A Kinda Shady Clearing
By River
Warning: Utter, unrepentant sillyfic. Mooky, too.
Rating: Naughty stuff. But in a nice way.
Or, in other words: Some making out, some discussion of sex, but no actual smut.
And, to tell the truth, I don't think there are many Bad words, if any. Yeah, I surprised myself too.
Thank you: To Jen, Queen of the Whiskey Sours. ;p For the name, and for valuable pre-posting encouragement.
Disclaimer: These guys technically belong to Marvel. We all know they really live with the being known as KJ, and all the wondrous people who feed and nurture them.
Rather explicit mention of a relationship between two men, though no actual sex scenes. If that's not your idea of a fun read, back button's up there. Have a nice day.
This is for Kael.
She just *took* them and *left* them there. Just like that. No preparation, no equipment, no argument. What was *wrong* with that woman?
Bobby looked at the trees all around. Behind him, Remy had just bumped into a rock and was now cursing in what sounded like fluent Russian. He made a mental note to ask about that later.
He glanced back. "Hey, did you just bump into that rock? You never bump into rocks. I mean, not like we usually have rocks around or anything. But you don't usually bump."
Remy mumbled something obscene under his breath. "It's dat woman. She has somet'ing against me, no?"
Bobby raised an eyebrow. "So you weren't just too busy checking out my butt."
Coming to stand beside him, Remy offered him a mischievous grin. "Course I was, Cher. But dat's hardly de point."
"Right."
The other man shrugged elaborately. "Where do y' t'ink I'd be right now if I lost my balance each an' every time I looked at your butt?"
Oh, that wasn't fair. He was just painstakingly reaching the point where he could tease Remy about himself; he *so* wasn't ready yet for a counter-tease. Bobby glared at the ground, feeling the familiar heat take over his face. Why wouldn't the stupid X factor ever affect the blushing? It was the only time he ever felt too warm. That wasn't right. Maybe Hank could find some way to channel his errant genes into doing what they were told. Which wouldn't really help with the here and now, but still --
A gentle finger appeared under his chin, and as ever, he couldn't resist when Remy tilted his face back to look at him. You spineless… spinelessy thing, you, he told himself, but without much conviction.
Red on black eyes smiled into his own blue ones, and it was that grin that never touched the rest of Remy's face that held him frozen and staring, no less than the hot and smoldering thing that lurked there behind the spark. "Y'still cute when you blush, Cher, but one of dese days you're going to have t' start believing me when I tell y' how good y'look."
"Um," he said philosophically, since there seemed to be room for an answer. Remy just kept the same non-grin, and so he stammered, fidgeting, "Um, I mean, do you - don't you -" the non-grin went a little wider. He closed his eyes and breathed a little, commenting, "I really wish you'd stop *enjoying* that so much."
There was a chuckle. "D'you really?"
Sigh. "No."
"Right." A pause. "Bobby?"
"Hmmm?"
"Y't'ink you might open y'eyes soon?"
"No."
This one was closer to a full-fledged laugh, he considered pensively. "Okay."
Silence lingered, warm and comfortably expectant. He could feel Remy drape himself around his back, arms resting on his shoulders, one stubbled cheek near his temple.
"So," He hazarded, some time later. "Whaddaya think we're supposed to do now?"
A shrug. "T'ought you might know."
Bobby risked opening one eye, dangerously swiveling the pupil to stare at what he could see of his lover's face without moving his own. "Do I look like a nutty woman with a wood complex to you?"
He didn't hear the chuckle, but Remy's chest rumbled against him in a most pleasing way. "Wood complex? Y'know somet'ing I don't, Cher?"
Careful not to shake off the other man's arms, he raised a hand to wave it around them in an all-encompassing gesture. "How else do you explain *this*?"
Remy tucked his chin against one convenient shoulder. "'S a wood."
"Yeah."
"Wi' trees."
"Woods occasionally are."
"No people."
"None," Bobby agreed. "Which may account for the *total* lack of any buildings. Or even huts. Or blankets. Or food."
"And me and you."
He shrugged. "Well, yeah."
Remy tilted his head to smile against his cheek, his lips moving slowly over skin that would shiver all by itself if only it could. "Works f'r me."
He gave that some thought. "Oh."
***
It wasn't really that sitting on a rock and necking like a horny teenager didn't feel good.
It wasn't that at all, actually.
Under his lips, Remy's mouth tasted of the apple he's been eating when their writer snatched them from the mansion, and of something that reminded him of the way the air smelled out here, clean somehow and sharper than the air back home. And of Remy, like always, a familiar tang of something exotic and biting and unusual and well-loved, mysterious and utterly known.
Sometimes at night, breathing in the smell of Remy's skin unadorned and warm and clear, he wondered if this taste would ever become *too* known, somehow -internalized, just a routine. Bobby had a long, long history of not completely trusting things his mind told him. But on this one he was inclined to believe, because what it said was: No. Never. And what it said was: This is Remy. How could that happen, when this is Remy?
He should know better by now than to be a fairy-tale romantic. But, strangely, his heart said the same thing.
Thinking wasn't something his nerve endings would assent to at the moment. The taste of Remy's lips combined with the feel of Remy's long-fingered hands in his hair, on his back, which in turn combined with the small, small sounds one of them was making occasionally - maybe both - to create a sort of mathematical equation he couldn't find enough IQ points to solve at the moment, but which his body charitably told him was definitely a good thing.
There was something he had been thinking a while ago, though… or, well, not precisely *thinking*, but something had definitely gone through the pleasant fog his mind was bathing in at the moment…
"…Ow."
Oh, yeah, that.
Those rocks were *really* uncomfortable.
Remy murmured something into his mouth, a muffled question he could only assume to involve that small yelp or the fact he stopped moving against the other man's body in favor of moving carefully against the small rocks biting into his ass.
"You know, woods and everything, a clearing would really be a good idea at the moment." He paused and twisted again, trying to dislodge one of the sharpest small rocks he had ever felt or seen from sticking its sharpest edge into his flesh. "One with grass, if that's at all possible."
Remy grinned a little with a mouth that was very satisfactorily slightly swollen. "Tell *her* that."
He frowned, looking around as if their writer would suddenly come out from behind a tree. Which she probably would, his mind added uncharitably, if only to get a picture or two.
"You tell her."
Red-on-black eyes smiled again, the amusement on his lover's face clear and just light enough not to risk triggering sensitive wires. "She likes you better."
He blushed again. Of course. "She doesn't!"
"Sure she does, Cher." An appreciative look, just long enough to take him in whole and deepen the tinge of his cheeks that much further. "Can't say as I blame her, t'be perfectly honest wit' you."
_Shut up!_ didn't really seem like the appropriate reaction. And he didn't really feel like stammering. The lips allowing that just-slightly-smug grin to slip forth still looked far too inviting to waste time on stammering.
He stood up and turned around, facing the trees - well, some of the trees, as there were enough around that he could turn his back on some together with his lover and the batch of rocks, *and* have some at his sides, and still face a whole lot of others, but - yeah, well.
"If it'll shut you up," he muttered, and was rewarded by a deep chuckle. "Hey, lady! We need someplace to sit down, here!"
Nothing. Well, you had to allow for the possibility of something less than stellar intelligence, with some of the plots that woman cooked up. "A clearing would be nice?.."
Nothing. He sighed, turning back to Remy. And the rocks, which still didn't look any more inviting. "As if she doesn't *want* us to make out."
"Mebbe we need to explore a little," The other man suggested. "Find one by accident, sort of t'ing. Ruins the integrity of a story, if she just makes one fall on us."
He snorted. That really seemed like the only possible response. "Like this one has so much integrity swimming around as it is."
Remy stood up. Bobby firmly blocked any thoughts involving the words beautiful, lithe, or liquid grace - that last one didn't seem like a term belonging to his vocabulary, anyway - with some effort. He wasn't giving her anything to work with until he got his clearing, damn it.
"Fine," he said, shortly. "Let's go."
***
They had been wandering around for fifteen minutes now. Bobby's mood was turning considerably fouler.
Remy had started out on simply amused, slinging one arm around Bobby's shoulders and wondering aloud about the possibility of campfire songs. Hitting him only seemed to make his cheery good mood more pronounced. Bobby decided not to comment on the kinkiness of it all.
She didn't *deserve* any of their witty dialogue.
Sixteen minutes, now. He ground to a halt under, how completely unsurprising, a tree. "Alright, I've had it. I'm not moving another inch until I see someplace at *least* wide enough to lie down."
Remy raised an eyebrow, just a little, his grin turning a shade more teasing. "Dat sounds promising, Cher."
"Yeah, well, it was supposed to." He turned away from the other man, facing the trees again with his most stubborn look. "With *grass*."
The hand still loosely resting on his shoulder tugged a little, and he turned to look back at Remy "Yeah?"
"It's a beaut'ful day," The Cajun said quietly. The laughter was gone from his face, although something in his eyes said it wouldn't be withheld if coaxed out again. "An' it's still you an' me out here, Bobby. A shame to waste it because o' some person who ain't even here, no?"
He felt his face fall free from the scowl, meant for his personal-deity-of-un-choice but turned haplessly on Remy, and sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"No need for dat." He was tugged again, lightly, and went willingly enough, stepping forward enough that his reacting smile was just inches from Remy's still serious expression. And the laughter was suddenly back in those eyes, in a flash, when Remy murmured, "But try to remember I can kiss y' just fine standin'."
An inch further, another, and warm breath whispered against his mouth, "Dat is, if you t'ink y' can manage."
He thought biting the other man's lip was a very nicely fitting bit of revenge.
**
"Bobby -"
"No."
The Cajun sighed. "Bobby, it's a *clearing*. That t'ing you've been looking for for almost an hour jus' a while before?"
"I know. No."
"We can' do much wit' it if you keep running around like dat."
"It'll just take a moment -"
"I know," Remy said resignedly. "Y' said so half an hour ago."
Bobby gave him a half-mock glare. "I know how to do this."
"I'm sure you do."
"I was a boy scout."
"I believed you de first time. Scotty couldn'ta been de only one who went."
The glare deepened, although the humor did too. "I also learned how to make a very good throwing knife, you know."
"Really? Mebbe you should make me one so I can go out and find somet'ing to drag into the cave, once you finish buildin' it."
He made a small sound of indignation in the name of khaki-wearing boys everywhere. "It's not a cave. It's a roof."
"I'm sure it is." A pause. Sotto voce. "God save us from American men."
Bobby ignored him and went back to the knot. He remembered this, really he did… that part went here…
There was suddenly a mouth on his neck, although the only other person around was sitting a full clearing away and there hadn't been any unusual noise since the last time he looked. Well, duh. Arms turned him around by the simple method of making the possibility of resistance kind of escape his mind, for the moment.
"Always be prepared," Remy said, reproachfully.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He leaned into that kiss, setting his hands free to do all the things they've been contemplating for the hour of clearing chase. Just five minutes, then he'd go back to tying… "Smartass."
**
As they laid down on the grass, Remy stared admiringly at the woven "roof" which hung above them. "Dat one's beautiful, Cher. Now t'ink us up a hammock, neh?"
Bobby rolled over, careful not to lose any necessary body contact, and glared at him. "My mother warned me about guys like you. You only want me for my mind."
"That's right," The Cajun agreed, cheerfully. "An' I never buy y' anyt'ing pretty, eit'er."
"No you don't. You just take me for granted."
"Completely."
"So you know what's gonna happen?" He drew himself a bit up to lean on his elbow, peering down at Remy.
"Non." The other man blinked at him, slow and languorous.
"We're going to have hot monkey sex until you start." The all-encompassing red flush that spread all over his body within seconds was worth it to see Remy chocking a little on a shocked laugh. The sizzling pleasure in his eyes as he grinned at Bobby through the mild hacks made it all the more worthwhile, and Bobby determined that maybe, just maybe, blushing wasn't such a bad thing after all.
His fascination at discovering, some seconds later, that even his toes were red, signed this as a good direction for his thoughts. So did the various happenings that made him take his mind completely off his toes and unto bigger, better things.
Much better.
************
It was Later, in the general area of the Much.
He laid back more comfortably, sneaking one hand to stroke through longish auburn hair. "Hey."
Remy blinked at him, sleepy red-on-black eyes bravely attempting to focus. "Cher?"
He shrugged. "Nothing. Just… I like it here. With you."
Half-closed eyes grinned at him in the darkness. "Oui. It's a good place to be."
"With you," he reminded, quietly.
The eyes drifted closed again, and two long arms were around him suddenly, holding him very very close with infinite tenderness. "Oui. That too."