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The nurse, Letitia, shows John and Edward up to John’s room and, once the two of them have been availed of all the necessary information, leaves them to it. It doesn’t amount to much—just the times one of the nurses will be in to check on him, and when meal-times are—but it still isn’t something that either Edward or John has much of an ear for. At present they both find their focus pulled elsewhere.
If Edward was a more suspicious man, or more paranoid, then he thinks he would believe her immediately to have guessed what his relationship with John really is. As it is, he thinks she must think that both of them are just more nervous than they’re willing to let on to with strangers. She isn’t necessarily wrong about that, if that is what she thinks, of course; but she almost certainly hasn’t the first idea about the reason for it.
“You haven’t packed much,” Edward says as he finishes putting the last of John’s shirts in the wardrobe. “Wishful thinking?” He isn’t particularly thinking as he says this but John laughs even so.
“Perhaps,” John concedes. “And— well, I imagine that they’ll likely have laundry facilities.”
Edward can’t deny that.
He also can’t deny that his own packing to move has mostly involved packing up everything that the three of them own, while, if all goes according to plan, John will only be here for a couple of months at the longest. And that’s the most conservative estimate, which would only apply if the staff here are dreadful and John is dreadful at following instructions. Edward supposes that the staff must be good enough if Doctor MacDonald had recommended the place personally.
Doctor MacDonald is not one to give unrealistic expectations or diagnoses but even so he had said that John might be able to be out in a month. Less, even, if the doctors were particularly good and if John was particularly obedient with the exercises and care instructions that he is given. After all, at this stage (as all three of them have repeatedly been reminded), recovering is as much about the patient as the medic.
And he knows that John is good at doing as he’s told. That has never been in question, even during the worst parts of the expedition. Now that they’re on shore, and he has something to work towards—even if he can’t tell the doctors about it, or anybody else besides—Edward can’t imagine he will be here for too long.
Or he hopes that he won’t. Edward and George might have a good relationship—better than that, even—and so might John and George, and Edward and John. In fact, all three of them have an excellent relationship besides that, but Edward knows what all three of them want and what they’ve agreed. John needs to recover first, and be back at home. Then they can start trying to have a child.
Edward feels, in any case, a good deal more useful now that he knows he can talk to Doctor MacDonald later. Knowing that there is going to be a baby at some point in the future is clearly frustrating George even if he doesn’t always let onto it. Whether that’s for fear of causing offense or because he’s constantly busy as well Edward can’t say with any degree of certainty.
“I hope not to be here for too long, of course,” John says. Edward sits down on the bed beside him. “But even if I am—”
“We’ll manage, I’m sure,” Edward says, not entirely teasingly.
John laughs. “Oh, I’m sure you will.”
He pulls Edward towards him—or rather, he puts his hands out, and when he does Edward is the one to do the work. No doubt John could manage to do it on his own—he hadn’t been too weak to begin with and so he had had more to fall back on than Edward or George—but he’s complained a few times that certain sorts of movement are more difficult to make than others. That said, he has said that pulling something towards him is easier on his still-healing muscles than pushing that same thing away.
The room that John is in isn’t particularly large, not that either of them had expected that it would be. What it is, though, is a room that he has to himself, and one with a window that looks out onto the gardens at the back of the building rather than the front.
And, critically, the door does lock. Edward hopes that his and John’s surprise about that hadn’t been too obvious to Letitia—and if it had been, he hopes that she hadn’t taken it as an indicator of their planning to do anything untoward.
The part of the building that the officers are in is not only clearly more expensive but it is also far more sparsely populated. And, in spite of John’s only just having arrived, this is meant to be a ward that houses officers who are preparing to go home. So there aren’t nurses wandering up and down all the time, and there are very few other patients here.
John pulls Edward towards him. He does it quickly enough that Edward is only barely aware that it happens, but he is very aware indeed a second later that John’s lips are against his own. Edward groans into it, and he has to try incredibly hard to do so quietly—and he’s still conscious of the fact that he isn’t quiet.
“Clearly we’re both out of practice at this,” John says with a laugh. He rests his forehead against Edward’s for a second, and then leans back in to kiss him again. “I’m surprised that you’re the one having trouble keeping yourself quiet, though,” he teases when he pulls away again.
“Well, I’m looking forward to forgetting the need to do all that,” Edward says, half-muffled against John’s mouth. “As soon as we’re all able to move in together.”
“Oh,” John kisses him again, “so am I.”
John moves the hand that he isn’t holding onto Edward’s shoulder with and begins unfastening the front of Edward’s trousers. As soon as he does, Edward is suddenly intensely aware of how hard he is, and how hard John is, and how desperate he is to do something about that.
Usually, John will want Edward to be on top when they’re together. Only usually, of course—he’s just as happy, when he’s in the right mood, to be the one on top as he is to have Edward inside him. Especially if Edward is riding him, and especially if he’s receiving praise for it. And finally, when it’s all three of them together and not just Edward and John, especially if George’s clit is in John’s mouth at the same time.
Of course, they aren’t really in a place where they can do that now. And, even though Edward would very much like to have John inside him or to be inside John, they stupidly hadn’t thought to pack any sort of oil. It wouldn’t be a problem usually, if they were both healthy, but Edward is concerned about doing any injury to either of them.
But that doesn’t mean that everything has to be off the table, of course.
“It’s a good thing we both know how to keep each other quiet, really,” Edward says, in a deliberately low voice. “Isn’t it?”
“Oh. Oh, it is.” John’s hand goes around Edward and he begins, very slowly, to stroke him. Edward pushes up against it. “Although… I don’t know that you’ll be that successful like that. Not when you’re already this hard.” John’s thumb swipes over the tip of Edward’s cock. When it does, Edward has to bite his lip to keep himself from moaning out loud.
Edward wants to just strip out of his clothes, and undress John fully if he’ll have him do it. Then they can do their best to keep each other quiet while they rut against each other on the bed; and if they aren’t successful, well, Edward supposes that they’ll just have to bear that. But that would be a terrible idea; even though the door locks that just means that other patients can’t come in, and not that the doctor or a nurse couldn’t.
Instead, Edward has John sit on the edge of the bed, and slides off to kneel on the floor in front of him. No doubt this way John will have to be the one holding a hand over his mouth but Edward thinks that’s a reasonable trade-off.
Not, of course, that Edward objects to allowing John to come in his mouth. Far from it.
Although he would rather have somebody touching him while he sucks John’s cock; he doesn’t mind using his own hand but he has to admit that having a partner doing the hard word is far more fun. Hopefully John will allow him up on the bed, he thinks; once he comes then he might…
Even without being touched or John saying anything or even moving, the very thought of that makes Edward moan. He muffles the sound against John’s thigh, knowing that it will have just the right effect on him. While he has John distracted he takes advantage of the situation; wraps one hand around himself while he unfastens John’s trousers with the other.
John pushes Edward’s hand away so that he can get at least part way out of his trousers. He pulls his shirt up a little too, although Edward thinks that he doesn’t need to—even if he is concerned about finishing on his clothes or on the bedsheets.
“Now…” Edward runs his tongue very slowly all the way up John’s cock. He laughs, without taking his mouth away, when he hears the sound that John makes at it. “You were asking a moment ago if I thought I would be able to keep myself quiet.”
“You know I will,” John gasps. Edward laughs again, again without taking his mouth away from John’s cock; and again John has to cut off a moan. “Please, Edward. I—”
Edward had only meant to tease him for a few seconds, of course, and seeing how much John wants it now he thinks that even that would have been longer than he could manage. Instead, he spreads John’s thighs open wider, puts his hand around the base of his cock, and wraps his mouth fully around the head of it.
He looks up for a second to make sure that John is alright: even though Edward can feel John’s hips moving against his mouth he knows John to be an anxious man. If he were to get this far only to decide that he couldn’t go through with it somewhere that might as well be in public, at least by what Edward knows to be John’s metric, he wouldn’t object. But he would want to know sooner rather than later, before he did anything that could upset him.
But Edward need not have worried in the first place. John is clearly more than just comfortable: his head is thrown back, his eyes closed, and one hand is fisted in the sheets under him. The other, as Edward had expected, is pressed over his mouth, although Edward doesn’t expect that he’ll be able to silence himself immediately.
Edward moans around him at the thought, and then again at the knowledge of the sensation that it will cause for John. Clearly his doing so has just the effect that Edward had hoped. In spite of his attempt to stop himself from making any noises, John moans too against his hand.
Edward takes his hand away from the base of John’s cock, and when he does he lowers his head and takes John all the way into his mouth. He gasps around it and has to hold John’s hips still for a second; but after that, and after he remembers how to breathe with John’s cock in his mouth, he takes his hands away.
John thrusts almost cautiously into his mouth, not going too far even when Edward moans in encouragement. When John continues not to do as Edward had been hoping, Edward supposes that he will have to be the one to take control. He moves slowly at first, taking care to drag his tongue up and down the full length of him, but as he continues he hears John whine and moan against his hand. Edward obliges him, moving harder and quicker as though he were riding John and not sucking him.
In Edward’s mind, even were he not stroking himself while John tries to exercise enough self-control not to choke him completely, just the knowledge that John is as large as he is would be enough to get Edward hard. John wouldn’t, of course, even if he was asked—Edward knows that from experience—but that doesn’t mean that Edward doesn’t fantasise about it from time to time.
He wouldn’t ever admit to it, in fact, but George’s casually suggesting that somebody as high-strung and tightly wound as John surely couldn’t be small had worked probably better than George had been anticipating to get the three of them into bed together for the first time on board Terror. That had even been before Edward had known that George knows for a fact just how large John’s cock is and that he hadn’t just been throwing the idea out there as a hypothetical, as he had presented it.
Perhaps Edward had been particularly stupid at that point in time, but he doesn’t think that a man with somebody else’s hand or mouth on his cock could be much else, and he had had both. And besides that, it being George who had said it in the first place hadn’t seemed out of the ordinary; especially not with how utterly depraved, in the most complimentary sense, some of his thoughts can be.
In fact, because of it Edward had unknowingly caused both of them—George and John, although not so much himself—an amount of embarrassment a month or so later. He had said that George had guessed at John’s size, and been very confused at George suddenly bursting out laughing on top of him while John went bright red. But the truth had been explained to him, and he had only been too happy to be ‘punished’ for his unwitting mistake by the two of them later.
In fact, if being tied up and fucked by John, and then not allowed to come until George had ridden him for as long as he liked, was ‘punishment’ then Edward thinks thinks that he ought to commit some more such infractions. Perhaps he should start now, even.
Now, even though John won’t and probably never will fuck Edward’s mouth in the way that he wants, just the knowledge that he could is enough to have Edward moaning and thrusting into his own hand. John will come not so much in his mouth as against the back of his throat, no doubt, and Edward already knows that he’ll thank him for it.
“I— ah—” John has never lasted too long when they’ve been in bed together, so it shouldn’t take Edward by surprise that he seems unlikely to do so now. “Oh— I—”
What is a surprise, though, is just how quickly John finishes. Perhaps it shouldn’t be; he still gives Edward time to move his head back a little so as not to end up coughing interminably. But no less, Edward had almost thought that he would last longer than that. He keeps moving his tongue back and forth over the head of John’s cock until John tangles his hand through Edward’s hair to stop him. Even then, Edward only pulls back slowly, and he doesn’t hold off from running his tongue down the length of it as he does so.
John needs a few seconds to recover, but after the last few minutes that’s no surprise to Edward. As soon as he seems to be back to himself, or at least once his breathing slows back down again, he gestures almost desperately for Edward to come up again. Edward does; and no doubt he would have done so even if John hadn’t wanted to so clearly, but seeing his need is more than just motivating.
John moans into it when Edward kisses him, and then again when Edward guides his hand down to wrap around his own cock. Edward had managed, somehow, to hold back while John had been in his mouth, and he had been quite happy to. But now that John has his attention focused on Edward it’s nearly impossible for him not to want to continue to be the centre of that attention for as long as possible.
“I’d like to have your cock instead,” Edward groans, half-audible against John’s mouth as they kiss, “or to be inside you, or…”
He stops when John bites down on his lip, although whether he was intending to quiet Edward’s monologue or just to bite isn’t clear. Either way the possessiveness and control is just as arousing as the hand around his cock is.
“And you shall have that,” John says against his lips, “but only as soon as we get home.”
His hand moves faster and faster, and as it does Edward has to quell the urge to stop him so that he doesn’t come sooner than he wants to. As much he wants to prolong this for as long as possible, Edward can tell that John is just as desperate to make him come as he himself had been to come when Edward’s mouth had been on him. And their time here is limited enough that he knows he’ll have to before too long.
“Shall I?” Edward gasps.
John drags him onto the bed, almost lying with his back against the wall rather than half-kneeling between John’s thighs as he had been. John doesn’t take his hand away as he switches their positions to be in between Edward’s thighs.
John does take his hand away, though, when he sits up abruptly, looking slightly pained. Edward starts to sit up too, but John immediately pushes him back down again.
“Are you—?” Edward begins.
“Sit up a bit for a second?” John says. Edward does as he is instructed, and wraps his hand around the base of his cock as he does: he can see that John just needs to change position and then they’ll be able to carry on. “Sorry— that wasn’t… I can’t really lean over you like that,” John explains. “As much as I can tell that you would have liked me to.”
“Oh, I would,” Edward moans.
But the position that they do end up in is far and away more enjoyable for both of them. John is half on his side while Edward stays on his back. One of Edward’s thighs is slightly over John’s, and as soon as John touches him again it’s as though they had never stopped.
“So,” Edward gasps, pushing up into John’s hand as John strokes him. “I’ll have your cock in me when we’re home?”
“You shall.” John strokes more slowly now. “As soon as the three of us are all together.”
“Go on?” Edward tips his head back. He has to close his eyes and grit his teeth to keep from moaning loudly enough that anybody in the building would be immediately alerted. “Please. Please, John, I want you to tell me about—”
John shushes him, and then he kisses the side of Edward’s neck when he stops whimpering. “You shall,” John says. “While you’re inside George.” Just the thought of that makes Edward so hard he almost gets dizzy. “Or— I think he’ll want the attention all to himself, don’t you?”
Edward just moans. John puts a hand over his mouth.
“And I think you’ll want him to have all your attention too,” John goes on. His voice is low, right beside Edward’s ear, and just that makes it difficult for Edward to keep himself from coming. “Won’t you?”
“Yes,” Edward groans. “Oh, God. Keep— keep going. Please. I want to—”
“So you’ll have to come inside him first,” John cuts him off. Edward turns his head to press against his shoulder, in an attempt to muffle the noises that he is aware of himself making even past John’s hand over his mouth. “But I’m sure— Yes?—” Edward nods and grips John’s shoulders, still pushing his hips hard against his palm. “But I’m sure I’ll be able to get you hard again afterwards.”
“God.” Edward holds his hand over John’s. “You will.”
“I’m sure George will too,” George goes on. “That he’ll want to go again too, I mean. While he watches me fuck you again.”
Edward cannot do anything except moan, and hope that his doing so is muffled enough not to be heard, and rut desperately against John’s palm. John laughs, and strokes him harder, clearly wanting to feel Edward lose control entirely.
“And,” John goes on, just as Edward begins to feel his self-control give out entirely. He covers John’s hand with his own to keep him from stopping. “And no doubt, he will want your mouth.” John slides his thumb back and forth over the tip of Edward’s cock. “And when you’ve just showed how talented you are with it how could I blame him?”
“Yes.” Edward can barely think even to say this. “He— I— Oh, God. Oh, God, John, please.”
“If you come in my hand,” John breathes, “I’ll let you watch me lick it off.”
That is immediately enough to send Edward over the edge. He shoves forward into John’s hand, and as he does he has to bite down the fabric of his shirt. He comes so hard that his head spins; but in spite of that when John does lift his chin up so that Edward can watch him lick his fingers clean his cock continues to twitch with it.