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The startling thump of the heavy book hitting the ground beside the bed jerked Arcade awake enough to catch himself before he followed it.
Damn. He looked guiltily towards the other bed, but the Courier, muffled up in a nest of worn grey blankets, hadn’t stirred. Lucky. It had been a rare night recently that they’d actually had the luxury of sleeping in real beds, and he didn’t want to disrupt the little scrap of peace this friendly hotel had to offer his fellow travellers. At least Boone wasn’t back, yet – the sniper slept with one eye open at the best of times, and making sudden noises in the night was a sure way of rattling him and earning yourself receipt of a thunderous mood for the whole next day. He was still down in the bar, Arcade supposed, spending some quality time in the company of an ancient, stale beer and a quietly whirring eyebot.
Arcade leant over carefully, picking up the book and depositing it on the small table at his bedside, before removing his glasses and placing them neatly by it. Then he extinguished the light, folded himself down into the threadbare comfort of his own blankets and closed his eyes.
His conscious thoughts were almost falling away from him, slowly and surely written over by the strange logic and phantom senses of dreaming, when he was abruptly jolted awake a second time. He sat up awkwardly, eyes swimming with dark outlines and shadows of furniture around him, but no movement. Huh? What had woken him this time?
Arcade could make out the dim outline of the Courier, still lying quiet and apparently undisturbed by whatever it was he had heard, and he started to doubt there had been any real noise at all. His long limbs were wont to team up with his brain and create weird feelings of movement and nerves firing off as he fell asleep, and dropping the book had already made him jumpy; maybe it was just going to be one of those nights after all, Arcade reasoned, peaceful hotel or no.
Then his ears pricked up, catching a tiny sound from somewhere. Shit. That was something. What? He wasn’t exactly frightened – the noise could have been anything – but at the same time… the noise could have been anything. He found himself wishing Boone had got back by now, because he would have been up with all the lights on and a loaded weapon in his hands already, and as disturbing as that would have been if it was just floorboards settling, at least there’d be no doubt.
Arcade resolved to relight the lamp beside him and cautiously survey the room, and he reached to get his glasses on so he could find the lighter he’d tossed on the floor with his cigarettes earlier. His fingers skimmed over the flat cover of the book, feeling around beside it and coming away with nothing. Frowning, he felt around it again, then widened the compass of his search to grope back behind the lamp and down between the bed and the table. Nothing. Where the hell had they gone?
It was a standing joke how poor his sight was without them, and he never put them down further than an arm’s reach away for fear he’d lose them completely. Optometrists weren’t exactly peppering the Mojave with possible replacements; Arcade had been lucky enough to have kept lenses with his odd combination of strengths intact for this long… He still wasn’t panicking yet, though. They must have fallen onto the floor. Cautiously he slid down the bed and reached to pat his fingers across the dusty carpet alongside it. His eyes were starting to become accustomed to the dark, but that didn’t make his vision any sharper, and he felt a pang of frustration as his fingertips found grit and fluff and nothing more.
He contemplated how safe it was to get onto the floor for a closer search, given that he wasn’t certain the glasses wouldn’t end up crushed under his feet or knees. If he dropped down right where he’d already felt… He carefully swung his legs around and out from beneath the blankets, pushing them away and lowering himself into a crouch on the ground. Now he could trace circles with both hands, and surely the glasses would be revealed.
Thirty slow seconds later his bent legs were aching under his weight, and he was no closer to being able to see than he had been before. For fuck’s sake! he thought. He wasn’t even concerned by the mysterious/imaginary noise anymore, the room having remained perfectly quiet, calm and still (aside from his fumbling) ever since the tiny creak he’d thought he heard a moment ago.
Arcade swept splayed fingers underneath the bed and made contact with the cigarette pack. Grasping it, he patted around with the other hand for the lighter – that would help even if he couldn’t see with precision enough to spark the lamp – but he was coming up empty on that one, too. He’d never thought himself particularly loved by Lady Fortune, but when he considered the three things he was expecting to be there on the floor, the cigarettes were easily the least urgent bang of the bunch. Perfect.
He changed tactics, crawling a little away from the bed and around to the other side of the table, figuring that maybe the glasses had got pushed off the end there. It was even darker towards the corner of the room, and what little awareness he did have of what was around him became vaguer still. He winced, feeling his bare knees getting carpet-burned as he moved. Despite his blurred surroundings, Arcade’s mind’s eye was sharp enough to supply him with the image of himself crawling around blindly in his underwear on the floor of a dirty hotel room, and he wondered if that just wasn’t a pretty apt comment on himself and his life. “Yeah, well, fuck you,” he whispered to the invisible air.
“Okay,” it whispered back.
“Fucking shit!” Arcade gasped, recoiling back towards the bed in surprise, startled even more as the flame of a lighter – his lighter – sparked up in front of his face. It suddenly illuminated a small pocket of space in which he could make out strong, thick fingers holding the light, the big hand and firm forearm attached to them, sturdy (bare) feet and legs that even with his vision compromised Arcade had no trouble recognising. And right in his line of sight, something he’d certainly seen enough times before with his glasses off: Craig Boone’s impressive erection.
The light flickered out as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the fading ghost of the flame across Arcade’s vision for a few seconds, and he sat back on his heels and wondered if Boone could hear his startled heart hammering in his chest, because it was sure as hell all he could. “What the hell are you doing sneaking around like that?” he hissed. “You scared me half to death.”
Boone made no response, and it suddenly occurred to Arcade that he might not still be in front of him. Cursing his inability to see, he stuck his hand out and drew a sharp intake of breath from the sniper as he made a clumsy connection with firm inner thigh. “Is this your idea of a great come-on? With the Courier over there?” Arcade continued, keeping his annoyed whisper as low as he could.
“Arcade…” The sniper’s voice was barely audible and he had to strain to hear him.
What is this? Multi-sensory deprivation!?
“…suck me off.”
Those three words and the confusion of desire and need layered in Boone’s tone somehow rather took the sting out of the scare Arcade had just been given. The timing was lousy, and why on earth he felt that sneaking up on his lover in the dark was a good prelude to sex, Arcade would never know, but… however inappropriate the location, he found it very hard to turn the sniper down when he was right there, huge and wanting. And if there was one thing that Arcade took a particular thrill in, it was sending someone right over the edge with lips and tongue and nothing else – something he knew Boone was very well aware of.
For a moment Arcade stayed perfectly still, listening carefully to the quiet room and establishing that the Courier was still breathing evenly, oblivious to their presence; then he took a deep breath, wordlessly acquiescing.
Arcade shuffled forwards enough that he could feel the heat of Boone’s body and the proximity of his cock, bobbing in the warm air between them. Running his hands up the back of Boone’s legs, he angled himself carefully, tilting his jaw up and putting the tip of his tongue out to find his goal. He closed his eyes as he made contact with the slick head of Boone’s cock, vision unnecessary now as he tasted the salty moisture and swiped it into his mouth, orientating himself by every other sense but sight. He heard Boone groan low as he sucked and teased around him, felt the strong muscles under his hands tensing as Boone thrust himself a little further in, smelled the mix of musk and carbolic soap coming off his skin.
For all his earlier surprise, Arcade had to admit that this stealth-initiated sex wasn’t a bad idea. Boone certainly seemed to be enjoying it, rocking his hips to keep Arcade’s lips and tongue constantly working upon him, and it suddenly struck Arcade that getting intimate in darkened rooms while others slept around you was probably the kind of thrill that a military background couldn’t help but condition in. He began to suck a little harder and take Boone a little deeper, his tall thighs giving him exactly the height he needed to angle his throat and take everything before drawing back and tonguing wantonly around the sensitive head, then repeating, and again…
Boone was near-shaking now, whether from imminent release or the effort of holding it back, Arcade wasn’t sure, and he wondered just how delicious the expression on the sniper’s face must be at that moment. His own cock, hard and aching to be touched, twitched at the thought of Boone biting his lips and tongue to keep from moaning, and Arcade reached down into his underwear to stroke himself off while he sucked. His practised movements fanned the flame that caught just there in the pit of his stomach, and their pleasure built steadily together in the quiet darkness. After a moment, Arcade felt Boone’s hips skitter erratically and a heavy hand shifted to squeeze his shoulder, as if he needed the extra warning. Then he was swallowing come and jerking hard to spill himself into his hand, his senses both heightened and blurred by the euphoria coursing through him.
When the pleasure had subsided, he pulled away a fraction and Boone withdrew carefully before silently leaning down and making to ease Arcade up from kneeling. His legs protested as he stood, but he only had to cover the small distance to the bed. It was just as well that the sniper was guiding him, because he still couldn’t see properly. Sliding under the covers, he let them fall behind him, regretfully realising that Boone was going to retreat over to the battered armchair that sat by the door; they rarely slept together when they weren’t alone, and the single bed would have been less than accommodating to two people their size anyway.
He heard Boone place his lighter down on top of the book on the bedside table. “There,” the sniper whispered, before disappearing over to the shadows across the room. As Arcade lay back and closed his eyes, he let his lips twist into a rueful smile – he’d bet any caps that by the morning his glasses would have mysteriously found their way back there as well.
-fin