” said Lasky, withdrawing the hand.
“No, it’s fine,” John said, pink spreading across his cheeks, “You’re, uh- I appreciate that you’re worried about me. But it’s fine.”
“Just fine?” John’s flush spread. Lasky imagined he could feel the heat radiating from his face this close.
“I-” John’s voice was quiet now, his face turned so his words were directed somewhere past Lasky’s right shoulder. “I like it when you, y’know, take charge. I don’t always want to be in control of everything, Tom, and it’s not like I really know what I’m doing here anyway.”
“I see,” Lasky said. He brushed his thumb again, harder than before, and didn’t stop when John jolted this time. Instead, he covered John’s mouth with his own and swallowed the noise he made. One of his knees was planted between John’s legs and he pressed it more firmly against him.
John muttered something breathy and incomprehensible. His eyes were squeezed shut, his eyebrows pulled tight. If he didn’t know better, Lasky would say he looked like he was in pain.
“Still okay?” he asked.
“Yes, I already- Shit! ”
Lasky pulled his hand from where he’d slipped it below John’s waistband.
“I said I was fine,” John panted, indignant despite his red face and state of undress.
“I know, just give me a second,” Lasky replied, unzipping the fly of John’s pants, shoving them down, and sitting up to let John's thighs rest on top of his own folded legs. Finally, he put his hand back. “Better?”
John didn’t answer. His teeth were buried in his lower lip and his hands clenched in tight fists. Lasky kept moving his hand, listening to John’s breath come heavy and uneven while he reached for a nearby drawer with his other. John opened one eye. His pupil was blown, blue iris reduced to a small ring around the edge.
“You keep lube in your quarters?”
“You know what lube is?” Lasky shot back, only half joking.
“I’m repressed, not stupid,” John muttered.
“And I don’t jack off dry,” Lasky continued, pouring some into his hand, “Obviously.”
“People use it for that?” John had started to sit up, fascinated.
“This is why I thought you wouldn’t know what it was,” Lasky said, amused. He pushed John back down with his clean hand. With the other, he stroked him slowly and watched John’s eyes squeeze closed again. A quiet stream of curses flowed from his mouth. Lasky poured more lube onto his hand and paused.
“Again, tell me to stop and I will.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Lasky pressed one finger into him, slowly, and watched John shift slightly at the initial discomfort before pushing his hips down for more.
“Shh, just wait.” Lasky moved until he could feel him relax, then added a second. He curled them, dragged them out and pushed back in, watched John writhe around the fulcrum of his fingers. Intermittently, he'd press the right spot and John's whole body would twitch under him. How bizarre, he thought, that he had the privilege to see him so completely undone. That he was probably the only person who had ever seen this. His pants felt entirely too tight.
He stroked John once, twice, and felt him spill over his fingers.
For his part, John looked exhausted. His hairline was wet with sweat and his eyes were half-open over the flush of his cheeks. The rest of his body, however, had not flagged in the slightest.
“Is that, uh,” Lasky gestured to the erection that still jutted towards him, “Is that normal?”
“What? Oh, yeah.” John pushed a strand of hair off his forehead, “It takes a couple. When I’m by myself, at least.”
“You mean you’ve-” Lasky cut himself off.
“Once or twice,” John muttered, looking far too bashful for someone who’d just been fingered by a coworker, “I was curious.”
“A couple?” Lasky repeated. John shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. “Christ.” He pulled his shirt over his head and unzipped his own pants before kissing John. “I guess I’d better do something about that.”
He picked back up where he’d left off, pleased to see the stretch from his fingers remained. He worked them in again slowly, scissored them against the muscle, tried to see what made John twitch and shudder against him. He’d added a third at some point and John was grinding against them unabashedly.
“Shit,” John gasped, “Please, please, please-”
“Please?” Lasky echoed, feigning a casual tone despite the desire coiling hot in his own gut.
“Stop teasing,” John sobbed, cutting off abruptly as Lasky curled his fingers again, “Please stop teasing and fuck me.”
The plea shot straight to his cock. It was bold, especially for someone as verbally withdrawn as John, and Lasky had no intention of denying him.
He leveled his breathing, or tried to, as he fumbled through his drawer again to fish out a long-unused condom. Someone had probably given it to him as a joke, come to think of it. Whatever. He had more important things to deal with, he thought, carefully lining himself up. John hissed through his teeth when Lasky pushed into him. His hands scrabbled for something to hold onto, and Lasky grabbed one of them in his own. He squeezed it.
“You’re alright?”
John nodded, eyes shut once more. Strands of hair now wet with sweat clung to his forehead and Lasky pushed them away with his free hand before he started to move.
“Fuck,” John whispered, “Fuck, Lasky, holy shit.”
“I know,” Lasky said, his own breath coming short and fast now. He took John in his hand again, more roughly than he had before. He was dimly aware of John’s hand in the other one’s grip squeezing back just tighter than was comfortable, but couldn’t bring himself to care.
It didn’t take long to push John over the edge. He made a noise, muffled behind his palm, and his entire body seized for a moment before he came across both their stomachs. Lasky followed him soon after, still clutching John’s hand. John made an undignified yelp when he pulled out to roll over and lie next to him. One of the adhesive bandages on his chest was newly stained with a small spot of red and Lasky felt a pang of guilt for reopening the wound. John noticed him staring and inspected the bandage.
“S’fine,” he said, smiling sleepily, “And it’s worth it anyway.”
Lasky laughed and kissed him firmly before retrieving his shirt to wipe them off.
“Gross,” John said, turning to bury his face in the crook of Lasky’s neck.
“I can wash it,” Lasky replied absently, one hand running through the short hair at the back of John’s head.
So maybe Spartans weren’t bad at physical affection. Skittish, yes, and inexperienced, but--he smiled against John’s too-hot skin, riddled with pale scars--far from bad at it.