Shadow of the Templar: Coitus Interruptus On timeline: November, between The Morning Star and Double
Down
I consider this short story—one of the first things I wrote in the Shadow of the Templar universe—to also be some of the best Shadow of the Templar writing I've ever done. It nailed Simon and Jeremy's largely dysfunctional non-relationship, and also proved to me that they could, in fact, remain Simon and Jeremy even under, er, physical duress. Plus the banter is good. I'm a sucker for banter. Maybe you've noticed. ~*~*~*~
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The mobile phone on the bedside table rang shrilly, knocking them both out of the slowly growing rhythm. Both of them blinked at the ringing phone for half a heartbeat, then Simon lunged over and grabbed for it. "I loathe that thing," Jeremy growled under his breath, letting himself relax again under Simon. Simon threw him a warning glance, and Jeremy smiled slightly and laid two fingers over his own mouth, promising to be quiet. Propping himself up over Jeremy, Simon flipped the phone open. "Templar," he snapped, voice rough and strained. "Whoa, sorry, chief." Nate. "Did I wake you or something?" "I'd gone to bed, yeah." Simon didn't even look down at Jeremy, so the raised eyebrow was wasted on him. "But I wasn't quite asleep yet." "Oh, well, that's something, I guess," Nate said, oblivious. "Listen, it isn't that important, but you'd said you wanted to know as soon as the lab results came in." "They're already there? Damn, that was fast. I wasn't expecting those for another couple of days." Beneath him Jeremy shifted slightly and Simon's attention jerked helplessly down for a moment. Jeremy's smile was still covered by those two fingers. Simon rolled his eyes and looked away again. "Did you light some lab tech on fire or something?" "I wish I'd thought of that," Nate said. Papers rustled in the background. "Fire solves everything! That's the first thing that you ever taught me, boss. Gosh, it makes me all nostalgic and stuff." "The good old days, when we could fight crime with fire," Simon agreed, eyeing Jeremy and silently willing him to take it personally. Jeremy's eyebrows lifted. "I miss all those times we'd set some useless scumbag two-bit thief on fire just to teach the others a lesson..." Jeremy mouthed, Useless? Simon promptly thumped him. "They gave off good light, too. Some of those thieves were really greasy!" Nate snickered a little. "Anyway. Want these results now?" "Yeah, let me have it." Simon started to get up. Jeremy's legs promptly both tightened around his waist, and his little smile grew, just a bit. "Actually, hold on a moment, Specs," Simon said, his voice deceptively calm, and then he held his phone away from his mouth and glared down at Jeremy. Let go, he mouthed. Jeremy's mouth rounded. No. Simon splayed his free hand out on the bed beside Jeremy's head and strained against his grip for a moment, but he quickly came to the conclusion that while he could break free easily enough, he couldn't do it without a) putting down the phone to free his other hand and b) making enough noise to alert Nate that something was fishy. Let go! he snarled silently. No, Jeremy responded, legs tightening again, that little smile now perfectly infuriating. Simon weighed his options, then shot Jeremy a glare that promised mayhem later and said, "Okay, Specs, go ahead." "Right. We got a bunch of hits off the fingerprints, but not as many as I was expecting. Looks like our scumbag may be working alone. That's a relief." "Alone? Hey, great, I can deal with alone. One of him, six of us? I like these odds." "You know what I like better, chief?" "What's that?" "One of him, six of us with heavy blunt objects." "... I like the way you think, Specs. You keep hanging around with Texas and Honda and you'll be a proper psychopath in no time." "That's my goal, chief. My mom would be so proud. My son the serial killer. I've got the 'he always seemed so harmless' and 'he always kept to himself' stuff down pat already. Wait a sec..." Nate's voice tapered off as he went back to sorting through the piles of papers. "Waiting," Simon said, closing his eyes. Jeremy was being almost perfectly still beneath him (and was keeping his word about being quiet) but he was still there, still warm and breathing and with his heart beating fast and strong against Simon's chest... Nate was muttering in his ear and shuffling papers, and in the background Simon could hear something that might have been music playing, and without really thinking about it (or opening his eyes) Simon thrust into Jeremy once, long and slow, maintaining his flagging erection. Jeremy shivered under him, but stayed perfectly quiet. Simon's eyes only opened again when Jeremy leaned up and fastened his mouth to the spot where Simon's shoulder met his neck, sucking there. With a silent growl Simon put his free hand on Jeremy's face and shoved him back to the bed. Jeremy's smile curled against his palm and a moment later the tip of his tongue traced a wet line across where the smile had been, and Simon yanked his wet hand back and wiped it dry on the pillow and then thumped Jeremy again. Stop that, he mouthed, infuriated. No, Jeremy replied, and then he leaned up and pressed his mouth back to Simon's throat, the muscles in his shoulders and neck bunching. Simon tried to shove him back to the bed again. This time, with Jeremy actively resisting, at this angle, with only one hand, desperately requiring silence, he failed to do so. Rotating the phone so that the mouthpiece was above his head, Simon pressed his mouth to Jeremy's ear and breathed, "I'm serious. Stop that and let me go now." The authoritative growl lost a little something at this volume. Jeremy dragged his tongue up the side of Simon's throat to his free ear. "You started it," he pointed out in a bare whisper, lips moving against the shell of Simon's ear, and then he caught a mouthful of Simon's throat in his teeth just as Nate said, "Here we are, chief. Sorry about that, I think they sorted this file by playing fifty-two pick-up with it." Simon gritted his teeth, rotated the phone back around, and grabbed a handful of Jeremy's hair, trying to pry him free. "Right, let's hear it." "Oh, you're going to love this. One of the lab guys turned our baby over. Guess what he found?" "Let me guess. Jimmy Hoffa?" Jeremy's mouth was working its way back down the side of Simon's throat, leaving a trail of long slow sucking kisses that left his skin wet and tingling, and despite his intense irritation Simon was also no longer having any trouble with his erection wilting. "Oh, close, Templar. Wanna try again?" Simon shifted slightly. Jeremy rumbled silently against the side of his throat. "A real live chupacabra?" "Even better!" Nate's voice was triumphant. "We've got a sharp edge and on it, a real live blood sample, chief." "You're kidding me." For a moment it was enough to make Simon forget that Jeremy was nipping at his collarbone. "Blood? Our thief was idiot enough to leave us a DNA sample?" And that was enough to make Jeremy stop (but not quite enough to make him let go). When Simon glanced at him, Jeremy was rolling his eyes. Amateurs, he mouthed against Simon's damp shoulder. The corner of Simon's lips twitched upwards despite his exasperation. "Well, we checked with the owner and he claims it's not his, and he can't imagine who else would have been bleeding on it, so yeah, thiefly DNA. Wanna clone yourself a thief?" "Oh, yeah, let's clone ourselves a whole bunch of thieves, Nate. I can keep them in my closet for when I need more grief in my life," Simon said, pointedly. Jeremy promptly bit him. Simon rolled his own eyes and hauled on Jeremy's hair again, and this time Jeremy let himself be yanked free, his head thumping to the pillow. Simon glanced at him. Jeremy smiled and ran his tongue over his lips. Simon thumped him once more for good measure and held up his free hand like a screen between them, so he didn't have to look at that damned smile. "They're running the blood now, right? Tell me they're running the blood, or I'm coming down there and setting some people on fire myself." "As much as I'd like to watch you personally immolate a whole bunch of lab techs, Templar, I'm going to have to disappoint you and tell you they're running the blood now. We may have a match by Thursday, I'm told." "Thursday's not good enough. Tuesday, or I break out the gasoline and the... the sparking things." "Right. I'll tell them." Clicking in the background as Nate typed something. "Tuesday, gasoline, sparking things, et cetera, et cetera. I'll even sign it 'cordially yours' just to keep inter-office relations smooth." "You do that, Specs. You know I rely on your well-honed social skills and sense of discretion." Nate was laughing. "Shut up, chief." "No, you shut up." Sensing that the conversation was drawing to a close, Simon pinned Jeremy to the bed with a well-placed forearm across the throat and drove into him again, drawing out another one of those shudders. Jeremy's nails dug into his back. "Anything else, Specs?" he asked, rolling his shoulders under Jeremy's clawing fingers. "Nah, that's the gist of it, fingerprints run, blood sample, chupacabra, sparking things. I'll put the report in your inbox so that you can ignore it in favor of coffee first thing in the morning, how's that?" "My man." Simon leaned down and bit Jeremy's lower lip, hard enough to make the thief jerk under him. True to his word, Jeremy was still silent. "I'm going back to bed, I think. Call me if anyone blows up the building. If you just get lonely, call Springheel." "Nah, she and Honda have that thing. I'll call Texas, get myself some of that late-night redneck Zen going." Simon considered this for half a moment. "Song title." "Totally a song title," Nate agreed. "'Late-Night Redneck Zen', by St. Templar and the Federally Employed Psychopaths. G'night, boss. Sleep well." And he hung up. Simon stabbed the disconnect button with his thumb, dropped his phone onto the bedside table again, and pressed his forearm down hard against Jeremy's windpipe. "Asshole," he snarled, slamming into Jeremy again, hard enough to register his discontent. "What the hell was that all about?" Jeremy was a tad breathless but annoyingly serene. "Again, I point out that you started it, with your—" He broke off here and did something excruciatingly wonderful that involved tensing and relaxing a lot of muscles in sequence and milking Simon's cock until it throbbed. By this point Simon was a bit breathless himself. "We're going to have to, to have another one of those talks about Why My Job Is A Hundred Times More Important Than You, with the yelling and the scolding and the, the visual aids—" "—later," they both said simultaneously, and then Jeremy's nails dug into Simon's shoulders and Simon bit Jeremy's lip harder and they went looking for that rhythm again. |
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COMMENTS: Poor completely oblivious Nate. |