Harry Dresden grins up at me exultantly, wraps his long legs tighter around my waist, coaxes me a little deeper into his body-- hot, open, wet and slick even through the thin, clinging layer of latex I’m wearing. He’s done this before; my stomach clenches and my breathing hitches, my hips following suit.

“I won’t break, Marcone,” he promises, teasing, spurring me a little deeper. ‘Marcone’ is warm and friendly on his lips, almost unrecognizable. To him, of course, I’m not John: there’s only one John to him, and he’s sitting at the foot of the bed, watching.

My double is observing patiently, slowly stroking his erection. He appreciates what he sees. We both agreed-- when Harry made his spur of the moment offer-- that we weren’t comfortable being intimate with each other. There’s masturbation and then there’s narcissism and then there’s courting a mental break. But at the easy distance of watching, I can appreciate that I-- I as I would be, if I were him-- look fairly fuckable with that pleased, amused expression, mouth smirking, cock out and red and ready. And his answering smile, as I catch his eye, says that yes: he quite likes the look of me balls deep in his lover. I as I would be... is, perhaps, more generous than I as I am. Has more left to give.

He shifts his leg a little more comfortably, and his tshirt rises on his stomach, showing a leaner torso than mine, with a soft proto-potbelly. He doesn’t eat as well as I do, no nutritionists and ready meals, but he makes up for it by working honestly for his muscular physique. I can see the grease under his nails, unfamiliar scars on his hands, his arms. His smile grows wide-- he waggles his dick at me a little, cocks an eyebrow, but his eyes narrow, questioning--

I refuse to feel ashamed of what I have made of myself.

“Hey, Narcissus. Yoo-hoo!” Harry wiggles under me, his body tightening and stroking down my cock, his hips doing most of the work for the both of us, and my attention shatters and refocuses on him. He’s surprisingly muscular in a whipcord way-- runner’s legs I hadn’t suspected hiding under all those baggy pants, and I follow the track of his exertions under his skin with my mouth, up to his long neck and the wide curve of his lips. When he smiles it cracks his face, draws me in like a light. I’ve never seen it before. I can’t hold out much longer, his body gripping around me, soft, generous, like he’s done it a hundred times.

I grunt, my breathing coming hard as I try to regain control, and it sounds so loud with a witness to hear it. My thighs start to burn with the effort of getting deeper into him, again, again, harder and faster-- he looks up at me, a little surprised, and then smiles. “Yeah. Come on.”

“I don’t want--”

“Marcone, you can’t handle me,” he says, and it’s gentle and playful and laughing and everything that sex so often isn’t for me. “Come.” He bears down around me, and I do.

Those last deep thrusts-- as if I was trying to bury my entire lower body in him-- they make him shut his eyes, make high pitched sounds, so pleased he doesn’t bother to censor himself-- and they fade to a soft sigh when I finish and he’s still hard against my stomach, his strong legs holding his hips up against mine, not letting me move. I’m still in him, softening, twitching at how tight he is around my suddenly over-sensitive skin.

He breathes slowly and …his face, he’s savoring the feeling of me going flaccid in him, a feeling he knows, one he enjoys. He-as-he-is would never let me see this: I pack it away, tuck it in with the boxful of memories I will have to keep secret, safe, when I return home. He lowers himself and it’s almost painful as his body slides off of mine.

“What can I do for you,” I stammer out. Orgasm’s left me stupid, wildly pleased and glowing with how good it is, my tongue thick and my muscles heavy, but his long erection draped across his stomach is a reminder that I’m not done, can’t be done, that-- ha, that I need the reminder-- I’m not the only one in the room. Harry considers this, reaching up to peel the condom off of me and knot it expertly, tossing it at the trashcan.

“Suck him, Marcone,” I-as-I-would-be advises from the foot of the bed-- a studied suggestion. He’s been watching. I know that tone of voice-- jarring to hear from this end. He’s been wanting to see this.

I nod, sharp, jerky, and crawl back down their bed a bit, crouching between Harry’s thighs-- his eyes widen, suddenly almost shy. ...it’s so counter-intuitive and so extremely Dresden that he could be unselfconscious and uninhibited during a full-on screwing and now that it’s a little oral sex he doesn’t know how to handle himself.

My eyes flicker to my double again; am I doing something wrong? But his amused headshake reassures me. Harry’s always like this.

I lean down and kiss a hello from his balls up his shaft to his tip-- the tease is maybe a little cruel, as hard and as close as he is, but it’s been so long since I’ve done this. I need to breathe and remind myself how to handle a man from down here, let the scent of his arousal and sweat and musk wake up old, carefully stowed memories.

My double moves with a grunt, stretching across and over the bed to pull at one of the shelves built into the frame, getting another condom for us-- they don’t seem to use them often between each other, but we-the-Marcones agreed almost without discussion that it would be appropriate for me to use one. Him because he doesn’t know where I’ve been; I because if I ever let a stranger do this to my lover, I know I’d insist.

My hands do not shake as I rip the foil, pulling out the little latex roll and putting it carefully on the tip of Harry’s dick. Leaning on one hand, I use the other to point his erection at my mouth, and firm my lips as I pop them around the head of his cock and slowly sink down, rolling the condom down him as I go.

A familiar sound comes from far away-- my little trick impressed more than Harry, and I try not to watch too openly as my double milks himself to finish, eyes glued to my mouth and Harry’s cock, flickering to Harry’s face and back. We must look good.

Harry’s legs tense and untense around me-- he’s curled down to the toes as the slow bobs of my head start to speed up, as I lash my tongue when I can, when my mouth isn’t so full of him that I’m almost gagging-- slow down, breathe through my nose, I can get him deeper. Until I have to pull off. A worried sound from Harry, and I shake my head. I want to do this-- a little too much. It’s over-enthusiasm, not reluctance, that’s got me coughing.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, “let me,” and go back down quickly-- short, fast strokes down him now, familiar habits coming back, I’m already growing used to, fond of the shape of him in my mouth. He’s starting to pant, fast and shallow, and then his lungs fill and he holds his breath-- his head whips back against the pillow, one hand flutters in the air over my head, and his cock spasms in my mouth, twitching against my lips. I can actually feel the pulse of him under my tongue through the latex. I can feel when he’s done, even if the long sigh wasn’t clue enough.

I pull off slowly, keeping my lips firm and round-- his hips give a little flutter, a sleepy roll, the lingering pressure doing something for him. He pets at my hair, murmuring something that, best I can tell, contains no actual words. He’s less sensitive, more receptive than I am after. I’ll have to blame the wizardly capacity to heal.

He shuts his eyes, splaying out-- afterglow nearly tangible, radiating from his sin. He’s left the condom on; it’s jarringly sweet. I shift, finding a place to sit beside his legs, and watch him-- there’s more room than there was before. I-as-I-would-be am missing.

My double clears his throat, padding back into the bedroom. ”I’d offer you a shower, but I’m afraid you caught us on a bad week.” He’s teasing me a little, I think. My manners and mannerisms; him, confident in his stubble, his worn clothes, his rough hands. “The water heater’s down. If you can wait a few minutes, though, the kettle’s on.”

So that’s where he’d gone, after he finished. I wonder how much he saw. I wonder if that last moment was only mine and Harry’s, and a part of me wants it, viciously. Another quieter, more sensible part doesn’t want that responsibility, that weight.

“I hope we weren’t without our chaperon for too long,” I say, and... he understands. There’s so much of me in him, and him in me, in the way we talk and think that it’s almost jarring to remember how different our lives are.

“I wasn’t gone long,” he assures me. “I came back in time to catch you wrapping up. Thanks for taking care of him. He’s a handful.”

“‘pyors,” Harry says, and sighs happily.

The easy joke hammers home some of our key differences-- the trust he has in his lover, the confidence. He’s in his home, this little apartment, the massive bed they built together. I’m in his domain. I have Chicago. I have my safehouses, my estate. I don’t have anything like this, a home that’s mine and more than a place I sleep, nowhere with a threshold stretched across the door, thick and effective, powered by my presence and my comfort and my joy.

I want it. The price is too high, but I want it.

“Thank you,” I say, eyes tracking back to Harry, sprawled sleepily across the bed. He’s finally remembered to do something with the condom. ...there’s quite a lot that this man has that I want, however little it may be from a strictly financial point of view.

I’d lose Chicago. I’d see it overrun by an indiscriminate, sloppy, vicious monster with Marco Vargassi by her side. I’ve seen the hunger in his eyes when I tell them about home; he wants that world where Chicago is a safer place, where he can extend his control and crush the invading forces of darkness, where he can make the hard choices and know no one else has to. Where men he loved weren’t fed to the mill. Where Nathan Hendricks isn’t a survivor of a vicious, unseen assault, isn’t recovering from the sick addiction of thrall. But he can’t imagine a life without his wizard-- I could see that, too, when his thoughts hit that wall, his face shuttering off, pained, locking down.

I want a lover I trust and cherish. I want Harry, intriguing and maddening and heroic and fun, my friend let alone my lover-- not angry and distant, antagonizing me into doing the right thing when the stakes are high enough. I want a home. I want not to be a monster, I want to be something like a good guy, I want Amanda Beckitt to be a happy, functional girl coping well with her parents’-- with her living, breathing, sane parents’ separation and sending me postcards from far away. I want to not know that I am, in my way, responsible for every death in my city, every hurt child, every family that cracks under the burden of addiction, everyone who fears the underside of the city that the cops can’t touch, that the law won’t protect them from. I want it badly enough that it curls around what’s left of my heart and squeezes. But I can’t imagine a life without control of my city. The uncertainty he deals with, the losses he’s taken, I can’t-- I hit the wall he hits, backing off from it.

“Shame there’s no win-win scenario.”

“Please stop reading my mind,” I say, my lips slanting into a wry nonsmile.

He matches it. “Your face, actually. It’s nice to know that no matter how much I polish up, I’m still going to be an idiot after sex.”

The laugh is painful and it surprises me. “You’ve got no idea.”

“Not in front of sleeping beauty, there. Princess, the grownups are going to go talk now.” Harry flicks a hand in our direction-- possibly making an attempt to raise his middle finger, but he’s sprawled out, snuffling gently, utterly shameless, and ultimately unsuccessful. John crosses over, kisses him hard-- slips a hand down under his ass where I can’t see and makes him sigh and squirm-- then pulls their covers up over him and waves me into the living room. Message delivered; I don’t begrudge him it. The kettle starts to whistle shrilly in their kitchenette.