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The first time Sand had woken in Ray’s bed, it seemed a little like a dream. Dressed again for their trek from the couch, the sunlight streaming across their bodies, Ray’s hand resting gentle on his collarbone and his face unfairly beautiful in sleep, the night before had felt like a smoke-tinged, distant memory.
He’d eventually figured out just how real it was by the ache in his head and twinge in his legs on the walk down the ostentatiously massive staircase in the fucking mansion Ray apparently lives in. It had become realer in fits and starts by the fading marks and bruises Sand had kept finding scattered across his neck and chest and back and inner thighs.
The second time, there is no adjustment period. Sand lies there with Ray’s weight draped across his body and exactly none of the blankets and feels every single bit of last night all at once, in his hips and his back and his throat and his chest. He stares up at the too-high ceiling and feels all that plus the weight of Ray half on top of him with a bare leg thrown over both of his, sweaty and completely unshowered. If he gets up to move he worries they’ll stick together, and it won’t just be because of sweat.
It’s cold in here without the blankets. Sand can’t even comprehend that kind of AC bill. He raises his free hand and runs it through Ray’s slightly greasy hair and tries, for a moment, to forget all of that in favor of letting Ray snuggle slightly against him where his face is smashed into Sand’s neck.
Then he remembers that Ray hadn’t appreciated his courtesy last time, and shakes him without remorse.
It becomes immediately apparent that after that first time Ray had not actually been sleeping, because when he’s shaken awake his reaction is to make a muffled, raspy grunting noise and swat uselessly at Sand’s chest.
“Get up,” Sand tells him, flatly. He could tip Ray off of him, he thinks, but he won’t do it just yet. “We’re gross and it’s your fault.”
It had, after all, been Ray who’d refused to let Sand go after. He’d whined outright pitifully when Sand had pulled out, and clung with all four limbs when Sand had tried to actually get up. He’d pulled Sand to him by the back of his neck and kissed him messy and uncoordinated and said “Stay, stay here,” and Sand had folded like a house of cards, paper fluttering to the ground as he’d followed Ray back down.
So really, this is what he deserves. “Mmnh,” groans Ray helpfully as Sand shakes him again.
“Ray.”
At that, Ray finally does push himself up and off of Sand, flopping back down on his side.
He looks, Sand thinks with faint pride, like a mess. His hair is disheveled and there’s bite marks of Sand’s own across his soft stomach and chest and on his shoulders, and — Sand winces faintly to see the other evidence stuck there. His own chest feels vaguely crusted. “I’m going to shower,” he mumbles.
Ray makes a vaguely agreeable noise and tucks his face back into the pile of blankets he’d stolen. Sand wishes he didn’t think it was cute.
He forces himself out of bed, wincing at the stretch. Ray’s room has a giant, outward-facing window, and the curtains aren’t closed; the house is tall enough that no one should be able to see, but its presence is enough that Sand tugs his boxers back on before wandering into the adjoining bathroom.
Ray’s bathroom is, in a word, obscene. Sand’s is small and cramped and full of the plants that he diligently waters, but he likes the blue tiling and does his best to keep it clean and well-maintained. Ray’s is huge, the counters some shiny black marble-like stone, and covered in similar but brighter blue tiling that looks nice enough that somebody probably maintains it for him. The shower alone must be close to half the size of Sand’s bedroom. He’s impressed almost despite himself.
Sand checks the hanging towels and finds one that seems clean enough on the journey, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and shudders, a little. He looks just as bad as Ray, rumpled and tired and covered in marks.
It’s real. He gave in again.
Swallowing, Sand sets the towel and, after a moment of perfunctory stripping, his boxers, down on the pristine countertop. There are lines of different bottles by the mirror, many of them lettered in things that look like French and English. They’re lotion and oil and shaving supplies and all sorts of things Sand isn’t sure of.
It doesn’t exactly surprise Sand that Ray might care a lot about that sort of thing — his skin is always very soft despite his usual habits, and whatever his usual soap is had almost overpowered the smoke that first night, a delicate sort of thing that Sand thinks might be jasmine.
It’s interesting, looking through a person’s space like this, but whatever Ray actually uses is probably in the shower itself, so Sand turns and makes his way towards its glass door.
Before he gets there, though, the door clicks. Sand starts to turn and is caught, Ray hooking both arms around his waist and his chin over Sand's shoulder. “Morning,” he mumbles. His voice sounds wrecked. “Let me shower with you.”
“Could you not just wait your turn?” Sand asks, pulling Ray along for another couple awkward steps until he reaches the door.
Ray is completely naked along his back, his soft cock brushing against Sand’s leg, and in response to Sand's words he clings tighter, nuzzling his chin against Sand’s shoulder. To Sand’s faint surprise, it feels odd, textured. Ray must really need to shave every single morning to achieve what he usually looks like. “There’s plenty of room,” Ray tries. His wheedling is almost worse when he doesn’t raise the pitch to do it, all low and raspy. “I can pick out something nice for you to use."
Sand sighs, putting a hand on the sliding glass door of the shower. Like this, with Ray soft and liquid and paying complete and utter attention to only Sand, he didn't stand a chance in the first place. He might as well let him beg a little longer.
“Please?” tries Ray, swaying against him in a move that almost unbalances Sand. “I’ll wash your hair for you.”
“Get off me,” Sand tells him, not unkindly, and Ray must take it for the acceptance as it is because he peels off of Sand and lets him get into the shower.
He leaves the door open.
The inside of the shower cubicle is just as bad, actually. Sand doesn’t want to think about how much installing something like this might cost, with its gleaming silver detachable showerhead and weirdly arcane temperature controls. In here, too, there’s a long inset shelf that holds similar lines of bottles to the outside, though the size is more standard. He might honestly have needed Ray to come with just to figure out which one is body wash. None of them are labeled in Thai.
Ray follows him in, and there’s enough room that when he turns on the shower and waits for it to warm, they can both wait out of the spray.
With a little room to look at him, Sand can tell that it was true— Ray does have a little stubble, faint shadows across his jaw and chin and a darker one over his upper lip. It looks good on him, but anything would. Ray can wear anything, frequently does wear anything (Sand maintains that his fuzzy sweaters are ridiculous in this country) and still look good. It’s very stupid.
Ray pulls him into the spray after barely a minute, and, well. Maybe it’s worth Sand’s dignity just to use this shower. He groans immediately as the water cascades over his shoulders, a sound probably more sexual than anything he’s ever made in bed, and Ray laughs at him. “Nice?”
Sand nods vigorously, running a hand first through his hair and then down his chest, finally dislodging the old mess there. He wrinkles his nose, unhappy to be touching it, and opens an expectant hand to Ray without opening his eyes.
“Demanding now, are we?” Ray asks, sounding delighted about it, but he also doesn’t ask what Sand means, and a moment later there’s a liquid pooling in his palm, so Sand doesn’t respond to the jab.
The soap is, he finds, the one Ray uses. He was right. It’s jasmine.
They wash in silence for a bit, Sand on his body and Ray on his own hair. It’s almost comfortable, the water pressure and the soft scent of Ray’s soap relaxing even as Sand contemplates all the shit he has to deal with today. His musings on his deliveries are interrupted, though, by it becoming apparent that Ray was serious about doing Sand’s hair for him. Ray tugs and whines until Sand is maneuvered into letting him hem and haw over the correct formula for Sand’s hair type.
It’s cute. Ray comes up with a bottle he says is unscented and good for fine textures, grinning brightly at Sand with the bangs he usually styles up wet and plastered to his face and his pretty, soft body covered in just hair and water and Sand’s marks and Sand feels fond, feels like he wants to take this moment and press it into a book to find years later. Nostalgia for something that isn’t even gone yet. It lodges in the base of Sand’s stomach and burrows its way in, a realization hiding from his higher logic.
Ray turns Sand around and puts both hands in his hair only after tugging at it a little, teasing and so painfully sweet, like get home safe and it was priceless and admitting he’d listened to more of Sand’s favorite bands and you saved me. That realization grows roots, digs in. He feels it in his gut, little tendrils digging through the skin in painful shoots, and — when Ray maneuvers him into turning again, a careful hand on Sand’s waist, he closes his eyes as ordered and feels grateful not to see Ray’s focused expression.
“You’re gonna smell like me,” Ray tells him as he rinses. “I like it.”
Sand opens his eyes and finds Ray barely inches away, face upturned and damp and mouth curled into a possessive, lazy smile. Twin sparks of anger and heat flare at the base of Sand’s spine to see it, and before he knows what’s doing he kisses Ray to make it stop.
Ray makes a surprised little sound into his mouth, but he’s still sleep-soft and agreeable and Sand doesn’t have a problem pushing him until his back hits the glass to the right of the door. He’s more careful than he wants to be, mindful that they could slip, but he still hears the impact.
Sand controls the kiss, sucking Ray’s top lip into his mouth for once and cradling the back of his head in one hand to keep him off the glass. Ray clutches at his shoulders, following easily as Sand tilts his head to change the angle.
That makes Sand break away with a slight hiss of surprise, though, as something catches wrong with Ray’s stubble and their skin rubs together near-painfully. He licks his lips unconsciously, eyeing the way Ray is flushing in a way that just the heat from the shower hadn’t accomplished.
“Oh,” Ray says, after a delayed moment of panting in Sand’s hold. His eyes are a little wide. “Should I shave? Do you hate it?”
Sand takes his off hand and touches Ray’s jaw, running his damp fingers over it. It doesn’t hurt exactly, although it probably could with long exposure; it just feels a little prickly, rough-soft in contrast to the give of Ray’s skin. “It’s fine,” he says, then drops his mouth to Ray’s neck instead. They’d rinsed enough that he doesn’t catch soap, just skin and water and the scent of jasmine, and when he sucks over a mark that hasn’t even had time to fade Ray kicks his hips up against Sand’s thigh, completely hard already.
“Sand,” Ray mumbles. Sand is craning his neck to get at the swell of Ray’s chest, mouth over one of his nipples, and he pulls back and glances up at Ray through wet lashes. That seems to do it for him; he groans again, eyes half-lidded and gaze piercing.
If he likes that view, there’s another one he’ll like better. Sand drops to his knees, mindful not to bruise himself on the tile. It’s not comfortable to kneel on a hard floor, but he’s not planning on taking that long. The water hits his back instead, here, but it’s not high enough to get in his eyes or mouth. He spares a thought for turning it off, but then— Ray can afford the water bill, probably, and his cock is hanging hard and pink in front of Sand’s face. He licks a stripe up one side, curling his fingers around it, and Ray makes a punched-out whimper from above. Sand glances up to find him staring, mouth open, and grins.
“Fuck,” Ray says, sounding a little breathless. He looks soft, cheeks rounded in an awed almost-smile as he adds, “Did you really like the shampoo that much? You can have a bottle.”
Rolling his eyes, Sand ducks his head to bite Ray’s thigh tattoo in revenge. He flinches away, yelping right on cue, and Sand hides his more genuine smile by opening his mouth and taking Ray’s cock in.
Barely fifteen seconds later, Sand readjusts to bar one of his arms across Ray’s hips. He should have known he’d be unable to keep still here, too. Sand has fever dreams sometimes about the kind of hold that’d actually stop Ray from moving, that would keep him held back against his constant desperation. Ties, maybe, pretty colors against his skin.
The thought makes him moan around Ray’s cock, a little intentional just to get a reaction. He likes giving head well enough, enjoys the weight and pressure of having something in his mouth, and it’s definitely nicer right out of the shower like this, but the real pleasure is in the push and pull, the power over someone’s reactions. And Ray always has the best reactions.
This time his reaction is to squeeze his eyes shut, head knocking back against the glass like Sand had known he’d do the second he let go, and smile. It’s that pretty, breathless thing Sand’s only seen once before, shining contrasted against the line of his cross necklace on the couch, and it feels like a victory.
He looks so good like that, his hips twitching under Sand’s hold and his stomach flexing, that Sand doesn’t even complain when Ray puts a hand on his head.
Ray doesn’t try to guide him, though. He just leaves it there, holding on like he does with Sand’s neck. So oddly sweet, sometimes, unpredictably enough that Sand can’t even defend against it. He closes his eyes, narrows his focus, and sets his attention to making Ray come.
Things are easier like this, just the sound of the water and the slight ache of his jaw and his knees and Ray’s thready little moans and the comfortable weight of him in Sand’s mouth. He works on a rhythm, tongue curling just under the head on each upstroke, moving steadily despite Ray’s pleading noises above him until Ray starts actually tugging at his hair.
Then he pulls off, replacing his mouth with his hand, and stays there when Ray starts to come. He’d suspected, last night, that Ray wanted to do this, and found it odd he hadn’t even asked. Ray’s shaking under Sand’s hold, his open mouth the last thing Sand sees as he closes his eyes and lets Ray come on his face, the warmth faintly disgusting and shiveringly hot in turns, a claim he ought not to want.
He keeps himself there, presenting a pretty picture, for a moment, and is rewarded. “Fuck,” Ray says. He sounds like he’s slurring, worse than he had on just waking up, and Sand lets that just be the victory it is. “Fuck, you look so good, come up here.”
Sand lets Ray pull him up, opening his eyes cautiously to find that yes, there is come in his eyelashes, but the way Ray is looking at him makes it matter less. Once they’re level, Ray sets his fingers on the back of Sand’s neck and kisses him near-furiously, pressing up against him and sucking on his tongue until Sand, who isn’t exactly unaffected by this, groans helplessly into it.
Ray breaks away, staring at him from inches away with huge, wide black eyes sparkling. “Thank you,” he says, soft and satisfied. “Thank you, that was so good. Let me—” Ray leans up and kisses his cheek, oddly sweet until it becomes very clear that Ray is kissing his own come off of Sand’s face. It scrapes.
“You liked that a little too much,” Sand accuses weakly, his hands coming up to hold Ray at the waist and push him back slightly. “Is that the real reason you didn’t want to let me up last night?”
Ray hums, looking Sand in the eye and tilting his head like a confused puppy. He seems to think the answer over, first, taking a moment, then says, “I do like seeing you all messed up.”
Sand rolls his eyes and tugs them back into the spray, simultaneously cleaning his own face and making Ray nearly squeal as he comes close to falling. Sand catches him easily, laughing, and Ray shuts off the water with an indignant look and a grumbled, “Asshole.”
Just to be contrary, Sand turns away from Ray at that, pretending to examine the soap bottles again, and for his trouble is shoved into the wall, Ray pressing along his back like before. This time, though, Ray’s hand goes for Sand’s cock, which twitches in his hold. “Aren’t you going to do anything about this?” Ray asks in his ear, pressing a kiss to the shell after he speaks. Sand’s unable to squirm away without risking a fall of his own, stuck between Ray and the wall as he is. “It seems… interested.”
He has the worst lines sometimes. Sand’s hips jerk into Ray’s hold nonetheless, and in response he firms it just enough to feel good but not enough to be real pressure. Ray kisses him again, on the neck this time, and then on the shoulder, and then on the shoulder blade itself. Each time, Sand feels the almost-pain press of his stubble. He wonders if this, too, will mark, and how many layers he’s going to need to wear.
He’s wondering a bit much for his taste, actually, with the shower shut off and the soft sucking sounds of Ray’s lips against his skin all he can hear. “Are you going to do anything back there?”
There’s a soft thunk, one familiar to Sand from minutes before: Ray is on his knees. A hand comes up to cup Sand’s ass, thumb tracing its slight curve. “Are you going to let me?”
Sand swallows, throat clicking in the odd silence. He’s a little unsure until Ray kisses the base of his spine, far too soft for the moment in a way that makes Sand’s gut churn and very clearly a question; Sand pushes his hips into it and closes his eyes.
Permission given, Ray doesn’t waste any time. He’s not like that. Instead, he puts both hands on Sand’s ass, spreads it, and moves his mouth down until he reaches Sand’s hole.
No one has done this to Sand before. He knows he’s skinny in most places, so it’s probably why it’s never come up, but Ray seems to be enjoying it, moaning softly into Sand’s skin as he presses kisses around the rim. Shivery anticipation coils up Sand’s spine just as Ray outright licks him; the sound is obscene in the tiled room and he drops his head to get away from it.
Ray pulls away for a moment, squeezing Sand’s ass, and orders, voice rough, “Touch yourself.” A moment later he adds, more cajoling like he expects to be disobeyed, “It’ll help you relax.”
Sand doesn’t really need encouragement on that front, though, and he immediately curls a hand around himself and starts stroking, bracing against the wall with his other hand.
“Good,” murmurs Ray, clearly enjoying the slight reversal. “I wish I could see it. This is pretty enough, though.”
And with that, he pushes back in, tongue flat against Sand’s hole and chin flush against Sand’s inner thighs. Like it’s been this entire time, the motion is rubbing his slight stubble into the delicate skin there. It doesn’t hurt yet, but it might, and Sand almost says something before Ray opens his mouth a little wider and presses his tongue in and lights flash behind his eyes.
He must have made a noise in the end, because Ray echoes it in a vibrating hum. Sand feels open, more than he’s ever been with Ray, a surrender larger than any so far. The thought should be enough to scare him, but Ray starts genuinely fucking his tongue in and it flees Sand’s mind in a rush of shivering, spiraling heat contrasted against the burn that’s finally starting where Ray’s face is pressing against his ass and thighs.
It’s all sensation, Ray inside of him and outside of him, pain against the pleasure and jasmine all throughout and Sand can’t help fucking into his own hand, pushing back into Ray’s face. When Ray just takes it with a pleased moan, it’s far more than he can even try to deal with. His own hand speeds up until he tips over the edge with something close to a whine, bracing hard against the wall to avoid falling on Ray as he shakes through it.
Ray doesn’t pull away immediately, still circling his tongue against Sand’s rim until he lets out a pained noise, the burn of his stubble losing all semblance of pleasantness now that he’s come. Confusingly, Ray chooses to pull away and gently pet his ass as if that’ll be soothing.
Sand makes a strangled noise that wants to be a laugh and turns, sliding to the ground to the left of the mess he’s just made with his back against the cold tiled wall and his eyes closed to avoid the smug expression that’s certainly on Ray’s face now.
“Good?” Ray asks, and Sand can picture his face anyway in the word, lazy and self-satisfied. “I told you I could always eat more.”
Sand reaches out blindly and slaps at where he thinks Ray might be, limbs loose. “You little shit,” he mumbles, knowing as he says it that it sounds stupidly fond. “Shut up for once.”
It goes quiet, surprisingly, and Sand takes the peace for what it is, letting his legs fall to the ground too and sitting in the blackness. Honestly, he’s still tired; if ‘wet and naked’ wasn’t possibly the most uncomfortable situation in which to fall asleep, he almost might. The realization from before stirs in his belly, whispering about how relaxed he is, how flayed open, but he — knew that already. It’s fine for now. He pushes it away.
Ray makes a little noise when Sand’s legs fall, and he opens his eyes to finds Ray open-mouthed and staring at the faint red marks visible on his inner thighs with a look that’s half remorse and half blatant hunger. Of course he is. “Does it hurt?”
“Yeah,” Sand answers honestly. So do his knees, though, from the floor. “It’s not so bad.”
Ray cocks his head again, eyes flickering up Sand’s legs and chest to his face, lingering unnecessarily at his kiss-decorated collarbone. He looks horny, obviously, if not about to do anything about it, but there’s something else there. “Did you like it?”
“I think you did,” Sand answers immediately, unwilling to examine why.
“Oh, I did,” Ray answers, the expression dropping away in favor of grinning wide and toothy. “You never moaned like that for me before.”
Sand does not remember doing that. He rolls his eyes and forces himself off the ground, wincing as his thighs press together. “Move.”
Once he manages to scoot a boneless Ray out of the way, he turns on the shower one last time to wash away his own come before herding Ray back out of the shower. Post-orgasm, Ray is even looser than he was all sleepy; his movements are basically liquid. He leans against his black counter and watches Sand wrap himself in a towel with dark eyes and a faint smile and no commentary.
Sand envies him. He probably has class, but he’s literally never seen Ray at school outside of the time he’d stalked him, so he doubts he’s going. Sand has four deliveries today.
Still, though, when Sand prepares to go out and redress, Ray comes off the counter with a stutter start and grabs him by the wrist. “Wait,” he says, frowning. “You’re walking weird.”
“No shit,” says Sand, who’s trying to avoid touching his inner thighs together before he gets them in fabric. He doesn’t know if that’ll make it worse or better, honestly. “It’s your fault.”
“I know,” Ray says, for once not sounding hypocritically possessive about it. “So I should help, right? Come back for a minute, I’ll put something on it.”
“Ray—”
“Sand,” Ray interrupts, tugging on his wrist until he turns unwillingly and catches a full blast of Ray’s begging high beams. “You won’t let me take care of you?”
Sand feels his mouth twisting without his input. Ray is staring up at him through his lashes, every indication of his usual semi-earnest whining, but for once what he’s actually saying is —
“Fine,” Sand agrees, and lets Ray pull him back and sit him down on the closed toilet seat. Once he’s sat, Ray opens a cabinet under the sink and rummages through it, his tongue peeking out his mouth in a stupidly cute expression of concentration.
“Got it,” he announces, then turns to Sand with a half-empty white bottle labeled “soothing lotion” in Thai. “Spread your legs.”
“Fuck you,” says Sand, laughing, and does. They’re both still completely naked, and he’d only put the towel over his shoulders; it brings back the feeling of exposure from before, almost worse for all that they aren’t fucking now.
“You can,” Ray reminds him cheerily, dropping to his knees for the second time and squeezing a dollop of lotion into his left hand. He eyes Sand’s inner thighs contemplatively, hesitating right before putting his hand down.
“Stop getting ideas,” Sand tells him.
“I always have ideas about you,” Ray answers, though he looks distracted. His tongue peeks out of his mouth again. “But don’t worry. Your virtue is safe for now.” Carefully, he raises his hand to Sand’s skin and touches him so gently it can’t actually be doing anything before jerking his head up to check Sand’s reaction.
Rolling his eyes, Sand reaches down, covers Ray’s hand with his own, and presses them in firmer. It stings, a little, but the lotion feels cool and doesn’t really smell like anything, leaving their shared jasmine the only scent in the room. Ray stares at Sand for a moment, his hand twitching and his face doing something Sand doesn’t understand. Then he nods, and goes back to his task.
Sand lets his head fall back, baring his neck, and closes his eyes as Ray spreads the lotion gently over his ass and inner thighs, a little clumsy but diligent in his efforts. He’s so close, touching without any expectation of more, intimate not like it comes easily to him but like he’s trying, like he wants to learn. Like there's time to.
That realization from before blooms all the way up to Sand’s throat in a rush of warmth more like a fire than a flower, all-consuming: This is real, and simultaneously, You will not get to keep it.
He swallows against it, a truth he’d already known settling in around his shoulders under the towel and Ray's full attention, and lets Ray try and fix the damage he’d caused.