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It feels as though Adam’s never left his side since he woke up.
Realistically, he knows the man has had to leave at some point, but whenever he wakes Adam’s there. An elegantly composed figure beside him, he looks as though he hasn't moved an inch. Legs crossed and reading some new briefing or another, occasionally an international newspaper. His clear blue eyes scanning the texts quickly, looking all but perfectly content to be stuck inside a ventilated hospital ward while the world continues to go on just beyond its doors.
John doesn’t buy it for a second.
He hates it here. The overpowering scent of antiseptic stings his nose and the muffled groans and cries of the other patients chafe at his withering patience. Secure confinement was a necessity when he was comatose, but he’s awake now in every respect and with that comes desires. His body craves the burn of exertion, cigar smoke, the bite of grit beneath his boots. More than anything he wants to be able to move, to begin making up for the near decade of lost time.
The doctors say he’s still a few weeks out from release, but he can’t help the caginess anymore than they can help his prognosis.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” John asks, his voice a mix of sarcasm and irritation. Adam shifts his glance over to him, mildly noting his newly awakened companion before folding his reading material and setting on the bedside table. Today it’s a well worn copy of a Syrian newspaper. John idly wonders what headline has caught Adam’s fancy, but doesn’t bother to ask.
“Well,” Adam sighs, pausing as if to recollect his schedule, tilting his head thoughtfully, “I have to go into for a hypnosis session in about two hours but other than that I’m all yours.” He repositions himself in his seat to better see John, his long legs recrossing, spurs tinkling against the ground. He’s long since been unaffected by John’s irritability, brandishing a Cheshire grin, “Getting tired of my company already?”
John chuckles wryly, “No, though hypnosis does sound like a nice diversion.” It doesn’t, but he would kill to be able to follow him past the front doors, to light up a celebratory cigar. Here’s to cheating the death once more.
A smirk pulls at Adam’s lips as he gives him a knowing look. They haven’t discussed the lengths he’s going to for him in any real detail, only that as far as John knows it’s been an ongoing process, one which leaves Adam feeling faded and disoriented for hours after the fact. It’s probably best for him to stay close to him for other reasons, the presence of medical staff nearby just in case his body becomes exhausted.
“Even more than you can imagine,” Adam drawls before canting his head towards the approaching nurse and flashing her a charming smile, “Afternoon, Catriona.”
Catriona, the kind older nurse with fine lines and dirty blonde hair, sets tray of food down on the table in front of John. It’s a small pastiche of a family supper complete with a bowl of jello and a cup of fruit punch. John doesn’t mind the food quality, he’s never had what you would call a discerning palate, but the portions are somewhat lacking. He shoots a pained look at Adam which Catriona thankfully misses, to which Adam shakes his head in disapproval. Don’t piss off the nurses.
“Good afternoon,” she answers, her voice lilting with a Greek accent. She smiles warmly at Adam before directing her attention to John, her eyes carefully searching for anything out of the ordinary, “How are you feeling today?”
“Oh you know, another day in paradise,” John answers blithely, not looking at her as he reaches to pull the tray closer to him. Bedridden with a body he considers ready to be released, John isn’t in the mood to accommodate what he considers to be rhetorical questions, Adam’s presence notwithstanding. Catriona’s lips purse at his flippancy and he glances up at her, amends, “I feel fine.” The sooner she leaves the sooner he can stop entertaining this charade.
“That is good to hear,” She says with a nod. She reaches for his his chart, flipping up the first page and then another, her pen scribbling details that John doesn’t care to follow. He knows that he’s better, that he’ll be out in a matter of time, this is all just procedure at this point.
John and Adam sit in silence as she checks the necessary vitals and runs a few periphery tests, John can’t help but smirk to himself. Adam’s both administered and watched him undergo torture yet somehow waiting for Catriona to finish her check-up always manages to unsettle him. Adam endeavours to study the room, particularly the Stars of Bethlehem growing across from his bed while John complies with Catriona’s occasional requests.
Satisfied with his condition, she continues on her rounds, leaving Adam and John blessedly alone save for the phantom in the adjoining area.
“Looks like you’ve got a nice lunch there. Is that lamb this time?” Adam says, leaning over to survey the food, sniffing delicately . John can’t tell if he’s humouring him or not. Ever since Adam’s took to his little Southern affectation it’s become more difficult to tell when he’s being sincere or cloaking mockery in sweetness. John gives what could be the smallest lamb chop he’s ever seen in his life an experimental poke with his plastic fork.
“Looks like,” John murmurs, dejected.
“This place has made you a bit of a brat, you know that?” Adam teases, before digging something out of his jacket pocket and setting it on John’s tray. A brightly coloured candy bar. John doubts he found that junk in the hospital. They’re an American brand he can’t quite remember, a taste from the outside. “Don’t let her catch you eating that,” he warns.
As if she’d have a chance. John reaches for the contraband chocolate first. The candy bar tastes different, he doesn’t usually prefer sweets but its exotic origin makes the treat feel velvety and luxuriant the tongue. He perversely finds himself wanting more. Adam watches him with unconcealed amusement, promptly retrieving the shiny wrapper and returning it to his pocket.
In this place, Adam is as good as his guardian and up until now he had been following the doctor’s orders accordingly, no exceptions. The anomaly is pleasing, Adam breaking the rules purely for John’s enjoyment.
“Hungry are we?”
Adam doesn’t know the half of it. Ever since he’d woken up every thought he had had been lanced with want. Maybe he had felt like he was losing direction before the crash, felt like the momentum of his life was beginning to slow, but now…now with the plan in place he felt like he could see the future. The name he would make, they would make, he amends. Outer Heaven. A future that looked all the more seductive and frustratingly out of reach from the confines of a hospital ward.
John can’t summarize it, maybe doesn’t want to, merely glances at Adam chewing thoughtfully. The hospital meal follows the candy bars with little fanfare, the worn teal plastic plates and cutlery almost completely clean, not a jiggling drop of jello left in the plastic container. Rising to stand, Adam moves to set the tray on bedside dresser of the phantom. It’s not as though he’s using it, Adam thinks, a little bemused.
“You’re restless,” Adam says finally, standing at his side. He looks so much more like his mother in this light, disregarding the Sorrow’s silver in his hair. It stirs something in John, something intimate and clawing. He can’t escape her, can finally accept that he’s never really wanted to. Adam affects the genteel act, looking like he knows best, but that he’ll always let you say your piece. Diplomatic and smooth as flower petals. “I get that. But in a few weeks-“ He gestures outward, “you’ll be out of here.”
“Let’s go now,” John pushes, realizing that he’s keening like an insolent child. “Just take me to the window, the nurses won’t be back for another hour. I just want a taste of-” He falters under the own pathetic nature of his request. He wants to feel real again, outside of the dream-like haze of the hospital. Adam wouldn’t understand . More than that he knows as well as John does that he can’t stand on his own yet, that the nurses would flood the room faster than he could unhook the heart rate monitor if they sensed even the slightest upset in the room.
It’s a pointless request. John slumps back in his bed, his hand raised to rub his face forcefully. He feels all the more exhausted for his pleading, craves the respite of sleep he so often resents. Adam’s cool gaze never deflects from discomfort, though he does shoot the window a meaningful glance. John hates himself for asking, hopes Adam does him the mercy of not dignifying his begging with an answer.
The words hang in the air until Adam moves closer.
“How about I give you a preview?” Adam replies, leaning over him with a cat-like smirk on his face, his right hand disappearing beneath the thin hospital sheets to wrap around John’s cock. It twitches at the contact, but John can’t look away from Adam’s smirk. There’s something indescribably eerie about how Adam wears the same devilish expression when he’s torturing people as when he’s about to bed them. It’s a feature, John thinks, that would be disconcerting to anyone else.
But he isn’t just anybody and can feel Adam’s expression mirrored by his own.
“Start talking.”
Adam’s more than happy to oblige, begins stroking him lazily, “It’s still cool for Cyprus, but it’s green. The winter flowers are still in bloom, Astromeria, Carnations, Freesia. The air’s thick with the smell of them. You can take a step without catching a whiff of something blooming. It rains more often, but it’s softer, you’d like it.” Adam is eloquent in his description, though his pace doesn’t abate for a moment. John tries to imagine the flowers, chaotic spots of vivid colour dotting the landscape instead of the sterile white memorial blossoms that litter the ward.
“When you get out the Aster and Delphinium will be starting to come up. You probably won’t notice at first, but they’ll be the pink and blue ones.”
“I didn’t know you liked flowers,” John says, half sighing as Adam’s ministrations intensify. I didn’t know you knew flowers he means, but it seems foolish at this point to suppose that Adam doesn’t know anything to do with his life even if it is just the surrounding foliage. John groans. Through the thin leather of his glove, Adam’s hand heat bleeds warmth and John’s cock swells at the attention. Adam’s raises a roguish eyebrow as his thumb flickers over the slit, an unexpected break in his even stroking.
“Is there any reason I shouldn’t like them?” Adam asks with faux offence, adding a little flourish to his strokes, slicking John’s cock with pre-cum. It wouldn’t be the first pair of gloves he’s stained. They could only run around each other for so long after all.
“No,” John answers, his lips parting slightly with a sharp inhale as Adam tightens his grip. He can practically hear Adam’s pleasure at his responsiveness, the desire that’s emanating from his frame. John tries to stay focused. “I just didn't know,” he continues, “tell me about the landscape.”
“You won’t be here long, so it’ll be wasted on you, but it’s beautiful. You know, they call Cyprus the jewel of the Mediterranean, and at first I was skeptical, but- Well staying here for the past while has changed my mind. There are beaches, heavily forested areas that would be right up your alley, there’s enough variation to keep a tourist interested without being overwhelming.”
Somewhere in his mind, John realizes that Adam’s rambling. Neither of them are really listening anymore, Adam just keeping up appearances. John allows himself to be enveloped in rhythms of his voice and the unrelenting press of his hand. Adam’s attention span for his own story short circuits around the same time John’s does.
“It’s nice, huh?” John murmurs in the quiet room.
“Nice enough,” Adam answers breathily, a few silvery hairs spilling in front of his face. John feels pinned in his sights, his pleasure is never his alone.
He wants desperately to snag his fingers through Adam’s hair and silence his silver tongue with his own, rip the words from his throat until he dissolves into the needy moans John remembers. He can make up for lost history here and now, put his hands around Adam’s throat, his thigh, spread him beneath him like he has so many times before. He longs to greedily conquer old territories and map the course of twenty years give or take on Adam’s body. The possibilities, no the eventualities, have his orgasm building low and dangerous in his gut.
Adam belongs to him. He always has.
John’s stamina is flagging, the aching tease of Adam’s hand on his cock absorbing all of his attention. It doesn’t go unnoticed. Adam pushes on, his voice dropping low and husky, “When you walk through these doors, and I do emphasize walk, you’ll leave on a Triumph Bonneville. No one will know any better. You’ll be freer than you’ve ever been in your life.”
Adam leans forward, almost conspiratorially, to purr in his ear. It’s the closest they’ve come to intimacy since John woke up, Adam’s breath hot against his ear, the gentle brush of hair against his cheek. The innocent gesture is rendered completely obscene by the suggestion in Adam’s voice, the promise in his tone.
“You can get back to work.”
Adam jerks him roughly, just shy of painful, urging him over the brink. The combination of his promise and his actions is more than enough to make any man undone. Gripping the bedsheets, John groans as his body shudders with release, his body almost paralyzed with the pleasure that floods his system. Spilling messily onto the sheets and Adam’s hand, John is practically insensate, blissfully disconnected from thought. He’s abruptly brought back by the fact that Adam’s not done with him yet.
Turning an interested head, Adam teases his oversensitive cock a moment longer, dragging messy fingers along the head and John twitches at the jolt of stimulation. It flashes bright and overwhelming. So good it hurts.
“Adam,” John rumbles, a tired warning.
Adam looks back at him, grins cheekily, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, before submitting, withdrawing his hand from the sheets.
“Sorry, John, you know I cant help myself…”
“You like me like this,” John says, without any heat, watching Adam examine the glossy streaks and beads of cum streaking his gloves. He laps at one of the beads delicately, a thin string dangling from his tongue to the glove. He’s begging for trouble when John’s strong enough to get up, teasing him like that. Adam pretends to not notice, acting as though its the most natural thing in the world. As though he isn’t sending the John the worlds most flagrant invitation to fuck him raw.
“I like you alive and I like knowing where you are,” Adam says matter-of-factly. “I’ll like you better when you can stand.” Grabbing a washcloth from the nearby washroom, Adam cleans up the mess as best he can, carefully dabbing around John’s groin then wiping away the streaky remains on his glove. He chuckles as he does it, noting John’s watchful eye, whom he would assume would have loved to watch him lap up every drop in agonizing detail.
“Soon,” John answers and he feels it in his bones. The next few weeks could be bearable, he just had to keep looking forward. There was no use getting caught in the present when everything he’d been fighting for lay just ahead of him.
“Of course,” Adam purrs, leaning over him, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. Adam stubble brushes against his own. John moves to cup his jaw, attempting to to deepen the kiss but Adam pulls away. His absence feels like a splash of cold water to the face. John frowns.
“Until then, you’ve had your taste.”
A tease to the end. A chuckle rumbles through his chest as Adam bids him farewell. He’d be better sooner than Adam thought and he’ll be ready to take the world, the cowboy included. Resurrection had never felt so invigorating. John listens to the sounds of the spurs tinkling all the way down the holiday corridor. He falls asleep knowing more likely than not Adam will be there when he wakes.
A taste is more than enough to keep him going.