Chapter Text
It’s entirely too hot for Nick’s taste. The fan in the hotel does nothing but spread the heat around in suffocating waves and the afternoon air feels sticky in his lungs when he breathes in. He doesn’t remember Spain being this unbearably warm when he was younger. He pushes himself up on his elbows and looks up from his bed over to Charlie who is having a midday nap – how he can manage to sleep in these conditions Nick doesn’t know. But then again, last night was a long one.
Nick and Charlie had taken their first breathless steps in their sexual relationship a couple of months ago, but between the pressures of Charlie’s GCSEs, Nick’s trips to university open days, and then the frustrations of the summer holiday spent with parents who work from home, opportunities to explore each other hadn’t been as frequent as they would have liked. And if Nick was really honest with himself, that kind of suited him fine. There were things that he thought he wanted but couldn’t really imagine doing, and things he knew Charlie wanted that he felt woefully underprepared for.
The break in Menorca is a mixed blessing. Sarah had miraculously agreed to let Nick and Charlie share a room, leading to a wonderful night and early morning filled with deep kisses, gentle caresses and feverish hand jobs, finally ending in sleep at 2am. Back home in Kent, they’d tried grinding on each other too, but the heat meant it wasn’t an experience that they wanted to recreate in Spain. Nick had the sense that the holiday might be a good time to try something new, but now they’re here he just isn’t sure he is quite there yet. He thinks Charlie can tell he’s a bit in his head about it, nervous even. It’s a charged kind of apprehension – full of tingling skin and the fizz of promise.
So now, Charlie is catching up on sleep and Nick is not. After a quick and quiet rummage to find swimming shorts and a towel, he leaves his boyfriend to his slumber and wanders to the pool to cool down and clear his head. It’s noisy with families; toddlers splash in the shallow end while their fraught parents wade awkwardly after them. He decides to try the beach instead, hoping for a moment of quiet on the shore.
Nick crosses the busy road that separates the hotel from the beach and walks straight down to the water’s edge, digging his toes into the wet sand there and waiting for the shallow breakers to reach him. The foamy swirls lap at his toes and he ventures a little further into the frigid surf. With each wave, a little more of the tension he’s been holding ebbs away. Nick welcomes the cool sensation of the water on his skin, the occasional brush of seaweed, the white noise of the relentless tide. He feels calmer already, and with his body now used to the balmy shallows he enjoys a quick swim before allowing himself to float on his back and just be. He is temporary. A small person in a vast ocean that was moving and changing long before he arrived, and will continue to once he has gone. Utterly alone even as he’s connected to a depth that teems with life.
After a few minutes of contemplation he comes back to himself and returns to the shore. The gentle swell of the waves against his body is replaced by the searing heat of the sun, baking the salt onto his skin and leaving him feeling the loss of the cool tide. He heads back to the hotel in search of Charlie and finds him by the side of the pool, now deserted save for the lithe frame of his boyfriend, laid out on a towel and reading one of the many books he brought with him on the trip.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Of course,” Charlie smiles up at him, “but you can’t distract me – I’ve got to get through three of these before the start of sixth form.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Nick replies playfully as he stretches out next to Charlie. “Why don’t you read to me? Then I won’t be tempted.”
Nick can’t help but think it doesn’t get much better than this. Settled under a palm tree to save the need for a hat, he can dangle his legs in the pool and let the gently swirling water sap the heat from his tender limbs while his boyfriend’s soothing voice lulls him into a state of deep contentment. It isn’t long before he feels his consciousness slipping, the heat of the day and the warmth from his heart suffusing his body and sinking into his bones.
Somewhere in the hazy recesses of his heat-addled brain, an awareness begins to grow, a sense of the comforting cling of the water against his skin. A gentle pressure seems to ease the tension in his feet, massaging the soles and weaving around his toes. He lies in the shade and listens to the way the softest of breezes rustles the leaves above him. The fine hairs in the shell of his ear respond as the tame wind imperceptibly stimulates the roots of the soft fuzz on his skin.
He exists in a split state. Senses alert while his mind is hypnotised by the rhythm of Charlie’s story and the edges of his thoughts begin to blur.
The heat keeps bearing down on him and he craves the soothing relief of the water. Charlie’s ethereal words dance through the air and lift away the last stray thoughts left in Nick’s mind. The mental weightlessness is freeing, and Nick’s body yearns to find a similar freedom. Entranced by the daze of sensations, the water calls to him. Nick slips his feet a little further into the pool, before fully succumbing to the call of the water and the sanctuary it offers.
/ blue / clean / clean / move / seek /
No longer anchored, his own limbs become light. The pads of his fingers attune to every little ripple. Something in him stutters as he notices the presence of shifting colours at the edges of his perception. His first instinct is to withdraw, to get himself to safety, but the movements flit around him as if they are unsure and Nick feels a gentle swell of compassion for the wary presence. There’s something else too, curiosity perhaps, and the sense that maybe it is shared.
He doesn’t notice precisely when the sensation changes; maybe it’s only just begun, or perhaps it’s been happening for a while, a low bleeding of a new reality into his awareness.
clean / red / warm / seek / brush / round / play / hide /
It’s no more than a tingling to start with, pleasant and warm, and then something about the cling of the water seems to solidify against his body. The brush against his skin is almost imperceptible, like his impression of it might slip away altogether if he thinks too hard about it. So he doesn’t. He just… feels. Nick allows himself to experience the infinitesimally small movements along his limbs, like gentle foam breaking on golden sands; edging forward and then pulling away, edging forward, pulling away. He sinks into the feelings gradually creeping along his body, and he begins to anticipate the ebb and flow of the movements. Each tiny recession feels like a loss. He craves the gentle kiss and release of soft pads, undulating against him, pushing and lifting off his skin like a wave as the limb continues its exploration, its movements unhurried and yet inexorable as it inches around his stomach and towards his back. It’s intoxicating, and when Nick feels the spongy flesh warming the nape of his neck he rolls his head to the side in the hopes that the feeling will continue to spread. He hums contentedly, enjoying the way the vibration changes with the new solidity against his pulse point.
/ more / seek / flex / find / warm / rest /
A vague thought bubbles to the surface of Nick’s mind, that he should be frightened, scared somehow of the new sensations, but he just feels so… safe. He can feel all the places he is held and the way the connection supports him perfectly in the water, totally relaxed with his limbs at rest while submerged. He can sense the reassuring hold of gentle tendrils around him, and the welcome weight of contact along his collarbone. Nick could drift like this forever, the perception of his senses warped by the sea. Hearing muffled but skin alive. Seeing nothing but feeling everything.
And then something else. An impression of want lapping at the edges of Nick’s thoughts. A need for movement, for contact, for more. There is guilt too, maybe shame, about wishing for more. He has already taken so much. Instinctively he knows he's being asked a question: “What do you want?” And the enormity of his own response almost overwhelms him. “I want to feel,” he thinks. He doesn't have to say it; the contact firming around one of his wrists shows him that he has been heard. The touches linger in some places, while in others they drift over his skin like shifting sands, carried by the currents at the edge of the shore. Nick moves too. A slow flexing of his limbs and unhurried stretching of his torso as he becomes attuned to the sense of motion. The rushing of his blood through his veins like the swirl of the water around him. They are the same. Masses in flux, kinetic energy dissipating with each deliberate movement.
/ give / give / give / give / give /
The careful exploration of the touches grows more insistent. They move upward, slowly inching toward where Nick’s shallow breaths are becoming more rapid. As he leans into the sensations of supple presses and pulls along the delicate skin of his neck, it’s like the forgiving flesh is gathering sensory input, grasping for intimate knowledge of his desires. The kisses of gentle suction make their way from the dip of his collarbone to his sharp jawline, and along to the sensitive spot behind the hinge of his jaw across the freckled cheek. The touches are slow. There is apprehension now, as if the other is waiting for Nick to acknowledge the advancement of intimacy. To welcome it.
Then Nick is gasping as he realises he wants to, needs to, taste it. Not to consume, just to know. He licks his lips and finds the tip of his tongue brushing something foreign. Something soft and smooth that has crept to the curve of his lip. The silken texture is alien to his senses as it bumps tenderly against his bottom lip. A slow testing. He gently sucks the tip just into his mouth. It’s saline – the rich sharpness of the salt spreads across his tongue in a tantalising rush that makes him yearn for more. With a flattening of his tongue, Nick draws a little more into his mouth, pressing up against the smooth surface of the tentacle.
/ warm / red / pull / brush / find / soft /
The line between his conscious action and passive experience blurs as the new texture of circular pads brushes against his tongue. With each push in and pull out, more of the soft, yielding flesh dances across the wet muscle until the tip is rubbing Nick’s soft palate. Nick briefly thinks the fullness is going to overwhelm him but as the heavy, puckering organ reaches further into the back of his throat he feels comforted. The lack of rigidity allows the appendage to mould to the shape of Nick’s mouth, adapting to the shape of malleable flesh. The tip tentatively kisses onward. Nick is overcome by the hypnotising rhythm of touches and he opens his throat wider to accept more and more of the velvety flesh until he can no longer swallow air or water. His entire being is consumed by the sensation of being filled.
He is being touched everywhere, or at least he thinks that he is. A tendril curls and uncurls around one of his thighs. After a few strokes it comes to a rest and a pressure is beginning to build. The blood continues to course through his veins like a building tidal wave, and the caresses along his skin seem to follow the current inside of Nick’s body. There are touches brushing along his shoulders, slipping in and out of his mouth, sliding over his chest. Every so often Nick senses pressure from the soft, fleshy circles directly on his hardened nipples – pliant flesh teasing the stiff areas of his skin. He wishes for less difference between the reactions his physical form is having and the docile yet insistent touches of the slippery appendages. But Nick has very little control over his physical form as he submits to these otherworldly sensations. All he can do is relax further into the touches and open himself up to accept whatever may come next.
/ hard / hot / seek / give / dark /
Time is meaningless to the creatures in the depths of the ocean, and there is only now for Nick as he is swept away by the all-consuming overtaking of his body to this shape-shifting being. It could be ten seconds or ten hours of slick caresses across every inch of his body. And just as Nick flexes the tip of his tongue to pleasure the strangeness inside of his mouth, the flesh is suddenly taut between his legs. Like a tongue, warm but firm, it circles his entrance, sapping the chill from the cool water until the boundaries between them dissolve into equilibrium. Nick was already jelly, but somehow the tantalising sensations sweep his consciousness even further out to sea.
It slips inside.
He feels open, at one. With the creature, or with himself, he doesn’t know. It’s hard to hold on to the moment. The colours keep shifting. He is at once fully present and floating in a sea of ecstasy. Adrift in this experience not wholly his own.
The pressure on his shoulder changes. It feels strange: dry and alien alongside the soft fluidity he’d been enjoying. He can discern the grip of fingers, and there’s a new edge to the voice in his head.
“Nick? Nick.”
The limbs start to recede. It happens painfully quickly compared to the slow build of the initial contact, and Nick is reeling. He can hear himself calling for the creature not to leave him, even as he knows it is futile. The sense of security is replaced by an intense feeling of loss as the being slips away from him bit by bit, until he is just him, lying back at the edge of the pool. Time slows and he feels the water evaporate from his skin. He imagines a mottled pattern in constant flux as the wet turns to damp, and then dry under the heat of the Mediterranean sun.
“Nick!” Charlie’s voice cuts through the haze. Nick blinks awake, the face of his boyfriend slowly coming into focus as he grows accustomed to the brightness of the summer afternoon.
“Charlie? Oh. I…”
“You fell asleep. God, I bet you haven’t even got suncream on. Classic Nelson move.”
He’s still a bit out of it. “I… I had the most intense dream,” is all he manages in response.
“I don’t want you to be embarrassed but I can kind of tell,” Charlie says and his left eyebrow quirks up.
Nick looks down on himself. Oh.
“Come on, let’s get you upstairs.”
Back in their room, Charlie flops down on the bed and Nick floats behind him, sliding across the duvet close to his boyfriend. At the touch of a hand, Nick closes his eyes and feels the way Charlie’s fingers brush at his temple. A warmth spreads from the point where they are connected, prickling involuntarily through his synapses. He breathes.
“You feel really hot,” Charlie says and Nick smirks lazily. “Oh, you! That’s not what I meant. I meant it like maybe you’ve caught the sun a bit?” Nick only hums in response, he still feels like he’s on a different plane altogether.
“I’ll get you a bit of aloe vera,” Charlie says, hopping off the bed before Nick can protest. He is back in mere moments carrying his little travel shower bag. Charlie rummages, pulling items out in his search for the aftersun. A toothbrush… some plasters… a small bottle of Boots lube they’ve made ample use of since Nick brought it back from his uni trip. “Oh, we’ll need more of this soon,” Charlie says with a nervous laugh as he pops it back in the bag.
Soon he has found what he was looking for and starts to squeeze the colourless aloe gel from a little green tube onto his hands. He begins to carefully spread the gel on Nick’s nose and face, and then along his collarbone. It’s cool on his skin, but it’s mostly soothing because Charlie touches him so carefully. He relaxes into the mattress.
“I don’t think it’s too bad actually,” Charlie concludes, as he boops Nick’s nose for good measure and puts the gel on the bedside table. Charlie sits back on the bed, allowing a mischievous grin to spread across his face.
“So, are you going to tell me what got you so excited at the pool?”
Nick can feel himself flush.
He takes a moment to recall the water, how he’d felt in the sea.
“I had a dream. About the water, and… it started to… well it was all swirly and calm. But then it changed and it was… I don’t know how to explain. It was like being held. Like the water was cradling me. And then…”
He falters at the confusion on Charlie’s face.
“Sorry, this probably doesn’t make any sense. There were a lot of feelings. I felt really warm and safe, but also… it was really intense. Like I had such a strong feeling that I wanted to explore. Like I was being explored.”
“By the water?”
“Yeah, kind of? But it felt… real. Solid.”
Words begin to fail him. “I really can’t explain it. God, Charlie there were all these feelings, like, all over my skin, and…” Nick trails off, frustrated because he can’t quite articulate the experience but there’s more now. A new need. He stills his hand where he’s been idly stroking Charlie’s forearm and tries to connect again to the tingling feeling that is still washing through his limbs.
“Could I maybe… Do you trust me?”
There is a brief moment in which Charlie simply gazes up at him and then he nods and in one smooth motion peels off his t-shirt and lets it drop to the floor next to the bed. As Charlie settles back on the duvet, Nick slowly kneels between Charlie’s legs, breathing deeply and calmly, sensing the wash thrumming to the tips of his fingers.
Charlie huffs out a little sigh and relaxes, letting his arms fall by his sides and closing his eyes. Gentle fingers find the supple skin of Charlie’s hand. To begin with, Nick recalls the first flutters of the delicate encounter. His fingertips drift slowly up and down over the back of Charlie’s hands, moving gradually up to his forearm – a languid tide inching further and further onto land. Charlie hums appreciatively at the gentle attention.
Now that he’s looking, really looking, at the way his fingers push into the skin, Nick begins to savour the way Charlie’s flesh yields under the firm pressure of the manipulation. He presses the flat pads of his fingers against the skin and then draws them back in as he explores. Nick is suddenly hyper aware that Charlie is this living, breathing person and that he gets to touch him. Another warm flush runs through him and he can feel himself grow hard again when he sees the ripple of the fine hairs on Charlie’s arm as they react to his touch. His own breath catches at the small shuddering sigh Charlie lets out as he stretches contentedly on the bed.
Nick flattens his palms against the sides of Charlie’s rib cage and he soaks up the warmth of the body under his hands. He’s briefly tempted to add fluttering fingers to the touch, to tease Charlie like he has done in the past but his curiosity pulls him in a different direction. The saline quality of Charlie’s sweat curls its way into Nick’s senses as he traces the tip of his tongue all the way down. With his hands roving the plane of Charlie’s chest, Nick kisses down his stomach, sucking the flesh just past his lips and feeling the resistance as he grazes the surface with his teeth. As he moves, the trail of the marks left by the almost imperceptible vacuum of his lips appear along Charlie’s skin. These delicate marks won’t last, but for the moment they are there, small roses blooming on the ventral surface of Charlie’s body.
There is a clear line on Charlie’s torso where his boxers have slipped down just a little bit to reveal skin that is no longer sun-kissed. It’s a private world, just for Nick to explore. He moves his hand along the hip bone that juts out a little and notices that the skin there is almost as fair as his own hand. When Nick’s tongue reaches the dip of Charlie’s navel, he pauses briefly and leans back to admire the moisture glistening around the soft hairs that run all the way down to where the fabric of Charlie’s boxers strains with the effect the attention is having on him. Nick reflexively blows on the skin but immediately licks again. He needs to let Charlie know that he’s not toying with him.
“I think I wanna taste you. Can I… would that-”
“-god yes!” Charlie’s response comes quickly and he threads his hand into Nick’s hair and looks at him intently. “If you really want that… then so do I. But please don’t feel like you–”
“-no, I know.”
“Okay then.”
They’ve been here before; Nick teetering on the edge but ultimately succumbing to the undercurrent of his nerves. It feels different now – the tension is laced with a new kind of curiosity. He huffs out a nervous sigh, tucks his index fingers under the band of Charlie’s boxers and pulls them down. “Okay, yeah, I want that,” Nick says, maybe more to himself now.
Their breaths are shallow, a silent ebb and flow. Charlie has gone almost completely still, waiting for his boyfriend to wade through the apprehension that swirls in him. Nick starts by licking the whole length a few times before pulling back to watch his own spit glisten in the afternoon sun. On the next pass he allows his tongue to linger on the sensitive ridge of Charlie’s head before gently sucking the tip into his mouth. A soft moan from Charlie threatens to break the spell, but Nick leans into it, opening himself up to the exploration again, giving into the undulating push and pull until finally, he has Charlie fully enveloped, and it’s good. Warm and silky, firm against his tongue. The feeling is static somehow though, too quick and almost mechanical. Nick craves the sensation of movement that pervaded his dream. He recalls the tang of the ocean on his tongue, how he’d communed with the depths as he floated on the surface. He takes a moment to feel all of the places he’s connected with Charlie. Hand clinging to his shoulders, his torso half draped over Charlie’s thigh, all tangled up in him. And now also where his tongue is meeting the most sensitive skin. The rhythm of breathing in and out through his nose and of swirling his tongue over and over again – Nick begins rocking both their bodies in a way that is both new and feels completely right.
“Oh my god… Nick… I… it’s…” A lot. Yeah. He slows his movements to a languid ripple and Charlie sighs while Nick hums around him.
“…it’s good. It’s so good,” Charlie finally pants out.
The shadows in the room begin to stretch as Nick keeps savouring the taste and shape of Charlie with his unhurried movements. After a while, sensing the release of tension in both their bodies, Nick allows his hands to roam again. His fingers have started to shift from where they were clutching Charlie’s hips and he pushes the legs up more. He lets up for a moment and sees the body under him writhe in the strange half-presence of arousal. Charlie’s head is tipped back, his hands instinctively curled into Nick’s bicep. So vulnerable and trusting. Trusting him to be able to ask for what he needs.
“More, please. Your fingers. Please?”
Buoyed by this enthusiasm, Nick takes Charlie in his hand and rolls his wrist in slow circles. He warms up some more of the aloe gel with his other hand and starts to brush his fingers over the velvet skin between Charlie’s cheeks.
“This?” He checks.
“Uh huh!” Charlie gasps out.
Slowly, he lets himself be guided towards the tight warmth and starts mirroring the circles of his other hand, the new sensations building until Charlie accepts him. They are in a world all their own. The pushes and curls of Nick’s finger are set to this new melody between them: rhythmic and slick and woven through with want.
Charlie starts to moan in a way that’s less restrained than before – choked up peals of pleasure sing in Nick’s mind and he knows immediately he’ll get addicted to being the cause of these sounds. He considers for a moment how it would feel to swallow them, to cover Charlie’s mouth with his own and steal them away with Charlie’s breath, but he doesn’t want to halt the beautiful symphony of the sea. Instead, he returns to the tang of Charlie’s glistening head, sucking it once more into his mouth and attending to Charlie’s needs with a quiet, flowing certainty. Moving together like that, they both feel the pull of the rising tide, of the wave about to crest. There is a scintillating moment of suspension before it rolls over, the power of Charlie’s pleasure, sudden and unstoppable, crashing against them both, flooding their senses. Nick clings onto his lover as they are carried back to shore, the remnants of their euphoria breaking in ever smaller waves until all that is left is a foamy afterglow of contentment seeping into the shallows at the water’s edge.
There are some quiet reassurances and breathy giggles after that. The breeze that is finally blowing into the room from the sea slowly cools the sheen of sweat on their bodies.
Nick’s thoughts blur again as he lies there, tangled in the limbs of his boyfriend, his mind awash with fleeting fragments of the day’s experiences. It isn’t long before he joins Charlie in closing his eyes, and when sleep eventually claims them, their dreams are both ancient and new.