Work Text:
It’s not the gritty dryness in his eyes or the stiffness in his back and neck from sitting hunched over a laptop for hours that makes Richard pause the endless flow of thoughts in his head to notice what time it is (5:07AM) - it’s the fact that he reaches for his Rock Star to take a sip and finds it empty, same as the 4 cans just like it lined up next to his work area. He glances through the front window into the clinging marine layer fog of a Palo Alto winter night; the sun won’t be up for at least another hour and a half. Maybe I should go lie down for a bit, he thinks.
Just then, he catches motion in his peripheral vision. It’s Jared.
“Oh, hello, Richard”, he says. Why does he always smile in that sad, sheepish way? Richard wonders to himself, replying with “Hi” and quickly breaks eye contact, hunches his shoulders, and folds his right arm up and across his body, hand curling around his neck. He’d rather not get stuck in a conversation with Jared just now. The thought of being subjected to Jared’s habitual and earnest self-effacement at 5:09AM is wearying.
“I was just going to go and lie down for a while.”
“Could I use your room to make a quick call first?” Jared asks. Richard’s room is the most isolated in the house and is the best place for a private call, or one likely to be loud.
No, I just want to get into my room and be alone and lie down and maybe stop thinking about Cancion de Amores and patents and IP and limp biscuits and how many phones we’re on and Series A financing and Dan Melcher.
”Okay, yeah, sure”, he says, nodding his head a few more times than is necessary, lips thin and tight, and gets up, not really listening to what Jared is saying about this being the best time to call the Microsoft Azure cloud storage support desk before NYSE market hours, blah blah blah.
They’re in the bedroom now and Jared has already dialed the number. “...transfer you to my supervisor”, Richard hears, and instantly leans away, bringing his hands up to ward it off in case Jared is planning to hand the phone over to him.
But Jared merely holds the phone in front of his chest. He holds the phone, and stands up straighter. Pushes his shoulders back and apart. Widens his stance. Transfers his weight slightly forward to the balls of his feet, takes a deep breath, and brings the phone back up to his ear.
“Yeah, this is Ed Chambers,” Jared says in a voice that’s related to, but quite different from his usual one. It’s deeper. Projecting. Authoritative. Why the fuck is Jared claiming to be someone named Ed Chambers?
“...was expecting to receive the updated term sheet…”, term sheet...Keenan Feldspar’s deal from Bream-Hall...Russ Hanneman...why am I thinking about Russ Hanneman?
“...so just shoot it over to me, you sick fuck! Yeah! Alright, catch you later, my man.”
Jared moves the phone away from his ear and says “They’d better not make me call them again for that term sheet,” his voice low and darkly threatening, and Richard realizes exactly, with crystalline certainty that sends an electric shiver throughout his entire body, why he was thinking about Russ Hanneman: This guy fucks.
He sees Jared...Ed notice the barely-perceptible tremor, but rather than the soft look of concern he expects, takes for granted that he’ll get from Jared, Ed’s gaze sharpens into something predatory and knowing, and it pins him in place like a mouse mesmerized by a cobra.
A hot flush of arousal wells up inside him and he doesn’t even want to contain it. The words of that idiotic doctor lightning isn’t going to strike twice! flash across his mind, which is quickly surrendering to the limbic system and it knows exactly what it wants. What it wants is for him to direct his eyes to Ed’s belt buckle, so he does, and the tip of his tongue comes out to touch his lower lip.
He hears a slow intake of breath, and then Ed says, “Suck it.”
His hands reach out to undo the clasp and his knees fold, as if they've been waiting a long time to be given this command. He sinks to the floor, working the belt out of the clasp and unbuttoning Ed’s khakis. As he eases the zipper down over the swelling contours of Ed’s stiffening cock, he thinks with a horrified thrill that the bedroom door is open...Dinesh or Gilfoyle could wake up early and walk by on their way to the bathroom and see him like this, kneeling, hard, all but drooling in his haste to shove Ed’s pants and boxer shorts down his pale thighs, and then it’s done and he leans forward in a swoon of desire, mouth open, and he catches the end of Ed’s cock with his lower lip, closes around it, and sucks it in. His eyelids flutter shut and he feels Ed’s strong fingers spearing through his hair, almost a caress of nails on his scalp.
Ed looks down at his hands gripping that russet hair and at his dick sliding into that mouth and thinks for a moment with distant contempt of Jared (he pauses to select an epithet from a gallery full of choices and settles on) that poster boy of the gay undertaker’s union. Jared who idolizes Richard. What a moron. He feels no guilt at all as he tightens his hold on Richard’s hair to lock his head in place so that he can push himself in harder and deeper.
Richard hollows his cheeks, sucking as hard as he’s able, trying to breathe through his nose as his lips are stretched tightly around Ed’s cock, of which he’s managed to take perhaps half into his mouth. Even so, the soft blunt tip is jammed up against the back of his throat and his eyes water a little as he chokes and gags and tries to swallow. He tightens the hand he’s got wrapped around the base of Ed’s cock and presses his head up against Ed’s hands in a silent plea that he loosen his grip. Surprisingly, Ed does, and Richard makes use of the slack to pull off entirely.
“What,” Ed barks, and the hands start to tighten again but Richard tilts his head and takes hold of the cock with his lips, clasping it from the side, just under the ridge of the head. He slides all the way down to the base, back up, over the head, down and back up the other side and again, sucking and slurping and slobbering all the while in a sort of dreamy trance.
“Look at you...slut,” Ed breathes, his voice pitched low, and Richard knows it’s true of himself in this moment. He is a slut and somehow it’s gotten many degrees warmer in the bedroom but he’s at peace. His only desire in this liminal moment is to do whatever Ed asks of him. “Take it,” Ed urges, and it’s the easiest thing in the world now to slide his tongue under the head and push forward and swallow, swallow, keeping his throat loose, swallow again, and it’s in.
“That’s it, that’s it,” Ed moans, and the hands are back, grabbing his hair and pulling hard, and Ed just flat out fucks his mouth and he loves it, being used, his mind stilled and conscious of nothing but sucking and swallowing around Ed’s cock. He catches little gasps of air through his nose, which is partly blocked by the soft skin and fine hair of Ed’s lower abdomen. Ed’s balls tighten and press up against Richard's chin and the hands fisting his hair yank even more roughly and he opens his eyes to look up through his lashes at him. Their eyes meet with an electric jolt for only a second then Ed’s mouth falls open and he tilts his head back and his hips jerk and Richard’s mouth fills with the creamy salty tang of come.
Other things that have been beneath his notice start coming back to his attention - like the fact that he has just given his employee a blow job on a weekday morning with the door open - as he stands, panting and a little shaky. A swipe with the back of his hand across his lips and chin seems to mark the end of - whatever this was, and he looks over just in time to catch Ed tucking himself back into his underwear and refastening his pants. He can't stop himself from looking down at the startlingly painful bulge of his own trapped erection and his hand makes an abortive move toward it, intentions unclear.
“Take it out,” says Ed, with a tone of impatience and perhaps even a little distaste. But Richard complies, with relief. Ed’s cupped palm comes up in front of his mouth.
“Spit.” Richard does, and it only takes five or six rough pumps of Ed’s hand on his shaft and he comes, hard. Hard enough that his knees sway and he has to grab the bunkbed frame for support. Ed...Jared lets go immediately and gets a tissue from the box on the desk and wipes his hand off. He does not look at Richard as he throws the tissue in the trash can and walks out of the room.
It seems impossible, but the clock on his phone reads 5:27. He does not want to think too closely about the preceding fifteen minutes. He does not want to think about them at all. He does not want to think about Jared on his cot in the garage, and he does not want to think about Ed, wherever the fuck he went. A stupid analogy comes to him - that Jared is like spaces and Ed like tabs, a wrong way and a right way although they’re the same in the end but Jesus fucking Christ, Richard, this is why you can’t have a normal relationship .
He knows it will be pointless trying to get some sleep now, so he cleans himself off with a tissue, zips his jeans back up, and heads to the kitchen for another Rock Star.