( hitch your wagon to a star )

[bottecellie]

the stargazing meme

oo1. comment with your characters
make sure to put names, series, & preferences somewhere!
you can use < ! > sans the spaces to make the comment "blank"
oo2. reply to others in character
oo3. use the rng and enter 1-10
oo4. play out what happens -- anything goes!
oo5. profit? oh yeah!

prompts

one → meteor shower you just saw a falling star! and another! make a wish!
two → aliens what was that? was that really? omg no way a ufo!
three → lunar eclipse you've been sitting out for hours, waiting for this. it's so cool!
four → comet does it move fast or slow? either way, it's amazing.
five → full moon the moon is so huge! just don't look too long, it's really bright too.
six → star dust anything can happen in space. make up your own plot!
seven → solar eclipse this might be happening in the middle of the day!
eight → planet sighting is that a new star? nope, just a neighbor in the solar system!
nine → constellations do you know the stories behind these odd patterns?
ten → deep space normal stargazing isn't that much fun. you got a telescope!

taken from here.

Comments

[forzare]

"And you have absolutely no idea how you look to me, do you?" Harry replies, but only after they've both settled down and back into their respective positions. Of course, he’s far more flexible than this, and to deny that John’s loss of control (the way he'd surged up and grabbed handfuls of harry’s body and the warmth of his breath against harry’s chest fuck he’d wanted to cry from it it was just so nice but no not this time he couldn't this time) was the point at which he felt he'd fumbled something important. Maybe it hadn't shattered, but it had bruised. He won’t spend the night making up for it, not with soft words and apologies. He will remind John that yes, he’s wanted him – all night. Even now.

Harry traces the line of John's brow with his fingers and says: "I wanted you the moment I saw you out in the snow." There’s something genuine in his gesture, in his voice, even if his body hasn't relented. He keeps fucking himself down on John’s cock, matching him bounce for thrust, meeting him halfway so that they collide and it sounds like thunder and makes him bite his lip for a moment when he arches because John’s cock hits him right there. A hand twitches towards his own dick, but god, he is the sight of resistance, because he won’t touch. The night is all about what he wants and he wants a lot, but most of all he wants— "I wanted to take you away and spread you out underneath me so I could watch you come."

And because it's just so terribly romantic and sappy of him, he grinds his teeth a little and blushes to his shoulders. Christ, it's not a schoolboy's confession of love, that's not exactly what’s between them because That is way too complicated for words alone. But he’s missed John. Not just missed his presence, but missed the point of him since day one, and it took over a decade and a half and an apprenticeship to the Winter Court for Harry to realize shit there is something to john marcone that’s been there for years. And he hopes John remembers earlier, when he’d cut through the bullshit and put words in his mouth: "I missed you too, asshole. You say anything but 'please' and I'll wax poetic about 'as you wish' in the context of 'The Princess Bride' and then you'll be sorry you ever decided to set foot in my lair."

Harry grumbles, but throws his head back and goes to town with his hips, with half-broken and decidedly pleased noises and peers down the length of his own body to where he's got a hand stroking the inside of his own thigh, but no closer, and further still, to John.

how dare you be this good it's unfair to the rest of us

[freeholding]

The rule of the game is whatever Harry Dresden wants. A decade ago, John tripped him into a soulgaze and he saw the man sketched out in Courier font on curling yellow pages. He did it the preciseness of moving a chess piece, and he could still remember it like he was back in that moment in the car. How bold-fonted the words tries not to want were, and how it outlined exactly how temptation was the wrong angle to take with him (and how often Dresden turned any attempts to do so back on their perpetrators). John wonders what it would say now, should be look again. Would the section be rewritten in the translucent blue ink that Winter's representative takes the meeting's minutes in? Or scratched out in blood red of all those Harry has wanted and lost, because you can only lose so much before you start to ache for something of your own.

He is greedy. He's had to be to take as much power as he has, but now John feels guilt over it. He wants to have Harry under his hands, to guide his pace, to show like always how John Marcone Knows Best, if only people would march to his beat. And he has no doubts that if Harry let him, he could take the man and have him begging for it. But that's not the point.

John was lured in here, and it was a masterful seduction that Harry laid out. It's been a gift to be wanted like this and subsequently had. And Christ, he knows the feeling. He has wanted to have Harry for so long, never more so than that night when John hung as bait and looked up/down at Harry to see wonder catching in his eyes. John more than understands.

He can be good. He can be everything Harry hoped for. He smiles as he turns his head into Harry's palm, brushes his lips against the swell of flesh at the base of the thumb, scraps his teeth down the bony knotches of the wrist. A bracelet of bites and dark marks is painted on by John's mouth, though he falters every other second.

The idea was to hold out, to let Harry fuck himself into satiation before John gets his own, but... That's simultaneously too much for John to handle and not what Harry is asking, demanding. Even John cannot be a stone in face of Harry riding him like this.

He feels his toes curl, heels pulling at the bedding as he tenses up. It starts to hurt, the way he tries to keep himself from coming, an ache settling into his muscles. It's worst in his arms, because he needs to take hold of Harry's hips, to make him move that much harder so John can get there.

His control's still barely hanging in there, so fine, Harry wins. John's mouth falls open, pressed against the soft, pale skin of Harry's inner arm, and it's definitely a plea. "Please, I can't-- please."

[forzare]

The Knighthood has opened his eyes in so many ways, and Harry would deign to tell the curious masses that it is only now that he can look back at his life and understand himself. Little by little, he unpacks the boxes in his soul. Sometimes, he can't touch their contents. Sometimes, he boxes them back up and puts them aside - but never again does he forget their existence. Maybe, with the right help, he will someday be able to unpack those difficult memories and handle them. All in good time, all step-by-step.

Most importantly, he has recognizes that he is a man who wants. He wants things, he longs for places, he desires individuals. The best part was when he'd realizes that this was okay - because then he'd known that it was perfectly okay to want John Marcone as well. That once upon a time, he'd loathed everything the man was and stood for with blind disdain - and he had been wrong about that being the footnote. It was a beginning, if anything, and now that he has John between his thighs and he's fucking himself on the man's dick - this is a really nice chapter.

Please. That's the word that leaves John's lips, and Harry shivers from the top of his head to his toes, his entire body seizing sharply, stilling astride John for a moment with his hands digging into the man's sides. Then swiftly, he puts his weight back and works himself briskly on John's cock, one of his hands creeping up, out and down the length of John's arm (one of these days, Harry thinks to himself, he's going to map out every inch of those arms for kicks), until he can curl his fingers around John's hand and coax him to let go.

Harry wins. The victory is not his subjugation of the Baron, but something sweeter and far more subtle. "Come here," his own voice is hoarse with pleasure, his wrist is marked in a way that reminds him of his shield bracelet if it were bitten into his skin. John, who do you think to defend him from? Harry laces his fingers through hands - and oh, some things don't change because he's still a bit of a romantic at heart and in the bedroom, with his legs tangled in John's - and one of his own hands on his own cock - he'll tangle their hands together as well.

He savors his victory and rides down hard on John, until he's shaking apart and his face is pressed into the man's chest, mouth open as he shivers through a fucking amazing orgasm. He'll give John this, he'll gladly take pleasure from the man's body if that is what he'd like. It's almost a reward. Harry comes first, every muscle in his body tightening and he winds up gasping against John's chest with his fingers laced through his. "Go go gogogo just go, it's okay." He rasps out, feeling every muscle in his damn thighs like he's just run a 10k or some sort of really long marathon and still trying to move his hips even though he's already come all over John's stomach (oops, he'll have to clean up his mess, won't he?).

"Give me what I want." And it's there that he forces himself up far enough so that he can see what he wants. Quite predictably, it's John.

[freeholding]

He doesn't want to let go. Branding with his mouth a bracelet into Harry's wrist has been the only thing keeping him from falling apart. He isn't coherent enough to think of what the marks mean. Until tonight, he has thought of Harry's Knighthood as a noose around his neck, and has silently longed to give him a more malleable chain. A cuff adorning his wrist, something that Harry willingly sits still for, is just the thing.

But John lets Harry draw his hand away, feeling the loss of it even through the thick cloying fog of arousal. It's fine, more than fine, because when he opens his eyes, he's rewarded handsomely for playing by the rules. Harry's cheeks are red with a hot flush of blood, his mouth open to suck in gulps of air, his lashes fluttering before he buries his face against John's collar. He speaks, and John takes a few seconds to realize he's been given permission, finally. Watching Harry fuck himself into orgasm isn't his only treat for being good.

John has his hands on Harry before the Knight's done shaking apart. It's all systems go; one hand coming around Harry's bony waist to grab his ass, the other hand sliding up his neck to fist into his scraggly hair. He doesn't curl away like Harry had, instead makes an effort to give Harry his eyes as he powers up into the tight heat of it. The ache in his muscles from his restraint is forgotten as he chases after completion, his face against Harry's.

Given how long John has held out for, it's over fast. His voice is shredded by sharp, shallow groans as he grasps Harry tight against him for one last thrust. It all unfurls out of him at once, into Harry, and the wash of release and rush of orgasm hits John like a blunt object upside his head. He sways sideways and, unwilling to let Harry go yet, drags him along. The pit of linens absorbs their impact with a soft whumph.

After, John relaxes his bruising grip on Harry's cheek, but his hands clench on the Knight with a clear message: don't go. Not yet. John understands better than anyone the nature of sacrifice. He has Chicago in his palm, held in a tight fist. But the harder you hold onto something, the more of the smaller things that will inevitable slip through your fingers. His eyes, dark and unfocused, blink open to look at Harry, fighting against the urge to just lay back into the pillows and blankets, and drift off. The thought of losing this particular small thing... To hell with sleep.

[forzare]

Knighthood is not easy work. It is not the work that ballads are written for - when he stumbles in at the end of a skirmish, the edges of his wounds frosted solid because there was no time to bandage them and teeth red because he bites hard and often. It is not the work that is written of in history texts - when he twists his words just so and convinces the right demigod to fly Winter's colors and sign a treaty because their enemies were Winter's enemies (at least until the next big holiday bash, and that's just politics, sweetheart).

There are as many pros as there are cons, but you get that with just about any occupation - let alone the one that paints you in a myriad of colors. Enforcer. Courtier. Politician. Combatant. And all of that? He doesn't have to be all of that in the depths of his room, his hoarded pillows and plush throws and he's hoarded John Marcone too. Yes, he has. He's tucked him away, and what John doesn't realize is how impossible it is to separate a dragon from its treasure. Especially treasure that takes the form of handsome, green-eyed Barons. Most especially when John tries so hard to claim some piece of Harry, marks territory, leads a goddamn conquest against the skin along his wrist. Harry's blood sings, and he hopes John felt his pulse race when when he set his teeth against it.

It's endearing, and it gives him so many ideas.

He's holding himself together, though his freaking biceps ache and his thighs ache and his shoulders ache in that fuzzy, lethargic way that follows a damn good orgasm. Everything is heavy, but John has to get his. Harry won't relent until John gets his, because if there's anything that'll be just as satisfying as being satisfied, it's watching John come undone under him (just like he wanted, all night long, right since the beginning). And to that end, even if he's fucked out and sleepy, he keeps his own eyes locked hard on John's face, on his eyes. Watching his energy pour out into the bed, watching his energy pour out into Harry, himself.

Then over they go. Harry fumbles a hand out because he thinks for a moment that gravity is gone and they'll just go shooting off into space, up into that stardust model of Chicago. And John Marcone hasn't let him go, so Harry reaches up and fumbles a hand over his face too. Rubs a thumb across John's mouth just before Harry's own spreads into a soft smile, can't do anything more than smile dumbly and utter a couple thick, slurry syllables: "F'you think I'm movin' - you're ridiculous. S'okay, John." Then he just about curls up and around the other man, fuck anything else - he's got height in spades, and he's using it in the - aftermath? Afterglow? Hell, whatever. Aftersex. There's cuddling to get done.

[freeholding]

The slur in Harry's voice and the graceless touch of his hand paints a clear picture of Harry's contentment, and that in turn warms something deep in John's chest that has nothing to do with sex. Harry's thumb drags along his lips, pulling at his mouth, and John nudges his nose against that hand, kissing the palm. And, because they are right there, he kisses the line of marks he wound around Harry's wrist. He wants to wrap those bites and bruises in gauze, in garland, in silver chains, in velvet ribbon.

He settles for marks that he knows will slowly fade (or, if rumors of the Knight's aptitude towards healing is to be believed, quickly fade). They are all he has. That is what holds his eyes stubbornly open; already he can feel his heart settling into a more reasonable tempo, and with his lips against Harry's pulse he can feel the same from him. As overwhelming as his passion was, how it felt like he could drown in it if he didn't keep breathing, now it's left him tired. He can feel his body humming ecstatically in the wake of everything, but that will leave him by morning, or what passes for it in Winter.

John takes Harry's cuddling and winds his limbs around Harry, like that will keep him close. After the shifting around that allows Harry to attach to him like an amorous octopus, he kissing Harry's hair line and the corner of his eye, enjoying the closeness.

"I just want to enjoy this for," he stops, suppressing a yawn, "for a few more minutes." Let him commit this to memory: how Harry feels against him, how his voice sounds after coming, how the firelight plays over his skin-- there is so much John wants to keep locked away in his mind.

[forzare]

The moment that he feels John's arms wind around him, Harry lets out some small, barely-there noise. Let there be no mistake, he makes one. It's a content, private little noise. It sounds a lot like fulfillment, as though all he's needed, all this time, is someone to hold him. It sounds like everything he's been waiting for, everything he might have ever actually wanted - and he just got it. Like he's been waiting for this tiny intimacy longer than most have. Yet, he had gone and denied John (and himself, in that aspect) the ability to hold and touch him in return - at least, until the very end. For all the progress Harry had made during his tenure as the Knight, there were still more steps to take.

But not for tonight, because he can't even think about moving. His knees burn, his thighs ache, and his stomach is still doing little cartwheels and chanting something along the lines of three cheers 'cause i just fucked john marcone hip hip hurrah!

You sentimental bastard, Harry thinks fondly, and his lethargic smile is full of far too many emotions to place it. John's mouth wanders across his skin, across those marks he'd made - trying so hard to hold onto some aspect of Harry, onto the moment between them. Harry could tell him that the mere stripping John bare and hoarding him into the soft throws and mounds of pillows that constituted his little nest had long convinced Harry to give him another moment -- but he'd all but said he'd like a second go at a "proper date". Harry shifts, wiggles about to escape John's tender kisses as the man tenderizes the bruises and bites along his wrist, kisses at his face, pours all these tiny, much-needed gestures out like this is the only shot he's got to do so. This way, though, Harry can bury his nose into John's hair and spread his hands over bare, warmed skin - trying to give back a little something, hoping to assure John that he's got time, god damn it.

"Look. You're welcome to do so," Harry mumbles, and snakes his arms a little higher - wrapping them around John's shoulders, his neck. He'll loosen up after he drifts off to sleep; right now, he's more than a little bit clingy. His voice is sleepy, but tinged with that darkly playful humor he's been teasing and tempting John with all evening. "But I want to try to make french toast or something in th' morning, so don't wake me up with your obsessive need to catalogue me like this is your one and only chance kaythanksgnight." And it's lights out for one of them, at least.

aaaaaaaand SCENE!

[freeholding]

Perhaps for Harry it was obvious that this wasn't going to be their only shot at this, but while Harry learns to want things and take them, John has done the opposite. When he takes a moment to himself, pursues any scrap of pleasure, he does to fully, savoring as much as he can, for he is too used to losing things. By consequence of his position or by self-flagellating design, he's grown unused to the simple decadence of laying in bed with another person, among many other things.

But Harry says "one and only choice" with a sarcasm that changes the landscape for John. Because the idea is clearly preposterous to Harry, so...

It still takes some time for John to settle. While Harry may be open to another night like this, that is not guarantee that such a thing will happen again. So John's hands do trace and catalog. He digs his fingers into the runner's muscles in Harry's thighs and into the cut of his hips and the tiny divots on either side of Harry's spine near his waist.

He looks into Harry's face, and finally answers a long-held question of what Harry Dresden looks when asleep. He looks at peace, an inferno quieted into a steady candle flame.

And that, more than anything, lets John lay his head down and join Harry, slipping into slumber, wrapped in a bed of kindled warmth in the heart of Winter.