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John Brady kisses a man for the first time, about three minutes after the first time it occurs to him that he could. It’s not quite like kissing a girl. But it’s not bad either. It’s Benny. It might actually be everything.
I could probably do that again, Johnny thinks, and so he does.
**
It’s the strangest morning of his life. He and Benny lie there in the bed they share, trading kisses like teenagers, like they’ve done this before, like they do this every day. Benny’s making this soft little noise of sheer, total happiness, the little noise he usually makes in the middle of the night as he falls asleep, and Johnny thinks he could live on it and nothing else.
It is the strangest morning of his life and nothing has ever made so much sense. He’s got one hand in Benny’s hair, rubbing the soft strands between his fingers, the other stroking over the curve of his jaw, stubble rough against his palm. Benny’s sliding his hands over Johnny’s shoulders, everything is slow and simple and unhurried, kissing for the sake of kissing, kisses going nowhere.
He’s kissing Benny. He doesn’t know how to stop.
The sun comes up a little more, and the light spills clean and perfect across their bed. It’s Benny’s bed, Johnny thinks dimly, it’s Benny’s bed, really, but they’ve always shared it, this has always been their room, and the sunlight comes in just like this every morning. It falls across his face, he shifts just a little, the kiss changes. He gasps a breath, and Benny makes a slightly different noise, this one low in his throat, and Johnny knows, knows what that is, what he wants, opens for the slick slide of Benny’s tongue against his lip, presses closer, and then -
It’s a bit like a lightning strike, all of a sudden he’s cold all over, staring down the endless horizon of blue sky.
Benny moves back, pupils dark, cheeks flushed, mouth wet, and looks at him, really looks at him.
“OK,” he says, voice very soft.
He sits back, takes Johnny’s hand and wraps it around his wrist. They sit there, in their bed, twisted together the way that always works, and Benny waits until whatever it is between them tells him that Johnny’s not cold anymore, that he’s come down from the sky.
“OK, Johnny,” he says again, still gentle. “Day’s a-wasting, let’s go make coffee.”
**
It’s not like they’re pretending it never happened. Johnny can feel the way it happened all over his skin and he knows just from the way Benny is standing that he can too. But they’re not talking about it.
They're double checking the work the electrician had done the day before, and fixing the phone to the wall in the office.
Johnny knows for a fact that if he turned to Benny and said “we need to talk about this morning,” that Benny would sit there and listen to everything he has to say. But then he'd have to work out what he wants to say.
**
You kissed me, he thinks, when they stop for lunch and he watches Benny chase Meatball round and round and round the school field til he's sweaty and gasping and laughing. You kissed me. Or I kissed you. I don't know how it happened. I don't know if it matters. I kissed you. You kissed me.
He's still not entirely sure why. He knows exactly why. He doesn't know why.
**
They spend the day checking every single switch in the main school building and fitting an unholy quantity of lightbulbs, climbing stepladders with Meatball clattering around their feet. Benny's being Benny about this, steady and easy and just there, an easy arm's reach away.
And then the sun starts to go down. It's late, getting cool, getting dark, as they grill chops and stick jacket potatoes in the coals and drink beer on their porch, and Benny starts to get that look on his face. Johnny thinks Benny does a pretty good job with it most of the time, certainly better than he does himself, but it's never good enough to fool him. Benny's got that look on his face, he's gone vague and distant-looking, a little smaller than he usually is, a little further away.
“C’mon,” Johnny says, and reaches out to take hold of Benny's wrist. “Let's shove all of this in the kitchen and go to bed.”
Benny looks at him, almost through him. Almost, but not quite. Johnny squeezes his wrist and then, even though it hurts him, lets Benny go. He tidies away the remains of their dinner as quickly as he can, leaving Benny on the porch just for a moment, and then he takes them both up to bed. Benny's quiet and still, Johnny strips them both out of their work clothes and tips them into bed.
“It'll be better in the morning,” he murmurs against Benny's hair.
Benny makes a shuddery little noise, and Johnny holds him tighter.
“It's going to be alright,” Johnny says again, and kisses Benny's temple. “I've got you. It's gonna be better in the morning.”
**
He sleeps with Benny tucked against his heart. It's better in the morning.
**
They don't talk about it. Not really. But Benny looks at him in the kitchen over a cup of coffee, all sunshine and sleep and messy hair.
“Can I?” He asks, even though they've never had to ask each other questions.
Johnny doesn't trust himself to speak, and so he nods instead. Benny kisses him, light and soft and quick, and Johnny manages not to drop what he's holding. It feels oddly like a challenge, and Johnny was a bomber pilot, he likes a challenge. He kisses Benny back, lips catching the corner of his mouth and it's a little less sweet than before, something with a bit of a sting to it, and Johnny doesn't know what the fuck he's doing.
He's not feeling cold, not like before, but Benny pulls back anyway, fixes him with a careful, considering look.
“I don't know,” Johnny tells him, honestly. “Benny, I don't know.”
Benny nods, perfect understanding. “You don't need to,” he says.
Do you know? Johnny wonders, and wonders why he isn't asking.
“This is good, though,” Johnny says, and closes the distance between them for another kiss, simple, no sting.
He can't quite believe how easy it was to get used to kissing a man. To kissing Benny. He can't quite believe how much he wants to do it again.
“This is good,” Benny echoes. “If you're sure.”
Johnny's not sure about anything. But he doesn't want Benny to stop kissing him. Doesn't want him any further away than this.
**
It goes on like that for a week. They wake tangled up together in the morning, Johnny presses easy kisses to the curve of Benny’s cheek, strokes his hair in the dim sunrise to wake him up, listens for the little noise he makes, the way he chases Johnny’s mouth, just a little. They kiss in the kitchen, a press of lips with the first cup of coffee. Benny follows his first kiss with a second, passes him the sugar, and Johnny thinks this might be what being married is like.
He’s a little alarmed by how little he is alarmed by that.
They continue to not talk about it. Johnny gets the feeling Benny’s waiting for something, following Johnny’s lead, and Johnny is just… Not leading. He’s not used to not leading. It’s unsettling and oddly freeing.
**
Benny kisses him as they lie in bed at the end of the day. It’s a prelude to nothing, as it has been all week, and Johnny is getting used to it. Benny falls asleep tucked against Johnny’s chest, like always, and Johnny presses a kiss to the top of his head and tries desperately not to think about what the hell they’re doing.
**
The phone rings. Johnny holds it up to his face and leans against the window, watching Meatball and Benny running on the grass outside.
“Hello, Cleven residence,” comes the sweet voice.
“Hi Marge,” Johnny says, a little wrongfooted. “It's John Brady, is Bucky there?”
He is horrified by the fact that he's making this call in the first place.
Marge makes a pleased little noise. “Oh, Johnny, it's so nice to hear from you! One second, I'll just get him.”
Johnny can hear her down the phone, the sound of her heels on the hardwood floor and her indefatigably cheery voice calling “sweetheart” through the house. He waits. Outside the window, Benny is flat on his back on the grass, howling while Meatball licks his face. Something twists in his chest.
“Little John!”
“Isn't it confusing?” Johnny asks, suddenly beset by the devil. “When she says sweetheart, how do you know which one of you she wants?”
John laughs. “I'm sweetheart,” he says. “He's darling.”
“Very efficient,” Johnny tells him, a little bit in love with him and his terrible wonderful life.
“Did you call just to mock my marriage, Little John, or did you need something?”
Johnny takes a breath. He does need something. It's just a real fucking shame this man is the only person he can call about it.
“If you tell anyone we ever had this conversation I will deny it, and then I'll kill you, and I'll tell your husband and his wife that you went back to England to be with Lil,” Johnny says, and even though his words are stupid he knows his tone gets the point across.
There's a pause, and then the sound of a door shutting. Johnny thinks of the Cleven house, and reckons Bucky has probably shut himself in the pantry.
“John,” Bucky says. “Are you in trouble?” He sounds like a Major again. “Are you alright.”
Privately, Johnny thinks he might be in an awful lot of trouble.
“You and Buck,” he says, instead of admitting that. “How did you know?”
“What?”
Johnny would quite like to kill him. He grits his teeth. “You and Buck,” he says again. “How did you know he wasn't just your best friend?”
Bucky lets out a long breath into the phone. “Is this about DeMarco? I thought-”
“Thought what?” He feels sick all of a sudden.
“You didn't let him out of arms reach the whole damn war,” Bucky says, sounding a little shocked. “You had a hand on him the whole time you were over here, he looked like he was going to die every time you had to let to go of him.”
“Trauma bonding,” Johnny say flatly, because he read it in a book in the library. “Shell shock. It was a bad fucking war, do I need to tell you about it?”
He knows without having to see it that Bucky is shaking his head. “I know Little John, but…”
“I know,” Johnny says, because he does, because this is why he's on the phone. “It's not like that for most of the rest of them.”
“No, it's not,” Bucky says.
He's being very gentle. It makes Johnny want to hit him.
“But it is like that for you,” Johnny says, so that he doesn't put a dent in the wall with the phone. “So, how did you know? How do I know?”
“John,” Bucky says, all very careful quiet like he was with Crank when they thought that cough might kill him.
“How do I know it isn't just the war?” Johnny is aware there's a crack in his voice and he can't do a damn thing about it. “How do I know whether I can do this? How do I know if I… Jesus fuck Bucky, help me out here, I've got no fucking clue what I'm doing.”
“Do you want him?” Bucky asks.
“What?”
“Do you want him,” Bucky says again, voice very steady. “Do you want to take him to bed?”
“I've been sleeping in a bed with him every night I've had a chance for three fucking years, Bucky,” Johnny says, oddly angry. “I didn't sleep for four nights after I got back from your wedding. Nearly fucking killed me.”
“Jesus Little John how the hell has it taken you so long?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
There's a part of him that wonders why he can't ever have a conversation with this man who he loves, who is his friend, without it eventually ending up with someone yelling.
“Alright, cool it, ok? I'm just trying to help.”
There's a pause while Bucky is obviously trying to pick his words carefully. Johnny takes the moment to focus on not trying to throttle himself with the phone chord.
“Do you want to fuck him?” Bucky asks.
There's a moment where he's cold all over, blue sky horizon eating him alive, and then Johnny's whole body is flooded with heat. Outside, Benny is throwing sticks for Meatball, shirt sticking to his back.
“I'm not discussing that with you,” Johnny says, mouth dry.
Bucky makes a humming noise that could be laughter, or confirmation, or sympathy, or just him wanting to hum, for some reason.
“That's how you know,” he says. “You love him, that's obvious, I always thought the two of you were already clear on the fact that you're in love with each other, but obviously not. But that's how you know if you can do it. If you want to fuck him. Or have him fuck you. Whichever. Both.”
“Jesus.”
“He's got nothing to do with it,” Bucky says. “Now, I'm gonna go and get myself a drink and never ever tell Mr and Mrs Cleven that this happened, and you can go and think about what you want.”
There's a pause, Johnny is never going to speak to this man again if he can help it.
“Good luck, Little John.”
**
The call with Bucky clarifies absolutely nothing, apart from the fact that Johnny needs different people to talk to. He stands at the window, phone still in hand, and watches Benny play with their dog and tries to think.
He can't think.
John Brady isn't an innocent or an idiot. He knows that sex between two men happens, he spent a whole fucking war surrounded by men; miserable, exhausted, lonely, desperate, scared. He's no stranger to the idea that two men might seek comfort together.
The night after Bremen, he'd woken from failed sleep to the taste of blood in the back of his throat, and made his way to the bathrooms to brush the taste away, well aware that he was probably never going to sleep again. He'd heard them before he saw them, Blakely and Douglass, pressed together against the wall of the showers, half out of their clothes, and the desperate, broken noise one or other of them had made stayed with him forever. They'd nearly died, come home to find that pretty much everyone else had died, and they'd put brave faces on about it but… Brady had stood in the doorway to the showers, out of sight, between them and the rest of the men, for long enough to give them time to piece themselves back together.
But this, here, with Benny, this isn't like that. Ev and Dougie have never been anything like the way Johnny and Benny are, whatever that was in the showers was desperation and the closest body, it wasn't this, this thing they're doing, where they can't live without each other.
Do you want him, Bucky had asked. Johnny doesn't know. Kissing Benny is so easy. Pure, simple sunshine. But it's only a little more than nothing, soft and sweet and a closed loop, going nowhere. Since that first morning Benny has been incredibly careful to keep it that way. Hasn't pushed an inch.
He stands in the window and looks out, Benny's on his back in the grass again, with his book, Meatball sauntering around nearby. Johnny looks at the line of his arms, the way his leg flexes at the bent knee, tries to imagine mapping out his body the way he had done with girls years and years ago. It gives him a strange, hot cold feeling. He tries to think about pushing a kiss a little further, about how it might feel to crack it open, to slide his tongue against Benny's lips, to kiss him with purpose, trying to get somewhere. What would it feel like to kiss him like that? Lie over him in their bed, press their bodies together, kiss him like a grown man who wants things, rather than a boy who doesn't know what's on offer.
**
Do you want him, Bucky had asked. Yes, Johnny thinks. I do.
**
Once he's started to think about it, it's all of a sudden the only thing on his mind. They spend the afternoon stripping out the rotten boards in what will eventually be the groundsman's cottage - it's hot, dirty, sweaty work and Johnny strips out of his shirt and singlet without even thinking about it. He's pulling his undershirt over his head when he catches Benny watching him. There's a look on his face that Johnny's never seen before but can read perfectly, he gets that same familiar/unfamiliar hot cold feeling. I do want him, he thinks. And he wants me. It's unmistakable. He thinks about doing something about it then and there, in the slightly dank cottage they're taking apart, but there's something satisfying in and of itself in the way that Benny's eyes have gone dark. Then Benny strips off too, a little bead of sweat rolling down into the dark hair below his navel, and Johnny thinks that maybe for now he'll just enjoy this.
It's the best kind of excruciating, a tease like Johnny hasn't felt in years, not since Lil making eyes at him over Bucky's shoulder, or Dye's, and even then it was nothing like this. He was never going to get a hand on Lil, knew better than to even try, didn't even really want to. He's going to get his hands all over Benny, he's almost certain. He wants to.
The anticipation is making his blood sing and he thinks he's doing a poor job of hiding it. To be fair to himself, he isn't trying. Johnny's pretty sure Benny's been waiting for this, been waiting for Johnny to make his way through the thicket of it all. He's got a little smirk on his face as he works, as if he knows that Johnny's watching the play of muscle across his back as he lifts the boards, as if he knows what's coming.
They make it to the end of the day without Johnny pressing Benny up against the wall and kissing him breathless, but it's a near thing and they both know it. It's actually the longest they've gone without kissing for a week. Johnny feels lightly insane.
It's a good feeling.
“I can't be bothered to cook,” Benny says to him when they make it back to their house. “Go take first turn in the shower, I’ll do us some sandwiches or something.”
Johnny gives him a look, he’s not entirely sure what it is he’s trying to say but he can tell that Benny reads it on his face, because he laughs, and chucks a cherry tomato at him. He catches it, and eats it, and then flicks Benny the bird on his way out of the kitchen. Johnny stands under the water and washes the day away, scrubs the soap they share over his body, washes his hair and tries not to think too hard about anything. And then he gets out of the shower and passes Benny in the hall in his towel and everything he hasn’t been thinking about is all over Benny’s face.
Benny washes up, and then comes to join him in the kitchen. They eat their sandwiches and drink their beer and pretend that they don’t know that somehow today everything is different. Johnny thinks this should be more difficult, and is irritated by how easy Bucky Egan always makes everything seem, and how easy Benny DeMarco always makes everything, really.
It’s light until late, so they sit out with Meatball until he starts yawning in the way that always made the ground crew newbies nervous, and then Johnny stands up and goes inside without saying anything. Benny follows him, as Johnny knew he would, and he goes up the stairs listening to the noise of Benny locking the door and settling the dog. He goes into their bedroom, changes quickly into his sleep pants and decides not to bother with underwear or a shirt. It’s hot tonight, he reasons with himself.
Benny joins him in the bedroom a moment later, and looks at him standing shirtless at the foot of the bed.
“It’s hot tonight,” he says, and Johnny nearly laughs.
He clears out of the room to brush his teeth and give Benny a chance to change in privacy, and tries to tell himself that this is the normal way his heart beats. It feels a little like waiting to go up in a fort, back before he knew what he was facing in the sky.
Benny’s already in the bed when he gets back to the room. Johnny thinks he can feel his pulse in his fingertips, crosses to the window and makes sure it’s open as wide as it goes and then pulls the curtains shut. He slides into his side of the bed and settles into his pillows. There’s a moment where neither of them move, and they’re not touching, and there’s a moment where Johnny thinks about waiting, forcing Benny to make the first move, and then he doesn’t.
He rolls over onto his side, reaches out, tracing his fingertips lightly over the curve of Benny’s face, the sharp edge of his cheekbone, the line of his nose. Benny’s looking at him, eyes wide and dark, and when Johnny moves his thumb over Benny’s lower lip Benny makes that noise again, the noise he made that first morning, and this time Johnny doesn’t panic.
The first kiss is just like all the other times. The second is so, so much more. Johnny slides his fingers into Benny’s hair, tilts his head just so and licks into his mouth, slides his tongue over Benny’s lower lip and gives him a breath, just to see what happens if he drops the yoke for moment, and Benny takes it. He kisses Johnny deep and perfect, all solid perfect pressure and wet heat and clear intent. They lie there, curled like mirror images, trading kisses and stealing air from each other’s mouths, and it feels endless and perfect and for a moment Johnny is flying, and then it’s not enough.
He rolls them, presses Benny back down into the mattress with the whole length of this body, and fucks his tongue into Benny’s mouth like they’re already in the middle of sex. Benny makes the noise again, and rolls his hips up to meet Johnny’s, and then they’re moving against each other, deliberate and sure and Johnny is amazed by the idea that twelve hours ago he didn’t know how much he wanted this. He’s achingly hard, he can feel Benny pressed against him, they’re rubbing up against each other like teenagers and drinking the little desperate noises they’re both making and Benny pulls back for a moment, looks at him, eyes all pupil and lips kissed red.
“Fuck,” he says, and all the steadiness is gone from his voice. “Fuck, Johnny, this is better than flying.”
It is. It’s better than flying. It’s better than anything. Johnny is mad with it, wild with it, can’t believe he’s doing it, can’t believe he’s only just doing it.
They fall back into kissing, grinding together, and then Johnny tears his mouth from Benny’s and slides it down over his jaw, scrapes his teeth over his stubble, down his neck. Benny makes an even better noise and Johnny curses against his collarbone before he sets his teeth there too.
Benny writhes under his mouth and then it's been too long since Johnny's been kissing him, and he lets Benny pull him up the bed again, biting hard on his bottom lip. There's heat building at the base of his spine as they slide back into the frustratingly insufficient rhythm of before. It's been years since he chased pleasure with someone like this, and he hasn't really missed it, hasn't even really chased pleasure alone, just manual elimination of need in a mechanical manner, another thing on a list of things to be done. This is so far from that he thinks it might kill him.
Benny's shaking, one hand tangled in Johnny's too-long hair and the other skating up and down his spine. They're skin to skin, all clashing bladed ribs and clattering hearts and Johnny is unbearably, desperately close. He needs more than this, wants more than this, but the threat of the cold and the wide blue horizon makes him cautious for the first time in a while. He's not risking needing to stop, not now. He gives Benny one last bruising kiss and then rolls off him, lands on his side and shoves one hand into his sleep pants, takes hold of himself. Benny's watching him with wide eyes suddenly still.
“Go on,” Johnny says, and his voice is wretched, almost begging. “Go on, do it, let me see you, please.”
Benny doesn't need telling twice. They move in tandem, a mirror image, Johnny flicking his gaze irresistibly from Benny's hand to his face, and back again, struck by lightning at the look of him.
He kisses him as they come, seconds apart, and it's better than flying. Better than anything. It's Benny.
There's a moment of dazed, sticky silence, and then Benny huffs out a shuddery little laugh, and looks down at the state they're both in.
“Jesus,” he says, shaky. “Like a couple of kids.”
“I wish I'd known you when we were kids,” Johnny tells him, a little bit out of his mind. “Sometimes I think about how little time we've had together and I get mad I haven't had you my whole life.”
Benny makes a noise like Johnny just shot him, and surges up for a kiss with no less force than the one just before. “You can have me for the rest of it, if you like,” he says, and Johnny thinks they're both lying there with their chests cracked open, bleeding all over the bed they share.
**
They sleep the way they did the night before the Cleven wedding, Johnny on his back with Benny draped across him, like lovers rather than two men huddling for warmth, and it feels so achingly right that it keeps Johnny awake for a little while. Not long, though, because he has Benny there, which works against wakefulness when nothing else will.
**
Johnny wakes first, like he mostly does, and basks in the weight of Benny in his arms. He realizes quietly that there's no reason for them to get out of bed if they don't want to, not today or tomorrow or this whole week.
**
“Are we gonna talk this out now or later?” Benny asks him, mouth pressed against his throat.
They're barely awake, sunlight falling through the window making Benny look golden where he's spread out across Johnny's chest, rolling his hips lazily against Johnny's thigh as Johnny scratches his fingers through his hair. The sky outside the window is a perfect blue and Johnny has never felt further away from the horizon. There's no risk of panic any time soon. He's going to take everything Benny wants to give him, and he's not going to feel cold for a second.
“Later,” he says, and pulls Benny up to meet his mouth.
**
Later is a lot later, when they're drinking coffee on their porch, taking it in turns to throw sticks for Meatball.
“So,” Benny says, and looks at him.
He's exactly the same as he's been the whole time Johnny's known him, sweet face and big brown eyes and depths of hidden laughter behind his serious mouth.
“So,” Johnny says, and hides his smile in his coffee.
“Feels like we might be more like the Bucks than not,” Benny says, and his words sound careful but he's beaming, happiness ripping out of him all of a sudden.
Johnny wants to sing with the joy of it. “I called Bucky, yesterday,” he says. “While you were playing with Meatball on the grass.”
Benny hums. “I wondered where you'd gone. What did he say?”
Bucky had said a whole load of things, all of them astute and helpful and deeply frustrating. One sticks out.
“He said he always thought the two of us were already clear on the fact that we're in love with each other,” Johnny says, and forces himself not to look away from Benny's face.
There's a little flicker of tension along Benny's shoulders and then it drops away. “Is that what it is?” He asks.
“Bucky thinks so,” Johnny says. Cop out.
“What do you think?” Benny asks him, and Johnny bites the urge to flip the question back around.
“What else could it be?” He asks instead, because he's not quite ready to admit it yet but he knows. He knows.
Benny leans over and kisses him. Just lightly. “And you're ok with that? Last week you said you didn't know.”
“I knew that,” Johnny says, affronted, as if Benny could ever question a fundamental fact of the universe. “It was the rest I wasn't sure about.”
“But you are now?”
“I am,” Johnny says. “You said it. Better than flying.”
Benny kisses him again. There's something a little uncertain in it, something that tells Johnny Benny isn't quite sure, and he sits back. Benny isn't going to ask.
“I'd never considered it before,” Johnny says. “It had never occurred to me, and then it took me by surprise and I… I wasn't sure, if I could. And I didn't want to not be able to give you that. I didn't want to get it wrong.”
He's not sure he's making any sense, but Benny seems to understand anyway, because Benny always does.
“I thought it might be that,” he says. “I thought maybe I had a bit of a headstart on you with this.”
Johnny stares at him. “Have you done this before?” He asks, even though he's not sure he wants to know. “With a man, I mean?”
Benny shakes his head. “No,” he says. “But I've known I wanted to, with you, for a while.”
“Since when?”
“Since we got back,” Benny tells him. “I took a girl to bed and the whole time I had to force myself to focus on her and not think about you. And that was… Well. That was kinda it, after that.”
“Sorry I kept you waiting,” Johnny says.
Benny smiles, it is blinding, it's the whole sky. “It's alright,” he says. “I knew you'd get there. It's you and me.”
**